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Connected

177: Whatever State Asparagus Is Born In

 

00:00:00   [Music]

00:00:08   Hey, this is Connected, episode 177.

00:00:11   [Laughter]

00:00:12   It is brought to you by our sponsors, Squarespace, Pingdom, and Timing.

00:00:18   My name is Stephen Hackett. This is a terrible intro, and I'm joined by my co-host Myke Hurley. How are you?

00:00:23   I'm very well.

00:00:25   And Federico, are you still with us?

00:00:26   Hi, yes, is this an NPR show? It felt like one. Your intro, another?

00:00:32   Very calm introduction.

00:00:33   We're going to talk about policies and tax incentives. Our next segment is about asparagus

00:00:39   farming in rural whatever state asparagus is born in.

00:00:42   Okay, we have follow-up. We start with follow-up at the beginning.

00:00:47   I think we need to give some context to people as to what the heck is going on right now.

00:00:51   I think it's fine. I think we just blast right through this.

00:00:54   Okay, great.

00:00:55   is Wednesday January 24th this is our new day. Do you need to give us the date? Yeah,

00:01:02   there's no rules anymore. Five years of show history evaporated Federico when you changed

00:01:07   the day of the show. So basically every time you do the show you need to remind people

00:01:14   that it's Wednesday because they don't know. Well today is the first Wednesday. You see

00:01:18   you don't want to change days and not walk people through that life change. So today

00:01:23   Wednesday and next time we do the show it will also be Wednesday and then it'll be normal. So just a couple of weeks of transition

00:01:29   it's our new time and

00:01:31   It's fine. The alpha big transition is that

00:01:35   Steven is now taking over the production of the show

00:01:38   Hence why he's now introducing the show Steven is the host of connected now forever

00:01:44   If there's any editing problems problems problems problems problems though that week I didn't do it and I'm just tweet at I Myke

00:01:51   Yeah, that was me that week. That was me that week. Okay, so let's do follow-up. We're gonna start with

00:01:57   Meltdown everyone's favorite CPU

00:02:00   Vulnerability Apple has patched Mac OS 10.11 at 10.12 and 10.13

00:02:07   As of this week, so there's a High Sierra 10 13.3 update and a security update for the older OS's

00:02:16   There's also new Safari versions for 10, 11, 12, and 13 that take care of the specter side of things.

00:02:21   So if you're on something older than 10/11, it's probably time.

00:02:24   I mean unless you have something that's really keeping you on 10/9 or earlier, I think at this point

00:02:29   it's probably okay to upgrade because this is a pretty big deal.

00:02:33   I'm glad Apple went back to 10/11. Usually they only

00:02:37   support the current OS and one back. Sometimes they go two back for some stuff, but I'm really glad they've done this and

00:02:45   If you're running 10, 11, 12, or 13,

00:02:47   you know, when you get a second,

00:02:49   hit Software Update in the Mac App Store

00:02:51   because there are things waiting for you

00:02:53   and then you'll be more secure.

00:02:55   It's good.

00:02:56   - Yeah. - Way to go.

00:02:57   - I'm kind of disappointed

00:02:59   because I upgraded to High Sierra because of this.

00:03:02   - Yes.

00:03:03   - Although I will say, upgrading to High Sierra

00:03:05   fixed a login items bug for me, so that was good.

00:03:08   Basically for the last maybe six months,

00:03:11   every time I turn on my iMac, which is every day

00:03:14   'cause I was just turned my iMac off.

00:03:16   The reason I do this is because my USB device,

00:03:21   so like it's called the USB pre 2,

00:03:23   it's like the audio device that I plug my microphone into.

00:03:26   - Yes, me too.

00:03:27   - It stays on if my iMac is sleeping and I don't like that.

00:03:32   I just don't want it to stay on

00:03:34   'cause it's an expensive piece of equipment

00:03:37   and I just get concerned about its lifetime

00:03:39   if it's on 24/7. - Me too.

00:03:41   Me too.

00:03:42   I turn my iMac off every day.

00:03:45   So basically every time I turn my iMac on, I had to open TextExpander, Dropbox, and Alfred

00:03:51   every single time.

00:03:53   And nothing that I could do, even using Steven Hackett's WISE skills, could fix this.

00:03:59   But upgrading to High Sierra did fix it, so I got that.

00:04:03   Man, you have far fewer login items than I do.

00:04:06   No, no, I have like maybe eight or nine login items.

00:04:11   just those three, no matter what I did, wouldn't work. Everything else worked, just those three

00:04:18   wouldn't work. So that was fun.

00:04:20   You turned off your iMac. I honestly didn't think you did that. But it makes sense if

00:04:28   you don't use it often. It just reminded me, as you were talking about, the fact that you

00:04:31   turned off your computer. When I was younger, when I was a kid, my father was obsessed with

00:04:38   off electronics at night and like there was a period of time I think he read it

00:04:45   on a newspaper or something that even all those LEDs that you get on

00:04:48   televisions and like the answering machine or computers basically anything

00:04:53   needed to be turned off at night and that was really inconvenient for me

00:04:57   because also you know maybe I left my computer to download something it was in

00:05:01   the early days of you know downloading mp3s and stuff from the internet or for

00:05:07   example my PlayStation and suddenly my dad in the middle of the night like 2 a.m. because

00:05:11   he also suffered for insomnia or something, he couldn't sleep, he would just basically

00:05:17   walk into my room and turn off anything he could find and yeah that was terrible. It

00:05:23   was like you see this guy walking into your room in the middle of the night turning off

00:05:27   and unplugging stuff while also talking and saying things like "oh it never turns off

00:05:34   anything here." And I was really upset. I would be like, "Dad, please keep my computer

00:05:40   on because I'm downloading songs." And I was like, "You need to listen to songs on music

00:05:44   tapes, not on a computer." It was a really, I was a really struggling, you know, technology

00:05:50   enthusiast when I was younger. And my dad was really upset about all the electronics

00:05:55   turned out at night. And this is something that has stuck with me. So whenever someone

00:05:59   mentions turning off computers, I get kind of triggered for that memory. So thanks Myke.

00:06:06   Well, I mean, at least I'm not sneaking around. I mean, I know what I'm going to do to you.

00:06:14   Next time we share a room, I'm just going to turn off everything.

00:06:17   It was real creepy. It would like unplug stuff and I could feel that it was angry about it.

00:06:24   I'm going to do that to you.

00:06:26   It's yanking cables out of the wall.

00:06:29   wake up in the morning and like your phone has been turned off like just straight up

00:06:33   it's just off. Apple Watch is off. Everything's off.

00:06:37   This is my nightmare. This is my nightmare scenario. My nightmare vacation is my roommate

00:06:41   turning stuff off. You've given me too much power here, man.

00:06:44   You shouldn't have told me this. We share rooms every year. Like I'm going to turn all

00:06:48   your stuff off. God. Anyway, yeah.

00:06:51   I wanted to do a little follow out to episode 39 of App Stories. Federico, I'm not sure

00:06:57   if you know this that's another podcast that you do. It's a podcast I do. It is a great

00:07:01   podcast that I enjoy very much and I just want to say it is not a relay FM show and

00:07:07   we get I get this a lot and I just want everyone to know not that I wouldn't be proud of it

00:07:12   it's just not right like I feel like all the time people ask me questions somebody said

00:07:16   to me a few days ago why did you cancel app stories? I was like I did! Because he couldn't

00:07:24   find it, someone couldn't find it on the Real AFM website. I can understand why people would

00:07:28   think it, because Federico has three shows on Real AFM, but this just isn't, because

00:07:34   this is the Max Stories production.

00:07:38   When John sent us the tweet of someone saying "Why did you cancel App Stories?" I was like

00:07:44   "Oh God."

00:07:45   I'm sorry to all the App Stories listeners.

00:07:48   I thought we would get this question, but not to the point where "Why did you cancel

00:07:52   - So much fear in that person.

00:07:56   So at least you know they love your show.

00:07:58   - It is a good show.

00:07:59   So this episode, most recent episode,

00:08:01   was about the Mac App Store.

00:08:03   It is, I don't know what the right word is,

00:08:07   stagnant, forgotten, depressing.

00:08:12   It's not great.

00:08:13   And the two of you talk about maybe some solutions to that.

00:08:16   And I think that it was really great,

00:08:18   especially in light of this story,

00:08:20   the sort of like background radiation

00:08:21   to everything right now,

00:08:22   that iOS and Mac OS apps are going to join forces somehow,

00:08:27   or be on a shared framework, or be one unit,

00:08:30   no one really knows.

00:08:31   But I thought it was really good,

00:08:33   and I want to point listeners to that,

00:08:35   because I think if you like connected,

00:08:37   I think you're gonna like app stories,

00:08:38   but in particular this episode was,

00:08:40   I thought, really insightful about something

00:08:42   that we don't talk about very much.

00:08:44   - Thank you.

00:08:45   - I've actually enjoyed the last three episodes quite a lot.

00:08:48   Not that they're not all good,

00:08:49   but like just the last three I remember enjoying.

00:08:53   - Thank you. - Quite a lot.

00:08:54   One of them included friend of the show, James Thompson,

00:08:57   which is a nice segue into our next follow-up item.

00:09:01   I received a box at home today.

00:09:03   I opened the box and found a trophy inside the box

00:09:08   because I finished the year

00:09:12   as the fastest completion person.

00:09:18   I have the fastest time in level one of the Peacock game that's inside of the about screen.

00:09:26   And James sent me a trophy. I've never had a trophy for anything. This is my first ever

00:09:33   trophy.

00:09:34   That's really sad.

00:09:35   It's okay. I'm not very sporty. And I'm very proud of this because I put a lot of time

00:09:41   into becoming the fastest at the game level. And I am the winner. I am the winner forever.

00:09:48   I just want to take a moment to thank everybody who helped make this possible for me

00:09:52   Congratulations Myke like who you're not gonna name him on the air. That's kind of kind of rude

00:09:56   Well as I said in my tweet Craig Federighi the Stig my parents and James Thompson

00:10:03   I couldn't understand because I think there was a typo in oh, no. Sorry. I didn't pronounce it right. It's Craig Federighi. He's my

00:10:10   Driving tutors my driving to this you you would think it would that what I was trying to say was Craig Federighi

00:10:17   is like a funny joke about Apple, but I was just legitimately thanking my driving coach,

00:10:22   Craig Fidergi. So this is a joke, right? I'm not getting the joke, but it's a joke. What's

00:10:29   the joke? Craig Fidergi? My driving coach. It's just a funny coincidence. Do you have

00:10:37   a driving coach? You don't have a driving coach? His name is Craig Fidergi. I just told

00:10:41   you. No, no. This is British humor. This is British humor that I don't get. This is a

00:10:46   bad joke. It's really British. I think it's a good joke. I think there's a lot of people

00:10:52   that laughing at this, but you guys just don't get it. Yeah, yeah. But I got a real trophy.

00:10:59   It's a real trophy. It's got my name on it and it's sitting up on my mantle with an orange

00:11:02   brain ball. Thank you, James. I'm happy for you, Myke. I know that you care about the

00:11:07   game a lot. I saw a story in TechCrunch. The Amazon Alexa app for Android will now have

00:11:15   the Alexa smart assistant built into it as well as just being an application that is for managing your

00:11:23   devices. So this is apparently coming to iOS soon but one of the benefits of doing this on Android

00:11:31   and probably the reason that they did it first is that some devices will allow you to summon

00:11:36   Alexa from any like with your device being shut off or whatever right like you can have your

00:11:42   like you would be asking for Google Assistant or Siri.

00:11:45   Right, you can set not only default apps, but like default voice assistants.

00:11:49   Yeah. So this is interesting.

00:11:51   It's coming to iOS in some way, probably just like how the Google Assistant app

00:11:55   works, right?

00:11:55   Where you can just open the app and just give it a command.

00:11:58   I mean, it's a good thing to have, I guess, like just so you've got it.

00:12:01   But really, more than anything,

00:12:04   I just want them to do some work to refine the janky iOS app.

00:12:07   like it's the Alexa app is like just not very well refined it's just not very good.

00:12:14   Yeah I mean it's interesting because I have used third-party like Amazon echo

00:12:22   apps that like use the voice service API to let you issue commands and they tend

00:12:31   to support most most of the functionality that you would get from an

00:12:35   actual speaker but they don't have you know stuff like Spotify for example or

00:12:40   some I think some of them do not offer the voice brief briefing feature so I

00:12:47   want to see if Amazon is able to bring the actual complete feature set from the

00:12:52   actual from the from the physical speaker on to the the the iPhone version

00:12:57   I'm surprised that it's becoming part of the app that I said it I'm sorry because

00:13:04   Because I see that app as the configuration screen basically for the Amazon Echo speakers

00:13:10   and all the skills.

00:13:11   And to have the assistant built in, I would have liked I think a separate utility that

00:13:16   is just like a microphone that shows you what is going on when you speak.

00:13:20   So maybe it's an opportunity to improve the native app or maybe it's just more clutter

00:13:27   into the Amazon app.

00:13:29   So we'll see what happens.

00:13:31   Yup, I mean, I guess it's like a way, I guess it's some kind of way for people that don't

00:13:37   have the devices to try it out, maybe?

00:13:40   Yeah, like a demo, yeah.

00:13:42   Yeah, but like, I don't know if people would really do that, but I guess it's one of those

00:13:46   things where it's like, well, if we can do it, why would you not try it?

00:13:51   I mean, it's, the functionality on the phone is limited anyway, because really it's more

00:13:57   meant to. You know, the Amazon Assistant is meant to be used in actual speakers around

00:14:05   the house. So it is like a demo on the smartphone anyway. Also because on the iPhone, as you

00:14:11   mentioned, you don't get the full access, like you cannot change the default assistant.

00:14:16   So it's like it's another app you need to open, kind of like the Google Voice Search

00:14:19   and the Google Assistant, you need to open that. And yes, you can save time with 3D touch

00:14:24   shortcuts and widgets and stuff like that but it's never gonna be as easy as

00:14:28   Siri so I want to try it out I want to see I want to see what it's like mostly

00:14:33   I'm interested in whether they redo the design of the of the official app or not.

00:14:37   I just want it to be a better app. Yeah I'm not optimistic about it.

00:14:43   Me either. Alright today's episode is brought to you by our friends over at

00:14:48   Squarespace use the offer code world check out and you'll get 10% off your

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00:16:27   Squarespace make your next move, make your next website.

00:16:31   And moving the show to Wednesday we have a bunch of news to talk about that we would

00:16:36   have missed otherwise.

00:16:37   So it's like coincidence really.

00:16:41   First we have the HomePod that is available for pre-order on Friday, January 26th in the

00:16:48   US, UK and Australia and it ships Friday, February 9th.

00:16:53   So two weeks later.

00:16:55   What do you guys think about this?

00:16:57   I feel like the reaction to this has been very subdued at least in our circles.

00:17:03   Well, I think it is strange that we still don't know many of the details we wanted to

00:17:12   know about this product. And I think there's this problem with a lot of folks who are saying,

00:17:18   "Well, this is just a plain boring speaker by Apple, and it's basically the new iPod

00:17:24   Hi-Fi. Do not expect anything magical or mysterious suddenly appearing when you get one." And

00:17:31   There's the other side that says, clearly we don't know enough about this product, there

00:17:36   must be features that Apple has not told us about.

00:17:40   And even though it is strange that we haven't seen embargoed reviews from, for example,

00:17:48   high profile audio, some very specific audio blogs, for example.

00:17:54   So there's people who tend to believe we're going to see multi-user support, we're going

00:17:58   to see more details about how it works with your local iTunes library.

00:18:03   And there's those who think, no, this is just a speaker.

00:18:06   That's what it is.

00:18:07   They do not support the new AirPlay 2 stuff at launch.

00:18:10   They do not support even stereo mode.

00:18:12   And this is all you get.

00:18:13   It's just a speaker.

00:18:15   And it's not going to have multi-user.

00:18:16   It's not going to have all the other things that you think it will have.

00:18:20   I don't know what I think.

00:18:22   I'm going to get one.

00:18:23   So I'm going to try.

00:18:25   John is going to get one in the US for me and he's going to ship it to me.

00:18:29   I'm going to spend a lot of money, but I really want this product because I need to write

00:18:32   about it and I need to talk about it.

00:18:34   Because having hot takes is really important for our businesses.

00:18:39   And so I'm excited about the idea of having an easy way to stream music to the speaker

00:18:50   using the control center UI that does not require bluetooth but that's not good enough

00:18:57   of a reason to justify this kind of purchase.

00:19:00   So I'm curious to try the SiriKit stuff.

00:19:03   I want to see how well it works with HomeKit.

00:19:06   I want to see how well it works with Things for example which is my task manager that

00:19:09   supports SiriKit.

00:19:12   I don't think we'll get like when you get when you take the HomePod out of the box you

00:19:17   You will realize, oh, this thing supports multi-user and supports a bunch of things

00:19:22   that Apple didn't tell us about.

00:19:24   So I tend to fall more on the other side of the discussion of, this is what you get, Apple

00:19:29   has a press release, you will not get what it's not in the press release.

00:19:33   I am, I would say, to give you a number if this can be quantified, 60% excited about

00:19:41   the HomePod.

00:19:43   I'm not sure how else we can...

00:19:45   moderate to not excited is I guess 60%.

00:19:51   Steve Trouton Smith summed this up really nicely in a tweet. He said "HomePod is only

00:19:56   mysterious if you're still hoping it has secret features Apple hasn't announced. Reality is

00:20:02   it's just a straightforward boring product that does just what it says on the marketing

00:20:06   page and eight months later still unable to ship with all the features advertised." I

00:20:12   liked that summary because it's like you're saying about like multi-user features like

00:20:17   what else oh like people digging through the pages what other secret things the answer

00:20:21   is none it's it's it is a product which didn't have a lot of features to begin with and has

00:20:29   less when it launches than we even expected because there's no AirPlay 2 support which

00:20:35   is very strange. That is something which I've really been trying to like get my head around.

00:20:42   Like why are they doing this? Why are they releasing a product that was already late

00:20:49   without one of the core features? It seems strange to me.

00:20:53   It is strange. I cannot get my head around why do they feel the urge to release this product now.

00:21:03   My only theory is that the production line is ready,

00:21:08   these devices are ready to be manufactured,

00:21:12   and the AirPlay 2 release date,

00:21:17   Apple said later this year,

00:21:21   I don't think it means what a lot of people think it means,

00:21:24   I don't think it means October,

00:21:25   I don't think it means iOS 12,

00:21:27   I think it means iOS 11.3 at some point.

00:21:30   It's not in the beta one

00:21:32   that was just ceded to developers today.

00:21:34   But if you look in the release notes,

00:21:36   it seems to imply that Siri control for AirPlay 2

00:21:40   is not available in this beta, but will be later on.

00:21:43   So my only theory is that Apple really wants to

00:21:47   release this product now,

00:21:48   because they want to clear the deck

00:21:50   for whatever it is that they have coming next.

00:21:53   And AirPlay 2 will not be delayed by six or seven months,

00:21:57   but just by like one to two months,

00:22:00   whatever the beta time for 11.3 is.

00:22:03   So from that perspective, it's still strange,

00:22:06   but if it's not October,

00:22:09   then I can see why it might make sense.

00:22:12   - I mean, I would use those same facts the other direction,

00:22:15   that if Airplay 2 and all this stuff

00:22:17   is only six to eight weeks out,

00:22:19   then hold the product six to eight weeks

00:22:21   and then ship something that does what you said it would do.

00:22:23   Like, I think it's gonna be,

00:22:26   I mean, it may be in 11.3 at some point,

00:22:29   I don't think it's I don't think it's that soon or I mean, why would you go through all of the

00:22:34   The negativity that this product is going through this week. Yeah, if just waiting on another month

00:22:41   You're already behind you already missed the year, you know

00:22:44   Why go through a second round of of disappointment from users and pundits the lead of every review is?

00:22:51   Going to talk about the fact that this product is half-baked. Yep, like

00:22:56   That is the story for every single websites review is that it is a half baked half baked

00:23:04   Product which was always half baked to begin with right because Siri is only doing so much

00:23:12   Compared to its competitors, right? Like they isn't even full Siri in there, right?

00:23:18   There's like some there's that weird things that it does and doesn't do

00:23:22   So it was that was where it was starting from and now it's starting even further back from that because there are significant features

00:23:30   That do not work and I mean like so here's the thing

00:23:34   one of the big things is like stereo mode and multi-room audio, right which

00:23:40   by and large probably isn't that important because

00:23:43   How many people are buying multiple ones of these immediately and I know that the multi-room audio works with existing products

00:23:51   But like the people that have those

00:23:53   Already have those products anyway in their homes, right? So like they probably have an existing system which already has multi-room audio

00:24:01   It's not about like what you're getting and what you're not getting

00:24:05   it's like the story of the entire product and the story of this product is

00:24:10   It is not finished

00:24:13   So why is it being shipped? Like it is not a new version of a product

00:24:18   it doesn't compete with anything else that Apple makes. It is this whole wholly

00:24:24   contained thing which is like a new slice of their music business. Nothing is

00:24:30   pushing them on this. Like if the best they're ever gonna do for this product

00:24:37   from a PR perspective is a press release it could come out at any time. Right?

00:24:47   It's not like they had an event for this two weeks ago thinking Airplay 2 was gonna be done by now and they realize it's not

00:24:54   But now they've had the events that they got to ship it

00:24:56   Like this was a product that literally nobody has seen outside of the original

00:25:02   Demos at WWDC which from what we can understand from the people that attended those were very stripped down

00:25:08   You couldn't touch it couldn't talk to it could only listen to it. Like that's all we've had

00:25:13   Nobody else has seen it. There's been no other communication about it except that it was going to be delayed and now like here it is

00:25:20   just

00:25:21   Pooped out to the world, right? It's just like a hit. Ah, there you go. Oh, by the way, it doesn't work probably

00:25:27   It's weird. Well

00:25:29   those who

00:25:32   defend Apple on a regular basis will tell you that this product shouldn't be

00:25:40   reviewed or considered from a Siri perspective, but as a high-end audio perspective.

00:25:46   And from that point of view Apple really wanted to make a high-end speaker and they made one and now they're launching this speaker.

00:25:54   And that is a point of view that I really do not understand because...

00:25:58   Well, my argument on that would be a high-end speaker in 2018 would support some kind of multi-room audio.

00:26:04   Exactly, and I

00:26:09   highly doubt that a consumer company like Apple that is pushing this speaker with Siri

00:26:16   functionality really thinks that high-end audio is not a niche and that actually the

00:26:24   majority of their users would be interested in stuff like Siri controls or HomeKit. I

00:26:31   don't see any of my friends or any of the people I know being really interested in "Oh

00:26:37   I'm going to the electronics store because I'm buying a high-end audio

00:26:41   High-end audio device a high-end speaker. It's just not something that normal people say or think or do

00:26:47   Realistically like the people are people not just listening to music from their phone speakers now like

00:26:52   Right. Yes. Is that not just what people do? I feel like that's what people do. Yeah

00:26:58   Steven I have a question for you. Can Apple just not

00:27:03   find a way to make successful products that play audio,

00:27:08   right, like is this just iPod Hi-Fi 2?

00:27:11   Is that what this is?

00:27:13   - I hope, I mean I hope not,

00:27:14   'cause that did not go very well.

00:27:16   The Hi-Fi, by the way, sounds great.

00:27:18   Jason Snell has one, I have one,

00:27:19   we both use ours on a regular basis.

00:27:21   They're great, but--

00:27:22   - You use it, you just plug it in

00:27:24   and use it as like an Auke speaker, right?

00:27:25   Is that how that works?

00:27:26   - Yeah, yeah, yep.

00:27:27   I mean I have a bunch of old iPods

00:27:30   I could put in the top, but I don't.

00:27:32   The thing that, I mean I get, I sort of get the joke,

00:27:36   but I think there's something to this,

00:27:39   like Apple, the idea of Apple entering an existing category,

00:27:43   like when they introduced the iPod Hi-Fi,

00:27:45   they had like a Bose sound dock on stage.

00:27:48   They're like, we're gonna sound better than that,

00:27:50   and for the same money or less.

00:27:52   And it didn't work, but then they do that

00:27:55   with something like music players or smartphones,

00:27:57   and it does work.

00:27:58   So the question is, what side of the divide

00:28:00   the HomePod fall on? And you know, I don't know, because the iPhone or the iPod all started

00:28:05   out as really simple products and they became more mature. They didn't do all the things

00:28:09   that other smartphones or other music players did. But the HomePod feels like it's really

00:28:14   behind like right out of the gate. And I think the thing that's most concerning to me is

00:28:21   not the music streaming like so these Apple music and all these other devices you can

00:28:25   use you know Google Play music or Amazon's music or you can swap in Spotify

00:28:31   or use other services or the HomePod is only Apple music. I'm not particularly

00:28:35   worried about that. What I am worried about though is the performance of Siri

00:28:39   on this thing and Siri can be really frustrating on your phone or on your

00:28:44   watch and the Echo and I don't have much experience with the Google Home products

00:28:51   but my understanding is the Google Home products as well work really well with

00:28:54   voice stuff they they they understand what you say no matter where you are in the room and they

00:28:59   they turn that into action like in the correct way and how many times have we all asked siri to

00:29:05   do something and it just responds i'm sorry i can't find this and it's some garbled mess of

00:29:11   words that sort of sound like what you said and for a device that is primarily operated by your

00:29:18   voice apple's voice stuff isn't as good as these other companies and that's really i think at the

00:29:24   heart of your question Myke of is this going to be the HiFi 2.0 I think it's

00:29:29   going to come down to what is the Siri experience and I have no doubt that the

00:29:34   HomePod is gonna be able to hear people well it has like six microphones around

00:29:37   it just like the echo and these other products do I have no doubt the hardware

00:29:41   is in there for it to hear what I say yeah I bet that this device gets you

00:29:46   more correctly more of the time because yeah it has a hardware advantage that

00:29:53   the phones and watches and iPads cannot have, right? Like a microphone array is a

00:29:59   very different experience, right? Like that and I expect that the HomePod will

00:30:04   hear you and understand you way better but if but imagine if it doesn't though,

00:30:09   right? Like I know that's what you're getting at. And hearing is different than

00:30:13   understanding and that's where I mean like the watch for instance it I think

00:30:17   always hears what I say. But then what does Siri, the server side component, or

00:30:23   the logic component, what does that do with it? And that's I think where Apple

00:30:27   is is behind. And so I'm very curious about how that plays out. People I feel

00:30:34   like, and this may just be based on my own experience, but I feel like when Siri

00:30:38   gets things wrong people get really frustrated. I think often because Siri

00:30:41   is cute about it, which I think is the wrong approach. I don't feel that same

00:30:46   level of frustration when my echo misunderstands me or is unable to do

00:30:53   what I asked it. And I think the HomePod is gonna suffer from that existing low

00:30:59   level frustration people have with Siri. I think for a lot of people it's just

00:31:02   gonna turn him off. I mean I think I was actually speaking to a friend last night

00:31:06   about it because he had seen the news and he's not big into tech. I think he

00:31:10   has like an you know he's nerdy enough to know what I do and understand it but

00:31:13   He's not real hardcore.

00:31:15   And this was kind of his thought process,

00:31:18   was like, you know, Siri's sort of garbage on my phone,

00:31:21   so why would I want to buy a speaker with Siri in it?

00:31:23   And I was like, you know what?

00:31:25   That's a really legitimate question.

00:31:26   And I think Apple has to prove that they can get it right.

00:31:30   - Something that I'm interested to want

00:31:32   to see how this works, right?

00:31:33   Like, my expectation is you say,

00:31:37   hello there, Siri, play Fleetwood Mac.

00:31:40   and that is expected then for the HomePod to just start playing music, right?

00:31:45   Like that's what I would expect it to do.

00:31:47   Let's say I'm in my kitchen very frequently between me and my kitchen,

00:31:52   like say like from my kitchen to where I would put a HomePod maybe next to my TV.

00:31:56   There is like a minefield of iOS devices,

00:32:01   right? I have one attached to my wrist, one in my pocket,

00:32:06   and then maybe two iPads and if it's in a home, another phone,

00:32:10   between where I would be and where the HomePod would be, how is that gonna work?

00:32:16   I'm really interested to see what the plan is that like if a HomePod

00:32:21   is attached to your Apple ID or whatever or if like your phone knows that a HomePod

00:32:27   is nearby, does it prioritize the HomePod? Because that would be

00:32:33   really annoying right? Like if I was asking it and like for example with my

00:32:37   with my echoes, standing in certain places in my house, I might get picked up

00:32:42   by the one that I don't want it to pick me up on and that's really annoying but

00:32:46   I only have like two or three of those and they're like stretched throughout

00:32:50   the house but in the same room that I would be controlling my HomePod there

00:32:54   are multiple iOS devices. So I'm keen to see how that works.

00:32:59   I think it should probably do, like, if there's a HomePod on the network, and then if it establishes

00:33:09   that the iPhone is nearby, but the HomePod can hear you, in just a fraction of a second

00:33:16   it should activate the HomePod by default. So there should be like a two-step check.

00:33:23   First is the HomePod on the network, and then is the iPhone nearby, and can the HomePod

00:33:29   pick up your voice better than the iPhone.

00:33:31   So that's a very complex kind of setup of technology

00:33:36   of being able to get this right.

00:33:38   I cannot complain about how the voice activation

00:33:44   for Siri works when you have multiple iOS devices

00:33:46   in front of you.

00:33:47   It seems to be working quite well for me

00:33:49   and it tends to go to the active device

00:33:51   that I'm actually using.

00:33:53   So I'm optimistic that this basic stuff is gonna work.

00:33:57   What concerns me the most is the SiriKit stuff for third-party apps and the way that

00:34:03   for example, I don't want to be in the situation where

00:34:07   Trying to save a task in things and it doesn't work because the communication with the iPhone is broken

00:34:14   Do we know like how much computation the home pod is actually doing like if there is no phone? What can it do?

00:34:21   Well, no, SiriKit

00:34:23   So it will be able to control music and do basic things but like if I want to ask

00:34:28   To add a task to things or if I want to order a lift

00:34:34   None of that will work. No, no

00:34:36   Because the iPhone with the actual brain for circuit with the actual apps is not around and that's the problem with circuit that it depends

00:34:44   on software being

00:34:46   Locally installed on your device. It's not like talking to a server and that's the big problem

00:34:51   So like if I'm not around, what I want to know is if I'm not around my iPhone is with me

00:34:56   But my iPad is at home and Silvia decides

00:35:00   I should put a task in Federico's task manager and she talks to the HomePod

00:35:05   I'm not around the iPad with things on it is does it work?

00:35:10   The question my question would be does it allow Silvia who is another voice talking to the HomePod

00:35:19   Does it give her access to SiriKit? And second,

00:35:22   does it know that I'm not around but the iPad is? Is it able to say Federico is not around but one of his devices is?

00:35:31   So I would assume that it's an iPad so the iPad does not talk to the HomePod.

00:35:37   It's just one iPhone. But what if I have multiple iPhones?

00:35:40   I would assume that just one iPhone can be the admin iPhone. So my

00:35:47   answer would be it will not work when I'm not around even if I have multiple devices, even if I have multiple iPhones,

00:35:54   because just one iPhone can be the administrator device for the HomePod and

00:35:59   I need to be home. But if I'm home and

00:36:03   Silvia talks to it, then I think it will work. Which is a, you know, a whole other problem about

00:36:11   multi-user access and all that. So how are we gonna find out the answers to these questions?

00:36:16   How are we gonna do this?

00:36:18   Well, we're gonna, Steven and I, we're gonna run some tests and

00:36:22   You're both buying these then right? You've decided that? Yes. Okay.

00:36:26   I thought I was gonna get a white one, but I think Apple slightly updated the black color fabric

00:36:33   Whatever and they have new marketing photos. I think it looks much much better

00:36:37   It's actual black not dark space grey as before

00:36:41   So I'm gonna get a black one also because it blends in better with the furniture in my kitchen slash living room

00:36:46   And I will ask Sylvia to help me with tests

00:36:50   I will perform multiple scenarios where I pretend to be sleeping and Sylvia's asking questions to the HomePod

00:36:57   I leave my iPhone at home. I

00:36:59   Walk out of the house with my iPhone see what happens. I've run a whole bunch of tests for you Myke

00:37:05   So this is like two weeks away for ships. Is that right?

00:37:10   And Steven you're still gonna buy one. I am really because I like Federico. I feel like I need to

00:37:16   Talk about it for work. So we're an Apple music family, but we have a bunch of Amazon echoes

00:37:22   And so I pay for the whatever it does, whatever it is like five bucks a month

00:37:26   Amazon's like echo only streaming plan and honestly guys, it's it's good

00:37:33   Like I don't think we've had hardly anything asked of the echo that it can't play

00:37:39   It does a really good job. And so I'm not looking to replace the echo

00:37:44   But that is going to be I think my approach in my review is

00:37:47   Hey, I unplugged my echo and I put this and its place in the kitchen. Did my family murder me?

00:37:53   Thankfully all of our smart home stuff is both home kit and echo compatible

00:37:59   So it's not like we're gonna lose access to that sort of stuff

00:38:02   but I'm gonna I'm gonna swap it in for our kitchen echo and

00:38:07   Just see see how it goes because I mean even as recently as iOS

00:38:12   11.2.5 is the new version one of the things we use all the time is now part of Siri we say hey

00:38:20   Assistant voice

00:38:23   Ask or you know tell me the news right and so it plays a four minute NPR news thing and then says the weather

00:38:30   we use that on our echo all the time and

00:38:33   Now Siri can do that and and so that was kind of one of those things on my mental checklist of what do we ask?

00:38:39   The echo all the time that the home pod can't do and so I think for our purposes it will

00:38:45   It will do probably everything we want it to do, but I'm curious how well it does it and if it's frustrating and

00:38:52   You know the echo does a pretty good job at

00:38:55   reading web contents if you ask it sort of

00:38:59   Data questions it can go out and read stuff from the internet and Siri doesn't do that very well

00:39:04   Unless you're kind of in default categories

00:39:07   so I'm gonna replace my echo in the kitchen and see what happens and

00:39:11   If I never come back on the show is because my family murdered me for it. I'm

00:39:16   I'm very keen to see

00:39:19   How you two get on with it?

00:39:21   Because I really I don't know what to think about it

00:39:25   So I'm looking forward to hearing more about that in a couple of weeks from you both. Yeah

00:39:28   I should say before we move on to the next segment. I've been liking Siri lately.

00:39:35   I know that it's still dumb and it drives me crazy every single time.

00:39:40   Like today I wanted to text John and he couldn't get like a simple sentence right.

00:39:45   But it works most of the time. Just when it doesn't I'm upset.

00:39:53   But you know for controlling lights, listening, you know streaming Apple music

00:39:57   because yes, I still use both Spotify and Apple Music.

00:40:02   Reading, you know, like the other day,

00:40:05   I wanted to see what was going on

00:40:06   because I hadn't watched TV or read,

00:40:09   you know, news websites for a while.

00:40:11   And so I asked, "Show me the popular news," and it worked.

00:40:15   So I use it more than ever,

00:40:18   which is not a lot, but also more than zero times a day.

00:40:25   So I think it needs to get,

00:40:28   Siri needs to get a lot better at the very basics

00:40:31   at chaining multiple commands together.

00:40:34   There's a bunch of improvements that I want Siri to,

00:40:37   you know, to go through,

00:40:38   but I'm looking forward to the HomePod

00:40:42   also because my experience with Siri lately

00:40:45   hasn't been as startable as in the past.

00:40:48   So we'll see how it goes.

00:40:50   - All right, so stay tuned.

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00:43:07   Alright, so today as we record this, which is the 24th of January, Apple released something

00:43:15   on the PR newsroom about iOS 11.3, which is coming sometime in the spring.

00:43:23   There is a developer beta available now.

00:43:26   It includes in it some stuff that we expected, some stuff we could have guessed and some

00:43:30   brand new things all in all.

00:43:33   So Federico, I know that you got out the quill today and put your blogging hat back on and

00:43:40   you wrote up some of the changes over at MacStories.

00:43:43   So one of the things that is happening, one of the things that is coming of 11.3, that

00:43:50   Apple detailed today is ARKit 1.5.

00:43:54   What will ARKit 1.5 enable in AR apps?

00:44:00   It'll fix one of the most popular complaints

00:44:03   that developers of the original ARKit

00:44:06   reported last year, which was the lack of support

00:44:10   for recognizing and placing objects on vertical surfaces

00:44:14   instead of horizontal ones.

00:44:17   The first ARKit only supported horizontal surfaces

00:44:20   like tables or chairs or something like that.

00:44:24   Now, ARKit 1.5 will support recognizing walls, doors,

00:44:29   anything that is vertical, it'll be able to recognize and place

00:44:34   graphics on.

00:44:36   In addition to that, Apple is adding support

00:44:39   for recognizing 2D images.

00:44:42   They say things like signs, posters,

00:44:46   something that is recognized as a 2D image

00:44:50   can be fed to the ARKIt engine.

00:44:54   And developers will be able to use that information

00:44:58   to overlay graphics and do crazy things with.

00:45:02   One of the examples that Apple provided

00:45:04   was like an interactive museum experience,

00:45:07   where as you're walking around,

00:45:08   you're pointing the iPhone at a painting on the wall,

00:45:11   and the painting gets recognized,

00:45:14   and you get custom graphics around it,

00:45:16   like explanations or animations or more details.

00:45:19   Stuff that we tend to see in,

00:45:21   kind of like in, usually in sci-fi movies,

00:45:24   of you move around and you see this kind of virtual reality

00:45:27   mixing in with the graphics on your phone, as seen by the camera.

00:45:31   I mean, this is the use case that people imagine.

00:45:34   It's perfect. It's perfect.

00:45:35   It's the kind of idea of I'm pointing my phone at something

00:45:40   and these custom graphics and details and information is also available on the screen.

00:45:45   And to make that happen...

00:45:47   So is this a mix of ARKit and Core ML?

00:45:49   I don't know. See, that's what I don't know.

00:45:52   Apple says that the 2D images gets

00:45:55   recognized by advanced computer vision techniques, which

00:45:59   should mean that the vision framework is also involved,

00:46:02   because that's what the vision framework could do,

00:46:04   recognize rectangles, for example.

00:46:06   And I would assume that developers then need to--

00:46:10   like if you're a museum and you're

00:46:11   working on a custom ARKit app for your exhibition,

00:46:15   you would have to implement something like beacons,

00:46:18   for example, to say the user is standing near to this painting

00:46:22   and we see a rectangle in the camera,

00:46:24   then we can infer that this is indeed the painting

00:46:27   we assume it is.

00:46:28   So stuff like that should be possible.

00:46:31   Also, Apple says that the camera should

00:46:34   be sharper and more responsive, because there's

00:46:37   a doubled resolution and autofocus is also

00:46:41   available in the ARKit camera mode.

00:46:43   So nice improvements to see before iOS 12.

00:46:47   I'm surprised to see vertical surfaces this year.

00:46:49   So that's great.

00:46:51   Yeah I'm happy about that actually. I think that's cool because we were just putting up

00:46:55   some pictures a couple of days ago and I tried to use some ARKit apps and it didn't feel

00:47:02   very great. It just felt like it was a little bit janky. It was fine with floor stuff but

00:47:06   not with the walls. It works but not amazingly so I'm happy to see them adding this in. I

00:47:14   think this is a really really excellent addition which is going to enable many more experiences

00:47:20   that way?

00:47:21   I think so, especially when you consider like, I want to see what Apple does with this.

00:47:26   I keep thinking that ARKit mode in Maps would be perfect, especially now that it can recognize

00:47:32   signs.

00:47:33   I could imagine like walking directions with ARKit and maybe you want to double check,

00:47:39   you want to confirm that you're making the right turn, you can point out a street sign

00:47:43   or stuff like that.

00:47:44   That would be cool.

00:47:45   But I think before we see any new major built-in ARKit modes

00:47:50   that Apple takes seriously in iOS,

00:47:53   I think we'll have to wait for ARKit 2 at least.

00:47:56   So it still seems like Apple is gathering feedback

00:47:59   from developers to make ARKit better, to nail the basics.

00:48:02   And then maybe eventually we'll see

00:48:05   some first-party Apple stuff with ARKit in iOS 12, I guess.

00:48:10   - I'm happy to see that they have updated this.

00:48:14   they've put these changes in place before WWDC.

00:48:19   - Yeah.

00:48:20   - I think that's good.

00:48:21   That like says a lot about ARKit, right?

00:48:24   They wanna make it better quickly.

00:48:28   - Especially if you consider the,

00:48:30   there was a story a few weeks ago that,

00:48:32   I think from Sensor Tower or some other analytics firm

00:48:37   that it was phrased such as only X thousands apps

00:48:43   our support ARKit, but it was meant to sound like the adoption is not good enough.

00:48:48   And so I don't know if Apple was, you know, if that story pushed Apple to say no, we're

00:48:53   moving up some features in ARKit 1.5, but I don't think so.

00:48:57   It's just a natural evolution of things.

00:48:59   You know, Apple and Tim Cook seem to be really behind ARKit, so they have this aggressive

00:49:03   schedule it seems.

00:49:05   And at this point, we could only speculate that ARKit 2 is coming at WWDC, and it'll

00:49:11   have horizontal and vertical surface recognition built in.

00:49:14   So, you know, it's exciting.

00:49:17   I still haven't found, like, the killer app for ARKit,

00:49:23   you know, the app that I use every single day.

00:49:26   So I want to see what they do for Virgin, too.

00:49:31   -Something that I think we all could have expected

00:49:33   is new Animoji.

00:49:34   Four new Animoji -- a dragon, a bear, a skull, and a lion --

00:49:39   are being added of iOS 11.3. I feel like that whilst this probably isn't going to drive a

00:49:46   ton of people, it feels like this is just like how a lot of people believe that emoji helps drive

00:49:52   iOS adoption rates. I'm sure that an emoji will help, not to the same level, but like I expect

00:49:59   there'll be some people that will want to get the cute lion and emoji, so we'll update for that.

00:50:04   The skull looks wicked though. Yeah, the skull is the new alien. It's crazy.

00:50:09   But it looks better than the alien.

00:50:11   It looks better. It does.

00:50:13   Business chat has been enabled.

00:50:17   Our favorite feature.

00:50:19   I don't think we need to talk about what business chat does

00:50:21   because all people need to do is go back and listen to episode 147

00:50:25   where Tchee-Tchee-teached us all about it.

00:50:27   We haven't done a Tchee-Tchee-teach us in a while, Myke.

00:50:31   Well, because we need to wait for the next WWDC, right?

00:50:35   That's the idea that you were teaching us about all of the API enhancements.

00:50:38   because I wasn't going to watch those session videos but you could and then I

00:50:43   felt like it was good it was helping you get the thinking for the review done so

00:50:47   that will be after WWDC next year we'll go back to teach you teachers for a bit

00:50:51   unless you have anything specific like Taekwondo or something that you want to

00:50:54   you want to like impart your knowledge onto the world. Oh so we're branching out

00:50:58   branching out to different topics okay okay all right I think if you got some

00:51:03   things there's something you really want to talk about you can have the floor the

00:51:06   The business chat will be coming. Is it coming with the release? Is that the plan?

00:51:12   It's coming with the release as a beta still. So they're launching the beta with 11.3.

00:51:17   But this is a beta for people, right? Like people can use it.

00:51:20   A public one, yes.

00:51:21   Yeah, right now it's like just for businesses to test their testing stuff.

00:51:26   Batteries and performance were called out specifically, but it seems like nothing is

00:51:31   in the developer beta yet, what have Apple said will be in the batteries and performance

00:51:37   section of 11.3?

00:51:40   There will be two features. One is you will be able to check the health of your battery

00:51:47   and get a message if it needs to be serviced and this will be supported on iPhone models

00:51:54   starting with the iPhone 6 up until the latest ones, I think.

00:52:00   And the second feature is that you will be able as a whole sentence about this, but basically

00:52:07   you will be able to turn off the throttling of your iPhone CPU if you don't want the feature.

00:52:13   And this will allow you to say, I don't care about unexpected shutdowns, I like to leave

00:52:19   dangerously and I want to keep the option disabled.

00:52:23   And this will be supported on the iPhone models from the iPhone 6 up until the iPhone 7 and

00:52:31   7 Plus, not on the latest ones, the 8 and the 10, because they do not have throttling

00:52:37   built in.

00:52:38   So, two features, not available today, coming in a little beta, and basically this is what

00:52:45   Tim Cook said in an interview, because now Tim Cook leaks beta features.

00:52:51   Two features for battery and performance.

00:52:54   Nine to five, Tim.

00:52:58   I wonder, like there isn't anything in here and I wonder if they're going to add it.

00:53:01   Are you going to be notified that this is affecting you?

00:53:04   Or do you have to go and look?

00:53:07   It is not clear.

00:53:08   It seems Apple does not mention notifications.

00:53:12   It would be the right thing to do, right?

00:53:14   To tell people, "Hey, we noticed something in your battery and we're doing X."

00:53:19   but also telling people is the first step to get people to, you know, get a battery

00:53:27   at a cheaper price because there's a discount. So I don't know if Apple wants to do notifications.

00:53:33   They should though because it's the right thing to do. But there's no mention of this

00:53:37   feature yet.

00:53:39   Question for both of you. If for whatever reason this like starts to catch up and it

00:53:44   ends up like halfway through a cycle this starts happening. Would you turn off the throttling

00:53:51   or leave it on?

00:53:52   That's a good question.

00:53:55   I would leave it on. I do not want my iPhone to randomly shut down while I'm at the airport

00:54:01   or at the gate or something.

00:54:03   Do you want your iPhone to run slowly?

00:54:06   How much? That's my question.

00:54:08   I would turn it off and see, right? Like I would want to see, like what is the difference

00:54:14   on a daily basis? That's how I would want to make my decision. But like I would like

00:54:19   100% turn it off to see what it was like and then kind of make my mind up.

00:54:25   Yeah, I agree. I also never had a phone with the unexpected shutdown problem. Sylvia doesn't

00:54:32   either she she's on an iPhone 7. I've heard from people who had this problem

00:54:37   so I would like to see and try what happens. I do not expect the difference

00:54:43   to be massive unless your your battery is really in a bad state and I don't

00:54:48   think because we change phones every year I don't think we will ever be at

00:54:52   that point the three of us so we can try we can try see what it's like. But like

00:54:57   Steven you you like the fastest of fast machines now I know that's your new

00:55:01   thing in 2018 if you and your iMac Pro would you be able to live with a

00:55:05   throttled iPhone? I agree with Federico having my phone shut off is way worse

00:55:10   which is why Apple made the right decision here they just didn't tell

00:55:13   anybody. My hope would be that they send a notification but I've talked to a

00:55:20   lot of Apple Store employees from like they all email me all of them and they're

00:55:25   dying like they are they are dying they were being crushed by a wave of people

00:55:29   who want batteries. So maybe maybe I could see Apple doing notifications but

00:55:35   in like staggered releases right like they they alert 15% of users or

00:55:41   whatever I don't know but I'm glad to see it's there. I think putting the the

00:55:45   the toggle in there I understand why they're doing it politically but I think

00:55:49   that I would I would leave it safe and sound but you know I you know it's the

00:55:55   beauty of having a new phone every year. I'm not gonna be caught by that. I am

00:55:58   very curious if my wife's two-year-old iPhone SE is going to be affected. I've

00:56:03   not run Geekpinch on it because I don't want to know because if once I know then

00:56:07   I have to go put a battery in it and then I got to deal with the Apple store

00:56:10   so I'm just letting her float along for now. Sorry Mary. What else have we got? So

00:56:19   health records. What is this health records thing? This is an initiative by

00:56:25   Apple with select medical institutions so far in the United States that

00:56:30   basically if your hospital or clinic they integrate with Apple so

00:56:38   this is something that needs to be done at a technical and administrative level

00:56:42   between Apple and these institutions but if they support each other essentially

00:56:46   Apple can read data from these institutions and the institutions can

00:56:50   push data to the Apple service, you will be able to get your lab results, your allergies,

00:56:57   your upcoming procedures, this medical information synced in a unified interface in the Health

00:57:05   app, which is a new section called Health Records.

00:57:09   There's a few, Apple has a list of the institutions that will support this feature when iOS 11.3

00:57:15   launches.

00:57:16   I think it's a great idea, especially because having been in and out of hospitals for problems

00:57:24   in the past, I know that there's a lot, especially now I'm referring to Italy, but there's a

00:57:30   lot of fragmentation of getting paper records printed out and somebody gives you a CD, other

00:57:37   people give you a document, and then some people email you a PDF, other people print

00:57:43   out the PDF, but it's a really bad quality. So having this kind of unification would be

00:57:48   amazing, especially because it's got encryption and passcode access and all that.

00:57:52   I'm telling you, I'm telling you, I don't care what anyone says. When you go to those

00:57:56   hospitals they're still using the paper. Where you get it on your phone, which is great,

00:58:01   but I cannot imagine any medical institution not being horrifically behind the times, even

00:58:07   if they've adopted something cool and fancy. They're like, "Oh yes, yes, we're just bringing

00:58:12   up your records now!" And like you just sneak in a look at a piece of paper on the desk.

00:58:16   I honestly cannot see any hospital in Italy, not at least in the next 15 years adopting

00:58:25   this protocol. Unless Tim Cook becomes the president of Italy, and which given our current

00:58:31   situation would be ideal I guess, I do not see this coming to Italy anytime soon because

00:58:38   I do not have any faith in our infrastructure.

00:58:41   Obviously, in the US, at these institutions listed by Apple,

00:58:46   the situation appears to be better.

00:58:50   They are modern.

00:58:52   They support APIs and concepts like that.

00:58:56   So that's awesome.

00:58:58   There's a list in the Apple--

00:58:59   Apple has a dedicated press release about this feature.

00:59:02   And there will be more information on a web page

00:59:06   that Apple, I think it's apple.com/healthcare

00:59:09   or something like that.

00:59:10   So I think it's great.

00:59:12   I think it's very consumer friendly.

00:59:14   The interface looks really nice.

00:59:17   Lab results and stuff like that does not look nice usually.

00:59:21   So you get the integration with health

00:59:22   and you get the integration with health kit

00:59:24   and you got a nice polished design,

00:59:26   which is not something that we can usually say

00:59:28   for medical records.

00:59:31   So I'm happy to see this.

00:59:33   I know it's never gonna be available in Italy.

00:59:35   So it's also kind of weird to say, I wish I could use this,

00:59:40   because no, I do not wish I could use this.

00:59:42   But it looks nice.

00:59:44   I would like to see this open up at some point.

00:59:47   So right now, there's like a dozen or so hospitals

00:59:49   and clinics around the US that they're supporting.

00:59:51   I would like for it to be something

00:59:53   that other groups could opt into, or even give users

00:59:58   the tools to enter data, right?

01:00:02   So things like prescriptions or things like,

01:00:05   you know, what vaccinations do I have, that sort of thing.

01:00:09   Giving some framework within HealthKit

01:00:11   to keep up with that myself, right?

01:00:14   Because, you know, I'm not in one of those 12-15 hospitals.

01:00:17   I don't have anything seriously wrong.

01:00:19   But just for that everyday kind of stuff,

01:00:21   it would be nice if the Health app could be

01:00:25   a little more flexible as far as what it holds.

01:00:27   And so I hope this is the beginning of a larger push

01:00:30   make digital health records more accessible to everybody, not just those who happen to

01:00:35   be at these partner hospitals.

01:00:37   And not mentioned by Apple in the public release, but in the developer beta notes and such,

01:00:46   iMessages or messages in iCloud is back.

01:00:49   Yeah, it is.

01:00:50   Back from the dead.

01:00:52   I am telling you, Myke, I'm looking at it right now because my small iPad Pro just updated

01:00:58   to 11.3.

01:00:59   This is not my main one. This is the secondary one.

01:01:01   I still feel though that like messages in iCloud feels like just a not good thing to

01:01:07   enable on your main iCloud account. Like I would be really concerned about that one.

01:01:12   I had, I personally had a great experience when it was in beta.

01:01:17   Oh, of course. Cause you've already done it. I mean, you had just do it again. Why not?

01:01:20   I've already done it. Personally, I know that a lot of people have problems. It was really

01:01:25   great for me. I love the feature because I didn't have to delete, you know, messages

01:01:29   to, you know, the same set of threads and conversations was in sync with the devices.

01:01:33   It was great. But now I'm looking at it. There's two things that jump out at me. When you launch

01:01:40   it, there's a splash screen. And for some reason in the first beta of 11.3, you cannot

01:01:46   take screenshots of set up pages anymore. You know, when you got the onboarding splash

01:01:51   screen? You cannot take a screenshot of that. They're preventing against you. Well, I'll

01:01:58   take a photo, whatever. That's what you don't know, though. They're using Core ML to black

01:02:04   out the photo. It's very impressive stuff. Also, this is probably a minor detail, but

01:02:13   there's the logo, right? It's the messages icon, but it's in a different shape than the

01:02:19   the normal app icon on the home screen.

01:02:22   It kind of looks like the shape from iOS 6 before iOS 7.

01:02:27   So I don't know.

01:02:28   It's been in development for a long time.

01:02:30   Either this is a mistake or somebody has a sense of--

01:02:35   it's a throwback to the days of iOS 6,

01:02:38   or Apple is experimenting with the new design language, which

01:02:41   is, of course, the conspiracy theory that I like to go with.

01:02:47   This is the new shape of icons.

01:02:48   I don't think so, but it's funny to mention.

01:02:51   So I just turned it on and it's doing nothing.

01:02:56   Not very funny.

01:02:58   - I've had a weird bug recently on my 12.9 inch iPad

01:03:03   where messages just go out of order, like just on their own.

01:03:06   - Oh yeah.

01:03:07   - Like they're just, like I'm sending a message to somebody

01:03:10   and I send it, then they reply,

01:03:12   but their reply is before the message that I sent.

01:03:15   And it's the only way to fix it, it's rebooting.

01:03:18   The update yesterday addressed that.

01:03:20   Oh really?

01:03:21   I believe.

01:03:22   Excellent.

01:03:23   I think it was in the notes.

01:03:24   Because I ran the update but I haven't experienced that problem today.

01:03:26   I guess that's why.

01:03:27   But okay that's good to know that that's been fixed.

01:03:30   That's been very frustrating recently.

01:03:33   It's uploading stuff to iCloud it seems.

01:03:38   I enabled the toggle in the iCloud settings and I assume it's doing something.

01:03:45   I don't see a progress bar.

01:03:47   Anyway, it's back, it's here, and from the wording of the release notes, the way that

01:03:52   Apple phrased it, it seems like they are evaluating the feature in the current beta of 11.3.

01:03:58   To see if the work they've done has fixed whatever problems they were having, I guess.

01:04:04   Is there anything that we want to see in this release that either we probably are not going

01:04:11   to get, we think we're not going to get, or we might get?

01:04:13   Right, like, do you know what I mean?

01:04:14   Like what is the type of stuff that we're hoping is actually in the shipping 11.3 that

01:04:19   maybe hasn't been spoken about today?

01:04:21   I would love to get your, the idea for keyboard shortcuts that you brought up on Cortex last

01:04:29   year with CGP Grey about being able to send results from Spotlight to Split View or Slide

01:04:38   Over.

01:04:39   I would love to get those keyboard shortcuts, but I'm checking now there's no...

01:04:41   Shortcuts for opening apps in split view. Yeah, that would be nice there. There is no keyboard shortcut

01:04:47   So you could be could put that in the in a full release and I'd be happy I want to see

01:04:52   Apple pay cash come outside. Yes. Yes

01:04:56   Yeah, that's not something that they need to beta test right like that could still conceivably be in 11.3

01:05:02   So I that's what I hope to see Steven. Is there anything that you want dark mode?

01:05:09   gonna be one of those people. Is there dark mode in this beta?

01:05:13   I feel like I tried to be constrained. Did they change the whole UI in a 0.3 beta? Did

01:05:19   they do that? Does it have dark mode?

01:05:25   If they don't, just keep it. I don't want it.

01:05:28   All right, I think it's time that we evaluate iOS 11 and High Sierra. It's been about six

01:05:35   months why don't we do that but before that let me take a moment to thank our final sponsor for

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01:07:53   So we're doing a review.

01:07:56   Let's look at what do you want to start with?

01:07:58   Should we start with iOS or do you want to start with High Sierra?

01:08:00   Let's start with the Mac.

01:08:01   I think I want to hear from Steven about High Sierra.

01:08:06   So how's High Sierra going for you, Steven?

01:08:08   So this came to mind for me when I got an email from somebody a couple of weeks ago

01:08:12   complaining about the headline I used for a High Sierra story.

01:08:17   It may have even been my review saying that High Sierra is sort of this generation's snow

01:08:23   Leopard moment. And I think that's what that's how I felt when I reviewed High

01:08:27   Sierra. The beta process was very smooth for me across multiple Macs, clean

01:08:33   installs, installs over old versions of Mac OS. I do my homework, which is why I

01:08:38   told this person. It's like it was fine. It is been the last couple of months

01:08:44   since it's been out where I think High Sierra has fallen from that high praise.

01:08:51   we've had lots of security issues. We all remember the root login deal.

01:08:57   There was a problem just, there was just fixed this week where anyone could

01:09:02   unlock the App Store system preference which is not a huge deal but that should

01:09:07   not be possible. It's an embarrassing bug. It is and there's still UI server

01:09:14   problems for users with certain graphics cards especially in older iMacs. It's

01:09:19   been buggy and it's been an OS that I think has not lived up to what I hoped

01:09:26   it would have been and I think honestly how Apple pitched it I think Apple

01:09:29   didn't say it's the new snow leopard but the language they used was meant for Mac

01:09:35   fans to feel that way and I don't think it's lived up to that. Just today as

01:09:41   we're recording there's news that Mac OS server is being depreciated in the

01:09:46   spring there's only going to be four services out of the 20 that remain.

01:09:51   What does that mean?

01:09:52   Which is worrisome if you use Mac OS server.

01:09:56   What do people use Mac OS server for?

01:09:58   I'm sorry, I'm really sorry, I don't know.

01:10:00   So for instance, if you have it in your office and you have your company's contacts and calendars

01:10:05   shared on a Mac OS server, that's going away.

01:10:07   If you use it for mail server, if you use it for caching stuff, that's all going away.

01:10:13   When was Mac OS server last significantly updated?

01:10:17   With Sierra.

01:10:18   They didn't even rev it this year with High Sierra.

01:10:20   That's not a long time then to start deprecating things.

01:10:23   I thought you were going to say like 10.9 or something.

01:10:26   No.

01:10:27   They're saying in spring of 2018, now this news is breaking as we've been recording so

01:10:32   I've just glanced at it, but in spring of 2018 Mac OS server, most of it will be depreciated

01:10:37   so no calendar contacts, network stuff, mail, net install, a bunch of other stuff is going

01:10:43   away. So I think that Mac users are frustrated by High Sierra if they, you

01:10:49   know, if you're kind of a pro user. There's a lot of stuff that's still broken

01:10:53   under the hood in places and I think it's just a little disappointing that a

01:10:58   release that was promised to be really focused on polish and fixing little bugs

01:11:07   has introduced lots of little bugs and some not so little bugs like whatever

01:11:13   the hell broke with root login like something is clearly very broken with

01:11:16   authentication in this OS and I don't think Apple's fixed it all the way yet at

01:11:20   least as of last week when yet another system preference login issue was

01:11:26   discovered so APFS hasn't shipped for fusion drive owners like there's just a

01:11:32   There's a lot of stuff that hasn't landed with 10.13 that I think is frustrating.

01:11:38   So all in all, I'm running High Sierra on my iMac Pro.

01:11:40   Obviously I have to.

01:11:42   I'm running it on my 2015 MacBook Pro.

01:11:44   My wife's running it on her 2015 MacBook.

01:11:47   It's fine, but it doesn't live up to what Apple had promised.

01:11:54   I'm not one to blow the Mac is doomed horn as loudly as others, but it is a little concerning

01:12:01   that their desktop OS seems to be languishing a little bit.

01:12:05   And so I hope that moving forward from High Sierra,

01:12:08   if we're gonna stay on the stupid annual release cycle,

01:12:11   that they really have a release out

01:12:14   that really does live up to what they say it will do.

01:12:18   And so yeah, so kind of, it's not thumbs down,

01:12:21   like you should run it, you know, if you can,

01:12:24   but it's not, it hasn't been, I think,

01:12:26   what a lot of us kind of felt we were promised it would be.

01:12:30   Do you think that maybe they just didn't have a lot to put in High Sierra, so they were

01:12:36   just like, "Oh, bugs, fixes."

01:12:39   Oh yeah, I don't know what you put in macOS at this point, because the thing is so mature.

01:12:50   And really, if you look over the last...

01:12:52   So I've been reviewing macOS releases since Mountain Lion.

01:12:55   If you look at the ones I've reviewed, most of the features, the bulk of the features

01:12:59   added in that time period of the last five or six years have been iOS features that Apple

01:13:06   has glued onto the Mac to make things work better together except for linen. That was

01:13:10   a terrible decision. But except for linen, you know, a lot of the stuff handoff and the

01:13:16   iCloud stuff, all that is to make the Mac play better with its iOS cousins. And so that's

01:13:21   really where the innovation has been on the Mac for a long time. And that's fine. They

01:13:25   should continue to do that because like I want it to be more seamless to move from my

01:13:28   iPad to my Mac to my phone and back again. I want that to be as seamless as

01:13:32   possible. I really do. But past that I just don't know what there is to add

01:13:39   to it. That's why I'm not in charge of Mac OS software. Your driving

01:13:42   instructor is. But um, so I don't know. Like I just sit here thinking about this

01:13:46   feeling sort of just not forgotten about, not even angry about it, but

01:13:51   just sort of vaguely disappointed. Let me try and lighten the mood a little bit.

01:13:56   some iOS 11 stuff. I want to talk about multitasking on the iPad.

01:14:02   Yeah, okay.

01:14:03   I have 100% internalized the new multitasking system.

01:14:07   Yes.

01:14:08   It is not a difficult thing for me. I don't struggle with it.

01:14:13   Frankly, I consider the multitasking system on iOS 11 to be a vast overall improvement.

01:14:21   There are places where I think that Apple can and will adapt to the system.

01:14:27   Like it would be really great to have multiple pairs of apps.

01:14:30   So you know you can have Safari and Notes together,

01:14:34   but then you can also have Safari and Chrome together

01:14:37   and they don't get all upset and confused.

01:14:39   There will be a way in multitasking for you to pick between them.

01:14:42   I think that would be an interesting way to do that.

01:14:44   I think that's a possibility.

01:14:46   But having the base ability to be able to work with two apps plus SlideOver

01:14:51   has made significant changes to my workflows on iOS.

01:14:55   I don't switch between apps as much as I used to

01:14:58   because in most instances,

01:15:00   I never need more than three applications

01:15:02   to do a specific task.

01:15:05   I really like it.

01:15:06   I've gotten very used to it.

01:15:07   I know how it works.

01:15:09   And I feel like an orchestra conductor sometimes

01:15:12   when I'm opening apps and moving them around the screen.

01:15:15   And, like, I have my own little --

01:15:18   You know, you kind of -- If you use something for a while,

01:15:20   while you end up like, you find your own little funny rubber chicken moment. Like, I'm trying

01:15:27   to think of an example before I give my actual example. Where like,

01:15:31   >> Steve Winick A pre-example.

01:15:34   >> Chris

01:15:47   have to hold it for a moment over an app for it to make its gesture to show you that it's going to

01:15:52   land on the right hand side, right? So it kind of expands the box so you know it's going to go in

01:15:56   the right place. When I'm doing that, I kind of wiggle it over the application because in my mind

01:16:01   it's like, "Ah, this will speed it up." And I can think of another one now. This is like how

01:16:07   when you're trying to airdrop something to someone, you tap on the airdrop icon,

01:16:11   but it doesn't actually do anything. You're just tapping on it and waiting for the person to come

01:16:15   up and then you hit them. So it's just like a thing in your mind where you're like, "I'm

01:16:20   making this go quicker by doing this," but you're not actually doing that. But that's

01:16:24   just a funny little thing that I like because I really like the system. I think it's awesome.

01:16:27   I like being able to move apps around from the left pane to the right pane. Overall,

01:16:34   the dock is incredible. The dock was such a fantastic addition to iOS. It really is

01:16:40   awesome, dragging things out of the spotlight. Multitasking for me personally has given me

01:16:47   basically everything that I wanted and a bunch of things that I never even imagined I would get

01:16:53   when compared to the iOS 9 and iOS 10 version of multitasking on iOS.

01:16:57   I have to agree with everything you say. I recently did my entire taxes for the past year

01:17:04   entirely on my iPad.

01:17:06   Sorry.

01:17:09   Unlike in previous years where I would have to

01:17:13   basically open my Mac out in frustration because it was basically impossible,

01:17:17   through a combination of Split View and

01:17:20   a workflow that I made for this and using iCab, which is a third-party

01:17:25   browser that allows you to download stuff unlike Safari,

01:17:29   But really thanks to slide over and split view and the doc and the new drag-and-drop stuff and files

01:17:35   I was able to do the entire thing, you know bookkeeping and collecting expenses and receipts and

01:17:41   Sending all the data to my accountant and you know, we have a Trello board now

01:17:45   So that was also awesome because I can automate that with workflow

01:17:48   It was it was great. Did you convince your accountant to sign up for Trello? That's incredible

01:17:57   That was that was one of my most important and impressive accomplishments of 2017 getting

01:18:07   my accountant on Trello and convincing them that my way of organizing receipts was the

01:18:14   way to go. And yeah, I'm really happy about that. Also, I made a workflow that I that

01:18:21   I shared with Myke and Steven and John for converting currencies, it was a whole setup.

01:18:27   But really, the gist of this is, thanks to iOS 11 and all the multitasking features,

01:18:34   I now can do entirely on my iPad Pro what before used to take me several hours on a

01:18:42   MacBook. Now, I'm sure that people who use a Mac can do this stuff faster, and all that,

01:18:49   been here before but I would say iOS 11 on the iPad is the best iPad experience

01:18:57   I've ever had. There are still things I would like to see and it's

01:19:05   not perfect whatever perfection is but practically speaking there's a

01:19:11   few bugs that I want to point out. More than ever in iOS 11 I seem to be getting

01:19:17   iTunes Store password prompts almost on a daily basis. My theory is that this happens

01:19:26   for apps that deal with checking in-app purchase receipts over the API in a strange way. I

01:19:35   don't know how to define in a strange way, but I'm fairly certain that's the case. Some

01:19:42   apps that do some weird things with checking whether you previously bought an in-app purchase

01:19:46   or not.

01:19:48   Recip validation, I think that's the name.

01:19:51   Also it appears to be happening if you have a test flight beta that is asking you to unlock

01:20:00   the subscriptions or in-app purchases for free.

01:20:02   iTunes just goes crazy on iOS 11 for that.

01:20:06   The keyboard on iPad, sometimes this is something that I've noticed on iOS 11.2, sometimes when

01:20:13   I switch apps with the Command Tab Switcher and when I go back to the previous app, the

01:20:19   keyboard, whether it's a smart keyboard or a Bluetooth one, cannot type anymore, cannot

01:20:25   type letters anymore. It can just type punctuation. Now I'm not sure if this is just my iPad,

01:20:30   but basically I want to write a sentence and instead it's just a bunch of commas and periods,

01:20:35   which is inconvenient.

01:20:36   That's not good.

01:20:37   And it's also, it used to be better when I was using a smart keyboard because all I needed

01:20:42   to do was just to lift my iPad, break the connection, and then place the iPad down again.

01:20:47   With the Bluetooth bridge keyboard, I need to press and hold, turn off Bluetooth on the

01:20:52   keyboard and turn it on again.

01:20:55   The smart connector...

01:20:56   Yeah, that seems...

01:20:57   Yeah, the keyboard stuff seems buggy.

01:20:58   Yes.

01:20:59   I've run into that a bunch.

01:21:00   And the best part of the...

01:21:02   Because I use the smart keyboard cover deal.

01:21:04   And the best part is, it's really hard to do that quietly because the magnets yank the

01:21:09   the keyboard against the spine of the iPad. Like I've woken my spouse up trying to do

01:21:14   that. It's like what is that noise? Like my my OS doesn't work I'm really sorry. So sorry.

01:21:21   And I also I want to mention the smart connector as I said it's real buggy. I don't know what

01:21:28   is going on but it seems to be software. I think Steve Throuton Smith of course did some

01:21:32   digging a few days ago a few weeks ago actually on Twitter. And a lot of my friends I should

01:21:39   mention this because otherwise my friends are going to be upset if I do not bring up,

01:21:43   as they say, the problems with the iPhone on my Apple radio show, this is what they

01:21:47   call it. There are... It's like you're the only one that can fix this stuff, right? You

01:21:53   have to bring the opinions to the masses. I'll tell you what, a few weeks ago a friend

01:21:58   of mine, he texted me on WhatsApp and he's like "Tiki, I have an idea for iOS" and I'm

01:22:05   I'm like, what is that?

01:22:07   And it was something about being able to switch the icon

01:22:11   for the battery percentage on the iPhone X.

01:22:14   I was like, you know, this is actually a good idea.

01:22:17   Because a lot of people miss the fact that at a glance,

01:22:20   you cannot see the battery percentage.

01:22:22   So my friend had this idea for setting,

01:22:24   and he was like, you should tell this to Apple.

01:22:26   I was like, you know, it doesn't work this way.

01:22:29   I can talk about it.

01:22:30   I can maybe mention this in a story.

01:22:33   But if they add, because it was under the impression

01:22:35   that if I bring this up and I say, my friend,

01:22:38   Tim, I don't know, what's a common name?

01:22:43   Tim Hackett, and let's say it's my friend, Tim Hackett,

01:22:46   he thought he was gonna have credit

01:22:49   in the iOS release notes for a feature.

01:22:51   - No, maybe awesome. - This is not how it works.

01:22:55   Anyway, my friends think that iOS 11 is really buggy

01:23:01   for downloading photos from iCalc Photo Library,

01:23:05   because whether it's a photo or a video,

01:23:08   it tends to be slower or just give you

01:23:11   the exclamation point error more often than before on iOS 10.

01:23:16   - I noticed that, I had that problem.

01:23:19   - See, see, okay.

01:23:20   - Which is why I switched to downloading my entire library.

01:23:25   I have a big phone, but it was really annoying.

01:23:28   - Oh, so it's real, okay, so it's a real thing.

01:23:29   this and I was getting really concerned that my photos were lost because I had

01:23:36   optimized storage on and but I would go to a photo from like three weeks ago and

01:23:42   it would have the exclamation mark on it and it was like what on earth is going

01:23:46   on so I looked at how many like I have like 80 gigs of photos or whatever in my

01:23:50   iCloud photo library so I was like screw it I'm downloading them all. Yeah that's

01:23:54   what I'm doing now I guess I didn't notice because I have 256

01:23:59   gigs iPhone 10 yeah it just felt like a wasted space like for me to use it right

01:24:05   I was like oh well I have a photo library like it's all there but then you

01:24:09   have a hundred gigs free on your phone yeah but it's like you know whatever

01:24:12   like it's just I don't need to my thinking was like I don't need to have

01:24:15   all my fun my photos on my device because I can just download the mad hoc

01:24:19   but it wasn't working very well on iOS 11 so I did it and Adina does it too so

01:24:25   So she has a big phone now, so she downloads all of her photos as well.

01:24:29   Yeah, so it seems like something weird is happening.

01:24:32   I think you also want to mention something that you do not like, Myke.

01:24:36   I know that it's an exception from your era of positivity, which lasts until June, but

01:24:42   we can talk about that.

01:24:43   I'll say, like, you know, I have still general positivity, but of course there are things

01:24:47   that I don't like.

01:24:48   Yes.

01:24:49   You know, like the HomePod, I don't like the HomePod, and I think the Files app can be

01:24:52   a hot mess, even though I love it.

01:24:55   I have a real love hate relationship with Files because Files makes my work so much

01:25:00   easier until it doesn't.

01:25:03   And this is something that I'm struggling with a lot, right?

01:25:07   This application is amazing.

01:25:09   What it can do when it wants to work.

01:25:11   There are two things that Files does that make me want to just pick up my iPad and just

01:25:15   chuck it straight out of the window.

01:25:18   It forgets my favorites.

01:25:20   I don't know why.

01:25:21   just sometimes they pop back in again like halfway through my like i'm scrolling through this long

01:25:25   list in dropbox and then my favorites appear again my favorite file of like folders that i want to

01:25:30   access but the worst one is when it straight up refuses to download files so i'm trying to access

01:25:37   a file that is like 1.5 meg and the spinner just starts spinning and it won't work and nothing will

01:25:45   download until i reboot my ipad like i don't know what's happening i don't know whose fault this is

01:25:50   Like, I don't know if it's Dropbox's fault, I don't know if it's Apple's fault, but I'm

01:25:55   going to lay the blame on Apple because I can go to the Dropbox app and download them

01:26:00   immediately.

01:26:01   So if it's something about the implementation from Dropbox's side, then Apple needs to make

01:26:04   it easier for Dropbox, in my opinion.

01:26:07   Like I don't care what it is you have to do, make it work for them.

01:26:11   Because I feel like recently I have been using the Dropbox app more and more.

01:26:16   And then the problem is, right, I want to attach something to an email.

01:26:25   A file in Dropbox I want to attach to an email.

01:26:28   So I open up the file picker and then it starts spinning and I can't do anything with it.

01:26:33   So I close it.

01:26:35   Then I go to Dropbox and realize, oh well this isn't the route because I can't take

01:26:40   this file from Dropbox anymore because I can't access a Dropbox file picker because I have

01:26:45   the files app. So I have to go to Dropbox, save the file to iCloud drive, then go back

01:26:54   to my email app and attach it from iCloud drive because there's no way for me to get

01:26:59   to Dropbox unless it's through the files app. So if the files app is refusing to download

01:27:03   the file, I have to move the file to iCloud drive. It's like, what? Ah, so frustrating.

01:27:12   But when files work, it is like a completely new world on iOS where I am able to get so

01:27:19   much more done, so much more efficiently.

01:27:22   Like I'm dragging stuff all over the place, I'm like moving things from location to location.

01:27:28   I have like iCloud drivers, like this little scratch area, but then when I want to save

01:27:31   a file, I just drag it into Dropbox.

01:27:33   Like it's awesome.

01:27:34   It's like agnostic to the services that I use.

01:27:37   They all mix in together and it works brilliantly.

01:27:40   And that's why it's annoying when it breaks, because when it works, it's all I wanted.

01:27:45   But when it breaks, it's like, all you're doing is showing me how bad it used to be.

01:27:51   And it's even worse than that, because I can't get to the Dropbox file picker.

01:27:56   So yeah, that's my biggest frustration of iOS 11 is the Files app.

01:28:03   And that's something, I mean, this is a bigger topic than just today, but say that the Files

01:28:08   app like structurally is okay but it's got bugs you shouldn't have to wait a

01:28:13   year for them to fix that but you're going to because that's how they work I

01:28:17   don't know maybe maybe it's better in 11.3 it genuinely might be like I don't

01:28:22   know it may be it may be but it feels like those big those big issues just get

01:28:27   kicked down the road sometimes it does for the iPad anyway yeah yeah with the

01:28:32   iPad and so that that can be that could be frustrating my experience with the

01:28:36   files app is very similar to yours. I was so excited. I was like I can because so

01:28:41   much of my work is file based and I was excited to be able to bring some of that

01:28:46   onto my iPad and it's been so frustrating because everything I use is

01:28:49   in Dropbox that I've I've just kind of given up on it and I that the Dropbox

01:28:53   app is on my dock and the files app isn't because the Dropbox app works and

01:28:57   that means I got to jump through some extra hoops but I refuse to give up

01:29:00   because the files app is so good when it works so like I won't allow myself to

01:29:05   give up on it because it's so much better than having the Dropbox app when

01:29:10   it works and it does work most of the time but the problem is that when it

01:29:16   doesn't work it breaks so badly that you don't forget it.

01:29:23   One other thing and this isn't really this isn't something that I feel as a

01:29:27   complaint but it's just something that I've noticed and I'm sure we all have

01:29:32   now that we're not just six months into iOS 11 but we are like three months four

01:29:38   months into the iPhone 10 I think the iPhone 10 is really showing that iOS

01:29:44   needs to be rethought in a bunch of places and and I guess the assumption

01:29:48   always would be and that this will come in iOS 12 and I expect Apple to show

01:29:54   this in iOS 12 that like I think control center and the multitasking gestures

01:29:58   they could be better. I feel like they've done what they can considering how iOS 11

01:30:04   was and I think they could make some changes there and I believe they will. Overall placement

01:30:10   of key app elements. I think Apple needs to show some new stuff on that and lead the way

01:30:17   with some new paradigms and some new ideas for how navigation and stuff should work on

01:30:22   iPhones. Now that they're going to be taller and bigger, especially if we do get an iPhone

01:30:27   10+, which will basically be the biggest screen any human has ever touched, is my assumption.

01:30:34   And the use of color and darkness.

01:30:36   I think that Apple should be showing what the OLED screen can do.

01:30:40   I think they have far too much white in their applications and that is the exact opposite

01:30:44   of what you should be doing on an OLED screen.

01:30:47   So these are things that I didn't expect and I don't expect to be in iOS 11, but these

01:30:52   are things that I expect to be addressed in iOS 12.

01:30:55   But when we're kind of looking at how iOS 11 is running, this has been some glaring

01:31:01   things for me, is just like that the iPhone 10 feels, I don't know, feels like the last

01:31:07   iPhone that will use iOS in the way that it looks like right now, I guess.

01:31:11   That's kind of how I feel on that one.

01:31:13   Yeah, I totally agree.

01:31:15   Is there anything else on your mind for iOS 11, Federico?

01:31:17   I mean, I mentioned the multitasking and the Files app, I agree with you.

01:31:22   Really at this point I just want to see how the multitasking vision grows.

01:31:28   I'm happy so far.

01:31:29   I'm really happy with iOS 11 so far.

01:31:33   I'm starting to feel some of that confusion that you mentioned in the differences between

01:31:39   using iOS 11 on the phone versus on the iPad.

01:31:42   I'm starting to feel that in daily usage.

01:31:47   So some consistency, but also not just making things more consistent, but still keeping

01:31:52   the iPad on a growth path going forward to bringing new enhancements, bringing new features

01:31:59   and really make the iPad more friendly when used with the keyboard and maybe add new gestures.

01:32:06   I just want to see more options for Pro users because it's right there in the name, it's

01:32:12   an iPad Pro.

01:32:13   I would love to see more pro interactions with the software.

01:32:19   I'm quite happy so far, which is strange because usually at this point I have a whole long

01:32:24   list of wishes and ideas and problems, not this time, which tells me that I'm happier

01:32:30   than usual with iOS.

01:32:33   This is the best, this is probably the best iPad iOS release ever.

01:32:39   Oh yeah.

01:32:40   - Yeah.

01:32:41   - I think there are people that will disagree with it.

01:32:44   I disagree with those people, right?

01:32:45   Like I think that this is the best that it's ever been.

01:32:49   And I understand like if big sweeping changes

01:32:53   turn you off the system, I get that, right?

01:32:55   And that is totally valid,

01:32:58   but there will always be big changes.

01:33:00   One day there'll probably be some kind of change

01:33:02   that will make me feel uncomfortable about something.

01:33:05   But I think with working on iOS

01:33:08   better than it's ever been. And yeah, that's my opinion on that.

01:33:14   And I think what's exciting about it is it doesn't feel like a dead end. Like iOS 9,

01:33:21   that app, the multitasking stuff, the app switcher, that all felt sort of like this

01:33:27   is what it is, but it was hard to imagine where it could go from there.

01:33:31   Yeah, well I think that when iOS 10 rolled around, then it felt like the dead end. Right?

01:33:35   iOS 9 was like "Oh, new world, imagine!" and then iOS 10 came around, nothing changed,

01:33:41   and then it was like "Well, this is how it is forever.

01:33:44   What changes can they make?"

01:33:45   But even if 12 doesn't bring a lot of changes, it feels like the Files app could become a

01:33:49   lot more.

01:33:51   This multitasking paradigm could become a lot more.

01:33:53   It feels like they're in a much better place to move forward from than they've ever been.

01:34:00   And so I'm excited about now, and I agree with you, but I'm also excited about what

01:34:03   it could become because it feels so solid now.

01:34:06   - Mm-hmm, it does, I agree.

01:34:08   - So I think that's it.

01:34:09   I gotta close the show now.

01:34:10   - Yep.

01:34:11   - That's a lot of work.

01:34:12   So let's see what we have to do.

01:34:14   If you wanna find show notes this week,

01:34:17   relay.fm/connected/177, you can get in touch with us there.

01:34:22   There's an email link.

01:34:24   That just comes to me, so be nice.

01:34:27   Send me a picture of something nice,

01:34:31   and I'll email you back.

01:34:33   This is already something new in the in the hack era. I never spoke about the email. Yeah, I do have other shows

01:34:38   I get a lot of show email. It's fun

01:34:39   It's way better than Twitter because Twitter just goes by and it's gone forever

01:34:42   But if you want to find us on Twitter, you can do that

01:34:45   Federico is there as Vitici V I T I CCI Myke is there as I Myke I M Y

01:34:52   K II they can find me there as is mh. Thanks to our sponsors this week Squarespace pingdom and timing and

01:35:00   Until next week, say goodbye.

01:35:02   Adios!

01:35:04   Oh no!

01:35:06   Everything is wrong!

01:35:08   I guess that's how it works now.