Connected

00:00:00 ◼   ► [Music]

00:00:06 ◼   ► From Relay FM, this is Connected episode number 53. Today's show is brought to you by

00:00:13 ◼   ► Lindo.com where you can instantly stream thousands of courses created by industry experts,

00:00:18 ◼   ► igloo, an intranet you'll actually like, and text expander from SMILE. Type more with less effort.

00:00:25 ◼   ► My name is Myke Hurley and I am joined, as always, by the wonderful Mr. Steven Hackett.

00:00:30 ◼   ► Hello, sir. Congratulations and happy anniversary to you, sir.

00:00:33 ◼   ► You too. I got you this episode of Connected.

00:00:38 ◼   ► Oh, that is so kind of you. Oh, well, I got a greater gift for you.

00:00:41 ◼   ► I brought Mr. David Sparks. Hello, sir. How are you?

00:00:44 ◼   ► Hey, gang. Hey, congratulations on one year. That's pretty exciting.

00:00:48 ◼   ► Thank you, sir. Federico is celebrating for us somewhere off in the coast of Italy.

00:00:55 ◼   ► so he's having a great time so we thought why not bring in the only man to

00:01:00 ◼   ► fill his shoes as the one of Mr. David's box and we have a lot of great stuff

00:01:03 ◼   ► today but you know it is our anniversary week so a very special show planned with

00:01:07 ◼   ► lots and lots of fun little goodies but of course every episode of connected

00:01:11 ◼   ► should begin with follow-up. We have a bunch of follow this week mostly around

00:01:16 ◼   ► Force Touch which we've been talking about for a while potentially coming to

00:01:21 ◼   ► the iPhone and the iPad.

00:01:23 ◼   ► So we have a collection of tweets

00:01:25 ◼   ► in the show notes this week.

00:01:26 ◼   ► The first one by Ben Huggle on Twitter.

00:01:29 ◼   ► Quite a hilarious little gif of why Force Touch

00:01:35 ◼   ► might be bad on the iPad.

00:01:36 ◼   ► And you should load this up and watch it,

00:01:38 ◼   ► but he pushes down on his iPad

00:01:40 ◼   ► and the smart cover that's folded up underneath it

00:01:42 ◼   ► basically just collapses.

00:01:44 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:01:45 ◼   ► Which is really great.

00:01:46 ◼   ► And I don't know about the two of you guys,

00:01:47 ◼   ► but I have a smart cover and I hate it.

00:01:49 ◼   ► Like it's just, it's miserable.

00:01:51 ◼   ► Uh, I, I love the smart cover for all of the things that it's good at.

00:01:56 ◼   ► But I hate it for everything else.

00:01:59 ◼   ► Does that make sense?

00:02:00 ◼   ► Like, so exactly what Ben is showing drives me crazy.

00:02:02 ◼   ► Or like if I have it folded up in that little triangle and I like put it on my

00:02:07 ◼   ► legs or something, like say you're sitting on the, like on the couch or on your

00:02:10 ◼   ► bed or something and knees up and you put the iPad down and then it just slides.

00:02:14 ◼   ► Like it just goes and then it's like pointless and then the smart cover

00:02:17 ◼   ► flicks back over again.

00:02:19 ◼   ► But for all of the things that it's good at, I really like it.

00:02:21 ◼   ► I mean, I just like that when you close it, and then the iPad locks.

00:02:25 ◼   ► That's like my favorite thing about it, which is so simple.

00:02:28 ◼   ► My smart cover is kind of just a way to protect the glass when

00:02:31 ◼   ► I'm carrying it around more than anything.

00:02:33 ◼   ► When I'm actually using the device, I yank it off just about every time.

00:02:38 ◼   ► But I also have a stump.

00:02:39 ◼   ► You guys have a stump?

00:02:42 ◼   ► A what?

00:02:42 ◼   ► Here it is.

00:02:44 ◼   ► You've got to get a stump.

00:02:45 ◼   ► It's just this piece of hardened rubber.

00:02:48 ◼   ► It's got a weight in it and a little wedge where you can drop it in.

00:02:51 ◼   ► It's like the-- it's just one of the greatest things if you ever want

00:02:54 ◼   ► to watch on your iPad or anything.

00:02:58 ◼   ► You-- it just holds it.

00:03:00 ◼   ► They gave it-- it was in the speaker bag in Macworld years ago.

00:03:03 ◼   ► And I've got like five of them now.

00:03:06 ◼   ► They're just spread out all over the house.

00:03:08 ◼   ► And any time you want to do something on your iPad, find the local stump.

00:03:12 ◼   ► No, this looks really, really interesting.

00:03:17 ◼   ► Because the problem with the smart cover, I mean, Myke, I'm with you, that it's great

00:03:21 ◼   ► as a cover, but you go and stand the thing up and it just wants to topple over.

00:03:25 ◼   ► And obviously this thing is not going to do that.

00:03:28 ◼   ► So we've added this to the show notes.

00:03:31 ◼   ► Myke, where can people find the show notes this week?

00:03:34 ◼   ► In a very special place.

00:03:35 ◼   ► They can go to relay.fm/connected/53.

00:03:40 ◼   ► I think I've shared this on another show, but I hate the way that numbers work, you

00:03:43 ◼   ► know?

00:03:44 ◼   ► Because this is our one year anniversary and it's number 53, but I hate the idea of starting at zero.

00:03:49 ◼   ► But that's all I have for you on that.

00:03:53 ◼   ► I wish it was 52.

00:03:55 ◼   ► Are you losing sleep over that, Myke? I just want to know how bad this is upsetting you.

00:03:58 ◼   ► Well, see the thing is it upsets me a little bit, but it's happened to me like five times this week.

00:04:03 ◼   ► So it's amplified a little bit more than usual, I think, than how I would normally be upset.

00:04:09 ◼   ► Well, this is the biggest problem you're having. You're doing okay, brother.

00:04:14 ◼   ► Steven, please continue with the follow-up.

00:04:17 ◼   ► - We have a tweet from Thomas Hall saying,

00:04:20 ◼   ► "The Force Touch can be painful with people

00:04:23 ◼   ► "dealing with RSI or arthritis issues."

00:04:25 ◼   ► - Yep.

00:04:26 ◼   ► - And Myke, you touched on this a little bit

00:04:27 ◼   ► about how you don't like smashing your finger

00:04:29 ◼   ► into your watch, 'cause it puts a lot of pressure

00:04:31 ◼   ► on the end of your finger, and how that can be

00:04:34 ◼   ► annoying or even painful over time.

00:04:36 ◼   ► - Yep.

00:04:37 ◼   ► See, this is where I get concerned about it becoming

00:04:41 ◼   ► way that parts of UI may be hidden behind. And I know that there can be the

00:04:47 ◼   ► the ability to add things in accessibility, but the way that I see that

00:04:52 ◼   ► that would probably happen is you end up with one of those little assistive touch

00:04:55 ◼   ► type buttons that lives on the screen at all times, you know? Have you ever played

00:04:58 ◼   ► with that? Like if you know somebody whose home button is broken or their

00:05:03 ◼   ► lock button is broken and then they have to enable the assistive touch which

00:05:06 ◼   ► gives you this little clear button that lives on your iPhone home screen at all

00:05:10 ◼   ► times that you have to move around. It works but it's like an

00:05:15 ◼   ► imperfect solution. So if things start getting hidden behind

00:05:20 ◼   ► force touch that can't be revealed in other ways I don't know how I feel about

00:05:24 ◼   ► that right now. Thomas has a good point. I have a touch of RSI

00:05:30 ◼   ► and it's by no means, some people have it and it's really terrible. Mine is

00:05:35 ◼   ► not that bad but I will notice it I switched from like the Apple extended 2

00:05:43 ◼   ► keyboard with like mechanical switches and I just went from that for a couple

00:05:46 ◼   ► years ago to the this the regular Apple Bluetooth one because the pressure it

00:05:50 ◼   ► takes to type and the height and everything was just like a bad

00:05:53 ◼   ► combination and so I've worked really hard on the things that I use I use the

00:05:57 ◼   ► same mouse at work and at home and because it it's one that I find

00:06:02 ◼   ► comfortable. I think that's what's really important to look out for and as someone

00:06:05 ◼   ► who, I mean, some days my iPhone is my main computer, I agree with you, Myke. I

00:06:10 ◼   ► don't want to be in a situation where a bunch of have to do is behind a

00:06:14 ◼   ► force touch and like we spoke about last week, it will be some time before

00:06:18 ◼   ► that's even possible but I think it's another factor that developers should

00:06:23 ◼   ► think about when looking at implementing this stuff. What mouse do you use? I use

00:06:29 ◼   ► the Logitech Performance MX or... Yeah, I think you recommended this one to me.

00:06:36 ◼   ► Yeah, so it's great, you know, it uses that weird little like RF dongle,

00:06:43 ◼   ► it's not, you know, it's like not really Bluetooth, it's some sort of weird thing.

00:06:46 ◼   ► Yeah, I have, it's so annoying, I have to have one of those for my mouse and one of

00:06:51 ◼   ► those for my keyboard. Yeah. So I end up with two USB ports taken up, like it

00:06:57 ◼   ► It doesn't feel like that should be a thing that has to happen to me in 2015, but it does.

00:07:03 ◼   ► Do either of you guys use the Magic Trackpad?

00:07:04 ◼   ► Yeah, I do, yeah.

00:07:07 ◼   ► Yeah, that's all used anymore.

00:07:08 ◼   ► I've just got so used to it.

00:07:10 ◼   ► I had a mouse out and I never was using it, so I don't know.

00:07:14 ◼   ► I have a kind of crazy way that I navigate my computer.

00:07:19 ◼   ► I tend to have my mouse in my right hand and use my left hand with the Magic Trackpad,

00:07:23 ◼   ► so I use it for gestures.

00:07:25 ◼   ► But when I'm editing, I edit with both hands.

00:07:28 ◼   ► So I like zoom and pan with the trackpad and do precision editing with the mouse.

00:07:33 ◼   ► But now I've also got a Wacom tablet, which is kind of a bit of a magical thing for audio

00:07:40 ◼   ► editing I've discovered after CGP Grey suggested it to me.

00:07:44 ◼   ► So I have now, with my Mac Pro, three different input methods for just moving the cursor.

00:07:52 ◼   ► But why stop at three?

00:07:53 ◼   ► I mean, really.

00:07:54 ◼   ► to three you should be like one of the track balls checkpoint the whole the

00:07:58 ◼   ► whole shebang and and was I forget that was that device that everybody got all

00:08:02 ◼   ► excited about and then nobody ever used the one that you can wave your hands

00:08:05 ◼   ► over your computer yeah I bought one I use it for like 30 minutes and then I'm

00:08:10 ◼   ► like okay this is fun I don't know what that was called all right by next year

00:08:15 ◼   ► Myke we I get you to six waving my arms around constantly to just move one of

00:08:21 ◼   ► those things you like a hat you know with like some kind of sensor on it so

00:08:24 ◼   ► you can just use your head, that'd be awesome.

00:08:27 ◼   ► - You're editing logic by turning your neck,

00:08:29 ◼   ► that won't get old at all.

00:08:31 ◼   ► Amir Harris wrote in to say that Force Touch

00:08:36 ◼   ► may be like keyboard shortcuts,

00:08:38 ◼   ► sort of a power user way to do something

00:08:41 ◼   ► but not the only way.

00:08:43 ◼   ► And I like this line of thinking,

00:08:46 ◼   ► you know like on OS X, you can do just about everything

00:08:50 ◼   ► with the cursor, using your mouse or trackpad

00:08:52 ◼   ► or a helmet cam if you're Myke.

00:08:56 ◼   ► But you know OS X exposes the keyboard shortcuts.

00:08:59 ◼   ► If you go up to a menu in OS X over to the right hand side

00:09:03 ◼   ► it shows you the keyboard shortcut if there's one available.

00:09:06 ◼   ► So I'm in Safari right now and it's like new window,

00:09:08 ◼   ► you know, command N, new private window, shift command N.

00:09:11 ◼   ► And I think that's an interesting way

00:09:14 ◼   ► to think about Force Touch.

00:09:16 ◼   ► Maybe it's things that are exposed in the UI somewhere

00:09:19 ◼   ► but if you wanna get to it quickly

00:09:21 ◼   ► or sort of in a different way,

00:09:24 ◼   ► maybe Force Touch could be used like that.

00:09:26 ◼   ► Again, this is something that it's up to developers, right?

00:09:29 ◼   ► I mean, this is going to be potentially different

00:09:33 ◼   ► from app to app, depending on how people implement it.

00:09:37 ◼   ► - Yeah, I think that any exclusive feature

00:09:40 ◼   ► through Force Touch is a mistake by the developer.

00:09:42 ◼   ► I mean, if I have to Force Touch to do anything

00:09:45 ◼   ► that I can't do any other way,

00:09:46 ◼   ► especially with the initial launch of this

00:09:49 ◼   ► on the iPhone and iPad,

00:09:50 ◼   ► I think it's going to be a big problem. I mean not only do not all users have the

00:09:55 ◼   ► the Force Touch available to them, but I just think a lot of people are going to

00:10:00 ◼   ► completely miss out on Force Touch and not even be aware of it. Almost like the

00:10:05 ◼   ► you know the right, like the alternate click on the mouse. There's a ton of

00:10:10 ◼   ► people out there that still don't even realize that exists. I mean to me

00:10:15 ◼   ► the real positive spin of Force Touch on iPad and iPhone is the

00:10:21 ◼   ► ability to shortcut things that would usually take more taps. Does that make

00:10:28 ◼   ► sense? Yeah, I mean just you know if you could just like long touch or force

00:10:32 ◼   ► touch and have it you know prepare an email to somebody that you want you know

00:10:36 ◼   ► a regular email or whatever you know something like that but just you

00:10:41 ◼   ► know cuts out some extra steps I think that's the biggest benefit because

00:10:44 ◼   ► anything beyond that people are gonna totally miss out on it. Whilst I would

00:10:49 ◼   ► love that as well that feels like a level of complexity that Apple wouldn't

00:10:53 ◼   ► do. You know like user selectable shortcuts in certain scenarios it feels

00:10:57 ◼   ► like a very Android thing you know. I would love that but I'm not holding out

00:11:02 ◼   ► hope. Like for example if I force touch on the mail icon what does it do? Like I

00:11:07 ◼   ► feel like what would end up happening is Apple would define it rather than

00:11:11 ◼   ► allowing me to select it. But we'll see. I hope that that would be a

00:11:16 ◼   ► good reason to have it, I agree. But that's not just Apple involved here.

00:11:20 ◼   ► I mean, you know, OmniFocus. Sure, sure. People at Smile have already shown

00:11:25 ◼   ► their willingness to allow you to kind of pick certain behaviors, so why

00:11:31 ◼   ► wouldn't they have something in there that allows you to go to a certain

00:11:34 ◼   ► perspective? Or, you know, just think of all the apps you use and what

00:11:38 ◼   ► that clever developers could do with them, like drafts.

00:11:40 ◼   ► I could imagine some really cool force touch stuff

00:11:43 ◼   ► coming out of drafts.

00:11:44 ◼   ► - I imagine that you'd force touch on drafts

00:11:46 ◼   ► and Greg would just read your mind.

00:11:49 ◼   ► Like, that's just how that works.

00:11:50 ◼   ► - Yeah, that's actually possible with Greg, I think.

00:11:55 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:11:57 ◼   ► Before we end follow up, we have to make a quick stop

00:11:59 ◼   ► in the new segment I'm gonna call Apple Pay Sadness Corner.

00:12:04 ◼   ► - Okay.

00:12:07 ◼   ► So as, I think it's every Tuesday,

00:12:10 ◼   ► 'cause it seems like this has happened

00:12:11 ◼   ► as we're recording for a couple weeks now,

00:12:13 ◼   ► Apple announces new Apple Pay banks

00:12:16 ◼   ► and still not on the list.

00:12:17 ◼   ► So that's all there is.

00:12:20 ◼   ► Maybe we need some sort of like a sound effect

00:12:22 ◼   ► or something to like, that I'm sad, but--

00:12:25 ◼   ► - The fact that there are now more than 400 existing partners

00:12:29 ◼   ► in the US and UK, considering in the UK,

00:12:31 ◼   ► that's probably like seven of those, right?

00:12:34 ◼   ► - Right. - I think at this point,

00:12:36 ◼   ► you just need to change bank.

00:12:38 ◼   ► - Right, yeah, I mean,

00:12:39 ◼   ► it seems like a silly reason to do it, but--

00:12:41 ◼   ► - No way. - Still sad.

00:12:42 ◼   ► - No way. - No, at this point,

00:12:43 ◼   ► no, at this point, it's playing chicken

00:12:45 ◼   ► with what the bank has said, so.

00:12:48 ◼   ► 'Cause they said they're gonna support it,

00:12:49 ◼   ► and I stand by their word

00:12:51 ◼   ► for at least a couple more Tuesdays,

00:12:53 ◼   ► so we'll see what happens.

00:12:54 ◼   ► - It's like Barclays, right?

00:12:55 ◼   ► Isn't that the one you're waiting for?

00:12:57 ◼   ► - No, no, it's like a little local credit union.

00:13:00 ◼   ► - I'm waiting for Barclays, 'cause I,

00:13:03 ◼   ► we have HSBC and was in the process

00:13:05 ◼   ► of moving everything over to Barclays,

00:13:06 ◼   ► and now they didn't have it on launch day.

00:13:09 ◼   ► They're apparently working on it,

00:13:10 ◼   ► so I have halted my movement until that occurs,

00:13:13 ◼   ► and then I'll move everything over completely.

00:13:15 ◼   ► - Maybe Steven's credit union is just monitoring

00:13:18 ◼   ► Steven's account, and they have everything set up,

00:13:21 ◼   ► and they're like, "Well, Steven's still with us."

00:13:22 ◼   ► Yeah, he is.

00:13:23 ◼   ► Okay, well then, let's wait.

00:13:24 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:13:25 ◼   ► - This is the day you leave.

00:13:27 ◼   ► - Makes you feel a little better.

00:13:28 ◼   ► I belong to the Disneyland credit union.

00:13:29 ◼   ► You're back from my old Jungle Cruise days.

00:13:31 ◼   ► I've stuck with that bank, and--

00:13:33 ◼   ► - Awesome.

00:13:34 ◼   ► And they support it.

00:13:35 ◼   ► [LAUGHTER]

00:13:36 ◼   ► There it is.

00:13:37 ◼   ► Very small credit union.

00:13:38 ◼   ► I think they have one branch in the world, but they support it.

00:13:43 ◼   ► Why did Disney have a bank?

00:13:45 ◼   ► From employees and stuff.

00:13:47 ◼   ► Yeah, they're not messing around.

00:13:49 ◼   ► It takes good care.

00:13:50 ◼   ► Credit unions are great.

00:13:51 ◼   ► They take good care of you when you have no money like me.

00:13:54 ◼   ► Fair enough.

00:13:55 ◼   ► I'm going to take a break.

00:13:58 ◼   ► This week's episode is brought to you by lynda.com.

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00:16:06 ◼   ► and

00:16:23 ◼   ► I've mentioned it a bunch, it's our anniversary this week at Relay FM, we're one year old

00:16:27 ◼   ► and we just had a couple of little bits that we wanted to mention.

00:16:30 ◼   ► We have launched two new shows this week, we are recording on Tuesday, we'll put them

00:16:34 ◼   ► out on Monday.

00:16:35 ◼   ► One show is called Top 4 and the hosts of Top 4 are Marco Arment and Tiffany Arment

00:16:41 ◼   ► and they talk about their four favourite things in a certain category.

00:16:44 ◼   ► So the first show is about video games, so they talk about their four favourite video

00:16:48 ◼   ► games.

00:16:49 ◼   ► But my favourite thing about the show is you get to hear their kind of banter and the shared

00:16:53 ◼   ► sense of humor that they have which I really like and it makes the show very

00:16:56 ◼   ► charming to listen to and I think you really enjoy it so you should give that

00:16:59 ◼   ► one a try. But we do have one more show that I'm gonna leave Stephen Hackett to

00:17:02 ◼   ► tell you about. Yeah so Jason, Snell and I are doing a what we're calling Fortnitely

00:17:09 ◼   ► but every other week. I like that you both want to say Fortnitely but then

00:17:14 ◼   ► feel like you have to explain it. I love it every single time. Because I feel like

00:17:18 ◼   ► there are some people who might not that might not resonate with. Because

00:17:22 ◼   ► Americans. Yeah, both of you only know Fortnitely because of me and you just can't help it.

00:17:28 ◼   ► It's a great word. Anyways, so Liftoff is a show about space and how we get there

00:17:38 ◼   ► and what we do when we're there and the ideas that Jason and I are interested

00:17:43 ◼   ► in space but we're not necessarily rocket scientists and so kind of having

00:17:47 ◼   ► a more casual conversation about what's going on, both news and we want to do some educational

00:17:53 ◼   ► stuff, so we're going to do some episodes that are just sort of evergreen, like learning

00:17:59 ◼   ► about a certain topic or set of topics.

00:18:02 ◼   ► So we're excited to be doing it.

00:18:04 ◼   ► You should check both shows out.

00:18:06 ◼   ► Both shows are a lot of fun.

00:18:08 ◼   ► And yeah, it's fun to do a space show, finally.

00:18:13 ◼   ► I listened to the first episode.

00:18:14 ◼   ► I finished it this morning and I really really enjoyed it and I didn't feel like I was out

00:18:19 ◼   ► of my depth listening to it which is a testament to you both because I don't know anything

00:18:23 ◼   ► about space stuff but I'm interested in it so it fit the bill for sure.

00:18:28 ◼   ► We're also today straight after this show is finished we're going to be doing a Q&A

00:18:34 ◼   ► where we've been asking people to send us in questions about our first year and about

00:18:38 ◼   ► relay and stuff like that for the last couple of weeks.

00:18:40 ◼   ► It's going to be available in our B-Sides feed.

00:18:42 ◼   ► I'm going to include a link to that in the show notes so you'll be able to find it once

00:18:45 ◼   ► it's posted.

00:18:47 ◼   ► And finally, just before we recorded today, TechCrunch posted a great post all about RelayFM.

00:18:55 ◼   ► Me and Steven have been talking, sort of really great Romain over at TechCrunch and he's written

00:18:59 ◼   ► a fantastic article about us which I would also love if you would read because it would

00:19:03 ◼   ► give you a kind of an idea as to how we operate and how we work as a business and kind of

00:19:08 ◼   ► where we think we've come and where we're gonna go over the next forever. So

00:19:13 ◼   ► please go and take a look at that. Thanks forever. I thought we could spend some

00:19:17 ◼   ► time this week talking about the MacBook. David you have been pretty vocal about

00:19:23 ◼   ► your love of the machine both on Mac Power users and on your site and kind of

00:19:30 ◼   ► thought it'd be fun to check in on that if you're still in love with it or

00:19:34 ◼   ► favorite things about it and that sort of thing. Yeah I think I'm a little

00:19:37 ◼   ► defensive about it because everybody just keeps, you know, bagging on my computer. But the, uh,

00:19:42 ◼   ► it's, you know, it, well, it just, it came at the right time. I work from home and I have a

00:19:48 ◼   ► gorgeous Retina iMac and I wanted something more portable than my old aging Retina MacBook Pro,

00:19:56 ◼   ► you know, and, and it's just, it is heavier and it is, you know, a lot more to carry around and

00:20:01 ◼   ► frankly it was a lot more computer than I needed and while it still had some resale value, I

00:20:05 ◼   ► decided to change it out and when this new MacBook came out I mean I was

00:20:11 ◼   ► interested. For me retina screen is a big deal. I mean I don't know

00:20:17 ◼   ► that's true for everybody. I was talking to someone the other day who said that

00:20:19 ◼   ► they're perfectly happy with their MacBook Air and they don't even notice

00:20:22 ◼   ► the difference between the two screens. I totally do and so I think that's the

00:20:27 ◼   ► first problem or issue you have if you want to get one of these is are

00:20:32 ◼   ► you somebody who really likes the good screen?" But I do and I've been using it

00:20:37 ◼   ► now, I don't know, I guess about two months. How long has it been out now? I got it

00:20:43 ◼   ► pretty early after they released it, but it's a really nice little

00:20:47 ◼   ► computer and I don't have the complaints with it. Like I know Marco famously

00:20:53 ◼   ► hated his and there's a couple other people I think they've written articles

00:20:57 ◼   ► about how much they didn't like it but for me it's just been great.

00:21:01 ◼   ► I mean it's so light. I mean you can take it. It's about, I don't know, it

00:21:07 ◼   ► feels like carrying around an iPad Air but I'm sure it's a little bit

00:21:12 ◼   ► heavier but it's just not much more. In fact my little nephew was over the

00:21:17 ◼   ► other day and he saw it on the table and said "Is that your iPad? Can I put your iPad?"

00:21:20 ◼   ► He thought it was my iPad. And there's a lot of complaints about the

00:21:25 ◼   ► keyboard but I've adjusted to the keyboard and it doesn't bother me. I don't prefer it

00:21:30 ◼   ► but it doesn't slow me down. I'm fine with it.

00:21:33 ◼   ► Because you do a lot of writing on the machine, I assume.

00:21:35 ◼   ► Yeah, that's primarily what I do with it is writing. And you know, just managing my life.

00:21:40 ◼   ► I wanted a machine that could run OmniFocus and Mail and Safari and email and Word and

00:21:48 ◼   ► pages and the stuff I use. I mean in the day job I deal with words a lot and

00:21:52 ◼   ► Scrivener. So I wanted just kind of like a portable Mac and this thing is

00:21:58 ◼   ► great for it. What makes you choose it? Because all of those things that you

00:22:02 ◼   ► just said, an iPad can do all of those. I'm playing Federica. Why don't you... like what

00:22:08 ◼   ► makes you want to use a Mac for them instead? I'm faster on a Mac and I still

00:22:12 ◼   ► like my iPad and I still use it. I mean I'm fortunate enough that I can afford

00:22:17 ◼   ► to have them both. So there are certain things that happen on iPad and certain things that happen

00:22:22 ◼   ► on the MacBook and quite often when I leave the house for the day to go do client meetings or

00:22:28 ◼   ► court or whatever, I'll bring them both with me. But there are certain things that just the MacBook

00:22:35 ◼   ► are better for. Like Scrivener is one of them. I read a lot of stuff in Scrivener and having the

00:22:42 ◼   ► attached keyboard and the application doesn't even exist on the iPad. But the... Yeah, that feels like

00:22:46 ◼   ► that's been going on for a long time. Yeah, I know, trust me. And even like, you know, dealing with lots of

00:22:55 ◼   ► data in OmniFocus is easier on a Mac than it is on the iPad. You know,

00:23:00 ◼   ► there's certain things that are just easier. I mean, anyone that listens to Mac

00:23:03 ◼   ► Power users, like, knows all the scripts and stuff that you have doing work for

00:23:07 ◼   ► you in the background, right? And that's never gonna come to the iPad. Yeah, and

00:23:11 ◼   ► And so right now you can have a Mac that is almost no heavier than an iPad and

00:23:18 ◼   ► that's pretty awesome. I mean there's some of the nice things about it too

00:23:22 ◼   ► that the power situation is really nice. I am quite often I will work remotely

00:23:27 ◼   ► somewhere else and the battery life is fine on this Mac but if you really want

00:23:33 ◼   ► to have fun get yourself one of those big bricks for you know it's actually an

00:23:38 ◼   ► iPhone brick, you know, the ones that has a USB port in it that you can recharge

00:23:42 ◼   ► your iPhone with, it will recharge a new MacBook. It doesn't charge it fast but

00:23:49 ◼   ► you can add, I can add like five hours to it with one of those little bricks.

00:23:52 ◼   ► That's crazy. And the thing isn't that heavy to carry around because it's

00:23:56 ◼   ► really a phone charging brick. Yeah, I mean it feels like in a lot of ways the

00:24:01 ◼   ► MacBook is more of a device than a computer, like if that if there's a

00:24:05 ◼   ► distinction there. There's things like that, right, that you can you can use a

00:24:09 ◼   ► little battery pocket battery charger and charge for your laptop seems

00:24:14 ◼   ► nuts really. Well if you think about, and everybody's different, but if you work a

00:24:21 ◼   ► lot on the road, everybody has a pain point where they don't pack the

00:24:27 ◼   ► laptop, you know, let's say you have a MacBook Pro. There's a certain point

00:24:31 ◼   ► where you're just not going to take it with you it may be you know something

00:24:36 ◼   ► we're only going out for a few hours or whatever this thing that threshold is

00:24:40 ◼   ► very very high before you don't care it with you I I went to the over the

00:24:47 ◼   ► weekend they have a big thing in Anaheim every couple years called d23 it's the

00:24:51 ◼   ► Disneyland or the Disney companies yeah I was crazy I got to see I got to see

00:24:57 ◼   ► Harrison Ford and Dick Van Dyke and...

00:25:01 ◼   ► Everyone's favorite duo.

00:25:03 ◼   ► Yeah well I mean it was just like that's just an example of how broad it was. I mean

00:25:07 ◼   ► the entire cast from the new Star Wars movie, all the new people plus Harrison Ford, not

00:25:11 ◼   ► only the old people, Ben Kingsley, it was just nuts. And anyway but I carried that little

00:25:19 ◼   ► laptop with me the whole day because there were certain times in the day like my wife

00:25:24 ◼   ► is really into this stuff and she wanted to go to certain sessions that I didn't want

00:25:26 ◼   ► to go to and I've been sick the last couple weeks so I'm really trying to get

00:25:30 ◼   ► caught up so I said well I can afford to go to this thing with you if I can have

00:25:35 ◼   ► like four hours during the day that I can deal with my business and she's like

00:25:39 ◼   ► fine so I brought the little laptop with me you know found a Starbucks and I was

00:25:43 ◼   ► fine and you know I just would not have carried a 15-inch written a MacBook Pro

00:25:47 ◼   ► with me as I walked I think I walked like 18,000 steps that day you know

00:25:52 ◼   ► through the convention halls. So you know that's an example of where it

00:25:58 ◼   ► goes. Yeah, it's uh, I mean it sounds like that you, I mean could you get by in a

00:26:07 ◼   ► situation like with just the MacBook or do you still find things that require

00:26:11 ◼   ► the big iMac? Like really I was thinking like power-wise. Yeah, you know my

00:26:17 ◼   ► summary is it's a great second Mac. It's not so great only Mac and that's at

00:26:22 ◼   ► least for me because I do work in like iBooks author and you know some video

00:26:26 ◼   ► production stuff that you know this iMac I'm sorry this little MacBook is just

00:26:30 ◼   ► not built for. If all I did was kind of the stuff that I do on the MacBook you

00:26:37 ◼   ► know word processing, email, browsing stuff that would it would be fine but if

00:26:44 ◼   ► you do any kind of power stuff you're gonna need something more hefty but that

00:26:48 ◼   ► being said I've twice now been out of town for over seven days and used a

00:26:53 ◼   ► little laptop and it's been perfectly adequate for what I needed to do while I

00:26:58 ◼   ► was out of town. Oh you two are killing me. Yeah so Myke you have not been

00:27:06 ◼   ► quiet about the fact that you see this machine and it does things to your feelings. Yeah

00:27:11 ◼   ► to quote Top Gear it gives me that fizzy feeling. There is just every

00:27:17 ◼   ► time I go into an Apple store, no matter what I'm going for, I will always spend a

00:27:21 ◼   ► couple of minutes just picking up and putting down one of these things.

00:27:25 ◼   ► That tends to be the main thing that I do is I close it, I lift it and I put it down

00:27:28 ◼   ► and I open it. I just keep doing that. It's like there's nothing. There's

00:27:32 ◼   ► nothing there to it and it looks fantastic and the keyboard's fine. Like I

00:27:37 ◼   ► don't write, you know, like you guys do. Like I just type the occasional sentence

00:27:41 ◼   ► here and there so... and it drives me crazy. I want one and also what's making

00:27:47 ◼   ► it worse is I've changed my computer setup at home so I now use my Mac Pro as

00:27:52 ◼   ► my primary machine and I use my laptop when I'm recording I don't like to touch

00:27:57 ◼   ► the machine that I'm recording on so I'm using my laptop right now just to read

00:28:00 ◼   ► our show notes document to add things to our show notes on the website and then I

00:28:06 ◼   ► also use my MacBook when I'm away like when I'm out working or something but

00:28:10 ◼   ► the so the but currently the only thing that's stopping me is every like every

00:28:15 ◼   ► now and then, maybe once every couple of weeks or something like that, I will do

00:28:20 ◼   ► logic editing on my MacBook Pro at my co-working space and I'm just not

00:28:26 ◼   ► convinced that I would be able to cope with a slower machine trying to do

00:28:32 ◼   ► that stuff because coming from my Mac Pro to my MacBook Pro it's already too

00:28:37 ◼   ► much of a decrease. I'm like, I'm sitting at the Mac Pro and I'm like, "Oh my god, why is

00:28:41 ◼   ► taking you so long. Okay, so here's a question. Is there other work you could

00:28:46 ◼   ► do from a remote location other than editing? Yeah, there is, but it's one of

00:28:51 ◼   ► the things is like sometimes I will know that I'm gonna be sitting in this logic

00:28:55 ◼   ► file for four hours, so I want to be at least in a nice varied location, you know?

00:29:00 ◼   ► That's kind of my thinking. Whenever I'm doing that stuff, it's like I'm

00:29:03 ◼   ► editing a long show and it takes me a long time to do it. And the other thing

00:29:07 ◼   ► is when I'm traveling, like I'm on a plane and I'm editing then, but it's like,

00:29:10 ◼   ► "I don't know, I don't know." I think the only real thing that's stopping me right

00:29:15 ◼   ► now is new iPhones and iPads just around the corner. And I don't know if I can

00:29:21 ◼   ► justify multiple thousands of dollars of Apple products like in the space of a few

00:29:26 ◼   ► weeks. Yeah, well, because I thought about it because I do, you know, I earn a living

00:29:32 ◼   ► making, you know, screencast videos and, you know, the books I write. And I

00:29:37 ◼   ► I realized when I made this transition that I was giving up that ability.

00:29:41 ◼   ► Like if I'm out of town for a week,

00:29:43 ◼   ► I'm not going to be working on an iBooks author book.

00:29:46 ◼   ► But that's for me unusual,

00:29:48 ◼   ► usually I am around.

00:29:50 ◼   ► But the decision I had to make was,

00:29:52 ◼   ► am I willing to give up the ability to work in those parts of my work life remotely?

00:29:58 ◼   ► And I started thinking about it.

00:30:02 ◼   ► I'm like, well, there's a lot of work I can do remotely

00:30:04 ◼   ► that doesn't involve those two big programs.

00:30:07 ◼   ► And frankly, I'm always behind on that work too.

00:30:10 ◼   ► So if I'm going to go remotely,

00:30:11 ◼   ► I'm going to be dealing with the email backlog

00:30:14 ◼   ► or writing a contract or doing something else.

00:30:17 ◼   ► And I really haven't missed the power

00:30:19 ◼   ► of the retina MacBook Pro at all.

00:30:21 ◼   ► But that's a question you have to ask yourself.

00:30:23 ◼   ► If you have to do logic editing remotely,

00:30:26 ◼   ► I'm not sure this is the computer for you.

00:30:28 ◼   ► - So my current feeling about this is just to wait

00:30:32 ◼   ► for the next revision and just see what happens.

00:30:35 ◼   ► Like I don't think it's going to be as big a jump as it was from the original

00:30:39 ◼   ► MacBook care to the best computer app ever made, right?

00:30:43 ◼   ► By many people's like estimation, the net,

00:30:46 ◼   ► like the second version of the third version of the MacBook air was an

00:30:49 ◼   ► incredible thing. I don't think it's going to be that much of a jump,

00:30:52 ◼   ► but if they can beef it up in any way,

00:30:54 ◼   ► then it might make it an easier purchase decision for me.

00:30:57 ◼   ► Now, Steven, you've got one in your house, right?

00:31:00 ◼   ► Uh, I do.

00:31:01 ◼   ► So my wife has an 11 inch MacBook Air

00:31:05 ◼   ► that I had bought refurbished.

00:31:06 ◼   ► So it was already, I meant to look at the model,

00:31:10 ◼   ► but I think it's like two or two and a half years old.

00:31:12 ◼   ► You know, I bought it, it was sort of a previous generation.

00:31:15 ◼   ► Got a good deal on it and she just needed a computer

00:31:17 ◼   ► for sort of around the house type stuff.

00:31:21 ◼   ► But I got it with a pretty small SSD in it

00:31:24 ◼   ► and she is basically out of space.

00:31:27 ◼   ► And so I was looking at, well, you know,

00:31:29 ◼   ► I could get an SSD and put one in there potentially.

00:31:33 ◼   ► I could, you know, like, I don't want to like give her

00:31:35 ◼   ► a USB drive she has to carry around all the time.

00:31:37 ◼   ► That's real fragile.

00:31:38 ◼   ► I don't want to like offload her photo library

00:31:40 ◼   ► to our Synology and she like streamed that

00:31:43 ◼   ► over the wireless.

00:31:44 ◼   ► I was like, yeah, I think the best solution here

00:31:45 ◼   ► is going to be a machine with more storage space.

00:31:49 ◼   ► So we were sort of looking and once you look

00:31:54 ◼   ► at a 512 gig SSD, the difference between an 11 inch air,

00:31:59 ◼   ► 13 inch Air and 12 inch MacBook. It's really only a couple hundred bucks either

00:32:03 ◼   ► way. They're really close in price which sort of makes this whole conversation

00:32:08 ◼   ► about which computer to buy I think a little more confusing for some people.

00:32:11 ◼   ► But we decided to do to do the MacBook. So I've got it actually here with me at

00:32:17 ◼   ► work today. And it so I've been I've been using it actually have El Capitan on it

00:32:24 ◼   ► right now and I need some retina screenshots for my OS X review and so

00:32:28 ◼   ► I'm running it for a couple weeks and I'm gonna give it to her and the 11-inch air will be floating around our house somewhere

00:32:34 ◼   ► But in the in the short time I've been using it

00:32:38 ◼   ► I've actually really come to like it, you know, like like Myke said I need more power

00:32:43 ◼   ► Most of the time, you know my main machine really my only other Mac right now is a 15 inch

00:32:48 ◼   ► Retina MacBook Pro and actually a brand new one with the four-step trackpad and

00:32:52 ◼   ► It's it's a killer machine and I do need like, you know, I've got logic going I'm doing Photoshop

00:32:58 ◼   ► I need that horsepower much more than sort of an average person.

00:33:03 ◼   ► But David, what you said makes a lot of sense too.

00:33:06 ◼   ► I don't want to lug a big old MacBook Pro around if I'm working remotely

00:33:11 ◼   ► and I don't need that power, right?

00:33:13 ◼   ► So I'm looking at this MacBook and like, you know,

00:33:15 ◼   ► I wrote a big article on it yesterday and I've been using it a lot

00:33:19 ◼   ► and there is something very attractive about this machine

00:33:22 ◼   ► for just a get up and go type computer.

00:33:27 ◼   ► You know days that I'm doing administration work for relay for instance could easily do it on this computer and

00:33:32 ◼   ► I've really been impressed with it that it is light it is Pat is

00:33:37 ◼   ► For what it is. It's it's quick

00:33:40 ◼   ► You know

00:33:40 ◼   ► I it was slow to install OS X and OS X updates but past that

00:33:44 ◼   ► Doing OmniFocus doing things in the browser doing thing and things in Excel

00:33:48 ◼   ► it's perfectly fine and I think that it's

00:33:55 ◼   ► It's obviously first generation has some trade-offs right like it's it's already been sort of annoying

00:34:00 ◼   ► I need to plug something in how to like go find an adapter and buying a bunch of you know a bunch of adapters

00:34:04 ◼   ► But it's you can kind of see that this is the future of notebooks in a way

00:34:08 ◼   ► And so from that perspective. I think it's really interesting I

00:34:13 ◼   ► Mean that the one poor thing for me has not been an issue at all

00:34:17 ◼   ► I mean, I just because it's a second computer. I hardly ever plug it into anything and

00:34:23 ◼   ► Right and that the power the power thing is ridiculous

00:34:26 ◼   ► like I I didn't know what was gonna happen the first time I plugged an external battery into it because I didn't know if

00:34:31 ◼   ► The external battery was gonna charge up the MacBook or the MacBook was gonna charge up the external battery

00:34:36 ◼   ► You know because it really could go either the power could go either direction

00:34:40 ◼   ► With that port and it unfortunately the right thing happened the battery charged up the MacBook

00:34:46 ◼   ► But then I got an Amazon and I bought

00:34:49 ◼   ► three

00:34:51 ◼   ► USB type 2 connector to USB type 3 connector cables and

00:34:55 ◼   ► A couple years ago. I just got tiny I got kids and I got tired of everybody's machines always being

00:35:01 ◼   ► Uncharged so I bought a couple of those anchor devices where you plug into the wall

00:35:06 ◼   ► It's got like six USB ports in it

00:35:08 ◼   ► And it's smart and it puts out enough juice to to charge an iPad or an iPhone. Yeah, those things are amazing

00:35:15 ◼   ► I love those. Yeah, so I've got I've got a couple of those around the house along with my stump collection

00:35:20 ◼   ► And so the kids and even my kids friends know when they come over they can plug in, you know, so I've got this

00:35:26 ◼   ► Oh, so just for giggles. I got some of those cables

00:35:29 ◼   ► I plug them into those devices those anchor devices and now I can just drop my laptop

00:35:35 ◼   ► Basically anywhere in the house and charge it from one of those those anchor devices

00:35:40 ◼   ► I mean, it's just kind of nuts and and Steven's statement earlier that it's kind of a middle-of-the-road device

00:35:46 ◼   ► It's not exactly a MacBook and it's not exactly an iOS device, but it's somewhere in the middle is true, but it runs all Mac software

00:35:53 ◼   ► Yeah

00:35:57 ◼   ► Like like, you know keyboard maestro I can run keyboard maestro now anywhere

00:36:02 ◼   ► I mean, I don't know but it I'm happy with it

00:36:06 ◼   ► I understand its limitations and and I was willing to you know, like I said, I changed my work habits to a certain degree

00:36:14 ◼   ► I'm not doing iBooks author work at Starbucks anymore, but you know iBooks author work is best on this big gorgeous iMac anyway

00:36:21 ◼   ► So I'm okay with that. There's a there's a rumor floating around

00:36:24 ◼   ► Yesterday that Apple is revising their external Bluetooth keyboard, which is what I use. I've got one right right here in front of me and

00:36:30 ◼   ► I think if they do it to match the MacBook

00:36:34 ◼   ► I think they're gonna be a lot of people who are unhappy with that

00:36:37 ◼   ► But um, I do have to say even after a couple days. I've gotten adjusted

00:36:42 ◼   ► Typing on the MacBook. It's it's actually there's some things that are really nice about it that you don't have to press as hard

00:36:47 ◼   ► You're going back to the RSI follow-up stuff

00:36:49 ◼   ► I think that it is it is definitely I

00:36:54 ◼   ► Could see why people don't like it and and I didn't like it in the store actually

00:36:59 ◼   ► I think I even said that on this show that they're sort of typing in the Apple Store

00:37:02 ◼   ► It felt weird and was strange, but I think if you kind of commit to it

00:37:05 ◼   ► There are a lot of good things about the keyboard. It does feel very precise in a way that

00:37:11 ◼   ► is I've never had a keyboard feel, so.

00:37:14 ◼   ► - What if they made the Bluetooth keyboard

00:37:17 ◼   ► with the new switches, but the same amount of travel

00:37:20 ◼   ► as the existing Bluetooth keyboard?

00:37:22 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, that'd be nice too,

00:37:23 ◼   ► to get rid of that wobbliness.

00:37:25 ◼   ► I mean, honestly, if they put a backlight

00:37:27 ◼   ► in the Bluetooth keyboard, I'm gonna buy it

00:37:28 ◼   ► no matter what the key caps look like.

00:37:30 ◼   ► - They're obviously gonna change the font

00:37:32 ◼   ► to San Francisco as well, is one of the other things

00:37:34 ◼   ► they're gonna do, right, on the keyboard.

00:37:37 ◼   ► - It'd be nice.

00:37:40 ◼   ► But yeah, so we'll, we'll, we'll kinda,

00:37:41 ◼   ► I just wanted to throw that in there

00:37:43 ◼   ► that I think it was interesting talking about the MacBook

00:37:45 ◼   ► and then there was this rumor about the keyboard

00:37:47 ◼   ► and I think the Magic Mouse too,

00:37:49 ◼   ► potentially getting an update

00:37:50 ◼   ► but no one cares about the Magic Mouse.

00:37:52 ◼   ► - Man, I do.

00:37:54 ◼   ► I have one right here.

00:37:55 ◼   ► I love this thing.

00:37:56 ◼   ► I'm being deadly serious with you

00:37:58 ◼   ► because I prefer using a mouse for a lot of things

00:38:03 ◼   ► than a track pad and the Magic Mouse gives me

00:38:05 ◼   ► all the gestures that I want,

00:38:07 ◼   ► like to switch between spaces and stuff like that.

00:38:09 ◼   ► which is nice.

00:38:10 ◼   ► - So it drives me crazy,

00:38:12 ◼   ► like I have that Logitech mouse that we both have,

00:38:15 ◼   ► I have some buttons programmed,

00:38:17 ◼   ► but like I can't switch between spaces with swiping,

00:38:20 ◼   ► and that's one of the reasons

00:38:21 ◼   ► that I keep the trackpad around.

00:38:23 ◼   ► So I do really like the Magic Mouse for that,

00:38:25 ◼   ► I'm maybe one of the only people in the world,

00:38:26 ◼   ► so I'm actually happy that they're continuing

00:38:28 ◼   ► to do stuff with it.

00:38:30 ◼   ► - That's a good point.

00:38:32 ◼   ► - Right, let's take a break,

00:38:33 ◼   ► and thank our number one of our sponsors

00:38:35 ◼   ► for helping out today.

00:38:36 ◼   ► This is another sponsor,

00:38:37 ◼   ► I'm happy today. We've got all sponsors that have been with us since the beginning and this one is the lovely people over at smile software

00:38:43 ◼   ► And today I want to talk about text expander

00:38:46 ◼   ► So if you are ever in the situation where you find yourself typing the same sentences phrases or words on a regular basis

00:38:53 ◼   ► Then text expander is for you is the product you must have it text

00:38:57 ◼   ► Expander is one of those things that for many people including myself that my Mac feels broken without

00:39:03 ◼   ► Like if something's happened and I have accidentally quit TextExpander, right?

00:39:07 ◼   ► I've opened the window and I've quit it by accident and I start typing again and then just nothing works anymore

00:39:12 ◼   ► It feels like my keyboards broken because I'm doing things and the things that just happen for me with TextExpander

00:39:18 ◼   ► No longer happen anymore

00:39:20 ◼   ► TextExpander will save you time by expanding short abbreviations that you set into frequently used text and pictures

00:39:27 ◼   ► It can even be used to fill in forms and stuff like that which we'll talk about in a moment

00:39:31 ◼   ► Texas Band of Five is here now with a new Yosemite look and feel and it's making your typing even faster than before

00:39:37 ◼   ► By helping you out by making suggestions of frequently typed phrases to abbreviate and save time

00:39:43 ◼   ► So Texas Band of Five now reminds you of things that you should be setting a snippet

00:39:47 ◼   ► So if you're typing a phrase a bunch, it's gonna go

00:39:50 ◼   ► Hey, why don't you just set this up as a snippet and then it'll save you time in the future and the newly released version

00:39:54 ◼   ► 5.1 improves these suggestions even further by emitting most single dictionary words and giving you greater control

00:40:00 ◼   ► control over the notifications so you can choose how you want to be notified

00:40:04 ◼   ► and how you want those suggestions to come through. I mentioned filling in forms.

00:40:08 ◼   ► If you ever find yourself in situations where you're frequently filling in forms

00:40:11 ◼   ► with the same information, this could be shipping information stuff but it could

00:40:14 ◼   ► also be maybe for your job you have to fill in a bunch of expense forms or

00:40:18 ◼   ► something and you have to fill them in from fresh every time. You can make this

00:40:21 ◼   ► super simple by creating a fill-in snippet so in just a couple of keystrokes

00:40:24 ◼   ► you can fill in an entire form that may have taken you minutes before or

00:40:28 ◼   ► hours depending on how big the form is. You can also use fill-in snippets to

00:40:32 ◼   ► personalize and standardize repetitive replies. So I'd do this a bunch. Like say

00:40:36 ◼   ► you're a support person you work in some like maybe support for an app or

00:40:40 ◼   ► something like that and people tend to contact you with similar kind of

00:40:45 ◼   ► queries. You could set up a fill-in snippet which would have a bunch of

00:40:49 ◼   ► boilerplate text but then also some areas where you can customize things by

00:40:53 ◼   ► either typing in fields or selecting from drop-down lists. This stuff is super

00:40:57 ◼   ► powerful when you really dig into it and this is the type of stuff that

00:41:00 ◼   ► Expander can offer you. As well as syncing your snippets amongst multiple

00:41:04 ◼   ► devices you can store them in iCloud Drive and Dropbox. This means that it

00:41:07 ◼   ► could be with you everywhere both in all of Smiles apps that they have for Text

00:41:11 ◼   ► Expander for the Mac and Text Expander for iOS that's on the iPad and the iPhone

00:41:15 ◼   ► but also in a bunch of apps that enable snippets in their own application apps

00:41:19 ◼   ► like OmniOutliner 2, Day One, Fantastical, Drafts, Long Center Pro,

00:41:23 ◼   ► Editorial and many more. They actually have snippet support in there so they

00:41:27 ◼   ► it just works natively in the app, or you can use the TextExpander keyboard for iOS

00:41:32 ◼   ► that gives you these snippets wherever you want to use them. TextExpander 5 also adds

00:41:36 ◼   ► support for JavaScript, which also works in TextExpander Touch for iPad and iPhone. TextExpander

00:41:42 ◼   ► 5 costs just $44.95 US and upgrades are available for $19.95 for existing users and it's free

00:41:49 ◼   ► to those who purchased on or after January 1st 2015. You can find out more about TextExpander

00:41:56 ◼   ► by visiting SmilesSoftware.com/Connected.

00:41:59 ◼   ► Please note that TextExpander 5 requires Yosemite

00:42:02 ◼   ► and TextExpander for iOS is available

00:42:04 ◼   ► on the App Store for iPhone and iPad.

00:42:06 ◼   ► Please go to SmilesSoftware.com/Connected

00:42:08 ◼   ► to support Smile for helping us out here.

00:42:10 ◼   ► They've been a great supporter of what we've been doing

00:42:12 ◼   ► at Real AFM and you should show them some love.

00:42:14 ◼   ► Thank you, Smile.

00:42:16 ◼   ► - Did you guys hear our recent MPU with Jonathan Mann?

00:42:20 ◼   ► - It's in my queue, I haven't listened to it.

00:42:21 ◼   ► - He wrote a jingle for TextExpander.

00:42:24 ◼   ► It's awesome.

00:42:25 ◼   ► - Awesome, I'll put that in the show notes.

00:42:26 ◼   ► - That's my tease.

00:42:27 ◼   ► - So talking about MPU, the lovely Mac power users,

00:42:32 ◼   ► which is part of the wonderful Relay FM,

00:42:34 ◼   ► and we thank you again for that, David,

00:42:36 ◼   ► for bringing a lovely show over to our--

00:42:38 ◼   ► - Oh, we're thrilled to be a part of it.

00:42:40 ◼   ► You know, when I heard you guys were going out on your own,

00:42:42 ◼   ► I'd like to say that, you know,

00:42:43 ◼   ► we're all shocked about how successful you've been,

00:42:46 ◼   ► but I had like zero doubt this was gonna be a big deal

00:42:49 ◼   ► when you guys went out.

00:42:50 ◼   ► - Oh, you, being too nice to us now.

00:42:53 ◼   ► I want to talk about very quickly an episode that you did last week, episode 272, Mac-based

00:42:59 ◼   ► small business.

00:43:01 ◼   ► This was basically right in mind Steven's wheelhouse.

00:43:06 ◼   ► Like I think with many people, especially with Steven having quit his job like a week

00:43:09 ◼   ► earlier, this is exactly the type of stuff that we love to hear.

00:43:13 ◼   ► And obviously you were kind of telling Katie about a bunch of the things that you have

00:43:16 ◼   ► done now that you are independent.

00:43:19 ◼   ► you have your own business now, David, and like me and Steven do as well.

00:43:24 ◼   ► And you were talking about a bunch of stuff that you like to do and that kind of things,

00:43:28 ◼   ► and the way that you have stuff set up now to help you out with working from home.

00:43:34 ◼   ► So I think we wanted to touch on that.

00:43:35 ◼   ► And I know that Steven, obviously, has written a little post about his setting hours last

00:43:39 ◼   ► week.

00:43:40 ◼   ► So Steven, do you want to start off on that, and we'll talk a little bit about this working

00:43:42 ◼   ► from home type stuff.

00:43:43 ◼   ► Yeah, sure thing.

00:43:45 ◼   ► So because I'm doing multiple things, I'm doing relay, I'm doing 512, I'm doing some

00:43:50 ◼   ► consulting and freelancing, I've been aware going into this that the way my time is divided

00:43:57 ◼   ► up is something that I need to pay attention to.

00:44:00 ◼   ► That something I'm spending 50% of my time on, you know, if that's only making 15% of

00:44:06 ◼   ► my income, that's a problem.

00:44:08 ◼   ► And so I need to make sure that ratio is at least close to what I think it should be.

00:44:13 ◼   ► And so I've been using this app called Hours and I will put a link to that in the show notes.

00:44:21 ◼   ► It is just this little iPhone app and you can set up tasks and you just hit a little button and it counts time against that task.

00:44:29 ◼   ► And you can go in and add it later so you can run a timer or if you're like me bouncing from one thing to another you can kind of estimate it and put things in.

00:44:37 ◼   ► So I've been using that on my phone for about a week and a half now. I started last week.

00:44:42 ◼   ► just to see where the time is going.

00:44:46 ◼   ► And because it's not all directly

00:44:49 ◼   ► one to one billable type stuff.

00:44:52 ◼   ► Anyway, so I ran a report from that

00:44:55 ◼   ► and just kind of threw this up on the site last night

00:44:57 ◼   ► about my first week, worked 30, or clocked 38 hours.

00:45:02 ◼   ► I feel like I worked much more than that.

00:45:05 ◼   ► Some stuff didn't go into this,

00:45:06 ◼   ► just sort of like, you know,

00:45:08 ◼   ► just stuff you have to deal with,

00:45:10 ◼   ► like errands and resetting up my desk

00:45:13 ◼   ► for the fourth time this week and that sort of stuff.

00:45:16 ◼   ► But I thought it was an interesting way

00:45:19 ◼   ► to sort of look at where my time is going so far.

00:45:22 ◼   ► And it's only the first week and like I say,

00:45:24 ◼   ► this pie chart will shift over time I think.

00:45:27 ◼   ► But I just thought that was a really important thing

00:45:30 ◼   ► to sort of be thinking about because I'm doing more

00:45:33 ◼   ► than one thing for my living now.

00:45:37 ◼   ► I don't know. David, I imagine this sort of thing is huge for you with client work.

00:45:43 ◼   ► Yeah, it's hard because my day job...

00:45:46 ◼   ► for those that don't know, I'm a lawyer and I have a little practice where I represent a lot of companies

00:45:52 ◼   ► and software developers and people like that.

00:45:54 ◼   ► And so, for a lot of those people,

00:45:57 ◼   ► when they need me, it's like a fireman, you know, that you need to go down the pole and run to the fire.

00:46:04 ◼   ► And so that's always out there.

00:46:05 ◼   ► And that's one of the reasons why I'm so into organization and this stuff,

00:46:08 ◼   ► because I need to be able to be agile.

00:46:11 ◼   ► Um, but I also, you know, have this separate business where I write books

00:46:16 ◼   ► and do podcasts and do things that I really love as well.

00:46:19 ◼   ► And, uh, the, the thing I found so far in this process is that, uh, the legal

00:46:25 ◼   ► business has definitely taken priority over the first, you know, and I've been

00:46:28 ◼   ► at it four or five months and frankly, I was pretty sick for a part of it.

00:46:32 ◼   ► I ended up with kidney stones of all things.

00:46:34 ◼   ► And so that kind of set me back as well.

00:46:37 ◼   ► But I'm really looking forward in the next couple months

00:46:40 ◼   ► to getting better at wrangling the legal side

00:46:43 ◼   ► so I have a little bit more time for the other stuff.

00:46:46 ◼   ► And I really think it's just something

00:46:48 ◼   ► where you just figure it out as you go along too.

00:46:50 ◼   ► I mean, I was up last night till like 1 a.m.

00:46:53 ◼   ► digging out of an email hole because I got sick.

00:46:57 ◼   ► But you know, so I'm not really sure

00:46:59 ◼   ► I know all the variables yet.

00:47:00 ◼   ► But what I do like is that I get to make the decision every day and I get to figure out

00:47:06 ◼   ► how I'm going to solve these problems, which is really great.

00:47:10 ◼   ► What is your ideal balance of time between Max Sparky and Sparks Law?

00:47:15 ◼   ► I don't know yet.

00:47:17 ◼   ► That's part of the problem, I think.

00:47:18 ◼   ► Because I really enjoy both a great deal.

00:47:21 ◼   ► That's great that you actually do still enjoy the legal stuff.

00:47:24 ◼   ► Oh yeah.

00:47:25 ◼   ► I talk to some people who say, "Well yeah, I have a job too I'm using to help me get

00:47:29 ◼   ► to where I want to be with the other thing and you know what I do

00:47:33 ◼   ► fundamentally is help people and I help people with you know kind of as a

00:47:38 ◼   ► business lawyer I help a lot of people with some really hard problems and

00:47:42 ◼   ► that's very rewarding but also as Max Sparky I get emails all the time from

00:47:46 ◼   ► people where I give them a little tip or something and they talk about they write

00:47:49 ◼   ► me and talk you know thank me because they get get to go home earlier or

00:47:52 ◼   ► whatever and you know so I get happy chemicals from both things so I'm

00:48:00 ◼   ► definitely not looking to be someday where all I do is write textbooks I

00:48:05 ◼   ► still want to keep my head in the other game as well but I at this point I'm not

00:48:10 ◼   ► really sure what the balance is because I'm still figuring it out I have having

00:48:15 ◼   ► done this for a which is kind of crazy me approaching a year I think I've been

00:48:19 ◼   ► self-employed for like 10 months or something I still don't have the balance

00:48:24 ◼   ► set. I'm actually starting to resign myself to the fact that I will never set

00:48:28 ◼   ► it and that it just continues to shift and I just need to be... I'm not saying this will be

00:48:33 ◼   ► the same for everyone but for me like I just feel like I need to just make sure

00:48:36 ◼   ► that I'm keeping it in my mind and I try and balance it out week by week because

00:48:41 ◼   ► there's no... I could... every time I think I've fixed it I'm like right okay I've

00:48:46 ◼   ► I've done this and this and this, and I've, like,

00:48:48 ◼   ► for example, I put inquisitive to every two weeks

00:48:51 ◼   ► 'cause I need the balance there,

00:48:52 ◼   ► but now a new project is taking some more time away.

00:48:55 ◼   ► Like every time I think like, right, okay, great,

00:48:57 ◼   ► here's the balance, oh, no, I'll do this now.

00:48:59 ◼   ► And it's, you know, it just ends up being

00:49:01 ◼   ► that I just keep shifting it around.

00:49:04 ◼   ► - Yeah, I was just talking to a client yesterday

00:49:06 ◼   ► and he was telling me, he says, you know, Dave,

00:49:08 ◼   ► I finally got this whole business worked out

00:49:10 ◼   ► and it's making money and the machine just runs now

00:49:14 ◼   ► and I just feel like I'm all set.

00:49:16 ◼   ► And I had to tell him, you know, my experience,

00:49:19 ◼   ► nothing ever stays that way.

00:49:20 ◼   ► Everything is in fluid and emotion.

00:49:22 ◼   ► And you know, you're always gonna have to kind of

00:49:24 ◼   ► pivot your business at some point.

00:49:26 ◼   ► And as I was telling him the speech,

00:49:28 ◼   ► I was thinking about myself.

00:49:29 ◼   ► I'm thinking, how come I haven't taken my own advice

00:49:31 ◼   ► and realized that this is always gonna be in motion?

00:49:35 ◼   ► You know, I can't sit here and stressed out about it

00:49:36 ◼   ► too much, I just need to keep working.

00:49:39 ◼   ► And I really like Steven's idea though,

00:49:41 ◼   ► of looking at, you know, where's the money coming in

00:49:44 ◼   ► versus where am I spending my time?

00:49:45 ◼   ► And sometimes it's worth it to spend your time on something

00:49:48 ◼   ► that doesn't make as much money

00:49:49 ◼   ► 'cause you're passionate about it.

00:49:50 ◼   ► But to know that information is just,

00:49:55 ◼   ► I mean, I was thinking, I haven't done this.

00:49:56 ◼   ► I just downloaded hours.

00:49:57 ◼   ► I'm gonna follow Steven's trick here

00:50:00 ◼   ► and just kind of, I need to know the data.

00:50:02 ◼   ► I mean, how much am I spending on this versus that?

00:50:04 ◼   ► And what is making money?

00:50:07 ◼   ► Because that may change some of your decisions.

00:50:09 ◼   ► So, I mean, like everybody,

00:50:11 ◼   ► and this is, I know, kind of a running thing

00:50:13 ◼   ► on relay these days,

00:50:14 ◼   ► But you know, when do you stop?

00:50:17 ◼   ► It's kind of hard when you're working for yourself.

00:50:18 ◼   ► It's easy to just keep working right into the, you know,

00:50:21 ◼   ► till you fall into bed.

00:50:23 ◼   ► And, but, you know, we say that, but we also take time.

00:50:27 ◼   ► I know like for instance, I'm going out with my,

00:50:30 ◼   ► with my 18 year old later today,

00:50:32 ◼   ► we're going to a concert together.

00:50:33 ◼   ► And there's things like this that just not,

00:50:36 ◼   ► would have not have been possible

00:50:38 ◼   ► when I was working for the man.

00:50:39 ◼   ► - I wanted, obviously in that episode,

00:50:44 ◼   ► you mentioned about all the great stuff that you're using the Mac for and I

00:50:48 ◼   ► really think that people should listen to it. It's just a really fascinating

00:50:50 ◼   ► episode. I just lapped it up. But I want to talk about the iPad a little bit

00:50:54 ◼   ► because the iPad Air has become a surprising tool for me with getting

00:51:00 ◼   ► work done that I didn't expect it would be. I'm running iOS 9 on it and I

00:51:06 ◼   ► think when I look at the way that iOS 9 is now and where it will go once it's

00:51:11 ◼   ► actually out. I can see how much more even then it will become an important

00:51:15 ◼   ► part of the way that I do work. You know that the multiple screen stuff is really

00:51:19 ◼   ► good. I've been using the Notes app a lot and the split screen stuff is great and

00:51:23 ◼   ► the Notes app is surprisingly good. Like, David, have you been using it much?

00:51:29 ◼   ► Yes, yes. I can't believe actually that Apple have made an app that... okay that sounds bad but

00:51:36 ◼   ► like an app that like us nerds really care about text editors and notes apps

00:51:43 ◼   ► and this one is like basically as good as I would need it to be I would like to

00:51:49 ◼   ► have a couple of other things but the things that I want it to have it doesn't

00:51:52 ◼   ► need like I would love markdown previewing but whatever you know yeah I

00:51:56 ◼   ► mean you can write markdown in it it's just not gonna preview it and to me

00:52:01 ◼   ► that's fine I actually kind of in my head I translate markdown anyway but the

00:52:06 ◼   ► like I think tagging would be kind of nice it doesn't have that but just in

00:52:11 ◼   ► general the thing is it's an it's kind of a weird hybrid between text editing

00:52:16 ◼   ► and Evernote where you know like I'm getting ready to do a garden project I

00:52:19 ◼   ► live in Southern California and we have no water anymore so I'm getting rid of

00:52:23 ◼   ► my grass and I'm gonna start getting some drought friendly plants so I've

00:52:27 ◼   ► been collecting bits around the internet about plants I may want to use and

00:52:31 ◼   ► you know, how can we really reduce our water usage in the Sparks house?

00:52:35 ◼   ► And Notes is perfect for that. I've got pictures in there, I've got little

00:52:39 ◼   ► OmniGraffle drawings I've drawn and you know saved out as PDF and all that stuff

00:52:44 ◼   ► just dumps right into the Notes app and it's very handy to me. So while

00:52:48 ◼   ► Evernote never really worked for me, Notes is kind of treading that line and

00:52:53 ◼   ► it's not on my iMac yet because I haven't loaded LCAP up there yet but I

00:52:58 ◼   ► I am definitely in the running for really adopting notes in a big way here in the next couple months.

00:53:04 ◼   ► So like some of the stuff that I've found it extremely useful for, like a couple of weeks ago we were talking about the way that we prepare shows.

00:53:11 ◼   ► And I mentioned that I use drafts to append and prepend to notes for each show. I'm now using Notes App for that.

00:53:18 ◼   ► So I have like, I thought that's one of the main things that I do and considering it has a pretty good extension, I'll give it a go and I really like that.

00:53:25 ◼   ► it has pretty good outlining stuff like the bullets do a pretty good job you

00:53:32 ◼   ► know like I like to outline with just bulleted lists and does a good job and

00:53:35 ◼   ► the bulleted lists that it produces you can copy and paste them into Google

00:53:40 ◼   ► Drive and it keeps the formatting which makes me extremely happy. Anybody that is

00:53:46 ◼   ► using on the Mac that is struggling with trying to get a bulleted list to begin

00:53:52 ◼   ► if you just press Alt+8 it creates a bullet and press space and then the

00:53:56 ◼   ► Notes app translates that into a bulleted list. Which is very smart that it does that

00:54:00 ◼   ► but I wish there was an actual key combination that the app told you you

00:54:04 ◼   ► could do to begin a bulleted list but that is a way that you can do it. And I have

00:54:09 ◼   ► it on my iPhone, my iPad, on my laptop. I haven't put El Capitan on my recording

00:54:13 ◼   ► machine naturally and when I'm using the Mac Pro now I

00:54:18 ◼   ► I miss the Notes app.

00:54:20 ◼   ► I'm using it for a bunch of stuff.

00:54:22 ◼   ► I'm using it to help me plan out

00:54:24 ◼   ► the talk that I'm going to be doing at the Release Notes Conference.

00:54:26 ◼   ► And I've got images in here.

00:54:28 ◼   ► I've got links in here.

00:54:30 ◼   ► I'm really happy with it.

00:54:32 ◼   ► It's just a very simple Notes app.

00:54:34 ◼   ► And it does some rich text stuff pretty good.

00:54:38 ◼   ► You have some drawing tools, which are fantastic, and foreshadowing.

00:54:42 ◼   ► And I'm surprisingly happy with it, actually.

00:54:46 ◼   ► that's one of the great tools of the iPad for me. Yeah you can also do a

00:54:51 ◼   ► bullet bliss by hitting shift 8 you know just the asterisk and space and then

00:54:55 ◼   ► start typing creates a bullet bliss. Yes, thank you David. It's weird it doesn't say

00:55:00 ◼   ► there's no like in the menus it doesn't give it shows how to

00:55:05 ◼   ► begin a bullet list but doesn't give a key combination and I was really

00:55:08 ◼   ► struggling to find it. Option 8 is is system-wide on the Mac. It's not note

00:55:12 ◼   ► specific but it I guess they sort of it's one of those things you assume you know. Yeah

00:55:18 ◼   ► I've used it I mean I've got the MacBook running 10/11 and I actually put iOS 9 on my phone

00:55:23 ◼   ► last night and so far it has not exploded into a pile of aluminum and glass so that's

00:55:28 ◼   ► that's good. Always useful. Yeah it's it's you don't want to let it like a crater on

00:55:34 ◼   ► your desk where your phone used to be but it's it is an interesting time for the for

00:55:38 ◼   ► the note stuff you know we've talked a lot about Evernote and how it sort of

00:55:41 ◼   ► wandered out into the weeds and I don't know if it's ever going to come back. So

00:55:45 ◼   ► to have something first-party seems you know seems exciting. I don't need

00:55:51 ◼   ► everything Evernote has you know. You look at something like reminders or

00:55:55 ◼   ► something you know some of Apple's first-party stuff that's very simple and

00:56:00 ◼   ► I need something more powerful. Notes is sort of the opposite like I don't need

00:56:03 ◼   ► everything that something like Evernote can do so I'm excited with you guys to

00:56:08 ◼   ► to see where that goes in the future.

00:56:13 ◼   ► But also other stuff, like the iPad is just...

00:56:17 ◼   ► Like I was doing some work on it this morning, and it's a great machine now that I can just

00:56:21 ◼   ► pick up and go somewhere else with for a lot of the, I think, the uses that you have for

00:56:26 ◼   ► the MacBook, David.

00:56:28 ◼   ► Like it's just a machine that I can go and sit in the garden, or I can go and just sit

00:56:31 ◼   ► in the lounge downstairs and just like sit on the sofa and do a bit of work in the morning,

00:56:36 ◼   ► respond to email and you know simple things like read Twitter and stuff like

00:56:40 ◼   ► that and for as sad as that is on the iPad it's something that I do and it's

00:56:45 ◼   ► the iPad is is forcing its way into my life and is becoming an essential device

00:56:49 ◼   ► again. Well it's quietly become so much more competent for work I mean

00:56:54 ◼   ► the hardware's got better and the software like I know you guys do a lot

00:56:57 ◼   ► of work in Google Docs and Google Sheets and those apps on the iPad are really

00:57:03 ◼   ► competent now. I mean, like all the work I did on the outline for the show

00:57:06 ◼   ► was on my iPad, you know, in the Google Docs app.

00:57:09 ◼   ► And then, you know, I start to think about an iPad Pro and what that could have and

00:57:14 ◼   ► what that could be and I'm kind of getting quite excited about it

00:57:19 ◼   ► and I'm wondering how much teachy I can go in my life. We'll see.

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00:59:59 ◼   ► And again,

01:00:00 ◼   ► thank you so much to igloo for the support of this show and our entire first

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01:00:08 ◼   ► Right. So, uh, the Apple Music Festival. So I saw this come out today.

01:00:14 ◼   ► This is something that maybe people will remember from the last couple of years,

01:00:18 ◼   ► although it's been around in the UK for quite a while.

01:00:21 ◼   ► It was previously called the iTunes Music Festival.

01:00:24 ◼   ► And in the last couple of years,

01:00:26 ◼   ► Apple have created an Apple TV app

01:00:28 ◼   ► and they've been streaming them worldwide.

01:00:30 ◼   ► But previously it's just an absolutely free festival.

01:00:33 ◼   ► You apply for tickets.

01:00:35 ◼   ► They have done in the past,

01:00:36 ◼   ► like it used to be like a 30 day thing.

01:00:38 ◼   ► There'd be a different, like be 30 different concerts.

01:00:41 ◼   ► It's down to 10 days this year.

01:00:42 ◼   ► They've shrunk it down.

01:00:44 ◼   ► But the lineup that they've had so far,

01:00:46 ◼   ► like the people that they've announced,

01:00:48 ◼   ► bigger guests than they've had in previous years like in Aggregate they've

01:00:51 ◼   ► got One Direction, Disclosure, Pharrell, and Florence and the Machine. It's a huge

01:00:55 ◼   ► four to begin with. Every one of those acts have a special guest of them which

01:01:00 ◼   ► are also another great band usually and then they're obviously gonna have

01:01:04 ◼   ► another six nights that they're gonna show and you can apply for tickets

01:01:08 ◼   ► directly of Apple. They also do some promotions with newspapers and other

01:01:13 ◼   ► media outlets in the UK to give this stuff away. But what makes this

01:01:16 ◼   ► What is interesting this time around is that Apple are obviously considering, let's call

01:01:21 ◼   ► it the Apple Music Festival, which is smart, and they're also leveraging all of the stuff

01:01:27 ◼   ► from Apple Music to make this a more complete experience for people watching it.

01:01:33 ◼   ► So everyone will be able to stream the concerts via the music app on iOS devices, also on

01:01:38 ◼   ► iTunes on the Mac and on the Apple TV.

01:01:40 ◼   ► Apple are also going to stream content through the Beats 1 radio station, so they'll probably

01:01:45 ◼   ► do behind the scenes stuff and maybe they'll replay the concerts on Beats 1 and they're

01:01:51 ◼   ► also going to do behind the scenes footage on Apple Music Connect.

01:01:54 ◼   ► So it's like this is a fantastic way for Apple to showcase the service and I think that is

01:02:00 ◼   ► very interesting and whoever thought "Ah, we do this at a thing!

01:02:06 ◼   ► Why don't we just roll all of this into Apple Music?"

01:02:09 ◼   ► That person got a bonus that day I think.

01:02:13 ◼   ► So I have applied to go to the iTunes Music Festival on multiple occasions.

01:02:18 ◼   ► Every year I always apply for a gig of some kind.

01:02:21 ◼   ► I haven't applied for any of these four yet but I'm sure I will by the end of it.

01:02:25 ◼   ► On two occasions I won tickets but couldn't go to either of them.

01:02:29 ◼   ► Oh no.

01:02:30 ◼   ► Yeah, there was work stuff or recording stuff would pop up.

01:02:33 ◼   ► Because they kind of tell you quite late in the process, maybe like a day or two before

01:02:38 ◼   ► that you've got them in previous years.

01:02:42 ◼   ► If you don't claim them, they just go to somebody else.

01:02:44 ◼   ► Like you have to go in and claim them.

01:02:45 ◼   ► But you always get a pair of tickets, which is really cool.

01:02:48 ◼   ► And the concert is completely free.

01:02:50 ◼   ► And obviously you pay for like food or drinks

01:02:51 ◼   ► and stuff like that.

01:02:52 ◼   ► But I think it's just a really interesting way

01:02:54 ◼   ► of leveraging everything around Apple Music

01:02:57 ◼   ► to create an interesting experience for people.

01:03:00 ◼   ► 'Cause this is a really,

01:03:02 ◼   ► I've always found the iTunes festival

01:03:04 ◼   ► an interesting and kind of weird thing that Apple do.

01:03:07 ◼   ► Like I never fully understood why they did it.

01:03:10 ◼   ► You know, it was just kind of like a we can do this.

01:03:12 ◼   ► so we'll do it type thing.

01:03:14 ◼   ► - Yeah, I think it's, to me it feels sort of like

01:03:17 ◼   ► older Apple, not like 90s or 80s Apple,

01:03:20 ◼   ► but sort of like mid 2000s Apple,

01:03:22 ◼   ► where music was a really big part of their business,

01:03:25 ◼   ► and they're returning to that now.

01:03:27 ◼   ► But this just feels like something that,

01:03:29 ◼   ► for some reason, like I just see Steve Jobs,

01:03:31 ◼   ► and they're like, you know what,

01:03:32 ◼   ► we should have like a big old concert, and--

01:03:35 ◼   ► - But it always felt like, maybe up until last year,

01:03:37 ◼   ► I mean, or the year before,

01:03:38 ◼   ► when they started streaming them,

01:03:39 ◼   ► But even then still, it was like Apple London

01:03:43 ◼   ► had money in their budget and they used it for this.

01:03:47 ◼   ► 'Cause it only happens in London.

01:03:49 ◼   ► - Right, yeah, it's not like a road show

01:03:51 ◼   ► where they have, I mean, you could see Apple doing this

01:03:54 ◼   ► through the month of September, maybe one in London,

01:03:57 ◼   ► then the next weekend one in LA,

01:03:59 ◼   ► and the next weekend one in Tokyo.

01:04:01 ◼   ► That would be interesting too.

01:04:03 ◼   ► I kinda see them maybe doing that

01:04:05 ◼   ► at some point in the future.

01:04:06 ◼   ► pushing the worldwide aspect of Beats 1.

01:04:09 ◼   ► - Worldwide.

01:04:10 ◼   ► - That's right, are you okay there?

01:04:12 ◼   ► It sounded deep.

01:04:13 ◼   ► - I'm just saying, loving it.

01:04:15 ◼   ► - But I don't know, what do you think, David?

01:04:21 ◼   ► - I don't follow pop music as much, so the acts are never as interesting to me.

01:04:25 ◼   ► Now that I have kids, I actually recognize some of these groups, but otherwise I probably

01:04:29 ◼   ► wouldn't.

01:04:30 ◼   ► But I like it, I think it's cool that they are doing it, and you know what, they can

01:04:35 ◼   ► afford it.

01:04:36 ◼   ► money. I would like to see it kind of expand especially as they are focusing

01:04:40 ◼   ► more on music now. I mean why don't they do one in New York and one in LA too?

01:04:44 ◼   ► I mean they could do that.

01:04:46 ◼   ► My feeling is this is all we get please don't take it away from us.

01:04:50 ◼   ► You know this is something London has. Leave it in London. But I understand the idea.

01:04:56 ◼   ► Because it's just interesting they do it this way and it would make a lot of

01:05:00 ◼   ► sense to maybe do Five Nights in London and Five Nights in New York even and

01:05:05 ◼   ► just leave it like that. And I think maybe that's something they will

01:05:09 ◼   ► probably do. I expect that these types of things have to be locked down a long

01:05:13 ◼   ► time in advance. Like the venue that Apple use, the Roundhouse, is a very very

01:05:18 ◼   ► popular music venue in London. It's fantastic. It's just a round, as you can

01:05:24 ◼   ► imagine, it's just a round building and the the gig area is round and it has

01:05:29 ◼   ► like a seating area upstairs and it really is just a fantastic venue and

01:05:34 ◼   ► and there's no way you could book 10 nights there at short notice.

01:05:36 ◼   ► Like this is probably booked a year ago.

01:05:38 ◼   ► So I'd be interested to see what happens over the next couple of years

01:05:42 ◼   ► to see if they expand it out from there.

01:05:43 ◼   ► I think the bigger question is,

01:05:46 ◼   ► is how much harder is Apple going to be hitting the whole music thing going forward?

01:05:50 ◼   ► Because it seems like the signal is now they really want to reconnect with their music roots.

01:05:55 ◼   ► And you know, what does that mean in addition to things like this?

01:06:01 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean it's interesting that they're going back there because of when they did it.

01:06:06 ◼   ► They, you know, we spoke about it on the show many people have that it always felt a bit light,

01:06:10 ◼   ► but now they're like pouring a ton of money into it and I wonder why that is.

01:06:13 ◼   ► I mean I think, I think Apple Music,

01:06:18 ◼   ► I think it's one of those things that benefits from just saturation and awareness and I mean

01:06:26 ◼   ► they've renamed it, it was the iTunes Music Festival forever, they've renamed it now and

01:06:30 ◼   ► And so I think it's all just one sort of like big push, especially these 90 days are still going on,

01:06:37 ◼   ► to get people involved and get people to check out what's going on, you know, before that,

01:06:44 ◼   ► during this kind of opening window, opening season of album music.

01:06:50 ◼   ► Well, I can think of three billion reasons why they want to get more exposed to music,

01:06:55 ◼   ► because I mean, they've really, I mean, we think the last year, I mean,

01:06:59 ◼   ► they bought Beats, they opened up this whole, you know, Apple Music service, they've got the

01:07:05 ◼   ► streaming service, I mean they've come a long way with music in the last 12 months. So it just,

01:07:10 ◼   ► I don't know, I just don't think the story is done being told here. I think there's going to be more

01:07:14 ◼   ► to this. Yeah, yeah. I wonder,

01:07:19 ◼   ► is this, you know, just a way for them to just spend a ton of their money, right? And

01:07:26 ◼   ► it's an easy way to do it and you because you know you need to think about

01:07:30 ◼   ► you know i'm sure people like zane low and people like that come at quite

01:07:35 ◼   ► a cost and i wonder if it is like do they do this because they think it sells

01:07:38 ◼   ► more devices do they do it because it's one of those things you have to do to

01:07:42 ◼   ► have a well-rounded kind of system now like you have to have music

01:07:46 ◼   ► and instead of doing what it was the obvious thing what everybody else is

01:07:49 ◼   ► doing is oh our current music library you can just

01:07:52 ◼   ► just stream it now they decided to do a bunch of other stuff as well and I

01:07:56 ◼   ► wonder if you know like what the motivations are for that like is it they

01:08:00 ◼   ► want to be the top dog in streaming or they just want to do things the Apple

01:08:04 ◼   ► way like I wonder where the original thinking behind let's do beats one came

01:08:09 ◼   ► from think about Samsung and how much money they spend on advertising with in

01:08:16 ◼   ► my perception the goal of becoming a cool company they want to be cool and

01:08:21 ◼   ► And, you know, they do the kind of the snarky ads and they have a whole like, there's clearly

01:08:26 ◼   ► a plan here in action.

01:08:29 ◼   ► And I think there is a benefit to that word "coolness."

01:08:33 ◼   ► Maybe that's not even the right word anymore because I'm old.

01:08:37 ◼   ► But Apple's had that for a long time and I think one of the ways they maintain that is

01:08:41 ◼   ► things like this.

01:08:43 ◼   ► And I suspect they fully are aware of that.

01:08:46 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:08:47 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:08:48 ◼   ► I mean, do you think it keeps them connected to younger people?

01:08:54 ◼   ► It does with my kids.

01:08:57 ◼   ► I found myself not listening to Beats 1 very much recently, which is a shame for me.

01:09:03 ◼   ► I've been using Apple Music a lot, and I like using, I like the service, I continue to really

01:09:08 ◼   ► enjoy using it.

01:09:10 ◼   ► But I'm not as interested in, I'm just finding myself not in a scenario where I'm listening

01:09:16 ◼   ► to Beats 1 as much as I was initially and I wonder if that's the same for other people.

01:09:20 ◼   ► I mean I see people in my timeline talking about it all the time but I know that at least

01:09:25 ◼   ► the initial interest that I had in it seems to have maybe tailed off a little bit.

01:09:31 ◼   ► Well that's interesting coming from you because I know how eager you were for it to get launched

01:09:35 ◼   ► and you were already a fan of Zane Lowe.

01:09:39 ◼   ► Yeah I'm thinking that if they can really push this replay stuff a bit more that they're

01:09:44 ◼   ► doing because at the moment it's a little bit ghettoed. I think I would

01:09:46 ◼   ► enjoy that a lot more. It's the planning my life around when certain things are

01:09:51 ◼   ► happening is difficult because I tend to be you know not able to listen to music

01:09:57 ◼   ► for multiple hours of my day because I'm either recording or I'm editing or doing

01:10:01 ◼   ► something. So at the moment they've been doing this thing called Beats 1

01:10:04 ◼   ► replays and it seems like they're trying to make this more of a thing where they

01:10:08 ◼   ► just turn a Beats 1 show into like an on-demand podcast and you just

01:10:12 ◼   ► listen to it start to finish and I think that if they can if they can make that

01:10:17 ◼   ► more of a feature than it currently is I would be way more inclined to listen to

01:10:22 ◼   ► the shows it's just because you know I'm not necessarily gonna be interested in

01:10:27 ◼   ► the show that's available at the time that I can actually listen you know

01:10:31 ◼   ► right I mean the the the idea of Beats 1 being a radio station as far as like we

01:10:37 ◼   ► play this one time and it's gone forever right it's the way that the radio works

01:10:40 ◼   ► it's sort of silly in the world where like you guys could just release this

01:10:44 ◼   ► again like you could have it on demand for anyone to check out at any time so I

01:10:49 ◼   ► think ultimately they will get there it just it makes so much sense to me of

01:10:53 ◼   ► like why not leverage all this technology you have like yes like do it

01:10:57 ◼   ► do it live and this hour is a unique hour of programming but then make it a

01:11:02 ◼   ► playlist make it available later for people like you Myke who who can't who

01:11:07 ◼   ► can't get to it. You know, Terrestrial Radio gets around this a little bit by,

01:11:11 ◼   ► well, complained about this, right? Like you listen to your local rock station, it's

01:11:15 ◼   ► like the same set just over and over and there's not a lot of variation and with

01:11:20 ◼   ► Beats 1 they're bringing all these people in, they want it to be varied, why

01:11:25 ◼   ► not capture that and have it available for later? It seems like a really simple

01:11:30 ◼   ► and like enticing way to keep people engaged who have the scheduling problem

01:11:36 ◼   ► that you have. Yeah so I'm looking I've done a little bit of the replay stuff I

01:11:40 ◼   ► listened to one of Dr. Trey's shows a couple of days ago so you know they're

01:11:45 ◼   ► kind of at the moment you just go to this page and they're just all listed

01:11:48 ◼   ► there like the UI is all kind of messed up because you can see and I think it's

01:11:53 ◼   ► kind of cool like whoever's working on these teams that they seem to be very

01:11:57 ◼   ► much like in a hacky kind of way you know like they're just doing stuff like

01:12:02 ◼   ► over at the Apple Music Teams and they're like okay we'll try this now and

01:12:05 ◼   ► they're kind of like oh we have to work within these parameters let's just see

01:12:08 ◼   ► if we can get it out there which kind of sounded like you know on the day one

01:12:11 ◼   ► what Zane was saying he was like you know we weren't even sure if we were

01:12:14 ◼   ► gonna be able to do this but we managed it and we kind of pulled it out of the

01:12:18 ◼   ► bag at the last minute and I'm interested to see if the the replays get

01:12:21 ◼   ► more of a feature apparently there was a saw this go by the other day that Zane

01:12:25 ◼   ► was saying that within the next few weeks or so they're gonna be able to

01:12:28 ◼   ► make this more of a thing so who knows what's gonna happen maybe it comes as

01:12:32 ◼   ► part of iOS 9 or something they they update a little more which is an issue

01:12:36 ◼   ► right that they have to wait for big releases to be able to do anything with

01:12:39 ◼   ► the music app they can't just update the music app it has to be we're updating

01:12:44 ◼   ► the entire OS and with that comes some changes to music yeah but I think that's fair

01:12:50 ◼   ► all right I think unless anybody's got anything else I think that about wraps up

01:12:54 ◼   ► today yeah thanks for having me on guys I'm a big fan of the show we love you

01:13:00 ◼   ► David and we're so happy that you're here today. I would love people to go and

01:13:05 ◼   ► find out everything about David Sparks by going to maxsparky.com. You can follow

01:13:10 ◼   ► David, he is @maxsparky as well on Twitter and he's one of the hosts of the

01:13:14 ◼   ► very very lovely Mac power users at Relay FM and I would love it if you

01:13:18 ◼   ► would go and follow and subscribe to everything that David does because you

01:13:22 ◼   ► will not be disappointed. So thank you sir for joining us.

01:13:25 ◼   ► My pleasure.

01:13:27 ◼   ► And I think that about wraps it up. If you want to find

01:13:30 ◼   ► And Steven Online, there's a lovely place that you can go and do that over at fivefourpixels.net

01:13:34 ◼   ► and he is the host of Liftoff on Relay FM which you can find at relay.fm/Liftoff with

01:13:39 ◼   ► the lovely Jason Snell.

01:13:40 ◼   ► And he is on Twitter @ismh and I am @imike, I-M-Y-K-E on Twitter and I host a bunch of

01:13:47 ◼   ► different shows over at Relay FM.

01:13:49 ◼   ► And I just want to say a massive thank you to every single one of you listening.

01:13:53 ◼   ► Connected is kind of like a, it's a show that's fun

01:13:58 ◼   ► because me and Steven are both on it,

01:14:00 ◼   ► so it feels like an important part of Relay, right?

01:14:02 ◼   ► It's the show that we do together.

01:14:03 ◼   ► So I've always felt of this show

01:14:05 ◼   ► as being like really tied to it,

01:14:07 ◼   ► and I think we both make more of a thing

01:14:10 ◼   ► when something happens with Relay

01:14:11 ◼   ► to talk about it on this show.

01:14:13 ◼   ► So I just wanna take a moment to thank everybody

01:14:17 ◼   ► who has helped us get to where we are,

01:14:19 ◼   ► whether you're a listener or whether you've helped

01:14:21 ◼   ► with something, you know, everybody, every single host,

01:14:23 ◼   ► every person that we've ever had,

01:14:25 ◼   ► has given us any advice, has really helped us get

01:14:27 ◼   ► to incredible places over the last year,

01:14:29 ◼   ► and I'm very, very thankful for that.

01:14:32 ◼   ► So I wanna thank everybody out there,

01:14:33 ◼   ► and of course more than anybody,

01:14:35 ◼   ► I wanna thank Stephen Hackett for being along with me

01:14:38 ◼   ► and us doing this together.

01:14:39 ◼   ► It's a pleasure to work with you every day.

01:14:41 ◼   ► - Hey, you too.

01:14:42 ◼   ► - And we'll be back next week with another episode

01:14:45 ◼   ► of Connected, maybe Federico will be back.

01:14:48 ◼   ► Nobody knows.

01:14:49 ◼   ► Until then, thanks to our sponsors, Igloo,

01:14:53 ◼   ► Linda and obviously the lovely people over at smile and we'll be back next

01:14:58 ◼   ► time until then say goodbye guys adios leave it to Chi they get that right

01:15:06 ◼   ► (laughing)