Connected

00:00:00 ◼   ► (upbeat music)

00:00:02 ◼   ► Hello and welcome to Connected, episode 250.

00:00:13 ◼   ► It's a big, big number this week.

00:00:15 ◼   ► It is made possible by our sponsors,

00:00:17 ◼   ► Squarespace, Away, and AstroPad Studio.

00:00:21 ◼   ► My name is Stephen Hackett and I am joined this week

00:00:23 ◼   ► by Mr. Federico Vittigi.

00:00:25 ◼   ► - Hello, Stephen, how are you?

00:00:27 ◼   ► - I am doing well.

00:00:29 ◼   ► It is an even episode, so you were first.

00:00:32 ◼   ► So this is now where I would introduce Myke

00:00:34 ◼   ► if he could be bothered to join us.

00:00:37 ◼   ► But he's traveling.

00:00:39 ◼   ► - In pure connected tradition,

00:00:40 ◼   ► we have a bigger anniversary and Myke is not here,

00:00:44 ◼   ► or it's not the three of us.

00:00:46 ◼   ► Which is, you know, we don't like anniversaries.

00:00:49 ◼   ► It's basically a really complex strategy

00:00:53 ◼   ► to avoid having to buy gifts for each other.

00:00:57 ◼   ► It's like when your anniversary, Steven,

00:00:59 ◼   ► is coming up next year, you should be traveling

00:01:02 ◼   ► or you should be like, just don't show up at your house

00:01:05 ◼   ► for a couple of days and just pretend that it's passed

00:01:08 ◼   ► and the anniversary is gone, no gift.

00:01:10 ◼   ► - So usually, I think this came out in our live show,

00:01:12 ◼   ► usually WWDC falls on my anniversary,

00:01:15 ◼   ► which is the first week of June.

00:01:17 ◼   ► But next year, I'm just scrolling in calendar,

00:01:21 ◼   ► June 1st is a Monday.

00:01:23 ◼   ► So is WWDC gonna be like June 1st through 5th

00:01:27 ◼   ► or will it be what I think it's gonna be,

00:01:29 ◼   ► the 8th through the 12th?

00:01:30 ◼   ► Like, starting it the first day of June just seems weird.

00:01:34 ◼   ► So I don't know.

00:01:35 ◼   ► We'll see.

00:01:36 ◼   ► I could be with y'all,

00:01:36 ◼   ► or I could be at home with my spouse.

00:01:37 ◼   ► Time will tell.

00:01:38 ◼   ► Anyways. - All right, we'll see.

00:01:40 ◼   ► - WWDC 2020 coverage already starting.

00:01:43 ◼   ► We have some follow-up,

00:01:44 ◼   ► and I wanna start with Catalyst.

00:01:46 ◼   ► I wanted to point people to this really excellent article

00:01:49 ◼   ► over on Ars Technica.

00:01:51 ◼   ► Samuel Axon wrote this,

00:01:53 ◼   ► And they had access to some Apple executives,

00:01:57 ◼   ► some Apple engineers, as well as some third party developers

00:02:00 ◼   ► talking about Catalyst, how it works,

00:02:03 ◼   ► some experiences with it.

00:02:05 ◼   ► But I think what's most interesting is

00:02:08 ◼   ► the way Apple views Catalyst.

00:02:10 ◼   ► And I think John made this point in his article

00:02:12 ◼   ► a couple of weeks ago on your site.

00:02:14 ◼   ► Like Apple did it, I don't think Apple did a very good job

00:02:16 ◼   ► explaining like the importance of Catalyst at WWDC.

00:02:20 ◼   ► And they sort of do that in this article.

00:02:23 ◼   ► And I'm curious what you thought about that.

00:02:24 ◼   ► Yeah, I think they should have done more.

00:02:30 ◼   ► And I get the feeling that it was maybe originally

00:02:33 ◼   ► part of the plan.

00:02:34 ◼   ► But as we all know, the keynote was so long

00:02:37 ◼   ► that a bunch of things were cut and saved

00:02:40 ◼   ► for things like the State of the Union, for example.

00:02:42 ◼   ► I mean, even shortcuts, which is now built into the system,

00:02:47 ◼   ► I think it was only barely mentioned during the keynote. And so I feel like maybe getting

00:02:54 ◼   ► more in detail about podcasts, for example, which is an example of Apple adopting a feature-rich

00:03:01 ◼   ► iOS app to the Mac with catalyst and some custom code. That would have been a fascinating

00:03:07 ◼   ► discussion. And I feel like, you know, having more demos, having more developers. I saw

00:03:13 ◼   ► on Twitter a few days ago, actually I think Steve Trotton-Smith sent me the link to this

00:03:18 ◼   ► tweet that Vector Needle, it's an excellent vector drawing app for iPad, it's coming

00:03:25 ◼   ► to the Mac with Catalyst. And that could have been a great example of an iPad productivity

00:03:31 ◼   ► app coming to macOS. And so it felt to me when we saw this story and when John decided

00:03:38 ◼   ► to link to this story. We had originally in the original post, John said something along

00:03:44 ◼   ► the lines of "It feels like Apple is sort of doing damage control with these catalyst

00:03:49 ◼   ► stories coming out", but then the author reached out to us and said that the interview

00:03:54 ◼   ► was conducted during WWDC and that the release schedule on Ars Technica was related to other

00:04:01 ◼   ► publication problems or scheduling things that they had going on, so maybe it's not

00:04:07 ◼   ► damage control, but I feel like Apple should be doing some of that regardless. I feel like

00:04:13 ◼   ► they should be advocating for some developers to consider adopting Catalyst. And just today,

00:04:20 ◼   ► for example, we saw the news that GoodNotes, which is one of the most popular iPad apps,

00:04:27 ◼   ► it's a note-taking and sketching and drawing app for iPad. They already have a Mac version,

00:04:35 ◼   ► it's so far behind the iPad counterpart that they just announced they are abandoning the

00:04:44 ◼   ► existing AppKit-based Mac app and they are relaunching GoodNotes on the Mac using Catalyst,

00:04:50 ◼   ► which of course will require users to use Catalina, it will not be compatible with older

00:04:55 ◼   ► versions of MacOS, but it's yet another example of a developer saying "In this case we actually

00:05:01 ◼   ► have a Mac app already, but we feel like we want to unify the code base, we want to save

00:05:06 ◼   ► time, we want to make sure that it's one experience across platforms. And so that sort of message

00:05:12 ◼   ► I feel like Apple should have probably shared and stressed a bit more at WWDC.

00:05:17 ◼   ► Yeah, the GoodNotes blog post is really interesting because you said, like you said, they have

00:05:22 ◼   ► an existing Mac app. So Catalyst just isn't for people or developers or companies that

00:05:27 ◼   ► like Twitter for instance, which is in the Ars Technica article,

00:05:30 ◼   ► Apple mentioned them as well.

00:05:32 ◼   ► Twitter got out of the Mac app game a couple years ago,

00:05:35 ◼   ► and they're going to bring their iPad app, for better

00:05:37 ◼   ► or for worse, to the Mac with a catalyst.

00:05:39 ◼   ► This is not that.

00:05:41 ◼   ► GoodNotes exists on the Mac.

00:05:42 ◼   ► Like I said, it's behind, it's not as good.

00:05:44 ◼   ► And so the developers seem to lay out

00:05:46 ◼   ► the case in their blog post that it actually

00:05:49 ◼   ► makes more sense for us as developers

00:05:51 ◼   ► to move our iOS app over than to keep two separate code bases

00:05:55 ◼   ► trying to build features in two different frameworks,

00:05:59 ◼   ► two different ways of doing things.

00:06:01 ◼   ► I think that's really interesting.

00:06:02 ◼   ► And my guess is that GoodNotes is sort of

00:06:05 ◼   ► the tip of the spear.

00:06:06 ◼   ► I think all three of us on the show

00:06:08 ◼   ► are pretty optimistic about Catalyst.

00:06:10 ◼   ► And GoodNotes, I mean, like I said,

00:06:12 ◼   ► it's a very popular app.

00:06:13 ◼   ► That's for a reason.

00:06:14 ◼   ► It's really good.

00:06:16 ◼   ► And for them to be willing to go to this on day one,

00:06:21 ◼   ► that means a lot, I think,

00:06:24 ◼   ► and it speaks a lot to the technology at hand.

00:06:26 ◼   ► They're also doing, they have a, if you look at this,

00:06:29 ◼   ► they have an early access program.

00:06:32 ◼   ► They're gonna send out invites to check out the beta.

00:06:34 ◼   ► So I signed up for this 'cause I wanted to play

00:06:36 ◼   ► with some Catalyst apps on Catalina.

00:06:38 ◼   ► So if you're interested in that, go check out this post.

00:06:40 ◼   ► It's in the show notes.

00:06:42 ◼   ► And I think we're gonna see more of these blog posts

00:06:44 ◼   ► as the summer wears on.

00:06:45 ◼   ► - Yeah. - All right,

00:06:46 ◼   ► so moving on from Catalyst, we had a listener question.

00:06:49 ◼   ► This came in an email, and I thought I'd just

00:06:53 ◼   ► put it in follow up just because we don't really have a home for this on the show.

00:06:56 ◼   ► But this was a listener questioner from Jared and it was written to you but sent to me.

00:07:01 ◼   ► So when Federico goes to the beach, does he take a home pot or two?

00:07:05 ◼   ► No, no. Sylvia hates the home pot so much. I feel like I couldn't just do this to her,

00:07:13 ◼   ► you know, to bring over Siri to the beach too. It feels like going to the beach house

00:07:18 ◼   ► is Sylvia's opportunity to get rid of Siri. She really, fundamentally despises the home

00:07:25 ◼   ► power as a product. And the fact that we have three of them, because of my decision, doesn't

00:07:32 ◼   ► help. It's something that she's still upset about, rightfully so, because she doesn't

00:07:38 ◼   ► like it. She continues to be an Amazon Echo person, even though we don't have them anymore.

00:07:45 ◼   ► is nostalgic about it. So, yeah. But, I mean, for—my excuse is that for work-related reasons,

00:07:55 ◼   ► we cannot get rid of the HomePod. You could make the case that maybe three of them were

00:08:00 ◼   ► not necessary, but that's a different discussion.

00:08:03 ◼   ► Oh, boy. Okay. Well, thank you, Jared, for that little insight into the Vittigi household.

00:08:09 ◼   ► Yeah, Jared, you touched on a—it's a whole—

00:08:11 ◼   ► A real nerve?

00:08:12 ◼   ► It's a whole story, Jared.

00:08:15 ◼   ► the whole story. In the realm of follow out where we talk about things other places, I

00:08:20 ◼   ► wanted to point people to App Stories, Episode 118, where you and john get into reminders

00:08:27 ◼   ► on iOS 13. I'm just so excited about reminders. And I think y'all did a good job of saying

00:08:32 ◼   ► areas that it could improve. Like there's basically no tagging support and some of the

00:08:36 ◼   ► other things are a little weird. But it seems like Apple has a real contender on their hands,

00:08:41 ◼   ► doesn't it?

00:08:42 ◼   ► There's a few things that I still believe need to be rectified, and we're going to talk about it later when we talk about the iOS 13 beta,

00:08:52 ◼   ► but it feels like they are... I'm trying this app as my main to-do list app right now, and I think I should be able to stick with it for the future.

00:09:06 ◼   ► I don't know if the reminders update is...

00:09:11 ◼   ► Of course the app is all new, and of course it's completely different from before.

00:09:15 ◼   ► I'm still not sure whether it can be considered as massive as the notes update from iOS 9,

00:09:26 ◼   ► mostly because it still feels like one part of reminders, which would be the inspector.

00:09:34 ◼   ► and I guess also list management. Could have used a bit more love, especially when inspecting

00:09:42 ◼   ► additional details about a reminder. It's still a bit clunky, there's a lot of fields, you know,

00:09:51 ◼   ► a lot of toggles, it could be sped up, and basic things like you cannot sort your lists, for

00:10:00 ◼   ► For example, like there's a, you know,

00:10:02 ◼   ► - That's all I want.

00:10:04 ◼   ► It's my only feature requirement.

00:10:06 ◼   ► - We're gonna talk about it later, but I mean,

00:10:08 ◼   ► I like everything else.

00:10:10 ◼   ► So the look of the app, the visual attachments,

00:10:14 ◼   ► the links, the folders, the new icons, the colors,

00:10:18 ◼   ► it's really well done.

00:10:20 ◼   ► Probably not as groundbreaking.

00:10:23 ◼   ► And because really looking back at notes,

00:10:25 ◼   ► that was one massive update, you know, you got the new UI,

00:10:29 ◼   ► the folders, the attachments, the pencil, the new editing UI. That was really an incredible

00:10:36 ◼   ► update. This one, maybe not as big as as Notes in iOS 9, but definitely, you know, and maybe

00:10:43 ◼   ► of course not as big as Safari on iPad, but it's still very good. So, yeah, thank you

00:10:51 ◼   ► for mentioning the App Stories episode. We're taking a look at a bunch of apps this summer

00:10:57 ◼   ► on App Stories because it's what we do.

00:10:59 ◼   ► So I'm using reminders right now.

00:11:01 ◼   ► Again, gonna talk about it in a few minutes.

00:11:03 ◼   ► We're gonna talk about the iOS 13 and iPadOS beta.

00:11:06 ◼   ► But yeah, I really like what I see so far.

00:11:10 ◼   ► - Cool.

00:11:11 ◼   ► It feels like in a less busy year,

00:11:13 ◼   ► reminders would be a bigger deal,

00:11:15 ◼   ► but I kind of feel bad that it's sort of

00:11:18 ◼   ► taking the back seat and some of the coverage

00:11:20 ◼   ► 'cause there's so much other stuff.

00:11:21 ◼   ► - Yeah, that's also probably it, I think,

00:11:23 ◼   ► especially when compared to Safari

00:11:25 ◼   ► and everything else going on. - Sure.

00:11:26 ◼   ► Yeah, Safari is very good in iPad OS.

00:11:29 ◼   ► It's very good.

00:11:30 ◼   ► Just a quick reminder that we will

00:11:32 ◼   ► be doing our live show in San Francisco

00:11:35 ◼   ► to celebrate the network's fifth birthday.

00:11:37 ◼   ► There's a link in the show notes.

00:11:39 ◼   ► We'd love to have you there.

00:11:40 ◼   ► So people are traveling for it.

00:11:41 ◼   ► We're going to have a lot of hosts there.

00:11:43 ◼   ► As many hosts as we can cram into San Francisco

00:11:46 ◼   ► will be there.

00:11:47 ◼   ► So be sure to go check that out.

00:11:49 ◼   ► I wanted to-- I've got a tiny topic for you.

00:11:52 ◼   ► Tiny topic.

00:11:53 ◼   ► A tiny topic from a tiny computer.

00:11:56 ◼   ► This is a weird one.

00:11:57 ◼   ► So there's a link over on MacRumors

00:12:00 ◼   ► and it's outlining some issue with the new MacBook Air,

00:12:04 ◼   ► so that 2018 Thunderbolt MacBook Air, the Retina one.

00:12:08 ◼   ► And it seems like, and quote, "A very small number,"

00:12:11 ◼   ► unquote, "have some sort of logic board problem,

00:12:15 ◼   ► but Apple, A, this isn't public."

00:12:17 ◼   ► - Ooh, that sounds bad.

00:12:18 ◼   ► - This isn't public, so Apple,

00:12:19 ◼   ► this is just internal and MacRumors obviously has sources.

00:12:21 ◼   ► "Apple is contacting owners of the machines

00:12:24 ◼   ► that have this problem.

00:12:25 ◼   ► They will replace the logic board

00:12:26 ◼   ► for up to four years out of warranty.

00:12:28 ◼   ► My wife has one of these computers.

00:12:30 ◼   ► We have not gotten an email about it,

00:12:32 ◼   ► so I guess she's in the clear.

00:12:34 ◼   ► But they're not saying what the problem is.

00:12:36 ◼   ► It's very strange.

00:12:37 ◼   ► It's like, oh, some of these systems have a problem.

00:12:40 ◼   ► We won't tell you what it is.

00:12:41 ◼   ► We'll only tell you if you are affected by it.

00:12:43 ◼   ► I don't know, it's strange.

00:12:44 ◼   ► I would be very curious if someone out there listening

00:12:47 ◼   ► has gotten one of these emails yet,

00:12:50 ◼   ► what the deal is.

00:12:51 ◼   ► But it's just like a secret MacBook Air repair program,

00:12:55 ◼   ► And this now means that every,

00:12:57 ◼   ► well the MacBook Air was already under a repair program

00:12:59 ◼   ► for the keyboard,

00:13:00 ◼   ► but every single Apple notebook there is sold

00:13:03 ◼   ► has some sort of recall or issue it seems like,

00:13:05 ◼   ► even the old 2015 with the battery.

00:13:07 ◼   ► So I don't know what the deal is,

00:13:09 ◼   ► but MacBook Air having some sort of secret problem.

00:13:13 ◼   ► Very small number of people, secret problem.

00:13:15 ◼   ► - If only this was the kind of company

00:13:16 ◼   ► that put more emphasis on operations,

00:13:19 ◼   ► maybe this wouldn't happen.

00:13:20 ◼   ► - We're gonna talk about that.

00:13:22 ◼   ► - I'm just saying.

00:13:23 ◼   ► - In a second.

00:13:24 ◼   ► We do have another tiny topic, and this is one

00:13:27 ◼   ► that is much more in your royal house than mine,

00:13:30 ◼   ► but Apple announced Up Next Live.

00:13:33 ◼   ► So back in the day, Apple had these,

00:13:35 ◼   ► what was it called, iTunes something?

00:13:38 ◼   ► - iTunes Festival. - iTunes Festival.

00:13:40 ◼   ► - Festival. - And that's been gone

00:13:42 ◼   ► a couple of years now, and they seem to be replacing it

00:13:45 ◼   ► this year with Up Next Live.

00:13:47 ◼   ► So what is this about?

00:13:48 ◼   ► - So Up Next Live is basically a series of,

00:13:52 ◼   ► I wouldn't say concerts, but more intimate,

00:13:55 ◼   ► like smaller venue performances that are taking place

00:14:00 ◼   ► at select Apple retail stores or town squares,

00:14:05 ◼   ► whatever you want to call them, around the world.

00:14:07 ◼   ► One of them is Milan, actually Milan

00:14:09 ◼   ► has the super beautiful Piazza Liberty store

00:14:14 ◼   ► with the square outside, with the fountain outside.

00:14:17 ◼   ► It looks really good.

00:14:18 ◼   ► So here's what I want you to do, Stephen.

00:14:21 ◼   ► I want you to go through the list of these artists playing for Up Next Live and tell

00:14:28 ◼   ► our listeners who they are.

00:14:29 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:14:30 ◼   ► I don't think I know any of them.

00:14:32 ◼   ► Go through the list.

00:14:33 ◼   ► I want you to go through the list.

00:14:35 ◼   ► There's Bad Bunny, wearing cool sunglasses, some sort of hat situation.

00:14:42 ◼   ► There's Jesse Rez, wearing a flannel shirt, she's looking very intensely at the camera.

00:14:47 ◼   ► King Princess in a green shirt, again looking very intensely at the camera.

00:14:52 ◼   ► There's, who else is here? We have Louis Capaldi, he's playing in Paris, and in a

00:14:59 ◼   ► black shirt and his hair is kind of messy. You have Daniel Caesar in an

00:15:03 ◼   ► awesome hat. I'd wear that hat, kind of a cool hat, beige hat. He's looking down as

00:15:07 ◼   ► if someone dropped something off screen, and so like he's sort of looking down at

00:15:11 ◼   ► Ashley McBride's text label on the ticketing website. She's there as well. So

00:15:16 ◼   ► So there's a bunch of people here.

00:15:18 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:15:19 ◼   ► And Khalid, of course.

00:15:20 ◼   ► Oh, yes.

00:15:21 ◼   ► I didn't scroll.

00:15:22 ◼   ► Look, there's more.

00:15:23 ◼   ► Yes.

00:15:24 ◼   ► That's the only name I recognize.

00:15:25 ◼   ► You ever heard of?

00:15:26 ◼   ► Oh, okay.

00:15:27 ◼   ► You were not Khalid.

00:15:28 ◼   ► Sure.

00:15:29 ◼   ► Okay.

00:15:30 ◼   ► Good.

00:15:31 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:15:32 ◼   ► So, yeah, they're all quite popular, actually, and these are all artists that have been featured

00:15:34 ◼   ► on Apple Music, either for...

00:15:36 ◼   ► Up Next.

00:15:37 ◼   ► So Up Next is the name of the feature in the music app.

00:15:42 ◼   ► It's also the name of the program where Apple basically highlights up and coming artists

00:15:49 ◼   ► on Apple Music.

00:15:50 ◼   ► So up next is really a bunch of things.

00:15:54 ◼   ► But yeah, there's a, you know, Bad Bunny Milan.

00:15:56 ◼   ► That's if I had the time, I should, I could probably consider that.

00:15:59 ◼   ► I don't remember what it was called.

00:16:01 ◼   ► But back in the day, Apple sometimes would have bands come play inside Apple stores.

00:16:07 ◼   ► I remember Linkin Park did one and they recorded it and like put it on iTunes.

00:16:11 ◼   ► Yes.

00:16:12 ◼   ► This kind of reminds me of that.

00:16:13 ◼   ► iTunes sessions?

00:16:14 ◼   ► No, I think iTunes sessions are like EPs and stuff,

00:16:18 ◼   ► but they're not recorded in stores.

00:16:20 ◼   ► There was a name for it if you were recorded in stores.

00:16:22 ◼   ► Let's see.

00:16:23 ◼   ► I'm surprised you don't know this information.

00:16:24 ◼   ► Store, live, live concert.

00:16:28 ◼   ► Maybe it's called Apple Store Live.

00:16:31 ◼   ► Always on.

00:16:32 ◼   ► Apple Live.

00:16:33 ◼   ► Apple at Lincoln Park.

00:16:35 ◼   ► Let's see.

00:16:36 ◼   ► iTunes Live is what it was called.

00:16:38 ◼   ► iTunes Live.

00:16:39 ◼   ► iTunes Live, really?

00:16:41 ◼   ► - iTunes Live, okay, and that was done

00:16:43 ◼   ► inside the Apple Store?

00:16:44 ◼   ► - Yes, I'm putting a link in the chat room

00:16:47 ◼   ► and in the show notes right now.

00:16:48 ◼   ► - Interesting.

00:16:49 ◼   ► - So you can go learn about that.

00:16:50 ◼   ► Yeah, I like this sort of thing, right?

00:16:52 ◼   ► Apple is into music and they like, this is cool.

00:16:56 ◼   ► This is the type of things that I like seeing

00:16:58 ◼   ► from the company, it's neat.

00:17:00 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, it's, you know, one of the,

00:17:04 ◼   ► I think we discussed this a while back.

00:17:07 ◼   ► Basically at this point, all the major music

00:17:10 ◼   ► streaming services, they offer the same catalog. And so how do you differentiate? How do you

00:17:16 ◼   ► convince people to sign up for Apple Music instead of Spotify or instead of YouTube Music

00:17:20 ◼   ► or instead of Deezer or whatever? This is one of the services that you can offer to

00:17:29 ◼   ► differentiate, to diversify, to offer performances, to have the up next program, highlight new

00:17:36 ◼   ► artists. And a good example could be, for example, you've heard of Billie Eilish, right?

00:17:40 ◼   ► Yes.

00:17:41 ◼   ► You've heard of her. Okay. So in that case, Apple collaborated with Billie Eilish and,

00:17:47 ◼   ► you know, they collaborated with the label for a couple of years to sort of make this

00:17:53 ◼   ► big push for Billie's first album that came out a few months ago. And Billie was featured

00:17:58 ◼   ► in Up Next. She'd done a couple of songs for Apple for using commercials. So that kind

00:18:03 ◼   ► of, I hate to use this term, but synergy. I know, I know, I know collaboration, call

00:18:12 ◼   ► it whatever you want to call it. But the idea of using Apple Music as a platform rather

00:18:17 ◼   ► than just a service because anybody can do this, can do a service, right? You got 12,

00:18:23 ◼   ► 15 services, but, you know, can you use it as a platform? Can you use it for exclusive

00:18:29 ◼   ► things or performances or collaborations of this kind, and it's also why I still think

00:18:37 ◼   ► that the iTunes Festival as an idea was good. The idea of having a week of concerts. It's

00:18:46 ◼   ► something that I wish that Apple would explore again. Sort of Apple's version of Coachella,

00:18:52 ◼   ► but for Apple Music. Doing the performances around the Apple Source is cool. Doing a festival

00:18:59 ◼   ► is better. Doing a week of concerts is better. And it's also, you know, you got that brand

00:19:06 ◼   ► recognition going on. You got, you know, there's a few things that you could try to tie that

00:19:12 ◼   ► to Apple Music. Make it exclusive. You know, you could do video streaming, you could do

00:19:16 ◼   ► playlists, you could do all sorts of things. And maybe you could give away home pods at

00:19:21 ◼   ► the concert. I don't know.

00:19:22 ◼   ► You could like shoot them out of cannons at people.

00:19:25 ◼   ► And you're going to kill somebody if you do that.

00:19:27 ◼   ► Really heavy.

00:19:28 ◼   ► It's dangerous.

00:19:29 ◼   ► Really heavy.

00:19:30 ◼   ► So hopefully they won't do that.

00:19:32 ◼   ► But yeah, I think it's very nice to see all of these events surrounding Apple Music, all

00:19:38 ◼   ► of these initiatives surrounding the streaming service.

00:19:41 ◼   ► It makes it feel like I'm paying for a service, but I get an experience, which of course,

00:19:48 ◼   ► In this case, it depends on actually going to the store, but in a broader discussion

00:19:53 ◼   ► of Apple Music is the app on my phone, but it's also this whole collection of events

00:19:59 ◼   ► and artists doing exclusive things and music videos, and now, you know, real-time lyrics.

00:20:06 ◼   ► We've talked about this when we talked about the future of Apple services, the idea of

00:20:12 ◼   ► diversifying to go beyond just streaming an album or streaming a song.

00:20:16 ◼   ► So this is the kind of thing that I would like to see more and more.

00:20:19 ◼   ► All right, we have a lot more to talk about.

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00:22:09 ◼   ► I want to wind the clock back, Federico, to the beginning of the year when we made our

00:22:14 ◼   ► annual predictions.

00:22:15 ◼   ► Oh, God, it's going to do it again.

00:22:17 ◼   ► And I said, it is a non-graded extra pick, so we don't have to get into your conspiracy

00:22:22 ◼   ► about points.

00:22:24 ◼   ► But I said that someone on Apple's executive website would leave or be fired.

00:22:28 ◼   ► This is already green in the document because changes at Apple retail, but last week the

00:22:35 ◼   ► news broke that Johnny Ive is leaving Apple. How many people have to leave

00:22:39 ◼   ► Apple for you to stop doing this? Hey, I, you know, everybody shut it down. Out of

00:22:46 ◼   ► business. So there's a lot to talk about here. There are a bunch of links in the

00:22:50 ◼   ► show notes to various articles and and stuff. I don't think we necessarily need

00:22:54 ◼   ► to cover the news because at this point anyone who listens connected knows this,

00:22:57 ◼   ► but I'm really curious what what you think about it. How does this strike you?

00:23:02 ◼   ► Of course, when I saw the news, I was very surprised and quite shocked, actually.

00:23:10 ◼   ► Same, same.

00:23:11 ◼   ► So I'm going to skip over the part. Of course, everybody was surprised and all of that.

00:23:15 ◼   ► But I've been struggling with forming an opinion about this.

00:23:20 ◼   ► And let me explain why. There are times...

00:23:23 ◼   ► So in doing my job, I have a website, we cover Apple News.

00:23:27 ◼   ► Apple news, I personally tend to focus on apps and iOS and iPad and all that kind of

00:23:34 ◼   ► stuff. Sometimes, when something happens, and we need to cover that news or that event,

00:23:41 ◼   ► sometimes I struggle to have an opinion about it, like a personal opinion, like what do

00:23:46 ◼   ► I think about this? And usually, and of course this happens in real life as well, like when

00:23:52 ◼   ► I hear something about politics on the news or some other event that happened, you know.

00:23:57 ◼   ► And my problem is that when I don't have the perspective necessary for me to have an opinion,

00:24:05 ◼   ► I prefer, and I've always been this way, I prefer to just shut up and not say anything.

00:24:13 ◼   ► Because it feels like anything that I say, and it's not that I don't want to be criticized,

00:24:19 ◼   ► I'm fine with that, I'm fine with people disagreeing with me, I just don't know what to say. Because

00:24:24 ◼   ► I don't know the facts. I don't know. I don't have the perspective. I don't have the insight

00:24:31 ◼   ► or maybe it just doesn't interest me. And in this case, and there's an article from

00:24:37 ◼   ► from Panzarin. No. And a tweet from Renee Richie that he, that it, that I retweeted today that

00:24:45 ◼   ► I would like to, to point to, to our listeners too. Okay. The thing is maybe yes, Johnny

00:24:53 ◼   ► I've, you know, became increasingly detached from Apple to the point where it just didn't

00:25:01 ◼   ► want to work there anymore.

00:25:03 ◼   ► Maybe - and you can make the argument that, you know, maybe this is going to be a problem

00:25:09 ◼   ► for Apple not to have Johnny Ive.

00:25:10 ◼   ► I'm sure there will be consequences, I'm sure that his leave will have repercussions that

00:25:16 ◼   ► will be felt for the next few years.

00:25:19 ◼   ► But then again, it's not like Johnny Ive... and this is not like... this is a something that I see on Twitter being brought up from a few folks.

00:25:29 ◼   ► You either are a critic or you are an apologist. This is a word that I've seen thrown around

00:25:38 ◼   ► time and time again this week.

00:25:40 ◼   ► Being a critic or being an apologist. And I think sometimes it's fine if you're not neither of those things.

00:25:47 ◼   ► things. I'm sure that there will be consequences for Johnny Ive living. I'm sure that there

00:25:54 ◼   ► are other designers at Apple. If you believe that the iPad, the iPhone, the iMac, the Mac

00:26:04 ◼   ► Pro were designed by a single person, you need to get rid of that delusion. It's not

00:26:10 ◼   ► how big companies operate. There are dozens, probably hundreds of designers working at

00:26:17 ◼   ► at Apple. Sure, a single figure, a single charismatic figure is important, but it's

00:26:23 ◼   ► not like design is over at Apple. It's not like design has suddenly stopped because

00:26:29 ◼   ► Johnny Ive is not driving the design bus anymore, right? There are other people that can...

00:26:35 ◼   ► that have been doing design at Apple. And so, I feel like... I've been on Twitter, right?

00:26:44 ◼   ► I've read a lot of tweets, I've read a lot of, I've listened to a lot of podcasts,

00:26:49 ◼   ► I've read a lot of blog posts about this. And it feels like some people are compelled

00:26:54 ◼   ► to just have an opinion as long as they have one that they can exchange for attention.

00:27:00 ◼   ► And that's the reason why we've been relatively quiet on Mac stories about this. That's

00:27:07 ◼   ► why I have personally been quiet about it because I don't know whatever happened inside

00:27:13 ◼   ► of Apple. Maybe I'm not good enough of a reporter, maybe I just don't have enough friends who

00:27:20 ◼   ► work at Apple in the design department, I don't know. I just feel like, is this the

00:27:27 ◼   ► end of Apple? Is this the end of design? Is this just another transition? I think sometimes

00:27:34 ◼   ► it's fine to not have an opinion right away. Wait a few years, a few months, I don't know

00:27:42 ◼   ► know how long until you get that perspective that allows you to say, "Yeah, maybe things

00:27:48 ◼   ► did change for the worse or for the better. Who knows?" I think having this proclaiming

00:27:54 ◼   ► right now that declaring that Apple and design are over, these things they usually don't

00:28:04 ◼   ► age well. And it makes me... And I see people attacking each other on Twitter and making

00:28:10 ◼   ► in front of each other. That's not, you know, I don't want to be part, I don't want, I don't

00:28:15 ◼   ► want anything to do with that. So my personal take on this is a very long answer to what

00:28:21 ◼   ► was originally a simple question from you, Steven. I just want to, I just want to know,

00:28:27 ◼   ► but I wanted to share it because it's been on my mind for the past week. This is connected

00:28:31 ◼   ► is the best place to share these thoughts. Sometimes I just want to sit back and read

00:28:39 ◼   ► and learn and wait. There are other people that can have these opinions, that can share

00:28:47 ◼   ► them in a better way than me. Maybe I'm too young, maybe I'm too inexperienced, but I

00:28:54 ◼   ► don't know. See, I don't know. What does it mean? I don't know. I'm sure, you know, the

00:29:00 ◼   ► only thing that I know right now is that I'm sure it'll be different, but I don't believe

00:29:07 ◼   ► in this conversation that is happening right now, that you either think this is a good thing,

00:29:15 ◼   ► and therefore you are an apologist, or it's either the worst thing that could ever happen,

00:29:22 ◼   ► and therefore you are a critic. And René, let me actually, you know, this is something that's on

00:29:29 ◼   ► my mind a lot. It's that the negativity is in honesty and cynicism is in intelligence.

00:29:35 ◼   ► And this is something that is, like, I think about all the time. I see some people that

00:29:42 ◼   ► they think they're honest and that they are better journalists because they are constantly

00:29:49 ◼   ► negative. And in this case, specifically, we are talking about Apple. You could apply

00:29:54 ◼   ► the same metric to maybe other tech companies or maybe to folks who write about Nintendo

00:30:00 ◼   ► or Sony or Microsoft, for example, and that being, you know, cynicism is a symptom of

00:30:08 ◼   ► intelligence. I don't think that that is true. I think you can be positive and honest

00:30:13 ◼   ► at the same time. I think you can be optimistic and intelligent at the same time, of course.

00:30:20 ◼   ► So my personal take, I just want to wait because I don't know what to think right now. And

00:30:27 ◼   ► And I think that's, I think that's fine. I don't think, you know, we have this economy

00:30:32 ◼   ► of hot takes going on this past couple of years on about Apple on Twitter. I don't want,

00:30:38 ◼   ► I don't want to be part of any of that personally. So that's my answer.

00:30:44 ◼   ► I actually agree with all of that. I wrote a little bit about, about it the day of, and

00:30:48 ◼   ► I kind of wish I hadn't, but it's published, so it'll stay published. But at the same time,

00:30:53 ◼   ► I stand by what I said of like, this means change,

00:30:56 ◼   ► and I'm excited to see what that change means.

00:30:58 ◼   ► I still agree with all that.

00:31:00 ◼   ► This is one of those cases,

00:31:03 ◼   ► and this happens every once in a while with Apple,

00:31:05 ◼   ► and other companies, of course,

00:31:07 ◼   ► where you can use a news story to fit the narrative

00:31:12 ◼   ► you want to espouse or share, right?

00:31:16 ◼   ► And we're not gonna get into all the media drama

00:31:18 ◼   ► between like "The Wall Street Journal" and Tim Cook.

00:31:20 ◼   ► Like, I just, I don't care.

00:31:22 ◼   ► but people can weaponize these stories to fit their narrative.

00:31:28 ◼   ► And honestly, people on the side of this is the end of the world

00:31:33 ◼   ► or this is the best thing ever, they both

00:31:35 ◼   ► believe that the same amount.

00:31:37 ◼   ► And honestly, there's merits on both sides, probably.

00:31:39 ◼   ► But people take things to the extreme.

00:31:41 ◼   ► I think the reality will be that this will mean some changes

00:31:45 ◼   ► that we don't foresee and some changes we may actually

00:31:47 ◼   ► never see because it's internal to Apple.

00:31:49 ◼   ► At the end of the day, Apple is too big

00:31:53 ◼   ► with too much momentum to be knocked off course

00:31:57 ◼   ► in a rapid fashion.

00:31:59 ◼   ► And while people have left the design studio,

00:32:03 ◼   ► the people who are still there,

00:32:04 ◼   ► for the most part have been there a long time.

00:32:07 ◼   ► And the people now leading these things

00:32:12 ◼   ► have been there a long time.

00:32:13 ◼   ► And it's not like all of the DNA that was there

00:32:18 ◼   ► her previous administration is gone and I think that means things will probably be fine.

00:32:24 ◼   ► I think it's also interesting and it has not really been much in the coverage that I've seen,

00:32:30 ◼   ► at least. Alan Dye is a pretty well-known name. He was in some of the press for the Apple Watch stuff

00:32:37 ◼   ► and he is in charge of the human interface design, which he's been over in the PR release and public.

00:32:47 ◼   ► But Evan Sankey is now the vice president of industrial design and that is great.

00:32:54 ◼   ► She's been there a long time, but it also means that there is sort of a formal position on the

00:33:01 ◼   ► design leadership team that's held by a woman. And that's excellent because Apple struggles with that

00:33:08 ◼   ► at their highest level. Still, they've made progress, but not enough. And even though

00:33:12 ◼   ► these executives don't answer directly to Tim Cook, it does make the decision, the sort

00:33:18 ◼   ► of the official titled decision-making body a tad bit more diverse. And that's something

00:33:23 ◼   ► that is always good.

00:33:25 ◼   ► >>

00:33:25 ◼   ► - And I mean, I'm just gonna bring this up.

00:33:27 ◼   ► You have to wonder if some of the backlash

00:33:30 ◼   ► that we've seen about the decision to make her,

00:33:33 ◼   ► the leadership of the design team is because she's a woman.

00:33:41 ◼   ► This undercurrent of sexism in some areas

00:33:46 ◼   ► of the tech community and specifically the Apple community.

00:33:51 ◼   ► Sometimes I see tweets go by,

00:33:53 ◼   ► I see blog posts go by and I wonder, is that really, like, are you justifying, you know,

00:33:59 ◼   ► the fact that you don't like that she's a woman and she's not replacing Jonny Iverness

00:34:04 ◼   ► necessarily, but she's in charge of design now, which of course is, that's terrible,

00:34:11 ◼   ► that's awful, and I, you know, and I wish that some people were better than that, but

00:34:16 ◼   ► it is what it is, and Apple appointing her to the leadership of the design team, that's

00:34:23 ◼   ► That's an excellent sign. And judging from the reports that we've seen, she's got a lot

00:34:30 ◼   ► of experience, she's been doing this for years, she's been managing the design team for a

00:34:34 ◼   ► while, so it makes total sense. Once again, some people think that this is actually for

00:34:43 ◼   ► the better, some people think that if you say that, you are being paid by Apple. Like,

00:34:51 ◼   ► I'm not joking. Some people think that. I don't want to be part of that discussion at

00:34:56 ◼   ► all. I don't want to even touch it with a stick. Some people have wild ideas. I prefer

00:35:03 ◼   ► to wait and see how things shake. I realize it doesn't make necessarily for... It's saying,

00:35:11 ◼   ► "Oh, we just want to wait and get some perspective and think about it." It doesn't make for page

00:35:19 ◼   ► views or video views or whatever. And it's fine. It's fine. It's, it's, you know, one

00:35:25 ◼   ► of those things where I'm gonna look back at my site in a few years, I will see an absence

00:35:31 ◼   ► of, you know, there will be no no hot takes that I will regret and I will be happy because

00:35:38 ◼   ► it means that I thought about it. I wish more people would do that, but if they don't, it's

00:35:41 ◼   ► fine. It's their life. It's their decision. So whatever. I would add if you haven't read

00:35:45 ◼   ► anything or you haven't particularly read Matt's article in TechCrunch, that's

00:35:49 ◼   ► in the show notes. That's the best take I've read. So yeah, Johnny Ive, moving on.

00:35:54 ◼   ► And so, so must we Federico. So must we. So we're going to talk about the

00:35:59 ◼   ► iOS 13 developer beta 3. It dropped yesterday, but first let me tell you

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00:37:46 ◼   ► So iOS developer Beta 3 is out.

00:37:49 ◼   ► As of my speaking into this microphone,

00:37:51 ◼   ► Public Beta 2 is not out,

00:37:53 ◼   ► but I assume that would be soon, maybe.

00:37:56 ◼   ► I don't know, it's a holiday week here in the US,

00:37:57 ◼   ► So maybe it'll be a few more days.

00:37:59 ◼   ► But the Beta 3 is out.

00:38:00 ◼   ► You're on the developer track.

00:38:02 ◼   ► So I want to see how you think about the changes.

00:38:04 ◼   ► But there are a couple of features

00:38:07 ◼   ► I wanted to point out first.

00:38:09 ◼   ► We're still on the Beta cycle.

00:38:10 ◼   ► They still are tweaking things.

00:38:12 ◼   ► The first one came to us via Twitter

00:38:15 ◼   ► by somebody named Federico Vatici.

00:38:18 ◼   ► I'm not sure who that guy is.

00:38:20 ◼   ► But iPad OS 13 Beta 3 shows which app in split view

00:38:25 ◼   ► is actively receiving text input, which is really good.

00:38:30 ◼   ► So tell us about this.

00:38:31 ◼   ► How have they done it, and do you think it goes far enough?

00:38:33 ◼   ► So this has been a problem since Split View was introduced

00:38:36 ◼   ► in iOS 9 in 2015.

00:38:39 ◼   ► Basically, with two apps active at the same time,

00:38:42 ◼   ► you will have no obvious indication

00:38:45 ◼   ► of which one was actively receiving

00:38:47 ◼   ► text input from an external keyboard

00:38:50 ◼   ► or from the software keyboard.

00:38:52 ◼   ► I've had a few people say to me on Twitter,

00:38:55 ◼   ► "Well, why would you need that?

00:38:56 ◼   ► You got the cursor."

00:38:58 ◼   ► Yes, of course, but here's the problem.

00:39:01 ◼   ► If you work with an iPad and an external keyboard,

00:39:04 ◼   ► we're not just talking about text input,

00:39:06 ◼   ► we're also talking about which app

00:39:08 ◼   ► is currently listening for keyboard shortcuts.

00:39:11 ◼   ► How many times have you found yourself using split view,

00:39:15 ◼   ► holding down the command key

00:39:17 ◼   ► or performing a keyboard shortcut

00:39:19 ◼   ► only to realize the wrong app is currently considered the active one from the system.

00:39:25 ◼   ► So here's what Apple needs to fix, and here's what they're doing with iPadOS 13.

00:39:32 ◼   ► Now in this beta, what we got is, there's a pill-shaped indicator at the top, which

00:39:39 ◼   ► is the same indicator that you drag to remove an app from SplitView and make it either in

00:39:46 ◼   ► fullscreen or slide over.

00:39:49 ◼   ► When you switch between apps, either by tapping the screen or using Command Tab, I guess,

00:39:55 ◼   ► that indicator flashes briefly and changes, I guess, the opacity.

00:40:00 ◼   ► The color of the indicator itself changes between the app on the left and the app on

00:40:06 ◼   ► the right.

00:40:07 ◼   ► Now, it's very subtle.

00:40:09 ◼   ► It could probably stand out a bit more.

00:40:12 ◼   ► I am not sure, though, if Apple should follow what some people are saying on Twitter.

00:40:17 ◼   ► or just dim the other app.

00:40:20 ◼   ► Because one of the things about Split View

00:40:22 ◼   ► is that you are effectively using two

00:40:24 ◼   ► and seeing two apps at the same time.

00:40:27 ◼   ► I'm not sure if I want the app on the left

00:40:30 ◼   ► or the app on the right to be a darker shade of gray

00:40:34 ◼   ► or something to be dimmed,

00:40:36 ◼   ► because I do like the fact that I am using

00:40:39 ◼   ► two active apps simultaneously on screen.

00:40:42 ◼   ► So maybe the indicator could be bigger,

00:40:44 ◼   ► Maybe the flashing could be a bit more flashy, or the color could be darker, I don't know.

00:40:51 ◼   ► It's a start, and it's better than before.

00:40:54 ◼   ► Hopefully Apple will iterate on this, but I think it's a good change.

00:40:58 ◼   ► I think it's great.

00:40:59 ◼   ► You know, I was thinking about how the Mac does it, and apps that aren't, or windows

00:41:02 ◼   ► that aren't in focus, they go gray, the stoplight controls are grayed out.

00:41:09 ◼   ► And I think that makes sense on the Mac, but you're right, on the iPad, the Split View

00:41:13 ◼   ► apps are on more equal footing. You very often on the Mac you end up with apps

00:41:17 ◼   ► behind and in front of each other and in that arrangement the way it works on the

00:41:22 ◼   ► Mac makes more sense. So I agree with you the graying out or like dimming that

00:41:26 ◼   ► doesn't feel like it's quite right. I do wish maybe this was a little more

00:41:30 ◼   ► noticeable you know maybe they could do like marching ants around the active app

00:41:33 ◼   ► I'm just kidding that's a terrible idea but uh you know it's yeah this is great

00:41:36 ◼   ► and it's about time because this has been a problem for a long time. Also

00:41:41 ◼   ► Also, this one is strange.

00:41:44 ◼   ► There is a toggle in the new iOS 13 Beta,

00:41:49 ◼   ► and it lets you enable attention correction for FaceTime.

00:41:54 ◼   ► So I'm sure we've all been on video calls

00:41:59 ◼   ► on your iPhone or iPad,

00:42:00 ◼   ► and you are looking at the screen and not the camera.

00:42:05 ◼   ► So you're looking down or to the left or the right,

00:42:07 ◼   ► not making eye contact with the other person.

00:42:12 ◼   ► And this feature uses ARKit to adjust

00:42:16 ◼   ► where your eyes are looking

00:42:18 ◼   ► so you're looking at the camera.

00:42:19 ◼   ► There's this MacRumors article with some embedded tweets,

00:42:22 ◼   ► and this guy very cleverly put basically a wire

00:42:26 ◼   ► in front of his face and moved it up and down

00:42:28 ◼   ► so you can see where it's adjusting,

00:42:30 ◼   ► like the pitch of your eyes is very, it's cool, but--

00:42:33 ◼   ► - It does feel a bit dystopian though, doesn't it?

00:42:35 ◼   ► Like in the future, it'll always feel like we're looking at each other straight in the

00:42:41 ◼   ► eye, even though we're actually looking at something else.

00:42:43 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:42:44 ◼   ► It feels a bit creepy in a way that I cannot quite describe.

00:42:48 ◼   ► Like I guess it's the idea that, yes, it's a toggle, you need to enable it manually.

00:42:53 ◼   ► So it's not like Apple is imposing this feature on you.

00:42:56 ◼   ► But the idea of let the software alter my appearance by showing you that I'm looking

00:43:04 ◼   ► at you straight in the eye even though I'm actually looking at something else on the

00:43:08 ◼   ► screen completely. Like, I don't know. It's strange and unsettling maybe a little, to

00:43:14 ◼   ► me at least. It feels like something that a writer on the Black Mirror team would come

00:43:22 ◼   ► up with, maybe. Like, let's have a feature that pretends people look at each other, though

00:43:28 ◼   ► they are actually looking at something else. I don't know.

00:43:30 ◼   ► It's a little weird. But it's cool.

00:43:31 ◼   ► I mean, it's cool though.

00:43:33 ◼   ► It's very cool.

00:43:33 ◼   ► It's a good, it's a good demo.

00:43:35 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:43:35 ◼   ► For sure.

00:43:35 ◼   ► I just showed up in beta three ego.

00:43:38 ◼   ► We finished it.

00:43:39 ◼   ► Uh, so how is beta three?

00:43:41 ◼   ► You're running it on like seven devices.

00:43:43 ◼   ► How's it, how's it going?

00:43:44 ◼   ► I'm running it on two devices so far.

00:43:48 ◼   ► I still have, so my Mac does not have Carolina at this point.

00:43:52 ◼   ► Um, and also my watch is still on my watches actually are still on beta two.

00:43:59 ◼   ► because updating the watchwise beta is a whole deal, especially when you have two Apple watches,

00:44:05 ◼   ► you've got to disable auto switch and then the update.

00:44:08 ◼   ► So, ah, it sucks.

00:44:09 ◼   ► It seems fine so far.

00:44:12 ◼   ► The Files app, still a bit buggy, constantly.

00:44:17 ◼   ► And Apple actually mentions this, the iCloud drive and iCloud data.

00:44:23 ◼   ► There's still problems going on in iOS 13.

00:44:26 ◼   ► They are advising developers to pay attention to their apps.

00:44:30 ◼   ► They use iCloud.

00:44:31 ◼   ► The Files app is buggy.

00:44:33 ◼   ► And I noticed, for example, that natural,

00:44:37 ◼   ► I don't know if it's just me

00:44:39 ◼   ► or if this is happening for other people as well,

00:44:43 ◼   ► but basically natural language parsing

00:44:47 ◼   ► is gone from reminders for me.

00:44:50 ◼   ► - Yikes.

00:44:51 ◼   ► - Used to be that you could, in the new reminders app,

00:44:55 ◼   ► you could enter, I don't know, "call mom", and then you would type "today", and today would be highlighted in blue,

00:45:01 ◼   ► and you would get the suggestion in the QuickType bar, and if you tapped it, it would remove the string of text "today",

00:45:10 ◼   ► and use it as a date, sort of like in Fantastical, but a bit more involved, because you need to tap,

00:45:15 ◼   ► but all that is gone in Beta 3. Now, I hope that it's a bug, because Apple made a big deal out of,

00:45:22 ◼   ► It's now super easy to have reminders,

00:45:26 ◼   ► interpret your dates and times.

00:45:29 ◼   ► But as I mentioned on App Stories,

00:45:32 ◼   ► the time was not working for me.

00:45:34 ◼   ► Like I could only type either today, tomorrow,

00:45:38 ◼   ► or a specific day like Monday or Friday.

00:45:42 ◼   ► I couldn't type Monday 2 p.m.

00:45:45 ◼   ► or more complex natural language dates.

00:45:49 ◼   ► So maybe they removed it

00:45:51 ◼   ► because they're still working on it.

00:45:52 ◼   ► Maybe they killed it because it's not ready yet.

00:45:55 ◼   ► I really hope that it's just gone from beta 3,

00:45:58 ◼   ► which incidentally beta 3, this is quite strange also,

00:46:02 ◼   ► not available on the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus,

00:46:05 ◼   ► but I saw somebody on Reddit that emailed Craig Federighi

00:46:09 ◼   ► and he got a response saying,

00:46:11 ◼   ► "Sorry, it'll come back for the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus

00:46:15 ◼   ► in the future, don't worry."

00:46:16 ◼   ► So yeah, maybe I'm hoping that if anybody

00:46:20 ◼   ► from the reminders team is listening to this,

00:46:24 ◼   ► please don't kill that feature.

00:46:26 ◼   ► I really liked it, it's really convenient.

00:46:28 ◼   ► Let me type my dates and times, please.

00:46:31 ◼   ► I have some other things that I wanted to mention

00:46:35 ◼   ► about Beta 3, Steven.

00:46:37 ◼   ► There's a, I mean, we already mentioned how amazing Safari

00:46:41 ◼   ► is in iOS 13 and especially iPadOS 13,

00:46:44 ◼   ► but there's yet another addition to Safari.

00:46:47 ◼   ► You can now tap and hold on a tab on the iPad and the iPhone.

00:46:52 ◼   ► If you open the tab view on the iPhone and turn your iPhone in landscape mode.

00:46:58 ◼   ► Of course, that iPhone has to support landscape mode.

00:47:01 ◼   ► It works on my Macs.

00:47:02 ◼   ► I'm not sure if it works on other smaller phones.

00:47:05 ◼   ► You can tap and hold on a tab and you'll get a menu that says closed tab or like

00:47:14 ◼   ► "Reorder tabs by website" or "Reorder tabs by name".

00:47:20 ◼   ► So you have new options to reorder your tabs. I'm looking at this menu right now.

00:47:25 ◼   ► You can arrange tabs by title, arrange tabs by website, or copy, or close other tabs.

00:47:33 ◼   ► So if you want to just keep the current tab but close all the other ones, that's also a button in this menu.

00:47:39 ◼   ► It's really well done. It's really convenient.

00:47:41 ◼   ► And again, Safari and iPadOS, some excellent updates all around.

00:47:46 ◼   ► And this new gesture is new in Beta 3.

00:47:49 ◼   ► In Reminders, as I mentioned, you cannot sort your lists at this point.

00:47:56 ◼   ► For example, if you have something that is due today, but without a time

00:48:02 ◼   ► and something else that is due today at 2 p.m.,

00:48:06 ◼   ► those things I feel like should be sorted by time.

00:48:09 ◼   ► Yes. But there's no sorting menu inside. Yeah. But you can now choose to... I don't know why

00:48:17 ◼   ► people do this, but I've got a few tweets about this. People seem to be happy. You can show your

00:48:23 ◼   ► completed reminders on a per-list basis. Do you ever show your completed reminders, Stephen?

00:48:30 ◼   ► No. It's in the past. I live in the present. Exactly. You gotta live in the present and the future.

00:48:38 ◼   ► But now you can do that.

00:48:40 ◼   ► Finally, I haven't tried this personally, but I will test it tonight.

00:48:44 ◼   ► Unfortunately, this doesn't make any difference in terms of the show, because I'm saying this now,

00:48:50 ◼   ► and tonight will be in the future. And the future cannot be in an episode you are recording in the past.

00:48:56 ◼   ► This is very confusing. But still, I haven't tested it personally.

00:49:00 ◼   ► But you can now do audio sharing, the feature that allows you to listen to music,

00:49:06 ◼   ► along with a friend who's also wearing AirPods.

00:49:11 ◼   ► Now that feature also works for other types of headphones.

00:49:15 ◼   ► So if you wanna share your audio between AirPods

00:49:18 ◼   ► and Sony or Bose or other brands Bluetooth headphones,

00:49:22 ◼   ► that also works now.

00:49:23 ◼   ► You just select multiple sources in Control Center.

00:49:26 ◼   ► - That's cool.

00:49:27 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's very cool.

00:49:28 ◼   ► So if you have AirPods and your friend

00:49:31 ◼   ► has some Sony headphones or something else

00:49:33 ◼   ► or some other types of earbuds,

00:49:35 ◼   ► you can now share audio even if they're not AirPods,

00:49:38 ◼   ► which is pretty neat.

00:49:39 ◼   ► - Is that audio limited to the music app

00:49:41 ◼   ► or if I was listening to something in a podcast client,

00:49:44 ◼   ► can I share it?

00:49:45 ◼   ► - I'm not sure because it happens from Control Center,

00:49:48 ◼   ► so I would think that it works for all kinds of audio.

00:49:52 ◼   ► I don't think it's limited to the music app.

00:49:54 ◼   ► - I just wonder if you're listening in a podcast client,

00:49:57 ◼   ► how it shares that audio.

00:50:00 ◼   ► Is it air playing from one phone to another?

00:50:01 ◼   ► If it's in the Apple Music Library,

00:50:03 ◼   ► it just hands a URL and it can play it.

00:50:04 ◼   ► I'm curious how that works behind the scenes, but yeah, maybe that'll be some follow-up.

00:50:09 ◼   ► Once again, once again, haven't tested it, but it should be, it should be in the next

00:50:14 ◼   ► episode as follow-up.

00:50:15 ◼   ► So, sounds good.

00:50:16 ◼   ► I'm gonna, gonna test it with all the headphones that I have and see what happens.

00:50:20 ◼   ► We're gonna have a nice headphone party over here.

00:50:22 ◼   ► See what happens.

00:50:24 ◼   ► I'm putting at the top of the document, 251 follow-up audio sharing.

00:50:28 ◼   ► Perfect.

00:50:29 ◼   ► On iOS 13.

00:50:32 ◼   ► mentioned that you have not upgraded your watch. I saw on Twitter and we got got some

00:50:37 ◼   ► some notes that going from beta two to beta three on the watch and then on the Mac, which

00:50:42 ◼   ► I experienced myself is difficult. On Catalina, I had to reboot several times and then just

00:50:50 ◼   ► one of the times the updates are to run. So like, still early days still a little bit

00:50:55 ◼   ► rough. The watch bait is always rough. I mean, we say if you don't need this for your job,

00:50:59 ◼   ► run it. That is like doubly true on the Apple Watch because rolling back an Apple Watch,

00:51:06 ◼   ► not really something you can do. And if it goes sideways, you're kind of stuck with a with a

00:51:11 ◼   ► busted watch. So unless you are writing watch apps, I would say still clear of that beta until

00:51:18 ◼   ► until it's out and in the world. Well, cool. I'm glad that it seems to be moving along. That's how

00:51:23 ◼   ► things are supposed to work. I'm anxiously awaiting public beta 2 for my iPad Pro. And

00:51:29 ◼   ► I gotta say, I'm feeling the call on my phone. I don't want to do it. I have some travel

00:51:35 ◼   ► the end of the month and I think I'm gonna wait till after that. But I'm already kind

00:51:39 ◼   ► of like, I want to try these things on multiple devices, but I'm, I'm staying away for now.

00:51:43 ◼   ► I'm gonna try to be strong Federico. I'm gonna try. You should do it though. Thanks. It's

00:51:49 ◼   ► I mean, Dark Mode is very nice.

00:51:52 ◼   ► We got the new shortcuts going on.

00:51:53 ◼   ► I could send you a bunch of new shortcuts, which are really nice.

00:51:58 ◼   ► And the automation stuff...

00:51:59 ◼   ► Oh, this is actually something else that I wanted to mention.

00:52:01 ◼   ► Sorry, before we move on.

00:52:02 ◼   ► No, no, please.

00:52:04 ◼   ► NFC tags.

00:52:05 ◼   ► So these were previously announced as an automation trigger for the new shortcuts app.

00:52:13 ◼   ► There's an article on Mac Stories where Ryan listed all of the different triggers that

00:52:19 ◼   ► you can now use in shortcuts for automation.

00:52:21 ◼   ► To explain that for a second, this is a way to kick off a shortcut.

00:52:26 ◼   ► So instead of going to push a button, maybe you have this NFC tag on your desk and you

00:52:32 ◼   ► tag your phone to it and that causes automation to happen.

00:52:36 ◼   ► Yes.

00:52:37 ◼   ► Gotcha.

00:52:38 ◼   ► It's one of the new triggers in the automation section of the shortcuts app, which is now

00:52:43 ◼   ► built into iOS 13. And in Beta 3, NFC tags support background execution of your shortcuts,

00:52:53 ◼   ► which is amazing. So I placed a couple of tags on my desk. Actually, I gotta come up

00:53:00 ◼   ► with a better solution to label them or to remember what they do, but basically what

00:53:05 ◼   ► you do is you... Any NFC tag is supported by shortcut. When you set up an automation,

00:53:11 ◼   ► you go to the automation section and you say, "OK, I want to set up an NFC tag automation."

00:53:17 ◼   ► You scan the tag from the shortcuts app, you give it a name, and then you choose some actions.

00:53:24 ◼   ► The first tag, which is actually the official shortcuts one that Apple was giving, you know,

00:53:29 ◼   ► shortcuts engineers were giving away at WWDC, this I set up to set the playback device as

00:53:38 ◼   ► one of my HomePods, get a playlist from my Apple Music library and shuffle that playlist

00:53:45 ◼   ► and play through the HomePod.

00:53:47 ◼   ► Now, when I tap this tag, so my phone is not, you know, the Shortcuts app is not open, I

00:53:55 ◼   ► can just tap my phone on this tag and I get a notification that says "Running your automation"

00:54:00 ◼   ► and in the background Shortcuts is connecting to the HomePod, getting a playlist, shuffling

00:54:05 ◼   ► that playlist and playing that on the HomePod.

00:54:08 ◼   ► interaction necessary, which is incredible. The second tag, which I stuck to the right

00:54:15 ◼   ► side of my desk, when I tap it with my phone, it runs... this is the podcast recording NFC

00:54:23 ◼   ► automation. When I tap it, it runs my shortcut for recording podcasts, which means that Shortcuts

00:54:30 ◼   ► looks into my calendar, see which podcast I'm supposed to record, and runs a bunch of

00:54:35 ◼   ► scripts, including Keyboard Maestro macros and some Apple scripts, to set up my Mac Mini

00:54:42 ◼   ► exactly the way I like it for podcasting, which means opening a bunch of Safari windows,

00:54:48 ◼   ► opening QuickTime, Audio Hijack, Skype and all of that.

00:54:51 ◼   ► All of this in the background, the shortcuts app does not launch, nothing happens.

00:54:55 ◼   ► It even sets my lights to purple, because shortcuts now has even better integration

00:55:03 ◼   ► HomeKit in iOS 13, and it turns off the air purifier that I have set up with HomeKit,

00:55:10 ◼   ► which is otherwise too noisy for doing podcasts. So it's incredible. And I'm thinking now,

00:55:18 ◼   ► because having background execution removes a lot of friction that was previously involved

00:55:22 ◼   ► with having NFC tags in, for example, Launch Center Pro. Having background execution, which,

00:55:29 ◼   ► Unfortunately, it is not available to third-party developers. This is a shortcuts-only feature.

00:55:35 ◼   ► I sort of understand why Apple is doing this in that granting background execution privileges

00:55:41 ◼   ► for this kind of automation probably cannot happen all at once. Probably Apple wants to

00:55:47 ◼   ► roll it out as an exclusive feature first, see how it goes and maybe open it up to developers.

00:55:52 ◼   ► I don't know what the policy is in regards to that.

00:55:56 ◼   ► Still, I'm now thinking of all the different ways that I can, you know, stick a bunch of NFC stickers all over my apartment.

00:56:04 ◼   ► Maybe even in my car. Maybe even on me. You know, I don't know, like, imagine all the things that I could automate if like I had a hidden NFC tag,

00:56:14 ◼   ► I don't know, in my wallet or like in the back of the Apple Watch band.

00:56:21 ◼   ► Like, I don't know, tap this tag in case of emergency or something.

00:56:24 ◼   ► or embedded in your arm.

00:56:27 ◼   ► Now you made it just-- now you made it weird.

00:56:29 ◼   ► Wow.

00:56:29 ◼   ► OK.

00:56:30 ◼   ► See, why did you need to make it weird?

00:56:32 ◼   ► There are all sorts of triggers, though.

00:56:33 ◼   ► So you have time of day.

00:56:35 ◼   ► Yes.

00:56:35 ◼   ► You can set a trigger automation when a particular alarm goes

00:56:39 ◼   ► off.

00:56:40 ◼   ► So you could have one that, when your morning alarm goes off

00:56:43 ◼   ► at 7, it also turns your lights on and starts your HomePod.

00:56:45 ◼   ► Like, you can--

00:56:47 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:56:47 ◼   ► This is really neat.

00:56:48 ◼   ► This is something that Keyboard and my show and other tools

00:56:51 ◼   ► have had, Launch Center Pro.

00:56:53 ◼   ► But now it being part of shortcuts and it can effectively mean shortcuts can run in the background and you can fire them whenever.

00:57:01 ◼   ► And that's really exciting.

00:57:03 ◼   ► And the background thing, just to clarify, it only it's only supported for triggers that originate from an action that you performed in the physical world manually.

00:57:17 ◼   ► So turning off your alarm in the morning, that's something that you need to physically do with your hands.

00:57:22 ◼   ► right, tapping an NFC tag. It's not like you have NFC tags flying around. You need to bring

00:57:28 ◼   ► your phone close to the tag and do it. Or opening an app. That's also a trigger. Like

00:57:34 ◼   ► anytime you open a specific app, run a shortcut. Yeah, but opening apps is something that you

00:57:38 ◼   ► need to do manually. So anytime you open Twitter, cut the power to the wireless router. Exactly.

00:57:43 ◼   ► Or my my automation was every time I open Twitter, put on some relaxing music or stuff

00:57:48 ◼   ► like that. Things that you do manually support background invisible execution of shortcuts

00:57:55 ◼   ► that don't require confirmation. Environment-based conditions. So things outside of your control,

00:58:02 ◼   ► like a time of day, of course. You're not God, you're not controlling time, you're

00:58:07 ◼   ► not this entity that controls everything. So time just happens, and therefore you need

00:58:14 ◼   ► to confirm a shortcut or your location changes. You can make the argument that yes, you, if

00:58:21 ◼   ► your location changes, it's because you're moving around and actually changing your location.

00:58:26 ◼   ► But it's something that you may be doing in tech, like not necessarily intentionally,

00:58:30 ◼   ► that maybe you're not looking at your phone, right? Right. So if your location changes

00:58:35 ◼   ► or a time, you know, it's 11 o'clock and your thing goes off. Yeah. Will it come on the

00:58:40 ◼   ► the lock screen and then you have to confirm you want the shortcut to run?

00:58:44 ◼   ► You get a notification, you need to confirm that.

00:58:46 ◼   ► So that's the difference.

00:58:48 ◼   ► So either way there's a user interaction.

00:58:50 ◼   ► You either tap a tag or leave CarPlay or something, but then time, location, you have to confirm

00:58:57 ◼   ► before the automation runs.

00:58:58 ◼   ► So it's not, I would say, so in the background is not the right way to say it, but it is

00:59:02 ◼   ► basically like a double confirmation that you want to run.

00:59:05 ◼   ► Yes.

00:59:06 ◼   ► the environment-based triggers, you literally don't have the option that says "Don't

00:59:14 ◼   ► ask to run." You have that option only for things that you performed manually, but for

00:59:20 ◼   ► time of day, location, and I think something else, you just don't have that option.

00:59:25 ◼   ► It's just not there. But for the other ones, you can choose. Either you always want to

00:59:30 ◼   ► be notified and manually confirm, or you can disable it. Because if I'm typing a tag,

00:59:36 ◼   ► I know that I'm tapping the tag to run a shortcut.

00:59:39 ◼   ► That's the idea.

00:59:40 ◼   ► Got it.

00:59:41 ◼   ► Okay, makes sense.

00:59:42 ◼   ► Anything else with the beta that's burning in your mind?

00:59:45 ◼   ► Not right now, so I guess we're just gonna wait for beta 4 and see what happens.

00:59:49 ◼   ► Okay.

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01:01:01 ◼   ► So how is the review coming?

01:01:03 ◼   ► - It's coming along in the sense that

01:01:07 ◼   ► I finished the mind map.

01:01:09 ◼   ► So I spent three weeks, couple of weeks, three weeks,

01:01:13 ◼   ► I think basically since I came back from WWDC,

01:01:16 ◼   ► just taking notes, using the betas, watching a few sessions.

01:01:21 ◼   ► We're gonna talk about that.

01:01:23 ◼   ► And just taking notes and organizing my notes.

01:01:25 ◼   ► Then, over the weekend, especially on Monday and yesterday, on Tuesday, I sat down and

01:01:33 ◼   ► converted all of my notes to the mind map using MindNode.

01:01:38 ◼   ► I think I have 12 chapters, so tends to be in line with iOS 12 at least.

01:01:45 ◼   ► The process of converting MindNotes to map is always a good opportunity for me to understand

01:01:50 ◼   ► And what's the structure that I want to give to this review?

01:01:54 ◼   ► What's the extent of a certain topic or what are some areas that maybe I don't want to

01:02:00 ◼   ► cover in my review, maybe they should be articles on Mac stories in the summer.

01:02:05 ◼   ► So manually converting those notes, curating those notes, is a good exercise for me in

01:02:13 ◼   ► understanding what direction the review is taking.

01:02:18 ◼   ► So my map is now complete, and I think I'm gonna start writing tomorrow.

01:02:26 ◼   ► So July 4th, actually, so holiday in the US, I'm gonna start with the introduction and

01:02:34 ◼   ► just go from there.

01:02:36 ◼   ► I feel pretty positive about...

01:02:42 ◼   ► I know roughly what the underlying theme of the review is gonna be.

01:02:47 ◼   ► Once again, it's going to be a single review. It's going to be called iOS and iPadOS 13

01:02:52 ◼   ► not doing separate reviews. And as in as last year, shortcuts, even more so because now

01:02:59 ◼   ► it's a built in app will be part of the review. Something that I that I've if you've been

01:03:07 ◼   ► following my reviews for the past few years, you probably have noticed this. I've not moved

01:03:14 ◼   ► the way, but I've been doing less and less technical talk in terms of describing APIs

01:03:23 ◼   ► or describing certain developer frameworks in depth. It just doesn't make for good

01:03:29 ◼   ► entertainment and it just doesn't make for useful material for people to look back and

01:03:36 ◼   ► understand what is new in a new version of iOS. Mostly because I'm not any better than

01:03:44 ◼   ► Apple at describing the changes of an API. I don't write a developer documentation guide,

01:03:52 ◼   ► I write a review. And so something that I've been trying to do more and more, that I think

01:03:58 ◼   ► I hit a good balance last year with iOS 12, is to write a review for the people. For folks

01:04:05 ◼   ► who are interested in the details of a new version of iOS, but who are not necessarily

01:04:12 ◼   ► developers, who are not necessarily programmers.

01:04:15 ◼   ► And so that's something that I've been keeping in mind this year.

01:04:17 ◼   ► For example, I was looking at the documentation for how multi-window is going to work on iPad

01:04:23 ◼   ► for iPadOS.

01:04:24 ◼   ► And then I realized, you know, do I need to know the details of how UICene works?

01:04:32 ◼   ► Or what's this concept of an app lifecycle?

01:04:36 ◼   ► What it means?

01:04:37 ◼   ► No.

01:04:38 ◼   ► I want to know how it works in practice.

01:04:41 ◼   ► Because when people are using iPadOS, they're gonna want to know how does it actually work

01:04:46 ◼   ► when I open multiple Windows 4 notes or mail or reminders.

01:04:52 ◼   ► They're not interested in the idea of "Oh, this is actually based on scenes, and scenes

01:04:57 ◼   ► do this and that."

01:04:59 ◼   ► That's a mistake that I made in the past.

01:05:02 ◼   ► You can make the argument that maybe some sections of my iOS 11 review had exactly this

01:05:08 ◼   ► problem.

01:05:09 ◼   ► And I think I've learned my lesson there, because I do feel a responsibility at this

01:05:15 ◼   ► point of there's people that are going to look back on this review and read it maybe

01:05:21 ◼   ► even multiple times, maybe even after a few months since it came out, to understand what

01:05:27 ◼   ► was new in a version of iOS.

01:05:30 ◼   ► An API talk just isn't that useful for people.

01:05:35 ◼   ► And so the review that I will write this year will continue that approach of less developer

01:05:44 ◼   ► talk, more practical discussion, and actually a review, which means personal opinions, personal

01:05:52 ◼   ► thoughts and examples, actual examples, not API examples. So I feel positive about that.

01:06:04 ◼   ► In terms of my writing setup, ideally I would like to do exactly what I did for my iPad

01:06:12 ◼   ► Story from May, and use a combination of iA Writer and Scriptable for writing and saving

01:06:22 ◼   ► screenshots in a subdirectory of iA Writer, and storing everything in working copy so

01:06:30 ◼   ► that I could have a backup on GitHub and an additional layer of backup in Dropbox as well.

01:06:37 ◼   ► The problem is right now, IE Writer has some serious problems with iCloud Drive in the

01:06:42 ◼   ► iPadOS beta and the iOS beta. For example, folders don't look like folders. They look

01:06:49 ◼   ► like files that you cannot open. So, yeah, there's that. So hopefully the IE Writer

01:06:57 ◼   ► folks will be able to work around these issues during the summer or maybe a future beta will

01:07:02 ◼   ► just fix these problems, I don't know.

01:07:04 ◼   ► Right now I'm probably gonna be using drafts because I already have a drafts beta with

01:07:12 ◼   ► support for iOS 13 features, but I really like... and this is not...

01:07:19 ◼   ► I mean I used drafts last year, I just ended up creating what is for me specifically a

01:07:26 ◼   ► superior setup because of the integration with Scriptable and screenshots embedded inside

01:07:33 ◼   ► of the Markdown story. And I cannot do that with drafts. It's just not possible. Also,

01:07:40 ◼   ► Steven, I have a second iPhone.

01:07:43 ◼   ► Oh, oh, no. Is that for nighttime calls? Evening business?

01:07:49 ◼   ► I bought a XS Max that I'm using to run iOS 12 for screenshot compilations.

01:07:56 ◼   ► Why didn't you just get like an iPhone 7?

01:07:59 ◼   ► Like why did you have to go to the big one?

01:08:00 ◼   ► At the expensive one.

01:08:01 ◼   ► Okay.

01:08:02 ◼   ► Okay.

01:08:03 ◼   ► So I realize that I am lazy.

01:08:08 ◼   ► I'm a lazy person.

01:08:11 ◼   ► In previous years, I was reaching out to friends and family, asking them to take screenshots

01:08:20 ◼   ► on my behalf, because I only had a single iPhone running iOS, say iOS 11 or iOS 12,

01:08:27 ◼   ► and I would ask them, "Hey, can you open this app or can you open this screen, take

01:08:32 ◼   ► a screenshot for me and send it to me in full resolution, either via mail or messages?"

01:08:38 ◼   ► And I was wasting so much time just talking to people and asking them, begging them for

01:08:44 ◼   ► screenshots.

01:08:45 ◼   ► You know, because I asked you, I asked Myke, I asked John, I asked everybody, at some point

01:08:50 ◼   ► I asked publicly on Twitter.

01:08:52 ◼   ► That's no way to live, that's no way to work.

01:08:54 ◼   ► I just want to have a setup where I can take all the screenshots myself.

01:08:59 ◼   ► And specifically this year, there are some design changes that I would like to make sure

01:09:05 ◼   ► I can clearly show in the review with comparisons between iOS 12 and iOS 13.

01:09:14 ◼   ► I didn't want to get...

01:09:15 ◼   ► I tried before.

01:09:16 ◼   ► Why don't you use an older and smaller iPhone and use your latest big iPhone for the beta?

01:09:23 ◼   ► It just doesn't look good.

01:09:24 ◼   ► You know, when you do those screenshots comparisons, especially with the template that I have,

01:09:29 ◼   ► you end up with the small phone on the left side and the big phone on the right side.

01:09:34 ◼   ► It just doesn't look nice. It looks, you know, it bothers me visually and, and I cannot work

01:09:40 ◼   ► in an environment that bothers me, like physically bother. So I was like, you know what, I'm

01:09:46 ◼   ► just going to buy an iPhone and by September I'm going to sell it. And it appears that

01:09:52 ◼   ► thanks to Sylvia who was very upset and surprised about my decision to buy a second iPhone.

01:09:58 ◼   ► It appears that we already have a buyer. So fingers crossed, be able to sell this phone

01:10:04 ◼   ► She's gonna throw in a home pod in that deal too better be careful

01:10:07 ◼   ► Yeah, she's very patient. I will be able to take screenshots very quickly and honestly, I think I can generate

01:10:16 ◼   ► Thanks to that template which by the way Sylvia makes for me

01:10:21 ◼   ► So, thank you

01:10:23 ◼   ► with that template I will be able to

01:10:25 ◼   ► Create a comparison graphic in like 45 seconds because I have the other phone myself

01:10:33 ◼   ► myself, which is very nice. And I save a lot of time, and saving time is always my priority

01:10:38 ◼   ► in the summer.

01:10:39 ◼   ► Yeah, I think having the screenshots be the same makes a lot of sense.

01:10:45 ◼   ► And it just makes sense to have the latest hardware as a testing device, because I need

01:10:52 ◼   ► to be extremely precise, again, because I feel a responsibility of all these people

01:10:58 ◼   ► looking over my review and looking into the details, and I want to make sure that what

01:11:02 ◼   ► I've read about is exactly right, down to the individual feature or setting, being able

01:11:08 ◼   ► to say "this is new in iOS 13" and you get the person saying "no, actually it was added

01:11:12 ◼   ► in iOS 12.4" or something and you're like "oh no, now I gotta fix it and generate the

01:11:19 ◼   ► ebook again" and you know, I need to make sure that I'm exactly right about all of the

01:11:24 ◼   ► options, all of the features, so there's that aspect and just being able to take those screenshots

01:11:30 ◼   ► quickly and generate those graphics quickly. It just made sense to get a second iPhone,

01:11:35 ◼   ► which is like my other iPhone, but it's just for testing.

01:11:42 ◼   ► Cool beans. I'm excited to see this come together. Really excited.

01:11:45 ◼   ► Thank you. What about yours? Are you going to do a Carolina review?

01:11:50 ◼   ► I've been thinking about it, but I think what I'm going to end up doing is more like what

01:11:55 ◼   ► I did with Mojave where I just covered certain aspects of it as sort of a series.

01:12:00 ◼   ► So I wrote about Dark Mode and a couple other things.

01:12:02 ◼   ► So I want to review reminders, I want to talk about the security stuff, but I don't know

01:12:08 ◼   ► if I've got the time or energy to do a full-blown review.

01:12:14 ◼   ► And also I think as macOS continues to mature, I'm just not sure it's as necessary as it

01:12:19 ◼   ► once was.

01:12:20 ◼   ► Sérékis was doing his, and it was a big change year after year. So I think at this point I'm

01:12:26 ◼   ► leaning towards having a series of sort of future articles about it as it comes out later this fall,

01:12:32 ◼   ► but we'll see. I'm still sort of in the planning stages of that.

01:12:36 ◼   ► Yeah, I think that's potentially a good idea. It gives you the time to do multiple stories during

01:12:42 ◼   ► during the summer, you know, and you know, you, you don't, maybe you don't necessarily

01:12:48 ◼   ► feel the responsibility of doing these massive reviews, which, you know, and I can tell you

01:12:54 ◼   ► it's a lot of stress, right? Especially in the summer when you're just going to go to

01:12:58 ◼   ► the beach or to the lake and you know, yeah, I've done several. I mean, there were, you

01:13:03 ◼   ► know, a long time ago, like in the mountain lion, you know, sort of, I think it was my

01:13:08 ◼   ► my first big one on 512. So it's kind of that era. But we'll see how it goes. I may I may

01:13:14 ◼   ► end up walking through some of these feature articles like an outline and realizing that

01:13:19 ◼   ► it's not that much more work to do a full review. So time will tell. Alright, we have

01:13:23 ◼   ► one last topic today. And I wanted to bring this up because it's probably going to go

01:13:28 ◼   ► by in this new cycle. So I wanted to kind of grab it out of the stream while it was

01:13:32 ◼   ► going on. So Eddy Cue was interviewed by GQ magazine about his role in various

01:13:38 ◼   ► products at Apple and I kind of broke it down into Apple TV, Apple TV content, and

01:13:44 ◼   ► then music. So it's a good article, you should go check it out, it's in the show

01:13:48 ◼   ► notes. But remember that that story a while back people, someone had reported

01:13:54 ◼   ► that Apple executives like Tim Cook and others were making comments on the

01:14:00 ◼   ► scripts for Apple TV shows. You know, I think that the sort of thing was, you know, Tim said someone

01:14:05 ◼   ► told someone not to be so mean and Q goes on the record of the saying that that is not true. He

01:14:13 ◼   ► says, I'm going to quote, "There's never been one note passed from us on scripts that I can assure

01:14:17 ◼   ► you we leave the folks alone who know what they're doing." He, being Tim Cook, did not say, "Don't be

01:14:25 ◼   ► so mean he hasn't ever said anything about a script. What do you think? That's pretty

01:14:30 ◼   ► strong language for Medicue.

01:14:32 ◼   ► It is on the record saying that I can assure you that was 100% false. So it's very strong

01:14:41 ◼   ► language. I mean, sure. Okay. I'm assuming this is true because like, then again, I don't

01:14:48 ◼   ► know. Could be true. Could be could be not true. Maybe it's just saying the things that

01:14:53 ◼   ► people want to hear, you know, that the Apple TV+ service means complete creative freedom

01:15:01 ◼   ► for the folks who are actually making the TV shows and the movies. If it is true, good

01:15:08 ◼   ► news! It means that we will not necessarily have a service that was, let's just say,

01:15:16 ◼   ► again, curated by Apple, you know, with some strong hints as to what kind of content Apple

01:15:23 ◼   ► wants to see, which leads us into the next quote, I guess, from about Apple TV plus content

01:15:30 ◼   ► about the, what's it called? The morning show? Yes. The Witherspoon and Jennifer Aniston

01:15:36 ◼   ► show with the participation of Steve Crow. Yeah. I was about to say Michael Scott. I've

01:15:41 ◼   ► I've been watching the, I've been watching the office, which by the way, sorry, quick

01:15:45 ◼   ► tangent. I am so upset. I didn't know that Michael Scott is gone for the last two seasons.

01:15:52 ◼   ► Spoiler alert. Somebody, I mean, yeah, spoiler alert. Somebody should have told me this.

01:15:57 ◼   ► I am very upset and said, keep watching. Yeah, I got to keep going. No, no, no. It's worth

01:16:04 ◼   ► there. That's rough for a little while, but then it comes back strong. Okay. Yeah. That's

01:16:08 ◼   ► good to you. So anyway, anyway, what did he say about?

01:16:14 ◼   ► So he said, in the context of, you know, people think Apple TV plus is going to be all family

01:16:19 ◼   ► friendly content. So he says, this is a show about women in the workplace, and some of

01:16:24 ◼   ► the issues are definitely not appropriate to watch with an eight year old. And so the

01:16:30 ◼   ► reporters like, Well, what do you mean? What would not be appropriate? And Q says the language,

01:16:36 ◼   ► a few other things, but I don't want to spoil it. So I don't know what this means. Like,

01:16:40 ◼   ► I think that if Apple is going to have a broad set of content, they need at some point to

01:16:48 ◼   ► go beyond family friendly stuff. And you look at some of the most popular shows and streaming,

01:16:54 ◼   ► you know, streaming and not over the last five years, very few of the hosts you should

01:16:58 ◼   ► watch with an eight year old, probably none of them. And is Apple going to play in that

01:17:03 ◼   ► area. Apple has sort of a reputation for being sort of family-friendly and I

01:17:08 ◼   ► think that's fine. I like that about them, but this is a

01:17:14 ◼   ► different ballgame, so we will see what this means. Obviously we just

01:17:18 ◼   ► don't know until these shows are out. I will say I continue to look forward to

01:17:22 ◼   ► this show. I think the morning show is going to be, to me at least, seeing

01:17:26 ◼   ► what they've shown off as one of the most interesting ones to me. That

01:17:29 ◼   ► one in the show about Russia beating us to the moon. But those two are the ones I'm looking

01:17:36 ◼   ► forward to. So I guess we can report back on the language that's used and if we think

01:17:41 ◼   ► it's appropriate or not.

01:17:43 ◼   ► There's a fascinating parallel between what Apple is saying here and what Nintendo, for

01:17:50 ◼   ► example, has been doing on the eShop. We talked about this on the latest episode of Remaster,

01:17:59 ◼   ► here on Real AFM, about how surprising it was to see The Witcher 3, which is a very

01:18:06 ◼   ► popular RPG game, come to Nintendo Switch.

01:18:09 ◼   ► And of course The Witcher 3 is an RPG with some adult elements, like some nudity and

01:18:15 ◼   ► sex scenes, which is, you know, exactly the type of game that you would imagine not being

01:18:22 ◼   ► on Nintendo platform. Nintendo being the family-friendly, kid-friendly company. But if Nintendo wants

01:18:31 ◼   ► to play in the modern gaming ecosystem because they realize that the Switch is a massive

01:18:37 ◼   ► success, they need to open up a bit more, and they need to have this kind of more mature

01:18:42 ◼   ► content. Of course, Nintendo is not making these types of games themselves. It's not

01:18:49 ◼   ► like Nintendo is making an adult version of Mario, or, you know, it's not like Nintendo

01:18:54 ◼   ► suddenly has violence in Pokemon or anything like that. But if third parties want to bring

01:19:01 ◼   ► these games over to a Nintendo platform, it feels like they're opening up a bit more.

01:19:07 ◼   ► Now does it mean that we're gonna see GTA or that kind of stuff on the eShop? Probably

01:19:12 ◼   ► not yet, but over time it feels like the right thing to do because people like choice. And

01:19:17 ◼   ► And so when it comes to a streaming service, same metric is valid. People like choice.

01:19:23 ◼   ► People want family-friendly content, people want more mature content. And I think that's

01:19:29 ◼   ► the right thing to do, to not interfere with what a director has in mind or what screenwriters

01:19:38 ◼   ► have in mind. They say, "Oh, actually don't use this expression or don't use these words."

01:19:43 ◼   ► that's just a detriment to the final product, to have Tim Cook peeking over your shoulder

01:19:51 ◼   ► at the script and be like, "Don't be so mean, change this line." That sounds awful.

01:19:57 ◼   ► So I hope that what Eddie is saying is actually true.

01:20:01 ◼   ► And it goes on talking about Apple Music. He compares Apple Music and iTunes to the

01:20:08 ◼   ► iPhone and iPod. There's a quote that's like, "We don't sell many iPods these days."

01:20:12 ◼   ► No kidding, Eddy Cue.

01:20:14 ◼   ► But he said something really interesting

01:20:16 ◼   ► about the iTunes Music Store.

01:20:19 ◼   ► He said, "We had a very successful business.

01:20:21 ◼   ► "People were still buying.

01:20:22 ◼   ► "It was still growing, and so I think we did it,

01:20:26 ◼   ► "it being Apple Music, at the right time.

01:20:29 ◼   ► "Could we have done it a year earlier?

01:20:31 ◼   ► "I'm happy with the results."

01:20:33 ◼   ► Like, was iTunes Music still growing

01:20:35 ◼   ► when they launched Apple Music a couple of years ago?

01:20:38 ◼   ► I don't know what his timeframe here is,

01:20:41 ◼   ► but Apple is so interesting that very often

01:20:44 ◼   ► they kill their most popular products.

01:20:45 ◼   ► You know, you saw that a lot in the iPod era.

01:20:48 ◼   ► You saw them do it with Apple Music

01:20:50 ◼   ► and the iTunes Music Store,

01:20:51 ◼   ► which he says was still very successful.

01:20:54 ◼   ► That's something that Apple's not afraid of.

01:20:56 ◼   ► I have long wondered about that relationship

01:20:59 ◼   ► between the two and like,

01:21:01 ◼   ► was iTunes Music Store on a downward,

01:21:04 ◼   ► you know, was the curve going down

01:21:06 ◼   ► on the chart of money it was making

01:21:07 ◼   ► and Apple Music has brought it back up,

01:21:09 ◼   ► or was it sort of a seamless handoff?

01:21:11 ◼   ► I just don't know.

01:21:12 ◼   ► We'll probably never know,

01:21:13 ◼   ► but I thought it was interesting that he said,

01:21:15 ◼   ► yeah, actually it was still doing pretty well,

01:21:17 ◼   ► and then we decided to do this other thing.

01:21:20 ◼   ► - Yeah, we should look at, I guess,

01:21:22 ◼   ► at least for the US, data from Nielsen

01:21:26 ◼   ► to see if the iTunes Store and digital downloads

01:21:29 ◼   ► were actually growing.

01:21:31 ◼   ► When Apple Music launched in 2015,

01:21:33 ◼   ► that would be an interesting item for follow-up.

01:21:35 ◼   ► I'm sure that the data can be found somewhere.

01:21:37 ◼   ► But as you mentioned, I wouldn't be surprised if Apple actually killed the product, and

01:21:43 ◼   ► in this case a service that was still growing because they felt like streaming was the right

01:21:48 ◼   ► horse to bet on for the future.

01:21:51 ◼   ► So that would be in typical Apple fashion.

01:21:53 ◼   ► I would like to see the data to back this up though, so we should probably look into

01:21:57 ◼   ► that, at least for the US.

01:21:59 ◼   ► It's something that could be easily found because Nielsen and other agencies, they have

01:22:04 ◼   ► these reports that come out at the end of the year showing the state of the music industry.

01:22:10 ◼   ► So that could be interesting. Or maybe it's just saying, "Yeah, by growing, it means

01:22:17 ◼   ► it was still doing well in EdiQ speak."

01:22:21 ◼   ► What does that actually mean? Anyways, so there's that. And then it ends...

01:22:28 ◼   ► Let's get to the best part, though.

01:22:29 ◼   ► It's been rumored and joked about that EdiQ falls asleep in meetings. He says that, oh,

01:22:36 ◼   ► he jokes, he apparently faints falling asleep during the question, which like EdiQ just

01:22:41 ◼   ► seems like a guy that anyone can hang out with.

01:22:43 ◼   ► You know, you know, exactly. You know what? This is funny. This is funny because I imagine

01:22:49 ◼   ► EdiQ as the fun and lovable guy that everybody likes to hang out with. And you know, he likes

01:22:55 ◼   ► dancing and you know you have a good time you go out for drinks maybe you go to the club maybe you

01:23:01 ◼   ► know you go to see a basketball game but then he gets so tired and he falls asleep like a baby

01:23:08 ◼   ► that's what makes it funny for me yeah so he jokes about it and he goes on to say that uh yeah you

01:23:16 ◼   ► know it's pretty funny i'm sure i've fallen asleep everyone has but thankfully we don't have too many

01:23:21 ◼   ► boring meetings at Apple. He doesn't deny it. Which is a great approach, I think. I'm

01:23:28 ◼   ► sure everybody has. That's perfect. And yeah, I mean, props to Eddie for owning what was

01:23:38 ◼   ► reported about him. I feel like this is, you know, it's nice to see this kind of honesty

01:23:46 ◼   ► from Eddy. I wonder what those boring meetings were all about though. I think the article

01:23:52 ◼   ► mentions Siri meeting.

01:23:54 ◼   ► Yeah, I think that's the one that he supposedly fell asleep in was a meeting about Siri. Anyways,

01:24:01 ◼   ► Eddy Cue out there. He's doing his thing.

01:24:04 ◼   ► I want to, I want to, I would like to see more, you know, interviews with Eddy Cue,

01:24:10 ◼   ► more of EdiQ out in the open doing things.

01:24:14 ◼   ► EdiQ should have a podcast.

01:24:16 ◼   ► - He should have a podcast.

01:24:17 ◼   ► Edi, we can help you with that.

01:24:19 ◼   ► You know where to find me.

01:24:20 ◼   ► I wonder if your Apple PR,

01:24:22 ◼   ► which Apple executive going to an interview

01:24:25 ◼   ► makes you the most nervous, right?

01:24:27 ◼   ► - That's a good question.

01:24:29 ◼   ► - Craig Fadurghi sometimes says things

01:24:30 ◼   ► and you can tell that he shouldn't say them.

01:24:32 ◼   ► EdiQ feels like he could be in that same category.

01:24:34 ◼   ► Just kind of a loose cannon maybe.

01:24:36 ◼   ► I don't know.

01:24:37 ◼   ► - I mean, outside of Tim Cook,

01:24:39 ◼   ► because of course he's the CEO.

01:24:41 ◼   ► But of the other executives, I would say probably EdiQ

01:24:47 ◼   ► is the one that you gotta keep a close eye on.

01:24:50 ◼   ► - I think I agree. - I guess.

01:24:52 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:24:53 ◼   ► - Anyways, there's that, EdiQ, go check it out.

01:24:55 ◼   ► Doing his EdiQ thing all over the internet.

01:24:58 ◼   ► I think that does it this week, Federico.

01:25:00 ◼   ► - We did it. - We did it without Myke.

01:25:01 ◼   ► - Even without Myke. - Don't need him.

01:25:03 ◼   ► - He should come back at some point.

01:25:04 ◼   ► - I miss him a little bit. - Just a little bit.

01:25:05 ◼   ► - If you wanna find links to the stuff we spoke about,

01:25:08 ◼   ► head on over to the website relay.fm/connected/250.

01:25:13 ◼   ► While you're there, you can get in touch.

01:25:15 ◼   ► There's an email link there,

01:25:16 ◼   ► or of course you can find us on Twitter.

01:25:18 ◼   ► Federico is there as viticii, V-I-T-I-C-C-I,

01:25:21 ◼   ► and he writes macstories.net.

01:25:24 ◼   ► You can find me on Twitter as ismh,

01:25:26 ◼   ► and my blog at 512pixels.net.

01:25:30 ◼   ► I'd like to thank our sponsors this week,

01:25:31 ◼   ► Squarespace, Away, and Astropad Studio.

01:25:35 ◼   ► And until next week, Federico, say goodbye.

01:25:37 ◼   ► Arrivederci! Adios!