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Connected

236: Rosencrantz Says

 

00:00:00   [Music]

00:00:08   Hello and welcome to Connected, episode 236.

00:00:13   It is made possible this week by Luna Display, Away, and Squarespace.

00:00:18   My name is Stephen Hackett and I am joined by Mr. Federico Vittucci.

00:00:22   Hello, Stephen Hackett.

00:00:24   Hello, Federico Vittucci. How are you today?

00:00:26   I'm doing good. I'm doing good. Yeah, I'm ready to admit my defeat.

00:00:30   You got creamed.

00:00:34   In 2019 defeat is the new victory, you know being humble and being you know

00:00:41   about your defeat is the new. Why is it impossible for you to both win and lose with any weight?

00:00:48   Everybody can win these days. It's harder to lose.

00:00:53   I've never known of someone to be like

00:00:56   So difficult in defeat like this like to brag in defeat like I don't think I've ever come across this before

00:01:03   Later don't okay. Okay, Myke. How are you today? Oh

00:01:10   I'm fine, man

00:01:13   I'm fired up. I'm ready to go. There's a lot of stuff in this Google Doc. This is gonna be a monumental episode

00:01:21   This one's going to go down in history.

00:01:22   I think it is, but there's something we want to talk about right off the bat.

00:01:27   And that is the announcement of our WWDC live show tickets.

00:01:33   They are on sale.

00:01:34   Like you need like one of those air horns, you know, like one of those ones.

00:01:39   He doesn't have the sound effects.

00:01:42   Honestly, I'm just going to use what you just made as the noise.

00:01:48   So our tickets are now on sale.

00:01:49   It is the first link in the show notes.

00:01:52   Uh, we are at the hammer theater again in San Jose, the evening of Wednesday, June 5th,

00:01:58   the lobby will open at five.

00:01:59   The doors will open at six.

00:02:02   We are doing, um, uh, assigned seating this time.

00:02:06   So you get to pick where you sit when you buy your ticket and that should help everybody

00:02:09   get in more easily than last year.

00:02:11   So I know it was a little chaotic last time.

00:02:14   We're super excited to be able to get in here.

00:02:16   We're super excited about this.

00:02:19   I love doing this show.

00:02:21   It is so much fun.

00:02:23   We're just excited.

00:02:24   I'm so ready.

00:02:26   I'm so ready for the live show.

00:02:28   We had so much fun last year and we're ready to do all over again.

00:02:33   So I hope that you'll grab a ticket and come see us.

00:02:36   There is one I've decided Federico, I feel like you will be

00:02:41   more on board with me than Steven in saying this.

00:02:45   I've decided our flex this year is going to be the this will be the most entertaining live show at WWDC

00:02:51   Absolutely, I mean you the kind of the kind of entertainment that you will get from this live show will be

00:02:59   Unmatched you cannot get it anywhere else

00:03:03   Nowhere else you will not get your money back if it's not true, but I guarantee you will be true

00:03:12   If anything attempting to get your money back will be its own entertainment

00:03:16   Exactly try that and you know, you will be entertained

00:03:19   so

00:03:21   We are play it will be bigger. It will be better. It will be faster

00:03:25   Stronger

00:03:28   Performance will be better in every single way every way imaginable

00:03:33   It's it's bug fixes ever last year show is what you're saying and performance improvements literal improvements to our performance

00:03:40   There would be Steven doing a dance thing at the beginning. There would be surprises.

00:03:48   There would be questions being asked.

00:03:52   Of yourself, of us, of our reality, our existence.

00:03:57   I will be asking questions and I will be taking names.

00:04:02   Can we shoot Myke out of a giant cannon?

00:04:04   Well, yeah. That was the stronger part. I have to get stronger to deal with that.

00:04:09   survive. Your bones are going to explode. We're very excited, as you can tell. Federico

00:04:16   has been making me and Steven very nervous by telling us that he must continue working

00:04:22   on his secret plans for the show. If you heard the show last year, my favorite part was Federico's

00:04:28   secret plan, so I have high hopes for him again. So we're really, really excited. I

00:04:31   just want to make sure before I continue to plan this, the internet was working inside

00:04:38   the theater last year right? Yes. Like 4G was okay. Okay. Oh yeah. Alright.

00:04:43   I have the Wi-Fi password so if you need it we can get you on the Wi-Fi.

00:04:47   Steven can get you 5G on AT&T now anyway so like you're gonna be real good.

00:04:51   I have 5GE on my iPhone so everything is well it's exactly the same as it was

00:04:55   before but now full of lies. Upgraded. An extra lying number. So yeah go get if you

00:05:01   want if you're gonna be at WWDC make sure you pick up one of these tickets

00:05:04   we're expecting that they'll sell out quite quickly. Yes. So they will link in

00:05:08   show notes, you can go and grab them. Before we move into topics, we have a little bit of follow

00:05:12   out our friend and probably your friend Tyler Stallman, who was on the show. Now I guess now a

00:05:18   couple months ago talking about photo editing. He put up a video that was really a nice compliment

00:05:24   to what we spoke about on the show. And if that was confusing to follow, because we were talking

00:05:29   about photo editing in an audio environment, which I realized like halfway through that episode is

00:05:33   I was like, maybe this wasn't the way we should have done this.

00:05:36   I think it did OK, because I learned some stuff.

00:05:39   Like, my photo editing has gotten way better since that conversation.

00:05:43   Yeah, so go check out Tyler's video.

00:05:44   A, if you're not subscribed to his YouTube channel, like, what are you doing?

00:05:47   Go do that.

00:05:48   But this is a great video that walks through a lot of the stuff we spoke about.

00:05:52   And Tyler's just the best, and this video is well worth the watch.

00:05:56   Even if you listen to that episode, you will pick up new things in this video,

00:05:59   I bet.

00:06:00   I actually saw him say on Twitter that he was thinking of the three of us

00:06:03   when he made the video. Yeah. Like he was thinking, which I think it's like, if they

00:06:08   could understand, like the whole time, it's like, will they be able to understand this?

00:06:12   I don't know whether that's a compliment or not. Yeah. If those guys ingrasp this, anyone

00:06:16   can like, I'm not sure what you're actually saying about us. I actually hope that he's

00:06:19   thinking about us all the time. Yeah. And every video he makes. In every video. Yeah.

00:06:25   So thank you. Yeah. Thank you, Tyler. I hope you will continue to keep us in your thoughts

00:06:29   in the future.

00:06:32   Alright, we have a mini topic and I'm not going to let you off the hook this time.

00:06:36   No, we don't.

00:06:37   Yes we do.

00:06:38   Federico, tell us about your multiple watches.

00:06:40   Look, it's a very simple story.

00:06:42   Okay, so a few months ago I was sent a review unit of a smaller Apple watch, the 40mm one

00:06:50   version.

00:06:52   I had the 44 version for myself that I bought here in Italy, and I started testing the smaller one.

00:07:02   And I, you know, how it works, I think Jason talked about this on upgrade with Apple review units,

00:07:07   sometimes you get a very short loan, other times it's an extended loan, this happens to be one of

00:07:13   the extended ones, and I basically realized that I actually like how I got into this rhythm of

00:07:21   The bigger one is the watch that I use during the day for workouts, because it's got cellular

00:07:28   inside and I associated my Vodafone plan on the 44mm Apple Watch.

00:07:36   So I use it to go to the park, to walk the dogs, to workout, to control music and all

00:07:41   the kind of stuff that I do during the day.

00:07:43   But then when I'm done, and usually after I've closed the rings in the activity app,

00:07:48   I switch to the evening watch, which I realize it sounds like a terrible thing that I'm using

00:07:54   two Apple watches, but I prefer that I can keep separate sets of apps on the two watches.

00:08:04   So for example, I got the AutoSleep.

00:08:06   Why is that required though?

00:08:08   It's not required.

00:08:09   Why can't you just put them all on the same?

00:08:10   I don't understand what the...

00:08:12   Why is there an intrinsic benefit to that?

00:08:14   Oh, because I never ran out of battery, and I'm always wearing an Apple Watch.

00:08:19   I never take it off. I always have an Apple Watch on me.

00:08:22   So when I remove the bigger one, I put on the smaller one.

00:08:25   And that's the one that I use for, basically, night stuff.

00:08:32   So like sleep tracking, and I got my complications to trigger home kit scenes

00:08:37   with the blue lights and the red lights and all that kind of stuff.

00:08:42   It's got theater mode enabled so that it doesn't light up when I'm going to bed with the watch.

00:08:48   And it's basically just a way to always wear an Apple Watch.

00:08:52   Never worry about battery, because when I get one, I put the other one on the charger and so forth.

00:08:58   And it's totally unnecessary, but it gives me a way to test the smaller one,

00:09:06   which is surprisingly more comfortable to use than I was expecting.

00:09:10   I always thought the 38 millimeter version was too small for me, but I think the 40 strikes a better balance.

00:09:16   It's also a steel,

00:09:18   what's it called, space gray steel version,

00:09:22   which made me realize I actually preferred the aluminum version because the steel one is a little too heavy and

00:09:29   I don't like the way that the haptics feel on the steel watch.

00:09:33   So all of these will be hopefully in an article that I want to write about the Apple watch before

00:09:39   I have two big stories that I want to try and do before June

00:09:43   One of them will be about the Apple watch and the other will be a surprise, but it will not be the surprise

00:09:48   I was just talking about would be another surprise. I'm a man full of surprises

00:09:51   So that's why I have two watches. One of them is an Apple review unit and in testing this watch I

00:09:58   Accidentally stumbled across the idea of well, it's actually nice to wear two Apple watches not simultaneously just alternating them

00:10:05   So that's why

00:10:08   What would you buy next time then?

00:10:12   If this made you make a decision like what is the right...

00:10:15   If you were gonna buy one of them, like would you go with 40 instead of the...

00:10:20   What is it? 44 now?

00:10:21   I would still go with 44.

00:10:24   Okay.

00:10:25   My girlfriend thinks the 40 looks better on my wrist.

00:10:28   I disagree.

00:10:30   Also I just love that the screen is slightly bigger so it's...

00:10:34   I prefer the way that, for example, the Siri watch face, there's a little more space for each card, for each...

00:10:43   what's it called? Complication.

00:10:46   But I don't hate the 40mm version, whereas I really disliked the 38 one.

00:10:53   So I think it's better, but it's still not the size for me.

00:10:58   It's a good watch though.

00:11:02   I just want to double check. You understand the ludicrousness of the two watches, right?

00:11:06   When you could just charge it?

00:11:06   Yes, I do.

00:11:07   All right, cool. I just wanted to get that on the record because I can imagine people are like,

00:11:10   "What is wrong with him?"

00:11:12   I think it's ridiculous, honestly.

00:11:14   Okay, cool.

00:11:14   But, uh...

00:11:15   But you have them, so what are you going to do, right?

00:11:17   But I have them. I have them. And at the same time, I also think that it's nice to never take it off.

00:11:24   Even for those, you know, 45 minutes or one hour that you need to charge the main watch

00:11:30   or the single watch that you have. Because for years I've done that, you know. I took

00:11:35   off the watch in the morning when I was having breakfast or taking a shower or something

00:11:38   and I would put it on an hour later when it was charged. But it's nicer to never worry

00:11:45   about "Oh, now I need to take off the watch and I need to remind myself that I need to

00:11:49   grab it from the charger". Because you always have it on. So, it is nicer. But it's also,

00:11:54   you know, unnecessary because you have two Apple Watches. But again, I just happen to

00:11:58   have it. It's a review unit, so why not? At some point, do you have to give that back?

00:12:02   Yeah. So if you do, would you pick up a second watch now?

00:12:06   That's a good question. I wouldn't... That is a very good question. I wouldn't buy one,

00:12:12   but I would consider using one of my old ones as the night watch because I really do like the idea.

00:12:23   So I would essentially maybe stop selling them every single year.

00:12:29   Because the Night Watch requires way less interaction from you.

00:12:32   Exactly. Exactly.

00:12:34   So the Night Watch, I would keep, you know,

00:12:37   I think we have a series two or something lying around somewhere in the drawer.

00:12:41   I could use that one.

00:12:42   So I think I would still remain on the two watches train,

00:12:46   but not to buy the latest version of both for myself.

00:12:50   I think that's crazy.

00:12:51   But, you know, to use old ones I think that would be okay.

00:12:54   And not so ridiculous, maybe, if it's an old one.

00:12:58   We're on series 4 right now, right?

00:13:01   Yes, we are on series 4.

00:13:03   And I'm pretty sure that we sold the series 3,

00:13:07   but we have a series 2 still around,

00:13:09   so maybe when Apple gets this one back that could be the Night Watch.

00:13:12   I have a series 3. It's not doing anything.

00:13:15   [Laughter]

00:13:18   I just... I just don't miss it.

00:13:21   I really don't miss it.

00:13:23   And I understand how it's an important device for a lot of people.

00:13:30   And I get it. I know how much you do with it and all that kind of stuff and it sounds really great.

00:13:35   But it's just really astounding to me how I went from a device that I thought was incredibly important to

00:13:43   not caring in a very short space of time.

00:13:48   It was kind of astounding to me really. I wouldn't have expected it.

00:13:51   Like, you know, I really thought that the Apple Watch is an important part of my day,

00:13:55   right? Like when it comes to the way that I use technology, but I have not missed it once in

00:14:01   seven months. I've, uh, I spoke about this on this week's Mac power users, but I'm in a place with

00:14:08   the watch where I'm just not wearing it unless I'm working out or exercising. And then it goes back

00:14:12   on the charger or back in the nightstand. And for me, it's not necessarily about notifications.

00:14:18   And I didn't say this very well in the episode, but I realized it sort of later was for me,

00:14:24   I could sit my phone down, but if I'm wearing the watch, that means I'm still tethered to

00:14:29   the internet, like still tethered to work and all these other things and not having the watch on,

00:14:34   even with the very few notifications I allow to come to the watch, it's not a management problem

00:14:41   of notifications. It's just any notification does this. Then I'm still accessible. And that's like

00:14:46   like the flip side of the coin of like oh I can just glance at my wrist and see

00:14:49   what's going on and go back to what I need to do. Those are two sides of one coin but

00:14:53   I'm on the wrong side of the coin and I don't know what that means for me

00:14:57   long-term yet but it's kind of where I am with it right now.

00:15:00   Yep I think everyone is like after this thing's been around for a while they're

00:15:05   kind of drawing their personal lines right it's like how much do you want to

00:15:12   be available and I think me and Federico fall on very distinct parts of that and you're

00:15:19   more a little bit more in the middle.

00:15:21   I mean I've read about it last year and that still holds true, the idea that I truly believe

00:15:27   that it's this tiny device that it sort of pushes me to be a better me because it's that

00:15:38   kind of constant reminder and also the fact that I especially since I got you

00:15:44   know the dogs the idea of I can just go for a walk without the phone that's

00:15:49   that's a really really big help. That's a bit like it's just like different

00:15:53   different use cases right? Yeah yeah but then again there will be a story on the

00:15:58   site I just need to find the time to write about this but I want to do a

00:16:02   proper Apple Watch story because last year it was a actually about but the

00:16:07   iPhone about the Apple watch, you know, but you know mindfulness and all that

00:16:12   stuff I just want to focus on the Apple watch this time so it's one of the two

00:16:16   big stories that I want to try and have before WWDC and now that I said it I

00:16:20   gotta keep my promise because people are gonna ask so that's why I said it

00:16:23   because... Carl in the chat is saying like you know you turning off notifications

00:16:27   and stuff and I get it right like turning off all notifications but then

00:16:31   for me it's like well what do I even what's this for like there is a whole

00:16:35   world of watches that look infinitely better than the Apple Watch, right? Like,

00:16:39   yeah, the Apple Watch is by far the best looking, like, smart watch, but it's not a

00:16:44   good looking watch, right? Like, everyone can find a watch that they would find

00:16:49   better looking than the Apple Watch because there is such incredible choice

00:16:53   in the watch world, right? Like, you can choose anything. So, like, if it's not, if

00:16:58   I'm not gonna have it for notifications, then I'm just gonna get a different watch.

00:17:02   And like I know that there's health and stuff but like I can use other devices for that and you know

00:17:07   It's like not like a big thing in my life like training for my personal best. Like I don't that's not me

00:17:13   and

00:17:15   Outside of that like I would just use my iPhone for everything else. So

00:17:19   That's like just again no criticism on on you. But like that's where I'm coming from with it

00:17:25   Yeah, we can be in different places and it's okay

00:17:27   What what an idea?

00:17:31   So Federico, thanks for sharing that. I'm glad that we finally got that out of you.

00:17:34   Yeah. Is the truth what you were expecting?

00:17:38   Just about. Yeah.

00:17:40   This is where we find out he's using four iPhones.

00:17:43   Yeah. Okay, we have a lot to get to. But first, I want to tell you about our first sponsor this

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00:19:41   their support of this show and all of relay FM.

00:19:45   So as I was saying, there's a certain kind of beauty in the feet that you don't necessarily

00:19:51   get with victory, you know? Like, the idea of "I lost, but that's fine, because life

00:19:59   goes on, and I can appreciate that I will do better next time." But if you win, you

00:20:05   know, when you have victory, you know what you're left with? That sensation of victory

00:20:10   that is ephemeral and momentary, but I feel like when you win, you're left with that sense

00:20:16   of dread that you're gonna lose next time. So instead, whereas you have that fear in

00:20:22   the back of your mind that this victory will not last, I can only go up. And I'm left with

00:20:29   optimism.

00:20:30   Yeah, it's quite a story you're telling yourself over there. Let's hope that you believe that

00:20:34   as much as you seem to point out to the world, I'm not sure.

00:20:38   Come on man, just let me spin this my way.

00:20:41   Why? Why would we do this?

00:20:43   Alright, we're gonna go through our predictions and grade them. Obviously there was an Apple

00:20:49   event a couple of days ago. And so we're gonna take a look at what we predicted last week.

00:20:55   I'll give everybody a refresher of the rules. To earn any points, everything that is declared

00:21:00   written down as part of the prediction must come true. No half points may be awarded in

00:21:05   any round. One point is awarded for any pick deemed correct in the first two rounds. So

00:21:10   And then the third round is our risky pick round.

00:21:13   If our risky pick is wrong, you lose a point.

00:21:16   But if you get your risky pick correct, you get two points.

00:21:20   And we all had to agree on what risky was going to be.

00:21:24   The winner, asterisk, gets first pick at WWDC predictions.

00:21:30   So these are our WWDC prediction qualifiers.

00:21:34   So we're going to go through these here.

00:21:37   Round one.

00:21:38   Federico, would you like to go through--

00:21:40   We'll round rob in our discussion on these, I think.

00:21:43   OK.

00:21:45   Round one, this is the only-- well, no spoilers.

00:21:49   Apple-- it was my only point, and it was taken away from me.

00:21:58   Apple News service for magazines.

00:22:01   Sure enough, Apple News Plus.

00:22:04   It's the successor to Texture, the service

00:22:07   that Apple acquired last year.

00:22:09   It's got 300 magazines almost.

00:22:12   I counted them all, it was rough,

00:22:13   but there's still not 300, but it will get there, I think.

00:22:17   In addition to magazines,

00:22:19   you also get the "Wall Street Journal"

00:22:20   and the "Los Angeles Times,"

00:22:22   and you also get digital publishers.

00:22:26   Apple calls them TechCrunch and Vox.

00:22:30   TechCrunch has their membership stuff, ExtraCrunch,

00:22:34   at least the article elements,

00:22:37   not the video, not the audio,

00:22:39   but just the article content will be available in Apple News Plus,

00:22:41   and Vox is also launching the highlight, I think it's called,

00:22:45   it will be on Apple News Plus.

00:22:46   So, magazines, two newspapers, and some digital publications

00:22:53   in the form of memberships on the web,

00:22:56   they will be rolled into Apple News.

00:23:00   Limited to the US and Canada for now,

00:23:02   you also get some Canadian magazines.

00:23:06   I could go through the list of some of my favorite magazines if you want.

00:23:09   Let's talk about this later.

00:23:11   Let's talk about Apple news a little bit later on in the episode

00:23:14   so we can dive into that in a bit more detail.

00:23:16   Because I know that so because I'm interested because I can't use it

00:23:19   being in the UK.

00:23:21   But initially I got this point.

00:23:24   That is what I'm saying.

00:23:26   And you got it early. You must have been feeling good.

00:23:28   I was feeling good and then I did not feel good, but we can talk about that later.

00:23:33   So my first pick was that Apple would announce a video streaming service,

00:23:37   which is Apple TV Plus.

00:23:39   And then I was I kind of saved myself here

00:23:41   because I said, which includes content from other providers.

00:23:45   But then saying this will either be free content or with you

00:23:48   paying a for a subscription within the app, which is Apple TV channels.

00:23:54   So I'm very pleased because my initial thought was that they would

00:23:57   announce the subscription.

00:23:58   It would be a price and there would be content in it.

00:24:01   but they kind of announced a lot of component pieces without really announcing them altogether.

00:24:07   So without that, or I probably wouldn't have gotten this point. So, but yes, Apple TV plus

00:24:13   announced not a product that anybody can get yet. We don't know how much it costs. We don't know

00:24:18   anything about it other than the fact that it exists. And then the Apple TV itself has got new

00:24:22   functionality like TV channels where you can subscribe to HBO and stars and stuff like that.

00:24:28   So that was my point that I picked up. We all did well in this first round, I think.

00:24:32   So my pick for this round was the video streaming service does not launch until at least May 1st.

00:24:39   And like you alluded to, this is a multi-step process, but the new Apple TV app with channels,

00:24:47   so content from Showtime and CBS, all access, et cetera, just like Amazon Prime Video,

00:24:52   they've said that that is coming in May and then their own stuff is coming later. So

00:24:58   So a point for me.

00:25:00   And this all does qualify in our opinion as even the TV channel stuff because this was

00:25:07   rumored but like this functionality that Apple has spoken about kind of confirms it.

00:25:12   Apple will be streaming the content.

00:25:14   So like if you sign up for HBO, the stream comes from Apple.

00:25:17   It doesn't come from HBO.

00:25:19   And then there's all this extra stuff like being able to download that content to your

00:25:22   device and stuff, which a lot of providers don't actually let you do, but Apple is letting

00:25:26   you do, which I think is kind of cool.

00:25:28   It is cool.

00:25:29   So we did very well starting out, all three of us.

00:25:33   Yep, cleared up.

00:25:34   Then it takes a turn for one of us.

00:25:37   Yeah.

00:25:39   My second pick was Apple will also announce, and now this is where I share my conspiracy

00:25:45   theory, Apple will also announce a service bundle to get multiple services for one integrated

00:25:50   fee.

00:25:51   Before you show your conspiracy theory, I just want to say that I feel really bad for

00:25:55   you because this one felt like a lock. Like, I lost the draft on upgrade primarily because

00:26:00   of this service bundle thing because I had a couple of picks related to this. It didn't

00:26:04   get announced. Everyone thought it was definitely going to be announced, right? Because it just

00:26:07   makes sense. If you have five streaming services coming out, which we would like four or whatever,

00:26:12   there'll be a bundle to put them all together. Well, jokes on you, none of them are here

00:26:17   yet, right? Except news. So there's no bundle because there's no streaming services. So

00:26:24   What's your conspiracy theory?

00:26:26   I believe that Steven and Michael conspired to force me to use this pick, making fun of

00:26:33   the fact that, oh no, it's so obvious they're going to do a bundle, you should pick it.

00:26:39   And they conspired...

00:26:40   When exactly did this conversation happen?

00:26:42   They conspired behind my back so that I could go home with zero points, as we'll see the

00:26:51   final result.

00:26:53   They wouldn't let me get not even one point.

00:26:57   You know, here's the thing though, you actually played yourself because this was going to

00:27:01   be my pick, my first pick, but you got in the document faster than me.

00:27:06   So if you were more lazy, you wouldn't have lost.

00:27:10   Well no, because he had first right, so if he...

00:27:15   Oh yeah, random.org screwed you.

00:27:18   Yeah.

00:27:19   Well I think...

00:27:20   Which also could have been a conspiracy.

00:27:22   Could have been.

00:27:23   Myke did that. He knows it was actually accurate. The thing that's surprising about this is we all

00:27:29   assumed that these, maybe they won't be launching yet, but Apple would tell us how much it costs.

00:27:35   And they didn't do that. Like we don't know how much TV plus is going to cost us. We don't know

00:27:40   how much Apple arcade is going to cost us. What I find interesting is that you're not denying

00:27:44   the conspiracy allegations. I'm going to speak to Myke now, Myke, if we talk to him about his

00:27:50   theory. It only gives him credence to believe these wild things, and so we just move past

00:27:56   it. What do you think?

00:27:57   I feel it's one of those "I neither confirm nor deny" type situations.

00:28:00   Sure. Okay.

00:28:01   Yep.

00:28:02   Okay. We're on the same page.

00:28:03   We neither confirm nor deny Federico.

00:28:07   Anyway, I was convinced there was going to be a bundle. There was another bundle. We

00:28:11   don't have pricing on the stuff, you know, the TV+ and arcade. So yeah, no bundle, no

00:28:19   point.

00:28:20   there will be one. Yes, I was gonna say I think that you will be right if you pick this

00:28:24   again in the fall because this feels like something they've got to do. Yeah, nice try.

00:28:28   Nice try. Yeah, sure. Sure, I will pick it in the fall. Wink, wink. Alright, so I picked

00:28:40   the Apple's original content will premiere after the service itself launches that non-original

00:28:45   content will come first, excluding existing programs.

00:28:49   So that's true.

00:28:51   You know, this first stuff that Apple will be streaming is not their own stuff

00:28:55   because Apple TV channels comes in May, Apple TV Plus is coming in the fall.

00:28:59   I did want to ask you guys real quick, because I know that, like, you know,

00:29:04   I think there's like, again,

00:29:05   like a sliding scale of how much attention we've been paying to a lot of this.

00:29:08   With the shows that they were talking about, did you excite?

00:29:12   Are you excited for the content?

00:29:14   Like, the way that they pitched them, was that exciting to you?

00:29:18   Yeah, totally.

00:29:20   There's the morning show that I'm super excited about.

00:29:24   It feels like something that I would absolutely love.

00:29:29   The other ones, I don't remember the name, there's one with Octavia Spencer and Aaron

00:29:35   Paul that I'm also looking forward to.

00:29:37   That one didn't get stage time, but that's a good one.

00:29:39   I didn't get stage time, but I'm familiar with because I read an interview with Aaron Paul.

00:29:43   Little America, I think it would be something that I would enjoy.

00:29:46   So I'm totally on board and I feel like, you know, Apple uses big words for everything,

00:29:53   but the idea of we want to attract great storytellers and, you know, have great TV shows,

00:30:02   not just, not necessarily maybe the most TV shows.

00:30:05   videos. Most of that is arguably marketing stuff that you just need to say. But if there's

00:30:13   even just a kernel of truth to the idea of "we want to focus on great stories", what

00:30:18   I saw was pretty convincing.

00:30:20   What they've done is, in theory, the best way to do it by literally hiring everyone.

00:30:26   Right? Like, the sheer scale of talent that they have assembled is no joke, probably the

00:30:33   best that there's ever been for any service like this, including like a TV channel.

00:30:38   Like the amount of literal A-listers that they are bringing to TV is wild. It's wild. So,

00:30:46   yeah, like they showed that slide. There was a slide that had a bunch of names on it and just

00:30:51   like those names were just wild. But Stephen, are you particularly excited for any of the TV content?

00:30:58   I am and more so than I thought I would be going into it.

00:31:02   So I think the morning show show about the morning show looks really good.

00:31:06   I think to one thing that excited me, not for me, but as a parent,

00:31:11   is like the whole Sesame Street catalog like that stuff.

00:31:14   So into. Oh, so, OK, that I think Apple did a good job.

00:31:18   They do not have the Sesame Street catalog.

00:31:20   They are creating new content with Sesame Workshop.

00:31:23   They shouldn't have brought Big Bird out on stage because they don't have that.

00:31:26   HBO has that.

00:31:27   Well, then I have another strike against them is that the the presenter in that section

00:31:31   said, oh, and the stuff when I was a kid is on here, too.

00:31:34   And so they were unclear about that.

00:31:36   Oh, really?

00:31:37   Okay, then I may be wrong.

00:31:38   But that wasn't what was in their initial announcement.

00:31:41   Yeah, because HBO owns a lot of that now.

00:31:43   And so it's not easily accessible.

00:31:46   So like, whatever that is, that's cool.

00:31:47   So yeah, I'm more excited than I was going into it for sure.

00:31:52   And I think even the stuff...

00:31:53   was the one thing that I did not get, that bird thing.

00:31:58   Big bird. He's in Star Wars.

00:32:01   We don't...

00:32:02   That's Jar Jar. If you've heard of Jar Jar Binks before, that's Jar Jar Binks.

00:32:08   Yes, I know the monster that looks like an octopus. I'm familiar with that. No, but this

00:32:14   Sesame Street stuff, is it like a kids' show in the US?

00:32:19   Yes.

00:32:20   Do you know the Muppets?

00:32:21   Yeah.

00:32:22   Do you know the Muppets?

00:32:23   Kermit. Yeah, the green lizard thing. It's like that, right? It's like that.

00:32:29   Oh, so the Sesame Street is not the Muppets.

00:32:33   Okay, no, same company, but not the same output. So, like the Muppets is one thing. Sesame

00:32:40   Street was like, let's educate kids about numbers and shapes and color and stuff like

00:32:45   that.

00:32:46   Oh, it's kind of like the blue tree in Italy.

00:32:50   We call it like the kids educational show.

00:32:55   They had a dodo as a mascot.

00:32:57   You should Google Alberod's Uro.

00:32:59   Oh yeah, I can definitely spell that.

00:33:01   Alberod's Uro.

00:33:02   Put a link of that in the show notes for our listeners.

00:33:07   They had the dodo.

00:33:08   Okay, so it's...

00:33:09   The Blue Tree.

00:33:10   I get it.

00:33:11   I got it.

00:33:12   Okay.

00:33:13   All right.

00:33:14   So my pick in this round, I thought I lost this.

00:33:18   I thought this point had escaped my grasp because as these celebrities were on stage,

00:33:24   the stage would go black and then Jennifer Anson would pop out of the stage and light

00:33:28   up and then she was there and she would talk and it'd be black again and someone else would

00:33:31   pop up.

00:33:32   It was all very over the top.

00:33:34   Very dramatic.

00:33:35   I thought, "Oh no, they've isolated them from Tim Cook.

00:33:38   Tim Cook is like handcuffed to a desk backstage so he can't interact with them."

00:33:43   Finally they loaned.

00:33:44   And then at the very end, Oprah is announced, she speaks,

00:33:49   I thought what she said was great.

00:33:51   And then Tim Cook comes out and I get the point

00:33:54   because he wiped away a tear as he was hugging her.

00:33:57   I was like, well, there's our celebrity interaction.

00:34:00   There it is.

00:34:01   - And he said something along the,

00:34:04   he said, I can't remember the exact words that he used.

00:34:06   - I'll never forget this day or something.

00:34:08   Which is cool, I'm not judging his excitement level.

00:34:11   I'm just saying that it was really good for me personally in this contest.

00:34:15   On the scale of Tim Cook, awkward celebrity interactions,

00:34:20   this was probably the best one.

00:34:21   Yeah, they didn't finger touch.

00:34:23   They didn't finger touch.

00:34:24   There wasn't like a super awkward let's stand on the stage

00:34:27   and look at each other interview like he did during the Apple Watch presentation.

00:34:31   Like there was none of that like super weirdness.

00:34:33   But yeah, and I agree, like everything that Oprah said was amazing.

00:34:37   And I'm really intrigued to see what that that ends up looking like.

00:34:40   But now we get into everyone's favorite section, Riskypic.

00:34:43   So at this point, I, uh, I knew that

00:34:47   it was I was not going to win, of course,

00:34:50   but I was still hoping that they would mention

00:34:53   at least one new feature coming to the HomePod.

00:34:57   And instead there was not a single mention of the word HomePod.

00:35:02   And what's even funnier is like iOS 12.2 has come out,

00:35:06   which has like new Siri features for like TV.

00:35:10   right? Like TV stuff in HomeKit, but the HomePod can't do it.

00:35:14   Which is, again, the fracturing of Siri, which continues to be incredibly frustrating.

00:35:21   So the HomePod has not gotten an update yet, which was kind of hilarious.

00:35:25   Yeah, so not a single feature coming to the HomePod, and not only did I not get two points,

00:35:35   but I actually lost the single point that I collected thanks to Apple News Plus.

00:35:41   So that means that I ended this game at zero points, which is a very cool number.

00:35:49   It's a good number, zero, represents a lot of things, but it's at zero points.

00:35:56   I was very proud of myself because Apple did announce their video game subscription service,

00:36:03   Apple Arcade during this event.

00:36:06   It was one of those things that I still stand by my thinking,

00:36:09   like a lot of people said, oh, that should have been a WWDC announcement.

00:36:12   But it really doesn't feel like it's like Apple has put up a page

00:36:17   where you can like submit your game to be considered.

00:36:20   But I think for the for a period of time, this is like Apple's people

00:36:24   find who they want to work with and they work with them

00:36:27   and then they can expand it out later.

00:36:30   So, yeah, I got it.

00:36:31   Apple Arcade, the video game subscription service.

00:36:33   That was my risky pick.

00:36:35   So I ended with four points in total.

00:36:38   I cleared the board.

00:36:40   My risky pick was that the Apple TV app would receive a refreshed design.

00:36:47   I think it got more than we were expecting, even.

00:36:50   I think so.

00:36:51   It was like refreshed and like rethought.

00:36:53   And what it does now is is new.

00:36:56   So the the future that Tim Cook promised in, I guess,

00:36:59   2015 was like the future TV was apps and now the future of TV is the TV app with

00:37:04   channels plugged into it one thing I'm really excited about with this is a

00:37:09   again as a parent is a dedicated kids section Netflix does this and I think

00:37:15   honestly pretty well so like I can the kids can pick up the Apple TV remote go

00:37:19   to the kids section Netflix and whatever stuff Mary and I've been watching isn't

00:37:23   there it's all laid out where they can pick a character or a storyline and I

00:37:27   I think that's great.

00:37:28   And the interface looks really good, I think,

00:37:30   of what we've seen from what Apple's doing.

00:37:32   There's a lot of dark elements to it,

00:37:33   which is really interesting.

00:37:36   Currently, tvOS has some dark elements,

00:37:38   but this seems to go even further, which I think is good.

00:37:40   You don't want white, bright elements on television.

00:37:42   So--

00:37:43   I think even while there is how many places the Apple TV

00:37:47   app will be available, they're really costing a wide net.

00:37:54   This was actually one of my non-graded picks,

00:37:56   was that I think yeah that it will come to Roku and Fire TV and they announced exactly that

00:38:01   that should have maybe been my risky pick but anyway uh yeah so they're bringing it to Roku

00:38:06   Fire TV and we spoke about this if you remember when they were putting all the TVs up and they

00:38:12   had like they announced uh home kit support on Samsung, LG, Sony and Vizio but only Samsung were

00:38:20   getting the, what they called the iTunes store, which was we knew was was bulk, right? Like

00:38:26   it wasn't getting the iTunes store. It was just what all they could say at the time.

00:38:30   And I remember we spoke about it then, like not only will it not be that it will be Apple's

00:38:35   streaming service, but that we also like this is obviously an exclusivity period and it

00:38:39   will come to the other TVs and that's the case. So Samsung gets it first and then the

00:38:42   other ones will be getting it later with and I think it's all coming like the first round

00:38:47   of it all is coming in May. But honestly, the best thing for most people to do is just

00:38:53   to buy a Roku or a Fire TV. You should get the little stick. You can get them in 4K.

00:38:57   They're like $50 and then you can put that support on any TV, which is huge. And I think

00:39:05   we're definitely trending towards iTunes going away now because of what they've done. They've

00:39:11   really seem to integrate the movies and TV content more into the new TV app than previously.

00:39:18   And like even on the website, it kind of says like, you'll get all of your movie and TV

00:39:25   stuff in the TV app. I think they're kind of trying to they're starting to move away

00:39:28   from from iTunes now.

00:39:30   Yeah, I think that all that leaves the Apple TV itself, the actual hardware in a weird

00:39:35   position because it's still really expensive. And when you can go just buy a Roku stick

00:39:40   for a fraction of the price.

00:39:41   But see, this is this is the thing.

00:39:43   I actually think it leaves it in a less.

00:39:44   I understand your point,

00:39:46   but I think that this that leaves it in a less weird position

00:39:49   because Apple can continue to keep selling its expense overly priced box.

00:39:53   And they haven't had to change it because like if they didn't announce

00:39:56   the Roku or Fire TV, they had to have an option.

00:39:59   But now they don't need one so they can continue selling the really expensive

00:40:03   Apple TV 4K.

00:40:04   Sure. People like us who will buy it because we want the full Apple experience.

00:40:09   But they now like you can just go buy Amazon Fire TV stick

00:40:13   and it's not going to be as good, but you have it and that's the option.

00:40:16   So now they don't need to worry.

00:40:18   I think it also we can talk about this with Apple Arcade.

00:40:21   That may be the Apple TV hardware's distinct feature

00:40:24   over the Roku's and everything else of the world.

00:40:27   So yeah. So there's that point, you know, because gaming has always worked

00:40:32   on the Apple TV every time they try it. Yeah. Yeah.

00:40:37   So I have like a little thing about the Apple Arcade and I want to see Federica if you agree with me.

00:40:42   There has been a long adage that Apple doesn't get games.

00:40:46   I think Apple gets games now.

00:40:48   Judging from the companies that have reached out to and how they presented the idea of

00:40:56   we want to curate a service with great games that focus on storytelling and no in-app purchases

00:41:04   On multiple platforms there's rumors of controllers being required on the Apple TV.

00:41:11   I think they took a good look at their previous stumbles.

00:41:17   And you look at the website and you see names like Mistwalker.

00:41:21   That's the company of Hironobu Sakaguchi, the creator of Final Fantasy.

00:41:26   You see us too, you know, the makers of Monument Valley.

00:41:29   Not the three of us.

00:41:31   to see all of us too on there, we'll make it one, two, three game. But like there's

00:41:36   stuff like Lego is in there, like Hot Lava which is by the creators of Don't Starve.

00:41:42   There's like this weird, you saw this, like I've seen this floating around Twitter, they

00:41:47   sent out an email that had a screenshot that had No Man's Sky in it, which is not something

00:41:51   that they've announced and that is incredibly intriguing because that is a console level

00:41:55   game. And there's other stuff like Overland, which is a game that's been in development

00:42:00   for a long time, it's coming out on the Nintendo Switch is here.

00:42:02   Like they've that Sega have got a game like they're bringing

00:42:06   Sonic Racing to this platform.

00:42:09   And the other part of it, like the other part of why I think like Apple

00:42:12   is getting it is they are acting as publisher of all of these.

00:42:16   Now they kind of gloss over this, but they they said that like basically

00:42:20   they are financially helping these companies make their games.

00:42:22   That means Apple's the publisher and like that's the right way to do this.

00:42:27   That's how they can get these companies to make stuff that is exclusively for them by paying upfront like a like, you know

00:42:35   they're paying them probably an amount of money for exclusivity plus an advance and

00:42:39   that helps these companies create the games that Apple then needs on the service and

00:42:44   Then that's how you do it and then you get exclusivity. Like I think that this is the beginning of Apple

00:42:50   understanding their place in gaming and actually

00:42:54   Using it to their advantage where before it's kind of just like happened to them and they've just accidentally stumbled their way through their success

00:43:01   Yeah, okay. So to get back I agree with all that but to get back to the important part of this. That's the score

00:43:08   Where does this leave us because by my tally

00:43:14   you and I are tied at four and

00:43:17   Mr. Vitie she has zero and that's a problem because

00:43:23   we said that this was going to be how we decided who goes first in the

00:43:29   WWDC

00:43:31   whole point of this

00:43:33   And we can't both go first because that's not how first works. So what do we do? I

00:43:37   Personally feel as the one who got zero and therefore

00:43:41   the new tiebreaker

00:43:44   Because you know who gets zero points should be the tiebreaker

00:43:49   No, seriously, it's not a rule, it's not a thing, but I personally feel like

00:43:54   Myke's risky pick was a little bit riskier than yours

00:43:59   Stephen because

00:44:02   He heard from multiple people and you know rumors saying Apple is gonna do this

00:44:08   But later not a not in March

00:44:10   But WWDC or maybe September and we all said oh you're gonna lose this one

00:44:16   you're not gonna get this one, but he stuck with it and he was right.

00:44:20   So my personal opinion is that Myke's risky pick

00:44:26   was riskier and therefore in a tie he should be rewarded for taking the extra risk.

00:44:32   But I understand if it's just my opinion and we wanna use another method

00:44:38   to discuss this.

00:44:42   Hmm.

00:44:44   I think we should leave it to chance, like flip a coin.

00:44:48   Or do it by age. That seems a pretty fair way to do it.

00:44:53   That doesn't feel fair in any way, does it?

00:44:55   So I see what you're saying, Federico. And but I think actually, for the reasons that you said

00:45:02   it was riskier, I think it's less risky, because he had industry insiders whispering in his ear,

00:45:08   saying, Hey, Myke, we're doing this thing. And so I felt like it was

00:45:13   tg had the same things and didn't think it was gonna happen. Well, that doesn't mean it's it's

00:45:19   riskier. It just nobody gave us dates. Yeah, but you had sources on the inside. So I will accept

00:45:28   the outcome of a random selection. So I don't know how we do that. For to go Do you have an iPhone

00:45:34   with you or something that can use Siri? Sure, I have my iPhone. I would say that we ask Siri

00:45:42   to flip a coin and we will do best out of three because just one is not drawing attention out

00:45:47   long enough. Okay, so what are we going to do? Like one of us is just heads each time and one

00:45:51   of us is tails each time. Like just the whole time or do you want to mix it up? Like how are

00:45:56   we going to pick who's heads and nails? I would say that we pick the same. Yep. Throughout and

00:46:05   I will let you pick because I am a gracious co founder. Okay. All right. I'll take heads. Okay.

00:46:11   Michael is heads therefore we can try now I'm gonna go with Siri on my iPhone.

00:46:19   Okay.

00:46:20   Flip a coin.

00:46:21   Heads.

00:46:23   Heads. One point.

00:46:26   Okay.

00:46:26   Flip a coin.

00:46:29   It's tails.

00:46:31   Oh!

00:46:32   Are you guys ready?

00:46:34   Are you ready? Oh my god.

00:46:38   Yeah I'm ready.

00:46:39   Yeah.

00:46:40   This is this is this is so much more exciting.

00:46:43   All right, so this one besides was the official winner of the Apple it's Showtime event

00:46:52   predictions on connected and the personal wins will get to go first for WDC predictions.

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00:49:33   connected for $20 off. Thank you so much to Away for their support of this show and RelayFM.

00:49:40   We left this final showdown between Myke and Steven with a tie.

00:49:49   One heads, one tails.

00:49:51   Michael is heads, Steven is tails, and now I am going to proceed with the final question

00:49:57   to Siri on my iPhone to decide the winner of this predictions game.

00:50:02   You guys ready?

00:50:04   Mm-hmm.

00:50:05   Yes.

00:50:06   Flip a coin.

00:50:07   "Rosencrantz says heads."

00:50:09   It's heads.

00:50:10   Oh, why did they do it that way?

00:50:12   What is Rosencrantz?

00:50:15   It's from Shakespeare. It's Shakespeare. I don't get the joke.

00:50:19   Rosencrantz says heads. Well, Myke is the winner of Apple March Event Predictions - Unconnected.

00:50:29   You will get to be first at WWDC and you will get to decide the order of WWDC Predictions.

00:50:36   I already know what you're going to do, but congratulations.

00:50:39   Congratulations.

00:50:40   Thank you so much.

00:50:41   Thank you so much.

00:50:43   I actually don't know what I'm going to do.

00:50:45   I haven't even decided if I'll put myself first yet.

00:50:47   I need to think about the strategies.

00:50:49   Yeah, because sometimes, you know, the most obvious things are wrong.

00:50:53   Just like Federico's.

00:50:54   Federico was first this time, and he got zero points.

00:50:57   So it's not an inherent-- sorry, Federico.

00:51:00   It's not an inherent advantage.

00:51:03   That was so-- that was so tense.

00:51:06   We have new AirPods. I want to talk about them because I think all three of us ordered them.

00:51:12   Mine showed up like 20 minutes before we started recording.

00:51:15   But Federico, yours came in and you've written a really nice hands-on impressions post.

00:51:21   And I'm curious to see what you think about them.

00:51:23   Yeah, I love them. Especially because I was stuck, as I mentioned, with the AirPods that were

00:51:30   essentially dead. One of them was dead and it actually turned out that the volume on both was

00:51:35   lower than it originally was. And as I try to put it in the article, I think there's

00:51:43   nothing visually different about them. There's still the AirPods. But in using them, you

00:51:50   know, they're brand new, and so in being able to have the original, the pristine AirPods

00:51:56   experience again, it reminded me how much I love the idea behind the AirPods. You know,

00:52:03   the fact that you have these earbuds that are totally wireless and that they actually

00:52:07   produce good sound.

00:52:09   You know, there's wired earbuds that sometimes cost even more and they sound worse than AirPods,

00:52:15   which have no wires.

00:52:19   I feel like the two big new features here, the wireless charging in the model that I

00:52:24   got and the support for hands-free Siri activation, I'm liking both of them a lot.

00:52:31   especially the Siri stuff. It's been only 24 hours since I got them, but I'm already finding myself

00:52:37   using Siri more

00:52:40   because when I'm around the house and I'm wearing AirPods

00:52:44   before I would try not to use

00:52:48   Siri, hands-free Siri activation

00:52:52   with my iPhone, so I kept the "listen for" the

00:52:57   invocation phrase option disabled, so I just use the HomePod. But with the AirPods,

00:53:02   because they're using the microphone, which is right next to my mouth essentially,

00:53:07   and because this

00:53:10   Siri sounds closer clear just like on the iPhone,

00:53:13   but now coming through the AirPods, it feels more

00:53:18   convenient to use. It's faster, it's always right there on you, you can talk to it and it responds immediately.

00:53:25   So I'm finding myself using Siri more and more for all kinds of things that I actually use Siri.

00:53:31   You know shortcuts is a big thing, of course, but also HomeKit and playing Apple music and, you know,

00:53:37   running other shortcuts from apps, not from my custom shortcuts.

00:53:43   So that's really convenient, like the idea of you have this

00:53:47   high quality Siri voice that is always in your ears and you can talk to.

00:53:53   Also, the wireless charging, it's exactly what I was hoping it would be. You just take

00:53:59   the AirPods and you just place them on a charging mat and it starts charging. There's nothing

00:54:07   to discuss really, except the fact that maybe it's a little odd that... No, I was not talking

00:54:14   about air power. It's a little odd that the charging indicator does not stay on indefinitely.

00:54:21   I wish it did. Yeah I wish it did but also the charging mats that I have they all have

00:54:29   their own LED indicator so I know when they're actually working so it's not a big deal.

00:54:34   I would prefer like if you, I don't know how they would, you could like tap the case and

00:54:39   it will come on because I wouldn't want the light on all the time right like that that

00:54:44   would that would frustrate me to just have a light on all the time like especially if

00:54:47   I was charging it by my bedside or whatever, but it would be good to get away to get it

00:54:52   other than open in the case.

00:54:54   I've seen people complaining about putting the light on the outside, but like it makes

00:54:58   perfect sense to me that you would put the light on the outside now because you want

00:55:02   to see when you put it down on the charging pad that it's accepted that it's charging,

00:55:06   right?

00:55:07   Like you want that.

00:55:08   Yeah, you don't want to come back later and be like, "Oh no, I didn't see them."

00:55:12   The other physical change in the case is really subtle, but the wireless charging case now

00:55:17   uses aluminum in the hinge instead of stainless steel.

00:55:21   It seems like, according to people on Twitter, like Mark Gurman was asking people last night,

00:55:25   that that is because the stainless steel got in the way or interacted poorly, I guess,

00:55:31   with the wireless charging.

00:55:32   So if you get the regular case, it seems like that's still stainless steel, but on mine,

00:55:36   with the wireless case, that hinge is aluminum.

00:55:39   Just a small detail, but you know one that I guess was important to deal with

00:55:43   The it feels different the new case in a way that I can't tell you, but I just know it feels different

00:55:50   It's just clean. That's that's the word you're looking for

00:55:53   Yeah, well that too but like the hinge the hinge feels different, but like I'm not 100% sure it also

00:55:58   Is it heavier? It's the is the case heavier now doesn't feel like it

00:56:04   I've got both here if it is it's really

00:56:09   a small difference. Physically though, besides those changes, the same size,

00:56:15   if you've used Gen 1 AirPods, this is going to be immediately super familiar to you. This is not

00:56:23   really a new product. It's a revision. My only complaint about how the Siri stuff works is,

00:56:33   I am one of those people who doesn't like to just say the Siri phrase and then continuing to talk

00:56:42   like without pausing after. My brain can't do that. I have to like no matter what I try and do

00:56:51   I have to wait like I have to wait. I always thought that the way that Amazon does this is

00:56:57   perfect. When you say the word to wake up the echo, you hear the sound basically right away.

00:57:04   And you also, because of the design of the echo, you also see the light. But they have that sound

00:57:10   that feels immediate. With Siri, Apple is kind of weird about it, in that with the HomePod you can

00:57:18   can enable the chime, the sound, but it's slow, like it doesn't come up immediately

00:57:26   as soon as you utter the phrase. And on the iPhone, I don't know how it works, but basically,

00:57:35   if you use hands-free Siri activation on the iPhone, you do not hear the sound, but if

00:57:43   press with the side button and you're wearing bluetooth headphones, you do hear the sound?

00:57:50   It doesn't make any sense. Like, I would like to have an option for people like me who cannot

00:57:55   possibly just say that phrase and then just continue to talk. Because I'm not talking

00:58:00   to a friend, I'm not talking to my mom. I need to pause, I'm talking to a computer,

00:58:03   I need to make sure the computer is listening to me. You know, because sometimes not even

00:58:07   people listen to me. So at least the computer, I want to have a setting that I want to have

00:58:12   a single, a simple option to say always play a sound as soon as you activate Siri.

00:58:18   That's all I'm asking for.

00:58:20   I would like that very much.

00:58:22   But I have found myself like you, though, using the Siri integration already.

00:58:26   I didn't think that I would, but I left it on.

00:58:28   And then like I was both washing up and cooking yesterday with my AirPods in,

00:58:33   which is something I do from time to time.

00:58:35   And I got a text message and I was like, oh, I can just easily reply to this now.

00:58:42   Like, because this is the thing, look, I know you could do the tapping, but I've said many times,

00:58:46   I hate the tapping. Right? So I would never use Siri for the tapping. Plus, I didn't want Siri to

00:58:52   be used for the tapping. I wanted it to be like the play/pause. And I don't, I'm not a person who

00:58:57   wants to have a different thing in each year because I can't keep that straight. So I liked

00:59:03   that a lot. And what I liked even more, because I was like, when I said it, I was like, I feel like

00:59:06   I know where this is going to go, but Apple did the right thing. It didn't activate my HomePod.

00:59:11   It activated my AirPods. The prioritization worked there because that's the thing for me which I

00:59:17   Constantly frustrated in like I'm looking at my phone and my phone is in front of me and I say it but the HomePod goes

00:59:24   It's like oh, that's not what I wanted. So I like that it used the context of I'm using AirPods right now

00:59:30   That is what should be activated

00:59:32   So, you know, I thought that it was very good for that stuff like for just changing the media

00:59:37   but also for responding to text messages and I found the dictation to be spot on.

00:59:41   So the microphones must be very good.

00:59:43   Yeah, it's also kind of strange how I don't think watchwaz 5.2 is out yet, right?

00:59:51   No, it's not.

00:59:53   When you pair directly the new AirPods to the watch via the, you know, the watch Bluetooth setting,

01:00:02   you do not get the high quality Siri voice

01:00:06   because I suppose they're waiting for the software update to enable that but

01:00:10   it sounds like the old low quality

01:00:14   Siri voice. So you only get the crystal clear Siri

01:00:18   when you're using the new AirPods with an iPhone or an iPad running

01:00:22   iOS 12.2 so far. In theory, this should also be the case with the watch

01:00:27   unless there's a reason why Apple does not want to send

01:00:31   high-quality Siri voice from the watch to the AirPods, either because it requires too much power,

01:00:37   or because they cannot support, you know, whatever it is that the iPhone has.

01:00:43   Better Wi-Fi, better Bluetooth, I don't know.

01:00:46   My question is, where is the voice coming from?

01:00:50   So the voice is...

01:00:51   The high-quality voice. Is it coming from the phone or is it coming from the H1 chip?

01:00:55   Yeah, that's something like...

01:00:59   Because Siri is working on the phone

01:01:01   But inside the AirPods you have the H1 chip and you have the microphones that actually listen to you

01:01:08   So I tried this today. I left my phone and you know my house mic. I left the phone in the kitchen

01:01:15   I closed the door of the kitchen. I went in the bedroom

01:01:18   I closed the door of the bedroom and I whispered in my AirPods very quietly the phrase to activate Siri and

01:01:26   It's the AirPods that wake up Siri on the phone.

01:01:29   It's not like the phone is listening to you and then passes the task of

01:01:34   listening to the AirPods, but the AirPods are actually waking Siri on the iPhone.

01:01:39   I wonder if it's a latency based thing.

01:01:41   I don't know.

01:01:42   So because the latency is better, they're able to send a higher quality.

01:01:45   But only the new version of iOS recognizes the AirPods, right?

01:01:51   So like they're just assuming it's like either old AirPods or like other Bluetooth headphones, maybe.

01:01:58   I don't know, but it is interesting.

01:02:00   I think it is actually a feature that I think I will use more than I thought that I would have used.

01:02:06   So I like it a lot for that.

01:02:09   But you mentioned how it is so much faster to switch between devices.

01:02:14   Yeah, which is that was the only thing I really honestly wanted and it is significantly faster.

01:02:20   like that like it takes like half the time which i think is brilliant

01:02:23   it's still slower going to the mac than in between ios devices which i i find frustrating but even

01:02:31   there it is definitely noticeably better but something with the bluetooth stuff on the mac

01:02:37   is still slower than going from an iphone to an ipad could it be um the actual bluetooth chips

01:02:43   yeah i mean i assume it's something to do with the hardware you know i've got imac pro it's a current

01:02:47   machine, it's running whatever yesterday's version of Mojave that's out. Maybe it is hardware,

01:02:54   I don't know. But again, it's way better than before, but I still just noticed because I had

01:02:58   basically all three of my devices out. It's like, what if I go from one to the other to the other?

01:03:02   And anytime the Mac was involved, it was slower. I have never once tried to pair my AirPods to my

01:03:08   Mac. I don't do it very often. I do it to my laptop on occasion, but if I'm at my desk, I

01:03:14   I need headphones. Well, I have all this like podcasting stuff here.

01:03:17   So let's turn it on.

01:03:18   Yeah, that's that's my thing.

01:03:21   But like, I guess if I was if I was like using a laptop

01:03:25   as much as I use my iPad, I would like for conference calls and stuff like that,

01:03:28   because I use my AirPods all the time for those.

01:03:31   I wanted to talk about kind of like this product in general.

01:03:34   I love it. I think this is a great update.

01:03:36   But this is this doesn't feel like a like a full on version

01:03:39   two of the AirPods to me.

01:03:41   like this does feel like a kind of a middle step to the rumoured product

01:03:46   that's in the future of like noise cancelling and that sort of stuff.

01:03:49   And I figure like this is not particularly a unique opinion,

01:03:54   but this is, I think, pretty clear.

01:03:58   This was a product that was delayed because of AirPower

01:04:00   and that this would have come sooner, but they kind of waited

01:04:05   and then maybe AirPower missed another deadline and they shipped it.

01:04:09   And I have two reasons I think this.

01:04:11   One, this is what everybody's seen, the box says AirPower on it.

01:04:15   It says put it on your AirPower mat.

01:04:17   And the other, the box has a 2018 copyright notice.

01:04:20   Yeah.

01:04:21   Now, Apple, like, they have the capability to put these boxes together quickly.

01:04:27   Like iPhone boxes don't sit in a factory for four months, right?

01:04:30   Like they had all this stuff done a while ago,

01:04:34   I would expect, especially because, I mean, the wireless charging AirPods case was announced

01:04:41   in September 2017, along with the AirPower.

01:04:46   So like the idea, or at least the technology to build that part of this product has been

01:04:50   nailed down for a while and they just hadn't done it.

01:04:53   And then, I don't know, maybe it was like, I'm starting to wonder, like, was it this

01:04:58   case of, well, we have to ship these now because we know the batteries won't last on the first

01:05:03   gens at this point.

01:05:04   Like there is a shelf life

01:05:06   to the batteries. Everyone's seeing

01:05:08   it happen, right? Like if you use

01:05:09   your AirPods every day, it's getting

01:05:11   worse. I'm wondering if Apple

01:05:12   will like, well, we've actually got

01:05:14   to do this because there might

01:05:16   be battery technology or older

01:05:17   batteries in the original ones, and

01:05:19   they don't want to keep making them

01:05:20   because maybe they will eventually

01:05:22   start shipping AirPods that don't

01:05:23   have the battery life that they

01:05:24   would want or whatever.

01:05:26   But just their customers like

01:05:28   us.

01:05:29   And I'm assuming anybody that bought

01:05:32   their AirPods when they came out in

01:05:33   like 2016 or whatever it was, the the batteries just aren't lasting anymore.

01:05:37   And that's like a whole different conversation for another time.

01:05:40   But like if we just put push that to the side for now,

01:05:44   they kind of maybe got to a point where they were like, airpower or no airpower,

01:05:49   we need to release this product.

01:05:50   And they've done it.

01:05:52   Yeah. I wouldn't be surprised if we see another version of AirPods in September.

01:05:56   Well, I mean, so Federico has that prediction

01:05:58   that they're going to split the line and make like a pro version.

01:06:01   There was a rumor out there, I think maybe Germin reported it, that they were working

01:06:05   on a version that was like water resistant and had active noise canceling.

01:06:10   Yep.

01:06:11   And that is 100% AirPods Pro.

01:06:13   Yeah, right.

01:06:14   Sounds like a pro version.

01:06:15   I could see that, you know, as a model on top of these.

01:06:19   I hope, I really, really hope that active noise canceling isn't the only way forward

01:06:23   for this product because I like this product.

01:06:25   That would 100% be something you could turn on and off.

01:06:28   It's dangerous to have it on all the time, right?

01:06:31   Like this is a product that is intended to be worn in all situations,

01:06:36   like including walking down the street.

01:06:38   And you shouldn't be using it in those cancellation if you're crossing roads and stuff.

01:06:41   So, yeah, it's I think I agree with you.

01:06:44   I don't know if September is the right time, but I do think there's,

01:06:47   you know, definitely potential for a nicer version down the road.

01:06:51   I'm sure that'll be the version that comes in black and I'll be sad.

01:06:54   But you see the did you see this powerbeats thing on 9 to 5 Mac?

01:06:58   Yes, I want to talk about this. So that wants to buy those and sell the AirPods. No, I don't.

01:07:03   So these showed up in hidden iOS 12.2 animation. So like, you know, when you pair AirPods,

01:07:10   like they spin around and open up. And so there's a version of that for these. And these are

01:07:16   wireless power beats. So there's not a cable in between them like the beats x. And they go,

01:07:21   they have a little finger or whatever to go over your ear fingers, not the right word. What is that

01:07:26   that called? Like a thing like an arch? I don't know. Yeah, an ear arch, you know, so it goes over

01:07:33   your ears. Just like the power beats do now, right? They have wired versions of these. And so if

01:07:37   you're running or it's the sport, it's like the sport design, like it also clips behind your ear

01:07:42   as the way to hold it in place. Yeah. So if you're, you know, running around or doing jumping jacks or

01:07:46   whatever, they're not going to fly out. And I would assume that this comes with the this h1 chip

01:07:53   and the new stuff they're doing.

01:07:55   And I think this looks like a great product.

01:07:57   I really like the AirPods and they fit in my ears well,

01:07:59   but that is not true for everybody.

01:08:01   And right now, your kind of next best option

01:08:05   is something like the Beats X,

01:08:06   which my wife is now on her third pair

01:08:08   because they keep dying.

01:08:10   And Apple just keeps sending us new ones

01:08:11   anytime I call their support and be like,

01:08:14   "Hey, these died," and they just mail another set.

01:08:18   And so I showed these to her, I was like,

01:08:20   would you be interested in something like this

01:08:22   that gets rid of the wire and, and she definitely is.

01:08:25   And I think a lot of people would want something that's true, truly wireless,

01:08:29   where there's not a cable, even between the two sides,

01:08:32   I would imagine these would do well.

01:08:33   The battery on these killer. Cause it's bigger, like they're bigger.

01:08:37   They have that whole big section that goes like connects to the clip part.

01:08:41   I bet that that's a big, there's a bigger battery in there.

01:08:43   I do wonder what the, if there's a microphone in these or, uh, yeah, how it,

01:08:49   how it would sound. So because the Beats X, the microphone is on the cable. And that is

01:08:54   true for the the wired power beats as well. So I assume it's got a microphone.

01:08:58   Do you see what else is on those buttons? They have buttons on them.

01:09:03   Yeah, so. So I think this would be a great option for people who want something more

01:09:07   than the AirPods. I think it'd be cool.

01:09:11   Yeah, this is like a real alternative rather than the Beats X, which is kind of like a

01:09:16   I don't know, like a consolation prize a little bit.

01:09:18   Yeah, it definitely felt that way. So. So seems like we're all liking our new AirPods. That's

01:09:24   that's good. Yep. Okay, so we're going to get into the this, the sort of stuff from

01:09:30   the event on Monday. Not necessarily running through the news, but talking about things

01:09:34   that have happened since then our impressions of some of this stuff. But first, I want to

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01:11:31   Apple News Plus is the only new service that Apple announced which is immediately available.

01:11:40   And it's not available in the UK, it's only in the US and Canada right now, it's coming

01:11:44   to the UK later on this year. But because Federico lives in America now, he has it and

01:11:52   Steven you have it too. So I'm interested in understanding what you two think of Apple

01:11:57   News Plus.

01:11:59   That's pretty much what I was expecting. It's a combination of both traditional Apple News

01:12:05   content and these magazines that are still using the PDF format from texture. I'm just

01:12:12   happy that it exists, because it means I can have the Wall Street Journal and the general

01:12:18   news are fine, I think. Edge, the video game magazine, that I absolutely love. Myke knows

01:12:26   that every time I'm in the UK I buy an issue of Edge because it's not so easy to get in

01:12:31   Italy. Retro Gamer, now the video game magazines, Vanity Fair and Rolling Stone. So this is

01:12:37   the stuff that I've always wanted to have in a single magazine app. Now the fact that

01:12:41   this app happens to be Apple News, which I'm already using in addition to RSS, is just

01:12:48   perfect because for the past couple of years I've sort of complemented my RSS usage with

01:12:55   Apple News so that I could read about some politics, but mostly entertainment, so music,

01:13:02   TV shows and films, and video games in a separate app so that I wouldn't have to add all of

01:13:07   those sources to my RSS, where I mostly keep tech stuff.

01:13:14   So I was already using Apple News, and now I get to read stories from magazines.

01:13:20   So for example, Vanity Fair has -- I was reading last night this story about this Chinese actress

01:13:27   who was arrested by the Chinese government because of tax evasion.

01:13:32   It's a wild story.

01:13:33   She disappeared for three months.

01:13:35   And I was reading that in Apple News Plus.

01:13:38   Vanity Fair supports Apple News format.

01:13:39   It looks great.

01:13:41   So now I have this single package that has both web content from, I don't know, The Verge

01:13:48   and Polygon and Kotaku and these places, and sort of deeper reporting.

01:13:54   Now those PDFs, they look very nice on the iPad.

01:14:01   For example, Edge is a PDF magazine.

01:14:04   You get the custom layouts, you get the print tradition of beautiful photography, rich layouts

01:14:11   on each page, but they are terrible on the iPhone because you need to zoom in and out

01:14:16   and the text is non-resizable, of course, it's a PDF.

01:14:20   So it's a bit of a mess right now in the sense that

01:14:25   there's a couple of magazines that truly take advantage of Apple News format,

01:14:31   like Wired and National Geographic, but you have to wonder if they're doing

01:14:36   this just for show right now, because it's new and they want to show Apple that they can use Apple News format.

01:14:43   because all the other magazines that use Apple News Format, they are using essentially the same

01:14:48   template. All these big publishers, they must have found some kind of tool that lets them convert

01:14:53   web content easily to Apple News Format, and so you get this very plain table of contents as the

01:15:00   first page, and then you can tap on the links to the sections and everything essentially looks the

01:15:05   the same. And then you have these old PDF magazines. So ideally, the ideal state would

01:15:13   be that everybody, you know, a year from now, six months from now, is using the Apple News

01:15:20   format, but not just to have, like, paragraphs of text and some images, but truly use the

01:15:27   Apple News format, like Wired and National Geographic are doing right now. But I wonder

01:15:33   if it's not gonna be, you know, a thing that these publishers, they want to invest on making

01:15:40   truly beautiful...

01:15:41   What is the benefit, Ivo, way to the reader of using one or the other?

01:15:49   If you have, like, the Apple News format, it actually lets you do really fancy things

01:15:53   like galleries and animations and, you know, these rich objects that you can interact with.

01:16:02   It looks great and it resides like you can do full screen video, you can do the sidebars,

01:16:07   the sort of sliding from the side of the screen.

01:16:11   It's very nice, it's very beautiful.

01:16:13   It's like, do you need to have printed magazines that have custom layouts?

01:16:18   No, you don't need them, but they're pretty to look at.

01:16:21   And that's the thing with typography and the print industry, you can make things pretty.

01:16:26   And with the Apple News format, with the templates that most magazines are using, you sort of

01:16:30   lose that.

01:16:31   You gain the option to resize text, which is fantastic on the iPhone because it's a

01:16:36   smaller screen, but you lose that, you know, that, I'm trying to think of a good word here,

01:16:42   but that spark that sort of makes printed magazines special.

01:16:46   I just wonder if the benefit, you know, from a cost-benefit analysis point of view, like,

01:16:53   do publishers want to invest in making these App

01:16:56   magazines that require designers and multiple hours of work just for Apple News.

01:17:03   But time is a flat circle. That was the problem with Newsstand.

01:17:08   Right? It was, "Oh, you got to make your own app to work in this."

01:17:11   And Apple News format obviously involves less work than that.

01:17:14   In fact, if you're on WordPress, there's plugins that do it.

01:17:17   I mean, it can be pretty simple, but it still requires these content makers

01:17:23   to invest in it, at least to a degree.

01:17:26   And until it's proven that it can make them money,

01:17:29   I don't know, some of them just aren't gonna do that.

01:17:33   - And it's super, super easy if you make a magazine

01:17:36   to make a PDF because it's probably in PDF.

01:17:38   - Exactly.

01:17:41   - You just put them in Dropbox or whatever

01:17:44   and you're good to go.

01:17:45   Yes, that is a little frustrating,

01:17:47   especially on the iPhone.

01:17:49   You open some of these PDF ones, you're like,

01:17:51   "Oh, this is not as good as it could be."

01:17:54   But I'm hoping that changes.

01:17:57   - But then you open them on the iPad,

01:17:59   you open them on the iPad and they're so pretty.

01:18:01   Like I was taking a look at Edge.

01:18:03   You open that on the 12.9 inch iPad Pro in landscape,

01:18:07   I mean, my God, it's so beautiful.

01:18:09   It looks like a magazine.

01:18:10   - Because here's the thing,

01:18:11   a magazine like Edge would suck enough when you film that.

01:18:14   - Yes, exactly.

01:18:15   That's a, unless--

01:18:16   - Because Edge is like an incredibly

01:18:19   meticulously designed magazine as part of the point of it.

01:18:23   - Exactly.

01:18:24   And it's always been that way.

01:18:25   Like I was reading Edge 15 years ago,

01:18:28   and it was like each issue was a marvel of design.

01:18:31   And could they recreate that beautiful design

01:18:36   in Apple News format?

01:18:37   Probably they could do something real pretty

01:18:40   with the Apple News format. - Not cheaply though.

01:18:41   I bet, you know what I mean? - But not cheaply.

01:18:42   Exactly, exactly.

01:18:44   And it's not like you can, if you're a publisher,

01:18:46   you're gonna say, well, okay, so do we need to invest

01:18:49   making our digital designs better? Fine, we'll invest, but is it going to be exclusive to

01:18:56   Apple News, or can we reuse this Apple News format anywhere else? And the answer is no,

01:19:01   because it's a fork of HTML, you know, it requires custom notation in JavaScript, like,

01:19:06   it's going to be exclusive to Apple News. So unless you're at the point where somebody

01:19:12   comes to you and says, "Look, we're actually making good money from Apple News, maybe we

01:19:16   should invest in making custom designs just for Apple News? Well then at the

01:19:20   point maybe yes, the answer is we're gonna make a beautiful design just for

01:19:24   Apple News. But until that happens I fear that we're just gonna see these basic

01:19:29   templates based on plugins or, you know, these tools that let you convert from

01:19:34   HTML to Apple News format, and I know because we have a plugin on Mac stories

01:19:37   and it's nothing fancy. It's not spectacular, it's not a custom design, but

01:19:41   it's functional, it's a bunch of HTML wrapped in Apple News format. So until

01:19:46   these big money publishers actually see the big money coming in from

01:19:51   subscriptions and Apple News+, we're just gonna get either the PDF or the plain

01:19:56   old Apple News format with nothing fancy about it. I want to see what WIRED and

01:20:02   National Geographic do. If it's something that they're doing just for this month's

01:20:07   issue or if it's something they're gonna keep up. I'm curious to see what they do.

01:20:11   I want to talk about real quickly the weird way that a lot of publishers are

01:20:20   approaching this. So the Wall Street Journal, no matter what Apple's saying on

01:20:25   their website, it's not the full Wall Street Journal. The Wall Street Journal

01:20:30   are putting a subset of their categories available for Apple News+ for a

01:20:36   couple of days. It's not everything. It's only available for a few days after

01:20:40   publishing. So like for me, like I don't, you can tell me Federico, like I only

01:20:45   want the technology coverage and I don't know if that's in the Apple News Plus

01:20:50   stuff. And then today TechCrunch, there was an article on TechCrunch, but just

01:20:56   slamming it. Like the idea of algorithms and like the devaluing of journalism,

01:21:02   which is really interesting, I mean this is a very TechCrunch thing to do. Like

01:21:06   that is not a slant. Like something I've always liked about TechCrunch. It kind of,

01:21:09   it feels like their writers are allowed to write about whatever they want. Like they've, you know,

01:21:15   I've seen them many times slam their corporate overlords, whoever they might be, right? Like when

01:21:20   they're owned by AOL or whatever. So Josh Constein has written this article about like, he as an

01:21:26   employee of TechCrunch is concerned about TechCrunch being a part of Apple News Plus because of the

01:21:32   issue with a big company owning the algorithm and also like the fact that you know that

01:21:37   this is extra conscious something that they will sell you for was like 10 or 15 dollars

01:21:41   or whatever or pennies on the dollar on Apple news plus so it is a concern and I think that

01:21:50   is one of the reasons why everyone's just publishing PDFs because nobody knows what

01:21:56   this is going to end up looking like especially if it's true that Apple's taking 50% of it

01:22:00   Yeah. It's a bit, I was asked by someone on Twitter, do you plan on putting Club Max stories

01:22:07   on Apple News Plus? The answer is a huge no. Absolutely not. Absolutely not. Why would

01:22:14   I give up my, the money that I'm making off the platform that I control for? Because literally

01:22:19   every single person that subscribes to Club Max stories would, would cancel because they're

01:22:24   all users of Apple products, right? You would expect, so why would you keep paying? You

01:22:32   just wouldn't do it.

01:22:33   And something that I also want to say, because I always get this kind of feedback from...

01:22:39   There's some Apple News diehards on Twitter. There's a couple of people, they know who

01:22:44   they are. They think that, "Oh, it's so easy to support Apple News format. Just write the

01:22:50   code and it's so easy. It's never easy to, if you have an existing publishing platform,

01:22:58   to add additional layers of custom code for something else. It's never as automatic as

01:23:04   you think, and even when you have plugins. Plugins are a beautiful thing, but they can

01:23:10   also ruin you. Because once you start installing plugins, it's not a one-click solution to

01:23:18   anything, it always introduces maintenance and it always introduces additional development

01:23:23   time because then you've got to figure out what's wrong with the plugin.

01:23:27   What I'm trying to say is there's always a cost to adopting a new platform, there's a

01:23:33   technological cost and there's an actual cost.

01:23:37   For me, it's not worth it to rewrite what we do for Cloud Next Story for Apple News

01:23:45   format, but it's also not worth it to lose the money that I'm making from the service

01:23:49   that I control.

01:23:50   Quickly, before we move on from news, just a couple other threads.

01:23:54   One, it turns out that the Mac app in particular is super leaky.

01:24:00   Steven Trout Smith just discovered how you can export all the PDFs.

01:24:04   You just get everything.

01:24:06   So that's not good at all.

01:24:08   He showed me how he was doing that.

01:24:13   Just make a PDF.

01:24:14   some work to do there. Apple news product team, I guess. Uh,

01:24:17   it was also crashing the day after launch, but that seems to be resolved now.

01:24:21   I guess it was on the server side.

01:24:22   That's super good that they could fix that without the need to push a software

01:24:26   update. Bravo Apple, right? Like, cause you've,

01:24:28   you've been way too stuck on that train for a while.

01:24:31   So I'm pleased that there was something they could fix on without needing to put

01:24:35   like iOS 12.2 0.1 out.

01:24:38   Yeah. I still don't love how closed off news is like on the Mac.

01:24:41   you just can't get a URL to open it in a browser. Just can't do it. Like you got to like send a text

01:24:47   message to yourself or something. And on iOS or really anywhere, sending content to things like

01:24:52   Instapaper is very hit or miss some articles, maybe if it's PDF or not send the content others

01:25:00   don't is Apple news doesn't play well with the web. And that's really frustrating to me as a

01:25:04   believer in the open web. But I guess I just want to posit a thought that my friend Brian said I

01:25:10   I saw him tweet like Apple is doing to news what Spotify is maybe doing to podcasts.

01:25:16   And I was like, oh, that's a horrifying thought, isn't it?

01:25:20   But also a very good point.

01:25:21   Like we're all worried about Spotify like walling off podcasts while Apple's trying to

01:25:26   do that to journalism.

01:25:27   Yeah. So that's I understand the concern raised by TechCrunch and actually share some of it.

01:25:31   But that's a fact.

01:25:33   It's a while that someone in the launch thing wrote that.

01:25:37   But yeah, Apple News Plus.

01:25:38   I mean, it's probably again, it's like a lot of these things.

01:25:40   It's probably good for consumers, but is it good for the industry?

01:25:43   Like, we don't know yet.

01:25:44   So let's talk about something else that could be good for consumers, but I think

01:25:48   is a little weird.

01:25:50   So the Apple card that was announced their credit card deal, uh, it seems to be

01:25:55   the most popular of these announcements.

01:25:58   Like Kyle's the gray was saying how it's like way more views on YouTube.

01:26:02   And it seems to be what people are most excited about.

01:26:06   Neil Aptel, the Verge said it was the most popular story for the day on the site.

01:26:11   But there are a couple things I think that have come to light since Monday.

01:26:14   A, Apple says it's low interest rates.

01:26:17   They seem to be in line with other credit cards.

01:26:19   They're not doing anything incredible in terms of interest rate.

01:26:23   So with all of these things, but for crying out loud for financial stuff in particular,

01:26:27   the details are in the fine print.

01:26:29   I'm not saying it's a bad deal.

01:26:31   It may really work well for you.

01:26:33   if you're going and thinking this is a low interest rate card, it's just not it's in line with the rest of the industry. But I'm just curious what the two of you think. I mean, it looks great. And, you know, when they were comparing it to like normal credit cards, like my wife and I have a credit card, and we use it for certain things and pay it off. And the it's not a great experience as a user, right? And what Apple kind of mocked these old credit cards for like, that's where I am with mine. But so I see the the upside

01:27:03   to this but then like the part of me also things like is it weird that our

01:27:07   favorite computer company is now a credit card company like do you guys

01:27:10   feel any strangeness about that or that the credit cards are gross and Apple

01:27:14   shouldn't do it like do you have any any feelings my my background being in

01:27:20   financial services is that I don't find it weird like ever since kind of Apple

01:27:27   Pay came around I've been talking about the eventual future of Apple as a bank

01:27:31   because when you have all the money, because they have all the money, one of

01:27:36   the ways to use that money is to control money. They can they can underwrite all

01:27:42   of the risk because they have the cash, they just have cash in there. I think

01:27:47   that this is a very interesting product that I would immediately sign up for

01:27:50   because the user experience that Apple is promoting is far superior to the user

01:27:55   experience you get from over credit cards. Like could you get a better deal

01:27:59   on cash back or rewards. Yes. But are you going to get the money every day? I bet you're

01:28:05   not. I bet you have to jump through some crazy hoop to get it back or you can only use it

01:28:09   in certain circumstances. Like I think that this looks like a very cool product. Where

01:28:14   I am in the UK, like it is absolutely no problem to just use it. You have something that's

01:28:19   in Apple Pay all the time. But even though Apple do send that absolutely baller card

01:28:23   to you, which is made out of a piece of titanium, which is just that like completely pushed

01:28:28   me over the line, right? Like if I was, I don't know, like if I was like, I will send

01:28:32   you a piece of titanium. Yes, I will sign up because that looks cool.

01:28:37   I really hope that some bank here in the UK looks at this and wants a piece,

01:28:45   because the reason that we can't have this, I think one of the key reasons is

01:28:50   Apple Cash. So what used to be called Apple Pay Cash doesn't exist outside of

01:28:55   the US right now. Apple needs a partner for that before they can even think about the

01:29:00   card. But I am hoping that the excitement in the card will push some provider to say

01:29:05   to Apple, "We will help you do this." Because I saw somebody make a joke earlier that the

01:29:13   Apple card is to credit cards that the rocker was to phones. And like, it's like, "Haha,

01:29:18   this is so janky." But I see another side of this. It's like, "No, you're completely

01:29:23   but from the other way.

01:29:25   This is Apple's beginning to becoming a bank, to getting their own banking license.

01:29:30   Banking licenses take an incredibly long time to get anywhere in the world.

01:29:34   They could, if US law is like UK law, they could just buy a bank and take their license.

01:29:41   Yeah, we don't have any laws about banks anymore. You can do whatever you want.

01:29:44   So like I wouldn't be surprised to see that kind of stuff happening in the future,

01:29:48   but this is Apple kind of dipping their toe in and they need a partner and they've picked Goldman Sachs.

01:29:52   And it seems like Goldman Sachs is basically their AT&T, where like Apple needs a bunch of stuff done,

01:30:00   and Goldman Sachs says, "Yes, please, where should we sign?" and "We will do anything you want us to."

01:30:05   And then they go to Verizon a year and a half later. Wait.

01:30:08   Yeah.

01:30:08   That breaks down somewhere.

01:30:09   It feels to me like, um, it feels to me like thinking that banks are creepy and weird is an American thing.

01:30:17   Like I don't have feelings about banks. It's not something that I usually think about.

01:30:22   Yeah, I think it's like that in the UK if you're thinking about the existing banks,

01:30:28   but we have all these like everywhere in Europe, so we have all these what are called challenger

01:30:33   banks, these new young banks, right? That are way more internet focused.

01:30:37   Fintech startups.

01:30:38   Fintech startups, that's exactly it. So we have these in Europe because of a bunch of

01:30:42   data stuff that we can have. So like there is a slightly different view and a lot of

01:30:46   the stuff that is coming of Apple Card is stuff that exists in applications and banks

01:30:51   in Europe but does not exist in the US in a lot of places. Simple is the closest that

01:30:56   America had I think.

01:30:58   Yeah, or like Monzo in the UK or N26. I have N26, it's very good. But also I don't know

01:31:05   what, honestly, I don't know what cashback is, I don't know what interest rates are,

01:31:10   I'm not a responsible adult so what do I know?

01:31:13   totally fine. It's cashback is quite simply, every time you make a purchase, they give you 2% of the

01:31:19   money back, they just give you that I sort of understand. I don't think I have that with my

01:31:23   with my back. I don't think I do. Not all credit cards have cashback. It's a specific reward.

01:31:28   So we also have Apple Arcade, which Myke predicted their gaming service, you can pay some amount of

01:31:35   money a month, we don't seem to know what that will be 10. It's got to be 10. But and you get

01:31:40   access, full access to games within Apple Arcade. So these games will be no ads, no

01:31:46   in-app purchase, everything unlocked. And you guys know way more about the video game

01:31:51   industry than I do, but I get the sense that Apple has, like, is curating and maybe even

01:31:57   paying for the development or subsidizing the development of these, turning Apple into

01:32:01   into a studio, a game studio like Microsoft and others have. And that seems pretty cool

01:32:06   to me like this is not for me I don't really play iOS games I play a couple

01:32:11   you know I play the biggest one every couple of years but I am excited to see

01:32:16   Apple applying their taste to this market because so much of this market is

01:32:21   kind of gross is that fair yes it is always worth remembering that Apple

01:32:28   created the grossness oh yeah they enabled I mean they created and enabled

01:32:33   in at purchasing.

01:32:34   And made it worse and continued to make it worse and could make it better, but they're

01:32:38   not going to.

01:32:39   And the way that they're going to try and fix the cesspool that they created is this

01:32:43   service and the presenter, Anne Tai, she basically said something that I loved, which is, "It's

01:32:49   hard to compete with free."

01:32:50   And I was like, "Yeah, I'm sure it is."

01:32:53   But they are, they have attracted a lot of very, as I obviously said earlier, a lot of

01:32:58   the right talent that they're going down the right route of it.

01:33:01   I like that, you know, all these games are playable offline.

01:33:04   It's going to have its own tab in the app store.

01:33:06   This is where I will be going to get all my new iOS games, like 100 percent.

01:33:10   And they said they called out like these are going to work on the iPhone,

01:33:13   iPad, Apple TV and Mac.

01:33:15   I don't think all these games will.

01:33:17   I don't think they all will.

01:33:19   But I think a lot of them will.

01:33:20   And I think that's great, like that you will have them available to you everywhere

01:33:24   and it makes a more cohesive system.

01:33:26   I'm keen how they're going to make all of that work.

01:33:30   This is why I don't think every game will be able to work on the Apple TV, for example,

01:33:35   or the Mac, because some of these games are going to need touch screens.

01:33:39   But I think that they will be encouraging heavily and maybe, depending on how much money

01:33:44   they've given you, if it's going to work on all those platforms.

01:33:49   Maybe this is what finally brings touch to the Mac.

01:33:51   I'm just kidding.

01:33:52   That's crazy.

01:33:53   Can you imagine?

01:33:54   It's like this is the final...

01:33:55   Oh, we can do it now.

01:33:57   We can now play Angry Birds or whatever.

01:33:59   Angry Birds won't be in here.

01:34:00   Only good games will be in here.

01:34:01   They specifically showed Angry Birds.

01:34:05   Oh no.

01:34:05   And also, also there was, I saw this teaser, I think it was on Tom's Guide,

01:34:09   of an Angry Birds AR game coming out in the summer that apparently was in collaboration with Apple,

01:34:14   which this is obviously one of them.

01:34:17   That's what the future of AR is. It's flinging birds into blocks.

01:34:21   And then we spoke about Apple TV, Apple TV Plus.

01:34:26   Is there anything else that we wanted to touch on that?

01:34:28   Like I one thing that I didn't say was my thought on the shows. Um, I think a lot of them seemed great

01:34:34   I'm really excited about C which is the Jason Momoa show

01:34:37   Uh, I didn't I didn't really have a full grasp what that show was about

01:34:41   But I think the premise is really good

01:34:42   And if you don't know this is the show that is rumored to be the most expensive show ever produced per episode

01:34:48   more expensive than game of thrones wow

01:34:50   That'll be fun just to see what that buys you

01:34:54   Yeah, like you want to test Apple's seriousness?

01:34:56   Like these are the things like that one billion.

01:34:59   They've spent that a long time ago.

01:35:01   Like they're into the multiple billions now, I'm sure.

01:35:04   It's got to be.

01:35:04   But like they showed that one a lot in the trailers

01:35:07   and it looked very Game of Thrones-y and like lots of expansive

01:35:11   like scenes and lots of CGI.

01:35:13   Like epic, like, you know, like it just feels huge.

01:35:16   I think it'll be cool to see.

01:35:19   Yeah.

01:35:20   And like he's another example of like a guy in a very, very, very successful

01:35:24   Superhero movie making a show they had like they had Captain America just sitting there didn't even bring him on stage

01:35:30   Like yeah, he was there right? He was watching out for Nazis. He was he was busy. That's true

01:35:35   Oh, by the way, remember my risky pick of them all coming out and doing that photo

01:35:38   Yeah

01:35:39   So close they published a photo that they took in the morning with all the people that they brought in

01:35:44   So close to getting that one. Well, it was your non graded pick. I think that's it non graded pick. That's it. That's it

01:35:50   Cool. Well, I think that I think that does it there's been a lot going on. It's been a very busy March

01:35:56   But now we're at the end of it because April is just around the corner, which is hard to believe

01:36:02   If you want to find links to the stuff we talked about and most importantly links to our live show at WWDC

01:36:09   Look in the show notes in the app

01:36:12   You're listening to this in or on the website relay.fm slash connected slash

01:36:18   While you're there, you can send us an email with any follow-up or feedback.

01:36:24   You can do that on Twitter as well.

01:36:26   Federico is there as vitici, V-I-T-I-C-C-I.

01:36:30   Federico of course is the editor-in-chief of maxstories.net.

01:36:34   If you're not reading that every day, I just don't know what you're doing with your life,

01:36:38   honestly.

01:36:39   You can follow Myke on Twitter as @imyke.

01:36:42   Myke is the host of a bunch of shows here at Relay FM.

01:36:45   So if you like connected, if you like Myke's beautiful voice and his excellent thoughts

01:36:49   in the world, there's other stuff that you would like just as much as you like connected.

01:36:53   You can follow me on Twitter as ISMH. And I write about performers over on 512 pixels.net.

01:37:00   I'd like to thank our sponsors this week, Luna display away and Squarespace

01:37:05   until next week. Gentlemen say goodbye. Cheerio.