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Connected

281: Oligarch Modder Community

 

00:00:00   (upbeat music)

00:00:02   - Hello and welcome to Connected episode 281.

00:00:11   It's made possible by our sponsors,

00:00:13   Squarespace, Direct Mail, and Setapp from MacPaw.

00:00:17   My name is Stephen Hackett and I am joined by Myke Hurley.

00:00:20   - Oh, hi.

00:00:21   - That's weird.

00:00:23   Say hi like a normal person.

00:00:25   - Hi, like a normal person.

00:00:27   - I'm just gonna move on, you weirdo.

00:00:29   And we're joined by Federico Vittucci.

00:00:31   - You're welcome. - Buonasera, Steven.

00:00:33   Hi.

00:00:34   - Hey. - Hey.

00:00:35   - How are you?

00:00:36   - I'm good.

00:00:36   I don't know what's up with Myke,

00:00:37   but I think the two of us are ready to go.

00:00:40   - Why does there have to be something wrong with me?

00:00:42   - 'Cause you said hi in a creepy way.

00:00:44   - No, I didn't, I just said it.

00:00:46   - Hmm.

00:00:46   - Do you think it was creepy, Federico?

00:00:48   - I didn't find it creepy.

00:00:50   I thought it was more, I thought it was more romantic.

00:00:54   - Yeah, I'll go romantic.

00:00:55   Alluring is what I'm going for.

00:00:57   - Yeah, that's a beautiful adjective, yes.

00:00:59   (laughing)

00:01:01   I like it.

00:01:02   - All right.

00:01:03   - It's my new yearly theme, alluring.

00:01:05   - The year of allure.

00:01:06   (laughing)

00:01:08   - We're gonna start with follow up,

00:01:12   and that means starting--

00:01:13   - Should we though?

00:01:14   Should we really start?

00:01:15   - Yes, look, when I'm gone,

00:01:17   so I'm gonna miss an episode in a couple weeks,

00:01:20   and I know you guys are gonna do everything

00:01:22   in the wrong order, but I'm here,

00:01:24   and I'm still in charge somewhat of announcing the show.

00:01:29   And so we're gonna talk about follow-up first

00:01:31   and the two of you were just on for the ride.

00:01:33   We're gonna start with Apple Watch keyboard.

00:01:36   So we spoke about this recently, it was last episode,

00:01:39   about Scribble and things we'd want on watchOS

00:01:42   and all these things.

00:01:43   And in the meantime, there's been a review

00:01:45   of a watchOS app called Flick Type over on Mac stories.

00:01:50   Federico, can you explain this app?

00:01:51   I played with it, but I find it difficult to talk about

00:01:54   for some reason.

00:01:56   - Yeah, so I wasn't familiar with this app before,

00:01:58   but then a bunch of people recommended the app

00:02:00   to us on Twitter, and so we decided to take a look.

00:02:04   And I was sort of familiar with the name

00:02:05   because I saw that it was mentioned

00:02:08   in some other watch apps, like Chirp, for example,

00:02:12   the Twitter client for the Apple Watch,

00:02:13   sort of integrated with the Flick Type keyboard.

00:02:17   But it turns out that Flick Type

00:02:18   is more like a suite of products.

00:02:20   There's Flick Type, which is the main one,

00:02:23   which is an Apple Watch keyboard, but there's also Flick Type Notes, which is sort of similar

00:02:28   but based on note-taking. So the main idea behind the Flick Type keyboard is that it

00:02:33   is a QWERTY keyboard that you launch as an app on your watch, and you can actually type

00:02:41   with a software keyboard. Basically, you can swipe, of course, but you can tap letters,

00:02:47   and the app does a reasonably decent job at picking up the words that you wanted to enter

00:02:52   using AutoCorrect, and then when you're done, you can tap Done, and you will... basically

00:02:58   what the app does, I had no idea that this was possible for watch developers, it'll open

00:03:04   the Messages app from Apple, and it'll open the Compose box with the message filled in.

00:03:11   So you just need to enter a recipient or a group, and you will send the message.

00:03:16   So the idea would be that you can, if you need to reply to a message and you don't want

00:03:20   to use dictation, and you don't want to use the scribble feature of watchOS, you can open

00:03:25   the FleekType app, you can actually type out a response, and then you tap "send", you enter

00:03:30   the recipient, and you can send the reply that way. It's surprisingly, I mean, considering

00:03:35   the limitations and the fact that it's a third-party app, it's not an integrated native feature

00:03:40   of watchOS, I was honestly surprised by how well it works, and sure enough, it gets some

00:03:48   words wrong occasionally. What's nice is that you can spin the digital crown to choose between

00:03:53   multiple options for the word that you choose standard.

00:03:56   So that's nice. I should say though that I tested it on a 44mm watch. I have no idea

00:04:03   how this app will scale on a smaller watch like the 40 or even the 38 for those people

00:04:09   who have still an older model. So I'm surprised and there's a bunch of settings that you can

00:04:14   configure on the iPhone. There's an iPhone app of course. You open the iPhone app and

00:04:18   you can choose like, do you want to show the spacebar? There's a bunch of other tweaks

00:04:22   for punctuation and that kind of stuff that you can change. But otherwise, I mean, it

00:04:27   works well, but this one should really be Sherlock'd by Apple. It should really become

00:04:32   a native feature of watchOS 7 because it's possible. I mean, why not? Why not offer multiple

00:04:37   input methods? And if anything, I think FlickType makes a good case for Apple to copy this feature

00:04:42   and actually make it available system-wide.

00:04:44   - I think this is like a decent idea.

00:04:47   I think focusing it around iMessages probably makes sense.

00:04:51   I can't imagine another flow that would work

00:04:54   where like you get a message in one app

00:04:57   and then go to another app to send the reply.

00:05:00   Like messages feels like the only real communication method,

00:05:04   like short messages that you could do that with, right?

00:05:06   Where you could just read something in a notification

00:05:09   and then not need to necessarily refer back

00:05:11   to it that often, right?

00:05:13   Because you've gone out to another application

00:05:15   to send the message.

00:05:16   So I think it's pretty clever.

00:05:18   I would assume Apple is probably working

00:05:20   on something like this, right?

00:05:22   - I mean, maybe.

00:05:25   I think they're pretty confident in their,

00:05:29   the watch should be used with your voice kind of thing

00:05:31   and not be a tiny phone.

00:05:33   But I don't know.

00:05:34   I mean, it is very clever.

00:05:36   And I think that anything Apple could do

00:05:39   to make the watch input better,

00:05:42   serves it well as it becomes more independent

00:05:45   of the other devices, right?

00:05:47   Like you need some sort of reliable text input

00:05:49   if you're going to leave your phone behind

00:05:51   and Scribble and these other things do a pretty good job

00:05:53   but as we spoke about, there are some holes,

00:05:57   which does bring me to Apple's Scribble feature.

00:05:59   So we, I think in particular had complained

00:06:01   about lack of auto-complete

00:06:04   and it turns out that it kind of has it.

00:06:07   So as you start writing in Scribble,

00:06:11   you get a couple of letters in

00:06:12   and then you see an up down arrow in the top right corner.

00:06:15   And you can either tap that or turn the digital crown

00:06:18   and choose from words that it thinks you're going to write.

00:06:22   Listener Andy sent that in

00:06:23   and I had no idea that that was there.

00:06:26   I've seen those arrows

00:06:27   and I've just never done anything with them.

00:06:29   And I don't think it's as good as what Flick Type does,

00:06:32   but it is handy and of course built into any text input

00:06:36   on the watch.

00:06:37   Alright, so Myke, I have a follow-up question for you.

00:06:40   I want to know how the MOSHI iVisor is going for you.

00:06:47   So this is that weird screen protector that seems to defy the laws of physics, because

00:06:53   it doesn't create bubbles, and you can just take it off and reapply it, which I've already

00:06:59   done because when I realized in my application that there was like a tiny piece of dirt,

00:07:05   So I had to take it off to get the dirt out and then put it back and no bubbles.

00:07:08   I still don't know how it's possible.

00:07:09   Did you wash it?

00:07:10   You know it's washable.

00:07:11   Yeah, I know, but like I didn't feel the requirement to wash it yet.

00:07:15   Like have you washed yours?

00:07:17   No, I wanted to, but then I've seen the instructions and it's like a multi-step procedure and I

00:07:23   don't really want to ever do it.

00:07:25   Yeah, I don't think that it's a nice thing to necessarily wash them, but I liked it so

00:07:32   much that I bought one for my larger iPad which has arrived and I've replaced the paper-like

00:07:39   with it now. So I'm using the Moshi iVisa on both iPads. I've noticed that sometimes

00:07:46   if you're... sometimes when I use the Apple Pencil, if I'm scrolling up or down, it makes

00:07:51   a weird squeaking noise which is strange.

00:07:54   Interesting.

00:07:55   Like, there's something about like the texture of the iVisa and the Apple Pencil that like,

00:08:00   If you do it just right, it's like, you know, like that kind of thing.

00:08:05   It's crying.

00:08:06   It's like, I don't like this, bring the Paperlike back.

00:08:10   But I love it.

00:08:11   I really love it.

00:08:12   I love the texture.

00:08:13   I love the matte look.

00:08:14   Um, you do, I do have to have my brightness typically cranked up more than, um, I have

00:08:21   previously, like, you know, but I noticed this with the Paperlike too, uh, but I'm,

00:08:26   I'm super in on these eye visors.

00:08:28   It's, it's, it's awesome.

00:08:29   It's just the right level for me of providing with the matte texture, not affecting the

00:08:34   screen too much, and also not having a ton of bubbles.

00:08:38   Yeah.

00:08:39   I'm really in on it.

00:08:40   I love it.

00:08:41   So I ordered it from Amazon and it got delivered by FedEx, which just seemed peculiar, but

00:08:46   there we go.

00:08:47   Yeah.

00:08:48   Speaking of Amazon, I just wanted to follow up on this.

00:08:51   I think we mentioned this in private in our conversations.

00:08:56   I published my tutorial on how to mod AirPods, people have been telling me, basically every

00:09:04   single day I get a picture on Twitter of somebody who applied the custom foam tips to the silicon

00:09:12   ear tips for AirPods Pro. I published this back in December and I still basically get

00:09:18   a tweet every single day. And people keep telling me that on Amazon Japan, where I purchased

00:09:24   those, they're called the Symbio foam tips, those are basically regularly sold out every

00:09:31   few days. So, I don't know, I just thought that was an interesting fact that so much,

00:09:37   like I have literally gotten hundreds of pictures from all over the world of people modding

00:09:43   their AirPods, which I thought was, I think it's so amusing to see that, you know, folks

00:09:48   are just performing this mod, I just thought that maybe like 10 people would like it. And

00:09:53   so that's why I posted about it.

00:09:55   But then, like, their reaction was so unusual.

00:10:00   It sort of -- It makes me want to do more mods to my devices.

00:10:07   I think it's one of the things that I want to explore in 2020

00:10:11   is to actually make more of this custom stuff,

00:10:13   because it's fun, and it resonates with people

00:10:16   at a very different level than, say,

00:10:18   making custom shortcuts and that kind of stuff.

00:10:20   I don't know.

00:10:23   It just feels nice to share and have instructions, you know?

00:10:27   It's almost like I'm doing manual work, which I never do,

00:10:30   even though it's just like I'm modding my iPads

00:10:33   or my iPhones, but it's a nice change of pace.

00:10:36   So that's just something that I wanted to mention.

00:10:37   - Well, I guess the screen protectors

00:10:41   are just more mods though, really, aren't they?

00:10:43   - Yeah, yeah.

00:10:44   That and, you know, I'm using the cover body case

00:10:48   with the, I don't know, have we talked about the fact

00:10:50   my pencil now has sleeves on it. What do you mean by sleeves? Well there's a black sleeve

00:11:00   on my Apple Pencil, but then there's also like a separate cap for the tip. It's like

00:11:06   a two-piece setup. Like a bathing suit. It's a bikini for the pencil. You remember that?

00:11:15   We have a two-piece. That's good news. Yeah, nobody ever says that. But you can say that

00:11:19   about the pencil. Moving on. Oh yeah, this is also something that I wanted to mention.

00:11:25   So last year, Apple sort of introduced their own answer to the Spotify Wrapped end-of-the-year

00:11:33   playlist very famously. At the end of the year, Spotify, for several years now, has

00:11:38   generated an automatic playlist and sort of looked back at the past 12 months for you

00:11:43   to show you the music that you've been into over the course of a year. Spotify Wrapped

00:11:48   is awesome, and it's so well done, it's like a breakdown of your top artists, your top

00:11:54   songs and albums, that if you remember, about two years ago I made my own shortcut for that

00:12:00   called Apple Music Wrapped, which worked and people really liked it, but of course I mentioned

00:12:05   the story, I really want Apple to make this their own native feature. And sure enough,

00:12:10   sometime in December or November, Apple introduced Apple Music Replay, which is a way to generate

00:12:17   playlist with your top songs and artists and albums of the year. When they launched it,

00:12:25   they also launched a website that you can go, it's replay.music.apple.com, and not only

00:12:31   did they make a version for 2019, but they also retroactively made playlists for you

00:12:37   for all the years since you've been an Apple Music user. So in my case, I have playlists

00:12:43   dating back all the way to 2015, which is when Apple Music launched. Now, when the feature was

00:12:48   introduced, I remember that in the TechCrunch story, it was suggested that Apple Music Replay

00:12:58   was not going to be just a feature, like a playlist that you get sometime in December,

00:13:03   before the year is over, but more like a constantly updating sort of service.

00:13:10   And let me quote this from the original TechCrunch article.

00:13:14   They said "But while Spotify's Wrapped is more of an annual retrospective, Apple Music

00:13:19   Replay will continue to be updated all year long, evolving as your musical tastes and

00:13:25   interests do throughout the year.

00:13:27   The playlist and its associated data insights will be updated on Sundays to reflect subscribers'

00:13:33   latest listening activity, says Apple."

00:13:36   Now, every Sunday since 2020 rolled in, I've been checking the Apple Music Replay website,

00:13:44   and there's still nothing. Like, I actually have a reminder for myself to check every

00:13:48   Sunday. Federico, you're the cutest, you know that?

00:13:51   Oh well, some people believe so. Thank you. You're one of them. It is now February 12th,

00:13:57   2020. There's been a few Sundays, you know? But I mean, I don't know how many. Probably

00:14:03   seven, eight, I can count really. But it's been, you know, it's well into 2020 at this

00:14:08   point. Still no Apple Music replay. Six. Thank you. So, I mean, you know, I can wait one

00:14:15   Sunday, two Sundays, but six Sundays. Six Sundays. That's, that's, you know, three too

00:14:20   many. So the replay website still says 19. I wonder when will we get replay 2020? Because

00:14:28   I've been listening to music, I want to get, let me quote again, my associated data insights.

00:14:34   Where are they, Apple? Where's my latest listening activity and data insights? So I wonder,

00:14:41   will we get replay 2020 each Sunday as promised, or will it be like, oh yes, starting in June

00:14:48   instead of December? So some, you know, I want to see what happens here. It's probably literally

00:14:54   Just me who cares about this stuff.

00:14:55   - I'm pretty sure there's like a,

00:14:57   there's like a Taking Back Sunday reference

00:14:59   in here somewhere, right?

00:15:01   But like I haven't, I haven't yet gotten around to it.

00:15:05   Like I just, but I know it's in there somewhere.

00:15:07   I do remember this happening.

00:15:10   I'm sure at some point, like the Apple replay website

00:15:13   had on it something about 2020.

00:15:17   Like I have like a visual memory of that,

00:15:20   but that could just be one of those things where

00:15:22   like my brain is lying to me, you know?

00:15:25   But it is, I mean, it's a shame really, I think.

00:15:28   Like I think this whole,

00:15:29   I mean, I don't think I said it at the time,

00:15:31   but I find the Apple Music Replay website

00:15:34   a little bit sad, honestly, because--

00:15:36   - It's not as, yeah, we mentioned this.

00:15:39   - They had to build a web app on top of their own API

00:15:42   rather than put something in the application.

00:15:44   Like the whole thing is just a little bit sad to me.

00:15:47   You know, like Spotify, it just all lives in Spotify, right?

00:15:50   Like, and then they went, like, like Spotify Wrapped is just there or whatever, or like

00:15:55   the Spotify playlists in general, like all of the, uh, the playlists that they do, right?

00:15:59   What are they called? The weekly ones? Weekly, right?

00:16:02   Discover Weekly. Yeah. Discover Weekly. Like all that stuff is just like in the app and

00:16:06   then the Spotify Wrapped looked like an Instagram story. Like it was like a whole thing, you

00:16:12   know? The graphics are really great and like, you know, bless them over Apple Music. They

00:16:17   did something that was like they gave you the bare bones but then it was just like oh

00:16:22   but we don't know how to do anything else so. Yeah and also we should say that the Spotify

00:16:27   wrapped website like the whole thing as sort of like a cultural impact. Like I've seen

00:16:33   all kinds of people and artists post screenshots in their stories or on Twitter with the you

00:16:39   know with the top albums and top songs and whatever. They included podcasts this year

00:16:43   It was amazing.

00:16:44   Yeah, and I've seen literally nobody share anything from Apple Music Replay.

00:16:49   So like, it's a nice feature to have, but it's not as inspired, maybe, as Spotify.

00:16:54   I don't know.

00:16:55   The only people I saw sharing Apple Music Replay stuff were people that used Apple Music

00:17:00   and wish they had Spotify wrapped.

00:17:02   Like, that was kind of it, really.

00:17:05   I mean, I believe in their ability to be able to do something like this because the Spotify

00:17:10   one took time for them to really work it out. And also I think one of the really the Spotify

00:17:17   wrapped thing is just a consequence of Spotify's business model, which is different to Apple's

00:17:25   business model. Like Spotify's business model is to gather listening data because that's how they

00:17:31   continue to like try and make their service better in general. So because they have all this data,

00:17:38   they could just interpret it in different ways and serve it back to you.

00:17:41   And this isn't really what Apple does, they rely way more on the human curation than the

00:17:46   algorithmic curation. So their ongoing efforts in this world, it's like a little

00:17:54   trickier, you know what I'm saying? Are you following me, right? It's just like a very

00:18:00   different thing between the two companies, but then it really does show, I mean it just

00:18:07   looks a bit embarrassing sometimes.

00:18:09   I mean it's just a consequence of their businesses being slightly different, I think.

00:18:14   Alright, we've got some more follow up after our first break.

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00:19:59   All right, up next, we have some long-term follow-up.

00:20:04   I just wanted to note that there are still no GPUs

00:20:08   or afterburner cards available for the Mac Pro to be updated.

00:20:12   It's going on two months since this machine's been out

00:20:15   and no new cards, no nothing.

00:20:17   - I think we're probably more expecting

00:20:20   the additional GPUs than the afterburner card changes, right?

00:20:23   Yeah, I mean, I'd lump them together, but I expect that we will see GPUs.

00:20:28   Right now you can buy none, like even the Vega 2 and the Vega 2 Duo or whatever.

00:20:33   You can't get any of them.

00:20:34   Oh, you mean like to buy those things separately in the store?

00:20:38   Yeah. OK. You can't get the new video cards.

00:20:41   I forget the name of it, but that's the one I'm looking at.

00:20:44   And then the Vega 2 is no there are no add on cards

00:20:47   for the Mac Pro from Apple for sale yet.

00:20:50   So that is a that's a bummer if you've got a Mac Pro when updated, but and I still have

00:20:55   a couple of graphics card options on the coming soon page on the configurator to

00:21:00   Yeah, those haven't shown up yet. I expect with the situation in China manufacturing that

00:21:05   that's this is further delayed. There was an article on Mac rumors at the ship date for a lot

00:21:10   of a lot of stuff is beginning to slip including all Mac pros and so you know the the manufacturing

00:21:17   deal is going to take all companies, not just Apple, a while to rebound after this outbreak

00:21:23   deal gets settled, which is still very open-ended.

00:21:26   If you want to buy a pair of AirPods right now, four weeks.

00:21:30   AirPods, four weeks in the UK and the US.

00:21:33   The AirPods never really caught up even from the holidays, but I think it'll get worse

00:21:37   before it gets better.

00:21:38   Also in long-term follow-up, we spoke about the Twitter app, how you needed another app

00:21:43   to make it better on the iPad.

00:21:46   And we have a tweet from listener Dayton,

00:21:49   who is working on an app-- there's a test flight link

00:21:52   on Twitter-- that is the sidebar app for Twitter.

00:21:56   And you can put in notes, and it syncs with iCloud

00:22:00   with folders and tags.

00:22:02   This looks pretty sweet, so you can use it as a sketchpad

00:22:06   sort of for Twitter.

00:22:08   Well, also, you can drag and drop tweets into it

00:22:11   and then perform actions on the tweets,

00:22:13   which are either to find out more about the person

00:22:17   or you can look at the quote replies

00:22:21   or all the replies for a certain tweet,

00:22:23   then you can save the tweets with notes

00:22:25   attached to them for later on.

00:22:27   And then once you save those tweets in,

00:22:29   those people get saved into a directory

00:22:31   and then you can go in and view information about them.

00:22:33   This is exactly the kind of app

00:22:35   that I was hoping somebody would make.

00:22:37   - It's really well done.

00:22:38   - I was playing around with it just a little bit

00:22:40   before we started recording today. And it's a test flight, I'll put a link in the show

00:22:44   notes to the tweets. I'm assuming that Dayton's cool with people signing up for the test flight,

00:22:48   but this is the exact type of thing that we were hoping someone would make, because even

00:22:54   though Twitter has fixed the problem, they fixed the problem by just adding all the space

00:22:58   back in, and now I have like, the hunger for more, and so I'm pleased that this exists.

00:23:05   Yeah, it's really well done. I have it on my iPad and my phone right now, it's not syncing

00:23:09   back to the iPhone. So, Dayton, if you're looking for feedback, I mean, let me know.

00:23:14   I'm using the test-like version.

00:23:17   Stop complaining on podcasts, Federico. File a radar.

00:23:20   Yes, I will. It's really well done. I love that when you drop in a tweet, if it's being retweeted by somebody,

00:23:28   you will get all of that information. Like, you will get the original author, you will get the person who retweeted that tweet,

00:23:35   and everything can be reopened in the Twitter app.

00:23:39   And it's very clever because the app is using

00:23:42   the advanced search parameters,

00:23:45   which you can use in the official Twitter app.

00:23:48   So you can check out all the replies to somebody.

00:23:51   This is like something that you can do yourself

00:23:53   if you know the syntax,

00:23:54   but to have a proper UI that is so nice and so convenient.

00:23:58   I mean, this is an excellent idea.

00:24:00   If you can get the CloudKit stuff to work, Dayton,

00:24:03   this will be really, really good for me.

00:24:05   It's a beta, you know. I assume it's pretty well known. It's called Tweet Notes, is the name of the app currently.

00:24:11   But I am really excited to see this. This is like a cool thing.

00:24:14   Oh, and also, as a beta tester, one suggestion would be on the iPhone, let me paste a tweet as a link.

00:24:24   So if I have a link in my clipboard, I should be able to either have the automatic detection,

00:24:28   so if I have a twitter.com link in my clipboard, the app should recognize it,

00:24:32   but also there should be just a paste button

00:24:34   to paste the link on the iPhone.

00:24:36   That's it.

00:24:37   - I'm sure this is how Dayton wanted to collect feedback.

00:24:39   - Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, yes.

00:24:41   (laughing)

00:24:42   You're welcome.

00:24:42   - And the longest term follow-up at this time,

00:24:48   Google Docs and Sheets still has

00:24:49   no multi-window support on iPadOS.

00:24:52   - I don't think it's gonna happen, you know?

00:24:54   - Nah.

00:24:56   - Well, to be honest though, I feel like,

00:24:58   what was the last thing?

00:25:01   drag and drop, maybe?

00:25:02   - Yeah, probably drag and drop.

00:25:05   And it did get it, but it's not good.

00:25:07   But like, I want multi-window for Google Docs

00:25:11   way more than I wanted drag and drop.

00:25:13   Like, this, 'cause it's like, this is like,

00:25:16   this would be very genuinely very useful for me.

00:25:19   Like, a couple of days ago, I mean,

00:25:21   it's good the Safari's so good now.

00:25:22   But like, I had to open a Google Doc in Safari on one side,

00:25:26   and then the actual Google Docs app on the other side,

00:25:28   'cause I needed two docs at once.

00:25:30   Like, it isn't as dire as it would have been if Safari wouldn't have been so heavily updated,

00:25:37   because previously it would be like "oh you can't even look at this, go download the Google

00:25:41   Docs app" it's like "well that's no good is it?"

00:25:44   But the fact that I can basically treat it well, but then even copy and paste is worse

00:25:51   in Safari Google Docs than the real Google Docs, so I don't know.

00:25:56   I just want them to add multi windows so badly and I'll be really, really happy, but I don't

00:26:00   think it's going to happen.

00:26:02   While we're talking about things Google Docs doesn't have, I would love dark mode.

00:26:07   Me too.

00:26:08   Yes.

00:26:09   I don't use dark mode on the Mac, but I do on my iPad and iPhone and increasingly it

00:26:15   is the most regular app I use that doesn't support it.

00:26:18   It makes me sad.

00:26:20   Because you know, like y'all sometimes I think about something for a show note in the middle

00:26:25   the night I was like oh I need to add that to connected and then I get blinded

00:26:28   yeah we have some follow-out relay FM has two new podcasts Myke do you want to

00:26:34   tell us about these I will tell you about mine and then you can tell me

00:26:37   about yours so both me and Steve and have new shows with technology youtubers

00:26:43   that we really enjoy so I have a show called the test drivers that I'm hosting

00:26:47   with Austin Evans Austin is one of my very favorite tech youtubers and has

00:26:50   been for years and on the test drivers we want to put tech through its paces so

00:26:55   So we're going to be taking technology from all different kinds,

00:26:58   whether it's smartphones or laptops, gaming consoles, PCs, the whole thing,

00:27:02   and really kind of like test stuff and help you, help our listeners,

00:27:07   decide what might be their next devices.

00:27:09   So we're really, really excited about this.

00:27:11   Our first episode is about the Galaxy S20,

00:27:14   because it just came out and Austin had his hands on it.

00:27:16   So we go in depth on that.

00:27:17   But we have like loads of things.

00:27:20   We're taking a page from Adaptbook and we're going to be doing some challenges

00:27:23   some point in the future like can you live on the original iPad for a week or

00:27:28   I now own a Windows laptop so that's like a whole thing so there's we're

00:27:34   gonna be digging into lots of different types of technology talking about them

00:27:38   in detail and really putting it all to the test and I'm really really excited

00:27:41   about this show and you should go check it out it's very good I very much

00:27:46   enjoyed episode one about the s20 line of phones that was introduced this week

00:27:51   by Samsung. Very awesome. So the second show is called Flashback. I host it with Quinn

00:27:58   Nelson of Snazzy Labs. He's the guy who took apart the Mac Pro and has done a bunch of

00:28:03   hardware stuff over the years. He has a real interest in how things go together.

00:28:07   All of his Mac Pro coverage has been amazing.

00:28:10   Very good. Quinn's awesome and we've become friends over the last couple of years and

00:28:15   And so we've launched this show together.

00:28:17   It is a show this season is about covering technology products that failed or were ahead

00:28:24   of their time.

00:28:25   The new people got mad at me because they called the Newton a failure.

00:28:28   So look, the Newton can be good and also a failure.

00:28:31   Sorry.

00:28:32   That was episode one talking about that product, where it came from, its flaws, its good things,

00:28:37   how it sort of impacted the world we still live in.

00:28:40   The big question we answer every episode is what can we learn from this product?

00:28:45   So the Newton was episode one.

00:28:47   In a couple weeks, we'll be back with the Zune.

00:28:49   That'll be episode two.

00:28:50   I can't wait for the Zune episode.

00:28:52   Oh my god, I'm so excited for that one.

00:28:54   Yeah, it's recorded and partially edited.

00:28:56   And I really enjoyed that conversation.

00:28:59   And then episode three will be about this weird electric car

00:29:04   that Apple made.

00:29:05   Oh boy, this weird electric car that GM made in the '90s.

00:29:08   So kind of all over the place as far as different products.

00:29:11   But there's so much interesting stuff

00:29:13   to talk about. And that will be out every other Thursday, starting in a couple weeks.

00:29:19   So we are really excited about that. And it's going to be a lot of fun.

00:29:22   Yep. So you can go get the first episodes of both of those right now. We'll have links

00:29:26   in the show notes, but it's the test drivers and flashback.

00:29:29   There was this really funny tweet from Taylor. They said about flashback in particular that

00:29:35   it, it, it feels like a podcast of the stuff that Myke and Federico won't let me talk about

00:29:40   on connected. And Taylor, you were right.

00:29:43   I don't know how you think that this applies to just flashback.

00:29:46   Do you not remember the anger and the apathy that was faced upon me when I wanted to review

00:29:53   the Galaxy Fold?

00:29:54   What's not anger?

00:29:57   Not from you Federico.

00:29:58   Oh yeah.

00:29:59   There was another member of our podcast who was-

00:30:02   Jason.

00:30:03   No, well I see this is the other thing, right?

00:30:05   Like no one would talk about foldables with me, so I found someone that would.

00:30:09   Yeah.

00:30:10   Wow.

00:30:11   have a new dad it's not us. Well we're both we're both Quinn and uh Austin are much younger than me

00:30:20   and you. It's true we're really old that's what we've learned also Quinn is very tall. I've never

00:30:25   felt old before I feel old now. So anyways go check those out we have spent a lot of time working on

00:30:31   these shows and we're really excited to get them out there uh seriously it's been the last day and

00:30:36   and a half has been a lot of fun. And really wild and very busy. A lot of things. It takes

00:30:42   a lot of buttons to push in the right order to launch two shows. Yeah. And Google podcasts,

00:30:49   any day you want to update your directory. Yeah. So happy. Just any day now, any day,

00:30:54   whenever you want to do it, we'll be, we'll be excited. Uh, I wanted to just mention something

00:30:59   and then ask a couple of questions based on it. So I saw that Apple a couple of weeks

00:31:02   ago, they updated the iCloud.com website with really nice mobile versions of some of their

00:31:09   applications. So they've basically revamped the photos and notes and reminders and also

00:31:17   Find My. So you can go to these websites, like go to iCloud.com in a web browser on

00:31:24   a phone and it looks and acts mostly like the Notes app or the Reminders app, which

00:31:29   Which I just thought was really cool.

00:31:31   On the face of it seems like a strange thing to do, right?

00:31:35   Because it's like, why did you do that?

00:31:37   I mean, it's been useful for me in trying...

00:31:39   Like I actually prepared the notes for some of this episode on a Windows laptop using

00:31:46   the iCloud.com notes app just to see what it was like.

00:31:49   I just went to see how it would work.

00:31:51   And it worked great.

00:31:52   So I was really happy about that.

00:31:54   But obviously you miss a lot of the operating system tie-ins, right?

00:31:58   So like, if you say you wanted to use this on an Android phone, you can't share links

00:32:04   directly to it because it's in a web browser.

00:32:06   Right.

00:32:07   Right.

00:32:08   So it made me think, like, in Apple's services world, is there like a place where they would

00:32:15   ever do this?

00:32:16   Like make actual, say, Android apps of these types of services?

00:32:22   Do you think that, can you imagine that, right?

00:32:24   Like, I know in the past, it's just like, oh no, they would never do anything.

00:32:28   they've been like slowly opening the door a little bit, even including making these

00:32:34   web versions, right? Because no one on an iPhone needs the web version of reminders.

00:32:38   Yeah, the only thing that you do is I guess if you're on someone else's device, log into

00:32:43   your account on an iPhone, but I think this is like right at the pain point of Apple.

00:32:51   It wants to be a services company more and more, but the iPhone revenue is still too

00:32:57   important to like unlock a lot of services from the iPhone like iMessages the biggest

00:33:01   one right there. I don't think it's coming to Android anytime soon. These though are

00:33:05   less important but still really baked into the iOS and Mac OS ecosystems. And so I don't

00:33:13   see them doing this as long as the iPhone revenue is still the primary driver for the

00:33:20   company. It's a smaller percentage overall than it was a few years ago, but it's still

00:33:23   the biggest and I feel like they want to give the iPhone special treatment in their services.

00:33:32   You know, honestly, I don't know if Apple Music would be there for had it been for the

00:33:35   beats acquisition being the foundation of that. Maybe eventually, but I don't see it

00:33:40   in the cards anytime soon.

00:33:41   I mean, I think it would have been now because they did Apple TV. Right. So like, yeah, maybe

00:33:46   they could have done that jointly. Yeah, like notes and photos and stuff. I mean, on one

00:33:51   hand they're not high impact, right? Like notes and reminders, like it could be fine.

00:33:56   They could score it out on an Android app and it'd be fine. But I kind of think they

00:34:00   like that stuff. Make, you know, hey, it works really well. All this stuff is really cool

00:34:05   if you buy a thousand dollar or $600 iPhone.

00:34:08   And I imagine if they wanted to charge you for, as in you, like everybody for an iCloud

00:34:14   service which included notes reminders and iMessage on other platforms right so

00:34:21   like you could pay X amount of a month and you would also be able to access

00:34:26   messages and notes and reminders on Android or Windows hmm that's it I mean

00:34:31   I still don't think we're that close to it but that seems like in the world that

00:34:35   Apple seems to be playing in now that could be the last last way to choose the

00:34:42   revenue, you know, like they're like, oh, we make these three services, we think

00:34:46   they would be really useful to people, including photos. If anything, photos

00:34:49   actually has like a maybe an even better value proposition. Like, well, you could

00:34:54   say to someone on Android, like, yeah, you use Android, but maybe you don't want

00:34:58   Google to have your photos where you can pay us and we'll store them for you.

00:35:02   That does raise the question of who this would be for. I think there's two main

00:35:06   categories of people, the person you just described that has an Android phone, but

00:35:10   doesn't want to go all into Google services.

00:35:12   I don't know how many of those people are out there,

00:35:13   but there's got to be some of them.

00:35:16   But if you look at just sheer numbers,

00:35:18   there's got to be a bunch of Mac users

00:35:20   who use an Android phone.

00:35:21   And right now that's a pretty broken experience,

00:35:23   and maybe that's enough people who they'd be willing to pay.

00:35:27   I don't know.

00:35:28   I think either way, though, it's not a huge market.

00:35:29   - Well, I think the iMessage one, though,

00:35:31   isn't even just about your devices.

00:35:33   People want iMessage on Android

00:35:35   because their friends will have iPhones, right?

00:35:37   - Sure, yeah, yeah.

00:35:38   I mean, I think for this conversation,

00:35:40   iMessage is like not happening.

00:35:42   But maybe there are enough people

00:35:45   who live split lives that would want this.

00:35:47   I don't know.

00:35:49   I don't know.

00:35:49   I think it's cool they did the website for a long time.

00:35:52   If you just went to it, it just showed you,

00:35:54   like, iCloud is the thing.

00:35:56   Goodbye.

00:35:56   It's like, what are you doing?

00:35:58   Why is this here?

00:35:59   And so that is cool.

00:36:01   And it's great that if you just have your spouse's phone

00:36:04   and you need to look up something in your iCloud account,

00:36:06   you can.

00:36:06   But I don't know if this is like a gateway to bigger things

00:36:09   yet.

00:36:10   Yeah, it was just really intriguing to me,

00:36:12   because this is not a nothing amount of work.

00:36:14   They're actually really nicely designed web apps.

00:36:17   And I was surprised by that, because it's like, well-- I

00:36:21   mean, obviously they are assuming the primary use

00:36:24   of this is people on other devices using these things.

00:36:29   Because I get what you mean, but it

00:36:31   seems like a really narrow use case to be like,

00:36:33   if you want to access your reminders list on somebody

00:36:35   else's phone and you don't have your phone with you.

00:36:37   Oh yeah, all of it's narrow.

00:36:39   So it was just cool to see.

00:36:41   Can I get a quick reminder from everybody about our kind of stance on the Cybertruck

00:36:50   again?

00:36:51   Oh my god, again?

00:36:52   Yeah, there's a reason for this, but like, I just need to remember how we're all feeling

00:36:58   about that.

00:37:00   The Cybertruck, is that the name, Cybertruck?

00:37:04   Cybertruck yeah.

00:37:05   The Cybertruck is an offense to human taste. It's the most... See, ugly doesn't even...

00:37:19   Ugly doesn't quite define it. It's offensive. It's offensive in a way that taking the Mona Lisa

00:37:25   and painting over it would be offensive. It's offensive in a way that you almost can't believe

00:37:31   that a person came up with it and yet they did and somehow some people they're all part of this

00:37:40   collective delusion that it's genius while in fact they've all been tricked into thinking that

00:37:47   making something so preposterously ugly could be considered genius. That's my stance.

00:37:57   All right, that's good. That's good to know. Stephen, why are you sitting on Cybertruck

00:38:01   visually more than anything else? It is hideous, but also it's a bad pickup truck.

00:38:06   Okay, cool. I have a link for you both to something called the Cybophone,

00:38:10   which I put in the document. I just want to get your overall feelings on this.

00:38:17   So this is made by a company called Caviar, which you may remember as the company that

00:38:24   made an iPhone 11 Pro to look like an original iPhone and then put a piece of a Steve Jobs shirt

00:38:33   inside of it. That's creepy. Do you remember this? No, I have blocked that out. Yes, I,

00:38:39   I, I'm, unfortunately I do. I will put a link in the show notes to the Unbox Therapy YouTube channel

00:38:46   where Lou from Unbox Therapy unboxes one of those, so he had one of the uh,

00:38:52   superior Steve Jobs edition phones.

00:38:55   So this company Caviar, this is what they do.

00:38:57   They take iPhones and they do bananas things to them

00:39:01   and they sell them for like a hundred grand or something.

00:39:04   But I just wanted to get, you know, so Federico, how do you feel

00:39:09   about Cybertruck styling added to the iPhone 11 Pro?

00:39:13   I feel like I need to disconnect from Skype and cry because you see that.

00:39:20   Do you see the image down below where they put like a front part on it, which is meant to look like a truck bed?

00:39:25   Yeah, and it flips around and makes a stand.

00:39:27   Yeah. This is a piece of performance art, right? This is not a real product.

00:39:32   No, they are gonna they have 99 of them and uh, you can buy it for like 100 grand.

00:39:37   No, they don't. No, they don't. It's this is all this is all fake. This is all this is all like like uh,

00:39:42   This is a real company. Like this is a real company. This is a real company. This is a

00:39:48   shell company oh here you go that is $5910 and there are 17 left it starts at that you can get

00:39:55   an iphone 11 pro max 512 gig for 7080 dollars why this is because people want these things so they

00:40:03   look different oh this is the company mqbhd did a video about one of their other yeah he did that

00:40:11   one of their gold ones and it's like 100 grand or something yeah we'll put that in the show notes

00:40:15   to... This is a real company, they do things, you know? Like, they're not necessarily good,

00:40:21   but they do them. Someone wants this, it's not us. Yeah, somebody does want this.

00:40:27   If anybody wants this, I think you should reconsider many things about the electronics

00:40:38   that you like, as you cannot possibly like this. If any of our listeners have ever purchased a

00:40:44   the caviar phone, just write in. We won't name you if you don't want to be named, but

00:40:48   like I'm just keen to understand.

00:40:50   No, no, I get like you got money to spend and you want to prove a point and you purchase

00:40:56   the, the what's it called? The cyber phone and you purchase the cyber phone case. Do

00:41:02   you actually like it or is it more like to prove a point? This is beyond me. This, this,

00:41:08   this whole thing I don't understand. It's like I'm looking into a black hole and I don't

00:41:13   understand what I'm looking at. I don't know.

00:41:15   Oh, they also do custom designs.

00:41:17   I am speechless.

00:41:19   They have like a web tool where you can build your own weird looking iPhones.

00:41:28   Go to constructor.

00:41:29   Wow, this is incredible.

00:41:32   There are a lot of options available in this. It's a thing, I guess, if you're like an oligarch,

00:41:37   you know?

00:41:38   Yeah, there's a market for that and they sure listen to Connected.

00:41:45   Or like a Saudi Prince or something like that.

00:41:47   We got that sweet, sweet oligarch audience in our follow up emails.

00:41:51   Oh, they also sell really expensive vape pens.

00:41:54   Sure, why not? I mean, why not, right? I mean, again, if you're a fan of this, of the Caviar

00:41:58   Royal Gift is the full name of the company. Sure, you're going to buy, I'm just looking

00:42:04   Now, the Grand Complications case.

00:42:08   Oh, so the Tobion on it?

00:42:11   This is the one that MKBHD, it was a version of this I think, that he looked at, but it

00:42:18   was one that was more expensive than the one that they're showing here on the website.

00:42:21   I mean, who wouldn't spend $1470 on the leather AirPods Pro case, right?

00:42:31   I mean, what's $1,500 for you, really? It's like $1.5.

00:42:37   They colour the AirPods too, if you want that.

00:42:39   Sure! I mean, if you're an oligarch, this is like...

00:42:43   We were talking about mods before. This is ultra-level mods, right?

00:42:47   Yeah, this is as big a mod as you can get.

00:42:50   Yeah, so the oligarch modder community, I'm sure they're all over this website.

00:42:58   Yeah, and the CyberPhone is the most... no, it's not the most expensive one. The most expensive one

00:43:03   is the iPhone 11 Pro Superior Jobs one with the t-shirt inside. Oh no, there's an even more...

00:43:10   Oh, there you go. You can get lost on this. Oh no, oh no, hold on. 76,000 dollars. Which is that one?

00:43:20   Universe 2 Diamond Gold iPhone case.

00:43:24   It's like...

00:43:25   No, I found another one.

00:43:26   $128,310.

00:43:29   The Credo Christmas Star.

00:43:31   It's a...

00:43:32   It's a...

00:43:32   It's a nativity...

00:43:33   It seems aggressive.

00:43:36   Did you say nativity, Steve?

00:43:38   Yeah.

00:43:38   Hey, you gotta get in the Christmas spirit, you know?

00:43:41   Oh, it's 140 grand if you get the Pro Max.

00:43:46   Sure.

00:43:48   Sure.

00:43:48   You know, just...

00:43:49   You know what?

00:43:50   you do you sure this is a thing that we now know exists like many other things

00:43:56   in the world we just need to accept it I've made my own design oh yeah I'm

00:44:01   gonna send this to you okay how much is it I don't know I gotta take a

00:44:05   screenshot of this so what you can't see in this screenshot is on the sides you

00:44:09   can include text and so one side it says connected and the other side it says

00:44:16   is really FM, just like imprinted.

00:44:18   So let me put this, let me get you a link here.

00:44:22   I will put this in the chat room so everyone can see it

00:44:25   and we can judge my creation.

00:44:27   It'll be in the show notes.

00:44:29   - I wonder if this is gonna be better or worse looking

00:44:31   than the Cyber

00:44:33   - Find the cost.

00:44:33   - Whoa, oh wow.

00:44:36   - Approximate cost $4,621.

00:44:40   - I mean honestly, what is this, a iPhone 11,

00:44:42   it's not that much different, I mean you might as well

00:44:44   just go for it, right?

00:44:45   Oh yeah, you went for the Fleur de l'Ornamente. Yeah, that's a nice touch. I'm familiar with

00:44:51   that.

00:44:52   Oh, the Armenian coat of arms. That's like a good...

00:44:54   Sure, sure.

00:44:55   Of all the coat of arms, that was the right one to go for.

00:44:56   The Armenian one is the good one, I hear.

00:44:58   Yeah, yeah.

00:44:59   Yeah, you want to make sure you get the Armenian coat of arms.

00:45:02   Big fan of the Kardashians, if Steven is.

00:45:05   Who?

00:45:06   Yeah, the four... You got the Forza plate.

00:45:08   Oh, the Forza plate. Good work.

00:45:09   And it's seven micron. Yeah, because I've seen some people get the, like, the eight

00:45:15   micron, but with the microns you want to get as small as possible, so like if you can get

00:45:19   the six micron version, that's going to be even better. And this is the Caviar Atelier

00:45:24   version, so extra fancy Steven, look at you. And I put my Twitter handle in there so if

00:45:30   I leave it at the gym they know how to get in touch with me. Yeah, that's good. Sure.

00:45:35   This is a, you Michael, you have ruined my existence with this. This is literally the

00:45:43   the worst thing you could have ever done to me, this website.

00:45:46   Anytime.

00:45:47   What, because now you're going to go buy something?

00:45:50   Well, actually I want to call them.

00:45:51   They have a hotline that I can call.

00:45:53   They have a hotline?

00:45:54   There's a number at the bottom.

00:45:57   You can call them.

00:45:58   Or you can WhatsApp and Viber them.

00:46:00   I'm going to Viber them.

00:46:02   You're going to Viber them?

00:46:04   Yeah.

00:46:05   You can give them your contact information.

00:46:09   They will contact you about creating this phone.

00:46:10   I'm giving them Myke's phone number.

00:46:12   Great. Good. It's what I deserve. All right. Submit an order, leave the contact details

00:46:20   and the personal manager will calculate the exact cost and due date for you. Your email

00:46:25   will be sent price and details with the selected options. Can you pay by check? Probably. You

00:46:31   need to pay $70,000 with a credit card. I'm not sure I have that monthly capacity. You

00:46:39   You gotta get the Apple card.

00:46:41   Okay, that's that.

00:46:43   Alright, let's take a break and we'll regroup and we'll keep moving through these topics.

00:46:49   I need to take a shower after this.

00:46:51   Okay, you go do that.

00:46:52   Bye.

00:46:53   This episode of Connected is brought to you by DirectMail.

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00:48:12   I built one.

00:48:13   So I'm going to put it in the chat room.

00:48:17   I'll put it in the show notes too so everyone can see the fund that I built while you were

00:48:21   reading the ad.

00:48:24   So there you go.

00:48:25   That's that one.

00:48:26   my special design that I have made based upon the options that were presented and available to me.

00:48:32   What do you think? It is...

00:48:35   So I've made the I love cars model where I've made a black phone which has both a Ferrari badge and

00:48:44   a Mercedes badge on it and then just to make it very clear to people I have a nameplate that says

00:48:50   I love cars. The left engraving says "speed" and the right engraving says "room" on it.

00:48:57   So people know. Did a car put together this case? Because this...

00:49:03   What's the cost, Myke? Oh, I haven't found out the cost yet. Find the cost. $5,230.

00:49:14   you are really driving home the point that you are a car person.

00:49:20   Yes, I'm a big car boy. You totally are not overcompensating for your

00:49:25   lack of knowledge about cars. Or ownership of a car.

00:49:28   Or ownership of a vehicle. I don't need to own a vehicle because I love cars this much.

00:49:34   I almost, I don't want to subject a car to being driving around because I love them too bad.

00:49:40   Put wheels on this case and just slide around London.

00:49:43   I was just genuinely really excited that they had any car badges and then the fact that you could put two

00:49:50   was just hilarious to me. I can have two car badges. I can have a Range Rover badge. It's great.

00:49:55   This is so good. I'm so happy this thing exists and I look forward to seeing all of the creations

00:50:01   with Connected Audience. You should share them with us on Twitter.

00:50:04   What have we done? Why?

00:50:05   We've done a good thing and I hope that somebody accidentally buys one. That's what I really hope.

00:50:11   Considering they have to email you to order it. I don't think you can accidentally it's like you trip over the pay with Apple pay button

00:50:17   moving on

00:50:18   Finally Swift playgrounds has made it to the Mac the Mac can now develop software guys. This is huge

00:50:25   That's guys great news. It's great news. It is great news it seems that it is

00:50:30   Built with Mac catalyst which it is built my catalyst the irony of this is amazing

00:50:38   Why? That it's not Xcode for the iPad, but it's a development app written for the iPad that came back on the Mac where Xcode lives

00:50:45   but with Mac Catalyst and not as like a... It is funny that the only

00:50:49   cross-platform development tool that Apple's ever shipped is

00:50:52   Swift Playgrounds. Like that's just like a fun thing. It's not what we would have guessed. Yeah, right?

00:50:57   No, no Xcode for the iPad. Swift Playgrounds on the Mac. Here you go

00:51:01   Because people were thinking Xcode for the iPad would exist. Mm-hmm. The year that Swift Playgrounds

00:51:08   I remember John Voorhees, that's probably not his real name, says that it's a friendly,

00:51:13   easy to use environment for experimenting with Swift ideas and concepts, and the lessons

00:51:17   available are excellent.

00:51:19   It's a funny timing.

00:51:22   I assume it's just the Swift Playgrounds team have probably been working on this since the

00:51:26   tools became available to them.

00:51:28   I like that they've done it.

00:51:29   I think it's just a good thing.

00:51:30   Like Apple should be making Mac catalyst apps, if anything, so the teams inside of Apple

00:51:35   can also provide useful feedback to the Mac Catalyst, whoever is available, like, responsible

00:51:42   for Mac Catalyst, right? This is the term "dogfooding", which I do not like, because

00:51:47   I don't understand why it's called that, but I don't like it. Don't need the explanation,

00:51:53   no explanation is good enough. Just, this is, this is Apple kind of like putting their

00:51:57   money where their mouth is, really, and I think that's kind of cool.

00:52:00   So you don't want me to read the Wikipedia page for dogfooding?

00:52:03   You might as well read it now to try and stop the people that have opened Twitter to tell

00:52:06   me.

00:52:08   Under origin of the term, in 2006, the editor of IE Software recounted that in the 1970s

00:52:15   television ads for Alpo dog food, Lauren Green pointed that he fed Alpo to his own dogs.

00:52:22   Another possible origin he remembers is from the president of CalCannedPetFood, who was

00:52:28   said to eat a can of his dog food at shareholder meetings.

00:52:32   What a weirdo.

00:52:33   All of that is completely unacceptable is the reason for why this became the term in

00:52:39   software development.

00:52:40   Well, let me read the next paragraph, Myke.

00:52:41   In 1988, Microsoft manager Paul Meritz sent Brian Valentine, a test manager for the Microsoft

00:52:47   Land Manager software, an email titled "Eating our own dog food," challenging him to increase

00:52:52   internal usage of the company's product.

00:52:55   From there, the usage of the term spread to the company.

00:52:57   Why didn't he just say, "Let's use our own software"?

00:53:00   Well, he wanted to be edgy because it was 1988 and everyone was hopped up on cocaine.

00:53:03   So that's where it came from.

00:53:05   Why didn't he just say like, get high on our own supply then?

00:53:09   Mm.

00:53:10   So anyways, 19--

00:53:11   I'm just unhappy with that phrase.

00:53:12   It's a very 1980s Microsoft thing.

00:53:14   Can we just agree on that?

00:53:16   So anyways--

00:53:17   Developers, developers, developers.

00:53:18   That was the 90s.

00:53:19   All right, so we want to talk some about Apple News.

00:53:23   This is one of those things that got pushed last week because, well, if you listen to

00:53:27   last week's episode, you know that--

00:53:28   Real time follow up!

00:53:29   Wait, no, I needed to say a thing about Zwift Playgrounds on the Mac.

00:53:32   Oh, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Let's let the Mac expert speak, please.

00:53:35   Yeah, I was out, no, I was still thinking about Myke's car case. It's so good.

00:53:40   You've been building your own. Is that what you've been?

00:53:43   I was taking a look at the picture and I was trying to imagine, like, what was the thought

00:53:47   process behind putting two car logos on it. It's perfect. It is, you have achieved perfection

00:53:53   with this case.

00:53:54   Thank you.

00:53:55   Swift Playgrounds on the Mac. At this point it feels pretty obvious that there's one

00:54:02   piece missing from this structure that Apple has and that would be Xcode on the iPad, because

00:54:08   we have more or less platform unity everywhere. We have Swift Playgrounds on the iPad, Swift

00:54:17   Playgrounds on the Mac, Xcode on the Mac, and now Xcode on the iPad. And so I believe,

00:54:24   And I think I mentioned this, actually with John on App Stories, or last week or a couple

00:54:29   of weeks ago, that I could see a scenario where Xcode does come to the iPad, eventually.

00:54:36   Maybe this year? I really think it should be this year. We've been talking about it

00:54:40   for a while now, but this year feels like a good moment. But really, I could see a scenario

00:54:45   where it is Xcode, and it does let you create apps, and it lets you sideload apps on your

00:54:53   so you have a sort of an end-to-end solution to write apps on the iPad and run them on the physical device, not in a simulator.

00:55:02   But I could see why, and I'm gonna, you know, some people may be upset at this notion,

00:55:09   make Xcode Swift only. And by that I mean Swift code and SwiftUI code.

00:55:15   So no interface builder, no Objective-C, all in on Swift and SwiftUI.

00:55:20   UI. And you can see the Apple pitch be like, "For the next generation of coders, we want

00:55:26   to have a clean break." Well, they're not going to say that, but the message will be

00:55:29   that. It's a future-proof product built for future technologies, and that would be Swift

00:55:35   and SwiftUI. So no interface builder on the iPad, which would be complicated. I mean,

00:55:40   it's an iPad, so it doesn't have the screen real estate of a Mac or an iMac or an external

00:55:45   So doing away with Interface Builder would help with that, and to have SwiftUI code and

00:55:52   just Swift would remove a ton of baggage from the existing product.

00:55:57   I could see Apple doing something like that.

00:55:59   And it wouldn't be a simplified version of Xcode.

00:56:01   Like it would be a modernized version of Xcode, because you could see all—it's not like,

00:56:06   "Yeah, it's Xcode, but you can actually write real software."

00:56:09   No, because we've seen new apps and existing apps implement Swift, implement SwiftUI.

00:56:15   So it would be the real Xcode, and you should be able to write actual apps and write commercial

00:56:22   apps with it. It just wouldn't have any of the old stuff.

00:56:26   So it would be an easy way at least to, I guess, slim it down if they wanted to do that.

00:56:34   But it would be also a bit of a cop-out as well, right? Like, wouldn't it be more impressive

00:56:41   if they could say like...

00:56:42   It's the full thing, yes.

00:56:44   I agree. I agree. But I don't know, it would be an Apple move, you know, to remove certain

00:56:53   features and be like "no, no, this is the real thing, but it's for a new generation

00:56:59   of programmers." You know, it wouldn't be unusual, is what I'm saying. But yes, I agree.

00:57:04   I would very much prefer to have the full thing, like it's a one-to-one port, just like

00:57:08   Swift Playgrounds on the Mac. I mean, it's lacking a YARK kit for obvious reasons, but

00:57:13   otherwise they managed to have a more or less full version of Playgrounds on the Mac.

00:57:20   So it's also a good message. Like, I feel like the past couple of weeks we've seen

00:57:24   Apple try to change the conversation around Catalyst, which is another point that I wanted

00:57:29   to make. First with the changes in 13.4 and then the other beta versions, and now leading

00:57:36   by example with porting Swift Playgrounds to the Mac using Catalyst. It feels like in

00:57:42   the span of a couple of weeks, the overall conversation around Catalyst has changed,

00:57:49   at least a little, with all these improvements and now Apple demonstrating how a complex

00:57:54   app can be ported to the Mac using Catalyst, which I was not expecting. Sorry, Stephen,

00:58:01   you can go ahead with Apple News now.

00:58:02   Let's talk about Apple news. So there was a story in Bloomberg last week that the head of business

00:58:08   for Apple's news app stepped down after

00:58:12   I think what we can all say being a kind of lackluster launch year for Apple news plus

00:58:19   The executive his name is Liz

00:58:22   Mmm, I should have seen it

00:58:25   Smell smile smile. It's like smile and see

00:58:28   Skymell skymell skymell skymell

00:58:32   Anyways, they are outgoing they joined in mid 2018 of coming over from

00:58:37   huge publisher Conde Nast so pretty short run at Apple and

00:58:42   Of course Apple didn't comment

00:58:45   This is from sources their job was to oversee relationships with advertisers and news publishers

00:58:51   Which remember from the news plus launch as a big conversation about some?

00:58:56   Publishers just weren't gonna do it or they weren't happy with the terms

00:58:59   And I don't know it really kind of spun up a bunch of ideas for me around Apple News and Apple News Plus

00:59:05   But let's start with this. Do we find this news?

00:59:08   surprising

00:59:10   not really I

00:59:12   don't think it's

00:59:13   it's surprising at all and and

00:59:15   We've talked about Apple News before just to sort of reiterate my my opinion of it

00:59:21   I think it's a bad deal for publishers the

00:59:25   There's two problems to this approach from the publisher side. You're giving up too much control

00:59:31   for to get essentially in return what exposure on a service that

00:59:37   isn't really meant for

00:59:40   You know promoting individual stories and I'm referring to news plus it was a product that was designed

00:59:46   for the magazine and newspaper experience and Apple has tried to try and break it down to

00:59:53   being able to have it be a little more modular in the sense of promoting individual stories, promoting individual articles.

01:00:00   But really it is meant to give you access to magazines and most of them

01:00:04   they do not take advantage of the native format that led to

01:00:09   actually

01:00:11   let people browse your magazine by sections or by stories. So you're giving up too much control

01:00:18   to be on a service that is very much designed for an older generation of users.

01:00:23   If you don't want to, if you do want to go after the new generation of users and use the proprietary Apple News format

01:00:29   syntax, that's a lot of work.

01:00:32   It's a lot of work to make it happen for your CMS and even, and we mentioned this last week, even if you have a

01:00:37   CMS plugin, it is not guaranteed to work well, and it's not guaranteed to get updates that frequently. So

01:00:44   You keep stacking one problem on top of the other. So you have the magazine experience

01:00:50   which is not really well designed for a web-first publication.

01:00:54   And then you have the custom syntax and this ecosystem of plugins that may be broken or may be slightly updated.

01:01:00   And then you have the fact that if you want to have a good integration you gotta write it yourself.

01:01:06   So there's the cost of supporting syntax and a publishing system that only works on Apple News. Where? And this is where

01:01:13   I guess the Americans would say the buck stops, maybe. You're not really making that much

01:01:19   money from it. Like, it's like, where the nickel stops. Yes. Like, why go through all

01:01:26   this trouble and all these, consider all these little issues, not so little issues actually,

01:01:33   and inconsistencies and complications for what? To get like less than 50% when you account

01:01:39   for all your costs and expenses. I don't know if Apple News+ can be saved. I've seen some

01:01:48   people speculate that it should just become part of an Apple service bundle. And that

01:01:53   I would be inclined to support. Like, yes, maybe that's a way to save Apple News+. Maybe

01:01:57   that's a way, there's a way for publishers to make some money off of that. But it feels

01:02:04   like all the excitement surrounding Apple News+ has essentially dried down very quickly

01:02:10   since it launched last spring. And if you're a publisher, I'm guessing that you're maybe

01:02:16   better served by rolling your own thing. If you're the New York Times or the Wall Street

01:02:22   Journal, you have your own subscriptions, you can make your own deals, and you can fully

01:02:26   control your CMS. You don't have to... These proprietary news services, they come and go

01:02:32   all the time and it's sort of sad to see that NewsPlus may be just another one in the mix.

01:02:39   The business model that these services seem to provide now is not really needed. This was maybe

01:02:47   a business model needed many years ago, but as Apple is seeing and as is even reported in the

01:02:54   story, many of the larger publishers have worked this out for themselves. Like, this is almost like

01:03:02   like a reverse of what is happening to companies like Netflix where all of these companies

01:03:10   had joined in to allow their content to be streamed on streaming services but now they've

01:03:15   all realised that the money is actually creating their own service so they're slowly unbundling

01:03:21   themselves from companies like Netflix. Netflix obviously worked this out a long time ago,

01:03:25   they have their own content, blah blah blah blah. But my point is I actually now don't

01:03:29   think that any of these news aggravators could have ever worked no matter how soon they came

01:03:34   into it because they're able because these companies are able to roll their own and be

01:03:39   successful with it because as we've said many times even on this very episode you are able

01:03:44   to make more money if you're not being put into a pool because why hope to get a sliver

01:03:52   of $5 a month from Apple News Plus if you can maybe get $3 from your customers directly.

01:04:02   And that's what all of these services are doing.

01:04:05   So like, really, I just don't think this is something Apple can pull off.

01:04:10   I think this is one of those situations where they get lost in the hubris of thinking, "Well,

01:04:15   we're Apple, so why wouldn't you want to work with us?"

01:04:19   I was like, well, because your value proposition just cannot be good enough.

01:04:22   Like it's nothing to do with them.

01:04:24   It just cannot be good enough.

01:04:26   Now, you know, there might be a way that, like, as you say, if they bundle it in

01:04:29   for another service, carve out a little bit of money from each of those

01:04:33   subscribers instead, you might be able to make more money overall.

01:04:36   Right.

01:04:37   Like, I bet if they were to, you know, create a new bundle, which include Apple

01:04:42   news, iCloud, like the bundle we've always expected, right.

01:04:45   the Apple News, Apple Arcade, Apple TV Plus, iCloud Bundle, if they were to carve off like

01:04:53   2% of the value of those subscribers and put it into Apple News Plus, they'd probably make

01:04:58   more money that way. So like maybe that's a better value proposition for trying to convince

01:05:03   publishers, right? To just be like, well now the overall Apple News part is worth this

01:05:09   much to you, rather than what it was when we were just trying to take it out of individual

01:05:14   subscribers $5 a month. So maybe that can give it a boost, but I really just don't think

01:05:21   that enough publishers are going to want to get on board with this. It just doesn't for

01:05:25   it to make sense for anybody. And if the content isn't there and the subscribers aren't there,

01:05:30   then then it doesn't it just doesn't work. I had asked people on Twitter for their opinions,

01:05:36   people who are using and liking Apple news plus. And I got a bunch of stuff that I just

01:05:41   to share. Lots of people mentioned keeping it for access to sources like

01:05:46   the Washington Post or the Wall Street Journal. Those papers and others provide

01:05:50   content to News Plus, but it's not necessarily everything and you can't log

01:05:56   into their website with like a News Plus login, so if they have their own pay

01:06:00   wallet it's separate, but people who just wanted some of their content they were

01:06:03   happy with that. A lot of people mentioned that they may or their

01:06:07   families because this part of family sharing you can get this content for a

01:06:13   lot cheaper than if paying if you're paying for two or three magazines on

01:06:17   their own which makes a lot of sense you can bundle the cost some people are

01:06:21   getting all their news from Apple news and so that you know having just

01:06:24   additional content in there they like and all that said a lot of people had

01:06:29   complaints about the UI the fact that a lot of magazines are just PDFs very

01:06:33   cool like you said the Apple news format is tricky and expensive to work with

01:06:36   sharing and saving for later. Also pain points. Someone mentioned that I tried to download some

01:06:43   magazines to read on my iPad on a flight and it didn't work and I didn't have anything to read.

01:06:47   That's that's a bummer. So that offline viewing is a space for additional work. But there are

01:06:53   people who are out there using it, even if it's not just for us. And I think especially if you're

01:06:57   already reading two or three magazines, or people in your family are, it's a pretty good deal. And

01:07:03   And so if you fall into that category

01:07:05   and you're willing to put up with the downsides,

01:07:07   it's still a legitimate product.

01:07:09   But I think it's clear it's missed the mark for most people.

01:07:12   And I can't imagine that Apple is happy with the reception of it

01:07:15   so far.

01:07:16   All right, we are going to end this week with a fun segment.

01:07:19   But first, let me tell you about our third sponsor.

01:07:22   That is Setapp.

01:07:23   This episode of Connected is brought to you

01:07:25   by Setapp from MacPaw.

01:07:28   Setapp is one of the best ways to discover apps for your Mac.

01:07:31   It's got a program for virtually every task

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01:08:09   And if you like it, you pay $9.99 a month

01:08:12   for as long as it's useful to you, and I bet it will be.

01:08:15   Once again, that's setapp.com to see how it fits in

01:08:18   with your workflow on the Mac.

01:08:21   Our thanks to Setapp for the support of this show

01:08:23   and all of Relay FM.

01:08:24   All right, so we wanted to end the show

01:08:27   by talking about things that we are enjoying

01:08:31   and we sort of put some limitations on it

01:08:33   that it's not Apple stuff.

01:08:34   So it can be tech or it cannot be tech,

01:08:36   but it's some things that we have found enjoyable

01:08:39   so far this year.

01:08:41   Federico, do you wanna go first?

01:08:42   - So I really wanted to have this topic this week

01:08:46   because I need to talk about something

01:08:48   that Myke will appreciate,

01:08:49   but you will have no idea what I'm talking about, Stephen.

01:08:51   - Oh boy.

01:08:52   - And I think Myke knows what I'm about to mention.

01:08:53   - Oh my God, I know what he's gonna do.

01:08:56   This is hilarious. Federico proposed this topic, then didn't write any notes in the

01:09:00   document because he really wants an outlet for this right now and he knows Steven wouldn't

01:09:05   usually let him do it. So Federico, would you like to talk about Pokemon Home?

01:09:09   Yes, thank you Myke! So, it is a tech product because it is a web service, it is an Android

01:09:19   and iOS app. And it actually, if you pay for the... So, hold on. Pokemon Home is a new

01:09:25   cloud service from Nintendo to let you store Pokemon in the cloud that you can then transfer

01:09:30   between games.

01:09:31   What a great phrase!

01:09:32   To store your Pokemon in the cloud.

01:09:34   Exactly.

01:09:35   It's a cloud service to store your Pokemon and transfer them between different games.

01:09:39   Mostly the idea would be to get old Pokemon into the latest Switch games, which Steven

01:09:46   are called Pokemon Sword and Shield.

01:09:49   Now Pokemon Home has a free tier, but also has a premium version with a bunch more features,

01:09:54   And the premium version actually uses the Apple native renewable subscriptions.

01:10:00   I signed up for the premium plan last night and I sure enough was an iTunes subscription,

01:10:04   so that's nice.

01:10:06   So Pokémon Home is amazing for a bunch of reasons, but really I'm gonna try to simplify

01:10:12   here.

01:10:13   It's the only way right now to bring your old Pokémon into the Switch games.

01:10:20   At least some of them.

01:10:22   But really the appeal of Pokémon Home is that you can, and I've seen people have

01:10:27   already done this, you can register, you can transfer Pokémon from the old GameCube games

01:10:38   or the Gameboy Advance games.

01:10:41   We're talking here about 15 years, 17 years worth of retro compatibility.

01:10:49   It really is kind of incredible.

01:10:52   It's very difficult to do this. So to get a Pokémon from a Gameboy Advance game to

01:10:59   Pokémon Home requires many old systems.

01:11:04   Yeah.

01:11:05   But it is possible to do.

01:11:06   Here's why I believe Steven will appreciate this. Those old games are running on the Nintendo

01:11:12   GameCube or the Gameboy Advance, which launched, really the Gameboy Advance came out in 2001,

01:11:17   if you think about it. It's really old. And of course the GameCube and the GBA are very

01:11:22   limited if at all, online integration. And back then, if you wanted to transfer Pokémon

01:11:29   between games, you had to use these custom cables that were not even USB cables, they

01:11:34   were like Nintendo cables, they were called the Link Trade cables. And you could do this

01:11:40   crazy setup with connecting a Game Boy Advance to a GameCube and have two screens at the

01:11:47   same time. It was wild. But what Nintendo did is fascinating here, because if you transfer...

01:11:55   So you have a Game Boy, and the Game Boy does not go online at all, doesn't have the internet,

01:12:00   the Game Boy Advance. But what Nintendo did when they launched the DS, so the original

01:12:05   Nintendo DS had retro compatibility. So in addition to playing Nintendo DS games, the

01:12:13   DS also had a GBA slot, so it supported Game Boy Advance cartridges. And so what

01:12:20   Nintendo did, if you had an old Game Boy game inside the GBA slot and you

01:12:26   were playing one of the Pokemon games for the Nintendo DS, the DS game could

01:12:32   see the cartridge and it could let you transfer those Pokemon from the GBA to

01:12:37   the Nintendo DS. Now, the Nintendo DS does go online, and so Nintendo years ago

01:12:43   launched this other original web service called Pokemon Bank, which is like the

01:12:48   predecessor of Pokemon Home. So what they were able to do now with Pokemon Home,

01:12:54   they have full compatibility with Pokemon Bank. They have restored the

01:12:59   Pokemon Bank service, which you can now use for 30 days for free. If you want to

01:13:04   transfer all your old Pokemon, you better hurry, because in theory it's free for 30

01:13:08   days. So you can get all those Pokemon that maybe you caught in the days of the GameCube

01:13:16   and through some steps, and there's YouTube videos that maybe there's one of them that

01:13:20   Myke or Steven you should put in the, Myke has the link, so please put it in the notes

01:13:24   because it's so fascinating. You can transfer them from the GameCube to the GBA, from the

01:13:31   GBA to the Nintendo DS, from the Nintendo DS to the original Pokemon Bank Service, and

01:13:37   from the Pokemon Bank service, you can go to the 3DS, which is the successor to the

01:13:42   DS, and then from there you can put them in Pokemon Home. And from Pokemon Home, if you

01:13:47   want to, you can transfer them into the Switch games. So we're talking here four, five generations

01:13:56   of consoles that now have some basic form of transfer between them for pieces of data,

01:14:05   if you think about it, the Pokémon is essentially a piece of data with the code and some abilities

01:14:09   and it's like... it's a piece of data that can travel sort of like in time from the days

01:14:15   of the GameCube and the GBA all the way to Pokémon Home now. And I think it's just incredible

01:14:20   that you can do this. And it's complicated, it gets complicated if you want to do this

01:14:24   whole thing. You will need cables and old original hardware, but you can do it. And

01:14:30   In fact, I am doing it. I still have my GBA and I have my Nintendo DS and the 3DS. I don't

01:14:36   have a GameCube. But I was able, for example, to get my Pikachu mic from Pokémon Yellow.

01:14:47   So this is the virtual console version of Pokémon Yellow, of course, that I had on

01:14:53   the 3DS. That Pikachu is now in my Pokémon home and I can transfer to Pokémon Sword

01:14:59   - And how did you do that?

01:15:01   Like, so you went from--

01:15:02   - On the 3DS, so on the 3DS,

01:15:04   there's a, Nintendo made this utility

01:15:08   called PokeTransfer.

01:15:11   And PokeTransfer is basic, emulates what the DS was doing.

01:15:15   It recognizes if you have virtual console games installed

01:15:19   on your device, and it says, okay,

01:15:22   do you wanna take these Pokemon

01:15:23   from these virtual console games,

01:15:24   and you wanna put them in Pokemon Bank?

01:15:26   And then from there you just do the bank to home transfer.

01:15:30   - So I have to get my 3DS now.

01:15:32   - Get your 3DS.

01:15:33   - Download PokeTransfer. - PokeTransfer and Pokemon Bank.

01:15:37   You can find them on the eShop.

01:15:38   Pokemon Bank you can use for free for 30 days again.

01:15:42   And then you just go from there.

01:15:44   It's really remarkable to have.

01:15:46   And it's so unusual because, you know,

01:15:49   most of the time video game companies,

01:15:50   they don't care about backwards compatibility.

01:15:54   but this is like next level.

01:15:57   Yeah, I mean there are a lot of like issues with this which isn't perfect, right?

01:16:02   And people are upset about it and like some ways are wild, some ways I do actually do

01:16:07   understand but just the idea that this exists, like we need to step back and realise how

01:16:15   incredible it is that Nintendo and the Pokémon company are enabling this kind of thing because

01:16:21   It's wholly unnecessary, but amazing.

01:16:27   Yeah, and just to give you a frame of reference here,

01:16:30   Pokémon Colosseum, which was an Nintendo GameCube game,

01:16:34   came out in Europe and America in 2004.

01:16:38   So that's a 16-year-old game that, in theory--

01:16:43   I mean, in practice, you can, if you have the proper equipment,

01:16:46   you can transfer data from that game all the way

01:16:49   to your iPhone with the Pokemon Home app or to your Nintendo Switch. Which is, frankly,

01:16:56   it's just, it's a remarkable technical achievement. So that was my pick.

01:17:01   I'm very pleased that we got to talk about that for a minute.

01:17:05   Steven. I mean, you can appreciate the backward compatibility aspect. Come on. No. Just nothing.

01:17:13   It's gone. All right.

01:17:15   Or just muted.

01:17:16   Mm-hmm.

01:17:17   Steven, are you actually there?

01:17:23   It's not anymore.

01:17:24   Did he leave?

01:17:25   Did he leave?

01:17:26   Oh, hey guys.

01:17:34   Did you leave?

01:17:35   I don't want to answer that.

01:17:37   Oh, wow.

01:17:38   That's next level.

01:17:39   I'm really sad.

01:17:40   The disrespect.

01:17:41   The disrespect.

01:17:42   I'm gonna hear it in the edit.

01:17:44   Wow, he did leave!

01:17:46   Wow! And I was trying to break it down for you and to... because there was an aspect that I

01:17:51   That I thought you would appreciate. I'm very sad.

01:17:54   Myke, you're up.

01:17:55   I want to talk about some pouches that I purchased to make my packing a lot better

01:18:02   So I...

01:18:04   Do Pokemon go in them?

01:18:05   We're not talking to you about Pokemon anymore. You can stay out of this.

01:18:08   That the what I went with was two

01:18:12   Well, I have three total but two different types of pouches from Bellroy

01:18:16   Which is a company that we've spoken about in the past before Federico bought some cases. Do you still use the bar?

01:18:22   Okay, so oh, yeah, I have it on right now. Like this is the one with a wallet in the back, right? Yes

01:18:27   all right, so I went and bought these little pouches because

01:18:31   Travel enough and I have like a full like kit of travel stuff

01:18:38   Sometimes I take a carry-on, sometimes I take a backpack.

01:18:41   It depends on if I'm going away for maybe like a longer trip or a weekend or whatever.

01:18:45   And I was finding myself like...

01:18:47   being frustrated at having to try and get things out of separate pockets and you know,

01:18:52   like I was trying to be organized but the organization made it more difficult for me

01:18:55   to move from thing to thing. So I decided that I would get pouches and move this stuff around.

01:19:01   This is after watching many YouTube videos from Chase Reeves who makes this the best bag videos

01:19:07   and Chase is always talking about having this type of stuff and he really heavily recommended

01:19:12   a lot of the Belroy packing products so that's what I went with. So the tech pouch and the

01:19:18   other tech kit and the classic pouch, these are the two that I went with. The tech kit

01:19:23   is like a brick basically and you can fill it up and it has some organization in it and

01:19:28   I thought I would also run through what I'm keeping in each of these because I thought

01:19:32   that might be of interest to people. So in my tech kit I have my ZMI power pack. If you're

01:19:38   long time listeners of the show may remember this as the battery bank that was really exciting

01:19:43   and then I bought one and then nobody else could ever buy one. But it's there. I still

01:19:49   use mine. That thing lasts forever. Like you need to charge it. That thing is like very

01:19:54   serious. It's like sure it drove the company bankrupt but for a beautiful moment in time.

01:20:01   It is really good.

01:20:03   I have an Apple Watch cable, a lightning cable, a micro USB cable.

01:20:07   I have a US 18 watt USB-C iPhone charger.

01:20:11   This was the one that came with the Pro Max because Stephen got me that phone by surprise

01:20:17   during the podcastathon.

01:20:19   But this one doesn't have like, as some US chargers do, where you can take the little

01:20:26   part off.

01:20:27   Stephen, what is that called when you can like take the little part off of the power

01:20:30   The duck head.

01:20:32   Duck head. It doesn't have one of those.

01:20:34   It's actually built into it like a big block.

01:20:36   But it's a good one to have.

01:20:38   And then I also have a 10 watt

01:20:40   iPhone charger that has

01:20:42   the removable adapters like the duck

01:20:44   heads. So that one I just

01:20:46   have and I don't have anything plugged into it.

01:20:48   I don't have one of the little duck heads plugged

01:20:50   into it. I'll get to why in a minute.

01:20:52   Then I have a 61 watt USB-C

01:20:54   MacBook Pro charger which I use

01:20:56   for my Nintendo Switch,

01:20:58   MacBook Pro, my iPad Pro, any USB-C device that I take while I travel.

01:21:05   That's all in the tech kit.

01:21:06   Then in one of the pouches I have a couple of generic plug adapters for Europe and US

01:21:11   so you can plug in a regular plug into the UK plug into it and I can plug into a European

01:21:18   adapter.

01:21:19   Then I have various international Apple adapters.

01:21:23   I actually bought one of those international kits.

01:21:26   I saw it on sale once.

01:21:27   what I'm talking about like the Apple International kit thing yeah they

01:21:31   recalled a bunch of them last year yes I think it was after that I hope it was

01:21:35   after that no I checked it actually and it was fine I checked it I remember that

01:21:39   now it's like a certain color if it was like colored in a certain way it was

01:21:43   recalled but I bought that and that and it because it was on sale and I needed

01:21:48   like three of them so I now have them I have lightning earpods the cable one

01:21:57   USB to USB-C dongle, a hyperdrive, you know like one of those little things goes into

01:22:03   a MacBook Pro and you get a bunch of ports, and then a HDMI cable.

01:22:07   Can either of you name why I have a HDMI cable in my Bellroy pouch?

01:22:12   To watch keynotes in hotels.

01:22:14   Perfect.

01:22:15   That is exactly why, because I always end up needing it so I just left it in there.

01:22:19   Then in the second pouch I have just an iPhone 11 Pro smart battery case.

01:22:23   I have some expandability in this second pouch.

01:22:26   for other stuff I might want to put in there.

01:22:28   And I just find this so much easier when moving from thing to thing.

01:22:31   So I recommend this if you travel frequently and are not putting all of your tech gear

01:22:35   into just pouches, you should do that.

01:22:38   Yeah, I've got one by a company whose name...

01:22:44   The Tom Bihn.

01:22:45   The Tom Bihn Snake Charmer is the one I have.

01:22:46   I had that one before and I found that it was just too big and bulky.

01:22:51   That was what I was moving from.

01:22:53   I had the Snake Charmer and there just wasn't enough organization in there.

01:22:57   I just, it was just like, I was digging through it to always find stuff and I much prefer

01:23:01   this like smaller, more organized I prefer.

01:23:05   Yeah.

01:23:06   Yeah, it is, it is a little floppy, but I like that I don't have, I mean, I'd rather

01:23:11   dig through something I think than have like everything in its place because what I, what

01:23:14   I carry in that changes over time.

01:23:17   But the better stuff looks really nice.

01:23:18   I'm glad you're happy with it because this, this can totally change the game.

01:23:22   And one thing you can do too is if you have extras of this stuff, like have a travel kit

01:23:28   that you never go into, right?

01:23:29   Like just like I do, a lot of people do it for like a bathroom kit, right?

01:23:33   Like there's a toothbrush and toothpaste in there that never comes out.

01:23:36   So when I travel, I know I could pick this up and it's like one unit of stuff that I

01:23:40   need to take on the road.

01:23:44   So mine, I've got, I've got two and they, they, they go together.

01:23:49   And this is not a, these people who make this first one, they're fine, but they, you know,

01:23:56   this is not a product placement situation.

01:23:59   But Myke, you and Gray have Cortex notebooks, you have links in the show notes to those

01:24:03   where you can...

01:24:04   It's called the Theme System Journal?

01:24:06   Yes, that is what it's called.

01:24:07   Yeah.

01:24:08   Gray calls it the Cortex Journal all the time.

01:24:13   And also, is it product placement if you can't buy the product?

01:24:16   It's bad product placement.

01:24:17   I was just saying, like, you know, like you paid me for nothing.

01:24:20   It's not supposed to talk about that.

01:24:23   Sorry, I'll bill you.

01:24:24   So anyways, the theme system journal has spots for, of course, journaling, which I try to

01:24:29   do daily.

01:24:31   And then you can track themes or things you want to keep up with.

01:24:35   And I found this very useful over the past couple of months.

01:24:37   I started doing this in January.

01:24:39   I'm not going to share what's in mind.

01:24:41   That's A, too cortexy for the show, but B, mostly private to me.

01:24:45   find it very useful to track certain things over the course of, you know, weeks

01:24:49   at a time and and so I've been very happy with that and it's a great product.

01:24:55   I really like the layout and it fits well with what I want. They'll be on sale

01:24:59   again at some point in the future, I think, but not currently. Yeah, who knows

01:25:04   when coronavirus and I'm not even kidding. Yeah, it killed mobile board

01:25:08   Congress and your notebooks. The digital side of it for me though is the

01:25:15   app day one which we've spoken about before journaling app for the Apple

01:25:19   platforms and I like to do journaling and this sort of stuff mainly like in a

01:25:27   notebook with a pen but I want to digitize it to have it in the future

01:25:32   even though I keep the notebooks and I've shared pictures over the years of

01:25:35   my field notes collection that I have a field notes notebook with me all the

01:25:39   time and I write in them a bunch for a bunch of various things and then I scan

01:25:43   them as PDFs but then I also keep them on the shelf because they're colorful

01:25:46   and look cool. I would do the same with a theme system journal but I want to

01:25:50   digitize this stuff and so I have in day one you can set up multiple journals and

01:25:55   so I have one called logging and it's where either scans or photos of these

01:26:02   pages go as I fill the notebook up so I can I can very quickly go back to a

01:26:06   single day's journal entry even if I don't have the notebook with me and of

01:26:10   course lots of other uses for day one but this is how I use them together and

01:26:15   I find that system to be pretty good because maybe I want to do a daily

01:26:20   journal and I don't have the notebook with me maybe I left it in the office I

01:26:23   don't want to go but come back out here and I could just do it in day one in

01:26:26   that journal and the next day just go back to the notebook and then take a

01:26:30   picture of it and have it in day one so it's kind of a blend over time but the

01:26:33   two of these things I find very helpful in sort of daily journaling and keeping

01:26:38   tabs on various aspects of life that I want to keep tabs on.

01:26:43   Very nice.

01:26:44   Mm-hmm.

01:26:45   I find that quite interesting that you do scan it all.

01:26:48   It seems like it's such work.

01:26:49   It is a bit of work.

01:26:50   But I also like that I have a folder

01:26:53   with a bunch of PDFs of all my field notes from 2011 forward.

01:26:57   And that is handy in particular, because a field notes,

01:27:00   I'll burn it through about one a month.

01:27:02   And very often, I need something that

01:27:04   was on the last two pages of the previous notebook,

01:27:07   like if I'm in a meeting or something or on a call,

01:27:09   and I can just very quickly pull the PDF up

01:27:11   and have that reference there.

01:27:13   So I kind of like the duality of it.

01:27:16   - I like that you take more notes on notebooks than I do.

01:27:20   - All the time.

01:27:21   I mean, it's just always open.

01:27:22   - It's just my journal and then the notes

01:27:26   when I'm recording, that's it.

01:27:27   - Yeah, I do it for recording, you know, for edit notes,

01:27:30   but I have like a little checklist in here

01:27:32   from when we launched the shows the other day

01:27:33   of all the things I need to do.

01:27:34   Like I find it to be a very useful tool.

01:27:36   All right, I think that does it for this episode.

01:27:39   If you want to find the links to all the stuff we spoke about,

01:27:42   including photos of Myke and I's glorious iPhones,

01:27:46   go to the show notes.

01:27:48   They're in the app you're listening to us in,

01:27:50   or they're on the web at relay.fm/connected/281.

01:27:55   While you're there, you can get in touch.

01:27:57   There's an email link there.

01:27:58   You can choose to support the show.

01:28:00   There's some membership links in the sidebar as well.

01:28:02   You can support what we do here at Connected.

01:28:04   You can find us all on Twitter.

01:28:07   You can find Myke there as I-M-Y-K-E.

01:28:10   Myke is the host of a bunch of shows on Relay,

01:28:12   including The Test Drivers,

01:28:14   his new show with Austin Evans.

01:28:16   Go check that out.

01:28:17   It's really an enjoyable first episode.

01:28:19   You can find Federico on Twitter as Vitici, V-I-T-I-C-C-I,

01:28:23   and he is the editor-in-chief of MaxStories.net.

01:28:26   Federico, do you have anything exciting coming

01:28:28   you wanna tease for MaxStories?

01:28:33   Well, not in the short term, I think.

01:28:36   Yeah, I'm working on it, but it'll be a while.

01:28:39   Okay.

01:28:39   We'll check back in on that.

01:28:40   You can find me on Twitter as ISMH and my work at five 12 pixels.net.

01:28:46   And most recently the flashback show here on relay FM.

01:28:49   I think our sponsors this week, Squarespace direct mail and set up for Mac Paul

01:28:55   until next week, gentlemen, say goodbye.

01:28:57   I'll leave it there.

01:28:58   Cheerio.