Connected

00:00:00 ◼   ► [Music]

00:00:06 ◼   ► From Relay FM, this is Connected, episode 156. Today's show is brought to you by TextExpander,

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

00:00:19 ◼   ► Ciao Federico.

00:00:20 ◼   ► Hey Myke, how are you?

00:00:22 ◼   ► I'm good, welcome back. How was your vacation Federico?

00:00:27 ◼   ► It's been great, but I do miss a working internet connection. So today I'm back in Rome for

00:00:35 ◼   ► reasons that we'll get to in a minute. But I'm back on WiFi and it's really nice to have

00:00:42 ◼   ► the ability to, for example, open web pages. You know? You start missing those things while

00:00:50 ◼   ► you're at the beach.

00:00:52 ◼   ► So as we record this today, which is the 21st of August 2017, there's going to be an eclipse

00:01:00 ◼   ► in America today. And I can't remember what type of eclipse it is Federico, so I won't

00:01:06 ◼   ► say it. I think it's a total eclipse. Yeah let's go with that, we'll call it total eclipse.

00:01:11 ◼   ► See the thing is I'm scared that that's not the exact term that you should use, so that's

00:01:15 ◼   ► why I didn't say it. Right like I know the moon will pass in front of the sun and it

00:01:19 ◼   ► will be completely, you know, and I know they're talking about totality, but I just, I was

00:01:23 ◼   ► scared to say the name.

00:01:26 ◼   ► So I watched this video on Mashable, and they mentioned this term called annular eclipse,

00:01:33 ◼   ► which means from Latin, it means like there's like a ring around the sun, because the moon

00:01:39 ◼   ► is covering the sun, so you kind of see this ring of light, maybe it's the correct terminology

00:01:44 ◼   ► is annular eclipse, I don't know, could be, you know.

00:01:48 ◼   ► Science! Who knows?

00:01:50 ◼   ► So I say this because our Intrepid co-host, Stephen Hackett, he's actually in Nashville, I think, today

00:01:56 ◼   ► to see the eclipse and he's putting together, along with Jason Snow, his co-host on Liftoff,

00:02:02 ◼   ► they're recording a special episode about the eclipse, like about their kind of experience

00:02:08 ◼   ► of going to see it and then they're going to talk about it. So I'll put a link in our show notes to

00:02:12 ◼   ► to lift off so you can go and get that if you want to.

00:02:16 ◼   ► So yeah, so you should go listen to it.

00:02:19 ◼   ► So that's where he is today,

00:02:20 ◼   ► so it's just me and Steven today.

00:02:21 ◼   ► But I do have some Steven related follow up,

00:02:23 ◼   ► which I think is interesting.

00:02:25 ◼   ► Remember last week's episode, Steven was unhappy

00:02:28 ◼   ► that he had not yet received return labels from Logitech?

00:02:32 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah.

00:02:33 ◼   ► - They have sent them.

00:02:34 ◼   ► So he has received his return labels

00:02:36 ◼   ► and he has sent his Logitech circle camera off in the mail.

00:02:41 ◼   ► So they're on their way back to Logitech, so he's very happy about that.

00:02:46 ◼   ► Perfect, that's good news.

00:02:48 ◼   ► And also I wanted to just mention something that I think is very cool and way overdue,

00:02:56 ◼   ► as a piece of follow up, because we spoke about it on this show before, we've complained

00:02:59 ◼   ► a little bit on this show.

00:03:01 ◼   ► Slack for iOS gains quick replies to notifications.

00:03:03 ◼   ► So now when you get a, I think it's just a direct message on Slack, you get a reply button

00:03:08 ◼   ► and you can reply on your Apple Watch

00:03:11 ◼   ► or from notifications.

00:03:12 ◼   ► - Yeah, I was very happy to see this

00:03:15 ◼   ► in the beta channel of Slack.

00:03:18 ◼   ► And I saw it on the App Store with the public release.

00:03:22 ◼   ► I'm really happy because I'm not sure it's just for DMs.

00:03:27 ◼   ► I think it's also for channels.

00:03:29 ◼   ► At least I think we replied to a channel

00:03:32 ◼   ► with the Maxories team.

00:03:33 ◼   ► Anyway, it's just nice to not having to load

00:03:37 ◼   ► the full Slack app, which can be a little slow.

00:03:42 ◼   ► It's nice to have the option to reply straight

00:03:44 ◼   ► from a notification, either from the iPhone

00:03:47 ◼   ► or from the watch.

00:03:48 ◼   ► Also, on the iPad, it's nice.

00:03:50 ◼   ► You can expand, type away with a keyboard, yeah.

00:03:54 ◼   ► - See, 'cause I always found it so frustrating,

00:03:57 ◼   ► and if I would get a message that just required yes,

00:04:02 ◼   ► just the word yes,

00:04:06 ◼   ► and I would have to get my phone out of my pocket, right?

00:04:09 ◼   ► And like open it.

00:04:11 ◼   ► Hopefully I'm in the right Slack team.

00:04:13 ◼   ► You know, it was all just so frustrating

00:04:14 ◼   ► when on my Apple watch I could just hit a thing

00:04:16 ◼   ► or I could send an emoji or whatever, right?

00:04:18 ◼   ► So now I'm happy that I can do that

00:04:20 ◼   ► because that is just a way better method

00:04:23 ◼   ► of replying to some questions

00:04:25 ◼   ► or some comments that I would receive.

00:04:27 ◼   ► - Yeah, it would still be nice to have both options.

00:04:32 ◼   ► Like I would like to have ideally like a menu

00:04:35 ◼   ► that has four options.

00:04:37 ◼   ► So three options are emoji,

00:04:39 ◼   ► like my most used emoji reactions on Slack, for example,

00:04:42 ◼   ► and the fourth one is a button that says Type a Reply.

00:04:45 ◼   ► And when you tap the button, the keyboard comes up.

00:04:48 ◼   ► So I would like to have both.

00:04:49 ◼   ► When I expand the Slack notification,

00:04:51 ◼   ► either I send a quick emoji or I actually type a message.

00:04:54 ◼   ► But I'll take whatever Slack offered,

00:04:58 ◼   ► which is just the keyboard, and that's fine.

00:05:00 ◼   ► - I wanna just extend a quick thank you

00:05:04 ◼   ► everybody who has become a Relay FM member to support this show or any of our shows,

00:05:09 ◼   ► they've all got access to some special bonus content, you can sign up at relay.fm/membership,

00:05:14 ◼   ► we're doing some fun bonuses throughout August and into September, so there's loads of great

00:05:18 ◼   ► bonus episodes, I know that you and Fraser are working on something for Canvas, there's some

00:05:22 ◼   ► great ones out already, for example the hosts of Reconcilable Differences and Dubai Friday got

00:05:28 ◼   ► got together to do a special episode which I am so excited to listen to. There is a special

00:05:34 ◼   ► crossover of Cortex and Upgrade going live sometime this week, I won't say the date just

00:05:40 ◼   ► yet but it should be later this week, where we do another taxi venture called Spooky Manor.

00:05:44 ◼   ► These things are all and only available to Relay FM members. Go sign up at relay.fm/membership

00:05:50 ◼   ► and you'll get everything you need to listen to these fantastic bonus episodes. Now Federico,

00:05:56 ◼   ► a couple of days ago you sent me and Steven a concerning image. Would you like to explain

00:06:05 ◼   ► the image that you saw that I will of course include in the show notes for our dear connected

00:06:10 ◼   ► listeners? Well first I think the fact that your first reply was "is that a 12.9 or a

00:06:16 ◼   ► 10.5?" was concerning to me because you couldn't see that it was the big iPad. No, because

00:06:25 ◼   ► your hands are so like huge. That is not true. It's a normal size. You have said many times

00:06:32 ◼   ► on this show that you have big hands. Also as well, the image that you sent, like the

00:06:37 ◼   ► edges of the iPad are cut off so like it is smaller. Like when I kind of just looked at

00:06:42 ◼   ► it and I just saw everything kind of in proportion, it looked like a small iPad to me. So it's

00:06:47 ◼   ► a picture of an iPad and we're looking down on the iPad at the lightning bolt which is

00:06:52 ◼   ► right in the middle and then something terrible is happening.

00:06:57 ◼   ► It's bent. There's a slight V shape to this iPad which I have no idea how this happened.

00:07:06 ◼   ► This is the most concerning part to me. I was at the beach, so for the past three weeks

00:07:12 ◼   ► I've been following this routine. Wake up in the morning, walk the dogs, come back home

00:07:18 ◼   ► have breakfast, get an hour of writing done, go to the beach, relax for a while, then go

00:07:25 ◼   ► under the umbrella and take the iPad out, get some more writing and editing done, go

00:07:32 ◼   ► back home, rinse and repeat every single day. I've been trying to work at night but usually

00:07:40 ◼   ► I'm too tired because I'm, you know, taking care of the dogs and everything. It's a very

00:07:45 ◼   ► long day. And also, you know, staying in the sun every day, it gets tiring after a while

00:07:52 ◼   ► on your body. But basically I'm exhausted. I know that it's a good type of exhaustion,

00:07:56 ◼   ► but I'm still tired. So it's not like I subjected this iPad to any particular pressure. But

00:08:05 ◼   ► the other day I was at the beach, I was laying back and I was looking, I was reading through

00:08:09 ◼   ► a draft of my iOS review. And I noticed that something about the screen was odd. Sort of

00:08:14 ◼   ► I was like, this screen looks like 3D to me.

00:08:18 ◼   ► I don't know, I didn't even pay attention to it, but it's like, this screen looks funny.

00:08:23 ◼   ► And I just assumed that it was the direct sunlight that had some kind of weird effect

00:08:28 ◼   ► on the interface.

00:08:30 ◼   ► Then I go back home and I'm using the iPad in the living room and I wasn't using the

00:08:37 ◼   ► iPad with the physical keyboard, so I was using the software keyboard.

00:08:41 ◼   ► And I noticed clearly that the screen was curved.

00:08:48 ◼   ► And so I was like, hmm.

00:08:49 ◼   ► Edge to edge.

00:08:51 ◼   ► And it was like, there was a curve in the middle of the screen.

00:08:54 ◼   ► It was like, I don't like this.

00:08:56 ◼   ► It was a matter of 20 seconds.

00:08:58 ◼   ► So I was like, what is going on here?

00:09:01 ◼   ► I pick up the iPad, I turn it over, and I look at it from the profile, as you can see

00:09:06 ◼   ► in the picture, and it's bent.

00:09:08 ◼   ► So if anybody that hasn't seen the picture or can't see the picture, I'll kind of explain

00:09:12 ◼   ► it to you a little bit. So what we have here is the left side of the iPad from the lightning

00:09:20 ◼   ► port to the left, if you're looking at it from the top down view, it's bent at an angle

00:09:26 ◼   ► maybe like five degrees or so. It's not huge, it might be a little less than that, but it

00:09:34 ◼   ► is noticeable. If you put the iPad face down on a table and press on the one end it would

00:09:44 ◼   ► wobble around. It would pick up and lay down again. It is not huge, hence why I assume

00:09:50 ◼   ► the iPad is still in complete working order, but it is very noticeable and concerning.

00:09:56 ◼   ► It's very noticeable.

00:09:58 ◼   ► This can't have been an easy thing to do.

00:10:01 ◼   ► Exactly, exactly. So we have no idea how this happened.

00:10:05 ◼   ► So the iPad is still working, the display is fully working.

00:10:08 ◼   ► There's some light leaking from the edge where the home button is.

00:10:14 ◼   ► So like you can see some light leaking from the home button bezel into the wallpaper, basically.

00:10:22 ◼   ► But we have no idea how this happened.

00:10:25 ◼   ► So we have two theories, either by accident, when I was keeping the iPad in the bag during one of our trips to the beach,

00:10:33 ◼   ► some other bag was placed on top of mine and caused this problem.

00:10:39 ◼   ► Or, I don't remember this, but maybe while I was at the beach, I either accidentally sat on the iPad

00:10:49 ◼   ► or fell asleep with the iPad under my seat but I don't believe that because I never do that.

00:10:56 ◼   ► I don't fall asleep with my iPad. What type of bag was it being kept in?

00:11:00 ◼   ► It's a tambien shoulder bag. Yes because I tell you what, were you wearing it?

00:11:05 ◼   ► The bag? What do you mean? Like did you have it, were you holding the bag? Was it you? Was it you

00:11:13 ◼   ► on your shoulder? Yeah. Okay, because what I would assume looking at this is, if I was going to try

00:11:20 ◼   ► and guess what I think happened, it looks like it was maybe in the bag and you leant against

00:11:24 ◼   ► something? Right? You know who we need. You know who we need. We need Dr. Drang. We need Dr. Drang

00:11:33 ◼   ► to help us. To take a look at this iPad. Yeah, and to tell you what is wrong, what happened here.

00:11:38 ◼   ► to take a look at the stress test for the aluminum bag and see what's going on.

00:11:43 ◼   ► Something's happened. So I would just say on this...

00:11:46 ◼   ► No, that's actually a good idea. You mentioned that I was leaning against something

00:11:52 ◼   ► as the iPad was into the bag and the bag was on my shoulder.

00:11:55 ◼   ► Yep, and you pressed against it and then it's kind of bent it a little bit.

00:12:00 ◼   ► Because that would make sense to me. I worry about that. Whenever I carry around the 12.9

00:12:05 ◼   ► I worry about doing this exact thing.

00:12:07 ◼   ► It's just funny that it never happened to me,

00:12:11 ◼   ► at least in two years of iPad Pro usage,

00:12:14 ◼   ► but really in seven years of iPad.

00:12:16 ◼   ► This never ever happened to me.

00:12:18 ◼   ► This is the first time that this issue occurred.

00:12:22 ◼   ► And I've had problems with, you know,

00:12:24 ◼   ► the home button or, you know, the display, but not this,

00:12:28 ◼   ► not like this mechanical problem of bending an iPad.

00:12:33 ◼   ► I think we can both say that neither of us

00:12:35 ◼   ► are like thinking that this is a manufacturing or structural issue of the

00:12:40 ◼   ► Ipad in general like because of course this is a thing that is possible right

00:12:45 ◼   ► like of course this is possible the thing is so big of course you could bend

00:12:48 ◼   ► it but I am completely understanding for you that if I was in this situation and

00:12:54 ◼   ► I like took my iPad out of my bag and it was bent I would be horrifically

00:12:59 ◼   ► concerned about how did I do this and how can I stop myself from doing it

00:13:04 ◼   ► - Yeah, exactly. - This is bad news.

00:13:07 ◼   ► - Exactly, my main problem is not that this happened

00:13:10 ◼   ► because Apple is gonna replace it for 49 years.

00:13:13 ◼   ► - Yeah, you should mention this.

00:13:14 ◼   ► You have AppleCare and you went to the Apple Store.

00:13:16 ◼   ► - Not only I have AppleCare+.

00:13:18 ◼   ► - Oh, well, sorry.

00:13:21 ◼   ► - And the thing with AppleCare+ is that even if,

00:13:24 ◼   ► you know, with accidental damage,

00:13:26 ◼   ► because this was considered accidental damage on my side.

00:13:29 ◼   ► - Oh yeah, of course, right, of course.

00:13:32 ◼   ► Instead of paying something like 550 euros for a replacement, I only got to pay 49.

00:13:48 ◼   ► And that's the excess isn't it?

00:13:52 ◼   ► That's the fee for any replacement on AppleCare+.

00:13:54 ◼   ► That's the fee for any replacement on AppleCare+.

00:13:56 ◼   ► It's 49 euros instead of having to pay the full price of a unit replacement.

00:14:02 ◼   ► Just 49 and I have this type of warranty until 2019 thanks to the magic of Apple Care Plus.

00:14:09 ◼   ► So that's not really my problem.

00:14:12 ◼   ► I mean I'm happy that Apple is going to replace it.

00:14:13 ◼   ► I went to the Genius Bar yesterday, they were super kind and they told me I gotta wait five

00:14:18 ◼   ► to six days because it's not in stock.

00:14:21 ◼   ► But that's not my problem.

00:14:23 ◼   ► Because you still have a working device, right?

00:14:25 ◼   ► I still have a working device, now that I know this I can stop looking at the curve of the screen

00:14:32 ◼   ► but really what concerns me the most is how did I do this, you know?

00:14:36 ◼   ► Because it would have been better from this point of view if I just dropped the iPad.

00:14:41 ◼   ► Or if you fell on it, right? Like you tripped, you were holding it, you fell on it, you stand up,

00:14:45 ◼   ► the iPad's bent, you're like "oh look at what I did".

00:14:48 ◼   ► I know what I did, right? Instead this sort of just happened.

00:14:51 ◼   ► There's a flaw in your system somewhere.

00:14:53 ◼   ► there's a flaw somewhere either in the way that I put things in my bag or

00:14:58 ◼   ► you know, maybe, maybe someone else in the house bent the iPad and they just didn't tell me.

00:15:04 ◼   ► Do you think it's possible that there could be somebody in your life that's very upset about the review

00:15:08 ◼   ► and they just took the iPad and they were like

00:15:10 ◼   ► "Bent the iPad, right? We had enough of this."

00:15:13 ◼   ► Are you saying that she likes Sylvia?

00:15:14 ◼   ► I was thinking more about the dogs, but yeah, I mean, who knows? Sylvia could be

00:15:18 ◼   ► could be implicated in this. I feel like you need to launch a full-scale investigation, Federico.

00:15:23 ◼   ► How would I investigate my relatives though?

00:15:26 ◼   ► Like...

00:15:27 ◼   ► - With great might.

00:15:29 ◼   ► - Have them sit down at the living room table.

00:15:33 ◼   ► - Shine a light in their face.

00:15:34 ◼   ► - Shine a light on their face.

00:15:35 ◼   ► Tell me you did it.

00:15:36 ◼   ► Like, yeah.

00:15:38 ◼   ► - You need alibis.

00:15:38 ◼   ► You need alibis for everybody.

00:15:41 ◼   ► - Who's gonna do good cop, bad cop with me though?

00:15:45 ◼   ► - You can do both of them.

00:15:46 ◼   ► You know, you put on a hat or something and then a mustache.

00:15:50 ◼   ► They turn around, take them off.

00:15:51 ◼   ► - And then you could call.

00:15:53 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:15:54 ◼   ► - We just put makeup on one half of my face

00:15:57 ◼   ► and then I just switch profiles.

00:15:58 ◼   ► - Exactly, I mean seriously Federico,

00:15:59 ◼   ► have you never had a family investigation before?

00:16:01 ◼   ► Come on, this is how you do these things.

00:16:03 ◼   ► - Not before, not before.

00:16:05 ◼   ► So quick aside, I just tried to do the

00:16:09 ◼   ► iCard backup and restore with iOS 11.

00:16:14 ◼   ► I also did a backup with iTunes

00:16:16 ◼   ► because there was the possibility

00:16:18 ◼   ► that Apple would replace the iPad yesterday, they didn't.

00:16:21 ◼   ► but just in case I needed to be ready with the backup.

00:16:24 ◼   ► So everything seems to be working as normal

00:16:27 ◼   ► in terms of restoring iCloud backups from iOS 11

00:16:30 ◼   ► into a new installation of iOS 11.

00:16:33 ◼   ► And also it seems to be faster than in the past,

00:16:38 ◼   ► but I had a problem with TestFlight apps.

00:16:41 ◼   ► So if you restore a backup

00:16:43 ◼   ► and you have a ton of betas from TestFlight,

00:16:49 ◼   ► they are not automatically restored.

00:16:52 ◼   ► So even if IOS restores the TestFlight app,

00:16:56 ◼   ► it doesn't redownload the betas from TestFlight.

00:17:00 ◼   ► - It was like this on 10 too.

00:17:02 ◼   ► - And what I found amusing is that

00:17:06 ◼   ► I had all of these placeholder icons in the iOS 11 dock,

00:17:11 ◼   ► you know, with the default icons

00:17:13 ◼   ► with a white background and the grid.

00:17:15 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:17:17 ◼   ► - And I had all of these placeholders.

00:17:19 ◼   ► and I tried to tap on them and I saw the loading spinner

00:17:23 ◼   ► but then it resulted in an error message.

00:17:27 ◼   ► So you need to open Task Flight,

00:17:28 ◼   ► delete the icon placeholders

00:17:30 ◼   ► and re-download the betas manually.

00:17:32 ◼   ► - Oh, that's interesting.

00:17:32 ◼   ► I think I found in 10, it just leaves an empty space,

00:17:36 ◼   ► like there's no placeholder,

00:17:38 ◼   ► but when you re-download the application,

00:17:39 ◼   ► it puts it where it should be.

00:17:41 ◼   ► That's how I've had it before.

00:17:43 ◼   ► So I don't know, maybe they've changed it

00:17:45 ◼   ► or maybe it's not completely finished yet on 11.

00:17:47 ◼   ► So in the meantime, I thought I could buy more or new accessories for my iPad for increased protection.

00:17:57 ◼   ► So my old smart cover that I've been using since 2015 has been in very bad shape lately because I've used it a lot.

00:18:07 ◼   ► Yes, over two years old now.

00:18:09 ◼   ► About two years old.

00:18:10 ◼   ► Yeah, it was also kind of wiggling, you know, the side where it attaches to the iPad is

00:18:16 ◼   ► not as sturdy as it used to be.

00:18:18 ◼   ► So I bought a new one and it's much, it feels better, like it keeps the iPad more stable.

00:18:23 ◼   ► And also I bought the leather sleeve for the 12.9, a black one, which looks great.

00:18:30 ◼   ► So now I will carry the iPad with a smart cover into the leather sleeve, which I know

00:18:34 ◼   ► that it's not a lot of protection.

00:18:36 ◼   ► It's not like a hard case that will prevent...

00:18:38 ◼   ► I actually think it's no protection, but yeah.

00:18:40 ◼   ► - It's not protected, but at least it will prevent

00:18:42 ◼   ► the back from scratching.

00:18:43 ◼   ► - Sure, and it looks nice.

00:18:45 ◼   ► - It looks nice and it keeps the pencil in place.

00:18:47 ◼   ► So that's something I really didn't wanna have a hard case.

00:18:52 ◼   ► Also the leather sleeve for the 12.9 is a life hack.

00:18:56 ◼   ► If you have a slippery table or desk,

00:18:59 ◼   ► I'm actually putting the magic keyboard and the iPad

00:19:04 ◼   ► on top of the leather sleeve

00:19:05 ◼   ► and I'm using it as a typing pad.

00:19:07 ◼   ► - I think that's part of what it's for, you know,

00:19:09 ◼   ► Honestly, it's like a desk, it reminds me of a desk set.

00:19:12 ◼   ► Like a pen, and you'd have a leather area

00:19:16 ◼   ► you'd put on a desk, which would be your writing area.

00:19:18 ◼   ► Like I honestly think that this is part

00:19:20 ◼   ► of what they were envisioning of the usage of this sleeve.

00:19:24 ◼   ► Is that you wouldn't take your stuff out of it

00:19:27 ◼   ► and then put it back in your bag.

00:19:28 ◼   ► You take your stuff out and put it on top,

00:19:30 ◼   ► and you use it as like a nice area for your desk.

00:19:33 ◼   ► - Yeah, and it looks really nice, the black one, the leather.

00:19:38 ◼   ► looks really nice. I'm sorry this happened to you Federico and I hope that you can get

00:19:41 ◼   ► to the bottom of it. I don't think I'll ever have an answer to this, how it happened. But

00:19:51 ◼   ► it's definitely like, I will pay a lot more attention to make sure that I don't put too

00:19:58 ◼   ► much stuff into my bag that would maybe put a lot of pressure onto the iPad. And also

00:20:05 ◼   ► like absolutely I will not keep the iPad,

00:20:10 ◼   ► keep the bag near or below other bags as we're traveling.

00:20:16 ◼   ► Maybe I also thought maybe when we were packing the car

00:20:21 ◼   ► for the trip, maybe something like that happened.

00:20:24 ◼   ► So I will pay a lot more attention to make sure,

00:20:26 ◼   ► because it's a thousand euro device and--

00:20:30 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's no joke.

00:20:31 ◼   ► - It's no joke.

00:20:32 ◼   ► and I gotta take better care of it.

00:20:35 ◼   ► And clearly this time I did something

00:20:38 ◼   ► that was not on the level of care

00:20:41 ◼   ► that I should use for the iPad.

00:20:46 ◼   ► - All right, today's show is brought to you in part

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00:22:40 ◼   ► So Federico, according to the Wall Street Journal, Apple is planning to spend $1 billion

00:22:45 ◼   ► over the next year on original content, which could be to fund up to 10 new shows. When

00:22:52 ◼   ► When I saw the headline for this I was like, okay, that makes sense, but when I saw it

00:22:57 ◼   ► was a year and they want to make 10 shows, that is incredibly ambitious.

00:23:01 ◼   ► I mean it's easy, Planet of the Apps, Planet of the Books, Planet of the Podcasts.

00:23:06 ◼   ► Hahaha, Planet of the Music, just all of them, it sounds great.

00:23:09 ◼   ► Just go with it, I mean it's easy.

00:23:12 ◼   ► Luckily, this report is saying that Apple is attempting to try and match the quality

00:23:18 ◼   ► of HBO shows, which is definitely a different approach to the current efforts that they

00:23:24 ◼   ► have been putting out because they have been making kind of crappy reality. I mean, and

00:23:29 ◼   ► that was probably the idea, right? Like that they knew what Planet of the Apps and Carpool

00:23:37 ◼   ► Karaoke would be kind of like just popcorn reality shows. They haven't done very well.

00:23:42 ◼   ► I think obviously they were hoping for them to be reviewed better than they have been,

00:23:46 ◼   ► But this is a huge contrast to attempting to try and match HBO level content.

00:23:53 ◼   ► Yeah, and what I find interesting is the bigger trend of which, if this report is accurate,

00:24:01 ◼   ► it seems like Apple is going to be part of, of everybody's doing their own thing.

00:24:06 ◼   ► There's, you know, Netflix is doing their own original programming.

00:24:10 ◼   ► I've been doing it successfully so for a while.

00:24:13 ◼   ► Amazon, HBO.

00:24:14 ◼   ► Now Disney apparently is going to do its own network.

00:24:18 ◼   ► And now Apple is going to do even more of this.

00:24:20 ◼   ► YouTube of course.

00:24:23 ◼   ► It looks like we tried to move away from TV and all of these different bundles of, especially

00:24:33 ◼   ► in the US with cable, you gotta choose all your different channels.

00:24:37 ◼   ► And now we're basically ending up with the same situation elsewhere.

00:24:41 ◼   ► Now there's Apple, there's Netflix, there's HBO, and eventually we're gonna have another

00:24:47 ◼   ► bundle but from internet stuff.

00:24:51 ◼   ► So do we really want to subscribe to 10 different programming services?

00:24:56 ◼   ► No.

00:24:57 ◼   ► And I think the differentiator here is, and maybe puts Apple in a...

00:25:03 ◼   ► If they actually do...

00:25:05 ◼   ► So let's assume that everybody's doing great content, and that's already a tall order for

00:25:10 ◼   ► Apple considering their previous efforts. But let's assume Apple, Netflix, HBO, they're

00:25:16 ◼   ► all on the same level of quality. Where's the advantage for Apple? And I think having

00:25:26 ◼   ► customers already on board with your services, whether it's iCAD or iTunes, by having customers

00:25:31 ◼   ► that are already putting their credit cards into the system, that's an advantage. But

00:25:36 ◼   ► We go back to the first condition to be met of can you actually make great content?

00:25:41 ◼   ► Because if you don't, and even if you have millions of credit cards on file, it doesn't

00:25:46 ◼   ► matter if you don't give people interesting stuff to watch.

00:25:51 ◼   ► This is the big question, can Apple actually make this kind of HBO-level quality programming?

00:25:57 ◼   ► And is Apple, even from a political standpoint, can Apple make stuff like Game of Thrones?

00:26:04 ◼   ► Can Apple make stuff like The Wire or Entourage or whatever hit HBO had in the past?

00:26:12 ◼   ► Is Apple, culturally speaking, can they make that type of TV show or movie?

00:26:19 ◼   ► I don't know, because they have the money, they have the resources, but you gotta be

00:26:24 ◼   ► fully on board with the idea of adult content, for example, adult themes.

00:26:29 ◼   ► And I struggle to see the almost family-friendly Apple doing that type of stuff.

00:26:36 ◼   ► I think they're only going to do this if they do that.

00:26:39 ◼   ► I think that they are only going to put this money into these shows and try and attract

00:26:44 ◼   ► that audience, that HBO audience, if they're willing to do this.

00:26:48 ◼   ► My assumption would be that they are fine with it.

00:26:50 ◼   ► They sell this content, right?

00:26:53 ◼   ► My assumption is it won't be heavily Apple-branded, right?

00:26:57 ◼   ► they might just be like, you know you get the stinger at the beginning? You know where

00:27:00 ◼   ► it says like Apple TV or whatever it's going to be called for service?

00:27:03 ◼   ► It's going to be TV shows about, for example, Apple's version of Narcos is called Apple

00:27:09 ◼   ► Drugs and...

00:27:14 ◼   ► Planet of the Drugs. I do think that they will do that stuff. I do. Because I mean,

00:27:22 ◼   ► sell it right you can buy all this stuff you can buy it in the in the itunes store um i

00:27:27 ◼   ► know that it's not been the way that they've been in the past but they've never made content

00:27:31 ◼   ► before and i feel like if they want to make if they want to make really good content they

00:27:34 ◼   ► have to make content that is at least some of the stuff some of their 10 shows are going

00:27:40 ◼   ► to have more adult themes because in dramas and stuff like that that's what people want

00:27:45 ◼   ► to see right they want to see violence they want to see nudity like this is just a thing

00:27:49 ◼   ► right? It's why Game of Thrones is so popular, it's why Breaking Bad is so popular, like

00:27:53 ◼   ► all of these shows, because they have a lot of this stuff in them because it helps tell

00:27:57 ◼   ► a wider story, which is what people are interested in. So I want to put this amount, this $1

00:28:03 ◼   ► billion into a little bit of context. So HBO spent $2 billion last year, but Netflix is

00:28:09 ◼   ► expected to spend $6 billion this year. So to start off with $1 billion seems like I

00:28:16 ◼   ► I think a pretty good budget. Ten shows maybe is too many, but a billion dollars, that seems

00:28:23 ◼   ► possible considering what their competitors are doing. I mean Netflix are fully entrenched

00:28:28 ◼   ► in this now. They're a new Netflix series all the time. New movies, every time I go

00:28:33 ◼   ► on Netflix there's something I've never heard of before. So six billion seems about right

00:28:37 ◼   ► for that, right? Like they have, I have no idea how many things they have and they have

00:28:41 ◼   ► things in different languages, different countries, different regions. So I think one billion

00:28:46 ◼   ► dollars is probably a good starting point for them.

00:28:51 ◼   ► Do you think Apple is doing this because they couldn't figure out a way to offer what they

00:28:56 ◼   ► call like a skinny bundle of multiple services together and earn revenue off the markup of

00:29:02 ◼   ► that bundle?

00:29:03 ◼   ► No.

00:29:04 ◼   ► So they were like, you know, or do you think it's just Apple saying we actually do need

00:29:08 ◼   ► to make our own stuff because it's better for lock-in?

00:29:11 ◼   ► Okay.

00:29:12 ◼   ► I think it's better, I know it's better for lock-in and if they actually want to sell

00:29:15 ◼   ► people a service, they want to like sell them, sell people service and make money from it.

00:29:19 ◼   ► Right now, if you're doing that type of thing in video, the way that you do that is by creating

00:29:24 ◼   ► original content. I think that is clear now, right? Because you look at their competitors,

00:29:29 ◼   ► Netflix and Amazon tried to do this, to take content and sell it, right? So take existing

00:29:36 ◼   ► content and sell it in a digital form, right? Like that was the idea. And they have ended

00:29:43 ◼   ► up saying, "Oh, actually the real money is in making our own content because that means

00:29:48 ◼   ► people if we have the, if we have the must see show, that's what it's all about, right?

00:29:52 ◼   ► Like you have the must see show, everyone's going to sign up for your service like no

00:29:57 ◼   ► matter what because they need to see that show. Like for example, in the UK, lots and

00:30:03 ◼   ► lots and lots of people sign up for Netflix because it was how we got Breaking Bad. There

00:30:08 ◼   ► was no other way to get it. Netflix had the rights in the UK, and it would be like the

00:30:13 ◼   ► morning after it was on in the US, we would have it. And that, you know, so like everybody

00:30:18 ◼   ► signed up because it was the must see show. And there are great shows, right, like I really

00:30:22 ◼   ► enjoyed Glow on Netflix recently, which I really thoroughly recommend to people. You

00:30:26 ◼   ► know, like stuff like Arrested Development, people will sign up for that. Transparent,

00:30:30 ◼   ► Idina loves Transparent, so we will always keep our prime membership for stuff like,

00:30:34 ◼   ► know that there are shows on these services that are fantastic and people sign up for

00:30:38 ◼   ► them but my question to you Federico is this all going to be in Apple Music?

00:30:44 ◼   ► Sure I hope not. I don't think they should I think it would be a really bad branding

00:30:49 ◼   ► decision to put all of this in Apple Music.

00:30:52 ◼   ► It just doesn't make any sense I mean I can kind of see Karpul Karo

00:30:58 ◼   ► episode and I think I think it was fine and I think that kind of makes sense you

00:31:02 ◼   ► know as a new as an extension to music is fine but anything else is really

00:31:09 ◼   ► stretching it I would rather see Apple you know integrate everything into the

00:31:14 ◼   ► TV app or maybe rename the app but the idea of let's just put everything

00:31:19 ◼   ► together into a single video application or video network or video service

00:31:23 ◼   ► whatever I think that makes more sense than you know sure people pay for us

00:31:27 ◼   ► Apple Music subscription but necessarily that doesn't imply let's put

00:31:33 ◼   ► video and movies and TV shows into music. So I'm curious to see if Apple is

00:31:38 ◼   ► gonna either split up the subscriptions or offer maybe an Apple bundle that is

00:31:44 ◼   ► you get iCloud, you get Apple Music, you get Apple Video. You know I can

00:31:49 ◼   ► kind of see that. Apple Video, do you think that'll be the name? I don't think I'm gonna

00:31:53 ◼   ► call it Apple TV right? Which would have been the obvious thing. Yeah, yeah I don't

00:31:57 ◼   ► I don't know, what are they gonna call it?

00:32:00 ◼   ► Apple Video.

00:32:02 ◼   ► - Anything.

00:32:02 ◼   ► - Whatever it is, yeah.

00:32:03 ◼   ► - Apple something.

00:32:05 ◼   ► - Apple Content.

00:32:06 ◼   ► - Apple Originals.

00:32:07 ◼   ► Or maybe that, mmm.

00:32:09 ◼   ► - Apple Originals is a good name.

00:32:11 ◼   ► That's a good name.

00:32:12 ◼   ► - Unless they do plan on trying to have a Netflix model

00:32:14 ◼   ► in the future, right, where they as well have other stuff,

00:32:18 ◼   ► I think that would be ideal for them.

00:32:20 ◼   ► I mean, that's something they've clearly tried to do.

00:32:22 ◼   ► I mean, I wouldn't be surprised

00:32:23 ◼   ► if whenever this is announced, it's both things.

00:32:26 ◼   ► some select partners put their content on Apple service and they also have original shows because

00:32:32 ◼   ► the thing is you can't sell this right like if you have two original shows ready to go

00:32:39 ◼   ► that is not a $10 a month service to pay for there has to be more there right so like I wondered if

00:32:47 ◼   ► maybe for a while like it was just free with Apple Music or something like that or so you know if you

00:32:52 ◼   ► if you already subscribed to Apple Music,

00:32:53 ◼   ► you'll also get the original shows.

00:32:55 ◼   ► Or they do something where they're working

00:32:58 ◼   ► with a few providers to have a bunch of old catalog content

00:33:01 ◼   ► and some stuff like that.

00:33:02 ◼   ► Because I think that's a real hard sell to be like,

00:33:05 ◼   ► hey, we're gonna have 10 new shows this year,

00:33:08 ◼   ► two of them are available now,

00:33:10 ◼   ► please give us $15 a month.

00:33:11 ◼   ► You know?

00:33:14 ◼   ► Because there's not gonna be enough content

00:33:16 ◼   ► to sustain a monthly fee.

00:33:18 ◼   ► So there's gotta be more to it,

00:33:20 ◼   ► and I wonder what that will end up looking like.

00:33:22 ◼   ► - Well, imagine if maybe,

00:33:24 ◼   ► and I realize that could entirely disrupt Netflix,

00:33:30 ◼   ► at least in terms of back catalog.

00:33:32 ◼   ► - Depends what they get though.

00:33:34 ◼   ► - Yeah, but imagine if what happened

00:33:36 ◼   ► to the iTunes store for music with Apple Music

00:33:39 ◼   ► happened to the iTunes store for movies and TV shows,

00:33:41 ◼   ► but with the other subscription.

00:33:42 ◼   ► - That's the dream, but nobody's gonna get them.

00:33:45 ◼   ► They're not gonna get that,

00:33:46 ◼   ► Because I've held onto this thought for a long time.

00:33:50 ◼   ► Apple kind of, they really upended the music industry

00:33:55 ◼   ► in a way that I think the music industry

00:33:57 ◼   ► wasn't happy with, right?

00:33:58 ◼   ► Which ended up with subscription services,

00:34:01 ◼   ► which do not pay as much money

00:34:03 ◼   ► as when people used to straight up buy music.

00:34:05 ◼   ► I do not think the TV and movie industry

00:34:07 ◼   ► will wanna go that route, like to give Apple that control.

00:34:11 ◼   ► Because what will probably happen

00:34:13 ◼   ► is exactly what happens in the music industry.

00:34:15 ◼   ► and nobody will pay full price for anything anymore,

00:34:18 ◼   ► we'll just all use subscriptions.

00:34:20 ◼   ► So I mean, I would be really, really surprised.

00:34:22 ◼   ► I mean, I know that there are a bunch of individual players

00:34:24 ◼   ► and stuff, but Apple is at a scale

00:34:26 ◼   ► that they could literally change everything

00:34:28 ◼   ► in any industry that they move into,

00:34:30 ◼   ► and I would be surprised if the movie and TV industry

00:34:33 ◼   ► were just like, yeah, go for it.

00:34:35 ◼   ► - Did you see the rumor from,

00:34:38 ◼   ► I think it was Bloomberg a few days ago,

00:34:40 ◼   ► that movie studios have been talking

00:34:45 ◼   ► and considering with Apple a way to offer new movies

00:34:50 ◼   ► a few days after they hit the theaters at a premium price

00:34:57 ◼   ► to stream or download, like 30 to $50.

00:35:02 ◼   ► But if a movie comes out on like Friday or Monday,

00:35:05 ◼   ► you can buy the movie.

00:35:07 ◼   ► And obviously-- - I would love that.

00:35:09 ◼   ► - Yeah, obviously the theater, the cinema association,

00:35:12 ◼   ► whatever, in Hollywood, I don't know the name,

00:35:15 ◼   ► is super against.

00:35:17 ◼   ► - Well, yeah. - Obviously, obviously.

00:35:19 ◼   ► But apparently, I think the movie studios were,

00:35:22 ◼   ► they've been thinking about something like this for a while,

00:35:25 ◼   ► you know, to give people who want to spend the money

00:35:28 ◼   ► but don't wanna go to the theater.

00:35:29 ◼   ► You know, Sylvia and I, for example, we have two puppies,

00:35:31 ◼   ► and right now would be a problem

00:35:33 ◼   ► to go to the theater at night

00:35:34 ◼   ► and to leave two puppies at home.

00:35:37 ◼   ► And honestly, for new movies that I want to watch

00:35:40 ◼   ► in good quality, for a movie that I've been anticipating

00:35:45 ◼   ► for a while, not every single week,

00:35:49 ◼   ► but I wouldn't mind paying 25 to 30 dollars for that movie.

00:35:52 ◼   ► - That's how much it costs to go to the cinema, right?

00:35:55 ◼   ► That's how much it costs.

00:35:56 ◼   ► So I would totally pay that.

00:35:59 ◼   ► I would totally pay that to watch it at home.

00:36:02 ◼   ► Because I have a good TV set up, I like my sofa.

00:36:07 ◼   ► I would do that. I would totally do this. I would totally do this.

00:36:10 ◼   ► So I don't know, maybe there's a future where there's a combination of all these back catalog stuff from iTunes

00:36:17 ◼   ► or new originals from Apple and maybe even movie exclusives.

00:36:20 ◼   ► And I could see Apple doing great with that type of service.

00:36:26 ◼   ► But I feel like the core proposition of that, which is the originals,

00:36:32 ◼   ► it highly depends on Apple coming up with great ideas.

00:36:36 ◼   ► And unless we consider Planet of the Apps a TV show,

00:36:41 ◼   ► we really don't have any TV shows from Apple.

00:36:45 ◼   ► We only have web series,

00:36:49 ◼   ► such as "Carpool Karoke", adapted to Apple Music,

00:36:53 ◼   ► and we have a reality TV show,

00:36:55 ◼   ► which I think it's fair to say kinda fell flat

00:36:59 ◼   ► didn't have any kind of meaningful impact. You know I'm wondering how many

00:37:04 ◼   ► people are actually watching it. You know I would be so curious to

00:37:08 ◼   ► know the numbers. Because there's a part of me that's like do more people listen

00:37:13 ◼   ► to connected then watch Planet of the Apes? Well we're probably never ever

00:37:23 ◼   ► going to know. We're never gonna know unless somebody out there can tell me I would love to

00:37:28 ◼   ► know but it doesn't honestly Federico doesn't seem like an impossibility

00:37:32 ◼   ► because I cannot imagine who is watching this because the type of person that

00:37:37 ◼   ► would watch this has no interest in it right like people that listen to these

00:37:41 ◼   ► shows they're in theory should be the target market for a show about apps but

00:37:45 ◼   ► it's it's not done in a way that appeals to them so I would be super interested

00:37:49 ◼   ► to find that information out what it just feels like Apple stopped pushing

00:37:54 ◼   ► new episodes in terms of marketing and like on Twitter and elsewhere like it

00:38:01 ◼   ► feels I don't even know if it ended the series like is it still going on I have

00:38:06 ◼   ► no idea I feel like every time I go to the app store there's some kind of

00:38:10 ◼   ► promotion going on but I have no idea if it means the show still running I think

00:38:14 ◼   ► that they're aware that it's not doing well I mean you know if for example

00:38:17 ◼   ► episode 1 and episode 2 if the numbers like tanked you know it's not doing well

00:38:21 ◼   ► So there's no point it gets to some point like okay

00:38:24 ◼   ► We just need to finish the season like this failed we need to finish the season to save face

00:38:28 ◼   ► But clearly we're not gonna win people back right like I I've had this sort of stuff with stuff

00:38:32 ◼   ► I've done in the past where like it's there's a thing

00:38:34 ◼   ► You know you know that if like you have half a million people like watch the first one and then you have 50,000 people

00:38:41 ◼   ► You know it's bombed and there's just no way you can recover from that Pete people clearly don't like it

00:38:47 ◼   ► Yeah, you know, it's not like a TV show where like people say hey it kind of starts slow

00:38:52 ◼   ► But if you if you stick with the first four episodes, then it gets real good and you got like four seasons of it

00:38:58 ◼   ► You know, for example

00:39:00 ◼   ► CVI years ago we struggled to get through the first two episodes of Mad Men and for many many years

00:39:06 ◼   ► We didn't watch Mad Men until with this we we heard from many of our friends and we decided to stick with the first two episodes

00:39:12 ◼   ► and then he kind of clicked for us and we had like five seasons to watch and

00:39:16 ◼   ► It's not like Planet of the Apps, people will be like "hey, you know, the first 10 episodes

00:39:21 ◼   ► are terrible but if you stick with it, then it gets real good."

00:39:24 ◼   ► It's like there's a huge plot twist halfway through the season.

00:39:27 ◼   ► Well I am, it's killed off, like the escalator comes for him.

00:39:33 ◼   ► That's not gonna be the case.

00:39:34 ◼   ► So yeah, I don't think we'll ever see a Planet of the Apps season 2, you know.

00:39:40 ◼   ► Vidia in the chat room just said that they uploaded the final episode this week.

00:39:44 ◼   ► Okay.

00:39:45 ◼   ► So it's done.

00:39:46 ◼   ► Done. Yeah. No spoilers, please. Sound the spoiler horn, Myke. We're going to spoil the

00:39:57 ◼   ► ending of Planet of the Apps.

00:39:59 ◼   ► Oh, gosh. It turns out there were no apps all along. Gary Vee turns into a vampire,

00:40:05 ◼   ► and that's what the V stands for.

00:40:07 ◼   ► AdiQ comes on, unplugs all of the Macs.

00:40:11 ◼   ► Does a little dance.

00:40:13 ◼   ► And it's like all the apps belong to me now.

00:40:16 ◼   ► - I can't wait to do it.

00:40:17 ◼   ► This episode is also brought to you by FreshBooks,

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00:42:25 ◼   ► Alright Federico, I want to talk briefly about the Essential Phone.

00:42:30 ◼   ► Which is the iPhone right?

00:42:32 ◼   ► The iPhone is the Essential Phone, that is correct.

00:42:35 ◼   ► And it's edge to edge, and the notch is smaller than we imagined.

00:42:38 ◼   ► Okay let's move on.

00:42:40 ◼   ► The Essential Phone is a phone made by a company called Essential, and this is Andy Rubin's

00:42:47 ◼   ► company.

00:42:48 ◼   ► And Essential are making a few things, they're making a few different products and they're

00:42:51 ◼   ► hoping to kind of build a software layer between all of them.

00:42:54 ◼   ► they want to become the next big ecosystem. So I have watched the Verges review by Dita

00:43:01 ◼   ► Bone which is fantastic by the way. I really thoroughly recommend you go watch the video,

00:43:06 ◼   ► I'll put a link in the show notes to the review, the video is right at the top of the page,

00:43:10 ◼   ► you should watch it, it's brilliant, they did a really good job with it. But I wanted

00:43:13 ◼   ► to talk about the phone itself. So I think this phone looks fantastic, like I don't know

00:43:19 ◼   ► how you could look at this phone today with all of the modern trends of hardware design

00:43:24 ◼   ► and not want it, right? Like I think it looks beautiful. Would you agree?

00:43:29 ◼   ► Yeah, it looks really, really nice. And the only point that people could bring up is that

00:43:38 ◼   ► it's not full edge to edge, in that there's a small bezel at the bottom. But honestly,

00:43:46 ◼   ► now in this very moment I think it's the best looking phone on the market.

00:43:52 ◼   ► Yeah I think it is currently my favorite hardware design available like it's not the Samsung

00:43:58 ◼   ► off the top of the list I really really love the look of the S8 but this thing it just

00:44:02 ◼   ► looks fantastic and it has a bunch of other little parts like there is no branding at

00:44:06 ◼   ► all on the phone, nothing. And there's no camera bump and it is it has a black ceramic

00:44:13 ◼   ► back and it just looks fantastic. And the fingerprint sensor is in a reasonable position.

00:44:20 ◼   ► Yeah, I love that part of the review. But yeah, it's true, it's right in the center

00:44:25 ◼   ► on the back, not like level with the camera on the left and right hand side of the phone

00:44:30 ◼   ► like it is on the Samsung, which is just bad design. But I wanted to ask you Federico,

00:44:34 ◼   ► so there was a notch on this phone, right? There was a notch for the camera, but it's

00:44:37 ◼   ► really small. And I wondered, you know, if we look at what we think we know about the

00:44:43 ◼   ► iPhone and comparing it to this phone. What do you think is better? Small notch or big notch?

00:44:47 ◼   ► I think

00:44:51 ◼   ► what helps the essential phone look great is the fact that the interface

00:44:56 ◼   ► wraps around

00:44:57 ◼   ► the notch. And that you see this wallpaper

00:45:01 ◼   ► sort of going into the notch

00:45:04 ◼   ► and so you get this cyclopie in the middle

00:45:08 ◼   ► but it doesn't really matter because Android doesn't put

00:45:12 ◼   ► useful stuff in there and you get the indicators like the status bar and notifications at the sides.

00:45:18 ◼   ► So I think it looks real good. Yeah I bet it's really easy to just forget and not even see the

00:45:23 ◼   ► little camera. Exactly, exactly. And instead if Apple is, it depends because if Apple is gonna

00:45:29 ◼   ► embrace the notch it'll be more noticeable than the Essential phone because it's got more sensors.

00:45:35 ◼   ► Or is Apple going into the in the opposite direction and they're gonna sort of use the OLED

00:45:41 ◼   ► display with a black color in the notch to sort of blend everything together and make

00:45:50 ◼   ► an old school black status bar.

00:45:53 ◼   ► Does that look better?

00:45:54 ◼   ► Does that look worse?

00:45:56 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:45:58 ◼   ► Right now I think it mostly comes down to the software and I think from a software standpoint

00:46:05 ◼   ► the essential folks did a great job because I totally believe the Verge when they say

00:46:11 ◼   ► that you don't notice the camera notch in there, I totally believe that because it's

00:46:18 ◼   ► very unassuming I think, everything blends into the interface which I appreciate and

00:46:24 ◼   ► I think this is why a lot of people are curious to see what Apple does with the iPhone Pro.

00:46:30 ◼   ► can you sort of hide that strip full of sensors? Because I mean nobody wants to

00:46:36 ◼   ► have you know especially now that we have this edge to edge displays nobody

00:46:42 ◼   ► wants to have sensors getting in the way so it's only it's only how you fake you

00:46:47 ◼   ► know yeah hiding them. How is it embraced? Is it either embraced with like hiding it

00:46:53 ◼   ► or is it embraced with finding a way to make the UI work with it? Like that's

00:46:57 ◼   ► that's the part of it that's important.

00:46:59 ◼   ► And what Essentia have done makes a lot of sense for Android

00:47:02 ◼   ► because they're running basically stock Android.

00:47:05 ◼   ► So it's not accounting for the fact

00:47:08 ◼   ► that there's a cutout in the display.

00:47:10 ◼   ► So they've made the cutout as small as they possibly can.

00:47:14 ◼   ► And there's some interesting stuff there, right?

00:47:16 ◼   ► Like they have a speaker,

00:47:18 ◼   ► and I'm sure they have some sensors in there

00:47:20 ◼   ► and they've just found ways to embed them or hide them.

00:47:23 ◼   ► And this makes sense based on a lot of the conjecture

00:47:27 ◼   ► about why this iPhone is going to be a singular model and difficult to make

00:47:32 ◼   ► because it's hard to make a scale right like to really push the

00:47:37 ◼   ► envelope but the essential phone is not being made at large scale they said that

00:47:41 ◼   ► like they expect this to be a small scale production it's already been

00:47:45 ◼   ► delayed and that's probably because they're maybe pushing the envelope in

00:47:48 ◼   ► some different ways right maybe it maybe this is a more difficult phone to

00:47:51 ◼   ► manufacture but that's okay because they don't need to make a gabillion of them

00:47:55 ◼   ► What do you think that edge-to-edge displays are becoming a trend, especially this year?

00:48:05 ◼   ► Do you think it's just a natural evolution of our taste?

00:48:08 ◼   ► Like we've been using smartphones for years now, they've become part of ourselves, of

00:48:12 ◼   ► course we want to see as much screen as possible.

00:48:16 ◼   ► Or do you think there was a particular technology or supply chain change, like in the manufacturing

00:48:23 ◼   ► process adopted at scale between different companies that allowed for these phones to

00:48:29 ◼   ► start coming out?

00:48:31 ◼   ► So I would say it's probably a little a column A, a little a column B. I think that it makes

00:48:36 ◼   ► sense to have bigger screens and I would expect that it started to become more and more technically

00:48:43 ◼   ► possible to do it, right? Like the technology became available, so then they started to

00:48:49 ◼   ► appear right so like I think the first one everyone saw was was it the Xiaomi

00:48:54 ◼   ► Mi Mix and as soon as everybody saw that phone it was like well now we need it

00:48:58 ◼   ► like everybody wants edge to edge so then all you know and then more and more

00:49:02 ◼   ► phones started coming out so I expect that it's like technology enabled this

00:49:06 ◼   ► phone manufacturers started doing it it then becomes the trend so now everybody

00:49:11 ◼   ► wants it because why would you not want a bigger screen on the phone size you

00:49:16 ◼   ► already have like why would you not I don't understand why somebody wouldn't

00:49:19 ◼   ► want that you know like if if you can put a bigger screen into the current

00:49:23 ◼   ► phone that you have how it how can that be a bad thing mmm like I'm sure that

00:49:29 ◼   ► there are edge cases I'm sure of course but for the vast majority of people why

00:49:33 ◼   ► would why would you not want that and especially when like for a lot of these

00:49:37 ◼   ► phones you can actually end up with a physically smaller phone with a bigger

00:49:41 ◼   ► a screen. How is that not a win?

00:49:45 ◼   ► I think, I generally agree with you, I think for some people there's an element of the

00:49:50 ◼   ► more we replace physical parts and physical buttons with software versions, there's an

00:49:57 ◼   ► element of this thing is going to fail sooner or later because software gets bugs, software

00:50:02 ◼   ► gets stuck, whereas physical buttons have a sense of reassurance that they will work

00:50:08 ◼   ► better over time.

00:50:10 ◼   ► - Yeah, but before the screens got big,

00:50:12 ◼   ► we already started losing physical buttons.

00:50:14 ◼   ► - That's true, but this feels more extreme,

00:50:17 ◼   ► and I think some people have that concern.

00:50:20 ◼   ► - I understand that.

00:50:21 ◼   ► And of course, what else will we be losing?

00:50:23 ◼   ► Now with the iPhone, we may lose touch ID.

00:50:26 ◼   ► So it's like, well, is that a good thing?

00:50:28 ◼   ► We won't know yet.

00:50:29 ◼   ► But yeah, I do think that this is just,

00:50:32 ◼   ► like it's a trend, and the trend,

00:50:34 ◼   ► and I think it's a good trend, I don't think it's a fad.

00:50:36 ◼   ► I think this is the next evolution of phone design, bigger screens.

00:50:41 ◼   ► Like let's get rid of all the bezels, let's push these phones to the limit.

00:50:46 ◼   ► I think it's a good thing.

00:50:47 ◼   ► - Yeah, totally.

00:50:48 ◼   ► So what's the deal with the camera on this phone?

00:50:51 ◼   ► - So the original review models of the Essential Phone, apparently the camera was terrible.

00:50:58 ◼   ► Then they pushed a software update, which fixed a lot of the problems, but the camera

00:51:02 ◼   ► is considered to be not as good as what is currently available, especially because there

00:51:07 ◼   ► is a lot of seriously legitimate competition now in the camera space. The iPhone, the Galaxy

00:51:13 ◼   ► S8 and the Pixel 2 all arguably take as good pictures of each other and excel in different

00:51:19 ◼   ► areas and if you're not on that level you have a bad camera now because there are 3

00:51:26 ◼   ► phones right at the top of the tree that are all considered to be excellent. If you're

00:51:30 ◼   ► not excellent then you're not good enough. And it seems like that the camera on the essential

00:51:36 ◼   ► phone is in that little hole, it's not good enough. And I think that is clearly a problem

00:51:45 ◼   ► because cameras are one of the most important things on a smartphone because it's also

00:51:51 ◼   ► everybody's camera. So it's like you're saying "well we're going to give you a

00:51:54 ◼   ► camera but it's not going to be a good camera". That's not how it works anymore. Your

00:52:00 ◼   ► your smartphone is your camera for everybody right?

00:52:03 ◼   ► Like everybody takes pictures with their smartphone,

00:52:05 ◼   ► whether they have a camera or not.

00:52:07 ◼   ► So everybody wants that camera to be good.

00:52:09 ◼   ► And if it's not, if you can buy a phone,

00:52:11 ◼   ► which is an expensive phone, a premium phone,

00:52:14 ◼   ► and there are better cameras available

00:52:16 ◼   ► than the phone you've just bought

00:52:17 ◼   ► in phones that already exist, that's not good.

00:52:20 ◼   ► And I think that is going to be a problem for this phone.

00:52:22 ◼   ► And it's something that would,

00:52:23 ◼   ► whilst I look at this phone and I would,

00:52:25 ◼   ► if I was an Android user,

00:52:26 ◼   ► I would be dying to get one of these.

00:52:28 ◼   ► would really like that's where I would pause the thought right like is this

00:52:31 ◼   ► what I want especially when this phone is debuting at a tricky time now I would

00:52:37 ◼   ► expect they did this purposely because they wanted to be first out the gate but

00:52:41 ◼   ► the pixel 2 the note 8 and the iPhone 8 are all just around the corner the note

00:52:47 ◼   ► 8 I think is announced next week right there everybody knows this no 8 is

00:52:52 ◼   ► coming next week and all the leaks make it look like it's gonna be incredible too

00:52:57 ◼   ► 2, it's edge to edge but bigger, it's probably going to be fantastic. The Pixel 2 is around

00:53:04 ◼   ► the corner, this one's a little weird, the Pixel 2, all of the leaks are telling some

00:53:08 ◼   ► very strange stories, so I'll put a link in the show notes to a post on Android Authority

00:53:13 ◼   ► so you can get a grab for it if you want to, but just very basically, the Pixel 2, the

00:53:18 ◼   ► regular one, all of the leaks are suggesting it's basically going to look like the current

00:53:23 ◼   ► Pixel phones. But Pixel XL 2, the bigger one, will be edge to edge and have a more striking

00:53:29 ◼   ► design. Very strange. So they're gonna have two models but they're not gonna look the

00:53:36 ◼   ► same. Basically what Apple wants to do with the iPhones this year too? Like the old look

00:53:42 ◼   ► and the new look? I hadn't tied those two things together. Yes, that's exactly what

00:53:46 ◼   ► they're trying to do. But they're only gonna have the two, right? So they're gonna update

00:53:50 ◼   ► their line and it looks like they're going to change one of them a lot significantly

00:53:54 ◼   ► from a visual perspective and the other not too much. But yeah so we've got that and then

00:53:58 ◼   ► the iPhone like it's all around the corner I think this is going to be a struggle for

00:54:01 ◼   ► them but I bet that they do okay I bet that they sell what they want to because then I

00:54:06 ◼   ► don't think they're looking for huge huge volumes they look this is like to try and

00:54:10 ◼   ► help them get a like a leg up which you know what this reminds me of this model Tesla.

00:54:17 ◼   ► This is how Tesla started. They made the Roadster which was a really cool electric sports car

00:54:23 ◼   ► which helped them get a leg up. It helped bring some money into the company and then

00:54:27 ◼   ► they went ahead and started making some fantastic cars. I hope that this is a good thing for

00:54:32 ◼   ► him. I hope that Andy Rubin and the Essential team are in this for the long haul and that

00:54:36 ◼   ► they could become serious competition because if this is what you can do for your first

00:54:40 ◼   ► phone. I mean, can you imagine the later things that this company could be able to produce

00:54:47 ◼   ► if this is your first attempt? It's incredibly impressive.

00:54:52 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean if this is not like something that they did to be acquired as sort of a

00:55:00 ◼   ► demonstration of their talent and skills. If they are actually in this for the long

00:55:05 ◼   ► term. That's what he's saying, right? Like this

00:55:07 ◼   ► This is, he wants to build a huge big company now, so I hope that they can do it.

00:55:13 ◼   ► Yeah, me too, because you know, if there's someone who can do it, it's definitely Andy

00:55:18 ◼   ► Rubin, you know.

00:55:19 ◼   ► Yeah, he has the track record.

00:55:21 ◼   ► Yep.

00:55:22 ◼   ► We'll see.

00:55:23 ◼   ► We'll see.

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00:56:42 ◼   ► So Apple have released a bunch of iOS 11 how-to videos. Peculiar time to release them, do

00:56:48 ◼   ► you think? Why now? Bit early.

00:56:54 ◼   ► So I've been thinking about this and I think it has to be part of a bigger marketing push

00:57:03 ◼   ► of Apple wants to start early before they have to focus on switch gears to talk about

00:57:10 ◼   ► the iPhones.

00:57:12 ◼   ► So maybe it's best to create some anticipation in iPad users now rather than sort of waiting

00:57:23 ◼   ► for the iPhone and then saying "oh by the way there's also the iPad".

00:57:29 ◼   ► It's interesting to me how they're also pushing a lot of the productivity stuff now.

00:57:36 ◼   ► The vidas that they've done, I mean we can talk about them but the features that they

00:57:41 ◼   ► selected, they are trying to explain some really practical things to people.

00:57:49 ◼   ► not like talking about new music app or you know control center changes. They're talking

00:57:56 ◼   ► about stuff like files and drag and drop which is interesting in a marketing campaign.

00:58:00 ◼   ► Yeah, they have six videos and these are what they focus on. One focuses on the doc, one

00:58:07 ◼   ► is about pencil markup, one is about files, one is about multitasking, one is about drag

00:58:11 ◼   ► and drop and one is about notes improvements. And what I love about them, they look cool,

00:58:16 ◼   ► They have a really cool look about them visually.

00:58:19 ◼   ► There's like good pastel colors.

00:58:21 ◼   ► I love the pastel colors stuff.

00:58:23 ◼   ► Whoever's doing that, just please keep doing it.

00:58:26 ◼   ► They all have like these funny props in them.

00:58:28 ◼   ► They have fantastic, hilarious narration,

00:58:31 ◼   ► which is so dry, I love it.

00:58:33 ◼   ► This is like everything I love about Apple advertising

00:58:38 ◼   ► is encapsulated in this.

00:58:41 ◼   ► This is it, right?

00:58:41 ◼   ► This is what I love about their current style.

00:58:44 ◼   ► They do a really, really great job.

00:58:45 ◼   ► I think, I know that you would agree,

00:58:47 ◼   ► this is 100% the right thing

00:58:48 ◼   ► for Apple to be doing right now.

00:58:50 ◼   ► iOS 11 is an iPad Pro release.

00:58:52 ◼   ► That's what it is, right?

00:58:53 ◼   ► Like primarily, that's what's going on here.

00:58:55 ◼   ► All the features that they are adding are for this.

00:58:58 ◼   ► The story will change when iOS 11 is released

00:59:02 ◼   ► and things like the AR apps and stuff start coming out

00:59:04 ◼   ► and we'll see what the third party piece is.

00:59:06 ◼   ► But from the what is Apple doing,

00:59:08 ◼   ► what are the public facing features

00:59:10 ◼   ► that Apple are creating, it's iPad Pro stuff, right?

00:59:14 ◼   ► Yeah, I don't think the story will change too much.

00:59:16 ◼   ► I mean, of course there will be AR apps, but if you try to do this sort of exercise, think

00:59:25 ◼   ► of all iOS releases and for each one of them, what do you associate with them?

00:59:30 ◼   ► And so you would say iOS 9 was the iPad release.

00:59:34 ◼   ► And there were iPhone changes, but most people remembered the iPad stuff.

00:59:37 ◼   ► iOS 10 was iMessage and Apple Music and Control Center switching to Pages.

00:59:43 ◼   ► And I think iOS 11 will be remembered as the iPad release and of course, yes, AR apps.

00:59:49 ◼   ► But I think in terms of changes to the OS, this is clearly an iPad-focused release.

00:59:55 ◼   ► If you look at the Apple website, if you look at the marketing material that they've put

00:59:59 ◼   ► together, even if you look at the developer documentation, most of the stuff is on the

01:00:03 ◼   ► iPad.

01:00:05 ◼   ► And you can tell that some of these features have been in the works for a while because

01:00:09 ◼   ► they're surprisingly polished and rich. It's not like Apple started to work on this in

01:00:16 ◼   ► November.

01:00:17 ◼   ► Something that I keep reminding myself is, as much as I'm loving iOS 11, I haven't even

01:00:23 ◼   ► got the ability to take advantage of it completely yet. Like drag and drop and files, I'm not

01:00:28 ◼   ► even using them. Because most of the apps that I use, they have like a super clunky

01:00:32 ◼   ► implementation of drag and drop because it's just baked in stuff from UIKit or whatever,

01:00:37 ◼   ► it's just the basic implemented tools. For example, I can drag a URL into the Chrome

01:00:41 ◼   ► address bar, but then I have to tap the address bar and press enter. There are things that

01:00:47 ◼   ► are a little bit wonky, so I'm not using it very much right now, but the ability to use

01:00:53 ◼   ► files, I'm already loving just taking something, saving it to iCloud Drive, and then pulling

01:00:58 ◼   ► it in from an email app. I can't even imagine what it's going to be like when I have all

01:01:02 ◼   ► of my document services in files. I'm so excited for everything to come out, all the apps to

01:01:09 ◼   ► start updating. Please, please, everybody, all developers, please update quickly. Please,

01:01:15 ◼   ► please, please.

01:01:16 ◼   ► I think what you will realize, and of course now I'm in a different position because I've

01:01:22 ◼   ► been testing all of these apps for the review and for Mac stories, but the general sense

01:01:27 ◼   ► is it feels like every single part of iOS is better connected together.

01:01:35 ◼   ► And not just in the sense like when iOS 8 came out, for example, we got extensions.

01:01:39 ◼   ► And it felt like "oh well, now things can talk to each other".

01:01:43 ◼   ► But it feels even more liberating than that, like you have control this time, you can pick

01:01:49 ◼   ► stuff up and move it around.

01:01:51 ◼   ► And with files, I've been trying a few of these files providers.

01:01:56 ◼   ► And when you save stuff into files, so you have a unified place, but then those documents

01:02:01 ◼   ► are also displayed into the dedicated apps, you know, that have the files integration,

01:02:08 ◼   ► it feels like, well, now this is awesome because I'm saving a document into files, but it's

01:02:13 ◼   ► actually going everywhere.

01:02:15 ◼   ► And it's a different way of working on iOS.

01:02:18 ◼   ► And so if developers update quickly, like every year this is the main point, for this

01:02:24 ◼   ► stuff to be useful, there has to be wide developer adoption.

01:02:29 ◼   ► And I have no doubt that a few months from now we'll be complaining about someone who's

01:02:33 ◼   ► still not taking advantage of iOS 11, such as Google for example.

01:02:40 ◼   ► I'm sure there will be these instances of developers who are slow to adopt iOS 11.

01:02:45 ◼   ► But once you try this stuff, from drag and drop to the slide over, you know, three apps

01:02:52 ◼   ► at once, you cannot really go back to iOS 10.

01:02:58 ◼   ► If you haven't listened to Canvas, Fraser and I had this discussion last week of being

01:03:04 ◼   ► a visual person on iOS, so taking advantage of stuff like multi-touch and all of these

01:03:09 ◼   ► different touch-based interactions versus being more of a, I think CGP Grey calls it,

01:03:17 ◼   ► being a summoner of invoking things via search or from the keyboard.

01:03:22 ◼   ► And so in other words, I think Fraser and I sort of came to an understanding about the

01:03:27 ◼   ► differences that iOS 11 made us realize that we have.

01:03:34 ◼   ► I'm more of a touch person and Fraser is more of a keyboard person.

01:03:38 ◼   ► And so I think it'll be interesting to see on iOS 11, with drag and drop, how many people

01:03:42 ◼   ► actually use it.

01:03:44 ◼   ► Because not so...

01:03:45 ◼   ► I think there's a percentage of iOS users who still use iPads as desktop computers in

01:03:54 ◼   ► the sense of, we have a smart keyboard, we have spotlight, I want to search for stuff.

01:03:59 ◼   ► And there's other folks, maybe Myke is more...

01:04:02 ◼   ► You're more similar to me from this point of view.

01:04:03 ◼   ► We actually like to touch stuff on the screen.

01:04:06 ◼   ► We use the keyboard.

01:04:07 ◼   ► I have this weird kind of sitting in the middle of the two of you.

01:04:10 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:04:11 ◼   ► Where I really like to use Spotlight to open applications, but once the app and stuff is

01:04:14 ◼   ► open, or the document is open, I'm all hands.

01:04:17 ◼   ► Right?

01:04:18 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:04:19 ◼   ► Like, I'm not my hands, you know.

01:04:20 ◼   ► So I have this kind of mix, like I use the keyboard all the time, I always have the keyboard

01:04:23 ◼   ► open, that's how an iPad works for me now.

01:04:27 ◼   ► But I love to use the touch stuff too.

01:04:31 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:04:32 ◼   ► Yeah, so these changes that Apple is advertising in the commercials and the developers can

01:04:39 ◼   ► now integrate with these new features, it will be interesting to talk about them a couple

01:04:48 ◼   ► of months from now, maybe in October, after iOS 11 has launched, after some developers

01:04:52 ◼   ► have adopted these integrations.

01:04:56 ◼   ► Because I think there will be differences between the ways that we work on iOS, and

01:05:04 ◼   ► especially the ways that we work on the iPad.

01:05:06 ◼   ► I'm sure there will be folks who say, you know, even if I can drag and drop stuff, I

01:05:11 ◼   ► still prefer to copy items to the clipboard and to use extensions, because it just feels

01:05:17 ◼   ► like I don't have to touch as much, I don't have to constantly swipe across the screen.

01:05:24 ◼   ► But personally I'm like 100% on board with drag and drop and files and all these different

01:05:31 ◼   ► ways of moving things around.

01:05:34 ◼   ► I feel like I have more control of iOS.

01:05:38 ◼   ► I know that it takes longer to open the apps into multitasking with the dock.

01:05:44 ◼   ► I know it takes longer in some instances because you feel like you're doing more because you're

01:05:50 ◼   ► pressing and you're dragging it.

01:05:52 ◼   ► I love the feeling of doing that. I like dragging an app over another app, seeing it, and then

01:06:00 ◼   ► it pops into play. I love that feeling. I understand why people don't like it, but

01:06:05 ◼   ► I mean for me, with the way that I'm looking at iOS through my eyes, I can't see how

01:06:11 ◼   ► you could say that this is not an incredible advancement in every respect. But I know that

01:06:15 ◼   ► not everybody feels that way.

01:06:19 ◼   ► about iOS 11, I mean we've got to be getting close now probably, I mean in the earliest

01:06:27 ◼   ► three weeks away, would you say? I mean, I think the earliest we're going to see the

01:06:35 ◼   ► iPhone event is the first week of September, which would mean that iOS would come out in

01:06:40 ◼   ► the second week of September. Personally, personally, I'm hoping that the iPhone event

01:06:45 ◼   ► is in the second week of September because of my travel is ending in the first week and

01:06:51 ◼   ► I really I really I really don't want the event to be on the fifth because that's the

01:06:56 ◼   ► day that I arrive home after flying across the globe but I'm scared that it's going to

01:07:02 ◼   ► be that day but we'll see I mean I'm hoping they do the event on the 12th and then iOS

01:07:06 ◼   ► comes out kind of maybe on the 20th or the 21st or something like that but it is possible

01:07:11 ◼   ► that it could come out in the second week of September so it's about three weeks away.

01:07:16 ◼   ► I say this because I want to know how the review is coming along. Have you got through

01:07:21 ◼   ► with the introduction yet?

01:07:23 ◼   ► I have line one written.

01:07:27 ◼   ► Yeah, it's pretty, I'm still taking notes.

01:07:33 ◼   ► I've nearly finished those session videos.

01:07:36 ◼   ► Yeah, I'm still just a couple of left.

01:07:40 ◼   ► The review is all written, like all the sections, the conclusion is done, everything is done.

01:07:48 ◼   ► And actually we are now, we're now started the process of finalizing chapters.

01:07:56 ◼   ► So I've been working with my editor to go through each chapter about, I would say, five to six times.

01:08:05 ◼   ► That includes actually changing sections, restructuring things, considering the stuff that has changed during the betas.

01:08:15 ◼   ► And then moving on to typos and other stylistic changes, refinements, general cleanup, adding links.

01:08:22 ◼   ► And we are now at the point where...

01:08:26 ◼   ► So I can say right now that the reviewer probably have 18 chapters and realistically by the

01:08:35 ◼   ► end of this week I will probably have, I would say, about 12 of them finalized.

01:08:41 ◼   ► As in, I just need to put in the screenshots.

01:08:45 ◼   ► Because as usual I will wait for the GMC, the iOS, to take screenshots and take videos.

01:08:51 ◼   ► with the videos I can get a head start now because, you know, especially with motion

01:08:57 ◼   ► it's fine if some detail changes, people are not gonna notice the detail in the video,

01:09:02 ◼   ► but with a steady screenshot I want to wait for the final seed. So realistically by the

01:09:07 ◼   ► end of this week I will probably have the 12 chapters of the right side of my mindmap

01:09:15 ◼   ► done. And basically my plan is for the end of August to have the entire review

01:09:22 ◼   ► edited and finalized, which would be a considerable change from previous years,

01:09:29 ◼   ► as in I would be really, really ahead of schedule, because in previous years I

01:09:36 ◼   ► would be... at this point with iOS 9 and iOS 10 I was just coming back from

01:09:43 ◼   ► vacation and I still had to write like almost the second half of the review

01:09:50 ◼   ► instead right now on the 20... what day is it Myke? 21 of August I'm editing the

01:09:58 ◼   ► review and I'm halfway through the edit so I feel pretty confident that this

01:10:04 ◼   ► year being ahead of schedule will allow me to launch a few special additions to

01:10:09 ◼   ► to the review, a few extra things that I haven't done

01:10:13 ◼   ► in the past because I never had time.

01:10:15 ◼   ► This year, the plan, all along, the plan was,

01:10:17 ◼   ► I need to be done earlier, so I have time to

01:10:20 ◼   ► prepare some other extras that I never did in the past.

01:10:26 ◼   ► And I feel pretty happy with the status

01:10:30 ◼   ► of the review so far.

01:10:33 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, it is wild to hear you talking about this,

01:10:38 ◼   ► like as we've been chatting about it and you're like yeah no I'm basically done

01:10:42 ◼   ► because I remember last year you know like it was it was real bad like it was

01:10:47 ◼   ► like horror at certain points. I don't remember like what was it in previous years?

01:10:52 ◼   ► yeah not good not good Federico is what I'm gonna say you were very tired I

01:11:01 ◼   ► think a lot of the time but it really does feel like you have learned from not

01:11:06 ◼   ► necessarily past mistakes but past processes and you have adapted it and

01:11:10 ◼   ► like strengthened it to this year where you are significantly ahead of schedule

01:11:17 ◼   ► significantly like you may be too ahead of schedule right like to have

01:11:21 ◼   ► everything written at this point it's like okay like that's a lot you know

01:11:26 ◼   ► what I mean it's like maybe maybe I've done too much because things can still

01:11:29 ◼   ► change but I guess if you've got the bums written you can be ready right

01:11:33 ◼   ► yeah see I had to change a couple of things um the notification chapter so I

01:11:43 ◼   ► was right in wanting to wait until the very last moment to write the chapter

01:11:49 ◼   ► because I knew Apple was gonna but it's not like I knew knew but I had a pretty

01:11:55 ◼   ► strong indication that Apple was gonna change things so I did not write the

01:11:59 ◼   ► chapter which is a you know I think it's the fourth or fifth chapter in the

01:12:02 ◼   ► review, and I just skipped it, because I knew there were gonna be changes.

01:12:07 ◼   ► But I had still to change things, for example, yesterday I was editing the design section

01:12:12 ◼   ► of the review, and there's a bit in the design chapter where I talk about the new video player

01:12:18 ◼   ► in iOS, and so I had these two paragraphs about the behavior of the volume slider, and

01:12:23 ◼   ► from the beta 1, when I wrote about that volume slider, to beta 6, the behavior has changed.

01:12:29 ◼   ► And so there were two paragraphs where I was complaining about it, and I had to cut them,

01:12:33 ◼   ► because it changed.

01:12:36 ◼   ► And I had a couple of other instances of these two to three paragraphs that I had to remove

01:12:41 ◼   ► or substantially change.

01:12:43 ◼   ► But that's no big deal, because it's not like I have to redo an entire chapter, as it happened

01:12:48 ◼   ► in the past, because I didn't know that things would change, even in Beta 5 or 6.

01:12:53 ◼   ► So I definitely did learn from that type of process.

01:12:58 ◼   ► But I think this year I feel better about where I am at this point in August.

01:13:05 ◼   ► I still don't feel completely relaxed.

01:13:08 ◼   ► Because I still feel like I've got to learn to manage, you know, manage expectations and

01:13:13 ◼   ► also manage stress from this big project.

01:13:16 ◼   ► Because I mean obviously it's three months of my life and three months of my year, of

01:13:22 ◼   ► my working year are dedicated to this project.

01:13:24 ◼   ► And so it's very difficult for me to be able to cope with that sort of responsibility and

01:13:28 ◼   ► stress because it doesn't just affect me but it affects, you know, for example you and

01:13:34 ◼   ► Steven, it affects, you know, the folks at Max Stories and also the people in my life

01:13:39 ◼   ► that have to accept the fact that I'm busy writing and editing every day in the summer,

01:13:46 ◼   ► which is especially problematic because people like to go on vacation. But I feel like this

01:13:50 ◼   ► This year, having two weeks for myself in July to work on the review was an amazing

01:13:56 ◼   ► help and a very welcome change from iOS 9 and iOS 10.

01:14:02 ◼   ► And also the fact that I have an editor, so someone that can follow me along and that

01:14:08 ◼   ► can go through each chapter with me multiple times over and over.

01:14:12 ◼   ► That's been honestly amazing because I don't have to do that by myself.

01:14:18 ◼   ► And that was an incredible source of stress in the past that's been now not entirely removed

01:14:25 ◼   ► but considerably adjusted.

01:14:28 ◼   ► And that feels great.

01:14:29 ◼   ► Yeah, I can't even imagine.

01:14:31 ◼   ► I can't even imagine.

01:14:32 ◼   ► Like, to not have to be doing it all yourself must just be a fantastic feeling.

01:14:37 ◼   ► Yeah, and I mean, I just, I still gotta take care of the creative aspect and I still gotta,

01:14:45 ◼   ► You know, I gotta write and I gotta edit myself and I gotta take care of everything else, the

01:14:48 ◼   ► media, the research, the notes and the links.

01:14:51 ◼   ► But having a second set of eyes and a second opinion during the writing process, during

01:14:58 ◼   ► the, you know, not like in September I have a draft and I send it off to someone and like,

01:15:03 ◼   ► "Hey, can you tell me what you think?"

01:15:04 ◼   ► It's like in July and in August, during the hot months of the review, you know, when the

01:15:12 ◼   ► stuff is actually being made, I have someone that can follow me during this process. And

01:15:18 ◼   ► that's great.

01:15:19 ◼   ► Is there anything else you want to touch on about the review?

01:15:25 ◼   ► So far I'm still editing in Ulysses, to my surprise. I set up this system where I'm using

01:15:32 ◼   ► filters to keep track of different stages for each chapter. So chapters are split up

01:15:38 ◼   ► in sheets, and for the bigger ones, as you can imagine, the iPad chapter, for example,

01:15:44 ◼   ► is split up in multiple sheets that are glued together with the Glue Sheets feature of Ulysses.

01:15:51 ◼   ► And I'm using keywords to indicate the state of each chapter. So states can be edited,

01:16:00 ◼   ► edited with links, done, and another one that relates to the surprises I'm working on.

01:16:06 ◼   ► And so I created multiple filters so I can view subsets of my review based on status.

01:16:13 ◼   ► So the things that still need to be edited, the things that need links, and the documents

01:16:19 ◼   ► that are done, and the other ones that are in a different state also.

01:16:25 ◼   ► And to be able to switch between them, that's great because it's not like I always have

01:16:29 ◼   ► to scroll a long list of documents, I can break it up in multiple sets.

01:16:34 ◼   ► And that's nice.

01:16:35 ◼   ► Eventually, I think once I'm done with the editing, I will move it to editorial as a

01:16:41 ◼   ► single markdown file, because that's where I have some workflows to sort of massage the

01:16:46 ◼   ► plain text of the review and to add some custom syntax.

01:16:50 ◼   ► I gotta run some workflows and some automations to adjust some of the markdown text that is

01:16:57 ◼   ► exported by Ulysses, so I need to adjust it a little for Mac stories.

01:17:01 ◼   ► I need to add custom syntax for the layout, and also of course we're working on some,

01:17:06 ◼   ► you know, special features for Max Stories, the way that the review will be presented.

01:17:10 ◼   ► We have even bigger plans this time, so it's gonna be fun, but definitely once I'm done

01:17:14 ◼   ► with everything I will move back into editorial and rely on automation, again, to fix things,

01:17:21 ◼   ► add media, screenshots, animations, you know, videos, and I'll probably do one to two,

01:17:28 ◼   ► maybe final, complete read-throughs of start to finish the entire review. But I'm basically,

01:17:37 ◼   ► I would say, 80% done at this point, which is nice, very nice.

01:17:43 ◼   ► That is good news man, that is really, really good news. I'm excited, I'm excited to see

01:17:47 ◼   ► it.

01:17:49 ◼   ► Thank you. I'm excited to be done with it also. Not in the sense of, "Oh man, my life

01:17:55 ◼   ► is terrible. No, this is awesome that I get to do this every year. But, you know, it's

01:17:59 ◼   ► a big project and you get to a point where you just want to release it. But it's not

01:18:03 ◼   ► done yet. It has to be, at least for my standards, perfect. So, we'll get there.

01:18:09 ◼   ► All right, if you want to find the show notes for this week, head on over to relay.fm/connected/156.

01:18:18 ◼   ► If you want to find our sponsors, you should go support them. They are awesome. We've got

01:18:21 ◼   ► links there but it's text expander freshbooks and capsular thanks to them for supporting the show

01:18:26 ◼   ► once more thank you if you have become a relay fm member go to relay.fm/membership to find out more

01:18:31 ◼   ► and support your favorite shows we would of course really appreciate it if you decide to support

01:18:35 ◼   ► connected but you can support any show at relay fm and you will benefit from all of the fantastic

01:18:39 ◼   ► bonuses no matter what show you support if you want to find federico online is at maxstories.net

01:18:45 ◼   ► and he's @Vittici V I T I C C I on twitter. Stephen is @ismh and I'll mention again you

01:18:51 ◼   ► should go and check out Liftoff at relay.com/liftoff so you can find their coverage of the eclipse

01:18:56 ◼   ► which is happening which is why Stephen wasn't here today and you can find me I'm @imike we'll

01:19:03 ◼   ► be back next time actually I won't be so we're doing a round robin of vacations right now I

01:19:09 ◼   ► won't be here next week I'm on vacation next week so it's going to be Stephen and Federico

01:19:13 ◼   ► and then the week after that I'm planning on being on the show that day even though I step

01:19:19 ◼   ► off of a plane that morning so you can look forward to a real strange Myke Hurley that day

01:19:25 ◼   ► I think so we'll see how that goes but uh I will be back in a couple of weeks um but we'll the

01:19:31 ◼   ► show will be back next week so until then goodbye everybody I'm not saying goodbye this time Myke

01:19:37 ◼   ► Of course you can, why can't you say goodbye?

01:19:39 ◼   ► Adios!

01:19:41 ◼   ► [BLANK_AUDIO]