Connected

00:00:00 ◼   ► [Music]

00:00:06 ◼   ► From Relay FM, this is Connected, episode 121. Today's show is brought to you by Foote

00:00:11 ◼   ► Cardigan. My name is Myke Hurley. I'm joined by Federico Vittucci. Ciao, Federico!

00:00:16 ◼   ► Ciao, Myke!

00:00:17 ◼   ► And Steven Hackett. Howdy, Steven Hackett.

00:00:19 ◼   ► Hey, man. How are y'all?

00:00:21 ◼   ► Good. How are you?

00:00:22 ◼   ► Good. I'm just gonna go right into follow-up because as we were recording like an hour ago,

00:00:29 ◼   ► Apple got the AirPods put on sale.

00:00:32 ◼   ► Yay!

00:00:33 ◼   ► We should play the, you know, some kind of orchestra music to like, to celebrate.

00:00:39 ◼   ► Like what's the name of the song that they play for the New Year every time?

00:00:43 ◼   ► Old Land's Line?

00:00:44 ◼   ► No, that's like...

00:00:45 ◼   ► Do you guys watch the New Year's concert on television?

00:00:51 ◼   ► It's like a tradition in Italy.

00:00:52 ◼   ► Yeah, but they don't play the same song.

00:00:55 ◼   ► No, at the end they play the same song every time, at the end.

00:00:58 ◼   ► Do you mean like Ode to Joy or something?

00:01:01 ◼   ► No, it's like the...

00:01:02 ◼   ► Hallelujah Chorus?

00:01:03 ◼   ► No, it's like, it's like the, some kind of march I think.

00:01:07 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:01:13 ◼   ► So I assume the three of us all ordered them.

00:01:17 ◼   ► Myke, why don't you go first?

00:01:19 ◼   ► Did you order?

00:01:20 ◼   ► When do they show up?

00:01:21 ◼   ► I ordered and they'll show up on Monday the 19th of December.

00:01:27 ◼   ► I will say, I mean, because I feel like I've got to say this, but I don't say this, people

00:01:29 ◼   ► from the UK are just going to be mad at me. They're super expensive, right? It's £159.

00:01:34 ◼   ► I think they're like $159. It's just one to one right now. I'm just going to get used

00:01:39 ◼   ► to that because this is just the way it's going to be and just stop thinking about it.

00:01:42 ◼   ► But this is the world that we live in.

00:01:45 ◼   ► It is, by the way, the Radecki March, the song. So I was not wrong.

00:01:50 ◼   ► Well, you weren't right either because you didn't say it.

00:01:54 ◼   ► No, but what I knew that there was...

00:01:55 ◼   ► - It's a piece of music.

00:01:57 ◼   ► - The name was slipping my mind,

00:01:59 ◼   ► but I knew that there was a song

00:02:01 ◼   ► that they play at the end of the New Year's concert

00:02:03 ◼   ► every year.

00:02:04 ◼   ► That's what I was trying to say.

00:02:05 ◼   ► (upbeat music)

00:02:07 ◼   ► - So you said coming the 19th,

00:02:09 ◼   ► I ordered mine, they're coming on December 21st.

00:02:14 ◼   ► Already, right now, an hour later,

00:02:16 ◼   ► if you order them today, at least in the States,

00:02:19 ◼   ► they don't deliver until December 29th.

00:02:21 ◼   ► So they've already slipped some.

00:02:23 ◼   ► I'm sure they've slipped further.

00:02:23 ◼   ► - That there is not a lot of stock, honestly.

00:02:26 ◼   ► - In conjunction with this, Apple has massaged,

00:02:33 ◼   ► adjusted, changed the shipping date

00:02:35 ◼   ► for some of the other products that are using the W1 chip,

00:02:39 ◼   ► mainly the Beats X, which are,

00:02:44 ◼   ► I don't know, how would you guys find them?

00:02:45 ◼   ► I guess they're workout headphones,

00:02:47 ◼   ► they go around the back of your head.

00:02:49 ◼   ► And I think they are now showing for February,

00:02:53 ◼   ► I'm trying to find them on Apple's site as we talk,

00:02:55 ◼   ► but if there was a manufacturing issue at the heart of this,

00:02:59 ◼   ► is what John Gruber and some other people reported,

00:03:01 ◼   ► then maybe that wasn't with the AirPods themselves,

00:03:05 ◼   ► but maybe it was with some of the technology inside of them,

00:03:08 ◼   ► and all of that's the same in the AirPods

00:03:10 ◼   ► and the other Beats products.

00:03:11 ◼   ► And so maybe they just had to sacrifice the Beats X

00:03:16 ◼   ► to get the AirPods out the door.

00:03:19 ◼   ► - Yeah, as Kyle's in the chat room says,

00:03:22 ◼   ► The Beats X, you kind of imagine them like Apple's version of the Jaybirds.

00:03:25 ◼   ► So it's like two in-ears that connect to the cable around the edge.

00:03:29 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:03:30 ◼   ► I'm looking on the UK website, they're saying coming February.

00:03:33 ◼   ► Um, and that, I don't think that was the case before.

00:03:36 ◼   ► Um, I don't think that they were meant to go, there was meant to be that kind of slip on them.

00:03:40 ◼   ► It is funny that like, if these products were delayed, like how did they get the

00:03:44 ◼   ► solo threes out of the door?

00:03:45 ◼   ► Like, it's interesting that one product went out straight away and then everything else

00:03:50 ◼   ► really struggled.

00:03:51 ◼   ► But there has to be something related to the bigger battery in combination with the W1

00:03:56 ◼   ► chip, because the Beats Solo, they have a bigger battery.

00:03:59 ◼   ► And maybe the problem is, the smaller you get, the more difficult it gets.

00:04:04 ◼   ► And clearly Apple prioritized the AirPods instead of the Beats X, which makes sense,

00:04:08 ◼   ► I think, they're a better holiday gift, I think.

00:04:12 ◼   ► And I'm quite happy right now about my December 20 date.

00:04:17 ◼   ► We're all supposed to get the AirPods before Christmas.

00:04:20 ◼   ► now even just an hour later people are gonna get it after Christmas. So that's good news

00:04:26 ◼   ► for us, for once, if there are no delays.

00:04:30 ◼   ► Whilst they were late, I think it's a good thing that Apple was still able to get them

00:04:34 ◼   ► in the hands of people before the holidays.

00:04:36 ◼   ► Very last minute, you know, just before the holidays. This is like one of those situations

00:04:43 ◼   ► like when the Mac Pro came out and it was like two weeks before the end of the year,

00:04:48 ◼   ► if I remember correctly. It's like, well technically we did release it in, you know,

00:04:53 ◼   ► before the end of the year. So yeah. There was a, there was an OS X release once,

00:04:57 ◼   ► Stephen, you can maybe help me with this, where they kind of just said the fall and

00:05:00 ◼   ► then it came on like the last day of fall. Yeah. It was a…

00:05:05 ◼   ► Well technically it's correct. It was maybe something like Snow Leopard or

00:05:13 ◼   ► something like that, but I remember them being like, oh, we'll be here in the fall. And

00:05:16 ◼   ► was just like the last day before winter. Something like the end of October or something.

00:05:21 ◼   ► Yeah, they cut that close sometimes. I think the saddest OSTN release story is when they

00:05:27 ◼   ► sent an email out saying, "Hey, we know we said Leopard was coming, but we need another

00:05:31 ◼   ► three months because everyone's working on the iPhone. Sorry."

00:05:34 ◼   ► Oh yeah. Yeah, that got used for a long time as Apple should take their X moment, right?

00:05:40 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:05:41 ◼   ► You've got to take those extra three months. But if they do, we'll all get mad. You can

00:05:46 ◼   ► take the extra time but when the product gets delayed we will get real upset about it.

00:05:50 ◼   ► Yeah, used to be a meme, right? Used to be, for a while people were saying, "Apple should

00:05:54 ◼   ► have another leopard or snow leopard moment, whatever." It's like, you know, times change

00:06:00 ◼   ► and it's never gonna happen again, I think. So some stuff that did come out. Yesterday,

00:06:06 ◼   ► iOS 10.2, tvOS 10.1 shipped where I think Mac OS 10.12.2 should be out probably today.

00:06:16 ◼   ► So a lot of updates, of course there's lots of coverage at this website called Mac Stories.

00:06:22 ◼   ► I guess the highlights of these releases, at least on the iOS side, are 70+ new emoji,

00:06:28 ◼   ► which gets everyone excited.

00:06:30 ◼   ► Actually saw people tweeting yesterday of people who aren't in the tech circle like

00:06:34 ◼   ► we are.

00:06:35 ◼   ► "Oh look, there's new emojis, I'm going to update my iPhone."

00:06:37 ◼   ► It's like, "Oh, that really works!"

00:06:38 ◼   ► People really do update just so they can sit back into each other.

00:06:43 ◼   ► And then there's the other types of people like my girlfriend who had of 10.2 installed,

00:06:50 ◼   ► she didn't know, she had no idea that she had new emoji.

00:06:56 ◼   ► And she was complaining to me yesterday because she was like, "the battery on this iPhone

00:07:01 ◼   ► is weird, it's like it's dying on me all the time."

00:07:04 ◼   ► I was like, "did you know that I put a beta on your phone because I needed to take some

00:07:08 ◼   ► screenshots?"

00:07:09 ◼   ► And she got really upset.

00:07:10 ◼   ► I've used the new emoji and I don't care about emoji.

00:07:15 ◼   ► So yeah.

00:07:16 ◼   ► Yeah, I know.

00:07:18 ◼   ► Well, she uses them.

00:07:21 ◼   ► Come on.

00:07:22 ◼   ► How could you not care about emoji?

00:07:23 ◼   ► It's so important.

00:07:24 ◼   ► It's not like, "Oh my God, I got an update for the new emoji."

00:07:25 ◼   ► She's like, "Yeah, whatever.

00:07:26 ◼   ► I got emoji.

00:07:27 ◼   ► I use them."

00:07:28 ◼   ► But, you know, she's like, she really hates any kind of software update.

00:07:31 ◼   ► You know, I wonder if like, if you know, if you guys, like if somebody was able to kind

00:07:36 ◼   ► of like dig this apart like there might be some kind of like response to the fact that

00:07:41 ◼   ► you spend so much time devoting your life to software updates and like ruining all of

00:07:47 ◼   ► your plans and all of your holidays that it's actually ended up in a case where she hates

00:07:52 ◼   ► them.

00:07:53 ◼   ► Yeah, well you know we should go to therapy guys for it.

00:07:58 ◼   ► Software update therapy.

00:07:59 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:08:00 ◼   ► I think I think Myke is your therapist right now.

00:08:02 ◼   ► Thank you, Myke.

00:08:04 ◼   ► How much do you do?

00:08:05 ◼   ► What's your hourly rate, Myke?

00:08:07 ◼   ► You can't afford me, baby.

00:08:09 ◼   ► Oh wow.

00:08:10 ◼   ► I know, right.

00:08:11 ◼   ► Okay.

00:08:12 ◼   ► I'm so happy about the emoji.

00:08:14 ◼   ► I'm going to put a link in the show notes to Emojipedia because Jeremy, of course, has

00:08:18 ◼   ► broken it all down so you can see every single emoji that's changed and every single emoji

00:08:23 ◼   ► that's added.

00:08:24 ◼   ► And this is a big one because it's not just the addition of emoji.

00:08:28 ◼   ► also the kind of fundamental redrawing of a lot of emoji as well. And there are some

00:08:35 ◼   ► great ones in this one, you know, as well as like fun things like avocado and whiskey.

00:08:39 ◼   ► There's also I think much needed emoji like facepalm and fingers crossed and a sick face.

00:08:44 ◼   ► And Stephen would tell you black heart. He likes to send black hearts to people now.

00:08:49 ◼   ► I do like the black heart. The clown is really freaking me out.

00:08:53 ◼   ► I hate that thing so much.

00:08:54 ◼   ► It's so creepy. Like very creepy.

00:08:57 ◼   ► really horrible I wish it would go away. So what else is there besides emoji?

00:09:01 ◼   ► It's really that Apple did something else in all these betas right? Anything else?

00:09:06 ◼   ► Not anything that matters I don't think.

00:09:10 ◼   ► Some widget improvements. The TV app is out and I would encourage people to go

00:09:16 ◼   ► read the review on Mac stories and I don't know I mean it's it's there I'm

00:09:22 ◼   ► I'm not super excited about it. That's just me.

00:09:24 ◼   ► What my review or? No, the TV app.

00:09:27 ◼   ► Okay. It's there. I don't even care about it. Thank you.

00:09:35 ◼   ► I may be bothered to put in the show notes. We'll see.

00:09:39 ◼   ► Thank you. Thank you very much.

00:09:40 ◼   ► I'm trying the TV app from Italy with a very convoluted setup. I got my fake US upst-

00:09:48 ◼   ► well it's not fake, it's real account, it's just fake information. It shouldn't be, but

00:09:56 ◼   ► it's there. US App Store account, some of course US iTunes credit, a VPN and HBO Now,

00:10:07 ◼   ► it's I know it's too much, but I've been using TV app, I actually started watching for the

00:10:10 ◼   ► first time, so I don't have to hear my friends anymore. I started watching Game of Thrones.

00:10:17 ◼   ► I'm only like six seasons behind, but I'll get there.

00:10:21 ◼   ► It's nice.

00:10:22 ◼   ► It reminds me a lot of the music app, of the home app,

00:10:25 ◼   ► and the general style of these bold headlines.

00:10:29 ◼   ► And I like how you cannot watch any content in the TV

00:10:34 ◼   ► app, which is basically like a glorified launcher that takes

00:10:37 ◼   ► you to the actual content app where you can stream the video.

00:10:41 ◼   ► But Apple does a few nice things with basically organizing

00:10:45 ◼   ► and curating content from these external apps.

00:10:48 ◼   ► So even if the video is inside HBO Now,

00:10:51 ◼   ► the curation that Apple does is inside the TV app.

00:10:55 ◼   ► So you can browse categories or view the top TV shows

00:10:59 ◼   ► or top TV episodes and a bunch of collections

00:11:02 ◼   ► for actors and directors.

00:11:05 ◼   ► It's very nice.

00:11:06 ◼   ► Very similar to the music app.

00:11:08 ◼   ► I think I'm going to keep using it,

00:11:10 ◼   ► because I've actually discovered that HBO Now has a lot of TV

00:11:13 ◼   ► shows and movies that I've always wanted to watch. So it's kind of expensive, but I also,

00:11:18 ◼   ► you know, it's not very convenient because I just need to pay and watch. I actually understand

00:11:24 ◼   ► why people do this now because it's very simple once you pay with money. So...

00:11:29 ◼   ► Have you seen The Wire, Federica? That's on my list. I want to watch The Wire.

00:11:33 ◼   ► I want to watch Game of Thrones. I got a couple of mo- more than a couple of movies that I

00:11:37 ◼   ► need to watch. So yeah. Sopranos? Have you seen Sopranos?

00:11:41 ◼   ► on my list, Myke. Oh, you're going to have a good time. I'm going to give you a tip with

00:11:45 ◼   ► the wire, though, right? You've got to know this tip. Everyone knows this tip. You've

00:11:48 ◼   ► got to stick with it for like three episodes. Three. Because you'll watch it at first and

00:11:52 ◼   ► you won't have a clue what's going on. You've just got to keep with it, okay? Okay. Sopranos

00:11:57 ◼   ► is probably the best TV show ever made, so enjoy that one. Okay. Yeah, for Game of Thrones,

00:12:01 ◼   ► I'm keeping the closed captions on because of the sort of medieval British accent that

00:12:07 ◼   ► they have and I kind of have a hard time because they're not your type of

00:12:12 ◼   ► British people Myke. It's like you are the accessible British and then

00:12:17 ◼   ► there's like the TV show British which is kind of difficult for me. So Federico you have been

00:12:23 ◼   ► using the Bear app for notes and I thought it may be time to check in on

00:12:28 ◼   ► that and see how it's going. As I said in my in my regional review the

00:12:32 ◼   ► the automation stuff, the power user stuff in there. It's very nice. And I've created

00:12:38 ◼   ► a few launchers to save time when opening specific notes, which you don't have the possibility

00:12:46 ◼   ► of doing that with Apple Notes. There's no way to create a bookmark for a single note.

00:12:52 ◼   ► But I'm running into the same problems that I mentioned in my original review, and that

00:12:56 ◼   ► it's starting to become even more of a problem every week, where I save new content into

00:13:04 ◼   ► a note, either from my iPhone or from my iPad. And because Bear doesn't synchronize the

00:13:10 ◼   ► changes in time, I don't know what it does or doesn't do, but I end up with a conflicted

00:13:15 ◼   ► copy of a note. And that's really annoying. And I'm considering whether the trade-off

00:13:22 ◼   ► of having but also these conflicted copy issues is worth it for me. And this is exactly the

00:13:29 ◼   ► kind of point that I mentioned in my review. I want to try this for a couple of months.

00:13:33 ◼   ► I want to see if they fix these problems. And if they're not fixed, then I gotta understand

00:13:40 ◼   ► what I prioritize the most, whether it's automation or reliability. And I think I'm the reliability

00:13:49 ◼   ► camp, because I really want my Notes app to be fast and, you know, it's a thing I don't

00:13:56 ◼   ► want to manage. I manage enough options and, you know, apps in my life and the Notes app

00:14:01 ◼   ► is the kind of, you know, little thing, little space where I just want to save stuff without

00:14:07 ◼   ► thinking about it. So I'm considering...

00:14:09 ◼   ► It's also important stuff goes in there.

00:14:11 ◼   ► Exactly.

00:14:12 ◼   ► I put a lot of really important things inside of my Notes, just my general Notes application,

00:14:17 ◼   ► I don't want to forget things that it's like, you know, the off-board brain mentality like the reason Evernote existed in the first place, right?

00:14:23 ◼   ► It's the idea of just storing those things. So they're out of your brain. Yeah, and then there's somewhere else. Yeah, I

00:14:29 ◼   ► Love bear right? I really love it

00:14:32 ◼   ► And I'm using it as my markdown text editor basically and you know as we said when we spoke about it last time

00:14:37 ◼   ► I wanted to see your kind of experience with it going forward to see if the conflict resolution stuff was dealt with better if I before

00:14:44 ◼   ► I considered switching my notes to it. Because I'm really interested in a lot of the stuff

00:14:48 ◼   ► that it can do, like the workflow actions and the extension is like beefed up and it's

00:14:53 ◼   ► super awesome and you can do some great things with it, but at a basic level if there is

00:14:58 ◼   ► a possibility that I'm going to lose text, I'm just not going to use it for my notes.

00:15:02 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's really a problem for me and I'm probably going to switch this

00:15:06 ◼   ► weekend, I don't know, because it happened again yesterday and I'm putting together these

00:15:11 ◼   ► two big stories before the end of the year. You know, the thought of losing a note or

00:15:16 ◼   ► having five minutes and, you know, text back and forth, I really don't like it. So, you

00:15:21 ◼   ► know, almost, let's say 70% sure I'm gonna switch back.

00:15:25 ◼   ► Have you heard of work chat?

00:15:27 ◼   ► I, I, you're, Steven, you are fired from this podcast.

00:15:33 ◼   ► Hey, I have some socks here that I would like to sell you. Are you interested? What about

00:15:41 ◼   ► a scanner? Would you like a scanner? Oh, Evernote. I get lots of emails from Evernote, they're

00:15:49 ◼   ► trying to get me to renew my subscription.

00:15:53 ◼   ► We just realized you're not wearing our socks anymore. How do you know?

00:16:03 ◼   ► So this is our sort of last, I think last regular episode for the year. Next week we're

00:16:11 ◼   ► going to do our year in review show and

00:16:15 ◼   ► we mentioned this last week we're starting to

00:16:17 ◼   ► put that document together but if you

00:16:18 ◼   ► have stories that you think we should be

00:16:20 ◼   ► included stories that were either

00:16:22 ◼   ► important at the time and in hindsight

00:16:24 ◼   ► are not important those are fun to talk

00:16:26 ◼   ► about or things that really you know

00:16:28 ◼   ► change the course of of what the year

00:16:31 ◼   ► looks like technology wise or you know

00:16:33 ◼   ► all the different areas we cover on the

00:16:35 ◼   ► show. Let us know we're collecting all

00:16:37 ◼   ► that stuff on Twitter with the hashtag

00:16:39 ◼   ► connected year and we're gonna be putting the document together and it's

00:16:44 ◼   ► I'll speak for you guys too like this is one of my favorite shows we do each year

00:16:48 ◼   ► because it's so much fun to like revisit all the stuff we talked about and see

00:16:53 ◼   ► how it has changed you know over the course of time you know one of the weird

00:16:58 ◼   ► things that doing a weekly podcast that's sort of news focused is that

00:17:01 ◼   ► there are a lot of times we talk about things that in hindsight don't really

00:17:05 ◼   ► Like don't pan out or don't don't bring the impact

00:17:08 ◼   ► We thought they might like and that's a lot of fun to do and it's kind of fun to look back at that as well

00:17:13 ◼   ► so

00:17:14 ◼   ► Hashtag connected to your on Twitter. You can help us out with that

00:17:17 ◼   ► I will also plug

00:17:20 ◼   ► while we're doing this

00:17:22 ◼   ► Jason and Myke y'all will be doing the upgrade ease which is a

00:17:26 ◼   ► Award that y'all made up on your show and give to people and give to developers and products

00:17:32 ◼   ► Basically a ton of people that don't want it, but we try and give it to them anyway.

00:17:35 ◼   ► Yeah, you email somebody like, "What is this?" I'm not putting this on my website. But I

00:17:41 ◼   ► think you guys have a Google Doc form, or you were going to. I don't know if you do.

00:17:45 ◼   ► I haven't listened yet. So maybe we'll put that in the show notes as well. So lots of

00:17:49 ◼   ► ways to kind of get involved with the end of the year with some fun stuff that we do

00:17:51 ◼   ► here at Relay.

00:17:53 ◼   ► There is a Google Doc, there is a voting form. Me and Jason have put together some nominees,

00:17:59 ◼   ► shortlisted nominees, but we're also accepting suggestions as well. So there's a bunch of

00:18:02 ◼   ► different categories. I'll put the link in the show notes so you can go and check it

00:18:07 ◼   ► out. But also tweet us #ConnectedYear with, as Stephen said, with any links that you want

00:18:12 ◼   ► us to talk about on our year in review episode.

00:18:15 ◼   ► Personally, my favorite show of the year is the MacBook event one. This one is also pretty

00:18:22 ◼   ► good.

00:18:23 ◼   ► Second best, it's a close second.

00:18:25 ◼   ► Yeah, I think you said like four things on that last episode we did about the MacBook Pro keynote.

00:18:31 ◼   ► [Laughter]

00:18:34 ◼   ► I was like in a fugue state I think once.

00:18:36 ◼   ► It is fun. Those episodes are fun because they highlight the differences between the three of us.

00:18:42 ◼   ► Like one reason Connected works is that the three of us don't see eye to eye on a lot of stuff.

00:18:47 ◼   ► I mean, we're all close friends, but like technology-wise, the way we approach

00:18:51 ◼   ► our topics are very different from each other and that's what makes it fun.

00:18:55 ◼   ► Federico and I are often at opposite ends of the spectrum with Myke somewhere in the middle so

00:18:58 ◼   ► so it's a tasty Myke sandwich here on Connected. As always. It's the sandwich approach that's our

00:19:06 ◼   ► strategy. After this please Steven move on. All right I'm gonna move us into our first topic.

00:19:14 ◼   ► Here in a couple days Super Mario Run for iOS will be launching it's on December 15th

00:19:23 ◼   ► And there are a couple of news stories I think we want to talk about.

00:19:25 ◼   ► One, about his internet connection.

00:19:27 ◼   ► And two, that they are demoing this in Apple stores,

00:19:31 ◼   ► which I believe both of you have taken advantage of now.

00:19:34 ◼   ► But I want to know what you guys thought about the need for a constant internet connection.

00:19:39 ◼   ► From my perspective, the only thing I think is,

00:19:41 ◼   ► you know, kids are going to be playing this in the car on an iPad without internet access.

00:19:46 ◼   ► It's kind of a bummer from the gameplay perspective,

00:19:48 ◼   ► but you guys know Nintendo a lot better than I do and know gaming better than I do.

00:19:51 ◼   ► better than I do. Like what do you think about this? Is this weird? Is it a problem? Or you

00:19:55 ◼   ► know, kind of what's the deal?

00:19:57 ◼   ► It's so stupid. This is Nintendo's problem. Like if you've ever listened to remaster or

00:20:03 ◼   ► any of the shows that me and Federico have ever done about video games, you will know

00:20:06 ◼   ► like the constant thread that we have about Nintendo is they can never do anything perfectly.

00:20:13 ◼   ► Everything that they do has a critical flaw in some way. Like for example, the NES mini,

00:20:18 ◼   ► little Nintendo thing that they just released, right? Looks like the old NES. The cable is

00:20:24 ◼   ► like two feet long for the controller. So you cannot sit on the sofa and play the NES

00:20:31 ◼   ► Mini. Right, okay, congratulations Nintendo, you did it again. Right, like everything that

00:20:36 ◼   ► they do has some sort of stupid flaw of it.

00:20:38 ◼   ► They always manage to snatch the feet from the jaws of victory.

00:20:42 ◼   ► Every single time.

00:20:43 ◼   ► In some way, every single time.

00:20:46 ◼   ► And it's always like a decision that they've clearly made which shows a lack of understanding

00:20:54 ◼   ► of something.

00:20:55 ◼   ► So this one, right, is that they've said, and it's like, this isn't just like, oh, we

00:20:59 ◼   ► tried the demo version, it didn't work.

00:21:01 ◼   ► There are quotes from Shigeru Miyamoto specifically about this saying that to play Super Mario

00:21:07 ◼   ► Run, it needs a constant internet connection because they're worried about privacy because

00:21:11 ◼   ► they've never done something like this before.

00:21:13 ◼   ► piracy, sorry I should say, like they're worried about people who are gonna pirate the game.

00:21:16 ◼   ► Which is like, Nintendo, what are you doing? Like, because what happens here is like people like me,

00:21:24 ◼   ► commuters who are the exact market for a one-handed iPhone game cannot play

00:21:31 ◼   ► when they're underground. You cannot play when you're on a plane. Like, the time that these

00:21:39 ◼   ► games get played, like infinite runners, tends to be when people are travelling, right? That

00:21:43 ◼   ► is a big use case. But can you play Super Mario Run? No, no you can't. Like, what are

00:21:48 ◼   ► you doing Nintendo? Like, this is just so stupid. It's so, like, it just shows like

00:21:53 ◼   ► this problem that they have of just completely misunderstanding something. It's, I think

00:21:59 ◼   ► it's just ridiculous.

00:22:00 ◼   ► Yeah, I know there's going to be people who say like, every major game today requires

00:22:06 ◼   ► a wifi connection, this is no big deal, I don't understand why people are making a big

00:22:10 ◼   ► deal out of this. And the problem is, when you announce this type of game at an event,

00:22:15 ◼   ► and you make a big deal out of the ability to play with one hand, and you say "well,

00:22:19 ◼   ► you can play on the train, you can play on the subway", well, guess what's the place

00:22:23 ◼   ► where people have no access to the internet? It's exactly the subway. And there's also

00:22:28 ◼   ► the fact that I think we, as a community of Nintendo fans, I think we expect Nintendo

00:22:35 ◼   ► to do better than, I don't know, Clash of Clans for example, and these games that are

00:22:40 ◼   ► required to be constantly connected.

00:22:42 ◼   ► I think we were sort of hoping that Nintendo would bring back the classic idea of "you

00:22:49 ◼   ► can pay once, you can play forever, there are no weird social modern requirements",

00:22:55 ◼   ► you know?

00:22:56 ◼   ► It's not like all those other iPhone games were different.

00:23:00 ◼   ► And I thought we were hoping that would be the case.

00:23:02 ◼   ► from a practical level, I think, especially because it's the very first major Nintendo

00:23:07 ◼   ► game on the iPhone, and you announce the kind of game that you can say you can play with

00:23:12 ◼   ► one hand on the subway. There are three modes. Why not make one of them always playable?

00:23:18 ◼   ► And I know that they're making the excuse that, you know, having an always online requirement

00:23:25 ◼   ► makes it easy to connect the three modes in the game. But that's a very, that's basically

00:23:30 ◼   ► the stretch, it sounds to me like Nintendo went on stage at the Apple event and announced

00:23:37 ◼   ► their idea for this game. And then whether it's an internal decision or whether Dina,

00:23:44 ◼   ► which they collaborate with the Japanese gaming company for these games, pushed them to be

00:23:49 ◼   ► like, "Look, if you want to have more stats, if you want to have more information about

00:23:54 ◼   ► your players, you want to have stricter security in place, it's probably best if you always

00:23:59 ◼   ► to require an internet connection. And I wouldn't be surprised. So if this lunch is going to

00:24:04 ◼   ► go well, no doubt. There's going to be people who complain about the requirement. And I

00:24:08 ◼   ► wouldn't be surprised if-

00:24:09 ◼   ► Especially because it's a $10 game.

00:24:11 ◼   ► Exactly.

00:24:12 ◼   ► Right, when you unlock it.

00:24:13 ◼   ► I wouldn't be surprised if at least one, the main mode, the story mode, whatever it's called,

00:24:17 ◼   ► the one with the worlds, with the levels, at least that mode gets an update to remove

00:24:24 ◼   ► the internet requirement.

00:24:25 ◼   ► there's no need for it. Right? So I want to talk about this. I wish I could find this tweet.

00:24:30 ◼   ► I saw a tweet that somebody put out that perfectly encapsulates this. Games like Pokemon Go,

00:24:37 ◼   ► games like Clash of Clans, they require an internet connection because that's the game.

00:24:42 ◼   ► Right? You have to be connected. The Super Mario Run enforces one.

00:24:47 ◼   ► That was Renee, I think.

00:24:48 ◼   ► Yes, yeah, it was Renee there and it perfectly summed it up right that that Nintendo are

00:24:54 ◼   ► forcing you to have an internet connection for this which

00:24:59 ◼   ► For the main mode there is no online play now in the stage where you are connecting with other players

00:25:06 ◼   ► Then make me connect then the rest of the time

00:25:09 ◼   ► I shouldn't need to be connecting to the internet because I'm it's a single-player game. It's a one-player game

00:25:16 ◼   ► And I think that it really put it well because the easy argument that I've been seeing people make is like

00:25:21 ◼   ► "Oh, well, such and such game needs it. We have to connect online."

00:25:25 ◼   ► But either they're scammy games or they're games that won't work unless you're connected online.

00:25:31 ◼   ► And Super Mario Run is neither of those.

00:25:34 ◼   ► Yeah, also, I mean if you're making the argument that you need to check whether people have a pirated copy of the game

00:25:40 ◼   ► Do you really need to check in real time? Do you really need to check every 10 seconds?

00:25:44 ◼   ► Yeah, if the game is being pirated from instead of bought from the App Store. I mean, can't

00:25:48 ◼   ► you check out or not twice a day? Is that a big problem? Or every X hours? I mean, it

00:25:54 ◼   ► just seems so disrespectful for people who pay $10. I don't know that it's not a lot,

00:26:00 ◼   ► but that's the current state of the App Store economics. So you can be blind to the fact

00:26:03 ◼   ► that $10 is not considered a lot of money, or you can just hope for the best. And Nintendo

00:26:08 ◼   ► seems to be hoping for the best. I think there will be a slew of App Store reviews mentioning

00:26:14 ◼   ► the requirement, I think it's going to be a problem and I think it's going to be

00:26:17 ◼   ► reversed.

00:26:18 ◼   ► Yeah, I do too. You know you're saying about the Dina thing, like that is a definite argument

00:26:22 ◼   ► right that like Dina have told them you should do this because of the tracking. But I actually

00:26:27 ◼   ► take Shigeru at face value but think that they're making a stupid decision. Like I

00:26:32 ◼   ► think Nintendo have never done this before, right? They have never had a serious release,

00:26:38 ◼   ► a Mario release, like one of their tentpole titles on another platform. So they are, I

00:26:44 ◼   ► think they're scared, right? That they're like, "Oh, we don't know about this Apple

00:26:48 ◼   ► App Store. Like, we should make sure that no one's going to steal our game." Right?

00:26:53 ◼   ► I genuinely think that they're feeling this way.

00:26:57 ◼   ► Just picture in the discussion with Nintendo executives about all of them have your face

00:27:02 ◼   ► and your voice. And it's very amazing.

00:27:04 ◼   ► Where do we put the seal of quality? Like, where does that go? Does that go on the App

00:27:08 ◼   ► Store page? Where does the seal of quality go? I really think that they're just kind

00:27:13 ◼   ► a little bit blinded to it. Like, this isn't something that they should be spending, this

00:27:19 ◼   ► isn't something that should make everybody's play worse. They are sacrificing everyone

00:27:28 ◼   ► for the sake of some pirated copies, people that are never going to pay for the game.

00:27:33 ◼   ► Yeah, it's like someone who goes on a bike for the first time and he puts on the helmet

00:27:37 ◼   ► and a bunch of protections because he thinks he's going to die. And he's doing the same

00:27:43 ◼   ► with an Apso release. It's like just leave it to Apple to deal with the piracy thing.

00:27:47 ◼   ► Nobody else really frets in this way, like just just chill. But anyway, I am really annoyed about

00:27:55 ◼   ► this. But I am super excited about the game anyway. Like it's gonna frustrate me when I

00:27:59 ◼   ► want to play in a place that I can't play. But the thing is, this is a game I've wanted for a long

00:28:04 ◼   ► time. This is the exact Mario game I wanted Nintendo to build because it's so perfect for

00:28:09 ◼   ► Mario, right? The infinite runner. And I've played it and you've played it. Federico,

00:28:13 ◼   ► what do you think of Super Mario Run from your demo in the Apple Store?

00:28:18 ◼   ► I played it for a couple of minutes because there were people standing by, so, you know.

00:28:23 ◼   ► It felt really good in terms of gameplay. The jump felt like a Mario jump, and the graphics

00:28:32 ◼   ► were delightful. It didn't feel like a cheap game at all. Like, from a couple of minutes

00:28:38 ◼   ► I could see that a lot of care went into making this game. And I played on a, I think it was

00:28:43 ◼   ► an iPad mini. The controls, the relationship between touch and Mario jumping and Mario

00:28:50 ◼   ► running felt exactly like a Nintendo game. And I saw from that limited demo that in every

00:28:57 ◼   ► level there's a couple of roads you can take. So it seems like the replayability factor

00:29:06 ◼   ► -Like seriously massive. -Would be massive.

00:29:08 ◼   ► I played the first two levels two times,

00:29:11 ◼   ► and I mean, just kind of like counting it in my head,

00:29:14 ◼   ► there were probably like four different routes you could take for each level.

00:29:17 ◼   ► Like different things that you could do, different jumps that you could make,

00:29:20 ◼   ► and like with clear difficulty barriers,

00:29:23 ◼   ► like there were some that like I just couldn't get up there.

00:29:26 ◼   ► It didn't matter what I was doing, so it's like right,

00:29:28 ◼   ► well that means that there's a perfect timing for it.

00:29:31 ◼   ► So it's like this is a, this is clearly Nintendo's take on this,

00:29:34 ◼   ► because it is so well done.

00:29:36 ◼   ► I played it today on an iPhone 7 and an iPad Pro 12.9 which was ridiculous.

00:29:43 ◼   ► I took a little video of it.

00:29:45 ◼   ► It looked really good on the 12.9 but it was kind of silly.

00:29:50 ◼   ► I just said to the guy in the Apple store, I was like, "Is it on the iPads too?"

00:29:54 ◼   ► He's like, "Yeah, it's on that one."

00:29:55 ◼   ► I'm like, "Oh my God."

00:29:57 ◼   ► The guy that I spoke to said that he put all the demos on and he said it took forever.

00:30:03 ◼   ► So I didn't press him on this, but I wonder how they got them on there.

00:30:07 ◼   ► But he's like, yeah, it took my entire day.

00:30:09 ◼   ► They do the MDM solution for installing these apps.

00:30:13 ◼   ► Yeah, but this is unique, right?

00:30:15 ◼   ► You mean 10% unique promo codes?

00:30:18 ◼   ► They sent them some CDs, you know, it's like, they sent them cartridges, 3DS cartridges.

00:30:25 ◼   ► I assume this might be a little bit different because it's a demo, right?

00:30:28 ◼   ► It's something that doesn't exist in the store.

00:30:30 ◼   ► And that might have made it a bit trickier, but he said it took a long time.

00:30:33 ◼   ► And there were only six devices because I went to like a part of a store, like a store

00:30:39 ◼   ► inside of a store.

00:30:40 ◼   ► It was like an Apple store inside of a mall, like a department store.

00:30:45 ◼   ► Like it wasn't the actual Apple store.

00:30:46 ◼   ► Oh yeah.

00:30:47 ◼   ► Okay.

00:30:48 ◼   ► Got it.

00:30:49 ◼   ► So he only had like six devices and it took him most of yesterday.

00:30:51 ◼   ► So I feel sorry for the guy.

00:30:53 ◼   ► It was not a test flight build because there was no orange icon.

00:30:56 ◼   ► I checked.

00:30:57 ◼   ► Look at you.

00:30:58 ◼   ► You're always looking for those little details.

00:31:00 ◼   ► I mean, I really like it. The game looks great, it plays great. Like, I'm super excited for it.

00:31:03 ◼   ► Like, I cannot wait.

00:31:05 ◼   ► Yes.

00:31:06 ◼   ► And when... it's coming out Thursday, right?

00:31:09 ◼   ► Coming out Thursday.

00:31:10 ◼   ► Like, are we thinking midnight or are we thinking time?

00:31:12 ◼   ► Well, Apple is doing something strange this time because there's already an App Store

00:31:17 ◼   ► page for the game. There's already an iTunes link. So in theory, it should roll out at...

00:31:23 ◼   ► usually should be 11pm New York time, which would be my 5am or your 4am mic. But being

00:31:32 ◼   ► a new release, I don't know if Apple wants to wait for the morning or 6am New York time

00:31:39 ◼   ► maybe. Usually, when developers do these tiny releases, it tends to go out at 11pm New York

00:31:47 ◼   ► time the night before. Maybe this time is different. And I also want to see how the

00:31:54 ◼   ► notification system that Apple put in place works.

00:31:56 ◼   ► I almost guarantee that I will have downloaded the game before I get the notification.

00:32:01 ◼   ► I also think so too.

00:32:03 ◼   ► Unless it's like the iPhone 7 tweets and they just blast them out early.

00:32:08 ◼   ► Yeah, oh god. But you know, Apple has a really bad job with their email marketing program.

00:32:16 ◼   ► They don't use data very well.

00:32:19 ◼   ► It's funny, like a company at their size with the amount of emails that they send, like

00:32:22 ◼   ► how bad they are at it.

00:32:23 ◼   ► You know, like you'll own a product for a while, you buy an Apple Watch on day one,

00:32:27 ◼   ► and then two weeks later you're like, "Hey, buy an Apple Watch!"

00:32:29 ◼   ► It's like, you know I own one of these, like you know this.

00:32:33 ◼   ► They don't use data very well.

00:32:35 ◼   ► It's like, "Hey, you should buy one!"

00:32:37 ◼   ► So yeah, I'm excited, I'm frustrated, but I'm excited.

00:32:43 ◼   ► But I do believe, as you do Federico, that they are going to reverse this decision, but

00:32:49 ◼   ► I don't think the game will ship that way.

00:32:51 ◼   ► No.

00:32:52 ◼   ► Just because they've got so much bad press and the game isn't even out yet.

00:32:58 ◼   ► I have a story for you two.

00:33:00 ◼   ► Okay.

00:33:01 ◼   ► Okay.

00:33:02 ◼   ► I haven't told either of you about my tales today, which led me to playing Super Mario

00:33:08 ◼   ► Run.

00:33:09 ◼   ► Okay.

00:33:10 ◼   ► I'm going to take a few steps back and just say that I've recently realized that the Apple

00:33:16 ◼   ► Watch is an essential device for me.

00:33:20 ◼   ► Oh no.

00:33:21 ◼   ► A couple of weeks ago I came to this realization that it's like it's how I get my notifications,

00:33:26 ◼   ► which is good, but it's also how I triage them.

00:33:28 ◼   ► So like I can be connected at all times and I can easily kind of just make things more

00:33:32 ◼   ► simple so that when I do sit down at a computer for a certain reason, a lot of stuff is already

00:33:36 ◼   ► dealt with.

00:33:37 ◼   ► So this morning I woke up and I woke up early, I was leaving the house early to come to the

00:33:42 ◼   ► new flat because I had some stuff that I needed to take care of and I saw that there was an

00:33:47 ◼   ► update right, like an Apple Watch update came out, like a point update.

00:33:50 ◼   ► So I started the update, I don't know why I did this, I just started it and I had to

00:33:54 ◼   ► leave at a specific time.

00:33:56 ◼   ► So I took the Apple Watch off the charger and it wasn't very happy about this.

00:34:04 ◼   ► So you know you have the little dots that go around the Apple logo, right, that shows

00:34:08 ◼   ► the progression?

00:34:10 ◼   ► It's stuck on that screen and it was just blinking.

00:34:14 ◼   ► So I put the watch on my arm for a bit and kind of like went around my day and wanted

00:34:18 ◼   ► to see what would happen.

00:34:19 ◼   ► And the screen wouldn't go off.

00:34:21 ◼   ► And it was just getting hot.

00:34:24 ◼   ► So I thought to myself, I need to stop it doing this because I'm worried about going

00:34:29 ◼   ► about my day for the next two hours or whatever with this screen just like on constantly.

00:34:36 ◼   ► So I force rebooted it and it killed it.

00:34:39 ◼   ► Yeah you bricked it.

00:34:41 ◼   ► Straight up bricked it.

00:34:43 ◼   ► Straight up straight up killed it.

00:34:44 ◼   ► I got the red exclamation mark that takes you to a support page.

00:34:49 ◼   ► So it's just a red exclamation mark and it just said look by the way before I get feedback

00:34:53 ◼   ► I know what I did was stupid but I had no other option.

00:34:56 ◼   ► I was leaving the house, I figured I could maybe leave it for later.

00:35:00 ◼   ► I was just going to take the watch off and I figured it would just pause the update.

00:35:03 ◼   ► But it was then I was worried about it being on all that time, so I took a flip of the coin and rebooted it.

00:35:10 ◼   ► I was fully aware of what might happen if I did this, but I kind of went with it.

00:35:15 ◼   ► It was like 8am, I was very tired, I wasn't maybe at my best thoughts.

00:35:19 ◼   ► I was like, "Oh, maybe it will just come back to life." No, it didn't.

00:35:22 ◼   ► So it takes you to a support page.

00:35:24 ◼   ► My other thinking was like I know I can fix this like my brain is saying to me

00:35:28 ◼   ► I'll just deal with it like I do with an iPhone right you just put into DFU mode or whatever the equivalent is

00:35:34 ◼   ► And you just flash the OS back on to it right doesn't exist on the watch. This is

00:35:37 ◼   ► Exactly. This is what I found out like in my mind

00:35:41 ◼   ► It's like well, I've done stuff like this before and you can you know, it might be a pain

00:35:45 ◼   ► But you can always get it back to life again, but no the support page

00:35:49 ◼   ► Says that you have to go to Apple

00:35:53 ◼   ► That's all it says. It's like oh you go to go to a URL that says come to the Genius Bar confess your sins

00:35:59 ◼   ► My child confess your sin. It's ridiculous. So I was like, okay, let me see what's available at the Genius Bar

00:36:06 ◼   ► There are many Apple stores in London. This is 8 a.m. In the morning

00:36:10 ◼   ► I could not get a Genius Bar appointment in all of London for today

00:36:15 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah, same in Rome

00:36:17 ◼   ► It's been getting worse actually.

00:36:19 ◼   ► And then what I think is worse than this is you can only book same day.

00:36:23 ◼   ► It wouldn't let me book into the future.

00:36:27 ◼   ► So what's the point of this?

00:36:28 ◼   ► Do I now spend like an indefinite amount of time waking up at 7 a.m.

00:36:33 ◼   ► every morning to see if you will grant me a Genius Bar appointment?

00:36:37 ◼   ► Like, and that's just not a solution for me.

00:36:40 ◼   ► Like right now, like what I'm doing in my life right now, like moving house

00:36:45 ◼   ► and then holidays, and then I'm taking a trip

00:36:48 ◼   ► after the holidays, like, I can't do this.

00:36:52 ◼   ► So I now have an Apple Watch Series 2.

00:36:55 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:36:56 ◼   ► - Whoa!

00:36:56 ◼   ► Oh my. - Which one?

00:36:59 ◼   ► - I went with a black sport.

00:37:02 ◼   ► - Okay, okay.

00:37:02 ◼   ► - So what you had before?

00:37:03 ◼   ► - 'Cause they were available, no I didn't have a black one,

00:37:06 ◼   ► I had the regular one.

00:37:07 ◼   ► Now I have a black one.

00:37:09 ◼   ► So like, I was, this is like another thing,

00:37:11 ◼   ► I was like, oh, well now I'm gonna have to get one, right?

00:37:13 ◼   ► Like this is what I'm thinking in my head,

00:37:14 ◼   ► It's like I don't know what I'm gonna do. Like I don't want to go about it for like the next month

00:37:18 ◼   ► Maybe so I'll get one and then I couldn't order any to home

00:37:21 ◼   ► Because they're all shipping on in January

00:37:24 ◼   ► No Apple watches shipping and then there is a big department store in London called Selfridges that has an an Apple watch store in it

00:37:32 ◼   ► And they had some for pickup. So I went there to pick one up and then what I'm gonna do is after the holidays

00:37:38 ◼   ► or maybe before I'm gonna take this to the Apple store and

00:37:43 ◼   ► have it fixed or

00:37:45 ◼   ► And give it to my brother because my brother wants one so it can be a Christmas gift or I'm just gonna give him the box

00:37:51 ◼   ► Now I'll be like this is yours, but you have to fix it

00:37:53 ◼   ► Take it to have I got you this

00:37:56 ◼   ► Merry Christmas

00:38:00 ◼   ► Brother I know Myke. Yeah, it's the guy you met. Yeah

00:38:07 ◼   ► Yeah, he's a nice guy. I was always the plan was whenever I eventually upgraded my Apple watch

00:38:13 ◼   ► I was gonna give him my old one

00:38:14 ◼   ► I then decided I didn't want a series 2 because I mean I didn't want a series 2

00:38:18 ◼   ► But it was all that was available for pickup

00:38:21 ◼   ► Even it's just this all I could get today after searching for all of these like six stores was a black series 2

00:38:27 ◼   ► That was like against

00:38:29 ◼   ► available

00:38:30 ◼   ► and so I

00:38:33 ◼   ► Decided to just go with it. I I can't like, you know, Carl's staying to me in the chat room like to call Apple care

00:38:40 ◼   ► I just and they'll ship me one. I just I just can't I just know I

00:38:44 ◼   ► Haven't I'm like moving house. I've got too much going on right now. So there we go

00:38:49 ◼   ► I know a series 2 Apple watch nice black one. So a couple of things about it

00:38:55 ◼   ► I can totally feel that it's thicker. Hmm. And the reason I know this is I've had to change the hole on my watch band

00:39:02 ◼   ► Oh, wow that much so the one that I yeah the one that I was wearing it was just it was just slightly too tight

00:39:09 ◼   ► So I've changed it like and also I know that it's heavier as well

00:39:13 ◼   ► This is the thing with a watch when you have something on your wrist at all day every day when it changes you notice

00:39:18 ◼   ► It doesn't matter how little it changes like I can feel that this thing is thicker

00:39:22 ◼   ► And I know it's heavier because I've had to change the the hole in my watch band

00:39:25 ◼   ► Like or maybe I've got those two things all around but whatever but yeah that that's kind of I have nothing else to say because

00:39:32 ◼   ► I haven't had this thing long enough the blacks nice and I guess it's faster like I don't know

00:39:37 ◼   ► And mark mark is asking the chat room

00:39:39 ◼   ► Why not get the series one because there were none available in all of them

00:39:42 ◼   ► But like all I could get was the black one. I couldn't get gold. I can get rose gold

00:39:46 ◼   ► I couldn't get so like there was nothing there was absolutely

00:39:48 ◼   ► I was just looking as you were talking about what my local Apple store had in stock and it changes all the time

00:39:53 ◼   ► I think the only thing I could buy right now in my Apple store is the

00:39:58 ◼   ► Nike watch, you know the Nike plus one in the dark aluminum at least in the 42 millimeter

00:40:04 ◼   ► So I looked at but it's like these things are still

00:40:07 ◼   ► Constrained. I mean, it's it's I don't know what's going on, but they are struggling to ship these things and numbers to keep up. I

00:40:15 ◼   ► Guess it's good for Apple right now. Maybe means they're selling more than I mean they would maybe that's they're making three a week

00:40:22 ◼   ► And they're selling and they need to sell five a week. They still be ahead like

00:40:26 ◼   ► Who knows I do want to take a quick time as I was I know this is all my fault

00:40:30 ◼   ► To just say that the Apple watch update process is barbaric. Yep. It's it's really just like

00:40:38 ◼   ► The all of the steps you have to take and then how long it takes

00:40:42 ◼   ► Like what is good? There's barely any software in this thing as far as I'm aware like, you know, what is it doing?

00:40:50 ◼   ► Yeah, it's because it depends on the iPhone

00:40:52 ◼   ► So it's not as straightforward because for whatever reason the Apple watch cannot update itself

00:40:58 ◼   ► it has to talk to the phone and the phone has to manage the process of fetching the software update and

00:41:04 ◼   ► Letting it install on the watch. It would be easier if also there's no you know, there's no

00:41:11 ◼   ► Connection to override the the software like you can with an iPhone you just plug it into iTunes and you install the you know

00:41:18 ◼   ► the IPSW file, you cannot do the same with an Apple watch.

00:41:22 ◼   ► So it has to talk to the phone.

00:41:23 ◼   ► And because of that, it's super slow and it's super,

00:41:26 ◼   ► you know, it comes with those trade-offs.

00:41:28 ◼   ► Like if I break my watch, I cannot reinstall the software myself.

00:41:31 ◼   ► I need to bring it to Apple for servicing.

00:41:33 ◼   ► You see, that's the thing that like annoys me now is like, I know what the process is.

00:41:37 ◼   ► They're just going to take that little service cover off the back, right?

00:41:40 ◼   ► And like the little thing that's hidden under the watch

00:41:42 ◼   ► and then they're going to plug it in and flash the OS.

00:41:44 ◼   ► Like, I know that's all it takes.

00:41:45 ◼   ► I'm kind of just like, can you not sell me a cable so I can do it as myself?

00:41:50 ◼   ► Maybe in the future.

00:41:52 ◼   ► You know, like if my iOS device fails, you make me do it.

00:41:55 ◼   ► Right. Yeah, I know.

00:41:57 ◼   ► You tell me to do this.

00:41:58 ◼   ► So I do this like, why can't I just why can't I do this?

00:42:02 ◼   ► Like it's so because the thing is, if I could have taken it to the genius bar today,

00:42:07 ◼   ► I would have done that.

00:42:09 ◼   ► Like I wasn't looking to spend this money.

00:42:11 ◼   ► Right. Like I but I it was

00:42:15 ◼   ► even if I could have booked an appointment in three days time, but it was like, no appointment

00:42:19 ◼   ► today is to try again tomorrow. That was all it said. It's like, this is like,

00:42:24 ◼   ► Something is going on with the Genius Bar situation. It used to be in Rome. I live five

00:42:29 ◼   ► minutes away from an Apple store. And it's one of the bigger ones here. And it used to

00:42:35 ◼   ► be that even in busy times of the year, like in the Christmas season, for example, you

00:42:41 ◼   ► could book an appointment usually two to three days in advance in the non-busy times of the

00:42:47 ◼   ► year, you could book an appointment for the same day or the next day.

00:42:51 ◼   ► This is the, this is the exact experience I've had in the past two, for the past couple

00:42:55 ◼   ► of weeks, maybe for the past month has been getting so worse that in the two weeks ago,

00:43:05 ◼   ► So not exactly Christmas season yet.

00:43:09 ◼   ► I could book an appointment on Sunday, for example, for Friday.

00:43:16 ◼   ► And there were only a few spots left.

00:43:19 ◼   ► So I don't know what is going on, whether Apple has changed something in the Genius

00:43:23 ◼   ► Bar strategy, how it works, how many appointments per day they can handle, but it seems to be

00:43:29 ◼   ► a common trend in Italy.

00:43:32 ◼   ► Now that you tell me so in the UK, I've heard from people in Canada with the same problem.

00:43:37 ◼   ► I don't know what is going on. Maybe they're understaffed, but are they really understaffed

00:43:41 ◼   ► at a worldwide level?

00:43:42 ◼   ► It doesn't surprise me that they're busy, and it doesn't surprise me that I can't get

00:43:46 ◼   ► one on the same day. What frustrates me is that I can't then book one. So I then have

00:43:52 ◼   ► to spend, like I said, an unknown amount of time before I will get an appointment, checking

00:43:58 ◼   ► every single date, multiple times a day, like when am I supposed to see if there's appointments

00:44:02 ◼   ► available?

00:44:03 ◼   ► Like that doesn't work.

00:44:04 ◼   ► And it's like, again, like I wouldn't complain about this except for the fact that you're

00:44:09 ◼   ► forcing the only way for me to get my product resolved is to come to you.

00:44:14 ◼   ► That's what you tell me.

00:44:15 ◼   ► So I have to come to you.

00:44:16 ◼   ► And even then it was like, come to the Genius Bar.

00:44:20 ◼   ► And when you go to Apple's page, like the support page, the problem that I have, you

00:44:25 ◼   ► can't select in the support system.

00:44:28 ◼   ► You can't say like, "red exclamation mark" like it doesn't know what that means. Or

00:44:32 ◼   ► like, "the Apple Watch is brick." I just had to choose like, there's a power problem.

00:44:36 ◼   ► It was the only way it would then let me get to the Genius Bar booking system. Everything

00:44:40 ◼   ► else was just like, "Hey, talk to us online." It's like, no, I know what I need to do

00:44:44 ◼   ► because you've already told me.

00:44:45 ◼   ► I don't want to talk to you all.

00:44:48 ◼   ► Well, because then it's just gonna be like, "Have you done this?" Yes, I've done

00:44:51 ◼   ► it. I've done it.

00:44:53 ◼   ► I like when you do the other people voices.

00:44:56 ◼   ► Me too.

00:44:57 ◼   ► always sound the same.

00:44:58 ◼   ► This is what I think of these computers.

00:45:01 ◼   ► Wow.

00:45:02 ◼   ► Oh, dear.

00:45:03 ◼   ► I did.

00:45:03 ◼   ► This week's episode is brought to you by a company that makes me happy.

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00:46:34 ◼   ► Is a quick update in the time from follow up until now air pods are now

00:46:41 ◼   ► Four weeks out so you're into 2017

00:46:45 ◼   ► You're welcome Apple

00:46:48 ◼   ► Yeah, we saw it. We we sold out their entire stock

00:46:51 ◼   ► So we're gonna wrap up we're gonna wrap up this week talking about

00:46:55 ◼   ► Pebble a company that we have

00:46:57 ◼   ► Covered on the show for a long time. I had the original Kickstarter pebble watch Myke

00:47:02 ◼   ► You've had one or two. I had the steel. I got the steel one

00:47:06 ◼   ► Well, you can't buy another one because they're gone and if you did buy one do you get refund?

00:47:13 ◼   ► So yeah, this has been really interesting to kind of watch unfold

00:47:18 ◼   ► Like I think it was maybe about a week or two ago rumors started circulating that Fitbit were looking to buy a pebble

00:47:25 ◼   ► Right that that that news has been around for a couple of weeks

00:47:28 ◼   ► But kind of at that point it kind of just looked like wow

00:47:31 ◼   ► They're gonna buy them like that was kind of there wasn't really anything else that would have suggested that a sale was needed

00:47:37 ◼   ► So the the story seems to be that

00:47:39 ◼   ► They have been in like financial trouble for a while. There's a great article on back channel about this saying that

00:47:47 ◼   ► But as far back as 2015, Pebble was losing money.

00:47:52 ◼   ► They were not meeting their sales goals and they sort of had a realization that the company

00:47:57 ◼   ► was not going to be profitable.

00:47:58 ◼   ► If you remember, they did a round of layoffs then laid off like 20, 25% of people.

00:48:04 ◼   ► Yeah, it's like 160 people or something.

00:48:06 ◼   ► It was like a quarter of their workforce.

00:48:08 ◼   ► Yeah, it's a bunch of people.

00:48:09 ◼   ► And it's always, and we say this every time, it's always terrible to cover these stories

00:48:13 ◼   ► because you know real people are affected and lost their jobs.

00:48:17 ◼   ► But so Pebble shrank.

00:48:19 ◼   ► They had a Kickstarter for the Pebble Time 2.

00:48:25 ◼   ► Their names are confusing to me.

00:48:27 ◼   ► And then like a little like keychain 3G thing that could do things called the Core.

00:48:33 ◼   ► But it doesn't seem to have been enough.

00:48:36 ◼   ► And so in this acquisition kind of two things happened.

00:48:41 ◼   ► Fitbit seems to have bought the software.

00:48:44 ◼   ► And in this deal, most if not all of the hardware people at Pebble were let go.

00:48:51 ◼   ► They were not given the opportunity to join Fitbit.

00:48:53 ◼   ► So Fitbit seems to have bought Pebble for their software, for their--

00:48:58 ◼   ► And their engineers.

00:48:59 ◼   ► Yeah, the engineers.

00:49:00 ◼   ► The IP there, which is super important, right, that they now have the right to the ideas

00:49:04 ◼   ► in the Pebble software, which we can get into.

00:49:07 ◼   ► Had some interesting stuff, I think.

00:49:09 ◼   ► But clearly not even like another Kickstarter campaign could do it.

00:49:14 ◼   ► I think, we talk about this in companies sometimes,

00:49:17 ◼   ► where if they have a big public layoff,

00:49:20 ◼   ► it really damages trust in the company.

00:49:22 ◼   ► It's like the same reason the time capsule

00:49:24 ◼   ► in the airports are dead.

00:49:25 ◼   ► Even if Apple isn't discontinuing them,

00:49:28 ◼   ► that story broke everyone's trust in that product line.

00:49:31 ◼   ► So effectively, they're dead.

00:49:33 ◼   ► It's kind of the same thing with Pebble, I think.

00:49:35 ◼   ► - Yeah, 'cause what happened was,

00:49:36 ◼   ► yeah, what happened was after they kick-started a campaign,

00:49:39 ◼   ► they needed to raise more money, 'cause--

00:49:40 ◼   ► - Yeah. - For whatever reason.

00:49:43 ◼   ► But at that point, nobody would give any money to them.

00:49:45 ◼   ► And it's probably, you know, it was a combination of,

00:49:47 ◼   ► you just lay it off a bunch of your people and also Apple.

00:49:50 ◼   ► Like Apple are here now.

00:49:52 ◼   ► You know, and it's like, I think it kind of crushed them.

00:49:55 ◼   ► And the C, basically the back channel article

00:49:59 ◼   ► is a lot of like direct quotes from in conversation

00:50:01 ◼   ► with Pebble CEO.

00:50:03 ◼   ► And one of the things that he says is he thinks

00:50:05 ◼   ► that everybody misjudged what the smartwatch devices

00:50:09 ◼   ► were for.

00:50:09 ◼   ► He said, "We went after productivity,

00:50:13 ◼   ► "Apple went after notifications and communication,

00:50:16 ◼   ► "but it actually seems that people want health devices

00:50:18 ◼   ► "on their wrists and that both Pebble and Apple ran for that

00:50:23 ◼   ► "and Apple were better placed to be able

00:50:25 ◼   ► "to make the changes in time."

00:50:27 ◼   ► And by that point, with the Pebble 2,

00:50:29 ◼   ► the Pebble 2 was focused on health, but it was too light.

00:50:32 ◼   ► It was just too light for them, which is a shame.

00:50:36 ◼   ► It's a real shame.

00:50:37 ◼   ► And so now it's like, this is where they are.

00:50:39 ◼   ► And so one thing, there's another article on The Verge where Fitbit CEO talks about

00:50:46 ◼   ► kind of like why they did this.

00:50:47 ◼   ► And one thing that's brought up in that article is the fact that Fitbit also bought

00:50:51 ◼   ► coin. Now coin was the card, like the credit card replacement thing, right?

00:50:56 ◼   ► Is that what that was?

00:50:57 ◼   ► Yeah. Never ship to people, kind of, or ship super late, I think.

00:51:02 ◼   ► Why did Fitbit do this?

00:51:03 ◼   ► They're like, buy all these like crowdfunding campaigns just before they're ready to

00:51:06 ◼   ► ship.

00:51:06 ◼   ► - They have like a thing for failed products it seems.

00:51:11 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:51:14 ◼   ► - Well, so I mean, if you look at it,

00:51:15 ◼   ► if you back up though, Fitbit has the health tracking stuff

00:51:18 ◼   ► right, they've been doing that a long time.

00:51:20 ◼   ► We get to have a conversation about the quality

00:51:22 ◼   ► of some of those, my wife is on her like fifth Charge HR

00:51:24 ◼   ► because they die every three months,

00:51:26 ◼   ► but they just keep returning,

00:51:28 ◼   ► they just keep shipping us new ones, it's crazy.

00:51:31 ◼   ► But they have, so they have the health fitness stuff down,

00:51:34 ◼   ► Right, like I think that outside the Apple Watch,

00:51:37 ◼   ► Fitbit's the only wearable that's really

00:51:38 ◼   ► kind of making an impact.

00:51:40 ◼   ► I think maybe to a bigger degree,

00:51:42 ◼   ► sort of out with the kind of common consumer,

00:51:46 ◼   ► Fitbit is a known brand, which is impressive for a wearable.

00:51:50 ◼   ► So they have the health stuff.

00:51:52 ◼   ► With coin, they have some sort of mobile payment.

00:51:54 ◼   ► I was never really sure how coin worked.

00:51:56 ◼   ► Like you gave it your credit card numbers

00:51:58 ◼   ► and it turned them into contactless payment or something.

00:52:01 ◼   ► Some magic.

00:52:02 ◼   ► They had a sandwich video that was cool,

00:52:03 ◼   ► but that's all I really remember.

00:52:05 ◼   ► And now they have Pebble with its,

00:52:07 ◼   ► assuming it's OS and all of its IP

00:52:10 ◼   ► and its software engineers.

00:52:11 ◼   ► So like Fitbit now has all the three components

00:52:15 ◼   ► that the Apple Watch is kind of good at, right?

00:52:17 ◼   ► You have health and fitness, you have payment,

00:52:19 ◼   ► which is pretty good on the Apple Watch,

00:52:22 ◼   ► and you have an OS that can handle notifications

00:52:26 ◼   ► and you know, kind of smart watchy type things.

00:52:30 ◼   ► So is Fitbit going to go up against Apple directly?

00:52:33 ◼   ► Like one reason I think Fitbit has continued

00:52:35 ◼   ► to be so successful is that they don't take

00:52:39 ◼   ► on Apple head to head.

00:52:41 ◼   ► Like a lot of people have Apple watches just for fitness

00:52:43 ◼   ► and the notifications are bonus,

00:52:45 ◼   ► but the price difference is so much that,

00:52:47 ◼   ► you know, you can walk in a Best Buy and buy a Charge HR

00:52:49 ◼   ► for like 140 bucks or something,

00:52:51 ◼   ► where the cheapest Apple watches

00:52:53 ◼   ► is noticeably more than that.

00:52:55 ◼   ► But is Fitbit going to now go upstream

00:52:57 ◼   ► and go against Apple?

00:52:58 ◼   ► There's a whole lot of questions there, but it's I find it very interesting

00:53:02 ◼   ► You see what if it does with all this because they keep putting these pieces together through these acquisitions

00:53:07 ◼   ► They're clearly doing something right like you count that they are doing something because they are buying up all of the

00:53:16 ◼   ► Individual parts that they need I do think that it's a shame that they're killing the pebble brand. I think it's a good brand

00:53:23 ◼   ► The name and like all of the stuff around it like I think it's kind of nice

00:53:27 ◼   ► It's a shame that they're gonna kill that as well. I think nerds know it, but I don't think it has any meaning to

00:53:32 ◼   ► Anyone I don't know I don't necessarily mean it's like it's got a lot of

00:53:37 ◼   ► It's not just on its cache a like I actually just think it's just a nice product name it

00:53:42 ◼   ► Yeah, no, I liked it and the first one we may have had when it was kind of gross

00:53:46 ◼   ► But it was like this really nice. You know black smooth thing. It was it was a it was a good branding

00:53:50 ◼   ► I see what you're saying

00:53:53 ◼   ► It's, for me the biggest question here is if, like, if Pebble failed in part or maybe in whole

00:54:02 ◼   ► because it couldn't do stuff with the iPhone, the Apple Watch could. Right? Like at the beginning,

00:54:08 ◼   ► the Pebble felt like magic because it was the only thing doing any of this. The Apple Watch came along

00:54:12 ◼   ► and did a whole bunch of stuff that the Pebble all of a sudden couldn't do. And remember like Pebble

00:54:18 ◼   ► sort of pivoted to like more Android stuff.

00:54:21 ◼   ► I think that they emulate Android Wear,

00:54:23 ◼   ► they did something where like--

00:54:25 ◼   ► - What they were able to do,

00:54:27 ◼   ► even with their own operating system,

00:54:28 ◼   ► was to tie into some of the hooks

00:54:30 ◼   ► that Android Wear provides.

00:54:32 ◼   ► - That's right.

00:54:33 ◼   ► - So they weren't like hacking it,

00:54:35 ◼   ► but they were building their own software on top of it.

00:54:38 ◼   ► They could do more with Android

00:54:40 ◼   ► because of the hooks that Android Wear has

00:54:42 ◼   ► that iOS doesn't have,

00:54:44 ◼   ► like allowing you to actually act upon notifications

00:54:48 ◼   ► in a meaningful way, reply to stuff and things like that.

00:54:51 ◼   ► This was stuff that Pebble could take advantage of

00:54:54 ◼   ► with the Pebble Time 2 on Android

00:54:57 ◼   ► that they couldn't on iOS.

00:54:58 ◼   ► - So if that doomed Pebble to a degree,

00:55:02 ◼   ► how can Fitbit do it?

00:55:05 ◼   ► And some people in the chat room are talking,

00:55:07 ◼   ► the smartwatch market is not that big,

00:55:09 ◼   ► Garmin, Apple, and Fitbit ate up all the pie,

00:55:11 ◼   ► so maybe Fitbit will be more successful

00:55:12 ◼   ► just because they're bigger,

00:55:14 ◼   ► but at some point you're gonna be in the same boat

00:55:16 ◼   ► like I can buy this Apple Watch it's a little bit more money or a lot more

00:55:19 ◼   ► money and it can do all this stuff or I can get this thing that is cheaper but

00:55:25 ◼   ► does drastically fewer things. I just don't know at what point that that tips

00:55:30 ◼   ► over into Fitbit's favor or not but again it's it's really interesting to

00:55:36 ◼   ► see in this larger conversation that wearables aren't as the the market of

00:55:41 ◼   ► wearables is collapsing the Apple Watch is probably the only one doing anything

00:55:44 ◼   ► of any real value as far as a business. So I don't know, it's sad to see

00:55:53 ◼   ► Pebble go because it was like cheerleading by a lot of nerds. It was

00:55:56 ◼   ► sort of a nerds brand but it's gone now and it's up to Fitbit to either take on

00:56:02 ◼   ► Apple or do something interesting with the Pebble software. I hope it doesn't go

00:56:05 ◼   ► the way that WebOS did and ends up on TVs in five years and like no one

00:56:09 ◼   ► recognizes it. Like a lot of the cool ideas in WebOS are gone. I hope some of

00:56:13 ◼   ► the cool ideas and the Pebble software can survive.

00:56:16 ◼   ► So like in the same way that Pebble exists and that you know Fitbit have their own thing

00:56:21 ◼   ► anyway and they're maybe going to make a new own thing, they're not the only company that

00:56:26 ◼   ► is like this right?

00:56:27 ◼   ► So Android Wear exists right?

00:56:28 ◼   ► Android Wear is still going, Google is still doing more for that, there's still more watches

00:56:33 ◼   ► coming out for that platform.

00:56:35 ◼   ► But now Samsung are further pushing the Gear S3, this is actually new, I actually think

00:56:41 ◼   ► it looks really nice, just like looks nice.

00:56:43 ◼   ► This all runs on Samsung's own operating system called Tizen.

00:56:48 ◼   ► And they have that whole like interaction

00:56:50 ◼   ► by twisting the bezel thing,

00:56:52 ◼   ► which is I think a really nice way

00:56:54 ◼   ► of doing the majority of the interaction.

00:56:55 ◼   ► Like it's a lot of twisting and clicking.

00:56:56 ◼   ► So your fingers are not actually on the screen,

00:56:59 ◼   ► which is something Apple made a point of talking about,

00:57:01 ◼   ► but their product doesn't work that way.

00:57:04 ◼   ► Right, like I remember like, oh, the digital crown,

00:57:06 ◼   ► that means you won't be touching the screen.

00:57:08 ◼   ► No, I touch the screen always

00:57:10 ◼   ► because it seems to be the only way to get the Apple Watch to do anything.

00:57:14 ◼   ► But anyhow, the S3 watch has this twisting and clicking thing, so you use it that way.

00:57:20 ◼   ► They have their own app store as well, which is slim right now, which you would expect,

00:57:26 ◼   ► because it is a niche product with a niche operating system that only exists on this one product.

00:57:34 ◼   ► and Samsung are probably able to throw money at companies to make them make these applications.

00:57:41 ◼   ► I don't think Fitbit is going to be able to do this, which makes me wonder if they're

00:57:47 ◼   ► even going to have any apps. Like this might not even be a thing that they're looking to

00:57:50 ◼   ► do. I don't know.

00:57:52 ◼   ► What I can tell you, I bought a Fitbit a while back and I tried it for like about a week.

00:58:02 ◼   ► And you got the, what one did you get?

00:58:03 ◼   ► The Charge 2.

00:58:05 ◼   ► And what is that one? What does that do?

00:58:07 ◼   ► It has a heart rate sensor and a tiny display and it can do sleep tracking at night and

00:58:14 ◼   ► the battery lasts for five days.

00:58:17 ◼   ► Okay.

00:58:19 ◼   ► And it is nice that you can do the automatic sleep tracking. You don't have to signal the

00:58:27 ◼   ► fact that you're going to sleep with, you know, you don't have to touch the screen,

00:58:30 ◼   ► and to tell the device anything. It just knows. That's nice. But everything else about it

00:58:39 ◼   ► feels cheap, plastic-y, and it made me... the heart rate seemed to be off in my experience,

00:58:50 ◼   ► like it was lower than it had to be. And just the whole thing made me miss the Apple Watch

00:58:58 ◼   ► so much that in a surprising turn of coincidences I had placed an order for a series 2 watch,

00:59:10 ◼   ► one for me, one for Silvia.

00:59:12 ◼   ► And we were waiting to be delivered at the end of December.

00:59:16 ◼   ► Silvia noticed that the Apple Watch Series 2 was actually in stock at our local Apple

00:59:20 ◼   ► Store, so I cancelled my order, went to the Apple Store, bought two Apple Watches, and

00:59:26 ◼   ► And I'm just loving the Series 2 and I realized because of the Fitbit just how much I missed

00:59:33 ◼   ► my Apple Watch and how much better the Series 2 is compared to the first watch.

00:59:38 ◼   ► It's faster, the battery life is impressive, I can use the Apple Watch at night as a sleep

00:59:44 ◼   ► tracker, I'm testing a new app that does very cool things with sleep tracking on the watch.

00:59:50 ◼   ► And when I wake up the battery is still like at 70% left.

00:59:55 ◼   ► And so I basically consume 30% of battery during the day and during the night, which

01:00:01 ◼   ► is impressive.

01:00:02 ◼   ► And I'm just appreciating the Apple Watch at a whole new level.

01:00:06 ◼   ► And the Fitbit, I first tried it in 2014, when we started to talk about the Apple Watch

01:00:12 ◼   ► on, I think it was still the prompt maybe.

01:00:17 ◼   ► And it's just, I went back, I tried it again, and sure, it got better, the app, the Fitbit

01:00:23 ◼   ► app is better, the device was slightly better, but the overall feel is, this is a cheap fitness

01:00:30 ◼   ► tracker, what I really want is an Apple Watch. Because I want apps, I want music playback

01:00:37 ◼   ► on my wrist, I want, you know... I was actually missing the Apple Watch. So I think the best

01:00:42 ◼   ► way to appreciate the Apple Watch is to not use it for a while, maybe use something else,

01:00:47 ◼   ► then you realize, I actually miss my Apple Watch a lot. And I had this discussion with

01:00:51 ◼   ► Sylvia because she also sold her first Apple Watch to a friend and she was without one

01:00:58 ◼   ► for a couple of months and she was trying to explain this to people because we got friends

01:01:04 ◼   ► ask us about the Apple Watch and she told those people it's hard to describe why I need

01:01:13 ◼   ► it but now that I don't have it I really miss it and I guess I love it because it's a bunch

01:01:20 ◼   ► of small things, small, you know, enhancements to my daily life, whether it's checking the

01:01:27 ◼   ► time or notifications or, you know, having a tiny screen always with me. And there's

01:01:33 ◼   ► no great way to say, look, look at this device. It's impressive. It's not like an iPhone seven

01:01:38 ◼   ► plus, right? It's like, like an instant demo. It's a bunch of things. And once you do not

01:01:45 ◼   ► have them anymore, you miss them a lot. And that totally clicked with me. I was like,

01:01:49 ◼   ► yes you're right. So we bought two Apple Watches, we're super happy now and Fitbit,

01:01:57 ◼   ► good luck I guess. There's always gonna be a market for those devices, maybe, I don't

01:02:02 ◼   ► know.

01:02:03 ◼   ► I think Adina is in the same camp that Sylvia is, which is like, I like this thing, I don't

01:02:08 ◼   ► really know why, but I don't wanna not have it. Because she wears it every day, like even

01:02:12 ◼   ► if we're just at home. And she can't really put in, she can't really put in, like, to

01:02:18 ◼   ► Why I mean, I feel like I know my reason now and because I was like that

01:02:22 ◼   ► I was like, I know I really like this thing, but I don't know why but I have realized that

01:02:26 ◼   ► It's just become a thing with like primarily with notifications for me

01:02:29 ◼   ► It is just this view into my world at all times. Like it actually

01:02:34 ◼   ► For me makes me more

01:02:38 ◼   ► It helps me be more attentive to people when I'm in conversation or like at dinner or something

01:02:46 ◼   ► because just glancing up my watch is way better than

01:02:50 ◼   ► Something going off in my pocket and me having to grab and check it and also like I have more

01:02:56 ◼   ► Notifications on my phone than I do on my watch. So it's like also like the super

01:03:00 ◼   ► Important things come to my watch like the things that I should be seeing

01:03:05 ◼   ► And that really works for me and it does help me focus and also it's like if I don't have my watch on

01:03:11 ◼   ► I like the batteries died which happened a couple of times or whatever then

01:03:15 ◼   ► the whole time I'm just like, "What's going on?"

01:03:18 ◼   ► Like, I feel like I'm completely disconnected.

01:03:20 ◼   ► And look, you can say that that's a problem.

01:03:22 ◼   ► I don't think it's a problem.

01:03:23 ◼   ► And the reason is, it's not because like,

01:03:26 ◼   ► "Ooh, you know, what are people saying about Apple's MacBooks on Twitter?"

01:03:30 ◼   ► It's like, no, it's, "What important things could be happening in my business

01:03:34 ◼   ► that I need to know about?"

01:03:35 ◼   ► That's for me, right?

01:03:37 ◼   ► Totally, people are saying things about MacBooks on Twitter.

01:03:40 ◼   ► It's not the stuff that I give a crap about, right?

01:03:42 ◼   ► and I'm not giving a crap about my free to play game notifications.

01:03:46 ◼   ► No, it's like, are there any emails that come in with contracts that I need to sign?

01:03:50 ◼   ► Or do people need something from me in Slack because something's blowing up somewhere?

01:03:54 ◼   ► Or like these are the things that come through for me,

01:03:57 ◼   ► because that's the stuff that I really care about.

01:03:59 ◼   ► And the watch is enabling me to filter those things

01:04:02 ◼   ► rather than me just turning off every single notification that I have on my iPhone,

01:04:06 ◼   ► because I don't want to do that.

01:04:07 ◼   ► I like this system of phone gets loads of stuff permanent, do not disturb.

01:04:12 ◼   ► then the most important things come to my watch. It works for me so well that I've decided that the watch is

01:04:19 ◼   ► essential enough that I buy a new one on the same day.

01:04:22 ◼   ► Permanent do not disturb on the phone

01:04:25 ◼   ► notifications to the watch.

01:04:29 ◼   ► Hmm. Yeah, it works so good. It's so good. Hmm

01:04:34 ◼   ► Yeah, I'll think about it. You know, I feel like I need to I

01:04:39 ◼   ► I need to try something else for notifications. I feel like I'm always bothered by lots of

01:04:44 ◼   ► things coming at me all at once. That's a good idea maybe. I don't know. I'll think

01:04:49 ◼   ► about it.

01:04:50 ◼   ► That's my top tip for today.

01:04:51 ◼   ► It's a mic hack.

01:04:55 ◼   ► But I do feel bad for Pebble. I just feel bad for Pebble. There's good company there,

01:04:59 ◼   ► some good stuff like that. And I hope that Fitbit really takes advantage of the things

01:05:03 ◼   ► that they were good at. Like the Pebble Time OS looked really interesting and I hope that

01:05:08 ◼   ► Fitbit is able to to do something with that.

01:05:11 ◼   ► All right if you want to catch our show notes for this week head on over to relay.fm/connected/121

01:05:15 ◼   ► if you want to find Federico online he is @Vitiici on Twitter V I T C V I T I C C I

01:05:23 ◼   ► there you go V I T I C C I and he's at MacStories.net and Federico I believe you have some interesting

01:05:29 ◼   ► stuff coming this week.

01:05:31 ◼   ► Yeah there's a big story coming tomorrow finally. It took a long time should be a should be

01:05:37 ◼   ► a good one. It's got all the special things that we do every once in a while. So check

01:05:42 ◼   ► it out tomorrow afternoon.

01:05:45 ◼   ► And then you can find Steven at 512pixels.net and @ismh. I am @imike. Thanks again to Foote

01:05:56 ◼   ► Cardigan for supporting the show, but most of all thank you for listening. If you want

01:06:00 ◼   ► to be involved in our end of year episode, don't forget to tweet your favorite stories

01:06:04 ◼   ► of the year with the hashtag #ConnectedYear and we'll be able to pick those up and then

01:06:09 ◼   ► you can be a part of the suggestions for our episode next week. Until then, say goodbye

01:06:14 ◼   ► guys.

01:06:15 ◼   ► Adios Erci.

01:06:16 ◼   ► Adios.