82: All Things Pizza
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From Relay FM, this is Connected. Today's show is brought to you by our friends
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at Igloo. My name is Myke Hurley and I am joined by Mr Federico Vittucci. Hi Federico.
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Ciao Myke. Ciao Federico and howdy Mrs Stephen Hackett.
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Greetings from the south. Howdy y'all.
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Wow. Wow, nice accent Myke.
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I need to address something, a horrible travesty.
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So after we recorded last week's episode, within 10 minutes, we had news that we would
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have definitely wanted to discuss on the show.
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And also an entire topic was completely invalidated by some follow up news.
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It was within 10 minutes, Google Docs on the iPad Pro came out, which we'll talk about
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a second and Flexbright got pulled from the App Store. That was great, that was just a
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great way to post a show. So I posted the show, some people may have seen the beautiful
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spelling error of Ricktext instead of Richtext, and then all the news went wrong. So Steven,
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never leave us again, because it's clearly the only thing that changed is you weren't
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here and then everything went to hell, basically.
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- Yeah, I was ill.
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Not faking, as some people suggested.
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- Yeah, whatever.
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- Yeah, so this Flexbrite app turns out not so much allowed.
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And it was pulled, and you guys spoke a lot about this
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in the last episode about what does working with Apple mean?
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- It means it doesn't exist, that's what it means.
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- It means you get pulled from the app store
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for breaking the rules.
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My sort of big question for this,
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so we see this sometimes, right?
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see an app that in the old days would add tethering or you know something like
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this something clearly outside of what Apple wants in the App Store and I
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always wonder like if the press makes that worse so like if this if this app
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had had no press could they just exist in the App Store forever or because it
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was on the front page of MacRumors someone at Apple was like oh that's not
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cool and then went and pulled the trigger. There's no really way to know the
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answer to that right it's a very chicken and egg problem but I always
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always just think about that when you see some big hyper profile thing come
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out and then it's gone in eight hours I don't know but it's gone yeah without a
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shadow of a doubt it getting noticed by the press is what made the app die yeah
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it's not good because it got through right like they didn't put it back
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through for another review it got into the store and then MacRumors puts it on
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the front page does a little interview with them and then apples like alright
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and then just pulls it out, not Apple.
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- Yeah, and the best part is whenever stuff like this happens,
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there's people on Twitter, they're like,
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"Yes, this is Tim Cook's Apple.
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This is change, Apple is changing."
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And of course, two days later, the app is gone.
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- Same old, same old, basically.
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- This may be Tim Cook's Apple,
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just not for app review, I guess.
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I mean, it makes sense, right?
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If you think about it, there's Night Shift coming out in maybe next week.
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And the app is clearly not as good as Night Shift, and I could have understood the motivation.
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We want to give people with older iPhones access to this kind of feature.
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But it just was so weird.
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And the developer is saying, we worked with Apple.
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And the motivation that they gave to MacRumors, it was along the lines of, well, we didn't
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necessarily use private APIs.
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was our own framework, which is a public framework built
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on top of APIs that developers cannot use.
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Which means, yes, we were using private APIs just
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in a fancy way.
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So we were hoping not to get caught, but whatever.
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We got caught.
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Maybe next time.
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Did you see this tweet from Amar?
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Basically, Flexbright taking like 69% battery
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as background activity.
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Not what you want at all.
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His second is PDF expert. He's a power user making those PDFs on his iPad.
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But I just chuckled when I saw that screenshot.
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Clearly this app was not well designed and not something Apple wants around.
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Speaking of apps that aren't well designed, we talked about this a second ago.
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Google Docs got updated for the iPad Pro. I'm going to put that in scare quotes because...
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That was such a good segue.
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Yeah, perfect. Very well done. Very well done.
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I mean, iPad Pro support with a very big footnote here.
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- Yeah. - Yeah.
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- So it supports the larger screen now, right?
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So you don't get the enormous toddler-sized keyboard.
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But there's still nothing that we actually want.
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So no slide over, no split view.
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- It's halfway there, right?
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So somebody who's still using Google Docs every day,
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it's way nicer now.
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I'm very happy that they did this.
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I want them to go the whole way, naturally,
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and go for split view, which I think, you know,
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I'm still holding on to the hope that it will happen,
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but we're not there yet.
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So like, it's a step in the right direction,
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but it's still a few steps behind,
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which prompted Federico to rain hellfire and brimstone
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upon Google in a little piece on Mac stories.
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- It's kind of ridiculous, really.
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You know, a company the size of Google
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taking this many months to finish what has to be the final product, which is, you know,
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proper iOS apps with iOS 9 features. It's now mid-March, and they're only starting now
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to have, you know, multitasking support and full resolution support on the iPad Pro. And
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in general, there's a John Gruber tweet that he sent me, you know, with a comment that
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we cannot quote on the show, but basically saying that the Google's iOS apps are not
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really good, and I'm paraphrasing here. And I truly believe that Google has been going
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downhill when it comes to what they offer on iOS. They used to make, I mean, they make
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pretty amazing web services. Whatever you think about, you know, Google and privacy,
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I think it's undeniable that Google makes solid web services, and I use them every day,
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I depend on Google services. And some iOS apps are decent, or that I say good apps,
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such as Google Maps, for example, even if it lacks some of the features on Android,
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it's a good iOS app. But the majority of Google apps on iOS have really seen a decline in
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terms of quality and in terms of feature adoption with the latest iOS versions. I don't talk
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about it, but even if you look at the Google Calendar app for iOS, it's only an iPhone
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and it doesn't really use any iOS interface paradigm, which is not new, but I mean it
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doesn't have an iPad version and it lacks so many of the features of Google calendar
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on the web. And you can see this in many many Google apps, YouTube, Google Docs, Google
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Chrome was even, you know, it doesn't have many of the features that I want to see in
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a browser. It's a very sad state and a lot of people say "well, it's not in Google's
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interest to make solid iOS apps because Google is a web company. And to that I respond that
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it to, at least my opinion is, Google is a company that wants users to use their services
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as much as possible. To collect data, to make better services, to feed the AI that they
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use with more data, and to not have a solid iOS ecosystem is ultimately detrimental to
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Google's very business, which is to have as many users as possible, collect data, make
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better services, sell advertisements. And I believe that having a native iOS experience
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is key to that business strategy.
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I think that their apps got really good, and there's still points where they are good.
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I think Chrome is very good. I use it every day and I have no problems with it at all.
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Chrome is one of their apps that they actually update pretty quickly.
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It's had Splitview for a long time, I think it was like a couple of weeks after multitasking
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came out it got Splitview and it looks great on the iPad Pro.
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I think that is an app which I do like and I think it works well.
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And they have other apps like the Drive app was updated with Splitview again very quickly.
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They just seem to have these weird pockets where it's falling behind and I wish we knew
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There's obviously a reason, I don't know what that reason is, but at this point it's a shame
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to see because for a while, you know, Google were making some of the best apps on iOS and
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something's changed and we cannot see what that is.
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Before we move to the next follow-up item, I have a favor to ask you guys.
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So I was contacted privately by a friend of mine, Luca, he's one of the Italian co-hosts
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of Easy Apple, one of my favorite Italian podcasts, and he asked me today, and I'm quoting
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here, to put an end to the pineapple pizza travesty on Relay.
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So I need you guys to tell me what's going on with pineapple pizza.
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What is pineapple pizza?
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So this is a conversation that's mainly occurring on Upgrade right now.
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Jason's favorite pizza is pineapple and pepperoni.
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And John Siracusa, on last week's episode of Upgrade, told Jason that that's ridiculous
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and that basically Hawaiian pizza, which is ham and pineapple, is the closest that you
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can get to being real pizza and having pineapple on it, but it's still on the fringe.
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But now I, this weekend, am going to make and consume pineapple and pepperoni pizza.
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So that's kind of where we are with it.
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is this is a dude this is not your pizza although I'm pretty sure I saw Hawaiian
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pizza in Palermo I actually think I had one so it's one of those things that
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they do for the tourists that came I had it at that local pizza store that I told
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you about where Italian people were queuing up it exists I can just say God
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bless John Siracusa because he sees the light you know I mean but I can let you
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guess my stance on pineapple pizza and, you know, these types of Americanism that we see
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in Italian food. But it's a different thing, though. Right? I mean, what if I come up with
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an idea and it's like, let's make, you know, beef ice cream. Is that really ice cream?
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Sure it is. But it's somebody else's interpretation on it. If you're making, like, if you're
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freezing cream of flavoring beef. It's just beef flavored ice cream, right? Like this
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is just pizza with different toppings on it.
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I guess. I guess. Well, you know, we live in a democracy, so everyone's entitled to
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their taste. I mean, some tastes are wrong, but you know, whatever. I don't get too upset.
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I'll tell you what, Myke. Because I'm a person with an open mind, when we get together, me
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and you and Steven and Jason, I will taste pineapple pizza.
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It's surprisingly good. The sweetness and the saltiness, it works really well together.
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I'll tell you what, I'm open to tasting pineapple pizza. I don't fully condemn pineapple pizza
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for now. I'm not ecstatic about the idea, but I'm open to tasting pineapple pizza.
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So this will be long term follow up for like a few months time or something?
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a few months and we'll chronicle the experience with videos and photos.
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We can finally put this to bed.
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What else do we have on the follow-up docket?
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I was just going to say real quick, I'm really proud that the business that you and I have
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built is the preeminent podcast network for All Things Pizza.
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It's not a goal we set out to have.
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ATP, that's what we should call the network now, All Things Pizza, right?
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I don't think that's ATP.
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Yeah, I'll just buy the domain right now.
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OK, great. ATP.fm, all things pizza.
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No, no, you know, why don't you buy ATP.pizza, one of those new TLDs.
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Does it exist?
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Let's see. ATP.
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.pizza. I don't think there is a .pizza.
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No, there has to be.
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Come on, there's .plumber.
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Hang on, new .pizza domains.
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It looks like some people are saying that it exists.
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New pizza domain names. Yeah, it's a thing, Myke.
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Wow. Can we get AT? .pizza. So what would we get? AT.pizza, though?
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Not ATP.pizza, because then it would be allthingspizza.pizza.
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Allthingspizza.pizza.
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We'll see. We'll do our research on .pizza domain names.
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Excellent. Excellent. So the next item is a little bit
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follow-up, a little bit mini topic, but it came up, and I think it was
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interest all three of us because we, at least two of us, own both of these products.
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Sonos had a blog post last week that is unfortunately full of business speak but
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I think what's happening is that they're laying off some people and they are
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interested in voice technology. They actually call out the Amazon Echo
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specifically in this blog post saying hey you know we think there's some
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interesting stuff going in here with the
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power of voice control and some home
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automation stuff and basically what I
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think is happening is that Sonos is
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making some sort of change in direction
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some sort of pivot from just high-end
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sound system stuff that's smart to
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something that is a little more
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intelligent about the world around it
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and there's been lots of suggestions that maybe they're going to partner with
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Amazon and somehow have Alexa as a service on top of the Sonos speakers.
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I still think it's crazy that Apple hasn't looked at Sonos, but I don't know.
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Federico, I was specifically curious what you thought about this, owning both.
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I mean, there's a big gap in things like sound quality between Alexa and the Sonos
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systems, but at the same time it is kind of interesting to think like what could
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an Echo be like with really good speakers built in.
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Yeah, I've been thinking about these blog posts because it's very confusing
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and I struggle to understand what they were trying to say. So my first idea
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was maybe Sonos should just work to be like a third-party service that is
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supported by the Amazon Echo. I don't know if that's what they want to do
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because the idea that I get from the post is that they want to try to be like
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to build more intelligent speakers so they want to create their own Amazon
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Echo. I would love to have an Echo that sounds like my Sonos just because you
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know the convenience of the Echo I'm using it so much and I'm using it so
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much to play music that because of that convenience I'm not using the Sonos
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as much as I used to in the couple of weeks that I had the Sonos but didn't have the Amazon
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Echo. So I think I would love to have an Amazon Echo that sounds better like the Sonos. I
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don't know if Sonos can make a service, a system that is as intelligent as Amazon with
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Alexa. I don't know if Sonos is the kind of cloud company that can ship that kind of AI.
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And I know that I... I mean, my Sonos is in the living room. I'm not using it much these
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days because I'm playing Spotify with Alexa all the time. So, I don't know what I'm going
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to do with the Sonos, because it's just sitting there, catching dust, and I'm constantly asking
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Alexa to play music and, you know, to do all kinds of other things that we've talked about
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before. So in theory, I would love to use the Sonos with Alexa. But in practice, that's
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not gonna happen anytime soon I guess. And I don't want to buy a new Sonos even if they
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come up with some kind of assistant Sonos speaker like two months from now, which I'm
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skeptical about but, you know, just trying to imagine here. So I don't know. I don't
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know what I'm gonna do and I don't know if Sonos can do it. I just know that I'm listening
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to music with the Amazon Echo and I love the experience. The speaker is not great but it's
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good enough, you know?
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Yeah, I think I come down basically the same place that, I mean, Sonos sounds so much better,
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but Alexa is so much more useful as a piece of technology in my home that I'm willing
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to make that trade-off.
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And I think that ultimately a company like Sonos is going to need something smarter in
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their product, right?
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That it may not be enough just to have something that sounds really good.
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And of course they're doing a lot of cool stuff with all the streaming services and
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everything and they go into that in a blog post.
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But I think ultimately as we move forward, there's going to need to be some sort of voice
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control or integration with other things to really have a speaker like this earn its keep.
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At least in my house and I think in a lot of people's houses.
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So I'm curious to see what they do here.
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obviously hard to read at any time that a company has layoffs. But if they can make
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whatever decisions they need to make and move forward from this, then I think ultimately
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that's good. And I do like Sonos. I like them as a company. I like their products. So I
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think it's going to be worth keeping an eye on the next little bit to see, you know, does
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this go anywhere or was this just sort of a way to package up this bad news and then
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just keep going on the same path?
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You know what would be interesting? If Apple manages to get their home kit act together,
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imagine if they create some kind of standard for manufacturers of speakers and there's
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a specification to have Siri built into these speakers, so they open up the standard for
00:18:54
◼
►
the type of microphone that they want to use, or other technical specs that manufacturers
00:19:01
◼
►
have to follow. So in the same way that you currently can have different types of thermostats
00:19:08
◼
►
or different types of sensors, you could buy one of these Siri speakers. They're not made
00:19:14
◼
►
by Apple but they use HomeKit and Siri technology to let you ask things. Of course that hinges
00:19:21
◼
►
upon the premise that Siri should be good enough and that HomeKit should be more reliable
00:19:28
◼
►
and faster. It's interesting, sort of like a mix of HomeKit and maybe the "made for iPhone"
00:19:34
◼
►
specification because I don't see Apple making a speaker in the near future but maybe if
00:19:40
◼
►
they're observing this kind of trend of the convenience of Siri in the home with
00:19:47
◼
►
the speaker that plays music and does other things, it will be interesting to
00:19:50
◼
►
see that kind of product. Yeah, absolutely. So I think it's gonna be a really
00:19:56
◼
►
exciting category of devices over the next couple years. Of course there's like
00:20:03
◼
►
the elephant in the room like what if Siri shows up in a box but even even if Apple
00:20:08
◼
►
doesn't enter this race like there's lots of interesting stuff to keep an eye
00:20:11
◼
►
on so I think it's gonna be fun. And then you get you one of these speakers Myke
00:20:16
◼
►
you'll be all set. I've been too busy registering allthings.pizza.
00:20:21
◼
►
Seriously? Yeah I've registered it goes to points to real AFM. Which one? AT.pizza?
00:20:26
◼
►
No allthings.pizza. Allthings.pizza. Perfect. The DNS is propagating but that exists.
00:20:34
◼
►
- No, yeah, no, it works for me, that's amazing.
00:20:36
◼
►
- All Things Love Pizza.
00:20:37
◼
►
- AT.pizza, Hover says you have to make an offer, so.
00:20:41
◼
►
- Yeah, I'm not doing that.
00:20:42
◼
►
- I'm not going to do that.
00:20:43
◼
►
- That's why I went for All Things, All Things Love Pizza.
00:20:46
◼
►
- What's next, Myke?
00:20:47
◼
►
- So continuing the discussion of audio apps,
00:20:49
◼
►
I just wanted to take a moment to talk about Overcast 2.5,
00:20:52
◼
►
'cause there's a couple of features in there
00:20:53
◼
►
that I really love.
00:20:55
◼
►
Marco is a friend, but I am a big fan of Overcast,
00:20:59
◼
►
it is the app that I use every day.
00:21:01
◼
►
And he's looked at a bunch of great things
00:21:04
◼
►
He's looking at trying to make this sound better when you're listening for a speaker
00:21:08
◼
►
and all that sort of stuff.
00:21:09
◼
►
We've linked to his blog post, it's in the show notes so you can go and get it.
00:21:12
◼
►
But my two favorite things in Overcast 2.5 are patron features.
00:21:16
◼
►
So if you support Overcast through patronage, you can get access to a dark mode, which I
00:21:24
◼
►
It basically turns all the UI like a dark gray and blue, which looks especially good
00:21:31
◼
►
when you're listening to Under the Radar.
00:21:32
◼
►
the colors seem to match perfectly.
00:21:35
◼
►
It also looks really good with Cortex,
00:21:37
◼
►
and as such, Marco's using Cortex
00:21:40
◼
►
in the kind of the PR pictures, which is nice,
00:21:43
◼
►
but it does look good together.
00:21:44
◼
►
And also the file uploads feature.
00:21:47
◼
►
It's great for two things.
00:21:49
◼
►
So file uploads, I've been using it
00:21:51
◼
►
for a couple of months now,
00:21:53
◼
►
and I'm really happy to say that I like it.
00:21:56
◼
►
It's good for me as a podcast producer,
00:21:58
◼
►
especially if I'm putting something like chapters
00:22:00
◼
►
into an episode, which I do every now and then.
00:22:02
◼
►
I like to check that they work properly,
00:22:05
◼
►
so I upload the finalized episode to the uploads feature,
00:22:09
◼
►
and then I can test it in the app.
00:22:11
◼
►
And I also put things like audio books in there
00:22:15
◼
►
and stuff like that.
00:22:16
◼
►
It really is good, like I'm listening to an audio book
00:22:19
◼
►
in Overcast right now because of that.
00:22:21
◼
►
Has to have no DRM on it.
00:22:24
◼
►
That happens however that happens.
00:22:25
◼
►
But it's excellent.
00:22:28
◼
►
I really love those two features.
00:22:30
◼
►
And if you're a Overcast user,
00:22:31
◼
►
I strongly recommend becoming a patron
00:22:34
◼
►
to get access to both of those things,
00:22:35
◼
►
because I think they're excellent.
00:22:36
◼
►
Also the dark theme, the dark mode,
00:22:39
◼
►
uses the San Francisco font,
00:22:41
◼
►
which is, it just makes Overcast look very different,
00:22:44
◼
►
but I do really like it.
00:22:46
◼
►
So I think you should go and check it out,
00:22:48
◼
►
and there'll be some links in the show notes
00:22:50
◼
►
to go and read more about it,
00:22:51
◼
►
including Federico's lovely review,
00:22:53
◼
►
which also features some beautiful
00:22:54
◼
►
podcast artwork throughout.
00:22:58
◼
►
There you go, Avocast 2.5, go get it.
00:23:01
◼
►
All right, should we take a break?
00:23:02
◼
►
- Let's do it. - Yes.
00:23:03
◼
►
- This week's episode is brought to you by our friends
00:23:05
◼
►
over at igloo who create the internet you'll actually like.
00:23:08
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Now what does that mean?
00:23:09
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So why would you like igloo's internet
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Well, for one, igloo allows you to work anywhere you want
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from every device that you own.
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it's going to look great on all of them. Your phone, your tablet, your laptop, your PC,
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your Mac, whatever it is that you've got a screen and a connection to the internet, you'll
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be able to access igloo. You'll be able to manage your task lists, you'll be able to
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access versions of files, and you'll even be able to update your colleagues with their
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status update features and stuff like that. These days everything is mobile, your work
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should be too, and igloo believes in this, their platform is built on that notion. Talking
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about being mobile. People like to scatter their documents these days amongst the platforms
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that they like and there are so many of them like Box, Google Drive and Dropbox. These
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apps are great because they let you store things and they let you open them up in other
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apps and stuff like that but the problem with putting secure files, business files into
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these services is that you can end up in a scenario where there could be some sort of
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by allowing people to have it on their own personal storage systems.
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That is something that I know from working in a big corporation can be tricky.
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So to combat this, igloo allows you to integrate those services into the igloo platform.
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with their 256 bit encryption, single sign on active directory integrations.
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But you can also integrate with those fantastic applications and put them all together in
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But this isn't it for document stuff. igloo has built their own document collaboration
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as well. So you can upload documents to igloo, people can comment on them and you can all
00:24:59
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collaborate on them. And the great thing is that they have red receipts built in so if
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you have some kind of HR document everybody needs to read you can upload it to igloo and
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for as long as you want so there's nothing stopping you. Go to igloosoftware.com/connected
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thank you so much to igloo for their continued support of this show and allthingsstoppizza
00:25:34
◼
►
you're just really running with that aren't you?
00:25:38
◼
►
why not? I mean I've got I've maybe got another half an hour for it to be funny so
00:25:44
◼
►
I'm just going to keep going with it. There you go. It's my turn to talk
00:25:48
◼
►
after listening to you guys talk about home speakers
00:25:52
◼
►
which are not so interesting to me. Tell you what is interesting to me,
00:25:55
◼
►
Android. Android is interesting to me and
00:25:59
◼
►
last week, to everybody's surprise, Google dropped the
00:26:03
◼
►
first developer preview of Android N, the next version of Android, which will be
00:26:07
◼
►
fully unveiled at Google I/O with more additional features.
00:26:10
◼
►
But out of the blue, they dropped Android N.
00:26:13
◼
►
And Android N has a couple of things in it
00:26:15
◼
►
which are improvements for developers
00:26:17
◼
►
and improvements for the users.
00:26:20
◼
►
And one of the things that I want to talk about,
00:26:22
◼
►
because this is something we talk about all the time
00:26:24
◼
►
on this show these days, is split screen.
00:26:26
◼
►
So Google have now built split screen into Android.
00:26:30
◼
►
It didn't exist previously as a core pure Android feature.
00:26:34
◼
►
Some other OEMs like Samsung have built it into their own
00:26:40
◼
►
custom software, their own custom skins on top of Android, their forks as you may say,
00:26:45
◼
►
but it has never been in Google's version. So I want to kind of talk to you guys about this
00:26:51
◼
►
because I think it's a few interesting things. There's a few interesting design decisions that
00:26:54
◼
►
Google have made which contrast with Apple. So one thing is it's available everywhere,
00:27:00
◼
►
phones and tablets. So this is an interesting decision because I mean I have a Nexus 6P here,
00:27:08
◼
►
which is the screen is about as big as the iPhone 6 Plus.
00:27:13
◼
►
So I was wondering like is it that useful on a phone? And
00:27:17
◼
►
one of the things that I've found from using an iPad more frequently, Federico
00:27:20
◼
►
you can confirm if you feel this way as well,
00:27:22
◼
►
is there are just times every now and then
00:27:25
◼
►
where I wish I could look at two apps on my iPhone side by side just to check
00:27:29
◼
►
something. Not to work in the same way that I do on
00:27:33
◼
►
my iPad, but there are just things that happen
00:27:35
◼
►
I'm like I wish I could see two things at once.
00:27:37
◼
►
Do you ever feel that?
00:27:38
◼
►
Sometimes, sometimes, especially with Twitter, yes.
00:27:42
◼
►
Yeah, there are times where I'm doing something and I just want to be able to look at two apps at once.
00:27:47
◼
►
Like maybe I'm looking at something in an email and I need to check a spreadsheet, right?
00:27:51
◼
►
And I don't want to work like that a lot on my iPhone, but there are times where I want it.
00:27:55
◼
►
And that's what you get here with this Android N split screen stuff.
00:28:01
◼
►
So the way that you do it is quite interesting as well.
00:28:03
◼
►
as well. You open an application, then you long press on the multitasking button and it
00:28:08
◼
►
cuts the screen in half and then you can choose another application and you can look at them side
00:28:14
◼
►
by side. You can adjust it with a little slider in the middle, very similar to iOS, and then you can
00:28:18
◼
►
also turn your phone into landscape and look at the two apps side by side. And in landscape it
00:28:24
◼
►
works a lot better and you just have kind of two tiny apps side by side to each other. So
00:28:30
◼
►
It's definitely useful, I think. I think that there is some utility there and I'm hoping that
00:28:35
◼
►
this is something that we might see on the iPhone at some point in the future. But one of the
00:28:40
◼
►
reasons I find this implementation very interesting is Google are forcing this on all apps, pretty
00:28:48
◼
►
much. There are a few exceptions that I've found. Some games won't work, but developers haven't had
00:28:54
◼
►
to do anything specific to allow for this to occur.
00:28:59
◼
►
This is very different to Apple and I think that this implementation, the implementation
00:29:04
◼
►
routes that both of these companies decided, really kind of show their difference. Google
00:29:09
◼
►
will take universal support over a little bit of weirdness, because some apps do break
00:29:13
◼
►
and crash in places, but Apple will take less overall support for a feature for a better
00:29:18
◼
►
experience where it does work.
00:29:21
◼
►
And I don't know what the right approach is.
00:29:24
◼
►
Yeah, I've thought a lot about that.
00:29:27
◼
►
And it is interesting to me to see, like, we're seeing the downside of Apple's approach
00:29:33
◼
►
a little bit right now, where apps that so many people depend on and love and use every
00:29:37
◼
►
day, maybe not love, no one actually loves Google Docs, that users are stuck, right?
00:29:45
◼
►
But then you're also seeing the downside of Google's approach, where some things right
00:29:49
◼
►
now might be broken or weird or not work you know quite correctly so I don't
00:29:54
◼
►
think either one is necessarily like bulletproof as far as issues but I do
00:29:59
◼
►
think from the platform perspective I think Android's approach may be a little
00:30:03
◼
►
bit better because it brings the whole platform forward together you know you're
00:30:08
◼
►
not going to run into something major that doesn't major out that doesn't
00:30:13
◼
►
support the feature because everything supports the feature out of the box and
00:30:17
◼
►
and it's um, you're right, it is a different approach.
00:30:21
◼
►
I think even Apple has treated the Mac and iOS
00:30:25
◼
►
differently in this regard, that they'll do things
00:30:27
◼
►
on OS X like Time Machine or in OS X Lion
00:30:31
◼
►
they changed the way Save As works, or God knows why.
00:30:34
◼
►
And that was just the way it worked, right?
00:30:36
◼
►
The system changed and so your app changed with it.
00:30:39
◼
►
And iOS, Apple has been much more conservative
00:30:42
◼
►
saying, hey, you know, even with iOS 7
00:30:44
◼
►
we have this new design, you're not even gonna
00:30:46
◼
►
get the keyboard until you build against iOS 7 right the very very conservative
00:30:51
◼
►
approach to make sure that third-party apps remain stable or as stable as
00:30:57
◼
►
possible under Apple's watch. So I'm not I'm not sure which way is right I think
00:31:03
◼
►
from the platform perspective Google and the way Apple treats OS X is probably
00:31:07
◼
►
better but I think from the from the stability and the you know perceived
00:31:14
◼
►
quality standpoint that the way iOS does it may be better. So that's probably, you know,
00:31:19
◼
►
just kind of pick your poison. Yeah, and that's exactly what it is, right?
00:31:22
◼
►
And as I said, I think it speaks a lot to those two different companies and the way
00:31:27
◼
►
that they work. But I've got to say the ability to know that the majority of my apps are just
00:31:32
◼
►
going to work like that is great. And like this isn't an accident. Part of the way that
00:31:38
◼
►
Android has been built for a long time is with these size classes, which Apple has adopted
00:31:42
◼
►
more recently. And that's why it works like this because so many applications have already
00:31:47
◼
►
started to adopt this because it's just the way Android works because of all the different
00:31:51
◼
►
screen sizes anyway. So it's not like it was an accident, this has been a long time coming,
00:31:56
◼
►
so now this is kind of just one of the results of that. But it is very interesting, there's
00:32:03
◼
►
a couple of other things that I really like about this. So, well, one, Google Docs works.
00:32:07
◼
►
So I have that in split screen. This is something you'll like Federico, you can have multiple
00:32:11
◼
►
Chrome tabs side by side. That's nice. Because Chrome tabs from Android M, they became like,
00:32:21
◼
►
when you look at multitasking, instead of seeing Chrome as just one app, it shows you
00:32:26
◼
►
every single tab as well in the multitasking view, so it breaks them down. So you could
00:32:31
◼
►
look, say you were on the allthings.pizza website, then you went to Slack to tell your
00:32:34
◼
►
friends how awesome it was, and then you opened another Chrome tab. When you open multitasking,
00:32:39
◼
►
they will be stacked chronologically like that.
00:32:41
◼
►
So I initially didn't like that change.
00:32:44
◼
►
I thought that that was kind of weird to say that,
00:32:47
◼
►
like Chrome tabs are as important individually as apps.
00:32:52
◼
►
But now when I look at a change like this,
00:32:54
◼
►
I'm like, oh no, that makes sense.
00:32:55
◼
►
'Cause now that has enabled the ability
00:32:57
◼
►
to look at two Chrome tabs side by side,
00:32:59
◼
►
which is something that, you know,
00:33:00
◼
►
I have to kind of hack around that on iOS
00:33:04
◼
►
by looking using two browsers, which is kind of strange.
00:33:08
◼
►
is another thing that you're gonna like Federica, you can drag and drop data including text.
00:33:12
◼
►
Yeah, I saw that. So how does that work in practice?
00:33:15
◼
►
So I was just playing around with it then, I opened it with a client and a Slack client
00:33:19
◼
►
and I wrote out a message, I highlighted the message and just held the text for a moment
00:33:24
◼
►
and then I could just drag it to another text input window. It's pretty simple. It works
00:33:27
◼
►
exactly as you'd want. I didn't have to try and look up anything to see how that worked,
00:33:31
◼
►
it just worked the way I expected that it would.
00:33:34
◼
►
Nice. That's gonna, that has to happen on iOS eventually.
00:33:38
◼
►
Yeah. So this is my feeling, right? This is very early, right? Which is why there's some
00:33:43
◼
►
of it that are a bit wonky, but this fact that it works so well now is a credit to Google
00:33:49
◼
►
and the way that they've built their operating system and thinking about these things. And
00:33:53
◼
►
there are a couple of features in here that I really hope that Apple adopt for iOS 10.
00:33:59
◼
►
10. But it works surprisingly well, and I think that it's very interesting. And I have
00:34:07
◼
►
wanted to for a while to maybe like do a little switch to Android experiment again. And as
00:34:12
◼
►
I've mentioned, I think on this show one of my issues was using a tablet. But now all
00:34:17
◼
►
the tablet apps will be split screen too, so that might make it a bit easier if I do
00:34:21
◼
►
decide to do this. Something that makes this stuff easier for people like me, like installing
00:34:27
◼
►
Android N is for the first time now. Google is allowing over the air install and updates
00:34:33
◼
►
for the developer beta's. Previously you had to like plug it into a computer and run a
00:34:41
◼
►
bunch of commands that terrified me and I always got wrong even though Android developers
00:34:45
◼
►
tell me it's really easy, it's terrifying for someone like me. Now all you need to do
00:34:48
◼
►
is just go to the developer portal. It shows you what devices are linked to your account
00:34:52
◼
►
and you just say I would like to install on that one. You check for a software update
00:34:56
◼
►
and installs. It's very easy to do. Actually kind of easier than Apple's new way of doing
00:35:01
◼
►
it as well. You don't download a little profile, you just log on and it's like "oh we know
00:35:06
◼
►
that this is a phone attached to your account, would you like to install the beta on it?"
00:35:10
◼
►
and you say yes. I like that, that was really nice. They've redesigned the notifications
00:35:15
◼
►
tray, I'm still trying to get my head around this. One thing that they're enabling is quick
00:35:20
◼
►
replies now, which has obviously been in iOS for a little bit. This is a new thing for
00:35:26
◼
►
them. I think it might have been in the Hangouts app previously, but that was the only one
00:35:29
◼
►
that had it, so you couldn't reply from notifications. They're doing bundling of notifications as
00:35:34
◼
►
well now, so if you have a bunch of Slack messages, they bundle them up into one and
00:35:38
◼
►
then you can kind of tap to expand them. I actually think that's quite nice because now
00:35:42
◼
►
when I look at my notifications screen, it's a lot cleaner. They're doing their own version
00:35:48
◼
►
of Control Center which is pretty cool. So in the notifications tray now you can pull
00:35:52
◼
►
down very quickly and there's a bunch of buttons. So I have Wi-Fi, Battery, Do Not Disturb and
00:35:58
◼
►
Flashlight but you can customize those. You can drag and drop the order around and drop
00:36:03
◼
►
in whatever you want to be, the quick actions which is great and they have a bunch of them.
00:36:07
◼
►
Like I can have Bluetooth enabled, I can enable Hotspot, I can enable airplane mode. That
00:36:12
◼
►
can all be customized because that's what Android's all about.
00:36:16
◼
►
You know, I got an email just last night about my control center article from January.
00:36:20
◼
►
People are really mad about that.
00:36:23
◼
►
But I think Android is doing it better.
00:36:26
◼
►
Yep, sorry to say.
00:36:28
◼
►
And then the main other thing that they're talking about, which I don't know too much
00:36:31
◼
►
about, is additions to what Google call "Doze."
00:36:36
◼
►
And Doze is a system to try and reduce battery life drain.
00:36:42
◼
►
So when your phone is basically doing some stuff in the background, like the refresh
00:36:49
◼
►
and stuff, like we have on, what is that called on iOS now?
00:36:53
◼
►
The battery saving mode.
00:36:54
◼
►
Low power mode?
00:36:55
◼
►
Low power mode.
00:36:56
◼
►
So it's basically that, but they try and do more of it constantly to reduce the drain
00:37:00
◼
►
of the battery over time, and it tries to work out your patterns of using it, is my
00:37:04
◼
►
understanding.
00:37:05
◼
►
So they're doing more there.
00:37:07
◼
►
And Google is promising more announcements and more exciting things for N at I/O.
00:37:12
◼
►
So I think it's pretty cool.
00:37:14
◼
►
I think it's cool that they've announced it now.
00:37:15
◼
►
I'm using it on my 6P.
00:37:17
◼
►
It's very stable.
00:37:18
◼
►
And I think there's a few interesting things there.
00:37:20
◼
►
I like to keep my eye on what Google's doing.
00:37:22
◼
►
I think that this is an interesting development.
00:37:24
◼
►
So there's my Android segment.
00:37:27
◼
►
The closest I can get to imagining split screen on the iPhone is reachability.
00:37:33
◼
►
Remember that feature?
00:37:34
◼
►
Yeah, I still use it sometimes to access the notification tray thing.
00:37:39
◼
►
Yeah, me too.
00:37:41
◼
►
I'm trying to imagine if maybe, you know, having two apps on the iPhone with that kind
00:37:47
◼
►
of gesture would make sense.
00:37:49
◼
►
I don't know, the idea of a screen on the iPhone sounds odd to me initially, but I can
00:37:56
◼
►
totally understand why you like it.
00:37:58
◼
►
You know, I guess it's difficult to imagine that, because we're still thinking of iPhones
00:38:05
◼
►
as you do one thing at a time type of devices, but instead a lot of people are using their
00:38:11
◼
►
iPhones as computers.
00:38:14
◼
►
People do spreadsheets, people do, you know, they write essays or blog posts on an iPhone.
00:38:21
◼
►
So it's not ridiculous to say "well I would like to see multitasking on an iPhone",
00:38:28
◼
►
I don't know if Apple likes this type of approach, but especially after listening to
00:38:36
◼
►
you, it makes sense.
00:38:37
◼
►
I have to say, it makes sense to me.
00:38:39
◼
►
Yeah, I don't think that you would want to do this a lot, right?
00:38:44
◼
►
But there is benefit to being able to check something quickly.
00:38:49
◼
►
Maybe this could be something that just exists on the larger of the funds, because it makes
00:38:54
◼
►
more sense there.
00:38:57
◼
►
Who knows how they want to do it.
00:38:58
◼
►
Like, that's how landscape support is now, right?
00:39:00
◼
►
It's only on the Plus.
00:39:03
◼
►
I could see them, if they do it, do it that way, where, "Hey, we're already treating the
00:39:09
◼
►
Plus a little bit differently.
00:39:10
◼
►
We already did some iPad-like things."
00:39:12
◼
►
And yeah, I agree with you guys.
00:39:15
◼
►
not something I want to dive into every
00:39:16
◼
►
day but I could see it being useful to
00:39:19
◼
►
from time to time just to get something
00:39:22
◼
►
done real quick.
00:39:23
◼
►
Alright bring us back to Apple stuff.
00:39:25
◼
►
Okay so I spent some time this week
00:39:28
◼
►
thinking about the Mac as I often do. I go
00:39:31
◼
►
into my hammock and I think
00:39:35
◼
►
about the Mac just for hours and I kind
00:39:37
◼
►
of came up with three things that I
00:39:39
◼
►
think would be interesting to see Apple
00:39:40
◼
►
bring back to the Mac and that's of course
00:39:43
◼
►
borrowing a phrase from an Apple event
00:39:44
◼
►
event several years ago but I came up with three things that as I have used my
00:39:50
◼
►
iPad Pro more and as the iPad has sort of eaten into some categories of work
00:39:56
◼
►
that I do some things that I would like to see to see on the Mac. The Mac is still
00:40:00
◼
►
my main machine I don't see that changing anytime soon but there are
00:40:04
◼
►
things on iOS that that I think OS X could benefit from and one of them and I
00:40:09
◼
►
think the one that is the easiest solve is actually a third-party app called
00:40:12
◼
►
helium that basically does this is picture-in-picture and so as I you know
00:40:19
◼
►
I write a lot of these like Apple history things alright scripts or videos
00:40:22
◼
►
I will be watching a video often on YouTube and be taking notes on it or
00:40:28
◼
►
finding other links that I need you know to read and sort of gathering
00:40:32
◼
►
information as I write and it's it's a funny how that has really moved to the
00:40:37
◼
►
iPad because of picture-in-picture so I can open up you know a video on YouTube
00:40:42
◼
►
and I can send it to CornerTube, which Federico pointed me to, and I can get
00:40:46
◼
►
picture-in-picture. So I can have the video playing, I can have one writer with
00:40:49
◼
►
my notes, and I can have Safari open, gathering links as I go. And doing that
00:40:56
◼
►
on the Mac feels really old-fashioned all of a sudden, because YouTube is
00:41:00
◼
►
locked away in a browser tab, right? And I've always gotten around it by
00:41:04
◼
►
having a YouTube video either in another browser or another browser window, so I
00:41:08
◼
►
between it and my working tabs but it feels like constrained somehow. So anyways
00:41:13
◼
►
Helium is a cool app, we'll put a link in the show notes to it, that if you're
00:41:17
◼
►
looking for picture-in-picture on the Mac a bunch of people on Twitter pointed
00:41:19
◼
►
me to it. It's free on the App Store. You basically paste in a very much like
00:41:25
◼
►
CornerTube on iOS. You feed it a video link and then it basically just plays
00:41:31
◼
►
the video itself with no other Chrome just in a floating window very much
00:41:35
◼
►
like QuickTime does. It's a clever little app. I think it's a nice, it's like a good
00:41:41
◼
►
example of something in the Mac App Store that does one thing really well and is
00:41:45
◼
►
just you know super super simple. The other two were a little more a little
00:41:52
◼
►
more technical. The second one is UIKit which you may be familiar with is
00:41:57
◼
►
basically the front-end framework used by most iOS developers. It's what
00:42:04
◼
►
something like Overcast uses to build its interface. That's very high level. On
00:42:11
◼
►
the Mac they use AppKit which is much older. AppKit has its roots way back in
00:42:16
◼
►
Next Step 100 years ago. And they spoke about this on a recent episode of
00:42:22
◼
►
under the radar that this is a hurdle for an iOS developer to bring something
00:42:29
◼
►
to the Mac. They can't reuse much of their front-end code that they you have
00:42:34
◼
►
to sort of refactor everything using the toolset that AppKit gives you and
00:42:39
◼
►
clearly UIKit can't just be ported directly right? UIKit is built all
00:42:44
◼
►
around touch you don't have touch on the Mac but I do think that there's an
00:42:49
◼
►
opportunity here for Apple to make it easier for iOS developers to bring their
00:42:55
◼
►
apps back to the Mac and this is something we've spoken about a lot we
00:42:59
◼
►
spoke about just a couple weeks ago with that you know Mac OS X has a dead
00:43:02
◼
►
platform comment that the third-party ecosystem for Mac software is slower and
00:43:11
◼
►
perhaps slowing down compared to the iPhone and even the iPad and you look at
00:43:17
◼
►
something like, we'll keep using Overcast as an example, that has an iOS app, it's
00:43:23
◼
►
great on the iPhone, it's good on the iPad, there's a web component, but a lot
00:43:27
◼
►
of people, I know Casey, Alyssa's talked about this for a long time, would like it on the
00:43:29
◼
►
Mac. I would like it on the Mac. And there's a hurdle there that, you know, may
00:43:38
◼
►
not be worth it. Clearly in market estimation it's not worth it yet. And I
00:43:42
◼
►
think that that is something that may change, I don't want to put words in anyone's mouth, but
00:43:45
◼
►
but could be different if UIKit were to come to OS X.
00:43:50
◼
►
Now Federico, you spend obviously a lot of time
00:43:56
◼
►
talking with iOS developers, covering iOS apps.
00:43:59
◼
►
I mean, what are some other examples that you guys have
00:44:03
◼
►
of like, is there an iOS app you guys would just love
00:44:06
◼
►
to have on the Mac?
00:44:07
◼
►
Federico, maybe you're a bad example, but,
00:44:09
◼
►
like I think this is something people want.
00:44:12
◼
►
Like there are iOS apps that are great
00:44:15
◼
►
that would be nice on the Mac.
00:44:16
◼
►
I mean, look at Fantastical, which, in my opinion at least,
00:44:19
◼
►
is the best calendar app on iOS, just bar none.
00:44:22
◼
►
And it's great on the Mac.
00:44:23
◼
►
And I'm sure that was not an easy process
00:44:26
◼
►
to build a full-blown Mac calendar application,
00:44:31
◼
►
even though they had years of experience doing it on mobile.
00:44:34
◼
►
Do you guys think that this is,
00:44:37
◼
►
could this make a difference?
00:44:38
◼
►
Is it worth Apple even investing in this?
00:44:40
◼
►
- I think it would definitely allow some developers
00:44:44
◼
►
to create Mac versions of their iOS apps.
00:44:48
◼
►
And I'm looking at my iPhone's home screen right now.
00:44:52
◼
►
Something like Spark or editorial even.
00:44:57
◼
►
There's a Reddit client that I really like.
00:45:00
◼
►
It's called Narwhal.
00:45:02
◼
►
There's many, many iOS apps that don't have a Mac version.
00:45:06
◼
►
And I would say not necessarily because it wouldn't make sense
00:45:09
◼
►
on the Mac, just because it would require building
00:45:13
◼
►
completely different architecture and a different app at every level.
00:45:18
◼
►
And so for some developers I think it would definitely help in transitioning over to the
00:45:23
◼
►
Mac and even bringing a functional version of the same app, maybe isn't as pro-looking
00:45:29
◼
►
as more advanced desktop apps, but it doesn't have to be, because having a basic version
00:45:35
◼
►
that runs on the Mac and respects some of the Mac's basic UI principles would make sense.
00:45:41
◼
►
I feel like there's some instances where iOS apps can only run on iOS and would only make sense on iOS.
00:45:52
◼
►
You know, apps that use the gyroscope or apps that use the camera or apps that are based on location services,
00:45:59
◼
►
apps that require, you know, multi-touch in a different way.
00:46:04
◼
►
Some of those apps, even with the, you know, framework unification across iOS and macOS,
00:46:10
◼
►
I feel like wouldn't be possible on the Mac without, you know, a major rewrite anyway.
00:46:19
◼
►
So, I guess what I would like to see is, I agree with you, I think there should be a way to use UIKit on the desktop.
00:46:29
◼
►
Because for some basic apps that don't have fancy iPhone features, I would like to have those apps on the Mac as well.
00:46:38
◼
►
or at least I would like to know that there's a way for developers to easily bring them over to the Mac.
00:46:44
◼
►
But some other apps, I feel like even with the framework unification,
00:46:50
◼
►
they wouldn't make much sense on the Mac because of the unique iPhone and iPad features.
00:46:55
◼
►
I think as someone who, like for me, the most valuable tools that I use are cross-platform,
00:47:01
◼
►
So something like OmniFocus or something like Reader even or the RSS service I use behind
00:47:09
◼
►
it, something that I can get to my data anywhere I sit down to work.
00:47:14
◼
►
And I think that UIKit could help with that.
00:47:19
◼
►
It's clearly not a silver bullet, right?
00:47:22
◼
►
There's still lots of issues with, you know, is it worth the developer's time?
00:47:27
◼
►
Can they make the money back?
00:47:28
◼
►
Do they, you know, have to deal with the Mac App Store?
00:47:30
◼
►
A lot of people don't want to do that.
00:47:34
◼
►
But I think it would open doors that aren't open right now.
00:47:39
◼
►
And that was sort of my point.
00:47:42
◼
►
The last of the three things I mentioned was all flash storage.
00:47:46
◼
►
And you can still go today, the Mac Mini, the iMac, and then of course the 13-inch MacBook
00:47:53
◼
►
Pro, the old one that's still for sale.
00:47:55
◼
►
comes with spinning hard drives or fusion drives and
00:47:59
◼
►
I tangled with some people yesterday about the fusion drive thing and writing a big follow-up post but
00:48:07
◼
►
gist of this was like way back in
00:48:09
◼
►
2010 when Apple redid the MacBook Airs actually, you know announced those at this back to the Mac event
00:48:16
◼
►
So much of that design was built around solid-state
00:48:21
◼
►
storage and the MacBook Air was really for a lot of people myself included the first time I
00:48:27
◼
►
really used an SSD and
00:48:30
◼
►
it brought flash storage and notebooks to the masses in a way that that no one else really had and
00:48:37
◼
►
here we are six years later and
00:48:40
◼
►
basically, you can still get a spinning hard drive and a bunch of machines and if you get an iMac you have to deal with the
00:48:50
◼
►
400 RPM drive, which are terribly slow and
00:48:54
◼
►
It it really is crazy to me that Apple
00:48:58
◼
►
Hasn't moved the the ball forward
00:49:01
◼
►
With this yet and and you know, there's a lot of benefits diffusion drives
00:49:05
◼
►
Like I went into it in my article yesterday like it's great if you have small amounts of data or it's great if you want
00:49:11
◼
►
But also a lot of capacity without spending a thousand dollars on a you know
00:49:15
◼
►
a huge SSD from Apple.
00:49:17
◼
►
'Cause Apple's SSD pricing is way out of line,
00:49:19
◼
►
they need to revisit that.
00:49:20
◼
►
But my point in this was, you know,
00:49:25
◼
►
the Mac experience is so much better
00:49:28
◼
►
if you're running from flash storage.
00:49:30
◼
►
And that comes from iOS.
00:49:32
◼
►
I mean, at that event, he was like,
00:49:34
◼
►
"What happens if a MacBook and an iPad got it on?"
00:49:36
◼
►
Well, you get a MacBook Air.
00:49:37
◼
►
Like, that's an actual quote from Steve Jobs.
00:49:40
◼
►
Actually said it on stage.
00:49:44
◼
►
And you know the things like Instant On and crazy standby life.
00:49:49
◼
►
I mean before this if you had a spinning hard disk machine you put it to sleep.
00:49:55
◼
►
You know you want to get great standby life now we get just weeks and weeks and weeks
00:49:59
◼
►
on these machines because this solid state technology allows the entire system to be
00:50:05
◼
►
much more modern and it just kills me like you can go buy a new 27 inch 5k Retina iMac
00:50:13
◼
►
and get a spinning disk in it and it's just it's a subpar experience for what I
00:50:20
◼
►
think is the flagship Mac you know I think that that running machine is is
00:50:24
◼
►
the pinnacle of Mac design at this point and to cripple it with the spinning hard
00:50:29
◼
►
drive today in 2016 is just bananas and yes there's cost issues you know
00:50:35
◼
►
I think more important than cost is used to Apple is the margin issue like they
00:50:37
◼
►
could do this and they keep the prices where they are but they would eat into their
00:50:40
◼
►
margin which they don't want to do. I think that it's another example of like
00:50:44
◼
►
if Apple either is willing to charge a little bit more or willing to eat it a
00:50:50
◼
►
little bit more they could have products that are much better experience and so
00:50:55
◼
►
I don't know it's some stuff I've been thinking about I think that obviously
00:50:58
◼
►
the next couple weeks and we really focus on iOS with some new devices I'm
00:51:02
◼
►
you know hoping for some Skylake MacBook Pros but you know the Mac is is the back
00:51:08
◼
►
seat now and I accept that and understand that but I still think that there's room
00:51:14
◼
►
for Apple to make investments in it.
00:51:16
◼
►
The fusion drive thing is one thing, right, because it's at least some solid state, but
00:51:22
◼
►
the fact that there are just flat out hard drives spinning disks in brand new Macs in
00:51:30
◼
►
new lines seems crazy. Like I understand why it might exist in that 13 inch MacBook Pro,
00:51:37
◼
►
right? That, that weird old MacBook Pro with the optical disc in it.
00:51:41
◼
►
Cause it's just like, look,
00:51:42
◼
►
that machine just needs to be as cheap as possible for the type of people that
00:51:45
◼
►
need to buy that. But a new computer introduced like the 27 inch,
00:51:50
◼
►
5k, it just, there's so much amazing technology in that machine.
00:51:55
◼
►
Why would you put a spinning hard disc in it? Like it just seems,
00:51:59
◼
►
it just seems crazy. It really doesn't seem like a smart thing to do.
00:52:03
◼
►
Like if somebody wants to do it, like,
00:52:05
◼
►
think that should be an option, right? Like it comes with 512 or whatever and
00:52:10
◼
►
then you can put a 1 terabyte hard disk in it if you really want to, but as a
00:52:15
◼
►
starting configuration it seems just wasteful of all the power that you're
00:52:22
◼
►
gonna get from that machine. I totally agree because you're gonna be
00:52:26
◼
►
hamstrung by that disk I/O and it's um I think clearly it's about the cost you
00:52:33
◼
►
know that I think there's a school of thought that these retina machines are
00:52:36
◼
►
more expensive for Apple to build but they didn't want to measure the price
00:52:42
◼
►
points too much and so they're already eating into the margin a little bit
00:52:45
◼
►
which is maybe why they've done this. On the smaller Fusion drives the SSD
00:52:49
◼
►
portion is actually much smaller than it used to be which is lame and I think
00:52:54
◼
►
they're just struggling to hit those percentages they want but I would argue
00:52:58
◼
►
you that maybe there are more important things than 30% margin on iMac.
00:53:03
◼
►
In lieu of a second sponsor this week, I just want to talk very briefly about the RelayFM
00:53:10
◼
►
We would really appreciate it if you helped support this show by becoming a member of
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You can go to relay.fm/membership to find out more.
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If you enjoy this show, you can consider supporting this show directly with a monthly or annual
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does actually really help us. So thank you so much to everyone that has signed up and if you're able
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to, thank you if you decide to become a member of Relay FM too. I would really appreciate it if you
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◼
►
did, but if you can't it's also fine. But you can go to relay.fm/membership to find out more.
00:53:57
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So I realized today that basically this show has been three pet topics. So I spoke about Android,
00:54:06
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Stephen spoke about the Mac and now Federico gets to talk about text editors.
00:54:10
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Yes, so just quickly because I presume this is going to be a recurring theme over the next few weeks if you guys don't mind.
00:54:19
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Text editor corner with Federico.
00:54:21
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Yes, so just a quick update. Last weekend, Stephen, Myke and I had a Slack room, a Slack channel where we talked, we planned the show.
00:54:31
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And I was having a crisis over the weekend because this new app, Ulysses, is that how
00:54:41
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Ulysses is how I would say it.
00:54:43
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It feels like a close to Italian word anyway.
00:54:45
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So you probably would.
00:54:46
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It's much better.
00:54:47
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It's much better in Italian.
00:54:49
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Oh, there you go.
00:54:50
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Why are you even saying it any other way?
00:54:52
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You know, because I don't get to decide.
00:54:54
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Well, now you can.
00:54:56
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On this show, you say it the way that you say it that I can't say.
00:54:59
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Should I really say Ulysses?
00:55:00
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Ulysses? No, come on, come on. Anyway, I was having a crisis because Ulysses came out and
00:55:09
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I was intrigued. But I was also at the stage where I had something like five or six text
00:55:17
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editors on my iPhone and iPad, because as connected listeners know, I've been trying
00:55:22
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to get a modern opinion of all of them. So I was talking to Myke and Steve and I was
00:55:28
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like what should I do because each one of these apps has a feature that I like. An editorial
00:55:35
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came out with a new beta for iOS 9 and the iPad Pro and I was really struggling to understand
00:55:41
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what it is that I actually need. So I sent Myke and Steven a series of screenshots over
00:55:48
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a few minutes of me... It was really sad. Of me deleting every single text editor from
00:55:55
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my iPhone, except editorial, because I was sure that I was going to use just editorial.
00:56:03
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That's what I've always used, despite my absence from editorial for the past few months. I
00:56:10
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liked the idea of going back home, you know, back with editorial. And for a couple of days
00:56:18
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I was okay, I was fine. And then I realized I was preparing an article about...
00:56:26
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actually two articles. I was writing one about Overcast, which came out yesterday,
00:56:32
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and I was preparing an article about Spotify, because I've been trying Spotify again,
00:56:37
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so I was starting to put together some ideas. And I realized often when I think of, you know,
00:56:45
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articles, they start from a couple of notes and a few screenshots. So I take a screenshot
00:56:53
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of a feature, of a feature or maybe of a change in an app, and that starts as kind of my angle
00:57:00
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for the story, you know, my starting point. But too often I lose track of those screenshots,
00:57:08
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because the Photos app doesn't let me organize screenshots besides albums and likes. So often
00:57:15
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I take these screenshots and eventually I forget about them, I don't know why I took
00:57:20
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them and I lose the idea that I wanted to base the article upon. So I realized, you
00:57:27
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know what app lets me attach items to documents? Well, that's Ulysses. So this is a couple
00:57:38
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of days after I deleted the app from my device. And I realized, well, you know, maybe I was
00:57:44
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too quick to judge. Maybe I should actually try it. I downloaded the app back again on
00:57:51
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my iPhone and iPad, and I tried to use it for Mac stories and for Club Mac stories.
00:57:59
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And initially it was very difficult to accept some of the unique things in Ulysses. The
00:58:07
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first one is it doesn't have Dropbox sync. It only uses iCloud. But again, a lot of people
00:58:13
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were like "You know iCloud sync in Ulysses is super solid, never been a problem for me".
00:58:20
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The other problem was it doesn't use standard Markdown when you create articles, or as the
00:58:30
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app calls them "sheets", which are like documents. It uses this special version of Markdown,
00:58:35
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which is called Markdown XL, which is like a fork of standard Markdown, it's got a couple
00:58:41
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of different things with the formatting and the way that you insert links and footnotes
00:58:47
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in a document. So those two issues were practical and also problems on principle, because I
00:58:56
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don't like the idea of not using a standard or not using Dropbox. But I guess I just was
00:59:05
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too into the idea of having attachments, having notes in a document, being able to take images
00:59:12
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out of my photos app and into the text editor, that I started using it and I went a little
00:59:20
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nuts about it. It was late at night, it was like 4am, I was playing around with Ulysses
00:59:28
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and I realized that I could install custom fonts in the app. And I've always liked,
00:59:36
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you know, IA Writer uses a font called Nitti. And this Nitti font, which I really, really
00:59:44
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like, is not available for free. And it's like 200 euros to buy. So it was late at night,
00:59:52
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I was in a sort of tech-studding fugue state.
00:59:56
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So I went online and I bought the fond family.
01:00:00
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Oh my god! And everyone, again,
01:00:04
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we go through this time and time again and you guys say
01:00:08
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that I'm the one who has the fondest. No, hold on, this was for productivity, Myke.
01:00:13
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No, it didn't make you more productive. Yes it does. It's purely aesthetic.
01:00:17
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No, it makes my eyes better.
01:00:21
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Okay, well, whatever.
01:00:22
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So I went online, I bought the font family and I used any font on iOS to install the
01:00:30
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Then I went on my Mac, because you can only create custom themes for Ulysses on the Mac,
01:00:36
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and I created a theme that sort of resembles editorial and also uses different colors to
01:00:43
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highlight different types of markdown syntax.
01:00:46
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So I got blue links, yellow images, red footnotes, which I feel like really helps me in the editing
01:00:54
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►
stage because it lets me catch different items more quickly, instead of having every single
01:01:00
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item highlighted in blue, while each one has a different color now, which is nice.
01:01:05
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So with the custom theme, with the custom preview for the Mac Sorry HTML, the custom
01:01:11
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I came up with a really nice environment. I really like it.
01:01:17
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I set up groups for Max Stories articles, Max Stories linked items, and Club Max Stories stuff for the newsletter.
01:01:28
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I've been using it for like a week at this point, maybe five, six days actually, in what you call it, production purposes.
01:01:39
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I came up with a few workflows to publish to WordPress, to save a draft to Dropbox as
01:01:48
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a second backup, just to make sure.
01:01:52
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►
And you know, it's nice, it's fine, iCloud sync is awesome, it actually works, and I
01:02:01
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saved drafts to Dropbox, so peace of mind, I'm okay.
01:02:07
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And the editing tools in Ulysses are actually very nice.
01:02:11
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I know that on principle I shouldn't like a non-standard plain text fork of Markdown,
01:02:17
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but in practice it's really nice.
01:02:20
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►
Adding footnotes is faster, adding links is faster, and actually when editing URLs get
01:02:29
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out of the way because you have to double tap a link to show the actual link.
01:02:34
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So the document is not cluttered with all these links.
01:02:38
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►
There's a bunch of toolbars that you can use, there's menus, shortcuts, it's very nice on
01:02:43
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the iPad Pro, and I think I actually like it.
01:02:50
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The separation of different types of documents in groups helps me feel more organized, if
01:03:00
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that makes sense.
01:03:01
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►
When I'm in the Club Maxories group, I only see Club Maxories stuff, so it's easier to see all the content coming to a Maxories Weekly issue, for example.
01:03:09
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►
When I'm in the Maxories group, I can see all my linked items, I can see all the articles that I'm working on.
01:03:17
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►
Now, I know that I'm always going to need a tutorial to be installed, because of the more complex automation.
01:03:25
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►
I mean, I use the tutorial to generate my invoices, for the business.
01:03:29
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►
I use editorial to manage max service deals, to put together the price drops and to tweet
01:03:36
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►
app discounts.
01:03:37
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►
So I'll always need editorial for these advanced things, but I feel like Ulysses for writers,
01:03:46
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►
for people who write and to organize writing, it's not terrible, it's actually pretty great,
01:03:53
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►
and now this is the stage where I'm at.
01:03:56
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►
This is what's going on right now.
01:03:59
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►
I will keep you guys posted I guess.
01:04:04
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►
This is intriguing, I've been looking at it in the App Store every now and then and I'm
01:04:08
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►
just trying out editorial again because I don't do a lot of writing but I do quite a...
01:04:15
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►
I do like the scripts and stuff, like I write scripts and stuff like that and they're all
01:04:19
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►
written in Markdown.
01:04:20
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►
So I like to have a good app for it but this custom flavour of Markdown turns me off a
01:04:26
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►
a little bit, I think.
01:04:29
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►
Yeah, I totally understand.
01:04:31
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►
I only kind of remember it, right?
01:04:33
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►
Because I don't use it enough.
01:04:35
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►
The things that I know, I know them now.
01:04:38
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►
I've learned them.
01:04:39
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►
I know how to make a list, I know how to make something bold,
01:04:41
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►
italics and a link.
01:04:42
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►
Like, they just know those things.
01:04:43
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That's really the same.
01:04:45
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►
That syntax is the same.
01:04:47
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►
It's just some differences for footnotes.
01:04:49
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►
But what really matters is that when you export a document
01:04:53
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►
and you choose I want to export as Markdown,
01:04:55
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►
you get the standard plain text markdown.
01:04:58
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►
So it's just when you write, because they
01:05:00
◼
►
want you to save time, the syntax is a little different,
01:05:04
◼
►
but not for italics, not for lists, just for links
01:05:08
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►
and footnotes, really.
01:05:10
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►
But when you export, even those custom things
01:05:13
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►
go back to the standard way, so you
01:05:15
◼
►
can use the markdown in any app.
01:05:16
◼
►
And that's why I use workflow, because I can export as markdown.
01:05:20
◼
►
It gets the normal markdown plain text,
01:05:23
◼
►
and then I used my workflow to go to WordPress.
01:05:26
◼
►
But yeah, I understand why some people don't like the idea,
01:05:30
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►
and I totally understand why some people are put off
01:05:32
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►
by the iCloud only sync.
01:05:34
◼
►
I don't understand if the team is working on Dropbox support
01:05:37
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►
because on the Mac, you can't add a Dropbox folder.
01:05:41
◼
►
On iOS, you cannot.
01:05:42
◼
►
I don't understand if they plan to,
01:05:44
◼
►
or if it's only going to be a Mac only feature,
01:05:46
◼
►
but you know what also makes me optimistic about this
01:05:50
◼
►
is that it's a small team, it's 11 people, they only do this for a living, they've been
01:05:56
◼
►
around for a few years, and I mean, if they don't make the app, they basically don't eat,
01:06:02
◼
►
which is, you know, very sad to think about, but it also makes me optimistic about the
01:06:05
◼
►
future of the app. You know, as long as these people want to live, there's going to be this
01:06:10
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►
app. So, you know, that's, I guess, a good point. We'll see, I don't know.
01:06:16
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►
The thing that attracts me is it's very beautiful.
01:06:19
◼
►
It is, it looks nice. You can make any kind of custom theme, you can switch to dark mode.
01:06:27
◼
►
It looks very nice.
01:06:28
◼
►
Are you going to make me spend money?
01:06:30
◼
►
I don't know, just wait. Wait a couple more weeks, then we'll decide whether you have
01:06:37
◼
►
to spend money.
01:06:38
◼
►
Okay, I can live with that. That's good, because I need to buy it everywhere, which I'm happy
01:06:42
◼
►
to do. Because it's priced well, but it's not throwaway money. For me it's £35 on the
01:06:49
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►
Mac and £15 on iOS. So we'll see. Alright, great. So next week, next week's episode we'll
01:06:58
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►
be obviously reflecting on the Apple event which is happening on the 21st so we will
01:07:04
◼
►
be a day or so removed from that so we'll be able to talk a little bit in details to
01:07:08
◼
►
what happened at the Apple event. Is everybody excited? I'm kind of excited. I feel like
01:07:13
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►
I'll be more excited actually on Monday next week.
01:07:16
◼
►
Yeah, I think I fall in the same boat. I mean, we'll be buying a phone for a family member
01:07:22
◼
►
and that's probably about it.
01:07:25
◼
►
Yeah, we're hoping for some Mac stuff, right? I'm interested to see what happens to the
01:07:29
◼
►
laptops. I wouldn't mind replacing my MacBook Pro with something smaller and lighter for
01:07:35
◼
►
when I do need it. I just want it to have the most minimum impact possible. So I'll
01:07:40
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►
be excited to see if anything like that happens next week. I think it's going to be an event
01:07:44
◼
►
of a lot of stuff but none of it kind of really astronomical but we'll be able to see what
01:07:50
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►
that's like next week. So you want to tune in and make sure that you go check out our
01:07:53
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►
show notes this week you can head to allthings.pizza/connected/82 it will take you there, I object it, it will
01:08:01
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►
work. If you want to find us online head on over to fivetopixels.net for Stephen Hackett,
01:08:08
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►
stories dot net Federico Vitici and we're all on Twitter Federico's at the
01:08:13
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►
teachy vit I CCI Stephen is at is mhm I am at I Myke I am y ke and the show is
01:08:20
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►
at underscore connected f and thank you so much to igloo for sponsoring this
01:08:25
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►
episode thank you to all of you who helped support this show directly and
01:08:28
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we'll be back next time until then say goodbye guys
01:08:32
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he would hurt you adios