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Connected

184: They Perfected It, Mum

 

00:00:00   [Music]

00:00:06   From Relay FM, this is Connected, episode 184. Today's show is brought to you by Linode,

00:00:12   Squarespace and Pingdom. My name is Myke Hurley and I am joined by Federico Vichicchi. Ciao Federico.

00:00:18   Hi Myke, I see you're gone with the old school intro.

00:00:21   It's all I know buddy, it's all I know, it's what I know.

00:00:25   Steven got really excited about WWDC being announced. So he's already in San Jose. That's right. He's already there

00:00:31   He's lining up outside of the game. He's setting up. He's getting the tent ready

00:00:35   He's gonna see you know, he figured he doesn't know if he's gonna be in the lottery yet

00:00:41   But just in case he wants to be first in line

00:00:43   So he can wave at Tim Cook

00:00:46   So you can see so you can see all the new bits early all the bits. So from next week

00:00:54   Stephen will be recording live from the keynote line as he will be all the way up until the first week of June

00:01:01   But this week he he didn't have all of his equipment ready in time. So maybe he'll call in by the end of the episode. Who knows?

00:01:09   Probably not because I'm editing this week, which means we won't have any disembodied Stephen heads popping in

00:01:16   So I just want to break that to you right now

00:01:19   I know how many people love that but I won't be doing that

00:01:23   Because I'm not Steven and also as I mentioned he's busy

00:01:26   It's getting set up outside of the machinery convention center

00:01:31   Of course, we are gonna talk about WWDC including a really really huge amazing massive awesome announcement

00:01:37   That we have to make a little bit later on in the show

00:01:40   But we do not issue traditions around here. So we must address some follow-up

00:01:45   Our follow-up is thank you

00:01:48   A follow-up is slightly different this week as it always is when Steven's gone in that

00:01:51   one item is a brand new news story, one is about nothing we've ever actually spoken before,

00:01:58   and then the other part of follow-up is just in follow-up because part of the headline

00:02:03   is called follow-up.

00:02:04   This is not follow-up.

00:02:05   No, really.

00:02:07   It's just because it says follow-up, so I figured it should go in the follow-up section.

00:02:11   So follow-up item, which is not really follow-up number one, is that there has been another

00:02:15   a rumour about the potential of another cheap laptop in Apple's line.

00:02:23   So if you remember last week when we were talking about what might come in an event,

00:02:27   there was a rumour from KGI about being a cheaper MacBook Air this year.

00:02:32   Well, now Digitimes is reporting a brand new entry level 13" Retina MacBook which will

00:02:39   be unveiled in June with a lower cost than the current 12" MacBook.

00:02:44   It's probably going to be $999 and reported to enter production in May.

00:02:50   So what it looks like is they're going to take the current 12 inch, make it bigger and

00:02:57   make it cheaper but it will have the same retina display, a 2560 by 1600 panel.

00:03:03   Now all of this to me Federico says this is the replacement for the MacBook Air.

00:03:09   Yeah, yeah.

00:03:10   Right?

00:03:11   I feel like the KGI rumor and this rumor are the same rumor.

00:03:17   And that this cheaper MacBook Air is actually a cheaper Retina MacBook.

00:03:23   It seems to me like the details either about the name or the screen sizes are

00:03:28   incorrect. And this is in fact the same computer and the same strategy would be

00:03:33   that it's the MacBook, but it's slightly bigger and it replaces the MacBook Air

00:03:38   while also being, you know, it gets a price cut,

00:03:42   it doesn't... otherwise to reconcile all of these different rumors,

00:03:48   they don't just make any sense to me. This is much much simpler.

00:03:52   Take the MacBook, make it slightly bigger like the 13-inch MacBook Air,

00:03:57   but it's got a red display and it now costs $1000

00:04:01   and it's the new Air as it should be because it's also seen in light.

00:04:05   If that happens, what happens to the current 12-inch MacBook?

00:04:08   It goes away?

00:04:10   You think so? So like they get rid of the 12-inch MacBook, they don't have a MacBook Air anymore,

00:04:16   and they just have a MacBook line that starts at $999 for 13-inch and then that's that.

00:04:21   Well I guess you could keep the old one around and also give it a price cut,

00:04:26   but at the point you have a 12-inch computer and a 13-inch one,

00:04:31   and also the old MacBook Air line, like some of these computers have to go eventually.

00:04:38   So why not now?

00:04:39   Otherwise the solution of keeping them all around seems to just add confusion to the entire lineup.

00:04:46   So I think either the... I mean I would guess that the Air goes away

00:04:51   and the MacBook is the replacement, even if it doesn't get a name change.

00:04:56   Like why does it need to be called MacBook Air?

00:05:00   Because at that point, I think you argued about this on

00:05:04   "Excellent discussion on upgrade"

00:05:06   that the MacBook Air is largely there just to fit the price point.

00:05:11   Because many institutions, like schools for example,

00:05:13   they want that kind of computer with that kind of price.

00:05:17   But it's also confusing if you keep everything around.

00:05:21   So if you keep the cheaper MacBook Air

00:05:24   and the cheaper 12-inch MacBook

00:05:26   and the new but also cheap 13-inch MacBook. It adds the confusion to the

00:05:33   consumer choice that I'm not sure Apple wants. Yeah I think that my ideal

00:05:39   situation would be that all that remains is the MacBook line and that maybe

00:05:44   there's two configurations, maybe there's two different sizes. You know I could

00:05:48   imagine them doing a 12-inch and a 13-inch but just doing a 13-inch would be

00:05:53   fine and then that's it. It's just called the MacBook. That's it. Um,

00:05:57   and then they charge nine 99 to starting price.

00:05:59   It's got all of the current specs that the 12 inch has and then you can get a

00:06:03   more expensive one for 1300 that has a better processor, more RAM,

00:06:06   and more SSD in it.

00:06:07   I think that this makes way more sense than last week's rumor of reducing the

00:06:12   price on the current MacBook Air whilst also still selling a more expensive 12

00:06:16   inch MacBook and also continuing to like breathe life into a non retina Mac in

00:06:22   2018. That maybe makes a little bit more sense to me. And also, considering how little information

00:06:30   actually came from KGI, that makes sense to me. But the story got blown up because it

00:06:36   was interesting. But all KGI said was "cheaper MacBook Air". That was all they said. They

00:06:42   said nothing else. So it could be that this is what it is. Because $999 I think is cheaper

00:06:49   in the current MacBook Air that you can buy. So it would make sense to me that you could hear

00:06:56   one thing and kind of get a little bit confused with something else, right? Like I can see how

00:07:00   you'd end up. Well, okay, so the MacBook Air right now starts at $999. So, you know, I mean,

00:07:05   who knows? But I wouldn't be surprised if this is what we ended up being. Or if you think of it as

00:07:12   like, I don't know, can you get the 13 inches? $999? Can you only buy that? What do you get now?

00:07:19   Yeah, they only get a 13 inch.

00:07:20   OK, so I don't know, but it makes way more sense to me that the wires got

00:07:24   crossed a little bit, depending on who the sources are.

00:07:27   Or it could be that the Digitimes thing is wrong completely.

00:07:30   We'll find out soon.

00:07:31   I mean, I guess

00:07:33   I guess if I remember correctly, right, the KGI rumor

00:07:37   suggested this might happen soon.

00:07:39   And the Digitimes rumor is June, like probably at WWDC.

00:07:45   So who knows? We'll see.

00:07:46   I'm intrigued to see how this one is.

00:07:48   I'm shaking out though.

00:07:49   Reuters is reporting via a release from Apple that Apple Music has passed 38 million paid

00:07:56   subscribers.

00:07:57   This is up 2 million more since February.

00:08:01   Just as a comparison, Spotify had 71 million premium subscribers at the end of 2017.

00:08:07   So you kind of assume that they're around the similar level if not increased.

00:08:13   This does put Apple at number two.

00:08:15   else is so much smaller all of the Apple players you know kind of Google and

00:08:21   Amazon etc yeah but obviously Apple have a long way to go if they want to catch

00:08:27   up with Spotify yeah they still have a long way to go they're growing more

00:08:32   quickly than Spotify I think it's obvious I saw a chart a couple of days

00:08:36   ago showing the growth path of Spotify and Apple music and the Apple music one

00:08:41   is way like it's a steep curve so they're growing more quickly but they're

00:08:46   still behind like Spotify has nearly double the paying subscribers and that's

00:08:51   a big number. And I think they have double that free subscribers as well.

00:08:55   Yeah so that's a big advantage of Spotify that you can try for free and

00:09:00   somehow I guess they make at least some money with the advertisements I'm not

00:09:05   sure if it's enough to keep them around you know 20 years from now 30 years from

00:09:09   now, whereas Apple can just basically bankroll this entire service because they can.

00:09:15   But I think it's important.

00:09:16   I saw someone making this argument a few weeks ago.

00:09:19   I think it's important to have a company like Spotify that's based outside of Silicon Valley,

00:09:25   that comes from Europe and that it's entirely about music.

00:09:28   I think it's important to have this kind of player and I'm sort of glad that Spotify is

00:09:33   the leader because it keeps everybody else on their toes.

00:09:36   think it's important whereas you know all these other companies Apple and

00:09:39   Google and to an extent Amazon they just make the music streaming service because

00:09:44   it's a feature whereas Spotify it is entirely what they make it's the only

00:09:49   thing they do that's their thing yeah it's just photo sharing all over again

00:09:54   we spoke we've mentioned that before on the show right like companies that were

00:09:58   just doing photo sharing couldn't exist in the long term and if anything it's

00:10:04   Storage was their problem. The music streaming services, they have the whims of the record labels, which I think are even more volatile

00:10:11   Which is a whole different thing in those contracts. I'm keen to see how Spotify continue into the future

00:10:16   The numbers that they're at right now are impressive, but I don't know if that is a

00:10:23   Money-making endeavor going long into the future as you say, especially when companies like Apple and Google and Amazon

00:10:31   they offer this as part of their overall business and they can use other parts of their business to

00:10:37   undercut and to subsidize the cost of doing a service like this and paying for deals. I do have a question for you though

00:10:44   Where is this growth coming from for Apple? Like that's what I'm

00:10:49   Really trying to wrap my head around. Why is it growing at such a fast rate?

00:10:54   Well, I think based on conversations I had with my friends

00:10:59   which are always fascinating because they allow me to sort of get a different point of view.

00:11:04   The strength of the built-in advertisement essentially in the music app on iOS

00:11:12   and the fact that the credit card is already on file is a big incentive, I think, to push these people to

00:11:18   all these new users to subscribe because it's so easy and it's built-in and it's...

00:11:25   I think there's also an association that people make between Beats and Apple Music with the headphones and the music service that I think it's helping.

00:11:34   But I'm surprised by the fact that a lot of my friends, they keep mentioning Siri as a feature that when they're driving they can ask Siri to play music, which I was not expecting.

00:11:46   But I think mostly it's about the fact that it's the music app, it's in the system, and

00:11:53   it works with iTunes, which a lot of my friends still use to upload their own albums and songs.

00:12:02   And the fact that the credit card is the same as the iCrowd account, basically as the iTunes

00:12:07   store account, and so everything is built in and is easy enough to sign up for and forget

00:12:12   about it, essentially.

00:12:13   That makes sense.

00:12:15   In our last piece of follow up, this is the piece that has no bearing on anything previously

00:12:19   discussed is the Amazon Echo follow up mode.

00:12:23   This is a new feature that the Amazon Echo has got in the past week or so.

00:12:28   For some reason, I'll never understand, this is a US only feature right now.

00:12:32   This has happened with basically every feature that Amazon have added to the Echo.

00:12:38   It goes to the US and then rolls out to other territories later on.

00:12:42   It doesn't make any sense to me why this is the case.

00:12:44   considering it's the same company that makes all this stuff, but hey, I had to wait for

00:12:48   months for named timers.

00:12:51   I think obviously it's a John Siracusa copyright problem.

00:12:54   They only got the licensing deal in the US for the follow-up term.

00:12:59   That makes a lot of sense.

00:13:01   But the feature is really cool, so I'm looking forward to getting it.

00:13:03   What it will do is you can now enable this option, you turn it on in the settings, for

00:13:08   your Echo devices to continue listening for five seconds after a command has been executed.

00:13:13   If you say, "Hey, turn on the lights."

00:13:17   It will listen for another five seconds.

00:13:19   You could then, for example, say, "and set a timer for 10 minutes."

00:13:23   This will allow you to chain commands together.

00:13:26   I think this is really cool because this is a nice little addition.

00:13:31   There are times when I would want to do this, especially cooking is the often used one,

00:13:36   but sometimes when I'm setting multiple timers, I'm setting them at the same time.

00:13:40   able to do two different things at once is a great little workaround. I mean it would be nicer if I

00:13:45   could ask both of these things at the same time, but until they gain the feature possibility to

00:13:51   do that I'm cool with executing one command after another in a chain. Yeah I think it's a good

00:13:57   workaround. I think it makes sense. It's obviously not what the future of these things will look like.

00:14:05   I think eventually we'll have assistants with the ability to discern different sentences within the same activation command.

00:14:13   That's obviously the way it's going to go, that if I ask you to turn on the lights and then I ask you to also set a timer,

00:14:19   I don't mean to turn on a light named pasta timer, because that's what happens right now.

00:14:24   All the names and all the terms get mixed up in a single command.

00:14:29   So eventually an assistant should be smart enough to interpret these two commands as two sentences and therefore two actions.

00:14:36   But right now, I think it's a very clever workaround and I wouldn't mind to see this kind of

00:14:42   option in Siri going forward unless, you know, Apple is working on real multi-command support.

00:14:50   But I would be surprised considering all the other things they need to fix first.

00:14:54   But right now this is a... should get the job done, I suppose.

00:14:58   Alright, today's show is brought to you in part by our friends at Linode. Linode offer

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00:16:33   So yesterday March 13th out of nowhere WWDC was announced.

00:16:39   So WWDC 2018 will be back in San Jose from June 4th to June 8th.

00:16:47   As we expected last year, this is a permanent move, or at least a permanent move for the

00:16:52   time being, but this is where we are June 4th to 8th 2018.

00:16:58   We're both going to be there, of course, but more importantly than that, we have a pretty

00:17:03   awesome announcement.

00:17:05   We're going to be doing a live show at WWDC in conjunction with AUGTCONF and the folk

00:17:13   at the Accidental Tech Podcast. We are putting on the first ever WWDC Podcast Festival. It's

00:17:19   going to be two days of podcasts in the evenings. ATP is going to be on Monday, June 4th and

00:17:25   we are going to be doing a Relay FM live show on June 6th in conjunction with AltConf. There

00:17:31   are tickets available now. I'll put a bunch of links in the show notes so you'll be able

00:17:35   to go and get your tickets. We've got tickets on sale right now. They are $5 and all of

00:17:42   the money for the tickets is going to be going towards helping all comp so all

00:17:47   the money is going to all comp to help support what they're doing they do a

00:17:50   great a great service for people attending WWDC they're a great option to

00:17:56   go to even if you don't get yourself a pass they've got loads of really really

00:18:00   awesome and amazing stuff and you can even attend for free there are options

00:18:04   to pay but you can attend all comp for free which is just kind of awesome

00:18:08   they're really great with that sort of stuff so we're gonna be doing a live

00:18:11   show is going to be broken up into some fun segments like what we did in 2016 when we

00:18:17   did RelayCon San Francisco. So the show will feature the three of us, so me, Steven and

00:18:24   Federico in the first section and then Steven is working on some programming for the other

00:18:31   sections so he's working on that, I'm very excited. There's going to be some mashups

00:18:34   and some crossovers over Relay FM shows. We're really excited about it. I have no idea how

00:18:41   long the tickets are going to be on sale for. I would just say this is a significantly larger

00:18:47   show than we've ever done before. There are 900 tickets available, which is bonkers. It's

00:18:55   like three to four times larger than any live show we've ever done. But I will say if our

00:19:04   waiting lists every other year have proven anything is that there would be that amount

00:19:11   of people that would want to get a ticket.

00:19:13   If you are interested, there will be links in the show notes for you to go and pick up

00:19:17   tickets of your own.

00:19:20   But of course you can just go to auteconf.com and you can get a ticket to our live show.

00:19:25   If you're going to be in town, please grab a ticket.

00:19:29   If you've got any questions you can reach out to us on Twitter.

00:19:32   All of the information should be available in our show notes.

00:19:37   We're really excited.

00:19:38   Anyway, let's talk about WWDC, shall we?

00:19:41   So San Jose, we're very happy about that, right?

00:19:44   I mean, last year felt fantastic.

00:19:48   It was a great environment.

00:19:50   It was way nicer than any other year that I've been to.

00:19:55   I really, really enjoyed it.

00:19:56   I had a great time.

00:19:58   So I'm expecting that it will continue to be that and may even be even better than last

00:20:04   year would be my hope.

00:20:06   Yeah, I think so, especially because Apple had the time to work out all the issues with

00:20:10   the new location last year. I mean, the entire organization was already quite smooth and,

00:20:15   you know, they partnered with other events throughout town during the week. I think it

00:20:21   was really great. I had a great time and the city was lovely and the weather was fantastic,

00:20:27   of course, because of California. And I think it will be even better this time because now

00:20:31   now we know what we are doing.

00:20:33   We are more used to the place.

00:20:35   We know where we're going and we know where to get good

00:20:39   coffee. So I think that's really important.

00:20:42   And I think the, you know, the,

00:20:44   the inside of the convention center,

00:20:46   I think it was probably nicer than Moscone.

00:20:50   From my personal experience, I think it was just nicer.

00:20:53   Even the outside being able to be outside.

00:20:56   There was like, like you could sit at a table or just,

00:20:59   you know, on the ground there were like an entire garden type situation.

00:21:04   I think it was really, really lovely.

00:21:06   So I'm happy that it's again in San Jose because I had a great time and a great

00:21:11   decision to not be in San Francisco.

00:21:12   Yeah.

00:21:14   I hope that the vibe continues of like feeling like the town gets taken over.

00:21:19   Um, I'll note that like hotels and stuff seem to have been booked up way quicker.

00:21:24   Um, like the hotel that we stayed at last year, same hotel we're staying at this

00:21:28   year there are no rooms available. We actually booked rooms on a whim like three months ago.

00:21:36   Just kind of guessed some dates and started putting some deposits down on rooms and yeah

00:21:41   we ended up we were okay. Which is great. I'm very pleased about that. But all about

00:21:47   the branding for WWDC this year. I love that is they've got dot grid paper. Dot grid is

00:21:53   my favorite type of paper.

00:21:55   Okay so it's entirely about paper because I've seen all these tweets that like dot grid

00:21:59   is the best, dot grid is all that.

00:22:02   Okay it's paper.

00:22:03   Okay.

00:22:04   Yeah like a dot grid is great because it's not, it doesn't like box you in as much as

00:22:08   a regular grid would, you know?

00:22:10   So yeah this is a dot grid.

00:22:12   I mean what I think what they're showing here is building blocks.

00:22:16   I'm not really looking into it very much.

00:22:18   I see people, I don't know if they're joking, I'm not saying like oh they're bringing depth

00:22:22   back to the design.

00:22:24   I don't know if it means anything other than just like, this is just building blocks of

00:22:29   design, right?

00:22:30   Like this is kind of, you would sketch out your app on paper, that kind of thing.

00:22:34   And I think it looks really nice.

00:22:36   I like the aesthetic that they're going for.

00:22:39   It's kind of cool.

00:22:40   Some people on Twitter would have you believe that you have no right to like this type of

00:22:49   3D style because Apple has no right to go back to depth and shadows because of the crimes

00:22:57   they committed with iOS 7.

00:22:59   It's a nice graphic.

00:23:00   It's a nice web page.

00:23:01   I think it's a lovely look, you know, this 3D combination of various interface elements

00:23:07   and programming signs.

00:23:09   I think it looks fantastic.

00:23:10   I wouldn't read too much into, you know, Apple is bringing back 3D and shadows and perspective.

00:23:17   I don't think it's that.

00:23:18   I think it's just a graphic designer needed to put up a visual identity for WWDC, and

00:23:24   this is what they were going for.

00:23:28   Some folks like to see the conspiracy everywhere.

00:23:31   Sometimes it's just a couple of designers making cool graphics.

00:23:35   Just from a visual design perspective, I'm interested to see how this translates.

00:23:40   What you get here, the branding of the website, is the branding of the conference.

00:23:44   branding is carried through to banners and posters and little elements that go

00:23:50   throughout the conference and all white, everything in white, I'm interested to

00:23:55   see how that translates to other materials. It's because we the

00:23:59   people bring the color, it's what we do. You know, Johnny got his hands all over

00:24:03   it and just like all white, all white only. Or that, but my message is more inspiring, I'm positive.

00:24:09   I like to go with that.

00:24:11   It is. But I'm interested to see how it will translate.

00:24:14   I like the visual design aspect, right?

00:24:18   I think that's fun. I always love walking around the town and seeing

00:24:22   the banners up and stuff like that. So I'm keen to see how that translates.

00:24:26   Maybe you're all going to get some nice dot grid notebooks when you're standing in line so you can take all your important notes

00:24:31   for the conference.

00:24:33   Or maybe they give you little objects

00:24:36   shaped like these interface elements and somehow they are AR toys that you

00:24:43   point your iPhone camera at and they transform into little figurines and

00:24:47   characters, you know? Sort of like Nintendo bundled like those AR cards

00:24:53   with the Nintendo DS. You remember those?

00:24:56   You could like look at the card and fall into the table.

00:24:59   Yeah, maybe it's something like that.

00:25:03   So I felt like this announcement came out of the blue a little bit.

00:25:09   Obviously, I was starting to believe we're getting closer, right, because

00:25:14   I don't think I expected we would find out as early as we did, because it was a

00:25:19   couple of weeks prior to this, a year ago.

00:25:23   It was early March that we found out, and that was because they up and moved the

00:25:27   conference. I was expecting we'd maybe find out maybe late March, early April, but

00:25:33   We're kind of finding this out in mid-March.

00:25:35   It kind of came out of nowhere, I think, but in a good way.

00:25:38   I mean, I think it's way better to find out earlier

00:25:41   rather than later.

00:25:42   I think that's just a good thing

00:25:43   so you can get all of preparations in mind,

00:25:46   especially as people who are trying to arrange things

00:25:50   to do around.

00:25:52   But I like that it gives more people more time

00:25:54   to make more plans.

00:25:55   I always think that's a good thing.

00:25:58   - Yeah, I think it's always good

00:26:00   to have an announcement early

00:26:02   because flights are expensive and hotels also.

00:26:06   I had a little story that I wanted to tell you.

00:26:10   So I called my mom yesterday

00:26:12   because usually she drives me together

00:26:16   with Sylvia to the airport.

00:26:17   And so I was like, oh, by the way,

00:26:19   Apple announced the dates of the conference dates.

00:26:23   I'm gonna leave in the first week of June.

00:26:25   And her first reaction was like,

00:26:26   oh, they're doing another one?

00:26:27   (laughing)

00:26:30   I was like, yes, mom, they--

00:26:31   well last year. And she was like, what are they going to announce this time? I was like,

00:26:38   well, I don't know.

00:26:39   Does she think they ran out? Like that's it?

00:26:43   She was under the, my mom, every time Apple announces something, she's surprised that

00:26:49   they have more. They're like, when the iPhone 10 came out, she was like, oh, they have another

00:26:53   iPhone? She's always like somehow convinced that Apple is making the last of everything.

00:27:00   They perfected it mum, they're done.

00:27:03   No more conferences, no more iPhones.

00:27:07   But yeah seriously, I think it was about a couple of weeks ago

00:27:10   that Jon and I, we were certain

00:27:14   that Apple would have an announcement for WWDC and so we prepared like we had a

00:27:18   post ready to go, we had an entire

00:27:20   like setup with Pingdom and all these alert systems

00:27:24   to make sure that the announcement was you know being monitored

00:27:28   but nothing happened.

00:27:29   And yesterday, I was actually like,

00:27:31   I was not expecting the announcement at all.

00:27:33   I was writing, I had all,

00:27:36   so I'm working on this story for the website next week.

00:27:39   And I had, like, when I'm in this mode,

00:27:41   I put all my devices in do not disturb.

00:27:44   So I was writing, then I get up to,

00:27:46   because of the time to stand notification,

00:27:49   and I look at my iPhone, and there was a message from you.

00:27:53   What did you text me?

00:27:54   Like something about-

00:27:55   - I sent you a screenshot of flight time.

00:27:57   There's like, do you think this is like about the prices like do you think this is okay?

00:28:03   And I was like, am I missing something here?

00:28:05   What I said to you was, I'm sure you're busy right now, but we need to book this.

00:28:10   And you're like, why?

00:28:11   I'm like, um, WWDC?

00:28:16   And then you were like, you like, am I missing, am I missing something here?

00:28:20   And I was like, WWDC is announced.

00:28:22   And you were like, wait, what?

00:28:23   You're being serious?

00:28:23   I'm like, are we doing this again?

00:28:26   You sent me in all caps, "Dude, it's out now!" They just announced it also in all caps.

00:28:33   Yeah, because again, I was not expecting the announcement at all. I thought at this point

00:28:40   it was gonna be like April. So I was really surprised. And I was thinking about this,

00:28:45   I was actually discussing this with you before the show. I almost feel like the announcement

00:28:51   has been made, we dealt with the hotel and flight staff for like 30 minutes to an hour,

00:28:57   you dealt with the announcement on Reel FM for the live show, and then it all passed and we were done.

00:29:03   I don't feel like the same... I don't know, but like I don't want to say that I'm not happy,

00:29:12   of course I'm super excited, but the mechanic of the announcement, it flew by almost. I don't know

00:29:19   I don't know if you feel the same way.

00:29:21   - I mean, kinda, I think that your circumstances

00:29:26   are slightly different, right?

00:29:27   So this is your third time.

00:29:29   The first year was your first year, so you're super excited.

00:29:32   Your second year was the biggest change in 10 years.

00:29:35   So that created a lot of discussion and thought

00:29:38   and like, what is this gonna be like?

00:29:40   What is this gonna be like?

00:29:41   So now this year, there are a couple of things to it.

00:29:43   One, it's like you're a little bit more used to it.

00:29:46   And two, there isn't anything new or big.

00:29:48   and we're finding out way earlier than usual, right?

00:29:52   I mean, if memory serves,

00:29:53   it's been like late April sometimes.

00:29:55   So now we're kind of middle of March,

00:29:57   it's still like basically best part of three months away

00:30:01   that you are maybe just, it's too far to think about.

00:30:06   - Yeah, yeah, I think that's it.

00:30:09   And also maybe the fact that,

00:30:11   at least the current rumors are not suggesting

00:30:15   any new groundbreaking features coming to iOS.

00:30:20   I think that's also kind of setting the mood

00:30:22   in a different way.

00:30:24   Like last year, there were all kinds of rumors,

00:30:26   if I recall, about Apple is gonna,

00:30:29   are they gonna go back to the iPad?

00:30:31   Are they gonna focus on,

00:30:33   are they working on augmented reality stuff?

00:30:36   But this year, with the rumor of the working on fixes

00:30:39   and improvements, and maybe the biggest announcement

00:30:42   will be Project Marzipan, I feel like that's sort of setting a different mood in people

00:30:50   who are following this stuff that maybe feel, it's gonna feel different from last year even

00:30:55   though the location is the same.

00:30:57   Yeah, yeah, I mean, I get that, but like I've been to bad WWDCs and they're still, I mean,

00:31:05   the event itself, the time is still enjoyable.

00:31:07   Oh yeah, for sure.

00:31:09   You know, you have maybe, again, you just maybe not had enough of them yet, right?

00:31:15   You had like one bad one and one like the best one you could have ever imagined.

00:31:19   Yes.

00:31:20   But like your bad one was still the first time.

00:31:23   So I don't know.

00:31:24   My feeling still as we are right now is that there's never going to be nothing.

00:31:31   There's always interesting stuff.

00:31:33   Even if they're cooling it down, there's still going to be stuff in there that's going to

00:31:36   be exciting.

00:31:38   And I think that we're still far enough away that there could be other rumors that come

00:31:43   out and leaks that come out if that's the kind of thing that we're looking for to be

00:31:46   excited about.

00:31:47   I still think that there's time for there to be more.

00:31:51   I don't think that prior even the announcement we would typically know all of the rumors

00:31:57   we're going to know.

00:31:59   And also as well there's enough time for everyone to like drum up their own beliefs as what's

00:32:05   going to happen that get turned into kind of an expected thing.

00:32:09   Project Mars-A-Ban I think is one of those.

00:32:11   I think this is something that we're all kind of expecting to happen that still might not

00:32:16   happen.

00:32:17   I am definitely in the camp of "I believe this will happen" but it is unknown.

00:32:24   It's unknown if even if they show it off it might not be available this year.

00:32:27   It might be like "here is this thing and it's going to be 2019" or who knows.

00:32:31   I have no idea.

00:32:33   There's still enough that can happen now.

00:32:36   Even just hardware, right?

00:32:37   We get some new iPads, that would be pretty sweet, right?

00:32:40   That would be enough for me.

00:32:41   That would be excellent.

00:32:42   That would be excellent, yeah.

00:32:44   So I'm remaining cautiously optimistic, but my entire focus, honestly, right now is about

00:32:51   our event.

00:32:52   That's where my mind is focused on, is this event that we're doing.

00:32:57   I am most excited for that right now.

00:33:00   Oh yeah, yeah.

00:33:01   buy tickets buy tickets buy tickets is what I'm trying to say. But yeah WWDC it's coming

00:33:06   back at you first full week of June I'm very excited I'm looking forward to all of the

00:33:12   different parties and events that are going to be announced yeah it's it's gonna it's

00:33:17   gonna hit us quicker than we think though. Because I feel like we always go there for

00:33:24   the news for the Apple stuff but really we go there for for the people to meet people

00:33:29   to meet our friends and to meet listeners and readers and you know everybody who is

00:33:33   part of this entire big community that folks who follow Apple and like Apple products and

00:33:39   make apps.

00:33:40   So that's the best part of going there and meeting people and being exposed to faces

00:33:47   that you normally just see on Twitter timelines.

00:33:49   I think that's always been the best part for me.

00:33:51   So I will underscore that by saying if you want to go but you either don't want to buy

00:33:57   a ticket or don't get a ticket. There is so much awesome stuff to do. It is worth being

00:34:03   in San Jose for that week. I am not going to attempt to get a ticket. I'm not interested.

00:34:08   There's enough to keep me excited throughout the day, throughout the evenings. There's

00:34:13   so much cool stuff going on. You've applied for a pass again, right?

00:34:17   Yes.

00:34:18   Good luck. I hope that you get it.

00:34:19   Thank you.

00:34:20   That makes third time's a charm, right? If you do. The first two years you won the lottery,

00:34:23   didn't you?

00:34:24   the first two times. So hopefully it'll continue to work but even if it doesn't

00:34:31   I'll still be there because it's so so worth it especially for my job and your

00:34:37   job to talk to developers to meet folks who are working on new apps new games

00:34:42   it's just an excellent time for... I just like to hang out and go see live

00:34:47   podcasts like it's not really about me anymore you know but yes I get I get it

00:34:52   I did last year take more meetings than I've taken in all other years combined

00:34:56   because I think people started to care.

00:35:00   But that's not why I go.

00:35:02   I do go for the app, for all of the different social events,

00:35:06   you know, the different live podcasts, right?

00:35:08   To see ATP live, to see the talk show, to go to like fundraisers,

00:35:12   like AppCamp for Girls and stuff like that.

00:35:13   Like that's that's why I go because those things are genuinely fun.

00:35:17   And now I'm I have friends that I'll see there every year.

00:35:20   I make new friends every year.

00:35:22   Like it's always a great, great experience, which I really, really thoroughly recommend that people go to.

00:35:27   And if they do go, they should come to our live show because it's going to be the best thing that you'll see all week.

00:35:31   Yes. Yes. Today's show is brought to you by Squarespace.

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00:36:04   It's very customizable.

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00:36:09   I know nothing about website building, but I knew that yesterday

00:36:13   I had to put up a blog post for a live event, so I dropped the text in.

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00:36:20   to drop the markdown into the text and it formatted everything for me. I needed to add

00:36:24   in an image and a button to give people to click to go buy tickets. I just drag and drop

00:36:28   those elements in, uploaded the image, gave them the URL for the button and I was done

00:36:33   in 10 minutes. It was so simple, I love it. If we tried to build our own system and I

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00:37:09   It was announced during a conversation with Eddie Q.

00:37:16   that Apple have acquired a digital magazine service and company called Texture, who were

00:37:24   owned by a larger company that's also the entire company has been bought. The company

00:37:30   is called Next Issue Media and they made an application service called Texture. Next Issue

00:37:35   Media has been purchased by Apple. This even warranted a post on the Apple PR newsroom.

00:37:43   Federico, do you know much about texture?

00:37:45   Had you come across texture before

00:37:48   this announcement came out on Monday?

00:37:51   - So I was surprised by the fact that texture

00:37:54   was already in my downloads,

00:37:57   listing on the app store for my Apple ID.

00:38:00   So sometime in the past, I downloaded texture.

00:38:03   I tried it.

00:38:04   And I'm pretty sure that I didn't keep using it

00:38:10   because I don't read magazines really.

00:38:12   I read websites.

00:38:14   And this is an application that lets you read articles

00:38:18   from magazines like GQ and National Geographic and People

00:38:23   and all these popular US magazines,

00:38:25   which usually they have a web component.

00:38:29   So that's why I don't need to get the magazine version.

00:38:33   But I think it's really nicely done.

00:38:38   if you're that type of consumer

00:38:42   who wants to have a digital way of reading magazines.

00:38:46   - Is it just scans of magazines

00:38:48   or do they like have the content?

00:38:50   - I don't think it's just scans.

00:38:54   So for example, if I open on a story here,

00:38:58   which of course I cannot do

00:38:59   because I need to create an account,

00:39:01   which I don't have,

00:39:03   but what I think is interesting is the ability to,

00:39:07   There's a section called highlights that takes you directly to a story.

00:39:12   I don't think the it's just like a PDF scan that you have to

00:39:17   that you have to zoom back and forth to read.

00:39:20   Also the app just crashed for me.

00:39:23   That's interesting.

00:39:23   It's all going well so far.

00:39:24   I'm not sure about which kind of format they're using but I would be surprised if

00:39:30   it's just like just give us an image and let people zoom into the text.

00:39:34   I don't think that's that's what they're doing at all.

00:39:37   What I think is interesting and fascinating for Apple

00:39:39   is that this company built a system

00:39:42   to extract individual stories from magazines

00:39:45   and to highlight them in a separate view of the app.

00:39:48   So you can have this like this bundle of magazines

00:39:51   that you're paying for with the Netflix-like model.

00:39:54   You're paying a subscription

00:39:55   and you get access to dozens of,

00:39:57   it says 200 plus magazines and it's $10 per month.

00:40:01   But you also get these personalized feed

00:40:06   that gives you stories extracted from different magazines,

00:40:10   which seems to me like it's a perfect fit

00:40:12   for the Apple News model,

00:40:14   where you can drill down into individual sources,

00:40:18   individual websites and publications,

00:40:20   or you can stay in the main view

00:40:23   where you get a collection of different stories

00:40:26   from different websites, and in this case, magazines.

00:40:29   And we were speculating about this

00:40:31   in our iMessage conversation,

00:40:34   And I think I said, or Stephen said,

00:40:37   this makes sense for Apple News.

00:40:40   And of course, EdiQ was speaking at Southwest

00:40:43   a few minutes later.

00:40:44   So this announcement, this entire thing,

00:40:46   was pretty well timed with this EdiQ appearance.

00:40:49   And he confirmed that Apple plans to integrate

00:40:52   this technology somehow with Apple News.

00:40:54   Because again, it just makes sense

00:40:56   for that type of structure, I think.

00:40:58   - Yeah, I'm wondering why they're feeling the need

00:41:03   to buy this company though. It feels like what you really need for this is just the

00:41:10   buy-in from publications to do this. And unless they have created some really, really special

00:41:20   proprietary technology, I don't necessarily understand why Apple needed to buy this company

00:41:26   to do this specific thing.

00:41:29   is my question too, also because Apple has been promoting this format

00:41:35   that websites can use the Apple News format to produce stories optimized

00:41:42   for Apple News, so I was under the impression that Apple wants to work with

00:41:46   websites, not with magazines trying to adapt to the Internet, but with websites

00:41:53   that have already a web presence and a web component. So it's either I see two

00:41:59   possible paths for this that either Apple wanted to get all these rights and these deals

00:42:06   with publishers.

00:42:07   But I'm not sure about how that stuff works, right?

00:42:10   Because that doesn't seem logical to me that if you buy a company, you just take all of

00:42:15   their contracts.

00:42:16   And even if that was the case, that contract was written in that way, contracts expire.

00:42:21   And if Apple are concerned that they're not going to be able to get people to sign contracts

00:42:26   with them, which is why they're buying a company for it.

00:42:29   Like how do they know they're going to get renewals on the contracts?

00:42:32   That doesn't seem like a good reason to buy a company to me.

00:42:38   So I think it's either somehow they worked out a deal that still works for them from

00:42:44   that point of view, even though I think it's, I don't know how these things work.

00:42:48   Or texture built technology that is amazing, that Apple wants to have in Apple News, and

00:42:56   Maybe they want to move to a format where stories you get on Apple News are more magazine-like.

00:43:03   Or maybe it's entirely about the engine and about the fact how we can recommend individual stories,

00:43:10   how we can deal with hundreds of magazines but also highlight interesting stories on a daily basis.

00:43:19   I don't know what the reason is because of course Apple is not telling us.

00:43:23   Maybe there's a point to make about the broader idea of maybe Apple sort of positioning themselves as the company who wants to help publishers in an era where there's a problem of fake news everywhere, basically.

00:43:42   And the publishing industry dying in places, right?

00:43:45   And the publishing industry dying at the mercy of Facebook, mostly.

00:43:49   So I wonder if this is what Apple's play is gonna be like of "we're going to help you survive"

00:43:57   even though I don't know if it's just marketing or if it's something that they truly believe in

00:44:04   because the news industry, from Apple's perspective, it's just something that they can use to push people to subscribe

00:44:13   subscribe and to get people into the system, essentially.

00:44:17   I don't think that they have a genuine,

00:44:20   it's not that I don't think,

00:44:21   I don't know if they have a genuine feeling of,

00:44:24   oh, we need to save the publishing industry

00:44:26   because it's good for America and it's good for the world.

00:44:29   I don't think if they have that kind of sentiment

00:44:32   behind this push for getting this kind of company.

00:44:37   - Yeah, I'm also a little bit uncomfortable

00:44:41   of any company that says something like what Eddy Cue said,

00:44:44   we are committed to quality journalism from trusted sources

00:44:47   and allowing magazines to keep producing beautifully designed

00:44:49   and engaging stories for users.

00:44:51   It's the trusted sources thing that I don't like,

00:44:54   like that there is a company that can be like,

00:44:56   you can trust this one, you can't trust this one.

00:44:58   I don't know, like there's something about that kind

00:45:00   of thing which is a little bit,

00:45:03   it just makes me feel a little bit uncomfortable at times

00:45:05   where it's like, well, who is making the decisions though

00:45:09   about what I can and can't see.

00:45:13   I kind of get a little bit uncomfortable with any company

00:45:16   that is like cherry picking just the right stuff.

00:45:20   You know what I mean?

00:45:22   - Yeah, yeah, I do.

00:45:23   - I feel like that is easily open to abuse

00:45:25   in one way or another.

00:45:26   And also I personally believe

00:45:30   that if you want to ingest any type of news,

00:45:32   you should try and have a balanced view on it.

00:45:35   I think there's a there's a general sense of discomfort lately with the news.

00:45:42   And I get why, because if there's just absolute forced stories being produced,

00:45:47   then yes, of course you should be untrusting of it.

00:45:50   But I also like to believe that most people don't just completely shut

00:45:55   themselves off from things they don't agree with.

00:45:57   Right. Like, I feel like most people will at least have an idea of things that

00:46:01   they're that they don't agree with.

00:46:03   And I would want to see Apple doing that.

00:46:05   I mean, I don't want Apple to just,

00:46:08   if they're gonna do something like this,

00:46:09   to only have stories from the left, right?

00:46:14   I feel like they have to have something which is moderate

00:46:18   that can be served for everyone, right?

00:46:20   That they have things for everybody

00:46:21   because that seems like the right thing to do, right?

00:46:24   Just because you are maybe more on the right side of things,

00:46:28   it doesn't mean that everything is wrong, right?

00:46:31   Like there is, because there is wrong on both sides

00:46:34   every debate, right? So I would hope that they would at least try and keep things

00:46:39   relatively neutral. Would you agree?

00:46:43   Yeah, that's the problem. So someone emailed me a few weeks ago, or maybe I was reading an article that I wanted to link to,

00:46:53   but anyway there was this sentence that kind of stood out to me of, "I don't use the iBook store because Apple is always

00:47:02   pushing their liberal agenda. And that really, like I paused when I was reading

00:47:10   this, because it's an issue that even though I don't agree with it, I

00:47:15   think Apple, you know, I use Apple News I would say at least once on a daily basis

00:47:20   I think it tends to have a good mix of different types of sources but I can see

00:47:27   how, especially in this age and this current political landscape everywhere, this is a

00:47:35   very sensitive issue of is this company trying to inject their values into the news that

00:47:44   I see and the content that I want to buy and pay for? And this is why this acquisition

00:47:50   is so peculiar to me because if it's not for the technology, what is it for then?

00:47:58   So the only reasonable explanation that I can think of, it must be the technology

00:48:04   and the team because otherwise what's the... you already have a system where if

00:48:10   you want to have content on Apple news you can say to all these

00:48:13   websites just use this format, just use this code and you will be on Apple news.

00:48:19   Why do you need to say you can find your trusted sources on texture?

00:48:27   It's something that I don't understand. People can already choose for themselves

00:48:31   and they can already go on Apple News and find different sources that they like and subscribe

00:48:37   and any website can say I'm advertising my content as compatible with Apple News.

00:48:43   Why the need to cherry-pick magazines that are part of this program?

00:48:48   This is what I don't understand.

00:48:50   So my... I hope that it's about the technology and not about the ideology

00:48:56   behind "let me pick all the sources that I think are good for the people".

00:49:01   Because that shouldn't be Apple's job.

00:49:04   That shouldn't be Apple's job at all.

00:49:06   No, especially not where they are as a company.

00:49:09   Right? The biggest company in the world.

00:49:11   world and like Apple can decide if the things that they do are more liberal in

00:49:17   nature they can make that decision and that's fine but not with something like

00:49:24   giving people the information that they receive right you see where I'm going

00:49:29   like it is I think is totally fine for them to do things that would be

00:49:35   considered to be liberal right like to support specific causes and to make a

00:49:40   stand on certain issues because there are people that believe that those are the right

00:49:45   things to do. I am of that leaning as I believe that you are too, right? Like we both believe

00:49:50   in more liberal ideals. Plus there are people that don't in the world and Apple can make

00:49:56   those decisions about the way that they want to run the company. But when it comes to like

00:50:01   choosing news sources, I don't think you can do that. I don't think that's the right thing

00:50:06   to do.

00:50:07   I think they should be able to separate having values as people and as a company and running an editorial service with an editorial board.

00:50:18   That is not a news organization producing content. Well, to an extent, you could argue that the spotlight section in Apple News does reflect some of the values of the Apple editorial team.

00:50:30   team, but by and large, it's an aggregation service that collects

00:50:36   articles from different sources. It's not the Apple magazine. You're not reading

00:50:40   the Apple Times. You're reading sections in Apple News from other people, from

00:50:45   other journalists. So I think it's important for Apple at this point in

00:50:48   time to separate having values, having opinions, having ethics as

00:50:55   as individuals and as a company as a whole and running the App Store today tab, running

00:51:02   Apple News, running these features and these services that showcase content but that do

00:51:09   not necessarily need to be political.

00:51:12   I think that's probably an unpopular thought that some people would say no, Apple should

00:51:19   take a stand, should actually promote all the political thoughts that they have.

00:51:27   But I think they can do that elsewhere, not in the news application that people want to

00:51:32   use to read the news from the Times or the Post or Fox News or whatever it is.

00:51:37   I think as long as it's about the news aggregation service, the news app on everybody's devices,

00:51:44   that should be kept neutral.

00:51:46   And of course there are services that they can not go to, right?

00:51:53   Like there are websites that are out there that are just spewing hate, right?

00:51:58   And you know, and just saying just bad things and not even so much like false news, but

00:52:07   just bad, like really bad opinions about things and saying horrible stuff.

00:52:12   And they can choose to not use those, right?

00:52:14   And that's not completely shutting it down, that's like drawing a line around it but still

00:52:18   trying to maintain balance.

00:52:20   And of course it is worth saying, Apple are not saying that they're going to do this but

00:52:25   the wording can be a little bit risky if that's a route they want to go down, if that's what

00:52:33   they truly believe, right?

00:52:35   And it's like what is trust, how is trust earned, what becomes a trusted source, what

00:52:40   views and opinions do they have to have, that kind of thing.

00:52:43   Because for example in the app store there are all types of stuff.

00:52:47   And they have the lines that they draw, but there are all types of things that you can

00:52:52   get that reflect many different views and opinions.

00:52:56   But there are things that get rejected because they're considered to draw a line and I think

00:53:00   that that is perfectly fine as a way to do things.

00:53:06   It's a tricky balance.

00:53:08   It's so tricky that it makes me wonder why they're doing it.

00:53:11   Yeah, exactly.

00:53:13   Like Apple news as a product is a nice to have. It is not a requirement because people can just

00:53:21   go to the app store and download news apps. This is one thing that Apple do not need to do.

00:53:27   So I'm keen to see why. What it looks like they're doing is continuing to enforce

00:53:35   Apple news as a thing rather than newsstand. I feel like that's where we can see

00:53:40   the change is happening, right? They are pushing their one platform, their app with stuff in it,

00:53:46   as opposed to a container application which has publications in it that you choose.

00:53:50   There's an interesting parallel between the App Store's "Today" tab and what Apple is doing with

00:53:59   Apple News, in the sense that on the App Store, Apple is free to have their own voice with the

00:54:06   stories that they publish in the today section because it's their own

00:54:11   controlled environment. Apps that you submit to the App Store, it's Apple's

00:54:16   place and they can choose to feature whatever they want and to share whatever

00:54:20   message they want. But Apple news, it's about world facts. It's not about the

00:54:27   Apple ecosystem. It's about what's happening in the world. It's about the

00:54:31   news and Apple does not control that, does not own what's happening in the

00:54:35   world. And so it becomes much more trickier for Apple to say we want to have

00:54:40   a voice but also we want to run this service because it's not the kind of,

00:54:44   even though the App Store is a huge place now, I think two million apps or

00:54:48   something, it's still a controlled environment, it's still a marketplace,

00:54:53   it's limited. But on Apple news you cannot apply the same approach of

00:54:59   we as Apple want to have our own voice and want to push our own thoughts and

00:55:04   and ideas, but also we need to provide people

00:55:08   with a neutral service that can scale

00:55:10   for different types of people.

00:55:13   That's incredibly tricky.

00:55:14   And maybe that's why it's been so difficult

00:55:18   for Apple to expand Apple News internationally,

00:55:21   because you need to essentially reset the culture

00:55:24   of the team that runs the service for each country.

00:55:27   And I suppose that that can be extremely costly

00:55:31   and tricky to scale.

00:55:33   doesn't surprise me honestly. I'm keen to see if we can ever even really point at

00:55:39   this as like oh that's what they did with it right yeah yeah because Apple

00:55:44   Music you can't really point and be like oh that's where Beats Music went yeah

00:55:51   you know it's just like well I mean the things that Beats Music had and Apple

00:55:56   Music had the things that overlap are not technically complex things like

00:56:03   visual that you can see right like the things that they seem to have really

00:56:07   taken from Beats Music was the editorial curation but it didn't need to buy Beats

00:56:11   Music for that now I'm sure that there is lots of stuff under the hood that is

00:56:15   Beats Music but the things that Beats Music did differently you don't see in

00:56:19   Apple Music and they're something can you correct me if I'm wrong I mean I can't

00:56:23   think of anything I mean a lot of the even a lot of the Beats Music features

00:56:28   like the best ones were not carried over to Apple Music at all yeah and I wonder

00:56:33   if it's going to be something like that where it's like well there is this thing

00:56:37   which maybe you could say is that team working on it but you'd never really

00:56:40   know. I wouldn't be surprised if after all it's just about the people that were

00:56:46   working on this. Engineers and designers that have the expertise to aggregate

00:56:51   articles from different sources. Maybe that's all there is really. We'll wait and see.

00:56:56   Alright today's show is also brought to you by our friends at Pingdom,

00:57:00   the company who offer uptime monitoring and web performance management.

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00:57:57   Federico mentioned earlier, he had a Pingdom monitor going on for Apple's website to

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00:58:26   and RelayFM.

00:58:27   So, because Steven isn't here this week, I thought, why don't we do something completely

00:58:33   iOS focused that is, I think, something for people that use iOS all day every day like

00:58:40   me and you do.

00:58:41   And I've been calling this segment iOS Little Wonders.

00:58:45   So some little things that we encounter on a daily basis that makes iOS so wonderful

00:58:52   for us to use every day.

00:58:54   And also, while some things are multi-platform, cross-platform, there are some little elements

00:59:00   to it that make it better on iOS.

00:59:04   The one that I want to talk about was the reason I thought of this thing in the first

00:59:09   place because I took a screenshot on my iPad the other day and I cropped the screenshot,

00:59:15   I copied it, I deleted the screenshot and then pasted it into Twitter.

00:59:19   And I was like, "I love this UI so much.

00:59:23   It is so good.

00:59:26   I take screenshots on the Mac when I'm sitting at my Mac and the built-in UI just drops a

00:59:31   JPEG onto my desktop.

00:59:32   That is never what I want to happen.

00:59:36   That is 100% never what I'm looking for.

00:59:40   And services like Droppler exist and they're mostly good but none of these things are as

00:59:45   good as the screenshot UI in iOS 11.

00:59:49   There are still some places I would like to see it get a little bit better.

00:59:52   I would love a way to be able to delete an image with some kind of action that didn't

00:59:57   require tapping. So maybe if I swiped it to the other side of the screen or did drag and

01:00:02   drop and a little trash can popped up on the screen that I could just drag it over and

01:00:07   it disappeared. But just being able to take a screenshot, do whatever I need to, share

01:00:12   it however I want and then it just be destroyed is amazing. And then you've got all the markup

01:00:17   stuff which I don't use that often but every time I do I'm like I'm so pleased this is

01:00:21   all in this one UI. It really is amazing. And then when you get into looking at how

01:00:26   different it is on the iPad or drag and drop where you can take a bunch of screenshots

01:00:30   and then drag them all into something, it really is just a wonderful advancement that

01:00:37   came with iOS 11.

01:00:40   It truly is one of the best little features of iOS 11. I'm glad that you picked this one

01:00:46   I also use it every day and in fact I love the fact that you can take multiple screenshots

01:00:53   and they will be stacked in the same carousel. It's really so well done. I want to go

01:01:00   as a little feature that I love as shared notes. So a lot of people probably use this but

01:01:08   you can share if you use the Apple Notes app, you can share a note with someone else.

01:01:13   And it's not just that the collaboration is great, because it doesn't require any complex setup.

01:01:22   You just send a link to someone on iMessage or somewhere else, and they can open the note and start editing the note.

01:01:30   It's also the fact that if you share a note with yourself, so if you make yourself the collaborator of the note,

01:01:38   you can then use the link as a launcher on iOS.

01:01:41   Oh my god.

01:01:45   Yeah.

01:01:46   I do this for a bunch of notes that I access on a regular basis. I share the note with myself

01:01:56   and then I create a launcher, like a widget launcher, that opens the note. The only probable

01:02:03   downside is that because it's based on the iCloud, on the CloudKit system, when you tap these

01:02:10   launchers you get like a small dialog in the middle of the screen that says

01:02:15   "retrieving" for like half a second and then the note launches and that's

01:02:20   because the you know the system is going to iCloud to say "is this actually a note

01:02:24   that I can open?" and then it kicks you off to the Notes app but you know on a

01:02:28   you see that for like how less than a second usually and it's so convenient

01:02:33   because I have a lot of notes that I share with my girlfriend, with John, with

01:02:37   other folks at for Mac stories, but really I have these notes that I share with myself

01:02:43   that I find so useful because I can use them. Otherwise there's no way to like, there's

01:02:49   no notes URL scheme that you can use to open notes. So this is a good workaround.

01:02:56   That is a tuchi tip, man. I'm gonna have to think about all the ways I could use that.

01:03:00   Like even with stuff like travel notes, because I will like start a travel note, like my WWC

01:03:07   And then it's like buried somewhere and sometimes I just want to be able to get to it from

01:03:12   somewhere else right like whether it be something like trip it or something like that to save a link or

01:03:17   Sometimes I will attach I will want to

01:03:20   Reference a note in a task in Todoist and I'm just like search this in Apple notes

01:03:25   This is that I put in the little comment to myself

01:03:28   But being able to grab those UI URLs and just launching them from Todoist just by tapping on a button

01:03:35   like that would be amazing. That's really great. That's a great tip. My next one was

01:03:41   the only shining thing in a otherwise mostly boring WWDC presentation two years ago. Stickers

01:03:52   and message effects in messages on iOS. I don't care what anybody says, I use stickers and message

01:04:01   effects every single day. I don't think that when any of these message effects were created,

01:04:08   they were done with complete seriousness in mind. I would expect that the engineers knew

01:04:13   that these things were mostly going to be used ironically and to make fun of certain

01:04:19   situations. Because, you know, what else do you need lasers for? Right? Like, you know,

01:04:25   I have so much fun sending these. I send them all the time and stickers are just a great

01:04:33   way to be expressive. I used Animoji yesterday to show my excitement about WWDC. I felt like

01:04:45   a unicorn shaking its head with its mouth open was the only way to fully express my

01:04:50   excitement level. I use Bitmoji constantly.

01:04:54   You use Bitmoji a lot.

01:04:56   I do, I do.

01:04:57   I mean this started because it's something that me and Adina share with each other because

01:05:01   they are these cute little images that are incredibly expressive and there are just so

01:05:08   many, there are bitmoji stickers for every occasion and therefore all of my friends are

01:05:14   subject to my Bitmoji now because I think that they're hilarious and they're just sometimes

01:05:19   it's some really really good ones. The keyboard sticker messaging, so the sticker app is pretty

01:05:24   good. They have a keyboard that I don't use but the sticker messaging app is really good

01:05:28   and it has a little search in there so you can search for a term and it just brings up

01:05:31   relevant Bitmoji. There are always any new ones, they have ones for special events and

01:05:35   stuff. I really like them. Just stickers in general, I have my favourite packs now. Not

01:05:41   too many packs jump in these days, mostly because I tend to just use Bitmoji all the

01:05:46   But there are still a few that I love and I think that this was a great addition to the messages app and it's done

01:05:52   It for me. It's definitely stood the test of time

01:05:54   Yeah, I I sure do get a lot of beatmoji from Myke

01:06:00   Alright I want to go with the live photo effects. These are

01:06:06   Effects that Apple added in iOS 11. I don't think they are super popular, but they're perfect for me

01:06:14   Because I have two puppies now, I guess dogs because they're supposedly they are one year old

01:06:21   We don't have a precise date because they were abandoned so we don't know the birthday

01:06:25   But they are these live photo effects you access them by

01:06:29   Swiping up on a live photo in the photo app and you get this

01:06:34   Gallery this horizontal carousel at the bottom

01:06:38   There are probably four

01:06:41   effects. There's loop bounce, long exposure, and I think just a standard live photo one.

01:06:47   And I love the loop and the bounce ones because they are perfect for little dogs playing around

01:06:55   and doing stuff. So you create these animations that are either looped or that are reversed

01:07:02   with the bounce one and they are fantastic because then you can share the animation,

01:07:09   You can make a gif out of it and they're so fun and you don't need to install a separate app from the App Store to generate these animations.

01:07:19   It's built into the Photos app. As long as you take a live photo, all you need to do is swipe up and choose the effect.

01:07:27   They're super fun. They're perfect for dogs, I assume also for kids playing around and doing stuff.

01:07:33   or if you're capturing something that is moving in some some animated object in general

01:07:40   I think it's probably gonna go well. Also for people jumping into a pool or something

01:07:44   you can use the bounce effect to to great extent for that type of live photo. So yeah,

01:07:50   they're not super popular but I use them a lot.

01:07:54   One thing that I wish those live photo effects did was to work like live photos because sometimes

01:08:02   they don't, they just loop as if they're GIFs, you know what I mean? So then when you do the 3D

01:08:08   touch on them, it doesn't necessarily always do what I want to do. So I would like to just be able

01:08:14   to replace what happens when I 3D touch, you know what I mean? But I do really like those effects,

01:08:22   I think they're really good. And the last one that I wanted to mention was share extensions.

01:08:27   Share extensions are very nice and my favourite one is the notes one.

01:08:32   So like being able to see a link on Twitter or over iMessage or something like that and then

01:08:39   just share it with the share extension, add it to a note and the note in the note the link is there

01:08:45   with like it's a rich link so it's like images and headlines which are way easier to pass

01:08:49   rather than just copying and pasting text links into a document. I find it so much nicer like

01:08:55   like

01:09:15   the show I go in and look at those URLs and add in all the topics that I want to do for

01:09:20   the shows.

01:09:22   Sometimes I'll see a link on Twitter and then I'll just grab my iPhone, open Tweetbot and

01:09:26   then add it there because I know it will be way easier for me later on to have the rich

01:09:30   link rather than to have just this string of text for like MacStories.net/something/something

01:09:35   right because it doesn't mean anything when I'm just looking at it even though your URLs

01:09:40   are amazing of course but I much prefer to have the actual headline and any associated

01:09:44   imagery just right there. I love the share extensions and that is my favorite one because

01:09:51   it is just a way nicer thing way for me to be able to share URLs around. Because on the

01:09:56   Mac even though there are share extensions or at least some kind of share UI it's not

01:10:00   good really at all so you know what you're gonna do I don't think it's very good so I

01:10:06   love I love the way that it's implemented on iOS so I think it's really great. All right

01:10:13   Is that it for today?

01:10:14   I think so.

01:10:15   Well then, if you want to get our show notes for this week, go to relay.fm/connector/184.

01:10:22   There you will find all the information you need to buy tickets to our WWDC live show,

01:10:27   which you definitely should.

01:10:29   They're just five dollars and you will be able to enjoy the show with hundreds of other

01:10:35   Relay FM listeners.

01:10:37   And you'll also be supporting OTCONF, which is a great, great, awesome thing to support.

01:10:42   They do awesome work for people in our community.

01:10:46   You also find information about our sponsors there,

01:10:48   Pingdom, Squarespace, and Linode.

01:10:49   We're kind enough to sponsor this week's episode.

01:10:52   I want to thank everyone for listening.

01:10:53   If you want to find Federico online, he's at maxstories.net.

01:10:56   He is @Vittici on Twitter, V-I-T-I-C-C-I.

01:11:00   When Steven is not just outside

01:11:02   of the McInerney Convention Center in San Jose,

01:11:04   he can also be found at five12pixels.net,

01:11:06   and he is @ismh on Twitter.

01:11:09   And I am @imike, I-M-Y-K-E.

01:11:11   Until next time, say goodbye Federico.

01:11:13   Arrivederci.

01:11:14   Cheerio!