Connected

00:00:00 ◼   ► Hello and welcome to Connected, episode 262.

00:00:12 ◼   ► It's made possible this week by our sponsors Pingdom, Smile, and FreshBooks.

00:00:17 ◼   ► My name is Stephen Hackett and I am joined by Mr. Federico Vittucci.

00:00:21 ◼   ► Hello.

00:00:22 ◼   ► Hi.

00:00:23 ◼   ► How are you?

00:00:24 ◼   ► I'm great.

00:00:25 ◼   ► How are you today?

00:00:26 ◼   ► I'm alive.

00:00:27 ◼   ► So that's good.

00:00:28 ◼   ► That's good.

00:00:29 ◼   ► We're gonna talk about that in a little while.

00:00:32 ◼   ► And we're also joined by Myke Hurley.

00:00:34 ◼   ► Big show.

00:00:35 ◼   ► I got a lot of exciting things to talk about today.

00:00:38 ◼   ► Huge, huge show.

00:00:39 ◼   ► Sometimes there are weeks on this show where, like two days ago or yesterday, there's nothing

00:00:43 ◼   ► in the document, and then I load it today, and it's 19 pages long.

00:00:47 ◼   ► It just goes on forever.

00:00:48 ◼   ► We have five items to follow up, five tiny topics, and four main topics to talk about

00:00:56 ◼   ► today.

00:00:57 ◼   ► This document is longer than my review.

00:01:00 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:01:01 ◼   ► It's too long, I don't wanna read it.

00:01:03 ◼   ► - Too long.

00:01:04 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:01:05 ◼   ► - Well, let's get started then.

00:01:06 ◼   ► What are we doing?

00:01:07 ◼   ► We don't have time to waste.

00:01:08 ◼   ► Let's start with follow-up.

00:01:09 ◼   ► As promised, the podcast-a-thon video and audio

00:01:14 ◼   ► have been posted.

00:01:14 ◼   ► It's over on YouTube.

00:01:16 ◼   ► It's also in a new feed called Departures

00:01:18 ◼   ► on the Relay website.

00:01:19 ◼   ► I definitely recommend, if you're gonna spend six hours

00:01:22 ◼   ► with this thing, to watch the video.

00:01:24 ◼   ► It's totally worth it.

00:01:26 ◼   ► watch it, it's way better than listening.

00:01:28 ◼   ► - Yeah, I listened to some of it,

00:01:29 ◼   ► and I was there and the video was better.

00:01:33 ◼   ► It's a lot better.

00:01:34 ◼   ► I do want to tease also Sunday's episode

00:01:37 ◼   ► of Mac Power Easers, episode 502.

00:01:39 ◼   ► It'll be out in a few days.

00:01:41 ◼   ► The whole first section is David and I talking about

00:01:44 ◼   ► all the behind the scenes stuff.

00:01:45 ◼   ► So if you wanna know about how you do

00:01:47 ◼   ► a six hour podcast-a-thon,

00:01:49 ◼   ► check out MPU 502 this coming weekend.

00:01:52 ◼   ► - And if you're interested in, you know,

00:01:55 ◼   ► jump into a point about two hours in is when Federico comes on and we have a little mini

00:02:00 ◼   ► episode of Connected during the middle of the podcast is done. There's lots of great

00:02:03 ◼   ► stuff in there.

00:02:05 ◼   ► What are you going to do for episode 512?

00:02:08 ◼   ► We actually planning we've already been talking about it a like Stump the Genius episode where

00:02:14 ◼   ► I answer people's tech questions for an hour and a half.

00:02:17 ◼   ► Perfect.

00:02:18 ◼   ► It's gonna be it's gonna be fun. If you have participated in our St. Jude campaign this

00:02:24 ◼   ► this fall, this September.

00:02:26 ◼   ► Thank you so much, we are over a quarter of a million dollars

00:02:29 ◼   ► which--

00:02:30 ◼   ► - One quarter of a million dollars!

00:02:32 ◼   ► Put that into perspective.

00:02:34 ◼   ► - I keep saying it and it keeps,

00:02:36 ◼   ► it just keeps making me smile every time I say it.

00:02:39 ◼   ► If you are interested in donating and you haven't yet,

00:02:42 ◼   ► the campaign will be up through the end of the month.

00:02:44 ◼   ► You can go to stjue.org/connected

00:02:48 ◼   ► and learn more and donate to a cause that

00:02:52 ◼   ► It means the world to us, but the world to families all around the globe.

00:02:57 ◼   ► St. Jude works to treat kids who are fighting cancer and to care for their families all

00:03:02 ◼   ► at the same time.

00:03:03 ◼   ► It's an amazing deal.

00:03:04 ◼   ► So humbling to be a part of it.

00:03:05 ◼   ► And yeah, a quarter of a million dollars is just amazing.

00:03:09 ◼   ► Unbelievable.

00:03:10 ◼   ► Thank you so much, everybody.

00:03:12 ◼   ► That's really just astounding.

00:03:15 ◼   ► Moving on to some less serious, but also way more serious follow up.

00:03:22 ◼   ► Federica, we all know about pranking your mom.

00:03:25 ◼   ► That's a thing that you do.

00:03:26 ◼   ► This is not a prank.

00:03:27 ◼   ► It was not a prank.

00:03:28 ◼   ► And you had a tweet the other day that said, "Left my mom at home and forgot to tell her

00:03:32 ◼   ► about our new security system."

00:03:34 ◼   ► And a screenshot is of at least four, I'm sure there are more of them because they're

00:03:38 ◼   ► basically every minute, your HomeKit alarm system going off.

00:03:44 ◼   ► So what happened? Is your mom okay?

00:03:49 ◼   ► My mom is okay. This was not a prank. Of all the pranks that I could have pulled on my

00:03:55 ◼   ► mom that I may have done that weekend, this was not a prank. I promise it was accidental.

00:04:04 ◼   ► I forgot that. Yes, I left my mom at home watching the dogs because Sylvia and I needed

00:04:12 ◼   ► to be somewhere and I didn't think about the fact that since the last time she was at home

00:04:20 ◼   ► I set up this new HomeKit security system that I think I mentioned on the show that

00:04:25 ◼   ► I also covered in the review which is basically there's a siren that I bought from Amazon

00:04:32 ◼   ► it's a very loud siren it's 120 decibels it's very loud and it's connected to HomeKit smart

00:04:41 ◼   ► plug and the smart plug is part of a series of automations that whenever one of my doors or

00:04:47 ◼   ► windows open and nobody's home, so that's the condition, if nobody's home then basically

00:04:54 ◼   ► engage this incredible siren and a bunch of other things, including send me SMS alerts and

00:05:03 ◼   ► pushover alerts. Both of them I programmed as custom shortcuts in HomeKit using the Twilio

00:05:11 ◼   ► and push over APIs. So what happened here is that my mom simply opened the balcony door

00:05:19 ◼   ► to let the dogs play outside and she was blasted with this siren at 120 decibels.

00:05:26 ◼   ► Oh no, it's so loud.

00:05:29 ◼   ► After the first siren, the second siren,

00:05:31 ◼   ► kicked in, that's not as loud. There's a second one, 90 decibels in the bedroom,

00:05:39 ◼   ► that also comes in as a second layer. And I started getting all of these alerts. And

00:05:45 ◼   ► at first, my reaction was, "Oh no, somebody broke in." And then I realized, like in a

00:05:52 ◼   ► fraction of a second, I realized, "Wait, my mom is home." And then I realized, "Oh no,

00:05:56 ◼   ► the automation rule worked because nobody's home right now." And so even though I was kind of happy

00:06:06 ◼   ► about it that, yes, all my code worked correctly.

00:06:10 ◼   ► I opened the Home app and turned off the siren right away,

00:06:15 ◼   ► and then I called my mom on the phone,

00:06:17 ◼   ► and I could tell from her voice that she was, like, shaking.

00:06:21 ◼   ► I was like, "Mom, everything's fine. I'm sorry."

00:06:24 ◼   ► Just, I didn't realize that nobody was home

00:06:27 ◼   ► and the alarm was triggered.

00:06:30 ◼   ► But it will not trigger anymore now.

00:06:33 ◼   ► -Oh, woman. -Yeah.

00:06:35 ◼   ► I know, I agree, I believe that this wasn't a prank, but I feel so badly for your mother

00:06:41 ◼   ► in so many situations.

00:06:43 ◼   ► This one is real bad.

00:06:45 ◼   ► Yeah, it was very bad.

00:06:48 ◼   ► Thankfully the dogs were not scared too much by the siren.

00:06:52 ◼   ► I think my mom was more scared by the sound than the dogs.

00:06:57 ◼   ► The dogs were just running outside, so they didn't care.

00:07:02 ◼   ► So it's also, your mom is more of the concern here, right?

00:07:07 ◼   ► Sure.

00:07:08 ◼   ► Your mom being upset by the siren should be more concerning than the dogs getting upset

00:07:13 ◼   ► by the siren, you know?

00:07:14 ◼   ► Well, you know, but she's a grown woman, so the dogs are small and…

00:07:18 ◼   ► Right, but like your mother is older than the dogs.

00:07:22 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:07:23 ◼   ► Right?

00:07:24 ◼   ► That's my main concern here.

00:07:26 ◼   ► Yeah, I guess you're right.

00:07:28 ◼   ► But I'm still happy that everything worked as expected.

00:07:32 ◼   ► So the notifications worked.

00:07:35 ◼   ► Sylvie also got a bunch of alerts

00:07:37 ◼   ► because in the Twilio API,

00:07:39 ◼   ► I also associated Sylvie's phone number.

00:07:41 ◼   ► The automation worked,

00:07:44 ◼   ► the multiple layers of actions to be performed also worked.

00:07:48 ◼   ► So in addition to, there's a first siren,

00:07:51 ◼   ► there's a second siren,

00:07:52 ◼   ► and then all the lights turn on to 100% white color.

00:07:58 ◼   ► And as I mentioned, I think on the podcast-a-thon,

00:08:00 ◼   ► was it on the podcast-a-thon that I mentioned this?

00:08:02 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:08:03 ◼   ► In the future, as soon as the HomePod software update becomes

00:08:07 ◼   ► available, I will add spoken messages to the mix.

00:08:11 ◼   ► So there will be a message that says that the home security

00:08:15 ◼   ► system is calling the polizia, or carabinieri,

00:08:18 ◼   ► even though it's not actually true,

00:08:19 ◼   ► but the thieves don't know that it's not true.

00:08:23 ◼   ► Or your mother.

00:08:25 ◼   ► Right.

00:08:26 ◼   ► Right.

00:08:26 ◼   ► hopefully this will not. You know, there should be, there should be in HomeKit some kind of

00:08:32 ◼   ► way, maybe through family sharing to say when this person is visiting. So this person is

00:08:39 ◼   ► not necessarily one of the home owners, but she may be visiting. So in the nobody's own

00:08:46 ◼   ► condition, there should be some kind of flag to say, allow for guests or something like

00:08:53 ◼   ► that and it could probably because you know in my family sharing setup we have my mom and Sylvia's

00:08:58 ◼   ► mom so that I you know I don't think I mentioned this so I can just play for I can just pay for

00:09:04 ◼   ► iCloud drive for everybody and they don't need to manage any more subscriptions maybe there should

00:09:09 ◼   ► be a way to have guests that are that do not have direct admin control over every single accessory

00:09:16 ◼   ► but maybe they should be part of conditions for exactly this type of scenario. I wonder if you

00:09:22 ◼   ► you could use the automation stuff in shortcuts so when her phone joins your

00:09:26 ◼   ► Wi-Fi it disables the alarms. No that wouldn't work. Maybe though, maybe

00:09:34 ◼   ► with one of the future HomeKit routers that will be possible because in theory

00:09:40 ◼   ► I don't know. Who knows if they ever gonna release those. They promised them

00:09:46 ◼   ► and then we don't know what happened to those. So but anyway she's alive she's

00:09:50 ◼   ► fine and the system worked. Success all around. Steven can we talk about your video? Yes please.

00:09:57 ◼   ► And the dance at the beginning which was amazing. Where's the music from? The music is from...

00:10:03 ◼   ► let me look, I have a subscription to this thing where you get a bunch of

00:10:07 ◼   ► royalty-free music you can use. It's like the intro... so the intro is very technically

00:10:15 ◼   ► impressive. You did a really good job with the edit and then you just started dancing.

00:10:18 ◼   ► But I have a continuity problem with the beginning of your video. Do you know what it is?

00:10:24 ◼   ► That the music is playing before I put my earbuds in?

00:10:26 ◼   ► Yeah, and that you're dancing before you've got the earbuds in. Why are you dancing?

00:10:30 ◼   ► Is it your pre-dance?

00:10:31 ◼   ► So let me show behind the scenes. The song is from Epidemic Sound, by the way. That's a service

00:10:38 ◼   ► you can pay for and you get music you can use on YouTube. I tried the dance without any music in my

00:10:45 ◼   ► office and I couldn't do it like it didn't look right and so I was playing

00:10:49 ◼   ► the song loudly through my iMac like so I was dancing to music in the real world

00:10:54 ◼   ► and then put my headphones in like it's a little bit of a continuity thing but

00:10:57 ◼   ► look when you wink at the camera with a mustache like everything else is

00:11:01 ◼   ► secondary so it's one of the it's one of the sexiest things I've ever seen on

00:11:06 ◼   ► YouTube honestly yeah I got the account flagged as adult material but I can fix

00:11:11 ◼   ► No surprise.

00:11:12 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:11:13 ◼   ► I feel like we could build the law for this, right?

00:11:16 ◼   ► You were actually listening to music and you were getting ready to go out with new music,

00:11:20 ◼   ► right?

00:11:21 ◼   ► And that was what happened.

00:11:22 ◼   ► The wink was like, "Yeah, I'm out here."

00:11:24 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:11:25 ◼   ► "See ya!"

00:11:26 ◼   ► Yeah, it's a little, what, three-minute deal about the stainless steel iPod Shuffle, which

00:11:32 ◼   ► came out in 2009.

00:11:34 ◼   ► This stupid iPod Shuffle with no buttons.

00:11:36 ◼   ► It was all voice control that was really terrible.

00:11:40 ◼   ► But a listener actually sent me this iPod for this video.

00:11:43 ◼   ► I have to mail it back tomorrow.

00:11:46 ◼   ► He just lent it to me.

00:11:47 ◼   ► But it was cool to take a look at it.

00:11:49 ◼   ► I also learned that filming something that is perfectly reflective is very difficult.

00:11:54 ◼   ► So in most of the shots, the stainless steel iPod shuffle, I'm holding it or it is near

00:12:00 ◼   ► something else.

00:12:01 ◼   ► So I have something else to focus on and manually adjust the focus to get the shuffle in line

00:12:07 ◼   ► because it's perfectly reflective and difficult to see through a camera but it

00:12:12 ◼   ► was a fun little project it's nice to be back on YouTube after a hiatus and yeah

00:12:17 ◼   ► mustache and all which is a side effect of the podcast-a-thon if you watch but

00:12:23 ◼   ► not but like a general improvement to everybody's lives I think so I think so

00:12:29 ◼   ► yeah we all agree that we were referenced last week the idea wouldn't

00:12:34 ◼   ► be lovely if they're gonna make iPhone 11 battery cases. Stephen, I think you said that

00:12:39 ◼   ► you didn't think they would do it. I don't remember, but that's what my memory tells

00:12:42 ◼   ► me. There has been references found by Guilherme Rambeau in iOS 13.1 of smart battery cases

00:12:48 ◼   ► in the works.

00:12:49 ◼   ► I was wrong. It seems to be in the works and the 11 Pro, but especially the 11 Pro Max

00:12:57 ◼   ► will just be unstoppable with the battery case.

00:13:00 ◼   ► It's basically a nuclear power plant at that point.

00:13:02 ◼   ► Would you guys...

00:13:03 ◼   ► generates power for everything around it.

00:13:04 ◼   ► - Would you guys be interested in this,

00:13:06 ◼   ► even though the new phones have better battery life?

00:13:08 ◼   ► - No, with a better battery life, probably not.

00:13:11 ◼   ► I mean, yeah, I wanted to go until 2 a.m.

00:13:16 ◼   ► with battery left in my phone.

00:13:19 ◼   ► I probably don't need to go until 6 a.m.

00:13:23 ◼   ► So I don't think I will need the battery case for this.

00:13:25 ◼   ► If the battery life stuff is accurate, which I wanna see,

00:13:32 ◼   ► But if true, if the comments from the reviews match up with my experience,

00:13:37 ◼   ► I don't think I'll have to put it on this time.

00:13:39 ◼   ► Well, I've already done multiple travel days with the 11 Promax.

00:13:46 ◼   ► That was it, right? That was the agreed upon audible way of saying it.

00:13:51 ◼   ► And it worked, it was great. I had battery for the majority of the time that I would need it, right?

00:13:58 ◼   ► it was perfectly fine. I mean, I would maybe want, I would, it couldn't last like the whole

00:14:06 ◼   ► day and then a transatlantic flight and then all the way home again, right? Like I had to charge

00:14:11 ◼   ► it a little bit like in the middle, I could charge it on the plane, which is fine. I mean,

00:14:16 ◼   ► and honestly, I would always charge my phone in the battery case on the plane anyway too. So

00:14:20 ◼   ► I think that it might, it might be enough. We'll see. But it has been so far. I didn't have it,

00:14:27 ◼   ► The battery didn't die is what I'm saying, you know.

00:14:30 ◼   ► So I was happy with it. Very nice. Okay. Well then no case for me, I guess.

00:14:35 ◼   ► We have a teaser for an upcoming episode. Myke, you are the the Apple TV expert.

00:14:42 ◼   ► Yeah, I don't like saying that it's an upcoming episode.

00:14:46 ◼   ► Wait, no, wait, wait. It's the next episode.

00:14:49 ◼   ► You will be reviewing tvOS 13. Oh yes! Is it gonna be out? One week. It's out.

00:14:55 ◼   ► It's out yesterday. TVOS 13 is out.

00:14:58 ◼   ► I knew that. I knew that. It was a test. I'm the expert.

00:15:00 ◼   ► Oh yeah, you did? Mm-hmm.

00:15:02 ◼   ► So next Wednesday, we will have a multi-hour episode in which you break down TVOS 13.

00:15:07 ◼   ► Can you share the table of contents for the review, Myke?

00:15:10 ◼   ► Yeah, of course I can. So like, you know, everyone's really excited about TVOS.

00:15:16 ◼   ► So, you know, like, and we all know exactly where we want to go to get all of the information about

00:15:22 ◼   ► TV OS if we ever need it. Apple seems to not be very clear about where they put that on

00:15:28 ◼   ► their own website in case you were the kind of person that needed a breakdown of all of

00:15:32 ◼   ► the features of TV OS at any particular moment. But you know, TV OS, it is really great as

00:15:46 ◼   ► we all know. Apple Arcade coming to TV OS, that's probably going to be something that

00:15:50 ◼   ► I will talk about in my full review.

00:15:53 ◼   ► And then of course you've got the multiple profiles for people.

00:15:58 ◼   ► You know, everyone's really excited about that.

00:16:00 ◼   ► And that's all I'll talk about for now, I suppose.

00:16:04 ◼   ► Did you get Castzone 3D graphics done for the review?

00:16:08 ◼   ► Yeah, but you'll just have to... I'll describe them.

00:16:12 ◼   ► Because it's an audio, right? So I'll just describe the 3D graphics.

00:16:16 ◼   ► Okay.

00:16:16 ◼   ► I actually got 4D graphics.

00:16:18 ◼   ► So I did one more graphic than you, so...

00:16:22 ◼   ► Sure, sure.

00:16:23 ◼   ► I hope, I really genuinely hope that you're going to do a better job of that next year.

00:16:27 ◼   ► Oh, I can try.

00:16:30 ◼   ► And I'm hearing that this review, this TV OS review, will be released with binaural

00:16:34 ◼   ► audio, is that correct?

00:16:36 ◼   ► Binaural, yeah that is correct.

00:16:38 ◼   ► Very nice.

00:16:39 ◼   ► I actually wrote 275,000 words, just because I could, and then decided that I would trim

00:16:46 ◼   ► it down for you guys.

00:16:47 ◼   ► Are they all the same word? Just says TV over and over again. TV, TV, TV, TV, TV. 275,000

00:16:56 ◼   ► times. Okay, well I'm very excited to put this movie to come out. Aren't we all? It's

00:17:04 ◼   ► gonna be great. Yeah, it is the event of the year, after all. Yeah. Can't wait to talk

00:17:09 ◼   ► about the changes to metal. An Apple crypto kit, which I know we've been waiting for.

00:17:17 ◼   ► Wait, what? You know about that. That's not a thing. That's not a thing.

00:17:21 ◼   ► It is the framework to perform common cryptographic operations securely and efficiently.

00:17:25 ◼   ► It's just reading things off the Apple website. No, I know it because I read about it, I wrote

00:17:29 ◼   ► about it in like 275,000 words. But this is what I'm talking about. You're not worthy of those

00:17:34 ◼   ► words so they're gone from the review now. Wow. Well, I'm very excited for this. Thank

00:17:44 ◼   ► you for putting in the work Myke. Anytime. This episode of Connected is brought to you

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00:18:49 ◼   ► 30% off your first invoice. Our thanks to Pingdom for their support of this show

00:18:54 ◼   ► and relay FM. It is a new year the clock has been reset on Google so we will

00:19:00 ◼   ► start tiny topic zero which will be tiny topic zero for the foreseeable future

00:19:04 ◼   ► does Google Docs support the multi window support on iPad OS? No. Let me

00:19:09 ◼   ► let me answer in Italian too I think it's important. Okay. No. And Steven can

00:19:15 ◼   ► you answer in American? No. That was better than I expected it would be. So we'll keep checking in on

00:19:23 ◼   ► that one. Buckle up everyone, it's gonna be a long fall. Can we do predictions? Yeah.

00:19:32 ◼   ► For when it'll be out? We have so many. Can we just put them in there? Can we bet on it?

00:19:40 ◼   ► Okay, so it's the end of September. I'm gonna say February. Okay. By the end of February,

00:19:51 ◼   ► will have support for multi window. I'm going for end of March 2020. That's six

00:19:57 ◼   ► months. All right. I'm going to be ambitious and say the end of 2019. There

00:20:03 ◼   ► you go. Wow. iOS 13 is out. And a big a big story last year with iOS 12 was its

00:20:11 ◼   ► performance on older devices. Apple said that was an important thing to them. It

00:20:16 ◼   ► It seems according to this article by Andrew Cunningham that I was 13 continues in that

00:20:23 ◼   ► In that work so our Seneca rounded up an iPhone 6s and an iPhone SE

00:20:28 ◼   ► Which are effectively the same phone. I don't I don't know why they got compared side by side

00:20:35 ◼   ► But anyways looking at iOS

00:20:37 ◼   ► 12.4.1 and the iOS 13.0

00:20:42 ◼   ► GM so basically if you read this look at the tables iOS 13 is as

00:20:47 ◼   ► Fast if not a little bit faster on this a9 processor than iOS 12

00:20:53 ◼   ► Which is great Apple should do a good job at supporting older products, and it seems like 13

00:20:59 ◼   ► Continues in that and that that makes me happy for those customers who hold on their phones longer than we crazy people do

00:21:07 ◼   ► Hmm who knows it's even possible to runs better than home

00:21:11 ◼   ► on the 11 Pro because it's real wonky in a bunch of places.

00:21:16 ◼   ► Still, have I told you about my favorite bug

00:21:19 ◼   ► that is persisting in 13.1?

00:21:21 ◼   ► - What is it?

00:21:22 ◼   ► - Sometimes, well, I have a lot of problems

00:21:24 ◼   ► where I pull down to get to the search field, you know?

00:21:29 ◼   ► Like to go to Spotlight, like and it just hangs.

00:21:32 ◼   ► Sometimes, no matter what I tap,

00:21:34 ◼   ► just the letter Q gets entered into the search field.

00:21:36 ◼   ► - The letter Q?

00:21:38 ◼   ► - The letter Q, yeah, just so I tap anywhere on the screen

00:21:41 ◼   ► when I'm in Spotlight, and it just puts a queue

00:21:44 ◼   ► into the search field.

00:21:45 ◼   ► I'm wondering if some of these problems

00:21:49 ◼   ► are third-party keyboard support,

00:21:51 ◼   ► 'cause Gboard is just bad.

00:21:55 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:21:56 ◼   ► - The support, they've done something,

00:21:59 ◼   ► and the support for third-party keyboards has become worse.

00:22:03 ◼   ► - Maybe you should restore your phone.

00:22:06 ◼   ► - You know what, I probably should.

00:22:08 ◼   ► - Get on that.

00:22:09 ◼   ► - There was a, there's actually an article yesterday

00:22:12 ◼   ► on The Verge, I'll put this in the document,

00:22:15 ◼   ► Apple basically warning people who use third party keyboards

00:22:20 ◼   ► that things--

00:22:23 ◼   ► - Oh really?

00:22:24 ◼   ► - Things are a little funny. - I didn't see that.

00:22:25 ◼   ► - Yeah, so it's really framed in the support article about,

00:22:28 ◼   ► it's an advisory, which is very exciting,

00:22:31 ◼   ► that third party keyboard extensions in iOS can access,

00:22:37 ◼   ► or it can have network access, even if you haven't approved it.

00:22:42 ◼   ► So like, for instance, the text expander keyboard, you have to go in and say allow full access.

00:22:47 ◼   ► So it actually works.

00:22:48 ◼   ► And apparently that just can happen without the user setting that that option.

00:22:54 ◼   ► So that's a security issue in 13.

00:22:57 ◼   ► But it seems like maybe just there's a lot of keyboard stuff going on, like on the iPad,

00:23:01 ◼   ► the third party keyboards don't even load the right way.

00:23:03 ◼   ► Like they should, they should super tall for me.

00:23:05 ◼   ► It's all very broken.

00:23:07 ◼   ► I've just given up on third party keyboards at this point.

00:23:09 ◼   ► I'm just I'm done.

00:23:10 ◼   ► It's just too messy and the experiences too second rate for me.

00:23:15 ◼   ► Anyways, let's talk about bilateral charging.

00:23:20 ◼   ► So there was a rumor about the new iPhones that like the Samsung phones, you could put

00:23:24 ◼   ► wireless earbuds or maybe even another phone and the phone would charge that second device

00:23:30 ◼   ► via wireless charging.

00:23:33 ◼   ► didn't ship with the iPhone 11 Pro and the iPhone 11, but according to the iFixit

00:23:39 ◼   ► tear down, it looks like there are there's some hardware and

00:23:44 ◼   ► the hardware is only in the 11 Pro. The regular 11 does not have this. There's a

00:23:47 ◼   ► second cable and a board coming off the battery that they have speculated that

00:23:52 ◼   ► could potentially be this bilateral charging. Federico, what do you think

00:23:57 ◼   ► about this? Do you know anything about bilateral charging? Is there

00:24:00 ◼   ► something in iOS coming, you think?

00:24:02 ◼   ► - No, I don't, first of all, I don't know anything

00:24:06 ◼   ► about this, but looking at, you know, reading through

00:24:10 ◼   ► the details of this article, it doesn't feel like something

00:24:13 ◼   ► that can be added via software update.

00:24:16 ◼   ► I may be wrong, but it feels like something

00:24:18 ◼   ► that isn't finished at a manufacturing level,

00:24:21 ◼   ► like something that they left in there

00:24:23 ◼   ► because they changed their minds during the process.

00:24:27 ◼   ► But again, I have no idea.

00:24:28 ◼   ► It just feels like, I don't know,

00:24:31 ◼   ► it just feels like something that would be odd

00:24:33 ◼   ► to add via a software update.

00:24:35 ◼   ► But then again, I'm not an engineer, so I may be wrong.

00:24:39 ◼   ► It just feels, it just seems to me

00:24:41 ◼   ► that it's not ready to ship,

00:24:42 ◼   ► that it's like physically unfinished.

00:24:45 ◼   ► So, you know, software updates

00:24:48 ◼   ► cannot fix that kind of stuff.

00:24:51 ◼   ► - That's the case, isn't that weird?

00:24:54 ◼   ► - There's just like zombie hardware in your phone?

00:24:56 ◼   ► Our phones all have the ghost of bilateral charging inside of them.

00:25:00 ◼   ► You make it sound...

00:25:01 ◼   ► It's like super weird.

00:25:02 ◼   ► It sounds very weird.

00:25:04 ◼   ► Like when you put it like that.

00:25:05 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:25:06 ◼   ► It's very strange.

00:25:07 ◼   ► Like you have a cable that it's in there but it does nothing.

00:25:10 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:25:11 ◼   ► It's like a ghost town.

00:25:12 ◼   ► It's very strange.

00:25:13 ◼   ► But we may never know what happened to that.

00:25:16 ◼   ► We may never know.

00:25:17 ◼   ► I had a big morning this morning gentlemen.

00:25:20 ◼   ► Oh no.

00:25:21 ◼   ► I finally used a Galaxy Fold.

00:25:23 ◼   ► Did you break it?

00:25:25 ◼   ► Did not break it.

00:25:26 ◼   ► very careful with it. Did you buy it? We'll get to that. So I went to a Samsung store

00:25:32 ◼   ► here in London and they have demos that they're doing. I put some pictures on my Instagram

00:25:39 ◼   ► store, I put that in the show notes. They have, the Galaxy Fold is locked inside of

00:25:44 ◼   ► this cylinder and you have to have somebody come and get it for you so they can go through

00:25:49 ◼   ► everything with you. And I very quickly kind of like established to the guy that like I

00:25:54 ◼   ► I knew what I needed to know, right?

00:25:57 ◼   ► Like, and he was like, oh, okay,

00:25:59 ◼   ► you clearly have done your research about this.

00:26:00 ◼   ► I was like, yep, I know, I kind of know everything.

00:26:02 ◼   ► So kind of stop him from doing the demo.

00:26:05 ◼   ► I just wanted him to give it to me, right?

00:26:07 ◼   ► Which he did.

00:26:08 ◼   ► He was like, here you go, then try it out.

00:26:10 ◼   ► And it's amazing.

00:26:13 ◼   ► It's so janky, but it's so incredible.

00:26:15 ◼   ► - Can you define janky and incredible

00:26:17 ◼   ► and where do you draw the line between them?

00:26:20 ◼   ► - Well, it's okay.

00:26:21 ◼   ► So like the incredibleness is like,

00:26:23 ◼   ► The hardware itself, I find it very beautiful and when you use it, it feels like the future.

00:26:31 ◼   ► Just little things, like you can use the little screen on the front and you open up the camera

00:26:35 ◼   ► and then you open it and then the camera is open on the inside.

00:26:39 ◼   ► It feels very futuristic in that way and it's very different.

00:26:45 ◼   ► It isn't like any other technology that I've seen before.

00:26:48 ◼   ► feels like something new. And it's kind of cool that I can have multiple apps open. Do

00:26:54 ◼   ► you know you can have 18 apps open, like on screen open?

00:26:59 ◼   ► 18? One eight? Oh god.

00:27:02 ◼   ► That's what the guy told me. You can have more than these little windows. It would be

00:27:05 ◼   ► an absolute disaster. But it has 12 gigabytes of RAM in it. So, you know, it can do it.

00:27:13 ◼   ► The jankiness is in the software, right? Like having the multiple apps open and trying to

00:27:17 ◼   ► resize them. It works but it's not maybe as intuitive as you would want it to be.

00:27:23 ◼   ► It has six cameras on it which is always just a thing that's hilarious to me.

00:27:27 ◼   ► Six cameras. When you're using it you don't see the crease. You only see the

00:27:34 ◼   ► crease when the screen is off or if you're kind of leaning it to the side

00:27:37 ◼   ► right like if you're standing next to somebody and looking at their Galaxy

00:27:40 ◼   ► Fold you see the crease but you don't see it when you're looking at it. You

00:27:44 ◼   ► the jankiness is in him saying like "you've got to be careful with the screen" like they tell you,

00:27:48 ◼   ► you've got to be careful with the screen because you could break it really easily. I'll actually

00:27:52 ◼   ► put a link in the show notes to a YouTube video that Dieter Bohn did which is a walkthrough of

00:27:57 ◼   ► all of the various warnings that are inside the packaging. There are lots of warnings in the

00:28:02 ◼   ► packaging like "don't press it too hard with your fingernail because you may puncture the screen and

00:28:07 ◼   ► break it. It is this incredibly delicate piece of technology, right? It is just very delicate,

00:28:17 ◼   ► but there's something that I can't help how much I love it and I really love it and

00:28:26 ◼   ► it is available to buy here but is in higher demand than Samsung can hold right now. So this

00:28:37 ◼   ► this might sound crazy, but I have given them all of the money and I'm now waiting for them

00:28:42 ◼   ► to call me to tell me they have one for me. So you paid for it in full? I paid for it

00:28:47 ◼   ► in full, yeah. Okay. That's a bold decision. I just figured, you know, they said you can

00:28:55 ◼   ► pay a hundred or you can pay the full amount and I was like, well, I'm going to get it,

00:28:59 ◼   ► so I'll just pay for it and now it's mine and I've just got to wait until they call

00:29:02 ◼   ► me until they have one. Can you remind us and everybody else why you're doing this?

00:29:08 ◼   ► I am fascinated by this technology. I think that this form factor is the future of smartphones.

00:29:16 ◼   ► I am convinced of it. There is a lot of work between now and that happening, but it feels

00:29:23 ◼   ► like where everybody's moving, right? Like it feels like a place to move towards. And

00:29:29 ◼   ► I want to understand what it means to use a device like this.

00:29:33 ◼   ► I'm very excited about it.

00:29:35 ◼   ► - Okay. - You know.

00:29:37 ◼   ► The last six months of this show has featured

00:29:39 ◼   ► almost weekly updates about my excitement of this device.

00:29:43 ◼   ► I'm very excited about it.

00:29:45 ◼   ► And I know it's one of those things

00:29:46 ◼   ► that every time I go somewhere, go to a conference,

00:29:49 ◼   ► people will say to me, "Did you bring the Galaxy Fold?"

00:29:50 ◼   ► 'Cause I know everyone wants to see it.

00:29:52 ◼   ► - No, I get it, yeah.

00:29:53 ◼   ► - And so like, I'm taking this bullet for everybody, right?

00:29:57 ◼   ► Like--

00:29:58 ◼   ► Well, we didn't ask you to, but...

00:30:00 ◼   ► Yeah, well, that's the service I provide.

00:30:03 ◼   ► Sure.

00:30:04 ◼   ► I can't explain it, but like, this excites me at quite a strong level from a technological standpoint.

00:30:11 ◼   ► Like, I think that this is a fascinating piece of hardware, and I really want to spend some time

00:30:18 ◼   ► understanding what it is to use something like this, because it feels like something very different,

00:30:25 ◼   ► even though it's similar to many things we already own.

00:30:29 ◼   ► But like what does it mean to have this device that you can...

00:30:33 ◼   ► Like the guy who was talking to me like today, he kind of was like, "Oh, you know, the screen

00:30:37 ◼   ► on the front is for triaging basically.

00:30:40 ◼   ► Imagine it like a smartwatch and then the screen inside, that's the one that you're

00:30:44 ◼   ► using to do anything of substance."

00:30:46 ◼   ► And I was like, "I get that.

00:30:49 ◼   ► That makes sense."

00:30:50 ◼   ► So, I don't know.

00:30:51 ◼   ► I will report back when I actually do get it and then it will be an even bigger review

00:30:56 ◼   ► than my tvOS review I'm sure.

00:30:59 ◼   ► Perfect.

00:31:00 ◼   ► Can you mention today any particular apps that you tested?

00:31:06 ◼   ► Anything that stood out to you?

00:31:08 ◼   ► Well it's just the Samsung apps and Chrome.

00:31:10 ◼   ► That was kind of like, you know, I played around with the camera app and the calendar

00:31:13 ◼   ► app.

00:31:14 ◼   ► Like it's pretty, I didn't bother downloading anything.

00:31:16 ◼   ► I don't really think that that was something I was allowed to do.

00:31:20 ◼   ► But like, I tried out a bunch of apps that were installed on the device and it's, you

00:31:24 ◼   ► know, they were fine.

00:31:26 ◼   ► Okay.

00:31:27 ◼   ► So do you know when it should become available for you to get?

00:31:33 ◼   ► Soon?

00:31:34 ◼   ► Soon.

00:31:35 ◼   ► Just soon.

00:31:36 ◼   ► Okay.

00:31:37 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:31:38 ◼   ► Okay.

00:31:39 ◼   ► Probably next week.

00:31:40 ◼   ► They said it's probably next week.

00:31:42 ◼   ► But we'll see.

00:31:43 ◼   ► So big week for you next week between tvOS and Galaxy Fold?

00:31:47 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah.

00:31:49 ◼   ► Big week this week too.

00:31:50 ◼   ► done yet. I want to complain about reminders. IOS 13 brought new reminders.

00:31:55 ◼   ► Everyone was very excited about it because they did such a good job with

00:31:58 ◼   ► Notes a few years ago. So I have been running IOS 13 for a while. My wife was

00:32:04 ◼   ► not, and we use reminders for a couple of shared lists. And so I held off on

00:32:08 ◼   ► upgrading to the new reminders format until just a couple of weeks ago. I

00:32:12 ◼   ► figured, hey, I can access the old list on my iMac. That'll be fine. I just

00:32:18 ◼   ► won't have them on my phone. My wife, we know we installed iOS 13 for her and then 13.1.

00:32:25 ◼   ► And I figured I should reset up those shared lists. And it I did today both phones running

00:32:33 ◼   ► 13.1. And it was the most broken experience I think I've had an Apple software in years

00:32:40 ◼   ► like no. I know sometimes we exaggerate on the show. I'm not exaggerating. It's really,

00:32:47 ◼   ► really bad.

00:32:48 ◼   ► - Never, ever exaggerate.

00:32:49 ◼   ► - No, no, it's no one ever exaggerates.

00:32:53 ◼   ► So I wanna walk you through the steps that I went through.

00:32:58 ◼   ► I had my iPhone 11 Pro, my wife's iPhone 8,

00:33:03 ◼   ► both running 13.1.

00:33:05 ◼   ► I made a new list called groceries,

00:33:07 ◼   ► and you hit add a person,

00:33:10 ◼   ► and it's supposed to come up with the screen pops up,

00:33:12 ◼   ► and it says, do you wanna share this link

00:33:14 ◼   ► via iMessage or email, whatever?

00:33:16 ◼   ► it would just spin for like minutes.

00:33:20 ◼   ► Force quit the app, go back in the app,

00:33:22 ◼   ► the screen is still there spinning.

00:33:25 ◼   ► So restarted the phone and eventually could send

00:33:29 ◼   ► a text message, an iMessage, from my phone

00:33:32 ◼   ► to my wife's phone saying,

00:33:33 ◼   ► "Hey, join this shared reminder list."

00:33:35 ◼   ► Pick up her phone, tap the link in iMessage,

00:33:37 ◼   ► it gives you some pop-up of,

00:33:38 ◼   ► "Hey, this is gonna be added to your reminders."

00:33:41 ◼   ► And then I would hit OK or Accept or whatever it says.

00:33:46 ◼   ► And the list just wasn't in Reminders.

00:33:50 ◼   ► Your other lists were there, but the shared list

00:33:52 ◼   ► that I just accepted on her phone, not there.

00:33:55 ◼   ► Rebooted the phone, not there.

00:33:59 ◼   ► I went into the iCloud settings and toggled Reminders off,

00:34:03 ◼   ► told the phone to delete the local reminders,

00:34:06 ◼   ► toggled it back on, and then the app was just empty.

00:34:09 ◼   ► when I say empty I mean no list whatsoever just the empty UI rebooted

00:34:16 ◼   ► her iPhone 8 yet again and then then it showed up so I said great that was

00:34:22 ◼   ► really weird to get accepted but now we are sharing this list so I said I should

00:34:27 ◼   ► test this I added a test item on her phone synced didn't show up on my phone

00:34:33 ◼   ► for minutes and minutes this this test item never showed up force quit

00:34:38 ◼   ► reminders on both phones relaunched them shared lists are still there but no

00:34:43 ◼   ► shared items restarted my phone didn't fix it toggled iCloud off and then back

00:34:51 ◼   ► on or you know the reminders and iCloud off them back onto my phone because it

00:34:54 ◼   ► cleared whatever is going on to her phone I figured maybe to clear whatever

00:34:57 ◼   ► goes on on my phone now it's important to realize at this point that I have

00:35:01 ◼   ► several non shared reminders lists in reminders with items on them and when I

00:35:07 ◼   ► toggle iCloud back on, they are gone. The only thing that comes back and that is

00:35:12 ◼   ► currently on my phone is the one shared list. Now to reminders credit, it does sync

00:35:19 ◼   ► items between that list but it blew away my others. They're just gone. They're not

00:35:23 ◼   ► in iCloud, they're not on my other devices. The three or four lists I had just

00:35:29 ◼   ► vanished when I turned iCloud off and then back onto my phone. I at this point,

00:35:35 ◼   ► like my trust and reminders is completely broken. I had this vision of

00:35:40 ◼   ► this fall trying to move to it because I think it would meet my needs and it's

00:35:44 ◼   ► all integrated and looks better than to do it. I thought this could be a

00:35:48 ◼   ► thing that I do, but at this point I'm nowhere close to wanting to try that

00:35:53 ◼   ► because I could maybe forgive that the sharing the list was like a

00:35:58 ◼   ► little buggy and you know I got it working, but removing other lists from my

00:36:05 ◼   ► devices from my iCloud account against my knowledge or desire is completely

00:36:10 ◼   ► unacceptable it is so broken and and that even doesn't get into like the UI

00:36:17 ◼   ► problem so like the new lists and new group UI very often just closes as

00:36:21 ◼   ► you're typing a list name or a group name so you're typing like relay admin

00:36:26 ◼   ► to make a new list and the keyboard everything just goes away and like the

00:36:28 ◼   ► list doesn't exist you have to go back and add it again even upgrading from the

00:36:33 ◼   ► old version reminders to the new version, you open your phone and there's an upgrade

00:36:37 ◼   ► button and a popover comes up and says, "Hey, this is what this means. You're going to lose

00:36:41 ◼   ► sharing of these things with the other devices." And you hit upgrade and it spins and goes

00:36:46 ◼   ► away but doesn't actually upgrade. And you have to do it. I think on my wife's phone

00:36:49 ◼   ► it took like five or six tries to finally get it to upgrade. And, you know, I have no

00:36:56 ◼   ► doubt people are working hard on reminders and they've had a terrible summer, but someone

00:37:01 ◼   ► above them should not have let this ship in its current state. I don't know if

00:37:05 ◼   ► it's iCloud or the reminders app. I think it's probably both, considering the

00:37:09 ◼   ► problems I've seen are both in the app and in the sharing and syncing side of

00:37:12 ◼   ► things. But it's a dumpster fire and it's not an app that I'm gonna revisit

00:37:16 ◼   ► anytime soon because of it. It's really bad. Really made me angry this morning.

00:37:20 ◼   ► This sounds horrible. Wow. I also think that the personal reminders and shared

00:37:30 ◼   ► reminders are like two separate sync systems in the app. So it may be, if you

00:37:37 ◼   ► want to check it out again sometime in the future, it may be worth seeing if it

00:37:41 ◼   ► actually happens for non-shared lists as well. Otherwise, speaking from personal

00:37:48 ◼   ► experience, this is exactly... and I know that you're not supposed to do it, you

00:37:52 ◼   ► shouldn't have to do this, what I'm about to say, but it is exactly the kind of

00:37:56 ◼   ► problem that, you know, if you submit a radar, Apple will have you install a login profile

00:38:03 ◼   ► to gather data on whatever is going on. Because it's what I had to do, for example, for my,

00:38:10 ◼   ► remember my notes problems from July? That's what I did. Notes and reminders. You can actually

00:38:16 ◼   ► download these login profiles yourself. There's a developer page with links and instructions

00:38:22 ◼   ► for all of them. And yeah, this is messed up. It's exactly the kind of issue that should

00:38:28 ◼   ► be looked in because it's, it is. It sounds horrible.

00:38:32 ◼   ► And I would have done that this morning, except neither of our phones are on the beta. She

00:38:35 ◼   ► never was. I took mine off the beta yesterday when 13.1 came out. Like, I'm on just the

00:38:41 ◼   ► standard release. So I guess I gotta go find a feedback app somewhere and do that. But

00:38:47 ◼   ► it is a, I mean, I will go through that process because I know how it works. But like, Twitter

00:38:51 ◼   ► Even the chat room now people are saying they're seeing the same thing like my bigger complaint is yes

00:38:56 ◼   ► This new app is really really bad

00:38:58 ◼   ► But like how did this get out the door like I mean in a world where they're already delaying other features

00:39:04 ◼   ► This should have been delayed too if it's really this bad for

00:39:07 ◼   ► You know more than just me and it may just be like a weird thing in my iCloud account

00:39:11 ◼   ► Even though I don't believe that based on feedback. I've gotten today

00:39:14 ◼   ► but

00:39:16 ◼   ► It's it's pretty

00:39:19 ◼   ► Pretty sad. Yeah. So is it you think something got broken in the upgrading process? Is that what you think it is?

00:39:25 ◼   ► I don't know

00:39:26 ◼   ► I mean

00:39:27 ◼   ► I think that the app and iCloud don't talk well together because the sharing and syncing all goes through iCloud

00:39:34 ◼   ► Now that doesn't I think like the new list new group UI like closing while I'm typing

00:39:39 ◼   ► That's just a bug like that's just a UI bug and they can they can fix that

00:39:42 ◼   ► But there's something going on with where it interacts with iCloud. That seems

00:39:46 ◼   ► pretty pretty busted

00:39:49 ◼   ► Oh boy.

00:39:49 ◼   ► Amazon's having an event right now and I want to demand them to stop.

00:39:54 ◼   ► They have released a picture of a $199 Echo Studio, which is like a high-end speaker.

00:40:02 ◼   ► It's an Echo with a hole in it and I hate it.

00:40:05 ◼   ► I hate it.

00:40:07 ◼   ► Why? Is it because of the wall?

00:40:09 ◼   ► Just look at it.

00:40:10 ◼   ► It makes me very uncomfortable.

00:40:12 ◼   ► Why have they put a hole in it?

00:40:14 ◼   ► Do you see this image?

00:40:17 ◼   ► Yeah, I'm looking at it.

00:40:18 ◼   ► It's like you could slot a cookie into it.

00:40:20 ◼   ► - Oh, this makes you so uncomfortable.

00:40:22 ◼   ► - What is an Echo Studio?

00:40:25 ◼   ► What does that even mean?

00:40:25 ◼   ► - It's a high-end,

00:40:27 ◼   ► 'cause they have a HD streaming service now, right?

00:40:30 ◼   ► - And it supports Dolby Atmos.

00:40:30 ◼   ► - And this is a high-end product.

00:40:32 ◼   ► This is probably their competitor for the HomePod.

00:40:35 ◼   ► - Or Sonos stuff.

00:40:38 ◼   ► - I hate that it has a hole in it.

00:40:39 ◼   ► It makes me feel unwell.

00:40:40 ◼   ► - It looks like one of those things

00:40:43 ◼   ► you're supposed to slip your hand into

00:40:46 ◼   ► and have it like read your palm or something?

00:40:48 ◼   ► Yes.

00:40:49 ◼   ► Yeah, the hole is like wide, like a big mouth right at the bottom.

00:40:53 ◼   ► I want to put big googly eyes on it.

00:40:55 ◼   ► Yes, exactly.

00:40:56 ◼   ► I was about to say somebody should photoshop eyes on it.

00:40:59 ◼   ► That would make me feel more comfortable if there was a mouth, if there were eyes.

00:41:03 ◼   ► It's just the random hole on it.

00:41:05 ◼   ► There's other stuff, like this event is happening as we are recording,

00:41:08 ◼   ► but they have released also an echo dot with a LED clock on it, which is genius.

00:41:13 ◼   ► That is nice. That is very nice.

00:41:15 ◼   ► They're doing other stuff too, but that's all I have to report so far.

00:41:18 ◼   ► It feels like all these Amazon events are becoming...

00:41:22 ◼   ► Like, there's an object that is also an echo.

00:41:27 ◼   ► So like...

00:41:28 ◼   ► We can maybe check in back on this event towards the end

00:41:34 ◼   ► and see what other nonsense Amazon's decided to do.

00:41:37 ◼   ► Like, these events, they always have good things

00:41:39 ◼   ► and then they have just like the most random stuff.

00:41:43 ◼   ► I'm gonna reveal to you the lineup for the Amazon Echo line in 2020. There's a pen that

00:41:49 ◼   ► is also an Echo. There's a... let me think about it. There's a mouse pad.

00:41:54 ◼   ► A plastic dinosaur.

00:41:56 ◼   ► There's a plastic dinosaur that is also an Echo. There's a crib for babies that is also

00:42:02 ◼   ► an Echo. There's shoes that are also an Echo. So when you go running...

00:42:09 ◼   ► I wonder if any of those will actually be an echo by the end of this episode.

00:42:13 ◼   ► Honestly, the crib I could see happen, you know,

00:42:16 ◼   ► to put an echo around your newborn baby. Uh, that sounds like an Amazon idea.

00:42:21 ◼   ► It sounds Amazon enough to be possible.

00:42:24 ◼   ► I have a, I'm saving a image right now. I put eyes on it.

00:42:27 ◼   ► I'll put this in the chat room.

00:42:29 ◼   ► And also chapter artwork.

00:42:31 ◼   ► Let me tell you about our second sponsor.

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00:42:53 ◼   ► and up to date by sharing snippets with your co workers. We use this at work with relay

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00:43:16 ◼   ► they that they need and it's all centrally managed. Really easy to do. I've

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00:43:59 ◼   ► Our thanks to text expander from smile for their support of this show and relay FM topic time time for a topic topic time

00:44:07 ◼   ► new iPhones

00:44:09 ◼   ► New phones time the pretty good

00:44:12 ◼   ► Better than last year a lot better than a few years ago. Pretty nice

00:44:16 ◼   ► Federico what let's start with you. What do you have any phones hanging hanging around? Well, there has been a development

00:44:24 ◼   ► from last week, I now have-

00:44:27 ◼   ► Mister, I don't make purchases anymore.

00:44:30 ◼   ► That's why we call you now.

00:44:32 ◼   ► Well, I-

00:44:33 ◼   ► Mister, I'm so chill.

00:44:35 ◼   ► I don't need to make purchases.

00:44:36 ◼   ► There has been-

00:44:38 ◼   ► There ha-

00:44:39 ◼   ► I try to be chill.

00:44:41 ◼   ► It's very difficult these days.

00:44:44 ◼   ► There has been a development

00:44:46 ◼   ► in that I now have two review units

00:44:50 ◼   ► for an iPhone 11

00:44:52 ◼   ► and an iPhone 11 Pro Max.

00:44:54 ◼   ► or Pro Max.

00:44:55 ◼   ► So I have an iPhone 11 in black

00:45:00 ◼   ► and a Pro Max in gold,

00:45:02 ◼   ► which looks very nice.

00:45:05 ◼   ► I am setting up the Pro Max right now.

00:45:10 ◼   ► It's, I think it's almost finished

00:45:11 ◼   ► and the 11 is still in the box.

00:45:13 ◼   ► So I got this yesterday.

00:45:18 ◼   ► I didn't really have the time to play around with them much.

00:45:21 ◼   ► Basically all that I did,

00:45:23 ◼   ► it was take a single ultra-wide photo on the Pro Max.

00:45:28 ◼   ► And that's all that I've done because I left iCloud sync

00:45:31 ◼   ► to pull back the apps and games from the backup.

00:45:35 ◼   ► Yeah, so I have a clear case for the Pro Max,

00:45:40 ◼   ► no case for the 11.

00:45:44 ◼   ► And so yeah, I basically used it for five minutes today,

00:45:49 ◼   ► And I plan to play around with both of them,

00:45:53 ◼   ► actually, tonight for several hours

00:45:55 ◼   ► to set it up and take a bunch of night mode photos.

00:45:58 ◼   ► So I have this idea for a story that I will not

00:46:02 ◼   ► share publicly yet.

00:46:05 ◼   ► Don't worry, it is not something that will require

00:46:07 ◼   ► me to write 10,000 words.

00:46:09 ◼   ► 9 million words.

00:46:11 ◼   ► No, no, no, and no.

00:46:15 ◼   ► I know how you do it.

00:46:16 ◼   ► You just write constantly forever now about your...

00:46:20 ◼   ► Like you just always, is that okay?

00:46:22 ◼   ► - That is not, no, no, it's not what I wanna do.

00:46:26 ◼   ► I have this idea that's kind of different

00:46:28 ◼   ► from anything I've done before.

00:46:30 ◼   ► That should be relatively easy for me,

00:46:33 ◼   ► but requires time and you will see why.

00:46:36 ◼   ► Actually, I probably gonna start on this idea

00:46:39 ◼   ► later this week.

00:46:40 ◼   ► So I wanna test both of them and I will compare

00:46:44 ◼   ► to the XS Max, so that should be fun. But yeah, right now I cannot comment on the battery

00:46:53 ◼   ► life for example, or the display because I haven't watched the movie. I just set it up

00:46:59 ◼   ► today. But yeah, that was my development. I think Myke has actually used the phone more.

00:47:07 ◼   ► Steven happens to. Right.

00:47:08 ◼   ► So you got an 11 and an 11 Pro Max. No 11 Pro.

00:47:15 ◼   ► No 11 Pro. Only an 11 in black and the 11 Pro Max in gold.

00:47:21 ◼   ► Did you choose the colours?

00:47:23 ◼   ► I did not choose the colours.

00:47:24 ◼   ► Yeah, because I don't remember you saying you wanted gold.

00:47:27 ◼   ► I did not choose the colours. So when the time is up to give this back, I think I'll

00:47:35 ◼   ► probably go with the Pro Max. I think in Midnight Green because I saw it in person and it got

00:47:43 ◼   ► me. Yes, they will do that to you. Yeah, so I think when it's time to give this back and

00:47:50 ◼   ► I will go in with my purchase and it'll be a Midnight Green because I saw it during the

00:47:57 ◼   ► demo yesterday and it looked real pretty actually, you know, depending on, you know, the kind

00:48:03 ◼   ► of light that hits the phone. It looks... and I was not expecting this, I thought it

00:48:08 ◼   ► looked boring in all the photos that I had seen, but in person it looks really nice.

00:48:13 ◼   ► Yep. I disliked it when I saw... you know, I was like "No, I really don't like that."

00:48:18 ◼   ► But Stephen surprised me with it during the podcast of the phone, because I was wearing

00:48:22 ◼   ► a green jacket. And now I love it, and it's the one I'm going to keep. This is my phone.

00:48:27 ◼   ► So you have a Midnight Green Pro Max. Pro Max, yep.

00:48:31 ◼   ► So how did it go during your travel time?

00:48:35 ◼   ► As I said earlier, battery life was perfectly fine.

00:48:38 ◼   ► And you know, it really did the job.

00:48:41 ◼   ► This phone is all about the cameras, right?

00:48:44 ◼   ► Like that's what it's about.

00:48:46 ◼   ► And these cameras are amazing.

00:48:49 ◼   ► And I'm having a ton of fun playing with them.

00:48:53 ◼   ► Like, when I say playing with them,

00:48:56 ◼   ► like it's in a different way than I would usually take photos.

00:48:58 ◼   ► take photos. I'm taking more photos. I'm taking photos in every single lens.

00:49:04 ◼   ► So if I take a picture, I'm taking it in all three of them and comparing it

00:49:07 ◼   ► so I can kind of understand when should I be using the wide angle, like the ultra

00:49:12 ◼   ► wide. I'm not 100% sure at what times I would use it. The night mode is

00:49:19 ◼   ► bananas and I really want to do more with that but I've done some, you know,

00:49:24 ◼   ► I've been taking some pictures, like I put it on a tripod yesterday and just

00:49:28 ◼   ► a picture in my office with the lights off and just like a light in the hallway and I mean I

00:49:34 ◼   ► shared the images with you guys I can't I actually can't share the images because of how good they are

00:49:40 ◼   ► because you can read things which is bananas right so like these images the office is

00:49:48 ◼   ► there is no light in it right like I turned off night mode what do they have a frustration with

00:49:52 ◼   ► with people sharing images.

00:49:54 ◼   ► Don't show me pictures of a dark room with the 10s.

00:49:58 ◼   ► Just turn off night mode and show me it with the 11

00:50:02 ◼   ► compared to night mode on the 11.

00:50:04 ◼   ► You still follow what I'm saying?

00:50:06 ◼   ► Like every review is like,

00:50:08 ◼   ► here's what it looks like with a tennis with no light.

00:50:10 ◼   ► And here's what it looks like with night mode on the 11.

00:50:12 ◼   ► So no show turn turn off night mode on the 11 and show me that

00:50:17 ◼   ► and then turn it on and let me see.

00:50:19 ◼   ► But anyway, so like the difference, like

00:50:22 ◼   ► You can barely see anything in the original shot.

00:50:25 ◼   ► And then in the night mode shot, I put it on a tripod, left the night mode going for 30 seconds.

00:50:29 ◼   ► It's like there's a light coming from the iPhone and that you can read text on boxes

00:50:35 ◼   ► that were otherwise unable to be seen in the other picture.

00:50:39 ◼   ► I do not know how they are doing this.

00:50:42 ◼   ► It is really very, very impressive.

00:50:44 ◼   ► And I want to see if I can.

00:50:46 ◼   ► I've been seeing people taking all these pictures outside

00:50:48 ◼   ► where they like can see stars and stuff.

00:50:51 ◼   ► And I want to see if I can do that.

00:50:53 ◼   ► I have a tripod. I want to get that go.

00:50:56 ◼   ► I'm really enjoying playing around with these.

00:50:58 ◼   ► And also, you know, since we had Tyler on this show,

00:51:04 ◼   ► I have been taking photography more seriously in my life,

00:51:07 ◼   ► and I really try and do something with it.

00:51:09 ◼   ► And this phone has already produced one of my favourite pictures

00:51:15 ◼   ► that I have ever taken, and I posted it to my Instagram.

00:51:18 ◼   ► my Instagram and it's a picture that I took of Adina when we were in the airport and I

00:51:23 ◼   ► put it in the show notes.

00:51:25 ◼   ► It is the quality of this image is a portrait mode photo.

00:51:29 ◼   ► It could trick you in thinking that it came from a real camera.

00:51:32 ◼   ► It is a very good picture.

00:51:35 ◼   ► It's taken on the pro in portrait mode and ended some editing in VSCO and I am very excited

00:51:43 ◼   ► about the quality of these cameras.

00:51:46 ◼   ► So yeah. That picture looks real good. It's nice, right? Yeah. Yeah. Even Tyler approved

00:51:53 ◼   ► it in the comments. Tyler says, Tyler says that that's the best comment I could have

00:51:56 ◼   ► wished for. Like I always want Tyler to comment on my Instagram photos and tell me that he

00:52:00 ◼   ► thinks that he likes them. Uh, and he did this time. He got the approval of the pro.

00:52:06 ◼   ► Yeah. And so I was pretty happy with that one. But yeah, these, the cameras on these

00:52:09 ◼   ► phones like it it's very exciting and it's a lot of fun to play with and I'm

00:52:15 ◼   ► having a great time and again I've said it in a bunch of places already about to

00:52:20 ◼   ► say here the upgrades to the selfie camera I'm very pleased about that it

00:52:24 ◼   ► was needed and I'm happy to see a better quality there. So I just wanted to to to

00:52:29 ◼   ► have a quick update before Steven shares his thoughts on the phone that we now

00:52:34 ◼   ► have an Echo that is also a power outlet and an Echo that is also an oven.

00:52:40 ◼   ► Are you being serious? I am 100% serious.

00:52:45 ◼   ► Okay. So, you cannot continue. There's more coming out as we speak and I will keep you

00:52:55 ◼   ► updated. Reporting live from the Verge Live blog.

00:53:03 ◼   ► I just loaded it and it says Amazon sidewalk. I don't know what that meant, but I was like wait

00:53:08 ◼   ► They put echo in the street now

00:53:10 ◼   ► Also a city

00:53:13 ◼   ► You can open team you

00:53:18 ◼   ► Yeah, I went with the the space gray

00:53:22 ◼   ► 11 Pro not the max the smaller of the two and

00:53:27 ◼   ► I've been I've been really happy with it. The ultra wide camera is a lot of fun and

00:53:32 ◼   ► And but like y'all I've been really impressed with the the night mode shots I shared with y'all

00:53:38 ◼   ► I'm not gonna share it with the show notes, but I shared a

00:53:41 ◼   ► Picture with y'all last night. I took in my driveway and there was one outside light on but it was like daytime

00:53:49 ◼   ► I mean it really sharp really nice one thing I've noticed and now that I've seen it. I can't unsee it. It's hard to

00:53:56 ◼   ► To realize it's happening because it's bright

00:53:59 ◼   ► But if you turn the flashlight on the on the pro at least because the glass is shiny

00:54:05 ◼   ► Like there's light leakage around like in the camera Mesa

00:54:11 ◼   ► So it's like the flashlight is really bright

00:54:13 ◼   ► But then part of the camera Mesa also lights up because like the light travels through the glass or across the surface of the glass

00:54:19 ◼   ► Oh, yeah, I can see

00:54:21 ◼   ► So I have to clear case on oh, so I just looked at I just looked at the flashlight and I think I'm blind now

00:54:27 ◼   ► Yeah it's on the front of the phone too! What's going on? This is wild!

00:54:31 ◼   ► I look directly at the flashlight. Yeah me too and I shouldn't have done that.

00:54:35 ◼   ► With the clear case, I don't know if it's like because I haven't taken the case off,

00:54:40 ◼   ► but it like illuminates everything. It illuminates all of the case. It's like a very it's a lot going

00:54:45 ◼   ► on now. Oh god yeah you can see it if you cover the flashlight there's like light coming around

00:54:50 ◼   ► the edge of the camera. Sort of a strange effect. But I like it. The matte back is really nice,

00:54:56 ◼   ► but it's even somehow more slippery than before. This phone is very, very slippery. There was a

00:55:03 ◼   ► rumor, I think today, that the 2020 iPhones will be designed with flat edges, and I look forward

00:55:09 ◼   ► to that because it means you could hold on to them without them shooting out of your hand.

00:55:12 ◼   ► But all in all, I've been really happy with it. And yeah, it's great. I've been basically just

00:55:21 ◼   ► heads down in the office, so I haven't got much time with it out in the world, but at least around

00:55:26 ◼   ► the house, big thumbs up. Yeah I was happy to travel with it immediately, you know,

00:55:29 ◼   ► like I've got a lot of usage out of it. Oh yeah, that's like the the stress test for a phone,

00:55:34 ◼   ► right? It's days that you're flying or, you know, have a long car ride or something. It's always

00:55:38 ◼   ► when you you realize the flaws in things. Also the screen in bright sunlight is very good. I've still

00:55:46 ◼   ► got to try that. Yeah, like, I noticed it almost immediately on a sunny day in Chicago, which is

00:55:52 ◼   ► which is where I ended up being for a couple of days.

00:55:54 ◼   ► And it was very nice.

00:55:57 ◼   ► I was like, "Oh, okay, this is different."

00:56:00 ◼   ► So what they're saying about all the nits going up when it's in direct sunlight,

00:56:04 ◼   ► I can attest to that because it looks really good.

00:56:06 ◼   ► So Federico, I'm intrigued to see what you think of that

00:56:10 ◼   ► because you have more sunlight than I do.

00:56:12 ◼   ► Yeah, I should try that, especially when I'm at the dog park

00:56:15 ◼   ► where it's basically impossible to use a phone if it's sunny.

00:56:20 ◼   ► Yeah, I will try that. Okay. Apple watches. Mm-hmm. There are also new Apple watches

00:56:26 ◼   ► in households. Okay. So I should say I also got a review unit for that. It's a

00:56:34 ◼   ► Series 5 stainless steel in gold, called gold color, 44 millimeters, etc. I haven't

00:56:45 ◼   ► set it up yet. So I don't know what it's like. I haven't even turned it on.

00:56:52 ◼   ► Were you gonna get one? Remind me, were you gonna get an Apple Watch anyway?

00:56:55 ◼   ► Yeah, I wanna get the ceramic one.

00:56:57 ◼   ► Right.

00:56:58 ◼   ► Mm-hmm.

00:56:59 ◼   ► Okay.

00:57:00 ◼   ► Um, but the review unit is a stainless steel in gold.

00:57:05 ◼   ► Okay.

00:57:06 ◼   ► And, uh...

00:57:07 ◼   ► Shiny.

00:57:08 ◼   ► it's very it's not as it's not as tacky as I feared when I saw on the box gold

00:57:13 ◼   ► because they don't tell you beforehand like and I didn't ask like which color is it so I

00:57:21 ◼   ► looked on the box and I saw gold I was like oh this is gonna look like you know I'm gonna look

00:57:26 ◼   ► like I'm a you know I have all this bling on my wrist but it's not it's not too terrible actually

00:57:32 ◼   ► it's very... and I think this has been going on for the past couple of years

00:57:37 ◼   ► that it's sort of like bronze, it's not yellow gold, it's not terrible

00:57:43 ◼   ► it's actually quite nice, it's not rose gold but it's a good type of gold

00:57:48 ◼   ► I like the gold stainless steel, the gold aluminium is good too, I think the gold

00:57:53 ◼   ► color on the watches is a very nice color, I think they did a good job of that

00:57:56 ◼   ► it looks really nice but the display is still off, all that I did today was

00:58:01 ◼   ► I unpaired my two Apple watches from the iPhone and I don't know what's gonna

00:58:08 ◼   ► happen to my cellular plan on the main watch. I also...

00:58:13 ◼   ► Oh, I'm having a big thing about that right now.

00:58:15 ◼   ► Oh no, so it's gonna happen to me as well for sure.

00:58:18 ◼   ► I removed it from the Series 4 watch that I had just because I figured that,

00:58:26 ◼   ► you know, doing this kind of transition it's probably best if it's not still

00:58:30 ◼   ► associated with another watch so I removed it from the other watch but I

00:58:35 ◼   ► haven't set it up I haven't set up the new one yet so I'll let you I'll let you

00:58:39 ◼   ► know how it goes I you know the the iPhone told me you're probably going to

00:58:44 ◼   ► have to check with your carrier so I'm pretty sure that's gonna happen I will

00:58:48 ◼   ► have to call Vodafone and ask for some kind of fix. I bought my wife a Series

00:58:55 ◼   ► five. She was on the series three of the little one so it was that 38 millimeter

00:59:02 ◼   ► back in the day and she's now up I guess to the 40. She likes the always-on

00:59:09 ◼   ► display but she actually just last night complained about the battery life. Now

00:59:15 ◼   ► she is a sleep tracker so she sleeps with her watch on and so I recommended

00:59:20 ◼   ► well you know remember to put it in theater mode at night. A) so you don't

00:59:23 ◼   ► blind to me in the middle of the night, but also so the screen stays off.

00:59:28 ◼   ► But in poking around this, there's this big thread on the MPU forums and most people on

00:59:33 ◼   ► Twitter talking about how the Series 5 battery life is just not what the Series 4 was.

00:59:40 ◼   ► And I figured from the Series 3 to the 5, it would be an improvement, or at least come

00:59:43 ◼   ► out in the wash, but she does not seem to think so.

00:59:47 ◼   ► So I don't know if it's the always-on display, or maybe Apple has some software things going

00:59:50 ◼   ► on.

00:59:51 ◼   ► Casey was he was coming from a series 3 and I see on Twitter that he has been like also feeling like the battery life is

00:59:58 ◼   ► Well, he Casey also went from the big watch to the little did his is even even more complex

01:00:04 ◼   ► I've been wearing my series 4 and I feel like in watch it was from watch was 5 to 6

01:00:10 ◼   ► I don't think I've really noticed any major battery life. So I'm a little

01:00:13 ◼   ► Worried that this isn't as good as we were used to on the 4 Apple says it should be 18 hours

01:00:19 ◼   ► Which is what they said before but I think everyone knows you could push it further than that on the previous model

01:00:24 ◼   ► So, I don't know. Is this something to keep an eye on?

01:00:26 ◼   ► And I'm curious if it's Federico as you wear this if you'll check in with us once you have a handle on this

01:00:34 ◼   ► If it's an issue, yeah

01:00:36 ◼   ► I

01:00:37 ◼   ► Did not buy a watch because I've got the series 4 I don't wear my Apple watch every day

01:00:42 ◼   ► I didn't feel like I could justify

01:00:44 ◼   ► Especially after I saw the titanium which is really the one that I want

01:00:48 ◼   ► I used to wear stainless steel Apple watch my series 4 is aluminum

01:00:51 ◼   ► the titanium is right in the middle looks and weight wise between the stainless and the aluminum like I

01:00:57 ◼   ► Absolutely loved it when I picked it up in the store

01:01:00 ◼   ► But it's a lot of money for something

01:01:02 ◼   ► I don't wear every day and now it slipped to the end of November for delivery

01:01:07 ◼   ► It's actually the furthest delivery that the stainless steel is not that far out

01:01:10 ◼   ► Oh the aluminum is saying this actually I could walk into my store today and get it get but the titanium is like

01:01:15 ◼   ► nowhere to be found until the end of November, which is a ways away. So that's probably good

01:01:20 ◼   ► for me because that's the one I would want. And now I have time to like, cool my jets about it.

01:01:24 ◼   ► But, uh, so no, no series five here and not one in the foreseeable future.

01:01:29 ◼   ► There's something we should talk about here that I'm looking at.

01:01:31 ◼   ► We should just move on. No, we should have.

01:01:33 ◼   ► Is Amazon doing something again? Uh, yes, I can confirm to you that, um,

01:01:40 ◼   ► There is now, hold on, hold on because I saw the photo,

01:01:43 ◼   ► there is now an echo that is also a dog color.

01:01:48 ◼   ► It is called, there's the Amazon Fetch,

01:01:53 ◼   ► which is a really good name.

01:01:54 ◼   ► - I don't know if, I've been also following along,

01:01:56 ◼   ► I don't know if that's an echo.

01:01:58 ◼   ► I think it's an Amazon product

01:02:00 ◼   ► that is something to do with the sidewalk.

01:02:03 ◼   ► - Okay, okay, so it's not, it's still an Amazon product,

01:02:06 ◼   ► so still a bunch of, also very good dog in the photo.

01:02:10 ◼   ► So it's still a bunch of things going on today, but maybe this is...

01:02:12 ◼   ► It's got a blue light though, so the blue light is typical of the Echo line.

01:02:16 ◼   ► Probably means it's got something, yeah.

01:02:18 ◼   ► It's got something, probably not, you know...

01:02:20 ◼   ► I guess, you know, dogs put it on the screen.

01:02:24 ◼   ► I guess whatever you do, don't call your dog Alexa.

01:02:27 ◼   ► Well, you just said it. I was trying to avoid the word.

01:02:30 ◼   ► Hold on.

01:02:32 ◼   ► Mark Gurman on Twitter, Amazon just announced Echo Frames,

01:02:36 ◼   ► glasses with built-in Alexa.

01:02:38 ◼   ► They are unstoppable. They will not stop, will they?

01:02:41 ◼   ► And they just put it in everything.

01:02:43 ◼   ► - There is now Echo Buds,

01:02:47 ◼   ► earbuds with Alexa built in, $130.

01:02:52 ◼   ► And Mark Gurman is saying Echo Frames,

01:02:56 ◼   ► glasses with built-in Alexa.

01:02:58 ◼   ► Been in the labs for years,

01:03:00 ◼   ► never wanted to launch to consumers,

01:03:02 ◼   ► but finally decided to.

01:03:04 ◼   ► Yep.

01:03:06 ◼   ► They're putting it everywhere.

01:03:09 ◼   ► Oh, well.

01:03:10 ◼   ► Wait, what is that kind of statement?

01:03:12 ◼   ► This appears to be something they've

01:03:13 ◼   ► had in their labs for years.

01:03:14 ◼   ► Never wanted to launch to consumers,

01:03:16 ◼   ► but they were just like, oh, whatever.

01:03:18 ◼   ► Yeah, you know what?

01:03:20 ◼   ► We'll do it live.

01:03:21 ◼   ► We were the space in the keynote.

01:03:22 ◼   ► [LAUGHTER]

01:03:25 ◼   ► Whatever.

01:03:27 ◼   ► Get the thing from the labs and let's do it.

01:03:29 ◼   ► Myke, before we move on to the next topic, some--

01:03:32 ◼   ► No, let's take a break.

01:03:34 ◼   ► How about that?

01:03:35 ◼   ► Let's just take a break right now.

01:03:36 ◼   ► Do you want to talk about Fresh Quick, Steven? Let's just take a break.

01:03:38 ◼   ► I feel like we should talk about your situation.

01:03:41 ◼   ► Alright, fine. We're gonna be six hours. Six hours on this episode. Let's not take a break now.

01:03:46 ◼   ► I bought an Apple Watch. You happy?

01:03:48 ◼   ► Why? Come on.

01:03:50 ◼   ► Just let me... let me... let me... let me feel the taste of this statement.

01:03:56 ◼   ► You bought an Apple Watch.

01:03:58 ◼   ► I buy watches.

01:03:59 ◼   ► That feels good.

01:04:00 ◼   ► No, no. You used to buy Apple Watches.

01:04:04 ◼   ► Now you buy physical.

01:04:06 ◼   ► I set up my watch. This is a physical watch too. It's not digital. It's like it exists. It's on my wrist. I can touch it.

01:04:13 ◼   ► You're trying to work around the English language to your advantage. You stopped buying smart watches.

01:04:23 ◼   ► I did stop buying smart watches. That's correct. But we spoke about my decision to stop buying smart watches a few weeks ago.

01:04:30 ◼   ► ago and one of the main reasons that I said I wasn't interested in wearing an

01:04:33 ◼   ► Apple watch was that I did not have an always-on display mm-hmm and what did

01:04:39 ◼   ► they do to the series 5 they added the always-on display they added an always-on

01:04:42 ◼   ► display okay my for all the people that are

01:04:46 ◼   ► jubilating including Federico don't get your hopes up yeah because I'm not

01:04:52 ◼   ► decided that I want to keep this and maybe I should I have I have five points

01:04:59 ◼   ► that I would like to get to today. Will you allow me to do that?

01:05:02 ◼   ► Sure. Yes. So the first thing I want to do is talk about the hardware because I bought

01:05:07 ◼   ► the ceramic watch because I saw it and I fell in love with it. I love it. It is, I think,

01:05:16 ◼   ► and I've always thought it's the most beautiful Apple watch. The original time that they did

01:05:20 ◼   ► the white ceramic, I loved it then and I love it now. I just think it looks very cool.

01:05:29 ◼   ► It is not a look that everybody will want in their lives.

01:05:34 ◼   ► It is a very bold statement, but I really love it.

01:05:37 ◼   ► I'm wearing it with a white sport band.

01:05:40 ◼   ► Now I owned a white sport band.

01:05:43 ◼   ► I got it with one of the sport loops because that was just what they had available in the

01:05:46 ◼   ► store because even though you can do this like mix and match or whatever you want, that

01:05:52 ◼   ► doesn't like they won't let you buy them like that sometimes like it would only let me buy

01:05:56 ◼   ► it to reserve it in certain configurations still, it was very confusing. Like I couldn't

01:06:03 ◼   ► say, "Give me a black sport band with the ceramic watch and I'll pick it up in an hour."

01:06:07 ◼   ► It's like, "No, you can only pick up these specific configurations," which doesn't make

01:06:10 ◼   ► sense to me. But that's what that was all about. But what I didn't know, and I hadn't

01:06:17 ◼   ► seen this reported anywhere, I may have just missed it, you get with the ceramic watch

01:06:23 ◼   ► white sport band that has the white ceramic pin instead of the aluminium pin you get that in the box it comes with it and

01:06:30 ◼   ► I've also heard that apparently this the

01:06:33 ◼   ► Titanium has a sport band of a titanium pin on it as well

01:06:39 ◼   ► They come in the box you get a bigger box long big box thick box

01:06:43 ◼   ► You get the band that you ordered so I got a sport loop and inside the box is a sport band

01:06:49 ◼   ► which has the white ceramic pin, which I was very happy about because

01:06:52 ◼   ► it matches. This is the first time I've owned a 44 and the watch face feels big

01:07:00 ◼   ► because of its 44 milliliters but it's big because I went from the Series 3

01:07:04 ◼   ► right so I mean even though the size is similar now the watch face itself is the

01:07:11 ◼   ► full width but I think it looks really cool. I have currently basically set all

01:07:19 ◼   ► of my watch faces that I'm trying out into monochrome because all white and

01:07:23 ◼   ► black baby that's what I'm going for I think that's the look for me but on the

01:07:28 ◼   ► watch faces this is point two I still feel like I cannot get what I want like

01:07:33 ◼   ► I find Apple watch Apple's watch faces they frustrate me in many ways so I

01:07:41 ◼   ► really like the look of the California face right but it has one complication

01:07:46 ◼   ► If I want to use corner complications, you can take it from full screen into a circle,

01:07:52 ◼   ► like a small circle in the middle is where it will push all of the numbers and indices,

01:07:56 ◼   ► but that looks really ugly in the California face.

01:07:59 ◼   ► Like squished in, it looks too busy and I don't like it.

01:08:02 ◼   ► I feel like they could have done something to make this a little bit more elegant, but

01:08:06 ◼   ► they didn't.

01:08:08 ◼   ► I feel like a lot of the Apple watch faces still feel a little bit like my first watch

01:08:14 ◼   ► face you know like like they're like childish versions of watch faces they're

01:08:20 ◼   ► like really big and chunky I just feel like they they just haven't hit it in

01:08:26 ◼   ► what I'm looking for they're there either it's too it's either too much

01:08:30 ◼   ► information or not enough information and nowhere in between that's kind of

01:08:36 ◼   ► how I feel with them or like they're like oh we've made this really beautiful

01:08:40 ◼   ► face but then we put these super weird aggressive indices the whole way around

01:08:44 ◼   ► and you can't remove them.

01:08:46 ◼   ► The indices?

01:08:48 ◼   ► What are the indices?

01:08:49 ◼   ► The little lines that count for seconds.

01:08:51 ◼   ► Right? That go all the way around.

01:08:53 ◼   ► So like, the Meridian watch face, right?

01:08:55 ◼   ► It's like, okay, this is a pretty nice hands,

01:08:57 ◼   ► I like the little lines,

01:08:59 ◼   ► and I can have four complications,

01:09:01 ◼   ► but then it has all of the seconds the whole way around.

01:09:03 ◼   ► It's like, oh, but now it's too many,

01:09:05 ◼   ► you've done too many now, it's too aggressive for me.

01:09:07 ◼   ► So like, I feel like they get it close with a bunch of them,

01:09:12 ◼   ► but none of them are spot on.

01:09:15 ◼   ► And I feel like this problem could be solved with, spoiler alert, third-party watch faces.

01:09:21 ◼   ► I was about to ask you about that. So you think it's, as a watch person,

01:09:25 ◼   ► you think Apple should open it up to third-party developers?

01:09:28 ◼   ► 100% I do, yes. Because as much as I would love to see then, like, the Omega watch face,

01:09:34 ◼   ► that's not going to happen. But people could just design their own ones, right?

01:09:39 ◼   ► like someone could make something that's a California face which has more support for

01:09:43 ◼   ► complications on it than the one complication. Like they could have just put some of the corner

01:09:48 ◼   ► complications around and got rid of some of these second indices. Like it's close but I feel like

01:09:57 ◼   ► that they are... Apple are trying too hard and not hard enough at the same time, right? They're

01:10:03 ◼   ► They're trying too hard in wanting to be the only people that are allowed to make watch

01:10:08 ◼   ► faces, but then they're not doing enough with what they have.

01:10:15 ◼   ► It's just frustrating to me because it's like, I have this computer thing on my wrist, but

01:10:21 ◼   ► to let it be a computer, I have to make it ugly.

01:10:25 ◼   ► Right?

01:10:26 ◼   ► the Infograph faces, you can do stuff with them, but they're like...

01:10:31 ◼   ► it makes me look too much like a scientist, right? I've got my little science readouts on my wrist,

01:10:39 ◼   ► right? Like, look at me everyone and here's my computer, like it's too much and I feel like that

01:10:45 ◼   ► they have watch faces that look nice but they're not customizable enough or they have computer ones

01:10:52 ◼   ► that are just like, it's just like I'm ready for this thing to start spitting out a roll of tape,

01:10:57 ◼   ► right, for all to get my readouts. Like it's, it's too much. So that's how I feel about watch faces.

01:11:03 ◼   ► And I have way stronger opinions on this now because analog watches, that's what they are,

01:11:13 ◼   ► right? You are buying the watch face. And so now I have refined my own personal tastes a little

01:11:19 ◼   ► bit more which I feel like I can't explain but I know when I see it right

01:11:23 ◼   ► like I see a watch now and I'm like I can tell you what I like and don't like

01:11:27 ◼   ► about that and and I've I pay way more attention to it like my Instagram is

01:11:31 ◼   ► just full of watches all the time right so I feel like I've gotten much more

01:11:37 ◼   ► I've gotten way more opinionated about this stuff because I pay more attention

01:11:42 ◼   ► to it than I used to before where it was like oh that looks nice but now it's

01:11:46 ◼   ► like well I like this and I don't like this about it and I like this and I

01:11:49 ◼   ► don't like this about it. Anyway, but then it all gets turned up on its head because of

01:11:52 ◼   ► the always on display anyway, right? Because now you might want to pick a

01:11:57 ◼   ► watch face depending on how they transition. So I liked the California

01:12:02 ◼   ► face which is the new one, right? I have it mixed with the Roman and Arabic

01:12:06 ◼   ► numerals because I think that looks pretty nice. And I originally had it on

01:12:10 ◼   ► the... there's like a there's a color called "Edition" which is like an off

01:12:15 ◼   ► white but in the always on so when the how do you describe it how do you

01:12:21 ◼   ► describe the on and always you know what I'm talking about like what do you call

01:12:25 ◼   ► them one is like when it's in use and then one is when it's not dimmed there

01:12:30 ◼   ► we go the dimmed version is like it's black background white numbers but then

01:12:36 ◼   ► when I look at it it's that inverts so now I have a white face and gray numbers

01:12:40 ◼   ► so it's like well now I don't want to use that because the transition is too

01:12:44 ◼   ► harsh, right? Like that's too much. So now I've been using the California face

01:12:50 ◼   ► with a black background, like so it's dark background, and white numbers so

01:12:55 ◼   ► then the transition it just looks like it illuminates a little bit rather than

01:13:00 ◼   ► like blowing your eyes out, right? Because that's a big thing now I think

01:13:04 ◼   ► where you are looking at it before you've raised it and then when you raise

01:13:10 ◼   ► it you don't want it to change dramatically because that feels quite distracting. So the

01:13:17 ◼   ► transition is quite important. So now what I've got right now works really well for me

01:13:23 ◼   ► because basically it just illuminates a little bit like it just goes from dim to a little

01:13:27 ◼   ► bit brighter. It's funny because in a few instances I've caught the minutes hand moving.

01:13:33 ◼   ► So like I don't know how often it's updating right? But like I've brought the watch up

01:13:38 ◼   ► to my face and as it's illuminated the minute hand has also moved a little bit and that's

01:13:43 ◼   ► the watch catching up. So like the time isn't completely accurate anymore because it's not

01:13:50 ◼   ► updating as frequently as when you're looking at it. So sometimes you might be looking at

01:13:55 ◼   ► it and it might be a minute behind. Right, so like there's something interesting about

01:14:00 ◼   ► that. Shouldn't it be one time per second, like one Hertz means one refresh per second?

01:14:05 ◼   ► It's not updating every second. So I've had it on the California face and I've watched

01:14:10 ◼   ► it and every now and then you can see the minute hand take a big sweep. It's not moving

01:14:17 ◼   ► constantly as it was before. When you have the screen on, the minute hand is moving in

01:14:25 ◼   ► minute proportions. I just watched it do it and it just jumped an entire minute in one

01:14:30 ◼   ► go. So I think it's actually updating every minute. So I don't know. But it's just like

01:14:38 ◼   ► a different thing. This is not important by any stretch of the imagination. But it's just

01:14:43 ◼   ► a different thing. But I think the only way they could do this is to update it every minute

01:14:47 ◼   ► because otherwise the battery life is going to be absolutely obliterated if they're updating

01:14:52 ◼   ► it every second. So I think they're updating the, I assume, probably about every minute.

01:14:59 ◼   ► There's another thing that's interesting about the always on faces.

01:15:03 ◼   ► When you get a notification on the Apple Watch and you look down at your watch, you typically

01:15:08 ◼   ► see the notification, right?

01:15:09 ◼   ► Because you're looking at the watch now.

01:15:11 ◼   ► But that isn't the case because the notifications don't light up initially.

01:15:15 ◼   ► You have to interact with the watch to get the light up now, right?

01:15:18 ◼   ► So there's like a weird disconnect for me there.

01:15:21 ◼   ► But I'm used to like, "Oh, okay, I'll look at my watch."

01:15:23 ◼   ► But now looking at my watch can mean just moving it a little bit and I can see the watch

01:15:28 ◼   ► face but I haven't taken it out of the dimmed mode but I don't know that I haven't done

01:15:34 ◼   ► that because I didn't know that my movement wasn't enough and now I don't see the notification.

01:15:40 ◼   ► Are you following what I'm saying? So like the movement of your arm isn't necessarily

01:15:45 ◼   ► enough anymore. You have to still move it to the level at which you will like brighten

01:15:49 ◼   ► the screen but you don't know you've done that until you've done it. So there's like

01:15:55 ◼   ► a weird break in my mind there and also same thing you have to tap the crown twice to get it to go to

01:16:01 ◼   ► the home if you've not kind of taken it out of the dimmed mode because the first tap illuminates the

01:16:06 ◼   ► face second tap of the crown takes you home so it kind of the always on screen adds a lot of

01:16:13 ◼   ► functionality but i think is going to be difficult for especially for long time apple watch owners

01:16:19 ◼   ► to get used to because it's changing a lot of the way that you're typically used to dealing

01:16:26 ◼   ► with the Apple Watch. My fourth point is returning to the Apple Watch as a thing in my life.

01:16:32 ◼   ► It was incredibly distracting and is incredibly distracting for me to have something illuminated

01:16:37 ◼   ► on my wrist now, right? So like if I'm not using a dim face like I was using the one that had the

01:16:44 ◼   ► white background before, like just like reaching out and grabbing something and my wrist is

01:16:49 ◼   ► is lit up was a strange thing for me now because I've not been used to that. Within one hour

01:16:54 ◼   ► of wearing it, I'd already put the wash on Do Not Disturb because our group thread was

01:16:58 ◼   ► popping off and I was doing something and it was really annoying me.

01:17:02 ◼   ► Yeah, I saw this all group threads should be in Do Not Disturb all the time.

01:17:06 ◼   ► No, but I don't want that on my iPhone. I just like I want text messages on my iPhone

01:17:12 ◼   ► to be coming through because I can just I just my iPhone's just not with me if I don't

01:17:17 ◼   ► want it with me. Right. Like it's just down. It's not on me. It's not getting all up in

01:17:23 ◼   ► my business. Right. Like I can leave the room but now I can't get away from it because why

01:17:29 ◼   ► can't I set independent do not disturb stuff on my on my devices. So like why can't I say

01:17:38 ◼   ► put this thread in messages in Do Not Disturb on my watch but not on my phone.

01:17:43 ◼   ► Why do they mirror?

01:17:44 ◼   ► Even if I turn off Do Not Disturb mirroring.

01:17:46 ◼   ► What is going on?

01:17:48 ◼   ► Like, and also, why if I turn off Do Not Disturb mirroring on my watch can I not then set Do

01:17:56 ◼   ► Not Disturb on a time basis on the watch?

01:17:59 ◼   ► It's either on or off.

01:18:00 ◼   ► I can set up a time basis Do Not Disturb on my phone and if I have the mirror then my

01:18:05 ◼   ► My watch will go on Do Not Disturb on the times that I set, but if I turn off mirroring,

01:18:09 ◼   ► there's no option to turn on Do Not Disturb on a schedule on the watch.

01:18:14 ◼   ► I don't understand why these...

01:18:16 ◼   ► I can't do these things.

01:18:18 ◼   ► I want better control of Do Not Disturb because that's important to me.

01:18:22 ◼   ► And I don't know why these devices are either completely linked or they're not linked and

01:18:28 ◼   ► then you lose the features.

01:18:30 ◼   ► I don't get it.

01:18:31 ◼   ► So I would love to see...

01:18:32 ◼   ► There should be more there.

01:18:34 ◼   ► I noticed that, so this is when I say, I'm not sure about this, I was out today, I was

01:18:40 ◼   ► meeting with some friends and stuff and my watch was tapping on me and I really didn't

01:18:45 ◼   ► like it because I felt like I was being distracted and in a way that my phone does not distract

01:18:53 ◼   ► me.

01:18:54 ◼   ► It's like my phone buzzing does not cause me the same kind of feeling as my watch tapping

01:18:59 ◼   ► me.

01:19:00 ◼   ► I don't know why.

01:19:01 ◼   ► Anxiety is too strong a word but it was something akin to that right where it

01:19:07 ◼   ► was just like I know that things are happening and I don't know what they are

01:19:11 ◼   ► and I and that was a much stronger feeling to me than it is with the phone

01:19:19 ◼   ► I find the watch more distracting and that is a thing even with I have like

01:19:25 ◼   ► pared down notification management it's like 0.5 that I have is not a

01:19:30 ◼   ► notification management still sucks. I have to go in and disable every single

01:19:34 ◼   ► app. All of them are on and I have to go in and uncheck every box to

01:19:41 ◼   ► turn them all off and I have like three apps that bug me but one of them is

01:19:45 ◼   ► messages which is where I get most of my notifications so I don't know what to do

01:19:50 ◼   ► about that. So like I'm not sure that I just don't know if this is the product

01:19:55 ◼   ► for me like I'm gonna wear it for a couple of weeks and then make my

01:19:58 ◼   ► decision but I'm I don't know if the Apple watch has a consistent place in my

01:20:03 ◼   ► life I'm not sure about it so that is my 24-hour review of the Apple watch I

01:20:10 ◼   ► don't know if you're like listening to your problems with it I'm not sure

01:20:14 ◼   ► you're gonna keep this watch it really does feel like I don't know if I think I

01:20:20 ◼   ► think I've moved on from what it does yes people yeah but I love the way it

01:20:25 ◼   ► It looks, I think it's beautiful, but I don't know if that's enough.

01:20:30 ◼   ► There are definitely things that I love about it, right?

01:20:33 ◼   ► The ease of Apple Pay using the Apple Watch is so much better than the iPhone with FaceID.

01:20:40 ◼   ► The activity stuff, it's nice to actually have the activity stuff back in my life again.

01:20:45 ◼   ► I love all that sort of stuff.

01:20:46 ◼   ► And as soon as my broken back heals, the gym is the thing that I want to get into in a

01:20:52 ◼   ► more serious way.

01:20:53 ◼   ► So I want to be able to track that and an Apple Watch is perfect for that.

01:20:57 ◼   ► But like, I know this is never going to be a daily thing for me anymore.

01:21:01 ◼   ► Like I know that now, because I love my Apple Watches way more than I love this one.

01:21:07 ◼   ► But like, there's still a lot of stuff that just doesn't work for me.

01:21:10 ◼   ► And I think that the way that notifications are handled on the Apple Watch has not gotten

01:21:15 ◼   ► significantly better in a way that it should have.

01:21:18 ◼   ► That is a cause for concern for me because we're up to watch OS 6 and I just don't think

01:21:24 ◼   ► They're putting enough attention into the way that notifications are handled because I feel like there needs to be way more controls about

01:21:33 ◼   ► What and I feel like I have been saying this since watch OS 1

01:21:37 ◼   ► that there needs to be better controls for when an app can bother you and when it can't and if you can send specific types of

01:21:45 ◼   ► certifications to different devices right like I've used this Twitter example for years just send DMS to the watch

01:21:51 ◼   ► Send mentions to whatever else I want it sent to right like and I feel like that they've not done any of this and

01:21:59 ◼   ► That is just a very confusing thing to me, but I love the ceramic though

01:22:03 ◼   ► So should just keep the ceramic for the occasional workout. That's it

01:22:08 ◼   ► So when you do you when you work out you work out in style some fancy workout

01:22:14 ◼   ► The My Curly routine, work out with a ceramic watch.

01:22:17 ◼   ► - All right, let's move on.

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01:23:40 ◼   ► All right, let's talk about iOS 13 and iOS 13.1. Federica, your review went up last week. It is,

01:23:48 ◼   ► it's incredible. I'm curious how the reception has been.

01:23:51 ◼   ► Thank you. It's been it's been really good. It's the best performing review to date.

01:24:00 ◼   ► by far. That is very, very good news. I was sort of, I was concerned that maybe I peaked last year

01:24:10 ◼   ► in terms of like how many, just how many people are going to read these reviews. But nope, still

01:24:17 ◼   ► haven't found my peak apparently and that is very good news. And the traffic is still going

01:24:23 ◼   ► going strongly, especially since The Verge linked it yesterday.

01:24:26 ◼   ► Oh, nice. Wow.

01:24:28 ◼   ► That was very nice.

01:24:30 ◼   ► And, you know, I'm publishing these reviews in an increasingly sparse landscape in the

01:24:41 ◼   ► context of very few people are doing these reviews anymore.

01:24:46 ◼   ► Well, that's because you're, I mean...

01:24:49 ◼   ► Well, I think it's a combination of things.

01:24:54 ◼   ► I think a lot of people have moved to video.

01:24:56 ◼   ► It makes more sense to cover a new version of iOS in video.

01:25:00 ◼   ► And I think a lot of people also, it makes sense to combine iOS 13 with the videos for

01:25:06 ◼   ► new hardware.

01:25:07 ◼   ► So you'll find coverage of a new version of iOS for iPhone or iPad reviews, for example.

01:25:14 ◼   ► And I don't know, I guess other bigger websites maybe think that nobody's reading long-form

01:25:22 ◼   ► content anymore.

01:25:24 ◼   ► So every year I'm thankful that Mac Stories readers have become accustomed to this tradition,

01:25:32 ◼   ► which is now officially, at this point is very much a tradition, there's people waiting

01:25:35 ◼   ► for this review.

01:25:38 ◼   ► And I feel, obviously, it feels kind of insane and I'm super grateful.

01:25:42 ◼   ► I mean the fact that I have gotten messages and emails from people asking me like when

01:25:49 ◼   ► is the review going to come out because I need to take a day off at work to make sure

01:25:53 ◼   ► that I can enjoy the publishing day.

01:25:56 ◼   ► Like I think that's insane.

01:25:59 ◼   ► But it's also kind of awesome.

01:26:00 ◼   ► I think it's incredible.

01:26:03 ◼   ► And I mean, the review has, you know, you can read it on the website, but the reason

01:26:13 ◼   ► why it's worth it for me, financially speaking, is the integration with Club Max Stories.

01:26:19 ◼   ► And I think this year we've put together a collection of extras that I think is my favorite

01:26:26 ◼   ► so far, like we added wallpapers, for example, and advanced shortcuts and the making of.

01:26:34 ◼   ► It's a whole package of, like, it's not just the behind the scenes, it's not just the making

01:26:38 ◼   ► of, it's a whole collection of things. And so I think it's very, I think it's awesome

01:26:45 ◼   ► that as a, you know, we're not the Verge, we're not TechCrunch, but we, you know, we

01:26:51 ◼   ► can get by and not just that, we can actually do pretty great.

01:26:56 ◼   ► It's not getting by. It's not getting by. It's going really well.

01:27:01 ◼   ► And the idea of, you know, there's folks saying, "Oh, look at this guy. He works out manually

01:27:07 ◼   ► three months on this thing and is it even worth it?" And yes, otherwise I wouldn't do

01:27:13 ◼   ► it because there's only so much I would do out of personal passion. So I'm not that stupid,

01:27:19 ◼   ► I think. So yeah, there's a, you know, there's a question, of course, like, is this year

01:27:27 ◼   ► the year that you've picked? And probably in terms of, in terms of like, just how much

01:27:33 ◼   ► work can I put into it? Then yes, I don't think I would be physically capable of doing

01:27:40 ◼   ► more. This year has been really taxing for me in all kinds of different ways in terms

01:27:48 ◼   ► of my personal life and my personal schedule and relationships with people. I don't think

01:27:54 ◼   ► there's... this is the most I can do as a single person. And, you know, there's also

01:28:00 ◼   ► the fact that I'm getting older and it's undeniable that I don't have the strength that I had

01:28:06 ◼   ► when I was 19. And so working on a 75,000 word story, it's not easy, physically speaking.

01:28:14 ◼   ► So this year, I don't think I will ever, ever again be able to do something of this scope

01:28:22 ◼   ► and length. So next year, I'm still going to do a review. I'm going to do reviews for

01:28:31 ◼   ► the foreseeable future. I'm not going to stop. I'm not stopping. I'm continuing, but I'm

01:28:36 ◼   ► not doing more in the context of it's going to be even longer. In fact, I want it to be

01:28:42 ◼   ► shorter and there's a discussion to be had about what is the content that you're gonna

01:28:50 ◼   ► cover in your review and what is all the rest that can be covered just as well, if not better,

01:28:57 ◼   ► by the Maxories team during the summer.

01:28:59 ◼   ► So what we did this year with the iOS 13 coverage on Maxories, we're gonna continue, probably

01:29:04 ◼   ► gonna double that next year.

01:29:07 ◼   ► Otherwise, I'm super happy by just how it went and it's really heartwarming.

01:29:16 ◼   ► Twitter can be a pretty terrible place these days and the internet can be a pretty terrible

01:29:20 ◼   ► place, but the love and affection that this single story can gather on an annual basis,

01:29:28 ◼   ► I think it's pretty awesome.

01:29:29 ◼   ► Yeah, I can imagine these types of things are just very heartwarming events, right?

01:29:35 ◼   ► people were so kind about the work that you've done, you know?

01:29:39 ◼   ► I know that actually, because I've done things like this myself too, right?

01:29:43 ◼   ► Like it's a great feeling when you've been working hard on something.

01:29:46 ◼   ► You share it with the world and the feedback is positive.

01:29:49 ◼   ► But I am about a third of the way through the review,

01:29:52 ◼   ► and I've been enjoying it very much so far.

01:29:55 ◼   ► Which is about as long as it probably would have taken me to read

01:29:59 ◼   ► the previous year's review or something.

01:30:02 ◼   ► I couldn't do your audiobook this year because of travel that I was doing and

01:30:06 ◼   ► I'm so happy that that was something that I couldn't do this year because I may have died

01:30:11 ◼   ► It would have been impossible

01:30:15 ◼   ► We couldn't do it because neither

01:30:18 ◼   ► You wouldn't have been able to finish in time and I wouldn't have been able to finish in time and it would have been a nightmare

01:30:23 ◼   ► yeah, and

01:30:25 ◼   ► Unfortunately, you know people have been asking about that like where's the audiobook and it just the the fact that I

01:30:32 ◼   ► But it really came down to the wire almost, like we finished the final editing two days

01:30:40 ◼   ► before.

01:30:41 ◼   ► And so, yeah, even if Myke wanted to and was available to because he wasn't travelling,

01:30:48 ◼   ► he would have still needed to read an unfinished version of the review.

01:30:55 ◼   ► And obviously nobody wants that.

01:30:57 ◼   ► So it's a...

01:30:58 ◼   ► probably would have had to have been late, realistically, what would have happened, but

01:31:02 ◼   ► that wouldn't have been good for anybody.

01:31:03 ◼   ► Right, right, yeah. And this is an, you know, it's such an unrealistic scenario of, I wrote

01:31:10 ◼   ► something that is book length, but within the constraints of a couple of months. Nobody

01:31:18 ◼   ► that writes something that is 75,000 words long and has an audiobook version of it, works

01:31:24 ◼   ► on it for just two months or two months and a half. They probably work on it for a year

01:31:31 ◼   ► or two years, you know. But this is the unique situation of these reviews. But, you know,

01:31:39 ◼   ► there's a whole discussion and we'll talk about it next year and beyond. Like, do I

01:31:43 ◼   ► want to continue doing iOS and iPadOS together? Will I have to? Does it mean that, you know,

01:31:48 ◼   ► will iPadOS get annual updates?

01:31:51 ◼   ► Like that is all up in the air right now.

01:31:55 ◼   ► I just know what needed to be done this year

01:31:58 ◼   ► because I couldn't plan in advance.

01:32:00 ◼   ► I was surprised just like everybody else at WWDC

01:32:03 ◼   ► to see iOS and iPadOS split in two.

01:32:05 ◼   ► Next year, you know, we'll see how it goes,

01:32:11 ◼   ► but it's not gonna be, it's still gonna be special.

01:32:14 ◼   ► I'm still gonna, you know, I have some ideas

01:32:15 ◼   ► for the web layout and the animations,

01:32:17 ◼   ► which I think it's time to try something else entirely

01:32:21 ◼   ► on that front.

01:32:22 ◼   ► But in terms of my content,

01:32:24 ◼   ► like the time that I spend writing and editing,

01:32:27 ◼   ► it has to go down.

01:32:28 ◼   ► It has to be shorter.

01:32:29 ◼   ► I need to take better care of myself

01:32:32 ◼   ► when I work on these stories.

01:32:33 ◼   ► So I've done it this year,

01:32:35 ◼   ► but never again with 250 hours of work.

01:32:40 ◼   ► I don't wanna do that again.

01:32:43 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's just too much.

01:32:45 ◼   ► - I loved working on it.

01:32:47 ◼   ► And I love the way that it came out.

01:32:49 ◼   ► But it was a little too much for me personally.

01:32:53 ◼   ► - Have you, I know you're a writer first,

01:32:57 ◼   ► but you said something that caught my attention

01:32:59 ◼   ► that you feel like a lot of these things

01:33:00 ◼   ► have moved to video.

01:33:02 ◼   ► Do you think that's a component

01:33:03 ◼   ► you may experiment with in the future?

01:33:05 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah.

01:33:06 ◼   ► It's one of the things that, you know,

01:33:10 ◼   ► I keep talking about with Sylvia,

01:33:11 ◼   ► like we need to try something with video.

01:33:14 ◼   ► And it feels like 2020 would be a good year for that.

01:33:18 ◼   ► Just because I find myself writing certain sections

01:33:22 ◼   ► that really would be shorter

01:33:23 ◼   ► and much better explained as a video.

01:33:27 ◼   ► So I don't see myself going all pivoting to video.

01:33:30 ◼   ► I don't see myself doing that.

01:33:32 ◼   ► But I can see how more videos throughout the review

01:33:37 ◼   ► and maybe even something before the review

01:33:40 ◼   ► comes out as a video,

01:33:42 ◼   ► could be a pretty great integration just to diversify and have some actual properly done

01:33:50 ◼   ► videos that are not just screencasts or something captured with my iPhone. But also it could

01:33:56 ◼   ► be something to make the review shorter, like the actual text, to have less text, especially

01:34:03 ◼   ► for features that make so much more sense, as explained visually. So you can see the

01:34:08 ◼   ► interactions, you can see what are you doing, and I don't have to find myself describing

01:34:13 ◼   ► tap this button and scroll this menu.

01:34:17 ◼   ► That stuff is better shown on video.

01:34:19 ◼   ► Okay.

01:34:20 ◼   ► Yeah, I know that, just in my dabbling with it, the production time goes way up, but I

01:34:25 ◼   ► think the potential upside for what you want to do could be really interesting.

01:34:30 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:34:31 ◼   ► Yeah, and something that I plan on, because you mentioned that production time, I plan

01:34:37 ◼   ► on continuing to hire people to assist me. So I had a web developer and there's Silvia

01:34:47 ◼   ► giving me a hand with design stuff and there's of course Brian King with the videos and the

01:34:53 ◼   ► 3D assets and the animations. So to have this collection of different features and different

01:35:03 ◼   ► aspects of the review taken care of by different people. I think that is something that I should

01:35:08 ◼   ► continue doing. Yeah, like we said a couple weeks ago, I'm proud that you are delegating some of

01:35:13 ◼   ► this because not only does it take weight off you, it makes the work better when you have more voices

01:35:20 ◼   ► in the mix. And I think the guys did such a great job at those CarPlay stores and other things that

01:35:25 ◼   ► got broken out. I think that you're on the right track with that. Thank you. Okay, it's good to hear.

01:35:32 ◼   ► Update, Amazon have put Echo in a ring.

01:35:35 ◼   ► That you wear?

01:35:37 ◼   ► That you wear.

01:35:38 ◼   ► What is happening over there?

01:35:40 ◼   ► [laughter]

01:35:41 ◼   ► They're busy today.

01:35:42 ◼   ► Did you say in a ring?

01:35:43 ◼   ► In a ring, yeah, like, like jewelry ring.

01:35:46 ◼   ► Oh my god, really?

01:35:47 ◼   ► Then you put on your finger and then you...

01:35:49 ◼   ► Echo Loop, oh my god.

01:35:51 ◼   ► Echo Loop, yeah.

01:35:52 ◼   ► Does it...

01:35:53 ◼   ► Does it talk?

01:35:55 ◼   ► I don't know.

01:35:57 ◼   ► I don't know.

01:35:59 ◼   ► How can anybody know anymore?

01:36:01 ◼   ► It's impossible to know

01:36:03 ◼   ► What is happening oh my god, okay, well sure

01:36:07 ◼   ► There's there's that the review is not the only thing you have released though is it

01:36:13 ◼   ► You're just you're releasing stuff all over the place, and I promise I'm done with with this last surprise today. Yeah

01:36:21 ◼   ► so we

01:36:23 ◼   ► We launched an entirely new project and an entirely new sort of design brand for max stories

01:36:30 ◼   ► So the product is MaxSeries Shortcuts Icons.

01:36:35 ◼   ► The idea is these are 300 custom icons for shortcuts on the home screen.

01:36:43 ◼   ► So you can add shortcuts to the home screen for quick activation,

01:36:48 ◼   ► but by default you can only choose from the built-in glyphs that are made by Apple and built into the Shortcuts app.

01:36:57 ◼   ► A few months ago I had this idea of, so people come to Max Stories and they read about shortcuts

01:37:05 ◼   ► and they sign up for the club to get more and more advanced shortcuts and we have the

01:37:10 ◼   ► Max Stories shortcuts archive.

01:37:13 ◼   ► What is something else that we could do to sort of, you know, promote Max Stories as

01:37:19 ◼   ► a single sort of a one-stop destination for everything related to shortcuts?

01:37:24 ◼   ► And I was at WWDC and I saw the new feature to load a custom icon, a custom image, for

01:37:32 ◼   ► adding a shortcut to the home screen with the Files picker.

01:37:37 ◼   ► And at that point something clicked in my brain.

01:37:39 ◼   ► I was like, "I want to make a custom icon set for shortcuts on the home screen."

01:37:46 ◼   ► And I knew exactly what I was going to do.

01:37:48 ◼   ► I wanted to design a set, well not me personally, but to ask Silvia to design a set that would

01:37:55 ◼   ► basically complement the default options in the shortcuts app.

01:38:00 ◼   ► So to have icons, some very specific, others more mainstream, if you will, designed by

01:38:11 ◼   ► shortcuts users for shortcuts users is the way that I've been referring to this.

01:38:15 ◼   ► So the idea of... I've been going through all the shortcuts that I ever created and

01:38:20 ◼   ► that I published in the Mac Stories shortcuts archive. I've been going through popular shortcuts

01:38:26 ◼   ► on Reddit, on the websites of David Sparks and Matthew Casinelli and Rosemary Orchard.

01:38:32 ◼   ► I've been taking a look at the shortcuts in the Apple Gallery, and I've made notes for

01:38:37 ◼   ► myself of this shortcut. When you add it to the home screen, is there a good glyph that

01:38:43 ◼   ► represents it, and if not, I would take a note. And so we came up with these 300 glyphs, they're

01:38:50 ◼   ► called the Max Stories Shortcuts Icons. You can buy them today, they are discounted if you are a

01:38:56 ◼   ► Club Max Stories member, they're over 30% off if you already pay for Club Max Stories, so that's the

01:39:03 ◼   ► the next perk for you. And all you need to do is, so you basically download a zip file, it contains

01:39:10 ◼   ► these 300 icons. And the very nice thing about it is that we designed it with iOS 13.1 and

01:39:19 ◼   ► iPadOS 13.1 in mind, because yesterday's update added one specific feature that makes our

01:39:27 ◼   ► shortcuts icons really special, and that is they will keep the original color of your shortcut

01:39:35 ◼   ► when you add it to the home screen. So before, it used to be that any image that you picked from

01:39:40 ◼   ► files to use as a custom home screen icon, it would override the original color of your shortcut,

01:39:48 ◼   ► either with a black background color that looks horrible, or with any other background color,

01:39:56 ◼   ► if you provided a jpg image. But with our icons, if you're using 13.1, they will look just like

01:40:04 ◼   ► the Apple-made home screen icons. So you will have your default color of the

01:40:11 ◼   ► shortcut that you assigned in the shortcuts app, but you will have a custom

01:40:15 ◼   ► glyph on top of it. And I should also note that there are no crazy hacks or

01:40:22 ◼   ► workarounds involved. I know that in the past I shared my own, like I reverse

01:40:28 ◼   ► engineered, for example, the way that Apple used to generate these icons, but

01:40:33 ◼   ► But in iOS 13, the way that you add home screen shortcuts is all new, it's all native, and

01:40:39 ◼   ► our icons are native as well.

01:40:41 ◼   ► So you can pick them directly inside the shortcuts app from files.

01:40:45 ◼   ► There's no crazy hack or workaround involved.

01:40:49 ◼   ► It's all natively supported, and because of 13.1, it looks great in terms of it keeps

01:40:55 ◼   ► your original shortcuts color.

01:40:59 ◼   ► So I rethought my entire home screen setup, because this is a product that I use myself.

01:41:04 ◼   ► And so now on my iPad Pro and on my iPhone I have basically rethought my home screens

01:41:10 ◼   ► around these icons that finally give me options for like my clipboard shortcuts or my timers

01:41:18 ◼   ► for toggle, for time tracking, so all of that.

01:41:21 ◼   ► And we launched them today and they're part of the new Max Stories Pixel design brand

01:41:29 ◼   ► that is run by Silvia and me. We're gonna do more design stuff in the future. We have

01:41:35 ◼   ► some ideas. Not physical products. I'm not crazy like Myke. I'm not gonna get into that.

01:41:45 ◼   ► I'm not lucky, Myke.

01:41:48 ◼   ► That space is all yours.

01:41:51 ◼   ► But more design stuff, we have some ideas.

01:41:54 ◼   ► And that is the second big thing that I've been working on since July.

01:41:57 ◼   ► So we launched it today, and you can go to maxstories.net/pixel and you will find the

01:42:04 ◼   ► links to the icons.

01:42:05 ◼   ► They look really awesome.

01:42:07 ◼   ► Yeah, they're really good.

01:42:10 ◼   ► If I just saw a screenshot and I didn't know this was third party, it looks like something

01:42:17 ◼   ► Apple would do.

01:42:18 ◼   ► I mean, in the highest possible praise.

01:42:21 ◼   ► It's amazing work.

01:42:23 ◼   ► Thank you.

01:42:24 ◼   ► Well, it's all, you know, I gave the ideas and actually, Sylvia hated me for this.

01:42:30 ◼   ► I gave my requests.

01:42:32 ◼   ► I need an icon for a clipboard that also contains a link.

01:42:37 ◼   ► And it's like, okay.

01:42:39 ◼   ► So she did all the design necessarily for this.

01:42:42 ◼   ► And there's actually a full preview

01:42:46 ◼   ► that you can see on the website.

01:42:49 ◼   ► We have banners and we have screenshots,

01:42:50 ◼   ► but there's also a full preview that you can open and see

01:42:54 ◼   ► all the icons that are included.

01:42:55 ◼   ► And yeah, you can take a look at my home screens.

01:43:00 ◼   ► I'm probably going to write about them in more detail

01:43:02 ◼   ► because I'm still tweaking them and I'm still coming up.

01:43:05 ◼   ► And what's been fascinating in this process

01:43:07 ◼   ► is reorganizing my home screen around shortcuts

01:43:12 ◼   ► has been interesting because it made

01:43:14 ◼   ► me think of new shortcuts to create and share.

01:43:17 ◼   ► So that's been fun.

01:43:20 ◼   ► I'm not personally using an all shortcuts home screen.

01:43:24 ◼   ► I'm mixing and matching shortcuts and regular apps.

01:43:30 ◼   ► And yeah, that's it.

01:43:33 ◼   ► With this, I can finally take it easy for a little while.

01:43:37 ◼   ► this was the other thing that I've been teasing for a while

01:43:40 ◼   ► and it's finally out and it feels good.

01:43:42 ◼   ► So yeah, I'm done.

01:43:45 ◼   ► - Take a break now.

01:43:49 ◼   ► - Yeah, I can, I think I can.

01:43:51 ◼   ► - Well, is that it?

01:43:53 ◼   ► We made it to the end. - I think so.

01:43:55 ◼   ► - We made it.

01:43:55 ◼   ► - Is Amazon doing anything else or are we all set there?

01:43:58 ◼   ► I think they're done now.

01:44:00 ◼   ► - Yeah, I think they're done.

01:44:01 ◼   ► The ring was the last one.

01:44:02 ◼   ► - They'll be back next week with something else new,

01:44:04 ◼   ► I'm sure.

01:44:04 ◼   ► If you want to find links to all the stuff

01:44:06 ◼   ► we spoke about today, you can head over to the website relay.fm slash connected slash

01:44:11 ◼   ► 262. While you're there, you can send us an email with feedback or follow up. Or you can

01:44:17 ◼   ► do that on Twitter, you can find Myke there as I am y ke Myke is the host of a bunch of

01:44:22 ◼   ► other shows here at relay FM as well. You can find Federico on Twitter at Fattahi VITI

01:44:28 ◼   ► CCI. And he's the editor in chief of Max stories.net. You can find me on Twitter as ISMH and I

01:44:35 ◼   ► I write 512 pixels net I think our sponsors this week pingdom smile and

01:44:40 ◼   ► fresh books until next time guys say goodbye I'll do that you cheerio adios