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Connected

211: That's Enough to Shrink Some Jeans

 

00:00:00   (upbeat music)

00:00:02   Hello and welcome to Connected, episode 211.

00:00:11   It is brought to you this week by Smile and Pingdom.

00:00:14   I'm your host, Stephen Hackett,

00:00:15   and I am joined by my two co-hosts.

00:00:17   I have Federico Vittucci with me, how are you?

00:00:20   - Ciao, Stephen, how are you?

00:00:21   - I'm good, and we have, of course, Michael Hurley.

00:00:24   - Hello there.

00:00:26   - Hi.

00:00:27   - Hello.

00:00:28   Oh my god, are you Michael, the Michael Hurley?

00:00:32   - No. - The podcaster and friend?

00:00:33   - No, I'm a different one.

00:00:35   - Oh, okay, okay, nevermind then.

00:00:36   Who's this guy? - I'm standing in

00:00:37   for the Michael Hurley today. - Oh, okay, okay.

00:00:39   That sucks, well, okay. - Yeah.

00:00:41   - Did you do something to the real Michael Hurley?

00:00:44   Or are you just, he's just off today?

00:00:46   - You don't wanna know.

00:00:47   - Legally, legally, I can't say.

00:00:50   - Oh boy, okay.

00:00:52   Well, we're gonna talk all about Mojave today,

00:00:54   'cause Mojave's out, and I know the two of you

00:00:56   very excited to go with me down this road. Hang on a second. I feel like we spoke about

00:01:02   it last time and I feel like that was enough. Actually all I have is some follow up from

00:01:07   Mojave because... Okay cool. You can put whatever you want in the show but then you get upset

00:01:14   when you're talking for 10 minutes but I can't do nothing about that. I had nothing to say.

00:01:18   It was a pretty easy segment to edit. I think I tweeted a screenshot of my Logic project

00:01:22   of like, it's just me talking.

00:01:23   - I asked you some questions, you know,

00:01:26   but that's all I got for you.

00:01:27   - Yeah, Federico got up and made a snack.

00:01:28   Anyways, we want to point people to John's review

00:01:32   over on MacStories as normal.

00:01:34   He did a great job, deserved a really good walkthrough

00:01:38   of what the OS has to offer

00:01:40   and the pros and cons of its changes.

00:01:42   Jason Snell also had one over on Six Colors

00:01:45   that I really found his take on the new apps.

00:01:52   So what are they, news and stocks and home and voice memos?

00:01:56   I think Jason's--

00:01:57   - The Marzipan apps.

00:01:58   - The Marzipan apps.

00:01:59   They're really bad and hopefully they get better

00:02:02   or the Mac is in trouble.

00:02:04   But go read--

00:02:05   - I already have a problem with this.

00:02:07   So okay, we're gonna talk about it.

00:02:08   'Cause I've heard you say this a couple of times

00:02:11   and I'm seeing this on Twitter a bunch as well, right?

00:02:14   Like that people are like saying, oh, these apps are bad,

00:02:17   so Marzipan's a disaster and it's gonna be terrible

00:02:19   for the future of the Macintosh.

00:02:20   Like, let's just give it a couple of years first, right?

00:02:25   Before we all like go jump off a cliff about it.

00:02:28   - I like that you say Macintosh.

00:02:29   That makes me feel nice inside.

00:02:32   - Well, this is what the replacement Myke Hurley,

00:02:35   he's more old school like that.

00:02:37   The real Myke Hurley would say Mac.

00:02:38   Well, you can't say Macs anymore

00:02:40   because nobody knows what it is.

00:02:41   Macintosh is now because of the fun.

00:02:43   - Yeah, Apple's really,

00:02:44   their naming is really complicated.

00:02:46   I think what I mean by that,

00:02:49   I can't speak for other people, but I think Jason

00:02:51   and I agree on this 'cause we've talked a lot about it,

00:02:55   is that if this is the future of Mac software,

00:03:00   which I think it is, right, because you are giving access

00:03:03   to a whole bunch of apps pretty easily,

00:03:07   people who would never write Mac apps now can,

00:03:10   and it seems like the method to do it

00:03:12   probably won't be that bad, then if these become

00:03:16   the overwhelmingly popular way to build Mac apps

00:03:20   and they're bad, that will do damage to the platform.

00:03:25   What I'm worried about is that,

00:03:28   as it is on iOS, as well as the Mac now,

00:03:33   Apple sort of sets the tone for what a third party

00:03:38   developer, like the bare minimum they should do in an app.

00:03:42   It's changed over time, but I'm sure you guys remember

00:03:45   the beginning days of the iOS app store,

00:03:48   most apps even looked like default apps.

00:03:53   That was very much a thing of like,

00:03:54   slipstream your way into what Apple's doing.

00:03:56   That's changed over time.

00:03:58   But I think the quality that Apple sets forth

00:04:00   as this is the standard, that needs to be high.

00:04:03   And the Marzipan apps, at this point now,

00:04:05   it is a beta, it's not even really a beta,

00:04:08   it's like a sneak peak, that quality's pretty low.

00:04:11   And I think what Jason and I want

00:04:13   is for them to increase that quality.

00:04:15   But if Marzipan rolls out and the very best Marzipan apps

00:04:20   are as bad as the home and news app are now,

00:04:23   then that's not good for the Mac.

00:04:25   And even if they improve it over time,

00:04:27   I think first impressions are important

00:04:30   because there are gonna be a lot of apps

00:04:32   that the developer just does the bare minimum,

00:04:35   which makes sense from a business perspective

00:04:38   for a lot of developers, I'm sure.

00:04:40   But the minimum should be higher than it is now.

00:04:42   So that's what I mean.

00:04:43   Saying it's the end of the Mac is hyperbole

00:04:46   and it's fun to be dramatic, but I do think it's a problem.

00:04:49   But I think Apple knows it's a problem.

00:04:51   Like, here's, we're turning follow up into a topic,

00:04:54   I'm sorry, but here's like my fundamental thing with this

00:04:58   is if Apple didn't care about the Mac,

00:05:00   they wouldn't have done this.

00:05:02   Like this seems like a lot of work

00:05:05   and Mojave is all about the Mac being more Mac-like.

00:05:07   So like the Mac isn't going anywhere, it's evolving,

00:05:10   but it's not going anywhere.

00:05:12   And so Apple needs to, like, they've done, you know,

00:05:15   70 or 75% of the work, they need to go the extra way

00:05:18   to make them feel like good apps on the Mac

00:05:20   and what that means.

00:05:21   And they haven't done that, but I trust that they will

00:05:24   because they've done so much work already.

00:05:25   I don't think they're gonna leave it

00:05:27   so close to the finish line.

00:05:29   That's all.

00:05:30   - Yeah, I think that like, there is a little bit,

00:05:33   I understand the concern, right,

00:05:35   and like to build on a couple of points that you made,

00:05:37   I don't think this is the future of Mac apps,

00:05:39   I think it's the future of all apps.

00:05:40   I think that this is what Apple will at least position as the future of all apps, the idea

00:05:47   that they will be built this way to run everywhere, ultimately, is kind of the goal that they're

00:05:51   going to want to push for eventually.

00:05:54   I think that Apple have made a mistake in not even attempting to brand these applications

00:06:00   as beta versions when they very clearly are.

00:06:05   Seems very peculiar to me that they didn't call News and Home and stuff like beta publicly.

00:06:10   You know, like, nerds know that this is based upon unreleased kind of technology that they're

00:06:15   building these on.

00:06:16   We know that.

00:06:17   Um, but they didn't do that widely, which it seems peculiar to me when they very simply

00:06:21   could have, could have.

00:06:22   And I believe that a lot of the things that do frustrate people, which is like very IOS-y

00:06:28   controls that will go away.

00:06:31   They'll find a way to, to fix a lot of that stuff.

00:06:35   You know, I think the fact that they've got them to where they are now, like the, you

00:06:40   know, they seem OK. They do the job.

00:06:42   They just do the job weirdly.

00:06:44   And I would like to believe for the same

00:06:47   reason you just brought up there that they

00:06:48   will make changes to them, because otherwise,

00:06:51   why on earth did they bother to do them in

00:06:52   the first place? Like if it was all about

00:06:55   iOS-ing the Mac, they could do that really

00:06:58   differently to this. Like, you know, like I

00:07:00   think a lot of people see it like, oh, they're

00:07:02   just ruining it and trying to, you know, turn

00:07:05   the Mac into a big iOS computer.

00:07:06   They could just make big iOS computers.

00:07:08   They're not. They're trying to find a way to modernize Mac apps.

00:07:13   And part of the modernization of it is trying to make them like iOS apps,

00:07:17   because that's where apps are being made.

00:07:18   So they're trying to bridge that gap, which I totally understand.

00:07:21   It's a new way to bring software to the platform,

00:07:23   making it easier for developers to make them cross platform.

00:07:25   Like if all they wanted to do was just turn a Mac into iOS,

00:07:28   they could just make a big iOS device and then just like that's it.

00:07:30   I think this is shows an innate love and care of the Mac

00:07:34   and that they're trying to find ways to boost the platform.

00:07:38   And we just got to wait for the implementation details to shake out over the next couple

00:07:41   of years, which is what they've put into place.

00:07:43   So I wouldn't go like lighting your hair on fire over these applications being not what

00:07:47   you want them to be right now.

00:07:49   I think that there's a process going along here.

00:07:52   So this is basically the same point that I will make on the next episode of App Stories,

00:07:57   which we recorded a few days ago, and it's actually all about the Sneak Peek or Marzipan

00:08:01   apps.

00:08:03   My point is that there's a line to draw here, I think in the Apple community, so to speak,

00:08:09   as to whether you believe that there's going to be a single shared app platform in the

00:08:14   future or if you think Apple should keep making two distinct platforms.

00:08:18   Not in terms of operating systems, but in terms of how developers create apps.

00:08:22   If you think that iOS apps should be wholly separate from Mac apps or if you think that

00:08:27   in the future developers should just write one app and have it run and have it adapt

00:08:32   to different devices and different screens and different interactions.

00:08:35   I think that five, ten years from now, maybe less even, I don't know, there will be a single

00:08:41   platform for making apps for Apple devices.

00:08:44   And the same app will run on the phone, on the iPad, on the Mac.

00:08:47   It'll adjust to the screen that it runs on, it'll adjust to the cursor or to multi-touch

00:08:52   or to whatever you want to use, maybe even AR, I don't know.

00:08:56   But I think Apple wants to remove the friction that developers have found so far in making

00:09:02   the single app available everywhere.

00:09:05   And the facts just speak for themselves.

00:09:07   If you look at the App Store for iOS and if you look at the App Store for the Mac, especially

00:09:11   for consumer stuff.

00:09:12   I'm not talking about like pro apps that are, you know, it's easier to find pro apps on

00:09:18   the Mac because that's what the Mac is for.

00:09:20   But if you look at consumer apps, if you look at something like Slack, maybe not even Slack,

00:09:24   If you look at utilities or sports apps or news apps, whatever you want to use, whatever

00:09:29   it is that most people use on the iOS app store, it's not available on the Mac.

00:09:34   And it's usually a web app or an electron app that I think arguably Apple doesn't

00:09:38   like as a solution.

00:09:40   So what's best?

00:09:41   Not to offer consumer apps on the Mac at all, just out of principle, because the Mac

00:09:48   needs to be a separate thing?

00:09:50   Or is it better to have this kind of solution where even right now, yes, the home app is

00:09:55   kind of terrible, and yes, news is basically the iPad version, but at least right now I

00:10:01   can change my lights from my MacBook, and I think that's better than nothing, that's

00:10:06   better than not having HomeKit at all, and we could keep basically banging the same drum

00:10:13   that oh no, Apple should make an actual native HomeKit app for the Mac, but they haven't

00:10:19   made it, maybe because they don't have the time, maybe because they don't have the team,

00:10:22   I don't know. But the truth is now we have some kind of home version on the Mac and to assume

00:10:28   that this is going to be this way forever with the weird iOS controls and you know the lack of

00:10:33   windows and the lack of keyboard shortcuts, I think that's a little short-sighted and I think

00:10:37   it will change. This is, I agree with Myke, this should have been labeled as a beta version because

00:10:42   that's what it is, but also I think, I don't think this is a nightmare for Mac users, I think it's

00:10:47   actually, you know, for most people including me, this is much better than not having these

00:10:52   iOS apps as it used to be before. That's my point.

00:10:57   No, it's a good one, I think. I don't know if people would have assumed

00:11:02   this was the way this conversation was going to go.

00:11:04   We're still in follow-up, actually. Just like me and Federico trying to calm

00:11:10   everyone down. I just think it's so interesting because

00:11:14   The Mac hasn't had a big transition like this in a long time.

00:11:20   These reviews don't talk about it much, but next year what we're going to be talking about

00:11:23   is the end of 32-bit and carbon apps.

00:11:26   Our friend James has taken DragThing down from sale because it's written in carbon and

00:11:32   the future of that app is unknown.

00:11:34   There's going to be a lot of utilities and stuff that sort of fade away after this release,

00:11:40   but we can park that until next year.

00:11:43   Like we talked about, I did not write a review, but I did have some thoughts beyond what we've

00:11:46   talked about here, so that's in the show notes, a link to that, as well as the Mojave screenshots.

00:11:53   They've all been added to the screenshot library, both light and dark mode, as well as a gallery

00:11:59   showing every combination of light and dark mode and all the accent colors.

00:12:04   The dark mode and the yellow accents I think is my least favorite.

00:12:07   It looks pretty bad, but if you want it and it looks good to you, then more power to you,

00:12:12   I guess so you may remember that we should remember that this wonderful the world's greatest podcast was featured

00:12:19   in the

00:12:21   WDC keynote we were on stage. Oh wait, you mean ATP?

00:12:26   No, they were in the podcast session. We got the keynote. Well, okay. Yeah, okay

00:12:31   So we're we're here in the keynote our wonderful artwork was featured very prominently

00:12:36   It turns out there's a little bit more love to go there from deeds

00:12:40   This is sent in to by a bunch of people.

00:12:42   The official Apple Support Twitter page tweeted a little video about how to listen to podcasts

00:12:48   on your Apple Watch.

00:12:49   And if you look real closely, you'll see that there is an episode of this very show featured

00:12:55   in the little carousel that goes on there.

00:12:58   And it was like episode 206 or 208 or something, so a pretty recent one.

00:13:04   And you know why they skipped Connected as they were scrolling on the Apple Watch.

00:13:08   Because Apple support knows that listening to connected is best.

00:13:12   I mean you can do it on the Apple watch, but it's best experience, you know, on a comfortable

00:13:17   couch in your living room.

00:13:18   Yes, you gotta relax.

00:13:19   You gotta relax.

00:13:20   You gotta take it all in and just enjoy the conversation.

00:13:24   And then Apple support knows because they listen to connected.

00:13:26   That's why.

00:13:27   So it's pretty awesome.

00:13:29   Thank you to whoever it was out there who did that.

00:13:33   You cannot understand the joy that I feel, that we all feel from seeing things like that.

00:13:37   makes us very very happy and very very proud so thank you. I do want to talk

00:13:41   about the ideal listening conditions for listening to the show though. I like the

00:13:46   idea of like being on a couch you know maybe the lights are kind of dim and

00:13:50   you've had a drink it's very relaxing but I think if you really want to get

00:13:55   into this the only way to do it really is to be just in the bathtub just fully

00:14:03   relaxed yeah I thought you were gonna say completely nude and you kind of did

00:14:08   say that I was trying to say it without saying it but you just went right to it

00:14:12   I thought Steven was a never nude like Tobias from Wow you can still get in the

00:14:21   bathtub in jean shorts it's no problem I mean didn't get snug when I gets wet but

00:14:26   it's fine that's what you're supposed to do right like we're real good jeans

00:14:30   supposed to get in the bathtub with them so they're like shaped you? I'm not cool enough

00:14:33   to know about that. And I have a phone that's too big for those jeans. So well, that's how

00:14:37   you get it to like fit the phone perfectly. You just put the phone in your pocket, you

00:14:42   get in the bathtub and then you can shrink it around. IP68 man, you gotta just keep it

00:14:47   in the pocket. You'll be totally fine. How many minutes do you get with IP68? Two hours.

00:14:53   That's a long, that's enough to shrink some jeans. Well, it's long enough. Our podcast

00:14:57   isn't ever longer than two hours so that's why now you know. So let's get started.

00:15:01   While we try to limit. We have some news about air power, no we don't have any news about

00:15:13   air power, but Belkin has shipped something that looks kind of similar. Federico what

00:15:18   is this thing that Belkin is doing? It's like, it's an ugly block of... White plastic. I

00:15:26   I mean, it's a block of white plastic with two separate stands for the Apple Watch and...

00:15:33   Oh, it also comes in glossy black plastic as well.

00:15:36   Oh, nice.

00:15:36   Glossy white plastic, so that's good news.

00:15:38   Mm-hmm.

00:15:39   So it's basically like this block with two stands, one a small stand for the Apple Watch

00:15:44   and another stand for the iPhone.

00:15:47   It can be an iPhone 8 or X or XS.

00:15:49   And you just charge them separately, but on the same little thing.

00:15:55   I don't even know how to cut it's it's not a dock. It's it's a block of plastic. I

00:15:59   Have a question about this thing. Mm-hmm. I can't work out how the iPhone stands securely

00:16:05   So I was just looking at this the surface of the block. It looks like it's like grippy rubber. Yeah, I think it's rubber

00:16:11   So I think it's just like friction. I imagine if you have a case it's even grippier

00:16:15   You know like a case with that is not enough. Hold on to it

00:16:17   It also has and one thing I like about this I agree with you

00:16:20   It is it is pretty ugly, but it has a USB port on the back

00:16:24   So you plug this thing into the wall

00:16:25   You can wirelessly charge your phone in your watch and you have USB put out the back for something like in this picture

00:16:30   They show an iPad so it's versatile that way too

00:16:33   So you're not you just have one plug taken up by three devices

00:16:36   Which I don't know about y'all but Mary not each have a nightstand and we both each charge our phones and our Apple watches

00:16:43   At night on our nightstands is like I'm out of plugs behind our bed. Like I have like a power strip back there

00:16:48   It's like not great

00:16:50   So this if you have that problem could be a solution to eliminate some of that, but I wish it was prettier

00:16:55   I don't know why it's so boxy like

00:16:57   You know if you if you leaned over hit your the corner of your head on that thing

00:17:02   It'd be really sharp very specific injury

00:17:04   It is a good product I think but I think that it is not

00:17:10   Greatly designed. Yeah, it's it's

00:17:13   Looking at their website. Okay. There's kind of like a little raised area. Yeah

00:17:19   Yeah, yeah, yeah like hold the phone that it that just does not feel secure enough to me

00:17:24   Like if you bump that like, you know how Federico what did you break that way?

00:17:28   I could one of your dogs to bumped into the

00:17:31   My phone. Yeah, the the ten last year. Yeah

00:17:35   Yeah

00:17:35   Like this was 100% like it unless it's like super grippy the plastic like the super grippy rubber on it or whatever

00:17:42   Which it doesn't necessarily look like there is it might I don't it's hard to tell but I would be

00:17:49   I would be hesitant to leave my phone on that thing.

00:17:53   I like it to be fixed in place a little bit more.

00:17:56   But the idea of the product is good, right?

00:17:59   And I also especially like the inclusion of the USB port on the back.

00:18:04   I think that's really clever.

00:18:05   I like that they did that.

00:18:07   So you could charge an iPad or just anything else.

00:18:09   Yeah. I wanted to get one immediately, but sadly it's coming out in December.

00:18:14   Which means there's a there's a I mean don't want to be that guy but there's

00:18:20   there's a real risk of air power coming up before this.

00:18:23   No there's not.

00:18:24   There's the risk of air power.

00:18:27   That's what it is now.

00:18:28   It is a risk.

00:18:29   It is a risk because it's gonna catch fire and you know it.

00:18:33   There is a risk of air power.

00:18:35   I have a lot of comments about this press release that they link to.

00:18:38   One they use a Dropbox link for their images like just questionable but they also some

00:18:44   of the bullet points don't mention the new phones. It's compatible with the 8, 8 plus

00:18:48   and 10. So come on, come on PR people. Get on it. It's also 160 bucks, which I don't

00:18:56   know how I feel about that. That's expensive I think.

00:18:58   It's a lot of money. I mean how much is air power going to be if it ever ships?

00:19:03   649.

00:19:04   Can you imagine if it was like more than 200?

00:19:11   It costs a lot because it comes bundled with insurance for your house.

00:19:15   And the fire extinguisher.

00:19:16   They just ship like a box of devices to you.

00:19:20   Like here's just like another three phones in case it breaks.

00:19:24   I imagine AirPower will be one, so I would say $149 which means it'll be $199 because

00:19:30   the Snell rule is to add $50 to everything, which is a really, really good rule.

00:19:36   So I would say $199 from Apple.

00:19:38   That makes sense.

00:19:39   Yeah, if it's more than 200, like that would be very upsetting.

00:19:44   That's bananas. And you got about an AirPod case.

00:19:46   If it ever arrives.

00:19:47   Right? Like...

00:19:48   If it ever arrives, yeah.

00:19:49   I don't know.

00:19:50   And the jury's still out. I know that there's like, oh it's in 12.1. I don't think that

00:19:54   means anything really. Like, I understand that they're continuing to like, do stuff

00:20:00   as if it's gonna come, but like, we're a year away at this point. Like, I'm sure they've

00:20:04   been working on it for the last year as well, but...

00:20:07   It is strange that they printed it on the manual of the iPhone XS though.

00:20:15   We have very different opinions upon this, but sure.

00:20:19   You think that was just like some random person at Apple who just slipped the manual of the

00:20:26   new iPhone?

00:20:27   Nope.

00:20:28   I just think the inclusion of it in the packaging doesn't say anything about the fact of whether

00:20:32   it ships or not.

00:20:35   Because it's not available. This product doesn't exist, but it's in the packaging, right?

00:20:40   That is a blunder because that packaging can be changed at any point. They didn't change

00:20:45   it, right? So like it shipped this product doesn't exist and it's in there. Air power

00:20:51   is not a thing that you can charge it onto. So like that is an error that they should

00:20:55   not have shipped these phones with it saying you can use an air power mat because you can't.

00:21:02   How is that possible that it's just some error?

00:21:05   No, no, no.

00:21:06   I mean, I don't mean like accidentally slipped in.

00:21:09   I mean, Apple should not have sent these phones out with it saying you can use an AirPower

00:21:13   thing.

00:21:14   So why did they do it?

00:21:16   Because I believe this was designed when AirPower was shipping and it just got put in the box

00:21:22   and nobody noticed.

00:21:23   That's what I think.

00:21:24   And the idea of like Apple wouldn't let that, of course Apple would let that happen.

00:21:26   There's so many moving parts.

00:21:27   Of course it can happen.

00:21:28   No, I don't think that.

00:21:29   Like the fact that AirPower doesn't exist.

00:21:30   What happened?

00:21:31   Things can go wrong.

00:21:33   If you know that it's late, but if you're pretty sure at this point

00:21:36   that it's coming out by the end of the year.

00:21:38   I think you would have then said it on stage

00:21:41   if you were pretty sure it's coming out by the end of the year.

00:21:44   And I just don't buy that like it being on the piece of paper means anything.

00:21:50   What it does mean is that they shouldn't have shipped it

00:21:53   with the little piece of paper in it that said you can use air power

00:21:55   because the Apple Watch doesn't have it on there.

00:21:59   The Apple Watch one says just use it on the included charger.

00:22:02   I think a test doesn't say anything about this.

00:22:04   The 10 are paperwork come with it in a couple of weeks.

00:22:07   Or do you know future tennis and tennis max boxes omit it?

00:22:12   Right. Like is this just like a run of them that happen to go out of the test is

00:22:15   and they're being do we get to do we get to twenty nineteen with no power or not?

00:22:20   You know, I just I understand the point of like it seems like it would be crazy to

00:22:24   include it if it wasn't existing.

00:22:26   does seem, but just having worked in a place where like there's a lot of moving parts and

00:22:30   paper stuff is being made like that decision for that manual may have been made like four months

00:22:36   ago and it just got printed and it got stacked in a warehouse and then someone was like you know what

00:22:43   we think we're going to ship this at some point let's just put it in there like these are these

00:22:48   you know we can we can fantasize about apple being perfect but they're not perfect like these things

00:22:53   can happen. That's my feeling on it anyway. I'm more than happy to be wrong. And I just don't

00:23:00   think the inclusion of the word airpower on the paperwork means that airpower is a week away.

00:23:04   Can you imagine, like, it's launch day and like Phil Schiller, you know, he's had his phone for

00:23:10   a while, but you know, he buys one for his spouse or one of his kids and he's, it's at night, he's

00:23:14   at home on the kitchen table, he's unboxing it, the paperwork spills out, he sees the word airpower,

00:23:20   he like flips over the table, right, like runs into his office and gets the bat phone to call Tim.

00:23:25   It's like, we agreed that no one would mention this word.

00:23:28   So we're going to get into our impressions of iPhones and the Apple Watch and WatchOS 5. There's

00:23:37   a lot to talk about, but first I want to give everyone one last reminder that September is

00:23:43   Childhood Cancer Awareness Month. It's the month of September we talk about this, a lot of our

00:23:47   of our friends talk about this, which is really great.

00:23:49   Raising money for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital,

00:23:52   which is here in my hometown of Memphis,

00:23:54   and they treat kids with cancer

00:23:56   and other catastrophic diseases free of charge.

00:23:59   And my son is one of those kids.

00:24:01   He was diagnosed with a brain tumor

00:24:03   when he was six months old.

00:24:04   Now he's almost 10 and he's doing great,

00:24:06   and that is thanks to the hard work of St. Jude.

00:24:09   And like I said, I've never been charged a dime

00:24:12   for what has to be millions of dollars

00:24:14   of chemotherapy and surgery and MRIs and all this stuff.

00:24:17   So there's a link in the show notes.

00:24:19   This chapter has a link in it.

00:24:21   I'd love if you would go check this page out.

00:24:23   I'd love if you would donate.

00:24:24   My goal was $20,000 as of right now.

00:24:28   We're a little over $42,000.

00:24:31   I would secretly love to hit 50

00:24:33   'cause that's what we did last year.

00:24:34   I think that'd be really awesome

00:24:36   because it's such important work

00:24:38   and work that's, I think, obviously close to my heart

00:24:40   and close to the heart of a lot of other people.

00:24:42   So thank you.

00:24:43   Alright, today's show is brought to you by our friends at Smile and today I want to talk

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00:24:54   communicate smarter. You can create snippets for things that you type or copy and paste

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00:26:45   So the new iPhones are here.

00:26:48   We are all back in the the Max Club, which is like the plus club, but reborn from the

00:26:54   ashes of the plus phone.

00:26:57   And I think we're all happy with it, so I'm curious, have you adjusted to the size, what

00:27:03   are the benefits of the size, does this feel different than the Plus phone?

00:27:05   Myke, how are you feeling?

00:27:08   I'm happy.

00:27:09   I'm very happy.

00:27:10   As people where I grew up would say, Steven, I'm happy as Larry.

00:27:14   I don't know what that means.

00:27:15   Who's Larry?

00:27:16   But it's something they used to say.

00:27:17   I don't know, but he's a happy guy, I guess.

00:27:18   Like Larry Page?

00:27:19   Yes, I'm happy as Larry Page using an iPhone.

00:27:22   So very happy.

00:27:24   I'm as happy as Larry Page when he did that like parachute jump wearing Google Glass.

00:27:29   I'm that happy, you know? He was very happy that day, I'm sure. Yeah, I love it, man.

00:27:34   You know, spoiling something, but like me and Federico both independently used the phrase

00:27:39   "I feel like I'm home again", which was kind of funny. Like I wrote it down in my little

00:27:43   notes and then Federico sent it to us in a text message. It's like, "Oh, I know what

00:27:47   you mean!" It's great. It's great for all of the reasons. Plus phones were great. The

00:27:52   The max phone is great too. The screens are bigger which is just nicer, but you also get

00:27:59   more information on the screen. So I did some comparisons. These aren't shocking, they're

00:28:03   not like massive numbers, but it is more data which I like. In Overcast you see one more

00:28:08   podcast than a playlist. In Twitrific I see two extra tweets than on my 10. In Spark I

00:28:15   see one extra email in the list. In Slack there are multiple lines of messages. I like

00:28:20   big phones because I like to get the most information from my pocket computer.

00:28:24   Like these aren't monumentally huge numbers, but it's more and I always want

00:28:29   more. So I love it. I love the Max. It's great. It's a wonderful phone. It's

00:28:32   wonderful. Yeah, it's been especially nice to, you know, keeping the same font size

00:28:39   but getting more content in return by switching to the big screen. I especially

00:28:45   like that when I'm catching up on Twitter or going through my RSS as Myke

00:28:48   mentioned. I think there's a real feeling of not being constrained by the limits of the screen

00:28:58   anymore, which I really like. And also, it just feels more comfortable for me to hold and to

00:29:04   scroll. I got the typical reaction that two hours after using the Max, I picked up the 10 again,

00:29:14   which by the way Silvia is now using and she seems to be happy with it, and it felt just small.

00:29:20   And I wonder like how did I ever use this phone? I want to use the Max forever. I had to adjust a

00:29:27   little to the keyboard just because even though I didn't like it I sort of begrudgingly got used to

00:29:34   the to the smaller keyboard of the iPhone X. So the first couple of hours of typing on the on the

00:29:39   the max. It felt strange and I was having a lot of typos in my messages, but the next

00:29:48   day everything was fine. And now the keyboard is excellent and I tried to type on the smaller

00:29:54   10 and I couldn't, so I guess the transition is complete.

00:29:57   Do you mean the baby phone?

00:30:00   The baby phone.

00:30:01   So that's how it feels to me. Like I picked up the 10 and was like "what is this tiny

00:30:04   - how did I - how have I used this for the last year? It's wild."

00:30:08   using an SE today. How is that even possible? It's not that I think the X is small, it's

00:30:17   just the way they feel. When you've used one of the bigger phones, you pick up the smaller

00:30:21   phone and it's like, I don't even understand anymore. It's so funny how quickly you adjust.

00:30:27   And it's the same as like, I remember saying this all those years ago, right, to you guys

00:30:31   about the Plus phone. You adjust really quickly. It just becomes what you're used to and it

00:30:38   really doesn't take very long and you know like there are disadvantages right like it

00:30:43   is heavier and it is bigger right but I don't think it's unwieldy you know I'm using my

00:30:49   popsocket more though because it's because it is harder to get my hand around the phone

00:30:56   right like because the phone is wider so it's way easier to just stop halfway because the

00:31:01   popsockets there and just grip that.

00:31:04   The thing I've noticed is that there's two things I don't like. I think the Apple

00:31:10   Silicon case is still a little too thick for my taste. Like, I would like a silicon case

00:31:17   but thinner. I don't know if it exists. Like a peel type of case but made of silicon. I

00:31:22   don't know if that's possible at all from a physics perspective.

00:31:27   Someone makes it. There are so many cases, somebody makes a thinner silicon case.

00:31:31   And also what I noticed is that I don't mind the weight.

00:31:35   I think it's-- I mean, of course it's heavier than before,

00:31:37   but it's not a huge problem for me.

00:31:40   No, it's like I just note that it is heavier,

00:31:42   not that it's too heavy.

00:31:44   Yeah, totally.

00:31:45   Yeah.

00:31:45   But what is an actual problem for me

00:31:48   is reaching Control Center.

00:31:50   I've been saying this ever since last year.

00:31:52   I think it's in the wrong spot.

00:31:54   I think Steven agrees with me.

00:31:56   Personally, I believe it should be next to the multitasking UI.

00:32:01   basically where it used to be on the iPad.

00:32:03   I think it should be in the same position on the iPhone.

00:32:06   I think it's impossible to reach on the Macs.

00:32:09   And I also think if Apple cannot make up its mind,

00:32:11   it should become a user setting or an accessibility setting

00:32:14   or something.

00:32:14   Just let me choose where to access Control Center.

00:32:17   Because right there in that corner,

00:32:19   I found myself using reachability multiple times

00:32:23   to bring down the UI and swipe on a nonexistent corner

00:32:28   to access Control Center, which is dumb.

00:32:30   So yeah, that's the only problem.

00:32:34   - It's a bad spot.

00:32:35   What I found myself doing is doing stuff in settings

00:32:38   instead of Control Center, 'cause it's easier to manage,

00:32:41   which feels like a step backwards,

00:32:43   'cause Control Center is really good,

00:32:45   and it's customizable and stuff, but it is really far away.

00:32:49   It's like, you gotta send some sort of courier

00:32:52   to go get Control Center for you and bring it back to you

00:32:54   so you can use it.

00:32:55   - So here's the thing.

00:32:58   I totally know that Control Center is like more awkward.

00:33:03   I am not feeling it.

00:33:07   Like I haven't felt myself be like,

00:33:10   "Oh man, Control Center."

00:33:11   And I don't know why,

00:33:13   like whether I'm just automatically just treating this phone

00:33:17   as a two-handed phone or I'm able to reach it.

00:33:21   I don't really know why.

00:33:22   It's like as soon as I saw the phone,

00:33:24   I was like, "Oh man, that's gonna be difficult."

00:33:27   And I can hear and you guys say it right now.

00:33:29   I'm like, yeah, you're making perfect sense.

00:33:31   But I have no personal feeling of it being annoying for me.

00:33:34   And I don't know why that is.

00:33:35   But I do agree with you both that it should change.

00:33:37   But I just wanted to say like,

00:33:38   just as a kind of a different part, right?

00:33:41   Like as a different opinion, like,

00:33:43   I'm not feeling the issue,

00:33:46   even though I know the issue would naturally exist.

00:33:49   Does that make sense?

00:33:50   But like, it's not something that I'm noticing very much.

00:33:54   - Interesting. - I don't know why.

00:33:57   - Okay.

00:33:58   I don't know, maybe it's the pop socket.

00:34:00   Maybe that makes you, I don't know.

00:34:02   - It could be, like I might just be naturally gripping it

00:34:05   even when it's closed in,

00:34:06   'cause it is just a gripping point,

00:34:08   or like a balance point,

00:34:10   so that I can kind of more easily shimmy my phone.

00:34:13   I don't know.

00:34:14   I mean, I really do recommend that people try these things.

00:34:17   I think that they're very good, and they really help.

00:34:19   - Federico, let's both try it.

00:34:20   Let's order them and try it.

00:34:22   I think we should try it. - I need,

00:34:23   I wanna tell you both in advance

00:34:25   that you're going to really not like the fact that it is super sketchy as to

00:34:29   whether wireless charging works.

00:34:31   Yeah.

00:34:31   You're both not going to like that.

00:34:33   Like sometimes it works.

00:34:34   Sometimes it doesn't.

00:34:35   We should try it though.

00:34:35   I feel like the time has come.

00:34:37   I think you should try it.

00:34:37   They're on Amazon like, and they're not very expensive.

00:34:40   I recommend you give it a go.

00:34:42   I don't like the idea.

00:34:44   I don't like the idea at all.

00:34:46   I don't want to stick something to my phone.

00:34:47   No, no, no, no.

00:34:49   We can stick it to the case.

00:34:50   I, I, I already don't like the fact that the case is too thick.

00:34:55   Why would I make it even thicker?

00:34:57   Because it doesn't make it thicker.

00:34:58   Just try it. Just give it a go.

00:35:00   Just give it a go.

00:35:01   Come on. This is an experiment.

00:35:02   This is an experiment.

00:35:03   Peer pressure.

00:35:04   I don't like it.

00:35:05   I'm not saying you're going to like it,

00:35:07   but I think you should give it a go.

00:35:08   Look, there's one with a giraffe

00:35:11   blowing a bubble of bubble gum.

00:35:13   That's the one you should buy.

00:35:14   Come on.

00:35:15   Who doesn't want that?

00:35:16   I bet you could get one with an Italian flag too,

00:35:19   if you want it.

00:35:19   There's lots of different...

00:35:20   For the Rela logo.

00:35:21   Make sure it's an official pop socket though.

00:35:23   You want the real deal.

00:35:24   You can get them on Amazon, but just give it a go.

00:35:27   - I'll see, okay, okay.

00:35:28   I'll see what I can do.

00:35:29   - He's not gonna do it.

00:35:31   - He's not.

00:35:32   - I'll try.

00:35:33   - I agree with all y'all.

00:35:34   It didn't take long to get adjusted to the size again.

00:35:38   It is definitely noticeably larger than the 10

00:35:41   and a little bit heavier,

00:35:42   but it feels the way the Plus did

00:35:45   in that it effectively feels borderless,

00:35:50   like not because of the design.

00:35:52   I felt this way with the Plus phone too,

00:35:54   Because it's so big, it's like I'm just looking at a movie.

00:35:58   I'm not looking at a YouTube app on a phone.

00:36:00   There's something that makes content in particular

00:36:02   more sort of all-encompassing on a larger screen.

00:36:07   So I feel that way with the Max that whatever I'm doing

00:36:11   feels just more real and more vibrant because it's larger.

00:36:15   That's something I really liked about the Plus phone,

00:36:17   especially watching video.

00:36:19   But even doing things like reading or doing email

00:36:21   or Slack or whatever, just 'cause you can see more

00:36:23   of what's going on, it feels like you're doing it

00:36:26   on a computer more than you're doing it

00:36:27   on something you stick in your pocket.

00:36:29   Like it feels like a pocket computer the way the Plus did,

00:36:33   not just a phone, if that makes sense.

00:36:35   - Yeah, that makes perfect sense.

00:36:38   - Yeah, I noticed the other day,

00:36:39   I found myself actually using landscape mode

00:36:42   while I was reading like a story in Safari.

00:36:45   And I was just lying in bed and reading,

00:36:48   and I removed the case because when I'm in bed

00:36:51   I'm using the iPhone. I just I like the fact that it's still like...

00:36:58   Totally new.

00:37:00   There's no risk of dropping the phone because I'm in bed and also I prefer the way that

00:37:05   it grips. So I actually use landscape mode and then I realized, you know, it actually

00:37:13   feels like using a... I think my thought was like it feels like a PSP. It feels like a

00:37:20   video game console because of the way that I was holding it and I realized this is just

00:37:25   it's like a giant screen and it was like until a few years ago it was unthinkable to have

00:37:31   like a 6.5 inch iPhone and now look at how I'm using this phone just to randomly read

00:37:37   an article in Safari like how normal it felt that sort of surprised me.

00:37:44   I was been very oh you know what actually you said about landscape just reminded me

00:37:49   Have you guys seen what landscape control center looks like?

00:37:53   Is it possible to use lens?

00:37:56   It is friggin wild if you use an app with

00:37:59   with landscape mode.

00:38:02   OK, right. And pull down from the top right is crazy.

00:38:06   Like, and it's just a big long list of boxes.

00:38:10   It's very peculiar.

00:38:12   I recommend giving it a go because it just looks this strange.

00:38:16   It is very strange.

00:38:18   - It's just a big, this looks like a weird chocolate bar, you know? Like you know you

00:38:25   can get chocolate bars broken down into little squares? It just looks like a really weird

00:38:30   chocolate bar.

00:38:31   - Yeah, I think you're right. It looks very weird.

00:38:35   - I'll put something in the show notes for people that aren't as cool to be in the Max

00:38:39   Club because they chose a smaller phone and so that they can still benefit from this thing

00:38:45   because I guess this isn't on the other phones because the other phones don't have the landscape

00:38:50   mode. If you guys had any kind of thoughts or feelings about the stereo widening stuff,

00:39:01   I was listening to some music from my phone a couple of days ago and I really liked it

00:39:06   a lot. It felt more like listening on my phone was a nice feeling as opposed to listening

00:39:14   to music on my phone was a good feeling as opposed to like a means to an end as it would

00:39:21   usually be, you know?

00:39:23   Yeah, I noticed this while I was listening to, I think, one of my Apple Music playlists.

00:39:29   I didn't really pay attention, I just thought to myself, you know, it sounds nicer. And

00:39:32   then I think the same day you sent us a message about Siri mode and I was like, I connected

00:39:37   the dots. I was like, oh yeah, it's totally right. That's why it sounds better. I mean,

00:39:43   I don't usually listen to music on my phone, but when it's functional and when it's the

00:39:49   only speaker or when it's like, I don't know, I just want to listen to a song that somebody

00:39:52   sent me, I think it does sound nicer.

00:39:56   I think it's pretty nice.

00:39:57   And I noticed also that it sounds better when like watching videos or having phone calls

00:40:03   on speaker, stuff like that.

00:40:04   It sounds better, which is nice.

00:40:06   What about Face ID?

00:40:08   Have you seen any differences there?

00:40:10   I mean, I'll honestly say I haven't.

00:40:11   it's any better I'm not particularly noticing it. I don't think I am either. It did feel

00:40:17   like running the iOS 12 beta made FaceTime more forgiving, like if you're laying down

00:40:21   or your face is partially obscured or something. And I still feel that. I don't know if it's

00:40:28   any faster. If it is, it's pretty minor, I think. I really feel like going from iOS 11

00:40:34   to 12 is a bigger change in the way Face ID worked for me, especially situations where

00:40:39   laying down or something like that.

00:40:41   - And shouldn't it like, in theory anyway,

00:40:45   take a while if there are any benefits

00:40:52   'cause it has to relearn my face?

00:40:53   - Well, I think the only benefit,

00:40:56   the only way Face ID would be faster

00:40:57   is 'cause the chip set is faster

00:40:59   and I don't know if that requires updating

00:41:01   the learning model or just can run the model

00:41:04   faster than it used to.

00:41:05   I don't know if we know enough about how it works

00:41:07   to answer that honestly.

00:41:10   OK.

00:41:11   Because I just figured that it surely

00:41:15   has to learn my face again.

00:41:17   And I just wondered if I maybe see the speed improvements

00:41:23   later on.

00:41:23   But I just don't really think that--

00:41:25   I mean, this is why Apple didn't call it like Face ID version 2.

00:41:29   It might be a little bit faster, but it's not

00:41:31   going to be that much faster, really.

00:41:34   I think I noticed the slight speed improvement because I feel like it takes like a fraction

00:41:41   of a second less to unlock my phone than before, but also I was running into this problem with

00:41:47   Face ID on the iPhone X where because I got a haircut and like I suppose I reached like

00:41:56   this threshold that my beard was much much shorter than before, Face ID got sort of tripped

00:42:03   up somehow. And I was having more failed scans over the past couple of months with the iPhone

00:42:14   X. But then when I set up the Face ID from scratch on the XS, it felt... I mean, of course

00:42:25   it learned with my new appearance and it was fine. But then I compared the two. I set up

00:42:31   from scratch face ID on the X and on the XS again because I was like am I going crazy

00:42:35   this is actually faster and from the same orientation with the same sort of gesture

00:42:42   that I do of picking up the phone looking at it and swiping up the XS was like a tiny

00:42:48   tiny fraction of a second faster than the iPhone X and then I also compared like apps

00:42:54   like 1Password with the extension for example when it comes up in Safari it was fast it

00:43:00   It seems faster than the iPhone X, and of course I don't have any actual scientific

00:43:05   measurements to prove this, but just by looking at it, it seems a little snappier than the

00:43:11   iPhone X.

00:43:12   So also, I haven't played with the... in iOS 12 there's a new feature to set up an alternate

00:43:20   appearance for Face ID.

00:43:23   I haven't played with it, but I actually considered, you know, if I get a haircut and maybe I look

00:43:29   more different than Face ID expects, maybe I should consider this option in the future.

00:43:34   So I can have like a face with beard and face with no beard, sort of as an option in Face

00:43:41   ID.

00:43:42   The two extremes of Federica.

00:43:44   Mm-hmm.

00:43:45   Basically, yeah.

00:43:46   Yeah, that's interesting.

00:43:47   I haven't had any problems with that in growing my hair out, but I haven't gotten it cut in

00:43:52   a long time.

00:43:53   Right, but growing it out shouldn't be a problem, right?

00:43:55   It's slower, I guess, right?

00:43:56   'cause it's always learning differences.

00:43:58   So that is interesting.

00:44:00   I don't think I've heard that from other people,

00:44:02   but you're, probably what it is--

00:44:06   - Maybe just nobody's got a haircut

00:44:07   except for Federico since he got his new phone.

00:44:09   - Probably what it is is that the neural network

00:44:12   is just overwhelmed by your Italian handsomeness

00:44:15   that you just crashed the entire system.

00:44:17   - I knew you were going there.

00:44:19   - It's a flaw.

00:44:20   - That's probably true.

00:44:21   - Yeah, you know those Intel things

00:44:23   that were going around last year and early this year,

00:44:25   know like a hot bleed meltdown and all that stuff it's that's what it is let's

00:44:30   talk about the camera a little bit you know this is it's been so interesting in

00:44:34   the last week that the way Apple talked about the camera and the keynote was

00:44:38   really downplayed and like I think we all walked away thinking this isn't a

00:44:42   huge update and then come to find out the sensor is much larger and it's doing

00:44:46   a pretty impressive job with HDR I think but like it feels like the camera is a

00:44:51   bigger deal than Apple let on. I find that really interesting. For me at least,

00:44:56   the rear camera, I want to talk about the selfie camera separately, the rear camera,

00:45:01   the HDR stuff is really good. Like you can really pull off some shots

00:45:06   where the sky would have been blown out in the past or the face of

00:45:10   the person you're shooting would have been sort of dark or muted because

00:45:13   they're in the shadow. But I kind of feel like this is as good as I want HDR to be.

00:45:19   Like some of these photos like border on to like too unrealistic in a way like

00:45:28   over-processed in a way that I didn't expect from an iPhone and I don't know

00:45:32   if that's just HDR if it's software stuff they're doing but it feels like at

00:45:37   least in some of the more extreme examples I've seen people sharing and

00:45:39   reviews that some of these pictures aren't what I expect from an iPhone and

00:45:44   I think a little if whatever this is if it's dialed up anymore I think that'd be

00:45:48   out of bounds in what I prefer out of a photograph. Is that something that you guys resonate with

00:45:54   or am I just being insensitive?

00:45:56   I think I'm firmly in the camp of who they are making this for. Like photo looks appealing,

00:46:02   not accurate. And you're in the photo looks accurate world. And I think that ultimately

00:46:08   for Apple to continue to make cameras that are considered to be competitive against their

00:46:12   biggest competitors, they need to lean into what they have, which is let's make these

00:46:17   photos a little bit more pleasing and not actually how a camera should be

00:46:21   taking them right which is the idea of like me taking a picture of Stephen with

00:46:28   a the Sun right behind him well like that Stephen would never take that

00:46:34   picture right because he understands how cameras work I would because I don't and

00:46:39   so like what what picture is best to give me at that point should I get the

00:46:44   picture where it doesn't work because the Sun is right there or should I get

00:46:47   process picture where it does work and I get what I was clearly intending to do which was a nice

00:46:52   picture of my friend right and I think that Apple personally I think that they are making the right

00:46:57   decision because I think a lot of people they say x camera is better because x camera either has more

00:47:05   as like brighter colors more pleasing colors right so the picture looks nicer than the actual maybe

00:47:10   maybe even the world does, and/or they are doing little tricks to make the photos come

00:47:16   out better even when technically they shouldn't. And I think that it's the right move to make

00:47:21   because otherwise their competitors are going to keep making more and more pleasing photos

00:47:27   via the use of computational photography, as Apple called out on stage, right, like

00:47:31   that term of using software to make photos look better. They're going to keep extending

00:47:35   that stuff and if Apple keeps trying to go for the true to life stuff that they've done

00:47:38   in the past, people are just gonna, I think people will be ultimately unhappy with the

00:47:43   photos that their phones are producing. Because they think that they're not good enough, but

00:47:48   that's not what it is, they're just trying to stay true. But they have to let go at some

00:47:53   point because there's only so much you can do with the, there's only so much you can,

00:47:57   I know they took a big jump into the actual hardware technology this time as well with

00:48:02   the new sensor stuff, but there is only so much that a camera in the size of these phones

00:48:07   can do right now and you have to make up the rest of software and I think I will say I

00:48:13   am extremely happy with this because I've been taking a bunch of pictures when also

00:48:18   comparing them to it like we were walking around in London late last night and I was

00:48:22   taking pictures of landmarks and stuff and just there were just details in her images

00:48:28   that like didn't exist compared to mine right there were things that in low light that my

00:48:36   phone could very easily pick up that on her phone it just looked like nothing was there.

00:48:41   And I know what I prefer, you know, as a person taking photos on my phone. I know what I prefer.

00:48:48   And what I prefer is to have the most detail, like to have the most forgiving camera possible

00:48:54   because I'm no photographer.

00:48:56   Yeah, personally I still haven't noticed, like I still, I don't have a picture that

00:49:03   I took in the past few days and I'm like "yes, this is like... I can totally see smart HDR at work here".

00:49:11   Just because I haven't taken any meaningful pictures, I think. But on principle I agree with Myke

00:49:17   on the idea of... I don't know, like... all these concepts, like, when I see people saying "oh my god,

00:49:24   you can take amazing pictures with manual camera apps and raw photography on iOS", I'm like "yes,

00:49:30   I appreciate that that exists, that it's possible, but man, give me those sliders and those settings

00:49:38   and those words on screen, I don't know what they mean. And I try to read tutorials and I try to

00:49:44   learn, it just, it's not a skill that I'm able to absorb and learn and practice over time. So the

00:49:51   more that a camera system can do this stuff automatically for me and make it look nicer,

00:49:57   even if it's not accurate like in photographically speaking, I don't need to win any contests,

00:50:04   I don't need to be like called by National Geographic to shoot pictures of dogs,

00:50:09   I just want pretty pictures on my phone. And for that purpose I think the more complexity

00:50:15   you remove and the more features you add that make them look prettier, I'm happy.

00:50:21   I still don't have a picture that I can say "oh this picture wouldn't have been as nice on the

00:50:25   the iPhone X, but I know that it will come the moment when I will be looking at a photo

00:50:30   and go like, yeah, this camera is actually very nice. So for now I can only say that

00:50:36   I agree with Myke conceptually, but I'm sure he's also right from a practical standpoint.

00:50:45   I feel like this over-processing is really noticeable on the front camera, maybe even

00:50:51   more so than the rear is doing a lot of smoothing. I've never looked so good in

00:50:56   yeah no blemishes on that front-facing camera and again it's like I'm not a

00:51:01   hundred percent sure what's going on here right because that one feels like

00:51:05   as surprising that they would look kind of leaned into it it's like a lot of

00:51:08   pictures and like not amazing lighting if your face is very soft right like

00:51:13   it's very soft looking and I guess it's like if they are doing that like if I

00:51:17   mean again I kind of make sense right like if people taking selfies they

00:51:21   add all these filters, maybe the camera can do some of it for you? I don't know

00:51:25   but like I just feel like it seems like it may have made some decisions and

00:51:31   about the way the this phone processes images and by and large I think I agree

00:51:36   with all of them but I understand that some kind of more traditional

00:51:40   photographer people wouldn't get that. And I do have options, right? Like if this

00:51:45   bothered me enough I could go shoot in RAW and a bunch of third-party apps and

00:51:50   bypass some of this or be able to tone it down. And you can turn off Smart HDR too, right?

00:51:55   Yeah. And I noticed by restoring from a backup that if you had HDR disabled before,

00:52:03   Smart HDR will be disabled as well. If you set it up from scratch, which I did after,

00:52:09   because I had a bunch of problems with my backup, it'll be enabled by default in the camera settings.

00:52:15   So there you go. I think we all have a thumbs up on the new phones.

00:52:18   Oh, yeah. Oh without a shadow of a doubt officially blessed by the connected podcast

00:52:22   Which is I know everyone. Yeah, that's what Apple is really waiting for that. The phone will be successful now. They're really open

00:52:29   Apple's favorite podcast endorses the new iPhone today's show is brought to you by Pingdom the company who make website performance

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00:53:31   Along with our new larger phones, there are new larger Apple watches. So Myke, you where

00:53:38   we left this you didn't buy one because you've moved on from the Apple Watch. As they say,

00:53:45   Federico you did and we're gonna talk about the Sailor option for you because it's new

00:53:50   for you.

00:53:51   Where we left me was I was not going to buy a watch at this time, I was going to wait

00:53:58   and as the title of last week's episode shows, sometimes I have trouble seeking to decisions

00:54:05   when it comes to technology and I picked up over the weekend a 44mm.

00:54:13   I love that this happened so much. Space grey, aluminum, GPS. You couldn't even last the weekend.

00:54:22   They came out on Friday and you had it on like Saturday. Yeah, it's not my finest hour.

00:54:30   It was effectively as soon as you could have gotten it. Steven Hackett, a man of short-lived

00:54:36   decisions. Yes. Wow. Which is not how I am with other things in my life, not all things,

00:54:42   but technology is a weakness.

00:54:45   What I find most interesting about this watch,

00:54:47   and we're gonna talk about the software,

00:54:48   but from the hardware perspective is that

00:54:50   how much thinner it looks on your wrist,

00:54:53   it is actually, I actually looked it up

00:54:54   and I did the math, it is actually thicker still

00:54:58   than the original Apple Watch.

00:55:00   But because it is taller,

00:55:04   it looks, it generally looks much, much thinner.

00:55:09   - That is so interesting.

00:55:12   I have not heard anybody mention that before, right? Because we forget they kept making

00:55:18   it thicker. So even though they made it thinner, it's still thicker than the original one.

00:55:22   That's crazy. It's interesting because Apple used to list

00:55:27   things in inches. It was like point whatever, whatever. And now they're doing it in millimeters.

00:55:30   So like you got to do the math and like catch Apple.

00:55:33   As it should be. It's the one true unit. Just saying.

00:55:37   I agree with you. I don't know. I'm in disagreement. The metric is better. The metric is better.

00:55:41   I don't think anyone's fighting you.

00:55:43   Yeah.

00:55:43   He's just like super ready to have a fight that no one, no one will.

00:55:49   I'm turning into the European version of Kacelis.

00:55:52   Every time there's any kind of conflict between America and Europe, I'm, you know,

00:55:57   #European.

00:55:58   That's who I am.

00:55:59   Mm-hmm.

00:56:00   I think it also looks thinner for a couple other reasons.

00:56:03   The speaker grille being sort of long and narrow now, like it's like a slot,

00:56:09   like running down the side of the watch,

00:56:10   I think helps visually break it up.

00:56:12   And if you look on the other side,

00:56:14   the digital crown on the original watch,

00:56:16   I don't know if it was smaller,

00:56:18   I actually have a Series Zero, but I didn't measure it.

00:56:21   But the crown either looks bigger or is bigger now,

00:56:24   but it's also more centered on the case.

00:56:26   The original Apple Watch, the crown was sort of proud

00:56:29   of the surface a little bit,

00:56:31   and so they've done some trickery over the years

00:56:33   to make this thing look thinner,

00:56:35   and at least on the wrist to my eye,

00:56:38   it looks way thinner, even though on paper

00:56:41   it's really not, really not.

00:56:44   But it's a good trick, it's a trick that Apple pulled off.

00:56:46   Remember like the iPhone 5, right?

00:56:48   Like when you picked up the iPhone 5 for the first time,

00:56:51   it felt fake 'cause it was so much like lighter

00:56:53   and thinner than the 4 and 4S,

00:56:56   even though it was a bigger phone.

00:56:58   Like Apple has used this trick before to its advantage.

00:57:02   I think the other things that really make the case

00:57:05   different to me is the the back being all ceramic now. And the

00:57:10   the light diode is different like the back looks really,

00:57:12   really nice on this phone. It's a fingerprint magnet, but it

00:57:16   looks really nice. And what I actually like the most honestly,

00:57:19   I didn't expect this is that the side button, the lowercase the

00:57:23   side button is flush with the case now it doesn't it doesn't

00:57:27   stick out from the side. And it means when you're looking down

00:57:30   at the watch face, you can't see the button poking out and it

00:57:33   makes it look a lot a lot cleaner. You know there was a rumor that that was

00:57:37   gonna become a touch sensitive or like force sensitive button. I can totally see

00:57:40   Apple wanting to do that at some point but I think it being flush is a big

00:57:44   improvement when it comes to like the the clean lines of the watch. So it

00:57:48   really feels like they've really done the work to continue to like polish and

00:57:54   to refine this design over the generations. Yeah yeah I agree.

00:58:00   and also using the crown. Like, I was just trying to spin the crown on Sylvia's

00:58:06   Series 2 Apple Watch last night, and it felt like the thing was not moving. Like,

00:58:13   I needed to apply some serious pressure and force to spin that crown compared to how smooth and

00:58:19   fluid and just... I don't know. Fast is not the right word, it just feels like there's less

00:58:25   friction in the crown of the Series 4, even though it's not like you're going to spin

00:58:32   the crown accidentally, it's just a different type of feedback, which also brings me to

00:58:40   the fact that I want to ask you, Steven, what you think of the haptic feedback on the new

00:58:46   watch, because I saw a bunch of people on Twitter either saying "I really like this",

00:58:50   and I'm on that camp, sort of in that camp, and people saying "I prefer the old way, because

00:58:54   this new one with the taps for every step of the scroll,

00:58:59   it feels kind of weird.

00:59:00   So I wanted to know what you think about it.

00:59:02   - I really like the Haptics tied to the Digital Crown.

00:59:05   When you spin through a list of apps

00:59:08   or a list of messages or something,

00:59:09   it feels really premium and it makes it feel

00:59:14   like a physical thing much more

00:59:16   than the Digital Crown ever has in the past.

00:59:18   The rest of my answers are colored by the fact

00:59:20   that I've worn a stainless steel for the last year

00:59:23   where the haptics are noticeably less effective, I think,

00:59:28   'cause the watch is heavier

00:59:29   and you don't feel them as clearly.

00:59:31   So on an aluminum watch, it's a whole new world

00:59:34   as far as how they feel.

00:59:35   But I still have the prominent haptics turned on,

00:59:40   but I like the way they feel.

00:59:42   The taptic motor feels refined in a way I didn't expect.

00:59:45   And the word I keep coming back to with this hardware

00:59:48   is that it all feels pretty tight.

00:59:51   Like it just feels like everything is really well considered and a lot less sloppy than

00:59:56   it was, especially like on the original watch.

01:00:00   So it feels good.

01:00:01   I like them.

01:00:02   I like that they're using them more.

01:00:03   I think it's a nice feeling.

01:00:05   Yeah.

01:00:07   Yeah.

01:00:08   It does feel more contextual to sort of to the action of scrolling, like especially lists

01:00:16   of items.

01:00:17   Like I was using the Reminders app on the watch the other day, which is actually pretty

01:00:21   it isn't, I'm using the reminders while I'm grocery shopping now, and it's nice

01:00:26   to have that list of, you know, we have a shared list with Sylvia and it's nice to

01:00:30   have that list on the watch and to check things off as you go. And scrolling the list, you

01:00:35   know, where it's almost like you can feel each item passing through the crown, and there's

01:00:41   this idea of this connection between items and software and an element on the left side

01:00:50   and the crown on the right side, and it kind of feels like you're physically scrolling

01:00:54   through this option, like with, as you would, like a physical dial.

01:00:59   I don't know, it's very nice, it's a very nice and different type of interaction.

01:01:05   It's something that you don't get on the iPhone, for example, this type of physical input methods

01:01:10   that the crown is, and I feel like this version of the digital crown, it feels more true to

01:01:19   to what Apple said three years ago with the introduction of the Apple Watch, that it's

01:01:24   this new input method and it's tied to the software.

01:01:28   I feel like this crown represents that vision, not the original one.

01:01:32   I wanted to ask you both if you're using any of the new watch faces and what you think

01:01:39   of the design of them.

01:01:40   Yeah, yeah, I use them all.

01:01:42   Okay, what does that mean?

01:01:46   Well, so the daily one that I use like as a default one is the infograph.

01:01:50   And I totally changed the one with the analog.

01:01:54   Yes, I totally changed my mind on the look of the white face.

01:01:58   I thought that in pictures it looked not ugly, but very

01:02:03   sort of I need your attention type of watch face.

01:02:08   Stands out. It really stands out like.

01:02:11   But I'll say like in the time that I've played around with one,

01:02:14   I was wearing Adina's watch for like a day.

01:02:16   That was my favorite.

01:02:18   Like I liked the white circle, like the white main part of the face

01:02:22   with all of the bright colors and that kind of stuff.

01:02:25   Like I thought that that looked really cool.

01:02:27   I like the way that it looked.

01:02:28   I like it because I can I customized it to my to my needs.

01:02:33   So because I'm not a watch person, in addition to the to the what's it called?

01:02:37   The hands of the of the forgot all these terms of the watch face.

01:02:43   I'm not able to read them quickly all the time, so I also have a digital time in the middle of the face.

01:02:52   And also I put complications for stuff that I use all the time, so there's like a tiny complication for getting in touch with Sylvia, a complication for...

01:03:01   I like that one, the favourites one. That's a really sweet addition, I think that's very nice.

01:03:07   But then of course also, you can have your loved ones faces,

01:03:12   like the tiny little faces.

01:03:13   It's nice, it's a nice thing.

01:03:15   - It's nice.

01:03:16   I put in the time for New York,

01:03:17   so that gives me like a baseline of the time zone in America,

01:03:21   my calendar and current weather and activity.

01:03:23   But also, I use the Infograph modular face

01:03:27   as my activity/workout face.

01:03:30   So that one I customized with the activity graph

01:03:33   in the middle and buttons to launch

01:03:36   workout music and heart rate. So I use it as the workout phase and I find myself switching

01:03:43   between Infograph Modular and the Siri phase when I'm not using Infograph. These days the

01:03:51   Siri phase I only use for one specific feature, which is after a workout it gives you automatically

01:03:58   like this special card for heart rate recovery, which is like how many beats per minute you

01:04:06   lost after the workout.

01:04:08   So that's something that the Siri face does automatically.

01:04:11   No other watch face can do this.

01:04:13   This information is not available in the workout app either.

01:04:17   So sometimes I switch to the Siri face after a workout just to check out that tiny card.

01:04:23   That's cool.

01:04:24   I didn't know that it did that.

01:04:26   That must be pretty new.

01:04:27   Have you tried the Siri face with third-party stuff?

01:04:30   Yeah, but only, I think, at least for me, only carrot weather works.

01:04:34   Yep, that's it.

01:04:36   Okay.

01:04:37   Yeah.

01:04:38   I don't know.

01:04:39   Steven, what watch faces are you using?

01:04:42   I've been trying the Infograph, which is the one that leaked the big analog watch face.

01:04:47   I am using, I think, more the Infograph modular, which is, it's very, and they kept the old

01:04:54   Modular watch face all the old watch faces are there

01:04:56   They're sort of like scaled up and a lot of them they sort of screwed up the complications made them curvy when I don't think

01:05:01   they should have but

01:05:03   The Infograph modular gives you a couple different options the regular mods or module modular modular module

01:05:10   Baba mm-hmm

01:05:13   It's all staying in the modular watch face

01:05:22   Didn't have before so I like that one my frustration is and I'm

01:05:27   Spoiling a column I wrote for club Max stories a little bit

01:05:30   But like I still find it really frustrating that I can understand third-party developers have to work to support this stuff

01:05:36   And that's fine and the ones who do it will do a good job, and that's great, but Apple itself has really

01:05:41   Like mismatched support for their own first-party complications with the various faces and so one that I like

01:05:49   actually several times a week, I want to see the sunrise/sunset complication and that just straight up is not available on the

01:05:57   Infograph modular face even though it's on the old modular face and it's on the new Infograph face

01:06:02   it's not there and it's and

01:06:05   Where it is on the Infograph face is really limited and like I just wish Apple would spend more time making their own stuff

01:06:12   available everywhere and like

01:06:15   It just it just feels what it feels like it feels incomplete

01:06:18   It just feels like, oh, you got to one but not the other, and that's ridiculous.

01:06:23   All the first party stuff should be available everywhere.

01:06:25   I understand that some of them may not look great on some faces, but let the user decide.

01:06:30   That particular example, maybe there's a third party app that probably is that does Sunrise,

01:06:33   Sunset, Complication.

01:06:34   If you know of it, please let me know on Twitter, because I'd like to check it out.

01:06:38   But I still find that frustrating, especially with the new faces with so many slots.

01:06:43   It becomes much more apparent to me that Apple's own support for them is really scattershot.

01:06:48   shot and I find that frustrating but I don't love the design of the

01:06:52   Infograph the the classic one I think it's it's really busy I really don't

01:06:59   like Apple's new like super colorful look like I wish that I could set that

01:07:04   thing to be you know toned down a little bit like you could on the old modular

01:07:09   face you could say I want all the colors I want everything to be the same color

01:07:12   like a monotone look again just giving us more options to manage this the way

01:07:16   that we want I think would be nice.

01:07:21   I want to share a piece of feedback that has come from my wife and I want to see if you

01:07:25   guys agree with this or not. She keeps saying this to me and she's kind of driving me crazy

01:07:30   with it now because she keeps saying it as if I can do something about it but she keeps

01:07:33   saying to me "This feels like an old person's watch because the text's so big everywhere."

01:07:41   She's complaining about how big the text is in EY.

01:07:45   Lucky you, Adina, because I often wish that the text was bigger.

01:07:52   Okay, so that's strike one, I guess.

01:07:56   No, no.

01:07:57   Steven, do you feel this way in any way?

01:08:00   I feel it on the, especially the new modular face.

01:08:05   Right, see, she uses the modular face, so that might be what she's mostly struggling

01:08:09   with.

01:08:10   It's the size, but I also don't like this new San Francisco, like, bold rounded they're

01:08:13   using because it feels a little a little chunky in a way like maybe even a little

01:08:19   right this might be what she's seeing because I didn't know there was a new

01:08:22   font but like she's like she doesn't like the watch face and she feels like

01:08:26   the text that comes up in notifications is is too bold it's too big and she

01:08:30   keeps calling it the old person's watch and she's on the smaller of the two so

01:08:34   we're both on 44 and she and she's on the 42 yeah the 40 I mean yeah yeah I

01:08:39   don't know one thing that I did when I got my first Apple watch and I've left

01:08:42   it the same is I have the reduced transparency setting on because I think that makes the

01:08:48   entire watch OS experience much more legible. And I definitely recommend that to anyone

01:08:55   who has trouble with the reading on it. Because like, especially with a colorful watch face,

01:08:59   it's just like a rainbow mess behind your notifications. While we're talking about this,

01:09:04   I think you know, the Texas is one thing and I see where she's coming from. But I do really

01:09:09   especially like in screens like control center that everything is just a lot

01:09:14   easier to tap on because everything's bigger. Yes she likes the bigger buttons.

01:09:18   Yeah she likes the bigger buttons. She feels like she likes big buttons and she

01:09:21   she cannot lie. She cannot lie even if I try and deny it. The big buttons are good

01:09:27   especially with something like I'm sure you're all the same like a lot of times

01:09:31   I'm dismissing something on my watch like I'm walking or like it's just it's

01:09:35   It's always required amount of specific input

01:09:40   that now you can feel like you're a little bit messier with

01:09:42   'cause the buttons are bigger.

01:09:43   I think that's all that's really nice.

01:09:45   It's not like on iOS when they went larger

01:09:47   and I still feel like iOS doesn't really work well

01:09:50   on big phones everywhere.

01:09:51   But like watchOS everything just got a little bit bigger

01:09:54   and that's good 'cause the screen really is nice.

01:09:57   Like if you have one of these new ones,

01:09:58   you should definitely go play with like the Fire

01:10:00   or the Molten Steel or Bubbles, whatever,

01:10:03   those new watch faces.

01:10:04   'cause it really shows how far to the edges it goes

01:10:07   and it really feels like a new sort of thing

01:10:11   with that large display.

01:10:13   - Yeah, I love Myke.

01:10:15   I love Myke that you and Adina are coupled with good eyesight

01:10:19   both of you because I know that you keep

01:10:21   the smallest tech size on your big phone.

01:10:23   - Well, but I do wear glasses.

01:10:25   - They're good glasses though.

01:10:27   My glasses are kinda crabby, I don't know.

01:10:31   If you guys allow me, I have two quick comments about workouts and having a cellular watch.

01:10:39   Yes, please.

01:10:40   Okay, I was going to ask you about the cellular, so yes, please tell us.

01:10:43   So for workouts, after a summer break in the month of August, where I didn't really work

01:10:48   out as much as I wanted to because I needed to finish the review, I've started my workout

01:10:52   routine again and I'm sort of catching up.

01:10:55   That's good news.

01:10:56   Yeah, catching up with my old sort of written.

01:10:59   But I noticed two things. First, of course, the Apple Watch Series 4, the heart rate sensor,

01:11:06   still not as precise as external monitors. So like the chest strap that I'm wearing,

01:11:13   the Polar H10. If only because, you know, that sensor can poll for data every second,

01:11:21   and the sensor on the watch polls for data every two to three seconds, I think.

01:11:26   Did we ever tell the story of you losing at WWDC?

01:11:29   You stole my censor.

01:11:31   Federico lost his health censor in our hotel room somewhere in WWDC and then spent the

01:11:38   rest of the week just trying to find it everywhere.

01:11:43   We searched that room top to bottom.

01:11:45   I have no idea what he did to that thing.

01:11:47   I think he just threw it straight in the trash or something and it got taken out.

01:11:50   The truth of the matter is either there's two possible outcomes, either Myke stole it

01:11:56   from me and sold it on eBay, or a house cleaning person right now is wearing my Polar H10 strap

01:12:04   and exercising.

01:12:05   No, nobody, absolutely nobody in the world wants to own your sweat.

01:12:11   Well that's your opinion.

01:12:14   As I was saying, if you compare the heart rate graph for data from the built-in sensor

01:12:24   and data from the external one, it's like the external one is a smooth curve with all

01:12:30   data points filled in, and the Apple Watch Series 4, while better than before, still

01:12:35   has gaps between every data point.

01:12:39   So it's better, but it's still not the accuracy level that you want from a heart rate sensor?

01:12:44   It's not the accuracy, it's the frequency of the measurements.

01:12:48   The accuracy, I think it's better, at least for me, because the watch sits better on my

01:12:53   wrist.

01:12:54   So, it doesn't poll for data as frequently as an external sensor does, but when it captures

01:13:01   data, I think it's more accurate than before, because physically speaking, the new design

01:13:07   makes it sit better on my wrist.

01:13:10   And they may have also improved the sensor as well.

01:13:14   Finally, I switched carriers to get cellular support on the watch.

01:13:19   So goodbye Tim, hello Vodafone.

01:13:25   I'm now a Vodafone customer.

01:13:28   I set up cellular today.

01:13:30   I was actually concerned at first because it was not working.

01:13:34   I kept getting an error and then I googled this error and there were a bunch of people

01:13:38   claiming that they're going to sue Vodafone Italy because they, you know, said they wasn't

01:13:44   out working for their plan, blah, blah, blah. I don't care. After 10 minutes of errors,

01:13:47   it just worked. I think it was like a temporary problem on the web page.

01:13:51   >> Just getting set up, right?

01:13:53   >> Set it up on the watch. It just got added to my data plan. First, three months are free.

01:14:00   Then it's five euros per month and you get five gigabytes of data. I went --

01:14:05   You could never use that on a watch. What would you have to do?

01:14:09   Yeah, I want to just... this is the thing. Anyone that's owned a cellular watch will

01:14:14   probably tell you that you will never use it, but it's nice to have.

01:14:18   But what's nice is that I think those 5GB also count for my phone.

01:14:23   Oh yeah.

01:14:24   Well, it's kind of ridiculous because my new plan consists of 50GB per month at 20 euros,

01:14:34   which is ridiculous. Anyway, uh, I guess,

01:14:37   I guess what people do use it for would be to stream stuff. Right.

01:14:41   But I feel like as well these days, like a lot of apps are like, like, you know,

01:14:45   like overcast and music apps, they're like, they're cashing on the,

01:14:48   the watch anyway. Like, so you probably not streaming that much, but like,

01:14:51   I guess if you were like out running, like I can understand that,

01:14:55   but that really does feel like the only use case for extensive cellular

01:14:59   usage on the watch is like that you leave the house and go running and listen to

01:15:03   music, streaming of a solo. Even stuff like you're mentioning, you know, about having

01:15:09   like, you said this also about like, oh it would be nice to not have to take your phone

01:15:13   out when you walk the dogs, but you're probably not really doing anything, it's just so people

01:15:18   can contact you if necessary. You know what I mean? You're not like surfing the web or

01:15:22   whatever. I don't know what you do when they watch.

01:15:24   I went to the park with the dogs and Silvia today with just my watch. I texted you guys,

01:15:30   I called my mom.

01:15:33   Oh, that was why we got that message.

01:15:35   Can you see this message?

01:15:36   Yeah.

01:15:37   I--

01:15:38   No, I'm at the park.

01:15:40   I got a bunch of emails while I was at the park.

01:15:44   Great.

01:15:45   It felt--

01:15:46   This sounds wonderful.

01:15:47   It felt nice and futuristic.

01:15:51   At first, it was kind of weird that I

01:15:53   didn't have the phone with me.

01:15:55   I think it's going to be nice for those times where I'm like,

01:15:58   I just need to walk the dogs on the, you know, just for five minutes or just I want to go

01:16:05   to the park and not, you know, have my phone or me distracted.

01:16:10   I think it doesn't really work for all those times when either I want to listen to music

01:16:16   in my car because the watch cannot connect to the car Bluetooth, so I need my phone.

01:16:21   Also, it doesn't work for times when like either with my dogs or in social situations

01:16:26   with my friends, I want to take pictures because of course the watch doesn't have a camera.

01:16:31   So I think it will be nice for those few times when either I forget my phone, which is not

01:16:35   a common thing that I do, or maybe I just want to leave my phone behind because it's

01:16:40   like I'm going to be out for 10 minutes, maybe, I don't know, I don't have pockets.

01:16:45   I have a pair of shorts, Nike shorts without pockets for some reason.

01:16:49   And I really like them, but they don't have pockets.

01:16:51   So, when I, you know, they're very nice shorts, but they're very comfy, but they don't have pockets.

01:16:57   So, it's going to be nice, but I don't think I will use it all the time.

01:17:02   I just like knowing that there's a backup.

01:17:05   So the freedom of knowing that in case my phone dies or is not with me, I have a backup,

01:17:11   and in case I decide to leave it behind, I can still be reached over the phone or via iMessage.

01:17:18   So it's nice to have this option.

01:17:21   Can I make a super quick statement about the Apple Watch?

01:17:26   I've just ultimately decided I don't want to wear one.

01:17:29   I wore one for a day and have actually just come to realize something that wasn't true

01:17:36   when I stopped wearing an Apple Watch but is true now.

01:17:39   I don't want the distraction of an Apple Watch in my life.

01:17:43   I just found that wearing it for a day and getting notifications when I was busy, it

01:17:49   It just didn't work for me anymore.

01:17:52   And I kind of don't want, and I just currently in my life don't want something strapped to

01:17:56   my wrist which is buzzing me.

01:17:59   I've never found it annoying but wearing it for that one day I did find it really annoying.

01:18:05   And I've gotten used to not wearing one and I'm very happy.

01:18:10   I have no problems not wearing one.

01:18:13   I still get all the information I need within a timely fashion and I'm not getting everything

01:18:18   always constantly, you know, like as soon as something happens I'm not knowing about

01:18:23   it because most of the time that's just not really a thing that I need. If I was ever

01:18:28   going to wear an Apple Watch again I would significantly like reduce the email notifications

01:18:33   that I did get. You know I kind of just had it set up pretty much exactly as it was before

01:18:38   and it was just like the email notifications and text message notifications was mostly

01:18:42   just too much for me really. And also I really dislike how long it takes to show me the time.

01:18:51   You know the fact that I have to raise my wrist in a certain way and then have to wait

01:18:55   those milliseconds to get the time frustrates me. I don't like that I can't just see the

01:19:00   time by just glancing down at my wrist. You know like all these basic things as to why

01:19:04   like people prefer mechanical watches to Apple watches like I'm kind of in that camp now.

01:19:11   I do not begrudge anybody who wears one.

01:19:13   I think that there are like all of the great reasons that you guys have spoken about, like

01:19:18   that Apple watches are great.

01:19:19   I think this is the first truly good looking Apple watch like that.

01:19:23   It's not just like I'm picking an Apple watch that I think looks the best.

01:19:27   I think that the gold one, the gold steel one especially is like that thing is beautiful.

01:19:32   Like I just want to own that as like a, I own this watch fed the reasons I buy my other

01:19:36   watches.

01:19:37   I think it's just a good looking watch, but it's just not for me right now.

01:19:40   and I understand why anybody would want to wear one,

01:19:45   but I just don't.

01:19:47   I hope that's okay.

01:19:50   - That's totally fair.

01:19:52   I want to talk a little bit about the LTE

01:19:55   'cause I had the LTE on the Series 3

01:19:58   and the Series 4 I opted for GPS.

01:20:00   They had both in stock when I picked it up

01:20:02   so it was not an availability thing.

01:20:05   But in thinking through it, I just realized just for me,

01:20:09   "I'm not discounting Federica what you want to do."

01:20:12   But for me at least, I used it only a handful of times.

01:20:16   I thought that I would leave my phone behind a lot

01:20:19   when I went for bike rides or whatever.

01:20:22   And it ended up, a couple things happened.

01:20:24   One, I just wasn't in a situation

01:20:25   where I could leave my phone somewhere.

01:20:28   I'd drive to go ride somewhere

01:20:30   and I'm not gonna leave my phone

01:20:32   in the glove box of the car or something.

01:20:34   So I took it with me and then I got my phone with me.

01:20:37   But really what it came down to is like,

01:20:40   if I'm keeping the watch to stay in contact,

01:20:45   so if somebody needs me,

01:20:47   that falls into like family and work.

01:20:49   If my wife needs to get ahold of me via iMessage

01:20:53   or phone call, that's great.

01:20:55   And I can respond on the phone over LTE

01:20:58   and it's totally fine.

01:21:00   But if I was carrying it for, hey,

01:21:03   I'm gonna cut out of work a couple hours early

01:21:05   and go on a bike ride.

01:21:06   and I need to still be around, right, like something happens,

01:21:09   then I need my phone to deal with that.

01:21:13   And the real reason is is that Slack on watchOS is a joke.

01:21:16   And that's really where LTE on the watch fell down for me,

01:21:22   because so much of what I would need to do

01:21:23   under the category of, hey, I'm not really at work,

01:21:26   but I need to be available,

01:21:27   that a lot of that falls into Slack for me,

01:21:31   just the way that we work.

01:21:32   And that wasn't really a viable thing on the watch.

01:21:35   So I went GPS only this year, we'll see if I regret that

01:21:39   and go back to LTE in the future.

01:21:41   But I just ended up not leaving the phone behind very often

01:21:46   and the times that I did, it would have been totally fine

01:21:49   to take it with me.

01:21:50   You know, it wasn't because I didn't have

01:21:52   a pocket or anything to take with me.

01:21:56   So I hope it works well for you.

01:21:58   It just, for me, for whatever reason,

01:21:59   it didn't really stick and so I didn't feel like

01:22:02   I needed to spend the extra money this time.

01:22:05   - All right, should we wrap up?

01:22:06   - Yes, if you want to find show notes this week,

01:22:10   head over to relay.fm/connected/211.

01:22:14   You can get in touch with us there,

01:22:16   you can send us an email, or you can find us on Twitter.

01:22:19   The show is there, and of course we're there too.

01:22:23   You can find Federico Evitici, V-I-T-I-C-C-I,

01:22:26   and he is the editor-in-chief of MaxStories.net.

01:22:29   You can find Myke as I-M-Y-K-E,

01:22:33   and he hosts a lot of shows at relay.fm.

01:22:37   You can find me as ISMH, and I write 512pixels.net.

01:22:40   I'd like to thank our sponsors this week,

01:22:42   Smile and Pingdom.

01:22:43   Until our next episode, guys, say goodbye.

01:22:46   - Adios, ichie. - Ciao.