Connected

00:00:00 ◼   ► [Music]

00:00:05 ◼   ► From Relay FM, this is Connected, episode 109.

00:00:10 ◼   ► Today's show is brought to you by Cricket and Fresh Books.

00:00:13 ◼   ► My name is Myke Hurley and I am joined by Federico Vittici.

00:00:18 ◼   ► Hi Federico Vittici.

00:00:19 ◼   ► Buona sierra Myke.

00:00:20 ◼   ► And can you, Federico, do you hear a sound?

00:00:22 ◼   ► Like a...

00:00:23 ◼   ► Like a, like a, would you say like a hissing sound?

00:00:26 ◼   ► Some kind of like hissing or fizzing.

00:00:29 ◼   ► I think so. I'm not sure where it's coming from.

00:00:32 ◼   ► I can't work out what it is, but maybe we'll find out later.

00:00:35 ◼   ► Hi Steven Hackett, welcome to the show.

00:00:38 ◼   ► You're very clever.

00:00:40 ◼   ► Are you proud of yourself right now? Yeah, we're gonna talk about that later on. Hissgate.

00:00:46 ◼   ► We have the hiss father with us today. And we'll be talking about that a little later

00:00:52 ◼   ► on in the show. So, something to look forward to. But before you became the father of hissing,

00:00:56 ◼   ► You were the father of follow-up for their show, so would you like to begin that?

00:01:01 ◼   ► Yes.

00:01:02 ◼   ► Big rudgingly, I will.

00:01:06 ◼   ► So we want to talk about... we've talked about Apple Music and ads in the past, so we want

00:01:09 ◼   ► to talk about this new Apple Music ad that debuted, I guess, yesterday or a couple days

00:01:14 ◼   ► ago that I think, at least, other than the Cookie Monster Siri one, is like the only

00:01:20 ◼   ► time I've actually laughed out loud at an Apple ad in a long time.

00:01:26 ◼   ► Myke, do you want to walk people through what the setup is here?

00:01:29 ◼   ► Yeah, it's basically James Corden of Carpool Karaoke, as you may know him.

00:01:35 ◼   ► He is basically given the job to pitch an ad to the Apple executives.

00:01:41 ◼   ► So we've got Bazoma St. John, Eddy Cue, and is it Jimmy Iovine?

00:01:46 ◼   ► Yes.

00:01:47 ◼   ► Jimmy, right?

00:01:48 ◼   ► So they're like in an office and Corden is pitching ideas to him, to the three of them,

00:01:53 ◼   ► they're all like super ridiculous over the top like insanely bold like perfume advertising

00:02:00 ◼   ► type things right like high concept stuff and at the same time the IP executives are

00:02:06 ◼   ► like no we just want to tell people how great our service is so they're getting the message

00:02:11 ◼   ► out it's really good only because James Corden is incredible like that's why this works because

00:02:17 ◼   ► he is a genuinely hilarious person and I really like that Apple are using him because he's

00:02:25 ◼   ► kind of part of the team right now as an executive producer on Carpool Karaoke. Like, you know,

00:02:31 ◼   ► I've heard some people like on Hello Internet, Gray and Brady, couldn't understand why James

00:02:36 ◼   ► Cordon was there. He's there because he's in the club.

00:02:40 ◼   ► Yeah, and it's kind of strange when you consider that according to the rumors James won't be

00:02:44 ◼   ► be hosting the Carpool Karaoke on Apple Music.

00:02:47 ◼   ► Yeah, which is so sad.

00:02:49 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean, they're featuring James at the WWDC action of the iPhone keynote and this

00:02:55 ◼   ► new ad, and it's not going to be on the new series, which is kind of strange.

00:02:59 ◼   ► Also sad, but maybe they've found a good replacement.

00:03:01 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:03:02 ◼   ► You'd hope so.

00:03:03 ◼   ► But yeah, he's like an executive producer or something on the project.

00:03:06 ◼   ► So that's one ad that they've got out, which is a really good one.

00:03:10 ◼   ► And Federico, there's another ad that you sent us this morning that you're extremely

00:03:13 ◼   ► unhappy about.

00:03:14 ◼   ► going from good to bad here? I mean, Apple launched these three new commercials for the Watch Series 2

00:03:20 ◼   ► and the iPhone 7. The one for the Series 2 is very good, it's showcasing the new sport and fitness

00:03:26 ◼   ► features and it's all right, it's very nice, the music is okay. There's the iPhone 7 one which is

00:03:31 ◼   ► a minute long and it shows this guy going like skating at night and taking pictures and doing

00:03:37 ◼   ► stuff with the iPhone at night because it's got a low light camera and in fact the very last tagline

00:03:42 ◼   ► on the video is low-light photography with iPhone 7.

00:03:46 ◼   ► And then there's the rain one, which is supposed to showcase the new waterproofing water-resistant

00:03:53 ◼   ► feature.

00:03:54 ◼   ► And it's just so unrealistic and there's so many issues with this commercial, and I tweeted

00:03:59 ◼   ► it this morning and I got a bunch of replies on Twitter.

00:04:02 ◼   ► So it's showing this person with his dog in what I assume is some kind of garage or shed,

00:04:08 ◼   ► and there's like a thunderstorm outside, like the word is ending.

00:04:11 ◼   ► like big thunders raining you know it's very dark and this guy thinks it's okay because

00:04:18 ◼   ► and his roof is leaking by the way there's a bucket filled with water and he thinks you

00:04:24 ◼   ► know the dog is looking at him like come on man what do you want to do and he thinks he

00:04:28 ◼   ► thinks you know what I'm just gonna go for a bike ride right now with these thunders

00:04:34 ◼   ► up in the hills I'm gonna go with for a bike ride because I got an iPhone 7 and it's water

00:04:39 ◼   ► resistance so hey I won't die the iPhone won't die so you know it's okay and it's

00:04:43 ◼   ► just so unrealistic with that kind of weather for this person to think it's

00:04:47 ◼   ► alright I want to bike ride myself into oblivion because I got an iPhone 7 I

00:04:51 ◼   ► just don't get it it's no one who has that nice of a bike who's taking that

00:04:58 ◼   ► sort of care of it is gonna go out and ride in the rain period let alone this

00:05:04 ◼   ► whole like this thunderstorm looks like the end of the world. My favorite part of

00:05:09 ◼   ► this ad is you've got the water-resistant iPhone 7 practically

00:05:14 ◼   ► magic liquid damage not covered under warranty. Okay I love it I just really love

00:05:21 ◼   ► that it's like hey you can attach a bike to your I phone to your bike in the rain

00:05:26 ◼   ► but if it breaks don't come see us like I really like that that just makes me

00:05:30 ◼   ► love a lot. Could have been so many different scenarios like I gotta go pick

00:05:34 ◼   ► up the kids at school but it's raining and it doesn't matter I need to go to

00:05:38 ◼   ► work and it's raining but I am on this very important call and I can still make

00:05:42 ◼   ► the phone call but the show dispairs like against all good judgments he's

00:05:47 ◼   ► going for a bike ride with thunders in the background and the dog looking at

00:05:50 ◼   ► him with a very sad face I don't know I don't know. So this is like in if you

00:05:57 ◼   ► want to do a silly ad for your water resistance, Samsung, they nailed it. The champagne one

00:06:04 ◼   ► where the guy's just, where the rapper's pouring champagne on his phone. That was perfect.

00:06:07 ◼   ► If you want to do something out of this world, go for that, right? But uh, riding around

00:06:13 ◼   ► on a bicycle in a thunderstorm, I don't know man. Like it's not relatable to people, so

00:06:20 ◼   ► I don't know why you did it. With the dog making a sad face, I mean look at the dog,

00:06:24 ◼   ► like it's super upset I don't know. Like the champagne one is even less relatable

00:06:28 ◼   ► but it's funny it's entertaining like this one they're like trying to paint a

00:06:31 ◼   ► real-life picture right and it just it just doesn't work for me. So the other

00:06:36 ◼   ► ads are fantastic this one I completely agree with you they should have done

00:06:39 ◼   ► something like you got caught in a rainstorm yeah and you're worried your

00:06:44 ◼   ► phone's not gonna work but it works or someone jumps in a swimming pool it's

00:06:47 ◼   ► fine like that's the sort of stuff show people how they break their phones in

00:06:50 ◼   ► real life show somebody dropping a phone in a toilet like make it funny like

00:06:54 ◼   ► these are the things that we actually care about.

00:06:56 ◼   ► Like, show us that stuff.

00:06:57 ◼   ► - Or you could go romantic and show like a couple

00:07:00 ◼   ► having a picnic and suddenly it starts raining

00:07:02 ◼   ► and it doesn't matter, everybody's laughing

00:07:04 ◼   ► because the iPhone is--

00:07:05 ◼   ► - All the sprinklers go off.

00:07:05 ◼   ► - You know, exactly.

00:07:07 ◼   ► That kind of real life situation,

00:07:09 ◼   ► but not a person risking his life for a bike ride.

00:07:12 ◼   ► - Just call us.

00:07:13 ◼   ► Like, just call us.

00:07:14 ◼   ► Like, give us a call on Skype.

00:07:16 ◼   ► You can join in the call whenever you want

00:07:17 ◼   ► and we'll just, we'll tell you what to do.

00:07:19 ◼   ► - Bring in Jimmy and James and, you know,

00:07:22 ◼   ► all the Apple Music team and we'll figure something out.

00:07:25 ◼   ► - Hey Federico, I have a question for you.

00:07:27 ◼   ► - Okay.

00:07:28 ◼   ► - Where are all the subscription apps?

00:07:30 ◼   ► - See, this is interesting because I've been keeping an eye

00:07:33 ◼   ► on the new subscription stuff in iTunes Connect,

00:07:36 ◼   ► as well as the App Store ads

00:07:38 ◼   ► that Apple said were launching this fall.

00:07:40 ◼   ► So the two things that I still cannot quite figure out

00:07:43 ◼   ► because with the launch of iOS 10,

00:07:45 ◼   ► it seems like all of the ads from the App Store are gone.

00:07:48 ◼   ► So they used to be there in the beta stage

00:07:50 ◼   ► and now they're not available anymore.

00:07:51 ◼   ► Apple says it's launching this fall,

00:07:53 ◼   ► so we're still waiting.

00:07:54 ◼   ► And also subscriptions

00:07:55 ◼   ► were supposed to be launching this fall.

00:07:57 ◼   ► And from what I know,

00:08:00 ◼   ► developers with previous existing subscriptions

00:08:03 ◼   ► were migrated to the new system in June.

00:08:05 ◼   ► So it's like they've already started counting against that,

00:08:08 ◼   ► you know, all of the different rates

00:08:10 ◼   ► that apply to subscribers after a while.

00:08:13 ◼   ► But I haven't found or haven't been pitched any new,

00:08:17 ◼   ► like productivity app with the new

00:08:20 ◼   ► iTunes Connect subscriptions. So I don't know. Maybe Apple is waiting for a few

00:08:25 ◼   ► more details because Phil Schiller mentioned at the talk show we have the

00:08:29 ◼   ► legal team working to figure out some details for international app stores

00:08:33 ◼   ► where the rules for subscriptions are different so maybe that's the hold up I

00:08:37 ◼   ► don't know. It's like we were expecting all of the apps that we use to go to

00:08:43 ◼   ► subscription but I haven't seen anything. I know that Overcast just kind of

00:08:49 ◼   ► changed the model a little bit but I don't think it's anything like what we

00:08:53 ◼   ► were expecting he was already doing the patronage thing but now it's like a

00:08:57 ◼   ► different type of subscription I think but like I was expecting to be paying

00:09:00 ◼   ► for OmniFocus by now. Yeah that's still still not the case Myke. I just wondered

00:09:07 ◼   ► if you'd seen anything but clearly not you know I never have seen the ads by

00:09:11 ◼   ► the way they weren't in the UK store even during the beta. The ads were in the

00:09:17 ◼   ► the US App Store during the beta, but now they're gone.

00:09:19 ◼   ► And they were super bad, by the way.

00:09:20 ◼   ► Like, you'd search for Twitter and Facebook,

00:09:23 ◼   ► and you'd get some scammy app selling your followers.

00:09:26 ◼   ► - I mean, and the theory behind that, though,

00:09:28 ◼   ► is that it wasn't launched yet,

00:09:30 ◼   ► so Twitter and Facebook weren't buying the ads.

00:09:33 ◼   ► - Sure, but they're completely gone,

00:09:35 ◼   ► and I saw quite a few people on Twitter say,

00:09:37 ◼   ► "Hey, what happened to the App Store ads

00:09:39 ◼   ► after iOS 10 launched?"

00:09:41 ◼   ► - Maybe it's like HomeKit last year, right?

00:09:43 ◼   ► Like, "Hey, here's a thing,"

00:09:44 ◼   ► and then just don't hear about it for a year.

00:09:45 ◼   ► It's like, "Here we go again.

00:09:46 ◼   ► Maybe that's what we got.

00:09:47 ◼   ► Pretending never happened.

00:09:48 ◼   ► [laughter]

00:09:49 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:09:50 ◼   ► [laughter]

00:09:51 ◼   ► So the Amazon Echo is coming to the UK.

00:09:55 ◼   ► This is the greatest piece of follow-up ever.

00:09:57 ◼   ► I'm so excited.

00:09:58 ◼   ► Ever?

00:09:59 ◼   ► I pre-ordered one.

00:10:00 ◼   ► Yeah, ever.

00:10:01 ◼   ► I pre-ordered it.

00:10:02 ◼   ► So let me understand.

00:10:03 ◼   ► You went from being an Echo denier to an Echo buyer.

00:10:05 ◼   ► How was I ever an Echo denier?

00:10:07 ◼   ► I just didn't want to do what you did and buy one through some shady eBay thing.

00:10:11 ◼   ► I've always said I wanted to do it, but like I wanted to wait until it was here because

00:10:16 ◼   ► I wanted all of the features to be like, you know, I want to do the thing where you ask

00:10:20 ◼   ► it the weather and it tells you because I know you can't really do that so easily.

00:10:23 ◼   ► Like it takes, it's a bit weirder.

00:10:25 ◼   ► So I was just waiting and waiting and waiting for them to release it in the UK and they

00:10:29 ◼   ► have, I knew that they would and they finally did it.

00:10:31 ◼   ► So I got my pre-order in, I got a £50 discount for being a Prime member on my pre-order, which

00:10:36 ◼   ► is sweet and it will be here next week, 28th.

00:10:40 ◼   ► Next week, nice.

00:10:41 ◼   ► So what do you plan on doing with the Echo?

00:10:44 ◼   ► Right now, not a ton.

00:10:46 ◼   ► I'm buying it for when we move, because when we move, I'm going to get Hue lights, and

00:10:52 ◼   ► I'm going to get Wi-Thing switches and all that stuff.

00:10:56 ◼   ► Wemo switches or whatever is the thing.

00:10:59 ◼   ► And then I'm going to kind of dig in.

00:11:01 ◼   ► What I really like is Amazon have worked with a bunch of UK companies to develop skills.

00:11:08 ◼   ► They call them skills, right?

00:11:10 ◼   ► Yeah. So like, you know, there's a service here called, for example, called Just Eat.

00:11:16 ◼   ► And Just Eat is like a takeaway service. So they have developed a skill with them and

00:11:22 ◼   ► they have one with the National Rail. So you can ask them when the train is and stuff.

00:11:27 ◼   ► Yeah, they have a few things. They work with Jamie Oliver to get recipes into it. And I'm

00:11:33 ◼   ► excited. I am genuinely I've wanted one for so long, but I wanted to kind of I wanted

00:11:37 ◼   ► to wait until I could get the full experience and it looks like that's what

00:11:40 ◼   ► I'm gonna get now. Amazon also in their true mad style that they have, they have

00:11:47 ◼   ► announced that they're selling the dot in a six-pack now, which is incredible.

00:11:55 ◼   ► You buy five and get one free. Or buy ten and get two free. What can you do with six dots?

00:12:02 ◼   ► The idea is you then have one in every room. That's their idea.

00:12:08 ◼   ► I don't know if anybody really needs...

00:12:12 ◼   ► I can already imagine you walking around your new flat and just talking to Alexa in every room.

00:12:18 ◼   ► So my plan is to put the echo in the living room/kitchen that we have, like the large room.

00:12:25 ◼   ► And then I might get a dot for the bedroom or for the office depending on how well it can hear us.

00:12:31 ◼   ► us but I'm gonna I want to kind of test it to see how that works out but I'm

00:12:36 ◼   ► really excited about this and they also have them in white now but I got the

00:12:40 ◼   ► back one. Yeah I've been waiting for a long time so you can expect to hear a

00:12:45 ◼   ► lot from me as I go through my home automation kick over the next couple of

00:12:50 ◼   ► months or something. Nice. Sweet. We teased this at the top of the show but

00:12:57 ◼   ► something interesting happened over the weekend something that will go down in

00:13:01 ◼   ► in history.

00:13:02 ◼   ► Let's do this forever.

00:13:03 ◼   ► I could do it forever.

00:13:04 ◼   ► Is it out of your system now?

00:13:07 ◼   ► No, Steven Hackett, can you tell us all about it please?

00:13:12 ◼   ► Can you be the gate father, Steven?

00:13:16 ◼   ► I mean, I only rode Myke's coattails with the buttons.

00:13:22 ◼   ► The button doesn't work with fabric in between your finger and the button.

00:13:28 ◼   ► So Myke really got everybody amped up.

00:13:31 ◼   ► - Yeah, I prime the pump.

00:13:33 ◼   ► - Yeah, you were the John the Baptist of the situation.

00:13:36 ◼   ► - Bad news for puppets using the home button, it won't work.

00:13:40 ◼   ► - Yeah, no puppets could use home buttons.

00:13:43 ◼   ► In all seriousness though, right,

00:13:45 ◼   ► like this became this whole thing about gloves,

00:13:48 ◼   ► which I never said anything about gloves.

00:13:52 ◼   ► I don't know why this became a thing, but it did.

00:13:54 ◼   ► - Well, it became a thing because people,

00:14:00 ◼   ► there are people who want to either

00:14:03 ◼   ► like write everything off is not a big deal

00:14:05 ◼   ► or feel like their job is to

00:14:08 ◼   ► protect the normals from like incorrect stories.

00:14:11 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:14:12 ◼   ► - And like that's fine, like that,

00:14:13 ◼   ► I applaud people who do that

00:14:15 ◼   ► on Twitter, on their blogs or whatever,

00:14:17 ◼   ► but it doesn't mean that everything,

00:14:19 ◼   ► you gotta shoot down everything that comes across your desk.

00:14:22 ◼   ► - Yeah, 'cause it's like, you know,

00:14:24 ◼   ► it's a categorical fact that I found

00:14:26 ◼   ► that if you do not make contact with the Touch ID ring, the home button doesn't click.

00:14:32 ◼   ► So capacitive gloves fit into that story.

00:14:34 ◼   ► Like anyways, that was lots of fun.

00:14:37 ◼   ► Yeah, but that was only the what would turn out to be the second weirdest thing of our

00:14:41 ◼   ► week.

00:14:42 ◼   ► It was a mere appetizer as it were.

00:14:44 ◼   ► So that was what Friday night?

00:14:46 ◼   ► Yeah Friday night.

00:14:47 ◼   ► The button thing.

00:14:49 ◼   ► So I got my iPhone 7 plus Friday evening.

00:14:52 ◼   ► I did not get a chance to do anything with it until late Friday night.

00:14:57 ◼   ► And I set it up in the iCloud restore and I basically just signed in and then dropped

00:15:00 ◼   ► it on the dock and let it charge overnight thinking, "Uh, the iCloud restore will take

00:15:04 ◼   ► overnight and it'll be done when I wake up."

00:15:07 ◼   ► So we get up the next morning and two things were happening.

00:15:10 ◼   ► One, the iCloud restore was just like completely broken.

00:15:13 ◼   ► Things were just not...

00:15:16 ◼   ► It was like in a weird state where it had clearly failed during the restore for some

00:15:19 ◼   ► reason and so I noticed that and I set the phone down and then I noticed that it is

00:15:28 ◼   ► making basically a sound and there's a YouTube link in the show notes you can go listen to

00:15:35 ◼   ► it I'm sure you've already heard it because it's because over a million people have so

00:15:40 ◼   ► you're probably one of them yeah it's like almost 1.2 million now the and so I recorded

00:15:48 ◼   ► the sound thinking this is really strange and I know what the sound is it's

00:15:52 ◼   ► coil hum it's a sound that happens in a lot of electronic devices I have in all

00:15:57 ◼   ► of my years of owning and collecting devices I've never heard it in an iOS

00:16:02 ◼   ► device and I have a bunch to choose from now in my library none of them do it so

00:16:07 ◼   ► I was like this is strange clearly this phone is defective in some way so could

00:16:10 ◼   ► you hear it when it was on your desk yes okay and so a lot of the a lot of the

00:16:15 ◼   ► narrative including this morning people are like I can only hear it if I stick

00:16:18 ◼   ► it next to my ear. That is not what my phone did.

00:16:20 ◼   ► Yeah, because I can hear it sometimes if I jam my phone up to my ear.

00:16:24 ◼   ► Well sure. Yeah. Mine is on the desk and I am sitting at my computer and it is, you know,

00:16:30 ◼   ► 18 or 24 inches away and I can hear it. It is loud.

00:16:32 ◼   ► Right. See, that's a problem and I would be scared if I heard that.

00:16:36 ◼   ► Yeah. I mean, I didn't think it was going to explode, but, um, I figured this is weird.

00:16:40 ◼   ► And the reason I recorded the sound was I wanted people who think they hear this not

00:16:46 ◼   ► to feel crazy. Like this is a thing that can happen just FYI and I decided because I'm

00:16:50 ◼   ► a reporter let me report on like the situation with my individual phone. And so I put the

00:16:57 ◼   ► video up Saturday morning early. I recorded it on my zoom recorder like standing in my

00:17:02 ◼   ► bedroom Saturday morning. Put the video up.

00:17:04 ◼   ► Birds in the background.

00:17:06 ◼   ► Birds are in the background. Yeah if I'd known a million people were gonna hear it I would

00:17:09 ◼   ► have definitely done a cleaner job with the audio. But the audio is a fair representation

00:17:14 ◼   ► of how it sounds. Like that is how it sounds. I didn't do anything with the audio.

00:17:17 ◼   ► So what are you doing? Do you have the recorder touching the phone?

00:17:20 ◼   ► No, the recorder is like, I have the phone in one hand and the recorder in the other

00:17:25 ◼   ► hand and there are inches in between them.

00:17:27 ◼   ► Yeah, see that's crazy. That's a piece of information I didn't know.

00:17:30 ◼   ► Yeah, the recorder is not touching the phone. And so I put it up on YouTube and I write

00:17:36 ◼   ► a little blog post on 512 saying, "Hey, I recorded the sound. It's kind of weird. I'm

00:17:42 ◼   ► going to conduct AppleCare and I will

00:17:43 ◼   ► update this post as I learn more. Right?

00:17:46 ◼   ► I was going to do a little live blog on a

00:17:47 ◼   ► Saturday morning and so I call AppleCare

00:17:50 ◼   ► and they're very responsive. I end up

00:17:53 ◼   ► talking to like an AppleCare supervisor

00:17:55 ◼   ► who says hey you know clearly this phone

00:17:58 ◼   ► is not doing what we want it to do.

00:18:01 ◼   ► He calls the my local Apple store and

00:18:03 ◼   ► says they have stock go in and swap it

00:18:06 ◼   ► out. I go to the Apple store they don't

00:18:09 ◼   ► have the phone they haven't had that

00:18:10 ◼   ► phone all day so there's some

00:18:11 ◼   ► discrepancy between what AppleCare said and what the store said. The Apple Store

00:18:16 ◼   ► deemed the fastest way to replace the phone was to order a service replacement

00:18:20 ◼   ► through the Genius Bar. That was Saturday. Today is Tuesday. I've not heard a peep.

00:18:23 ◼   ► So I still have this phone. It's in a box on my desk turned off. So I'm

00:18:30 ◼   ► waiting on a replacement phone. But Apple was going to replace the phone. The

00:18:32 ◼   ► AppleCare supervisor actually called me back Saturday afternoon saying, "Hey, I

00:18:36 ◼   ► want to make sure you got the phone." I was like, "I don't know who you spoke to,"

00:18:39 ◼   ► but they haven't had the phone all day and he wasn't very apologetic about that

00:18:43 ◼   ► but kind of was like oh well too bad

00:18:44 ◼   ► sorry have a nice day wasn't real through about that interaction

00:18:47 ◼   ► um so updated the blog post again saying hey I talked to AppleCare they're going

00:18:53 ◼   ► to replace the phone

00:18:54 ◼   ► I also updated the caption under the video and by this time by Saturday

00:18:58 ◼   ► afternoon it had started been picked up by a couple big people on Twitter people

00:19:05 ◼   ► at TechCrunch and people kind of in the tech sphere.

00:19:10 ◼   ► And it was starting to get some legs on it.

00:19:15 ◼   ► And at this point I was talking with the two of you guys

00:19:20 ◼   ► and I was starting to freak out a little bit.

00:19:24 ◼   ► I was like, I didn't mean to start a gate.

00:19:27 ◼   ► - You were very uncomfortable.

00:19:29 ◼   ► - I was very uncomfortable.

00:19:30 ◼   ► - Because at this point it is now

00:19:32 ◼   ► starting to become the story, right?

00:19:34 ◼   ► Like with the home button thing, it was like it bubbled up for a little bit.

00:19:38 ◼   ► It got picked up by a bunch of places, but it wasn't like a big issue.

00:19:44 ◼   ► It was like, hey, here's a weird thing about your iPhone.

00:19:46 ◼   ► That was kind of the overall narrative, like The Verge put it on there for us,

00:19:50 ◼   ► whatever. But then with your one, it was like at that point, some people are

00:19:54 ◼   ► ready to start fighting down the phone because at this point it's clear that

00:19:57 ◼   ► there is a whole industry based around trying to find the gate of the iPhone.

00:20:01 ◼   ► Right. It's the big thing. It's a big story.

00:20:03 ◼   ► It's a huge thing on YouTube. People bend them in half, snap them into pieces because you get a million views.

00:20:07 ◼   ► We have found out. That's why people do it.

00:20:10 ◼   ► So now it's like everyone's ready because that first one didn't go anywhere. So now it's like, okay

00:20:16 ◼   ► We'll all start talking about this. This is a scary thing. This is kind of a weird thing.

00:20:20 ◼   ► It's something like most people can't understand what it is.

00:20:23 ◼   ► Like I had no idea what causes those sort of sounds and like when people explain what Kog'ahom is, I was like, okay

00:20:29 ◼   ► that makes sense but it's like it's building up it's building up and now

00:20:32 ◼   ► it's like just this just exploded no pun intended yeah hmm and see I was kind of

00:20:40 ◼   ► freaking out actually like took tweetbot off my phone I haven't put it back yet

00:20:45 ◼   ► I was like Twitter replies were out of control the YouTube comments were out of

00:20:47 ◼   ► control and so I basically like hid for like 18 hours on the internet it's like

00:20:52 ◼   ► I just this needs to like happen without me and all I did was like post the video

00:20:58 ◼   ► I truly didn't mean for it to be as wide as it's been.

00:21:02 ◼   ► And it truly has gone viral.

00:21:03 ◼   ► It's by far the single biggest single piece of work

00:21:07 ◼   ► has ever been for me.

00:21:08 ◼   ► None of my other YouTube videos are even close to this.

00:21:13 ◼   ► Which is a really fascinating look

00:21:14 ◼   ► at how the media works.

00:21:16 ◼   ► And it was perfect timing, right?

00:21:17 ◼   ► It was launch weekend, it was Saturday morning early,

00:21:20 ◼   ► there's not a lot of news going on.

00:21:23 ◼   ► And it really spread like wildfire.

00:21:26 ◼   ► And I've heard from a lot of people, like my inbox is unbelievable right now, I've heard

00:21:31 ◼   ► from a lot of people who say a bunch of different things and the feedback kind of

00:21:35 ◼   ► falls into like two camps. Feedback that I'm willing to address is people who

00:21:39 ◼   ► are just like being hateful in the comments and whatever. I can't be bothered

00:21:43 ◼   ► with people who are going to respond that way. But people say my phone does

00:21:47 ◼   ► this and it's as loud as yours is and you know those people will contact Apple and

00:21:50 ◼   ► Apple's replacing them, which is great. And I've heard from people that say what you

00:21:54 ◼   ► said Myke of well I can hear it but only if I jam the phone into my ear, which is like a totally reasonable thing.

00:22:01 ◼   ► And I think if that's the volume level, that's acceptable. Electronics make noise and especially something as powerful as the ATIN Fusion chip.

00:22:10 ◼   ► Coil hum is something that can happen. And so the people who have been decent to talk to about this have been really great.

00:22:20 ◼   ► who disagree with me on like the fact that it happens like just because it

00:22:25 ◼   ► doesn't happen to your phone doesn't mean it's not true.

00:22:27 ◼   ► Even those people have been have been good to talk to so I've talked to a lot of

00:22:31 ◼   ► people. So yesterday on Sunday is when it began to evolve from the tech press to

00:22:38 ◼   ► like the mainstream press. So I started getting emails from places like the

00:22:44 ◼   ► Washington Post and Good Morning America which is like a morning television news

00:22:48 ◼   ► show who they are supposed to be featuring the video today I gave them

00:22:53 ◼   ► permission and so today I think like you know Monday and Tuesday I think it will

00:23:00 ◼   ► be the days that it's like mainstream press and I think this will be the end

00:23:03 ◼   ► of it I hope this will be the end of it but yeah it's a thing guys like we were

00:23:08 ◼   ► talking all weekend and I was like I I truly like this is it's hard to believe

00:23:14 ◼   ► that it's happening. Are you excited about it at all? I am now. Like I said, the

00:23:20 ◼   ► first 18 or 24 hours, two things happened early off that really made me feel bad.

00:23:26 ◼   ► One was there was a segment of the the Apple community that responded very

00:23:30 ◼   ► negatively to it and and people who basically wrote it off as not being a

00:23:37 ◼   ► thing because they hadn't experienced it. Or saying oh it's completely normal like

00:23:42 ◼   ► normalizing like this the issue like I

00:23:45 ◼   ► don't think it's like a danger like I

00:23:46 ◼   ► don't think it's widespread I don't

00:23:47 ◼   ► think there's something like you should

00:23:49 ◼   ► skip buying the iPhone 7 plus because of

00:23:51 ◼   ► it like I'm going to replace it and

00:23:53 ◼   ► carry an iPhone 7 plus I'm not saying

00:23:55 ◼   ► any of that but a lot of those things

00:23:57 ◼   ► got attributed to me based on like other

00:24:00 ◼   ► people's writing and that was pretty

00:24:02 ◼   ► hurtful and and I still feel pretty beat

00:24:06 ◼   ► up over how parts of the community

00:24:08 ◼   ► reacted. But now, like really starting yesterday, how I chose to approach this is after talking

00:24:16 ◼   ► with you guys, talking with my wife, talking with some other people, I was like, "Look,

00:24:21 ◼   ► I don't think any damage has been done to my audience size and my listeners and readers

00:24:26 ◼   ► of the website." Those people have all been amazing. The people who normally pay attention

00:24:31 ◼   ► to what I do have been nothing but supportive through this.

00:24:32 ◼   ► Well, because they understand what you're doing here.

00:24:35 ◼   ► - Yeah, they know I'm not doing it for like,

00:24:37 ◼   ► I don't know, like, just page view or something.

00:24:42 ◼   ► I really just publish it to be like,

00:24:43 ◼   ► I report on Apple, this is something that happened to me.

00:24:46 ◼   ► And so thank you to everyone who's just been like, awesome.

00:24:49 ◼   ► For every nasty comment I've gotten, I've gotten a nice one.

00:24:52 ◼   ► And if you've sent a nice one, thank you very much.

00:24:54 ◼   ► But now, how I'm trying to think about it is,

00:24:58 ◼   ► this is something that, however accidental

00:25:02 ◼   ► the viral aspect of it was,

00:25:04 ◼   ► Like, this is the situation I'm in now,

00:25:06 ◼   ► and so now it's about making the best of it.

00:25:08 ◼   ► And it means that Federico had suggested it

00:25:12 ◼   ► and I had already started doing it.

00:25:13 ◼   ► Like, if I talk to somebody,

00:25:14 ◼   ► and I've talked to a couple reporters,

00:25:15 ◼   ► I'm not talking to everybody,

00:25:17 ◼   ► I make sure the full website URL is given.

00:25:20 ◼   ► I'm now trying to channel this of like,

00:25:23 ◼   ► the story's out there, it's way beyond what I intended,

00:25:26 ◼   ► but I can't change that, and so now it's like,

00:25:29 ◼   ► how do I make sure that I handle it appropriately

00:25:33 ◼   ► and do it in a way that's professional.

00:25:35 ◼   ► Because it's playing on a big boy stage

00:25:37 ◼   ► that I normally don't get to be on.

00:25:38 ◼   ► Like none of us get to be on.

00:25:39 ◼   ► Like none of us have had anything to do with a million views.

00:25:41 ◼   ► - No.

00:25:43 ◼   ► - At least on this show.

00:25:44 ◼   ► So it's something that is unique

00:25:48 ◼   ► and something that doesn't come around very often.

00:25:49 ◼   ► And so now I'm really trying to handle it

00:25:53 ◼   ► the best that I can.

00:25:54 ◼   ► And I mean it's still completely overwhelming.

00:25:57 ◼   ► Like it's completely exhausting.

00:25:58 ◼   ► But it's almost over I think.

00:26:00 ◼   ► and I probably won't be able to outrun it for a while.

00:26:04 ◼   ► I think this will kind of be in the news for a little while

00:26:07 ◼   ► and people in the tech community,

00:26:09 ◼   ► it'll be associated with me for a little bit,

00:26:11 ◼   ► but we're talking six months from now,

00:26:13 ◼   ► or maybe even two months from now,

00:26:15 ◼   ► it'll be in the past and it'll be done

00:26:17 ◼   ► and it's fine with me.

00:26:19 ◼   ► - Serious question.

00:26:21 ◼   ► - Okay.

00:26:22 ◼   ► - Do you think you might look for stuff in the future?

00:26:26 ◼   ► Is this a thing that you'd be interested

00:26:27 ◼   ► in getting involved in?

00:26:29 ◼   ► this world of like let's find out what's wrong with the iPhone?

00:26:33 ◼   ► No. I mean I if it's one of those things like if my phone hadn't made this noise and I saw

00:26:38 ◼   ► it somewhere else I probably wouldn't even link to it. I didn't link to the button thing

00:26:45 ◼   ► like even though it was you. It's like whatever. That sort of thing is really not that interesting

00:26:52 ◼   ► to me. I was talking to somebody yesterday about it like my style normally like my style

00:26:58 ◼   ► coverage normally is to let things pass by

00:27:01 ◼   ► and comment on things that seem really important

00:27:04 ◼   ► but only when I've had time to process them.

00:27:07 ◼   ► So I'm not first to a lot of stuff.

00:27:10 ◼   ► My Sierra review, which we're gonna talk about later today,

00:27:12 ◼   ► that's out today with Sierra.

00:27:14 ◼   ► But that's a little bit different.

00:27:17 ◼   ► Big news stories, like 512 is I'm not in the news game

00:27:21 ◼   ► with 512 pixels, I'm not in the news game with this show.

00:27:24 ◼   ► I'm in the game of I have a unique perspective on Apple,

00:27:27 ◼   ► somewhat, and I try to filter things through that perspective.

00:27:31 ◼   ► And sometimes that means, most of the time that means I'm not first.

00:27:35 ◼   ► This thing that I recorded in like four minutes in my bedroom and put a PNG and audio file

00:27:40 ◼   ► together in Final Cut, the whole thing was over as far as publication in like half an

00:27:45 ◼   ► hour.

00:27:47 ◼   ► That's unusual for me, and I don't think that's, like, if it happens to me, like if I come

00:27:52 ◼   ► across that, how I normally operate, then sure, I'll do it again.

00:27:56 ◼   ► But I'm not going to be one of those people like, "Does the iPhone bend?"

00:28:01 ◼   ► You know, like be one of those YouTubers who tries to destroy a device for pages.

00:28:07 ◼   ► That is nothing for me interest-wise.

00:28:11 ◼   ► I only did it because it happened to the phone that was sitting on my desk and I felt an

00:28:14 ◼   ► obligation to report my experience.

00:28:18 ◼   ► Why do you think Apple haven't said anything yet?

00:28:20 ◼   ► Because they have issued some press comments about the lightning thing with the headphones

00:28:26 ◼   ► going dead after five minutes.

00:28:27 ◼   ► Yeah, losing the audio control.

00:28:30 ◼   ► I think it's a two-part question.

00:28:31 ◼   ► So I don't think they've replied publicly to anyone.

00:28:35 ◼   ► So I thought one of two things would happen.

00:28:37 ◼   ► A, Apple would contact me, which they have not.

00:28:40 ◼   ► Or two, they would contact their normal outlets to have some sort of message, like you were

00:28:46 ◼   ► saying with the deal with the lightning headphones and the adapter.

00:28:50 ◼   ► lose audio control after audio is cut off for five minutes and Apple made a

00:28:53 ◼   ► thing, "Hey it's a bug, we're gonna fix it in a future update." Sorry, right.

00:28:57 ◼   ► They've done neither as far as I know talking right now this

00:29:02 ◼   ► moment. They have not issued any sort of statement about this, especially not to

00:29:06 ◼   ► me. I think that if it goes past today that they won't do it. I thought at

00:29:13 ◼   ► least that I would get a call or an email, but I guess not. And like that's

00:29:19 ◼   ► fine I have no hard feelings over that. I think they haven't done it because then

00:29:22 ◼   ► I truly believe the number of units affected is very small. The five minute

00:29:26 ◼   ► headphone deal happens to all iPhone 7 and 7 pluses all however many million

00:29:30 ◼   ► they've sold. This thing has been seen by 1.2 million people on YouTube and I'm

00:29:35 ◼   ► sure has been read and seen on TV now which is crazy by many many more and I

00:29:42 ◼   ► have not heard from a lot of those people. I've definitely heard from people

00:29:45 ◼   ► but it's a very small number. So I think this is a very isolated deal and Apple just got

00:29:48 ◼   ► real unlucky that a guy with a blog and a YouTube channel happened to get one.

00:29:51 ◼   ► But isn't it one of those things now where like the public perception is that

00:29:55 ◼   ► the iPhones hiss and there's like something bubbling inside them? I mean

00:29:59 ◼   ► maybe and I think the idea that like this was in some of the arguments that

00:30:05 ◼   ► that saying that I overstated my you know overplayed my hand was that in the

00:30:09 ◼   ► world of like where Samsung Galaxy Note 7s like are actually hurting people

00:30:15 ◼   ► which is a terrible, terrible story,

00:30:19 ◼   ► like people are getting hurt, property's being damaged.

00:30:21 ◼   ► That, in that world and that climate

00:30:23 ◼   ► that's saying anything about the iPhone 7 Plus

00:30:26 ◼   ► that isn't that is like reckless somehow,

00:30:30 ◼   ► which I just don't buy for a second.

00:30:31 ◼   ► Like, this is a story with or without Samsung

00:30:34 ◼   ► having their horrific quarter of news.

00:30:37 ◼   ► - 'Cause it's still a thing a phone shouldn't be doing.

00:30:40 ◼   ► - Right. - Still a problem.

00:30:41 ◼   ► - It's an expensive device,

00:30:43 ◼   ► And it's a device from a company that usually gets details right.

00:30:47 ◼   ► And I'm sure it's just some little manufacturing detail.

00:30:49 ◼   ► I actually have an email from somebody who they are working on like a PhD in electrical

00:30:55 ◼   ► engineering and he sent me this one, so if you're listening, thank you, sent me this

00:30:59 ◼   ► wonderful like four paragraph email explaining what his thought was.

00:31:03 ◼   ► This is a guy who like is in school to learn how this stuff works, which is like really

00:31:07 ◼   ► cool that he emailed me, explaining how it works.

00:31:10 ◼   ► It seems like it's just a little manufacturing defect.

00:31:12 ◼   ► And if that's true, maybe there's just a batch of them,

00:31:15 ◼   ► and they've got it resolved.

00:31:17 ◼   ► I would have thought that Apple would have said something

00:31:20 ◼   ► to the effect that it's a very small number of units.

00:31:22 ◼   ► If you have one of these units, contact us,

00:31:25 ◼   ► but there's no danger in it,

00:31:28 ◼   ► like it's not going to cause harm to anyone,

00:31:32 ◼   ► like the Samsung phones are.

00:31:34 ◼   ► But they haven't said a thing.

00:31:37 ◼   ► And I do find it interesting,

00:31:40 ◼   ► but maybe it's just below their threshold

00:31:44 ◼   ► of needing to care about it.

00:31:48 ◼   ► But like I said, the mainstream media stuff

00:31:50 ◼   ► like last night and today may change that,

00:31:53 ◼   ► but if it doesn't happen today on Tuesday the 20th,

00:31:56 ◼   ► then I think it'll just float on by

00:31:59 ◼   ► and Apple won't have to respond to it.

00:32:02 ◼   ► - All right.

00:32:04 ◼   ► Well, I'm happy that your video

00:32:07 ◼   ► got viewed by a million people.

00:32:09 ◼   ► It's crazy.

00:32:10 ◼   ► It's one of those things that the timing and everything

00:32:16 ◼   ► was just, I guess, just perfect for it.

00:32:18 ◼   ► I truly had no anticipation that this is how it would end up.

00:32:21 ◼   ► - It's kind of weird that somebody that I know did this.

00:32:25 ◼   ► Because it always feels like malicious people

00:32:31 ◼   ► out to make a buck.

00:32:33 ◼   ► - If I had known that this is where it was gonna end up,

00:32:37 ◼   ► I wouldn't have done it, honestly.

00:32:40 ◼   ► The feeling that I had the last couple days

00:32:42 ◼   ► of just like utter dread looking at the internet,

00:32:45 ◼   ► and that's not because I'm like damaging Apple's brand.

00:32:47 ◼   ► I don't care about that.

00:32:48 ◼   ► I'm doing my job as a reporter.

00:32:50 ◼   ► The feeling of dread has been from people who

00:32:54 ◼   ► I thought we had a certain relationship

00:32:58 ◼   ► and that we don't, at least over this story.

00:33:01 ◼   ► That's a personal aspect more than anything.

00:33:03 ◼   ► The community response has not been what I was hoping for in places, but the feeling

00:33:10 ◼   ► of like, exhaustion and stuff is just the overwhelming numbers.

00:33:15 ◼   ► I was doing my job as a reporter, I'm proud of the job I've done as a reporter in this,

00:33:19 ◼   ► that I've been very, I think, even-handed and fair to Apple.

00:33:25 ◼   ► But yeah, it wasn't done out of any sort of malicious intent.

00:33:30 ◼   ► It was just a, "Hey, I write and talk about this stuff for a living.

00:33:34 ◼   ► I'm having this weird experience."

00:33:36 ◼   ► It's no different.

00:33:37 ◼   ► We're going to talk about, "I work in the cloud," a little bit later on in the show,

00:33:40 ◼   ► and, "We had a bad experience with it."

00:33:42 ◼   ► Again, shocking.

00:33:43 ◼   ► We're going to talk about it because that's our job is to talk about our experience.

00:33:49 ◼   ► It's not about being positive about Apple.

00:33:50 ◼   ► It's not about being negative about Apple.

00:33:53 ◼   ► Those two things, if that's how you approach this, you're approaching it wrong.

00:33:56 ◼   ► Our job is to simply report our experience

00:33:59 ◼   ► in this industry and in this space, and that's all I did.

00:34:02 ◼   ► And it is very strange to be the person who started a gate,

00:34:05 ◼   ► but it's sort of nutty at the same time, right?

00:34:10 ◼   ► It's been a very interesting look

00:34:13 ◼   ► into how big media stories happen,

00:34:15 ◼   ► and how quickly something can really just get out of hand.

00:34:22 ◼   ► So with the very small look that I had, like, comparatively at this, it's funny to see how

00:34:32 ◼   ► the media twists a story.

00:34:35 ◼   ► Like it starts off with this one thing and somebody else says something else and that

00:34:39 ◼   ► gets compounded and then somebody else says something else and that gets compounded and

00:34:43 ◼   ► then it ends up being the point where like four or five articles along, there's things

00:34:48 ◼   ► being said that like you never said.

00:34:50 ◼   ► Right.

00:34:51 ◼   ► weird thing to see that in action on the side of the original source.

00:34:57 ◼   ► And just looking at how like once X website's written it up and then this one

00:35:03 ◼   ► rewrote it and then this one rewrote it from that rewrite and this one rewrote

00:35:06 ◼   ► it from that rewrite, which you can see, which is so funny, like you look at the

00:35:09 ◼   ► words being exactly the same.

00:35:11 ◼   ► Um, it's just such a strange thing to see from this side rather than just the side

00:35:17 ◼   ► of the consumer of the information.

00:35:19 ◼   ► Right.

00:35:21 ◼   ► Because usually I wouldn't read the same story

00:35:25 ◼   ► about a home button not working

00:35:26 ◼   ► or an iPhone hissing from six different websites.

00:35:29 ◼   ► I would read one of them, right?

00:35:31 ◼   ► Rather than six of them.

00:35:33 ◼   ► So it's funny to see how the information gets regurgitated

00:35:37 ◼   ► and twisted as it moves through the chain.

00:35:39 ◼   ► - And I think that that will be even more interesting to see

00:35:43 ◼   ► with the mainstream covers and just tech.

00:35:45 ◼   ► - Yeah, what a good morning America gonna say about this.

00:35:48 ◼   ► Like they're not gonna talk about coil hum

00:35:50 ◼   ► or whatever it's called.

00:35:51 ◼   ► - No, no, and so who knows.

00:35:53 ◼   ► And that's always, this is part of it,

00:35:55 ◼   ► that as it goes further down the line, things change.

00:35:59 ◼   ► But at the same time, that's true,

00:36:02 ◼   ► but a lot of the stories that I've read,

00:36:04 ◼   ► at least in bigger,

00:36:05 ◼   ► my WordPress install has like 900 trackback deals right now.

00:36:10 ◼   ► It's often like little WordPress sites

00:36:11 ◼   ► that just are scraping content.

00:36:13 ◼   ► But the big reporters, some of them even like The Telegraph

00:36:17 ◼   ► went so far as like, name me an American podcaster,

00:36:19 ◼   ► and someone else was like, "Relay from co-founders."

00:36:22 ◼   ► There are reporters looking into me

00:36:24 ◼   ► and quoting the blog post and linking to the blog post,

00:36:27 ◼   ► as opposed to just building layers.

00:36:30 ◼   ► - My favorite ones were the ones

00:36:31 ◼   ► where people mentioned both of us,

00:36:33 ◼   ► which was really funny.

00:36:34 ◼   ► They were like, "Steven Hackett found this,

00:36:37 ◼   ► "or his co-founder found this."

00:36:38 ◼   ► It's just really funny.

00:36:40 ◼   ► There are these stories that put us together,

00:36:42 ◼   ► which was hilarious,

00:36:43 ◼   ► and it was just complete coincidence, right?

00:36:47 ◼   ► - Totally.

00:36:48 ◼   ► - We weren't sitting in Slack and being like, right,

00:36:51 ◼   ► now's the time.

00:36:52 ◼   ► This is our time, guys, we're gonna take it down.

00:36:54 ◼   ► That never happened.

00:36:55 ◼   ► - Two years of founding our own business

00:36:57 ◼   ► with our own money and working really hard every day

00:37:00 ◼   ► just to do this.

00:37:01 ◼   ► It is wild how far it's gone though.

00:37:03 ◼   ► Like I've gotten linked, people have been sending me links

00:37:05 ◼   ► to an article in Dubai and it was on the Dutch National News

00:37:10 ◼   ► and Federico was sending me stuff

00:37:15 ◼   ► to French websites last night.

00:37:17 ◼   ► It's all over the place, and it's just really,

00:37:19 ◼   ► it's hard to believe, I see my name there,

00:37:21 ◼   ► but I'm like, that's not me.

00:37:22 ◼   ► Like the NBC Nightly News carried out

00:37:26 ◼   ► on their website last night, and a friend of mine

00:37:28 ◼   ► texted it to me, he's like, is this you?

00:37:30 ◼   ► And I was like, yeah, yeah, it's me, all right.

00:37:33 ◼   ► It doesn't feel like it, but it is.

00:37:35 ◼   ► - But this is the thing, right,

00:37:36 ◼   ► this is the thing I keep coming back to,

00:37:37 ◼   ► this is the industry that exists,

00:37:40 ◼   ► the cottage industry that exists

00:37:42 ◼   ► to find these weird things, right?

00:37:47 ◼   ► - Something I didn't like is, speaking of that,

00:37:50 ◼   ► is how some folks in the community and on Twitter,

00:37:54 ◼   ► just if you take a look around,

00:37:56 ◼   ► there's a few articles with tweets from the, you know,

00:38:00 ◼   ► from Apple and tech people embedded in the story.

00:38:04 ◼   ► And you can see the common reaction of

00:38:06 ◼   ► when someone finds a problem in Apple's hardware or software,

00:38:10 ◼   ► There's a few people that deflect the criticism by saying, "Yes, but look at how Samsung is

00:38:17 ◼   ► bad."

00:38:18 ◼   ► So, instead of responding objectively to some criticism, they say, they cover their ears

00:38:25 ◼   ► and say, "Yeah, yeah, but Samsung, they're not seven.

00:38:28 ◼   ► It explodes."

00:38:29 ◼   ► It's not really an answer.

00:38:30 ◼   ► And this applies to Apple hardware, Apple software, when you criticize something that

00:38:34 ◼   ► doesn't work.

00:38:36 ◼   ► And there's always people who say, "Yeah, but Microsoft and Google are just as bad."

00:38:39 ◼   ► That's not really an answer.

00:38:40 ◼   ► I'm not talking about Microsoft and Google.

00:38:42 ◼   ► I'm talking about Apple.

00:38:43 ◼   ► - It is a valid independent point that they might be bad,

00:38:46 ◼   ► but it doesn't mean that it makes the other thing good.

00:38:48 ◼   ► - Exactly.

00:38:49 ◼   ► So it's, I think this way of reasoning applies

00:38:53 ◼   ► to every single area in life.

00:38:54 ◼   ► When you're dealing with a very specific criticism,

00:38:58 ◼   ► you shouldn't deflect attention to something else

00:39:00 ◼   ► just so you can avoid having that discussion.

00:39:03 ◼   ► And I think what Steven found was objectively true.

00:39:07 ◼   ► He made a video, he made a recording,

00:39:09 ◼   ► and other people heard it as well.

00:39:11 ◼   ► We're not saying that the iPhone 7 explodes,

00:39:13 ◼   ► we're saying that it makes a sound.

00:39:15 ◼   ► And so we're just curious about that

00:39:17 ◼   ► because it didn't used to make that loud a sound before.

00:39:21 ◼   ► So I don't understand the reaction that I've seen

00:39:23 ◼   ► from folks who say, yeah, yeah, you know,

00:39:25 ◼   ► the Note 7 explodes and now people are complaining

00:39:27 ◼   ► about the iPhone 7 making a sound.

00:39:29 ◼   ► It's not really the same scale here.

00:39:34 ◼   ► It's two different topics.

00:39:36 ◼   ► And I think Steven did the right thing

00:39:38 ◼   ► I think it handle it gracefully, you know, so yeah

00:39:42 ◼   ► Should we move on? Thanks guys

00:39:46 ◼   ► Congratulations on your 1 million views. I guess

00:39:49 ◼   ► This episode of connected is brought to you by a new sponsor and that is cricket cricket is a company that was founded in the pursuit

00:39:58 ◼   ► of the perfect polo shirt

00:40:00 ◼   ► After years of searching for exactly what they were looking for

00:40:02 ◼   ► Cricket's founders decided that the only way to get the shirts that they really wanted was to go out and make them themselves

00:40:08 ◼   ► Crickets shirts feature the perfect mix of old school style and modern design. Their

00:40:13 ◼   ► inspirations range from the golfing legend Jack Nicklaus to president JFK to fashion

00:40:18 ◼   ► icons like James Dean. Crickets shirts are all about being better than what you can find

00:40:23 ◼   ► out there today. They're better fitting, they're not too baggy, not too skinny. They

00:40:27 ◼   ► have a better collar because they have these removable collar stays. You're like you're

00:40:31 ◼   ► getting fancy shirts, you have a little collar set or plastic thing. They put them in their

00:40:34 ◼   ► polo shirts so you can keep your collar looking crisp and new. No more ruffled up bacon collar.

00:40:40 ◼   ► Bacon collar was not a term that I knew before I spoke to the cricket folk, but it makes

00:40:44 ◼   ► so much sense. You know what I mean? Like the collar like ruffles up. These collar stays

00:40:48 ◼   ► stop that from happening on the cricket shirts.

00:40:49 ◼   ► That's good. That's a good name for that.

00:40:51 ◼   ► Yeah. Bacon collar. It's not as tasty as it sounds. A better shopping experience as well.

00:40:56 ◼   ► They have no hassle free returns and exchanges and they have better fabric. All cricket shirts

00:41:01 ◼   ► feature super soft 100% certified organic cotton to make their shirts as comfortable

00:41:07 ◼   ► at the 19th hole as they are at the 18th.

00:41:09 ◼   ► Now this is the thing that cricket believe in. I like companies that have a story and

00:41:13 ◼   ► this is their story. The 19th hole is a mentality that they believe in. It's a golfing term

00:41:17 ◼   ► but even if you don't play I'm sure you can get the idea of having a place to relax and

00:41:21 ◼   ► unwind and that's exactly what the product is made for. The 19th hole is what comes after

00:41:26 ◼   ► of the 18th hole which is where golfing ends, the 19th hole is the relaxing part and the

00:41:31 ◼   ► idea is that your 19th hole is where it's comfortable for you and that's what they're

00:41:36 ◼   ► all about and I like this kind of mentality, this idea of a nice place where you can chill

00:41:40 ◼   ► out and you can relax and think about stuff and that's what cricket is all about because

00:41:43 ◼   ► they try and make comfortable clothing that you're going to feel good in, that you're

00:41:47 ◼   ► going to look good in them but feel good in them. They sent me a couple of their shirts

00:41:50 ◼   ► and I love them. The fabrics are real great, the colours are real great, I love the little

00:41:54 ◼   ► collar stays, the labels have cocktail recipes on the back which I just think is super cool.

00:41:59 ◼   ► You can go and find out more about Cricut shirts today by going to cricketshirts.com/connected

00:42:03 ◼   ► and because you're a listener to this show you'll get a great 20% off your first purchase

00:42:22 ◼   ► with the code connected at checkout.

00:42:23 ◼   ► Go check out our stuff.

00:42:24 ◼   ► Seriously, it's really, really good quality clothing.

00:42:26 ◼   ► Thank you so much to Cricut for their support of this show

00:42:29 ◼   ► and Relay FM.

00:42:29 ◼   ► I work collaboration.

00:42:33 ◼   ► Now we promised that we would do our show notes

00:42:38 ◼   ► for you this week.

00:42:40 ◼   ► So the show notes that we put together

00:42:41 ◼   ► where we talk about what we're gonna talk about

00:42:44 ◼   ► and we have all of our bullet points, some of our research,

00:42:46 ◼   ► we put them into a document.

00:42:47 ◼   ► We've spoken about pages in the past,

00:42:49 ◼   ► we've spoken about paper,

00:42:51 ◼   ► we spoke about Quip and Google Docs.

00:42:53 ◼   ► We use one of these services that we collaborate on,

00:42:55 ◼   ► we all work on it together.

00:42:56 ◼   ► And then when we're doing the show,

00:42:58 ◼   ► we all have this document in front of us

00:42:59 ◼   ► so we know what we're talking about

00:43:00 ◼   ► and we have everything that we need.

00:43:02 ◼   ► We promised that we would try the new pages

00:43:04 ◼   ► for iCloud or whatever it's called,

00:43:06 ◼   ► the iWork collaboration stuff this week.

00:43:09 ◼   ► I wanna give a very quick spoiler.

00:43:12 ◼   ► I'm currently looking at Google Docs.

00:43:14 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:43:16 ◼   ► Let's talk about why.

00:43:19 ◼   ► it started off they announced this and then when I was on my travels after the Apple event,

00:43:26 ◼   ► after iOS 10 was released they put the update out and I figured that I would do something

00:43:32 ◼   ► you guys did last time. So when the first collaboration thing came out for pages when

00:43:39 ◼   ► we decided to take action all the way over on prompt 20, you two both put up a public

00:43:48 ◼   ► page right so people could come and just see what happened and break it. I think you did it with

00:43:53 ◼   ► Google Docs as well or something like that. So I decided that I would share a document on Twitter

00:44:00 ◼   ► for people to come in and edit and there were the little indicator said like 35 plus on it.

00:44:09 ◼   ► I have no idea how many people were actually at this document but it felt like more than 35. I was

00:44:15 ◼   ► was

00:44:34 ◼   ► held up on my phone.

00:44:35 ◼   ► 'Cause I could see people typing,

00:44:37 ◼   ► I could see things being pasted over and over

00:44:39 ◼   ► and over and over again.

00:44:41 ◼   ► And then, yeah, it was fine.

00:44:44 ◼   ► So I was looking at it, watching it go through.

00:44:46 ◼   ► Then I started getting some tweets from people

00:44:47 ◼   ► saying that they were having some problems on the web,

00:44:49 ◼   ► like it was slowing down.

00:44:50 ◼   ► And then Dan Sturm hosted a defocused podcast

00:44:53 ◼   ► on the incomparable, sent me a screenshot

00:44:55 ◼   ► of a kernel panic that he received

00:44:57 ◼   ► whilst playing around on the web.

00:44:59 ◼   ► So I don't think it was completely stable,

00:45:03 ◼   ► But I will not knock them for this because I don't think it's fair to because I purposefully

00:45:11 ◼   ► tried to break it.

00:45:14 ◼   ► And if anything I was impressed by how well it was holding up on iOS.

00:45:20 ◼   ► And I just wanted to see can it cope with a lot of people at the same time and the answer

00:45:25 ◼   ► was yes it can.

00:45:28 ◼   ► But talking about iOS, I have used pages exclusively on my iPhone, so I wanted to see what the

00:45:36 ◼   ► experience was like there.

00:45:37 ◼   ► And I don't like it.

00:45:40 ◼   ► It does this weird zooming in thing.

00:45:41 ◼   ► So when you look at the page, it's really zoomed out.

00:45:44 ◼   ► Like you see the whole page.

00:45:45 ◼   ► And then when you tap to enter text, it zooms in.

00:45:47 ◼   ► But it zooms in so far that the end of the line is obscured.

00:45:54 ◼   ► It's not like reformatting things.

00:45:56 ◼   ► So what you would want it to be is like to then take the full size of the screen to be

00:46:02 ◼   ► the page or whatever and then it would reformat the text, right?

00:46:05 ◼   ► So it flows it.

00:46:06 ◼   ► It doesn't do that.

00:46:07 ◼   ► So you're typing and then it's like going off the edge of the screen, like the screen's

00:46:11 ◼   ► moving along and then you can't see what's on the left.

00:46:13 ◼   ► Do you know what I'm talking about?

00:46:14 ◼   ► Am I making sense?

00:46:15 ◼   ► >> Yeah.

00:46:16 ◼   ► >> Yeah, I think so.

00:46:17 ◼   ► >> So it was zoomed in too far to the point that you couldn't see the ends of the line

00:46:22 ◼   ► where you were.

00:46:23 ◼   ► And I didn't like that.

00:46:24 ◼   ► pan around to read everything. I just didn't like this. I wanted the text to flow more

00:46:32 ◼   ► responsibly, like responsive web design stuff, rather than having to pan around. It just

00:46:37 ◼   ► didn't feel nice. I don't need to do that on Google Docs, right? Google Docs just kind

00:46:41 ◼   ► of flows the text to make it work. So it moves it depending on the size of the screen rather

00:46:46 ◼   ► than being completely stuck to the original formatting.

00:46:51 ◼   ► is the only app that I've used in a collaboration sense that does it this way.

00:46:54 ◼   ► I don't like it. Yeah that seems that seems pretty janky. It should know I

00:47:00 ◼   ► mean it's a native iOS app but I can understand if it was a web view that

00:47:03 ◼   ► maybe didn't get the message that was on a smaller device but in a native app

00:47:07 ◼   ► they should be able to do that. This is purely like my experience but it felt a

00:47:13 ◼   ► little webby in a way that I can't explain. They're obviously doing

00:47:19 ◼   ► something here to connect all this stuff together, it didn't feel completely native. It just

00:47:25 ◼   ► didn't feel as responsive as I would like it to be. I don't know. The pages on iOS is

00:47:31 ◼   ► super unfriendly to third party keyboards. So on the iPhone, it doesn't give me any shortcut

00:47:38 ◼   ► bars. Third party keyboard just makes all that go away. It's not like how with some

00:47:42 ◼   ► apps you get a bar that lives above the keyboard. So if I wanted to do any formatting, putting

00:47:47 ◼   ► something in bold, having a list, even using a to indent on a list when I use gboard which

00:47:54 ◼   ► is my keyboard, I had to hit the formatting paintbrush to do anything. Like I couldn't

00:47:58 ◼   ► even highlight the text and bold it. I had to go I had to highlight the text, hit the

00:48:02 ◼   ► formatting paintbrush and do everything. I wish it was a little bit more forgiving to

00:48:08 ◼   ► third party keyboards considering Apple make the app and enable third party keyboards.

00:48:15 ◼   ► I think the guy who wrote the third-party keyboard code has been on vacation for two

00:48:18 ◼   ► years though.

00:48:19 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:48:20 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:48:21 ◼   ► So my experience on the iPhone is it works, but I don't like it.

00:48:27 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:48:29 ◼   ► So do we want to talk about the other platforms?

00:48:31 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:48:32 ◼   ► So on the Mac, as of this recording at least, and there was supposed to be an iWork update,

00:48:36 ◼   ► I assume coming with Sierra, maybe shortly after Sierra.

00:48:40 ◼   ► Right now if you go into iCloud Drive and I click pages and I click our shared thing,

00:48:46 ◼   ► a little pop-up comes up and says this document can be opened.

00:48:49 ◼   ► To open the shared document use pages for iCloud and it has a link on the web.

00:48:55 ◼   ► Go to iCloud.com and it gets made to the browser.

00:48:58 ◼   ► So on the Mac it's not really doing anything.

00:49:01 ◼   ► That will change with an update that may already be out by the time you're listening to this.

00:49:05 ◼   ► At this point in our testing, the Mac apps have not been updated.

00:49:10 ◼   ► Outside of crippling bugs, which we'll get to in a moment Federico, how is it on the

00:49:13 ◼   ► iPad?

00:49:16 ◼   ► It's kind of junky, the way that it doesn't feel as fast as other real-time collaboration

00:49:25 ◼   ► services.

00:49:26 ◼   ► Like, you don't see indications from people who are typing, you don't see different colors.

00:49:31 ◼   ► And I kept having this message at the bottom of the screen saying "This document is in

00:49:36 ◼   ► UK English."

00:49:38 ◼   ► And I wasn't sure what to do about that because it was just floating there.

00:49:41 ◼   ► It's more yous, man.

00:49:42 ◼   ► You gotta put more yous in all your words.

00:49:45 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:49:46 ◼   ► I wouldn't understand why it's a document in English.

00:49:48 ◼   ► I don't care about the language that Myke is using.

00:49:52 ◼   ► You could just write in any language.

00:49:53 ◼   ► It's fine.

00:49:54 ◼   ► What if I want to write in Italian?

00:49:56 ◼   ► Like I'm not supposed to write in Italian?

00:49:58 ◼   ► So I couldn't understand.

00:50:00 ◼   ► Like the general impression is, I mean, I like the new interface for the 12.9 inch

00:50:05 ◼   ► iPad Pro, there's like a sidebar for formatting controls on the right, which is nice, but

00:50:10 ◼   ► it doesn't feel, feels like they try to have this collaboration features onto an existing

00:50:18 ◼   ► solution which isn't meant for collaboration.

00:50:20 ◼   ► And you don't feel this problem as much in Notes, which also has CloudKit collaboration

00:50:26 ◼   ► now, but because the app is more lightweight and because it's simpler, it doesn't feel

00:50:32 ◼   ► like there's a whole extra thing built on top of it. Also because Notes is a new app

00:50:37 ◼   ► from last year basically, so it doesn't feel as aged as Pages.

00:50:41 ◼   ► So you know the only thing about the indicators, I was seeing them on the iPhone.

00:50:45 ◼   ► Oh yeah?

00:50:46 ◼   ► Yeah, so like I would see a little coloured cursor.

00:50:48 ◼   ► Lucky you.

00:50:49 ◼   ► I would see someone typing. So it's weird that you couldn't see them. Maybe, was there

00:50:53 ◼   ► a time where we were all in the document together? Was that maybe the problem?

00:50:57 ◼   ► Maybe? I don't know.

00:50:59 ◼   ► Hmm. Who knows? Who knows?

00:51:01 ◼   ► It's just it felt… I don't know, it felt off. I'm not sure how to describe it, but

00:51:06 ◼   ► what came next was the real problem for me.

00:51:10 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:51:11 ◼   ► Basically, when I opened… So I signed up for the document on my phone. So I take my

00:51:18 ◼   ► iPad, I open Pages, it loads from iCloud and it shows me the

00:51:25 ◼   ► document we're working on. So I tap on the document, I close the document and

00:51:31 ◼   ► then Pages is stuck on what says "Updating" at the top of the screen in the title

00:51:35 ◼   ► bar and it keeps spinning. So I wait a couple of minutes, it doesn't do anything,

00:51:39 ◼   ► I force quit the app and reopen Pages and it's still stuck on updating. So I

00:51:43 ◼   ► delete Pages from my iPad and I'm like "Okay, whatever, maybe with the

00:51:48 ◼   ► update something went wrong. So I re-download pages from the App Store, I open pages and

00:51:53 ◼   ► it says updating and when it's updating I cannot tap on the document to see what we're

00:51:58 ◼   ► working on for the show notes. So at that point I realized, ok, I tried everything,

00:52:04 ◼   ► in the meantime I also tried to switch to airplane mode, to 4G, to Wi-Fi, everything.

00:52:09 ◼   ► I just had to reboot the iPad to turn it off and turn it on again, because in that way

00:52:16 ◼   ► pages was not stuck anymore. And I was like "okay, this is the first problem, I mean what happens if I

00:52:22 ◼   ► work and I need to be quick with my notes, I need to save them in a couple of minutes,

00:52:31 ◼   ► and I run into this problem, maybe that can be an issue. But whatever, let's keep trying."

00:52:36 ◼   ► So I went on my phone again and last night I was trying to... I added some comments to the document.

00:52:44 ◼   ► So I add my notes and close pages and I go back to doing what I was doing.

00:52:49 ◼   ► So when I open pages a few minutes later, because I was like "okay, I gotta continue my notes",

00:52:54 ◼   ► I get this message, it says "your edits have not been synced, you can save a copy, but you will lose the edits in the cloud version".

00:53:04 ◼   ► So it wanted me to take up my edits and make a new document, a new local document that was not shared with you guys,

00:53:11 ◼   ► because it couldn't merge my changes with the changes to the document.

00:53:15 ◼   ► At that point I took a screenshot, I sent it to you on Slack and I was like "I'm done with this,

00:53:21 ◼   ► please let's go back to Google Docs". Because I cannot risk of adding notes, let's say that I

00:53:26 ◼   ► work for 20 minutes on my notes for the show, they don't save, then it wants me to create a copy,

00:53:31 ◼   ► then I gotta create a copy, copy and paste, go back, it's you know, what am I, an animal?

00:53:36 ◼   ► I mean, the basic collaboration 101.

00:53:39 ◼   ► And I cannot use a service that doesn't get the basics right,

00:53:43 ◼   ► which is you gotta merge changes from multiple people

00:53:46 ◼   ► into a single document.

00:53:47 ◼   ► This is like the basic collaboration stuff.

00:53:50 ◼   ► - What's the point of it?

00:53:51 ◼   ► - It's really the point of it.

00:53:52 ◼   ► Don't let me create multiple copies.

00:53:54 ◼   ► Always save my changes the moment that I close the app.

00:53:58 ◼   ► And that wasn't the case.

00:54:00 ◼   ► And sure, it's a beta.

00:54:01 ◼   ► Sure, other services from Microsoft and Google and Quip

00:54:05 ◼   ► and whatever also have problems,

00:54:07 ◼   ► but not this kind of problem in my experience.

00:54:10 ◼   ► So I don't wanna use it right now.

00:54:11 ◼   ► Does it make sense?

00:54:12 ◼   ► - Yeah, and that's exactly why we moved back.

00:54:15 ◼   ► We tried it.

00:54:16 ◼   ► I don't think any of us really had the expectation

00:54:18 ◼   ► that we would switch from Google docs.

00:54:19 ◼   ► And I know that people think that it's unfair

00:54:22 ◼   ► that we say that this isn't good, but it isn't good.

00:54:25 ◼   ► And frankly, it's gotta be, right?

00:54:29 ◼   ► Why would we move away or why would we recommend

00:54:32 ◼   ► that anybody move away from a collaboration system

00:54:34 ◼   ► that works perfectly, because Google Docs does, from a collaboration perspective, work

00:54:39 ◼   ► perfectly. I have never had a problem. Like, with edits not being saved or anything in

00:54:45 ◼   ► any of the apps or on the web, it's not a problem. We don't have these issues, you know.

00:54:50 ◼   ► Why would we move away from something? And frankly, like, if Apple want to parade on

00:54:54 ◼   ► stage their amazing features in this market in 2016, it's got to hold up against what's

00:55:00 ◼   ► available and it doesn't. Right? For us anyway, for our purposes this did not

00:55:06 ◼   ► hold up because it failed at a fundamental thing and that's Federico

00:55:12 ◼   ► added some notes and refused to save them. Now that's no good. It's no bueno.

00:55:19 ◼   ► Yeah I mean again might as well be working perfectly for others. I'm sure it

00:55:25 ◼   ► I'm sure it does and I'm sure again in notes didn't have a single issue with

00:55:31 ◼   ► notes collaboration since iOS 10 beta 1 not a single problem I try again with

00:55:36 ◼   ► pages and the very second test which is I'm just adding some bullet points to

00:55:43 ◼   ► share documents there we go again with the same error message of course that

00:55:47 ◼   ► notes is fundamentally different right me and you can't go in notes and write

00:55:51 ◼   ► together and see each other writing which you can do with pages but we can't

00:55:55 ◼   ► out of Notes. It just throws these blocks in every now and then. And like things like if me and

00:56:00 ◼   ► Stephen were testing this the other day for his Mac OS Sierra review which we'll talk about in a minute,

00:56:04 ◼   ► if I'm writing and Stephen enters his cursor and starts writing and we're writing in the same place,

00:56:11 ◼   ► Notes just like spits those two things out as separate paragraphs because it doesn't know how

00:56:15 ◼   ► to deal with the conflict because it's simple, but on pages it would pick it up and Stephen would

00:56:20 ◼   ► start writing and I would start writing and then we'd just all be writing in the same place and

00:56:23 ◼   ► and everything would be merged together properly.

00:56:25 ◼   ► Like, so it is more complex, and it is this added complexity

00:56:29 ◼   ► which adds difficulty to make this stuff work properly,

00:56:33 ◼   ► but Google's been doing this for a long time.

00:56:34 ◼   ► I bet Google's first tries at this were also pretty rough,

00:56:38 ◼   ► but the thing is, you can't come into a market like this today

00:56:42 ◼   ► and not get criticized if the product isn't good enough

00:56:44 ◼   ► when there are many viable alternatives.

00:56:47 ◼   ► It's the same thing that we did with paper, right?

00:56:48 ◼   ► With Dropbox paper. We looked at it.

00:56:50 ◼   ► It was good in a bunch of ways, wasn't good in a bunch of ways,

00:56:52 ◼   ► So we have to say why. Same with Quip, right? Like Quip worked really well for us, but it

00:56:57 ◼   ► was kind of janky at the same time. Google Docs, the only problem with Google Docs was

00:57:01 ◼   ► ever that they were slow to adopt iPad format stuff. So because that's back, from my opinion,

00:57:08 ◼   ► their only mark is gone again. It works perfectly. Never, never ever, ever have issues with it.

00:57:13 ◼   ► So I'm sorry iCloud. Well collaboration has to be perfect, right? Like the, it's almost

00:57:18 ◼   ► good enough like doesn't work when you have multiple people editing content or

00:57:22 ◼   ► even like Federico last night was alone in the document and it couldn't save it

00:57:26 ◼   ► like it's pretty fundamental stuff like I could argue that Apple's web apps still

00:57:31 ◼   ► are designed to look and feel way too much like desktop apps and they're

00:57:34 ◼   ► very heavy and sometimes they're slow and clunky because they're trying to

00:57:38 ◼   ► make a drop-down look like it does in aqua. This is not what we're talking about

00:57:41 ◼   ► we're talking about basic fundamentals but clearly I mean our complaints are only

00:57:47 ◼   ► valid if we put them on YouTube so maybe we should make a video. What do you guys think?

00:57:52 ◼   ► Yeah we should like, collab gate. Done. Ship it.

00:57:57 ◼   ► Alright. You work on that on your multi-million view YouTube channel and we'll get going.

00:58:04 ◼   ► Federico do you have any video footage of the edits not being saved?

00:58:08 ◼   ► No but I got a pages making a weird sound. Oh.

00:58:14 ◼   ► That works. It's like whispering at you like "come back".

00:58:17 ◼   ► I'm not going to save your changes.

00:58:18 ◼   ► You could try as much as you like, but I hate doing it.

00:58:22 ◼   ► This week's episode is also brought to you by FreshBooks, the company on a mission

00:58:27 ◼   ► to help small business owners like me and hopefully like you save time and avoid the

00:58:32 ◼   ► stress that comes with running those businesses.

00:58:34 ◼   ► It all starts with pain free invoicing.

00:58:38 ◼   ► Imagine a world in which it took just 30 seconds to create and send an invoice.

00:58:41 ◼   ► Those horrible things that you have to write up every month, send out invoices.

00:58:46 ◼   ► I was sending invoices in pages like an animal.

00:58:49 ◼   ► And now you can use FreshBooks, and now I use FreshBooks,

00:58:53 ◼   ► to send them super quickly, to add my little company logo.

00:58:56 ◼   ► We have the Relay FM logo on all of our invoices,

00:58:59 ◼   ► so it looks nice and professional.

00:59:00 ◼   ► And we're able to very easily integrate

00:59:03 ◼   ► a bunch of different payment methods,

00:59:04 ◼   ► so we are in the lucky set of people

00:59:07 ◼   ► who are using FreshBooks who get paid

00:59:09 ◼   ► five days faster on average,

00:59:11 ◼   ► because that's what happens when you're a FreshBooks customer.

00:59:13 ◼   ► You can integrate card payments,

00:59:14 ◼   ► You can get PayPal payments, they have their own payment system, you can put information

00:59:19 ◼   ► for how people could do direct deposit, you can put information for how people can send

00:59:22 ◼   ► you checks.

00:59:23 ◼   ► You make it easy for your client to pay you and they're going to pay you.

00:59:27 ◼   ► Somebody gets an invoice and just says "pay me now" people click that button and they

00:59:30 ◼   ► pay you right now rather than printing it and putting it on a stack to deal with later.

00:59:34 ◼   ► These are the types of things that FreshBooks will enable you to do.

00:59:37 ◼   ► You can see when someone's looked at your invoice so you don't need to chase them.

00:59:39 ◼   ► No more excuses as well, you can see if they've opened it, you can see if they've printed

00:59:43 ◼   ► it.

00:59:44 ◼   ► and set up automatic late payment reminders as well.

00:59:48 ◼   ► They have super reports so you can get a good overview of who owes you what, you can keep

00:59:53 ◼   ► track of your expenses, they have tons of third party integrations, time tracking and

00:59:57 ◼   ► amazing customer support as well.

00:59:59 ◼   ► Freshbooks is offering a 30 day free trial to listeners of this show.

01:00:03 ◼   ► There's no credit card required, it's so simple to set up you do not need to be a numbers

01:00:07 ◼   ► person.

01:00:08 ◼   ► To claim your 30 days of unrestricted use go to freshbooks.com/connected and please

01:00:12 ◼   ► Please enter connected in the how you heard about us section so Freshbooks will know that

01:00:16 ◼   ► you came to them from this show.

01:00:18 ◼   ► If you have not yet signed up for Freshbooks and you send invoices out on a regular basis,

01:00:23 ◼   ► trust me, just go and try this out.

01:00:24 ◼   ► I will know that you're going to be happy.

01:00:27 ◼   ► Go to freshbooks.com/connected, thank you so much for Freshbooks for their support of

01:00:31 ◼   ► this show and Relay FM.

01:00:35 ◼   ► Steven Hackett.

01:00:36 ◼   ► It's the most wonderful time of the year, right?

01:00:39 ◼   ► Mac OS release.

01:00:40 ◼   ► Whoop whoop!

01:00:41 ◼   ► So, Sierra ships today, September 20th.

01:00:45 ◼   ► Just one moment.

01:00:46 ◼   ► So Federico, we'll see you next week, right?

01:00:48 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah.

01:00:49 ◼   ► We'll call you back for the end.

01:00:51 ◼   ► Thank you.

01:00:52 ◼   ► So, what do you want to know?

01:00:58 ◼   ► Tell me all about Sierra.

01:00:59 ◼   ► You've written a review about it.

01:01:01 ◼   ► I have written a review of it.

01:01:03 ◼   ► So, Sierra really breaks down, the new features break down into two big buckets.

01:01:09 ◼   ► The first being Siri, and the second being iCloud stuff.

01:01:14 ◼   ► So Siri is on the Mac for the first time.

01:01:17 ◼   ► It debuted on the iPhone 4S five years ago,

01:01:21 ◼   ► and it's finally on the Mac.

01:01:22 ◼   ► And it is the Siri that we know and sometimes love on iOS,

01:01:26 ◼   ► but it's also learned some Mac-specific tricks.

01:01:29 ◼   ► So all the normal stuff, like asking for the weather,

01:01:32 ◼   ► asking for simple math problems,

01:01:34 ◼   ► asking scores to baseball games,

01:01:36 ◼   ► all that stuff you can do with Siri on iOS,

01:01:39 ◼   ► including opening applications works on the Mac as you would expect. What Apple

01:01:44 ◼   ► has done in this version though like like you know on the Apple TV they added

01:01:48 ◼   ► like Apple TV specific things they've done this on the Mac as well and the big

01:01:53 ◼   ► one is dealing with files and folders so talking through talking to Siri saying

01:02:01 ◼   ► hey I want all my keynote documents or show me all of my PDFs with this tag

01:02:05 ◼   ► that all works and it works sort of in the same way that spotlight does there

01:02:11 ◼   ► are a few edge cases that are different like spotlight can see mail attachments

01:02:15 ◼   ► so I say look for all my keynote documents it can find keynote documents

01:02:19 ◼   ► and emails and Siri can't do that Siri can't look at your at your email

01:02:24 ◼   ► attachments even though they're local on your hard disk it won't it won't do it

01:02:29 ◼   ► so that sort of stuff is nice and it has a couple of the tricks like you can take

01:02:34 ◼   ► a search so if I say you know Siri tell

01:02:41 ◼   ► me the weather in Boston I can create I

01:02:44 ◼   ► can like take that and make it a

01:02:45 ◼   ► notification center widget or I could

01:02:47 ◼   ► say what is the the score of the Cubs

01:02:50 ◼   ► game and I can make that a notification

01:02:52 ◼   ► center widget and that's something that I

01:02:54 ◼   ► would actually really like to see on iOS

01:02:56 ◼   ► where I could have a save Siri search

01:02:58 ◼   ► and these things get updated every time

01:03:00 ◼   ► you go into the widget it pulls new

01:03:01 ◼   ► information like why can't I use Siri to

01:03:04 ◼   ► make custom widgets on iOS. I think that would be a really nice addition,

01:03:07 ◼   ► especially on the iPad where you can sort of use that widget screen for like

01:03:11 ◼   ► more useful stuff. But for now this is Mac OS only. And you know it

01:03:19 ◼   ► it's Siri. It works as well as Siri does on iOS. The voice recognition is probably

01:03:25 ◼   ► a little bit better. There's a lot of like my MacBook Pro's dual microphone system

01:03:28 ◼   ► and it hears me really clearly. It pauses both audio and the fans in the machines.

01:03:34 ◼   ► It spins the fans down so we can hear just like the voice dictation has done

01:03:38 ◼   ► for a couple years now. And it's fine. I don't think Siri is going to

01:03:44 ◼   ► drastically change the way I work on my Mac. Like I say in the review, I use Siri

01:03:50 ◼   ► more in writing the review than I have in the month or six weeks that

01:03:54 ◼   ► that I've been running Sierra.

01:03:56 ◼   ► So I don't think it's a huge game changer for me,

01:03:59 ◼   ► but I do think it will be,

01:04:01 ◼   ► I think a lot of people will like it,

01:04:02 ◼   ► I think a lot of people will find it very familiar.

01:04:05 ◼   ► And in talking with some people

01:04:08 ◼   ► who are much more knowledgeable about accessibility

01:04:10 ◼   ► than I am, they're all excited by it,

01:04:12 ◼   ► that unlocking what the Mac can do with the voice

01:04:16 ◼   ► is gonna be huge for lots of users.

01:04:19 ◼   ► And the Mac has had voiceover stuff for a long time,

01:04:22 ◼   ► some voice commands in the speak

01:04:25 ◼   ► preference pane area that you can go in and

01:04:27 ◼   ► the Mac could do some stuff by voice, but

01:04:28 ◼   ► this is totally different and I think

01:04:31 ◼   ► that's going to unlock the Mac's potential

01:04:32 ◼   ► for a lot of users who have struggled

01:04:35 ◼   ► with it in the past, like with keyboards

01:04:37 ◼   ► and mice, that that is maybe not the

01:04:40 ◼   ► right input for them, whereas speaking

01:04:43 ◼   ► to the Mac will be great. And so I'm

01:04:45 ◼   ► really excited to see what that looks

01:04:47 ◼   ► like and what that means for a lot of

01:04:49 ◼   ► of users who aren't me.

01:04:51 ◼   ► But outside of the people that need it for accessibility reasons, there kind of isn't

01:04:57 ◼   ► a lot of benefit is there? Like, Siri is adding some interesting functions, like the idea

01:05:03 ◼   ► to pin a little piece of information or to search for files in an interesting way, but

01:05:09 ◼   ► I really struggle to imagine people using this on a regular basis. Like, can you straight

01:05:16 ◼   ► up just type these questions in in natural language?

01:05:20 ◼   ► - No, and that's-- - Oh, come on.

01:05:23 ◼   ► - That's frustrating to me.

01:05:24 ◼   ► I want that on iOS.

01:05:25 ◼   ► Like Cortana has it on Windows Phone

01:05:28 ◼   ► where you can type Cortana.

01:05:30 ◼   ► Google Now, or it has like the Google Now on tap,

01:05:32 ◼   ► so basically it is aware of what's on the screen.

01:05:35 ◼   ► I think it's time for Siri to move beyond the voice.

01:05:37 ◼   ► I think voice will always be the primary method

01:05:40 ◼   ► of interaction with Siri, but I would love

01:05:43 ◼   ► to talk to Siri via my keyboard

01:05:45 ◼   ► and to be able to type to it and it retrieves stuff.

01:05:48 ◼   ► I have some of that sort of stuff in Alfred.

01:05:50 ◼   ► Alfred, you can set keywords and launch scripts and stuff,

01:05:52 ◼   ► and it's pretty handy.

01:05:54 ◼   ► I have heard that there was at some point

01:06:00 ◼   ► discussion of bringing Siri with the keyboard.

01:06:03 ◼   ► I don't know how accurate that is.

01:06:05 ◼   ► That's just something I've heard.

01:06:06 ◼   ► But it's not there in the release.

01:06:08 ◼   ► And I would like to see that across the platforms,

01:06:11 ◼   ► that typing to Siri at least be an option.

01:06:14 ◼   ► 'cause there are times where it would be nice

01:06:16 ◼   ► for Siri to do things for me,

01:06:18 ◼   ► but I can't speak out loud,

01:06:19 ◼   ► or maybe I'm uncomfortable doing that,

01:06:22 ◼   ► but for now, no, you gotta sit there

01:06:25 ◼   ► and press option space and talk to your computer.

01:06:28 ◼   ► - Hmm, that's not good.

01:06:29 ◼   ► - It's fine, but I agree with you.

01:06:31 ◼   ► This is not something that I'm going to be using day to day.

01:06:34 ◼   ► So the other big bucket is iCloud stuff,

01:06:37 ◼   ► and there's a lot of stuff in here.

01:06:38 ◼   ► There's continuity features like auto unlock

01:06:40 ◼   ► with Apple Watch, which is really nice,

01:06:42 ◼   ► where you just sit down at your Mac

01:06:43 ◼   ► and it unlocks if you're wearing your watch.

01:06:45 ◼   ► I've had good luck with this.

01:06:46 ◼   ► Other reviewers have not had such good luck with this.

01:06:49 ◼   ► I don't really know why, but it works for me

01:06:52 ◼   ► and it's pretty quick, it takes about two seconds.

01:06:54 ◼   ► You can definitely catch it working.

01:06:58 ◼   ► You can see it, the little message comes

01:07:00 ◼   ► to unlocking with Apple Watch,

01:07:01 ◼   ► and then you get notifications sent to your wrist

01:07:03 ◼   ► that hey, this Mac was unlocked by your watch.

01:07:06 ◼   ► Works fine for me.

01:07:09 ◼   ► It's actually pretty nice.

01:07:10 ◼   ► It does make me really want Touch ID

01:07:12 ◼   ► or Apple Watch authentication and more stuff,

01:07:14 ◼   ► like why can't 1Password use this?

01:07:16 ◼   ► I don't have to log into my Mac anymore,

01:07:19 ◼   ► but I still have to unlock 1Password.

01:07:21 ◼   ► It'd be really nice if Apple opened that up

01:07:23 ◼   ► to third parties,

01:07:25 ◼   ► but they haven't yet, so.

01:07:28 ◼   ► What are you gonna do?

01:07:31 ◼   ► There's stuff too, there's Universal Clipboard,

01:07:34 ◼   ► there's where you can copy something

01:07:38 ◼   ► on your Mac or your iPhone or iPad,

01:07:40 ◼   ► and the other devices that are within continuity range

01:07:44 ◼   ► so they can see each other on the same network

01:07:45 ◼   ► and talk to each other over Bluetooth,

01:07:47 ◼   ► share that clipboard.

01:07:51 ◼   ► There's a couple interesting things,

01:07:53 ◼   ► interesting design decisions here with Apple.

01:07:56 ◼   ► Content is only transferred on paste,

01:07:59 ◼   ► so if you are, like right now I'm sitting at my computer,

01:08:02 ◼   ► my iPad is at home, my iPhone is with me now.

01:08:04 ◼   ► My iPhone and Mac can do this,

01:08:07 ◼   ► but if my wife is using my iPad,

01:08:10 ◼   ► I'm not gonna accidentally paste something

01:08:11 ◼   ► that she copied on the iPad because it's not here.

01:08:14 ◼   ► So it's designed in a way that like,

01:08:16 ◼   ► you are in control of all your devices,

01:08:17 ◼   ► assuming that you are picking one up and sitting one down.

01:08:21 ◼   ► But if that's not the case,

01:08:23 ◼   ► they don't wanna errantly override your clipboard.

01:08:26 ◼   ► - All right, hang on a second,

01:08:28 ◼   ► 'cause this is very confusing.

01:08:30 ◼   ► So let's say I'm using one of your devices

01:08:33 ◼   ► and you've copied something.

01:08:36 ◼   ► If I have copied something,

01:08:37 ◼   ► it doesn't overwrite what I've copied on my clipboard.

01:08:42 ◼   ► Let's say I've copied something

01:08:44 ◼   ► and I paste it in 10 minutes time from now.

01:08:47 ◼   ► What you copy on your clipboard

01:08:49 ◼   ► doesn't override what's on mine, right?

01:08:51 ◼   ► If I'm using your devices.

01:08:53 ◼   ► - If you were in the,

01:08:54 ◼   ► if you were within continuity range, it would override it.

01:08:59 ◼   ► It's really, I don't think there's a mechanism in place

01:09:02 ◼   ► to say I'm not using my device.

01:09:05 ◼   ► you know it would fix that?

01:09:06 ◼   ► Multiple users on iPads.

01:09:07 ◼   ► - Wait, so if I've copied something on one device,

01:09:11 ◼   ► you've copied something on your device,

01:09:13 ◼   ► and then 10 minutes later,

01:09:15 ◼   ► so after the two minutes have passed,

01:09:17 ◼   ► I then can't paste what was copied before?

01:09:20 ◼   ► - Oh, I see what you're saying.

01:09:21 ◼   ► That honestly I don't know.

01:09:24 ◼   ► - 'Cause I'm wondering if it just blanks out the clipboard,

01:09:28 ◼   ► which would be weird.

01:09:31 ◼   ► - Yeah, I don't know about that, but you're right.

01:09:33 ◼   ► there is a two minute timeout on this,

01:09:35 ◼   ► so you're not going to pick up your iPad and hit paste

01:09:38 ◼   ► and get something from more than two minutes ago.

01:09:40 ◼   ► Like it's really designed for,

01:09:43 ◼   ► I'm working on something on my Mac,

01:09:45 ◼   ► I pick up my iPad and to do something with that content.

01:09:48 ◼   ► Like it's a feature that is built around

01:09:53 ◼   ► the idea of like intentionality.

01:09:56 ◼   ► But the issue with it is that none of these

01:10:00 ◼   ► continuity features was include handoff,

01:10:02 ◼   ► includes the that never works for me the

01:10:04 ◼   ► answering a phone call on your Mac that

01:10:06 ◼   ► called your cell phone number like there

01:10:08 ◼   ► are no settings for these anywhere like

01:10:10 ◼   ► if you are signed to iCloud and your

01:10:12 ◼   ► devices in nature this is just happening

01:10:14 ◼   ► and I think things like auto unlocking

01:10:16 ◼   ► universal clipboard do have certain

01:10:18 ◼   ► downsides I think especially universal

01:10:21 ◼   ► clipboard they're going to be people who

01:10:22 ◼   ► maybe they can use iCloud at work but

01:10:25 ◼   ► having their clipboard be I could be

01:10:28 ◼   ► aware of their clipboard maybe like a

01:10:29 ◼   ► a huge security issue for them, right?

01:10:32 ◼   ► That they are working with confidential data

01:10:35 ◼   ► on their computer and iCloud being aware

01:10:37 ◼   ► what's on your clipboard is a problem.

01:10:39 ◼   ► And so there should be a setting for this

01:10:41 ◼   ► and if you know where it is,

01:10:43 ◼   ► I couldn't even find it like in a P list anywhere.

01:10:45 ◼   ► Like my understanding is if you were signed to iCloud,

01:10:47 ◼   ► this is on.

01:10:49 ◼   ► I hope that's not the case.

01:10:50 ◼   ► I hope there is an option that I just missed it.

01:10:51 ◼   ► But my understanding is that this is just on all the time.

01:10:55 ◼   ► - See, what I want is the ability to

01:10:59 ◼   ► push something not to have it automatically synced so to be like what I

01:11:09 ◼   ► have copied I want to send it to other devices right and I know why Apple won't

01:11:16 ◼   ► do that because it's inelegant right and it adds like their whole idea is that

01:11:22 ◼   ► copy and paste like even in the keynote he's like we use copy and paste every

01:11:25 ◼   ► So we were gonna add this like transparent feature on top of it

01:11:28 ◼   ► But I agree with you that it would be nice something like like copied which is a third-party app

01:11:33 ◼   ► basically did that where you could send things to copied on the Mac and then pull them from iOS and

01:11:39 ◼   ► And on iOS there are several utilities that have like multiple pasteboards and stuff. But yeah, this thing is just like always on and it's um

01:11:47 ◼   ► Yeah, like people send me. I know that these apps exist but like, you know

01:11:53 ◼   ► I'm not like massively crazy about really having them like I don't I don't really use stuff like this

01:11:59 ◼   ► but I'm saying like if I you know my ideal for what this feature would look like would be that as opposed to just

01:12:03 ◼   ► Overriding the clipboard which is a I don't know. It's just it's just an interesting choice to me

01:12:09 ◼   ► It is it is

01:12:12 ◼   ► It's one of those those features that like

01:12:16 ◼   ► Apple designed to work in a very specific way and if you don't work in that way you can run into problems

01:12:23 ◼   ► This is also a feature that I had pretty good luck with,

01:12:26 ◼   ► but I know Jason Snell and others have had a lot of problems

01:12:29 ◼   ► of it just straight up not working.

01:12:31 ◼   ► And so I don't know if there's bugs going on

01:12:33 ◼   ► or there's something not quite finished somewhere,

01:12:35 ◼   ► but the times that I've used it,

01:12:38 ◼   ► I've always been like, oh, I have this thing

01:12:40 ◼   ► and the quickest way to get it to another device

01:12:42 ◼   ► is copy and paste.

01:12:44 ◼   ► It's nice.

01:12:45 ◼   ► And I haven't had it do something wrong,

01:12:47 ◼   ► but I don't really bounce between my devices very much.

01:12:49 ◼   ► Well, when I'm working, I'm just at my Mac.

01:12:51 ◼   ► So, you know, I'm really more interested to see what Federico thinks about this between

01:12:56 ◼   ► like the iPhone and the iPad, like how, because this feature is part of Sierra, but it's part

01:13:01 ◼   ► of continuity in 2016.

01:13:05 ◼   ► What do you think about this, Gigi?

01:13:08 ◼   ► I think it works most of the time.

01:13:11 ◼   ► It would have been nice to have some kind of interface to manage what is going on, because

01:13:16 ◼   ► it can be a little strange sometimes you don't think about it.

01:13:19 ◼   ► When you copy and paste overrides what you're doing on another device.

01:13:25 ◼   ► I know that developers can have settings to exclude their apps from having universal clipboard

01:13:31 ◼   ► and they can set expiration times.

01:13:33 ◼   ► But I think it'd be nicer to have some kind of visual confirmation of what is going on

01:13:39 ◼   ► or at least a setting to say, "Look, I never want what I copy on this device to propagate

01:13:45 ◼   ► across other devices."

01:13:47 ◼   ► And it can be especially problematic when, let's say, inside the house, you're using

01:13:52 ◼   ► your iPhone and you copy something and maybe your kid is using your iPad and it's logged

01:13:58 ◼   ► into the same iCloud account, of course it's on the same Wi-Fi network, and suddenly what

01:14:03 ◼   ► you copied on the iPhone, which not necessarily you want to be available on the iPad, can

01:14:07 ◼   ► be pasted on the iPad.

01:14:09 ◼   ► And it's one of the features that works, it works very well in my experience, but it doesn't

01:14:15 ◼   ► scale to the randomness and to what people do in real life because there's no interface,

01:14:22 ◼   ► there's no way to say "look I never ever want my photos or what I copy in Safari,

01:14:27 ◼   ► the text that I copy and paste, I don't want that to go to my iPad" and there should be a

01:14:35 ◼   ► setting screen for continuity features to say "okay I want to use this, I want to use that,

01:14:40 ◼   ► I don't want to use the clipboard sync.

01:14:43 ◼   ► I think it works well in theory, it works well in practice, but it doesn't scale to

01:14:47 ◼   ► those times when you don't want your stuff to be available on multiple devices.

01:14:51 ◼   ► So I'd never even thought about trying this on my iOS devices, like I'd kind of forgotten

01:14:56 ◼   ► about this feature, and I've just been playing around with it while you're talking.

01:14:59 ◼   ► And I mean it works, but I press the paste button and I'm sitting there for five seconds,

01:15:04 ◼   ► and nothing's happening, and then the text pops in.

01:15:06 ◼   ► Yeah, there's definitely a delay associated with it.

01:15:11 ◼   ► That's... no. I mean, I know why it's doing it, but like... I don't like that.

01:15:16 ◼   ► When you try to paste an image, you get a dialogue on screen saying "Pasting from iPhone"

01:15:21 ◼   ► and you get like a spinner that loads the image of the local network.

01:15:24 ◼   ► Honestly, if it's gonna make me wait for a few seconds, because as it was for just text

01:15:28 ◼   ► then, I want it to do that. Because I just pressed paste and I couldn't do anything.

01:15:32 ◼   ► Like notes just locked up until it pasted.

01:15:34 ◼   ► - Yeah, I think what it's doing is it's going out,

01:15:37 ◼   ► my guess is if something gets put on the universal clipboard

01:15:41 ◼   ► the devices are aware that something is waiting,

01:15:43 ◼   ► but they don't, like I said,

01:15:44 ◼   ► they don't pull that content until paste.

01:15:47 ◼   ► Because if the two minute time's out

01:15:48 ◼   ► then you've moved data you don't need to move.

01:15:51 ◼   ► And so I think what it's doing is going out and checking,

01:15:53 ◼   ► and that is slow.

01:15:54 ◼   ► And in my testing I've noticed that takes more time,

01:15:57 ◼   ► and sometimes it's fast.

01:15:58 ◼   ► So I don't know if there's some scaling issue

01:16:00 ◼   ► all with iCloud of it.

01:16:02 ◼   ► like sometimes it's busier than other times,

01:16:05 ◼   ► maybe that's a load issue on their end,

01:16:07 ◼   ► but that little hesitation is definitely noticeable

01:16:10 ◼   ► sometimes where you hit paste and the device is like,

01:16:13 ◼   ► BRB, I need to go talk to iCloud and I'm gonna go check

01:16:15 ◼   ► and I'll be right back.

01:16:17 ◼   ► It's like, you're trying to pay something,

01:16:18 ◼   ► like you're trying to get work done,

01:16:19 ◼   ► it should be instant.

01:16:21 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, I know why they're doing it that way.

01:16:24 ◼   ► This is Apple security thing, you know?

01:16:29 ◼   ► Like we don't, you know, it's gotta be secure,

01:16:31 ◼   ► So, got to hold it up there and then maybe it will come down later, right?

01:16:36 ◼   ► That's why they're doing it.

01:16:37 ◼   ► But in my opinion, this is one of those things where the added security makes for a lesser

01:16:43 ◼   ► experience.

01:16:44 ◼   ► Just saying.

01:16:45 ◼   ► I know that upsets people.

01:16:46 ◼   ► I think I agree.

01:16:47 ◼   ► Yep.

01:16:48 ◼   ► I don't want to be waiting for five seconds when I press the paste button.

01:16:53 ◼   ► Right.

01:16:54 ◼   ► I agree.

01:16:55 ◼   ► So some of the other iCloud stuff is tied in with storage. So that sort of the

01:17:02 ◼   ► third pillar in Sierra is like optimized storage and that means it's like a term

01:17:07 ◼   ► that covers a lot of stuff. And the first one and probably the biggest one is

01:17:12 ◼   ► iCloud Drive desktop and document sync which we talked about this over the

01:17:16 ◼   ► summer. You can go into settings and you can tell iCloud store things from

01:17:21 ◼   ► desktop and documents in iCloud Drive and sync those to my other devices. So if

01:17:26 ◼   ► I make a screenshot and it goes to my desktop by default in Mac OS, that

01:17:30 ◼   ► screenshot is available after a moment in iCloud Drive on my iPad and iPhone

01:17:35 ◼   ► and on the desktop of my other Mac. Same thing with your documents folder. You

01:17:41 ◼   ► save a new pages document or a new PDF and documents, it can sync to iCloud Drive,

01:17:45 ◼   ► it can sync to your other Mac. In my testing of this it does work right? I can make

01:17:52 ◼   ► something put it on my desktop and I can sync it to my other Mac. It is noticeably

01:17:58 ◼   ► slower than Dropbox. Now Dropbox has a funny trick with land sync where if two

01:18:02 ◼   ► computers in your Dropbox account are on the same local network they will copy over

01:18:05 ◼   ► the local network while uploading to Dropbox is like a speed it up type

01:18:10 ◼   ► thing which is a great feature. So it is not as fast as Dropbox. It's not something

01:18:17 ◼   ► I'm going to turn on because Dropbox is something that like we talked about many

01:18:21 ◼   ► times and all three of us basically use Dropbox as our file system to a degree

01:18:25 ◼   ► like any documents I'm working on happen to be in Dropbox and I'm a single Mac

01:18:29 ◼   ► user. I just use a MacBook Pro but I use Dropbox to have everything on my iOS

01:18:33 ◼   ► device and to have a copy of it in the cloud. So the syncing works as assuming

01:18:39 ◼   ► you pay for storage. Where it gets a little weird though is some of the edge

01:18:44 ◼   ► cases. So for instance in your home folder your desktop and document folders

01:18:49 ◼   ► get renamed the local badge like this like desktop dash local. I don't know why

01:18:53 ◼   ► they're showing you that like that seems really unpolished but... That feels

01:18:59 ◼   ► like hacking something onto the existing system and I mean I expect the Apple

01:19:05 ◼   ► file system will solve some of these problems.

01:19:08 ◼   ► I mean they have things in place in Finder for things like Dropbox to do custom badges,

01:19:13 ◼   ► like "applicated on a custom badge" but instead they stuck "-local" at the end of the name.

01:19:19 ◼   ► But even more worryingly this seems to screw with the space that Finder reports you have

01:19:24 ◼   ► available, which is really problematic because like Finder not knowing how much space you

01:19:29 ◼   ► have left can be a failure of like HFS problems and so to suddenly introduce something that

01:19:34 ◼   ► like screws with finders way to report disk space is worrisome. In what way?

01:19:39 ◼   ► What's it saying? You've got too much, you've not got enough, like I don't understand

01:19:43 ◼   ► what's it telling you. Generally it reports, it under reports. So if I have 200

01:19:48 ◼   ► gigs free on my on my local disk and I'm syncing like at 800 meg folder it will

01:19:55 ◼   ► go it will overrun that 800 megs and say that I have less space than I actually

01:19:58 ◼   ► actually do. It tends to err on the safe side, but even then, like in my testing, it's hit

01:20:06 ◼   ► or miss. You can't always tell what it's doing, which is sort of my problem with it. Like

01:20:13 ◼   ► all the other iCloud stuff, they want it to be transparent and magical, but the truth

01:20:17 ◼   ► is when it comes to syncing files, I want to know exactly what's happening. Dropbox

01:20:22 ◼   ► has that with its little badges and its mini bar app, and I can tell what's going on.

01:20:25 ◼   ► So is it getting ahead of itself then? Like is it saying that the 800 megabytes is not

01:20:30 ◼   ► there before it pushes it off to the cloud?

01:20:32 ◼   ► Yeah, plus some. So it'll like round up, it'll add some space to that. So it's just a little,

01:20:38 ◼   ► a little, this is not what I expected to see.

01:20:42 ◼   ► No, no good.

01:20:43 ◼   ► So that's desktop and document sync, right? Pretty straightforward.

01:20:49 ◼   ► Where it gets confusing and what I think problematic

01:20:54 ◼   ► at best is when you partner this

01:20:58 ◼   ► with some optimized storage options.

01:21:01 ◼   ► So you can sync your desktop and documents

01:21:04 ◼   ► and do no optimized storage stuff,

01:21:05 ◼   ► where it just keeps everything everywhere all the time,

01:21:09 ◼   ► which is fine if you have the disk space.

01:21:12 ◼   ► But also in Sierra, and the way that all this is laid out,

01:21:15 ◼   ► it makes you think you kind of have to do both,

01:21:17 ◼   ► is this optimized storage, which again is a family of features

01:21:21 ◼   ► that Apple has put in place to help keep local disk space free.

01:21:26 ◼   ► And how it does it is complicated and potentially

01:21:30 ◼   ► confusing to the point of data loss

01:21:31 ◼   ► if you're not really paying attention.

01:21:34 ◼   ► So optimized storage itself is really only two things.

01:21:40 ◼   ► It is the ability to automatically remove

01:21:44 ◼   ► watch content from iTunes.

01:21:46 ◼   ► so you watch all of Mr. Robot season 1 in iTunes and it says hey you've

01:21:51 ◼   ► watched the stuff, if this option is turned on iTunes will get rid of your

01:21:55 ◼   ► local downloaded files for you automatically and whenever you want them

01:21:59 ◼   ► again you can just redownload them from the iTunes store. I'm more or less okay

01:22:03 ◼   ► with that. I have my iTunes lab around a Drobo, I have lots of space but that's

01:22:07 ◼   ► pretty straightforward. We've all done that right? You delete a movie and it

01:22:09 ◼   ► says hey you know you can just go redownload it. That's fine. The other bit

01:22:14 ◼   ► optimized storage says download only

01:22:18 ◼   ► recent mail attachments. So if you're

01:22:20 ◼   ► like me I have years of email synced in

01:22:22 ◼   ► mail and it can go in and through some

01:22:25 ◼   ► method that it prescribes that I have no

01:22:27 ◼   ► control over it can get rid of old mail

01:22:29 ◼   ► attachments. Again they can be

01:22:30 ◼   ► redownloaded on demand. These two things

01:22:33 ◼   ► I don't need them but I'm more or less

01:22:35 ◼   ► okay with the way they work. Where it

01:22:37 ◼   ► gets confusing is that there's a third

01:22:40 ◼   ► option only in iCloud preferences and not

01:22:43 ◼   ► in system information. So these settings live in two places on the Mac and the

01:22:47 ◼   ► settings differ depending on where you are. Where you run into trouble is a

01:22:51 ◼   ► third checkbox called optimize Mac storage. So I'm just going to read this

01:22:56 ◼   ► label to you guys because in reading I think you understand the problem. The

01:23:00 ◼   ► full contents of iCloud Drive will be stored on the Mac if you have enough

01:23:03 ◼   ► space. Older documents will be stored only in iCloud when space is needed. So

01:23:09 ◼   ► if you have synced your desktop and documents folder in iCloud and if you

01:23:14 ◼   ► have optimized Mac storage on what you've done is given iCloud permission

01:23:19 ◼   ► to say I know you put this on your desktop you're working on this file

01:23:24 ◼   ► potentially but due to some algorithm that only I'm aware of is iCloud and you

01:23:29 ◼   ► can't see as a user I deem that you are running low on disk space so I'm going

01:23:34 ◼   ► to remove this file from your local computer and keep a copy in iCloud for

01:23:38 ◼   ► you. So what happens when you get on an airplane and you go to edit a podcast and

01:23:45 ◼   ► the the files you had in your documents folder have been synced away by iCloud

01:23:50 ◼   ► because it deemed you were out of space and I've seen I couldn't make it do this

01:23:54 ◼   ► but I've seen lots of reports I've talked to a lot of other reviewers who

01:23:57 ◼   ► iCloud started removing local files when they had tons of free space left on

01:24:02 ◼   ► their disk. Like the idea that hey only do this when I have 20 gigs free like

01:24:06 ◼   ► there's no setting, there's no checkbox, it just does it whenever it deems

01:24:10 ◼   ► necessary. And because there's not a lot of visual indication of what's happening,

01:24:16 ◼   ► like iCloud doesn't do a pop-up and say "hey I'm going to remove this folder, is that

01:24:19 ◼   ► okay with you?" because it's magic and transparent, it just does it. And so you

01:24:23 ◼   ► can end up in a situation very easily where you're looking for something that

01:24:27 ◼   ► is only available in iCloud Drive and your local icon gets grayed out, has a

01:24:31 ◼   ► little cloud icon on it and you're stuck without your file. Contrast that

01:24:37 ◼   ► with Dropbox for a second. With Dropbox you have the ability to selective sync a

01:24:41 ◼   ► folder. So for instance I have a shared folder with some other people that has

01:24:46 ◼   ► you know tons of files that I don't want on my local computer but I need access to

01:24:52 ◼   ► them every once in a while. I can tell Dropbox don't put this on my Mac but

01:24:56 ◼   ► leave it in my Dropbox account. I go to the Dropbox website I download those

01:25:00 ◼   ► files on demand but I have chosen to do that I went into Dropbox rather confusing

01:25:06 ◼   ► setting panel and told it I don't want these files locally you just keep a copy

01:25:10 ◼   ► of them Dropbox and I'll get them when I need them. iCloud thinks it's smart

01:25:13 ◼   ► enough that it's doing that on its own and that is my problem with this feature

01:25:17 ◼   ► is that I don't want iCloud to do this. If Dropbox did this I would turn it off

01:25:23 ◼   ► on Dropbox as well. I don't want any service to say you know what Steven I

01:25:28 ◼   ► I don't think you need this file anymore so I'm just gonna nuke your copy of it

01:25:32 ◼   ► and it'll be in the cloud when you're waiting. You know if you're always at

01:25:36 ◼   ► your Mac and you're always on a good internet connection, you know sitting in

01:25:39 ◼   ► your office,

01:25:40 ◼   ► ok. But the reality is most people have notebooks and most people work in

01:25:45 ◼   ► periods of offline or low connectivity. We're not in a all wireless world and if

01:25:50 ◼   ► you're going to look for a file it should be where you left it. It should

01:25:53 ◼   ► also be on iCloud, but this little optimize Mac storage checkbox is really

01:25:58 ◼   ► problematic and one that I think some people are going to turn on because the

01:26:03 ◼   ► language is helpful, but if you look at it with a critical eye, you look at it from

01:26:06 ◼   ► like a nerd perspective, you can see that this is potentially problematic because

01:26:12 ◼   ► it's so transparent. Does that all make sense?

01:26:15 ◼   ► It does, it does. I wonder if like, we're edge cases and the majority of people wouldn't

01:26:24 ◼   ► get affected when this stuff happens. And the reason I said it is because we work with

01:26:29 ◼   ► extremely large files so it would potentially trigger this optimized storage thing more

01:26:35 ◼   ► sooner than others. Like just one file can be like a few hundred megs so it's like, oh

01:26:41 ◼   ► this is things are getting chunky around here,

01:26:43 ◼   ► I need to remove stuff.

01:26:44 ◼   ► - And I understand that, and I think too that

01:26:48 ◼   ► we may also be educated that we pay for iCloud.

01:26:51 ◼   ► I mean how many people do we know in our lives

01:26:53 ◼   ► who turn off iPhone backups

01:26:54 ◼   ► because they're out of iCloud space?

01:26:56 ◼   ► - Good point.

01:26:57 ◼   ► - But I think Apple could do a better job

01:27:00 ◼   ► at explaining what's going on if you check that feature.

01:27:04 ◼   ► And especially what happens if you check it

01:27:05 ◼   ► in conjunction with iCloud desktop and document sync.

01:27:08 ◼   ► It's the combination of the two that I find problematic.

01:27:13 ◼   ► You know, it's one thing that,

01:27:15 ◼   ► if you're just doing this and it's just doing the stuff

01:27:18 ◼   ► you put in iCloud Drive directly,

01:27:20 ◼   ► maybe that's different, but something out in your desktop

01:27:22 ◼   ► or your Documents folder feels a little bit different to me

01:27:26 ◼   ► as a long-time Mac user, that they should be

01:27:28 ◼   ► stable repositories of data.

01:27:30 ◼   ► Whether this becomes a thing,

01:27:33 ◼   ► like if people get trapped by this, I don't know,

01:27:36 ◼   ► But in testing and using the Mac for a long time,

01:27:39 ◼   ► I find it off-putting that iCloud thinks it knows better

01:27:44 ◼   ► than I do what I should do with my disk.

01:27:46 ◼   ► What's really frustrating about this is like,

01:27:49 ◼   ► we are years into the SSD revolution.

01:27:51 ◼   ► I don't like, this would be a thing

01:27:52 ◼   ► where we're on 64 and 128 gig SSDs.

01:27:55 ◼   ► But I think the base model is 256 now.

01:27:58 ◼   ► Like, that's still tight, but it's not so tight

01:28:01 ◼   ► that people are, I don't think,

01:28:03 ◼   ► like as squeezed as they used to be.

01:28:05 ◼   ► Like, this would have been great

01:28:05 ◼   ► this came out with the original MacBook Air.

01:28:09 ◼   ► But that was five or six years ago.

01:28:10 ◼   ► And now we have bigger SSDs in our machines.

01:28:14 ◼   ► We have things like iCloud Photo Library,

01:28:19 ◼   ► which I think the bulk of people,

01:28:22 ◼   ► their biggest thing on their computer now

01:28:23 ◼   ► is their photo library, even bigger than music collections.

01:28:25 ◼   ► We're all streaming now.

01:28:27 ◼   ► Well, youngsters are streaming now, not me.

01:28:29 ◼   ► And so it feels like a feature that had been really nice

01:28:33 ◼   ► four years ago but it's out now and it's not implemented in a way that I think

01:28:38 ◼   ► makes complete sense to the average user.

01:28:40 ◼   ► There's a couple of points. I think one, it's not supposed to, right? Like that's the thinking.

01:28:45 ◼   ► The thinking is it will work, right? So they make it as simple as possible.

01:28:51 ◼   ► So the average user doesn't have to worry about it. Like that's the idea.

01:28:55 ◼   ► Whether it works or not, like you know, clearly there are some issues but I think

01:28:59 ◼   ► that's the thinking. I'm interested what is the onboarding process for this?

01:29:03 ◼   ► how does it get enabled? Does it happen automatically? Does the system tell you?

01:29:09 ◼   ► Or prompt you? Right, so I don't know if you run low on disk space.

01:29:16 ◼   ► Like if you fill up your SSD, if it says hey by the way we have this option. I don't

01:29:21 ◼   ► know that. This setting is in the iCloud preference pane where a lot of this

01:29:26 ◼   ► other stuff lives in system information which is like this weird utility that

01:29:30 ◼   ► is a hundred years old that they've grafted all this stuff into. When you do

01:29:34 ◼   ► click the option it does give you another box basically restating what the

01:29:38 ◼   ► first box said but I don't know if it's clear enough and I think they could do a better job.

01:29:43 ◼   ► But somebody has to actually go in and click this right?

01:29:46 ◼   ► See it was off for me by default but I upgraded from El Capitan. I don't know if on a

01:29:52 ◼   ► clean install what it's set to. Hopefully off but I didn't have time to

01:29:59 ◼   ► to wipe them out completely from scratch.

01:30:01 ◼   ► - Okay, I mean this just sounds like one of those things

01:30:05 ◼   ► that I'm just never gonna use.

01:30:07 ◼   ► - Oh yeah, it's all off for me.

01:30:08 ◼   ► None of the stuff I'm using.

01:30:10 ◼   ► - There you go.

01:30:13 ◼   ► I just, you know, I wonder if it's useful for people.

01:30:16 ◼   ► It might be, I'm sure it is, if it works fine.

01:30:20 ◼   ► The idea of letting you have, potentially,

01:30:23 ◼   ► with the right amount of money, infinite disk space.

01:30:27 ◼   ► there's a ton more disk space that you can get a hold of here and it's all saved

01:30:31 ◼   ► nice and neatly in the cloud but it takes a lot of really really smart stuff

01:30:37 ◼   ► to work out what files you need and what files you don't and I mean I just from

01:30:43 ◼   ► hearing people talk about it it sounds like it's got some smarts but it's not

01:30:48 ◼   ► smart enough and I wonder if anything really could be to like anticipate

01:30:52 ◼   ► exactly the files that you need on a given day.

01:30:55 ◼   ► - Right.

01:30:56 ◼   ► - Anything else you wanna talk about with Sierra?

01:31:00 ◼   ► - I mean, there's some other little stuff

01:31:03 ◼   ► we won't get into now.

01:31:04 ◼   ► There's some more optimized storage stuff.

01:31:06 ◼   ► It can be your trash automatically for you.

01:31:09 ◼   ► There's a new feature called reduced clutter

01:31:11 ◼   ► where it lists all your biggest documents.

01:31:13 ◼   ► And like, hey, you may have forgotten

01:31:14 ◼   ► this was buried in a folder, do you still need it?

01:31:16 ◼   ► That sort of thing.

01:31:17 ◼   ► Kinda like DaisyDisk.

01:31:18 ◼   ► I think Apple's Sherlock DaisyDisk

01:31:20 ◼   ► the way that reading lists Sherlock's Instapaper,

01:31:23 ◼   ► like this is a very simple blunt tool,

01:31:25 ◼   ► where DaisyDisc is very fine-grained

01:31:27 ◼   ► and quite frankly, like beautiful application.

01:31:30 ◼   ► So I think DaisyDisc will be fine.

01:31:31 ◼   ► I don't think they're in trouble.

01:31:33 ◼   ► I think all in all, my impression of Sierra is complicated.

01:31:39 ◼   ► Like I understand completely there's a 15-year-old system

01:31:42 ◼   ► getting annual updates, and as such,

01:31:45 ◼   ► these updates are going to be small and incremental.

01:31:47 ◼   ► and I am, hand on heart, truly okay with that.

01:31:51 ◼   ► I want my Mac, my workhorse to be stable

01:31:55 ◼   ► and to be secure and to be fast

01:31:58 ◼   ► and for big up endings to not happen very often.

01:32:02 ◼   ► I think that if, I was trying to think,

01:32:03 ◼   ► if they weren't going annual,

01:32:05 ◼   ► if Apple's doing a release every two or three years,

01:32:08 ◼   ► where would we be?

01:32:09 ◼   ► So we would have Yosemite with the redesign

01:32:11 ◼   ► and if El Capitan and Sierra were one release,

01:32:15 ◼   ► it'd be still only a moderately sized Mac OS release.

01:32:19 ◼   ► So I'm fine with that.

01:32:20 ◼   ► I'm fine with it.

01:32:21 ◼   ► I'm not in love with it, it's annual,

01:32:22 ◼   ► but it's going to be annual.

01:32:24 ◼   ► I'm fine with it being small.

01:32:26 ◼   ► And Sierra is stable and it is fast on my MacBook Pro

01:32:29 ◼   ► as well as a first generation Retina MacBook

01:32:31 ◼   ► that I have access to.

01:32:32 ◼   ► Completely usable.

01:32:34 ◼   ► So thumbs up there for Apple for Sierra being responsive

01:32:37 ◼   ► and being like there's a lot of polish in small areas

01:32:40 ◼   ► that if you use the Mac a lot you'll notice.

01:32:42 ◼   ► like the when you copy a big file in finder the the feedback of like how much

01:32:48 ◼   ► copying left to do has been updated in a nice visual way.

01:32:51 ◼   ► All that's great. However as a Mac power user, ding! I feel a little bit left out of

01:33:01 ◼   ► this release that the continuity stuff is fine.

01:33:05 ◼   ► I like actually really like auto unlock. I like the universal clipboard when it

01:33:11 ◼   ► works but the big bucket features of Siri and optimized storage I have very

01:33:18 ◼   ► little interest in. I have no interest in the optimized storage stuff and I feel a

01:33:22 ◼   ► little bit forgotten by Sierra. I feel like it's a release for people who are

01:33:27 ◼   ► really interested in their Mac and iOS devices working better together and for

01:33:30 ◼   ► me they work great together already and the things I need to do get done and I

01:33:34 ◼   ► don't have storage space problems and I understand that's because I bought a big

01:33:37 ◼   ► expensive computer with a big expensive SSD. I understand part of this is like the

01:33:41 ◼   ► privilege of me as a Mac power user.

01:33:44 ◼   ► But as someone sitting in that seat,

01:33:46 ◼   ► like a lot of our listeners are,

01:33:47 ◼   ► I feel like Sierra doesn't offer much to me.

01:33:50 ◼   ► And you know, I've updated to it, I'm gonna run it.

01:33:52 ◼   ► You should go out and download it and run it,

01:33:55 ◼   ► make sure all your stuff's compatible and have a backup.

01:33:56 ◼   ► But Sierra's a great release.

01:33:58 ◼   ► But just know there's a lot of stuff in there

01:33:59 ◼   ► that's not for you and not for me.

01:34:01 ◼   ► - I just don't think there's anything left.

01:34:05 ◼   ► - I mean, that's part of it too, right,

01:34:06 ◼   ► that it's a very stable platform.

01:34:09 ◼   ► So I was trying to think, if I was in charge

01:34:11 ◼   ► of the next Mac OS release, what would I put in it?

01:34:16 ◼   ► And honestly guys, I don't know.

01:34:19 ◼   ► There's no low hanging fruit left on the Mac, really,

01:34:22 ◼   ► that I can think of, and maybe feedback will point things out

01:34:25 ◼   ► that should be obvious to us.

01:34:27 ◼   ► But the Mac feels really good, and I'm not saying

01:34:30 ◼   ► walk away from it, I'm not saying cease development.

01:34:32 ◼   ► There are things you could do, like make it easier

01:34:33 ◼   ► to port UI kit apps to it, make it easier to do things

01:34:38 ◼   ► like in messages, like make messages work with iOS.

01:34:40 ◼   ► We didn't even talk about that.

01:34:41 ◼   ► We can do it next week.

01:34:43 ◼   ► Messages on the Mac is a really sad situation

01:34:45 ◼   ► compared to iOS.

01:34:47 ◼   ► There's still stuff to be done,

01:34:49 ◼   ► but it feels like the things they selected

01:34:50 ◼   ► for this release, a lot of people who consider

01:34:53 ◼   ► themselves power users just aren't gonna care about

01:34:55 ◼   ► and aren't gonna need, and that does make me

01:34:58 ◼   ► feel a little left out.

01:35:00 ◼   ► - Just an episode of sadness for you, really.

01:35:04 ◼   ► - It's been a lot of me on this show.

01:35:06 ◼   ► It's an emotional week for Stephen Hackett.

01:35:08 ◼   ► I was finishing this review while taking YouTube video accounts.

01:35:12 ◼   ► It's a very busy weekend.

01:35:14 ◼   ► Very busy.

01:35:15 ◼   ► If you want to find show notes for this week's episode head on over to relay.fm/connected/109.

01:35:22 ◼   ► You can find a plethora of interesting things and sadness over at Stephen's website at

01:35:28 ◼   ► 512pixels.net and he is @ismh on Twitter.

01:35:32 ◼   ► And what are you?

01:35:33 ◼   ► for

01:35:51 ◼   ► Backstories.net is where you'll find Federico's work. He is also @Vittici on Twitter. V I

01:35:56 ◼   ► T I C C I. I am @imike. I M Y K E. Thanks again to our sponsors this week, Freshbooks

01:36:02 ◼   ► and Cricket. And as always, thank you for listening and we'll be back next time. Until

01:36:06 ◼   ► then, say goodbye guys.

01:36:08 ◼   ► Adios.

01:36:09 ◼   ► Adios.

01:36:10 ◼   ► Adios.

01:36:11 ◼   ► Adios.

01:36:12 ◼   ► Adios.

01:36:13 ◼   ► Adios.

01:36:14 ◼   ► Adios.