0:00:00Okay, mean recording going.
0:00:03Let me put on some office mood lighting for Cortex.
0:00:05- I didn't know you did that.
0:00:06- Yeah, gotta put on some mood lighting for Cortex.
0:00:10How do you Cortex?
0:00:11Not with full bright office lights, shortly.
0:00:13- Yep, big overheads.
0:00:15Hate them, but you know, no choice really.
0:00:17- That's terrible.
0:00:18You wanna have something a bit more chill for Cortex.
0:00:21Okay, so I'm recording.
0:00:23Where, okay, my notes.
0:00:24So I have them.
0:00:26I put away the script for the nightmare
0:00:28of that has been my life for the last nine months and open up cortex show notes instead.
0:00:32Put that away, you don't want that right now.
0:00:34Let's not think about that.
0:00:35Do you know why, Gray?
0:00:36Why?
0:00:37Because it's time for State of the Apps.
0:00:39It is time for State of the Apps.
0:00:40State of the Apps 2023.
0:00:43Oh no, that's the first time I've thought about 2023.
0:00:50I know.
0:00:55So in our state of the apps episode every year, we take stock of the apps and services that we use
0:01:00on our devices for work, entertainment, just in general. We take a look at the things that we get
0:01:06value out of, the things that we're enjoying, sometimes maybe the things that we're not,
0:01:10but we can't get away from them, and we share them with you, the cortex ones. So this is like
0:01:14the one place you know you can go every year to understand what the tools that we're using to get
0:01:19our work done. And of course we use this as a new opportunity, the annual opportunity now to share
0:01:24are our home screens, which I actually think for me,
0:01:28I have a lot of home screens to share with you, Gray, today.
0:01:31- Oh, how many home screens do you think you have to share?
0:01:33- Well, I actually have more lock screens than home screens.
0:01:36So I have three home screens as I tend to have.
0:01:39I also have, I think, three separate lock screens
0:01:43that I wanna show you as well.
0:01:45'Cause that's one of the big changes, right?
0:01:47We have lock screen widgets now,
0:01:48which is the thing that we didn't have last time
0:01:51that we did stay at the apps.
0:01:52Yeah, iOS 16 has brought a ton of visual changes
0:01:56to home screens and lock screens.
0:01:59I think I'm mostly loving it.
0:02:01It's really nice to be able to do
0:02:02all of these customizations, but yes,
0:02:04I also had the same thing of like,
0:02:05oh wait, how many screenshots do I need to take today
0:02:09before the show?
0:02:10Ooh, a lot more than I have in the past.
0:02:12I've got my selection ready.
0:02:14I think I've got the same thing.
0:02:15I've got like three, three and a half
0:02:18like different ones to show.
0:02:20(laughing)
0:02:22- How do you have half?
0:02:24How do we say half?
0:02:25Maybe I'll see when we get there, you know what I mean?
0:02:29Maybe we'll see.
0:02:29- Yeah.
0:02:30- Should we start with home screens?
0:02:31- Yeah, I guess, yeah.
0:02:32We should start with home screens and focus modes
0:02:35and what's going on there, 'cause I feel like
0:02:37that's sort of the broadest way of how are we using
0:02:42our phones now after a big change to this entire system
0:02:47on Apple's side.
0:02:48I would say the focus mode stuff I'm really pleased about.
0:02:51I really love what they did with focus modes this year.
0:02:55Just making them so easy to set up now
0:02:58because this is my main issue last time.
0:03:01You should set up a focus mode
0:03:02and you had to manually include every app and or person
0:03:07that could break through the focus mode.
0:03:10And for me, that's good for some stuff
0:03:12but not good for everything.
0:03:14Like I didn't wanna create say like a recording focus mode
0:03:17because I would set it up, say, one time,
0:03:20but then over time as the apps that I use change,
0:03:23I would need to remember to manually include
0:03:25the ones that I wanted to break through.
0:03:28So now what I love is that with iOS 16,
0:03:31you get to choose Opt-In and Opt-Out,
0:03:33so you can say everyone and everything can contact me
0:03:37except these things.
0:03:38And so like having that optionality has been great for me
0:03:42in setting up a couple of different focus modes.
0:03:44I use some where it's Opt-In and some where it's Opt-Out.
0:03:47It's actually made me use focus modes a lot.
0:03:49I'm using them a lot now,
0:03:51which is not a thing I was doing before.
0:03:53- Yeah, I feel like you really lucked out
0:03:54as like Apple addressed almost every single one
0:03:57of your issues directly, whatever the last time is
0:03:59that we discussed this.
0:04:00And also like with this whole focus mode system,
0:04:03I was just thinking about how this is what happens
0:04:05when like you introduce a new feature,
0:04:08but like Apple often takes a while to introduce a feature.
0:04:11And when they come out with it,
0:04:12like, oh, it's actually pretty good.
0:04:14And then we all fear, like, will they not touch it now for five years because they think it's good enough?
0:04:19And with this system, it's really nice to see that they've actually repeatedly touched the way that it works
0:04:26and made improvements every year.
0:04:28And cumulatively, that stuff really, like, it really adds up into smoothing out even just the smaller things.
0:04:35Like your complaints about having everything be opt-in or opt-out.
0:04:38Just changing that little thing can really encourage users to pick up a system, so.
0:04:43I'm very encouraged and very happy to see that it's been continually improved every year
0:04:48and it's like this year suddenly a bunch of stuff has really come together
0:04:52and made it very very useful to people. So what are your focus modes Myke?
0:04:56So my main focus modes that I have now I have travel, recording, and I also have weekend and
0:05:05sleep. So I'll start with the weekend and sleep ones because at the moment all I'm doing with
0:05:12with those is just to basically just remove Slack
0:05:16and Discord from there and I just have another widget
0:05:19in place instead.
0:05:20It just removes a couple of apps.
0:05:22It's not really that exciting.
0:05:23And it also locks me to just the one home screen.
0:05:26And I have these really set up as a notifications
0:05:31focused stuff rather than home screen
0:05:34and lock screen stuff at the moment.
0:05:36So the key thing for me is email, Slack, Discord,
0:05:41all of those notifications get suppressed.
0:05:43So it's more about just de-emphasizing those applications.
0:05:46I don't remove my ability to access them,
0:05:50but I don't have them on my home screen anymore.
0:05:52And any notifications that I get,
0:05:54they get collected up into the like,
0:05:56while in weekend focus thing.
0:05:58So if I pull my notifications down,
0:06:01I don't even see those immediately.
0:06:02I have to like actively go in to look at them.
0:06:05And it's more just about reminding me
0:06:08that when I've got weekend running,
0:06:10which is obviously every weekend,
0:06:11and when I've got sleep running, which sets in every night,
0:06:14that I should be using those apps and services less.
0:06:18So that's pretty simple for me, like as a thing.
0:06:22And I think I do want to set up some specific lock screens
0:06:25and home screens for these that are more focused,
0:06:28but I just haven't done that yet.
0:06:29It's really like the main thing for me there
0:06:32is just removing some work apps from my lock screen
0:06:34and de-emphasizing the notifications.
0:06:37And I also am sleep tracking now.
0:06:39So it's something I started doing in the past month or so.
0:06:42And so I've wanted to set up the sleep focus
0:06:44to kind of get my devices in shape for that as well.
0:06:47So I'm using the Apple Watch to do the sleep tracking.
0:06:49- Right, so you're giving the weekend come on automatically
0:06:52and the sleep come on automatically?
0:06:53- Yeah, I don't use the like,
0:06:56they have that like sleep alarm thing.
0:06:59I don't use that because I wanna be able
0:07:01to manually set my alarms.
0:07:02And so they still make sound on my phone and my watch.
0:07:06So if you set the alarms manually, it will still do that.
0:07:08If you use Apple's bedtime alarm thing,
0:07:10it will only buzz the watch,
0:07:11which is not enough for me to wake up, I need both.
0:07:14But I do really like having the both,
0:07:16like I think I'm being woken up more easily
0:07:19because the watch is an additional thing to help wake me up.
0:07:23I've been enjoying that,
0:07:24and I still wanna go a little bit further, I think,
0:07:26into setting up some specific stuff.
0:07:28Like I saw, as of the time of this recording,
0:07:3116.2 is in beta,
0:07:34and the new medications feature of health,
0:07:37I really like, so I just put my medications in there.
0:07:40And they are making a lock screen medications widget
0:07:44to note the things that you have got left to take.
0:07:48So I think that that might be really nice
0:07:50for a sleep-focused lock screen,
0:07:53because it will be there and will be as a good reminder
0:07:56of you need to take your pills before you go to bed.
0:07:58It's like a secondary thing, so I might set that one up
0:08:01when that feature becomes available.
0:08:03- Yeah, I might give that a try too,
0:08:04because I actually just, I just use the medications one
0:08:07for reminding me to take my vitamins.
0:08:09I thought like, oh, let me just put this
0:08:11in this little system here,
0:08:12because for some reason, like,
0:08:13take my vitamins is the to-do list item
0:08:17that I will like blow off the most.
0:08:19I don't like, it's just so funny.
0:08:20My brain's like, yeah, sure, we'll do that.
0:08:22We'll just like check this off now
0:08:23and we'll get it in a second.
0:08:25And then we never do.
0:08:26So I thought like, oh, maybe if I try to put it
0:08:27in a completely different system,
0:08:29this will like help me.
0:08:31And it mostly does,
0:08:32but I still feel like the medications one,
0:08:35like I was thinking about someone
0:08:36who might actually have difficulty remembering to take medications as opposed to me who's
0:08:41just being like lazy and weird about it. I do feel like it it needs to get turned up
0:08:47one notch in terms of aggressiveness and remindingness and maybe the lock screen one is something
0:08:53interesting to try there and just in terms of prominence. Yes before you go to bed like
0:08:58here's a here's a visual nudge like you did not log taking your vitamins today and you
0:09:05should do that. So that's interesting. I'll definitely give that a try when it comes around.
0:09:08- The medications feature in its current iteration works best for people that stay on top of their
0:09:14notifications like I do. So it works well for me because Adina hasn't enjoyed it very much because
0:09:19she doesn't manage her notifications like a wild person like I do. Like people don't manage their
0:09:25notifications the way that I do. Like I look at them all, I remove the ones that I don't want,
0:09:29I leave the ones that I want to deal with. That is not how most people deal with their notifications.
0:09:34So the medicine can get lost in there.
0:09:36I think they should be pinning it.
0:09:37I think it should be pinned to the top of the lock screen
0:09:39until you do something to it.
0:09:41- Yep, I completely agree.
0:09:42That's why I wanted to give it a test.
0:09:43It's like, ooh, how does this separate system work?
0:09:45And it does feel like this should not get lost
0:09:49in the list along with everything else.
0:09:51There should be some kind of higher priority status
0:09:55for this one in particular.
0:09:56But hopefully that is also a feature
0:09:58that Apple continues to return to
0:10:00and make small improvements on.
0:10:01It can make a big difference.
0:10:02- They do that all the time now.
0:10:04Yeah. All right. So the focuses that I've done the most with are travel and recording.
0:10:10So I've got some screenshots for you here in the show notes. So my travel lock screen,
0:10:15I had previously had a travel home screen set up that we've mentioned before that it basically
0:10:21gives me a bunch more widgets, right? Like I use like a flighty widget and a fantastic L widget
0:10:25and a tripsy widget, uh, as well as just like bringing the airline that I'm using. I put their
0:10:31app on the home screen and the wallet app stuff like that right so that's like my travel home
0:10:36screen. I'll take a screenshot of that and put it in the show notes just for reference too because
0:10:40I actually think that's a pretty good one but I thought I would build a travel lock screen to go
0:10:46alongside it and so what we've got is I'm using one of Apple's pre-built lock screen options that
0:10:54they have now so they use this they have this called earth detail yes yes there's a couple of
0:11:00different options you can choose, but it's basically like an animated globe as such,
0:11:05right? Like I think it's using like the Apple Maps globe kind of thing, and you can choose to like
0:11:09have a zoom level on it. And what it's showing you at all times is where you are in the world.
0:11:14And I thought that that was pretty cool. There's like a travel lock screen because
0:11:18I would be somewhere else and my little dock would be in another place. So I thought that
0:11:24looked pretty cool. And then I've got some specific lock screen widgets to go alongside it.
0:11:29So we've got the flighty widget, like the flighty lock screen widget, carrot weather,
0:11:34and a widget Smith based step counter along with fantastic out across the top.
0:11:40And I thought that they were just like good at a glance things for my travel.
0:11:45Lock screen.
0:11:46Wait, so I'm very intrigued.
0:11:47What's the 44 days until which one, which widget is that?
0:11:50That is flighty.
0:11:52Oh, this is like a funny thing where I took these screenshots like a month ago.
0:11:57We were going to talk about this in our previous episode, but we went
0:12:01around way too long, so I just have reused the screenshots.
0:12:04I didn't realize that Flighty will do the call down thing because of course, Myke,
0:12:09I'm with you, this is obviously the best lock screen to use for any kind of travel
0:12:13mode, so I've done the exact same thing and I put Flighty on the top as well.
0:12:17It's like, yes, obviously that's the one you should pick.
0:12:20Like I think that they basically made this one to be for a travel focus
0:12:25mode. Like, it's gotta be, right? That's what someone put it there for.
0:12:28It's perfect.
0:12:29I have Flighty on it as well, but I just didn't know that there was a countdown because I
0:12:34just booked my flights to America like two days ago and I haven't actually put them into
0:12:38Flighty yet, so I didn't realize that it does like a cool countdown days until flight thing.
0:12:42So that's really nice, I didn't know that. Can I ask what's the thing that you blurred
0:12:45out on the very top? That's the Fantastic Hal one that's blurred out of like what the
0:12:49next event is?
0:12:50Yeah, that's the next event. Whatever it was, I didn't want everyone to know what it was.
0:12:55Right, but it's too long ago now, you can't remember.
0:12:58I can send you mine so you can see that we've basically done the exact same thing for the
0:13:03travel screens because I think it's just obviously the most sensible one to do.
0:13:07Oh yeah, look at that.
0:13:08Alright, so you've got, oh that's a good idea, you've got your AirPods Max battery
0:13:14on there.
0:13:15Yeah.
0:13:16Mmm, I might steal that.
0:13:17Because that's when I care about the battery for those things the most, is when I'm travelling.
0:13:22Yeah, for me, the lock screen widget that is the battery
0:13:27where it automatically picks which thing to show you,
0:13:30to me is like clearly the best lock screen widget
0:13:33and should be by default in like every single one of them.
0:13:36I think it's like the most sensible place
0:13:38to show battery status for something
0:13:41that you probably care about.
0:13:42I don't know quite what their algorithm is
0:13:44for rotating between things.
0:13:46It doesn't seem like perfect, but it's good enough.
0:13:49And I love it for keeping an eye on like,
0:13:52"Oh, my headphones in my office are unplugged
0:13:55and I can see now that, like, they run low
0:13:57'cause, like, that's the one that starts showing up."
0:14:00So, yeah, and I feel like especially when you're traveling,
0:14:03I need to keep track of how charged everything is,
0:14:06is, like, super high priority and feels like it just has
0:14:08to be on a lock screen for travel.
0:14:10-You know you can choose, though, right?
0:14:12-Okay, so, we can get to that in a second.
0:14:14Yes, I know that you can force an item,
0:14:17but I think leaving it on auto is mostly the sensible decision.
0:14:21Okay, I'm gonna try on auto
0:14:23'cause my AirPods Max are not here
0:14:24and they're not paired to my phone right now it seems.
0:14:26So let me make the change,
0:14:28but I'm gonna use that.
0:14:31I did have a little complaint
0:14:32that I wanted to levy for focus modes,
0:14:35which is the switching between focus modes.
0:14:38So let's imagine I am traveling on the weekend.
0:14:43So I have my weekend focus mode automatically enabled
0:14:47and I want to manually switch to my travel focus mode,
0:14:52right, because I'm in transit.
0:14:54But then when I arrive at my destination,
0:14:56I would like to turn off that focus mode,
0:14:59but I would like it to go to the previously enabled
0:15:02focus mode rather than the default.
0:15:05'Cause this also happens that like,
0:15:07if I have my travel focus mode on
0:15:09and the weekend comes around during the travel,
0:15:11it's gonna flip over to weekend,
0:15:13which is not what I want, right?
0:15:15So I would like to be able to,
0:15:16once you enable a focus mode, once it turns off,
0:15:20even if it's turning off by an automation of some kind,
0:15:23then it goes back to the previous one.
0:15:26- Yeah, we're slightly jumping ahead
0:15:27to the app recommendation section of the show,
0:15:30but there's an app which I've been trialing
0:15:34with shortcuts just a little bit,
0:15:36but it's called Data Jar, and it's an app
0:15:38that lets you store information permanently,
0:15:42like as a little variable outside the shortcut system,
0:15:45And I have actually been trying to solve this exact problem with that.
0:15:50And I think it should be--you should be able to have Data Jar remember
0:15:55not what is the current focus mode, but what is the last focus mode.
0:15:59I've already set it up so it's like, "Oh yes, I can definitely have this little app
0:16:04remember what the previous one was."
0:16:06And I'm just now trying to work through the--
0:16:09Okay, so when I turn something off, I want you to check with Data Jar
0:16:13for what the last one was and then go to that instead of by default opening up the phone.
0:16:19That sounds like it's going to be really complicated to set up.
0:16:22No, DataJar is actually really simple.
0:16:24Like I just came across it so I haven't had a huge chance to play with it but I think
0:16:29it's like it is exactly for these kinds of problems where there's some sort of automation
0:16:34that it depends on what was something like a little while ago not just what is the current
0:16:41state of everything now.
0:16:42So I've been kind of toying around with it, but it's like one of my, "Ooh, this can be
0:16:46a really interesting app for automation going forward in 2023," and this feels like exactly
0:16:51the kind of problem that I think could be able to be solved for it.
0:16:55I'll mention that now as a little preview for the app section.
0:16:58- A bit by Simon Stovering.
0:16:59He made Scriptable, which I know is an app that's very popular.
0:17:02- Oh, they're the same people who made Scriptable.
0:17:04Okay, that makes sense.
0:17:05That makes sense.
0:17:06I didn't realize.
0:17:07- My recording lock screen in focus mode is the one that I use the most.
0:17:12I had a recording focus mode set up for a while and it basically turns off all
0:17:17notifications when I'm recording a show and I usually enable this. I have a
0:17:21shortcut that turns on my recording focus for X amount of hours and sets a
0:17:26timer for me for the specific show that I'm doing. I was using that before but
0:17:31now I get to tie in a lock screen to it which has been really good because of
0:17:36the always-on display. So when I'm recording I put my phone in a dock I
0:17:41I have a material doc from Studio Neat.
0:17:43I put it in there, it just stands there.
0:17:45So it's just off to the side.
0:17:48And so I thought, well, what kind of information
0:17:50might I want when I'm recording a show?
0:17:53And so I have a couple of widgets there.
0:17:56I have the calendar one again.
0:17:58I have my Timery, lock screen widgets.
0:18:01And then I have a world clock built with Widgetsmith
0:18:05with a few different locations.
0:18:06- Oh, that's how you, okay, that's how you did it.
0:18:08I was looking at that thinking like,
0:18:10This layout of the widgets is a little bit funny,
0:18:12but you're using Widgetsmith to show the three different ones.
0:18:16Ah, OK, right.
0:18:17So it's two two-sized ones.
0:18:20It's not four, right?
0:18:21OK.
0:18:21Yeah, but the way that Widgetsmith actually do it,
0:18:24you can have more locations than that.
0:18:25But I felt like three looked visually good.
0:18:27And that's what I need the most.
0:18:29It's just like the American time zones.
0:18:32And then for this one, I'm using the Photo Shuffle lock screen.
0:18:36So it's a lock screen that basically--
0:18:39and I've one that Apple made where every time you lock the phone or unlock the
0:18:43phone, it changes the image and you can do people, places,
0:18:48and buildings for this.
0:18:50Why not dogs? Dogs, Apple, come on.
0:18:52Let me see, do they have a dogs one? I'd be surprised if they didn't.
0:18:56But you have some customization for how the photo shuffle works.
0:19:01It's people, nature, and cities. They're your categories.
0:19:05But with the people one, you can choose specific people.
0:19:10- Ah, that's good, okay.
0:19:12- So I set my own up to just be pictures of my wife.
0:19:14And so it just cycles through the faces album
0:19:18or whatever that I have of her there.
0:19:20I enjoy that.
0:19:20And it's also visually different enough
0:19:22that I realize kind of like that I'm in my recording focus,
0:19:25which I also just like as like a visual.
0:19:27So that one's a really good one too.
0:19:28- Can you select multiple people under the people option
0:19:31or is it just one person at a time?
0:19:32- I think so.
0:19:33I think you can set multiple people,
0:19:34which will probably help with the dog's thing.
0:19:36'Cause I think you could set animals.
0:19:38Or am I remembering iPhoto?
0:19:41I think I might be remembering iPhoto.
0:19:42- You're remembering what I told you iPhoto used to do
0:19:4510 years ago, and still would be in my bonnet.
0:19:47- There you go, that's why that's in my mind.
0:19:48(laughs)
0:19:50- I put that there, right?
0:19:51You're having like implanted memories now.
0:19:53But no, I was thinking for your recording lock screen, Myke,
0:19:55you should obviously, I mean, like your wife is lovely,
0:19:58but you should have it rotate through photos
0:20:00of all of your co-hosts for the recording ones.
0:20:02Like that's what you should be doing, right?
0:20:04You know what, that's actually not a bad idea.
0:20:07Yeah, I think you should do that.
0:20:09It should be all the people that you co-host podcasts with.
0:20:11That's why I wanted to know if it can do multiple ones.
0:20:13I could be smiling at you right now from your long screen.
0:20:16I do have a few photos of you smiling, that is true.
0:20:19It would be extra good if it could just pick out the specific people that I'm recording
0:20:25with at any one time, but then I would need an obscene amount of focus moves to be set
0:20:29up to do that.
0:20:30And there's actually a limit of 10, I don't know if you knew that.
0:20:32I did not know that.
0:20:34This is like a small thing that I bumped into, which I do find slightly infuriating, but
0:20:39pre-iOS 16 there wasn't a limit on focus modes.
0:20:44And iOS 16, they introduced a limit of 10, which is actually a little bit tighter than
0:20:50you think because it includes the two ones that are there by default, or the three that
0:20:55are there by default.
0:20:56Do Not Disturb, Driving, and Sleep.
0:20:58So it's really a limit of 7 that you can choose.
0:21:02I kind of wonder if that was like,
0:21:05oh, this is there because of two people,
0:21:07Federico Vitici and me,
0:21:09like sending in like a million focus modes
0:21:11and they're like, no, no, no, right?
0:21:13This is too many.
0:21:14But yeah, it was actually confirmed by Apple
0:21:16that that was not a bug.
0:21:17Like that was an engineering decision that they had made
0:21:19that they were going to limit it to 10.
0:21:20- It's wild because you can set up
0:21:22200 custom lock screens.
0:21:24So why can't you only do 10 focus modes?
0:21:27- Yeah.
0:21:28- There must be some UI issue
0:21:29that like there's an area of the UI
0:21:31that like maybe the control center thing
0:21:34where they don't wanna scroll?
0:21:35- No, but that doesn't make sense
0:21:36'cause I already scroll on there.
0:21:37- Yeah, most of the reason.
0:21:38- I find this stuff super frustrating
0:21:40and it's extra frustrating when it used to be one way
0:21:43and then it goes the other way.
0:21:44It kind of reminds me of a thing
0:21:46that they did eventually remove
0:21:47but there used to be a limit of 100 VIPs on mail.
0:21:51And it was like, again, it's like clear
0:21:52that someone just like picked a number
0:21:54that they thought was really big that no one would surpass.
0:21:57And I think like me and Gruber were complaining about that.
0:22:00Like, oh, depending on how you run your email, like that's extremely frustrating to have this limit for absolutely no reason.
0:22:05So anyway, just like FYI to anyone out there who's like, I'm going to do a focus mode for everything.
0:22:10No, you're not like you're going to pick seven.
0:22:12That's what you're going to pick.
0:22:13Well, I mean, you can do everything if you have 10 things.
0:22:15Right. Yeah. If you have seven things.
0:22:17Can't you change the like because I don't have the driving one.
0:22:21Are you sure you want to take a look like I thought that was like hard coded in there that you couldn't get rid of the driving one.
0:22:26Do not disturb fitness, recording, sleep, travel, weekend.
0:22:30- That's so weird, have you never driven?
0:22:33- I remember removing it, but that was probably last year.
0:22:37- Oh, that's interesting, okay, all right,
0:22:39so I'm just looking now.
0:22:41So, I mean, driving I will leave on there,
0:22:43'cause when I'm in America, I do drive,
0:22:45and I do find it useful to have.
0:22:47But the driving one is different,
0:22:49so you can delete that focus mode.
0:22:51- Right.
0:22:52- But do not disturb and sleep are hard coded in.
0:22:56You can't get rid of those.
0:22:58Okay, that's interesting.
0:22:59Okay, so if you don't drive, you can have eight.
0:23:02I didn't realize that, interesting.
0:23:04- The last one I have to show you, lock screens,
0:23:06is just my regular lock screen.
0:23:07It's not too dissimilar from the other ones that I have.
0:23:11I have FantasticOwl as the main on the top, right?
0:23:14It's like the one big one on the top,
0:23:17along with Carrotweather, Timery,
0:23:19and a step counter in Widgetsmith.
0:23:21That's my kind of like main lock screen,
0:23:23which is not tied to focus modes.
0:23:25- Okay, so that's the default open one there.
0:23:27- Yeah. - Right, okay.
0:23:28- So I wanna see yours now.
0:23:30Do you wanna show me focus mode ones first?
0:23:33I've seen the travel one.
0:23:34Do you have any others?
0:23:36- Yes, I'm also having a funny situation in my office.
0:23:40So I've been really trying to do home automation this year
0:23:43and partly with the lights and things.
0:23:45But for this show, while I keep flipping through
0:23:47the focus modes to look at things while we're talking,
0:23:49the lights in my office are going crazy, right?
0:23:51So it's like, I wanted all of these like chill,
0:23:55I wanted like the chillest version of the lights
0:23:57where it's like, I have everything real down low
0:23:59and I pick these like blues and greens and it's very lovely.
0:24:03But then every time it's like, oh, I went into sleep mode,
0:24:05the office is completely dark.
0:24:06No, I didn't want that.
0:24:07Oh, I went to travel mode.
0:24:08The lights went completely white and bright.
0:24:11- I'm flicking around taking screenshots on my Mac
0:24:14'cause like, you're traveling.
0:24:15I'm like, I'm not, I'm not traveling Mac, stop it.
0:24:18That's funny.
0:24:19I guess if I've done that stuff and I don't remember,
0:24:22things are flying off the handle all over the place.
0:24:25That's really funny.
0:24:26- Yeah, so it's just like, automation is great,
0:24:28but it's like when you are talking about automation
0:24:31and rapidly flipping through a bunch of things,
0:24:33like it starts to get weird.
0:24:34And every time the office lights either completely go away
0:24:37or turn all the way on, it's like,
0:24:38oh, you're a real mood killer here, office lights.
0:24:41But that is also part of the thing I'm trying to do
0:24:42with DataJar, is to like smooth that stuff out.
0:24:45Like don't just look at the state of things right now.
0:24:48remember like what were things like five minutes ago
0:24:51and maybe chill out and don't change things
0:24:52if you don't need to.
0:24:53Okay, so let me send you some of my stuff.
0:24:55I already sent you my sleep lock screen and home screen,
0:25:00which I just basically have as empty as possible
0:25:03and just pick it as like dark red for go to sleep now,
0:25:07like this is time to go to bed.
0:25:08- Oh, that's what they are.
0:25:09'Cause okay, a minute ago I saw
0:25:12that I had two images from Grey.
0:25:14One was a blank lock screen with a couple of widgets on,
0:25:19and one was a completely blank home screen,
0:25:22and I was like, oh, here we go again.
0:25:24Maybe I'm gonna find out later on
0:25:26that your actual lock screen is like this again,
0:25:28but I didn't wanna react to it in the moment
0:25:31because it would have destroyed the flow of the episode,
0:25:34but maybe we'll get back to that later on.
0:25:36So this is your, so it's not black, it's like a red,
0:25:40'cause that's good for eyes, right?
0:25:41I've learned recently.
0:25:42Yeah, I think red, like a very dark red just works well at night.
0:25:47And I actually picked a little real dark red because it sort of makes the contrast with
0:25:52the icons on the bottom less like the icons on the bottom seem brighter if there's absolutely
0:25:57no color on the home screen.
0:25:59So that's just why I have it kind of set as this like gradient red that they allow.
0:26:04So my like sleep lock screen and home screen are super boring.
0:26:08There's a thing that's happening there though.
0:26:09So if you look at the sleep lock home screen, there's a funny bug that happens with this
0:26:16little battery meter, the automatic battery one.
0:26:20If you pick the lock screen widget to be the little circle battery, but like I do, it's
0:26:26like, you know what I want?
0:26:27One of them I want to be the watch.
0:26:29Like I always want to know the watch before I'm going to bed just to keep an eye on it.
0:26:34Like ooh, do I need to charge it up a little bit before I go to sleep?
0:26:37But if you have one of them manually set to the watch, the automatic one, I think it's
0:26:43like built in by default that it kind of like always goes to the watch if it doesn't know
0:26:47what to do.
0:26:48And so you end up with these two little watches.
0:26:50I was gonna ask why you had two watch batteries.
0:26:53Like you just want to back up like check like what is going on here.
0:26:57Yeah and it like it creates this little like the phone is looking at you kind of look on
0:27:05it.
0:27:06There's a face in there.
0:27:07And it's extremely hard to screenshot.
0:27:10So I'm gonna send you something that I was trying to catch
0:27:13like just while we're recording,
0:27:15while we're talking about this like funny bug.
0:27:18So here is just like the top of my work home screen
0:27:22where I have the same thing where it's like,
0:27:24this is like how the phone would look for me in the morning.
0:27:27There's two battery icons,
0:27:29one of which I wanna set to the watch in the morning
0:27:31so I always know if to charge it
0:27:32and one is the automatic other one.
0:27:35But it very often, like when the phone is just sitting there, defaults to having both
0:27:39of them.
0:27:40And I put the activity thing in the center and then it really creates this like little
0:27:45face going "Ooh!" like looking at me all day.
0:27:48This lock screen has got like a rectangle.
0:27:53This is like the mouth to me.
0:27:55Yeah, yeah.
0:27:57The activity in the center is like a funny thing.
0:28:01Like Apple dims the circles on the activity meter in a way that I find really frustrating.
0:28:07It's like performative privacy of like, "Ooh, if your phone is locked, we don't want anyone
0:28:12to know how active you've been today if they found the phone," which is like, "Please,
0:28:16Apple.
0:28:17Like no one cares about this.
0:28:18This is just you like going out of your way to show me how much you care about my privacy."
0:28:24When like, "I'd much rather prefer that you encrypted my iCloud messages even if I
0:28:28I used iCloud backup and like not you know prevented people from knowing if I exercised
0:28:33this morning or not?
0:28:34Can I just double down and say because you brought that up and that's like one of my
0:28:37big bug bears and I 100% agree with you and I think it's absolutely ridiculous that they
0:28:41have not made that a thing. So like you can look into this maybe you didn't know call
0:28:46Texans but if you use iMessage in the cloud it's called like backs up your iMessages
0:28:51syncs them across you're no longer end to end encrypted there is an encryption key that
0:28:57Apple holds. And there is a bunch of technical reasons as to why they do this, but I don't
0:29:04care. I want the encryption. Like if you want to have encryption, you can't have iMessage
0:29:10backup. And this isn't the case for a bunch of other things. With health, that's not
0:29:15the case. They don't hold the keys for that. But they hold the keys for iMessage, and I
0:29:20want them to change that. So thank you for bringing that up.
0:29:22Yeah, I mean, since this is a very Apple-focused episode, that to me is...
0:29:28I think it's kind of the worst thing that Apple does, and I think it makes all of their
0:29:34messaging about privacy sound like a lie to me, which is the thing that everyone cares
0:29:41the most about.
0:29:44I mean, I bet a lot of people would care way more about their iMessages than their photos,
0:29:48right?
0:29:49Like, those have got to be the top two.
0:29:50But I think there are a lot of people who it's like,
0:29:52"Hey, you have to pick one of these two
0:29:54to be leaked to the world, your iMessages or your photos."
0:29:57I think a lot more people would rather
0:29:59have their photos leaked than their iMessages leaked.
0:30:01- I think so, I would.
0:30:02- Yeah, but yeah, so when I found out,
0:30:04I was like, "Oh, Apple doesn't actually end to end
0:30:07encrypt your iMessages if you use iCloud backup,
0:30:10which they extremely push you to do for good reasons."
0:30:14I was like, "That is appalling.
0:30:16Like, I'm totally appalled by this."
0:30:18And it really gets under my skin every time Apple talks about how they care about privacy.
0:30:24And it's like, yeah, you're not saying out loud the one thing that people care about the most.
0:30:31So when I first found out about it, I was like, Oh my God.
0:30:34Right.
0:30:34And I turned off iCloud backup on all of my devices and I was using just like the local backup on your computer.
0:30:39But then I realized, Oh, it doesn't matter at all because if the person I'm talking with uses iCloud backup, like it hasn't prevented anything here.
0:30:48So great, like I'm just, so I went back to using iCloud backup and I just live with it,
0:30:52but I really hate it.
0:30:53But it is also why like I call the activity ring hiding on the lock screen,
0:30:59like performative privacy.
0:31:01It's a thing that absolutely no one cares about, but I think Apple does because
0:31:06it's like, look at us keeping an eye on your privacy.
0:31:09We'll keep this private health data, how many times you've stood up today, you
0:31:14know, hidden on your lock screen until it is unlocked.
0:31:17And I find it annoying because then every time I look at the lock screen, like the little circles then color in
0:31:23and I would like the whole purpose of having it there is I just want to see the information.
0:31:27I don't only want to see the information when the screen is unlocked.
0:31:30But so anyway, complaining about Apple privacy aside, here is what that actual lock screen looks like.
0:31:34So to me, this is the like the most important how my phone looks mode.
0:31:40And this is what I call core, which is my like morning work.
0:31:44And this is the most, I mean, I guess aside from sleep,
0:31:47this is the most lockdown mode of like,
0:31:50I don't wanna get messages from anybody.
0:31:53This is how the phone should default on any of my work days.
0:31:58Nothing gets through,
0:31:59and I just wanna have it be entirely work focused.
0:32:02So I just have the couple of battery icons there
0:32:04'cause I wanna keep an eye on like the headphones.
0:32:06And like I said, I wanna have the watch
0:32:08to know how charged it is.
0:32:09I do like having activity there
0:32:11because I often do most of my actual exercise in the morning,
0:32:15so I feel like that's kind of part of what I'm doing
0:32:19for the core stuff.
0:32:20And then on my home screen, I don't use a bunch of apps.
0:32:23I just have the widgets for OmniFocus
0:32:26to show me the top-level stuff that I should be doing.
0:32:29And then I have Timery, which is giving me a report
0:32:32for today and the last X days,
0:32:35so I can just kind of keep an eye on,
0:32:37"Ooh, how am I actually doing in terms of work,
0:32:40both for now and over the recent past.
0:32:42So this is how I'm setting up like my core focus mode.
0:32:45- So this is core focus mode.
0:32:47Okay, so this is a focus mode, it's a pairing of the two.
0:32:50Is that like your mind, Spaceship U?
0:32:52Is that what this is?
0:32:54- Oh yeah, it's not really on purpose.
0:32:56- Okay.
0:32:57- Yeah, the lock screen is just like,
0:32:58it is from NASA and I think it's the inside of a satellite.
0:33:01I just kind of think it looks cool
0:33:03and I just strongly associate blue
0:33:06with like all the important work.
0:33:09So yeah, it wasn't intentionally Spaceship U,
0:33:11but it's like Spaceship U adjacent.
0:33:13- I couldn't personally use this image
0:33:14because it doesn't line up, that line from the top.
0:33:18- I know.
0:33:19- Okay. - Yeah, I know, I know.
0:33:20I've actually-- - I couldn't do it.
0:33:21I couldn't do it.
0:33:23'Cause it's too close, that's the problem.
0:33:25- Yeah, for listeners, there's a little bit
0:33:26of like a vertical line, which is like very close,
0:33:29but not quite lined up.
0:33:30It has been on my mind at some point,
0:33:32I'm gonna like get this from,
0:33:34there was like NASA's Instagram or whatever,
0:33:36and like load it into Photoshop and actually adjust it,
0:33:38Because I do like it enough that it's worth fixing around, but I originally
0:33:44just set this when I was, when I was like starting to play around with the focus
0:33:47modes and feeling like, Ooh, what am I going to use?
0:33:49What am I not going to use?
0:33:50And this one has just kind of stuck, but yes, I will at some point fix that
0:33:55alignment issue because you're not wrong.
0:33:56It's super annoying that it doesn't quite go right down the center.
0:33:59And I also feel like with the new dynamic island at the top, it like extra highlights
0:34:04it, like when I first set this up, it wasn't there, but now the dynamic island
0:34:08is really like letting you know, like, hey buddy,
0:34:11you can see how not in the middle this is.
0:34:13- That's really rough.
0:34:16- So you have just the one home screen here.
0:34:18Yeah, Timery, Onif, Executor.
0:34:21- Executor, that's the way I think of it.
0:34:23- Is that a project name?
0:34:24- No, that's just like the word that I have used
0:34:27for a subset of OmniFocus tasks,
0:34:29which are not project specific.
0:34:32They are just the, this is what you should do,
0:34:34ideally every morning.
0:34:36So there are things like, okay, here's me running through, like, getting the office
0:34:41set up every morning, and then it just lists, depending on what day it is, which thing I
0:34:46should be doing.
0:34:47So it's like, okay, this is the day where you should be walking on the treadmill for
0:34:51an hour and a half while you talk the script out loud.
0:34:53And then, like, after that, you should exercise for this amount of time, and then you should
0:34:57do another draft at the computer sitting down for this amount of time, and then it's like,
0:35:02take a 20 minute break, and then it's admin.
0:35:05It's sort of like running through what is the theoretical best list of things to do
0:35:10without being project specific on any one of them.
0:35:13So it's like nudging me in the correct order of the routine.
0:35:17And so I don't like I feel like it's like executive like the top level of tasks is kind
0:35:23of why I named it that way.
0:35:24But I've been using this for years and years as a non project specific reminder list for
0:35:30what you should be doing first thing in the morning.
0:35:34So like you, that alternates for me with like a weekend focus.
0:35:40Here's the other one.
0:35:42Oh, very leafy.
0:35:43Yeah, so I want to have like two strong colors to again just like set up environmentally,
0:35:50like how should the day feel like I'm just a big believer in trying to like make everything
0:35:55kind of go along with a certain way and so for me green has always been really associated
0:35:59with like, oh, this is the personal time.
0:36:01And so I have it set up with the home automation stuff and with a bunch of shortcuts.
0:36:06If it's Wednesday or I'm now doing Saturday as my other weekend day, like this is the
0:36:10way the phone starts in the morning, which again is just like a nice visual reminder
0:36:14of like this should be a day off.
0:36:17And again I like to keep the lock screen reasonably simple, but I feel like for days off I'm
0:36:20much more likely to go outside, so I just have a couple of weather widgets on there.
0:36:25Mainly knowing for like if I'm going to take a bike ride I want to know what like the chance
0:36:28of rain is going to be like for the day. And that's also why on my actual home screen,
0:36:33I have a carrot weather thing like big and on the top because that's also just useful
0:36:38for or like my wife and I are we going to go out to the park? Are we going to go somewhere?
0:36:42Is it going to be an indoor sort of day? So I just like to have the weather big and prominent.
0:36:46And again, it's also there to kind of nudge me in the remind direction that like it's
0:36:52the weekend. Maybe you should go outside because you often don't on work days. If carrots
0:36:58saying it's a beautiful day dude you should take advantage of that.
0:37:01I mean and who wouldn't want to jump in this bush that you've got here on the home screen?
0:37:04Big green bush with like I will say the thing about this bush it's like beautiful and green
0:37:11on the top but there is like the abyss beneath it. Do you feel slightly threatened by my lock
0:37:18screen image is that what you're saying? I don't like how dark it is between the leaves
0:37:22on this image. Well nature is very scary Myke even when it's beautiful it's terrifying.
0:37:26I guess it's like this home screen is like go outside but beware you know yeah I want
0:37:32you to go like you should go outside but just be careful you know I get that it's a good
0:37:38bounce. I will question I guess it's not for you right like that you have on the home screen
0:37:48that you sent me there are two time re-widgets and what my initial thought was like do you
0:37:52want to be tracking your time that much on the weekend but then I remembered you're always
0:37:56tracking your time, right? Like that's the difference between me and you, so.
0:37:59Yeah, so I have it slightly differently set up, like it's not as prominent,
0:38:03but it's this thing of, yeah, I do always track my time, and that's partly, again,
0:38:10because I am using it as like a reminder for how I should be, and so the two timer retrackers on my
0:38:17weekend home screen are the same thing where I have one that's set up to track how is today doing,
0:38:23and then the bottom one tracks like this a certain x number of past days.
0:38:28And what I'm always trying to do is like approach a theoretical optimal thing.
0:38:34And so what I want to see is, oh as the day is going on,
0:38:37on the weekend day my today timer should be filling up with stuff
0:38:43that it doesn't fill up with during the weekday.
0:38:46So it's like, oh there's actually, I've added something this year,
0:38:49this is again jumping ahead but I'll just mention it now,
0:38:52where I track how much time I spend with my wife,
0:38:54but this year I realized, oh, you know what?
0:38:57I'm gonna break out a separate category,
0:38:59which is like with wife, but outside of the house
0:39:03as a little timer.
0:39:05And so I really like having this
0:39:07as like a separate kind of thing to track.
0:39:09It's like tracking a kind of high quality time.
0:39:12And so I just wanna see like, ooh,
0:39:15if in the past 10 days, the time with wife time
0:39:19has like racked up very high,
0:39:21but none of it has been outside of the house.
0:39:24It's just like a little nudge on the weekend.
0:39:26Like, hey, maybe we should get out of here
0:39:27and go do something.
0:39:28So that's why I do have the timer retimers
0:39:31like really prominent because I'm always trying to match
0:39:34like the last X days is getting affected
0:39:38by time recorded today.
0:39:40And you wanna always try to like approach the optimal
0:39:44of how things should be.
0:39:46So the weekend days should be adding
0:39:47like different weekend activities
0:39:49like reading or going outside or taking a bike ride.
0:39:53And then the workdays should be adding workday stuff.
0:39:55And so that's why I do keep it around there.
0:39:58- Okay, that makes a lot of sense.
0:40:00- And then I just have an OmniFocus one,
0:40:01which is like available tasks,
0:40:03because sometimes there's like just stuff
0:40:05that you need to do that's like not work stuff
0:40:07and weekend days are days that it makes sense to do that.
0:40:10So that's why I have OmniFocus available there.
0:40:12We went through the travel one, that's the work one.
0:40:15I got a couple others that are not interesting
0:40:17to talk about just because it's like admin it's basically the same thing. I do have a
0:40:22I didn't screenshot it because it's not visually interesting but I'm trying to have the phone
0:40:28be always in a focus mode I feel like this is probably the best way to think about stuff
0:40:34and so one thing I did set was a focus mode that I call open where it is the phone is
0:40:40open to all messages from everyone.
0:40:43- Wow, you enable that like for 20 minutes once a year.
0:40:46- Yes, so that's like, oh, I'm expecting a call
0:40:50from someone who's not in my phone book or whatever.
0:40:53And so that's like, I can throw it into the open mode.
0:40:56- I see, that makes more sense.
0:40:57- Because that is a thing that comes up
0:40:59every once in a while of like,
0:41:00oh, you're expecting someone to contact you,
0:41:03but for whatever reason, you don't know
0:41:05in advance their contact information or whatever.
0:41:08So I've gotten kind of caught out by that sometimes.
0:41:10And so it's like, okay, I have an open mode.
0:41:12like you're waiting for a call back from your internet prod or whatever, right?
0:41:16It's like you don't know exactly that exactly that kind of thing.
0:41:20Yeah, yeah, like oh there's a plumber coming to the house maybe and he might call you,
0:41:24who knows that that kind of thing and I just I just use Apple's like default moon they
0:41:28have a picture of the moon because it feels like oh my god if it's open you're just like
0:41:33floating in space vulnerable to anyone at any point in time so that's the image that
0:41:37I use for that.
0:41:38But the other one that I think you might enjoy, I'll send this through, is I have a focus
0:41:45mode called holiday.
0:41:49He's born receding baby!
0:41:52Now this is fun!
0:41:53So the thing about holidays is that they should be novel, right?
0:41:57Things should feel different when you're on a holiday than they feel normally.
0:42:00You with a little love heart on the holiday name there, that's cute.
0:42:05Yeah well it's also because like that's usually I'm spending that with my wife and so it's
0:42:08like, "We're off somewhere!" And the holiday one, it's set basically so that it's like,
0:42:13my wife can contact me, family can contact me, and if I'm traveling with friends, like,
0:42:18those friends can contact me, but I specifically turn off, like, everything that's work-related
0:42:23for the holiday stuff. And so, in the screenshot that I have for Myke here, I have like a fun
0:42:28sort of pink sand background, which I've just used as the default, like, "This looks really different
0:42:35for my wife and I have done a couple of weekends away this year and so just like flip it into
0:42:39holiday mode and then for the couple of trips that I've done this is pre-focus mode but I was
0:42:45still using shortcuts to do it I had the holiday mode like pick a wallpaper that matches the trip
0:42:51so when I was in Hawaii like I had a very Hawaii shirt kind of background and when I was in Norway
0:42:57I had like a snowy icy background and I don't know like this may sound dumb but I really think
0:43:03there's a lot of value in even just like silly novelty on devices that are with you all the time.
0:43:09And so like when I've done a weekend away and my phone is ridiculously pink, it somehow helps make
0:43:16that little mini trip like feel more different during the time. And it's again like a visual
0:43:21reminder of like this is how you're spending your time. You're focused on this this weird holiday.
0:43:25It's even why I picked like this strange font for the time. It's like I just want everything
0:43:29different. I probably should change the little battery widgets which is on the home screen.
0:43:33that's not useful anymore, but I just haven't had the system come in since focus came out,
0:43:36so that'll get swapped out with something. There's the weather, because that's what you want to know
0:43:40on holidays. I have the maps on the bottom, which I've completely blacked out because obviously it
0:43:44shows your exact current location, but that's super useful when you're on holidays. And then
0:43:48I've mentioned this before, but I do find it really useful that when you're on a trip with
0:43:54someone, it just feels like you end up with a bunch of these weird little like, "Oh, we need to pick
0:43:59up some aspirin from Booth's kind of errands that like the two of you have while you're
0:44:04on like this little trip. And so my wife and I have a like shared errands list that gets
0:44:09used a lot during holidays of like, "Oh, let's not forget when we go here to pick up that
0:44:14thing." And so I just like to have that on the reminders list. And it's just like, as
0:44:18soon as we started doing it, it's crazy how much it gets used and also just how much nicer
0:44:23it can make the trip that like, "Oh, both of us, we can remember to do this thing."
0:44:27or she can add something to the list for me to do.
0:44:29So it's not always pink.
0:44:31It'll be different if I go somewhere else.
0:44:33But this is my holiday focus mode.
0:44:36I thought you might appreciate this one, Myke.
0:44:38- I do. I like it a lot.
0:44:39I like how bright it is.
0:44:41The shared errands is smart too.
0:44:43I guess maybe it's just luck
0:44:45that it matches up color-wise with the home screen.
0:44:47- No, no, you can pick it.
0:44:48You can pick reminder list colors.
0:44:50- But like, do you change it to like thematically work
0:44:53with the current home screen for that trip?
0:44:55- Oh yeah, yeah, I did that when we were in Hawaii.
0:44:58The Hawaii lock screen was largely green,
0:45:00so I just changed the little thing to be green.
0:45:02- I love it.
0:45:02- So you gotta color coordinate, Myke.
0:45:03- I love how aesthetic you are here.
0:45:05It's great, this is awesome.
0:45:07Look at you go.
0:45:08- Well, it's interesting because I think
0:45:10with this focus mode system that Apple's introduced,
0:45:13I also try to have my watch match all of this stuff.
0:45:16And I used to do this with shortcuts,
0:45:19where when you change focus modes,
0:45:21you could have shortcuts sort of change stuff for you.
0:45:24But boy was that a giant pain in the butt.
0:45:26And I just, like Apple's made it 100 times easier now
0:45:29to do this and so it feels like,
0:45:30why not take advantage of it?
0:45:32And I really do think it makes the phone much better.
0:45:35And for me, this also feels a bit like,
0:45:38almost validation of years ago,
0:45:41I was just talking about how like,
0:45:42I think this is really important for devices
0:45:45that you have with you, like all the time
0:45:47to try to make them different.
0:45:49And you know, in early episodes of Cortex,
0:45:52I know I got a lot of flack from people thinking I was crazy for having like, oh, there's two
0:45:56iPads like a work iPad and a personal iPad and people like, what are you doing that for?
0:46:01And now like software wise, Apple has made this possible more and more on your devices.
0:46:07And I just like, I love it.
0:46:09I think it's great.
0:46:10And I can't wait for this to get rolled out, presumably to the iPad, I don't know, maybe
0:46:14next year and like max the year after or something.
0:46:17But it's so good.
0:46:18Like I'm just so happy that Apple has has introduced this.
0:46:22It's really nice to be able to have the home screens themselves change.
0:46:25Like that's a feature I was never even really asking for.
0:46:28And it was sort of around in the last version, but again, it was like.
0:46:32Fiddly and hard to do, but now with the focus modes, being able to switch
0:46:36the actual home screens themselves, it's great.
0:46:38I love it.
0:46:39Two thumbs up for this whole system.
0:46:40And if listeners haven't tried focus modes, you should totally try it.
0:46:45Like just, I think the very basic one of like, what's a workday like,
0:46:49and what's a weekend day like and then what's you know the afternoon like those
0:46:53are the basic ones and set them up and give them a try and you know pick
0:46:58different fun lock screens so that it just looks visually different I think it
0:47:01really adds something to your life and doubly so now that there's like an
0:47:04always on screen for the phones like it's just increasingly present in this
0:47:08way so shall we do home screens themselves now I don't really have home
0:47:13screens to show you right because what like what we've gone through here is
0:47:16is basically everything on my home screens.
0:47:19- Okay, so there are no apps anymore.
0:47:21It's either widgets or nothing, right?
0:47:25Okay, so I've seen them all.
0:47:26I understand, I understand.
0:47:28So like, if you're, I get it now, right?
0:47:29- You've seen everything, Myke.
0:47:31- If you're always in a focus mode,
0:47:34there is no home screen anymore.
0:47:36It's always what is relevant.
0:47:38All right, that makes sense.
0:47:39- Yes, so that's what I've done.
0:47:41I've kind of simplified away the home screen stuff,
0:47:44And I'm just really using my phone to display whatever relevant
0:47:49information is in whatever mode.
0:47:51Like we can cover my home screen in three seconds, which is that I have
0:47:54three little buttons in my dock that I've slightly changed from last year.
0:47:59And those buttons are make a new note in notes.
0:48:03The center one is for OmniFocus, which opens up a general list of I have a
0:48:09reminder and then it asks me a couple of questions like, is this a due date
0:48:12reminder? Is this a flag reminder?
0:48:14- Oh, it's an ad, it's to add to a list.
0:48:16- Yes, so it's to add to a list, yeah.
0:48:19The three on the bottom are purely input.
0:48:22So the middle one is for OmniFocus
0:48:24and then it asks a bunch of questions
0:48:25so it knows properly where to sort things.
0:48:27And then the microphone one is for Cortex.
0:48:31Like I've just found it like a thing this year
0:48:34to really try to streamline,
0:48:36oh, if I have a random thought,
0:48:37just add it to the Cortex list.
0:48:39And I use it enough that I thought,
0:48:41oh, it makes sense just to put on the dock.
0:48:43So that's it.
0:48:44Like that's the entirety of my home screen.
0:48:46A bunch of widgets and three input methods.
0:48:49Notes, OmniFocus and Cortex,
0:48:52which is going to a reminders list.
0:48:53And that's it.
0:48:54- Well, speaking on behalf of Cortex brand,
0:48:57Cortex brand is on it.
0:48:59Cortex, the podcast will occupy one of three buttons.
0:49:02Here doc.
0:49:03- Yeah, occupying the most limited real estate.
0:49:07All right, what's your home screen look like, Myke?
0:49:08- All right, so I have an image for you.
0:49:10It's of my three home screens that are like my typical.
0:49:14These are what I use.
0:49:16This is how I usually order my phone
0:49:18when it's not in a focus mode.
0:49:19And most of my focus modes
0:49:21are still pulling from this in some way.
0:49:24So like I mentioned, I had like a travel lock screen earlier
0:49:27the travel lock screen just takes over
0:49:30the first of these three lock screens.
0:49:31And then I have the other two still enabled.
0:49:34It's just changing out one or the other, right?
0:49:37So I think a lot of this will be mostly unchanged
0:49:40from how it's been in past years, to be honest.
0:49:43So I don't know if there's much excitement in here for you
0:49:47to pick apart, but who knows what you might find.
0:49:50- Yeah, I feel like this is pretty similar to last time.
0:49:52You still got that fantastic wallpaper, which I always like,
0:49:55which is from the hotel in California?
0:49:57- Yeah, Beverly Hills Hotel.
0:49:58- Right, okay, very fancy.
0:50:00- In the little diner down there, which I love.
0:50:02- I think it, what is the Cortex brand widget?
0:50:04- That's Kraft.
0:50:05- That is Kraft, okay.
0:50:06- That's where I keep all my notes,
0:50:07and I'm gonna talk about Kraft later on,
0:50:09but that is how I can quickly get into notes.
0:50:13I don't have the, you notice I don't have the craft icon
0:50:16anywhere on my home screens,
0:50:18and this kind of serves double duty of like,
0:50:21one, letting me launch the app quickly,
0:50:24or two, there's like the four most recently used notes,
0:50:28and they tend to be the ones that I need most often,
0:50:30like little things that I'm keeping track of,
0:50:32or the current project that we're working on,
0:50:33and then I can just jump into that specific note very easily.
0:50:37Why activity as a gigantic widget on the third screen?
0:50:41That seems like a strange decision.
0:50:42- The fitness one.
0:50:43- Yeah, yeah, yeah, the fitness one.
0:50:44- I had a space available,
0:50:45and so sometimes I remove the fitness one
0:50:48if I have something that's going on at a certain time.
0:50:52When we were doing the St. Jude fundraiser,
0:50:54I had the St. Jude fundraiser widget.
0:50:56- Ah, okay.
0:50:57- And then otherwise I use fitness.
0:50:59But I do actually quite like the graphs
0:51:02that fitness produces.
0:51:04I was finding myself looking in the app on the phone
0:51:07quite a bit and so this was good to just get some of that information immediately available
0:51:12to me. Because sometimes it's like, oh I'm already at say like, say it's like 20 minutes,
0:51:1730 minutes of activity in my day when I haven't worked out yet. And I'm like, where did that
0:51:22come from? And sometimes just looking at the time chart of exercise will answer that for
0:51:28me, which is kind of interesting. It's like, oh it recorded that walk that I did today,
0:51:34which sometimes it doesn't, sometimes it does.
0:51:35So like, I just find that to be an interesting thing.
0:51:38I like having it there.
0:51:39And there's a couple of stacks going on, right?
0:51:41So there's Carrot is underneath the Fantastic Owl widget.
0:51:46I have a shortcut widget,
0:51:47which is for some time tracking stuff
0:51:49underneath the Timery widget.
0:51:51And the Widgetsmith widget of the time zones that I have,
0:51:56underneath that is a countdown timer,
0:51:59which is usually my next vacation.
0:52:01(laughing)
0:52:02and that like switches over on its own.
0:52:04So if I have a vacation coming up,
0:52:05I'll put the countdown timer there
0:52:07and that will sometimes flip over
0:52:08and show me that instead of the time zone stuff.
0:52:11- What are you using as the countdown app for that?
0:52:12- It's also WidgetSmith.
0:52:13- Oh, it's also WidgetSmith, okay, okay.
0:52:15Yeah, I think this is good.
0:52:16I don't have anything to make fun of.
0:52:17I feel like you have a really solid system here.
0:52:19So yeah, I think this is good.
0:52:21And let's talk about the apps.
0:52:23- This episode of Cortex is brought to you by Trade Coffee.
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0:54:15So let's start with productivity apps.
0:54:17Yeah, into the meat of state of the apps.
0:54:20I read this into last year's episode
0:54:22and I'm noticing already a change in you
0:54:25because last year- - In me?
0:54:26- Yeah, you had given up on To Do
0:54:29and we spoke last year.
0:54:30You were like, "Ah, I'm not using To Do app anymore."
0:54:34But already in this episode,
0:54:35I've seen visual proof that you're using OmniFocus.
0:54:38So it seems like you've gotten that part
0:54:41of your working life back in order again in 2022.
0:54:44- Okay, yeah.
0:54:45So yeah, last year must've been the nadir
0:54:47of my lockdown time of life.
0:54:50- You were just like, "Who needs it?"
0:54:52You know what I mean?
0:54:53(laughing)
0:54:55I just do whatever the wind tells me.
0:54:57- Yes, yeah, that was not a great period of time, no.
0:55:01We can talk about part of that
0:55:05in a little bit of a later section, but yes,
0:55:08I've gotten much better about being back in the habit
0:55:10of using OmniFocus.
0:55:13And I think part of it is I've pulled out a subset of tasks,
0:55:18which will not be going in OmniFocus anymore.
0:55:23They're gonna go somewhere else,
0:55:24which we'll talk about later.
0:55:25But I think this is, a lot of times,
0:55:29you wanna have real clarity
0:55:30about what are you using a thing for.
0:55:33And I was trying to use OmniFocus
0:55:35for something that just never really was quite working
0:55:37and always put in a bit of a resistance.
0:55:39And so now it's much more clear of like,
0:55:41Okay, I have reminders that are for how the day should be going.
0:55:46And then there's like the specific kind of traditional to-do tasks of like,
0:55:50"Oh, you need to pay this bill on this day" or whatever.
0:55:54So I've got all that kind of stuff in there.
0:55:55And then OmniFocus is just working for me much better.
0:55:58And for a couple of things, I use shared reminders with my wife, as I mentioned
0:56:03on the lock screen stuff earlier.
0:56:04And that's basically it.
0:56:06Like I'm back using OmniFocus.
0:56:08I'm very happy about it.
0:56:09I am wondering what on earth is taking so long about the next version of OmniFocus.
0:56:14Like I think that they might be running into some trouble there, but like,
0:56:18for me looking around for apps, it is still the same case of if an app
0:56:23does not have defer dates, it's just like a total deal breaker for me.
0:56:27Like I can't use it.
0:56:28So I think Reminders is a really interesting app.
0:56:31Like I think it's gotten so much better over the years and it's another
0:56:35thing where they keep adding features.
0:56:38And I could actually imagine being tempted by reminders in the future,
0:56:43but until and if they ever add something that is like defer dates,
0:56:47it's just totally out of the picture for me.
0:56:49So I'm back on OmniFocus and I'm very happy about it.
0:56:52- I'm still using Todoist and I have kind of committed to myself
0:56:56that I'm not gonna change anymore.
0:56:58No more changing, no more switching.
0:56:59- Good.
0:57:00- It's too disruptive and ultimately not helpful for me.
0:57:04You know, like I remember, I think during our WWDC episode,
0:57:08I was like, you know,
0:57:09Reminders I think has everything that I want now.
0:57:12I might move to Reminders.
0:57:13And I played around with it and it actually does.
0:57:16Like Reminders has, I think at this point,
0:57:19everything I would need that I use in Todoist,
0:57:21'cause I'm trying still to use the system simply.
0:57:26Like for me, it's a task name and a due date and a project.
0:57:31Everything gets that piece of information.
0:57:33Sometimes I use some features that Todoist has,
0:57:35but a lot of apps have, like subtasks,
0:57:37or adding little notes or comments to a task.
0:57:40But I try to use the system simply in that way,
0:57:45which means that I kind of could use basically anything,
0:57:48but at this point I have no desire
0:57:50and I'm kind of making a rule with myself
0:57:52to just stop moving around.
0:57:54My only frustration with Todoist is nothing to do with them,
0:57:58which is how much stuff I have in Todoist
0:58:01on how much I'm putting in to my to-do manager,
0:58:04but that feels more like a yearly themes problem
0:58:06than a state of the apps problem, right?
0:58:08- Yeah, I have too much to-do
0:58:10is not your to-do apps problem.
0:58:12That's totally a year.
0:58:14- When I wrote that down, I did feel like
0:58:16this is an interesting kind of app to make.
0:58:19Like a lot of these apps, like to-do apps, email apps,
0:58:22calendar apps, because it is very easy
0:58:24for your customer base to be frustrated with you
0:58:27for reasons that's got nothing to do with you.
0:58:28It's just like being in that application makes them angry
0:58:32because of the stuff that's in there
0:58:33or makes them sad because of how much is in there.
0:58:36And like they take it out on the app, you know what I mean?
0:58:38Like, oh, I hate Todoist.
0:58:40There's too much stuff in there all the time.
0:58:42So it's like, it's just like a funny little aside
0:58:44I came to as I was writing down,
0:58:45like what do I like about Todoist?
0:58:47What do I not like?
0:58:48Oh, I don't like how many things are in there.
0:58:49It's like, well, they didn't make that happen.
0:58:51I did that.
0:58:52- I resent my obligations.
0:58:53So I resent you.
0:58:55- But I'm perfectly happy with Todoist.
0:58:58They continue to refine the app in ways that I like.
0:59:00Like they've been making some visual tweaks
0:59:02over the last year, which is nothing major,
0:59:05but just like stuff that I think has made the app
0:59:07look a little cleaner.
0:59:09One of the things that I will always love,
0:59:11and this is like a thing for me
0:59:12of a lot of productivity apps,
0:59:14where there's data entry involved,
0:59:16natural language processing is incredibly important to me.
0:59:19And you know, this app and Fantastical,
0:59:23which is like the king of this for me,
0:59:24of their natural language stuff,
0:59:26it's just so important.
0:59:27when I'm sitting on my Mac, I hit a keyboard command
0:59:29and just start writing what I'm looking to do.
0:59:32I will hit, for me, it's a command option space,
0:59:36and that will pop up on my Mac, the todoist quick entry,
0:59:40and I will just start writing whatever the task is,
0:59:42and I'll use, you know, you learn the language
0:59:44for organization, right?
0:59:46So I can type in like, do this task at 2 p.m.,
0:59:50and it works that out, but then if I wanna add,
0:59:52like into a project, then I will just hit the hash key,
0:59:57and then start typing the name of the project
0:59:59and it will start doing autocomplete stuff for me, right?
1:00:01So you learn some little tricks
1:00:03with all of these natural language things.
1:00:04But for me, that is so valuable
1:00:06that I can just hit that and just go for it.
1:00:09I wish there was something as simple on iOS,
1:00:12but it's just, as you have done,
1:00:14and I have done in the past,
1:00:15you can just set up a shortcut for these things.
1:00:17But for me, really, the Todoist app
1:00:20is really easy to add stuff to,
1:00:22so I just open the app and go for it.
1:00:24But I really wish there was some way
1:00:26that I could do this in Spotlight, say.
1:00:29Like, you know, like I just pull down Spotlight
1:00:31and just start typing.
1:00:32- Yeah.
1:00:33- And that there's some way that that can go into Todoist.
1:00:36You know, I'm sure that there's something
1:00:37that it can do for reminders,
1:00:39but I don't want it to go into reminders.
1:00:40You know what I mean?
1:00:41So I wish there was a way to do this.
1:00:43I know you can kind of do it with Siri,
1:00:45but I don't like the way you do it with Siri
1:00:47because you have to like say, in Todoist,
1:00:50I don't want to do that.
1:00:51Like I don't want to add that information.
1:00:53So with all of these things,
1:00:54I would then just prefer to just open the app and do it.
1:00:57But there's just nothing that is as easy as the way
1:00:59that I can add this stuff when I'm at my Mac,
1:01:01which is just with a couple of keyboard commands.
1:01:03- The Siri integration for other to-do apps,
1:01:05like I'm glad it's there, but I also don't use it
1:01:08because it's just annoying.
1:01:10And I don't use the natural language stuff in Fantastic Cal.
1:01:14And I think that's also why in Todoist,
1:01:16it's just never really appealed to me
1:01:17'cause it's not the way my brain works.
1:01:19But I do, like the closest I get to that,
1:01:21which is why I also use reminders,
1:01:24I feel like Reminders is really great for like one-off things where I just have to go like,
1:01:30"Oh hey, the next time I'm here, remind me to do that."
1:01:33- Yeah, that is so cool. - Right?
1:01:34Or, "Tomorrow afternoon, I need to do this."
1:01:37Then Reminders is totally killer for that.
1:01:40And it's like, "Sure, I could use OmniFocus,
1:01:43but that's where now the friction is in a different way."
1:01:47And Reminders is just like so good for,
1:01:51I casually need to be reminded to do a thing at a time or at a place or the next time I
1:01:57leave the house.
1:01:59That's like the best use for me of Siri and integrated tools.
1:02:03But I'm guessing this sort of is answering a question that I was having, which is when
1:02:07you say no more switching and you were interested in reminders, I presume that the reason that
1:02:11you went with todoist is that natural language stuff.
1:02:13Like that's the thing that makes the difference for you for why you wouldn't use reminders.
1:02:16It always pulls me back.
1:02:17It's the, in my opinion, it's the best one at it.
1:02:20You know, Reminders has it, I think OmniFocus has it,
1:02:24but none of it is as good as the way that Todoist does it.
1:02:26Like Todoist is so good.
1:02:28Like with Todoist, you can set up really weird repeating
1:02:32tasks with natural language.
1:02:34- Like give me an example of that.
1:02:36- So like I could say, remind me to take out the trash
1:02:40on the first Monday of every month.
1:02:41- That's pretty good that you could just type it like that.
1:02:44- And you can just say first Monday,
1:02:46and it knows what that means.
1:02:48And I've added tasks that way.
1:02:51- That's interesting, yeah.
1:02:52I just had to do something in OmniFocus,
1:02:54which was the same thing where it's like,
1:02:55oh, remind me, it was like,
1:02:58remind me the third Monday of every October about a thing.
1:03:03And it's like, it's doable,
1:03:05but it was like a bunch of clicks.
1:03:06So it's interesting that you can do that kind of stuff
1:03:07just by typing it.
1:03:08- And Todoist has, and also has had
1:03:10a really good help document, which like details,
1:03:12like these are the commands you can use
1:03:15to do some of this stuff.
1:03:17So sometimes it is easiest to do it with the text
1:03:19even than the UI.
1:03:21And it also handles this stuff in a very graceful way,
1:03:24which I enjoy.
1:03:25So I have some tasks that are like first Monday,
1:03:28but if I move them to the next week,
1:03:32when I then complete them,
1:03:35it will go to the next first Monday.
1:03:38Like I've used apps where like at that point,
1:03:40I've used apps that have done this in the past.
1:03:44I wish I could remember which,
1:03:45but it was a long time ago now.
1:03:46that if you throw it off that schedule,
1:03:49it just removes the repeating.
1:03:51- Yeah, I've seen that, I know what you're talking about.
1:03:53Yeah, yeah, I've seen that kind of thing happen.
1:03:54- Where it's like, you dared to disrupt this,
1:03:56now you don't get to use it at all.
1:03:59I'll show you.
1:04:00- Yeah, yeah.
1:04:00- And that is the kind of stuff where
1:04:03I then feel like I can't trust the system.
1:04:06And if I feel like I can't trust the system,
1:04:08then it's just too much of a weight on my brain
1:04:11that I worry that every complicated task
1:04:13I'm adding to the system is ultimately gonna let me down.
1:04:16And this is never a way that I felt was to do this.
1:04:19It is rock solid with this stuff.
1:04:22And that's one of the things that has made me
1:04:24come back to it time and time again.
1:04:26And now why I'm like, no, I'm good.
1:04:28I'm staying here.
1:04:29This is the app that works the way that my brain works
1:04:33and has literally never let me down
1:04:36in the way that some other apps have.
1:04:38I am using reminders more now for shared lists especially.
1:04:43So very general stuff like grocery lists, home project lists, that kind of stuff.
1:04:49Things that I don't really want in Todoist, which is by and large all work
1:04:55with some personal tasks, but personal tasks that tend to have some kind of
1:05:00like work relation to them if that makes sense.
1:05:02Yeah, I get it.
1:05:03But like the lists and reminders, they're all shared at the moment, all shared with Adina.
1:05:07So it's just stuff that we're working on together or you know things like that.
1:05:11And I think reminders is pretty good for that because it's also most of these things. They don't have due dates
1:05:17They're just lists of things and for me
1:05:19That can't work like for todoist everything goes in with a due date
1:05:24That's how I work in todoist. Like I don't have tasks that don't have due dates
1:05:28So if I need to have a list of tasks or reminders that won't have due dates
1:05:34They need to go somewhere else for it to work within the mental model of my system, right?
1:05:39So I've been using reminders for that and it is really good.
1:05:42Like reminders has gotten really good.
1:05:43And I think for me, it's going to become a,
1:05:47you've got a shared list of someone,
1:05:48reminders is where it goes.
1:05:50- Yeah, it feels like that has to be the default tool
1:05:52for that kind of thing.
1:05:54It's just the best at it.
1:05:55It's the easiest at it.
1:05:56In past years, I've tried different things
1:05:58for little shared reminders and ultimately it's like,
1:06:00no, no, no, just use reminders.
1:06:02It's so much better.
1:06:03It's just baked into everything.
1:06:05It's yeah.
1:06:06If you're using shared reminders with someone
1:06:07and it's not a reminders list,
1:06:09I feel like you need a really good reason why you're not doing it this way.
1:06:12When it comes to note taking, my systems have remained basically the same.
1:06:16So Apple Notes is my central place for where I put all my personal notes,
1:06:23notes that are shared with people.
1:06:24Because again, Apple Notes does a good job with that.
1:06:26Not very good at real time, but good for like mostly asynchronous sharing.
1:06:31Like I'm going to add something later on.
1:06:33Somebody else might add something, you know, that kind of thing, which is fine.
1:06:36So before you go any further though, what exactly do you mean by a note?
1:06:40Like, like how would you define a note?
1:06:42I will not do this with you.
1:06:43I won't do this with you.
1:06:45I mean, like what is it?
1:06:47I don't put like individual sentences.
1:06:50Like they are typically lists of the text, paragraphs of text.
1:06:55I can't, I can't do this.
1:06:57No, leave me alone.
1:06:58I just, I'm just asking like, what kind of things are you saving in notes?
1:07:02All right.
1:07:02So the main things...
1:07:04- I genuinely always want to know.
1:07:06- The main things for me that go in,
1:07:08like my most important notes are the individual notes
1:07:12that I have for each of my shows.
1:07:14So I have an upgrade follow-up note,
1:07:16connected follow-up note,
1:07:17Cortex follow-up note, et cetera.
1:07:19And in those notes goes links that I wanna share,
1:07:23like to talk about on a show.
1:07:24So like if I see something online, I'll add it to that.
1:07:26And one of the reasons I've always loved notes
1:07:28is how good the share extension is from anywhere in iOS
1:07:31to just add it.
1:07:32If I have an idea for a topic, I might start writing an outline in that note as well.
1:07:37So there's like lots of things in each note.
1:07:40In my Cortex note, I have like ideas for topics going back years that we've just not gotten
1:07:45to yet, but they're all in there.
1:07:47So I know that if I want to get some ideas for an episode of Cortex, I will go to my
1:07:51Cortex follow up note and it's all going to be in there.
1:07:54But I also have notes that are preparation for a show.
1:07:58So when I was like, got my iPhone 14 Pro,
1:08:00I was writing all of my thoughts in there for it.
1:08:02So if I had to pull anything out for an episode,
1:08:05I could do that.
1:08:06So like me and Irina have in here,
1:08:07like some notes for like our new home
1:08:09and like things that we wanna keep an eye on.
1:08:12Like we have all of the various pieces of information
1:08:15we have amassed about how the house works, right?
1:08:19Like stuff that the previous owner said,
1:08:21stuff that we worked out on our own, you know,
1:08:23like, so all just going in there as like a central hub
1:08:26where we could search later on
1:08:28and it would bring us to that note.
1:08:30I have a note that I made called Smart Home,
1:08:33which has a bunch of things in it.
1:08:34There's some, what kind of products
1:08:36do I want to add to the home?
1:08:38Here's some links.
1:08:39Here's a photo of like kind of flow chart
1:08:43that I drew on a piece of paper of like,
1:08:45this is how I want the security system to work.
1:08:47So it's all kinds of stuff goes in here.
1:08:50But I think one of the things
1:08:51that makes me and you different
1:08:53is related items are all within one note.
1:08:57They're not like multiple notes that are then drawn together by something.
1:09:00Yeah.
1:09:01So I actually just realized something while you were talking again on
1:09:05notes and how people use them.
1:09:07No, no, but I, I, I'm going to say this out loud because I never realized this was a
1:09:13feature, but it just dawned on me why and how you could use this in the way that
1:09:17you're doing.
1:09:18I never realized that if you're on a webpage and you go to share that with
1:09:23notes that there's an option at the top to add it to a specific note so it will append at the bottom.
1:09:30- I've been talking about this for like six years. Every year I mention this.
1:09:34This is how this works for me. - No, no, but you've never like
1:09:39said it this way and it's like I never realized this was a feature.
1:09:44- Yeah, so this is so like the magic. - You've always talked about like having
1:09:48a cortex note, like I get it, but I just, I think I always thought that the process
1:09:53of adding like a link to the bottom of a page was more clunky than it actually was.
1:10:00Oh no, it's so easy.
1:10:01Yeah, I just had my mind blown, like I went into Safari and had shared with the notes
1:10:05and like, oh at the top I can just pick something and it goes at the bottom.
1:10:08I never knew that.
1:10:10And then it does the little preview too, which I really enjoy.
1:10:13And so like if somebody sends me a tweet and I add it via the share extension, it gives
1:10:17me a preview of the tweet in notes so I don't even have to click the link right
1:10:21to know if it's something that I want for that episode so this is why like
1:10:25Apple Notes is is I'm this is such a part of my system for how I produce my
1:10:31shows I've tried other apps and other apps have really good features and they
1:10:36have like interesting things that they do which is like art but none of them do
1:10:40this kind of like collecting of links like Apple notes does yeah it's like
1:10:45It's so ingrained in how I work now.
1:10:48Yeah, the way they do a little preview of whatever the link actually is, is quite killer.
1:10:52It's a really nice feature.
1:10:55And I can see that it can make, say, scrolling a long list of ideas for things to talk about
1:11:00on any of your podcasts much easier, where you can also just visually see what it is.
1:11:04There you go.
1:11:04I never knew and no one ever told me that you could append to the bottom of a note.
1:11:08I just didn't realize. That's quite interesting.
1:11:10This is bullying.
1:11:12No, it's genuinely not bullying.
1:11:14- I have mentioned this every year.
1:11:17- I know, I don't think you have ever said the words,
1:11:21like when you share, it appends to the bottom of a note.
1:11:25I don't think you've said that.
1:11:26- I'm also still using Kraft.
1:11:30I use Kraft for everything related to Cortex Brands.
1:11:33So it's a lot of the same kinds of stuff,
1:11:35but it's all siloed within Kraft.
1:11:38You know, it's good for me for brainstorming,
1:11:40it's good for mixed media, it's very good for sharing.
1:11:44So if I have a note, I can share it with someone.
1:11:46It's usually I'll share it with you, right?
1:11:48Where I could be like, hey, look at this table
1:11:51that I've got going on, like of this information.
1:11:53And it's very good for like creating these links
1:11:55that you can share with other people, which I really enjoy.
1:11:58One of the things that they've added in the last few months,
1:12:01which is awesome for me, is calculations to tables.
1:12:05So they added tables last year,
1:12:07but it was basically just, you could draw a table
1:12:09and you could write in each box,
1:12:10but now they've added functions and calculations
1:12:13that you can apply to what's on those tables.
1:12:15Because one of the things that I use Kraft for
1:12:17is tracking sales for our products.
1:12:20So I will go in every week and like write down
1:12:23what our current sales totals are.
1:12:25And now Kraft will automatically calculate
1:12:28how many have been sold in the last week
1:12:30based on our current total sales number.
1:12:32And I like to have that.
1:12:33It's just like an ongoing piece of information
1:12:35so I can kind of try and draw out some trends over time.
1:12:38Before I was having to open PCALC
1:12:40and do the calculations myself.
1:12:42But now I have it all in Kraft.
1:12:44So it's very easy now to me to do that.
1:12:47The formulas are represented really nicely
1:12:49and I'm so happy that they added that
1:12:51because for a while I was like,
1:12:53"Should I be doing this in numbers?"
1:12:54But then it's breaking the idea
1:12:56of this stuff all being in Kraft
1:12:58and I was like going backwards and forwards.
1:13:00And then they finally added this feature.
1:13:02So it's given me the one little last piece
1:13:05that I was missing from my Kraft setup for Cortex brand.
1:13:08- That's really nice.
1:13:09I'm a big proponent of numbers.
1:13:11I really like it as an app,
1:13:12but it feels like it's too heavyweight for like,
1:13:15I just want to add up a list of numbers
1:13:17in this thing automatically.
1:13:18So it's really nice that they added that.
1:13:20- You're still using Obsidian, right?
1:13:23- Oh, okay.
1:13:24No, well look, if we're talking about notes,
1:13:27well,
1:13:30what is a note, Myke?
1:13:33(laughs)
1:13:35I feel like I don't know when you want to talk about Obsidian.
1:13:42Obsidian to me is like a whole other universe of things.
1:13:45I would say what most people mean
1:13:47when they're talking about notes is,
1:13:50I use the Notes app as an individual list of things
1:13:54where it's like, oh, I just wanna remember this,
1:13:56and then every couple of weeks,
1:13:58I just go through everything in Notes
1:13:59and like sort it into some other place where it belongs,
1:14:02or it just acts as a reminder.
1:14:03- So that, you said earlier that you had a thing,
1:14:06a button on your home screen that you can press, right?
1:14:10and it lets you add something,
1:14:12a thought that you have for cortex.
1:14:15Where is that going?
1:14:16- Okay, so currently it's going into reminders.
1:14:21And the reason it was--
1:14:22(laughing)
1:14:24- Of course it was.
1:14:25Why wouldn't it?
1:14:26You know what I mean?
1:14:26What is a note?
1:14:27It's also a to-do.
1:14:28- I mean, can I explain myself like this?
1:14:32- I would love you to.
1:14:33Like, no, you need to,
1:14:35but I first have to get out my emotions.
1:14:38(laughs)
1:14:40So this year for all of Cortex,
1:14:43I've been using Reminders as my show notes.
1:14:47And the reason I've been doing it that way
1:14:49is because, sure, Reminders is a Reminders app,
1:14:53but it's also kind of like the most simple possible version
1:14:58of an outliner app.
1:15:00Each item can be a little thing
1:15:02and you can drag them up and down
1:15:04and you have one level of sorting.
1:15:07So you can have one little sub-level.
1:15:09And so when I add a little note for Cortex,
1:15:13it then shows up as like this individual line
1:15:16on my Cortex list in Reminders.
1:15:19And I, at the top, just have a couple of categories.
1:15:22So I've got like state of the app.
1:15:24So as the year went along,
1:15:26if I was using some clever little app that I knew like,
1:15:28oh, six months from now, when I'm not in Hawaii,
1:15:31I'm never gonna remember that I ever used this thing.
1:15:35I can just make a note of that.
1:15:36And then I like fold it under that one heading, which is state of the apps.
1:15:40And it's the same thing with the themes.
1:15:42Like, oh, I had a thought about themes.
1:15:44I can just fold this under that one level of themes.
1:15:47And it's nice because in Reminders, you can also toggle that little triangle to
1:15:50actually hide it so I don't actually see it.
1:15:53So Reminders for me has been kind of the perfect level of organization for
1:15:59Cortex Notes, for like the Cortex Show Notes stuff.
1:16:02And then it's also nice because when we go through the show, I can just tick off,
1:16:06"Oh, these are the things that we've discussed," and then they go away.
1:16:10And the things that we haven't discussed can stay on that list of, "Oh, like,
1:16:14oh, maybe this makes sense in the future."
1:16:16And I can throw that into another little folder, which is like possible future stuff.
1:16:21I actually really like this as a system for Cortex.
1:16:24I do want to trial next year, possibly doing this in Obsidian instead for just
1:16:31like a couple of very small reasons, but Reminders has been working great for this.
1:16:35Like, and I'm very happy with it as a system for keeping track of stuff
1:16:40that I want to talk about in Cortex.
1:16:41And it's also just nice.
1:16:42Like it's a clear, like here's this individual list.
1:16:45Honestly, my biggest problem with Reminders is that for some incredibly
1:16:50annoying reason, you can't like make the text bigger on the Mac app.
1:16:55And it's infuriating, like sitting on my computer now, I'm like, I want
1:16:58these words twice as big while I'm here recording the show, but Reminders is like,
1:17:02"Oh no, no, no, we only want teeny tiny letters and teeny tiny sentences in our
1:17:07Reminders app," which is genuinely like the thing that I find the most
1:17:10frustrating about it. So that's where everything is going when I'm talking
1:17:13about Cortex.
1:17:14I can see how you got there, right? And like the way that you're describing it,
1:17:19that does make a lot of sense of like, you have these pieces of information that
1:17:23are short and you're just like adding to them. But like the way that that wouldn't
1:17:26like what for me is I actually like to write in outlines and you can't do that right like you can
1:17:33add the initial thing but if you want to add some context to it reminders won't let you do that and
1:17:39so like that's what I do in the notes app right so like I'll open my cortex note and I might add
1:17:45a sentence and then later on I'm going to come back and fill that out a little bit more in an
1:17:50outline format so I have more like thorough thinking and thorough notes for
1:17:55the show. So I can see how you got there but it really does feel like you've
1:18:00established to me like an idea of how you want to track this information, give
1:18:05you somewhere to over time add this stuff which I think is really good. I
1:18:09wished that I would have thought that of that earlier for state of the apps
1:18:12especially. I've had to do a lot of work over the last couple of weeks like
1:18:16combing through my devices to find the apps that I like,
1:18:19where I could have actually been adding them the whole time.
1:18:22But reminders wouldn't work for me in this way
1:18:26because I then wouldn't be able to do anything
1:18:29with that initial information once it's in there,
1:18:31in that application, I'd have to then take it somewhere else.
1:18:34- Yeah, and that thing about being able to add sub layers,
1:18:38like in an outline, that is the main reason
1:18:41I've been thinking of maybe switching the system over
1:18:43to Obsidian, which would allow me to do that more easily.
1:18:47That is the main limitation of it.
1:18:50But even if Reminders had just a single additional layer,
1:18:55if it was a three-layer hierarchy
1:18:57instead of a two-layer hierarchy,
1:18:59I might be totally fine with just using it like this forever
1:19:01because one subheading is all I ever need
1:19:04for the Cortex Notes.
1:19:05Whereas I do see in our Google Doc
1:19:07that you often have boom-a-boom, five sublayers
1:19:10of here's all the things
1:19:11that I want to talk about with the thing.
1:19:13That's what my Cortex Notes look like.
1:19:16And just in a similar way, I think I mentioned it before,
1:19:20but just in case I haven't,
1:19:21I do also find reminders really great
1:19:23for two watch lists and two read lists.
1:19:26So when someone recommends something,
1:19:28I have a little shortcut that will add the book or the movie
1:19:32to the two watch list or the two read list.
1:19:34And I also, this is really key,
1:19:36in the shortcut that I have set up to do that,
1:19:39It also asks me who's recommending this.
1:19:42And I always really like to be able to remember like,
1:19:45oh, this person recommended me the show.
1:19:48And so like the reminders has a like notes section.
1:19:51What are you laughing at there, Myke?
1:19:53- This is how you keep track
1:19:56of all the bad recommendations I give you.
1:19:58- Well, I mean, look--
1:19:58- This is why I've been on the knife's edge.
1:20:00(laughing)
1:20:03- Listeners, behind the scenes,
1:20:07that have recently teased Myke
1:20:08as having one of the worst batting averages
1:20:11for recommending media for me.
1:20:13- I think I've, have I saved myself a little bit
1:20:17with severance?
1:20:18- No, severance was really good.
1:20:20Severance was really good.
1:20:21- So I've got one in the good column.
1:20:24I've got like, there is an army of debt,
1:20:27right in the bad column.
1:20:28It's terrible back there.
1:20:29It's like the 300 back there, but.
1:20:32- It is terrible, it is terrible back there.
1:20:34You did save yourself a little bit with severance,
1:20:36Especially because, we'll just say,
1:20:39Severance had one of the most stressful,
1:20:42nail-biting hours of television
1:20:44I've ever watched in my life.
1:20:46- Right. - I was like, wow!
1:20:47- Good, it's the final episode, right?
1:20:50Unbelievable. - Listen, I'm not saying
1:20:51anything, look, no, don't spoil anything for people, right?
1:20:53But it's like, I was literally sweating.
1:20:56(laughs)
1:20:56I'm like this, and this is like, that's amazing.
1:20:58Like, it's amazing that I was able to do that, so.
1:21:01So, yes, Myke, you've had a terrible batting average,
1:21:04but like, wow, is that a real peak
1:21:06that I would have totally missed otherwise?
1:21:08- I had hoped that severance would be the thing to save me.
1:21:11I knew it was like, and I took a real sweet,
1:21:15'cause you told me, I believe when I recommended it,
1:21:18like, if this one's bad, I'm done.
1:21:21Like that's the end, no more recommendations.
1:21:24But like, so I thought if anything is gonna save me
1:21:27on this one, it was severance.
1:21:28I'm pleased you enjoy it.
1:21:29- Yeah, I mean, listeners, in your life,
1:21:31you'll eventually find that some people become
1:21:34excellent anti-recommenders,
1:21:35that when they recommend something, you're like,
1:21:37"Okay, great, this goes on the Do Not Watch list."
1:21:39And then Myke was like, I was just telling Myke,
1:21:42like he's real close to getting on that Do Not Watch list.
1:21:46You had some phrase at dinner where you're like,
1:21:50"I'm all in on severance,
1:21:51"like I bet my entire reputation on it."
1:21:54- I did say that, I said I will stake my,
1:21:57I think you offered that as an option to me,
1:21:59of like, I will watch this,
1:22:01if you stake your reputation on it.
1:22:03And I was willing to stake my reputation on severance.
1:22:07- Yeah, it's a bit like, you know,
1:22:09you're in the old West gambling hall
1:22:10and it's like double or nothing, right?
1:22:12I got, and you're like, I'm all in.
1:22:14- I went all in? - So yeah,
1:22:15that worked out well.
1:22:16But yes, listeners, that's why you wanna keep a record
1:22:19of who recommended you to thing.
1:22:21And so you can like build up associations
1:22:23with who recommends what.
1:22:24And also genuinely, 'cause I'm just like super bad
1:22:28at keeping up with friends.
1:22:30It's also nice that when you finish something,
1:22:33it kind of gives you an excuse to be able to tell someone,
1:22:36like, "Oh, hey, I just finished this book
1:22:37that you recommended, and I enjoyed it."
1:22:40And it's just like,
1:22:41it can be a nice little touch point as well.
1:22:43- You didn't do that with "Severance."
1:22:44You didn't text me and say that was great.
1:22:47- Didn't I?
1:22:48No, I told you.
1:22:49No, I updated you at some point that it was going well.
1:22:52- We spoke last week, and you said,
1:22:56"I'm enjoying it so far,
1:22:57but we'll see how it goes to the end."
1:23:00And this is the first I've heard about it.
1:23:02- Oh, did I leave you hanging until now?
1:23:04I didn't realize. - I just didn't know
1:23:05you finished it, right?
1:23:06I didn't know what speed you were on.
1:23:08- I mean, look, look, we're getting on a bit of a tangent here
1:23:10but I do have a real asterisk of like,
1:23:15I think they've written themselves
1:23:16in a real dangerous position for season two, so we'll see.
1:23:19But I'm still totally giving it to you as a win for season two.
1:23:21- I believe, this is no spoilers, right?
1:23:24But I've read something, if I'm remembering rightly,
1:23:28that this was supposed to be one season.
1:23:30And I think it was,
1:23:33'cause Ben Stiller's production company
1:23:35kind of made this happen, which is like a fun thing.
1:23:38- Yeah, I don't know why.
1:23:39Every time at the end of the episode,
1:23:41it flashes, like it ends and it goes to custom black
1:23:43and it says like directed by Ben Stiller.
1:23:45I don't know, it just like made me laugh every show.
1:23:48I feel a little bad about that,
1:23:49but I was like, oh, Zoolander made this?
1:23:50- 'Cause I remember when the first trailers came out,
1:23:52because it was said that this show was happening.
1:23:54It was like Ben Stiller is directing, producing,
1:23:57and it has Adam Scott from Parks and Rec.
1:24:00And I was like, "Oh, okay, this is gonna be fun."
1:24:02And then the first trailer came out and I was like,
1:24:04"Oh boy, what is going on?"
1:24:07But I believe it was supposed to be one season
1:24:09and the production company,
1:24:12like Ben Stiller's production company
1:24:13kind of realized what they had and they're like,
1:24:15"No, no, this is gonna be more than one season."
1:24:18And they stretched out that final episode to,
1:24:21but yes, I don't know what happens after this episode.
1:24:25Like I can't envision how it continues.
1:24:27I'm really intrigued though,
1:24:28'cause I love the first season, so I can't wait for more.
1:24:30They are making more, so.
1:24:31- If that's true, that there was a coherent story
1:24:35which was turned into multiple seasons,
1:24:37that gives me a lot more faith.
1:24:39But yeah, with a lot of TV, it's like,
1:24:41yeah, you can write something interesting and mysterious,
1:24:45but that's not the hard part.
1:24:46Like, the hard part is closing the sale
1:24:49on your interesting and mysterious premise, so.
1:24:51- Yeah, I would just be happy to have more understanding
1:24:54of the world at large,
1:24:56so they can just go in that direction,
1:24:57and I'm intrigued, right?
1:24:58'Cause there's just like so much stuff,
1:24:59it's like I don't even understand how this world is.
1:25:02Which is lost vibes, you get a bit lost vibes from it,
1:25:04so I hope that they do a better job.
1:25:07I mentioned FantasticOwl earlier on
1:25:09as my calendar of choice, it's still the one for me.
1:25:11I will say though, like,
1:25:13starting to notice a little jankiness of FantasticOwl.
1:25:17- Oh yeah?
1:25:18- Which is a thing I've never noticed,
1:25:19like never had before.
1:25:21And this is especially happening to me on the iPhone,
1:25:24where the app seems to be haunted sometimes.
1:25:29- Oh, that sounds bad.
1:25:31- It's scrolling on its own in a way
1:25:34that I'm not asking it to do.
1:25:36I will say, hit a date, right?
1:25:39So I'm looking at it and I wanna see it next Thursday
1:25:41and I tap it and I'm looking at it
1:25:43and then all of a sudden it jumps back to another day.
1:25:46- Ooh, spooky.
1:25:47- Or sometimes I'll be scrolling
1:25:50and it will say, oh, you're on the 10th,
1:25:53but it's on the little calendar view.
1:25:55But then on the list, it's showing me a different day.
1:25:58I found this to be weird in the last little while.
1:26:01It's a thing I've not experienced with the app before.
1:26:03It's always been really rock solid,
1:26:05but it's moving around.
1:26:07The app seems to be moving on its own
1:26:09in a way that I don't like.
1:26:10But Fantastic Cal, still the best.
1:26:13Calendars, it's the way that I work,
1:26:14natural language and all that kind of stuff,
1:26:16and I love it.
1:26:17But bugs get into systems, who knows?
1:26:19This might be just me.
1:26:20Maybe I'm the only woman for haunted Fantastic Cal.
1:26:23Who can tell?
1:26:23(laughing)
1:26:24- Yeah, I never really use it on iOS.
1:26:27I'm only ever using it on my computers,
1:26:29and I can't report that I have any hauntedness
1:26:31in my fantastical.
1:26:33But yes, we mention it every year,
1:26:35but I also every year really feel the need to reemphasize.
1:26:38It is such a stupidly good calendar app.
1:26:40You're crazy if you're not using it.
1:26:42- There's no better.
1:26:43- The thing that is just the amazing
1:26:44is the calendar groups and being able to just say,
1:26:47okay, show me all the work stuff.
1:26:49Show me all the stuff that I need to see
1:26:51If I'm planning traveling and social engagements or like, it's just unbelievably good.
1:26:58So yeah, I can't recommend Fantastical well enough.
1:27:00Are you using the calendar sets with focuses?
1:27:04No, I didn't know that was a feature, but I also feel like that does not wildly matter
1:27:11for me.
1:27:12That's a much more important feature for you.
1:27:14But can you do that?
1:27:16Tie that in with when the focus modes change?
1:27:19So there's a new feature, a new API called focus filters that apps can tie into and allow
1:27:25you to, when you're in a certain focus mode, only show you certain information.
1:27:30So you can set this up that like when you're in a certain focus, iMessage will only show
1:27:35you conversations from certain people and you can choose who you want it to show you.
1:27:40In Fantastic
1:27:40In Fantastic How you can have it show you in the app just certain calendar sets.
1:27:45Timery has it that certain sets of timers will only be viewable to you in certain focus
1:27:51modes.
1:27:52I haven't played around with that yet.
1:27:55It says I don't do any of these.
1:27:57I don't do it because it took a while for them and now there's only really apps that
1:28:00are starting to happen now.
1:28:02But it's in the focus mode, it's called Focus Filters and you can tap it and it gives you
1:28:05all of the apps that you might use
1:28:08that will give you this functionality.
1:28:12So you can configure a bunch of apps
1:28:13to show you certain information
1:28:15when you're in certain focuses.
1:28:16I thought that could be interesting for you
1:28:18as someone who's running these focuses all the time,
1:28:20but this isn't something that I have used myself.
1:28:24- I didn't realize that's where,
1:28:26'cause I remember them talking about this,
1:28:28and I just always assumed this would show up
1:28:30as a setting in the app, but it doesn't.
1:28:32It's at the way bottom of the focus settings themselves.
1:28:37Interesting, I did not know that.
1:28:41Ah, so that's where it shows you that you can pick stuff.
1:28:44Okay, I'll have to take more of a, oh Safari tab group.
1:28:48How intriguing.
1:28:49- Yeah, so if you had like a research tab group
1:28:52and a research focus mode, time together.
1:28:55- Research, like there's just gonna be one tab group
1:28:58under that, that's madness, Myke.
1:29:00- Research, zed, zed, zed.
1:29:02- Oh yeah, my research tab group.
1:29:06Oh no, my lights just switched again
1:29:08'cause I did touch the focus modes.
1:29:09(laughing)
1:29:12- Not the only one with a ghost.
1:29:15- Yeah, let me go back to chill mode.
1:29:17Okay, all right, I will investigate that later,
1:29:19but that's very cool, I didn't realize that
1:29:21and thank you for telling me where it actually is
1:29:23'cause I might not have found it all year
1:29:25if you hadn't mentioned that.
1:29:26- And another good piece of follow up
1:29:27from last year's state of the apps
1:29:29that needs to be mentioned.
1:29:30We spoke last time, you said you were still using
1:29:32Calzones by David Smith.
1:29:34And we both wished that he would just copy and paste
1:29:38Calzones into Widgetsmith, which he has actually done
1:29:42in the intervening year.
1:29:43So Widgetsmith now has the time zone functionality
1:29:48of Calzones inside of it, which I love.
1:29:51And so now, this is especially good for me, which I enjoy,
1:29:54I have the time zones widget on my lock screen, right?
1:29:58When I tap that, it opens WidgetSmith in the Calzones view,
1:30:02so I can move stuff around and see time zones
1:30:05over a scrolling period of time.
1:30:07So very happy that that's in WidgetSmith now.
1:30:10- Yes, yeah, very happy about that.
1:30:12We wished/bullied and begged,
1:30:16underscored him to put that into the app.
1:30:18And yes, he was very nice to do it, and I really love it.
1:30:21That's the only thing that I use on that,
1:30:24I forget what they call it, the Today View,
1:30:25I think is the language for it.
1:30:27when you slide over to the left,
1:30:28like I have that as a list there,
1:30:30which is just real handy to check.
1:30:31And it was very satisfying to be able to switch,
1:30:34'cause I think Calzones was the last thing
1:30:37that was using like the super old,
1:30:39original widgets interface.
1:30:41And it had to exist in like this janky bubble
1:30:44that felt like, oh, they must be running a virtual machine
1:30:46to run this widget on this system.
1:30:48So it was real nice to be like,
1:30:49ah, here's the updated one from Calzones.
1:30:52For anyone who does the time zone stuff,
1:30:54let me just reemphasize.
1:30:56The killer feature of this and what makes it so good is not that it shows you the time in different cities, but that when you tap on it, it opens up this like scroll-y view.
1:31:09So you can look at say, like I've got six cities listed and you can scroll left and right and very easily see, oh, as the day moves on where I am, what are all the times everywhere else?
1:31:22And it's just like, I've never found any interface
1:31:25that is as good for quickly figuring out
1:31:28when you're gonna do a call with someone
1:31:29in a different time zone.
1:31:31So it's not just the clocks, it's what it opens up to.
1:31:34And that's why we were like,
1:31:35please put calzones in the modern system.
1:31:38And so it's great.
1:31:38If you do time zones, like you need to get this for sure.
1:31:41- I would just need to know, 'cause I checked this, right?
1:31:43Four hours after we published last year's episode,
1:31:47David sent us a video of him having added it
1:31:50into WidgetSmith.
1:31:51- Four hours.
1:31:52- I believe he is the fastest developer in the West.
1:31:55- It took him longer before he actually put it in
1:31:58'cause he actually added a bunch of stuff to Widgetsmith,
1:32:00like a bunch of, I think they're called tools in the app,
1:32:02where there's now just like a lot more functionality
1:32:05in the app that you can tie to some widgets
1:32:07that when you tap them, they open up.
1:32:09So there's like weather in there now,
1:32:11there's like a full weather app inside of it now.
1:32:13There's activity and step stuff,
1:32:15there's reminders, functionality,
1:32:17there's tons of new tools in the app.
1:32:19I will just note something where it took you six months
1:32:23to respond to that message, which is hilarious.
1:32:25- Oh, right, that did.
1:32:27(both laughing)
1:32:29Listeners, that is evidence.
1:32:33When I say, when you hear me say things like,
1:32:36"I am bad at getting back to people,"
1:32:38that's the kind of thing that I mean.
1:32:40It's like, a message is sent
1:32:43and half a year later I respond.
1:32:47I am not proud of this.
1:32:49I don't wish that I was this way.
1:32:51Like if I could wish myself better than this,
1:32:53I would be better than this.
1:32:54But like sometimes you have to live with the person
1:32:57that you are and yeah, that's real bad.
1:33:01And I wish I could say that was some kind of crazy outlier,
1:33:04but it is not.
1:33:07- Hey, look, this is one of those things.
1:33:08If everyone's true friends,
1:33:10you understand each other, right?
1:33:11And like people that are friends of you,
1:33:13they know that you're this way.
1:33:14And it's like, this is, you know, we all work together
1:33:17and make each other better.
1:33:19So time management, let's talk about time management.
1:33:23Gotta talk about Timery as well.
1:33:25'Cause like since last year,
1:33:26Timery has had so many awesome new features added to it.
1:33:29Few things that I'm really loving about Timery.
1:33:32I'm loving using it on my Mac,
1:33:34loving the menu bar app that I have running right now.
1:33:37And it's the way that I most frequently set timers now
1:33:41is from the menu bar.
1:33:42And like, what I really love
1:33:43is there's a recent time entries in the menu bar,
1:33:47which is the way that I most frequently will start a timer.
1:33:49So I just go down to recent time entries.
1:33:51- I don't know, I never saw that.
1:33:52- The last week's worth of stuff is in here for me.
1:33:55If I wanna do show prep,
1:33:56I usually go to recent time entries
1:33:58and it doesn't take me very long to be like,
1:34:00oh, show prep for Cortex and I'll hit it
1:34:02and it'll just start the timer.
1:34:04And you can also do some very basic things in there.
1:34:06Like you can change the start time by five or 15 minutes.
1:34:10There's like an edit parameter stuff.
1:34:11This is a great menu bar app
1:34:13and it's how I use Timer most now.
1:34:15But one of the other things that I love
1:34:17that Joe added to the app now is just like an auto-completing.
1:34:20So when you start a timer, you can have it,
1:34:23'cause again, I love working in text for these things,
1:34:26you can just drop your cursor into like a description field,
1:34:29which you can start typing.
1:34:30So I could start typing like C-O-R for cortex,
1:34:34and it will show me my recent timers for cortex.
1:34:37It's an easy way to then just hit the one
1:34:39that I'm looking for, as I can auto-complete
1:34:41and just hit enter.
1:34:42So that's really awesome.
1:34:44It got lock screen widgets, obviously, which we're using.
1:34:46The focus filter stuff that I mentioned is in there.
1:34:49And the live activities, which we haven't spoken about yet,
1:34:52but it's the new thing in iOS that works particularly good
1:34:55with the always on display and the dynamic island
1:34:58on the 14 Pro.
1:34:59So now when I'm running a timer on my iPhone,
1:35:03it's just always ticking away.
1:35:05I love it.
1:35:06I love this feature so much.
1:35:07I think that it's such a great addition for Timery.
1:35:09- You're talking about loving the,
1:35:11it is called the live activity.
1:35:12That's the one on the bottom where it just shows you here's the name and here's the timer.
1:35:15Live activities and the Dynamic Island thing are the same thing.
1:35:19They're all live activities.
1:35:20Okay, so this is what I was wondering because I was digging around when the new app came out
1:35:25and I got the new phone with the Dynamic Island.
1:35:28I thought it was interesting, like everything in here is under one setting.
1:35:31I wonder if behind the scenes Apple doesn't distinguish between the Dynamic Island and the Live Activity stuff
1:35:38if it's all just the same.
1:35:39So I guess that sounds like that is the case.
1:35:41the case. Okay, that's interesting. Everything that happens in the Dynamic Island is a part
1:35:45of the Live Activities API. Okay, so I should think about it the other way. Live Act, like,
1:35:50Dynamic Island is a subset of Live Activities in a way. Yeah. Okay. It's one of the two
1:35:55or three places on your iPhone that you will see a current Live Activity, right, because
1:36:00you can get it in the lock screen, you can get it in notifications, which are essentially
1:36:03the same thing, but there's two ways to get to it. And then it's also in the Dynamic Island.
1:36:06make sense. I was, as I could often be, I was like quick on the draw for emailing the
1:36:11developer and being like, "Hey, I want these as different settings." But the more I looked
1:36:15at it, I was like, "Maybe that's not his choice, right? Maybe this is the way Apple's
1:36:18just done it behind the scenes." I have to see, I have to get used to it a little bit.
1:36:22I don't love having the big live activity thing on my lock screen with the Always On
1:36:27display. The Always On display is interesting. I think it's a bit of a double-edged sword.
1:36:31I mostly like it, but there are clearly cases where I don't, and this is kind of one of
1:36:35them. But it is why, like you were mentioning the little menu bar for Timery, and that to me is
1:36:41killer. Like I absolutely love that. And I don't use it, but I love just having that it can show
1:36:49the icon in the color of whatever timer you're running. And I also just turn off the time
1:36:55display. Like I don't want to see how much time has passed. But it's great while I'm working to
1:37:00to just have a quick visual indicator that like,
1:37:03yes, the correct timer is running right now.
1:37:06I just like absolutely love that.
1:37:09It's just like on my phone,
1:37:11I think I might turn off some of that live activity stuff
1:37:13'cause I find it too prominent and too distracting,
1:37:16but the menu bar one is like, perfect.
1:37:18That's what I want.
1:37:19I just want a quick visual indicator
1:37:21'cause I run everything from Spotlight
1:37:23is how I like turn on and off timers
1:37:25with a janky system that involves automator
1:37:28running a terminal command to run a shortcut,
1:37:31but it works for me.
1:37:32And then I can just quickly see like,
1:37:33oh, the color changed, great.
1:37:35Like the correct timer is running.
1:37:36I'm on a break now,
1:37:37or I've switched from core work to admin work.
1:37:39- In the Timery Settings,
1:37:41there is a Live Activities set of settings,
1:37:45and there are some options,
1:37:46like showing the duration you can turn off.
1:37:48So it would still show that there's a timer running.
1:37:51But yeah, those systems are very interlinked of each other,
1:37:55the always on live activity and the dynamic island.
1:37:58You kind of can't choose one or the other.
1:38:00You have to just choose if you want to run
1:38:02live activities at all.
1:38:04- Yeah, and that's why I ended up not like having a request
1:38:07about, hey, can we change this?
1:38:08Because I thought, oh, this probably does make sense
1:38:11that Apple wants to just consider the concept
1:38:16of there's something happening now
1:38:17and we will choose how it's displayed
1:38:20depending on what the user is doing on their phone.
1:38:23These are not separate systems.
1:38:24I think it's great for people that it exists.
1:38:27And it is when I run timers on the phone,
1:38:29weirdly satisfying on that little island on the top
1:38:32to see the little timer pop up
1:38:34and like the whole shortcut system work.
1:38:36Like it's really good.
1:38:37And I like that visual confirmation of like,
1:38:39yes, the timer went through, it's running right now.
1:38:42You can see that there's a little circle at the top.
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1:40:43Are you still using Notion at Grey Industries?
1:40:47Notion. Well, Notion Nation. Yeah, yes, I'm still using Notion. I say it like that because
1:40:57this is one of these things where I personally still don't love Notion. There's just something
1:41:04about the interface that still really gets me and there's also something where I find
1:41:08it like weirdly hard to find stuff sometimes. I don't love their search. Like I could have
1:41:13an endless list of complaints about Notion while at the same time realizing that this year
1:41:19it really cemented itself as one of these "but how did I ever live before we used this tool"
1:41:28kind of apps in terms of project management stuff. Like it's just been growing over the years for a
1:41:34lot of the behind the scenes stuff in terms of admin and this year in particular with a couple
1:41:42of projects, one of which has been frustrating me for like three quarters of the year now,
1:41:48which I was complaining to Myke about a little bit. A project where it's like fact-checking
1:41:54stuff that's going back 150 years between me and my assistant and fact-checker like
1:41:59working together, it would just not be possible to do the current project that we're working
1:42:04on without something like Notion to keep track of everything. So yeah, while I have an endless
1:42:08list of complaints about it. It's like it's created in my brain a sort of new category
1:42:15for basic tools that any team needs. Like you need something like Slack for everybody
1:42:25to talk to each other. You need whatever your industry specific tools are. And you need
1:42:30something like Notion, which is kind of like a database of shared knowledge, that's way
1:42:39more ad hoc and flexible than something like Google Docs, which might be a lot of people's
1:42:47first port of call for something like this.
1:42:48So where a lot of stuff for relays is Google Docs.
1:42:51Yeah, and sort of how you were mentioning with Kraft, like, it added a feature where
1:42:56there's tables.
1:42:57of the things that's just really killer for Notion, just to like express to people, like,
1:43:01how do we use this is for fact checking the scripts and putting together a timeline of events.
1:43:09It's like I can give the script to the fact checkers, they break it down into like, here's
1:43:14all of the statements that are made in this script. But that can then go into a table. It's
1:43:20like sort of like an Excel table, but not as rigid. And each fact can be categorized as like,
1:43:25"Oh, we've cleared this, this is good, this has further questions," or like, "This totally needs
1:43:30to be flagged and we need to double check it." And it's super useful on my end because then I can then
1:43:35like sort all of these of like, "Show me the critical ones, so I'm going to work through
1:43:39these first." And what's nice about it is then each little fact, if my assistant or the fact
1:43:46checker have set it up this way, I can click on that fact and then it basically opens up like a
1:43:51whole new document that can be all of the details about what's going on here.
1:43:55Like it doesn't need to be squeezed into the table and if necessary like that
1:44:01subpage can link to another page as well related to this so it's really just been
1:44:08the best sort of tool that allows a team to go in depth on a bunch of stuff.
1:44:13I know why that is useful and I know why people like the way that Notion works
1:44:20like this where it's like things are like infinitely expandable right where
1:44:24you can just keep clicking on things and opening new pages I can't stand that way
1:44:30of working because for me it's like I never know how far down this is gonna go
1:44:36and I don't like that. Where like I see this piece of information is there like
1:44:41a whole 25 level stack of notes behind this like I don't know until I start
1:44:47clicking. For me that just does not work. I don't like the uncertainty in a system
1:44:53like that. I get why people do. I get why especially for the way you just described
1:44:59that, I 100% see how that is incredibly helpful to you. There is just a table, but that table
1:45:06can hold within it an infinite amount of information, which definitely makes sense for what you're
1:45:12talking about with fact checking. Here's a fact, but here's all the research that
1:45:17led to us saying that this fact is true, right? Like I 100% see how that helpful for you.
1:45:22It's like hell for me.
1:45:23Jon Sorrentino
1:45:24Mm hmm. Also on there, what is surprisingly useful is sort of like you talk about was
1:45:28it spark that lets you do those comment threads on an email notion has that same sort of thing
1:45:34where there's there's a like, here's the fact here's all the information about the fact
1:45:38and then also here's the sidebar conversation. So I can add someone and like ask for clarification
1:45:44about a thing and it's just so useful and it's really great to like clearly have that understood
1:45:52of like we pull this out of Slack. There is the little this is this is where like my frustrations
1:45:59are the same frustrations you have that there there can be a little bit of a like where the
1:46:04hell am I? Right? Like I'm in I'm in the middle of some kind of weird loading for the matrix and it
1:46:11it could be anything. And it still always blows my mind if I'm just typing something
1:46:15that is like, "Oh, hey, do you want to insert a database query here?" Like, no, I don't.
1:46:19I was just trying to send a message where I'm asking a question, but like a fool, I
1:46:23hit the slash button and opened up a portal into everything that could be possible. I
1:46:28think what is also key with Notion is that you do have to have someone who is canonically
1:46:35in charge of the order of this thing, and everybody else just has to deal with it. And
1:46:41And for me, that's my assistant.
1:46:42It's like, she's in charge of canonically what this order is.
1:46:46Nobody else gets to rearrange pages.
1:46:49Because if you have like everybody do that, it can totally be a disaster.
1:46:53So it's like, I work within this system that she is overseeing that several people
1:46:58use.
1:46:59The other place that we use it for, which has turned out to be really great as well,
1:47:02is Notes for Me to the animator.
1:47:05Every time we go through a work in progress release, so like every time a video is rendered,
1:47:10I then go through and like leave all of the notes for changes that need to be made.
1:47:15And it's the same thing of like, it's great, because we can have a little conversation
1:47:19in here about like, what did you actually mean about this?
1:47:21Or I can just like put in a screenshot, and it creates this long list.
1:47:25So yeah, I think I've really settled on this is a category of tool that's totally necessary.
1:47:34There's things I don't like about it.
1:47:36But I'm just I'm never going to think again about like, oh, maybe instead of notion, I
1:47:40get everybody to use my insane Obsidian system."
1:47:43Like, no, no, no.
1:47:44That's not how this is going to work.
1:47:45Notion is obviously the best tool for this.
1:47:48There is a designated person who's in charge of all it, which is totally necessary.
1:47:52And it actually is great.
1:47:54The visual nature of it will appeal to way more people.
1:47:57Oh yeah, yeah.
1:47:58And genuinely, it has a ton of features that Obsidian never really could replicate in the
1:48:04same way that are just better for what it is trying to do.
1:48:09So yeah, I highly recommend Notion,
1:48:11despite all of my frustrations.
1:48:13And I'm really glad that it exists.
1:48:15And particularly for a thing that we're working on this
1:48:18year, it feels like without this tool,
1:48:22the scale of fact-checking would just simply not be possible.
1:48:28And the Tiffany project was the first time
1:48:31I saw where this is useful for everyone to try to coordinate.
1:48:36And it's really proved itself again.
1:48:38So two thumbs up from a notion. It's great.
1:48:41Every team needs something like this.
1:48:43The moment you're working on something non-trivial that's separate from the
1:48:47Slack where you're doing more day to day communications.
1:48:51Yeah. Some of this stuff spread out,
1:48:52the relay FM quite a bit where, you know,
1:48:54we have a lot of pieces of shared information in various Google docs.
1:48:58Cause like when we started our company notion didn't exist.
1:49:00None of these tools existed when relay FM started.
1:49:03As we record today, actually,
1:49:07which is the 10th of November,
1:49:09I've been self-employed for eight years.
1:49:12- Oh wow, congratulations.
1:49:14- It's my anniversary of being self-employed.
1:49:16- Happy anniversary.
1:49:17- Thank you so much.
1:49:18We have still been using Airtable for some sales stuff,
1:49:23but I'm not sure it's long for this world for us.
1:49:26We keep outgrowing these systems
1:49:29and Carrie, our VP of sales,
1:49:31has been trying to sell me on a new one
1:49:34that she wants to use,
1:49:35so we're gonna try that out for a little bit.
1:49:37so I might talk about that next year.
1:49:39This stuff is so particular to the people that use it
1:49:42and it's not scaling with us in ways that we want it to.
1:49:46But we continue to use and have used forever Google Sheets
1:49:49as like a really good way of keeping revenue stuff,
1:49:54how much money is going through the company
1:49:56on a monthly basis, like it's just easy to do calculations
1:50:00and share them with a bunch of people.
1:50:02And it's rock solid, works everywhere.
1:50:04We've used Google Sheets since the inception
1:50:07of the company and like outside of us building
1:50:10our own tools completely, I can't imagine moving away
1:50:13from Google Sheets.
1:50:14But like that is a secondary thing that we've been
1:50:17thinking about, like we have some, like a web app
1:50:20for tracking advertising stuff, which we've been
1:50:22building onto and it is a possibility that in the future
1:50:26we build enough functionality into that that we get rid
1:50:28of all of these sales tools and we just use that one.
1:50:32Because then it just works exactly the way
1:50:33that we want it to, but we'll see.
1:50:35- But for now you're tracking all that stuff
1:50:37in Google Sheets, is that what you're saying?
1:50:39- Mostly Google Sheets, yeah.
1:50:41It also runs as like a secondary backup to our own tools,
1:50:44so we have like somewhere to check that information against.
1:50:47So I'll give you like some examples.
1:50:49So when we have a contract,
1:50:51we have two Google Sheets that we book it into.
1:50:53One which is like, here's how much that contract is worth
1:50:56on a monthly basis, broken down.
1:50:59And then our second Google Sheet,
1:51:01which is like a kind of a calendar of all of our shows,
1:51:04we book in like spots, right?
1:51:06For like, these are the sponsor spots
1:51:07that go into that calendar, right?
1:51:09We then have other systems that refer to this information.
1:51:13So we have our own sales system
1:51:17where all of our hosts get their ad copy
1:51:19and they see where the ads are booked.
1:51:21That is based on that original Google Sheet
1:51:24which has all of the month by month breakdown, right?
1:51:27So like we have a contract,
1:51:28the contract information goes here
1:51:30and then it is replicated somewhere else.
1:51:32So we then have these three places of information,
1:51:36which allows for making sure there are no mistakes
1:51:39because we can check against all of this stuff.
1:51:41We also have FreshBooks, where we send our invoices from.
1:51:44FreshBooks is also pulling from two places.
1:51:48When we send out an invoice,
1:51:49we're checking against our own sales tool
1:51:51and against the Google Sheet,
1:51:53which has got the monthly listing of all of the ad spots.
1:51:56So like the value of them all.
1:51:58So every time something's going into a system,
1:52:01there's two other places that it could be checked from.
1:52:03And we do this as like a way to make sure
1:52:06things aren't getting missed
1:52:07and that calculations are correct
1:52:10and that everyone's got the ads that they need.
1:52:12And so there's always these like three things.
1:52:14So that's like my concern of like,
1:52:16if we built our own tools,
1:52:18well that's removing one of the three,
1:52:19but we'll see, it's how we've worked forever.
1:52:22And so now we're kind of like,
1:52:23it's got this like church and state separation vibe to it.
1:52:27Like the information lives in multiple places,
1:52:29which means that if there's a mistake made,
1:52:32we can find the truth, which is very valuable, right?
1:52:36So like, if an ad spot is missed or somewhere wrong
1:52:40or the value is incorrect,
1:52:42the fact that we have multiple places
1:52:44where this information exists
1:52:45means we can find the answer and we always do.
1:52:48- I feel like I'll take your word
1:52:49that that works for Relay, which it obviously does.
1:52:52I just always feel like in general information
1:52:57being redundant in multiple places
1:52:59is a bad sign, like that's not how things should work.
1:53:03- I know, I know as I say it,
1:53:05people like you're just duplicating work.
1:53:07But what I do know is, I've had problems that I've fixed
1:53:11that I don't know how I would fix
1:53:13if we didn't have that information in one other place.
1:53:15- Well, I mean, like wouldn't you use GitHub, right?
1:53:18And it will, after people have pushed--
1:53:20- Pushed and forked.
1:53:20- Pushed to commit the tree, you can go back
1:53:23and see where things went wrong.
1:53:25- Or the changes to the tree.
1:53:26- Use kits, yeah.
1:53:27- You can see the rings of the tree,
1:53:28- I think that's how it works.
1:53:30(laughing)
1:53:31So talking about like team stuff,
1:53:34I need to talk about my email app.
1:53:36- Okay.
1:53:38- So I use Spark, I use Spark as my email app
1:53:41because of its team sharing functionality.
1:53:44Spark recently unveiled a big overhaul of the app.
1:53:48- Uh oh.
1:53:49- The biggest changes are on the desktop app.
1:53:51They have a new desktop app, so they're old apps,
1:53:54Spark 2 still exists, but they got Spark 3.
1:53:58But when a service does something like this,
1:54:00I wanna try out the new one immediately
1:54:02because it's gonna change stuff.
1:54:03And plus, even though the new app only exists on the Mac,
1:54:07they've made changes to the old app,
1:54:09which they need to make so it works with the new app.
1:54:12So the phone, while the phone app looks the same,
1:54:15it operates in some slightly different ways.
1:54:18They've added a bunch of features.
1:54:21Some, I've been using it for since it came out,
1:54:24it's like a month or so ago now.
1:54:26Some I've gotten used to and are good,
1:54:28but some are bad and are bad in like fundamental ways
1:54:32of like, this isn't badly architected.
1:54:34I think you're just, your whole idea is poor.
1:54:38So let me tell you some good stuff that they added, right?
1:54:41Two things that I really like.
1:54:43They are doing automatic categorization of email.
1:54:47So like newsletters, notifications, and people.
1:54:50It's pretty good at like when an email comes in
1:54:54of putting it into one of these three categories.
1:54:56And what I like about this is it is doing it
1:54:59for all of my email accounts that I have in the app, right?
1:55:02It's not doing them per account or whatever like that.
1:55:04And it's relatively simple to move one to the other.
1:55:07Easier on the Mac than it is on the phone
1:55:10to do this right now, but it's possible to do.
1:55:12It's also doing blocking of senders.
1:55:14If someone sends me an email and I can block them
1:55:16and or I can block the entire domain
1:55:19from emailing me again.
1:55:20This is very good at dealing with some of the issues
1:55:23that I've spoken about in the past
1:55:24of like the PR emails that I get.
1:55:26- Right, right.
1:55:27- So now I no longer see the,
1:55:29"Hey, just checking in on this," a week later
1:55:31because that person is now blocked
1:55:32and I don't see them anymore.
1:55:33So they're the good.
1:55:35Now we get to the bad.
1:55:36This is one that I think you will find
1:55:39as frustrating as me.
1:55:41You no longer archive an email.
1:55:44- Uh-oh.
1:55:45- You done an email.
1:55:47- What?
1:55:48What does that mean?
1:55:49- So you mark an email as done.
1:55:52- Okay.
1:55:53- And it goes to the done folder.
1:55:55And then if you want to put an email back in your inbox,
1:56:00you mark it as not done.
1:56:02- How is this different from archive versus inbox?
1:56:06- Oh, it isn't.
1:56:07- Oh, it's just a new metaphor for no reason?
1:56:10- Yeah, for some reason Spark feel like
1:56:12they need to change this word.
1:56:15- They're like branding the concept of archiving a message?
1:56:18- Yeah.
1:56:19- That feels a little bit like what it is?
1:56:20- So you mark an email as done or not done.
1:56:24And then they actually now have changed the done section
1:56:28to say archive, but it's got the tick next to it
1:56:32that the rest of the app has.
1:56:33So like they haven't even fully committed anymore
1:56:36to the whole idea of done and not done.
1:56:39- Okay, that I don't like.
1:56:40- A lot of my issues with the app
1:56:42is that they have this like opinion
1:56:45about how I should be doing my email.
1:56:47With like by default,
1:56:48the app has a home screen on the Mac, right?
1:56:52Which you can turn off,
1:56:54But the home screen is like, as you can imagine,
1:56:56like here's a field, how are you doing today?
1:56:59And by default, they want you to only have access
1:57:02to your inbox a couple of times a day.
1:57:04- No. - No.
1:57:06I don't need an app to tell me how to do email.
1:57:11I will tell the app how I want to do my email, right?
1:57:13Like you don't need to save me from email.
1:57:16It is what it is.
1:57:17Like I don't need you to impose your ideas on me.
1:57:21Like this kind of stuff I find so frustrating
1:57:24where like people always talk about opinionated software.
1:57:27This is something we do not need
1:57:28to have an opinion about email, right?
1:57:30Like it is set.
1:57:32The ways we use it are set.
1:57:34You are not gonna change it.
1:57:35Slack couldn't, you're not gonna either, right?
1:57:37Like this is not going to sell more subscriptions for you.
1:57:41Like this is their thing.
1:57:42They've now moved like the app is fully subscription.
1:57:44I've been paying for the team functionality
1:57:46for a long time.
1:57:47Now they've moved to a subscription model,
1:57:49which is fine, I think, right?
1:57:51But like they have rushed out, I think,
1:57:54a new version of their application
1:57:56to change their business model to subscription.
1:57:59Because like the Mac app especially
1:58:02is janky in a ton of ways.
1:58:04As of recording now, there is no column view.
1:58:06Everything is all in one window.
1:58:08So you wanna look at an email, right?
1:58:10- Oh, I was like, how would you, oh no, that's awful.
1:58:15It's like the photos app, like you click on an email
1:58:17and then-- - And now it's full.
1:58:19And if you want to reply to the email,
1:58:21it like pops up in a tiny little box
1:58:23in the bottom right hand corner.
1:58:25Now they're saying they're going to add column view,
1:58:27but they shipped a version of their app with no column view.
1:58:29- Why was column view ever taken out of an email app?
1:58:32That's crazy.
1:58:33- Well, okay, great.
1:58:34Part of the reason is they've moved it to Electron,
1:58:37which I don't care about,
1:58:38but they've done this so they can be on Windows,
1:58:40which I think is a perfectly valid reason
1:58:42to do this architecture change.
1:58:44But if you're going to do this architecture change,
1:58:46don't take away things like column view, right?
1:58:50So madness to me.
1:58:51Like I cannot look at my inbox
1:58:53and emails in the same place.
1:58:55Like I even look at my inbox or I look at an email
1:58:58and then nothing else changes.
1:59:00Currently there's no printing in the application.
1:59:02You cannot print an email.
1:59:03- That's weird.
1:59:04- Which for me, you must say, why would you wanna do that?
1:59:07I get a lot of invoices, right?
1:59:08Like receipts, I need them for my account.
1:59:10So I print them as a PDF, save them to a Dropbox folder
1:59:13and they go to the accounting software that I use.
1:59:16I can't do that on the Mac version anymore.
1:59:18I have to go to the iOS version.
1:59:20And actually in general, there's a lot of weird jankiness.
1:59:23But this whole opinionated thing, I just don't need it.
1:59:27You don't need to do this for me.
1:59:29I can work on my own with my email.
1:59:32I've been using it for a long enough time
1:59:34and I started looking at some other apps.
1:59:36I've learned to live with the weirdness of it
1:59:39and they have been making changes.
1:59:41When it shipped, it had no dark mode,
1:59:42but they've added the dark mode in.
1:59:44I think that they're making some mistakes about trying to tell me how I should use email
1:59:50and I just find this whole idea of like done rather than archive to just be kind of insulting
1:59:56in a way.
1:59:57You're not having a big grand vision here.
1:59:59You're just changing a word and it's completely pointless when the effect is the same.
2:00:05Ultimately, I've learned to live with some of the strangeness and I'm putting my faith
2:00:09in them to fix the broken things.
2:00:12I don't think they're going to fix the ideology stuff.
2:00:14And I'll see how that probably continues to make the app
2:00:18weirder in the future.
2:00:19Right?
2:00:20Like they've said that they're going
2:00:21to have a brand new design for the iPhone app in the future.
2:00:24And that might break me if they continue
2:00:27to make that as weird as they've made the Mac
2:00:29app in a bunch of ways.
2:00:31But what keeps me here is how good the team sharing is.
2:00:34I don't know what my future is for email,
2:00:36but Spark has like gone from this stasis for me
2:00:40to a question mark now because I think that they might be starting to go in a direction
2:00:45that does not align for me, which is I use your app as a team focused email communication
2:00:51tool. I do not use it as a "let's fix email" tool. Email's broken. You're never going to
2:00:58fix it. Stop trying.
2:01:00Yeah, it sounds like they're trying to move to a emails as to do items metaphor.
2:01:08then they're not doing that right. Like if that's what they're gonna do then let
2:01:13me do a bunch of stuff with it right? Let me set due dates or whatever. Let me set
2:01:18a date on something rather than snooze. Let me set why not? Let me rearrange them
2:01:22like I could in mailbox which is something I'll ask for forever. Like if
2:01:24you're gonna go down that route like make it work more like a to-do app but
2:01:29they're not doing any of that. It's just the button that used to be archive is
2:01:34now called done and they've moved it into another part of the application
2:01:37and like visually and changed the iconography for it.
2:01:41- It's very frustrating when something that's core
2:01:43and is perfectly fine does a major change.
2:01:47Like I think we all know the dread
2:01:51when you see an app you use be like,
2:01:52"Hey, we've done a major read."
2:01:54It's like, oh no, why is this almost always worse?
2:01:59This is so much rarely better.
2:02:00- At this point, like if I wasn't using the team stuff,
2:02:03I would have moved to Apple's mail app
2:02:05just so I could have some consistency in my life.
2:02:07- Right, well, I was gonna ask, like,
2:02:09what's your fallback if you have to move out of this?
2:02:12'Cause like, that team stuff has seemed really critical
2:02:15to your workflow for years. - It's critical, yeah.
2:02:18- So I'm just like, I'm wondering, like,
2:02:19what even is the next option?
2:02:21- There are other apps that exist.
2:02:23I use an app called Missive for a couple of days,
2:02:26and it's just got its own set of things
2:02:28that I really don't like.
2:02:29One of the biggest ones for me is the notifications.
2:02:32I like that if I get an email notification,
2:02:34I can archive the email from the notification.
2:02:37You can't do that in Bismf,
2:02:38they just haven't added that functionality,
2:02:40which is not a big thing,
2:02:41but it's something that I do a lot and that bugged me.
2:02:44There's a lot of little things in the application
2:02:46which were like, this isn't the way that I do them.
2:02:49Maybe I could get used to it, but I don't know.
2:02:51So that one lives out there as like,
2:02:53here's another one that has come recommended from people
2:02:56of like, this is an app
2:02:58that does like team communication stuff.
2:03:02I mean, honestly, if Spark like goes away,
2:03:07then I'm gonna have to redo the way
2:03:10that I work with email completely.
2:03:13And I don't know what that's gonna be yet.
2:03:15Probably gonna have to go back to working
2:03:17in the really inefficient way
2:03:18of referencing emails in Slack chats.
2:03:20- Oof.
2:03:22- Which I really don't want to do.
2:03:23- That feels like barbaric compared to what you were doing.
2:03:26Yeah, that feels awful.
2:03:27- So I don't really know what I will do
2:03:30and it's why I will hang on for way longer
2:03:33than I would normally to Spark.
2:03:36Like I said, if I was a Spark user
2:03:39without any of the theme stuff,
2:03:40this change that they made, I would have left.
2:03:43Because it's just like,
2:03:44I just don't like the direction the app is going in.
2:03:47And that's never a good feeling,
2:03:49because I'm also getting at the moment
2:03:51this sense of desperation for a business model change.
2:03:54And that also never feels good.
2:03:55Because I feel like they shipped this version of the app
2:03:59sooner than they should have.
2:04:02And I feel like they only shipped it
2:04:03so they could have subscriptions for everyone.
2:04:06And that makes me nervous because they didn't wait
2:04:09until the app was ready to ship it
2:04:11and change their business model.
2:04:13- Oh, so you're right.
2:04:15Okay, so what?
2:04:16You're worried there's like just like a purely
2:04:18a revenue problem is the reason that they shipped too soon.
2:04:21- Uh-huh.
2:04:22- Hmm, right.
2:04:23- They have a brand new version of the app
2:04:25only on one platform, right?
2:04:27- That is strange. - Where they're saying
2:04:29is coming to every platform and they've made architectural changes to the other
2:04:34apps so they work together with the new version and the new version is missing a
2:04:41bunch of really simple features and they're also keeping the old Mac app
2:04:46around because they know this but they did this so they could say here's our
2:04:50new subscription pricing for the app so that that whole thing makes me nervous
2:04:56service, as well as the fact that I just don't agree with some of the decisions they're making.
2:05:03So I'm just going to stick around for now, but I feel like now compared to every other
2:05:09year I'm like, maybe I've got one foot out the door here, but I don't know where, that's
2:05:16two.
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2:07:12of this show and Relay FM.
2:07:14I totally feel your pain with all that Spark stuff because under the writing apps category,
2:07:20I went through this same journey with Ulysses and Obsidian.
2:07:25The timeline here is, I think it was like two years ago, Ulysses did the same thing
2:07:29where they came out with like, "Ooh, we have a whole new UI redesign for our sidebar."
2:07:35And it was just, I don't need to go over it, but it was just the same sort of thing.
2:07:38Like it was insane.
2:07:39Who is this for?
2:07:40Like, I can't imagine the user this is better for.
2:07:44And it was really frustrating.
2:07:45The previous year then, I was half using Ulysses
2:07:49and half using Obsidian,
2:07:50trying to see what is gonna work for me.
2:07:53And this is the year where I actually went through
2:07:57all of my Ulysses archive
2:07:59and, like, moved everything over to Obsidian.
2:08:02So now, like, this transition is complete.
2:08:06I have absolutely nothing left in Ulysses,
2:08:09none of the old projects I've been working on,
2:08:11it's all been moved into Obsidian.
2:08:13And I'm really happy with that as a system,
2:08:17like as heartbreaking as it was
2:08:19to have to switch from an app that I really liked.
2:08:23The new one is much better.
2:08:25And I'm so happy with like actually now
2:08:29having everything in Obsidian.
2:08:31And it is one of these apps where
2:08:33the more you can completely have everything in it,
2:08:37the more value it gets.
2:08:40It's like a network effect for itself
2:08:43of being able to reference all of your other little notes
2:08:47or quickly connect different scripts in different projects.
2:08:51So yeah, there's a way in which
2:08:53now having everything in Obsidian,
2:08:55I really like it because I can do things like
2:08:58have an overview of like,
2:09:00let me pull out everything that I've ever written
2:09:04that might potentially be a script on any topic
2:09:07and say, sort by size, which tells me like,
2:09:11how much have I written about any of these individual topics?
2:09:15Like it's really nice to be able to go through that
2:09:17and then filter through projects and say like,
2:09:19okay, this one is definitely dead,
2:09:22it's never gonna happen, or like, oh, this is intriguing.
2:09:24I've been adding more to this over the years
2:09:27than I thought I have.
2:09:27Like this note on this topic
2:09:29is slowly getting bigger and bigger.
2:09:31And one of the key things that I realized this year
2:09:36about using Obsidian that has also just totally locked it in
2:09:40has to do with what I was discussing about
2:09:42with OmniFocus at the start.
2:09:44Over the years, one of the constant frustrations
2:09:49with OmniFocus as a to-do app for me
2:09:53was trying to put in all of the little things
2:09:58that relate to writing a script.
2:10:02When I'm working on a project,
2:10:03there can easily come up like 10 little things
2:10:07while I'm writing a script where you go like,
2:10:09"Oh, I need to just like double check that part over here,"
2:10:14or go like, "Ah, what was that number?
2:10:16Like how many of these things were there really?"
2:10:19Or, "Oh, I should, I need to order the book
2:10:23for this thing and then read it."
2:10:26or like this section needs to wait until I've read
2:10:28this other thing over here.
2:10:30There's like, there's just a lot of these little things
2:10:33and for whatever reason, it just never worked
2:10:36in OmniFocus to do this.
2:10:39It always felt like it was like a little bit too disjointed
2:10:43when I'm writing that was also always too fluid.
2:10:46Like those to-dos could come and go very easily
2:10:49where it's not that the to-do was ever completed in a sense
2:10:52but I just instantly realized while writing,
2:10:54oh, actually I don't ever need to do that
2:10:56'cause I've just cut this whole paragraph.
2:10:58And so these three little like,
2:10:59check these things in here, they've just disappeared.
2:11:02And trying to go back into OmniFocus
2:11:05and like, what were those three?
2:11:07'Cause they're disconnected from the actual paragraph.
2:11:09It was always just like a frustration point.
2:11:11I never really had a good way to handle that.
2:11:14But now in Obsidian, that is totally a solved problem.
2:11:19And for anyone who knows the words that I'm about to say,
2:11:23I have returned to kind of the dream of the thing that got me through college,
2:11:28which was org mode on Emacs.
2:11:31But basically with Obsidian now, there's a little system where when I'm typing,
2:11:36if something comes up in a sentence that is basically like a little to do,
2:11:40there's a writer's trick, which is writers have always typed like TKK,
2:11:45which is a little set of letters that just doesn't pop up often in the English
2:11:47language. And so writers have like,
2:11:49as long as there have been writers using typewriters,
2:11:52have used this as a trick to like,
2:11:53oh, here's the thing that I need to go back.
2:11:55But what's great in Obsidian is when I do TKK,
2:11:59I have the computer automatically replace that
2:12:02with a little formatting for a footnote.
2:12:05And in the footnote, I can type whatever the to-do item is
2:12:09for like, this is the thing that I need to check.
2:12:12And then Obsidian has a way where I can search
2:12:16across all of my notes in the entire system
2:12:20for everything that is formatted like a footnote,
2:12:23and it puts it in a little list in the sidebar.
2:12:26So it acts like a pseudo to-do list
2:12:29of here's all of the things.
2:12:31And I can also sort them by like most recently typed,
2:12:35which basically brings them up in terms of like
2:12:37what projects are you actively working on,
2:12:39not every single thing in the whole system.
2:12:42And it's really easy then to work with to-dos
2:12:47that I'm adding in line in the script itself.
2:12:51And it's like fan (beep)tastic.
2:12:55Like this is the solution to the biggest to-do problem
2:12:59that I have had for years.
2:13:01And no other writing app has ever been able
2:13:05to perform both of these parts,
2:13:09which is have a way to enter something that is like a to-do,
2:13:15but also have a way to search across multiple projects in a really coherent
2:13:22way so that it's easy to like burn through a bunch of these things.
2:13:26And what is just so fantastic about this is one of the things I've been really
2:13:31working on this year is trying to be really aware of work that I can kick to
2:13:38my couch self who later in the evening is going to be sitting on the couch and
2:13:44like is in a very low energy mode,
2:13:46but he can do some stuff that's still useful work.
2:13:50And so this is one of these ways where it's really great.
2:13:52Like, oh, I can type with the script.
2:13:53I can like throw in a like, hey, double check that number.
2:13:56Or one of the ones recently is like,
2:13:58I need a spreadsheet that tells me exactly how big
2:14:01a subset of the states in the United States are,
2:14:05minus their lakes, but not all of the states.
2:14:08And it's like, that's a perfect kind of task
2:14:10to do on the couch because it's totally brainless.
2:14:13It's just like, hey, put together this little thing,
2:14:15look up a bunch of numbers, copy and paste some stuff.
2:14:18But that kind of thing, putting it in OmniFocus,
2:14:20it would never have made sense
2:14:22because depending on if that paragraph
2:14:24just got blown away, then that to-do goes away as well.
2:14:28So it's really nice.
2:14:30I can be working in the morning.
2:14:31I'm trying to focus mainly on the words and the story
2:14:35and the overall flow of the script.
2:14:38I can throw in these little to-do items
2:14:40and then in the evening, when I'm being much lazier
2:14:43but still feeling like I can do some useful work,
2:14:46I can quickly pull up a list of all of these things
2:14:49while they're in line and try to knock out
2:14:51like the easy ones that I can do,
2:14:53like while my wife is watching a movie
2:14:54and I'm just sitting there.
2:14:56Having those to-dos right in the script
2:14:59where they are is killer
2:15:01because even when I'm in this kind of low power mode,
2:15:04I'll often adjust the wording of a paragraph
2:15:09based on however that little to-do turned out.
2:15:12So like that's also why it's really critical
2:15:15to have those items in line.
2:15:19Like here is the paragraph that it's related to.
2:15:22And I'm just so happy about this.
2:15:24Like I love everything about this.
2:15:26- Why format them like footnotes?
2:15:29Why not format them like to-dos?
2:15:31I think you can have to-dos in Obsidian, right?
2:15:35- Yeah, you can have straight up to-dos.
2:15:36What I'm actually doing when I'm doing this search
2:15:39is I'm looking for both the footnote formatting
2:15:42and the to-do formatting.
2:15:43The reason I'm doing it as the footnote formatting
2:15:45is that when I export the script as a PDF
2:15:48to either give to fact checkers or give to the animator,
2:15:51I can like strip out all the footnotes
2:15:53because like that stuff is mostly just for me.
2:15:56So it's like a formatting issue of,
2:15:58I wanna be able to give this to someone
2:16:00without necessarily having the footnotes in there.
2:16:03And it also just like, it sort of is much nicer to work with
2:16:06the way Obsidian happens to be formatted.
2:16:09In theory, I could totally do it as actual to-do items.
2:16:12It's just while writing, it kind of works nicer
2:16:15to have them be pseudo-footnotes.
2:16:17- Okay, so they're functioning mostly the same for you,
2:16:20but it's just a way it's presented, do you prefer?
2:16:23- Yeah, it's 80% like a presentation format.
2:16:26For each script that ends up being a major project,
2:16:31like if we take the "Runways" video that went up,
2:16:33what's really great in Obsidian is it can also now,
2:16:36Like I've got this system just like totally, totally solid of
2:16:40there is the script.
2:16:42And I also have a little project file which links to the script,
2:16:47but the project file also links to like my personal research on this.
2:16:51And it links to a little file that I call like scratch where I put
2:16:56paragraphs that haven't deleted them. Like maybe I'll bring them back,
2:17:00but I think they're just out of the script for now.
2:17:02So like I can copy and paste them over there.
2:17:04And it's just really nice to be able in Obsidian
2:17:06to look at the sort of project file,
2:17:09which is an overview of everything that you want to do,
2:17:12the research, the scripts,
2:17:14like stuff that you've sort of deleted,
2:17:16but maybe not entirely all at once.
2:17:18And I will sometimes add little to-dos
2:17:22in the project file as well.
2:17:24And then I do use the regular to-do formatting.
2:17:27But it's just like the main thing that really matters here
2:17:32is realizing the scripts and the writing
2:17:36and the personal research that I do,
2:17:39they're all a coherent little unit
2:17:43that just lives in this one app
2:17:44and I can see it all the time
2:17:46and not switching out to a to-do manager
2:17:49that has no concept of where any of these things
2:17:53are related to.
2:17:54That has just been absolutely killer this year
2:17:57and it's not something I could ever possibly have achieved
2:18:01with Ulysses and it's just great.
2:18:04Like I cannot express how much more pleasant it has been
2:18:08to work with this and I feel like I've found the thing
2:18:11that really works with my brain.
2:18:13And the other thing that's really nice
2:18:14about having everything together in one system
2:18:17is also with Obsidian, often when I'm working on a script,
2:18:21it's like, okay, I'm typing, typing, typing,
2:18:22I'm writing, writing, writing.
2:18:24It'll pop into my brain like, oh, actually,
2:18:27the thing that I'm talking about here
2:18:29that made me think of a good couple of lines
2:18:32to add to another topic.
2:18:34I was like, boom, boom, boom,
2:18:34with just a couple of little keyboard hits,
2:18:37I can switch into that other script, add that sentence,
2:18:41and then flip right back into the thing
2:18:43that I was working on.
2:18:44And so this is one of these ways of like, oh great,
2:18:46even when I'm working on whatever
2:18:48the current main project is,
2:18:50it's very easy and importantly,
2:18:53super fast to switch into a different project,
2:18:57add a couple of sentences,
2:18:59and then like get right back into the main thing
2:19:01without breaking flow.
2:19:03And that's another thing that I've just never found
2:19:06in another writing app.
2:19:07Most of them kind of assume when you've loaded up
2:19:11whatever document you're working on,
2:19:14you're going to be there.
2:19:15And it's like, no, no, I want to be able to,
2:19:17in 10 seconds, get to a different thing,
2:19:19add a sentence and get back.
2:19:21And that's like, in almost every other thing I've ever used,
2:19:24that's really hard to do.
2:19:26or it's like literally impossible to do
2:19:28without taking your hands off the keyboard,
2:19:30which I don't want to.
2:19:31So yeah, Obsidian, love it.
2:19:34This is the year that has totally made it just like
2:19:37so solid as the scripts, my research,
2:19:42and then the last little piece
2:19:44that I didn't know I was missing is throw in in-line to-dos
2:19:49that relates to what you're working on
2:19:52at the exact point that you're working on them.
2:19:55Do you ever use Obsidian on iOS?
2:19:57- It's funny that you asked that, Myke,
2:19:59because do you remember how people were suggesting
2:20:03that I use Git a little while ago
2:20:06for all of my syncing needs?
2:20:08- Yeah.
2:20:09- I'm gonna, I'm like, I'm not really gonna bring that up.
2:20:12Again, thanks everyone for suggesting Git.
2:20:14It looks like a total nightmare.
2:20:16I don't wanna touch with a 43-pole.
2:20:18One of the things that has happened this year
2:20:20is there's a trade-off that I've decided to make,
2:20:24which is I can solve a problem I was talking about previously,
2:20:29which is I want to be able to export a script as a PDF.
2:20:33I want to be able to mark that up by hand
2:20:35and then give that markup to my assistant
2:20:37and have her make the changes directly on the text file.
2:20:41For a bunch of reasons that we don't need to get into,
2:20:43that was really hard to do
2:20:45unless I switched over to using Dropbox
2:20:49to manage my Obsidian files.
2:20:52The trade-off there is if you use Dropbox,
2:20:56you can't use Obsidian on iOS.
2:20:59- It requires iCloud Drive, right?
2:21:02- Yeah, you have to use it with iCloud Drive,
2:21:05and then iCloud Drive was the thing that like,
2:21:06oh, this is a total nightmare,
2:21:08especially when my assistant is using a Windows machine.
2:21:10It's like, no, no,
2:21:11you are gonna totally bork your files that way.
2:21:14And we tried to test it out, and yes,
2:21:15it was like, it just was totally unworkable.
2:21:18And so last month, I finally made the call
2:21:22that while I do sometimes use Obsidian on the iPad,
2:21:27I don't think I use it enough to be worth the trade off of like over the last
2:21:32year,
2:21:34basically never having done any of the handwritten stuff that I think really
2:21:37adds a lot to the writing process. So I've switched over to Dropbox,
2:21:42I've tested it with my assistant a couple of times so we know like this
2:21:45actually works. It works really solidly.
2:21:48we can near instantly type on the same document without problems.
2:21:52You can have a document open and they can be typing in it and it doesn't cause problems.
2:21:58The sync issues or anything like that, it's all happening live.
2:22:01Yeah, so what happens is if she has the document open and I have the document open and she's typing,
2:22:06I will see her sentences appear on my side live.
2:22:09Where we would get into trouble is if we're both trying to type at the same time,
2:22:14because Dropbox isn't doing that.
2:22:16So as long as both of us don't have hands on the keyboard, there's no problem.
2:22:20When you say live, you don't mean like Google Docs live.
2:22:23No, no. That's why I said near live.
2:22:26Near live. Yeah, yeah. Okay.
2:22:27But this is also not a problem because there's never any scenario where with both the time change and the way I kind of like alternate which project I'm working on every day,
2:22:38we're never going to have a conflict.
2:22:40And also we've just set up the system that like at the very top she can just type the word like done or completed.
2:22:48So I open the document on my end. I know she's over like she's finished whatever work needs to happen.
2:22:53These things are very workable with the convention like a check in check out convention system.
2:22:57Yeah exactly.
2:22:58Right like me and you have that for the logic projects of the edits right like you won't touch it till I tell you to and I won't touch it until you tell me to.
2:23:06me to. It's very simple. It just takes a message of like, I'm done, the edit's yours, and then
2:23:12you'll say I'm done, the edit's yours. And in between those times, neither of us are
2:23:15going to open the logic project.
2:23:16Yeah, you just don't ever touch it.
2:23:17You just don't need to touch it. Don't touch it.
2:23:19Yeah. I even have that system with myself with Final Cut and Dropbox, where everyone's always
2:23:27like, you can't have Final Cut projects at Dropbox. It's like, yeah, you can't if two
2:23:31people want to open it at the same time, but like I routinely want to edit a Final Cut
2:23:35project on a different project, but my check-in-with-myself system is I'm never allowed to open Final
2:23:43Cut if Dropbox is syncing, right? Like if that little logo is spinning around, it's
2:23:47like I am not allowed to open up Final Cut. But like ever since I set that rule, now I
2:23:53haven't had a problem in years with like a syncing conflict with Final Cut and Dropbox,
2:23:58though everyone says it's impossible.
2:24:00So you know, the check ins, check out stuff really fixes stuff.
2:24:03So that's like another check mark in favor of Obsidian.
2:24:07And yes, I have to give it up on iOS, which is slightly annoying.
2:24:12But if you have to pick like, what's the trade off here, I think this is the correct trade
2:24:17off.
2:24:18Now, I haven't actually used this that much because we've like just gotten it set up because
2:24:20I finally decided I'm going to make that decision.
2:24:23So we'll see how that goes over the course of the next year.
2:24:26But I'm really happy about that set of trade-offs of, "Okay, I can go back to the hand-editing
2:24:31of scripts."
2:24:32Also really key is that I can share with her just the active projects and don't have
2:24:38to risk like, "Oh, this entire weird database that is like the inside of my brain and arranged
2:24:45very squirrelly."
2:24:47She's not exposed to any of that.
2:24:50And also it doesn't – yeah.
2:24:52And it doesn't risk like getting messed up from her side of it either.
2:24:56It's like no no we just have at most like five documents that are actually being shared
2:25:04between us and that's perfect.
2:25:05That's all we need.
2:25:06It reminds me of like the Ark of the Covenant moment in Indiana Jones.
2:25:12Like somebody opens that, they're sitting there just their face melts off.
2:25:18I think a lot of tools exist on a spectrum of, is this a team using it or is it one person
2:25:25using it?
2:25:26And you can be in a real disaster if you're using like one one way or the other.
2:25:30And Obsidian is very much on the like, this is an amazing tool for one person.
2:25:36It's not a great tool for a bunch of people.
2:25:39And like Notion is on the opposite end.
2:25:41Like this is a great tool for a bunch of people.
2:25:44It might not be the best tool just for one person.
2:25:47But yeah, so anyway, not having to expose her to absolutely everything that's going
2:25:52on in Obsidian is definitely a plus side.
2:25:55I would be very surprised if they do not try to tackle the team problem and like create
2:26:01a team system.
2:26:02Yeah, they might.
2:26:03Or I mean, if they want to be a successful long term business, they will go for that,
2:26:09right?
2:26:10Because that's where the money is.
2:26:11You get companies to buy into this stuff, you're in the enterprise now, right?
2:26:14That's true.
2:26:15That's why all these companies go that way.
2:26:17If they want to turn it into a big business, which I'm sure they do, I don't know, but
2:26:24I don't know the people that make Obsidian, but I would be very surprised if they didn't
2:26:28try to tackle the enterprise.
2:26:30Yeah, I agree with that.
2:26:31I'm just saying like in its current state, it's clearly a one person tool.
2:26:34I just want to mention a couple of little add ons to Obsidian if anyone wants to try
2:26:38it as my top recommended ones.
2:26:41So Obsidian also has this whole complicated system of plugins that you can add which change
2:26:46the fundamental way that it works.
2:26:48And for me, my top four recommended ones are if you're a writer, you can enable typewriter
2:26:53mode.
2:26:54So there's a plugin that lets you keep the cursor in the center so that the text scrolls
2:26:58up when you press the down arrow key and vice versa, which is just really nice to visually
2:27:03keep the text in the middle.
2:27:05And also so you can see what's before whatever you're writing and what's after whatever you're
2:27:09writing always.
2:27:11So I really like that.
2:27:13There's a plugin which is called Advanced Tables, which allows you to just have slightly
2:27:18more complicated tables than the default and also keeps those tables really tidy.
2:27:24There's a plugin called Outliner, which makes, I guess the way they kind of describe it is
2:27:29it makes outlines work much more like Roam.
2:27:33So if you're a Roam user and you're thinking about going to Obsidian, like Outliner is
2:27:37the number one thing that you should just install.
2:27:39I really like it.
2:27:40Also the thing that is making me think that I would use
2:27:44like a note for Cortex in Obsidian
2:27:47is being able to just like entirely through the keyboard,
2:27:50do a bunch of outline stuff, indent, outdent.
2:27:53And I think through Dropbox,
2:27:55I should be able to have notes that append to a file.
2:27:58That's also part of like why I didn't think
2:28:01of doing this before is there was no way
2:28:03to append to a document in iCloud,
2:28:06but you can do that with Dropbox.
2:28:08And then if you really get into Obsidian,
2:28:10you should probably check out Data View, which is a plugin that allows you to do the thing
2:28:15that I mentioned at the beginning, like more complicated queries.
2:28:19Show me all of the documents I have tagged with script sorted by file size or sorted
2:28:26by last modified.
2:28:28Or you know, show me all of the ideas that I haven't marked as dead that are also non
2:28:35zero file sizes like this kind of thing.
2:28:37It allows you to do much more complicated queries.
2:28:39So those are the things if you're going to use Obsidian, I would probably recommend installing
2:28:42them.
2:28:43They make it significantly more helpful.
2:28:45And also my favorite theme is still the 80s neon theme, which is just awesome and makes
2:28:50me feel like I'm a cool hacker every time I'm working on a project.
2:28:53Also in this category, since this is sort of like writing and research, because I don't
2:28:57know where else to mention it, I'm just going to mention Safari and Safari's tab groups
2:29:01as a thank you to the team who has made this like man, tab groups have just have become
2:29:08absolutely vital over the last year for all projects. Like, I love them so much and I was
2:29:16trying to... I can't find numbers for these things, but I have some research projects where the tab
2:29:24groups are insanely long. Like, I'm looking at one for what is my current project and there have to
2:29:32to be 100 tabs at least open for one of several projects
2:29:37that I have.
2:29:38I just love them, the tab groups are great.
2:29:41The fact that they sync is also really good
2:29:44for this splitting the workday kind of thing
2:29:48between when I'm on the couch and when I'm in my office,
2:29:52where when I'm in researching mode,
2:29:54I tend to open up a ton of tabs
2:29:56and just keep adding and adding and adding stuff.
2:29:59And then at the end of the day, when I'm on the couch,
2:30:02I try to do the reverse, so like, go through and just close out the tabs where you looked
2:30:07up something but you don't need to have this currently open.
2:30:11And so it's a nice way in which a project kind of can be grown and trimmed and grown
2:30:16and trimmed every day by like adding tabs and removing tabs, and it just wouldn't be
2:30:21as easy to do without sync.
2:30:23Like if they just lived on one computer, it'd be extremely frustrating.
2:30:27But I will just say, the developers for Safari, I am begging you.
2:30:31I'm gonna be down on my knees and I am begging you
2:30:35to let me have the option to open new links
2:30:40in a default tab group.
2:30:42It still just kills me.
2:30:43- This is so annoying.
2:30:44It drives me mad.
2:30:46- Okay, you're on my team with this now,
2:30:48'cause when it first came out,
2:30:50people were fighting against this.
2:30:51They're like, this is not how browsers work.
2:30:53And I'm just like, this is insane.
2:30:55The thing that I keep thinking of is,
2:30:58it's like if the developers for Notes were like,
2:31:01"Oh hey, all of your folders and notes will sync with iCloud, but every time you make
2:31:07a new note, it's going to be saved in a local folder on that device that doesn't sync."
2:31:13And it's like, it's so frustrating.
2:31:16It kills me.
2:31:19And it like, it ends up causing me to feel like a janitor who has to go around and on
2:31:26different devices constantly try to clear out whatever happened to get opened up locally
2:31:32on the device. I hate it so much. So please, if this isn't an option by the next state
2:31:37of the apps, I'm going to be so sad. Like this may be across every piece of software
2:31:43I use my absolute number one requested feature. Please, I have a tab group called browsing.
2:31:52Let all new links open in the browsing tab group and sync everywhere.
2:31:57I'm begging you Safari developers.
2:31:59I am begging you.
2:32:01Let this be an option.
2:32:02It's so frustrating.
2:32:05So when I add entertainment as a new category, and in trying to think about this, I didn't
2:32:11really have good recommendations that weren't also tied to hardware in some way.
2:32:17You know, if you talk about like entertainment, like I can tell you that what streaming services
2:32:20I use and what podcast apps I use but to me none of them were really like here's something
2:32:26unique about this that you kind of is special to this app because really it's the content
2:32:32more than the service or the app but I wanted to recommend Sonos.
2:32:37The Sonos speakers?
2:32:38Yeah.
2:32:39Okay.
2:32:40So we just got some Sonos stuff at home because we just moved and I wanted to kind of lay
2:32:45out the new home to always be able to play music in the whole house.
2:32:50- I've tried stuff like this with home pods,
2:32:52but I don't really like the way that you share music
2:32:56to home pods.
2:32:57I don't like airplay.
2:32:57I think controlling music on home pods is frustrating.
2:33:02Like there's always this element of like,
2:33:04I'm gonna send the music here.
2:33:06- Oh, it's the worst.
2:33:07- Right?
2:33:08And now do I have control of other audio?
2:33:11Then how do I control?
2:33:12It's very annoying.
2:33:13And the Thoroughly Considered podcast,
2:33:16Tom and Dan had Adam Nussigor on
2:33:18and they were talking about the Sonos Move, I think it is.
2:33:22They have like a portable speaker, right?
2:33:25There's like a big one.
2:33:26They have like a small one and they have like a big one.
2:33:28It's like a full speaker.
2:33:30It is the Move.
2:33:32And they were talking about that.
2:33:34And then I kind of started looking into it.
2:33:35I was like, I think this might be what I want.
2:33:37So I set up Sonos last week.
2:33:39It's great.
2:33:40So I have a couple of speakers in the house at the moment
2:33:43and the app is so smart.
2:33:46in like a way that I can't believe they've been able to do it.
2:33:50So you can sign in in the Sonos app
2:33:53to multiple music streaming services from multiple people.
2:33:58So in the Sonos app, I have connected my Apple Music account
2:34:03and Adina's Spotify account.
2:34:05And inside the application, you can choose the music
2:34:10you want to play from either of those services.
2:34:13It includes all of the stuff that you've added
2:34:16to your service and the playlist that those services make.
2:34:19So like Adina's Spotify playlists are in there,
2:34:22my Apple Music playlists are in there.
2:34:25And it's very easy to control what's playing where.
2:34:28You could just choose in the app,
2:34:29like press a button to play on this one.
2:34:31And then you can just move one tap of a button
2:34:34then play on multiple speakers.
2:34:36You can group the speakers together.
2:34:38It is really good.
2:34:39It's very easy to control.
2:34:41And the UI of dealing with the music,
2:34:44searching for music, and it searches all of the systems
2:34:46that are connected at once, right?
2:34:48Like all of the services, I should say, that are connected,
2:34:50it searches all of them.
2:34:52It's really clever, and I think it's very smart,
2:34:54and it's integrated very well with Spotify.
2:34:57So if you're interested in the Spotify app,
2:34:59you can just press a button,
2:35:01and it will start just immediately playing the music
2:35:03on the Sonos, like you just press one button.
2:35:06And with Apple Music, I can control it
2:35:09in the same clunky way I can control
2:35:11Home Parts if I want to, right?
2:35:12Like it has Airplay support, you can do all of that.
2:35:16It also has like its own voice assistant built into it,
2:35:19which is good for like starting and stopping music
2:35:22if you wanna do that.
2:35:23So here's a fun thing.
2:35:25The voice that they have used,
2:35:27you know, like all of these assistants have a voice, right?
2:35:30Where it talks back to you.
2:35:32Giancarlo Esposito is the voice.
2:35:35You may know him as one of the villains of Breaking Bad,
2:35:38one of the villains of Mandalorian.
2:35:40It is, he's got a great voice.
2:35:42- Oh, right.
2:35:43- But it's super interesting to be like,
2:35:45we're gonna choose this like really well-known villain
2:35:48as the voice assistant, but it sounds great.
2:35:53- It's an opinionated voice decision.
2:35:55- Yeah, I mean, you've chosen one of the great voices
2:35:58working today, but like just intriguing,
2:36:00like how people recognize that voice.
2:36:02I recognize him as like a terrifying villain.
2:36:06So, but you know, you do use Sonos.
2:36:08- He's a villain in the boys.
2:36:09- Yeah, he's got a little niche he's carved out for himself.
2:36:11- Great villain, but now also Sonos assistant voice.
2:36:15But yeah, I am very happy with this purchase.
2:36:19And also like, because we haven't got all of our stuff
2:36:22set up, I haven't unboxed our home pods yet.
2:36:25But I can also attach the audio from my Apple TV
2:36:29to the Sonos too.
2:36:30So like I had set up the Sonos system.
2:36:32- That's what I was wondering.
2:36:33- Yeah, and I can also play all my Apple TV content
2:36:36through the Sonos too, and it also sounds fantastic.
2:36:39So I might like, we haven't set up the HomePods yet.
2:36:44I don't know if I'm going to.
2:36:48I haven't decided.
2:36:50I may just use the Sonos speaker instead of,
2:36:54no, so they have all their own equipment.
2:36:56Like I might get a Sonos soundbar and just use that
2:36:59instead of setting up the HomePod pair that I had before.
2:37:03I'm not sure yet, but I like it.
2:37:04- When you're logged into Apple Music in the Sonos app,
2:37:08Does it basically just show you your Apple Music library?
2:37:11Like is it mirroring that?
2:37:13- Yeah, I have access to all of it.
2:37:15- Could you use the Sonos app as a complete replacement
2:37:18for the Apple Music app and like never open
2:37:20the Apple Music app again?
2:37:21- I believe so.
2:37:23- Hmm, okay, that's quite interesting.
2:37:25- I can't confirm all of that for you right now
2:37:28because I can't use the Sonos app
2:37:30when I'm not connected to my Sonos system.
2:37:32- What do you mean by that?
2:37:34- Well, I'm not at home right now, all my Sonos is at home.
2:37:37So like if I open the app now, it can't connect to the Sonos,
2:37:40so it doesn't show me anything.
2:37:41- Okay, I guess what I'm saying is,
2:37:42can you use that app to play music
2:37:45to your AirPods on your way home?
2:37:48- No.
2:37:49- Okay, so it does, okay, so that's the limitation.
2:37:51It has to be connected to the speakers, okay.
2:37:53- That you must be on the same network as the speaker
2:37:56to use the Sonos app, because the Sonos app
2:37:58is just a controller for the Sonos speakers.
2:38:01- Okay, yeah, that's interesting,
2:38:02especially being able to connect to the Apple TV.
2:38:04That's very nice.
2:38:05It has an AirPlay, it's got AirPlay stuff.
2:38:08I think I'm gonna wait to see if Apple comes out with something else for the HomePods,
2:38:13but if they don't, like at some point I'm gonna have to move,
2:38:17and this is the first like, sounds reasonable option to move to that I've come across.
2:38:22Yeah.
2:38:23So yeah, that's a good recommendation.
2:38:25This is sort of entertainment, but I don't know where else to put it.
2:38:28I feel like last year you were talking about moving to more RSS.
2:38:31Oh yeah, yeah.
2:38:33I'm really glad that you suggested that.
2:38:34I feel like that was a suggestion that hit me at the exact right time when I was open
2:38:40to something like this of, like, "I'm frustrated with my internet experience.
2:38:44I need to make it better."
2:38:46And so I've tried to go all in on RSS, and I've done it by using two RSS apps.
2:38:54I'm using Reader and I'm using NetNewsWire.
2:38:58I'm using Reader to try to collect all of the interesting bloggers who I want to follow,
2:39:04And it's been kind of delightful this year to discover, oh, blogs aren't quite as dead
2:39:09as I thought they were.
2:39:10Like there's a bunch of interesting writers out there who are like still doing traditional
2:39:15blogs.
2:39:16So it's been fun doing that.
2:39:18I'd love it if listeners have any suggestions for interesting blogs to follow to leave them
2:39:22on the Reddit because I'm looking out for new stuff.
2:39:24That is one of the broadest.
2:39:27Like do you want to give like a blog?
2:39:29What kind of blogs?
2:39:30Like, just, does anyone got website recommendations for me?
2:39:35Just some cool new websites.
2:39:37- Yeah, I guess, no, I guess, yeah,
2:39:40what I mean by that is, I'll give an example.
2:39:43Like, there's a blog called
2:39:46A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry.
2:39:49And this is like a guy who's a historian,
2:39:52and he just writes really interesting articles
2:39:55that go into detail about
2:39:59something related to history usually vaguely logistics related. And he caught my attention
2:40:06when he did a series about like how realistic could the military logistics of Lord of the
2:40:12Rings be. And this is the kind of stuff that I just love where it's like someone really
2:40:18digs into detail about like some topic that they care a lot about.
2:40:23Yeah, when I say like, oh, I'm interested in some blogs
2:40:26Like I'm looking for like interesting people who care a lot about something it to me
2:40:32There's also just like totally excludes everything that's vaguely politics
2:40:36I'm not interested in anyone who's like a pundit in any way
2:40:39So I could just been trying to like build up a little collection of like oh these people are interesting
2:40:44Writers in in the way that I don't know in a pre internet age
2:40:49age, like they'd be writing a column in a magazine about like a topic.
2:40:53But I put this into entertainment because I've really tried to train myself over the
2:40:57past year of when you have that moment of like, "I'm going to go on the internet."
2:41:02It's like, "No, don't do that.
2:41:04Open Reader and see what is in here since the last time and like go through the interesting
2:41:11people that you found on the internet to read their stuff."
2:41:13And like that should be the default starting place.
2:41:17But what has also been great is the reason I'm using two RSS readers is I'm also using
2:41:22net news wire to track all of what would be my YouTube subscriptions.
2:41:27So this is the same thing where I'm trying to train a behavior which is, oh, hey, when
2:41:33you want to like, watch something, don't go to youtube.com and let the algorithm do it's
2:41:39like here's the eight things that we think are going to be most engaging to you.
2:41:42It's like no, no, no.
2:41:44It's the same thing here.
2:41:45Who do you think make interesting videos and just subscribe to them and then see when they
2:41:51have something new?
2:41:53And I'm just really liking this as the separate experience.
2:41:57So this is what I've been doing in terms of like default reading entertainment for the
2:42:02internet and default video entertainment for the internet.
2:42:05Use two RSS readers and just like open them up, intentionally subscribe to something,
2:42:11read and watch something, use much less of the like,
2:42:16"Hey, an algorithm thought you might be interested
2:42:19in this article or this video."
2:42:21And it's definitely improved my internet experience.
2:42:24So RSS, it's the new old hotness.
2:42:27Thanks, Myke.
2:42:29- Anytime, man, anytime.
2:42:31(both laughing)
2:42:33- Do you have anything else you want to mention
2:42:34in entertainment?
2:42:35- I don't think so.
2:42:36I think I'm good with sonos.
2:42:37I think that's my one good pick.
2:42:38- All right, then let me just give three video game
2:42:41game recommendations for this entertainment section.
2:42:44I didn't know we were video game recommending. I mean now we're in a different world but
2:42:48go on.
2:42:49No that's that's entertainment. Where else would video games go if they were not entertainment?
2:42:52Right sure.
2:42:53The two are gonna be super quick. This is no surprise I feel sort of dumb mentioning
2:42:57it but I am gonna say it again. Magic the Gathering! There's a Magic the Gathering
2:43:02arena. It's f***ing amazing. Like I was just thinking about it today like people complain
2:43:06about it forever. If you've listened to me for this long, if you've made it this far
2:43:12in our State of the Apps episode, you may be a person who would like Magic the Gathering.
2:43:16And it's still kind of amazing to me that the online version is as good as it is. I
2:43:21think there's tons of stuff that's just like better in the online version and so yeah,
2:43:27it's just like I've spent a huge amount of time on it this year. Haven't regretted
2:43:31a minute spent. Love it. I've also mentioned Hades. Talked about it a couple of times.
2:43:36Just want to like re-emphasize big recommendation.
2:43:39I think we've been talking about it in more text.
2:43:41Yeah, yeah, we have been talking about it more and more text.
2:43:43So if you haven't listened in more text, Hades, Dungeon, Roguelike on the Steam Deck,
2:43:49I've been playing it so much better than it has any right to be.
2:43:53Just like highly, highly recommend one of the best games in the past many years.
2:43:58And here's the one I really want to push.
2:44:01So I stumbled upon a game a couple months ago.
2:44:04It's called Dungeon Wars 2.
2:44:08Dungeon Wars 2 is a tower defense game.
2:44:12Now, this is a genre that I was trying to think of,
2:44:15like, a metaphor where it feels like
2:44:20when the iPhone first came out,
2:44:23the tower defense genre kind of exploded.
2:44:26Like, there were a bunch of these.
2:44:27-Can I ask you, is it Dungeon Warfare or Dungeon Wars?
2:44:31-Oh, yes. Thank you, Myke.
2:44:32The correct name is Dungeon Warfare 2.
2:44:35You're right.
2:44:35This is the, like, I, when I looked at it on my iPad, it's that abbreviated name, but
2:44:39yes, this Dungeon Warfare 2 is the full name.
2:44:42So if you like tower defense games, I feel that in the last decade, this genre, the
2:44:53best metaphor that I can think of is it's like a lake full of algae.
2:45:00It's not dead, but it's not exactly alive
2:45:04or interesting either.
2:45:06- Yeah, it was like the game format for a long time
2:45:10on iOS and iPadOS, right?
2:45:12Like it was like so many of them and it was so popular
2:45:15and then it just seemed to stop.
2:45:17- With the exception of the Kingdom Rush series,
2:45:20which has been like the uncontested top contender
2:45:23in this for years now,
2:45:26like I just think most of these games
2:45:27are terribly uninteresting.
2:45:29A lot of them are borderline scammy
2:45:32and just like trying to keep your attention.
2:45:35It's just awful and I've always been really sad
2:45:37'cause I just, I love this genre so much.
2:45:42You're just building towers and there's a bunch of guys
2:45:44who are gonna try to run past them
2:45:46and your towers are gonna try to shoot them down.
2:45:48It's so simple but it can be really satisfying.
2:45:51But I've been extra sad because Kingdom Rush,
2:45:53which has been this like top contender,
2:45:55it's always felt to me like the designers of Kingdom Rush
2:45:59like something like they're they're getting something else out of tower defense games that I'm not
2:46:06that they seem to be slightly more on the puzzle side like oh
2:46:10We're gonna have a very small number of towers and you win by figuring out the exact right order to build them in
2:46:17I was like, hey, you know what? I want out of a tower defense game a lot of towers
2:46:22Like that's what I want to build. That's the whole thing that I'm looking for and Kingdom Rush always seems to push against that
2:46:27So anyway, all of this is to say like I was on one of my sad trawls through the App Store being like,
2:46:34"Oh, let me see if I can find anything interesting that's a tower defense game."
2:46:38And I somehow stumbled upon Dungeon Warfare 2 and I love it so much.
2:46:43Like it feels like the person who made this is like, "Ah, this is what I love out of tower defense games."
2:46:49Lots of towers. They're really interesting. Like it's the first time in years I've seen someone
2:46:56Do a bunch of interesting different stuff in the genre
2:47:00So like if you have ever enjoyed a tower defense game, you have to give this one a try the other thing
2:47:07That's unbelievable to me is how deep it is
2:47:11Like the number of towers the number of upgrades the number of different abilities
2:47:16They have the number of like these weird skills that you can add on
2:47:19It also has a whole system where like you can increasingly make each level more difficult
2:47:26but in interesting ways. It's like, I just love everything about it. And looking it up,
2:47:32it seems like it's a one-person project. And it's again, one of these things like,
2:47:36aside from the graphics, which are a little janky, it's crazy to me that a single person made this.
2:47:42And it's like a several year old game. I don't think anyone is paying much attention to it. And
2:47:47I just like, kind of wish that my recommendation here causes everyone who listens to go out and
2:47:53like buy this game. It is fantastic, I cannot recommend it highly enough. Absolutely loved it,
2:48:00have also sunk in so many hours on the couch playing this. It's great. Dungeon Warfare 2,
2:48:07if you've ever enjoyed a tower defense game, get this one.
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2:50:31It's time for our lightning round.
2:50:34Lightning round! Boom. Again, lightning sounds that are not upgrade sounds. It breaks my
2:50:40brain every time. I can't do it. Okay let's do some lightning round.
2:50:47Sleep++. I started sleep tracking with my Apple watch and I much prefer a couple of
2:50:55features of sleep++ to Apple's built-in sleep tracking. I like the layout. I find
2:51:00the layout to be clearer. The way that Apple kind of draws the bubbles around
2:51:04everything, it doesn't really show me the information that I want and I enjoy the
2:51:09increased contrast of colors between like my you know when I'm awake when I'm
2:51:14asleep you know kind of tracks that information. I also really like the
2:51:17readiness score so sleep++ takes in a bunch of factors based on how much sleep
2:51:22you've had and tries to make it like an assessment for how prepared you should
2:51:26be for the day. I just like this information like it's like a fun little
2:51:31thing and in the morning I might check it and it kind of I have been making
2:51:34some decisions recently about maybe some of the things that I might get up to in
2:51:38a day or being more forgiving of myself if I'm not so effective if I realized that I
2:51:46did not get good sleep the night before.
2:51:48So I've been enjoying that.
2:51:49I was wondering what kind of impact sleep tracking would have on my life and I think
2:51:54so far it's actually had a pretty good one if just in the fact that like if I've had
2:51:59a bad night's sleep then maybe I will be easier on myself the next day.
2:52:03I'm gonna recommend Tally. It's a dead simple app to just, like, count up a number every time you
2:52:10tap on a screen. And I ended up using this in Hawaii when I was recovering from COVID,
2:52:17and I was trying to build up my strength by just walking up and down the world's saddest tiny hill
2:52:24a bunch of times. And so it was slow enough that, like, I would, you know, start thinking about
2:52:29something else when I got back to the bottom of the hill and then forget by the time I got back
2:52:33up to the hill again like, "Wait, how many times have I done this? Did I do this five times or six
2:52:38times?" And like, I love an app that just does one thing really well as like, "Tally, if you need to
2:52:44count something while you're probably going to be slightly bored and forget, this is the app for you."
2:52:49CityMapper.
2:52:51Oh, wow, I feel like that's a real blast from the past. I haven't thought of CityMapper in years.
2:52:56What are you using CityMapper for?
2:52:57Well, so the way that I came to Citymapper is I wanted to have access to something like an
2:53:08Oyster card, which is our transit card, but on my iPhone. It boggles my mind that you cannot use an
2:53:16Oyster card on an iPhone. Like you have to have the card. You can't add the card to your Apple
2:53:22wallet and use it as NFC. I can't believe that that is still true. That's insane.
2:53:27They just want you to use contactless. But I don't want to do this because then it generates like
2:53:3340 transactions a month on my credit card statement, which I don't want.
2:53:38So I wanted a way to be able to pay for effectively a travel card or something.
2:53:45But even then, I had a travel card for a while, so I pay once, but then it's on an oyster card
2:53:51and I didn't want the card. Then someone told me about the Citymapper pass which is exactly this.
2:53:59It is a prepaid card which gives you travel around London but it is just the same price as I was
2:54:07paying before but with Citymapper it's basically like a prepaid mastercard is the kind of way they
2:54:13do it. It's really interesting how they've made this work. Citymapper itself is only available in
2:54:17in a set amount of cities in the world and city map and pass is even more restricted
2:54:22in where it's available. But they send you a card but you can choose to forgo the card
2:54:27and have it in Apple Pay. If you have it in Apple Pay you have to choose to either use
2:54:32it always on the watch or always on the phone. Again like it's complicated the way that they've
2:54:36set this up but I just have it on my phone. I have it in the express travel thing so I
2:54:40don't have to activate Apple Pay I just hold my phone near it and it just bings and now
2:54:45Now I can go through the barriers and it's all set.
2:54:49In doing that, I then started using CityMapper more as my transit app rather than Google
2:54:54Maps and CityMapper kicks butt in London.
2:54:59It wrecks everything else in how good it is at telling me to get from here to here.
2:55:07So then I started using CityMapper more and they also have something you can pay for to
2:55:12better routing, which I also do, and I'm super happy with it. Like it does things like it
2:55:17gives really good options for types of transport and like connecting. It gives you really great
2:55:23suggestions for where to stand on public transport for like, where is the best place to be for
2:55:28the connection that you're going to make. And then their live activity that they just
2:55:32added is incredible. It's incredible.
2:55:35Yeah, I'm looking at these screenshots. This is really nice. Like if I was still commuting,
2:55:40I would totally use this every day. This is great.
2:55:42But they've always had a thing where when you're navigating from place to place, it
2:55:46can send you push notifications for like, go right here if you're walking and then get
2:55:51ready to get off the train, that kind of thing, right?
2:55:53I stopped before, but now they've put this in a live activity, which is always there.
2:55:57It's also in the dynamic island if you've got the phone unlocked, but it's showing me
2:56:02you are 115 meters away from arriving at the station.
2:56:06It's like one of the things I showed you.
2:56:07There are trains in three minutes, nine minutes, 20 minutes.
2:56:11and then like down the bottom,
2:56:12your final arrival time currently is this
2:56:15based on where you are.
2:56:17And then when you're on the train,
2:56:18like or getting on the train,
2:56:20it's like get on in a minute and get on at the back.
2:56:23And then when you're on the train,
2:56:25it's like it shows a train line with all of the stops
2:56:29and your dot moving along the line.
2:56:33It's unbelievably good.
2:56:35And then it alerts you like,
2:56:36"Hey, the next stop is your stop.
2:56:38Get ready to get off.
2:56:40killer, so good, I am so happy with this.
2:56:45I don't know what took me so long,
2:56:47but City Mapper seems to be one of those things
2:56:49that like if it's in your city and you start to use it,
2:56:53you become one of these people that I have become,
2:56:55which is a City Mapper person,
2:56:57where I keep telling people how good City Mapper is.
2:57:00I was at a dinner with someone who told me this stuff,
2:57:03then I used it and now I am a City Mapper person
2:57:06telling people to use City Mapper.
2:57:09It is, I don't know how they're so good.
2:57:11I don't know how either Google or Apple have involved them.
2:57:15'Cause they seem to have a way of taking transit information
2:57:19and doing so much more with it,
2:57:21where I believe they're probably just taking
2:57:23the same information that any of these companies
2:57:25can have access to.
2:57:27But the way in which they present it, excellent.
2:57:30And they deal with things like we've had disruptions
2:57:32for like, there's been rail strikes
2:57:34and stuff like that in the UK.
2:57:35And they give you a way of like,
2:57:36if you need to get somewhere on a certain day,
2:57:39we can route you for that.
2:57:40Or when we're having our heat wave,
2:57:41they had like a specific routing option
2:57:44for air conditioned routes.
2:57:46- Oh my God, wow.
2:57:48- So good, like they're very reactive to things
2:57:51and like update the application with these specific things.
2:57:54- Wow, that looks really nice.
2:57:56- Yeah, it's super good.
2:57:57- I'll half mention what I've said before
2:57:59is the closest thing for this for bikes
2:58:01is an app called Bike Citizens.
2:58:03It's not remotely this level,
2:58:05but it is the same thing where it's like,
2:58:07it's bike directions in the city,
2:58:09but it like totally blows the regular recommendations
2:58:11out of the water with a bunch of options.
2:58:13Like I want the easiest route, I want the fastest route,
2:58:16I want a nice balance of the two.
2:58:18Things like Apple Maps are getting better for bike routing.
2:58:21Like it's definitely improving, but it's the same thing.
2:58:23Like every time I look at Bike Citizens,
2:58:25I'm like, how has someone not bought this?
2:58:27I don't really understand.
2:58:28But okay, my next actual Lightning recommendation
2:58:32is an app called Plant Snap.
2:58:36So this came up in Hawaii where one day I woke up
2:58:41and like something out of a nightmare,
2:58:43the whole property was covered
2:58:45in these like weird spiky pod plants.
2:58:49And it was very strange.
2:58:50You may remember that I messaged you some images of like,
2:58:53Myke, you won't believe like what just turned up
2:58:55in the garden.
2:58:57It turns out like,
2:58:57oh, they weren't really a problem or anything.
2:58:59But anyway, I was discussing this with my sister-in-law
2:59:02And she's like, "Oh, before you touch anything, you should probably use this app called PlantSnap."
2:59:07And it's exactly what it sounds like.
2:59:09You take a picture of a plant and then it identifies what it is and tells you about it.
2:59:14And this is another one of these things that just felt kind of like magic, but it worked
2:59:18really well.
2:59:19Like, "Oh, I'm in this jungle.
2:59:20Like, I see a plant."
2:59:21You can take a picture of it and then give it a couple seconds to analyze it and it spits
2:59:25back like, "Oh, here's this plant.
2:59:27Here's what you need to know about it."
2:59:29thing that looks like some kind of spiky nightmare thing. It's actually not a problem at all.
2:59:34Don't worry about it. So if you're surrounded by a lot of unknown plants, check out PlantSnap.
2:59:40There are some times in the lightning round there are things that come up which are like
2:59:44there's just absolutely no world in which I would have imagined you would have picked
2:59:48that, you know? I'm gonna mention SnapMotion. This is an app which will give you screenshots
2:59:58of videos. So you open a video on your Mac in SnapMotion and it has a big button which
3:00:06is a camera icon and as you're watching the video you can hit that button and it will
3:00:12spit out files onto your desktop that are images. I use this to get the thumbnails for
3:00:19our animated Cortex videos. So as I watch each episode of Cortex animated in SnapMotion
3:00:25I'm hitting the button every time there's a frame which I think could be fun for a thumbnail
3:00:29and then I look through them and choose the best ones and they're the ones that I will
3:00:35use for the thumbnails for the videos.
3:00:38So really lovely little app.
3:00:39It's very simple and it does exactly what I wanted because before I was taking screenshots
3:00:44and formatting them but this obviously just spits it out in the right size for a video
3:00:50right? Because it's just taking it from the video and then I can just use those as the thumbnail options.
3:00:55Okay, that's what I was gonna ask. So that's the reason is it's keeping the aspect ratio the same.
3:01:01That's the main reason to use this over just screenshotting it.
3:01:04Well, but also it's just easier. Like when I was screenshotting it, depending on the app that I was using, I use like CleanShot, right?
3:01:10It's like, then I might have to format it a little bit like to get it the right size or...
3:01:15And it's also like I have to pause and then you write like I pause here and I'm gonna take the screenshot play
3:01:22With snap motion you never pause you just hit you just keep hitting the screenshot button
3:01:26It's just throwing the screenshots onto the desktop. It's really it's just like really simple. Hmm. I love it
3:01:30It's a great little app keeping with the Hawaii theme. I'm also gonna recommend and a half called luminous
3:01:36It's not specifically for Hawaii, but there's a bunch of these augmented reality. Look at the sky
3:01:43I've never understood this.
3:01:45Yeah, it's like a strange genre of this, but I spent a little time trying to figure out which of these is actually good.
3:01:54Because it's one of these things like a bunch of them are just terrible, like they're absolutely awful.
3:01:58But Luminos is great. I think it's the best one.
3:02:02And it really was quite interesting when I was in Hawaii to use this.
3:02:08And the thing that was, that's different about Luminos, or at least that they did
3:02:13better, is it allows you to look and track things that are below the horizon.
3:02:21And there's, I, it's almost hard to describe, but it's a very interesting
3:02:25experience to go out into the night and be able to look around with your phone,
3:02:31see objects like not just planets and stars, but also a ton of things like
3:02:37like satellites or the International Space Station
3:02:41and kind of see where they are,
3:02:44especially when you can do this weird thing
3:02:46of like look through the Earth below the horizon
3:02:51and see like, oh, there's a pattern
3:02:53of like five Starlink satellites
3:02:56that are going to be coming up over the horizon in a second
3:02:58or like there's the International Space Station
3:03:01like sort of through the Earth on the opposite side.
3:03:04I've never been one of these constellation star people.
3:03:08Like, I don't really care,
3:03:10but the app is almost entirely free.
3:03:13I think it's worth it for almost anyone
3:03:15to just download it and try it once
3:03:18as an interesting thing to look at the sky.
3:03:20Like, I just, I really enjoyed it,
3:03:21and I think that this is the best version
3:03:24of this sort of app that exists.
3:03:27- Moom.
3:03:28- Moom.
3:03:29- This is an app for arranging windows on the Mac.
3:03:33So our friend David Sparks was bugging me for a while,
3:03:37telling me that I should try something like this out.
3:03:39And I did, and I have, and I really like it.
3:03:43I don't use it very extensively,
3:03:46but I use it for like a few set things.
3:03:50I have a few keyboard commands now, like one will,
3:03:53I have one for like kind of what I consider
3:03:55to be the ideal window size for if I'm using something
3:03:59not completely full screen,
3:04:01but it takes up the majority of the screen,
3:04:03but still with some space on the side.
3:04:05I use this mostly for Safari.
3:04:06So really it's like my ideal Safari window size.
3:04:10Then I have a bunch of presets that will take windows
3:04:14like 75%, 50%, 25% on each kind of left and right side.
3:04:19So I have my main one and then you go one to the right,
3:04:24it will make it 75% and 25% just splits the windows apart.
3:04:29So then I can very easily in a couple of keystrokes have one window fill 25%, one window fill
3:04:3575%.
3:04:36And I have some preset ones that will take two windows and put them side by side to each
3:04:39other and one that will basically put a window bang in the middle of the screen.
3:04:44So these are just like simple keyboard chocolates that I have for things that I was finding
3:04:48myself doing a lot to kind of help me out with some window management stuff.
3:04:52Moom comes with a bunch of presets and it's also really easy to make them.
3:04:56you basically have like a tile and you just draw
3:04:59the amount of space you want each window to take up.
3:05:01It's very simple.
3:05:02You can also save like presets of window arrangement
3:05:07in the application as well.
3:05:09I found it to be very simple, very powerful,
3:05:12and I really like it.
3:05:14- Yeah, I'm just gonna second this as,
3:05:17another one of these kind of apps,
3:05:20like if you don't use something like this,
3:05:23you don't know what you're missing out on.
3:05:25My version of this is Divi, but they're the same.
3:05:27Like, there's a bunch of apps that do this kind of thing.
3:05:29And if you haven't used your computer
3:05:31with a window manager like this,
3:05:34you really are just like, "You don't know what you're missing."
3:05:36The thing that I do, which I've really settled on
3:05:38that works great for me for everything that I do,
3:05:41is divide the screen into roughly fifths.
3:05:44So there's, like, the left-hand side,
3:05:46there will be an app that takes up, like --
3:05:48Actually, is it fifths, or is it sixths?
3:05:51-Or is it sevenths?
3:05:53Yeah, I was just like, wait a minute, I'm just like counting five and I realized like,
3:05:58oh that actually doesn't work. No, it's divided into one, two, three, four, five. Oh, it's divided
3:06:03into sixths. Yeah, there we go. So I have something that's like two sixths on the left hand side,
3:06:10three sixths, so about a half of the screen in the center, and then like one sixth all the way
3:06:16on the other side of the screen, and like that little arrangement is fantastic for me in terms of
3:06:23I can have two things that I'm working on that are pretty big, although one of them is slightly bigger,
3:06:27and then there's a little strip for everything that's like the status of what's going on.
3:06:32So I'll leave like OmniFocus on that little strip or Timery on that little strip or like right now
3:06:36Skype is and like QuickTime recording the audio or in that little strip.
3:06:40Being able to just move stuff around with keyboard commands on the screen into whatever works best
3:06:45for you in terms of sizes and ratios like you just have to have this on your computer.
3:06:49it's just required.
3:06:51- It took me a while to be sold on it, right?
3:06:53Like I was like, I don't need this, I don't need this.
3:06:55- I know, everyone thinks the same thing they're like,
3:06:57I don't need it, how much better is it actually?
3:07:00And like, I think when I get a new computer,
3:07:03that might be one of like easily the first three apps
3:07:06that I put on there, like I need this immediately.
3:07:08(laughs)
3:07:11I'm just noticing that like the next thing
3:07:12that was on my list is Tide Guide,
3:07:14which again, where might I have been
3:07:16when I needed to know where the tides are?
3:07:18- That reminders list is paying dividends for you right now.
3:07:21(laughing)
3:07:23- Yeah, it really is.
3:07:24If you're in a place where the tides really matter,
3:07:26like say, I don't know, the middle of the Pacific Ocean,
3:07:30there's a ton of tide apps.
3:07:31Tide Guide, heads and shoulders above the rest.
3:07:35- Wow, this is a beautiful app.
3:07:36- It's so good.
3:07:37Isn't it?
3:07:38It's crazy nice.
3:07:40You never knew that you could want so many options
3:07:43for how and when you're displaying the tide,
3:07:46but it's like, man, this is a thing
3:07:48that I totally wanted and it really matters
3:07:50depending on where you are.
3:07:51It's just like obviously the best version of this.
3:07:56So yeah, Tide Guide for tracking tides.
3:07:58- I'm gonna go with Sticker Drop next.
3:08:02So, iOS 16 added that feature of being able to like tap
3:08:06and hold on somebody and you can drag them out, right?
3:08:09- It's object detection is what it is.
3:08:10- There you go.
3:08:11And you can drag those images out and like do,
3:08:13I don't know, do something with them.
3:08:15Sticker Drop is an app that lets you drag and drop people
3:08:19or things into this app and make them iMessage stickers.
3:08:24- Oh, nice.
3:08:25- It feels to me like really the only good use
3:08:28of that new feature in iOS 16,
3:08:30like I have not found a good use for it otherwise,
3:08:32but this is like this way, your friend sends you a picture
3:08:35and they've got kind of a funny look on their face,
3:08:38you can now take that and use it as a sticker
3:08:40and send it to them forever.
3:08:42And this is what me and some of my friends
3:08:43have been doing recently,
3:08:45And Sticker Drop is so good.
3:08:46- That's cute, yeah.
3:08:49That is an actual nice use for that feature.
3:08:51- You have an image that becomes a meme in a friend group,
3:08:54which we also have.
3:08:55Now instead of sending the image each time,
3:08:57you can send it as an iMessage sticker,
3:08:59like attach it to an image.
3:09:00It's really good,
3:09:01and it's revived iMessage stickers for me again
3:09:03as a thing that I care about.
3:09:06- I'm gonna group three things together
3:09:08because they're basically the same thing.
3:09:10They're the apps brain.fm,
3:09:13Pizzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
3:09:43working, and the last one is just kind of like soundscapes to have on in the background.
3:09:48And I just use these a lot.
3:09:50The music in the two is a little bit different, which is why, like, depending on what I'm
3:09:53doing, if I'm like, reading, I tend to use Pzizzy or Pzizz, and if I'm working, I tend
3:10:00to use brain.fm.
3:10:02And on iOS, they both work great with Portal.
3:10:06So you can have like a background of, ooh, there's some like forest sounds, and then
3:10:11have the music that's a layer on top of this. And a lot of times when I'm working or if I'm reading,
3:10:17I'm using some combination of those three to just be listening in my headphones. And it really does
3:10:24help keep you focused. It's like just to have something to listen to that's not as distracting
3:10:29as even melodic music. It's just like a soundscape in the background. I use those three a lot.
3:10:37Really like them.
3:10:38Yeah, this is like a real blast from the past for me.
3:10:41Paziz is 16 years old.
3:10:43It used to be a hardware device.
3:10:45It's pre-iPhone, obviously.
3:10:47I didn't realize that, huh?
3:10:49I'm going to recommend Lockit.
3:10:51Lockit is a widget.
3:10:53It's a widget for iOS.
3:10:56And the idea is you use Lockit to send pictures to loved ones.
3:11:02So you open the app, and you can take a picture of something
3:11:05or yourself and send it to someone and it appears in the widget on their home screen.
3:11:11So automatically will update and show them that image.
3:11:14Oh, okay, huh.
3:11:16This is an adorable app.
3:11:17Me and Idina use it, we send funny pictures to each other and it's just like a little
3:11:21treat.
3:11:22You know, maybe every day, every couple of days, a new image will pop up on my phone
3:11:26that she sent me.
3:11:27I really love this application and I think it's like great for like friends and loved
3:11:32and that kind of stuff, you can send people
3:11:34little fun things every now and then.
3:11:35It's added a bunch of features over time.
3:11:38Like you can add little emoji reactions every month.
3:11:40It makes a little video for you of the things
3:11:43that you've sent back and forth.
3:11:44You can send little messages to each other.
3:11:46You can save the images.
3:11:47It really is a great little app.
3:11:49And you can send the little locket images
3:11:51to everyone that you share lockets with
3:11:53or certain people or certain groups.
3:11:55It's really cool, really, really great app.
3:11:57- So it's a really cute idea.
3:11:58And it's a very cute name for it.
3:12:00- Yeah.
3:12:01That's a really adorable concept for something to do.
3:12:05I like that, that's really cute.
3:12:07Okay, so this is really dumb,
3:12:08but there's two Apple apps I just wanna highlight
3:12:10because they have minor features
3:12:13that people might just not realize.
3:12:14So we recommend the Find My app in the lightning rounds.
3:12:17- Okay, I'm gonna give Apple some help here,
3:12:20you know what I mean?
3:12:21They need some music. - I am gonna give them
3:12:22some help, but it is a thing where,
3:12:24you know how you're like,
3:12:25oh, you're a city mapper evangelist?
3:12:27I feel like I've become a kind of evangelist for Find My
3:12:30when people don't use AirTags.
3:12:33It's like, listen to me,
3:12:34you don't understand how absolutely life-changing it is
3:12:39if you stick an AirTag on everything
3:12:42you might ever care about,
3:12:44and then don't ever look for your wallet again,
3:12:47your default position should be,
3:12:50open Find My App and where is it,
3:12:52or where are my keys, or where is it?
3:12:55I put AirTags on everything,
3:12:57And it's so nice when like I go to look for something
3:13:02and if I can't find it instantly,
3:13:04it's like that Find My app is open immediately.
3:13:06And this like lots of things like Moom
3:13:09and other things we've talked about,
3:13:11it falls into the category of people think,
3:13:13how nice is it really?
3:13:14It's like, no, it's life-changingly nice.
3:13:17You don't understand.
3:13:18Like it seems like it shouldn't be a lot more effort,
3:13:21but it's great.
3:13:22It's like, I think the most life-changing thing for me
3:13:26was buying those new Apple AirPods
3:13:28that can now track the case.
3:13:31And to me, this is one of these things where it gets like,
3:13:34how did I live before I could just find
3:13:38where that goddamn case is?
3:13:39- I've used it multiple times already.
3:13:41I love the new AirPods Pro, I love it.
3:13:44- Yeah, people, you should use it.
3:13:47It's so nice.
3:13:48And I just wanna call out a little thing.
3:13:50It's an annoyance that got fixed in the workouts app,
3:13:52but I'm just gonna mention it here.
3:13:54Because again, it's like, you might not have used it
3:13:56for this reason.
3:13:56Workouts have this dumb thing where if you're tracking walks
3:14:00it would always like update you of like,
3:14:01"Hey, you've walked every mile
3:14:04and didn't you want to know that?"
3:14:05I'm always like, "No, Apple, I didn't."
3:14:07So in the workouts app,
3:14:09you can now set a bunch of custom workouts
3:14:12and one of the things you can do is tell them like,
3:14:14"Never notify me about this.
3:14:16I don't want to know what my splits are.
3:14:18I don't want to know when it's been a mile."
3:14:21And it's a hidden feature
3:14:22but I don't know where else to call it out here.
3:14:24Like you can set up a custom workout and then just don't turn on any of the notifications.
3:14:31And I'm so happy about this because every morning when I'm at my treadmill desk and I'm walking
3:14:36and I'm writing my scripts, you know what I don't want to know?
3:14:39"Hey, you just went a mile!"
3:14:41Yeah, shut the f*** up, I'm working!
3:14:43Like I don't care!
3:14:44And it was like, it was so maddening.
3:14:48So anyway, Workouts app, they can finally allow you to turn off notifications.
3:14:52I'm going to recommend ElseWhen.
3:14:54Again, I spoke about this last time,
3:14:56but I love this app and it's continued to get better over time.
3:14:59It is an app that gives you Discord time codes
3:15:03and time zones that you can paste into other apps.
3:15:06So in Discord, you can add these codes, these strings in that give relative time.
3:15:11So you add this code in a string of numbers and letters into the app.
3:15:17It's not explained as well, but it's complicated for me to explain.
3:15:20to explain. And then when it formats in the message view for everyone to see, it shows
3:15:26them the time in their own time zone. So it's all relative stuff. Which is very cool if
3:15:31you want to say such and such thing is happening at 4 o'clock on Thursday, it's for you, and
3:15:37it might be 9am for someone else, 12pm for someone else, no matter where they are in
3:15:42the world they'll see it in their local time. This is really good if you run any kind of
3:15:46just call community. Also I use it as a way to you can you can in the app say
3:15:51like put in a time and date and it can give you some pre formatted flags and
3:15:56time zones that you can copy and paste onto social media or something like that.
3:15:59It got a great new design in the past year so it's really easy to get these
3:16:04codes very quickly. I really love this app I think it's super smart super well
3:16:08made and meets something that I find really useful that I wouldn't have been
3:16:13able to do otherwise. Like there is a way to calculate yourself the way that
3:16:18these codes work in Discord but it is unbelievably complicated for me to work
3:16:23it out. So I really really like it. I think it's super smart and it's an app
3:16:28that I recommend people check out if they spend time in Discord. I was just
3:16:33looking at my list I was like I've got Diffusion Bee on here like if you want to
3:16:37see a preview of the end of the world you can play around with this AI art app.
3:16:42(laughs)
3:16:44We've talked about that plenty.
3:16:47This is another like re-up one,
3:16:49but it's a little app, teeny tiny app.
3:16:51It's for your watch.
3:16:52It's just called Better Day.
3:16:54It's a different way to display calendars
3:16:56in the complications on your watch.
3:16:58It wasn't working for a while
3:17:00and then the developer updated it again
3:17:02and I was so happy of like,
3:17:03"Oh great, I can put this on here."
3:17:04I mainly love it because on my work watch face,
3:17:08I like to have a little dial
3:17:09that counts down the whole year.
3:17:12So it just shows me a little progress bar of like,
3:17:14here's how much of the year is left.
3:17:17Super tiny, but it's just something
3:17:19I really like to have on the watch.
3:17:21- I have two more things.
3:17:23They're both made by the same developer
3:17:24and are in the same kind of remit.
3:17:26Home pass and home paper.
3:17:29- Okay.
3:17:30- So as I moved recently,
3:17:32I'm kind of rebuilding my home automation stuff.
3:17:35If you've used any home kit products,
3:17:41you'll know that you get these little QR codes
3:17:43on the HomeKit product that you need to scan
3:17:46to add it to HomeKit.
3:17:47And if you've ever, say, set up a smart plug,
3:17:51you've put it in and you've put some furniture in the way,
3:17:53if something ever goes wrong with that smart plug
3:17:55and you wanna re-add it to HomeKit,
3:17:58you've gotta get to the code to scan it,
3:18:02to re-add it to HomeKit again.
3:18:04What Home Pass does is an app
3:18:06where you can categorize all of your products.
3:18:09you can scan the QR code, it pre-fills it with the number,
3:18:12and then you basically have, effectively,
3:18:15a database of all of the smart home devices
3:18:18that you have in your home,
3:18:19and it actually uses HomeKit to show you what you've got,
3:18:23so you can tap it and add the codes,
3:18:25like it looks at what's in your home as well,
3:18:27which is very smart,
3:18:28so you can make sure you've got everything categorized,
3:18:31'cause it'll be like,
3:18:32"Oh, you haven't added this thing yet,"
3:18:33which is very clever.
3:18:35And then, so once you've got that,
3:18:37In the future, if you ever need to add something
3:18:39to HomeKit again, you can grab the code from there,
3:18:42or you can, it's on multiple devices, you have an iPad,
3:18:45you can use the iPad to bring up the QR code
3:18:47and scan it with your iPhone.
3:18:49It's just a way of dealing with the inevitable time
3:18:52where you have to re-add something to HomeKit,
3:18:54which is buried under a piece of furniture.
3:18:55- Such a pain in the ass. - Yes.
3:18:57- This is a great recommendation.
3:18:59- So it was one of those things where I thought,
3:19:01now I'm starting from scratch,
3:19:03I'm going to make a point of adding everything to Home Pass.
3:19:08So I'll save myself,
3:19:10like future mic is gonna be saved a problem here.
3:19:13- Yes, yeah.
3:19:14- And then home paper.
3:19:15So you can set wallpapers in HomeKit
3:19:19for your house in each room.
3:19:21The options Apple give you all kind of suck.
3:19:23- Yeah, they're terrible.
3:19:24- They're all bad.
3:19:25And using images, which you can choose your own images,
3:19:28is too noisy, right?
3:19:30'Cause it's like full color or whatever.
3:19:33Home Paper is an app that lets you use images
3:19:37of each room or whatever you might want.
3:19:40But they do it in like a monochrome way
3:19:42as like a monochrome filter to the image,
3:19:46which you can then customize with color.
3:19:48And also it prioritizes the image you're choosing
3:19:51in the top right hand corner,
3:19:53which is typically not used by HomeKit.
3:19:55- Oh, nice, right.
3:19:57- So it will let you create your own wallpapers
3:20:00of rooms in your home.
3:20:02so you can at a glance more easily understand
3:20:06which room you're looking at in HomeKit
3:20:08as you're scrolling through.
3:20:09Very clever.
3:20:10- Nice.
3:20:11All right, I'm gonna finish off then with Quitter,
3:20:15which is a little app by Marco that I really like.
3:20:19And Quitter's for your Mac.
3:20:21It sits in your menu bar,
3:20:23and you can just tell it to add a little rule to,
3:20:27if I haven't touched an app on my desktop
3:20:31in a certain amount of time, either hide it or quit it.
3:20:35And I love this.
3:20:36I love this for keeping my computer neat and tidy.
3:20:41And it's also just so nice when it kind of like
3:20:45resets my work computers to a nice default state
3:20:49every morning when I go to them.
3:20:51So it's like, hey, I can hide all of this stuff
3:20:53or I can quit stuff that I haven't used.
3:20:56And it's just like, it feels like it's my computer
3:20:59tidying itself up automatically.
3:21:02And it's just the, it's such a simple thing,
3:21:05but it makes a real difference in the quality of life
3:21:08for using my computer.
3:21:09So, Quitter to automatically close or hide stuff
3:21:13that you're not using.
3:21:14Love it.
3:21:14- So let's use that to close this episode.
3:21:17- Yes.
3:21:18- That was State of the Apps for 2023,
3:21:19so you know what's next now.
3:21:21- Yes.
3:21:23- Yearly themes.
3:21:24- Next comes themes.
3:21:25- It's theme time.
3:21:26So if you are not familiar, go to yearlythemes.com.
3:21:31You can go there and you'll find out more
3:21:33about what a yearly theme is
3:21:34and also find out a little bit more
3:21:36about the Theme System Journal,
3:21:37which is a perfect companion to yearly themes.
3:21:39We'll talk about that next time.
3:21:41I think I've got my theme set.
3:21:44I think I feel pretty confident
3:21:48and I hope that you all will get ready
3:21:49to come on this journey with us
3:21:51as we review what 2022 has been
3:21:54and talk about what we want 2023 to look like.
3:21:56- All right, see you for themes, Myke.