00:11:00
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I mean, I wouldn't be surprised if it's like an Obsidian bug because they're doing some weird things with their cross-platform engine or whatever.
00:11:09
◼►
I doubt Obsidian is using the pure stock text engine.
00:13:35
◼►
They've only changed the look of it, but it doesn't seem to be any smarter than before, especially at keeping context between multiple requests.
00:13:48
◼►
Yeah, that stuff's just not in the beta yet.
00:14:43
◼►
Yeah, and I just go back to what I've said before.
00:14:46
◼►
They should not change the Siri UI until they have all those features.
00:14:50
◼►
That said, I do like TypeToSiri because I, there's a couple of things that I really like using Siri for.
00:14:59
◼►
That is like checking my schedule, creating reminders, you know, that sort of playing music.
00:15:04
◼►
And with TypeToSiri, I get to save time because typically like I would use Siri, but what if it's like 1 a.m. or 2 a.m. and Sylvia is sleeping.
00:15:14
◼►
And so I want to save time with interactions on my phone, but I can't speak because there's a person next to me sleeping.
00:15:21
◼►
So I've created, this is sort of my teaching hack for you today, I've created some text expansions for like common syntax that I use Siri for.
00:15:33
◼►
So for example, and you can do this like in settings, general, keyboard, text replacements.
00:15:39
◼►
I created one that is like the letter RRR, so I just need to type the R key on my keyboard three times.
00:15:48
◼►
And it expands into RemindMeTo, so like I can quickly create a reminder with TypeToSiri just by doing that.
00:15:55
◼►
Or like I created SSS, same ideal, it expands into ShowMeMyScheduleToday.
00:16:04
◼►
So things like this I think are really convenient with Siri, especially if you create like this little sort of macros with text replacements.
00:16:12
◼►
That's something that I think I'm going to use a lot.
00:16:16
◼►
Otherwise, I mean so far, except writing tools, there's no image playground, not that I'm ever going to use it.
00:16:23
◼►
There's no custom emoji. It's just writing tools, Siri UI, TypeToSiri, and summaries in notifications and mail.
00:16:32
◼►
So mostly underwhelming, and I think we're obviously going to talk about Google in a few minutes.
00:16:40
◼►
Yeah, it's obviously very early, and they are, compared to other tech companies, I think it's pretty clear that they are very much behind.
00:16:51
◼►
Something I find so funny, when you're using iMessage and someone sends you a message and the system wants to recommend my response.
00:17:04
◼►
They're terrible, 100% of the time. They don't sound like me at all, and most of the time are things that I would never say.
00:17:11
◼►
And like I'm convinced that there is nothing new going on in that system.
00:17:15
◼►
It's the same quick type system that there's always been, but now they just make it look fancy because they're trying to find stuff to put in the system to be like, "Hey, it's AI!"
00:17:24
◼►
But it doesn't feel like that has gotten literally any better.
00:17:28
◼►
For example, something with me and my mum, every single day, my mum asks me multiple times because she's, I love my mum, but this is just how she is.
00:17:36
◼►
She's like, "How are you? How are you?" She'll just send me this multiple times a day.
00:17:39
◼►
And pretty much all the time, I'll say like, "Yeah, everything's good. How are you?"
00:17:43
◼►
So this is, essentially I answer the same way every day.
00:17:47
◼►
Every time I get that message from my mum, it gives an answer that is not the answer that I use.
00:17:53
◼►
Now I feel like the computer should have an idea about what's going on here, and it never does.
00:17:59
◼►
And so, yeah, I just find it to be very strange.
00:18:05
◼►
One thing that is in the beta that I think is pretty cool is the photo memory stuff, so you can have it build a custom memory within photos.
00:18:18
◼►
Sunday's MPU, which is not out now, but it will be out in a couple of days, we talk, the whole episode is about Apple Intelligence, and we talk to a good bit about that.
00:18:26
◼►
But in short, you can have it, you basically prompt it to put a memory together, and it takes a minute, but it puts something together for you.
00:18:34
◼►
And it's nice because the previous versions of this feature were kind of limited in what it would consider memory-worthy.
00:18:44
◼►
And now you can just make your own. And so, it's buried in there, but it's a nice addition.
00:18:52
◼►
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00:20:54
◼►
Mike, we talked about Apple Watches for kids, and we heard from some people, right? What did those people say?
00:21:01
◼►
So I have two pieces of follow up that I thought were interesting. They're coming from different sides of the experience.
00:21:08
◼►
So an anonymous user wrote in and said, "I'm 14 years old, and I've had a cellular Apple Watch for three years.
00:21:14
◼►
It does almost everything I want it to, contacting parents, looking things up, playing podcasts, and more.
00:21:21
◼►
The only things that it can't do are play games, take photos, and listen to Spotify, though I believe you can probably use Apple Music.
00:21:28
◼►
I don't feel like I'm missing out on too much that is important, nor do I feel the pressure to get a real phone."
00:21:33
◼►
So I really like this. I also felt bad about myself because this 14-year-old feels better adjusted than me.
00:21:40
◼►
I also feel bad because this 14-year-old is listening to us, like in general.
00:21:45
◼►
No, that's just good for them. This is good for their development, I'm sure.
00:21:55
◼►
We're leading the next generation over here, yeah.
00:21:57
◼►
Okay, that's good. That's good for us.
00:21:59
◼►
I mean, we have been doing this for long enough now that we are starting to get those comments, right?
00:22:02
◼►
I know we spoke about this after WWDC, well, for me, like 23 or whatever.
00:22:09
◼►
And I think, Steven, you had it then and had it in 24 as well, where people were like, "Hey, I've been listening to you since high school."
00:22:58
◼►
Anyway, Eric said, "We had a quote set up for Child Apple Watch for my son when he was in fourth and fifth grade, which is 10 to 11 years old.
00:23:08
◼►
It was great because he had a way to contact us and we had a way to contact him and it wasn't with a phone.
00:23:15
◼►
The contacts were locked down and the school time limitations worked well.
00:23:19
◼►
We would even use the walkie-talkie feature when we were on family trips.
00:23:22
◼►
We never had any issues setting up from a different phone.
00:23:26
◼►
I really recommend it for parents that want cellular connectivity.
00:23:29
◼►
I think these just sound really positive and to me, I know this is an incredibly small sample size, but like this feels like a good solution for a young person to have a level of connection and to be able to use some things that they care about without necessarily getting themselves lost on an iPhone.
00:23:49
◼►
If they don't want to lose themselves on an iPhone, you don't want that for them.
00:23:52
◼►
So, I thought this was good feedback. I was happy to get it.
00:23:55
◼►
The walkie-talkie is one of the best Apple Watch features that nobody uses.
00:24:00
◼►
Or when I say nobody, I mean it should be so much more popular.
00:24:04
◼►
There should be an iPhone version of it.
00:24:06
◼►
And I know that it sounds funny because a bunch of people are like, "Oh, that walkie-talkie is silly."
00:24:12
◼►
I think it's actually a very good feature and it should be like, I would have liked to see Apple invest so much more in it.
00:24:19
◼►
Like have an iPhone version, have it be like a real multi-platform feature across the entire Apple ecosystem.
00:24:28
◼►
And it's just on the Apple Watch and so few people know about it. It's a shame.
00:24:32
◼►
I just opened my walkie-talkie app on my Apple Watch and I have friends you've invited.
00:24:39
◼►
And there are three people who I invited that did not accept my request to be a walkie-talkie friend.
00:24:46
◼►
One is Federico, one is Steven, and one is OTJ.
00:24:51
◼►
Yeah, you probably did it during one of the podcasts to prove a point and we said no.
00:24:59
◼►
This is like when you open Find My Friends and then Federico can see your location.
00:25:05
◼►
This thing that you guys are doing is bordering on creepy.
00:25:11
◼►
Yes, that you see each other's location. No. Why do you need to see if I'm at the supermarket or I'm at home?
00:25:19
◼►
I don't need to, but I just like to feel connected to you.
00:25:22
◼►
That sounds like a guy who's going out committing crimes at night.
00:25:25
◼►
Exactly. Here's a question. Why don't you want me to know where you are? You know what I mean?
00:25:31
◼►
Well, I don't know because it's a slippery slope. Today it's checking my location.
00:25:37
◼►
Tomorrow it's like, "Hey, Tichi, can I sleep with you in your bed?"
00:25:41
◼►
I mean, that seems like a pretty great progression if you ask me.
00:25:44
◼►
But here's the thing that I feel would define my thing.
00:30:50
◼►
It is weird. Like the ten year anniversary is like strange because we just did the whole thing a couple of weeks ago.
00:30:57
◼►
Which felt like the ten year anniversary in London, but it wasn't. It is actually this weekend.
00:31:03
◼►
So yeah, thank you to everybody who's listened to this podcast for ten years.
00:31:07
◼►
Even if you came in in the middle, we appreciate you and we'll do this for at least another ten years.
00:31:13
◼►
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00:33:43
◼►
I don't know if they're trying to solve a problem or if they're coming up with a solution for a problem that we didn't know existed.
00:33:49
◼►
I don't even know if the problem exists in the first place, but they are coming up with an approach.
00:33:55
◼►
That's the thing. They're coming up with an approach.
00:33:57
◼►
And the idea is to unify web timelines from different services, from different content providers, into a single interface.
00:34:08
◼►
And this is something that's been on my mind for the past week or so, because first of all, I really wanted to finally try these apps.
00:34:15
◼►
I've been putting these off for the past few months, and I thought, well, it's about time that I actually try and set up both reader and Tapestry for myself and see what the deal is.
00:34:26
◼►
And in doing this, it all started because of an actual problem that I have that I want to discuss with you guys.
00:34:37
◼►
And then more broadly, I also want to talk about this concept.
00:34:40
◼►
So the problem that I had was that I realized, not by using screen time, but just by something that I realized myself,
00:34:51
◼►
that I am wasting way too much time in the official apps, and this is important, the official apps for Reddit and YouTube.
00:35:03
◼►
And that's because both apps, obviously, they're using the algorithmic homepage with content suggestions based on your taste, your patterns, your history, whatever.
00:35:16
◼►
They're getting their claws into you, basically.
00:35:19
◼►
Yeah, and they are very effective, to the point where it's kind of scary.
00:35:25
◼►
This is true for both YouTube and Reddit. Both are services that I use a lot, and I get a lot of value out of both Reddit and YouTube.
00:35:33
◼►
That's the thing. I don't feel bad about using Reddit and YouTube.
00:35:37
◼►
I have made some incredible connections on Reddit. I've discovered and learned a lot of things on Reddit, and I also spend a lot of time watching YouTube.
00:35:46
◼►
It's basically replaced regular television for me.
00:35:50
◼►
I pay for YouTube Premium. I get so much value out of it.
00:35:56
◼►
The problem is that, on balance, I also spend way too much time basically being distracted by the content suggestions on the homepage,
00:36:08
◼►
to the point where, over the past month especially, on multiple occasions, I've realized, after wasting an hour before going to bed,
00:36:16
◼►
instead of playing a video game, just mindlessly scrolling Reddit or YouTube and watching for two minutes and then moving on to the next thing,
00:36:25
◼►
so many times it has happened where I was like, "You know, I don't feel good about myself doing this."
00:36:32
◼►
And so I started thinking, "Is there a way for me to just go back to a feed of just my subscriptions?"
00:36:41
◼►
And maybe every once in a while, obviously I'm still going to use the official YouTube app for search, for occasionally checking out a new channel or whatever,
00:36:52
◼►
but is there a way where, on a daily basis, my regular usage is, "I just want to see what's new from my subscriptions,"
00:36:58
◼►
basically approaching Reddit and YouTube like I do with RSS?
00:37:04
◼►
Just give me a feed of new content from the people I follow, from the creators I follow.
00:37:11
◼►
And Kate in the chat is mentioning using app limits. That type of approach doesn't work with me.
00:37:19
◼►
Maybe it's a problem of intention. Maybe my will isn't strong enough.
00:37:28
◼►
I don't think app limits will do what you want, though, because it's not a time thing.
00:37:34
◼►
If you set yourself a 30-minute daily limit on YouTube, that's not going to solve the problem.
00:37:43
◼►
If you have a one-hour video from a creator that you like that you want to watch, you then can't watch that video.
00:37:49
◼►
It's not a time thing. It's an attention thing.
00:37:52
◼►
Yeah, it's an attention thing. And so I thought, "Well, maybe that could be a way for me to see if this idea of,
00:38:01
◼►
'Well, we're going to combine multiple timelines into one,' maybe that's a way that this is going to work for me,
00:38:07
◼►
where I can just see new content from my existing subscriptions instead of being recommended an ocean of things,
00:38:17
◼►
and only 20% of them have actual lasting value in my brain."
00:38:25
◼►
So I think Tapestry is very early in development. I think Reader is further along so far.
00:38:34
◼►
So that's what I set up. I set up Reader with Messenon, YouTube, RSS feeds, and Reddit.
00:38:42
◼►
I have a bunch of problems with this type of app, is what I've realized over the past few days.
00:38:49
◼►
Not with Reader specifically. I think my problem is with the idea.
00:38:55
◼►
It did what—well, it mostly did what I set out to accomplish, and that is,
00:39:02
◼►
"Sure, I can just see a bunch of YouTube channels and their videos, and I don't see anything else."
00:39:08
◼►
And it is convenient to be able to replace five icons on your home screen with just one icon.
00:39:16
◼►
The problem is that—and maybe this will get better with both apps by the final release, maybe it's very early.
00:39:24
◼►
I'm just saying that so far my experience has been that I've replaced five apps with one app that is not better at anything for those individual experiences.
00:39:36
◼►
For example, Messenon, yeah, I can scroll my timeline, and Reader keeps my position, and it's got the best iCloud position sync I've ever tried.
00:39:45
◼►
No joke. It's incredible. But I cannot do anything else. I cannot boost. I cannot like. I cannot reply.
00:39:54
◼►
It's just a read-only mode from my timeline, and that's not what I want from Messenon.
00:40:01
◼►
With RSS feeds, sure, I can scroll a list of feeds, but I don't have folders. I don't have all the other options I have in my main RSS Reader.
00:40:10
◼►
With Reddit, it works, but I don't have the sorting options that I get in the Reddit app that I also get in third-party Reddit apps.
00:40:18
◼►
Like, I tried Norwall again. I think—spoiler—I think that's one I'm going to set up again, Norwall version 2, instead of the official Reddit client.
00:40:28
◼►
But, like, my takeaway is that it's a good idea on paper to take timelines from multiple services, but the thing is those services are not just timelines.
00:40:41
◼►
They're also interactions. They're also, like, additional features on top of the post that you read in your homepage.
00:40:48
◼►
And you're taking just the basics of those services and you're combining them in a single view that is not necessarily better than the original service.
00:40:58
◼►
Does this make any sense, what I'm saying? Like, you're taking a bunch of things, but the experience on aggregate, like, it's not better than the original?
00:41:06
◼►
Yeah, I absolutely don't want any applications like this.
00:41:09
◼►
Like, I backed the Tapestry app to support the icon factory just because I appreciate them, but this is not an app type that I'm looking for.
00:41:19
◼►
Because all of these things—so let's just, for example, imagine, like, what are all the things I'd want to put in here?
00:41:26
◼►
It might be Reddit, it might be a couple of RSS feeds, be YouTube subscriptions, Mastodon, and threads.
00:41:34
◼►
They're all so different from each other.
00:41:36
◼►
It doesn't make any sense to me. Like, for me, of putting all of these things together.
00:41:41
◼►
Like, I'm looking at some Mastodon posts and here's a 45-minute YouTube video. Like, am I supposed to watch that now?
00:41:48
◼►
Like, it doesn't—this stuff, it doesn't match with—like, for me, I go to an app because I want to get the content that the app provides.
00:41:58
◼►
Like, I start at the app level and then go into the content that's there, not like, show me any possible medium of content and I will just consume that content.
00:42:11
◼►
I think what you want is third-party applications for the services.
00:42:18
◼►
So, like, I was going to recommend NARWL to you.
00:42:21
◼►
Like, that was—when I was more of a Reddit user, that was the app that I used and I liked it specifically because you could turn off the front page.
00:42:30
◼►
Like, you just—I never saw the front page of Reddit. I only saw the subreddits that I cared about.
00:42:36
◼►
And I would assume, like, what about an app like—what is it, Play?
00:42:42
◼►
Yes, that's exactly what I put on my home screen.
00:42:47
◼►
Yeah, like, so then you can kind of maybe have more customization over YouTube.
00:42:52
◼►
Like, that feels like more of it for me.
00:42:54
◼►
Like, people that want these kinds of apps, great, but, like, I don't—this just doesn't make sense to me.
00:43:00
◼►
I wouldn't even want to see, really, like, I don't want to see my Mastodon posts or my Threads posts in the same app even.
00:43:07
◼►
Because to me, I treat them so differently.
00:43:10
◼►
Like, Threads and Mastodon are very different experiences for me.
00:43:14
◼►
Like, with Threads, it's algorithmic and I kind of want that.
00:43:19
◼►
Like, I find interesting things on Threads.
00:43:23
◼►
And Mastodon is where I'm actually keeping up with people and I want to read everything.
00:43:27
◼►
So, like, even they're different for me.
00:43:30
◼►
I feel like—and maybe, you know, six months from now, we'll do a follow-up and I'll say I was wrong.
00:43:38
◼►
I just needed to wait a little bit more for development on these apps to be further along.
00:43:43
◼►
But right now, it feels to me like—and I'm going to try to find the right words for what I'm about to say.
00:43:52
◼►
It feels like this idea, it all started with, "Oh, hey, Activity Pub is neat and we have interoperability between services."
00:44:03
◼►
And my impression is that starting from that foundation, it got a little out of hand to the point where, like,
00:44:10
◼►
"Well, why don't we also roll in YouTube and why don't we also roll in Reddit?"
00:44:15
◼►
Like, I think maybe going back to the original idea of just, "It's just Activity Pub,"
00:44:21
◼►
instead of, like, "Let's combine wildly different sources into one UI," you know?
00:44:29
◼►
I mean, you're literally combining a timeline-based thing like Mastodon or Activity Pub in general
00:44:34
◼►
with a community forum board-like experience such as Reddit with video playback.
00:44:42
◼►
That's YouTube. And I mean, we haven't even mentioned the fact that Reader also wants to do podcasts.
00:44:47
◼►
Like, it seems to me like, you know, you end up in a sort of situation with, like, the Homer Simpson car,
00:44:54
◼►
like, trying to do everything all at once and you don't necessarily excel at any of those individual things.
00:45:01
◼►
Yeah, it's this weird thing of, like, we're now in this decentralized world, so people want to make apps that are more centralized than ever.
00:45:08
◼►
Just super app. Here's the super app. Stephen, what do you think about these experiences or these things?
00:45:15
◼►
Yeah, I mean, Mike, I think I'm right in line with you. I just sort of struggle with apps that put very different types of content together.
00:45:23
◼►
And even seeing federated posts on Mastodon from Threads users, like, kind of strikes me as a bit weird.
00:45:32
◼►
And, you know, maybe that's just kind of an old way of thinking and, you know, maybe I need more time on it.
00:45:37
◼►
But these really just sort of hit me kind of weird. And it's not for lack of polish or, like, good ideas in these apps.
00:45:47
◼►
My issue is kind of category-wide, not even specific with these two. And I think especially when you're mixing in, it's one thing if it's all just words, right?
00:45:59
◼►
Like, if it's RSS and social media posts, like, all that together. But when you start mixing in videos and audio as well, that's really kind of when you lose me.
00:46:09
◼►
Yeah, it's like, I mean, obviously we make very specific types of podcasts by and large that are long form, right?
00:46:16
◼►
It's just a very strange thing for me to imagine somebody is in an app and they're reading Mastodon posts and then they see an episode of Connected and they're like, "Yeah, I'll play that now."
00:46:26
◼►
It just doesn't make sense to me, like, just because you can access all of this content. I'm not sure, you know, you should, like, what is it?
00:46:35
◼►
Just because you have all this power, like, doesn't mean you should use it, like, that kind of thing.
00:46:39
◼►
But, like, look, maybe I'm the problem here where, like, just because these are options that are available doesn't mean I shouldn't use them, you know what I mean?
00:46:48
◼►
Like, if I don't want to have YouTube videos in an app like this, just don't connect my YouTube account.
00:46:54
◼►
And, like, that is fine. But even different apps are the same type of media. Like, I'm just not sure that I want that.
00:47:04
◼►
I think I agree with you, Steven. Like, I'm not sure that I actually like having Threads posts in Mastodon.
00:47:12
◼►
Like, I'm happy that it's there for the people that want it because, like, why not? But I don't know, they just feel very different.
00:47:19
◼►
Yeah. And I have my Threads account federated, right? Because there are people who want to follow me on Mastodon and I post mostly different things on those two accounts.
00:47:28
◼►
A lot of cross-promotion with Perform a Month, but that only comes once in a lifetime, you know?
00:47:33
◼►
Everybody needs it. And sometimes it's good to get two posts for about unperform a month.
00:47:38
◼►
It's true. You might forget that that's happening.
00:47:42
◼►
Yeah, I feel like there is some benefit to the idea of, I just want to see my subscriptions.
00:47:53
◼►
But at the same time, the value that I lose, and I know it maybe sounds ridiculous, but the YouTube channels that I follow, on more than one occasion, for example, the comments can be useful.
00:48:09
◼►
Like, you know, maybe I'm checking out a walkthrough for how to install Linux on an ROG Ally, which is something that I did.
00:48:17
◼►
I was going to say, that's a very specific example.
00:48:20
◼►
Maybe someone might want to do this. I don't know, you know?
00:48:25
◼►
And occasionally, maybe I'm running into some kind of issue and there's a comment in the video that says, "I had this issue, by the way, and I did this."
00:48:33
◼►
And so you lose all of that experience if you just consume that service in a read-only mode.
00:48:43
◼►
And I'm not sure, I feel like... And Reader and Tapestry, by the way, I'm calling out because they're currently in TestFlight.
00:48:52
◼►
There was a crowdfunding campaign. They're from two high-profile developers.
00:48:56
◼►
But they're not the only apps doing this. I've seen some other examples.
00:49:00
◼►
There's another app called Feed with, like, five Es that Nilayan previously reviewed on Mac Stories.
00:49:07
◼►
It looks beautiful and it's sort of trying to do the same thing, like, "Oh, you can subscribe to your RSS, YouTube channels."
00:49:16
◼►
There's a bunch of sources. YouTube, Reddit. And, like, I get the idea, but this sort of aggregation...
00:49:25
◼►
I don't know. Historically, it's never worked well for me and I thought this time it could be different.
00:49:32
◼►
And so far it hasn't been different, where at the end of the day I'm still seeking the original source for the original experience.
00:49:41
◼►
And the intercommunication is fine and it's fun, but I feel like I'm losing too much value for that to be a permanent replacement for the five different icons on my home screen.
00:49:52
◼►
Do you know if, like, the old Reader is going to continue?
00:49:58
◼►
It seems like it will, because it sounds like there's a new teaser homepage that says, like, "This will be a brand new experience."
00:50:08
◼►
I think the old Reader will be discontinued, obviously, but it'll stick around.
00:50:13
◼►
I do want to say, design-wise, it's incredibly polished.
00:50:20
◼►
And I am sending a lot of feedback to Silvio. I sent him, like, a giant email last night.
00:50:26
◼►
Because I do think there's a place, like, "Well, what if my Mastodon timeline in Reader was interactive?
00:50:34
◼►
Like, what if I could boost and compose and..." Like, at that point, though, is it a timeline or is it a mini Mastodon client inside of Reader, right?
00:50:42
◼►
So I do think there's a place for, like, actual mini clients within a single app, but that's something that is very different from just saying, "Read multiple timelines into one."
00:50:54
◼►
You're actually building several functional read and write clients into the same UI, and I don't know if that's what Silvio wants to build,
00:51:05
◼►
or I don't know if that's what the icon factory wants to build.
00:51:08
◼►
Maybe I'm just being an old fuddy-duddy, but I like my RSS the way I like my RSS.
00:51:13
◼►
I don't really want to get that all intermingled of everything else, you know?
00:51:18
◼►
But it's an interesting topic, and I think it's something that we will continue to see because of ActivityPub,
00:51:25
◼►
because of this idea of, like, "Well, let's just make everything decentralized."
00:51:29
◼►
And it's funny because after making everything decentralized, you're feeling, like, the pull from the other direction of, like, "Well, but what if we could centralize it again?"
00:51:44
◼►
I recall maybe it was an old Ben Thompson article months ago saying that it's in human nature to like centralized services
00:51:52
◼►
because they're comfortable and easy to use, and they have all the benefits of lock-in.
00:51:57
◼►
I think it's funny that it's happening now, but maybe there's a world in which multiple decentralized services can retain all of the benefits
00:52:07
◼►
and all of the features, even in a centralized UI.
00:52:53
◼►
Most security tools only work on those happy brick paths, but lots of security problems take place on the shortcuts.
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That's where 1Password Extended Access Management comes in.
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1Password Extended Access Management solves the problem that traditional IAM and MDM tools can't touch.
00:53:29
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It's security for the way we work today.
00:53:32
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1Password Extended Access Management is available now to companies with Okta, and it's coming later this year to Google Workspace and Microsoft Intra.
00:53:42
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Check it out at 1Password.com/XAM. That's 1Password.com/XAM.
00:53:50
◼►
Our thanks to 1Password Extended Access Management for the support of the show.
00:53:58
◼►
This week was Google's Pixel event. We saw the Pixel 9, 9 Pro, 9 Pro Fold, whose name is very difficult to say.
00:54:10
◼►
9 Pro XL, yes, the bigger--this is a pretty big phone.
00:54:15
◼►
These, of course, like all Google Pixels, massively leaked beforehand. We knew a lot about them.
00:54:21
◼►
We got some links in the show notes to some videos and some posts, the Verge, M-Cube HD, etc.
00:54:27
◼►
I think let's start with the hardware and then we can get into the what is a photo situation because that's increasingly, increasingly messy.
00:54:39
◼►
Mike, I'm really curious what you think about these. Something about these designs and colors kind of scream Mike Hurley to me.
00:54:45
◼►
It's all pink and green, baby. Let's go.
00:54:48
◼►
The colors of the 9, amazing. Like, they're so good. And yes, I would very much like them.
00:54:59
◼►
The colors of the phone that I'm most interested in, which is the Pro Fold, it's just white and black and that's not so exciting.
00:55:07
◼►
I think in general, all of the phones look really good. I think Google has their very polarizing, I think, very bold camera bar for the Pixel line.
00:55:22
◼►
But it's kind of like at least they're trying something, you know? You can either like it or not, but they're trying to make it into a design element.
00:55:32
◼►
Because it is always ugly, no matter what anybody does. Right there. The camera area on a phone is always tough.
00:55:40
◼►
I mean, take a good hard look at the back of your iPhone. Like, no one, no one wants that, you know? But it is it is what we're stuck with.
00:55:48
◼►
I do like the sort of more rounded look on the visor this time. I think it's fun. It kind of looks like it's looking at you, which is which is nice.
00:55:58
◼►
And at least with the Pixel 9 and the 9 Pro compared to other phones, like it is at least the whole way across.
00:56:07
◼►
So your phone on the table is not going to bounce around if you care about such things.
00:56:15
◼►
Yeah. And if you have a case, I mean, for most people, I don't think that's as big of a deal, but you live the caseless life.
00:56:26
◼►
Do I just not have cases? That's all it is.
00:56:28
◼►
Let's talk about the Fold in particular. So it's six point three inches outside, which is kind of in between the two pro sized phones and then eight inches inside.
00:57:10
◼►
I think Samsung has done a good job over time, and I think they've refined the design of the Z Fold a lot, but they're still, I think, pushing up towards the this is like a phone on the front, like a regular phone on the front.
00:57:28
◼►
The OnePlus open, which I know is a phone that Federico has lasted over for a while, I think it is also similar.
00:57:42
◼►
That that is similar in like it on the outside is more more phone shaped.
00:57:49
◼►
The previous Pixel Fold was what was called like passport size where it was like, yeah, it was more squat squat like, yeah, shorter, you know, like, yeah, kind of funny looking, but actually very comfortable, it seems.
00:58:03
◼►
But all of the people that have had hands on with it are saying that like the front just feels like a regular phone. It's super thin when it's opened. It looks kind of like iPad Pro thin when it's open.
00:58:14
◼►
So when you close the thing, it's it's thicker than a normal phone, but not by an incredible amount.
00:58:22
◼►
So this looks like on the face of it from a hardware perspective, this looks to be about as good as you could make this product right now from like a usability perspective.
00:58:34
◼►
That's how it looks from videos and from what other people are saying. Do you feel the same with that Federico? I know that you have a similar intrigue to me with these types of devices.
00:58:47
◼►
I this device for me is the dream. And I was so close to pre-ordering one yesterday.
00:58:58
◼►
The only thing that stopped me is. Basically, how it went with the OnePlus open device that I absolutely loved.
00:59:06
◼►
And I think and eventually maybe we should I should I have all of these in my notes.
00:59:12
◼►
I think the OnePlus open was doing multitasking ahead, some multitasking ideas, much more interesting than the iPad.
00:59:19
◼►
Not that it's a high bar, but like some actual novel multitasking ideas for that form factor.
00:59:26
◼►
But the only thing that stopped me from pre-ordering one was that the problem is what I do for a living and the fact that I don't like the Android app ecosystem.
00:59:39
◼►
It's not even Android the problem. Like I could use Android just fine.
00:59:44
◼►
And you know, as we'll see, maybe I'll even use I would even use AI more on Android.
00:59:50
◼►
But my problem is that it's just it's not as fun as iOS for the types of apps that I like to use, like indie apps.
00:59:58
◼►
I was almost going to say boutique apps, but that's sort of how it feels in iOS sometimes. Right. All these, you know, very designed opinionated apps from indie developers.
01:00:09
◼►
That's what I like. And that also happens to be what I do for a living.
01:00:13
◼►
And so given that up would be would be an issue for me.
01:00:18
◼►
Like I wouldn't know and I wouldn't know what to do with that device.
01:00:22
◼►
Could I get it like as a second device to just use for watching videos and reading books?
01:00:28
◼►
Yeah. But I mean, it's it's an expensive device.
01:01:47
◼►
Like I like the idea of having a tablet at all times.
01:01:51
◼►
But do I want it at the expense of a thicker heavier phone again?
01:01:56
◼►
I don't know. Like that's that's that's an interesting question to ask.
01:02:01
◼►
Because similar to you Federica I've tried all the form factors of these devices.
01:02:06
◼►
But I always end up moving away from them because it isn't the operating system experience that I like.
01:02:13
◼►
But is that also saying that maybe I don't find the experience overall compelling enough?
01:02:19
◼►
I actually don't know the answer to that. Truly.
01:02:22
◼►
But this device being like Google version of Android would be the nicest version of Android.
01:02:29
◼►
They seem to have done some work and they've refactored the form factor of the device to make it so that you're going to get more like full screen applications and less like black bars on the apps that they were having before like letterbox and pillar boxing.
01:02:42
◼►
Yeah it looks really nice but it's I had a similar thing to you where I was like you know well let me go take a look.
01:02:48
◼►
And there were two things that happened. One £1,800. I was like well I don't want that.
01:02:52
◼►
And it's like shipping on September 4th. Like well no I definitely don't want that.
01:02:56
◼►
So I just didn't do anything. But I'm intrigued for the reviews.
01:03:07
◼►
I think my Pixel is a 5a but I've sort of given up on like.
01:03:12
◼►
I used to keep an Android phone around and like use it every once in a while and I just realized I wasn't ever doing that so.
01:03:19
◼►
Yeah. I also just think everybody that says that like let's just be real like you just want to have an Android phone because you think that device looks fun.
01:03:25
◼►
We don't have to all say the same thing of like oh my testing phone. We don't test anything on these phones.
01:03:32
◼►
We just think the phones look cool so we buy the phones.
01:03:34
◼►
And for a while I mean and for a while like mine was in this in the era of where they could do cool night photography. The iPhone wasn't right.
01:03:43
◼►
Yeah. They feel more similar now I guess.
01:03:46
◼►
Sound about photography that's one of the downsides of the fold is it has worse cameras.
01:03:51
◼►
Yeah. Which Samsung also does right on their foldables.
01:03:55
◼►
I think that's changed as of this year.
01:04:27
◼►
It takes so long like in the demo it takes so long to generate the report. It's like I already know what the weather is now. I've seen it all.
01:04:37
◼►
Yeah. Go look outside. The screenshots app I think is really interesting. So this is a separate app from the photos application.
01:04:48
◼►
It gathers all your screenshots. It does a bunch of text searching and you can go through them and find things.
01:04:56
◼►
If this works I think it's actually really interesting and potentially more interesting than just like a filter in Apple's photos app to get to your screenshots.
01:05:07
◼►
And I think the idea here is like eventually I could just like take a picture of an important thing and ask my assistant about hey what time is that meeting that I took a picture of the flyer for.
01:05:17
◼►
You know that is kind of the future I think a lot of people want. I don't know if the screenshots app on the Pixel 9 is going to get there or not.
01:05:26
◼►
But I think we're moving in that direction and to me at least that's pretty exciting.
01:05:31
◼►
This is the thing that I think I saw. I was like oh I actually want this on my phone.
01:05:36
◼►
I would be shocked if Apple doesn't come up with a similar screenshots app. I think this is exactly what they could do.
01:05:43
◼►
Say that it's processed on device that you take the screenshots. It's not like the OS continuously scanning what's on your screen.
01:05:52
◼►
It could be a nice way to sort of release some of the pressure for like text search and data detectors and all that sort of stuff from photos.
01:06:02
◼►
Especially now that they're sort of rethinking photos more around discovery and like people, trips, pets.
01:06:09
◼►
I think this is exactly the sort of thing that Apple should do and I would be very surprised if they don't show up something like this within the next year.
01:06:18
◼►
Why is this a separate application called screenshots?
01:06:22
◼►
Well because that's what people do every day. Like people take a lot of screenshots every day.
01:06:27
◼►
But you see Steven described a scenario that I also heard David Pierce describe on the Vergecast which this app would not do.
01:06:33
◼►
Which is I took a picture of something.
01:06:35
◼►
Yeah I realized that as I was saying it's not the perfect example.
01:06:38
◼►
David Pierce said the same thing. He was talking about he goes past the library and they have like their dates up for when they do a book sale.
01:06:46
◼►
He's very smart and handsome. And like I just don't, I don't, this should also be able to search stuff inside of photos I've taken of things is the way that I look at this.
01:06:57
◼►
Like not just screenshots. Right? Like I would like an app that searches all of that. Right?
01:07:06
◼►
Because like if I took a picture of a poster I would want that too. As well as I took a screenshot of a website thing.
01:07:16
◼►
I mean and look realistically I don't want any of these things. I want recall. That's what I want.
01:07:24
◼►
That's what I want. But now everyone's, I think that this app may have been different and then this app changed.
01:07:30
◼►
Because it is, they're clearly dipping their toe in to the water of this. Right?
01:07:37
◼►
But they're like oh no it's just a screenshot so you choose.
01:07:40
◼►
Like this is the first step towards in like three years time when the gemini can just tell you everything you've ever seen.
01:07:49
◼►
You think it was more like Windows until a month ago and then they were like nope nope nope nope.
01:07:53
◼►
I think that that's possible. I do think that's possible. Because it is, this is an interesting thing but it's still not solving the actual problem that people have.
01:08:05
◼►
Like if you've made this application, you have addressed the idea, you have thought about and are addressing the idea of people are interested in things and they know they've seen them and they want that information later.
01:08:21
◼►
Because for me to use the screenshots app effectively, I have to know I want to take a screenshot of the thing that I might want to remember later.
01:08:29
◼►
But that isn't how my brain works. That I will proactively know what I want to remember before I realise I need to remember it.
01:08:38
◼►
Well that's why the dream, yeah, I mean the dream for me is, I know this is going to sound totally dystopian and yes I know there's an episode of Black Mirror about this.
01:08:51
◼►
But the dream is like I'm just wearing the Apple glasses and I have a constant memory buffer.
01:08:58
◼►
Without having to explicitly say, oh, like, imagine the scenario like I'm at the supermarket and I don't recall if I have, I don't know, carrots or not in my fridge.
01:09:09
◼►
Or like, imagine if I could just say Siri did I have carrots in my fridge and I know privacy, storage, blah blah blah.
01:09:17
◼►
But the idea is total recall without having to take a screenshot, without having to take a picture. That's in a very distant timeline the ideal.
01:09:29
◼►
This is absolutely going to happen but just everyone that's trying to do it so far is maybe doing it a little too early or they need to be the sacrificial lambs for somebody else to come and do it.
01:09:41
◼►
Just fundamentally think about the fact that you can search every iMessage conversation you've ever had with someone.
01:09:49
◼►
That isn't necessarily what you assume when you're having those conversations.
01:09:55
◼►
That everything you're saying now you can get in ten years time. You can just search the text of that.
01:10:02
◼►
That might be a bad example because iMessage search doesn't work very well but it's true.
01:10:08
◼►
So I have a story of this. Just yesterday Carrie sent me a message in Slack. I was like, "Hey, do you have my resume and cover letter I sent y'all when y'all were hiring?"
01:10:22
◼►
And she was like putting something together.
01:51:07
◼►
Jon's been writing a lot about this over at Daring Fireball, and he had a piece on Tuesday arguing that creator platforms to be a special category in the App Store,
01:51:20
◼►
which I think is a fascinating idea, right? They carved out reader apps, you know, Netflix, whatever, etc., years ago.
01:51:29
◼►
And he brings up Substack, which is like is a problematic example in many ways. I'm not going to touch any of those things.
01:51:36
◼►
The way Substack does it is they basically have an in-app purchase for like each distinct plan within the app, which is bonkers.
01:51:46
◼►
It is wild that someone has to go to that lengths to be compatible with Apple's rules that are really written for games and applications.
01:51:57
◼►
Do you remember Twitter did this for a while when they were doing this too?
01:52:04
◼►
No, it was you could sign up to give creators money, but they had to limit the amount of creators they could bring onto the platform because they had to sept to create a new in-app purchase tier for every single one.
01:52:15
◼►
Yeah. And well, thankfully, you know, Twitter's really well staffed. They could handle that. But Patreon is a small company. So what are you going to do?
01:52:22
◼►
It's just it's so disheartening. Like, I mean, this has been going on for a few days now, like every article I read about it.
01:52:28
◼►
I just I'm sad because I don't know. I don't want to live in a world where, like Apple is making these sorts of decisions.
01:52:38
◼►
And I think that the App Store model for all of its problems, the the lack of flexibility when it comes to things like this is is towards the top of my list.
01:52:51
◼►
Like, yeah, why? Why are you taking 30 percent from this? Like, shouldn't there be a carve out for apps like this?
01:52:58
◼►
And yes, Patreon's probably the biggest, but there are lots of apps that are creator focused and they all have to deal with this in one way or another.
01:53:08
◼►
And you're just hurting people who like want to make things for their fans. And that's that's not a position Apple should be in.
01:53:15
◼►
Yeah. Well, maybe by the next episode, there's going to be an apology and, you know, a reversal of this decision. But I don't know.
01:53:26
◼►
This one just seems like an easy one not to do. But yeah, like but but the fact that it got this far.
01:53:34
◼►
Makes me feel like they just don't care and they will just ride it through like they don't care.
01:53:40
◼►
I think it's a real possibility this doesn't change. I thought the first couple of days, like Apple's going to roll this back like this isn't this isn't going to happen.
01:53:49
◼►
But it's been some product manager just have too many meetings that they shouldn't have had and like it didn't pass through somebody else.
01:53:56
◼►
And then Patreon posted this thing and they're like, oh, my God, what are you doing?
01:53:59
◼►
Yeah, you hope it's going to happen. But Phil Schiller knows about this now and it had changed.
01:54:04
◼►
And I don't know if it's actually his decision, but it feels like maybe it's his decision. And that's unfortunate.
01:54:12
◼►
On that note, let's I think we're done.
01:54:16
◼►
So if you want to find links to the stuff we spoke about this week, they are in your podcast player.
01:54:23
◼►
They're also on the Web at Relay.FM/Connected/514.
01:54:28
◼►
There you can submit feedback or follow up and you can make that anonymous if you like or not anonymous.
01:54:35
◼►
You get tell us your name or whatever. You have lots of options with us.
01:54:39
◼►
That's what I'm saying. You can also become a member and support connected directly. Members get longer ad free versions of the show each and every week.
01:54:48
◼►
And they also get access to a bunch of cool relay perks, including the Discord, members podcast, a newsletter, some wallpapers and our undying love.
01:54:58
◼►
If you want to find more of us, we're online. You can find Mike on Threads and Macedon is I Mike.
01:55:05
◼►
That's I M Y K E. Mike does a bunch of great work over at Cortex Brand and host a bunch of shows here across the network.
01:55:12
◼►
And Mike and I will be doing our Q&A. So if you're in the relay discord, submit a question and it'll go go in our spreadsheet.
01:55:20
◼►
And we're going to pick some of those and talk about next week. You can find Federico's writing at Max stories dot net.
01:55:26
◼►
The growing team over there doing great work. And you can find him as Vitichi V I T I C C I across social media.
01:55:35
◼►
I am the purveyor of perform a month. So go read about that at perform a dot blog.
01:55:41
◼►
And yeah, yeah. Don't do HTTPS though. Don't do that.
01:55:45
◼►
Well, it will work. And you can find me as ice M H 86 on Macedon and threads slash Instagram, whatever.
01:55:56
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I think our sponsors this week for making the show possible. A big thanks to E cam,
01:56:00
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Squarespace one password extended access management and Zoho. And until next time, guys, say goodbye.