Connected

00:00:00 ◼   ► [Music]

00:00:05 ◼   ► From Relay FM, this is Connected.

00:00:07 ◼   ► Episode 173, today's show is brought to you by Balance, TextExpander, and Encapsula.

00:00:13 ◼   ► My name is Myke Hurley, and I am joined by Federico Vittucci.

00:00:16 ◼   ► Ciao Federico.

00:00:17 ◼   ► Ciao Myke, how are you?

00:00:19 ◼   ► I'm very well, Mr. Steven Hackett, how are you?

00:00:22 ◼   ► I'm good.

00:00:23 ◼   ► Glad to be here with you boys.

00:00:24 ◼   ► This is our last show of the year, last show of the year!

00:00:28 ◼   ► I know.

00:00:29 ◼   ► Look at that.

00:00:30 ◼   ► Man.

00:00:31 ◼   ► What are we going to do now?

00:00:32 ◼   ► We're going to hug?

00:00:33 ◼   ► Oh, yeah.

00:00:34 ◼   ► We're going to hug.

00:00:36 ◼   ► I have to tell you, I have to give you the bad news that...

00:00:39 ◼   ► There's bad news already?

00:00:42 ◼   ► Upgrade's going to catch up to the numbers.

00:00:45 ◼   ► Oh no.

00:00:46 ◼   ► Because we're taking a week off.

00:00:47 ◼   ► We take a week off, upgrade never sleeps.

00:00:49 ◼   ► The upgrade machine never sleeps.

00:00:50 ◼   ► Why don't you take the week off with upgrade?

00:00:52 ◼   ► It's not fair.

00:00:53 ◼   ► No, because...

00:00:54 ◼   ► Jason is older, he should be taking the week off.

00:00:56 ◼   ► This is not fair!

00:00:59 ◼   ► Well, he... Jason works 24/7 so I gotta show up.

00:01:05 ◼   ► Oh man.

00:01:06 ◼   ► Go check it out, the next episode of Upgrade, the holiday special, it's gonna be real good.

00:01:09 ◼   ► This is not fair, I'm really annoyed by this number change, Myke.

00:01:14 ◼   ► It's been one of the things that's been keeping me happy on Relay, is that plus one.

00:01:19 ◼   ► Well I guess we could just do a bonus episode at some point, that would be a way around

00:01:23 ◼   ► it.

00:01:24 ◼   ► seconds show just because so we can have another bigger number. So yeah, basically some point

00:01:29 ◼   ► in 2018 we just have to put two episodes out in one week and we'll get the number back.

00:01:33 ◼   ► Okay, cool. There we go. Sounds good. Plan is made. Terrible news, Myke, for the last

00:01:39 ◼   ► show of the year. Terrible news. Starting on a real downer today. Just ruining my holidays

00:01:44 ◼   ► already. Okay. Well, because the rest of 2017 was such a delight. Right? And on top of that,

00:01:51 ◼   ► - Ah, okay, well.

00:01:53 ◼   ► - Okay, we're gonna start by talking about Secure Boot,

00:01:58 ◼   ► everyone's favorite topic, the iMac Pro,

00:02:00 ◼   ► comes with this super weird T2 chip,

00:02:04 ◼   ► which is like the next generation of what we see

00:02:06 ◼   ► in the MacBook Pro with Touch Bar.

00:02:09 ◼   ► And it seems like the T1 was sort of based loosely

00:02:13 ◼   ► on like the, what's the system chip in the Apple Watch,

00:02:16 ◼   ► the S series, S1, S2?

00:02:18 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:02:19 ◼   ► We talk about Apple's chip naming, guys.

00:02:22 ◼   ► Too many letters.

00:02:22 ◼   ► - Well, that's why they start giving them

00:02:25 ◼   ► those fun names, right?

00:02:26 ◼   ► Like Bionic and stuff like that.

00:02:28 ◼   ► - Why does the watch chip start with S,

00:02:30 ◼   ► but the AirPod chip starts with a W,

00:02:33 ◼   ► but the iPad chip starts with A?

00:02:34 ◼   ► What are you doing?

00:02:35 ◼   ► - Because if you put it all together, it says WAST.

00:02:38 ◼   ► So you know that the next one needs to be an E,

00:02:41 ◼   ► so it's WAST.

00:02:42 ◼   ► - Oh no, oh no.

00:02:44 ◼   ► - Wow.

00:02:45 ◼   ► - And then we all look at what we've done with our lives.

00:02:47 ◼   ► - It's the WAST strategy.

00:02:49 ◼   ► That's what it's all about.

00:02:50 ◼   ► About Wasp.

00:02:51 ◼   ► I'm sure that's what they're doing.

00:02:53 ◼   ► Anyways, the T2 in the iMac Pro does a whole lot of stuff.

00:02:59 ◼   ► So it has the webcam protection, like the MacBook Pros

00:03:04 ◼   ► with Touch Bar do.

00:03:05 ◼   ► But it also-- this chip runs the disk encryption.

00:03:10 ◼   ► It's like the SSD controller.

00:03:12 ◼   ► There's a lot of stuff that used to be handled

00:03:14 ◼   ► by discrete little bits on the logic border now

00:03:16 ◼   ► are routed through this chip.

00:03:18 ◼   ► One thing that it does is what Apple is calling Secure Boot.

00:03:22 ◼   ► And in a nutshell what this does is it checks

00:03:25 ◼   ► the integrity of Mac OS, or as we will see,

00:03:29 ◼   ► Windows, if you're running Boot Camp,

00:03:31 ◼   ► and says, okay, this OS hasn't been fiddled with.

00:03:35 ◼   ► It checks out, it is what I trust it to be,

00:03:40 ◼   ► so you can boot.

00:03:42 ◼   ► And there are a couple different levels.

00:03:43 ◼   ► You can do full security, you can do medium security,

00:03:47 ◼   ► or you can do no security,

00:03:49 ◼   ► which is basically what we have now on every other Mac.

00:03:52 ◼   ► This is interesting for a couple of reasons,

00:03:55 ◼   ► and I'm wondering what you guys think about this.

00:03:59 ◼   ► I think this is probably the future of Mac hardware,

00:04:02 ◼   ► that we are going to see more stuff like this,

00:04:05 ◼   ► where it's still running on an Intel CPU,

00:04:07 ◼   ► but there's an ARM chip in there,

00:04:09 ◼   ► whether it's based on an A series or an S series

00:04:12 ◼   ► or whatever, Federico's upcoming E series of chips,

00:04:16 ◼   ► designed by Federico himself.

00:04:17 ◼   ► Is the E stand for espresso?

00:04:20 ◼   ► Oh my God, it does.

00:04:21 ◼   ► - No, the E stands for tiki.

00:04:23 ◼   ► - It's the famous E of tiki.

00:04:27 ◼   ► - Yup.

00:04:28 ◼   ► - Yeah, totally, totally makes sense.

00:04:30 ◼   ► - This is what he's well known for.

00:04:35 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:04:36 ◼   ► - You wanna know what we think about these?

00:04:38 ◼   ► You wanna know what we think about these?

00:04:39 ◼   ► - Yeah, I think we're gonna see more of this, right?

00:04:40 ◼   ► Of Apple doing custom stuff with custom silicon.

00:04:45 ◼   ► Yes, because I consider it, I think the further we go along this path, the less likely we are to see

00:04:52 ◼   ► Mac OS running on ARM. Personally, it's how I feel about this. I think that if Apple wants to

00:04:58 ◼   ► do something drastic like that, it's probably best to start over or start with an operating system

00:05:03 ◼   ► foundation, which is already running on ARM, iOS. But I just, I don't imagine them porting Mac OS

00:05:13 ◼   ► to ARM. I just don't see it. It just doesn't make sense to me. I think what makes more sense

00:05:16 ◼   ► is that they do something like this, where they are moving some functionality over to

00:05:25 ◼   ► different chipsets. Chipsets that they control, chipsets that they make,

00:05:32 ◼   ► and that they're able to make advancements to macOS in that direction. So they know how to make stuff

00:05:37 ◼   ► secure in a way and in their own way better than Intel would for them or

00:05:42 ◼   ► whatever the chip they're gonna be using so yeah they will just keep

00:05:47 ◼   ► shoving this stuff into their own chips and filling them up they're filling up

00:05:51 ◼   ► their machines with this stuff that's that's how I see it anyway yeah yeah I

00:05:55 ◼   ► think it makes sense especially because now I'm not an expert but I guess if

00:05:59 ◼   ► they if they were to move Mac OS to to ARM chips now that they are committed

00:06:06 ◼   ► again to the pro Mac computers. If they move just one of them, ideally they

00:06:12 ◼   ► should move them all and I'm not sure if they can make that kind of Mac Pro or I

00:06:18 ◼   ► should say iMac Pro because we don't know about the Mac Pro but the iMac Pro

00:06:21 ◼   ► performance can you get that on an ARM CPU or system on a chip right now?

00:06:27 ◼   ► Nope.

00:06:27 ◼   ► I guess not and maybe not for the foreseeable future so I guess it makes

00:06:32 ◼   ► more sense to make the powerful Mac that an Intel chip can can grant you right

00:06:38 ◼   ► now and delegate some tasks to the system that you control which is the you

00:06:44 ◼   ► know these proprietary chips and I guess we'll see more and more system features

00:06:48 ◼   ► eventually move to that so I'm not sure if it does power nap right now but

00:06:53 ◼   ► that's the kind of like energy saving or privacy features you know those kinds of

00:06:57 ◼   ► additions to the to the to the system you know the kind of stuff that Apple

00:07:02 ◼   ► likes to integrate the software and the hardware together, that's perfect for

00:07:06 ◼   ► that kind of chip. So yeah, I agree. I think we'll see more of this and we'll

00:07:11 ◼   ► see more system features be controlled by this system.

00:07:16 ◼   ► I think there's something to be said here too that Apple gives you the option.

00:07:21 ◼   ► So if you want the full security, you want full, you know, "Hey, only signed OSs

00:07:27 ◼   ► currently trusted about Apple can run,

00:07:30 ◼   ► then that's available if you want it.

00:07:35 ◼   ► And I don't know what the default is on these machines.

00:07:39 ◼   ► Like I didn't see, I haven't seen anybody say

00:07:43 ◼   ► what the default is.

00:07:44 ◼   ► My guess is that full security's the default.

00:07:46 ◼   ► But if you're in an environment where you need

00:07:47 ◼   ► to boot something that isn't trusted for whatever reason,

00:07:51 ◼   ► so maybe you need to boot into Linux or maybe,

00:07:56 ◼   ► And so several weeks ago, maybe like a month ago,

00:07:59 ◼   ► I think we talked about on the show,

00:08:00 ◼   ► but I know I wrote about it,

00:08:02 ◼   ► this like whisper that I keep hearing

00:08:04 ◼   ► that Apple is going to be more aggressive

00:08:06 ◼   ► with making sure people are running

00:08:08 ◼   ► the most up-to-date version of the OS on the Mac.

00:08:11 ◼   ► And it could be that, hey, if you want full security,

00:08:14 ◼   ► you have to be on the current version of the OS

00:08:17 ◼   ► within 60 days.

00:08:19 ◼   ► But say that you're someone like Myke,

00:08:21 ◼   ► who is still running Sierra

00:08:22 ◼   ► and probably will be for the foreseeable future.

00:08:24 ◼   ► Forever!

00:08:25 ◼   ► - Okay, then maybe you lose the ability

00:08:30 ◼   ► to run in full security mode and you go to medium.

00:08:33 ◼   ► That Sierra used to be trusted but it's not anymore

00:08:36 ◼   ► because we want you to be on the new one

00:08:37 ◼   ► so you have to go into recovery mode

00:08:38 ◼   ► and change this setting.

00:08:39 ◼   ► There's a lot of that fine detail that needs to be worked out

00:08:42 ◼   ► 'cause we just, no one has these machines yet.

00:08:44 ◼   ► They're not shipping for another week or so.

00:08:46 ◼   ► There's also the conversation to be had,

00:08:49 ◼   ► and we're not the people who have it,

00:08:50 ◼   ► but this conversation is out there of

00:08:53 ◼   ► is this security that actually matters?

00:08:56 ◼   ► Like, is the Mac actually vulnerable in any meaningful way

00:09:00 ◼   ► to the OS being tinkered with,

00:09:03 ◼   ► whether it be locally or remotely?

00:09:08 ◼   ► Like, how many Mac users are running an OS

00:09:12 ◼   ► that would fail this system check?

00:09:14 ◼   ► I don't know what the number is.

00:09:16 ◼   ► My guess is the number is small, if it exists at all.

00:09:19 ◼   ► And so, there's a competition to be had

00:09:20 ◼   ► Apple's adding complexity in a security system

00:09:23 ◼   ► that doesn't really address any real world needs.

00:09:26 ◼   ► And I don't know what the answer is to that.

00:09:27 ◼   ► I don't even know, honestly,

00:09:28 ◼   ► if that's a conversation worth having

00:09:29 ◼   ► because I think, personally, that any security,

00:09:32 ◼   ► as long as it doesn't get in the way of convenience

00:09:36 ◼   ► or things you need to do in your system,

00:09:38 ◼   ► that's a good thing.

00:09:39 ◼   ► And since you can turn this off, it doesn't get in the way.

00:09:41 ◼   ► Like, if you're in an enterprise environment

00:09:42 ◼   ► and you do something crazy, you just set this off,

00:09:44 ◼   ► you set this off to no security and you're fine.

00:09:49 ◼   ► So I do think, you know, all that said,

00:09:51 ◼   ► we're at the beginning of some sort of new era

00:09:53 ◼   ► of Mac hardware, where these ARM chips,

00:09:56 ◼   ► this custom silicon that Apple can do,

00:09:58 ◼   ► is doing things that Apple used to rely on Intel for,

00:10:02 ◼   ► or that they can do that's new, something like this.

00:10:05 ◼   ► And other manufacturers have like system integrity checks.

00:10:09 ◼   ► You can get that on some PC motherboards,

00:10:12 ◼   ► but this is Apple's take on it,

00:10:14 ◼   ► and I'm very curious to see where this goes in the future.

00:10:18 ◼   ► Will this roll out eventually to a 1099 or $1100 MacBook?

00:10:23 ◼   ► Yeah, I think it will.

00:10:24 ◼   ► It may take some time because these parts are expensive.

00:10:27 ◼   ► That's why we're seeing it on the iMac Pro first.

00:10:30 ◼   ► But I think several years into this,

00:10:32 ◼   ► every Mac's gonna have this sort of security built in.

00:10:35 ◼   ► Moving right on to Apple TV screensaver info.

00:10:39 ◼   ► So I had this suggestion last week

00:10:41 ◼   ► that the Apple TV beautiful aerial screensavers

00:10:44 ◼   ► that you could pull down on the Siri remote

00:10:46 ◼   ► or do something and the Apple TV could tell you

00:10:49 ◼   ► what you're looking at.

00:10:50 ◼   ► I have since floated this idea with basically everyone

00:10:53 ◼   ► I know with an Apple TV and everyone agrees with me,

00:10:56 ◼   ► so I feel like it's a pretty good idea.

00:10:58 ◼   ► So Apple, you should do it.

00:11:00 ◼   ► But Benjamin Mayo over on his blog,

00:11:03 ◼   ► this is a couple years old now,

00:11:06 ◼   ► so this isn't, I don't think this includes

00:11:08 ◼   ► all the current screensavers, I'm not sure.

00:11:10 ◼   ► - I think there are new ones, by the way.

00:11:12 ◼   ► Like, I was looking at my Apple TV yesterday

00:11:15 ◼   ► and I'm sure that there were a couple,

00:11:17 ◼   ► like especially one of Dubai that I've never seen before.

00:11:20 ◼   ► It was like, you know that very tall building,

00:11:21 ◼   ► what is it called?

00:11:23 ◼   ► - The Bershka Bajra Bajra Bajra.

00:11:25 ◼   ► - Is it,

00:11:26 ◼   ► Wiz Khalifa?

00:11:28 ◼   ► - Yes.

00:11:29 ◼   ► - No, Wiz Khalifa's a rapper.

00:11:30 ◼   ► - Wiz Khalifa's a rapper, mate.

00:11:31 ◼   ► - Incredible, what is it called?

00:11:33 ◼   ► Burj Khalifa?

00:11:34 ◼   ► Something like that?

00:11:36 ◼   ► - Something, something Khalifa.

00:11:36 ◼   ► - What is it called?

00:11:38 ◼   ► Burj Khalifa, there you go.

00:11:40 ◼   ► I knew as I said it, I was like,

00:11:42 ◼   ► I'm sure this is a person,

00:11:43 ◼   ► as it was coming out of my mouth,

00:11:45 ◼   ► but it's close enough.

00:11:46 ◼   ► The Burj Khalifa, I'm pretty sure it was that

00:11:49 ◼   ► and I'd never seen that in the Apple TV screensaver before.

00:11:52 ◼   ► - Is that the one where it's all sparkly at night?

00:11:54 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:11:55 ◼   ► - Yeah, that one's really cool.

00:11:56 ◼   ► - It looked new to me, I mean, I don't remember seeing it.

00:11:58 ◼   ► - So this website may be up to date,

00:12:00 ◼   ► I don't know if it is or not.

00:12:00 ◼   ► Anyways, what he has done, some subset

00:12:03 ◼   ► or all the screensavers are on here.

00:12:05 ◼   ► And you can click through this little menu

00:12:08 ◼   ► and it tells you where they are.

00:12:10 ◼   ► - Oh yeah, that one's already on here,

00:12:12 ◼   ► that one that I'm talking about.

00:12:13 ◼   ► So maybe isn't that new?

00:12:14 ◼   ► So anyways, this is cool.

00:12:18 ◼   ► Go check it out if you're curious about this,

00:12:20 ◼   ► but this should be in tvOS somewhere.

00:12:22 ◼   ► Like I think it would be nice for Apple

00:12:24 ◼   ► to expose this somewhere.

00:12:26 ◼   ► Because everyone, I've talked about this,

00:12:27 ◼   ► like I was at a Christmas party,

00:12:29 ◼   ► and like the house we were at had an Apple TV,

00:12:31 ◼   ► and actually had the screensaver going.

00:12:34 ◼   ► I was like, hey everybody, I'm a smart nerd,

00:12:37 ◼   ► wouldn't it be cool if it did this?

00:12:39 ◼   ► And like, yeah, it's a great idea.

00:12:40 ◼   ► - Do you think they may have just said that to shut you up?

00:12:43 ◼   ► - It's possible.

00:12:44 ◼   ► - Just like, oh, good, here he goes again.

00:12:46 ◼   ► Talking about his Apple TV screensavers.

00:12:49 ◼   ► This is so beautiful.

00:12:50 ◼   ► - Yeah, they're really nice.

00:12:52 ◼   ► There is, maybe we could dig it up,

00:12:54 ◼   ► there is a Mac screensaver someone put together

00:12:56 ◼   ► that you can play them on your Mac,

00:12:58 ◼   ► but as you might imagine, it involves a lot of data download

00:13:02 ◼   ► and it has to store that stuff on your drive somewhere.

00:13:04 ◼   ► So I don't run it, but I actually run the slideshow one

00:13:08 ◼   ► with all the relay member-only wallpapers

00:13:10 ◼   ► 'cause it's pretty, but you can do it on your Mac too

00:13:12 ◼   ► if you want.

00:13:13 ◼   ► - All right, woo.

00:13:16 ◼   ► Item number three, Amazon says Prime Video

00:13:21 ◼   ► has most first week downloads of any Apple TV app ever,

00:13:26 ◼   ► according to BestAppleTV.com.

00:13:28 ◼   ► I found it through MacRumors.

00:13:30 ◼   ► - How do they know this?

00:13:32 ◼   ► How do they know this?

00:13:33 ◼   ► - I find this incredibly interesting,

00:13:35 ◼   ► because Apple is probably not gonna tell Amazon,

00:13:37 ◼   ► hey, you got more downloads than anyone.

00:13:39 ◼   ► - Good job.

00:13:40 ◼   ► - Thanks, guys.

00:13:41 ◼   ► - They're just trying to make him happy, right?

00:13:43 ◼   ► It's like, oh, good job, kid, gold star.

00:13:46 ◼   ► Maybe that's what Tim Cook did to Jeff Bezos.

00:13:48 ◼   ► Gave him a gold star sticker.

00:13:49 ◼   ► So who knows if this is accurate or not.

00:13:54 ◼   ► I believe that this blog was told this.

00:13:57 ◼   ► I'm not doubting the blogger.

00:13:58 ◼   ► I'm doubting the fact that it's actually true.

00:14:00 ◼   ► - I don't buy it.

00:14:02 ◼   ► I don't buy it.

00:14:02 ◼   ► I think Netflix would be more.

00:14:04 ◼   ► - Right, it's gotta be.

00:14:06 ◼   ► - Right, I feel like Netflix would be more than this.

00:14:11 ◼   ► or maybe even something like HBO just for Game of Thrones.

00:14:14 ◼   ► I don't see why specifically Amazon Prime

00:14:18 ◼   ► would be the biggest.

00:14:19 ◼   ► The only reason I can think is if it's somehow

00:14:22 ◼   ► gotten confused because Apple automatically installed it

00:14:26 ◼   ► onto older Apple TVs.

00:14:27 ◼   ► I don't know if that might be a thing.

00:14:29 ◼   ► - And that boosted the number.

00:14:30 ◼   ► - Yeah, but it doesn't seem likely to me

00:14:33 ◼   ► that it would just specifically just say,

00:14:36 ◼   ► oh, yeah, this is the best now because it's Amazon.

00:14:40 ◼   ► I don't know, but that seems weird to me.

00:14:43 ◼   ► - I don't know, how would Amazon know

00:14:45 ◼   ► about other TV OS downloads unless Apple told them?

00:14:50 ◼   ► - Yeah, it would have to, the only way they can notice

00:14:52 ◼   ► is if Apple has told them,

00:14:54 ◼   ► but I can't imagine them doing that, and if they did,

00:14:57 ◼   ► they definitely shouldn't be telling that to other people.

00:15:00 ◼   ► Right, Link?

00:15:01 ◼   ► It's like, oh, thanks for the information.

00:15:02 ◼   ► Let's call bestappletv.com and tell them.

00:15:05 ◼   ► It's very strange.

00:15:08 ◼   ► It's a very strange story, very strange website to release this kind of statement to...

00:15:13 ◼   ► I don't know. I don't know how this happened. I'm skeptical though.

00:15:18 ◼   ► Something doesn't add up here.

00:15:20 ◼   ► Especially Amazon Prime Video, I mean like Netflix for example.

00:15:25 ◼   ► There's other stuff on tvOS that...

00:15:28 ◼   ► Anyway.

00:15:30 ◼   ► Good job Amazon I guess.

00:15:33 ◼   ► If true.

00:15:34 ◼   ► Huge if true.

00:15:35 ◼   ► You're just true. Twitteriffic has added a true black iOS theme.

00:15:39 ◼   ► Very nice, Tweetbot. What you doing? Come on.

00:15:42 ◼   ► Gimme, gimme, gimme. Twitteriffic is getting better and better all the time.

00:15:46 ◼   ► Yeah, it is. And as I always say, there's a feature that keeps me in Tweetbot,

00:15:52 ◼   ► which is the multi-column layout on the iPad.

00:15:56 ◼   ► And I really think that Twitteriffic should have that feature,

00:15:59 ◼   ► especially because on the Mac you can do multiple windows.

00:16:02 ◼   ► So they sort of have the same system in place on another platform.

00:16:08 ◼   ► And the iPad is just, you know, terrific on the iPad.

00:16:11 ◼   ► It's the kind of app that is like pre iOS 9 kind of application that it's like a giant iPhone layout basically.

00:16:19 ◼   ► I mean they have a sidebar but it's not enough.

00:16:21 ◼   ► Yeah I really would like to have more like drag and drop or multi column that kind of stuff.

00:16:28 ◼   ► All right, as Myke mentioned, this is our our last show for the year we were taking

00:16:34 ◼   ► next week, the week of Christmas, taking that off.

00:16:37 ◼   ► We'll be back on January 2, with our text Apple tech stories of the year episode kind

00:16:43 ◼   ► of year in review.

00:16:45 ◼   ► We're putting that document together now.

00:16:47 ◼   ► I say we it's mostly been Myke and Federico so far.

00:16:49 ◼   ► So thank you guys for that.

00:16:50 ◼   ► But you can tweet with the hashtag connected year, all one word.

00:16:55 ◼   ► And we will look through that and make sure that those stories that jump out are in there.

00:17:02 ◼   ► So we have a bunch of submissions already, so thank you.

00:17:06 ◼   ► And so yeah, so off next week.

00:17:09 ◼   ► upgrade catches up with us episode number wise, and then we're back on the second with

00:17:12 ◼   ► Connected Deer.

00:17:14 ◼   ► Spoiler, it's all about Planet of the Apps.

00:17:16 ◼   ► It's a two hour discussion about Planet of the Apps.

00:17:19 ◼   ► We finally watched it all.

00:17:21 ◼   ► And we're gonna give you a...

00:17:23 ◼   ► Do you know?

00:17:24 ◼   ► Actually, we're going to become one of those shows that does an entire episode talking

00:17:30 ◼   ► about one minute of a thing.

00:17:32 ◼   ► Have you seen this?

00:17:33 ◼   ► You get Star Wars minute and stuff like that.

00:17:35 ◼   ► We're going to become Planet of the Apps minute next year and we're just going to watch that

00:17:40 ◼   ► in every episode to talk about the next minute of the TV series.

00:17:43 ◼   ► So you can look ahead to that exciting content coming your way in 2018.

00:17:49 ◼   ► Still haven't watched the first episode of Planet of the Apps.

00:17:52 ◼   ► I feel like it's maybe too late because those apps have been pulled from the App Store.

00:17:57 ◼   ► Especially, especially it was too late because it was connected homework very long time ago

00:18:04 ◼   ► now.

00:18:05 ◼   ► We were in an episode about it, did you not watch it?

00:18:09 ◼   ► No we didn't.

00:18:10 ◼   ► I was at the beach and...

00:18:11 ◼   ► Yeah you didn't watch it.

00:18:13 ◼   ► I reckon that one of, I reckon it was Federico's idea in the first place and then he just never

00:18:18 ◼   ► watched it.

00:18:19 ◼   ► That's how I reckon that one went down.

00:18:21 ◼   ► Today's show is brought to you by Balance Open, a free open source Mac app for checking

00:18:25 ◼   ► Coinbase, the popular marketplace for cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum. Balance Open is

00:18:30 ◼   ► simply the best open source digital wallet to help you keep track of everything. Balance

00:18:35 ◼   ► wants to help teach you about cryptocurrencies in case you are living under a rock. This

00:18:39 ◼   ► is becoming a real big thing and they're going to do that by starting you on your way. Go

00:18:43 ◼   ► to www.baldotmoney/relay and if you're one of the first 1000 people to go there from

00:18:48 ◼   ► In this episode you will receive $2 in Ether, which is the Ethereum currency for free as

00:18:53 ◼   ► a gift from Balance. Go check it out today, find out more and try out Balance Open, the

00:18:57 ◼   ► best open source digital wallet to help you keep track of cryptocurrency. Our thanks to

00:19:01 ◼   ► Balance for their support of this show.

00:19:06 ◼   ► Alright so there is a game, there's a video game which was, had a lot of hype to it and

00:19:12 ◼   ► was delayed on Xbox called Cuphead. It is a game which is drawn in an old Disney cartoon

00:19:25 ◼   ► style. It is probably one of the most beautiful video games ever made. It is why it won best

00:19:33 ◼   ► art direction at the video game awards. Rightfully so.

00:19:41 ◼   ► Yesterday, I saw people tweeting about the fact that Cuphead was magically released on

00:19:47 ◼   ► the App Store. I got very excited. It was £5. I bought it. I tweeted about it. It was

00:19:53 ◼   ► a very exciting day. This seemed to me to be completely something that I would expect

00:19:59 ◼   ► because over the last couple of weeks, this has been a trend. A bunch of really popular

00:20:04 ◼   ► games on other platforms that have been on consoles and stuff like that have been just

00:20:09 ◼   ► randomly launching on iOS, me and Fed could be talking about this privately, the expectation

00:20:15 ◼   ► is that Apple is trying to bring in a bunch of games for the holidays and developers are

00:20:21 ◼   ► not talking about them because they want them to become big stories on the app store, so

00:20:25 ◼   ► like in app store articles, so I think Apple are wanting to do that, I think it's like

00:20:29 ◼   ► a two pronged attack, they want to bring these games in but they also want to do big articles

00:20:34 ◼   ► on the app store pages so that's where people are going to get the news about this information.

00:20:39 ◼   ► So like games like Fez and Inside and what other ones Federico have been launching?

00:20:44 ◼   ► Fez, Inside...

00:20:45 ◼   ► Ah there's that puzzle game that I cannot pronounce the name.

00:20:51 ◼   ► The Witness and Gorogo.

00:20:52 ◼   ► Which is a game that's just come out on Nintendo Switch.

00:20:57 ◼   ► There have been like a lot of games coming out.

00:20:59 ◼   ► So also I downloaded it, started it up and it was working.

00:21:02 ◼   ► I was playing it.

00:21:03 ◼   ► It seemed like a bit of a bad port honestly.

00:21:06 ◼   ► And I was like, okay, this happens sometimes.

00:21:09 ◼   ► And plus, Cuphead has notoriously difficult controls.

00:21:13 ◼   ► So the fact that the controls were difficult

00:21:15 ◼   ► didn't really faze me.

00:21:17 ◼   ► Then it turned out that this was a fake,

00:21:19 ◼   ► this was a scam app.

00:21:21 ◼   ► Again, the fact that the developer didn't pre-announce it

00:21:24 ◼   ► was not a thing that stood out in my mind

00:21:26 ◼   ► because that's a trend at the moment.

00:21:28 ◼   ► But the name of the developer was there,

00:21:30 ◼   ► you could go to the website, look legit,

00:21:32 ◼   ► but no, it was a very, very good looking scam,

00:21:37 ◼   ► like a fake app.

00:21:38 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah, it's strange, like, not strange,

00:21:42 ◼   ► I'm just surprised that even after all these years

00:21:46 ◼   ► of the App Store and with the redesign

00:21:48 ◼   ► and all sort of the kind of work that Apple is doing

00:21:51 ◼   ► to ensure quality, I guess, on the App Store,

00:21:53 ◼   ► this kind of scam can still happen,

00:21:56 ◼   ► especially for this kind of high profile title

00:21:59 ◼   ► and high profile game.

00:22:02 ◼   ► And I've been wondering, because I mean,

00:22:04 ◼   ► you can try so many things,

00:22:06 ◼   ► you're not gonna stop the bad guys.

00:22:08 ◼   ► But I've been wondering whether there should be a system

00:22:11 ◼   ► in place at App Review at Apple to just maybe scan

00:22:15 ◼   ► for popular games from other platforms.

00:22:19 ◼   ► Because you know that these folks are gonna try

00:22:22 ◼   ► and scam people by saying, oh, look,

00:22:24 ◼   ► you can now play the latest Assassin's Creed on iOS.

00:22:27 ◼   ► No, you cannot play Origins on iOS.

00:22:30 ◼   ► And I wonder if for me, like how much work would it be

00:22:33 ◼   ► to just put up a system in place that you have a list

00:22:35 ◼   ► of the popular games that are not actually coming to iOS.

00:22:39 ◼   ► And if you see a submission like that,

00:22:41 ◼   ► you have the system that filters the game and says,

00:22:43 ◼   ► well, let me get in touch with this company

00:22:45 ◼   ► and see what's up.

00:22:47 ◼   ► And also Touch Arcade that was also fooled by this release,

00:22:51 ◼   ► they did an investigation into this person.

00:22:54 ◼   ► And apparently it seems to be a repeat offender

00:22:57 ◼   ► that in the past put up multiple scam applications

00:23:01 ◼   ► on the App Store.

00:23:02 ◼   ► But it's not like it's some crazy complex plan.

00:23:07 ◼   ► It's just some person,

00:23:10 ◼   ► I'm not sure if the domain was registered in China

00:23:13 ◼   ► or in Russia,

00:23:15 ◼   ► that did this in the past multiple times

00:23:17 ◼   ► with other names, of course, on the App Store,

00:23:20 ◼   ► but it's still the same scheme.

00:23:21 ◼   ► You take a game that is on other platforms,

00:23:24 ◼   ► you make a fake shell on iOS,

00:23:27 ◼   ► and you post it on the App Store and somehow you get approved, you get a bunch of money

00:23:32 ◼   ► and then people ask for a refund so nobody knows what happens to their money.

00:23:36 ◼   ► I got a refund by the way before people tell me to get a refund.

00:23:40 ◼   ► And like this isn't... I don't really do this kind of thing like if...

00:23:44 ◼   ► I never ask for refunds of apps I think this might be the first time I've ever done it.

00:23:48 ◼   ► And the only reason I did this was because it was a scam.

00:23:51 ◼   ► Like if I download an app and don't like it I don't ask for a refund.

00:23:55 ◼   ► I mean, if you do, that's totally cool.

00:23:59 ◼   ► That's a thing you are allowed to do, but I don't do it.

00:24:02 ◼   ► It's really easy in the European Union, because there's like, or in the UK at least, because

00:24:07 ◼   ► there's like this 14 day refund thing.

00:24:10 ◼   ► So like, I can't remember the exact wording, but I could just be like, nah, cancelling

00:24:14 ◼   ► the purchase and like you get 14 days in which you can just do it that simply.

00:24:18 ◼   ► And it's just done.

00:24:19 ◼   ► But whatever.

00:24:20 ◼   ► But yeah, I got the refund for it.

00:24:24 ◼   ► But yeah, I think this okay, so like I don't know how many apps are being submitted and I'm sure it's a lot

00:24:30 ◼   ► But the most cursory of Google searches for the word cuphead would have unearthed this

00:24:36 ◼   ► Because if someone would have searched this right?

00:24:39 ◼   ► they would have found that cuphead was a really big title and

00:24:44 ◼   ► then maybe

00:24:47 ◼   ► Apple should have tried to contact the developer like the actual developer and confirm with them that they're launching their title on the App Store

00:24:54 ◼   ► Like this is a game which came out like a couple of months ago on Xbox

00:24:58 ◼   ► right

00:24:58 ◼   ► like if they if somebody would have just searched the word cuphead they could have got to this and

00:25:03 ◼   ► Then they could go through official channels to contact the developer like via the developers own website and should be like hey guys

00:25:09 ◼   ► Are you launching an app because we're honestly we'd really like to promote this. So I mean again, like I don't know

00:25:16 ◼   ► what the actual process is.

00:25:17 ◼   ► I don't know how long it takes.

00:25:18 ◼   ► I don't know how many submissions are happening.

00:25:20 ◼   ► But this is a way where something like this

00:25:22 ◼   ► could have been solved.

00:25:24 ◼   ► But yeah, that's just a thought.

00:25:26 ◼   ► - I mean, that's a nice thought,

00:25:29 ◼   ► but I don't think it scales.

00:25:32 ◼   ► And the App Store submission review team

00:25:36 ◼   ► is different than editorial,

00:25:37 ◼   ► so they probably don't have any say.

00:25:39 ◼   ► Or like me, like I said, I don't play video games.

00:25:42 ◼   ► People are going crazy on Twitter

00:25:44 ◼   ► that this app was on the apps.

00:25:45 ◼   ► I was like, oh, that must be a game, right?

00:25:47 ◼   ► But I had no, the name had no importance to me

00:25:51 ◼   ► before this was a story.

00:25:52 ◼   ► And so, are you gonna make every app submission

00:25:55 ◼   ► and go through a Google search,

00:25:56 ◼   ► which is like highly, like super easiest game?

00:25:59 ◼   ► These people built a website saying

00:26:01 ◼   ► the Cupheads was coming to iOS, right?

00:26:03 ◼   ► Like, they could've seen the wrong.

00:26:05 ◼   ► That I think is like not a real scalable solution.

00:26:09 ◼   ► - I'm not saying scalable solution, it just is a solution.

00:26:12 ◼   ► - It is, but like--

00:26:12 ◼   ► - Right, but I'm not saying it's realistic.

00:26:14 ◼   ► - Well, what I think would be maybe slightly more realistic

00:26:18 ◼   ► is is there some way for Apple to verify developer IDs,

00:26:23 ◼   ► where if you were, you know,

00:26:27 ◼   ► just open it for Twitter verification, what could go wrong?

00:26:30 ◼   ► Having some way where high-profile developers

00:26:34 ◼   ► have some sort of mechanism to say this is actually us,

00:26:39 ◼   ► and this person or this group of people

00:26:44 ◼   ► having done this multiple times,

00:26:46 ◼   ► like clearly there's a way to game the developer ID system

00:26:50 ◼   ► where hey, these are coming from the same IP address

00:26:54 ◼   ► and this is a known scam shop or whatever scam developer.

00:26:59 ◼   ► Like Apple should have protections in place at that level

00:27:04 ◼   ► so they don't have to complicate

00:27:05 ◼   ► and therefore slow down app review.

00:27:07 ◼   ► It's all very messy, right?

00:27:08 ◼   ► And my answer has lots of problems too.

00:27:11 ◼   ► but it's troubling, especially since this is a repeat offender.

00:27:16 ◼   ► That's the worst part about this, is that this person or group of people,

00:27:19 ◼   ► they have done this before to the App Store and their next submission just came

00:27:24 ◼   ► on through and there's got to be something in that chain that could be adjusted.

00:27:28 ◼   ► And it's a fascinating story.

00:27:30 ◼   ► Tatcha Cage did some investigation into this game and because it's somewhat

00:27:35 ◼   ► playable, they got an email from someone,

00:27:41 ◼   ► from a source that says that this game was based on real assets, real graphics from the game,

00:27:50 ◼   ► and that it was kind of leaked from a company that had an outfit, like a development outfit,

00:27:59 ◼   ► that had been tasked with porting Cuphead to iOS. And somehow in this process the real assets of

00:28:07 ◼   ► the game got leaked to this other person who released it as a scam on the App Store, as

00:28:13 ◼   ► an unfinished game, because I don't think you can even play this game much.

00:28:17 ◼   ► Yeah, I played just like five minutes of it to confirm that, in my mind, to confirm that

00:28:22 ◼   ► it was real, because I had people saying to me "this can't be legit", so like I booted

00:28:26 ◼   ► it up, tried it, I was like "yeah no, it works". So like for me it was like "yeah, that's fine".

00:28:30 ◼   ► It is the real game, it is the real game, which is strange because usually most scams,

00:28:36 ◼   ► They maybe have a "real" name and a real icon, but then when you open the game, it's like

00:28:43 ◼   ► something else completely.

00:28:45 ◼   ► Last year there was a scam for Astroneer, the space game that's on Steam, and it kind

00:28:52 ◼   ► of looked real from the screenshots and the icon, but then you open the game and it's

00:28:56 ◼   ► like ugly graphics with a spaceman in poor 3D walking in an empty desert.

00:29:04 ◼   ► and it was obviously not Astroneer.

00:29:07 ◼   ► But in this case, it's the real game.

00:29:08 ◼   ► So I wonder like, there must be a story behind this,

00:29:11 ◼   ► or maybe a port isn't it happening,

00:29:14 ◼   ► and this was a really bad alpha version of that port,

00:29:18 ◼   ► or it's an emulation.

00:29:20 ◼   ► It's an emulator somehow running in low res on iOS,

00:29:25 ◼   ► but it seems like a lot of work to make an emulator

00:29:28 ◼   ► for a scam that, you know, it's gonna get caught

00:29:30 ◼   ► and you're not gonna get the money.

00:29:32 ◼   ► It feels to me more like just trying to make a mess for revenge or something like that.

00:29:39 ◼   ► Like I don't know.

00:29:40 ◼   ► No, it's a cash grab, right?

00:29:42 ◼   ► Because it is a game that is hot right now.

00:29:45 ◼   ► And it was a five and it's five dollars, five pounds that people will pay to get it.

00:29:50 ◼   ► Like if Cuphead actually launched, you would pay five pounds for it because you can currently

00:29:55 ◼   ► it cost you 40.

00:29:57 ◼   ► Right.

00:29:58 ◼   ► So like it feels like a good deal.

00:30:00 ◼   ► like me, I bought it immediately because I was like hell yeah I wanted to play this game

00:30:05 ◼   ► now I can just play it on my iPad right? So like I think that there is just an opportunity

00:30:10 ◼   ► cash grab to it which probably worked for a period of time provided that all that money

00:30:16 ◼   ► wasn't just refunded which it might not necessarily be I mean some people may just buy it and

00:30:21 ◼   ► just be like this app this this stinks and they just never play it.

00:30:25 ◼   ► Apple should auto refund those customers. They should I don't know if they have um but

00:30:30 ◼   ► they should provided they even know I mean is it still on I guess it's taken

00:30:35 ◼   ► down no it's got it's off there it was off the App Store within a couple hours

00:30:38 ◼   ► yeah they should all refund it because it shouldn't have been there in the

00:30:42 ◼   ► first place like and that does fall on Apple no matter whether they could have

00:30:45 ◼   ► found it or not like the fact that they have a gatekeeper system means that

00:30:50 ◼   ► something like this is on them mm-hmm so yeah it was super strange let's go from

00:30:57 ◼   ► some fake games to some real games. I saw a couple of games that are doing really strange

00:31:04 ◼   ► things with the iPhone X over at Mac Stories, which is Federico's wonderful website, one

00:31:09 ◼   ► called Rainbrow or Rainbro and another called Nose Zone, which uses the TrueDepth camera

00:31:15 ◼   ► in some strange ways. Like Rainbrow, you use your eyebrows to play a super simple Frogger-like

00:31:23 ◼   ► game. You just move your eyebrows up and down to move a character up and down the screen

00:31:26 ◼   ► to collect points and dodge emoji that are trying to attack you. And the game, what is

00:31:35 ◼   ► the nose one again, what's it called, Nose Zone.

00:31:37 ◼   ► Nose Zone.

00:31:38 ◼   ► Where you're pointing your face at the screen and your nose is a laser cannon and wherever

00:31:43 ◼   ► your nose points blows up targets. Obviously these are super basic and almost tech demos

00:31:49 ◼   ► really for the TrueDepth stuff and the face APIs. But it is interesting to see people

00:31:54 ◼   ► playing around with this stuff. I will say that Eye Rainbrow is fun, but it is

00:32:00 ◼   ► uncomfortable to play for more than 20 seconds. It just feels strange to be

00:32:05 ◼   ► like frowning and in an excited face over and over again.

00:32:08 ◼   ► But what's impressive and what a few people have told me on Twitter is that

00:32:12 ◼   ► the game even works if you don't have eyebrows and that totally makes sense

00:32:17 ◼   ► because the TrueDepth camera, it doesn't actually scan for your eyebrows but it

00:32:23 ◼   ► constructs 3D representation of the muscles around your eyes. And of course

00:32:28 ◼   ► even if you don't have eyebrows you can still frown and

00:32:31 ◼   ► make different expressions and it's gonna work because it's

00:32:36 ◼   ► recognizing the muscles around of your face not actually your eyebrows

00:32:41 ◼   ► or your hair. So that's impressive and of course it's a tech demo for now even

00:32:46 ◼   ► nose zone, it uses the ARKit face tracking, the face mesh geometry stuff

00:32:53 ◼   ► to superimpose this face graphics on screen and they're super basic but

00:33:00 ◼   ► it gives you the idea of how there could be some more useful applications of this

00:33:07 ◼   ► that it's not necessarily like face filters or games but as I wrote in

00:33:14 ◼   ► in my iPhone X story, I could totally see an emoji picker that, behind the scenes, you

00:33:19 ◼   ► don't even see a camera view. You just make an expression and you're gonna get auto-suggestions

00:33:25 ◼   ► in the emoji picker. I could see a bunch of system features or utilities that have some

00:33:33 ◼   ► kind of visual expression component, like of course there's emoji that smile or that

00:33:38 ◼   ► are said and I could see how behind the scenes you could have true depth, making suggestions

00:33:43 ◼   ► based on what you're doing. But what's impressive to me is that even in Rainbrow there's no

00:33:49 ◼   ► camera view. It's not like you see like a tiny picture in picture preview of your face

00:33:55 ◼   ► in the corner. You just make an expression and the game reacts. And that disconnection,

00:34:03 ◼   ► if you will, that there's no point of contact,

00:34:05 ◼   ► there's no visual preview that says,

00:34:09 ◼   ► here's you making a face.

00:34:10 ◼   ► No, you just work with your face,

00:34:13 ◼   ► you just issue the commands with your face

00:34:17 ◼   ► and the game reacts.

00:34:18 ◼   ► And that's, it's weird,

00:34:20 ◼   ► but it's also technically impressive, I think.

00:34:23 ◼   ► - It could open up a lot of opportunities

00:34:26 ◼   ► from the accessibility angle as well,

00:34:30 ◼   ► to be able to use apps or even part of the interface

00:34:34 ◼   ► with just facial expressions could be big for some users.

00:34:39 ◼   ► I think it's cool, I think that we're clearly

00:34:42 ◼   ► at the beginning days of this.

00:34:44 ◼   ► Clearly we're gonna learn what works and what doesn't.

00:34:46 ◼   ► These games and demos will come and go,

00:34:51 ◼   ► but I do think there's a real interesting opportunity here

00:34:55 ◼   ► for developers and users to explore.

00:34:57 ◼   ► And I hope that we see some options for users who this could allow them to use an iPhone,

00:35:04 ◼   ► maybe even for the first time or definitely in a way that's more convenient for them.

00:35:11 ◼   ► And you know, could some of this stuff get baked into the OS even, you know, where Apple

00:35:15 ◼   ► has some accessibility options for some navigation through facial expressions.

00:35:21 ◼   ► That I think is really exciting.

00:35:23 ◼   ► Hopefully we see more of it.

00:35:24 ◼   ► Today's show is brought to you by our friends at Smile and today I want to talk to you about

00:35:30 ◼   ► TextExpander because TextExpander will let you communicate smarter. If you're listening

00:35:35 ◼   ► to this and you haven't yet downloaded TextExpander, listen up because TextExpander can save you

00:35:40 ◼   ► time. Who doesn't want to save time? Especially now, I feel like I'm in a mad rush at the

00:35:45 ◼   ► holiday season because I know I have a limited amount of days for people to actually respond

00:35:50 ◼   ► to anything I'm sending them. Time is of the essence. Think about the last time you were

00:35:56 ◼   ► at a networking event or maybe a conference where you met a bunch of new people. You know

00:36:01 ◼   ► that you want to stay in touch with these people but emailing all of them individually

00:36:04 ◼   ► can take so much time. All you need to do is create one snippet. Use fill in fields

00:36:10 ◼   ► for the contact name and set a custom topic so you can personalise it a bit. Open up your

00:36:15 ◼   ► email and you can send your follow ups in a matter of minutes. Firing them off with

00:36:19 ◼   ► with one quick shortcut. So then you've managed to check in and start all of those new relationships

00:36:25 ◼   ► with valuable people, people that you want to get to know more, without having to spend

00:36:28 ◼   ► hours dedicated to email. This example can be applied to so many different things. Even

00:36:34 ◼   ► if it is something like sending out a family email at the end of the year, you want to

00:36:38 ◼   ► send it to everybody individually so you can customise it a little bit, you can do that

00:36:41 ◼   ► with TextExpander too. And you can create an entire email reply system with TextExpander.

00:36:46 ◼   ► You can have a snippet on hand for every single type of email that you send.

00:36:52 ◼   ► TextExpander also has a great crossover with the popular app Drafts.

00:37:04 ◼   ► If you spend any amount of your day typing, trust me, you need TextExpander.

00:37:08 ◼   ► It is the smartest way to improve the workflow of your communications.

00:37:11 ◼   ► Go to textexpander.com/podcast right now and you'll get 20% off your first year.

00:37:17 ◼   ► Just tell them that you heard about them on this show.

00:37:19 ◼   ► So that's textexpander.com/podcast and get 20% off your first year when you tell them

00:37:24 ◼   ► that you came from connected.

00:37:25 ◼   ► We thank TextExpander for their continued support of this show.

00:37:28 ◼   ► And relay event.

00:37:32 ◼   ► So there's a story going around this week along with some Geekbench scores and some

00:37:38 ◼   ► deep diving into the guts of iOS suggesting that as iPhone batteries degrade over time,

00:37:45 ◼   ► like all batteries do, that iOS may be downclocking the CPU in the phone. We've all heard people,

00:37:53 ◼   ► we'll hear it around the holidays I'm sure, I updated to the new version of iOS and now my phone

00:37:59 ◼   ► is slow. It used to not be slow but now it's slow. Because Steven, a new iPhone has come out,

00:38:04 ◼   ► So Apple is killing iPhones?

00:38:06 ◼   ► That I don't believe, but I do buy this.

00:38:09 ◼   ► That there is a set of parameters in iOS that if a battery and its longevity reach a certain threshold

00:38:20 ◼   ► the CPU will be downclocked.

00:38:23 ◼   ► I can see Apple doing this to extend battery life as long as possible.

00:38:27 ◼   ► as possible so they would rather a phone run at 70% speed but last all day as

00:38:34 ◼   ► opposed to running at 100% speed and then maybe lasting five or six hours.

00:38:40 ◼   ► I think I think Apple should tell users they're doing this right you should get

00:38:45 ◼   ► a little pop-up so on the Mac if you're if you have a notebook and your battery

00:38:49 ◼   ► needs service you get a little pop-up and it says hello friend

00:38:53 ◼   ► your battery needs service. I think you get the same on iOS if your battery

00:38:57 ◼   ► service you get something in settings I think. Yeah and you may but clearly

00:39:02 ◼   ► you're not getting this if this is happening then that warning should be

00:39:06 ◼   ► moved up in time where if you if your phone is in a state where iOS decides to

00:39:12 ◼   ► downclock things at the expense of you know so you're getting battery life at

00:39:17 ◼   ► the expense of speed at that point the user should be notified. Again we don't

00:39:21 ◼   ► know this is for sure happening Apple I don't as far as I know hasn't confirmed

00:39:24 ◼   ► to this, but there's lots of evidence pointing to this and I think it's

00:39:29 ◼   ► interesting. Do you guys think the trade-offs here are worth it? Do you think

00:39:32 ◼   ► Apple's making the right decision if this is true? I mean I wouldn't want my

00:39:37 ◼   ► phone to explode or catch fire because it needs to run to be

00:39:43 ◼   ► clocked at a hundred percent of the performance. I mean if as a user like I

00:39:49 ◼   ► I think I would want my phone to last.

00:39:52 ◼   ► It's a tricky question because on one hand,

00:39:56 ◼   ► I wouldn't want my phone to have damage to the battery

00:40:01 ◼   ► and explode or catch fire.

00:40:04 ◼   ► But also as a, I mean, I work on the iPad Pro

00:40:06 ◼   ► and I spend a lot of money buying an iPad Pro

00:40:09 ◼   ► because I need a powerful iPad.

00:40:11 ◼   ► And so the thought of the performance of my iPad

00:40:14 ◼   ► is being degraded by the system and I didn't know this,

00:40:18 ◼   ► It kinda annoys me.

00:40:20 ◼   ► So it's a difficult question to answer

00:40:23 ◼   ► because I don't think, like these slowdowns,

00:40:26 ◼   ► like in everyday life for most people,

00:40:29 ◼   ► what consequence do you get?

00:40:31 ◼   ► Like games run slower or you get worse graphics

00:40:35 ◼   ► or the animations of the OS are all stuttering

00:40:39 ◼   ► and they don't perform as well as a fully functioning iPhone.

00:40:44 ◼   ► What's the real world consequence of this?

00:40:47 ◼   ► So it's tricky to answer, but I don't think you should have a dialogue in settings all the time that tells you like your CPU is running at 80% because on the other hand,

00:41:01 ◼   ► then you get people going to the Apple store and saying, well, my CPU is going to 85. What does that mean?

00:41:07 ◼   ► And you get people at the Genius Bar complaining about, you know, CPU stats like on Android.

00:41:13 ◼   ► So I'm not sure, I guess if it maybe hits a certain threshold and you get like,

00:41:18 ◼   ► your performance is cut in half, then maybe the dialogue, as you say Steven,

00:41:24 ◼   ► should be moved up in time and you should get it fixed at the Apple store.

00:41:29 ◼   ► But not all the time.

00:41:30 ◼   ► Not if the OS thinks, well, maybe we'll make it run at 10% less and it's going to be fine.

00:41:35 ◼   ► In that case, do you want the dialogue in settings?

00:41:38 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:41:39 ◼   ► I don't think so.

00:41:40 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:41:43 ◼   ► It's complicated. Apple has a support document the chat room sent us

00:41:48 ◼   ► and it does have that warning but Apple says that it shows it when the battery

00:41:53 ◼   ► may need to be replaced at the end of its lifespan and if this is true then

00:41:58 ◼   ► this is happening before that point. The battery hasn't failed it is just

00:42:03 ◼   ► degrading. So you know there's a bunch of geekbench stuff that backs us up.

00:42:08 ◼   ► Like I said, I tend to believe this and I just hope Apple clarifies things for their

00:42:15 ◼   ► users so people aren't frustrated.

00:42:18 ◼   ► I think people understand that batteries wear out, but upgrading your phone and your phone

00:42:28 ◼   ► feeling slower is not a great situation for the platform to be in.

00:42:33 ◼   ► I think it's a matter of a decision of you monitor how much you're degrading the performance

00:42:39 ◼   ► to extend, if that's the reason, to extend the battery life.

00:42:43 ◼   ► But if you get that kind of, because I have friends with older iPhones, and this year

00:42:49 ◼   ► everybody with an older iPhone that I know has been complaining about iOS 11.

00:42:53 ◼   ► I haven't seen these issues because I'm on the latest hardware and usually when you get

00:42:57 ◼   ► the latest iPhones and the latest iPads you don't see these problems.

00:43:00 ◼   ► folks with the iPhone 6, with the 6s, everybody has been texting me because of course I'm the

00:43:06 ◼   ► Apple guy for my friends and like "hey, why'd you make me update?" because it's my fault of course

00:43:11 ◼   ► because when iOS came out I was like "yeah, yeah, sure updates, it's pretty good" and everybody's

00:43:16 ◼   ► been complaining about this. So you forget that kind of performance issues and in practice it

00:43:20 ◼   ► means you cannot open notifications. It's like something that a friend of mine was telling me

00:43:27 ◼   ► it couldn't reply to notifications for WhatsApp and iMessage.

00:43:31 ◼   ► Or your photos never upload.

00:43:35 ◼   ► Or whenever you open a game you have to wait two and a half minutes.

00:43:40 ◼   ► Something else that a friend of mine told me a few weeks ago.

00:43:43 ◼   ► So if you get that kind of problem and the OS knows because it's logging

00:43:47 ◼   ► all of these extended times that it takes for an app to launch, for example,

00:43:53 ◼   ► the dialogue should be moved up in time and you should have a message that says your battery is

00:43:59 ◼   ► not fully out of service but you may want to consider getting it fixed at the Apple Store.

00:44:04 ◼   ► So yeah, if true, if this is the reason why this is happening and if Apple knows this data and I'm

00:44:10 ◼   ► pretty sure they know that this is happening because they do it, then in those not extreme

00:44:17 ◼   ► cases but cases where you can observe the slower performance and you can observe the

00:44:25 ◼   ► issues then you should get the message.

00:44:28 ◼   ► Yeah, it's like one of those things where it's like a tricky situation. You can understand

00:44:34 ◼   ► why they're doing it if they're like, it's to help the phone right? It's to stop the

00:44:38 ◼   ► phone's battery from just crapping out completely. But people also don't want their phones to

00:44:45 ◼   ► to feel like they're running super slow,

00:44:47 ◼   ► as much as they also don't want their batteries to die.

00:44:50 ◼   ► So I know this is a very, this is a tricky situation

00:44:54 ◼   ► and an Apple way of dealing with things,

00:44:56 ◼   ► but just let people choose.

00:44:58 ◼   ► Right, it's like your battery is crap.

00:45:00 ◼   ► You can make one of two decisions.

00:45:02 ◼   ► You can either go and fix it, or you can say,

00:45:04 ◼   ► "Hey, make the battery worse, don't change the performance,"

00:45:07 ◼   ► or, "Run me a lower performance."

00:45:11 ◼   ► And have that in the settings somewhere.

00:45:13 ◼   ► I know it's not ideal, but it could at least stop people

00:45:16 ◼   ► from being so frustrated,

00:45:18 ◼   ► although probably it wouldn't change a thing.

00:45:20 ◼   ► But I understand why this is happening, if it is happening,

00:45:24 ◼   ► but it's kind of one of those things,

00:45:26 ◼   ► it's unfortunate for everybody.

00:45:29 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:45:30 ◼   ► - And if it's new in iOS 11, and it seems to be,

00:45:33 ◼   ► that may be why it's really bad right now,

00:45:36 ◼   ► but once this is sort of in iOS for a while,

00:45:41 ◼   ► then we will, you know, it won't be tied so much

00:45:45 ◼   ► to an update, right, 'cause right now we have

00:45:46 ◼   ► a bunch of phones out there that batteries

00:45:47 ◼   ► maybe aren't great.

00:45:49 ◼   ► iOS 11 has this system in it, and all of a sudden

00:45:53 ◼   ► things are getting slow, but now moving forward,

00:45:55 ◼   ► it's gonna be less tied to the updates, right,

00:45:57 ◼   ► 'cause people's batteries will just wear out

00:45:59 ◼   ► when they wear out, so this may be the worst of it,

00:46:02 ◼   ► and Apple, I'm sure, planned for this sort of,

00:46:05 ◼   ► you know, customer angst of hey, my phone feels slow,

00:46:08 ◼   ► but it may be over before we know it.

00:46:11 ◼   ► - Why would it not be the same always though?

00:46:15 ◼   ► Like if this is just a thing that exists

00:46:17 ◼   ► in iOS going forward, then couldn't it just end up being

00:46:20 ◼   ► even more of a perception that Apple kills phones

00:46:24 ◼   ► with software updates?

00:46:26 ◼   ► Like it's just gonna be a rolling thing though, right?

00:46:29 ◼   ► - I mean, but it would be,

00:46:32 ◼   ► if this is new, whenever this became new,

00:46:36 ◼   ► large percentage of phones in the world at large were below the threshold and are being

00:46:41 ◼   ► throttled.

00:46:42 ◼   ► Right.

00:46:43 ◼   ► So right.

00:46:44 ◼   ► I feel more than ever this year that people say iOS 11 has slowed down my phone.

00:46:49 ◼   ► In the future, the same number of phones will be old, but they won't all be flagged at the

00:46:58 ◼   ► same time by iOS.

00:46:59 ◼   ► Just as batteries age, they will be flagged as that happens naturally.

00:47:04 ◼   ► Does that make sense?

00:47:05 ◼   ► not a starting point like there is with iOS 11. Yes I understand what

00:47:10 ◼   ► you're saying now. Yeah I get it like even if it continues in iOS it may just

00:47:14 ◼   ► be like halfway through iOS 12 your phone starts to get slow and then you're

00:47:18 ◼   ► like oh man my phone's getting slow but you don't think Apple killed it. Right.

00:47:23 ◼   ► Yeah I get it. Yes that was hard to explain. Let me ask you this question to you

00:47:28 ◼   ► both. Do you think that Apple should more aggressively cut features from new

00:47:36 ◼   ► versions of iOS on new iPhones so that they avoid these performance problems

00:47:42 ◼   ► and the perception that comes with the software update? My question would be

00:47:48 ◼   ► what features come to mind they could cut? Because for the most part like there

00:47:56 ◼   ► There are phone specific features, right?

00:47:57 ◼   ► So like the iPhone X has an emoji and that sort of stuff.

00:48:02 ◼   ► But that's, you know, using hardware in the phone that isn't there on older devices.

00:48:07 ◼   ► I just don't know, I can't think of like, what are they going to do?

00:48:09 ◼   ► Like oh, we rolled out iCloud photo library over cellular, but you can't have that unless

00:48:14 ◼   ► you have this phone.

00:48:16 ◼   ► I don't know what big features they've added that would make that big of a difference.

00:48:20 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:48:22 ◼   ► Even basic stuff like animations.

00:48:25 ◼   ► Why do you need to keep the animations all consistent across the entire iPhone line if

00:48:31 ◼   ► the iPhone 6 cannot be as smooth as the iPhone 8 or the iPhone 10?

00:48:36 ◼   ► Even the basic stuff, you don't get this flashy transition, you don't get this animation,

00:48:42 ◼   ► you don't get the uploads over cellular.

00:48:44 ◼   ► Because I wonder, is it better to have constant feature and design parity between all iPhones

00:48:52 ◼   ► then making sure that a version of iOS 11 at least runs decently on the iPhone 6, instead

00:49:01 ◼   ► of saying no, it absolutely needs to be the same OS with the same features and the same

00:49:05 ◼   ► design, but then people complain about performance and they complain about Apple.

00:49:10 ◼   ► Because people do believe that Apple makes performance worse on older iPhones, so they

00:49:15 ◼   ► push you to get the new phone.

00:49:17 ◼   ► It's just something that people believe.

00:49:19 ◼   ► So why not accept the reality that people believe this and fix it in another way?

00:49:24 ◼   ► Yeah, I don't know.

00:49:26 ◼   ► I guess it depends on how good Apple think that iOS marketing is, right?

00:49:31 ◼   ► Like in reality, do people know, does everybody know the new features of an upcoming version

00:49:38 ◼   ► of iOS?

00:49:39 ◼   ► Probably not.

00:49:40 ◼   ► Does Apple like to think that people do?

00:49:42 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:49:43 ◼   ► So they're like, oh, we can't, we can't limit this because people will be so mad that they

00:49:48 ◼   ► don't get it. They don't even know what... every time and I guess you guys have the

00:49:53 ◼   ► same situation every time there's the friend or the relative and they're like

00:49:58 ◼   ► so tell me what's new show me what's new and because because they don't they

00:50:02 ◼   ► don't look at the at the splash screens when notes gets an update they don't

00:50:07 ◼   ► look at the Apple website they don't read my reviews they don't read anything

00:50:11 ◼   ► they just don't care. Because those splash screens don't work because like nobody's like

00:50:17 ◼   ► like updating iOS and like hmm okay let me open every app that I own to see if I can

00:50:22 ◼   ► learn something no the time that you open notes app is because you need something in

00:50:26 ◼   ► notes so that splash screen all you're doing is like waiting for the minimum amount of

00:50:31 ◼   ► time possible till you can go past it right like none of that stuff really works and also

00:50:37 ◼   ► I pay attention to this stuff more than most people and I forget about features of iOS

00:50:42 ◼   ► Like iOS launches and they're like, oh, it does that.

00:50:45 ◼   ► I forgot it did that.

00:50:46 ◼   ► So yeah, I don't know.

00:50:47 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:50:48 ◼   ► - Look at all this stuff in here, who knew?

00:50:50 ◼   ► If only someone wrote a review.

00:50:51 ◼   ► - If only.

00:50:52 ◼   ► But even then, I read Video Games Review

00:50:54 ◼   ► and still forgot about things.

00:50:55 ◼   ► It's 'cause it's just like--

00:50:56 ◼   ► - You literally read it.

00:50:57 ◼   ► - I literally read it.

00:50:58 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:50:59 ◼   ► 'Cause there's just stuff, it's too much, right?

00:51:00 ◼   ► Like it's just too much stuff to remember everything of.

00:51:04 ◼   ► But, so I don't know what the answer is.

00:51:06 ◼   ► I think that it would probably be better

00:51:08 ◼   ► if they were able to find a way to strike some balance

00:51:11 ◼   ► where maybe the older the phone gets, maybe the,

00:51:15 ◼   ► you know, maybe like reduce motions turned on automatically

00:51:18 ◼   ► or something like that, like if that was such a thing

00:51:21 ◼   ► to reduce battery wear, you know what I mean?

00:51:24 ◼   ► There could be some things that they could do,

00:51:26 ◼   ► but I don't see it happening because,

00:51:27 ◼   ► because you know what the other thing is?

00:51:29 ◼   ► Really, you just want people to buy new iPhones.

00:51:31 ◼   ► Like that is your job.

00:51:32 ◼   ► - Of course, but-- - That is your job

00:51:33 ◼   ► as a company.

00:51:34 ◼   ► - I think it's an investment in making sure,

00:51:37 ◼   ► because the people that have an iPhone 6 today,

00:51:40 ◼   ► still, those are the people that are gonna buy an iPhone 8 or an iPhone X next year.

00:51:44 ◼   ► So even if, like, in the short term, you do, of course you do want to make iOS better for the new iPhones

00:51:52 ◼   ► and for the people who are gonna get the new iPhone this year, because you want money for the holiday quarter.

00:51:57 ◼   ► It makes total sense.

00:51:59 ◼   ► But it's also important to cater to those users on older hardware because you want them to stick around.

00:52:05 ◼   ► And so I think it's, I don't want to say objective, but I think it seems to be a widespread problem

00:52:13 ◼   ► that iOS 11, especially on the iPhone 6, has been problematic, isn't new for me maybe.

00:52:21 ◼   ► It's been damaging for customers.

00:52:24 ◼   ► And so should Apple do a better job at releasing versions of iOS for older hardware that work

00:52:33 ◼   ► better?

00:52:34 ◼   ► And I think that they should try with iOS 12 next year to make sure that this doesn't

00:52:40 ◼   ► happen again.

00:52:41 ◼   ► How?

00:52:42 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:52:43 ◼   ► Increasing the cut-off for older hardware, maybe.

00:52:47 ◼   ► Removing features, maybe.

00:52:50 ◼   ► Making the defaults different between the iPhone 6 and the iPhone 8, of course.

00:52:55 ◼   ► You do want to enable features that save power or reduce the animations or whatever it is.

00:53:00 ◼   ► make sure that even if philosophically speaking you do want to make sure that

00:53:04 ◼   ► it's the same OS at least do something so that it runs well. Yeah like it is

00:53:09 ◼   ► super great that Apple have found ways to like keep a lot of older devices

00:53:13 ◼   ► around right because it feels like that your investment in an iPhone can last

00:53:17 ◼   ► you a long period of time but if it eventually comes at the detriment of the

00:53:21 ◼   ► overall experience then maybe that's not best for everybody and like having to do

00:53:26 ◼   ► things like throttling the CPU to save battery life over time because this phone can't cope

00:53:32 ◼   ► with what's going on, maybe that's not the best solution to this problem.

00:53:38 ◼   ► Maybe that solution needs to come before.

00:53:41 ◼   ► I would be very interested to see if anything changes in 12.

00:53:46 ◼   ► That will show if this has actually resulted in anything, like if these complaints have

00:53:50 ◼   ► resulted in anything.

00:53:51 ◼   ► I mean everybody hated iOS 7, but like it's not like everybody stopped using the iPhone

00:53:56 ◼   ► Do you know what I mean? Like it might be like these are complaints you have, but what does it result in? Like no change

00:54:01 ◼   ► So if there has been a change then we would see that in iOS 12, right or iOS 13

00:54:06 ◼   ► We would start to see changes in this, that would be the indicator

00:54:10 ◼   ► Maybe you don't get Coromel

00:54:12 ◼   ► No machine learning for you. We'll talk about that. Let's talk about that in a moment

00:54:17 ◼   ► But first I want to thank Encapsula for their support of this show

00:54:20 ◼   ► They will hope you delight visitors to your site whilst also frustrating attackers because of their bulletproof security options and fast content delivery network

00:54:28 ◼   ► Right now somewhere in the world a website's being attacked some botnet is scraping website content trying to break in to databases and bring that site

00:54:35 ◼   ► Down, but thankfully encapsular work hard to protect websites of all sizes with their network that can process 30 billion attacks per second

00:54:43 ◼   ► If you are a customer of encapsular

00:54:45 ◼   ► You will be able to make sure that your website stays up and your visitors will never know they have a huge

00:54:50 ◼   ► CDM which is lightning fast so if something bad happens no one's going to know the difference.

00:54:55 ◼   ► This CDM, this huge network that they have, this is why they've successfully defended

00:55:01 ◼   ► some of the largest website attacks on record. As a listener of this show you can get a whole

00:55:06 ◼   ► month of Encapsular service for free. Just go to incapsula.com/connected. You'll be able

00:55:15 ◼   ► to check it out today, find out what they can do for you and claim your free month.

00:55:18 ◼   ► encapsular a try. You're not going to regret it. Thank you so much to Encapsular for their

00:55:21 ◼   ► support of this show and Real AFM.

00:55:24 ◼   ► Okay, so Federico came up with an interesting idea of doing, I guess what I'm dubbing an

00:55:30 ◼   ► anti-wish list. So this is a selection of things in 2018 that we would like to see Apple

00:55:39 ◼   ► stop doing, as opposed to a list of things that we would like to see Apple do next year,

00:55:45 ◼   ► which we may get to at another point.

00:55:48 ◼   ► But Federico, would you like to begin,

00:55:50 ◼   ► and obviously this is gonna go round robin style,

00:55:52 ◼   ► with your first anti-wishlist item?

00:55:55 ◼   ► - Yes, of course.

00:55:57 ◼   ► I would like Apple to stop adding

00:56:01 ◼   ► new design languages to iOS.

00:56:03 ◼   ► Because one, it's been increasingly difficult for me

00:56:06 ◼   ► as a reviewer to talk about iOS design.

00:56:08 ◼   ► There are just so many styles.

00:56:10 ◼   ► And also as a user, I think right now iOS 11

00:56:15 ◼   ► is this combination, this design salad of multiple styles,

00:56:20 ◼   ► multiple trends.

00:56:21 ◼   ► There's the large title design,

00:56:23 ◼   ► there's the small title design,

00:56:25 ◼   ► there's icons that are thicker,

00:56:27 ◼   ► icons that are thinner from the era of iOS 7.

00:56:32 ◼   ► There's UIs with controls at the top,

00:56:35 ◼   ► and there's UIs with controls at the bottom.

00:56:37 ◼   ► And I get it.

00:56:38 ◼   ► Sometimes you want to optimize the interface

00:56:41 ◼   ► or on a case-by-case basis.

00:56:43 ◼   ► There's some apps, for example, that maybe benefit from controls at the top and others at the bottom.

00:56:48 ◼   ► But in general, I think everybody can agree on the fact that iOS 11 introduced more design changes again.

00:56:57 ◼   ► And now we have this weird combination of multiple styles for multiple elements.

00:57:03 ◼   ► And even the the human interface guidelines is becoming difficult to follow and to fully understand.

00:57:09 ◼   ► And it feels to me, and this is a point that I've made in last year's iOS 10 review,

00:57:14 ◼   ► I've made again in the iOS 11 review, it feels like Apple has been adding and adding on top of iOS 7,

00:57:21 ◼   ► progressively not moving away from that design thinking, but trying to fix it or trying to address the concerns.

00:57:31 ◼   ► But in the process they've just ended up in multiple and different areas of iOS design

00:57:37 ◼   ► and it doesn't feel consistent.

00:57:40 ◼   ► It doesn't feel like a single thought

00:57:43 ◼   ► around what iOS design should be.

00:57:50 ◼   ► And I would like Apple to stop adding more and more to this

00:57:55 ◼   ► and just have a reset and say, we're gonna redo,

00:57:59 ◼   ► not with the kind of dramatic departure of iOS 7,

00:58:03 ◼   ► like with the drastic redesign,

00:58:05 ◼   ► but just stop adding new stuff and have consistency in mind.

00:58:10 ◼   ► And get rid of elements that don't work,

00:58:16 ◼   ► make it all consistent,

00:58:18 ◼   ► understand why some apps need to be different,

00:58:21 ◼   ► why some apps need to have controls at the top and the bottom

00:58:24 ◼   ► and sideways and different icons,

00:58:27 ◼   ► but please don't add another design style

00:58:31 ◼   ► that is only available in, let's say, notes and reminders.

00:58:35 ◼   ► because that's what they've been doing with iOS 10 and iOS 11.

00:58:38 ◼   ► Some apps have a certain design,

00:58:40 ◼   ► other apps don't, and nobody knows why.

00:58:42 ◼   ► So please do not add any more design styles

00:58:46 ◼   ► just for a handful of apps.

00:58:47 ◼   ► - Like choose one and stick with it, right?

00:58:50 ◼   ► - Just choose one, I guess.

00:58:51 ◼   ► Or if you need to make variations,

00:58:54 ◼   ► have consistency for those,

00:58:56 ◼   ► because right now I could imagine,

00:58:59 ◼   ► why does Apple Maps need to have the controls at the bottom?

00:59:03 ◼   ► But let's say Safari,

00:59:04 ◼   ► You need to stretch all the way to the top.

00:59:07 ◼   ► So please just pick one, I guess, yeah.

00:59:11 ◼   ► - All right, I'm gonna go next.

00:59:13 ◼   ► I hope that Apple stops putting all of their focus

00:59:15 ◼   ► into Core ML and differential privacy

00:59:18 ◼   ► for a couple of reasons.

00:59:19 ◼   ► This is my bugbear, right?

00:59:21 ◼   ► Like this is the thing that I have been complaining about

00:59:24 ◼   ► under many different guises for the last couple of years.

00:59:28 ◼   ► I want Apple to start using my data and cloud syncing it

00:59:34 ◼   ► it more heavily. I want my data in sync everywhere, even if it could be possibly considered private

00:59:40 ◼   ► information like photo information, face information, that kind of stuff. I would like to be able

00:59:46 ◼   ► to choose to do that. I would like the ability to say I trust Apple in the same way that

00:59:50 ◼   ► I trust Google. I would like them to be able to do stuff with my data. I also want to see

00:59:57 ◼   ► them not need to update the operating system to fix bugs in autocorrect. I think that all

01:00:01 ◼   ► All of this stuff is connected and I think that they have made a very interesting choice

01:00:08 ◼   ► in the way that they're deciding to do a lot of machine learning stuff and I think that

01:00:13 ◼   ► it isn't working so far and I honestly think that it's going to get worse as time goes

01:00:18 ◼   ► on as everybody else gets significantly better at this stuff and Apple is still kind of like

01:00:24 ◼   ► fumbling around in a way to try and maintain the strictest of user privacy which as long

01:00:29 ◼   ► as they have the right things in place that they can be better than anybody else with

01:00:33 ◼   ► that. I just think that as a user what I'm getting out of it is kind of just getting

01:00:38 ◼   ► worse over time and I really don't know if the trade-off is worth it for me.

01:00:42 ◼   ► I want Apple to stop being afraid of the internet.

01:00:47 ◼   ► That's a good one.

01:00:50 ◼   ► There's some crossovers between me and you I think.

01:00:53 ◼   ► Yeah, mine is more about, I think, services than the data, but like iCloud.com should

01:00:58 ◼   ► be awesome.

01:00:59 ◼   ► I don't know the last time you tried to use iCloud.com, but it's still very much in the

01:01:04 ◼   ► MobileMe style of like, we have rebuilt mail with JavaScript, and it looks just like mail,

01:01:11 ◼   ► or it looks just like notes.

01:01:13 ◼   ► It feels very Web 2.0-y to me.

01:01:16 ◼   ► It does.

01:01:18 ◼   ► It felt aged at the MobileMe launch in 2008 and it feels even more aged now.

01:01:24 ◼   ► Good web apps and good desktop apps are different things.

01:01:29 ◼   ► And it's very clever and they use SproutCore and all this crazy stuff but to do anything

01:01:35 ◼   ► efficiently in iCloud.com is basically impossible.

01:01:38 ◼   ► Everything is slow.

01:01:40 ◼   ► Everything is just like, it's more complex than it needs to be.

01:01:44 ◼   ► I would lump in there that iCloud email needs much more robust filtering.

01:01:51 ◼   ► You can do some very simple server-side rules with iCloud.

01:01:54 ◼   ► It used to be you could only write email rules in mail on your Mac.

01:01:57 ◼   ► So if your Mac was off, you didn't have any mail rules running.

01:02:01 ◼   ► You can do some simple stuff on iCloud.com.

01:02:03 ◼   ► It is nothing at all like what Google offers with Gmail, which is my primary reason for

01:02:07 ◼   ► using Gmail, or the filtering and rules.

01:02:10 ◼   ► It'd be nice to see Apple embrace more of that on the server side.

01:02:15 ◼   ► And I would like, why can't I use a custom domain like G Suite or like Office 365 with

01:02:23 ◼   ► iCloud services?

01:02:24 ◼   ► So if I want to use iCloud stuff, I don't want to use, you know, relay.fm with it.

01:02:29 ◼   ► I should be able to do that.

01:02:30 ◼   ► And they've never offered that way back to itools.

01:02:33 ◼   ► It's never been a thing.

01:02:35 ◼   ► But I wish it would be like, hey, I'll pay for it.

01:02:38 ◼   ► Right.

01:02:39 ◼   ► services revenue I'll give you some extra money you miss me email stuff

01:02:43 ◼   ► there you go there's a way I do that I give you some money online

01:02:49 ◼   ► collaboration is a big part of this I work in the cloud you know we try to use

01:02:53 ◼   ► it every couple years on this show and every time we do it it's it's bad it's

01:02:57 ◼   ► still kind of janky to move between the web and native apps like Apple should I

01:03:03 ◼   ► mean Google Docs is like king of this and and Dropbox papers right behind it

01:03:08 ◼   ► and I work in the cloud is just not there. folder sharing and iCloud Drive, like, again, stuff to

01:03:14 ◼   ► make things work on the internet better, or make people working together across the internet more

01:03:19 ◼   ► efficient, are good things. And lastly, the App Store is so basic on the web, you know, they have

01:03:27 ◼   ► those pages, if you're on the Mac, that's all you have, because iTunes got rid of the App Store.

01:03:30 ◼   ► But I wish they would look at Google Play and and copy the feature of Hey, I can purchase this.

01:03:37 ◼   ► on my in my browser and when I pick up my phone that app is there waiting for

01:03:43 ◼   ► me opening the App Store up to the web in more ways why can't I leave reviews

01:03:49 ◼   ► when I'm on the web like this stuff is is present in Google Play and it's all

01:03:54 ◼   ► really good in Google Play it works really well and I think the App Store

01:03:58 ◼   ► would benefit from being more inactive on the web I mean right now it's

01:04:00 ◼   ► basically read-only like you click a button to take you to iTunes or to take

01:04:03 ◼   ► you to the App Store on your device and it should do a lot more than that I

01:04:07 ◼   ► think this day and age.

01:04:10 ◼   ► I'm next again I guess. You are. This is around Robin.

01:04:15 ◼   ► Come around to you Robin. We should have done the anti Robin. I'm not sure how that would work.

01:04:21 ◼   ► There's no structure like you do all of yours and then me and Steven alternate. Is that an

01:04:26 ◼   ► anti Robin? I guess so because it's like that there's not even a pattern right

01:04:29 ◼   ► like it doesn't make any sense. I don't know. Anyway, I hope that Apple stops the iPad

01:04:37 ◼   ► pattern that we've seen so far. I don't want to see any, I don't want to see infrequent or

01:04:46 ◼   ► irregular updates again. I don't want to see new iPad stuff coming out in 2019 or 2020. I,

01:04:55 ◼   ► My hope is that Apple will now stick to a more regular iPad release schedule, both for

01:05:04 ◼   ► new iPads and new software features.

01:05:07 ◼   ► I don't want to see Apple saying "Oh well, we did the new iPad Pros in 2017 and we did

01:05:12 ◼   ► iOS 11, see you in three years everybody!"

01:05:15 ◼   ► No, I don't want to see that again, because they've done that in the past.

01:05:19 ◼   ► I hope that is not the case in 2018.

01:05:22 ◼   ► I truly believe that now is the time to keep pushing on the iPad Pro, both in terms of drag and drop and multitasking and all these powerful features that they've done this year.

01:05:32 ◼   ► I don't want them to stop. I don't want them to say, well, now we're cool for at least a couple of years.

01:05:37 ◼   ► So I hope that we'll not see a repeat of, you know, 2015 with iOS 9 and the iPad Pro, and then two years pass and we get new stuff.

01:05:48 ◼   ► because there's a lot that Apple could do now.

01:05:51 ◼   ► They could make the kind of tablet that nobody else has.

01:05:56 ◼   ► You can make the same argument about the iPad Pro,

01:05:59 ◼   ► but imagine if Apple were to make an iPad Pro next year

01:06:02 ◼   ► with Face ID and almost edge-to-edge design

01:06:07 ◼   ► and a new Apple Pencil and new AirPods.

01:06:09 ◼   ► That's the kind of setup that nobody has.

01:06:12 ◼   ► And hopefully we will not have to wait two years,

01:06:17 ◼   ► but in general I don't want them to have that mindset that says

01:06:24 ◼   ► "well the iPad can get an update every couple of years, every three years it's fine"

01:06:28 ◼   ► so we'll see. You can imagine that I would agree with you. I hope so. I will say for me

01:06:35 ◼   ► personally I care more about the software than the hardware. This hardware is really good and

01:06:42 ◼   ► and I would love to have the new features in it,

01:06:45 ◼   ► but it will keep me going.

01:06:47 ◼   ► Time has shown me that two years without new software

01:06:50 ◼   ► really hurts.

01:06:51 ◼   ► So I personally obviously want fantastic,

01:06:57 ◼   ► wonderful, whiz-bang new iPads,

01:06:59 ◼   ► but please keep the progression of iOS 11 into iOS 12

01:07:04 ◼   ► because there are a lot of bugs in files

01:07:09 ◼   ► that I just try and forget about

01:07:11 ◼   ► because it's the first time, but if I have to keep running it for another year with the

01:07:16 ◼   ► same bugs, I will be really mad. So that's kind of where I'm sitting with that. Like,

01:07:21 ◼   ► I care obviously about having amazing hardware, but really, like, please just continue the

01:07:26 ◼   ► software push.

01:07:27 ◼   ► Yeah, I was hoping you'd agree with me on this, you, Myke, as the last bastion of-

01:07:34 ◼   ► Yeah, of the multi-pad lifestyle.

01:07:37 ◼   ► the betrayal of your robotic co-host.

01:07:40 ◼   ► Yeah, been sad.

01:07:42 ◼   ► - I don't know what's wrong with him.

01:07:43 ◼   ► - A lot of Mac users were trade annual releases

01:07:46 ◼   ► for every couple of years.

01:07:47 ◼   ► - You say that, but I don't believe that.

01:07:50 ◼   ► I hear this all the time and I don't believe it.

01:07:52 ◼   ► Like if Apple-- - People would be mad

01:07:53 ◼   ► either way. - Yeah, if Apple didn't

01:07:54 ◼   ► have a Mac OS release in June, right?

01:07:58 ◼   ► People would be going crazy 'cause they'd be like,

01:08:00 ◼   ► "Oh, they killed the Mac!"

01:08:01 ◼   ► So I don't believe that for a second.

01:08:05 ◼   ► - I agree with you, it'd be a major problem.

01:08:07 ◼   ► - It'd be a bloodbath.

01:08:08 ◼   ► - But yeah, it's a good one, it's a good one, Federico.

01:08:10 ◼   ► - So I have a weird one again.

01:08:13 ◼   ► I hope that Apple stops thinking that they need

01:08:15 ◼   ► to make an app store for everything in all situations.

01:08:17 ◼   ► - Oh, that's a good one too.

01:08:20 ◼   ► - Because the iMessage App Store is just a sticker store.

01:08:25 ◼   ► And honestly, there's probably a better way

01:08:26 ◼   ► that could have branded that,

01:08:27 ◼   ► because I don't think people were using iMessage apps, guys.

01:08:30 ◼   ► I don't know if you knew about that,

01:08:32 ◼   ► but I think it's just stickers, really.

01:08:34 ◼   ► The Apple Watch App Store is still around, but is basically dead.

01:08:39 ◼   ► Because I think that if people want an app on their Apple Watch, they just turn it

01:08:44 ◼   ► on in the settings because it comes with an actual download of an app.

01:08:47 ◼   ► Right? Like if anything, the Apple Watch App Store is even worse than the iMessage

01:08:52 ◼   ► App Store. Because all the Watch Store does is download a regular app like it on

01:08:57 ◼   ► your iPhone. Like the current standard iPhone and iPad App Store that we have is

01:09:04 ◼   ► great. It's gotten so much better. I check it all the time. I check it way more than

01:09:07 ◼   ► I used to because I love the articles and the collections that they do. I will say so

01:09:11 ◼   ► far we're a few months in, like three months or something, and I've been really impressed

01:09:16 ◼   ► with what the App Store editorial team have done. But just keep that to be the central

01:09:20 ◼   ► hub for everything. You can have separate UIs inside of the regular App Store app if

01:09:27 ◼   ► you really want to, but having these weird, bolted on App Store looking things inside

01:09:33 ◼   ► of other apps on the iPhone really is kind of confusing and it would just be way nicer

01:09:38 ◼   ► like if you want a sticker you go to the App Store there's one App Store if you want an

01:09:42 ◼   ► app on your watch you go to the App Store there's one App Store and you just find a

01:09:46 ◼   ► way to make that work right you've added there's more space than there's ever been because

01:09:50 ◼   ► of the restructuring you know I'm concerned about the HomePod like what is that going

01:09:55 ◼   ► to be like is there going to be a HomePod App Store who knows you got a you got a voice

01:10:00 ◼   ► App Store. You just need to talk. I just don't think... I think that time has

01:10:06 ◼   ► been out that they can't replicate the App Store in a bunch of different places. It doesn't

01:10:12 ◼   ► even work on the Mac. Right? Like, there is one App Store. It is the iPhone App Store.

01:10:17 ◼   ► Every other App Store should be killed. I mean, video game companies have got this

01:10:24 ◼   ► pretty much figured out. When you go to the PlayStation Store, you get a sidebar that

01:10:28 ◼   ► says PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4.

01:10:31 ◼   ► - PSVR, right?

01:10:32 ◼   ► Like it's good, it works.

01:10:34 ◼   ► - It works pretty well.

01:10:35 ◼   ► - It's not elegant, but it's fine.

01:10:37 ◼   ► - Yeah, and I guess the idea was to bring the App Store

01:10:40 ◼   ► contextually to what you were using.

01:10:43 ◼   ► So you're in iMessage, good,

01:10:44 ◼   ► now you can open the App Store from iMessage.

01:10:47 ◼   ► Or are you managing your watch apps?

01:10:49 ◼   ► Well, now you have an App Store inside the watch app,

01:10:52 ◼   ► but it didn't really scale, it didn't really work, I guess,

01:10:55 ◼   ► because ultimately people just go to the App Store,

01:10:59 ◼   ► the App Store that they know.

01:11:01 ◼   ► And all these features that they added

01:11:05 ◼   ► in terms of platforms and devices,

01:11:07 ◼   ► they just added confusion.

01:11:09 ◼   ► Like where do you go if you need to install a sticker pack

01:11:12 ◼   ► or where do you go if you need to install a watch app?

01:11:14 ◼   ► And it's just confusing at this point.

01:11:17 ◼   ► - They made all of that so much better in 11

01:11:20 ◼   ► than how it was in 10, right?

01:11:22 ◼   ► If you download something,

01:11:23 ◼   ► it's just automatically enabled.

01:11:24 ◼   ► that kind of stuff.

01:11:26 ◼   ► And I think that that shows that they kind of,

01:11:28 ◼   ► at least I think kind of realized that maybe they didn't

01:11:32 ◼   ► do that just right.

01:11:34 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah.

01:11:35 ◼   ► - All right, Steven, round us out.

01:11:39 ◼   ► - I will, I'll be the final Robin.

01:11:41 ◼   ► I hope Apple stops goofing around with the retail experience

01:11:47 ◼   ► and focuses on things, on the basics

01:11:49 ◼   ► that make their stores better.

01:11:52 ◼   ► Wait times for service are way too long in most stores.

01:11:57 ◼   ► Even big stores, small stores like here in Memphis,

01:12:00 ◼   ► it can be difficult to get an appointment.

01:12:02 ◼   ► If you go in without an appointment,

01:12:04 ◼   ► you may get seen right away.

01:12:05 ◼   ► I had that happen when I broke my iPhone 7 Plus.

01:12:07 ◼   ► I basically just walked in and they took care of it.

01:12:09 ◼   ► But that's not guaranteed.

01:12:11 ◼   ► You don't know how much time you're going

01:12:13 ◼   ► to have to spend there waiting

01:12:14 ◼   ► or how long it's gonna take.

01:12:15 ◼   ► And that can scale up if you have more employees

01:12:20 ◼   ► you have more appointments open and I think that's something they really need to address.

01:12:25 ◼   ► The stores themselves have gotten better but the service side I think is lagging.

01:12:32 ◼   ► Those stores are beautiful though.

01:12:33 ◼   ► They are.

01:12:34 ◼   ► Like the design is so good.

01:12:36 ◼   ► If you're stranded somewhere for three hours there's worse places to be stranded.

01:12:41 ◼   ► But you're not building galleries right?

01:12:43 ◼   ► You are building a store where people buy stuff and it is your main service point.

01:12:48 ◼   ► Those things have to be good.

01:12:50 ◼   ► - Yeah, so I'd like to see that.

01:12:53 ◼   ► I think they've spent a lot of time,

01:12:54 ◼   ► like you said, on the visuals

01:12:56 ◼   ► and sort of the layout and that stuff.

01:12:58 ◼   ► And that's nice, but there's still

01:13:02 ◼   ► some fundamental frustrations

01:13:04 ◼   ► when someone goes into the Apple store

01:13:06 ◼   ► and employees feel that too.

01:13:07 ◼   ► And I think they just need to spend some time

01:13:10 ◼   ► sort of on the basics of that.

01:13:11 ◼   ► I think they've done a good job

01:13:14 ◼   ► with a lot of the stuff that is important,

01:13:16 ◼   ► but there's a lot of stuff that's important

01:13:17 ◼   ► they haven't dealt with.

01:13:19 ◼   ► and I wish that they would sort of maybe pause

01:13:22 ◼   ► some of the superficial changes

01:13:24 ◼   ► and work on the behind the scenes stuff a little bit more.

01:13:27 ◼   ► - So that is our anti-wish list.

01:13:32 ◼   ► So I guess it's a great way to end the year of positivity.

01:13:36 ◼   ► Who knows?

01:13:37 ◼   ► Who knows?

01:13:38 ◼   ► But we know that these are things

01:13:40 ◼   ► that we'd like to see changed because we love Apple

01:13:43 ◼   ► and these are things that frustrate us.

01:13:44 ◼   ► And so there you go.

01:13:46 ◼   ► We are now rounding out.

01:13:47 ◼   ► Yes, Federico.

01:13:48 ◼   ► How would you say your era of optimism or positivity has gone?

01:13:53 ◼   ► Very well.

01:13:54 ◼   ► So it runs for another six months because technically I'm doing Apple's year, right?

01:14:00 ◼   ► Ah, okay.

01:14:01 ◼   ► So it's like June to June?

01:14:04 ◼   ► I would say it's great.

01:14:05 ◼   ► I mean, I've said this in other places and I'll say it again, I'm very happy with my

01:14:09 ◼   ► current crop of technology.

01:14:12 ◼   ► I think it's great.

01:14:13 ◼   ► Like I'm really happy with everything that I've gotten.

01:14:15 ◼   ► I'm happy with my OS's.

01:14:17 ◼   ► I'm happy with the hardware.

01:14:18 ◼   ► I would say there are things that I would like to see Apple change, but honestly

01:14:21 ◼   ► it's mostly so I can just use their stuff more because like the things that I

01:14:25 ◼   ► don't like, so stuff about like, um, all of like data sharing-y type things,

01:14:30 ◼   ► right? Where like I would have an application and it's all data shared in the

01:14:34 ◼   ► cloud. Well, I use other apps instead of Apple's for that. So I'm cool with it.

01:14:38 ◼   ► Right? Like I'm not having autocorrect problems because I use Gboard.

01:14:41 ◼   ► So I'm not having these crazy autocorrect problems.

01:14:44 ◼   ► And I've made that change because it's something that I'm not happy with.

01:14:47 ◼   ► Right. Like that works great for me, but I would like to be able to just use

01:14:52 ◼   ► Apple's keyboard, but there's changes that they would have to make

01:14:55 ◼   ► from a functionality perspective.

01:14:57 ◼   ► Like there are three things, right?

01:14:59 ◼   ► My auto correct is better.

01:15:01 ◼   ► I have search for my emoji and a swipe keyboard. Always.

01:15:04 ◼   ► These are easy things, not easy, but these are good things for Apple

01:15:07 ◼   ► to add to their keyboard. Like they are good features.

01:15:09 ◼   ► Everybody wants emoji search, right?

01:15:12 ◼   ► just a better way to find emoji. Everybody wants their autocorrect to work and I'm sure

01:15:17 ◼   ► that a lot of people would really like a swipe keyboard but it doesn't make a difference

01:15:20 ◼   ► whether you have it or not because people don't swipe on their keyboard like accidentally

01:15:25 ◼   ► really I can't imagine. So you know they're things that I would like to see them add but

01:15:30 ◼   ► I just replace these features in other ways wherever I can but I would just like to see

01:15:36 ◼   ► them do more. I would say honestly for me I think these last six months of the year

01:15:41 ◼   ► Apple have really proven that like the year prior,

01:15:44 ◼   ► like the last six, you know, from like 2015 to 2016,

01:15:48 ◼   ► something was going on, whatever it was, right?

01:15:51 ◼   ► And they dropped the ball in a bunch of places.

01:15:54 ◼   ► But I think that they have really shown us

01:15:56 ◼   ► in these last six months that like everything's cool,

01:15:59 ◼   ► that was an anomaly.

01:16:00 ◼   ► Software has been mostly good.

01:16:02 ◼   ► There are problems, but it's been mostly good.

01:16:04 ◼   ► Hardware has been fantastic, right?

01:16:06 ◼   ► Like all of the hardware that's come out since June

01:16:08 ◼   ► has been great and there's still more to come.

01:16:10 ◼   ► Um, yeah, I feel confident about them right now and I will say that I feel a lot better

01:16:16 ◼   ► because I don't feel like I'm having to just complain all the time, which I really felt.

01:16:21 ◼   ► I mean, that was the big thing for me. I felt like I was just complaining all the time.

01:16:25 ◼   ► And I feel like you can complain and we have, these are things that we're frustrated about

01:16:28 ◼   ► with them. And I think it's fine to do that. But then it's also fine for like last week for us to

01:16:34 ◼   ► be talking about the things that we love, right? There's a balance there. But I really felt like

01:16:38 ◼   ► most of last year and most of the beginning of this year.

01:16:40 ◼   ► There wasn't really a lot of good to go around,

01:16:42 ◼   ► but I think that there is now,

01:16:43 ◼   ► and I'm very happy with my current state of technology.

01:16:46 ◼   ► And we only talk about all this stuff

01:16:48 ◼   ► because we love Apple and the products that they make,

01:16:50 ◼   ► and we just want it to be better all the time.

01:16:53 ◼   ► - Yeah. - There you go.

01:16:55 ◼   ► Thank you so much for listening to Connected.

01:16:57 ◼   ► At any point in 2017, we really appreciate it.

01:17:00 ◼   ► We are very thankful for you as a listener,

01:17:04 ◼   ► as well as our sponsors too,

01:17:06 ◼   ► because they help us make the show happen,

01:17:07 ◼   ► So thank you to Balance, TextExpander from Smile and Encapsula for their support of this

01:17:12 ◼   ► episode and their support this year too.

01:17:15 ◼   ► If you want to find us online, there's a few places you can do that.

01:17:18 ◼   ► You can get today's show notes at relay.fm/connecting/173.

01:17:22 ◼   ► Steven is at 512pixels.net and 512pixels on YouTube and he is @ismh on Twitter.

01:17:28 ◼   ► Federico is @vittici, V I T I C C I.

01:17:32 ◼   ► He is at MacStories.net and AppStories.net for some other places you can find both of

01:17:36 ◼   ► those guys but they both do more shows than just this one on relay FM as do I

01:17:41 ◼   ► you can go to relay.fm/shows to check out our crop of things that we do

01:17:47 ◼   ► if you're listening to this show well maybe one or two I bet that there's at

01:17:51 ◼   ► least at least one more podcast in our roster that would be great for you to

01:17:56 ◼   ► add we'll be back next year with our first episode of next year as we

01:18:02 ◼   ► mentioned is gonna be our year in review episode if you have any stories you

01:18:06 ◼   ► you hope that we talk about as an important thing that happened in 2017 to send a tweet with the

01:18:11 ◼   ► hashtag connected here and we'll pick it up. I'll get a go now. Until then, say goodbye guys.

01:18:16 ◼   ► Buon infest e arrivederci!

01:18:18 ◼   ► Oh gosh

01:18:19 ◼   ► Adios!

01:18:22 ◼   ► Feliz Navidad! Come on you must know this!