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Connected

38: June is the New Christmas

 

00:00:00   [Intro Music]

00:00:07   From Relay FM, this is Connected, episode number 38.

00:00:12   Today's show is brought to you by Lynda.com, where you can instantly stream thousands of courses

00:00:16   created by industry experts, igloo, an internet you'll actually like, and SaneBox.

00:00:22   Clean up your inbox and spend less time on email.

00:00:25   My name is Myke Hurley and I am joined as always by the editor-in-chief of MacStories.net

00:00:31   and the host of "Virtue" on Relay FM, Mr Federico Vittucci.

00:00:34   Buona sera Myke.

00:00:36   Hello sir, how are you?

00:00:37   I'm doing well, how are you?

00:00:38   Oh I'm feeling great, I can't wait for follow-up today.

00:00:41   And I'm also joined by Mr Stephen Hackett,

00:00:44   co-founder of Relay FM and editor-in-chief of 512pixels.net.

00:00:47   Hello Stephen Hackett.

00:00:49   Hey guys, how is everyone in Europe?

00:00:51   Good, are you as excited about follow-up this week as I am?

00:00:54   - Not so much because it's ridiculous.

00:00:58   - It's not ridiculous?

00:00:59   The best follow up ever?

00:01:00   I'm so excited about it.

00:01:00   Can we just do it?

00:01:02   Can we just do it now?

00:01:03   - We're gonna jump right into it

00:01:04   to avoid the awkward bits we've had

00:01:05   the last couple weeks.

00:01:06   So as we have stated,

00:01:09   or as really everyone on the internet has stated,

00:01:13   this is the year that Myke was right

00:01:15   about the iPhone 6 Plus.

00:01:17   Couple weeks ago, or maybe, yeah,

00:01:19   couple weeks ago you were talking about the Apple Watch

00:01:21   and you said that you use your nose--

00:01:24   - This was last week.

00:01:25   - It feels like an eternity ago, Myke,

00:01:27   because all we have gotten in our inboxes and on Twitter

00:01:30   is how many people do this.

00:01:32   - Yes.

00:01:33   - It's ridiculous.

00:01:35   - It's been overwhelming.

00:01:37   Everybody has been tweeting at me and, and, or us

00:01:40   and has been, yeah, has been saying,

00:01:43   "Yes, I use my nose to tap things."

00:01:46   Some people said that they have been doing it

00:01:47   since the show, some people said they were doing it

00:01:49   before the show.

00:01:50   Like if you just search Twitter for the hashtag

00:01:53   Myke was right, you will see many people declaring over the last week about the

00:01:59   nose tapping phenomenon to the point where it has even started to spread

00:02:03   around the internet and I have collected a selection of links to further

00:02:09   illustrate the nose tapping so it received follow out and I'm so happy

00:02:14   that it was referred to as follow out in the ATP show notes episode 115 where

00:02:19   Marco claims that I am right and that nose tapping is a thing that people

00:02:24   should recognize. There is a Reddit thread which existed before this.

00:02:32   Somebody created this thread about watch users. Have you used your nose to operate

00:02:38   it when your hands are full? And then in that thread people mention the show and

00:02:42   me. So we've got another another piece of source material here. And then also

00:02:48   during the live well the in-person episode of the incomparable that they

00:02:56   recorded that Jason recorded along with a bunch of other fine people like Mr.

00:03:00   John Siracusa, Andy Enocho, Dan Moran, Serenity Caldwell and Tony

00:03:04   Cinderella. I think I got everybody I hope I got everybody I tried to then get

00:03:08   everybody. During the episode Jason is called out for tapping his watch with

00:03:13   his nose. Wow. This is something that happens guys. Steven, what are we gonna do now?

00:03:21   There's all these people like Myke. It's concerning in many ways, mostly for

00:03:27   the future of the human race, but I have not done it and I have not found,

00:03:33   and I had a time where I was like "oh I'm gonna do this but I don't want to do it

00:03:37   so I can argue with Myke about it" like has not even entered my mind to try it

00:03:41   And it may be that I don't walk as like part of a commute like Myke you were talking about last week

00:03:48   You know you went out and you do a lot of walking in London much more than I do here in Memphis

00:03:52   And you know maybe when you're on the go and you have a shopping bag or something you're on a city street or on a subway

00:03:56   Maybe it makes more sense, and I just don't have that sort of thing because my commute is in my car and

00:04:02   I'm not really fiddling with my watch when I drive

00:04:04   So maybe that's part of it

00:04:07   But even like around the house like I do it around the house all the time

00:04:11   Wow, so Myke, can you explain is this something that you also do socially like in front of other people or together with people?

00:04:20   You just stop your noses on the Apple watches. I have I've done it in public. I've done it with

00:04:25   Close family and friends around. Oh, okay. So it's a it's a social thing

00:04:30   Also, I mean it's when you say it's a social thing

00:04:32   It makes it sound like it's things like I get a bunch of people together and we all tap our watches of our noses

00:04:38   Or like tap each other's watches or something

00:04:40   That's not something that that occurs but just in general. Yes. I you know, I'm not ashamed of it

00:04:47   I do wonder Steven if you would have done it if we wouldn't have had this conversation

00:04:51   Like I think that there's something buried like deep in the back of your brain now where you are adverse to nose tapping

00:04:57   Because because we have had this conversation

00:05:02   Maybe I mean so so around the house. You know I

00:05:05   The other day I was I've been wearing it since last week

00:05:10   And I was doing something actually on the watch and kind of like

00:05:14   Scoop up my my youngest son who's seven months old kind of at the same time and like

00:05:20   You guys talked a little about about it on

00:05:22   Upgrade about like the state the watch is in right and for me. That's been not a big deal like if I'm doing something

00:05:29   I just dropped my wrist I can just come back to it later because

00:05:32   It's it's just not a big deal for me to like finish what I'm doing as I start to do something else

00:05:38   now I will say that

00:05:40   That I could see doing it like if an alarm is going off

00:05:44   And I want to silence it if I'm cooking or something I haven't been in that situation with it yet

00:05:48   But it's definitely not like a all the time type thing

00:05:52   I think oh, I should notice that tap this and then I don't it just I don't know like I'm glad that you were right and

00:05:59   Clearly like it is something that people do if you just look at all these links

00:06:03   We've put in the show notes, but it hasn't come up for me yet

00:06:06   Myke if people want to see all that stuff you just talked about where could they go in their internet browser?

00:06:12   So just anywhere sane on the internet or because that's everybody's talking about nose tapping or you know you could also go to relay.fm

00:06:19   /connected/38 and you will find

00:06:22   primary source material for the nose tapping phenomenon of 2015

00:06:28   That's correct. You can also go to the show notes calm which yes, that's that's true this time

00:06:35   Yeah, that's a joke

00:06:38   shownotes.com

00:06:39   slash-38 should redirect to you. Yeah, it does it does

00:06:43   Someone's together for us

00:06:46   It's pretty amazing

00:06:48   We own the show notes

00:06:50   Like we should we should have a trademark or something about the show notes, you know

00:06:56   So thank you to Ben Ben curtain BJ curtain on Twitter who registered the show notes

00:07:03   Awesome. That's a pretty pretty awesome

00:07:06   pretty awesome thing

00:07:09   Since we're talking about Myke was right

00:07:11   We should talk about how connected was wrong in fact that none of us apparently know anything about iTunes radio and more

00:07:17   Disappointingly to me. I didn't look it up. We were talking ok bass

00:07:21   K-base apparently iTunes radio is only available in the US and in Australia

00:07:26   However, I tried googling this and tried to find it on Apple's website and I can't find it very clearly

00:07:32   Listed anywhere that that's actually where iTunes radio is offered

00:07:35   Maybe someone in the chat room or maybe one of you two can find that link, but I had trouble even verifying this

00:07:40   But it seems I seem pretty sure that it's just in the US and Australia

00:07:44   Because I think we said Canada and didn't know about Australia

00:07:49   but I'm currently on apple.com slash au slash iTunes iTunes radio and

00:07:55   And it's a page that exists.

00:07:57   Definitely in Australia.

00:07:59   There's a link to start listening, so we'll go with that.

00:08:02   But it's definitely in Australia. Congratulations Australians!

00:08:05   Good job.

00:08:07   I don't know why... I mean I'm happy for you guys, I really am.

00:08:10   Well they do get Koalas and iTunes Radio.

00:08:13   So you know, it's my kind of country.

00:08:16   That's a good point.

00:08:17   Maybe those two things are linked. Somehow.

00:08:20   Yeah, somehow.

00:08:22   So last week we were speaking about Apple's quarterly results and spoke about iPad sales.

00:08:29   And Dr. Drang broke our hearts.

00:08:34   The father of all nerds.

00:08:37   No I'm not.

00:08:39   That's what I mean.

00:08:40   When I say our I mean Federico.

00:08:44   Wrote this piece about iPad sales and mentioned us and a couple other things.

00:08:48   basically the gist of this thing is that the way that iPad quarterly result sales

00:08:53   are normally reported it's a little hard to see kind of what's going on. I think

00:08:57   that's fair you know looking at these charts like it his point makes sense to

00:09:02   me clearly like the Apple one the cumulative iPad sales is like a really

00:09:05   bogus number to pull out because cumulative numbers will always go up

00:09:09   when you're talking about sales of products. But um he has some other points

00:09:15   here and I want to know if you guys wanted to address any of these or just mention it and move on.

00:09:21   No, well the main point I guess is that me and the other, I don't know how many millions of other

00:09:27   people were all in denial about the iPad, you know, because we're moving from stage one to stage two

00:09:33   of the model that the doctor mentions. So we're all in denial about the iPad, like we have this

00:09:40   delusion about this computer, you know, functioning well for us, but turns out

00:09:45   that it doesn't and it'll die soon. So that's the real point of the

00:09:50   article I guess. I think if I'm to argue for Dr. Drang, I think his point is not

00:09:55   that the iPad doesn't work for you so much as that it's not selling as well as it could.

00:10:02   Well it does say that I was in denial. I think what he is referring to...

00:10:06   anger about the ipad i'm not really angry about the ipad i really don't care

00:10:10   i think that he is saying that you're in denial about the decline

00:10:13   well there's nothing to be in denial about i mean it's selling less than before but it's

00:10:21   still plenty i don't i'm not understanding what's so strange to to to understand about this honestly

00:10:28   okay it's i don't know i don't want to have this argument again no i i don't want to have it with

00:10:33   with you. I think whether it's right or not people think that you have a bias.

00:10:37   But we all have our own biases and potentially the people that write these

00:10:42   articles that refute your opinion have a bias towards the Mac.

00:10:48   Or do you know what I mean? So it's it's it's kind of all a bit like like a

00:10:55   like a war I guess. It shouldn't be a war. You don't need to do that because like war what is it good for Federico?

00:11:01   It's a stupid war.

00:11:02   It's absolutely nothing.

00:11:05   There's nothing to be at war about.

00:11:10   You like a Mac, I like an iPad, and Steven likes old Macs, and that's fine.

00:11:15   And everybody gets what they want.

00:11:17   I don't understand.

00:11:18   Like, this is beyond the article on Dr. Drang's website.

00:11:24   But there's people who actually get angry.

00:11:26   I'm not the angry one.

00:11:27   There's other people who get angry when you say that you do stuff on an iPad.

00:11:30   And we've talked about this before many many times.

00:11:33   Those people tend to be Mac users or PC users.

00:11:37   And I don't understand why can't everybody just go on with their day and let other people,

00:11:42   not just me, other people in general, like everybody uses the computer they want and

00:11:47   in the end what matters is that you do good work or you manage to accomplish what you

00:11:51   set out to accomplish with your computer.

00:11:53   It doesn't matter what kind of computer you use.

00:11:56   I don't understand, like, we need, the need to use financial results to make an argument,

00:12:03   a bigger argument about the iPad.

00:12:06   I think that's a useless waste of time to use financial results to make a statement

00:12:13   about the iPad as a device and its need to exist.

00:12:17   Like it's just numbers and it's still millions of money, you know?

00:12:21   Yeah, because I guess thinking, I've been thinking about this a lot after our discussion

00:12:26   this week, and I've been trying to think about things, like, I don't say I disagree with

00:12:31   you, I don't agree with people that say it's dead, I don't really know where I sit on it,

00:12:35   because I'm not an iPad user, so again, I try not to judge, but I see the things you

00:12:38   do and I appreciate them.

00:12:40   So I've been thinking about this a little bit, and I guess the thing that these numbers

00:12:45   don't show is how many people are using the iPad, because...

00:12:50   Yeah.

00:12:52   - I mean, okay, they might not be selling

00:12:54   as many as they saw previously,

00:12:57   but that doesn't mean there's less people buying them.

00:12:59   And you can't really compare iPad and iPhone

00:13:02   because contracts and subsidies.

00:13:06   So, I mean, it would be really interesting,

00:13:09   and it'd probably be useful for Apple to try and show,

00:13:12   like if they do know, like,

00:13:13   App Store sales or something from the iPad,

00:13:15   like to show, like, see, people are using these devices

00:13:17   'cause people are buying tons of apps on them.

00:13:20   Do you know what I mean?

00:13:21   Like that might help show that, yeah, okay,

00:13:25   the numbers are going down just because less people

00:13:27   are buying new ones, but that's okay because the people

00:13:30   that bought four years ago,

00:13:31   they're gonna buy again next year.

00:13:32   Like, I don't know, I don't know.

00:13:34   - Yeah, maybe they could use, you know, different numbers,

00:13:39   but maybe they can't.

00:13:40   Like, I don't know what's behind the numbers.

00:13:42   Like, can they share usage numbers?

00:13:44   Is that all right?

00:13:45   Can they do that on an investor call?

00:13:47   I don't know.

00:13:48   - I know I've seen stuff like that before.

00:13:49   always share stuff like that, don't they?

00:13:50   They say like how many active,

00:13:54   activated and active users they have,

00:13:56   they usually share that information at IO.

00:13:58   But that's weird for Apple to do,

00:13:59   they don't share anything else,

00:14:00   so maybe they don't want to share it on this one product.

00:14:02   I don't know.

00:14:03   But I just wanted to add that thought Federico,

00:14:05   'cause I push you,

00:14:08   but I don't want people to think that I disagree with you.

00:14:11   - No, no, yeah, because we also got people saying that you--

00:14:14   - People hate me.

00:14:17   When Myke pushes me, it's because he wants me to think about stuff usually, and it makes

00:14:24   for a good show.

00:14:25   And I agree.

00:14:26   So I'm not angry at Myke.

00:14:27   I'm not angry actually at anybody in general.

00:14:30   Like I don't have time to be angry.

00:14:32   So it's just that I find curious to use one set of facts, in this case numbers, to make

00:14:41   a statement about another topic, which is "does this type of computer need to exist?"

00:14:47   it's two different things and you're trying to make a single argument and it doesn't really

00:14:55   work. I don't know. I feel like we've talked about this enough and maybe we should move

00:15:02   on and you use a mic, I use a iPad and the world is fine and we're fine and we love each

00:15:06   other.

00:15:07   It's true. That's all very true. Myke, I wanted to do some follow up. You guys spoke on upgrade

00:15:15   about the unboxing experience for the Apple watch and in the show notes will

00:15:22   be a link to a flickr album I unboxed the stainless steel one it sounds like

00:15:29   from the description that this box and the the sport box are different yeah

00:15:37   they are different yeah so it's like in a this is radio so we'll do a word

00:15:42   picture kind of in a box it's on its side and a little mount so it's not laid

00:15:47   out flat it's actually like it was actually like buckled around this thing

00:15:50   the box is really heavy it's I agree with you guys it's a lot of packaging it

00:15:54   feels very much like an unboxing an early iPod but uh we will uh we'll put

00:16:02   that in the show notes and people can check it out it's really a really nice

00:16:05   experience but it's you know clearly they're going for this like sort of

00:16:12   luxury feel about things. I think one of the key differences between the sport

00:16:16   and the steel is the sport box is a long thin box and that the watch is laid out

00:16:21   flat but the steel it the band is wrapped around itself and it's enclosed

00:16:26   in a circle and the box is square it's a cube right? Yeah. Yeah that's what I thought.

00:16:31   And you can like club somebody with this box like it is heavy because luxury yeah, yeah because the

00:16:38   The box that the watch itself is in is quite heavy, and then it's in a box

00:16:42   And it was in a box just boxes on boxes on boxes

00:16:45   Did you like the box you and you didn't really sound excited

00:16:51   No, I mean, it's nice. It's just it was it was not what I was expecting like I

00:16:56   I don't know what I was expecting.

00:16:59   I wasn't thinking it'd be like an iPod,

00:17:01   like a little clear acrylic case.

00:17:03   It was nicer than I was expecting.

00:17:05   And it was just more of it than I was expecting.

00:17:07   But it's nice, I'm gonna keep it, and we'll go from there.

00:17:11   - Awesome, we have a special guest on this week's episode.

00:17:15   We're gonna be joined by Christina Warren in a moment

00:17:17   to talk about all of the crazy stuff

00:17:21   that is happening over at Microsoft.

00:17:23   So we're gonna talk about some of the iOS apps

00:17:26   Windows Phone stuff. But before we do that let me take a moment to thank our

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00:18:25   we're about to talk about it in a bit maybe you want to learn how to develop

00:18:28   for the Windows platform maybe you want to learn how to develop Android apps or

00:18:31   iOS apps maybe you want to learn Swift. lynda.com has courses on all of these

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00:19:30   Thank you so much to lynda.com for supporting this show and all of Relay FM.

00:19:35   So we are joined now on connected by co-host of Rocket on Relay FM and senior tech editor

00:19:41   at Mashable, Christina Warren.

00:19:43   Hi Christina.

00:19:44   Hey guys, how are you?

00:19:46   So well, thank you so much for joining us.

00:19:49   Happy to be here.

00:19:50   about some interesting stuff today. We're gonna talk about Microsoft on the Apple Show.

00:19:56   I know, well there's actually Microsoft-y news, it's interesting. There's Apple-y news

00:20:04   coming out of Microsoft. It's a new world, you guys.

00:20:08   So I guess now last week Microsoft had its Build Conference for those of us in the Apple

00:20:13   camp. It's basically their WWDC. It's a time for them to have developers and their community

00:20:18   in one place and kind of lay out the road map for what's going on. And it was really

00:20:23   like how long was like two and a half hour keynote or something?

00:20:26   It was a two and a half, it was a ridiculously long keynote. It was scheduled to be two hours

00:20:31   and then it ended up going two and a half hours.

00:20:34   That's right.

00:20:35   How you end up, I mean, and they clearly had rehearsed how you miss schedule, how everybody

00:20:40   ends up going long and you end up, I don't even know how that happens, but no, it was

00:20:45   very long and unlike Apple who always kind of focuses on the more consumery bits during

00:20:51   the WWDC keynote, so even though developers get excited about stuff like Swift and new

00:20:54   Xcode features and new APIs, there's something for the regular people to kind of understand

00:21:00   too.

00:21:01   Microsoft had some of that.

00:21:02   Unfortunately, they saved it basically for the very end or interspersed weird places

00:21:06   in the middle and started up by talking about Docker which is totally fascinating and awesome

00:21:11   but maybe not for everybody and then they got into all their cloud computing stuff and

00:21:14   Azure cloud storage and different types of database technologies and really kind of going

00:21:22   into the deep, deep nerdy woods.

00:21:26   Point where me, who is interested in a lot of stuff, I'm bored.

00:21:29   I'm like, "Okay, you guys, this is terrible," and waited until the very end to kind of get

00:21:34   into the new features coming to Windows 10 and to talk about the HoloLens, which is kind

00:21:40   of their augmented reality technology, which is actually really cool.

00:21:43   Yeah, so I thought we could kind of focus on where Microsoft is sort of touching

00:21:49   the the Apple world here. So as a lot of people know they've got Windows, they've

00:21:53   got Windows now runs on the Xbox kind of, they run on tablets, and of course they

00:21:58   run on phones with Windows Phone and that's seems to be sort of the, you know,

00:22:04   kind of the run of the litter over at Microsoft. Windows Phone hasn't been a

00:22:07   huge success in most places by many metrics. They have some interesting

00:22:11   hardware you guys spoke about that on

00:22:13   rocket with some of the camera stuff

00:22:14   they're doing is pretty interesting but

00:22:15   but kind of the core problem with

00:22:17   Windows Phone is that there's not a lot

00:22:19   of third-party applications for it which

00:22:22   is a little bit chicken and egg right

00:22:24   they they don't have any or you could

00:22:26   say they don't have users because they

00:22:28   don't have apps so they don't have apps

00:22:29   because they don't have users and it

00:22:31   seems like Microsoft is trying to break

00:22:34   out of that cycle with some with some

00:22:35   announcements that they made made last

00:22:38   week so Christina what are they doing

00:22:39   with iOS developers specifically? What have they kind of put on the table now?

00:22:45   Well you summed up the exact problem they're facing really, really

00:22:49   well, which is that they've been cranking away at this platform for,

00:22:54   I guess, four years now. Close to five years actually with

00:22:58   Windows, if you count Windows Phone 7. And Windows Phone 8 was 2012, I want to say.

00:23:08   So it's been three years that they've been doing that.

00:23:11   And they've had issues where they are trying to get developers on board and they just kind

00:23:16   of can't do it.

00:23:18   So what they're doing with iOS developers is they are basically saying, "Okay, we know

00:23:22   that you're developing apps for iOS and we know that you like Cocoa, we know you like

00:23:25   Objective-C, we know you like the Apple stuff.

00:23:29   What if we made it easy for you to bring your apps over and basically port your iOS apps,

00:23:33   your Objective-C stuff and get it to natively run in Windows?"

00:23:38   So basically you can bring over your Xcode project and take all of your Objective-C files.

00:23:43   You'll need to do some work to kind of package it correctly for, you know, in C# and to run

00:23:48   on the Windows platform.

00:23:50   But by and large, you know, it would be one of those things where it would kind of let

00:23:53   you bring a lot of your coding, a lot of your UI stuff, even a lot of your backend kind

00:23:58   of mechanics and translate it to be able to run on Windows.

00:24:01   And one of the examples they pointed out was that Candy Crush Saga from King, the one that

00:24:07   is in the Windows store is actually, in the Microsoft store, is a direct port of the iOS

00:24:14   app where it's literally the iOS code.

00:24:17   Maybe a few changes made that King pushes out updates to every so often.

00:24:22   So King hasn't had to develop anything natively for Windows Phone.

00:24:28   They are just able to take the iOS code that they've used and bring it back over.

00:24:32   - Yeah, and I could see the draw for that, right?

00:24:37   So instead of having to have a Windows phone developer,

00:24:41   or probably honestly a team of developers working on it,

00:24:44   Microsoft's basically offering,

00:24:45   hey look, bring your iOS app, bring your front end,

00:24:48   and you can recompile it and you can run.

00:24:52   And to me, as sort of an old Mac user,

00:24:56   I've heard this story before,

00:24:58   but in the past you heard it from Apple,

00:25:00   like hey guys Java like you know this whole like developed once run everywhere

00:25:05   promise always kind of falls apart and it does do you think Microsoft has an

00:25:11   opportunity to break that or are they doomed to the same same mistakes I think

00:25:15   it depends on how they do it I mean I think that it's certainly there have been

00:25:18   examples of people who have you know created kind of these hybrid platforms

00:25:22   that sit on top of these translation layers that sit on top of native code

00:25:25   bases and and convert things that I think have done well you know as a

00:25:29   Xamarian, which is a company that actually does the inverse of this, where you can write

00:25:33   in C# and build apps for Mac, iOS, Android, basically lets people do that.

00:25:41   And that's fairly popular with people in the enterprise who maybe have a lot of C# expertise

00:25:45   and they don't have the expertise in Objective-C or in Java and don't know all the specific

00:25:52   coding standards for Android or iOS.

00:25:55   That works pretty well and gets pretty good results.

00:25:57   and they can be fairly close to what you would get if you were writing pure native code.

00:26:01   I think the problem though is that always there are certain optimization challenges

00:26:05   involved and certain things can convert very cleanly, certain things can't, but there are

00:26:09   optimizations you can make there.

00:26:11   The problem though is that it's not just about porting the app over, and I talk to a lot

00:26:15   of developers about this, it's also about taking care of support issues and supporting

00:26:19   customers and seeing if you want to maintain any differences in the look and feel.

00:26:25   do you need to change this API or that API for a service that might not exist?

00:26:29   This is more of an issue with Android, I think, ports coming over to Windows than it might

00:26:33   be for Apple stuff.

00:26:34   But for instance, Google services is something that a lot of Android developers use and rely

00:26:39   on and that's what handles a lot of their location data, a lot of their in-app purchase

00:26:41   stuff and a lot of other kind of tidbits.

00:26:45   And that is a problem for Android developers who want to port their apps to Amazon's App

00:26:49   Store, for instance, because that doesn't have Google services.

00:26:52   And it also means that if you're bringing that code over to Windows, you're going to

00:26:55   have to have something else to drop in its place.

00:26:57   Now Microsoft has said they already have that.

00:27:00   And if you're using mapping functionality and making calls to Google Maps, they will

00:27:05   redirect those to Bing Maps or to Nokia here or whatever they're using.

00:27:09   And the same is true for the in-app purchase things.

00:27:12   And they can do the same thing with Apple.

00:27:14   If somebody's making a call to a mapping component or a camera component, it can be cross-referenced

00:27:19   with whatever Windows is doing.

00:27:21   But there are, I'm with you, I don't know if this is going to be any different now on

00:27:27   the short term, but I feel like there is potential because it is Microsoft, if they decide to

00:27:32   take on as a company and as a strategy be more cross-platform and sort of approaching

00:27:37   things in a more multifaceted way, they might be able to come up with a solution that maybe

00:27:44   it's not as good as going pure native, but could be perfectly serviceable and perfectly

00:27:48   usable for lots and lots of people.

00:27:50   Right, you know in the past. I mean there's lots of stories about this of

00:27:55   Microsoft going to developers and saying hey look you know what we will pay you to to bring your app over

00:28:00   And that's gone on very recently even with people we know and and I wonder like it is

00:28:08   That sort of approach has that not worked for them

00:28:12   Or they are they still not getting what they can do because you look at the big names like everybody points at Instagram

00:28:17   right that's kind of the

00:28:18   example people use and I mean for me it might be a silly metric but that's one

00:28:23   that I'm going to look at of like does Instagram show up like or does Snapchat

00:28:28   show up? One of these really big social networks because that's what people want

00:28:31   out of a mobile device and Microsoft just can't offer it. No and you're right I

00:28:36   mean the problem is you know for instance Instagram is a great example

00:28:38   Instagram actually is on Windows Phone but it doesn't have nearly the features

00:28:42   that it has an Android or iOS. I mean and in fairness you know Instagram is still

00:28:47   leading on iOS than it is on Android.

00:28:50   And some of the third party, I've gotten much better with feature parity for the main app,

00:28:53   but the layouts app and hyperlapse and some of the other things are not on Android at

00:28:59   all.

00:29:00   But they did come over to Windows Phone.

00:29:03   I don't know what was involved with that, how much money Microsoft had to pay, what

00:29:07   work they had to do to get them there.

00:29:09   But they did come over.

00:29:10   But the fact that the updates haven't kept up in pace I think indicates that they're

00:29:13   not getting a huge amount of ROI from the Windows Phone codebase.

00:29:21   There's another company I've talked to kind of on background who's told me they had a

00:29:26   Windows Phone app, they haven't updated it since 2013.

00:29:29   This is a really big social network and I said, "Does this change your plans at all?"

00:29:36   And they said, "No, frankly it doesn't."

00:29:39   is an interesting case because they used to have a number of third party unofficial clients

00:29:44   for Windows Phone that you could use.

00:29:46   Snapshot because it has pretty lousy security anyway, they're finally starting to kind of

00:29:50   act more like adults, although they still act like children and realizing they have

00:29:54   to start showing people money and having to take privacy issues seriously have now had

00:29:58   a very hard official hard ban on unofficial third party apps anybody using their API.

00:30:05   And so they are banning those apps from the store and if anybody uses them then their

00:30:09   SnapChat account gets shut down.

00:30:13   So it opens up an interesting question.

00:30:15   Users obviously, when does a user really want a SnapChat client?

00:30:19   It does open up an interesting place where it goes, "Okay, look SnapChat, we know you

00:30:23   guys don't want to invest the time and effort in maintaining an app for our platform.

00:30:26   We know that we don't have enough users to make a dent for you guys and it doesn't matter.

00:30:30   But our users really want it and if we could show you that all you need to do is bring

00:30:34   over your iOS or your Android code, you know, can we do it?

00:30:37   And at that point, maybe Microsoft could even say,

00:30:38   look, we can even help out with some of the support issues

00:30:41   and we can help out with even some of the maintenance issues.

00:30:43   I don't know how well that scales,

00:30:45   but it might be a short-term solution

00:30:48   for the problem of at least getting some of the apps

00:30:51   that you need for parity on the platform.

00:30:54   You know, having Candy Crush Saga is a good step

00:30:57   when it comes to gaming.

00:30:58   And that app does really well on Windows Phone,

00:31:00   you know, King has said, but, you know,

00:31:01   making sure that Snapchat is updated more frequently, making sure that you have apps

00:31:07   such as Instagram is updated more frequently, making sure you have apps like Snapchat on.

00:31:14   And maybe even talking to, I think this would be a lot harder and I don't know if it would

00:31:18   even be possible, but talking to Periscope and the Meerkat guys and the Yik Yaks of the

00:31:23   world, keeping abreast of what the next generation of users wants.

00:31:28   And I think being proactive and reaching out to them and saying, "Hey, maybe you want

00:31:32   to consider building this into your strategy as you evolve."

00:31:35   I don't know if that'll work or not, but it's better than the current strategy, which is

00:31:39   basically, "Hey, we'll bribe you.

00:31:41   Come over to the platform."

00:31:42   They're bribed.

00:31:43   They come over to the platform.

00:31:44   There's still no users.

00:31:45   And at a certain point, it's like, "Well, the money was great.

00:31:47   Thanks.

00:31:48   We tried, but we still aren't going to bother dedicating resources to building natively

00:31:51   for this because it's not worth it for us to dedicate a team or even a couple of engineers

00:31:58   on this.

00:32:00   So Christina, looking at this, seeing that these apps, these big apps that are just completely

00:32:05   dodging and just missing Windows Phone, like by choice, does this indicate that Windows

00:32:10   Phone is maybe dead as a platform?

00:32:12   Are they going down the same road as BlackBerry?

00:32:14   Microsoft isn't facing the same issues that BlackBerry is facing.

00:32:17   They obviously are in a slightly better position than that, but one of the interesting things

00:32:21   that they're doing is they're selling a lot of low-cost phones.

00:32:24   The Lumia series has done really well in these emerging markets, so they kind of are going

00:32:27   after the same base as the Android One initiative.

00:32:31   Some of the sort of Android systems, some of them

00:32:34   use official Google services, some of them

00:32:36   don't from companies such as Xiaomi and Hisense and TCL.

00:32:40   And they're doing really well in those markets.

00:32:43   They can do things like carrier billing,

00:32:45   which is really popular in markets where

00:32:46   you don't have credit cards.

00:32:48   And I think that there's a case to be made

00:32:50   that if they could build critical mass in those markets--

00:32:53   you look at the BRIC countries-- Brazil, India, Russia, China--

00:32:57   They could build critical mass in any of those areas and so far it looks like they're doing

00:33:00   the best in South America.

00:33:03   That might be enough to maybe not save the platform but at least make it more viable.

00:33:10   I kind of don't know what they do.

00:33:12   You said is it a failure if they've done – Blackberry has done – right now it is a failure but

00:33:17   I don't know how much longer – I don't know what they do.

00:33:21   I don't know whether they quit and try to do something else because they can't not

00:33:24   do mobile.

00:33:25   They have to do mobile.

00:33:26   whether they quit and try to come up with another platform

00:33:28   and maybe hope that the next wave of smart devices

00:33:32   and smartphones in the next cycle,

00:33:34   they'll be able to gain mind share that way,

00:33:36   or if they have to continue plugging on,

00:33:38   keeping on plugging on.

00:33:39   And honestly, that kind of opens up

00:33:42   one of the interesting side benefits of what they're doing,

00:33:44   which also relates to the Mac and iOS,

00:33:47   which is that Microsoft is being really bullish

00:33:49   about bringing their own services and tools

00:33:54   to Mac and to iPhone especially.

00:33:57   So, they need to be on mobile, period.

00:33:59   They can't quit their mobile strategy.

00:34:01   And if they can't win by having people come

00:34:05   to their platform, they can at least make sure

00:34:07   that their core services, things like Office,

00:34:10   are available where people actually are using mobile devices.

00:34:15   - Right, we've talked about that even on this show

00:34:17   that some of Microsoft apps like Outlook,

00:34:19   yes, they purchased it.

00:34:21   It's not built from the ground up in Microsoft,

00:34:24   but it's a really nice contender on iOS.

00:34:27   - It's a great app.

00:34:28   - And Sunrise, the calendar app also.

00:34:31   - Yeah, they bought Sunrise, which is a great one.

00:34:33   And they've also, I have to even say Office 365,

00:34:37   they've done a really good job with it on iOS.

00:34:40   And they're showing off in future versions

00:34:43   where if you add extensions and add add-on components

00:34:46   to things like Excel and you do it on Windows,

00:34:49   it'll also work on the Mac,

00:34:50   it'll work on the web and it'll work on iOS.

00:34:54   And so that becomes interesting as kind of an add on

00:34:56   capability for real time editing and for collaboration stuff

00:34:59   and for bringing in cloud and kind of server side components

00:35:02   you know, it works with, you know,

00:35:03   they're doing integrations with Dropbox.

00:35:04   So you can open up, you know,

00:35:06   your Dropbox files in Office 365 and open up, you know,

00:35:09   if you're in Dropbox, open those, you know,

00:35:11   edit documents in Office 365 directly from the Dropbox app.

00:35:14   They're really trying to be more extensible

00:35:17   and they're trying to be more places.

00:35:18   And that's a good thing.

00:35:19   that's something that they resisted doing for far too long.

00:35:22   And as a result, Google, which in my opinion has a much,

00:35:25   as a way inferior product, has kind of taken hold

00:35:28   in the online creation space.

00:35:30   Now my favorite for document editing

00:35:33   and for collaboration stuff is actually a company

00:35:35   called Quip, Q-U-I-P.

00:35:36   I really like Quip and they have a great iOS app,

00:35:39   fantastic iOS app actually,

00:35:41   and a really good share extension and widget stuff too.

00:35:44   But--

00:35:46   - Do you know they also support Markdown, Christina?

00:35:48   - Yes, they do.

00:35:49   Yeah, I love that.

00:35:50   Yeah, we just Quip as a replacement for Google Docs for a while and I just love the marketing

00:35:55   stuff.

00:35:56   Yeah, no, it's funny because the guy who's their CEO and their founder, he was the CTO

00:36:01   of Facebook for a long, long time and he was one of the co-creators of Google Maps and

00:36:06   several of the people on the Quip team are from the Google Docs team.

00:36:09   They know what they're doing.

00:36:11   Brett Taylor, he was one of the founders of FriendFeed and then he went to Facebook as

00:36:15   their CTO and was there for a long time.

00:36:17   And they know about collaboration and they know about what to do and they have really

00:36:24   high core competency and their iOS app is great.

00:36:26   And they build a great web app.

00:36:28   It's not surprising to me that the first great web app was Google Maps, right?

00:36:32   And that its co-creator is working on that project.

00:36:34   But Microsoft Office is actually not bad either.

00:36:37   I had to give a presentation a few weeks ago and I needed it to be in PowerPoint format.

00:36:41   I couldn't use Keynote.

00:36:43   And able to make edits in Office 365, I was using the Mac 2015 Office Beta and I was able

00:36:51   to make edits on my iPad using the same theme, fonts, everything.

00:36:56   And everything worked flawlessly and that was really great.

00:36:59   So I mean at least they're improving in that direction.

00:37:03   They might not be able to get people to apply their phones, but at least they can take their

00:37:06   services and bring them with better parity to the Mac and iOS.

00:37:11   So Christina, I wanted to ask you, is it possible for Apple to block this technology to prevent

00:37:16   developers or Microsoft from executing this strategy of having iOS apps basically recompiled

00:37:22   for Windows?

00:37:23   Is it possible, do you think, for Apple?

00:37:26   They could change fundamental aspects of their API enough that it would be annoying, but

00:37:30   no.

00:37:31   Because this isn't fundamentally that different from what Adobe Air was doing when it switched

00:37:35   from being kind of like that weird containerization thing to being a runtime.

00:37:40   And there have been companies like Appcelerator and like I said, Xamarian has been doing this

00:37:46   sort of stuff in reverse.

00:37:47   As long as Apple has these open APIs, it's one of those things, or not open, but these

00:37:51   documented APIs, it's one of those things where you can kind of reverse engineer a compiler

00:37:57   and kind of write a converter to convert stuff.

00:38:01   They might restrict everything they release, but honestly, I don't think this hurts Apple

00:38:08   for this to be a possibility.

00:38:09   It's, you're still primarily writing code in Objective-C.

00:38:13   A lot, a question I got a lot last week was,

00:38:16   are they gonna do anything for Swift?

00:38:17   Since Swift is obviously now the new hotness.

00:38:21   And Microsoft has come forward and said, yes,

00:38:23   we're working on a tool to bring Swift stuff over as well.

00:38:26   Again, how well all of this is going to work,

00:38:28   I don't really know.

00:38:29   But you know, you consider, the idea isn't too crazy

00:38:32   when you consider, you know,

00:38:33   if you look at things like Mac Ruby,

00:38:35   and you look at some of the various, you know,

00:38:37   JavaScript to iOS, sorts of libraries and kind of the hybrid ways people code.

00:38:42   It isn't terribly different from saying, "Okay, I code primarily in this way, but I'm using

00:38:48   some of this other stuff and I'm kind of making a soup out of my mobile app."

00:38:53   So I mean, I guess Apple can make it harder for them, but I don't know if there would

00:38:57   be any reason that they would want to do that because it doesn't hurt them.

00:39:00   I mean, still people are saying, "Our development platform of choice is Xcode and we will use

00:39:06   studio by holding our nose.

00:39:08   I mean, it looks pretty great for Apple, you know, from the company that, you know, just

00:39:13   ten years ago, Ballmer was on stage screaming, "Sweaty developers, developers, developers,

00:39:17   developers, developers," that now the company that arguably has some of the worst developer

00:39:22   relations at least in terms of the transparency and stuff is where everybody wants to be.

00:39:27   So, I don't know.

00:39:29   You still need to buy a Mac to use that code.

00:39:32   So at least they're going to buy a Mac.

00:39:34   No, you still need to buy a Mac.

00:39:35   And there have been toolkits for Windows for a long time, like tools like Appcelerator

00:39:40   and Adobe Air, where you could kind of get around that and code for iOS.

00:39:44   Again, Xamarian is one of those where you could kind of get around needing the Mac.

00:39:48   But yeah, you're going to have to have your Xcode project file.

00:39:52   This is certainly not one of those things that's trying to take away from Apple's market

00:39:56   share.

00:39:57   It's trying to say, "Look, we know you already have this code.

00:39:59   Please bring it to us so that we can have more than 10,000 apps or however many they

00:40:05   Christina, thank you so much for joining us. I know that I think I can speak for

00:40:10   everyone that I feel like I have way more information than I did 20 minutes

00:40:14   ago. Awesome. Which is what you're so great at and if people have enjoyed

00:40:18   listening to Christina and you haven't yet checked out Rocket then you need to

00:40:22   rectify that straight away because Rocket is genuinely one of my very

00:40:26   favorite shows right now and I am very privileged I get to hear it for everybody

00:40:30   else because I hope you guys help with the editing. So I love that we have Rocket on

00:40:36   Relay FM and if people want to check it out they can go to relay.fm/rocket. But Christina,

00:40:41   where else can people find you on the internet? So you can find me at Mashable where I write

00:40:46   and do analysis and I also do videos. So mashable.com/people/Christina and I'm on Twitter, I'm @Film_Girl.

00:40:54   And I do another podcast which is not on Relay FM but is also a lot of fun called Overtired

00:40:58   that I do with Brett Terpstra where we basically, it's two geeks talking about the stuff that

00:41:03   keeps us awake at night.

00:41:04   And you can find that at esn.fm/overtired and we'll put links to everything that we've

00:41:09   just spoken about in the show notes today.

00:41:11   Christina Warren, thank you so much for joining us.

00:41:14   Thank you guys, I appreciate it.

00:41:15   Speak to you soon.

00:41:16   Alright, talk soon.

00:41:17   Right, we still have a bunch more that we want to talk about including Apple Watch Bands

00:41:22   and finally maybe we'll finish the streaming music discussion that we started about 700

00:41:26   weeks ago.

00:41:27   But before we do that let me take a moment to thank our friends over at igloo, the internet

00:41:31   you'll actually like for helping support this week's episode of connected.

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00:42:01   And just like all of your favourite devices, Igloo helps you do your best work.

00:42:05   I mean I was mentioning the customisation stuff a moment ago, like it doesn't just come

00:42:08   in with the way that you want it to look from a branding perspective, because you can change

00:42:12   all the fonts and the colours and that kind of stuff, but you can actually customise the

00:42:16   functionality to be for different groups.

00:42:18   Say like the accounting team need the micro blogs but they don't need the document sharing,

00:42:23   They can have that, so you can just take that function away.

00:42:25   But then maybe the invoicing team

00:42:28   need some other different type of functionality.

00:42:30   They need the document stuff, and they need micro blogs,

00:42:33   and they want all that stuff, because they're

00:42:34   a sociable bunch.

00:42:35   Then you can give them all of that,

00:42:36   and they can have all of that.

00:42:37   It's really cool.

00:42:38   You can pick and choose a different functionality

00:42:40   that makes sense in different parts of your workplace.

00:42:43   And I've mentioned some of this already, but with igloo,

00:42:45   you can share files, coordinate calendars,

00:42:47   provide status updates, and manage your projects

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00:43:41   right now igloosoftware.com/connected thank you so much to igloo for their

00:43:45   continued support of this show and Relay FM.

00:43:51   So yesterday Apple sort of announced, sort of just published a webpage called "Creating

00:43:58   Bands for Apple Watch" and links to a couple PDFs.

00:44:01   The interesting one is the "Brand Design Guidelines for Apple Watch".

00:44:09   Do you guys look at this?

00:44:13   It's interesting.

00:44:14   I took a look at the specs for creating bands, just because I think those diagrams and images,

00:44:23   like schematics, are fancy.

00:44:24   I don't understand what's going on, but they're super nice.

00:44:28   What I like about them, is I know that this is kind of the way that these things are designed,

00:44:32   but it looks like somebody just sketched them on a piece of paper and scanned them.

00:44:36   I know that that's kind of the point, but it still just made me smile.

00:44:40   Yeah, it looks like a secret document out of China.

00:44:43   Yeah. Did you know guys that in the UK even Apple calls them straps and not bands?

00:44:49   It's on the website and everything.

00:44:51   Really?

00:44:52   Yeah, because they're called watch straps. We don't call them watch bands in the UK. We call them watch straps.

00:44:57   Well, we don't call them straps or bands in Italian either.

00:45:01   Well, what did they say on the Apple website in Italy? What did they say on apple.com/it?

00:45:06   Okay, so let's see if I have the same... because I never checked the Italian Apple website.

00:45:13   There you go, see, you know they've got some sort of magical word.

00:45:15   Let's see if my guess is correct.

00:45:18   Well, yeah, duh.

00:45:23   Cinturino.

00:45:24   See?

00:45:25   Yeah, yeah, of course.

00:45:26   It's what we use in Italian.

00:45:27   Perfect.

00:45:28   See, they think about everybody.

00:45:30   I like it.

00:45:31   There's a really nice copy on the Italian website.

00:45:33   Yeah?

00:45:34   This is supposed to be in there.

00:45:36   I like the style, yeah.

00:45:39   Cool.

00:45:40   Straps, huh?

00:45:41   Yeah, I didn't know that.

00:45:42   - I know that.

00:45:42   - Grabs and bands.

00:45:44   So Apple has a section in here about the lugs,

00:45:46   which are the, if you have an Apple Watch

00:45:48   or have played with one, the parts that slide

00:45:50   into the case and sort of click in.

00:45:52   So on the sport band, they're made of the same material

00:45:54   as the band, but like on the leather buckles,

00:45:57   it's stainless steel that sort of slides in.

00:46:00   So talk about that.

00:46:01   They have testing for the sort of metal

00:46:05   and material you're using, and these tests

00:46:07   are all like, by these standards,

00:46:11   Which is nice they're not you know having their own tests. They're saying hey, you know you need to meet these

00:46:16   guidelines

00:46:18   and then of course they have the

00:46:20   Images you were talking about Federico of these schematics

00:46:23   so you can kind of see how the lugs go in how the thickness of everything and

00:46:27   some

00:46:29   Interesting I think I think what has gotten a lot of the headlines and

00:46:33   What I think is most interesting is some of the

00:46:39   requirements that they've they put in here

00:46:41   about different types of

00:46:44   adjustments and

00:46:47   That it should provide a snug a comfortable fit which is maybe the most hilarious thing ever written in a tech in a tech spec

00:46:54   There's no battery stuff is one thing that they're saying right right, right

00:46:59   You can't because in the in the past week we saw those

00:47:04   third-party bands

00:47:07   from companies who are trying to figure out a way to plug into the diagnostic port of the Apple watch and

00:47:13   They are claiming that they can actually recharge the watch or something. Yeah, I think I saw a bunch of these projects

00:47:20   Yeah, I've seen this stuff apparently so and I think this is the case like power can be put through that diagnostic port

00:47:26   But a

00:47:30   Sorekapis from Serenity on iMore today and she's kind of like

00:47:34   Yes, probably for the best and like I hadn't really thought this before but it's like

00:47:37   This thing is like battery powered and charging whilst in contact with your skin. Like that just seems like you would get burned

00:47:46   Yeah, it seems like a bad idea in general to trust a third-party company to use a piece of hardware that Apple itself

00:47:55   is not mentioning anywhere like I

00:47:58   I think it would be super easy for Apple to cut off access to the diagnostic port via software.

00:48:03   Like what if they release an update and you buy this third-party band that promises to

00:48:08   like to charge your Apple watch and then suddenly there's a software update and

00:48:13   your accessory is no longer recognized by whatever hack you're using to plug into that port.

00:48:18   It's super hacky. I don't know.

00:48:21   Yeah, and to your point Myke, I mean at least the stainless steel body,

00:48:26   you know, putting on the charger at night and picking up in the morning, it's warm to the touch in the morning.

00:48:31   It's not that it's hot, it's not that it's not comfortable, but it's noticeably warm.

00:48:34   It's the only time my device ever feels warm is when I pick it up in the morning to put it on.

00:48:39   That goes away quickly, but every morning I pick it up and it's like, "Is it warm again?"

00:48:43   Yeah, that's by design. That's a feature to wake you up.

00:48:48   Take a little hug.

00:48:48   Hey buddy! Nice to see you today.

00:48:55   Yeah, I went out town this past weekend and visited a friend for his birthday and kind of crashed on his couch

00:49:00   And so I had my watch charging sort of in the corner of the room

00:49:03   Like just on the floor like kind of behind my bag and actually got like a book out of my backpack

00:49:08   So it had a hard surface cuz I was like it's not there's gonna catch the carpet on fire

00:49:12   But like I want this thing to have a little airflow

00:49:14   Definitely not what I was expecting from it

00:49:16   So it's it's it's interesting clearly apples going to allow third-party bands

00:49:22   My question to the two of you,

00:49:25   like what do you guys wanna see out of a program like this?

00:49:28   I at least feel like Apple's offerings are A,

00:49:31   really varied, so you can go anything from like

00:49:34   really nice stainless steel to the, you know,

00:49:37   rubbery sports band, and I just,

00:49:39   in Apple's lineup there are several options that I like.

00:49:44   What are people looking for that Apple's not offering?

00:49:47   - I want to see not traditional tech companies

00:49:51   making third-party bands for the Apple Watch.

00:49:54   I wanna see luxury brands making these bands

00:49:59   for the Apple Watch.

00:50:00   Like I wanna see, I don't know, Gucci.

00:50:02   I wanna see, I'm struggling to think of brands that I know.

00:50:07   - Louis Vuitton, Burberry. - Yes, that's enough.

00:50:10   I want to see these people making bands

00:50:12   for the Apple Watch.

00:50:13   - They 100% will, right?

00:50:15   Like they are definitely,

00:50:16   this is definitely going to happen.

00:50:19   If they're not stupid, they need to get on board.

00:50:21   Like, if I were Gucci, and oh my god, that would be nice,

00:50:26   but if I were Gucci, I would totally make an Apple Watch band.

00:50:31   - I wanna see stuff like branded stuff.

00:50:34   Like, you know, I think that that would be fun.

00:50:37   Like, I'm not saying that I would want something like this,

00:50:40   but it's the first thing that popped into my head,

00:50:42   which would be like an Iron Man band, you know?

00:50:45   Like, not stuff specifically like that,

00:50:48   But, you know, like sports teams.

00:50:50   They could be a sports team's bands.

00:50:52   Like, you know, all of your favorite.

00:50:54   You could get one with the Memphis Grizzlies colors

00:50:56   on it, Steven.

00:50:57   - Jackpot.

00:50:59   - Yeah, I think that that's, I agree with you Federico.

00:51:02   I totally want to see the luxury brands,

00:51:03   although I probably wouldn't go down that route.

00:51:05   But this product is about like expression, you know?

00:51:09   It's about fashion, it's about expression.

00:51:10   So the idea that I'm really pleased that they're doing this,

00:51:13   I didn't think they would do it yet.

00:51:15   I thought it was gonna be a version two thing

00:51:16   because they didn't announce it straight away. But I'm really pleased that they are.

00:51:20   And the thing is, I agree with you Stephen, looking at what I see right now,

00:51:24   I can't think of something that I'm looking for because there are still

00:51:28   Apple Watch bands that I want to buy. But I think the key of it is with this stuff

00:51:34   is you need to see what's available to know what you want. And the whole idea of

00:51:39   a product like this in theory is offering choice. And if there's official

00:51:43   choice that's coming via like an ordained program like them is it called

00:51:47   made for Apple watch yes it is and there's no in here that just following

00:51:53   these rules doesn't mean you can use that label so I mean it's like it is in

00:51:57   the past where you have to apply to have that that blessing from Apple but I mean

00:52:02   you probably get it if you get the lugs right because they will send the lugs to

00:52:05   you yeah I don't know it's it's I mean hey I just skimmed it but it gets a

00:52:11   little technical, a little legal. But I think it's really, I think it's really

00:52:16   exciting. I like the idea of being able to go to my favorite fashion brand and

00:52:21   buying like bands that match clothing that I own. You know, like but not like

00:52:29   exactly but like aesthetically. Like I'm a big fan of Levi's. I have lots of Levi's

00:52:33   jeans and Levi's shirts and I would like to see what Levi's could do for a watch

00:52:38   band which would potentially match some of the clothes that I own or let's say

00:52:42   that I buy a really fancy suit from from like Burberry or something it would be

00:52:48   really nice if I could buy a matching watch band to go along with that suit

00:52:51   that I wear. That kind of idea and it's genius it's just genius this is exactly

00:52:56   the kind of thing that needed to do. What about like more accessible brands for

00:53:00   like young people I'm thinking about like H&M department stores you know that

00:53:03   kind of store yeah what if they get on board with the with the made for Apple

00:53:07   watch program and they start making I don't know like bands that are 20 euros

00:53:12   which I don't know what it's like in pounds. Yeah what if they're

00:53:17   seasonal what are they what if they have like models for I mean men and women of

00:53:22   course but also teens and maybe you know when even if you want to dress a little

00:53:26   more fancy you know there's lots of potential here with like you said Myke

00:53:31   with a with expression with personalization of the Apple watch I'm

00:53:35   I'm trying, and it's kind of different because, I mean,

00:53:39   there's people who kind of outfit their iPhones

00:53:42   with all sorts of cases,

00:53:45   but having that kind of personalization on a watch,

00:53:48   it's so much different, you know,

00:53:51   because you have, like,

00:53:52   you don't have to use an iPhone case,

00:53:54   but you have to use a band with your watch.

00:53:56   - That's such a good point.

00:53:58   That is a really interesting distinction, isn't it?

00:54:01   - Yeah, I mean, I decided to use an iPhone case,

00:54:05   like just last year.

00:54:06   And even now on the 6 Plus, I don't keep a case.

00:54:10   But on the watch, you cannot use a watch without a case.

00:54:12   I mean, unless you kind of use your phone with a piece of tape

00:54:16   around your wrist, which I'm sure cannot happen.

00:54:20   I mean, you need a band.

00:54:21   So because of this necessity and because Apple

00:54:25   is allowing other companies to do officially approved bands,

00:54:30   I think we'll see a lot of uptake by people.

00:54:33   least I hope so. It feels like an inevitability to me like if there were

00:54:40   3,000 third-party apps in the store for the watches launch it shows that there's

00:54:47   excitement about the product. I know it those two things don't go hand in hand

00:54:50   but it just feels like this is something that a couple of companies maybe will

00:54:56   jump on and then once they do everyone else is gonna follow and as I expect I

00:55:01   I thought this would happen at the release date but it hasn't yet.

00:55:07   But I expect that there are already companies that had these documents a few weeks ago at

00:55:13   least that Apple has contacted.

00:55:15   Another point that I wanted to discuss is, you guys know that I used to work with an

00:55:21   eBay store.

00:55:22   I used to sell things on eBay for other people.

00:55:25   One of my clients was this local watch and jewelry store in Viterbo.

00:55:31   Now, I don't work with this guy anymore, but he has this small local shop in Viterbo where

00:55:39   he primarily sells watches and accessories. So I'm wondering, well, if pretty known companies

00:55:49   in terms of watch market, brands like Citizen and Omega, you know, these people.

00:55:55   If they do start making custom bands for the Apple Watch, will people like my friend Inviterbo

00:56:01   who owns a small watch shop, will they start selling, not the Apple Watch, but you know,

00:56:07   the bands to people?

00:56:08   Because I've been thinking about the Apple Watch and smart watches in general.

00:56:12   Like what does my friend in Viterbo with, you know, depends on the traditional watch

00:56:19   market.

00:56:20   Is he scared by smart watches and by Apple Watch?

00:56:23   But what if these little business owners could find a way to kind of plug into the smart

00:56:29   watch market and in this case in the Apple Watch market by still selling physical custom

00:56:34   bands to people?

00:56:36   It would be interesting to see if custom bands also expand beyond the Apple stores and websites

00:56:45   and the big fashion boutiques and if you can buy them at a local store like my friend in

00:56:51   Viterbo.

00:56:52   Yeah, Federico, I can definitely see that happening.

00:56:55   The sort of boutique industry of nicely done, maybe even artisanal locally sourced Apple

00:57:05   Like I mean I say that joking but also not joking like

00:57:08   You know you haven't seen that with the iPhone cases as much, but like you said this is a very personal thing a very

00:57:15   Sort of

00:57:18   Very different thing than the iPhone case and so I would imagine that it could be a really interesting

00:57:24   Probably smaller than the iPhone case, but but interesting nonetheless a little market to keep an eye on

00:57:34   I'm excited. I hope that it does. I mean these things probably is gonna take many months before we start seeing them in the in the wild

00:57:40   But I'm excited to see more. I'm just happy that this is in

00:57:44   motion

00:57:46   And I hope that it's not too long before we start seeing some stuff at least

00:57:50   I hope it's not too long before I get an Apple watch. Where are you in this process?

00:57:54   20 days to go Myke. Okay. Yeah, if you've been charged yet

00:58:03   No. No, because that usually means it's on the way, doesn't it?

00:58:07   Yeah, I'm still waiting. I was hoping to see some kind of movement this week, but still nothing. Still 20 days. Still May 26.

00:58:17   Remind me what one you got again.

00:58:19   Sport Space Gray, Black Band, 42.

00:58:25   Right, okay. So it's not one of the mythical models.

00:58:28   No, it's the stupid one. It's the basic one that everybody got.

00:58:35   Yeah, I'm sorry Federico. It will come, it will come.

00:58:40   I hope so.

00:58:41   Should we take a break?

00:58:43   Yes.

00:58:44   Finally get to that music streaming stuff?

00:58:46   Yes.

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01:00:51   So Myke and Steven, can we talk about music?

01:00:55   Oh yeah.

01:00:57   So just today have you looked on Twitter and specifically on 9to5Mac?

01:01:02   Yeah.

01:01:03   We did.

01:01:04   The link is in the show notes already.

01:01:05   Yeah.

01:01:06   There's a rumor that basically some music industry people are saying that Apple still

01:01:12   doesn't have a deal with the music labels and you know all these other music guys to announce a new

01:01:17   streaming service by June but instead 9to5 max sources said there's going to be a music streaming

01:01:25   announcement at WWDC it's gonna happen and there's going to be an international rollout by the end of

01:01:32   June in oh yeah in a lot of countries so not just the US and not in ios 9 but in ios 8.4 and

01:01:42   US and beyond. So hopefully that also means Italy even if traditionally were

01:01:49   like a third world country in terms of Apple releases but fingers crossed.

01:01:54   But I guess at the moment it could potentially be not everything just a

01:01:59   bunch of stuff like they might not get everything done. I mean I think I read an

01:02:03   article on the Verge about this too and they were like this is the same of

01:02:06   iTunes radio though like they were getting the deals done in the 11th hour

01:02:10   so it could be a similar thing, who knows. Yeah, but I mean it's a good sign that

01:02:16   it's coming not with iOS 9 and that they mention more countries than just the

01:02:23   US, so this time I'm crossing my fingers and hoping for the the AdEQ gods to

01:02:32   to to bless me with some new streaming service. You say that but the AdEQ gods might

01:02:38   be in trouble with the federal government.

01:02:40   Oh yes, because also from...

01:02:43   This is Apple at their worst, like I hate this stuff.

01:02:46   I'm telling you now what strategy Apple is using this time.

01:02:50   But before, let me explain.

01:02:52   So just yesterday there was a report on The Verge about Apple basically pushing the music

01:02:58   labels to abandon basically the free version of Spotify where people can listen without

01:03:05   paying a dime, and they're basically pushing the industry to leave Spotify and to embrace

01:03:12   this new music streaming service they're making, and in general to never provide music again

01:03:18   to people who offer streaming for free.

01:03:22   And Apple has been down this road before with the Department of Justice in the US, with

01:03:28   the iBooks trial.

01:03:30   They have been found guilty and I think Apple is appealing the decision of course.

01:03:36   And you know with the iBooks case there were dozens of really interesting emails from Apple

01:03:43   executives about Amazon and book publishing companies and this time my theory is that

01:03:51   they're using digital touch to communicate about this strategy.

01:03:55   So everything expires and instead of leaving a trail in their email accounts, this is why

01:04:02   they made Digital Touch.

01:04:05   To send each other drawings or messages about "hey, we should call this guy at Sony, we

01:04:13   should remember Universal about our little plans" and use Digital Touch because everything

01:04:18   expires.

01:04:22   from the jokes, if this is really the case again, I mean Apple should know better at

01:04:27   this point.

01:04:28   Especially because, you know, you read the articles and it's like, they have people

01:04:34   from the Department of Justice in Apple because of these terrible illegal things that they're

01:04:41   doing.

01:04:42   But yeah, if they are continuing to do this, it's like, what are you doing?

01:04:47   I mean, it's big business, you know, big money flowing through the pipes, we don't

01:04:51   what's going on. These are business people, they're rich, they can do whatever they want.

01:04:56   And we're just here to read the verge. Until the Department of Justice comes knocking.

01:05:00   Until Justice strikes his hammer on Apple. Anyway, so two weeks ago, three weeks ago,

01:05:08   I think we talked about music streaming and I left a couple of points and you guys didn't want

01:05:16   to talk about music again and I was sad and I told you I was sad and eventually you allowed me

01:05:21   to talk about music again. So here we are. Wasn't that when you threatened to quit the show?

01:05:25   No, I do that every day basically, but in one way or another. But no, I don't think I threatened to

01:05:35   leave the show. Maybe I did, I can't remember. Let's be serious for a moment and talk about

01:05:43   music streaming. I know that that's difficult for you too, especially for Steven, but we should do

01:05:48   We should do this.

01:05:51   If Apple is making a new music streaming service, and it is going to be available on a bunch

01:05:57   of devices, of course, it is going to be on the iPhone, on the iPad, we can hope there's

01:06:03   going to be some kind of Mac presence, whether it's a native app built into iTunes or maybe

01:06:08   a web app, we don't know.

01:06:11   And we can only assume that there's going to be versions of this new music service for

01:06:17   the Apple Watch and the Apple TV. And I want to talk about the Apple Watch first.

01:06:21   So I don't currently own an Apple Watch, as you guys and our listeners know, but I can

01:06:27   make a few assumptions that I would like to discuss with Michael and Steven. These people

01:06:34   are you, in this case. And yes, those are your names. So I was thinking, this is kind

01:06:41   out one of those futuristic ideas and stuff that I think about in the shower or when I'm

01:06:47   sleeping and then I wake up and I have these ideas.

01:06:51   So wouldn't it be nice if like the Apple Watch has a heart rate sensor and it knows when

01:06:58   you're running and it knows how much you're, you know, how much, how hard you're going

01:07:03   in your exercise or workout routine.

01:07:06   So it would be nice if there was a feature to recommend a specific playlist depending

01:07:12   on the workout that you're doing.

01:07:15   Because I remember last year when I kinda went crazy with this idea of having to walk

01:07:23   a lot every day, so I borrowed a treadmill and I walked on a treadmill like one hour

01:07:31   each day, which was unusual for me because I went from no walking, or you know, like

01:07:37   5 minute walks, to 16 minute walks, which was kind of a big change.

01:07:41   And I remember every time I start walking, and of course I listen to music or podcasts,

01:07:47   but when I was listening to music, I was constantly fiddling with my Spotify playlists, because

01:07:53   I didn't know, like, if I'm going fast, I usually want to listen to hip hop or maybe

01:07:59   like Linkin Park or some kind of rock music that I like.

01:08:04   And if I'm going slow, I can listen to some Oasis,

01:08:08   I can switch playlist and kind of let the music flow

01:08:12   differently depending on how fast I'm going.

01:08:16   And it'd be nice if the Apple Watch had this kind of access

01:08:19   for when it comes to music.

01:08:22   And it'd be kind of cool to have a feature that plugs

01:08:26   into the heart rate sensor and kind of gives you the best music depending on your conditions.

01:08:33   It's kind of crazy, but maybe it's doable. I don't know.

01:08:37   I like the thought of that. I think that's quite nice. The idea that because the watch

01:08:42   knows these pieces of information about you, and I know you spoke about this before, when

01:08:46   you're working out and the device understanding your current fatigue state and stuff like

01:08:54   that. It reminds me of, do you remember the Nike shoe thing in the jig?

01:09:01   Yeah. And you'd press the button in the app and it would be on iTunes or

01:09:07   on the iPod and it would play your power song. Oh yeah. Do you remember that?

01:09:11   My wife was super into that. I mean she really, like music became a really big

01:09:16   part of her running because of features like that. Your wife is a woman of good

01:09:22   taste. It's true. I mean she married you. Now guys, we need to have a talk about lyrics.

01:09:33   Music lyrics and Apple support for lyrics in their music apps and eventual possible

01:09:39   plans for music streaming. So, I'm a big lyrics guy. Because English is not my native language

01:09:47   and sometimes when I'm listening to music I can understand what's being said in a song.

01:09:53   And so I always, at least a couple of times each day, when I'm listening to a song I Google

01:09:58   the lyrics.

01:10:00   And when I'm not Googling the lyrics of a song, I'm using Musixmatch, which is this

01:10:06   excellent Italian company who made a series of apps for every device.

01:10:13   There's Music Smash for the iPhone, for the iPad, for Android, Android Wear, there's Music

01:10:18   Smash I think for the Apple Watch and it's so great because it integrates with the local

01:10:25   music app on your device and it gives you real-time lyrics and you can sing along, you

01:10:32   can decide to show just a couple of lines of text or you can show the entire text and

01:10:38   And recently Music Smash teamed up with Spotify to have lyrics integration in Spotify for

01:10:48   the desktop.

01:10:49   And it's a fantastic integration because when you're in the Spotify app, you just have a

01:10:54   lyrics icon, you click the icon and there's a lyrics overlay on these.

01:11:00   You just get the lyrics in the Spotify app without going to a web browser or without

01:11:06   opening another app.

01:11:07   just there. And on Android, because of the Android intents, which is the intents are

01:11:17   the extensions for Android, it's the extension framework on Android, MusicSmatch can show

01:11:23   real-time lyrics on top of the Spotify album artwork. So this stuff is impossible on iOS,

01:11:32   and they can do it on Android, which is so nice.

01:11:34   And now I'm thinking, if Apple is doing a new music streaming service, are they going

01:11:40   to finally be the music streaming service that cares about lyrics?

01:11:47   Because I say this, because every streaming service that I tried, from Spotify to RDO

01:11:53   to Google Music, Tidal, you know, the one from the rapper, they never have...

01:12:04   lyrics integration. So I want to believe, I want to believe many things, but in this

01:12:10   case I want to believe that Apple will be the company that will care about

01:12:14   lyrics and that will try to find a way to swing its wallet around and

01:12:20   pay whoever you need to pay to have officially licensed lyrics in your music

01:12:26   streaming service. Now all this to say, I'm a huge music lyrics fan, I just like to

01:12:33   read the words of the songs that I listen to and all these music streaming services don't care

01:12:39   for this stuff. Music Smatch is nice, it's very nice, especially if you use Spotify on the desktop

01:12:46   a lot, but I would like to see native integration or support for lyrics in the new Beats music,

01:12:54   basically. And maybe it's because I'm Italian, because I need to understand lyrics, maybe it's

01:13:02   not the same for you English people? I don't know.

01:13:08   No, I am a huge lyrics person and only this weekend I used Music's Match inside of Spotify

01:13:17   to show off my rapping skills for my girlfriend. True story. And it did really well. I was

01:13:26   proving how well I knew a particular song by her checking off my skills whilst I was

01:13:34   rapping and she was reading and it went very well for me.

01:13:37   Nice.

01:13:38   Yeah.

01:13:39   Yeah, I mean, I asked you to show me the Shazam app on the Apple Watch.

01:13:45   It's really nice, but I really want to have lyrics in the app that I'm using to listen

01:13:52   to music, you know?

01:13:53   Yeah.

01:13:54   I mean, I know that you can use Shazam, and you can use SoundHound to have integration

01:14:00   with Spotify, RDO, other services, but I just want lyrics alongside the song that I listen

01:14:08   to.

01:14:09   I don't want to switch between apps, I don't want to open Google, I just want the lyrics

01:14:13   there.

01:14:14   But Spotify is doing this, though, right?

01:14:16   You're happy with what they're doing?

01:14:18   Yes.

01:14:19   Yes.

01:14:20   So like when you say you want-

01:14:21   On the desktop and on Android, it's very nice.

01:14:23   Right.

01:14:24   It's not everywhere and you know it's not... they are relying... for as much as I love

01:14:31   Music Smash it's still an external company whereas I think a music company

01:14:37   that does the streaming should also find a way to do the lyrics part.

01:14:42   It needs to be an integration not just you know teaming up with other people

01:14:47   because what if Music Smash goes away? I mean I hope they don't but what if they

01:14:51   do. You just lose the lyrics basically. I don't know. I don't want to go too deep into

01:14:57   my fears and thoughts on this stuff. Moving on. Apple TV. If Apple is doing this new music

01:15:05   streaming service for the new Apple TV, which is also supposedly coming in June with a new

01:15:12   remote.

01:15:13   >> Everything is coming in June.

01:15:15   >> Everything is coming.

01:15:16   >> All the things.

01:15:17   Yes, June is the new Christmas and what if, I mean, of course you will be able to listen

01:15:24   to music on your TV because you already can.

01:15:29   But again, I'm thinking about Spotify and I'm thinking about what Spotify did with Sony

01:15:35   to have a Spotify app on PlayStation, which is really nice.

01:15:39   I don't know, Myke, if you tried it on your PlayStation 4.

01:15:41   No, I haven't, because you didn't even know it was there.

01:15:44   Oh yeah, it's from a couple of months ago I think.

01:15:47   You can listen to music, you can, you know, of course you can listen while you're playing

01:15:52   games and you can have all your playlists, it's very nice.

01:15:56   And there's been lots of rumors about Apple doing kind of this new version of the Apple

01:16:01   TV that goes beyond channels to have apps, to have games on your big TV screen and to

01:16:08   kind of the next logical step for the Apple TV to do more than just channels that somehow

01:16:15   just show up randomly every day.

01:16:18   There's a new channel on the Apple TV.

01:16:19   So if there's a new Apple TV with a new remote, new interface, new apps, games, I think it

01:16:26   will make sense for Apple to have Beats Music or whatever the name is.

01:16:31   Maybe it's called Apple Stream.

01:16:32   I don't know.

01:16:33   They seem to be calling everything with Apple as a prefix these days.

01:16:37   I think it'll be Apple Music.

01:16:39   Apple Music.

01:16:40   Yeah, just Apple Music.

01:16:42   Probably.

01:16:43   Apple Beats.

01:16:44   I'll just go with Apple Core and just like, you know, really scrump.

01:16:51   So I mean, you guys own an Apple TV.

01:16:55   I think Steven does.

01:16:57   I don't.

01:16:58   Myke doesn't.

01:16:59   I do.

01:17:00   Okay.

01:17:01   My memory serves me right.

01:17:02   Steven, do you listen to music on your TV?

01:17:05   We do, actually a fair amount.

01:17:09   We just do it through iTunes.

01:17:10   But yeah, it's nice.

01:17:14   It does the artwork and kind of flips around.

01:17:18   And that's fun to see.

01:17:21   Yeah, I like it to be better.

01:17:23   I know that you can do things besides just iTunes on it.

01:17:27   But I could see that being sort of a selling point for them.

01:17:32   A lot of people, you know, my entertainment center is really simple, but even if you have

01:17:36   something more complex, the TV is still a big part of it for audio.

01:17:39   So I would like to see it be improved from what it is.

01:17:43   But I could say that about anything about the Apple TV.

01:17:46   So none of it's great.

01:17:48   But yes, I do.

01:17:51   I just want to see if it really launches internationally also in Italy or in Europe for that matter.

01:17:58   You know, I don't know.

01:18:00   I'm excited.

01:18:01   Like I wanna see how Beats Music changes under Apple and how it's integrated into the music

01:18:09   app or maybe iTunes.

01:18:10   I'm also kinda scared they're gonna...

01:18:13   I don't wanna say ruin it but maybe they're gonna forget about the best parts of Beats

01:18:19   Music like the curation and like the editorial recommendations, that kind of stuff.

01:18:25   We'll see.

01:18:26   Myke I know that there's something that annoys you in Beats Music.

01:18:28   Man, Beats music is driving me crazy.

01:18:31   So you're still using Beats music?

01:18:33   Yeah.

01:18:34   I have one really annoying thing that has been... it's popped up but it's really gotten

01:18:40   worse this week.

01:18:41   So I have this weird thing, and I don't know if I'm the only one that this happens to,

01:18:45   where I download music to the offline in Beats and it like cuts off like massive portions

01:18:52   of the track, like it ends like a minute early.

01:18:56   This happens with multiple albums.

01:18:58   Every song?

01:18:58   No, but it picks up random songs.

01:19:00   Like the new Mumford & Sons album, it does it to two songs in a row.

01:19:04   One of them ends a minute early and then one of them is only 20 seconds long.

01:19:08   Like the next one.

01:19:09   It's like "what are you doing?"

01:19:11   Are those the good songs or the bad songs?

01:19:14   I don't know man.

01:19:15   Maybe it's a curation feature.

01:19:17   Maybe it is.

01:19:18   So I had this with Pharrell's album, I had this with Foo Fighters album.

01:19:23   the ones I can remember and I've tried to go through their support team and the

01:19:26   support teams like do this, do this, none of it works. The only way I was able to

01:19:31   the Foo Fighters album is a song that I love called Congregation and which was

01:19:37   what I was playing for you Federico earlier when I was showing you how Shazam

01:19:39   worked and the song would cut off like 45 seconds before the actual end but the

01:19:46   thing is like I know it cuts off because the song ends but the counter like the

01:19:50   the time counter or whatever you call it that was accurate for when it cut off

01:19:55   right so if the song was meant to be four minutes long it would show it's

01:19:59   like three minutes and 20 seconds but at three minutes and 20 seconds the song

01:20:04   ended but it wasn't the end of the song if I'm making sense like the app just

01:20:08   didn't see that there was any more music that's terrible it's so annoying and and

01:20:13   that that's happened to me a few times and when I had to restore my phone a

01:20:18   a couple of weeks ago it fixed it for all of the previous albums but I'm not

01:20:22   gonna do that again like I can delete the music I can set it to redownload

01:20:27   again it always happens the only way I can get it to do it is like completely blasted in the

01:20:30   Apple way. That's fine I mean this is from the company that to listen to it on

01:20:35   the desktop you have to have flash installed so this is the other thing

01:20:39   their web app is so horrific like it's so bad it's just so so bad like in all

01:20:47   these apps including the iOS app right if I go to say my it go into the library

01:20:51   click the Kings of Leon as an artist and just tap one of the songs it will start

01:20:56   playing either that if I've got it in shuffle mode it would then just start

01:20:59   playing every song that's by that artist or if it's in like regular mode it would

01:21:02   just start going through them all if I do this on the web app it just starts

01:21:07   playing random music it's a Kings of Leon song and then it'll play like an Arctic

01:21:13   It's just playing my entire library.

01:21:15   [LAUGHTER]

01:21:17   >> It's crazy.

01:21:19   >> Oh, so I've actually started moving,

01:21:22   at least when I'm listening on my computer,

01:21:24   I've been using Spotify recently because they have an actual app.

01:21:28   I mean, I have so many more.

01:21:31   I have so many other problems with Spotify,

01:21:34   but their app is pretty good.

01:21:37   >> Like what?

01:21:37   I'm curious, what problems?

01:21:40   The fact that their playlists just cannot be sorted.

01:21:43   - Okay, yeah, I don't use that, so I--

01:21:47   - It just drives me insane, 'cause until recently,

01:21:49   like all of your music would be in playlists, right?

01:21:52   - Yes. - So I have all my music

01:21:53   in playlists, and now they have like the songs, albums,

01:21:56   artists thing, which they never had until recently,

01:21:59   but now all my music's in playlists,

01:22:01   and I don't wanna sit down for a day

01:22:02   and like put it all into my library.

01:22:06   Like, it's just annoying.

01:22:08   annoy me. Everybody annoys me when it comes to music. There's just like no company that

01:22:13   can do it right and as much as I want it I also know that Apple will not be that company

01:22:18   either.

01:22:19   Well, you're so pessimistic.

01:22:22   Nobody has ever done it the way that I like it and it's because something about music

01:22:26   and this is something that I'm very interested in just in general is that like fashion music

01:22:31   is very polarizing and people have their very specific opinions and that even comes down

01:22:35   to the services they use, hence why some people,

01:22:38   Stephen, hoard iPods as a method of making sure

01:22:43   he can always have his music.

01:22:44   - I mean, I was gonna say, I've tried all those

01:22:46   music streaming services and I revisit them

01:22:48   from time to time and that's the problem.

01:22:50   iTunes, for all of its problems, is still closest

01:22:54   to how I think about music.

01:22:56   And it's not even about I want my files on my disk.

01:23:00   There's part of that, but a lot of it is

01:23:01   the experience using the app is just garbage.

01:23:03   and Apple can hopefully do better at that,

01:23:08   but iTunes does not deserve a gold star

01:23:12   for being easy to use.

01:23:13   It's complex and on iOS it's downright confusing at times.

01:23:17   Can they fix that and add a streaming service?

01:23:22   That seems difficult.

01:23:24   I'm not sold that Apple's gonna be

01:23:25   like streaming service I use either.

01:23:28   - Audio was so good and then that got bad.

01:23:31   Like that was really good.

01:23:33   I think as an app, before I tried out beats, I was really enjoying audio, I wanted to try out beats, I liked beats so I stuck with beats.

01:23:41   And I've never gone back to audio because all I ever see about audio these days is people complaining about how bad audio has gotten.

01:23:48   It's like, why do you do this? Is it radio? Is it audio or radio? Did anybody ever put that to bed?

01:23:53   I think it's audio, yeah. It's a shame.

01:23:57   We should talk, not today but in the future, this is gonna sound like a joke but it's not,

01:24:03   we should talk about our music workflows and by that I mean how do we think of music?

01:24:09   Like when you wake up and you know you want to listen to music, how is your brain...

01:24:15   Like how do you think about music? Do you want to browse your library like by artist,

01:24:22   by album, by year, do you use playlists, do you search, do you go to new releases, do

01:24:28   you use the discovery feature of these streaming services?

01:24:34   Talking to you guys and talking to people that listen to us, it seems clear to me that

01:24:40   one's opinion on these streaming services is heavily influenced by how you think of

01:24:47   music.

01:24:48   Do you see music as you see in iTunes?

01:24:52   Or do you want to see new stuff and then go from there?

01:24:56   Do you search?

01:24:57   Do you use playlists much like Myke?

01:24:59   I think it would be an interesting discussion because we talked about different services.

01:25:04   We talked about the features.

01:25:06   We talked about the stuff that we don't like.

01:25:08   We talked about the stuff that we like.

01:25:10   And then we talked about Apple and what's coming and what's not coming.

01:25:13   But we never really talked about how do we approach music.

01:25:18   - Yeah, I think that that kind of conversation

01:25:22   is definitely interesting and worth having,

01:25:23   but I think it will tie really nicely in with

01:25:26   if and when we see some more music stuff from Apple.

01:25:30   So that might be nice post WWDC to talk about.

01:25:33   You know, 'cause we may as well try and kill off

01:25:36   some music streaming services now,

01:25:37   'cause we've done all we can do to photo services, so.

01:25:41   It's the next vertical for us in our acquisition business.

01:25:46   - Yeah, something like that.

01:25:49   - Well, you know, a coffee just appeared in front of me.

01:25:55   - How did that happen?

01:25:57   - Well, I have my secrets.

01:26:00   - Did somebody bring it to you?

01:26:01   - No, it just show up in my room.

01:26:05   - Well, on that bombshell,

01:26:06   I think that's about it for this week's episode of Connected.

01:26:09   If you wanna find the show notes for this week's episode,

01:26:11   you can check your app of choice but you can also go to relay.fm/connected/38. If you want

01:26:17   to find us online there's a few ways to do that. You can hit me up on the Twitter if

01:26:22   you would like to do so. I am @imike, I M Y K E. Federico is @vittici, V I T I C C I

01:26:28   and Steven is @ismh. And you can find our writing and work online in many places if

01:26:34   you would like Federico is at maxlories.net and Steven is at 512pixels.net. Thanks again

01:26:41   to our sponsors this week, Linde, Igloo and SaneBox and we'll be back next time. Until

01:26:46   then, say goodbye guys.

01:26:48   Arrivederci.

01:26:49   Adios.