78: The Nostalgia of the Underdog
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From Real AFM, this is Connected episode 78.
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Today's show is brought to you by Squarespace and PDF Pen from Smile.
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My name is Myke Hurley. I am back, joined by Mr Federico Fattucci.
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We have traded in me for Steven this week.
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You know, it was a difficult decision.
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basically the the podcasting gods approached me and the gods were like you have to sacrifice one
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of your co-hosts to have Myke back and it was a very biblical effort but you know Steven was
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kind enough to to sacrifice himself for for the cause to have you back on the show Myke welcome
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back thank you I'm happy to be back and so it's this weird thing to have missed two episodes but
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it fell just upon the time where the day that I got sick and then like two days before I got
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better so here I am and I enjoyed being a listener I was listening live
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yeah we saw you providing follow-up and feedback and I was suggesting titles
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very nice to have that live listening experience yeah we we felt we felt the
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pressure Myke oh yeah you know we were being watched by you I hope you enjoyed
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the show I hope that we didn't blow it Myke you did it you did a good job okay
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that's good to know. So we have a follow-up, we have follow-out, but first
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what's going on with Google Docs this week? Yeah, so we're gonna take a slightly
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different stance now. You guys mentioned it last week. It's kind of got to the
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point where we, me and you, are just, we just don't want to deal with this. So I'm
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still using Google Docs for some of my shows, but for a couple of shows,
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especially for shows where they're predominantly iPad focused in
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preparation so Dish Show and Cortex as well, we're using Quip. Now me and you
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have used Quip in the past. For the same reason Google was lagging behind
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so we gave Quip a turn until Google caught up again and the reason we
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switch back is because Quip has its own weird UI issues in places. So once Google Docs kind
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of caught back up again, we went back to Google Docs, but at the moment I'm happy to take
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Quip's kind of weird UI bugs for split-screen multitasking. Like, you know, they even have
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some bugs in split-screen, like you hit this like button to try and change formatting and
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and it only shows you half of the UI.
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It's weird, but it's being more actively updated for the device that me and you choose to use,
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so we're going with it for now.
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Yeah, you know, you gotta pick the least worst option, really.
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And Quip has a few issues, at least for me when typing.
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Sometimes it doesn't accept characters on screen.
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It's kind of weird.
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Or the insertion point jumps around every now and then when you're copying and pasting.
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Yeah, it jumps around and there's a bunch of oddities really.
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But it's better than no split view at all or having to use the blown up keyboard in
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the Google Docs app so I'll take it.
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And we'll see.
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It has some great features as well that I really like.
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So one thing that I think is genius is native ability to import Google Docs.
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That's so smart.
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So I just was able to sign in with my Google Docs account and I was just able to bring
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in our show note document and it maintained all of its formatting.
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It has a URL scheme for documents, which is great for me to use my quick launching actions
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that I use to launch all of our separate docs.
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I use Launch Center Pro actions in a notification center widget, so I'm just able to maintain
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They have a web app as well, which is also a bit buggy, but they also have a Mac app.
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So I'm currently using their Mac app in split screen on my iMac with Chrome, which is really
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So, you know, it's working for us right now.
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When, and I believe it is a when, not an if, when Google Docs does decide to have their
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iPad Pro update, I'm looking forward to checking that out and maybe we'll move back.
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But for now, at least for me and you, and for me and Gray I guess, Quip is doing the
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job that we need it to do, which is to give us the cross-platform experience that we're
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looking for.
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Yeah, and you know, you can even export documents as markdown.
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There's a bunch of little, you know, nice features.
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We'll see how it goes.
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For now, you know, I've been outlining the shows with SplitView.
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That's really all that I wanted, so we have decided to stop complaining about Google Docs
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just publicly, privately, we say really bad things, but we'll see what happens.
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Well, we decided to just take some action, which makes all that a little bit easier.
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We always like to take action.
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Gotta take action.
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Alex wrote in, in regards to some follow-up about App Update, showed you and Steven had
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a fantastic conversation last week about the weird trend of the way that app updates are
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pushed out by large companies. This was quite a good point that Alex made. He says, "I actually
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thought one of the most common reasons developers may issue updates in the way that they do,
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you know, with very little information, would maybe be quite widely known in the dev community.
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The reason is that App Review, so Apple App Review, doesn't then know what to review specifically
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Leaving a generic update message such as "Bug fixes" leaves the Apple reviewer with the
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task of reviewing the entire application, most of which presumably would be working
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fine since it's presumably passed App Review many times in the past via previous updates.
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This reduces the chance that they test any new features or hidden features, which for
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whatever reason the developer may not want the App Reviewer to be honing in on, thus improving
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the chance of an update getting passed.
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What does this say about App Review?
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And also what does it say about the developers putting the applications through?
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I mean, you can say what you want on either side, but that is a really good reason for
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why they may do things this way.
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I mean, we look at that whole Facebook scenario that you picked up on with the...
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What were they doing?
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They were using audio and all that kind of stuff to keep the app active.
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And I know that people at Apple knew about this.
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And they were just waiting for people to figure out what was going on.
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But I don't know why AppReview didn't pay attention to that before.
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But I totally believe that for big companies, not having a detailed changelog can help with
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I don't know.
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And also it helps them.
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So I was thinking about this as well.
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are many of these big applications, they roll out updates which have hidden functionality
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in them that will come at a certain point because they have the update in place before
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they make their announcement of the new functionality that their app has, right, and they do something
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server-side to enable it. That makes sense to me as well, that you might not want to
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kind of show your hand before you're ready to announce a piece of functionality. That's
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another reason to do it, but not to do it every two weeks that way.
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Yeah, you know it also makes sense for companies that do one of those staged rollouts of new features.
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If you brought it up on the App Store, the change log is the same for everyone,
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whereas if you just keep it vague, and then you roll out the feature internally in the app to, you know, only some users,
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you can avoid the frustration of people
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asking you, "Hey, where's this new feature? Why don't I see it?"
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You know you can do like Twitter when Twitter doesn't often
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You know announce new features in the change like on the app store
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But then they release updates very frequently and then on the Twitter blog you can read about the new features
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Yeah, still you know for for smaller developers. I don't think this is the best route
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You know it. I just prefer to
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If you if you are you know a smaller company or an indie developer, you know it's just better to
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To tell people what's actually new
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It was an interesting topic, I got a lot of interesting feedback, I forgot where it came
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from but someone on Twitter said "I like apps that are updated often when they come from
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indie developers because they make me feel like I have a relationship with the developer
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in the sense that I bought their app and now it's getting updates and I feel like I made
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a good choice." And really that encapsulates a lot of what I feel like.
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Yeah, that's a really good point.
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That's a really good point.
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I just want to do a bit of follow out to
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Remaster, which is a video
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gaming show that me and you host
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along with our friend Shaheed Kamal Ahmad
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who worked at PlayStation for
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20 years. On the
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show over the last couple of episodes, we've
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began what we're calling a state of the union
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of the different gaming platforms that exist.
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Episode 2 focused
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on Nintendo. Episode 3
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focused on iOS. So I
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I wanted to just highlight the iOS episode specifically to listeners of this show.
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I think people may enjoy to hear what me, you, and Shaheed thought about Apple's 2015
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in gaming and what we think are their trends for 2016.
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I think that there might be a good crossover.
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I think that this series that we're doing on remaster would be enjoyed by many people
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that listen to this show because we're kind of going in depth on each of the platforms.
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week's episode which will come out later on in the week. We'll be focusing on
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Microsoft. So it's a good series to listen to I think and I think people
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that listen to this show may enjoy it. Yeah it was a really good discussion.
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I agree. Stan wrote him a question for you Federico. Well a question for both of
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us really about what stands we use for our iPad pros or if we know of any good
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stands to use. I use the smart keyboard exclusively. I always have the smart
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keyboard attached to my iPad Pro.
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It feels like part of the device for me.
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So I use it to stand as I'm typing,
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and I also use it to stand to watch video.
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And it does, I think, a pretty good job of that.
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I wish that I could control the angle degree
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when it's in typing.
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I would like it to sometimes be a little bit more up
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in front of my face, as opposed to kind of
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further away from me.
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But that's relatively easy to do
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when positioning it on my lap,
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but I would prefer to be able to make that change.
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But Federico, I believe you use a dedicated stand
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because you don't use a keyboard,
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a physical keyboard so often.
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- No, no, I absolutely love the 12 South ParkSlope.
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That's the reason why I use it.
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It's exactly because I want my typing experience
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to be a little higher than the angle of the Smart Cover.
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And it's this simple aluminum stand.
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It's 50 bucks from the 12 South store.
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I bought it on Amazon.
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It's very simple.
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It works with an iPad Pro.
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It works with MacBooks.
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- Yeah, this was designed to work for,
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this was a MacBook product, but it also fits the iPad.
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- Just perfectly.
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And for extra, I don't really have to
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because there's a couple of rubber feet
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at the bottom of the stand.
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But for extra grip, I actually fold the Smart Cover behind the iPad and then place the iPad on top of the Park Slope.
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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.
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Really simple, the hardware is nice, it's a triangle basically, and gets my recommendation all the way. I love it.
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Yeah, it's a nice piece of hardware. I mean, I have a few 12 South products. Everything
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they make tends to be fantastic. I am interested to understand some of the potential ergonomical
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issues with the way that we use our iPads. I don't know what's good or bad in regards
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to it. All I know is I move around a lot more and into different positions when I feel fatigue
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when I'm using my iPad as opposed to sitting in front of my Mac all day but
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the desk that I have is set up to be ergonomically sound. I don't know what
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the right option is but I am interested to kind of see how that works over time
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because all I know is if I'm using it at the desk and especially looking at the
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way you're probably using this stand is there's probably quite a lot of looking
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down which is not necessarily that great for your spot. No, no that's not great but
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But you know, the best part is when I feel like I need to move, because I'm using an
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iPad, I can just pick up the iPad and walk around the house.
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That's my thing.
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Like I found myself today, I really noticed this, I was in the kitchen typing, standing
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at the desk, and then I was walking upstairs and I had a thought, and I sat down on my
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staircase and typed out some more.
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And then I came upstairs and sat on my desk, like, I don't do that on my iMac and I'm not
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moving my iMac around the house.
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Yeah, exactly.
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I don't know what the right option is, all I know is it's different.
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Yeah, you know, for our type of sedentary work, really the best way to battle our trend
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to sit down and not move is to change position often.
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And I feel like the iPad kind of enables that behavior, because you can pick it up, just
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stretch for five minutes, just change position with your hands, go from landscape mode to
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portrait mode and really just moving and changing your position, standing up, you know, stretching
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a little of your neck, you know, take a few steps when you're working, that sort of stuff
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helps. I felt a lot worse when I used to work on my MacBook for like, you know, six hours
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straight. And it's so easy to never, never, you know, go away from your desk, really,
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you're in the zone, you're typing, you're coding, you're podcasting, whatever it is,
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you're just at your MacBook and you never leave your desk. With the iPad it's just I
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find it to be a little, actually a lot better because just the device is meant to be picked
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up, be held, be touched, move around, and it's just perfect for me.
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Yeah. All right, so we're not going to spend too much time on this because I don't think
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either of us are really educated enough to talk about this from a security perspective,
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but this morning, February 16th, Tim Cook wrote an open letter on Apple.com about a
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security thing in regards to the FBI in the United States asking for Apple to create a
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backdoor into an individual's phone because of a terrorist incident in San Bernardino
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last year. And Tim Cook has written an open letter explaining why doing this one time
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for the FBI could cause significant issues and set a dangerous precedent for Apple. And
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I've seen a lot of backwards and forwards on Twitter as to what the security implications
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are. But my feeling about this from reading it is, the way that I've come away from this
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is not saying about how, you know, and Tim Cook's not really focusing on how feasible
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this is from a technical perspective. He's kind of focusing more on if we do this, it
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sets a, and one of the headings in the article, a dangerous precedent for doing it time and
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It's really the principle of enabling government agencies to access the contents of an iPhone.
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You know Tim Cook says we believe the FBI is doing this with good intentions and we have no sympathy for terrorists
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But really the problem is if we do this for one phone
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there's the risk that you know, the government is gonna ask to do this for every kind of phone and
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The technology could fall in the hands of people who are not the government or you know criminals that want to
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Access the contents of your iPhone now again
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And I also read this as, you know, and I don't implicate this at all, but my takeaway is
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Maybe Apple doesn't even want people inside of Apple working on this
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Right? What do you mean? Creating backdoors
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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
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You know, I feel like
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the best security is to
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create a piece of technology that is physically impossible to break into, because every time there's a human
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making a decision there's going to be a discussion, there's going to be a request to overcome,
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you know, to circumvent security. And I wouldn't be surprised if Apple changed the iPhone 7.
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I don't know if this is even possible. So this is why we don't want to dwell on this for too long.
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We have no expertise in security, you know, iOS firmware, you know, secure keys, whatever.
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But from my, you know, simple point of view, if it would be physically impossible for Apple
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or anyone else to break into an iPhone, I feel like that would, you know, even prevent this
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discussion because the problem would then change to, well, you shouldn't sell a phone that is
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physically impossible to break into, you know? Because right now Apple makes a
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decision, the FBI asks for a backdoor and Apple says no. But the fact that Apple
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says no, it's not because it's physically impossible, it's because Tim Cook and, you
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know, the entire company doesn't want you. Whereas with an iPhone that doesn't
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actually have a way to, you know, to bypass security, there wouldn't be this
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discussion. It would be, well, we don't want you to sell the iPhone in the
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United States but what's the likelihood of that happening really so you know
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maybe Apple will change the way they do this kind of thing in the next iPhone so
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I don't know. So yeah it's worth reading because all of these things are always
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written really well I assume Tim Cook writes them with some help
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from Apple PR I guess but they're always fantastically written and worth reading
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Yeah, and the letter came in just a few hours after the court order from last night, from
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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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So Federico you shocked the nation.
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.
00:22:47
◼
►
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?
00:25:37
◼
►
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
00:28:30
◼
►
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?
00:30:24
◼
►
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?
00:34:06
◼
►
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
00:34:25
◼
►
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
00:35:26
◼
►
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
00:35:50
◼
►
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
00:38:33
◼
►
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
00:38:55
◼
►
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
00:40:29
◼
►
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.
00:40:44
◼
►
That's a normal thing that you do.
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,
00:40:58
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00:42:46
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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
00:43:52
◼
►
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?
00:47:03
◼
►
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.
00:47:38
◼
►
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.
00:48:57
◼
►
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
00:51:18
◼
►
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
00:52:10
◼
►
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.
00:57:35
◼
►
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
◼
►
- 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.
00:58:49
◼
►
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
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slowness of the Apple Watch, the poor design of the remote. Although I think the remote
01:00:31
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looks beautiful but it's functionally poorly designed. Like I for the first time yesterday
01:00:38
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was holding my remote in the wrong orientation trying to scroll around and yeah but going
01:00:45
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back to quickly to like the psychological aspect that I mentioned a moment ago this
01:00:49
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is what I think is the key part of it here from my perspective is that we're looking
01:00:54
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at the watch right which is underwhelming from a software perspective especially with
01:00:59
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the way that Apple pitched it. I don't think any of us use our watches the way that Apple
01:01:03
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originally showed. It's full of apps, right? And you're going into apps and doing stuff.
01:01:08
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I use my watch every day. I love my Apple watch, but I don't use it the way that it
01:01:12
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was originally pitched to us. I use it as a, it gives things to me rather than I go
01:01:18
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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
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like I just try and look at you know I've heard Marco mention this about
01:01:34
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trying to find an episode of a TV show and you have to scroll through every
01:01:39
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single series to go to the most recent episode I had to do that recently it's
01:01:42
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like what is what is this this is insane like oh and here's the thing I bought a
01:01:46
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movie I bought Ghostbusters 1 & 2 me and Idion wanted to watch those over the
01:01:52
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weekend. I went to the iTunes store, I clicked the buy button and nothing changed. I had
01:01:58
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no confirmation of buying it. The buy button didn't change to a purchase button. I clicked
01:02:03
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it again. Nothing happened. I didn't get multiple charged but I clicked it a couple of times
01:02:07
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thinking it wasn't purchased. Nothing changed. I went to purchase and it was there. It's
01:02:11
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like, why didn't the buy button give me some indication that I'd purchased this movie?
01:02:16
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You know, like it's little things like that where they just add up and it's like this
01:02:20
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This is crazy.
01:02:21
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So then when you apply that to other parts of your Apple experience, and then when something
01:02:28
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weird happens on your iPhone, you're like, "What is this nightmare scenario that has
01:02:33
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been created for me by Apple Incorporated?"
01:02:36
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I think that's where this is becoming more of an issue, because 2015 saw two products
01:02:42
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heavily hyped and kind of released underwhelmingly, to the point where they're saying that there's
01:02:48
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gonna be a new Apple remote app coming, right? And it's like, well, alright, you know it's
01:02:55
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needed, why is it now?
01:02:57
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Because it's not ready. I mean, you gotta-
01:02:59
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Exactly, but, you know, I go back to this all the time, and I know that people hate
01:03:04
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this and whatever, but if it wasn't ready, why did you release it in the first place?
01:03:08
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Nobody made you do it, you choose. I don't know.
01:03:11
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Well I don't know, for how long does this argument extend? Because you can say, well,
01:03:16
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If you knew how to make the iPhone 5, why wasn't the first iPhone the iPhone 5?
01:03:20
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Well no, but you're taking something that already exists and you're replacing it with
01:03:27
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lesser functionality.
01:03:29
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That's the difference.
01:03:30
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It's like, imagine the iPhone 7 is released, but there is no music app.
01:03:34
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But the music app comes in two weeks time, or two months time.
01:03:40
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That would be like, what are you doing here?
01:03:41
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This is crazy.
01:03:43
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That's the way I look at that anyway, but I understand both sides of that argument.
01:03:47
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►
But anyway, that's that, right?
01:03:49
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►
They tried to excuse the software quality.
01:03:53
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►
I don't think that they did a job that anybody was really happy with, but they did what you
01:03:58
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►
would have expected, is they spun the PR angle and tried to do a good job of kind of papering
01:04:04
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►
over the cracks.
01:04:07
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►
And I actually think that John Gruber did a good job with this.
01:04:10
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►
I think he poked and prodded them. But didn't… And I… Like, if I was in that scenario,
01:04:16
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►
I don't think I would do a good job. But let's say I could do a good job.
01:04:20
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►
I would have gotten upset.
01:04:22
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►
My thing is I would know not to bother. Because they've given you an answer like that. You
01:04:27
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►
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
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►
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
01:05:04
◼
►
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
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►
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?
01:05:41
◼
►
- And play with me here.
01:05:44
◼
►
- All right.
01:05:44
◼
►
- Do you think that-- - I've always wanted to.
01:05:48
◼
►
- 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
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►
and Apple has a big event,
01:06:03
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►
and developers fly to San Francisco,
01:06:06
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►
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
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►
good feelings. The holidays pass, the September event passes, you know, it's January, and
01:06:22
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►
you know, Apple is working on what's next, and nerds start to feel a distance from the
01:06:27
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►
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
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►
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
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►
And they said that they understand the need of trying to get better at communicating what's
01:08:16
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►
fixed and what's going to be fixed.
01:08:20
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►
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
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►
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.
01:10:04
◼
►
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
01:10:19
◼
►
And if any Apple executive who wants to come on this show will roll out the red carpet
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.
01:10:32
◼
►
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
01:11:26
◼
►
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
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►
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
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►
Adios, Erci.
01:12:15
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►
Haha, you said that.