Connected

00:00:00 ◼   ► (upbeat music)

00:00:02 ◼   ► - Hello and welcome to Connected episode 223.

00:00:11 ◼   ► It is brought to you this week by our fine sponsors,

00:00:14 ◼   ► Pingdom, Luna Display, and StoryWorth.

00:00:17 ◼   ► I'm your host, Stephen Hackett,

00:00:18 ◼   ► and I'm joined by my two extremely talented

00:00:21 ◼   ► and intelligent co-hosts.

00:00:22 ◼   ► I have Federico Vittucci, how are you?

00:00:24 ◼   ► - Hi, that's a nice compliment, thank you.

00:00:27 ◼   ► How are you?

00:00:28 ◼   ► - Yeah, you guys are the best.

00:00:29 ◼   ► I love doing this every week with you.

00:00:30 ◼   ► I'm just excited to be together.

00:00:32 ◼   ► - Oh, that's so, that's so, oh.

00:00:34 ◼   ► - And we got Myke, who's just whatever.

00:00:37 ◼   ► - Whoa. - Hey, Myke.

00:00:38 ◼   ► - Whoa. (laughing)

00:00:39 ◼   ► - He's not extremely intelligent and talented.

00:00:43 ◼   ► He's your co-founder.

00:00:44 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:00:45 ◼   ► - And that's why he feels this way about me.

00:00:47 ◼   ► We have to work together every day.

00:00:49 ◼   ► - Yeah, no, Myke's awesome as well.

00:00:51 ◼   ► I can't choose between the two of you.

00:00:53 ◼   ► It's like choosing between children.

00:00:56 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:00:56 ◼   ► - Or iPads.

00:00:58 ◼   ► Should we talk about that?

00:01:00 ◼   ► How many iPad Pros are in your house, Federico?

00:01:02 ◼   ► No, I don't want to talk about it today.

00:01:04 ◼   ► So let's move on to follow up.

00:01:07 ◼   ► Talk about that later.

00:01:08 ◼   ► So yes, follow up.

00:01:10 ◼   ► Last week we spoke about a mystery battery case that Federico found but doesn't seem

00:01:15 ◼   ► to exist anywhere else.

00:01:17 ◼   ► No it did, remember?

00:01:18 ◼   ► I found it after great effort.

00:01:21 ◼   ► At a different name or something?

00:01:24 ◼   ► So Myke, what's going on with this battery?

00:01:26 ◼   ► Why are we still talking about this?

00:01:27 ◼   ► I was I said last week it's like who the frick is that am I like I was I get a

00:01:32 ◼   ► little nervous with battery technology in general let alone for some rando

00:01:36 ◼   ► company I've never heard of who's selling an unfindable product on Amazon

00:01:39 ◼   ► so phantom wrote in to say that zmi is a subsidiary of Xiaomi okay so now I feel

00:01:46 ◼   ► better about it who's phantom there's that was their name on Twitter okay

00:01:51 ◼   ► There's the person from the opera.

00:01:53 ◼   ► So I have mine here actually. It arrived. It's really heavy.

00:02:01 ◼   ► Although actually this is the second one because I ordered one and then I got an email from Amazon

00:02:06 ◼   ► and they're just like... It got damaged beyond delivery.

00:02:10 ◼   ► I was like "what the hell happened to that battery?"

00:02:12 ◼   ► What does that mean?

00:02:13 ◼   ► It was kind of scary. It's kind of just like "no".

00:02:17 ◼   ► Like I can only assume like it exploded or something.

00:02:21 ◼   ► It's like, you don't want to see what happened.

00:02:27 ◼   ► You don't want to see the van it was in.

00:02:29 ◼   ► Well, you can see the van.

00:02:32 ◼   ► Yeah, if you just look out the window, you'll see it.

00:02:36 ◼   ► Oh my god.

00:02:37 ◼   ► Okay.

00:02:38 ◼   ► So I mean, that's a that's a good sign.

00:02:40 ◼   ► I mean, Xiaomi is a popular company.

00:02:42 ◼   ► We have some important news, guys, really important news.

00:02:46 ◼   ► a new AirPods case out, but it's not the one that you really wanted or were excited about.

00:02:55 ◼   ► Were you all punked by this headline like I was? Like, "New AirPods case? Oh, they finally

00:03:00 ◼   ► did it, huh?" Nope. Nope. It's something else completely. Apple is selling this on their

00:03:06 ◼   ► website. It's called the Catalyst case. It's a third party protective case for the case

00:03:14 ◼   ► of your AirPods. Double case. It's basically just a rubber thing that you put over it,

00:03:20 ◼   ► which makes it drop-protect, drop-proof and waterproof. They call it military-grade. And

00:03:25 ◼   ► then you basically just have this like rubber skin with a carabiner on the end. It's to

00:03:32 ◼   ► make your AirPods more extreme for extreme lifestyle stuff. These people that buy military-grade

00:03:39 ◼   ► accessories for iPhones and iPads. I see them all the time. What do they actually do with

00:03:44 ◼   ► their devices? Do they just like throw them to the ground for some reason?

00:03:48 ◼   ► I think a lot, especially the cases, are in construction, right? I think a lot of people

00:03:52 ◼   ► that work in construction get those cases.

00:03:54 ◼   ► My parents are in construction, they both carry them. My dad dropped his iPhone 6 like

00:03:58 ◼   ► off a house. Totally fine. This OtterBox case, it takes like two people to move it. It's

00:04:05 ◼   ► It's like the biggest thing I've ever seen.

00:04:07 ◼   ► I could see that or, you know, the AirPod case has a funny habit of like coming open

00:04:12 ◼   ► if you drop it.

00:04:13 ◼   ► So I told y'all this story on iMessage, but I'll share it with the audience.

00:04:17 ◼   ► A couple weeks ago, I was at the gym, I was using my AirPods, and then I went to the locker

00:04:22 ◼   ► room and I dropped, I sort of like dropped my AirPods like in the bathroom part of the

00:04:27 ◼   ► locker room.

00:04:29 ◼   ► And the case opened and the AirPods went skittering across the floor in like a men's locker room

00:04:34 ◼   ► and oh yeah it was very much a situation like when Jerry Seinfeld like the

00:04:40 ◼   ► shoelace touches the floor and he's like well that one's done like I had this

00:04:43 ◼   ► thought staring at my air pods on the floor is like do I just leave them like

00:04:48 ◼   ► I just buy new ones like what I do here and so they they were cleaned thoroughly

00:04:54 ◼   ► and because I couldn't justify replacing them but this would have saved me from

00:04:59 ◼   ► that and it would had a cool carabiner which everyone looks cool with stuff

00:05:02 ◼   ► clip to their belt. So yeah, that's true. This is for me. Do you feel like people who

00:05:07 ◼   ► buy military grade accessories like to always repeat that they have military grade accessories?

00:05:13 ◼   ► I feel I feel like people who buy them like to say that for some reason. It's like, oh,

00:05:18 ◼   ► you see my phone? It's military grade. It's military grade. You get one of those thick

00:05:23 ◼   ► laptops that's like, you know, bomb proof. It's a whole it's a whole scene. So anyways,

00:05:27 ◼   ► is here if this fits your needs like I could we're making fun of it but I can't

00:05:32 ◼   ► see a use like if you are doing you know long-distance running or something like

00:05:37 ◼   ► there are places where this makes sense so I'm glad that there is an option for

00:05:41 ◼   ► people who need this I wonder though if like people in these scenarios if the

00:05:46 ◼   ► AirPods are even the right choice for them in the first place though I mean

00:05:51 ◼   ► are there like waterproof Bluetooth headphones probably no probably but the

00:05:56 ◼   ► AirPods still aren't waterproof are they? Right? No that's what I'm saying like I

00:06:00 ◼   ► would feel something like maybe the Beats X might be more might be better

00:06:06 ◼   ► right now is that more kind of like attached to your body than the AirPods

00:06:09 ◼   ► are. I don't know. Let us know I guess if this is for you. If you buy this send us a

00:06:15 ◼   ► review. Yes. Complete with drop test obviously and underwater test so it can

00:06:21 ◼   ► be complete. We have a birthday among us today. The Mac Pro turns five.

00:06:28 ◼   ► Is this something worth celebrating? Yeah, I don't know if it is. That's the point of

00:06:34 ◼   ► talking about it Federico. It's very sad. It is sad. What's really sort of brutal on the Mac rumors article, the

00:06:45 ◼   ► have a graphic with the Mac with the trash can and the five and then

00:06:49 ◼   ► underneath it is Mac Pro 2013 to present it's like oh that was such a long time

00:06:53 ◼   ► ago years ago yeah but it's still there you can still buy it so in the Apple

00:07:01 ◼   ► store I saw one last week I can't believe you can still buy it it's

00:07:04 ◼   ► ridiculous I understand why but I also can't believe you can still buy it take

00:07:09 ◼   ► it off the floor like just don't have it on the floor of the Apple Store like if

00:07:12 ◼   ► If you know about the Mac Pro, you can buy one,

00:07:14 ◼   ► but you shouldn't be able to walk in an Apple store

00:07:16 ◼   ► and be like, oh, that would meet my needs,

00:07:18 ◼   ► because it's not going to.

00:07:19 ◼   ► - It is wild that the cheese grater

00:07:22 ◼   ► lasted from 2006 to 2012, right, apparently,

00:07:26 ◼   ► saying in this Mac Roomers article,

00:07:28 ◼   ► this Mac Pro will get that old before they replace it.

00:07:32 ◼   ► - And the cheese grater had four revisions.

00:07:35 ◼   ► Trashcan has had zero revisions, quite sad.

00:07:39 ◼   ► - And was universally loved.

00:07:41 ◼   ► It's just funny. It's funny how things happened.

00:07:43 ◼   ► I feel like these past five years have moved quicker than those five years did, though.

00:07:48 ◼   ► Maybe. I saw this deal go by on The Verge today and it just felt like something that was so good that I wanted to just mention it on the show.

00:07:55 ◼   ► You can buy an iPad on Amazon in the U.S. right now, the original iPad, a 32 gigabyte model for $229, which is $100 off.

00:08:06 ◼   ► And if you're looking for the 128 gigabyte,

00:08:09 ◼   ► then you can get it for 349, which is $80 off.

00:08:13 ◼   ► That's just crazy.

00:08:14 ◼   ► - And you mean the plain iPad, not,

00:08:19 ◼   ► you said original, but, yeah, the regular.

00:08:22 ◼   ► - I mean like version one, that's only for you.

00:08:24 ◼   ► That deal is only for you. - Just wanted to clarify,

00:08:26 ◼   ► because I was all over that deal, honestly.

00:08:29 ◼   ► - Maybe standard is a better phrase, right?

00:08:33 ◼   ► Standard. - Yes.

00:08:34 ◼   ► There you go.

00:08:36 ◼   ► That's a good deal.

00:08:37 ◼   ► My kids have one of these coming at Christmas

00:08:39 ◼   ► to replace their aging and very sad iPad Mini 2.

00:08:44 ◼   ► So, it's a good deal and they're great tablets

00:08:48 ◼   ► for family members.

00:08:49 ◼   ► Like, if someone just wants to use it

00:08:51 ◼   ► for like reading comics in bed,

00:08:53 ◼   ► this is the one they should buy.

00:08:54 ◼   ► Anyways, our next episode is going to be our year in review.

00:08:59 ◼   ► We do this every year.

00:09:01 ◼   ► This will be the 28th year in a row we've done this,

00:09:05 ◼   ► I think, where we go through the year of news,

00:09:08 ◼   ► talk about what stories ended up being important,

00:09:10 ◼   ► what stories ended up not being important,

00:09:11 ◼   ► how we feel about them now.

00:09:13 ◼   ► We're working on that document.

00:09:15 ◼   ► If you have story suggestions,

00:09:18 ◼   ► you can tweet with the hashtag connectedyear

00:09:21 ◼   ► and we'll see that.

00:09:22 ◼   ► And that episode will be out December 26th,

00:09:24 ◼   ► the day after Christmas.

00:09:26 ◼   ► And it'll be a great way to escape your family

00:09:28 ◼   ► for a few hours and listen to us talk about

00:09:31 ◼   ► when the HomePod came out in February.

00:09:32 ◼   ► - Yeah, I started going through the list

00:09:34 ◼   ► as predicted there is a bunch of stuff that I have literally no memory of which is brilliant.

00:09:43 ◼   ► So that's my favorite thing about that.

00:09:46 ◼   ► I'm scrolling through it now, did you know that the product red iPhone 8 was released

00:09:49 ◼   ► in April this year?

00:09:50 ◼   ► Hey, spoiler!

00:09:51 ◼   ► I thought that was like...

00:09:52 ◼   ► Come on!

00:09:53 ◼   ► I thought it was three years ago.

00:09:54 ◼   ► It just won!

00:09:55 ◼   ► This is the hot content that people are going to get on the year in review episode, don't

00:09:58 ◼   ► give it away now.

00:09:59 ◼   ► You can skip over the iPhone 8 chapter.

00:10:03 ◼   ► Yeah, you can get rid of that one. Alright, should we take a break?

00:10:07 ◼   ► No. Yeah. No, we shouldn't.

00:10:09 ◼   ► Alright, what do you want to do instead?

00:10:11 ◼   ► No, you should. You totally should.

00:10:13 ◼   ► We're gonna pass over now to Federico Fittucci, who has an important special report, which he needed to interrupt the show.

00:10:19 ◼   ► Yes, I have a special message in that I'm pleased to announce that Myke Hurley will now thank our friends at Pingdom.

00:10:26 ◼   ► Pingdom are the company who make website performance monitoring super easy.

00:10:29 ◼   ► Everybody loves websites that load quickly, and Pingdom are helping to keep your favourite

00:10:33 ◼   ► sites online and running smooth.

00:10:35 ◼   ► Sites like Netflix and Buzzfeed, Slack and Relay FM.

00:10:39 ◼   ► These are just a selection of the wonderful, powerful companies that trust Pingdom to take

00:10:43 ◼   ► care of their website monitoring every single day.

00:10:46 ◼   ► Websites are so complicated, things can break all the time.

00:10:49 ◼   ► But Pingdom can monitor any site transaction that users would have.

00:10:52 ◼   ► So for example, it's not just "is my website up or down?"

00:10:56 ◼   ► It could be user registration, so logins or checkouts.

00:10:59 ◼   ► It can monitor all of these things independently.

00:11:01 ◼   ► And if one or any of them break, it can tell exactly as well.

00:11:05 ◼   ► You can customize the alert. So who it will tell is up to you.

00:11:07 ◼   ► So if, like, for example, the login function breaks

00:11:10 ◼   ► and you just need to tell Mary who fixes the login functionality,

00:11:14 ◼   ► you can set it up that it will tell her immediately.

00:11:16 ◼   ► It's super awesome. Pingdom cares about the users of your website

00:11:20 ◼   ► having the smoothest site experience possible.

00:11:22 ◼   ► So if disaster strikes, you will be the first to know after them.

00:11:26 ◼   ► their first, your second. But you won't be 20th after the 20th person that tries to visit

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00:11:35 ◼   ► and then they will take care of the rest. Go to Pingdom.com/RelayFM and get a 14 day

00:11:40 ◼   ► free trial with no credit card required. When you sign up, use the code 'Connected' at checkout

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00:11:49 ◼   ► this show and RelayFM.

00:11:52 ◼   ► So on last week's, after last week's episode, the three of us were talking and I think we

00:12:00 ◼   ► were, I still had Amazon tabs open or something looking for that battery pack and we started

00:12:05 ◼   ► going down a weird and wonderful rabbit hole of peculiar iPad stands that exist.

00:12:12 ◼   ► By the way, this is why you should listen live to our show because weird things sometimes

00:12:17 ◼   ► happen either in the middle or afterwards.

00:12:20 ◼   ► What time do we record?

00:12:21 ◼   ► record on Wednesdays at what is it something Eastern time? 1 p.m. Eastern

00:12:27 ◼   ► there you go that's relay.fm/live. Or 7 p.m. Italian time which is the best time

00:12:32 ◼   ► or 6 p.m. in London or 12 p.m. Central time so all of those 10 a.m. Pacific time

00:12:41 ◼   ► okay and or 9 a.m. Hawaiian time yes or or yeah or 11 p.m. on the moon also

00:12:50 ◼   ► Yeah, you know what? I remember Stephen talking about that on liftoff once.

00:12:56 ◼   ► I knew I shouldn't have said that. Yes, please tell me how time works on the moon.

00:13:02 ◼   ► Yeah, actually, go on. Tell us how time works on the moon.

00:13:05 ◼   ► I think missions always use GMT now. I think that's where everybody's staying.

00:13:10 ◼   ► That's a boring answer.

00:13:11 ◼   ► Yeah, I was hoping he was going to say like, oh, it moves at half the speed and then twice

00:13:16 ◼   ► the speed after the sun rises.

00:13:18 ◼   ► Are you sure you know about science?

00:13:20 ◼   ► I don't think he does.

00:13:21 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:13:22 ◼   ► Maybe you should listen to a podcast about it.

00:13:24 ◼   ► Yeah, I think it'll probably be good.

00:13:26 ◼   ► Well, what Steven does know about, though, is weird iPad stands.

00:13:30 ◼   ► There is a link in the show notes to some truly bizarre, like, but I'm almost kind of

00:13:34 ◼   ► happy that they exist.

00:13:35 ◼   ► The top one is the one that upsets me the most because it looks like an iPad with legs

00:13:41 ◼   ► that's going to kill the woman that's looking at it.

00:13:43 ◼   ► It's very, very, very upsetting.

00:13:45 ◼   ► But it looks like one of the monsters from Half-Life.

00:13:48 ◼   ► Yes.

00:13:49 ◼   ► It does actually. I have Half Life on the Mind recently. I've just finished playing

00:13:53 ◼   ► it for the first time. So yeah, it is super creepy. I figured it's just worth putting

00:13:58 ◼   ► in the show notes because it's weird and fun.

00:14:01 ◼   ► My Amazon suggestions are ruined forever.

00:14:05 ◼   ► Do you remember when we did that after we spent 20 minutes looking for VIP wristbands

00:14:11 ◼   ► for the live tour?

00:14:13 ◼   ► Also bad.

00:14:14 ◼   ► Yeah, very bad.

00:14:15 ◼   ► Yep, I got some iPad stands here at the bottom of amazon.com.

00:14:18 ◼   ► I hope that you bought the Jet Tech Floor tablet stand with height adjustable gooseneck

00:14:25 ◼   ► and toilet paper roll holder.

00:14:27 ◼   ► Isn't that the worst thing in the world, by the way?

00:14:31 ◼   ► I hope that you asked your family for this gift for Christmas.

00:14:35 ◼   ► Can you imagine walking into a friend's bathroom and seeing this thing?

00:14:39 ◼   ► Right?

00:14:40 ◼   ► I would ask so many questions.

00:14:45 ◼   ► Like look, everybody uses their devices in the bathroom, but nobody wants to have to

00:14:50 ◼   ► be faced with that evidence when they walk into a bathroom. Right? You want to forget,

00:14:55 ◼   ► you want to not think about the fact that people do this. You don't want to see an iPad

00:15:00 ◼   ► that's just stationed in there. You don't want to see that. It's bad. And also, like,

00:15:06 ◼   ► just why does it have a toilet paper holder on it? Why does it have that? Like why? That's

00:15:10 ◼   ► the worst part. Why does it have that?

00:15:12 ◼   ► Yeah, but who doesn't already have one that then buys this instead? Like, "Oh, I need

00:15:18 ◼   ► a toilet roll holder. I know what I'll get."

00:15:20 ◼   ► Maybe if you're building a new house and you think, "I already have this stand, I might

00:15:24 ◼   ► as well save a couple bucks."

00:15:25 ◼   ► You want to get the sweet, sweet JetTech deal, you know?

00:15:29 ◼   ► That's right. It's only 20 bucks.

00:15:33 ◼   ► I hate it.

00:15:34 ◼   ► I'm thinking, "I'm going to buy this for Myke."

00:15:35 ◼   ► I will return it to Amazon.

00:15:41 ◼   ► He does have a mini golden toilet already as an award.

00:15:46 ◼   ► Oh yeah, this goes really well with that.

00:15:48 ◼   ► It goes well together.

00:15:51 ◼   ► What could I use the toilet roll paper holder thing for instead?

00:15:57 ◼   ► Like if I put that somewhere else in my house, what else could go on it?

00:16:00 ◼   ► Like bananas?

00:16:01 ◼   ► Could I hang a bunch of bananas from it?

00:16:02 ◼   ► A bunch of cables.

00:16:03 ◼   ► I could hang a bunch of dongles.

00:16:05 ◼   ► That's where all the dongles could hang.

00:16:07 ◼   ► It could be the dongle holder.

00:16:08 ◼   ► I could just get a little pouch that I just hang off and I can just, you know,

00:16:12 ◼   ► just a little dongle duffle can just hang off the thing.

00:16:14 ◼   ► Please don't buy me this.

00:16:17 ◼   ► Please don't buy me this.

00:16:19 ◼   ► Please buy this.

00:16:21 ◼   ► Please don't buy me. I don't want it.

00:16:22 ◼   ► Please don't do it.

00:16:23 ◼   ► OK, here's the thing, right?

00:16:25 ◼   ► If you start this, how bad could this end up for you?

00:16:29 ◼   ► Right? Like for all of us, if we start buying each other joke presents, right?

00:16:33 ◼   ► How bad could that end up being?

00:16:36 ◼   ► It is not on Amazon.co.uk so you seem to be spared.

00:16:40 ◼   ► I'm pleased that that's the only reason.

00:16:43 ◼   ► Let's see, I'm just going to search "iPad stand toilet paper".

00:16:46 ◼   ► Just stop searching for it, because I don't want it.

00:16:49 ◼   ► Oh, I found one that's worse.

00:16:51 ◼   ► I found one that replaces your toilet paper stand on your wall,

00:16:54 ◼   ► and has a shelf on top of it for your iPhone to sit on.

00:16:58 ◼   ► That's not good. I'll put it in the chat room.

00:17:01 ◼   ► This is why people should listen live for this exclusive call.

00:17:05 ◼   ► What is that for? Like it's just a tray. Is that a Qi charger though? I don't think so.

00:17:11 ◼   ► Yeah you see now if that was a Qi charger I'd consider it but like just as a like a little shelf

00:17:16 ◼   ► it's no good. That's no good. Somebody needs to make that. The best the best part about it is the

00:17:23 ◼   ► last product picture has like baby wipes and some flowers on it so it's like uh you can't put your

00:17:28 ◼   ► phone on it but you can also put you know regular human things on it. Wait a second does this iPhone

00:17:33 ◼   ► color even exists. It's bright pink. It looks like the iPhone 6s, the pink, but way brighter

00:17:43 ◼   ► than it actually shipped as. Yeah, this is now rose gold. I like how that's your complaint.

00:17:49 ◼   ► You could replace your toilet paper. This person has three, a number three on their

00:17:55 ◼   ► settings and 133 on their messages. How could you get three alerts in settings? And one

00:18:02 ◼   ► on photos. So settings could be Apple Pay, software update, two-factor authentication.

00:18:11 ◼   ► Photos could be a shared album at a hundred and something messages, I have no idea. It's

00:18:16 ◼   ► a very busy Amazon server. A group chat with YouTube can quite frequently get into that

00:18:21 ◼   ► range yeah I had like 2,700 I miss Myke do you would you prefer the world well

00:18:33 ◼   ► wall mounted self-adhesive bathroom people selling steel holder or the stand

00:18:39 ◼   ► with the integrated toilet roll holder but no I don't want any of them I want I

00:18:44 ◼   ► want the standard or G charger that's what I want well I just figure if you're

00:18:50 ◼   ► going to put if you're going to give me a shelf a specific shelf for my phone I

00:18:54 ◼   ► want it to be useful in some way although the problem is where would you

00:18:58 ◼   ► plug it in in the bathroom that's the issue right yeah this is this is not

00:19:05 ◼   ► gonna work out I mean an extension cord draped over a bathtub never had anybody

00:19:10 ◼   ► like anybody died because of that so can we talk about MacBook Air storage

00:19:15 ◼   ► options now instead please? Yes I have many things to talk about in this tiny

00:19:21 ◼   ► topic. I need to share a little bit my wife's computer history for a

00:19:26 ◼   ► second. She had an original like first-gen one port 12 inch MacBook. I

00:19:32 ◼   ► bought it basically when it came out for her to replace an aging 11 inch MacBook

00:19:37 ◼   ► Air. She really likes small notebooks and the MacBook was fine but you know it's

00:19:41 ◼   ► now three years old almost four years old and was you know showing its age and

00:19:45 ◼   ► struggling you know in photos and some other things she does a lot. The MacBook's not super

00:19:50 ◼   ► powerful. And about this time I was thinking about replacing the MacBook. A friend of mine

00:19:55 ◼   ► had a 2013 iMac that he was basically he basically just gave me he was like getting rid of it and

00:20:02 ◼   ► I thought you know this this thing will run Mojave. I can put an SSD in it. There's a link in

00:20:08 ◼   ► the show notes, like me walking through putting a solid-state drive in it. But

00:20:15 ◼   ► that 2013 iMac, it runs Mojave pretty well, but is slowly developing some like

00:20:23 ◼   ► really weird, like I walked by the other day and the screen was off and the fan

00:20:27 ◼   ► was just going like full tilt and had like hard power it off. And it's just

00:20:32 ◼   ► like, it's doing some weird stuff and it's older and I put SSD in it and like it

00:20:37 ◼   ► checked out okay, but I'm just I was sort of thinking as like, well, if this machine ends up

00:20:41 ◼   ► kicking it, because it's, you know, aging, what would I get her? Like, what would she want? And

00:20:49 ◼   ► she kind of wants to go back to a notebook. And I was like, well, I'll look at the new MacBook Air,

00:20:53 ◼   ► it's more powerful than the MacBook by a healthy margin. She doesn't really need a MacBook Pro,

00:20:58 ◼   ► and I want to pay for a MacBook Pro. So I'll look at the MacBook Air. And this is when I discovered

00:21:03 ◼   ► something infuriating about this product. As we know, the CPU is the same across all of them.

00:21:11 ◼   ► I can understand that, whatever. You can adjust the RAM, you can go from 8GB to 16GB,

00:21:19 ◼   ► which is really nice to have 16GB of RAM on a MacBook Air. I think that's a good thing.

00:21:24 ◼   ► It's $200 to go to 16GB of RAM from 8GB. It's a pretty good deal, at least in Apple's world.

00:21:31 ◼   ► But then you go down to storage.

00:21:33 ◼   ► So the default is 128 on the $1,200 one.

00:21:41 ◼   ► And you can take that to 256 for $200.

00:21:45 ◼   ► You can take it to 512 gigabytes of storage for 400.

00:21:49 ◼   ► Or you can take it to a terabyte and a half for $1,200.

00:21:53 ◼   ► You can double the price of your MacBook Air

00:21:56 ◼   ► by putting a terabyte and a half SSD in it.

00:21:59 ◼   ► So I'm looking at this.

00:22:00 ◼   ► And I'm sort of annoyed that there's not a terabyte option

00:22:03 ◼   ► for like $600.

00:22:04 ◼   ► And then I look and see how much free space

00:22:07 ◼   ► she has on her iMac.

00:22:09 ◼   ► Now I put a terabyte SSD in her iMac.

00:22:11 ◼   ► And she is using about 400 gigs of space.

00:22:16 ◼   ► It's like, she could live on a 512 SSD,

00:22:20 ◼   ► but it's nice to have some breathing room.

00:22:22 ◼   ► And she works on these big projects sometimes

00:22:24 ◼   ► where she needs more disk space for a while,

00:22:26 ◼   ► and that was an issue on the MacBook.

00:22:28 ◼   ► But I cannot, I cannot justify $1200 for an SSD upgrade on a machine that costs $1200.

00:22:36 ◼   ► That is insane. Why is it so expensive?

00:22:40 ◼   ► Well, it's it's not only that, but why is there not a step in between 512 and a terabyte and a half?

00:22:46 ◼   ► Yeah, well, I mean, I would understand why there wouldn't be if the prices were more sensible.

00:22:50 ◼   ► Right. But considering it's, you know, you're paying $400 for every 512 gigabytes, right?

00:22:58 ◼   ► like then you should probably have at least a one terabyte or like you know or

00:23:03 ◼   ► just something but yeah it just is too much right it's way too much it's really

00:23:08 ◼   ► frustrating and so I don't we're not doing anything at this point with this

00:23:12 ◼   ► machine like her iMac is I'm just gonna kind of keep an eye on it but I think at

00:23:16 ◼   ► some point she will end up with a with a MacBook Air and it's like I'm gonna do

00:23:22 ◼   ► the 512 and it's like I guess have an external SSD when she like she works on

00:23:27 ◼   ► these big family photo projects, I don't know.

00:23:30 ◼   ► But it was just sort of surprising to me

00:23:34 ◼   ► to see that there wasn't a terabyte option.

00:23:36 ◼   ► But I guess that is what it is.

00:23:39 ◼   ► But a little frustrating if you're looking to buy one

00:23:41 ◼   ► and you have 400 gigs worth of stuff.

00:23:44 ◼   ► - I mean, is there no other machine

00:23:46 ◼   ► that would make more sense?

00:23:47 ◼   ► Would a MacBook Pro not be better for price at that point?

00:23:50 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, I think at this point,

00:23:53 ◼   ► I would avoid the MacBook Escape

00:23:55 ◼   ► because it has the old keyboard,

00:23:56 ◼   ► like it hasn't been updated and it's actually a little bit better than the

00:23:59 ◼   ► MacBook Air in some ways but then the Air is Touch ID which is nice. Still has two

00:24:04 ◼   ► ports but you know looking at an escape to spec it the same so say use the

00:24:11 ◼   ► stock CPU which is much better but 16 gigs of RAM and 512 gigabytes of storage

00:24:16 ◼   ► is $1899 and I think the... let me see what the Air is going to be real quick so I

00:24:21 ◼   ► can be accurate. The Air with its default CPU and 16 gigabytes of RAM and 512

00:24:31 ◼   ► gigabytes of storage is, waiting for the page to load, come on Safari, $17.99 so 100

00:24:40 ◼   ► more dollars to do the MacBook escape spec the same way but there is a terabyte

00:24:45 ◼   ► option on the MacBook escape but I don't think I want to do that generation

00:24:49 ◼   ► keyboard. So I don't know what I'm going to do. I'm hoping that by the time I need to do something

00:24:55 ◼   ► for her that the escape is updated or goes away and forces my hand. But there's sort of some weird

00:25:04 ◼   ► options on these machines right now. The Mac just feels like for so many people

00:25:12 ◼   ► right now and has done for most of this year, but it did not get cleared up after October.

00:25:19 ◼   ► Unless and again, I think I said I think we said this recently unless you're buying a Mac mini

00:25:23 ◼   ► it feels like there is no machine in which you eventually do not come across a

00:25:29 ◼   ► No moment

00:25:32 ◼   ► You're like, okay the Mac will care would work. Oh wait, it's like two computer

00:25:37 ◼   ► You may as well just buy a two of them and then she can use one for web browsing and one for

00:25:43 ◼   ► Like doing her big projects, you know

00:25:46 ◼   ► I could do the silver one for the day MacBook Air and the space gray one for the night MacBook Air like a joke

00:25:51 ◼   ► but like that's

00:25:53 ◼   ► You know, why not just you know, I guess it's not the same storage size

00:25:56 ◼   ► I paid for it at this point if I put a terabyte and a half in it. That's so

00:26:00 ◼   ► A terabyte and a half is more than I have in my iMac Pro by the way

00:26:05 ◼   ► That would bother me forever. Give me a terabyte option Apple. It's all I want. I would like to now bring a

00:26:12 ◼   ► topic to the floor that I am interested in. I don't know if you guys are interested in it.

00:26:17 ◼   ► Ultrasonic fingerprint readers. So I saw this recently, Qualcomm did this big event where they

00:26:25 ◼   ► showed off the Snapdragon 855. It was one of these funny things to me where like they did this thing

00:26:30 ◼   ► in Hawaii and brought out a bunch of reporters and YouTubers and it's just like okay like I don't

00:26:36 ◼   ► even really understand it like Qualcomm don't sell these products to people like they sell them

00:26:42 ◼   ► to phone companies right but like it does feel like from watching a bunch of youtube channels

00:26:48 ◼   ► that like you know it's important to have again everybody knows like if you're in the android

00:26:52 ◼   ► world you know what snapdragon you've got right like it there is some importance to it but it's

00:26:56 ◼   ► just kind of funny that like qualcomm don't actually have to sell the merits of this platform

00:27:00 ◼   ► to technology YouTubers, but they did anyway.

00:27:04 ◼   ► But so they are developing an ultrasonic under display fingerprint sensor

00:27:09 ◼   ► that will work with this 855 that works with wet and dirty fingers.

00:27:14 ◼   ► So this is becoming a trend now, like the OnePlus 6T is probably

00:27:19 ◼   ► the most popular phone I think available right now that has this feature in it

00:27:22 ◼   ► or a version of this where there is a fingerprint sensor underneath the display.

00:27:27 ◼   ► Right. And it shines like a light on your finger.

00:27:30 ◼   ► and then it lets you in. I think we've spoken about these before.

00:27:33 ◼   ► So looking at stuff like this from Qualcomm,

00:27:36 ◼   ► it seems like in the Android world, they are doubling down

00:27:41 ◼   ► on fingerprint reading technology. Like a bunch of phones have

00:27:46 ◼   ► some kind of facial recognition as well as a fingerprint reader.

00:27:51 ◼   ► And I just kind of figured that the fingerprint readers will go away

00:27:54 ◼   ► because everyone will follow what Apple's doing.

00:27:57 ◼   ► but it seems like still that there is more technology and more like advancements of technology in different fingerprint readers

00:28:05 ◼   ► and I just wondered what you guys thought about that. Does the idea of a fingerprint reader under a display interest you?

00:28:15 ◼   ► Not me, personally, because I think I'm fine with Face ID, but I can tell you that people

00:28:27 ◼   ► like my girlfriend or like all of my friends who upgraded to an iPhone X or XS, they would

00:28:34 ◼   ► love for Touch ID to be back as like an addition to Face ID. Because like a common criticism

00:28:41 ◼   ► that I hear is that Face ID is less reliable than Touch ID. This is something that Sylvia

00:28:47 ◼   ► wanted me to bring up on the show for a long time, so this is my chance to tell her that

00:28:53 ◼   ► I officially complained about it. She's having so many issues with Face ID and so much trouble

00:29:01 ◼   ► trying to understand what is the ideal position for holding the phone when I'm like... I just

00:29:10 ◼   ► woke up in the morning for example and unlocking the phone never works. And she's using a 10S,

00:29:16 ◼   ► so in theory she has the improved generation of Face ID or whatever. And she just doesn't...

00:29:25 ◼   ► and I see it with my own eyes, like I see the problems that she has with notifications

00:29:30 ◼   ► not expanding on the lock screen. That was a feature that she really wanted to have,

00:29:35 ◼   ► the notification privacy thing, but it's not working well for her. And we did the training

00:29:41 ◼   ► again and I made sure not to, you know, sort of confuse Face ID by trying to unlock her

00:29:47 ◼   ► phone with my face, so it's, we're following all of the recommendations that Apple has.

00:29:54 ◼   ► But it's still not as reliable as she would like it to be. And I think I don't see these

00:29:59 ◼   ► problems because I mostly... I do see these problems sometimes with the iPhone, but not

00:30:08 ◼   ► as frequently as Sylvia, and on the iPad I use my iPad mostly in a stationary environment,

00:30:15 ◼   ► you know, at a desk, so in that case Face ID is more reliable. But I think it would

00:30:21 ◼   ► be interesting to imagine like multiple options for biometric authentication. I think it would

00:30:29 ◼   ► be nice to have a solution where it automatically switches between them. It doesn't ask you,

00:30:38 ◼   ► it doesn't bring up a list of like, "Use your face or use your finger, it just works depending

00:30:42 ◼   ► on whether you're touching the screen or looking at the screen." But I don't think if Apple

00:30:48 ◼   ► likes the idea of adding this kind of complexity to the security chip of iOS devices. But yeah,

00:30:54 ◼   ► I've heard this complaint from so many people, like friends that come up to me and are like,

00:31:00 ◼   ► "Wasn't Face ID supposed to be better than Touch ID?"

00:31:03 ◼   ► And it's funny that you bring up this topic, Myke, because it fits quite well with the

00:31:08 ◼   ► things my friends have been telling me for the past few months.

00:31:12 ◼   ► It is not surprising to me that there are people that are having problems with it.

00:31:17 ◼   ► Again, I think I'm in the camp of "it works pretty much all the time for me," and if you

00:31:23 ◼   ► Nina doesn't complain about her face ID, but it makes sense to me that there would be people

00:31:29 ◼   ► that would have problems in the same way that there were people that had problems with Touch

00:31:32 ◼   ► ID.

00:31:33 ◼   ► But for whatever reason, we just didn't really focus on it as much because I think that there

00:31:38 ◼   ► were maybe less people and probably we're only remembering what Touch ID version 2 was

00:31:44 ◼   ► like, you know, where we kind of haven't gotten to that level yet with face ID and I wonder

00:31:49 ◼   ► like maybe next year if there will be any advancements to the actual hardware

00:31:53 ◼   ► that will make it better for a lot of people. But see I've been thinking about this right like what

00:31:58 ◼   ► do I miss touch id for? Well I miss touch id for unlocking my phone when I haven't got it in front

00:32:05 ◼   ► of my face right which is like you know unlocking my phone as I'm bringing it to my face for example

00:32:10 ◼   ► but the biggest one for me is using Apple Pay. Apple Pay is slower and more clunkier and more

00:32:17 ◼   ► annoying on the iPhone X and and like this is also goes for like purchasing applications

00:32:22 ◼   ► but I don't think an under screen fingerprint reader would help me in any of this because

00:32:30 ◼   ► how would you activate touch ID how would you activate Apple Pay without looking at the display

00:32:37 ◼   ► still right so I think all it's going to do is just you still have to do the same stuff you still

00:32:44 ◼   ► have to have the phone in front of you. Unless Touch ID would be not under the display but

00:32:50 ◼   ► into the button. That would, yeah, that would really, I would like that. I would like that

00:32:55 ◼   ► a lot and there are some Android phones that have done that I think. But yeah, so I would

00:33:01 ◼   ► be up for that and I think that really there could be a way to tell at least that story

00:33:08 ◼   ► but I think it would be really difficult if Apple were like, we have two and you can choose

00:33:13 ◼   ► between them. I don't think that that really matches with the way that they

00:33:18 ◼   ► like to talk about it but like Samsung make it work you know like Samsung have

00:33:22 ◼   ► multiple authentication options it's just choice for the customer like it is

00:33:26 ◼   ► a there is there it does seem to be like an intrinsic benefit in that to me of

00:33:31 ◼   ► like we have these two systems above super secure and you can use whatever

00:33:36 ◼   ► one you want like that feels good to me. Apple lets you choose when you set up a

00:33:42 ◼   ► passcode if you want to have no passcode or four digit passcode or six digit

00:33:46 ◼   ► yeah or one longer or word passcodes yeah I mean why not

00:33:52 ◼   ► and if they're gonna keep charging me over a thousand pounds for a phone I want

00:33:56 ◼   ► it full of all the technology put it all in there well yeah yeah I'm really torn

00:34:04 ◼   ► on this I just don't know how Apple pitches going back to your thumbprint

00:34:08 ◼   ► after they made such a big deal about how secure the face was.

00:34:11 ◼   ► Right, but it's unless it's not back though, right? It's like, oh, we do face ID, which is

00:34:17 ◼   ► amazing. And we have this other new incredible technology, right? Which is, which reads your

00:34:22 ◼   ► fingerprint, but in this new and incredible way. And like A for A, it's now embedded in the screen

00:34:27 ◼   ► or B it's now embedded in the button is like, those both seem more futuristic than the original

00:34:34 ◼   ► touch ID.

00:34:36 ◼   ► They do, but my complaint would just be around like they kind of poo-pooed thumbprint security

00:34:42 ◼   ► when they introduced Face ID. And so they would also need to convince us that it is more secure

00:34:46 ◼   ► than the old Touch ID was, which maybe it would be with this new technology.

00:34:50 ◼   ► Right, but like I could imagine that they would, you would then just say something like,

00:34:54 ◼   ► "Oh, this is incredibly secure. Look how secure." But if you want to be even more secure,

00:34:58 ◼   ► you would use Face ID, right? So it's just a way that you tell it. But I mean, I honestly,

00:35:03 ◼   ► I don't know what I think they would end up doing but it does it's interesting to me that there are

00:35:09 ◼   ► there's still advancements in this technology and that a lot of Apple's competitors are either

00:35:16 ◼   ► sticking just completely completely sticking with with fingerprint verification or adding both

00:35:24 ◼   ► and it just makes me wonder where they'll end up going that was my topic for today.

00:35:29 ◼   ► Alright, let's talk about Luna Display. They are our second sponsor for this episode. Luna Display

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00:37:23 ◼   ► of this show and Relay FM.

00:37:25 ◼   ► So as we spoke about a couple of weeks ago,

00:37:27 ◼   ► Apple Music has made its way out onto the Amazon Echo,

00:37:32 ◼   ► at least in the US.

00:37:33 ◼   ► So you can open the companion app and set it up.

00:37:37 ◼   ► It can be your default music service

00:37:39 ◼   ► on the Echo, which is really nice.

00:37:41 ◼   ► One thing we talked about in that conversation

00:37:43 ◼   ► was how would Apple promote this?

00:37:46 ◼   ► Would they make a big deal of it

00:37:47 ◼   ► or would they sort of just, you know,

00:37:50 ◼   ► kind of just let it be?

00:37:51 ◼   ► And the answer is they're shouting it from the rooftops.

00:37:56 ◼   ► Right, like it's everywhere.

00:37:59 ◼   ► So Federico, you put some of this stuff,

00:38:01 ◼   ► y'all put some of this stuff together on Mac stories.

00:38:03 ◼   ► What's Apple been up to?

00:38:04 ◼   ► - So we wondered last week will Apple actually say

00:38:08 ◼   ► or write the name Alexa anywhere?

00:38:12 ◼   ► And yes, they did multiple times in multiple places.

00:38:15 ◼   ► So the big one is the top story

00:38:20 ◼   ► in the today section of the App Store on iOS.

00:38:23 ◼   ► There's a story that explains what you can do

00:38:26 ◼   ► with the Echo and Apple Music,

00:38:27 ◼   ► how you can set up the integration,

00:38:29 ◼   ► and there's a link to download the Amazon app

00:38:33 ◼   ► to configure this integration with the Echo and Apple Music.

00:38:37 ◼   ► This story is also the destination

00:38:42 ◼   ► of a push notification that Apple sent to Apple Music subscribers.

00:38:47 ◼   ► I would argue that that was a bigger thing to do.

00:38:51 ◼   ► Well, the notification takes you to this story.

00:38:54 ◼   ► Right. But like in that, I agree with that, but like, you know,

00:38:58 ◼   ► if you just have it in the app source, like people got to go to it.

00:39:01 ◼   ► Push notifications, like Apple were like, "Hey, you go look at this." Right.

00:39:05 ◼   ► So they sent a push notification to Apple Music users,

00:39:09 ◼   ► which in theory is kind of against the Apple's own guidelines.

00:39:15 ◼   ► Well, okay. This is a thing that like people, I bring it up, people bring it up, and there's

00:39:19 ◼   ► like a million to and for and against.

00:39:22 ◼   ► Well, of course, Apple can do whatever they want because they're Apple.

00:39:24 ◼   ► So exactly. But here's the thing I find weirder about it. It's an Apple Music notification

00:39:30 ◼   ► that opens the App Store. Is that what happens? Yes. Well, now, see, that's weirder, right?

00:39:34 ◼   ► Right, because I mean, I didn't get it because I'm I'm in the UK and it doesn't seem to be in the UK.

00:39:39 ◼   ► I don't know if it's ever going to find its way to the UK, but I'm like all of the Alexa stuff.

00:39:43 ◼   ► It takes so long. We only last week got the follow on request thing.

00:39:48 ◼   ► Like, I don't know what's wrong with Amazon that it takes them so long to even add their own

00:39:54 ◼   ► features to echoes outside of the UK, outside of the US.

00:39:59 ◼   ► It's not like it's a different language even. Well, I mean, kind of.

00:40:02 ◼   ► But like I'm more willing to accept when when if it's like a third party's thing,

00:40:06 ◼   ► right? Like I'm more willing to accept that because there's all these things.

00:40:09 ◼   ► But when Amazon develop a feature, why do they not?

00:40:12 ◼   ► Why does it take them so long to roll it out?

00:40:14 ◼   ► I don't understand.

00:40:15 ◼   ► I do wonder if the push notification from Apple was sent

00:40:20 ◼   ► to all US based Apple music subscribers

00:40:23 ◼   ► or just the ones who have the Alexa app already downloaded

00:40:28 ◼   ► or previously downloaded them on their devices.

00:40:31 ◼   ► because I don't have it installed, but I had the app installed at some point in the past

00:40:38 ◼   ► and I did receive the notification.

00:40:40 ◼   ► So I wonder if Apple went full on spammy and sent the notification to all Apple Music subscribers

00:40:47 ◼   ► or just the ones that they know had a previous relationship with the Echo by looking at their

00:40:52 ◼   ► App Store history.

00:40:53 ◼   ► I expect this sent it to everyone because there were people that had already set this

00:40:58 ◼   ► up who will also get the notification. And that's the one you would want to exclude,

00:41:04 ◼   ► right? If you had rules in place to exclude customers from this notification, you would

00:41:10 ◼   ► want to try and exclude the people that had already done this in some way.

00:41:13 ◼   ► But they wouldn't know if they did it because they cannot look into the app.

00:41:18 ◼   ► I'm sure that there's some flag on an account somewhere to say that you set it up.

00:41:22 ◼   ► They can look in Apple Music though.

00:41:24 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean it's weird, I got it on my iPad but not my iPhone. Like they're sitting side

00:41:30 ◼   ► by side, the iPad got it, the phone didn't. Who knows how they're actually doing that.

00:41:34 ◼   ► Well that doesn't make any sense. Okay, so, and finally there's also on Apple.com, there's

00:41:40 ◼   ► the Apple Music Features webpage, the mini site, the list of devices compatible with

00:41:46 ◼   ► Apple Music, sure enough there's an Amazon Echo.

00:41:47 ◼   ► This is what we had spoken about, we would figure would be the bare minimum, right? Like

00:41:54 ◼   ► that it kind of had to go there because the Sonos was there.

00:41:57 ◼   ► So when we were talking about this, one of the things that I found interesting,

00:42:02 ◼   ► and I'll bring it up again now because now I think it's even more interesting,

00:42:05 ◼   ► is my kind of thinking was dependent on how

00:42:09 ◼   ► much they promote this will say what is going

00:42:14 ◼   ► on behind the scenes, right?

00:42:16 ◼   ► Because my theory about this is this is what

00:42:21 ◼   ► Amazon wanted. But what Apple want is to get their TV service on Fire TVs. This is what I think is

00:42:31 ◼   ► going on here and they've had to exchange this somehow because I can't work out what the benefit

00:42:39 ◼   ► to Apple is in doing this because I don't see that this would make people sign up for Apple Music.

00:42:50 ◼   ► I can't see the genuine customer desire to be like, "Well, that was the last thing

00:42:57 ◼   ► I was waiting for." When the person who's already doing this is either already a subscriber

00:43:02 ◼   ► to Amazon's music service or Spotify.

00:43:06 ◼   ► If anything, this is going to convince people to buy an Echo.

00:43:08 ◼   ► Exactly. Right. So this is why I think this is not what Apple ideally would have wanted

00:43:15 ◼   ► to do if everything was equal, right? I mean, I can't believe that this is on the Echo at

00:43:22 ◼   ► all, right? So I just look at a deal like this and I'm like, this is not the only part

00:43:28 ◼   ► of this deal. Like maybe this was a part of getting Prime Video on Apple TV and like this

00:43:34 ◼   ► is what Apple have had to give back, right? Like this is like a two-month road that they're

00:43:37 ◼   ► doing because it just seems so strange to me that Apple would be like, I know what we

00:43:42 ◼   ► need to do because I don't, if the HomePod did not exist, it would make sense to me,

00:43:51 ◼   ► right? Because then it's just like, well, what else are they going to do? It has to

00:43:53 ◼   ► be in other devices somehow. But it just seems like such a strange thing to do it. But it's

00:43:59 ◼   ► like, okay, I can understand the arguments, some of the arguments of doing it in the first

00:44:03 ◼   ► place, right? Because it's like, oh, imagine that, you know, that you're in a, I think

00:44:08 ◼   ► I saw Renee Ritchie say this, like a home with mixed devices, right? So like there's

00:44:15 ◼   ► two people in the home. One is like Android, one is iPhone, you have an Amazon Echo because

00:44:19 ◼   ► it meets in the middle, right? So like you put it there. But then when it gets down to

00:44:25 ◼   ► the promoting of it, in the extremely heavy way they've done it, it didn't do this for

00:44:30 ◼   ► Sonos. Sonos didn't get any of this. But Amazon is. It just seems so interesting to me. Like,

00:44:37 ◼   ► I don't think it's underhand. I think there's just business dealings here and I am very

00:44:43 ◼   ► intrigued to see what the other shoe to drop will be because I think that it's more than

00:44:48 ◼   ► this. I don't think that this is a purely services revenue thing because I just I really

00:44:54 ◼   ► don't see that this would make somebody sign up for Apple Music who wasn't already.

00:44:58 ◼   ► Another aspect of this is Apple has its hardware back on Amazon.com. Yeah, that's beneficial

00:45:04 ◼   ► to both companies.

00:45:05 ◼   ► could be another part of it definitely that's something I've forgotten but that

00:45:08 ◼   ► is a very very good point that like Apple want it there or maybe Apple don't

00:45:12 ◼   ► but this is also part of this thing of like Apple wants something and Amazon

00:45:15 ◼   ► want to sell their hardware right it's good for both companies to both make you

00:45:19 ◼   ► know money from it yeah and I think as well one of the things that happened

00:45:22 ◼   ► there is like a lot of the like fake cables and stuff all got pulled yeah I

00:45:28 ◼   ► think the the thing that you just said is what's been rolling around in my mind

00:45:31 ◼   ► was if would this make someone sign up for Apple Music? I agree with you I don't

00:45:37 ◼   ► think it would. I think someone who already has an Echo already has a music

00:45:43 ◼   ► service probably hooked up to it whether it be Amazon's or Spotify probably most

00:45:47 ◼   ► likely but what it does do I think is the opposite. I think it makes people who

00:45:53 ◼   ► have Apple Music more willing to stay with Apple Music who may have an Echo or

00:45:59 ◼   ► to and be frustrated that they didn't have their music there and maybe they thought,

00:46:04 ◼   ► "Oh, maybe at some point I should try Spotify.

00:46:06 ◼   ► I should try Amazon Music Prime streaming service, music service, whatever it's called."

00:46:12 ◼   ► And so it makes Apple Music more sticky and that is never a bad thing when it comes to

00:46:16 ◼   ► service revenue.

00:46:17 ◼   ► So it may not be about outright sales as much as it may be about keeping people who already

00:46:23 ◼   ► have it happy.

00:46:25 ◼   ► And it does mean that if you are looking to buy one of the, you know, buy one of these

00:46:32 ◼   ► smart home devices or buy one of a music streaming service, then it does put Apple Music in the

00:46:39 ◼   ► conversation with Spotify on level footing.

00:46:41 ◼   ► And that's a good thing too.

00:46:42 ◼   ► What about Google Home?

00:46:44 ◼   ► That's a good question, right?

00:46:45 ◼   ► You know, Amazon and Apple seem to have buried the hatchet somehow.

00:46:48 ◼   ► Do we see Apple and Google doing that anytime soon?

00:46:51 ◼   ► Like,

00:46:52 ◼   ► this stuff is completely independent, like in the way that like Apple buys displays from Samsung,

00:46:58 ◼   ► right? Like it's just like, these are different teams, these companies can still have major beef

00:47:02 ◼   ► and still somehow find some way to work together, you know?

00:47:05 ◼   ► I mean, definitely, that's a, I think it's a great point. You know, Google and Apple have

00:47:11 ◼   ► relationship, they they have a business relationship with the browser and the search

00:47:14 ◼   ► engine. Google has all their apps on iOS, we can debate about the quality of them, but they're all

00:47:19 ◼   ► there. And they've even worked together like on the native mail

00:47:23 ◼   ► client and the mail and the native contact and calendar

00:47:26 ◼   ► clients to make them work better. Apple music is on

00:47:29 ◼   ► Android. So I would, honestly, I would expect at some point that

00:47:33 ◼   ► Apple music shows up on the Google Home. I kind of expect

00:47:36 ◼   ► because Google doesn't have me Google is like Amazonic. They

00:47:39 ◼   ► have a music service, but no one uses it. Like it's not like

00:47:42 ◼   ► Apple music is not gonna end up on a Spotify speaker that

00:47:45 ◼   ► Spotify itself puts out in the future. But from like the

00:47:49 ◼   ► platform perspective, the Google Home, is sort of neutral ground, just like the Echo

00:47:53 ◼   ► was. And I could see it happening. I think that it would be beneficial to both, just

00:48:00 ◼   ► like it is with Apple and Amazon.

00:48:02 ◼   ► I do wonder, like, how far can this go if we start treating Apple as a services company,

00:48:08 ◼   ► which means that now Apple services can be on different kinds of platforms and devices?

00:48:13 ◼   ► these, I mean of course this approach will work I suppose for the TV service, but we

00:48:20 ◼   ► could make an argument that maybe reminders should also be a service that you get on the

00:48:24 ◼   ► Echo or maybe, I don't know, iMessage could be a service that you get on other platforms.

00:48:30 ◼   ► Oh boy.

00:48:31 ◼   ► Like if they start treating all of their apps as services and it means they can extract

00:48:38 ◼   ► recurring revenue from services.

00:48:41 ◼   ► I think the question has got to be though,

00:48:43 ◼   ► the service is going cross platform,

00:48:45 ◼   ► is there a direct customer transaction for it?

00:48:48 ◼   ► Right, so like,

00:48:49 ◼   ► while something that reminders will be lovely,

00:48:51 ◼   ► I don't see it happening unless you start paying for it.

00:48:54 ◼   ► - Unless, yeah, unless you,

00:48:56 ◼   ► I mean, yeah, it has to become some kind of,

00:49:00 ◼   ► yeah, like sign up for iCloud on other devices.

00:49:03 ◼   ► It gets complicated.

00:49:04 ◼   ► - It's also, I think, complicated to compare

00:49:08 ◼   ► Apple Music and iCloud directly,

00:49:10 ◼   ► because they are so very different.

00:49:13 ◼   ► And Apple Music in some ways is an outward facing product.

00:49:18 ◼   ► They're competing at Spotify and these others.

00:49:21 ◼   ► But iCloud is like Apple's magic sauce

00:49:24 ◼   ► to make all their stuff work better together.

00:49:26 ◼   ► And it strengthens Apple's platforms

00:49:28 ◼   ► for iCloud to be closed just to Apple hardware.

00:49:32 ◼   ► And you know, Windows PCs,

00:49:33 ◼   ► but no one should use iCloud on Windows.

00:49:36 ◼   ► So they are different from a business perspective.

00:49:38 ◼   ► At some point that may change

00:49:40 ◼   ► and Apple may realize if we opened iCloud up,

00:49:44 ◼   ► we could make more from it,

00:49:47 ◼   ► we could make it more beneficial to the bottom line,

00:49:50 ◼   ► even though it would cost us some of the sort of

00:49:52 ◼   ► magic user experience people have

00:49:55 ◼   ► between our computers and tablets and stuff.

00:49:57 ◼   ► I don't know, it's just really interesting to think about.

00:50:00 ◼   ► - I feel like it's more likely to happen

00:50:02 ◼   ► with entertainment, right?

00:50:03 ◼   ► So there was that rumor, the Bloomberg rumor

00:50:05 ◼   ► of the news thing, right?

00:50:08 ◼   ► like the Apple subscription news.

00:50:10 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:50:10 ◼   ► So there's going to be that.

00:50:11 ◼   ► And then there will also be TV.

00:50:14 ◼   ► And I reckon I mean, I think that this

00:50:17 ◼   ► I think that this this Amazon partnership

00:50:20 ◼   ► has answered questions now.

00:50:22 ◼   ► I think about what they're going to do.

00:50:23 ◼   ► And I think it seems pretty clear

00:50:25 ◼   ► at this point that Apple's

00:50:27 ◼   ► entertainment platforms,

00:50:28 ◼   ► they're going to try

00:50:29 ◼   ► and get them far and wide.

00:50:31 ◼   ► I mean, because the

00:50:32 ◼   ► you need the TV stuff.

00:50:35 ◼   ► We spoke about somebody

00:50:36 ◼   ► saying what we said last time,

00:50:37 ◼   ► But like the TV stuff has to be on other platforms like more way more than music because Apple don't own any of the music

00:50:45 ◼   ► It doesn't like there's no investment from them

00:50:48 ◼   ► But they are spending it will be billions by the time this stuff gets out like they had that budget

00:50:54 ◼   ► But the amount of stuff they're signing is gonna be way more it will be multiple billions of dollars

00:50:58 ◼   ► Most likely to get this first round of content available

00:51:03 ◼   ► For that just to be available on iOS devices and Apple TVs, that would be a bad idea

00:51:09 ◼   ► I think ultimately for the future of their service because they clearly believe with the amount of money and effort that they're spending on

00:51:15 ◼   ► it and the names that they've got involved that this is gonna be a big thing for them that they're gonna have like

00:51:21 ◼   ► You know, they're gonna have a big TV show. They're gonna have award-winning TV shows, you know, they're gonna have stuff

00:51:27 ◼   ► I feel like that that that they need to get that as an in as many places as possible more so than they need to do

00:51:34 ◼   ► music

00:51:36 ◼   ► It's so it's just so strange to back up from this all a few steps

00:51:40 ◼   ► If we had talked about ten years ago or even like six or seven years ago

00:51:45 ◼   ► I don't know years ago three years ago Apple like being in the same conversation with Spotify and

00:51:52 ◼   ► Netflix and Hulu and like movie theaters and TV like I

00:51:56 ◼   ► Would think you're bananas right like oh they have the iTunes store

00:51:59 ◼   ► They're gonna sell all this stuff for other people but as that business has slowed down

00:52:03 ◼   ► They've they've moved into this new world and like it's really

00:52:07 ◼   ► Sometimes I just think about it from that perspective like that's wild to me that they're doing this and you know

00:52:13 ◼   ► It's very difficult for us because like like for the three of us who have spent the last 10 years of our lives

00:52:19 ◼   ► Maybe more 15 years probably following this 45 years. Yeah, if I who've done things in a certain way

00:52:26 ◼   ► way, right? I think it's easier for us though because we're still like 30 or 42 in Stephen's

00:52:34 ◼   ► case but... It's easier for us, it's harder for some people, but I mean like even for

00:52:37 ◼   ► us with the history that we have, it's difficult for us to let go of the "that's not how Apple

00:52:45 ◼   ► would do things" mentality, right? But we are in a transition now and everything that

00:52:52 ◼   ► they used to do, they do differently. It's all changing and I really am trying my best

00:53:00 ◼   ► to focus on that and because I think it's important that everyone who looks at this

00:53:05 ◼   ► company now and who likes this company, we have to let go of that mentality because they

00:53:11 ◼   ► are changing significantly as a company in many ways. Some for the better, some for the

00:53:18 ◼   ► us, but they are changing. And I think that it behooves us now to try and start thinking about

00:53:25 ◼   ► like everything that Apple does is what Apple does. There is no like history anymore that

00:53:32 ◼   ► dictates what they will and won't do. Yeah, you're right. I love those sections on upgrade

00:53:37 ◼   ► when Jason talks about that from like the PR perspective, like having a bunch of young

00:53:42 ◼   ► YouTubers look at the phone before anybody else, you know, and old people in the press are freaking

00:53:47 ◼   ► out about it. It is a new ballgame and Apple Music in a way is sort of like the most like

00:53:54 ◼   ► frontward facing example of that. Like that Apple would do a service that's not just locked to its

00:53:58 ◼   ► own hardware. You know for a long time I think we wrote off Android on Apple Music because

00:54:03 ◼   ► Beats was already there so they sort of just adopted it but like now it's more than just

00:54:09 ◼   ► Android. Clearly this is a part of their strategy moving forward and not just legacy.

00:54:13 ◼   ► It was a plan. Yeah, yeah, we wrote it off, but really this was probably part of the plan all along

00:54:18 ◼   ► Because they could have just shut the app down and just refunded everyone but they chose to keep the app going

00:54:24 ◼   ► So yeah, I think that this is going to be one of the big stories of 2019

00:54:28 ◼   ► This is is all of this service stuff how it starts to fit together. It's very exciting

00:54:32 ◼   ► All right. Today's show is also brought to you by story worth the easiest way to share your family stories

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00:56:52 ◼   ► - All right, this week marked the launch

00:56:54 ◼   ► of Launch Center Pro 3, which is a universal iOS app.

00:56:59 ◼   ► Launch Center Pro has been around a long time.

00:57:02 ◼   ► I think version two is in like 2013.

00:57:05 ◼   ► but it's back with an update.

00:57:07 ◼   ► It has been sort of reconsidered for the world

00:57:11 ◼   ► that it now inhabits with things like Siri shortcuts

00:57:14 ◼   ► and the shortcuts app.

00:57:15 ◼   ► Launch Engine Pro was like automation before

00:57:18 ◼   ► a lot of that stuff was on iOS.

00:57:20 ◼   ► And Federico, you've spent a bunch of time with it.

00:57:22 ◼   ► Can you walk us through what this app is all about?

00:57:25 ◼   ► - Yeah, so the,

00:57:27 ◼   ► one of the big changes is that the app is now universal.

00:57:31 ◼   ► And that already brings up one of my complaints

00:57:35 ◼   ► about this update that I actually wrote in my review.

00:57:38 ◼   ► Launch Center Pro is now universal,

00:57:41 ◼   ► which means it's a single download,

00:57:43 ◼   ► runs on the iPhone and iPad.

00:57:44 ◼   ► The iPhone version of the app,

00:57:47 ◼   ► the app used to be split in iPhone and iPad versions.

00:57:49 ◼   ► The iPhone one is the version that got an update.

00:57:53 ◼   ► So if you used to have Launch Center Pro for iPad

00:57:57 ◼   ► on your device, you will not see version three.

00:58:00 ◼   ► Version 3 is an update from the iPhone version that also runs on the iPad.

00:58:05 ◼   ► However, making the app universal does not mean that the app will support modern iPads.

00:58:15 ◼   ► And it's kind of weird because it's an update that has been years in the making, but it

00:58:21 ◼   ► still doesn't support iOS 9 multitasking, for example.

00:58:26 ◼   ► So it doesn't support split view, doesn't support slide over, doesn't support full screen

00:58:31 ◼   ► resolution on the iPad or the new iPad Pro, the 2018 ones.

00:58:35 ◼   ► And it's very strange that, as I wrote in my article, it's very strange, I think, to

00:58:43 ◼   ► have one of the major selling points of this upgrade, that it's now a universal one app

00:58:48 ◼   ► that runs everywhere, but does not have iPad updates.

00:58:52 ◼   ► So it's like making a step forward and two steps back kind of situation.

00:58:57 ◼   ► It's like, you know, I could run the phone app on my iPad if I wanted to, right?

00:59:01 ◼   ► Like, is that a selling point?

00:59:03 ◼   ► Like, it just seems so strange to me.

00:59:05 ◼   ► I always find these things peculiar.

00:59:07 ◼   ► Like I don't know what's going on as to why they've decided to release this application,

00:59:11 ◼   ► right?

00:59:12 ◼   ► I don't work inside of the business, but like, it doesn't really feel like there was any,

00:59:17 ◼   ► Like it doesn't seem like there was anything specific that meant it had to come out now.

00:59:22 ◼   ► Yeah, I think it's more just of they wanted to release it now just to be done with the

00:59:29 ◼   ► launch so that they can start the new year with like, now we're just going to add new

00:59:33 ◼   ► stuff.

00:59:34 ◼   ► I think it's kind of obvious that this update was supposed to come out a long time ago and

00:59:39 ◼   ► that something happened.

00:59:40 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:59:41 ◼   ► But I feel like at some point, you know, I get this, for example, when I work on my articles

00:59:45 ◼   ► and they take a long time.

00:59:46 ◼   ► At some point I decide maybe to cut a few sections and to just publish it because it

00:59:51 ◼   ► has to be done.

00:59:52 ◼   ► Like, I don't want to think about publishing the article, you know, like a month later,

00:59:57 ◼   ► and maybe I will have those sections as separate stories down the road.

01:00:01 ◼   ► Let me ask you though, like, I don't know how I feel about this personally, but would

01:00:04 ◼   ► you, like, prefer no Universal app or, like, or what it was?

01:00:11 ◼   ► Like, would you prefer, oh, like, this is the iPhone version, it will be Universal later,

01:00:15 ◼   ► Or it's universal now, but it's not very well done.

01:00:18 ◼   ► - If it were up to me, now of course I don't work at Contrast, I don't know what their

01:00:24 ◼   ► situation is, but personally, I would have released the app next year with an actual

01:00:31 ◼   ► iPad version.

01:00:32 ◼   ► Because I think it's just weird that it's new, but also old on the iPad.

01:00:39 ◼   ► It's not just that it's new, it's that it's an application that is geared towards professional

01:00:45 ◼   ► users and those people are more likely than anyone to have the new iPad.

01:00:49 ◼   ► It is a bad impression off the bat to not support hardware.

01:00:54 ◼   ► And it is worth just saying, it's not just a new iPad.

01:00:59 ◼   ► It's not just a new iPad though, exactly.

01:01:01 ◼   ► It's low resolution even on the non-new iPad Pros.

01:01:05 ◼   ► You can use unoptimized 2018 iPad Pro apps like John Voorhees Blink, for example, which

01:01:13 ◼   ► is no longer on the App Store, but you can use it in Split View on the 2018 iPad Pro,

01:01:19 ◼   ► right?

01:01:20 ◼   ► Even though it hasn't been updated.

01:01:22 ◼   ► This one, the Launch Engine Pro 3, cannot be used in Split View because it just does

01:01:26 ◼   ► not support iOS 9 multitasking.

01:01:29 ◼   ► So if you ask me, Myke, I would say I would have waited for an iPad update because it's

01:01:34 ◼   ► really behind on the iPad side. What else is new? Okay, so there are, I guess there

01:01:41 ◼   ► are two major features. One of them is NFC triggers. So Launch Center Pro now supports

01:01:49 ◼   ► NFC stickers that Contrast sells in an in-app shop that you can access with a browser view.

01:01:57 ◼   ► And you can buy these stickers and what you can do is you can tap your phone, if you have

01:02:02 ◼   ► a modern iPhone, you can tap it against the sticker and you will get a notification that

01:02:08 ◼   ► you need to tap on the notification and it will launch the app which will run your action.

01:02:13 ◼   ► And this feature is, there are two things to consider here. One of them is, it is a

01:02:20 ◼   ► new functionality of the iPhone XR, XS and XS Max to be able to tap your phone against

01:02:26 ◼   ► an NFC tag anywhere you are on the phone. So on the lock screen, on the home screen,

01:02:31 ◼   ► whatever, and be able to force something to happen.

01:02:36 ◼   ► That's a new API in iOS 12 and a new feature of the latest iPhones.

01:02:41 ◼   ► And the something that happens in this case is Launch Center Pro sends you a local notification

01:02:48 ◼   ► because that is the only way that Launch Center Pro can launch actions in the sense that it's

01:02:56 ◼   ► It's not possible for LaunchCenter Pro to say, "Okay, you scanned an NFC tag.

01:03:02 ◼   ► I'm going to launch something in the background."

01:03:05 ◼   ► And you will, for example, you will instantly see the Safari web page that you want it to

01:03:10 ◼   ► open, or you will be instantly taken to the shortcuts app.

01:03:15 ◼   ► That is not possible on iOS by design.

01:03:18 ◼   ► So what LaunchCenter Pro needs to do is, it needs to show you a notification that takes

01:03:24 ◼   ► it to the app and the app automatically runs your action. This is the same thing that happens

01:03:29 ◼   ► with Launch Center Pro when you assign a schedule to an action or when you use an iBeacon or when

01:03:38 ◼   ► you use a geofence. All of these semi-automatic launchers need to show you a notification

01:03:46 ◼   ► because that's a limitation of iOS. It cannot be done otherwise. So the stickers,

01:03:53 ◼   ► They're cute, they have the icon of Launch Center Pro in the color version.

01:03:59 ◼   ► They're also selling clear and white versions which are more neutral and kind of fit.

01:04:06 ◼   ► Like they're, you know, they don't scream "I'm a nerdy thing" as soon as you look at

01:04:11 ◼   ► it.

01:04:13 ◼   ► I don't know if I'm gonna, like, I've been using them for like two things.

01:04:18 ◼   ► I have a sticker attached to my microphone stand so that I can tap my phone against the

01:04:24 ◼   ► microphone, essentially, against the stand, and it launches a shortcut that starts time

01:04:30 ◼   ► tracking for the podcast that I'm doing.

01:04:36 ◼   ► It looks at the calendar and it says, "Oh, you're doing connected?

01:04:39 ◼   ► Well, I'll start your toggle timer for connected."

01:04:41 ◼   ► Can I see that shortcut, please?

01:04:43 ◼   ► I need that shortcut.

01:04:44 ◼   ► I need that one.

01:04:46 ◼   ► Thank you.

01:04:47 ◼   ► I'll work on that for you.

01:04:50 ◼   ► Thank you very much.

01:04:51 ◼   ► And also I have one of these stickers sort of hidden underneath my nightstand so that

01:04:58 ◼   ► I can tap my phone and it opens a shortcut that contains a bunch of HomeKit scenes.

01:05:06 ◼   ► Things like specific colors or playing music via Homebridge on the Mac Mini, that kind

01:05:12 ◼   ► of stuff.

01:05:13 ◼   ► I don't know if I'm going to use them in other ways, but I think it's a nice option to have,

01:05:19 ◼   ► honestly.

01:05:20 ◼   ► I think that my feeling, I have one set up, which is relatively similar to yours.

01:05:25 ◼   ► It's by my dock where I put my phone.

01:05:28 ◼   ► So I tap it and it asks me what show I'm doing.

01:05:33 ◼   ► That's how I set the timer.

01:05:34 ◼   ► It's not as advanced as yours, which is why I want to see how you do that with the calendar.

01:05:39 ◼   ► And although I actually think I could probably work out on my own, but I still want to see

01:05:42 ◼   ► how you did it because it's always going to be better the way that you do it.

01:05:45 ◼   ► And then it sets my phone on doing the stuff for 90 minutes

01:05:48 ◼   ► and turns the volume on my phone all the way down.

01:05:51 ◼   ► So like that's like the phone is in recording mode now. Right.

01:05:54 ◼   ► So like that that kind of thing is good.

01:05:58 ◼   ► But the thing is about this, right?

01:06:00 ◼   ► The NFC stuff is a fun thing.

01:06:03 ◼   ► It's a cooler or like project to set up with.

01:06:06 ◼   ► And there are some interesting use cases like contrast show off

01:06:10 ◼   ► like sticking them to a car dock and like that's a clever one right because you would always put

01:06:15 ◼   ► your phone in there or whatever but the thing is like it's no faster than just launching a

01:06:23 ◼   ► Siri shortcut and if anything in some instances it's more of a pain in the butt because you have

01:06:30 ◼   ► to tap the notification right every single time so like really I think that this makes sense to be

01:06:38 ◼   ► a visual reminder of a thing you need to do that then there is a step taken out of it.

01:06:44 ◼   ► But I'm not sure how actually useful this would be to me in the long term. It is a very fun feature

01:06:53 ◼   ► that I have enjoyed playing around with and you may be the type of person that's like "I know

01:06:58 ◼   ► exactly where that's going to go" and it's awesome. There are some interesting use cases.

01:07:03 ◼   ► But the real use case for this is something that contrast cannot do, which is just have it, do it.

01:07:10 ◼   ► Don't give me a notification that I have to tap, because then it's less useful.

01:07:16 ◼   ► So there is definitely some stuff you can do with this, but it's limited.

01:07:21 ◼   ► And this is kind of my feeling about Launch Center Pro in general right now,

01:07:26 ◼   ► which is, I think for most people today, it is going to be a companion to shortcuts.

01:07:35 ◼   ► Because it cannot do what shortcuts can do. Like the hooks that Shortcuts has into the system now

01:07:43 ◼   ► is way more. I mean, and even to be honest, if when Workflow was Workflow, Launch Center Pro was not

01:07:47 ◼   ► doing what Workflow was doing to the level that Workflow was doing it, right? Like with or without

01:07:52 ◼   ► the integration into the system which is now given by the fact that Apple owns it.

01:07:56 ◼   ► I think this is probably one of the reasons that it's gone such a long time because

01:08:00 ◼   ► Workflow took the market, right? It just took it. And now really, Launch Center Pro is a

01:08:08 ◼   ► very interesting app to be a companion for shortcuts. You can also put schedules in place,

01:08:13 ◼   ► right? So you can have a notification fire on a schedule, you can tap it and run a shortcut.

01:08:18 ◼   ► That's something that shortcuts can't do right now. But the thing is, if shortcuts adds that

01:08:22 ◼   ► scheduling feature, it's going to be more powerful than what launch center pro can do, because this

01:08:28 ◼   ► is a system feature. I don't see them adding the NFC thing, but to be honest, they could. They do

01:08:33 ◼   ► enough weird stuff already, even in a shortcuts app, right? Like you've been experiencing that

01:08:37 ◼   ► stuff yourself recently, Federico, like with the all of your wonderful base64. But I think that it

01:08:45 ◼   ► is like it seems risky to be honest to have this application which is for a lot of people

01:08:52 ◼   ► not everyone but for a lot of people will be used primarily to trigger shortcuts in interesting ways

01:08:58 ◼   ► like to building a long-term business based on this idea feels tricky now like this is

01:09:04 ◼   ► this is like an extra level of Sherlocking at this point it's just like you're adding

01:09:10 ◼   ► features that Apple could just add as features and it slowly chips away at the usefulness

01:09:16 ◼   ► of your app. And I'm sure that Contrast have other ideas and I really hope that they do

01:09:23 ◼   ► because aside from the NFC stuff, everything that they've added could either be easily

01:09:28 ◼   ► taken away from them in the sense that Shortcuts does it or they're just niceties if you are

01:09:33 ◼   ► a Launch Center Pro user like icons and themes and stuff like that.

01:09:37 ◼   ► Yeah, I think they do have other ideas. I've seen some of them and I think the general

01:09:44 ◼   ► impression that I have is that they want to move away from this idea that Launch Center

01:09:51 ◼   ► Pro is like a companion to shortcuts, which I...

01:09:55 ◼   ► Yeah, they have to move away from it. Like, they have to do that. So I'm pleased that

01:09:58 ◼   ► they think that way.

01:09:59 ◼   ► They do have features that are more like, sort of, to make Launch Center Pro independent

01:10:06 ◼   ► in that sense. But again, I don't know what kind of timeline we're looking at, what kind of...

01:10:12 ◼   ► will they be able to release them all in 2019? I don't know. And I guess, I mean, you mentioned

01:10:17 ◼   ► multiple schedules and real quickly you can do... there's a TrueBlack theme, there's multiple app

01:10:22 ◼   ► icons now, and also there's Siri shortcuts, but personally I haven't found the utility of

01:10:30 ◼   ► assigning Siri shortcuts in Launch Center Pro while you can... I also have them in shortcuts

01:10:36 ◼   ► and shortcuts can do more.

01:10:37 ◼   ► So anyway, I guess the the thing that I want to discuss with you,

01:10:42 ◼   ► oh, and you can also import your shortcuts, which is very nice.

01:10:47 ◼   ► That's done so nicely.

01:10:48 ◼   ► They built a shortcut to let you import shortcuts into Launch Center Pro

01:10:52 ◼   ► to assign action. Like it's beautifully done.

01:10:54 ◼   ► That is very, very smart.

01:10:55 ◼   ► That is very cool.

01:10:56 ◼   ► And actually, you can tweak that because it's based on a URL command.

01:11:01 ◼   ► So you can tweak that to add your own icons

01:11:05 ◼   ► just by using the same URL scheme and the same technique,

01:11:08 ◼   ► just copy an image to the clipboard and run that command

01:11:11 ◼   ► and it will fetch an image from the clipboard.

01:11:14 ◼   ► So you can use a photo or another icon or whatever.

01:11:17 ◼   ► Anyway, I guess the discussion of will Launch Center Pro

01:11:20 ◼   ► be able to evolve into a more mature product in 2019

01:11:25 ◼   ► and beyond depends on whether the new business model works.

01:11:30 ◼   ► And I wanna hear from you both

01:11:32 ◼   ► and I want to start from you, Steven.

01:11:36 ◼   ► Launch Center Pro is now offering essentially three ways

01:11:40 ◼   ► to unlock all the features of the app.

01:11:42 ◼   ► You can subscribe, and there's a $10 annual subscription

01:11:46 ◼   ► that in theory will go up over time,

01:11:48 ◼   ► but if you subscribe now, you will lock in the price.

01:11:52 ◼   ► There's the option to buy it all with one flat fee of $30

01:12:00 ◼   ► or $25 if you're a previous user of the app,

01:12:04 ◼   ► or you can buy most of the individual features

01:12:07 ◼   ► with one time in-app purchases.

01:12:10 ◼   ► So three different ways to handle the switch

01:12:13 ◼   ► from a paid-up front app to a freemium app.

01:12:18 ◼   ► What do you think about this?

01:12:19 ◼   ► - I've got the app here and I'm opening it

01:12:23 ◼   ► and going it to that screen,

01:12:25 ◼   ► and it is extremely complicated to understand

01:12:29 ◼   ► what I should do or what the best deal is

01:12:33 ◼   ► or what I actually already have

01:12:38 ◼   ► as a previous purchaser of the app.

01:12:41 ◼   ► I understand what they're trying to do.

01:12:45 ◼   ► This is not a complaint about subscriptions.

01:12:47 ◼   ► This is the sort of app that should have a subscription

01:12:49 ◼   ► if they're going to keep it updated,

01:12:51 ◼   ► which history has shown that they don't.

01:12:53 ◼   ► So they need to prove that paying this much a year

01:12:57 ◼   ► or this much all at once is actually going to lead

01:12:59 ◼   ► to future development because Lot Center Pro 2 sat there

01:13:03 ◼   ► for years with basically nothing going on.

01:13:05 ◼   ► I just wish they had made this simpler.

01:13:08 ◼   ► I wish that they had maybe grouped some of this stuff better

01:13:13 ◼   ► where it was clearer what I'm getting,

01:13:16 ◼   ► clearer like what I should do

01:13:18 ◼   ► as someone who wants this but not that.

01:13:20 ◼   ► It just all feels messy.

01:13:23 ◼   ► It's sort of like unnecessarily so

01:13:25 ◼   ► and I hope that they figure that out.

01:13:30 ◼   ► My biggest complaint about it is if you scroll to the bottom

01:13:33 ◼   ► the future features, like you said,

01:13:37 ◼   ► you can subscribe or purchase now

01:13:39 ◼   ► and you get quote everything we have in the works

01:13:42 ◼   ► and the button is a lock with a dollar sign

01:13:45 ◼   ► and like four question marks.

01:13:46 ◼   ► Like I can't tell you how deeply that bothers me.

01:13:49 ◼   ► Like you can say that, A, it looks like a button

01:13:54 ◼   ► but it doesn't do anything.

01:13:55 ◼   ► The other buttons trigger the in-app purchases.

01:13:58 ◼   ► And it sort of makes me feel like,

01:14:01 ◼   ► hey, if you just decide just to unlock the NFC triggers,

01:14:05 ◼   ► I'm gambling, it's my own future in this app,

01:14:07 ◼   ► and I do not like that feeling.

01:14:08 ◼   ► I want to know that what I'm getting is what I'm getting,

01:14:11 ◼   ► and that every other application with a subscription,

01:14:15 ◼   ► that subscription goes towards future stuff.

01:14:18 ◼   ► What they're asking for is a subscription

01:14:20 ◼   ► for what you have now, and future stuff may be included,

01:14:23 ◼   ► maybe not if you read the fine print and I just I don't like it. I think it is I

01:14:28 ◼   ► agree with all of that I think my problem is just the sheer confusion of

01:14:32 ◼   ► it is almost astounding to me you know like there is a flat fee but the flat

01:14:38 ◼   ► fee has two different options depending on whether you bought the app or not and

01:14:41 ◼   ► then there are five separate in-app purchases that you can do to unlock

01:14:47 ◼   ► different functionality or you can do a subscription. It kind of feels like it's a bit like have

01:14:58 ◼   ► your cake and eat it. Because if subscriptions are essential for the app to live, then why

01:15:05 ◼   ► is the flat fee thing existing? And then I get that the flat fee thing is high because

01:15:10 ◼   ► it's like multiple years that you get for that amount of money, but then it's like,

01:15:16 ◼   ► Is that enough to guarantee five more years of features or is the subscription what you need?

01:15:21 ◼   ► It feels like it's too many things. I can see how you get to this kind of thing or it's like

01:15:27 ◼   ► you're worried you're going to annoy people, but I think at a certain point you have to just draw

01:15:33 ◼   ► a line and be like we're going to lose people. I think the people that really get annoyed,

01:15:37 ◼   ► like really annoyed, they're probably not going to buy it anyway.

01:15:43 ◼   ► Yeah, I think that's exactly why it's got so many options.

01:15:46 ◼   ► And especially the, I feel like, the in-app purchases ones that,

01:15:50 ◼   ► having been on the beta, they were kind of added toward the final stages of the cycle.

01:15:55 ◼   ► I think they were another case of trying to ensure a smooth transition.

01:16:01 ◼   ► But I think there's an argument to be made whether

01:16:05 ◼   ► do you prioritize transitioning existing users,

01:16:08 ◼   ► or do you want to have like a new beginning of sorts and the people that want to follow you from

01:16:17 ◼   ► a previous version are great but otherwise you just want to appeal to new people on the App Store

01:16:22 ◼   ► and I feel like by trying to cater to existing users with these many options maybe they've made

01:16:29 ◼   ► the thing more confusing for new people who don't have any previous feelings or relationship with

01:16:37 ◼   ► with LaunchEnter Pro.

01:16:38 ◼   ► And so it's kind of stuck in the middle of,

01:16:41 ◼   ► well, we wanted to make existing users happy,

01:16:44 ◼   ► but in the process, we made it more confusing for new users,

01:16:47 ◼   ► which I understand because, again,

01:16:49 ◼   ► when you open that screen,

01:16:50 ◼   ► it's a long screen with a lot of options

01:16:53 ◼   ► and they're not grouped together.

01:16:54 ◼   ► And it's a lot of information that the app throws at you.

01:16:59 ◼   ► I sort of understand why,

01:17:01 ◼   ► like what was the thinking behind it.

01:17:05 ◼   ► Again, personally, I don't run contrast. I mean, everybody's free to try whatever

01:17:12 ◼   ► they want. If it were up to me, I'm always in favor of making it simple for customers.

01:17:22 ◼   ► In this case, I say customers because I do have people that subscribe to Club Maxories.

01:17:27 ◼   ► So I'm kind of in the same business in a way, and I always try to make it as easy as

01:17:32 ◼   ► as possible. And I feel like the more options you offer, the more you're just going to confuse

01:17:36 ◼   ► people. And this is very much an instance of the, what's it called, the paradox of choice

01:17:43 ◼   ► of, well, what am I going to do now? I don't know. I guess I'm not going to subscribe at

01:17:47 ◼   ► all.

01:17:48 ◼   ► So here's the thing. I reckon I will want to have to try and find uses for this app,

01:17:53 ◼   ► but I don't know what I want to do. Like, what one do I do? Like, I haven't worked it

01:17:59 ◼   ► Like, I haven't got my head around it yet as to like, which one do I think will be best

01:18:03 ◼   ► for me?

01:18:04 ◼   ► Like, is it the flat fee, which is what you did?

01:18:06 ◼   ► Or is it the subscription?

01:18:07 ◼   ► I'm like, I don't know.

01:18:08 ◼   ► Like I, it's like, if it would have been just a $9.99 subscription, I don't think I would

01:18:13 ◼   ► have even thought about it.

01:18:14 ◼   ► But now I have a choice and that choice is making me drag my heels and then I might not

01:18:19 ◼   ► do anything.

01:18:20 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:18:21 ◼   ► And, and I guess the, the other point that I, that I wanted to make is that I do think

01:18:26 ◼   ► that if it wants to survive Launch Center Pro,

01:18:31 ◼   ► it doesn't just need a new business model.

01:18:35 ◼   ► It also needs to move away as much as possible

01:18:39 ◼   ► from URL schemes and those plain text variables

01:18:44 ◼   ► that you still need to use.

01:18:46 ◼   ► Because I was looking -- like, I wanted to reference --

01:18:48 ◼   ► in the article that I did about version 3,

01:18:51 ◼   ► I wanted to reference one of our old reviews.

01:18:54 ◼   ► And I totally had forgotten about this,

01:18:56 ◼   ► but we had the comprehensive guide to Launch Center Pro 2 from four years ago,

01:19:04 ◼   ► wrote by our own Alex on Mac Stories. And it was still pretty much on point for version 3,

01:19:12 ◼   ► because all the underpinnings of the app are basically unchanged. You still create actions

01:19:18 ◼   ► the same way, you still have to deal with plain text URLs, you still have to deal with the

01:19:23 ◼   ► the clipboard variables inside of square brackets.

01:19:26 ◼   ► And if you make an action and then you want to change it,

01:19:29 ◼   ► there's no visual editor anymore.

01:19:31 ◼   ► Like if you add like a prompt or if you create a list

01:19:35 ◼   ► with a visual editor and you save it,

01:19:38 ◼   ► but then you want to change it,

01:19:39 ◼   ► you have to deal with plain text

01:19:41 ◼   ► because the editor cannot be displayed anymore.

01:19:43 ◼   ► And this is very much a legacy type of design.

01:19:48 ◼   ► This was automation before workflow.

01:19:52 ◼   ► This is what it looked like.

01:19:53 ◼   ► You had to deal with plain text and URLs.

01:19:55 ◼   ► But now we live in a different era,

01:19:57 ◼   ► which was kind of the opening theme of my article

01:19:59 ◼   ► about Launch

01:19:59 ◼   ► about Launch Center Pro yesterday.

01:20:02 ◼   ► We live in a post-workflow,

01:20:05 ◼   ► in a post-shortcuts automation world on iOS.

01:20:08 ◼   ► And use, I mean, even JAFS is sort of going

01:20:12 ◼   ► in a different direction.

01:20:14 ◼   ► It's fully embracing both visual actions and scripting

01:20:18 ◼   ► at the same time, which I sort of understand,

01:20:20 ◼   ► because, okay, well then you're doing JavaScript,

01:20:22 ◼   ► so I guess that makes sense.

01:20:23 ◼   ► It has to be plain text, it has to be code.

01:20:26 ◼   ► But Launch Center Pro needs to be a visual thing.

01:20:29 ◼   ► When you open the app, it's a visual dashboard.

01:20:32 ◼   ► Therefore, when you make actions,

01:20:33 ◼   ► it has to be more intuitive.

01:20:35 ◼   ► It has to be more visual.

01:20:36 ◼   ► It needs to understand that we live

01:20:40 ◼   ► in a different automation landscape on iOS.

01:20:44 ◼   ► It's not like five years ago at all.

01:20:47 ◼   ► - Yeah, I really hope that they can find a new path.

01:20:52 ◼   ► I don't know what it is, but I hope they can find it.

01:20:57 ◼   ► This is like one of those apps that like,

01:21:00 ◼   ► this is like a, it's an important application

01:21:04 ◼   ► in like the history of my iOS usage, right?

01:21:07 ◼   ► I used to use it all the time,

01:21:08 ◼   ► but then I replaced it with Workflow.

01:21:10 ◼   ► I think a lot of people did.

01:21:11 ◼   ► And I want to see what that team who built that app, right,

01:21:15 ◼   ► can do now to make it new and exciting and fresh again.

01:21:19 ◼   ► Because they did it once, they can do it again.

01:21:22 ◼   ► I just, I do hope for them that they've been able

01:21:26 ◼   ► to convince enough of their customers to give them the money that it seems like they need

01:21:29 ◼   ► to do it. Because that would be super awkward, wouldn't it, to have done all of this, to

01:21:35 ◼   ► say we're doing this, give us money so we can make new features, but then they don't

01:21:39 ◼   ► make enough. That would be a very sad situation to be in.

01:21:42 ◼   ► >> Yeah, for sure. So we'll see what happens, but there's also the, you know, the WWC 2019

01:21:52 ◼   ► I suppose. I mean, in a few weeks we'll have to talk about shortcuts too. It's that time

01:21:58 ◼   ► of the year of predictions. So there's shortcuts, I don't think 1.5, I think 2 is coming next

01:22:06 ◼   ► year. And that's a whole thing that may be changing, you know, major automation features

01:22:13 ◼   ► on iOS again. So I don't know. I wish contrast the best. It was the, you know, Launch Center

01:22:19 ◼   ► was, together with Drafts, was one of the first apps that got me into this thing of

01:22:25 ◼   ► talking about automation on the iPhone and then on the iPad.

01:22:29 ◼   ► So I hope that it works out for them.

01:22:31 ◼   ► There's a few decisions that I would have made differently, but then again, I don't

01:22:34 ◼   ► work at contrast.

01:22:35 ◼   ► So good luck for the future and we'll see what happens.

01:22:38 ◼   ► I hope that they can add new features in 2019 and we'll see how it goes.

01:22:42 ◼   ► Well, I think that does it for this week on Connected.

01:22:46 ◼   ► If you want to find show notes, links to topics we talked about, head over to the website

01:22:51 ◼   ► relay.fm/connected/223.

01:22:56 ◼   ► While you're there, you can get in touch with us via email or you can find us elsewhere

01:23:01 ◼   ► online.

01:23:02 ◼   ► Myke, you can find on Twitter as I-M-Y-K-E and Myke is the host of many shows here on

01:23:09 ◼   ► Relay FM.

01:23:10 ◼   ► You can find Federico Vittucci on Twitter at V-I-T-I-C-C-I and he's the editor-in-chief

01:23:16 ◼   ► of MacStories.net. We didn't talk about it, but MacStories did. Y'all launched MacStories

01:23:23 ◼   ► Selects, which is like, y'all's like a roundup of apps and updates this year. Fantasticly

01:23:28 ◼   ► done. It was really great.

01:23:29 ◼   ► Thank you. Thank you. And I'm doing my usual must have iOS apps roundup tomorrow. So that's

01:23:38 ◼   ► also coming out and there will also be an award in that one. So that's a, that was an

01:23:45 ◼   ► exciting one to work on because it's always fun to put together, I think, 60 apps for

01:23:50 ◼   ► my article this year. So that's happening tomorrow.

01:23:54 ◼   ► That's a bunch of stuff, man. And you can find me on Twitter @ismh and I write 512pixels.net.

01:24:04 ◼   ► Like we mentioned earlier, next week will be our year-in-review episode. If you have

01:24:10 ◼   ► story suggestions for us, tweet with the hashtag connected year.

01:24:14 ◼   ► This episode was made possible by our sponsors, Pingdom, Luna Display,

01:24:19 ◼   ► and StoryWorth. And until next time, guys say goodbye.

01:24:22 ◼   ► Adios.