Connected

00:00:00 ◼   ► (upbeat music)

00:00:02 ◼   ► Hello and welcome to Connected, episode 269.

00:00:12 ◼   ► It is made possible by our sponsors,

00:00:14 ◼   ► Pingdom, Ahrefs, and Eero.

00:00:16 ◼   ► I'm your host, Steven Hackett,

00:00:17 ◼   ► and I am joined by Myke Hurley.

00:00:20 ◼   ► - Nice.

00:00:21 ◼   ► - Hey buddy.

00:00:21 ◼   ► - Hi.

00:00:22 ◼   ► - You ruined the joke, I was about to say that.

00:00:25 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:00:27 ◼   ► - I get it, this time it's my joke.

00:00:29 ◼   ► Hey guys, this is how it's gonna be today huh? Okay, p***. Don't you know that's offensive? You can't say that. I have to edit that out. Just call him dead. I'm rolling all of my topical references out in the first five minutes today. I think I'm gonna bleep that. Yeah. If you do, it's like "what did he say to me?"

00:00:56 ◼   ► I'm still waiting for my introduction, Steven. That's very rude of you.

00:00:59 ◼   ► Oh, yes. Also, Federico's here. Hey, buddy.

00:01:01 ◼   ► Hi. Thank you. How are you?

00:01:02 ◼   ► I feel like if one of you speaks before I introduce you,

00:01:05 ◼   ► I don't feel obligated to introduce you because people know you're here, right? Like...

00:01:08 ◼   ► But what if people have never heard the show before?

00:01:12 ◼   ► That's a good point.

00:01:12 ◼   ► They're just like, "Oh, there's an Italian here as well. I wonder what they're doing."

00:01:15 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:01:16 ◼   ► Yeah, it just sounded like a rando on the show.

00:01:18 ◼   ► I'm recording with the window open.

00:01:22 ◼   ► Hi, my name is Stephen. The British one is Myke, the Italian one is Puerto Rico. We talk about

00:01:27 ◼   ► computers on the show. Welcome. Thank you. There. Everyone is up to speed. We start the show with

00:01:33 ◼   ► follow up. Last week I asked listeners to chime in. Which is a thing we invented. Yes.

00:01:37 ◼   ► And I had asked listeners to tell us about Apple TV Plus on non-Apple TV hardware because it's

00:01:48 ◼   ► that's available on a bunch of other things.

00:01:51 ◼   ► Both Jonathan and Leon wrote in to say

00:01:53 ◼   ► that they are watching it on Roku TVs,

00:01:57 ◼   ► and I think Leon had a Roku streaming stick,

00:02:00 ◼   ► and it seems to work pretty well.

00:02:04 ◼   ► - What's a Roku?

00:02:05 ◼   ► - It's like a, yeah.

00:02:06 ◼   ► - What's a Roku?

00:02:07 ◼   ► - It's like a--

00:02:08 ◼   ► - It's like a little streaming box.

00:02:08 ◼   ► - Right.

00:02:09 ◼   ► - Yeah, I heard this, and I have an Amazon Fire TV stick,

00:02:13 ◼   ► and I tried to get it to work and kind of gave up.

00:02:18 ◼   ► I plugged it into the TV and it didn't work and it needed power and I didn't have a cable.

00:02:23 ◼   ► So I kind of gave up because luckily we had some follow up.

00:02:26 ◼   ► Because I was listening, I listen to the show and I'm not on it.

00:02:30 ◼   ► But luckily our listeners tried it out for us.

00:02:33 ◼   ► It's like, it all depends on what the software is like, kind of just in general on these

00:02:38 ◼   ► devices.

00:02:39 ◼   ► And a lot of people say that it's superior on stuff with different remotes, right?

00:02:44 ◼   ► like you get to use clicky remotes rather than Apple's remote.

00:02:47 ◼   ► Right.

00:02:48 ◼   ► But they work.

00:02:49 ◼   ► Yeah, it seems like it's fine.

00:02:51 ◼   ► Some people had complained about some like scrubbing being a little weird, but I think

00:02:56 ◼   ► that's more on the device side than the Apple TV plus side.

00:03:00 ◼   ► I can give you one weird esoteric thing that I came across.

00:03:03 ◼   ► Okay.

00:03:04 ◼   ► You know when you watch the TV shows on your Apple TV and it has the little startup chime,

00:03:10 ◼   ► Apple logo Apple TV plus start-up chime right thing that like their network stinger when you watch these on the web that

00:03:16 ◼   ► It doesn't happen. Hmm

00:03:19 ◼   ► and the reason I know this is I was trying to get the audio I

00:03:22 ◼   ► Wanted the sound and I was using audio hijack, right?

00:03:27 ◼   ► So I was like, oh just record them from Chrome, but it wouldn't play in a I would like watch it on my Apple TV

00:03:32 ◼   ► It's like aha right the chime is at like 10 seconds into this episode press play

00:03:36 ◼   ► It just wasn't there. So I ended up having to like plug my iPad into my USB pre

00:03:41 ◼   ► It's like a whole thing, but you joke that nobody got but you have you have the sound effect now

00:03:46 ◼   ► I have it now. Yeah, do you want it? Yes, I will play it at some point in the segment

00:03:50 ◼   ► As you were speaking I was going to the Apple TV website in Safari and then you said it doesn't play on the web

00:03:58 ◼   ► I just closed the tab

00:04:01 ◼   ► Teamwork! But I got it for you, I got it for you. We spent a lot of time last week with my wife

00:04:07 ◼   ► talking about audio and the wide range of Apple and Beats headphones you can buy and we reviewed

00:04:14 ◼   ► our audio predictions. Even though Myke wasn't here we felt like it was the right time to do it

00:04:19 ◼   ► and as we'll remember Myke you actually won. You were ahead of me in Federico. So what's my prize?

00:04:26 ◼   ► Well you got a week off so.

00:04:28 ◼   ► Well okay.

00:04:29 ◼   ► There you go.

00:04:30 ◼   ► Outroactively.

00:04:31 ◼   ► Do I get another week off?

00:04:33 ◼   ► No.

00:04:34 ◼   ► I did also want to press and follow up that my wife and I decided to return our AirPods

00:04:39 ◼   ► Pro.

00:04:40 ◼   ► She's staying with the Powerbeats Pro, Powerprobeats and I'm with the old AirPods and all is well.

00:04:48 ◼   ► And I got my $257 back which is always nice.

00:04:52 ◼   ► Wait $257?

00:04:54 ◼   ► whatever it was, I don't know, let me look at my receipt.

00:04:56 ◼   ► We have tax-- - Like 250?

00:04:59 ◼   ► Oh.

00:04:59 ◼   ► - Oh, with tax, $272.

00:05:02 ◼   ► - Nice.

00:05:03 ◼   ► - So, we got that going for me.

00:05:06 ◼   ► So if anybody wants to borrow $272, I got your back.

00:05:09 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:05:11 ◼   ► - That wasn't the right end.

00:05:13 ◼   ► Claims it.

00:05:14 ◼   ► Apple cash, baby.

00:05:15 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:05:17 ◼   ► - We'll do like a reverse Kickstarter, you know,

00:05:18 ◼   ► like people don't give me money for an idea,

00:05:21 ◼   ► people pitch their ideas and I give them money.

00:05:23 ◼   ► What would you call that?

00:05:24 ◼   ► No wait, that is a Kickstarter.

00:05:25 ◼   ► It's like capitalism, but it's like an adventure.

00:05:27 ◼   ► What could that be called?

00:05:29 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:05:30 ◼   ► A capitalist adventure.

00:05:32 ◼   ► I think that's right.

00:05:33 ◼   ► Myke, you are the resident popsocket enthusiast?

00:05:36 ◼   ► Yep.

00:05:37 ◼   ► Would you call yourself an enthusiast?

00:05:41 ◼   ► I am actually an enthusiast of popsockets.

00:05:43 ◼   ► I have a very nice popsocket at the moment, which is an enamel popsocket.

00:05:49 ◼   ► And it looks like space.

00:05:51 ◼   ► Tell us about this new iPhone case that popped up on Apple's website.

00:05:56 ◼   ► I saw this in our show notes and thought that I had been into some kind of fugue state because

00:06:02 ◼   ► it definitely feels like something I would have put in the show notes, but I didn't.

00:06:07 ◼   ► So PopBox, oh my, PopSocket and OtterBox, two companies, make separate products.

00:06:14 ◼   ► OtterSocket.

00:06:15 ◼   ► OtterSocket.

00:06:16 ◼   ► Ooh, I don't like that.

00:06:19 ◼   ► They teamed up a few years ago and they make a range of different products which integrates

00:06:25 ◼   ► popsockets into autobox cases.

00:06:28 ◼   ► They have some that are incredibly ugly and rugged, some that are a little more svelte,

00:06:32 ◼   ► but they have a new line that seems to be available only at Apple stores in a bunch

00:06:36 ◼   ► of funky colors.

00:06:37 ◼   ► They have like a pink and orange, a black which is not funky, and then a blue which

00:06:41 ◼   ► is definitely purple.

00:06:43 ◼   ► It's like a pretty nice looking case that integrates a popsocket into it.

00:06:48 ◼   ► I've been eyeing this case a little bit because I think the colors are cool.

00:06:52 ◼   ► Now, all of these cases that auto box and pop socket make together seem to suggest,

00:06:58 ◼   ► oh, wireless charging might work, but you might have to remove the pop socket,

00:07:02 ◼   ► which is kind of kind of pointless.

00:07:04 ◼   ► But these are now a product that Apple is selling directly.

00:07:07 ◼   ► I think it's a pretty cool combo.

00:07:09 ◼   ► I'm still a big fan of my pop socket.

00:07:12 ◼   ► And so this could be another option for you,

00:07:14 ◼   ► especially an option for friend of the show Alex Cox, because I know that they love purple cases

00:07:20 ◼   ► and this is very clearly a purple case, not a blue case. And they love pop sockets as much as I do,

00:07:25 ◼   ► so Alex, if you're out there, I think this could be a product for you. Alex also loves orange,

00:07:31 ◼   ► even though the orange is definitely not orange. None of these colors, pink, orange, purple,

00:07:37 ◼   ► are blue. None of them are correct. All these are wrong. No wrong. You've got like, salmon is

00:07:42 ◼   ► orange. I guess the pink is kind of like a lilac color. It's not really that pink. And

00:07:47 ◼   ► then the blue is purple. This is nonsense.

00:07:49 ◼   ► It's like, I'm clicking to change the colors and it's like, what am I looking at?

00:07:55 ◼   ► It's like a complete crapshoot. Like it could be anything. Is this like a Rorschach test

00:08:00 ◼   ► of some description? Like you see whatever color you want to see? This is nightmarish.

00:08:06 ◼   ► I also have a question about this. So in the show notes is the search result page because

00:08:11 ◼   ► 'cause there's three different cases in this lineup.

00:08:13 ◼   ► And underneath the results, there's two buttons.

00:08:16 ◼   ► There's Search iTunes, just with the old iTunes logo.

00:08:20 ◼   ► - Everyone knows that.

00:08:22 ◼   ► - And if you click it on Catalina, it opens the music app.

00:08:26 ◼   ► And then there is Search Trailers,

00:08:29 ◼   ► which goes to the Apple trailer website,

00:08:31 ◼   ► which I have forgotten existed.

00:08:34 ◼   ► And if you load it,

00:08:35 ◼   ► we'll put a link directly to it in our show notes,

00:08:37 ◼   ► it looks like Apple's forgotten that it exists too,

00:08:39 ◼   ► because it is in like the old iTunes 8 or 9 UI.

00:08:44 ◼   ► Remember when iTunes looked like this

00:08:45 ◼   ► with like dark gray and graphite color and stuff?

00:08:48 ◼   ► - I love the logo, it's got kind of a shine on it.

00:08:51 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:08:52 ◼   ► - You know, at the very top.

00:08:53 ◼   ► - But the trailers are actually new.

00:08:57 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:08:58 ◼   ► - Like the trailers are up to date.

00:09:01 ◼   ► - 'Cause I guess these are being used in the iTunes,

00:09:05 ◼   ► or just the Apple movies store,

00:09:06 ◼   ► whatever it's called now, right?

00:09:08 ◼   ► The iTunes Movie Trailers app, it's still around,

00:09:11 ◼   ► the iOS app, and it got updated, yeah, two years ago.

00:09:15 ◼   ► Oh, well.

00:09:17 ◼   ► - Also, a bunch of these images are not retina,

00:09:21 ◼   ► and if you scroll to the bottom,

00:09:23 ◼   ► comment, suggestion, or have a film trailer,

00:09:24 ◼   ► question mark, email, trailers@mac.com.

00:09:28 ◼   ► - Wow, should we send an email?

00:09:30 ◼   ► Should we send an email?

00:09:31 ◼   ► - Here's the thing, they are still working on this,

00:09:34 ◼   ► because there is an Apple TV+ banner

00:09:36 ◼   ► on the top right-hand corner.

00:09:37 ◼   ► Somebody updated that. Somebody put that in there.

00:09:40 ◼   ► Somebody just put it there.

00:09:42 ◼   ► Someone put that there.

00:09:44 ◼   ► Steven, I know that this is not Adapt,

00:09:46 ◼   ► but I have a challenge for you, Steven, for next week.

00:09:50 ◼   ► So I want you to find--

00:09:54 ◼   ► now that I see this page, I want you

00:09:56 ◼   ► to find the most hidden or old page

00:10:02 ◼   ► that you can find on apple.com.

00:10:06 ◼   ► So in the style of this forgotten iTunes movie trailer website, I want you to find

00:10:12 ◼   ► something else that is just as hidden or not looked after anymore like this.

00:10:19 ◼   ► And it has to be somewhat funny.

00:10:21 ◼   ► Okay.

00:10:22 ◼   ► I thought that you were going to suggest that he sends an email to whoever runs trailers

00:10:26 ◼   ► at Mac.com.

00:10:27 ◼   ► Oh, I am.

00:10:28 ◼   ► I have an email draft right now.

00:10:29 ◼   ► Found your webpage today.

00:10:30 ◼   ► It's super cool.

00:10:31 ◼   ► Love it.

00:10:32 ◼   ► Love, Steven.

00:10:33 ◼   ► Do you want to hear the email?

00:10:34 ◼   ► I love your web.

00:10:35 ◼   ► I love your webpage

00:10:37 ◼   ► What about this?

00:10:39 ◼   ► I just came across this page and it brought me real joy in remembering watching trailers and QuickTime back when I was in school

00:10:45 ◼   ► It's actually pretty sweet lots of love

00:10:49 ◼   ► That is true. I remember that. Oh my damn stay strong. We believe in you

00:10:55 ◼   ► Send the piece and attach a photo attach a photo of you in middle school though

00:10:59 ◼   ► Like you got a cell I have a picture of me in college posing with my power book. I should say that

00:11:05 ◼   ► Yes

00:11:07 ◼   ► Somebody's gonna you know that single person who's in charge of that email address is gonna send it to Tim Cook or Eddie Q

00:11:12 ◼   ► Maybe Eddie Q is gonna see it. You know, what if I wrote it as if

00:11:15 ◼   ► Maybe that write it to Eddie directly. Hey Eddie

00:11:19 ◼   ► I'm sure you're in charge of this just just came across your webpage

00:11:23 ◼   ► Thank you, I have two follow-up items that I would like to pose to the group if that's okay, okay

00:11:33 ◼   ► Okay as the resident tvOS expert

00:11:36 ◼   ► tvOS 13.3

00:11:39 ◼   ► Adds an interesting feature. It has a setting to I say interesting

00:11:43 ◼   ► It's adds a feature it includes a setting to revert the top shelf UI

00:11:48 ◼   ► So, you know like when you get the big what is currently now

00:11:52 ◼   ► Autoplaying trailers for stuff if you if you were on the right you can now revert this UI to the previous

00:12:00 ◼   ► auto playing video state that was in tvOS 12. This is going to be a setting in 13.3.

00:12:07 ◼   ► So what is currently happening is there's two things going on with the top shelf UI.

00:12:16 ◼   ► Well, it's three things. The third thing is no developers are using it the way that Apple

00:12:21 ◼   ► is because nobody can be bothered, like a lot of tvOS development. Just nobody can be

00:12:25 ◼   ► be bothered to do what Apple would like them to do like the single sign on thing

00:12:29 ◼   ► not the single sign you like the account thing where you can tie like Netflix

00:12:33 ◼   ► could tie their account system to the new user system on tvOS but nobody's

00:12:39 ◼   ► bothering to take advantage of any of these API's but it's possible people to

00:12:43 ◼   ► show their own or to play videos but they're just no one's borrowing to do it

00:12:46 ◼   ► this is Apple showing you what they think you should watch they're making

00:12:51 ◼   ► suggestions to you in this and it's very frustrating for most people. It will now revert back to

00:12:58 ◼   ► if you change the setting to what is in your up next queue so it's showing what you're

00:13:02 ◼   ► actually choosing to watch but it won't be auto playing videos it would just be those

00:13:07 ◼   ► static tiles again. I just changed this setting last night because I have the beta on my Apple

00:13:12 ◼   ► TV. I'm very happy that it's back. I never understood the watch now thing. I have no

00:13:19 ◼   ► problem with the what to watch thing in general, I just don't want the video and I know you

00:13:23 ◼   ► can actually turn off the video by going into accessibility and reducing motion but that

00:13:28 ◼   ► makes other changes that I don't want to make.

00:13:31 ◼   ► TVOS guy, see I know all these hacks.

00:13:34 ◼   ► TVOShacks.net, that's my next website.

00:13:39 ◼   ► And Motorola, they're going to be showing off their foldable Razer phone today.

00:13:43 ◼   ► It hasn't happened yet, I only mention it because if it happens before the episode comes

00:13:48 ◼   ► out. People will be surprised that I didn't talk about it, but it's just because it hasn't

00:13:51 ◼   ► happened as the time we're recording. Maybe I'll talk about it.

00:13:54 ◼   ► Hey, how is your Galaxy Fold?

00:13:56 ◼   ► It's cool. I just tinker around with it. I've been away a bunch, so I haven't been able to play

00:14:01 ◼   ► around with it as much, but like, it's not broken, if that's what you're asking. It's still going.

00:14:05 ◼   ► And I like just like playing with it. They've actually had some software updates, which is nice.

00:14:11 ◼   ► And that's all I have to say on that matter right now.

00:14:15 ◼   ► My tiny topic this week is to pour one out for my short love affair with the new Reminders app.

00:14:23 ◼   ► I really wanted to move into it. It seems like Reminders had its notes moment this year,

00:14:29 ◼   ► but I wrote this blog post really kind of outlining why it doesn't work for me. And

00:14:33 ◼   ► actually before it was a blog post, it was in the Club Max Stories newsletter, and Federico was very

00:14:38 ◼   ► kind to let me repost it. So thank you. And it just doesn't work for me for a bunch of reasons.

00:14:45 ◼   ► the way it sorts like doesn't make any sense to me, you can't sort a list on iOS, you can only

00:14:50 ◼   ► sort it on the Mac. And if you sort by due date, items with no due date appear at the top of the

00:14:56 ◼   ► list is at the bottom, which makes no sense to me. The UI can get pretty junky if you add a bunch of

00:15:03 ◼   ► attachments to things because your mind just wants to show you everything all the time. And so like,

00:15:07 ◼   ► if you have a list and you have, you know, a bunch of tasks, and you have one task with a note and

00:15:14 ◼   ► geolocation and a messages reminder and a website like it all just gets added to

00:15:19 ◼   ► that and it kind of junks up your list view pretty bad but maybe for for most

00:15:26 ◼   ► people those two things aren't a big deal but I think for a lot of people who

00:15:29 ◼   ► are using something like todoist or other programs that make adding

00:15:34 ◼   ► metadata really quick reminder just doesn't do that uses the quick type bar

00:15:38 ◼   ► for some things, but very often you have to go into the the little information

00:15:47 ◼   ► panel to change things about a task where something like todoist is kind of

00:15:52 ◼   ► like a command line where you can just type your task name and enter the list

00:15:56 ◼   ► name and any repeating stuff and the due date the flag all just as text and

00:16:01 ◼   ► reminders want you to pause go to QuickType or hit one of the little

00:16:04 ◼   ► buttons or go into the info panel. And I just found it to be a lot slower than I was hoping.

00:16:09 ◼   ► I really hope reminders can evolve into something that I could use because I like the idea of having

00:16:16 ◼   ► my task lists have all the cool like first party integrations that reminders has is like the thing

00:16:24 ◼   ► of like remind me to ask this person and you attach it to their iMessage is awesome. Like

00:16:30 ◼   ► When I text John, remind me to ask about the trip.

00:16:33 ◼   ► And next time I text him with John, reminder says,

00:16:35 ◼   ► "Hey, remember this?

00:16:37 ◼   ► That's really cool and nothing else can do that."

00:16:40 ◼   ► And so I'm still using reminders like I did

00:16:42 ◼   ► under iOS 12 and before.

00:16:43 ◼   ► I'm using it for some things, mostly geolocation things,

00:16:46 ◼   ► like one-off stuff.

00:16:47 ◼   ► Like the other day, someone had dropped something off

00:16:50 ◼   ► at the house and put it in the mailbox.

00:16:52 ◼   ► And I needed to make sure I got it out of the mailbox

00:16:53 ◼   ► when I got home.

00:16:54 ◼   ► And so I just told my phone, "When I get home,

00:16:58 ◼   ► Remind me to you know, check the mailbox and that's just like a one-off thing

00:17:03 ◼   ► But the geolocation was the perfect way to solve it

00:17:05 ◼   ► And so I'm still using reminders for those sorts of things

00:17:08 ◼   ► But I just can't move to it full-time and and it makes me sad because I think it's a really good app

00:17:13 ◼   ► I think they have a lot of really cool stuff going on in it

00:17:16 ◼   ► But those three things are just like the perfect combination to knock it out of contention for me. I have been

00:17:25 ◼   ► really wanting to try reminders but Todoist keeps doing stuff and I they had

00:17:34 ◼   ► an update recently called the foundation update and it's like part of like a big

00:17:37 ◼   ► overhaul that they're doing and I really really like the stuff they've added like

00:17:44 ◼   ► it's a lot of UI changes really and like surfacing things that were previously

00:17:49 ◼   ► pretty hidden, like the sub-task menu and stuff like that. But I'm very happy with the

00:17:56 ◼   ► changes that they're making and that's making it harder for me to really get up and move

00:18:03 ◼   ► over to reminders. Because it's a big thing to move Task Manager and Todoist is like,

00:18:12 ◼   ► got its claws in me right now because they're making some interesting moves, I think.

00:18:20 ◼   ► I'm still using reminders very happily. I agree with some of Steven's comments. I disagree

00:18:27 ◼   ► when in the article he mentioned that he doesn't like how all kinds of attachments and options

00:18:34 ◼   ► for a single reminder show up in the main list. So like if you have a link, if you have

00:18:38 ◼   ► location. I like that kind of stuff that it's shown in the main list view.

00:18:43 ◼   ► The thing with reminders is that right now it doesn't have all the options that I would like

00:18:50 ◼   ► to have, like sorting or saved searches, you know, that kind of stuff. And for the past several months

00:18:58 ◼   ► really, I've just been making my own with shortcuts. And I know that it's not ideal, like I

00:19:05 ◼   ► I shouldn't have to create a shortcut to sort tasks

00:19:10 ◼   ► within a project by due date, but at least it works.

00:19:13 ◼   ► And I can still use reminders.

00:19:16 ◼   ► And I mean, we're gonna talk about

00:19:19 ◼   ► some of the other reminders shortcuts

00:19:21 ◼   ► that I've made later in the show,

00:19:22 ◼   ► but it works pretty well for me.

00:19:25 ◼   ► Honestly, I don't think I have the same needs

00:19:29 ◼   ► as you or Steven.

00:19:31 ◼   ► Like I mostly just spent,

00:19:33 ◼   ► I do organize my tasks in lists,

00:19:37 ◼   ► but I mostly spend my time in the today and scheduled.

00:19:40 ◼   ► - Yeah, me too.

00:19:41 ◼   ► - Like I rarely go down into an individual project.

00:19:45 ◼   ► So I don't know, it's fun for me.

00:19:48 ◼   ► I would like it to be better.

00:19:50 ◼   ► I hope that we don't have to wait until June

00:19:53 ◼   ► for, you know, like to have sorting on iOS

00:19:56 ◼   ► or just even the ability to attach a document.

00:20:00 ◼   ► If you want to attach a PDF to reminders for now, you can't.

00:20:02 ◼   ► You can only attach a JPEG, which is silly.

00:20:05 ◼   ► Because in Calendar, for example,

00:20:07 ◼   ► you can now attach any document.

00:20:10 ◼   ► You can just pick from the file speaker.

00:20:13 ◼   ► But in Reminders, you can only attach photos,

00:20:15 ◼   ► which doesn't really make any sense.

00:20:17 ◼   ► So here is the other thing that-- listening

00:20:22 ◼   ► to you talk about that and me talking about the Todoist

00:20:25 ◼   ► Foundation thing.

00:20:27 ◼   ► The concern I have with maybe now

00:20:30 ◼   ► I've spent more time thinking about it, of really going all in on reminders, is if there is something

00:20:34 ◼   ► that is frustrating me, it's going to be a long time until they maybe potentially change it. And

00:20:40 ◼   ► again, all apps and services can have problems. Stephen has had the same problems with task

00:20:45 ◼   ► managers forever. Nobody, no matter how much they promise, seem to want to change the things that

00:20:49 ◼   ► annoy him, right? Things won't change their problem. Todoists won't change their problem.

00:20:54 ◼   ► But if a fix is going to happen, I maybe don't have to wait a year for it.

00:20:59 ◼   ► And I think that for me, that is becoming a little too,

00:21:05 ◼   ► too much of a sticking point in the same reason that I don't use Apple's mail

00:21:09 ◼   ► app, right?

00:21:11 ◼   ► For a lot of the same reasons that like some of the decisions that Apple

00:21:16 ◼   ► makes with those apps are counter to what I would want to do.

00:21:21 ◼   ► And I have no ability to really convince them.

00:21:24 ◼   ► and even if I could I'd be waiting a long time for them to make any change.

00:21:28 ◼   ► So, I don't know. I don't know. I haven't fully made my mind up yet

00:21:33 ◼   ► because I've been tinkering with reminders and there's stuff that I do actually really like about it,

00:21:37 ◼   ► but I'm more hesitant than I was before about moving my entire to-do system to it.

00:21:45 ◼   ► That's such an interesting point about so much of Apple software,

00:21:49 ◼   ► is that it is lockstep with iOS releases.

00:21:52 ◼   ► And we've talked about that before, but I really feel like like like apples got to

00:21:58 ◼   ► where possible

00:22:00 ◼   ► sort of

00:22:01 ◼   ► Unchained those things like there's no reason that we should have to wait a year for like you said, Federico

00:22:06 ◼   ► simple attachment changes like just do it in a point update and

00:22:10 ◼   ► I'm hopeful that they are moving that way because you do see things

00:22:15 ◼   ► Come to some apps off cycle

00:22:18 ◼   ► But the big changes they want to store up for those big marketing releases and I just don't think that's the right way to go for

00:22:26 ◼   ► for all components of the system right like I get that for for big things but

00:22:31 ◼   ► reminders is

00:22:33 ◼   ► It's an important app just like notes is an important app, but it's also a really competitive landscape and if they want to

00:22:41 ◼   ► Really take a swing at market share. They've got to treat it more like a standalone product and less like a feature of a larger OS

00:22:48 ◼   ► Yep. All right

00:22:50 ◼   ► Lastly before our first break has Google Docs been updated to include multi-window support. No, no

00:22:57 ◼   ► This is because this is feeling more and more desperate every week now

00:23:01 ◼   ► But I did want to add on your discussion from last time about multi-window support in general

00:23:07 ◼   ► I'd mostly agree with the two of you right like it's not

00:23:10 ◼   ► Groundbreaking but it is really useful to have in certain circumstances like over the last couple of weeks

00:23:16 ◼   ► weeks I've been needing to have multiple pages documents open at the same time

00:23:20 ◼   ► and like before I would have my iPhone and my iPad as a way to do that but I

00:23:25 ◼   ► don't need to do that anymore which is really good and I'm happy to have that I

00:23:29 ◼   ► still want to see more I want to see more apps adopt it I want still want

00:23:33 ◼   ► dedicated fixed spaces so I can just choose two windows pin them together and

00:23:37 ◼   ► they stay together forever but as a step one this is still pretty good it's

00:23:43 ◼   ► useful when I need it, but I'm not like doing all of my work in a million windows all over

00:23:49 ◼   ► iOS.

00:23:50 ◼   ► And that's good because that would be a terrible mess.

00:23:52 ◼   ► Yeah, it gets out of hand pretty quickly, I think.

00:23:55 ◼   ► All right, we've got a lot of stuff to talk about this week.

00:23:57 ◼   ► We have the new 16 inch MacBook Pro, we have a leak about Apple's AR glasses initiative,

00:24:05 ◼   ► and Federico is going to talk about Toolbox Pro, a really fascinating new iOS app that

00:24:10 ◼   ► extends shortcuts.

00:24:11 ◼   ► But before that stuff, let me tell you about our first sponsor, and that is Pingdom.

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00:24:32 ◼   ► And when you're online, when you're shopping, there's little worse than a shopping cart

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00:24:37 ◼   ► You're on a website and it's suddenly unavailable or really slow.

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00:25:03 ◼   ► before that frustration sets in.

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00:25:26 ◼   ► Our thanks to Pingdom for their support of this show and Relay FM.

00:25:30 ◼   ► The long international nightmare is over.

00:25:34 ◼   ► we have a new MacBook Pro keyboard.

00:25:37 ◼   ► Feels good to say that, doesn't it, right?

00:25:39 ◼   ► - Well, it's a new MacBook Pro with a new keyboard.

00:25:42 ◼   ► - It is a new MacBook Pro out of the two MacBook Pro sizes

00:25:47 ◼   ► and three complete notebooks,

00:25:48 ◼   ► and it has a revised keyboard, so.

00:25:50 ◼   ► - Right, because we've had new MacBook Pro keyboards

00:25:53 ◼   ► a few times, and that has not helped anything.

00:25:55 ◼   ► - Every six months, for every six months

00:25:58 ◼   ► for the last 22 years, there's been a new MacBook Pro keyboard.

00:26:01 ◼   ► But Apple, so let's get into this.

00:26:03 ◼   ► So today, after months of rumors,

00:26:06 ◼   ► they released the 16-inch MacBook Pro.

00:26:10 ◼   ► It replaces outright the 15.4-inch model.

00:26:14 ◼   ► So this is not a new,

00:26:15 ◼   ► like we talked about, a new high-end model.

00:26:17 ◼   ► This replaces the 15-inch.

00:26:19 ◼   ► If you want a MacBook Pro,

00:26:20 ◼   ► your options are 13.3 and 16-inch displays.

00:26:24 ◼   ► As we talked about, the keyboard is new.

00:26:28 ◼   ► We're gonna come back to that in a second

00:26:30 ◼   ► 'cause I think that's the biggest deal here.

00:26:32 ◼   ► They took the opportunity to make the machine a little bit bigger, not only because of the

00:26:36 ◼   ► screen, but they also went a little bit thicker, adding a new thermal system.

00:26:42 ◼   ► The GIF of it made me reminded me of the iMac Pro website where they talk about all the

00:26:47 ◼   ► air that it can move around.

00:26:49 ◼   ► Apple says this will provide for additional capacity so the CPU and GPU can run hotter

00:26:55 ◼   ► longer and additional 12 watts TDP in the chassis now.

00:27:00 ◼   ► The only GPUs are these new AMD mobile GPUs

00:27:04 ◼   ► that look really good actually.

00:27:07 ◼   ► And they're gonna be warm

00:27:08 ◼   ► and so Apple's given themselves more headroom

00:27:11 ◼   ► in this design which is really good.

00:27:13 ◼   ► There's also crazy new speaker magic

00:27:15 ◼   ► which I'm not sure I fully understand.

00:27:16 ◼   ► Myke, I'm hoping you can explain the speaker thing to me

00:27:19 ◼   ► 'cause I read it a couple of times.

00:27:20 ◼   ► I'm not sure actually, grokking what they're doing.

00:27:24 ◼   ► New microphones, please don't podcast with just a laptop

00:27:28 ◼   ► but if you do accidentally, it'll sound better.

00:27:31 ◼   ► So a big deal, and I think what's really interesting

00:27:34 ◼   ► about this machine is that it is the MacBook Pro

00:27:37 ◼   ► we've known for the last three years, right?

00:27:39 ◼   ► The I/O is the same, the design is effectively the same,

00:27:42 ◼   ► right, the industrial design,

00:27:44 ◼   ► the character of the machine hasn't changed.

00:27:46 ◼   ► But they have gone in and updated and changed things

00:27:51 ◼   ► that were really sticking points with a lot of users.

00:27:55 ◼   ► And yes, there are people who would want a SD card slot,

00:27:57 ◼   ► people who still want MagSafe back. I think it's clear that Apple believes

00:28:01 ◼   ► still believes in the general future of the MacBook Pro as they laid out in 2016

00:28:06 ◼   ► where this is a course correction to fix some things on these models that were

00:28:11 ◼   ► problematic but I still think that what they said is this is the MacBook Pro now

00:28:17 ◼   ► that really hasn't changed it's really a very similar machine to my mid 2019 so I

00:28:23 ◼   ► I have the last 15.4 inch MacBook Pro, it is my laptop.

00:28:27 ◼   ► And this and the 16 side by side,

00:28:29 ◼   ► they're very clearly cut from the same cloth,

00:28:32 ◼   ► but this one they've gone in

00:28:33 ◼   ► and really, really changed some things.

00:28:36 ◼   ► So Myke, you have an episode of Upgrade Up with Jason.

00:28:40 ◼   ► Jason has a review unit, he was at the press stuff,

00:28:44 ◼   ► he's talked a lot about it.

00:28:45 ◼   ► You had a really great interview on Upgrade

00:28:46 ◼   ► that I wanna hear about.

00:28:48 ◼   ► - Yep.

00:28:48 ◼   ► - So tell us about Upgrade a little bit

00:28:50 ◼   ► and then let's get into the keyboard.

00:28:52 ◼   ► Yeah, so Jason was at the press briefings in New York,

00:28:56 ◼   ► and he had the ability to spend an entire day,

00:29:00 ◼   ► like a 24-hour period, with the MacBook Pro, the new 16-inch

00:29:03 ◼   ► MacBook Pro.

00:29:04 ◼   ► And we have a long conversation about it,

00:29:06 ◼   ► where we dig into it and kind of go through the ins and outs.

00:29:09 ◼   ► And the episode also has an exclusive interview

00:29:12 ◼   ► with the MacBook Pro product manager, Shruti Hadeer.

00:29:15 ◼   ► And she's incredible.

00:29:18 ◼   ► You should listen to it to hear that.

00:29:19 ◼   ► It kind of sounds, the interview's really interesting

00:29:23 ◼   ► because it kind of sounds like a presentation, right?

00:29:25 ◼   ► Like it sounds like some, it points,

00:29:28 ◼   ► like this is how this product would have been presented

00:29:30 ◼   ► if it was presented.

00:29:31 ◼   ► But the great part is because Jason's there,

00:29:34 ◼   ► Jason can ask more questions,

00:29:35 ◼   ► which he usually can't do during an Apple presentation.

00:29:38 ◼   ► So it's a really great interview

00:29:39 ◼   ► and it unearths a lot of the thinking

00:29:42 ◼   ► that went on kind of behind the scenes, I think,

00:29:45 ◼   ► as to why Apple were making the changes that they're making.

00:29:48 ◼   ► because, I mean, we're gonna talk about this.

00:29:50 ◼   ► There are some changes that everybody wanted

00:29:52 ◼   ► and then there are some changes that they made

00:29:53 ◼   ► which make sense for their customers,

00:29:55 ◼   ► but maybe we didn't necessarily think about them before.

00:29:58 ◼   ► And a lot of them are actually around audio,

00:30:00 ◼   ► which is really interesting.

00:30:01 ◼   ► So you wanted me to explain the speakers.

00:30:04 ◼   ► I can't do an incredible job of this,

00:30:05 ◼   ► but I can tell you kind of the basics.

00:30:07 ◼   ► It's a brand new system.

00:30:09 ◼   ► It's six speakers in the system now,

00:30:11 ◼   ► which are kind of split apart in such a way

00:30:13 ◼   ► that they're trying to do room-filling stereo sound.

00:30:16 ◼   ► Apple were talking about the idea that you could kind of move around the laptop and hear

00:30:21 ◼   ► the audio differently. You know, it reminds me of the HomePod, but obviously it's not

00:30:26 ◼   ► as good as the HomePod, right? Like the way they talk about it at least, with the room

00:30:29 ◼   ► filling sound. But then there's a really interesting thing where they have these things called

00:30:32 ◼   ► dual, they have dual force cancelling woofers. So what's happening is there's like these

00:30:37 ◼   ► two woofers that I believe are facing towards each other and they're doing this like, I

00:30:43 ◼   ► I definitely can't explain this well enough. They're analyzing the sound to cancel each other

00:30:49 ◼   ► out to reduce vibration. So you don't get that, like you don't get like a weird distorted vibrating

00:30:55 ◼   ► sound. So basically what they're doing is they're just trying to make a system inside of a laptop

00:31:00 ◼   ► that can sound as good as it can sound. So that's pretty cool. And then they're also really talking

00:31:05 ◼   ► up this three microphone array that they've got. They're doing beamforming, right, so they can try

00:31:11 ◼   ► and just focus in on the voice. And Apple are literally saying these are good enough

00:31:19 ◼   ► for podcasting. No, there's a million caveats to that. It's better. Here's the thing. If

00:31:26 ◼   ► you podcast on an open laptop, it will sound better than the old one. But your audio is

00:31:31 ◼   ► still going to be bad. And what's even worse is if you're not using headphones, the other

00:31:36 ◼   ► person's audio is going to be in yours and that is an atrocious thing to do to a podcast

00:31:42 ◼   ► editor.

00:31:43 ◼   ► It is like emergencies only and/or not podcasts.

00:31:48 ◼   ► There's that music production that makes way more sense there if you want to get like a

00:31:51 ◼   ► rough scratch or something.

00:31:53 ◼   ► Or if you want to do a conference call or something like that.

00:31:56 ◼   ► It's the same thing, right?

00:31:57 ◼   ► Like Apple, when they was one of the iPad Pro events, they had some sort of announcement

00:32:03 ◼   ► about microphone support or USB, they're like, "Yeah, now you can use your iPad for

00:32:06 ◼   ► podcasting." It's like, no you can't. I mean, you can if you want to do a bunch of

00:32:11 ◼   ► crazy stuff, but like, they did-- A million caveats to how you could use it.

00:32:15 ◼   ► They like using podcasting because it's like a cool thing that cool people do, like us,

00:32:20 ◼   ► clearly, but this is not like a "go buy a microphone." If someone emailed me wanting

00:32:25 ◼   ► to start a podcast, they're like, "How about a new 16-inch MacBook Pro?" Like, cool,

00:32:28 ◼   ► here's an Amazon page with some microphones, go pick one.

00:32:30 ◼   ► because you just spent a lot of money. I mean, it's like, look, in very specific circumstances,

00:32:35 ◼   ► you can make those microphones sound really good, but those circumstances are very specific,

00:32:41 ◼   ► right? And so like on upgrade, we actually switched the audio.

00:32:46 ◼   ► Yeah, I heard that.

00:32:47 ◼   ► The section of the show where we switched the audio from Jason's microphone that you had with

00:32:53 ◼   ► him to the laptop mic so you can hear it. I would say you could probably tell me,

00:32:59 ◼   ► "Oh, I'm using a crappy USB mic and I will believe you."

00:33:02 ◼   ► But that's about as good as you're going to get.

00:33:04 ◼   ► And this is nothing on Apple's technology,

00:33:05 ◼   ► it's just because a dedicated microphone is very different to a laptop microphone.

00:33:11 ◼   ► A dedicated microphone, you speak directly into it.

00:33:14 ◼   ► A laptop microphone, you're just kind of speaking at the computer.

00:33:17 ◼   ► So it can never do as good a job.

00:33:19 ◼   ► And a regular microphone is not directly attached to a keyboard.

00:33:22 ◼   ► Yep, so it's not going to get all the tapping, all the vibration.

00:33:26 ◼   ► and it's not going to hear the fans probably if you know at least they're less likely to hear the fans

00:33:30 ◼   ► this is a much better microphone for the majority of uses that any regular computer user would have

00:33:36 ◼   ► for a microphone you are going to sound vastly better on any phone calls or conference calls

00:33:40 ◼   ► or video calls that you take on this computer and that is like a better thing i mean this is kind of

00:33:46 ◼   ► my feeling about this macbook pro in general and i think apple have been building to this for a few

00:33:51 ◼   ► years and they're doing it again here in different ways, they are shoving in features that are

00:33:58 ◼   ► meant to be angled at specific use cases.

00:34:02 ◼   ► So this is really good for this person doing this with video, this is really good for the

00:34:05 ◼   ► person doing this for audio, and it's probably not amazing for those people, it would be

00:34:09 ◼   ► good in a pinch, but those features can actually be used by regular users more easily.

00:34:15 ◼   ► So this is one of them.

00:34:17 ◼   ► I'm just like, oh great, I can use this and it's better for me when I take those conference

00:34:21 ◼   ► calls.

00:34:22 ◼   ► But I don't think that really any podcast is going to switch.

00:34:26 ◼   ► It's a PR line.

00:34:27 ◼   ► It's not a serious thing.

00:34:29 ◼   ► So that makes sense.

00:34:30 ◼   ► And that is cool.

00:34:31 ◼   ► Like Apple has been really harping on better audio in their products for a long time.

00:34:37 ◼   ► Like that was a big deal with the 2015, the first 12 inch MacBook.

00:34:41 ◼   ► Like I've got one of those.

00:34:42 ◼   ► It sounds incredible, especially considering the size.

00:34:45 ◼   ► And of course you have HomePod and everything else.

00:34:47 ◼   ► They have really upped their game

00:34:49 ◼   ► in sort of the speaker department in the last few years.

00:34:52 ◼   ► And it's cool the laptops get it

00:34:54 ◼   ► 'cause a lot of people just edit on a laptop, right?

00:34:58 ◼   ► Or just even you're just watching it,

00:35:00 ◼   ► you're using it as your TV or something like that.

00:35:02 ◼   ► So it's an important aspect of a product

00:35:04 ◼   ► that I'm glad has gotten some attention this time around.

00:35:07 ◼   ► - And especially in a machine that's this size,

00:35:09 ◼   ► because they've made it bigger,

00:35:12 ◼   ► you have the space to do this.

00:35:13 ◼   ► have the space to put the speaker grills in. You don't have to hide them under the keyboard, right?

00:35:17 ◼   ► Like, make it good because it's a big machine. It's a big machine! It's bigger in every way,

00:35:23 ◼   ► and heavier, which is super interesting. But that's what they decided to do.

00:35:28 ◼   ► So do we want to get into the keyboard?

00:35:29 ◼   ► I think you should.

00:35:30 ◼   ► Okay, so this is a radical departure from the butterfly keyboard that, again, showed up on that

00:35:38 ◼   ► first MacBook, actually, and then spread to the MacBook Pro line, and then the MacBook Air last

00:35:43 ◼   ► year and we we don't have to rehash this history today but it has been extremely

00:35:49 ◼   ► unreliable broken keys broken switches double presses all of that sort of one

00:35:56 ◼   ► category of problem and in the second category a lot of people just didn't

00:35:58 ◼   ► like the keyboard right there was no physical escape key the arrow keys you

00:36:03 ◼   ► cannot tell apart by touch and the travel was really low so you should have

00:36:08 ◼   ► had like personal tastes problems and then you had my keyboard is broken type

00:36:13 ◼   ► problems and I think Apple has tried to address both at once so they are calling

00:36:17 ◼   ► this the magic keyboard if you listen to that upgrade interview it's clear this

00:36:21 ◼   ► is not a copy and paste of the external magic keyboard that a lot of us including

00:36:25 ◼   ► me use every day no but it is inspired by the magic keyboard so it does use

00:36:32 ◼   ► scissor switches yeah it does have a rubber dome underneath not steel like

00:36:37 ◼   ► the butterfly keyboard did and it seems like it is effectively the magic

00:36:42 ◼   ► keyboard underneath but they've done some things to add to the key stability.

00:36:45 ◼   ► That was a big reason they went to butterfly. They said that the keys were

00:36:48 ◼   ► more stable, that if you if you hit the corner of a key it didn't sort of bow

00:36:52 ◼   ► and bend under your finger. And so they've done some things to help help

00:36:55 ◼   ► the stabilization, which the scissor key mechanism is sort of inherently unstable

00:37:00 ◼   ► the way that it actually compresses. So they've they've held on to the idea that

00:37:05 ◼   ► these keys to be stable but they've totally redone what's under them to make

00:37:09 ◼   ► them more robust. And they've also addressed a lot of the personal taste

00:37:13 ◼   ► issues. So the touch bar is now smaller with the physical escape key on the end.

00:37:17 ◼   ► It has the inverted T arrows, which the Magic Keyboard by the way doesn't. The

00:37:22 ◼   ► Magic Keyboard, I have one right here in front of my iMac Pro, it has the full

00:37:27 ◼   ► height left and right arrow keys so you can't really tell where you are by feel.

00:37:30 ◼   ► Yeah I think it's very clear that one of the main reasons they are using the

00:37:35 ◼   ► Magic Keyboard name here is to confirm to people in branding that it is not the butterfly

00:37:42 ◼   ► keyboard.

00:37:43 ◼   ► Like they are piggybacking on the popularity of the other keyboard to sell the new keyboard,

00:37:49 ◼   ► which is a fine thing to do because it is closer to that.

00:37:51 ◼   ► But like, it's not the exact same keyboard in a bunch of important ways.

00:37:56 ◼   ► Yeah, I think the Magic Keyboard is pretty well liked.

00:37:59 ◼   ► I mean, I'm really happy with it.

00:38:02 ◼   ► And I think a lot of people are.

00:38:03 ◼   ► I do sort of wonder if this key,

00:38:08 ◼   ► I mean, God forbid this keyboard had problems.

00:38:11 ◼   ► Like, is the use of that name gonna backfire on them?

00:38:14 ◼   ► But I get the sense that they're pretty confident

00:38:16 ◼   ► that this thing is gonna be okay.

00:38:18 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's probably gonna go back to within the realm

00:38:22 ◼   ► of reliability of the previous laptop keyboards

00:38:25 ◼   ► 'cause it's way closer to those, right?

00:38:26 ◼   ► Then they know they can make those,

00:38:28 ◼   ► they know what needs to be done on those.

00:38:28 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah, so I think if you have,

00:38:30 ◼   ► If you have been, like me, have had issues

00:38:34 ◼   ► with the old keyboard, my 2016 MacBook Pro,

00:38:37 ◼   ► the key fell off and I had to argue with the Apple Store

00:38:41 ◼   ► 'cause it was before the repair program.

00:38:43 ◼   ► It was a nightmare.

00:38:44 ◼   ► My 2019, which is my current MacBook Pro

00:38:48 ◼   ► with the revised materials and they have

00:38:51 ◼   ► the little silicon gaskets and everything,

00:38:54 ◼   ► it's actually been pretty reliable.

00:38:55 ◼   ► I don't use it every day, so maybe that helps,

00:38:57 ◼   ► but I don't like the feel of the keyboard.

00:38:59 ◼   ► I don't like the low travel and so the new one seems like an upgrade either way, you know

00:39:03 ◼   ► Unless you're one of those people I'm convinced those people are out there who really love the way the butterfly keyboard feels they who really like

00:39:10 ◼   ► It you're gonna be disappointed by this because this is a reversion to the older design

00:39:13 ◼   ► But I think that that group is probably a pretty small minority

00:39:17 ◼   ► It could have some overlap though because like they've done stuff to like

00:39:20 ◼   ► Make the keys more stable and the keys are large

00:39:24 ◼   ► So you might still get a lot of the things that you liked about the butterfly keyboard

00:39:28 ◼   ► in the new one, but without being the clicky-clackiness.

00:39:32 ◼   ► But who knows, different strokes, different folks.

00:39:35 ◼   ► - Yeah, and this is a thing that even amongst

00:39:38 ◼   ► the old MacBook Pros, 'cause I had a 2016 and 2017

00:39:42 ◼   ► and now the 2019, they're all radically different.

00:39:45 ◼   ► And I dislike the 2019 the least.

00:39:50 ◼   ► The 2016 was the worst.

00:39:52 ◼   ► They have improved it and changed it,

00:39:54 ◼   ► and this is gonna be a big departure.

00:39:56 ◼   ► But it's interesting because it's really hard

00:39:59 ◼   ► to remember a time where Apple has gone back on something

00:40:04 ◼   ► that they pushed so hard when it was launched.

00:40:06 ◼   ► Apple does change its mind and things do change over time,

00:40:10 ◼   ► but this is really interesting to me.

00:40:14 ◼   ► And you can see--

00:40:15 ◼   ► - It's also something that they didn't create a new thing.

00:40:17 ◼   ► They're actually telling you it's a thing

00:40:18 ◼   ► that already exists, right?

00:40:20 ◼   ► Like, it's the Magic Keyboard, right?

00:40:23 ◼   ► They didn't come up with like scissor slide keyboard X, right?

00:40:27 ◼   ► Like they just, they are going back to a keyboard that was introduced in 2015 to draw their

00:40:34 ◼   ► inspiration for the new keyboard.

00:40:37 ◼   ► And in the interview, it's spoken that, you know, they did a lot of internal testing at

00:40:41 ◼   ► Apple and these keyboards, you know, and what people want and the reliability and all that

00:40:46 ◼   ► stuff.

00:40:47 ◼   ► So I believe they've taken this really seriously.

00:40:48 ◼   ► And I think they knew that they had a real problem on their hands.

00:40:53 ◼   ► I think them talking about how long all that testing took and everything is sort of a,

00:40:58 ◼   ► like, yeah, we know this took a while, but it's going to be worth it type of feel.

00:41:02 ◼   ► So I hope that that it is as good as we think it is, because I have pretty high expectations

00:41:09 ◼   ► of this keyboard.

00:41:11 ◼   ► And I think a lot of people probably do.

00:41:14 ◼   ► In like 15 or 20 years time, there's going to be somebody like you who's starting a whatever

00:41:20 ◼   ► YouTube channel is, you know, whatever YouTube is in 15 years, right? Like

00:41:24 ◼   ► whatever that thing is. And they're gonna try and collect all of the laptops with

00:41:28 ◼   ► the different keyboard iterations, you know? It's just gonna, yeah, that's... that'll

00:41:33 ◼   ► be me. So I have two. I have the 2015 MacBook and I have the 2019 MacBook Pro.

00:41:40 ◼   ► For now. I have breaking news. Okay. I have an email back from trailers@mac.com.

00:41:48 ◼   ► Are you being serious?

00:41:49 ◼   ► I will put...

00:41:50 ◼   ► Are you being serious right now?

00:41:53 ◼   ► I'm gonna put a screenshot...

00:41:54 ◼   ► What?

00:41:55 ◼   ► And I'm gonna obscure my email address because I used my personal email address.

00:41:58 ◼   ► This is on very active watch then.

00:42:01 ◼   ► But I am putting a...

00:42:03 ◼   ► I can't believe that this is happening to us right now.

00:42:06 ◼   ► Who cares about the rest of these products?

00:42:09 ◼   ► So I wrote...

00:42:10 ◼   ► I told you what I wrote.

00:42:12 ◼   ► That it brought me real joy remembering QuickTime.

00:42:14 ◼   ► And I got an Emoticon smiley face back.

00:42:17 ◼   ► So it is 100% eddy cue.

00:42:20 ◼   ► That's totally eddy.

00:42:21 ◼   ► That's totally eddy.

00:42:22 ◼   ► This is the best thing.

00:42:23 ◼   ► That is quite possibly the best response that could have been given.

00:42:29 ◼   ► Where is this?

00:42:30 ◼   ► I'm screwing my email so I just have to upload it once.

00:42:34 ◼   ► I don't want to share my personal email with the world.

00:42:37 ◼   ► I mean, look, I have two work emails.

00:42:41 ◼   ► If you want to email me, it's stephen.reelie.fm.

00:42:44 ◼   ► I'm not giving you my personal Gmail account.

00:42:45 ◼   ► Oh now we know it's Gmail, I can guess that. Is it Steven@gmail?

00:42:49 ◼   ► Mmm...

00:42:49 ◼   ► Alright, I'm putting this in the chat room.

00:42:52 ◼   ► OldMacFan@gmail.com

00:42:57 ◼   ► ResetThePRAM@gmail.com

00:43:00 ◼   ► Oh my god, they didn't even send an emoji! That shows how old this person is!

00:43:04 ◼   ► I said Emoticon, yeah.

00:43:06 ◼   ► Ah, that's the best, right? Because they are living in the past, this person, you know?

00:43:14 ◼   ► Yes, this is totally on brand.

00:43:16 ◼   ► - Wow.

00:43:17 ◼   ► - This is so eddy.

00:43:18 ◼   ► - Really good, right?

00:43:19 ◼   ► - This is excellent.

00:43:21 ◼   ► - And it's one of those emoticons with the nose.

00:43:25 ◼   ► So you know, like the moon business.

00:43:28 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:43:30 ◼   ► - I also have some other breaking news

00:43:33 ◼   ► or some real time follow up.

00:43:35 ◼   ► Apparently the extended keyboard with the number pad,

00:43:37 ◼   ► which I don't use because it's dumb,

00:43:40 ◼   ► has inverted T keys, but the compact one does not.

00:43:44 ◼   ► So I just wanted to correct that before people send me

00:43:46 ◼   ► a bunch of pieces of keyboards.

00:43:48 ◼   ► - Nobody uses the numpad one though, right?

00:43:50 ◼   ► Isn't that, we could decide that previously?

00:43:52 ◼   ► - Yeah, no one uses it.

00:43:54 ◼   ► So yeah, that is the, that's sort of the gist

00:43:59 ◼   ► of the MacBook Pro keyboard.

00:44:00 ◼   ► They've gone to the well of the Magic Keyboard

00:44:02 ◼   ► and drawn up fresh water of typing pleasure.

00:44:06 ◼   ► And here we are.

00:44:08 ◼   ► Mm-hmm.

00:44:11 ◼   ► I was like three sentences into that and didn't know what to do.

00:44:15 ◼   ► But what do y'all think about the cadence of the spec bumps on the MacBook Pro?

00:44:23 ◼   ► So looking over the last couple of years, because these got a spec bump.

00:44:27 ◼   ► It wasn't just a new keyboard.

00:44:29 ◼   ► They are slightly faster CPUs and much better GPU and better faster RAM and SSDs.

00:44:35 ◼   ► We had 2016, which was the fall.

00:44:40 ◼   ► And then we had 2017 in the summer that was at WWDC.

00:44:45 ◼   ► And then 2018 was July, so a little after WWDC.

00:44:50 ◼   ► And then we get to 2019, and like my machine came out

00:44:54 ◼   ► in May, and here we are in November,

00:44:56 ◼   ► and again, it is spec bumped.

00:44:59 ◼   ► I like this cadence, because Apple just ignored the Mac

00:45:02 ◼   ► for so long.

00:45:03 ◼   ► And the MacBook Pro is, it's gotta be the most used Mac

00:45:08 ◼   ► by, at least by people who care about specs.

00:45:12 ◼   ► Like the MacBook Air has gotten one update,

00:45:14 ◼   ► the Mac Mini hasn't.

00:45:16 ◼   ► But the MacBook Pro, they seem to really,

00:45:18 ◼   ► at least the 15 inch, they seem to really be,

00:45:20 ◼   ► you know, their foot on the gas.

00:45:22 ◼   ► Do you guys think this is something

00:45:23 ◼   ► that they can continue?

00:45:24 ◼   ► Do you think it's a good thing they're doing it?

00:45:26 ◼   ► Do you think people are frustrated

00:45:27 ◼   ► they bought a computer in July,

00:45:29 ◼   ► then it was updated in May?

00:45:30 ◼   ► Like, how do you feel about it?

00:45:32 ◼   ► Frustration thing is always going to be a problem, especially on these types of products like

00:45:37 ◼   ► iPhones, iPads, you can pretty much guess when they're going to come out but it seems

00:45:40 ◼   ► like a lot of the MacBook Pro stuff has just kind of appeared, you know, whenever it's

00:45:44 ◼   ► appeared.

00:45:45 ◼   ► I think I would be surprised if it maintained the pace that it's been at because it really

00:45:52 ◼   ► feels like Apple's just been trying to undo the problems and has been inching, inching,

00:45:58 ◼   ► inching.

00:45:59 ◼   ► like, all right, so we put better chips in them

00:46:02 ◼   ► and we made them more powerful.

00:46:04 ◼   ► Now we've fixed the keyboard a little bit

00:46:07 ◼   ► and now we've fixed the keyboard a little bit more.

00:46:08 ◼   ► We promised the keyboard to fix this time.

00:46:10 ◼   ► But I don't know if we're gonna see

00:46:15 ◼   ► another revision in four or five months time.

00:46:18 ◼   ► If they've got it right, we'll wait a year now.

00:46:21 ◼   ► - I mean, if the updates continue to be small,

00:46:23 ◼   ► they could just keep increasing core count.

00:46:26 ◼   ► I don't know, I don't keep up with Intel's roadmap anymore

00:46:29 ◼   ► that's a game of frustration but I think they're it seemed like they're committed

00:46:33 ◼   ► to when something is available they'll do it and if it's six months or nine

00:46:39 ◼   ► months I mean but this is such a big jump like the power is such a big jump

00:46:44 ◼   ► they've like so they the chips and the graphics cards are two times more

00:46:48 ◼   ► powerful than what they've replaced you can now put 64 gigabytes of RAM and 8

00:46:52 ◼   ► terabytes of SSD storage in these things they don't need to touch this for a

00:46:56 ◼   ► while it's gonna be fine. Yeah. That made big jumps. Would you accept I don't have

00:47:05 ◼   ► any opinions as an answer? I know you're over there having a cup of coffee while

00:47:09 ◼   ► we talk about the MacBook Pro. No, I'm just listening to you guys. It's

00:47:14 ◼   ► interesting, I just, it's not that I don't care. Make no mistake, it's not that I

00:47:19 ◼   ► don't care. It's that I, it's like when I listen to politics on the news,

00:47:25 ◼   ► It was like, I don't have an opinion.

00:47:27 ◼   ► I trust what you're saying.

00:47:31 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:47:31 ◼   ► - So yeah, that's the MacBook Pro.

00:47:35 ◼   ► I do have questions about what they could do in the future.

00:47:40 ◼   ► The 13-inch is still hanging out there.

00:47:42 ◼   ► What I would like to see is a 14-inch MacBook Pro.

00:47:46 ◼   ► That's the size they used to ship

00:47:47 ◼   ► like in the PowerBook G3 days.

00:47:49 ◼   ► 14-inch is a pretty sweet laptop size

00:47:51 ◼   ► 'cause it would still be more portable than this thing,

00:47:56 ◼   ► which like you said is a little bit bigger than the 15,

00:47:59 ◼   ► but you get nice screen size.

00:48:01 ◼   ► And if they really did 14, they go from 13.3 up to 14,

00:48:06 ◼   ► and this on the 15, they went 15.4 to 16.

00:48:09 ◼   ► So if they do it to a round number,

00:48:11 ◼   ► it'd be even a little bit bigger increase.

00:48:13 ◼   ► So I would be excited about a 14-inch MacBook Pro.

00:48:17 ◼   ► - I have a concern about a 14-inch MacBook Pro.

00:48:20 ◼   ► So one of my most important things for a laptop

00:48:24 ◼   ► is portability.

00:48:26 ◼   ► Maybe it won't be that.

00:48:28 ◼   ► If it's close to the change between the 15 and 16,

00:48:31 ◼   ► the thing's only like--

00:48:32 ◼   ► it's not that much bigger.

00:48:33 ◼   ► Right, but I want the lightest computer

00:48:35 ◼   ► I can possibly have.

00:48:36 ◼   ► Well, then you need a MacBook Air.

00:48:38 ◼   ► And this is what I'm going to say.

00:48:42 ◼   ► I was thinking that I would update my MacBook Pro

00:48:45 ◼   ► at some point, but I want to wait for the keyboards

00:48:48 ◼   ► to roll around.

00:48:49 ◼   ► And so I want to wait and see now, I think,

00:48:51 ◼   ► if the MacBook Air gets the new keyboard.

00:48:54 ◼   ► And then that's the machine that I would want.

00:48:57 ◼   ► Well, I think doing that, while it may frustrate people

00:49:00 ◼   ► who want the most powerful computer to also be

00:49:02 ◼   ► the smallest possible size, I think

00:49:04 ◼   ► it kind of makes sense for Apple to have the MacBook Air stay

00:49:08 ◼   ► at 13 inches, be smaller and lighter.

00:49:11 ◼   ► Because right now, the 13-inch MacBook Pro and the Air--

00:49:13 ◼   ► It actually makes sense for them to make the MacBook Pro,

00:49:16 ◼   ► the smaller one, bigger and heavier.

00:49:18 ◼   ► because then it pushes the air further apart again.

00:49:22 ◼   ► - Yep, 'cause they are very similar right now,

00:49:24 ◼   ► side by side.

00:49:25 ◼   ► I also just wonder what they're doing

00:49:26 ◼   ► because the 13 and 16 inch have different pages

00:49:29 ◼   ► on Apple's website, and that's never been done before.

00:49:32 ◼   ► - Well, they're vastly different computers now, right?

00:49:34 ◼   ► - Well, it may just be because they gotta talk

00:49:36 ◼   ► about the keyboard, and that's awkward,

00:49:37 ◼   ► if the 13 inch is just sitting there, right?

00:49:39 ◼   ► Like, separated a little bit.

00:49:41 ◼   ► I think some people, I saw some people on Twitter

00:49:44 ◼   ► say they were worried about the future

00:49:45 ◼   ► of the 13 inch MacBook Pro.

00:49:47 ◼   ► I'm not.

00:49:48 ◼   ► We did this like five or six years ago,

00:49:51 ◼   ► and a lot of people thought the 13 inch MacBook Pro

00:49:54 ◼   ► was going away, and it turns out,

00:49:56 ◼   ► then Apple was like, actually it's the most popular Mac ever,

00:49:59 ◼   ► so here's the retina version.

00:50:01 ◼   ► I feel like the 13 inch MacBook Pro is very popular,

00:50:03 ◼   ► and I think making it a 14,

00:50:05 ◼   ► applying this new thermal system to it,

00:50:08 ◼   ► doing these things would make it even more popular.

00:50:11 ◼   ► So I'd like to see what that does.

00:50:14 ◼   ► Like you said, the pricing on the SSD and the RAM

00:50:17 ◼   ► that is higher than ever,

00:50:19 ◼   ► like the capacities are higher than ever,

00:50:21 ◼   ► eight terabytes SSD, 64 gigabytes of RAM.

00:50:24 ◼   ► Apple has continued to march down the pricing of SSDs.

00:50:27 ◼   ► The eight terabyte is 2200.

00:50:33 ◼   ► 2200 dollars in the US.

00:50:35 ◼   ► And this summer it would have been 2800 dollars

00:50:39 ◼   ► for a four terabyte in the 15 inch.

00:50:41 ◼   ► So they continue to bring pricing down,

00:50:43 ◼   ► make it more aggressive.

00:50:45 ◼   ► and the stock models have doubled their SSD storage.

00:50:48 ◼   ► So it used to be 256 and 512, now it's 512 and one terabyte

00:50:53 ◼   ► in the two stock configurations.

00:50:55 ◼   ► And I think that's a welcome change.

00:50:57 ◼   ► - Yeah, when you max one of these out,

00:50:59 ◼   ► it doesn't go as expensive as I thought it would have.

00:51:02 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:51:02 ◼   ► - You can max it out at like six grand,

00:51:04 ◼   ► which is very expensive, but I would have thought

00:51:07 ◼   ► that it would have gone higher than that, but it doesn't.

00:51:11 ◼   ► - Anything else on the MacBook Pros?

00:51:12 ◼   ► I'm excited.

00:51:13 ◼   ► - I think it's a good machine,

00:51:14 ◼   ► or how excited are you, Steven?

00:51:16 ◼   ► (laughs)

00:51:18 ◼   ► - So I have the 2019, I have the last probably,

00:51:22 ◼   ► 15.4 inch MacBook Pro, and I'm not gonna upgrade it.

00:51:25 ◼   ► It's three months old, it is covered in stickers,

00:51:30 ◼   ► like an obscene amount of stickers, and--

00:51:32 ◼   ► - Stickers come off.

00:51:33 ◼   ► - That's true, I know you know that,

00:51:35 ◼   ► but it's also my secondary machine.

00:51:37 ◼   ► You know, my iMac Pro is what I use every day.

00:51:40 ◼   ► I have the i9, it's plenty powerful

00:51:41 ◼   ► when I need it on the road,

00:51:43 ◼   ► And so I'm gonna hold onto this, I think, for a long time.

00:51:47 ◼   ► And because it's the last one--

00:51:48 ◼   ► - Going to the Apple Store anytime soon?

00:51:49 ◼   ► - No, I was there last night to return the AirPods,

00:51:52 ◼   ► but you know, old MacBook Pros are out.

00:51:55 ◼   ► There was a lady buying a 15-inch MacBook Pro,

00:51:58 ◼   ► and I wanted to be like, hey, the new one may be coming.

00:52:01 ◼   ► Rumors seem to say that it's coming,

00:52:03 ◼   ► but I didn't intervene.

00:52:04 ◼   ► - She's in overtime periods, it's fine.

00:52:06 ◼   ► - Yeah, I didn't want to be that weirdo

00:52:08 ◼   ► telling somebody not to buy something.

00:52:09 ◼   ► Yeah, so I'm gonna hold onto the 15-inch,

00:52:11 ◼   ► because it's the last one I'll use it and then it will be ushered into my collection because it's

00:52:16 ◼   ► the final 15 inch MacBook Pro, a size that we've known for a really long time. Now it's gone. That's

00:52:21 ◼   ► kind of weird. Goodbye old friend. Goodbye. This episode of Connected is brought to you by

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00:54:18 ◼   ► of connected and all of Relay FM. There was also some news about the the Mac Pro.

00:54:24 ◼   ► Remember that? I do. I think about it all the time. It is coming in December.

00:54:30 ◼   ► Apple confirmed that to members of the press this week just like the iMac Pro

00:54:34 ◼   ► did two years ago, which I think is what we predicted on the show that it would

00:54:37 ◼   ► be the very end of the year. There's some small news on this. 4 terabyte

00:54:42 ◼   ► SSD was the max before, now it will be 8 to match the new MacBook Pro. And they've

00:54:48 ◼   ► made some tweaks to the afterburner card. That is the the optional card made for

00:54:54 ◼   ► offloading video processing to take it off the CPU and GPU. When Apple showed it

00:55:00 ◼   ► off this summer it was three streams of 8k video. This is what the afterburner

00:55:04 ◼   ► could handle. That at the time seemed like magic. I got to see it in the demos and it was just

00:55:09 ◼   ► unbelievable to see 8k video playing and you go to activity monitor and the CPU is just hanging out

00:55:16 ◼   ► like not breaking a sweat. Well, 3 wasn't enough and it turns out it's actually going to be able

00:55:21 ◼   ► to do six streams of 8k video now which is bananas. Like I cannot wrap my head around this, how they're

00:55:28 ◼   ► able to double its capacity. It is an option. We don't know how much that option is going to cost.

00:55:33 ◼   ► We don't know how much anything's gonna cost. We don't know when it's gonna come out, but it is coming soon

00:55:38 ◼   ► So by the end of the year, we will know much more about the Mac Pro and that is very exciting. Of course

00:55:45 ◼   ► There was no display. No cheaper display. No

00:55:48 ◼   ► and

00:55:50 ◼   ► The pro display XDR got mentioned during all of the press stuff

00:55:54 ◼   ► Because the MacBook Pro can drive two of them wild so you can hook up a twenty eight hundred dollar laptop to two

00:56:02 ◼   ► thousand dollar displays. Yeah which seems about right economically I think

00:56:05 ◼   ► that's how that works. It's called economies of scale. Exactly I'm

00:56:10 ◼   ► intrigued to see what these MacBook Pro updates will do to the pricing

00:56:15 ◼   ► configurations of the Mac Pro because they say like they've made some pricing

00:56:21 ◼   ► configuration options available for this Pro product which is cheaper than we

00:56:26 ◼   ► would have expected and I'm keen to see because the expectation is the Mac Pro

00:56:31 ◼   ► will be astronomical, right? If you want to do anything to it price wise, I'm keen to see what

00:56:36 ◼   ► actually ends up happening there. I think the SSD pricing coming down, I would imagine the Mac Pro

00:56:42 ◼   ► will match it. I don't know why it wouldn't. It'd be wild if it didn't, right? Because you'd assume

00:56:46 ◼   ► they're probably using the same same stuff. Yeah, the RAM I think will probably be a little more on

00:56:51 ◼   ► the MacBook Pro because it's easy RAM and you know, fancier, faster desktop, full size DIMMs.

00:56:56 ◼   ► But I don't know, I think you're right.

00:56:59 ◼   ► I think the Mac Pro is gonna be expensive.

00:57:02 ◼   ► Look, the base machine is expensive

00:57:06 ◼   ► and not as good as the iMac Pro spec-wise.

00:57:08 ◼   ► So even to match the iMac Pro before you buy a display,

00:57:12 ◼   ► I mean, it's gonna be thousands.

00:57:14 ◼   ► But I think the high end will be,

00:57:17 ◼   ► it's still gonna be ridiculous,

00:57:19 ◼   ► but I think it's gonna be slightly less ridiculous

00:57:21 ◼   ► if you just wanna build a machine to match the iMac Pro.

00:57:25 ◼   ► You want the same amount of RAM, the same storage.

00:57:28 ◼   ► I think it's gonna be better than people fear,

00:57:30 ◼   ► but I'm still burying my money in the backyard

00:57:33 ◼   ► for when the day comes, so to speak.

00:57:36 ◼   ► Don't dig up my yard, please.

00:57:38 ◼   ► - There's definitely no money in the yard.

00:57:39 ◼   ► - There's definitely no money in the yard.

00:57:41 ◼   ► Myke, can you tell us about the AR glasses situation?

00:57:45 ◼   ► - Yeah, wild report from the information,

00:57:48 ◼   ► which the information as a website name

00:57:50 ◼   ► sounds strange when you say it out loud,

00:57:51 ◼   ► like it's an oracle.

00:57:54 ◼   ► the information has reported, but the website, the information has reported that Apple recently

00:58:00 ◼   ► held a meeting of over 1000 employees detailing their AR and VR roadmap for the next few years.

00:58:08 ◼   ► This meeting was run by Myke Rockwell, who runs Apple's AR and VR teams. You may remember

00:58:13 ◼   ► him from being on the talk show a couple of years ago at WWDC.

00:58:16 ◼   ► Oh yeah.

00:58:17 ◼   ► There's that guy. Apparently, so the 1000 employees, it's not just like a random assortment

00:58:22 ◼   ► of people. That's how many people Apple apparently has working on their AR/VR efforts. I assume

00:58:28 ◼   ► they are not dedicated employees. I would assume that they are employees who have a

00:58:33 ◼   ► hand in this as part of their role. That would be my personal assumption because a thousand

00:58:37 ◼   ► people seems like a lot of people. So I would expect that there are people that work on

00:58:42 ◼   ► this software and this software who are involved in AR/VR. For example, engineers who work

00:58:48 ◼   ► Metal are probably involved in this but it's not what they do right? So this roadmap had two major points on it.

00:58:58 ◼   ► In 2022 Apple is planning to release a mixed reality headset. Mixed reality headset is kind of like HoloLens.

00:59:06 ◼   ► So it is a headset that could be used for a combination of AR, VR like stuff. So you could use it for both things effectively.

00:59:17 ◼   ► There's a bunch of technological ways in which you could like, you can have visors which

00:59:21 ◼   ► will allow you to watch just video for example, or you could have it so you could look around

00:59:26 ◼   ► a room and like see things around a room.

00:59:29 ◼   ► We've AR glasses coming in 2023.

00:59:32 ◼   ► The mixed reality headset would be kind of like these Hololens, Oculus type devices.

00:59:39 ◼   ► You would expect it to be kind of like the devices now, like the Oculus devices think

00:59:43 ◼   ► it's the Quest which is the one which doesn't need to be hooked into a PC to work.

00:59:49 ◼   ► Apple apparently believed that AR glasses could replace iPhones in roughly a decade.

00:59:55 ◼   ► Very weird thing to think about, I think, and say. One interesting tidbit about the

01:00:01 ◼   ► way the glasses would work is like, so let's imagine that me and Federico are having a

01:00:05 ◼   ► conversation and he gets bored and starts checking Twitter on his glasses. The lenses

01:00:10 ◼   ► and his glasses would darken which would show that they were being used which is both weird,

01:00:16 ◼   ► cool, I don't know how I feel about it. I don't like the sound of that it sounds...

01:00:24 ◼   ► No but it's like I would want to know if he wasn't paying attention to me though,

01:00:28 ◼   ► right? Like the reason they're doing this is to try and stop the social like awkwardness of it all.

01:00:35 ◼   ► Yeah, but are they gonna... I don't know. It's like the whole premise of "Oh yeah, I'm in front of you,

01:00:41 ◼   ► but let me check out of this conversation and read my email through my eyes." Like, I don't...

01:00:47 ◼   ► I don't want to sound like that guy, but maybe this is a bridge too far. Maybe it is. Let's pause that

01:00:54 ◼   ► for a second. There's a bit more detail and I want to come back to that point. So, this meeting, I can

01:01:01 ◼   ► only assume Apple knew that it would get out. A thousand people's too many people.

01:01:05 ◼   ► I wonder if potentially this is part of the plan because rumors were heating up about 2020 being

01:01:11 ◼   ► the year of AR and clearly Apple are not ready for 2020 to have an AR focused product. I'm not

01:01:19 ◼   ► saying this is the reason they held this meeting but I'm sure it was a nice secondary reason to

01:01:26 ◼   ► have it, right? Like you can kind of get the message out a little bit. Bloomberg then had a

01:01:30 ◼   ► report so Mark Gurman at Bloomberg had a report saying that the iPad Pro, we've heard this stuff

01:01:35 ◼   ► before, will feature a 3D camera for enhanced AR technology. This is previously rumored as

01:01:39 ◼   ► being something for 2020 iPhones. Gurman also now revises previous AR claims that coincide with what

01:01:45 ◼   ► the information reported saying that Apple had changed plans to shift from 2020 to 2022,

01:01:50 ◼   ► states that the headset will focus on gaming, video and virtual meetings before the AR glasses,

01:01:56 ◼   ► which would then in theory be enough to, I mean, you know, you'd kind of expect that they would

01:02:00 ◼   ► launch kind of like how the Apple Watch launched in regards to what they will be used for and how

01:02:05 ◼   ► much they can do, but Apple seemed to believe that this could be the future of everything.

01:02:10 ◼   ► So I've been thinking about this and I think there's a list for me. So the way that I look

01:02:16 ◼   ► at this, I was more excited about the future, you know, imagining this future where everybody

01:02:25 ◼   ► super fast access to the internet through glasses, right? And so you have content, you

01:02:31 ◼   ► have directions, you have this UI that overlays with the real world. I was more excited about

01:02:38 ◼   ► this until maybe last year, because I feel like over the last year things have really

01:02:45 ◼   ► gone dark in terms of like the internet's effects on people. And I feel like at least

01:02:52 ◼   ► for me there's a correlation between all the terrible things that I've heard and seen like

01:02:57 ◼   ► social media and Facebook and you know the convergence of tech and politics like all

01:03:03 ◼   ► these things that have happened have sort of like dampened my my excitement in terms

01:03:08 ◼   ► of like yeah I'm not sure I want Twitter in front of my eyes or like... Do you want to

01:03:13 ◼   ► be constantly strapped in? Yeah I'm not sure I want to anymore like I was more excited

01:03:19 ◼   ► about this until, yeah, maybe last year, maybe a couple of years ago. Like, in thinking about

01:03:24 ◼   ► this, I don't feel, right now, you know, couple of years before, we've been here, the three

01:03:32 ◼   ► of us, before we were doing a show before the Apple Watch. We were doing a show while

01:03:37 ◼   ► the Apple Watch was a rumor, and a couple of years out. And I'm not, at this moment,

01:03:43 ◼   ► so two years, three years before this potential release of the Apple glasses, I am not as

01:03:48 ◼   ► excited like I was for the Apple Watch two to three years before it came out. Because

01:03:54 ◼   ► the whole idea of like I'm trying to use the internet less. I don't want to have it in

01:04:00 ◼   ► front of my eyes all the time. And so I think the problem is in this idea of it becoming

01:04:07 ◼   ► the device that becomes your device which is the thing that makes it the most uncomfortable.

01:04:12 ◼   ► If we're thinking about this as a... Right? Because I can't put down my phone. I can't

01:04:15 ◼   ► downwards, especially me as a glasses wearer, so this would replace my vision glasses, right?

01:04:21 ◼   ► Like I have no way of easily getting away from them. Like it seems like a peculiar,

01:04:26 ◼   ► like the idea of this being a... I would be without the internet and blind. Great, this

01:04:31 ◼   ► is a perfect mixture. Like as the idea of this being a device like the Apple Watch,

01:04:36 ◼   ► which you use in certain circumstances has certain functions for you. Interesting as

01:04:41 ◼   ► as being the main device, more concerning, right?

01:04:45 ◼   ► - Well, I think it takes the problem with the Apple Watch

01:04:51 ◼   ► where it is still at times inappropriate

01:04:54 ◼   ► to look at your watch.

01:04:55 ◼   ► So I had this situation just the other day.

01:04:57 ◼   ► I was with one of my parents

01:04:59 ◼   ► and I got a text message or something,

01:05:02 ◼   ► I was wearing my Apple Watch and I looked down at it

01:05:05 ◼   ► and like, "Oh, do you need to go?"

01:05:08 ◼   ► I was like, "Oh, no, no, no, like I got a text message."

01:05:11 ◼   ► and then I just sound like a jerk, right?

01:05:13 ◼   ► The Apple Watch show has some of those contextual problems.

01:05:16 ◼   ► Glasses, I think, make it worse because,

01:05:19 ◼   ► take the dims when you look at the screen,

01:05:22 ◼   ► like that crazy idea off the table,

01:05:24 ◼   ► you could have no idea if someone's paying attention

01:05:26 ◼   ► to you or not.

01:05:27 ◼   ► Like the other person has problems too.

01:05:31 ◼   ► I agree with what you said, Federico,

01:05:32 ◼   ► I don't want the internet like that close to me,

01:05:34 ◼   ► but it's also things like notifications

01:05:36 ◼   ► and all this stuff the Apple Watch does

01:05:39 ◼   ► where sometimes I want to take my Apple Watch off

01:05:41 ◼   ► and I don't wear it every day,

01:05:42 ◼   ► and there are times where I don't need it to do its thing,

01:05:46 ◼   ► but glasses amplifies all of that in a way

01:05:50 ◼   ► that I don't want to have anything to do with.

01:05:54 ◼   ► - And also, isn't the point of this

01:05:56 ◼   ► so you can look at people and get information about them,

01:05:59 ◼   ► isn't that the point of this technology?

01:06:01 ◼   ► Like, really, isn't that why it's supposed to exist?

01:06:04 ◼   ► - And the more you think about it,

01:06:08 ◼   ► the more you start running into the same issues that Google faced years ago with the Google

01:06:12 ◼   ► Glass product. Like, and then you got to think about like putting on some kind of LED indicator

01:06:19 ◼   ► if you're taking pictures or videos of somebody and it just becomes awkward. And there's just

01:06:24 ◼   ► this weird disconnect between like the same company that makes screen time and is, you

01:06:32 ◼   ► you know, praising the idea of trying to use phones less and the internet less and keeping

01:06:38 ◼   ► an eye on your usage habits. It's also working on glasses that you can put on your, literally

01:06:44 ◼   ► on your face. I don't know, like, is it the same company is like preaching two different

01:06:51 ◼   ► ideas here. And yes, we don't know exactly what the product is like. Maybe it has some

01:06:56 ◼   ► very specific applications. And so you can make the argument that, oh, but you, you know,

01:07:01 ◼   ► only gonna use the glasses when you're checking out directions or if you really

01:07:06 ◼   ► gotta respond to a message. But the problem is you gotta remember that humans

01:07:11 ◼   ► are very bad at practicing restraint. And so the moment that you put on the glasses

01:07:17 ◼   ► like you're gonna use them all the time and you're gonna have these people like

01:07:21 ◼   ► in you know like in in the movie The Matrix like they're plugged in and

01:07:25 ◼   ► they're like checked out they're gone they're looking at their feeds and their

01:07:28 ◼   ► If you put Twitter on my face, I am constantly reading Twitter. That's what's happening to me.

01:07:33 ◼   ► Exactly! Like, I can control myself. I'm not a robot. I'm a human and you give me the temptation, I want the temptation.

01:07:41 ◼   ► And so, I don't know, man, dystopian is an adjective that's overused. But it does feel like that.

01:07:49 ◼   ► Like, I don't know. The idea that the lenses darken, like, oh my god, what is that? I know!

01:07:56 ◼   ► No, that might not be the thing. But like, I,

01:07:59 ◼   ► I agree with what they're attempting to do there. Right. Which is like,

01:08:03 ◼   ► it's like a, you said about, um,

01:08:05 ◼   ► you should have an led indicator from taking a picture, right? Like that's,

01:08:09 ◼   ► that's the type of thing that they are trying to do. Right. So it's,

01:08:12 ◼   ► it's in a way it is Apple's attempt to

01:08:17 ◼   ► discourage you from using this technology when you should be having human

01:08:22 ◼   ► interactions. Like that's all well and good,

01:08:25 ◼   ► but that's not how people work.

01:08:27 ◼   ► - Let me--

01:08:28 ◼   ► - Yeah, but you know what the solution could be?

01:08:30 ◼   ► Just don't make the glasses.

01:08:32 ◼   ► Like, if you gotta think about--

01:08:33 ◼   ► - But what else are they gonna do?

01:08:35 ◼   ► - I don't know, make a car.

01:08:37 ◼   ► - Why can't these companies just for once

01:08:39 ◼   ► just keep doing what they're doing?

01:08:41 ◼   ► - Because that's not how companies work anymore.

01:08:42 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:08:43 ◼   ► - Right, like--

01:08:45 ◼   ► - Everybody has to do everything.

01:08:46 ◼   ► - Yes, this was a great little sound bite

01:08:48 ◼   ► that was on ATP a couple of weeks ago,

01:08:50 ◼   ► and it is just a great way to put it.

01:08:53 ◼   ► Why do all companies feel like

01:08:54 ◼   ► have to do everything now. That is where we are. I mean, and the reason is because that's

01:09:00 ◼   ► what technology companies have to do now. You don't have a choice, right? Like if you

01:09:03 ◼   ► want to be on the stock market, like that's where you are now, right? Like if you want

01:09:06 ◼   ► to have a profitable company on the stock on the stock exchange, you need to be in every

01:09:10 ◼   ► area. Plus all companies want to lock you in forever. They want to get more average

01:09:15 ◼   ► revenue per user, right? Like this is how you do it is by you provide people with literally

01:09:21 ◼   ► everything they could possibly want. It's the only way you get people to stay, um, is

01:09:26 ◼   ► the thinking. And this is the next frontier, right? Like I talk about foldable phones,

01:09:32 ◼   ► right? That's what I talk about a bunch and it's the same principle that I use foldable

01:09:35 ◼   ► phones. It's really the only thing that these companies can focus on because no one's had

01:09:43 ◼   ► the iPhone idea. So you have two areas now. You can work on screens that change in size

01:09:51 ◼   ► foldable technology or you work on AR/VR. These are the areas of technology that exist within

01:09:58 ◼   ► our immediate grasp because nobody's had any revelatory breakthrough so this is what people

01:10:03 ◼   ► are working on, at least working on with any public eye on them. Because these are the areas

01:10:10 ◼   ► of technology that are going to be explored over the next few years whether they work or not.

01:10:14 ◼   ► But this is why, right? Snapchat's still working on their spectacles and they have more that they're

01:10:19 ◼   ► They're working on Facebook's work and stuff like this.

01:10:21 ◼   ► Google's working on stuff like this.

01:10:22 ◼   ► Like this is what technology companies are making.

01:10:25 ◼   ► - Let me ask you guys this.

01:10:26 ◼   ► You brought up Google Glass a second ago

01:10:28 ◼   ► and my impression is that that hurt Google's brand

01:10:33 ◼   ► for a while.

01:10:35 ◼   ► That people maybe who didn't think Google was creepy before

01:10:38 ◼   ► thought Google was creepy afterwards

01:10:40 ◼   ► because the Google Glass situation

01:10:42 ◼   ► just went so poorly for them.

01:10:44 ◼   ► Part of that was technology,

01:10:45 ◼   ► part of that was the customer base

01:10:47 ◼   ► and some terrible things people did with them.

01:10:49 ◼   ► Do you think that Apple risks the same brand damage

01:10:53 ◼   ► by releasing something like these glasses?

01:10:56 ◼   ► - Yes. - Yeah, definitely.

01:10:58 ◼   ► - Because it is an inherently complicated

01:11:02 ◼   ► and difficult thing to do.

01:11:03 ◼   ► This is an area that could have genuine,

01:11:07 ◼   ► interesting use cases,

01:11:09 ◼   ► but you are bridging some real social norms.

01:11:12 ◼   ► We have done it before.

01:11:16 ◼   ► Smartphones became a thing it broke all social convention and we started again, right?

01:11:21 ◼   ► over the span of like a couple of years

01:11:23 ◼   ► we changed everything about how we

01:11:26 ◼   ► live our daily lives because these device like I was just thinking about a couple of days ago like

01:11:32 ◼   ► Me and you know, we're both edit. We're just hanging out together and wedding photos on our phones to post on Instagram

01:11:38 ◼   ► And this is like a thing that we like to do we do at the same time

01:11:41 ◼   ► We just you know

01:11:42 ◼   ► We enjoy it. That is a super weird thing to do because we are together but not together

01:11:47 ◼   ► We're doing this like solitary thing on our own

01:11:50 ◼   ► Devices right like based on some other conventions. We are being antisocial

01:11:56 ◼   ► but we don't see it that way, you know, it's like phone time and

01:12:00 ◼   ► We accept this

01:12:04 ◼   ► People accept this because that is where we are now because we changed our social conventions

01:12:09 ◼   ► It is possible we could do that again, but I don't see right now with everything that

01:12:17 ◼   ► we could conceive that this product could be good enough to make us do it.

01:12:23 ◼   ► The reason it happened is because the iPhone was so good from day one.

01:12:27 ◼   ► It blew our minds, right?

01:12:29 ◼   ► Because it was so good.

01:12:31 ◼   ► It made it worth it.

01:12:34 ◼   ► And to do that again is a very, very difficult thing.

01:12:38 ◼   ► It is a once in a generation type thing, right?

01:12:41 ◼   ► It's happened like two or three times in technology history, you know, recent technology history,

01:12:46 ◼   ► right?

01:12:47 ◼   ► Like luckily Apple's been there pretty much every time for this, but it is a very, very

01:12:52 ◼   ► difficult thing to do.

01:12:54 ◼   ► You know, like one other example I might give is like the Game Boy.

01:12:57 ◼   ► That's another one, right?

01:12:59 ◼   ► Where like it became fine to, to, cause the Game Boy, the way you play the Game Boy is

01:13:03 ◼   ► kind of like the way you use an iPhone, right?

01:13:05 ◼   ► and that was perfectly acceptable because the Game Boy was a great piece of technology.

01:13:08 ◼   ► But it is a very difficult thing to do this, to change the way that people interact with

01:13:15 ◼   ► other people and technology in their lives. It doesn't happen very often.

01:13:18 ◼   ► And we weren't ready for it with Google Glass, so it got laughed away.

01:13:21 ◼   ► There is absolutely nothing to say right now that any AR glasses from any company could be the thing

01:13:27 ◼   ► to really hit a home run. And it feels like it is a harder technology problem to solve than the

01:13:33 ◼   ► the iPhone was.

01:13:36 ◼   ► Let me ask you this. Do you guys listen to music or podcasts wearing AirPods or headphones

01:13:45 ◼   ► while you're at home and your wife or friends or kids are also home?

01:13:51 ◼   ► Yes.

01:13:52 ◼   ► Yes. I don't.

01:13:53 ◼   ► Okay. We very frequently want to listen to podcasts at the same time at home while doing

01:13:57 ◼   ► house-related stuff and we choose to listen to different things, so AirPods is the easiest

01:14:01 ◼   ► way to do that, right? That's why.

01:14:03 ◼   ► Hmm. Interesting. Interesting. Yeah. Sylvia doesn't listen to podcasts. But also, like,

01:14:11 ◼   ► we have this thing that, like, we listen to music together and both of us, I guess, we

01:14:18 ◼   ► find that we find it kind of rude if, you know, we have some time together and one of

01:14:24 ◼   ► us decides to listen to something on their own. And so that's kind of like I see the

01:14:30 ◼   ► glasses if like even more like we even try I generally make an effort not to

01:14:37 ◼   ► check Twitter or work like use my phone as little as possible while I have time

01:14:42 ◼   ► with Sylvia like it's just the thing that I've been doing for the past couple

01:14:45 ◼   ► of years really so I don't know maybe I come at this from a slightly different

01:14:50 ◼   ► perspective because I do believe that yes I know that it's the norm for people

01:14:55 ◼   ► to hang out and just be on their phones, I think it's totally weird and wrong, personally.

01:15:01 ◼   ► Well, I will just clarify for me, when we do it, it's like a choice that we've made,

01:15:06 ◼   ► right? Like, we're gonna do this now as opposed to... We try our best at home to not allow

01:15:12 ◼   ► for the mindless picking up of a device when we're spending time together, right? And that

01:15:17 ◼   ► was something that I used to do more and have wanted, like you have wanted to make those

01:15:21 ◼   ► types of changes in the way that I'm spending time with my family. But there is a time where

01:15:28 ◼   ► we would be like, alright, let's, let's, we both want to edit photos, right? So why don't

01:15:32 ◼   ► we just do that now? This is like a joint activity, but we're using our devices in a

01:15:36 ◼   ► solo way. But like, if we're watching TV, I'm not picking up my phone and reading Twitter,

01:15:43 ◼   ► right? Right. Yes, exactly. And it does get way harder. Surely, if these devices are strapped

01:15:49 ◼   ► our faces surely yeah yeah but so here's the other thing right so i how do we interact with them how

01:15:57 ◼   ► do you interact weary baby yeah but like isn't that even worse everyone's just talking to

01:16:04 ◼   ► themselves all the time you know the apple watch has the little scribble keyboard so you can like

01:16:08 ◼   ► route the letters oh god what if you did that but with where your eyes your eyes yeah i mean everyone

01:16:14 ◼   ► would have a migraine instantly so it's not a perfect solution but it's pretty good like you

01:16:19 ◼   ► know you've got to assume that there's some kind of eye tracking in this technology eventually right

01:16:23 ◼   ► got it got to be right like it has to be and again isn't that like a really uncomfortable

01:16:28 ◼   ► thought yeah i don't i don't like very much i don't know where we're gonna go with this it is

01:16:34 ◼   ► a new frontier i really i just i understand like that everybody's doing it i just i i struggle to

01:16:43 ◼   ► to understand if it's really necessary. Like, do we, but do we absolutely... Is this the

01:16:49 ◼   ► old, is this the thing that makes us old men? Maybe. I don't know. See, that's also, that's

01:16:54 ◼   ► also, that's also my, my problem. Like, I have these thoughts and then I think about

01:17:00 ◼   ► these thoughts and I have other thoughts, including am I becoming, you know, a boomer,

01:17:06 ◼   ► as they would say. Like, I don't want to be, you know, the old guy and I'm in my thirties,

01:17:13 ◼   ► like I'm not an old person at least by my standards I don't want to be the old

01:17:18 ◼   ► person with the Mac blog I'm gonna talk about the iPad forever no I don't want

01:17:23 ◼   ► to be that guy but also like glasses like I don't know I'm trying to use my

01:17:29 ◼   ► phone less and you're pitching a device that's how you use your phone less you

01:17:33 ◼   ► know the Apple watch didn't make anyone use their phone less I don't think not

01:17:38 ◼   ► really. No, because it's not a two-handed device. But I also want to say I would totally buy an

01:17:46 ◼   ► Apple VR gaming device, like a dedicated thing, that I want. It's just it's it's the idea that

01:17:56 ◼   ► this is going to replace the phone. Well, because the a mixed reality device is not that different

01:18:02 ◼   ► to any device that you currently have. You are making the decision to use it at that time,

01:18:07 ◼   ► right? You're putting the device on, you're using it for a period of time, you take the device off,

01:18:12 ◼   ► like you pick the device up, you use it for a period of time, you put the device down.

01:18:15 ◼   ► But it is closer to the Apple Watch, right? Like you are taking this device, you're putting it on

01:18:22 ◼   ► your body and you're allowing it to interact with you, right? It's that, but like turned up to 11

01:18:27 ◼   ► because now you're seeing it. It's in your eyes. It is literally shooting this content into your

01:18:36 ◼   ► eyeballs yes right yes it's like yes you can still make a decision but it's very

01:18:45 ◼   ► hard to make a decision when you have content in front of your yeah you know

01:18:49 ◼   ► I think it's like I can decide not to look at my phone I can decide not to

01:18:54 ◼   ► look at my wrist but man my hi look at your eyes what am I supposed to do

01:18:59 ◼   ► Close my eyes? Like, I don't know. Thank you, other doctors. Okay, well, I assume we're only going to talk about this more and more as time goes on, because this certainly seems real at this point.

01:19:10 ◼   ► At least we can take a break now. It's not 2020, right? 2022. So it's not next year.

01:19:15 ◼   ► If I can take a break right now, I'm going to tell you about Eero, our third sponsor. You probably binge watch favorite TV shows, right?

01:19:23 ◼   ► Like, I mean, just in the last couple of weeks

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01:19:55 ◼   ► My mom has this big two-story house out in the country,

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01:20:01 ◼   ► We've all been in older houses,

01:20:02 ◼   ► where the WiFi doesn't travel as well.

01:20:04 ◼   ► And it just wasn't working with what her ISP had given her.

01:20:08 ◼   ► So we picked up a set of Eero base stations,

01:20:12 ◼   ► and it's great.

01:20:13 ◼   ► You can wander around her house,

01:20:14 ◼   ► you can be out in the yard, and you can stay on WiFi.

01:20:17 ◼   ► It means that her phone, her laptop, her security cameras,

01:20:21 ◼   ► everything has nice consistent signal

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01:20:41 ◼   ► I keep it on my iPhone.

01:20:42 ◼   ► It's great to go in and make changes and see what's going on.

01:20:45 ◼   ► You can do cool stuff like pause the wifi

01:20:47 ◼   ► while everyone's eating dinner,

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01:21:20 ◼   ► Our thanks to Eero for their support of this show

01:21:22 ◼   ► and Relay FM.

01:21:23 ◼   ► - Still can't believe I was able to convince them.

01:21:26 ◼   ► - It's maybe the best thing you've ever done.

01:21:30 ◼   ► - Good luck trying to convince them on Ash Earn

01:21:35 ◼   ► for next year.

01:21:36 ◼   ► - Oh yeah. - Sit of granddad.

01:21:39 ◼   ► - That one's gonna be a lot more complicated

01:21:41 ◼   ► and might require some legal documentation.

01:21:44 ◼   ► - Yeah, that's gonna be a real situation.

01:21:47 ◼   ► All right, Federico, you have written about this new iOS app

01:21:50 ◼   ► called Toolbox Pro.

01:21:51 ◼   ► I've been playing with it some.

01:21:53 ◼   ► This thing seems incredible.

01:21:55 ◼   ► What's the deal?

01:21:56 ◼   ► - Okay, so the idea is that this is an app

01:21:58 ◼   ► that you download for free from the App Store.

01:22:01 ◼   ► It's got a $6 in-app purchase.

01:22:04 ◼   ► Most of the features you can use for free,

01:22:05 ◼   ► some of them require the premium purchase.

01:22:09 ◼   ► And it is an app, but it's really a collection

01:22:13 ◼   ► of actions for shortcuts.

01:22:16 ◼   ► So the idea is that with Toolbox you can extend the shortcuts app,

01:22:21 ◼   ► and this is possible thanks to parameters in iOS 13,

01:22:24 ◼   ► the new shortcuts features that allow you to run many of these actions

01:22:28 ◼   ► completely inside shortcuts without ever leaving shortcuts.

01:22:32 ◼   ► You just customize them with parameters.

01:22:35 ◼   ► And it's made by an indie developer, Alex Hay,

01:22:39 ◼   ► and he had this idea of like, thanks to parameters,

01:22:43 ◼   ► it is possible for actions from third-party apps

01:22:48 ◼   ► to effectively become native Shortcuts features.

01:22:52 ◼   ► You don't have to leave the Shortcuts app,

01:22:54 ◼   ► you don't have to use URL schemes or X callback

01:22:58 ◼   ► or that kind of stuff.

01:22:59 ◼   ► And so the idea would be Toolbox takes

01:23:03 ◼   ► a lot of existing system frameworks,

01:23:07 ◼   ► like frameworks that Apple itself makes

01:23:11 ◼   ► that are not yet integrated with Shortcuts,

01:23:14 ◼   ► and Toolbox has actions that

01:23:17 ◼   ► bring those features to Shortcuts.

01:23:20 ◼   ► So stuff like performing OCR on documents or images

01:23:25 ◼   ► or scanning documents with the system document scanner,

01:23:29 ◼   ► or even, and this is quite funny actually,

01:23:32 ◼   ► Shortcuts has reminders integration, but it's limited,

01:23:36 ◼   ► and I believe that Shortcuts has the same reminders actions

01:23:41 ◼   ► that Workflow launched years ago.

01:23:44 ◼   ► Like Apple never updated them.

01:23:46 ◼   ► They didn't update them for iOS 13,

01:23:49 ◼   ► and they even didn't update them for like basic features

01:23:54 ◼   ► that existed before, well before iOS 13,

01:23:57 ◼   ► like marking a reminder as complete

01:24:00 ◼   ► or editing an existing reminder.

01:24:02 ◼   ► Like that's a basic feature.

01:24:04 ◼   ► Workflow didn't have it.

01:24:05 ◼   ► Shortcuts doesn't have it.

01:24:07 ◼   ► Toolbox Pro has better reminders actions

01:24:10 ◼   ► than Apple's own actions.

01:24:11 ◼   ► - How?

01:24:13 ◼   ► - See, that's the thing.

01:24:14 ◼   ► There's a disconnect between the frameworks

01:24:18 ◼   ► and the APIs that Apple makes available to developers

01:24:22 ◼   ► and the actions that you see in shortcuts.

01:24:25 ◼   ► And the idea, like the idea would be

01:24:27 ◼   ► that thanks to parameters,

01:24:28 ◼   ► more teams at Apple can now make proper actions

01:24:33 ◼   ► for their apps.

01:24:34 ◼   ► So in theory, the Notes team, the Reminders team,

01:24:38 ◼   ► they could support all of these features.

01:24:41 ◼   ► They could just go out and use the parameters API

01:24:44 ◼   ► and make new actions, but that hasn't happened yet.

01:24:48 ◼   ► And so this developer said,

01:24:50 ◼   ► "Okay, with the reminders API,"

01:24:54 ◼   ► the framework is called, I believe, EventKit,

01:24:56 ◼   ► I can edit an existing reminder,

01:24:58 ◼   ► I can create a new reminders list,

01:25:01 ◼   ► or I can let you modify reminders,

01:25:07 ◼   ► I'm gonna make it an action.

01:25:09 ◼   ► And Toolbox Pro has better reminders actions than Apple.

01:25:12 ◼   ► But also there's, so there's two main ideas

01:25:15 ◼   ► about Toolbox Pro.

01:25:16 ◼   ► One of them is making better system actions

01:25:21 ◼   ► or new system actions because Apple hasn't released them yet

01:25:25 ◼   ► but also this idea of taking machine learning features

01:25:30 ◼   ► and frameworks like Core ML or Vision.

01:25:35 ◼   ► I had a joke in my iOS 13 review that vision is the hottest API in iOS 13.

01:25:44 ◼   ► It was based on a Saturday Night Live skit.

01:25:49 ◼   ► But really vision does everything.

01:25:50 ◼   ► Vision has OCR, vision has object detection in images, as people detection, animal detection.

01:25:57 ◼   ► And many of these features are available as actions through Toolbox Pro.

01:26:01 ◼   ► So you can detect objects in photos,

01:26:06 ◼   ► and so you can put together shortcuts that do like,

01:26:10 ◼   ► get my latest 50 photos and show me

01:26:13 ◼   ► a list of all the photos that contain pasta or pizza.

01:26:16 ◼   ► Like, you can make a pizza Instagram workflow.

01:26:19 ◼   ► Like, seriously, that gives you a list of the latest food

01:26:23 ◼   ► picks you've taken.

01:26:25 ◼   ► You can have actions that detect areas of interest of an image.

01:26:30 ◼   ► And so in theory you can make like a thumbnail generation script to crop an image where it's

01:26:36 ◼   ► the most interesting according to the machine learning framework.

01:26:40 ◼   ► All of these things are native Apple-made frameworks and features, but ShortCats doesn't

01:26:47 ◼   ► use them yet.

01:26:49 ◼   ► But thanks to parameters, third-party developers can come in and say "I'm gonna take those

01:26:53 ◼   ► features and make them available to users as actions."

01:26:57 ◼   ► Which I think is a genius idea, could be easily sharelocked, of course, but will it though?

01:27:06 ◼   ► And that's sort of my takeaway from the conclusion, like, these are season features, Apple could

01:27:11 ◼   ► make the same actions, make them even better, because they're, you know, it's Apple, they

01:27:15 ◼   ► can use some secret or private APIs, but will they?

01:27:19 ◼   ► Because so far they, like, I guess this is a bigger conversation about like, what's gonna

01:27:25 ◼   ► happen to shortcuts. In iOS 13 we've seen a redesign of shortcuts, they have the new

01:27:30 ◼   ► editor, they have the natural language editor and all that stuff, but there's so many more

01:27:35 ◼   ► power user features that are still not here. And so I gotta wonder, like, the first year

01:27:43 ◼   ► of shortcuts at Apple in iOS 12 we got the rebrand. The second year we got parameters

01:27:50 ◼   ► and the redesign. Next year, third year at Apple, will they finally address all the feature

01:28:00 ◼   ► requests that pro users have been asking for? So like more controls in the editor, more

01:28:05 ◼   ► ways to run shortcuts, what's going to happen next? And so in this landscape it's interesting

01:28:11 ◼   ► to see these utilities like Toolbox Pro, and there's a bunch also coming that are sort

01:28:17 ◼   ► of building an ecosystem around shortcuts, it's definitely something worth keeping an

01:28:21 ◼   ► eye on. But that's basically what Toolbox is doing, is giving shortcuts power users,

01:28:28 ◼   ► or just, you know, folks who use shortcuts a lot, more actions that feel like native

01:28:35 ◼   ► actions, because that's actually what they are. They are native actions made possible

01:28:39 ◼   ► by iOS 13.

01:28:40 ◼   ► I feel kind of confused though, because like...

01:28:44 ◼   ► What does it do? Like, what can it do?

01:28:47 ◼   ► Well, there's a... This is a great question actually.

01:28:51 ◼   ► There's a... When you download the app, there's an examples section.

01:28:56 ◼   ► So you can go in there and there's like dozens of shortcuts made by the developer

01:29:01 ◼   ► that give you an idea.

01:29:03 ◼   ► I focused on four areas in my review.

01:29:07 ◼   ► So the reminders actions are great. You can edit reminders, which is the main feature, I guess.

01:29:14 ◼   ► I made a bunch of shortcuts that let you reschedule multiple reminders at once,

01:29:20 ◼   ► or move reminders between lists, or remove due dates from reminders. You can do all kinds of

01:29:27 ◼   ► modifications to existing reminders. The OCR stuff is also great. You can scan documents,

01:29:36 ◼   ► or extract text from images, from documents.

01:29:40 ◼   ► These are things that people download dedicated apps for on the App Store.

01:29:46 ◼   ► Now you can build a shortcut for that with Toolbox.

01:29:50 ◼   ► And they also, like the app has a lot of, and this is why in the article I said this is for power users,

01:29:57 ◼   ► it's got a lot of sort of quality of life improvements.

01:30:00 ◼   ► If you use shortcuts a lot, it's got all these actions that

01:30:04 ◼   ► Remove a lot of friction from building shortcuts. So like it's got actions to create rich menus

01:30:10 ◼   ► Which are super nice to look at they got like you you can have a menu like a list of options

01:30:15 ◼   ► That it's not just a plain list of text. You can have icons

01:30:20 ◼   ► Based on SF symbols you can have colors you can have subtitles

01:30:24 ◼   ► you have actions to

01:30:27 ◼   ► modify dictionaries you have actions to

01:30:34 ◼   ► not having to write regular expressions. So like if you want to do more advanced find and replace in shortcuts

01:30:41 ◼   ► eventually you gotta use Rejects if you just use the Apple actions and

01:30:46 ◼   ► Toolbox gives you a lot of options that are just visual

01:30:50 ◼   ► that allow you to do a lot of like trimming text or matching text between certain words

01:30:57 ◼   ► like stuff that you would normally have to write regular expressions for

01:31:02 ◼   ► they're just provided as a single step.

01:31:05 ◼   ► It's taking some of the more complicated things that shortcuts can do

01:31:11 ◼   ► and basically wrapping them up into actions that somebody like me can just drop into a shortcut

01:31:18 ◼   ► to cut out a bunch of work.

01:31:20 ◼   ► Yes.

01:31:20 ◼   ► Okay.

01:31:22 ◼   ► Exactly.

01:31:23 ◼   ► That makes more sense.

01:31:23 ◼   ► Yes.

01:31:24 ◼   ► And also it's got features, as I mentioned on Mac stories,

01:31:31 ◼   ► stuff like global variables. So the idea that you can create your own database of things,

01:31:41 ◼   ► like in shortcuts usually a variable only lasts as long as you're running a shortcut,

01:31:48 ◼   ► and instead Toolbox lets you create global variables that persist across multiple shortcuts

01:31:54 ◼   ► that are synced with iCloud across all of your devices. And so I built, for example,

01:32:00 ◼   ► shortcut that lets me track the video games that I'm playing. It's very nice. It's just

01:32:07 ◼   ► this idea of you don't have to create your own JSON database, you know, stuff that I've

01:32:15 ◼   ► been doing manually in shortcuts, Toolbox gives you a native visual option that's super

01:32:21 ◼   ► nice to look at and it's definitely for public users. Like if you just use shortcuts casually

01:32:27 ◼   ► and you never create shortcuts, this is not for you.

01:32:30 ◼   ► But if you spend a lot of time in shortcuts,

01:32:32 ◼   ► either creating shortcuts or running them,

01:32:34 ◼   ► you probably have a use for this.

01:32:36 ◼   ► And if anything, I would suggest that people check it out,

01:32:40 ◼   ► because it's free.

01:32:42 ◼   ► Many of the actions are free,

01:32:43 ◼   ► and I believe what I think is the most impressive action

01:32:47 ◼   ► of all, the preview action, is free to use.

01:32:51 ◼   ► And the preview action is kind of wild.

01:32:52 ◼   ► It lets you preview content.

01:32:55 ◼   ► It's like fancy quick look.

01:32:57 ◼   ► you could call it. It lets you preview multiple things at once. So you can send the text and an

01:33:04 ◼   ► image and a link together, and it'll figure it out, and it'll show you all items on a single page.

01:33:10 ◼   ► And what is wild about this is that on the user's end, it looks sort of like Markdown. It's got a

01:33:17 ◼   ► simple syntax. You can have bigger text or smaller text or images and links. But actually, it is

01:33:26 ◼   ► basically a wrapper for SwiftUI. So behind the scenes, the custom preview is all based on SwiftUI,

01:33:34 ◼   ► and so it's responsive by default, it supports dark mode by default, and it's this idea that—I

01:33:41 ◼   ► think Jason Snell mentioned this before, an upgrade a few weeks ago—the idea of like,

01:33:46 ◼   ► maybe in the future you will be able to actually run SwiftUI code in shortcuts and build your own

01:33:52 ◼   ► little interfaces. And this is sort of like that, but it goes through Toolbox. Really,

01:33:58 ◼   ► it's got a bunch of things for power users. If you use shortcuts a lot, you should check

01:34:01 ◼   ► it out. This is my takeaway. It's very fascinating.

01:34:05 ◼   ► >> It reminds me a little bit of editorial. Like, what you're showing in the review, like,

01:34:11 ◼   ► those pages you were talking about where it shows you these, like, kind of bare bonesy

01:34:17 ◼   ► pages where it's got a bunch of links. Like, it just reminds me of the way that you used

01:34:20 ◼   ► to do all those crazy things with editorial where you look at apps or pages or whatever.

01:34:24 ◼   ► It reminds me of that.

01:34:27 ◼   ► Right.

01:34:28 ◼   ► Very interesting.

01:34:29 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:34:30 ◼   ► And do you think that it's safe to really get wrapped up in this app?

01:34:34 ◼   ► I mean, I guess if Apple sure locked some of the features, that's fine.

01:34:39 ◼   ► But this sort of thing is kosher with how Apple wants to operate?

01:34:44 ◼   ► So that's also a great question.

01:34:47 ◼   ► I think it should be safe.

01:34:49 ◼   ► not using any private APIs, which is also the the main selling point. It's all based on the parameter

01:34:56 ◼   ► framework that's open to developers. Everybody can use it. Personally speaking, I have made

01:35:05 ◼   ► 10 shortcuts for the site that you can download today based on Toolbox Pro. There's seven more

01:35:12 ◼   ► advanced ones that I will be releasing for club members this Friday, but I will try for,

01:35:21 ◼   ► because I run the Mac Stories Shortcuts Archive, I will try not to use Toolbox Pro actions

01:35:29 ◼   ► all the time, because you know what my stance on dependencies is? Like in general, I try

01:35:36 ◼   ► to keep my, in this case, like my code as clean as possible, like, I don't want to be

01:35:41 ◼   ► in a situation where all the shortcuts that you find on Mac stories require Toolbox Pro.

01:35:47 ◼   ► So in this case, I had to make them because I'm reviewing the app. But I plan on keeping,

01:35:53 ◼   ► like, when I resume my regular shortcuts coverage, I will not include Toolbox Pro actions. I

01:36:01 ◼   ► will use them for, like, for personal use, but the shortcuts that you find on Mac stories

01:36:07 ◼   ► will not require the app because I don't like the idea of these shortcuts. As you said,

01:36:12 ◼   ► Stephen, maybe someday becoming outdated because maybe the developer doesn't maintain toolbox

01:36:18 ◼   ► anymore.

01:36:19 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean this sort of thing seems right for Apple accidentally kicking it out of the

01:36:22 ◼   ► app store later. Always had that fear with nerdy tools. Maybe that's unfounded. And I'm

01:36:28 ◼   ► certainly not saying anything about the developer.

01:36:30 ◼   ► No, no, I think you have a point.

01:36:31 ◼   ► It's always a scary thing.

01:36:34 ◼   ► I think that does it for this week.

01:36:36 ◼   ► If you want to find show notes for all the stuff

01:36:39 ◼   ► we spoke about, head on over to the website,

01:36:41 ◼   ► relay.fm/connected/269.

01:36:44 ◼   ► While you're there, you can get in touch with feedback

01:36:46 ◼   ► or follow up via email, or of course,

01:36:48 ◼   ► you can send that in on Twitter.

01:36:49 ◼   ► You can find Myke on Twitter as I-M-Y-K-E.

01:36:53 ◼   ► Myke is the co-host of a bunch of other shows

01:36:55 ◼   ► here on Relay FM.

01:36:57 ◼   ► It's in the show notes.

01:36:58 ◼   ► Go check out Upgrade.

01:37:00 ◼   ► That interview is spectacular.

01:37:02 ◼   ► You guys really did a good job.

01:37:03 ◼   ► Congratulations on that.

01:37:04 ◼   ► You should go, go check that out if you haven't.

01:37:06 ◼   ► You can find Federico on Twitter as Vitici, V-I-T-I-C-C-I,

01:37:11 ◼   ► and his writing, of course, at maxstories.net.

01:37:14 ◼   ► You mentioned the club,

01:37:15 ◼   ► you guys put a lot of awesome stuff in there,

01:37:17 ◼   ► so if you're not a club member over at Max Stories,

01:37:20 ◼   ► you should go find out more about that.

01:37:22 ◼   ► You can find me on Twitter as ismh,

01:37:25 ◼   ► and my writing over at 512pixels.net.

01:37:28 ◼   ► I'd like to thank our sponsors this week,

01:37:31 ◼   ► Pingdom, Ahrefs, and Eero.

01:37:33 ◼   ► And until next time guys, say goodbye.

01:37:35 ◼   ► - Adios, that's you.

01:37:36 ◼   ► - Cheerio.