289: Let Me Remember My Opinion
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Hello and welcome to Connected, Episode 289.
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It's made possible this week by our sponsors Pingdom, Squarespace, and Bull & Branch.
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My name is Stephen Hackett and I'm joined by Mr. Myke Hurley.
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Happy to be here.
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Taking a break from animal crossing.
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Yeah, God, you can make time for us.
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Thank you for putting that down for a minute.
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And Federico Vittucci.
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Happy to be here, taking a break from Pokémon.
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See you, Steven.
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And writing.
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I've also been writing, but really, I was just playing Pokémon ten minutes ago.
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We're going to talk about your recent writing here in a minute, but we have to begin with
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when we talked about this, but at some point we did this thing where we had to find, or
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I had to find, like the oldest pages on Apple's website. Do you all remember this?
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It's when we, for some reason, came across the trailers page.
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That's right. Yes, and I emailed with Eddy Cue.
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Who sent me the emoticon smiley faces? That's a very surreal situation.
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But it wasn't actually Eddy Cue.
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We don't know that.
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Somebody at Apple did send you that. We can't.
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We all decided that it was Eric.
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We believe it to be, of course, but we can't say it's fact.
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Anyways, Benjamin Mayo found this page that has a discount going.
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So if you buy any Power Mac G5, any and a 23 inch cinema display,
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you'll save five hundred dollars.
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So that's a pretty good deal.
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This page is incredibly broken in like every conceivable way,
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but still exists on Apple.com.
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Like there's still some stuff here like that you can click to other things.
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copyright 2004 this page. Can I read you all the navigation at the top? There's no
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images but I can read you what the URLs are. Well let's see if it's a bunch of
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question marks. Yeah but the links are still there. Oh yeah the links work okay.
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So it's Apple.com to the homepage and then the store. Okay. And then iTunes and
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then iTunes. What is iTunes? It was iCloud but before that it was MobileMe but
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before that it was .Mac it was iTunes. When you click that link it directs to
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to me.com and then to iCloud.com. It's like, what?
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- iCloud, nice.
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- I'll have a link in the show notes.
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I wrote about iTunes a couple of years ago,
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so you can go check that out.
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And then we move on from there.
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We have QuickTime, Support, and Mac OS X.
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- I clicked the iTunes one and the marketing thing
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on the top of the iTunes page is very clever right now.
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It says iTunes is going places.
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- What it means is podcasts, music, and Apple TV.
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I just thought that that marketing line's good.
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- It means iTunes has been murdered behind the shed.
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- Yeah, I like that somebody wrote that, you know,
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like people aren't really paying attention to it,
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but it's just a thing, I just love it.
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- So now that I see the, you know,
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I'm looking at the footer of the website,
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and I know that, so there's a number
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that you can call 1-800-MY-APPLE,
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which I believe is also the,
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I believe this number still exists, maybe?
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So something, this is totally unrelated,
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but now that I see this number,
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something that I've always sort of like wanted to do
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or wish that somebody on YouTube did.
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And this is totally one of my weird things
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that I'm about to say.
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But I would like somebody to go through a bunch
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of old video game magazines or really old stuff,
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find all these numbers, and call all these numbers
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and see what happens.
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Do you get redirected to somebody else totally random?
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What if you took a number from a video game magazine from,
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I don't know, 1985, right? And try to call it. And what if you try to do that for like
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a hundred different support numbers?
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I think I saw a thing online once and the Nintendo one is still up.
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Yeah. I'm sure I saw somebody like tweeting about that or I saw an article about it that
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like the, the whatever 800 number for Nintendo to get like tips and suggestions on how to
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beat Mario, like you can still call that number. It goes to the support team now, I think,
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which is less.
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Anyway, sometimes I come across really old stuff, like I don't know, an old newspaper
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or an old magazine and I always think, what if I call this number today and be like, hey,
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I found this number in a magazine from 35 years ago.
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Who are you?
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Kyle in the chat room pointed out that you can actually still download the mailing coupon
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for this savings thing.
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It's like a PDF and you've got the whole thing and it looks, you know, you've got a big peacock.
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It's a very appley of the mid 2000s.
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So how did you find out about the Apple Brilliant Savings Program?
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Select one response only.
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World Wide Web Advertising.
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That's the answer.
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Print Advertising.
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In-Store Materials.
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Or Word of Mouth.
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I guess for us it was World Wide Web Advertising.
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But for our listeners it's Word of Mouth.
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If Apple had not offered the Brilliant Savings promotion, which one would you most likely
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Delayed purchasing a Mac?
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Not purchased an Apple Cinema HD display?
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a Windows-based PC, purchase the Mac anyway.
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Purchase the Mac anyways.
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If I buy a Pro Display XDR, could I send this in and get some money back?
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Is it carry-forward?
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You should try it, you know?
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That's a very expensive experiment.
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You should buy it, send it in, and attach a note saying, "Hey, sorry for the 16-year
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delay just trying to get my coupon."
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coupon. Should I get my coupon? I'm in half the tower, it looks kind of the same. I sent
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this to a friend of mine and he responded that I should try to hook up
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one of these displays to my Mac Pro and so that's gonna be my week next week.
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Good! I'll report back. Look I can't go anywhere, I got to do something. Just hook
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up an old display. I don't have the 23 inch though, I have the 17 pseudo display
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so mine's not as big as this but it'll be funny anyways. Oh well that's bad you
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You gotta get it 23 inch then.
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I will not accept anything smaller than 23 inch cinema display.
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These are the displays that you like, right?
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You like the way these look with the acrylic and stuff?
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They look really nice.
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They look really nice.
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I think they do too.
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I think this look has come back around.
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You know, like this being an attractive design, it's like it's circled all the way back round
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and we're back here again, you know?
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Yeah, it looked real old the second they started shipping the aluminum ones.
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Yeah, but now the...
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And now this looks cool.
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Now that like the older aluminum ones look old, right?
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And so like we've come all the way back around again.
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I think Syracuse used one of these until like three months ago.
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I think that was what he was using with his Mac Pro, yeah, it was a cinema display.
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So I will report back on if I can get mine working with my Mac Pro.
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Did they ever blue one of these?
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They had an LCD one before this that was called the...
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I'm looking through Mac Tracker.
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the Apple Studio Display 15 inch and there was a blue one and a graphite one. I'll send
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you a picture of this. It was like super expensive. They didn't sell very many of them. But this
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was the this like clear look. These all look basically the same. Federico, can you catch
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us up on your very interesting music journey? We had a couple pieces of feedback.
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Sure. So a lot of people recommended or actually asked me why didn't you go with this service
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called Roon. That's R-O-O-N. I tried Roon multiple times in the past. It's very popular
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among desktop users. If you have a PC or a Mac, they have a really good desktop app that
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scans your music library and presents you with a different visualization, I guess, of
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your artists. You can get this beautiful layout with high resolution photography, and the
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The app does some really interesting things in sort of surfacing additional information
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for each of your artists. It's really nice looking. The problem is that I don't plan
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on using Rune on the Mac. I don't like the idea of having a primarily desktop-oriented
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service. And my main issue with it is that when I tried Rune on the iPad... So first
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First of all you gotta keep running on the Mac.
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So that's fine, it's just an app that I can leave running in my dock.
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But when I tested it on the iPad and the iPhone, I couldn't get the high resolution output
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to work when used with my Sony Walkman as an external USB DAC.
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So it looks really nice on the desktop and I believe that it does support high resolution
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audio, if you have a Mac and if you have a USB DAC that you want to plug into your Mac,
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this is totally going to work for you. In fact, I recommend it. It's an expensive service.
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It's not cheap. But if you're that type of person, you know, lots of people who have
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like really large, for example, classical music collections or really large like collections
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of jazz albums, I know that it's very popular amongst those users. It's got integration
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with Tidal for high-resolution streaming, it supports a bunch of high-performance network
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players. Really well done, but it's primarily for the desktop, whereas I was looking for
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something that would support high-resolution output on the iPad and potentially also on
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the iPhone, which is what Neutron does and Roon does not on iOS and iPadOS. So that's
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why I tried Rune, but I didn't choose it as my preferred solution. Speaking of
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Rune, speaking of Neutron, we did get at least one email saying that we were
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overly childish in our description of Neutron and other apps that we covered
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last week and I just wanted to say a few things about this. Obviously we, and I don't recall
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the exact words of the email, obviously we did not mean to offend anybody. I feel like
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we may have gotten carried away a little bit. We got a bit silly. We got a bit silly on
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it. Got a bit silly on it. I think we, so there's a few things I want to say. I think
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we could all use some fun these days.
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So that's probably where the spirit of the pent-up comedic aspect came from last week.
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But I also want to say something.
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The email that we got mentioned, it was basically something along the lines of "It was bad behavior
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on your part because these are indie developers and you were making fun of their user interfaces
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and it's not fun because these are indies and we should all support each other.
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I understand the sentiment, right?
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I don't think you can find any other Apple website that loves indie developers more than Mac stories,
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and I'm not bragging, it's just what it is.
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We work alongside indie developers every single day of the week,
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and we've been doing that for the past decade.
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So I don't really feel like I should be lectured about what it means to support indie developers,
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but, and this is something that irks me to an extent, this idea that I should never, and by I, I mean
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me personally as well as other people like, you know, you guys or on other shows, that we should never
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criticize indie developers because they're indies and because we should all support each other by
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default no matter what. I think that is not a good approach. I think in fact that only does a
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this service to indie developers and I'll explain why. If a user interface is ugly,
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I shouldn't have to sugarcoat the truth just because it comes from an indie developer.
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Because I think it's important to keep in mind that the market, the reason why indie developers
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can sell their software is because there's people that are not just part of the Mac Store's team
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that open the App Store and buy apps and use their money to purchase apps and subscriptions and
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in-app purchases and whatever. There's regular people who don't care about whether indie
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developers, they know each other, whether they're friends or not, whether they go to the same
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conferences or not. They absolutely have no idea. They see something, they decide whether it looks
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good enough, whether it's ugly or not, whether it has the functionalities that they're looking for,
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and then they choose with their wallets to spend money or not. So I think I would
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do a disservice to indie developers if I defended them no matter what, just
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because of their indie status. And I think I would do a disservice to my readers
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if I am my listeners, if I never called out something as ugly or not useful
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enough just because it comes from an indie developer. I don't think we should be using
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this sort of this this layer of, you know, let's all love each other, let's all support each other
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to forget about a product's flaws or the features that are missing from a product.
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It's not a mindset that I think works well in 2020. I think maybe there was an argument to be
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made for this sort of approach 10 years ago, but I think the sad and, you know, maybe harsh truth of
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the situation is that the App Store is a huge market and regular people who don't read Mac stories,
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who don't listen to this show, open the App Store and judge your app based on a few screenshots.
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And so last week's segment was very much based on the same premise. I'm just looking for something,
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I open the App Store, I search for what I'm looking for, and here are the results.
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And if I think something is ugly, I should be able to call it out as such.
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Now, maybe we got carried away by that, but the email that we got saying...
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Basically, the accent was, "I'm really disappointed in you all because you make fun of indie developers."
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Well, we didn't make fun of indie developers, we made fun of ugly apps and ugly user interfaces.
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And I think there's, you know, this is something that I wanted to explain because, as I said,
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I have been a supporter of indie developers for the past decade.
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But I also don't think just because somebody says I'm an indie, then I should be, you know,
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I should be ashamed of myself for criticizing their product.
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Does it make sense?
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I agree with you.
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So that was my update for you, Steven.
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Also some follow-up about something else that I...
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Actually this is something that I did get wrong and I apologize, but we got a lot of
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interesting technical details about this.
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So last week we talked about...
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We answered...
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I answered a question about whether it was going to be possible for the new native pointer
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in iPadOS 13.4 to be used for all kinds of games on the iPad. And I said, I don't see why not,
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because all the APIs are there. Now, thanks to friend of the show Steve Chutton-Smith, I got a
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series of messages that explain why it is not possible with the current APIs to have all kinds
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of games on iPad with trackpad integration. And if Steve doesn't mind, I'm gonna go through some
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of these messages that I saved because it was kind enough to send me an explanation a few days ago.
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Basically what he's saying is that a game that uses the mouse for camera input like a first-person
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shooter game or any other kind of first-person game needs to be able to capture the cursor,
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of course, and capturing the cursor means this gets really complicated real fast.
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Basically the the X and Y movements of the cursor
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they come in as relative movements not as like absolute positioning of the cursor on screen and
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You need to be able to capture that relative movement movement to be able to do like a first person perspective, right?
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Otherwise like if you move the cursor too far and you hit the hedge of the screen
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you hit the home indicator for example, and it's totally not gonna work because it's like gonna snap your perspective and it's
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It's not gonna work in the first person
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type of experience. Now, I am doing a terrible job at explaining this
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It's a very technical motivation that you know why these games do not support the cursor
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But basically my understanding as a person who does not know what it means exactly in you know
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because I'm not a game programmer,
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is that only certain types of games are possible right now? Like things where you point-and-click, essentially?
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Like a strategy game or like a puzzle game, like a point-and-click adventure game?
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It's like the view wouldn't be able to lock itself to the movement of the cursor. It can only...
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It can only really take what's... what the result of the movement is as opposed to like the consistent tracking.
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Right, so like the...
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the constant relative tracking of the cursor, that's not possible. But if you
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just move the pointer around and click at an exact position on the screen, that's
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going to work. So I'm thinking like if you have a map for a strategy game or if
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you have like a point-and-click adventure, you move the cursor and you
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click and it works. But if you're playing like, I don't know, let's say that you
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want to play, what's the first person, Call of Duty on your iPad, the constant
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relative tracking of the cursor, so like if you move the mouse then your head
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turns to the left, that's not supported right now, because the API does not
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support that kind of relative tracking. That was my understanding of it. So
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that's too bad, really, because I really think this should be possible. So maybe
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it's going to be part of the API enhancements at WWDC, maybe not, we'll see,
00:18:50
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but I think it should be possible.
00:18:52
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I was sad to hear that.
00:18:54
◼
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- Yeah, they made a lot of changes in six months, right?
00:18:56
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Like cursor support went a long way
00:18:58
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►
in a short period of time.
00:18:59
◼
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There's nothing to say it can't continue
00:19:01
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to keep moving forward.
00:19:02
◼
►
- Yeah, so that was follow-up, Steven.
00:19:04
◼
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We're all done here.
00:19:06
◼
►
- Thank you for providing follow-up this week.
00:19:09
◼
►
And, well, I guess really thanks to Steve John Smith.
00:19:12
◼
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- Thank you, Steve.
00:19:13
◼
►
- Thanks, buddy.
00:19:13
◼
►
This episode of Connected is brought to you
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So Federico is part of your coverage over on MacStories last week of the 10th anniversary
00:20:40
◼
►
of the iPad shipping to customers.
00:20:42
◼
►
You wrote an article that we referenced at the end of the episode last week
00:20:48
◼
►
about your modular iPad.
00:20:50
◼
►
So the many ways in which you use your iPad.
00:20:52
◼
►
I refer to these as teaching hacks personally,
00:20:55
◼
►
because a lot of these things are weird, right?
00:20:59
◼
►
Like in good ways, like we all know.
00:21:01
◼
►
Everyone who listens to this show know all about hashtag kickstands.
00:21:04
◼
►
You've begun the kickstands, kickstand mania.
00:21:06
◼
►
I kind of wanted to just touch on a few areas from this,
00:21:10
◼
►
having looked right over the article, because there's a couple of things that
00:21:13
◼
►
mirror with my setup and things that I wanted to query you on.
00:21:17
◼
►
I think the first is like the iVisor.
00:21:19
◼
►
So like you, I am a big fan still of the Moshi iVisor,
00:21:24
◼
►
which is the matte screen protector that we both have on our iPads.
00:21:28
◼
►
But I did want to note that so when I got my new iPad and set it up,
00:21:33
◼
►
I did recognize how much more vivid and bright the screen is without it.
00:21:39
◼
►
but I do still prefer it with the screen protector on, if that makes sense.
00:21:44
◼
►
Like I prefer the matte look because I don't like to have the reflections
00:21:47
◼
►
and it looks nicer, but the screen is like, quote unquote, better without it. Right.
00:21:53
◼
►
Yeah, it's you do get some, you know, some image quality loss.
00:21:59
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►
But I think it's. Mm hmm.
00:22:01
◼
►
I thought that the Paperlike
00:22:03
◼
►
was doing worse in this regard.
00:22:07
◼
►
Paperlike is definitely worse.
00:22:09
◼
►
The quality loss with the iVizer is not as bad as the Paperlike.
00:22:13
◼
►
I do see, of course, like when I use an iPad without the screen protector,
00:22:18
◼
►
I do see that the screen is much brighter and like the colors are a bit more vivid.
00:22:22
◼
►
But I think it's a good compromise.
00:22:24
◼
►
Like if I had to choose, like, do you want to use your iPad without a screen protector or the Paperlike?
00:22:30
◼
►
Then I would have said, no, I'm just going to use the iPad without the screen protector.
00:22:35
◼
►
But between the iPad naked with no protector and the MOSHI iVisor, I think, well, if I'm
00:22:44
◼
►
going to get a matte display, I think the image quality loss is not that bad.
00:22:51
◼
►
So it's a compromise that I'm willing to accept.
00:22:54
◼
►
But yes, I agree with you.
00:22:55
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►
Like, when you take it off, you can see that it's brighter and the colors are like, they
00:22:59
◼
►
just pop more.
00:23:00
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►
Yeah, it's just, I've been using it for long enough that when I had the new screen, it
00:23:05
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It was like, "Wow, okay, look at you."
00:23:06
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►
Right, like it was just like, I think it was different.
00:23:09
◼
►
You also talk a lot about your external display.
00:23:12
◼
►
- And I wondered, how often do you actually use
00:23:15
◼
►
the external display?
00:23:16
◼
►
Like on a daily basis, a weekly basis,
00:23:18
◼
►
how much are you using your LG display with your iPad?
00:23:22
◼
►
- Oh, every day, yeah.
00:23:23
◼
►
- Like for most of the time that you're using your iPad
00:23:26
◼
►
- When I'm working, especially since the trackpad came out,
00:23:30
◼
►
the trackpad support came out.
00:23:33
◼
►
When I'm working on the iPad I only work with the external display now.
00:23:37
◼
►
Okay, and I see that's changed a lot since the trackpad support, right?
00:23:40
◼
►
Because it was not a great solution really.
00:23:43
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►
It used to be every once in a while I would work with the external display,
00:23:47
◼
►
but now it's the new default.
00:23:50
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►
And every once in a while I work with just the iPad.
00:23:53
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►
So it's really the opposite of what it used to be.
00:23:56
◼
►
And you showed that you use the ClearLook stand like I do.
00:23:59
◼
►
Why do you choose to use the OG display instead of just using it in the Cluix stand all the time?
00:24:04
◼
►
Sometimes I cannot work in the bedroom because maybe Sylvia is resting or I just want to like
00:24:14
◼
►
a change of scenery or I gotta keep an eye on the dogs or whatever and in that case I use the stand
00:24:20
◼
►
because if I'm working at the kitchen table I want it to be higher you know with the stand.
00:24:27
◼
►
Yeah, but you find the, what is it, the larger screen? Is that why you would use the LG though?
00:24:34
◼
►
Is that why you would prefer to use that?
00:24:36
◼
►
Yeah, also because if I'm in the bedroom I can concentrate a little more.
00:24:41
◼
►
It's easier for me to sort of isolate myself. The screen is also bigger and it's just better
00:24:48
◼
►
for my eyesight in general. Yeah.
00:24:52
◼
►
Cursor support is more than we expected, like that really exploded, like from when it was
00:24:57
◼
►
introduced to what we have now, it's a six month gap, it's so much more than we expected
00:25:02
◼
►
and like, wow, you know, blown away.
00:25:05
◼
►
Do you think that's going to happen for external monitors?
00:25:07
◼
►
Like, do you think there's going to be expanded support?
00:25:11
◼
►
Like is that really going to happen?
00:25:12
◼
►
Yeah, I think so.
00:25:13
◼
►
I think it's going to happen because all the PCs are in place at this point.
00:25:18
◼
►
If you consider, like Apple is the sort of company that likes to introduce new features
00:25:24
◼
►
by, and this is something that I actually write about in the story, they like to introduce
00:25:27
◼
►
new software features based on other existing features that they shipped before.
00:25:34
◼
►
It's sort of like this iterative process of like an API allows developers to ship a new
00:25:43
◼
►
feature and that feature is actually going to be at the foundation of another one next
00:25:48
◼
►
So if you look, for example, at what we have now, we have this pointer integration.
00:25:56
◼
►
So you have a system-wide pointer that you can use to interact with elements, with UI
00:26:02
◼
►
elements, any UI element, without touching the screen.
00:26:05
◼
►
And then we have the UICine API, which is the technology at the foundation of multi-window
00:26:15
◼
►
So it used to be that before iPadOS, apps could only offer a single window, but now
00:26:24
◼
►
a developer can actually support multiple scenes, and each scene can be contained within
00:26:30
◼
►
its own window.
00:26:31
◼
►
So the theory would be that for Apple to support external displays, they would allow the user
00:26:40
◼
►
to say, "Okay, take one window and put it on an external display."
00:26:45
◼
►
And the developer would have the controls to say, well, this scene, this window, still
00:26:50
◼
►
running on the iPad, so offers these kinds of controls, this different scene, so you
00:26:55
◼
►
have that separation right between scenes, this different scene is actually running on
00:27:00
◼
►
an external display, which means I can do things, you know, I can support different
00:27:04
◼
►
interactions because I know a pointer is going to be used.
00:27:07
◼
►
And now you have a pointer that you can move across, you know, between the iPad and an
00:27:12
◼
►
external display.
00:27:13
◼
►
So you have all these technological pieces that can be at the foundation of that functionality.
00:27:19
◼
►
And I really think it's going to happen, because I would have been, like I would have said,
00:27:24
◼
►
if you asked me before 13.4, I would have said, yeah, maybe in the future, you know,
00:27:28
◼
►
maybe in a couple of years, the iPad is going to properly support external displays.
00:27:33
◼
►
But now I think we've seen, you know, besides the things that I've been writing about, we've
00:27:39
◼
►
seen all kinds of setups, you know, if you visit Reddit, the iPad community, or if you
00:27:46
◼
►
know, there's always, you know, that popular article of somebody using the iPad in some
00:27:50
◼
►
interesting ways. I think a lot of iPad Pro users have this kind of setup now, and I think
00:27:55
◼
►
Apple knows, you know, that they're looking at what the community is doing, they pay attention.
00:28:00
◼
►
And considering that all the, you know, now that we have multi-window, it's in there,
00:28:05
◼
►
in place and now we have the system-wide pointer, I think I wouldn't be surprised if it happens
00:28:11
◼
►
this year rather than 2021 or 2022. I think the timeline for that suddenly accelerated
00:28:18
◼
►
a lot because of the pointer. So I think it's going to happen. I'm very optimistic about
00:28:24
◼
►
Yeah, see, I wonder about this feature. Like, I would like it myself because I just always
00:28:28
◼
►
want more. But I just think that, like, I would be intrigued to see, like, if Apple
00:28:33
◼
►
to go down this route, how they sell it to people like is the reason you would want to
00:28:38
◼
►
do it, you know, because I think it's like a maybe a more complicated thing to cohesively
00:28:44
◼
►
explain than trackpad, like cursor support like that is just like, why everyone wants
00:28:50
◼
►
that, you know, like it's like a much easier like, oh, you like trackpads, you're used
00:28:54
◼
►
to trackpads, well then just go ahead and use one.
00:28:58
◼
►
like an external monitor is I think a little bit, it needs a more like kind of cohesive
00:29:04
◼
►
reason to exist for a lot of people and I would be intrigued to see how they would explain
00:29:11
◼
►
it in a way that would make people excited who don't already know why it would be good
00:29:16
◼
►
for them, you know?
00:29:17
◼
►
Well, I feel like in that case, you know, the simplest explanation is just, it's going
00:29:23
◼
►
to be what it is. Like if you have an iPad, you can work on the go when you arrive at
00:29:27
◼
►
home you can dock it in and you can still use it with a trackpad or you can touch the
00:29:33
◼
►
screen and you can put stuff on an external display. I don't think they need to have any
00:29:38
◼
►
fancy narrative for... just like, you know, they did the pointer, right? And of course
00:29:44
◼
►
it's optimized for the iPad and it's different in a bunch of ways from the Mac, but at the
00:29:50
◼
►
end of the day it's still a pointer, you can still control stuff. They did reinvent some
00:29:54
◼
►
of the interactions for the pointer, but it's still a pointer.
00:29:57
◼
►
The trackpad came with a, I mean it's not here yet, but like a whizbang new product,
00:30:04
◼
►
So like if you hadn't been able to conceive of why you would want it, look at this keyboard,
00:30:09
◼
►
look how amazing it looks.
00:30:10
◼
►
And I would love to see Apple debut a new product alongside that, right?
00:30:15
◼
►
Like oh we now have a display that doesn't cost $6,000 and we also have a solution, right,
00:30:23
◼
►
plug it in really easily, you know? Like, I would love that. I don't know if they would
00:30:29
◼
►
do it, but I hope that they would, you know? Like an Apple-made docking solution. It's
00:30:34
◼
►
like something simple, not something wild, right? But just like this mythical dock that's
00:30:39
◼
►
been USB-C, a Thunderbolt dock that's been around forever. I would love them to do something
00:30:46
◼
►
like that to help cohesively tell the story for other people.
00:30:51
◼
►
And also because if Apple did do this, we would all want that anyway.
00:30:57
◼
►
If they were like, "Oh, we've done this," it'd be like, "Okay, I now want a monitor
00:31:01
◼
►
that looks like my iPad display that can easily support my iPad display for resolution, and
00:31:08
◼
►
so I don't have to have these trail of cables all over the place."
00:31:12
◼
►
The only potential issue for not supporting external displays this year, I think the multitasking
00:31:20
◼
►
UI on iPad needs to change to support that sort of additional layer of window management.
00:31:28
◼
►
And I don't know if we're going to see multitasking changes on iPad this year.
00:31:34
◼
►
So that's one of the potential issues with, you know, let's wait until next year before
00:31:39
◼
►
we roll out support for external displays because I don't think the
00:31:43
◼
►
current system, the current UI is going to scale to that type of interaction.
00:31:49
◼
►
Has your shift to using your iPad in a more desktop like environment, has that made
00:31:53
◼
►
you reconsider the size iPad you have? You've got the 12.9 but would you
00:31:57
◼
►
consider a smaller one if your primary use now is this?
00:32:00
◼
►
No, I've seen that article on the
00:32:01
◼
►
sweet setup about, you know, now that we have track pads, let's all... no it's a
00:32:08
◼
►
perspective that I get. No, it's good. I just love the way you say "I've seen these people
00:32:13
◼
►
and their iPads." I mention this because like how Ryan was like "Hey, this article from
00:32:19
◼
►
the sweet setup is making me reconsider the 11-inch iPad Pro now that I can use a trackpad."
00:32:25
◼
►
And I strongly disagree with that notion because I always want the biggest iPad possible. Like
00:32:30
◼
►
yes, I know that I'm going to have a big UI and a big screen on an external monitor, but
00:32:36
◼
►
That's the whole point of my setup, is that when I just take the iPad and leave, it's
00:32:41
◼
►
still big enough for me to work in a comfortable way.
00:32:45
◼
►
Because I, like, the basic truth of the matter does not change.
00:32:49
◼
►
I don't want to be stuck at a desk forever.
00:32:51
◼
►
I just want to have the option.
00:32:53
◼
►
And that's why the article is called "Modular," because it supports, like, different modes
00:32:58
◼
►
and has this sort of modularity built in.
00:33:01
◼
►
Like, you add a display?
00:33:03
◼
►
You add a keyboard?
00:33:05
◼
►
or it's still an iPad.
00:33:07
◼
►
And because I wanna make sure that I can still use it
00:33:10
◼
►
as an iPad, for me, that means having
00:33:13
◼
►
the biggest iPad possible, because I need to see,
00:33:16
◼
►
you know, my big windows and my big text,
00:33:19
◼
►
because I'm an old person now, and my eyesight is bad.
00:33:23
◼
►
- And you love your big windows.
00:33:24
◼
►
- I love my big windows, right?
00:33:27
◼
►
I get the sentiment, I know that a bunch of people
00:33:29
◼
►
will now follow that advice, but it does not apply to me.
00:33:34
◼
►
I still think that's the best iPad 11 for most people.
00:33:37
◼
►
It still is the best iPad for most people.
00:33:39
◼
►
I just say I prefer to use on a daily basis to 12.9,
00:33:45
◼
►
but you've got to have a reason, I think.
00:33:47
◼
►
You've got to know.
00:33:49
◼
►
I always say this to people.
00:33:50
◼
►
I don't know if you agree, Federico,
00:33:52
◼
►
but you know if you want the big one.
00:33:55
◼
►
If you don't know you want the big one, then get the small one.
00:33:57
◼
►
It's good advice.
00:33:59
◼
►
I think it's pretty simple,
00:34:01
◼
►
because they're not that different in size anymore,
00:34:04
◼
►
but they feel very different.
00:34:06
◼
►
If you're asking whether you should get the 12.9,
00:34:10
◼
►
that means you should buy the 11.
00:34:11
◼
►
Hey, that's good.
00:34:13
◼
►
I like that.
00:34:13
◼
►
That's even better than the way I say it.
00:34:15
◼
►
I might steal that.
00:34:16
◼
►
And plus, these things might get even heavier
00:34:18
◼
►
when we start putting these keyboards on them, right?
00:34:20
◼
►
Thanks, Amazon.
00:34:21
◼
►
That's the thing, isn't it?
00:34:22
◼
►
This is what I heard now.
00:34:23
◼
►
Yeah, so let me talk through this.
00:34:25
◼
►
So Amazon has the Magic Keyboard for the iPad Pro
00:34:28
◼
►
available for pre-order.
00:34:30
◼
►
Yeah, who knows how or why that's that's possible. Apparently, it's been up for several days,
00:34:34
◼
►
and a bunch of people just noticed it last night. And Federico, you pointed out that
00:34:40
◼
►
these product pages had the weight for the new keyboards. There's a lot of questions
00:34:45
◼
►
in this but the the pages state for the 11 inch 1.81 pounds or 822 grams, and then 2.41
00:34:54
◼
►
or 1093 grams for the 12.9 inch model. It is unknown if that includes the weight of
00:35:00
◼
►
the iPad, it includes the weight of the box, like everyone has their own...
00:35:05
◼
►
It definitely doesn't include the weight of the iPad. That is a wild theory.
00:35:09
◼
►
I don't think it does until I actually did the math and if you include the iPad then
00:35:14
◼
►
it's about the same step up in weight we saw from the old smart keyboards to the current
00:35:20
◼
►
It's like, who knows? It could be. Who knows? It could be. That doesn't make any sense to me though.
00:35:27
◼
►
Like, why? It's more likely to include, I mean, Amazon is a logistics company, like,
00:35:31
◼
►
what they have is the weight of the keyboard in a box. Sure, and in that case, it's hard to nail
00:35:37
◼
►
down what these would weigh unless you had those boxes on hand. Anyways, the exact numbers
00:35:42
◼
►
aren't important. I was either going to read an hour of the news, or I was going to spend an hour
00:35:46
◼
►
we're like doing math about grams. It's like I'm gonna do math about grams to talk about iPad keyboard cases
00:35:51
◼
►
So part of it is a fun distraction
00:35:52
◼
►
But there's no doubt that these things are going to be heavier and what's so interesting to me is Apple has not
00:35:59
◼
►
Told anyone what the weights are like including press who have asked like no word whether it's you know
00:36:05
◼
►
These numbers that are in this article that I wrote or some other numbers
00:36:08
◼
►
I think it's safe to say it's going to increase and I just wonder especially on the 12.9
00:36:13
◼
►
its model like you're gonna be in MacBook Pro territory real quick with
00:36:17
◼
►
the weight and I don't think that's a big deal but I just think it's really
00:36:20
◼
►
interesting that we just don't know for something that's going to be coming out
00:36:23
◼
►
you know in three to six weeks. My if I was gonna like put my money on the table
00:36:29
◼
►
I would say that these keyboards will weigh very close to the weight of their
00:36:33
◼
►
respective iPads. So you would effectively be doubling yeah and the
00:36:39
◼
►
the iPads now they those weights are I thought I've read it in the article
00:36:46
◼
►
maybe I didn't those weights are on the website though and it's um doubling it
00:36:49
◼
►
seems fair to me I think when you go over that line it's like whoa yeah so
00:36:54
◼
►
like the 12.9 is 641 grams okay and the 11 inch is 471 grams I think it'll be
00:37:07
◼
►
close. I think a lot of people and this is being said in the chat room and it
00:37:10
◼
►
goes to your point earlier about like a docking station they're gonna be I think
00:37:14
◼
►
a lot of people that maybe just use this on their desk because of the way if it
00:37:18
◼
►
does work the way that video shows and we have like a two second clip like if
00:37:21
◼
►
it really stays in place when you take the iPad off of it like yeah like you
00:37:25
◼
►
could totally see how it's just on your desk and then when you go somewhere you
00:37:28
◼
►
just slip it in your bag and leave the keyboard behind so who knows it's got to
00:37:32
◼
►
have some amount of weight so that's all possible but it's just it was just like
00:37:37
◼
►
an interesting detail that Amazon shared it's like we don't really know what it
00:37:40
◼
►
means this is what it could mean it's a fun way to spend an evening I think what
00:37:44
◼
►
we know like what this has shown us is what we already knew which is these
00:37:47
◼
►
things are heavy yes and they're heavier than the smart keyboards yeah which you
00:37:51
◼
►
know we knew that but now well we assumed it right because physics and
00:37:56
◼
►
stuff but you know we now have an idea that it is gonna be that way but I just
00:38:01
◼
►
I just think, like, so, I don't think,
00:38:03
◼
►
I think this thing will be heavy.
00:38:04
◼
►
I think it has to be heavy to allow for the balance, right?
00:38:09
◼
►
Because you don't want this whole thing
00:38:11
◼
►
to topple over on its back every time you touch the screen.
00:38:14
◼
►
And I don't think it's a problem
00:38:16
◼
►
because it will be about the weight
00:38:18
◼
►
of like a laptop at that point,
00:38:19
◼
►
which I think is perfectly fine,
00:38:21
◼
►
because that's its use case, you know?
00:38:23
◼
►
Like, you use it like you would use a laptop.
00:38:26
◼
►
And at that point, it doesn't matter
00:38:27
◼
►
that it's the weight of a laptop.
00:38:29
◼
►
And also, in the same vein of like,
00:38:30
◼
►
If you are able to do what Apple have shown, which is that you can just pick this thing
00:38:35
◼
►
up, it can't weigh a ton less than the thing that it's detaching from, because otherwise
00:38:43
◼
►
the force that you apply to the iPad, you just pick it up every time.
00:38:46
◼
►
So it has to have some heft to it.
00:38:49
◼
►
Yeah, I think so.
00:38:51
◼
►
So we'll know soon enough, I guess, right?
00:38:53
◼
►
It's going to be coming in May at some point.
00:38:56
◼
►
May 30th, it's coming at the end of the month.
00:39:00
◼
►
My question here is just how much will these things be back ordered when they eventually
00:39:07
◼
►
come out and...
00:39:08
◼
►
It's gonna be a nightmare.
00:39:11
◼
►
And how long will I have to wait before I get from the Italian Apple store a Magic Keyboard
00:39:18
◼
►
in the US English layout?
00:39:21
◼
►
Because that's what I gotta do.
00:39:23
◼
►
It's gonna be a long time.
00:39:25
◼
►
I'm gonna get it next year for sure.
00:39:30
◼
►
These things are going to be difficult. These things are going to be difficult, right?
00:39:35
◼
►
Like, you know, my hope would be that they decided to just go for May so it wouldn't be, right?
00:39:42
◼
►
So like that will be like pretty available, but I don't think that's the case. I think that this is gonna be a pretty
00:39:48
◼
►
constrained product.
00:39:50
◼
►
Like every other product before it.
00:39:53
◼
►
John Voorhees is gonna be shipping you one.
00:39:55
◼
►
That's what's gonna happen.
00:39:57
◼
►
Well, he cannot leave the house, so I don't wanna...
00:40:00
◼
►
Well, he drove through a snowstorm once before, right? Like the man will go to Wild Lakes
00:40:06
◼
►
Yeah, but also, I would feel really bad about, you know, tasking John with leaving the house
00:40:11
◼
►
right now just to ship me a Magic Keyboard. But I mean, it's...
00:40:15
◼
►
So we have learnt the limit. So, pandemic, no. Blizzard, yes.
00:40:20
◼
►
Oh, Blizzard's fine. The man who lives in Chicago is used to it.
00:40:26
◼
►
Pandemic though, it's a hard one. I gotta think about it.
00:40:30
◼
►
It's a hard compare, it's a tough compare for you that one.
00:40:32
◼
►
Probably global pandemic is where I draw the line, but I'm not totally sure at this point.
00:40:37
◼
►
It's a good place to draw a line, like you know, it's good to have lines drawn.
00:40:42
◼
►
I mean what's more extreme? If this isn't it, where is the line?
00:40:45
◼
►
Well, you know, maybe next month the situation is gonna be better and you know,
00:40:53
◼
►
way you can put on a mask, a bunch of gloves and protective gear.
00:40:59
◼
►
And go to the…
00:41:00
◼
►
A bunch of gloves.
00:41:01
◼
►
Bunch of gloves.
00:41:02
◼
►
Yeah, you want multiple gloves.
00:41:05
◼
►
And go to the UPS store for me.
00:41:07
◼
►
But no, I'm just going to order from the Italian Apple store.
00:41:14
◼
►
And worst case scenario, I'm going to order two, one with the Italian layout, which I
00:41:18
◼
►
I guess it's going to be, you know, the stock for that in Italy is going to be easier to
00:41:23
◼
►
manage and then I will just wait for the US English one because I know that ordering like
00:41:27
◼
►
international layouts from the Italian Apple store always has a longer shipping time. So
00:41:34
◼
►
it's fine. I'll probably order two of them and draw the line a global pandemic in regards
00:41:39
◼
►
to John Voorhees.
00:41:41
◼
►
I have a funny, it's not like haha, but like a weird little thing that I realized when
00:41:46
◼
►
I got my new iPad, that I have been using my iPad's keyboard in the American keyboard
00:41:56
◼
►
layout for I don't know how long.
00:41:58
◼
►
Because I realised when I set up my new iPad, I was like, "Oh, it's the actual return key."
00:42:05
◼
►
Like the one that I'm used to.
00:42:07
◼
►
And I have no idea how long I had been using it otherwise or why, but that's the thing
00:42:13
◼
►
that's happened to me.
00:42:15
◼
►
So now my keyboard is a little bit different than it was before and it's very confusing
00:42:20
◼
►
and refreshing at the same time.
00:42:22
◼
►
It's very strange.
00:42:25
◼
►
And I assume there must have been some reason, some accessory or something that made me do
00:42:29
◼
►
it because I remember the smart keyboard, I had it in American layout because it was
00:42:34
◼
►
all you could get and I bet I said it then, when I got the original smart keyboard and
00:42:39
◼
►
how many ever iPads ago that was, and I set it up and then just left it and then just
00:42:44
◼
►
ignored it because I so infrequently use the software keyboard that I wouldn't even notice
00:42:50
◼
►
Yeah, this is one of the only instances where I have to agree with Casey Lee's American
00:42:56
◼
►
exceptionalism angle. It is really a great layout, the US English one.
00:43:03
◼
►
The British English layout is great, and we have the extra size on that return key. Big
00:43:08
◼
►
chunky return key. I love my big return key.
00:43:10
◼
►
Yeah, but I do prefer the American one. In this case, I do prefer the American one.
00:43:14
◼
►
Have you used the British layout?
00:43:15
◼
►
I have, and I believe that in addition to the return key there was also another difference
00:43:21
◼
►
Why don't we do the outbreak and I'm gonna confirm real quick because I believe that
00:43:26
◼
►
I had an opinion, but I have forgotten that opinion.
00:43:31
◼
►
I just need to...
00:43:32
◼
►
One of the great things about the British layout is we have like just a key that you
00:43:36
◼
►
press to get the pound symbol, the hashtag symbol.
00:43:38
◼
►
We don't have to do some weird thing to the number three.
00:43:40
◼
►
Let me remember my opinion and I will confirm it to you again.
00:43:46
◼
►
This episode of Connected is brought to you by Squarespace.
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Doing that sort of like, hey, I'm going to slide in from the bottom with some text that
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can be kind of janky on other platforms and a Squarespace it was just super easy to do
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00:45:31
◼
►
So I believe I was of the opinion that the
00:45:35
◼
►
US English keyboard layout was
00:45:39
◼
►
preferable, personally speaking, to the UK one,
00:45:43
◼
►
because due to the smaller shape of the return key,
00:45:47
◼
►
the US layout has a backslash
00:45:51
◼
►
key next to the square brackets, which I found useful
00:45:55
◼
►
for writing code on my iPad, for escaping things in JavaScript.
00:46:00
◼
►
So that's why. There's a backslash and a pipe character next to the square brackets and curly brackets
00:46:06
◼
►
on the right side of the keyboard.
00:46:08
◼
►
Right, but there's a backslash key on the left hand side.
00:46:11
◼
►
Well, I guess it depends on the keyboard. Alright, fine.
00:46:13
◼
►
That was why. And I thought, especially with curly brackets and square brackets,
00:46:17
◼
►
it was handy to have the backslash in there.
00:46:20
◼
►
I mean, on a lot of keyboards though, there's a backslash on the left hand side
00:46:24
◼
►
next to the left shift and the left shift is smaller. I don't know how Apple's software
00:46:28
◼
►
keyboard does it off the top of my head. But there is a backslash key.
00:46:32
◼
►
I know that there is one but I just prefer the like I just liked it better. Like it's one of
00:46:38
◼
►
the few things that I like better like about America. I don't like this. That's certainly
00:46:43
◼
►
what I think about. Let's move on though. Underscore David Smith has a new app called
00:46:47
◼
►
WatchSmith. Federica do you want to explain what this app does? Sure, you can watch David. It's a
00:46:53
◼
►
live stream app. It's called WatchSmith. It's a live cam. It's called... Like how you get
00:46:59
◼
►
those animal zoo cams? Yeah. It's like, you want to watch how developers work in the wild.
00:47:04
◼
►
It's like, oh, he's eating. Oh, so cute. He's sleeping under the tree. It's literally in
00:47:09
◼
►
the name. You watch Smith. Oh, he's got two Apple watches on and he's walking around in
00:47:14
◼
►
circles. Yeah. And especially during this global pandemic time, we could all use, you
00:47:19
◼
►
you know, tune in and watch Smith do his things.
00:47:24
◼
►
- You feel like you're working with him.
00:47:25
◼
►
- It really brings you closer to the, you know,
00:47:27
◼
►
to the life of an indie developer.
00:47:30
◼
►
- Hey, you guys know what the most popular webcam is
00:47:33
◼
►
for zoos right now?
00:47:34
◼
►
The pandadymic camera.
00:47:37
◼
►
- Oh my God.
00:47:41
◼
►
- Get out of here.
00:47:43
◼
►
- So we have another sponsor for this episode.
00:47:47
◼
►
I could probably wrap it up here. My thanks go to, let's see, Ball and Branch. Thank you.
00:47:57
◼
►
I'm afraid Steven ruined the show. The chatroom is very upset with me.
00:48:03
◼
►
Everyone's upset with you. You gotta understand, Steven. He's a father
00:48:07
◼
►
and he feels compelled to share this. Yeah.
00:48:11
◼
►
Oh, God. I actually feel, like, not good now.
00:48:15
◼
►
Yeah, the humor is just so overwhelming to you.
00:48:19
◼
►
Watch Smith, tell us about this magic.
00:48:21
◼
►
I believe this used to be called, you know, when David was talking about this idea with
00:48:26
◼
►
his close friends, Project Geneva.
00:48:28
◼
►
He also mentioned that on podcasts.
00:48:31
◼
►
So the idea behind Watch Smith, which is the official name, is now out on the App Store,
00:48:35
◼
►
is it's a utility that lets you design your own Apple Watch complications.
00:48:41
◼
►
So you can choose from different types of complications.
00:48:45
◼
►
I believe 37 types of complications are supported across different watch faces.
00:48:53
◼
►
So not all watch faces are supported at the moment, but there's a really great selection
00:48:57
◼
►
of options like for the Infograph and the Infograph Modular, the X-ray watch face.
00:49:05
◼
►
There's some choice in there.
00:49:07
◼
►
And you can create your own custom complications choosing from different types of complications.
00:49:12
◼
►
So like the small circle ones, or the ones that go in an angle of the display, the big
00:49:19
◼
►
for example in the Infograph Modular Phase you can create the big middle one.
00:49:26
◼
►
And what you can do, so this is like a design, in a way it's like a design app in that you
00:49:32
◼
►
You can go in there and choose your watch face and choose your complication and design
00:49:37
◼
►
it yourself.
00:49:38
◼
►
So you choose the type of complication, you choose the data source, like do you want this
00:49:42
◼
►
to be a date complication or do you want this to be a weather complication or should it
00:49:47
◼
►
be about your activity or about your calendar.
00:49:53
◼
►
And then you can choose the font and then you can choose the style and then you can
00:49:56
◼
►
choose the color.
00:49:58
◼
►
So you actually do create your own custom complications, choosing from a set of supported
00:50:05
◼
►
types, choosing from a set of data sources.
00:50:08
◼
►
You put it all together, you save it, then you go to the watch app, the Apple watch app
00:50:16
◼
►
to customize your watch, and you choose your watch face and you select WatchSmith and there
00:50:21
◼
►
you go, you have your custom complication installed.
00:50:24
◼
►
It is really incredible, I think, what David has been able to do here. But in addition
00:50:29
◼
►
to the customization of the whole thing, like, again, multiple fonts, multiple colors, multiple
00:50:35
◼
►
data sources, multiple layouts, the really impressive part is that WatchSmith also supports
00:50:43
◼
►
scheduling complications for different times of the day. So this is an API that I believe
00:50:49
◼
►
Apple launched a couple of years ago and it used to be limited to like cards in the Siri
00:50:55
◼
►
watch phase, like you could show different cards at different times of the day.
00:50:59
◼
►
Then last year I think developer Aaron Pierce was first to do this sort of feature with
00:51:06
◼
►
HomeRun, which is a HomeKit utility for the watch that lets you show different HomeKit
00:51:11
◼
►
complications at different times of the day.
00:51:14
◼
►
The idea being that maybe in the morning you want to turn on your coffee, your special
00:51:19
◼
►
machine, and maybe in the evening you want to have a button to turn off your lights.
00:51:23
◼
►
This is a similar idea, but done in a much more extensive way in WatchSmith.
00:51:28
◼
►
You can schedule up to... how many hours in a day?
00:51:34
◼
►
So I guess you can schedule 24 complications in WatchSmith.
00:51:37
◼
►
Each can take up to an entire hour block.
00:51:43
◼
►
There's an analog clock UI that actually lets you see from 1pm to 2pm show this complication.
00:51:51
◼
►
At 2pm until 6pm, it automatically cycles to this other complication.
00:51:57
◼
►
And it can actually manage all the complications that you want to see appear on your watch
00:52:02
◼
►
face automatically without you having to change them at different times of the day.
00:52:07
◼
►
It is very clever.
00:52:08
◼
►
Very clever.
00:52:09
◼
►
How do you guys feel about it?
00:52:10
◼
►
I'm very impressed by what David did here.
00:52:13
◼
►
So I think that, can I just talk about this as like a watch fan?
00:52:17
◼
►
Because this is what I like about this application.
00:52:20
◼
►
So I've been talking with Dave for a while about this because I wanted to give my input
00:52:25
◼
►
on like here are some things that I want.
00:52:27
◼
►
Because the thing that frustrates me about Apple's watch faces is like that I can't customize
00:52:33
◼
►
them the way that I want to for visual reasons, right?
00:52:38
◼
►
I don't necessarily want all of the computer stuff my watch can do.
00:52:43
◼
►
Like I don't, I don't really want my calendar on my watch face.
00:52:47
◼
►
Neither do I want my to do out there anymore.
00:52:50
◼
►
I just don't want that sort of stuff anymore on my watch.
00:52:53
◼
►
I will go into the apps or get notifications if I'm wearing the watch for this stuff.
00:52:58
◼
►
But what I do want more of is smart things that my watch can do
00:53:03
◼
►
because it's connected to the Internet.
00:53:05
◼
►
and this is what WatchSmith allows me to have. So when I'm using WatchSmith, I use one of the
00:53:11
◼
►
watch faces, I either use California or there's another one that I don't remember the name of,
00:53:19
◼
►
but it's like one of the more simple ones and it has two spots or Meridian I think it's called,
00:53:24
◼
►
right? It has like three spots on it or something. But the ones that I like, I like to have the day
00:53:30
◼
►
of the week indicator where it's just like the abbreviations for each day in a
00:53:36
◼
►
little circle and it just points to which one it is I just think it's really
00:53:39
◼
►
pretty plus I like that you can choose not only the font but what the little
00:53:44
◼
►
indicator looks like like the little hand which points you can choose what
00:53:48
◼
►
you want it to look like which I like because it's the visual stuff that I
00:53:51
◼
►
want but I also just I really like the like the moon phase ones right so you
00:53:57
◼
►
you can choose, I want to get the actual name of it because I asked specifically for this
00:54:02
◼
►
one and I don't want to get the name wrong. It is called Classic Moonphase. So this is
00:54:09
◼
►
the idea of like through a day you can see the moon rise and go down again. You see this
00:54:15
◼
►
sort of stuff a lot on traditional watches and I wanted that on the Apple Watch and I
00:54:21
◼
►
couldn't find any way to get it. But they've made it and put it in this app and I think
00:54:25
◼
►
great that I can have these more traditional watch elements on my Apple watch for visual stuff,
00:54:32
◼
►
as well as being able to have smarter things like much nicer complication designs for temperature
00:54:39
◼
►
things or to be able to have a battery indicator if I want, which is a number, but I can choose
00:54:45
◼
►
the color and the font for it. I like that I can do that because it's enabling me to do something
00:54:50
◼
►
which I like, which is to choose a watch, right, when I'm choosing real watches,
00:54:55
◼
►
that fit my design tastes, right, but then can also be changed like a computer watch should be
00:55:04
◼
►
able to be changed. Like it allows for more configuration but without sacrificing design.
00:55:10
◼
►
Like the app itself, as Federico was alluding to, it gets complicated because there's lots of
00:55:17
◼
►
options but to get the true personalization that's what you want right like I want to be able to choose
00:55:25
◼
►
the font and the color and what the the actual hand looks like itself so I can get it to look
00:55:33
◼
►
exactly the way that I want. One other thing that Dave does with this app which must have been
00:55:37
◼
►
incredibly difficult to do but I love it because it's something I hate about the Apple Watch
00:55:42
◼
►
It's the complications adjust so you can still see them if the hand is over them.
00:55:50
◼
►
So he moves the UI around with incredibly complicated math and knowing the way that
00:55:55
◼
►
the design of the watch works, right? Like that's the only way you can make this work,
00:55:58
◼
►
which is what Dave did. Because I hate that the Apple Watch, the hands, cover the complications.
00:56:04
◼
►
This shouldn't happen. That is a thing that happens on real watches because it's physical.
00:56:10
◼
►
There are things that Apple does sometimes, which I hate about the Apple Watch design,
00:56:15
◼
►
where they mirror the physical into the digital world when that is not necessary.
00:56:19
◼
►
And so I love that Dave did this because that's the way that all complications should work.
00:56:25
◼
►
So what I like about this app, which is different to what most people like about this app,
00:56:30
◼
►
I like that it bridges traditional watches and the Apple Watch. So when I'm wearing the Apple Watch,
00:56:36
◼
►
I can have it look more like a watch, which is what I want.
00:56:40
◼
►
And then but you can go into many realms and have your calendar
00:56:45
◼
►
there in different ways and all that kind of stuff.
00:56:47
◼
►
And if you're going to do that, I think that there should be an ability
00:56:51
◼
►
which Watch Smith allows to allow you to customize it very heavily
00:56:55
◼
►
because you are wearing it on your wrist.
00:56:57
◼
►
Like I think that this this app really for me.
00:57:02
◼
►
only shows more the fact that Apple has not done enough with customization of the Apple watch
00:57:09
◼
►
because then you do start running things that I find frustrating where it's like I want to use
00:57:14
◼
►
this watch face now but I can only use this type of complication right and I can't use all I can't
00:57:21
◼
►
have multiple complications of the same type on this watch face it's like why why can't I have
00:57:27
◼
►
two of these little circle ones on there oh no because you have to have this circle one and this
00:57:32
◼
►
big circle one. It's like, why Apple? Why is it this way? These are the things that
00:57:38
◼
►
continue to be frustrating to me, and I hope that we see more. But I think that Dave has
00:57:42
◼
►
done a great job. It is also worth noting that _DavidSmith is a close personal friend
00:57:46
◼
►
of all of ours, but this is a very, very good application. So that's what I wanted to say.
00:57:52
◼
►
In the past, if you wanted to mimic this, you could have multiple watch faces set up,
00:57:56
◼
►
right? So if you wanted one with complications for work, like your meetings and your to-do
00:58:01
◼
►
list and then when you got home you just wanted you know sunset time and the
00:58:05
◼
►
weather you could do that but then you were juggling watch faces and what's
00:58:09
◼
►
great about this is that it it means that your watch face can change over the
00:58:14
◼
►
course of a day without you having to fiddle with it or remember and I mean I
00:58:18
◼
►
said this in my blog post and I really mean it I don't think there's anyone
00:58:22
◼
►
outside of Apple who understands watchOS development as much as underscore
00:58:26
◼
►
Like he is pushing this thing way further than most developers are and I think Apple
00:58:32
◼
►
should pay attention to that.
00:58:34
◼
►
And I'm not saying I want my friend's app to be Sherlock's, but boy this stuff should
00:58:38
◼
►
be in the system by this point.
00:58:39
◼
►
I mean the watch is coming up on five years old.
00:58:41
◼
►
It's like we're still stuck with so many of the original assumptions that Apple made about
00:58:46
◼
►
it and it feels stagnant in a lot of areas because of that.
00:58:49
◼
►
Yeah, I also want to cut out some of the details that I really love about WatchSmith.
00:58:54
◼
►
By far my favorite feature is the support for multiple time zones, which is part of
00:58:59
◼
►
the subscription model that we should also mention.
00:59:03
◼
►
You can download WatchSmith for free, but some of the complications, because they're
00:59:06
◼
►
based on data sources that require like that ever, like a server component that require
00:59:13
◼
►
Yeah, a dark sky.
00:59:14
◼
►
Right, the weather is part of that, time zones are also part of that.
00:59:20
◼
►
The app you can subscribe to get all the complication types, $2 a month, so $1.99 a month, or $19.99
00:59:30
◼
►
Right now I'm subscribed monthly, but I'm probably going to switch to annually at some
00:59:36
◼
►
And I did subscribe because of the timezone support.
00:59:39
◼
►
So the idea would be that I can check on multiple timezones at once in the WatchSmith app, but
00:59:45
◼
►
The really impressive part is that I can see multiple time zones at a glance in a complication.
00:59:51
◼
►
So with the Infogram...
00:59:52
◼
►
I believe it's called the Infogram Modular, this one?
00:59:55
◼
►
Yeah, the Infogram Modular.
00:59:57
◼
►
The big complication in the middle of the screen is like a timeline.
01:00:01
◼
►
So I put a timeline that shows me different time zones with their abbreviations.
01:00:09
◼
►
So for example, New York City, Rome, Chicago, and Cupertino are the ones that...
01:00:13
◼
►
I should add London because of Myke as well.
01:00:18
◼
►
I have Rome in all of my things because of you,
01:00:20
◼
►
so I think it's only fair.
01:00:21
◼
►
I will add London as well.
01:00:22
◼
►
So now I see this horizontal timeline
01:00:26
◼
►
of different time zones around the world, which
01:00:27
◼
►
is really, really excellent.
01:00:30
◼
►
But I'm also considering the weather,
01:00:31
◼
►
and I see by following the new WatchSmith app
01:00:37
◼
►
account on Twitter, I see that David has been tweeting
01:00:41
◼
►
about a new weather complication style that's like a boxy graph style, which I really like.
01:00:49
◼
►
So I guess that about sums up my feelings on this. It's going to be so much fun to play
01:00:56
◼
►
around, especially for somebody like me who loves to tweak things and play around with
01:01:01
◼
►
different settings. This is heaven for you because you can choose literally everything
01:01:05
◼
►
about the app. And I'm going to be spending so much time changing fonts and colors and
01:01:10
◼
►
choosing different settings. I saw somewhere, again on Twitter, in a reply to somebody else
01:01:16
◼
►
that David suggested supporting any arbitrary source of JSON data. So like a URL that points
01:01:29
◼
►
you to some data in the JSON format. And I'm more like, my brain is already thinking about
01:01:35
◼
►
all the different things that I could do with like Zapier and like, you know, exposing like
01:01:41
◼
►
custom data over a URL and turning that into a complication in WatchSmith. That would be
01:01:50
◼
►
incredible. So.
01:01:52
◼
►
If I'm going to wear a computer.
01:01:55
◼
►
I want it to be very customizable. That's what I want. Because if I, you know, it's
01:02:00
◼
►
never going to look good as watches that I could choose for the same amount of money.
01:02:03
◼
►
And the reason for that is not that the Apple Watch is ugly, is that there are lots and
01:02:07
◼
►
lots and lots of decisions that you can make about a watch that you want and Apple sells
01:02:12
◼
►
you one style.
01:02:14
◼
►
You can get it in different finishes but it's one physical style which might not necessarily
01:02:19
◼
►
be the style you would choose given the same amount of money to go and buy a watch.
01:02:24
◼
►
So if I'm going to wear this one design, I want it to be the best that a computer watch
01:02:30
◼
►
can be, which is, let me choose everything. Right. And I think that's, this is what David
01:02:37
◼
►
is starting to allow with this application is, is it's very impressive.
01:02:41
◼
►
We have some iOS 14 home screen rumors. I was 14 still floating about there somewhere. So this is
01:02:51
◼
►
on nine to five Mac and comes from a couple of different sources. But we have some home screen
01:02:58
◼
►
Apparent stuff some collection stuff Myke do you want to walk us through this?
01:03:01
◼
►
Yes, so there's been a couple of things going on here
01:03:05
◼
►
Nine to five Mac are reporting on this it came from a third-party source a Twitter user
01:03:12
◼
►
Goes by the name dongle book Pro, which I appreciate but they said that it corroborates information that they had found out so breaking down
01:03:22
◼
►
current existing wallpaper types into collections. So one called classic stripes, one called earth and moon, and one called flowers
01:03:28
◼
►
these are the ones that Apple already make and you know
01:03:31
◼
►
You might imagine that you would want to do that because Apple is potentially looking at third-party packs
01:03:36
◼
►
If you remember that rumor from previously, so if you were to install like
01:03:41
◼
►
Other sources for wallpapers, you might want to have collections already built in so they can plug into that area
01:03:47
◼
►
Apple would also look like that they are going to be expanding to
01:03:51
◼
►
different appearance options so that you could choose just basic colors or basic dynamic
01:03:58
◼
►
wallpapers or smart gradients as an option for the home screen. So you would have to
01:04:03
◼
►
be able to choose just basic colors or I like the idea of a gradient and smart gradient
01:04:09
◼
►
I'm sure would mean would easily move between light and dark mode. That's what I expect
01:04:13
◼
►
that's doing, right? That makes sense to you guys? I guess so, yeah. Right, like I don't
01:04:19
◼
►
know what else would be smart about a gradient. I don't know how smart you can make them.
01:04:26
◼
►
The report goes on to say "We can say that Apple is working to provide real widgets on
01:04:30
◼
►
the iPhone and iPad home screen for the first time. Instead of pinned widgets like on iPad
01:04:34
◼
►
OS 13, the new widgets on iOS 14 could be moved around just like any app icon." So the
01:04:40
◼
►
idea of widgets on the home screen like they are on Android that we've thought about and
01:04:45
◼
►
and spoke about and wanted for a long time.
01:04:47
◼
►
Seems like it may actually be coming to iOS 14,
01:04:50
◼
►
but like any good homescreen,
01:04:53
◼
►
like any good iOS rumor, the report does go on to say,
01:04:56
◼
►
but of course this could be scrapped at any time.
01:04:59
◼
►
I saw a concept floating around by Parker Otellani,
01:05:04
◼
►
showing what this could look like,
01:05:06
◼
►
which, and I like the way this looked,
01:05:08
◼
►
you know, it's kind of like a blending between,
01:05:10
◼
►
basically what Parker has created
01:05:13
◼
►
is a selection of widget designs based on existing widgets
01:05:17
◼
►
that look like they belong on an iPhone home screen
01:05:20
◼
►
because they're basically two or three or four app icons
01:05:24
◼
►
in size just smushed together,
01:05:26
◼
►
which I think this kind of design would work well.
01:05:29
◼
►
This did make me think, I don't know about you guys,
01:05:31
◼
►
I feel like I'm seeing a lot of concepts,
01:05:33
◼
►
more concepts than ever these days.
01:05:35
◼
►
- It's that time of the year and--
01:05:38
◼
►
- Just in general, I mean, maybe UI designers are at home,
01:05:41
◼
►
got a bit of extra time on their hands, you know, people making concepts.
01:05:46
◼
►
And I think it's also much easier than before because we have so many new design tools to
01:05:50
◼
►
actually make a credible replica of an iOS device.
01:05:57
◼
►
I like the idea of widgets, right? Done well, done tastefully, this could be really nice.
01:06:02
◼
►
They should do it. They should do it. They should allow for multiple widget sizes. I
01:06:06
◼
►
believe we've seen this in the Parkers mockups, by the way, are really good. It's not the
01:06:11
◼
►
the first time that I've seen Parker's name in the in 9to5Mac lately. They should support
01:06:18
◼
►
multiple widget sizes, so like a compact layout, an expanded layout. They should also do, I'm
01:06:24
◼
►
gonna you know throw my ideas out there, they should also support live icons similar to
01:06:30
◼
►
the calendar. Is the clock icon by Apple also a live icon? Yeah, so it is. Yeah, it even
01:06:36
◼
►
has the seconds hand like so you can watch seconds ticking. Live icons could be the next
01:06:41
◼
►
customizable icons, so like, you know, another nice new thing for developers to support, and
01:06:46
◼
►
I'm gonna go right ahead and say it. They should do live
01:06:52
◼
►
shortcuts on the home screen.
01:06:54
◼
►
So imagine a shortcut that could have, that is not just a static icon,
01:06:59
◼
►
maybe with a custom glyph that you bought from Mac Stories, but also like an actual live tile
01:07:06
◼
►
that shows you progress, maybe shows you some kind of UI, some kind of
01:07:12
◼
►
confirmation message of sorts. Like imagine instead of just like tapping an icon to open the shortcuts app that runs the shortcut for you,
01:07:20
◼
►
imagine having some kind of like staying on the home screen, first of all, not having to launch the shortcuts app when you run a shortcut,
01:07:27
◼
►
but also to have some kind of visual confirmation of the shortcut in there. And then of course if the shortcut requires
01:07:35
◼
►
interaction, like typing some text or choosing from a list. Maybe
01:07:39
◼
►
it could show you those elements on the home screen or maybe could just take you back to the shortcuts app and that would be
01:07:45
◼
►
fine. But for most shortcuts, I would love the ability to run them as live icons, live tiles, columns, whatever,
01:07:51
◼
►
from the home screen right there without launching shortcuts with some kind of
01:07:56
◼
►
visual aspect to them.
01:07:59
◼
►
That would be really good. I would like that too.
01:08:02
◼
►
Just to make it make things feel a bit more alive like not everything needs to be a widget, right?
01:08:07
◼
►
Like having these live icons that might be enough for a lot of things.
01:08:11
◼
►
Not everything needs a widget.
01:08:12
◼
►
"Let's get weird" is my message to Apple.
01:08:15
◼
►
Do weird things!
01:08:17
◼
►
Do new things!
01:08:18
◼
►
Whatever, it's 2020, there's a global pandemic going on.
01:08:21
◼
►
Get weird because we could all use it.
01:08:23
◼
►
Is this your platform for 2020?
01:08:25
◼
►
Let's get weird.
01:08:26
◼
►
This is my platform.
01:08:28
◼
►
Let's get weird.
01:08:30
◼
►
I think this all started with kickstands.
01:08:32
◼
►
Honestly, can you disagree with my approach?
01:08:38
◼
►
We could all...
01:08:39
◼
►
Federico, I use my iPad with a, you know, a plugged in RGB split keyboard.
01:08:47
◼
►
I'm on board with being with baby.
01:08:49
◼
►
That sounds lovely.
01:08:52
◼
►
Can you say that again?
01:08:53
◼
►
Can you say those words again?
01:08:54
◼
►
I use my iPad in a stand with a keyboard which needs two USB-C cables plugged into a splitter
01:09:02
◼
►
which has RGB cycling lights with the keyboard physically splitting off.
01:09:07
◼
►
Did you hear that, Steven?
01:09:08
◼
►
Can you do the stuff with your Macintosh's?
01:09:11
◼
►
I bet you can't.
01:09:12
◼
►
Macintosh's.
01:09:14
◼
►
If they add widgets to the home screen, I totally think they should.
01:09:17
◼
►
Would they get rid of the row of widgets in the TodayView?
01:09:21
◼
►
these kind of become one thing you think or would they keep like you put widgets
01:09:25
◼
►
you need on the home screen like secondary widgets still over there on
01:09:27
◼
►
the side? There could be a page on the side but I think the system to design
01:09:32
◼
►
and create widgets the old one should be scrapped and and actually release a new
01:09:37
◼
►
framework. I think I would want them in both places personally. Same but I
01:09:43
◼
►
think the technology developers used to make them should be a new one because
01:09:48
◼
►
the old widget system is limited in a bunch of weird ways.
01:09:51
◼
►
It's so old now.
01:09:52
◼
►
It's so old, there have always been layout problems, like when you expand a widget from
01:09:58
◼
►
the compact layout to the expanded one, some weird stuff always happens. And not the good
01:10:04
◼
►
weird, the bad weird. They do not support keyboard input, for example, whereas I think
01:10:12
◼
►
it should really be a more flexible system and also the UI that you can show in there
01:10:18
◼
►
is super limited.
01:10:19
◼
►
It should be a new one, you should have the option of choosing like is this... like the
01:10:24
◼
►
idea of like widget, an icon, maybe it's an old one, maybe everything should become a
01:10:30
◼
►
new, more dynamic sort of thing.
01:10:32
◼
►
And I don't mean that I want like all my icons to move, like, you know, flash different images
01:10:40
◼
►
all at once, but you have a more dynamic system for some things. I don't know, like an Apple
01:10:47
◼
►
Music widget. That would be beautiful. And yes, I'm fully aware that this is stuff that
01:10:51
◼
►
Android has done for a while. I just want the same, maybe a little more, done in an
01:10:57
◼
►
Apple fashion. That's what I'm asking for.
01:11:00
◼
►
Android has been doing this for 10 years. 10 years we've been asking for it. Come on,
01:11:06
◼
►
If you if you overdo it though, your phone is looking like the Las Vegas strip, right?
01:11:10
◼
►
Like there's...
01:11:11
◼
►
See, I know.
01:11:12
◼
►
I know you were going to say that.
01:11:14
◼
►
I don't want that, obviously.
01:11:16
◼
►
But yeah, you know, moderation, everything in moderation.
01:11:21
◼
►
Customize responsibly.
01:11:24
◼
►
As promised, we're going to wrap up with the MacManna stuff talking about the winner and
01:11:28
◼
►
I have made my picks.
01:11:31
◼
►
But before we get to that, let me tell you about our final sponsor.
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You know, I want them there all the time.
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That means they will get softer over time so Myke when they end up back on the bed they'll
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promo code connected. Our thanks to bowl and branch for the support of the show
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and Relay FM. Before we talk about the last topic I have a quick request for
01:13:15
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connected listeners. I want to understand why people love Notion so much. Oh no,
01:13:23
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- Oh, what are you doing to yourself?
01:13:26
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Have you heard the good news about Notion?
01:13:28
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- No, I have not.
01:13:29
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- You're gonna hear it.
01:13:32
◼
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- So here's my request.
01:13:34
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I want to know your interesting and weird in a good way
01:13:39
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►
and fun things in which you're using Notion.
01:13:44
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Like I get the basic like note taking stuff
01:13:47
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and you can link multiple pages with each other
01:13:50
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and you can have tables.
01:13:52
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Like the basics I understand.
01:13:54
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I've played with Notion.
01:13:56
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I was not impressed by the fact that it was like a web app
01:13:59
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running on my iPhone or the iPad,
01:14:01
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but I see that they have a slightly better
01:14:04
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iPad version out today.
01:14:06
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So I wanna check that out again,
01:14:07
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but I also wanna understand
01:14:08
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what are some of the most impressive setups
01:14:11
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►
that people have in Notion?
01:14:12
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Like some fascinating,
01:14:15
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even if it's like a super niche type of approach,
01:14:19
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I wanna know about that.
01:14:20
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I wanna hear from you.
01:14:21
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So let me know if you're using Notion in a fun, interesting,
01:14:27
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fascinating, weird, in a good way setup.
01:14:31
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I want to see that.
01:14:32
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I want to know about you.
01:14:33
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So let me know.
01:14:34
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That was my request.
01:14:35
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That was my official request.
01:14:37
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You're going to get a lot of resources.
01:14:39
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See, resources are fine as long as they have actual examples
01:14:42
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I can study.
01:14:44
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I'm done, Steven.
01:14:45
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Yes, thank you.
01:14:46
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Mac madness.
01:14:48
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So in the show notes in the chat room right now,
01:14:52
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I have an image that is my bracket, how I filled it out.
01:14:57
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- Which is our request to you.
01:14:59
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- Yes, it's pretty different from how it went down
01:15:01
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in the real world.
01:15:02
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And it's probably not a surprise,
01:15:05
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anyone who follows my stuff, kinda how I would vote.
01:15:09
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But Myke, I believe you wanted to ask me about this
01:15:12
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and I guess we could talk about the winner.
01:15:14
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- Well, I think we should start by talking about the winner
01:15:17
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because like and then we can actually talk about your picks it's just like a completely different thing.
01:15:21
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The winner was the Cube, so connected listeners came through.
01:15:26
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And they voted for the Cube.
01:15:27
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The Cube was the right winner out of the two, it just was.
01:15:30
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It was the most exciting and the most interesting.
01:15:33
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I know. What was the final?
01:15:35
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It won with 51.3% of the votes.
01:15:39
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About half the time when I looked at the at the results as they were coming in it was split dead 50/50.
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Like it was wild.
01:15:46
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Look, I think everyone can agree.
01:15:49
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This went in places that maybe it shouldn't have.
01:15:51
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You know, I think everyone can decide themselves what they think about that, right?
01:15:56
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But of the two, I mean, I'm just happy to see that the Cube was the winner.
01:16:01
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Because you know, their laptop could have been any laptop, who would know?
01:16:05
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It's just a matter of a problem.
01:16:06
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But let's talk about yours.
01:16:07
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Let's talk about your bracket here.
01:16:10
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I don't know if we want to go through every...
01:16:12
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No, that's a lot.
01:16:15
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every one seems like a lot but I do want to touch on some of these here I think
01:16:20
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we should maybe start with some heavy hitters so the Mac pros so you had the
01:16:26
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Mac Pro 2019 go further than any other pro Mac yeah you took that all the way
01:16:33
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through to the quarterfinals mm-hmm why because it's I really do love this
01:16:38
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computer I mean it's the first Mac Pro I've owned and it's like a return to
01:16:43
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really heavy hitting Mac hardware from Apple and I think that it's just
01:16:47
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fantastic. Okay we'll make sure that Steven's bracket is in the show notes if
01:16:51
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you want to follow along. Yes. One that we were hearing about a lot was the SE30.
01:16:56
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Uh-huh. You had the SE30 go out in round two to the iMac G3. I think again you
01:17:05
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can see here why random seeding was terrible for that particular thing alone
01:17:10
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Right. It's one that hurt from it. Yeah, so I had to move on. I had to beat the retina
01:17:16
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MacBook Pro that the audience put into the finals. So that's the biggest difference between
01:17:20
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my bracket and the public's I think. The SC 30 was a great machine and it was the capstone
01:17:27
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to that early Macintosh period, right? And lots of people have written about that and
01:17:30
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talked about it. And for me, it does signify that, you know, the random MacBook Pro from
01:17:38
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12 to 15 like it's a great computer but this is favorite and I think the SC 30
01:17:43
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kind of pulls on my heartstrings more than that MacBook Pro but look the iMac
01:17:47
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g3 I mean it's it's it's a machine that I have spent so much time with I did
01:17:52
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that big project with it I traveled halfway across the country to give them
01:17:55
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to a museum right like I spent a lot of time with that and and that one was a
01:18:00
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clear finalist for me which is probably a good place to mention that you had the
01:18:05
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I'm actually three go to to prove the final against the titanium power book
01:18:09
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G4 and you had the titanium power book g4 beat the iMac g3 which I can't believe that
01:18:15
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But the titanium power books my favorite Mac of all time
01:18:18
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It's just a surprise to me considering how much you have been through it. Yeah, it was very close and
01:18:24
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I thought a lot about it
01:18:26
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The reason that the titanium for me won out is that it was kind of the my first Mac
01:18:33
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I had a high school job. My boss gave me a titanium to use as my own
01:18:37
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It's the it's the machine took to college
01:18:39
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it just as much as I love the I'm at g3 the titanium was like my first Mac and
01:18:45
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I've got it and it's it's fantastic and it
01:18:49
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Because it helps set me off on this course
01:18:52
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Right that my love for that machine is what made all this so interesting to me and that I just couldn't say no to
01:18:58
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The 10th the 20th anniversary Mac. Mm-hmm
01:19:02
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You had that beat the original Mac mini the power Mac g5 but losing out to the clamshell
01:19:09
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I booked g3. Yeah, that's another surprise to me
01:19:13
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Yeah, the team didn't go very far of the clamshell. I booked went pretty far in the in the the public one
01:19:20
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In fact the clamshell I booked the public and I got it to the same place
01:19:25
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Which is interesting. It's one of the only things which is the young I love the 20th anniversary Mac, but the clamshell
01:19:32
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iBook is just way more fun because it's got a handle, it came in at a bunch of different colors and
01:19:36
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►
First, you know, it's like it's just more fun to me. I love my 20th anniversary Mac. I'm very fortunate to own one
01:19:43
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►
Maybe fortune is not the right word for most people, but I was very happy to obtain one a few years ago
01:19:49
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►
but the clamshell iBook just interested out for me because I think if I had to pick between the two the clamshell is
01:19:57
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►
Is a lot more fun and it and again like favorite sort of
01:20:02
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►
My love for these things the clamshell iBook was one of the very first machines that I collected the cube and the clamshell
01:20:09
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►
Or my first two Macs that I collected and so it has a special place in my heart
01:20:13
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►
Plus you can get an orange which you can't argue with
01:20:15
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Like the last one on this side of the bracket left side of the bracket the iMac Pro you had lose to the 12 inch
01:20:21
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PowerBook G4
01:20:22
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That's a surprise to me because before the Mac Pro like you would I would he frequently say like the iMac Pro is like the
01:20:28
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►
Best Mac you've ever owned like yeah, I know best and favorite a different
01:20:32
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►
But like that's a support that still a surprise to me because I know that you're a big iMac Pro fan
01:20:36
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I am a huge iMac Pro fan and that one out of the first round. I think was one of the hardest
01:20:41
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I think I could have gone
01:20:43
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►
could have gone either way, but the the power book inches it out for me, I think because
01:20:49
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including myself like apples never really rekindled that magic like something really special about that machine and
01:20:54
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►
Like I have a couple of them and anytime I open it
01:20:57
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►
It's like this just makes me happy that the keyboard goes all the way to the edge. It's all very tight and tidy
01:21:02
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►
Something nice about it. Also the chat room wants me to say orange again. Yeah, you say it
01:21:07
◼
►
So I guess I've done that it's like it's one sound orange like orange
01:21:11
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You say it Federico orange say it in Italian. I don't you oh
01:21:16
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►
God, it's way better. That's better. That was better. Yeah, we should all say it like that. Yeah. All right. I want to talk about your
01:21:22
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How you let the cube run through to the quarterfinal. Mm-hmm. You had the cube beat
01:21:29
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►
Both good MacBook Airs and I am surprised about that
01:21:33
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►
I know I was shocked that so I while this was voting I didn't want to comment on how I had voted
01:21:39
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That was kind of one of my rules
01:21:40
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But I was really surprised the public followed me in this because I didn't think that the I thought the I thought the 13-inch air
01:21:48
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Was I thought the 13-inch air and the black MacBook were going to be in the semi-finals in
01:21:52
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►
In the public bracket I was shocked that
01:21:55
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►
The the cube made it as far as it did
01:21:58
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►
You know winning I didn't expect that I was a surprise to me
01:22:03
◼
►
But again like going back to it was one of the it was one of those first two machines for me
01:22:07
◼
►
It's just so it's such a fascinating machine because of the way it's designed
01:22:10
◼
►
But the fact that it was a failure and they Apple used language that they put it on ice
01:22:15
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►
They didn't cancel it. Like the whole thing is so weird and special. I
01:22:18
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►
Just you know, the air is a better machine in every way, but the cube again is is more special to me
01:22:26
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►
Mmm, and you know the public vindicated me because it won now look
01:22:30
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►
I like you know, I gave my love for the G for Q
01:22:34
◼
►
but I would and I don't think I did have the Cube make it out of round one.
01:22:41
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►
Because the 11-inch MacBook Air was like a very special computer for me.
01:22:46
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►
I loved that computer like many other people did.
01:22:50
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►
I was just really surprised to see that you put the Cube that far through your own bracket.
01:22:55
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I don't think I have much, many more comments on the right-hand side of the bracket.
01:23:02
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►
I think most of the interesting debates were on the left side anyway. I don't really think that
01:23:07
◼
►
the right has got a lot in it for me honestly. Yeah, and that's totally fine. That's why this
01:23:13
◼
►
has been such an interesting project because people approach it in such different ways,
01:23:18
◼
►
and honestly in ways that I didn't really expect. I kind of figured that people would
01:23:24
◼
►
sort of struggle with the best versus favorite, you know. I kind of assumed that that would be
01:23:32
◼
►
kind of a difficult thing to talk about and to get through. And I think it was, you know, I think a
01:23:37
◼
►
lot of the arguments I saw on Twitter about it, which is fantastic. I love how into this people
01:23:43
◼
►
were. But I think that's really where a lot of the sort of differences come from. And the age you are
01:23:51
◼
►
and when you came to the Mac and what you think about the Mac all would influence your decisions
01:23:57
◼
►
on this, which I think is why the results are so fascinating. You're gonna do it again? I think so.
01:24:01
◼
►
I don't think I'm gonna do favorite max again, but I have some other some other ideas
01:24:06
◼
►
I would love to see a favorite iPhone. Mm-hmm
01:24:09
◼
►
I think that's what I will I'm not committing to this but I think that's what I will probably do next year
01:24:13
◼
►
I phone would be nice favorite iPad would be also fine favorite Apple TV would just be sad
01:24:19
◼
►
Favorite beats headphones would be fun, but you're too old
01:24:25
◼
►
Yeah, yeah favorite iPhone it should be the next one
01:24:30
◼
►
Yeah, I think that's what I want to do and I would separate phone and iPad because you know, they're very different categories
01:24:36
◼
►
So yeah, that's how I would have voted
01:24:38
◼
►
I'll have a blog post up when the show goes up so you can you can see it's in the show notes as well
01:24:44
◼
►
But yeah, this was a lot of fun. And again, I'm totally blown away that I had 15,000 votes
01:24:49
◼
►
Mmm, and people were really fired up about it and I just I really enjoyed it
01:24:55
◼
►
And two thousand of those votes were Federico for the cube
01:24:58
◼
►
I did make it where you couldn't vote again immediately. You said you'd at least have to go to like a private tab or something
01:25:03
◼
►
To do it. So I tried to limit cheating where I could
01:25:06
◼
►
Shortcuts hacked my Google form with shortcuts with base64. Mm-hmm. That's what I did. Mm-hmm
01:25:14
◼
►
What's it? I think that's about it this week guys. Mm-hmm
01:25:17
◼
►
If you want to find show notes this week things we spoke about head on over to the website relay.fm/connected/289
01:25:25
◼
►
And while you're there, you can send us an email with feedback or follow up.
01:25:29
◼
►
While you're there, you can become a member and support the show directly, which we would
01:25:34
◼
►
You can also find us on Twitter, you can find Myke there as I M y ke Myke is the host of
01:25:38
◼
►
a bunch of other shows here on relay FM, go check those out.
01:25:42
◼
►
You can find Federico on Twitter at the teachy vi ti CCI and he's the editor in chief of
01:25:48
◼
►
max stories.net.
01:25:50
◼
►
If you did not check out their iPad at 10 covers like go find that there's a link at
01:25:55
◼
►
the bottom of the article in the show notes you can see the whole category
01:25:57
◼
►
lots of really great stuff there I think you guys totally killed it you can find
01:26:02
◼
►
me on Twitter as is mh and my writing over at 512 pixels dotnet I think our
01:26:08
◼
►
sponsors this week pingdom Squarespace and bowl and branch until next week
01:26:13
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►
gentlemen say goodbye I'll do that you cheerio adios