157: Your Legacy Chooses You
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Hello and welcome to Connected, episode 157.
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It is brought to you this week by Eero, Ting, and Crimson Mesa.
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My name is Stephen Hackett and I'm joined, as always, by my co-host, Federico Vittucci.
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How are you?
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Uh, it's, it's just the two of us, just the two of us this week.
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I know there's a, there's a sense of, uh, being grownups when Myke is not around.
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I feel like, uh, I feel like I'm having an adult conversation instead of, you
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know, just basically, I don't know what, what is that we do with Myke, but Myke is
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not with us. We don't know where, we don't know where he will be coming back if he
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will be coming back but that Steven doesn't doesn't have to stop you from
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doing the follow-up no the follow-up train cannot come off the tracks no it
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must it's barreling down on us and it's really good getting dark so you guys
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spoke last week about the iPad that you bent I found that whole conversation
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hysterical because I want to follow up on the investigation have you
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investigated what happened. So I tried to investigate what happened and I couldn't
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come up with any reasonable idea for exactly how the iPad bent but I saw
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someone on Twitter today with actually a pretty good idea that maybe this person
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asked me did you leave the iPad in the Sun and is it possible that the iPad got
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hot and the aluminum bent because of a of a just a light pressure not even a
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strong force. Now it is possible that I left the iPad in the sun but you know I
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don't think the aluminum would bend if I don't see at least the error message
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with the you know on iOS that tells you that the your device is overheating I'm
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not sure that that temperature you know if I don't see the message can the
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aluminum really bent. So I'm doing some googling about the softening and melting points
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of aluminum. The softening point seems to be like as low as 100 degrees Celsius.
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I'm definitely not at a beach with 100 degrees Celsius.
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No, you'd be dead or you'd want to be dead. So I don't think it's that. But iPads
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not made out of butter. They don't slowly become softer as they warm up. But yeah, so
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I don't have any real thoughts. I'm sure it was in a bag and just got squished. It
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happens. But you went to the Genius Bar and I know they all know you there. I know that
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they roll out the red carpet and they hand you an espresso.
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They really don't. I wish they did, but they really, unfortunately they don't. So
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yeah, I went to the Genius Bar and I take out my iPad. Actually, first I go to the guy
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guy and I say, I have a problem with my iPad Pro. I made a reservation. It's like, yeah,
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sure. What is the problem? So basically I just pulled the iPad from my bag and I showed
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to the guy, I was like, this is the problem. And he was like, huh, how did that happen?
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It was like, well, I have no idea actually. So Apple covered that under, thankfully I
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AppleCare+ for my iPad. Yes. So instead of, and this is, I should say this is the
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first time in eight, nine years that I'm buying Apple mobile devices that I ever
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did AppleCare. I decided to do AppleCare+ because it felt like for a
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thousand plus euro device it felt like a good choice. So I don't think I've ever
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done it on an iPad. Yeah. But I do on the phone, I do the AppleCare+ on the phone
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phone. Because as we've talked about at length, I carry my phone without a case. And sometimes
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it comes in handy to have AppleCare+. Yeah, and so instead of paying, the guy did the
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calculation, instead of paying 550 euros, I only had to pay 49, which was pretty nice.
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Which is less. Which is less. If the math is hard, it is
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less money. And last week I was telling Myke about these
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AppleCare costs. And then I was left waiting for a… the guy told me you've got to wait
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for five to six days. I was like, "Okay, sure I can use my bent iPad. I can go to the
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beach with a bent iPad. It's fine." But then the following day I get an email from
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Apple, "Your iPad is ready for pickup at the Apple Store." So I was really…
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I bet it was. I saw that email address. So we better take care of this guy.
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I don't know. I don't think that's the case. Probably just luck. You know, who's buying
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iPad Pro, iPad Pros in August in Rome? Come on. Everybody's at the beach.
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Just me buying an iPad, getting an iPad Pro. So yeah, the following day I go to the Apple
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store. Sure enough there's a cardboard box with an iPad Pro inside. And we make the exchange
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and the first thing I notice is that I'm trying to turn on the new iPad Pro and it's stuck
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at the Apple logo. I was like, oh man, this is a bad sign. So I had to do a force reset,
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like a forced reboot, and then it worked well. I wonder why he was stuck on the Apple logo,
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maybe some installation gone wrong. And actually I wanted to ask you, do you know if these
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iPads that Apple gives you, these replacement units, are they actually new devices or are
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they like refurbished devices?
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That's a good question. I mean, my experience at Apple Retail so long ago is basically irrelevant.
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But my understanding is that they are "like new," so they have new batteries and new enclosures,
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but the logic board or the screen may have come out of something they refurbished. So
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I don't think it's new, but I think it is "like new," where effectively there's no difference.
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Okay. But again, that could be, if you're out there and you're listening and you're
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yelling at me for getting that wrong, send us an email. We'll correct it next week.
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Send an email to Stephen, yes. So the new one comes with some variant of iOS 10, I'm
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sure. Did you put 11 on it right out of the box?
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Right out of the box I went back home because thankfully I was still in Rome. I was in Rome
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for a couple of days last week. So I went home and I downloaded iOS 11. And yeah, it's
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fine I had to do a restore from backup which I usually do not perform because it tends
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to be so slow but you know I have a fiber connection not as good as mics connection
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but it's still manageable so I did a restore I had to put in a bunch of passwords again
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but overall I was you know back up and running in I would say three to four hours the iPad
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was normal again yeah yeah good I'm glad it worked out so quickly you know that delay
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is kind of annoying but they just can't keep everything in stock right so they have to
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order you in a service part but um well good I'm glad you're sorted I'm glad that this
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one is not bent and you know don't dump in this one. Yeah I'm being super super careful
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with what I do with this iPad. Now it's in your head right? I'm constantly looking at
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the profile of the device and like is it slightly bent now? Am I bending the iPad? I did that
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with my 6 Plus, because people remember that some of those phones, I won't say they're
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prone to bending, but you could bend them. And yeah, sometimes I get in my head, like
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I pick it up and like, oh no, I've bent it. And then I put it on like a glass top table
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and like see if it wiggled any, you know, I'm sure anyone watching me thought I would
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have just lost my mind. But once it's like in your head, right, that it's like, oh, this
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feels bent, then you have to like prove to yourself that it's not. It's really upsetting.
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Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, now it's in my head and I'm looking at it all the time, but it seems
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to be fine. So I was really happy.
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It's impressive really. You don't know your own strength Federico. That's what it is.
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I don't know man. I don't know.
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So we had a bunch of people send us an email about this TechCrunch article.
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If this is our legacy I'm happy with it.
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You know it's not what I, you know, you don't always get decided what your legacy is going
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to be, right? Sometimes your legacy chooses you and ours is wall to wall comprehensive
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blah blah car coverage. So what is this story? Do you want to break this down?
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So you know how in Google Maps, in the iPhone app, you can integrate with a bunch of what
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do they call it? Ride sharing services, stuff like Uber and MyTaxi, you know, that stuff.
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Yeah, when you search for an address, you get the usual walking and car transit options,
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but then you also get these integrations with these services. And if you don't want to use
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your own transportation methods, you can hook up your account and get a fair estimation
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in the app, and then you can request an Uber or Lyft directly from Google Maps. Well, now
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it seems that there's a blah, blah, blah car integration in Google Maps. So if you want
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to ride long distance and of course you don't want to spend like a thousand euros with Uber.
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You can see if there's anybody who's traveling there with BlaBlaCar which is the awesome
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service. Also possibly sketchy, I don't want anybody to get killed by a stranger in a car
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but you know it seems to be quite popular in Europe and especially in France and Italy.
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So if you want to ride with someone who's going to the same place where you're supposed
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to be going, now you can see the estimated cost and the timeline, the schedule of someone
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else sharing a ride with BlaBlaCard directly in Google Maps.
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Which, I mean, if you trust and use BlaBlaCard, I should say, a couple of my friends swear
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by this service, they are super in love with it.
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So if you're into the idea of doing a BlaBlaCard ride, and if you can survive it, maybe you
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should test the Google Maps integration because it seems pretty cool.
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It is nice. I have used the Lyft integration, or at least played with it, you know, you
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kind of poke at it in iOS maps and like, I'm looking at this place, someone in a car taking
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me here. It's nice you don't have to go out to another app. It's one of those integrations
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that makes a lot of sense. So yeah, making moves, man.
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These integrations in mapping applications like in Apple Maps and Google Maps are actually
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quite nice. Maps on iOS, the Apple one, has also extensions for developers. So a couple
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of times in the past I use, I don't know if you're familiar with the service that
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is called TripAdvisor. It's like a...
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Yeah. So in Italy, I guess in Europe it's super popular because we don't really have
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Yelp. So we use TripAdvisor all the time. And one sort of sister company to TripAdvisor
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It's called the Fork and it lets you book,
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it's like open table but for Italians basically
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and Europeans I think.
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And the Fork has an Apple Maps integration.
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So when I'm looking up, usually restaurants
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in popular cities like in Rome
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or in very touristy type places
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and they have the Fork integrations.
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So I can go into Apple Maps
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and make a reservation from there
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and it takes care, you know,
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you get this custom UI inside of Maps
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And it's very similar to the integration system
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that Google Maps has, but Apple has an actually
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like a developer API, so anybody in theory
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can work with Apple to make these extensions,
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which is kind of neat.
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- So many times like you have an address or something,
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you gotta put it on your clipboard
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and then paste it into one of these other apps
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or try to remember it or like,
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it's just way cleaner to have it all in one.
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So I'm a big fan as well.
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All right, Jamie wrote in about subscription fatigue.
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So I'm gonna read a little bit of Jamie's email
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and I really want to know what you think about this.
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So this is riffing off something that Myke said,
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I think a couple weeks ago,
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that if you only use an application once or twice a year,
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you may not necessarily want to pay for it
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for a whole year of use via subscription.
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So if I have this app, I use it once in the winter
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and once in the summer, I don't want to pay for it
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the other 10 months out of the year, for instance.
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So Jamie suggests a approach for these companies
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that would be like a smart subscription system,
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is what they call it,
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so that you would still pay a monthly fee,
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but you only get charged if you use the app
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during that period.
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So if I use this app in January,
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I pay January's subscription amount,
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but if I do not use it in February, March, or April,
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I don't get billed for those months.
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I open it again in May and use it, I get billed for May.
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And I think Jamie's thought is that you could gain
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casual users, part of the deal with subscriptions,
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we've talked about it.
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If you have an app that goes subscription
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and you kind of only use it every once in a while,
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you may drop it and this would help keep those people along
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without getting involved for the full yearly fee.
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I was curious what you think about this.
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- I mean, I think these argument make sense,
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you know, if you don't wanna,
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we talked about this, I think, in terms of
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the subscriptions are gonna target different types
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of customers and different types of audiences.
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But I think the problem is how do you calculate,
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how do you create a subscription service
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that can make these kind of calculations for everybody?
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So if you apply that to millions of people on the App Store,
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how do you create a system that can basically build
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a subscription dynamically and differently for everybody
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based on their usage?
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Because that idea seems super smart, you know,
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like I'm paying a quote unquote subscription but only for the months that I'm actually
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using the app but how can you, you know it seems to add like a whole bunch of other complications
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to the system.
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Right, like what does using it mean?
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Exactly, exactly.
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Like if I tap it once when I'm like moving folders around because in iOS 11 that's super
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confusing, oh no I opened it and I'm going to get charged $3.99.
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I agree with you that it's fuzzy right?
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You need some sort of clear definition.
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- Yeah, and so I don't know because on one hand
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you got a pretty simple model.
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Every month or every year you pay X and that's it.
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Instead we would say, oh well it depends
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on how much you use the app.
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So what does use constitute exactly?
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And then you gotta make an API for this
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because you gotta tell developers,
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well either the system decides what using means,
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so if I wanna export my data from the app
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because I'm done with it,
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because I don't wanna use it anymore,
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I want to take all my documents out of the app.
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Does that mean I'm using the app?
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So does the app need to have like a grace period model
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It seems like it makes sense in practice.
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It makes sense in theory, but in practice, I
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would just say, just go look for something else.
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Because the subscription is clearly
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meant for a different type of user.
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And I think the greatest thing that subscriptions
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are doing right now is they're sort of splitting up the apps
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into two type of professional applications.
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The ones that follow the old model of pay once and pay
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for upgrades or buy the new version,
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and the new sort of trend of doing subscriptions.
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And we can choose, right?
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It's not like everybody is switching to subscriptions.
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If you-- even using Ulysses as a recent example,
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The folks at IE Writer or ScrewRunner, for example,
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which are pretty similar apps,
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they are not switching to subscriptions.
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So the great thing right now is that we have choice.
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And so because we have choice, instead of saying,
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we should create the system that accounts for
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how much a user actually uses the app
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and then calculates the subscription accordingly,
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instead I think it's just better maybe
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to pick a different tool and use it.
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- Yeah, so far, the couple apps that I have had moved
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to a subscription are apps that I really used.
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And so they, so far I've not been in the situation
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where an app that I only use a couple of times a year
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has done this, but I'm sure it's coming at some point.
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But you know, like when day one went to their premium model,
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I used day one multiple times a week.
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And I was happy to pay for it, and I did so like on day one.
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For me, I don't use Ulysses, and so, you know,
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that one kind of just went by me
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'cause I didn't use it before.
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I do like that if I want to use it,
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now there's more options with their trial stuff
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they've built in.
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But if I have the need for it,
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then I'll visit in the future.
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But I think there are a lot of people
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who are coming up against apps that fit
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into what Jamie's talking about.
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I think it's an interesting approach,
00:17:15
◼
►
but I think I agree with you
00:17:16
◼
►
that it's not quite the right answer.
00:17:18
◼
►
But it's interesting to think about.
00:17:22
◼
►
Because there are sort of all these,
00:17:24
◼
►
anytime there's a change in the app store,
00:17:26
◼
►
there's always pros and cons, right?
00:17:27
◼
►
It's such a complex system with so many apps
00:17:31
◼
►
and so many users that there is no one size fits all
00:17:34
◼
►
in anything, and anytime something changes or is updated
00:17:37
◼
►
or works differently, you always have to approach it
00:17:41
◼
►
in a new light, both as a developer, but as a user as well.
00:17:45
◼
►
- I have to wonder if this problem with subscriptions
00:17:50
◼
►
is mostly a result of the fact that some of the established
00:17:55
◼
►
developers in the industry right now are folks that used to be around before. Like they're
00:18:02
◼
►
relatively old companies. They
00:18:04
◼
►
have a vested interest in keeping the old model around.
00:18:09
◼
►
So I wonder if the new generations of developers like the kid that is now
00:18:13
◼
►
16 or 17 and wants to, it's her dream to start a company in three years. Is she gonna do
00:18:22
◼
►
You know a paid upfront app or are the new generations more inclined to consider these new models whether they are
00:18:30
◼
►
subscriptions or in-app purchases or you know new stuff because the popular apps that we use, you know, the OmniFocus and Ulysses and
00:18:37
◼
►
Scrivener these are all folks that have been around for a long time and
00:18:42
◼
►
Maybe some of them and this is not an accusation, but it's just a natural evolution of things
00:18:47
◼
►
They don't have the mindset to try new stuff because they are structured in a specific
00:18:53
◼
►
way as a company or because they just don't understand that change is scary for everybody.
00:19:00
◼
►
But some people are more inclined to change and to experiment. And usually those people
00:19:04
◼
►
are young people. So I wonder if the apps are five years from now, 10 years from now,
00:19:11
◼
►
where someone who's a kid in college today will create a development studio in the future,
00:19:19
◼
►
will they stick with the old model or will they change to the new ones? That is fascinating
00:19:24
◼
►
for me to think about.
00:19:25
◼
►
Yeah, I think kind of along those same lines, I wonder if this would have been different
00:19:32
◼
►
had subscriptions been introduced five years ago.
00:19:34
◼
►
Exactly. Yeah.
00:19:35
◼
►
Paid up front was still very much the business model and we are also used now
00:19:40
◼
►
to free with in-app purchase or free with ads that introducing this new paid
00:19:48
◼
►
mechanism feels a little late and obviously there's no way to know but I
00:19:54
◼
►
think about that a lot of like what would have this been like had been
00:19:57
◼
►
available earlier in the store and it may have been a more natural stepping
00:20:02
◼
►
stone over to this if we were all still used to paying for apps up front and
00:20:06
◼
►
said that oh hey it's great now you can pay less just on a monthly basis or a
00:20:10
◼
►
yearly basis or whatever and you know it's not a big deal but because we were
00:20:15
◼
►
so used to free apps now that there's some backlash of of users who don't who
00:20:21
◼
►
have been used to not paying for apps and now you know they're they're faced
00:20:25
◼
►
with paying something on a regular basis I don't know it's just interesting you
00:20:29
◼
►
Yeah, so we take a quick break tell you about our first sponsor this episode is brought to you by
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their support of this show and Relay FM. So we were falsely accused, Federico,
00:22:49
◼
►
- Mm, by who? - As a show.
00:22:51
◼
►
Somebody on Twitter, I don't remember.
00:22:55
◼
►
Blaming us for killing Crash Plan.
00:22:58
◼
►
- Didn't we?
00:22:59
◼
►
- And I was like, no, we haven't talked about Crash Plan.
00:23:01
◼
►
I even looked through the notes.
00:23:03
◼
►
I was like, did we mention it recently?
00:23:04
◼
►
And then the prompt curse killed it, no.
00:23:07
◼
►
This is not our fault. - Okay.
00:23:09
◼
►
- But the news is Crash Plan, which is a backup service
00:23:12
◼
►
for your Mac or PC, they have exited, exited,
00:23:18
◼
►
the consumer space.
00:23:20
◼
►
So it used to be you go to this crash plan,
00:23:23
◼
►
you pay whatever it was, five bucks a month,
00:23:25
◼
►
and you can back up your Mac.
00:23:26
◼
►
And they are moving out of that business
00:23:29
◼
►
and just doing small business, basically.
00:23:33
◼
►
Now we should say Backblaze has been a sponsor
00:23:35
◼
►
of Connected and a bunch of Relay FM shows,
00:23:38
◼
►
but I used Backblaze before then.
00:23:40
◼
►
I've used Backblaze for a long time.
00:23:42
◼
►
But just to get that off the table, they are a sponsor.
00:23:45
◼
►
So I don't necessarily talk about the crash plan thing
00:23:48
◼
►
all that much.
00:23:48
◼
►
It's clearly that it's not working for them.
00:23:52
◼
►
You can migrate from a personal account
00:23:53
◼
►
to a small business account.
00:23:55
◼
►
There's some incentives if you do that.
00:23:57
◼
►
They reckon people use Carbonite.
00:23:59
◼
►
I think all of us would say Backblaze is a better choice.
00:24:02
◼
►
But it got me thinking again about Time Machine and iCloud.
00:24:08
◼
►
So Time Machine backup is great, but the problem
00:24:10
◼
►
is that your hard drive-- like for instance, on my iMac
00:24:13
◼
►
here on my desk, my time machine drive is under the desk.
00:24:16
◼
►
And so if my studio burns to the ground,
00:24:19
◼
►
A, a lot of old Macs would be killed,
00:24:20
◼
►
but two, my data, just on my iMac and the time machine drive
00:24:24
◼
►
would go away.
00:24:25
◼
►
And what Backblaze does, or Crash Plan,
00:24:26
◼
►
or these other services, is they get your data offsite.
00:24:31
◼
►
And I can talk about backups all day.
00:24:34
◼
►
It's a very exciting topic, mostly in Federico.
00:24:36
◼
►
- I had no idea, really, can you?
00:24:39
◼
►
- Yeah, I know, right?
00:24:40
◼
►
Yeah, huh, weird.
00:24:42
◼
►
But it got me thinking, what would it take for iCloud to offer Time Machine backup to
00:24:50
◼
►
So I looked up some pricing, because the iCloud pricing seems to change every nine months
00:24:55
◼
►
Right now, if you're in the US, you can buy two terabytes of iCloud data for basically
00:25:02
◼
►
ten bucks a month.
00:25:04
◼
►
And all around the world, two terabytes is the max.
00:25:07
◼
►
So that is more a month than something like Backblaze, which is five dollars a month for
00:25:11
◼
►
for unlimited backup, but it's a reasonable amount
00:25:16
◼
►
for that data, and for most people,
00:25:20
◼
►
you know, if I had this two terabyte plan,
00:25:22
◼
►
if I could go into the iCloud settings,
00:25:25
◼
►
hey, I'm gonna use a terabyte for time machine backup,
00:25:30
◼
►
just carve out a terabyte for time machine backup,
00:25:33
◼
►
and let the other terabyte be used for iCloud photo library
00:25:36
◼
►
and whatever else I have in iCloud.
00:25:38
◼
►
And that seems not unreasonable to me at this point,
00:25:41
◼
►
that they could do something like this.
00:25:45
◼
►
I think it'd be nice.
00:25:46
◼
►
- Yeah, and especially when you compare iOS devices and Macs,
00:25:51
◼
►
even if I don't personally use iCalc backup and restore
00:25:56
◼
►
every time, it's just so easy when you need it.
00:25:59
◼
►
And it surprises me that the Mac
00:26:01
◼
►
doesn't have a feature like this.
00:26:03
◼
►
And quite possibly, I mean, the fact that Macs can,
00:26:07
◼
►
They tend to ship with more built-in storage than iOS devices.
00:26:11
◼
►
Probably that was a problem in the past.
00:26:14
◼
►
But Apple seems to be open to the idea of extending the storage of iCloud Drive.
00:26:18
◼
►
And especially now that they're also going to do family sharing in iOS 11,
00:26:24
◼
►
you can share your space with other members in your family.
00:26:26
◼
►
I'm surprised that the Mac still doesn't have any deeper iCloud integration when
00:26:31
◼
►
it comes to setup and backup.
00:26:33
◼
►
It is surprising.
00:26:35
◼
►
So I've been setting up my High Sierra Drive over and over.
00:26:39
◼
►
Like you, I'm in the depths of a review.
00:26:41
◼
►
And if you sign into iCloud on a blank Mac,
00:26:44
◼
►
it pulls down a bunch of settings.
00:26:46
◼
►
You have all your contacts and calendars like you normally do.
00:26:48
◼
►
But it pulls down account settings.
00:26:50
◼
►
So it knew about all three of my email addresses.
00:26:52
◼
►
And it knows about these other logins and stuff.
00:26:57
◼
►
But it's not nearly as comprehensive
00:27:00
◼
►
as a time machine restore would be, of course,
00:27:03
◼
►
or an iCloud restore on iOS.
00:27:05
◼
►
And we're at the point where I think most nerds know
00:27:09
◼
►
about Time Machine.
00:27:10
◼
►
It's been around since 10.5.
00:27:11
◼
►
It's been a really long time.
00:27:12
◼
►
But it still requires you go buy an external hard drive
00:27:16
◼
►
and plug it in, right?
00:27:18
◼
►
Or-- and most people have notebooks,
00:27:20
◼
►
so you've got to remember, like, oh, it's on my desk
00:27:21
◼
►
when I charge my laptop.
00:27:22
◼
►
I need to plug in the drive.
00:27:23
◼
►
I know I need to buy a dongle.
00:27:24
◼
►
And I think a lot of people can go longer
00:27:29
◼
►
than they think they do between backups.
00:27:30
◼
►
and then you're at risk for data loss.
00:27:33
◼
►
And something like CrashPlan or Backblaze takes care of that.
00:27:38
◼
►
A lot of things would have to go wrong for me to go get my data off Backblaze.
00:27:41
◼
►
It's not my first backup, but it is my safety net.
00:27:44
◼
►
If my office disappears, then I can go get my data from Backblaze.
00:27:51
◼
►
And I think people would be more willing to do something like this
00:27:56
◼
►
if it's built in with iCloud system settings, because it's just built in.
00:28:00
◼
►
They trust it, they don't have to go find something else.
00:28:02
◼
►
They already know and trust Apple and the iCloud brand.
00:28:06
◼
►
And it just seems like an opportunity for Apple
00:28:08
◼
►
to maybe make a move here at some point.
00:28:12
◼
►
And Dan Morin, I wrote this thing over at Macworld.
00:28:14
◼
►
This is one of those deals where I was preparing
00:28:16
◼
►
for the show and then somebody we know wrote basically
00:28:19
◼
►
exactly what I was gonna say.
00:28:20
◼
►
So go read Dan's article.
00:28:23
◼
►
It's very much in line with this.
00:28:25
◼
►
But I think it would be nice to have another option
00:28:28
◼
►
for Mac users.
00:28:29
◼
►
said that iCloud backup is so good on iOS and time machine is really good but again
00:28:35
◼
►
you got to go you got to go buy a hard drive and not everyone's gonna do that.
00:28:38
◼
►
mm-hmm yeah. Crash plan. It's time for backup plays. It's uh it's the way to go.
00:28:45
◼
►
This week Apple introduced app development in Swift. This is a new
00:28:50
◼
►
community college curriculum built around the Swift programming language.
00:28:55
◼
►
So Tim Cook has been doing this like great American tour.
00:28:59
◼
►
He's spoken at some factories.
00:29:02
◼
►
He was in Austin, Texas where Apple actually has a really big corporate presence in Austin.
00:29:08
◼
►
He was speaking at the Austin Community College District, which is apparently a 74,000 student
00:29:17
◼
►
community college or group of community colleges and more or less this is a course on Swift.
00:29:29
◼
►
This is a quote from Tim Cook.
00:29:30
◼
►
We've seen first hand how Apple's app ecosystem has transformed the global economy creating
00:29:35
◼
►
new industries and supporting millions of jobs.
00:29:39
◼
►
We believe passionately that the same opportunity should be extended to everyone and community
00:29:42
◼
►
colleges have a powerful reach into communities where education becomes the great equalizer.
00:29:47
◼
►
feels good. Yeah. It feels nice. Yeah. They've been talking about this, you know, extending
00:29:53
◼
►
Swift with this type of course. So I think it's, you know, I wonder if we'll ever see
00:29:58
◼
►
this kind of initiative from Apple outside of the US, but still, I mean, in Italy they
00:30:03
◼
►
do have the sort of the, what's it called? Not the Apple university, like the app accelerator.
00:30:11
◼
►
Like the it's like, yeah, you get like a college degree or something and to become an app developer,
00:30:16
◼
►
it's in Naples and it's structured like a university degree, I think. So that's great.
00:30:25
◼
►
There's one in India too, I think, now.
00:30:27
◼
►
Yeah, there's one in India, I think. But it would be great to have this kind of curriculum
00:30:32
◼
►
in the community colleges as well. So it's great that they've started doing this in the
00:30:37
◼
►
US. I think it's definitely, you know, it's one of the things that sort of distinguishes
00:30:45
◼
►
Tim Cook's Apple from what the company was before, especially now that they have their
00:30:50
◼
►
own programming language. And you can see a certain amount of pride every time Apple
00:30:55
◼
►
talks about this stuff, whether it's like Swift Playgrounds and what they're doing with,
00:31:00
◼
►
you know, extending playgrounds to, for example, now kids can, you know, run custom code on
00:31:06
◼
►
like Bluetooth toys and small drones even. So that's awesome. And you can see how they,
00:31:12
◼
►
As a company they are proud to ship this kind of software and to create these opportunities
00:31:18
◼
►
for kids and students.
00:31:21
◼
►
So I'm really happy to see that they're continuing to do this stuff.
00:31:25
◼
►
Yeah, and so this is on the iBook store, which we can get to, but this is available, I'd
00:31:33
◼
►
say it's going to be offered at more than 30 community colleges across the US in the
00:31:36
◼
►
2017-2018 school year.
00:31:39
◼
►
you would imagine that this would grow. And this is separate from things like Swift Playgrounds
00:31:46
◼
►
on the iPad, but they are slowly building all of this stuff together. And I think it is interesting
00:31:52
◼
►
that they are using their programming language as a means for civil good, if you can say that.
00:31:58
◼
►
There's a quote in this press release from the Austin mayor talking about lifting people out
00:32:03
◼
►
of poverty and into good jobs. I think you're right that Apple leverages Swift for much
00:32:10
◼
►
more than "just" a programming language.
00:32:14
◼
►
Yeah, I think you're right. They're sort of using this as -- I think Swift in this regard
00:32:23
◼
►
is sort of the continuation of -- you know, Apple always said that education is really
00:32:29
◼
►
important for the company and I think
00:32:31
◼
►
Swift is now a representation of that.
00:32:33
◼
►
So I want to talk a little bit about how
00:32:35
◼
►
they're rolling it out. Like I said this
00:32:36
◼
►
seems like it's in iBooks and this
00:32:41
◼
►
comes, I mean they're unrelated stories
00:32:43
◼
►
except I'm going to try to make them
00:32:45
◼
►
related, and this comes after last week
00:32:48
◼
►
Apple announced that in September
00:32:52
◼
►
iTunes U collections will be
00:32:56
◼
►
moving into Apple podcasts and that the courses will only be available through the iTunes
00:33:02
◼
►
U app on iOS. So, I feel like it's always been one of those products that doesn't really
00:33:10
◼
►
have a home. It kind of got glued into iTunes and they've had an iOS app. Do you remember
00:33:15
◼
►
– I had a real flashback reading through this – do you remember the UI for iTunes
00:33:21
◼
►
you at first it was the same bookcase as newsroom but like dark wood instead of light wood it
00:33:27
◼
►
was like way to go guys good work. Do you mean newsstand? Yes yeah newsstand yeah. Yeah
00:33:35
◼
►
because I think newsroom is their website for. That's very confusing. Yeah Apple names
00:33:41
◼
►
man. Newsstand. So yeah I do remember the old iTunes U stuff and there were like some
00:33:47
◼
►
elements that were like borrowed from iBooks even I think. Those old apps like iTunes U
00:33:55
◼
►
and the first podcast app, you know with the tape reel and those were the days of iOS UI
00:34:04
◼
►
So many times.
00:34:05
◼
►
So I wonder if this stuff of iTunes U collections moving into podcasts and the courses staying
00:34:16
◼
►
a separate app. Do you think we'll eventually see iTunes U rename to Apple Education or
00:34:22
◼
►
something as a sign of iTunes as a brand and as a product eventually going away?
00:34:29
◼
►
Yeah, I mean the iTunes thing is a bigger conversation, but I do think that this is
00:34:34
◼
►
a step towards dismantling iTunes U and at the same time building up Apple Podcasts,
00:34:40
◼
►
which is something they have a lot of equity in right now and they're really pushing
00:34:44
◼
►
on with iOS 11. I do think that the name clearly comes from an age that we're not in anymore.
00:34:51
◼
►
And there's a lot of talk about iTunes needing to go away, and my money is that 2018 is the
00:34:58
◼
►
year we see iTunes on the Mac get broken up. But either way, I think what's more interesting
00:35:04
◼
►
is Apple's still invested in this technology and invested in leveraging these tools for
00:35:13
◼
►
for, because iTunes U, we should back way up.
00:35:16
◼
►
For people who aren't familiar with iTunes U,
00:35:18
◼
►
it is a platform where teachers or even professors
00:35:23
◼
►
can basically load in content for their classrooms, right?
00:35:28
◼
►
And students can download them.
00:35:30
◼
►
There's a bunch of free stuff through iTunes U,
00:35:33
◼
►
so you can go like, you know, basically look through
00:35:35
◼
►
the material for a class at Stanford or something,
00:35:37
◼
►
you know, or whatever.
00:35:39
◼
►
It still being a standalone iOS app gives me hope
00:35:41
◼
►
Apple is still invested in this. But yeah, I think iTunes on the Mac, it doesn't bode
00:35:46
◼
►
well for that software.
00:35:47
◼
►
Yeah, yeah. I was reading through a bunch of tweets from Marco Aurment a few days ago
00:35:53
◼
►
and I think what he was imagining made a lot of sense that it's not like Apple will, you
00:36:00
◼
►
know, have a big ceremony and kill off iTunes very publicly. Instead, it'll probably, you
00:36:05
◼
►
know, it'll be slowly dismantled and a bunch of functionalities will be rolled out into
00:36:10
◼
►
other products and into separate apps. And eventually they'll just put iTunes in a legacy
00:36:16
◼
►
like the utilities folder on the Mac. Because nobody's really, you know, most people are
00:36:22
◼
►
streaming music or they are using Netflix and, you know, streaming stuff from iTunes
00:36:28
◼
►
on their Apple TVs. Nobody's really syncing their iPhones and iPads and iPods anymore
00:36:35
◼
►
with iTunes. And so there's still those folks that sync their music libraries. But maybe
00:36:40
◼
►
that would be better served by a separate music app instead of having every single feature
00:36:47
◼
►
into iTunes. So maybe eventually iTunes will go into a folder and if you really want to
00:36:51
◼
►
use it you will be able to open it and to sync your devices manually but I wouldn't
00:36:55
◼
►
be surprised if Apple's intention is not to have a big announcement about killing off
00:37:00
◼
►
iTunes. Instead you see a feature going into podcasts, another feature going into the TV
00:37:07
◼
►
app and eventually, you know, maybe a couple of years from now, well, iTunes will be not
00:37:12
◼
►
forgotten but just put there aside and, you know, it's going to be sad for those who,
00:37:20
◼
►
I mean, iTunes did a lot of good things back in the day, you know, it sort of democratized
00:37:24
◼
►
the Apple ecosystem in the sense of you have an Apple device, well now you have a single
00:37:28
◼
►
app to put anything you want in there. So that was awesome but I think it's, you know,
00:37:33
◼
►
it's passed its time and it's probably time to move on.
00:37:36
◼
►
I just find it all interesting, they're making moves on content but not using the channels
00:37:40
◼
►
they may have done a year ago or two years ago.
00:37:43
◼
►
Alright, so we have more to talk about, but first I want to tell you about our second
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00:39:19
◼
►
A story made the rounds this week about a hardware Kickstarter project, which is usually
00:39:24
◼
►
something I don't know if we would cover on the show because hardware and Kickstarter
00:39:29
◼
►
have a mixed history.
00:39:32
◼
►
- They are probably, usually they are probably worse
00:39:36
◼
►
than video game Kickstarters.
00:39:39
◼
►
There have been so many examples of accessories
00:39:43
◼
►
never shipping or being super delayed
00:39:45
◼
►
to the point where they come out and they are irrelevant
00:39:48
◼
►
because the technology has moved on.
00:39:50
◼
►
But this one comes from a company that a lot of people trust
00:39:54
◼
►
they're called Astro HQ, they make AstroPad,
00:39:57
◼
►
is an iPad application to turn the iPad screen into an external display for your Mac, which
00:40:04
◼
►
a lot of people use. Astropad comes in two versions. One is, you know, we were talking
00:40:10
◼
►
about this actually just a few minutes ago, the basic version as a paid-up-front traditional
00:40:16
◼
►
model. The other one, I think it's called Astropad Studio, it uses a subscription model
00:40:21
◼
►
for users that want more from the app. So that's an interesting way to go about it,
00:40:25
◼
►
actually release two separate apps and two sort of aimed at two separate audiences.
00:40:31
◼
►
But anyway, now the makers of AstroPad are making the Luna accessory, which is a little,
00:40:35
◼
►
should I say, a little dongle that you put into your MacBook and that basically via some
00:40:42
◼
►
magic, I don't know even how this works, but this little USB thingy, it uses the GPU
00:40:48
◼
►
the metal APIs on macOS to accelerate the graphics on the iPad screen.
00:40:58
◼
►
That means that the iPad, if you have a Luna plugged into your MacBook, the iPad now becomes
00:41:03
◼
►
an external display for anything, not just graphics applications, but for anything that
00:41:09
◼
►
you want to use your Mac for.
00:41:12
◼
►
And it's got insane performance to the point of it feels like an actual external display
00:41:17
◼
►
you know, like something that is being streamed over Wi-Fi.
00:41:20
◼
►
I don't know how these folks do it,
00:41:22
◼
►
but the general idea is that because of the GPU acceleration
00:41:27
◼
►
and because of the Metal API, by going deeper
00:41:30
◼
►
into the system stack of graphics technologies
00:41:34
◼
►
on MacOS, they can have better performance
00:41:36
◼
►
than similar apps that just rely on Wi-Fi.
00:41:39
◼
►
And that because of that, they have a lot of latency,
00:41:41
◼
►
they have a lot of lag.
00:41:42
◼
►
And anybody who's tried this says it's the best iPad as an external display solution
00:41:48
◼
►
I've ever tried.
00:41:50
◼
►
So it seems pretty awesome.
00:41:52
◼
►
Yeah, it really seems like, from the video and people's reactions, it seems like all
00:41:59
◼
►
the lag and stuff you get over a Wi-Fi setting is gone.
00:42:04
◼
►
You don't have to use a lightning cable or anything, just this little dongle.
00:42:08
◼
►
In the video they even show someone on a couch sketching, I think, an Illustrator with the
00:42:11
◼
►
Apple Pencil, like you don't even see the Mac, like it's just somewhere else, right?
00:42:15
◼
►
And the iPad can take advantage of it.
00:42:19
◼
►
It really seems like something Apple would never do, but so many people would like them
00:42:23
◼
►
to do, because there are some, like, especially illustration apps that are only on Mac OS,
00:42:32
◼
►
but I think Apple's response would be like, "Well, you should build them for the iPad."
00:42:37
◼
►
That hasn't really happened with some of these, and it probably won't ever with something
00:42:40
◼
►
like Adobe Illustrator, but if you do need a Mac app,
00:42:44
◼
►
but want to use the pencil and the iPad Pro,
00:42:48
◼
►
this does answer that question.
00:42:50
◼
►
Like the Kickstarter is like super funded already.
00:42:53
◼
►
They're at, is this recording like almost $345,000.
00:42:57
◼
►
Clearly there's demand for this 4,200 backers,
00:43:00
◼
►
which is way bigger demand than I thought there would be,
00:43:03
◼
►
but it does seem like something I'm not sure it's for me,
00:43:08
◼
►
'cause I really don't have an app on my Mac
00:43:10
◼
►
that I want to use this way, but if you do, this seems like the best way to go about it.
00:43:15
◼
►
Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if Apple is looking at this idea from a slightly different
00:43:22
◼
►
angle. And that is most of these companies, their pitch is use your iPad as an external
00:43:29
◼
►
display. And that makes a lot of sense if you're that type of user that mostly works
00:43:34
◼
►
on the Mac, but also as an iPad. And so when you're working on your Mac, you want to find
00:43:39
◼
►
some utility for the iPad. Instead I would not be surprised if Apple is sort of seeing
00:43:46
◼
►
this as if they were ever to do a similar feature. Something along the lines of "use
00:43:53
◼
►
your iPad to control your Mac". Something like "transform the iPad Pro into a Wacom
00:44:00
◼
►
tablet". You know, with the Apple Pencil and with the, you know, with apps on your iPad,
00:44:04
◼
►
can now integrate them with similar apps or with companion apps on macOS. And so whereas
00:44:11
◼
►
these companies, they try to... I don't want to say they demote the iPad as a dumb display,
00:44:19
◼
►
but they let you use the iPad when you wouldn't probably use the iPad because you're at your
00:44:24
◼
►
desk. Instead, I think if Apple were to do something like this, they would do, you know,
00:44:30
◼
►
your iPad Pro and now you can use your iPad to control your Mac. See, does it make any
00:44:37
◼
►
sense what I'm saying?
00:44:39
◼
►
Yeah, yeah. I think it does. And I think that opens it up to more users than just people
00:44:46
◼
►
who want to use Illustrator. It makes it more flexible.
00:44:49
◼
►
Yeah, and again, this is all speculation. I don't actually know if Apple is planning
00:44:55
◼
►
something like this. But it would make more sense to me because I cannot see Apple coming
00:45:00
◼
►
out on stage and saying, "Well, if you hate your iPad, now you can use it as a dumb monitor
00:45:05
◼
►
for your computer."
00:45:06
◼
►
I mean, that kind of takes the wind out of the sails of iOS, right?
00:45:11
◼
►
Pretty much.
00:45:12
◼
►
Forget all this stuff.
00:45:13
◼
►
Just everyone's Mac OS over the network.
00:45:16
◼
►
Yeah, just buy a dongle, because we love to sell you dongles anyway.
00:45:21
◼
►
They do love dongles.
00:45:22
◼
►
So buy a dongle and use your iPad as a display.
00:45:24
◼
►
That's it, we're done.
00:45:25
◼
►
Pack it up and go home, iPad.
00:45:28
◼
►
We fired all the iOS engineers. That would be... they're not doing that.
00:45:32
◼
►
But still, still, if you want to use your iPad as an external display, this is probably
00:45:37
◼
►
the way to go. And I mean, we all knew that Wi-Fi was a lossy solution to this problem.
00:45:44
◼
►
So you know, whatever these guys did in terms of code, you know, the fact that they can
00:45:50
◼
►
hook up with the, you know, with the metal APIs on macOS and the GPU, that seems crazy
00:45:56
◼
►
to me. So it sounds also crazy awesome. And if I were, you know, that type of user, I
00:46:03
◼
►
would be all over this. I would probably buy the 10 pack option, you know, just, just buy
00:46:08
◼
►
a dongle for every occasion, you know? So yeah. So there's that. So best luck to those
00:46:12
◼
►
guys that seems to be, uh, rocking and rolling. Yeah. So, so Frederick, it is the end of August
00:46:19
◼
►
and the iPhone event, depending on what you read, could be just a couple of weeks away.
00:46:25
◼
►
So today the Wall Street Journal is reporting that the iPhone event will take place on September
00:46:32
◼
►
12th, which is a Tuesday, and it will take place in the Steve Jobs Theater, which of
00:46:37
◼
►
course is built at Apple Park.
00:46:40
◼
►
It has got an above-ground lobby, I guess, an entryway, and then the theater is underground.
00:46:47
◼
►
We talked about it when they announced the name.
00:46:48
◼
►
It's a perfect name.
00:46:49
◼
►
So yeah, I was curious if you think, I mean this seems like the ideal thing to start holding
00:46:57
◼
►
events at the C-Jobs Theater with, right? Having your iPhone, your biggest product,
00:47:01
◼
►
introduced there seems like a great way to introduce it. What do you think?
00:47:04
◼
►
Yeah, and I mean especially after 10 years of the, from the first iPhone, that would
00:47:09
◼
►
be perfect. I think that would be the right way to look back tastefully, but also look
00:47:16
◼
►
forward to what is coming to the iPhone's future. So I think that would be a perfect
00:47:20
◼
►
combination honestly. September 12 as the date, personally I would be extremely relieved
00:47:29
◼
►
if an event is in mid-September because that would mean that iOS 11 is not launching for
00:47:35
◼
►
at least a week after the event, which would put the iOS 11 release date at least September
00:47:43
◼
►
19th or September 20th. So that would be awesome for me because it means another 20 days of
00:47:47
◼
►
editing my review and preparing all the little surprises and extras that we're working on.
00:47:54
◼
►
And also I wonder if maybe pushing the release of the new iPhones by a week, you know, compared
00:48:01
◼
►
to the previous two years, instead of returning to the pattern of the 2014 releases, I wonder
00:48:09
◼
►
if it's a product of Apple is making a new phone and they needed slightly more time.
00:48:14
◼
►
So they had to push the announcement and not in the first week of September but in the
00:48:19
◼
►
second week with the iPhone launching in the third week of September. So that could be
00:48:22
◼
►
a possible reason. But if the rumors are correct, we are in for quite the show because Apple
00:48:30
◼
►
in theory is announcing three new iPhones but also 4K content on iTunes with a 4K Apple
00:48:37
◼
►
TV launching in theory alongside 4K movies and TV shows on iTunes. And what else? Probably
00:48:44
◼
►
another announcement/demo of the HomePod. Am I missing something else?
00:48:51
◼
►
I mean, we'll see software, right? We'll see if we can have iOS 11 and High Sierra.
00:48:56
◼
►
And of course the new Apple Watch, which according to the rumors has an LTE version this time.
00:49:01
◼
►
So that would be quite a lot of stuff, you know? No iPads because they did the iPads
00:49:06
◼
►
in June but still quite the show. There's a lot of stuff man. I think back about two
00:49:11
◼
►
years ago they had the Apple TV 6s and 6s plus, the big iPad Pro, it was a big two hour
00:49:20
◼
►
event and this would be on up there with that. I think it would be great to have it at the
00:49:27
◼
►
theatre. We've talked about this before where they lump other products with the iPhone to
00:49:35
◼
►
to share that stage with the iPhone, right?
00:49:37
◼
►
'Cause that is their biggest, I mean, WBC is big,
00:49:40
◼
►
but the world cares about the iPhone keynote, right?
00:49:44
◼
►
People don't really pay attention to WBC as much.
00:49:48
◼
►
But, so if you have all that attention,
00:49:51
◼
►
why not do this other stuff
00:49:54
◼
►
and have these other products ready to go?
00:49:57
◼
►
And so many of them work together
00:49:59
◼
►
where the Apple Watch and the phone go together.
00:50:01
◼
►
And maybe there's something unique there
00:50:03
◼
►
if you pair it with a new phone
00:50:05
◼
►
or the Apple TV is sort of always floating,
00:50:08
◼
►
so they have to stick it with something
00:50:10
◼
►
to make it make sense?
00:50:12
◼
►
- Well, this is something that I wonder about in my review,
00:50:17
◼
►
and I don't remember if I also discuss this on the show,
00:50:22
◼
►
but there's a section in my IOS 11 review
00:50:25
◼
►
where I'm talking about the new image and video formats
00:50:29
◼
►
coming with IOS 11, if and HEVC.
00:50:34
◼
►
And I wonder if maybe, because Apple is supposedly
00:50:39
◼
►
going to roll out 4K content, and of course,
00:50:41
◼
►
traditional 4K content is huge in terms of file sizes.
00:50:46
◼
►
So I wonder if maybe Apple was waiting for HEVC,
00:50:49
◼
►
the high efficiency video codec, to roll out with iOS 11,
00:50:54
◼
►
with tvOS, and with macOS High Sierra.
00:50:57
◼
►
I wonder if for a 4K Apple TV to come out
00:51:01
◼
►
and for 4K content to be available on iTunes.
00:51:05
◼
►
If Apple wanted to have that piece of the ecosystem
00:51:09
◼
►
in place first, to have HEVC available as a format on iOS
00:51:14
◼
►
and all the other platforms, and to request all the movie and TV
00:51:22
◼
►
show companies to release their 4K stuff in that format,
00:51:27
◼
►
with that codec, which results in better compressions,
00:51:31
◼
►
smaller file sizes, built-in support for HDR,
00:51:35
◼
►
and all these other modern features of movie formats
00:51:39
◼
►
on our devices.
00:51:41
◼
►
So I do wonder if,
00:51:45
◼
►
everybody's been saying Apple must do 4K,
00:51:47
◼
►
and Apple must do 4K,
00:51:49
◼
►
and Apple knows that they have to do 4K
00:51:50
◼
►
if they don't wanna be left behind,
00:51:53
◼
►
but before they can do that,
00:51:55
◼
►
they wanted to have the underlying technology
00:51:58
◼
►
done first with a better format.
00:52:00
◼
►
- Yeah, it's interesting.
00:52:02
◼
►
Anything they could do to bring those file sizes down
00:52:06
◼
►
is good for them, but it's good for customers too, right?
00:52:09
◼
►
If you hit play on the Apple TV
00:52:11
◼
►
and you're downloading 4K HDR content.
00:52:14
◼
►
You know, right now,
00:52:15
◼
►
if you have a pretty decent internet connection,
00:52:16
◼
►
you hit play on a rental and it just starts, right?
00:52:18
◼
►
There's enough data coming in that it has plenty of time
00:52:22
◼
►
to stream it all down locally
00:52:23
◼
►
before even getting close to needing it.
00:52:27
◼
►
And 4K is a lot more data, but with this new compression,
00:52:30
◼
►
they may be able to help balance that out.
00:52:33
◼
►
I think, the more I think about it,
00:52:35
◼
►
the more I think you're right
00:52:36
◼
►
that the 4K Apple TV is dependent on this.
00:52:39
◼
►
It's also dependent on them having 4K content ready
00:52:43
◼
►
in iTunes, like we spoke about a couple weeks ago,
00:52:45
◼
►
having some way to upgrade your 1080 content to 4K.
00:52:48
◼
►
There's a lot of moving parts there
00:52:50
◼
►
and the iTunes movies and TV show, you know,
00:52:54
◼
►
that is probably the most important part
00:52:57
◼
►
of the iTunes ecosystem.
00:52:58
◼
►
I think it's probably more important than the music store at this point.
00:53:01
◼
►
And obviously it's front and center on the Apple TV. So you have to have that,
00:53:06
◼
►
right? You can't launch a 4k Apple TV and not have 4k,
00:53:10
◼
►
at least some 4k stuff in the iTunes store. That would just be, that'd be silly.
00:53:14
◼
►
So there's a lot of moving parts there, but I think the more I think about it,
00:53:17
◼
►
the more I think you're right that this is sort of all one lump sum.
00:53:21
◼
►
And again, it's a big stage, so why not do it here if it's already. Yeah,
00:53:27
◼
►
So we'll see.
00:53:28
◼
►
Oh, how many days left?
00:53:31
◼
►
Uh, two weeks at this point.
00:53:34
◼
►
And, and surely if, if this 4k Apple TV is real, we're going to see demos.
00:53:39
◼
►
We're going to see Netflix or Hulu or somebody, uh, Amazon prime video, uh,
00:53:44
◼
►
on stage and saying, Hey, we're ready for this on day one, because that's important.
00:53:49
◼
►
I write that if you, if you have this TV, that's 4k and you have this box, it's 4k.
00:53:54
◼
►
You want to have all your other stuff.
00:53:56
◼
►
And so this is this is going to be one where I think we see some demos
00:53:59
◼
►
I'm sure there'll be there's always a cringe-worthy video game demo
00:54:03
◼
►
I will get that too
00:54:04
◼
►
But I mean we'll know within the next couple days if it's the fifth or not because they've got to send invites out if it's quiet
00:54:09
◼
►
Over the next couple days, then I think the 12th is is much more likely. Yeah, I
00:54:14
◼
►
was waiting for the invitations to go out today and instead we got the
00:54:20
◼
►
developer beta 8 of iOS 11
00:54:22
◼
►
So I was really surprised by that. We don't always get to beta 8 or you know, even better 7
00:54:28
◼
►
Yeah, so if Apple can still no GM, right?
00:54:31
◼
►
No, no GM. The GM is gonna be officially announced as usual at the event and you know developers on that day can you know
00:54:40
◼
►
Maybe the following day can submit
00:54:42
◼
►
is11 apps to the App Store, so
00:54:46
◼
►
Definitely looking forward to that because the final week for me means taking screenshots and videos because now I was seven in theory is final
00:54:53
◼
►
Yeah, I'm super excited about all this. You know, we've been talking about this phone. It feels like about ten years
00:55:00
◼
►
yeah, like I feel like we've talked about this phone forever and
00:55:03
◼
►
I'm just super excited about it. The more we learn about the more excited I am about it and
00:55:09
◼
►
Not everything that introduced will be for me. I don't have a 4k television
00:55:13
◼
►
I'm not looking to buy a new television so the Apple TV won't be for me yet, I don't
00:55:18
◼
►
But there's other stuff, you know, an LTE Apple Watch, I'm very curious about how they
00:55:22
◼
►
pull that off and what that's like in experience.
00:55:24
◼
►
I'm very curious about the new phone and I think it's going to be a fun fall and, you
00:55:30
◼
►
know, along with Myke and his, you know, year of enthusiasm or whatever he's called on this
00:55:35
◼
►
show, like, I think the three of us are just, we're excited about seeing this stuff and
00:55:39
◼
►
get our hands on it next month.
00:55:40
◼
►
I think it's called the year of optimism.
00:55:43
◼
►
Yeah, something.
00:55:45
◼
►
Myke gives names to everything.
00:55:48
◼
►
Do you know Myke has nicknames for objects in his house?
00:55:53
◼
►
I know that his canary is called Buster.
00:55:56
◼
►
Is it called?
00:55:56
◼
►
Because it busts the bad guys.
00:55:57
◼
►
Buster or Alfred or--
00:56:00
◼
►
I think it's Buster.
00:56:01
◼
►
I'm almost positive.
00:56:03
◼
►
He's adorable.
00:56:05
◼
►
He really is.
00:56:07
◼
►
We're gonna get into some teachy-teaches,
00:56:10
◼
►
but first I wanna tell you about our final sponsor.
00:56:12
◼
►
That is Crimson Mesa.
00:56:14
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Crimson Mesa is excited to announce its first app
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for the iPad,
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Shokim Niimai, Ancient Game of the River.
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It can be found in the iPad App Store
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by searching for Ancient Game of the River.
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Shokim Niimai is a fun strategy game
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for parties or evenings with friends
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with simple to learn rules.
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All you have to do is swipe on your pieces to move them,
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and the goal is to get your pieces around the board
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before your rival does.
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It's based on a game that was popular in ancient times,
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but was forgotten for thousands of years.
00:56:46
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And now it's back, it's on the iPad, and costs just $9.99.
00:56:51
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I know Myke has spent some time with it.
00:56:52
◼
►
He said it was really fun and simple,
00:56:54
◼
►
and that there's a lot of tension between the players,
00:56:57
◼
►
as opposed to making it all about
00:56:58
◼
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what's going on on the screen.
00:57:00
◼
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And that makes it really different
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to a lot of things on the iOS App Store.
00:57:05
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Crimson Mesa creates premium tablet-focused software and is driven by one principle that
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I really respect, design quality experiences that their users will love and enjoy.
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In addition to Shokunmimai, Crimson Mesa is hard at work creating revolutionary iPad tools
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for professionals to help bring that multi-pad lifestyle to more people.
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To discover why this game was so popular eons ago, buy The Ancient Game of the River on
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the iPad App Store for only $9.99.
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You can find out more at GameoftheRiver.com.
00:57:34
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Thank you so much to Cryptza Mesa for supporting this show and relay FM.
00:57:39
◼
►
All right, Federico,
00:57:40
◼
►
you are here to talk about something that I will admit to you.
00:57:43
◼
►
I didn't know was a thing in iOS 11 until you suggested it,
00:57:46
◼
►
that you talk about it. And that is SMS filtering in iOS 11.
00:57:51
◼
►
So I assume is this like call filtering is an iOS 10 where it detects spam or
00:57:56
◼
►
what is this? What is this thing?
00:57:57
◼
►
So last year Apple rolled out the spam calling extensions that allowed the
00:58:04
◼
►
developers to identify potential robocallers, you know, those companies, awful companies,
00:58:11
◼
►
that call you and they want to sell you something or maybe it's like it's not even a person
00:58:15
◼
►
on the other end. Anyway, that was a new extension point in iOS 10. With iOS 11 they want to
00:58:21
◼
►
tackle another aspect of this problem, of the same problem, which is companies that
00:58:26
◼
►
spam you over SMS or MMS even, because they found your phone number somewhere and they
00:58:33
◼
►
they get in touch with you, they send you offers, they send you links, they send you
00:58:36
◼
►
just annoying messages to catch your attention and you know for spam reasons and engagement
00:58:43
◼
►
and whatever. So how do you block SMS? Well you cannot really block SMS if you don't know
00:58:50
◼
►
the source beforehand. So iOS 10 and even iOS 9 I think it featured a built-in unknown
00:59:02
◼
►
and junk section of the Messages app that, by default,
00:59:06
◼
►
put messages from unknown contacts into that view
00:59:12
◼
►
so that you wouldn't be distracted by notifications
00:59:15
◼
►
so that those messages wouldn't end up
00:59:17
◼
►
in the main conversation list.
00:59:20
◼
►
But still, there's still some messages
00:59:25
◼
►
that go through that filter.
00:59:29
◼
►
Because sometimes-- I don't know if it ever happens.
00:59:32
◼
►
to you but sometimes I get these messages that don't actually show a phone number.
00:59:36
◼
►
They show like a name of a store or I don't know how that works but somehow my iPhone
00:59:44
◼
►
doesn't recognize that as an unknown contact. And so it goes through the unknown and junk
00:59:50
◼
►
filter and it ends up in my main conversation list. You know, spammers are really enterprising
00:59:58
◼
►
They always find a way.
01:00:01
◼
►
So with iOS 11, there's this new API.
01:00:03
◼
►
It's called the Identity Lookup API.
01:00:06
◼
►
And it's the foundation for this new extension type, the SMS
01:00:11
◼
►
filtering extension.
01:00:13
◼
►
This allows developers to write apps
01:00:16
◼
►
that don't block SMS and MMS from these companies.
01:00:21
◼
►
Again, you cannot block them beforehand,
01:00:23
◼
►
but you can filter them.
01:00:24
◼
►
And by filtering them into the unknown and junk
01:00:27
◼
►
view of the Messages app, you can allow the users to not be distracted by notifications
01:00:34
◼
►
and to go into that section when they want to clean up and remove all of these conversations.
01:00:39
◼
►
The filtering extensions, they only work with SMS. They cannot integrate with iMessage,
01:00:48
◼
►
and they work locally on your device. They cannot integrate with your carrier, for example,
01:00:57
◼
►
or they cannot integrate with the iMessage protocol.
01:01:01
◼
►
They are a simple way to listen, basically, for incoming SMS.
01:01:06
◼
►
And based on a list of keywords or phone numbers
01:01:10
◼
►
that you want to filter, they can hide those messages
01:01:14
◼
►
by default and put them into the unknown and junk
01:01:18
◼
►
view of messages.
01:01:20
◼
►
There are some details of these extensions
01:01:23
◼
►
that we should cover.
01:01:24
◼
►
First, you can only activate one at a time.
01:01:27
◼
►
Unlike content blockers, if you want, in Safari, if you want,
01:01:30
◼
►
you can activate multiple content blockers at once.
01:01:33
◼
►
I don't recommend you do that.
01:01:35
◼
►
But if you want to, it's possible.
01:01:37
◼
►
With the SMS filtering extensions,
01:01:39
◼
►
you can only activate one at a time.
01:01:42
◼
►
When you go into-- when you have some of these apps installed,
01:01:44
◼
►
you go into the settings for messages,
01:01:47
◼
►
and you see the unknown--
01:01:49
◼
►
I think it's called the filtering section or the unknown
01:01:51
◼
►
and junk section.
01:01:53
◼
►
Anyway, you go in there and you see that you can select one of these filters.
01:01:57
◼
►
You get a message, you get like a permission dialog that says the extension will be able
01:02:01
◼
►
to read your incoming messages, of course, because it needs to actually take a look at
01:02:06
◼
►
the phone number or the keywords included in the body of the message.
01:02:11
◼
►
Once you enable one, it's running in the background, you don't have to do anything else.
01:02:16
◼
►
So I've been playing with three or four of these.
01:02:19
◼
►
I think they're going to be an extremely popular category of IS-11 apps because they
01:02:24
◼
►
remove that tiny frustration of getting SMS from my local grocery store, now for some
01:02:31
◼
►
reason sends me spam via SMS because they have my phone number, because I have a loyalty
01:02:38
◼
►
card and they have my details. So a few months ago they decided, "Let's just start sending
01:02:42
◼
►
Federico some SMS about, you know, vegetables discounted on sale today. I have no idea what
01:02:50
◼
►
they think that's a great idea, but they do it anyway.
01:02:52
◼
►
The way that, at least, you know, based on the betas that I've had so far, most developers
01:02:57
◼
►
are going to offer blacklist and whitelist features. So if you want to make sure that
01:03:04
◼
►
some SMS, either from a specific phone number or that contain a specific keyword, they go,
01:03:11
◼
►
are filtered out and they go into the unknown and junk section, you can create a blacklist.
01:03:17
◼
►
Otherwise if you want to make sure that some SMS, stuff like one-time passwords from your
01:03:22
◼
►
bank or two-factor authentication codes, if you want to make sure that those SMS go into
01:03:30
◼
►
the main conversation list and that you get notifications from them, you can whitelist
01:03:35
◼
►
them. So you can make sure, you know, these are the good ones and these keywords, they
01:03:39
◼
►
are bad messages, filter them out. I think they're going to be extremely popular and
01:03:46
◼
►
you know, considering that Apple has already done spam call extensions and now they're
01:03:51
◼
►
doing SMS filters, I think they're really helping people get rid of these annoyances
01:03:59
◼
►
on a daily basis. It will be interesting, I think, to see how developers design these
01:04:07
◼
►
extensions in the sense of I've seen for example developers integrate with core
01:04:15
◼
►
ml and the natural language api's to automatically detect possible spam
01:04:21
◼
►
keywords I've also seen some folks try to do like a crowdsourced database of
01:04:28
◼
►
popular spam keywords so aggregating that data across the extensions user
01:04:36
◼
►
So it will be interesting to see if most developers settle on "here's the app, create your own
01:04:44
◼
►
blacklist manually, type in some keywords, type in some phone numbers" or if they will
01:04:49
◼
►
do some type of smart extension that tries to figure out on its own what is potentially
01:04:55
◼
►
spam over SMS.
01:04:57
◼
►
So again, this is probably not a big deal as spam called extensions last year, if only
01:05:05
◼
►
I think spam calls are more intrusive and more annoying than SMS. But they're still
01:05:12
◼
►
welcome. So I'm gonna keep one enabled. I still gotta choose the one that I prefer.
01:05:18
◼
►
But I think it will be a nice addition to iOS.
01:05:21
◼
►
Yeah, and carriers have tried this. Just like carriers had robocall stuff. But I use...
01:05:27
◼
►
I was actually trying to find on my phone, I forget the Nomo something, Nomo Robo.
01:05:37
◼
►
It's like two bucks a month or something and it does a really good job.
01:05:39
◼
►
You can add calls to the blacklist and they look over them and then add them to their
01:05:45
◼
►
database so it's crowd sourced a little bit.
01:05:47
◼
►
But this sort of stuff is nice to have because spam, at least for me, has gotten way worse
01:05:54
◼
►
on my phone number.
01:05:55
◼
►
It really got worse when we founded Relay because my phone number was attached to a
01:05:59
◼
►
bunch of paperwork that I assume is public record, but it's out of control.
01:06:03
◼
►
So I'm glad that they're doing something here.
01:06:06
◼
►
And it seems like they're doing it the right way, where it's on-device.
01:06:08
◼
►
It's very Apple-like, it seems like, in the way that they're going about it.
01:06:12
◼
►
Yeah, the extension itself, it cannot even talk to the network.
01:06:17
◼
►
So if you want to have an associated web server that goes along with your app.
01:06:23
◼
►
So these extensions, as you mentioned, as any other extension on iOS, they are bundled
01:06:28
◼
►
with an app that you download from the App Store.
01:06:31
◼
►
But the extension itself, it cannot talk to the network, it doesn't have network access.
01:06:37
◼
►
And the way that Apple has designed the Identity Lookup API is iOS acts as a middleman.
01:06:44
◼
►
iOS talks to your server, and if your server wants to evaluate some keywords that the extension
01:06:50
◼
►
doesn't understand, or if your server has some more information about potential spam
01:06:55
◼
►
keywords. Anyway, iOS talks to the network, and then iOS passes that information back
01:07:02
◼
►
to the extension. So there's no direct network access between the extension and the server.
01:07:08
◼
►
There's iOS in the middle taking care of that translation between the two. So Apple always
01:07:13
◼
►
likes to design these APIs with privacy and security in mind.
01:07:19
◼
►
And I'm not a technical expert, but looking
01:07:22
◼
►
through the documentation, from what I can understand,
01:07:25
◼
►
it seems that they are following through.
01:07:28
◼
►
The same with content blockers and spam calling last year.
01:07:32
◼
►
These APIs are always designed to make sure
01:07:34
◼
►
that user information is not given away to developers
01:07:40
◼
►
and given away to extensions.
01:07:41
◼
►
So the Identity Lookup API follows content blockers.
01:07:45
◼
►
For example, they cannot see the URL of the web page
01:07:48
◼
►
that you're visiting at the moment.
01:07:51
◼
►
And it doesn't surprise me that Apple has designed the API
01:07:57
◼
►
You know, it pops up every once in a while.
01:08:02
◼
►
I saw it kind of floating on tour the other day of like,
01:08:05
◼
►
the phone numbers, like the app or messages,
01:08:08
◼
►
is really the only thing on your phone that really
01:08:11
◼
►
can take over the phone, so you get a phone call,
01:08:13
◼
►
that UI takes over the whole screen.
01:08:15
◼
►
People are like, "Well, it'll just be a notification."
01:08:17
◼
►
I don't know how I feel about that,
01:08:18
◼
►
but same thing with SMS in particular.
01:08:21
◼
►
These things can just come to you.
01:08:24
◼
►
And, you know, or something like the weather,
01:08:27
◼
►
or with Twitter or Instagram, I'm going to it,
01:08:29
◼
►
but with phone number, it feels like stuff
01:08:32
◼
►
is just always pouring in.
01:08:33
◼
►
And so to have some smart stuff built up around that
01:08:36
◼
►
to make it a better experience,
01:08:38
◼
►
you know, it's like, yes, let's leverage
01:08:39
◼
►
what iOS can do, what the iPhone can do to make this better for people.
01:08:44
◼
►
And so I'm excited they were adding it.
01:08:46
◼
►
I can't believe I missed it over the summer, but I'm glad you explained it.
01:08:51
◼
►
I feel, I feel, I feel teached, so to speak.
01:08:53
◼
►
You feel teached.
01:08:55
◼
►
That, that is great to know.
01:08:56
◼
►
That is great to know.
01:08:57
◼
►
I think that does it for this week.
01:08:58
◼
►
I think we're done.
01:09:00
◼
►
If you, if you want to find show notes this week, point your web browser to relay.fm/connected/157.
01:09:08
◼
►
While you're there, we should mention that it is still August, and that is Relay FM's
01:09:13
◼
►
birthday month, and we're winding down our membership drive.
01:09:16
◼
►
If you're not a member, go check out relay.fm/membership.
01:09:20
◼
►
You get lots of goodies.
01:09:22
◼
►
You can support this show, you can support all the great shows, so every Relay FM host
01:09:27
◼
►
benefits, but lots of goodies.
01:09:31
◼
►
We're doing member-only episodes, we have a newsletter, we got a bunch of 5K wallpapers,
01:09:36
◼
►
A lot of fun stuff, so relay.fm/membership.
01:09:39
◼
►
If you are a member, thank you so much for your support.
01:09:44
◼
►
If you wanna find us online, Myke isn't here,
01:09:48
◼
►
but if he were here, he would be on Twitter,
01:09:50
◼
►
at twitter.com/imike, I-M-Y-K-E.
01:09:54
◼
►
You can find Federico at maxstories.net
01:09:58
◼
►
and Vitici on Twitter, and you can find me
01:10:00
◼
►
at 512pixels.net, and I am I-S-M-H.
01:10:04
◼
►
And I think that's it.
01:10:07
◼
►
So until next time, Federico, say goodbye.
01:10:10
◼
►
- Adios, echos. - Adios.