Connected

00:00:00 ◼   ► [Music]

00:00:06 ◼   ► From Relay FM, this is Connected, episode 127.

00:00:11 ◼   ► Today's show is brought to you by our fine sponsors,

00:00:13 ◼   ► and they are Mack Weldon, Encapsula, and Blue Apron.

00:00:16 ◼   ► My name is Myke Hurley, and I am joined from my fellow European,

00:00:20 ◼   ► Mr. Federico Vitticci.

00:00:21 ◼   ► - Buongiorno, Myke. - Ah, ciao Federico.

00:00:24 ◼   ► - Ciao. - It's just me and you today.

00:00:26 ◼   ► I know, I know, Steven is out discovering old Macs.

00:00:31 ◼   ► Yeah, I heard he was spotted in a forest somewhere in California

00:00:34 ◼   ► trying to hunt some kind of SC or something.

00:00:37 ◼   ► He's actually also being tasked with choosing the name of the next version of macOS.

00:00:42 ◼   ► So he's out exploring the, you know, the wilderness of California.

00:00:47 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:00:49 ◼   ► Good luck, Steven. We cannot wait for you to come back.

00:00:52 ◼   ► So Myke, this means you should do follow up.

00:00:56 ◼   ► This is always a disaster.

00:00:57 ◼   ► You can you can do it.

00:01:00 ◼   ► You can do it. Just roll up your sleeves and do the follow up.

00:01:03 ◼   ► Luckily enough, follow up this week contains two stories about me, so

00:01:07 ◼   ► should be easy enough.

00:01:11 ◼   ► After last week's episode, I decided I wanted to try out sleep tracking.

00:01:14 ◼   ► So I thought I would I downloaded sleep plus plus underscores application.

00:01:20 ◼   ► And I kind of was setting it up and realized that

00:01:24 ◼   ► before I did it, I was like, oh, let me go and make sure I can change my watch settings.

00:01:30 ◼   ► But it turns out, I didn't know this, you cannot set an independent Do Not Disturb schedule

00:01:35 ◼   ► for the Apple Watch. You can have it mirror what the iPhone does, you can turn Do Not

00:01:40 ◼   ► Disturb on and off manually, but you can't set a schedule like you can for the phone.

00:01:47 ◼   ► And I don't really want to change my notification system because my phone is always on Do Not

00:01:54 ◼   ► disturb. Really? I forgot this. My phone is permanent do not disturb. We went through

00:02:01 ◼   ► this insanity last year when we were traveling together. No it's a great system. Is it? I

00:02:07 ◼   ► don't know. So my phone is on do not disturb and it receives all the notifications so they're

00:02:11 ◼   ► just coming in it's updating I mean I when I say all the notifications I don't have notifications

00:02:16 ◼   ► on for every application but all of the applications I want notifications for it goes and then

00:02:20 ◼   ► my watch gets a subset of those notifications pushed to it. So my phone is like a command

00:02:27 ◼   ► center it has everything there but only the things that I deem important enough to get

00:02:33 ◼   ► to me go to my watch. So that really works for me, I like that system, I'm sure Apple

00:02:38 ◼   ► will find some way to destroy that like they did the ordering of notifications which still

00:02:42 ◼   ► upsets me greatly that it's grouped by day and not by app anymore it's just a nightmare

00:02:47 ◼   ► that disaster. And it's a shame because I wanted to be able to wear my watch to do the

00:02:53 ◼   ► sleep tracking but I won't be able to do it because I'll be getting notifications on my

00:02:56 ◼   ► watch all the time or I have to put it into manual do not disturb but I know I'm going

00:03:00 ◼   ► to forget to do that right and then I'm still going to get woken up and then it's like well

00:03:05 ◼   ► the sleep tracking application is now waking me up and that feels like not really the thing

00:03:09 ◼   ► you should be doing. So I think what I'm going to do though is to maybe set up, I think sleep

00:03:15 ◼   ► sleep plus plus can do this. I believe the application that you used could do this as

00:03:20 ◼   ► well, where it will kind of do sleep tracking without the watch, like based on movement

00:03:25 ◼   ► of your phone and stuff like that. So I might just try one of those, just so I can kind

00:03:30 ◼   ► of get an idea of the length of sleep, but I won't be able to get what I, what I think

00:03:36 ◼   ► I kind of want a little bit more, which is how I'm sleeping, you know. What do you find

00:03:42 ◼   ► interesting Federico. Is it how long you're sleeping? Because I know it can kind of give

00:03:48 ◼   ► estimations of how well it thinks you're sleeping.

00:03:50 ◼   ► No, not how well, because I don't necessarily believe that. It's mostly how long I sleep

00:03:58 ◼   ► and also the times of the year. Like for example, if I know, like in November, two years ago

00:04:08 ◼   ► I had the two weeks of the iPad Pro review embargo and that was terrible, honestly, because

00:04:15 ◼   ► I was basically sleeping like four to five hours a day to get it done in ten days.

00:04:21 ◼   ► So I want to know, of course, how much I sleep regularly, but also I want to spot trends

00:04:28 ◼   ► during the year.

00:04:29 ◼   ► So like the last week before the iOS 11 review or whenever the next iPad comes out, you know,

00:04:37 ◼   ► gonna be interesting for me to say okay so when stuff like this happens I gotta

00:04:42 ◼   ► be prepared because I'm gonna be sleeping on average like five or six

00:04:47 ◼   ► hours a night instead of you know my regular seven hours ideally so yeah it's

00:04:54 ◼   ► mostly the land I don't care about quality honestly because I yeah well

00:04:58 ◼   ► that's good to know because that means that if that's all you're doing I mean

00:05:03 ◼   ► I've spoken to a couple of other people and they seem to kind of say the same

00:05:05 ◼   ► that they're kind of really just using these applications as a way to track

00:05:10 ◼   ► length of sleep as opposed to quality of sleep. I mean honestly the last thing that

00:05:15 ◼   ► I do at night is put my phone down and the first thing that I do in the morning

00:05:19 ◼   ► is pick it up again. But do what so with these applications do I have to tell it

00:05:23 ◼   ► that I'm going to sleep? Is that a thing that you do? You have to actually go in

00:05:27 ◼   ► and say hey it's bedtime? With auto sleep you don't need to. That's what I use. It

00:05:32 ◼   ► It does a good job of figuring out on its own when you went to sleep and when you woke

00:05:37 ◼   ► up.

00:05:39 ◼   ► With others you need to press a button or engage a specific mode, which I don't like

00:05:43 ◼   ► because I know I'm gonna forget.

00:05:46 ◼   ► One time I remember I was using I think David's Sleep++ and I forgot to say in the morning

00:05:54 ◼   ► I woke up.

00:05:56 ◼   ► And I forgot for several days.

00:05:58 ◼   ► So I was, a couple of, actually maybe three days later, I was looking at my sleep stats

00:06:04 ◼   ► in the health app and it told me I had been sleeping for like 50 hours.

00:06:10 ◼   ► Which was interesting.

00:06:11 ◼   ► Good, nice deep sleep.

00:06:12 ◼   ► Very sleeping.

00:06:13 ◼   ► It's like animal style, you know.

00:06:17 ◼   ► Sleeping in a cave for the winter season.

00:06:20 ◼   ► So yeah, I had to go into the health app and delete the entries.

00:06:24 ◼   ► So I need an automated solution.

00:06:26 ◼   ► Otherwise I'm going to be, according to my phone, I'm going to be sleeping for 50 hours,

00:06:31 ◼   ► which is not necessarily true.

00:06:33 ◼   ► Alright, well I'm going to try out both of these applications and if I have any kind

00:06:38 ◼   ► of like, if I come across anything interesting or any insights or whatever I'll share them

00:06:43 ◼   ► again on the show.

00:06:44 ◼   ► But that's a nice little task for me to try out now, is I'll try and get more data about

00:06:47 ◼   ► my life, which is a thing that I'm working through right now.

00:06:50 ◼   ► So alright, I'll try it out.

00:06:53 ◼   ► of Ed wrote in to say that he uses one of these.

00:06:57 ◼   ► I saw this on Kickstarter, it's called the Hello Sense.

00:07:00 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah.

00:07:01 ◼   ► - And it's like this thing that you put next to your bed

00:07:03 ◼   ► and then there's the thing that goes on the pillow.

00:07:05 ◼   ► I'm interested in something like this as well

00:07:08 ◼   ► because I don't know, like actually being on the pillow

00:07:11 ◼   ► it can maybe do some of that stuff

00:07:13 ◼   ► and then it doesn't need my phone.

00:07:15 ◼   ► So this follow up was given to Steven,

00:07:19 ◼   ► so I don't know anything more about what Ed said.

00:07:21 ◼   ► Steven just put it in the document before he went on his vision quest.

00:07:24 ◼   ► So if anybody has one of these things,

00:07:28 ◼   ► let me know on Twitter what you think about it. And I'll put a link in the show notes as well.

00:07:32 ◼   ► Or you could check out in our latest newsletter

00:07:36 ◼   ► John as a

00:07:39 ◼   ► mini review of the Hello Sense.

00:07:43 ◼   ► Look at that. And do you know what just happened to me? Just as right now I have a

00:07:46 ◼   ► notification pop up on my Mac from John Voorhees that says

00:07:50 ◼   ► "haha the hellosense is what I wrote about in the newsletter" so I'm getting this information

00:07:55 ◼   ► from multiple sources. Well there you go then. If you've opened your Twitter application

00:08:02 ◼   ► to compose a tweet to tell me, I don't want to know anymore because I'm going to find

00:08:07 ◼   ► out from John.

00:08:08 ◼   ► It's fine, we're going to read.

00:08:11 ◼   ► So you should do what I'm going to, I'm going to wait for my newsletter because I am a diligent

00:08:16 ◼   ► Club Max stories member.

00:08:17 ◼   ► Oh thank you, oh thank you.

00:08:18 ◼   ► But if you're not a Club Max Stories member and you want to know what John Hoggies thinks

00:08:23 ◼   ► of the Hello Sense.

00:08:24 ◼   ► Or if you're not diligent also.

00:08:25 ◼   ► You gotta be a good member like Myke.

00:08:29 ◼   ► You gotta be.

00:08:30 ◼   ► I mean, otherwise what's the point?

00:08:31 ◼   ► And by the way, that is Hello Sense S-E-N-S-E.

00:08:36 ◼   ► We've already had somebody in the chat room that thought I was referring to the currency

00:08:40 ◼   ► denomination of Scent.

00:08:43 ◼   ► But no, it is Sense.

00:08:47 ◼   ► So there you go.

00:08:48 ◼   ► So some sleep tracking applications and tools and some ways to spend some money

00:08:52 ◼   ► That's that's what this show is all about which I guess brings me into talking about my hue lights

00:08:57 ◼   ► Okay, I'm in love with them

00:09:00 ◼   ► I just feel like we went from you not owning any home automation stuff to loving your new lights

00:09:09 ◼   ► I didn't I didn't own a home though

00:09:11 ◼   ► You know, I didn't have a place on my own now I do we got lamps you see we bought lamps

00:09:16 ◼   ► Okay, so you bought lamps

00:09:18 ◼   ► Lamps and to let have two lights in them

00:09:21 ◼   ► They have a big light and then they have like a reading light that you can move around, right? Okay

00:09:25 ◼   ► Yes, so I bought a starter kit which came with three bulbs and like the hub and they were for the big lights

00:09:31 ◼   ► so I put those in set it all up and

00:09:33 ◼   ► Both of us completely fell in love with this like me and Adina just absolutely love this system

00:09:39 ◼   ► Having the lights and turning them on by using the echo

00:09:43 ◼   ► and changing the colors and changing the brightness

00:09:46 ◼   ► We're both really into it. Like we really really love it. So I then bought on the same day

00:09:53 ◼   ► two more bulbs the smaller bulbs to go in the other lamp and

00:09:57 ◼   ► I've been meaning to get a lamp for my office

00:10:00 ◼   ► So instead I bought one of the hue go lamps those little portable things so I can keep it on my desk and we can

00:10:06 ◼   ► Move it around so we are totally in on the Philips hue

00:10:09 ◼   ► lifestyle and

00:10:11 ◼   ► There's a couple of things that I really like I am very surprised by how awesome

00:10:15 ◼   ► The homekit switches are in control center. Yeah. Yeah, just and it's not because I thought that they would be bad

00:10:24 ◼   ► I just hadn't really thought about it

00:10:26 ◼   ► Because I was I was very focused on getting this stuff to work with my echo

00:10:31 ◼   ► Yeah, but the homekit switches are super easy to use

00:10:35 ◼   ► I'm was very surprised just how easy it was for me to share my

00:10:40 ◼   ► homekit data with Adina. You can just do it in settings, you just share it with somebody

00:10:47 ◼   ► else's iCloud account and it shows up for her and anything else that I added automatically

00:10:51 ◼   ► showed up. And it's on all of my iOS devices. I've got to say, people think that I'm down

00:10:58 ◼   ► on homekit. I'm not down on homekit. I actually think now I have some homekit devices. I think

00:11:03 ◼   ► homekit is incredible, but there's just not enough product, especially in Europe. My concern

00:11:09 ◼   ► is and what annoys me is there aren't enough HomeKit devices that I'm able to purchase.

00:11:15 ◼   ► And as I said before, I really want my devices, all of my home automation things to be HomeKit

00:11:22 ◼   ► enabled and also for the Amazon line of product. Because I want to make sure that I'm in both

00:11:29 ◼   ► camps because I really like the Echo. I think the Echo works very well. Our favorite way

00:11:35 ◼   ► to turn this stuff on and off is to speak to the echo because it gets us every time

00:11:39 ◼   ► and I feel that with Siri it doesn't. I find that trickier and also I don't like the audible

00:11:49 ◼   ► invoking of Siri where you say the "Hey telephone" thing. I find that to not work very well and

00:11:55 ◼   ► I have it turned off on my devices because I don't want my iPhone picking up that from

00:12:00 ◼   ► anywhere because you know these things get accidentally triggered so I find that we find

00:12:08 ◼   ► that we like the echo we have a couple of those in the house and it's a great way for

00:12:11 ◼   ► us to turn it on and off but I did use Siri and Siri can do some really great stuff like

00:12:16 ◼   ► change the brightness level it can dim the the hue lights which I haven't been able to

00:12:21 ◼   ► get the echo to do I don't know if it can do it but I've struggled to get it to do it

00:12:27 ◼   ► So I mean kind of what I'm saying is honestly I want Apple to make an Echo.

00:12:33 ◼   ► That's what I want.

00:12:34 ◼   ► Yeah that's a dream right?

00:12:36 ◼   ► Because I would use Siri in the same way that I use the Echo but I find the Echo to be better

00:12:42 ◼   ► at understanding me because it is just a cylinder of microphones like it's going to.

00:12:47 ◼   ► The technology is focused completely around that where on the iPhone there's a lot of

00:12:53 ◼   ► things going on.

00:12:54 ◼   ► So I think that all of the HomeKit stuff is really good and when I've used Siri for it,

00:13:02 ◼   ► it's worked well, it's worked fine, it's worked as good as the Echo.

00:13:05 ◼   ► But I can't get Siri to work for me in the way that the Echo works for me.

00:13:11 ◼   ► We have two in the house now, we have one in my office and one in the front room/kitchen.

00:13:16 ◼   ► And we can be in any room in the house and it will hear us because we have those two.

00:13:22 ◼   ► We just talk to it from anywhere in the house.

00:13:24 ◼   ► We don't have to have any other devices with us,

00:13:26 ◼   ► they don't have to be on us.

00:13:28 ◼   ► You know, we always have our watches on, our Apple Watches,

00:13:31 ◼   ► but that doesn't always work with Siri, right?

00:13:32 ◼   ► Like you press it and it's like,

00:13:34 ◼   ► "Hey, give me a minute, I'll tap you."

00:13:35 ◼   ► Which is like the worst possible thing that device can do.

00:13:39 ◼   ► So anyway, I like that I'm able to control

00:13:41 ◼   ► all of these things in a bunch of different ways.

00:13:43 ◼   ► Echo is our favorite way to do it,

00:13:46 ◼   ► but I'm really, really impressed with the Hue lights,

00:13:48 ◼   ► like really impressed with them.

00:13:51 ◼   ► There's something about the comparison between the Echo and Siri that it's not easy to convey.

00:13:58 ◼   ► And I think it boils down to the fact that the Echo feels nice to use.

00:14:05 ◼   ► It's just nice.

00:14:08 ◼   ► You can talk to it and listen to music.

00:14:11 ◼   ► You can have multiple Echos around the house and it picks up depending on what's the nearest one.

00:14:19 ◼   ► It only activates that one.

00:14:21 ◼   ► And I feel like you can do-- so if you were to write an article,

00:14:26 ◼   ► comparing Siri to the Echo, there's so many areas where Siri is superior

00:14:33 ◼   ► to what Amazon is doing.

00:14:35 ◼   ► But the single fact that you have this cylinder of microphones

00:14:40 ◼   ► that listen to you, that understand you, and that

00:14:42 ◼   ► liberate you from having to activate a phone or a watch,

00:14:49 ◼   ► and it works with so many devices, it's just so easy and so nice.

00:14:53 ◼   ► And I can do the same things with Siri, I can actually do better things sometimes.

00:14:58 ◼   ► For example, with Hue lights, you can specify colors by name.

00:15:04 ◼   ► So you can say like "turn my lights white".

00:15:07 ◼   ► And Siri has a deeper vocabulary than the...

00:15:09 ◼   ► I didn't know that, that's awesome.

00:15:10 ◼   ► Yeah, as a deeper vocabulary of actions.

00:15:13 ◼   ► Because Apple is actually doing good work, you know,

00:15:15 ◼   ► with supporting multiple dictionaries and multiple languages, that's nice.

00:15:21 ◼   ► But it's not as nice as just, you know, you're washing the dishes or you're cooking

00:15:26 ◼   ► and you just turn around and speak to the echo and you're done.

00:15:30 ◼   ► Or you can just summon any type of music. So that's nice.

00:15:34 ◼   ► But I also want to agree with you when you say the control center is pretty great.

00:15:41 ◼   ► And I don't know...

00:15:45 ◼   ► But my impression is that the Control Center redesign

00:15:51 ◼   ► isn't as appreciated by tech people, techies that I follow on Twitter,

00:15:58 ◼   ► as it should be. And I think splitting up on multiple pages

00:16:02 ◼   ► the system shortcuts, the music shortcuts, and the HomeKit stuff,

00:16:08 ◼   ► I think it makes a lot of sense and I'm a fan of... I'm gonna use this point to make another.

00:16:19 ◼   ► I'm a fan of HomeKit in Control Center because it allows me to control my home in silence just by tapping.

00:16:27 ◼   ► And I think the HomeKit page in Control Center is the strongest argument in favor of a future series that you should be able to text with.

00:16:36 ◼   ► because I want to do it in silence.

00:16:38 ◼   ► Just like I can control my home by tapping and swiping in Control Center,

00:16:43 ◼   ► I want to do the same with all of the other things that Siri can do.

00:16:48 ◼   ► And I'm gonna give you some tips, Myke,

00:16:50 ◼   ► or if you didn't read my review or if you just don't know.

00:16:56 ◼   ► So you can long tap the lights in Control Center.

00:17:00 ◼   ► Oh yeah, and you can dim them, right?

00:17:02 ◼   ► You can dim them, but you can also tap on color.

00:17:05 ◼   ► you can switch the colors from Control Center and you can actually tap the Edit button

00:17:10 ◼   ► and you get this color wheel inside Control Center.

00:17:13 ◼   ► That's pretty cool.

00:17:14 ◼   ► So yeah, that's very cool.

00:17:16 ◼   ► I like that, I like that, I like the little dimming thing, I like that it's like this big switch that pops up.

00:17:21 ◼   ► Again, like in great design, you don't have to put your finger on the little grabber.

00:17:27 ◼   ► Like you can just move it up and down from wherever your finger currently is.

00:17:31 ◼   ► It's very well made, it's all very well done.

00:17:33 ◼   ► But it really honestly feels to me like the HomeKit software team is further ahead than

00:17:40 ◼   ► the hardware stuff.

00:17:42 ◼   ► Because I mean I don't know what it is about the certifications or whatever, or if the

00:17:47 ◼   ► chips are expensive, I don't know.

00:17:49 ◼   ► But it seems like there's something there which is making less products.

00:17:52 ◼   ► I mean there are products, and see then it's like I want to try and buy products that can

00:17:57 ◼   ► be used for both things, but currently it's really difficult to find stuff like switches

00:18:02 ◼   ► in the UK and in Europe that work with both. They exist in the US but not here.

00:18:09 ◼   ► There was an article last week, John linked it on Mac Stories, about the differences between

00:18:14 ◼   ► certification for the Amazon Echo and HomeKit. And whereas with Amazon you can get approved

00:18:21 ◼   ► for the Echo in like less than a week, really. Some companies it took them 4 to 5 months

00:18:28 ◼   ► to be approved by Apple. So it's a very long process. I don't know if Apple is doing something

00:18:32 ◼   ► wrong or I don't know if this is by design because you want to test for several months.

00:18:38 ◼   ► Does seem to me like it's a little too long. Maybe if you can get it down to, you know,

00:18:43 ◼   ► only takes a month, then you have one week versus a month. But Apple certification is a lot more

00:18:49 ◼   ► rigorous and it makes sure that all of your devices are secure. Four to five months

00:18:58 ◼   ► It seems a bit too long.

00:19:00 ◼   ► Yeah, like I'm all for the security aspect.

00:19:03 ◼   ► Like that's really great.

00:19:04 ◼   ► Like I'm pleased that that is there.

00:19:05 ◼   ► And yeah, it is.

00:19:06 ◼   ► But you know, you know what happens if if you don't have any home kit devices,

00:19:11 ◼   ► then you end up buying devices from the competition, which

00:19:15 ◼   ► defeat the whole purpose of wanting to make sure that your customers are secure.

00:19:19 ◼   ► Yeah, I feel there has to be a balance between convenience and security.

00:19:23 ◼   ► And some of that convenience comes in there actually being the products available.

00:19:28 ◼   ► And you can make the same argument about services, you know.

00:19:31 ◼   ► If Apple doesn't improve their services and people switch to something else, then what?

00:19:36 ◼   ► You're just making sure that people buy your phone but then you put their data into someone else's bucket, basically.

00:19:42 ◼   ► Yeah, and at least it feels like Apple's cause on security and stuff is like a philosophical thing.

00:19:50 ◼   ► So if that is it, then you should be protecting your customers from needing to go and do those things, I guess.

00:19:56 ◼   ► So I guess our conclusion is we like HomeKit, we want to give Apple our money, but there's

00:20:03 ◼   ► just not enough stuff, at least in Europe.

00:20:05 ◼   ► So fingers crossed for the future maybe?

00:20:08 ◼   ► I think so.

00:20:09 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:20:10 ◼   ► Today's episode of Connected is brought to you by Mack Walden.

00:20:15 ◼   ► Mack Walden makes fantastic clothing.

00:20:18 ◼   ► They make underwear, socks, shirts, undershirts, hoodies and sweatpants.

00:20:22 ◼   ► And if you're wearing any of these items of clothing and they're not Mack Walden, well

00:20:25 ◼   ► I can tell you with some certainty that what Mac World and makes is better than what you're wearing right now

00:20:31 ◼   ► Because they believe in smart design premium fabrics and simple shopping also with great prices

00:20:37 ◼   ► I've bought some Mac world and stuff. They were kind enough to arrange for me to get some stuff sent over and

00:20:43 ◼   ► I absolutely love all of the things that I have there. The quality is so good. I bought some

00:20:51 ◼   ► sweatpants which I talk about a bunch and I bought some some other items of underwear Federico and I think that they're very

00:20:58 ◼   ► Comfortable and I like them a lot and I like the patterns

00:21:01 ◼   ► I got these bright orange thing ones with all these fantastic patterns on them and the I could get the socks and the

00:21:07 ◼   ► Boxes to match which it makes me feel fancy if I can wear a matching pattern, you know

00:21:15 ◼   ► You gotta feel fancy every once in a while and Mack one unless you do that

00:21:19 ◼   ► They also have a line of silver underwear and undershirts that are naturally anti-microbial

00:21:24 ◼   ► That means that they get rid of odor

00:21:27 ◼   ► It's all fancy science stuff around their Macworld and that's what they believe in but and they also want you to be comfortable

00:21:33 ◼   ► This is very important to them. These are the types of clothing that they make they want you to be comfortable

00:21:38 ◼   ► So if you don't like what you buy from Macworld, if you do not like your first pair

00:21:42 ◼   ► Just keep it and they'll refund you no questions asked. They don't want you to send the underwear back

00:21:48 ◼   ► Please don't send it back, keep it and they'll give you the money back if you don't like

00:21:53 ◼   ► it.

00:21:54 ◼   ► But I'm very confident that you will.

00:21:56 ◼   ► Mac Weldon's underwear, socks and shirts look good and perform well.

00:22:00 ◼   ► They're going to be great if you're going out on a date, if you're just going to work

00:22:04 ◼   ► or even just lounging around the house or I don't know, getting on an airplane and wanting

00:22:09 ◼   ► to be comfortable for 12 hours.

00:22:11 ◼   ► listeners of this show can get 20% off at Macworldon.com with the code connected. That

00:22:16 ◼   ► is M-A-C-K-W-E-L-D-O-N.com. Code connected for 20% off. Thank you so much to Macworldon

00:22:24 ◼   ► for their support of this show and Relay FM. Super Mario Run.

00:22:29 ◼   ► Okay, so we're going to talk about video games. Video games. Okay, so today, which is January

00:22:36 ◼   ► the

00:22:43 ◼   ► about how Super Mario Run has been performing on the Apple App Store, the iOS App Store.

00:22:50 ◼   ► Nintendo has disclosed that the game has been downloaded more than 78 million times worldwide and

00:22:57 ◼   ► just over 5% of these people have paid for the in-app purchase which has generated them around

00:23:04 ◼   ► 53 million dollars in revenue.

00:23:08 ◼   ► Apparently 5% is a very impressive conversion rate based on the mobile gaming industry, but Nintendo are not happy

00:23:16 ◼   ► They were hoping for a double-digit conversion rate and they consider Super Mario run to not have met their expectations

00:23:23 ◼   ► Yeah, basically 5% conversion rate at $10 is very high by mobile standards

00:23:31 ◼   ► But Nintendo were hoping to get I guess something like 20% conversion rate

00:23:36 ◼   ► So I don't know what they're gonna do. They rolled out some changes today such as an easy mode, for example,

00:23:42 ◼   ► that makes the game easier for people, you get infinite bubbles when running through a level and also you don't get a time limit anymore.

00:23:49 ◼   ► So I guess Nintendo is finding themselves in the strange position that we were

00:23:54 ◼   ► we were discussing this was gonna happen.

00:23:57 ◼   ► They're appealing to both

00:24:00 ◼   ► hardcore Nintendo fans and

00:24:03 ◼   ► people who just browse the App Store and don't care about Nintendo's history or

00:24:07 ◼   ► Nintendo's, you know, games quality. They just see a free game and they see it's

00:24:12 ◼   ► $10 and whatever I'm not gonna pay $10. So it's a very strange and odd position

00:24:18 ◼   ► for Nintendo to be in and they better get used to this because they're gonna

00:24:22 ◼   ► do more mobile games. In fact the next Nintendo game Fire Emblem Heroes I think

00:24:28 ◼   ► It's launching in what, two days?

00:24:31 ◼   ► - Comes out on Thursday, yeah.

00:24:32 ◼   ► - Comes out on Thursday, iOS and Android,

00:24:35 ◼   ► which is a change from Super Mario Run,

00:24:37 ◼   ► which launched on the iPhone and iPad exclusively at first.

00:24:41 ◼   ► And also Fire Emblem,

00:24:43 ◼   ► it seems like Polygon has an overview today.

00:24:46 ◼   ► It seems like it's more in line

00:24:48 ◼   ► with the classic free-to-play mechanics of mobile games.

00:24:53 ◼   ► So, you know, 5% of $10 is fine.

00:24:57 ◼   ► Nintendo was hoping for more, but I'm not surprised.

00:25:00 ◼   ► No, neither am I.

00:25:03 ◼   ► I wonder if one thing I wonder is, did they expect 78 million downloads?

00:25:08 ◼   ► Because they may have not got the the percentage that they were looking for.

00:25:13 ◼   ► But I wonder how the revenue has been for them.

00:25:16 ◼   ► Like if they consider that revenue to be more or less than what they expected as well.

00:25:21 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:25:22 ◼   ► Also, Nintendo announced today that Animal Crossing has been delayed.

00:25:26 ◼   ► They said that it won't be in this financial year,

00:25:31 ◼   ► it will arrive in the next financial year,

00:25:34 ◼   ► which means sometime between April 2017 and March 2018.

00:25:39 ◼   ► So they're being very cagey about this.

00:25:41 ◼   ► So they've delayed it.

00:25:42 ◼   ► I reckon Animal Crossing could be a big hit

00:25:45 ◼   ► for mobile platforms, is to do it right.

00:25:48 ◼   ► My theory about this Federico is that it will be coming

00:25:51 ◼   ► in maybe in sometime in May, April, May time,

00:25:55 ◼   ► but they're deciding to put all of their marketing focus on the Switch.

00:25:58 ◼   ► Yeah, could be.

00:25:59 ◼   ► Or they're just spending more time making sure that they can squeeze all of the free-to-play money

00:26:06 ◼   ► there is in Animal Crossing.

00:26:07 ◼   ► I'm worried about this.

00:26:08 ◼   ► I'm worried that this conversion rate is going to push them to be more aggressive.

00:26:13 ◼   ► Exactly.

00:26:14 ◼   ► And I want to ask you,

00:26:16 ◼   ► do you feel like this 5% conversion rate could have been better

00:26:21 ◼   ► if the game didn't have an online requirement?

00:26:24 ◼   ► No.

00:26:25 ◼   ► Because I can tell you.

00:26:27 ◼   ► It would have been better, but I don't think that this is the reason that it wasn't 10%,

00:26:32 ◼   ► for example.

00:26:33 ◼   ► I think it's definitely going to make an effect to people.

00:26:37 ◼   ► But I'm not sure that it would have been that big of a hit for them, honestly.

00:26:47 ◼   ► I just see, you know, we went on vacation and Sylvia wanted to play the game, other

00:26:54 ◼   ► friends of mine wanted to play the game so much,

00:26:57 ◼   ► but without an internet connection, they couldn't,

00:26:59 ◼   ► because we were in the mountains,

00:27:01 ◼   ► and then we were abroad, and we didn't have the internet,

00:27:03 ◼   ► so they couldn't play.

00:27:05 ◼   ► - Oh, it's super annoying.

00:27:06 ◼   ► It's super annoying.

00:27:06 ◼   ► I hit it all the time.

00:27:08 ◼   ► It's one of my favorite iOS games of all time.

00:27:11 ◼   ► I love it, but I can't play it as much as I want to,

00:27:16 ◼   ► because I might be underground.

00:27:19 ◼   ► Or sometimes I come on the train,

00:27:21 ◼   ► Like an overground train and I have a connection, I have a decent connection, but it's like,

00:27:26 ◼   ► nope, not good enough.

00:27:27 ◼   ► Like what is the problem?

00:27:30 ◼   ► It not only requires an internet connection, it seems to require a very strong internet

00:27:35 ◼   ► connection.

00:27:36 ◼   ► Yes, it needs to be a strong one because I don't know what it needs to do, but it needs

00:27:41 ◼   ► to be a solid one.

00:27:42 ◼   ► Like if you have a poor single bar of 3G, that's not going to cut it.

00:27:47 ◼   ► It's going to say you need a stronger internet connection.

00:27:50 ◼   ► I do wonder at this point, so we are already seeing that the next game Fire Emblem is going

00:27:56 ◼   ► to push more aggressively for free to play mechanics, you know, with in-app purchases,

00:28:01 ◼   ► with gems, whatever.

00:28:03 ◼   ► So I'm wondering now it's going to be a descent into the standards of free to play.

00:28:10 ◼   ► So they started with Super Mario Run, beautiful, elegant game, only asks you to pay $10 once.

00:28:16 ◼   ► Then they're gonna do Fire Emblem, which seems to be more aggressive than Mario Run.

00:28:21 ◼   ► What's gonna happen with Animal Crossing?

00:28:23 ◼   ► Because Animal Crossing is perfect material for free-to-play stuff, whether it's buying

00:28:28 ◼   ► coins or buying objects in the game.

00:28:31 ◼   ► It just seems like Nintendo is, you know, they kinda hit a wall, which is people, and

00:28:37 ◼   ► now they're gonna figure out a plan to be like everybody else.

00:28:41 ◼   ► Which kinda concerns me, and...

00:28:43 ◼   ► Yeah, and it feels counter to everything that they were saying when the game came out, right?

00:28:49 ◼   ► Like, and that's weird to me.

00:28:51 ◼   ► It's like you read this big deal about how nice the game was and how good you were gonna be.

00:28:56 ◼   ► But now, I don't know. I don't know.

00:28:59 ◼   ► I don't want to see them go down this hole.

00:29:02 ◼   ► I don't think this is the right solution to this conversion rate problem.

00:29:08 ◼   ► But maybe we just need to, maybe we are wrong Myke.

00:29:13 ◼   ► Maybe we just need to accept that there is consoles and on video game consoles you get traditional games that you pay $50.

00:29:23 ◼   ► And when it comes to phones you just play that stuff.

00:29:27 ◼   ► And that's fine because a lot of people have fun with that.

00:29:30 ◼   ► A lot of my people play Clash of Clans and what's the other name I don't know.

00:29:34 ◼   ► God of War? No. Something of War?

00:29:38 ◼   ► No, no, no, from the same company.

00:29:41 ◼   ► Oh, Clash Royale?

00:29:42 ◼   ► Yes, that one.

00:29:43 ◼   ► And a lot of my people, my friends love it, right?

00:29:47 ◼   ► They spend a lot of time with it and it's fine.

00:29:49 ◼   ► I look at their phones kind of in a mix of surprise and disgust, but I know I'm wrong

00:29:55 ◼   ► because I shouldn't be disgusted because that's a game and people have fun with it.

00:29:58 ◼   ► It's just me, I'm stuck in my...

00:30:00 ◼   ► I play them, you know.

00:30:01 ◼   ► I play those games.

00:30:02 ◼   ► I'm stuck in my ideas of what video games should be.

00:30:05 ◼   ► But maybe I should just grow up and accept that this is what games are today on phones

00:30:10 ◼   ► and it's fine, people like them, there's money to be made and me and you are the problem

00:30:14 ◼   ► not the games.

00:30:15 ◼   ► Maybe that's what we need to discuss.

00:30:16 ◼   ► There are ways to make games like this.

00:30:19 ◼   ► Are there?

00:30:20 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:30:21 ◼   ► There are.

00:30:22 ◼   ► I mean I will always come back to it, but PewDiePie, Tuba Simulator is an in-app purchase

00:30:26 ◼   ► game that has those things in it and it has all the time limit stuff.

00:30:31 ◼   ► But it's done in such a way that it doesn't feel like it's forcing you to give money.

00:30:39 ◼   ► And I feel it's because it was made in collaboration with someone who really understands video

00:30:44 ◼   ► games and has a taste.

00:30:47 ◼   ► And honestly that game, of all of the free to play, in-app purchase based games that

00:30:51 ◼   ► I've played, it's the one where I haven't really felt the need to give any money to

00:30:56 ◼   ► it at all.

00:30:57 ◼   ► I did because it was a game that I liked enough that I wanted to support it.

00:31:01 ◼   ► But while I've got the kind of the, I can't remember, it's like Chubabox or something

00:31:07 ◼   ► right which will speed stuff up, I didn't need them.

00:31:12 ◼   ► They didn't really speed up my game in any way.

00:31:15 ◼   ► Everything else was fine as it was and I kind of kept that, like the gems or whatever it

00:31:20 ◼   ► would be around for long enough that I ended up just spending them on little things to

00:31:24 ◼   ► put in the room that you have, which I didn't need just because I saw I could spend them.

00:31:30 ◼   ► It's a great way to for the type of game that is to be made. But we'll see. I mean, I hope

00:31:35 ◼   ► that Nintendo are focusing on that and Animal Crossing won't just be like pay us $50 to

00:31:41 ◼   ► speed up your crops and all that stuff.

00:31:43 ◼   ► That's going to happen for sure.

00:31:45 ◼   ► It can be done well. And I just hope that they find a way to do that. There is a new

00:31:51 ◼   ► application that came out today that a friend of the show has been mentioned many times

00:31:57 ◼   ► already today, John Voorhees wrote a review about for this website called MacStories.

00:32:02 ◼   ► Which I'm familiar with.

00:32:03 ◼   ► Hate that website.

00:32:04 ◼   ► It's terrible isn't it?

00:32:05 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:32:06 ◼   ► Anyway, it's called Linea.

00:32:08 ◼   ► Or Linea, which is an application from the IconFactory.

00:32:12 ◼   ► It is a sketching app.

00:32:15 ◼   ► So akin to something like Paper I think is probably the one it's closest to, Paper by

00:32:20 ◼   ► by 53 because it's not an application like Procreate which is full of a million tools.

00:32:25 ◼   ► This has like five tools or something and a bunch of color selections. The tools are

00:32:29 ◼   ► really good. I like them. I was playing around with the application today. Really I think

00:32:33 ◼   ► you can use it with your finger but I think this is really made for the pencil on the

00:32:38 ◼   ► iPad Pro primarily. I like that the UI gets out of the way. This is a problem I have with

00:32:46 ◼   ► paper by 53. I feel like the UI is constantly fighting to get it to hide and come back again,

00:32:52 ◼   ► but it seems like the icon factory has done a really good job of basically just putting a

00:32:56 ◼   ► button on the user interface to bring and hide the tools which I think is great.

00:33:02 ◼   ► When you're using the Apple Pencil, if you use your finger, it turns your finger is an eraser,

00:33:08 ◼   ► so you can draw with the pencil and then just erase with your finger. I love that. You can tell

00:33:13 ◼   ► that this application has been made by somebody who actually would use it, right? Like an artist,

00:33:19 ◼   ► like a designer, which obviously that's what the Arkham Factory is all about.

00:33:23 ◼   ► The color selection tools are brilliant. So you pick a color and it gives you a selection of shades

00:33:29 ◼   ► that work with that color. So other colors that work with that color. So you can mix and match

00:33:34 ◼   ► things quite nicely, especially good for design. It has great sharing tools. It has a bunch of paper

00:33:40 ◼   ► the

00:34:00 ◼   ► It has great sharing options as well.

00:34:03 ◼   ► You can share the entire thing that you've drawn on, you can select an area of it and

00:34:06 ◼   ► share it.

00:34:07 ◼   ► It has a very bold price which is $9.99.

00:34:10 ◼   ► And I say that, again, $9.99 is not the most amount of money in the world, but in context

00:34:17 ◼   ► of the App Store economy, a $9.99 application is...

00:34:20 ◼   ► Yeah, people are going to say it's expensive.

00:34:23 ◼   ► Yeah, because it is expensive in context, and the context is other apps.

00:34:29 ◼   ► We're not talking about how many lattes you're buying, we're talking about applications.

00:34:34 ◼   ► And in the context of applications, that is an expensive application.

00:34:38 ◼   ► But I bought it because I wanted to try it out and I'm pleased that I have it and honestly

00:34:41 ◼   ► I think that this will probably become a replacement for paper by 53 for me because the UI is more

00:34:51 ◼   ► what I want.

00:34:53 ◼   ► I guess the only thing, I mean look I'm already asking for stuff, but the only thing that

00:34:57 ◼   ► that will be down for me is, and this was more of a thing

00:35:01 ◼   ► when we were buying furniture and stuff.

00:35:03 ◼   ► Paper has an iPhone app,

00:35:05 ◼   ► and I was able to draw stuff out on my iPad

00:35:08 ◼   ► and then when we were in IKEA measuring stuff up,

00:35:11 ◼   ► I was able to open the paper iPhone app

00:35:13 ◼   ► and see everything that I'd written.

00:35:15 ◼   ► Now I guess one way around this

00:35:16 ◼   ► and how I would get around this if I was using linear

00:35:18 ◼   ► would just be to export all of my images to Apple Notes

00:35:22 ◼   ► and I could view them there, but just a thought.

00:35:25 ◼   ► But it's just like, again, just a slight change

00:35:26 ◼   ► my workflow for what I actually think is a better app for what I need, which is basic

00:35:30 ◼   ► sketches and stuff like that.

00:35:33 ◼   ► Again, one other thing that I would love to see them implement is a way to bring in images

00:35:39 ◼   ► into the application because one thing that I've used paper in the past for is to kind

00:35:45 ◼   ► of wireframe stuff and to like bring some images in and say like, oh, I want to change

00:35:50 ◼   ► this, I want to change that.

00:35:51 ◼   ► And I have other applications on my iPad that can do stuff like that, but I think it would

00:35:56 ◼   ► be really nice considering this is an application that I'm expecting will be

00:35:59 ◼   ► used by a lot of designers. Like let's say you could bring in a screenshot of

00:36:03 ◼   ► an app that you're working on and you could have that on one side and then you

00:36:07 ◼   ► could draw out the new UI on the other side. So I think that would be kind of

00:36:10 ◼   ► cool if they could maybe find a way to bring images in but just for like

00:36:13 ◼   ► scribbling and and sketching stuff out and making some notes and in an artistic

00:36:18 ◼   ► way I think this is a really great application for it and I recommend

00:36:22 ◼   ► people trying it, especially if you have a pencil for your iPad Pro. Yeah and if

00:36:27 ◼   ► you go check out the review on Mac stories you can see which are the

00:36:31 ◼   ► images that John drew and which are the default ones so obviously John drew the

00:36:36 ◼   ► Tiger. Yeah great Tiger drawing. Great Tiger John, great job and the chart with

00:36:40 ◼   ► the Synergy and the Corporations obviously is one of the default images.

00:36:44 ◼   ► Stock, yes stock image. Stock image, so great job John with the review and the Tiger, well done.

00:36:49 ◼   ► I heard he did that in four minutes that tiger. Oh, that's what she one of the skills that you develop by working at max stories

00:36:56 ◼   ► You know, we have a we have an intent

00:36:57 ◼   ► We have a we have an intense drawing course that you go through before starting to become a full-time writer. Yeah

00:37:03 ◼   ► And one of one of the one of the subjects are tigers

00:37:08 ◼   ► It's real Renaissance stuff, right? I mean this that is the Italian in you coming out some real some real Renaissance

00:37:16 ◼   ► I'm like, I'm just sitting down people and be like, okay, look, you need to cover the news,

00:37:21 ◼   ► you need to keep an eye on Apple rumors, and then you need to draw tigers.

00:37:25 ◼   ► And if you can't, you're out of here. Like I don't want nothing to do.

00:37:28 ◼   ► Part of the deal, you know?

00:37:28 ◼   ► Yeah, that's how it works.

00:37:29 ◼   ► Let's talk about Fitbit. So we were talking about Fitbit a couple of weeks ago when they bought Pebble.

00:37:36 ◼   ► Fitbit today, or yesterday, I think about it yesterday actually, announced a bunch of layoffs,

00:37:45 ◼   ► unfortunately. Fitbit, this is part of a pre kind of quarterly results information that

00:37:53 ◼   ► they were giving out to their investors. Fitbit have warned their investors that their upcoming

00:37:58 ◼   ► quarterly results are not going to be very good. They have apparently experienced what

00:38:03 ◼   ► they referred to as softer than expected demand for their product. I don't know, soft demand.

00:38:10 ◼   ► Softer than expected demand.

00:38:13 ◼   ► Fift feels like a word that somebody told them to say because it sounds less harsh.

00:38:17 ◼   ► It sounds kinda cute, softer than expected.

00:38:20 ◼   ► It's like there's people apologising for not buying Fitbits.

00:38:24 ◼   ► It's very strange.

00:38:26 ◼   ► That Fitbit are expected to land somewhere between $572 and $580 million in revenue for

00:38:33 ◼   ► Q4, but they targeted $725 million.

00:38:39 ◼   ► When they originally set this target between 725 and 750, their stock fell 30% when they

00:38:47 ◼   ► set the 750 target. But they're actually only going to hit between 572 and 580. So the investment

00:38:54 ◼   ► community already felt that 750 wasn't good enough. And now they've only hit like two

00:39:00 ◼   ► thirds of that.

00:39:01 ◼   ► Yeah. That's not good. I'm not an investor, but that doesn't seem good.

00:39:06 ◼   ► good at all. When you lose 30% of your stock price and then you don't even meet the target

00:39:12 ◼   ► that resulted in that fall, it's not good for your company. Fitbit are crediting slow

00:39:18 ◼   ► growth in mature markets as the reason for missing their targets. They've had growth

00:39:22 ◼   ► in some other markets like Europe, but I'm expecting that means the US, like existing

00:39:28 ◼   ► markets that they're already mature, like they've already done a lot of business in,

00:39:32 ◼   ► they haven't seen growth in those markets. Fitbit is going to lay off around 6% of their

00:39:36 ◼   ► which is roughly 110 people, but they are not discussing which parts of the business

00:39:41 ◼   ► will receive these layoffs. They are also looking to reduce operating expenses by $200

00:39:46 ◼   ► million this year, which makes this whole thing upsetting when you think that they just

00:39:50 ◼   ► spent $40 million on Pebble. $40 million is a lot of other people's jobs, right? And you

00:39:58 ◼   ► would assume that Fitbit knew this situation was bad before they made the acquisition?

00:40:05 ◼   ► It was like a month ago.

00:40:06 ◼   ► - Yeah, so I would expect that this 40 million

00:40:10 ◼   ► that they've spent on Pebble is kind of like a hail Mary

00:40:15 ◼   ► in the hopes that Pebble can help them push the company

00:40:19 ◼   ► in a new direction to maybe, quite frankly,

00:40:21 ◼   ► save them from going under.

00:40:24 ◼   ► 'Cause if they continue down this path, right,

00:40:25 ◼   ► that they, I mean, this is a bad path that they're on.

00:40:28 ◼   ► You know, they are, they're not doing

00:40:31 ◼   ► what their investors are expecting,

00:40:33 ◼   ► and then they are underperforming against those targets.

00:40:37 ◼   ► So I'm wondering if Pebble is kind of like a bad omen,

00:40:42 ◼   ► like is Fitbit going to go the same way that Pebble did?

00:40:47 ◼   ► - I think so, and I wouldn't be surprised

00:40:49 ◼   ► if Fitbit eventually sells out

00:40:52 ◼   ► to some company like Samsung, honestly.

00:40:55 ◼   ► That's what I see happening.

00:40:57 ◼   ► Consolidation in this market with some big phone company,

00:41:01 ◼   ► whether that's Samsung or HTC probably, buying up what's left of Fitbit and Pebble together.

00:41:10 ◼   ► I just don't see Fitbit working out as an independent company anymore.

00:41:15 ◼   ► With Apple Watch it's getting cheaper, with Samsung doing a pretty good job with their

00:41:20 ◼   ► gear stuff, there is a market for these cheaper fitness trackers.

00:41:29 ◼   ► I don't know if there is a market for a company that only does this type of thing.

00:41:33 ◼   ► I see these devices as accessories to a phone.

00:41:37 ◼   ► And to have an independent company that wants to have these big plans like Fitbit and then

00:41:43 ◼   ► missing out on projections and goals that they set for themselves, I just don't see

00:41:50 ◼   ► it working out in the long term, personally.

00:41:52 ◼   ► To point it out to us in the chatroom by the story so far, they also bought a company called

00:41:59 ◼   ► Vector which was a smartwatch company that's been operating in Europe. So Fitbit bought them as well

00:42:06 ◼   ► a couple of weeks ago. So I think at this point they are definitely seeing this smartwatch stuff

00:42:14 ◼   ► as their way through to this. But I am not sure. I think as it stands right now I don't think that

00:42:23 ◼   ► the market is big enough to support an independent company that just sells this stuff.

00:42:31 ◼   ► I think that these devices need to be part of a larger product offering as a way to build

00:42:38 ◼   ► an ecosystem, which is why companies like Huawei and Apple and Samsung can support this

00:42:45 ◼   ► because it ties into their phones and they might be able to take a bit of a loss on these

00:42:51 ◼   ► devices whilst they're trying to push it forward. Honestly from where we are right now of everything

00:42:57 ◼   ► that we know I cannot see smart watches being the revolution that people hoped they would

00:43:05 ◼   ► like smartphones. I don't see it. I don't see it because smartphones took off immediately.

00:43:12 ◼   ► Smart watches I don't know if they are. I like having mine in my life. I hope that these

00:43:16 ◼   ► devices are around for as long as I can think of because I like my Apple watch. I get a

00:43:22 ◼   ► lot of utility out of it but I really don't think that companies that just do this along

00:43:28 ◼   ► for this world because Fitbit will never be able to make a product as tied into the devices

00:43:36 ◼   ► as Apple can and as maybe a company that uses Android Wear and if a company is using Android

00:43:44 ◼   ► where there's kind of no reason that you would necessarily buy Fitbit. It's going to be whatever

00:43:51 ◼   ► one is the most aesthetically pleasing to you. And frankly, there are enough cell phone

00:43:58 ◼   ► makers in the world to give you the choice that you need with Android Wear watches. So

00:44:04 ◼   ► I don't know if Fitbit are going to be able to, honestly, I don't think they're going

00:44:08 ◼   ► to be able to pull this one out of the bag, which is a shame, but I just don't see the

00:44:13 ◼   ► market that they're trying to go for and trying to own. I don't see it.

00:44:19 ◼   ► It's a shame because a lot of people work there. Yeah it's a shame and it's

00:44:23 ◼   ► very sad and it makes me sad when our company you know goes under.

00:44:26 ◼   ► It's very sad. But I look at it this way. With the smartphone we had a new Sun.

00:44:35 ◼   ► Right? Let's talk about it in space terms. Let's do that. We had this Sun

00:44:40 ◼   ► And we were hoping with smartwatches and with other devices, we were hoping to find another sun.

00:44:48 ◼   ► Another big new thing that sustains everything.

00:44:52 ◼   ► And instead I think what we're ending up with is we're not discovering any new suns,

00:44:58 ◼   ► but we're developing a solar system with the smartphone at the center of everything

00:45:04 ◼   ► and smaller planets, accessories revolving around it. Whether that's home

00:45:10 ◼   ► automation or that's smartwatches and fitness trackers, mobile VR. I just feel

00:45:16 ◼   ► like we were so focused on the challenge of finding the next big thing

00:45:22 ◼   ► we just ended up building things around what we already had. And that's

00:45:28 ◼   ► not bad at all, you know, because the smartphone is the best computer we ever

00:45:32 ◼   ► But if you think about it, all of the next big things are ending up being

00:45:37 ◼   ► you know, planets, accessories to the to the phone. Moons even. Sometimes moons, not

00:45:45 ◼   ► even planets. So yeah, I agree with you on smartwatches and if you think about it

00:45:50 ◼   ► that's the same for VR and to an extent it maybe will be the same deal with

00:45:56 ◼   ► speakers in the home. So we'll see. Today's show is also brought to you by our

00:46:03 ◼   ► friends over at Encapsula, the cloud service that makes your website faster

00:46:07 ◼   ► and safer. They have a worldwide network that is able to inspect every single

00:46:11 ◼   ► packet that comes and goes from your lovely website and they will block

00:46:15 ◼   ► attacks against your site whilst delivering your content to your

00:46:18 ◼   ► customers faster and faster. Encapsula protects and accelerates over 4 million

00:46:23 ◼   ► and

00:46:42 ◼   ► with and trust me there are many companies that you know in that list.

00:46:45 ◼   ► They have tons of resources that you're able to take advantage of to help your website

00:46:49 ◼   ► load like a dream as well as a 24/7 operations team who are there whenever you need them.

00:46:56 ◼   ► They have over 100,000 customers and these customers own millions of websites that are

00:47:03 ◼   ► spread across the web.

00:47:04 ◼   ► Encapsular have got this covered.

00:47:05 ◼   ► You're going to be well protected.

00:47:07 ◼   ► You're in good company.

00:47:08 ◼   ► Your site will be lightning fast.

00:47:10 ◼   ► As a listener of this show you can get one whole month of service for free. All you need

00:47:14 ◼   ► to do is go to Encapsula.com/connected. That's I-N-C-A-P-S-U-L-A.com/connected. This is where

00:47:23 ◼   ► you'll find out more about Encapsula's great service and claim your free month. Thank you

00:47:27 ◼   ► so much to Encapsula for their support of this show and Relay FM.

00:47:33 ◼   ► So Federico, you were recently taking a trip

00:47:38 ◼   ► and you were doing as you always do,

00:47:40 ◼   ► like the David Attenborough of technology that you are,

00:47:43 ◼   ► you were observing your friends, making notes.

00:47:47 ◼   ► We do this every now and then.

00:47:48 ◼   ► Federico goes on a trip and he comes back to tell us

00:47:51 ◼   ► what the people who don't care about the comings and goings

00:47:55 ◼   ► of Apple and Fitbit, the kind of things that they use

00:47:59 ◼   ► on a daily basis.

00:48:00 ◼   ► So what have you observed, Federico?

00:48:03 ◼   ► So I went on a couple of trips, one for New Year's Eve and the other in Spain a couple

00:48:08 ◼   ► of weeks ago.

00:48:10 ◼   ► And I've been keeping track of, as I always do, stuff that people do with their smartphones

00:48:16 ◼   ► mostly and what apps they use and what services they use.

00:48:20 ◼   ► So I came up with a list and the first big trend that I saw and that I see as shared

00:48:28 ◼   ► by many many people is Instagram stories are actually taking off. A lot of people are using

00:48:36 ◼   ► them and they've become the default way to quickly share what you're up to without having

00:48:44 ◼   ► to post on Facebook or having the baggage of remembering that a picture is forever.

00:48:49 ◼   ► Instead these stories disappear after 24 hours but more importantly they're eating into Snapchat

00:48:57 ◼   ► success because Instagram copied Snapchat and now people are using it

00:49:04 ◼   ► more. There's even an article on TechCrunch today or yesterday I think about

00:49:08 ◼   ► the success of Instagram stories. So I asked my friends about it and the

00:49:15 ◼   ► response is exactly what we expected which is Snapchat had it before but now

00:49:22 ◼   ► that Instagram has it it's more convenient because I use Instagram

00:49:26 ◼   ► anyway. That's always been the response. And what I find interesting is two

00:49:31 ◼   ► things. One is just how much people use it. Again, multiple times a day, whether

00:49:37 ◼   ► it's for pictures, for animations, for videos, with stickers added on top, with

00:49:42 ◼   ► effects, with text added on top of a video. So people actually use the feature

00:49:48 ◼   ► in their entirety but also how people just don't care about who came first. We

00:49:58 ◼   ► and by we I mean you you know you and I and the people who listen to this show

00:50:02 ◼   ► we care about the some sort of moral thing. Yeah like the value of ideas. The

00:50:09 ◼   ► value of ideas and I think we have a we have we have some principles which is

00:50:14 ◼   ► is innovation, we should respect who came first.

00:50:18 ◼   ► And that's a whole other topic,

00:50:20 ◼   ► but people just don't care, man.

00:50:22 ◼   ► It's like when I mentioned Snapchat did it first,

00:50:25 ◼   ► they're like shrugging, be like, yeah, whatever,

00:50:27 ◼   ► but now Instagram has it, so I just wanna use Instagram.

00:50:30 ◼   ► - I mean, I know that I don't really post there as often

00:50:33 ◼   ► as I would like, I think,

00:50:36 ◼   ► but I very frequently will look at the Instagram stories

00:50:40 ◼   ► because I look at Instagram every day,

00:50:43 ◼   ► Like at some point in the day I'll open it up and I'll see a bunch of people who've got their stories and

00:50:47 ◼   ► I just flick through them and I don't do that with Snapchat so much honestly.

00:50:52 ◼   ► I experimented with Snapchat, you know, the last time I think me and you hosted the show together we spoke about it at length.

00:50:59 ◼   ► But frankly it's just not something that has stayed prevalent in my life.

00:51:05 ◼   ► Now this could be a European thing or an Italian thing, could be that my friends are not teenagers, they're 20-somethings.

00:51:12 ◼   ► But it's definitely a trend that I saw picking up in the past couple of months.

00:51:19 ◼   ► And especially with the holidays.

00:51:21 ◼   ► I feel like a lot more people are coming together and it's becoming a trend.

00:51:25 ◼   ► And now my Instagram is filled not just by the stories of the nerds that I know on Twitter and also follow on Instagram,

00:51:33 ◼   ► but normal people that I have on Facebook and now are also on Instagram.

00:51:37 ◼   ► So it's definitely the most important trend that I noticed.

00:51:42 ◼   ► The second one is gonna surprise you, Myke, and it's people don't mind paying for iCloud.

00:51:49 ◼   ► That's weird.

00:51:51 ◼   ► I should say I convinced many of my friends to pay, because that's what I do whenever

00:51:57 ◼   ► people say, "Hey, how do I free up some storage?"

00:52:01 ◼   ► It's like, at some point you gotta pay if you want more.

00:52:05 ◼   ► But by talking to a few friends of mine, it doesn't seem like they find iCloud so terrible

00:52:15 ◼   ► after all.

00:52:16 ◼   ► Because they say, "Look, it keeps my backups and it keeps my photos and videos.

00:52:21 ◼   ► It's a little bit annoying whenever you need to download a picture from iCloud and you

00:52:26 ◼   ► see the spinner, but I know I won't lose my pictures anymore and I know I will always

00:52:30 ◼   ► be able to restore from a backup.

00:52:32 ◼   ► So whether it's, you know, I gotta pay a euro every month or three euros, it's fine.

00:52:38 ◼   ► And I still think Apple should lower the price of iCloud plans and they should offer more

00:52:42 ◼   ► free storage, but I was surprised to see people not hating the idea of having to pay for an

00:52:49 ◼   ► additional service so much.

00:52:51 ◼   ► Hmm.

00:52:52 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:52:53 ◼   ► That is surprising to me.

00:52:55 ◼   ► I mean, I don't really think about it too much, but I do know that I don't think I get

00:53:00 ◼   ► value for money with my cloud storage compared to other companies.

00:53:06 ◼   ► Right. It doesn't I don't feel like I get enough storage for money that I pay.

00:53:10 ◼   ► Really? Yeah. I mean what am I on right now?

00:53:15 ◼   ► I mean I feel like so let me see what I have here.

00:53:20 ◼   ► So I'm on the 200 gigabyte plan which is

00:53:25 ◼   ► is two pound 50 a month.

00:53:27 ◼   ► I think it's okay, but I think that there should be more.

00:53:33 ◼   ► I think there should be more free storage

00:53:34 ◼   ► that you get, honestly.

00:53:36 ◼   ► - Yeah, I agree.

00:53:39 ◼   ► - I feel, I don't know, I feel like

00:53:41 ◼   ► that there needs to be more there.

00:53:43 ◼   ► I mean, I think that the value for money

00:53:45 ◼   ► really starts in like at what point

00:53:46 ◼   ► they start making you pay.

00:53:48 ◼   ► I mean, two pound 50 is not a lot of money,

00:53:50 ◼   ► but I feel like you're kind of,

00:53:54 ◼   ► maybe more than other services pushed into the paying tier quicker?

00:53:58 ◼   ► Yeah. I'm yeah, I agree.

00:54:01 ◼   ► I'm just going to say you should be able to keep your entire iMessage

00:54:06 ◼   ► backup in iCloud and restore it independently,

00:54:10 ◼   ► kind of like you can do with WhatsApp, you know, because it's, you know, the,

00:54:14 ◼   ► the entire iCloud backup system needs to be rethought

00:54:19 ◼   ► because it's either you restore everything

00:54:23 ◼   ► or you cannot handpick one at a time

00:54:26 ◼   ► the service or the app that you want to restore.

00:54:28 ◼   ► So I feel like there should be more flexibility,

00:54:31 ◼   ► there should be better integration with iMessage.

00:54:33 ◼   ► I should be able to do what I do with WhatsApp,

00:54:35 ◼   ► which is I keep it in iCloud,

00:54:37 ◼   ► I keep my conversations and I keep my attachments,

00:54:40 ◼   ► and then whenever I want,

00:54:41 ◼   ► I can just restore my conversations.

00:54:44 ◼   ► Instead with the iCloud backups,

00:54:46 ◼   ► you need to restore the entire device,

00:54:47 ◼   ► which is not convenient. Still, people pay for iCloud. I would love to have some stats from Apple, we're never gonna see them.

00:54:56 ◼   ► But yeah, it's definitely something that I noticed. Again, with something that I wasn't expecting,

00:55:04 ◼   ► and especially with a friend of mine who's from Spain, they use Siri quite a bit.

00:55:12 ◼   ► especially to send messages, to set timers, to do the usual, but the problems they mentioned

00:55:20 ◼   ► were kind of the same, which is when I have to search for something with a specific name,

00:55:30 ◼   ► Siri usually gets it wrong. And this complaint was mentioned quite often in relation to maps,

00:55:39 ◼   ► so searching for specific places in maps to load directions. But for everything

00:55:46 ◼   ► else, both Italian and Spanish friends, they said that they use Siri quite a bit

00:55:51 ◼   ► to set timers, play music, send messages, which is interesting because they said I

00:55:56 ◼   ► send messages both with iMessage and with WhatsApp, because now it's possible.

00:56:01 ◼   ► But I should say, for one of my friends I needed to explain to him how to enable

00:56:07 ◼   ► the WhatsApp integration because it couldn't figure out the iOS 10 Siri feature.

00:56:13 ◼   ► But now that it has the setting enabled, it uses it with WhatsApp every day, basically.

00:56:19 ◼   ► I've never even used a SiriKit thing.

00:56:22 ◼   ► Yeah. And I think if Apple manages to make it easier from the Siri interface to say which apps are supported now,

00:56:33 ◼   ► I know that you can tap the question mark and you need to scroll to the bottom, but

00:56:38 ◼   ► you get it.

00:56:39 ◼   ► It's like two steps that people are never going to see.

00:56:41 ◼   ► So if Apple makes it easier to see what are the integrations that Siri supports and if

00:56:46 ◼   ► they open up to more types of apps, I think Siri can honestly become quite a hit with

00:56:51 ◼   ► people.

00:56:52 ◼   ► But the complaint about searching and getting the name of a place wrong, if you think about

00:57:00 ◼   ► Search in any type of service, in any type of app, is one of Apple's weakest points.

00:57:06 ◼   ► Whether it's App Store search or Maps search, I think Apple needs to rethink their search engine everywhere.

00:57:16 ◼   ► But also dictating basically a name to Siri needs to get better.

00:57:23 ◼   ► Because whether it's a person's name or a place name or a business name, you know, for some store you want to go to,

00:57:30 ◼   ► when I think about it, it's not uncommon that Siri gets you wrong or that maps cannot find it.

00:57:35 ◼   ► Whether it's an accent or an apostrophe that I didn't put it in the name, it's crazy that you cannot find it, right?

00:57:42 ◼   ► So, you know, it is a problem, but I also found it interesting that people use Siri.

00:57:49 ◼   ► if you just read tech blogs they're gonna tell you "well nobody uses Siri". I don't

00:57:54 ◼   ► think that's accurate, I think people use Siri and I think people are surprisingly

00:57:57 ◼   ► into the idea of "syricate" even if they don't know what "syricate" means, but

00:58:03 ◼   ► Apple needs to do better, needs to make it easier to discover apps and needs to

00:58:07 ◼   ► open it up to more types of apps and needs to improve search and how you can

00:58:13 ◼   ► look for specific places and specific businesses with Siri and maps.

00:58:18 ◼   ► I would say that I definitely suffer from Siri prejudice in that I expect that I don't bother to

00:58:26 ◼   ► use any Siri kit and have never tried to even think about using any Siri kit integrations

00:58:33 ◼   ► because my expectation is just that Siri won't be able to do it and I know that that is

00:58:38 ◼   ► a bad assumption to make. I mean it's based on past history and of course Siri could have gotten

00:58:47 ◼   ► and a lot better, but I just have this like prejudicial assumption that it's just it's

00:58:52 ◼   ► just not going to work. Like I've already made my mind up before I even tried it. It's

00:58:56 ◼   ► like, no, it's not going to work. And I don't know how Apple break that, even if they need

00:59:03 ◼   ► to break it, because I'm sure that they know and have a much better idea of the usage numbers.

00:59:09 ◼   ► And if it does turn out that like people that aren't reading tech blogs, listen to the show

00:59:14 ◼   ► every day are using Siri like a bunch then they know how it's doing right? I mean from

00:59:20 ◼   ► my personal experience like family and friends I don't see people using it but your anecdotal

00:59:26 ◼   ► experience is of course very interesting right because that is a group of people that are

00:59:31 ◼   ► and it's not coming from any pushing from somebody like yourself to do it so I mean

00:59:38 ◼   ► I would be I'm interested to see of course how Apple continue to push Siri because I

00:59:42 ◼   ► I think that voice is, it is a new control interface that is really being explored now

00:59:48 ◼   ► a lot, right? And I hope that they're able to do something which really like brings me

00:59:56 ◼   ► back because frankly like the SiriKit stuff, it doesn't feel compelling enough to me. Like

01:00:02 ◼   ► I'm not like, oh, I have to order an Uber with my voice instead. Because that's just

01:00:10 ◼   ► not really super tied into that because I know it's going to take me longer. The to

01:00:16 ◼   ► and fro of dealing with Siri to order the Uber is going to take me longer than just

01:00:21 ◼   ► opening the app and pressing the button. Because I'm also going to be opening the app anyway

01:00:28 ◼   ► to check the progress of the person as they're coming to pick me up. Or from any, you know,

01:00:33 ◼   ► any driving service. I'm just picking Uber because it's one that I've used in the past.

01:00:38 ◼   ► So yeah, I don't know, I think that some of the Siri kit stuff hasn't worked the way that

01:00:42 ◼   ► I want it.

01:00:43 ◼   ► I mean honestly some of the things that I want and hope that they do would be for example

01:00:47 ◼   ► so I could choose a podcast from Overcast because I would do that quite a lot with Siri

01:00:51 ◼   ► but that isn't a current Siri kit integration which is crazy to me that they don't have

01:00:56 ◼   ► a Siri kit integration for audio playing applications but I hope that stuff happens because really

01:01:01 ◼   ► I think a lot of us just need the thing, whatever it is, that means that we'll start using it

01:01:06 ◼   ► a little bit more and it will open us up to more of it. But for me, none of the stuff

01:01:12 ◼   ► that they've put in has made me want to really kind of come back to it.

01:01:16 ◼   ► Mm-hmm. Yeah. Last two notes, Myke. This one is kind of obvious, but I guess we need to

01:01:26 ◼   ► mention it again. Especially in Italy and I guess in Europe, WhatsApp is the standard

01:01:32 ◼   ► for group conversations. iMessage is mostly used for one-to-one conversations in my experience,

01:01:39 ◼   ► especially with your partner if they also have an iPhone then you're going to use iMessage. I think

01:01:44 ◼   ► it makes more sense but whenever we need to arrange something, right, whether it's we're

01:01:49 ◼   ► going out for dinner or we're going to the movies or we need to, you know, buy a friend a gift for

01:01:56 ◼   ► the birthday, the WhatsApp group is the default option. And if it's not WhatsApp, it's Facebook

01:02:02 ◼   ► Messenger. This is how I have a WhatsApp group with my family. You know, like I was spending

01:02:07 ◼   ► some time in there today. People, it is my birthday today, people are wishing me happy birthday

01:02:12 ◼   ► in the WhatsApp group, right? Like that is a default way for members of my family, for us all

01:02:18 ◼   ► to share some thoughts together or whatever.

01:02:21 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah. And I see it happening all the time, right? Like, for any kind of social

01:02:30 ◼   ► event or social gathering, people create a WhatsApp group. Even if it gets discarded

01:02:35 ◼   ► after like two days, people just create the group and then they're done with it. We went

01:02:39 ◼   ► to Barcelona to communicate. We were, you know, a group of friends with iPhones and

01:02:44 ◼   ► Android phones we just created a whatsapp group and we you know keep you

01:02:48 ◼   ► know keep each other posted about our whereabouts and what we were doing so

01:02:51 ◼   ► yeah finally people love lyrics in Apple music something that I forgot existed

01:02:59 ◼   ► they just love them I I was thinking about this today when I was kind of

01:03:04 ◼   ► looking over your notes when I'm playing music I'm not ever looking at my phone

01:03:10 ◼   ► You know what you need to keep in mind? That I'm Italian, my friends are Italian,

01:03:15 ◼   ► when we're listening to music, and this is also the case for me,

01:03:20 ◼   ► I speak English every day with you and others, but when I listen to music if I

01:03:26 ◼   ► want to know all of the lyrics I need to pay attention to them, so having lyrics

01:03:30 ◼   ► in Apple Music it's essential to know what a song actually says, you know?

01:03:35 ◼   ► Whereas I think it's easier for you guys to just listen to a song and you also know the lyrics, because it's your first language.

01:03:44 ◼   ► Yeah, I get that. That makes a lot of sense.

01:03:48 ◼   ► So yeah, I have a few friends who are paying for Apple Music. Not as many are paying for Apple Music as much as they pay for iCloud, because I still have a few friends who are actually paying for Spotify.

01:04:03 ◼   ► But those who pay for Apple Music, they all mentioned and now with the last update in September

01:04:09 ◼   ► they also got lyrics, which is very nice and

01:04:11 ◼   ► they also noticed how

01:04:15 ◼   ► In September a lot of songs didn't have lyrics, but now when a new song comes out on Friday

01:04:21 ◼   ► Either it comes up with lyrics built in or they are added within like 24 hours if it's a popular song

01:04:28 ◼   ► So there's definitely an improvement for Apple Music subscribers to have lyrics and I also think Apple is getting better at

01:04:35 ◼   ► licensing lyrics for popular songs that come out every week. Do you know where the lyrics come from? No, no idea

01:04:41 ◼   ► I think directly from the labels because I think Apple cut deals with a with a major

01:04:46 ◼   ► labels and with some indie labels as well to have lyrics in Apple Music.

01:04:51 ◼   ► So Apple are doing it and they're not plugged into one of these lyrics websites or something?

01:04:55 ◼   ► That is at least well

01:04:57 ◼   ► We don't know it's not public right they could be I mean they could be paying a fee under the table to

01:05:03 ◼   ► Genius or something right could be could be but I don't think it's genius because I see some differences

01:05:10 ◼   ► differences between the lyrics on genius and the lyrics in Apple music

01:05:13 ◼   ► So if it's anyone I think it could be some company like Shazam or SoundHound

01:05:20 ◼   ► Maybe right, but I honestly think it's Apple just going directly to the labels and to the you know to universal to Sony and be

01:05:27 ◼   ► like okay how much do you want to have lyrics in Apple music?

01:05:30 ◼   ► They've got to come from somewhere right?

01:05:32 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:05:33 ◼   ► So surely the label should be the canonical source, basically the voice of the artist in these relationships.

01:05:39 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:05:40 ◼   ► Well thank you Federico for your check-in. So we know how non-listeners of connected are dealing with their devices.

01:05:49 ◼   ► You know...

01:05:50 ◼   ► I'm trying not to say normal people. I don't know if you've recognised that because I don't like that phrase but I don't have a good phrase.

01:05:56 ◼   ► No, I think it's great for them to be called normal people because we are the abnormal

01:06:02 ◼   ► ones here.

01:06:03 ◼   ► Well, yeah, but I don't know.

01:06:06 ◼   ► We are, they are, you know, quality people.

01:06:10 ◼   ► They are normal human beings.

01:06:12 ◼   ► We are the problem obsessing over technology.

01:06:14 ◼   ► It's just sometimes when I hear that phrase, it kind of, I don't know, like even though

01:06:18 ◼   ► it seems like a nicer thing, it seems like that people are talking down.

01:06:22 ◼   ► No, no, not at all.

01:06:24 ◼   ► Not at all.

01:06:25 ◼   ► I actually have, you know, I think it's one of the best things that I do to, because it's

01:06:30 ◼   ► easy to lose touch with the way that people use technology.

01:06:33 ◼   ► And so when I say normal people, it's not condescending, it's not to make fun of them,

01:06:38 ◼   ► it's actually because it's super valuable for me to see how people use smartphones,

01:06:44 ◼   ► to see how people use services and apps.

01:06:46 ◼   ► Honestly, I think it makes my work better to know how people use this stuff.

01:06:51 ◼   ► it's easy to you know to live in a glass cube and to be like I know all of

01:06:56 ◼   ► technology I don't need to know anything else and it's not like that really

01:06:59 ◼   ► because it's easy to lose perspective and to lose touch with reality and with

01:07:02 ◼   ► normal people so it's it's not a derogatory type of thing. I have to say I

01:07:06 ◼   ► was super surprised like on that train that Edina took so well to the

01:07:11 ◼   ► Hue lights I thought that she was gonna hate it right that it was gonna be like

01:07:16 ◼   ► why are you doing this like I don't want to use my phone to turn the lamp on and

01:07:21 ◼   ► But turns out that she really really likes it. So I'm very pleased about that. Mm-hmm

01:07:26 ◼   ► I should mention Myke because before me move on to the next

01:07:30 ◼   ► Sad very sad topic that my friends have a lot of requests for things that I should mention on the show

01:07:39 ◼   ► Because they they they are under the impression that if I complain about it things are gonna change

01:07:47 ◼   ► Which is definitely not true, but I think they have a series of interesting complaints about iOS, about Apple Music, about iPad

01:07:54 ◼   ► So maybe sometimes we should make a list of these complaints and talk about them because they're definitely actually

01:08:02 ◼   ► Interesting

01:08:06 ◼   ► Points of you know how iOS could improve for example, and they have a friend who uses the iPad to

01:08:13 ◼   ► Mix music is a dance teacher and it uses the iPad every day to create mixes for choreographies

01:08:20 ◼   ► so I have a I have a whole range of friends that do interesting things with their iOS devices and

01:08:26 ◼   ► At first you could think well people are just gonna have some stupid requests and it's really not like that. So

01:08:33 ◼   ► This is an experiment. It's really not an experiment. I don't want my friends to think they're they're being you know

01:08:40 ◼   ► subject to an experiment, but I think I want to talk about more about how people see the iPhone, how people see

01:08:47 ◼   ► you know, what Apple is doing with the iPad. So expect me to come back with a list of complaints

01:08:52 ◼   ► that Apple may or may not fix or listen to,

01:08:55 ◼   ► but you know, my friends are gonna be happy and I think it's gonna make for a good show. So I am going to continue my

01:09:03 ◼   ► reporting on the field, Myke, for you. Thank you so much. What will we do about you, Federico?

01:09:08 ◼   ► I'm just not sure. I'm just not sure. I'll take a moment to thank our final sponsor for

01:09:14 ◼   ► this week's show and that is Blue Apron. For less than $10 a meal, Blue Apron delivers

01:09:18 ◼   ► seasonal recipes along with fresh, high quality ingredients to help you make delicious home-cooked

01:09:23 ◼   ► meals. Blue Apron's mission is to make incredible home cooking accessible to everyone, whilst

01:09:29 ◼   ► also supporting a more sustainable food system, setting the highest standards for ingredients

01:09:34 ◼   ► and building a community of home chefs. Blue Apron's seafood is sourced sustainably,

01:09:38 ◼   ► understands as developed in partnership with the Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch.

01:09:42 ◼   ► Their beef, chicken and pork come from responsibly raised animals,

01:09:46 ◼   ► and their produce is sourced from farms that practice regenerative farming. Each Blue Apron

01:09:55 ◼   ► meal comes with a step-by-step, easy-to-follow recipe card and pre-proportioned ingredients

01:10:01 ◼   ► that can be prepared in less than 40 minutes which is awesome. So services like Blue Apron

01:10:08 ◼   ► they are going to be able to teach you skills and what Blue Apron will help you do

01:10:12 ◼   ► is learn how to cook because they have these great recipes and you'll be cooking with these

01:10:18 ◼   ► great instructions a couple of times a week maybe three times a week something like that

01:10:22 ◼   ► that's what you choose that's where the route that you want to go and you're going to learn

01:10:25 ◼   ► how to chop stuff you're going to learn things that you like you're going to discover new

01:10:28 ◼   ► ingredients that you didn't know you liked, you're going to be exposed to new types of food and that

01:10:34 ◼   ► is a kind of a world and life-changing experience. I know that this happened to me, where now there

01:10:41 ◼   ► are different types of ingredients and meals that I thought I didn't like but I've given them a try

01:10:48 ◼   ► and now I'm super happy that I did. And a lot of this stuff comes from variety and Blue Apron have

01:10:54 ◼   ► a huge variety of recipes every week. You can choose them yourself or you can go that one step

01:11:00 ◼   ► further and let Blue Aprons Culinary team surprise you. No recipes are repeated within a year and

01:11:05 ◼   ► you'll be able to cook meals like cashew chicken stir fry with tango mandarins and jasmine rice.

01:11:13 ◼   ► Maybe you want to try chipotle vegetable and farro salad with avocado and crispy tortilla strips.

01:11:18 ◼   ► Or what about vegetable rice bowls with cauliflower, gai lan and fried eggs?

01:11:24 ◼   ► Blue Apron delivers to 99% of the continental US. There's no weekly commitment, you get the

01:11:28 ◼   ► deliveries when you want them and their freshness guarantee means that every ingredient arrives ready

01:11:32 ◼   ► to cook or they'll make it right. Check out this week's menu and get 3 meals for free with

01:11:38 ◼   ► free shipping by going to blueapron.com/connected. You're going to love how good it feels and tastes

01:11:43 ◼   ► to create incredible home cooked meals with Blue Apron. So don't wait, visit Blueapron.com/connected

01:11:48 ◼   ► and we thank Blue Apron for their support of this show and Relay FM. Blue Apron, a better

01:11:54 ◼   ► way to cook.

01:11:56 ◼   ► iOS 10.3 came out after the show last week and there have been some additions in the

01:12:04 ◼   ► iOS lounge that are interesting. I guess maybe the biggest single user feature, depending

01:12:10 ◼   ► on if you are a user of this product is Find My AirPods which is now an inclusion in the

01:12:17 ◼   ► Find My iPhone app which desperately needs to be renamed considering the Find My iPhone

01:12:23 ◼   ► app now includes a way for you to discover every single Apple device that you own.

01:12:29 ◼   ► Find My Stuff. Find My Devices, I don't know anything but

01:12:32 ◼   ► Find My iPhone doesn't work as a name for that app anymore. But it does some interesting

01:12:38 ◼   ► stuff it does two things it will help you find an airpod that you may have dropped somewhere

01:12:43 ◼   ► as it records bluetooth locations like where the devices actually were by using bluetooth

01:12:48 ◼   ► and GPS and also maybe you've like dropped it in your home you're able to make the airpods

01:12:54 ◼   ► make a very loud noise which is kind of incredible to the point that they say when you're testing

01:12:59 ◼   ► this do not have them in your ears and I've played around with it and you do not want

01:13:03 ◼   ► to put them in areas.

01:13:06 ◼   ► I used the feature when one of my AirPods rolled under the bed and it definitely works.

01:13:13 ◼   ► It's a little tricky, I feel like it's, the Find My iPhone app, besides the name, needs

01:13:18 ◼   ► to be redesigned because it's a little slow to use, right?

01:13:21 ◼   ► You're in a hurry, you want to find your phone, it's just too many taps, you know, you just

01:13:26 ◼   ► gotta log in and then you gotta pick a device and then you gotta do the thing with the device.

01:13:30 ◼   ► Just could be faster, you know?

01:13:32 ◼   ► It'd be faster. It turns out that theater mode wasn't a watch over it wasn't an iOS

01:13:39 ◼   ► thing after all had nothing to do with with iOS is actually coming to watch OS

01:13:44 ◼   ► it is a button in the watch OS control center not regular control center yeah

01:13:51 ◼   ► I'm starting to see where some of this might have got lost right like somebody

01:13:54 ◼   ► said oh this thing's coming it's called theater mode it's gonna be in control

01:13:58 ◼   ► center but they were talking about the watch yeah and not the the iPhone as we

01:14:02 ◼   ► expected. So it's not a dark mode as the internet believed that it was. We thought

01:14:08 ◼   ► that it might be but it was fun to watch. I mean we were waiting for 10.3 to drop

01:14:12 ◼   ► for reasons that we're gonna talk about in a little bit and every now and then I

01:14:15 ◼   ► would search on Twitter iOS 10.3 just see what people were saying I was just

01:14:18 ◼   ► interested. Everyone was talking about can't wait for 10.3 and get my dark mode

01:14:22 ◼   ► like it was just like a thing that people just expected and it's just

01:14:26 ◼   ► interesting to see how some of these rumors start to break outside and people just start

01:14:33 ◼   ► to make these expectations. Anyway, theatre mode is basically a way for you to turn off

01:14:39 ◼   ► notifications when you're in a theatre. It's actually a good thing. So what it does is

01:14:44 ◼   ► you enable it, you press the little button, it's not a popcorn, it's the comedy tragedy

01:14:49 ◼   ► masks which kind of look horrifying as a little glyph. The tragedy mask just looks terrified.

01:14:56 ◼   ► terrified it doesn't look sad it looks just like a horrified thing um and basically you turn it on

01:15:04 ◼   ► and it stops the rays to wake so when you raise your arm the screen won't come on which is a

01:15:09 ◼   ► total thing that annoys me i'm in the cinema and also when you receive notifications the

01:15:13 ◼   ► watch will not light up you have to either tap the screen or click the digital crown

01:15:16 ◼   ► to be able to see your notifications but you will still get the haptics so you know that they're

01:15:19 ◼   ► coming in i think that that is a good uh a good thing to have uh it may come to other devices james

01:15:25 ◼   ► Thompson developer of Peacock in our chatroom is saying that he believes that theater mode

01:15:29 ◼   ► will be on iOS too by the time that 10.3 ships. I think that would be great if it was, I don't

01:15:33 ◼   ► know what that would look like honestly or if they'd even call it theater mode but that

01:15:38 ◼   ► would be cool because they have a race to wait now right with the phones, it's the same

01:15:41 ◼   ► problem. So we'll see what happens there. APFS, the Apple file system is now running

01:15:47 ◼   ► on iOS devices, this was a huge surprise. Did not expect that what Apple referred to

01:15:53 ◼   ► as 2017 for APFS would begin in January, I installed the beta on my 12.9 inch iPad Pro

01:16:03 ◼   ► and seemed to go fine.

01:16:04 ◼   ► The upgrade took noticeably longer than usual.

01:16:07 ◼   ► Yes, same on the iPhone.

01:16:09 ◼   ► Because I assume it's doing a bunch of stuff, a bunch of stuff that I don't understand in

01:16:13 ◼   ► the background to make the file system switch over.

01:16:16 ◼   ► And I'll say I have not noticed any problems on my iPad.

01:16:22 ◼   ► I will say that it did seem to do something weird to iCloud when I updated. All of my

01:16:28 ◼   ► devices were acting strangely where iCloud was involved. But I can't pinpoint what that

01:16:34 ◼   ► was. I mean these issues always happen with iOS betas. If you are logged in with your

01:16:38 ◼   ► standard iCloud account, you're going to find some weirdness. Which is fine. I mean I know

01:16:43 ◼   ► these problems going in but I feel like I want to try out this stuff.

01:16:46 ◼   ► Can I tell you something Myke?

01:16:48 ◼   ► Yes.

01:16:49 ◼   ► Because everybody, I think a lot of people like to pretend that they know what they're

01:16:56 ◼   ► talking about when we're talking about file systems.

01:17:00 ◼   ► I'm just gonna come clean, I have no idea.

01:17:02 ◼   ► No I have no idea.

01:17:03 ◼   ► This isn't a thing I spend much time with.

01:17:06 ◼   ► I never understood what the discussion about the Mac OS file system was, I have no idea

01:17:13 ◼   ► what APFS is. I just know that it's a thing called file system and I know it does stuff.

01:17:19 ◼   ► It's where everything's logged.

01:17:21 ◼   ► I guess.

01:17:22 ◼   ► You know that much I guess.

01:17:23 ◼   ► But I honestly haven't…

01:17:24 ◼   ► But we don't need to know that. I don't think people are coming to connected for their

01:17:27 ◼   ► file system stuff. They go to ATP for that.

01:17:30 ◼   ► Yes.

01:17:31 ◼   ► This is the opposite, right? They talk about all of the file system stuff and we talk about

01:17:35 ◼   ► none of it, right? Like that is the balance.

01:17:37 ◼   ► They know a lot. They know a lot. They know their file systems, whereas we don't. Maybe

01:17:42 ◼   ► Maybe Steven does, maybe Steven now is listening to the show and he's like "come on!"

01:17:45 ◼   ► Oh, he definitely does.

01:17:46 ◼   ► He definitely does.

01:17:47 ◼   ► But like, you know, if you think about like with the, you know, we were talking about

01:17:49 ◼   ► those comedy and tragedy masks earlier on, right?

01:17:52 ◼   ► They're like complete opposites of each other.

01:17:54 ◼   ► You can decide which show you think is the comedy mask and which show is the tragedy

01:17:57 ◼   ► mask.

01:17:58 ◼   ► That is up to you to decide, depending on your file system tastes.

01:18:04 ◼   ► I want both of those icons to be the smiley ones.

01:18:08 ◼   ► Is that too much to ask?

01:18:10 ◼   ► There's enough tragedy to... I mean, do we need it in the icon as well?

01:18:15 ◼   ► Do we need more tragedy, Apple, really?

01:18:16 ◼   ► Do we need the icon too? Come on, make them both Epiphaces instead of...

01:18:20 ◼   ► Also, I mean, I know it's theater mode and you're trying to be fancy by giving it a theater connotation,

01:18:27 ◼   ► but you may as well call it cinema mode. Come on, come on. Come on, Apple.

01:18:32 ◼   ► Yeah, but Americans don't say, "Let's go to the cinema." You and I, we do. Americans don't.

01:18:37 ◼   ► Yeah but they're using iconography of traditional theatre, like plays, not movies.

01:18:44 ◼   ► It's sort of an intellectual iconography.

01:18:46 ◼   ► Yeah, I feel like it's too much.

01:18:48 ◼   ► Let's go to the theatre my dear.

01:18:50 ◼   ► Great accent. Just fantastic.

01:18:53 ◼   ► There was a bunch of new stuff in regards to the way that developers will be able to deal with app review, app store reviews, we should call it rather than app reviews.

01:19:04 ◼   ► I'll put a link in the show notes to Under The Radar number 64.

01:19:08 ◼   ► Underscore and Marco had a great discussion about this as developers, considering they

01:19:12 ◼   ► had only very recently recorded an episode about dealing with app reviews, reviews from

01:19:17 ◼   ► your customers.

01:19:19 ◼   ► In a nutshell, there's going to be a new standardised prompt for people to get reviews, so you'll

01:19:24 ◼   ► be in an application and a modal dialogue will pop up and say, "Hey, would you like

01:19:28 ◼   ► to review this app?"

01:19:29 ◼   ► So that is a thing that will be standardised so applications will hopefully stop bothering

01:19:34 ◼   ► for it and there are a bunch of rules around that and also developers will be

01:19:38 ◼   ► able to reply to reviews now. So that's kind of the big stuff in a nutshell.

01:19:44 ◼   ► They were the things that we saw. However the story for us on this show is what we

01:19:50 ◼   ► didn't see and it is something that we have been talking about a lot recently

01:19:55 ◼   ► as if it was a given which is changes for the iPad in iOS 10.3 and to give a

01:20:03 ◼   ► very brief summary on why we expected this. iOS 9.3 was a big release last year. There

01:20:11 ◼   ► were a lot of things, Apple did the big preview and they had some features for the iPad but

01:20:15 ◼   ► they were focused towards education primarily. And iOS 9 was a major iPad release. That was

01:20:24 ◼   ► when we got all of our multitasking, that was when we got all that fun stuff. iOS 10

01:20:29 ◼   ► had no iPad focused features.

01:20:33 ◼   ► So looking at all of that history combined with some rumblings that had been felt through

01:20:40 ◼   ► certain birdies we should say, we were under very strong belief and assumption that iOS

01:20:47 ◼   ► 10.3 would see some additional features for the iPad, especially as we have been considering

01:20:57 ◼   ► strongly that there are going to be new iPads released in the spring, especially this 10.5

01:21:07 ◼   ► inch iPad which we've been talking about for months now.

01:21:11 ◼   ► So in regards to the iPad, Steve Trout and Smith did what he always does and he found

01:21:16 ◼   ► some super weird stuff like a one hand floated keyboard, like a little iPhone keyboard that

01:21:23 ◼   ► that floats around the UI that is there,

01:21:26 ◼   ► and also a gestural-based keyboard.

01:21:30 ◼   ► So kind of like the one in Swift Playgrounds.

01:21:33 ◼   ► So you can swipe up and down, left and right,

01:21:35 ◼   ► to get different keyboard keys.

01:21:39 ◼   ► I can't think of a good phrase for that,

01:21:44 ◼   ► unfortunately I do apologize,

01:21:45 ◼   ► but I think you can get what I mean.

01:21:46 ◼   ► To bring up punctuation marks and stuff like that,

01:21:49 ◼   ► instead of going to a different thing,

01:21:50 ◼   ► you just swipe up on a key and you'll get that,

01:21:52 ◼   ► instead of hitting a couple of buttons to be able to bring that sort of stuff up.

01:21:57 ◼   ► Now that's kind of, and this isn't even stuff that is in the beta, it's just code that he's

01:22:04 ◼   ► been able to unearth, none of these features are there.

01:22:07 ◼   ► So Federico, when are we seeing new features, software features for the iPad?

01:22:13 ◼   ► Are they still going to be in 10.3 do you believe?

01:22:16 ◼   ► will we be waiting to have them previewed to us at maybe WWDC with nothing actually released until September?

01:22:24 ◼   ► What do you think?

01:22:25 ◼   ► I don't think it's going to be 10.3 at this point.

01:22:29 ◼   ► And my expectations for 10.3 have been high since last year.

01:22:35 ◼   ► Because very clearly from multiple people I heard Apple is working on some big changes

01:22:41 ◼   ► to the iPad software.

01:22:44 ◼   ► And it was set to be released in 2017, possibly early, which is exactly what I wrote in my

01:22:51 ◼   ► article last year, possibly early 2017.

01:22:54 ◼   ► But you know this stuff happens.

01:22:56 ◼   ► And my interpretation, so this is just my understanding, is that whatever Apple is working

01:23:01 ◼   ► on is still big, still some big changes, but a decision was made a while back to postpone

01:23:10 ◼   ► it.

01:23:11 ◼   ► cannot be delayed if it's not announced and everything you want, you know. But this is how

01:23:15 ◼   ► this stuff works internally, right? Decisions are made and stuff gets a new release date.

01:23:19 ◼   ► So my understanding, and this is just my personal opinion, is that we're going to have some nice

01:23:27 ◼   ► announcements at WWDC. I feel like iOS 11 at this point, or whatever it's called, it's going to have

01:23:35 ◼   ► an iPad focus. I don't think we're going to see iPad stuff in 10.3 and I think it's very unlikely

01:23:41 ◼   ► that we're going to see something else between 10.3 and 11 that is just an iPad release, right?

01:23:47 ◼   ► I don't think we'll get a major iPad release in late April or mid-May, right? With WWDC in June.

01:23:55 ◼   ► So I definitely believe, I'm sure that Apple has some big iPad changes in the works in terms of

01:24:01 ◼   ► software and I'm hoping at this point it's gonna be WWDC, which makes it even better for me because

01:24:09 ◼   ► it's gonna be a fun week and it's gonna be a fun summer to review you know iPad

01:24:13 ◼   ► stuff in iOS 11 just like I did for iOS 9 that was very fun. But I don't know at

01:24:19 ◼   ► this point what it means for the iPad hardware because we talked about

01:24:22 ◼   ► software but what does it mean for the hardware and there's an interesting

01:24:26 ◼   ► rumor from the end of December from Mac rumors that they questioned whether the

01:24:32 ◼   ► new iPads could come out in the spring because of some issues that Apple hit

01:24:36 ◼   ► with the production of the Apple's. Yeah it was in regards to the A10X chips,

01:24:41 ◼   ► the companies working on the A10X chips, they didn't seem to be able to

01:24:47 ◼   ► get the yield ready for when was needed and actual production wouldn't be

01:24:51 ◼   ► beginning on those chips until sometime in Q1. So there is an argument there that

01:24:57 ◼   ► either Apple wouldn't maybe be able to start shipping them in Q2 or then would

01:25:02 ◼   ► maybe just wait because maybe Q2 is not the right time for them.

01:25:06 ◼   ► Which is interesting right because if you combine this rumor with no iPad release in

01:25:11 ◼   ► you know no software release, but you know it wouldn't be impossible for Apple to release

01:25:18 ◼   ► new iPads without major software changes.

01:25:21 ◼   ► Both iPad Pros have not been released with software changes.

01:25:25 ◼   ► Exactly, this happened before.

01:25:26 ◼   ► the big iPad Pro in November 2015 and the small iPad Pro last year they didn't

01:25:31 ◼   ► get an iPad specific software release. They were just announced and they were

01:25:36 ◼   ► just released with adaptations for the new devices. So it wouldn't be unprecedented

01:25:40 ◼   ► for Apple to have a new hardware release without the software to go with it.

01:25:46 ◼   ► I strongly believe a hundred percent that we're going to see

01:25:51 ◼   ► major changes to the iPad software and I have a strong feeling

01:25:56 ◼   ► I don't think it's gonna be this year because I always heard it was gonna be this year.

01:26:01 ◼   ► It just depends when.

01:26:03 ◼   ► But I think it's going to be a very fun, very interesting 2017 for people who work on the

01:26:09 ◼   ► iPad.

01:26:11 ◼   ► So I was hoping personally it was gonna be the spring, doesn't look like it's gonna be

01:26:15 ◼   ► the spring.

01:26:16 ◼   ► If it's June with the releases in September, we're just gonna have to wait a little longer.

01:26:20 ◼   ► It's disappointing, right?

01:26:21 ◼   ► Because we're not getting an iPad release since iOS 9, basically.

01:26:25 ◼   ► years. It's two years and it's disappointing and I wonder what's going on inside Apple that basically

01:26:32 ◼   ► allows them to release new iPad features only every two years. That's another topic, that's

01:26:39 ◼   ► another problem but I'm excited to see what we get. I have no idea, I have only heard

01:26:48 ◼   ► speculation that I don't want to talk about now. We can talk about it when we do our iOS 11 show

01:26:53 ◼   ► But yes, I think it's gonna be fun.

01:26:57 ◼   ► I would be, rumours aside I would be very surprised if there is no iPad hardware before

01:27:03 ◼   ► September.

01:27:08 ◼   ► Just because it would just be an interesting thing to me because it would be bunching everything

01:27:12 ◼   ► up.

01:27:14 ◼   ► It would be a great surprise to me if the 12.9 inch iPad Pro is two years old before

01:27:20 ◼   ► it's updated.

01:27:22 ◼   ► That would be an interesting decision that doesn't feel like it would be the right one.

01:27:28 ◼   ► However, my belief on this is if we don't see anything until September, I think the

01:27:34 ◼   ► reason is clear.

01:27:36 ◼   ► I think that they maybe could have released it before, but I would expect that a lot of

01:27:40 ◼   ► Apple's hardware teams, especially focused around iOS devices, have a cut-off point before

01:27:47 ◼   ► they are all put on the iPhone every year.

01:27:51 ◼   ► So I would expect that if it can't be Q1, even if they could do it in Q2, I don't feel

01:27:59 ◼   ► like they would because they need to make sure all focus is ready on getting the iPhone

01:28:03 ◼   ► production done.

01:28:06 ◼   ► And that it doesn't matter if all it would take is like a month to get the iPads out,

01:28:11 ◼   ► they do not have the ability to delay the iPhone.

01:28:16 ◼   ► That is the product that has to ship.

01:28:19 ◼   ► And if it means that we don't get any iPads for six months because of it, even if it didn't

01:28:23 ◼   ► need that much time, I feel like that they will probably prioritize and it's for the

01:28:28 ◼   ► company the right thing to do.

01:28:30 ◼   ► Because you could make the greatest iPad ever conceived like the iPad that changes everything.

01:28:36 ◼   ► But if it doubled the amount of units it sold, it doesn't make a difference, right?

01:28:42 ◼   ► Because the iPad sells at the iPhone is doing billions of dollars of revenue every quarter

01:28:47 ◼   ► for them.

01:28:48 ◼   ► the iPad isn't going to do that no matter what they do to it.

01:28:52 ◼   ► Not in one revision.

01:28:53 ◼   ► They're not going to make one iPad that it's like, "Oh, well now the iPad is the biggest

01:28:57 ◼   ► product."

01:28:58 ◼   ► Who knows what the future might hold?

01:29:00 ◼   ► We don't know.

01:29:01 ◼   ► It feels unlikely, but you never know.

01:29:02 ◼   ► But right now, I feel like you would get to a certain point and if the iPad's not done,

01:29:07 ◼   ► well, the iPad's just going to have to wait until the iPhone's done now because the iPhone

01:29:12 ◼   ► has to take priority.

01:29:13 ◼   ► Mm-hmm.

01:29:14 ◼   ► Yeah, I get that.

01:29:15 ◼   ► I get that.

01:29:16 ◼   ► But it will upset me. We were talking about this last week a bunch over iMessage and I

01:29:22 ◼   ► think my current feeling is if I could choose new software or new hardware for a reason

01:29:30 ◼   ► I can't explain, I would want new hardware before new software. I don't know why that

01:29:38 ◼   ► is. My iPads, I have no problem with them. But I am so hyped up in my own brain for this

01:29:46 ◼   ► theoretical 10.5 inch iPad I want that more than any other software.

01:29:52 ◼   ► I feel like I'm the opposite. That 10.5 is the thought of that Federico is so

01:29:59 ◼   ► perfect for me it is all of the resolution and in a much smaller package

01:30:05 ◼   ► that is exciting to me as an idea I still foresee myself keeping the 12

01:30:10 ◼   ► night and using it for media but just for like my general work machine that just changes

01:30:16 ◼   ► everything for me. Being able to have these two apps side by side in a size of the current

01:30:23 ◼   ► regular iPad size that is so exciting to me and I think that Apple is going to do this because it

01:30:30 ◼   ► seems like a very logical step and I just hope that that logical step happens this year. You know

01:30:36 ◼   ► like just because something's logical and we've all worked out that it's possible doesn't mean

01:30:40 ◼   ► that it's coming as soon as we've all worked it out like that's not how product development works

01:30:45 ◼   ► but it's like a lot of things a lot of things that are apple rumors they start off as just being like

01:30:52 ◼   ► this is the logical thing that we can see so they surely are working on it and nine times out of ten

01:30:58 ◼   ► they are because people at apple are very smart and if something seems logical and doable then

01:31:05 ◼   ► then they'll do it, but it doesn't mean

01:31:06 ◼   ► that it's gonna happen immediately.

01:31:08 ◼   ► So I'm very, very certain that an iPad described

01:31:13 ◼   ► as the way that we have described it recently

01:31:16 ◼   ► in the same size of a larger screen with the resolution,

01:31:21 ◼   ► you know, the dimensions of the 12.9,

01:31:25 ◼   ► that feels like an inevitable product to me.

01:31:28 ◼   ► Whether it comes in 2016, sorry,

01:31:31 ◼   ► when it comes to 2017, 2018 or 2019 remains to be seen.

01:31:36 ◼   ► But I still have my bet on 2017 for it.

01:31:41 ◼   ► Just because the rumblings are so strong on this,

01:31:46 ◼   ► like the rumors that we're seeing

01:31:49 ◼   ► from relatively credible sources seem so strong

01:31:54 ◼   ► and there hasn't been anything to refute it

01:32:00 ◼   ► would suggest to me that we're gonna see it.

01:32:02 ◼   ► I would say though that if Apple have delayed this product

01:32:07 ◼   ► from the original timescales that they have set,

01:32:10 ◼   ► I would expect to see like a fast company report on that,

01:32:16 ◼   ► to tamp it down expectation.

01:32:20 ◼   ► - Yeah, I see what you mean.

01:32:22 ◼   ► I see what you mean.

01:32:23 ◼   ► - But maybe the iPad again is just not important enough

01:32:27 ◼   ► from a PR perspective that they feel they need to do that.

01:32:29 ◼   ► I don't know.

01:32:30 ◼   ► I don't know.

01:32:31 ◼   ► I think it'll be interesting to hear if Tim Cook has anything to say about iPads today.

01:32:38 ◼   ► Oh yes, the earnings call.

01:32:40 ◼   ► Yeah, the earnings call tonight, which we're going to follow.

01:32:44 ◼   ► At least I'm going to follow it with all of my automations and workflows.

01:32:49 ◼   ► But I can tell you this, Myke.

01:32:52 ◼   ► I've been hearing about these iPad software changes since last WWDC.

01:32:57 ◼   ► whenever I talk to people they're so excited, possibly even more than when iOS 9 was coming out.

01:33:09 ◼   ► So it makes me very excited, right? But we still have to wait.

01:33:15 ◼   ► I think all of our iPad hopes and dreams will be satisfied this year.

01:33:23 ◼   ► and I think it's going to make me both happy and I'm trying to find a good objective to describe how I'm going to feel this summer when I'm going to write the iOS 11 review.

01:33:37 ◼   ► Maybe there's no right way to put it. It's going to be both fantastic and terrible at the same time.

01:33:43 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:33:44 ◼   ► Because I know what's going to happen, right? Because I remember when I wrote my iOS 9 review and I remembered the iPad section. So, yeah.

01:33:53 ◼   ► Yeah, and the iOS 9 review is very different in style and theme to the 10 review.

01:33:59 ◼   ► The 9 review was more, these are my opinions, but the 10 review, and I think it's safe to say the reviews that you're going to write subsequently, are "here is absolutely everything."

01:34:11 ◼   ► Yes.

01:34:12 ◼   ► And I feel that you would probably struggle to write about big changes to the iPad and

01:34:20 ◼   ► not say here's absolutely everything and here's 100% of all of the thoughts that I have on

01:34:25 ◼   ► this.

01:34:28 ◼   ► So you're getting my problem, right?

01:34:34 ◼   ► It's like a yin and yang situation only about iPads, basically.

01:34:38 ◼   ► like I'm super happy this stuff is happening but also am I gonna die when I

01:34:43 ◼   ► work on this so yeah the funnier Myke I had.

01:34:48 ◼   ► But we're very sad.

01:34:50 ◼   ► Are we?

01:34:52 ◼   ► I just want everyone to know. Well we are we were I think me and you especially we were very anxious for

01:34:58 ◼   ► 10.3 because we thought that it was going to give us what we were looking

01:35:03 ◼   ► for and it didn't and kids this is the problem with believing your own rumors

01:35:10 ◼   ► when you when you when you talk about something enough and then you feel like

01:35:14 ◼   ► it's true and then it doesn't happen that that's that's what we have

01:35:18 ◼   ► experienced in the last week yeah it's like it's like it's like when when I

01:35:24 ◼   ► figured out that Santa wasn't real whoa whoa spoilers and you're gonna bleep me

01:35:29 ◼   ► out. Spoilers. I think I blocked you enough. We don't know who's listening man. Spoilers.

01:35:36 ◼   ► You can find our show notes today at relay.fm/connected/127. Thanks again to our lovely sponsors, Mac

01:35:41 ◼   ► Weldon, Encapsular and Blue Apron. If you want to find Federico online he's at macstories.net

01:35:46 ◼   ► and he's @battici on Twitter, V I T I C C I. If you want to try and help us find Steven,

01:35:54 ◼   ► he is @ismh on Twitter. I don't know if you're able to help us actually find him. We don't

01:35:59 ◼   ► where he is, as we said some kind of vision quest trying to help brand the new version

01:36:04 ◼   ► of the Mac OS and he is at five twelve pixels dot net. I am @imike, I M Y K E. We'll be back next

01:36:12 ◼   ► time. Until then say goodbye Federico. Arrivederci. Adios.