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Connected

22: Mac Skills, iOS Skills, and Myke

 

00:00:00   [Intro Music]

00:00:07   From RealAFM, this is Connected, episode 22.

00:00:11   Today's show is brought to you by lynda.com, where you can instantly stream thousands of

00:00:15   courses created by industry experts.

00:00:18   For a 10-day free trial, visit lynda.com/connected.

00:00:20   Igloo, an internet you'll actually like, and Squarespace.

00:00:25   Start here, go anywhere.

00:00:27   My name is Myke Hurley, and I am joined today by Mr Federico Vittucci.

00:00:30   Hi Federico.

00:00:31   Hello Myke.

00:00:32   How you doing Federico?

00:00:33   I'm doing well, how are you?

00:00:35   I'm very well, thank you.

00:00:37   Stephen Hackett, hello sir, how are you?

00:00:39   Hello sir, how are you?

00:00:40   I'm good, I considered just carrying on, like just never introducing you, but then I felt

00:00:45   bad about it and changed my mind.

00:00:47   That'd be sad.

00:00:48   I just thought I would just see how far I could go, but...

00:00:50   Why would you skip Stephen?

00:00:52   Just to see what he would do.

00:00:54   He's like your best friend in America, why would you skip him?

00:01:00   Federico, why did you say in America, do you want to be my best friend?

00:01:05   Don't you have like that other guy in the UK that goes out drinking with you?

00:01:10   Yeah, I would, yeah.

00:01:11   Like, you buy stuff together after you've been drinking.

00:01:15   No, Matt lives here most of the time.

00:01:16   You two are my best friends, how about that?

00:01:19   Yeah, nice save, Myke.

00:01:24   I mean it, though.

00:01:25   Mm-hmm, I know.

00:01:26   That got nice and weird.

00:01:30   So, we have a lot of follow-up.

00:01:35   More follow-up, more follow-up.

00:01:38   How can you do like half of an episode be follow-up and then have as much follow-up the next episode?

00:01:44   How is that even possible?

00:01:45   It's been heavy.

00:01:47   There's a lot of follow-up in the air this time of year.

00:01:50   What happens when you do many episodes with a lot of follow-up to each other, like a follow-up combo?

00:01:59   Do you get like a multiplier and you like you hit...

00:02:02   I think so.

00:02:03   Like when you do like five episodes of follow-up on top of each other what happens like Skype explodes.

00:02:10   People stop listening.

00:02:12   Probably.

00:02:14   Yes.

00:02:16   So, FU number one Federico is actually your piece of follow-up about your image optimization workflow.

00:02:24   Oh, yeah.

00:02:25   Why don't you tell people what's going on?

00:02:29   So I found this service that actually my web developer sent me a link to this service like last year

00:02:39   and I was like, yeah, I don't want to use a web service for image optimization

00:02:43   I can just use my Mac with image opt-in and of course things, you know changed and

00:02:49   so there's

00:02:51   in the past few weeks have been struggling to come up with a workflow that

00:02:55   involved ImageOptim and my iPhone and my iPad

00:02:59   so I've started using this service called Kraken.io

00:03:04   it is an ImageOptimization

00:03:07   web service so you send images over to

00:03:11   the web to some servers and you don't do

00:03:14   the ImageOptimization locally. Kraken optimizes the images for you

00:03:19   and I started using this for two reasons

00:03:23   One is the API that you can use with Python and the second reason is the integration with

00:03:30   Rackspace Cloud Files. Basically what's really perfect for me is that I can use

00:03:36   DropShare on iOS. It's this app to upload files to the Rackspace CDN and DropShare,

00:03:45   you can use it directly from the Apple Photos app. So I can upload screenshots from photos,

00:03:52   from Pythonista, from Mail, from Messages, from any app that has a sharesheet.

00:03:59   And the DropShare extension gives me a link to the image on Rackspace.

00:04:04   Then when I have the link in the clipboard, I can just go to Pythonista and there's a

00:04:11   script that talks to Kraken.io.

00:04:15   It finds the Rackspace link in the clipboard and without doing any...

00:04:21   I don't have to upload the actual file because Kraken can look at the link that I give to

00:04:27   the service and starting from that link it optimizes the image and it returns another

00:04:33   Rackspace link with the optimized version and it tells me usually how many kilobytes

00:04:39   but sometimes megabytes, basically my savings on the optimized image.

00:04:45   I can choose from two different types of optimization, lossy and lossless.

00:04:51   And basically it's perfect for me.

00:04:55   I can still use DropShare.

00:04:58   Basically DropShare uploads my files to a Rackspace folder which is only used to store

00:05:05   the original untouched version of an image.

00:05:10   So there's no major change in terms of how I upload my image from the Apple Photos app.

00:05:19   The change is the Python script which talks to Kraken.

00:05:24   I'm happy about it because it runs in like 3 or 4 seconds depending on the size of the

00:05:31   image.

00:05:32   It's really fast and it gives me another Rackspace link which I can use, I can put in my text

00:05:38   editor, I can share over email or iMessage, whatever. It's really simple. I'm paying like

00:05:45   $10 per month for 2GB of storage on Kraken. It's been working out very well so far. I'm

00:05:54   saving good money on the Rackspace CDN costs. And yeah, I mean, I'm happy. I have a solution.

00:06:05   At least I've stopped looking for apps or workflows.

00:06:10   It's really simple.

00:06:11   I mean, they have a script on the website.

00:06:14   I just needed to copy and paste the script and it worked right away.

00:06:19   So yeah, I'm saving money and there's no major loss in quality for the screenshots.

00:06:25   So yeah, I'm done.

00:06:27   Hooray!

00:06:28   Yeah.

00:06:29   So we have our show notes in two different browsers this week.

00:06:34   This is my favorite String of Follow-Up ever because it just keeps happening.

00:06:38   So tr4656 on Twitter showed connected on a 3DS browser which did something.

00:06:48   It's sort of there.

00:06:49   Do you guys use the browser on your Nintendo products?

00:06:52   It seems like a bad idea.

00:06:53   No, but the new Nintendo 3DS which is coming to places...

00:06:58   Not America.

00:06:59   Well, it kind of is.

00:07:02   Has improved browser was one of the things they said today.

00:07:05   Good job.

00:07:06   Well, actually, I have a confession.

00:07:09   Like last year, I set up a workflow that basically...

00:07:18   So using the Wii U browser, this doesn't happen on the 3DS browser because it's not capable

00:07:25   enough.

00:07:26   I don't know if it's different on the new 3DS.

00:07:28   But on the Wii U browser, you can upload files to websites.

00:07:33   So I had a workflow on my Mac Mini that was monitoring a Dropbox folder for screenshots.

00:07:42   And that was the old workflow that I had.

00:07:46   It would optimize the image using ImageOptima on Mac Mini Colu, and it would upload to Rackspace

00:07:51   and it would give me a Rackspace link.

00:07:55   And I figured out that I could use the Wii U browser to put screenshots in the Dropbox

00:08:01   folder.

00:08:02   So I saved the shortcut to that folder in the Wii U browser that you can give a star

00:08:09   to a webpage.

00:08:11   So I gave a star to the webpage and every time I wanted to get a screenshot from a Wii

00:08:18   U, I would put the file in the Dropbox using the Wii U browser and then on my phone I would

00:08:23   at the the Rock Space Link. I was really really happy about that.

00:08:27   Wow that's a Rube Goldberg machine without a doubt. But it worked!

00:08:33   So yeah hey I'm not here to judge. Jimmy whose name we made fun of a couple weeks ago,

00:08:40   Jimmy Bosset, people said that was too fancy, has now loaded our show notes in

00:08:45   AOL Explorer version 1.1.4234.1043

00:08:51   What is an AOL Explorer?

00:08:56   AOL had their own browser, I mean they had their own application and that application had a browser in it.

00:09:02   I remember AOL for Mac used to be a big problem I dealt with at the Genius Bar because it would destroy people's computers basically.

00:09:09   But it's fine.

00:09:14   AOL, what can you do?

00:09:17   So hot on the heels of covering AOL Explorer, our next piece of follow-up in

00:09:22   breaking technical news is more on the hackintosh front. So Thomas Brand, we

00:09:29   talked about Thomas last week and his hackintosh setup, he's written a kind of

00:09:35   a response piece to our bit of connected on the topic and he kind of has three

00:09:42   reasons why he built a hackintosh the lower price than a Mac desktop the

00:09:47   choice of internal components and case designs a lot of people not you guys

00:09:51   mocked me for wanting to be connected to your hardware but some people that is

00:09:55   important to you and they want to know how like every single little bit works

00:09:58   and then it's a love to tinker with with computer hardware which I think is a is

00:10:02   a out of those three reasons a really solid one of some people just like to

00:10:07   roll their sleeves up and and you know

00:10:09   play with things and so so Thomas wrote

00:10:13   this up you can go check it out on his

00:10:14   his website eggfreckles.net and we got

00:10:18   an email as well from a guy named Phil

00:10:20   who who his 14 year old son has tinkered

00:10:25   and collected desktop computer parts and

00:10:28   like built a hackintosh out of this like

00:10:33   quad-core beige computer which I think

00:10:36   is really cool. Phil points out it's a great way for his son to learn about computers and how they

00:10:40   work. He did say that even though he has Yosemite on it, he's like, "Don't put it to sleep," because

00:10:48   if you put it to sleep, apparently it explodes. But I think it's really great. It's a great way

00:10:53   for kids and young people getting into computers to tinker with stuff. It's something that our

00:11:00   generation, and for this purpose, I'm going to lump you in, lump me in with you guys,

00:11:05   our generation, we didn't really get that as much, especially now. My kids are never going to open

00:11:11   a computer. Well, you can still open a MacBook Air if you want to destroy it.

00:11:18   Yeah. So I think it's great. I think it's a great way for someone like Phil Sun to learn

00:11:23   about how computers work. So it was a heartwarming story to me.

00:11:29   Yeah, really awesome story. And it makes me think of the, not just because it's called Phil,

00:11:34   But just the scene in general, it reminds me of Modern Family.

00:11:40   You guys watched the TV show?

00:11:41   Yep.

00:11:42   I gave up on it.

00:11:43   There's a Phil.

00:11:44   Like I'm picturing Phil from Modern Family watching his son build a Hackintosh.

00:11:49   It's quite amusing to me.

00:11:52   Thank you, Phil, for the follow-up.

00:11:53   Yeah, so I think it's great, and good luck to Phil's son Jack with his Hackintosh.

00:11:59   Hope it doesn't burn your house down.

00:12:01   Did you say that he calls it his Jackintosh, which is awesome?

00:12:04   Yeah, yeah, so the kid's son's name is Jack and so he calls it the Jackintosh.

00:12:09   It's so cool.

00:12:10   Pretty funny.

00:12:11   Myke.

00:12:12   Yes.

00:12:13   Michael.

00:12:14   Yes.

00:12:15   Myke has a Mykeintosh.

00:12:16   I do.

00:12:17   I do have a Mykeintosh.

00:12:18   A Mykeintosh.

00:12:19   You have a new Mykeintosh.

00:12:22   Let's not talk about the new Mykeintosh for maybe another week.

00:12:26   Maybe another week.

00:12:27   Myke, do you want to tell us about our awesome friends at Lynda?

00:12:30   I do indeed.

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00:14:12   work at Adobe.

00:14:14   Do something good for yourself in 2015 and sign up for a free 10-day trial to lynda.com

00:14:19   by visiting lynda.com/connected.

00:14:22   I challenge you to learn something new in 2015.

00:14:24   Thank you so much to Linda for their support of this show and for helping out at Relay

00:14:29   FM.

00:14:30   What do you want to learn in 2015, Myke?

00:14:34   I want to learn how to effectively follow up on podcasts.

00:14:38   I also want to just learn how to not break computers, because I'm really good at that.

00:14:43   You should also learn the proper times when to have lunch, I think.

00:14:48   Yes, Federico, I know, I know.

00:14:51   I had lunch at 4 o'clock today.

00:14:53   Yeah, of course, and you ate pasta, I bet, at 4pm.

00:14:56   No, I had a salad today.

00:14:58   Oh.

00:14:59   But the reason that I record at 4pm... sorry, the reason I ate lunch at 4pm is because I

00:15:04   recorded you at lunchtime.

00:15:08   Which is very early, I'm always shocked when it's like on air, virtual.

00:15:12   Wait, that wasn't lunchtime.

00:15:13   2, 2.30 is not lunchtime for you, Myke.

00:15:16   Well, I was watching...

00:15:18   Normal people eat at 1pm.

00:15:20   Well, I was watching the Nintendo Direct before that.

00:15:26   I'm skeptical.

00:15:27   Okay, I'm sorry.

00:15:29   It's salad gate.

00:15:33   So FU number four.

00:15:34   FU number four.

00:15:35   I'm not number one anymore?

00:15:40   Alan wrote in to talk about that rumored 12-inch MacBook Air, and his email basically boiled

00:15:47   down to his thoughts on like if this machine is real then Apple is going to

00:15:54   use it as a springboard to launch more and higher quality cloud services like

00:16:02   to support the hardware so that someone was talking about you know there's no

00:16:07   like place to put a USB key in here if you're charging or if you're using your

00:16:11   keyboard and and we were talking about how well maybe like iCloud can supersede

00:16:16   the need for USB jump drives which is ridiculous.

00:16:22   And that's great but I have a couple problems with it.

00:16:27   Like yes things like media or more in the cloud, we've talked about obviously about

00:16:33   photo management but even with Myke and I, us running Relay, it's all in Google Drive

00:16:39   or Evernote.

00:16:40   There's not a single Word document about Relay that's sitting on my desktop, it's

00:16:44   it's all in the cloud.

00:16:46   But that said, a lot of cloud stuff still has local copies.

00:16:51   Like photos.app, when it shows up for the Mac,

00:16:54   will have the ability to download all

00:16:56   or some subset of your photos locally.

00:16:59   iTunes in the cloud, iTunes in the match.

00:17:00   Again, this is about things that are available in the cloud

00:17:02   that I can pull down to my local disk

00:17:03   because I don't always have internet access.

00:17:06   And I don't think 2015 is gonna be the year

00:17:08   where Apple blows that out of the water.

00:17:12   iCloud is more or less what it has been since launch, and yes, I do think it's time for

00:17:17   them to address some things there.

00:17:20   But I don't think that we're moving in...

00:17:22   I don't think this machine is moving us into the world of everything being in the cloud.

00:17:30   It's still OS X, it's not something like Chrome OS.

00:17:33   And I think...

00:17:34   That's what you think.

00:17:35   Yeah, if it runs Chrome OS, I will eat this microphone.

00:17:38   Safari OS.

00:17:39   Oh, it would just crash randomly and be transparent for no reason.

00:17:44   It would have all things centered in the middle, like the bookmarks bar that Steven loves.

00:17:51   God, I hate, hmm, I really dislike this far in Yosemite.

00:17:54   I just hate Chrome more.

00:17:56   What's to hate about Chrome?

00:17:58   Lots of things. Mostly that it destroys your battery life.

00:18:02   The company?

00:18:03   You said the company?

00:18:05   No, I was kidding, I was kidding.

00:18:08   Myke, Myke, don't hate me, Myke, please.

00:18:11   Yeah, you gotta undo that Google tattoo.

00:18:14   I will eat lunch at 4pm with you, Myke.

00:18:18   Don't hate me.

00:18:20   So like, sentences like media is in the cloud aside, I still think that cloud-focused computing

00:18:27   still has two big problems.

00:18:30   One, I think that it has significant issues for a lot of people with bandwidth.

00:18:35   I mean even the three of us like just doing Skype we run into bandwidth issues

00:18:39   I'll be it mostly on y'all's end

00:18:41   But sometimes on my end like very often like how many like I'm sure at least one of us is using LTE right now because your

00:18:48   Bandwidth is not sufficient enough

00:18:50   That's ridiculous and to have like all of my media and everything on the cloud because I don't have a USB port anymore

00:18:56   but my bandwidth isn't very good like I

00:19:01   You know Apple likes to push the bar forward with their hardware, but that's really far. That's a big ask of people

00:19:06   So I don't think that that Allen's dream of 2015 being the year iCloud

00:19:11   You know really becoming robust is not I just don't see that happening. I'd love to be wrong

00:19:17   I'd love for iCloud to get better, but it's it's a slow process and while this machine might be a vision of the

00:19:23   future from Cupertino

00:19:26   Very often like we talked about that future it comes too soon and with too many compromises in the real world. So I

00:19:33   Don't know. Well, what do you say? I have to say that I'm used I told you guys I'm using iCloud photo library

00:19:41   And it's fine

00:19:44   it works like every time I'm surprised when I get home and like I

00:19:50   pick up my iPad and I find all the photos and screenshots that I took on my phone already there.

00:19:56   Also because this year I think I have decent Wi-Fi at home, but that's a different discussion.

00:20:03   Like it works, like it puts all my photos on my iPhone, my iPad. It's the same set of screenshots

00:20:09   I didn't get major problems.

00:20:12   And now I know I will get all the replies in the chat room and on Twitter of people showing me strange errors.

00:20:19   I get that, I know that it's problematic.

00:20:24   It's just for my example, iCloud photos have been working fine.

00:20:32   Now I don't trust iCloud with my files or my work mail.

00:20:37   I use iCloud for calendars, which is also fine.

00:20:40   I used to be an iCloud Reminders user until a few months ago.

00:20:45   I don't use other new parts of iCloud, like iCloud Drive.

00:20:51   But from my experience, iCloud has been getting better.

00:20:56   And in general, I think the web services of Apple have been getting better.

00:21:03   John Gruber yesterday had a post about Siri getting better and faster.

00:21:08   And that's also been my experience for the Italian Siri.

00:21:12   At least the response is they come in much faster than before.

00:21:18   Now I don't know if it's like are we ready for an iCloud OS or a Safari OS, I don't think

00:21:25   we are.

00:21:26   I still don't get the idea of Chromebooks or like using a computer that doesn't have

00:21:33   local stuff, it doesn't make much sense to me.

00:21:36   because when you don't have an internet connection it's going to be a problem.

00:21:43   So I think Chromebooks can work like in the Silicon Valley and other parts of the world

00:21:48   where they can enjoy a reliable and fast internet connection.

00:21:54   You're going to get follow up about this so I'll just tell you.

00:21:58   Chrome OS can store information locally now.

00:22:01   Oh it can?

00:22:02   Yeah.

00:22:03   So they changed it.

00:22:04   What kind of information can you store?

00:22:05   what type of thing... it's up to the web app, so like for example Google Docs

00:22:09   you can like, you can write in Google Docs and stuff, like you can do all of

00:22:14   that locally, so you don't have to be connected to the internet to use Google Docs.

00:22:20   I mean it depends on what the apps can use, but there are frameworks to do it,

00:22:24   like there is a local storage and Chromebooks now actually come with some

00:22:27   hard drive space to do that kind of thing.

00:22:29   So can you use a Chromebook to like

00:22:33   download photos and put them on a USB drive.

00:22:36   Les, I'm gonna say yeah.

00:22:38   Mm-hmm.

00:22:39   I'm just gonna say yeah.

00:22:41   Just gonna say yeah.

00:22:42   Just say yes.

00:22:44   I don't know, I can picture my parents using a Chromebook,

00:22:48   but maybe it's just me.

00:22:51   And not necessarily because of my dislike for some things that Google does.

00:22:56   It's just that the idea sounds strange to me.

00:23:01   I don't know and iCalc seems to be getting better now. I know that every year is the year of iCalc getting better

00:23:06   It's like Linux on the desktop

00:23:08   Wow, I don't think it's like that. Um

00:23:10   My thing like as you were talking about yeah, like I'll put my photos in in iCloud, but not my documents like

00:23:17   For me at least like my photos are the most precious files I have and so I trust them to Dropbox

00:23:24   but also trust them to my

00:23:26   ever like

00:23:30   increasingly complicated backup strategy

00:23:32   And and even like just just earlier like I think last week

00:23:36   I wrote this thing about iTunes match which I've used successfully for a long time

00:23:40   And it totally bit the dust for me and had to go in like reset it

00:23:44   And you know it's as annoying as it was to have metadata mixed up on music all of a sudden

00:23:49   And that propagate across all my devices because iTunes match was just sinking things away

00:23:53   That's really problematic if that were to happen in iCloud photos, so I don't trust

00:23:59   Apple or their iCloud service to handle my photos yet because they can't handle

00:24:05   basic things. Like photo management is to me at least one of the most personal

00:24:10   things my my computers do and I don't like Apple has not proven to me that

00:24:16   iCloud can be reliable to deal with simple things like Word documents that

00:24:20   three people edit on a weekly basis let alone thousands of photos. Yeah I don't

00:24:26   think it's fair to compare music management to photo management. I think

00:24:29   it's exactly the same thing it's keeping data in sync between the cloud and local

00:24:32   computers and they can't do it. Those are different things I'm telling you that it

00:24:37   works. And it might work only because there's 15 people using it and it's not

00:24:41   it's only on the browser and iOS like when the Mac app shows up like that is

00:24:48   going to make it increasingly more complicated and I just don't trust them

00:24:52   I think there is a difference between iTunes match and iCloud though because like iTunes match isn't actually taking your music and storing it.

00:25:01   Yes they are.

00:25:02   Not completely, no.

00:25:04   Because a lot of it's coming from the store.

00:25:06   Like you're not actually uploading your music.

00:25:08   I mean I know there is an element of that but the majority of your music is going to be delivered to you via the store.

00:25:13   It feels like a different mechanism.

00:25:15   Or at least it would be stored in a different place.

00:25:17   But like, I mean, but it's still like the same people, the same company built

00:25:22   iTunes match that is building photos in the cloud. Like it's the same, but it's different.

00:25:27   Yes. Yes. Technically it's not the same, but it's, but it's the same poor management of it. Like

00:25:33   it shouldn't matter what the infrastructure is. If Apple knew what they were doing in the cloud

00:25:37   space and clearly they're, they're behind. Um, and you know what, like my iTunes match problem

00:25:44   to be fair to iTunes match started with a local problem and it synced like it

00:25:49   propagated that problem across my devices and my big complaint in my

00:25:52   article was you put the virus into iTunes match yeah that's your fault Steven come on

00:25:57   you're saying that iCloud is bad I God knows what kind of file you're putting into iTunes match

00:26:02   my complaint though is that and this is not going to be any different

00:26:06   it's not any different now in the photos beta of like there is no place for me to

00:26:10   go in my iCloud account and hit a reset button. There's no way to like see

00:26:14   actually what's happening or what is going on because it's all behind the

00:26:20   curtain. Like for me to reset my iTunes match library I had to create a new

00:26:24   local iTunes library and sync it up with iTunes match and basically force

00:26:29   override what iCloud had. Like and nowhere does Apple tell you how to do

00:26:33   that. I thought about it in the shower I was like oh I'll just make a new iTunes

00:26:36   library and resync it.

00:26:37   Normal people are not going to do that when their photos get blown up.

00:26:42   Yeah, but it's not that much different from Dropbox.

00:26:45   There's no reset feature on Dropbox.

00:26:47   But Dropbox, your files are stored locally in Finder, and so you can back them up.

00:26:51   Currently, according to our conversation last week, your photos on iCloud do not exist on

00:26:55   your local computer.

00:26:56   They're just on the web.

00:26:59   That just seems scary to me.

00:27:00   That's all.

00:27:01   We can move on.

00:27:02   Let's get back to the 12-inch map care.

00:27:03   Can we do that?

00:27:04   Let's do that.

00:27:05   So you decided just to move on to the...

00:27:11   I did, I'm deciding just to move on.

00:27:12   It seems like this machine is happening really quickly, like there's rumors that it's already

00:27:16   ramping up production.

00:27:17   I did not expect it to be this fast.

00:27:22   I mean this seems like it's soon, right?

00:27:24   It'd be crazy.

00:27:25   Well, if you believe the rumors.

00:27:26   Yeah.

00:27:27   Oh yeah, I mean this whole conversation is predicated on a machine that doesn't actually

00:27:31   exist yet.

00:27:32   And I feel like many people are sharing these theories on this computer.

00:27:40   No it's going to be the future of the Mac.

00:27:42   No it's going to be the end of the Mac as we know it.

00:27:44   It's going to be the greatest thing ever.

00:27:46   And nobody actually knows what's going to happen.

00:27:49   And people are theorizing and writing articles on pricing and stuff.

00:27:53   They don't know anything about this thing.

00:27:56   Which is kind of dumb to me.

00:27:58   Just to spend this much time on something that maybe in two months is going to be wrong.

00:28:01   completely different. Like it doesn't seem worth it except maybe if your business model

00:28:07   is based on page views and that kind of stuff, then it kind of makes sense. I just think

00:28:12   it's boring to say "yeah, it is going to be this price point" or "it's going to be this

00:28:16   other kind of price point" and you actually don't know. Like there's speculation and speculation,

00:28:22   like you can say with a reasonable amount of doubt that the iPhone 6 was going to be

00:28:27   bigger phone. But this kind of computer, which is, according to the rumor, like completely

00:28:33   different. Just how long can you speculate? You know, I don't know.

00:28:39   Until it comes out, which could be like in four years time, you know.

00:28:44   You don't know. It just seems to me that everybody's saying a different thing and like, who am

00:28:50   Who am I to like, I don't know who's to be trusted here.

00:28:56   What I gotta believe, I don't know.

00:28:57   Yeah.

00:28:58   I mean, I think part of this is that it's fun to talk about the future of the Mac.

00:29:02   And I think your page view comment is harsh.

00:29:04   That's very few people actually work on that business model, at least in our circle.

00:29:08   But um...

00:29:09   Very few people?

00:29:10   I can name some.

00:29:11   Are you sure?

00:29:12   In tech blogs?

00:29:13   In tech blogs, very few people.

00:29:14   In tech blogs that I care about, very few.

00:29:18   But what I think it's interesting, I think it is a conversation point because it is so

00:29:22   different from where we are today.

00:29:26   Because it's, I mean, like, clearly, like we talked about, like, one USB port and headphone

00:29:29   jack is crazy pants.

00:29:31   And so that's interesting to think about what that could be.

00:29:33   I mean, we did it last week on the show.

00:29:37   But I think what's interesting is that, like, if this were to be, you know, on sale in quarter

00:29:44   one, we're gonna have the watch in quarter one.

00:29:46   Like this is not shaping up to be, you know, like what's been like the last two or three

00:29:50   years there's been nothing from Apple until the summer.

00:29:53   And it's like they have WFDC and two fall events and that's it.

00:29:56   I mean you go back on this show even two years and it's like we have nothing to talk about

00:30:00   in the spring.

00:30:01   So I for one am excited that Apple's spreading things out a little bit, at least like announcement

00:30:05   wise to bring some stuff out in the spring seems like a good move.

00:30:11   You know, I don't, I think iPhones and iPads will always be new for the holiday, but to

00:30:14   some other stuff get spread out across the calendar is a little bit better I think than

00:30:20   dropping it all at once.

00:30:22   Can I go back to the Chromebook for a moment?

00:30:25   Sure.

00:30:26   A couple of weeks ago you told me for a reason that I don't understand that you wanted to

00:30:33   buy a Chromebook.

00:30:35   So people have this like notion of me that I'm the one that buys things.

00:30:39   Yeah, it's true.

00:30:41   I bought something that I can't share with you guys yet, it's going to be a surprise.

00:30:46   I do have a Chromebook sitting on my desk, this is where this is going.

00:30:53   So I said, so you were like, I'll buy it.

00:30:58   He was like, I want to buy it.

00:30:59   I was like, well, only buy it if you're going to do something with it.

00:31:01   So my challenge to you was that buy it, but use it for a week, only that device.

00:31:09   Yeah.

00:31:10   So that is impossible.

00:31:13   But my plan is-- and it's been-- it got here like a week ago

00:31:16   and I haven't done anything with it.

00:31:18   The plan is to do all relay business on it.

00:31:22   I can't make an experiment out of my day job,

00:31:25   but I can in this job.

00:31:26   So I'm going to get it set up and we'll see how it goes.

00:31:31   It'll be interesting to use Chrome OS for a week.

00:31:34   Federico is disappointed in me.

00:31:36   Yeah.

00:31:37   Yeah, I kind of am.

00:31:40   Wow.

00:31:42   Wow.

00:31:43   We should move to something happier.

00:31:44   Do you want to do something happier than--

00:31:46   Yeah.

00:31:47   Follow Up 5-- it really should have been the last follow up,

00:31:49   but it's not.

00:31:50   It's the next to last follow up--

00:31:51   is quite possible-- I don't know about you guys,

00:31:54   but the most exciting follow up we've gotten in a long time.

00:31:57   This includes the app that was built out

00:32:00   of a joke on the podcast.

00:32:01   But we have our own comic strip.

00:32:04   We are in a comic strip, guys.

00:32:05   We've made it.

00:32:07   I was very very happy to see this exist. Like this is just so much fun in this. So the comic

00:32:16   strip is basically, it seems to be part one where effectively the three of us are drawn

00:32:23   together to become a mega Apple machine.

00:32:31   Through Skype? Is that where the magic happens? I feel like it is.

00:32:34   Yeah, something like that.

00:32:35   We're getting sucked into our computers.

00:32:36   Yeah.

00:32:37   It's not possible, Skype doesn't even work.

00:32:41   How can it do magic?

00:32:43   If it did work, if it did work, then this is what it would do.

00:32:49   I like how Steven is on his bed, probably because he's resting.

00:32:54   Yeah, and I have like a flower on my shelf, like you see that like in nursing homes.

00:32:58   That's it, you're really old!

00:33:01   Yeah, it is.

00:33:03   But Federico's in the bathroom and he has a shower iPad.

00:33:08   I didn't understand.

00:33:09   What's this shower iPad?

00:33:10   Is it like an iPad that I keep in the shower?

00:33:12   Exactly, because you have so many iPads.

00:33:15   I have one.

00:33:16   No, but that's the idea, right?

00:33:18   You're so iOS that you have the iPad in the shower.

00:33:21   It's like the day iPad and the night iPad.

00:33:24   But it seems really impractical to me to keep an iPad at the bottom of the shower.

00:33:28   I would at least create some sort of shelving space to use the item while I'm standing.

00:33:33   I'll move my flower over, you can start there.

00:33:36   So this was created by Steve B, who is now the world's greatest friend of the show.

00:33:43   My favorite part of this whole comic is when it's like the three of us transforming and

00:33:49   it's like with Steven's Mac skills, with Federico's iOS skills, and Myke.

00:33:56   I read that and I just started screaming with laughter.

00:33:59   Oh because you had no skills?

00:34:00   I have no skills.

00:34:01   That's harsh.

00:34:02   Being Myke is your skill.

00:34:06   Yeah it's difficult to be me and to keep this up but I think that I do it pretty well.

00:34:11   I have to say something about the Myke character really looks just like you.

00:34:15   He did a really really good job.

00:34:17   Like out of the three of us you look most like your character.

00:34:20   Yeah, well, it's because I have a very, like, I have a simple face to draw in a cartoon, I think.

00:34:26   You should put glasses and a beard. I think you have a simple face in general.

00:34:30   I don't know how to take that.

00:34:31   Sweet, I have an Italian accent. Every time I read this, I find something else hilarious about it.

00:34:38   Oh, man. So that's in the show notes. Myke?

00:34:42   Yeah. I love how you're on a bet, Stephen, with the film.

00:34:47   Come on!

00:34:49   I think it's because you used to record from a bedroom, and I think...

00:34:54   And you used to record from your daughter's bedroom, though.

00:34:57   So like, you know, it's a deep cut.

00:35:00   Why does Myke have a fancy desk like an office manager?

00:35:04   Me and Steven were in a bathroom and Steven is on a bed.

00:35:08   Because I do have a fancy desk like an office manager.

00:35:10   I have a glass desk here, boy.

00:35:12   This is big business here we've got running.

00:35:16   It's so good.

00:35:18   read the show notes this week. Same place they are every week. No, they're different this week.

00:35:24   It's relay.fm/connected/22. Last week was 21 and the week before that was 20 and next week will be 23.

00:35:32   Wow, our CMS is so logical. So yeah, check out the next comic book. In the end, now the final, we can

00:35:43   come to the end we can close the the book on the burst photo to gif. It only took 40 minutes but

00:35:50   yeah. No I mean like we can close the the book on this long running piece of follow-up that I have

00:35:57   wanted something like this. Now this is an app that Federico first told me about. Oh yeah. It's

00:36:03   called Burstio but I couldn't download it because when I was trying to download it was when Apple

00:36:07   screwed something else up a couple of weeks ago,

00:36:10   where they changed the App Store pricing in the EU,

00:36:14   and for 24 hours, nobody could download anything

00:36:17   on the App Store.

00:36:18   It didn't get a lot of coverage because it wasn't in America,

00:36:22   so it was just an EU problem.

00:36:24   But all EU developers were really upset,

00:36:27   as they should be, because they changed the prices.

00:36:29   They got all the prices wrong, and apps were, in some cases,

00:36:34   40% more expensive than they should have been,

00:36:36   was what they were showing on the store.

00:36:37   but nobody could buy them anyway.

00:36:39   So I tried to get it and it didn't work.

00:36:43   But then we had a listener, Alex,

00:36:46   wrote in to remind me about this the other day.

00:36:51   They sent for a tweet to tell me,

00:36:53   "Oh, have you found out about this?"

00:36:54   And the app is called Burstio.

00:36:55   - Have you tried the app, Myke?

00:37:00   - Yeah, I have.

00:37:01   And it works perfectly fine.

00:37:04   - Yeah, it does what you want it.

00:37:06   - Yeah, it takes burst photos

00:37:08   and turns them into a GIF or a movie.

00:37:10   - Yeah, I tried the app yesterday

00:37:12   when I brewed some coffee.

00:37:14   I took a burst photo, what is called a photo session,

00:37:19   whatever, and I used the app to generate a GIF.

00:37:24   The only thing I didn't like is that

00:37:27   it was surprisingly difficult to save a GIF

00:37:31   locally to my photo library,

00:37:34   because I could share the GIF from the app

00:37:38   with the official tweet sheet.

00:37:41   But I wasn't sure that the tweet sheet would pick up

00:37:44   the GIF as a GIF file.

00:37:47   So there was no Save Image option

00:37:50   in the share sheet of the app.

00:37:52   So I needed to email the GIF to myself

00:37:55   and save it back from the Apple Mail app, just to make sure.

00:37:58   Because I wanted to use the Twitter app

00:38:01   to make sure that I would actually share an animated GIF.

00:38:04   This is probably a case of me overthinking stuff.

00:38:09   >>No, I mean, iOS doesn't do a very good job with GIFs.

00:38:12   Like, I'll always find that it does the right thing,

00:38:16   but in the wrong way.

00:38:17   You can copy a GIF, but under certain circumstances,

00:38:20   it doesn't copy it.

00:38:21   It just copies the first frame.

00:38:22   You can save them to the camera roll, but it's weird.

00:38:26   Overall, support seems a little janky for GIFs in iOS.

00:38:29   >> Yeah, that was my problem.

00:38:31   It was just saving the first frame, and I was really upset.

00:38:35   >> Yeah.

00:38:37   >> I even created a workflow on the spot, but it didn't work.

00:38:42   So I was really, really unhappy.

00:38:46   >> Yeah, I think I didn't come across that,

00:38:47   because I just sent it as a message.

00:38:49   I didn't even think to try and save it to the camera roll.

00:38:52   But yeah. >> You sent GIFs as private

00:38:56   messages to people? >> Like iMessages, yeah.

00:38:59   - Yeah, what kind of gifts?

00:39:01   Tell us.

00:39:03   Private gifts.

00:39:04   - Private gifts, you know, you understand private gifts,

00:39:06   right, just private.

00:39:07   - I do, I understand, yeah, sure.

00:39:09   - President of special gifts.

00:39:11   (laughing)

00:39:13   - This week's episode of Connected is,

00:39:15   oh, I'm bailing out, is also brought to you

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00:41:32   Topic zero?

00:41:33   Yeah.

00:41:34   So, breaking today, so by the time you hear this, this could all be outdated I guess.

00:41:40   Good way to sell the topic, right?

00:41:44   is reporting that Samsung wants to buy Blackberry. There's a whole bunch of show

00:41:52   notes and you know links in the show notes and whatnot as you might expect

00:41:55   and and I don't really I at least don't really care about the details of the

00:41:58   transaction or in fact there's some people tweeting like right now that

00:42:02   Blackberry says it's not true but they can't comment but then kind of in the

00:42:06   same breath but I think it's interesting to think about why someone would want

00:42:14   to buy BlackBerry. Again, if this is true and people are saying in the chatroom that

00:42:18   it's not, but say that it's true, like what does BlackBerry have to offer?

00:42:21   Let's turn this from a news story into a hypothetical conversation.

00:42:25   It happened as I was saying it.

00:42:26   It's very simple. I don't think this is crazy. I think that buying BlackBerry is a genius

00:42:33   move because BlackBerry is already installed into so many large businesses. It's purely

00:42:39   a case of you buy a BlackBerry, you get the enterprise. Job done. Like if that's a play

00:42:44   you want to make, BlackBerry is a great buy.

00:42:47   People are really still using BlackBerry in enterprise?

00:42:50   Of course they are, man.

00:42:52   Because I thought that was like a myth, like a story.

00:42:56   Massive companies, huge companies, financial companies, law firms, everyone's using BlackBerry.

00:43:01   Because they...

00:43:02   Are they happy with BlackBerry?

00:43:03   Of course they are, because that's what they know, you know? But they've had it for so

00:43:06   so long and it's so entrenched in the business, for as long as BlackBerry is around, they

00:43:10   will continue to be used.

00:43:13   That's really sad, I think.

00:43:16   They're using it because they have to.

00:43:18   Yeah, but Federico, I'm afraid in corporate culture that's how everything is.

00:43:23   You use it because it's what you're told to use, like Windows.

00:43:27   Wow.

00:43:29   That's why I don't work for other people.

00:43:32   Yeah, it makes sense, I guess, for that reason.

00:43:35   So Samsung, if you haven't decided to buy BlackBerry, you should buy BlackBerry.

00:43:39   That's my advice.

00:43:40   And then what are they going to do once they have BlackBerry in the enterprise?

00:43:45   Do they make Samsung phones running BlackBerry OS?

00:43:48   Maybe.

00:43:49   I don't know.

00:43:50   Maybe.

00:43:51   Like, I get it that it can be a good thing, but what's after the acquisition?

00:43:55   Well, Samsung has tried to already make an enterprise play with their product that's

00:43:59   called Knox, which is like a suite of services and solutions and security stuff.

00:44:07   And I don't really think it's taken off.

00:44:10   But clearly it's a place that they have their eye on, but they haven't been able to crack

00:44:17   in because BlackBerry is already there.

00:44:19   So they should buy them, I think.

00:44:21   That's what I'm going to say.

00:44:25   That's the first time that I hear of this name.

00:44:27   Knox.

00:44:28   Yeah, it's KN of X.

00:44:33   Like the app from the 1Password guys.

00:44:36   They have an app called Knox for Mac.

00:44:38   No, I actually think that that's an integration with Samsung.

00:44:42   No, I don't think it is.

00:44:45   No, it's not.

00:44:47   It predates the Samsung stuff by a lifetime.

00:44:49   Well, I can't help you with that then, I'm afraid.

00:44:52   So I mean...

00:44:53   Did you use the Blackberry, Myke?

00:44:56   In your previous job, did you use the Blackberry?

00:44:58   Of course I did.

00:44:59   Really?

00:45:00   Yeah.

00:45:01   They still exist for real?

00:45:03   You're trolling me so hard but it frustrates me because...

00:45:05   No, no, no, I swear I'm not.

00:45:06   I swear I'm not my guy.

00:45:07   This is the thing, I know that Federico, that you've never had to have a corporate job so

00:45:13   you don't know the horrors.

00:45:15   But yeah, I did and everyone does.

00:45:17   That's what I'm saying.

00:45:18   BlackBerry is still a huge deal.

00:45:20   We just don't pay any attention to it because they're not doing anything exciting.

00:45:24   I don't think I've ever seen a real Blackberry in my entire life.

00:45:28   Like somebody using a Blackberry.

00:45:29   Even when you were a teenager?

00:45:30   No, never.

00:45:31   Because when I was a teenager, everybody had Blackberry.

00:45:34   No, we had Nokia phones.

00:45:36   Yeah, I guess that.

00:45:37   And then the iPhone.

00:45:38   Yeah, this is before iPhone though.

00:45:41   I mean, it was Nokia and Blackberry, that's what everybody had here.

00:45:43   You either had one or the other.

00:45:45   And a lot of teenagers had Blackberries because of Blackberry Messenger.

00:45:48   I swear, I'm not trolling, Myke.

00:45:51   I'm just struggling to understand because I read of all of this golden age of Blackberry

00:45:56   and BBM and that kind of stuff.

00:45:59   In my personal experience here, I never had friends talking about this magic called BBM

00:46:05   or Blackberries.

00:46:06   It was like I saw them in the movies and that was it.

00:46:10   Yeah, because Blackberry's consumer days are over, but their enterprise days are far from,

00:46:17   I think.

00:46:18   the idea of like the bring your own device stuff which you've spoken about

00:46:22   before but it's in big companies these big organizations it takes a lot to push

00:46:31   that wheel around so Blackberry is gonna be around for a while like

00:46:36   Blackberry has to fail as a company like they have to like just crumble and once

00:46:41   that happens and then hands are forced until that point like as long as they

00:46:45   continue to live then a lot of companies will continue to use them for a long time.

00:46:51   I understand Myke, thank you.

00:46:53   I know it's, I agree with you like we don't see it right because nobody talks about it

00:46:58   anymore.

00:46:59   No never, yeah.

00:47:00   Yeah most of the time people are joking about it.

00:47:03   Yeah exactly.

00:47:04   So it's easy to think that they don't kind of exist.

00:47:09   It's like Microsoft right you know like people have always said like Microsoft is irrelevant

00:47:12   Microsoft's failing but they still make a gajillion dollars.

00:47:16   Yeah, that one I get because I know people who use Office and

00:47:21   all the other like the Xbox and other Microsoft stuff. Just Blackberry I

00:47:25   struggled and probably also because I never had any sort of contact with

00:47:30   enterprise kind of work so it's really difficult for me because it's really not

00:47:36   me, you know, it's like the opposite of me.

00:47:41   You are like the opposite of Blackberry.

00:47:43   I am. I think I should be happy about that.

00:47:47   But yeah.

00:47:49   Let's talk about some less real news.

00:47:53   There's just no real news today.

00:47:55   An Apple Watch app.

00:47:57   So this has come out in 8.2.

00:48:01   There was originally, like, there was, you could see that there was in the settings,

00:48:06   settings, there was like hooks into an Apple Watch app in the 8.2 beta. Again, 9 to 5 grabbed

00:48:13   this and then they also grabbed with the help of Steve Trout and Smith screens of what the

00:48:19   actual functionality of the app would be. Have you guys seen this?

00:48:25   >> Yep. Yep.

00:48:27   >> So basically everything in here is kind of what you'd expect. You've got the functionality

00:48:35   to create your own layout, so you can on the phone organize the layout of how your watch

00:48:42   apps will be presented in that crazy grid that they've got, which probably would be

00:48:47   way easier to do on the phone than to try and do it on the watch, I'm just going to

00:48:51   say.

00:48:52   You've got different functions, so how you want to choose to have your time displayed,

00:48:58   how you want to see push notifications that can give you a little red badge that can appear

00:49:01   on the watch face.

00:49:02   Apparently there's support for a monogram,

00:49:04   which is quite nice, so you can have a little stamp

00:49:06   of up to one to four letters on the watch face.

00:49:09   You can choose if you want to have voiceover enabled

00:49:14   for some apps and there's some accessibility options,

00:49:16   and a passcode, which I can't fully understand.

00:49:20   I assume that it's like to see any information, right?

00:49:23   I can't imagine you see the time,

00:49:24   and it's like before you can see the time

00:49:25   into this six digit passcode.

00:49:27   - Yeah, I bet it's after the time,

00:49:28   or like, you know, pass under the time,

00:49:32   I guess under the time, because it's very confusing.

00:49:35   I don't know what dimension the watch is in.

00:49:37   - You need to see one of those Johnny Ive exploded layouts

00:49:39   of all of the UI elements. - Exactly.

00:49:41   - Like a web. - Exactly.

00:49:42   - I'm already imagining Casey using emoji as a monogram

00:49:47   on the Apple Watch Lock screen.

00:49:49   - Yeah. - Yeah,

00:49:50   he totally would do that.

00:49:51   Casey's gonna go crazy with those like,

00:49:54   those animated emoji. - Animated emoji.

00:49:56   - It's gonna be like a whole different world for him.

00:49:58   Yeah, they're super creepy looking, right?

00:50:00   Like the hands?

00:50:01   Yes.

00:50:02   I rewatched some of that stuff, and it's like, what?

00:50:04   Why is a hand moving around?

00:50:06   I kind of don't like that you have

00:50:08   to poke the guy in the face to create the gestures.

00:50:13   It reminds me of in Mario 64, the floating Mario head,

00:50:17   and you could grab his nose and drag it out.

00:50:19   Oh my god, Steven.

00:50:21   Yeah, awesome reference, man.

00:50:23   Video game reference.

00:50:23   Wow.

00:50:24   Wow.

00:50:25   I stamp that.

00:50:27   The chat room points out that it's a pin number for Apple Pay

00:50:29   as well.

00:50:30   So--

00:50:31   Yeah, that makes sense.

00:50:33   So I mean, really, I think what's interesting here,

00:50:37   even though it's not necessarily shocking,

00:50:39   is that there's going to be a helper app on the watch where

00:50:43   you manage a bunch of this stuff.

00:50:45   And again, that's like the Pebble.

00:50:46   It has that, where you can load in watch faces and apps,

00:50:49   and you can do various things.

00:50:53   But Myke, we sent a question to you

00:50:55   earlier this week of how does Android Wear work?

00:50:59   Does it have a standalone app?

00:51:00   Is this pretty common with smartwatches

00:51:02   or is this something that just Apple and Pebble are doing?

00:51:06   - So I have unearthed my LG G Watch

00:51:09   from the depths of the gadget drawer

00:51:13   and charged it up this week

00:51:15   so I could bring you this late-breaking news.

00:51:18   I do have a couple of very quick sidebars

00:51:21   before I talk about the companion app.

00:51:24   Android is very pretty now.

00:51:25   Like the L stuff is very attractive to look at.

00:51:30   I like it a lot.

00:51:31   I want to play around a little bit more with it

00:51:34   because it is a very attractive operating system, I think.

00:51:37   It's to my tastes anyway.

00:51:39   I like a lot of the animations that it has.

00:51:41   It all works very smoothly and it looks very nice.

00:51:43   I just think that Android right now is looking pretty good.

00:51:49   There's also now a lot more apps

00:51:53   for the Android Wear in the store,

00:51:56   then there were the last time that I checked,

00:51:57   as well as customizable watch faces now.

00:52:00   Like for example, there is a Pac-Man watch face, Federico.

00:52:04   That you can have. - Pac-Man?

00:52:05   Is it an official one or made by some guy?

00:52:08   - Official Namco.

00:52:09   - Oh, nice.

00:52:12   - Yeah, yeah, there's loads of different ones.

00:52:14   There are a lot of--

00:52:15   - Did you download it?

00:52:16   - I haven't yet.

00:52:17   I haven't, but I will actually.

00:52:20   a lot of the watch faces and stuff are made for the circular...

00:52:24   I mean they work on the square but like all the promotional images are for the circular

00:52:29   watches because the circular watches look better than the square watches.

00:52:36   So can I ask you a question real quickly Myke?

00:52:38   Yeah man.

00:52:39   Can you... this is gonna sound stupid because I cannot remember...

00:52:43   Can you use an Android Wear device with an iPhone?

00:52:45   No you can't no.

00:52:47   Okay.

00:52:48   ask that question because like pebble but no Android Wear only works with

00:52:52   Android devices. Okay so let me talk about the companion app so you download

00:53:00   the app from the App Store or from the Google Play Store and that is the app

00:53:06   that allows you to connect the watch to your phone and then it kind of it pulls

00:53:13   in some information so it knows that I have an LGG watch and it shows me a

00:53:16   little promotional banner for some reason that I don't understand but

00:53:20   that's there. So this is where the I guess kind of the customization and the

00:53:27   beauty of Android can can be of a benefit so for example on the main

00:53:32   screen you have a couple of things you have watch faces which I explained you

00:53:34   can choose from the watch faces that are pre-installed on the device you can also

00:53:38   change them on the device but you can you can choose them in on the companion

00:53:41   app or you can download more but then you have a heading called voice actions

00:53:45   and then a list of different things.

00:53:47   So you've got Agenda, Navigate, Play Music, Setter Timer,

00:53:50   and these are all of the voice commands that you can give

00:53:53   to the Android Wear device.

00:53:56   But what you can then do is, for example,

00:53:57   you can select Play Music,

00:54:01   and then it will say, "What do you want to happen

00:54:04   when you say Play Music?

00:54:06   Do you want to open iTunes-- sorry, Spotify?

00:54:10   Do you want to open Google Play?

00:54:11   Do you want to open audio?"

00:54:13   Like, so you can choose from the apps

00:54:15   that you have installed, so when you say that stuff,

00:54:18   what will it allow you to do?

00:54:19   Right, which is a very Android feeling.

00:54:22   Like, even things like Navigate,

00:54:24   which would be to open Google Maps,

00:54:26   you can choose if you wanna open Google Maps

00:54:28   or another map app.

00:54:29   So you can go in and like, even things like Start Stopwatch,

00:54:32   do you wanna open the official Stopwatch app,

00:54:34   or do you wanna use a downloaded Stopwatch app?

00:54:37   So that was quite cool, 'cause you can go in

00:54:38   and you can kinda customize those voice actions

00:54:41   to be your own.

00:54:42   I would expect there might be, if I get any of that with the Apple Watch, I would be surprised.

00:54:49   If I say like, "Open the calendar," they're just going to open the calendar, right?

00:54:52   I'm not going to be able to open Fantastic Cal with that.

00:54:55   I'd be very surprised if I was able to.

00:55:00   You can also get some granular notification stuff.

00:55:03   So you're able to go in and you can go into the settings and block app notifications.

00:55:09   you can go in here and select which apps do you not want to notify you. Now, so you

00:55:16   press the plus button and it brings up all of the applications that you have

00:55:18   and you can choose it. However, in this list I have things like Android Work

00:55:23   Assistant, I have Captive Portal Logon, Certificate Installer, Config Updater,

00:55:29   like these are options, like this is the problem with Android, like what does this

00:55:34   mean and why am I seeing it? I shouldn't be able to block the config updater

00:55:40   and if I should don't call it that. What's a config updater? I assume it's

00:55:46   updating the config? I don't know.

00:55:49   Everybody knows you gotta update the config, man. Just in case as well the

00:55:58   Google Hindi input keyboard might notify me of something I can also block it out

00:56:02   from doing that too. That's good. I really like basic daydreams as an option that you

00:56:06   listed. Yep, basic daydreams. I can block basic daydreams. That'd probably be good.

00:56:10   It'd be good for me in real life. Nope, not allowed. It's just like seriously, Google,

00:56:16   you're just so close. But so far. And they also have a watch battery screen as well

00:56:22   so you can see what is taking the battery. Like, you know, you get like the

00:56:26   usage stuff on the Android phones and on the iPhone. But that's gonna be fundamentally

00:56:31   different on the watch because the watch is not really running very much.

00:56:34   Exactly so you get the you get to see... Not that Apple would expose that but

00:56:38   it's not like if your watch wears down by 3 p.m. you can't go in there and say

00:56:42   say you know that it's this thing or that thing I guess you can do that on

00:56:46   iOS 8 now but it's not super helpful like it is like androids is pretty great

00:56:51   yeah and all that sort of stuff and it also can give you a breakdown of what is

00:56:56   stored on your watch as well so on the internal memory of the watch what is

00:57:00   there as well. So you can also do things like, I mean the Android Wear

00:57:05   platform and some other stuff, so you can have it so if you're close to your phone

00:57:09   you don't need to use your unlock code if you want to, you can set that up and

00:57:15   you can also have it so if they're close to each other and this uses Bluetooth of

00:57:19   course to not even show any notifications on the phone at all, only

00:57:24   show them on the watch. So there you go, so that's some stuff.

00:57:27   Can I ask you a serious question without trolling?

00:57:31   Yes, please ask me.

00:57:33   Would you consider switching to Android?

00:57:36   Yeah, I mean I did it before.

00:57:41   And I'll do it again!

00:57:43   It's just the apps.

00:57:45   Some of the apps that I have on my iPhone prevent me from switching to Android.

00:57:50   Because there are things about Android that I genuinely like and have liked.

00:57:55   and when I use it and it's just like, you know,

00:57:58   if you wanna get this thing to this app, right,

00:58:03   so you're in the Photos app

00:58:05   and you wanna post it to another app,

00:58:07   it's so much easier to do than it is still on the iPhone

00:58:12   because all of these apps just talk to each other.

00:58:15   I don't know how it's done

00:58:15   but they all just seem to be able to do that.

00:58:18   So there are a lot of things

00:58:21   that I do really like about it

00:58:23   but there are apps like OmniFocus,

00:58:28   because even the Twitter app

00:58:30   is not so much of a problem anymore.

00:58:32   There's an app that I always loved called FalconPro,

00:58:35   and they've just--

00:58:35   - Oh, I saw the Falcon 3.

00:58:37   - It's fantastic.

00:58:40   FalconPro is a great app anyway,

00:58:42   but FalconPro 3 looks just superb.

00:58:46   - Yeah, yeah, I saw the video, it looked really nice.

00:58:49   - So I'm going to put some images in the show notes

00:58:53   to show you some screenshots.

00:58:55   So if you want to see Active Daydream,

00:58:57   you can see that for yourself as well.

00:59:00   So they're all there for you to peruse if you would like to.

00:59:04   Do you have any other questions, guys?

00:59:08   I was going to say I agree with you that Android is pretty.

00:59:12   Like, they've come a long way in the design front.

00:59:14   And I, like you, sometimes I think

00:59:16   about using Android for a while.

00:59:19   It's the apps that trip me up.

00:59:20   And it's not that apps on Android haven't gotten good.

00:59:23   A lot of them have.

00:59:24   There's a lot of really great apps on Android these days.

00:59:26   But it's just the ones that I want to use have a tendency

00:59:30   to be iOS and Mac only.

00:59:31   So things like OmniFocus or Overcast or things like that.

00:59:35   I guess there are alternatives.

00:59:37   And many times, the alternatives are really good on Android.

00:59:40   But I like where I am and don't want

00:59:43   to move everything out of OmniFocus

00:59:45   to do is just to use Android for six weeks.

00:59:49   Yep, I get it.

00:59:51   Yep, I'm gonna switch to Android, guys.

00:59:55   Breaking news!

00:59:57   Since that episode where you said about if editorial moved,

01:00:02   I've more than once considered how much money would I have to pay Ole.

01:00:07   You know? To get him to move it. Just to see what you would actually do.

01:00:15   Wow. Would you really do that?

01:00:17   No, because it would be more money than I'd be prepared to spend.

01:00:20   Although now I think, in hindsight, that I should have just got him to play a prank on you.

01:00:26   I should have done that instead.

01:00:28   Wow.

01:00:29   Why do you want to do this to me?

01:00:33   I just feel like, you know, I need to...

01:00:35   Why do you take satisfaction into seeing me suffer?

01:00:38   I just want to check, you know, I just want to see to what ends you will go for the app that you love so much.

01:00:46   No, you have no idea.

01:00:49   I mean, I gotta pay my rent, Myke.

01:00:51   Yeah, I'm gonna find out how much it will cost.

01:00:54   (laughing)

01:00:56   Is that how development works?

01:00:58   Yeah, how much will it cost?

01:01:00   Yeah.

01:01:01   That's my understanding.

01:01:01   Just go to the guy and say, "Yeah, I want to buy your app.

01:01:05   I'm a VC, I want to acquire your app."

01:01:10   That's all it takes, right?

01:01:13   you can make the official Real AFM taxator.

01:01:17   - I would love a Real AFM taxator.

01:01:18   - For sure not.

01:01:20   Just workflows for sure not.

01:01:22   - That would be good. - Done, done.

01:01:23   (laughing)

01:01:25   - So guys, do I have time for a mini topic, micro topic?

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01:03:38   So I wanted to update you guys on my status report with trying NewsBlur, the RSS reader.

01:03:49   And in the process, I wanted to ask you a couple of RSS questions, if you don't mind.

01:03:53   Yeah.

01:03:54   So it turns out that I'm really, really happy with NewsBlur so far,

01:04:00   And it's really grown on me in the past week.

01:04:04   So what I didn't do last week that I did over the past seven

01:04:09   days is I read the FAQ section on the website.

01:04:15   And so I learned a couple of neat tricks

01:04:18   that I didn't know.

01:04:19   And I started using the training intensively.

01:04:24   So on NewsBlur, you can train the feed reader

01:04:28   to hide stories that you don't care about.

01:04:33   And you can also do the opposite, you can train the reader to focus on stories and topics

01:04:39   that you are interested in.

01:04:43   So what I did is I selected a bunch of stuff that I don't care about, like lawsuits or

01:04:51   like when there was some kind of a car show in the past week, like some tech blogs were

01:04:58   writing about cars.

01:05:00   And I mean, I'm no ATP, right?

01:05:03   I don't care about this stuff.

01:05:06   So I just selected some keywords like Ford and Nissan and that kind of stuff I don't

01:05:13   want to see.

01:05:15   So other topics included Samsung and what else?

01:05:20   I think at some point I blocked a keyword for another TV show that I didn't care about.

01:05:26   And I also did the opposite with stuff that I like.

01:05:29   So I promoted Apple, Google, iPhone, Android, because I still liked to be informed about

01:05:34   Android.

01:05:35   I promoted Better Call Saul, which is an upcoming TV show.

01:05:39   Yes.

01:05:40   Some video-- yes.

01:05:41   I know, right?

01:05:42   Yes.

01:05:43   So much yes.

01:05:44   I promoted some video game stuff, so Nintendo, Sony, that kind of keywords.

01:05:49   And what is really nice about NewsBlur is that there is a train menu.

01:05:54   So every time you're reading an article, you can say "I like this specific author from

01:05:59   this website".

01:06:00   So for example, on Six Colors I can say "I like posts from Jason Snell".

01:06:07   So every time you recognize an article from Jason Snell, promote that kind of content

01:06:13   in the feed reader.

01:06:15   Or I can go to Mac stories, or... no, not Mac stories, because it's my own website,

01:06:19   that would be creepy.

01:06:20   I can go to the Verge and say, using these tags, so the feed reader is capable of looking

01:06:29   into the article tags, and say, I want to know more about, I don't know, Nintendo 3DS,

01:06:35   but not about the Nintendo Wii U, looking at the tags.

01:06:39   Or I can say, I want to know everything from this publisher, so an entire website.

01:06:44   Or what's even more impressive is that you can use just text in the article title.

01:06:50   You just select text.

01:06:52   So for instance, I selected keywords in the title, like the name of the car show that

01:06:59   I don't remember.

01:07:01   The Detroit Auto Show?

01:07:04   Yeah, probably.

01:07:06   Yeah, Detroit Auto Show.

01:07:07   That was the three words that I selected.

01:07:11   And there was other stuff in article titles that I either like or don't like.

01:07:17   So there's two buttons that you use.

01:07:19   One is "Hide" with the thumbs down and the other is "Focus" with the thumbs up, using

01:07:23   emoji, so Casey would be proud.

01:07:26   And basically, I did this like five or six days ago and I kept training the reader.

01:07:36   So every morning when I wake up or maybe after a couple of hours that I haven't checked my

01:07:40   my erosys reader, I go to NewsBlur and at the bottom of the app there's a tap bar.

01:07:47   You can switch from old stories to unread and focus.

01:07:52   Focus mode, it's got a green dot and it shows you every story that you have told the app

01:08:02   that is important to you.

01:08:04   I think this is handy when I go back to NewsBlur after a few hours and I just want to see

01:08:10   like WhatsApp in terms of what's cool and new and just don't give me the stuff that

01:08:18   I don't think is super important to me.

01:08:20   I can go there and find the most important stories for me and from what I've seen so

01:08:26   far I think the feed training mechanism is really accurate and I think it keeps getting

01:08:34   better over time, and at least this is also what the FAQ said, it will get better based

01:08:41   on what you read, what you train the feed reader to do, and it's also capable of not

01:08:49   showing you duplicate stories.

01:08:53   And the opposite also works as well, I don't want to see certain topics, I will never see

01:08:58   those topics again, so that was really nice.

01:09:01   I've been using search, I told you guys it was really fast, and in the past week there's

01:09:07   been a couple of times that I needed to find an article again, I used search on the NewsBlur

01:09:13   app for iPhone and iPad, and it found those topics that I needed to find in the articles,

01:09:19   like in two seconds.

01:09:21   That was really impressive and useful.

01:09:24   And in general, I've noticed that the app is really fast, because it uses this prefetching

01:09:30   feature that, for instance, just a few minutes ago I posted my review on Maxories and after

01:09:39   a minute it was up on newsblur.

01:09:43   I don't know, I think it refreshes the RSS feed.

01:09:52   Depending on the popularity of a website, I'm not sure, but for Maxories it's really

01:09:57   fast and for other websites like The Virgin, during Fireball, it's also very fast.

01:10:02   So it's probably something like pocketcasts, like how often they refresh certain websites.

01:10:09   But in general it's really fast and when you refresh the iOS app, all the articles come

01:10:13   in in like two seconds.

01:10:15   So I've been really impressed.

01:10:16   But I've been thinking about, especially the training and the filters.

01:10:23   So what I wanted to ask you after this consideration, because you see how, and I think that Myke

01:10:28   knows especially, when we talk on virtual about like, like how, like sometimes I think

01:10:34   strange, I think about strange topics, like I go on different tangents and I end up in

01:10:41   weird places with my thoughts.

01:10:43   And I mean that Myke knows because of the Minecraft spider.

01:10:46   Yeah, just eat those eyeballs buddy.

01:10:49   Or the rogue legacy stuff.

01:10:53   So I've been thinking, like filtering RSS, right?

01:10:58   Because I'm treating RSS like basically a file system.

01:11:02   So it's a file system for news.

01:11:05   So in theory, I should be able to see everything, because a file system, like, for instance,

01:11:10   when I open my Finder on my Mac, those few times that I do, I see all my files.

01:11:17   You know, unless I decide to do a search or stuff like that.

01:11:21   So instead I'm treating RSS in NewsBlur like some sort of tweetbot filters where I select

01:11:29   topics that I don't want to see.

01:11:31   And that's kind of new to me because I never did this stuff in RSS before.

01:11:36   I tried Fever a few years ago, the RSS service that lets you set up your own RSS application

01:11:44   on your own server and it lets you read topics based on popularity.

01:11:49   But that's different.

01:11:51   Because here, I'm basically like Tweetbot filters, I can select topics and stuff that

01:11:56   I don't want to see and I don't see that stuff again.

01:11:59   So is this just me?

01:12:01   Because I think this is really new and exciting for me.

01:12:04   And like, NewsBuilder is giving me a different perspective on RSS in the post-Google reader

01:12:10   age.

01:12:12   And I know that RSS is not sexy.

01:12:15   I mean that it's something for geeks, right?

01:12:20   There are different services, but they're not really trying to revolutionize RSS, they're

01:12:24   just trying to survive and every once in a while they launch a new feature.

01:12:28   And Niezblur is really different.

01:12:31   And it made me think about RSS and filters and that kind of stuff and Twitter lists,

01:12:37   whether I should be using Twitter lists less because Twitter doesn't care.

01:12:42   So I know that Myke, you told me that you stopped using RSS a while ago.

01:12:48   Yeah, I kind of brought it back, but it looked very limited, and I check it maybe once every

01:12:53   couple of weeks.

01:12:55   So I wanted to know from Steven first, because he seems to me more of an RSS guy in general.

01:13:01   Definitely.

01:13:02   Steven, tell me about RSS and the way you use them, because I need to know if I'm allowing

01:13:07   this, if maybe it's just some placebo effect that I'm having here, because NewsBlur is new.

01:13:13   Yeah, I mean my RSS usage has been really consistent before and after the

01:13:18   Google Reader shutdown.

01:13:19   I do have a Twitter list that I called "RSS is dead" and that has you know

01:13:26   blogs that follow you know a lot of almost every website just tweets

01:13:29   headlines as they come out and I do check that occasionally. I've gotten it a

01:13:33   nuzzle some since we've talked about on the show Federico introduced me to it

01:13:38   But overall I still use RSS pretty heavily. Maybe even more so now that I

01:13:45   follow more people on Twitter and Twitter's gotten noisier. So you know I

01:13:49   use Feedbin and I use Reader and Unread as my clients and I've got folders in

01:13:55   there by topic and I do I do have talking about the filtering I have a

01:14:00   little bit of filter well I have a folder that I always look at everything

01:14:05   in there I call it writers and it's basically just people who I want to see

01:14:09   everything that they publish and you know it's guys like like like like you

01:14:13   Federico and then I've got you know folders around other topics I've got

01:14:19   kind of general you know nerd news I've got Apple news just a couple more high

01:14:24   volume Apple news sites and and I don't feel bad about marking those other

01:14:29   folders as read if I can't get to them I don't have a completionist attitude when

01:14:34   it comes to RSS. And you know a lot of times I was open to open a folder

01:14:38   especially if it's been you know several hours or even a day and just skim the

01:14:42   you know the latest couple things and because I do rely on Twitter to a degree

01:14:46   even though I'm not using Twitter as an RSS replacement I expect that stories

01:14:51   that are popular like today that redesigned or that art project with a

01:14:55   guy made like an iMac out of the front of a classic Mac like you know a bunch

01:15:00   of people tweeted that I wish you'll tweeted it at me and so I saw that well

01:15:04   before I opened Unread this morning on my iPad.

01:15:06   Yeah, but all in all, if you looked at my RSS usage in 2007 and looked at it today,

01:15:12   it's more or less the same.

01:15:14   There's not a ton of articles in there.

01:15:16   I've pared back what I follow in RSS, but it's still a pretty critical part of the way

01:15:23   I consume content online.

01:15:26   So what I want to ask you is, how do you, and if you, I'm not sure whether you use it

01:15:32   or not. How do you use the feature to mark an article as a favorite and the read later

01:15:42   services like Pocket and Instapaper? Because I'm struggling and I'm finding even more overlap

01:15:48   between the two. Why do I mark an RSS article as favorite if I can just send it to Pocket

01:15:56   or Instapaper, especially now that it's so easy with iOS 8 extension?

01:16:00   Yeah, I don't mark anything favorited in RSS.

01:16:04   I didn't, and that was a huge thing in Google Reader and you could like set where if you

01:16:07   favorited something in Google Reader it did a bunch of different things.

01:16:10   I never used it then, I don't use it now.

01:16:13   If it's something I want to read later or something that I want to maybe link to later,

01:16:18   I'll just send it to Instapaper and deal with it over there.

01:16:22   But you know, RSS to me is very binary.

01:16:24   Like if it gets in front of me, if I don't just mark it as red,

01:16:30   then I'll either skim it there, or again,

01:16:32   if I want to do something with it, it just goes into paper

01:16:35   and it gets dealt with elsewhere, not within RSS app

01:16:38   itself.

01:16:40   Yeah, that's what I think I will end up doing again.

01:16:44   Because I have this habit of marking articles as favorite.

01:16:49   Because that's what I used to do in Reader and Google Reader

01:16:53   years ago.

01:16:54   Because, yeah, I remember there was some kind of social component at some point for the

01:16:58   favorite feature.

01:17:00   So I think out of habit, I still give a star to articles.

01:17:06   But I realized that I can just save them to Pocket and just...

01:17:11   Because either I want to read them or I want to archive them for the future.

01:17:15   So yeah, I think in NewsBlur they are called the saved articles.

01:17:20   So it's basically the same system.

01:17:23   And I wanted to ask you also, and then I will move my question to Myke.

01:17:29   Are you prepared, Myke?

01:17:30   >> Well, yeah.

01:17:31   You're not going to get much out of me, but...

01:17:34   >> This is like an interview from the police when they interview people.

01:17:39   I have a lamp on my desk and I will...

01:17:45   So Stephen, do you use the search feature of RSS ever?

01:17:50   you search for old articles for some reason or do you just use Google?

01:17:55   Just Google.

01:17:56   I mean I don't use search in RSS.

01:18:00   If there's an article that I've read and maybe if I instant-papered it, it's in Pinboard.

01:18:05   So the first, like say that like Federico, I was actually just looking at just earlier

01:18:10   today your Q4 2014 results post and so I just searched Google and found it.

01:18:17   But sometimes something is more obscure, maybe I send it to Pinboard, everything I go, Instapaper

01:18:24   goes to Pinboard.

01:18:25   So I look there as well.

01:18:26   I don't use search.

01:18:27   I don't even know how search is in Feedbin because I've just never touched it.

01:18:33   That's what I thought.

01:18:34   It's really like why should I use RSS search instead of Google search?

01:18:40   There were a couple of scenarios for me that I knew that I found an article in RSS and

01:18:44   I remember the title and NewsBlur gave me that feed article again, but in general I

01:18:51   think I just used Google.

01:18:53   Myke, why are you coming back to RSS?

01:18:58   Just because there are some blogs and sites where I want to make sure that I don't miss

01:19:04   things.

01:19:07   And that tends to just be like blogs from people that I enjoy, because I get most of

01:19:11   the stuff that I need to know from Twitter. I mean I subscribe to The Verge

01:19:17   and Polygon in my RSS reader but that's only if I'm reading RSS and I want

01:19:22   something to read and I'm done with everything else. Other than that I just

01:19:25   mark those as read all the time because I've just gone in and done now. But I

01:19:32   only subscribe to 15 RSS feeds now and it's mainly just from the blogs of

01:19:39   friends and what I find most of the time is I'm going in like I am right now and clearing

01:19:45   it out, just like marking everything as read pretty much because it's been weeks since

01:19:50   I looked last.

01:19:52   I kind of just go in every now and then if I want something to read and there's always

01:19:55   stuff in there from the people's sites that I like.

01:19:59   I use Twitter for most of the stuff that I need.

01:20:02   I follow a lot of people.

01:20:03   If there are big things happening, I find out about them that way and I also follow

01:20:07   I have a lot of blogs and sites that I enjoy.

01:20:12   But I don't use lists.

01:20:13   Thank you.

01:20:14   Okay.

01:20:15   Because I don't want multiple timelines to have to look through.

01:20:17   I already follow enough people.

01:20:18   So it's just in your regular timeline and if you miss it, you miss it?

01:20:21   Yeah.

01:20:22   Yeah, but it uses tweetbot so it's got timeline sync so it never misses tweets.

01:20:29   Exactly.

01:20:30   Right?

01:20:31   Exactly.

01:20:32   Never miss them tweets, boy, because I got my iCloud syncing.

01:20:36   My hide.

01:20:37   Wow. [LAUGHS]

01:20:39   You use iCloud instead of TweetMarker?

01:20:41   Yeah, because I like the thinking of DM Red notifications.

01:20:45   Oh, yeah, makes sense.

01:20:47   Same here.

01:20:49   In general, to conclude, I think I'm...

01:20:52   Of course, I'm sticking to NewsBlur at the moment

01:20:54   because I'm really curious about this.

01:20:57   It's made by a single guy in the developer,

01:21:00   the kind of story that I like.

01:21:02   Someone has to feed his dog, you know?

01:21:05   Yeah, of course, the dog picture, which was awesome.

01:21:09   So yeah, I'm trying NewsBlur.

01:21:13   At this point, I have a membership

01:21:16   to the three popular RSS services

01:21:21   because I am a Feedly Pro lifetime member.

01:21:25   I pay for Feed Wrangler because David Smith is awesome.

01:21:29   And there's NewsBlur.

01:21:34   So I think I want to try Fitbin in the next couple of months.

01:21:37   But first, just to have an idea.

01:21:40   I like having opinions about everything.

01:21:43   So I can opinionate with people about opinions.

01:21:48   We love it.

01:21:49   We love it when you opinionate.

01:21:51   I think that's really important to have opinions and posits

01:21:55   these days.

01:21:55   Cool.

01:22:00   Yeah, I mean, RSS is one of those things

01:22:02   that when Google Reader went away, a lot of people

01:22:04   said that RSS was going to die.

01:22:08   But especially if you lump podcasting into the mix,

01:22:12   because podcasting runs on the back of RSS, RSS is fine.

01:22:16   And there's all these services.

01:22:17   Like the ones you just listed, there's

01:22:20   a dozen more good ones.

01:22:23   I definitely still think there's a place for it in this world.

01:22:26   I think things like NewsBlur, adding features on top of it,

01:22:29   think is where the excitement is happening. So yeah it's good stuff.

01:22:36   That just about wraps up this week's episode of Connected. If you'd like to

01:22:40   find the show notes for this week's show go to relay.fm/connected/22

01:22:44   If you want to follow us on Twitter I am @imike, I-M-Y-K-E. Federico is @fatici

01:22:50   V-I-T-I-C-C-I and Steven is @ismh. Steven writes thegreat512pixels.net

01:22:57   and Federico writes the also great MaxStories.net.

01:23:01   We'll be back next week with another episode of the show.

01:23:04   Thanks again to our sponsors this week, Squarespace, Igloo and Linda, and thank you for listening.

01:23:10   Until then, bye bye.