Connected

00:00:00 ◼   ► [Music]

00:00:06 ◼   ► From Relay FM, this is Connected, episode 147.

00:00:10 ◼   ► Today's show is brought to you by PDF Pen 9 from Smile, Blue Apron, and Encapsula.

00:00:17 ◼   ► My name is Myke Hurley. I am joined by Mr. Steven Hackett. Hello, Steven Hackett.

00:00:21 ◼   ► Hello, Michael Hurley.

00:00:23 ◼   ► And Mr. Federico Vittucci. Ciao Federico.

00:00:25 ◼   ► Ciao, how are you?

00:00:27 ◼   ► Good, I must have reversed the order because that felt weird.

00:00:31 ◼   ► I must always say hello to Federico first because it didn't feel normal to me.

00:00:35 ◼   ► Lately you've been saying ciao to me first. Now, I guess you've already, you know,

00:00:41 ◼   ► you forgot about me now that I'm not in London anymore.

00:00:45 ◼   ► Yep.

00:00:46 ◼   ► No.

00:00:46 ◼   ► You're just a memory again.

00:00:49 ◼   ► Yeah, just a memory. I mean, it's fine. It's fine. It just makes me sad, but it's fine.

00:00:53 ◼   ► You should move here.

00:00:54 ◼   ► Nah.

00:00:56 ◼   ► Nah.

00:00:57 ◼   ► Why you still can?

00:00:59 ◼   ► No, I'm cool man. I'm fine. Thanks. Okay. Mm-hmm

00:01:04 ◼   ► Steven save us, please

00:01:07 ◼   ► Follow up follow up. We have a bunch of follow up this week. We're gonna start with the

00:01:12 ◼   ► 10.5 inch iPad

00:01:14 ◼   ► My mind showed up after we recorded last week's episode

00:01:18 ◼   ► I've put together a few impressions in a blog post you should go check out

00:01:21 ◼   ► But what I really want to talk about was the hundred and twenty frames per second

00:01:26 ◼   ► promotion deal.

00:01:27 ◼   ► The glorious screen, you mean?

00:01:29 ◼   ► Mm.

00:01:31 ◼   ► I had a little bit of a sense of this before,

00:01:35 ◼   ► but then I got mine.

00:01:37 ◼   ► It definitely sank in that this refresh rate

00:01:40 ◼   ► makes me feel nauseous, like queasy.

00:01:44 ◼   ► And I think I put it in my blog post,

00:01:46 ◼   ► it makes me feel like something in my brain is vibrating.

00:01:49 ◼   ► It's a very surreal experience.

00:01:52 ◼   ► I have not had this experience in VR,

00:01:54 ◼   ► So I've used the Oculus and the HTC Vive.

00:01:57 ◼   ► I did not experience this with those headsets,

00:02:01 ◼   ► but I definitely get it from this iPad.

00:02:03 ◼   ► And so I tweeted the other night,

00:02:04 ◼   ► there is an accessibility option to limit the frame rate

00:02:08 ◼   ► to 60 frames per second.

00:02:10 ◼   ► I do not know what this does to the pencil refresh rate.

00:02:13 ◼   ► My guess is it limits it to 120 like the old iPad,

00:02:17 ◼   ► but I haven't really done like testing with it on and off.

00:02:20 ◼   ► But if you do find yourself in this situation,

00:02:22 ◼   ► I've heard from some people that do feel this way,

00:02:24 ◼   ► that high frame rate makes them feel uncomfortable,

00:02:27 ◼   ► you go into accessibility and there's an option in there.

00:02:29 ◼   ► - This is very strange.

00:02:31 ◼   ► This feels very strange to me.

00:02:32 ◼   ► - And at first I thought, the first time it happened,

00:02:37 ◼   ► I thought, well, I'm tired, I've been traveling,

00:02:40 ◼   ► let me just set this iPad aside for a couple days.

00:02:42 ◼   ► And I tried it again, like one morning I was well rested,

00:02:45 ◼   ► like I felt fine, I didn't have a headache or anything,

00:02:48 ◼   ► I was in good shape and it happened again.

00:02:51 ◼   ► So this really made me consider

00:02:53 ◼   ► whether or not to return this iPad or not,

00:02:55 ◼   ► because this is like one of the big features,

00:02:58 ◼   ► and if I'm not taking advantage of it,

00:02:59 ◼   ► maybe I can just stay on the 9.7.

00:03:02 ◼   ► But what has led me to keep it is the four gigs of RAM

00:03:06 ◼   ► and the additional support iOS 11 will bring

00:03:09 ◼   ► for those iPads running three apps at a time

00:03:11 ◼   ► instead of just two.

00:03:12 ◼   ► So I'm keeping the 10.5.

00:03:13 ◼   ► I really like this iPad.

00:03:15 ◼   ► The screen size is nice, form factor is great,

00:03:19 ◼   ► the smart keyboard is way better than it has any right

00:03:21 ◼   ► to be for just how much marginally larger it is in the 9.7.

00:03:25 ◼   ► But all in all, it's a great iPad, I'm really enjoying it.

00:03:28 ◼   ► I just have to have this toggle turned off

00:03:29 ◼   ► or my brain explodes.

00:03:31 ◼   ► - I also feel like returning it

00:03:33 ◼   ► isn't a good long-term solution, right?

00:03:35 ◼   ► Because this isn't gonna change.

00:03:38 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:03:39 ◼   ► - Right, like returning it because it has it

00:03:40 ◼   ► doesn't once solve the long-term problem that you may have.

00:03:43 ◼   ► - I was really worried before I discovered

00:03:47 ◼   ► the accessibility setting, I was like,

00:03:48 ◼   ► I'm never gonna be able to use an iPad or an iPhone.

00:03:50 ◼   ► I'm like, oh no.

00:03:52 ◼   ► Would you just carry around a couple of sick bags and just

00:03:55 ◼   ► forge the technology?

00:03:57 ◼   ► I'll just use my cool green iPhone 5C forever.

00:04:00 ◼   ► But turns out there's a setting.

00:04:02 ◼   ► So clearly Apple thought about this,

00:04:04 ◼   ► or it came up internally or in testing or something.

00:04:06 ◼   ► So once again, big thumbs up to Apple's accessibility team

00:04:11 ◼   ► for putting something in there that affects probably

00:04:14 ◼   ► a very small number of people.

00:04:15 ◼   ► But apparently I'm one of them.

00:04:18 ◼   ► So there you go.

00:04:19 ◼   ► - I feel really bad for you in this.

00:04:22 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:04:23 ◼   ► - Like in general?

00:04:24 ◼   ► - Sometimes, but like today it's just about

00:04:27 ◼   ► the 120 frames per second specifically.

00:04:31 ◼   ► Just because, you know, I mean, I'm sorry,

00:04:33 ◼   ► but like it's incredible.

00:04:35 ◼   ► And I'm, you know, I'm sorry, I'm very sorry

00:04:37 ◼   ► that you can't experience it comfortably.

00:04:39 ◼   ► 'Cause I think for the people that can,

00:04:42 ◼   ► it is a very, very nice feature.

00:04:45 ◼   ► - Oh, no doubt.

00:04:47 ◼   ► And I may try it again at some point down the road

00:04:51 ◼   ► and like see if I can get used to it.

00:04:52 ◼   ► I mean, it may just be something I need to adjust to

00:04:54 ◼   ► and then it's fine.

00:04:56 ◼   ► But for now, off is fine.

00:04:59 ◼   ► - Maybe you just have like a slower pace of living

00:05:01 ◼   ► in the South, you know?

00:05:02 ◼   ► - Maybe you're looking at it wrong.

00:05:05 ◼   ► - That's true, you could be.

00:05:06 ◼   ► - You're not the same.

00:05:09 ◼   ► - That's probably it.

00:05:11 ◼   ► - Just stop looking at it that way.

00:05:16 ◼   ► listener Brent wrote in asking if we think iOS 12 will skip the iPad like iOS 10 did.

00:05:22 ◼   ► So iOS 9 brought multitasking to the iPad, 10 did basically nothing for the iPad, now

00:05:28 ◼   ► we're at iOS 11 with, you know, I think what Tim Cook keeps calling and I wish he would

00:05:32 ◼   ► stop the mother of all iPad releases, which is a terrible phrase.

00:05:36 ◼   ► No, no.

00:05:37 ◼   ► And I was seeing what you guys thought about that.

00:05:39 ◼   ► Do you think the iPad is on this TikTok schedule from now on?

00:05:43 ◼   ► Well, I think part of me wants to believe that they have sort of learned a lesson from

00:05:51 ◼   ► iOS 10 and the kind of reception that iPad users and the tech press in general had to

00:05:57 ◼   ► — the iPad basically skipping a year.

00:06:00 ◼   ► So I want to believe that — I mean, I don't think we'll get another iOS 11 style of major

00:06:08 ◼   ► iPad release, but at least sort of keep iterating upon what you shipped this year.

00:06:14 ◼   ► Like maybe make the multitasking UI better, address some of the concerns and missing features

00:06:21 ◼   ► for drag and drop.

00:06:23 ◼   ► Maybe we could get something like a shelf in iOS 12.

00:06:26 ◼   ► You know, they've never given that dream up, are you?

00:06:28 ◼   ► You're never going to let it go.

00:06:29 ◼   ► I feel like this will be the thing you'll talk about forever.

00:06:32 ◼   ► I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna, it just makes more sense.

00:06:34 ◼   ► This is a whole other topic that I feel like this will become my version of the Spatial

00:06:40 ◼   ► Finder that is for Syracuse.

00:06:42 ◼   ► I think so.

00:06:43 ◼   ► Like I know this is going to come up in your review.

00:06:45 ◼   ► You're going to write a really big thing about it.

00:06:47 ◼   ► And then like you'll talk about it all year and then your next concept video will be based

00:06:51 ◼   ► it just won't even be about iOS 11 anymore.

00:06:53 ◼   ► It would just be like the shelf concept video.

00:06:56 ◼   ► It would just carry on and on and on.

00:06:59 ◼   ► We have the whole summer ahead of us to talk about our awesome drag and drop piece.

00:07:04 ◼   ► Do you think that the shelf will probably be a deep and open framework?

00:07:13 ◼   ► I feel like I don't want to talk to you anymore because you're just gonna keep bringing this

00:07:23 ◼   ► up on the messages framework.

00:07:25 ◼   ► it's your thing that just anything I say that's your standard reply yeah like is

00:07:31 ◼   ► it a deep and open framework and yes it's an important question it should be

00:07:35 ◼   ► okay okay it should be a deep and open framework okay yeah I feel like if the

00:07:41 ◼   ► two of you stop talking it's gonna make my work on this podcast a lot harder

00:07:46 ◼   ► Myke Federico said this do you have response Myke isn't agreeing with I'm

00:07:52 ◼   ► I'm just gonna say, if you could tell Federico, please,

00:07:56 ◼   ► that I care about him.

00:07:58 ◼   ► I'm mostly in agreement with you, Federico,

00:08:01 ◼   ► about the way that iOS will probably run.

00:08:04 ◼   ► I think that maybe I would say

00:08:06 ◼   ► that I don't expect a lot of features for iOS 12, right?

00:08:11 ◼   ► Like, I think that there should be,

00:08:13 ◼   ► and there hopefully will be refinements and fixes,

00:08:14 ◼   ► but not like really big stuff.

00:08:16 ◼   ► I think we're gonna see iPhone and iPad

00:08:19 ◼   ► kind of share a TikTok schedule now with iOS.

00:08:23 ◼   ► I think that just makes a lot of sense

00:08:24 ◼   ► just from what, like the aspect of what features

00:08:27 ◼   ► you can even come up with.

00:08:29 ◼   ► Because the iPhone is so mature at this point

00:08:31 ◼   ► that I think it's becoming harder and harder

00:08:33 ◼   ► to add real meaningful things to it.

00:08:36 ◼   ► So it would make sense I think if they put them

00:08:39 ◼   ► on these two years cycles but have a yearly,

00:08:42 ◼   ► can keep a yearly cycle of iOS.

00:08:44 ◼   ► I think that makes a lot of sense.

00:08:45 ◼   ► Myke, you have started a brand war with Logitech.

00:08:49 ◼   ► - Look, I just don't like the case, all right?

00:08:53 ◼   ► I really don't like it.

00:08:55 ◼   ► I spoke about it last week.

00:08:56 ◼   ► I'm not on my own.

00:08:58 ◼   ► Serenity Caldwell wrote a review on iMore

00:09:00 ◼   ► about the Logitech Slim Combo case,

00:09:03 ◼   ► and I think she mostly agreed

00:09:04 ◼   ► with a lot of the problems that I had.

00:09:07 ◼   ► She was maybe a little bit more charitable than I was.

00:09:09 ◼   ► I still have to take my case and return it.

00:09:12 ◼   ► Like, it's been sitting in a box.

00:09:14 ◼   ► I'm never gonna use it again.

00:09:15 ◼   ► And then after last week's episode, Kevin sent a tweet

00:09:20 ◼   ► where he showed the thickness of the slim combo case

00:09:26 ◼   ► side by side of a unibody 13 inch MacBook,

00:09:30 ◼   ► which has an optical drive, which you can see in the image.

00:09:33 ◼   ► - Pre-retina.

00:09:34 ◼   ► - And it's thicker. - It's so bad.

00:09:36 ◼   ► - It's thicker than that MacBook.

00:09:38 ◼   ► And then I retweeted this,

00:09:40 ◼   ► a bunch of people were talking to me,

00:09:41 ◼   ► to the point that Logitech social media felt like

00:09:44 ◼   ► they needed to jump in on this, to which they tweeted, "The Slim combo was designed and

00:09:50 ◼   ► created to provide the ultimate protection for your iPad, which is important to us."

00:09:54 ◼   ► I understand that, but maybe you shouldn't have called it Slim. Maybe you should have

00:09:58 ◼   ► just called it Rugged, or like the protective case. I feel like if what you were going for

00:10:03 ◼   ► was ultimate protection, then don't make something so thick and try and call it Slim.

00:10:07 ◼   ► I feel like you only call a product like this Slim because you know how thick it is. So

00:10:13 ◼   ► I would just say I really don't like that case.

00:10:16 ◼   ► If you like the case, that's good for you, but I feel like Logitech took everything that

00:10:21 ◼   ► was good about the create and ruined it and then created the slim combo.

00:10:26 ◼   ► So don't buy it.

00:10:27 ◼   ► That's, I give a big don't buy.

00:10:29 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:10:30 ◼   ► I mean, I took a look at some photos and it's just the, what the product is, is the complete

00:10:37 ◼   ► opposite of what the product name says.

00:10:41 ◼   ► Like, that is not a slim case. Maybe slim is an acronym. It's not the real English

00:10:49 ◼   ► adjective. Super large in materials.

00:10:52 ◼   ► Super large iPad, M stands for, I don't know, massiveness. Super large iPad, massiveness.

00:11:02 ◼   ► Okay, in that case, slim makes sense, I guess, but it's not the same slim that you can find

00:11:11 ◼   ► in the dictionary, that's all.

00:11:12 ◼   ► I mean, just look at it.

00:11:14 ◼   ► So bad.

00:11:16 ◼   ► That's great.

00:11:19 ◼   ► Last week we spoke about Planet of the Apps and one of the contestants, for lack of a

00:11:25 ◼   ► better word, I guess we'll call them contestants, on the show was this guy, the guy who never

00:11:28 ◼   ► saw his kids because he was working on an AR app that you could point your living room

00:11:33 ◼   ► and put furniture in your living room and see how it came out.

00:11:36 ◼   ► And on the show, it was questioned if that was something that was unique to his company.

00:11:42 ◼   ► And then Apple did ARKit, basically giving these tools to everybody, not just this guy

00:11:48 ◼   ► who never sees his kids.

00:11:50 ◼   ► Anyways, yesterday on TechCrunch, our friend Matt Panzareno wrote an article kind of putting

00:11:55 ◼   ► all this together, talking about Pear, the name of the app, and how basically all that

00:12:03 ◼   ► custom stuff, all the custom stuff work they did, ARKit can now do for you, it seems like.

00:12:09 ◼   ► This is partnered with an article about IKEA.

00:12:13 ◼   ► IKEA's "Digital Transformation Manager," which we have to pause and talk about that job title

00:12:17 ◼   ► for a second.

00:12:19 ◼   ► What does that actually mean?

00:12:20 ◼   ► Is he like the digital prophet for IKEA?

00:12:23 ◼   ► Yeah, basically it digitally transforms you.

00:12:25 ◼   ► I've worked in a company that has digital transformation managers.

00:12:29 ◼   ► What?

00:12:30 ◼   ► What do they do?

00:12:31 ◼   ► What is that?

00:12:32 ◼   ► What does a person do?

00:12:35 ◼   ► The real world translation of that job title is "We are an old, slow company that doesn't

00:12:41 ◼   ► understand computers, and we need somebody to make us understand and use computers, therefore

00:12:47 ◼   ► transforming the company digitally."

00:12:50 ◼   ► That's what that job title tends to mean.

00:12:52 ◼   ► So it kind of fits for this person, right? Like he's trying to make IKEA make this app,

00:12:56 ◼   ► so he's trying to make IKEA more computer friendly. It is, like most job titles, ridiculous,

00:13:04 ◼   ► but that's kind of, I think, the literal translation of what that job is all about.

00:13:08 ◼   ► All right, that makes sense.

00:13:09 ◼   ► So Michael Waldsgaard, who holds the grand title of Digital Transformation Manager at

00:13:15 ◼   ► IKEA, said that this is the first augmented reality app that allows you to make reliable

00:13:21 ◼   ► buying decisions.

00:13:43 ◼   ► The plan at the moment for the app that they're building would be that you would take pictures

00:13:47 ◼   ► of your home, go to an IKEA store, and then you see a product that you want to put in

00:13:53 ◼   ► your home, and then you can put a virtual 3D model of it inside the picture of your

00:13:57 ◼   ► home.

00:13:58 ◼   ► Now this seems okay, but it seems like the opposite way that I think I would want to

00:14:04 ◼   ► use this product.

00:14:05 ◼   ► I would want to be able to be in my home

00:14:09 ◼   ► and then choose products and then look at them in my home,

00:14:14 ◼   ► as opposed to take pictures of my home

00:14:16 ◼   ► and then go to an IKEA store.

00:14:18 ◼   ► I feel like they got it the wrong way around.

00:14:19 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:14:20 ◼   ► Agreed.

00:14:22 ◼   ► Maybe you can do that.

00:14:23 ◼   ► Maybe it's something that's kind of just

00:14:25 ◼   ► got lost in the discussion.

00:14:27 ◼   ► But I hope that that's going to be the case.

00:14:29 ◼   ► But something I found interesting,

00:14:32 ◼   ► Valsgaard says that Apple's AR technology is so good

00:14:35 ◼   ► that the positioning of products will be millimeter precise,

00:14:38 ◼   ► with sizes and lighting completely accurate.

00:14:40 ◼   ► And they expect to have between 5,000 and 6,000 products

00:14:43 ◼   ► available in the application at launch.

00:14:45 ◼   ► I really hope that there's a way to do this at home.

00:14:47 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean, well, you've been to IKEA now, right?

00:14:50 ◼   ► You've seen it.

00:14:50 ◼   ► It's--

00:14:51 ◼   ► Oh, yeah.

00:14:52 ◼   ► But I'm saying we're either going to have five or 600.

00:14:55 ◼   ► Like--

00:14:56 ◼   ► Oh.

00:14:57 ◼   ► Maybe just five.

00:14:58 ◼   ► Maybe it's just going to be the same bookcase and five

00:15:00 ◼   ► different colors.

00:15:01 ◼   ► No, no, no.

00:15:02 ◼   ► I don't think it means between five and 600.

00:15:03 ◼   ► it's 500 to 600 is what it means to follow.

00:15:07 ◼   ► No, then the writer of this article did a terrible job.

00:15:10 ◼   ► This is a thing.

00:15:11 ◼   ► I read it, it's five products.

00:15:12 ◼   ► You're reading it incorrectly.

00:15:13 ◼   ► They do not mean between five products and 600 products.

00:15:17 ◼   ► It's between five to 600 products.

00:15:20 ◼   ► Quite the range of options there.

00:15:21 ◼   ► I'm very willing to put money down on this.

00:15:25 ◼   ► They do not mean between five products and 600 products.

00:15:29 ◼   ► We may have seven, we may have 480.

00:15:32 ◼   ► It's really hard to tell.

00:15:33 ◼   ► - Technically correct.

00:15:34 ◼   ► - If that was true, they wouldn't even say.

00:15:37 ◼   ► They would just say arrange, right?

00:15:40 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:15:41 ◼   ► - I'm looking forward to playing with the IKEA app,

00:15:43 ◼   ► but I hope I can do it at home without having to go to IKEA.

00:15:47 ◼   ► - Me too, I just bought a bookcase for my studio

00:15:51 ◼   ► and you have the deal of like,

00:15:53 ◼   ► I measured where it's gonna sit, right?

00:15:56 ◼   ► I wrote down all the dimensions,

00:15:57 ◼   ► like it's going under a window on the small wall

00:16:00 ◼   ► and wrote down all the dimensions in my notebook

00:16:02 ◼   ► and scouring their website and finding the bookcase

00:16:05 ◼   ► that would fit those dimensions and how's it gonna fit.

00:16:08 ◼   ► You never really know until you put it in the room

00:16:11 ◼   ► how it's gonna look and how it's gonna fit.

00:16:13 ◼   ► And for me, there were two sizes I could've chosen.

00:16:16 ◼   ► I chose the smaller and I'm happy with that,

00:16:18 ◼   ► but just unsure.

00:16:20 ◼   ► And this sort of technology could change all of that.

00:16:23 ◼   ► And I think that's exciting.

00:16:26 ◼   ► And I mean, yeah, you feel bad for the Planet of the Apps guy

00:16:29 ◼   ► but this is clearly where this sort of stuff is going.

00:16:33 ◼   ► And you can see IKEA doing it,

00:16:35 ◼   ► but you can see all sorts of design companies.

00:16:39 ◼   ► And I was talking to somebody who works

00:16:42 ◼   ► in the construction business and talking to them about this.

00:16:46 ◼   ► And their point of view is like,

00:16:48 ◼   ► what if you took the outside of a house

00:16:50 ◼   ► and you could change the paint color,

00:16:52 ◼   ► change what the roof looked like,

00:16:54 ◼   ► change the shutters, change the landscaping.

00:16:57 ◼   ► And there are some apps that do that.

00:16:59 ◼   ► very specialized right now, but ARKit means that potentially this will be a lot easier

00:17:04 ◼   ► to do and they were excited about the possibilities in that field as well.

00:17:08 ◼   ► So I think ARKit is going to open up a lot more than just gaming or just like fun stuff

00:17:14 ◼   ► like actually being useful in a bunch of different professional fields.

00:17:19 ◼   ► There is something so beautiful about the very first contestant on behind, oh my god,

00:17:24 ◼   ► Planet of the Apps, being Sherlock'd.

00:17:27 ◼   ► is something so beautiful about that. He was sure locked by a deep and open

00:17:32 ◼   ► framework. I guess so. Yeah in fact I put the the iOS 11 AR kit demo, the one from

00:17:40 ◼   ► Apple on my iPhone yesterday. I had to use Xcode which was fun and I've been

00:17:44 ◼   ► and I've been playing around with the with the app and it's a really basic

00:17:48 ◼   ► demo you can you can use the camera to point at a surface and once that's been

00:17:53 ◼   ► detected you can place objects on the on a table or on the floor as long as it's a horizontal

00:17:59 ◼   ► surface and you can put an espresso cup which is empty, a vase, a lamp, even a chair I think

00:18:06 ◼   ► and it's kind of neat because the 3D models are accurate and you can move around with

00:18:12 ◼   ► the camera, the tracking is impressive, you can pinch and zoom with your fingers to change

00:18:18 ◼   ► the size of the object and it's super fun because you can actually, for example with

00:18:22 ◼   ► the lamp, if you stand over it, you can sort of look into the lamp and look at the light

00:18:28 ◼   ► bulb for example.

00:18:29 ◼   ► Oh that's nice.

00:18:30 ◼   ► It's super neat.

00:18:31 ◼   ► Yeah that's very nice and it gives you a sense of space and perspective that, you know, it's

00:18:35 ◼   ► much more advanced than stuff like Pokemon Go for example.

00:18:38 ◼   ► So it doesn't surprise me that a lot of these big companies like Niantic and IKEA, they

00:18:42 ◼   ► want to get onto the ARKit train because I think that Apple is simplifying a lot of the

00:18:48 ◼   ► work that used to be, for example, the guy on the TV show, used to be a lot of custom,

00:18:54 ◼   ► you know, 3D modeling and spatial tracking, all of this custom stuff that you had to do.

00:18:58 ◼   ► Now it's, you know, it can be simplified by an iOS framework, which is great.

00:19:02 ◼   ► So if you haven't played with ARKit yet, just download the sample project from the WWDC

00:19:08 ◼   ► resources page, use Xcode, put it on your iPhone and play with it.

00:19:12 ◼   ► It's kind of fun.

00:19:13 ◼   ► Easy.

00:19:14 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:19:15 ◼   ► Sounds...

00:19:16 ◼   ► It's really not that difficult actually.

00:19:17 ◼   ► Okay, I guess it's one of those things that sounds scarier than it is if you've never

00:19:21 ◼   ► used Xcode.

00:19:22 ◼   ► It does.

00:19:23 ◼   ► Yeah, it does.

00:19:24 ◼   ► It's super easy.

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00:20:41 ◼   ► So there have been some HomeKit changes that have been announced to come with iOS 11. There

00:20:48 ◼   ► were some that I think were on stage in the keynote and then there's been some more information

00:20:52 ◼   ► that's started to trickle out since people have been paying attention and writing about

00:20:56 ◼   ► some of the sessions. So there are a few things that I wanted to touch on and then we've got

00:21:01 ◼   ► some news that's happening around HomeKit with iOS 11 as well. So first up there are

00:21:06 ◼   ► some new product categories that are being added to HomeKit. We saw speakers, that was

00:21:11 ◼   ► one of the ones that was announced on stage and is probably you know for in

00:21:14 ◼   ► part the the home pod maybe I don't know but two others are sprinklers and

00:21:19 ◼   ► faucets now I would love I'm gonna change it to British English now I would

00:21:23 ◼   ► love a tap that I could make sure was turned off when I wasn't at home like I

00:21:28 ◼   ► don't know what else you could really do with with having a internet controlled

00:21:33 ◼   ► tap maybe you can control the temperature but the idea of being able

00:21:36 ◼   ► to check that my taps are off when I've left the house for a trip vacation would be fantastic.

00:21:42 ◼   ► I would love that, right?

00:21:43 ◼   ► Like that seems like a really good use of this technology.

00:21:46 ◼   ► All I want to be able to do really is just make sure that my house isn't going to flood

00:21:50 ◼   ► or burn down.

00:21:51 ◼   ► That's all I ever really want and the ability to be able to check that my taps are off with

00:21:55 ◼   ► HomeKit would be really cool.

00:21:57 ◼   ► I like that.

00:21:58 ◼   ► Yeah, the sprinkler thing could be cool too if you have, you know, a lot of sprinkler

00:22:04 ◼   ► sprinkler systems, like if you have a yard, are set with timers that are very basic.

00:22:09 ◼   ► And so sometimes you drive through the neighborhood and sprinklers are going and it's pouring

00:22:13 ◼   ► down rain because the thing's on a timer and it's too stupid to know it's raining.

00:22:16 ◼   ► So I can see a world in which this stuff knows about the weather.

00:22:21 ◼   ► So hey, if it hasn't rained in 24 hours and it's this time, then run the sprinklers for

00:22:25 ◼   ► x number of minutes or something.

00:22:28 ◼   ► So it's about making, you know, dumb stuff smarter and not just light bulbs anymore,

00:22:33 ◼   ► but uh, but you know, sort of outside stuff too.

00:22:36 ◼   ► I think this is great.

00:22:37 ◼   ► I bet that there's some like sensors that you could put in the ground as well, right,

00:22:43 ◼   ► that could sense the dryness of the soil.

00:22:46 ◼   ► Oh I'm sure.

00:22:47 ◼   ► It's kind of cool.

00:22:48 ◼   ► QR code and NFC pairing is a new addition for HomeKit and iOS 11.

00:22:53 ◼   ► So this is official support for pairing with Viva Method.

00:22:56 ◼   ► So this probably explains some of the changes that were on the work cloud slides at WWDC.

00:23:00 ◼   ► There's some NFC related stuff, right, that's just changing.

00:23:04 ◼   ► Is it that the phone can become a reader?

00:23:06 ◼   ► Was that what it was?

00:23:07 ◼   ► Which is new?

00:23:08 ◼   ► Yeah, it can basically pair with a nearby NFC device.

00:23:12 ◼   ► It's not the full integration that some people were hoping for, but it's a good step forward.

00:23:17 ◼   ► And the QR code stuff is actually like a system-wide change.

00:23:22 ◼   ► The iOS camera can now detect any kind of QR code, whether that's a QR code that contains

00:23:27 ◼   ► a link, so once the camera finds a QR code you get a banner that prompts you to open

00:23:33 ◼   ► the link in Safari, or it can even be, besides a HomeKit device, it can also be a WiFi network,

00:23:40 ◼   ► so when you scan the QR code behind a router, usually on the bottom of the box, you get

00:23:46 ◼   ► a prompt that allows you to quickly pair with the new WiFi network, so you don't need to

00:23:50 ◼   ► do the whole manual setup, which is kind of neat.

00:23:53 ◼   ► I look forward to interacting with Billboard advertisements.

00:23:57 ◼   ► Now that my iPhone will be able to scan it, that's going to be great.

00:24:01 ◼   ► Software authentication and self-certification.

00:24:03 ◼   ► Now correct me if I'm wrong, but this seems like a huge, huge deal for HomeKit.

00:24:08 ◼   ► So my understanding is, with the software authentication, it could allow older devices

00:24:13 ◼   ► that don't have a physical HomeKit chip in them to have HomeKit support added via a software

00:24:18 ◼   ► update, which I assume would stop the need of all of the bridges needing to be bought.

00:24:23 ◼   ► Am I right Federico?

00:24:26 ◼   ► So I haven't looked at the technical documentation yet, but that's also my understanding.

00:24:31 ◼   ► I'm not sure if, and I just want to confirm if that's actually also allowed for commercial

00:24:40 ◼   ► purposes, like can you actually sell devices that don't have a HomeKit chip, but do the

00:24:44 ◼   ► self-certification or is that just for debugging?

00:24:48 ◼   ► So that's what I want to understand.

00:24:49 ◼   ► But the basic idea is correct, which is you can use software to authenticate and sort

00:24:57 ◼   ► of say I am capable of talking to HomeKit and I'm handling these authentication and

00:25:02 ◼   ► permissions via software.

00:25:05 ◼   ► I need to make sure...

00:25:06 ◼   ► It can be used at large scale or if it's just a small scale thing.

00:25:09 ◼   ► Yeah, like can I buy a switch on Amazon that doesn't have a HomeKit chip but as like with

00:25:14 ◼   ► the software update it's gonna work.

00:25:16 ◼   ► what I want to understand. And along with this is something called the HomeKit

00:25:20 ◼   ► Certification Assistant which is being created to allow for accessories to be

00:25:23 ◼   ► certified and Apple's opening some HomeKit labs I think is it in the US the

00:25:27 ◼   ► UK and one of a place maybe Australia I can't remember off the top of my head I

00:25:32 ◼   ► didn't write it down there's three places that they're opening these new

00:25:35 ◼   ► HomeKit certification labs so people can take their devices in and get

00:25:39 ◼   ► assistance I think and there's improved latency so when you want to do something

00:25:44 ◼   ► your home kit, it will happen quicker, and some new event-based triggers. Federico, do

00:25:48 ◼   ► you want to talk about these new triggers?

00:25:50 ◼   ► The idea behind the new triggers is that you get more controls over time-based triggers,

00:25:58 ◼   ► like you can do relative commands like "one hour before sunset" or "two hours after sunrise",

00:26:04 ◼   ► so you have more control over timers. But the big change, and something that I was tweeting

00:26:10 ◼   ► a few months ago, I actually even forgot about my tweets until someone sent them to me.

00:26:15 ◼   ► It's the idea of presence.

00:26:17 ◼   ► So you can now have triggers that account for the presence of family members inside

00:26:24 ◼   ► the house.

00:26:25 ◼   ► So I can say things like "when Sylvia walks out the door, make sure that the light is

00:26:30 ◼   ► turned off".

00:26:31 ◼   ► Again, I haven't tried because not all of my devices are on iOS 11 yet, but I saw the

00:26:37 ◼   ► screenshots and I saw the new automation screen in the Home app and there's the concept of

00:26:42 ◼   ► presence, it's a new trigger in the HomeKit API, so that's great because I've always thought

00:26:50 ◼   ► that one of the major missing features was the idea of do things when someone is or is

00:26:57 ◼   ► not at home and to my surprise now HomeKit has an official setting for presence and it

00:27:04 ◼   ► It also accounts for multiple users and I suppose that it connects directly with the

00:27:11 ◼   ► idea of family sharing for HomeKit where you can manage permissions for multiple users.

00:27:15 ◼   ► So that's great and ideally developers don't have to do any work for this.

00:27:20 ◼   ► Developers don't have to manage my family members because the iOS framework does that

00:27:25 ◼   ► natively so you just basically plug into that.

00:27:28 ◼   ► The accessory plugs into the rules and when something happens and it's detected by the

00:27:32 ◼   ► HomeKit hub or by iOS devices, then the trigger is engaged and the automation runs.

00:27:39 ◼   ► Which is great, because now I have much more control between the time-based rules and the

00:27:44 ◼   ► presence conditions.

00:27:46 ◼   ► Now it basically opens up a much wider array of possible automations for HomeKit, which

00:27:52 ◼   ► I feel like it's the kind of control and the kind of precision that was missing from the

00:27:59 ◼   ► original set of automation commands. So thumbs up if it actually works and is fast and is

00:28:06 ◼   ► reliable.

00:28:07 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean there's so much more interesting stuff that you can do with these triggers

00:28:13 ◼   ► and with the actions and the things that you're able to support, which are not just like "happen

00:28:17 ◼   ► at 9am every day", like that's not always what you need, because if I'm not there then

00:28:23 ◼   ► you don't do it.

00:28:24 ◼   ► Exactly.

00:28:25 ◼   ► And so I think that there's, things become a lot smarter once you can start adding some

00:28:30 ◼   ► of these conditions in.

00:28:31 ◼   ► And I'm pleased that Apple are doing this.

00:28:34 ◼   ► I mean, on the whole I'm pleased to see a lot more of the underpinnings happening to

00:28:39 ◼   ► HomeKit.

00:28:40 ◼   ► You know, like I really want to see Apple stay competitive with this, because as with

00:28:45 ◼   ► a lot of things that they do, they make it more tricky based on their security.

00:28:48 ◼   ► But the security is a really good thing.

00:28:50 ◼   ► Like I mean I'm still not keen on getting a door lock, right?

00:28:56 ◼   ► There's just something about that that I'm a little bit uncomfortable about right now.

00:29:01 ◼   ► But with some of this stuff, you know, I think you can do door locks with HomeKit as well.

00:29:05 ◼   ► I would maybe be a little bit more convinced to do it with Apple than with anybody else.

00:29:11 ◼   ► So I'm just in general happier to see a lot more being added to HomeKit.

00:29:16 ◼   ► Because I do really like the service.

00:29:17 ◼   ► I find HomeKit to be quicker at doing some things than anything else, just with regards

00:29:22 ◼   ► to latency and how long it takes to perform an action.

00:29:25 ◼   ► So I'm pleased to see this improving and improving with the eventual support on a deep scale

00:29:31 ◼   ► coming to something like the HomePod.

00:29:34 ◼   ► What I'm not sure is if in the UI, and I'm fairly sure that right now this is not available,

00:29:41 ◼   ► But if you can actually nest these conditions and have them, for example, things like if

00:29:48 ◼   ► it's 5am and I am at home.

00:29:51 ◼   ► So to be able to have dual conditions.

00:29:55 ◼   ► And right now I'm pretty sure that it's not available.

00:29:58 ◼   ► So you can either choose is it a time of the day or is someone arrived at home or has someone

00:30:05 ◼   ► left home.

00:30:07 ◼   ► Whereas I would like to see the next step of let me combine time with the presence condition,

00:30:14 ◼   ► that would be ideal.

00:30:15 ◼   ► Instead, right now they seem to be separate, which it is a step forward, it's just almost

00:30:21 ◼   ► there and I want to see Apple have proper support for this idea of the presence inside

00:30:26 ◼   ► the home and so we'll see how it goes, maybe it'll get added in a future beta, I don't

00:30:33 ◼   ► know.

00:30:34 ◼   ► if only if only Apple had a team of people in their company that were good

00:30:38 ◼   ► at allowing you to chain actions together. I feel like you're yeah I feel

00:30:42 ◼   ► like you're asking for too much from a startup. You know like if only they

00:30:48 ◼   ► had hired really good people at creating some kind of flow of work. Yeah but you know nobody cares about automation these

00:30:57 ◼   ► days. It's long gone. Steven do you want to talk about Nest?

00:31:02 ◼   ► Yeah so in in all this HomeKit news there was a story that Nest was

00:31:09 ◼   ► considering adding HomeKit support to its products. On occasion Nest

00:31:15 ◼   ► releases new products now again which is exciting they seem to be doing stuff

00:31:20 ◼   ► again. Most would be great I've spoken at length about my Nest cams and wanting

00:31:25 ◼   ► them to be available via HomeKit. I mean right now Nest is sort of a closed off

00:31:30 ◼   ► system. One thing that Nest does, in particular you're talking about like the

00:31:34 ◼   ► nested options and the present stuff, Nest does a really good job at that. So

00:31:39 ◼   ► our cameras only turn on if both of our phones are away from the house and it's

00:31:45 ◼   ► easy to do. You set up another you know sharing account and you kind of tell it

00:31:48 ◼   ► what devices to pay attention to. That stuff's all really good with what Nest

00:31:53 ◼   ► does but you know everything else you got to use their app it's a closed

00:31:57 ◼   ► system so I would like to see them consider this I'm sure that you know it

00:32:01 ◼   ► would be for new products moving forward unless they can get away without having

00:32:05 ◼   ► you know HomeKit hardware authentication but it's encouraging that it's rumored

00:32:10 ◼   ► at least that they're looking at it because I think they should I think that

00:32:12 ◼   ► Apple is putting a lot of muscle behind HomeKit and they are, especially with the

00:32:17 ◼   ► HomePod coming, it's going to be a big emphasis for the company and Nest

00:32:21 ◼   ► should play nicely.

00:32:24 ◼   ► And who knows, it may be that Nest has wanted to do this, and under the old system Apple

00:32:31 ◼   ► just didn't let them.

00:32:32 ◼   ► There's a lot of history between Nest and Apple with Tony Fidell, who is now at neither

00:32:38 ◼   ► company.

00:32:39 ◼   ► But maybe that's in the past now and they can move forward and work together somehow.

00:32:45 ◼   ► It would be good.

00:32:46 ◼   ► Nest is one of the original home automation companies.

00:32:50 ◼   ► In theory they still have a lot of really great people there, right?

00:32:53 ◼   ► They're still releasing new products.

00:32:55 ◼   ► Google bought them for a reason.

00:32:57 ◼   ► They want this stuff to be made.

00:32:59 ◼   ► I mean I can't imagine that Google are keen on just having this company that made this

00:33:02 ◼   ► thermostat one time and then they just don't do anything else.

00:33:05 ◼   ► Oh well, I mean sure, that's why they canned all their management.

00:33:09 ◼   ► I think they're getting there slowly.

00:33:11 ◼   ► So I think it would be really silly for a company that makes this stuff to not support

00:33:16 ◼   ► all of the major platforms to tie this stuff together.

00:33:19 ◼   ► Agreed.

00:33:20 ◼   ► you know, they have the ability,

00:33:22 ◼   ► I think you control this stuff with your Echo, can you?

00:33:25 ◼   ► There's like an integration, I think?

00:33:28 ◼   ► - There is, at least with the thermostat.

00:33:30 ◼   ► I would need to look about the cameras, honestly.

00:33:32 ◼   ► - Okay, I mean, and you know,

00:33:33 ◼   ► I assume that you can run some of this stuff

00:33:35 ◼   ► with Google Home as well,

00:33:36 ◼   ► and considering the fact that Nest

00:33:39 ◼   ► is one of the parts of Alphabet

00:33:40 ◼   ► which is separate in its own way,

00:33:43 ◼   ► it would be silly for me, for them to not support HomeKit,

00:33:47 ◼   ► or at least attempt to.

00:33:48 ◼   ► would be a very very strange decision to make.

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00:35:55 ◼   ► So we've had a lot of questions from listeners about our process and mindset when it comes

00:36:01 ◼   ► to running betas during the summer. And so Myke, I ask you, are you running betas this

00:36:07 ◼   ► summer?

00:36:08 ◼   ► Oh hey.

00:36:09 ◼   ► Tell us about your beta, Myke.

00:36:12 ◼   ► Right now, in the process, no I am not. So I mentioned in last week's episode that I

00:36:17 ◼   ► hadn't had much time to play with my 12.9 inch iPad because I was restoring it. Because

00:36:23 ◼   ► I put the beta on it and I dragged an app into a folder and the spring ball crashed

00:36:29 ◼   ► and then all I could do was get to the Apple logo. Wouldn't go past that. About two days

00:36:35 ◼   ► I did the same thing to the 10.5. I think I was just opening an app and the springboard

00:36:41 ◼   ► crashed and I had to restore the iPad, the 10.5 inch iPad. So I'm going to wait a little

00:36:49 ◼   ► bit longer I think at this point because I'm not keen on doing a hard restore into DFU

00:36:55 ◼   ► mode with iTunes every couple of days for my iPads. So I'm maybe going to wait an extra

00:37:00 ◼   ► to

00:37:15 ◼   ► I'm going to

00:37:29 ◼   ► that's a full Xaren for me.

00:37:32 ◼   ► I mean, I don't even really want to be running Sierra

00:37:35 ◼   ► on my Mac right now, but I needed to.

00:37:37 ◼   ► Sierra has introduced some bugs in audio for me,

00:37:40 ◼   ► which I'm so excited about.

00:37:42 ◼   ► So I do not expect to be upgrading Mac OS at all,

00:37:47 ◼   ► let alone to the beta.

00:37:50 ◼   ► - Hmm.

00:37:51 ◼   ► - Steven?

00:37:52 ◼   ► - So I'm not running iOS 11 anywhere at this point.

00:37:57 ◼   ► I'll jump on that train later this summer.

00:38:00 ◼   ► I am running High Sierra on an external SSD on my MacBook Pro, so I can plug that in and

00:38:07 ◼   ► boot to it, but I am not running it full-time or anything close to full-time, really just

00:38:12 ◼   ► so I can kind of start putting some ideas together for a review this fall.

00:38:16 ◼   ► But, you know, it's really early days and I've got work to do and I don't need my iPad

00:38:22 ◼   ► or my iPhone exploding, so I'm staying off iOS for the time being.

00:38:26 ◼   ► I see in Federico that you're not gonna put the beta on anything.

00:38:30 ◼   ► Like you're just gonna wait for release, right?

00:38:32 ◼   ► Yeah, I always wait for the public release. I'm really against betas.

00:38:36 ◼   ► I never run betas of OSs or apps on my devices.

00:38:40 ◼   ► Because you could ruin them.

00:38:42 ◼   ► Yeah, I like to keep... Actually, you know what I do?

00:38:45 ◼   ► I'm actually still on iOS 9 because I don't trust software update.

00:38:50 ◼   ► I think Apple wants to make your phones slower.

00:38:53 ◼   ► And they might change the UI again.

00:38:55 ◼   ► I'm really against change, I don't like redesigns and if I could I'd still run iOS 6, I'm one of those people.

00:39:04 ◼   ► I had a dream last night, do you want to hear about my dream?

00:39:06 ◼   ► Yes I do.

00:39:07 ◼   ► Actually it was this morning, I know that everybody wants to hear about my dream.

00:39:11 ◼   ► So I was having a dream where I was awake, in my mind I was awake, I didn't know this was a dream.

00:39:17 ◼   ► And my alarm kept going off on my phone, what was happening in the real world was that my alarm was going off on my phone.

00:39:23 ◼   ► Ah okay.

00:39:24 ◼   ► And I was trying to turn my alarm off.

00:39:27 ◼   ► And in my dream, I'm not kidding,

00:39:29 ◼   ► I am going to every single one of my iOS devices

00:39:32 ◼   ► and turning the volume down on all of them.

00:39:34 ◼   ► But the alarm kept going off, right?

00:39:38 ◼   ► And I couldn't stop it.

00:39:39 ◼   ► And then I picked up my iPhone

00:39:42 ◼   ► and somehow my iPhone had regressed to iOS 6.

00:39:46 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:39:47 ◼   ► Right?

00:39:48 ◼   ► And I'm trying to like turn off my alarm

00:39:50 ◼   ► by like flicking these like brushed aluminium switches

00:39:54 ◼   ► in the alarm app, like in the clock app.

00:39:57 ◼   ► And I'm like, "What is going on?"

00:39:59 ◼   ► And then they started moving around

00:40:01 ◼   ► to like create some kind of game.

00:40:02 ◼   ► And at that point I realized this can't be real.

00:40:06 ◼   ► And then I woke up and turned my alarm off.

00:40:08 ◼   ► - That's incredible.

00:40:10 ◼   ► - That was never a thing in iOS 6 that the toggles

00:40:14 ◼   ► would spin around like a game.

00:40:16 ◼   ► - I mean, it was close to it.

00:40:17 ◼   ► But like, it was funny to me

00:40:19 ◼   ► that what brought me out of the dream was iOS 6 on my iPhone.

00:40:23 ◼   ► - Yeah. - Right?

00:40:24 ◼   ► 'Cause there was just no way.

00:40:25 ◼   ► - Your dream brain is against skeuomorphism.

00:40:30 ◼   ► - That's very true. - Can take it.

00:40:32 ◼   ► - That's very true.

00:40:32 ◼   ► I can't, 'cause it doesn't feel real, you know?

00:40:35 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:40:36 ◼   ► Well, so in a, let's switch to serious mode.

00:40:41 ◼   ► I have betas on all of my primary iOS devices.

00:40:47 ◼   ► iOS 11 beta 1 is on my iPhone 7 Plus.

00:40:50 ◼   ► It's on my new 12.9 inch iPad Pro, which I bought last week.

00:40:55 ◼   ► I'm keeping iOS 10 on the 10.5 iPad Pro for now,

00:41:01 ◼   ► because I feel like I want a stable version of iOS,

00:41:07 ◼   ► primarily because a lot of the apps that I use,

00:41:10 ◼   ► actually a lot of the workflows that I use,

00:41:12 ◼   ► they don't run on iOS 11.

00:41:14 ◼   ► The workflow extension, for example,

00:41:16 ◼   ► doesn't come up in Safari at the moment,

00:41:18 ◼   ► which is a big problem for me because of the storyboard,

00:41:20 ◼   ► because of the Trello workflows that we have.

00:41:22 ◼   ► - Have you filed a radar?

00:41:24 ◼   ► - You know what?

00:41:25 ◼   ► I have filed 10 radars in the past week.

00:41:27 ◼   ► I'm actually telling Apple to fix some things

00:41:30 ◼   ► and to sort of arguing about some aspects

00:41:33 ◼   ► that I don't agree with the execution.

00:41:35 ◼   ► So that's another story for another time.

00:41:37 ◼   ► But yes, I am doing my job as a beta user.

00:41:41 ◼   ► - Good man.

00:41:42 ◼   ► - And it's rough.

00:41:44 ◼   ► I'm telling you, my iPad is not crashing as badly as yours did, but I'm finding myself

00:41:53 ◼   ► like sometimes when I'm watching sessions in the WWCE app with notes in Split View,

00:41:58 ◼   ► sometimes you know when you rearrange Split View and sort of the app view kind of blurs

00:42:04 ◼   ► when you're changing the layout?

00:42:07 ◼   ► It gets stuck that way and the home button doesn't respond, locking the iPad and unlocking

00:42:14 ◼   ► it again doesn't respond, so I need to force the shutdown and power it on again.

00:42:19 ◼   ► Yeah, that's not good.

00:42:21 ◼   ► Yeah, maybe I cannot navigate between home screen pages or maybe Spotlight doesn't come

00:42:27 ◼   ► up.

00:42:28 ◼   ► Of course there's tweetbot crashes when you try to paste the link.

00:42:32 ◼   ► Here's a quick tip if you're running iOS 11 and tweetbot crashes when you want to paste

00:42:36 ◼   ► a URL to a web page.

00:42:38 ◼   ► Make sure that you paste the link first and then you type your text.

00:42:42 ◼   ► way the app is not gonna crash. Anyway, TGTIP. Yeah, TGTIP. Beta TGTIP. All kinds of issues, but

00:42:49 ◼   ► I am enjoying the changes very much. The drag and drop between... I'm using drag and drop between

00:42:56 ◼   ► Notes and Safari a lot, and also between Mail and Todoist, because Todoist in the comment

00:43:05 ◼   ► field of a task. It's a standard text view so it already supports drop by

00:43:10 ◼   ► default. So I'm dropping things like links from an email message or like

00:43:15 ◼   ► entire paragraphs from an email to save them as a reminder in Todoist, which is

00:43:22 ◼   ► great. I'm enjoying dropping photos, primarily screenshots, between the photos

00:43:29 ◼   ► app and messages or the photos app and mail and I cannot wait for all apps to

00:43:34 ◼   ► support drag and drop in multiple variations of it like I want to

00:43:38 ◼   ► rearrange content inside of the app, I want to do spring loading and I want to

00:43:41 ◼   ► do all that kind of cool stuff that Apple show the WWDC that is not

00:43:45 ◼   ► available right now and even I feel like even in the Apple apps right now

00:43:50 ◼   ► there's a lot of inconsistency like when you try to drag an email message onto a

00:43:55 ◼   ► text view sometimes it keeps the subject of the email other times it

00:44:01 ◼   ► takes the link to the email message which is great but sometimes it works, other times it doesn't.

00:44:07 ◼   ► Overall I'm really excited to change because all of my workflows are going to change, right?

00:44:14 ◼   ► File management with the Files app and drag and drop and even Workflow if they ever

00:44:20 ◼   ► ship an iOS 11 update. And right now I feel like I'm lost in this sea of

00:44:30 ◼   ► potential and bugs and I'm trying to understand, trying to see the light.

00:44:38 ◼   ► I know this will be great in the end because I see all of this potential but

00:44:43 ◼   ► I'm sort of struggling, I'm sort of lost in the woods here and because there's

00:44:47 ◼   ► all these crashes and bugs and reboots so I'm really hoping that beta 2 will be

00:44:53 ◼   ► better. I was hoping that we would get beta 2 yesterday but it didn't come

00:44:58 ◼   ► so maybe next week. Yeah, it's rough but I think it'll be very, very nice eventually.

00:45:07 ◼   ► And of course I'm using iOS 11 to write the iOS 11 review which seems appropriate.

00:45:12 ◼   ► Are you finding it to be more stable or less stable on the iPhone?

00:45:16 ◼   ► Oh, less stable.

00:45:18 ◼   ► Than on the iPad?

00:45:20 ◼   ► I feel like it's much better on the new hardware, the 12.9, because I also tried on the 10.5

00:45:28 ◼   ► before going back to iOS 10.

00:45:31 ◼   ► And I feel like it's much snappier

00:45:33 ◼   ► on the new generation iPads than the iPhone 7.

00:45:36 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:45:37 ◼   ► - So you're running it on your iPhone,

00:45:39 ◼   ► and which one of your iPads did you say?

00:45:41 ◼   ► - The 12.9.

00:45:42 ◼   ► - All right, so the new one.

00:45:44 ◼   ► So you're actually running this on your daily iPad and phone.

00:45:49 ◼   ► Wow, you're a brave man.

00:45:50 ◼   ► I know why you do it, right?

00:45:51 ◼   ► You have a really, there's a really good reason,

00:45:53 ◼   ► 'cause you've gotta start work on the review,

00:45:55 ◼   ► but like, that's gotta be tough.

00:45:57 ◼   ► That's gonna be real tough.

00:45:58 ◼   ► It is, and especially, you know,

00:46:02 ◼   ► like sometimes I need to do something quickly

00:46:04 ◼   ► and the entire thing comes crashing down.

00:46:08 ◼   ► I was trying to save a link for the Max Stories guys

00:46:13 ◼   ► to Trello to be like, "Hey, can someone take a look at this?"

00:46:18 ◼   ► The entire thing crashed.

00:46:20 ◼   ► Like, oh God, what have I gotten myself into here?

00:46:24 ◼   ► But it comes with the territory, you know, I gotta do this.

00:46:28 ◼   ► There's no other way to be like, yeah, sure, I'll just put the beta in July and then I'll

00:46:33 ◼   ► write the review in two weeks.

00:46:35 ◼   ► That's not gonna work.

00:46:36 ◼   ► So don't do it now because beta one is super buggy.

00:46:41 ◼   ► I would actually wait for beta, yeah, four, five, that makes more sense to me.

00:46:47 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:46:48 ◼   ► It's getting way closer.

00:46:49 ◼   ► I have a question for you too.

00:46:50 ◼   ► do you think or do you have any idea of when the public beta might be available?

00:46:54 ◼   ► So Apple said at the end of June. So I'm thinking that Apple is gonna do the beta 2 next week,

00:47:01 ◼   ► wait a few days, make sure that everything is fine, no huge problems, and maybe on Thursday,

00:47:08 ◼   ► Friday we'll get beta, the public beta, because I'm not sure if the, what's the last Monday

00:47:15 ◼   ► of June? If it's June 30, then there you go, they're gonna do it June 30.

00:47:19 ◼   ► last Monday of June is next Monday. Okay so yeah I think we'll get the public beta

00:47:24 ◼   ► idea in the like mid next week. So you're expecting that beta 2 for developers

00:47:31 ◼   ► will drop before then? Oh yeah it always does it always does because they again

00:47:36 ◼   ► what's it's a it's a public beta anyone can put the beta on their iPhones so

00:47:40 ◼   ► they want to make sure that it doesn't make your phone explode. Yeah yeah the

00:47:46 ◼   ► really good. I find that to be the best thing. So I have a question for you, right?

00:47:51 ◼   ► What are the chances that we could see an app like Dropbox support something

00:47:57 ◼   ► like files.app before release? Is there any possibility at all of this?

00:48:02 ◼   ► I don't think so because traditionally they, and even if Apple is doing some

00:48:08 ◼   ► things differently, I struggle to see how they would enable submissions for a new

00:48:12 ◼   ► SDK before Xcode 9 actually launches and how is it gonna work.

00:48:19 ◼   ► Some developers are gonna be able to submit and others won't and usually the way it works

00:48:24 ◼   ► is they are gonna open up TestFlight for testing sometime in the next few weeks and the submissions

00:48:32 ◼   ► will actually happen after the September event.

00:48:36 ◼   ► That's usually what happens.

00:48:38 ◼   ► But I don't think developers, I mean of course developers cannot support the new APIs right

00:48:43 ◼   ► now because they're not in the SDK.

00:48:46 ◼   ► And I don't think Apple wants to enable the iOS 11 submissions just for a subset of developers.

00:48:56 ◼   ► Because that would actually, it would be against the rules to enable that for some people and

00:49:02 ◼   ► not for others.

00:49:03 ◼   ► I could see maybe having a kind of special partnership and be like,

00:49:09 ◼   ► "Hey, we want to make sure with our friends at Dropbox that everything is working correctly,

00:49:14 ◼   ► so we're opening up a public test flight."

00:49:16 ◼   ► But that's kind of stretching it.

00:49:18 ◼   ► Because the reason I ask this is that I feel like the public papers are becoming less and

00:49:25 ◼   ► less useful because people can't test and Apple can't gather information and third parties

00:49:32 ◼   ► I can't gather information about whether some of these things are going to work

00:49:36 ◼   ► and how well they're going to work. Right?

00:49:38 ◼   ► Like I feel like part of the public beta process is to make sure that what's

00:49:43 ◼   ► happening in 11 will, will work. Right.

00:49:47 ◼   ► And I feel like the files app is such a big change that it's, I don't know,

00:49:52 ◼   ► I feel like it's a struggle that you can't do any of these things.

00:49:56 ◼   ► I feel like why even have the public beta if you can't,

00:49:59 ◼   ► if no third parties can get and try and test this stuff?

00:50:03 ◼   ► Well, I guess the big companies like Dropbox and Microsoft and Google,

00:50:09 ◼   ► they have teams of, let's say, 30, 40 people.

00:50:13 ◼   ► And once Apple rolls out the internal testing for TestFlight, which is separate

00:50:16 ◼   ► from the external testing,

00:50:18 ◼   ► the public testing, if it's not already open, it's going to be open

00:50:22 ◼   ► I would say in the next couple of weeks.

00:50:23 ◼   ► And once you get 20, 30 people

00:50:26 ◼   ► to be able to test Dropbox for iOS 11 internally using TestFlight,

00:50:32 ◼   ► I think that's fine.

00:50:35 ◼   ► You know, because usually, you know, 20 or 30 engineers looking deeply into the app

00:50:41 ◼   ► are better anyway than 2,000 people just testing the app for a couple of minutes.

00:50:46 ◼   ► You know, you can get...

00:50:48 ◼   ► I think you can catch most of the bugs and most of the problems. In terms of

00:50:52 ◼   ► iOS SDK integration, we're not talking here about the cloud service at scale because Dropbox

00:50:57 ◼   ► is already doing that. But once you get the internal testing set up and you get 20, 30,

00:51:03 ◼   ► 40 engineers looking at the new SDK, looking at the new API, I can see how Apple thinks

00:51:08 ◼   ► that's fine.

00:51:09 ◼   ► I also just think that the public beta is minimizing the effects of the release. If

00:51:15 ◼   ► anyone can download the beta and it doesn't have any of the new features available to

00:51:20 ◼   ► you, then what's the point in doing it?

00:51:23 ◼   ► I've been thinking about that, and I think it's right to an extent.

00:51:28 ◼   ► People like us, it's definitely diminished the surprise effect of "it's September 16th,

00:51:34 ◼   ► let's all hit software update because we can finally install iOS 11".

00:51:39 ◼   ► So for people like us, it's definitely different now, and the public beta has opened up the

00:51:45 ◼   ► nerd floodgates to a lot of beta seats going out to the general public, but most people

00:51:51 ◼   ► don't do the public beta because you gotta sign up and there's a bunch of messages that

00:51:55 ◼   ► tell you "are you really sure this is gonna make your phone unstable?" and it's only meant

00:52:00 ◼   ► for testing the next... you know, people like my mom and my friends are not gonna sign up

00:52:04 ◼   ► for the public beta.

00:52:06 ◼   ► So for the few millions of nerds worldwide, yes, it has diminished the effect, but I believe

00:52:15 ◼   ► That's also why Apple doesn't want third-party apps to come out before, because third-party

00:52:20 ◼   ► apps are the actual surprise now.

00:52:22 ◼   ► You go to the App Store and you get all of these new apps that support the new features

00:52:26 ◼   ► on launch day.

00:52:27 ◼   ► So even if you're on the public beta, you still get the surprise of third-party app

00:52:31 ◼   ► integrations on day one.

00:52:33 ◼   ► Yeah, that's a good point.

00:52:35 ◼   ► That is a good point.

00:52:36 ◼   ► Have we got anything more on this, or should we move on?

00:52:40 ◼   ► Don't put beta 1 on your devices.

00:52:42 ◼   ► Yeah, don't.

00:52:43 ◼   ► That's my...

00:52:44 ◼   ► Also, I'm loving the screenshot feature. Whoever at Apple thought of this new markup floating screenshot, I love you.

00:52:51 ◼   ► And I wish we could be friends in real life because you're literally saving me dozens of minutes every day. So thank you.

00:52:56 ◼   ► Yeah, I got the opportunity to try that before I had to destroy everything and I really liked it. It was really cool.

00:53:04 ◼   ► But then I had to restore my iPads. Make sure you have backups if you are going to install anything.

00:53:09 ◼   ► Are you backing up more frequently Federico? Is this a thing? Do you like make sure your iCloud's backed up more often?

00:53:17 ◼   ► Yeah and also I make sure that the draft of the review like it gets saved in multiple places and like I'm a little more paranoid when it comes to doing production work on the beta.

00:53:29 ◼   ► beta so I check that iCloud always updates. I actually upgraded to the 2TB plan yesterday

00:53:37 ◼   ► because I want to try the family sharing thing with Sylvia. But yes, I am more anxious and

00:53:42 ◼   ► paranoid about backups actually working and occurring overnight every day and I keep my

00:53:48 ◼   ► work stuff in multiple locations now which include iCloud, Dropbox and GitHub in our

00:53:53 ◼   ► shared repo. So, yes, to your question.

00:53:57 ◼   ► Steven as our official backup safety officer, do you consider that to be a good setup that

00:54:03 ◼   ► Federico's running?

00:54:04 ◼   ► Yeah, I think so.

00:54:06 ◼   ► The one thing I would add, if you want to go back to iOS 10, you need to be careful

00:54:14 ◼   ► that your backup may not apply.

00:54:16 ◼   ► And so what I do when I get around to iOS 11 beta, I will make an iOS 10 backup, an

00:54:24 ◼   ► encrypted backup in iTunes on the Mac.

00:54:26 ◼   ► - I did that, I did that, are you proud of me?

00:54:28 ◼   ► - I am, because once you're on iOS 11

00:54:31 ◼   ► and the iCloud backup backs up your iOS 11 machine,

00:54:35 ◼   ► that backup, you can correct me if I'm wrong,

00:54:38 ◼   ► I don't think we'll go back on a iOS 10 device.

00:54:41 ◼   ► So I have that iTunes backup preserved in stone,

00:54:46 ◼   ► my iOS 10 image, and then let iCloud take it from there

00:54:51 ◼   ► for 11, but if you wanna go back, make sure you have

00:54:54 ◼   ► something that can encrypt a backup in iTunes.

00:54:56 ◼   ► It's very handy when things explode

00:54:58 ◼   ► and you need to go back to something stable.

00:55:01 ◼   ► - I guess maybe even if you keep an old device around on 10,

00:55:06 ◼   ► stuff's still gonna get synced backwards and forwards

00:55:08 ◼   ► and you could back up from that over iCloud, right?

00:55:11 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, yes, but--

00:55:16 ◼   ► - It would be perfect, but you at least have some form of--

00:55:20 ◼   ► - Right, and I mean, it's not the end of the world

00:55:22 ◼   ► to start over either, you know, but it's a real pain.

00:55:27 ◼   ► I did it with my 9.7 inch iPad Pro,

00:55:33 ◼   ► and so I've restored that back up to the 10.5.

00:55:38 ◼   ► It is nice to do every once in a while,

00:55:39 ◼   ► but I at least need a couple hours to sit down

00:55:42 ◼   ► and change everything and log back into everything

00:55:44 ◼   ► and set everything back up.

00:55:45 ◼   ► It's a little time consuming.

00:55:47 ◼   ► - I don't think I mentioned this before,

00:55:48 ◼   ► but that was what I did with both the 10.5 and the 12.9,

00:55:51 ◼   ► bought them and put them on 11. I started them fresh. So I set them both up. I took

00:55:55 ◼   ► the pains of setting them all up and then lost them all. Right? I lost an entire day

00:56:01 ◼   ► to that. So including switching over my 1Password from Dropbox to a 1Password account because

00:56:08 ◼   ► the Dropbox wouldn't sync.

00:56:10 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean that's not the topic for today but if you use my password you should definitely

00:56:17 ◼   ► look into that because it's really handy.

00:56:18 ◼   ► Especially if you're running the iOS 11 beta in your Mii because the dropbox syncs just

00:56:23 ◼   ► doesn't work so you can't get any of your passwords on the devices.

00:56:27 ◼   ► It's not their fault, it's just how it is, it was so early but now one password you just

00:56:32 ◼   ► got a new paying customer.

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00:57:07 ◼   ► You are able to access the content in the sidebar annotation content now and copy that

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00:57:14 ◼   ► You can also find and highlight all instances of a word, which is very useful.

00:57:17 ◼   ► So you open up a PDF, you want to find a word, you can automatically highlight it, along

00:57:22 ◼   ► with being able to remove OCR text layers and create links to other PDF files.

00:57:26 ◼   ► They're some of the very powerful additions that you can get from PDFPen 9 along with

00:57:31 ◼   ► all of the other stuff that you're used to.

00:57:34 ◼   ► The busier I get in my work, the more and more I appreciate PDFPen, because the busier

00:57:40 ◼   ► I am the more I use it like it is the application that I use for dealing with all of the important

00:57:45 ◼   ► business documents that I have. They're there for me and iCloud I can save them out to different

00:57:49 ◼   ► applications if I need to but I get the ability to annotate things and sign things and add

00:57:54 ◼   ► my name to stuff and date to stuff really really easily and I love being able to use

00:57:57 ◼   ► my Apple pencil on PDF pen for iOS which is really awesome but I whenever I sit down on

00:58:04 ◼   ► my Mac I take the PDF pen from my Mac as well and now we have PDF pen 9 to add to the family

00:58:10 ◼   ► you can even add OCR for Chinese, Japanese and Korean now with PDF Pen 9.

00:58:15 ◼   ► You can get everything you need for more powerful PDF editing by going to

00:58:19 ◼   ► smile software.com/connected. Thank you so much to PDF Pen from Smile for

00:58:24 ◼   ► their support of this show. Go and check out PDF Pen 9.

00:58:30 ◼   ► Alright so last week on the show me and Steven explained to Federico what Planet

00:58:37 ◼   ► of the apps was all about.

00:58:39 ◼   ► Now this week on the show,

00:58:40 ◼   ► Steven and Federico are going to explain

00:58:43 ◼   ► Business Chat to me,

00:58:44 ◼   ► which I believe is a feature of Evernote.

00:58:46 ◼   ► - Yes, it is a feature of Evernote

00:58:49 ◼   ► that is coming with the next major update to Evernote,

00:58:53 ◼   ► which if you don't know,

00:58:54 ◼   ► all of Relay is gonna switch to as a new company policy.

00:58:58 ◼   ► - Oh no. - We're all switching

00:58:59 ◼   ► from Google Docs to Evernote,

00:59:01 ◼   ► and so get used to it because it's happening.

00:59:03 ◼   ► - And away from Slack to WorkChat, right?

00:59:06 ◼   ► Oh yeah, yeah. So, alright. Business Chat is a feature of IOS 11 Messages, so the Messages

00:59:15 ◼   ► app that uses the iMessage service protocol. I feel like I need to make this distinction

00:59:20 ◼   ► because there's going to be someone who points it out to me on Twitter. So, Messages is the

00:59:25 ◼   ► app, iMessage is the service. It's gonna launch publicly, I think next year, but Apple is

00:59:32 ◼   ► going to roll out a beta for businesses later this year.

00:59:38 ◼   ► What it does, it's quite simple.

00:59:41 ◼   ► If you're familiar with the way that businesses can contact you on Messenger, for example,

00:59:46 ◼   ► on Facebook, it's actually quite similar.

00:59:49 ◼   ► It's a way for businesses, whether they're local shops or online companies, to send you

00:59:58 ◼   ► messages and have a conversation whether it's about support for an item that you want to

01:00:04 ◼   ► buy or an item that you've bought or new orders that you want to place with this business.

01:00:12 ◼   ► It's a way to take communication with businesses out of their custom interfaces on the web,

01:00:19 ◼   ► out of email and directly into iMessage, taking advantage of all the features that iMessage

01:00:25 ◼   ► offers, including the new Apple Pay integration, including integration with the rest of iOS

01:00:32 ◼   ► to find this contact information, and even iMessage apps, which by the way do use a deep

01:00:39 ◼   ► and open framework in this case.

01:00:43 ◼   ► That said, this all sounds kind of generic, so I'm gonna explain it to you in more practical

01:00:50 ◼   ► terms.

01:00:51 ◼   ► I was at the session where Business Chat was being announced, and it was surprisingly packed.

01:00:55 ◼   ► because we only got like one screenshot on the website so there was a lot of

01:00:59 ◼   ► curiosity going on. So you know how on iOS you can search for a local business

01:01:05 ◼   ► using the Safari search box or Spotlight or Maps and when you do, say you search

01:01:12 ◼   ► for Apple Store and you get like a phone button and like a directions button to

01:01:19 ◼   ► open the place in Maps and walk there or drive there. Now with iOS 11 if the

01:01:24 ◼   ► business integrates with Business Chat, you will get an iMessage icon that you

01:01:29 ◼   ► can tap to start a conversation with the business. When you do, you're

01:01:34 ◼   ► taken into the Messages app and you're taken into this new screen which looks

01:01:38 ◼   ► like an iMessage conversation but it's got a custom color that matches the logo

01:01:45 ◼   ► and the identity of the business. So in the demo that Apple showed, the Apple

01:01:49 ◼   ► Store had a gray iMessage interface that matches the gray Apple logo for the

01:01:53 ◼   ► Apple online store. These conversations, they never start from the business. It's

01:02:01 ◼   ► the user that always needs to start a conversation and get in touch with the

01:02:05 ◼   ► business. So if you're afraid of "our business is just gonna spam me now and

01:02:10 ◼   ► send me messages", that is not possible. Is that in every instance Federico? In

01:02:15 ◼   ► every instance the user needs to start the conversation. So if I'm talking

01:02:20 ◼   ► a business and I say to them can you let me know in a few days or whatever they

01:02:27 ◼   ► would probably say no you have to contact us into three days time. So no

01:02:32 ◼   ► the first instance needs to start from you. So the very first time you contact

01:02:40 ◼   ► the business it needs to be you but one of the features of Business Chat is that

01:02:45 ◼   ► it supports long running sessions so if you buy an item on Monday and you want

01:02:50 ◼   ► want to be updated on the status of the product on Wednesday, the business will be able to

01:02:55 ◼   ► ping you again two days later and tell you, "By the way, the product that you bought

01:03:01 ◼   ► has actually shipped." So that is available to businesses, but the very first time it

01:03:06 ◼   ► needs to be you, the user.

01:03:07 ◼   ► But could they then contact me in a month and say, "Hey, we've got this new product

01:03:10 ◼   ► we think you might like."

01:03:13 ◼   ► So I think they can do it, but you also have the option to, of course, delete the conversation,

01:03:19 ◼   ► once you delete a conversation if you're done, you don't want to hear from Apple again. Once

01:03:25 ◼   ► the conversation is gone, the business cannot get in touch with you again.

01:03:30 ◼   ► Now that's cool, I like that.

01:03:32 ◼   ► Yeah, because again, of course Apple is doing this in a way that everything is basically

01:03:36 ◼   ► anonymized, you get a token, you're assigned a user token when you start this conversation,

01:03:41 ◼   ► so it's not like Apple can say, "Oh, Myke Hurley contacted us two months ago, let's send

01:03:46 ◼   ► and make a message again. That's not gonna happen.

01:03:50 ◼   ► Also, in addition to deleting the conversation, you can swipe on the conversation in iMessage.

01:03:54 ◼   ► And this is true for both normal conversations and

01:03:58 ◼   ► business chat. You can swipe and hide the notification from

01:04:02 ◼   ► that conversation. So the

01:04:06 ◼   ► idea here is, you get in touch with the business and then you can start talking with them.

01:04:10 ◼   ► One of the great things here is that

01:04:14 ◼   ► because it's the actual iMessage, it supports all of the features that iMessage has.

01:04:19 ◼   ► So, rich links, for example. If your business wants to, you know, like I'm asking the Apple Store,

01:04:24 ◼   ► "Hey, do you have any iPhone battery cases?" And they send me, they can either send me a link to the,

01:04:31 ◼   ► for example, the iPhone 7 battery case and I get the rich preview, or they can send me these lists,

01:04:38 ◼   ► like these multiple pickers, like these options that I can interact with in a message.

01:04:43 ◼   ► Also during the demo they showed how Apple Pay is going to be supported here, so if I have a

01:04:51 ◼   ► question about a product and I don't want to buy the item before I know my answer to that question,

01:04:57 ◼   ► I can use Business Chat to ask the company a few questions about the item that I want to buy.

01:05:03 ◼   ► Once I'm satisfied, I can say things like "okay, I want to buy the product" and the

01:05:09 ◼   ► business in theory can send me a rich iMessage card and I can use Apple Pay to pay in line

01:05:16 ◼   ► inside the conversation for the item.

01:05:18 ◼   ► A few days later I'm gonna get the tracking info for the item also inside iMessage and

01:05:23 ◼   ► I don't have to use Safari, I don't have to use Apple Mail.

01:05:26 ◼   ► Everything happens inside iMessage and it works like in conversation but it's richer

01:05:31 ◼   ► because it's this customer business experience that is happening inside of the iMessage UI.

01:05:37 ◼   ► And personally, I think it's very well done from a user perspective. I don't know how much I'm

01:05:44 ◼   ► going to use this, primarily because I feel like none of the local shops in Rome are going to

01:05:49 ◼   ► support business chat, but in the United States and maybe for online businesses, I think this is

01:05:55 ◼   ► gonna be quite nice. Steven, I know that you've also looked at the

01:06:00 ◼   ► session, especially from the other side of the experience, from a business owner

01:06:05 ◼   ► perspective, the tools that you can use and how it works behind the scenes,

01:06:10 ◼   ► which I think is also interesting the way that Apple has done this.

01:06:14 ◼   ► The business owner side gets basically a web portal, but this only works

01:06:21 ◼   ► with like platforms. So say that Relay FM wanted to have this to answer support

01:06:27 ◼   ► questions, which we're not looking at but say that we were, we would need to use

01:06:32 ◼   ► something like Salesforce or Nuance or Genesis, I think LivePerson is the fourth

01:06:36 ◼   ► one, these customer service platforms that then would give me access to

01:06:40 ◼   ► business chat amongst all their other tools. So this is, it's easier to think

01:06:44 ◼   ► about this as like a section of a larger customer service solution as

01:06:49 ◼   ► as opposed to just I sign into iCloud as Relay FM

01:06:53 ◼   ► and answer a bunch of questions.

01:06:55 ◼   ► But on that side, the owner has a lot of options.

01:06:58 ◼   ► Federica, you mentioned that they could

01:06:59 ◼   ► send a list of products.

01:07:01 ◼   ► A business owner can set up an appointment,

01:07:04 ◼   ► so there's like a time picker,

01:07:05 ◼   ► which knows about the local calendar on the device.

01:07:08 ◼   ► You can do a bunch of stuff with,

01:07:13 ◼   ► like it's all used as JSON, and so in the video,

01:07:18 ◼   ► But you should go watch if you're interested in this.

01:07:21 ◼   ► There's a lot of JSON being generated.

01:07:24 ◼   ► And you can scroll through it and check it.

01:07:26 ◼   ► It's a little unclear to me how visible that will be

01:07:30 ◼   ► once this is rolled into something like Salesforce

01:07:32 ◼   ► or if this is something that just integrates

01:07:33 ◼   ► with their platform.

01:07:34 ◼   ► But I do have some questions around how does that scale?

01:07:38 ◼   ► How does it scale when you're chatting

01:07:39 ◼   ► with hundreds of customers across multiple support agents?

01:07:43 ◼   ► The demo was one support agent talking to one customer.

01:07:48 ◼   ► That's fine, but that doesn't,

01:07:49 ◼   ► like I wanna know how it scales.

01:07:51 ◼   ► Surely they've thought of that, right?

01:07:54 ◼   ► This didn't really show it.

01:07:55 ◼   ► But integrating it into something like Salesforce

01:08:00 ◼   ► or LivePerson or these other products,

01:08:02 ◼   ► customer service people are already in this,

01:08:05 ◼   ► and so my thought is that Business Chat

01:08:07 ◼   ► will just be another tool they can use.

01:08:11 ◼   ► I think the other thing that's pretty interesting

01:08:15 ◼   ► is that they only showed this on the web.

01:08:18 ◼   ► They did not show an iOS management piece of this.

01:08:23 ◼   ► And so again, if you're using Salesforce or something,

01:08:25 ◼   ► those platforms have apps and it's unclear at this point

01:08:29 ◼   ► if this will make it into those apps

01:08:31 ◼   ► or this will just be online.

01:08:34 ◼   ► There's lots of questions around that.

01:08:35 ◼   ► Right now as a business you have to go register.

01:08:37 ◼   ► There's a link in the show notes.

01:08:39 ◼   ► You have to be approved.

01:08:41 ◼   ► You have to be on one of these platforms

01:08:43 ◼   ► You can only test it internally at this point so again if relay were doing it I could answer questions

01:08:48 ◼   ► Federico had about about call recorder, but I couldn't you know field questions from our members for instance and

01:08:54 ◼   ► So they're they seem to be rolling it out very slowly which I think is good. I

01:09:01 ◼   ► Like you Federico. I see a large amount of potential for this. I think this could really

01:09:07 ◼   ► be a

01:09:09 ◼   ► a really nice addition to the iMessage ecosystem.

01:09:13 ◼   ► I've used Messenger to talk to brands before.

01:09:16 ◼   ► I use brands in air quotes.

01:09:17 ◼   ► And it's really nice 'cause I'm just already on my phone.

01:09:21 ◼   ► I don't have to call somebody

01:09:23 ◼   ► and then be on hold for 20 minutes

01:09:24 ◼   ► and then it'd be difficult to communicate with them.

01:09:27 ◼   ► It's just, I'm already in iMessage all day.

01:09:30 ◼   ► Just bring it to me.

01:09:31 ◼   ► And so that is super exciting.

01:09:34 ◼   ► And I think there's some unknowns from the business side,

01:09:38 ◼   ► But I'm really excited about this.

01:09:41 ◼   ► For something that shouldn't be as exciting

01:09:43 ◼   ► as it is on the surface, I think it's going to be great.

01:09:46 ◼   ► And I like that Apple is thinking

01:09:51 ◼   ► about these types of customers.

01:09:53 ◼   ► The customer here really is other businesses.

01:09:55 ◼   ► And Apple usually isn't very good at that.

01:09:57 ◼   ► And so to see them do this and to seemingly do it well

01:10:01 ◼   ► is a welcome change.

01:10:02 ◼   ► The reason that I'm interested in this as a consumer

01:10:06 ◼   ► is I don't like calling companies, right?

01:10:08 ◼   ► Because I have to devote all of my time and attention

01:10:13 ◼   ► to that thing, which is usually them not doing something

01:10:16 ◼   ► the way that I need it to be done.

01:10:18 ◼   ► And then I have to take this block of time out of my day

01:10:20 ◼   ► or away from what I'm doing to sit on hold

01:10:23 ◼   ► for half an hour, right?

01:10:24 ◼   ► Like I hate that.

01:10:25 ◼   ► And I hate the uncertainty, right?

01:10:27 ◼   ► You never know how long it's gonna take you.

01:10:29 ◼   ► Like you start a call now, you could be done

01:10:30 ◼   ► in five minutes or an hour, like you never know

01:10:32 ◼   ► how long it's gonna take.

01:10:33 ◼   ► So I tend to like to do the chat functions

01:10:35 ◼   ► where they're available.

01:10:36 ◼   ► But the problem with those is it's like you have to,

01:10:39 ◼   ► in the same way, right, like you have to sit there,

01:10:41 ◼   ► you can't close the window, you kind of have to just sit

01:10:43 ◼   ► with the window open and wait for them to talk to you.

01:10:46 ◼   ► But if it's an iMessage, I can just go about my day

01:10:48 ◼   ► doing whatever I'm doing because it's in the app.

01:10:50 ◼   ► It's not in this like pop-out window

01:10:53 ◼   ► that has to stay active, right?

01:10:55 ◼   ► Like it's just, I'll just get a text as I would get any

01:10:57 ◼   ► and then I can just respond to the text when I want to.

01:11:00 ◼   ► That's why I'm interested by this.

01:11:02 ◼   ► because it's taking this support function

01:11:06 ◼   ► that nobody ever really would love to do,

01:11:09 ◼   ► like especially if it's an annoying thing

01:11:11 ◼   ► that you have to get fixed,

01:11:13 ◼   ► and puts it into a method of communication

01:11:16 ◼   ► that I use regularly and enjoy.

01:11:18 ◼   ► Like that's why I'm interested in the way

01:11:21 ◼   ► that Apple is looking to integrate this.

01:11:23 ◼   ► - Yeah, two things that I forgot to mention.

01:11:25 ◼   ► You can start a business chat conversation

01:11:28 ◼   ► by scanning a QR code.

01:11:30 ◼   ► So again, another instance of QR codes being supported on iOS 11 with a wide array of options

01:11:38 ◼   ► in terms of destination.

01:11:40 ◼   ► And the business owner can also respond to you with a link to an iMessage app to perform

01:11:48 ◼   ► a specific action.

01:11:49 ◼   ► So let's say that you're talking to a, for example, to a hotel or to a flight company

01:11:57 ◼   ► and they want to make sure that you pick a room or that you pick a seat on the plane,

01:12:02 ◼   ► they can reply with the native iMessage app.

01:12:06 ◼   ► If you have the app installed, you tap the iMessage bubble and you can interact, so you

01:12:11 ◼   ► can choose a room or you can choose another product directly inside a custom app UI inside

01:12:19 ◼   ► of iMessage.

01:12:20 ◼   ► Like, it basically already works for person-to-person iMessage conversations with iMessage apps,

01:12:26 ◼   ► But now the business can take care of that and if you don't have the app installed you

01:12:31 ◼   ► can go back to the App Store, install the app and tap on the message again.

01:12:35 ◼   ► So it looks like Apple is really taking advantage of all the features of iMessage.

01:12:41 ◼   ► You can even upload images, all of the attachment types from iMessage are supported in business

01:12:47 ◼   ► chat.

01:12:48 ◼   ► So it's a way to, like you said, to avoid those old systems of talking to companies,

01:12:54 ◼   ► whether it's on the phone or an email or those ugly live person chat windows and

01:13:01 ◼   ► it's a way to bring that into iMessage and using the secure and private and

01:13:06 ◼   ► interactive model of iMessage to simplify this company to customer

01:13:11 ◼   ► interactions. I'm really intrigued by the idea of the sort of underlying theme of

01:13:18 ◼   ► Apple becoming a bank and having an Apple Pay becoming an Apple Wallet with

01:13:22 ◼   ► actual money and I can see the flow of sending money to people, sending money to my friend

01:13:28 ◼   ► Myke for example, now Myke has an Apple Pay wallet and the same money goes back to buying

01:13:33 ◼   ► another product using Business Chat.

01:13:35 ◼   ► So it's basically Apple handling a bunch of different transactions, whether it's between

01:13:39 ◼   ► people or between people and customers, which is basically the definition of a bank.

01:13:44 ◼   ► So I'm curious to see how Business Chat plays out in this scenario with the Apple Pay integration.

01:13:52 ◼   ► Do you know how the app side works from the business?

01:13:56 ◼   ► Because I'm assuming they're not using iOS apps to make...

01:13:59 ◼   ► - No.

01:14:00 ◼   ► - So do you know, is there some kind of new view

01:14:03 ◼   ► for these apps?

01:14:04 ◼   ► - Like when you want to share a link to an iMessage app?

01:14:09 ◼   ► - Yeah, how does that work?

01:14:12 ◼   ► - That's universal links, basically.

01:14:15 ◼   ► The way that you can call out a specific screen

01:14:19 ◼   ► or feature inside of your app.

01:14:21 ◼   ► you embed a link to the app and if the app is installed iOS knows how to deal

01:14:26 ◼   ► with it. Right and so you need to code into your applications the ability to

01:14:31 ◼   ► have these links right? Yes. I guess that's the thing. Yeah that's basically how it works.

01:14:35 ◼   ► Yeah. Anything more on this? I mean sounds really interesting like is this due to

01:14:41 ◼   ► launch with 11 or is there a different time for it? It's gonna launch next year.

01:14:46 ◼   ► this year Apple wants to keep testing it for like several months before they roll it out next year.

01:14:53 ◼   ► Yeah, so it's not really an iOS 11 feature, it's just like they've just announced it at WWDC.

01:14:58 ◼   ► Yeah, basically, yes.

01:15:00 ◼   ► Does it need 11?

01:15:02 ◼   ► It needs 11, because it needs all of the Apple Pay stuff in iMessage for example.

01:15:09 ◼   ► So it needs iOS 11.

01:15:11 ◼   ► And I suppose it could launch with iOS 11.3, I guess,

01:15:15 ◼   ► maybe spring 2018.

01:15:17 ◼   ► That's going to be next year, yes, 2018.

01:15:20 ◼   ► But yes, it needs iOS 11.

01:15:22 ◼   ► I'm not sure actually what happens if you try on iOS 10.

01:15:25 ◼   ► Maybe it just says this is not supported on iOS 10.

01:15:28 ◼   ► So you won't need the next version of iOS to do this.

01:15:33 ◼   ► - I'm interested.

01:15:34 ◼   ► I am, the economy interested.

01:15:37 ◼   ► I want to see where this goes.

01:15:40 ◼   ► I think that it could be really good.

01:15:41 ◼   ► I don't, I know there are apps that do it,

01:15:45 ◼   ► like Messenger and stuff, but I'm, you know,

01:15:46 ◼   ► I don't use those, right?

01:15:48 ◼   ► Like it's still like a whole different thing

01:15:50 ◼   ► that I would be going to use.

01:15:51 ◼   ► I am very keen on having this stuff

01:15:53 ◼   ► in my iMessage account, if I want it to be, right?

01:15:57 ◼   ► And I feel like Apple's doing a lot

01:16:00 ◼   ► to protect me from being spammed by companies,

01:16:04 ◼   ► so that I'm also very keen on.

01:16:06 ◼   ► Like I don't want to get myself on lists now like with email, right?

01:16:09 ◼   ► Where it's like now people can just send me their newest marketing message.

01:16:14 ◼   ► Like that would maybe be the worst thing that Apple has ever done if that was the case,

01:16:18 ◼   ► you know?

01:16:19 ◼   ► So, yeah, I'm very keen to see.

01:16:22 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:16:23 ◼   ► Was this an okay explanation?

01:16:25 ◼   ► I think so.

01:16:26 ◼   ► I think you did a very good job.

01:16:27 ◼   ► I think that you have a – if you want, you have a new career in WWDC presentations.

01:16:33 ◼   ► All right.

01:16:34 ◼   ► You could be on stage doing presentations, you know?

01:16:38 ◼   ► Sure, sure, okay.

01:16:39 ◼   ► I think that would be really good.

01:16:41 ◼   ► Alright, so if you want to find our show notes for this week head on over to relay.fm/connecting/147.

01:16:47 ◼   ► I would like to take a moment again to thank our sponsors PDF Pen9 from Smile, Blue Apron

01:16:51 ◼   ► and Encapsula.

01:16:52 ◼   ► Please go check out these apps, services and companies because they help support this show.

01:16:57 ◼   ► If you want to find Federico online he's over at MacStories.net and he is @Fettucci on Twitter

01:17:02 ◼   ► V-I-T-I-C-C-I.

01:17:03 ◼   ► Steven is at 512pixels.net and he is @ismh on twitter and I am @imike.

01:17:12 ◼   ► Thanks to you for listening and we'll be back next time.

01:17:14 ◼   ► Until then, say goodbye guys.

01:17:16 ◼   ► Adios.

01:17:17 ◼   ► Adios.

01:17:17 ◼   ► Adios!