Connected

00:00:00 ◼   ► [Music]

00:00:05 ◼   ► From Relay FM, this is Connected, episode 120. Today's show is brought to you by Braintree,

00:00:13 ◼   ► Boom2 and Foot Cardigan. My name is Myke Hurley and today is a joyous day in the history of

00:00:19 ◼   ► Connected. Federico has forgiven Steven and we are back together as a trio. Federico,

00:00:26 ◼   ► Thank you so much for your kindness.

00:00:28 ◼   ► Yeah, sure, but I don't get it.

00:00:30 ◼   ► Last week, I was out and I started getting tweets from people that lasted throughout the entire week of

00:00:37 ◼   ► "Please forgive Steven. You two should sit down, have a beer and talk about your issues."

00:00:42 ◼   ► "Please forgive Steven." I'm not sure what Steven did.

00:00:46 ◼   ► It didn't do anything to me, you know?

00:00:49 ◼   ► Like, I forgive you, but for what?

00:00:52 ◼   ► You know exactly that's the question. We were all it was on the lips of everybody is why would you just not forgive him?

00:00:59 ◼   ► Nobody could understand why you were doing it like I get it

00:01:02 ◼   ► this was your revenge for all the times that I pronounced you dead on the show and now you're you're you're a vengeance to

00:01:09 ◼   ► Basically have hundreds of mentions in my Twitter account of people asking me to forgive someone

00:01:16 ◼   ► Very well played Myke very very well played

00:01:20 ◼   ► I think it's very sweet that you're trying to hide what Steven did by pretending you had no idea Steven Hackett. Welcome to the show. I

00:01:26 ◼   ► Guess let's just do it. Whatever

00:01:29 ◼   ► Come on do some follow-up make yourself feel better

00:01:33 ◼   ► So Federico had really a follow-up this week is Federico has bought some things

00:01:39 ◼   ► Which is fun. The first one has the most like stereotypical Apple accessory name ever

00:01:46 ◼   ► The iXpand drive with a little i and a big X.

00:01:49 ◼   ► So the i10pan drive.

00:01:53 ◼   ► This is made by SanDisk

00:01:56 ◼   ► and I'm not sure I really understand what this is doing. So Federico, what is this doing?

00:02:00 ◼   ► This is a... it was discounted

00:02:03 ◼   ► for Black Friday which is why I bought one.

00:02:06 ◼   ► It is a pan drive. On one end

00:02:10 ◼   ► there's a standard USB that you can plug into a computer and it's a pan drive.

00:02:14 ◼   ► 64 gigabyte model I bought. On the other end there's a lightning connector so you can plug this into an iPhone or an iPad and

00:02:21 ◼   ► when you do that nothing happens because you need to download an app the iXpand app and that lets you

00:02:27 ◼   ► copy files into this USB pen drive

00:02:30 ◼   ► so you can copy files on iOS then you plug it into the computer and you can access it from the Finder and

00:02:36 ◼   ► move the files around. So it's meant to be an external USB drive for iOS devices that uses lightning

00:02:43 ◼   ► But because of the limitations of iOS you need to use this app and you

00:02:47 ◼   ► You need to manually copy one file at a time

00:02:51 ◼   ► So using the copy to extension from the share sheet if you have like I don't know a PDF or a Word document

00:02:57 ◼   ► And you need to put it into the USB drive you use the share sheet you copy it

00:03:01 ◼   ► Then you disconnect and you plug it into the computer. There's no centralized finder on iOS

00:03:06 ◼   ► so you need to do this manual process from every document individually every time or

00:03:11 ◼   ► you can automatically backup contacts, you will end up with a VCF file for all of your contact cards on your iOS device,

00:03:20 ◼   ► backed up into the iXpand drive, or you can automatically backup photos and videos from the Photos app.

00:03:26 ◼   ► This last aspect has turned out to be quite problematic because

00:03:31 ◼   ► I tried to back up my entire photo library, which is like 10,000 items from my iPad Pro,

00:03:38 ◼   ► into the iXpand drive and those are like, I would say

00:03:42 ◼   ► couple of hundreds videos and

00:03:45 ◼   ► the rest is all photos and screenshots and I haven't been able to perform this entire backup because

00:03:53 ◼   ► even if I try to leave the iXpand drive plugged in with my iPad Pro at a hundred percent

00:03:59 ◼   ► the battery runs out before the backup is completed, which is

00:04:05 ◼   ► There are two problems here. The first problem is the iXpand app should let you

00:04:10 ◼   ► select, like split up a backup in batches.

00:04:14 ◼   ► So before the battery runs out you can say I want to back up the first 2,000 items

00:04:19 ◼   ► and then I want to back up the second set of items. And the second problem is

00:04:23 ◼   ► because of the way iOS devices and lightning works,

00:04:29 ◼   ► You cannot, even if you buy an adapter, you cannot charge an iPad and leave the IX-Pendry plugged in at the same time.

00:04:36 ◼   ► I tried with two adapters. I have the Dongle, the Belkin Rockstar, which is used to charge and listen to an iPhone at the same time.

00:04:45 ◼   ► But that adapter is limited to charging and audio. You cannot do dual charging or dual audio.

00:04:52 ◼   ► You need to do one of these simultaneously.

00:04:55 ◼   ► So that one didn't work.

00:04:57 ◼   ► Then I tried with the Lightning to USB, which you plug into the iPad, there's a lightning

00:05:02 ◼   ► connector in the dongle so you charge the iPad and there's a standard USB.

00:05:06 ◼   ► So I thought maybe if instead of plugging the iXpand drive via the lightning connector,

00:05:11 ◼   ► if I plug it into the USB side, maybe the app will work anyway.

00:05:15 ◼   ► Well it doesn't work anyway.

00:05:17 ◼   ► If you want to use the app on iOS you need to plug the iXpand drive via lightning.

00:05:21 ◼   ► And because there's no way to charge the device and to work with the iXpand drive at the same

00:05:27 ◼   ► time I haven't been able to perform the full backup of my follow library.

00:05:31 ◼   ► So from what you've seen it seems like you cannot charge and pass data, audio you can

00:05:37 ◼   ► do but not data.

00:05:38 ◼   ► At least with this device, if you try the bulking dongle or if you try the USB one,

00:05:46 ◼   ► the lightning 2 USB, it's not recognized by the system and the app tells you you should

00:05:51 ◼   ► plug in your IXPend drive. So there's just no way to charge and pass data to the IXPend

00:05:58 ◼   ► drive at the same time.

00:05:59 ◼   ► Do you have one of those Apple powered lightning thingamajigs?

00:06:04 ◼   ► What is an Apple powered?

00:06:06 ◼   ► Didn't Apple make an adapter that Phil Schiller said would be good for podcasters? Do you

00:06:12 ◼   ► remember that one?

00:06:13 ◼   ► That one I tried, the lightning 2 USB.

00:06:16 ◼   ► Right that's the one you tried?

00:06:18 ◼   ► Yeah, and I also tried that actually with my Tascam USB interface, which you guys made me use for recording podcasts.

00:06:26 ◼   ► And the USB power is not enough to keep the USB interface alive. It just doesn't power on.

00:06:36 ◼   ► So if I plug the Tascam into my MacBook, the USB power is enough and I see the power light on the Tascam.

00:06:43 ◼   ► If I try to, so with the 29 watt adapter with the USB to Lightning on the iPad Pro, if I plug the Tascam into this adapter it doesn't turn on.

00:06:54 ◼   ► So I'm waiting for a separate AC adapter for the Tascam and see if I power that from a wall outlet and then if I plug into the USB maybe it should be recognized on iOS.

00:07:06 ◼   ► Anyway, no way to charge and pass data to the IXPend drive at the same time, which is

00:07:13 ◼   ► a bummer.

00:07:14 ◼   ► Everything else works, I can transfer files via the share sheet, the contacts backup is

00:07:19 ◼   ► quite convenient, the app is not great but decent, but there should be a way to perform

00:07:27 ◼   ► this full backup or at least Apple should allow iPads to have multiple lightning ports

00:07:32 ◼   ► or make another adapter, no idea, but still not possible.

00:07:36 ◼   ► So how do you get files onto this thing?

00:07:39 ◼   ► With the share sheet.

00:07:40 ◼   ► You have a file.

00:07:41 ◼   ► No, no, no.

00:07:42 ◼   ► Like if I want to take it from another computer.

00:07:44 ◼   ► Like is it possible to take something from a Mac, put it onto this SanDisk thing and

00:07:48 ◼   ► then put it onto...

00:07:49 ◼   ► How do you do that?

00:07:50 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:07:51 ◼   ► via USB.

00:07:52 ◼   ► Do you need a cable?

00:07:53 ◼   ► No.

00:07:54 ◼   ► It's like a USB key.

00:07:55 ◼   ► Oh, like it unplugs?

00:07:57 ◼   ► It's like...

00:07:58 ◼   ► Look at the picture of it.

00:07:59 ◼   ► It just looks like a USB key.

00:08:01 ◼   ► There's not even a cover.

00:08:02 ◼   ► I have my scale wrong.

00:08:05 ◼   ► I'm looking at the photos I'm thinking it's bigger than it is. I work out how big it is

00:08:08 ◼   ► now. It just goes straight into the USB port. That's what that holds in the end.

00:08:12 ◼   ► It's like a USB pen drive with a lightning connector on the side.

00:08:17 ◼   ► It's this old fashioned thing called USB-A. You kids probably don't remember it. But yeah,

00:08:24 ◼   ► we used to use this to put files in and out of what we called computers. It's crazy.

00:08:28 ◼   ► Yes, yes, yes.

00:08:29 ◼   ► I mean the thing, and the reason it's in follow up A, listener Peter suggested this, so thank

00:08:33 ◼   ► Thank you Peter, I think.

00:08:35 ◼   ► But we keep coming back to this that iOS is just not very good at external storage and

00:08:42 ◼   ► dealing with getting files on and off anything that's not a cloud service.

00:08:46 ◼   ► So there's a link in the show notes to a thing Jason wrote on 6 colors about this.

00:08:50 ◼   ► He was trying to transfer audio files from an SD card.

00:08:53 ◼   ► We've talked about this before on the show.

00:08:55 ◼   ► The SD card import functionality in iOS is just for photos and videos.

00:09:00 ◼   ► You can't get files on and off them,

00:09:02 ◼   ► which is really frustrating

00:09:04 ◼   ► if you're using a portable recorder for audio.

00:09:06 ◼   ► It's like all these things that iOS keeps bumping up

00:09:09 ◼   ► against that it just can't quite do.

00:09:11 ◼   ► And the iPad in particular would be really well suited

00:09:15 ◼   ► for work like this, right?

00:09:16 ◼   ► If you could back your files up,

00:09:18 ◼   ► you could have documents or something,

00:09:21 ◼   ► someone hands them to you

00:09:22 ◼   ► and you just put them right on your iPad.

00:09:24 ◼   ► This is stuff that it should be able to do

00:09:25 ◼   ► at this point in its life.

00:09:26 ◼   ► And I hope that it's coming

00:09:29 ◼   ► because it would make it more flexible out in the real world.

00:09:33 ◼   ► Now Apple would say, you know, just use AirDrop

00:09:35 ◼   ► or just use these other things.

00:09:38 ◼   ► This is one of those instances where Apple's sort of like

00:09:41 ◼   ► approach to things doesn't always line up

00:09:43 ◼   ► with what professionals need or even prosumers need

00:09:47 ◼   ► out in the real world.

00:09:48 ◼   ► So I'm hoping that some of this gets better in the future.

00:09:51 ◼   ► - What I really want to see is either two lightning

00:09:56 ◼   ► connectors or just put USB-C on the iPad Pro. I know that it's inelegant maybe

00:10:01 ◼   ► that Apple likes the idea of there's a single port on the iPad and I know that

00:10:04 ◼   ► we made fun of years ago people who wanted the iPad to have like an SD port

00:10:10 ◼   ► or a USB port but now it seems like Apple quite likes USB-C, it's very

00:10:15 ◼   ► flexible, it's very versatile and from a practical perspective there's just so

00:10:22 ◼   ► many more accessories and there's going to be so many more accessories that use

00:10:25 ◼   ► USB-C rather than the ones who use Lightning and it seems just inconvenient, especially

00:10:31 ◼   ► because you need to buy all these adapters and they're doing weird things with powering

00:10:37 ◼   ► and placing data at the same time. It's just more convenient to have one for charging and

00:10:42 ◼   ► one for data.

00:10:45 ◼   ► I agree with you. It was a joke initially, right? To have a USB port, but the world is

00:10:51 ◼   ► different now and the iPads are being positioned differently now.

00:10:56 ◼   ► They were content consumption devices, they were companions to iPhones, there was a place

00:11:02 ◼   ► to read a book, that's what they were originally.

00:11:05 ◼   ► Now Apple is trying to position the iPad as a PC replacement, at that point we need to

00:11:10 ◼   ► be able to get a little bit more expandability.

00:11:14 ◼   ► And this can come in one or two ways, ideally we would like to see USB-C ports or Thunderbolt

00:11:20 ◼   ► three ports on these devices or find some way to force people to make better lightning

00:11:27 ◼   ► stuff.

00:11:28 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:11:29 ◼   ► Right?

00:11:30 ◼   ► I mean if you really want to use lightning then convince these hardware makers to use

00:11:33 ◼   ► lightning.

00:11:34 ◼   ► Yep.

00:11:35 ◼   ► And if you can then great.

00:11:36 ◼   ► Like it's one or the other but we just assume that putting like a USB-C on these things

00:11:41 ◼   ► would mean that you don't have to do any of that.

00:11:45 ◼   ► True.

00:11:46 ◼   ► Yep.

00:11:47 ◼   ► Federico you have returned to the glorious plus club.

00:11:49 ◼   ► Yes.

00:11:50 ◼   ► So you had an iPhone review unit for a while, the regular 7, but now you've gone ahead and

00:11:56 ◼   ► bought your own 7 Plus.

00:11:57 ◼   ► Yes, and it's so good to be back on the Plus.

00:12:01 ◼   ► I mean the 7 is great, and my girlfriend for example loves the form factor, but I was missing

00:12:09 ◼   ► the big phone so much.

00:12:11 ◼   ► And not just because of the dual camera and all the photography stuff that I can finally

00:12:15 ◼   ► try out. But just because of ergonomics I'm so used to having a big phone and it just

00:12:21 ◼   ► feels better to me. And this is in really big difference from two years ago when I was

00:12:28 ◼   ► so skeptical about big phones and now I'm totally on the other side. It feels better

00:12:33 ◼   ► in my hands, I see more content, it's just a better iPhone and I'm so happy. I bought

00:12:40 ◼   ► a matte black 7 plus red cover so red actually red silicone case from Apple

00:12:49 ◼   ► and it's a 256 gigabyte top of the line iPhone 7 plus and I'm so relieved.

00:13:00 ◼   ► That's very cool. Welcome back.

00:13:02 ◼   ► As tradition holds on connected we will be working on our year in review

00:13:09 ◼   ► episode to be later this month. Myke can maybe find the date as I keep talking.

00:13:15 ◼   ► This year I would like some help getting this put together so kind of the format

00:13:20 ◼   ► is we go through the calendar year month by month and pick one or two stories

00:13:25 ◼   ► that really jump out and kind of stand the test of time that we think are still

00:13:30 ◼   ► relevant and worth mentioning at the end of the year. It's a lot of fun putting it

00:13:32 ◼   ► together. If you have a suggestion for a story that should be in there you can

00:13:39 ◼   ► and put it on Twitter, we're gonna be looking at the hashtag

00:13:43 ◼   ► connectedyear, all one word, connectedyear,

00:13:46 ◼   ► and we will start pulling those together

00:13:49 ◼   ► for that episode that will be coming out

00:13:51 ◼   ► in just a couple weeks.

00:13:53 ◼   ► - Yeah, that's gonna be on December 20th.

00:13:55 ◼   ► So we're gonna be going month by month throughout the year.

00:13:57 ◼   ► If you have some stories that are weird, wonderful,

00:14:00 ◼   ► impressive, or funny to look back on,

00:14:02 ◼   ► like to think, oh, we were so worried about X in February,

00:14:05 ◼   ► let us know about it and we'll put it in the show as well.

00:14:09 ◼   ► we want some user submission. So #ConnectedYear, obviously one word because that's how hashtags

00:14:14 ◼   ► work, and you'll be able to help us put the show together.

00:14:17 ◼   ► I think we're actually still worried about everything, basically, but let's try.

00:14:22 ◼   ► I always think that. I always think that there was a thing, it was so important in February,

00:14:27 ◼   ► we must still be worried about it. But every year we've done this, it's funny to look back

00:14:31 ◼   ► on the things that we were concerned about like six months ago. It tends not to be.

00:14:36 ◼   ► If you're a Mac user, none of them have been deleted.

00:14:40 ◼   ► They're all still around.

00:14:41 ◼   ► We're in a perennial state of worrying.

00:14:44 ◼   ► We'll see.

00:14:45 ◼   ► We'll try to revisit that.

00:14:48 ◼   ► I think it's going to be fun.

00:14:49 ◼   ► I think there'll be some surprises.

00:14:51 ◼   ► This week's episode is brought to you by Braintree.

00:14:53 ◼   ► Code for easy mobile payments.

00:14:56 ◼   ► By next year, maybe even next week, there could be a whole new way to pay.

00:15:02 ◼   ► Maybe it will be the next Bitcoin.

00:15:04 ◼   ► What if it's the next Apple Pay?

00:15:05 ◼   ► Or maybe even both?

00:15:06 ◼   ► Fortunately, Braintree's full stack payment platform is easily able to adapt to whatever

00:15:12 ◼   ► the future will hold, so you will be able to adapt easily along with it.

00:15:17 ◼   ► Except everything from Pounds to PayPal to that next big innovation from any device with

00:15:21 ◼   ► just one integration and when that new method of payment comes out, all you'll need to do

00:15:25 ◼   ► is update a few lines of code.

00:15:27 ◼   ► Braintree's code is elegant with clear documentation.

00:15:29 ◼   ► It supports Android, iOS and JavaScript clients and there are SDKs in many languages.

00:15:34 ◼   ► net node.js, java, pearl, php, python and ruby. No late nights, no complicated reading,

00:15:40 ◼   ► no stress about staying ahead of the curve. Braintree payments is here to help. Check

00:15:44 ◼   ► it out at Braintree payments dot com slash connected. Thank you so much to Braintree

00:15:52 ◼   ► for their support of this show and Relay FM.

00:15:58 ◼   ► So Steven Hackett, you have been secretly squirreling away over there on a new little

00:16:03 ◼   ► project.

00:16:04 ◼   ► I have, since July.

00:16:07 ◼   ► Uh huh, it's been quite a process over there.

00:16:10 ◼   ► Yeah, so last week when we were recording the show, I had just submitted my book, my

00:16:17 ◼   ► new book, Aqua and Bondi, to the iBook store, and it basically went through their review

00:16:23 ◼   ► process way faster than everything I'd read said, "Be prepared for like three to five

00:16:29 ◼   ► days." And it was like five hours. And so Tuesday night, stayed up super late and got

00:16:35 ◼   ► the website and everything ready to go. And now the book is out. So it is looking at a

00:16:42 ◼   ► couple of things. Listeners will know I spent a lot of my time earlier this year with the

00:16:49 ◼   ► iMac G3, you know that colorful consumer line of computers from the late 90s and

00:16:55 ◼   ► early 2000s and that computer really kind of turned around the Mac line, helped

00:16:59 ◼   ► turn around Apple, but it was really only part of the story and the other part of

00:17:03 ◼   ► the story is OS X where when Jobs came back when when Apple bought Next

00:17:08 ◼   ► computer, the the company Jobs had founded after he was booted from Apple

00:17:13 ◼   ► in the 80s. They bought NeXT because they, Apple had failed several times to make

00:17:20 ◼   ► the classic Mac OS modern. There are a couple projects in there in the 90s,

00:17:25 ◼   ► Copeland being the most famous, where Apple just couldn't modernize their OS.

00:17:29 ◼   ► And more or less by the time 1996 rolls around, the Mac software, Mac operating

00:17:35 ◼   ► system is still very closely related what shipped in 1984. They hadn't made

00:17:39 ◼   ► much progress in 12 years. And it was a real problem for the company. There were also political

00:17:45 ◼   ► problems within the company and they were selling like 37 different Mac lines at one

00:17:50 ◼   ► point. All that's in the book about how Apple falling apart in the 90s, how their software

00:17:55 ◼   ► had fallen apart, and how the iMac and what I call the road to OS X really like in concert

00:18:03 ◼   ► with each other is what brought Apple back from the brink. The iMac was important and

00:18:07 ◼   ► software was important but they couldn't happen independently. The iMac provided

00:18:11 ◼   ► capital, provided cash influx for Apple to do additional hardware projects and to

00:18:17 ◼   ► fund the software. That drive to combine Next and Apple technology, actually

00:18:23 ◼   ► the first round of that was something called Rhapsody, an OS that really never

00:18:28 ◼   ► saw the light of day to consumers. It didn't go far enough, so I'll talk about

00:18:31 ◼   ► that in there. And it's kind of this whole process of Apple pulling

00:18:35 ◼   ► itself out of the ditch and doing so by combining a hardware and a software product. Just like

00:18:41 ◼   ► every other thing Apple does, its own salvation was the marriage between hardware and software.

00:18:46 ◼   ► So all that's in there. It's like 80, 81 pages, lots of pretty pictures. And so yeah, it's

00:18:53 ◼   ► out and I'm here to answer questions, I guess.

00:18:57 ◼   ► All right, let's leave the content of the book, right? Let's not address more of the

00:19:02 ◼   ► content because we want people to actually go and buy this thing and they can find it

00:19:04 ◼   ► out themselves. So let's talk about the making of the book. Right? I think that's

00:19:09 ◼   ► kind of interesting. You have a PDF version, as well as your iBooks version.

00:19:16 ◼   ► I am wondering why you have a PDF version of the book. I think some people

00:19:22 ◼   ► are hesitant to have something like in iBooks just because maybe they don't

00:19:28 ◼   ► like the app or maybe they they want to read it in a different app

00:19:33 ◼   ► than the iBooks app, maybe they don't do it with the DRM stuff in iBooks. I just wanted

00:19:36 ◼   ► people to have options. I figured that the iBooks version would outsell the PDF and it

00:19:42 ◼   ► has by like a factor of like one to five almost. So that the iBooks version is much more popular.

00:19:49 ◼   ► Obviously it's easier to buy, easier to deal with. But I wanted people to have the option

00:19:54 ◼   ► to have a PDF if they wanted. Did you lay this book out in iBooks Author? I did. Okay.

00:20:00 ◼   ► Now this has been a piece of software that has had some interesting thoughts.

00:20:09 ◼   ► I mean I remember when it first came out and Apple did all that stuff where like you could

00:20:12 ◼   ► use it but you couldn't charge outside the store and all that sort of stuff.

00:20:16 ◼   ► So one I assume that's changed because you sold a PDF as well and the other like how

00:20:21 ◼   ► was the actual usage of the application for you?

00:20:25 ◼   ► So the selling bit is interesting.

00:20:28 ◼   ► So you can sell a PDF or an EPUB if you decide to create one.

00:20:33 ◼   ► You can sell those outside of the iBooks store.

00:20:36 ◼   ► What you cannot do is sell an iBooks file.

00:20:39 ◼   ► So this is all confusing because they use the same name for everything.

00:20:43 ◼   ► But the actual, I think it's .IBA is the file extension, the actual iBooks file itself that

00:20:47 ◼   ► you download from the store, I can't sell that directly to you.

00:20:51 ◼   ► Now I could give it away to you.

00:20:52 ◼   ► So if I made this free, I could just say, "Hey, go download an iBooks file, import it

00:20:56 ◼   ► into the iBooks app and you can write it

00:20:58 ◼   ► and it has all the fancy stuff.

00:21:00 ◼   ► So that's really the only difference now

00:21:02 ◼   ► that used to be more strict I believe,

00:21:04 ◼   ► but they've loosened up on that.

00:21:06 ◼   ► As far as the program itself,

00:21:08 ◼   ► it's for those who aren't familiar,

00:21:10 ◼   ► it's a Mac program.

00:21:12 ◼   ► It's sort of like pages and keynote,

00:21:15 ◼   ► like had a baby and the baby took steroids.

00:21:17 ◼   ► It feels like an iWork app,

00:21:19 ◼   ► but it's a lot more powerful.

00:21:21 ◼   ► And it's pretty good.

00:21:25 ◼   ► It is a little unstable at times.

00:21:28 ◼   ► I ran into this bug actually filed a radar on it

00:21:31 ◼   ► where if I import an image above a certain size,

00:21:34 ◼   ► the app would just crash instantly

00:21:35 ◼   ► instead of like importing the photo.

00:21:37 ◼   ► - I wouldn't worry about stuff like that.

00:21:40 ◼   ► It's fine. - Yeah.

00:21:42 ◼   ► There's some instability.

00:21:43 ◼   ► I was working on it in Dropbox.

00:21:45 ◼   ► When I took the file off Dropbox and had it on my local disk

00:21:48 ◼   ► it made it much more stable.

00:21:53 ◼   ► So I don't know how much of that was like file system

00:21:54 ◼   ► Dropbox weirdness, so I'm not positive I can lay all the blame for that at iBooks Author's

00:21:59 ◼   ► feet.

00:22:00 ◼   ► But not all, it's nice if you're familiar with iWork, you can just sit down at iBooks

00:22:05 ◼   ► Author and start working.

00:22:06 ◼   ► They have really nice templates you can start from.

00:22:08 ◼   ► My book is based on one of the templates that I modified in places.

00:22:12 ◼   ► And you can drag media in and do text reflowing and do all the kind of stuff you would expect

00:22:18 ◼   ► from something like Pages or Keynote.

00:22:21 ◼   ► Now iBooks Author, one of the good things about iBooks Author is that it allows you

00:22:25 ◼   ► to create those iBooks files which have lots of multimedia in them.

00:22:30 ◼   ► Did you consider any multimedia elements for Aqua and Bondi?

00:22:34 ◼   ► I had an earlier version that had a lot of, like a lot of the places where I link out

00:22:40 ◼   ► to a YouTube video, I had basically ripped all those down to QuickTime files and had

00:22:45 ◼   ► them embedded and I decided not to do that for a couple reasons.

00:22:48 ◼   ► One, I wanted it to be easy if I update the iBooks file

00:22:52 ◼   ► that I could update the PDF in the future.

00:22:54 ◼   ► So I didn't want to have basically a forked version

00:22:57 ◼   ► of the book and be making changes in two versions.

00:23:00 ◼   ► Also, when you start adding that stuff,

00:23:02 ◼   ► a lot of those videos and stuff,

00:23:04 ◼   ► obviously I don't have copyright availability

00:23:07 ◼   ► to those videos, so I didn't want to run into issues there.

00:23:10 ◼   ► And it makes the file a lot bigger to work with.

00:23:12 ◼   ► And all in all, it's not a big deal to link out to it.

00:23:16 ◼   ► The links are preserved in the PDF.

00:23:17 ◼   ► So if you're reading on the Mac or on an iPad and tap the link in the PDF, it opens a browser

00:23:22 ◼   ► just like it does in the iBooks app.

00:23:25 ◼   ► So for me, it was like, you know, I can just link out to stuff and that gets you close

00:23:29 ◼   ► enough and I don't have to deal with any of the extra headache of having a lot of media

00:23:33 ◼   ► in the book.

00:23:34 ◼   ► Did you write the book directly into iBooks Author then?

00:23:37 ◼   ► No, I actually wrote it all in Google Docs for a couple of reasons.

00:23:42 ◼   ► like iBooks author, just a heavy app to be dealing with like writing into and a

00:23:47 ◼   ► lot of writing on iOS and I had, so several people have edited and like

00:23:53 ◼   ► provided feedback on the book and some of that feedback came directly through

00:23:58 ◼   ► Google Docs. Like before I had any layout done I had a couple people who are like

00:24:01 ◼   ► really familiar with some of this stuff go through the Google Doc and just leave

00:24:07 ◼   ► comments there and so most of the writing was done online and then I would

00:24:11 ◼   ► you know copy and paste it into iBooks. Some of the stuff of course was in an

00:24:15 ◼   ► iBooks like I had some of the call-out sections and stuff I just I just wrote

00:24:17 ◼   ► there as I went but most of the writing was done online. Who were these experts?

00:24:22 ◼   ► So you able to reveal names? So there is a thank-you box on the about section that

00:24:28 ◼   ► a lot of people a lot of people helped her listed there there are a couple

00:24:31 ◼   ► people who asked to do it anonymously so. Oh did you talk to Tim Cook or

00:24:37 ◼   ► something. Johnny Ive, who did you talk to? Sim Cook doesn't care about Mac history.

00:24:42 ◼   ► So Steven I want to know what's the response been like and can you

00:24:53 ◼   ► do you have or can you share any interesting feedback or comments from

00:24:58 ◼   ► people about the book? Yeah the response has been great so I put it up

00:25:03 ◼   ► Wednesday, it got some press, including at Mac stories, so thank you. It's been

00:25:07 ◼   ► really good. I've heard from a lot of people who seem to be enjoying it.

00:25:12 ◼   ► Reviews have been good on iBooks. I've gotten some nice emails from people

00:25:15 ◼   ► thanking me for it. I've gotten several emails from people who like used this

00:25:19 ◼   ► stuff back in the day. I heard from one person who actually worked at Apple

00:25:24 ◼   ► during this time frame, like yeah I worked on some of the stuff, like it's

00:25:26 ◼   ► really cool to read about it, like and by the way you got all the details right,

00:25:29 ◼   ► which is like what I care about the most.

00:25:32 ◼   ► So it's been really good and it's been something

00:25:34 ◼   ► that has definitely met my initial goals,

00:25:38 ◼   ► like sales-wise, which is good.

00:25:43 ◼   ► And it feels good to just have people

00:25:45 ◼   ► who don't necessarily follow everything I do.

00:25:47 ◼   ► Like a lot of these notes I'm getting from people on Twitter

00:25:49 ◼   ► don't follow me on Twitter, so they found the book elsewhere

00:25:52 ◼   ► and then decided to reach out.

00:25:54 ◼   ► So that's been really encouraging and really, really fun.

00:25:58 ◼   ► And what was the worst part of putting this book together?

00:26:03 ◼   ► - Some of the layout stuff in iBooks Author, like I said,

00:26:06 ◼   ► was just kind of hairy at times.

00:26:07 ◼   ► I really was not expecting the,

00:26:10 ◼   ► I don't know why I wasn't expecting this,

00:26:12 ◼   ► the publication to iBooks itself is pretty weird in places.

00:26:16 ◼   ► So you export your file in iBooks Author,

00:26:19 ◼   ► and then you have to upload it to iTunes Connect.

00:26:21 ◼   ► There's a Mac app that kind of sits in between.

00:26:23 ◼   ► And when I initially did it, I made a mistake somewhere,

00:26:27 ◼   ► and the book was basically going to be free everywhere,

00:26:30 ◼   ► which is not my plan.

00:26:32 ◼   ► The book's $3.99.

00:26:34 ◼   ► And so I had to go in and figure out how to fix that.

00:26:37 ◼   ► I talked to you, I talked to a couple other people

00:26:39 ◼   ► who've used iBooks.

00:26:40 ◼   ► David Sparks helped me out a little bit.

00:26:43 ◼   ► So that, the iTunes Connect end of it,

00:26:46 ◼   ► of setting pricing, I already pushed a small update

00:26:49 ◼   ► to the iBook store, I fixed four typos.

00:26:51 ◼   ► That process is super strange.

00:26:55 ◼   ► You don't just give them a new file,

00:26:56 ◼   ► basically have to like re-enroll the book and like copy all your metadata over.

00:27:00 ◼   ► This is nothing new to app developers of course but I've never been through this

00:27:04 ◼   ► process personally so that was a little bit of a learning curve and honestly

00:27:09 ◼   ► Apple's documentation really isn't that good. There's not a place at least

00:27:13 ◼   ► that I found of Apple saying these are the steps you go through in this order.

00:27:17 ◼   ► There was a lot of like clicking around and like googling stuff and asking

00:27:21 ◼   ► people who know how do I get this onto iBooks what do I need to be done

00:27:26 ◼   ► I ran into a problem like weeks ago when I signed up when I opened my iTunes

00:27:32 ◼   ► Connect account for this and I had to apply for a you basically apply for a

00:27:36 ◼   ► paid books agreement so you prove to Apple hey you know I'm an individual or

00:27:41 ◼   ► in my case I'm a company and this is all my tax information and they basically go

00:27:45 ◼   ► off and verify all of that and that took longer than I expected and they actually

00:27:51 ◼   ► ran to a problem where I moved and my address wasn't changed everywhere and it

00:27:54 ◼   ► It was basically a black hole and I had to email Apple and finally someone got back in

00:27:58 ◼   ► touch with me and fixed it but that end of it was definitely worth it but definitely

00:28:04 ◼   ► more frustrating than I had anticipated and definitely took more time than I thought it

00:28:09 ◼   ► would.

00:28:10 ◼   ► So do you plan to do more hacked books in the future?

00:28:14 ◼   ► I think it's going to be like a whole family of publishing industry, hacked books.

00:28:21 ◼   ► I would like to.

00:28:22 ◼   ► I don't have any real well-formed ideas right now.

00:28:26 ◼   ► I still need to see if this one pays off in the long term.

00:28:28 ◼   ► It's really kind of five or six months

00:28:31 ◼   ► of on and off again work.

00:28:33 ◼   ► I need to make sure that's a financially viable decision

00:28:35 ◼   ► for my company.

00:28:36 ◼   ► But so far, it's working out.

00:28:38 ◼   ► And I would like to do more.

00:28:40 ◼   ► I was telling Myke the other night,

00:28:42 ◼   ► I like that it exists.

00:28:46 ◼   ► I like that I was able to do it and able to pull off.

00:28:48 ◼   ► And it's not my first book.

00:28:49 ◼   ► My first book, actually, you can't buy anymore

00:28:51 ◼   ► for a bunch of reasons.

00:28:52 ◼   ► - God, I love that book so much though.

00:28:54 ◼   ► - I know, but--

00:28:56 ◼   ► - Can I say what it was for people that don't know?

00:28:58 ◼   ► - Yeah, it was a book, yeah, I mean, it's around.

00:29:00 ◼   ► I mean, it was a book about my time at the Genius Bar

00:29:02 ◼   ► and it was a collection of short stories about that.

00:29:03 ◼   ► If I ever read-- - Oh, I love that book.

00:29:05 ◼   ► - Bar tending, right?

00:29:05 ◼   ► - That book caused a lot of-- - Such a great name as well.

00:29:07 ◼   ► Oh my God, it's so good. - Problem.

00:29:09 ◼   ► Yeah, it's currently not on Amazon.

00:29:10 ◼   ► It was just an EPUB.

00:29:11 ◼   ► I may put it back for free at some point.

00:29:13 ◼   ► So I'd like to do more stuff.

00:29:14 ◼   ► I'd like to do more stuff like this.

00:29:16 ◼   ► So yeah, we'll see how it goes

00:29:19 ◼   ► and I think that I will do more of it.

00:29:22 ◼   ► - Nice, well congrats.

00:29:24 ◼   ► It's been, the book is really awesome

00:29:26 ◼   ► and I definitely think you should do more.

00:29:29 ◼   ► I mean especially because you can use all of these computers

00:29:33 ◼   ► and stuff that you have and I think John Gruber,

00:29:36 ◼   ► when I linked to you on The Ring Fireball,

00:29:38 ◼   ► he said something around the lines of,

00:29:40 ◼   ► "Only Steven Hackett could do this."

00:29:42 ◼   ► And it's true because you have all of this huge collection

00:29:47 ◼   ► And to, I mean, of course you don't want thousands of people to come knocking

00:29:52 ◼   ► at your door to view the collection, but to put that into a book that's

00:29:56 ◼   ► convenient and it's awesome.

00:29:57 ◼   ► So yeah, you should do more.

00:29:59 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:30:00 ◼   ► I view the books very much like how I view the YouTube channel where it's like,

00:30:03 ◼   ► and that's what John was talking about, the design by Apple video I did.

00:30:06 ◼   ► Uh, the, like the ability that I have to showcase this stuff, like that's

00:30:13 ◼   ► like my advantage right now, like in the Apple coverage space.

00:30:18 ◼   ► And so doing that in more interesting ways.

00:30:19 ◼   ► I can write more blog posts, I can do more pictures, and I will keep doing that.

00:30:23 ◼   ► But this stuff also like plays well in books and does really well in video.

00:30:28 ◼   ► And so I'm looking to kind of expand all of this in different ways and kind of see what

00:30:31 ◼   ► works, see what doesn't and keep experimenting.

00:30:33 ◼   ► You got to keep advancing that personal brand.

00:30:36 ◼   ► That's right.

00:30:38 ◼   ► It's all about the personal brand.

00:30:41 ◼   ► This week's episode is brought to you by Boom2 from Global Delight.

00:30:45 ◼   ► We all use our Macs for different reasons. Some of us use it for professional creative

00:30:50 ◼   ► designing or maybe they use it to make podcasts. Many of us also or only use our Macs and computers

00:30:56 ◼   ► so things like Netflix and YouTube. But one feature that we all depend on no matter what

00:31:00 ◼   ► it is that we're doing is the volume of our system. We like sound. Sound is important

00:31:04 ◼   ► to our computing life. We all have found times where I'm sure you just need that little more

00:31:09 ◼   ► when it comes to the volume that your Mac can output, especially on laptops as well.

00:31:15 ◼   ► We like our favourite music to be that little bit louder, movies sound to be a little bit

00:31:19 ◼   ► clearer so we can hear the whispering dialogue or maybe we want our podcast Skype calls to

00:31:24 ◼   ► be more enhanced. This is what Boom 2 by Global Delight does. Boom 2 is a small yet powerful

00:31:31 ◼   ► application that enhances the volume of your Mac. When you install Boom 2 it will automatically

00:31:36 ◼   ► calibrate itself to your system's audio and whenever any audio comes out of the Mac it

00:31:40 ◼   ► will boost it to perfection. Even the most feeble of sounds are amplified to the best

00:31:44 ◼   ► of the range. Boom 2 promises an immersive and crystal clear audio experience. It works

00:31:50 ◼   ► across all of the audio of your system, so whether it be your editing software or when

00:31:54 ◼   ► you're browsing the web, your volume will always be intelligently boosted when you need

00:31:58 ◼   ► it. Global Delight believes that Boom 2 is something that once you've used there's just

00:32:03 ◼   ► no going back from. It tunes itself to make the perfect highs, the perfect lows and boosts

00:32:08 ◼   ► the volume to their best suited range. Boom 2 comes with amazing audio effects which are

00:32:13 ◼   ► available as in app purchases that allow you to create an addictive audio environment.

00:32:18 ◼   ► Boom 2 will also let you tweak your Mac's output with customisable equalisers letting

00:32:22 ◼   ► you toggle to your heart's content if that's the type of thing that you're into. If you

00:32:27 ◼   ► want to get immersed into an audio experience like never before go to boom4mac.com that's

00:32:32 ◼   ► That's B-O-O-M-F-O-R-M-A-C dot com.

00:32:36 ◼   ► You can find out more and the app comes

00:32:38 ◼   ► with a seven day free trial which lets you use

00:32:40 ◼   ► the entire app including all of the effects.

00:32:42 ◼   ► Thank you so much to Global Delight

00:32:44 ◼   ► for their support of this show and Relay FM.

00:32:47 ◼   ► - So Federico had a really good idea

00:32:49 ◼   ► for an iOS 10 check in.

00:32:52 ◼   ► So we're gonna do this.

00:32:53 ◼   ► It's kind of a thing that we like

00:32:55 ◼   ► and a thing that we don't like

00:32:57 ◼   ► and we're gonna do it in a modified round robin

00:33:00 ◼   ► per our tradition.

00:33:01 ◼   ► Federico is going to start I think with something that he likes.

00:33:04 ◼   ► Yes, and the feature that I... there are some iOS 10 features that I like but the one I like the most

00:33:11 ◼   ► is the redesigned search screen with widgets. I use widgets all the time now.

00:33:17 ◼   ► I was not a huge widget person before with iOS 8 and iOS 9 but with iOS 10 and the

00:33:22 ◼   ► fact that I can access my widgets everywhere. They're on the lock screen, I

00:33:26 ◼   ► I can swipe down from any app and swipe left to view my widgets, they're on the home screen,

00:33:32 ◼   ► I use them all the time. And widgets are getting better with iOS 10.2, which is adding a minor

00:33:38 ◼   ► change that I have as a deep effect on my usage of widgets, which is when you swipe down, it used

00:33:44 ◼   ► to be every time you swipe down iOS resets to show you notifications. In iOS 10.2 when you swipe down

00:33:51 ◼   ► it remembers where you were the last time you swiped down. So if you use widgets all the time,

00:33:57 ◼   ► when you swipe down you will see widgets, you won't go back to notifications, which results in

00:34:01 ◼   ► "I don't see my notifications anymore, anytime I swipe down I have my widgets". And it's great

00:34:07 ◼   ► because I use it all the time, especially with two apps, Workflow and Launcher. So both are

00:34:13 ◼   ► widgets to save time, but not in the sense of they just launch apps. I mean sure, Launcher

00:34:20 ◼   ► just launches either an app or a web page in Safari. But the Workflow widget actually lets me do stuff

00:34:26 ◼   ► more quickly, like for example I have a workflow to start a timer on toggle, which is my

00:34:32 ◼   ► time tracking service of choice, so I can start a timer for anything I'm doing on my iPhone or my

00:34:39 ◼   ► iPad, whether it's editing or reading or playing games or catching up on Twitter, I can do that

00:34:45 ◼   ► quickly from the widget. I also have workflows to do things like I want to share a Spotify song

00:34:52 ◼   ► both with the Spotify link and the Apple Music link. I have a widget that does that for me.

00:34:58 ◼   ► I use it all the time. I have other widgets as well. I use Copied for clipboard management,

00:35:03 ◼   ► I use the Time Page widget for the calendar and I have of course the Batteries widget to check on the

00:35:10 ◼   ► status of my wireless headphones and other accessories such as the Razer keyboard on the iPad Pro, but I would say overall

00:35:17 ◼   ► because they're available everywhere and because they're easy to access and thanks to iOS 10.2, which is hopefully launching soon,

00:35:24 ◼   ► I would definitely say widgets are my most used and my favorite iOS 10 change.

00:35:30 ◼   ► I don't use widgets to the incredible level that you do, although I do at some point plan to do more with Workflow.

00:35:37 ◼   ► I use Workflow for a couple. I have a couple of like podcast posting

00:35:41 ◼   ► checklists that will be triggered into OmniFocus from a workflow extension

00:35:46 ◼   ► which I'm pretty proud of. But the two applications that I love the widgets of

00:35:51 ◼   ► the most are Carrot weather which has a really excellent weather widget and

00:35:56 ◼   ► Fantastic Hell 2. I think it does a good job of displaying my calendar in a way

00:35:59 ◼   ► that I like and I'm able to kind of just from the widget see what's coming up on

00:36:03 ◼   ► on future days which I love, I think that's really good.

00:36:06 ◼   ► So yeah, I am a big fan of widgets.

00:36:10 ◼   ► But only Federico can you use them to the full extent, you know?

00:36:16 ◼   ► - No, I don't think so. - That's all you need, man.

00:36:18 ◼   ► That's, you know, wonderful things that you're able to do.

00:36:21 ◼   ► I would like to start with a negative of iOS 10,

00:36:26 ◼   ► a thing that makes me upset.

00:36:28 ◼   ► And it's a thing that has made me upset for a long time

00:36:30 ◼   ► and will continue to, and I'm going to continue to talk about this.

00:36:33 ◼   ► is the handling of rich text on iOS. It is a nightmare. It's always been a nightmare

00:36:40 ◼   ► and I feel like it might be a nightmare forever. Like all I want to be able to do is to open

00:36:45 ◼   ► Google sheets or open numbers and select a table, copy that table and paste it into an

00:36:52 ◼   ► email. That's not difficult, right? Like this is something that we do. This is something

00:36:57 ◼   ► that the Mac can handle, fine. Or if I just copy a bulleted list, just paste the bulleted

00:37:03 ◼   ► list. Like, this is all I want, right? Like, there are things that, you know, we talk about,

00:37:10 ◼   ► we talk about this quite a lot. What are the things that are, that we still use our Macs

00:37:14 ◼   ► for? Me and Federico talk about this. And I have one other task that I use my Mac for

00:37:20 ◼   ► other than the heavy audio production. And that is once a week when I have to send some

00:37:25 ◼   ► emails, which is data copied from Google Sheets. I use my, I turn on my iMac to do

00:37:32 ◼   ► this because it is so frustrating to try and do this with iOS. And I feel like, I

00:37:38 ◼   ► feel like a Philistine doing it. Like that, I turn on my huge Mac computer to

00:37:43 ◼   ► send some emails. And it's not even limited to Google Sheets, even if you

00:37:48 ◼   ► just use Apple apps, even if you just try to copy some formatted text from Apple

00:37:53 ◼   ► notes in a mail or, you know, and you try to paste that in a message, it doesn't work.

00:37:59 ◼   ► And the entire, the problem here is that the entire rich text framework is messed up on

00:38:04 ◼   ► iOS. There's not even a single rich text framework. There's a bunch of ways developers can do

00:38:09 ◼   ► formatted text. And it changes from app to app. Apple never really optimize and says,

00:38:14 ◼   ► "Okay, if you want to do rich text, if you want to work with Assistant clipboard, if you

00:38:18 ◼   ► want to accept rich text when the user pastes some content, you've got to do this and this.

00:38:23 ◼   ► It's all inconsistent and it's a problem because the user expects consistency, so I copy a

00:38:31 ◼   ► list or I copy a table, I should be able to paste the table.

00:38:34 ◼   ► And instead iOS never shows you that kind of control and it doesn't work.

00:38:39 ◼   ► So yeah, it's a problem.

00:38:41 ◼   ► I don't come across that as much as you do, but it's definitely a problem.

00:38:45 ◼   ► It really, really frustrates me a lot.

00:38:47 ◼   ► Just because it feels like it's such a simple, fundamental thing, right?

00:38:55 ◼   ► Like the copying of text from application to application.

00:39:00 ◼   ► Copies plain text, takes rich text, converts it to plain text and then just pastes plain

00:39:03 ◼   ► text.

00:39:04 ◼   ► It frustrates me because it's something that you never have to think about on platforms

00:39:11 ◼   ► other than iOS.

00:39:12 ◼   ► Right, like it just works because that's just how text is formatted.

00:39:17 ◼   ► But it seems like this is something that is not being fixed and it's something that I

00:39:22 ◼   ► can't understand in the world of professional iOS devices that we don't even see rich text

00:39:28 ◼   ► being handled consistently or at all in some cases.

00:39:31 ◼   ► It's very, very, very confusing to me.

00:39:35 ◼   ► I'm going to start with something positive and it's something that when I was thinking

00:39:40 ◼   ► about this it's what came to mind almost immediately which really surprised me

00:39:43 ◼   ► and it's the improved maps app in iOS 10. There are a couple things that I really like

00:39:49 ◼   ► about it. One, they've moved much of the interface like the buttons and the menus

00:39:54 ◼   ► and stuff to the bottom of the screen. Apple Music does some of this as well

00:39:58 ◼   ► but Maps I think does it really nicely. If you have a bigger phone like I am or

00:40:03 ◼   ► if you're using Maps one-handed because you're walking or you're on a bus or

00:40:08 ◼   ► or you're in a car, it's really easy to sort of navigate

00:40:12 ◼   ► with just your thumb.

00:40:13 ◼   ► A couple of new features really stand out to me.

00:40:16 ◼   ► It is a much better job at remembering

00:40:18 ◼   ► where I parked my car.

00:40:19 ◼   ► So I've got Bluetooth in my car,

00:40:20 ◼   ► the phone unpairs when the car turns off

00:40:23 ◼   ► and drops a pin on the map saying,

00:40:25 ◼   ► "This is where your car is."

00:40:26 ◼   ► That doesn't always work for me.

00:40:28 ◼   ► It's still a little hit or miss,

00:40:29 ◼   ► but it seems like it works more often than it used to.

00:40:33 ◼   ► And it does a nice job about recently searched

00:40:36 ◼   ► locations or addresses, things on my calendar, things in the proactive system.

00:40:44 ◼   ► So like on Tuesday night I always go to the same place. When I open maps it's

00:40:48 ◼   ► always there waiting for me. So that stuff is really nice and they've added

00:40:53 ◼   ► search along your route. So if you are in the car, if you're on a trip and you want

00:40:57 ◼   ► to say hey you know is there a Starbucks you know the next few exits it can now

00:41:02 ◼   ► do that. You used to have to go to Google Maps for that because maps didn't

00:41:05 ◼   ► wasn't able to do that you basically had to stop your directions and then search

00:41:09 ◼   ► and kind of know where you were on the map and then go back in. That's much more

00:41:12 ◼   ► streamlined now. I don't use maps every day I use it a lot less than I used to

00:41:16 ◼   ► but when I do use it it's it seems like it's far better than it's been I should

00:41:21 ◼   ► say as fine print. I've never really had the problems here in Memphis that some

00:41:25 ◼   ► people had with like streets missing or like one way streets being wrong or

00:41:29 ◼   ► anything like that that the map data the tile data has always been pretty good

00:41:33 ◼   ► for me in my area but all the rest of the stuff, all the features, all sort of the niceties

00:41:38 ◼   ► on top seem a lot better in iOS 10 and I'm a big fan of it.

00:41:43 ◼   ► Something I don't like as you might imagine is the lack of iPad updates in iOS 10.

00:41:49 ◼   ► We only got minor changes in iOS 10 for the iPad which is basically Safari split view

00:41:55 ◼   ► and the home screen icon added to the command tab switcher.

00:42:00 ◼   ► I cannot think of anything else basically.

00:42:02 ◼   ► The rest is all optimizations from iPhone interfaces.

00:42:06 ◼   ► And even the new stuff that we did get in the betas,

00:42:11 ◼   ► it got removed before the final release,

00:42:13 ◼   ► such as side-by-side compose in Apple Mail,

00:42:16 ◼   ► which was really nice.

00:42:18 ◼   ► For some reason, it was cut from beta four or beta five.

00:42:20 ◼   ► - So yeah, so that was like a three-pane view, right,

00:42:23 ◼   ► on the larger iPads.

00:42:25 ◼   ► - That was like you could do split view inside Mail,

00:42:27 ◼   ► so you had the mailbox with the messages on the left

00:42:31 ◼   ► and the compose screen on the right.

00:42:33 ◼   ► - The same as the Safari thing, right?

00:42:35 ◼   ► - Yes, kinda, yeah.

00:42:36 ◼   ► It was the same concept.

00:42:37 ◼   ► You can actually drag the compose panel to the right.

00:42:42 ◼   ► It was really nice.

00:42:43 ◼   ► And it was removed.

00:42:45 ◼   ► So my hope is that we will get with iOS 10.3

00:42:49 ◼   ► next year in the spring with new iPads

00:42:53 ◼   ► and iPad focus release.

00:42:54 ◼   ► And there's a lot of things that Apple needs to fix.

00:42:58 ◼   ► It's been almost not two years,

00:43:00 ◼   ► but more than a year since iOS 9 came out,

00:43:04 ◼   ► and the entire split view and multitasking features

00:43:07 ◼   ► need to be improved.

00:43:09 ◼   ► The app picker, you know, when you swipe down

00:43:12 ◼   ► and you need to scroll apps vertically,

00:43:14 ◼   ► that's so slow and it's inconvenient,

00:43:16 ◼   ► and people have been complaining about that feature

00:43:19 ◼   ► ever since the days of iOS 9.

00:43:21 ◼   ► - And that's just like, ugh, the more I've used it,

00:43:23 ◼   ► the more I'm just frustrated

00:43:25 ◼   ► at just the fundamental way that it works.

00:43:27 ◼   ► Like, how does it pick those three applications

00:43:30 ◼   ► that it shows because it's never the one that I want.

00:43:32 ◼   ► I think I explained this before, but again, those three apps at the bottom, those are

00:43:38 ◼   ► not necessarily the last three apps that you use on your device. Those are the last three

00:43:45 ◼   ► apps that you use in multitasking.

00:43:47 ◼   ► That just doesn't make sense.

00:43:49 ◼   ► I know, I know, it's just the way that it is. So that entire interface needs to be redesigned

00:43:55 ◼   ► And there has to be external keyboard integration.

00:43:59 ◼   ► Because I use my iPad in multitasking all the time.

00:44:02 ◼   ► But every time I want to open split view

00:44:04 ◼   ► or change the layout or open a different app,

00:44:08 ◼   ► I need to lift my fingers off the keyboard

00:44:10 ◼   ► and I need to touch the screen.

00:44:11 ◼   ► You cannot do multitasking with a keyboard.

00:44:13 ◼   ► But there are other problems like the home screen

00:44:15 ◼   ► on the big iPad Pro is starting to feel like a joke.

00:44:19 ◼   ► The space is not being used at all.

00:44:22 ◼   ► The iCloud Drive app, I know that David Sparks

00:44:25 ◼   ► is a fan. It's so, so bad in every possible way. From the extension to the interface of

00:44:33 ◼   ► the app, to the fact that it's not clear how you can deal with folders, it needs to be

00:44:38 ◼   ► redesigned. And in general, I feel like it's been a while since the, you know, with iOS

00:44:44 ◼   ► 9, we saw a lot of potential, we saw a lot of promise and we said, "Okay, Apple cares

00:44:49 ◼   ► about making iOS for the iPad again and we didn't get the kind of focus and the kind

00:44:55 ◼   ► of features, the kind of reimagination of what an iPad can do with iOS 10.

00:45:03 ◼   ► So hopefully with iOS 10.3 we will get some major changes.

00:45:07 ◼   ► I'm not saying that we will get some entirely new iOS for come the spring, but I would say

00:45:15 ◼   ► we should get at least some really welcome features.

00:45:18 ◼   ► So, you know, fingers crossed.

00:45:20 ◼   ► - I think this is the thing,

00:45:20 ◼   ► is like we're very frustrated now about the fact

00:45:23 ◼   ► that iOS on the iPad has stalled with 10.

00:45:27 ◼   ► But if in the spring we do see that update,

00:45:31 ◼   ► then we'll know that we can expect it in the future, right?

00:45:34 ◼   ► And we spoke about this many times

00:45:36 ◼   ► that we may see like this kind of six monthly

00:45:39 ◼   ► or whatever it ends up being turnaround

00:45:42 ◼   ► where we see iOS for the iPhone and then iOS for the iPad.

00:45:46 ◼   ► and that becomes kind of like the schedule going forward, which would be amazing.

00:45:51 ◼   ► Like that would be an ideal scenario because iPad users then get double the features, right?

00:45:56 ◼   ► We get the iPhone features in September and we get the iPad features in March.

00:46:01 ◼   ► Like that would be brilliant.

00:46:03 ◼   ► But we haven't seen that yet, right?

00:46:06 ◼   ► It's like this is what we're expecting.

00:46:08 ◼   ► This is what we're hoping.

00:46:09 ◼   ► And if that ends up coming to fruition, that will be fantastic.

00:46:12 ◼   ► But right now, all we have is the facts that are in front of us.

00:46:15 ◼   ► and the facts are in September the iPad was ignored basically. It didn't get anything

00:46:22 ◼   ► specific for it and even features that it should have are broken and then just removed.

00:46:27 ◼   ► Try and drag a sticker in split view. If you've got messages open in split view, try and drag

00:46:32 ◼   ► a sticker. You just can't do it. You cannot drag a sticker onto the iMessage's window. First it was

00:46:38 ◼   ► a bug, you could do the drag and drop but nothing would stick. Then they just removed the ability

00:46:43 ◼   ► to even drag them. There is like, and so this is, for people like me in Federico, these

00:46:49 ◼   ► types of things are worrying until we see something more.

00:46:54 ◼   ► Or at least just get some specifics, you know, just "hey, don't worry, we got some stuff

00:47:00 ◼   ► coming, we haven't forgotten about it". Because from our outside perspective it sure feels

00:47:06 ◼   ► that way, you know. If I'm an iPad user and I'm like "okay, this is like iOS 9 and I got

00:47:12 ◼   ► no new features. So perhaps a little more communication, you know, or at least making

00:47:17 ◼   ► sure that iPhone features work correctly. That's all I'm asking.

00:47:21 ◼   ► It's not just the professional Mac users that are worried, you know. All right, us professional

00:47:25 ◼   ► iPad users over here, we haven't had any updates.

00:47:27 ◼   ► You make it sound like a joke, but it's not really a joke.

00:47:30 ◼   ► No, I'm not joking. I'm being serious. But it's a funny thing that it's like everyone's

00:47:35 ◼   ► focused on like at the professional, the Mac professional, but the iPad professional is

00:47:40 ◼   ► also concerned at the lack of updates for their platform as well.

00:47:45 ◼   ► I mentioned stickers.

00:47:46 ◼   ► I think the single greatest thing about iOS 10 is iMessage stickers.

00:47:51 ◼   ► iMessages in general is really great, but I love stickers.

00:47:55 ◼   ► I know some people hate them, some people think it's stupid, some people want to never

00:48:00 ◼   ► use iMessage again because of the stickers, but I think I can speak for the three of us

00:48:05 ◼   ► that we all really enjoy them and there's so much creativity in these stickers.

00:48:12 ◼   ► Like, if you do not subscribe to MaxLories, to Club MaxLories, you should because in the

00:48:18 ◼   ► Club MaxLories newsletter, Jon does such a great roundup of stickers, all the new stickers.

00:48:23 ◼   ► I do some of those too.

00:48:24 ◼   ► Well, all I know is I get tons of new stickers from Jon, so I just assume he's doing it.

00:48:30 ◼   ► Yeah, he has great taste and he spends a lot of time on the iMessage App Store. Yeah, that's true.

00:48:35 ◼   ► And there is just so much fun stuff in there and

00:48:39 ◼   ► it's it's fun and also useful I think like

00:48:43 ◼   ► This for me the stickers have as much use in communication as emoji do right like you're able to communicate things

00:48:51 ◼   ► But you're also able to communicate more complex things because there are a lot more stickers than there are emoji

00:48:56 ◼   ► So you can find things to try and convey a feeling and or just be silly

00:49:00 ◼   ► You know, you can send a sticker of dancing toast to each other right like you this this is a thing that exists

00:49:07 ◼   ► You can do that. It's great. I love the toast sticker pack

00:49:09 ◼   ► It's like one of my favorites right now

00:49:11 ◼   ► I'll find a link and put it in the show notes

00:49:13 ◼   ► But this is the thing every couple of weeks I find a new sticker pack that I love

00:49:17 ◼   ► And I have been enjoying it immensely

00:49:20 ◼   ► I think that it is a really really fun way to communicate and then there are other things like

00:49:26 ◼   ► Like the effects are really fun, like all of the confetti and the making the text big

00:49:31 ◼   ► and stuff.

00:49:32 ◼   ► And you can use them sincerely or you can use them ironically, but the ironic use of

00:49:37 ◼   ► them is more fun and has lasted longer than the ironic use of digital touch.

00:49:42 ◼   ► Yes.

00:49:43 ◼   ► That ironic use lasted about a day and a half I think, but I still send, you know, like

00:49:49 ◼   ► when Steven put his book out I think we both sent him different confetti related congratulations

00:49:53 ◼   ► messages.

00:49:54 ◼   ► I think so.

00:49:55 ◼   ► you know, and I get some really funny pairings every now and then, right?

00:49:59 ◼   ► Like, it works really well.

00:50:00 ◼   ► And also, one last thing about messages, which initially I really, really didn't like,

00:50:04 ◼   ► but have come to like, which is when you click the camera button

00:50:07 ◼   ► and you get that tiny camera app in the message pane,

00:50:10 ◼   ► like where the keyboard goes and you can take a picture.

00:50:13 ◼   ► I really like that.

00:50:14 ◼   ► I wish that it's a little bit slow, like when you press the capture button,

00:50:18 ◼   ► it takes a little while to appear in the message, which is weird,

00:50:22 ◼   ► But it's very cool to have it just pop up like that,

00:50:26 ◼   ► rather than just take over the whole screen.

00:50:28 ◼   ► 'Cause you typically,

00:50:29 ◼   ► the photos that you're taking in messages,

00:50:31 ◼   ► they're not really gonna be your best pictures

00:50:33 ◼   ► if you're just taking them to share them.

00:50:34 ◼   ► So I think that that actually works really well.

00:50:37 ◼   ► But at first I was like, I don't like this.

00:50:39 ◼   ► But now I've gotten used to it and I do really like it.

00:50:41 ◼   ► - So it's my turn to have a downer.

00:50:47 ◼   ► And I'm gonna talk about 3D Touch.

00:50:49 ◼   ► been out well I guess two cycles now of the iPhone not the iPad I think three of

00:50:55 ◼   ► us are pretty much in agreement that that's not coming to the iPad at least

00:50:58 ◼   ► anytime soon. My issue is that in iOS 10 Apple is relying on 3d touch a lot so

00:51:06 ◼   ► they're pushing or hiding a lot of things behind the actions of things like

00:51:10 ◼   ► notifications that are actionable that's my biggest complaint is that if

00:51:14 ◼   ► you don't have 3d touch or if you're like me I have it on the lightest

00:51:19 ◼   ► setting and I still find it uncomfortable at times to put that pressure onto the glass,

00:51:24 ◼   ► it's sort of annoying that I have to use it all the time.

00:51:27 ◼   ► And that if I turn it off or I try to do things other ways or if I'm on my iPad, that a lot

00:51:33 ◼   ► of things are just done differently or some things aren't even really all that possible.

00:51:40 ◼   ► And I think that, you know, there's some confusion around 3D touch and like some other gestures,

00:51:45 ◼   ► Apple needs to figure that out.

00:51:47 ◼   ► But my big complaint is that anything that is reliant on 3D touch should be able to be

00:51:54 ◼   ► done in a different way that is like on the same footing.

00:51:58 ◼   ► So notifications, you know, you gotta drag down and like kind of get the right amount.

00:52:03 ◼   ► Swiping over to reveal the actions was fine.

00:52:08 ◼   ► There's a lot of stuff that they've changed to leverage 3D touch that I'm not sure was

00:52:12 ◼   ► worth the change or worth the hassle.

00:52:15 ◼   ► If you don't want to use it or if you can't use it, then you're sort of stuck in some

00:52:19 ◼   ► weird places and that's unfortunate.

00:52:21 ◼   ► Yeah, I agree really with the notification action thing.

00:52:27 ◼   ► I know some people that don't have 3D touch devices and there is just information on some

00:52:34 ◼   ► notifications that you just can't see.

00:52:36 ◼   ► Like you're just stuck.

00:52:38 ◼   ► There's just no option for you.

00:52:40 ◼   ► And I find that really weird.

00:52:42 ◼   ► Is it the alarm one? Which you can't do anything from? Like you can't snooze an alarm from

00:52:50 ◼   ► non 3D touch devices?

00:52:51 ◼   ► I'm not sure.

00:52:53 ◼   ► I think that might be one of them. Which is just such a strange thing to me. And it's

00:52:59 ◼   ► there are times where like Apple's ham-fisted push towards having you update is good. But

00:53:06 ◼   ► I think that there are some times where it's not so good and some of the 3D touch stuff

00:53:10 ◼   ► is weird. I mean I have to say personally I've come to really like a lot of the 3D touch stuff

00:53:15 ◼   ► but I think that there should be options where for people you know where they think of other things

00:53:23 ◼   ► and honestly the iPad is one of those. Yeah. Right like there's a lot of stuff that I would like to

00:53:28 ◼   ► do on the iPad but I can't do it because I don't have 3D touch and it's like well you need to work

00:53:32 ◼   ► out a way around this because like I don't see 3D touch coming to the iPad from a technical level

00:53:37 ◼   ► and you need to find another way to do it.

00:53:39 ◼   ► Especially the fact that you've got to have, for those people who don't use 3D Touch,

00:53:44 ◼   ► like my girlfriend, she doesn't use 3D Touch because for some reason she just never triggers the correct 3D Touch input.

00:53:52 ◼   ► And for those people you've got to have a graceful fallback.

00:53:55 ◼   ► And I feel like in iOS 10 if you disable 3D Touch, especially for notifications,

00:54:00 ◼   ► you gain this additional tap required to view a rich notification, to expand it.

00:54:06 ◼   ► and it would be much better if we could just keep swiping to open the rich notification instead of having to swipe and tap.

00:54:14 ◼   ► So I feel like a lot of the engineers and the designers at Apple are so used to testing on the latest hardware,

00:54:20 ◼   ► and they're like "ok, sure 3D Touch is great and we gotta do all the things 3D Touch",

00:54:25 ◼   ► but then when they do the bare minimum work to make sure that these features work on older devices,

00:54:31 ◼   ► But you also got to consider people who don't like the new setting, who cannot use the new setting, and to optimize the software

00:54:38 ◼   ► for those people. And I feel like in many instances iOS 10 is not optimized for non 3D touch usage.

00:54:46 ◼   ► It's been optimized for 3D touch in some very useful ways, and I like it,

00:54:50 ◼   ► but I also recognize that for other people and for other devices

00:54:53 ◼   ► it's not optimized enough if you don't like or cannot use or don't have 3D touch. And there should definitely be

00:55:01 ◼   ► some redesigns or some updates to

00:55:04 ◼   ► also make it fast and make it quick and make it easy

00:55:08 ◼   ► if you don't use 3D Touch.

00:55:09 ◼   ► So I agree with all of the above.

00:55:12 ◼   ► It's also just a really, really weird

00:55:15 ◼   ► way of interacting with your phone.

00:55:17 ◼   ► Like, it's just strange. It is strange. Like, I'm used to it and I like it,

00:55:22 ◼   ► but it's weird. Like,

00:55:23 ◼   ► press harder and find more things.

00:55:26 ◼   ► It's like, "Alright, I guess that's what happens now."

00:55:28 ◼   ► So yeah, that is iOS 10. I have to say, like, I think especially on the iPhone, iOS 10 has aged quite well.

00:55:35 ◼   ► Yes, there's some things like, eh, like Digital Touch for example, but sure.

00:55:40 ◼   ► You could just ignore that that even exists. I didn't even bother to bring that up with messages. It's like, okay, is it even there?

00:55:45 ◼   ► Yeah, but it takes up a spot in the message drawer, whereas it would be much better.

00:55:50 ◼   ► I mean, the entire iMessage app picker needs also to be redesigned.

00:55:54 ◼   ► Can we just say Apple has an app picker problem? Like they don't know how to design good app

00:56:01 ◼   ► selection UIs anymore.

00:56:02 ◼   ► Yeah. You know what, I actually agree with you, because what have we got? We've got the

00:56:07 ◼   ► Split View app picker and then the iMessage app picker, which are both just disasters.

00:56:12 ◼   ► And the home screen, which you could argue that on the iPad it's, you know...

00:56:16 ◼   ► I think the problem was they designed the home screen and then just tried to make the

00:56:20 ◼   ► home screen in different ways.

00:56:22 ◼   ► Home screen everywhere.

00:56:24 ◼   ► Very weird, very weird.

00:56:25 ◼   ► All right, so that is iOS 10.

00:56:27 ◼   ► We're looking forward to hopefully some more improvements in the first quarter of next

00:56:32 ◼   ► year and then I guess we'll start looking to 11.

00:56:35 ◼   ► First, let the iPads come.

00:56:39 ◼   ► We'll talk about it.

00:56:40 ◼   ► We could do that.

00:56:41 ◼   ► All right, this week's episode is also brought to you by Foot Cardigan.

00:56:45 ◼   ► Have you ever wished that the sock fairy would pay you a visit or maybe you want to be known

00:56:53 ◼   ► as the best gift giver in the world this holiday season.

00:56:57 ◼   ► Maybe you want your feet to be the envy of everyone you know.

00:57:01 ◼   ► Foot Cardigan is here to make all of this happen for you.

00:57:05 ◼   ► They deliver fun socks every single month right to your doorstep.

00:57:09 ◼   ► I had an email just before this show went on the air that my socks for this month have

00:57:14 ◼   ► shipped which I'm very excited about because I don't know what they are ladies and gentlemen

00:57:18 ◼   ► and that is the great thing about Foot Cardigan.

00:57:20 ◼   ► They send you a surprise pair of socks every month and they will be things you never would

00:57:25 ◼   ► have imagined. I was telling Federico earlier today, my socks today are Foot Cardigan socks

00:57:30 ◼   ► and they are yellow and brown and they have spatulas on them.

00:57:34 ◼   ► I would never have bought those pair of socks but I'll tell you I'm happy that I own them.

00:57:39 ◼   ► Foot Cardigan starts at just $9 a month and they are a fantastic gift this holiday season,

00:57:44 ◼   ► maybe for a birthday or even just for yourself, there is no shame in buying yourself a Foot

00:57:48 ◼   ► Foot Cardigan subscription. I pay for my own and I get the socks that I want every month.

00:57:53 ◼   ► Socks that I never even knew that I wanted. Foot Cardigan has options for men, women and

00:57:58 ◼   ► kids and they have different styles as well. They have no show socks, they have luxury

00:58:01 ◼   ► socks. It doesn't matter what you want, Foot Cardigan have got your feet covered. Go to

00:58:06 ◼   ► Footcardigan.com right now and you'll get 10% off your order with the coupon code WORLD.

00:58:15 ◼   ► Once again that is footcardigan.com promo code world at checkout for 10% off any subscription.

00:58:20 ◼   ► I really do recommend this as a great gift, it's a gift that keeps on giving and also

00:58:25 ◼   ► just for yourself. It's really really fun. I love my Footcardigan socks. Thank you so

00:58:29 ◼   ► much to Footcardigan for their support of this show and Relay FM.

00:58:34 ◼   ► Okay so there was a Mark Gurman rumor over on Bloomberg about a new version of the Echo

00:58:42 ◼   ► with a screen, the Amazon Echo will come with a screen in the future, as well as just having

00:58:50 ◼   ► it's speakers. So currently there are three versions of the Echo, the regular, the dot

00:58:56 ◼   ► and the tap. Is it tap? I think so. And they are all just speaker canisters of different

00:59:02 ◼   ► sizes basically. That is all they do. You speak to it, it speaks to you, there you go.

00:59:09 ◼   ► Now it looks like that there's going to be a version with a screen on it as well, so

00:59:16 ◼   ► there will be some visual input/output as well, which is interesting.

00:59:20 ◼   ► And maybe touch, who knows.

00:59:24 ◼   ► I mean they've been doing this stuff to an extent with the Fire tablet, right?

00:59:30 ◼   ► They have like an Alexa optimized interface, I think?

00:59:33 ◼   ► I think so, yeah.

00:59:34 ◼   ► There's an app, I think.

00:59:35 ◼   ► There's an app that basically shows you requests visually.

00:59:39 ◼   ► I don't know, I have a lot of questions about this,

00:59:42 ◼   ► honestly, because I love my Echo

00:59:45 ◼   ► because it's not an interface,

00:59:46 ◼   ► because it's a voice conversation

00:59:49 ◼   ► and it does stuff without the overhead

00:59:51 ◼   ► of having to look and touch.

00:59:53 ◼   ► I get it, like, why it might be convenient,

00:59:57 ◼   ► especially if you're cooking,

00:59:59 ◼   ► you can view, for example, steps of a recipe as you go,

01:00:02 ◼   ► or you can view a weather forecast,

01:00:05 ◼   ► You can view artwork, you can view photos,

01:00:07 ◼   ► but much of the appeal of the Echo is that, for me at least,

01:00:11 ◼   ► it's Siri that works.

01:00:13 ◼   ► And by works, I mean, I'm not the Siri that works for other people,

01:00:15 ◼   ► but it works for the stuff that I need,

01:00:17 ◼   ► which is like my Task Manager or my automation stuff.

01:00:21 ◼   ► It's a voice assistant that I can fully control and I can customize.

01:00:26 ◼   ► And I like that because it's not another screen that I need to look at.

01:00:30 ◼   ► I have enough screens in my life, and the Echo is not one of them.

01:00:33 ◼   ► So I sort of get it, this rumor, why Amazon might be interested in doing this, but the

01:00:39 ◼   ► idea of having another, possibly a fork of Android, you know, another Android type device,

01:00:45 ◼   ► another screen to look at, another interface to manage, I don't know.

01:00:49 ◼   ► It doesn't seem super appealing to me right now.

01:00:54 ◼   ► My thinking would be, like, imagine that everything you can currently do with your Echo, you still

01:01:00 ◼   ► do and you do it in the same way, right?

01:01:02 ◼   ► But now you can also do additional things.

01:01:05 ◼   ► So like nothing changes with your Echo.

01:01:07 ◼   ► You can continue to talk to it, it will continue to talk to you and you can do all the stuff

01:01:11 ◼   ► that you've wanted to do.

01:01:12 ◼   ► But then imagine if you're like, you have additional commands that you're able to give

01:01:16 ◼   ► like "show me X", which you can't currently do with it.

01:01:21 ◼   ► So you know, or "what does X look like?"

01:01:25 ◼   ► You know it allows for more kind of question types as well as showing you like a video

01:01:31 ◼   ► recipe.

01:01:32 ◼   ► But everything you can currently do, it doesn't need a screen for so it can continue doing

01:01:37 ◼   ► that. This is how I imagine it. But now it also allows you to do more things.

01:01:43 ◼   ► And also one thing that I would like, sometimes I ask my Echo for things and I'm not sure

01:01:52 ◼   ► that it heard me right. So I've asked it to set a timer and it's given me a time back

01:01:58 ◼   ► but I didn't hear it properly because someone was cooking something. And then I have to

01:02:02 ◼   ► open the app to make sure I got the correct timer on. It would be really nice if I could

01:02:05 ◼   ► just look at the Echo and just see, get a visual confirmation that it has understood

01:02:11 ◼   ► the request I've asked it for.

01:02:13 ◼   ► Yeah, maybe. It needs to be a big screen.

01:02:17 ◼   ► Well, I mean, it depends where you have it, right? I mean, I think the idea for a lot

01:02:23 ◼   ► of people with these things is that for stuff that you would need to see, so i.e. cooking,

01:02:28 ◼   ► you'll probably have it near you.

01:02:30 ◼   ► I think this is for a lot of people, a kitchen device.

01:02:33 ◼   ► And I think for me, a lot of the,

01:02:35 ◼   ► well I mean I think of my Echo as a kitchen device.

01:02:39 ◼   ► - Yeah, same. - My big one.

01:02:41 ◼   ► So I think of a lot of kitchen related things

01:02:43 ◼   ► like timers and recipes,

01:02:45 ◼   ► because that would make a lot of sense for me.

01:02:46 ◼   ► Or it is a device in kind of one of the central places

01:02:50 ◼   ► of the home where you go to to make an Amazon order.

01:02:54 ◼   ► You know, like so you go to it and say like,

01:02:56 ◼   ► go, "Hey Echo, can you order me some garbage bags?" and it's like, "Which garbage bags

01:03:00 ◼   ► would you want?" and it will show you them and you say, "Give me those ones." Like, it

01:03:05 ◼   ► could become like, I mean, I know we're thinking of it of like, it's not a hands-free device

01:03:11 ◼   ► anymore if it's got a screen, but that's us assuming that it's a touchscreen. We might

01:03:17 ◼   ► be able to control everything by our voice still, but it just shows you stuff.

01:03:21 ◼   ► Yeah, maybe.

01:03:22 ◼   ► Maybe I'm hoping for too much.

01:03:24 ◼   ► I mean in the I think in the Bloomberg article he lists the pricing of them all and this

01:03:29 ◼   ► would clearly be like a an upper tier you know most expensive option for people who

01:03:35 ◼   ► want more.

01:03:36 ◼   ► I would hope that anything they add visually is A) just an addition so you know they're

01:03:43 ◼   ► not rolling out Alexa features that are like problematic if you you know are like me and

01:03:50 ◼   ► you have a dot in your office, it's never gonna have a screen attached to it. And I

01:03:55 ◼   ► think we can look at how Siri's done it and it's sort of context aware

01:04:00 ◼   ► about how you interact with it. But I agree, like I just have an uneasiness

01:04:05 ◼   ► about it because of the way I use mine. I use it specifically because I don't have

01:04:11 ◼   ► to look at it. And I just don't know like how it could ever know when it's

01:04:18 ◼   ► appropriate to show me something versus just read something to me and maybe it

01:04:22 ◼   ► will do both and you know there'll be a learning curve or something but I don't

01:04:26 ◼   ► know it just feels like to me like it's it's breaking away from like the one

01:04:31 ◼   ► thing this product is really well and I hope that it doesn't make it make it a

01:04:35 ◼   ► weaker product or a weaker service overall because of one new type of

01:04:39 ◼   ► device or interaction. Because the thing is like if they want to continue making

01:04:43 ◼   ► making the current Alexa products, the Echo products, then they're going to still be focusing

01:04:51 ◼   ► on the voice control, right?

01:04:52 ◼   ► They can't start changing all of the base functionality to mean it needs a screen when

01:04:58 ◼   ► they have three quarters of their product line don't have screens on them.

01:05:02 ◼   ► Right.

01:05:03 ◼   ► Right.

01:05:04 ◼   ► So that would be kind of my thinking is like, yeah, it's going to just add either add some

01:05:07 ◼   ► new things in that it didn't have before, or some new features, and/or like augment

01:05:13 ◼   ► things so you can still use your voice but if you want to look at the screen you might

01:05:17 ◼   ► get a little bit more information. I think I'm a bit more excited about the idea of this

01:05:22 ◼   ► product than you two are I think. Which is just how it is.

01:05:26 ◼   ► Right now yes, because I cannot imagine if and how I might want to look at this display,

01:05:35 ◼   ► But I'm open to the idea, just I need some more details.

01:05:39 ◼   ► Right now it doesn't strike me as something that I really want.

01:05:42 ◼   ► I think, I don't know if this is just our use cases, our primary use cases are different,

01:05:47 ◼   ► but I am frustrated with my Echo quite a bit because it doesn't have a screen.

01:05:53 ◼   ► You know, like, that like, I'm asked, I have a time, I mean, I use it so much when I cook.

01:05:59 ◼   ► when I mostly use my Echo and I'm setting timers on it

01:06:04 ◼   ► and I have no idea how long is left on those timers

01:06:07 ◼   ► until I then open the Echo app on my phone.

01:06:12 ◼   ► I would really like to be able to look,

01:06:13 ◼   ► just glance over and see the timer sticking down.

01:06:16 ◼   ► And there are other things that I might like

01:06:20 ◼   ► when setting up, not having to use the app on my phone

01:06:26 ◼   ► to do set up stuff like to do it directly on the device, I think would be

01:06:30 ◼   ► I don't know, it feels to me like a more cohesive and better experience

01:06:34 ◼   ► because plus the Echo app sucks.

01:06:38 ◼   ► It's terrible. Just terrible.

01:06:40 ◼   ► I would expect that like Amazon might do a better job

01:06:44 ◼   ► with the application when it's on their own operating system.

01:06:48 ◼   ► That'd be my my hope, at least anyway.

01:06:51 ◼   ► Yeah, we'll see.

01:06:53 ◼   ► I'm keeping an open mind.

01:06:56 ◼   ► Yeah I think so.

01:06:57 ◼   ► I think so.

01:06:58 ◼   ► Alright if you want to catch us online there's a few places you can do that.

01:07:00 ◼   ► The show notes for today's episode are over at relay.fm/connected/120.

01:07:05 ◼   ► You can find Steven online at 512pixels.net and @ismh on twitter.

01:07:10 ◼   ► Federico is at maxlories.net and he is @vitiici.

01:07:14 ◼   ► I am @imike.

01:07:17 ◼   ► Thanks so much to Braintree, Boom2 and Footcardigan for sponsoring this week's episode of Connected.

01:07:23 ◼   ► But most of all thank you for listening.

01:07:24 ◼   ► forget to submit your stories for our end of year episode by using the hashtag #ConnectedYear

01:07:29 ◼   ► on Twitter and it will go into a spreadsheet where we can see them and then we may be able

01:07:33 ◼   ► to use some of the stories that you suggest to help us with our year-end wrap-up episode

01:07:38 ◼   ► in a couple of weeks time. Thanks for listening, we'll be back next time. Until then, say goodbye

01:07:41 ◼   ► guys.

01:07:42 ◼   ► Arrivederci.