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Connected

78: The Nostalgia of the Underdog

 

00:00:00   [Music]

00:00:07   From Real AFM, this is Connected episode 78.

00:00:11   Today's show is brought to you by Squarespace and PDF Pen from Smile.

00:00:16   My name is Myke Hurley. I am back, joined by Mr Federico Fattucci.

00:00:21   We have traded in me for Steven this week.

00:00:24   You know, it was a difficult decision.

00:00:27   basically the the podcasting gods approached me and the gods were like you have to sacrifice one

00:00:34   of your co-hosts to have Myke back and it was a very biblical effort but you know Steven was

00:00:42   kind enough to to sacrifice himself for for the cause to have you back on the show Myke welcome

00:00:47   back thank you I'm happy to be back and so it's this weird thing to have missed two episodes but

00:00:52   it fell just upon the time where the day that I got sick and then like two days before I got

00:00:57   better so here I am and I enjoyed being a listener I was listening live

00:01:02   yeah we saw you providing follow-up and feedback and I was suggesting titles

00:01:07   very nice to have that live listening experience yeah we we felt we felt the

00:01:14   pressure Myke oh yeah you know we were being watched by you I hope you enjoyed

00:01:21   the show I hope that we didn't blow it Myke you did it you did a good job okay

00:01:25   that's good to know. So we have a follow-up, we have follow-out, but first

00:01:33   what's going on with Google Docs this week? Yeah, so we're gonna take a slightly

00:01:38   different stance now. You guys mentioned it last week. It's kind of got to the

00:01:44   point where we, me and you, are just, we just don't want to deal with this. So I'm

00:01:49   still using Google Docs for some of my shows, but for a couple of shows,

00:01:52   especially for shows where they're predominantly iPad focused in

00:01:58   preparation so Dish Show and Cortex as well, we're using Quip. Now me and you

00:02:05   have used Quip in the past. For the same reason Google was lagging behind

00:02:13   so we gave Quip a turn until Google caught up again and the reason we

00:02:18   switch back is because Quip has its own weird UI issues in places. So once Google Docs kind

00:02:28   of caught back up again, we went back to Google Docs, but at the moment I'm happy to take

00:02:34   Quip's kind of weird UI bugs for split-screen multitasking. Like, you know, they even have

00:02:41   some bugs in split-screen, like you hit this like button to try and change formatting and

00:02:45   and it only shows you half of the UI.

00:02:47   It's weird, but it's being more actively updated for the device that me and you choose to use,

00:02:55   so we're going with it for now.

00:02:57   Yeah, you know, you gotta pick the least worst option, really.

00:03:05   And Quip has a few issues, at least for me when typing.

00:03:09   Sometimes it doesn't accept characters on screen.

00:03:13   It's kind of weird.

00:03:14   Or the insertion point jumps around every now and then when you're copying and pasting.

00:03:19   Yeah, it jumps around and there's a bunch of oddities really.

00:03:24   But it's better than no split view at all or having to use the blown up keyboard in

00:03:29   the Google Docs app so I'll take it.

00:03:33   And we'll see.

00:03:34   It has some great features as well that I really like.

00:03:37   So one thing that I think is genius is native ability to import Google Docs.

00:03:43   That's so smart.

00:03:44   So I just was able to sign in with my Google Docs account and I was just able to bring

00:03:48   in our show note document and it maintained all of its formatting.

00:03:53   It has a URL scheme for documents, which is great for me to use my quick launching actions

00:03:58   that I use to launch all of our separate docs.

00:04:01   I use Launch Center Pro actions in a notification center widget, so I'm just able to maintain

00:04:05   They have a web app as well, which is also a bit buggy, but they also have a Mac app.

00:04:11   So I'm currently using their Mac app in split screen on my iMac with Chrome, which is really

00:04:16   nice.

00:04:17   So, you know, it's working for us right now.

00:04:21   When, and I believe it is a when, not an if, when Google Docs does decide to have their

00:04:26   iPad Pro update, I'm looking forward to checking that out and maybe we'll move back.

00:04:31   But for now, at least for me and you, and for me and Gray I guess, Quip is doing the

00:04:37   job that we need it to do, which is to give us the cross-platform experience that we're

00:04:42   looking for.

00:04:43   Yeah, and you know, you can even export documents as markdown.

00:04:48   There's a bunch of little, you know, nice features.

00:04:51   We'll see how it goes.

00:04:52   For now, you know, I've been outlining the shows with SplitView.

00:04:56   That's really all that I wanted, so we have decided to stop complaining about Google Docs

00:05:03   just publicly, privately, we say really bad things, but we'll see what happens.

00:05:08   Well, we decided to just take some action, which makes all that a little bit easier.

00:05:12   We always like to take action.

00:05:14   Gotta take action.

00:05:15   Yes.

00:05:16   Alex wrote in, in regards to some follow-up about App Update, showed you and Steven had

00:05:22   a fantastic conversation last week about the weird trend of the way that app updates are

00:05:28   pushed out by large companies. This was quite a good point that Alex made. He says, "I actually

00:05:35   thought one of the most common reasons developers may issue updates in the way that they do,

00:05:41   you know, with very little information, would maybe be quite widely known in the dev community.

00:05:46   The reason is that App Review, so Apple App Review, doesn't then know what to review specifically

00:05:52   Leaving a generic update message such as "Bug fixes" leaves the Apple reviewer with the

00:05:56   task of reviewing the entire application, most of which presumably would be working

00:06:00   fine since it's presumably passed App Review many times in the past via previous updates.

00:06:06   This reduces the chance that they test any new features or hidden features, which for

00:06:09   whatever reason the developer may not want the App Reviewer to be honing in on, thus improving

00:06:13   the chance of an update getting passed.

00:06:16   What does this say about App Review?

00:06:19   And also what does it say about the developers putting the applications through?

00:06:22   I mean, you can say what you want on either side, but that is a really good reason for

00:06:27   why they may do things this way.

00:06:29   I mean, we look at that whole Facebook scenario that you picked up on with the...

00:06:36   What were they doing?

00:06:37   They were using audio and all that kind of stuff to keep the app active.

00:06:41   Yeah.

00:06:42   And I know that people at Apple knew about this.

00:06:46   And they were just waiting for people to figure out what was going on.

00:06:51   But I don't know why AppReview didn't pay attention to that before.

00:06:57   But I totally believe that for big companies, not having a detailed changelog can help with

00:07:05   AppReview.

00:07:06   Maybe.

00:07:07   I don't know.

00:07:08   And also it helps them.

00:07:09   So I was thinking about this as well.

00:07:12   are many of these big applications, they roll out updates which have hidden functionality

00:07:17   in them that will come at a certain point because they have the update in place before

00:07:21   they make their announcement of the new functionality that their app has, right, and they do something

00:07:24   server-side to enable it. That makes sense to me as well, that you might not want to

00:07:29   kind of show your hand before you're ready to announce a piece of functionality. That's

00:07:34   another reason to do it, but not to do it every two weeks that way.

00:07:37   Yeah, you know it also makes sense for companies that do one of those staged rollouts of new features.

00:07:44   If you brought it up on the App Store, the change log is the same for everyone,

00:07:49   whereas if you just keep it vague, and then you roll out the feature internally in the app to, you know, only some users,

00:07:56   you can avoid the frustration of people

00:07:58   asking you, "Hey, where's this new feature? Why don't I see it?"

00:08:03   You know you can do like Twitter when Twitter doesn't often

00:08:07   You know announce new features in the change like on the app store

00:08:10   But then they release updates very frequently and then on the Twitter blog you can read about the new features

00:08:15   Yeah, still you know for for smaller developers. I don't think this is the best route

00:08:21   You know it. I just prefer to

00:08:23   If you if you are you know a smaller company or an indie developer, you know it's just better to

00:08:29   To tell people what's actually new

00:08:32   It was an interesting topic, I got a lot of interesting feedback, I forgot where it came

00:08:39   from but someone on Twitter said "I like apps that are updated often when they come from

00:08:46   indie developers because they make me feel like I have a relationship with the developer

00:08:51   in the sense that I bought their app and now it's getting updates and I feel like I made

00:08:57   a good choice." And really that encapsulates a lot of what I feel like.

00:09:00   Yeah, that's a really good point.

00:09:02   That's a really good point.

00:09:04   I just want to do a bit of follow out to

00:09:06   Remaster, which is a video

00:09:08   gaming show that me and you host

00:09:10   along with our friend Shaheed Kamal Ahmad

00:09:12   who worked at PlayStation for

00:09:14   20 years. On the

00:09:16   show over the last couple of episodes, we've

00:09:18   began what we're calling a state of the union

00:09:20   of the different gaming platforms that exist.

00:09:22   Episode 2 focused

00:09:24   on Nintendo. Episode 3

00:09:26   focused on iOS. So I

00:09:28   I wanted to just highlight the iOS episode specifically to listeners of this show.

00:09:33   I think people may enjoy to hear what me, you, and Shaheed thought about Apple's 2015

00:09:40   in gaming and what we think are their trends for 2016.

00:09:45   I think that there might be a good crossover.

00:09:47   I think that this series that we're doing on remaster would be enjoyed by many people

00:09:52   that listen to this show because we're kind of going in depth on each of the platforms.

00:09:57   week's episode which will come out later on in the week. We'll be focusing on

00:10:01   Microsoft. So it's a good series to listen to I think and I think people

00:10:05   that listen to this show may enjoy it. Yeah it was a really good discussion.

00:10:09   I agree. Stan wrote him a question for you Federico. Well a question for both of

00:10:14   us really about what stands we use for our iPad pros or if we know of any good

00:10:20   stands to use. I use the smart keyboard exclusively. I always have the smart

00:10:25   keyboard attached to my iPad Pro.

00:10:27   It feels like part of the device for me.

00:10:30   So I use it to stand as I'm typing,

00:10:32   and I also use it to stand to watch video.

00:10:35   And it does, I think, a pretty good job of that.

00:10:39   I wish that I could control the angle degree

00:10:44   when it's in typing.

00:10:45   I would like it to sometimes be a little bit more up

00:10:48   in front of my face, as opposed to kind of

00:10:50   further away from me.

00:10:51   But that's relatively easy to do

00:10:53   when positioning it on my lap,

00:10:56   but I would prefer to be able to make that change.

00:10:59   But Federico, I believe you use a dedicated stand

00:11:03   because you don't use a keyboard,

00:11:04   a physical keyboard so often.

00:11:06   - No, no, I absolutely love the 12 South ParkSlope.

00:11:11   That's the reason why I use it.

00:11:16   It's exactly because I want my typing experience

00:11:19   to be a little higher than the angle of the Smart Cover.

00:11:22   And it's this simple aluminum stand.

00:11:26   It's 50 bucks from the 12 South store.

00:11:29   I bought it on Amazon.

00:11:30   It's very simple.

00:11:32   It works with an iPad Pro.

00:11:33   It works with MacBooks.

00:11:34   - Yeah, this was designed to work for,

00:11:36   this was a MacBook product, but it also fits the iPad.

00:11:41   - Just perfectly.

00:11:42   And for extra, I don't really have to

00:11:45   because there's a couple of rubber feet

00:11:48   at the bottom of the stand.

00:11:50   But for extra grip, I actually fold the Smart Cover behind the iPad and then place the iPad on top of the Park Slope.

00:11:57   I just love the angle, it's very comfortable for me, I find it easier for typing long form articles on the Park Slope instead of the folded Smart Cover.

00:12:09   Really simple, the hardware is nice, it's a triangle basically, and gets my recommendation all the way. I love it.

00:12:19   Yeah, it's a nice piece of hardware. I mean, I have a few 12 South products. Everything

00:12:24   they make tends to be fantastic. I am interested to understand some of the potential ergonomical

00:12:35   issues with the way that we use our iPads. I don't know what's good or bad in regards

00:12:41   to it. All I know is I move around a lot more and into different positions when I feel fatigue

00:12:47   when I'm using my iPad as opposed to sitting in front of my Mac all day but

00:12:53   the desk that I have is set up to be ergonomically sound. I don't know what

00:12:59   the right option is but I am interested to kind of see how that works over time

00:13:03   because all I know is if I'm using it at the desk and especially looking at the

00:13:07   way you're probably using this stand is there's probably quite a lot of looking

00:13:12   down which is not necessarily that great for your spot. No, no that's not great but

00:13:17   But you know, the best part is when I feel like I need to move, because I'm using an

00:13:21   iPad, I can just pick up the iPad and walk around the house.

00:13:24   That's my thing.

00:13:25   Like I found myself today, I really noticed this, I was in the kitchen typing, standing

00:13:31   at the desk, and then I was walking upstairs and I had a thought, and I sat down on my

00:13:36   staircase and typed out some more.

00:13:39   And then I came upstairs and sat on my desk, like, I don't do that on my iMac and I'm not

00:13:43   moving my iMac around the house.

00:13:45   Yeah, exactly.

00:13:46   I don't know what the right option is, all I know is it's different.

00:13:50   Yeah, you know, for our type of sedentary work, really the best way to battle our trend

00:14:00   to sit down and not move is to change position often.

00:14:04   And I feel like the iPad kind of enables that behavior, because you can pick it up, just

00:14:09   stretch for five minutes, just change position with your hands, go from landscape mode to

00:14:14   portrait mode and really just moving and changing your position, standing up, you know, stretching

00:14:20   a little of your neck, you know, take a few steps when you're working, that sort of stuff

00:14:26   helps. I felt a lot worse when I used to work on my MacBook for like, you know, six hours

00:14:32   straight. And it's so easy to never, never, you know, go away from your desk, really,

00:14:40   you're in the zone, you're typing, you're coding, you're podcasting, whatever it is,

00:14:46   you're just at your MacBook and you never leave your desk. With the iPad it's just I

00:14:51   find it to be a little, actually a lot better because just the device is meant to be picked

00:14:58   up, be held, be touched, move around, and it's just perfect for me.

00:15:02   Yeah. All right, so we're not going to spend too much time on this because I don't think

00:15:08   either of us are really educated enough to talk about this from a security perspective,

00:15:14   but this morning, February 16th, Tim Cook wrote an open letter on Apple.com about a

00:15:22   security thing in regards to the FBI in the United States asking for Apple to create a

00:15:28   backdoor into an individual's phone because of a terrorist incident in San Bernardino

00:15:34   last year. And Tim Cook has written an open letter explaining why doing this one time

00:15:42   for the FBI could cause significant issues and set a dangerous precedent for Apple. And

00:15:48   I've seen a lot of backwards and forwards on Twitter as to what the security implications

00:15:55   are. But my feeling about this from reading it is, the way that I've come away from this

00:15:59   is not saying about how, you know, and Tim Cook's not really focusing on how feasible

00:16:05   this is from a technical perspective. He's kind of focusing more on if we do this, it

00:16:11   sets a, and one of the headings in the article, a dangerous precedent for doing it time and

00:16:17   time again.

00:16:19   It's really the principle of enabling government agencies to access the contents of an iPhone.

00:16:25   You know Tim Cook says we believe the FBI is doing this with good intentions and we have no sympathy for terrorists

00:16:32   But really the problem is if we do this for one phone

00:16:36   there's the risk that you know, the government is gonna ask to do this for every kind of phone and

00:16:42   The technology could fall in the hands of people who are not the government or you know criminals that want to

00:16:48   Access the contents of your iPhone now again

00:16:51   And I also read this as, you know, and I don't implicate this at all, but my takeaway is

00:16:56   Maybe Apple doesn't even want people inside of Apple working on this

00:17:00   Right? What do you mean? Creating backdoors

00:17:04   Mm-hmm, you know, you just don't want anybody doing this because you don't know what the people could end up doing with it

00:17:11   You know, I feel like

00:17:14   the best security is to

00:17:18   create a piece of technology that is physically impossible to break into, because every time there's a human

00:17:25   making a decision there's going to be a discussion, there's going to be a request to overcome,

00:17:32   you know, to circumvent security. And I wouldn't be surprised if Apple changed the iPhone 7.

00:17:37   I don't know if this is even possible. So this is why we don't want to dwell on this for too long.

00:17:43   We have no expertise in security, you know, iOS firmware, you know, secure keys, whatever.

00:17:49   But from my, you know, simple point of view, if it would be physically impossible for Apple

00:17:58   or anyone else to break into an iPhone, I feel like that would, you know, even prevent this

00:18:04   discussion because the problem would then change to, well, you shouldn't sell a phone that is

00:18:10   physically impossible to break into, you know? Because right now Apple makes a

00:18:14   decision, the FBI asks for a backdoor and Apple says no. But the fact that Apple

00:18:20   says no, it's not because it's physically impossible, it's because Tim Cook and, you

00:18:24   know, the entire company doesn't want you. Whereas with an iPhone that doesn't

00:18:29   actually have a way to, you know, to bypass security, there wouldn't be this

00:18:35   discussion. It would be, well, we don't want you to sell the iPhone in the

00:18:38   United States but what's the likelihood of that happening really so you know

00:18:42   maybe Apple will change the way they do this kind of thing in the next iPhone so

00:18:47   I don't know. So yeah it's worth reading because all of these things are always

00:18:53   written really well I assume Tim Cook writes them with some help

00:18:57   from Apple PR I guess but they're always fantastically written and worth reading

00:19:02   Yeah, and the letter came in just a few hours after the court order from last night, from

00:19:10   a California judge I believe, so it was a really fast response.

00:19:14   And my, I'm wondering, and I don't know, but are they gonna be able to win this? That's

00:19:20   the interesting thing. Are they gonna be able to say no to this? Because the implication

00:19:29   that Tim Cook is making is that they can do it, right?

00:19:34   They can do it, yes. That seems to be their implication.

00:19:37   Yeah, the implication in this letter is "this is possible for Apple to do" so they are,

00:19:42   you know, and I'm sure the court already knew this in whatever way, maybe through some legal

00:19:47   means that Apple had to testify or somebody had to testify, I don't know. But they are

00:19:52   saying basically that this is possible to do but they do not want to do it. And I don't

00:19:58   know how the law works but yeah that seems like a difficult thing but you

00:20:03   know especially because there was a terrorist and shooting and you know

00:20:06   involved and yeah it's it's a little problematic but Apple have the money to

00:20:11   fight it further than anybody else could I guess I guess we'll see what happens

00:20:16   all right let's take a break and we've got a very interesting first topic today

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00:22:09   So Federico you shocked the nation.

00:22:11   Oh did I?

00:22:13   Really?

00:22:14   Yeah I think so.

00:22:15   This was a big surprise to me for a few different reasons which we'll get into. You bought an

00:22:21   Amazon Echo. Why did you do this?

00:22:28   I don't understand why it makes you so surprised.

00:22:30   I just don't know why you did it. Like it's very confusing to me as to why you've done

00:22:35   this considering... Just tell me why.

00:22:39   Well, there's a few reasons. The first one is that I'm curious to try new things.

00:22:46   Sure.

00:22:47   You know, it's my job to try new stuff.

00:22:48   But the Echo isn't very new.

00:22:51   No, it's not very new, but it's getting updates and it got more powerful over the past few

00:22:58   months thanks to integrations with a bunch of apps and services. So that sort of piqued

00:23:04   my interest when I was reading about the Echo over, you know, over the past couple of months,

00:23:08   really, you know, the Spotify integration, the Uber integration. So I was, you know,

00:23:13   every time I see a device with a lot of support for third-party services and apps, that sort

00:23:19   of gets me, you know, it gets me really interested in trying the product. And also, it's, I want

00:23:26   to say it's part of a, it is really Dan Morin's fault, because, you know, he's been writing

00:23:31   about the Echo at six colors, and I've been reading about, you know, what it does and

00:23:36   all the crazy stuff that you can do for home automation, and I was like "man, this sounds

00:23:41   really really interesting". And also I'm sort of frustrated with Siri on the Apple Watch

00:23:48   because it's slow, and on the iPhone because for some reason it sort of just stops working,

00:23:54   and with HomeKit sometimes it doesn't understand my commands or it just doesn't do them. So,

00:24:00   You know, it was a combination of things. I'm curious to try this new device. I saw

00:24:06   the integrations. You know, Siri can be a lot better, and I've been meaning to try,

00:24:12   you know, a voice-powered service with a lot of app integrations, which Siri doesn't do.

00:24:19   And to me, the idea of a speaker/robotic assistant that sits in my living room and it doesn't

00:24:28   require me to bring up Siri on my iPhone or my iPad, I can just start talking. It was

00:24:34   sort of, you know, appealing to me for some reason. And so I was like, you know, the problem

00:24:41   is I cannot buy an Echo in Italy. So what do I do? Because if I go to Amazon US, it

00:24:47   doesn't ship to Rome. So what I did is I went to, first I looked up online, there's a few

00:24:53   communities of Amazon Echo users. There's a Reddit that you can go to, there's a forum

00:25:00   called — I don't remember, I'll send you a link, Myke. So I looked it up and people

00:25:06   were saying you can buy the Echo from the US if you find a way, and you can use it outside

00:25:11   of the US, you will just lose the ability to access some US features, such as asking

00:25:17   what's the weather outside, because you know, outside doesn't mean you're in America.

00:25:22   Or you cannot look up traffic information, or you cannot use US Prime services. But everything

00:25:30   else, those people said, it's working just fine.

00:25:33   So it works with your Italian Amazon account?

00:25:36   Oh yeah.

00:25:37   That's interesting.

00:25:38   Okay, so I'll get to the setup. So I looked it up, I was basically 90% sure that it was

00:25:44   was gonna work in Italy. So I went to eBay, I looked up Amazon Echo and there was a guy

00:25:50   in the UK who apparently has bought a lot of Amazon Echos and is selling them to European

00:25:57   customer with a bit of markup, of course. It's about really $100. I figured, you know,

00:26:05   whatever, I just want to try this. I understand why this guy went through the trouble of importing

00:26:10   all these devices and selling them again on eBay. So I bought it 10 days ago and it got

00:26:15   here yesterday, actually earlier than expected. So it was a nice surprise with eBay.

00:26:21   A++++ would echo again. Yes, exactly. So it got here yesterday and

00:26:28   I wanted to briefly touch upon the setup. You don't need a US Amazon account, you don't

00:26:35   need a Prime subscription, at least my understanding is you just need an Amazon account. So I logged

00:26:43   in with my Italian Amazon account and it was ready to go. So the way that you set up the

00:26:48   Echo is, you take out this cylinder-like object from the box, you plug it into the power outlet

00:26:57   I needed to buy a US adapter, by the way, for my Italian wall outlet.

00:27:04   You plug in the power, there's no ethernet cable, it works over Wi-Fi.

00:27:10   You turn it on, you connect to the Wi-Fi network that the Echo creates, so you connect your

00:27:16   iPhone to the Echo itself, and then you basically instruct the Echo to connect to your existing

00:27:24   Wi-Fi network at home, so it can configure itself, communicate with the Amazon servers,

00:27:29   download the software update... Actually, it didn't download the software update, which

00:27:32   we'll get to that in a minute. You wait a couple of minutes, and then it's ready to

00:27:38   go, and you download this Alexa app from the App Store, that shows you a video at the beginning

00:27:45   to give you a few examples of what you can do, and then you're ready to go. You can just

00:27:52   say Alexa and ask your command really. There's a bunch of features that you can try. You

00:28:02   can ask for weather conditions. You can ask for the weather. You just can't ask for the

00:28:09   weather outside. You have to format your question. So for me I would say "Alexa, what's the weather

00:28:14   in Rome, Italy?" That's fine. You cannot say "what's the weather". You have to specify.

00:28:20   And it totally works!

00:28:23   I was surprised to see that the quality of the speech recognition is much much better

00:28:29   than Siri.

00:28:30   It works from a distance, so I keep my Echo on a shelf in my kitchen/living room, and

00:28:39   I can talk to Alexa from another room, I can talk to Alexa while the TV is going, I can

00:28:45   talk to Alexa while Alexa is playing music from Spotify. The speech

00:28:53   recognition is just incredible, much much better than Siri. Give me some examples

00:28:57   of the things that you're asking. So I mean I've only played with with the Echo

00:29:02   for a couple of hours so far because I didn't have time this morning. So far

00:29:08   I've been asking questions such as unit conversion which I do a lot so you know

00:29:15   pounds feet to the converted to the metric system, unit conversion for money, dollars,

00:29:24   euros, that kind of stuff, just random Wikipedia type questions that I would normally look

00:29:31   up on Google. And I've been, I configured the Spotify integration because I wanna see,

00:29:40   I mean, I love Apple Music, right? I'm just completely in love with Apple Music.

00:29:45   But I want to see if, with the voice commands of the Amazon Echo, I'm going to listen to

00:29:53   music more during the day, because I don't have the pressure of having to interrupt my

00:30:03   writing flow to go to the music app, or to ask to Siri, which never understands what

00:30:09   I'm asking for. I want to see if by having a separate assistant dedicated to music and

00:30:17   other stuff, I'm going to listen to music more. Does that make sense, Myke?

00:30:22   I think so.

00:30:24   When I'm writing, I don't want to be distracted by other apps. So I mute notifications, I

00:30:31   don't use Split View, I'm just looking at my text editor. But I would like to have music

00:30:37   in the background. I just don't want to operate another app. I don't want to distract me visually

00:30:44   from text. So having a robot basically take care of music for me, I want to see if I like

00:30:52   it, if that works for me. Have you tried to do this with Siri?

00:30:56   Yes. And it didn't work for you?

00:30:58   Never works. So what is the hit rate with the Echo's voice

00:31:02   recognition? Well so far I would say, and again this is based on just a few experiments

00:31:08   from last night, a solid 90%. It's really amazing. So you're kind of, there is one

00:31:16   thing about the music though where you're kind of moving into mic territory here. You

00:31:22   just bought a Sonos and now you're playing music on the Echo. I want to understand what's

00:31:28   better, you know? What I mean is though, I get that. I can always sell this stuff later.

00:31:34   You sure can. It's just the funny thing of like you just went all in on this Sonos system

00:31:39   for playing your music and now you're like "eh, let's get the Apple Music". Well, you

00:31:43   know, I don't see myself ever leaving Apple Music just because I love the family subscription,

00:31:50   I love the "for you" section. So there's no way for you to play your Apple Music over

00:31:57   the Echo and work it that way?

00:31:59   Yeah, well, I mean, there's maybe a few ways. You can send the audio from the music app

00:32:06   to the Echo speaker, because it's also Bluetooth, but there's no way to ask Alexa about Apple

00:32:12   Music, and I don't see Apple ever working with Amazon to bring Apple Music integration

00:32:16   to Alexa. That's not gonna happen. But really, I feel like I just want to understand what's

00:32:22   better for me, you know? And the only way to do this is not to read on tech blogs what

00:32:28   other people think, it's to actually try it. And the Amazon Echo to try, you know, it was

00:32:34   a little tricky to get a unit because I needed to go on eBay and it's not officially supported

00:32:40   in Italy, but whatever. I just feel like there's something about the idea of a Siri for the

00:32:48   home that is separate from your iPhone or your iPad, that sits somewhere in your living

00:32:53   room or in your bedroom, you know, there's something to the idea of an assistant that

00:33:00   you can just walk around and ask questions to, that I feel like Apple should really consider,

00:33:05   you know, for the future. There was this post from MG Sigler just, you know, two days ago,

00:33:11   I was about to receive my echo, and he's making the same argument that, you know, this is

00:33:15   what Apple and Google should have done. And I understand why a lot of people are super

00:33:20   in love with their Amazon Echo. Even Christina Warren really loves the Echo.

00:33:25   It's very confusing to me because I don't understand why this physical device sitting

00:33:31   in one specific place is better than the device that you have with you and the voice commands

00:33:36   like "I'm sorry everybody" the "Hello telephone" or the "OK material" type scenario.

00:33:43   You know, there's something about walking around the house, not having to carry the

00:33:49   iPhone and talking to Siri like an idiot, just walking freely and talking to another

00:33:55   person but it's a robot.

00:33:57   That seems to be the key here.

00:34:00   Is it doing a better job then?

00:34:02   Is that the key here?

00:34:03   It's doing a better job?

00:34:05   It depends.

00:34:06   So you cannot of course do the native stuff that Siri does, you cannot send messages or

00:34:13   you know, you cannot open apps on your device, of course.

00:34:16   But you can do a lot of the things that Siri does. You can connect your calendar,

00:34:20   you can connect to home automation devices, which is what I'm gonna do this

00:34:24   week,

00:34:25   because a lot of people are saying that the

00:34:28   Philips Hue integration, the Vulkan Wemo integration is super solid and much

00:34:32   better than HomeKit.

00:34:34   And, you know,

00:34:37   I feel like Siri has a

00:34:40   place on the iPhone for some deep native integrations, but a lot of the things that I would like

00:34:48   Siri to do, the Amazon Echo already does. So, you know, turning my lights on and off,

00:34:56   connecting to my balcony Wiimos switch, asking for music that actually understands me. I

00:35:02   mean, the Echo is even doing a better job at accepting my, you know, Italian accent,

00:35:08   Whereas Siri gets a lot more confused than the Amazon Echo.

00:35:12   So it's more forgiving and really I just feel like the speech recognition is better.

00:35:19   Especially when you can talk, walk around the house and say Alexa out loud and it listens

00:35:25   to you.

00:35:26   That's impressive.

00:35:28   But I'm in the early stages of playing around with the Echo.

00:35:32   I've only configured Spotify integration and asked a bunch of questions for converting

00:35:38   units and Wikipedia and weather.

00:35:41   There's a lot more to try.

00:35:42   Are you able to hook up the Echo with any of the existing home automation devices you

00:35:48   have?

00:35:50   I have the Philips Hue lights, I have the Belkin Wemo switch, the traditional one.

00:35:57   I feel I don't think I can connect the Echo to the Elgato sensors.

00:36:03   I don't think there's a way.

00:36:06   So that's too bad.

00:36:07   Yeah, it would have been nice.

00:36:09   What I want to do is, because there's an IFTTT integration with the Amazon Echo, I want to

00:36:18   create ways to add tasks to my to-do with Alexa.

00:36:23   That's going to be nice.

00:36:26   I'm thinking about a workflow to have Alexa send an email to my todo email address and

00:36:33   create tasks with Alexa.

00:36:35   Alright, so actually, here's the thing. So what I wanted to bring up next might help

00:36:40   you with this. Again, Dan Morin, who seems to be the king of home automation these days,

00:36:48   turned me on Fire6Colors to Wink. Wink is an app and web service, they also make their

00:36:58   own hardware products as well, which allows you to control and program some devices and

00:37:07   it has a bunch of devices that it works with, one of them being the Amazon Echo. So you're

00:37:12   able to chain them together, chain your devices together, it kind of works as a bridge between

00:37:18   them all. And the reason that I have checked this out is because Wink and my

00:37:23   Canary, my home alarm system, my home security system, work together. So I'm

00:37:30   able to do things with the Wink integration of Canary that I cannot do

00:37:34   with a Canary on its own. So what I've been able to do is to... we've kind of

00:37:39   decided that we don't want the camera on when we're at home.

00:37:44   Sure. Yeah. Now you can have that. You can have it armed when you're at home and it knows

00:37:49   you're at home so it doesn't go crazy all the time. Uh, and you can train it to know

00:37:53   that who the people are, but I just don't want it to be on and armed when we're at home.

00:37:59   So we have it in privacy mode. But what I think about the other a couple of days ago

00:38:03   is, uh, if we had a home intrusion at night, I want the canary to pick that up. Yeah. Yeah.

00:38:12   So I've been able to use Wink to program my Canary to be in armed mode at 2am, because

00:38:20   that's usually when there's no movement in the house because I'm usually asleep by that

00:38:25   time, and then to set back into privacy mode at 7am, which is when Adina is waking up to

00:38:31   go to work.

00:38:33   So that now does that on its own.

00:38:35   But you're able to use Wink as like a home automation protocol, so you're able to use

00:38:42   the Amazon Echo to do things.

00:38:44   So for example, I believe that Dan Morin uses Wink as a way to turn on his Canary via the

00:38:54   Echo.

00:38:55   Oh, that's nice.

00:38:57   You know, I can try to turn on my many thing recording system with the iPhones and iPod

00:39:06   Touches that I use as cameras with the Amazon Echo.

00:39:10   You know, I'm gonna try this.

00:39:11   Yeah, so as Dan says in a post that I'll put in my show notes, which you can find at

00:39:15   relay.fm/connects/78 or in your podcast app of choice, he says "I can now arm, disarm,

00:39:21   or engage Canary's privacy mode via voice commands to Alexa.

00:39:24   Moreover, I also integrated it with my Wemo light switch so when my office light automatically

00:39:29   turns off at night the canary is automatically armed.

00:39:34   And Wink make their own physical products which allow you to trigger a lot of these

00:39:38   actions via touch.

00:39:39   So they have physical and they also have like some hub stuff but it seems like this protocol

00:39:44   that allows you to connect these devices together that previously couldn't talk to each other.

00:39:49   So there could be some interesting ways for you to unlock some features in there, Federico.

00:39:55   Just another point that I feel like people are going to ask us about.

00:39:59   Yes, I do talk to my Amazon Echo in English.

00:40:02   All my devices are set to English, even if I live in Italy, just for... because most

00:40:09   of the time I talk in English, you know, for work and with friends like Myke and Steven.

00:40:16   And the people who are close to me, my family, my girlfriend, my close friends, they are

00:40:20   used to seeing me and hearing me talking English to Siri, on the shows when I'm in the other

00:40:28   room.

00:40:29   So people around me don't think I'm crazy, they do know it's for work.

00:40:34   So when I set up the Echo yesterday, no one was surprised to hear me talking English to

00:40:41   the speaker.

00:40:42   So, yeah.

00:40:43   Okay.

00:40:44   That's a normal thing that you do.

00:40:45   Yes.

00:40:46   with your accent. Yeah, you know, much better than Siri. Yes.

00:40:49   Alright, we should come back to the Sonos, because Sonos and Apple Music support launched

00:40:54   this week, so I want to get your thoughts on that better, Iko. But before we do that,

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00:42:46   should. Alright, so Sonos and Apple Music support is now here, Federico. So in your

00:42:55   home full of speakers these days, what are your thoughts now that the service has launched?

00:43:07   It works, it's nice, it just doesn't have the same fun of Apple Music, in the sense

00:43:15   that it's a very utilitarian interface.

00:43:19   When you connect Apple Music to Sonos, the main page of the Apple Music service in the

00:43:25   Sonos app, it's really just a list of albums and songs.

00:43:30   There's no...

00:43:31   You know all the stuff that's going on in the Apple Music, you know, the custom backgrounds,

00:43:37   the curation with the different sizes of albums and playlists, the rotating banners at the

00:43:45   top, there's none of that in the Sonos app, it's just a list of, either a list or a grid

00:43:51   of albums.

00:43:52   It's just not as fun as Apple Music.

00:43:55   And it doesn't have many, it's not just a visual problem, it doesn't have many of the

00:43:59   same features or recommendations of Apple Music. So when you listen to an album in Apple

00:44:03   Music, at the bottom or at the side if you're on the iPad, you get either recommendations

00:44:09   for similar artists or similar albums. You get none of that on the Sonos app. You just

00:44:17   get the album or song or artist that you're listening to. And even when you open artist

00:44:21   pages in Sonos, you don't see the same browsing experience of Apple Music. When you're in

00:44:30   Apple Music, you get the latest release at the top, top songs, top albums, which is,

00:44:36   you know, these features were taken from Beats Music. So before you dig deeper into an artist's

00:44:41   catalogue, you see the top stuff and the latest stuff at the top. In the Sonos app, you just

00:44:48   get a grid of albums in no particular order. You have to remember what's the year the albums

00:44:55   were published, what's a popular song's name. And of course you don't get the three controls

00:45:02   at the top of an artist page to switch between Apple Music, My Music and Connect. You simply

00:45:09   get what's on Apple Music. It's a very basic integration. The "For You" section is there,

00:45:16   and it contains the same content of the "For You" section in the Music app, it's just not as fun.

00:45:23   Again, because there's no... you know, the layout is super basic, it's a list of stuff that, you know,

00:45:31   Apple Music thinks you should listen to. So if you're really into Apple Music, all the functionalities

00:45:38   and the design itself, you should use the Apple Music app on your phone.

00:45:45   That's not to say that this is not a welcome integration, because it totally works,

00:45:50   for you it has the same recommendations, the setup experience is very nice,

00:45:56   you're taken to this custom login page from the Sonos app into Apple Music on your iPhone or your iPad,

00:46:04   you authenticate with your Apple ID, you say "yes, I want to give Sonos access to my Apple Music account",

00:46:10   and then you're taken back to the Sonos controller app for iOS.

00:46:14   It's a really nice setup experience, it's super stable, this is not a surprise because

00:46:19   the entire Sonos line seems to be very stable for me.

00:46:24   Streaming is okay, and one of the perks of using Sonos is that you can search across

00:46:31   multiple services at once.

00:46:33   So if you connect Apple Music, SoundCloud, then your own music library, you can do cross

00:46:40   search across multiple services at once.

00:46:43   So for instance, when I'm looking for Death Cab for Cutie, I can see results from Apple

00:46:48   Music, I can see remixes from SoundCloud, and I can see the bootleg shows that I have

00:46:53   on my Synology with my local music library.

00:46:57   That's very nice.

00:46:58   Bootleg shows, huh?

00:46:59   Yes.

00:47:00   Yes.

00:47:01   Yes.

00:47:02   Yes.

00:47:03   No, that's true, actually.

00:47:04   Look at all the videos.

00:47:05   No, really, it's from other people, but you know, the concept applies.

00:47:10   And it's very nice to have this kind of unified experience.

00:47:15   And it's, I mean, of course it's better than having to set up, you know, workarounds

00:47:22   to stream from the Apple Music app to the Sonos, which is totally possible because I

00:47:27   installed Air Sonos on my Mac, but, you know, the native integration on the Sonos itself

00:47:33   is better and, you know, faster.

00:47:36   So it's nice.

00:47:37   It works.

00:47:38   it's just not as fun or as full-featured as the music app.

00:47:42   And it also supports family accounts, right?

00:47:46   I haven't tried that, but I think it does.

00:47:50   There's a kbase article. Well, we should have had Sivan explain this to us.

00:47:54   In his honor, we will include an article from the kbase.

00:47:58   I assume it's the kbase support.apple.com?

00:48:02   Who knows? That thing's a mystery to everybody.

00:48:06   Wow, look at that, there's a document here.

00:48:09   Yeah, you're right.

00:48:10   Thank you, Myke.

00:48:11   I didn't know this.

00:48:12   So last up today, this is an interesting one.

00:48:19   A special episode of the talk show dropped last Friday.

00:48:25   There was already an episode put out in the week.

00:48:28   It was, you know, a thing orchestrated with Apple PR, I'm sure, with Mr. Gruber.

00:48:35   And this one, this isn't the first time, this is maybe like the third or fourth time that

00:48:39   an Apple executive has appeared on the talk show, but this time Eddy Cue and Craig Federighi

00:48:44   joined John Gruber.

00:48:46   And it seemed like that they had some messages that they wanted to put across.

00:48:52   And they seemed to focus around software quality.

00:48:55   Yeah.

00:48:56   Right?

00:48:57   So they were talking about the Apple TV, they were talking about the criticisms of software

00:49:02   quality and iTunes.

00:49:04   They seem to be kind of the big things that were discussed here.

00:49:08   And I mean, it's difficult to really kind of look at what the message itself was.

00:49:15   There's a lot of criticism of what was said on the show by the Apple executives.

00:49:22   Effectively, in a nutshell, they were talking about the complexity of their services and

00:49:28   saying that the apps crash less.

00:49:32   are more users now and things are better in general. That's kind of like what they were

00:49:36   saying and the criticism of this is that doesn't really say anything about the quality of the

00:49:43   software. That there are more issues than just crashing and just saying that there are

00:49:49   more people using it doesn't excuse the fact that there are problems perceived by people.

00:49:55   And there's also been criticism of the tech press as well for the way that this is being

00:49:59   looked at, you know, from the other side, saying that there's a bit of an echo chamber

00:50:04   effect going on here. I'm wondering kind of where you stand on this, given the criticism,

00:50:12   the response and the criticisms again.

00:50:15   You may be surprised, Myke, to know that I stand sort of in the middle. Let me explain.

00:50:21   I feel like for many people the main problem is that Apple is doing too many things right

00:50:27   now. And a lot of people don't like that, because a lot of people grew up with the sort

00:50:33   of Apple that was focused on a couple of things, and now that they're doing smartphones and

00:50:38   tablets and computers and music and iCloud and watches and maybe in the future cars and

00:50:45   all this other stuff, I just feel like... I mean, of course Apple is not the underdog

00:50:50   anymore. And for some people, it becomes more difficult to accept the flaws of a company

00:51:00   when it's so huge and so big. Problems exist, for sure. We've seen the crazy bugs with iOS

00:51:12   7, we continue to see the problems with iTunes, with Apple Music, and there's a couple of

00:51:17   apps.

00:51:18   issues with the device that we love, right? You know, you called out a lot of them in

00:51:22   your initial review and a lot of those things haven't been changed. There are a ton of issues

00:51:28   with the keyboard and the way that that's supported, like the actual software keyboard.

00:51:33   There are bugs all over the place, right, in different Apple products and services.

00:51:39   And part of the problem, and I think the real problem, the reason this is an issue in the

00:51:42   first place, and they address this on the show, is that Apple holds themselves to a

00:51:46   higher standard than everybody else, which is why they open themselves up to this criticism.

00:51:51   Yeah, I mean, of course, we all expect better from Apple. The problem is, I feel like it's

00:51:58   just at some point it becomes humanly impossible to serve, you know, a billion devices every

00:52:04   month and not have bugs all over the place. And that's just the reality that we need to

00:52:09   accept.

00:52:10   But software bugs aren't like service bugs, I'm sure crop up with a billion people, but

00:52:18   software bugs don't get any worse because there's a billion people.

00:52:21   There's only one piece of software.

00:52:23   That's arguable.

00:52:24   That's arguable because, you know...

00:52:25   I guess different circumstances, right?

00:52:27   There is how many quadrillions of edge cases are there.

00:52:31   But that isn't necessarily the case when you're looking at something like Discovery-D, right?

00:52:36   That's not exemplified by the amount of people.

00:52:39   That's why I'm in the middle, because we need to understand which problems we're talking

00:52:42   about. Because many problems are objective, and you should fix those, and it's really

00:52:47   a shame that they're shipped, so we can talk about Discovery D, we can talk about the software

00:52:52   keyboard on the iPad Pro, but there's other stuff that so many variables you gotta take

00:52:57   into account. Which device are you using? Where are you located? Which settings do you

00:53:02   have? Which language do you have in your device? Have you updated to the latest software? What's

00:53:08   screen resolution there.

00:53:10   What's your network connectivity status?

00:53:12   Exactly, exactly. There's so many variables when so many people are involved. And saying

00:53:18   Apple has more bugs, it's really a blank... it's one of those statements that just says

00:53:25   everything and says nothing. But that doesn't mean that Apple doesn't have problems. See,

00:53:30   this is where it gets tricky. It is objective that there are issues, but it's also something

00:53:40   that we gotta keep in mind, that not everyone is seeing the same problems, and many of these

00:53:46   problems change from person to person, just because it's the nature of software, when

00:53:51   and it operates at scale to not have the same issues or the same qualities for everyone.

00:53:58   It's a very tricky discussion because it's easy to say "Well, Apple is so big now,

00:54:08   they don't care about quality, and their software is riddled with problems, and I'm

00:54:14   just going to stop using Apple devices".

00:54:17   On the other hand, you have people saying "No, no, no, everything's fine, and Apple

00:54:21   is awesome and Apple is magic and everything is working correctly. I stand in the middle

00:54:27   of all that. There are problems, but you know, Apple is also working at a scale that's unimaginable,

00:54:37   just compared to a few years ago. When you consider all, you know, iCloud, the iTunes

00:54:44   or Apple Music, so many web services with so many people iMessage, you know?

00:54:51   It's just different than it used to be, and a lot of people are having difficulty coming

00:54:57   to terms with that reality, it feels to me like, you know, some people just prefer the

00:55:02   Apple of the old days, you know, the nostalgia of the underdog, and nowadays it's different.

00:55:08   And it was a really interesting discussion.

00:55:11   I keep not accepting the excuse that Apple is seeing fewer crashes. That's really not

00:55:19   an explanation because not...

00:55:21   It is a separate fact.

00:55:23   That's hiding the truth with a pretty statistic.

00:55:28   It's like, you know what, that's awesome. Congratulations on that. That is great. I'm

00:55:32   pleased that that's happening, you know, that you've done that. But that doesn't... It's

00:55:37   It's not crashes that are the problem, it seems like weird decisions and missteps are

00:55:42   the issues or things that they're just not doing that they should do.

00:55:48   That's where the problems come in and we go back to decisions that are made or corners

00:55:53   that are cut.

00:55:54   So for example, again we keep bringing this up because it's something that annoys us,

00:55:57   the layout of the software keyboard on the iPad Pro.

00:56:00   They just didn't bother to do it.

00:56:03   That's what it is.

00:56:04   That's not a bug.

00:56:05   That's the quality of software.

00:56:06   It's not a bug. It is poor decisions that are made which we don't expect considering

00:56:12   the standard that Apple hold themselves to with the quality of software. The quality

00:56:17   is the thought that goes into it, not the bugs that you find within it. That's what

00:56:22   a lot of the issue is here, is the thought that you're putting into this application,

00:56:27   this service, this part of your software. That's what it is. That's the stuff that we're

00:56:31   missing at times and that isn't explained in statistics of crashing.

00:56:36   Exactly, yes. And it is super... it is very difficult for me to balance, you know, the

00:56:48   wish for a perfect software quality and the reality of billions of people having

00:56:55   these devices. I mean, in an ideal state, you would have Apple making the same money

00:57:02   as they do now, having the billion iOS devices active around the world, but also the software

00:57:08   quality of years ago, when the operation was smaller, and it was easier to keep things

00:57:16   in check, and to say, "Well, this thing doesn't work," or "We're going to ship this app in

00:57:22   a perfect state because we have the resources and we have the focus. It's really a problem

00:57:27   of focus. I feel it's...

00:57:30   What I think the problem is right now is it is psychological.

00:57:33   Oh yeah.

00:57:35   And the reason that I say this is we are looking at the bugs on our iPhones and our Macs in

00:57:40   a harsher light because 2015 saw the release of two fundamentally flawed products in the

00:57:47   the Apple Watch and the Apple TV, they both launched badly.

00:57:52   And I think that those experiences

00:57:56   are giving us a taint on everything.

00:58:00   So the bugs are still there that they've been forever.

00:58:02   Like iOS 9 is miles ahead of iOS 7.

00:58:06   iOS 7 was a dumpster fire, right?

00:58:10   I will use Stephen's phrase in his absence.

00:58:12   That was a disaster of an operating system

00:58:15   for its entire life, right?

00:58:18   It was full of bugs, full of bugs.

00:58:22   - I feel like one of the key problems is that,

00:58:27   and this applies to life in general,

00:58:28   if you wanna say that.

00:58:31   - I do.

00:58:31   - Whenever someone or something is successful,

00:58:36   hugely successful, it creates a pent-up demand

00:58:40   for people to point out things that are wrong, you know?

00:58:44   just because...

00:58:45   - Yeah, people wanna bring it down.

00:58:48   - Yes.

00:58:49   Yes, exactly.

00:58:50   - And you see that in people mainly

00:58:52   that don't like Apple products, right?

00:58:55   They try and bring them down.

00:58:56   - You also see that in people who like,

00:58:59   in theory, Apple products.

00:59:00   And for different reasons,

00:59:03   because maybe they liked Apple

00:59:04   when they were more focused on fewer services and products,

00:59:08   or you see that in people who don't like the fact

00:59:11   that Apple is not doing much Mac stuff anymore because they're more focused on iOS and watchOS.

00:59:18   There's different reasons why even Apple fans are really negative on Apple lately.

00:59:27   And also, I see this all the time on Twitter, especially in the past couple of years. People

00:59:33   are sort of mixing the problems that they see into one basket. Saying that the TV remote

00:59:42   of the Apple TV doesn't have the perfect layout, that doesn't apply to the software quality

00:59:49   discussion. But people seem to throw in all sorts of criticism into a single bucket and

00:59:56   saying, "Yeah, Apple is not..."

00:59:57   Wait, why do you think that doesn't apply to software quality?

00:59:59   What does a TV remote design apply to software?

01:00:02   Oh right, you mean the actual physical object. I thought you meant like the way that it's

01:00:08   that singular line. But I think that I personally think that software quality as the heading

01:00:15   that we're giving this is a poor name. I think it should be attention to detail. Because

01:00:21   that encompasses everything that we're feeling, all the people are feeling, right? That the

01:00:26   slowness of the Apple Watch, the poor design of the remote. Although I think the remote

01:00:31   looks beautiful but it's functionally poorly designed. Like I for the first time yesterday

01:00:38   was holding my remote in the wrong orientation trying to scroll around and yeah but going

01:00:45   back to quickly to like the psychological aspect that I mentioned a moment ago this

01:00:49   is what I think is the key part of it here from my perspective is that we're looking

01:00:54   at the watch right which is underwhelming from a software perspective especially with

01:00:59   the way that Apple pitched it. I don't think any of us use our watches the way that Apple

01:01:03   originally showed. It's full of apps, right? And you're going into apps and doing stuff.

01:01:08   I use my watch every day. I love my Apple watch, but I don't use it the way that it

01:01:12   was originally pitched to us. I use it as a, it gives things to me rather than I go

01:01:18   to get things from it. Um, I like the Apple TV, but it's so crazy in the way that it does

01:01:25   like I just try and look at you know I've heard Marco mention this about

01:01:34   trying to find an episode of a TV show and you have to scroll through every

01:01:39   single series to go to the most recent episode I had to do that recently it's

01:01:42   like what is what is this this is insane like oh and here's the thing I bought a

01:01:46   movie I bought Ghostbusters 1 & 2 me and Idion wanted to watch those over the

01:01:52   weekend. I went to the iTunes store, I clicked the buy button and nothing changed. I had

01:01:58   no confirmation of buying it. The buy button didn't change to a purchase button. I clicked

01:02:03   it again. Nothing happened. I didn't get multiple charged but I clicked it a couple of times

01:02:07   thinking it wasn't purchased. Nothing changed. I went to purchase and it was there. It's

01:02:11   like, why didn't the buy button give me some indication that I'd purchased this movie?

01:02:16   You know, like it's little things like that where they just add up and it's like this

01:02:20   This is crazy.

01:02:21   So then when you apply that to other parts of your Apple experience, and then when something

01:02:28   weird happens on your iPhone, you're like, "What is this nightmare scenario that has

01:02:33   been created for me by Apple Incorporated?"

01:02:36   I think that's where this is becoming more of an issue, because 2015 saw two products

01:02:42   heavily hyped and kind of released underwhelmingly, to the point where they're saying that there's

01:02:48   gonna be a new Apple remote app coming, right? And it's like, well, alright, you know it's

01:02:55   needed, why is it now?

01:02:57   Because it's not ready. I mean, you gotta-

01:02:59   Exactly, but, you know, I go back to this all the time, and I know that people hate

01:03:04   this and whatever, but if it wasn't ready, why did you release it in the first place?

01:03:08   Nobody made you do it, you choose. I don't know.

01:03:11   Well I don't know, for how long does this argument extend? Because you can say, well,

01:03:16   If you knew how to make the iPhone 5, why wasn't the first iPhone the iPhone 5?

01:03:20   Well no, but you're taking something that already exists and you're replacing it with

01:03:27   lesser functionality.

01:03:29   That's the difference.

01:03:30   It's like, imagine the iPhone 7 is released, but there is no music app.

01:03:34   But the music app comes in two weeks time, or two months time.

01:03:40   That would be like, what are you doing here?

01:03:41   This is crazy.

01:03:43   That's the way I look at that anyway, but I understand both sides of that argument.

01:03:47   But anyway, that's that, right?

01:03:49   They tried to excuse the software quality.

01:03:53   I don't think that they did a job that anybody was really happy with, but they did what you

01:03:58   would have expected, is they spun the PR angle and tried to do a good job of kind of papering

01:04:04   over the cracks.

01:04:07   And I actually think that John Gruber did a good job with this.

01:04:10   I think he poked and prodded them. But didn't… And I… Like, if I was in that scenario,

01:04:16   I don't think I would do a good job. But let's say I could do a good job.

01:04:20   I would have gotten upset.

01:04:22   My thing is I would know not to bother. Because they've given you an answer like that. You

01:04:27   know, he poked them a little bit. They told the funny story about Craig… About like

01:04:31   Eddie Q going to Craig's house, right?

01:04:32   Do you think it's a real story, by the way?

01:04:34   I do, actually. I do. And eventually it's like… Then obviously this is the line they're

01:04:40   There's no point pushing them because they're not going to give me anything else. They're not going to go. All right, you got me

01:04:46   It's crap. They're not gonna do that

01:04:48   You take it as far as you can take it

01:04:51   They did drop in a couple of little parts that I thought were interesting

01:04:55   Eddie says at one point there's a new version of OS 10 with a refreshed iTunes app will focus on music coming next month

01:05:02   What?

01:05:04   Now we're I can assume that when he says new version of OS 10 he means like

01:05:10   Capitan, another version of El Capitan, right? Not like the next version of OS X. You know,

01:05:16   I can imagine that's not what they're talking about here. We'll see that at WWDC, I would

01:05:20   assume. But there's some new iTunes app coming, apparently, which we don't know anything about

01:05:28   yet. But that maybe means that this March event, right, which is next month, might have

01:05:33   some OS X or Mac stuff in it, maybe. Or they just announced this separately.

01:05:38   Can I ask you a question?

01:05:40   - Yeah.

01:05:41   - And play with me here.

01:05:44   - All right.

01:05:44   - Do you think that-- - I've always wanted to.

01:05:46   (laughing)

01:05:48   - Do you think that to an extent,

01:05:49   one of the problems at least is that

01:05:53   nerds wanna be loved by Apple more?

01:05:56   - Oh, yeah, yeah.

01:05:57   - Let me explain.

01:05:58   Every time it's WWDC time, it's around June,

01:06:02   and Apple has a big event,

01:06:03   and developers fly to San Francisco,

01:06:06   they feel respected, they feel loved, they get the speech by Phil Schiller, they see

01:06:11   Tim Cook, they see Craig Federighi, and everyone's excited. From the summer there's plenty of

01:06:14   good feelings. The holidays pass, the September event passes, you know, it's January, and

01:06:22   you know, Apple is working on what's next, and nerds start to feel a distance from the

01:06:27   company, and routinely, you know, negativity bubbles up again. And I just find the timing

01:06:33   interesting of this John Gruber interview. It was almost like Apple, you know, Mother

01:06:38   Apple saying "Don't worry, we're here, we're thinking about you guys, it's gonna get better".

01:06:44   Yeah I think so, and they dropped in a couple of tidbits about it, which I think is really

01:06:49   telling when Federighi was like "Yeah, we know we didn't have Bluetooth support in the

01:06:53   Apple TV, but the funny thing is, when WWDC is going on, there's no Bluetooth keyboards

01:06:59   being used with the Apple TV. I found that quite an endearing story and it's very telling

01:07:09   of the problems that they have to go through. The people that are talking about this sort

01:07:12   of wider world aren't necessarily the normal users but we are the ones that push them hardest

01:07:19   which is what they need, right? And they must appreciate that because we are the ones that

01:07:24   hold them accountable and it is that accountability that pushes them forward to make better things

01:07:28   but it is funny to hear that and yes I agree that this is I think a lot of this was they know the

01:07:34   audience of the talk show the talk show's audience is even more narrow than Daring Fireball they could

01:07:40   have said we want to do a written interview with Daring Fire on Daring Fireball but no they chose

01:07:45   to do the talk show I think that this was a lot of trying to put some of this at ease and the people

01:07:51   they're trying to put at ease are developers and the tech press I think that was part of what they

01:07:55   are attempting to do here, which is why they chose this venue to have this conversation.

01:08:03   Something that Federighi said, our back channel communication regarding responding to radars

01:08:08   needs to improve.

01:08:10   I thought that was very good.

01:08:11   It's very true.

01:08:12   And they said that they understand the need of trying to get better at communicating what's

01:08:16   fixed and what's going to be fixed.

01:08:20   And I thought that that was, that was kind of something that it felt like he just wanted

01:08:24   to talk about as opposed to it being prompted. So I thought that that was a really good thing

01:08:31   to bring up.

01:08:32   Yeah, anyone who's ever used Raider, and especially developers who file a lot of bugs, know that

01:08:39   every time Apple closes a bug without an explanation, you know, this is a duplicate.

01:08:45   What does it mean?

01:08:46   What does it mean? This is a duplicate. Or the functionality is working as intended.

01:08:49   Well, what does it mean? Just give me an update.

01:08:52   It's the intention to break it?

01:08:54   Like, what is the intention?

01:08:56   - I found one of Federighi's points really good

01:08:58   when he said, "Well, sometimes we don't reply

01:09:01   because we don't have a protocol for saying

01:09:04   we know it's a problem right now,

01:09:06   but we're working on a fix for a future version of the OS.

01:09:09   So how do we do it?

01:09:10   Do we promise a fix?

01:09:12   Do we provide a timeframe?

01:09:14   How can we communicate that we know it's a problem

01:09:16   in the current version, in the stable release,

01:09:18   but it's gonna get addressed in the future?"

01:09:21   That's a really good point, when you don't want to overpromise, when you don't want to provide developers with a schedule, with a release date, because that's going to get passed to the press.

01:09:31   That's a really good point, but there's also ways to maybe improve that communication.

01:09:37   Just to say we were aware that it's a problem, there's going to be a fix in the future, we'll send you an email.

01:09:46   That can be something.

01:09:48   We will send you a summary of your bugs when they're fixed in an upcoming release.

01:09:54   But that can work.

01:09:55   There's ways to not give people a release date or to give people a promise,

01:10:01   but still to keep people informed.

01:10:03   I agree.

01:10:04   We'll see. Maybe this year.

01:10:06   Maybe this time around iOS 10,

01:10:09   it's a good moment for introspection

01:10:13   and for giving developers the tools that they really want, and the fixes that they want

01:10:18   to see.

01:10:19   And if any Apple executive who wants to come on this show will roll out the red carpet

01:10:23   for you.

01:10:24   You know, and to give the nerds a little more love.

01:10:27   Yeah, the European, come on, come speak to Europe.

01:10:31   Yeah.

01:10:32   Even though already it's the majority of the US, but we don't have to worry about that,

01:10:37   me and Federico on there.

01:10:38   Alright, I think that's it, Mr. Tichy.

01:10:40   Oh yeah, good show.

01:10:42   Good show, grab bag. Lots of stuff today. If you want to find our show notes for this

01:10:47   week you know where to go, relay.fm/connecting/78 or just do some scrolling in your podcast

01:10:52   app, they hopefully should be there. If you want to find Federico online you can go over

01:10:56   to maxlories.net where you'll find his beautiful work or his @Vittici on twitter, don't forget

01:11:04   Federico also hosts Canvas and Remaster on relay.fm as well so more gaming and iOS focused

01:11:12   just

01:11:26   I host many shows at Relay FM, too many to list.

01:11:29   In fact, I have a little blog now over at MykeWasRight.com, the best URL on the internet.

01:11:34   And I am also @imike on Twitter, I M Y K E.

01:11:38   Thanks again to Smile with PDF Pen and Squarespace for sponsoring this week's episode.

01:11:44   Thank you to everybody that is a member of Relay FM, supports this show or any of our

01:11:48   other shows.

01:11:49   You can find out more information about that over at relay.fm/membership.

01:11:56   you can sign up there if you would like to. We'll be back next week, I think, all three

01:12:01   of us. But who knows? Maybe it's your turn to take a week off Federico. I hope not.

01:12:06   I don't think so.

01:12:07   That's my boy. Until then, thanks for listening. We'll be back. But say goodbye Federico.

01:12:13   Adios, Erci.

01:12:14   Adios?

01:12:15   Haha, you said that.