Connected

00:00:00 ◼   ► (upbeat music)

00:00:02 ◼   ► - Hello and welcome to Connected episode 288.

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

00:00:15 ◼   ► PDF Pen from Smile, Pingdom, and Ahrefs.

00:00:18 ◼   ► My name is Steven Hackett

00:00:20 ◼   ► and I am joined by Mr. Federico Vittucci.

00:00:22 ◼   ► - Hello, Steven Hackett, how are you?

00:00:24 ◼   ► - I'm pretty good, you doing all right?

00:00:27 ◼   ► - Yeah, I'm good, I'm fine.

00:00:28 ◼   ► just, you know, the usual, stuck at home.

00:00:31 ◼   ► - Yeah. - I don't know.

00:00:32 ◼   ► Is it like two months that I've been here?

00:00:34 ◼   ► I don't know, I lost track of time.

00:00:36 ◼   ► - Yeah, time is slowly losing its meaning.

00:00:39 ◼   ► What about you, Myke Hurley, how are you?

00:00:41 ◼   ► - Good, man.

00:00:42 ◼   ► - Mm-hmm, just hanging out at home?

00:00:46 ◼   ► - Yep, still sailing around.

00:00:47 ◼   ► - Oh, that's right, you made a joke

00:00:48 ◼   ► about being a sailor last week, yeah.

00:00:50 ◼   ► - I'm on a boat, yeah, yeah.

00:00:52 ◼   ► I don't exactly remember what I said,

00:00:54 ◼   ► but I just remembered that the episode name reflects it,

00:00:58 ◼   ► So I figured I would try and expand the law a little bit,

00:01:00 ◼   ► but I should have done my research.

00:01:02 ◼   ► - I was really thinking we were gonna get some bath

00:01:04 ◼   ► follow up and we didn't get any.

00:01:06 ◼   ► So I'll tell you what.

00:01:08 ◼   ► - No, I think that shows you that nobody does what you do.

00:01:11 ◼   ► - If you are a big bath person,

00:01:13 ◼   ► tweet at Myke and let him know.

00:01:16 ◼   ► - No, but then you're not,

00:01:16 ◼   ► I'm not gonna give you the information

00:01:17 ◼   ► that you're looking for.

00:01:18 ◼   ► - Yeah, but I can look at your replies.

00:01:20 ◼   ► So it's fine.

00:01:21 ◼   ► - How about this?

00:01:22 ◼   ► If you tweet at me to tell me that you bathe,

00:01:23 ◼   ► I will block you.

00:01:24 ◼   ► - Wow.

00:01:27 ◼   ► try me.

00:01:31 ◼   ► Anyone who tweeted you in like eight seconds?

00:01:33 ◼   ► This is the weaponized defense to this game that we have built up over time.

00:01:39 ◼   ► Now I'm getting iMessages from people saying they take baths.

00:01:42 ◼   ► Stop it!

00:01:43 ◼   ► Well, see, this is you brought it up on yourself.

00:01:45 ◼   ► Yeah, I shouldn't give anybody my phone number.

00:01:47 ◼   ► And this is why I've decided to take such a strong stance on this, because I'm not interested

00:01:52 ◼   ► in finding out whether people bathe or not.

00:01:55 ◼   ► So...

00:01:56 ◼   ► follow-up yeah non-bath follow-up probably manus writes about trackpad

00:02:02 ◼   ► support for iPad OS and games I thought this was stop Jason stop texting me now

00:02:08 ◼   ► Jason is texting me Kyle and Jason are both texting me saying they don't take

00:02:11 ◼   ► baths okay there is also a great feature that I would like to recommend to you

00:02:15 ◼   ► which is called do not disturb and yeah saying that you can implement on your

00:02:20 ◼   ► Macintosh personal computer mmm to to stop the notifications from bother you

00:02:24 ◼   ► that. He's just tweeting me sponge emojis. This is getting very sensual. Okay, Manus writes,

00:02:30 ◼   ► "Do you think games on iPadOS will be able to take advantage of the native trackpad and mouse support

00:02:36 ◼   ► allowing traditional game controls alongside a paired keyboard? Minecraft has been therapeutic

00:02:42 ◼   ► while in quarantine. I'd love to upgrade the experience." Federico, do you have any thoughts

00:02:46 ◼   ► on this? I don't see why it shouldn't be possible, so I don't see why not. I think all the APIs are

00:02:54 ◼   ► there right now in terms of pointer control and keyboard access. So if Microsoft wants to update

00:03:02 ◼   ► Minecraft to take advantage of the key up and down events on iPadOS and the new system pointer,

00:03:09 ◼   ► they can do it. I don't see why it shouldn't be possible. In fact, you can even do things like

00:03:14 ◼   ► hide the pointer, right? Like you can fully customize the shape of the pointer.

00:03:20 ◼   ► You can hide if you want the default Apple circular pointer.

00:03:27 ◼   ► I mean, you take a look at screens, for example, I tweeted about this a few days ago.

00:03:31 ◼   ► The VNC client, it now lets you control a remote Mac or PC, and when you do, you don't

00:03:38 ◼   ► see in the latest update of screens, you don't even see the native iPad pointer.

00:03:43 ◼   ► You just see the remote desktop cursor.

00:03:46 ◼   ► So you have developers that have total freedom to do whatever they want with the pointer

00:03:49 ◼   ► effects and the pointer events, they can, of course they now also have access to all

00:03:55 ◼   ► the things keyboard-wise they would want to use for games, so I don't see why Microsoft

00:04:01 ◼   ► couldn't do it. But of course you gotta wait for an update, because it's not like this

00:04:06 ◼   ► happens by default, the developer has to actually code in the support for these functionalities.

00:04:14 ◼   ► A lot of games will benefit from the pointer stuff already, right? Especially point-and-click

00:04:18 ◼   ► type stuff.

00:04:19 ◼   ► point and click and first person shooters also come to mind.

00:04:23 ◼   ► I mean, you know, the first person shooters on iPad tend to be like this freemium type

00:04:31 ◼   ► of deals that I don't particularly appreciate, but graphically speaking they can be pretty

00:04:36 ◼   ► impressive. So maybe this is an opportunity for more game developers to actually ship

00:04:42 ◼   ► well, not console quality, but like desktop class interactions at least. Again, the problem

00:04:49 ◼   ► is the economics of it, but that's a different topic. But yes, functionally speaking, it

00:04:54 ◼   ► is possible.

00:04:55 ◼   ► We have another question about this mouse trackpad support. So Tom and others, I'm giving

00:05:00 ◼   ► Tom credit, I think they were first, they want to know what happened to the options

00:05:04 ◼   ► that have multiple mouse keys do things in iPadOS 13.4.

00:05:09 ◼   ► Yeah, nothing happened to them. They're still there. They're in the place that they always

00:05:12 ◼   ► were, which is in the AssistiveTouch settings. So, you know, previously any type of cursor

00:05:17 ◼   ► support was added by turning on AssistiveTouch and accessibility. And when you pair a mouse

00:05:24 ◼   ► of some kind with a Bluetooth mouse of some kind with an iPad running 13.4, you can still

00:05:31 ◼   ► go into AssistiveTouch, enable AssistiveTouch, and there is a menu called Devices. You click

00:05:36 ◼   ► into the devices and you get each of the paired Bluetooth mice that you have with your iPad

00:05:43 ◼   ► and you can go in and register the different clicks.

00:05:48 ◼   ► Maybe you want to logitech mice you might have an extra button or two or maybe you want

00:05:52 ◼   ► to have something happen when you click in the scroll wheel.

00:05:54 ◼   ► You can turn all of these on and then when you leave assistive touch on they still work

00:05:59 ◼   ► but you still benefit from the new cursor.

00:06:02 ◼   ► You don't receive any different looking cursor and you do not see any remnants of the assistive

00:06:09 ◼   ► touch UI, so like that fake home button, as long as you have a pointing device connected

00:06:15 ◼   ► by Bluetooth.

00:06:16 ◼   ► So, even if you have your mouse connected or track pad connected by Bluetooth, you take

00:06:23 ◼   ► your iPad, you go into another room using it as normal, nothing happens.

00:06:27 ◼   ► The cursor disappears.

00:06:28 ◼   ► Nothing replaces it.

00:06:30 ◼   ► If you turn off the cursor, then you will see, sorry, if you turn off the trackpad,

00:06:35 ◼   ► you will see the old assisted touch UI, but that's it.

00:06:38 ◼   ► But then you can just turn it off if you want to.

00:06:40 ◼   ► So really, I actually recommend people that are using mice, like actual mice, not trackpads,

00:06:45 ◼   ► because it doesn't work with trackpads.

00:06:47 ◼   ► If you use a mouse, you should go in and turn this on and try it out, because I have, with

00:06:53 ◼   ► my Logitech mouse, I have shortcuts to go to the home screen by clicking in the scroll

00:06:58 ◼   ► wheel and using the other buttons on the mouse that I bring up to dock and stuff.

00:07:04 ◼   ► Don't do anything to the right click would be my recommendation, but if you do there

00:07:09 ◼   ► is a new option which wasn't there before.

00:07:12 ◼   ► So previously I would have suggested that people used the right click on a mouse and

00:07:16 ◼   ► map it to the button which says long press because that would give you what I felt was

00:07:22 ◼   ► kind of like a right click experience.

00:07:24 ◼   ► Whilst this still exists, Apple has added a new option called secondary click, and that's

00:07:28 ◼   ► what you want to be able to skip the animation of a long press.

00:07:33 ◼   ► They're all of my top tips on using mice and buttons with iOS 13.4.

00:07:39 ◼   ► It's nice that it's still possible to mix and match the native pointer.

00:07:44 ◼   ► I was super bummed out when I thought that they'd taken that away, because I really like

00:07:47 ◼   ► when I'm using a mouse being able to still use effectively gestures, but mapping them

00:07:52 ◼   ► two buttons. So I kind of just went in and found it. It was great. And turned it on.

00:07:57 ◼   ► And really there's no downside when you're using the device. Nothing looks wrong.

00:08:04 ◼   ► Yeah, the reason I stopped using the mouse is that I have a Magic Trackpad and the gestures

00:08:10 ◼   ► are just so good. The multi-touch ones to navigate the iPadOS UI. They're super well

00:08:17 ◼   ► and I find it easier to remember gestures than to remember the buttons.

00:08:23 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:08:25 ◼   ► I really like the trackpad. It's big enough, you know, and it just...

00:08:29 ◼   ► I'm even using it, like, when I work with the iPad at the kitchen table, right,

00:08:34 ◼   ► without having the iPad be connected to an external display at my desk.

00:08:38 ◼   ► But, like, the iPad with the smart keyboard and the trackpad next to it,

00:08:42 ◼   ► it's super good, super well done.

00:08:45 ◼   ► Hmm, interesting. Okay.

00:08:48 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:08:49 ◼   ► Because I guess it's just easier for you to just reach to the left than it is to reach

00:08:52 ◼   ► up to the screen?

00:08:53 ◼   ► I keep the trackpad on the right, but yes.

00:08:56 ◼   ► Oh, wherever it is.

00:08:57 ◼   ► Yeah. Yes, it's easier. Yes.

00:09:00 ◼   ► How dare you? I'm a right-hand side person.

00:09:04 ◼   ► I don't use the hand of the devil like you, Myke.

00:09:07 ◼   ► Wow.

00:09:08 ◼   ► I have my trackpad on my Mac on the right. I am left-handed, and I consider that a slight

00:09:13 ◼   ► to my people to say something like that but you know.

00:09:19 ◼   ► What was the episode of Cortex about whether you were a riot ender or not?

00:09:23 ◼   ► Oh there's, it's a multiple thing. It's like a multiple episode arc where it's, what is

00:09:28 ◼   ► it that I am? What was the conclusion again?

00:09:31 ◼   ► That I am multi-handed, aka hand confused. But not like, what was the other word like

00:09:41 ◼   ► The people use...

00:09:42 ◼   ► Abbedextris?

00:09:43 ◼   ► Yes, that one.

00:09:44 ◼   ► Yeah, but Abbedextris is if you can write with both hands, which I can't, but I am multi-handed

00:09:48 ◼   ► because I do some things with my left hand and some things with my right hand.

00:09:52 ◼   ► And I wish that you wouldn't have brought that up.

00:09:55 ◼   ► Because now it's back in everybody's mind again.

00:09:58 ◼   ► The chat room is going crazy.

00:10:01 ◼   ► I am sorry.

00:10:03 ◼   ► I will block you!

00:10:05 ◼   ► I really am not.

00:10:06 ◼   ► Okay, block everybody.

00:10:08 ◼   ► We have one more iPad question.

00:10:10 ◼   ► a lot of iPad questions. I think people are just kind of... It's an exciting time. Yeah,

00:10:15 ◼   ► people are exploring keyboards and trackpads. And so Corey writes, "If you use an iPad with

00:10:20 ◼   ► an external keyboard, how can you invoke voice to text? Is there a keyboard command? The

00:10:26 ◼   ► smart keyboard folio and the upcoming magic keyboard do not have buttons to invoke the

00:10:30 ◼   ► microphone. I find this annoying and odd." Yes, Corey, there is not, unfortunately, a

00:10:37 ◼   ► shortcut to enable dictation, which is, what would you say, annoying and odd? Yes, I agree,

00:10:44 ◼   ► it is. If you want to use dictation while having an external keyboard, in this case

00:10:50 ◼   ► a Smart Keyboard Folio or the upcoming Magic Keyboard, you need to show the software keyboard

00:10:54 ◼   ► again. And you can do this usually by long pressing the downward facing arrow in the

00:11:02 ◼   ► bottom right corner of the iPad display. You long press that arrow, you will show

00:11:07 ◼   ► the software keyboard again, and from there you can tap the screen and tap the

00:11:10 ◼   ► microphone icon. It is honestly kind of silly that there is no keyboard shortcut

00:11:14 ◼   ► for this. Some third-party keyboards, I believe maybe the Brydge keyboard, they

00:11:21 ◼   ► have a dedicated dictation button, but that is like a custom thing that

00:11:26 ◼   ► they can do. Software wise, there is no system-wide keyboard shortcut for this.

00:11:32 ◼   ► I've always wondered about this though. How are they doing that? There must be

00:11:35 ◼   ► some kind of keyboard shortcut, surely. How are they doing it?

00:11:39 ◼   ► It's not a keyboard shortcut as much as a keyboard event that the keyboard

00:11:42 ◼   ► passes to the system, right? The keyboard shortcut would need to be something that

00:11:47 ◼   ► Apple bakes in. Because it's like... But like, I don't understand what the

00:11:52 ◼   ► difference is between a keyboard event and a keyboard shortcut. Because the

00:11:55 ◼   ► keyboard manufacturer has like each key, and I'm simplifying things here,

00:12:00 ◼   ► but like each key is like a code that the operating system understands, and so

00:12:05 ◼   ► if you're a manufacturer you can make a keyboard and when you press that key it

00:12:09 ◼   ► sends a code to the system and the system knows okay this code like 0 1 0 0

00:12:14 ◼   ► means enable dictation. The keyboard shortcut is like an actual OS feature

00:12:20 ◼   ► that is exposed to users that lets you press a combination of keys as something

00:12:24 ◼   ► happens, but that needs to be done by Apple.

00:12:28 ◼   ► Yeah, I was hoping that Apple were going to have more keyboard shortcuts available.

00:12:33 ◼   ► I want a keyboard shortcut to bring up emoji.

00:12:36 ◼   ► Yes.

00:12:37 ◼   ► Right.

00:12:38 ◼   ► And I know that there's the globe key thing, but that's not what I want.

00:12:40 ◼   ► Right.

00:12:41 ◼   ► Because the globe key is just like, well, now we're cycling through all the keyboards,

00:12:45 ◼   ► which is not what I want.

00:12:46 ◼   ► And the same, I wanted to be able to remap my escape key to the home, to go home, but

00:12:53 ◼   ► also is not a thing that I can do. Something that I really wanted to do was

00:12:58 ◼   ► to remap the command and option keys on the right side of the keyboard to

00:13:05 ◼   ► something else because I never for some reason I never ever used command and

00:13:10 ◼   ► option on the right side. I had a theory about this, this came up on

00:13:15 ◼   ► upgrade a while ago. I think it's because most of the things that you are

00:13:19 ◼   ► doing with command are on the left hand side of the keyboard, right?

00:13:22 ◼   ► Like select all save, copy, paste, cut.

00:13:26 ◼   ► They're all there. So I am very similar.

00:13:29 ◼   ► I never use the command key on the right hand side or very rarely,

00:13:33 ◼   ► maybe if I'm like command return or something,

00:13:37 ◼   ► but that's not that often compared to how much I'm using the one on the left.

00:13:42 ◼   ► I'll use the one on the left for everything except like to send something.

00:13:47 ◼   ► Yeah. Yeah.

00:13:48 ◼   ► And I would love to remap it, right?

00:13:50 ◼   ► But it's not possible in 13.4, because there's

00:13:54 ◼   ► no distinction between left and right versions of command

00:13:57 ◼   ► and option, for example.

00:13:59 ◼   ► So that's too bad.

00:14:00 ◼   ► But no, unfortunately, Corey, no keyboard shortcut for you.

00:14:04 ◼   ► I'm sorry.

00:14:06 ◼   ► There does seem to be a keyboard shortcut

00:14:07 ◼   ► to bring up the emoji keyboard, though.

00:14:10 ◼   ► So it's like it's not out of the realm of possibility

00:14:14 ◼   ► that they add something.

00:14:16 ◼   ► Is there a keyboard shortcut to bring up the emoji keyboard on IOF?

00:14:20 ◼   ► Yeah, it is...

00:14:22 ◼   ► Isn't the globe key?

00:14:24 ◼   ► Control space bar on a Bluetooth keyboard.

00:14:27 ◼   ► So I guess you gotta use a... not the smart keyboard, but if you're using a Bluetooth keyboard at least you have it.

00:14:31 ◼   ► Oh yeah, the control space bar. Does it bring up the keyboard switcher?

00:14:36 ◼   ► This article is also four years old so it could be gone now. I don't know.

00:14:41 ◼   ► Yeah, no it brings up the keyboard switcher which is the same as the globe key which is not what I want.

00:14:46 ◼   ► Right. Like, I just want to bring up emoji. Like, I don't want to have to cycle through stuff.

00:14:52 ◼   ► Right. I mean, I also have the Italian keyboard, so it is sometimes useful to cycle through

00:14:56 ◼   ► keyboards, but what they should really do is just an emoji shortcut, like on the Mac, with emoji

00:15:03 ◼   ► search. But emoji search needs to be better than emoji search on the Mac, because emoji search on

00:15:09 ◼   ► the Mac is terrible. I remember Jeremy Burge had an article about this maybe last year or two years

00:15:13 ◼   ► ago at Emojipedia about like the system that Apple is using to let you search Emoji on the Mac

00:15:19 ◼   ► and there's like some weird like sometimes you search for something and you find it

00:15:23 ◼   ► other times even with the obvious word for an Emoji the Mac search feature cannot find it at all

00:15:30 ◼   ► so they should do it all from scratch and have a proper Emoji picker with a keyboard shortcut that

00:15:36 ◼   ► takes you directly into the Emoji keyboard and where there's a search feature that lets you

00:15:42 ◼   ► you search for everything. Like, they have the system in place. When you type something

00:15:47 ◼   ► with the QuickType keyboard, usually you can find an emoji suggestion for it. Like, I don't

00:15:51 ◼   ► know, pizza or, you know, smile or something like that. And why not let me do the same?

00:15:57 ◼   ► Like those suggestions, let me use them for emoji search.

00:16:01 ◼   ► It's like Apple cares so much about emoji until it comes to actually using emoji. And

00:16:05 ◼   ► then it doesn't care.

00:16:08 ◼   ► Like Slack.

00:16:09 ◼   ► Right. Yeah, the company like made emoji its brand and they still haven't updated apps or anything

00:16:15 ◼   ► They're always one full set of emoji behind why what are you doing? Yeah

00:16:21 ◼   ► When they're not they're not custom designing them. I

00:16:24 ◼   ► Don't get it. I don't get what their situation is. Maybe we should all switch to Microsoft Teams. Maybe we should

00:16:35 ◼   ► Might be good. We haven't tried it. I don't know. I don't know Myke has a Windows PC now, so I do I have to

00:16:41 ◼   ► Yes, two

00:16:43 ◼   ► That's two more than it than we do in my house. So

00:16:46 ◼   ► We have one last bit of iPad

00:16:51 ◼   ► Follow up Myke. Do you want to walk us through this?

00:16:54 ◼   ► Imaginary iPad question where the question is real, but it's about an imaginary iPad

00:16:59 ◼   ► Yeah, Casper sent us this

00:17:02 ◼   ► basically, would you buy this iPad? And it's just a feature list, which was just exciting

00:17:07 ◼   ► to me. So I just wanted to read it. So late 2020 iPad Pro starts at $22.99. So incredibly

00:17:13 ◼   ► expensive. But why? Because it would have an A14 system on the chip, micro LED with

00:17:19 ◼   ► a matte display, 8 gigabytes of RAM, storage options up to 2 terabytes, 5G cellular, 30

00:17:25 ◼   ► watt charger, 16 inch screen.

00:17:30 ◼   ► I don't think this is too expensive for the specs.

00:17:34 ◼   ► No, but yeah, yeah.

00:17:35 ◼   ► Once I get through the specs, I think it's fine.

00:17:37 ◼   ► But my point is, when I say that number,

00:17:40 ◼   ► that's a very expensive iPad.

00:17:42 ◼   ► That's twice the price of an iPad.

00:17:44 ◼   ► But you've got some very serious stuff in here.

00:17:47 ◼   ► And I don't think we get all of this.

00:17:49 ◼   ► Honestly, I think that an iPad launching later this year

00:17:53 ◼   ► would have all of this except a matte display in a 16 inch.

00:17:57 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah.

00:17:58 ◼   ► And I would totally get it.

00:17:59 ◼   ► Yeah, the answer is yes.

00:18:01 ◼   ► But a regular sized iPad is not going to come in at that price.

00:18:06 ◼   ► Yeah, no.

00:18:07 ◼   ► But I would still buy that exact iPad for sure.

00:18:10 ◼   ► It'd be great.

00:18:11 ◼   ► I love that it used the name A14Y.

00:18:15 ◼   ► I like the sign of that.

00:18:16 ◼   ► I kind of have what he said, which is just A14Y,

00:18:19 ◼   ► and then in brackets, because why not?

00:18:22 ◼   ► Perfect.

00:18:23 ◼   ► He just writes it later.

00:18:24 ◼   ► Perfect.

00:18:25 ◼   ► But yeah, I would--

00:18:26 ◼   ► yes, yes, yes, yes.

00:18:28 ◼   ► I mean, look, we all know the most ridiculous thing about this iPad is the 5G support.

00:18:32 ◼   ► Sure. You are.

00:18:34 ◼   ► You are. I know you're doubling down on this, but like every day it gets worse for you.

00:18:39 ◼   ► Like there was a story today that I sent to our group chat, which was Foxconn talking to

00:18:45 ◼   ► their investors and saying that 5G iPhone production is still on track.

00:18:52 ◼   ► Like they're just saying everything they can to make people feel good, but they know it's

00:18:55 ◼   ► and 5g chip in it. They're referencing it as the 5g iPhone. You're in trouble, my friend.

00:19:00 ◼   ► Myke, this is going to be the year of Myke, it's gonna be great.

00:19:02 ◼   ► Oh, we've got a lot of stuff to get through this week. But why don't we take a break here

00:19:07 ◼   ► and talk about our first sponsor. Go for it. This episode of connected is brought to you by PDF

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00:20:11 ◼   ► PDF pen for their support of this show and relay FM. I want to give an update

00:20:16 ◼   ► on Mac madness if you guys will permit me. So we are as we're recording this are

00:20:21 ◼   ► in the middle of voting in the final round. The final round is the retina

00:20:26 ◼   ► MacBook Pro from 2012 to 2015 against the G4 Cube. As I speak right now there

00:20:33 ◼   ► have been two thousand four hundred and thirty four votes so far. If you haven't

00:20:39 ◼   ► cast your vote yet there'll be a link in the show notes to go do that. Now last

00:20:44 ◼   ► week you guys spoke about what you thought could be in the final and I

00:20:48 ◼   ► don't remember what you said but how are you feeling about this final matchup?

00:20:52 ◼   ► I don't think I did say but I thought that it was going... I believed that

00:20:58 ◼   ► either the Black MacBook or the G4 Cube would win. Yeah I thought the Black

00:21:02 ◼   ► MacBook would make it to the finals like I was super wrong about... well I was not

00:21:07 ◼   ► wrong in my heart about my favorite picks. I was wrong about the outcome, I cannot be

00:21:13 ◼   ► wrong about my feelings though. I'm happy that the cube won, because I was a white MacBook

00:21:20 ◼   ► person, not a black MacBook person. Interesting. So I didn't want that one to win. So I will

00:21:27 ◼   ► put it on the record that I have no idea what the G4 Cube does, or like what the problems

00:21:36 ◼   ► were... It was a horrifically flawed machine in many ways. It overheated, it was really expensive.

00:21:43 ◼   ► But it's a cube! Like, it's a computer in a cube. It should win because it's a cube. It's like...

00:21:51 ◼   ► It should win. The Nintendo GameCube, for example, was a flawed console that, you know, failed. Maybe

00:21:57 ◼   ► not failed miserably, but it failed, and I still love it with all my heart, because anything that

00:22:02 ◼   ► goes into a cube gets automatically upgraded, you know, in my feeling scale. It's a cube,

00:22:11 ◼   ► it's a computer in a cube, it's beautiful, it's a beautiful thing, it's a beautiful shape.

00:22:15 ◼   ► I'm gonna say what no one else is saying. The 2012 to 2015 retina MacBook Pro is not that good

00:22:21 ◼   ► of a machine. It's only good in hindsight. It's good in hindsight. People love that machine

00:22:27 ◼   ► because what came after it was so bad. So like now everyone holds it like higher in their minds

00:22:33 ◼   ► because it's like Marco Arment called it the best laptop ever made, which is strong words,

00:22:39 ◼   ► but that's but but that's fine because things typically get better as they get like as they

00:22:46 ◼   ► continue, right? So like, yeah, it was the best because the one that came after it was worse,

00:22:51 ◼   ► but I bet that he would say that the 16 inches better than that one now. So like,

00:22:56 ◼   ► Like, I don't think the MacBook Pro from 2012 to 2015 should win.

00:23:03 ◼   ► Like I don't think that that should be the winner of this.

00:23:06 ◼   ► I think the G4 Cube should win because it's the most fun out of what the two that's left.

00:23:12 ◼   ► I think the whole thing would be kind of just like, "Eh, like after all this."

00:23:18 ◼   ► After all this, a boring laptop wins.

00:23:21 ◼   ► Like it's just literally enough.

00:23:23 ◼   ► People love this MacBook just because it's what they cannot have anymore. It's like if

00:23:28 ◼   ► you start a diet and the doctor tells you "well you can't eat sugar anymore" and suddenly

00:23:32 ◼   ► you miss sugar so much you're like "oh my god, do I miss sugar?" but sugar is not good

00:23:37 ◼   ► for you. It's like this computer is just boring and people love it because "oh it had the

00:23:42 ◼   ► keyboard and all that" which I get, I understand, but honestly, sure, it made it this far because

00:23:47 ◼   ► people had such...

00:23:48 ◼   ► I don't think people loved it that much when it was actually like...

00:23:52 ◼   ► They really didn't.

00:23:54 ◼   ► Right?

00:23:55 ◼   ► There were complaints about it, right?

00:23:56 ◼   ► That it was behind on the Intel processors,

00:23:59 ◼   ► the track pad was weird, like--

00:24:01 ◼   ► Oh my God, yes.

00:24:02 ◼   ► Oh, this computer was what bred

00:24:05 ◼   ► like the initial groundswell of hate

00:24:07 ◼   ► towards the fact that Apple was letting things go

00:24:10 ◼   ► on the Mac line.

00:24:12 ◼   ► Yep, and you're right.

00:24:13 ◼   ► The Thunderbolt 3 MacBook Pros is what

00:24:17 ◼   ► puts this one on a pedestal, right?

00:24:18 ◼   ► And then Marco got it tattooed on his calf

00:24:20 ◼   ► and everyone got excited.

00:24:22 ◼   ► Well, let me let me tell you a quick the we talked about the black MacBook so that the

00:24:26 ◼   ► percentages ended up being 53.3% for the cube 46.7 for the black MacBook so the cube one

00:24:34 ◼   ► by you know six points or so but the random macro Pro versus the clamshell was a landslide

00:24:39 ◼   ► 63.2 to 36.8% whilst I am upset about that one I do understand it because the clamshell

00:24:47 ◼   ► wasn't as good as the iMac g3 yeah yeah but it's not it's also not good right

00:24:54 ◼   ► it's favorite and so I think the reason I was so surprised that the like the iMac

00:25:00 ◼   ► g4 and the iMac g3 and the 12 inch power book didn't make it very far is because

00:25:06 ◼   ► I thought they were more like cult favorites and I think some people voted

00:25:11 ◼   ► as best and not favorite and that's why we ended up with this sort of duality in

00:25:16 ◼   ► bracket which is all super fascinating I love that it's that people are like up

00:25:21 ◼   ► in arms about it because it's fun. At the same time I can imagine that a lot of current owners

00:25:26 ◼   ► of that MacBook Pro like they love that machine and they hold on to it so close because they

00:25:32 ◼   ► don't want to have gotten one of the bad ones. It's like the iPhone SE right there's people still

00:25:38 ◼   ► hanging on to it even though they probably shouldn't much longer. Yeah and it's like

00:25:42 ◼   ► objectively not a good phone based on modern standards but there's like you

00:25:47 ◼   ► you hold on to it because it you don't want to let go of touch ID or you don't

00:25:52 ◼   ► want to let go of the size or the design or like whatever ends up being mm-hmm

00:25:57 ◼   ► it's like for me with old old versions of Mac OS I'm like yeah you can take my

00:26:04 ◼   ► high sierra away from me from my cold dead hands you know right this has been

00:26:08 ◼   ► a really weird experiment that you have produced. It's wild.

00:26:13 ◼   ► There's a real dichotomy going on in your audience, Steven. On one hand, there's boring

00:26:18 ◼   ► people. On the other, there's fun people, like folks who are voting for a cube, a cube

00:26:24 ◼   ► computer. It doesn't get any more fun than that. And then there's the laptop people.

00:26:29 ◼   ► Like it's, I guess it's real metaphor of life. There's fun and boring people out there. And

00:26:35 ◼   ► this is reflected in your votes.

00:26:36 ◼   ► You heard it from Federico first, if you vote for the MacBook Pro he will block you.

00:26:41 ◼   ► I will not block you, I will judge you in my head, but I will not block you.

00:26:47 ◼   ► He will block you out of his mind.

00:26:49 ◼   ► I don't share, I only share percentages.

00:26:53 ◼   ► I don't even know who voted for what, right?

00:26:54 ◼   ► It's all completely anonymous to me.

00:26:56 ◼   ► Next week on this show, I want to go through every round with you.

00:27:02 ◼   ► Okay.

00:27:03 ◼   ► And see how you would have voted, because you've not spoken about it yet.

00:27:06 ◼   ► Yeah, you haven't spoken about your boats. Okay. I haven't spoken. I was going to do that in my

00:27:10 ◼   ► video, but I will hold that for the show. Okay, thank you. I'm writing it down. Okay.

00:27:14 ◼   ► Because then we can maybe go in, because I would also like from your mind for you to try and

00:27:20 ◼   ► explain why you think things went the way that they did. Okay. If it's not the way that you would

00:27:25 ◼   ► have had it go. Oh, that's good. Okay. Thank you for the heads up. I will prepare some notes.

00:27:29 ◼   ► I really want the cube to win. I really want the cube to win too.

00:27:33 ◼   ► And see the reactions of all-time Mac people.

00:27:38 ◼   ► I think all-time Mac people, I reckon, are more likely to want the cube to win. Because

00:27:45 ◼   ► there's been this thing, like this undercurrent of more long-time Mac people who are getting

00:27:54 ◼   ► super mad at this and blaming the kids, right? This is this thing. I got into it with John

00:27:58 ◼   ► Syracuse around us a couple of days ago. Another metaphor of life. That there's this thing

00:28:03 ◼   ► about like, ah, these kids these days, they don't know what they're voting for. So I think

00:28:07 ◼   ► all-time Mac people are more likely to go for the Cube because it's the only old Mac

00:28:11 ◼   ► left in this lineup, right? So I think what has happened is that the audience today, just

00:28:19 ◼   ► by nature of the way that like time and life works, is made up of more young people than

00:28:25 ◼   ► old people, so therefore there are more modern Macs.

00:28:30 ◼   ► How's the cube in the final then? Because Steven didn't seed them properly.

00:28:37 ◼   ► So many of the problems are based on the fact that Steven chose random seeding. I have said

00:28:43 ◼   ► this, I think three weeks in a row now, that if Steven ever does this again, he needs to

00:28:48 ◼   ► seed them properly, not randomly, because we could have avoided so much of this by seeding

00:28:55 ◼   ► them right. But Stephen was rushing, he randomly seeded, and that's why we are where we are.

00:29:02 ◼   ► It seemed like the only fair way I did do this in a hurry, because it was an idea and

00:29:06 ◼   ► then a thing like four hours later.

00:29:08 ◼   ► The Clamshell iBook G3 and the iMac G3 should not have been on the same side of the bracket.

00:29:15 ◼   ► Yeah, there are definitely situations in here that could have been better. But random also

00:29:21 ◼   ► meant that I couldn't put my preconceived notions into it so we'll get into this next

00:29:25 ◼   ► week.

00:29:26 ◼   ► No but your preconceived notions are like logic and knowledge like that's what that

00:29:31 ◼   ► gives that's why such a thing as seeding exists right like you do these things so then you

00:29:37 ◼   ► don't end up with like the two tennis players most likely to win facing off against random

00:29:43 ◼   ► people on the same side of the bracket which means that what should be the final ends up

00:29:47 ◼   ► as the semi-final and then everyone's mad.

00:29:50 ◼   ► Like the G4 Cube and the Black MacBook could have been the finalists, right?

00:29:55 ◼   ► Like there's a world where that was very possible, and the random seeding dictated it couldn't happen.

00:29:59 ◼   ► If you would have seeded these properly, those two would never have gotten to the final.

00:30:04 ◼   ► Maybe.

00:30:04 ◼   ► Maybe the Black MacBook, the G4 Cube would not have.

00:30:07 ◼   ► Well, it beat the 13-inch MacBook Air.

00:30:09 ◼   ► No one really loves the G4 Cube that much.

00:30:11 ◼   ► No one loves that computer that much, but now it's the final.

00:30:15 ◼   ► It's a cube!

00:30:17 ◼   ► I also think young people relate to the cube.

00:30:19 ◼   ► Sure, I think it's I think it speaks to to a certain simplicity that we could all use in these days

00:30:26 ◼   ► It's a cube. I think it doesn't you know, it's just a cube with an Apple logo on it. It's it's beautiful

00:30:32 ◼   ► It's a simple beautiful object. I mean look at it and it's sort of romantic of the Steve Jobs era, right?

00:30:39 ◼   ► I think a lot of people yeah who are younger maybe only got the tail end of that and you know

00:30:44 ◼   ► They view this with with some sort of love

00:30:47 ◼   ► I wonder though, because people look at it this way, where like the G4 Cube was to Steve

00:30:52 ◼   ► Jobs that the trashcan Mac Pro is to Tim Cook, but I don't think people will look romantically

00:30:59 ◼   ► back at the trashcan Mac Pro.

00:31:03 ◼   ► No, because also when you say that, even if you try to say that with affection, what are

00:31:08 ◼   ► you going to say? Like, oh, it's a trashcan. No, it doesn't quite sound nice.

00:31:13 ◼   ► That's true.

00:31:15 ◼   ► I kind of want to buy a cube, you know, and just just good luck put it on my desk

00:31:21 ◼   ► You can buy one but it's gonna look like trash cuz all the acrylic cracked and can you kind can you like?

00:31:26 ◼   ► Modify it and put like a modern Mac inside. Oh, yeah for a long time

00:31:32 ◼   ► There were people who were like hacking them together doing stuff. It was a real scene for a while

00:31:37 ◼   ► I kind of want to put a raspberry pi

00:31:39 ◼   ► inside a g4 cube

00:31:42 ◼   ► The insides of a Mac Mini could fit inside of that case probably pretty well I bet.

00:31:46 ◼   ► Imagine that.

00:31:48 ◼   ► God, how great would it be if you could put an Apple TV in one of those?

00:31:51 ◼   ► Oh my god.

00:31:52 ◼   ► And have it sitting next to your television?

00:31:54 ◼   ► Super easy.

00:31:55 ◼   ► I bet you could just fit it in there. Like you wouldn't even need to do anything.

00:31:58 ◼   ► You just take the hard drive out and you're good.

00:32:01 ◼   ► Just put it inside. Oh my god. So anyway, go cube. Vote for the cube.

00:32:06 ◼   ► Yeah, go cube.

00:32:07 ◼   ► There's one G4 cube on sale right now.

00:32:09 ◼   ► 295 bucks or best offer.

00:32:11 ◼   ► That's actually pretty good. Hashtag go cube. Yep. I won't share where the voting is right now.

00:32:16 ◼   ► So I don't want to tip it one way or the other, but go vote and voting will end on Thursday,

00:32:21 ◼   ► April 2, I'm gonna do a video that'll come out Friday the third showing the winner and the next

00:32:26 ◼   ► week we'll do the post mortem here on connected. This episode of connected is brought to you by

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00:33:44 ◼   ► Our thanks to Pingdom from SolarWinds for the support of this show and Relay FM.

00:33:49 ◼   ► Federico, last week we spoke about some very specific audio issues.

00:33:55 ◼   ► How is that going?

00:33:57 ◼   ► went, and I cannot believe that I'm saying this, exceptionally well.

00:34:02 ◼   ► This is ridiculous. It's like, I can't believe that this happened. I can't believe that this

00:34:08 ◼   ► happened. But at the same time, I'm also not surprised.

00:34:12 ◼   ► Right? I know. I got so many tweets, like, on the same day, and also throughout the week,

00:34:20 ◼   ► got a bunch of DMs, got a bunch of emails. Some people actually went out, some folks

00:34:25 ◼   ► who had the same Sony Walkman that I have that actually went out and tested multiple

00:34:31 ◼   ► apps for me. Like, it's been incredible. And I have been sent tons of recommendations,

00:34:36 ◼   ► but let's start from the basics. So, last week I asked on the show whether it was possible

00:34:42 ◼   ► for an iPad Pro, the 2018 model that has a USB-C port, to output over USB-C high resolution

00:34:50 ◼   ► audio to an external Sony Walkman, which is a high resolution music player that

00:34:56 ◼   ► can serve as an external DAC, as a digital to analog converter. And I needed

00:35:02 ◼   ► this because I wanted to listen to my music collection, which I own in like my

00:35:08 ◼   ► favorite albums in the FLAC format, some of them in like in different bit rates

00:35:14 ◼   ► and all of that, but usually like in 48 or 96 kHz, in 16 or 24-bit, and I also have some

00:35:21 ◼   ► DSD music, which is another high-resolution lossless high-fidelity format. I asked, is

00:35:28 ◼   ► it possible, from an iPad Pro, to find a music player that can output high-resolution audio

00:35:35 ◼   ► without compression, without changing the bitrate to an external DAC over USB? And I

00:35:43 ◼   ► And I ask because when I tested with Plex, with the Plex app, because this music library,

00:35:49 ◼   ► in addition to being stored on an external SSD, it's also mirrored to Plex. And when

00:35:56 ◼   ► I tried with Plex, I discovered that all of my FLAC files were being down-sampled to 48

00:36:02 ◼   ► kilohertz.

00:36:04 ◼   ► This is something that came into my mind after the last episode that you may have covered

00:36:07 ◼   ► but I may have not caught. The Walkman that you are using, the DAC that you are talking

00:36:13 ◼   ► about is your Walkman, right? Yes, yes, the Walkman is also a DAC. It's got a... But the

00:36:20 ◼   ► Walkman can store the music that you're talking about. Yes, yes it can. So what is the use

00:36:25 ◼   ► case for wanting to not... to play this stuff from the iPad? When I want to manage my cue

00:36:36 ◼   ► and the playback from the iPad.

00:36:38 ◼   ► Because the Walkman has all my music, right?

00:36:40 ◼   ► That's not an issue.

00:36:42 ◼   ► But the, like it cannot create playlists, for example.

00:36:46 ◼   ► It doesn't have a cue feature, right?

00:36:49 ◼   ► It's just you browse an album and you pick a song

00:36:52 ◼   ► or you play the entire album and that's it.

00:36:54 ◼   ► And I wonder maybe for those times

00:36:57 ◼   ► when I actually wanna create a playlist

00:36:59 ◼   ► or put specific songs in my cue,

00:37:03 ◼   ► it's probably preferable to use an iPad and to use the Walkman as a pass-through, basically.

00:37:10 ◼   ► And I asked last week, because with Plex I noticed that all my music files were being

00:37:15 ◼   ► down-sampled, I didn't like that. I wonder, is it like a technical limitation that the

00:37:21 ◼   ► reason why this is not possible?

00:37:22 ◼   ► Because if things are being down-sampled, it's pointless to use FLAC in the first place,

00:37:26 ◼   ► you may as well just go with high-quality MP3 and be done with it.

00:37:29 ◼   ► Exactly. Like, I'm paying for high-resolution music in certain formats, and I don't want to be in a situation where,

00:37:37 ◼   ► yes, you can use the iPad, but everything gets compressed.

00:37:40 ◼   ► So the answer is, well, this is not a technical limitation of the USB-C port of the iPad Pro,

00:37:47 ◼   ► or the Lightning port of the iPhone, because both ports actually support high-resolution audio as output.

00:37:57 ◼   ► is not the problem. The port itself is not the problem. The problem is the app that you use to

00:38:03 ◼   ► send audio from your device, again the iPhone also works, from your device to an external DAC.

00:38:12 ◼   ► Plex, after the episode I did some research and it turns out that a bunch of people are in fact

00:38:19 ◼   ► complaining about the fact that Plex for iOS and iPadOS downsamples everything and is limited to

00:38:25 ◼   ► 48 kilohertz, it's being widely complained about in the Plex forums.

00:38:30 ◼   ► I bet lots of things are widely complained about in the Plex forums.

00:38:34 ◼   ► Yes, yes. I imagine the Plex forums are just a series of complaints that are wide.

00:38:40 ◼   ► It turns out that there's a whole market out there, like this, as usually in the audio file world,

00:38:51 ◼   ► There's a whole scene and niche out there of like high resolution music players for

00:38:57 ◼   ► iPhone and iPad. I had no idea this existed. And this has been a real lesson this week

00:39:03 ◼   ► from connected listeners. I was sent a bunch of recommendations. I went out and bought

00:39:09 ◼   ► all of them on the App Store. Like I purchased all of them. I have some takeaways for you

00:39:14 ◼   ► guys. Most of these apps are terribly designed. Like honestly...

00:39:21 ◼   ► That is, again, not surprising to me at all.

00:39:24 ◼   ► This week I have seen some of the worst user interfaces I've ever seen in my life.

00:39:34 ◼   ► Like you remember, I don't know, Winamp skins?

00:39:38 ◼   ► Think uglier than that.

00:39:41 ◼   ► Right?

00:39:42 ◼   ► And I'm talking about interfaces that were clearly designed by audio engineers.

00:39:48 ◼   ► And you don't want an audio engineer to design an interface for you.

00:39:53 ◼   ► You're sending us these and I thought they were fake.

00:39:56 ◼   ► I was like, how could you make something that looks this wild on iOS?

00:40:01 ◼   ► Or they just they look like they were apps that were made maybe like seven years ago

00:40:05 ◼   ► and not touch, but that wasn't the case.

00:40:08 ◼   ► And it's so strange because it does look like that.

00:40:11 ◼   ► It does look like these apps were made in like 2011.

00:40:14 ◼   ► Then you look at the release notes and you're like, "Last update, two weeks ago."

00:40:18 ◼   ► And you're like, "What? You're still working on this app and it looks this ugly?"

00:40:23 ◼   ► And some of them had a bunch of typos.

00:40:25 ◼   ► Like, by a bunch, I mean a lot of typos.

00:40:28 ◼   ► Or maybe they didn't have like an onboarding process at all.

00:40:33 ◼   ► But the real takeaway is the fact that a lot of these music players assume that you're going to sync

00:40:40 ◼   ► your music collection, your music files to your iPhone or to your iPad, like, actually

00:40:47 ◼   ► transfer them via USB from a computer. And again, I think this is because these apps

00:40:52 ◼   ► were initially released years ago, when it was normal to sync your music, and they were

00:40:58 ◼   ► never updated. Whereas what I wanted was a music player that allowed me to stream my

00:41:06 ◼   ► music collection from a drive on my local network, right? That's what I wanted, and so I continued my

00:41:13 ◼   ► research. And I can mention some of these examples before I talk about my picks. So there's the

00:41:20 ◼   ► Onkyo Player. So Onkyo is very popular, actually, like a high fidelity music website. They also have

00:41:26 ◼   ► a music store. Onkyo Player is otherwise, like, actually pretty well designed, but it's iPhone only,

00:41:34 ◼   ► So it doesn't have an iPad version and it doesn't have any way to stream music from a local server.

00:41:41 ◼   ► Again, it assumes you're going to sync your music to your device.

00:41:46 ◼   ► And I'm really sorry because maybe the developers are actually spending a ton of time on this,

00:41:51 ◼   ► but their UIs are kind of insane and they really need some visual rethinking.

00:41:59 ◼   ► I don't know, is it called...

00:42:02 ◼   ► Oh, what is wrong with the play button?

00:42:04 ◼   ► NePlayer? It's N-E-Player, basically the name. NePlayer.

00:42:09 ◼   ► NePlayer. It's got a really wild UI that I struggle to understand.

00:42:16 ◼   ► So I bought the app and I didn't know what to do with it.

00:42:20 ◼   ► I think I managed to navigate my way through the app to the point where I realized,

00:42:25 ◼   ► "Oh, NIP player also does not let me stream from a local drive on my network."

00:42:34 ◼   ► So that was not it.

00:42:36 ◼   ► This is actually kind of popular because I started, of course, googling around when I

00:42:40 ◼   ► realized "Oh, high resolution players actually exist on the iPhone."

00:42:44 ◼   ► So I started googling by restricting my search to well-known audio file websites, like, for

00:42:52 ◼   ► example, Whatifi is one of them.

00:42:55 ◼   ► I found on their forums that a bunch of people were recommending this app called Kaiser Tone.

00:43:01 ◼   ► And Kaiser Tone is very popular, but it's also kind of ugly. And it also does not let

00:43:07 ◼   ► me stream from a local server. The icon is also something else.

00:43:13 ◼   ► Quote "very popular".

00:43:14 ◼   ► Well, it's kind of popular in that community.

00:43:18 ◼   ► Yeah, look at this website.

00:43:20 ◼   ► Look at the icon, I would say.

00:43:21 ◼   ► This app isn't... Of all the ones that you've said so far, this is the best looking one.

00:43:26 ◼   ► Oh, okay. Yeah. Well, we'll talk about my pick later.

00:43:32 ◼   ► The ones you've shown so far of Onkyo and Nippleya, I think this one is the best looking.

00:43:38 ◼   ► Yeah, me too.

00:43:39 ◼   ► Because it's the simplest.

00:43:40 ◼   ► Maybe. Although, I mean, look at those apps or screenshots.

00:43:43 ◼   ► Oh, no. I know the screenshots are bad. Like, I can see that.

00:43:50 ◼   ► Enriching music selection view.

00:43:53 ◼   ► Yeah, but like, Ni Player has one of the weirdest... no, not the Ni Player.

00:43:59 ◼   ► Ni Player looks like it was just made out of storyboards, like basic ones.

00:44:03 ◼   ► Onkyo has one of the weirdest play buttons I've ever seen.

00:44:07 ◼   ► It's like super skinny.

00:44:09 ◼   ► Oh, let me take a look again.

00:44:11 ◼   ► What's Onkyo like?

00:44:12 ◼   ► Very strange.

00:44:13 ◼   ► Like, the play controls are like really squished down.

00:44:16 ◼   ► Yeah, it's the weird one.

00:44:17 ◼   ► Yeah, I remember that.

00:44:19 ◼   ► Also it's called... yeah... oh yeah it's squished. I totally forgot about the play button.

00:44:26 ◼   ► So anyway, moving on, I was also sent this other app called "FuBar2000".

00:44:34 ◼   ► That doesn't sound real!

00:44:36 ◼   ► Oh my god. Why?

00:44:40 ◼   ► [Laughter]

00:44:46 ◼   ► I'm not kidding! The name is Fu...

00:44:49 ◼   ► A freeware audio player for Microsoft Windows. That's why it's called that. Released in 2002,

00:44:56 ◼   ► which is funny because it's 2000.

00:45:00 ◼   ► There is, so, FUBAR 2000 MOBILE.

00:45:09 ◼   ► Look at these app store screenshots.

00:45:10 ◼   ► The icon is an alien for some reason. Hold on. FUBAR.

00:45:16 ◼   ► This is the worst looking one. This is the worst looking one.

00:45:20 ◼   ► Fullbar lets you choose your appearance, setup, and again, it's based on the assumption that

00:45:27 ◼   ► you're going to transfer your music either via USB or like using iTunes. iTunes is not

00:45:32 ◼   ► even around anymore. Alternatively, you can transfer your music using FTP, which I mean,

00:45:39 ◼   ► fine, I can access my Mac Mini over FTP. Or TuneFusion, and I really don't know what TuneFusion

00:45:48 ◼   ► is. Still, it doesn't stream your music.

00:45:52 ◼   ► Am I looking at the right one? I've put it in the chat room.

00:45:55 ◼   ► Is it the one with the alien?

00:45:57 ◼   ► This is nothing. There's nothing...

00:46:00 ◼   ► What are you looking at?

00:46:03 ◼   ► Is this it? I put it in the chat room.

00:46:06 ◼   ► That's it! That's full-body.

00:46:08 ◼   ► [laughter]

00:46:10 ◼   ► It's so bad!

00:46:12 ◼   ► You can upload your own skin files.

00:46:14 ◼   ► Oh my god.

00:46:16 ◼   ► Then again, though, you look at the specs

00:46:18 ◼   ► and it says it can play a bunch of formats

00:46:20 ◼   ► comes with GAT+ playback

00:46:22 ◼   ► as like...

00:46:24 ◼   ► This is my issue. It supports playback

00:46:26 ◼   ► and downloading music from UPNP

00:46:28 ◼   ► media servers.

00:46:30 ◼   ► UPNP is Universal Plug and Play.

00:46:32 ◼   ► It's a system for connecting

00:46:34 ◼   ► into NAS and other types of media devices. I don't have any UPnP devices. I just have

00:46:41 ◼   ► an SSD connected to a McNamee. And also, I mean, you look at the icon and it's called

00:46:46 ◼   ► FUBAR 2000. It doesn't exactly spark a ton of confidence.

00:46:52 ◼   ► So moving on, let's see what is left in my list. Okay, so we get to the good stuff now.

00:46:59 ◼   ► So, again, I'm gonna leave my pick as the last one. I just want to mention, this is actually very pretty and very well done.

00:47:08 ◼   ► I mentioned it last week. I don't wanna use it, but for the purpose of this section, I signed up for the monthly plan again, just for one month.

00:47:18 ◼   ► So, the service is called Kobus. I'm not sure if that's right. Kobus? Yeah, I'm gonna go with Kobus. It's a music streaming service.

00:47:28 ◼   ► I just want to let all of our listeners know that you will never find this with the way it's pronounced by anybody.

00:47:33 ◼   ► Q-O-B-U-Z.

00:47:36 ◼   ► Q-buzz?

00:47:38 ◼   ► Q-buzz.

00:47:40 ◼   ► Q-buzz.

00:47:41 ◼   ► I wouldn't know how to say it, but no one's ever finding it by searching it.

00:47:44 ◼   ► So what are we settling it on?

00:47:47 ◼   ► Q-buzz or Q-buzz?

00:47:49 ◼   ► Go with whatever you want. I don't think it matters.

00:47:51 ◼   ► Q-buzz. I'm going to go with the European spelling.

00:47:54 ◼   ► It's both a music streaming service and a music store, where you can buy music in high-resolution format.

00:48:03 ◼   ► I've used it a bunch of times. It's really well done.

00:48:05 ◼   ► The app looks very good, and they have a variety of plans.

00:48:12 ◼   ► And if you want, there's a really expensive studio tier that lets you listen to high-resolution 24-bit

00:48:21 ◼   ► Flack music and it's $30 a month. So it's very expensive

00:48:25 ◼   ► but

00:48:27 ◼   ► For science I signed up for a single month again, and I was able to confirm that in fact

00:48:34 ◼   ► It can output the iPad app and the iPhone app. It can output the exact same

00:48:41 ◼   ► source format

00:48:44 ◼   ► From the iPad and iPhone to my Sony Walkman over USB and over lightning

00:48:50 ◼   ► So that was my confirmation. And if I didn't have a Walkman, right?

00:48:54 ◼   ► If I didn't have like my personal music collection already, and if I really wanted to listen to high resolution format music from a streaming service

00:49:02 ◼   ► I would probably consider it. But as I mentioned last week, I don't want to pay for another, you know

00:49:09 ◼   ► $30 monthly subscription. No, but not when this project is about owning the music, right?

00:49:16 ◼   ► Like that's part of it. Yeah. We get to my pick. Okay. This app was recommended by a lot of people.

00:49:23 ◼   ► Oh dear. And in fact, if you go to the website for this app, it's called Neutron. Neutron music player,

00:49:33 ◼   ► the website is NeutronMP.com. Oh, better ego. This summoner does not get better my friend. Wow.

00:49:45 ◼   ► I am here to tell you that Neutron is... represents... you know, in the... in the...

00:49:52 ◼   ► let me check my references here. We're gonna take a detour now. In ancient Roman religion...

00:49:58 ◼   ► In ancient Roman religion and myth...

00:50:02 ◼   ► In ancient...

00:50:05 ◼   ► Janus is the god of...

00:50:12 ◼   ► Hold on. Janus is the god of beginnings, gates, transitions, and hold on, duality. He is usually

00:50:22 ◼   ► depicted as having two faces, since he looks to the future and to the past. Now, I'm here to tell

00:50:29 ◼   ► you that Neutron is the Janus of high-resolution music players.

00:50:42 ◼   ► Neutron is...

00:50:44 ◼   ► I have no idea that the same app could be at the same time the ugliest

00:50:55 ◼   ► man-made creation I've ever seen in a music player and an absolute marvel of an audio engine

00:51:08 ◼   ► at the same time. So, Neutron is... I mean, you look at the screenshots,

00:51:14 ◼   ► and I would especially, especially recommend you look at the iPad screenshots,

00:51:21 ◼   ► and you will see that Neutron is not the prettiest kid on the block.

00:51:29 ◼   ► Oh, god, it's so bad.

00:51:35 ◼   ► It's just a big iPhone app! Like, but it's square! Oh my god, I'm crying.

00:51:41 ◼   ► Neutron. Let's just face it, Neutron is ugly. It's real bad.

00:51:52 ◼   ► And you use it in landscape on the iPad Pro, and the UI is all stretched out,

00:51:59 ◼   ► and the icons are kind of blurry and there's way too many settings that you could configure to

00:52:06 ◼   ► tweak the interface even though it's not really needed like i don't want to adjust the background

00:52:12 ◼   ► colors of the sliders like just give me an actual UI. I feel like when an app looks like this like

00:52:21 ◼   ► if you're gonna make it look like that give me everything possible to try and make it palatable

00:52:26 ◼   ► to me and if that means changing the backgrounds. I thought the same and I tried but it doesn't

00:52:32 ◼   ► really change anything that's the problem. None of them work it's sort of varying levels

00:52:38 ◼   ► of worse. It turns out they already picked the best ones and this is what you got. But.

00:52:47 ◼   ► I like the incomprehensible icons on the top row. Yeah what do they do? I'm still trying

00:52:52 ◼   ► to figure out what they do. One of them takes you back to the now playing screen. And that's

00:52:58 ◼   ► the one I think I think my favorite one is my favorite one is the Q button. Like in the

00:53:09 ◼   ► list. Like what what what is it? Why does it why does it? Oh, so the Q the Q button

00:53:14 ◼   ► with the arrow, the list with the arrow takes you back to the file manager. The play button

00:53:23 ◼   ► takes you back to the "now playing" screen. And I'm still trying to understand, sometimes,

00:53:28 ◼   ► like if you open settings, sometimes to confirm a setting you need to tap on a checkmark,

00:53:35 ◼   ► other times you need to tap on the X button. And I'm still not sure if they do different

00:53:40 ◼   ► things. So, again, the UI could use not just a little love, a lot of love. Neutron needs

00:53:49 ◼   ► to be loved, again. But, and here's why I, not kidding, I put this app on my home screen.

00:53:58 ◼   ► Neutron is incredible for what it does with high resolution audio. It does literally everything

00:54:08 ◼   ► I wanted, and even more. So, the basics. It can let you stream music from any kind of

00:54:18 ◼   ► network source. SMB, UPnP, DLNA, FTP, WebDAV, all of them. You can stream from everything.

00:54:27 ◼   ► I just needed to put in a very confusing UI, to be fair, the credentials for my Mac Mini,

00:54:33 ◼   ► and I was able to connect, and it did an initial scan of my thousands of FLAC files.

00:54:40 ◼   ► And then, whenever there's a... like, if I download a bunch more music, I can go into

00:54:46 ◼   ► the settings and say "Scan for new music files". So that's very well done.

00:54:50 ◼   ► To my knowledge, Neutron is the only high resolution music player that can do this.

00:54:55 ◼   ► So stream from a network source and at the same time support high resolution output via

00:55:05 ◼   ► USB or Lightning to an external DAC in all the possible file formats with all the possible

00:55:12 ◼   ► bit rates.

00:55:13 ◼   ► So we're talking 16, 24 bit audio.

00:55:16 ◼   ► We're talking native DSD playback.

00:55:20 ◼   ► So DSD is a super high resolution format.

00:55:24 ◼   ► app does it all. Like, if you go to the website and if, like, if you're like me and you...

00:55:29 ◼   ► No, the website is actually fine. Oh, they have a link to their Blackberry app still.

00:55:35 ◼   ► Yes, they do. On here. And in the Huawei app gallery. Wow, that's significant. That's a

00:55:42 ◼   ► pretty new thing. They're everywhere. This is the only app that I've seen that can, like,

00:55:48 ◼   ► all of this while streaming from a network source. Again, all FLAC formats are supported,

00:55:55 ◼   ► 24-bit audio, DSD playback. You go into the settings and you can enable this even more

00:56:02 ◼   ► accurate audio processing engine that is based on 64-bit, which of course it totally works

00:56:08 ◼   ► with any modern iPhone or iPad. If you go to the audio hardware section, you can do

00:56:17 ◼   ► exactly what I wanted to do, which is, if I always respect the frequency of the original

00:56:24 ◼   ► file, so some files I have in the FLAC format, other files I have in the DSD format, most

00:56:29 ◼   ► apps they tend to convert everything to PCM, but I actually want... you know, other people

00:56:35 ◼   ► like me will understand what I'm talking about, I always want the source format to be respected

00:56:40 ◼   ► when I output it to an external DAC. And Neutron does all of this. So basically, here's my

00:56:45 ◼   ► conclusion. It is incredibly ugly, and the UI needs a ton of work. But, performance-wise

00:56:54 ◼   ► and functionality-wise, this is everything I wanted. It is remarkable what this app can

00:57:00 ◼   ► do while streaming. Again, we're not talking about local files. Streaming from a local

00:57:05 ◼   ► network and outputting everything to an external DAC over USB. And you can confirm everything,

00:57:11 ◼   ► When you play, you can actually see the frequency and the kilohertz.

00:57:16 ◼   ► You can see the file format, you can see everything in the Now Playing screen.

00:57:19 ◼   ► I did a bunch of blind tests, playing the same track from the Walkman,

00:57:26 ◼   ► and from the iPhone and the iPad, going to the Walkman as a DAC.

00:57:29 ◼   ► Couldn't tell the difference. It does everything I want.

00:57:33 ◼   ► There's actually, of course, and you're going to make fun of me,

00:57:35 ◼   ► but there's a forum where people, fellow Neutron fans, can talk to each other,

00:57:43 ◼   ► can prove to each other that they exist, and they can...

00:57:46 ◼   ► Have you...

00:57:47 ◼   ► I, myself, have lurked on these forums. I have not posted anything.

00:57:53 ◼   ► But it's inactive development, and if the developer happens to become aware of this episode...

00:58:00 ◼   ► I hope not. I just had that thought just a second ago, and I...

00:58:03 ◼   ► But it's in good fun, right? I mean, they must be aware that the UI is not the prettiest around, right?

00:58:11 ◼   ► Well, I mean...

00:58:13 ◼   ► And there's always room for improvement, but once again, it is a remarkable piece of

00:58:20 ◼   ► audio processing software, Neutron. It is really well done. It lets me do what I want it, which is,

00:58:27 ◼   ► I can control my cue from the iPad Pro while listening to my music collection

00:58:32 ◼   ► in the original format that I spend my money on, so I'm happy about that. It could use a bit of work,

00:58:39 ◼   ► design-wise. That's what I'm gonna leave it at. But yeah, go to the forums if you're like me.

00:58:46 ◼   ► Go to the forums. It gets real nerdy, of course, in terms of the features and

00:58:52 ◼   ► the things that people talk about. But hey, we're talking about high-resolution music.

00:58:58 ◼   ► Neutron is my pick, so thank you everybody who sent me suggestions for Neutron.

00:59:03 ◼   ► The icon is actually also kind of decent, so at least on my home screen I don't see like an alien face, like Hoobar2000.

00:59:13 ◼   ► That would have been bad.

00:59:15 ◼   ► Yeah, of the stuff here, except for Kua Buzz, it is the best looking one, but like, it's not an incredibly high bar.

00:59:26 ◼   ► Yeah, thank you, Neutron developer, for putting in the amazing work in terms of letting me do exactly what I wanted.

00:59:32 ◼   ► And again, the network source integration. Super well done.

00:59:38 ◼   ► This is the only app I've found that does it, and if I could wish for one thing it would be...

00:59:46 ◼   ► Even if you want to leave the UI the way that it is, with the black bars and the giant buttons,

00:59:53 ◼   ► At the very least, please add support for the 12.9-inch iPad Pro so that the app is

00:59:58 ◼   ► not just like a giant iPhone version that doesn't even fill the screen.

01:00:02 ◼   ► That would be my...

01:00:03 ◼   ► Like if I had to file a single design request, it would be this one.

01:00:07 ◼   ► Wait, it doesn't fill the screen?

01:00:08 ◼   ► No, no, it really doesn't.

01:00:12 ◼   ► It's like squished in the middle of the screen.

01:00:16 ◼   ► Really?

01:00:17 ◼   ► Send me a screenshot.

01:00:20 ◼   ► Send me a screenshot. Because I don't think the App Store screenshots do this justice.

01:00:25 ◼   ► Like I don't really think that it's given me what the real deal is here.

01:00:31 ◼   ► I'm opening it on my iPad and I'm gonna take a screenshot, put it inside an iPad frame

01:00:38 ◼   ► and show it to you what I mean. Yeah, I need the full...

01:00:42 ◼   ► It's like there's a black border around it and the now playing screen or the list is

01:00:47 ◼   ► like a giant iPhone version. It's not an iPhone app in compatibility mode, it's an actual

01:00:53 ◼   ► iPad app, but it's just...

01:00:55 ◼   ► Yeah, but barely.

01:00:58 ◼   ► Yeah, like it doesn't have any sidebars, like usually on the iPad, right? You see like sidebars?

01:01:03 ◼   ► No, it doesn't have any of that.

01:01:06 ◼   ► Will it do split view or anything?

01:01:08 ◼   ► No. No. No.

01:01:10 ◼   ► I didn't think so.

01:01:12 ◼   ► They don't use split view. That's unfortunate. But it's got a Q feature, it's got a playlist

01:01:17 ◼   ► feature, so that's good. That's what I wanted. And it was honestly like it was a good...

01:01:23 ◼   ► it was good for research, it was good... the screenshot is incoming and you will see what

01:01:29 ◼   ► I mean. It's like... it's bad. But yeah, it works in landscape. It does... it wrote...

01:01:38 ◼   ► yeah. You got it? Oh dear. Oh dear, this is worse than I thought. And that's a 12.9"

01:01:46 ◼   ► iPad Pro, right? That's uh... That play button is eight inches across. I know, I know, I know.

01:01:57 ◼   ► It doesn't look good, but while the other apps were also horrible, they also did not work.

01:02:04 ◼   ► This one does. So, and it's really, it's like, like the closest analogy that I can think of is

01:02:13 ◼   ► like imagine if Overcast, which has got an amazing audio engine, was also incredibly

01:02:19 ◼   ► ugly at the same time. You know? Yeah. Well, I mean this isn't just ugly though, it's just

01:02:27 ◼   ► like really... See, it's not just ugly, because I've seen uglier. It's... I don't know, not

01:02:35 ◼   ► - It's like awkward.

01:02:37 ◼   ► - Yeah, but at the same time, it costs like, what, $7?

01:02:42 ◼   ► And it's incredible.

01:02:43 ◼   ► Like if you care about audio,

01:02:45 ◼   ► I see no reason why you shouldn't be getting this app.

01:02:48 ◼   ► I mean, it's got a comp-

01:02:49 ◼   ► - Functionality is the most important thing

01:02:52 ◼   ► when it comes to audio. - Yes, yes.

01:02:53 ◼   ► It comes with like this DSP effect setting screen,

01:02:58 ◼   ► that like it's got an equalizer, it's got a compressor tool.

01:03:01 ◼   ► It really is incredible.

01:03:04 ◼   ► and I cannot stress this enough, but like, Janus has two faces and represents duality.

01:03:11 ◼   ► Yes, probably not.

01:03:12 ◼   ► Functionality and design. And unfortunately, the design face, you know, more than looking.

01:03:20 ◼   ► It's like functionality, design, price. You can only have two of them.

01:03:26 ◼   ► Exactly. Yeah. So $7 and it's amazing for what it does, but it looks like this.

01:03:31 ◼   ► Yeah, but it's not good. Yeah. Yeah. This has been incredible. Yeah. I was not expecting all of this

01:03:39 ◼   ► Me neither. I had no idea that a simple request on last week's show would do all this. So

01:03:47 ◼   ► What do what is probably an all-time segment? Honestly?

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01:05:32 ◼   ► Apple is making moves, they have bought Dark Sky.

01:05:36 ◼   ► Who would have guessed that one, huh?

01:05:38 ◼   ► Like seriously, it's weird.

01:05:40 ◼   ► Again, you think about it, you try and understand why, and you're like, "Okay, I can see it."

01:05:47 ◼   ► But this would have been a double risky pick.

01:05:51 ◼   ► Yeah, I would have never thought that like there's a bunch of apps that I could see Apple acquire, but not Dark Sky.

01:05:57 ◼   ► Like I...

01:05:57 ◼   ► Yes, not this one.

01:05:59 ◼   ► Like I'm gonna just gonna say it. I could see Apple say we bought LumaFusion, right? Something like that.

01:06:04 ◼   ► Something very specific for pro users, for example. Not Dark Sky. I guess it... Well, we're gonna talk about it.

01:06:11 ◼   ► Mmm... Some interesting implications. Not just for the weather app itself. Is it like a weather app?

01:06:18 ◼   ► But in terms of like the actual service.

01:06:20 ◼   ► Let me break down the news and then we can pick it apart a little bit more.

01:06:25 ◼   ► The iOS app is going to remain available to purchase, which feels weird.

01:06:29 ◼   ► As it stands, it seems like you will still be buying the application.

01:06:33 ◼   ► Which, I mean, fine, but that seems odd.

01:06:36 ◼   ► No announced changes to the iOS app of any kind at this point.

01:06:40 ◼   ► The Android app, of which Darkseid had a, I believe, quite popular Android version,

01:06:44 ◼   ► in a second I will check the Play Store for how many downloads they got,

01:06:47 ◼   ► they got unless Steven you want to do that for me in the background. The Android app has been

01:06:51 ◼   ► removed from sale and will be shut down on July 1st. The forecast data which is on their website

01:06:58 ◼   ► will also be shut down on July 1st but the dark sky API which powers many weather applications

01:07:05 ◼   ► especially third-party apps on iOS will be available to developers until the end of 2021.

01:07:11 ◼   ► Nobody can sign up now like signups are closed but it will be kept operational and all users of

01:07:17 ◼   ► of the API are now subject to Apple's privacy policy

01:07:22 ◼   ► rather than Dark Sky's privacy policy.

01:07:24 ◼   ► - Over one million installs from the Google Play Store.

01:07:28 ◼   ► - So significant user base, right?

01:07:30 ◼   ► - Yes. - It's gonna be at least

01:07:31 ◼   ► in the, I would expect, hundreds of thousands

01:07:33 ◼   ► of daily users on Android.

01:07:35 ◼   ► Shutting the Android app down on July 1st

01:07:38 ◼   ► seems a bit petty to me, if the API is gonna be

01:07:41 ◼   ► remain available until the end of 2021.

01:07:43 ◼   ► Like, that seems weird.

01:07:45 ◼   ► like at least have it be functional for people that paid for it.

01:07:49 ◼   ► Like if your API is going to continue,

01:07:51 ◼   ► I don't really understand the thinking behind that. Honestly,

01:07:55 ◼   ► like you can say we will not be updating this application or providing any

01:08:00 ◼   ► support for it,

01:08:01 ◼   ► but to shut it down when the iOS app is going to remain available for people to

01:08:06 ◼   ► buy and API is available for developers until 2021.

01:08:10 ◼   ► Like I don't know why you would be like, no, we're done with that.

01:08:13 ◼   ► Like it just seems a bit weird, but whatever.

01:08:15 ◼   ► That is a bit weird. Especially because, like, as you mentioned, I feel like the API is the

01:08:20 ◼   ► most fascinating angle here. And I think there are multiple angles, right? I mean, the obvious

01:08:25 ◼   ► one is, oh, Apple wants to build a better, more powerful, maybe, weather app, right?

01:08:32 ◼   ► So the iPhone has a built-in weather app, which I have to assume that millions of people

01:08:36 ◼   ► check out every day. It's a default. It's on the iPhone. It's integrated in a bunch

01:08:41 ◼   ► of different ways with like Siri and the widget and maps even so a lot of people

01:08:47 ◼   ► use it and dark sky has been consistently like I believe the top the

01:08:53 ◼   ► number one top paid weather app for iPhone for several years at this point

01:08:59 ◼   ► it's very well known and it's very popular especially I believe in the

01:09:04 ◼   ► United States because it's it comes with this weather radar and rain

01:09:10 ◼   ► notifications. The rain is very good in the UK too. I use Dark Sky for the rain stuff.

01:09:16 ◼   ► Of course, Italy being infrastructure-wise, behind at least 10 years other countries,

01:09:23 ◼   ► we have none of this stuff, but Dark Sky is very popular for its hyper-local approach

01:09:29 ◼   ► to data. So again, obvious conclusion, Apple wants to have these features in the weather

01:09:34 ◼   ► app. Maybe at the beginning only for the United States. There's plenty of precedence for this,

01:09:43 ◼   ► for features that are US-only at launch. It wouldn't surprise me if Apple wants to redesign

01:09:48 ◼   ► the weather app, which has had a sort of realistic design for seven years now.

01:09:55 ◼   ► It's pretty basic.

01:09:56 ◼   ► It's pretty basic.

01:09:57 ◼   ► It's real basic.

01:09:58 ◼   ► It could use some love. Not as much love as Neutron, but could use some, right? Modernization.

01:10:03 ◼   ► modernization of the experience. Now, that's one angle. The other angle is Dark Sky as

01:10:10 ◼   ► an entire ecosystem of compatible apps based on the API that they offer to iOS developers,

01:10:19 ◼   ► Android developers, and web developers. There's a bunch of services that are based on Dark

01:10:25 ◼   ► Sky data. There's a bunch of apps that use it as a data provider, like my favorite app,

01:10:32 ◼   ► Curved Weather. There's a bunch of others. They use Dark Sky as a data provider. Now,

01:10:37 ◼   ► what's going to happen to all those apps, both on the iOS App Store, but also on the Google Play

01:10:44 ◼   ► Store, and also on the web? I'm going to go with my obvious scenario here. Apple will, in fact,

01:10:52 ◼   ► redesign the Weather app to include some of these Dark Sky features, but I could see a scenario

01:10:58 ◼   ► where they also offer an API that is an iOS-only API, weather API for developers to create third-party

01:11:06 ◼   ► weather clients that are based on the native Apple data provider. And I say this because,

01:11:14 ◼   ► especially over the past couple of years, we've all heard the stories of how weather apps are

01:11:20 ◼   ► notoriously privacy invasive. You google this and you will see the stories of like this weather

01:11:28 ◼   ► companies doing some creepy things with ads and tracking users and collecting data, collecting

01:11:34 ◼   ► email addresses, stuff that Apple hates. And I could see a scenario where Apple says, "Okay,

01:11:39 ◼   ► look, we gotta fix this problem. People don't want to use our weather app, so that's one

01:11:44 ◼   ► side of the problem. The other side of the problem is that people go to the App Store

01:11:48 ◼   ► and they find all these third-party weather clients, and most of them, they do some creepy

01:11:53 ◼   ► things with tracking users that we do not like. What's the solution?" And if I were

01:11:57 ◼   ► Apple, I would say, well, let's go about these two ways.

01:12:00 ◼   ► One way is we actually rethink the weather app,

01:12:04 ◼   ► and we make it more useful so that maybe people

01:12:06 ◼   ► are less incentivized, less inclined to go to the app store

01:12:09 ◼   ► and find the third-party alternative.

01:12:11 ◼   ► But if they really want to, we also

01:12:14 ◼   ► offer developers an API to say, well, we don't have to--

01:12:17 ◼   ► we're not tracking anybody.

01:12:18 ◼   ► We're not doing any creepy things.

01:12:20 ◼   ► You use the Apple system.

01:12:21 ◼   ► You got good data.

01:12:22 ◼   ► but you can ship a differently designed weather app

01:12:27 ◼   ► for people who don't like the default one.

01:12:30 ◼   ► That's an obvious approach to me.

01:12:32 ◼   ► You buy Dark Sky, you roll into the weather app,

01:12:37 ◼   ► but you also make the API available.

01:12:39 ◼   ► And the timeline works out.

01:12:41 ◼   ► When they bought Workflow, for example, in 2017,

01:12:44 ◼   ► they left it on the App Store for about a year,

01:12:47 ◼   ► year and a half maybe.

01:12:49 ◼   ► And the following year in 2018,

01:12:51 ◼   ► we had shortcuts as a built-in app.

01:12:54 ◼   ► So I could see something like that.

01:12:55 ◼   ► What's interesting to me is the possibility

01:12:58 ◼   ► that Dark Sky Data could also remain in its current form

01:13:04 ◼   ► as a web-based data provider.

01:13:08 ◼   ► Again, there's precedent for this.

01:13:09 ◼   ► You look at MusicKit, which is the Apple Music web

01:13:13 ◼   ► API that allows all kinds of services and products

01:13:16 ◼   ► to integrate with Apple Music.

01:13:17 ◼   ► You look at also Maps.

01:13:19 ◼   ► There's MapKit, which is available on the web via JavaScript, I believe.

01:13:22 ◼   ► And you can have Apple Maps embeds on your website, for example.

01:13:27 ◼   ► I could see, again, an Apple weather API, weather kit, whatever, API that continues to be available over the web for other companies to use.

01:13:36 ◼   ► Finally, I would say it's also fascinating to think about the potential of an Apple Maps integration in the context of the Dark Sky Radar.

01:13:49 ◼   ► Again, I've never had access to this myself in Italy,

01:13:53 ◼   ► but I know that it's very popular.

01:13:54 ◼   ► I see these radar screenshots

01:13:57 ◼   ► that sometimes Steven shares with us

01:13:59 ◼   ► when there's like a storm coming over Memphis.

01:14:03 ◼   ► And I could see that as becoming sort of like a layer

01:14:06 ◼   ► of MapKit, like a new map layer

01:14:09 ◼   ► that developers can just gain access to

01:14:12 ◼   ► or via the native Apple Maps API, and that's it.

01:14:16 ◼   ► That could be interesting.

01:14:17 ◼   ► So a bunch of angles here.

01:14:20 ◼   ► I'm not really sure what to think,

01:14:21 ◼   ► but I would say I do not expect,

01:14:24 ◼   ► and I, again, could totally be wrong here.

01:14:27 ◼   ► I'm not expecting a weather app relaunch this year,

01:14:31 ◼   ► but maybe next year,

01:14:32 ◼   ► considering like how these things went before,

01:14:36 ◼   ► maybe we're looking at a 2021 product.

01:14:39 ◼   ► - I could imagine them changing the data source

01:14:43 ◼   ► for iOS 14 to Dark Sky?

01:14:47 ◼   ► - Yes, so right now the built-in weather app

01:14:50 ◼   ► uses the Weather Channel for its source

01:14:53 ◼   ► and the Weather Channel pulled the plug

01:14:56 ◼   ► on a lot of its API stuff for other apps,

01:15:01 ◼   ► I think last year and yeah, well actually 2018.

01:15:05 ◼   ► So it is potentially a situation

01:15:10 ◼   ► where Apple's contract is going to run out as well,

01:15:13 ◼   ► and so they can't access that data.

01:15:15 ◼   ► And one thing we haven't really talked about

01:15:16 ◼   ► is most of these sources charge developers,

01:15:20 ◼   ► basically per instance, per pull on the API.

01:15:25 ◼   ► And so we've seen a lot of weather apps

01:15:26 ◼   ► come and go over the years

01:15:27 ◼   ► because it's an expensive business to be in.

01:15:29 ◼   ► That's why Carrot Weather and others

01:15:30 ◼   ► are all on recurring payments

01:15:33 ◼   ► because you can't just pay once and expect to stay open.

01:15:36 ◼   ► You've got to have recurring revenue.

01:15:39 ◼   ► And so maybe that could also be something Apple would do is to help help these third

01:15:43 ◼   ► party providers if they do have an API make it cheaper or even free.

01:15:48 ◼   ► I could see them integrating the dark sky stuff into the weather app and then maybe

01:15:51 ◼   ► doing a more full redesign later.

01:15:53 ◼   ► There's not even a radar and the basic, you know, iPhone weather app and that's something

01:15:58 ◼   ► that a lot of people, including myself really want.

01:16:02 ◼   ► But we should talk about how it could impact third party apps.

01:16:06 ◼   ► They have until the end of 2021 until the API goes away.

01:16:11 ◼   ► And again, we're hopeful that it just changes

01:16:13 ◼   ► that Apple has something.

01:16:14 ◼   ► But Carrot Weather and other apps use this.

01:16:18 ◼   ► And so the way I use Carrot Weather

01:16:20 ◼   ► is I have my forecast data from AccuWeather,

01:16:22 ◼   ► but I have Dark Sky providing the hyper local,

01:16:26 ◼   ► it's gonna rain on your block in 10 minutes type stuff.

01:16:29 ◼   ► And you can combine them,

01:16:30 ◼   ► Weatherline and some others do this as well.

01:16:33 ◼   ► And so all of those developers

01:16:35 ◼   ► going to need to find alternative sources and it's just one fewer options

01:16:39 ◼   ► after the Weather Channel pulled out and after some others have pulled out or

01:16:42 ◼   ► gone away it's becoming a smaller and smaller set of data sources they can go

01:16:47 ◼   ► to so I think Apple has an opportunity to do something here. The question is

01:16:51 ◼   ► just will they do it or not? See like for me I use Carrotweather and I use

01:16:57 ◼   ► Dark Sky and I'm on like the paying monthly thing but I would have to upgrade my membership

01:17:07 ◼   ► to change away from Dark Sky.

01:17:08 ◼   ► Yeah, I pay for the big boy one.

01:17:10 ◼   ► I mean I don't need more than that and Dark Sky works great for me and I'm assuming that

01:17:16 ◼   ► you know it would be interesting to see what happens but maybe it's just a case of like

01:17:20 ◼   ► they chose one and they'll have to choose a different one and then that will be the

01:17:23 ◼   ► tier one, you know, like going forward. But I would expect a lot of web app developers

01:17:29 ◼   ► probably won't change anything for a while because if Apple does provide this API, then

01:17:36 ◼   ► it will be, it won't be a thing for them anymore. In fact, it will make their business way better

01:17:42 ◼   ► in theory if they're able to use it in the same way that they use the current data, right?

01:17:48 ◼   ► Because then they won't have to pay at all for these sources if they don't want to.

01:17:52 ◼   ► Right. But this this I find this whole thing very interesting because if Apple I mean we're all presuming good here but what if Apple just doesn't do that?

01:18:03 ◼   ► Yeah. Yeah.

01:18:04 ◼   ► Just like, yeah, we don't care.

01:18:06 ◼   ► Like you have until next year.

01:18:08 ◼   ► Or like they say, we have an API, but it is incredibly simple.

01:18:13 ◼   ► Like you can embed our weather view inside of your app, which is what the map one is.

01:18:18 ◼   ► Right. Like you just show Apple Maps views.

01:18:21 ◼   ► It's not like you can take that data and do stuff with it.

01:18:24 ◼   ► I don't believe that's the case.

01:18:25 ◼   ► You could probably do some like, you look at, for example, the shortcuts actions for maps

01:18:30 ◼   ► and you could do things like calculate distance or travel time, right?

01:18:34 ◼   ► You can get some data out of it without necessarily showing you a map view.

01:18:39 ◼   ► But yes, it's I don't think it's as extensive as Google Maps, for example.

01:18:45 ◼   ► And it is very possible that Apple would just like, oh, man, we need a data source.

01:18:49 ◼   ► "Alright, let's just buy one. Great, done." They aren't even thinking about having this

01:18:54 ◼   ► API for people.

01:18:56 ◼   ► I would be surprised if, you know, when doing the due diligence, it doesn't come out like,

01:19:01 ◼   ► "By the way, we do have like 5,000 developers accessing the API. What are we going to do

01:19:07 ◼   ► about that?" I don't know. It would be…

01:19:10 ◼   ► Right, but Apple could just say, "Well, you're not the only game in town." End of story.

01:19:15 ◼   ► They could.

01:19:16 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:19:17 ◼   ► And it's within their rights to do that.

01:19:19 ◼   ► It's not like Dark Sky is the only weather source.

01:19:24 ◼   ► There are many, many more.

01:19:26 ◼   ► And it's not...

01:19:27 ◼   ► I don't think that it should be considered Apple's responsibility to do this.

01:19:33 ◼   ► They don't have to make an API for the third party developers that use it because there

01:19:39 ◼   ► are other ones.

01:19:41 ◼   ► If Dark Sky were the only service, then we're talking, this is different, right?

01:19:47 ◼   ► But they're not, so they don't have to.

01:19:50 ◼   ► It would be great if they did, but they don't have to because really, it's in Apple's best

01:19:55 ◼   ► interest to just make the best weather app.

01:19:58 ◼   ► That's what they should be aiming for anyway.

01:20:01 ◼   ► And so they just put their focus on that and not on API.

01:20:04 ◼   ► I don't know.

01:20:05 ◼   ► Good times.

01:20:06 ◼   ► Weather drama.

01:20:07 ◼   ► It's always the best.

01:20:08 ◼   ► I do want to very quickly just say, like, reminds me of Apple Maps, right? Like, what if, what if

01:20:15 ◼   ► just like the new Apple weather sucks, right? It's like, well then what? You know, I don't like,

01:20:21 ◼   ► because the thing is, it's like, well, as Federico has pointed out, like, Dark Sky isn't available

01:20:28 ◼   ► for him. So where's the weather source coming from for Italy in the Apple weather app? If this is

01:20:36 ◼   ► is going to be their data source.

01:20:38 ◼   ► - Yeah, exactly.

01:20:39 ◼   ► Like that, I never used Dark Sky

01:20:42 ◼   ► because it was like it was useless for me.

01:20:45 ◼   ► Can they expand internationally?

01:20:46 ◼   ► Does Apple really want to install a bunch of weather stations

01:20:49 ◼   ► around the world?

01:20:50 ◼   ► I mean, we've seen crazier things, right?

01:20:52 ◼   ► It's not, it is within the realm of possibility

01:20:56 ◼   ► that Apple actually also wants to install

01:20:59 ◼   ► a bunch of weather stations

01:21:00 ◼   ► or maybe the simpler solution cut some deals

01:21:03 ◼   ► with other weather providers to get their data

01:21:06 ◼   ► into their whatever new system they're working on.

01:21:09 ◼   ► I mean, I have used Dark Sky in other countries and it seems to be fine. Like, I think they

01:21:14 ◼   ► have some level of coverage everywhere, but I don't know if it's the best coverage everywhere,

01:21:20 ◼   ► you know? Yeah, and also, like, they're pointing out,

01:21:22 ◼   ► a good point in the chatroom that Dark Sky itself is not like a source of its own. They

01:21:27 ◼   ► actually aggregate a bunch of different sources, including, I believe, like, government, like

01:21:32 ◼   ► like official government sources, we have some of those in Italy. They aggregate the

01:21:36 ◼   ► data and they have algorithms based on machine learning and all those fancy terminology that

01:21:41 ◼   ► they do their best guess in terms of like, "It's gonna rain in five minutes," and something

01:21:46 ◼   ► like that. So that's also very much true. There's also that aspect of what about all

01:21:51 ◼   ► the other companies that were dealing with Dark Sky before and now they're dealing with

01:21:55 ◼   ► Apple. So, I don't know.

01:21:58 ◼   ► So before we wrap up, Federico, you've got some big stuff going on over there this week

01:22:03 ◼   ► with your Max Stories coverage of the iPad at 10 years old.

01:22:09 ◼   ► Now you may think to yourself, "listener, wait a second, didn't this just happen?"

01:22:14 ◼   ► It's like yes and no.

01:22:18 ◼   ► Lots of people, including us on this show, were celebrating the iPad 10 years after introduction,

01:22:23 ◼   ► which is in January.

01:22:24 ◼   ► this week, the end of this week, marks the shipping, right, of the iPad to customers.

01:22:33 ◼   ► Was it the third?

01:22:35 ◼   ► April 3rd.

01:22:36 ◼   ► April 3rd.

01:22:37 ◼   ► When was the actual date?

01:22:38 ◼   ► April 3rd was the availability date.

01:22:39 ◼   ► So Federico, you mentioned it at the time, I remember, that you were saving a lot of

01:22:44 ◼   ► your big coverage for now.

01:22:47 ◼   ► So can you give people a taste of what they should be expecting this week at Mac Stories

01:22:53 ◼   ► on what they can already go and check out.

01:22:55 ◼   ► Well, our plan was to actually wait for the iPad's official release date before sharing

01:23:01 ◼   ► anything. We've created a page where you can go and see all the iPad 10 stories that we

01:23:08 ◼   ► prepared. There's a bunch already, so as we're recording this on Wednesday, there's four,

01:23:14 ◼   ► I want to say, three, four of them. We had on Monday a retrospective from John about

01:23:21 ◼   ► the history of the iPad, so the evolution of the iPad over the course of a decade. So

01:23:26 ◼   ► the first few years and then the struggles in the middle, and then what happened after

01:23:30 ◼   ► the iPad Pro. We had a really excellent accessibility story by Stephen Aquino about how the iPad

01:23:37 ◼   ► sort of revolutionized special education and the apps that have made it possible for kids

01:23:43 ◼   ► with autism, for example, to be able to communicate, to learn how to communicate. Really beautiful

01:23:48 ◼   ► story. Ryan also did a series of interviews with developers of iPad apps

01:23:55 ◼   ► about the whole story of creating apps for the tablet ten years ago and then

01:24:01 ◼   ► the evolution of the iPad and iPadOS and multitasking and just today we have

01:24:06 ◼   ► published a roundup of I believe 24-25 of the most important in the context of

01:24:13 ◼   ► like we called it the most impactful iPad apps of the decade. We have a bunch of weird

01:24:20 ◼   ► fun stuff still coming up until Saturday. So there's going to be a story from John that

01:24:28 ◼   ► I bet a bunch of people are not expecting. There's going to be a story from me that I

01:24:34 ◼   ► just finished writing it today. It's about 10,000 words. So it's a very long one. It's

01:24:40 ◼   ► It's a very in-depth one, and it's quite possibly the weirdest thing I've ever written about

01:24:47 ◼   ► the iPad. About all the crazy and fun things that I do with my iPad Pro.

01:24:53 ◼   ► Lots of kickstands.

01:24:54 ◼   ► Kickstands and keyboards and displays.

01:24:57 ◼   ► And flak.

01:24:58 ◼   ► And flak. Neutron, my boy Neutron is in there. Neutron fam, represent. Neutron is in there.

01:25:05 ◼   ► Oh boy. Did you pick that up from the forum?

01:25:07 ◼   ► That's what we call ourselves. Yes.

01:25:10 ◼   ► the neutron fan? So it's definitely it's a fun one. It should come out in a

01:25:15 ◼   ► couple of in a few days. It basically aggregates a bunch of things that I've

01:25:19 ◼   ► talked about on various podcasts over the past couple of years all in one

01:25:23 ◼   ► place. And of course it talks about the new stuff with the

01:25:27 ◼   ► pointer and the trackpad in 13.4 and all the new things and apps.

01:25:32 ◼   ► I actually loved working on this story. So yeah, I think by the end of this

01:25:37 ◼   ► process we will have something like seven, eight stories on the site, each looking at

01:25:43 ◼   ► the first decade of iPad from a different angle. There's also going to be, I'm working

01:25:47 ◼   ► on something special for club members to do some other crazy things with USB and the iPad.

01:25:54 ◼   ► I hope that it'll be technically possible to share this, so stay tuned in Mac Stories

01:25:59 ◼   ► Weekly also later this week. It's been a lot of work, but I'm super happy that we did this

01:26:04 ◼   ► because we never, you know, it's always fun when we get to share, like, these special

01:26:08 ◼   ► events on Mac Stories, and we each get to write about some, like, a different angle

01:26:13 ◼   ► of a particular topic. So, it's been fun, you know, and these kinds of anniversaries,

01:26:18 ◼   ► 10 years is a big deal, I think.

01:26:20 ◼   ► - Yeah, I'm looking forward to digging into all of these stories, I'm saving a few of

01:26:24 ◼   ► them up. It's good quarantine content, but I'm especially excited for your weird story,

01:26:31 ◼   ► I want to get some tips, some hardware tips from you and I'm sure there's going to be

01:26:35 ◼   ► some.

01:26:36 ◼   ► Get your weird on, Myke.

01:26:37 ◼   ► Yeah, boy do I love it.

01:26:41 ◼   ► Split RGB keyboard over here, like two pointing devices at once.

01:26:45 ◼   ► I want to get some weird stuff.

01:26:47 ◼   ► Two of them?

01:26:49 ◼   ► Can I just share one little thought that I had a couple of days ago?

01:26:54 ◼   ► I think it was while I was listening to App Stories.

01:26:56 ◼   ► You referenced that the iPad came out in 2010 and then the first iPad Pro came out in 2015

01:27:03 ◼   ► and it made me think, "Oh, that's like five years and now we're five years since then."

01:27:07 ◼   ► And then I thought to myself, "Oh, so we had the original iPad, then the iPad changed a

01:27:14 ◼   ► lot when the iPad Pro came out."

01:27:16 ◼   ► It made a massive change to the iPad as a product.

01:27:19 ◼   ► And I think now, five years later in 2020, the Magic Q board and the trackpad support

01:27:25 ◼   ► is going to be another massive change.

01:27:28 ◼   ► And I just thought that was, it was just interesting to me.

01:27:30 ◼   ► It's like every five years we've had a big thing now.

01:27:35 ◼   ► And I just thought that was funny.

01:27:37 ◼   ► Hey guys, I gotta go sign for my thing.

01:27:39 ◼   ► I'll be right back.

01:27:40 ◼   ► You guys just hang out, then I'll come back and edit.

01:27:42 ◼   ► Yeah, we'll just wait for you.

01:27:43 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:27:44 ◼   ► That was my thought.

01:27:45 ◼   ► Yeah, it's um, and we haven't even seen iOS 14 yet.

01:27:49 ◼   ► So what's that gonna do?

01:27:51 ◼   ► What new kinds of...

01:27:52 ◼   ► But I think even without iOS 14, just that trackpad support is such a big change because

01:27:57 ◼   ► of what it's going to do for a lot of people's perceptions of the iPad as a platform.

01:28:01 ◼   ► I think that's the important part of it really.

01:28:04 ◼   ► I think it will open up the iPad as a viable alternative to people that just wrote it off

01:28:09 ◼   ► because it didn't have a trackpad.

01:28:12 ◼   ► People were just like, "I could never do that.

01:28:14 ◼   ► I couldn't touch.

01:28:15 ◼   ► I don't want to touch the screen to do all my work."

01:28:18 ◼   ► Those numbers updates are real good though.

01:28:20 ◼   ► and pages. Very nice.

01:28:22 ◼   ► Play around with it this morning. I love that they have those custom pointers when you want

01:28:27 ◼   ► to resize an image or a cell. It's very well done. You can hold down Command and the pointer

01:28:33 ◼   ► changes again. So there's also support for Modify Your Keys in addition to the pointer,

01:28:40 ◼   ► which is...

01:28:41 ◼   ► The hovering over the cells. It's all really nicely done. Come on, Google. Give me an update

01:28:47 ◼   ► to Google Sheets. Come on, I believe in you. I believe in you.

01:28:52 ◼   ► In the story that I will publish, there's going to be one section where I believe...

01:28:57 ◼   ► I think a bunch of old school Mac people will lose their minds. I shared an excerpt of that

01:29:06 ◼   ► with you guys a few days ago. It's fun.

01:29:11 ◼   ► I do this, but not to the level that you do it. So even I was like, "Oh boy." That's quite

01:29:21 ◼   ► a level you've gone to there just to get around something, right? But it's great.

01:29:25 ◼   ► Yeah, thank you. I will be taking pictures and I will be editing and hopefully should

01:29:30 ◼   ► be out very soon. But yeah, it was fun. And after this, honestly, I don't know what I'm

01:29:36 ◼   ► going to do. I guess I'm going to wait for the Magic Keyboard and I have a backlog of

01:29:40 ◼   ► shortcuts to make. It doesn't help that shortcut is still so buggy for me. So it was good that

01:29:47 ◼   ► we had this special event planned because otherwise I'm not sure what I'm going to write

01:29:50 ◼   ► about next.

01:29:51 ◼   ► Hi. That was all content for the show by the way, Steven. So everything that we've spoken

01:29:56 ◼   ► about from when you've been gone.

01:30:08 ◼   ► know that you leave during the show so we just went with it. We were used to it. Yeah,

01:30:13 ◼   ► so we were used to it by now. Things just going in the gaps when you're gone. Yeah,

01:30:20 ◼   ► another instance of Steven leaving. As if we needed more. At least this time you've

01:30:26 ◼   ► been a gentleman though. You actually communicated that to us. And it was actually very legitimate

01:30:32 ◼   ► on-topic conversation about the iPad. So we weren't talking about Animal Crossing.

01:30:37 ◼   ► We'll see. No, he genuinely was.

01:30:41 ◼   ► No, he's gonna listen to make sure. I know he's gonna listen.

01:30:46 ◼   ► I'm a good editor.

01:30:46 ◼   ► But that will only prove that we were correct and we shouldn't be the ones that

01:30:49 ◼   ► I doubted. Steven's the one that should be there.

01:30:51 ◼   ► Okay, well, let me wrap up the show and then I can get to the edit and then we'll see.

01:30:54 ◼   ► So I think that does it for this week. Thank you for listening. If you want to find

01:31:00 ◼   ► links to a bunch of weird iPad and iPhone music apps and a bunch of other stuff, head on over

01:31:05 ◼   ► to the website relay.fm/connected/288. While you're there, you can send us an email with

01:31:13 ◼   ► feedback or follow up. You can also become a member and support the show directly there.

01:31:18 ◼   ► There's a link there in the sidebar, we'd appreciate that. If you want to find us online,

01:31:23 ◼   ► we do exist outside of the podcast, you can find Federico on Twitter at @Fetichy, V I T I CC I,

01:31:30 ◼   ► And of course the editor in chief of max stories.net and the iPad attend stuff is really spectacular. Seriously go check that out

01:31:37 ◼   ► Y'all are killing it this week. It's great. Thank you. You can find Myke on Twitter as I Myke

01:31:42 ◼   ► I am y ke and you can find Myke across a wide variety of shows here on relay FM

01:31:49 ◼   ► You can find me on Twitter as I smh and my writing at 512 pixels dotnet

01:31:54 ◼   ► I think our sponsors this week PDF pin from smile pingdom and h refs

01:31:59 ◼   ► Until next week gentlemen, say goodbye. Adios.