240: I Got No Time for Automator
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From Relay FM, this is Connected, episode 240. Today's show is brought to you by Bombas,
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Fresh Books and TextExpander. My name is Myke Hurley and I am joined by Mr Federico Vittucci.
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Hi Federico.
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Hello Myke, how are you?
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I'm very good. Steven didn't get the limerick he was looking for, so he's still not here.
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Was that one of those riddles we were asking people to send to him, right?
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He's still thinking about them, so that's why he's not on the show. He's trying to solve all of the riddles.
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So, you get to go first, Deimai. Are you happy that you can go first?
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Well, no, no. I was introducing you, though, right? Like, that's the thing.
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This is an even episode. This is a Federica Vitticcia episode. Do you want a better introduction?
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No. Do you also want to reintroduce you, because I went first?
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Oh, and I'm also joined by Myke Hurley. Hi Myke. Hi Myke.
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We have no follow up, but I wanted to give some like just points of information for our listeners.
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This is a new thing on the show, points of information. They're both WWDC related.
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One is an event that I think people should be looking into if they haven't already,
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which is called Backstage at the Keynote, which is a WWDC Apple-themed escape room.
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Now, Federico, do you know what escape rooms are?
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No, honestly, I was asking you, I think I'm familiar with the idea that people
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voluntarily lock themselves into a room as some kind of game.
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I'm trying to understand why is that funny.
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So you and a group go into a room, right, and there's a scene that is set up for you
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as to why the door of the room that you're in is locked, right? Like there's like a fiction that is
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created. And then there is a selection of puzzles in the room that if you solve all of the puzzles
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you get clues and those clues will lead you to be able to do whatever it is to unlock the door,
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whether you need a code for a keypad or you have to get a specific key which is locked in something
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inside the room or something like that. So there's like a set of puzzles that you need to complete
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as a way to be able to get out. Now, I've been to a conference a couple of times called the
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All Conference that was in... And people pay for this?
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Yes, it's a lot of fun. It's like a...
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We have no shared references because like the references... Do you know what the Crystal Maze is?
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What? Exactly. We have no shared references here, but it is effectively... It's like a video game in
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real life. It's like... Can't you just play a video game?
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You know that you know those games, the room where you have like that,
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like the iOS game.
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So you have to like do all these little things to unlock these little puzzles
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or whatever.
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It's kind of like that type of thing.
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And yes, you can just play a video game, but this is an in-person experience
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that you can experience with your friends.
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Right. So anyway,
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a couple of years ago, I completed a two separate
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Apple themed escape rooms created by a friend of mine called Chadwick.
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And this year he is bringing that to WWDC.
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Now, I cannot believe there are still tickets available to this,
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but it might be because people just don't know it's happening.
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So I figured that I would let people know.
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I think they're doing it at Alt.Conf.
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It's EscapedKeynote.How, which is a great, just a great URL.
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And I have a ticket.
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I have a set of tickets.
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I'm assigning one to Federico.
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I'm going to make him do it with me so we can understand why it's fun.
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It's really, really good fun.
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just trust me on this one. If you're gonna be at WWDC, buy some tickets and go to do
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the escape room.
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Can you still get out, even if you don't solve the puzzles?
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Yes, yes, yes. You're not literally locked in a room. Right? The door's just closed.
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You gotta play within the fiction, you know?
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This requires a lot of imagination, sounds like.
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Yes, it does. But Chadwick paints very... he has incredible props, and he paints a good
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picture, not literally, figurative pictures. I have had a ton of fun with this. I think
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you are going to love this because I know the type of person you are and I think you
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are the perfect type of person for an escape room. You just don't really have much of a
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concept of what it is.
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I just, yeah, I think I have a few friends who have done them. Like somebody a while
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ago was talking about like a Legend of Zelda themed escape room.
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Yes, they went on tour with that and I missed it which was really upsetting.
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Yeah, okay, well, we'll try the Apple one and see what it's like.
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This will be a topic on the show, I suppose, eventually.
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Yeah, I want to talk about it, especially because we're 100% gonna win it, right?
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I feel like that's just gonna be the way.
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This also does remind me to mention, we still have an increasingly small selection of tickets left
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for our WWDC live show. They are selling out, it will sell out, so get your ticket if you want it.
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If you're gonna be in or around San Jose on June the 5th, you don't want to miss out on our show.
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Federico has surprises apparently, which is a terrifying prospect.
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It's all ready to go.
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We only have a small amount of tickets left in the balcony,
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so if you want to come, you should and you should get one and there will be a link
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in the show notes to that so you can get a ticket for yourself.
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Federico, on last week's episode you had just very very recently
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to the episode beginning taken receipt of the new
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2018 iPad Pro bridge keyboard and so I expect you have been using it for the entire week
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and I'm very keen to know your thoughts and feelings on this because I'm dying to get
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one and I just want to know how good or bad it is.
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So people have been asking me can you write an article on Mac stories about the bridge
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keyboard and I should, I've just been busy working on this very long story that I'm preparing
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for the near future and I've been using the bridge keyboard to write this story.
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And I mostly, I think I can confirm my first impressions were mostly accurate I think.
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The keys definitely feel different to me.
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Coming from the first bridge keyboard, the one that I had with the old iPad Pro, the
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The texture feels smooth and maybe the keys are a little more mushy, maybe, than the old one.
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They're not bad, it's just a different feeling.
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And they're not as clicky as the Magic Keyboard, I would say.
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They're not as clicky as the Smart Keyboard.
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They are softer.
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And I think you can get used to it, I think it's fine.
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I have discovered, thanks to somebody on YouTube, I think, and maybe even Peeking, which I never do,
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at the instruction manual, I never look at these things, but for some reason I did this time,
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that even though the bridge keyboard does not have a Siri key to invoke the assistant,
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What you can do, for some reason, you're able to long press the lock key that normally activates the lock screen,
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and that brings up Siri on the iPad.
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So, on the Bridge keyboard, if you long press the lock key, which is in the top left corner next to the Home button key,
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that will bring up Siri.
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And also, even though this keyboard does not have a key to cycle through software keyboards that you have installed on your device,
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like English, Italian, and I don't know, Yoink, you know, all these keyboards and custom keyboards,
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it does not have the globe button that some keyboards do, but you can replicate that.
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The bridge used to, didn't it?
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I'm not sure.
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I think it did. I think it did.
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Well, it's not here anymore, but there's a keyboard shortcut, which I think, if I remember correctly, should be Ctrl+Shift+Space.
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Or maybe... Yeah, I think it's Ctrl+Shift+Space. It's printed on the instruction manual, or the keyboard.
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So, for some reason though, it cycles backwards, so it starts from the bottom and it goes all the way to the top.
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Normally, the toggling between multiple keyboards should happen from the top to the bottom, but anyway...
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But anyway, at least there's a way to show, you know, when you're typing with an external
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keyboard, the software keyboard is hidden by default.
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So there's a button at the top row.
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I had no idea that that keyboard shortcut existed.
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Yeah, me neither.
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So we have a magic keyboard right now on my iPad, so it's not just a bridge thing.
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And it works?
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Oh, perfect.
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Well, thanks to Bridge for printing it on the manual.
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But now, why is this useful?
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Well, if you keep a custom keyboard installed on your iPad, like for example, let's use Yoink, which is an excellent clipboard manager and shelf app.
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Let's say that you want to switch from the normal English keyboard to the Yoink keyboard, which is of course a software keyboard.
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So you're typing with the bridge keyboard, no software keyboard is shown on screen.
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What you do is you press the physical key button in the keyboard, which is next to the
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brightness one, that will pop up the software keyboard.
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And then you start cycling through all of your installed keyboards until you reach Yoink.
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Then when you're done with Yoink, you cycle back to the main Apple keyboard and you hide
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the keyboard again by pressing the same button on the reached keyboard.
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Works really nice, and if you use a custom keyboard it's really convenient.
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more than just custom keyboards if you want to get emoji.
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Oh yeah, totally. If you want to get emoji, exactly.
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Right, that's what I have always wanted those shortcuts for. And why I'm now pleased I know
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how to do it with my Magic Keyboard too, because previously I would just have to long press
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on the down arrow and wait for the keyboard to come up and then press the globe key. So
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yeah, that's interesting.
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Jason Snow is in the chat room and he's saying he has a Siri key on the bottom left corner
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of his bridge keyboard.
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It does not bring up Siri. It's a dictation key. It's not a Siri key.
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So if I exit... Yeah, this is a dictation key. In fact, if you open Spotlight and press this key,
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in theory it should open dictation. It does not open Siri for me.
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That's interesting. I wonder what's going on here.
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I'm trying this right now and...
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Oh, now it brings up Siri. So this is interesting.
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Okay, well I gotta look into this. So there's a Siri key.
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Alright, but sometimes it opens dictation. This is weird.
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I guess it depends on the context.
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I guess it depends on the context. Maybe.
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If you're writing text it makes most sense for it to be dictation? I don't know.
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I don't know. Hmm.
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Yeah, in any case you can also long press the key, the lock icon and the lock key and that will also work
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for some reason.
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I have experienced the occasional
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Bluetooth weirdness
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when typing, which is not really I guess it's not really a bridge thing because I have this problem with the
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Logitech Slim Folio Pro as well and I do not have this problem with the smart keyboard because it uses the smart connector.
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Sometimes when I'm typing, it's like occasionally the typing slows down and it needs to catch up.
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So it slows down for a couple of seconds and then you see all the letters pop up on screen.
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As far as Bluetooth bugs go, that's the least annoying.
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It's exactly. I have not experienced any disconnections or any problems with pairing.
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Just sometimes...
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Or dropped keys. That was always the problem with the original bridge keyboards.
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Yeah, yeah, this is totally fine. No dropped keys. Everything is good. Just occasionally, you know, it
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slows down for like a second and then it catches up again.
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But that's totally fine, but it's something that I've noticed.
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I haven't used the media mode yet, which would be that you flip the screen
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so that it's not facing the keyboard, but it's facing outwards and
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Bridge says this is great for watching movies or you know playing games or stuff like that
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I just I've just been working and typing with this keyboard so I have not
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Tested the media mode yet. It looks kind of ridiculous because you effectively have an iPad that is not facing the keyboard
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It looks like you put it on the wrong way
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But it can be used in that orientation if you so like but it's just not something that I've done myself
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it is excellent for
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traditional laptop usage. So put it on your lap, start typing.
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This is classic bridge design. It's stable. It's sturdy. It doesn't move. The hinges are good.
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It feels nice. It feels like a laptop, but it doesn't have a trackpad, which of course that's another discussion.
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But yeah, I've been working with this keyboard in my car, at the kitchen table, at my desk, on the sofa, in bed.
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It's perfect.
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So if you want to have a laptop experience with an iPad, this was true with the bridge keyboard before,
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it is true with this bridge keyboard now, it works great on your lap.
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It is easy enough to remove the iPad from the very small hinges that attach to the the clip on to the bezels of the iPad.
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You can just, you know, hold the keyboard down with one hand and pull the iPad up with another hand.
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Is it easier to do now that the clips are smaller?
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No, I think it's mostly the... Maybe it is a bit easier.
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I wouldn't want it to be too easy because that would mean it would probably fall out.
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It's not too easy. It's not too easy.
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Do not lift the iPad and expect the keyboard to follow necessarily.
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Like if you need to grab this keyboard from the table, do grab the keyboard.
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That's very different.
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Because I used to just pick up the iPad all the time and the keyboard would come with it.
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I mean, look, this is not surprising because the clips are so small now because the bezels, right?
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But it's just something to remember to like...
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Basically, I've got to pick it up how I pick up a laptop, which was not what I did with the old bridge.
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The old bridge, I would just pick up the iPad and the keyboard would come with it.
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But like, I would never pick up a laptop by the screen, right?
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So like, I just have to pick it up by the base would be my assumption.
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Yeah, I picked it up one time.
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I don't even know why, from the screen, and the keyboard thought,
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"You know, I'm not gonna follow you."
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- And so... - "I'm good here."
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"I'm good on the table, thank you."
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So the keyboard very quickly dropped on the table,
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and the dogs were really scared by that sound, and the iPad...
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- That's a lot of metal. - ...remains in my hands.
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- Okie dokie. - So that was fun.
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So do not grab it from the iPad.
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I also have the back cover that is completely optional.
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It is... you can remove it. It's some kind of leather. I don't know if it's real leather.
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I think it's probably pleather, like it's fake leather or whatever it is called.
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Yeah, I think it's synthetic leather. It's fine. It's got a bridge logo,
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which apparently is the letter Y printed, sort of a...
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what do you call it?
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I think, isn't that like the...
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isn't that how you draw a bridge?
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Like, isn't that the symbol for a bridge in technology, like in electronics?
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I don't know.
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I don't know.
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I'm trying to help you.
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I don't know.
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This is one of those things where like Stephen would like, would be able to help us.
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It's like, oh, that's like a thing, right?
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But I don't know.
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- I've been spending way too much time
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obsessively trying to fit the precisely cut corners
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of this leather cover around the shape of the clips.
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So they have like an L-shape cut
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to sort of try and fit the clips around the cover.
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And the more that I try to adjust them to make sure that the cover is perfectly flush against the clips,
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the more I move it on one side, then it changes on the other side.
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So it's not a perfect match.
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There's like a millimeter gap, which is really not a problem.
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But it really bothers me visually speaking that I can see one millimeter of aluminum in the back of the device.
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But yeah, I'm keeping this cover because of protection, I suppose.
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I like not having the naked side of the iPad.
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It protects it from scratches and stuff like that, which is good.
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So overall, I guess your question at this point would be, is this the best keyboard
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that you can buy with an iPad Pro?
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Is this your favorite keyboard?
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Is this the one?
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So you would think I would say yes.
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My only... it's a great keyboard and I think it's the one that I'm gonna keep using to write all my stories and to write the iOS review.
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My only... not a concern, but thing that I've noticed is that I have been missing this Linffolio Pro this past week.
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And I think what I've been missing is a few things about that keyboard.
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The fact that there's not...
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The iPad, when I'm using the Slim Folio Pro, the iPad is closer to my eyes.
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Because the base, because the keyboard does not have that huge palm rest area that the bridge keyboard has.
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Which is where a trackpad would normally go.
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The iPad is a bit closer to me because with the Syncfolio Pro you just have a keyboard in front of you.
00:18:29
◼
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You don't have those 8 cm of blank keyboard area, but it's not really a keyboard.
00:18:40
◼
►
The iPad is a bit closer to me. And the cover case also protects the pencil, which the Breach keyboard does not.
00:18:47
◼
►
It doesn't have a flap that goes over the pencil.
00:18:50
◼
►
And I don't know if I ever told you this, Myke, but are you familiar with the thing I've been doing with kickstands on all my iPad keyboards?
00:19:03
◼
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Have I ever shown you or told you about this? Alright, so all my keyboards.
00:19:11
◼
►
So I have an Italian smart keyboard, a US smart keyboard, and the Celine Folio Pro.
00:19:16
◼
►
and also a smart folio. So I have four different type of keyboards or covers that I tested with the iPad Pro.
00:19:23
◼
►
This is a tip that somebody last year gave me on Twitter, and sorry that I, you know, I don't remember your name.
00:19:31
◼
►
You know you are.
00:19:33
◼
►
Spigen, are you familiar with Spigen, the accessory maker?
00:19:36
◼
►
Oh, I think you've mentioned this. Yeah, go on, go on.
00:19:38
◼
►
So they make a metal kickstand for smartphones, which is like a little kickstand.
00:19:45
◼
►
It's like three centimeters that you attach with adhesive tape to the back of a phone and there's a little
00:19:53
◼
►
steel foot that you you know you
00:19:57
◼
►
Basically you you pull back and you can use a phone with the kickstand. Yeah
00:20:01
◼
►
but what what I started doing last year is
00:20:06
◼
►
I've been putting two of these metal kickstands on
00:20:13
◼
►
the back of the smart keyboard and also the Slim Folio Pro so that when they're opened
00:20:22
◼
►
create a touch mode.
00:20:24
◼
►
So if I don't want to use the smart keyboard, I can flip open these kickstands and
00:20:30
◼
►
they let me use the iPad in touch mode with the software keyboard at an angle. How does this work?
00:20:39
◼
►
So I'm gonna send you pictures and I promise that I would write about this on Mac stories
00:20:45
◼
►
but it's just I'm busy on another story at the moment and I really don't have time for this.
00:20:49
◼
►
But basically I put it one on the right side, the other on the left side
00:20:54
◼
►
so they are perpendicular to each other and
00:21:00
◼
►
flip them open
00:21:01
◼
►
then I fold the keyboard underneath and they create an angle like, I don't know,
00:21:07
◼
►
30 degree angle or something so that I can use the iPad in touch mode and they're actually stable, you know
00:21:13
◼
►
But it's strong like you could tap the top of the iPad and it doesn't yes
00:21:17
◼
►
It doesn't like poke a hole in the cover. No, it does not
00:21:21
◼
►
Trust me. It's an amazing setup and I've been sticking
00:21:26
◼
►
The thing is I've been buying these kickstands from Amazon US because they're not available in Italy
00:21:33
◼
►
And so every few weeks I ordered a couple from Amazon and I have them shipped to Italy
00:21:37
◼
►
I'm gonna try and send you pictures that maybe you can put in the show notes because it's a thing that you gotta visualize.
00:21:43
◼
►
Yeah, I need to see this. Like, people need to see what you're doing here.
00:21:47
◼
►
Yeah, and so yeah, with the Slim Folio Pro, I also put a couple of kickstands in the back of the cover,
00:21:54
◼
►
so that when I'm tired of using the hardware keyboard, or if I just want to use touch for some reason, like playing a game or something,
00:22:02
◼
►
I can just fold the cover, open the kickstands and use touch mode. And this is
00:22:09
◼
►
of course not possible with the Breech keyboard because it doesn't fold
00:22:13
◼
►
under the iPad, right? It's a laptop setup. So I've been kind of
00:22:18
◼
►
missing that. But to answer your question...
00:22:23
◼
►
Because they have different modes, right? Like they have what they call movie mode
00:22:28
◼
►
where you kind of flip it around but that's not strong enough, it bounces around too much,
00:22:33
◼
►
more than your speaker instead of...
00:22:34
◼
►
Oh yeah, oh yeah, no, with the bridge keyboard, the media mode, you mean?
00:22:41
◼
►
Yeah, no, don't try and type with that mode.
00:22:44
◼
►
The iPad basically just bounces all the time.
00:22:47
◼
►
It's merely meant for like looking at things only, not interacting.
00:22:50
◼
►
Looking at things, yeah, yeah.
00:22:52
◼
►
So, which iPad keyboard is in my future?
00:22:58
◼
►
I think the bridge keyboard, if you do a lot of typing, and if you want to use the iPad as a laptop,
00:23:03
◼
►
Right, it's the best straight keyboard.
00:23:07
◼
►
If you want to be a little more experimental and you want to have a smaller...
00:23:13
◼
►
You want to have a keyboard that makes the iPad closer to your eyes,
00:23:18
◼
►
because it doesn't waste space with an empty trackpad area.
00:23:23
◼
►
And you want to have something that is more, a little more portable maybe,
00:23:25
◼
►
because you know you can you can use it as a cover you can but yeah not really that much
00:23:30
◼
►
I can't abide by the case that they make you put like it's just too much
00:23:33
◼
►
The case of the Sling Foil Pro is extremely bad in the sense that removing the iPad from those rubber
00:23:40
◼
►
angles those rubber corners that they have it's terrible like you gotta press and push on that
00:23:47
◼
►
rubber to remove the iPad it's awful but I love the cover and the fact that it protects the pencil
00:23:55
◼
►
and the fact that it supports the t.che. setup, which is what I'm gonna call with the kickstands.
00:24:01
◼
►
So Logitech, if you're listening, I put two kickstands on the back of your unit.
00:24:09
◼
►
I hope you won't mind.
00:24:10
◼
►
I need to understand this kickstand thing. So we're gonna take a break.
00:24:14
◼
►
You need to send me some pictures.
00:24:16
◼
►
Oh my god, yes.
00:24:16
◼
►
And we're gonna... I wanna... We need to talk about these kickstands,
00:24:19
◼
►
because I need to see what this looks like.
00:24:21
◼
►
All right, let me try and... Oh my god, how? Okay.
00:24:24
◼
►
Just take just take some pictures.
00:24:26
◼
►
You can do this. I believe in you.
00:24:28
◼
►
All right. Today's episode is brought to you by FreshBooks.
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they have tools and systems in place to help take away some of the frustrating parts of
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to be a part of.
00:26:13
◼
►
Alright, I sent you the pictures.
00:26:17
◼
►
And are these pictures I can share with our audience?
00:26:21
◼
►
Sure, you can put them in the chat room but
00:26:25
◼
►
I'll try and send you a better one for the show notes.
00:26:29
◼
►
Okay, alright, I see what's going on here.
00:26:33
◼
►
Yeah? Okay. So you have two
00:26:37
◼
►
kickstands in the back of the, that's the smart keyboard but it's
00:26:41
◼
►
you the same setup with the Slim Folio Pro. You have two kickstands in the
00:26:45
◼
►
bottom of the smart keyboard. You open them, you fold the keyboard underneath and
00:26:51
◼
►
you have the iPad in touch mode at an angle. And it works because when you fold
00:26:57
◼
►
the keyboard iOS automatically engages the software keyboard again.
00:27:04
◼
►
They look small but it's very stable. I've been using this in touch mode for
00:27:09
◼
►
months and it's totally awesome. So that would be the teaching setup.
00:27:15
◼
►
So this is how you have it set up on the smart keyboard, right?
00:27:19
◼
►
Yes, it's the same on the Slim Folio Pro.
00:27:21
◼
►
OK. I'll make sure that there's images in the show notes so people can go and look at
00:27:26
◼
►
this. It'll also be chapter artwork if you use an app that shows the chapter artwork.
00:27:31
◼
►
I'll put that in there.
00:27:33
◼
►
You can actually use these pictures and they're not terrible. So you can use these pictures.
00:27:37
◼
►
I will do that.
00:27:38
◼
►
Wow, look at this.
00:27:39
◼
►
I'm gonna say though, it looks super precarious.
00:27:44
◼
►
- It's not really.
00:27:47
◼
►
Because they, you know, if you,
00:27:51
◼
►
I did of course multiple tests before
00:27:55
◼
►
actually attaching them to the iPad
00:27:57
◼
►
and they never close accidentally for me.
00:28:01
◼
►
Now, I don't know if you actually try and stab the iPad
00:28:05
◼
►
instead of typing like a normal person,
00:28:07
◼
►
they probably would break.
00:28:09
◼
►
But honestly, just typing in touch mode,
00:28:11
◼
►
sending a few tweets,
00:28:13
◼
►
writing a link post on Mac stories, totally fine.
00:28:17
◼
►
- So like you would use these to just whatever,
00:28:19
◼
►
like you just don't wanna use,
00:28:21
◼
►
you just don't wanna have the keyboard
00:28:22
◼
►
in front of you anymore.
00:28:23
◼
►
And you just like poking around.
00:28:24
◼
►
- Yeah, yeah.
00:28:26
◼
►
Matthew is asking in the chat room,
00:28:28
◼
►
does it dent the case?
00:28:30
◼
►
So I use this on the,
00:28:33
◼
►
on the Italian Smart Keyboard that I had for three months maybe before moving to a US Smart Keyboard.
00:28:44
◼
►
I can see that there's a very small dent in the case.
00:28:50
◼
►
So if that's a problem for you, this is going to happen.
00:28:54
◼
►
I'm not sure how you can mitigate the issue, maybe by having stickers or some other kind of protection
00:29:01
◼
►
where the kickstand is attached, I can notice a small dent in the cover of my smart keyboard,
00:29:11
◼
►
but it's really small and it's really not an issue, honestly. And let me look on this US one.
00:29:18
◼
►
So these kickstands, how do you get them to level? Do you just extend them to the maximum each time?
00:29:31
◼
►
Is the iPad not like misleveled? Because it's two independent things that you have to extend, right?
00:29:36
◼
►
Yeah, but you attach them so that they are at the same level, in the sense that they are perpendicular to each other.
00:29:46
◼
►
Well, that takes some time to set up.
00:29:47
◼
►
No, not really. Not really.
00:29:51
◼
►
I put the iPad flat on a desk and I just put them roughly at the same height.
00:30:00
◼
►
I think I use the measuring tape to make sure they were at the same distance on both sides
00:30:05
◼
►
so that it's actually quite precise.
00:30:09
◼
►
Very nice Federico.
00:30:12
◼
►
Yeah look it's a life hack, it's not perfect. Ideally there should be a built-in
00:30:19
◼
►
mode for this maybe but it works and I'm not particularly bothered by the small
00:30:28
◼
►
sign that is left on my Smart Keyboard. The US one actually has no signs, so
00:30:35
◼
►
it looks pristine even though I've been using the kickstands a bunch. But yeah, it's not perfect,
00:30:43
◼
►
but it solves a problem that I have with the Smart Keyboard, which is it's great for typing with a
00:30:50
◼
►
physical keyboard, but if I just want to switch modes and I don't want to switch covers, because
00:30:56
◼
►
an answer could be, well, just remove the smart keyboard and put on the smart folio, which is
00:31:01
◼
►
basically the same thing but without a keyboard and with a touch mode. But I don't want to switch
00:31:07
◼
►
covers all the time, and so it's a way to have both touch mode with an angle and physical keyboard
00:31:14
◼
►
mode in the same accessory, which works okay. And they're cheap and they're very solid, so
00:31:21
◼
►
you can get them from amazon but not immediately no what a life hack
00:31:28
◼
►
yeah all right so back onto more serious subjects
00:31:33
◼
►
uh there was gamey rambo continued to spread more and more information last
00:31:38
◼
►
week after his his week of of leaking from
00:31:42
◼
►
wherever the information that he got was from about stuff in ios 13
00:31:46
◼
►
Mac 1015 stuff in the Apple Watch, etc.
00:31:50
◼
►
And there was one report talking about some iOS features coming to the Mac.
00:31:55
◼
►
One of them was the possibility of a version of shortcuts to come to the Mac.
00:32:02
◼
►
And so I want to hear what you have to say about this.
00:32:07
◼
►
Okay. Of course I'm intrigued by this idea of bringing shortcuts to a...
00:32:19
◼
►
maybe not a bigger audience, but a different audience.
00:32:23
◼
►
And I've seen... there's a great article by Dr. Drang about what does this mean for the future of automation on macOS.
00:32:33
◼
►
And to sum it up, he argues that what makes automation great on MacOS is the fact that you have complete communication between two layers of automation.
00:32:43
◼
►
You have the Darwin and kernel stuff, so Bash, Python, Ruby, how you can have the scripting languages that perform scripting and automation at a very low level.
00:32:54
◼
►
And then you have AppleScript and Automator and these other user-facing automation tools that can communicate with each other.
00:33:02
◼
►
So AppleScript can communicate with Bash and Python,
00:33:04
◼
►
and Python and Bash can also communicate
00:33:06
◼
►
with AppleScript and Automator.
00:33:08
◼
►
It's a two-way thing that's going on, which is great.
00:33:11
◼
►
Now, where does Shortcuts fit into this?
00:33:14
◼
►
And if you read the report from Rambo,
00:33:19
◼
►
it's very light on details,
00:33:23
◼
►
but he mentions Siri Shortcuts,
00:33:26
◼
►
which is, when you hear me say Siri Shortcuts,
00:33:29
◼
►
I do not mean the shortcuts app.
00:33:32
◼
►
So Siri shortcuts are those little actions
00:33:35
◼
►
that you can set up on iOS and give them a phrase,
00:33:37
◼
►
and they represent actions or screens
00:33:41
◼
►
that you can reopen in a third-party app.
00:33:43
◼
►
And Rambo mentions there will be Siri shortcuts,
00:33:46
◼
►
there will also be a shortcuts app,
00:33:48
◼
►
but it doesn't go into these details of how
00:33:51
◼
►
it will integrate with macOS
00:33:55
◼
►
and it'll feel a bit different from shortcuts on iOS.
00:33:58
◼
►
but it does mention how it may be possible that shortcuts on the Mac will only be compatible with third-party apps that have been written in Marzipan.
00:34:07
◼
►
Now, I would be surprised...
00:34:11
◼
►
So I want to sort of go over a few layers of this discussion, if that's okay with you, Myke.
00:34:17
◼
►
I want to hear it.
00:34:19
◼
►
I would be very surprised if shortcuts on the Mac does not offer any ties to
00:34:26
◼
►
existing scripting
00:34:29
◼
►
or tools or automation features of Mac OS.
00:34:33
◼
►
Shortcuts on iOS already has a native action called "Run SSH script",
00:34:40
◼
►
which yes, it is different from what we're talking about here. It's not bash. It's not Python. It's not AppleScript.
00:34:47
◼
►
But there's a small precedent for having shortcuts run a script natively, but with an SSH session.
00:34:59
◼
►
And it would not be unthinkable, I believe, to imagine how there may be a "run apple script" action,
00:35:08
◼
►
or maybe a "run shell command" action in shortcuts for Mac.
00:35:12
◼
►
for Mac and I think I would be very surprised if in the process of bringing
00:35:18
◼
►
shortcuts over to the Mac the team does not consider this possibility of this is
00:35:24
◼
►
not possible in the US but we have it on the Mac so why not and actually you know
00:35:29
◼
►
if you really wanna be precise about this you can use the run SSH action to
00:35:36
◼
►
run scripts on your Mac this is what I'm already doing with my Mac mini I have
00:35:42
◼
►
the SSH action "run shell scripts" and perform and run Apple scripts using the
00:35:48
◼
►
osascript command. This is all already possible, but you gotta enable SSH.
00:35:53
◼
►
What we're arguing here is, should shortcuts for Mac have native AppleScript, native
00:35:59
◼
►
Bash support, and all this kind of stuff? And I think it should, or at least it
00:36:02
◼
►
should have some kind of bridge, some kind of tool that says you can execute
00:36:07
◼
►
this command. Now the more interesting question for me is, consider how
00:36:12
◼
►
Shortcuts works at the moment on iOS. You have native actions that you can run
00:36:19
◼
►
inside of Shortcuts. These are your files actions or your web API actions, your
00:36:26
◼
►
Apple Music actions, all these native frameworks. Then you have City Shortcuts,
00:36:32
◼
►
which are these little steps that you can import from apps and they're either
00:36:39
◼
►
they either show you stuff like they display some kind of visual preview or
00:36:45
◼
►
they take you into a third-party app. Then you have the good old URL schemes
00:36:54
◼
►
that you can either assemble by hand or are pre-packaged in shortcuts as visual
00:37:03
◼
►
actions. But these actions, even though they look pretty and they look visual,
00:37:06
◼
►
they actually simply launch a third-party app to perform an action or
00:37:14
◼
►
to show you something. What Shortcuts on iOS does not have as of iOS 12 is a
00:37:21
◼
►
native API for developers to have their apps become native actions of shortcuts.
00:37:30
◼
►
There's no, let's call it workflow kit or let's call it shortcuts kit, call it
00:37:35
◼
►
whatever you want, but there's no native framework for my curly developer of one,
00:37:41
◼
►
two, three markdown to say, look I want to offer an action for my markdown
00:37:47
◼
►
editor in shortcuts, but it's got to be a native action. Not something that
00:37:52
◼
►
launches one, two, three markdown, but something that actually performs inside
00:37:57
◼
►
of shortcuts, like the Apple Music actions do, like the Reminders actions
00:38:01
◼
►
do. That's not possible. On the Mac though, automation with apps has always
00:38:09
◼
►
been modeled around the idea of performing things in the
00:38:17
◼
►
background. You can run scripts
00:38:24
◼
►
from the shell, you can run Python scripts or you can keep an app window
00:38:31
◼
►
open in the background, but to perform something you do not necessarily have to
00:38:37
◼
►
launch it like an iOS. You don't see the dance of multiple apps opening on screen
00:38:43
◼
►
like X-callback for example. So if Apple were to bring shortcuts to the Mac, can
00:38:51
◼
►
you imagine a situation where it's basically X-callback URL all over
00:38:58
◼
►
again? Like you want to have some drafts actions in shortcuts? Sure, it'll launch
00:39:04
◼
►
the drafts app and put the window, you know, make it the front-most window and
00:39:10
◼
►
and it'll be just like an iOS version of shortcuts.
00:39:14
◼
►
Now that could be entirely possible,
00:39:16
◼
►
that bringing automation to the Mac
00:39:20
◼
►
means just launching third-party apps
00:39:23
◼
►
and opening Windows and that kind of stuff.
00:39:26
◼
►
But again, I would be really surprised if in iOS 13,
00:39:32
◼
►
we do not get a proper,
00:39:35
◼
►
fully customizable shortcuts API for developers to say,
00:39:40
◼
►
It's time to move on from URL schemes
00:39:45
◼
►
and these Siri shortcuts that they launched in iOS 12
00:39:48
◼
►
didn't really allow us to build
00:39:51
◼
►
meaningful automation features,
00:39:53
◼
►
but now we can thanks to these proper shortcuts API
00:39:56
◼
►
that Apple is opening up.
00:39:57
◼
►
- Can you give me some examples in your mind
00:40:00
◼
►
as to why it would be beneficial to have this API,
00:40:03
◼
►
which is more than what currently exists?
00:40:05
◼
►
- There's all kinds of possible use cases.
00:40:08
◼
►
One that comes to mind,
00:40:10
◼
►
Think of text editors and how drafts and Ulysses have actions that can create new documents from shortcuts.
00:40:20
◼
►
But those actions, they require launching the app and sometimes they fail because they do not activate in the background.
00:40:29
◼
►
They're basically just a fancy way to represent launching an app and have it perform a feature.
00:40:39
◼
►
or try and think how OmniFocus and things,
00:40:44
◼
►
they also offer actions in shortcuts
00:40:47
◼
►
and they are customizable with parameters,
00:40:50
◼
►
but at the end of the day,
00:40:51
◼
►
they still have to launch OmniFocus and launch things
00:40:54
◼
►
to perform those actions.
00:40:56
◼
►
And compare this to how you can create notes
00:41:00
◼
►
from shortcuts in the Apple Notes app
00:41:03
◼
►
fully in the background, fully automated,
00:41:05
◼
►
or how you can create a reminder from shortcuts, from the widget, from the extension, whatever.
00:41:12
◼
►
Fully in the background, fully automated.
00:41:14
◼
►
You don't have to launch reminders, just like you don't have to launch notes.
00:41:17
◼
►
And so the idea would be rather than using your schemes, which are by design insecure,
00:41:24
◼
►
because any website could, for example, embed a URL scheme that when tapped, you know,
00:41:35
◼
►
you will see a dialog that says,
00:41:36
◼
►
you wanna open this link in an app?
00:41:39
◼
►
URL schemes are not great.
00:41:40
◼
►
What is great is having a proper automation API
00:41:45
◼
►
that has user permissions like the Apple apps do.
00:41:50
◼
►
When you try to use reminders or Apple music
00:41:52
◼
►
or notes with shortcuts, you get a fancy, very nice
00:41:55
◼
►
permission prompt that says,
00:41:57
◼
►
do you wanna use these features with shortcuts?
00:41:59
◼
►
Which means you can control the privacy access in settings,
00:42:03
◼
►
but which means you have greater freedom to automate these apps
00:42:08
◼
►
without having to launch them, which means forget about Base64, for example.
00:42:15
◼
►
Now you can create tasks in OmniFocus with attachments, with images,
00:42:21
◼
►
without having to deal with Base64 and URL schemes.
00:42:25
◼
►
It all just happens natively, which means it gets so much easier
00:42:29
◼
►
for all kinds of users to say, here's a file variable,
00:42:34
◼
►
here's a text variable,
00:42:35
◼
►
make a task in OmniFocus with an attachment for me.
00:42:38
◼
►
And it all just works.
00:42:39
◼
►
- Sorry, so I guess one of the big differences,
00:42:41
◼
►
'cause I'm just trying to make sure that I understand
00:42:44
◼
►
why this is more than what Siri shortcuts gave,
00:42:47
◼
►
was that Siri shortcuts were very Siri focused.
00:42:51
◼
►
So it was like input, output, via voice,
00:42:54
◼
►
and then maybe a small piece of UI.
00:42:57
◼
►
- And not even input.
00:42:58
◼
►
- Well, yeah, but sometimes, right?
00:43:00
◼
►
- Activation more than--
00:43:01
◼
►
- There's something, right, there's something.
00:43:03
◼
►
But the difference here would be if you were looking
00:43:06
◼
►
at shortcuts API, removing Siri from it,
00:43:10
◼
►
it's like giving developers the ability to build tools
00:43:13
◼
►
that work like Apple's native shortcuts tools, right?
00:43:17
◼
►
So like, this is a piece of functionality
00:43:20
◼
►
that exists in my application.
00:43:21
◼
►
You no longer need to open my application to trigger it.
00:43:24
◼
►
Okay, cool, I just wanted to make sure I was following
00:43:26
◼
►
'cause that, I mean, that's the dream, right?
00:43:29
◼
►
That I would be able to what?
00:43:30
◼
►
Like I could say in shortcuts, like oh,
00:43:35
◼
►
take a look at the, like oh, it's that time of day,
00:43:37
◼
►
so just go move all of my projects,
00:43:40
◼
►
all of my tasks in Todoist to tomorrow.
00:43:43
◼
►
Like and I never, it's just all done for me, right?
00:43:45
◼
►
Like I don't do anything, it takes all the tasks
00:43:48
◼
►
and just moves them to tomorrow and that's it.
00:43:50
◼
►
- No URL scheme, no web API, all just local, private
00:43:56
◼
►
and automate it in the background for you.
00:43:58
◼
►
- And I guess the reason that this comes back
00:44:01
◼
►
to why we're talking about this now
00:44:03
◼
►
with shortcuts for the Mac is that's the foundation
00:44:07
◼
►
for why you would want to start replacing
00:44:10
◼
►
the existing mechanism that exists on the Mac, right?
00:44:14
◼
►
Like if you're gonna do this, because look,
00:44:17
◼
►
I think everyone can see the writing on the wall here, right?
00:44:20
◼
►
I mean, I understand why it's difficult for people,
00:44:24
◼
►
especially if you rely on these tools.
00:44:26
◼
►
But I think we can all see what's going on here, right?
00:44:28
◼
►
We can all see what Marzipan is probably
00:44:31
◼
►
gonna end up doing, good and bad.
00:44:34
◼
►
And one of these things is to start to replace
00:44:37
◼
►
a lot of the older core underlying things
00:44:39
◼
►
that exist in the Mac that are maybe
00:44:41
◼
►
a little bit esoteric for most people.
00:44:43
◼
►
And for whatever reason, right or wrong,
00:44:45
◼
►
Apple clearly believes in the shortcuts method
00:44:48
◼
►
of automation because it put it in iOS,
00:44:50
◼
►
so it believes in it, they gave it time on stage, right?
00:44:53
◼
►
believe in it. So it might be the case of like, we want to start redoing what automation
00:44:59
◼
►
means on all of our platforms and that means creating a new set of APIs that everyone can
00:45:05
◼
►
hook into and it works across platforms and all that kind of stuff, right?
00:45:10
◼
►
Yeah. Look, my argument is basically this. On the Mac, you have greater access to, let's
00:45:21
◼
►
call it system automation. Things that you can do with core system
00:45:26
◼
►
functionalities like the Finder or the Shell, these very core
00:45:31
◼
►
frameworks and features of Mac OS that you don't have on iOS. But on iOS you
00:45:38
◼
►
also have some kind of system automation with shortcuts. Things like opening
00:45:44
◼
►
Safari tabs or changing the brightness of your device. Things that are related
00:45:50
◼
►
to the system. And then you have app-based automation. So integrating
00:45:58
◼
►
either with Apple apps, so reminders, notes, music, and third-party apps. And at
00:46:05
◼
►
the moment on iOS the situation is Apple apps get all the benefits of native
00:46:11
◼
►
shortcuts integration and third-party developers they are limited to URL
00:46:15
◼
►
Schemes and Siri shortcuts. It's not exactly automation as much as it is
00:46:21
◼
►
fancy launching of apps. It's what it is. Now if I were Apple and if I were in
00:46:29
◼
►
the process of "alright I want to bring... I'm trying to think right... I want to
00:46:34
◼
►
bring easier automation to the Mac because I mean let's face it
00:46:40
◼
►
AppleScript and Automator, they're not exactly user-friendly, especially AppleScript.
00:46:47
◼
►
You could make the case that there's an entire audience of iPad users,
00:46:57
◼
►
college kids graduating to a MacBook. You use an iPad and now you
00:47:03
◼
►
want to use a Mac because you're older, you want to have a more professional
00:47:06
◼
►
tools so you buy a MacBook. So you're new to the Mac, maybe you already know
00:47:12
◼
►
shortcuts from iOS, but now what do you do? You want to have some automation on
00:47:17
◼
►
the Mac. Do you learn AppleScript? Do you try and use Automator? Do you learn
00:47:22
◼
►
Python and Bash? No. You can make a case for Automator, but I feel
00:47:31
◼
►
like whoever was trying to make that case, maybe Sal.
00:47:35
◼
►
- It was Sal Seguin, you know who was trying
00:47:37
◼
►
to make the case, there was one guy.
00:47:39
◼
►
- The battle was obviously lost because Automator
00:47:42
◼
►
hasn't received meaningful updates in years.
00:47:45
◼
►
And so if you were to think of, all right,
00:47:47
◼
►
what are all these people that,
00:47:50
◼
►
is there a market for new Mac users
00:47:53
◼
►
or even existing Mac users who never got
00:47:56
◼
►
into automation before?
00:47:59
◼
►
because they were put off by AppleScript and Automator.
00:48:03
◼
►
Is there an easy, is there a better way
00:48:05
◼
►
that we can send this, provide a more cohesive message
00:48:10
◼
►
around you can make your tasks easier and faster
00:48:14
◼
►
and more efficient with automation?
00:48:15
◼
►
And there is an answer and there will be shortcuts.
00:48:18
◼
►
Now, if you were to bring shortcuts to the Mac,
00:48:24
◼
►
would you rather make it work in two different ways on iOS and macOS?
00:48:32
◼
►
So would you say, all right, so on iOS we're gonna launch a Shortcuts API, we're gonna get rid of URL
00:48:38
◼
►
schemes, we're gonna get rid of, you know, these simplistic series shortcuts, we're gonna have a
00:48:43
◼
►
proper full-on Shortcuts API for third-party developers. But on the Mac though, we're still
00:48:50
◼
►
gonna use Apple events and we're still gonna use Apple script and URL schemes?
00:48:57
◼
►
Or would you say all right so if we're bringing shortcuts to the Mac and we're opening this
00:49:03
◼
►
shortcuts API for developers I guess we gotta make sure that it works the same way everywhere
00:49:08
◼
►
and the answer would be let's just make it work for marzipan apps. In these situations I think
00:49:18
◼
►
the sort of an outcomes raiser problem would suggest that the easiest and most obvious
00:49:26
◼
►
solution is the one that wins in the end. And so I tend to believe the part of the
00:49:32
◼
►
95-mic report that the shortcuts will work with marzipan apps. But I think that's in the context of
00:49:42
◼
►
there will be a new shortcuts API for third-party developers that is supported on iOS and on macOS,
00:49:49
◼
►
provided that you write your macOS app using this so far unnamed tool that we all refer to as Marzipan.
00:49:57
◼
►
That would not surprise me at all. So you think that this stuff would be Marzipan apps only on the Mac?
00:50:04
◼
►
Yes. But again, what I said a few minutes ago still stands. Should Apple offer some kind of basic compatibility mode for old apps or for AppleScript or for Apple Events?
00:50:21
◼
►
I'm not sure the extent of what Apple could do,
00:50:26
◼
►
but as far as third-party apps go,
00:50:31
◼
►
I would not be surprised if it's just for Marzipan apps.
00:50:35
◼
►
And so Apple could have,
00:50:38
◼
►
this was one of the concerns
00:50:40
◼
►
that Dr. Drang expressed in his article.
00:50:43
◼
►
If Apple makes contacts or reminders on the Mac,
00:50:47
◼
►
Marzipan apps, do I lose access to all my Apple scripts and all my automations that I have?
00:50:54
◼
►
I feel like that type of stuff feels inevitable to me.
00:50:58
◼
►
Yes. Yes, I agree.
00:51:00
◼
►
Like I would expect over the next two or three years, every app that Apple makes moves,
00:51:05
◼
►
like basic system app moves to Marzipan.
00:51:08
◼
►
Yes. So I agree that there will be a rough and bumpy transition period for folks who use
00:51:16
◼
►
automation with Apple apps that will become Marzipan apps with Mac OS 10.15.
00:51:23
◼
►
But Apple could smooth out this transition by saying all your Apple scripts can now
00:51:32
◼
►
become native shortcuts.
00:51:35
◼
►
Right. And there's a I don't know how it'll look like.
00:51:39
◼
►
You could go as far as say, oh, maybe Apple should have a sort of like a Rosetta system
00:51:45
◼
►
to automatically translate AppleScript dictionaries
00:51:48
◼
►
to shortcuts dictionaries.
00:51:49
◼
►
- You could just straight up just have a AppleScript block
00:51:53
◼
►
in shortcuts and it would do it.
00:51:56
◼
►
- And it's only gonna work on the Mac,
00:51:57
◼
►
which is perfectly fine, right?
00:51:58
◼
►
And it's just like, that will do it, right?
00:52:00
◼
►
And then over time, hoping that people might start adopting
00:52:04
◼
►
the native tools that they bring about,
00:52:06
◼
►
but like, it's just like, look, we're moving it to this.
00:52:08
◼
►
If you run this, we'll make it work, right?
00:52:11
◼
►
Like, don't worry about it.
00:52:13
◼
►
Or maybe there's a way to say we made contacts and marzipan app,
00:52:18
◼
►
and now you can use the shortcuts API that we have in contacts and that we have reminders.
00:52:25
◼
►
But for the time being, you can still access the AppleScript dictionary of contacts and reminders.
00:52:31
◼
►
Again, to smooth out this transition period.
00:52:34
◼
►
And I think last year, Steve Tratt and Smith showed how it is technically possible with marzipan
00:52:41
◼
►
to embed AppleScript dictionary support in a Marzipan app.
00:52:44
◼
►
So Apple could also say that.
00:52:46
◼
►
And I also wanted to point out how,
00:52:49
◼
►
I've gotten a few responses and comments from people who say,
00:52:54
◼
►
"Why would you want shortcuts on the Mac
00:52:57
◼
►
"while Automator is so much more powerful?"
00:53:00
◼
►
And it depends, I think, on your definition of powerful.
00:53:03
◼
►
Because Automator, if all you care about
00:53:06
◼
►
is running shell commands,
00:53:08
◼
►
and using those classic Mecco S10 automation features
00:53:13
◼
►
that are still automator, then yes, it is more powerful.
00:53:18
◼
►
But if you just look at what you can do with shortcuts,
00:53:21
◼
►
with just a few drag and drops and just a few touches,
00:53:25
◼
►
I mean, shortcuts has conditional blocks and repeat loops
00:53:30
◼
►
and custom UIs that you can put together
00:53:35
◼
►
with alerts and dialogs and menus.
00:53:37
◼
►
None of this is available in Automator.
00:53:40
◼
►
None of this.
00:53:41
◼
►
- Frankly, it is much more accessible
00:53:42
◼
►
to people that don't understand what they're doing.
00:53:45
◼
►
I can understand shortcuts in a way
00:53:47
◼
►
I was never able to understand Automator.
00:53:50
◼
►
And like power is one thing,
00:53:54
◼
►
accessibility is another thing, right?
00:53:56
◼
►
Like people being able to learn something easily
00:53:58
◼
►
without a lot of knowledge behind them,
00:54:02
◼
►
that brings more power to more people.
00:54:06
◼
►
And isn't that the most important thing, ultimately?
00:54:11
◼
►
It's like, do you value power for power's sake,
00:54:14
◼
►
or do you value power in the context of empowering people?
00:54:18
◼
►
Which is a different thing, I think.
00:54:21
◼
►
Do you just want to have the maximum power,
00:54:23
◼
►
but it's like, do you want to build a car
00:54:25
◼
►
that goes to 300 kilometers per hour,
00:54:28
◼
►
but so very few pilots in the world can drive,
00:54:31
◼
►
or do you want to have a very good and very accessible car
00:54:34
◼
►
that most people can drive?
00:54:36
◼
►
I don't want to get political here. He says, backing head first into this, it's like the
00:54:43
◼
►
1% idea, right? Like all the money being controlled by such a small amount of people. That's what
00:54:49
◼
►
it reminds me of, right? Like, you can have all the power as long as you have the knowledge.
00:54:55
◼
►
Well, that's not fair. I don't have the knowledge, but I want some of the power.
00:55:01
◼
►
So to sum it up.
00:55:03
◼
►
We really got off the rails there, didn't we?
00:55:07
◼
►
But I think it was a good discussion.
00:55:09
◼
►
In the context of
00:55:11
◼
►
there's so many questions that are still
00:55:13
◼
►
of course left unanswered
00:55:15
◼
►
in terms of, as
00:55:17
◼
►
Dr. Drang pointed out in his
00:55:19
◼
►
post, which you really should go read because he raises
00:55:21
◼
►
a few interesting points,
00:55:23
◼
►
will shortcuts or Mac
00:55:25
◼
►
be able to communicate
00:55:27
◼
►
in a sort of a three-way
00:55:29
◼
►
system with Darwin and the
00:55:31
◼
►
AppleScript automator and shortcuts? And will Apple provide some kind of bridge
00:55:38
◼
►
or some kind of compatibility layer for the shell and AppleScript in shortcuts?
00:55:44
◼
►
And then we have the broader picture of what's in the cards for
00:55:52
◼
►
shortcuts too at WWDC? And should Apple open up a proper shortcuts API for
00:55:59
◼
►
third-party developers and my answer is yes and I've been saying this since my
00:56:03
◼
►
iOS 12 review last year. There should be... it's time to move on from URL schemes
00:56:09
◼
►
and Siri shortcuts were not meant for automation it is time to have the same
00:56:14
◼
►
automation tools that Apple has for their own apps and make them available
00:56:18
◼
►
through third-party developers. But if that's the case and if that it's also
00:56:25
◼
►
coming to macOS. I believe it's very possible that it will be for
00:56:31
◼
►
Marzipan apps only. Which brings us to the final question that we brought up
00:56:38
◼
►
a few minutes ago of if this new kind of automation is for Marzipan apps only,
00:56:43
◼
►
what happens to existing Apple apps that become Marzipan apps? So your contacts
00:56:51
◼
►
and your reminders and mail, maybe?
00:56:55
◼
►
Is mail too complex for Marzipan?
00:56:59
◼
►
All these basic-- - Depends what they do
00:57:00
◼
►
to iOS mail.
00:57:01
◼
►
- Depends what they do, yes.
00:57:03
◼
►
So what happens to automation for these existing Mac apps?
00:57:08
◼
►
Will there be a one-to-one match
00:57:12
◼
►
between AppleScript and Shortcuts API?
00:57:15
◼
►
I sort of doubt it.
00:57:17
◼
►
- You know, like you said that about complicated.
00:57:18
◼
►
This is something that I keep coming back to,
00:57:20
◼
►
I keep hearing people mention it.
00:57:22
◼
►
Like, here's the here's my thinking on this, like the way that I come at this.
00:57:25
◼
►
Nothing should be too complicated.
00:57:27
◼
►
It is up to Apple to make it work.
00:57:29
◼
►
They believe in this system.
00:57:31
◼
►
They have to find a way to make mail comparable on both platforms.
00:57:36
◼
►
And it be Marzipan based.
00:57:38
◼
►
They just have to do it.
00:57:39
◼
►
Whatever it takes over the next few years, they have to find a way.
00:57:43
◼
►
I don't expect that they're going to be able to move all of these apps this year.
00:57:47
◼
►
But over the multiple year rollout of this program, like this, this idea, this
00:57:51
◼
►
platform, they should be able to get all of their apps running this way because
00:57:56
◼
►
otherwise why do it, right?
00:57:58
◼
►
If they can't stand at the front of this and be like, this is the way to make apps.
00:58:03
◼
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We believe in it so much.
00:58:04
◼
►
We're going to make all of our apps this way, and we're going to keep the power of
00:58:06
◼
►
them. Then what's the point?
00:58:08
◼
►
Yeah. You know, like if we're 10 years down the line and mail is still made of app
00:58:15
◼
►
then they're not doing their job properly.
00:58:18
◼
►
If they are then gonna stand and say,
00:58:20
◼
►
this is the new way to make apps,
00:58:21
◼
►
which is what they will say, right?
00:58:23
◼
►
Like over the next couple of years,
00:58:25
◼
►
Apple is going to be telling everyone,
00:58:27
◼
►
the way you should make apps for our platform
00:58:30
◼
►
is by using this set of tools that we've created, right?
00:58:32
◼
►
Like that's what they're gonna say.
00:58:33
◼
►
No matter, like there will be a million edge cases,
00:58:36
◼
►
it won't be good for this, it won't be good for that,
00:58:38
◼
►
But Apple's not gonna say that, right?
00:58:39
◼
►
Like the plan will be, you use your apps,
00:58:43
◼
►
you make your apps using these tools that we've created and now they've won on all the platforms
00:58:47
◼
►
so they need to do it too right and the idea of oh itunes is too complicated so they have to
00:58:54
◼
►
break it up and make it dumb uh mail is too complicated and so either they're gonna remove
00:58:59
◼
►
uh smart boxes or they're just never gonna bother or like safari is too complicated so we're gonna
00:59:04
◼
►
have these two versions it needs to be one and it needs to be great on everything because otherwise
00:59:10
◼
►
Otherwise, what's the point?
00:59:15
◼
►
Few final things I I do not believe that
00:59:18
◼
►
Automator and Apple script are going away
00:59:21
◼
►
Immediately. It's not a it. I don't think Apple likes to kill off these existing Mac features
00:59:29
◼
►
Not when they don't need to and when they're just just gonna hurt people
00:59:33
◼
►
Yeah, they can just phase them out over time and it'll be obvious and everybody will will adapt
00:59:40
◼
►
And also a friend of the show and friend in real life, Jason Snell, is making a good point in the chat room
00:59:46
◼
►
that Apple could offer some kind of bridge
00:59:49
◼
►
to bring quick actions,
00:59:52
◼
►
which is a feature of Michael S. Mojave in the Finder, and
00:59:55
◼
►
sort of say you can have your quick actions in shortcuts and sort of it's a way to bridge old
01:00:01
◼
►
automation with new automation, which I think is a really good point and I could see how these kinds of
01:00:08
◼
►
little compatibility steps or like you mentioned Myke, run AppleScript as an action in shortcuts for Mac.
01:00:14
◼
►
I could see how they may alleviate some of these problems that may arise during the transition,
01:00:21
◼
►
you know, with Marzipan and all of that.
01:00:23
◼
►
My main question is, and that's the one that I'm most curious about, is what happens to folks like Drang
01:00:30
◼
►
that have existing AppleScripts that work with contacts and reminders?
01:00:34
◼
►
What happens when those apps are no longer AppKit apps, but they are Marzipan apps?
01:00:39
◼
►
Will they keep their existing AppleScript support or will they use something new?
01:00:43
◼
►
So my question will be, really the question is, does Drang need to write new scripts? That's the question
01:00:49
◼
►
we're all wondering because it represents, in that simple question, is a big problem of
01:00:55
◼
►
how does Apple move from old automation to new automation with shortcuts? And so how much work does Dr. Drang, and people like Dr. Drang,
01:01:03
◼
►
have to do to update their scripts and automations and workflows.
01:01:09
◼
►
It's very interesting. I know that it's scary for Mac users. For me, there's all to gain here.
01:01:19
◼
►
For folks like me, and I think you, Myke,
01:01:22
◼
►
this is great because it means I can now translate all my iOS automations to Mac automations.
01:01:29
◼
►
I've got no time for Automator, I've got no time for AppleScript, but I know how to use shortcuts.
01:01:34
◼
►
And if shortcuts come to the Mac, now I can...
01:01:37
◼
►
Imagine if all your iOS shortcuts could sync to the Mac and just work out of the box. Wouldn't that be great?
01:01:45
◼
►
I would love to stop using the toggled Mac app.
01:01:48
◼
►
Anything to stop using the toggled Mac app would be just a real blessing to me.
01:01:53
◼
►
Whoo! Alright, let's take a break and then I
01:01:57
◼
►
I need to talk about something quite sorrowful to me.
01:02:00
◼
►
Today's episode is brought to you by Bombust. You might not think about socks very often.
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socks from Bombas, they donate socks to people that need them. Which I just think is a wonderful
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thing to do. They've donated, wow, nearly 20 million pairs of socks to people that need
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them. So every time you buy an item, they donate an item. I think that's really cool.
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They have a set of sesame street socks which are all really great looking and they're not
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Our thanks to Bombas for their support of Connected and all of Relay FM.
01:03:50
◼
►
week I decided that this week we would talk about the Samsung Galaxy Fold
01:03:56
◼
►
because I have you know anything anyone's listen to me on this show and
01:04:02
◼
►
on upgrade will know that I am like super interested in folding phones and
01:04:06
◼
►
especially the Galaxy Fold the two the fold and the Huawei Mate X the fold was
01:04:14
◼
►
the most interesting to me from a design perspective and the reason I want to
01:04:18
◼
►
about it is like last week somebody initial impressions started coming out so there were
01:04:22
◼
►
videos from people like Casey Neistat and MKBHD, D-Devone at the Verge, there were videos from
01:04:28
◼
►
people at the Wall Street Journal, I think Jeffrey Fowler had videos there and they were like hey
01:04:33
◼
►
come to our place right like what Apple does and spend some time with it and then you can make a
01:04:37
◼
►
video about it so a bunch of videos came out people were intrigued by it there was a lot of surprise
01:04:44
◼
►
about the device. People were recognising there was work to be done, but that the bones of an
01:04:51
◼
►
interesting product were definitely there and it was more put together than people were imagining.
01:04:56
◼
►
I'm so impressed when I look at how the software works, just from a basic perspective of the
01:05:03
◼
►
multitasking. There are parts about the multitasking that they have better than Apple do,
01:05:07
◼
►
that you can have a bunch of apps on screen at once and you can just resize them all and it's
01:05:12
◼
►
great right and they don't have a lot of apps that use this because they need to integrate
01:05:17
◼
►
with Samsung's API's and I can't imagine that there are a ton of developers on Android that
01:05:21
◼
►
are like falling over themselves to support the Galaxy Fold but Samsung worked closely
01:05:26
◼
►
with companies that were important for them to work with and they got a bunch of apps
01:05:29
◼
►
working right so it's like okay this looks interesting and again I haven't used it I'm
01:05:34
◼
►
sure it's janky in a million ways that iOS isn't but it's still intriguing and that was
01:05:39
◼
►
kind of the way that people were talking about it of like you know and I liked
01:05:42
◼
►
what D. De Bon had to say about this is like I am genuinely surprised because I
01:05:46
◼
►
thought this was gonna be like a train wreck but it isn't. Reviewers then started
01:05:50
◼
►
walking away with the devices and people tweeting about it you know and Samsung
01:05:54
◼
►
was starting to send more units out to people that didn't get the first
01:05:57
◼
►
impressions and it seemed like everyone that was getting them was like becoming
01:06:02
◼
►
really drawn to this device you know like I was seeing a lot of people say
01:06:06
◼
►
like this thing is very interesting right of like you've got this little
01:06:12
◼
►
screen on the front which isn't that great but it's like a souped up lock
01:06:15
◼
►
screen effectively and then you when you need to get something done you open it
01:06:19
◼
►
up and you have this like big square device and this big square screen right
01:06:23
◼
►
in front of you then all of a sudden devices started failing it was like I'm
01:06:31
◼
►
I'm not sure whether it was something where a bunch of people knew that they'd broken
01:06:38
◼
►
it but were too afraid to mention it or whether they were happening at the exact same time,
01:06:44
◼
►
but it started with Dieter Bohn publishing on The Verge that a bump appeared under the
01:06:49
◼
►
screen that ultimately killed his unit.
01:06:51
◼
►
So like a little bump appeared under his screen kind of towards the middle and then that eventually
01:06:58
◼
►
caused some lines in the display and then just killed the screen.
01:07:01
◼
►
When he published that article both MKBHD and Mark Gurman showed that they had attempted to
01:07:08
◼
►
remove what they thought was a screen protector and it destroyed the screen. So there's like a
01:07:13
◼
►
little plastic covering that didn't go all the way to the edge for reasons that I will never
01:07:18
◼
►
understand. But it didn't go all the way to the edge and people will try and pick it off as I 100%
01:07:25
◼
►
would have if I was them and it destroyed the screen.
01:07:28
◼
►
It was like it's an important part of the screen, it was like a protection part, you
01:07:31
◼
►
pull it away and it breaks some of the other stuff, killed it.
01:07:34
◼
►
So all of these people started talking about it.
01:07:37
◼
►
Samsung recalled the broken phones, they clarified that the screen protector should not be removed
01:07:43
◼
►
and they said they will make it clear to customers.
01:07:46
◼
►
They said they would look into what happened to Dieter's phone.
01:07:49
◼
►
There's been other phones now since I think I saw YouTuber MrMobile had a similar problem.
01:07:54
◼
►
It was like a bump in your screen.
01:07:58
◼
►
But Samsung was steadfast on not moving their release date.
01:08:01
◼
►
Like, in their original PR release, they were like,
01:08:04
◼
►
"Don't take the screen protector off.
01:08:06
◼
►
We're going to look into what happened to the other one."
01:08:09
◼
►
But the phone's still coming out.
01:08:11
◼
►
Then rumors started to circulate that Samsung would delay their launch in certain markets.
01:08:16
◼
►
This then became everywhere.
01:08:18
◼
►
As it stands right now today,
01:08:20
◼
►
It is completely unknown what Samsung are planning to do with the Galaxy Fold, but you
01:08:27
◼
►
can rest assured that they will do everything they literally can to release this product.
01:08:33
◼
►
This is from the statement they gave.
01:08:36
◼
►
We will take measures to strengthen the display protection.
01:08:38
◼
►
We will also enhance the guidance on care and use of the display, including the protective
01:08:44
◼
►
There is no timeline as to when this phone will be launching.
01:08:46
◼
►
It was supposed to be coming out on Friday the 26th.
01:08:50
◼
►
have pre-ordered and Samsung have contacted the pre-order customers and said that they'll
01:08:54
◼
►
give them an update in two weeks about what's happening. Apparently Samsung have now also
01:09:00
◼
►
recalled all review units. My expectation here is they want to get them out of the hands
01:09:08
◼
►
of people before they break and they also want to probably have a do-over on all of
01:09:13
◼
►
this. When they fix or if they fix or can provide a more strong experience that they
01:09:23
◼
►
will want to do this all over again. Have people come in, take a look at it, assure
01:09:28
◼
►
everyone, then send all the devices out, have them reviewed again. Unfortunately people
01:09:33
◼
►
have already started publishing their reviews and there are still reviews to come of the
01:09:37
◼
►
device which is fundamentally flawed. iFixit got their hands on one, which is really intriguing
01:09:44
◼
►
to me. Somebody gave it to iFixit and iFixit just ripped it apart. They have identified
01:09:50
◼
►
the following issues as potential reasons for why this screen has failed. OLED screens
01:09:56
◼
►
in general are super fragile and they're more prone to complete failure than just a section
01:10:01
◼
►
failing with regular LED screens. So like, if this was somehow able to be an LED screen,
01:10:07
◼
►
Those little bumps may have just killed some pixels.
01:10:09
◼
►
But on an OLED screen, if you do enough damage, it will kill the entire panel.
01:10:16
◼
►
This is the issue with the screen protector.
01:10:22
◼
►
If you pull it, which is what was happening, because it was glued really heavily down because
01:10:25
◼
►
Samsung doesn't want it taken off, right?
01:10:26
◼
►
It's part of the screen.
01:10:27
◼
►
If you pull it and damage some of the OLED, you kill the screen.
01:10:31
◼
►
That was what was killing them.
01:10:32
◼
►
It wasn't that removing the screen protector was somehow electronically attached to the
01:10:38
◼
►
phone, it was just that you would damage the OLED.
01:10:42
◼
►
You were separating the OLED from the electronics and it would kill it.
01:10:46
◼
►
The edges of the device are problematic as well because where the hinge is, there are
01:10:51
◼
►
these two little gaps, the top and the bottom, where you can see it's not covered by the
01:10:58
◼
►
case because they need to be able to close the thing.
01:11:01
◼
►
doesn't have any kind of covering. If you remember from the Huawei Mate X, they had
01:11:05
◼
►
this little rubber thing, which I hated the look of, but that is protection for the edges
01:11:10
◼
►
of the screen. The Galaxy Fold did not have that. So that is some exposed edges where
01:11:15
◼
►
you can hit the... where you're able to cause an impact, which can kill the screen. Or this
01:11:23
◼
►
could be where debris is getting in, which is what definitely happened to D-Dabone. It
01:11:27
◼
►
looks like some debris got in and they either got in through the hole at the bottom, which
01:11:31
◼
►
is a 7mm gap which is completely unprotected or it's got in through the back of the hinge.
01:11:36
◼
►
Now this is a problem because this is definitely going to happen and unless Samsung find a
01:11:41
◼
►
way to cover that hinge a little bit more, makes me think of the butterfly keyboards
01:11:47
◼
►
and MacBook Pros, debris is going to get in there and it's going to destroy the screen.
01:11:53
◼
►
Because probably what's happening is, is debris is getting in and it's getting caught in the
01:11:56
◼
►
gears it's it's being pressed against the screen and it's adding a separate
01:12:00
◼
►
stuff it's basically making the the panel separate from the phone killing
01:12:04
◼
►
the OLEDs this is where we are right now all right so as it stands no one knows
01:12:11
◼
►
when this thing is coming out but we're I think everyone's assuming that it's
01:12:15
◼
►
gonna come out somehow and it is so annoying to me that this happens that
01:12:24
◼
►
this has happened. Samsung saying they let it happen is maybe a strong thing to say.
01:12:31
◼
►
Like I saw some people say which is really interesting that they couldn't have done that
01:12:36
◼
►
much real world testing with this because it would have ruined it. You couldn't have
01:12:41
◼
►
taken this thing out into the world and do a ton of real world testing because everyone's
01:12:47
◼
►
going to see it. So that might have been a problem for them as they may have been testing
01:12:52
◼
►
it in too many controlled conditions. Which hindsight is 20/20 on this type of stuff.
01:12:57
◼
►
I don't think you can necessarily point at them and be like "haha!" because this stuff
01:13:03
◼
►
happens. The problem is, it's like the MacBook keyboards. So I can imagine a lot of people
01:13:09
◼
►
like to look at something and be like "haha Samsung prototypes!" but Apple's keyboards
01:13:15
◼
►
are still failing. They clearly did not do enough real world testing with those keyboards,
01:13:19
◼
►
Otherwise the keyboards would be able to withstand dust and debris which they cannot so I think it's worth keeping that kind of stuff in mind
01:13:28
◼
►
Samsung have one shot to make the first impression on this
01:13:31
◼
►
They are the first company in the market with a foldable phone and they blew it
01:13:35
◼
►
Right, like they needed to do this right and they didn't they failed
01:13:41
◼
►
So like the first this has been like a big news story, right the first
01:13:46
◼
►
company to get a product in theory to market. We're like a week away from it being sent
01:13:52
◼
►
into market. People bought it. They made them. They were ready. And they blew it. Can they
01:13:58
◼
►
make it right? Can they fix it? I don't know. Or have they actually shown us that this can't
01:14:06
◼
►
Mm. This is the same company that came back from exploding phones. So I feel like...
01:14:12
◼
►
The Galaxy Note was a strong brand.
01:14:17
◼
►
It was a phone that people wanted.
01:14:18
◼
►
And I agree with you, they can come back from it.
01:14:21
◼
►
But it's like, what is the lasting damage to the idea of folding screens?
01:14:26
◼
►
Because my feeling on this, they will find a way somehow to get this phone out.
01:14:32
◼
►
They put too much money in it now.
01:14:35
◼
►
Somebody and like all you know, the reason it costs $2,000 still remains
01:14:40
◼
►
Someone has to do this
01:14:43
◼
►
If this type of thing is going to exist, you know
01:14:47
◼
►
It could have just been bad luck or they took too many risks or there's something fundamentally wrong about their form factor decisions
01:14:53
◼
►
But like I've seen a lot of people say well
01:14:56
◼
►
Maybe this actually makes the Huawei
01:15:01
◼
►
because the plastic part, which is the problem, right, because that's where the flexible stuff is,
01:15:07
◼
►
is constantly available to the elements. And if these screens being dinged too hard can kill them,
01:15:16
◼
►
maybe being just the screen is actually worse? All of this to say Federico,
01:15:23
◼
►
I cannot uncouple my feelings from this product, I still really want it.
01:15:29
◼
►
I feel like you're more in love with the idea of having a folding phone than having a Galaxy Fold.
01:15:34
◼
►
It's the one I like the most. I think it is more attractive.
01:15:39
◼
►
And I actually believe in Samsung's ability to make this, believe it or not, a
01:15:45
◼
►
real product more than Huawei, even though Huawei's on some real kicks at the moment,
01:15:52
◼
►
which I think we're gonna talk about in a minute, but I still really want it.
01:15:57
◼
►
everything that is good in the reviews and the videos and the images is exactly what I wanted and
01:16:02
◼
►
It's like you can hear it in a lot of the reviewers when they're talking about it
01:16:07
◼
►
It's like I know this thing is so fundamentally flawed, but I love it
01:16:13
◼
►
Right and like that's how I look at it. It's like I like my problem child
01:16:18
◼
►
Because I can see what is wrong with you, but I still love you
01:16:27
◼
►
It's so annoying to me that they they that they
01:16:30
◼
►
Whatever happened happened and like and I understand I feel like I understand like
01:16:36
◼
►
The leaps that they are taking in technology
01:16:40
◼
►
To try and do this. It's ahead of its time
01:16:43
◼
►
But somebody has to do it, right
01:16:47
◼
►
But they blew it they blew it Samsung. So annoyed at you you blew it. I
01:16:54
◼
►
I really wonder how this happened, because even if you don't test it in a real world
01:17:02
◼
►
environment, I don't know, doesn't Samsung have offices with windows where air and dust
01:17:08
◼
►
can come in?
01:17:09
◼
►
Don't they have gardens where you can find leaves and more dust, like particles?
01:17:18
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I really struggle to believe that they don't have a testing environment.
01:17:23
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►
has confirmed that it is that that's what's happened though right like there
01:17:29
◼
►
is a possibility that the one of the gears broke right because that hinge is
01:17:35
◼
►
full of gears and something may have dislodged right like no but no one's
01:17:40
◼
►
actually been able to confirm because Samsung's not saying what happened to
01:17:45
◼
►
D to bones phone right like was it debris or did something inside the phone
01:17:51
◼
►
snap off. It's possible. I feel very confident that this could be the perfect
01:17:57
◼
►
plot for a podcast series. Oh like Serial Season 5? What happened to Dita
01:18:02
◼
►
Bone's phone? Yes, but honestly I mean I agree with you that folding phones
01:18:10
◼
►
should be a thing. Maybe it was a little too early, maybe it was not early
01:18:17
◼
►
But Samsung had the wrong process in place where different teams couldn't talk to each other.
01:18:24
◼
►
And maybe Gruber actually had an article about this, I think yesterday, raising a very good point.
01:18:29
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►
That maybe engineers did bring it up, but maybe marketing just ignored it and said,
01:18:34
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"No, no, no, go ahead. We got a release this fund to prove a point."
01:18:36
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But is Samsung a company that releases things to prove a point? Maybe.
01:18:41
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►
Well, there's also, I mean, there, I think that this happens, this happens everywhere.
01:18:46
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This happens in all companies, you know, everybody has a line. I don't remember exactly what
01:18:50
◼
►
we were talking about. Oh, AirPower, right? Like, that like you get to a certain point
01:18:55
◼
►
and you make a decision. And it might be that Samsung's decision is, let's hope that this
01:19:03
◼
►
goes okay. When Apple's decision maybe is a little bit more like, we have strung this
01:19:09
◼
►
for long enough now and it's time to kill it, right?
01:19:12
◼
►
But like every company has it,
01:19:14
◼
►
you sunk enough money into something,
01:19:16
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►
you have enough writing on it,
01:19:17
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►
and a lot of logic starts to go out the window.
01:19:22
◼
►
- Yeah, but when you reach a point where,
01:19:23
◼
►
okay, we got a product that may work
01:19:26
◼
►
or may explode on a person's nightstand,
01:19:29
◼
►
what are our chances?
01:19:31
◼
►
I feel like pulling the product is probably the safest bet.
01:19:37
◼
►
But yeah, it does feel like an instance of Samsung saying,
01:19:41
◼
►
let's hope that people actually read the sticker
01:19:46
◼
►
to not pull away the protection and that maybe--
01:19:48
◼
►
- They need to, before this phone ships,
01:19:50
◼
►
they need to make sure that there is no,
01:19:52
◼
►
basically at the moment, it's possible for you to pick at it.
01:19:55
◼
►
They need to extend it to the full size of the screen.
01:19:57
◼
►
It's wild to me that they haven't already done that.
01:20:01
◼
►
That like, you could see the ridge,
01:20:02
◼
►
like you could pick it off.
01:20:03
◼
►
I would 100% have pulled that off immediately.
01:20:06
◼
►
There are things where it's like Samsung are so impressive with their hardware but every
01:20:13
◼
►
now and then you see an instance of "that's good enough" and that doesn't always work.
01:20:20
◼
►
It definitely doesn't work in a $2,000 phone.
01:20:23
◼
►
There should be no gap, right?
01:20:26
◼
►
There's like a little gap where the screen protector sits on top of the screen.
01:20:29
◼
►
That gap should not exist.
01:20:30
◼
►
It should go all the way to the edge.
01:20:32
◼
►
It should look like it's the screen, not that it's something that can be removed.
01:20:37
◼
►
That is not good enough.
01:20:39
◼
►
You gotta go back to the drawing board on that.
01:20:41
◼
►
And then you need to put some kind of membrane to stop dust getting in.
01:20:45
◼
►
I don't know what you're gonna do Samsung, but you've gotta find a way to fix this one.
01:20:50
◼
►
You've just got to do it.
01:20:53
◼
►
And the fix can't be like what happened with the galaxy, which is we'll just hope we get
01:20:58
◼
►
it right the next time.
01:21:00
◼
►
That Galaxy, the Note I should say, the exploding Note, there was just no Note that year.
01:21:07
◼
►
They started refurbishing them, putting smaller batteries in them, but they stopped selling
01:21:11
◼
►
that product and then just got it right the next year.
01:21:13
◼
►
I don't think that they have that luxury here.
01:21:16
◼
►
I think they need to get this right.
01:21:17
◼
►
This product needs to come out for them to prove the point that they were trying to make
01:21:21
◼
►
in the first place.
01:21:24
◼
►
now you know, AirPower and this first version of the fold are now holding their little plastic
01:21:32
◼
►
hands in the great product graveyard in the sky.
01:21:36
◼
►
Yep, the hall of failures.
01:21:38
◼
►
Yeah, it's so sad. But yeah, we'll see.
01:21:43
◼
►
I want to talk a little bit about cameras with you before we finish out today's episode,
01:21:47
◼
►
but before we do let me thank our friends over at Smile for their support of this show.
01:21:51
◼
►
Let me tell you about TextExpander. TextExpander lets you quickly insert
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longer chunks of text with a quick search or abbreviation. It puts snippets at your fingertips,
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basically an entire email using their fill-in snippets. It's so incredible.
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I absolutely love TextExpander and use it every single day. There is a brand new version of TextExpander.
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powerful TextExpander snippets. If you already love TextExpander and recommend it to your friends,
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you need TextExpander in your life. It's going to handle all of your repetitive typing tasks,
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leaving more time for what you do best. And if you work with anybody like I do,
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like me and my sales manager Carrie, we have a shared system of TextExpander snippets. So our
01:23:00
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file naming is always correct because as soon as she looked at my file naming, she said, "This is
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no good." So she created some TextExpander snippets so we have consistency in our file naming for
01:23:22
◼
►
and relay FM. So there was a Ming-Chi Kuo report about the cameras coming to the
01:23:29
◼
►
2019 iPhones. It's saying that the front-facing camera is going to be
01:23:33
◼
►
upgraded to a 12 megapixel camera up from 7 which is brilliant and that there
01:23:38
◼
►
will now be a five element lens component which used to be four elements.
01:23:42
◼
►
I'm sure I'm just I don't know what this means but I'm just gonna guess more
01:23:45
◼
►
elements is good. Yeah let's do five elements!
01:23:50
◼
►
Reference acknowledged. I want there to be a better camera on the front
01:23:57
◼
►
of my phone for all the great selfies that I take. Apple will be adding a third
01:24:01
◼
►
camera to both both OLED models the 5.8 and 6.5 inch iPhone so basically the
01:24:06
◼
►
XS and XS Max which we're assuming is gonna be the 11 and this will be a
01:24:10
◼
►
brand new super wide 12 megapixel lens. Now the report on 9to5 Max says that both the
01:24:16
◼
►
super wide and the front facing camera will be coated in black so they blend in better
01:24:20
◼
►
with the surrounding bezel. I'm confused about this.
01:24:25
◼
►
Where's the ultra wide lens going? Is it going on the back or is it going on the front?
01:24:32
◼
►
I think it's going on the back. This is what I thought but like, so okay,
01:24:37
◼
►
Why is it important?
01:24:38
◼
►
Like are they gonna make, like are they gonna be able to hide it in the camera bump?
01:24:42
◼
►
Like if they make the camera bump bigger, what's the problem with having a third lens
01:24:47
◼
►
Why do they need to hide it with this black coating?
01:24:49
◼
►
I don't know because maybe it looks creepy?
01:24:52
◼
►
I don't know.
01:24:53
◼
►
Yeah, there's that, yeah, it does look weird.
01:24:55
◼
►
I don't like seeing all the holes in the phone.
01:24:57
◼
►
And like, yeah, it's what's it what's the phenomenon?
01:25:00
◼
►
Yeah, it's like trip to something something, which is a thing that I have.
01:25:03
◼
►
So I can't search for something.
01:25:07
◼
►
If I search for it, then I'll see all of the images.
01:25:09
◼
►
- Oh yeah, I'm the same.
01:25:11
◼
►
- It freaks me out so much.
01:25:12
◼
►
It's unnatural holes in things is basically the thing.
01:25:15
◼
►
Freaks me out, so you're gonna have to do your own Googling.
01:25:19
◼
►
So this is great, right?
01:25:20
◼
►
I'm excited about this.
01:25:23
◼
►
So I wanted to just talk real briefly
01:25:24
◼
►
about what camera enhancements we actually wanna see.
01:25:27
◼
►
So I'll mention the ultra wide.
01:25:28
◼
►
I want an ultra wide selfie camera
01:25:30
◼
►
and I want an ultra wide regular camera.
01:25:32
◼
►
That's what I want.
01:25:33
◼
►
I want ultra wide on everything.
01:25:34
◼
►
I want the ability to get more people in a selfie, and I also want the ability to get
01:25:43
◼
►
a big landscape if I want it.
01:25:44
◼
►
I don't want just a regular or I don't want it everywhere.
01:25:47
◼
►
I agree, actually.
01:25:49
◼
►
Especially for the group selfies.
01:25:51
◼
►
That'd be nice.
01:25:52
◼
►
Yeah, I am, and I see that you have this in your notes, I am especially intrigued by the
01:26:01
◼
►
crazy optical zoom of the Huawei P30. This is all over TV commercials in Italy, I assume
01:26:09
◼
►
everywhere else as well. Except in America, where I can't be stopped.
01:26:13
◼
►
Except in America. You know, back in Europe we are okay with Huawei. Yes, it looks, I
01:26:20
◼
►
mean the commercials of course, way oversell the feature. There's one of them, I don't
01:26:26
◼
►
I don't know if it's international or not, but there's a couple on a balcony, very nice apartment,
01:26:31
◼
►
they're on the balcony outside looking at the sky and then they zoom in on the moon and they have this
01:26:36
◼
►
CGI effect where the actual moon becomes big enough so that it's basically in front of their eyes.
01:26:44
◼
►
Which is of course you're not gonna get and they say like make objects 50 times bigger or stuff like that.
01:26:52
◼
►
I don't know if it's technically 50 times bigger or not, but it looks impressive.
01:26:57
◼
►
Yeah, in case you don't know what this this how well, how well,
01:27:00
◼
►
Huawei P30 can do, it's kind of two things.
01:27:05
◼
►
It can do five times optical zoom and 50 times digital zoom.
01:27:09
◼
►
And it's very impressive.
01:27:12
◼
►
I'll put a link to an MKBHD video, of course, in the show notes where he shows it off
01:27:16
◼
►
as he calls it, a creeper cam.
01:27:18
◼
►
It's very impressive.
01:27:18
◼
►
And the way that they do it is even more impressive.
01:27:21
◼
►
It is a periscope system with a bunch of mirrors that go down the body of the phone.
01:27:26
◼
►
It's wild the way that they do this.
01:27:29
◼
►
It's like a submarine.
01:27:30
◼
►
It's a submarine, yeah. It's got a submarine camera inside.
01:27:33
◼
►
I think it's incredible.
01:27:36
◼
►
This is like some real serious smartphone camera advancement.
01:27:42
◼
►
This is serious stuff, right?
01:27:45
◼
►
They have actually built a completely different way to put a camera in a smartphone,
01:27:50
◼
►
which is why it's cool, right? I expect to see this type of feature in more places now because
01:27:55
◼
►
this is how you make, this is how you advance smartphone cameras, right? Like,
01:27:59
◼
►
these are the things that you start to do if you want to start replacing all cameras, is like,
01:28:05
◼
►
things like this, you know? You're never going to get there, but you get closer all the time,
01:28:08
◼
►
and a five times optical zoom in a smartphone is incredible. I mean, like, people are calling this
01:28:13
◼
►
right now, like, the P30 is the camera, which is wild that something's been able to, like,
01:28:18
◼
►
in some people's minds start to knock the pixel, right?
01:28:21
◼
►
But like, people are going crazy.
01:28:23
◼
►
Just for this camera unit in general, like everything that they've done with it.
01:28:26
◼
►
The regular camera is like 40 megapixels.
01:28:28
◼
►
I know that megapixels don't mean everything, but they've thrown some serious hardware into it
01:28:33
◼
►
and they've backed it up with some innovations.
01:28:35
◼
►
It's a very cool looking thing.
01:28:36
◼
►
And I want that.
01:28:39
◼
►
I want a five times optical zoom.
01:28:41
◼
►
Like, I like my two times optical zoom.
01:28:42
◼
►
I would like more of the zooms, please.
01:28:44
◼
►
Five is better than two.
01:28:46
◼
►
That is what they tell me.
01:28:47
◼
►
Also, you know, if we're talking about I want a good night mode, apparently their night
01:28:52
◼
►
mode is like the best night mode too. Like their night mode is like killer. Even again,
01:28:58
◼
►
better than this was Vlad at the Verge. He did a video like showing off the night mode
01:29:03
◼
►
comparisons and like the Huawei P30's nighttime shooting is better than Night Sight, even
01:29:12
◼
►
though Huawei also has their own version of Night Sight. So even without that software
01:29:16
◼
►
thing turned on, it's still better at low-light photos.
01:29:20
◼
►
It's crazy, right, that Huawei has been able to do this in just... because until a few
01:29:23
◼
►
years ago you wouldn't think of Huawei as a good camera phone company, right?
01:29:28
◼
►
Well, I don't really think you thought of them as anything more than just like a cheap
01:29:32
◼
►
phone company.
01:29:33
◼
►
Cheap iPhone copycat, maybe, at some point.
01:29:37
◼
►
Well, I mean, their software is still an absolute rip of iOS, which is so frustrating to see
01:29:42
◼
►
like you have this incredible hardware that you are like really innovating on
01:29:47
◼
►
do something with the software like make it its own thing like they from
01:29:52
◼
►
iconography to everything they rip off iOS still which is so annoying it's too
01:29:57
◼
►
bad and it's also too bad that you know people just don't care about this stuff
01:30:01
◼
►
people say oh it's just like the iPhone and it doesn't cost you know 1500 euros
01:30:06
◼
►
I really love that they put all these like colors and finishes on the backs of
01:30:10
◼
►
the phones like they have these like purple and blue rainbowy or a death like
01:30:14
◼
►
it's just different right like it just looks different yeah I think it's cool I
01:30:19
◼
►
I would I am very keen for some new stuff in the cameras anyway like just I
01:30:26
◼
►
like more you know do you feel like the iPhones camera has gotten a little
01:30:32
◼
►
boring over the past couple of years I mean I know that you are a smart HDR
01:30:37
◼
►
I love it. I think it's gotten better. Okay, I mean so I'm really happy with the Smart HDR stuff
01:30:44
◼
►
but I want more cameras in the same way that I wanted a second camera when second cameras
01:30:52
◼
►
started being a thing right before they're on the iPhone because at first it was like well why would
01:30:57
◼
►
you have two cameras like do you remember the LG 3D phone? You take 3D photos? Do you remember that?
01:31:02
◼
►
this is a long time ago. I also remember the Amazon phone with a bunch of cameras.
01:31:08
◼
►
Yeah exactly so like at first it was like more than one camera was like well this is dumb and
01:31:13
◼
►
then when people started putting three and four cameras on phones it's like well this is dumb but
01:31:18
◼
►
now it's like oh okay this is this is useful now like putting an ultra wide lens on a phone there
01:31:25
◼
►
is some utility to that you can get a different type of photo so now I now want that where before
01:31:30
◼
►
I didn't so now I'm like alright give me more cameras I want I want more cameras
01:31:35
◼
►
give me more cameras if you're gonna give me a camera bump put all the
01:31:37
◼
►
cameras in it just cover them with black coating so it doesn't make me freak out
01:31:41
◼
►
and then I'll take them all please yeah maybe Tim Cook has that like
01:31:47
◼
►
trypophobia so that's why they do it you know like that's why I think I actually
01:31:53
◼
►
can see a req as a trypophobia type of person like it doesn't give off that
01:31:58
◼
►
vibe that it would have this kind of phobia but I think it's totally Eddie
01:32:02
◼
►
with trypophobia I think I can see it. So me you and Eddie were in a special
01:32:08
◼
►
club of people freaked out by holes in things. You saw that Nokia phone right
01:32:13
◼
►
with the five cameras? Yep. Can't look at that thing. Nope. Alright if you want to catch our
01:32:20
◼
►
show notes for today go to relay.fm/connect2/240
01:32:24
◼
►
We're very excited that Steven should be back next week. I hope he's back next week. I miss him
01:32:30
◼
►
Don't tell him that should be back should be back. Hopefully we'll see
01:32:34
◼
►
Federico max stories dotnet there was still a bunch of stuff last week that went up for the 10th anniversary
01:32:40
◼
►
So people should go and read a lot of those things if they haven't already
01:32:43
◼
►
You can find Federico online is at the teachy vi ti CCI on the social networks and I am at I Myke I am yke
01:32:51
◼
►
Thanks to FreshBooks, Bombas and TextExpander for their support of this show.
01:32:56
◼
►
I'm looking forward to handing over the hosting duties back to Steven
01:33:02
◼
►
You know, I like being the host every now and then but it's nice to be able to just sit back and let the episode
01:33:08
◼
►
kind of just happen to you. But anyway, this show is part of Relay FM.
01:33:11
◼
►
You can go to relay.fm/shows to find this show and many more and
01:33:14
◼
►
we'll be back next week. Until then, say goodbye Federico.
01:33:18
◼
►
Arrivederci.