Connected

00:00:00 ◼   ► (upbeat music)

00:00:02 ◼   ► Hello and welcome to Connected, episode 293.

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

00:00:15 ◼   ► PDF pen from Smile, Squarespace,

00:00:17 ◼   ► and sound source from Rogue Amoeba.

00:00:20 ◼   ► My name is Steven Hackett and I'm joined by Mr. Myke Hurley.

00:00:24 ◼   ► - Ahoy there.

00:00:25 ◼   ► - Hey buddy.

00:00:27 ◼   ► - Hi.

00:00:27 ◼   ► - How are you?

00:00:29 ◼   ► - Good, how are you?

00:00:31 ◼   ► - I'm pretty good.

00:00:31 ◼   ► It's a weird week, you know, we got WBC to talk about

00:00:36 ◼   ► in a whole new context, which I'm looking forward to,

00:00:38 ◼   ► but you know, pretty good, busy, busy as always.

00:00:40 ◼   ► And we are also joined by Mr. Federico Vittucci.

00:00:44 ◼   ► - Hello, hi, how are you?

00:00:47 ◼   ► - I'm good, I'm really amazed at how constrained

00:00:49 ◼   ► this intro is after last week.

00:00:51 ◼   ► - Yeah, well, sometimes you gotta be a professional,

00:00:54 ◼   ► but only sometimes, or maybe this is that one time

00:00:58 ◼   ► the year when we behave on the show. It's gonna be strictly business. No jokes, no

00:01:06 ◼   ► puns, no nothing. Just strictly podcasting. No Japes. Yep. Nothing. Just all you will

00:01:15 ◼   ► get from Myke and me this episode is just pure business. Pure... Straight laced, but I

00:01:21 ◼   ► can... Professionalism in podcasting. This is what we're gonna be.

00:01:27 ◼   ► Yep.

00:01:28 ◼   ► Professionalism.

00:01:29 ◼   ► You can do whatever you want, but we're professionals now.

00:01:33 ◼   ► Yep.

00:01:34 ◼   ► We are, we have grown up in the past week.

00:01:37 ◼   ► Correct.

00:01:38 ◼   ► And it appears you haven't, Steven.

00:01:39 ◼   ► So please let the adults do the talking here.

00:01:43 ◼   ► Myke, what is the, this website that we have in follow-up?

00:01:47 ◼   ► Well we begin all podcasts in a format which is known by the ages of follow-up.

00:01:54 ◼   ► It's where we recount stories, regale our audience of tales from the previous episode,

00:02:00 ◼   ► and how things may have adapted in between the time of the previous episode to now.

00:02:05 ◼   ► And we begin this episode's follow-up with a website called WhatIsMyHackItNumber.com,

00:02:11 ◼   ► which JW Hamilton created.

00:02:14 ◼   ► And it's so people can work out their own Hack It Number, including the extended Hack

00:02:18 ◼   ► second number, which includes personal devices, PDAs some would call them.

00:02:25 ◼   ► PDAs? Really?

00:02:27 ◼   ► PDA. What does PDA stand for? Personal something something?

00:02:36 ◼   ► Personal Digital Assistance.

00:02:39 ◼   ► Appliance?

00:02:40 ◼   ► Assistance?

00:02:41 ◼   ► What does PDA stand for?

00:02:43 ◼   ► Personal Digital Assistance.

00:02:44 ◼   ► Pathological Demand Avoidance.

00:02:46 ◼   ► No, digital assistant, you know, that's who you john Scully.

00:02:52 ◼   ► Oh, oh, yeah.

00:02:53 ◼   ► If you go listen to flashback Episode One, we talk all about it.

00:02:59 ◼   ► That's vertical integration.

00:03:00 ◼   ► It is.

00:03:01 ◼   ► It's about the Newton to go check it out.

00:03:03 ◼   ► All right.

00:03:04 ◼   ► So moving on from that follow up, I agree.

00:03:06 ◼   ► This website is awesome.

00:03:07 ◼   ► It is very flattering.

00:03:09 ◼   ► How many people have shared their hack at numbers.

00:03:11 ◼   ► I think I'm still in the lead, though, which is what you would expect because it's named

00:03:15 ◼   ► I would hope so. I hope that nobody ever beats you.

00:03:18 ◼   ► There probably are some people, but they haven't heard the good news of the Hackett number yet.

00:03:26 ◼   ► We've been speaking a lot about the Magic Keyboard and Trackpad, and I was digging around in its accessibility settings.

00:03:34 ◼   ► And I have a support article I have in the show notes, but there's some really cool stuff you can do.

00:03:40 ◼   ► So I'd complained about the smaller trackpad on the 11 inch and you can actually speed up the

00:03:47 ◼   ► Cursor speed like you can on a Mac or a PC where the cursor will move more quickly

00:03:53 ◼   ► I bumped it up a little bit you can all the way fast is like way too fast for me

00:03:59 ◼   ► But I made a little bit of adjustment there, but also some neat things you could do you can have your

00:04:05 ◼   ► Pointer

00:04:07 ◼   ► Automatically hide or not you can make it

00:04:10 ◼   ► less transparent and darker. So if with like increased contrast, and I had

00:04:16 ◼   ► mentioned that I run my iPad in reduced motion mode. But if you want to keep that

00:04:22 ◼   ► but you still want the icons to like move around, you can enable pointer

00:04:27 ◼   ► animations. So it doesn't turn on all the motion stuff just the things related to

00:04:31 ◼   ► the pointer which is like a nice middle ground. So if you use reduced motion does

00:04:36 ◼   ► Does it stay as the little circular disk?

00:04:38 ◼   ► It does unless you turn on pointer animations.

00:04:41 ◼   ► Then it does a thing where it absorbs the buttons

00:04:43 ◼   ► and the icons on the home screen move.

00:04:45 ◼   ► Okay.

00:04:47 ◼   ► So, and you can also, if you have issues

00:04:49 ◼   ► with the visibility of it, you can also set a border

00:04:54 ◼   ► on the pointer and you can change the color

00:04:58 ◼   ► and the size of that border and pointer.

00:05:01 ◼   ► So you can, if you want it highlighted in blue,

00:05:04 ◼   ► if that makes it easier to see,

00:05:05 ◼   ► you can do that as well.

00:05:06 ◼   ► So there's a lot of stuff in this accessibility settings

00:05:09 ◼   ► panel that we hadn't touched on.

00:05:11 ◼   ► So I just wanted to make sure we talked about it.

00:05:13 ◼   ► Because it seems pretty well thought out for version one,

00:05:16 ◼   ► at least.

00:05:19 ◼   ► Referencing the Magic Keyboard, I just

00:05:22 ◼   ► wanted to provide follow up to confirm

00:05:24 ◼   ► that I am very happy with the laptop stand that I bought.

00:05:28 ◼   ► It is currently unavailable on Amazon in the UK.

00:05:34 ◼   ► I don't know about an Amazon.com.

00:05:36 ◼   ► I don't know whether that means that there's a horrific failure point

00:05:40 ◼   ► that I've yet to uncover or if it just means that because it's a laptop stand,

00:05:45 ◼   ► it's sold out, like because it's the type of thing that people are looking for.

00:05:49 ◼   ► Because you talked about it, you talked about it and it sold out.

00:05:52 ◼   ► It is possible that the mic effect has is in place here,

00:05:56 ◼   ► but it is still available in the US, by the way.

00:06:00 ◼   ► OK, great, great.

00:06:01 ◼   ► So all of the UK people understand that they want this stand and they bought it.

00:06:05 ◼   ► But it's great. I'm a big fan of the product.

00:06:09 ◼   ► I've been using it every single day for the last week, and it is doing exactly what I wanted from

00:06:17 ◼   ► a stand for the iPad Pro with Magic Keyboard.

00:06:22 ◼   ► Like it's really like this is exactly what I want it for. It's very good. Very good.

00:06:27 ◼   ► I'm glad you are happy with it because it looks like it.

00:06:31 ◼   ► I don't know what could be better than this thing

00:06:33 ◼   ► between the adjustability and the stability that it offers.

00:06:36 ◼   ► I've got to imagine it's probably one of the best ones.

00:06:38 ◼   ► This would be about the maximum that I could get. Right.

00:06:41 ◼   ► Like there isn't much more I can get except for a VESA arm, I think.

00:06:47 ◼   ► But as I've mentioned before, I have VESA laptop arms.

00:06:51 ◼   ► In my studio, and this is purely like a temporary solution, but

00:06:57 ◼   ► Here's a piece of kit that I'll be happy to have for when working from home is the thing

00:07:03 ◼   ► that I need to do.

00:07:04 ◼   ► So I'm really pleased with it.

00:07:06 ◼   ► I meant to ask you this last time.

00:07:08 ◼   ► So you have the arms at the studio.

00:07:09 ◼   ► Would you keep this at home for when you work on your iPad at home or are you planning on

00:07:14 ◼   ► not doing that at home anymore?

00:07:16 ◼   ► I don't know yet.

00:07:17 ◼   ► Like I still think for me like I never really got the opportunity to understand what my

00:07:23 ◼   ► working life would look like post studio lease.

00:07:26 ◼   ► So I'm still kind of trying to work that out.

00:07:29 ◼   ► And I think I need to actually spend time in that world

00:07:33 ◼   ► to really understand if that's the thing that I want to do.

00:07:36 ◼   ► Like, do I want to be bringing the larger iPad backwards and forwards

00:07:40 ◼   ► like every day?

00:07:41 ◼   ► Maybe I leave one at the studio and like leave my smaller iPad at home

00:07:45 ◼   ► or vice versa. Like, I'm not sure yet.

00:07:48 ◼   ► All of that stuff I need to actually try,

00:07:52 ◼   ► which I don't know hopefully some point this year I will get the opportunity to do that.

00:07:56 ◼   ► Okay this is not something you would travel with though I could just see like coming into

00:08:02 ◼   ► an airport like "sir you can't fly with that" No I wouldn't want to. The roost stand, the plastic

00:08:07 ◼   ► one that I had, that is like collapsible so I would take that with me when traveling.

00:08:15 ◼   ► If I was going for a trip for a very long time like I would take that,

00:08:20 ◼   ► You know what, no I wouldn't because then how would I type on it? So ignore that part.

00:08:23 ◼   ► Like I wouldn't travel with it because then I'd need to also bring a keyboard and at that point

00:08:27 ◼   ► like I've gone too far for like a travel setup you know what I mean? Like I'm bringing my iPad

00:08:33 ◼   ► with a keyboard permanently attached to it and a stand and a keyboard like that's too far even

00:08:37 ◼   ► for me to take on a trip like that's too much. Federico, how are you using your iPad right now?

00:08:47 ◼   ► I'm intrigued. Now that, like, I guess the initial excitement has worn off with the Magic Keyboard,

00:08:53 ◼   ► right? Like it's just, you know, it's just a part of your setup now as it is for me, as it is with

00:08:59 ◼   ► mine. How are you finding yourself using it, especially with like the modularity aspects and stuff?

00:09:05 ◼   ► I think I'm still using it mostly with the Magic Keyboard, but it's also been kind of a weird week.

00:09:11 ◼   ► So I mostly left my computer turned off and just...

00:09:17 ◼   ► I haven't actually gotten that much writing work done lately.

00:09:22 ◼   ► So I've just been busy with other things and I've been using the Magic Keyboard,

00:09:27 ◼   ► mostly around the house and outside.

00:09:31 ◼   ► So I haven't really gotten a chance to rethink

00:09:35 ◼   ► how do I want to use this at my desk with the external display.

00:09:39 ◼   ► But that's probably what I'm going to tackle next, like this week and over the weekend.

00:09:44 ◼   ► Yeah, because over the past week I've still been using mostly the Magic Keyboard,

00:09:49 ◼   ► but I want to actually sit down and understand, okay, how do I rethink my desk now that I,

00:09:56 ◼   ► if I still want to use the iPad with the external display and the trackpad and the mouse and the

00:10:04 ◼   ► and the Magic Keyboard.

00:10:05 ◼   ► Like I want to come up with some, with a tweaked setup,

00:10:09 ◼   ► if you will, to accommodate for this change.

00:10:13 ◼   ► So probably the easiest solution would be to,

00:10:17 ◼   ► when I want to work like that, to just unplug the iPad,

00:10:21 ◼   ► make it lay flat on my desk without the Magic Keyboard,

00:10:24 ◼   ► connect a cable and use the Logitech Keyboard

00:10:28 ◼   ► and the Magic Trackpad instead of having to find

00:10:31 ◼   ► I can understand just for the iPad and the Magic Keyboard when I'm at my desk.

00:10:37 ◼   ► So probably the easiest solution is just to remove the iPad from the Magic Keyboard and

00:10:41 ◼   ► place it on my desk without any other additional protection.

00:10:44 ◼   ► Maybe that's the easiest way to go.

00:10:46 ◼   ► And then when I want to work on the Magic Keyboard, just get the iPad and put it back

00:10:49 ◼   ► into the Magic Keyboard.

00:10:51 ◼   ► Maybe that's what I'm going to do, I think.

00:10:52 ◼   ► Did you see that Bridge have announced that they're releasing an app which will provide

00:10:59 ◼   ► firmware update for the Bridgeport Plus?

00:11:01 ◼   ► Yeah, I got an email about that a while back. It's interesting, right? I do wonder how much they can

00:11:10 ◼   ► fix with the firmware update. It's still unclear if the firmware update is mostly going to be all about

00:11:15 ◼   ► improving the scrolling performance, which is one of the issues that I mentioned, that Jason

00:11:23 ◼   ► mentioned or if a firmware update is going to be enough to enable something like multi-finger

00:11:29 ◼   ► gestures for example?

00:11:31 ◼   ► I don't think so. So I've been keeping my eye on their social media channels and what

00:11:37 ◼   ► they've said so far, like anything I've been able to find, is that it will improve the

00:11:41 ◼   ► tracking and scrolling and two-finger right-click. That's all the details that they've given.

00:11:49 ◼   ► it will introduce gestures, I don't know, but I actually think it's not possible for

00:11:55 ◼   ► them to do that.

00:11:56 ◼   ► Yeah, it's not physically possible, but it would need to be like a different trackpad

00:12:00 ◼   ► altogether.

00:12:01 ◼   ► I just don't even know if it's possible for them, if iOS would let that work to support

00:12:08 ◼   ► the gestures that the Magic Trackpad can.

00:12:12 ◼   ► Because with mice, they won't do anything unless you enable the accessibility settings

00:12:16 ◼   ► and programming the upper buttons and stuff, right?

00:12:19 ◼   ► And in those accessibility settings,

00:12:21 ◼   ► there isn't anything for trackpad gestures.

00:12:24 ◼   ► So, you know, they might be able to get it to a point where,

00:12:27 ◼   ► and what I hope is like, it can do everything well

00:12:31 ◼   ► except that one thing.

00:12:32 ◼   ► That's kind of what I hope that this firmware will do.

00:12:37 ◼   ► And I think at that point, if the downsides are only

00:12:41 ◼   ► it doesn't click across the entire trackpad

00:12:44 ◼   ► and it doesn't have the three things will be fine for the price point.

00:12:48 ◼   ► Right. Like if the if the general mousing experience is good and

00:12:53 ◼   ► it's only missing those features,

00:12:57 ◼   ► it being cheaper is then fine at that point, because again,

00:13:01 ◼   ► like then the bridge has other things that the Magic Trackpad doesn't.

00:13:04 ◼   ► Right. Like it has more adjustability in the angle.

00:13:08 ◼   ► It has media keys.

00:13:10 ◼   ► Right. And stuff like that.

00:13:11 ◼   ► So at that point, if they can just get what they like, the basic experience to be good enough,

00:13:16 ◼   ► then I think you're back into comparison territory. But the proof will be in the pudding on that one.

00:13:22 ◼   ► I'm very intrigued. Do you still have your unit?

00:13:27 ◼   ► I do. Yeah.

00:13:29 ◼   ► So when they release that, maybe next week, I would love it if you could follow up on that

00:13:33 ◼   ► and let me know what that's like. Because I think I really hope that they can get it to that stage.

00:13:39 ◼   ► because then I think there is a viable option, right?

00:13:44 ◼   ► You can't compare them exactly,

00:13:46 ◼   ► but it's at least like a different thing

00:13:49 ◼   ► that you'd be going for.

00:13:49 ◼   ► So I hope that it will do it.

00:13:52 ◼   ► Like they come out with this update,

00:13:55 ◼   ► or the same comments update faster

00:13:57 ◼   ► than I thought they would, so I have my fingers crossed.

00:13:59 ◼   ► - Do we know when the app is coming out?

00:14:01 ◼   ► Do we have--

00:14:02 ◼   ► - We said this week.

00:14:03 ◼   ► - Okay, okay.

00:14:04 ◼   ► Well then I can try it then, yeah.

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00:15:21 ◼   ► So Steven, you put out a YouTube video, which was no offense,

00:15:27 ◼   ► surprisingly enjoyable for what the content appears to be on the surface, which is just

00:15:35 ◼   ► you with a blindfold on trying to identify dongles by your hands. This came up, this was an idea born

00:15:45 ◼   ► in this show in the chat room by listening to Ian. I think really the video is enjoyable because you

00:15:54 ◼   ► you and Mary are in it together.

00:15:56 ◼   ► I think that was the right move.

00:15:57 ◼   ► If you would have done this on your own,

00:15:58 ◼   ► I think that it wouldn't have been.

00:16:00 ◼   ► So bravo on that.

00:16:02 ◼   ► I like the editing, I thought it was very funny.

00:16:04 ◼   ► And the comments for this YouTube video are very good,

00:16:08 ◼   ► which is like, I don't know if that's a normal thing

00:16:10 ◼   ► that you have, but I was reading the comments

00:16:14 ◼   ► to the video today and there's lots of like,

00:16:16 ◼   ► I really enjoy the people saying like,

00:16:18 ◼   ► it's the longest eight minutes of my life.

00:16:20 ◼   ► And at first I was like, oh, I thought this was boring,

00:16:24 ◼   ► But no, it's because Adongo gets misplaced.

00:16:26 ◼   ► - Which was accidental.

00:16:27 ◼   ► That was not planned in any way.

00:16:29 ◼   ► - That's drama, just to build the drama.

00:16:31 ◼   ► But yeah, I think you did pretty well.

00:16:34 ◼   ► Are you happy with yourself?

00:16:36 ◼   ► - Yeah, I think it was fun.

00:16:37 ◼   ► It was, I think having Mary in it definitely made it,

00:16:41 ◼   ► like you said, and it was a lot of fun to put it together.

00:16:46 ◼   ► And I shot this on two iPhones.

00:16:50 ◼   ► my 11 Pro and her new SE is not shot on my big camera.

00:16:54 ◼   ► - Why'd you do that?

00:16:55 ◼   ► - I knew I wanted to cut in between two points of view

00:17:00 ◼   ► and the difference between the two iPhones

00:17:02 ◼   ► was far less than like my big camera and an iPhone.

00:17:05 ◼   ► - I don't know why you use your big camera.

00:17:08 ◼   ► I would never know.

00:17:09 ◼   ► This looks great.

00:17:11 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, the big camera just gives me

00:17:13 ◼   ► a lot more flexibility, but this is now the second video

00:17:19 ◼   ► I've shot in recent history just on an iPhone and then it was like external audio and syncing it together and it does give me

00:17:24 ◼   ► Faster workflow, but I still think my Sony will be my go-to unless there's a reason

00:17:30 ◼   ► That I want to do the iPhone like the other one was the cube video and all those shots outside

00:17:37 ◼   ► I just knew like an iPhone would just be really simple because I could just put it on tripod

00:17:40 ◼   ► It would focus and not be a problem. And so I did the talking head on the iPhone as well

00:17:46 ◼   ► So with this having I know I wanted to shoot or two angles and part of that was I wanted

00:17:52 ◼   ► I was hoping to edit in some of the

00:17:54 ◼   ► Response stuff that I got and I thought the two angles will give me more options there and I knew it was gonna be long

00:18:00 ◼   ► I knew that identifying the dongle is gonna take probably at least five minutes

00:18:04 ◼   ► I was thinking between five and ten minutes

00:18:06 ◼   ► I thought one camera angle on that would would get boring and so changing between the two would also

00:18:11 ◼   ► keep interest up a little bit and and the two iPhones made just made more sense to me than

00:18:16 ◼   ► using my Sony and then my iPhone is the as the B camera is the

00:18:20 ◼   ► The fall off as far as qualities is huge between those two. Yeah, but like the the performance of the iPhone

00:18:27 ◼   ► Was excellent. I mean there are benefits in like you have lights, right? Did you like this? Yes

00:18:36 ◼   ► yeah, I've got I've got yeah, this is lit and I'm using the I basically my

00:18:41 ◼   ► mobile podcasting rig for the audio and so yeah you got to get around some

00:18:46 ◼   ► things but... The lighting makes such a big difference though I think like just in

00:18:51 ◼   ► general like I've noticed this recently like just how bad the selfie camera

00:18:56 ◼   ► still is if it's not like a well-lit environment like if you if you have a

00:19:01 ◼   ► room that is lit by like a light on the ceiling and there's no natural light

00:19:05 ◼   ► coming in it's just so soft right like I would I really want to see I just want

00:19:12 ◼   ► so like all cameras to get better right like not just the main shooter cameras

00:19:16 ◼   ► like webcams need to get better selfie cams need to get better right like they

00:19:22 ◼   ► all need to get better yeah and too much effort is put into these other cameras

00:19:27 ◼   ► when I would love to know the breakdown of like the average person like are they

00:19:31 ◼   ► taking more selfies than they are like regular photos and and even if they're

00:19:36 ◼   ► not how close are those two things yeah so I would like to see it I saw even a

00:19:41 ◼   ► little bit difference between the SE and my 11 pro the straight-on shot is my

00:19:46 ◼   ► phone and the one at angle is Mary's and you can you can tell a little bit of

00:19:50 ◼   ► difference there are different cameras though right yes yeah they're different

00:19:54 ◼   ► cameras you know so but the quality is a little is definitely better on the 11

00:19:58 ◼   ► Pro. But all in all, I was happy with how it performed. You know, and I could just I

00:20:03 ◼   ► sat down and airdrop the clips to my Mac Pro and just chopped it up real quick. That was

00:20:07 ◼   ► really awesome. So dealing with SD cards and stuff, but I don't think I'm gonna switch

00:20:10 ◼   ► to the iPhone for major products. I'm shooting one the end of this week or early next week.

00:20:17 ◼   ► For a Mac power users episode. We're doing a video tie in thing and that'll be on my

00:20:21 ◼   ► Sony I'm sure. That's very fun. Yeah, glad you enjoyed it. To celebrate my video, Apple

00:20:27 ◼   ► release the new laptop. Is that how we went? Is that really? I released the video and then

00:20:33 ◼   ► there was a new laptop. I don't see how it could be any other situation. Sure, we'll

00:20:37 ◼   ► go with that. So on Monday, it was like when's the last time Apple released a product on

00:20:43 ◼   ► a Monday? I don't even know. Other than like WWBC announcements, Monday they usually don't

00:20:48 ◼   ► to do stuff anyways, new, new MacBook Pro, the 13 inch, as I'm talking, I've realized

00:20:56 ◼   ► that today, Microsoft released a bunch of studio stuff.

00:20:59 ◼   ► And so maybe they want to get out ahead of that.

00:21:00 ◼   ► How would they know about I don't know, I assume these companies know a lot about each

00:21:04 ◼   ► other's schedule.

00:21:07 ◼   ► But who knows?

00:21:08 ◼   ► Anyways, on Monday, so the 13 inch MacBook Pro got the magic keyboard.

00:21:14 ◼   ► So physical escape key, inverted T arrows, most importantly switches that aren't terrible.

00:21:20 ◼   ► The 13 inch MacBook Pro is still really two computers, y'all spoke about this in upgrade.

00:21:25 ◼   ► And we have a link to John's coverage on Mac stories, but it's the two port machine, which

00:21:30 ◼   ► is got older processors and slower RAM.

00:21:35 ◼   ► And then it has the four port model that is new 10th Gen processors that are faster and

00:21:43 ◼   ► faster RAM that now caps out 32 gigs of RAM on a 13 inch machine. You can also do a four terabyte

00:21:49 ◼   ► SSD so you can spec a 13 inch MacBook Pro to be pretty expensive, but really be a workhorse.

00:21:55 ◼   ► This is not the 14 inch machine that that was rumored. I still think that's totally possible,

00:22:01 ◼   ► but I think that Apple was in a position where they really needed to replace this keyboard. And

00:22:05 ◼   ► so this is a spec bump, basically, that also includes the new keyboard. So it's really nice

00:22:12 ◼   ► to be able to say yeah if you need an Apple laptop there's one at basically

00:22:15 ◼   ► any price point that's a good one to buy. There's you know pros and cons to

00:22:20 ◼   ► individual SKUs and there's still some overlap between the MacBook Air and the

00:22:24 ◼   ► low end MacBook Pro I think but the and I think the line is clearer now than

00:22:29 ◼   ► it's been in probably the five or six years well probably four or five years

00:22:33 ◼   ► since the addition of the 12 inch MacBook from that moment to now it's

00:22:39 ◼   ► been messy but I think now Apple totally has gotten things under control.

00:22:46 ◼   ► $3,600 is the top, the very tippy top, ranked up so that's the 2.3 gigahertz

00:22:54 ◼   ► quad-core 32 gigabytes of RAM 4 terabytes SSD. It's $3,600.

00:23:02 ◼   ► It's an expensive computer but a lot of people really like this size you know

00:23:07 ◼   ► I've had I had a series of 13 inch MacBook Pros. I'm currently on a bigger one, but

00:23:12 ◼   ► This is a very popular machine

00:23:14 ◼   ► And I think people who want the 13 inch but want a lot of power or need like a lot of storage

00:23:20 ◼   ► Things that used to push people to the 15 or the 16 inch now

00:23:24 ◼   ► You can really put that stuff in a 13 you'll pay for it like you said, but it gives people flexibility

00:23:29 ◼   ► And I think on the whole this is a really solid update

00:23:33 ◼   ► It's not the most exciting update right a 14 would be way more exciting

00:23:37 ◼   ► But this finally fixes the notebook line.

00:23:40 ◼   ► - I find it strange.

00:23:44 ◼   ► I find it, I just find it strange like that this,

00:23:48 ◼   ► the 16 is so much better in a bunch of ways than a 13.

00:23:53 ◼   ► - Right, like the revised cooling, the better speakers.

00:23:58 ◼   ► - The bigger screen.

00:24:00 ◼   ► - Smaller bezels.

00:24:02 ◼   ► And that's why I think the 14 is still coming

00:24:05 ◼   ► because the 13 does feel weird, you know, like, I don't know the cool stuff that it's

00:24:11 ◼   ► big brother gets. And it's actually really interesting Reddit thread, we'll have in the

00:24:16 ◼   ► show notes about maybe the exact screen size. And like, there's a lot of sort of evidence

00:24:23 ◼   ► or like thinking around that actually be like 13.7 because going all the way to 14 would

00:24:27 ◼   ► be a big jump from 13.3. And it'd be kind of weird, but maybe it's a little less than

00:24:31 ◼   ► But you're totally right, a lot of the features of the 16 aren't here, but I think they've

00:24:37 ◼   ► gotten, they've taken care of all the core issues, and so that will just be bonus at

00:24:42 ◼   ► some point in the future.

00:24:44 ◼   ► Maybe this fall or sometime next year.

00:24:47 ◼   ► I would be, I mean, we're not going to see a 14-inch WWDC, right?

00:24:51 ◼   ► Yeah, I think this probably lasts out for the rest of 2020 now.

00:24:54 ◼   ► Yeah, I think so too.

00:24:56 ◼   ► Maybe this time next year we get the 14.

00:24:59 ◼   ► You know, the 16 now it you know, I guess would be eligible for 10th Gen processors.

00:25:05 ◼   ► So maybe we see that at WVDC because it has the ninth Gen now.

00:25:09 ◼   ► I say that not knowing the specific skews and what Intel has to offer at the moment,

00:25:13 ◼   ► but this is a 10th Gen processor and a notebook and now the 16 is one generation behind.

00:25:20 ◼   ► So there is some room for other notebook updates this year.

00:25:22 ◼   ► But I agree with you.

00:25:23 ◼   ► I think this 13 is going to ride out, you know, probably the rest of the year if not

00:25:28 ◼   ► if not a little longer.

00:25:29 ◼   ► Federico, is this a laptop going to grace your home?

00:25:33 ◼   ► I know that you'd, I don't know if we've mentioned

00:25:35 ◼   ► on the show before, but I know that Silvio

00:25:37 ◼   ► was looking for a new computer.

00:25:39 ◼   ► Yeah, we were, but I don't think this is the one.

00:25:42 ◼   ► I think we're still gonna hold out for

00:25:44 ◼   ► when it eventually gets a redesign with like another,

00:25:47 ◼   ► with like the different display,

00:25:50 ◼   ► like the bigger display with the smaller bezels.

00:25:52 ◼   ► I think we're still gonna hold out for that

00:25:54 ◼   ► because it, like it, sure it's got the new keyboard,

00:25:57 ◼   ► But I mean Sylvia's keyboard is still fine.

00:25:59 ◼   ► And worst case scenario, there's still the program going on,

00:26:02 ◼   ► the Apple keyboard repair program.

00:26:05 ◼   ► So I think she also wants to wait until,

00:26:09 ◼   ► you know, the computer is totally fine.

00:26:11 ◼   ► She's got a 2017 MacBook Pro, 13 inch.

00:26:14 ◼   ► So she can probably wait until the 2021 refresh.

00:26:18 ◼   ► Maybe, I don't know,

00:26:19 ◼   ► maybe it'll even be an ARM-based MacBook Pro, who knows?

00:26:23 ◼   ► I mean, could be possible.

00:26:25 ◼   ► But yeah, I think she's fine for now.

00:26:28 ◼   ► Like, that computer does everything she needs.

00:26:30 ◼   ► She doesn't do Final Cut,

00:26:33 ◼   ► and it's totally fine for Photoshop, Illustrator,

00:26:35 ◼   ► that kind of stuff.

00:26:36 ◼   ► So, no, this is not gonna be in our home, I'm afraid.

00:26:40 ◼   ► - Well, what about you, Myke?

00:26:41 ◼   ► You've been holding out for something.

00:26:44 ◼   ► - Yeah, I'm holding out for a hero.

00:26:46 ◼   ► I don't even know anymore.

00:26:47 ◼   ► It's like, one, I'm not gonna buy a laptop right now,

00:26:51 ◼   ► 'cause I have no use for it right now,

00:26:54 ◼   ► because this laptop is to serve two purposes.

00:26:59 ◼   ► It's to be my traveling machine, don't need that,

00:27:02 ◼   ► and to be the computer in my studio to record on

00:27:07 ◼   ► so then it will be able to be the traveling machine

00:27:09 ◼   ► and I don't need that right now.

00:27:11 ◼   ► So, and I've still been going backwards and forwards

00:27:16 ◼   ► and I still can't work out,

00:27:18 ◼   ► I just can't work out whether an air or this is better,

00:27:23 ◼   ► for me. Like I just don't know what the right machine would be, honestly, for like my usage.

00:27:32 ◼   ► I can't imagine that I would really do anything on this machine that an Air couldn't handle.

00:27:40 ◼   ► But I just I can't I can't I can't work it out. I can't work out what I want to do. I

00:27:45 ◼   ► just can't work out what I want to do.

00:27:47 ◼   ► I mean, I know the thing that killed the escape for me back in the day when that was a laptop

00:27:52 ◼   ► was the two ports, you know, you got power going into one and then you got a USB interface.

00:27:58 ◼   ► And I for one want my interface plugged right into the computer.

00:28:02 ◼   ► Maybe that's like, just silliness, but I don't want to run my audio interface through and

00:28:06 ◼   ► through like a third like a hub or something like I want to plug straight in.

00:28:11 ◼   ► And and that made the escape a little bit more difficult.

00:28:13 ◼   ► Now if you're going to use it with an external display, and you could power the machine from

00:28:17 ◼   ► the display, I mean that that helps.

00:28:19 ◼   ► But the two port thing can be tough enough in a more professional environment.

00:28:24 ◼   ► For most people, it's not a problem like the way my wife uses her MacBook Air.

00:28:28 ◼   ► She has the first of the new one.

00:28:30 ◼   ► So it's got the old keyboard.

00:28:32 ◼   ► And one of the keys is a little sticky, which is concerning.

00:28:35 ◼   ► There's no Apple stores open, but it that thing, you know, has one cable going to it

00:28:41 ◼   ► to her LG 4k display and her time machine drive and she's external SSD for her photo

00:28:46 ◼   ► library.

00:28:47 ◼   ► They're just plugged into the display itself, which is awesome, but in your case, I would

00:28:52 ◼   ► just really think about is the number of ports going to be an issue for you.

00:28:56 ◼   ► Uh, I mean, whether...

00:28:59 ◼   ► So when I'm in the studio, I'm gonna...

00:29:01 ◼   ► I'm going to find some kind of dock anyway, right?

00:29:05 ◼   ► Whether it's into...

00:29:06 ◼   ► Everything can go into some kind of USB-C dock, right?

00:29:10 ◼   ► Like a Thunderbolt, whatever you want to call it.

00:29:12 ◼   ► And that's how all the peripherals will be managed.

00:29:14 ◼   ► That's what I'm gonna do.

00:29:16 ◼   ► Maybe I would plug my interface straight in but still at that point I'm gonna have enough

00:29:19 ◼   ► right because I only need two cables, one for the dock which will provide power and

00:29:22 ◼   ► then one for the USB interface.

00:29:25 ◼   ► But to be honest I think I just want one cable.

00:29:28 ◼   ► Then it's like when I'm traveling but then I still don't need more than two like when

00:29:32 ◼   ► I'm recording and I've only ever had two because I went from the two port MacBook Pro before

00:29:38 ◼   ► and that was perfectly fine.

00:29:40 ◼   ► Like the power in both of these machines is perfectly sufficient.

00:29:45 ◼   ► So then it's like, you know, I thought that the decision would be made for me because

00:29:49 ◼   ► size and space and like weight was a thing for me because like you travel them with it.

00:29:55 ◼   ► These machines are very close and I figured, oh, they'll make the MacBook Pro bigger and

00:30:00 ◼   ► then that will mean I won't want it.

00:30:03 ◼   ► But they didn't do that.

00:30:04 ◼   ► So they didn't make it an easier decision for me.

00:30:07 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:30:08 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:30:09 ◼   ► I mean, price is a thing, right?

00:30:11 ◼   ► I can get a MacBook Air with the storage that I need and the RAM that I really want for

00:30:21 ◼   ► cheaper than I can get a MacBook Pro in the same configuration.

00:30:24 ◼   ► I know it's not the same because the chips are different and all that kind of stuff,

00:30:28 ◼   ► but I don't think I would want more than 16GB of RAM.

00:30:32 ◼   ► I don't think it's necessary for what I'm going to be doing on that machine.

00:30:35 ◼   ► And I want a 1TB SSD.

00:30:38 ◼   ► So at that point, I think I could configure a MacBook Air and it would be cheaper than

00:30:44 ◼   ► the starting price of the MacBook Pro.

00:30:47 ◼   ► And I don't want the starting MacBook Pro if I'm going to get the MacBook Pro.

00:30:50 ◼   ► I want the one that has the new stuff in it, otherwise why get the MacBook Pro?

00:30:53 ◼   ► So I would then be up to $2,000 in the door.

00:30:57 ◼   ► So yeah, I don't know.

00:30:58 ◼   ► I can't work this one out now.

00:31:01 ◼   ► And I also don't need to.

00:31:04 ◼   ► I'm going to keep mulling it over.

00:31:06 ◼   ► what I hoped would solve my conundrum for me hasn't happened. Right? Because also

00:31:15 ◼   ► it's like I liked the touch bar. I am a touch bar fan but I don't know

00:31:20 ◼   ► how much I would use it if it's going to be like if I have my machine when I'm

00:31:26 ◼   ► recording at the studio plugged into a display. So I don't think I'm gonna use the

00:31:30 ◼   ► touch bar then so then it's like well then do I need the touch bar at all like

00:31:36 ◼   ► probably not like I think I might still be leaning towards MacBook Air honestly

00:31:43 ◼   ► yeah and just get get one with like a nice SSD in it and a bunch of RAM yeah

00:31:47 ◼   ► the the thing that I would consider too because I be in between my iMac Pro and

00:31:55 ◼   ► my Mac Pro, I used my MacBook Pro with my LG 5k. And somebody that really bothered me

00:32:02 ◼   ► and you I think you just need to like, when you can sit at your new desk and see if it

00:32:05 ◼   ► would be an issue is the touch bar does stuff even if you're not interacting with it, because

00:32:10 ◼   ► you're like flipping between apps and stuff and out of the corner of my eye, I found that

00:32:13 ◼   ► incredibly, incredibly distracting. I think it would be more distracting for me off to

00:32:20 ◼   ► the side than it was when it was right in front of me. Yes, front of me. I didn't find

00:32:23 ◼   ► it distracting. But off to the side, I probably would.

00:32:27 ◼   ► I really didn't like it. And I think that that could be a factor because that's how

00:32:32 ◼   ► you're going to use the machine 98% of the time, right? It's going to be in this arm

00:32:38 ◼   ► and you have a display in front of you. And that alone, I guess you could you could try

00:32:43 ◼   ► that I think you saw that loan or 16 inch, you can see if that would bother you. But

00:32:49 ◼   ► my guess is it will and I mean that I mean that seems like a silly thing but that's how you're

00:32:54 ◼   ► going to use the computer most of the time like I was driven to madness but after like three days of

00:33:00 ◼   ► that and I used it in that configuration for about two or three weeks and I was really glad when I

00:33:05 ◼   ► could get rid of that so I'd put that on your list to consider as well you know I think you could do

00:33:10 ◼   ► a MacBook Air get a pretty nice one still spend less than a nice 13-inch MacBook Pro yeah you

00:33:17 ◼   ► you don't have the touch bar but most of the time you're not using it where the

00:33:20 ◼   ► touch bar is even useful because it's floating in midair right you're not

00:33:22 ◼   ► gonna reach over the touch bar to pick an emoji just silly to think about that

00:33:26 ◼   ► so I think for your needs if you can live on two ports I think a nice

00:33:33 ◼   ► MacBook Air you do the 16 gigs of RAM pick it you know I don't think I'd even

00:33:37 ◼   ► max out the CPU because you also have to worry about fan noise so middle of the

00:33:42 ◼   ► range CPU and a SSD that's big enough I kind of think that's the way you should

00:33:47 ◼   ► go and you'll save some money in the time as well and it is a little bit

00:33:50 ◼   ► thinner and lighter so when you travel it's it's not a big difference but it's

00:33:54 ◼   ► a little difference. I think a nice MacBook Air. I'm spec'ing them out now.

00:34:00 ◼   ► Uh-huh. And this actually ends up way closer than I would have expected so if

00:34:07 ◼   ► I bump up the MacBook Air to a 1.2 gigahertz quad-core, 16 gigabytes of RAM

00:34:13 ◼   ► and 1TB SSD, it's 1,849 pounds. The MacBook Pro 2 gigahertz processor,

00:34:22 ◼   ► 16 gigabytes of RAM, 1 terabyte storage, 1,999 pounds. So it's 150 pounds

00:34:29 ◼   ► difference. Wow. So that's too close now. So yeah. The chat room is saying too

00:34:40 ◼   ► that there are I should know this I just said a MP you about better touch tool

00:34:44 ◼   ► they're all there are ways to customize the touch bar where it doesn't do that

00:34:47 ◼   ► sort of stuff you can be there's actually an app called I think no touch

00:34:50 ◼   ► or no bar it just came out that basically turns off the touch bar so you

00:34:53 ◼   ► could work around that yeah that price being so close like I don't know you get

00:35:00 ◼   ► the map of care in pink though so like that's a that's a win or the gold yeah I

00:35:05 ◼   ► I know you like gold. I do like gold but that price like the MacBook Air being like 1849

00:35:12 ◼   ► Yeah

00:35:14 ◼   ► It's an expensive MacBook Air. Mm-hmm

00:35:17 ◼   ► Yeah, well keep thinking on it. You got some time, but I kind of lean towards the air for you. Yeah

00:35:21 ◼   ► Federica do you have any life problems I could fix for you?

00:35:25 ◼   ► Fix my problem. I gave you a suggestion. Do you fix it though?

00:35:31 ◼   ► That's a big difference between I made a suggestion and I fixed it.

00:35:34 ◼   ► I'll tell you I got a big I got a big down think problem Steven.

00:35:38 ◼   ► Yes!

00:35:39 ◼   ► That's a problem. Well, for example, so can you can you explain to me?

00:35:44 ◼   ► like

00:35:47 ◼   ► Hold on you were serious right with a...

00:35:49 ◼   ► Sure. Yeah, I don't know if I can help you but we can we can do this real quick.

00:35:52 ◼   ► No, but like so I texted you guys today about this issue

00:35:55 ◼   ► John mentioned in our group conversation an app

00:36:00 ◼   ► for the iPhone and I was sure that that app I heard about somewhere before, right?

00:36:06 ◼   ► Like I recognized the name, I recognized the icon, I recognized the screenshot,

00:36:12 ◼   ► I knew that I've seen that app somewhere. And so I opened Raindrop, which is where I

00:36:18 ◼   ► uploaded hundreds of PDF documents from the Mac Stories weekly newsletters and

00:36:24 ◼   ► I searched for the app's name and I couldn't find anything.

00:36:28 ◼   ► But because as I mentioned I am giving Devon Think a try and by giving it a try

00:36:32 ◼   ► I just mean that I threw like 250 PDF documents in it and every once in a while

00:36:38 ◼   ► I open the app and I search for something and I see what happens

00:36:40 ◼   ► Sort of comparing the search results with raindrop and sure enough

00:36:44 ◼   ► I typed the name of the app in Devon Think for the iPhone and it found it like within a couple of seconds

00:36:52 ◼   ► so

00:36:53 ◼   ► And that was a PDF

00:36:56 ◼   ► I believe issue 56 of Max Stories Weekly, so three years ago or something like that,

00:37:00 ◼   ► and it took like two seconds in Devant Think to find that specific result. Now,

00:37:06 ◼   ► I will continue my experiment with Devant Think, but Stephen, you need to explain to me

00:37:12 ◼   ► what's the deal with inboxes, global inboxes, and databases. What does this all mean? I just want to

00:37:21 ◼   ► I just want to have folders, right?

00:37:24 ◼   ► I just want to have a folder that says MacSwords Weekly, and another that says Monthly Log,

00:37:29 ◼   ► and another that says Random Stuff.

00:37:33 ◼   ► I don't want to deal with, like, what's a global inbox?

00:37:36 ◼   ► Everything should be global, always.

00:37:39 ◼   ► And what's a database?

00:37:40 ◼   ► Like, I want to have a single database, or should I have separate databases?

00:37:43 ◼   ► Please help me.

00:37:44 ◼   ► Please teach me.

00:37:45 ◼   ► So, I use multiple...

00:37:47 ◼   ► Let me actually pull up my settings.

00:37:49 ◼   ► So I use multiple databases.

00:37:53 ◼   ► So I've got six.

00:37:54 ◼   ► Why?

00:37:55 ◼   ► But why though?

00:37:56 ◼   ► Like why should it be multiple databases?

00:37:58 ◼   ► How do you decide?

00:38:00 ◼   ► So I did it because my structure was really simple.

00:38:04 ◼   ► Like I knew what my big buckets were going to be and I'm up to 17,000 items in Dev and

00:38:08 ◼   ► Think and I thought well it kind of makes sense maybe to break those out.

00:38:12 ◼   ► I don't know if that's like how you should do it but that's the way I've done it.

00:38:14 ◼   ► So quite the flex.

00:38:16 ◼   ► Okay.

00:38:17 ◼   ► Most of them are just pictures of you on the beach.

00:38:20 ◼   ► Sure, okay.

00:38:21 ◼   ► That's not creepy.

00:38:22 ◼   ► Way out of flux.

00:38:23 ◼   ► It's not creepy.

00:38:24 ◼   ► It's fine.

00:38:25 ◼   ► It's totally normal.

00:38:26 ◼   ► You see the pictures.

00:38:27 ◼   ► Totally normal.

00:38:28 ◼   ► So each of the databases has its own inbox, and then the global inbox is...

00:38:34 ◼   ► Wait, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

00:38:35 ◼   ► Hold on, back up a second.

00:38:36 ◼   ► Each database?

00:38:37 ◼   ► Mm-hmm.

00:38:38 ◼   ► Oh my God.

00:38:39 ◼   ► I need to...

00:38:40 ◼   ► Yes.

00:38:41 ◼   ► Oh God, I'm looking at that one thing on the Mac.

00:38:42 ◼   ► This...

00:38:43 ◼   ► Look, okay.

00:38:44 ◼   ► Yeah, careful.

00:38:45 ◼   ► before you know it you'll have 17,000 items.

00:38:49 ◼   ► But here's my problem, I don't know what I've done, right? And now it says

00:38:53 ◼   ► so, this is very confusing, so in the sidebar it says "Globals"

00:38:57 ◼   ► so the name of a section in the sidebar is "Globals"

00:39:01 ◼   ► and under "Globals" there's "Inboxes"

00:39:05 ◼   ► and under "Inboxes"

00:39:09 ◼   ► you can close and expand "Inboxes", right? So if I expand it

00:39:13 ◼   ► Inboxes as a thing called Inbox.

00:39:17 ◼   ► Hold on. And at the same level there's Club Max Stories, which is where I created two folders.

00:39:26 ◼   ► Right.

00:39:26 ◼   ► I don't remember.

00:39:28 ◼   ► Is Club Max Stories a database?

00:39:31 ◼   ► Like, I, like,

00:39:34 ◼   ► how do I know what I've done? Because I don't, oh, yeah,

00:39:37 ◼   ► it must be a database because if I right-click on it, it says closed database.

00:39:40 ◼   ► Within a database you can have

00:39:43 ◼   ► a group. So for instance, my software database, a group is a folder. So I have applications,

00:39:54 ◼   ► BOS, classic Mac OS, Mac OS X. And so I have a group with different groups within the database,

00:40:01 ◼   ► and then the database has its own inbox. So if I just want to deal with something later,

00:40:05 ◼   ► you can put it in that inbox. The global inbox is a view of all of those.

00:40:08 ◼   ► That's where I get lost.

00:40:10 ◼   ► That's where I get lost.

00:40:11 ◼   ► Because Club Maxories doesn't have its own inbox.

00:40:14 ◼   ► Right, because it's a group.

00:40:15 ◼   ► Oh no, I guess it does though.

00:40:16 ◼   ► Even though I don't see it in the sidebar,

00:40:19 ◼   ► I see it in the title bar.

00:40:22 ◼   ► Oh my God, this is so confusing.

00:40:23 ◼   ► So in the sidebar, it just says Club Maxories.

00:40:26 ◼   ► And Club Maxories contains monthly log and weekly.

00:40:29 ◼   ► Right.

00:40:30 ◼   ► But then if I look in the,

00:40:31 ◼   ► so I have a three column view going on right now.

00:40:33 ◼   ► And if I look in the middle column,

00:40:36 ◼   ► There's like, what's it called, recrun navigation?

00:40:40 ◼   ► - Yes.

00:40:41 ◼   ► - Thing, so there's like a path bar,

00:40:43 ◼   ► but it's at the top, right?

00:40:44 ◼   ► And it says, "Cloud Maxories, Arrow, Inbox."

00:40:48 ◼   ► So, "Cloud Maxories" does have its own inbox.

00:40:52 ◼   ► Okay. - Yes, yeah.

00:40:53 ◼   ► Basically, any, like, most organization options in here

00:40:57 ◼   ► have an inbox, so you can just sort things later.

00:40:59 ◼   ► I really don't use them.

00:41:00 ◼   ► Like, I know if I'm gonna import a bunch of PDFs,

00:41:03 ◼   ► I know what group it's gonna go in,

00:41:04 ◼   ► So I just dump it right into the group.

00:41:09 ◼   ► OK, so each database can have its own inbox.

00:41:12 ◼   ► But then why-- I still don't understand.

00:41:15 ◼   ► Globals, inboxes, and inbox is contained within inboxes.

00:41:21 ◼   ► Yeah, so that global inbox--

00:41:23 ◼   ► That's the inbox for inboxes.

00:41:25 ◼   ► Everything has an inbox.

00:41:27 ◼   ► Even inboxes has an inbox.

00:41:28 ◼   ► And what does it mean to be global?

00:41:31 ◼   ► global to me, I'm the only user.

00:41:34 ◼   ► - Global meaning across all of your databases.

00:41:39 ◼   ► So if right now I have an inbox item in hardware,

00:41:44 ◼   ► an inbox item in software,

00:41:46 ◼   ► the global inbox shows me both of those.

00:41:49 ◼   ► It's a listing of anything in any of your inboxes anywhere.

00:41:53 ◼   ► I think the reason it's there is maybe you put it

00:41:56 ◼   ► in an inbox, but you want it in a different group

00:41:58 ◼   ► and it just gives you a way to--

00:42:00 ◼   ► It's a unified inbox, like email.

00:42:02 ◼   ► Thank you. That's what I'm trying to say. It's a unified inbox.

00:42:05 ◼   ► If you think of each database like an email account, this makes more sense.

00:42:10 ◼   ► Globals.

00:42:12 ◼   ► Because then every email account has an inbox.

00:42:15 ◼   ► Yeah, think of it like email.

00:42:17 ◼   ► I think it's clearer that way.

00:42:19 ◼   ► They should have had a message somewhere in the title that says,

00:42:23 ◼   ► "It's like email." Like parentheses.

00:42:25 ◼   ► It's like email.

00:42:26 ◼   ► Tell you what, Steven. Myke fixed it for me.

00:42:29 ◼   ► Not you!

00:42:30 ◼   ► I've never used this app.

00:42:32 ◼   ► I have 11 days left in my trial.

00:42:35 ◼   ► It all comes down to these 11 days.

00:42:38 ◼   ► Yeah, you got a cram in this period of time.

00:42:41 ◼   ► How expensive is this?

00:42:42 ◼   ► How expensive is this?

00:42:43 ◼   ► I'm going to buy the super expensive one.

00:42:45 ◼   ► I'm going to buy the super expensive one.

00:42:46 ◼   ► I'm going to buy the what Devin thinks server.

00:42:49 ◼   ► That's what I'm going to buy. I'm going to run a server and make it global.

00:42:53 ◼   ► Perfect.

00:42:54 ◼   ► I have established this on upgrade this week.

00:42:58 ◼   ► I've established it in many places. I am adverse to digital data hoarding, right? Like, I do

00:43:06 ◼   ► not want to do it at all. And...

00:43:09 ◼   ► Yeah, you're like John Voorhees, basically.

00:43:10 ◼   ► I guess. Well, I guess. So like, any system like this, it just doesn't work for me at

00:43:17 ◼   ► all, right? Like, I just...

00:43:20 ◼   ► But this is a major reveal, though. This changes everything for me. Inboxes and inbox.

00:43:27 ◼   ► It's like email. Okay, so this now changes quite a few things for me. Because realistically,

00:43:34 ◼   ► I could keep using Raindrop for web links, stuff that is not work-related, and use that

00:43:42 ◼   ► one thing for work, and PDF documents and web archives. Hmm.

00:43:48 ◼   ► Sounds good to me.

00:43:49 ◼   ► what I think the thing that you have uncovered is that you can't continue to use Raindrop

00:43:57 ◼   ► for its purpose. See, that was also something that I really struggled to accept because

00:44:04 ◼   ► I really liked Raindrop and I really like the icon. I know that it's a silly thing,

00:44:10 ◼   ► but I do. And also, Raindrop, like, find me, here's a challenge for, this is not adapt,

00:44:17 ◼   ► here's a challenge for everybody. Find me a faster system than Raindrop when it comes

00:44:23 ◼   ► to saving a link, and then later, when you open the app, you tap on the item and it opens

00:44:28 ◼   ► Safari V Controller with a single tap. I have looked at so many different bookmarking and

00:44:35 ◼   ► like, read-later solutions. All of them either are too slow or come with their own, like,

00:44:43 ◼   ► custom web browser, which I don't ever want to see ever again on iOS or iPadOS.

00:44:47 ◼   ► Raindrop is also very good looking.

00:44:51 ◼   ► The custom collections that you can create in the sidebar with the custom icons

00:44:55 ◼   ► are super nicely done and pretty when you organize everything.

00:45:00 ◼   ► Like, its purpose, Raindrop's purpose,

00:45:04 ◼   ► as your application to allow you to save

00:45:08 ◼   ► and find information in Club Max Stories,

00:45:12 ◼   ► stories, it's proven unsuccessful at that task.

00:45:16 ◼   ► For yeah, for that, for that, for that, it needs to it needs to lose that purpose.

00:45:25 ◼   ► So maybe like, I don't know, maybe Devin think doesn't replace

00:45:30 ◼   ► Raindrop completely. Exactly.

00:45:32 ◼   ► But just for this task, like the archiving of Club Max Stories newsletters.

00:45:38 ◼   ► Which in and of itself, it's like a huge deal.

00:45:41 ◼   ► important part of your work. Yeah, it is. And also, like... Arguably more important

00:45:46 ◼   ► than saving, like, PDFs of OS 7 or whatever. Hey! Whoa! Sorry. But also, you know, more

00:45:54 ◼   ► important than saving Pokémon links in Raindrop. Much more important than that. Yes, much,

00:46:00 ◼   ► much, much more important than that. So global inboxes, huh? That's how it works. Inboxes.

00:46:08 ◼   ► Interesting. This is very, this is all, I gotta figure this out not only in 11 days, but before WWDC.

00:46:14 ◼   ► So, um... Oh right, because this is also, what app do you use for the research collection, right?

00:46:21 ◼   ► Yeah, and I, yes, exactly, and I feel like not being able to find that word in that PDF document

00:46:27 ◼   ► was a sign, was the sign that I needed that that system will not scale for WWDC.

00:46:33 ◼   ► I think Devin Think has probably the WWDC research collection app this year.

00:46:38 ◼   ► If there is one thing we know from Steven is that this app is as good as it gets for

00:46:44 ◼   ► research collection and recalling.

00:46:48 ◼   ► And I know it's maybe not perfect on iOS, but you have a Mac Mini.

00:46:54 ◼   ► If you're struggling with something on iOS, just open up screens or whatever and just

00:47:00 ◼   ► use it on the Mac.

00:47:03 ◼   ► Mac is an app, am I right?

00:47:06 ◼   ► does like his research. I do. Mm-hmm. That's the one thing we know about Steven, is that

00:47:12 ◼   ► he likes research. The only thing? Okay, okay. Well, it's the one thing we can all agree

00:47:17 ◼   ► on. It's literally the only thing we know about him. He likes research. Everything else

00:47:20 ◼   ► is a mystery. Yeah, I'm sure we'll keep talking about it. I mean, we still have 11 days, so

00:47:25 ◼   ► that would be at least another episode of Connected. And then another, like, not next

00:47:30 ◼   ► week but the week after next week we'll have reached, and by we I mean I, will have reached

00:47:37 ◼   ► a decision, a consensus on whatever's gonna happen to Devin Think.

00:47:42 ◼   ► Do you think though? Like, why is the trial like the end? The trial might not be the end.

00:47:49 ◼   ► Well, usually, I mean it's gonna stop working unless I pay up, so.

00:47:53 ◼   ► Right, but like you've spent more money or more stupid things.

00:47:57 ◼   ► I can still pay and still be skeptical, right?

00:48:00 ◼   ► I didn't make up my mind yet and the trial's over, so...

00:48:02 ◼   ► But I'm still gonna pay, though.

00:48:04 ◼   ► That's totally something that I would do.

00:48:07 ◼   ► Spend $200 on something that I'm not sure whether I was gonna use or not.

00:48:10 ◼   ► Is that how much it is? It's $200?

00:48:12 ◼   ► I think it is.

00:48:14 ◼   ► Stephen, how much does Devin think?

00:48:15 ◼   ► I think it's $200.

00:48:16 ◼   ► I think so. There's different levels.

00:48:19 ◼   ► Look, I could spend $500 on the server edition, but, you know, I wanna be a good boy and spend $200.

00:48:26 ◼   ► Why do you... how do you know you don't need it? What if you decide...

00:48:29 ◼   ► That's like working with groups and it gives you web stuff and...

00:48:32 ◼   ► No, I don't have any group. It's just me doing things with the computer.

00:48:38 ◼   ► What's a computer really, when you think about it?

00:48:41 ◼   ► There's a $99 standard edition.

00:48:44 ◼   ► What does it mean that I can get additional seats? What's a seat?

00:48:47 ◼   ► It's if John also wants to use it.

00:48:50 ◼   ► What is this terminology? Additional seats?

00:48:52 ◼   ► It seats seats. It's like an enterprise thing. It just means users.

00:48:56 ◼   ► I just say users then. Oh my God. This is like global inboxes.

00:49:00 ◼   ► Yeah. Just additional users. Oh my God.

00:49:06 ◼   ► I use the pro version because it has all the OCR stuff that I want.

00:49:09 ◼   ► I also want that. The only thing that server ads is a web interface,

00:49:13 ◼   ► so you can basically host it and then other people can see it. So.

00:49:16 ◼   ► Who cares about the web? The web is dead. Who cares about that?

00:49:19 ◼   ► Right, but if you add a web... I bet the web interface is more fully featured than the iOS app.

00:49:25 ◼   ► Damn, Michael!

00:49:27 ◼   ► Wow!

00:49:30 ◼   ► My point is, if the web version is more...

00:49:34 ◼   ► Sound!

00:49:35 ◼   ► The point I'm trying to make is if the web version is more fully featured in the iOS app,

00:49:41 ◼   ► you might want the server edition because then you can get all the features on your iPad.

00:49:45 ◼   ► All right, whatever. So let's see. Your card, Devon Think Pro.

00:49:48 ◼   ► Like I use air table in Safari only.

00:49:51 ◼   ► I don't have the app installed because however, they do.

00:49:54 ◼   ► They do have some nice things.

00:49:56 ◼   ► You might also like Dave. What is Dave on agent?

00:49:58 ◼   ► I kind of want that. They've an agent.

00:50:00 ◼   ► It's got a cool idea.

00:50:01 ◼   ► Maybe I hadn't finished my point about air table, though.

00:50:04 ◼   ► Wait, like we talked about air that talk about talk about.

00:50:08 ◼   ► Yeah, I am now.

00:50:09 ◼   ► Where is this episode going?

00:50:11 ◼   ► It's going into other places now.

00:50:13 ◼   ► The hijinks have returned to Japs are back.

00:50:16 ◼   ► The air table, I use air table all the time now. And I have never encountered a service.

00:50:23 ◼   ► - Wait, are you serious? Are you serious right now?

00:50:25 ◼   ► - Yes. I can come back to a while later maybe. I've never encountered a service that is so

00:50:30 ◼   ► good with an app that is so bad. - I agree with that, yes.

00:50:34 ◼   ► - Because air table is amazing, but like for the last... No, it's worse than Notion. Like for the

00:50:39 ◼   ► last year, right, like they have all these amazing views, right? So you can have, you can take a set

00:50:44 ◼   ► of data and look at it in a bunch of different ways.

00:50:47 ◼   ► And whenever you tap on the view change, it just pops up saying like,

00:50:50 ◼   ► other views are coming soon.

00:50:51 ◼   ► And like it's always said that for as long as I've ever used it.

00:50:54 ◼   ► So now I have just deleted the app from my iPad

00:50:57 ◼   ► and I just use it on the web.

00:51:01 ◼   ► Because I get everything I need and I honestly cannot fathom

00:51:05 ◼   ► what they're doing at Airtable,

00:51:09 ◼   ► because it's not like they don't know that they need to have this feature

00:51:12 ◼   ► because they coded into the application a dialogue that says, "Come in soon."

00:51:18 ◼   ► Right? And I pay them. Like, I pay the money.

00:51:21 ◼   ► Like, you can use it for free, but like, I pay a table.

00:51:25 ◼   ► And it's just like, what are you doing?

00:51:26 ◼   ► Like, what is going on with your application?

00:51:29 ◼   ► Madness. Madness.

00:51:32 ◼   ► I bet Devin Thinks fully featured.

00:51:33 ◼   ► I should switch to Devin Thinks.

00:51:35 ◼   ► It won't make any sense for what I'm doing, but I might as well just do it.

00:51:38 ◼   ► It's got all these nice icons, right?

00:51:40 ◼   ► It's got inspectors.

00:51:42 ◼   ► It's one of those apps that instead of saying sync,

00:51:44 ◼   ► it says synchronize,

00:51:45 ◼   ► which makes it sound so much more professional.

00:51:48 ◼   ► Like I'm synchronizing.

00:51:49 ◼   ► - That's what you pay for the professional version for.

00:51:51 ◼   ► Understand that it just says sync.

00:51:53 ◼   ► - Synchronizing your data.

00:51:54 ◼   ► It means it's going like to, I don't know,

00:51:56 ◼   ► somewhere like to the, you know, to like to space.

00:52:00 ◼   ► It's synchronizing.

00:52:01 ◼   ► - How is the data synced?

00:52:03 ◼   ► - With iCloud, at least for me.

00:52:05 ◼   ► You can encrypt your database.

00:52:06 ◼   ► Actually, that's pretty cool.

00:52:07 ◼   ► You know, you can, you have plenty of controls.

00:52:09 ◼   ► like you can do Dropbox, you can do iCloud, you can do WebDAV

00:52:14 ◼   ► probably, which I'm sure Myke has plenty of WebDAV servers.

00:52:17 ◼   ► Oh, man, I'm running so many WebDAV servers over here you wouldn't even believe.

00:52:20 ◼   ► They're used to calling Myke WebDAV early back in the day.

00:52:23 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:52:24 ◼   ► That day is now, my friend.

00:52:28 ◼   ► I'm still very active on the forums.

00:52:30 ◼   ► I really are, you know.

00:52:34 ◼   ► The WebDAV forums? Yeah, man.

00:52:36 ◼   ► You think there are WebDAV forums?

00:52:39 ◼   ► I'm looking at it right now. It's my home page.

00:52:43 ◼   ► So anyway, I am going to wait another week for Devontink, and then I will make a decision.

00:52:53 ◼   ► I honestly, like, the only thing that I've done so far is create two folders, be confused by inboxes,

00:53:00 ◼   ► and I also created a smart search. I was really proud of that.

00:53:04 ◼   ► I have a smart search in the sidebar that searches for MusicBot and gives me all the

00:53:11 ◼   ► newsletters where I mentioned MusicBot.

00:53:13 ◼   ► So you're going to have to create a new database for WWDC stuff, right?

00:53:18 ◼   ► So according to Steven, I should create a new database for WWDC 2020.

00:53:24 ◼   ► And then what, Steven?

00:53:25 ◼   ► Like inside the database, multiple groups for features?

00:53:28 ◼   ► features? Yeah, I mean you could have...

00:53:31 ◼   ► Yeah, group, or maybe you do a group based on like what you think the rough outline of the review is gonna be. So like

00:53:39 ◼   ► user features, APIs,

00:53:41 ◼   ► UI, I don't know.

00:53:43 ◼   ► It'll come to you. But also Steven, like I am very confused because at the bottom of this sidebar

00:53:48 ◼   ► there's a final section called Smart Rules, and there's four of them.

00:53:55 ◼   ► So, one I understand, filter duplicates. I'm assuming that this returns duplicate stuff.

00:54:01 ◼   ► Reminders is the second one, which I assume you can attach some sort of reminder to a file. Then I'm very confused by the third one,

00:54:10 ◼   ► automatic locking? Yeah, I don't know what that does. And lastly,

00:54:14 ◼   ► Bates numbering. Mm-hmm. Who's Bates?

00:54:19 ◼   ► Bates numbering is used in the legal medical and business fields to place one or more identifying numbers day and time marks on images and

00:54:27 ◼   ► Documents is their standard process

00:54:29 ◼   ► I know this because

00:54:33 ◼   ► Smile added it to PDF pen and I needed to say in an ad and I was like

00:54:38 ◼   ► I don't know what I'm talking about. So I looked it up. It sounds like Bates. It sounds like the name of an antagonist

00:54:44 ◼   ► Like I don't know you like like you have Bill Gates and you have Gil Bates

00:54:48 ◼   ► Or you know Norman Bates. I know what auto-locking does by the way if you want to know.

00:54:55 ◼   ► You can lock files and that is a rule about how they're locked.

00:55:00 ◼   ► So I guess when you lock a file you can't change it. Or I guess if you're sharing this no one could do it.

00:55:06 ◼   ► Like if you've got an extra seat or two.

00:55:09 ◼   ► So you wouldn't, believe me, but Gil Bates exists.

00:55:15 ◼   ► Of course Gil Bates exists. There's like six billion people on the planet, right?

00:55:21 ◼   ► Gil Bates is the son of Bill and Jane Bates. He's the older brother of Greg Bates and Jennifer.

00:55:27 ◼   ► Wait, Bill Bates?

00:55:28 ◼   ► No, Gil Bates.

00:55:30 ◼   ► No, but you said, what was the parents' names?

00:55:34 ◼   ► The son of Bill.

00:55:35 ◼   ► Yeah, Bill Bates.

00:55:37 ◼   ► Bill Bates? So there is something to the theory that Gil Bates is the antagonist of Bill Gates

00:55:46 ◼   ► in this timeline.

00:55:47 ◼   ► It's like Nemesis, right?

00:55:48 ◼   ► Yeah, it's the son of Bill Bates.

00:55:52 ◼   ► It's like Bill... Gil Bates is part of Bill Gates' origin story.

00:55:57 ◼   ► Hold on a second. I'm on this page, right? Is this like a TV show or something? So I'm

00:56:03 ◼   ► very...

00:56:04 ◼   ► I don't know. We're not looking at what you're looking at.

00:56:06 ◼   ► I'm very confused, right? It says that... I just googled Gil Bates. And it says that...

00:56:13 ◼   ► Hold on, Strapian. He is the father of Zach, Lozon, Nathan, Trace, Katie, Jackson, Warden,

00:56:20 ◼   ► Isaiah, Adderley, Ellie, Kelly, Judson, and Jeb. Uh, Mikaela? Wait, Gil! You've been busy,

00:56:29 ◼   ► buddy! Erin, Alyssa, Tori, Carlin, and Josie. What?

00:56:35 ◼   ► Wow!

00:56:36 ◼   ► Gill, my man!

00:56:38 ◼   ► You've stumbled across a TV show called Bringing Up Bates.

00:56:42 ◼   ► Oh my god.

00:56:43 ◼   ► It's an American reality TV show on UP TV centered around Gill and Kelly Jo Bates and

00:56:49 ◼   ► their 19 children.

00:56:51 ◼   ► And the way the logo is stylized, they replaced the "i" and the "g" in "bringing" to be 19.

00:56:58 ◼   ► So it's actually "barun-nin-ing" but Bates.

00:57:01 ◼   ► That's how it's said.

00:57:02 ◼   ► But yeah, you've stumbled across this very peculiar reality TV show.

00:57:12 ◼   ► So this is not real life.

00:57:13 ◼   ► I guarantee you, I guarantee you Casey Liss was watching this show.

00:57:17 ◼   ► I guarantee it.

00:57:18 ◼   ► So wait.

00:57:19 ◼   ► I am going to text him and ask him if he's ever watched it.

00:57:23 ◼   ► I am confused.

00:57:24 ◼   ► Does he really have 19 children?

00:57:26 ◼   ► Yeah, that's what the show is about.

00:57:27 ◼   ► It's a reality TV show about a family of 22.

00:57:31 ◼   ► Oh my.

00:57:32 ◼   ► Gil. I mean congrats. It's quite the accomplishment. Wow.

00:57:39 ◼   ► I think it's time to move on.

00:57:45 ◼   ► It says that he had an excavating career. Oh, he excavates trees. Interesting.

00:57:52 ◼   ► Interesting. I mean I hope that's a well-paying career. It is 19 children.

00:57:57 ◼   ► You know, you gotta pay the bills.

00:58:01 ◼   ► 19 children. You would forget their names, right?

00:58:05 ◼   ► 19.

00:58:07 ◼   ► I said a family of 22, I meant a family of 21. I can't do basic maths.

00:58:12 ◼   ► 19. Congrats, Gil Bates, for inventing the numbering system and bringing so much life into this world.

00:58:23 ◼   ► So much.

00:58:24 ◼   ► so much life

00:58:26 ◼   ► Anyway, he's building an army to take them

00:58:28 ◼   ► Move on I'm ending this here

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01:00:18 ◼   ► WWDC dates have been

01:00:22 ◼   ► announced it is the week of June 22nd and

01:00:27 ◼   ► Connected well two-thirds of connected is featured prominently on the announcement artwork

01:00:33 ◼   ► Myke's left out again

01:00:35 ◼   ► Come on left out again. I

01:00:39 ◼   ► Don't know. I don't know this is not

01:00:43 ◼   ► For example, so there's this image, right?

01:00:45 ◼   ► That allegedly one guy would be Steven and the other guy would be me. However, I have never worn a hat

01:00:53 ◼   ► in my life like that.

01:00:56 ◼   ► And Steven's never worn safety goggles. You don't know. Also, I don't have red hair

01:01:01 ◼   ► but

01:01:03 ◼   ► Kind of do though

01:01:05 ◼   ► You kind of do and I could see you in safety goggles. Like I don't know when you clean your old max, for example. Sure

01:01:12 ◼   ► Although I do kind of like the theory that I've sort of concealed myself in a hat and glasses

01:01:17 ◼   ► Because I'm using a MacBook and so I'm hiding from other people.

01:01:21 ◼   ► Mm-hmm

01:01:22 ◼   ► I don't know though. I think it's fun that they are using Memoji for an online event

01:01:29 ◼   ► Sort of a...

01:01:31 ◼   ► Suggests, you know, that we're living in these weird times and

01:01:36 ◼   ► We're communicating digitally much more than before so I kind of like that theme

01:01:42 ◼   ► However, I do not like the prominence of MacBooks.

01:01:47 ◼   ► I feel like they should have had some variety, you know, have some iPads in there.

01:01:51 ◼   ► It is weird that it's only MacBooks.

01:01:53 ◼   ► It's kind of weird.

01:01:54 ◼   ► Well, no Xcode for iPad, I guess.

01:01:58 ◼   ► Is that your theory?

01:01:59 ◼   ► You can only do real development on a Mac.

01:02:00 ◼   ► I mean, sure, for now you may be right, for sure.

01:02:03 ◼   ► But do we want to address the fact that we will be recording episode 300 during WWDC?

01:02:11 ◼   ► Yep, it lined up perfectly.

01:02:14 ◼   ► Episode 300 is June 24th, so assuming, I mean, there's nothing to, we can make basic assumptions

01:02:21 ◼   ► that the keynote will be on Monday, like we can assume this, because otherwise we wouldn't

01:02:25 ◼   ► be able to do anything else, which means that by Wednesday, which is when we will record,

01:02:31 ◼   ► it will be our 300th episode, which is just a great mixture of two things, isn't it?

01:02:37 ◼   ► It's fantastic.

01:02:38 ◼   ► It means that we would have not done 300 live, because I really think that this is later

01:02:43 ◼   ► than it would have been otherwise.

01:02:45 ◼   ► Yeah, it wasn't going to be this week.

01:02:49 ◼   ► Fool show.

01:02:50 ◼   ► Like, it was definitely going to be earlier.

01:02:53 ◼   ► There's still a lot of ambiguity about this, right?

01:02:55 ◼   ► So I agree with you.

01:02:56 ◼   ► Like, the candidate's got to be Monday.

01:02:57 ◼   ► Like, how do you do sessions about things you haven't announced in a keynote?

01:03:01 ◼   ► Like, that would be strange.

01:03:02 ◼   ► But in this press release, there's a link in the show notes, Apple's doing what they

01:03:06 ◼   ► did when they said it was going to go online.

01:03:08 ◼   ► I'm like, "Yes, we're going to have more than 23 million people at WWDC."

01:03:12 ◼   ► It's like, well, I mean, kind of.

01:03:16 ◼   ► It is great because it means, and some people wanted to point this out, that it means that

01:03:20 ◼   ► WWDC will be on much more equal footing for everybody, but I don't know if I'd count those

01:03:26 ◼   ► chickens until they've hatched because we still don't know a lot of things.

01:03:29 ◼   ► We don't know, like, you know, will sessions be limited in number or how are labs going

01:03:36 ◼   ► to work?

01:03:37 ◼   ► And Schiller's quote in the press release is like, you know, we're looking forward to

01:03:41 ◼   ► sharing more details with everyone as we get closer.

01:03:44 ◼   ► So I think they're probably still working this out.

01:03:46 ◼   ► But this does not mean like everyone's gonna have lab access, right?

01:03:49 ◼   ► There's still going to be parts of this that will be limited, just because you can't shove

01:03:53 ◼   ► 23 million people down the throats of 1000 Apple engineers, like there is still a misbalance.

01:03:59 ◼   ► I don't know. I have some real-time follow-up. Would you like some real-time follow-up?

01:04:03 ◼   ► Maybe. Casey is not seen bringing up Bates. But he's going to now.

01:04:07 ◼   ► Really?

01:04:09 ◼   ► Maybe, maybe. He's piqued his interest.

01:04:12 ◼   ► He said he watched a show that was similar to this one, but not this one.

01:04:16 ◼   ► So I feel like he maybe just hadn't heard of it. Like if he would have heard of it,

01:04:19 ◼   ► maybe he would have watched it. You know, maybe WBC would just be a Dev and Think database that Phil Schiller sends out to everybody.

01:04:25 ◼   ► Mm-hmm.

01:04:26 ◼   ► That'd save us a lot of time really because I could just have the Mac group and federal could have the iOS and iPad OS

01:04:32 ◼   ► Group and we could we could really just get to work quickly. I think

01:04:35 ◼   ► Having the day is the most important part

01:04:38 ◼   ► Everything else I think is less important because

01:04:43 ◼   ► If they do

01:04:46 ◼   ► Sessions the sessions are going to be limited that not everybody like the interactive stuff

01:04:50 ◼   ► Not everyone's gonna get to go to those anyway

01:04:52 ◼   ► So for the vast majority of people that are in the Apple development community

01:04:57 ◼   ► The main thing they need to know is the date, right?

01:05:01 ◼   ► So then they can block out the time that they might need to consume the content that is being

01:05:06 ◼   ► Shared in whatever way they would have done it in previous years because you know

01:05:11 ◼   ► We've established many times everybody knows the amount of people that actually go to the conference. It's not 23 million

01:05:16 ◼   ► It's like 1,500 people or something, right? It's or how many how many thousands is it that go to?

01:05:21 ◼   ► WWDC five. I don't know. It's a couple of thousand, right? Yeah, I think five five million, right?

01:05:27 ◼   ► So that's like way less obviously than the 23 million people that Schiller is is talking about

01:05:32 ◼   ► Right, which is I'm sure many many many of those people are

01:05:36 ◼   ► Consuming some level of the content. So really it's just about people knowing when will the content begin?

01:05:42 ◼   ► Because then they can also be like, alright, so then my work needs to begin right like June 23rd

01:05:48 ◼   ► people need to start developing for iOS 14, right?

01:05:51 ◼   ► Like, that's the plan if you're a developer.

01:05:53 ◼   ► So, like, the most important thing to know is the date.

01:05:57 ◼   ► It's interesting, like, at this point,

01:06:00 ◼   ► and Federico is probably-- speaks to you the most, right?

01:06:04 ◼   ► Those three weeks, two, three weeks of difference,

01:06:07 ◼   ► like, for you, you got to hope that's two, three weeks

01:06:11 ◼   ► of difference on the other end as well, right?

01:06:13 ◼   ► Because otherwise, they just took two weeks away from you.

01:06:17 ◼   ► When would you expect iOS 14 to have been released?

01:06:21 ◼   ► It's this it's very sure it won't be but like what like middle to late September

01:06:27 ◼   ► No, I'm hoping early October honestly, but like we would have expected right

01:06:32 ◼   ► Around kind of like based on previous years in a normal year

01:06:37 ◼   ► Yeah mid September like some usually like between September 12 and September 14. Like those are the days usually

01:06:45 ◼   ► Yeah, but now I want to hope at the very least late September ideally first week of October that would be super

01:06:52 ◼   ► chill I

01:06:55 ◼   ► Think it's fair to say though

01:06:57 ◼   ► It's gonna be easier on you

01:06:59 ◼   ► like I am very confident in the fact that this is going to be a smaller iOS release than

01:07:05 ◼   ► What we would have got otherwise don't say that don't jinx me. I don't think it's gonna be nothing

01:07:11 ◼   ► I don't think it's going to be a bug fix year. I don't I think they're gonna have stuff

01:07:15 ◼   ► but you've I can only assume it's less or it's less that will actually like I

01:07:21 ◼   ► Wouldn't be surprised that this is the year where they actually say that some features like are gonna come later

01:07:26 ◼   ► Right like and there may be a bit more clear about that than they have been in the past

01:07:30 ◼   ► Because they must be aware of their capability right now, and it can't be to deliver what was supposed to be iOS 14

01:07:39 ◼   ► in September. Surely, surely it would be wild to even try, I feel like? I guess we'll see,

01:07:47 ◼   ► but I would assume you've got a bit of extra time on the back end as well.

01:07:51 ◼   ► I really hope so, because I, you know, this summer, who knows if I'm going to be able

01:07:57 ◼   ► to go on vacation at all. It's, nothing is clear at this point. I have a feeling that

01:08:04 ◼   ► it will not, you know, we will not be able to go travel around Italy and have this long

01:08:08 ◼   ► vacations as before, right? That's just... I know that it's months away, but I just, you know,

01:08:13 ◼   ► we're... I also might not want to, right? Because we may not feel safe, even though it would be,

01:08:20 ◼   ► like, technically allowed. But I could go for, you know, have a chill early June, which is something

01:08:29 ◼   ► that I haven't done in years, basically, and, you know, take a break in August and come back

01:08:35 ◼   ► in September because I know that I'm still going to have two to three weeks. That would

01:08:40 ◼   ► be lovely, actually. But I don't know, I really do hope that... I am hoping for a smaller

01:08:48 ◼   ► release that is focused on optimizations, not without new features. I still think there's

01:08:56 ◼   ► going to be something. I hope that at this point, even though I will be sad about it,

01:09:03 ◼   ► But given that we just got a new iPad Pro and given that Apple was so focused on getting

01:09:07 ◼   ► 13.4 at the door and at the pointer and at the Magic Keyboard, maybe this is not the

01:09:12 ◼   ► year that we get an entirely redesigned multitasking interface on iPad.

01:09:17 ◼   ► That said, it does feel likely that we're going to get a new home screen, so there's

01:09:22 ◼   ► that.

01:09:23 ◼   ► I don't know.

01:09:24 ◼   ► If there's no big multitasking change on iPad, if there's a prioritization for performance

01:09:32 ◼   ► and bug fixes. And if the three weeks that they've taken from the beginning of June also result in

01:09:39 ◼   ► a couple of weeks of so-called delay in September, then I'm gonna feel pretty good about it.

01:09:45 ◼   ► Because I really don't want to work. I really don't want to be in the same situation as last year,

01:09:50 ◼   ► which was super... I don't want to say bad, but it was very challenging for me to be able to finish

01:09:56 ◼   ► iOS and iPadOS in the same story in two and a half months.

01:10:01 ◼   ► I just saw James Thompson in the chat room mention that he hopes

01:10:05 ◼   ► it's a smaller release, which just made me think if I was in a leadership

01:10:09 ◼   ► position at Apple, I would be restricting

01:10:12 ◼   ► how much went into iOS this year, because I would assume that

01:10:16 ◼   ► most developers and companies developing large apps

01:10:20 ◼   ► would not have the capability and scale that they normally do.

01:10:24 ◼   ► So I would want to limit the amount that at least developers have to integrate.

01:10:30 ◼   ► Right? Like there's some stuff you can get away with for free as such because it's operating

01:10:36 ◼   ► system stuff. Like multitasking changes might not need that much, if any, work from developers,

01:10:42 ◼   ► right? Maybe if you work with a current system, really it's just on us to make it more visually

01:10:50 ◼   ► represented and to do a better job with that.

01:10:53 ◼   ► But stuff that you would really want

01:10:55 ◼   ► to make sure developers are definitely implementing,

01:10:57 ◼   ► you might want to do less of that this year

01:11:00 ◼   ► in case you end up in a place where no one did it.

01:11:04 ◼   ► You put all this stuff out there,

01:11:06 ◼   ► and everyone was like, "We have not got the time for this.

01:11:08 ◼   ► "We're just trying to hang on

01:11:09 ◼   ► "to the most important things right now."

01:11:12 ◼   ► So we'll see.

01:11:13 ◼   ► - I mean, there's still so much in iOS,

01:11:16 ◼   ► I mean, even 12 and 13

01:11:17 ◼   ► that developers haven't caught up with.

01:11:19 ◼   ► It's not a bad deal to take a breather.

01:11:21 ◼   ► But at the same time, Apple do still need to keep moving, right?

01:11:25 ◼   ► It's important for them, but we'll see.

01:11:27 ◼   ► I mean, there's one thing we're going to talk about after this break,

01:11:29 ◼   ► which like could be a bigger thing.

01:11:30 ◼   ► We'll see.

01:11:31 ◼   ► Maybe it's something that doesn't get done, but we'll see.

01:11:33 ◼   ► But like they will need to do some things because that's important for them.

01:11:38 ◼   ► But maybe there's stuff that they can do, which doesn't put too much

01:11:42 ◼   ► of a pressure on third parties.

01:11:49 ◼   ► I mean, and also when you think about it realistically, last year was a really big year in terms of

01:11:53 ◼   ► like there was dark mode and you had multi-window on iPad.

01:11:57 ◼   ► There was plenty of work for developers to, you know, to rush and get all of these updates

01:12:02 ◼   ► out the door in time for September.

01:12:05 ◼   ► And now considering that everything that is going on, I think we could all, yes, we're

01:12:11 ◼   ► all at home and especially indie developers are all at home and they have plenty of time

01:12:14 ◼   ► in front of computers, but also there's other things to worry about.

01:12:18 ◼   ► and maybe it's not the best time to ask developers,

01:12:20 ◼   ► we want you to invest in all these features in the summer

01:12:23 ◼   ► and work three months on getting your apps ready

01:12:26 ◼   ► for all these new things.

01:12:27 ◼   ► Maybe it's the year to say,

01:12:29 ◼   ► look, we're gonna have a couple new features,

01:12:31 ◼   ► but then it's gonna be relatively chill

01:12:35 ◼   ► and you can work on performance improvements.

01:12:37 ◼   ► It's not gonna be like this massive series of updates

01:12:40 ◼   ► that you have to get ready for September.

01:12:43 ◼   ► I think if there was a year to do this,

01:12:47 ◼   ► 2020 is the year at this point.

01:12:50 ◼   ► - Yeah, I think the same thing on the max side.

01:12:52 ◼   ► Last year was big with Catalyst

01:12:55 ◼   ► and that still hasn't been really widely adopted.

01:13:00 ◼   ► I mean, there are more apps every month,

01:13:03 ◼   ► but I think that on the max side,

01:13:06 ◼   ► especially if there's an ARM transition announced

01:13:09 ◼   ► or coming next year,

01:13:12 ◼   ► it's okay to maybe just polish some stuff this year

01:13:15 ◼   ► and let people sort of take a breather.

01:13:19 ◼   ► If it's a big year for iOS and the Mac both,

01:13:23 ◼   ► just say that new multitasking on the iPad

01:13:28 ◼   ► and Arm tradition is announced.

01:13:30 ◼   ► Like two of the biggest things I can think of.

01:13:32 ◼   ► It sure doesn't seem like the year

01:13:34 ◼   ► to do both of those things to developers.

01:13:36 ◼   ► Like you will have developers that run on both platforms

01:13:40 ◼   ► basically pick one over the other

01:13:41 ◼   ► And both of those things are really important.

01:13:43 ◼   ► And Apple does it every year to a degree,

01:13:45 ◼   ► but with two really big things on the horizon

01:13:48 ◼   ► for each side of the coin,

01:13:51 ◼   ► hopefully they balance that really well.

01:13:54 ◼   ► All right, so we're gonna start a new segment,

01:13:58 ◼   ► some things that we would like to see this summer.

01:14:01 ◼   ► Myke has named it Anticipating WWDC,

01:14:04 ◼   ► but first let me tell you about our final sponsor.

01:14:07 ◼   ► This episode of Connected is brought to you

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01:15:49 ◼   ► Alright, so as we approach WWDC, I think that what we could do, a little bit over the next

01:15:56 ◼   ► few weeks, is to look at some potential rumors of upcoming changes coming to the platforms,

01:16:03 ◼   ► just iOS, the whole thing, and see how what we are currently using could change

01:16:09 ◼   ► if those rumors come to pass. Now one of the rumors that has been around for

01:16:13 ◼   ► years is about changes to the home screen, to springboard as it's known,

01:16:19 ◼   ► right? So the home screen of your device is evolving to include more than just

01:16:24 ◼   ► app icons. This has been something that we've heard year after year from goods

01:16:28 ◼   ► code resources, which means that Apple have been looking at it. And then last month there

01:16:35 ◼   ► was a leak from that iOS 14 build that was going around, 9to5Mac posted that it was referencing

01:16:42 ◼   ► code, which would have home screen widgets. So what I thought we could do is to look at

01:16:48 ◼   ► the widgets that we are currently using on our devices to kind of get the lay of the

01:16:53 ◼   ► land of the stuff that we find interesting to have, and then maybe try and think about

01:16:58 ◼   ► and talk about what could a home screen widget really give us or how different would it be

01:17:06 ◼   ► compared to the current widget system which is by and large just in the... what is that

01:17:14 ◼   ► even called now? It's called notification center. It's like column. The today's view

01:17:20 ◼   ► column. Where the widgets are. Yeah, where the widgets are, right? Which can be... it's

01:17:25 ◼   ► is different on different devices now though right because on the iPad it's on the home

01:17:29 ◼   ► screen but like they're locked into place and yes you can get them by the haptic touch

01:17:36 ◼   ► but I don't think many people do use those right I think most people that use these widgets

01:17:42 ◼   ► are probably using them in that little column which is on the left hand side of the screen

01:17:46 ◼   ► so I will list mine and then you guys can list yours and then maybe we can dig into

01:17:51 ◼   ► this a little bit. So the widgets that I'm using are shortcuts, Timery, Fantastical,

01:17:59 ◼   ► Todoist, Calzones, Carrot Weather, the battery widget, the inbuilt battery widget, Screen

01:18:05 ◼   ► Time and Deliverance.

01:18:07 ◼   ► Steven, why are you making, are you adding Siri before shortcuts?

01:18:11 ◼   ► Siri shortcuts.

01:18:12 ◼   ► Do not call it, don't call it that.

01:18:14 ◼   ► It's not what it's called.

01:18:16 ◼   ► I will quit the show if you keep calling it that.

01:18:19 ◼   ► Is that worse than MacBook escape or MacBook or MacBook adorable? Yes

01:18:23 ◼   ► Yes, because it's the MacBook adorable MacBook escape and nicknames Siri shortcuts for shortcuts is just wrong

01:18:31 ◼   ► Like it used to be called that but it's not called that anymore. I see that misused all the time. It drives me bananas

01:18:36 ◼   ► All right

01:18:36 ◼   ► So the widgets that I use I actually use not that many I use up next which just pulls in what's next on your calendar

01:18:44 ◼   ► I was using fantastic al but I'm back in the Apple calendar app

01:18:47 ◼   ► up next that's like one of the first things that I remove it's like all of

01:18:55 ◼   ► the built-in ones yeah next carrot weather which is widget I mean like

01:18:59 ◼   ► everything care whether the widgets fantastic to do ist shortcuts calzone

01:19:05 ◼   ► shortcuts and batteries it's not that many and these are consistent we didn't

01:19:12 ◼   ► really get into this minor consistent across my iPhone and iPad I don't know

01:19:15 ◼   ► if you all have any differences between your devices,

01:19:17 ◼   ► but mine are identical on both.

01:19:19 ◼   ► - Not an animal.

01:19:21 ◼   ► - Yeah, good.

01:19:21 ◼   ► - My widgets are Siri shortcuts,

01:19:24 ◼   ► TimeRe, HomeCam,

01:19:30 ◼   ► which is a really, really good third party

01:19:33 ◼   ► HomeKit camera utility,

01:19:36 ◼   ► batteries, and MyTaskManager,

01:19:38 ◼   ► which I don't wanna talk about.

01:19:39 ◼   ► So it's just--

01:19:40 ◼   ► - Remember the milk.

01:19:41 ◼   ► - No, it's MyTaskManager.

01:19:42 ◼   ► - It's OmniFocus, is what it says in the list.

01:19:45 ◼   ► It's called My Task Manager.

01:19:46 ◼   ► - Only focus.

01:19:47 ◼   ► - Wonder list.

01:19:48 ◼   ► - No, no, My Task Manager. - 123 Task Manager.

01:19:51 ◼   ► - It's a new brand, the developer of 123.

01:19:56 ◼   ► Unfortunately it was sued and I had to change the namings.

01:19:59 ◼   ► Yeah, it was sued by a patent troll a while back.

01:20:04 ◼   ► So now everything is called My and My is lowercase

01:20:09 ◼   ► and the rest of the word is all uppercase.

01:20:11 ◼   ► - That's nice, like Apple's naming scheme.

01:20:14 ◼   ► Yes, that's good. So this is my task manager

01:20:17 ◼   ► That I use I don't want to talk about it. Okay, is it is it all hang on?

01:20:21 ◼   ► Hang on hand is it all one word?

01:20:23 ◼   ► So it's like lowercase my and the task manager all caps is one word now between task and manager

01:20:29 ◼   ► There's the degree symbol, you know the little dot that's floating up top. Yes the symbol for degrees

01:20:35 ◼   ► Yeah

01:20:38 ◼   ► Creative around, you know being sued by other companies, but my task is one word

01:20:44 ◼   ► M-I-R-N-Y are lowercase, task uppercase, degree symbol, manager, all uppercase.

01:20:52 ◼   ► Wow.

01:20:53 ◼   ► Wait, wait, I'm so confused now.

01:20:59 ◼   ► Is task uppercase or lowercase?

01:21:00 ◼   ► How do you type the degree symbol?

01:21:02 ◼   ► Command shift 8.

01:21:03 ◼   ► Who could know?

01:21:04 ◼   ► No, that's not right.

01:21:05 ◼   ► No, you made me do something horrible to my notes.

01:21:09 ◼   ► I'm just ruining the Google dog formatting at this point.

01:21:14 ◼   ► Anyway, degree symbol.

01:21:15 ◼   ► So I'm just going to write here,

01:21:16 ◼   ► degree

01:21:18 ◼   ► manager.

01:21:21 ◼   ► Somebody can figure it out.

01:21:23 ◼   ► And also the I only have my

01:21:26 ◼   ► task manager on the iPad

01:21:28 ◼   ► because that's what I get things

01:21:30 ◼   ► done, you know, like a pro.

01:21:32 ◼   ► Yes.

01:21:33 ◼   ► Wait, you're not being serious

01:21:35 ◼   ► about that, are you?

01:21:36 ◼   ► You only have the widget,

01:21:38 ◼   ► my task manager, the widget,

01:21:40 ◼   ► OmniFocus on your iPad?

01:21:42 ◼   ► - The widget.

01:21:43 ◼   ► - The widget, I was gonna say.

01:21:45 ◼   ► Okay, cool, all right, okay.

01:21:47 ◼   ► - I have my task manager in the dock of the iPhone too.

01:21:50 ◼   ► I just don't use the widget.

01:21:51 ◼   ► I just don't use the widget.

01:21:52 ◼   ► - All right, good, good, good.

01:21:53 ◼   ► 'Cause like that would have very,

01:21:55 ◼   ► that would have surprised me a lot.

01:21:56 ◼   ► - I haven't turned into one of those, you know,

01:21:58 ◼   ► Zen people, "Oh, I'm all about, you know, balance."

01:22:02 ◼   ► No, I'm a mess.

01:22:03 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:22:05 ◼   ► Just being honest.

01:22:08 ◼   ► So, but I do keep,

01:22:09 ◼   ► I do only keep the Task Manager widget on the iPad.

01:22:13 ◼   ► Also, I went through a bit of a phase

01:22:16 ◼   ► with my shortcuts widgets.

01:22:18 ◼   ► I used to only have the shortcuts widget on the iPad,

01:22:23 ◼   ► like a single widget, and a super long list of shortcuts.

01:22:28 ◼   ► Now I have sort of swung in the opposite direction.

01:22:32 ◼   ► I have three shortcuts, maybe four, four right now.

01:22:36 ◼   ► So I have, let's see, one which Myke will understand.

01:22:41 ◼   ► It's called the type chart.

01:22:44 ◼   ► It shows me weaknesses and resistances

01:22:47 ◼   ► for playing Pokemon for types.

01:22:50 ◼   ► Utilities, which is a group shortcut.

01:22:54 ◼   ► So you tap on the utilities widget

01:22:57 ◼   ► and it shows me a list of more shortcuts,

01:22:59 ◼   ► more utility shortcuts to run.

01:23:01 ◼   ► - I've been thinking about doing something like this

01:23:03 ◼   ► for some of my time tracking ones.

01:23:05 ◼   ► grouping shortcuts together, it's very useful for me at least

01:23:09 ◼   ► because, just in case people don't know, if you do it

01:23:13 ◼   ► correctly, you don't actually have to leave

01:23:17 ◼   ► the widget to make the decision, which is really nice

01:23:21 ◼   ► so for example, I can do things like converting temperatures

01:23:25 ◼   ► for example, the number pad for typing numbers, if I want to convert

01:23:29 ◼   ► from celsius to fahrenheit, you can type numbers within the widget

01:23:33 ◼   ► but just numbers or choosing from lists.

01:23:36 ◼   ► If you wanna type some text,

01:23:37 ◼   ► that's gonna open the shortcuts app.

01:23:39 ◼   ► So you gotta do it right.

01:23:40 ◼   ► The third widget is one that opens a radio station

01:23:43 ◼   ► in the Excellent Broadcasts app by Steve Chautin Smith.

01:23:47 ◼   ► Just opens the app and plays a radio station that I like.

01:23:51 ◼   ► And the last one is called Work,

01:23:52 ◼   ► and it's basically similar to utilities.

01:23:55 ◼   ► It's a bunch of shortcuts,

01:23:56 ◼   ► but that are Mac stories related.

01:23:58 ◼   ► I now have, however, a long list of timers

01:24:03 ◼   ► in the Timery widget.

01:24:04 ◼   ► So I've sort of done the opposite.

01:24:05 ◼   ► I used to have a lot of shortcuts and very few timers.

01:24:08 ◼   ► Now I have very few shortcuts and a lot of timers.

01:24:11 ◼   ► And I'm looking on the iPhone now.

01:24:14 ◼   ► And then I have HomeCam, which I kind of like

01:24:16 ◼   ► because when it's in compact view,

01:24:18 ◼   ► HomeCam, it only shows me one camera,

01:24:21 ◼   ► which is the camera outside.

01:24:22 ◼   ► But if I expand the widget,

01:24:23 ◼   ► it shows me all my HomeKit cameras.

01:24:25 ◼   ► And lastly, I have the batteries on the iPhone

01:24:28 ◼   ► because it's just sometimes useful to see.

01:24:30 ◼   ► And on the iPad I have shortcuts,

01:24:33 ◼   ► time-ary and omni-focus.

01:24:34 ◼   ► - Wait, what? - No, my task manager!

01:24:36 ◼   ► My task man, no!

01:24:37 ◼   ► My task manager!

01:24:38 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:24:40 ◼   ► - Is the degree sign silent?

01:24:44 ◼   ► - Oh yeah, it's silent.

01:24:45 ◼   ► - Okay, of course.

01:24:46 ◼   ► All right, so now we've established that.

01:24:48 ◼   ► - It's easily silent in the sense you gotta do

01:24:50 ◼   ► my task manager.

01:24:52 ◼   ► - Oh, you've got your,

01:24:54 ◼   ► the silence is like observed.

01:24:56 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah, it is observed, yes.

01:24:58 ◼   ► Is my really quite like, my task manager?

01:25:03 ◼   ► - Yes, Steve, totally nailed it, first try.

01:25:06 ◼   ► - Yes.

01:25:08 ◼   ► Anyway, so now that we have established this,

01:25:11 ◼   ► I wanna see what could Apple realistically do?

01:25:15 ◼   ► Because the layout of the current widgets

01:25:20 ◼   ► would not really work, especially on the iPhone, right?

01:25:24 ◼   ► Like they're too large in some circumstances.

01:25:27 ◼   ► You could maybe have some widgets that would be the full width that they are right now,

01:25:32 ◼   ► but you wouldn't want all of your widgets to be like that because then you would end up with,

01:25:38 ◼   ► if you had a couple of them, that's your entire home screen at that point.

01:25:41 ◼   ► I mean, and I have some widgets that in their expanded view take up the entire screen of my

01:25:45 ◼   ► phone, right? Like Calzones is one of them because I have lots of time zones. So when I go into the

01:25:50 ◼   ► expanded view, that would be basically I would just have a Calzones phone. That's it. That's all

01:25:55 ◼   ► it would be. And that is probably it's a great but then at that point, I may as well open

01:26:00 ◼   ► the app, right? So like, I wonder kind of what do you guys think from a like a visual

01:26:08 ◼   ► perspective? Like what could this actually end up looking like on the home screen? What

01:26:13 ◼   ► do you think Apple could end up doing?

01:26:14 ◼   ► I think on the iPhone, I kind of expect them to take the whole width of the screen. So

01:26:21 ◼   ► would take like four icons across. I don't see them on the iPhone at least

01:26:25 ◼   ► offering a lot of flexibility in width. I think it just kind of it's other than

01:26:31 ◼   ► the sidebar thing it's over here and you can adjust the height. But I think on the

01:26:36 ◼   ► iPad I think they would be more flexible because it's such a larger canvas to do

01:26:41 ◼   ► things on. But I don't know I'm much more just to see what Federico thinks. So I

01:26:47 ◼   ► I have a lot of thoughts about this stuff.

01:26:50 ◼   ► At a high level, I think they should really--

01:26:51 ◼   ► if they're going to do this, if they

01:26:53 ◼   ► are going to say we want to allow users to put anything

01:26:56 ◼   ► on the home screen, I think they should do it right.

01:26:59 ◼   ► And by doing it right, I mean it should

01:27:01 ◼   ► be a very powerful and flexible system for developers.

01:27:06 ◼   ► One might even say a deep and open framework.

01:27:09 ◼   ► What I mean, though, is give developers the freedom to--

01:27:13 ◼   ► well, first of all, just if you want to have a--

01:27:16 ◼   ► Let's call them reach widgets, right?

01:27:18 ◼   ► The idea being that, what I just mentioned,

01:27:21 ◼   ► you should allow users to type text into a widget,

01:27:25 ◼   ► not just numbers, like lift that limitation

01:27:28 ◼   ► and allow a widget to bring up the keyboard

01:27:30 ◼   ► and type something.

01:27:32 ◼   ► - 'Cause I would want, for example, a Todoist widget.

01:27:36 ◼   ► - Exactly. - That was a full width

01:27:38 ◼   ► that just let me type in a task.

01:27:42 ◼   ► - So allow the keyboard to be used

01:27:43 ◼   ► and allow all kinds of touch events.

01:27:45 ◼   ► like scrolling and double tapping or even two finger taps,

01:27:50 ◼   ► like all kinds of gestures should be supported.

01:27:53 ◼   ► And give developers the freedom to use any kind of custom UI

01:27:57 ◼   ► that they wanna use in there.

01:27:58 ◼   ► There are a lot of limitations right now

01:28:01 ◼   ► with the current widget design,

01:28:03 ◼   ► and I just would like to see widgets be opened up

01:28:05 ◼   ► in a way that developers can have any sort of UI

01:28:09 ◼   ► and animations and effects for.

01:28:12 ◼   ► Yeah, I don't want my iPhone to just be full of frosted glass panels.

01:28:18 ◼   ► No.

01:28:18 ◼   ► I want it to be a little bit more, like honestly, make them follow the conventions of app icon design

01:28:28 ◼   ► in that there are none.

01:28:30 ◼   ► Right? Like you're allowed to design an app icon however you want, right?

01:28:35 ◼   ► Like it can look whatever you want it to look like.

01:28:37 ◼   ► I would love to see widgets follow that.

01:28:40 ◼   ► Where it's like, you can make it look however you want, like your application.

01:28:44 ◼   ► You're not constrained into a more rigid system from a visual perspective.

01:28:51 ◼   ► And it goes without saying that I would love to have a system that allows me to freely

01:28:58 ◼   ► mix icons and widgets on the home screen.

01:29:02 ◼   ► I don't want to be in a situation where, oh, you can have them, but only in the top row of the home screen.

01:29:07 ◼   ► Because we've seen Apple do those kinds of things. No, I want to be able to place them anywhere.

01:29:12 ◼   ► Give me the choice to, and maybe even go beyond the grid, right? Maybe it's time to get rid of the grid.

01:29:18 ◼   ► It's a good slogan. But like, get rid of the grid.

01:29:22 ◼   ► #getridofthegrid. I think that those two things should go hand in hand.

01:29:27 ◼   ► like if you are going to allow for widgets on the home screen, it probably is time to

01:29:33 ◼   ► no longer constrain to the grid system for organization.

01:29:38 ◼   ► If you're going to allow users to have icons and widgets on the home screen, I think anything

01:29:44 ◼   ► should be able to be pinned to the home screen as a rich element. So I'm thinking like folders

01:29:53 ◼   ► from iCloud Drive or specific documents. Like, let me pin that item to the home screen as a shortcut,

01:30:03 ◼   ► not in the sense of a shortcut from Siri shortcuts, but as a thing that I can tap.

01:30:08 ◼   ► And by the way, Siri shortcuts was ironic. No, I think that's just how you say it now.

01:30:13 ◼   ► No, no, no. Okay. From shortcuts, the app. Allow me to have that on the home screen as

01:30:20 ◼   ► as a thing that reopens that folder or document

01:30:23 ◼   ► in the Files app or maybe in Quick Look, right?

01:30:25 ◼   ► And also, you have shortcuts from the Shortcuts app.

01:30:29 ◼   ► Right now, you can add them to the home screen,

01:30:32 ◼   ► and it's better than before in that installing the icon

01:30:35 ◼   ► is done natively from the Shortcuts app,

01:30:38 ◼   ► and when you tap on the icon on the home screen,

01:30:40 ◼   ► it launches shortcuts directly.

01:30:42 ◼   ► It's much faster and more reliable than before,

01:30:45 ◼   ► but still, I can't help but imagine a system

01:30:49 ◼   ► where you add a shortcut to the home screen,

01:30:52 ◼   ► and when you run it, it's not just an icon,

01:30:54 ◼   ► it's this rich element.

01:30:55 ◼   ► You can call it a widget, you can call it something else,

01:30:58 ◼   ► but it's this rich element that shows you progress,

01:31:01 ◼   ► that runs inside the home screen,

01:31:03 ◼   ► and maybe even shows you interaction.

01:31:06 ◼   ► Like if you have a shortcut that shows you a list,

01:31:08 ◼   ► maybe that thing actually runs inside the home screen,

01:31:12 ◼   ► never launches the shortcuts app,

01:31:15 ◼   ► and shows you a list on the home screen

01:31:17 ◼   ► and lets you interact with it, right?

01:31:19 ◼   ► It's like imagining that this system would kind of let you poke holes into

01:31:24 ◼   ► applications a little bit more, right?

01:31:26 ◼   ► Yeah. Yeah. And allow you to have like these interfaces,

01:31:31 ◼   ► like live interfaces and like actually that you can

01:31:36 ◼   ► interact with on the home screen.

01:31:38 ◼   ► Basically, the idea would be you can get more things done on the home screen

01:31:42 ◼   ► without having to always do the dance of go to the home screen, tap something,

01:31:47 ◼   ► launches an app and then you got to go back again.

01:31:50 ◼   ► And that kind of living home screen would work really really well on the

01:31:55 ◼   ► iPad. It reminds me of like status board, panic status board, where you

01:32:01 ◼   ► could have just stuff happening on the home screen without needing to do

01:32:07 ◼   ► anything. You can see things, you can see animations, that kind of stuff.

01:32:11 ◼   ► That would be very nice.

01:32:14 ◼   ► I don't know. Maybe we're asking for too much, but I think if you're gonna rethink the home screen, how are you gonna rethink it, right?

01:32:23 ◼   ► We always see these concepts of like, oh, the home screen is now entirely powered by Siri and it changes during your day.

01:32:31 ◼   ► And I think Apple tried that with like the Siri watch face, for example, to have this dynamic sort of home screen that you don't really set yourself, but that changes depending.

01:32:40 ◼   ► And that stuff never works, right?

01:32:42 ◼   ► right? I think we safe to say that they gave up on the Siri watch face. They gave up on that

01:32:46 ◼   ► It's been a couple of years without essentially without any change. Or like lock screen suggestions

01:32:53 ◼   ► I mean, it's never really went anywhere

01:32:55 ◼   ► Yeah, the other day

01:32:58 ◼   ► I had a serious suggestion for like set a timer for six minutes

01:33:01 ◼   ► And I have no idea where I got that because the pasta that I've been cooking lately always takes ten minutes

01:33:08 ◼   ► So like I appreciate the effort, but like I don't know where this comes from honestly

01:33:12 ◼   ► so I think the the best way to have a

01:33:16 ◼   ► Richer and and more customizable system is a you know

01:33:22 ◼   ► Sometimes the the best answer is the simplest one just make it customizable by users and people are gonna love it

01:33:29 ◼   ► I think if there's anything that people like is to make their home screens their own and sure most people will not care

01:33:36 ◼   ► But I think a lot of other people will will be very happy by I mean

01:33:41 ◼   ► Just take a look at how much people customize their watch faces, right? I

01:33:45 ◼   ► Think it's time to do to go beyond the grid and just the icons and the widgets on one side and have a better system

01:33:52 ◼   ► Yes, it'll be inspired by enjoyed but whatever if it's gonna be better, you know

01:33:57 ◼   ► Android and iOS are copying each other all the time these days. So why not?

01:34:02 ◼   ► I'm excited. I when I use in my Android phone. I like having like my task list just one home screen over right

01:34:09 ◼   ► It's it's very fast, and I've never really found the system that Apple uses to be

01:34:14 ◼   ► Particularly useful. I don't know I like having them there

01:34:18 ◼   ► But they can scroll over especially the iPad with like the top ones are pinned and like they sort of scroll awkwardly down

01:34:23 ◼   ► It could be so much better

01:34:26 ◼   ► This is one of the main things that I would like personally in iOS 14 would be this like

01:34:32 ◼   ► Not really not necessarily reimagining but like an evolution of the home screen and something that we've all wanted for a long time

01:34:40 ◼   ► I think it would be very nice

01:34:42 ◼   ► This you know was saying about maybe not being a lot of things

01:34:46 ◼   ► this obviously would be something that developers would have to work to but in

01:34:51 ◼   ► Maybe this would be the main thing and it could be a big thing right like

01:34:55 ◼   ► organizing the home screen is also, if you want to like biz dev it for a little bit,

01:35:02 ◼   ► it could be important to a lot of companies because it allows you to take up more space

01:35:05 ◼   ► on someone's home screen, right?

01:35:06 ◼   ► Like that could be something, so you are front of mind, as they would say.

01:35:11 ◼   ► So like there are definite benefits to a system like this, so I would love to see it.

01:35:17 ◼   ► I very much would, but we'll see.

01:35:19 ◼   ► I think that does it for this week.

01:35:20 ◼   ► What do y'all think?

01:35:21 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:35:22 ◼   ► I think so.

01:35:23 ◼   ► find links to all this stuff we spoke about head on over to the show notes at

01:35:27 ◼   ► relay.fm/connected/293. While you're there there's lots of activities you can

01:35:33 ◼   ► take part in. You can send us an email with feedback or follow-up. You can

01:35:37 ◼   ► become a member and support connected directly and get a whole bunch of cool

01:35:40 ◼   ► membership perks. You can learn more about those perks at relay.fm/membership.

01:35:45 ◼   ► You can find us all online. Myke is on Twitter as @IMYKE. You can find Federico

01:35:51 ◼   ► on Twitter @VitticiVITICCI and you can find me there as ISMH. I'd like to thank our

01:35:58 ◼   ► sponsors this week, Smile, Squarespace, and Sound Source from Rogue Amoeba. Until

01:36:03 ◼   ► next week gentlemen, say goodbye. Adios echos. Cheerio. Adios.