Connected

00:00:00 ◼   ► [MUSIC PLAYING]

00:00:04 ◼   ► Hello, and welcome to Connected, episode 57

00:00:07 ◼   ► from your friends at Relay FM.

00:00:09 ◼   ► My name is Stephen Hackett, and I'm joined this week

00:00:12 ◼   ► by Mr. Federico Vittucci.

00:00:14 ◼   ► Hey, Stephen.

00:00:16 ◼   ► Hey, buddy.

00:00:17 ◼   ► How are you?

00:00:18 ◼   ► I'm doing well.

00:00:19 ◼   ► I just got back from Portland like 12 hours ago.

00:00:23 ◼   ► You've been traveling all around the United States.

00:00:26 ◼   ► It's true.

00:00:26 ◼   ► It's like a world tour if the tour was just one city.

00:00:29 ◼   ► Was it a road trip or did you take an airplane?

00:00:33 ◼   ► Oh no, I took a plane.

00:00:35 ◼   ► Oregon is about as far as you can get

00:00:37 ◼   ► and still stay in the United States.

00:00:39 ◼   ► Really?

00:00:41 ◼   ► Yeah, for me at least,

00:00:42 ◼   ► it's basically the opposite end of the continent, really.

00:00:45 ◼   ► Nice.

00:00:46 ◼   ► Isn't it the same of the Oregon Trail, the game?

00:00:49 ◼   ► Basically, yeah.

00:00:51 ◼   ► Everyone has dysentery and died.

00:00:52 ◼   ► Sad.

00:00:54 ◼   ► - Oh, no, sounds like a good conference that you went.

00:00:59 ◼   ► - Oh my gosh, I left Myke there.

00:01:02 ◼   ► That's Myke's not here, Myke is still at Portland.

00:01:05 ◼   ► And he took a couple vacation days with his lady friend

00:01:08 ◼   ► after XOXO, and so yeah, so he was alive in Portland

00:01:13 ◼   ► the last time I saw him.

00:01:15 ◼   ► - Okay, that's good to know.

00:01:17 ◼   ► Did he buy anything that you know of?

00:01:20 ◼   ► - I know he bought Foo Fighter concert tickets.

00:01:24 ◼   ► - Of course.

00:01:25 ◼   ► - He got one of the new orange Apple Watch sport bands.

00:01:30 ◼   ► - Why?

00:01:32 ◼   ► - I kinda like it.

00:01:34 ◼   ► - Yeah, is it a good color?

00:01:36 ◼   ► - It's very bright, but it's kinda fun.

00:01:39 ◼   ► - Nice, nice.

00:01:40 ◼   ► - Yes, we bought that.

00:01:41 ◼   ► I don't know, oh, he bought an iPhone.

00:01:43 ◼   ► I just did die.

00:01:43 ◼   ► I guess we can talk about that.

00:01:46 ◼   ► But, you know.

00:01:48 ◼   ► - Are you serious?

00:01:49 ◼   ► He bought an iPhone?

00:01:50 ◼   ► - Well, he pre-ordered.

00:01:52 ◼   ► - Oh, okay.

00:01:53 ◼   ► one up Saturday night or Friday night sometime.

00:01:56 ◼   ► - For you guys in Italy, we didn't get anything this time around.

00:02:01 ◼   ► - Didn't get anything. Are you in, I guess you're like a couple weeks later?

00:02:04 ◼   ► - Yeah, I'm not gonna buy an iPhone from Germany or, you know, one of those crazy things that

00:02:10 ◼   ► I did in the past. I'm just gonna wait. You know, it's too much, too much trouble to get

00:02:16 ◼   ► one of these new shiny toys from another country into Italy. I just don't want to do it anymore.

00:02:23 ◼   ► so I'll just wait. I guess we'll get the new iPhone in mid-October, that's my assumption.

00:02:29 ◼   ► Yeah, I pre-ordered a 6S Plus, so I'm staying in the Plus Club 64 gray like I have now.

00:02:39 ◼   ► Myke ordered a white one though, which I think is interesting.

00:02:42 ◼   ► Oh, really?

00:02:44 ◼   ► We talked about this on upgrade, but I generally, with the S Cycle, order white phones just because

00:02:50 ◼   ► because it's a nice way to trick your brain into saying,

00:02:55 ◼   ► hey, look, I bought something new.

00:02:59 ◼   ► But I did it this time, I stuck with the gray.

00:03:01 ◼   ► - Cool, yeah, I think I'm gonna go with space gray

00:03:06 ◼   ► this year, I'm kind of tired of the white one.

00:03:10 ◼   ► So I guess, we'll see, depends.

00:03:12 ◼   ► Maybe I should go, you know, rose gold.

00:03:16 ◼   ► We got a rose gold icon, I don't know.

00:03:17 ◼   ► It's quite, I've seen one, it's pretty, it's quite pink,

00:03:22 ◼   ► but it's good looking, so.

00:03:25 ◼   ► - Oh, you saw one.

00:03:26 ◼   ► - I did, yeah, I've played with it a little bit, so.

00:03:29 ◼   ► It is pink, there's no way around it.

00:03:31 ◼   ► And I think it looks the worst as far as the antenna lines,

00:03:35 ◼   ► because the antenna lines are a light gray color,

00:03:38 ◼   ► and for some reason it just really stands out there

00:03:40 ◼   ► than on the other devices for some reason.

00:03:46 ◼   ► But anyways, we should do a little follow up.

00:03:51 ◼   ► - Sure, and I see a listener name.

00:03:56 ◼   ► Do you wanna say this name?

00:03:58 ◼   ► - I see what you did.

00:04:00 ◼   ► Well, so this email was not signed.

00:04:02 ◼   ► And so I would say that what I put in the show notes,

00:04:06 ◼   ► Federico, for you and I, is what his email address was.

00:04:08 ◼   ► I don't know if he wants to share his name.

00:04:09 ◼   ► So let's call him Andrew.

00:04:12 ◼   ► Call him Andrew.

00:04:15 ◼   ► So we've talked several weeks ago now about like,

00:04:18 ◼   ► do we see Apple Watches in person?

00:04:20 ◼   ► And I saw a lot at XOXO, like just,

00:04:24 ◼   ► everyone is wearing an Apple Watch.

00:04:25 ◼   ► But out in my everyday life, I don't see many.

00:04:28 ◼   ► And now it may be that where I live,

00:04:30 ◼   ► there's not a huge tech scene here.

00:04:32 ◼   ► I also work at home, so my children aren't wearing them,

00:04:35 ◼   ► so I don't see them on them.

00:04:37 ◼   ► But this guy who we named Andrew says

00:04:41 ◼   ► that he's seeing more and more of them,

00:04:43 ◼   ► And it's mostly, he said, you know, from his sort of,

00:04:46 ◼   ► just his notes, and he lives in Germany, I believe,

00:04:49 ◼   ► that he does see them, he's seeing them more and more,

00:04:52 ◼   ► but mostly on men and mostly, you know,

00:04:54 ◼   ► kind of late 20s, early 30s, you know,

00:04:55 ◼   ► kind of where we are in life.

00:04:58 ◼   ► And I think that makes sense.

00:05:00 ◼   ► I think that kind of matches up with what I've seen.

00:05:03 ◼   ► What about you?

00:05:04 ◼   ► Have you seen more of them recently,

00:05:06 ◼   ► or do you feel like it's still kind of slow?

00:05:07 ◼   ► - Did I tell you that I saw my first Apple Watch

00:05:11 ◼   ► a few weeks ago?

00:05:12 ◼   ► - Okay. - Only one.

00:05:14 ◼   ► - Just the one.

00:05:16 ◼   ► - Yeah, I was eating out for dinner with my girlfriend

00:05:20 ◼   ► and I saw a guy walk by with a green Apple Watch Sport band.

00:05:25 ◼   ► But that was it.

00:05:26 ◼   ► Only Apple Watch I saw, except, you know,

00:05:28 ◼   ► Apple employees inside the Apple store.

00:05:30 ◼   ► So, yeah, just one.

00:05:33 ◼   ► - Yeah, we had another email from Will,

00:05:35 ◼   ► and Will is a student in college,

00:05:37 ◼   ► and he opened his email with saying,

00:05:39 ◼   ► "I am on the front lines of," quote,

00:05:41 ◼   ► what the youth are using every day, so that works for me.

00:05:45 ◼   ► He says he sees a lot of them, and I think,

00:05:49 ◼   ► you know, with these two listeners are saying,

00:05:51 ◼   ► you know, see them on younger people, see them on,

00:05:53 ◼   ► you know, obviously it's an expensive thing, right?

00:05:56 ◼   ► So kind of people with some disposable income

00:05:59 ◼   ► who are already nerdy, who don't mind having a computer

00:06:01 ◼   ► on their wrist, and, you know, WDC is where I'd seen

00:06:05 ◼   ► the most of them until this weekend, but even XO,

00:06:08 ◼   ► there's a lot of kind of creative, technical people, so.

00:06:11 ◼   ► So yeah, I don't see many of them just out and about.

00:06:15 ◼   ► Like I've never been walking through a store, I don't think, and spot one.

00:06:20 ◼   ► But yeah, they're definitely out there, just maybe not where you and I spend all of our

00:06:25 ◼   ► time.

00:06:26 ◼   ► Yeah, and I guess I am asked a lot by friends, "Is the Apple Watch doing okay in Italy?"

00:06:35 ◼   ► And I think most new Apple products tend to take some time to become popular in Italy.

00:06:45 ◼   ► I don't know if it's a cultural thing, like we tend to be more skeptical and the fact

00:06:50 ◼   ► that Apple products come out after a few months in Italy is also another issue to consider.

00:06:56 ◼   ► maybe I think the Samsung brand is quite strong here and I do see more Samsung Gear watches

00:07:08 ◼   ► than Apple Watches, for example.

00:07:10 ◼   ► So I don't know what it is, but this has always been the case with the iPhone, with the iPad

00:07:15 ◼   ► and now with the Apple Watch.

00:07:17 ◼   ► It always takes some time for a new Apple product to take off in Italy and become massively

00:07:21 ◼   ► popular, but when it does, you can see it everywhere.

00:07:25 ◼   ► So it's like, you know, one of those engines that takes a while to warm up and then it

00:07:30 ◼   ► just goes.

00:07:31 ◼   ► Sure.

00:07:32 ◼   ► That's Italy with new Apple products.

00:07:34 ◼   ► That's a good analogy Federico.

00:07:35 ◼   ► I like that.

00:07:36 ◼   ► Thank you.

00:07:37 ◼   ► You know, I mean, I think it's, I mean, in talking about this, I think back about owning

00:07:43 ◼   ► the first iPhone and I, you know, I worked at the store at the time and a bunch of us

00:07:47 ◼   ► got them and I had it probably within the first month, I think is when they sort of

00:07:52 ◼   ► finally were available to employees and I definitely remember like pulling it

00:07:57 ◼   ► out at a restaurant to show my friends and like people looking like people

00:08:02 ◼   ► noticing and people you know even wanting to see it and wanted to talk

00:08:05 ◼   ► about it and I think that's just like you said that's kind of a normal thing

00:08:09 ◼   ► for some of these devices and like the original iPhone the Apple Watch is

00:08:15 ◼   ► expensive and it's it's rare to a degree right for for a while unless you

00:08:19 ◼   ► pre-ordered you couldn't just go in and buy one but my guess is that I mean

00:08:24 ◼   ► Apple's clearly you know they've adjusted the line for the hot for the

00:08:27 ◼   ► holidays I think they're gonna sell a bunch of them this quarter and I think

00:08:31 ◼   ► that you know starting after Christmas we're gonna see more of them sort of out

00:08:35 ◼   ► about on you know slightly more normal people than than you and I we'll see but

00:08:44 ◼   ► um anyway so we have a couple of many topics and then we have a couple really

00:08:48 ◼   ► big topics. If you've been paying attention last week you probably know

00:08:51 ◼   ► what the big two topics are but before we do that I want to tell you about

00:08:57 ◼   ► Harry's. For many of us shaving is a pain. It kind of stinks. It's uncomfortable. You

00:09:03 ◼   ► get nicks, cut, scrapes, get razor burn which is about the worst thing in the

00:09:06 ◼   ► world and it's super expensive. But enter Harry's. Harry's is started by two guys

00:09:12 ◼   ► who they just wanted a better product. That's why Harry's exists. These two guys

00:09:16 ◼   ► wanted a better product without paying an arm and a leg to get it.

00:09:18 ◼   ► Harry's makes their own blades. They're high quality high-performing German blades.

00:09:23 ◼   ► We know that now Federico you and I know the Germans don't mess around.

00:09:25 ◼   ► These blades were crafted by shaving experts and Harry's liked them so much they purchased the factory.

00:09:32 ◼   ► These razors offer a high quality shave at about half the price of the other big-brand blades.

00:09:37 ◼   ► They ship for free to your front door and the starter set is an amazing deal. 15 bucks gets you a razor,

00:09:44 ◼   ► shaving cream or foaming shave gel and I've switched to the gel and actually really like it and three razor blades 15 bucks

00:09:51 ◼   ► It shows about your door feel like me. You don't want to go to the drugstore and have to buy this stuff

00:09:55 ◼   ► That's way more expensive and you have to deal with a human order it online. It shows up

00:09:58 ◼   ► On average an everyday shaver could save a hundred and fifty dollars a year using Harry's blades

00:10:04 ◼   ► and I do have to say enough I've

00:10:08 ◼   ► They sent me a kit forever ago. I love the way the razor looks it's super cool

00:10:13 ◼   ► It's mine is like chrome with an H engraved in it just super nice. It feels good in the hand

00:10:18 ◼   ► It does not feel cheap. It feels like a real actual product

00:10:21 ◼   ► And I really like that

00:10:23 ◼   ► I like things that

00:10:24 ◼   ► Time at the Apple watch like things that look nice like things that have a weight to them like things that that feel substantial

00:10:29 ◼   ► And the the Harry's razor fits all those criteria for me

00:10:33 ◼   ► I

00:10:35 ◼   ► Tidy up my beard. I keep myself looking nice and smart which is a very British adjective, but I'll borrow it today from Myke

00:10:42 ◼   ► And it's really the best way to experience a clean close and comfortable shave if you go to Harry's calm right now

00:10:49 ◼   ► They'll give you five dollars off if you type in the coupon code connected with your first purchase

00:10:54 ◼   ► That's Harry's calm and our coupon code connected a checkoff for five dollars off and start shaving better today

00:11:00 ◼   ► All right Federico we have these many topics here

00:11:06 ◼   ► Very exciting. I did want to talk a little bit about

00:11:10 ◼   ► XOXO, there's a link in the show notes.

00:11:12 ◼   ► It is a festival and a conference in Portland, Oregon,

00:11:17 ◼   ► and it's sort of built around what we do for a living,

00:11:20 ◼   ► like independent people creating things in technology

00:11:25 ◼   ► and in art and in journalism and in photography

00:11:28 ◼   ► and all these things that you and I do.

00:11:31 ◼   ► This crossroad of technology and the liberal arts even,

00:11:36 ◼   ► you could say that.

00:11:38 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:11:38 ◼   ► I don't know how to use that term.

00:11:40 ◼   ► - Yeah, why not?

00:11:41 ◼   ► - And I kinda want to ask you Federico,

00:11:44 ◼   ► I had this moment this weekend, right,

00:11:46 ◼   ► where I'm sitting here with all these people,

00:11:48 ◼   ► a lot of them have jobs, but a lot of them

00:11:50 ◼   ► work for themselves, and they're sort of

00:11:51 ◼   ► in this industry that we're in,

00:11:54 ◼   ► and I sort of had this moment, like I,

00:11:57 ◼   ► for a long time I looked at independent creative people,

00:12:01 ◼   ► and I looked at them saying, that'd be really cool

00:12:02 ◼   ► if I could do that one day, and I had that moment

00:12:06 ◼   ► this weekend, sitting, listening to someone's talk,

00:12:08 ◼   ► it'd be really cool if I could make things for a living.

00:12:10 ◼   ► And then I realized that I make things for a living.

00:12:12 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:12:13 ◼   ► It's like, oh, I am now part of that world,

00:12:17 ◼   ► like the independent creative technology scene.

00:12:20 ◼   ► And I kinda wanna talk to you about that.

00:12:23 ◼   ► Like, do you ever feel that way?

00:12:25 ◼   ► Like, do you ever, do you think of yourself

00:12:29 ◼   ► in that way of like you're an independent,

00:12:31 ◼   ► creative type person, or do you just,

00:12:33 ◼   ► for me it's so easy to get lost in the weeds

00:12:34 ◼   ► in what I'm doing, I don't ever think about it,

00:12:36 ◼   ► like in a big picture way.

00:12:37 ◼   ► Yeah, the strangest thing of writing and creating something that didn't exist before and then

00:12:48 ◼   ► giving it to other people is you can be so absorbed in the idea of making it for yourself

00:12:56 ◼   ► that you don't realize there's people out there who are consuming and enjoying, hopefully,

00:13:02 ◼   ► what you create.

00:13:03 ◼   ► So when I write, when I spend weeks or months working on something, I never do that with

00:13:14 ◼   ► the idea that there's going to be X number of people reading this piece or using it in

00:13:21 ◼   ► the future for something.

00:13:25 ◼   ► It's a strange feeling.

00:13:26 ◼   ► So I don't see myself as a creator when I write.

00:13:30 ◼   ► I see that as my activity, as what I do.

00:13:34 ◼   ► Not necessarily as what I do for an audience.

00:13:37 ◼   ► But when I stop and think about it like you did, I'm like "Yeah, there is an audience."

00:13:43 ◼   ► So I am creating stuff for people, not just for me.

00:13:47 ◼   ► But I think if you get stuck too much on that thought during the creation process, you gotta

00:13:55 ◼   ► balance that, because you can be distracted by the fact that there's people and that there's

00:14:04 ◼   ► an audience and that you gotta create something for others.

00:14:07 ◼   ► Instead, I try to create for myself and I try to create for my closest friends, like

00:14:15 ◼   ► you, Myke, and the other Mac Stories guys, I try to imagine that there's a limited number

00:14:22 ◼   ► of people who need to look over what I do. Because if I think about the audience, it

00:14:28 ◼   ► doesn't matter whether it's a hundred people or a thousand people, but if I try to think

00:14:34 ◼   ► about all these people around the world, you know, thanks to the internet, all these people

00:14:38 ◼   ► in America, in Asia, in Japan, and all these other countries and continents, it's super

00:14:44 ◼   ► strange and it kind of clouds my thoughts, so I try not to get stuck on that idea. But

00:14:54 ◼   ► when I think about it, when I stop, like tonight when I will be done with this iOS 9 review,

00:15:01 ◼   ► when I will stop and I will send it over to my team and I will save the draft on the website,

00:15:07 ◼   ► I will realize this is going out to a lot of people. And what now? I don't know. So

00:15:13 ◼   ► So it's strange. I guess it's different when you're like a rock star or you're in a band

00:15:19 ◼   ► or you're in a movie star and you're constantly exposed to big audiences and to the idea of

00:15:26 ◼   ► living a life, creating stuff, right? Whether you create music or popular books or whether

00:15:33 ◼   ► you act in popular movies. You're always exposed to the idea of a big audience, of the public

00:15:39 ◼   ► eye, you know, judging you. But when you work at home, when you're an indie guy like us,

00:15:46 ◼   ► you can get away from that perception. But when you realize that, it's super weird. So

00:15:52 ◼   ► I think the problem is very much a peculiar one, especially because we work from home,

00:15:58 ◼   ► we don't have a big office, we don't go walk on the red carpet, you know, usually. I don't

00:16:03 ◼   ► know if Myke does. But yeah.

00:16:06 ◼   ► yeah it's just strange and it just sort of hit me like the people I do work

00:16:12 ◼   ► with now like like when I go to work I go to work with Myke and you and Jason

00:16:17 ◼   ► Snell and you know all these people on relay and you know the a fair amount of

00:16:22 ◼   ► them sort of fit into this category and a lot of them were at XOXO so it was

00:16:27 ◼   ► kind of nice to see a lot of a lot of relay and I was reminded Federica that

00:16:32 ◼   ► that you and I have never met in person.

00:16:34 ◼   ► - Never? - Also that you and Myke

00:16:36 ◼   ► have never met in person. - Never.

00:16:37 ◼   ► - So we need to change that.

00:16:39 ◼   ► I think 2016 is gonna be the year of connected in person.

00:16:43 ◼   ► - What if I don't exist?

00:16:45 ◼   ► - Then it's been a really strange three years for me.

00:16:49 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:16:50 ◼   ► - What if I'm a computer-generated voice?

00:16:53 ◼   ► - Then it's the sexiest AI I've ever heard.

00:16:57 ◼   ► I think the listeners would agree with that.

00:17:02 ◼   ► - Yeah, so a couple other quick little things.

00:17:03 ◼   ► I wanted to share something that I had put up

00:17:07 ◼   ► on Five Twelve last week and we didn't get to talk about it.

00:17:11 ◼   ► But I think you linked to it in your weekly email

00:17:15 ◼   ► about the dog cow.

00:17:17 ◼   ► So this is one of those things that,

00:17:18 ◼   ► in thinking that hey, we work for ourselves

00:17:20 ◼   ► and we can make things that we wanna make,

00:17:22 ◼   ► like this little project is definitely something

00:17:25 ◼   ► that I only made for me.

00:17:27 ◼   ► And if other people enjoy it, that's nice.

00:17:29 ◼   ► But I wanted it to exist, so I made it.

00:17:31 ◼   ► It's kind of fun.

00:17:34 ◼   ► - It's the kind of information that you know

00:17:36 ◼   ► you can only get from 512 and Stephen Hackett.

00:17:39 ◼   ► As soon as I saw it, I was like, yeah, this is 100% Stephen.

00:17:45 ◼   ► - Marco introduced me as the dog cow historian

00:17:49 ◼   ► to somebody this weekend.

00:17:50 ◼   ► - Really?

00:17:51 ◼   ► - Nice.

00:17:52 ◼   ► - That's very much perfect.

00:17:54 ◼   ► - Yeah, and it's just one of those little,

00:17:56 ◼   ► some of those little chapters in Apple's history and story

00:18:01 ◼   ► in which they had a lot of personality breakthrough,

00:18:04 ◼   ► and you don't see that all the time from Apple.

00:18:06 ◼   ► You see it in places, but even now when you see it,

00:18:11 ◼   ► I always feel like it's kind of manufactured a little bit.

00:18:14 ◼   ► You know, like Craig Federighi being kind of like

00:18:17 ◼   ► the king of dad jokes.

00:18:19 ◼   ► That's just kind of something that they're doing to do it.

00:18:22 ◼   ► But this felt genuine because a couple of engineers did it

00:18:25 ◼   ► and it showed up and then it sort of got out of hand

00:18:28 ◼   ► a little bit.

00:18:29 ◼   ► - The links in the show notes, it's a fun little read.

00:18:32 ◼   ► There's like quick time examples

00:18:37 ◼   ► and I couldn't find good versions of them

00:18:38 ◼   ► so I've got them on YouTube now for the masses to enjoy.

00:18:43 ◼   ► It's a public service really more than anything.

00:18:46 ◼   ► - That's what you do.

00:18:47 ◼   ► - That's why I'm here, that's why I'm here.

00:18:50 ◼   ► And of course we need to ask about the iOS 9 review

00:18:55 ◼   ► 'cause so we're recording this Tuesday, September 15th.

00:18:58 ◼   ► your review will be up tomorrow.

00:19:00 ◼   ► - Yes.

00:19:01 ◼   ► - How is that going?

00:19:02 ◼   ► - Less than 24 hours to go.

00:19:05 ◼   ► And the review is done.

00:19:06 ◼   ► It's completed.

00:19:08 ◼   ► I read the review three times.

00:19:11 ◼   ► My main editor, TJ Loma of the backstory steam

00:19:17 ◼   ► read the review twice.

00:19:19 ◼   ► So I'm still going through some final edits

00:19:23 ◼   ► but all the text is done.

00:19:25 ◼   ► Half of the screenshots are done.

00:19:28 ◼   ► the pagination is done, the links are already in the Markdown file

00:19:35 ◼   ► and I just need to look over 20 other edits which are mainly typos and commas

00:19:44 ◼   ► today, so it's a 20 minute affair

00:19:47 ◼   ► and I gotta do about another, I would say, 150 screenshots

00:19:54 ◼   ► which I will combine with my scripts and it'll turn out to be maybe another 70 images for the review.

00:20:01 ◼   ► I guess the total will be about 300 screenshots.

00:20:06 ◼   ► I know there's 38 footnotes. I'm not gonna spoil the word count today.

00:20:15 ◼   ► And so yeah, I will be done tonight.

00:20:19 ◼   ► And I will send it over to Graham, the MicroStories team.

00:20:24 ◼   ► We, thanks to Brett Terpstra,

00:20:27 ◼   ► we have a whole build script that generates

00:20:31 ◼   ► ebook files from my markdown file.

00:20:37 ◼   ► We made a lot of customizations in there to make sure

00:20:39 ◼   ► that the EPUB of the review looks okay.

00:20:43 ◼   ► and works well as an ebook.

00:20:46 ◼   ► So yes, we're gonna offer an EPUB download

00:20:49 ◼   ► to Club Maxx Service members.

00:20:51 ◼   ► And yeah, it's done, Steven.

00:20:55 ◼   ► All the information is correct.

00:20:56 ◼   ► I double checked with the GM.

00:20:59 ◼   ► I double checked all the APIs that I mentioned.

00:21:01 ◼   ► Hopefully it's all, I haven't made any major mistake.

00:21:06 ◼   ► Hopefully.

00:21:07 ◼   ► And I'm exhausted.

00:21:11 ◼   ► I'm excited.

00:21:12 ◼   ► I don't know what to think anymore. I just hope that people will like it.

00:21:17 ◼   ► Because it's that kind of thing, you work on that for 3 months and then you reach the final stretch.

00:21:22 ◼   ► You're done, you're just making the final modifications. I don't know what to think anymore.

00:21:28 ◼   ► Does it suck? Is it good? Is it terrible? I don't know. Is it too much? Is it too little?

00:21:32 ◼   ► Is it what people expect from me? I don't know. I just know that I put 3 months of my life into this.

00:21:40 ◼   ► And if people don't like it, at least I will, I think I will like it.

00:21:44 ◼   ► This is, I know this is what I wanted to write.

00:21:47 ◼   ► My judgment right now is a bit strange because I'm exhausted.

00:21:52 ◼   ► But I know there's nothing else I could possibly want to say.

00:21:58 ◼   ► So all my brain, all my thoughts are in this review.

00:22:02 ◼   ► And whatever happens, it's not up to me.

00:22:07 ◼   ► So we'll see tomorrow.

00:22:09 ◼   ► - Yeah, so I read a draft on Thursday of last week,

00:22:14 ◼   ► and I'm not gonna spoil any of it,

00:22:18 ◼   ► but I will say that it is very good.

00:22:21 ◼   ► I think I told you this privately,

00:22:23 ◼   ► but it's one of the best things,

00:22:27 ◼   ► if not the best thing that you have published.

00:22:29 ◼   ► And what's nice about it is that even as someone,

00:22:34 ◼   ► there's something in there for everyone, I think,

00:22:36 ◼   ► So I have been using iWasTined for a while now

00:22:39 ◼   ► and you explained some things that have been

00:22:42 ◼   ► driving me crazy 'cause I couldn't quite understand

00:22:45 ◼   ► what it was doing or what it was trying to do.

00:22:47 ◼   ► And so you, in that section, explained it

00:22:52 ◼   ► and I read it and I was like, oh,

00:22:53 ◼   ► that's why this thing is this way.

00:22:56 ◼   ► And so even for someone who,

00:22:58 ◼   ► like I was supposed to be super on top of it,

00:23:00 ◼   ► was taught, I learned something from the review.

00:23:05 ◼   ► And that was special for me,

00:23:07 ◼   ► 'cause sometimes I go into these things,

00:23:10 ◼   ► like I know what this is going to cover,

00:23:14 ◼   ► but there's stuff in there.

00:23:15 ◼   ► I think there's something in there for everybody.

00:23:18 ◼   ► You don't just focus on the iPad stuff,

00:23:19 ◼   ► even though there's a really good section in there,

00:23:21 ◼   ► like what iOS 9 on the whole.

00:23:23 ◼   ► So even if you aren't super into the iPad,

00:23:26 ◼   ► don't write this off, go check it out,

00:23:28 ◼   ► put it in Instapaper,

00:23:29 ◼   ► have someone

00:23:35 ◼   ► schedule some time, read it.

00:23:37 ◼   ► - Take the day off.

00:23:37 ◼   ► - Take the day off, change your name,

00:23:40 ◼   ► and flee into the woods to read it.

00:23:43 ◼   ► - Move to an island.

00:23:44 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:23:46 ◼   ► - Yeah, so it's good, and I'm looking forward

00:23:48 ◼   ► to people's reactions, and yeah,

00:23:51 ◼   ► I'm excited for people to see it, 'cause I enjoyed it,

00:23:53 ◼   ► so thank you for letting me take a sneak peek

00:23:54 ◼   ► on the airplane.

00:23:55 ◼   ► - No, thank you for the support, really.

00:23:58 ◼   ► - Yeah, it actually made, so on my way out to Portland,

00:24:01 ◼   ► I was, I got on the plane, and then we sat on the runway

00:24:05 ◼   ► in Memphis for like an hour and a half.

00:24:07 ◼   ► And that made that time go much faster

00:24:09 ◼   ► because I read the review and most of it in that time.

00:24:12 ◼   ► So it was kind of nice.

00:24:13 ◼   ► I could feel the lady next to me

00:24:15 ◼   ► 'cause we're just sitting there, right?

00:24:17 ◼   ► And I'm not super great in that situation,

00:24:20 ◼   ► like talk to the stranger next to me

00:24:21 ◼   ► and so I'm just kind of reading it.

00:24:23 ◼   ► And I could feel her like looking down at my iPad

00:24:25 ◼   ► from time to time and like what is he reading?

00:24:27 ◼   ► 'Cause I mean this thing is like long

00:24:29 ◼   ► and there's like lots of technical terms in it.

00:24:31 ◼   ► And so she didn't ask me but I could kind of tell

00:24:34 ◼   ► unless you wanted to, but...

00:24:35 ◼   ► - And especially when she was looking at the name of APIs,

00:24:40 ◼   ► there's one, there's a code snippet

00:24:46 ◼   ► and that's processing for the change notification.

00:24:49 ◼   ► It's the name of an API, I guess.

00:24:51 ◼   ► Can you imagine like a normal person looking at that

00:24:54 ◼   ► and like, is that even English?

00:24:55 ◼   ► I'm just, you know, 24 hours.

00:25:00 ◼   ► I'm just, I don't know.

00:25:02 ◼   ► Thank you, just thank you Steven. I will have to thank Myke also. He's been incredible.

00:25:07 ◼   ► I've been texting snippets of the review to Myke since July and every time he's been a gentleman.

00:25:14 ◼   ► You know, everyone else would have gone crazy. Just stop me, don't send me any more

00:25:19 ◼   ► previews of what you're writing. But you two are really great friends and

00:25:26 ◼   ► hopefully people will like it. We'll see tomorrow. We'll see.

00:25:30 ◼   ► yeah we will will be talking about all that stuff next week but this week we're

00:25:38 ◼   ► going to talk about what happened last week but before before we do that

00:25:44 ◼   ► Federico yes we're going to talk about our friends at Linda.com

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00:28:08 ◼   ► So, Federico, you're a pro. Am I? And you use an iPad. Mm-hmm. Do you want an

00:28:15 ◼   ► iPad Pro. So you just got to the chase. Okay. I did. Well we can back up and talk

00:28:22 ◼   ► about what it is and everything but I think people want to know what you think

00:28:24 ◼   ► of it so what do you think of it? I think I want an iPad Pro. I am concerned about

00:28:32 ◼   ► two things. One of them is the size and weight of the iPad Pro and its portability.

00:28:39 ◼   ► I don't always work at my desk or at the kitchen table, which is where I get most of my work done actually.

00:28:50 ◼   ► I walk around the house when I'm writing or reading, I work from the sofa, I work from the balcony, I move around a lot,

00:29:02 ◼   ► a lot and I always carry the iPad in two hands and the iPad Air 2 is so thin and light it's

00:29:10 ◼   ► very much a comfortable device for me. I'm afraid that the iPad Pro could be a problem

00:29:17 ◼   ► in this sense because of its size and also because of its bigger display and increased

00:29:25 ◼   ► dimensions I'm afraid that it won't fit in my Tom Beam bag. So that's my

00:29:33 ◼   ► primary concern, that it's too big for me.

00:29:37 ◼   ► The other concern is

00:29:41 ◼   ► I think I may want to wait until the next version of iOS because from what we

00:29:50 ◼   ► saw last week, it doesn't seem like Apple is taking meaningful advantage of the

00:29:56 ◼   ► bigger display of the iPad Pro to scale iOS 9 to this even bigger iPad. Which is

00:30:03 ◼   ► strange because with iOS 9 Apple is doing some things, you know, a lot of

00:30:08 ◼   ► things actually to make use of the iPad's display. But you tweeted a picture of

00:30:14 ◼   ► of the iPad Pros home screen.

00:30:17 ◼   ► And it really felt like a rushed adaptation of, you know,

00:30:22 ◼   ► they could have done something different.

00:30:24 ◼   ► So I'm wondering, maybe I should give Apple another year

00:30:27 ◼   ► to perfect what they've done with iOS 9

00:30:30 ◼   ► to make use of the iPad Pros.

00:30:32 ◼   ► But what if, and this is the turn of my concerns,

00:30:37 ◼   ► what if it's not a problem for size?

00:30:41 ◼   ► What if it's not a problem for carrying around?

00:30:44 ◼   ► What if it's not a problem the fact that iOS 9 could be a little better?

00:30:50 ◼   ► Because that's what I'm excited about.

00:30:54 ◼   ► Working with iPad multitasking, and I don't want to spoil the review,

00:30:59 ◼   ► of course multitasking has been one of my favorite features of iOS 9.

00:31:03 ◼   ► And it looks like on the iPad Pro, because of its size, because of the bigger display,

00:31:08 ◼   ► using two apps at the same time feels less like using two mini apps at the same time,

00:31:16 ◼   ► but more like using two almost full-sized apps simultaneously.

00:31:21 ◼   ► So I definitely noticed when using iOS 9 on my Air 2 that the apps I was putting into SplitView

00:31:32 ◼   ► were smaller versions, perfectly functional,

00:31:36 ◼   ► but still smaller.

00:31:37 ◼   ► And so sometimes it can feel claustrophobic maybe,

00:31:42 ◼   ► it can feel a little small.

00:31:45 ◼   ► And I think that on the iPad Pro,

00:31:47 ◼   ► basically when you activate Split View in landscape,

00:31:51 ◼   ► and if you choose the 50/50 layout,

00:31:53 ◼   ► it's like using two portrait apps at the same time,

00:31:57 ◼   ► which is pretty great of an experience, I think.

00:32:01 ◼   ► So I think that the iPad Pro is what I want from a functional perspective.

00:32:09 ◼   ► You know, the multitasking is bigger, the apps are bigger, I can see more and more comfortably and I can probably do more.

00:32:19 ◼   ► Also because the keyboard has a different layout, so that's welcome.

00:32:23 ◼   ► My primary concern is that it's too big for me.

00:32:29 ◼   ► And that's why I need to try one before making a decision.

00:32:34 ◼   ► Also because it's quite the expensive device.

00:32:38 ◼   ► But everything about it sounds super great to me.

00:32:41 ◼   ► And not just the bigger screen with better multitasking,

00:32:45 ◼   ► but my iPad is my primary device for listening to music.

00:32:52 ◼   ► So, you know, better audio for speakers, that sounds really good to me.

00:32:59 ◼   ► The increased memory for 4GB of RAM, that should lead to better performance across the

00:33:05 ◼   ► system and, you know, third-party apps as well.

00:33:10 ◼   ► Everything about the iPad Pro sounds exciting to me and I feel like that's simply because

00:33:18 ◼   ► I work from the iPad every day and because of that I am intrigued by a device by an iPad

00:33:26 ◼   ► that promises to do more.

00:33:29 ◼   ► But at the same time I'm also concerned about size and portability and whether it's more

00:33:35 ◼   ► of an iPad meant to be used on a desk inside of an iPad meant to be held in your hands.

00:33:42 ◼   ► The only way to know for sure is to try one, so we'll see what happens when I can finally

00:33:49 ◼   ► try one.

00:33:50 ◼   ► Yeah, I tend to agree with you.

00:33:54 ◼   ► I'm not particularly interested in it.

00:33:56 ◼   ► I like the iPad Air 2.

00:33:59 ◼   ► It's a good size for me, for someone who I mostly read and browse on it, and I like the

00:34:05 ◼   ► bigger screen than the mini.

00:34:08 ◼   ► I do think you raise good points though where yet again we're sort of in a

00:34:12 ◼   ► situation where the hardware may be a little ahead of the software where this

00:34:16 ◼   ► thing could do really cool things but it's it may be limited by what the other

00:34:22 ◼   ► iPads can do right because it really doesn't do much besides the pencil stuff

00:34:26 ◼   ► that the the iPad mini and the iPad air 2 can't do right those iPads can do

00:34:32 ◼   ► slide over they can do this side by side apps they can do all this other stuff

00:34:37 ◼   ► And for me looking at this like I feel like there's an opportunity for Apple to

00:34:42 ◼   ► kind of have this product stand on its own a little bit more where maybe at

00:34:48 ◼   ► some point it gains features that the others don't because of that screen

00:34:53 ◼   ► size and not just from an iOS perspective like at the system level but

00:34:58 ◼   ► even with third-party apps as far as I know and maybe you can correct me if I'm

00:35:02 ◼   ► if you know differently but at this point I don't believe there's any way to

00:35:06 ◼   ► to target just the iPad Pro with an App Store app. We're basically you know we

00:35:12 ◼   ► run into this problem over and over over the last several years of a developer

00:35:16 ◼   ► can just write an iPad app and Apple expects and and basically demands that

00:35:21 ◼   ► it run on a whole suite of hardware and you know there was a there was a link

00:35:28 ◼   ► floating around we'll find it for the show notes about the guys who make

00:35:31 ◼   ► sketch and basically they were saying you know we don't we're afraid that

00:35:34 ◼   ► that there's not a market for it,

00:35:36 ◼   ► that there's not going to be the opportunity

00:35:41 ◼   ► for Sketch to make a living, make good money

00:35:44 ◼   ► with the iPad Pro.

00:35:47 ◼   ► And that's a shame for a bunch of reasons,

00:35:49 ◼   ► but if the iPad Pro had its own class of apps

00:35:52 ◼   ► in the App Store, and you know,

00:35:55 ◼   ► maybe there would be an opportunity to kind of reset

00:35:58 ◼   ► this race to the bottom and say,

00:36:00 ◼   ► hey what you know the software is going to be to be more expensive because it

00:36:06 ◼   ► can do all these other things you can only do on this iPad right but there's

00:36:10 ◼   ► no exclusivity there the iPad Pro really besides the pencil is just a bigger iPad

00:36:16 ◼   ► and and why that's great in of itself I don't think it's enough to say this

00:36:22 ◼   ► thing is really worth developers time it's really worth users money to go

00:36:27 ◼   ► after it?

00:36:28 ◼   ► >> Yeah, the developer question is, it's a tricky problem.

00:36:34 ◼   ► And I don't think there's just one solution.

00:36:40 ◼   ► Because on the one hand, Apple could do more to enable different kinds of business models

00:36:49 ◼   ► on the App Store.

00:36:51 ◼   ► And when it comes to spending a lot of money, so $50 compared to free or $1 for an app,

00:37:02 ◼   ► it's a lot of money.

00:37:04 ◼   ► And when it comes to that, not having the ability to try an app or to offer upgrades

00:37:14 ◼   ► for your most loyal customers, unless you do some kind of work around, that's a problem.

00:37:21 ◼   ► And you could make the argument that iOS software wants to remove much of the complexity of

00:37:29 ◼   ► the purchase process of Mac software.

00:37:35 ◼   ► But there's only so many ways you can ask for money.

00:37:39 ◼   ► Money is money.

00:37:40 ◼   ► And convincing people is still the same problem, no matter whether it's on OS X or on iOS.

00:37:47 ◼   ► comes to spending 50 bucks or 100 bucks, you need to make sure that the customer is completely

00:37:55 ◼   ► or at least moderately sure about their decision.

00:38:00 ◼   ► And the App Store lacks that kind of process.

00:38:03 ◼   ► But on the other hand, there are some developers, and I'm trying not to do any kind of victim

00:38:12 ◼   ► blaming here. But there are some developers, I think, that don't necessarily believe in iOS as a

00:38:21 ◼   ► productivity platform or as a platform where they can make apps and they can charge good money for them.

00:38:28 ◼   ► I'm thinking of examples such as the Omni Group or other companies that ask for good money when making

00:38:39 ◼   ► productivity apps on the episode. There's not many of them, but they exist and they

00:38:47 ◼   ► see the iPad as a platform where people can get work done because it's a computer.

00:38:55 ◼   ► And there's many developers that just completely discard the idea of iOS as a

00:39:03 ◼   ► platform where you can make that kind of app.

00:39:07 ◼   ► just on principle maybe. I don't know why they do that and it could easily be that it's a mix of

00:39:14 ◼   ► preconception and fear of losing your money, which is a perfectly

00:39:19 ◼   ► acceptable explanation.

00:39:22 ◼   ► But I think in the middle of these two possible reasons lies the opportunity

00:39:28 ◼   ► for Apple and for developers to

00:39:31 ◼   ► reimagine the kind of app you can make for an iPad now that the iPad Pro is coming out.

00:39:36 ◼   ► Apple needs to provide better tools for developers to charge money. Not one

00:39:48 ◼   ► buck or two bucks on the app, sort of like that. $50, $100, possibly every year. And the kind of money

00:39:55 ◼   ► that isn't a subscription that can turn people off, you know, a standalone

00:39:59 ◼   ► single purchase for professionals. And you could argue that the iOS App Store

00:40:05 ◼   ► wanted to reimagine the way that you buy an app and they have done that. But being a professional

00:40:11 ◼   ► doesn't need reimagination. It just needs efficiency. It just needs security of your

00:40:19 ◼   ► purchase process. And so there's so just so many ways you can reimagine that. When it comes to

00:40:25 ◼   ► money, it's money. But developers also need to seriously consider the market for people like me

00:40:33 ◼   ► and many others. I'm not a special case, I'm not some kind of magic dude with an iPad.

00:40:41 ◼   ► I'm just some guy like many other people, millions of people who use iPads as their primary computers

00:40:47 ◼   ► and they need to understand that there's a possibility that there's a market for that

00:40:52 ◼   ► and that maybe, just maybe, they can figure out ways to make money because it just comes down to

00:41:01 ◼   ► making money. We're not talking about being a good Samaritan here. It's about a business.

00:41:07 ◼   ► It's about making money from apps. And there's people who use iPads as computers. There is

00:41:13 ◼   ► the possibility of making money. It is possible to... and I'm asking this as a question, but

00:41:22 ◼   ► also as a hopeful statement, there's a possibility of making money on this platform, whether

00:41:31 ◼   ► or not Apple makes changes.

00:41:34 ◼   ► I think I would be very much surprised if next year, considering the iPad Pro and the

00:41:43 ◼   ► kind of market it opens for developers, if Apple doesn't bring some changes to the App

00:41:50 ◼   ► App Store for developers because again I'm all for the simplification of the App Store

00:41:58 ◼   ► and there's no confusion, there's no upgrades, there's no trials, there's no demos, it's

00:42:04 ◼   ► just what it is.

00:42:05 ◼   ► You buy or you don't buy.

00:42:08 ◼   ► But also, you know, professionals, teams, businesses that rely on apps and iPads, they're

00:42:20 ◼   ► not regular consumers, they're not regular customers and they need exceptions and only

00:42:27 ◼   ► Apple can make those. So I'm somewhere in the middle on this issue. I think there's

00:42:35 ◼   ► a point to those who argue that it's all Apple's fault. I also think there's a point to those

00:42:41 ◼   ► say developers could be more creative. I am somewhere in the middle. I don't know what the perfect solution is.

00:42:52 ◼   ► I am just hopeful that with time and with this iPad Pro it'll be a chance for everyone to say "ok, we need to do this now".

00:43:01 ◼   ► Now is the time to make these changes, whether it's Apple or whether it's developers.

00:43:06 ◼   ► So the next six months or the next ten months will be interesting. I hope.

00:43:11 ◼   ► Yeah, I agree. And I think it's...

00:43:15 ◼   ► You can look at the App Store and you can say, "Look, there's a lot that needs to change."

00:43:19 ◼   ► We spoke about it last week, maybe two weeks ago, about the idea of the App Store being split between

00:43:26 ◼   ► games and then everything else, and how that could really change what the App Store is

00:43:32 ◼   ► and how those charts work and maybe even how editorial works.

00:43:37 ◼   ► And then you look at a device like the iPad Pro

00:43:39 ◼   ► and it's like, well, maybe it also deserves its own App Store

00:43:43 ◼   ► or maybe at least a section in the App Store

00:43:45 ◼   ► that these really high-end apps like Sketch,

00:43:49 ◼   ► which is great on the Mac.

00:43:51 ◼   ► I mean, it's a wonderful app

00:43:53 ◼   ► and used by a lot of truly creative professional people.

00:43:58 ◼   ► And there's not, I mean, there are a bunch of ways,

00:44:02 ◼   ► like we can't justify doing this we don't think we can make the money back

00:44:05 ◼   ► they also call out the trials being a thing like people don't buy $50 apps

00:44:10 ◼   ► without a trial and we talked about that for years of the Mac App Store as well

00:44:15 ◼   ► and you look at the Mac App Store and it in some ways the iPad Pro and the Mac

00:44:21 ◼   ► sort of face similar issues in the App Store right there's there's not trials

00:44:25 ◼   ► there's limitations that at least on the Mac there's a there's a way out right if

00:44:31 ◼   ► if you need something like transmit you can get it because you can side load

00:44:36 ◼   ► apps on the Mac and and you can't do that on the iPad Pro and I don't think

00:44:40 ◼   ► there I don't think that's the answer but I do think that there is an

00:44:44 ◼   ► opportunity for Apple to look at this and sort of reinvent the App Store in a

00:44:47 ◼   ► way of of saying look you know it's a different device and and using that

00:44:52 ◼   ► using that this thing is powerful in a way that the other the other iPads are

00:44:58 ◼   ► not and and doing something about that from a policy level because all this is

00:45:04 ◼   ► just policy right Apple's hardware and Apple software move much faster than

00:45:07 ◼   ► their their rules and procedures and their policies and the way they treat

00:45:11 ◼   ► developers and the way they pay developers all that into the business is

00:45:15 ◼   ► very slow and I think that the hardware and the software have a real opportunity

00:45:21 ◼   ► to push Apple forward on this and and I hope they do I hope this thing is

00:45:25 ◼   ► successful I think it'd be great to have a device like the iPad Pro that that

00:45:30 ◼   ► would really be Mac like in ways that it just can't be today right and the pencil

00:45:37 ◼   ► gets it there the keyboard gets it there but if the software is not there then it

00:45:41 ◼   ► doesn't really matter and and I fear I just worried about the iPad Pro

00:45:46 ◼   ► withering on the vine because of that and I don't know I got I think it's

00:45:52 ◼   ► really interesting device, I think it could do well

00:45:55 ◼   ► in a certain market, but I think it's gonna be hamstrung

00:45:57 ◼   ► by the App Store being what it is.

00:46:00 ◼   ► - I think Apple should, I mean, we shouldn't see,

00:46:04 ◼   ► we shouldn't read this kind of post

00:46:07 ◼   ► from the Sketch developers.

00:46:08 ◼   ► We should see Apple reaching out to the Sketch developers

00:46:11 ◼   ► and saying, "Hey, your app is one of,"

00:46:15 ◼   ► I mean, on the Mac, Sketch won an Apple Design Award.

00:46:19 ◼   ► So it's the kind of app that Apple celebrates.

00:46:23 ◼   ► And there should be this kind of experience on an iPad Pro.

00:46:26 ◼   ► There should be this kind of experience reimagined for iOS.

00:46:29 ◼   ► See, you gotta reimagine the experience of using an app.

00:46:32 ◼   ► You don't need to reimagine the business model.

00:46:35 ◼   ► You don't often need to reimagine the business model,

00:46:37 ◼   ► at least, because like I said, money is money.

00:46:41 ◼   ► There's no reimagining there.

00:46:44 ◼   ► And so Apple should reach out to these guys and say,

00:46:46 ◼   ► "Why are you not making sketch on the iPad Pro?

00:46:48 ◼   ► What can we do to help you make Sketch for the iPad Pro?

00:46:53 ◼   ► And this is not just about Sketch, it's about all the other hundreds of excellent apps on OS X

00:47:00 ◼   ► that for one reason, whether it's technical or economical, cannot be made for iOS and for the iPad.

00:47:08 ◼   ► So let me read you this.

00:47:09 ◼   ► Everyone wins.

00:47:11 ◼   ► We sell more devices because we have the best apps.

00:47:14 ◼   ► Developers reach a wider and wider audience and customer base, and users are continually delighted by the best and broadest selection of apps on any platform.

00:47:24 ◼   ► That was Steve Jobs five years ago in Thoughts on Flash, and Steve had it exactly right.

00:47:31 ◼   ► We sell devices because we have the best apps.

00:47:35 ◼   ► You don't sell devices because you have the cheapest apps or the cheapest app store.

00:47:41 ◼   ► You sell devices because you have the best experience and there isn't just one type of experience.

00:47:49 ◼   ► There isn't just the consumer, angry birds, flappy birds, many types of birds kind of experience.

00:47:57 ◼   ► There's the professional, there's the creative and Apple knows that because they made an iPad Pro for those people.

00:48:03 ◼   ► They should also make the tools to enable a different experience for those people.

00:48:09 ◼   ► It's very simple, you know?

00:48:13 ◼   ► But again, like I said, developers could also do, in some cases, a bit more of an effort.

00:48:19 ◼   ► So I am somewhere in the middle and there's no solution.

00:48:23 ◼   ► We're literally talking about a problem that we can offer no solution for.

00:48:27 ◼   ► But I guess that's the fun of podcasting.

00:48:30 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:48:31 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:48:32 ◼   ► We can just tell giant companies what to do.

00:48:39 ◼   ► So we're going to talk about Club Max Stories, your new, your announcement this week, but

00:48:43 ◼   ► first we're going to talk about Blink, better affiliate links. Blink is an iOS app that

00:48:49 ◼   ► works with your iTunes affiliate program. The iTunes affiliate program is really cool,

00:48:54 ◼   ► you can sign up and you can earn 7% of sales generated by the links you create. Federico,

00:48:58 ◼   ► you use these, I use these, everyone uses these. And Blink makes creating these links

00:49:03 ◼   ► dead simple. Apple's tool is web-based and terrible and gross. Blink is awesome.

00:49:09 ◼   ► It's mobile, runs on your iPhone and iPad. It's easy to use, it looks good and it's

00:49:15 ◼   ► just super great. You can create links to any media sold by Apple including iOS

00:49:19 ◼   ► and Mac apps, movies, TV shows, books, people apparently buy music you can do

00:49:25 ◼   ► that as well. All with this app. It handles storing your affiliate credentials

00:49:29 ◼   ► so you don't have to remember them. You get this weird like little string of

00:49:33 ◼   ► characters you have to add to the link. Blink does that for you automatically

00:49:36 ◼   ► you don't have to remember it. It's really flexible you can search for media or you can

00:49:41 ◼   ► link to it directly from Blink. It has a powerful extension to convert all kinds

00:49:46 ◼   ► of iTunes links to affiliate links from within other apps like the App Store or

00:49:50 ◼   ► iTunes Store or with any third-party apps like Twitter clients. You can use it

00:49:53 ◼   ► from anywhere it knows what it's doing. Once you've created a link, Blink lets you

00:49:58 ◼   ► share it basically anywhere and take all that text or URL. Since it's launched in

00:50:05 ◼   ► March, I can't believe this has only been out since March, Blink has steadily added

00:50:08 ◼   ► features including support for Apple Music. But that's just the start here in

00:50:14 ◼   ► a couple of days version 2.0 will be out which will be iOS 9 only and will ship

00:50:19 ◼   ► alongside or shortly thereafter iOS 9. Blink 2 adds a lot of great stuff.

00:50:25 ◼   ► iPad split-screen multitasking so you can search for media and link to it as

00:50:29 ◼   ► you work in other apps. You can have your text document and link up side by side.

00:50:33 ◼   ► Keyboard shortcuts, multiple affiliate token management, which is something

00:50:37 ◼   ► actually I requested I think a lot of the people did too. You can assign

00:50:41 ◼   ► nicknames to them so you don't have to remember which code is which which token

00:50:45 ◼   ► it's all just cleanly labeled so a human can use it. Link editing can be done

00:50:51 ◼   ► inside the extension. So if you want to change the title of the link you can do that.

00:50:56 ◼   ► Pricing information for apps, music, and books.

00:50:59 ◼   ► Which you can't find in Apple stores after you've bought something because the icon changes. Blink can show you that now.

00:51:05 ◼   ► And it's a super great and even supports Apple's podcast app with 2.0.

00:51:12 ◼   ► So go grab Blink today, so you're ready to go. If you want to find it in the App Store

00:51:17 ◼   ► be sure to search for "Blink Better" because App Store search. Or you can go to squibner.com/blink

00:51:27 ◼   ► to find out more. Blink, make your links work for you. Thank you to Blink for supporting

00:51:33 ◼   ► Connected and all of its really affordable.

00:51:34 ◼   ► - Yeah, I love it. And it's glorious on my internet.

00:51:36 ◼   ► - It's a good app. It's one that I use all the time.

00:51:38 ◼   ► - Great sponsor and great developer.

00:51:41 ◼   ► Yeah

00:51:43 ◼   ► It is

00:51:45 ◼   ► indeed

00:51:46 ◼   ► So we're gonna talk a little bit about

00:51:48 ◼   ► Club max stories and so if you people don't see this there's a couple links in the show notes

00:51:55 ◼   ► Basically Club max stories is a as a program now Federica that you've launched on your site

00:52:01 ◼   ► For people to be able to support you directly and in exchange they get some additional content

00:52:06 ◼   ► So kind of what's the structure of this? How does it work and

00:52:10 ◼   ► What do people expect to get if they join?

00:52:12 ◼   ► You can subscribe monthly. That's five dollars a month or annually. That's

00:52:16 ◼   ► $50 each year. So it's like getting two months for free and

00:52:21 ◼   ► In return for your subscription you get the max service weekly email

00:52:27 ◼   ► Delivered every Friday. This is the same email that we've been doing for the past year

00:52:34 ◼   ► but we created a brand new design and more importantly we are adding more and more sections.

00:52:41 ◼   ► So we are kind of rebuilding the entire newsletter from scratch.

00:52:47 ◼   ► We're keeping some of the old sections, we're adding some new ones such as App Debuts

00:52:53 ◼   ► which showcases the best new apps from the App Store or a Q&A section

00:52:58 ◼   ► so you can ask us questions on what will reply in Mac Service Weekly.

00:53:02 ◼   ► So really we are expanding the existing Maxories Weekly and we are calling it Maxories Weekly 2.0, which is very creative on our end, but that's really what it is.

00:53:12 ◼   ► We're also going to do a new newsletter, which is the Monthly Log.

00:53:17 ◼   ► This is an idea of mine, I've always wanted to do a kind of behind the scenes of my stories, but not just about how we work, but also how we relate to what happens in the things that we do.

00:53:36 ◼   ► So it's a mix of like a personal productivity journal with a reflection on Apple News for the past month.

00:53:44 ◼   ► It's basically like I see each month as a unit in a year of Apple News and of Mac service coverage.

00:53:53 ◼   ► And at the end of each month we want to reflect on everything that's going on in our minds when the month is ending.

00:53:59 ◼   ► And it's the kind of crazy thing that I don't think would be suitable for the main site.

00:54:09 ◼   ► But I think for our biggest readers and fans it's a nice idea to get a little more personal, a little more involved, and to see what exactly goes on in our brains.

00:54:20 ◼   ► It's the kind of content that I've always wanted to write in some fashion or another.

00:54:26 ◼   ► Then we're also going to offer free downloads starting tomorrow with the ebook version of my review.

00:54:34 ◼   ► Club members will be able to download an EPUB file that they can read comfortably in iBooks and in other ebook readers.

00:54:43 ◼   ► And we're also going to offer occasionally, on an occasional basis, we're going to do giveaways and coupon codes, discounts, that kind of stuff.

00:54:54 ◼   ► So we're gonna work with developers,

00:54:56 ◼   ► whether they make apps or web services, subscriptions,

00:55:00 ◼   ► we're gonna offer coupon codes, discount codes,

00:55:04 ◼   ► giveaways, licenses, whatever to our club members.

00:55:08 ◼   ► And that's it.

00:55:10 ◼   ► That's the main perks of becoming a club member.

00:55:13 ◼   ► So it's a way to get more out of Max Stories every month.

00:55:16 ◼   ► It's a way to support us directly,

00:55:18 ◼   ► but it's not a donation.

00:55:22 ◼   ► This is something that I try to stress in yesterday's announcement.

00:55:27 ◼   ► I've been asked for years from people to enable donations on the website because people are awesome and they want to support us.

00:55:34 ◼   ► And that's great, I've always been humbled by those requests, but I never felt comfortable taking money for nothing more in return.

00:55:45 ◼   ► Now, I know what we can give in return to those people because we wanna... basically, we wanna write more.

00:55:53 ◼   ► We wanna produce more content and at the same time, the site is fine.

00:55:59 ◼   ► There's some people reading too much into this announcement that were doing subscriptions because of content blockers,

00:56:06 ◼   ► that were doing the memberships because the website is not doing well.

00:56:10 ◼   ► The website is the same as last year, it's always going better.

00:56:16 ◼   ► Thankfully we don't depend on banner ads or tracking users, those crazy scripts that other websites do.

00:56:25 ◼   ► We are supported by sponsors and affiliate links and we're okay.

00:56:30 ◼   ► We just want to sell more content.

00:56:33 ◼   ► Because we feel that it's the kind of content that we can ask money for.

00:56:38 ◼   ► it feels like the right thing at the right time for us and the initial results are

00:56:45 ◼   ► much much better than I was expecting I'm super happy and it's yeah that's

00:56:53 ◼   ► that's my my pitch and my description Steven

00:56:56 ◼   ► cool yeah it's it's one of those things where a lot of people in our sort of arena are

00:57:08 ◼   ► looking at things like this where not as a way to shift away from you know

00:57:16 ◼   ► advertising in the the great coming of content blockers here tomorrow and iOS

00:57:22 ◼   ► 9 but as a way to not only diversify their income but a way to have better

00:57:28 ◼   ► relationships with their their readers you know what am I favorite things are

00:57:33 ◼   ► doing these shows or doing 512 is hearing from people and having

00:57:37 ◼   ► conversations with people, having conversations in real life at places like

00:57:40 ◼   ► WDC or XOXO. Talking about what we talk about here but sort of with with new

00:57:47 ◼   ► people and I think there's there's part of this too where as a member I feel

00:57:52 ◼   ► like I'm supporting you but I'm also sort of part of the Mac Stories family

00:57:56 ◼   ► that I am you know getting content that is exclusive to members but content that

00:58:01 ◼   ► that is sort of crafted for that audience.

00:58:04 ◼   ► And I think you've done it in a way

00:58:06 ◼   ► where you don't feel like you suddenly have

00:58:09 ◼   ► a board of directors, where if you sell

00:58:11 ◼   ► a thousand memberships, you don't have a thousand people

00:58:13 ◼   ► that you have to answer to for everything.

00:58:16 ◼   ► And I think that's a hangup for a lot of people,

00:58:18 ◼   ► including for me, and thinking about this for Relay.

00:58:23 ◼   ► Like, how do we structure something where

00:58:26 ◼   ► I'm not doing a bunch of work for a pretty small group,

00:58:30 ◼   ► and I'm not doing work that would otherwise be public,

00:58:34 ◼   ► and how do I do it in a way where they're not in charge?

00:58:37 ◼   ► There's all these things,

00:58:38 ◼   ► and it seems like you've thought about all this.

00:58:40 ◼   ► Did you have any of those concerns going into this?

00:58:42 ◼   ► - The biggest question for me was, if I'm gonna do this,

00:58:47 ◼   ► this is the same thought that I've been having

00:58:50 ◼   ► since basically 2012.

00:58:53 ◼   ► If I'm gonna do this, am I gonna be able to provide

00:58:57 ◼   ► subscribers with content they love and can I do that on a regular basis so I don't skip

00:59:06 ◼   ► weeks or people accuse me of stealing their money. Can I do this at a practical level

00:59:13 ◼   ► without having the pressure of all these people, hopefully, subscribing? And that's why last

00:59:20 ◼   ► year we were talking with the team about doing a newsletter and I said we're just gonna do

00:59:26 ◼   ► it for free. And we're gonna do a test. We're gonna see if it works for us, if we

00:59:33 ◼   ► can find the time, if we can find the tone, if we can find the content that we

00:59:38 ◼   ► want to talk about. And we're gonna see if it works for the readers, if they like

00:59:43 ◼   ► the idea, if they stick around, if they enjoy receiving an

00:59:50 ◼   ► issue of a newsletter each Friday and we got to 5,000 people subscribing to

00:59:58 ◼   ► MaxTories Weekly last year, over the past 12 months. And I never announced

01:00:06 ◼   ► MaxTories Weekly on the website. It's been a 12-month soft launch, really. I've

01:00:12 ◼   ► only shared MaxTories Weekly on Twitter, word of mouth. I interviewed some people

01:00:18 ◼   ► for the home screens, including you and Myke.

01:00:21 ◼   ► So I never publicly advertised the free newsletter

01:00:27 ◼   ► on the website.

01:00:28 ◼   ► And so going into this,

01:00:34 ◼   ► I knew we were gonna be able to scale

01:00:37 ◼   ► and to do Club Max Stories

01:00:40 ◼   ► because we've been doing this for 55 weeks.

01:00:45 ◼   ► and I know that it's not a problem for my schedule.

01:00:49 ◼   ► I know that we can find the content to talk about each week

01:00:54 ◼   ► and now with this different audience

01:00:59 ◼   ► and with more resources that we can put into this,

01:01:02 ◼   ► it's gonna be even better,

01:01:05 ◼   ► but it's not a problem of quantity at this point

01:01:07 ◼   ► because again, we've been doing this for a year.

01:01:12 ◼   ► We know we can find the time

01:01:14 ◼   ► And we know the website can do just fine.

01:01:18 ◼   ► And so it was too good of an opportunity

01:01:20 ◼   ► for me to pass over this time.

01:01:22 ◼   ► And in June, way before WWDC actually,

01:01:27 ◼   ► I think back in mid-May,

01:01:29 ◼   ► my girlfriend and I were talking,

01:01:32 ◼   ► she was like, you gotta do the subscriptions by September

01:01:36 ◼   ► when you have all these articles coming out.

01:01:40 ◼   ► You gotta have a system in place.

01:01:43 ◼   ► And so way before knowing that content blockers

01:01:47 ◼   ► were gonna be a thing, we set out to work on the club.

01:01:51 ◼   ► And again, it's been quite an experiment so far.

01:01:58 ◼   ► I'm very happy.

01:02:01 ◼   ► We'll see how it goes tomorrow.

01:02:03 ◼   ► We'll see how it continues to go in the next few weeks.

01:02:07 ◼   ► But I'm into this for the long game.

01:02:11 ◼   ► It's another thing that I do.

01:02:14 ◼   ► It's Maxoris and Club Maxoris.

01:02:16 ◼   ► And it's two sides of the same coin, basically.

01:02:19 ◼   ► And I'm very happy.

01:02:21 ◼   ► - You know, I like the way it's structured.

01:02:25 ◼   ► I like the way that,

01:02:27 ◼   ► especially the weekly email has been laid out

01:02:31 ◼   ► and has worked over time.

01:02:32 ◼   ► I get a bunch of email and that's one

01:02:34 ◼   ► that I always try to make sure to get to

01:02:39 ◼   ► because there's good stuff in there.

01:02:40 ◼   ► It's not, you know, so many websites do newsletters,

01:02:45 ◼   ► that do email, where it is basically just recycled stuff

01:02:50 ◼   ► from the website, and what I like about MaxTories Weekly

01:02:53 ◼   ► is that there's stuff in there, these links,

01:02:55 ◼   ► there's these home screen reviews,

01:02:57 ◼   ► they don't show up anywhere else.

01:02:58 ◼   ► You're not doing a home screen interview with Myke

01:03:00 ◼   ► on Tuesday on the website, and then emailing it out

01:03:02 ◼   ► on a Friday, it's just for the email.

01:03:06 ◼   ► And I think that sort of care, and the amount of,

01:03:09 ◼   ► I mean, clearly this is a lot of work.

01:03:11 ◼   ► I can't imagine how much time goes into these things.

01:03:14 ◼   ► And it shows, and I was happy to sign up.

01:03:18 ◼   ► I hope the listeners are happy to sign up,

01:03:19 ◼   ► because it's, I feel like I'm not only being able

01:03:23 ◼   ► to support my friend, but I'm also,

01:03:25 ◼   ► I'm getting way more than that money's worth

01:03:28 ◼   ► of content back out of it.

01:03:30 ◼   ► And I think that balance is good.

01:03:32 ◼   ► I hope that it's successful for you guys.

01:03:35 ◼   ► I mean, I hope that it can really change

01:03:38 ◼   ► what you can do with Mac Stories

01:03:39 ◼   ► and gives you guys the ability to do a lot more.

01:03:42 ◼   ► Have you thought any about,

01:03:45 ◼   ► do you see Club Max stories changing over time?

01:03:47 ◼   ► Do you have ideas, you don't have to share them,

01:03:49 ◼   ► but do you have ideas of things you might be able to do

01:03:52 ◼   ► if this thing is successful that you can't do now?

01:03:54 ◼   ► - I wanna add things to Club Max stories.

01:03:58 ◼   ► And two of those that I also talked about on Twitter

01:04:02 ◼   ► with some people yesterday are,

01:04:03 ◼   ► I wanna make sure that people can also read

01:04:09 ◼   ► the issues of weekly and the monthly log on a website.

01:04:13 ◼   ► So I wanna build a web version of that.

01:04:16 ◼   ► And I wanna explore the idea of a community.

01:04:22 ◼   ► So I'm thinking about forum, some kind,

01:04:27 ◼   ► a place where club members can hang out,

01:04:31 ◼   ► where it's a limited number of people.

01:04:34 ◼   ► So we know it's not gonna be a major problem

01:04:38 ◼   ► in terms of moderation and time.

01:04:41 ◼   ► I'm thinking about that,

01:04:43 ◼   ► but I think I'm gonna prioritize the web access first.

01:04:48 ◼   ► And also I'm thinking about making the ebook downloads

01:04:54 ◼   ► more of a regular thing for our longer articles.

01:04:59 ◼   ► I'm thinking about offering the EPUB version more often,

01:05:05 ◼   ► not just when I do an iOS 9 review.

01:05:07 ◼   ► But we gotta have a system in place to generate an ebook and make sure it's customized to

01:05:17 ◼   ► each article's needs every time.

01:05:19 ◼   ► So the EPUB we're gonna do tomorrow, it's customized to what I need in the review.

01:05:23 ◼   ► But if we're gonna do this often, we need to have more of a general system that can

01:05:29 ◼   ► make modifications to the file and that allow us to change some parameters and some options

01:05:36 ◼   ► every time depending on the kind of article that we want to transform into an e-book.

01:05:41 ◼   ► So we'll see. I'm going to prioritize the web access, I want to do more e-books, I want to do a community,

01:05:48 ◼   ► but hopefully I have a lifetime for those features.

01:05:53 ◼   ► So the next few months are going to be exciting because we have the basic system in place,

01:06:01 ◼   ► next we're gonna we're gonna work on additions to the

01:06:03 ◼   ► To the club and and that's it's pretty cool. It's cool. It's um, it's exciting and I was talking with

01:06:11 ◼   ► Jason Snell yesterday about it and

01:06:14 ◼   ► He's sort of chuckled that that Club Max stories is like the perfect name for it

01:06:19 ◼   ► I mean obviously you have Club Nintendo, but it feels very

01:06:21 ◼   ► European I think if you if you create some sort of online form or slack or something for people to be in I think you

01:06:29 ◼   ► you should call it the disco, like just really go all in on that sort of idea.

01:06:33 ◼   ► My main inspiration was the club Nintendo, of course.

01:06:37 ◼   ► But also like I've always been intrigued or fascinated by the idea of, you know, like

01:06:44 ◼   ► private clubs, not the club you go dancing to, but like private associations with members,

01:06:50 ◼   ► you know, and you receive all these fancy letters with letterpress logos, you know,

01:06:56 ◼   ► kind of exclusivity aspect and that's the kind of experience that I was trying to sell.

01:07:03 ◼   ► You know, you sign up and you receive exclusive content and you get this golden logo and it

01:07:10 ◼   ► tells you that this is just for you and for a few other people.

01:07:15 ◼   ► That's the idea and maybe it isn't a European thing, I don't know, but that's the kind of

01:07:20 ◼   ► idea that I was going for.

01:07:22 ◼   ► Like with the old Club Nintendo you logged into the website, it was a different logo,

01:07:26 ◼   ► could browse all Nintendo products that were just for you because they were

01:07:29 ◼   ► based on the points that you accumulate in your account. It was very much like

01:07:34 ◼   ► like a very special thing just for you and that was my main inspiration.

01:07:41 ◼   ► Yeah, I think that's great. So we have some links in the show notes

01:07:45 ◼   ► where you can go join, you can read Federico's announcement post, I put the FAQs in

01:07:50 ◼   ► there as well, which I have to chuckle. You have a sentence that says "So, yes, we are

01:07:55 ◼   ► people which I just read in your voice because that's a sentence that you would say out loud.

01:08:02 ◼   ► Yes, a couple of people already told me that so I'm happy that it communicates that idea

01:08:09 ◼   ► to other people.

01:08:10 ◼   ► Oh yeah, so you can find all the show notes and links we've discussed this week at our

01:08:15 ◼   ► website relay.fm/connected/57.

01:08:20 ◼   ► You can learn more about Federico's work and if it is September 16th or later when

01:08:25 ◼   ► you listen to this you can check out his iOS 9 review at maxstories.net or you

01:08:29 ◼   ► can follow him on Twitter at v-i-t-i-c-c-i. You can find me at 512pixels.net

01:08:35 ◼   ► and on Twitter at ismh and you can find our normal host Myke on Twitter at

01:08:42 ◼   ► i-m-y-k-e or if you're in Portland this week you might just find him walking

01:08:47 ◼   ► around because that's what he's doing. So I think I think that's it I think I've

01:08:53 ◼   ► done all the check boxes we do at the end of the show except thank our sponsors

01:08:56 ◼   ► Harry's, Linda and Blink and I'll see you next time Federico.

01:09:01 ◼   ► Arrivederci. Adios.

01:09:04 ◼   ► [BLANK_AUDIO]