Connected

00:00:00 ◼   ► [Music]

00:00:06 ◼   ► From Real AFM, this is Connected, episode 149.

00:00:10 ◼   ► Today's show is brought to you by Mack Weldon, Hover and Igloo.

00:00:14 ◼   ► My name is Myke Hurley and we've got the band back together because Stephen Hackett is here.

00:00:19 ◼   ► Hello, Stephen Hackett.

00:00:20 ◼   ► Hello, Michael Hurley.

00:00:22 ◼   ► How are you?

00:00:23 ◼   ► I'm good. It's the 4th of July. It's raining outside.

00:00:28 ◼   ► We're here together.

00:00:29 ◼   ► Is this a haiku? It sounds like a haiku.

00:00:32 ◼   ► Yeah, I don't know how to think out the syllables, but I'm a little disappointed that I haven't gotten any gifts for 4th of July yet from you.

00:00:38 ◼   ► What about Federico, did you get me anything?

00:00:41 ◼   ► No, and this reminds me of a joke on the Big Bang Theory when, like,

00:00:47 ◼   ► someone convinced Rajesh that on the 4th of July people from another country are supposed to give Americans gifts.

00:00:55 ◼   ► And so for like for 10 years he gave his friends gifts on the 4th of July to celebrate America.

00:01:00 ◼   ► That's pretty good.

00:01:02 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:01:03 ◼   ► That's not a thing.

00:01:04 ◼   ► I don't think you're supposed to give your American friends gifts on the 4th of July.

00:01:07 ◼   ► So I don't have anything for you.

00:01:09 ◼   ► I'm sorry.

00:01:10 ◼   ► I'm assuming that the postal service is closed on the 4th of July, right?

00:01:14 ◼   ► I would think so.

00:01:15 ◼   ► That's why you haven't got your gift from me.

00:01:16 ◼   ► It's in the mail but then I'm delivering it today.

00:01:19 ◼   ► Interesting.

00:01:20 ◼   ► Tomorrow is going to be a great day for you.

00:01:22 ◼   ► That's a real promise that I feel like you're going to break.

00:01:25 ◼   ► Who knows?

00:01:26 ◼   ► Who knows?

00:01:27 ◼   ► Amazon.com.

00:01:28 ◼   ► Yeah, same day delivery.

00:01:32 ◼   ► So we had some people write in and ask about the prompt curse.

00:01:37 ◼   ► You all mentioned this, I think on last week's episode about the iPad and iOS 11 and exploding.

00:01:45 ◼   ► We should explain what it is because we have a lot of listeners who weren't around during

00:01:48 ◼   ► the prompt days.

00:01:50 ◼   ► We had a show before this called The Prompt.

00:01:52 ◼   ► The archives are on the Relay website.

00:01:53 ◼   ► You can go dig through and find them.

00:01:55 ◼   ► You find the one about the iPhone keynote.

00:01:57 ◼   ► I think it's episode 30 is probably by far the best one.

00:02:02 ◼   ► But the prompt curse happened because we

00:02:07 ◼   ► used to cover photo services on the show a lot

00:02:11 ◼   ► back when they were kind of a thing before I called Photo

00:02:13 ◼   ► Library and Google Photos took everything over.

00:02:15 ◼   ► So we'd cover companies like Everpix.

00:02:18 ◼   ► And what were some of the others?

00:02:19 ◼   ► I don't remember.

00:02:20 ◼   ► Yeah, I don't know.

00:02:21 ◼   ► they're all gone because we spoke about them.

00:02:25 ◼   ► So we would talk about a photo service

00:02:28 ◼   ► and the next week they would have a Medium post

00:02:30 ◼   ► apologizing that they were going out of business

00:02:32 ◼   ► and all your photos were gone.

00:02:34 ◼   ► This led to a website that'll be in the show notes,

00:02:37 ◼   ► prompt.photos, which is, I haven't seen this

00:02:41 ◼   ► in like a couple of years and it is amazing.

00:02:44 ◼   ► So the prompt curves, we talk about a service or an app

00:02:47 ◼   ► and then the service or app goes out of business.

00:02:50 ◼   ► It has happened to things other than photo services, but it is a thing that happened,

00:02:55 ◼   ► it is a thing that continues to happen.

00:02:56 ◼   ► We have this, I don't want to call it a gift, I don't know what to call it, we have this

00:03:00 ◼   ► power.

00:03:01 ◼   ► It's a curse that's in the name.

00:03:03 ◼   ► We have a very specific set of skills.

00:03:05 ◼   ► That's right.

00:03:06 ◼   ► Which is to find services and to kill them.

00:03:10 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:03:11 ◼   ► This is what we do.

00:03:13 ◼   ► So if you have an app or a service that you would like sunsetted, get in touch and we

00:03:17 ◼   ► will talk about it on the air.

00:03:18 ◼   ► We'll talk about it and kill it.

00:03:19 ◼   ► I'm not even sure Medium used to be a thing when we were doing the prompt and these companies would shut down.

00:03:25 ◼   ► Back in the day it was so difficult to announce that your company was laying off people and shutting down.

00:03:32 ◼   ► It was a real struggle and then Medium came along and sort of provided this new niche.

00:03:37 ◼   ► These companies that need to announce that they've been acquired and sort of Medium kind of revolutionized that space of shutdown announcements.

00:03:46 ◼   ► It's really notable in hindsight.

00:03:50 ◼   ► This leads to a paradox. Undoubtedly Medium will go out of business.

00:03:54 ◼   ► Like probably sooner rather than later. They are heading that way.

00:03:58 ◼   ► Yeah, they're doomed. Where does Medium announce that they are going out of business?

00:04:02 ◼   ► My money is on the Medium programmers

00:04:06 ◼   ► leaving some ASCII code in the source code

00:04:10 ◼   ► of the webpage. Like you can inspect the webpage and you will see the announcement

00:04:14 ◼   ► into the HTML, you know, that kind of thing.

00:04:18 ◼   ► Sort of like a meta shutdown announcement.

00:04:21 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:04:22 ◼   ► - Or they could go old school and put it on Tumblr

00:04:24 ◼   ► or LiveJournal, there's lots of options.

00:04:26 ◼   ► - I would say a self-hosted Jekyll install

00:04:29 ◼   ► with a Dropbox folder on GitHub.

00:04:33 ◼   ► - Yeah, all of Medium just redirects to a gist

00:04:36 ◼   ► and it's just like, oh, sorry, we ran out of money.

00:04:40 ◼   ► VCs have no place to apologize now.

00:04:42 ◼   ► It's gonna be sad.

00:04:43 ◼   ► So Myke, have you installed the iOS 11 beta yet?

00:04:46 ◼   ► Yep.

00:04:46 ◼   ► I gave up.

00:04:49 ◼   ► All right.

00:04:50 ◼   ► That didn't take long.

00:04:51 ◼   ► I was setting myself up for a summer full of jokes.

00:04:54 ◼   ► It's over in one week.

00:04:56 ◼   ► It was just-- I really wanted to do it.

00:04:59 ◼   ► And then--

00:05:01 ◼   ► Can't wait to do it.

00:05:01 ◼   ► We had to record upgrade early.

00:05:04 ◼   ► And there wasn't any news.

00:05:06 ◼   ► So the only thing that we could think to talk about was iOS 11.

00:05:11 ◼   ► And I didn't want another episode

00:05:12 ◼   ► where I was just asking people questions, so I installed it.

00:05:16 ◼   ► - So you're asking yourself questions?

00:05:19 ◼   ► - Well, it's just me and Jason were just talking

00:05:21 ◼   ► about some of our experiences.

00:05:23 ◼   ► Mine were very early 'cause I only did it that morning,

00:05:25 ◼   ► so I'd only used it for a couple of hours.

00:05:27 ◼   ► But it was really, it was just the excuse that I needed,

00:05:31 ◼   ► 'cause I really wanted to do it.

00:05:32 ◼   ► I kept backing up my iPad, I just kept doing it.

00:05:36 ◼   ► I would back up my iPad and then I would chicken out.

00:05:39 ◼   ► I did this for four days.

00:05:40 ◼   ► I kept like, I back it up and there's no, no, I can't do it.

00:05:43 ◼   ► I can't do it and I back it up and I can't do it.

00:05:44 ◼   ► So I'm using it and I really like it.

00:05:47 ◼   ► There are some things that are horrifically broken,

00:05:49 ◼   ► but that was expected, right?

00:05:50 ◼   ► Like TestFlight is just kaput for me,

00:05:53 ◼   ► which I know is a, if things happen to some,

00:05:56 ◼   ► not happen to others, some third party apps are working,

00:06:00 ◼   ► but missing key features.

00:06:01 ◼   ► Like I currently cannot export anything out of Dropbox.

00:06:05 ◼   ► I have to use other apps to get things out of Dropbox.

00:06:08 ◼   ► this

00:06:15 ◼   ► absolutely in love with it. Like I am,

00:06:19 ◼   ► I already feel so much more productive.

00:06:21 ◼   ► Like it takes getting used to cause you have to adapt your workflows,

00:06:24 ◼   ► but I feel like I have so much more control over the apps.

00:06:29 ◼   ► Like I did this one thing today where I had two apps open side by side, right?

00:06:33 ◼   ► And I was like,

00:06:35 ◼   ► I'd be really much so much easier if I could just move this one to the left.

00:06:38 ◼   ► And I was like, I wonder if I can do that. And yes you can.

00:06:41 ◼   ► you can swap the apps around now.

00:06:42 ◼   ► And I nearly squealed of excitement.

00:06:46 ◼   ► And then I was like, oh, I need a calculator up,

00:06:48 ◼   ► and I'd usually just open another app.

00:06:50 ◼   ► But no, I can bring up Peacock

00:06:52 ◼   ► in the little slide-over window.

00:06:54 ◼   ► And there are some things that are different,

00:06:56 ◼   ► like Command + Tab, whilst also being pretty broken

00:06:59 ◼   ► right now, doesn't do what it used to do,

00:07:02 ◼   ► where it would just switch out one app.

00:07:03 ◼   ► But I'm getting really quick at just flicking up the dot,

00:07:06 ◼   ► bringing out the app, and I also feel like I just have

00:07:08 ◼   ► way more control about where apps are going to go.

00:07:11 ◼   ► Like I can open them in the specific place that I want them to be rather than

00:07:15 ◼   ► opening and then readjusting everything around it. Like,

00:07:17 ◼   ► I know a lot of people are struggling right now and think it's complicated and

00:07:22 ◼   ► coming from their previous workflow,

00:07:23 ◼   ► but I think we're just holding onto what is fundamentally a broken way of doing

00:07:28 ◼   ► things with the iOS nine version of multitasking.

00:07:31 ◼   ► Like this is vastly superior and I think almost every single way,

00:07:36 ◼   ► like I love it.

00:07:37 ◼   ► Yeah, I have to agree with you, especially now that I'm using a bunch of third-party

00:07:43 ◼   ► apps that have drag-and-drop support, putting together the various bits from my review.

00:07:50 ◼   ► And just using this stuff, the slide-over with three apps at the same time, and drag-and-drop

00:07:56 ◼   ► and some of these other changes are really just so impressive.

00:08:02 ◼   ► coming from iOS 10, I'm saving so many steps that I would have otherwise used workarounds

00:08:12 ◼   ► and workflows, and now what I'm noticing is I'm using way fewer workflows than I used

00:08:17 ◼   ► to do.

00:08:18 ◼   ► And also I'm copying stuff to the clipboard way less, because you don't need to use the

00:08:23 ◼   ► clipboard anymore just to move data back and forth between different apps, you can just

00:08:27 ◼   ► hold it and move.

00:08:28 ◼   ► And I know that this is a discussion that we'll probably have later on.

00:08:33 ◼   ► It takes, you know, you need to use multiple fingers, sometimes multiple hands,

00:08:37 ◼   ► and it can feel like a whole circus going on, like you need to be a contortionist

00:08:41 ◼   ► and perform these gestures, but they do work.

00:08:44 ◼   ► And there's a kind of like geeky pleasure of being able to have these gestures

00:08:52 ◼   ► and this multi-touch enabled drag and drop.

00:08:54 ◼   ► It feels fun, and that's hard to explain.

00:08:57 ◼   ► I feel like I'm really in control.

00:09:00 ◼   ► Like I feel like I have so much more control

00:09:03 ◼   ► of what's going on than I did before.

00:09:05 ◼   ► 'Cause I don't know, like I feel like I'm able to bend it

00:09:07 ◼   ► all to my will a little bit, but like more than I used to,

00:09:10 ◼   ► rather than me working like around all of those things.

00:09:13 ◼   ► Like it's much nicer.

00:09:15 ◼   ► I will say I'm not using drag and drop, right?

00:09:18 ◼   ► Because most of the apps that I'm using don't support it.

00:09:20 ◼   ► So I'm looking forward to that additional world

00:09:23 ◼   ► of drag and drop as things move along throughout the year.

00:09:26 ◼   ► I will say, just to follow up on last week,

00:09:28 ◼   ► I don't want to get into this again because it makes me sad,

00:09:30 ◼   ► but the notifications and widgets cover sheet thing

00:09:32 ◼   ► is as much as a disaster as Federico outlined.

00:09:36 ◼   ► - That's literally the next thing in follow up.

00:09:38 ◼   ► But, yeah, so I'm running it too.

00:09:43 ◼   ► I put it on my 10.5 inch iPad on Friday,

00:09:45 ◼   ► and I very quickly realized that my entire

00:09:49 ◼   ► iPad home screen was wrong,

00:09:50 ◼   ► because apps in the dock are blessed in a way

00:09:53 ◼   ► that apps not in the dock aren't.

00:09:55 ◼   ► kind of like watchOS actually,

00:09:57 ◼   ► that those things in the dock have,

00:09:59 ◼   ► are easier to get to and can do more things.

00:10:01 ◼   ► And so I basically collapsed my home screen into the dock

00:10:04 ◼   ► and sort of promoted stuff that had been in folders

00:10:07 ◼   ► on the second screen up to the home screen.

00:10:09 ◼   ► So nothing is where it used to be.

00:10:11 ◼   ► But like the two of you,

00:10:13 ◼   ► I do feel like I'm in more control.

00:10:15 ◼   ► And I'm still sort of learning how everything works.

00:10:20 ◼   ► Sometimes I'll try something

00:10:22 ◼   ► and it doesn't work the way I expect it to.

00:10:23 ◼   ► And some of the gestures are a little less than ideal.

00:10:27 ◼   ► Like if you have an app, for instance, that uses sliding panes like Slack, and you have

00:10:32 ◼   ► it in the third popover window, and you want to push it back off the screen, and if you

00:10:38 ◼   ► don't get it just right, you're just moving the interface around inside of Slack instead

00:10:42 ◼   ► of moving Slack itself, because it's kind of a very thin strip you need to hit.

00:10:46 ◼   ► I think a lot of developers still need to approach that.

00:10:51 ◼   ► I feel like people haven't done that yet, right?

00:10:54 ◼   ► Like, worked out, like, how do I make sure

00:10:56 ◼   ► I give people enough space to be able to move

00:10:58 ◼   ► the UI around, right?

00:11:01 ◼   ► - Yeah, but all in all, it's impressive,

00:11:03 ◼   ► and I think that iOS 11 is gonna be awesome.

00:11:08 ◼   ► So, way to go, iOS 11 team.

00:11:12 ◼   ► But you said you didn't want to get in the cover sheet,

00:11:14 ◼   ► and that's too bad, because that is the next thing

00:11:15 ◼   ► in follow up.

00:11:16 ◼   ► We have a long tweet thread, we'll link to the first one

00:11:19 ◼   ► the show notes about kind of following up on Myke on what you said about you

00:11:24 ◼   ► know maybe is there something about this design that is giving us hints or make

00:11:30 ◼   ► more sense with the next iPhone. So Apple's done this in the past right

00:11:34 ◼   ► where they'll put things in iOS that don't quite make full sense until you

00:11:38 ◼   ► see the new hardware and I think that's what this tweet threat is getting to. So

00:11:43 ◼   ► Federico, do you want to take this?

00:11:46 ◼   ► So the idea here is that if we consider a future iPhone without a home button and with

00:11:54 ◼   ► a more prominent use of 3D touch, the argument from this person goes, the coversheet design

00:12:01 ◼   ► makes sense because to open the phone, to unlock the phone, you tap on a notification,

00:12:10 ◼   ► So all you need to do is you 3D touch on a notification, you unlock the phone and you

00:12:19 ◼   ► see what that notification is all about.

00:12:23 ◼   ► And it makes sense if you follow this idea to merge the notifications and the lock screen

00:12:31 ◼   ► because you pick up the phone, you look at what's new, you tap on a notification and

00:12:36 ◼   ► you authenticate somehow, whether that's Touch ID or maybe by looking at the phone, which

00:12:41 ◼   ► we're going to talk about in a few minutes.

00:12:44 ◼   ► So the idea is you remove confusion by merging these two areas of iOS and you have a list

00:12:53 ◼   ► of notifications, you tap it and you go into the phone, which is unlocked and it lets you

00:12:56 ◼   ► view the notification.

00:12:58 ◼   ► I sort of understand the idea behind this, to merge everything, to make a single place

00:13:05 ◼   ► where you can view all of your messages and alerts from apps and to also unlock

00:13:11 ◼   ► the phone the moment that you open a notification. But the problem

00:13:16 ◼   ► that I have with this idea is it kind of falls apart if you have no notifications.

00:13:22 ◼   ► And at that point what is left to do on the lock screen? You authenticate and

00:13:28 ◼   ► you're back into the phone so we're not really merging these two aspects because

00:13:34 ◼   ► then again if you unlock the phone and then you swipe down and then you view no notifications,

00:13:39 ◼   ► then you need to swipe up again. And as I said last week, my main problem is this sort of

00:13:45 ◼   ► this seesaw approach of I need to swipe down and I need to swipe up even more carefully until I feel

00:13:53 ◼   ► this taptic feedback from the iPhone that tells me you're scrolling up to view your older notifications.

00:14:01 ◼   ► Whereas before, if I swipe down, I knew I could just keep scrolling without a release mechanism

00:14:07 ◼   ► to load my previous notifications. And so, while I understand the current design of "we want to

00:14:14 ◼   ► make it easier for people because they associate the lock screen with notifications, therefore,

00:14:19 ◼   ► when you swipe down, you view notifications, so you view the lock screen", it's the interaction

00:14:24 ◼   ► that bothers me. It's the fact that you need to release very intentionally to load the older

00:14:31 ◼   ► notifications and also the complete absence of gestures to triage individual notifications,

00:14:39 ◼   ► which is basically impossible now because you need to carefully tap on a notification,

00:14:43 ◼   ► which a lot of people have problems. For example, Sylvia cannot long press on her iPhone. I don't

00:14:48 ◼   ► I don't know if it's because she's a woman, she has obviously, you know, she has longer fingernails, you know.

00:14:54 ◼   ► She's a different kind of user, so she cannot use 3D touch properly.

00:15:00 ◼   ► She cannot even long press properly on the screen because her touches are often not recognized.

00:15:05 ◼   ► And so you're making it more difficult to expand a single notification.

00:15:10 ◼   ► Whereas it was much easier to just swipe across the screen and do one thing at a time with individual notifications.

00:15:18 ◼   ► It's just, I understand the design, I understand the idea, it's the implementation that could be so much better.

00:15:25 ◼   ► And again, the release mechanism of dividing the non-scene notifications versus the older ones,

00:15:34 ◼   ► and you need to swipe up and you feel the tap and you need to load them,

00:15:39 ◼   ► it's very intentional and it really slows me down.

00:15:42 ◼   ► And I would like to see in Beta 3 or Beta 4, whatever,

00:15:46 ◼   ► refinement of this idea because it can go somewhere but not with the current

00:15:52 ◼   ► design in my opinion. I think that knowing everything that we know and

00:15:56 ◼   ► we're gonna get into these iPhone rumors next because I think we just have to

00:15:59 ◼   ► follow with this. I see that there is some thought with this that that makes

00:16:07 ◼   ► sense to me like if looking at your phone now unlocks your phone then all

00:16:12 ◼   ► you need to do is just interact with it in a way right so like just swiping up

00:16:16 ◼   ► from the bottom or I expect there to be like some virtual button on the home screen that

00:16:21 ◼   ► maybe you would just tap and it would take you there right like it just opens it up or

00:16:25 ◼   ► something right because it's going to be all this new screen with a state or something

00:16:28 ◼   ► but I could see a world in which this makes sense if touch ID is not needed anymore. I

00:16:34 ◼   ► agree with you like some of the implementations wonky and that can get better but it really

00:16:38 ◼   ► does feel to me like that there's something in this which is lining up with the rest of

00:16:43 ◼   ► the rumors that we've heard about the iPhone considering how little sense this

00:16:47 ◼   ► currently makes with what we're currently using that it feels to me that

00:16:50 ◼   ► there just has to be something there. I don't know what hardware would dictate

00:16:55 ◼   ► the the us losing the ability to dismiss a single notification. That's

00:17:00 ◼   ► broken but I'm not talking about that like I'm talking about the idea of

00:17:03 ◼   ► merging all of this stuff together as a concept. So the implementation is still

00:17:08 ◼   ► leaves a lot to be desired like the fine details but the overall idea of why you would do this

00:17:14 ◼   ► I think lends to that.

00:17:19 ◼   ► I think that's it for follow up.

00:17:20 ◼   ► Alright let's...

00:17:21 ◼   ► You've done it.

00:17:22 ◼   ► Yeah I want to just talk about this iPhone stuff now because we're moving into it already.

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00:18:58 ◼   ► I feel like we've gone around this tree quite a few times but we're back to talk about TouchID

00:19:03 ◼   ► again on the potential next iPhone. Which I think for the case of this discussion we'll

00:19:10 ◼   ► just refer to as the iPhone Pro. Are we all happy to refer to this phone as the iPhone

00:19:14 ◼   ► Pro for this discussion?

00:19:15 ◼   ► Alright, yeah, sure. Okay.

00:19:16 ◼   ► Just so we can differentiate it in some way.

00:19:19 ◼   ► So our good old friend at KGI Securities, Ming-Chi Kuo has issued a predictions report

00:19:25 ◼   ► for the iPhone Pro and these are some of the things that Ming-Chi Kuo mentions.

00:19:30 ◼   ► So I'll read these through and then we'll jump into the Touch ID one because it's probably

00:19:33 ◼   ► the more interesting of all of this.

00:19:35 ◼   ► So Ming-Chi Kuo says that the next iPhone will feature the biggest screen to body ratio

00:19:40 ◼   ► of any phone on the market, therefore having the thinnest bezels.

00:19:44 ◼   ► The screen will be OLED.

00:19:46 ◼   ► The home button will be virtual.

00:19:49 ◼   ► The front camera will include 3D depth sensing technology that will help with face scanning

00:19:55 ◼   ► because Minchukko says that the next iPhone will have no Touch ID sensor of any kind.

00:20:06 ◼   ► We predict the OLED model won't support fingerprint recognition.

00:20:09 ◼   ► Reasons being 1.

00:20:10 ◼   ► The full screen design doesn't work with existing capacitive fingerprint recognition

00:20:14 ◼   ► and 2.

00:20:15 ◼   ► Scan through ability of the under display fingerprint solution still has technical challenges.

00:20:20 ◼   ► So Ming-Chi Kuo is saying that Apple has not been able to embed a Touch ID sensor into

00:20:29 ◼   ► the screen of the phone.

00:20:31 ◼   ► So instead of putting it anywhere else on the device, they are getting rid of Touch

00:20:36 ◼   ► ID in favour of face scanning, 3D depth sensing face scanning which they have implemented

00:20:43 ◼   ► for this phone and that it would be good enough. So there's a few questions about this and

00:20:49 ◼   ► there's also a Bloomberg report which we'll get to in a moment which I think addresses

00:20:52 ◼   ► some of these questions but I want to talk through them as a group.

00:20:57 ◼   ► So first off, would Apple remove Touch ID? So removing Touch ID could potentially cut

00:21:04 ◼   ► support for Apple Pay, right? If there's no authentication method. So let's just assume

00:21:08 ◼   ► that there's no Touch ID. Apple's not going to just get rid of this method, right? There's

00:21:12 ◼   ► going to be some kind of authentication because otherwise where does Touch ID go?

00:21:16 ◼   ► Oh sorry, where does Apple Pay go, right? Like they're not gonna remove that.

00:21:21 ◼   ► Just a blood sample. You just prick your finger on the phone every single time you buy

00:21:25 ◼   ► something. It's a real Pavlovian response to buying new things.

00:21:31 ◼   ► I don't see them removing it unless there's something equally secure

00:21:39 ◼   ► and easy to use and we're gonna get into some things that could do that potentially.

00:21:44 ◼   ► But they're not going, I don't see them getting rid of it without a really strong case to

00:21:50 ◼   ► replace it with something else.

00:21:52 ◼   ► And I can hear you now, Steven, the headphone jack!

00:21:55 ◼   ► They removed the headphone jack and I don't think, I still don't think they've given enough

00:21:59 ◼   ► of a reason why but that's a different type of feature.

00:22:04 ◼   ► I will say on that note though, they did remove it but they gave me AirPods and AirPods are

00:22:08 ◼   ► amazing and I know they could have given me AirPods anyway, I know they could have done it anyway, but

00:22:13 ◼   ► you know there is a better thing. I think that sidesteps the actual argument of Touch ID like

00:22:19 ◼   ► you said is key to not only Apple Pay but like device security and like a headphone jack like I

00:22:26 ◼   ► was going to write off that complaint because headphone jack is is like it's kind of a pain

00:22:30 ◼   ► to live without it but it's not it's not device security it's not payment security and can they go

00:22:38 ◼   ► all their banking partners and deal with this in a way that keeps

00:22:44 ◼   ► everybody happy or such ID like the linchpin and all of it. I just I don't I

00:22:49 ◼   ► don't know if any of us on the outside know how important Touch ID is to some

00:22:52 ◼   ► of those deals but Apple is not going to do something that is less secure

00:22:58 ◼   ► right that goes against everything they've done like the last five years if

00:23:02 ◼   ► not longer with this phone. So I just I don't buy this unless the replacement is

00:23:08 ◼   ► equally good to use and equally secure. All right I have many many thoughts here.

00:23:14 ◼   ► Here we go, settle in everyone. Let me go with an opening statement which is the

00:23:18 ◼   ► idea of just getting rid of Touch ID because you cannot figure out a way to

00:23:23 ◼   ► make you work with the iPhone Pro is the equivalent of getting a new car when you

00:23:27 ◼   ► blow a tire. Like well we couldn't get that to work so I think it really matters why

00:23:31 ◼   ► get rid of it. It is a real scorched earth situation, right? We couldn't work it out, so whatever.

00:23:37 ◼   ► Yeah, exactly. So that said, we cannot agree on the fact that there's no way that Apple is going back to a world where it's just a passcode.

00:23:46 ◼   ► There has to be a second, possibly based on biometric authentication method of providing an extra layer of encryption and security on the iPhone.

00:23:57 ◼   ► So far, that has been Touch ID, and Touch ID powers a lot of services and features on the iPhone, from

00:24:03 ◼   ► encrypting, backups, and the lock screen authentication with the App Store, Apple Pay,

00:24:09 ◼   ► the API for developers. There's a whole API to use Touch ID in third-party apps.

00:24:16 ◼   ► And Touch ID is really everywhere. And the thing that sells Touch ID, it's not that it's a fingerprint.

00:24:23 ◼   ► Yes, it's a fingerprint reader, but it's the fact that it's so fast, accessible and easy to use.

00:24:30 ◼   ► And also the fact that you don't have to look at your phone while you authenticate with HID.

00:24:36 ◼   ► Anyone who's ever taken the tube in London, Myke, you know this.

00:24:39 ◼   ► You're grocery shopping and you're in a hurry, you just place your finger on the home button

00:24:44 ◼   ► and you feel the tap and you hear the sound effect and you're done.

00:24:47 ◼   ► on. You know that you authenticate it, it doesn't get in the way, and it's an unassuming

00:24:53 ◼   ► interaction. It's not flashy. We're at the point where most people are getting used to

00:24:59 ◼   ► Apple Pay, most people are getting used to Touch ID. It's a natural way of authenticating.

00:25:04 ◼   ► So if Apple wants to, in my mind, if Apple wants to provide an alternative to Touch ID,

00:25:09 ◼   ► it has to be as quick and easy to use and accessible, because remember, one of the benefits

00:25:16 ◼   ► Touch ID is that it's in a fixed position on the device, even if you have

00:25:21 ◼   ► motor impairments or visual impairments, you can just feel Touch ID

00:25:26 ◼   ► and you can use it. Anyone can use it, unless you don't have fingers or you've

00:25:31 ◼   ► burned off your fingerprints, but that's another problem. So a faster solution to

00:25:36 ◼   ► Touch ID, let's assume that it's face recognition. The problem with

00:25:42 ◼   ► face recognition is not that most implementations so far have sucked,

00:25:46 ◼   ► which is, you know, we cannot agree on that. They're not perfect. They're not great.

00:25:49 ◼   ► And it wouldn't surprise me if Apple comes out with a much better, faster, more powerful solution, and we're all surprised.

00:25:56 ◼   ► Well, Apple did it again. You know, they reinvented face recognition.

00:25:59 ◼   ► I could see that actually. And I could see how in iOS 11, you know, with the machine learning stuff, if you look at the vision APIs,

00:26:06 ◼   ► Apple has much improved the system that they provide to third-party developers. You know, the system can recognize faces.

00:26:13 ◼   ► There are partially occluded people with sunglasses, with hats, profiles.

00:26:18 ◼   ► The API itself is more powerful.

00:26:22 ◼   ► So you can only imagine if the API is even more powerful, imagine the stuff that Apple keeps to themselves.

00:26:27 ◼   ► So it's totally possible that Apple can pull this off, especially with the 3D mapping stuff with the depth perception.

00:26:34 ◼   ► My problem is in the physical

00:26:37 ◼   ► implementation of face recognition.

00:26:40 ◼   ► So there's also a report from Germen on Bloomberg, and he says that Apple has figured out a way to make this work

00:26:47 ◼   ► even when an iPhone is sitting flat on a table.

00:26:49 ◼   ► So, you know, I have to assume even if you place your iPhone next to a scanner, next to a

00:26:57 ◼   ► point-of-sale system, somehow the camera is gonna look right back at you and authenticate you. And I struggle to imagine how

00:27:04 ◼   ► that could be possible.

00:27:07 ◼   ► Unless there's a multi-camera array

00:27:10 ◼   ► along the top edge and the bottom edge of the phone, I struggle to imagine a way to make this work without holding up an iPhone and basically taking a selfie.

00:27:22 ◼   ► And if we reach the point where we imagine an iPhone Pro and a bunch of people in the London Tube or at my local supermarket, and everyone before authenticating has to basically take a selfie, even if it takes a second,

00:27:35 ◼   ► It's not, you know, the operation itself can take even less than a second.

00:27:39 ◼   ► It's the gesture of pulling out your phone, looking at your face, basically taking a selfie.

00:27:44 ◼   ► Now everybody's looking at you and you end up with a whole system that takes at least three seconds

00:27:49 ◼   ► and it's much slower than Touch ID. And this is where I come down on this rumor right now.

00:27:55 ◼   ► It's hard for me to imagine a system that is faster than Touch ID. Not more secure,

00:28:01 ◼   ► because I can't believe that Apple maybe has a solution that, you know, it can identify

00:28:06 ◼   ► 2D pictures, so it won't authenticate you, it can identify, you know, even the finest

00:28:13 ◼   ► details of your skin and your eyebrows and your retina, whatever.

00:28:17 ◼   ► I totally believe that it's gonna be possible somehow.

00:28:21 ◼   ► But it's the different physical behavior of using a face scanner and it's the accessibility

00:28:27 ◼   ► of that.

00:28:28 ◼   ► in low-light conditions, and there's a few people that say, "Well, Apple is going to use an IR scanner,

00:28:34 ◼   ► so it can work even if it's dark." All right, sure. What happens if I'm a blind person and I

00:28:41 ◼   ► cannot look at the screen? I don't know if I'm looking straight at my face or if I'm holding

00:28:47 ◼   ► the iPhone at a weird angle and it doesn't authenticate me. Whereas with Touch ID before,

00:28:52 ◼   ► or I could just feel the button and place my finger.

00:28:55 ◼   ► It's such a different way of authenticating,

00:28:59 ◼   ► and it's such a different way of holding the iPhone

00:29:01 ◼   ► and saying it's me,

00:29:05 ◼   ► that combining that with the even higher emphasis

00:29:10 ◼   ► on Apple Pay in iOS 11,

00:29:12 ◼   ► from Touch ID with Apple Pay in iMessage,

00:29:15 ◼   ► the App Store dialog when you purchase apps in iOS 11,

00:29:19 ◼   ► it looks like an Apple Pay sheet,

00:29:20 ◼   ► there's a fingerprint icon right front and center on that dialog. It's so strange to

00:29:26 ◼   ► me that Apple would get rid of Touch ID right now because they cannot figure out how to

00:29:31 ◼   ► make it work with the iPhone Pro and that the solution to that is a face scanner. I

00:29:38 ◼   ► just don't know what to think, honestly.

00:29:42 ◼   ► Mark Gurman follows up with a report. Some quotes from Mark Gurman's report.

00:29:46 ◼   ► Apple is testing an improved security system that allows users to log in, authenticate

00:29:50 ◼   ► payments and launch secure apps by scanning their face, according to people familiar with

00:29:54 ◼   ► the product. It can scan a user's face and unlock the iPhone within a few hundred milliseconds,

00:29:59 ◼   ► the person said. It is designed to work even if the device is laying flat on a table, rather

00:30:05 ◼   ► than just close up to the face. However, the intent is for it to replace the Touch ID fingerprint

00:30:10 ◼   ► scanner. In testing, the face unlock feature takes in more data points than a fingerprint

00:30:15 ◼   ► making it more secure than the Touch ID system,

00:30:18 ◼   ► the person said.

00:30:19 ◼   ► The feature is still being tested

00:30:20 ◼   ► and may not appear with the new device.

00:30:22 ◼   ► That last line, I put it in there.

00:30:23 ◼   ► I think that this is one of those things

00:30:25 ◼   ► that Bloomberg makes Garmin put in personally.

00:30:28 ◼   ► I think that they're just like,

00:30:29 ◼   ► you gotta cover yourself.

00:30:30 ◼   ► - The safety net.

00:30:31 ◼   ► - Yeah, and I think that they're making,

00:30:33 ◼   ► putting weird stuff like that in there

00:30:34 ◼   ► as well as like the, as the person said.

00:30:37 ◼   ► So I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna do this, you know.

00:30:39 ◼   ► Remember, year of optimism and all that,

00:30:41 ◼   ► that I'm going for, it's my plan here.

00:30:44 ◼   ► So I remember that fingerprint scanners were terrible and that the idea of

00:30:48 ◼   ► Apple putting a fingerprint scanner into the iPhone seemed like a stupid one

00:30:52 ◼   ► because fingerprint scanners were terrible, right?

00:30:55 ◼   ► Like every fingerprint scanner I'd ever used on like a ThinkPad just,

00:30:58 ◼   ► just didn't work, right? Like they just flat out didn't work. Touch ID works.

00:31:02 ◼   ► It's flawless effectively, right? With how, how successful it is.

00:31:05 ◼   ► So let's assume that what Gherman's saying is true, right?

00:31:11 ◼   ► That all of this stuff is correct.

00:31:13 ◼   ► This sounds fine to me. This sounds good.

00:31:16 ◼   ► Like, speed, okay, so let's just take the argument about speed.

00:31:21 ◼   ► I understand that as a thing about why speed in these situations is good,

00:31:26 ◼   ► but let's say it takes a little bit longer than Touch ID.

00:31:32 ◼   ► What are the other benefits, right?

00:31:34 ◼   ► Like, speed isn't the only thing here, and there may be something that's nicer,

00:31:42 ◼   ► there may be something that's just cooler about it, right?

00:31:44 ◼   ► That all you do is just pick up your phone.

00:31:46 ◼   ► The action that we all have for picking up the phone,

00:31:48 ◼   ► the raise to wake.

00:31:49 ◼   ► As soon as we do that now, our phones are locked.

00:31:51 ◼   ► Like we don't need to worry about tapping anything

00:31:54 ◼   ► or clicking anything.

00:31:56 ◼   ► We don't need to have a home button anymore.

00:31:58 ◼   ► So not having a home button means that our screens

00:32:01 ◼   ► are even bigger than before, right?

00:32:03 ◼   ► So that is a big benefit that we get.

00:32:05 ◼   ► Maybe we don't need buttons at all on the next phone.

00:32:08 ◼   ► It's just this beautiful thing

00:32:10 ◼   ► because it's all about this using this face detection technology.

00:32:13 ◼   ► Like in trying to have faith in this, I can maybe see that there could be some

00:32:18 ◼   ► very interesting stuff in here and like stuff about like which I agree with.

00:32:22 ◼   ► How do you do buying of stuff when you're already looking at the device? Like do you

00:32:28 ◼   ► like there is an implementation detail in there that's not for us to decide, but if we assume

00:32:34 ◼   ► that they work it out in as nice a way as they've worked out putting my thumb on the

00:32:41 ◼   ► screen, then it'll be fine. Let's say for example it's kind of playful. Blink! Or like,

00:32:47 ◼   ► you know, like there could be something in it that is interesting. Maybe you pick your

00:32:51 ◼   ► own facial expression that helps you buy stuff.

00:32:55 ◼   ► So the password. Show an emotion.

00:32:58 ◼   ► So I think I agree that the pure idea of Touch ID going away is bonkers but if you think

00:33:05 ◼   ► it just becomes Face ID and we use our faces instead of our fingerprint scanners and we

00:33:09 ◼   ► get all of the functionality we had before and just leave it up to them to work out the

00:33:12 ◼   ► details the benefits that we could potentially get just from a device perspective could be

00:33:19 ◼   ► great and I agree with you Federico that on paper it maybe sounds harder for accessibility

00:33:24 ◼   ► but I also have faith that Apple's got that part covered because that's something that

00:33:27 ◼   ► they care about so much right like I will assume that whatever they do it

00:33:32 ◼   ► will not become harder for people that have accessibility issues to use it may

00:33:37 ◼   ► expose some new ones but everything does right like everything they add may solve

00:33:41 ◼   ► something for some people make it harder for others but I'm sure that they will

00:33:46 ◼   ► try their utmost to make sure that this feature includes as many people as

00:33:51 ◼   ► possible and then make a epic amount of options to allow for people that now

00:33:57 ◼   ► are struggling to be able to access their device in a different way, right?

00:34:01 ◼   ► Like I'm confident that they will find ways to tackle that part because maybe

00:34:06 ◼   ► more than any other technology company, and you mentioned technology company,

00:34:09 ◼   ► Apple cares about this stuff more than anybody else, right? I'm really torn on

00:34:13 ◼   ► this and I totally understand your point and I'm gonna play devil's advocate

00:34:17 ◼   ► and let's think that it's happening and it's real. So I think you're totally

00:34:21 ◼   ► right when you say even if it's slightly slower, not because the

00:34:26 ◼   ► sensor takes milliseconds, but because there's humans holding phones and humans don't just take

00:34:32 ◼   ► milliseconds to operate. But even if it's slower and it takes two or three seconds, if it's more secure

00:34:39 ◼   ► then I totally buy the argument. Apple could say it's, I mean they won't say it's slower, but

00:34:44 ◼   ► it's times more secure and unique than Touch ID, so we believe this is the right technology

00:34:51 ◼   ► to use going forward. And that I could buy. And I could also say, you know, there could

00:34:57 ◼   ► be an elegant way to make this work for the thousands of apps that already implement Touch

00:35:04 ◼   ► ID and maybe the same API used for Touch ID authentication could automatically fall back

00:35:08 ◼   ► onto Face ID when you're using an iPhone 8. So right at launch, one password without doing

00:35:14 ◼   ► any work, for example, could support Face ID with the same Touch ID dialogue.

00:35:18 ◼   ► It's just the same call, like it's just the same API called and Apple just throws up the

00:35:21 ◼   ► new UI that they've built.

00:35:22 ◼   ► I think so.

00:35:23 ◼   ► Like that's how that will work.

00:35:25 ◼   ► So that could work.

00:35:27 ◼   ► You know, I think part of me, the problem that I have right now is that I'm feeling

00:35:33 ◼   ► the same way that older people felt about the headphone jack going away, because Touch

00:35:41 ◼   ► Touch ID is a feature of our generation.

00:35:46 ◼   ► And to think about it going away already, it makes me feel uneasy right now.

00:35:52 ◼   ► And it makes me come up with all kinds of questions and reasons why it would be a bad

00:35:58 ◼   ► idea.

00:35:59 ◼   ► But there's also the argument that Touch ID doesn't work for everyone.

00:36:05 ◼   ► If you have Face ID, it doesn't matter if you're sweaty or you just took a shower,

00:36:11 ◼   ► you know, because the camera doesn't touch your skin, you're just looking at your face

00:36:14 ◼   ► so you can always authenticate, whereas Touch ID has that kind of problems.

00:36:18 ◼   ► And Face ID would work even if you're wearing gloves, you know, or hats or glasses.

00:36:24 ◼   ► Once again, because it doesn't matter whether your skin is in direct contact with the sensor.

00:36:28 ◼   ► So I could see all the arguments for that.

00:36:31 ◼   ► just that kind of feature that I was there when it launched and it's become

00:36:36 ◼   ► so entrenched in the way that we use iOS that it makes me skeptical to think of a

00:36:42 ◼   ► replacement not even four, five years after the first Touch ID sensor. Again I

00:36:50 ◼   ► should say if, and that's a big if, it's really safer and more secure than Touch

00:36:58 ◼   ► If this face ID can provide more unique data points about whether it's really me.

00:37:05 ◼   ► And by the way, the argument that, you know, what happens if you change your hairstyle?

00:37:08 ◼   ► That's really not relevant because right now I'm looking at my photos app

00:37:12 ◼   ► and the photos app with no training can recognize my face when I was 16,

00:37:18 ◼   ► when I was bald because I was doing chemo, and when I had a beard when I did not have a beard.

00:37:23 ◼   ► So it doesn't really matter.

00:37:25 ◼   ► I think the things that it's looking for, like it's not looking for is your

00:37:29 ◼   ► hair spiky, right? Like it's looking for the distance between your eyes, you know?

00:37:32 ◼   ► Like it's, you know.

00:37:33 ◼   ► Yeah. I can tell you myself it doesn't really matter because I've had all kinds of hairstyles.

00:37:38 ◼   ► So that's not a problem.

00:37:39 ◼   ► My problem is what happens in busy situations where there's a lot of people behind you.

00:37:44 ◼   ► So that's, you know, I could think about that and maybe say, well, that's where the 3D

00:37:48 ◼   ► stuff comes in because you have a 3D map so you can block out people in the background, for

00:37:52 ◼   ► example, people waiting in line at the cash register or people waiting in line in the

00:37:55 ◼   ► tube and it could identify you or it could use some kind of proximity with the Apple

00:38:00 ◼   ► Watch. I don't know, but I'm sure that Apple can find a way to say there's 50

00:38:05 ◼   ► people here, but the person that is trying to authenticate with Face ID is this user,

00:38:10 ◼   ► you know, X centimeters away from the camera.

00:38:12 ◼   ► So that I could totally believe.

00:38:14 ◼   ► My main question is, how does it work in the physical space?

00:38:19 ◼   ► What am I supposed to do to make this work?

00:38:22 ◼   ► because Touch ID is a known quantity. I just have to pick up my phone. I don't

00:38:27 ◼   ► have to look at it. I place my finger and it works. Face ID will require some kind

00:38:31 ◼   ► of selfie-like authentication process, which I'm not sure about, but I guess

00:38:34 ◼   ► we'll see what happens. I'm trying to be optimistic, but it's my second nature to,

00:38:39 ◼   ► you know, find all the possible problems and consequences and how things could go

00:38:43 ◼   ► badly. Here's the thing, right, like I've been thinking about this in the idea of

00:38:47 ◼   ► Fraser Speer's fantastic article that's been shared a few times this week where

00:38:51 ◼   ► Like he argues like he makes like does a review of a MacBook Pro as an iPad user like flips it on its head

00:38:58 ◼   ► Like can the MacBook Pro replace your iPad right? Like he did this it was like in 2015

00:39:04 ◼   ► but it's still relevant now because for some reason this has become a problem again and

00:39:08 ◼   ► Let's imagine that we already have face detection and we're gonna move to fingerprint detection

00:39:14 ◼   ► Right, and it's like oh I have to put like specific fingers on my phone

00:39:18 ◼   ► Like all I have to do right now is pick it up and it unlocks

00:39:21 ◼   ► What if my girlfriend wants to use my phone?

00:39:24 ◼   ► She now has to like

00:39:25 ◼   ► She has to pass it to me and I have to unlock it when she could just point it at my face and unlock it

00:39:29 ◼   ► Like that's so much easier, right?

00:39:31 ◼   ► Like there are just these arguments that I can imagine if this thing is great about like why it could be better

00:39:37 ◼   ► and then I think it's fun to turn it on its head like I'm optimistic about this because I

00:39:42 ◼   ► think that in removing the home button completely and therefore touch ID going with it and

00:39:48 ◼   ► there are a lot of advancements in the hardware that we could get and then it's

00:39:52 ◼   ► up to Apple to make face ID better than any thing that's come before it and

00:39:58 ◼   ► better than touch ID and I believe that they would not remove touch ID from the

00:40:03 ◼   ► next phone the phone that's going to be the most expensive most premium iPhone

00:40:06 ◼   ► that's ever made if it's worse I just can't see that being a thing because

00:40:10 ◼   ► there's no way they got to a point where they were like oh this won't work oh no

00:40:15 ◼   ► we have nothing we have no plan B like there was always a plan B then like

00:40:21 ◼   ► that's silly to me and my hope is that face ID was plan A touch ID was plan B

00:40:27 ◼   ► and they just couldn't get it to work so you know I'm calling it now there's

00:40:32 ◼   ► going to be people if face ID happens there's going to be people who 3d print

00:40:36 ◼   ► heads like like models to test the whether it works or not and I bet that

00:40:43 ◼   ► whatever system Apple comes up with, it's gonna have some of, you know, some clever

00:40:48 ◼   ► workarounds for that. Like it detects, like, those minimal movements of your eyes or, you

00:40:54 ◼   ► know, of your skin, like, sub-skin elements even.

00:40:57 ◼   ► What about that?

00:40:58 ◼   ► You know, it can recognize a human versus, like, a mannequin holding an iPhone. So that's

00:41:05 ◼   ► gonna be super fascinating if it happens.

00:41:07 ◼   ► It does potentially open up an opportunity on the Mac as well.

00:41:13 ◼   ► If Touch ID is going to be married to the Touch Bar on the Mac and the Touch Bar is dead in the water

00:41:19 ◼   ► or difficult to implement an external Bluetooth keyboard,

00:41:22 ◼   ► I would imagine that they could put whatever this face sensing deal is.

00:41:27 ◼   ► And we haven't really gotten into that. Surely it's more than just the camera.

00:41:30 ◼   ► But that could come to the Mac and be really interesting

00:41:35 ◼   ► if Touch ID is indeed getting replaced with some sort of facial thing.

00:41:39 ◼   ► You could add that to an iMac and it doesn't matter what keyboard you have.

00:41:42 ◼   ► Because every Mac already has a camera on the front of it anyway, right?

00:41:46 ◼   ► Right. And I truly believe that this would be something more than just the camera,

00:41:50 ◼   ► that it's using IR or something else. But you already have

00:41:54 ◼   ► some infrastructure there. You could put the Secure Enclave in there somewhere and you could,

00:41:58 ◼   ► you know every Mac has a bezel around the screen and there's already a camera

00:42:02 ◼   ► up there just put something else up there too. So that's if this is the case

00:42:07 ◼   ► that Touch ID is going to be kind of pushed aside for some sort of facial

00:42:12 ◼   ► thing I would be very interested to see where that expands in the future to

00:42:16 ◼   ► other products besides just the iPhone. All right this episode is also brought

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00:44:07 ◼   ► Steven, we were talking about the reviews of the Echo Show last week and since that

00:44:13 ◼   ► episode, yours was received. You now have an Echo Show at home and I was saying on the

00:44:21 ◼   ► episode that I'm reserving most of my judgement until I hear what you have to say. So what's

00:44:27 ◼   ► going on?

00:44:28 ◼   ► That's a real vote of confidence.

00:44:31 ◼   ► - I believe in you.

00:44:33 ◼   ► - So I would, I would,

00:44:35 ◼   ► I'm going to categorize my comments

00:44:38 ◼   ► in sort of three buckets,

00:44:41 ◼   ► hardware, software, and potential.

00:44:44 ◼   ► So no doubt people have seen photos of this thing.

00:44:48 ◼   ► It is not the prettiest thing in my household.

00:44:51 ◼   ► Unfortunately, the screen is bright.

00:44:54 ◼   ► I actually had a video call on it with Jason Snell,

00:44:58 ◼   ► and we both sort of commented like

00:45:00 ◼   ► how deep the screen looks recessed,

00:45:02 ◼   ► like it's not laminated to the cover,

00:45:03 ◼   ► like you're used to on an iPad or an iPhone.

00:45:05 ◼   ► But it's really bright, it's really clear.

00:45:07 ◼   ► The speakers are incredible,

00:45:08 ◼   ► way better than the regular Echo.

00:45:11 ◼   ► Definitely better than the Dot.

00:45:13 ◼   ► I mean, I've got a Dot here on my desk,

00:45:14 ◼   ► and the speaker is just fine for the voice,

00:45:18 ◼   ► but that's about it.

00:45:19 ◼   ► Interestingly, I noticed during the boot-up sequence

00:45:23 ◼   ► a little flash of the Intel inside logo which I did not anticipate. I figured these things

00:45:28 ◼   ► would have some sort of ARM processor in them.

00:45:30 ◼   ► How peculiar to see that!

00:45:32 ◼   ► I don't know what's in there. I tried to do some digging and there's not a lot of information

00:45:36 ◼   ► on the web about what Intel processors are in here. Maybe that's where all the Xeons

00:45:40 ◼   ► went that Apple didn't use.

00:45:43 ◼   ► Does it have a Pentium 3 sticker also in the back?

00:45:46 ◼   ► That'd be awesome. That'd be incredible. So it's got Intel inside.

00:45:52 ◼   ► The microphone array and everything seems to work just as well as the regular echo.

00:45:59 ◼   ► It is more directional in a way, you know, the echo and the dot being cylinders.

00:46:05 ◼   ► The sound comes out of them the same in every direction.

00:46:08 ◼   ► So you could put it kind of anywhere in the room.

00:46:11 ◼   ► The speakers on the show fire forward, which makes sense because you have a screen, right?

00:46:15 ◼   ► You're not going to point the screen at the wall.

00:46:18 ◼   ► But it's something to be aware of as you set this thing up that you may need to turn it

00:46:22 ◼   ► or have it slightly different if you're just dropping in where a regular Echo was.

00:46:28 ◼   ► And one thing that Amazon's done that I think is incredible, and I think like Microsoft

00:46:32 ◼   ► did this with the Xbox and now the Xbox One X, the power plug is the same, and it's in

00:46:40 ◼   ► the same place.

00:46:41 ◼   ► And so you can unplug your Echo and plug your Echo Show in with the same power brick and

00:46:47 ◼   ► everything.

00:46:48 ◼   ► You don't have to change anything out.

00:46:49 ◼   ► you know stuff on the kitchen counter or an entertainment center somewhere you're

00:46:52 ◼   ► not digging around you can just unplug it and plug the same little barrel

00:46:56 ◼   ► connector in which I love those those little details that hardware makers do

00:47:00 ◼   ► and Amazon gets a lot of that stuff right honestly. So the hardware is not

00:47:06 ◼   ► much to look at but what is there is nice it does look kind of like a little

00:47:09 ◼   ► old TV set but got a little a little more bulk than I had anticipated I may

00:47:16 ◼   ► will find it for the show notes. I put a picture on Instagram of it and the

00:47:19 ◼   ► molar Mac which is like the super ugly Mac Apple made in the 90s and they kind

00:47:24 ◼   ► of look the same from a certain angle and so that's that's not great but it is

00:47:29 ◼   ► what it is I guess. The the touchscreen itself kind of moving from hardware to

00:47:36 ◼   ► software enables a lot of nice stuff and where I was immediately impressed with

00:47:41 ◼   ► it this oh this is so much better than the regular echo experience was

00:47:44 ◼   ► connected to Wi-Fi. So Amazon does have this thing if you have an account set up

00:47:48 ◼   ► with an echo that you can have Amazon hold on to your wireless password. I

00:47:53 ◼   ► don't have that enabled on my account for hopefully obvious reasons so I had

00:47:58 ◼   ► to type in my Wi-Fi password and instead of like getting the echo app out, I

00:48:03 ◼   ► actually pulled my phone out while the thing was booting up thinking I'm gonna

00:48:06 ◼   ► need the phone to configure this and you don't because it has a screen you can

00:48:10 ◼   ► just you know type in your Wi-Fi password. It was kind of great if you're

00:48:15 ◼   ► used to the normal echo interface. The first thing, one of the first things I

00:48:21 ◼   ► tried of course was the video calling. There's no interface to this and so I

00:48:27 ◼   ► just said friend in a tube video call Jason Snow and it did it. Like I just

00:48:35 ◼   ► tried the first thing that came to mind and it worked and I was impressed that

00:48:38 ◼   ► that it understood that I got the vocabulary right

00:48:40 ◼   ► by basically guessing.

00:48:41 ◼   ► The call was fine.

00:48:44 ◼   ► It did freeze at first, but then it was okay.

00:48:47 ◼   ► And I'm willing to like, this was very early,

00:48:49 ◼   ► like we got ours on like the first or second day

00:48:50 ◼   ► they were out.

00:48:51 ◼   ► I haven't had that problem on subsequent calls,

00:48:54 ◼   ► so maybe it was just a hiccup.

00:48:56 ◼   ► But Jason Snell had lifted his arms in the air

00:48:58 ◼   ► and then he was frozen that way for a couple minutes,

00:49:00 ◼   ► which was pretty funny.

00:49:01 ◼   ► - Wish you got a picture of that.

00:49:03 ◼   ► - It was pretty, I should have, yeah, I should have.

00:49:05 ◼   ► He was just like standing with his arms

00:49:06 ◼   ► raised high in victory.

00:49:08 ◼   ► But the call quality and stuff is fine,

00:49:11 ◼   ► which you expect from FaceTime or Skype on a good day.

00:49:14 ◼   ► The software benefits from all the work Amazon does

00:49:20 ◼   ► in the background, so it knew who Jason Snell was

00:49:24 ◼   ► because I had already given them all my contacts, sorry.

00:49:29 ◼   ► - Oh man. - Part of the deal.

00:49:31 ◼   ► Yeah, if Amazon didn't know your email address, real sorry,

00:49:35 ◼   ► but it is what it is.

00:49:37 ◼   ► but it knew who he was because he already had access to that.

00:49:41 ◼   ► Likewise, I didn't have to go in and set up Spotify

00:49:44 ◼   ► because my Echo system already knows

00:49:48 ◼   ► about my Spotify account.

00:49:49 ◼   ► So I could just tell it, friend in a tube,

00:49:51 ◼   ► play polka music and it knew what to do

00:49:53 ◼   ► because it was already hooked up.

00:49:54 ◼   ► - Polka, polka, polka.

00:49:57 ◼   ► - That's right.

00:49:57 ◼   ► Amazon does a really good job with that stuff.

00:49:59 ◼   ► Kind of how Apple does with iCloud,

00:50:01 ◼   ► if you signed iCloud in your account,

00:50:03 ◼   ► certain things take place.

00:50:04 ◼   ► It's the same with all this stuff.

00:50:07 ◼   ► But unfortunately it's not all puppies and rainbows

00:50:11 ◼   ► when it comes to the software on this thing.

00:50:14 ◼   ► And I will preface my complaints by saying two things.

00:50:19 ◼   ► A, I know it's early days,

00:50:21 ◼   ► and Amazon generally does a pretty decent job

00:50:25 ◼   ► at updating things,

00:50:27 ◼   ► and there's some things on the Echo originally

00:50:31 ◼   ► that they have resolved,

00:50:32 ◼   ► things on the Kindles have gotten better over time.

00:50:35 ◼   ► So I understand that my complaints could be resolved

00:50:37 ◼   ► with future software updates, and indeed I hope they are.

00:50:41 ◼   ► Two, there is an inherent weirdness

00:50:43 ◼   ► in reviewing something over such a short period of time.

00:50:48 ◼   ► And Dan Morin actually was giving me a hard time about this,

00:50:51 ◼   ► about trying to make a decision on this product so early

00:50:54 ◼   ► because it is so different than the other Echo.

00:50:56 ◼   ► I appreciate that thought, but I also disagree

00:51:00 ◼   ► with it a little bit that there are some things

00:51:02 ◼   ► that you're just gonna know if you like or not.

00:51:04 ◼   ► and the Echo Show is one of those things for me.

00:51:08 ◼   ► - Like the Logitech Slim Combo.

00:51:09 ◼   ► - Huh?

00:51:11 ◼   ► - Like the Logitech Slim Combo.

00:51:12 ◼   ► - Yeah, exactly.

00:51:13 ◼   ► Exactly.

00:51:14 ◼   ► It doesn't take long to realize

00:51:15 ◼   ► that thing is a piece of garbage.

00:51:17 ◼   ► So a couple things in the software that I really don't like.

00:51:21 ◼   ► First, every screen has a hint.

00:51:25 ◼   ► So if you are currently playing your polka music,

00:51:30 ◼   ► it's got the album artwork, it's like an iPod, right?

00:51:33 ◼   ► got all your your music information on it. Then there's a little line and it

00:51:37 ◼   ► says try, you know, wake word, show me my photo albums. It's like I don't need a

00:51:45 ◼   ► hint when I'm listening to music to try something else. Also, lol, no one uses

00:51:51 ◼   ► Amazon photo service. But so if I kind of like advertising in a way for service

00:51:57 ◼   ► that no one's using but also like explain to you what else your device can

00:52:01 ◼   ► do and almost every single screen on the Echo Show has this little bottom third

00:52:07 ◼   ► of saying "hey try this other voice command" and I appreciate the the

00:52:13 ◼   ► helpfulness that they're trying like they're trying to surface new commands

00:52:16 ◼   ► because there's no interface to this thing right I just had to say video call

00:52:19 ◼   ► Jason Snell for it to work because I couldn't there's no interface to like go

00:52:22 ◼   ► and do that thing but the trade-off is I feel like I'm being like annoyed to

00:52:29 ◼   ► by the tips app on iOS 11 and I could not find a way to turn this off in

00:52:33 ◼   ► settings which is a bummer. I wonder if it's something that goes away after a

00:52:37 ◼   ► certain period of time. It may and I have not like sat down and like mapped out

00:52:42 ◼   ► the frequency of it so I don't I don't know to be honest with you I would hope

00:52:46 ◼   ► that it would it would trail off of hey once you've said you know X number of

00:52:50 ◼   ► commands to this thing then slowly fade these away but for now at least starting

00:52:57 ◼   ► off you know the first week or so of use there they're not there or they're there

00:53:02 ◼   ► all the time excuse me. The other big thing that that that bothers me about

00:53:07 ◼   ► the Echo Show is it is very attention hungry and and what I mean by that the

00:53:15 ◼   ► Echo itself the Echo Dot and Siri and you know Bixby I guess if you have a

00:53:22 ◼   ► Samsung phone, the Google Assistant, all of these things are kind of they're kind

00:53:27 ◼   ► of in waiting and what I mean by that is that they are they are there for you

00:53:32 ◼   ► when you want them to do something or when you need something but they're not

00:53:37 ◼   ► reminding you of their presence. So the echo if I'm not talking to it the LEDs

00:53:43 ◼   ► are off it's just sitting on my kitchen counter and you may know what it is if

00:53:48 ◼   ► if you come into my house,

00:53:49 ◼   ► or you may think it's a weird salt and pepper grinder

00:53:52 ◼   ► or something, it's just an object sitting on the counter.

00:53:55 ◼   ► Not necessarily the prettiest thing,

00:53:57 ◼   ► but it's very inoffensive.

00:54:00 ◼   ► If you're not using Siri, it's just locked away

00:54:01 ◼   ► behind the home button or the wake word,

00:54:03 ◼   ► same with the Google Assistant.

00:54:05 ◼   ► But the show is not that way.

00:54:07 ◼   ► The show has a screen, and that screen is always on,

00:54:11 ◼   ► and you can fall back to a screensaver of just a clock,

00:54:15 ◼   ► and if you put the thing in do not disturb mode,

00:54:17 ◼   ► it goes to the clock and stays there.

00:54:20 ◼   ► But every time you walk by it,

00:54:23 ◼   ► or if you're like me and it's in your office,

00:54:25 ◼   ► that's only 200 square feet,

00:54:27 ◼   ► it detects your motion and so the screen's always awake.

00:54:30 ◼   ► And what it's doing is showing,

00:54:32 ◼   ► Amazon, I believe they're called HomeCards,

00:54:34 ◼   ► and these cards kinda cycle through on a carousel,

00:54:37 ◼   ► and I care about none of them.

00:54:39 ◼   ► So you can tell it,

00:54:40 ◼   ► "Hey, put my next calendar appointment in there,"

00:54:43 ◼   ► if I use Google Calendar,

00:54:45 ◼   ► "put these things in here."

00:54:46 ◼   ► But it's also a lot of news, a lot of entertainment stuff

00:54:51 ◼   ► that honestly I just don't care about.

00:54:53 ◼   ► I don't care about,

00:54:55 ◼   ► like when it was like some new thing on Instagram

00:55:00 ◼   ► that was trending or what Kanye was doing

00:55:02 ◼   ► for the Fourth of July, I just don't care.

00:55:04 ◼   ► And I don't want that stuff shown to me.

00:55:08 ◼   ► I don't want to see it.

00:55:13 ◼   ► And there's no way to like, again, to turn that off.

00:55:15 ◼   ► There's no way to tell it, just go to the clock and stay there unless you put it in

00:55:19 ◼   ► Do Not Disturb.

00:55:20 ◼   ► So it is, again, it is trying to pull your attention into it when all these other voice

00:55:27 ◼   ► assistants are just kind of laying and waiting.

00:55:29 ◼   ► Does that make sense?

00:55:30 ◼   ► Like, does that framing make sense to you, Myke?

00:55:32 ◼   ► Yeah, and I don't like the sound of it.

00:55:35 ◼   ► I don't know if I'd assumed that the screen was always on.

00:55:40 ◼   ► I did but just thinking of that is not what I like about my Echo in that as you say I

00:55:46 ◼   ► like the idea of in waiting right that's a really good way of putting it but these things

00:55:51 ◼   ► are just like they're like Jeeves and Jeeves is never seen right like he's just you know

00:55:56 ◼   ► when you need him he'll come and help you out but like if you don't need him he's not

00:55:59 ◼   ► going to be there like holding up a big sign saying like hey would you like me to get the

00:56:04 ◼   ► quaggy master I don't know why I'm doing this but that's kind of where my mind went to I

00:56:09 ◼   ► I don't like the idea of it just being this persistent screen that has stuff showing on

00:56:14 ◼   ► it when that stuff a lot of the time feels like it might be like advertisements to use

00:56:19 ◼   ► it more, right?

00:56:20 ◼   ► Like come and do this with me.

00:56:23 ◼   ► Like I don't need you to do that.

00:56:25 ◼   ► Like I appreciate the ability of trying to teach someone how to use the device a little

00:56:31 ◼   ► bit better but do that in context.

00:56:35 ◼   ► So if I've asked you a question about photos, give me some other options for it or let me

00:56:40 ◼   ► tell you that I need help with something.

00:56:42 ◼   ► I don't know, there's something about like, as you say, when you're doing one thing and

00:56:46 ◼   ► it's trying to give you a tip about another piece of functionality that's completely unrelated,

00:56:49 ◼   ► it feels a little bit redundant and needy in a way that I'm not keen on for a device

00:56:57 ◼   ► like this.

00:56:58 ◼   ► I don't need neediness from my voice assistant devices.

00:57:04 ◼   ► Yeah, the, you know, someone in the chat were asking what I want to see on that home screen.

00:57:10 ◼   ► The calendar stuff is nice.

00:57:13 ◼   ► But you know, I like the clock.

00:57:15 ◼   ► I like to have weather, which I think you can tell the weather to be there.

00:57:18 ◼   ► But I would like that stuff to be more sort of ambient.

00:57:22 ◼   ► Like these, these tiles don't need to rotate around on a carousel.

00:57:25 ◼   ► Like every time the thing moves, it catches my eye.

00:57:28 ◼   ► And I don't, my wife did not want that in the kitchen, which is why this thing is in

00:57:33 ◼   ► in the office and I don't want it here in my office

00:57:37 ◼   ► catching my eye every time.

00:57:37 ◼   ► Like I have a digital clock in my office

00:57:40 ◼   ► and it shows the weather and like some stats

00:57:44 ◼   ► like Twitter followers and YouTube subscribers and stuff.

00:57:46 ◼   ► Like it was Christmas gift, I really like it.

00:57:48 ◼   ► It's on the other side of my office.

00:57:50 ◼   ► I can't see it from my desk

00:57:52 ◼   ► because every time the thing moves, it catches my eye

00:57:56 ◼   ► and I, you know, maybe I'm just a squirrel

00:58:00 ◼   ► attracted to shiny things but that is really distracting

00:58:02 ◼   ► when I'm trying to write or trying to edit.

00:58:04 ◼   ► And this thing is like, every time you walk by it,

00:58:06 ◼   ► it's got something new to show you.

00:58:08 ◼   ► And there may be a place for that in the kitchen, right?

00:58:12 ◼   ► Like having a screen that surfaces things.

00:58:15 ◼   ► But I, and I think my household,

00:58:16 ◼   ► I'll speak for my wife as well,

00:58:18 ◼   ► we have come to appreciate the Echo

00:58:19 ◼   ► because it's not there unless you start the conversation.

00:58:24 ◼   ► And that difference may seem subtle,

00:58:27 ◼   ► but I think it's really profound

00:58:28 ◼   ► that something is always responsive

00:58:30 ◼   ► as to something that is trying to initiate

00:58:34 ◼   ► some sort of interaction.

00:58:35 ◼   ► - Seems like you're not too hot on this in the overall.

00:58:38 ◼   ► Like I can't imagine you're gonna be keeping this thing.

00:58:40 ◼   ► - I'm not.

00:58:41 ◼   ► I'm not keeping it.

00:58:42 ◼   ► I see, so the third part of the view is potential.

00:58:49 ◼   ► If they solve the software issues, that's great.

00:58:52 ◼   ► I can see a real potential of things like the,

00:58:55 ◼   ► and it's been mocked a lot,

00:58:57 ◼   ► And there's been a lot of Apple commentators

00:59:02 ◼   ► really down on this feature of being able to,

00:59:04 ◼   ► the drop-in, right?

00:59:05 ◼   ► So Myke, if I gave you permission,

00:59:08 ◼   ► underline all of those words,

00:59:10 ◼   ► then you can start a video call

00:59:13 ◼   ► and I don't have to approve it.

00:59:14 ◼   ► You can just show up.

00:59:16 ◼   ► You know what, if you don't want that,

00:59:17 ◼   ► don't opt into it.

00:59:19 ◼   ► It's not a hard thing.

00:59:19 ◼   ► You don't have to write a blog post burning Amazon down.

00:59:21 ◼   ► You don't opt into it.

00:59:22 ◼   ► But there are times and relationships, I think,

00:59:25 ◼   ► that would benefit from that.

00:59:26 ◼   ► I think Amazon's done a pretty good job

00:59:27 ◼   ► at outlining what those would be.

00:59:29 ◼   ► But that stuff is promising.

00:59:33 ◼   ► It sounds great.

00:59:34 ◼   ► Having a screen is nice.

00:59:35 ◼   ► Like having a little news or having weather,

00:59:37 ◼   ► that sort of stuff is nice.

00:59:39 ◼   ► But I think Amazon has a long way in going

00:59:43 ◼   ► and understanding what customers like

00:59:45 ◼   ► about the Echo products and how the Echo Show

00:59:49 ◼   ► breaks a lot of those things, at least for users like me.

00:59:53 ◼   ► And I think the Echo Show is salvageable.

00:59:56 ◼   ► Like I don't think it's a dead end product,

00:59:58 ◼   ► but I think Amazon sort of missed the mark

01:00:00 ◼   ► in understanding what people like about the service.

01:00:03 ◼   ► And it's too pushy and it's too in your face.

01:00:06 ◼   ► And if they can dial some of that back

01:00:07 ◼   ► and the screen can be there when you want it,

01:00:10 ◼   ► but not all the time, I think I at least would find it

01:00:13 ◼   ► a much more attractive offering.

01:00:14 ◼   ► But for now I'd prefer my $200 back or whatever it was.

01:00:18 ◼   ► So I'm returning it.

01:00:19 ◼   ► - It really sounds to me like what I expected

01:00:22 ◼   ► that it adds a bunch of functionality, which is interesting. It's just not the stuff I

01:00:26 ◼   ► want to do. And everything that I want to do with that device is already in the one

01:00:31 ◼   ► I own. So I'm all good. Yes. Yeah, you know, Jason talked about he has some security cameras

01:00:40 ◼   ► that the echo show can show him a live feed from the camera like that sort of stuff is

01:00:44 ◼   ► cool, like do things that you can't do on a regular echo. But the other stuff I think

01:00:49 ◼   ► I guess the water's just too muddy now for me.

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01:02:40 ◼   ► So as we are still in the phase, I believe that Federico is still in the phase of his

01:02:44 ◼   ► life in which he is devouring videos of sessions from WWDC?

01:02:50 ◼   ► No, not anymore, surprisingly.

01:02:52 ◼   ► Oh, congratulations, you're out of it?

01:02:55 ◼   ► I have started writing the review.

01:02:59 ◼   ► So you're now at that stage which means that you've watched every single second of every

01:03:03 ◼   ► single session.

01:03:05 ◼   ► I know that's what you've done.

01:03:06 ◼   ► Every session has been consumed.

01:03:07 ◼   ► Well, 50.

01:03:09 ◼   ► No, I think it was all of them.

01:03:10 ◼   ► I think you're being modest.

01:03:11 ◼   ► Every single session.

01:03:12 ◼   ► That's why I heard you watched them twice and has done that since WWDC.

01:03:17 ◼   ► So Tichi teaches today, which is the segment that I have given this a name for and potentially

01:03:22 ◼   ► maybe the last one, but at least I have a name for it now.

01:03:25 ◼   ► Tichi teaches us today CoreML.

01:03:29 ◼   ► What is CoreML Federico?

01:03:31 ◼   ► So CoreML, it sounds like caramel, but it's not that. It's not caramel for AI. It's a

01:03:39 ◼   ► different thing.

01:03:40 ◼   ► I didn't realize that. That's so amazing.

01:03:45 ◼   ► CoreML is, I'm afraid to disappoint you, Myke.

01:03:49 ◼   ► I can't hear it any other way now.

01:03:51 ◼   ► Yeah, I know, caramel. So CoreML, it's not the deep and open framework that you might

01:03:57 ◼   ► expect.

01:03:58 ◼   ► Ugh.

01:03:59 ◼   ► It's really more of a...

01:04:00 ◼   ► If it's not deep and open, who cares?

01:04:02 ◼   ► Yeah, well, what do we need it for?

01:04:04 ◼   ► Well, I'm sorry, you can end the show.

01:04:06 ◼   ► It's more of a set of

01:04:08 ◼   ► developer tools for

01:04:10 ◼   ► machine learning. It's not a framework

01:04:12 ◼   ► to write, to develop

01:04:14 ◼   ► actual machine learning

01:04:16 ◼   ► stuff. So, here's

01:04:18 ◼   ► how it works. Machine learning is

01:04:20 ◼   ► at least the way that Apple is doing it. It's based on

01:04:22 ◼   ► models. And models are

01:04:24 ◼   ► think of them as files

01:04:26 ◼   ► of code. It's actual code

01:04:28 ◼   ► that you download from public sources, in this case for iOS, and there are a

01:04:34 ◼   ► variety of models created with other tools such as Keras or Caffe or there's

01:04:41 ◼   ► one called Scikit, I think. So you download these models and they are code

01:04:46 ◼   ► made by others to describe a series of objects or scenes or items, stuff that

01:04:56 ◼   ► you want machine learning to recognize and patterns that you want your

01:05:01 ◼   ► software to understand. So the way that Apple has done it, they have this format.

01:05:04 ◼   ► So Core ML is largely a format and a set of developer APIs that allows you to

01:05:10 ◼   ► take in these already trained models, so this code that has already been taught

01:05:15 ◼   ► how to recognize specific elements of everyday life. I'm simplifying here but

01:05:20 ◼   ► to understand. You take these models, Apple has a web page where they have

01:05:23 ◼   ► some sample models that already work with Core ML and you make them work with

01:05:29 ◼   ► Apple's format. So the Core ML format is an actual file format. You convert these

01:05:35 ◼   ► models into the iOS Core ML format and you drop them into Xcode and you drop

01:05:40 ◼   ► them into your app and you suddenly gain machine learning features from these

01:05:45 ◼   ► already trained models. The way that Apple is doing it seems to me, I mean I

01:05:51 ◼   ► don't understand this stuff. I don't know. I mean, I've taken a look at machine

01:05:54 ◼   ► learning code and it's a bunch of mathematics that I really don't

01:05:57 ◼   ► understand. But the way that it works is you set a goal. You're like, I want my

01:06:03 ◼   ► photo app to recognize flowers and to recognize hotels and airports.

01:06:10 ◼   ► I have these three different categories that I want my app to understand. So you

01:06:14 ◼   ► find a model that is able to recognize those features in a photo. You take the

01:06:19 ◼   ► model and you run it through the Python converter that Apple has put together

01:06:24 ◼   ► and that generates a compatible CoreML file. You drop it into Xcode and your app

01:06:31 ◼   ► can now identify flowers, airports and hotels because of the CoreML

01:06:37 ◼   ► tools. At a higher level there's a bunch of machine learning APIs that Apple is

01:06:45 ◼   ► offering in iOS 11. And Core ML itself is used by Apple in Siri for translation,

01:06:50 ◼   ► it's using the camera for, I think, for scene and object recognition, and it's

01:06:57 ◼   ► also used, I believe, in the QuickType keyboard. So, you know, you can, you know,

01:07:01 ◼   ► the next word predictions and all the suggestions that you get in the

01:07:05 ◼   ► keyboard are powered by Core ML. Below Core ML on iOS 11 you find the more

01:07:10 ◼   ► specific frameworks, such as the Vision API, so computer vision, it can recognize

01:07:14 ◼   ► faces, scenes, objects, rectangles, whatever, and you have the NLP API which

01:07:21 ◼   ► is the natural language processing which can do a bunch of things like it can

01:07:25 ◼   ► recognize sentences, it can recognize individual entities like verbs and

01:07:30 ◼   ► pronouns and nouns, but these more specific APIs they are an implementation

01:07:37 ◼   ► of machine learning and they depend on core ML for them to work. So really what

01:07:44 ◼   ► What Apple has done here is, I saw someone say Apple has made the PDF of machine learning

01:07:51 ◼   ► with Core ML and I sort of understand the idea.

01:07:55 ◼   ► I mean it's not as easy as opening a PDF of course.

01:07:58 ◼   ► You still need to write a bunch of code and you still need to understand what you're doing.

01:08:02 ◼   ► It's not like you're taking a Core ML file and you copy and paste into Xcode.

01:08:06 ◼   ► Boom, machine learning, it's happening.

01:08:07 ◼   ► It's not that easy.

01:08:08 ◼   ► Are you sure though?

01:08:09 ◼   ► It sounds like it is that easy.

01:08:11 ◼   ► That's what I'm getting from what you're explaining.

01:08:13 ◼   ► It is much easier for developers to find a model trained by someone else, publicly available,

01:08:22 ◼   ► open source, and use it in an iOS app.

01:08:25 ◼   ► The fact that Apple is providing some models for free, some of them coming from Google,

01:08:29 ◼   ► I believe, is a testament to the fact that they want to make it easy for you to get started.

01:08:36 ◼   ► I'm interested to see how developers are going to take advantage of this, in the sense of

01:08:44 ◼   ► what are the possible implementations that we're going to see as users, what does this

01:08:48 ◼   ► mean for us.

01:08:50 ◼   ► And I think stuff like photos and translations, the basics of recognizing things in a picture

01:08:58 ◼   ► or understanding what a string of text means, that stuff I think we're going to see plenty

01:09:04 ◼   ► of it.

01:09:05 ◼   ► we're gonna get a bunch of enhancements for the apps that we already use starting this fall.

01:09:10 ◼   ► We're gonna get, for example, your calendar now can make better suggestions for the locations of events or the times of

01:09:17 ◼   ► specific events or we're gonna see apps that can

01:09:20 ◼   ► automatically sort our photo libraries, you know, in a way that maybe not even the Apple Photos app does. We're gonna get, you know, all these

01:09:28 ◼   ► image recognition,

01:09:31 ◼   ► summarizing text,

01:09:32 ◼   ► doing translation, maybe even if you could... the thing is you can even combine

01:09:37 ◼   ► these APIs together. So for example, you can recognize some text using NLP, using natural language processing.

01:09:45 ◼   ► Then you take that

01:09:47 ◼   ► recognized text, you pass it to Core ML and you say things like, "Well, here's some text.

01:09:53 ◼   ► I know that it's in English and I know that it's got two verbs and

01:09:56 ◼   ► and the name of a person named Myke,

01:10:00 ◼   ► and Myke says he's going to a concert,

01:10:02 ◼   ► can you analyze the sentiment of this text?

01:10:05 ◼   ► And Core ML will come back at you and say,

01:10:08 ◼   ► well, it appears that Myke is happy,

01:10:09 ◼   ► so maybe you wanna show an happy face emoji.

01:10:11 ◼   ► That kind of stuff.

01:10:12 ◼   ► You can mix and match these APIs,

01:10:15 ◼   ► and you can do most of this work using train models

01:10:18 ◼   ► that you can already find on the open web.

01:10:22 ◼   ► You can take them, you can convert to the Core ML format,

01:10:25 ◼   ► use them in Xcode and let your app take advantage of those predictions, that analysis, all those features

01:10:31 ◼   ► that Xcode and the iOS SDK wouldn't normally give you for free.

01:10:36 ◼   ► And then you can combine it with this other stuff like NLP and Vision.

01:10:40 ◼   ► So I think there's a lot of potential here for even the smaller features,

01:10:47 ◼   ► like the smaller additions, like now Fantastical is smarter when it gives you recommendations for locations.

01:10:53 ◼   ► or now you can have a summary of your agenda based on the things that you want to know.

01:10:59 ◼   ► And I think we're going to get this smaller, but yet so useful, enhancement.

01:11:04 ◼   ► And I'm really, really curious to see how this goes.

01:11:07 ◼   ► Did that make any sense?

01:11:09 ◼   ► It does.

01:11:10 ◼   ► It does.

01:11:12 ◼   ► I am struggling to get my head around this one in ways that I haven't in the previous

01:11:17 ◼   ► things that you've been talking about.

01:11:19 ◼   ► And I've been that way since I first heard about CoreML because I don't fully understand

01:11:26 ◼   ► how this framework is able to do anything.

01:11:30 ◼   ► If you give it like this just list of things, how does it know what?

01:11:34 ◼   ► It seems confusing to me.

01:11:36 ◼   ► So the basic idea is that it's all in the original code, the original model.

01:11:41 ◼   ► So imagine there's a long file with millions of lines of code that has been trained with

01:11:48 ◼   ► the type of neural network to understand what an apple looks like or what a

01:11:55 ◼   ► bedroom looks like. And that is actual code. There's a programmer who wrote that

01:12:00 ◼   ► and taught the network how to recognize those items in a picture. And you take

01:12:06 ◼   ► that knowledge, you take that code and you put it into an iOS compatible format,

01:12:11 ◼   ► which is CoreML, and you start using it into your app. So CoreML, you know,

01:12:16 ◼   ► it's a two-way communication. Your app as a developer, Myke, you're putting together

01:12:19 ◼   ► one, two, three AI so you can pass text or you can pass an image or you

01:12:26 ◼   ► can pass data, you can pass a dictionary. So you take some input from

01:12:30 ◼   ► your app and you say "CoreML, help me figure out what is going on here" and the

01:12:35 ◼   ► framework is gonna do its processing, it's based on

01:12:40 ◼   ► metal, it's based on accelerate, so these high-performance frameworks that take

01:12:44 ◼   ► you know, a fraction of a second to understand scene recognition and that kind of stuff.

01:12:48 ◼   ► And it comes back with a message that says, "I believe there's a 90% accuracy that this

01:12:52 ◼   ► picture is showing an apple or a horse or a mountain." And you take that and you say,

01:12:57 ◼   ► "Well, I believe, as a user, here's your message. We believe this is a horse." But the essence

01:13:05 ◼   ► of the actual machine learning is happening in the model. And that's the most important

01:13:12 ◼   ► part. But what Apple is doing here is it's making it easy for developers to take these models that

01:13:19 ◼   ► have been going around for a couple of years now, maybe even more, and to use them on iOS.

01:13:24 ◼   ► It was also tricky for me to understand because I was like, "So where does the actual machine

01:13:31 ◼   ► learning occur?" And it's not in the model. What CoreML does is it's a Rosetta Stone for machine

01:13:39 ◼   ► learning and apps and it's helping them communicate and translate those inputs

01:13:45 ◼   ► and commands from the machine learning code into data that can be used by an

01:13:52 ◼   ► app on iOS. So it's this framework right in the middle between the algorithm and

01:13:58 ◼   ► your app. That's what it is. Let me see if I can say that back to you in a way that

01:14:04 ◼   ► that I think I've understood it with an example.

01:14:07 ◼   ► So like Apple's photo recognition stuff, right?

01:14:11 ◼   ► They had a bunch of data, which was saying,

01:14:16 ◼   ► this is what this picture is. This is what this picture is. You know,

01:14:19 ◼   ► this is what a horse is. This is what an Apple is,

01:14:21 ◼   ► but they need something in the middle to translate that

01:14:26 ◼   ► information back to the photos.app and CoreML is the thing

01:14:31 ◼   ► that can like, it takes all of the information

01:14:35 ◼   ► and can process it.

01:14:36 ◼   ► So when the app asks a question, Core ML gives the answer

01:14:41 ◼   ► because it has all of the information.

01:14:44 ◼   ► - Yes. - Okay.

01:14:45 ◼   ► So everything that goes through Core ML

01:14:48 ◼   ► has to have some kind of huge data set

01:14:51 ◼   ► that Core ML can read from.

01:14:53 ◼   ► And it can then interpret or extrapolate from it

01:14:59 ◼   ► to give answers to questions that the application may have?

01:15:03 ◼   ► - Basically, and we're oversimplifying here,

01:15:06 ◼   ► but yes, that's what it does.

01:15:08 ◼   ► - Yeah, we have to oversimplify

01:15:09 ◼   ► 'cause this is way over my pay grade.

01:15:11 ◼   ► - Yes, we uses the model, which is the actual code,

01:15:16 ◼   ► the programming that went into machine learning,

01:15:20 ◼   ► and it communicates with iOS back and forth between the two,

01:15:23 ◼   ► and it spits out a reasonable answer for your app to use.

01:15:28 ◼   ► What sorts of things do you see developers being able to do now that they have this as

01:15:34 ◼   ► opposed to in the past when this was more difficult or out of the reach of more people?

01:15:40 ◼   ► Well, translation services that used in the past like a web service or a web API, now

01:15:46 ◼   ► they can do, if they have the right models and if they combine the NLP API and Core ML

01:15:53 ◼   ► together, they can now do all of this stuff offline with local processing and it takes

01:15:58 ◼   ► couple of seconds, maybe even less. So translation, doing things like summarizing text or of course

01:16:06 ◼   ► categorizing pictures based on scene or objects recognizing a picture and then you can do things

01:16:14 ◼   ► like, and this is all done locally, there's no web API, you don't have to be connected to the

01:16:18 ◼   ► internet for this to work, you can do things like show me photos where I'm happy or show me photos

01:16:24 ◼   ► where another person was crying. So you can do sentiment analysis.

01:16:29 ◼   ► God! Don't make that such!

01:16:33 ◼   ► I mean, maybe to an extent you could do things like, I want to help me find all of my diary

01:16:42 ◼   ► entries where I was sad and I was typing in Italian. So if I have a diary, sometimes I

01:16:50 ◼   ► I write in Italian, other times I write in English, and I can find the said entries of

01:16:54 ◼   ► my diary in a specific language. Or maybe you could even do things like audio tagging,

01:16:59 ◼   ► so you can process audio and recognize things in audio, or you could do things like, I mean,

01:17:07 ◼   ► understanding a specific speaker, for example, in an audio stream, like show me the bits

01:17:13 ◼   ► where Myke is talking, you know, all that kind of stuff.

01:17:17 ◼   ► needs that. All apps should use that feature, the "when Myke is talking" feature.

01:17:21 ◼   ► Yeah, it's a very... it's a wild west right now, really. It's all up to

01:17:29 ◼   ► the developers imagination, the models they can find. And there's the

01:17:33 ◼   ► criticism that is going on is that Apple is not making a real machine learning

01:17:37 ◼   ► development tool. It's more of an API that takes in models from other

01:17:43 ◼   ► other proper tools and makes them compatible with iOS,

01:17:47 ◼   ► you know, it actually includes the models

01:17:49 ◼   ► into the binary of an app.

01:17:51 ◼   ► So, you know, like at runtime, the model is already there.

01:17:55 ◼   ► And it's not like a real program

01:17:58 ◼   ► that you open on your computer and you're like,

01:17:59 ◼   ► "Okay, I want to write machine learning code."

01:18:02 ◼   ► That's not what it does.

01:18:03 ◼   ► It's a way to take the model, take the code,

01:18:06 ◼   ► and make it work with iOS.

01:18:08 ◼   ► - Yeah, I understand that criticism, right?

01:18:10 ◼   ► That kind of cheat in a way,

01:18:12 ◼   ► but they're also making something that sounds pretty impressive.

01:18:15 ◼   ► But yeah, they are getting around doing that stuff themselves.

01:18:19 ◼   ► Like, it's not TensorFlow, you know.

01:18:21 ◼   ► It's not what Google is doing.

01:18:23 ◼   ► It's a different approach.

01:18:24 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:18:25 ◼   ► Thank you for teaching, Tichi.

01:18:28 ◼   ► Sure. I feel educated.

01:18:30 ◼   ► Thank you.

01:18:31 ◼   ► Is there anything else?

01:18:32 ◼   ► Is there any other things that you want to do?

01:18:34 ◼   ► Like, are there other things that you can talk about?

01:18:38 ◼   ► There are other things.

01:18:39 ◼   ► I need to decide, so I don't want to pre-announce it this time, because it creates an expectation.

01:18:47 ◼   ► But there are other things that I would like to discuss with you and sort of wrap my head

01:18:50 ◼   ► around because it can be difficult to understand these ideas just by myself.

01:18:55 ◼   ► So there will be more.

01:18:56 ◼   ► I think if you run out of stuff we can pivot and I can teach you guys about Apple Talk

01:19:02 ◼   ► Nodes.

01:19:03 ◼   ► Sure.

01:19:04 ◼   ► If you want to find our show notes for this week just go to relay.fm/connected/149.

01:19:07 ◼   ► I'd like to thank our sponsors again for helping support this episode.

01:19:11 ◼   ► So a huge thanks to Igloo, Hover and Mac Weldon.

01:19:15 ◼   ► If you want to find us online, there's a few places you can do that.

01:19:18 ◼   ► You can go to 512pixels.net and @ismh on Twitter for all of Steven's stuff and @fotichiviticci

01:19:25 ◼   ► and maxlories.net for all of Federico's.

01:19:28 ◼   ► I am i-mike, i-m-y-k-e on Twitter.

01:19:31 ◼   ► Thank you so much for listening to this week's show and we'll be back next time.

01:19:36 ◼   ► Until then, say goodbye guys.

01:19:37 ◼   ► Arrivederci.

01:19:38 ◼   ► Adios.