Connected

00:00:00 ◼   ► (upbeat music)

00:00:02 ◼   ► - Hello and welcome to Connected, episode 197.

00:00:11 ◼   ► It's brought to you this week by Squarespace,

00:00:14 ◼   ► Pingdom, and Casper.

00:00:15 ◼   ► I'm your host, Stephen Hackett,

00:00:16 ◼   ► and I am not on stage this week with my co-host.

00:00:19 ◼   ► We are all back in our homes, recording alone,

00:00:22 ◼   ► staring into the soulless eyes of our computers.

00:00:26 ◼   ► I'm joined, of course, by Federico Vittucci.

00:00:28 ◼   ► - What do you mean?

00:00:28 ◼   ► in front of my neighbors I have an audience everybody's looking at me the

00:00:32 ◼   ► whole the whole building I was like I cannot do shows by myself anymore so you

00:00:37 ◼   ► guys should come and watch it's kind of creepy but it gets it done and Myke

00:00:44 ◼   ► Hurley how are you I don't like this introduction I like it when the

00:00:48 ◼   ► introduction is so loud that you have to bring the volume down in the I actually

00:00:55 ◼   ► Wait, this is something we spoke about. So the cheers, which were incredible. I definitely

00:00:59 ◼   ► got the energy on our live episode last week. They were so loud when me and Federico came

00:01:04 ◼   ► on that Steven had to duck the audio. I still want the raw audio. Like I wasn't joking.

00:01:09 ◼   ► I want to hear how loud it was again and again and again. So it was great. There are very

00:01:15 ◼   ► few things in my professional career that when I'm finished with them, I feel like,

00:01:19 ◼   ► oh, that was perfect. Last week's show was perfect. So thank you to everyone who came

00:01:22 ◼   ► out. Thank you to everyone who's listened to it. It was an incredible episode. I loved

00:01:26 ◼   ► it so much.

00:01:27 ◼   ► It was a lot of fun. And if you haven't listened, you totally should. But at the end of the

00:01:33 ◼   ► show, we announced a couple of things. We are going to be taking the show on the road

00:01:37 ◼   ► this fall. We'll be in Chicago with Upgrade on Monday, October 22nd. That has sold out,

00:01:45 ◼   ► but there's a waitlist, so you could hop on the waitlist and see how that goes. And then

00:01:49 ◼   ► And we'll be doing Connected in New York on Thursday, October 25th.

00:01:55 ◼   ► And as my speaking this word out loud right now into my microphone, there are a few tickets

00:02:01 ◼   ► left.

00:02:02 ◼   ► And so if you're interested in coming to see us in New York, I would definitely click on

00:02:05 ◼   ► that link.

00:02:06 ◼   ► Those links will be in the show notes this week for your clicking pleasure.

00:02:11 ◼   ► The Relay Road Trip is what Jeremy's calling it in the chat room.

00:02:13 ◼   ► I like that.

00:02:14 ◼   ► That is nice, actually.

00:02:15 ◼   ► Relay Road Trip.

00:02:16 ◼   ► - Really very true.

00:02:17 ◼   ► - We should have come up with that name, to be honest.

00:02:19 ◼   ► - That's really pretty good, yeah.

00:02:21 ◼   ► - Yep, gosh darn it.

00:02:23 ◼   ► - So we have a little follow up.

00:02:30 ◼   ► I wanted to point people to an interview I did

00:02:32 ◼   ► with Greg from Smile.

00:02:35 ◼   ► Smile, of course, everyone knows from Tech Expander

00:02:37 ◼   ► and PDF Pen, they sponsored a bunch of shows

00:02:39 ◼   ► here on the network, but I was able to sit down with Greg

00:02:43 ◼   ► and do an interview because their company

00:02:45 ◼   ► is turned 15 years old this week.

00:02:49 ◼   ► And I think that's a heck of an achievement.

00:02:52 ◼   ► We're talking about some of their early software.

00:02:54 ◼   ► Guys, they had software for like,

00:02:56 ◼   ► making labels for like, DVDs and for faxing,

00:03:01 ◼   ► like all sorts of crazy stuff.

00:03:03 ◼   ► - You're the only customer left, right?

00:03:05 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:03:07 ◼   ► - Of the disc making software?

00:03:09 ◼   ► - Yeah, and the labels and the printing and all that.

00:03:12 ◼   ► - Yeah, they took it off for sale and said,

00:03:13 ◼   ► "Hey man, you gotta get me a copy."

00:03:15 ◼   ► I need to archive that. I was thinking about this because I read this interview and one,

00:03:22 ◼   ► I love Smile. Smile have been a supporter of relay FM since the very beginning of it.

00:03:26 ◼   ► They took a chance on us before we were even a thing. The other is, I really like the idea

00:03:32 ◼   ► of a company turning 15 years old. It just makes me feel better about my own company,

00:03:36 ◼   ► right? Like, "Oh, okay, we're about to turn four. Maybe we can make it to 15."

00:03:42 ◼   ► That feels like a good thing, so I appreciate knowing this information.

00:03:45 ◼   ► Yeah, I can relate to that, especially because my source is going to be 10 next year.

00:03:50 ◼   ► That's not possible.

00:03:51 ◼   ► Yes, it is possible.

00:03:52 ◼   ► No, it's not possible. How did you do that?

00:03:55 ◼   ► Well, you know, the time goes on.

00:03:57 ◼   ► Are you old like Steven?

00:03:58 ◼   ► No, I started...

00:04:01 ◼   ► I was going to say, our websites differ in age only by a year.

00:04:04 ◼   ► Yeah, but the...

00:04:05 ◼   ► 512 will be 10 this year.

00:04:06 ◼   ► The difference is in spirit, Steven. We've talked about this before.

00:04:09 ◼   ► four. So yeah, I started when I was, you know, when I was 12 basically and now I'm 22. So,

00:04:21 ◼   ► you know, everybody knows. Everybody knows that.

00:04:23 ◼   ► I was 67, you know, this is retirement age blogger.

00:04:26 ◼   ► I love that you're just leaning into it at this point.

00:04:29 ◼   ► It was Steven's retirement idea. It's like, oh, I got all this stuff.

00:04:32 ◼   ► I should be a blogger now.

00:04:34 ◼   ► What else am I going to do?

00:04:36 ◼   ► And all these labels that I've been printing.

00:04:38 ◼   ► May as well just do something with all these Macs I've been accumulating over the last

00:04:42 ◼   ► 30 years.

00:04:43 ◼   ► Oh boy.

00:04:45 ◼   ► Man.

00:04:46 ◼   ► So you were saying, smile, the interview.

00:04:50 ◼   ► Yeah, so I was happy how it turned out.

00:04:53 ◼   ► I think it was really interesting to talk to them about the evolution of, if you think

00:04:58 ◼   ► about it, really everything, right?

00:05:00 ◼   ► They started when it was just the Mac, OS X was very new, and they sort of took a chance

00:05:05 ◼   ► on OS X and it paid off, but now they're of course on iOS and like we talked about them buying text

00:05:14 ◼   ► expander that's something that was a an acquisition for them and the transformation of that into a

00:05:20 ◼   ► cloud sort of like 21st century service. It was really interesting and I enjoyed being able to do

00:05:25 ◼   ► it so I owe a big thanks to Smile for letting me talk to them and being I think if you read through

00:05:32 ◼   ► the questions like they're they're just kind of laid all out there we talked

00:05:35 ◼   ► about they tried for while putting some of their software in like retail stores

00:05:39 ◼   ► like Apple retail stores and like they had like boxes designed and printed and

00:05:43 ◼   ► like that didn't do very well we kind of talked about that so it was fun to kind

00:05:47 ◼   ► of get the story from a couple different sides anytime you can get some history

00:05:52 ◼   ► you'll take it that's right it's true so speaking of history hold on a second

00:05:58 ◼   ► before you move on, there was a thing in my notes which relates to you. I was advised

00:06:06 ◼   ► by Michael last week to thank listener Austin who came to the live show at WWDC and can

00:06:14 ◼   ► you tell Myke the story of what happened with Austin and the live show?

00:06:21 ◼   ► So we bumped into Austin first at ATP and Austin had a gift for us but we would not

00:06:27 ◼   ► accept the gift until Steven was there. Austin brought with him the Logitech mouse manual

00:06:35 ◼   ► that we spoke about many weeks ago when we were talking about the Logitech Crayon and

00:06:41 ◼   ► Steven got very excited about this really old mouse manual that he found on eBay. And

00:06:47 ◼   ► Austin bought that and brought it with us and now Steven has the manual and me and Federico

00:06:54 ◼   ► each have a floppy disk. So yeah, listener Austin, thank you for doing that and especially

00:07:06 ◼   ► for the floppy disk. I know that Steven was really happy, I have a bunch of photos of

00:07:10 ◼   ► Steven being really excited to put his hands on the really old book. I can do him better.

00:07:18 ◼   ► gave it to me you guys want to hear it yeah please that's what if you read it

00:07:25 ◼   ► yeah even even even the pages sound old so yeah thank you Austin and I'm really

00:07:33 ◼   ► happy that you're happy Steven yeah I'm up to the chapter the point and click

00:07:37 ◼   ► trademark shell for Lotus one two three trademark so awesome coming right along

00:07:43 ◼   ► Sounds great.

00:07:44 ◼   ► Really, really hot stuff.

00:07:47 ◼   ► You can move on.

00:07:49 ◼   ► Yes, so speaking of history, let's

00:07:51 ◼   ► talk about the workflow app.

00:07:53 ◼   ► We have what may be the best use of workflow yet.

00:07:56 ◼   ► And it has put together really the art of emoji

00:08:02 ◼   ► and the science of the teachy scale

00:08:05 ◼   ► into something that, quite honestly, I

00:08:08 ◼   ► think it could change my entire outlook about the iPad.

00:08:11 ◼   ► I think I could work on iOS now because of this workflow.

00:08:13 ◼   ► So when do you guys want to walk us

00:08:15 ◼   ► through what this workflow does?

00:08:17 ◼   ► So this was created by Rosemary Orchard and Matt Casanelli.

00:08:23 ◼   ► If you install this workflow upon your device,

00:08:26 ◼   ► at any point you will be able to invoke the tch scale.

00:08:29 ◼   ► So you will be able to tweet with how you feel something

00:08:33 ◼   ► ranks upon the tch scale.

00:08:36 ◼   ► It gives you the option to choose which of the areas

00:08:40 ◼   ► you want to be pointing towards, so maybe you think something's nightmare or good plus,

00:08:45 ◼   ► and then it will spit out an emojified version of the tiki scale for you so you can rank

00:08:50 ◼   ► things whenever you please. It is stupendous.

00:08:53 ◼   ► Yeah, and it's a really great way to have instant access to one of the greatest types

00:09:02 ◼   ► of measurements.

00:09:03 ◼   ► Of our time.

00:09:04 ◼   ► I mean, one day we will look back, you know, names such as Copernicus or Galileo Galilei,

00:09:12 ◼   ► and then we're also going to... the tiki scale up there.

00:09:15 ◼   ► The tiki scale system, one of the greatest revolutions of our time.

00:09:21 ◼   ► Is the only true way to understand how much you love something or feel about something.

00:09:27 ◼   ► a scientific way to grade your love or hate for something. Yeah, well, you know, if you

00:09:35 ◼   ► think about it, it's all love, really, you know, if you think about it, just something

00:09:40 ◼   ► like you have to have negative love and positive... Exactly, yes. Let's retire the word "hate"

00:09:47 ◼   ► and use "negative love" instead. Oh boy. So now there's a workflow for that. Or a shortcut.

00:09:57 ◼   ► doing enough.

00:09:58 ◼   ► Yeah, oh man, can you imagine that you'd be able to just activate this thing by voice?

00:10:03 ◼   ► I don't know how that would work, but maybe we'll find out later on in the show.

00:10:08 ◼   ► I have one last piece of follow up that I wanted to mention before we move on today.

00:10:13 ◼   ► Apple has clarified emoji use in app review guidelines, so they've updated the app review

00:10:17 ◼   ► guidelines. Remember we were talking about this a bunch, we had Jeremy Burge on the show

00:10:22 ◼   ► to talk about when apps were getting rejected for using emoji? Well, Apple has clarified

00:10:26 ◼   ► it to say, "Apps may use Unicode characters that render as Apple emojis in their app and

00:10:34 ◼   ► app metadata. Apple emojis may not be used on other platforms or embedded directly in

00:10:40 ◼   ► your app binary."

00:10:41 ◼   ► So basically, you can use emoji if it's in Unicode text form only. You cannot use any

00:10:49 ◼   ► images of them, which is by and large what we had expected, but this clarifies it. You

00:10:57 ◼   ► can use emoji if you're rendering them as text, you cannot use Apple's emoji as images.

00:11:03 ◼   ► So it is done now, everybody knows.

00:11:06 ◼   ► That makes sense. I mean, it seems fair, right? I don't think this is something to be upset

00:11:12 ◼   ► about.

00:11:13 ◼   ► No, it's not, but I think that there was... it was getting confusing for a while because

00:11:19 ◼   ► there were a bunch of things that seemed to be being removed from the store that didn't

00:11:25 ◼   ► need to be, and maybe Apple internally needed to actually clarify it for themselves as well,

00:11:31 ◼   ► and now that's been done, so people know how they can move on, which I think is great.

00:11:36 ◼   ► So should we take our first break? And then it's time to talk about all of my plans for

00:11:40 ◼   ► reviewing watchOS over the summer.

00:11:44 ◼   ► Perfect. I thought you were doing TV-OS.

00:11:46 ◼   ► Well, both actually.

00:11:47 ◼   ► I'm going to stretch myself out and do both of them because someone's

00:11:51 ◼   ► going to pick up the slack.

00:11:52 ◼   ► This episode of Connected is brought to you by Squarespace.

00:11:55 ◼   ► Make your next move with Squarespace because with the ability

00:11:58 ◼   ► to grab a unique domain name, take advantage of award winning templates

00:12:02 ◼   ► and so much more, they will let you easily create the website

00:12:05 ◼   ► that you want for your next idea or project.

00:12:07 ◼   ► No matter what type of website you're looking to build,

00:12:10 ◼   ► They are the only one platform that will let you do it.

00:12:12 ◼   ► Squarespace has functionality for all types of websites.

00:12:14 ◼   ► You can add online stores, you can add blogs, you can add galleries portfolios.

00:12:19 ◼   ► You can add map blocks so you can have if you have a restaurant,

00:12:23 ◼   ► you want to invite people to your restaurant and you can say, hey, here it is.

00:12:26 ◼   ► They have all that stuff. It's all built in.

00:12:28 ◼   ► You can add very quickly add and integrate with a bunch of other services.

00:12:31 ◼   ► Like if you want to set up an email newsletter

00:12:33 ◼   ► or you want to have a form that can be filled out,

00:12:35 ◼   ► I can all go into Google Sheets.

00:12:37 ◼   ► is so much amazing information and stuff available to you on their, uh, they have

00:12:42 ◼   ► lots of different forums and support documentation as well as the 24 seven

00:12:46 ◼   ► customer support.

00:12:47 ◼   ► Squarespace of everything.

00:12:48 ◼   ► They win awards all over the place for their templates and for their customer

00:12:52 ◼   ► support, because it was all that good.

00:12:54 ◼   ► There is nothing to install patch or upgrade.

00:12:56 ◼   ► Squarespace have got you covered.

00:12:57 ◼   ► You have to worry about any of that stuff.

00:12:59 ◼   ► They take care of it.

00:13:00 ◼   ► So you don't have to, you can sign up today@squarespace.com/connected to get a

00:13:05 ◼   ► free trial and play around with Squarespace and make a website to your very heart content

00:13:09 ◼   ► and then when you're ready to put it out to the world, their plans start at just $12 a

00:13:13 ◼   ► month.

00:13:14 ◼   ► You can sign up right now at squarespace.com/connected and use the code 'connected' at checkout and

00:13:19 ◼   ► you will get 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain and show your support

00:13:23 ◼   ► for this show.

00:13:24 ◼   ► That is squarespace.com/connected and the code 'connected' for 10% off.

00:13:28 ◼   ► Our thanks to Squarespace for their support.

00:13:29 ◼   ► Squarespace, make your next move, make your next website.

00:13:33 ◼   ► So before we get to my review plans for all of the stuff that I'm going to be working

00:13:38 ◼   ► on over the summer, what if we just, I don't know, just quickly breeze through Federico

00:13:44 ◼   ► and Steven's plans and then we can get to the real meat of the conversation?

00:13:47 ◼   ► Sounds good, yeah, let's do it.

00:13:50 ◼   ► So what are you thinking of doing? Are you going to, Federico, are you going to get in

00:13:57 ◼   ► depth again about all of the different NS activities and stuff like that for your IRS

00:14:02 ◼   ► review? Are you going to dig right into the code base?

00:14:06 ◼   ► No. So we, I think we touched upon this briefly a few weeks ago maybe, and then we've been

00:14:15 ◼   ► talking about this in person last week. I've been planning to change my approach to writing

00:14:24 ◼   ► in iOS reviews, because I feel like for the past couple of years I've gone too far on

00:14:30 ◼   ► the technical side, and I want to bring my review style back to a more balanced approach

00:14:39 ◼   ► of explaining the technical things for sure, but also trying to focus more on the experience

00:14:48 ◼   ► of using a new OS, of what the features mean, not just what the features are made of, if

00:14:56 ◼   ► that makes sense. And I feel like I've tried both approaches over the years. I used to

00:15:03 ◼   ► do just personal opinion and experience type reviews years ago. Then for the past couple

00:15:10 ◼   ► of years I've tried to give more importance to the technical side, and I feel like I've

00:15:17 ◼   ► learned a lot of lessons and I feel like iOS 12 is the perfect moment to try

00:15:25 ◼   ► something that is in the middle of both camps. 12 is really the best time to try

00:15:33 ◼   ► something that is shorter. So for the past couple of years I've published

00:15:37 ◼   ► reviews that were I think iOS 10 50,000 words and iOS 11 was 55,000.

00:15:47 ◼   ► That is way too much and it didn't make me feel...

00:15:52 ◼   ► I felt good about the work because it was a, you know, it was a

00:15:56 ◼   ► it was a reference

00:15:59 ◼   ► material for so many people, but it didn't make me feel good doing the work. It was exhausting. It was way too much and

00:16:07 ◼   ► it also made the review not easily accessible for tons of people who don't care about the

00:16:15 ◼   ► finest details about the API and the SDK.

00:16:17 ◼   ► And I've been thinking a lot about this of

00:16:21 ◼   ► what is it that I enjoy about doing these reviews? And I enjoy discovering all these little things. I enjoy

00:16:27 ◼   ► understanding what's going on behind the scenes, but the fact that I

00:16:32 ◼   ► the fact that I enjoy

00:16:35 ◼   ► learning that information doesn't mean that it necessarily makes for a good review.

00:16:40 ◼   ► Well, it was good for what it made. So like, you know, I think last year or the year before,

00:16:49 ◼   ► they were good things. You had a good reference and a good review, but I guess the decision

00:16:56 ◼   ► is do you need to make the reference part?

00:16:59 ◼   ► What I'm trying to say is that I felt in some chapters of the review that I was doing those

00:17:07 ◼   ► primarily for me and not for the readers, in the sense that I was doing them because

00:17:13 ◼   ► I wanted to have that reference material.

00:17:17 ◼   ► Which is a noble approach in a way, but also my readers are my priority, not the things

00:17:25 ◼   ► that I want.

00:17:26 ◼   ► Because personally, I can just keep some notes.

00:17:30 ◼   ► And so I've been thinking a lot about this of, how can I make the review more accessible,

00:17:34 ◼   ► How can I balance the technical side and the personal experience side, which is really

00:17:40 ◼   ► what I love writing about.

00:17:43 ◼   ► How does a feature or a new design or something that Apple is doing impact me on a daily basis?

00:17:48 ◼   ► What's the experience of using the OS?

00:17:50 ◼   ► And so I wanted to see what was going to happen in iOS 12.

00:17:54 ◼   ► And now that we have iOS 12, I think if you look at the features that Apple is putting

00:17:58 ◼   ► out there this year, it's the perfect time to do this kind of approach.

00:18:02 ◼   ► We have new notifications, do not disturb, screen time.

00:18:07 ◼   ► These are all features that are--

00:18:09 ◼   ► basically, developers have nothing to do with them.

00:18:13 ◼   ► There's no screen time API.

00:18:16 ◼   ► And the notification APIs are basically unchanged.

00:18:19 ◼   ► It's more on the user experience side, more on the here's what

00:18:23 ◼   ► it means to have these features.

00:18:25 ◼   ► And of course, yes, there is shortcuts,

00:18:27 ◼   ► which will be the technical part of the review.

00:18:29 ◼   ► I will talk about what shortcuts do behind the scenes,

00:18:32 ◼   ► But also, I think I'm uniquely positioned to talk about what

00:18:37 ◼   ► shortcuts actually does, what it means to put together

00:18:39 ◼   ► a workflow in or custom shortcut in the new app.

00:18:44 ◼   ► I don't see-- and this was also kind of talking to developers

00:18:48 ◼   ► last week.

00:18:48 ◼   ► This was also what developers had as an impression of WWDC.

00:18:54 ◼   ► There isn't that many technical changes besides shortcuts

00:18:59 ◼   ► to adopt this summer.

00:19:01 ◼   ► There's a few things.

00:19:02 ◼   ► There's shortcuts, there's the SiriKit media stuff,

00:19:06 ◼   ► but it's not a highly technical OS,

00:19:09 ◼   ► as iOS 11 might have been with all the iPad stuff

00:19:12 ◼   ► and the drag and drop and the multitasking.

00:19:14 ◼   ► So this is something that I've been thinking about

00:19:18 ◼   ► for the past year.

00:19:19 ◼   ► I want to make the review more accessible, be shorter,

00:19:24 ◼   ► try to be at least under 40,000.

00:19:28 ◼   ► But if I can do something in between 30 and 35,

00:19:31 ◼   ► I would be really happy with that.

00:19:34 ◼   ► And I want to find a better balance between describing

00:19:39 ◼   ► technical changes, of course, having an in-depth review,

00:19:46 ◼   ► having tons of screenshots and footnotes and all those details

00:19:49 ◼   ► that people love.

00:19:50 ◼   ► But also, I want to write more of my own thoughts,

00:19:53 ◼   ► of my own opinions of what it means to be using a new OS.

00:19:57 ◼   ► And so yeah, that's the basic goal

00:20:02 ◼   ► that I have in mind for this summer.

00:20:06 ◼   ► - Do you expect there to be sections

00:20:08 ◼   ► that you'll just straight up not do?

00:20:10 ◼   ► - Oh yeah, oh yeah, for sure.

00:20:13 ◼   ► One of my plans is to, for example,

00:20:17 ◼   ► stuff that I'm not really an expert about,

00:20:21 ◼   ► like Apple Books, I don't read books.

00:20:26 ◼   ► It's one of those things that you say,

00:20:28 ◼   ► "Man, I really should read more books than you'll ever do."

00:20:31 ◼   ► What I'm planning is we're going to have

00:20:35 ◼   ► on the website this summer, sometime in July or August,

00:20:39 ◼   ► a few deep dives into the new apps

00:20:43 ◼   ► and some features that I will not cover in my review

00:20:46 ◼   ► so that I will have a section of these apps in my review.

00:20:50 ◼   ► I will describe the basic idea of what's new

00:20:56 ◼   ► and the few thoughts that I have about them.

00:21:00 ◼   ► And then I'll just say, for a deep dive,

00:21:02 ◼   ► you can read this article from someone who knows more

00:21:04 ◼   ► about this stuff than me.

00:21:06 ◼   ► Just like I did with Swift Playgrounds three years ago.

00:21:10 ◼   ► It's not that I can learn Swift,

00:21:13 ◼   ► just to write about playgrounds in my review.

00:21:15 ◼   ► So Apple Books, I think is a great example.

00:21:17 ◼   ► I can talk about it for the limited use

00:21:20 ◼   ► that I have of the app, but then I will have someone else.

00:21:24 ◼   ► I've read about Apple Books more in depth.

00:21:27 ◼   ► I think that makes sense. I think this is probably good for your health.

00:21:31 ◼   ► Yes, from all types of health, to the physical health and mental health, I don't want to

00:21:36 ◼   ► go crazy again putting together this review. And ideally, I should be able to get it done

00:21:42 ◼   ► in the two weeks of writing that I usually set aside for myself in July. Another change,

00:21:51 ◼   ► I'm not watching any sessions right now,

00:21:55 ◼   ► which is unusual from, you know,

00:21:58 ◼   ► especially it's a big change for, from the past two years.

00:22:02 ◼   ► I used to come back from WWDC

00:22:04 ◼   ► and just download all the sessions and watch all of them.

00:22:07 ◼   ► But for the reasons that I mentioned before

00:22:10 ◼   ► of there aren't just that many technical changes in 12.

00:22:14 ◼   ► And also I want to use the OS for a month

00:22:20 ◼   ► before I start writing about it.

00:22:22 ◼   ► So what I'm doing is I'm just getting regular work done.

00:22:26 ◼   ► I have iOS 12 on my iPhone, on my iPad.

00:22:29 ◼   ► I'm not watching any sessions.

00:22:30 ◼   ► I'm just taking notes of things

00:22:31 ◼   ► that I notice in normal daily usage.

00:22:34 ◼   ► So I'm trying, you know, it's the same approach

00:22:37 ◼   ► that I used to have a few years ago.

00:22:38 ◼   ► And then I'm sure that I will read through

00:22:40 ◼   ► the documentation of, you know, the changes again,

00:22:42 ◼   ► such as shortcuts, which I've done this week.

00:22:45 ◼   ► So it's not like I will abandon

00:22:48 ◼   ► the technical stuff completely,

00:22:49 ◼   ► But I need to strike a better balance between these two sides of my reviews.

00:22:54 ◼   ► And like I said, I think 12 is the is a great opportunity to do so this this this year.

00:23:00 ◼   ► All right. I'm pleased because I think this is going to be

00:23:03 ◼   ► I think by and large better for everyone except the people that needed this

00:23:09 ◼   ► this reference guide.

00:23:10 ◼   ► But I think stuff like that can exist in other places.

00:23:13 ◼   ► You know, I think that whilst you did a great job,

00:23:17 ◼   ► it's not necessarily what you're best at.

00:23:19 ◼   ► I don't think people read your work for reference, but it's, you know,

00:23:24 ◼   ► but I guess a lot of people will use it for that if it exists.

00:23:27 ◼   ► But there are other places that can do that.

00:23:30 ◼   ► You know, I can think of somewhere like Oztechnica, right?

00:23:32 ◼   ► I would assume that's a kind of a thing that they do.

00:23:35 ◼   ► But also now, you know, you're saying about this now,

00:23:38 ◼   ► you're leaving the door open for other people, right?

00:23:40 ◼   ► Like that there is a there is a gap in the market

00:23:43 ◼   ► if that's what you want to be,

00:23:45 ◼   ► if that's the kind of thing you're interested in.

00:23:46 ◼   ► So but I'm pleased.

00:23:47 ◼   ► There's something, and if there's anything you want to write about at Mac Stories about

00:23:51 ◼   ► stuff that I will not cover, please get in touch. I would love to have you write about

00:23:55 ◼   ► stuff that I will not be taking care of. So, yes, I'm happy that you're pleased about my

00:24:02 ◼   ► decision. We've talked about this a lot last week in person, which was really good to hear

00:24:09 ◼   ► from someone else about the things I had in mind. I will, of course, be writing extensively

00:24:15 ◼   ► about shortcuts. I'm not sure yet. I think it will be part of the review. I've been considering

00:24:23 ◼   ► the idea of having a separate story because it's an app that you get from the App Store,

00:24:29 ◼   ► but I think overall it will make more sense for me to have it in the review itself.

00:24:34 ◼   ► So it'll probably be in there, but otherwise I will be sharing tons of shortcuts on Mac Stories,

00:24:41 ◼   ► Club Maxories, Unconnected, everywhere. I will be sharing shortcuts everywhere because

00:24:46 ◼   ► now Apple has made it official. So yeah, also I don't have a process yet for research and putting

00:24:55 ◼   ► together the review. It's something that will circle back here on connected in a few weeks.

00:25:00 ◼   ► Right now I'm just taking notes in notes. So not exciting at all. I still don't know if I'll be

00:25:06 ◼   ► using devon think or Ulysses or Jafs or I have no idea I'm just taking notes.

00:25:11 ◼   ► That is that whenever you decide that I want to know about that because it's always interesting

00:25:16 ◼   ► to talk about that. Steven are you preparing an army of haikus for your Mac OS Mojave?

00:25:25 ◼   ► Is it Mojave? I feel like every episode of every show I'm on I ask this question and

00:25:31 ◼   ► can never remember. Mojave. Mojave. What are you doing for Mojave? Are you actually going

00:25:37 ◼   ► to write a review this year? Because I know it's not always something that you do. You

00:25:40 ◼   ► sometimes write something small, you know, or whatever, if you decided what you want

00:25:45 ◼   ► to do. Yeah, I was actually looking through my Mac OS reviews folder and I've written

00:25:51 ◼   ► one, I wrote a line and one for a freelance thing, but since Mountain Lion, I've had one

00:25:57 ◼   ► on 512 except for Yosemite which we were having a baby and we had just started this company

00:26:05 ◼   ► and so I actually just wrote like a design review of the new user interface.

00:26:13 ◼   ► So if you take that one out of the mix I've got you know one two three five of them on

00:26:19 ◼   ► the site and they think the average is like 11,000 words.

00:26:22 ◼   ► It's a lot shorter than the opus

00:26:26 ◼   ► that Enrico's been publishing.

00:26:28 ◼   ► But yeah, I intend to do another one.

00:26:30 ◼   ► I think it'll be about that length.

00:26:32 ◼   ► I have a tendency to just focus on the consumer

00:26:36 ◼   ► like features side of it and only dip below the surface

00:26:41 ◼   ► when I feel like I need to.

00:26:43 ◼   ► So like my dark theme article,

00:26:44 ◼   ► which we're gonna talk about in a little while,

00:26:46 ◼   ► has some of that.

00:26:47 ◼   ► It was like this is how it's actually working.

00:26:49 ◼   ► This is what it's actually doing.

00:26:50 ◼   ► But I expect it to be online with my Sierra

00:26:53 ◼   ► or Hi Sierra review, walking through the features,

00:26:56 ◼   ► doing a mix of this is what the feature is,

00:27:00 ◼   ► this is what I think of it.

00:27:01 ◼   ► I kind of blend those things together

00:27:04 ◼   ► in the way that I write my reviews

00:27:05 ◼   ► with a bunch of screenshots and stuff.

00:27:07 ◼   ► So I expect to do it.

00:27:09 ◼   ► I'm running it on an external SSD on my MacBook Pro

00:27:13 ◼   ► and I've already spent some time in it.

00:27:15 ◼   ► I've watched a few sessions, mostly around dark mode.

00:27:19 ◼   ► There's actually not a lot of macOS sessions this year

00:27:21 ◼   ► at WWDC.

00:27:22 ◼   ► There's only a few others that don't pertain

00:27:25 ◼   ► directly to dark mode.

00:27:27 ◼   ► I think that speaks to sort of the quiet year

00:27:29 ◼   ► the Mac is having.

00:27:31 ◼   ► I think that will be obviously vastly different next year

00:27:34 ◼   ► when these iOS apps start coming to the Mac.

00:27:39 ◼   ► And that's really the section that I've been sort of

00:27:42 ◼   ► thinking about the most, about dealing with home news,

00:27:47 ◼   ► voice memos and stocks, these apps,

00:27:50 ◼   ► stocks, my stocks, that are built with these new tools

00:27:56 ◼   ► and like are very clearly, at least in the first beta,

00:28:01 ◼   ► sort of broken in places and like just weird in others.

00:28:04 ◼   ► And I'm trying to decide how heavily I'm gonna tread

00:28:08 ◼   ► on those apps in the review.

00:28:09 ◼   ► I think I'm gonna see how much they advance

00:28:11 ◼   ► during the beta process.

00:28:13 ◼   ► I mean, it's still June.

00:28:15 ◼   ► The last couple releases have been out in September

00:28:17 ◼   ► or October, so there's plenty of time.

00:28:20 ◼   ► But I need to kind of think about how I'm gonna treat

00:28:23 ◼   ► those apps and what I want to say about them.

00:28:25 ◼   ► Because in a way, they are proofs of concept,

00:28:28 ◼   ► but another way, they are shipping in the OS.

00:28:31 ◼   ► Like, they're in the dock.

00:28:33 ◼   ► They are part of the system.

00:28:36 ◼   ► And so, figuring out where that line is,

00:28:39 ◼   ► something I haven't quite done yet,

00:28:41 ◼   ► but I'm excited to get into it.

00:28:43 ◼   ► I think, like we said on the show last week,

00:28:46 ◼   ► I think this version of macOS really is pointed

00:28:50 ◼   ► in a direction where the last couple,

00:28:52 ◼   ► maybe since LCAP, macOS releases have kind of

00:28:56 ◼   ► just been like bumbling around,

00:28:57 ◼   ► they're adding stuff here and there,

00:28:58 ◼   ► but they didn't really feel like there was like a,

00:29:01 ◼   ► this is the direction in which we're marching.

00:29:03 ◼   ► - It's like been in a kind of--

00:29:04 ◼   ► - Mojave has that.

00:29:05 ◼   ► - Cryosleep, like it's just been like,

00:29:08 ◼   ► very little has been added over a long period of time,

00:29:11 ◼   ► and it just felt like this thing is just,

00:29:13 ◼   ► as it is, and it's gonna keep being as it is,

00:29:15 ◼   ► but at least now, no matter kind of how you feel

00:29:18 ◼   ► about some of the stuff in Mojave, it is Mojave,

00:29:21 ◼   ► I still don't know, we spoke about it like a minute ago

00:29:23 ◼   ► and I still can't get it right.

00:29:25 ◼   ► At least now there is a path that macOS is gonna go down,

00:29:31 ◼   ► and I think that makes this one uniquely interesting,

00:29:35 ◼   ► I think.

00:29:36 ◼   ► - I'm excited to explore that, so I feel like if anything,

00:29:38 ◼   ► this review may have more of that sort of thing in it

00:29:41 ◼   ► than previous ones, like the direction the Mac is going in,

00:29:45 ◼   ► how I feel about that, sort of the evidence

00:29:48 ◼   ► to back up my case of this is where things are going.

00:29:50 ◼   ► Like I have, I meant to write about it before connected

00:29:54 ◼   ► but it just didn't pan out.

00:29:55 ◼   ► But this idea that like do these iOS apps,

00:30:00 ◼   ► like I think that furthers the case

00:30:02 ◼   ► that the Mac should have a touch interface

00:30:04 ◼   ► because if you use home on your iPhone and your iPad

00:30:08 ◼   ► and then you open on your Mac,

00:30:09 ◼   ► 100% of the time your brain is going to try to reach out and touch it.

00:30:13 ◼   ► That's going to be weird and it's already strange in the beta like, "Oh, I used a mouse

00:30:16 ◼   ► with this app."

00:30:17 ◼   ► And it works fine.

00:30:18 ◼   ► It has menus and clicks and it all works, but visually still it's laid out like a touch

00:30:23 ◼   ► app and some of that sort of stuff I want to explore in the review and there hasn't

00:30:28 ◼   ► been opportunity to do that for a long time so I'm excited to sort of get philosophical

00:30:33 ◼   ► in places where it comes up.

00:30:34 ◼   ► Do you expect a lot of that stuff to change quite significantly over the beta period or

00:30:38 ◼   ► Dude, you reckon those apps are pretty locked in?

00:30:41 ◼   ► - I really don't know.

00:30:42 ◼   ► Especially, Home is easiest to pick on,

00:30:44 ◼   ► because Home is, out of the four,

00:30:47 ◼   ► it's also the worst iOS app.

00:30:48 ◼   ► - Yeah, I was gonna say, like, it also sucks badly on iOS.

00:30:52 ◼   ► - It's not great.

00:30:53 ◼   ► And it uses the most iOS conventions,

00:30:56 ◼   ► so it has the date picker from iOS in it,

00:31:00 ◼   ► which is hot garbage on the Mac.

00:31:02 ◼   ► It looks and feels--

00:31:04 ◼   ► - I mean, it's not good on iOS.

00:31:07 ◼   ► You know, it's a bit clunky.

00:31:08 ◼   ► Oh, use a cursor to move this pin.

00:31:11 ◼   ► I was like, what are we doing?

00:31:12 ◼   ► And it uses a lot of the popovers and stuff

00:31:14 ◼   ► that are very iOS, and the others use the same things,

00:31:18 ◼   ► but to lesser extent, so I really don't know.

00:31:20 ◼   ► I hope that they continue to improve them.

00:31:23 ◼   ► I didn't mean to get it down this rabbit hole,

00:31:25 ◼   ► and I'll pull out after the statement,

00:31:27 ◼   ► but how Apple treats these apps

00:31:29 ◼   ► is how third-party developers will treat theirs.

00:31:31 ◼   ► So if Apple builds these,

00:31:33 ◼   ► and there's a lot of iOS UI elements in them,

00:31:36 ◼   ► then what Apple is saying is Mac apps

00:31:38 ◼   ► now use iOS elements.

00:31:39 ◼   ► Whether or not they were designed for the Mac first

00:31:41 ◼   ► or make any sense with the cursor,

00:31:43 ◼   ► this is how Mac apps are now.

00:31:45 ◼   ► And I want Apple to make them feel more at home on the Mac.

00:31:50 ◼   ► I'm not saying the Mac shouldn't evolve,

00:31:52 ◼   ► the Mac should evolve.

00:31:53 ◼   ► The Mac UI has to evolve if it's gonna survive.

00:31:55 ◼   ► But it doesn't necessarily mean that I want the date picker.

00:31:59 ◼   ► And then obviously it just doesn't work.

00:32:01 ◼   ► Like it's just, it's super weird and it's easy to mess up.

00:32:05 ◼   ► And so I'm hoping they make improvements,

00:32:08 ◼   ► but I'm not holding my breath at the same time.

00:32:10 ◼   ► - So I have some hot reviews coming your way

00:32:13 ◼   ► in a few months time. - What about you, Myke?

00:32:16 ◼   ► What are you gonna do?

00:32:17 ◼   ► - So as I said before, I'm working on reviews

00:32:22 ◼   ► for both watchOS and tvOS.

00:32:24 ◼   ► I'm thinking about creating iOS, what is it?

00:32:30 ◼   ► iBooks author books for both of these

00:32:32 ◼   ► with lots of animations, stuff like that, you know?

00:32:37 ◼   ► I'm really gonna go in depth about the way

00:32:41 ◼   ► that these things work.

00:32:43 ◼   ► Very excited to do that.

00:32:47 ◼   ► And they're gonna be available for $100 each

00:32:51 ◼   ► in the iBook store. - Wow, wow.

00:32:52 ◼   ► - Yep, $100 each.

00:32:55 ◼   ► So yeah, I'm hard at work on both of those.

00:33:02 ◼   ► 70,000 word reviews in an iBooks author form.

00:33:07 ◼   ► - We have some real competition going on here.

00:33:11 ◼   ► - Yep, yep.

00:33:12 ◼   ► I'm actually taking some time off of all my work

00:33:16 ◼   ► just to work on those books between now and September.

00:33:20 ◼   ► - Wow.

00:33:24 ◼   ► - I don't think we can compete with that.

00:33:25 ◼   ► I think we're done.

00:33:26 ◼   ► - Nobody can, I'm changing the game.

00:33:28 ◼   ► - It's the animation.

00:33:31 ◼   ► You're saying the nations in the book. That's your secret. That's your, that's the, the

00:33:35 ◼   ► secret sauce Myke as the people say.

00:33:39 ◼   ► Yes, this is my secret sauce for, for what's going to make it worth your $100.

00:33:49 ◼   ► So is it just a hundred or 19, uh, 1999? Um, what's, what's a hundred, a hundred?

00:33:55 ◼   ► No, no, no. We're being straight with this. A cool 100. A cool $100.

00:34:01 ◼   ► That is pretty cool. I mean, like, you know, you're not messing around. You're not saying

00:34:06 ◼   ► it's $100, but it's not. You're just going for it.

00:34:09 ◼   ► I'm not going to lie to you about it. You know, like there's not going to be like a

00:34:12 ◼   ► $200 pro edition or anything. It's just straight up $100.

00:34:17 ◼   ► What's the process like? Have you been taking notes? Have you been...

00:34:20 ◼   ► Nah, nah, nah, do it in one take. And you type into iBooks Other, which is a fantastic

00:34:28 ◼   ► idea to do. Yeah, the day before. So basically, what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna take a few

00:34:38 ◼   ► weeks off just to think. I'm not gonna write it all. And then basically, you know, the

00:34:45 ◼   ► before. So when they announce the dates at the keynote in September, I'll know the

00:34:50 ◼   ► dates and then the day before I'm going to sit down and I'm just going to write 70,000

00:34:55 ◼   ► words. And when I get to 70,000 words, I stop and then I publish straight to iBooks author.

00:35:03 ◼   ► Are you going to write your mark now? I've got to reach text.

00:35:10 ◼   ► No, no, no.

00:35:12 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:35:13 ◼   ► Yeah, that's just gonna I'm just gonna paste the links in line like, you know

00:35:17 ◼   ► Not like that night

00:35:22 ◼   ► Because it's all in play text

00:35:24 ◼   ► So like, you know if you need a link

00:35:26 ◼   ► It's just how much more convenient that can it be then if I say like go to this link and like the link is just there

00:35:31 ◼   ► You want to see the url before you click on it exactly

00:35:33 ◼   ► So that's how you know, i'm not like gonna

00:35:36 ◼   ► Right like you're gonna just get

00:35:41 ◼   ► Right?

00:35:43 ◼   ► Wow.

00:35:44 ◼   ► Is that a concern that you have when you're reading stuff online?

00:35:51 ◼   ► If people are going to catfish you with links?

00:35:54 ◼   ► Well, look, at least you'll know with my reviews that can't happen to you.

00:36:01 ◼   ► Like that is a guarantee.

00:36:03 ◼   ► But you're saying things about other people's reviews in that statement.

00:36:06 ◼   ► No I'm not.

00:36:07 ◼   ► No I'm not.

00:36:08 ◼   ► Don't click any links on 512Pixels.

00:36:10 ◼   ► God knows what you'll end up with. I'm just saying, I'm just saying, like, who knows? Again,

00:36:15 ◼   ► like, you don't know, right? But with me, with my style, you 100% know where you're going when you

00:36:21 ◼   ► click it. You know, like, because you guys, you put these little Easter eggs in there and stuff,

00:36:24 ◼   ► right? Yeah. I don't have any Easter eggs. Mine are just regular eggs. Like, they're just right

00:36:29 ◼   ► there. On the counter for you to see. Pick them up. Please let you have regular eggs, Myke.

00:36:35 ◼   ► No secrets! Just regular eggs in my reviews!

00:36:40 ◼   ► Is there going to be an audiobook version? No. Just plain text in iBooks Author.

00:36:48 ◼   ► I won't have the time! I won't have the time! How am I going to do that? I've got to write it, you know?

00:36:53 ◼   ► Yeah. What things are you going to animate if it's just plain text? What's going to be animated?

00:36:58 ◼   ► No, no, no. The animations, they're going to be in there, right? Just the text is in plain text.

00:37:03 ◼   ► That's why I'm using iBooks Author, because they have all the animations options.

00:37:07 ◼   ► Okay, okay. I'm looking forward to it, Myke. If you ever need an editor...

00:37:12 ◼   ► It's gonna be real good.

00:37:14 ◼   ► No, no. I don't want one.

00:37:16 ◼   ► Right, right.

00:37:17 ◼   ► The editors just slow you down, man.

00:37:18 ◼   ► Okay.

00:37:19 ◼   ► You know, like, I'll be done and then the editor's like, "Oh no, you've got to do more."

00:37:22 ◼   ► I say, "No, I want to do more."

00:37:24 ◼   ► Okay, okay.

00:37:25 ◼   ► Just go for it, you know?

00:37:26 ◼   ► I'm excited for you. Good luck. Sounds like a really good workflow you got going on there.

00:37:33 ◼   ► So yeah, we'll follow back on this in September, before you take the time off to think.

00:37:42 ◼   ► Yeah, it's going to be great.

00:37:44 ◼   ► So yeah.

00:37:45 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:37:46 ◼   ► Very good.

00:37:47 ◼   ► Go think about it.

00:37:48 ◼   ► Alright, today's show is brought to you by Pingdom, the company you offer uptime monitoring

00:37:52 ◼   ► and web performance management.

00:37:54 ◼   ► You might be more familiar with Pingdom than you may think, because they help keep so many

00:37:58 ◼   ► of your favorite sites online.

00:38:00 ◼   ► So talk about BuzzFeed, Netflix, Imgur, they are all, and Relay FM are all Pingdom customers.

00:38:06 ◼   ► And if you ever go to any of those websites and it's all hunky-dory, it's because Pingdom is there looking after things for us.

00:38:12 ◼   ► Because what Pingdom do is they use 70 global test servers to emulate visits to a website.

00:38:16 ◼   ► They check its availability as often as every minute.

00:38:19 ◼   ► And if something goes wrong, they notify you.

00:38:21 ◼   ► And they can notify you in so many different ways like email, text message, or via push notifications.

00:38:27 ◼   ► I'm going to be talking about the

00:38:49 ◼   ► for

00:39:09 ◼   ► continued support of this show and relay FM.

00:39:13 ◼   ► So let's bring this thing down to a serious note for a moment because Federico you published

00:39:17 ◼   ► a wonderful article today featuring lots of interesting little tidbits which are good

00:39:23 ◼   ► to see written down somewhere about shortcuts.

00:39:28 ◼   ► So we covered some of this in our live episode last week but there's also some additional

00:39:32 ◼   ► information that you found out.

00:39:35 ◼   ► it seems like that you've really kind of,

00:39:37 ◼   ► you've really got your head around this

00:39:40 ◼   ► and you know, I think you said this in the article,

00:39:43 ◼   ► you had some very interesting conversations

00:39:44 ◼   ► with some developers and stuff over the last week

00:39:46 ◼   ► and it seems like through what you've heard

00:39:49 ◼   ► and through digging through what's available,

00:39:51 ◼   ► you've got a pretty good handle

00:39:54 ◼   ► on what Siri shortcuts are,

00:39:56 ◼   ► what the shortcuts app is gonna be.

00:39:59 ◼   ► So you feeling pretty confident about your information,

00:40:04 ◼   ► what's going on with this? I'm extremely confident about all the things that I

00:40:08 ◼   ► put in the story, yes. Okay. So there are a few areas that I wanted to dig

00:40:12 ◼   ► into. So people should read the article, but there was kind of like, from reading

00:40:17 ◼   ► it, I had some additional questions that I wanted to ask you. Alright, okay. And

00:40:22 ◼   ► then just through talking about this, we'll touch on a bunch of different

00:40:25 ◼   ► areas. I think as well we need to maybe try and like settle on some naming

00:40:30 ◼   ► conventions now. I think we should just go with Siri shortcuts for the ones that

00:40:33 ◼   ► that are currently in iOS, the simple ones, and then shortcuts app or shortcuts will mean

00:40:39 ◼   ► the full application. Does that sound good? Like just as a way to try and give it some

00:40:43 ◼   ► kind of consistency.

00:40:44 ◼   ► Wait, so how do you want to say shortcuts app and...

00:40:48 ◼   ► Or just shortcuts is the app, Siri shortcuts are the simple ones, like the little pieces

00:40:54 ◼   ► of information. What do you want to do?

00:40:55 ◼   ► I don't know. I would say the Siri shortcuts, like they're not necessarily Siri ones, even

00:41:02 ◼   ► though Apple calls everything Siri.

00:41:04 ◼   ► Like if you pull down on Spotlight, you know, the little...

00:41:08 ◼   ► Are those Siri...

00:41:10 ◼   ► Let's call them Siri shortcuts.

00:41:11 ◼   ► Yeah, but that's Siri though, isn't it?

00:41:13 ◼   ► Like that's all part of Siri.

00:41:14 ◼   ► Yeah, it's probably part of Siri.

00:41:16 ◼   ► So let's call it...

00:41:17 ◼   ► Because I don't get those recommendations because I turn the Siri stuff off.

00:41:21 ◼   ► Alright, so let's call them Siri shortcuts and shortcuts.

00:41:23 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:41:24 ◼   ► Alright, great.

00:41:25 ◼   ► How much work do developers really need to do to realistically donate actions to Siri

00:41:30 ◼   ► shortcuts and the shortcuts app?

00:41:32 ◼   ► OK. Do we expect there to be tons and tons of these, or is it going to be so much work

00:41:40 ◼   ► that it's going to put people off?

00:41:41 ◼   ► All right, so it depends on a few things. First of all, a shortcut should be donated,

00:41:50 ◼   ► which is this horrible word that Apple is using. Donating shortcuts means making it

00:41:55 ◼   ► available to the system.

00:41:56 ◼   ► It's like giving it, right?

00:41:58 ◼   ► Giving it to the system.

00:42:00 ◼   ► Maybe that's why they didn't choose that, because just over and over saying "giving

00:42:04 ◼   ► it to the system" is just very strange.

00:42:06 ◼   ► It's the good Samaritan developers making donations to the system.

00:42:10 ◼   ► Hey look, the system is needy, we can help it out by giving it these things.

00:42:14 ◼   ► Just get on board.

00:42:16 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:42:17 ◼   ► So the first thing to consider is that a shortcut makes sense if it's a repeatable action that

00:42:25 ◼   ► is timely, that is not just a one-time deal. So let's say that you're using Todoist and

00:42:33 ◼   ► you're saving a to-do for "I need to buy milk tomorrow at 2pm." That's not a shortcut because

00:42:41 ◼   ► it's one thing that you're doing once, it's very specific, it's not a routine.

00:42:46 ◼   ► You don't know how much milk I buy.

00:42:49 ◼   ► I was gonna say. However, let's say that the system discovers that you keep doing that

00:42:58 ◼   ► on a regular basis. So Apple is selling the idea of repeatable actions that are based

00:43:06 ◼   ► on user routines and habits, something that the system can surface. So with that in mind,

00:43:14 ◼   ► The second thing to consider is developers can choose between two different APIs.

00:43:19 ◼   ► One of them requires less work, the other requires more work.

00:43:23 ◼   ► The simple one is NSUserActivity.

00:43:26 ◼   ► You may be familiar with this because it's already used in a bunch of places.

00:43:30 ◼   ► It's the same technology that powers Handoff from iOS to iOS or iOS to the Mac and vice

00:43:35 ◼   ► versa.

00:43:36 ◼   ► And it's the same API that powers results in Spotlight on iOS.

00:43:40 ◼   ► This is one of those super smart things that Apple does, right?

00:43:43 ◼   ► Where they build a new technology based upon something that people should already be using

00:43:49 ◼   ► to get other features.

00:43:50 ◼   ► So it makes it so much easier for them to get developer adoption.

00:43:56 ◼   ► Or even if you've never used it before, you can at least go, "Well, I bought it for Siri

00:44:00 ◼   ► Shortcuts and then I get all of these other things for free."

00:44:04 ◼   ► It's very good.

00:44:06 ◼   ► So that's the easy one to implement, but it's also the easy one in practice, because all

00:44:10 ◼   ► you can do with user activities is you can open an app into a specific screen or a specific

00:44:17 ◼   ► piece of content, like a restaurant listing in Yelp.

00:44:23 ◼   ► That is a user activity.

00:44:25 ◼   ► It's a point of interest inside of an application.

00:44:28 ◼   ► The second technology that can use, you may also be familiar with this, is SiriKit, which

00:44:34 ◼   ► is the technology that is used for apps up until now to integrate with Siri via voice,

00:44:40 ◼   ► to be able to say in things, for example, do this or that. So the same API that powers Siri,

00:44:47 ◼   ► and you know the one that shows you the little custom UI when you ask Siri to send a message

00:44:52 ◼   ► or a payment or save a task, can be used to bring up a shortcut. That requires more work from

00:44:58 ◼   ► developers, but also Apple is kind of making it easier for everybody to adopt

00:45:03 ◼   ► circuit because there's a new custom type of circuit integration that

00:45:09 ◼   ► developers can use. Until today, circuit was organized in domains, which are

00:45:13 ◼   ► categories of apps. That was a bit too limiting for types of apps that don't

00:45:19 ◼   ► necessarily fall into one bucket or the other. So now Apple is saying, well

00:45:23 ◼   ► everybody can integrate with circuit by making a custom integration.

00:45:26 ◼   ► What does that mean?

00:45:28 ◼   ► That means that when you open Xcode, there's a new extension point.

00:45:32 ◼   ► When you're creating a SiriKit extension, you can say make it a custom one,

00:45:37 ◼   ► and actually you get, I actually have a photo here for reference,

00:45:41 ◼   ► you get a list of verbs and actions.

00:45:45 ◼   ► It's like a little dictionary that allows you to build your own sort of semantic integration with SiriKit.

00:45:51 ◼   ► And for example, you can say...

00:45:54 ◼   ► >> This is what Marco was asking for on ATP, I think.

00:45:57 ◼   ► >> Yeah. So you can do things like the generic section.

00:46:01 ◼   ► Under generic, you have do, run, or go.

00:46:05 ◼   ► For example, if you want to make an information type of integration,

00:46:09 ◼   ► you can say view or open.

00:46:11 ◼   ► If you want to do share,

00:46:12 ◼   ► you can do share, post, or send.

00:46:15 ◼   ► So this is basically like a little dictionary that

00:46:17 ◼   ► tells Siri how to talk about your integration.

00:46:21 ◼   ► So that if you want to share a tweet,

00:46:23 ◼   ► it'll say "I shared it" instead of saying "I bought it" because it's not like you bought a tweet,

00:46:27 ◼   ► you know, it doesn't make sense. You can, "I bought tweets, baby, this is how we're gonna get 'em!"

00:46:32 ◼   ► So it's a way for developers to make a custom intent that follows a specific set of definitions.

00:46:39 ◼   ► I mean, I'm not a developer, but just looking at the screenshot, it makes sense to me,

00:46:44 ◼   ► so visually speaking. So from the perspective of being a developer or a user, like,

00:46:50 ◼   ► Yes. Why would you choose one or the other?

00:46:52 ◼   ► Like, what more do you get going with this Siri custom intents that can be given up,

00:46:58 ◼   ► that can be donated as shortcuts as opposed to just using NSUserActivity?

00:47:01 ◼   ► So here's what I think will happen.

00:47:03 ◼   ► Lots of apps will use the NSUserActivity because it's built in, it's already, it's been available since iOS 8,

00:47:12 ◼   ► and it makes sense to launch apps into specific screens.

00:47:20 ◼   ► It's something that we've been doing for years with stuff like Launch Center Pro or Launcher.

00:47:25 ◼   ► So I expect the adoption of an SUSE activity type of basic shortcuts to be massive because

00:47:32 ◼   ► it's so little work for developers.

00:47:37 ◼   ► For SiriKit, I think the custom intent makes a lot of sense if you have information type

00:47:46 ◼   ► stuff.

00:47:47 ◼   ► want to show users something like a little piece of content

00:47:53 ◼   ► without having to open the app.

00:47:55 ◼   ► Could be a hotel reservation, could be a restaurant

00:47:58 ◼   ► reservation, could be a document, could be an image,

00:48:01 ◼   ► could be anything.

00:48:02 ◼   ► So expect the informational type of response

00:48:05 ◼   ► from Siri to be quite useful.

00:48:09 ◼   ► So would it be safe to assume that the example they

00:48:12 ◼   ► were showing with Phil's coffee, that was a custom intent?

00:48:17 ◼   ► I think so, yeah.

00:48:18 ◼   ► Because it had an image and you could press a button.

00:48:21 ◼   ► That's an example.

00:48:22 ◼   ► Right, okay.

00:48:23 ◼   ► And it says, "I've ordered your coffee."

00:48:24 ◼   ► So that's exactly, I think, one type of custom intent.

00:48:27 ◼   ► Oh, okay.

00:48:28 ◼   ► Because it's also customizing the response.

00:48:31 ◼   ► Yes, exactly.

00:48:32 ◼   ► So not only can you customize the image that you see in the little series snippet, you

00:48:38 ◼   ► can also add buttons around the little custom UI, and you can customize what series has.

00:48:45 ◼   ► So, yeah.

00:48:46 ◼   ► about with buttons here? Like how interactive can they be?

00:48:51 ◼   ► Is that it?

00:48:53 ◼   ► Yeah. You cannot have something like a calculator in a Siri snippet.

00:48:58 ◼   ► So I'm sorry James, but you cannot bring Pico to Siri.

00:49:03 ◼   ► I'm sure he thought about it, but that's not possible.

00:49:06 ◼   ► He did. I actually spoke to him. He asked and they said no.

00:49:11 ◼   ► It's like, no, you can't do that.

00:49:13 ◼   ► Even though, and I wanted to say that even though Apple is sort of reusing

00:49:17 ◼   ► SiriKit, it's not like every single SiriKit action should make sense as a

00:49:24 ◼   ► shortcut. Again, Apple is stressing the idea of shortcuts should be something

00:49:31 ◼   ► that users want to access frequently. So if you send a one-time payment to Myke

00:49:38 ◼   ► like over Venmo or PayPal, maybe that's not a shortcut because you've done it one time

00:49:44 ◼   ► in a year, but if you send it on a weekly basis, then maybe that should be a shortcut.

00:49:49 ◼   ► So ultimately it's up to developers to figure out what should be a shortcut.

00:49:54 ◼   ► And that's why Apple is basically saying, if you think that this action that a user

00:50:01 ◼   ► does should be a shortcut, you should have a little button that says "Add to Siri" so

00:50:07 ◼   ► that the users can make a custom shortcut

00:50:10 ◼   ► and have a custom phrase for it.

00:50:12 ◼   ► But otherwise, it's up to the system

00:50:16 ◼   ► to figure out with the machine learning stuff

00:50:19 ◼   ► that Apple is saying they're using,

00:50:21 ◼   ► with the predictive system that they have, to say,

00:50:25 ◼   ► even though you haven't added the custom phrase,

00:50:28 ◼   ► maybe you should see this little shortcut

00:50:30 ◼   ► to order pizza on Tuesday in your spotlight screen.

00:50:34 ◼   ► So it's a fascinating twofold approach here of,

00:50:39 ◼   ► you can either have a custom phrase

00:50:41 ◼   ► because the user decided to make this action shortcut,

00:50:45 ◼   ► or you can let the system predict it for you.

00:50:47 ◼   ► I want to see how it will play out because like,

00:50:52 ◼   ► right now I don't have a lot of faith

00:50:54 ◼   ► in the predictive type stuff,

00:50:58 ◼   ► but also it's, I gotta see what happens

00:51:01 ◼   ► when I'm actually using iOS 12 for like a month

00:51:04 ◼   ► and when I have 50 apps that offer shortcuts to the system,

00:51:08 ◼   ► will it scale?

00:51:09 ◼   ► Will it actually understand my habits?

00:51:11 ◼   ► We'll see.

00:51:12 ◼   ► I have a lot more faith in the custom phrase approach

00:51:16 ◼   ► because it's something that I create,

00:51:17 ◼   ► something that I want to use.

00:51:19 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, and maybe it's limited

00:51:21 ◼   ► just because I work from home,

00:51:23 ◼   ► but I feel like the stuff it's doing now to predict stuff,

00:51:27 ◼   ► just, it doesn't seem super relevant to me.

00:51:30 ◼   ► And again, maybe that's because I have a lack of structure.

00:51:33 ◼   ► Like, I went to the same office

00:51:36 ◼   ► and the same coffee shop every day,

00:51:38 ◼   ► maybe it would work better.

00:51:39 ◼   ► But for me, I'm kind of the same,

00:51:41 ◼   ► but as you were like, I want to see how it works,

00:51:43 ◼   ► but I feel like I'm going to be using

00:51:45 ◼   ► the custom voice triggers a lot more

00:51:47 ◼   ► than things that it suggests to me.

00:51:50 ◼   ► - Yep, I agree.

00:51:51 ◼   ► - So I have a conceptual question, really.

00:51:55 ◼   ► Because I've been thinking about this.

00:51:57 ◼   ► All of the shortcuts, the suggested shortcuts,

00:52:00 ◼   ► and the way that people can build shortcuts in the app. Is this a good thing or a bad thing for

00:52:06 ◼   ► developers? Because especially if you have a large company, you have a pretty large user base, you

00:52:12 ◼   ► have an application that is pretty big in nature, surely the company wants their users to be opening

00:52:21 ◼   ► the application and using it and seeing everything that the app has to offer, promoting new features,

00:52:25 ◼   ► you know, that kind of stuff. Like, do developers, do companies want to be relegated to being just

00:52:31 ◼   ► a set of features rather than offering their overall experience? Which, you know, no matter how

00:52:36 ◼   ► we may view it, every large company believes that the experience that they offer is better

00:52:42 ◼   ► than anything else available, right? Like, otherwise, what are they doing, you know?

00:52:46 ◼   ► So what do you think about that? Do you think that this might be a thing that holds some developers

00:52:53 ◼   ► off because they don't want to be just relegated to like, Lego blocks?

00:52:57 ◼   ► It doesn't make sense for companies like Twitter and Facebook that want you to open the app

00:53:01 ◼   ► and see ads and contribute to their statistics. I would be surprised if these big companies

00:53:08 ◼   ► have tons of shortcuts because as you mentioned, it will give people a way to accomplish the

00:53:14 ◼   ► same functionality without having to open the app. Also because of course Apple is being

00:53:19 ◼   ► extremely serious with their privacy approach here. These extensions run in a secure process.

00:53:29 ◼   ► Just the information that you need is exchanged between Siri and the extension. So if Facebook

00:53:36 ◼   ► had a way to bring up a user profile in Siri, maybe I wouldn't navigate to a friend's profile

00:53:42 ◼   ► page in the Facebook app, and I'm not sure if Facebook wants that. But if you're a smaller

00:53:49 ◼   ► company that is not creepy and doesn't make money off of people's attention, that way

00:53:58 ◼   ► it makes sense to integrate with Siri because it's a good thing to have if you care about

00:54:05 ◼   ► the native iOS experience. And also if we consider the custom shortcuts, and the shortcuts

00:54:15 ◼   ► app, you know, and I believe that the people who put together advanced workflows and stuff

00:54:20 ◼   ► will be a tiny fraction of the folks who are using the basic shortcuts with Siri,

00:54:24 ◼   ► you will still have to open apps, you will still have to open Ulysses if you want to

00:54:31 ◼   ► add something to your, you know, to your, to a document, because as I mentioned in the story,

00:54:40 ◼   ► the circuit integrations will not be able to replace,

00:54:45 ◼   ► at least in the first version,

00:54:48 ◼   ► the more advanced features of existing URL scheme actions.

00:54:53 ◼   ► So we're stuck in this situation where big companies

00:54:58 ◼   ► will probably not want to have really deep serial integrations

00:55:04 ◼   ► I would love to be surprised and see Twitter and Facebook

00:55:07 ◼   ► going on Instagram, having full integrations with SiriKit and shortcuts.

00:55:13 ◼   ► But then, if we're looking at the more niche type of apps, the productivity stuff on iOS,

00:55:21 ◼   ► you will still have to launch apps and open apps because URL schemes and X-callback will

00:55:26 ◼   ► still be more flexible than SiriKit, at least for now.

00:55:32 ◼   ► In the future, I hope not.

00:55:34 ◼   ► But for now, you will still have to open them if you want to do crazy automations.

00:55:38 ◼   ► Do you think that that is a problem for people who want to get started with this?

00:55:43 ◼   ► Do you think that's like a hurdle that they're going to have to figure out?

00:55:46 ◼   ► So based on what I've seen so far, I think there's a really nice path, starting with

00:55:51 ◼   ► simple shortcuts and suggested shortcuts, whether it's in the Spotlight page or the

00:55:57 ◼   ► lock screen and go into the more custom automation stuff.

00:56:03 ◼   ► Honestly, I believe that if you're reading a workflow,

00:56:07 ◼   ► there will be little to no learning curve in switching to shortcuts.

00:56:12 ◼   ► But if you're new to this stuff,

00:56:14 ◼   ► if you've never done automation before,

00:56:16 ◼   ► I think it's done well enough in the sense that you swipe down to search for an app,

00:56:23 ◼   ► which is something that most people do, and you will see suggestions, and you will see shortcuts.

00:56:29 ◼   ► I'm not sure if hiding the custom phrase stuff in settings is a good idea,

00:56:40 ◼   ► because you need to open settings, navigate to Syrian search, and then view the shortcuts.

00:56:45 ◼   ► Maybe there could have been a way to make that stand out a little more.

00:56:51 ◼   ► Well, I would guess that they're hoping that Apple won't need to be who shows you it, right?

00:56:57 ◼   ► Like the third-party apps will show you with the buttons that they've made.

00:57:01 ◼   ► That's the hope, yeah. So I was about to say that. Maybe they're just hoping that apps will

00:57:06 ◼   ► bring up this Siri UI, saying you won't have to open settings. If that's the case, then I think

00:57:13 ◼   ► I think it should be quite easy for people to get started.

00:57:17 ◼   ► Because if you're using Yelp or I'm trying to think of iOS apps that actually do adopt

00:57:24 ◼   ► features.

00:57:25 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:57:26 ◼   ► Yelp is a good example.

00:57:29 ◼   ► Instagram, I don't know.

00:57:32 ◼   ► Telegram is a good example.

00:57:34 ◼   ► If you're using these apps and you see Siri shortcut buttons and you will say, "Oh, what's

00:57:39 ◼   ► this?"

00:57:40 ◼   ► understand the potential for custom phrases, then maybe you will start using them.

00:57:47 ◼   ► And also swiping down and also notifications on the lock screen.

00:57:51 ◼   ► I think it should be enough, but again, it depends on what developers do.

00:58:00 ◼   ► Because it's, you know, it's hard to explain to people the concept of automation, which

00:58:06 ◼   ► Which is why I think it's clever that Apple is doing this more lightweight version of

00:58:12 ◼   ► shortcuts in that you don't have to put together a workflow for everything, but the system

00:58:17 ◼   ► can suggest your basic actions.

00:58:18 ◼   ► I think that's a clever choice.

00:58:21 ◼   ► So I think one thing that has me potentially excited about this is that Siri is more than

00:58:26 ◼   ► just on my phone, right?

00:58:27 ◼   ► It's on my watch and of course it's on my HomePod.

00:58:31 ◼   ► How can you tell so far that this stuff is going to be surfaced on those other devices?

00:58:37 ◼   ► Can I walk into my office and just shout to my HomePod and things happen?

00:58:40 ◼   ► Is it going to be a limited set?

00:58:42 ◼   ► Do you have any feel for that yet?

00:58:44 ◼   ► That's a good question.

00:58:45 ◼   ► So you will be able to access your custom phrases for shortcuts on the HomePod using

00:58:51 ◼   ► personal requests.

00:58:53 ◼   ► So it will be part of that.

00:58:56 ◼   ► The problem here, which is actually a little mini section in the story, is the ability

00:59:02 ◼   ► - and this is a problem, of course, for basic shortcuts, for custom shortcuts - the ability

00:59:09 ◼   ► for a shortcut to execute both visually, so if you have an iPhone, if you have an iPad,

00:59:17 ◼   ► and in an audio-only environment.

00:59:21 ◼   ► This is actually one of the features that the workflow team was working on, being able

00:59:27 ◼   ► to have the same workflow, but making it run in a bunch of different places.

00:59:32 ◼   ► So Workflow used to have an Apple Watch app, Shortcuts doesn't anymore, but they also used

00:59:37 ◼   ► to have a widget.

00:59:40 ◼   ► And the widget was actually this really important piece of technology because it allowed you

00:59:46 ◼   ► to run entire workflows in the background

00:59:50 ◼   ► without having to open the workflow app

00:59:52 ◼   ► unless you came across an action that required an interaction

00:59:57 ◼   ► that couldn't be built into the widget, such as typing text,

01:00:01 ◼   ► because Apple doesn't want you to type text

01:00:03 ◼   ► with the keyboard into widgets.

01:00:05 ◼   ► And the idea with shortcuts and the Apple Watch and CarPlay

01:00:09 ◼   ► and the HomePod is essentially the same.

01:00:11 ◼   ► How can you make the same shortcut work everywhere?

01:00:15 ◼   ► So for app shortcuts, I'm not sure how developers will be able to confirm actions without having a UI.

01:00:28 ◼   ► So if I want to order a coffee, will I be able to use it both on my iPhone, where I can see the

01:00:34 ◼   ► little restaurant snippet menu and a button that says confirm? Will I be able to do the same on the

01:00:40 ◼   ► the Apple Watch and on the HomePod, I'm not sure yet. What I'm pretty confident about

01:00:47 ◼   ► is that if you put together a custom shortcut, so a workflow, and you have actions such as

01:00:55 ◼   ► choose from list or ask for input, stuff that requires you on iOS to type text or choose

01:01:03 ◼   ► from a list of items or choose from a menu, you will not be able to have that in the first

01:01:11 ◼   ► version of shortcuts when a shortcut is running via Siri. Because my understanding is that

01:01:17 ◼   ► Siri, at least in the first version of iOS 12, will not have the ability to say, "Oh,

01:01:23 ◼   ► here's a list of items in your shortcut. Choose one of them." Or usually here you would type

01:01:29 ◼   ► some text, but now you can just speak it to me. So it will not be interactive like that.

01:01:35 ◼   ► So to answer your question, will I be able to walk into my office and shout things to

01:01:40 ◼   ► the HomePod, it depends on the shortcut that you want to run. If it can be executed via

01:01:46 ◼   ► audio only, then yes. If it requires you to interact with the shortcut in some way, it

01:01:52 ◼   ► will probably tell you to continue on your iPhone. As for right now, you can set up custom

01:01:59 ◼   ► phrases, you can ask the HomePod to execute one of them, but it will give you an error

01:02:04 ◼   ► because I think it needs an update.

01:02:06 ◼   ► So at least that's what happened with my three HomePods.

01:02:11 ◼   ► None of them wanted to run my custom shortcuts, which makes sense because the system...

01:02:16 ◼   ► People are actually seeing all these workflows show up in the settings.

01:02:22 ◼   ► I'm pretty sure that's actually a bug because workflow hasn't been updated for iOS 12 and

01:02:28 ◼   ► an API for iOS 12 only which dictates how and when user activities show up in settings under shortcuts.

01:02:35 ◼   ► So yeah, it depends Steven on what you want to do with your home pod.

01:02:41 ◼   ► So you mentioned in your article that you're very confident that you will be able to bring over all

01:02:49 ◼   ► of your existing workflows and they'll basically be unchanged when it moves over to shortcuts.

01:02:55 ◼   ► So I wondered, as far as you're aware, will it be possible for me to take an existing workflow and

01:03:01 ◼   ► add new shortcuts to it? Is this stuff going to be able to be mixed and matched between? Can I use

01:03:08 ◼   ► the old, more complicated versions and functionality with the new functionality?

01:03:15 ◼   ► So the idea is that all your workflows will just migrate over to the new format. Because

01:03:22 ◼   ► Shortcuts will have the same actions, will have the same features.

01:03:25 ◼   ► It will mostly look the same. I mean, we've seen the screenshots.

01:03:29 ◼   ► The idea is that once you have all your old workflows into shortcuts,

01:03:34 ◼   ► there won't be any difference between the old ones and the new ones.

01:03:38 ◼   ► So yes, you will be able to add all of the new actions that shortcuts will offer.

01:03:44 ◼   ► because what I understood is that Apple doesn't want to end up in a situation where all the

01:03:55 ◼   ► workflow users are upset because they lost a bunch of functionality in the transition

01:03:59 ◼   ► to shortcuts.

01:04:00 ◼   ► That's great.

01:04:01 ◼   ► And that's great news because it means that not only are we getting new system features,

01:04:06 ◼   ► but also we can keep the old ones and we can live happily ever after, ideally.

01:04:10 ◼   ► Best I love you.

01:04:12 ◼   ► That's the best I love you timeline.

01:04:14 ◼   ► So yes, I don't know. I'm not sure if shortcuts will replace Workflow on the App Store, so

01:04:21 ◼   ► you'll just basically update the app and you have shortcuts. Or if it will be a separate

01:04:25 ◼   ► app and there will be some kind of feature or tool to move over your old workflows. I

01:04:32 ◼   ► would be surprised if shortcuts kept the same old Workflow sync account mechanism. I'm pretty

01:04:42 ◼   ► it's going to move to iCloud.

01:04:44 ◼   ► So, that said, it could be an update

01:04:47 ◼   ► or it could be a new version, but I think --

01:04:50 ◼   ► and I'm pretty confident, actually,

01:04:52 ◼   ► that nothing should break.

01:04:56 ◼   ► So, at least that's what I've been hearing recently.

01:05:02 ◼   ► But we'll have to see, of course,

01:05:04 ◼   ► once there's a beta and once Shortcuts launches,

01:05:07 ◼   ► sometimes in September, I assume.

01:05:10 ◼   ► -One last question for you.

01:05:11 ◼   ► So when creating these custom shortcuts in the shortcuts app, do you have any idea if it will be possible?

01:05:18 ◼   ► So like for example, I can create shortcuts for many many many activities, right?

01:05:23 ◼   ► Like and I need to go into individual applications to surface all of the different things that I can that I can create

01:05:31 ◼   ► shortcuts for series shortcuts for

01:05:33 ◼   ► Do you know of any sense that if I'm in the shortcuts app?

01:05:37 ◼   ► Will I be able to surface these or do I need to like find them all first?

01:05:42 ◼   ► Do you follow what I'm saying? Like yeah in the old workflow you had a list of everything workflow could do

01:05:47 ◼   ► Is that going to be the same with shortcuts?

01:05:49 ◼   ► Yes

01:05:51 ◼   ► Because that's big that could be a lot of stuff, right? Yeah. Yeah, you will see

01:05:55 ◼   ► Again, this is my understanding right now

01:05:59 ◼   ► You will see both the new native app shortcuts sheets or series shortcuts

01:06:07 ◼   ► and the old apps category with the URL scheme stuff.

01:06:12 ◼   ► - Every action that is donated to the system

01:06:17 ◼   ► to become a Siri shortcut will show in the shortcuts app.

01:06:21 ◼   ► - Yes.

01:06:22 ◼   ► - Wow.

01:06:23 ◼   ► - Yes.

01:06:24 ◼   ► - That's, what's interesting about that is it's very big

01:06:27 ◼   ► and can be very varied depending on the user.

01:06:29 ◼   ► - Is there any sort of privacy angle there?

01:06:32 ◼   ► Like does it sync that NS user records across iCloud?

01:06:36 ◼   ► Like if someone picked up my iPad, they could see everything I'm doing on my phone.

01:06:40 ◼   ► Because those records are like breadcrumbs on what you're doing across a bunch of different

01:06:45 ◼   ► apps.

01:06:46 ◼   ► So I don't think that that information syncs with iCloud, because that is just exposed

01:06:54 ◼   ► to the system.

01:06:55 ◼   ► What syncs with iCloud, I think, is when you add a custom phrase to a shortcut, but just

01:07:02 ◼   ► like your iPad doesn't know which apps you have installed on your phone. I mean, unless

01:07:07 ◼   ► you use Screen Time, which maybe also it kind of does. Apple is doing some new things this

01:07:12 ◼   ► year with keeping track of a user's installed apps. I mean, I'm sure everything will be

01:07:18 ◼   ► encrypted but especially if you consider Screen Time where it's not like you have a separate

01:07:23 ◼   ► instance of Screen Time for iPhone and Screen Time for iPad, then the iPad already kind

01:07:28 ◼   ► and else which apps you're using on the phone, then maybe the answer is I don't know, because

01:07:35 ◼   ► Apple must be keeping track of these things somewhere. I don't think that workflow on

01:07:40 ◼   ► the iPad will say, "Hey, I know that you have OpenTable on your iPhone, why don't you put

01:07:47 ◼   ► OpenTable here as well?" I don't think that will happen, but again, screen time is a precedent

01:07:52 ◼   ► in this case, so I'm not sure. Myke, there's a...

01:07:56 ◼   ► I think with iOS 12 there are a bunch of areas where it's like

01:07:59 ◼   ► It's like a local privacy thing and it can be a problem depending on your situation, right? That both screen time and

01:08:07 ◼   ► Siri shortcuts, they're gonna start servicing things and

01:08:11 ◼   ► You know if people pick up your devices then yes

01:08:15 ◼   ► They will be able to learn new things about you and as of all this stuff, right?

01:08:19 ◼   ► Like when we're talking about the sharing of a touch ID or whatever

01:08:23 ◼   ► That's just going to be on you and your home situation as to whether you're cool with that or not, I guess.

01:08:28 ◼   ► Right. Yeah. There's a couple of details that I need to mention to answer your question, Myke.

01:08:36 ◼   ► The first one is that actually app integrations or app shortcuts in the shortcuts app, super confusing,

01:08:43 ◼   ► confusing. The Siri shortcuts will have a toggle on them that says "show when run"

01:08:50 ◼   ► so that you can choose to actually see the little Siri UI or not if you're

01:08:57 ◼   ► running the shortcut in Siri for example. And if "show when run" is disabled,

01:09:02 ◼   ► Siri will just execute the action and breeze through, move on to the next step.

01:09:08 ◼   ► So not even needing to open applications anymore, right?

01:09:11 ◼   ► - Not because SiriKit it's all done in the background.

01:09:13 ◼   ► - Damn.

01:09:14 ◼   ► - Unless, I mean, the user activity stuff,

01:09:17 ◼   ► if you say, take me to this page in OpenTable,

01:09:20 ◼   ► then of course we will have to launch the app.

01:09:22 ◼   ► - Yeah, there's nothing it can do.

01:09:23 ◼   ► - But if it's a SiriKit intent,

01:09:24 ◼   ► it will just run in the background.

01:09:26 ◼   ► Also, the big catch maybe,

01:09:32 ◼   ► is that these Siri shortcuts, these native actions

01:09:37 ◼   ► are not as customizable as what we have today with X Callback in Workflow. Meaning that shortcuts are

01:09:46 ◼   ► offered by apps as they are. They won't have custom fields in them when you add them to a

01:09:56 ◼   ► shortcut. So for example today in Workflow you can say add two things, that's an action. And when you

01:10:03 ◼   ► add this action to a workflow, you have a bunch of fields that you can fill yourself,

01:10:08 ◼   ► such as title or due date. That will not be possible with Siri shortcuts in the first

01:10:15 ◼   ► version in iOS 12, because these shortcuts are effectively pre-made, they're not user

01:10:21 ◼   ► customizable, they shouldn't accept any custom input, they will not set any custom output.

01:10:29 ◼   ► And if you actually take a look at the screenshots shared by Apple, they are not connected to

01:10:36 ◼   ► any other action.

01:10:37 ◼   ► So the vertical line that runs through a workflow or a custom shortcut stops when it runs through

01:10:44 ◼   ► a native shortcut.

01:10:46 ◼   ► Because again, they are little standalone entities that are not like the current X callback

01:10:54 ◼   ► actions.

01:10:55 ◼   ► That, I think, is, of course, the next big step, right,

01:10:57 ◼   ► of being able to have intents

01:11:02 ◼   ► that are actually user customizable.

01:11:03 ◼   ► And at that point, and Steven is going to maybe hate me

01:11:07 ◼   ► or love me for saying this,

01:11:10 ◼   ► what's the difference with HyperCard, really,

01:11:13 ◼   ► where you have a program that gives you a little UI

01:11:16 ◼   ► that you can customize and make your own?

01:11:19 ◼   ► Right now, Circuit Intents

01:11:21 ◼   ► are just extensions offered by developers.

01:11:24 ◼   ► - Huh, I'm A, I'm just proud that you know what HyperCard is.

01:11:28 ◼   ► But B, I think that's why this stuff is so exciting.

01:11:31 ◼   ► It's the same reason that HyperCard is exciting

01:11:34 ◼   ► and the same reason that Automator was exciting

01:11:36 ◼   ► because it brings, these are,

01:11:40 ◼   ► I don't know, we've quabbled over this term over the years,

01:11:45 ◼   ► but these are intro to development type tasks.

01:11:50 ◼   ► Learning how a computer can do things on its own

01:11:53 ◼   ► is the first step in development.

01:11:55 ◼   ► And you may not make it past that first step,

01:11:57 ◼   ► I surely haven't, I'm not a developer,

01:11:58 ◼   ► but I can automate stuff.

01:11:59 ◼   ► And this coming to iOS is a huge step down the road of,

01:12:05 ◼   ► is iOS, are iOS devices computers?

01:12:09 ◼   ► And I know not the way you think about them,

01:12:11 ◼   ► not the way I think about them,

01:12:12 ◼   ► but in the broadest sense,

01:12:14 ◼   ► having a device that you can develop on

01:12:17 ◼   ► is a really big milestone in the lifetime of a platform.

01:12:20 ◼   ► and this is another step down that road.

01:12:23 ◼   ► And that's why it's so exciting because for the first time,

01:12:26 ◼   ► it's from Apple, right?

01:12:27 ◼   ► It's not like these crazy workflow guys

01:12:30 ◼   ► building this amazing tool from the outside.

01:12:32 ◼   ► Like now the automation's coming from inside the house.

01:12:35 ◼   ► Like they are in the system, they are in Siri,

01:12:39 ◼   ► and that's a huge step forward.

01:12:41 ◼   ► So I think comparing it to something like Hypercard

01:12:43 ◼   ► or Automator or even the terminal to a degree,

01:12:47 ◼   ► I think that's fine because it's an important step in the evolution of a platform.

01:12:53 ◼   ► Cool. So you love me for saying that.

01:12:54 ◼   ► I do. Best I love you.

01:12:55 ◼   ► Okay. Thank you. All right.

01:12:57 ◼   ► All right. Before we move on from this, there's just a couple of things I just want to run through super quick

01:13:02 ◼   ► that were just small details from the article, which were exciting to me.

01:13:05 ◼   ► The share extension, URL schemes, and the widget will remain.

01:13:08 ◼   ► Action extension. People are going to correct you.

01:13:11 ◼   ► So, yeah.

01:13:13 ◼   ► Yeah, the action extension and the share sheet.

01:13:16 ◼   ► HomeKit support is added, which is amazing.

01:13:21 ◼   ► There was one thing that I thought of.

01:13:23 ◼   ► I don't know if I mentioned this in the show or not, but it's kind of cool.

01:13:25 ◼   ► Like even apps, even like devices that aren't HomeKit devices

01:13:29 ◼   ► could in theory work with all of this stuff.

01:13:31 ◼   ► Oh, yes. They could just surface a shortcut, which I think is also kind of cool.

01:13:35 ◼   ► Show result is that you're excited about show result, right?

01:13:40 ◼   ► What is that?

01:13:41 ◼   ► It's one of the new actions that should make it in the shortcuts app. It's a way to show

01:13:48 ◼   ► results in Siri. And the beautiful thing about this action is that you can mix and match

01:13:53 ◼   ► plain text and magic variables. So you can define your own custom response in Siri. And when the

01:14:03 ◼   ► shortcut runs, it'll assemble the variables and it'll show you the results. I think that's a

01:14:08 ◼   ► Could show result also be read out loud on the HomePod?

01:14:12 ◼   ► Yep. Yep.

01:14:14 ◼   ► Interesting. No dictation of text into this stuff.

01:14:18 ◼   ► So like, the idea would be, we go right the way back to the beginning

01:14:22 ◼   ► of the show, you can't say like,

01:14:26 ◼   ► the idea is you can't dictate a result before or after

01:14:30 ◼   ► you give a shortcut command. So you can't say like, add a new task

01:14:34 ◼   ► to Todoist that says blah blah blah. That's two separate actions right? The idea would be

01:14:40 ◼   ► that if you have yes if you have a shortcut with a custom phrase you cannot mix and match the custom

01:14:45 ◼   ► phrase with some other words because those words will not be treated as input by the shortcut. What

01:14:53 ◼   ► I want to see is workflow has a dictate text action that brings up the native dictation UI on iOS. What

01:15:01 ◼   ► What happens if you use DictateText and you ask Siri to run a custom shortcut?

01:15:09 ◼   ► Will it just fall back into "Just tell me and I'm actually doing the dictation for you?"

01:15:18 ◼   ► Or will it say "You need to use your iPhone for that?"

01:15:20 ◼   ► So we'll see what happens there.

01:15:22 ◼   ► Fingers crossed on that one.

01:15:24 ◼   ► And Play Media, what does Play Media entail?

01:15:27 ◼   ► Play Media is this new intent for SiriKit, which in theory should allow radio apps, podcast

01:15:35 ◼   ► apps and music apps, even though some people on Twitter disagree because they said that

01:15:40 ◼   ► Apple is making this just for radio and podcasts.

01:15:43 ◼   ► Long form, right?

01:15:44 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:15:45 ◼   ► It should allow background playback for third party audio sources.

01:15:52 ◼   ► Now, in their demos, Apple showed the daily, so a podcast that was using this intent.

01:16:00 ◼   ► It shows up as a shortcut.

01:16:03 ◼   ► You can ask Siri.

01:16:04 ◼   ► You can make a custom shortcut with these actions.

01:16:08 ◼   ► But the big question is, do developers need to ask users to create the shortcut?

01:16:16 ◼   ► I don't think you will be able to say "Siri, play my podcast, play connected episode 200

01:16:26 ◼   ► in Overcast".

01:16:27 ◼   ► You will probably have to create a custom phrase yourself first inside Overcast.

01:16:34 ◼   ► So if Marco decides to support shortcuts in Overcast, there could be a button in your

01:16:39 ◼   ► queue that says "add your queue to Siri" and then you will have a shortcut for your Overcast

01:16:45 ◼   ► queue. I don't think this will be an intent in the sense of like todoist or things for

01:16:51 ◼   ► example where you can just say anything you want and it'll work. I think you will have

01:16:56 ◼   ► to add the custom phrase first. But I'm not sure. Because there's basically no documentation

01:17:03 ◼   ► for this. If you open the play media intent page on developer.apple.com it's empty. Just

01:17:09 ◼   ► a bunch of API names. There's no descriptions, no guidelines, no nothing.

01:17:13 ◼   ► - They forgot.

01:17:15 ◼   ► - Yeah, I would love to have some clarification

01:17:18 ◼   ► on this actually, if it applies to music apps.

01:17:21 ◼   ► Does it mean the Spotify can use this?

01:17:23 ◼   ► Ideally, I saw there in the EPI,

01:17:25 ◼   ► there's support for artwork and track names.

01:17:29 ◼   ► That should be enough for a music app,

01:17:31 ◼   ► but again, I don't know.

01:17:32 ◼   ► So it's unclear.

01:17:34 ◼   ► - I just find myself getting increasingly more excited

01:17:37 ◼   ► about this the more I find out,

01:17:39 ◼   ► and it's usually the other way around, right?

01:17:42 ◼   ► Like usually you find out about something

01:17:44 ◼   ► and then you think about it, you get really excited

01:17:47 ◼   ► and then you find out the limitations.

01:17:49 ◼   ► But all of the limitations, they're not off-putting to me

01:17:52 ◼   ► because all of the limitations are not limiting anything

01:17:55 ◼   ► I could do before.

01:17:57 ◼   ► So everything that we're getting is just added stuff.

01:18:01 ◼   ► Like I find myself just becoming more and more excited

01:18:04 ◼   ► about this the more we find out about it.

01:18:06 ◼   ► Oh boy, please just Apple, come on,

01:18:10 ◼   ► Just give us the shortcuts app.

01:18:12 ◼   ► Just give us it.

01:18:13 ◼   ► Give us the beta.

01:18:14 ◼   ► Just put up a beta.

01:18:15 ◼   ► Either test flight or make it built in

01:18:17 ◼   ► and then remove it for the final release.

01:18:19 ◼   ► It's fine.

01:18:20 ◼   ► This is the perfect app that needs a beta with 5,000, 10,000

01:18:24 ◼   ► people.

01:18:24 ◼   ► It's the perfect beta testing scenario.

01:18:27 ◼   ► It needs to be tested.

01:18:29 ◼   ► Developers need to be able to test that this stuff is

01:18:31 ◼   ► going to work.

01:18:33 ◼   ► I'm very confident they will do it.

01:18:35 ◼   ► I just want it to happen really quickly.

01:18:36 ◼   ► Yeah, exactly.

01:18:37 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:18:38 ◼   ► All right.

01:18:39 ◼   ► It's not all iOS on this show, we should talk about Mac OS Dark Mode, but before we do,

01:18:44 ◼   ► let me thank our final sponsor for this week and that is our friends at Casper, the company

01:18:48 ◼   ► focused on sleep dedicated to making you exceptionally comfortable one night at a time.

01:18:52 ◼   ► You spend a third of your life slipping, so shouldn't it be the best it could possibly

01:18:56 ◼   ► be?

01:18:57 ◼   ► That is why you need a Casper mattress, because their mattresses are perfectly designed for

01:19:01 ◼   ► humans.

01:19:02 ◼   ► They have engineering that has been thoughtfully considered and also very lovingly made to

01:19:07 ◼   ► support and soothe your natural geometry. It's got all the right support in all the right places.

01:19:14 ◼   ► So what goes into making a Casper mattress so dang comfortable? Well, they combine multiple

01:19:19 ◼   ► supportive memory farms for a quality mattress with just the right sink and bounce. Casper

01:19:24 ◼   ► mattresses are designed and developed in the US and their breathable design helps to regulate

01:19:28 ◼   ► your body temperature throughout the night. They have over 20,000 reviews online with an average

01:19:33 ◼   ► rating of 4.8 stars. Casper is very quickly becoming the internet's favourite mattress

01:19:37 ◼   ► and it's easy to see why. You could be sure of their purchase with Casper's 100 night risk free

01:19:43 ◼   ► trial. So they have a sleep on it trial, 100 nights you can have the mattress in your home,

01:19:47 ◼   ► you can sleep on it in your pajamas, with your linen, with everything. You can just take your

01:19:51 ◼   ► time with it and make your decision. You don't have to rush into this with Casper, they deliver

01:19:55 ◼   ► directly to your door and if for any reason you don't love it they have a hassle free return policy.

01:19:59 ◼   ► Now Stephen, you were traveling this week.

01:20:02 ◼   ► Was it a great experience to return to your Casper mattress?

01:20:06 ◼   ► - It was.

01:20:07 ◼   ► I stayed at an Airbnb, and I think we've all had

01:20:09 ◼   ► this experience where you're sleeping someplace

01:20:11 ◼   ► that's not your home, and the mattress is just terrible.

01:20:14 ◼   ► Like it was a great spot, but the mattress was like soft,

01:20:17 ◼   ► and like you're sinking down into it,

01:20:20 ◼   ► and then you wake up hot, right,

01:20:21 ◼   ► 'cause you're like slowly being absorbed.

01:20:24 ◼   ► - Surrounded by mattress.

01:20:25 ◼   ► - Yeah, no one wants that.

01:20:26 ◼   ► And you know, I live in the South, it's hot,

01:20:28 ◼   ► came home 20 degrees hotter than it was at WWDC, but it was fine.

01:20:32 ◼   ► I slept great because the Casper keeps you in just the right place

01:20:35 ◼   ► with that memory foam.

01:20:36 ◼   ► It's really great.

01:20:37 ◼   ► Come back to it.

01:20:37 ◼   ► You can get $50 towards select mattress purchases by going to Casper.com/connected

01:20:42 ◼   ► and using connected at checkout terms and conditions apply that is Casper.com/connected

01:20:47 ◼   ► and the offer code connected for $50 off select mattresses.

01:20:50 ◼   ► Our thanks to Casper for their support of this show.

01:20:53 ◼   ► So, uh, Steven, will you please wax lyrical, um, about the next version of Mac OS's dark mode?

01:21:00 ◼   ► I honestly, I don't remember the name. Like, I don't know what's wrong with me. I have, like, a

01:21:05 ◼   ► spot in my brain. Come on, you can do it. Come on. Was it Mojave? No! Oh, gosh. It's a long E. Mojave.

01:21:15 ◼   ► Because I constantly second-guess myself. This is the problem. Yeah. I don't know how long this

01:21:20 ◼   ► is going to take? Well you got a year then it'll be gone. No because then it'll be just

01:21:27 ◼   ► like high Mojave or something like that I don't know. Sandy Mojave. Yeah so this dark

01:21:33 ◼   ► mode is really part two of something that was introduced back in 2014 with Yosemite

01:21:38 ◼   ► talked about earlier in the show. Yosemite come came with a dark theme and that has continued

01:21:44 ◼   ► to be the case until today I run it on all my Macs and it makes the menu bar and the

01:21:50 ◼   ► dock and a couple other things dark but

01:21:53 ◼   ► it's not anywhere close to being a

01:21:55 ◼   ► cohesive experience. All the the window

01:21:58 ◼   ► UIs and everything else are still

01:22:00 ◼   ► bright but you know the menu bar and the

01:22:02 ◼   ► dock are along the edges of the screens

01:22:04 ◼   ► and my iMac Pro has these ridiculous

01:22:05 ◼   ► bezels of black glass of like four inches

01:22:07 ◼   ► wide so it helps kind of settle things

01:22:09 ◼   ► in and I've used it since it since it came

01:22:12 ◼   ► out. This though is something far

01:22:14 ◼   ► different. It is much more than just a

01:22:17 ◼   ► reskin of the menu bar and the dock. It

01:22:19 ◼   ► It actually, every system window, every control has been revisited.

01:22:27 ◼   ► It is very thorough.

01:22:29 ◼   ► Even in the first beta, it's hard to find places where it's broken or where, oh, Apple

01:22:34 ◼   ► forgot about that corner of the US.

01:22:36 ◼   ► There are things within apps, like iTunes is sort of hilariously broken, but I assume

01:22:40 ◼   ► the iTunes team wasn't brought into this very recently, so I have no doubt that they will.

01:22:45 ◼   ► Is there an iTunes team?

01:22:46 ◼   ► Oh, what?

01:22:47 ◼   ► - For what?

01:22:48 ◼   ► - I'm sure the intern will get right on that.

01:22:50 ◼   ► And no, they'll get their app tuned up,

01:22:52 ◼   ► and I think by the time this launches,

01:22:53 ◼   ► anything that comes with macOS will be polished

01:22:57 ◼   ► and ready to go.

01:22:58 ◼   ► There are a couple of things here that are interesting.

01:22:59 ◼   ► Apple calls this an appearance.

01:23:02 ◼   ► They don't call it a theme.

01:23:04 ◼   ► In the sessions, in the OS, in the documentation,

01:23:07 ◼   ► it is an appearance.

01:23:09 ◼   ► - What's the difference?

01:23:10 ◼   ► - I don't really know.

01:23:12 ◼   ► I just think it's interesting that they're really,

01:23:15 ◼   ► really stuck on that word.

01:23:16 ◼   ► It's actually a word that Apple has used in the past.

01:23:19 ◼   ► Mac OS 8 had a parents manager.

01:23:22 ◼   ► Maybe it's just 'cause it's an Apple-y word

01:23:24 ◼   ► that just used it, but they're very consistent with it.

01:23:26 ◼   ► And there's kinda like three tenets that they spoke about.

01:23:31 ◼   ► They say dark interfaces are cool,

01:23:33 ◼   ► which is, can't argue with that.

01:23:35 ◼   ► Dark interfaces are not just inverted versions.

01:23:39 ◼   ► So in my article, I inverted a screenshot of High Sierra

01:23:44 ◼   ► and boy it looks bad.

01:23:46 ◼   ► - We were playing around with it as well

01:23:50 ◼   ► where it was quite funny to put things into dark mode

01:23:53 ◼   ► and then invert, that looked real weird.

01:23:55 ◼   ► - It's not great.

01:23:57 ◼   ► That is an accessibility option.

01:23:58 ◼   ► There are people who that is super helpful for.

01:24:02 ◼   ► But it's not the way to build a true dark appearance.

01:24:04 ◼   ► The last point they talk about in sessions

01:24:06 ◼   ► is that dark mode is content focused.

01:24:08 ◼   ► And we all remember that from like iOS 7

01:24:11 ◼   ► and then later Yosemite, like oh,

01:24:14 ◼   ► The window treatment is, it just gets out of the way

01:24:17 ◼   ► and your content is front and center, blah, you know,

01:24:19 ◼   ► all that sort of thinking is present here.

01:24:22 ◼   ► And it kind of works, like there's a reason

01:24:24 ◼   ► things like Final Cut and Logic have dark modes,

01:24:26 ◼   ► because when you're working in content creation apps,

01:24:29 ◼   ► you want the UI to sort of fade back

01:24:33 ◼   ► and you can really see your content,

01:24:34 ◼   ► and they've brought that to everything from the Finder

01:24:37 ◼   ► to system preferences to photos, it's just everywhere.

01:24:40 ◼   ► And I think it works, like you look at these screenshots,

01:24:42 ◼   ► I have my laptop in front of me running dark mode.

01:24:45 ◼   ► And it's sort of a nice calming effect.

01:24:49 ◼   ► I actually kind of really like it.

01:24:51 ◼   ► And it really makes it sort of where

01:24:53 ◼   ► the window chrome and the content of that window

01:24:56 ◼   ► are separate things.

01:24:58 ◼   ► And so I think they've sort of nailed that aspect of it.

01:25:02 ◼   ► There's a screenshot in your article on FiveTalkPixels

01:25:06 ◼   ► where you show mail with its composed screen.

01:25:09 ◼   ► And the composed screen is white?

01:25:11 ◼   ► Yes.

01:25:11 ◼   ► That looks weird.

01:25:12 ◼   ► I don't think that looks very good.

01:25:14 ◼   ► I don't like that.

01:25:15 ◼   ► Yeah, me neither.

01:25:15 ◼   ► That seems like a peculiar choice to me.

01:25:18 ◼   ► So that is an option.

01:25:19 ◼   ► So Mail has this option.

01:25:22 ◼   ► And I haven't really found it anywhere else.

01:25:24 ◼   ► But it's part of the API stuff that if the system is

01:25:30 ◼   ► in dark aqua, which is what they call it,

01:25:32 ◼   ► some apps can-- if developers opt into this,

01:25:35 ◼   ► they can have a setting to say, use dark mode.

01:25:38 ◼   ► Respect what the system is telling me to do.

01:25:40 ◼   ► but in my content areas, keep it a white background.

01:25:44 ◼   ► So male by default, everything is dark.

01:25:47 ◼   ► If you're in dark mode, I set this to show it

01:25:49 ◼   ► in a screenshot, and you're right, it's super weird

01:25:52 ◼   ► and it's really bright, but something like male,

01:25:56 ◼   ► maybe that's helpful if you're--

01:25:58 ◼   ► - I guess if you wanna see how it's gonna look

01:26:00 ◼   ► in the recipient's inbox, right?

01:26:03 ◼   ► You would want it to be white still, I guess.

01:26:05 ◼   ► - Or you get a newsletter, right,

01:26:07 ◼   ► and they haven't set a background,

01:26:09 ◼   ► all sorts of crazy things.

01:26:11 ◼   ► Mail is just the Wild West.

01:26:12 ◼   ► So it's in Mail.

01:26:14 ◼   ► It is in the APIs in the new Cocoa stuff.

01:26:18 ◼   ► So it could be there in other apps.

01:26:20 ◼   ► I only found it in Mail so far.

01:26:22 ◼   ► But yeah, it's--

01:26:23 ◼   ► Do you know if Safari has a dark mode API for websites

01:26:28 ◼   ► to hook into?

01:26:28 ◼   ► Do you know if anything like that exists?

01:26:30 ◼   ► If it does exist, I haven't found it yet.

01:26:33 ◼   ► That I think is conjecture at this point, that oh-- so say

01:26:36 ◼   ► Mac stories is a good example of this,

01:26:38 ◼   ► because I haven't gotten around to it.

01:26:39 ◼   ► Max stories has a light and dark mode and you can set it and it sets cookie I guess and

01:26:43 ◼   ► it remembers that.

01:26:45 ◼   ► No it's not a cookie but yeah.

01:26:46 ◼   ► It's uh... Federico hand

01:26:48 ◼   ► checks it

01:26:49 ◼   ► every time you visit the website. Every request goes to Federico and he

01:26:53 ◼   ► says dark or light and he just remembers everyone. I'm manually approving it.

01:26:57 ◼   ► It's actually something called local storage in Safari but yeah it's

01:27:00 ◼   ► mostly the same idea. He's installing a flash based player

01:27:04 ◼   ► on your system

01:27:06 ◼   ► And that remembers--

01:27:06 ◼   ► Malware.

01:27:07 ◼   ► --if it's light or dark.

01:27:08 ◼   ► TT malware.

01:27:09 ◼   ► Yes.

01:27:10 ◼   ► That is why Apple is now notarizing apps.

01:27:12 ◼   ► Yes.

01:27:13 ◼   ► Because of you.

01:27:14 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:27:15 ◼   ► So what this could do is WebKit could ask--

01:27:17 ◼   ► or the system could tell WebKit, hey, you're in dark mode.

01:27:21 ◼   ► Then it could load a different set of CSS,

01:27:25 ◼   ► depending on the appearance set by the user.

01:27:29 ◼   ► I think that'd be great, because the second you

01:27:31 ◼   ► start browsing websites in Mojave in dark mode,

01:27:35 ◼   ► like your eyeballs explode because most websites are brightly colored.

01:27:38 ◼   ► Actually, the relay site looks really awesome with all the colors we use.

01:27:42 ◼   ► But like, because we dark mode it already.

01:27:44 ◼   ► That's that's the phrase, by the way, dark mode it.

01:27:46 ◼   ► But something like 512 pixels looks out of place.

01:27:48 ◼   ► And so that's something I'm going to address.

01:27:50 ◼   ► But I'm excited about the possibility of all of the websites that I visit

01:27:54 ◼   ► getting dark modes because I prefer that anyway.

01:27:56 ◼   ► I've used the Mac stories dark mode since the beginning.

01:27:59 ◼   ► And it's what I have on all my devices when I go on a new device and it's white.

01:28:03 ◼   ► I'm like, ah, MacStory's broken.

01:28:05 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:28:05 ◼   ► So that's a funny thing to me.

01:28:07 ◼   ► No CSS.

01:28:08 ◼   ► Also, Dark Aqua, that's a good name.

01:28:11 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:28:11 ◼   ► Yeah, so--

01:28:12 ◼   ► I like that.

01:28:13 ◼   ► --in NS appearance, it's Aqua and Dark Aqua,

01:28:16 ◼   ► the other two names.

01:28:16 ◼   ► Dark Aqua sounds like the name of a metal band from the '90s.

01:28:21 ◼   ► Or like--

01:28:22 ◼   ► I was going to say Emo.

01:28:24 ◼   ► But metal's good too.

01:28:25 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:28:26 ◼   ► They're just singing songs about Mac OS interface,

01:28:29 ◼   ► but they're all really sad about it.

01:28:31 ◼   ► Sad water.

01:28:32 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:28:33 ◼   ► - There are a couple of things I think

01:28:34 ◼   ► that are worth touching on.

01:28:36 ◼   ► There's something called vibrancy,

01:28:38 ◼   ► and this has been around really since like iOS 7.

01:28:41 ◼   ► It came to the Mac in Yosemite,

01:28:42 ◼   ► and if you look at the screenshots,

01:28:45 ◼   ► or if you use a Mac now,

01:28:48 ◼   ► the most common place for this is the sidebar in Finder,

01:28:51 ◼   ► where it picks up the background colors

01:28:53 ◼   ► and sort of shines through,

01:28:55 ◼   ► but sort of in a very translucent way.

01:28:59 ◼   ► So my screenshot on my really bad

01:29:01 ◼   ► and blue example wallpapers you could see the sidebar. I genuinely cannot believe that this is

01:29:07 ◼   ► still around. Like, it boggles my mind. Like, I can't honestly like it just seems ugly to me.

01:29:17 ◼   ► I don't like that that transparency. I really I don't know who's using it. Cue tweets for everyone

01:29:23 ◼   ► who's using it. But still, I just like it surprises me that people leave that on when you can turn it

01:29:29 ◼   ► - I run in reduced transparency,

01:29:33 ◼   ► because I don't really care for the vibrancy.

01:29:35 ◼   ► But it's still there, and in dark mode

01:29:37 ◼   ► it does what you think it would do.

01:29:39 ◼   ► But there's also something called desktop tinting.

01:29:42 ◼   ► It's only present in dark mode,

01:29:44 ◼   ► and what it does is it affects

01:29:46 ◼   ► the color temperature of the gray.

01:29:48 ◼   ► So if you have system preferences over a red background,

01:29:51 ◼   ► it's a little bit warmer, it's a little bit pinker.

01:29:53 ◼   ► But if you have it over a blue background,

01:29:56 ◼   ► blue wallpaper, it is cooler

01:29:58 ◼   ► and a little bit bluer.

01:30:00 ◼   ► And it is very subtle,

01:30:02 ◼   ► and I really don't think the screenshots do it justice.

01:30:04 ◼   ► If you see it in person,

01:30:06 ◼   ► you can really tell if you're kind of tuned into that thing.

01:30:08 ◼   ► But that's there across the board in dark mode.

01:30:12 ◼   ► And the keynote there, or in the sessions,

01:30:14 ◼   ► like, well, you know, we didn't want the gray

01:30:15 ◼   ► to contrast with the wallpaper.

01:30:16 ◼   ► Like, no one's ever gonna see it.

01:30:18 ◼   ► Like, it's fine.

01:30:19 ◼   ► But it's there.

01:30:21 ◼   ► - But don't worry,

01:30:22 ◼   ► we'll let the wallpaper shine through, though.

01:30:25 ◼   ► - That's right.

01:30:26 ◼   ► - Okay.

01:30:28 ◼   ► So it's there.

01:30:29 ◼   ► So that's new.

01:30:30 ◼   ► This is not just they just moved all the sliders over

01:30:33 ◼   ► in Photoshop and re-released it.

01:30:35 ◼   ► There is some new technology kind of putting

01:30:38 ◼   ► these appearances together now.

01:30:41 ◼   ► - Now there is something called accent colors,

01:30:44 ◼   ► which I genuinely cannot believe is shipping even in beta

01:30:48 ◼   ► because it leads to some very peculiar color choices.

01:30:53 ◼   ► - Yes it does.

01:30:55 ◼   ► - What is going on with accent color?

01:30:58 ◼   ► - Yeah, so this is a new thing in Mac OS.

01:31:01 ◼   ► So you have Appearance, which is Light Mode or Dark Mode.

01:31:04 ◼   ► That used to be blue and graphite,

01:31:06 ◼   ► so they've reused that name a little bit.

01:31:08 ◼   ► And there's the Highlight Color,

01:31:09 ◼   ► which is the default is blue, and that is what you see.

01:31:12 ◼   ► Like if you're in Chrome or Safari

01:31:14 ◼   ► and you highlight the URL, that color that is the highlight,

01:31:18 ◼   ► that's Highlight Color, so you can change that

01:31:20 ◼   ► from blue to pink to gray to orange or whatever.

01:31:25 ◼   ► There's a bunch of options in there.

01:31:26 ◼   ► That's been there forever.

01:31:27 ◼   ► What's new is accent color.

01:31:28 ◼   ► So before when you were either in blue

01:31:31 ◼   ► or graphite appearance, like if you had a drop down,

01:31:34 ◼   ► the right side of the drop down would be blue double arrows

01:31:36 ◼   ► and it would switch to graphite

01:31:37 ◼   ► if you were in the graphite mode,

01:31:39 ◼   ► which is the one I've used for a long time.

01:31:41 ◼   ► In Mojave, you have, what is it, eight accent colors.

01:31:47 ◼   ► So you have blue, red, orange, yellow, green,

01:31:50 ◼   ► purple, pink, and graphite.

01:31:52 ◼   ► And so that changes those colors.

01:31:53 ◼   ► So if you have a drop down, you can set it to pink

01:31:56 ◼   ► or you can set it to orange or you can set it to green.

01:32:00 ◼   ► And it lets you customize macOS in a way

01:32:03 ◼   ► that you have never been able to do

01:32:04 ◼   ► since the OS X transition.

01:32:06 ◼   ► This is more customization than we've ever seen

01:32:08 ◼   ► post 2001 or so.

01:32:12 ◼   ► But it can lead to some really weird combinations.

01:32:16 ◼   ► I kinda thought that I would like dark mode

01:32:19 ◼   ► with the orange highlight,

01:32:20 ◼   ► 'cause I like gray and black and orange together.

01:32:23 ◼   ► But it doesn't look, it doesn't look great.

01:32:26 ◼   ► But on the other hand, I really like the way light mode

01:32:29 ◼   ► and the pink highlight color looks.

01:32:30 ◼   ► Like it's kind of airy and fresh in a way

01:32:32 ◼   ► that's sort of nice.

01:32:33 ◼   ► So you can really customize it.

01:32:35 ◼   ► There's some weird combinations you can do.

01:32:37 ◼   ► I think the green and the yellow look bad all the time.

01:32:40 ◼   ► Like they're too bright or like they're too vibrant.

01:32:43 ◼   ► But they're there and you can play with them.

01:32:47 ◼   ► With the last one, graphite has a few tricks up its sleeve.

01:32:50 ◼   ► So if you set the accent color to graphite,

01:32:53 ◼   ► then you get those gray window controls.

01:32:55 ◼   ► the stoplights instead of red, yellow, green, or just gray like they are in

01:32:59 ◼   ► graphite now. The other seven retain the red, yellow, green stoplight look. So if

01:33:05 ◼   ► you like your window controls being all gray you have to use the graphite

01:33:09 ◼   ► highlight accent color. Graphite accent is also supposed to disable desktop

01:33:16 ◼   ► tinting. So we talked about earlier where the color temperature of the dark mode

01:33:19 ◼   ► changes based on your wallpaper. This accent, graphite accent, is supposed to

01:33:23 ◼   ► disable that. It doesn't seem to be working in the first developer beta. I'm

01:33:27 ◼   ► sure they'll get that fixed, but in the sessions I believe they said if you're

01:33:31 ◼   ► in graphite we're just going to give you a flat, flat gray. We're not going to tin

01:33:35 ◼   ► it. So graphite is a little more subdued. Like the dark mode in the graphite

01:33:41 ◼   ► accent really looks subdued. It's really flat. It really sort of fades away. I

01:33:47 ◼   ► I think it's a really professional, nice look,

01:33:51 ◼   ► but it's one that I'm not sure everyone's gonna love.

01:33:55 ◼   ► I think a lot of people are gonna want

01:33:57 ◼   ► the multicolored stoplights.

01:33:59 ◼   ► - Yeah, I like graphite and have been using that forever.

01:34:06 ◼   ► So I don't know why, I just said it once and then left it.

01:34:10 ◼   ► So tell me, how easy is it for an app to switch over?

01:34:16 ◼   ► Is Apple doing anything to turn app start mode on their own,

01:34:20 ◼   ► or developers have to do something?

01:34:24 ◼   ► So you've got to build your app against the 10.14 SDK.

01:34:29 ◼   ► If you use any images, like static images for buttons

01:34:33 ◼   ► or UI, those are going to need to be addressed,

01:34:36 ◼   ► especially if they don't have transparency on them.

01:34:39 ◼   ► So if you have a button image that has a background,

01:34:41 ◼   ► and that background's invisible normally

01:34:43 ◼   ► because of the way the UI is built,

01:34:45 ◼   ► that's going to be visible now because the UI behind you

01:34:47 ◼   ► might change colors, and then your button is kind of floating

01:34:50 ◼   ► on top with its border.

01:34:52 ◼   ► So there's stuff like that you've got to do.

01:34:54 ◼   ► Apple also is encouraging developers

01:34:57 ◼   ► to not necessarily use fixed colors in their user

01:35:01 ◼   ► interfaces.

01:35:01 ◼   ► If you have like a-- so if you're like Overcast,

01:35:03 ◼   ► you have a branded orange, right?

01:35:05 ◼   ► That's fine.

01:35:06 ◼   ► But if you are just a regular Mac app,

01:35:08 ◼   ► you're just using reds and greens and blues

01:35:11 ◼   ► to denote different things in your UI,

01:35:14 ◼   ► Apple wants you to use the system colors for that.

01:35:17 ◼   ► They're system calls, like use system UI red,

01:35:20 ◼   ► system UI orange or whatever.

01:35:22 ◼   ► And if you do that, those are slightly different

01:35:24 ◼   ► between the light and dark appearances.

01:35:26 ◼   ► And that means your app will feel more at home,

01:35:30 ◼   ► it'll be more harmonious, it'll be less jarring

01:35:33 ◼   ► as a user switches the modes or just operates

01:35:36 ◼   ► in dark mode all the time.

01:35:37 ◼   ► So none of that seems like crazy amounts of work to me.

01:35:41 ◼   ► Again, I'm not a developer, so if it's crazy

01:35:43 ◼   ► amounts of work for your Mac app, I'm sorry, but Apple's pitching it at least to be like,

01:35:49 ◼   ► it's not a big deal. Like if you've been building Mac apps in the modern way, then yeah, it's

01:35:54 ◼   ► going to be a little bit of work, but you're not having to like blow up your UI and start

01:35:59 ◼   ► completely from scratch. And I think that's good because I think that a lot of people

01:36:04 ◼   ► are going to use this. And I think if your Mac app doesn't conform to it or doesn't do

01:36:09 ◼   ► a good job of it, then you're going to stick out like a sore thumb.

01:36:13 ◼   ► And I guess there are going to be apps that aren't going to be updated, but it looks like

01:36:19 ◼   ► for any app that receives any kind of attention, like recently, you're going to be okay.

01:36:26 ◼   ► Yeah, I think that's true for all this stuff.

01:36:28 ◼   ► If you were keeping up and you were building your app against each new release and taking

01:36:32 ◼   ► advantage of what they're telling you to do, then it's not the end of the world when something

01:36:36 ◼   ► big comes down the pipe.

01:36:38 ◼   ► And it's only like how on iOS you'll see like a far too large keyboard for a while, right?

01:36:44 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:36:45 ◼   ► You know, it's just stuff like that.

01:36:46 ◼   ► Yeah, your app's not going to break, you know.

01:36:48 ◼   ► I have one last question for you actually, because I've seen people talking about this

01:36:53 ◼   ► and Apple's website isn't very clear.

01:36:56 ◼   ► Is there a way to have dark mode apply automatically at night?

01:37:00 ◼   ► If there is, it is not currently exposed in System Preferences with the other stuff.

01:37:05 ◼   ► There may be a way to do it on the command line, there may be a way coming, but they

01:37:08 ◼   ► did not discuss it in the in the sessions best I can tell. And this is but

01:37:12 ◼   ► what if you have that thing because there's a desktop wallpaper that

01:37:16 ◼   ► changes right and that doesn't change it to dark mode? I don't I don't think it

01:37:22 ◼   ► does because right now I have that that desktop set and it hasn't changed it

01:37:28 ◼   ► back to light mode so okay I may be wrong but the best I can tell that is

01:37:34 ◼   ► not the case. The only way to change it is to go in there and change it yourself. Now,

01:37:40 ◼   ► that said, Night Shift is part of Dark Mode and it's really bizarre. Like, it feels like

01:37:47 ◼   ► Dark Mode is brighter the later in the day you get, because it warms it up. It's sort

01:37:53 ◼   ► of a weird effect. I'm not sure if there's more fine-tuning to do there, or I'm just

01:37:57 ◼   ► not used to it yet, because I've been using Night Shift on the Mac for a while now in

01:38:01 ◼   ► regular appearance. So my gut says they're still like fine-tuning that in

01:38:07 ◼   ► dark mode. I think it will improve but it's a little weird right now. It

01:38:11 ◼   ► still, you know, it does the temperature shifting correctly but in doing so it

01:38:16 ◼   ► looks a little strange in places. Interesting. Yeah I can I could see that

01:38:20 ◼   ► because like in theory you might not need night shift to affect the dark mode

01:38:30 ◼   ► stuff in any way right yeah all right have you got anything else you want to

01:38:34 ◼   ► add on this no I think that's it I think that's a pretty comprehensive look if you

01:38:38 ◼   ► want to see more see a bunch of screenshots there's a blog post in the

01:38:40 ◼   ► ye olde show notes which you can find where Steven wrap us up so show notes

01:38:46 ◼   ► this week relay dot FM slash connected slash 197 getting so close to that 200

01:38:52 ◼   ► mark it's all the stuff we talked about is their tickets for our New York show

01:38:57 ◼   ► come out and see us. All that stuff is there. There's an email link there. You can send

01:39:02 ◼   ► us an email with feedback. Or you can do it on Twitter, like most people do. You can find

01:39:06 ◼   ► Myke there as @imyke. Myke is the host of a bunch of shows on Relay. So if you like

01:39:11 ◼   ► this podcast, I bet there's a bunch of other stuff on Relay FM that you would enjoy. You

01:39:16 ◼   ► can find Federico on Twitter as @vitticci. He's the editor-in-chief of MacStories.net,

01:39:22 ◼   ► which has, as we talked about, a dark mode. So you can read it in the dark and not wake

01:39:26 ◼   ► up your loved ones, not melt your eyeballs. You can find me on Twitter as ismh and I write

01:39:32 ◼   ► at 512pixels.net. And until next time, gentlemen, say goodbye. Adios.