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Cortex

122: State of the Apps 2022

 

00:00:00   - Ready to go? - I'm ready to go.

00:00:01   State of the Apps 2022.

00:00:04   - Bum bum bum! - Oh, okay!

00:00:06   That's a good level of drama.

00:00:09   I was last night, so I was like thinking about the show last night,

00:00:13   and I was like "Ooh, I feel a bit of pressure coming into this now."

00:00:16   - Yeah, me too. - Like, we do 12 episodes a year, right?

00:00:19   And now two of those episodes, which is a quite significant percentage,

00:00:23   which happen back to back, which I also don't like,

00:00:26   I feel like there's a lot of importance on them, right?

00:00:29   So State of the Apps, and then I'm sorry to keep mentioning it, but yearly themes next time.

00:00:32   I don't know, I feel like there's a lot of pressure coming into these episodes now.

00:00:37   You set these big traditions.

00:00:38   Yeah, well I refuse for there to actually be pressure on this episode.

00:00:43   I was mainly doing the "bom bom bom" because it's finally here,

00:00:47   and the last wall of defense before the theme episode.

00:00:50   True.

00:00:50   Like we've now breached it.

00:00:51   We're in the endgame now.

00:00:52   Yeah, it's the endgame now, so.

00:00:54   So State of the Apps.

00:00:55   We've been doing this for a number of years now,

00:00:57   and it was originally inspired by a blog post that you wrote many years ago in the same name.

00:01:02   It's like, you know, if you're kind of looking like a state of the nation, that kind of thing,

00:01:06   what are the apps and services that we are using right now?

00:01:10   What are the decisions that we've made over the last year that have led us to them if we've made changes?

00:01:15   Or why are we sticking with certain apps and services?

00:01:18   And also what would we like to see change in the years ahead?

00:01:22   We have a selection of categories that we go through from productivity to communication

00:01:27   and we have a really great lightning round at the end where we talk about all the little fun apps that we've been using in the last year

00:01:33   that otherwise don't fit into those categories.

00:01:35   One of the things we like to do in this episode as well is to share our home screens with each other,

00:01:40   which I think is what we'll start with today, and then we can start diving into some of the apps,

00:01:44   but maybe there's some interesting insights into each other that we can glean from our home screens.

00:01:50   Who do you want to go first, me or you?

00:01:52   Uh, yes, well actually, hold on a second.

00:01:54   I just, I need to reposition my, my backup recording microphone, which was on my desk

00:02:00   because it just dropped and it dropped in such a way.

00:02:03   I was trying to ignore that sound personally.

00:02:06   I didn't want to pay attention to the noise that had occurred.

00:02:09   But my backup microphone dropped in such a way that it perfectly hit my keyboard to stop

00:02:17   the main recording on my computer.

00:02:20   Do we have to start again?

00:02:21   (laughing)

00:02:22   No, no, we're like, we're good, we're good.

00:02:24   I just--

00:02:25   - No, but you don't have a recording.

00:02:26   - Do you have, you have a recording of me.

00:02:28   Like you've got a local recording, so we're good.

00:02:30   - No, I don't have a local recording of you.

00:02:32   You have the local recording of you.

00:02:34   I have a Zoom recording of you.

00:02:36   - Yeah, but I have the backup recording of me talking.

00:02:38   Oh, I probably shouldn't be waving around

00:02:40   this local microphone.

00:02:41   I should put this.

00:02:42   (laughing)

00:02:44   - Like I just said all this stuff about like,

00:02:47   this episode's important to me, there's pressure to it.

00:02:51   and you're (beep) throwing microphones around

00:02:53   and stopping your recording.

00:02:55   - Right, well, no, but it's like,

00:02:56   this is an important life lesson,

00:02:57   which is to click off the app that is recording

00:03:01   so that I can't have accidental keyboard input.

00:03:04   - Where are you recording now?

00:03:06   - I'm recording into QuickTime on the Mac,

00:03:09   and I have a Zoom microphone on the desk

00:03:12   as the backup recorder.

00:03:13   So we're good, we're good, Myke, don't worry about it.

00:03:15   - But you are recording again?

00:03:16   - Yes, I'm looking at it being recorded right now.

00:03:18   I can see the little levels going, so we're all set.

00:03:20   Why do you need to do this to me?

00:03:22   I'm trying to get in like a good mental space here.

00:03:25   And you're fucking pushing the equipment around.

00:03:27   I don't know how many more times we need to do this.

00:03:30   Why is this still happening?

00:03:32   Years we've been doing this.

00:03:34   (laughing)

00:03:35   - Look, I'm trying to do the reverse.

00:03:37   You're trying to be serious.

00:03:38   I'm trying to lower the stakes, right?

00:03:41   So this is perfect as far as I'm concerned.

00:03:43   This is some excellent stakes lowering.

00:03:46   (laughing)

00:03:47   So we're all set, Myke, don't worry.

00:03:50   So now I'll ask again, who's gonna go first

00:03:53   with sharing their home screen?

00:03:55   - You wanna do home screen sharing?

00:03:57   I'm happy to go first.

00:03:58   - I actually think I want that.

00:03:59   I think I need that.

00:04:00   - I just realized I don't have iMessage installed

00:04:02   on the computer that I was going to do that.

00:04:04   So let me just--

00:04:05   - I don't even know how that's a possibility.

00:04:05   I don't even, how do you not, how?

00:04:09   Can you uninstall iMessage?

00:04:11   - Well, and I mean-- - You're just not signed in.

00:04:12   We've had this conversation before.

00:04:13   I don't wanna have this conversation again.

00:04:15   And as I'm saying these words,

00:04:17   I'm remembering having said this before.

00:04:19   (laughing)

00:04:22   - Myke, I'm on the writing computer.

00:04:23   Like, what's so hard to understand?

00:04:25   Okay, I have airdropped myself the photos.

00:04:28   I will send you all of the photos of all of my screens.

00:04:32   We're gonna start left to right.

00:04:34   - Okay.

00:04:35   - What is the name for that screen all the way on the left?

00:04:37   - I think it's still called the Today View.

00:04:40   - Huh.

00:04:41   - I think it's still called that.

00:04:42   - I feel like that poor Today View is--

00:04:44   - It's not long for this world.

00:04:45   - You think it's not long for this world?

00:04:47   - They'll change it up again.

00:04:48   They've changed what that screen does

00:04:50   like 17 times in the last six years.

00:04:52   Like that will change it.

00:04:54   'Cause currently at the moment

00:04:55   it's basically just where widgets go

00:04:57   and they I think would prefer you to put widgets

00:04:59   on the home screens.

00:05:00   - Right, okay.

00:05:01   So there we go.

00:05:02   I think I've sent you all four in order from left to right.

00:05:05   - Wow, there's some stuff I do understand here.

00:05:08   (laughing)

00:05:09   - Okay, yeah, well, so some of the stuff may seem confusing

00:05:12   because we're also dealing with now we're in the world

00:05:15   of focus modes and screens that can disappear and reappear.

00:05:20   - We need to talk about that, like the focus mode stuff.

00:05:25   And I thought maybe we would talk about it today,

00:05:27   but I don't know if we're gonna have time

00:05:29   with everything else.

00:05:30   So I make a promise to the cortexes,

00:05:33   we will talk about iOS 15 and focus modes at some point,

00:05:36   if not today, 'cause I do think it's important,

00:05:39   but it might be too much for this episode, I think,

00:05:43   unless you disagree with me.

00:05:45   Yeah, I bet money on us talking about focus modes this time.

00:05:49   And also, with your intro, we have many things to discuss,

00:05:52   but one of the things we have to discuss before the end is

00:05:54   resolving our travel bet from last year.

00:05:57   So we have to get to that at some point as well.

00:05:58   - Oh, I've got that in there, don't you worry.

00:06:00   The travel bet's in there.

00:06:01   All right, so, your home screens.

00:06:02   So we have the Today view, we just have a Calzones widget

00:06:05   as the only one there.

00:06:07   I'm wondering, why does that widget

00:06:10   not find its way onto a home screen?

00:06:12   Why does it live there?

00:06:13   So that calzones widget is the old school one.

00:06:16   As far as I know, calzones is the app by underscore--

00:06:20   - Oh, of course it can't live on the home screen.

00:06:22   - Right, it can't, right?

00:06:24   So he made this app, I think basically at your request

00:06:28   years ago about like not having a good app

00:06:30   for tracking different time zones.

00:06:33   And I still prefer calzones for planning meetings

00:06:37   across time zones.

00:06:38   - It has a great UI.

00:06:39   The app itself has a great UI to work out what time is.

00:06:41   Yeah, like the killer feature of calzones for me is that when I look at the widget,

00:06:45   okay, great, now I know what time it is in all of these different places,

00:06:48   but much more importantly, the app itself allows me to just scroll back and forth

00:06:55   to see like when it's 1pm in London, what time is it everywhere else?

00:07:00   And like I'm in a position where often enough I'm trying to coordinate moving meetings slightly across time zones

00:07:08   and that kind of thing is just, it is so helpful to not do the mental math of the timezones

00:07:15   and to just be able to look, be like, "Okay, if we move it two hours this way, you know,

00:07:19   what does that mean for the three participants in this call?"

00:07:22   So I really like calzones, and that app is old.

00:07:27   I'm not sure if Underscore is still maintaining it or not, but it is one of the old style

00:07:33   widgets.

00:07:34   - If it's available, he's maintaining it, but I don't, that would be my assumption,

00:07:37   but I don't know what the future holds for it because he's a very busy man, he's Mr.

00:07:42   Widget.

00:07:43   Yeah, he's the Widget Wizard now.

00:07:46   He puts the Smith in Widgetsmith.

00:07:47   Yes he does.

00:07:49   Very successful with Widgetsmith, his most loved apt child at this point.

00:07:54   That's why Calzones lives on my today view, because that is the only place where I can

00:07:58   put the widget because it is one of the old style widgets for Apple.

00:08:03   While in Widgetsmith he does have a timezones thing, when you tap on it, it takes you into

00:08:08   Widgetsmith and it doesn't have the same UI as calzones does.

00:08:12   So that's why calzones is the last remaining holdout on my today view for old style widgets,

00:08:20   but I still use it quite a lot.

00:08:21   I don't like to ask for things of friends in public, such, but I will say I would love

00:08:30   it if Widgetsmith had the same time zone moving thing as Calzones does.

00:08:36   I mean, Myke, how hard can development be, right? He just has to just copy and paste

00:08:41   some code.

00:08:42   You've already done it once, you know? How hard can it be? Very hard, I'm sorry, Dave,

00:08:47   we love you.

00:08:49   It just selects the text that is code and you hit, you know, Apple C and then you go

00:08:55   over to your other app and you type Apple V and it's done. What more could there possibly

00:08:59   be. It's funny to me that you call it Apple. Oh God yeah that's yeah. Command. Yeah no

00:09:04   it is it is command. I think that is a holdover from back in university I had to use one of

00:09:09   the old Apple systems where they used to they used to use Apple as the little command icon.

00:09:13   It was like this system is so dumb I hate it I hate these apples everywhere and I think

00:09:17   somehow it got into my head that like the little commands are called Apple still but.

00:09:20   It makes you sound like one of those people that call Apple Mac you know they call the

00:09:24   the company Mac.

00:09:25   That's what it makes you sound like

00:09:27   when you say stuff like that.

00:09:28   (laughing)

00:09:29   Mac, they make the iPhone, right?

00:09:30   - Yes, that is what they make.

00:09:32   - So I'm noticing here,

00:09:33   I'm expecting this is a focus mode thing

00:09:35   that maybe it's not actually,

00:09:37   there's just not really a lot of apps on your home screens,

00:09:39   there's just a lot of widgets.

00:09:41   I am really confused about this set of screens.

00:09:44   The information that you're showing is weird to me,

00:09:48   which makes me think you're in a focus mode right now

00:09:50   because I've got a bunch of widgets.

00:09:52   So we've got on the screen one,

00:09:53   Timery, Cara, Batteries, and OmniFocus.

00:09:56   That makes sense to me, right?

00:09:57   Is knowing you as a person,

00:09:59   and like the things that you like on your devices,

00:10:01   like those widgets, I actually, that makes a lot of sense.

00:10:03   And I can imagine that like,

00:10:05   now that we're far removed from widgets,

00:10:07   you're pretty happy that like,

00:10:08   you don't have to put those random folders

00:10:10   on the home screen anymore,

00:10:11   and you can just put all the information that you want, right?

00:10:14   I bet you like that.

00:10:15   - Yes, I do like widgets.

00:10:18   I like seeing the information on the home screen.

00:10:20   I feel like I have a lot of conflicts about widgets,

00:10:23   but overall I do think it's an improvement.

00:10:25   It's way better than just having dumb app icons

00:10:28   on the home screen.

00:10:29   Yeah, for sure. - Oh, I just noticed

00:10:30   you're a big 5G boy.

00:10:31   Look at you.

00:10:32   Do you get lots of speed?

00:10:33   Do you work at the speed of light now?

00:10:35   - Yes.

00:10:36   Oh, that's great. - I don't have 5G.

00:10:38   I never-- - Wasn't my whole life

00:10:39   gonna change because of 5G?

00:10:41   There was a big presentation about 5G is the best G.

00:10:44   - My plan with my provider is I like my plan.

00:10:47   Like I like what I get for it for the money.

00:10:50   And so they won't give me 5G unless I change my plan.

00:10:53   I'm like, well, I'm not changing my plan.

00:10:54   I don't want 5G, you know?

00:10:56   It's like, I don't need it.

00:10:57   I came to stay with what I got, thanks.

00:11:00   All right, so then, oh, you got the carrot on one screen

00:11:02   and a bigger carrot on another.

00:11:04   And another, oh my goodness, there's three carrot widgets.

00:11:07   Four, there's four carrot widgets.

00:11:10   Wow!

00:11:11   You love weather as much as you love 5G.

00:11:15   They're everywhere.

00:11:16   - Okay, okay, okay.

00:11:17   So look, let me try to explain this,

00:11:19   'cause this again is a byproduct

00:11:21   of the weird focus mode stuff.

00:11:22   I'm glad you're giggling at five camera widgets.

00:11:25   The first home screen is functionally the thing

00:11:28   that I'm looking at 99% of the time.

00:11:32   I like the time tracking up at the top,

00:11:34   I like the time tracking up at the, oh my (beep) god.

00:11:37   I like the time tracking up at the--

00:11:38   - Just knock the microphone over and start again, Gray.

00:11:40   You know?

00:11:41   (laughing)

00:11:43   - I like the time tracking up at the top,

00:11:45   so to have an overview of what's going on.

00:11:48   that's great with Timery.

00:11:49   The current weather, batteries widget, love it.

00:11:52   And then at the bottom I have OmniFocus,

00:11:55   although there's some interesting things to say

00:11:57   about OmniFocus later.

00:11:58   This is basically the information dashboard

00:12:02   of the things that I actually care about.

00:12:03   And then as has been the case for years and years,

00:12:05   when I want to open a specific app,

00:12:07   I just, I'm in the habit of just searching for it.

00:12:09   That's what I do.

00:12:10   And I have my three little shortcuts at the bottom,

00:12:12   one of which is to open the camera,

00:12:14   one of which is my little replacement

00:12:17   for Launch Center Pro from years ago,

00:12:20   where I just have some common shortcuts for various things.

00:12:24   - Oh, so that launches a shortcut, does it?

00:12:26   - Yeah, the little rocket ship

00:12:27   is the homage to Launch Center Pro.

00:12:28   - I don't remember exactly how those things work.

00:12:30   Does that open shortcuts, or does it just pop open a UI

00:12:33   for you on the screen for you to tap?

00:12:34   - I know, the way I have it set up is it opens up a list

00:12:37   of like, here's the five things that I can tap on,

00:12:40   and I can launch anything with those.

00:12:41   - But does it open shortcuts to do that,

00:12:43   or do they come down like a notification?

00:12:45   It comes down like it's a notification,

00:12:47   and the notification has a bunch of options in it.

00:12:50   - It's like, I know, like it's nice,

00:12:52   it's nicer than like Launch Center Pro could have been,

00:12:55   right, like I know there's no way that they could have done

00:12:57   what Shortcuts can do, but it's just,

00:12:59   this is the way it should be.

00:13:00   - Yeah, I completely agree, it's the way that it should be.

00:13:03   I just, since it does come down from the top,

00:13:06   it's one of those things like,

00:13:07   oh, I have to reach my finger,

00:13:09   oh, all the way to the top of the phone.

00:13:11   And I kind of wish it came out of the icon.

00:13:14   - Yeah, that would be real good.

00:13:15   That would be real good.

00:13:16   They should do that.

00:13:17   - Yeah, so I just have some frequently used things in there

00:13:21   and then the little hourglass icon

00:13:23   is my most used time tracking timer,

00:13:26   which is just for, I call it loading.

00:13:29   And it's basically when I've finished doing some task

00:13:31   and I haven't yet fully decided

00:13:33   what's the next thing that I'm gonna do,

00:13:35   I just hit that as like, oh, I'm loading up.

00:13:37   What's the next thing that I'm gonna do?

00:13:39   It's my way of tracking in between time.

00:13:42   So that's why I just have it there

00:13:43   'cause I just want it to be dead easy to just hit

00:13:45   of like, yeah, that's the number one timer.

00:13:47   - What does the camera one do?

00:13:49   - The camera one opens the camera.

00:13:50   - Why does it, you want visual consistency

00:13:52   in the dock there?

00:13:53   - I want visual consistency in the dock.

00:13:55   Like I can't have an icon.

00:13:56   - Okay, okay, no, no, no.

00:13:57   - That's the camera icon.

00:13:59   When the other two are shortcuts icons.

00:14:01   - Whatever you need, man.

00:14:02   - It's extremely important to maintain visual consistency.

00:14:05   - Now you know what, I agree with what you've done here.

00:14:08   It would look really weird to have the standard camera icon

00:14:12   next to it, because it just would look strange, right?

00:14:16   Otherwise, unless you custom-made icons

00:14:19   that looked similar to the camera icon

00:14:21   for the rocket ship and the hourglass,

00:14:23   you know what I mean?

00:14:24   Like, they were black on the inside,

00:14:26   so they matched the camera icon.

00:14:28   - Yeah, there is one real downside to doing it though,

00:14:31   which is, I'm gonna send you a screenshot,

00:14:33   which is, when I hit that camera icon--

00:14:37   - God, you get the notification, don't you?

00:14:38   - But here's the thing, I do get the notification,

00:14:41   which I don't mind.

00:14:43   It loads the camera basically instantly,

00:14:45   like it doesn't go through shortcuts like it used to.

00:14:48   It loads the camera instantly.

00:14:50   The camera is ready to go,

00:14:53   but then the notification comes down that says,

00:14:55   "You ran a shortcut that opened cameras."

00:14:58   And when that notification comes down,

00:15:02   the camera no longer works for a second.

00:15:05   - Oh, it like blocks out the view, right?

00:15:07   - Which is very frustrating.

00:15:08   - Oh my God, that's the worst.

00:15:09   - It blocks out the view of the camera.

00:15:11   - That is the worst.

00:15:13   - It is very frustrating.

00:15:15   - Just get someone to make you a rocket ship

00:15:18   and an hourglass that visually look like the camera,

00:15:22   and then you can change them up, man.

00:15:23   - Wait, what do you mean?

00:15:24   What is your suggested solution here?

00:15:26   - All right, so move the actual camera icon to the dock

00:15:30   and make custom shortcuts.

00:15:33   - Oh.

00:15:34   - All right, so make a rocket ship that's black

00:15:37   on the inside instead of white and an hourglass that's black on the inside instead of white.

00:15:41   Thematically they look the same. Do that.

00:15:45   Ooooh. That's really intriguing.

00:15:47   Look at me. I'm improving lives today.

00:15:49   You are improving lives today. I'm actually just gonna call on someone in the Cortex audience

00:15:53   to do that. Hey, could someone in the D.I. come to visually manage?

00:15:55   No, you're gonna get a thousand of them. Don't do that.

00:15:57   But then I can just pick the best.

00:15:59   Okay. Okay.

00:16:00   Hey, leave it in the Cortex subreddit. But that is a great idea, Myke. That is some real

00:16:06   like galaxy brain stuff there, like wait!

00:16:10   Just invert the whole thing.

00:16:11   That's perfect, I really like that.

00:16:12   I just finished a cappuccino, so I'm at like peak recommendation.

00:16:16   My brain is on 100% functionality.

00:16:19   That's great, I'm glad I have you in this great capacity to improve my life.

00:16:22   It's because I consider today to be an important day.

00:16:24   I don't push my microphone over, you know?

00:16:26   Before we move on, there's just something funny about like just the way the data is

00:16:30   displayed.

00:16:31   In your time re-widget, it says cortex three times.

00:16:34   Cortex-cortex, preparation cortex.

00:16:35   and I know you've got projects and tags, right?

00:16:38   I get why that's happening, but it's just very funny to me.

00:16:41   Cortex, cortex, preparation cortex.

00:16:43   - Yeah, this is a holdover from,

00:16:45   I think this is the thing that everyone goes through

00:16:46   when they start time tracking,

00:16:48   is that you start being overly precise

00:16:52   with what you wanna track.

00:16:54   And so I used to have five different ways

00:16:57   that I tracked cortex.

00:16:59   It was like, you know, cortex preparation,

00:17:01   cortex recording time, cortex editing.

00:17:04   And I think I had like Cortex admin/chats.

00:17:09   And this is just what happens when people time track.

00:17:11   Like you start overly precise, then you go,

00:17:13   what the hell am I doing?

00:17:15   Like, why do I actually care

00:17:17   about this level of detail in Cortex?

00:17:19   So I still do just out of muscle memory

00:17:22   have the only distinction between like Cortex preparation

00:17:26   and Cortex everything else.

00:17:28   But yeah, so like in the backend,

00:17:30   there's all these five different ways to track Cortex

00:17:32   and with a ton of other projects, it's the same thing.

00:17:34   but it doesn't matter, I only ever just look at it

00:17:37   at the whole like, how much time does Cortex

00:17:39   take up in my life level.

00:17:40   - Yes, this is why I have like, so I have projects and tags

00:17:44   and my tags are only shows.

00:17:47   So I have like show prep and podcast recording

00:17:50   and podcast editing, they are projects

00:17:52   and then they are tagged with the relevant show.

00:17:54   That's all I do.

00:17:54   - Right, yeah, that makes sense.

00:17:56   Yeah, time tracking is a whole other thing

00:17:58   that I really should go into it and really clean it up.

00:18:03   I think this is a good time to do that.

00:18:04   Like I just have a lot of weird legacy stuff in there.

00:18:06   - You know why we've never done this?

00:18:09   - Why?

00:18:10   - Because there's no competitor to toggle.

00:18:12   So there's never been a reason to start over.

00:18:14   - Mm, right.

00:18:17   Like the great to-do list migration

00:18:19   when you just- - You tidy up.

00:18:20   - Nuke your entire life and begin again.

00:18:23   - Because toggle has an API,

00:18:26   it means we can use apps like the very wonderful Timery.

00:18:29   So like there isn't really a need

00:18:31   to go in and clean up the data.

00:18:33   Like if Timery had their own service,

00:18:36   which I think they should look at one day,

00:18:38   but that's like a whole different thing, right?

00:18:40   I'm not recommending that of them,

00:18:41   but I wouldn't mind it at the same time.

00:18:44   Then you could go in and like, all right,

00:18:45   now I'm gonna go in and I'm gonna tidy up

00:18:48   as I'm moving from one to the other.

00:18:50   But because when we moved from the terrible toggle app

00:18:53   to Timery, or like a set of like hastily made shortcuts

00:18:57   to Timery, we didn't need to change anything

00:18:58   because we just logged in with the old API.

00:19:01   So like all the data is the same.

00:19:03   So as you say, it's not like if you change Notes app,

00:19:05   or if you change to do app

00:19:07   and you're doing like a manual migration,

00:19:09   you're like, you start looking at it and like,

00:19:11   why do I have these two projects?

00:19:12   They could be one project and you move all stuff together.

00:19:15   - Yeah, that's a good point.

00:19:16   - All right, so that's screen one.

00:19:18   So then on screen two, there's more weather.

00:19:20   - Okay, so here's the thing to explain.

00:19:22   The idea with the focus modes is that you're able

00:19:24   to have different screens

00:19:27   for different things that you're doing.

00:19:29   And so this second screen, if you notice,

00:19:32   it has a real theme if you're looking at all of the apps

00:19:35   on the bottom. - Yes, I can see it.

00:19:36   Yeah, it's very thematic to I'm shooting a video.

00:19:40   - Yes, exactly.

00:19:41   So more Texans will know that I took a trip out

00:19:45   to Cherokee, North Carolina.

00:19:47   And like one of the things that I was just thinking about

00:19:50   with my phone is, oh, I can just set up a screen

00:19:53   that can be the default screen

00:19:55   if I know that I'm going to be out all day.

00:19:59   and then this just has everything that I could possibly want on it.

00:20:02   And if you are outside filming, the weather really matters.

00:20:06   So I have Carrot at the top, showing me like the map of like our clouds coming,

00:20:10   which I actually find more useful than the like the little rain alert thing.

00:20:15   I can see like what time, you know, is like the blue hour or the golden hour for filming.

00:20:19   And at the top I have the hours for like what's the weather going to look like.

00:20:24   And then at the bottom I just have a bunch of apps that are related to filming.

00:20:27   like here's the camera, here's Filmic Pro, all the DJI stuff, GoPro, and two really little

00:20:33   fun apps, which are basically like lightning round apps, but they are Sunseeker and Moonseeker,

00:20:38   which are like AR apps which will show you, you can use them to look around and see where

00:20:43   will the sun be at a particular time, or like where will the moon be at a particular time.

00:20:48   They work really great. So this is the just, oh I can use this as my home screen if I know

00:20:55   that I'm just going to spend the day trying to film something.

00:20:58   So I really don't ever look at this.

00:21:01   Most of the time it's just hidden, but for going through the home screens, I was like,

00:21:05   oh, I might as well just show all of the home screens that exist.

00:21:09   And so that's what this one is for.

00:21:10   Like it serves a functional purpose, but it is not like a home screen on my phone unless

00:21:17   it's very particular circumstances.

00:21:18   Okay.

00:21:19   I didn't know we were doing this.

00:21:21   So you have this set up as a...

00:21:25   Typically will only appear under certain focus modes, right?

00:21:28   But you've included it for this image sharing?

00:21:31   - Yeah, well, I thought like this makes sense, right?

00:21:32   If we're going through your screens,

00:21:33   we have to talk about like,

00:21:35   what are the different things?

00:21:36   So that's why I knew we're gonna talk about focus modes

00:21:40   because I was gonna talk about focus modes going through this.

00:21:43   - All right, that's good.

00:21:43   This is good 'cause now I've just taken another screenshot

00:21:45   'cause I'm working on it.

00:21:46   I haven't finished like a screen, but I'm working on one.

00:21:49   So when I send you mine, I'll send you that one too.

00:21:52   This is what I thought this was,

00:21:54   which is why I was surprised it was in the list.

00:21:56   But I guess most of the time what you're saying,

00:21:58   this isn't available to you.

00:22:00   You're in like a certain focus mode for shooting video

00:22:02   and then this will pop up.

00:22:04   Is this your main home screen when you do that?

00:22:06   - Yeah, what I actually have done,

00:22:09   what I think just works best is I just,

00:22:11   I do that trick that you taught me

00:22:13   where you hold down on the little dots

00:22:14   that indicate the different home screens.

00:22:16   and I use that to just turn off the home screen at the start.

00:22:21   And so then this becomes like the main home screen.

00:22:24   - So you're not using a focus mode for that then?

00:22:26   - I am not explicitly using a focus mode for this one, no.

00:22:29   - You're just taking advantage of this feature

00:22:31   that was added because of focus modes.

00:22:33   - Yes, that's exactly right.

00:22:35   So like this does technically live as like the screen

00:22:39   that's off to the side a lot,

00:22:40   but I just never ever swipe right on my device.

00:22:45   like I just don't ever do it.

00:22:47   I'm only swiping over to the Today View

00:22:49   to sometimes open calzones.

00:22:50   I'm looking at the one that has the time tracking

00:22:53   and OmniFocus and the batteries,

00:22:55   and I just never swipe over under any normal circumstances.

00:22:58   So if I just disable this first home screen,

00:23:00   then this one that's like video shooting mode

00:23:03   is the one that pops up as like,

00:23:05   now this is your home screen.

00:23:07   - See, I do think I wanna have a bigger discussion

00:23:09   about focus modes later,

00:23:10   'cause I still haven't really fully understood

00:23:14   the way that I want to use it.

00:23:15   It's actually something I want to work on

00:23:17   over the next few weeks.

00:23:18   But this is a good intro to it.

00:23:20   - No, but like, let's talk about it now.

00:23:22   - We can, we are, we are talking about it.

00:23:24   We are, I'm just saying like,

00:23:25   I think it will become apparent to you

00:23:27   when I share with you what I've got,

00:23:28   is I'm still working out how I want to use it.

00:23:30   So like right now, all right, we're doing it.

00:23:32   Right now I have a regular mode, right?

00:23:35   I have a recording focus mode,

00:23:36   which all it does is just turns off all my notifications.

00:23:39   It's like a beefed up do not disturb.

00:23:42   And it just allows messages from Adina

00:23:45   and Slack messages from Kerry,

00:23:48   Vice President of Sales, she got promotion.

00:23:50   And so like, 'cause they're really when I'm recording,

00:23:54   if Adina needs me, then she can get to me.

00:23:56   And if Kerry needs me, sometimes it can be like

00:23:58   for an ad I'm about to record.

00:24:00   So I kind of want those messages

00:24:02   and it just shuts everything off.

00:24:04   And what I love the most now is that syncs

00:24:06   across all my devices when it's turned on.

00:24:08   I think that's great.

00:24:09   So I don't get notifications on anything.

00:24:11   And then I also have a fitness one.

00:24:12   So when I'm working out,

00:24:13   it turns off notifications from absolutely everybody.

00:24:17   And I have it automatically turn on

00:24:20   during certain workout types.

00:24:23   I used shortcuts to do this

00:24:24   because I don't want it to turn on

00:24:26   whenever the Apple Watch thinks I'm working out.

00:24:29   Because sometimes that's when I'm walking around

00:24:31   and then I don't need.

00:24:33   - Right, right, right.

00:24:34   - I don't want it to turn on then.

00:24:35   But shortcuts allows you to set a personal automation

00:24:39   and choose the workout types

00:24:42   that you will activate the focus mode for.

00:24:44   The issue is Shortcut sends you notifications

00:24:47   when it does it because it just loves

00:24:48   to send you notifications about everything.

00:24:49   But that way it's like only when I'm doing

00:24:52   the types of workouts where I consider that I'm working out

00:24:55   is when it will activate itself.

00:24:57   And then when the workout stops,

00:25:00   it turns off that focus mode

00:25:01   and goes back to my regular focus mode.

00:25:03   So that's all I've set up right now.

00:25:05   But what I'll show you in a bit

00:25:06   is I wanna set up a travel one,

00:25:08   but I haven't fully done it yet.

00:25:09   I want to dig into it more,

00:25:11   but I haven't had the time to really sit down

00:25:15   and be like, what do I want all of these different

00:25:17   home screens to look like?

00:25:18   And under what circumstances,

00:25:20   and what people, what apps?

00:25:22   I haven't really, this is what I'm saying,

00:25:25   I feel like I want to do more with it,

00:25:27   but I haven't yet done that.

00:25:29   That's why I think it might come up again in the future.

00:25:31   And also I was thinking you would have done a lot with it,

00:25:33   but it seems like maybe you haven't.

00:25:35   Yeah, well, so it's interesting to me to hear that this is your experience because I've

00:25:40   basically had the exact same experience with the focus mode stuff of I've used it. I like

00:25:47   it way better than the old system, which was terrible. And I complained about multiple

00:25:52   times for being buggy and not working. But yes, it's like I don't. There's one thing

00:25:58   I can definitely blame it on. But there's another thing which is just it's been such

00:26:03   a weird year that it's almost felt like, I don't know, like I don't have it solid in my mind of

00:26:11   what do I want all of the various modes for either. It's also surprisingly complicated for a feature

00:26:18   that Apple has made. I think to its advantage in a way, because you can really get granular,

00:26:24   but setting one up is a lot of work. Yeah, I agree. Like I'm very glad that they did it,

00:26:30   Obviously for this for this kind of like notification stuff. I want a ton of options, but it does make thinking about it

00:26:37   very

00:26:39   Strange even some of the things like I've had a hard time

00:26:42   Recontextualizing it's like okay, so

00:26:45   The do not disturb while driving is now a focus mode and I have a bunch of options for this like

00:26:51   What do I want that to mean and obviously I mostly haven't been doing a bunch of driving

00:26:57   but when I was in America, I was again.

00:26:59   And that was, again, one of these moments of like,

00:27:02   I need to think through what I want this to be.

00:27:06   It's just been very funny.

00:27:06   I feel like the focus mode stuff

00:27:09   is almost like a project for next year

00:27:13   after the themes episode.

00:27:15   I've just been very aware of, I haven't dug into it

00:27:18   - Oh my God, yes. - too much.

00:27:20   - I can imagine this being a thing where like,

00:27:24   the themes help inform the focus mode

00:27:27   because it's setting up how I want my device to be.

00:27:30   Yeah, I like that.

00:27:31   See, this is what I was getting at when I was saying,

00:27:34   I think we're gonna talk about this later,

00:27:36   is because I feel like I've just started

00:27:39   and I'm hearing like our friends,

00:27:42   David Sparks, Federico Fittigi,

00:27:43   they're like really into it and they're using it a lot.

00:27:45   And like, they have like, I know Federico's doing this,

00:27:48   he's always in a focus mode of some kind.

00:27:51   And I find that really interesting.

00:27:54   So like, I wanna spend more time with it,

00:27:56   but I feel like I haven't been able to really understand what I want.

00:28:00   And so, but, and I think it's because I am in this moment right now where I'm

00:28:05   working out what I want from work in general.

00:28:09   And as is obvious, like from everything we talk about on our show,

00:28:14   our devices are extensions of the way that we work.

00:28:17   And so they mirror that.

00:28:19   So if I'm not sure, my devices aren't going to be sure either.

00:28:23   And also like in the last few months,

00:28:25   the devices that I'm using, especially in the last year,

00:28:28   and it's all changed so much.

00:28:29   Like something I wanted to talk about

00:28:31   as we get into the apps is,

00:28:33   I'm really back on the Mac for basically all work now.

00:28:37   And so what I'm looking for with the apps that I'm using

00:28:40   is different to before.

00:28:41   Now, I only really want to get into something

00:28:44   if it's truly cross-platform.

00:28:46   - Yes, yeah, I completely agree.

00:28:49   So I have had that same experience of

00:28:51   like the last half year has been a very strange in-between time,

00:28:58   and that has made thinking about the focus mode surprisingly difficult.

00:29:02   And yeah, so it's very interesting to hear that you've had the same response,

00:29:07   and like I ultimately want to be doing the same thing,

00:29:10   which is my phone should be set up in such a way

00:29:14   so that I am constantly in a focus mode of some kind,

00:29:18   but I haven't done that at all.

00:29:20   What I've actually just done is I've, I basically have only two

00:29:25   focus modes that I'm really using.

00:29:27   The first one I call core and that's to protect like the core

00:29:32   working hours in the morning.

00:29:34   That is trying to replicate what I used to be doing, where I tried to lock

00:29:38   down the phone in a whole bunch of ways of like before 2 PM, I don't want to

00:29:43   hear like anything from anyone and just like lock down the device as much as I could.

00:29:48   What's great for you is just how easy it is to set up a focus mode that does that.

00:29:52   It's really very, it's like the default, which is really interesting.

00:29:56   Yeah, it is interesting.

00:29:58   And I do like the way that it works.

00:30:00   I've also not run into these weird problems of blocking critical apps.

00:30:04   It used to have so many problems with Safari,

00:30:06   and now those don't exist anymore, which is fantastic.

00:30:09   I love that it syncs across devices. That's really great.

00:30:11   So I have core turns on the minute the sleep focus ends,

00:30:16   is the way I have it set up.

00:30:18   But then that just sort of turns off at the end of the day.

00:30:21   And ultimately I do want to, I want to have that thing of like deliberately

00:30:24   moving from mode to mode, but just because of this in being in this in between time,

00:30:29   I somehow have like had a hard time being very precise about like, what do I want my

00:30:35   phone to actually be like on weekend Wednesday?

00:30:37   I don't know.

00:30:38   Right.

00:30:38   Cause in theory you should have a weekend Wednesday focus mode that like on

00:30:42   Wednesday just sets your devices to be like, all right, no slack.

00:30:46   no none of this, it's all like entertainment applications

00:30:50   and you know, all that kind of stuff.

00:30:52   Like in theory that's what you want,

00:30:53   but yeah, you gotta really sit down and work with it.

00:30:56   And I actually think it's an interesting feature

00:30:58   in that way of like, as long as they continue

00:31:01   to make sure that it's a going concern,

00:31:04   which I think they will, 'cause it's a pretty important part

00:31:07   of the system, because they wrap Do Not Disturb

00:31:09   into it as well, right?

00:31:10   That I think it's something that you will grow with

00:31:15   As our lives change and our work changes,

00:31:18   we're like, I think I need my devices to work this way now.

00:31:21   And so we can have better ways

00:31:24   of customizing and tweaking them.

00:31:26   So I think there's a lot of promise there,

00:31:28   but I think it's something that's gonna take a little while

00:31:30   to realize fully.

00:31:32   - The only thing I don't love about it

00:31:34   is I don't love that the notifications

00:31:36   still go to that slide down lock screen.

00:31:40   And it's a habit I've been trying to break myself of.

00:31:44   I used to slide down that screen a bunch

00:31:47   and now I know like, oh, when I'm in the core mode,

00:31:50   the notifications are still hiding there.

00:31:52   So this has been a kind of deliberate training

00:31:57   of just try to never use that,

00:32:00   like try never to slide down the screen

00:32:02   'cause you'll just see the notifications there.

00:32:04   I do like the way that when you're in the focus mode,

00:32:07   they sort of minimize them

00:32:08   so it doesn't show as like a ton of icons.

00:32:11   It shows as like a brief little description.

00:32:14   That's way better, but I still wish there was a way

00:32:16   to completely hide them anywhere.

00:32:18   - I think you can.

00:32:19   So if you go into the focus mode and you go to lock screen,

00:32:24   there's a toggle for silence notifications

00:32:27   which says show on lock screen.

00:32:29   And I think you can turn that off

00:32:30   and it will get rid of them.

00:32:32   - Yeah, so I have the show on lock screen turned off.

00:32:36   - Oh, when you pull up, they still come up, okay.

00:32:39   - Yeah, but when you pull down, right,

00:32:41   they still show up there.

00:32:42   And it's just like, it's a funny thing.

00:32:44   I never really tuned into the fact that I have the habit of doing that to check the

00:32:50   day and date.

00:32:52   And so then you still like see, oh, here are the notifications.

00:32:54   Like I wish you could properly hide them from there.

00:32:57   But honestly, like the system is so improved from the old system that is a relatively minor

00:33:02   complaint.

00:33:03   But so I created this like core working focus mode.

00:33:07   And then I have one other which I really do like and this is going to be the screenshot

00:33:13   that probably confuses you the most, which is the third screen over.

00:33:17   Yeah, I don't get this one at all.

00:33:20   Carrots, Widgetsmith, Reminders, and the Widgetsmith one, Eastbourne is receding.

00:33:26   I don't know what this is.

00:33:27   I have no idea what this means.

00:33:30   Myke, Eastbourne is receding.

00:33:32   I don't understand what's unclear about that.

00:33:34   Is this astrology?

00:33:35   (laughing)

00:33:36   - It says 1256, 1850, 132, 725.

00:33:40   - I'm assuming that's sunrise and sunset?

00:33:43   - No, it's not sunrise and sunset, it's the tides.

00:33:46   That's what that one is.

00:33:47   - Okay.

00:33:48   Are you in tune with the tides?

00:33:52   Great, isn't it?

00:33:53   - No, no, okay.

00:33:54   So the only other focus mode that I set up

00:33:57   is I made a holiday focus mode.

00:34:01   - You got a boat now?

00:34:01   - No, I do not have a boat.

00:34:02   - Are you sailing?

00:34:03   - No, I think.

00:34:04   - No, I'm not saying. - As a cray sailing

00:34:06   the high seas of Eastbourne.

00:34:08   - So my wife and I took our first trip on our own somewhere

00:34:15   and we went to Eastbourne, which is by the sea.

00:34:19   And so while we were on holiday, when we're there,

00:34:22   the tide coming in and out really matters,

00:34:26   but what you can do, can you go out to the beach

00:34:28   or can you not go out to the beach?

00:34:30   It's one of those beaches where it's like a really long

00:34:33   in and out based on what the tide was.

00:34:35   And I just had this funny thing where when we got there, we asked the guy at

00:34:39   reception at our hotel, like, Oh, when, when does the tide come in and out?

00:34:43   And he goes, Oh, I've never been able to figure that out.

00:34:46   I was like, dude, you work at the reception of a hotel on the seafront, like,

00:34:53   shouldn't you have a tide clock on the wall or it feels like this is something

00:34:57   surely all the guests must ask you.

00:34:59   But I guess not.

00:35:00   So while we were on our first holiday together,

00:35:04   I put this as a widget on my home screen

00:35:06   because it's like I wanted to know

00:35:08   when was the tide going to be out

00:35:10   and when was the tide going to be in.

00:35:12   But I've left it there, not because I care about knowing

00:35:15   if Eastbourne is currently receding or not,

00:35:18   but just as an actual reminder of,

00:35:22   because you can't label the screens,

00:35:24   like this is the screen that should appear

00:35:27   when the phone is in holiday mode.

00:35:31   And so I set up holiday mode

00:35:33   so that it can finally do the thing

00:35:35   that I was never able to do before,

00:35:36   which is on holiday,

00:35:38   only people I have labeled as family

00:35:41   should be able to send me messages of any kind

00:35:43   and everything else should be silenced.

00:35:46   - You could use Widgetsmith to just create a text widget

00:35:49   that says holiday and put that there,

00:35:51   but maybe you prefer respawn receding, I don't know.

00:35:54   - Yeah, that's like an extra step.

00:35:56   No, I'll just, I have this there just to remind me of what it is and I'll just swap it out.

00:36:02   So you're gonna be like on holiday in the South of France and you'll be like "Oh, Eastbaun's receding."

00:36:06   That's just gonna be-

00:36:07   Uh, no. Well then if I need to know something about where I am in France,

00:36:10   like then I'll swap out a different more useful widget for that one.

00:36:13   So you, so again, like this home screen's always there. It's just always your third home screen.

00:36:18   So no, this one doesn't appear most of the time on the phone.

00:36:22   This only appears if I put it into holiday mode.

00:36:25   That's the way this one works.

00:36:26   - But you enabled it for these screenshots, gotcha.

00:36:29   - Yeah, so I just wanted to show you

00:36:30   all the different things.

00:36:31   And then also, this is such a dumb little thing,

00:36:33   but I feel like it comes up on holiday a bunch,

00:36:35   is I do have the reminders widget there,

00:36:38   'cause I feel like constantly when you're on vacation,

00:36:41   you remember that you need to get something

00:36:44   from the local boots,

00:36:46   there's always these weird little things that pop up.

00:36:49   I don't wanna use OmniFocus

00:36:50   that's way too heavyweight for this.

00:36:53   So I do just wanna have, oh, here's the errands list.

00:36:56   - You don't want to see the work tasks.

00:36:57   - Yes, exactly.

00:36:58   - You know, like if you're on,

00:36:59   you keep saying holiday, I'm gonna call it vacation.

00:37:01   We'll just do a nice little swap there.

00:37:03   So when you're on vacation--

00:37:04   - Okay, that's not the way that should work at all.

00:37:05   - I know, but it is the way it's working.

00:37:07   There's nothing we can do about it.

00:37:08   When you're on vacation, you don't want to see like,

00:37:11   oh, when I'm back from my wonderful vacation,

00:37:14   I've got all this stuff to do.

00:37:15   So you just put it in reminders.

00:37:16   That's a good idea.

00:37:18   - Yeah, so I just have it there.

00:37:19   It's nice and easy to be like,

00:37:20   oh, we need to get an extra thing of toothpaste,

00:37:23   you know, or we need to pick up some aspirin or something.

00:37:25   Like just those kind of little one-off things that happen

00:37:27   that are also, when you're mentally in holiday mode,

00:37:31   are real easy to forget of like,

00:37:33   "Oh yeah, we needed to do that

00:37:35   "before the pharmacy closed," or something.

00:37:36   - Especially when you're completely not used to taking trips.

00:37:40   So it's like, you never have, like my wash bag is empty.

00:37:44   It's like, "Hang on, there's supposed to be stuff in here.

00:37:45   "Nope, it's all gone."

00:37:47   You used it all. - Yeah, exactly.

00:37:48   - When you couldn't buy deodorant during lockdown.

00:37:50   and take the children out of the wash bag and use that.

00:37:53   - So this is my screen for that mode.

00:37:56   - Yep, makes sense.

00:37:57   - Again, I do really like that with the focus modes of,

00:38:01   like this was constantly the problem before

00:38:03   of being on vacation and not wanting to get any messages

00:38:08   from anyone but my wife.

00:38:10   And it was just always a real frustration

00:38:12   that I had to have the phone like completely open

00:38:14   to everyone or totally shut down.

00:38:16   Those were the only options.

00:38:16   So I'm really, really grateful to the focus mode team

00:38:20   for enabling this kind of thing, because it really did make the trip so much nicer to know,

00:38:25   "Oh yes, my wife can message me in the morning because we might be apart

00:38:29   and then we're trying to figure out where to meet up,

00:38:31   but I don't have to worry about getting random messages about work

00:38:35   that are just going to derail your thoughts when they shouldn't otherwise."

00:38:38   So that is currently how I'm using the focus modes.

00:38:41   But I will just say, the one other thing that has put me off slightly is,

00:38:46   Ideally I want to have way more of these custom screens, but I feel like Apple's system for

00:38:55   adding widgets and moving around apps, I feel like I'm constantly building some crazy Jenga

00:39:02   tower, that if I make any mistake, it totally messes up everything else that I've been working

00:39:08   on.

00:39:09   It's really frustrating and was genuinely off-putting.

00:39:13   will destroy the next screen that you weren't doing anything to.

00:39:17   And like now the widgets are over there.

00:39:19   Like, yeah, they need to work on making this a better experience.

00:39:23   It's felt like it's needed for a while.

00:39:25   But now, especially with the widgets and that you're encouraged to make more of them,

00:39:29   it's like, oh my God.

00:39:31   Yeah, that's why I say like a Jenga tower,

00:39:33   because like if it was just hard on the screen that I'm working on,

00:39:36   that would be fine.

00:39:37   But the fact that if I want to put in a big widget,

00:39:40   I can knock three home screens worth of stuff completely out of alignment is infuriating.

00:39:46   And it really makes me not want to work on these individual screens.

00:39:50   I remember I was trying to set up a home screen for like,

00:39:54   "Oh, this is the way my phone should work when I'm in admin mode."

00:39:57   And I did something and I messed up a bunch of my screens.

00:40:00   I was like, "F this."

00:40:01   Like, I'm just gonna leave it as, "I've got these three screens.

00:40:05   They're good enough.

00:40:06   The end.

00:40:06   I will work on this later when I know more clearly what it is that I want to do."

00:40:10   But yeah, I would definitely put that on my wish list for the next version of iOS is

00:40:16   please give us a better way to design these home screens and to move around widgets and apps because the current way is

00:40:23   so unbelievably infuriating.

00:40:26   And then your final screen is just a folder that says shortcuts. I'm very confused about this one.

00:40:32   Okay, so you may remember that

00:40:35   When you search for things using the default Apple pull-down search menu, they prioritize apps over shortcuts.

00:40:44   So things that live in the shortcuts app are relatively low on the list when Apple is showing you what you're searching for.

00:40:51   So anything that I want to have a shortcut that I'm going to frequently run, which is very often timers,

00:40:58   I make it into a shortcut on the home screen.

00:41:03   And now the phone counts it like an app, so it shows up way higher on the list when I search for stuff.

00:41:10   So that whole folder is just full of things that are like, these are shortcuts in the shortcut app that I run frequently,

00:41:18   but I've made them exist on the home screen so that they show up higher on the list when I search for it using Spotlight.

00:41:26   So that is the only reason this folder exists.

00:41:29   I normally just have it hidden, but that's just like a little trick for getting the shortcuts to show up higher.

00:41:34   Which I do find it frustrating. It's like, "Hey, Apple, you know I run this shortcut multiple times a day?

00:41:39   Maybe you should put it at the top of the search results when I search for it?"

00:41:43   But they don't. It'll still always be below a bunch of like weird junk that Siri has found for me on the internet that I don't care about.

00:41:50   But if it exists as a fake app, then it can and will often be at the top. So that's why I do this.

00:41:56   So that's everything.

00:41:58   I've shown you mine, Myke.

00:41:59   You need to show me yours.

00:42:00   - Oh boy.

00:42:01   So I'm sending you two now.

00:42:02   I'm sending you one image, which is all one big image,

00:42:05   which is my home screen as it is.

00:42:07   And then I've sent you a second one.

00:42:08   - Oh God, it's your iPad.

00:42:09   Oh no, wait, it's not your iPad home screen.

00:42:10   That stuff is like Jesus Christ, Myke.

00:42:13   - Four iPhone home screens,

00:42:15   like put next to each other, right?

00:42:16   So you've got the visual consistency.

00:42:18   - Oh, look how fancy you've been.

00:42:19   - Gonna do this for yours.

00:42:20   It will be in the show notes.

00:42:22   So people just see it in one long image

00:42:24   so you can kind of just see everything in situ.

00:42:26   And then I've sent you a second one,

00:42:28   which we'll talk about afterwards,

00:42:29   which is the Focus Mode home screen that I'm building,

00:42:32   that I'm not done with yet.

00:42:33   - Okay.

00:42:34   All right, so you use the Today screen much more than I do.

00:42:37   So you've got a bunch of shortcuts over here?

00:42:39   - Yeah, that's where all my kind of,

00:42:40   that's why I just have a bunch of shortcuts widgets there.

00:42:43   They launch my most used shortcuts,

00:42:45   and I've set that up manually,

00:42:47   'cause I just know the stuff that I use the most,

00:42:49   and things move in and out of there as necessary.

00:42:53   - That's actually a good idea though.

00:42:54   I hadn't thought of maybe also just putting

00:42:56   some shortcuts there.

00:42:57   That's really interesting, I might steal that.

00:42:59   - 'Cause they run just immediately when you tap the thing.

00:43:03   You know, it's not like other widgets

00:43:05   where it opens the app, right?

00:43:06   The shortcuts widget is different to other widgets.

00:43:08   So I tap any of those blocks and it fires off

00:43:10   that specific shortcut.

00:43:12   - That's the widget that's just a folder of things

00:43:14   that you have selected, is that how that works?

00:43:17   - Yeah. - Okay, cool.

00:43:18   - So I create folders.

00:43:19   Like I have a Mac folder now as well,

00:43:21   Mac focus shortcuts, which we might talk about in a bit.

00:43:24   So I have a couple of widget folders in the shortcuts app,

00:43:28   and then I just select the ones that I want.

00:43:30   I have one which is a general one,

00:43:31   which is that one on the top.

00:43:32   Then I have one which is a bunch of time tracking actions,

00:43:35   which you see at the bottom there underneath it,

00:43:37   which is a smaller selection.

00:43:39   - I have just added that as a widget to my own phone

00:43:44   to remind me to play around with that later.

00:43:45   I think that's a really good idea.

00:43:47   Okay, and so on your main home screen,

00:43:49   You have a bunch of apps,

00:43:52   and then what's that, Fantastical at the top?

00:43:54   - Yeah, that's a stack.

00:43:55   Carrot weather lives under Fantastical.

00:43:58   - Ah, okay.

00:43:58   How many copies of Carrot weather do you have on your phone?

00:44:01   - Just one, believe it or not.

00:44:03   Just one.

00:44:03   (laughing)

00:44:05   - Only one, oh.

00:44:06   How do you know what the weather's like, Myke?

00:44:08   - Here's the forecast one.

00:44:10   The forecast one's really great

00:44:11   because that's the widget that changes.

00:44:14   In the morning, it shows you a whole day,

00:44:17   like today's weather.

00:44:18   In the evening, it shows you the next week's weather,

00:44:21   and if it's raining, it shows you the rain.

00:44:24   It's such a great widget.

00:44:25   I just use that one widget in Carrot Weather,

00:44:28   and it lets me know what the important weather thing is.

00:44:31   I don't need to think about it.

00:44:32   - Yeah, no, that is great,

00:44:33   and that's the one that I'm using as well

00:44:35   on my home screen.

00:44:36   It's Carrot Weather.

00:44:39   I do have one major complaint about you this year,

00:44:42   but it is an amazing app,

00:44:43   and just that predictive widget is so nice.

00:44:47   I feel like it really does hit that magical,

00:44:50   just show me what I want to know at any moment.

00:44:53   Like it hits that sweet spot really well.

00:44:54   Okay, so that exists in a stack with FantasticAl.

00:44:58   How good do you find iOS's

00:45:01   at switching between the two of those?

00:45:03   - I feel like it's pretty good.

00:45:05   I feel like most of the time I get what I want,

00:45:07   but I know they're there, so it's very easy for me.

00:45:10   Like I mindlessly swipe them to open them

00:45:12   because FantasticAl, the way I open my calendar

00:45:16   from that widget. Like I removed the Fantastic Health app icon off my phone, right? Because

00:45:21   that made sense to me. And I open my calendar a lot and I don't feel like I'm endlessly

00:45:27   swiping, you know? So it's either it's there most of the time when I want it or it's just

00:45:31   a swipe tap and it's just like not a thing that I even think about.

00:45:34   Hmm. I should try, I should try those stacks more. I don't have any stacks on my phone,

00:45:38   but I think, I think maybe I should give that more of a try.

00:45:40   I've created a bunch of like logical stacks. So the Timery widget is on the bottom right.

00:45:46   Underneath that is a shortcut,

00:45:48   which is called plus track time,

00:45:50   which you'll also see on the today view.

00:45:53   And what that does is it's a shortcut

00:45:55   that allows me to manually add tracked time.

00:45:59   Like if I've been working on something

00:46:01   and didn't set a timer up for it,

00:46:02   because I don't do what you've done,

00:46:04   I don't know if you still do this,

00:46:05   where I've always got a timer going,

00:46:07   sometimes I'm like working on something like,

00:46:09   oh, I didn't set a timer for this.

00:46:11   So I just add 15 minutes to a project, you know?

00:46:14   - Oh, interesting.

00:46:14   - I didn't know that was a thing

00:46:16   that you could do in Timery.

00:46:17   - You can do it with shortcuts.

00:46:19   You have to build a shortcut to do it, right?

00:46:21   And they have a thing where you can add a chunk of time

00:46:24   and I just do like, I have a shortcut,

00:46:26   which is basically what is the current time,

00:46:30   reduced by 15 minutes, basically, at the start date,

00:46:33   and then add from start date to now

00:46:35   in the Timery shortcut thing.

00:46:37   - Hmm, that's interesting.

00:46:38   I have to say, I quite like aesthetically

00:46:42   the way you have the widget on the bottom right

00:46:45   and the apps going around it.

00:46:46   I think that's a good look.

00:46:47   - It looks pretty good, right?

00:46:48   I do like that.

00:46:49   And it's the Timery one is there

00:46:51   because it's what I interact with the most

00:46:55   is either opening or looking at Timery

00:46:57   or doing that time tracking thing

00:47:00   when it comes to like tapping on a widget.

00:47:02   And I like having it there.

00:47:03   And I also, I aesthetically like the apps

00:47:05   kind of like wrapping around them.

00:47:08   - Yeah, yeah.

00:47:08   Apple does not give you a lot of options

00:47:11   for the way you want to have things look.

00:47:13   And I feel like, ooh, that does look good though.

00:47:15   I like that.

00:47:16   I might copy that style for a different home screen

00:47:19   when I eventually decide to put in all the time

00:47:22   to sort them all out and I'm willing to spend an entire day

00:47:25   carefully constructing a Jenga tower.

00:47:27   I might want to steal that as a layout.

00:47:29   So that's really nice.

00:47:31   So yeah, I feel like this is relatively unchanged

00:47:35   in terms of the apps that you normally use.

00:47:38   - I think the things that might be different.

00:47:40   - It's like Craft maybe?

00:47:42   - Craft, yeah, we'll come to Craft later on.

00:47:44   I wanna talk about that.

00:47:45   But the apps themselves are very similar

00:47:47   and so is the layout.

00:47:49   Some of the stuff that I know that has changed is,

00:47:51   I think Train Beacon is new.

00:47:53   That is a stack of two widgets

00:47:55   that I have on top of each other

00:47:57   that tell me the train times

00:47:58   between the station that I use for home

00:48:01   and the station I use for the studio.

00:48:02   - Oh, okay.

00:48:04   - Really love that app.

00:48:05   And so basically it's just telling me

00:48:07   when my next trains are for the locations

00:48:10   something going between all the time.

00:48:12   And then the third page is where I'm trying some stuff out.

00:48:15   When we were doing our fundraising for St. Jude,

00:48:17   we had a wonderful group of people in the Relay Discord

00:48:22   created a widget that tracked the fundraising.

00:48:25   It was really awesome.

00:48:26   So I had that on that third page.

00:48:28   - That is pretty sweet.

00:48:29   - And so then I just had that going

00:48:31   and then when the fundraiser was over,

00:48:34   I wanted to basically use that third page

00:48:36   as let me try out some widgets.

00:48:37   So I've got fitness.

00:48:40   I actually really like the fitness widget.

00:48:41   I think it's laid out really nicely, that medium one.

00:48:44   It gives me all the information I would want.

00:48:46   Then I've got a Timery one,

00:48:48   that's all of the stuff I've tracked this week,

00:48:50   and then a Craft widget as well,

00:48:52   which I'm just trying out.

00:48:53   So there's just some stuff that I'm playing around with.

00:48:55   That's what I use that third screen for.

00:48:57   - Ah, okay, so that's a Craft widget.

00:48:58   I was wondering about the Cortex brand one.

00:49:00   I was like, "That doesn't look familiar to me at all."

00:49:02   - That's the four most recently changed documents

00:49:05   or notes in Craft.

00:49:07   - Okay, okay.

00:49:08   And you can tap each of those and launch them.

00:49:11   But the titles of those notes are full of secrets.

00:49:14   So they've been blocked out.

00:49:14   - Right, yes, that's why they've been pixelated, of course.

00:49:17   Since this is, of course,

00:49:18   the place where we're talking about the apps,

00:49:18   I do have a public quest for Timery,

00:49:21   which is, I wish the this week thing

00:49:23   could instead be the last seven days.

00:49:26   Like I don't actually really care about this week.

00:49:29   I really care about what the last seven days were.

00:49:33   I feel like that widget would be significantly

00:49:34   more useful to me if I could do it that way instead.

00:49:36   'cause it's like a rolling thing rather than a fixed thing.

00:49:40   - Yeah, and it's weird when the week starts

00:49:43   and now my day and the week timer are exactly the same.

00:49:46   I just, I don't really understand how I would ever

00:49:49   wanna think about it in terms of a week.

00:49:52   - You can change it, Gray.

00:49:53   I just looked, you can do it.

00:49:55   - No way, really? - Yep.

00:49:56   There's an option for last number of days.

00:50:00   - Oh my God, this is magic. - And then you choose

00:50:01   the days. - Okay, great.

00:50:03   - Look how quick they added that.

00:50:04   This is what makes Joe such a good developer,

00:50:06   creator of Timery.

00:50:07   As we're saying it, the app is changing.

00:50:09   Now, if you can do settings on widgets, right?

00:50:12   So you long press on the widget, edit widget,

00:50:15   and one of the options is duration,

00:50:16   and there's a bunch of durations there,

00:50:18   and the bottom one of those is last number of days,

00:50:20   and you just put the number of days in.

00:50:22   - Wait a second, where the hell are you seeing the durations?

00:50:24   I don't see that at all.

00:50:25   The time period is this week or today.

00:50:27   I don't have this option on my app.

00:50:29   I don't know what you're talking about.

00:50:30   - Are you on summary report?

00:50:31   - You have different options than me.

00:50:33   - You on the most recent version of the app?

00:50:35   Are you on some kind of beta?

00:50:36   Do you have a fancy beta?

00:50:37   - I am on a beta, but I don't know

00:50:39   what the shipping version of the app is.

00:50:42   - Well, I can tell you right now,

00:50:43   the shipping version of the app does not have that.

00:50:45   You have sneaky beta access.

00:50:46   - Well, you know.

00:50:47   (laughing)

00:50:49   - There we go.

00:50:50   I can show you right now.

00:50:51   I don't have that, but you know what?

00:50:53   It's coming, great.

00:50:54   I'm thrilled about that.

00:50:55   (laughing)

00:50:57   - Yeah, okay, sorry.

00:50:58   (laughing)

00:51:00   Are we using the same widget though?

00:51:01   Like, I don't know if it's the same widget.

00:51:04   - Yeah, we're using the same widget.

00:51:05   - All right.

00:51:07   Sorry, Joe.

00:51:08   I keep doing this.

00:51:09   I forget.

00:51:10   - You're spoiling.

00:51:11   You're spoiling his surprises for what's going to come.

00:51:15   But okay, that's great.

00:51:15   Okay, good to know it's gonna be there.

00:51:18   Fantastic, I love it.

00:51:19   - Oh man, well, there you go.

00:51:20   It's coming.

00:51:21   Timery's best.

00:51:22   Go get Timery.

00:51:23   Timery's the best.

00:51:23   I'm gonna talk about it in a bit.

00:51:24   I feel like I shouldn't keep doing what I keep doing here,

00:51:27   but we're gonna talk about Timery in a bit.

00:51:29   All right, so do you have any more?

00:51:30   I think you could have more questions about this,

00:51:32   about the apps on the screens,

00:51:34   but I'm gonna talk about them.

00:51:35   So there's no point getting to them.

00:51:37   - Yeah, well, I am also just wondering about the like,

00:51:39   trialing out the activity app,

00:51:41   like that's quite interesting to me.

00:51:43   That feels like a different sort of mic.

00:51:45   I was just wondering if you have anything to say about that.

00:51:47   - I don't really wanna get into it too much,

00:51:49   but I am a much more fitness oriented person

00:51:52   than I've ever been in my adult life.

00:51:54   - Oh, okay.

00:51:55   - Myke Hurley is in the best shape of his life right now,

00:51:57   but that's the end of that.

00:51:59   - Okay, all right.

00:52:00   Maybe we'll talk about that next time.

00:52:02   Maybe. The thing is, I feel like over the years, I've spoken a lot about different fitness things that I've wanted to do and try.

00:52:10   And then I do them for a while and I stop and then I get embarrassed because I spoke about them. You know what I mean?

00:52:15   Yeah, I get that. But I think that's fine. That's not some unique experience you're having there.

00:52:25   I know.

00:52:25   I think that's a very common experience.

00:52:28   But I'm taking my health more seriously.

00:52:30   - If you wanna feel better, like, I have fallen off the wagon from the swamp of uncertainty time,

00:52:38   and then I landed in America, like, I fell off the wagon of health so hard, like, you cannot believe

00:52:44   how hard I fell off that wagon. Like, that's fine. Like, this is what happens. I always say, like,

00:52:50   what matters is you get back on the wagon, so, like, I'm just, I'm happy to see the activity

00:52:55   app there, and if you say that you're in the best shape of your life, like,

00:52:59   That's great. Like I'm very happy about that.

00:53:02   I'm feeling very good. I don't have RSI anymore.

00:53:05   Nice.

00:53:05   I haven't had an RSI pain or a back pain in like three months.

00:53:10   Like I'm doing more frequent exercises.

00:53:12   I'm gonna guess that you're physically stronger then?

00:53:14   Okay, yes. There we go. Right.

00:53:16   Okay, so you're doing strength exercises.

00:53:18   I can bench now, boy.

00:53:19   Oh, wow. That's very exciting.

00:53:21   I'm very happy to hear that.

00:53:23   So yeah, that's just been a thing in my life over the last few months.

00:53:27   and the fitness widget is on my home screen

00:53:31   as a constant reminder for me,

00:53:33   and it's why I wear an Apple Watch every day now,

00:53:36   and I've been wearing an Apple Watch every day

00:53:37   since September, and it's been, I think, before then,

00:53:41   actually, maybe like July or August,

00:53:42   and that was like the start of it,

00:53:44   and now more frequent exercises

00:53:46   and pushing myself in new ways and stuff like that.

00:53:48   So it's been a big change in my life,

00:53:51   and I'm feeling pretty good about it, and yeah.

00:53:53   - Do you leave on the Apple,

00:53:56   the like coaching stuff that the watch does where it kind of pings you throughout the

00:54:00   day.

00:54:01   Yeah, like how much of how much of Apple notifying you about your health do you leave on?

00:54:05   I didn't know about any of that.

00:54:08   So I have the trends thing turned on if that's what you're talking about.

00:54:12   But yeah, in okay in the watch there's a setting which I think they call like coaching, but

00:54:17   it just it tries to harass you if you look like you're being lazy on a particular day.

00:54:22   I was just wondering if you if you leave that stuff on or if you don't leave that stuff

00:54:25   on.

00:54:26   what you're talking about.

00:54:27   - In the watch app, under activity,

00:54:29   there's a thing called daily coaching.

00:54:31   - Oh my gosh, I had notifications off.

00:54:33   I just pressed allow notifications

00:54:35   and a hundred settings appeared.

00:54:37   (laughing)

00:54:38   - Yeah, there you go.

00:54:39   - All right, I'm gonna turn all these on.

00:54:40   I had no idea any of these existed.

00:54:44   This was from when I was wearing an Apple Watch

00:54:46   and didn't care about fitness.

00:54:48   So I wanted you to leave me the (beep) alone.

00:54:50   All right, I'm gonna leave these on

00:54:53   and see what that's all about for a bit.

00:54:55   Oh my God, that's so funny.

00:54:56   It was like, I was like, I have no idea what you're talking about.

00:54:58   There's no options here.

00:54:59   And then it's like, bang!

00:55:01   And then there's like a hundred.

00:55:02   All right.

00:55:03   So they're all on.

00:55:03   I'll see what that's like.

00:55:04   I would recommend turning off the stand reminders because they're just

00:55:07   pointlessly annoying in my take of it.

00:55:10   But like the daily coaching ones are sort of interesting.

00:55:13   It's also interesting that when I first fell off the wagon, the Apple watch was

00:55:18   like trying to be real encouraging.

00:55:20   Like, oh, it seems like you haven't worked out in seven days.

00:55:23   Like maybe you want to try.

00:55:24   "Oh, you haven't done anything in two,

00:55:26   ooh, your activity is way down."

00:55:28   And then after a month, it was like the Apple Watch

00:55:30   just gave up and stopped bugging me.

00:55:33   - Well, 'cause you got a new trend now, right?

00:55:35   - It somehow felt even worse.

00:55:35   - And the trend is you don't do it, so.

00:55:38   (both laughing)

00:55:40   - Yeah, it was like, "Oh, Apple Watch,

00:55:42   I didn't like it when you bothered me,

00:55:44   but somehow I like it even less when you just gave up

00:55:47   and stopped harassing me into go exercise, dude."

00:55:52   But yes, anyway, I think they are annoying,

00:55:57   but I think that they are usefully annoying.

00:56:00   Like that's kind of their purpose.

00:56:02   So anyway, there you go.

00:56:03   You have some options of notifications to play around with.

00:56:05   - And then I sent you another one,

00:56:07   just a singular home screen.

00:56:09   This is the travel focus mode home screen

00:56:13   that I'm working on.

00:56:14   I've not used it yet,

00:56:16   and I'm trying to see if this is something that I would like.

00:56:20   And so this includes a bunch of widgets.

00:56:22   I've got a Tripsy widget and a Flighty widget,

00:56:25   batteries and notes, and those notes,

00:56:27   one is it's a stack of things that I'm gonna use.

00:56:29   It includes like an Apple note

00:56:31   that has my passport information about it,

00:56:32   and it also is an Apple note

00:56:34   for the relevant trip that I'm on

00:56:37   and the PDFs of trip information

00:56:42   that I keep in an Apple note,

00:56:43   just so I've got them locally downloaded.

00:56:45   - That's also an interesting idea

00:56:48   with a note that's a particular folder.

00:56:50   I like that for travel.

00:56:52   That's a really good idea.

00:56:53   - So like the notes widget, you can choose like his,

00:56:56   just have it be this note

00:56:58   and it just gives you quick access to that.

00:57:00   - I think this is another idea of yours

00:57:01   that I am going to steal because when I was traveling,

00:57:05   I thought like, oh, the only thing

00:57:07   that I really need is Flighty.

00:57:09   So I swapped out, I think I swapped out OmniFocus for Flighty

00:57:13   and had that listed.

00:57:15   But something for like, I'm traveling right now,

00:57:19   particularly with that notes folder of like,

00:57:20   Here's all the, I had just various instructions for,

00:57:24   here's how you need to properly reenter the UK

00:57:27   and like the paperwork and stuff.

00:57:29   Yeah, that feels like it's useful to have a different mode

00:57:32   where I can just have quick access to that kind of thing.

00:57:35   - And this one is like active travel.

00:57:37   I still wanna set up like a vacation one as well.

00:57:40   So like this is, I'm on the move.

00:57:43   - Oh yeah, no, I totally get it.

00:57:46   That is a different mode from,

00:57:48   I'm at the location and chilling out is different from I'm on the move, which is also why I

00:57:53   see it almost feels like aspirational or inspiring there to have the Hawaiian Airlines app icon

00:58:01   in the bottom by just like something pleasant to think about.

00:58:04   Basically, this is the spots where that will swap out depending on where I'm going, like

00:58:09   the airlines that I'm using.

00:58:11   And so they're just like two airline apps that I have installed and so I put them on

00:58:14   there.

00:58:15   I don't know why in airlines.

00:58:17   And then it's like wallet, which is, you know,

00:58:19   you gotta have the wallet, Google maps,

00:58:20   Instagram camera messages, Slack,

00:58:22   and then my regular doc.

00:58:24   That feels pretty set for me.

00:58:25   Like I kinda, I think I kinda like it

00:58:27   and I will be trying it out soon enough.

00:58:30   We've taken a trip soon.

00:58:31   So I'll let you know how that works.

00:58:33   - Yeah, I'm literally adding United Airlines

00:58:37   and a few of my other travel apps to a screen

00:58:39   to remind me that this is a thing

00:58:40   that I wanna set up in the future.

00:58:42   I really like this idea.

00:58:43   So I am going to copy this from you.

00:58:46   What is Tripsy again?

00:58:47   That's the one where you plan the itinerary for the trip.

00:58:50   Is that what that app is for?

00:58:52   - Yeah, we spoke about it before

00:58:53   and you said you liked it,

00:58:54   but the one thing it didn't have that you wanted

00:58:56   was a map of all the things that you wanna go to on.

00:58:58   They have since added a map option.

00:59:01   So you can view all of the things

00:59:03   that you wanna do on the map.

00:59:05   - Yeah, no, but you know,

00:59:06   my map girl Meg Frost added what I wanted

00:59:09   in the Apple Maps. - Oh yes.

00:59:10   I forgot about that.

00:59:12   I forgot about that.

00:59:13   - Apple Maps, the most interesting and exciting app

00:59:17   on the phone, and I'm not even joking about that.

00:59:19   I love Apple Maps.

00:59:20   And so, yes, now I have hundreds of dots all over the world

00:59:25   that I've added to Apple Maps,

00:59:26   and Apple Maps keeps bugging me.

00:59:28   They go, "Hey, you seem to have added a lot of locations.

00:59:31   Are you okay with us using this in our database

00:59:33   to improve maps?"

00:59:34   I'm like, "No, these are all my secrets."

00:59:37   - How do you?

00:59:37   State of the maps.

00:59:39   - State of the maps.

00:59:41   *laughs*

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01:01:39   (beep)

01:01:40   Okay, you wanna go through categories?

01:01:42   - It's time for categories.

01:01:43   We will start with productivity,

01:01:45   and obviously the most important productivity app

01:01:48   is your To-Do app or your task management app.

01:01:51   And I have gone through a huge change this year

01:01:54   that I have neglected,

01:01:57   and that I have resisted talking about until now.

01:01:59   I wanted to wait and talk about it now.

01:02:02   And I have moved from OmniFocus back to Todoist.

01:02:06   - Interesting, yeah, 'cause I listened to last year's show

01:02:08   and you were, I think, moving from Todoist

01:02:11   into OmniFocus at that point in time.

01:02:13   And so now you have moved back.

01:02:15   - And now I've moved back.

01:02:17   So I moved back to Todoist about six months ago.

01:02:20   And I've been very happy since.

01:02:22   I had a couple of things that changed for me.

01:02:25   One is I felt like OmniFocus was too complicated

01:02:29   for what I was doing.

01:02:31   I think that I ended up in a situation

01:02:33   where I was having to add too much metadata

01:02:37   to a task for the system that I was using.

01:02:40   And really, all I needed was very simple,

01:02:43   just a list of projects, some buckets,

01:02:45   I don't need projects and tags.

01:02:47   I thought I might like all of that,

01:02:49   but then ultimately it wasn't what I wanted.

01:02:51   You know, it's like, oh, I'll add all these tags

01:02:53   and I'll create all these perspectives

01:02:54   and they can show to me at different times

01:02:57   and I can have these like overviews or I never used it.

01:03:00   What I use and all I ever use is a list of tasks

01:03:05   like chronologically, all of my tasks just on a,

01:03:10   what am I doing over the next seven days or whatever.

01:03:13   And what I've always enjoyed about Todoist

01:03:15   is their view of this is endless.

01:03:18   So it shows you easily the next few days,

01:03:21   but you can just keep scrolling forever

01:03:23   and continue to get that on like a list calendar kind of view

01:03:28   of all of your tasks.

01:03:30   And really that's all I want.

01:03:32   I also really missed the natural language entry everywhere.

01:03:36   That's why I have that on the iPhone,

01:03:39   I have that on the Mac,

01:03:40   and I could just add the tasks in natural language.

01:03:42   I think I kinda like that I can add tasks

01:03:44   into the application, just into the application.

01:03:47   For me, on the iPhone especially,

01:03:50   I had to end up creating a shortcut

01:03:51   to just add a task simply to OmniFocus.

01:03:55   Adding a task in the OmniFocus app is a real to-do in it.

01:03:59   not in the way that that is a thing you don't want to do.

01:04:02   It's always a real to do.

01:04:04   Why did I pick the exact wrong phrase to use?

01:04:07   My brain is so stupid.

01:04:09   And I honestly, I find Todoist's UI

01:04:12   so much more consistent on the platforms that I use.

01:04:14   Like we spoke about this at the time

01:04:16   that the OmniFocus Mac app

01:04:17   feels like it's made a different company.

01:04:20   And I've kind of been leaning back towards simplicity.

01:04:23   So they are the reasons that I went to Todoist,

01:04:28   but there is another reason I moved from OmniFocus.

01:04:31   So OmniFocus currently have a new version

01:04:35   of the application in beta,

01:04:37   and I've been playing around with it.

01:04:38   And yes, it's in beta,

01:04:40   but ultimately I think OmniFocus are moving

01:04:42   in some directions that I don't think of for me,

01:04:44   from like a visual perspective

01:04:46   and a layout perspective of the app,

01:04:49   that over the entire period of the beta process,

01:04:54   I think they are making some decisions

01:04:57   that are not what Myke wants.

01:04:59   And so I think that ultimately I'm not gonna be happy

01:05:03   with the new version of OmniFocus.

01:05:05   And so I've decided, I decided pretty early on to be like,

01:05:09   I'm gonna remove myself from something

01:05:12   that's gonna happen to me before it happens to me.

01:05:15   - Yeah, yeah.

01:05:16   UI changes can be even subtle ones,

01:05:20   real devastating sometimes.

01:05:21   - To get a bit nerdy about it,

01:05:23   Omni have decided to make the next version of OmniFocus

01:05:25   completely out of Swift UI.

01:05:27   like they are using SwiftUI for this.

01:05:29   - Right.

01:05:30   - And I'm not convinced that SwiftUI is ready

01:05:33   for an application as complicated as OmniFocus.

01:05:35   - Ah, interesting.

01:05:36   - And there are parts of admittedly the beta, right,

01:05:40   they're still working it.

01:05:40   I would say it has gotten a lot better

01:05:42   over the period of time,

01:05:44   but I feel like sometimes like I tap things

01:05:46   and they just don't do what I want,

01:05:48   or tap targets are way too small.

01:05:51   For the way that I use the application,

01:05:53   which is mostly looking at a list of tasks,

01:05:55   it feels like it's not really best in that view anymore.

01:06:00   So what I'm sure it will do once they get it

01:06:03   to a point where they're happy with it,

01:06:04   it will bring a level of unification

01:06:07   to the app's user interface across all the platforms.

01:06:09   It's kind of the point of SwiftUI.

01:06:11   But I just, I don't think it's for me.

01:06:15   And now I'm much happier back on Todoist again.

01:06:19   I tried OmniFocus, I tried to complicate my system

01:06:23   to give me more data to therefore potentially

01:06:25   make me more productive, it didn't do that.

01:06:28   And I felt like ultimately I was working with something

01:06:33   that was looking for more from me

01:06:36   than I was willing to give it,

01:06:37   where Todoist is much more simple for me,

01:06:40   and also from a user interface perspective, I prefer it.

01:06:43   And I especially prefer it to where I think

01:06:46   OmniFocus might be moving towards.

01:06:48   - Yeah, that's interesting, you know,

01:06:49   'cause I'm not a fancy beta boy like you are,

01:06:53   so I'm not on the OmniFocus beta.

01:06:55   Just looking at screenshots, it doesn't look that different,

01:06:59   but this is one of those things where I think screenshots

01:07:01   don't give you any sense of how does it feel

01:07:04   to actually use.

01:07:05   So I'm just on the regular OmniFocus for my data.

01:07:09   - They've had it in beta for a long time,

01:07:11   and I think it's because they know that what they're doing

01:07:13   is like a big, big job.

01:07:14   And I'm not, what I'm, I really want people to listen

01:07:17   to what I'm saying here in that I am using

01:07:20   an unreleased version of the application, right?

01:07:22   I'm not saying that the app is going to be bad.

01:07:26   What I'm saying is the decisions that they are making,

01:07:29   I don't think are what I want from that app.

01:07:32   And so I've decided to like cut my losses.

01:07:35   But you know, I know that they have a very wide

01:07:38   and open beta process so they can get feedback from people.

01:07:42   And so they've made a bunch of tweaks to the application,

01:07:44   but just like the main view of the app that I like

01:07:47   is what I described in Todoist,

01:07:48   which is here is a list of tasks on a chronological view.

01:07:53   In the new version of OmniFocus, the way it is shown,

01:07:58   it just, it looks more like now,

01:08:01   here's one project of tasks.

01:08:05   And that's not what I want.

01:08:05   I want things divided up with date more.

01:08:07   And I like to see my tags there.

01:08:10   And when you have, when I was using OmniFocus,

01:08:12   I was using multiple tags,

01:08:13   and then the tags go over multiple lines.

01:08:16   and it's like, it looks too busy

01:08:18   and it's not broken up in the way that I wanted.

01:08:21   And maybe that works for some people.

01:08:22   I don't think it works for me.

01:08:24   And I think that just that view, which is important to me,

01:08:28   I think is gonna have changed too much.

01:08:30   And I don't know if that's right for me going forward.

01:08:33   - Yeah, no, that makes sense.

01:08:34   And I do think visually the one problem

01:08:37   that OmniFocus has always had is just too busy.

01:08:42   Like I do think, I called it before,

01:08:45   like redundant information syndrome of like they show you the same thing like three times.

01:08:51   It's always been a problem that the app has had visually.

01:08:55   And so I can see that if they've changed the way some things look like if you use tags a bunch,

01:09:01   the way they display those tags, if it's just not the way that you were thinking about them can be a real problem.

01:09:06   So I totally get it.

01:09:07   Like it makes sense.

01:09:08   And if Todoist is working better with the way that your brain thinks about things, which is like you want an infinite list,

01:09:14   scrolling off into the future, then go for it.

01:09:18   I feel like this for you is a little bit like

01:09:19   that time that I tried running,

01:09:21   and I gave it a real go, and then it's like,

01:09:23   "No, I can put this aside,

01:09:25   "and I know that I will never go back to this.

01:09:27   "I tried it once, and I never have to worry again."

01:09:31   - I think that is exactly it.

01:09:33   You were saying stuff, and it sounded really interesting,

01:09:35   and I was like, "All right, let me try it."

01:09:36   And I tried it, and I was like, "I don't work this way."

01:09:39   - Yeah, and now you know,

01:09:40   you never have to wonder about OmniFocus again.

01:09:43   It is totally not for you.

01:09:45   - You're still omni-focus, right?

01:09:46   Or big omni-focus all the time?

01:09:47   - Yeah.

01:09:50   I am.

01:09:51   I think this is...

01:09:53   (both laughing)

01:09:56   What's so funny, Myke?

01:09:57   - I sounded very sure.

01:09:58   You sounded so sure then.

01:10:00   - Well, it's been,

01:10:02   I don't know if you're aware, Myke,

01:10:03   but it's been a funny time,

01:10:05   roughly, let's say the last 18 months or so.

01:10:09   - Yeah.

01:10:10   And just one thing I am aware of is I have just,

01:10:15   just to be clear what I'm about to say is not good.

01:10:18   I have totally fallen out of the habit

01:10:21   of like actually using a to-do app.

01:10:25   - Oh boy.

01:10:26   - Yeah, I just, I think it's--

01:10:27   - Are we about to cancel the show?

01:10:28   Are we done now?

01:10:30   (laughing)

01:10:33   - Yeah, no, this is the end of everything.

01:10:35   No, I think it's just a byproduct of life being very,

01:10:40   being very compressed in a way.

01:10:43   So yeah, it's not a thing that I was intentionally doing,

01:10:47   but I think if you were tracking, like,

01:10:51   how often am I actually using OmniFocus,

01:10:58   or any to-do app, to tick off things as I'm going,

01:11:05   versus doing the thing where I'm like retrospectively cleaning up what I have done.

01:11:11   Like that has definitely been on a downward trend for the last 18 months or so.

01:11:16   And then particularly over like the last, I would say, three to four months?

01:11:23   Like my to-do app usage has been near zero in an actual effective way.

01:11:29   Part of that is because I've just recently taken a bunch of time off of work

01:11:33   so like I don't really need to use a to-do app, but even still it's just an interesting,

01:11:37   I think, byproduct of the times. I don't expect that this is a long-term trend, but I would

01:11:43   say never has OmniFocus' hold on me been less than at this very moment. I'm very aware that

01:11:52   like I need to get back into this, but I have wondered if this is a maybe if this is a good

01:11:58   time to re-evaluate the tools that I use.

01:12:02   I think this is the perfect time.

01:12:03   Yeah, so maybe-

01:12:05   You're never gonna do it unless you do it now.

01:12:07   Maybe this is a good time, like, I think after Christmas I'll maybe take a look at like all of the various options and see what's out there because I just-

01:12:17   My OmniFocus task list is like not actually representative of anything in the state of my life.

01:12:25   Like, that's always one of the tricky things with to-do apps is keeping them in parallel with

01:12:30   where are you really, what are you actually doing.

01:12:33   And so yeah, this is just something that I do need to change is,

01:12:36   "Oh, I've fallen out of this habit, which is like a core habit for keeping life going,

01:12:41   and I need to pick this back up."

01:12:45   But yeah, I think I need to wait for this funny transition time to be over in order to do that.

01:12:50   So yeah, that's why I kind of look at this as...

01:12:54   I don't know, it's a very strange time to be doing State of the Apps.

01:12:58   It's like I do feel like I'm at the end of this weird transition time or it'll really be over like

01:13:05   after Christmas and then I just I think I am going to be doing like a bunch of re-evaluation of

01:13:11   of several things and like I don't expect that I will switch away from OmniFocus but I'm just

01:13:18   I'm just aware that like this is a good time to do another survey of the landscape of what's out

01:13:23   out there and I still say that the concept of defer dates

01:13:28   is for me the absolute killer feature of OmniFocus

01:13:31   and I just don't really see anything else that does that.

01:13:34   But if people do have other apps that they like

01:13:36   that are aware of that concept,

01:13:39   I might be interested in just seeing in the subreddit like,

01:13:41   ooh, what's out there?

01:13:42   And I'll take a look at everything in a couple months.

01:13:44   So I still technically use OmniFocus to track my projects

01:13:48   but it's not very active in my life.

01:13:50   And in a weird way, I have actually just been using reminders

01:13:55   for some of the time-sensitive stuff that I have to remember,

01:13:58   mainly because I don't like natural language input,

01:14:02   but it is so easy to tell Siri to remind you

01:14:05   about something at a particular time.

01:14:08   And so that's like this weird fallback I've been using

01:14:10   for some critical things where it's like,

01:14:12   ooh, I absolutely have to do this tomorrow.

01:14:15   And then I'll just speak out loud to the ether

01:14:18   and tell Siri to remind me about this thing

01:14:20   at a particular time tomorrow.

01:14:22   But yes, I need to get back into to-do apps pretty seriously

01:14:26   'cause this is not a great habit to have fallen into.

01:14:30   - Yeah, that's interesting.

01:14:31   I can see why it's happened, right?

01:14:32   Because you say you've been away for a bit

01:14:34   and also it is a time of the year

01:14:36   when you might think about things

01:14:37   a little bit differently, right?

01:14:39   - Yeah, and it's also been, I think,

01:14:41   a byproduct of several really intense video projects

01:14:44   in a row where when something feels

01:14:47   like it is consuming 100% of your life,

01:14:51   it feels almost weirdly superfluous

01:14:53   to put a bunch of tasks in a task manager,

01:14:57   'cause it's like, this is the only thing I'm thinking about.

01:14:59   Like, I can't possibly forget any of the things

01:15:02   that I'm working on, like, this is the only thing

01:15:03   in my life, so I think that's partly also

01:15:06   what has been the contributing factor,

01:15:08   is really intense projects, and then also just a break

01:15:13   from working on stuff, and has left me in a like,

01:15:16   "Oh, I should probably just nuke my whole OmniFocus database

01:15:21   because it doesn't represent reality and start over."

01:15:23   But if I'm going to do that, then that also makes sense as a time to look around

01:15:27   and see what's available.

01:15:28   So I'll put that on my to-do list to check out to-do apps.

01:15:32   I'm very keen to hear how this goes.

01:15:37   I want to follow up on this because if there's other,

01:15:40   "Hey, look, if there's other cool to-do apps out there, I want to know about them."

01:15:43   Yeah, for sure.

01:15:44   Last year or so has been a note-taking quest for you.

01:15:48   I'm assuming, you know, Obsidian is the note-taking app, right?

01:15:53   Like Obsidian forever, Obsidian, Obsidian, we love it.

01:15:56   [laughs]

01:15:57   - Notes.

01:15:59   What are they, Myke?

01:16:00   - Who can tell? - No one knows.

01:16:01   - Nobody knows.

01:16:02   [laughs]

01:16:03   - Nobody knows what notes are.

01:16:05   Yeah, so obviously I've talked about Obsidian a lot.

01:16:08   I think the actual big deal thing here is not about notes,

01:16:13   But it is that Obsidian has slowly, slowly taken over

01:16:20   and become not just the Notes app, but it has also become my writing app.

01:16:26   So it has dethroned Ulysses as the app that I am currently writing all of my scripts in.

01:16:34   We were talking about UI changes.

01:16:36   This is one of those things where last year Ulysses made a relatively small UI change,

01:16:43   but it just totally killed the way that I used the app

01:16:47   and I just found it really, really frustrating.

01:16:49   And the more I was using Obsidian to take notes,

01:16:54   the more I kept thinking,

01:16:56   "Well, I can also just sort of write the scripts in here as well."

01:17:01   And while it is not perfect as a writing app,

01:17:04   there are a bunch of things that I would want it to do differently,

01:17:08   it does work better for me than Ulysses does

01:17:11   after their change to hide a bunch of information from you.

01:17:15   I will say you're jumping ahead. Writing is a category later on.

01:17:19   I will ask you questions about this then. Okay.

01:17:21   Right now we're talking about notes. We have a very strict order around here.

01:17:25   Oh! Okay.

01:17:26   I'm so sorry. I didn't realize. I didn't mean to be jumping ahead that much.

01:17:29   You're ruining the chapters, right? We're in notes now.

01:17:33   You set this order. I didn't set this order. I have nothing to

01:17:37   do with these show notes that we're going through. I have typed nothing here.

01:17:40   No, no, you set this order when you created the blog post.

01:17:43   What, like six years ago? I'm not beholden to past me in any way. I don't care what order

01:17:48   he set for things. Well, then you're beholden to current me. We're talking about writing later.

01:17:54   Yeah. Right now.

01:17:55   Okay, we'll talk about writing later. That's fine. So I will just say yes, Notes. What are they? No

01:18:00   one knows. I still don't know what Notes are. Obsidian is definitely the app that I use for

01:18:04   notes. I'll also say that I've been really impressed this year with just Apple's Notes app.

01:18:13   I've been just using it a surprising amount. It's not anything in particular, I just feel like they

01:18:19   have added slowly, slowly a bunch of little features that have all added up to I'm using

01:18:26   the Notes app a lot more. I particularly just such a killer feature, but I love being able to

01:18:33   tap the pencil on the screen and it brings up a note and you can just start writing on that.

01:18:39   It's really, really nice. And when I was teaching my mom magic when I was there visiting her,

01:18:45   it's like I constantly had the Notes app out. And so I would like draw little diagrams of like,

01:18:51   "Oh, here's how this works." And I wrote up a bunch of notes for her about how different parts

01:18:58   of the game work. It's like, and I just, I never even thought twice about it. Like I will just 100%

01:19:03   use the actual notes app to do this. So it's very interesting. But notes has been, it's not

01:19:10   completely yet, but it is very clearly cannibalizing my GoodNotes app that I used to use.

01:19:17   Myke: I'm so confused. What goes into GoodNotes on notes that doesn't go into Obsidian?

01:19:23   Look, Myke, don't start asking questions you don't want the answers to.

01:19:27   Don't start asking questions that your feeble mind cannot understand!

01:19:30   [Laughter]

01:19:32   Yeah, if we're going to start talking about SettleCasting again, then I rescind my question.

01:19:37   No, we're not going to do that. Look, don't worry about what goes where, okay?

01:19:40   I have a whole squirrely system that makes sense to me.

01:19:43   That's great, though. I'm happy for you.

01:19:46   But I'll just say, I have been aware that the number of times I opened the GoodNotes app

01:19:53   over the last year has really started to fall off and Apple's Notes app is just slowly taking over

01:20:00   that and this trip to America, particularly when I was teaching my mom how to play Magic,

01:20:06   like I was just very aware that Notes as the go-to place to hand write stuff and to draw diagrams and

01:20:14   to make documents for her was just the no-brainer winner all of the time there.

01:20:19   - It just feels good, the tools are fantastic,

01:20:22   they're nice and simple, but they have exactly

01:20:23   what you need, like the drawing stuff.

01:20:26   It's really good, I love apps that integrate that though.

01:20:29   So I use Craft, right?

01:20:30   Craft I've been using for everything related

01:20:33   to Cortex brand.

01:20:34   So I was using this in Notion last time,

01:20:37   and I spoke about looking at Craft as an option,

01:20:40   and I'm really happy about my choice.

01:20:42   But like one of the things they do is like,

01:20:44   you can draw stuff in Craft, you know,

01:20:46   using the Apple Pencil, and they use Apple's tools,

01:20:49   which is a thing that developers can use as an API

01:20:52   for I think it's called Pencil Kit.

01:20:53   So you get all of the benefit of that

01:20:57   inside whatever app you want,

01:20:59   and then the drawings live in line

01:21:00   with the other things within the document,

01:21:03   the note that I've got going on.

01:21:04   And that's what I really like craft for.

01:21:06   It's so good at multimedia stuff,

01:21:09   images and text and drawings,

01:21:12   and all that stuff really lives together

01:21:14   inside of a note very nicely,

01:21:16   which is really good for me is like, you know,

01:21:18   I'm working on product design stuff.

01:21:20   Like I have sketches and then I have photos

01:21:22   and I have text and all that kind of stuff.

01:21:25   One thing I really wanted from them was tables

01:21:28   and they've added very, very, very basic tables.

01:21:31   I want stuff that can do calculations

01:21:33   and all that kind of stuff.

01:21:34   And they're not doing any of that yet.

01:21:36   It's very basic, but at least is allowing me

01:21:39   to display some information in the way I want,

01:21:41   which is in a table,

01:21:43   but I want them to continue pushing on that.

01:21:46   Craft feels great everywhere.

01:21:48   Like it's on iOS and it's on the Mac,

01:21:50   you know, they use, it's a Catalyst app,

01:21:52   but it's one of the best Catalyst apps that I've ever used.

01:21:55   It just feels good on the Mac.

01:21:57   And it means that they keep the whole set of apps

01:21:59   in lockstep from a feature perspective, which is so rare,

01:22:03   but that's what the benefit

01:22:04   of using this kind of technology is.

01:22:07   Obviously I like their widget, right?

01:22:08   Like I showed you that,

01:22:09   I have that widget on my iPad as well.

01:22:11   It's just like a real easy way to jump

01:22:12   into some recently used notes.

01:22:15   And as a reminder for people,

01:22:16   all of my notes for everything else go in Apple's notes.

01:22:19   So these are personal notes, show preparation notes.

01:22:23   Like I mentioned it earlier,

01:22:25   stuff like a trip confirmation emails, PDFs go in there.

01:22:28   Like I have hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of notes

01:22:30   that Apple Notes have, I think it's awesome.

01:22:33   And the Notes app would do great for all of the stuff

01:22:36   that I use craft for too, for Cortex brand.

01:22:39   But what I've wanted to do with a lot of stuff

01:22:41   related to Cortex brand is keep things related

01:22:44   to our company in their own applications

01:22:47   so they're siloed away.

01:22:49   Like it is a thing I wished I would have done

01:22:51   with all of my Relay FM related notes as well.

01:22:54   But it's too late now, it's too integrated, you know?

01:22:57   But like it would have been nice for me

01:22:59   to have a specific app where all of my show preparation

01:23:02   lived that was different to where my personal notes lived.

01:23:05   But it's, you know, now it's kind of like all intertwined

01:23:07   and I don't want to undo it because I'm very used

01:23:09   the way the system works and I've not found anything that works exactly the way that I

01:23:13   want which is what Notes does, you know? Like the way that the share extension works and

01:23:18   all that kind of stuff. It just, it's perfect for me like for the adding links to it and

01:23:22   stuff like that. I really like the way it works for that. And I've played around maybe

01:23:26   turning it into a different craft because craft have like these workspaces so I could

01:23:30   have like two workspaces. I might do this in the future like have a Relay FM workspace

01:23:36   and a Cortex Brown workspace, and they live independently from each other, but inside

01:23:40   of the same app, which is an interesting way of doing it.

01:23:43   Like, and I tried creating folders in Notes and putting all the Cortex Brown stuff in

01:23:47   there, but I don't like that.

01:23:49   So that's where I'm kind of split across these two apps right now, but I do really

01:23:53   like how I've got them set up.

01:23:55   Yeah, like, I'm always a big fan of siloing things if you can in different apps.

01:24:00   Like, I do think there is a real psychological benefit for that.

01:24:04   And also, obviously I can understand why Cortex brand feels like a very different kind of

01:24:09   thing from everything else, so it does make sense to have its own place to live.

01:24:15   The Notes app for a while was just a total joke, and then it really seemed like Apple

01:24:19   woke up one day and went, "Oh, we should really keep improving this."

01:24:23   And even just recently I accidentally discovered that, oh, they've added tags now, so if

01:24:28   you do, like, if you add a hashtag and put that in, like, it just shows up in the sidebar,

01:24:32   and it's like, oh wow, that's great.

01:24:34   They've added another way that you can sort through

01:24:36   or organize all of your notes.

01:24:38   So like the team has just done a really good job

01:24:41   and just like keep making it a little better.

01:24:43   - It's one of the best apps.

01:24:45   It's one of the best apps that Apple makes

01:24:47   like without a shadow of a doubt.

01:24:49   It's so good and they keep making it better.

01:24:51   And it's so funny because it was a joke

01:24:53   for so many years it was a joke, you know,

01:24:55   when it was just like the font was Marker Felt,

01:24:58   you know, and it looked like a legal pad.

01:24:59   It was like, it was just a joke, you know,

01:25:01   'cause the rest of iOS was changing,

01:25:04   but notes didn't change.

01:25:05   And then one year they were like,

01:25:06   "Oh, we redid it and now it's incredible."

01:25:09   And since then, they've only continued

01:25:11   to add more features to it.

01:25:13   And people want things from it,

01:25:15   but I think some of the stuff that people want

01:25:16   are too much.

01:25:17   People want like, "What about backlinks?"

01:25:19   It's like, "I don't know, man.

01:25:21   That might be a bit soon for that."

01:25:23   You know, all the stuff that you get in these apps

01:25:25   like Notion and Kraft and Roam and all that,

01:25:27   where you could tie all the stuff together.

01:25:29   But I think that it's such a good app, what it does.

01:25:33   Again, especially if you're pairing it

01:25:34   with an iPad and Apple Pencil.

01:25:36   - Yeah, and even the, like why I find

01:25:38   the handwritten note stuff just so surprisingly useful

01:25:41   is like, goddamn, is there text recognition

01:25:43   for handwriting so much better

01:25:46   than I would ever expect it to be?

01:25:47   - Yeah.

01:25:48   - I am still consistently shocked

01:25:50   that it does a great job recognizing what words

01:25:54   I have written in my super duper,

01:25:57   sloppy, cursive handwriting.

01:26:00   Like that just seems like a miracle to me

01:26:02   that it's able to do it.

01:26:04   And that's why it's like,

01:26:05   boy, it has gotten real good over the years.

01:26:08   - And that's without even talking about Quick Note,

01:26:11   which is not really a feature that I've used very much,

01:26:13   but the ability to pull up a note

01:26:15   from wherever you are in the system,

01:26:17   and it's integrated in an interesting way

01:26:19   to grab links and add them to it.

01:26:20   And I can see how that's really great for some people,

01:26:23   but it's not really for my use cases.

01:26:26   - It's so funny.

01:26:27   I kept thinking that I had no use for quick notes at all.

01:26:30   I was like, there's no, I just have no place for this in my life.

01:26:33   But I did realize suddenly it's like, Oh, I have one place where this is

01:26:38   absolutely perfect is when playing magic, I'm designing my own decks.

01:26:43   So I'm like picking the cards that I want.

01:26:45   And I kept realizing like during games, I would constantly think, Oh, I need to

01:26:49   have one extra copy of this, or I have one too many copies of that.

01:26:54   And I would forget by the end of the game what it was that I wanted to change.

01:26:58   And I realized, "Oh, this is exactly what Quick Notes is for."

01:27:01   Like, I don't care to have this exist in my real system.

01:27:04   I can just pull it up while I'm in the game without having to close it out.

01:27:08   And the good thing is that it knows, right?

01:27:10   So every time you enable Quick Note, it knows that you've got the Magic app open,

01:27:15   so it will show you the note that you were working when you last had the Magic app open.

01:27:18   It's very clever.

01:27:19   It's really great to be able to just pull that up and swipe up and be like,

01:27:23   and be like, "Okay, one less swamp," and then just at the end of the game look at what

01:27:28   my little notes were and make those changes. Even for me where I thought, "Oh, I have

01:27:32   no use for this feature," it's like, "Ooh, actually though, in the right circumstances,

01:27:36   it is very useful."

01:27:38   - Calendars. I have a bunch of stuff here, which is, I wasn't expecting it.

01:27:44   - Yeah, I'm absolutely shocked that you have a bunch of stuff. Because from my perspective,

01:27:49   like calendars, well there's only one answer. Fantastical is amazing.

01:27:53   I agree. What more could there be to say about calendars? But apparently Myke has a lot to

01:27:57   say about calendars. So Fantastical is the calendar app, right?

01:28:02   It's excellent, fantastical in every platform, I love it. One of the things that I really

01:28:06   love that they added this year is if you have an event that has a Zoom meeting or a Webex

01:28:13   meeting or whatever attached to it, on the Mac it shows a little icon next to the menu

01:28:18   bar when that event's coming up and you can just click it and then it will join the meeting.

01:28:22   Oh interesting I didn't know about that one.

01:28:24   So cool like you click the icon and it gives you a join meeting button you press it and

01:28:28   it will open that relevant application and join the meeting with the information attached

01:28:32   to it.

01:28:33   So good right like that is something that we're doing all the time it's a great addition.

01:28:38   I mentioned Doodle last year it's an app that I'm still using which is a way to collect

01:28:43   so like you want to make it the meeting and you were doing a bunch of people so like I

01:28:46   I have frequent calls now on a monthly basis

01:28:49   with about eight or nine people.

01:28:51   This is a way that I can say,

01:28:52   here's a bunch of potential times, vote.

01:28:55   And people can vote on the time that works best for them.

01:28:59   And then we can go ahead and book the meeting.

01:29:03   An app that does a similar thing,

01:29:04   but slightly differently that I've been using

01:29:06   is called Calendly.

01:29:08   It's a service and an application.

01:29:10   You give it credentials to your calendar

01:29:14   and then you can do a couple of different things.

01:29:16   Like one of the ways that I've used it is I can say,

01:29:19   give a time range.

01:29:20   So on these days and these days,

01:29:22   between this time and this time,

01:29:24   people can just book meetings into my diary.

01:29:27   I can set how long these meetings are by default,

01:29:32   and I've integrated it with Zoom.

01:29:35   So it will automatically create a Zoom call

01:29:37   for that meeting when the meeting is arranged.

01:29:40   The calendar sync is two way.

01:29:42   So if I put something in manually during that time,

01:29:45   it won't let people book that time.

01:29:48   - Okay, so this is like a remote office hours app.

01:29:52   That's what this is kind of like.

01:29:54   - Okay, I don't know what that means.

01:29:58   - So like, I'm just thinking in college, right,

01:30:00   with professors and things.

01:30:02   - Oh, I understand what you're saying now.

01:30:03   Yes, I get you now, yes.

01:30:05   - I have office hours from 3 p.m. till 6 p.m.

01:30:10   - People use Calendly exactly for that.

01:30:12   Like I've been doing it because,

01:30:14   you know, I mentioned last time

01:30:15   and what I'm doing all this stuff for is

01:30:17   I run a podcast mentorship group

01:30:19   and we've been working on a group project together.

01:30:23   So everyone's creating an episode of like a show.

01:30:26   It's just kind of like as a way to practice skills

01:30:28   and we're publishing it.

01:30:30   I'll put a link in the show notes to it

01:30:31   if people want to check it out.

01:30:32   We're working on a subject right now

01:30:34   about people making episodes about personal heroes

01:30:37   It's just a way to kind of like get some practice.

01:30:40   And one of the things I wanted to do

01:30:42   was I wanted to do like a little intro

01:30:44   with everybody that's producing an episode.

01:30:47   So we'd record a thing for a couple of minutes.

01:30:48   I asked them a set of standard questions

01:30:50   as a way to introduce them to the audience.

01:30:52   And so to do that,

01:30:54   I needed to set up 15 minute calls of eight people.

01:30:57   And I thought about how horrible it would be

01:30:59   to individually arrange those meetings.

01:31:02   - Yeah, that's a nightmare.

01:31:03   - So I was like, there must be a service out there

01:31:05   that can do this for me.

01:31:07   and then I found Calendly.

01:31:08   So I just give it a time range and say,

01:31:11   here is the link, go for it.

01:31:14   And then people were just booking it in on their own.

01:31:17   And I just really liked that as a system.

01:31:19   So I have this now and like, you know,

01:31:21   I've had some other meetings that I've needed

01:31:23   to set up recently and I'm like,

01:31:24   oh, I could use Calendly for that.

01:31:26   You know, just as a way to say, here's some time, go for it.

01:31:28   Fantastic How has this kind of feature built into it,

01:31:32   but it doesn't work in exactly the same way.

01:31:34   And I've had some friends that have tried to use it

01:31:36   and it messed up for them.

01:31:38   But I really like Calendly for this,

01:31:40   and I love the way that it integrates with Zoom and stuff.

01:31:43   I think that's super clever.

01:31:44   And so then, in my Zoom account,

01:31:46   there's then just a bunch of meetings for each one,

01:31:48   and I can just click start on each of them.

01:31:50   So I think it's super cool as a service

01:31:52   if this is the kind of thing that you need.

01:31:54   - Yeah, that's a pretty sweet tool.

01:31:56   I love stuff like that.

01:31:57   It's like a scalpel for exactly the problem that you have.

01:32:01   That sounds like a really great thing

01:32:03   to have in the arsenal.

01:32:03   - Which is another one of these.

01:32:05   It's called Elsewhen.

01:32:06   - Else when, okay.

01:32:07   - Else when, it does two things.

01:32:10   One is, so Discord has this ability

01:32:13   to give it like relative time.

01:32:16   So it can create this string, this like code string

01:32:19   that you can paste into a text box

01:32:22   that will show individual users a time and date

01:32:25   in their own time zone.

01:32:27   So say you were saying, "Hey, I'm gonna do a stream

01:32:32   and it's gonna be at X."

01:32:35   And that time for you, say it's like 12 o'clock

01:32:37   in the afternoon in London,

01:32:39   but then if someone in America would open it

01:32:41   and they'd see it in their time zone.

01:32:43   - Right, okay.

01:32:43   - These strings are really complicated,

01:32:46   but else when allows you to select on a calendar,

01:32:48   select the time, choose the format you want.

01:32:51   Do you want it to say the day of the week?

01:32:52   Do you want it to just say the time?

01:32:53   And then you copy the code and paste it into Discord

01:32:56   and then people look at it

01:32:57   and they see it in their own time zone.

01:32:58   Just really useful for if you are in Discord.

01:33:01   - That's a really specific tool.

01:33:03   - Incredibly specific.

01:33:04   but helpful for me.

01:33:05   The other thing that it does that I use more,

01:33:08   which is a feature that I asked for

01:33:09   and they very graciously put it in,

01:33:11   is if I'm streaming, I publish a tweet,

01:33:14   like I'm gonna be streaming on this time,

01:33:15   and I like to have a bunch of time zones in the tweet,

01:33:18   'cause I wish Twitter had this feature

01:33:19   that Discord have, but they don't.

01:33:21   So I would say like I have like UK,

01:33:24   three time zones for America, and Central Europe, right?

01:33:27   And what this app does is it allows me to choose a time

01:33:31   and then it will, I can copy out a pre-formatted thing

01:33:34   of like each of the flags that I use.

01:33:36   - Right, right. - And the times.

01:33:38   And you can choose time zones,

01:33:39   you can choose whatever time zones you want

01:33:41   and it will format them this way.

01:33:42   So then if you're sharing something,

01:33:44   it can be like, it's gonna be this time,

01:33:45   here's a bunch of time zones, wonderful.

01:33:47   So, Elsewhen does those two things,

01:33:49   does them really well, really easy.

01:33:51   - That's nice, very nice. - Scalpel-like issue, right?

01:33:53   Again, like I have these two things that I need

01:33:56   and this app just does them, I use it.

01:33:58   - Yeah, that's great.

01:34:00   It's like, this is feels, Elsewhen particularly feels to me

01:34:03   like a very Unix terminal-y application.

01:34:07   If like, if this is just a string that does one thing

01:34:10   that converts some numbers into some other words

01:34:13   and that's great.

01:34:13   It's just part of the workflow.

01:34:15   - This was also made by the same people

01:34:18   who set up a little development group

01:34:20   in the relay FM members discord,

01:34:22   who created the widget that I was talking about earlier on

01:34:25   when we were doing the fundraiser.

01:34:26   - Ah, okay, that makes sense.

01:34:27   - So it's the same gang

01:34:29   and they're a really incredibly talented group

01:34:31   and they produce things at quite a pace.

01:34:34   And so, so cool.

01:34:36   'Cause this was an issue we were having in Discord

01:34:38   of like trying to show things at this time.

01:34:41   And oh, by the way, that Discord has this feature

01:34:44   of this time code thing, whatever they call it,

01:34:46   but it's hard to work out.

01:34:49   So they made an app for it.

01:34:50   And then I said, "Hey, this app would be great

01:34:52   "for this thing that I do."

01:34:54   And so they added that in too.

01:34:55   - You're shaping the world, Myke.

01:34:57   One app feature request at a time.

01:34:59   (laughing)

01:35:00   - I guess I'm like an influencer for apps, I don't know.

01:35:03   - Yeah, you're an app influencer.

01:35:05   I think that's legit.

01:35:06   You put that on your business card.

01:35:07   - Appfluencer?

01:35:08   - Appfluencer, it rolls right off the tongue.

01:35:11   Very lovely sounding.

01:35:13   - Time and project management.

01:35:17   - Time management?

01:35:18   - Yeah. - Time tracking?

01:35:19   Is this the time tracking section, Myke?

01:35:21   - Yeah, I decided to kind of,

01:35:23   I've messed around with the categories a little bit more

01:35:25   and gave us like a specific place

01:35:26   to talk about time tracking now.

01:35:29   And there's a lot to say about Timery this year.

01:35:33   - The big thing is that it is on the Mac,

01:35:35   which is fan-freaking-tastic.

01:35:39   Like, I am so happy it's on the Mac.

01:35:41   - I was so sad and disappointed

01:35:45   when Timery wasn't available on the first Apple Silicon Macs

01:35:48   'cause you could have the iOS version available.

01:35:51   It was because the developer was working

01:35:53   on a fully-fledged Mac app,

01:35:55   which I've had the pleasure of also testing out

01:35:57   through its time period.

01:35:59   Before the Mac had test flights,

01:36:01   so it's been like a whole mess of like

01:36:03   manually installing these new versions of the app

01:36:05   every time.

01:36:06   But it's another app kind of like,

01:36:09   talk about craft earlier,

01:36:10   where it's using catalyst technology.

01:36:11   So there's like, it's part Mac, part iOS,

01:36:14   but feels really good.

01:36:15   And it's available,

01:36:17   but there's two things that I love about it.

01:36:19   Like you can get all of the stuff that you want,

01:36:21   it's just like the iOS app,

01:36:22   you've got all the functionality that you need right there.

01:36:24   But it has one thing which is very Mac-like,

01:36:27   which I love, which is the menu bar.

01:36:29   So in the menu bar, you can set up Timery.

01:36:33   Currently at the moment, it shows me my running timer,

01:36:36   but you can start and stop timers there.

01:36:38   And it also has, if you have a bunch of saved timers,

01:36:41   you can just activate them right from the menu bar

01:36:43   without opening the app.

01:36:45   And my favorite is recent timers.

01:36:46   So I have like, basically what's like a week's worth

01:36:49   of timers right here for me.

01:36:51   So I can just go in and I use the same timers frequently.

01:36:54   So just going in and selecting a recent timer

01:36:57   and having it go, like I absolutely love it.

01:36:59   It's so useful for me and just makes starting

01:37:02   and stopping my timers just so simple.

01:37:04   It's fantastic.

01:37:05   - Yeah, the menu bar is very cool.

01:37:07   I actually don't use it though,

01:37:10   because I'm trying to keep everything consistent.

01:37:13   And so I'm running Timery entirely through shortcuts.

01:37:18   - Is now available because of Monterey, right?

01:37:20   - Yes, exactly.

01:37:21   - It's great, yeah, so good.

01:37:22   - Shortcuts on the Mac is amazing.

01:37:23   I'm using the shortcuts menu bar for me

01:37:27   is very frequently just completely filled

01:37:30   with various time tracking things.

01:37:32   - Well, I just wanna put an asterisk on what you said.

01:37:35   Shortcuts on the Mac, the app, is not so great.

01:37:38   Having shortcuts on the Mac, really great.

01:37:41   - Yes, I do.

01:37:43   I am very aware that it's like,

01:37:44   oh, the best place to work with shortcuts

01:37:48   should be on the Mac,

01:37:51   but I do not work with shortcuts on the Mac.

01:37:53   I make my shortcuts on my iPad because editing

01:37:57   and working with stuff is real glitchy.

01:38:00   - I have 100% faith in that team

01:38:03   that they will get this right.

01:38:04   Like we were talking about this in a couple of my other shows

01:38:07   they should have called this a beta

01:38:08   and I don't know why they didn't.

01:38:10   And it would have resolved so much of the concern

01:38:14   around the quality of the application right now.

01:38:16   It was a big undertaking.

01:38:17   They moved, again, they moved this to Swift UI.

01:38:19   - Yeah.

01:38:20   - They moved the whole shortcuts out,

01:38:21   they redesigned the whole thing

01:38:22   and it needs more work on the Mac.

01:38:25   But ultimately, it doesn't matter to me so much

01:38:27   because all I really want is to be able

01:38:29   to activate my shortcuts, which I can now do,

01:38:31   and I love it.

01:38:32   - Yeah, I don't worry about shortcuts being glitchy.

01:38:37   I have the same feeling.

01:38:38   Like, I actually think in the long run, this is very good

01:38:41   because I suspect that shortcuts is pushing forward SwiftUI

01:38:48   and then SwiftUI can help shortcuts be even better.

01:38:52   And we're just in the early awkward phase

01:38:56   where shortcuts is a stupidly powerful app.

01:39:00   So it is 100% pushing up against all of the limits

01:39:04   of what SwiftUI can do.

01:39:06   But also because, again, I'm still so happy

01:39:09   about Apple's stewardship of shortcuts.

01:39:13   It's like because they've built it so core

01:39:15   into everything they're doing,

01:39:17   I expect that it's very easy internally for the shortcuts team to be able to point out

01:39:23   limitations in SwiftUI and then that gets the SwiftUI framework improved for everyone.

01:39:28   So I have confidence that this is the start of a virtuous circle.

01:39:32   Even if it means right now it's not great to actually edit my shortcuts on the Mac.

01:39:37   So I just don't do it.

01:39:38   I still work on the iPad when I work on those things.

01:39:40   But yeah, and that's fine because the real benefit is having access to the power of shortcuts

01:39:46   on the Mac.

01:39:47   That's the great part of it all for me.

01:39:49   And the promise of in the future,

01:39:51   me being able to automate more of the things

01:39:55   that I do on my Mac with shortcuts.

01:39:57   Like, and that's something that I'm dipping my toe

01:39:59   into a little bit more now.

01:40:01   Like some of this, the things I do on my Mac,

01:40:02   let's just get shortcuts to do them for me instead.

01:40:05   Like things that are Mac related things.

01:40:07   And they added a bunch of shortcut options

01:40:10   for things that really can only be done on the Mac.

01:40:13   So I think that's super cool.

01:40:14   - Yeah, it's really nice.

01:40:15   I spent some time converting over all of my shortcuts because there's one feature I was

01:40:20   really glad that they added was the ability to check what device you're on in shortcuts.

01:40:27   And so a lot of like I have a basic template now for like what is a new shortcut look like

01:40:31   and one of the I'm just copying and pasting this across everyone that I use like check

01:40:36   which device you're on and then it runs like an if Mac do this if phone do this.

01:40:42   So I'm really happy to be able to universalize a bunch of my shortcuts.

01:40:48   So I don't have to make two different shortcuts.

01:40:50   I can just underneath an if-then statement bury the different options for what I want

01:40:54   it to do on the Mac or on the phone or on the iPad.

01:40:56   Like I'm so glad they added that.

01:40:59   And I'll also say running shortcuts on the Mac has been very solid for me.

01:41:03   Like whenever I run a timer, like it starts the timer, the few things that I'm doing,

01:41:07   like it works great.

01:41:08   just working with the app itself is totally glitchy. So the way that I am running all of my

01:41:13   time tracking stuff right now is I'm still though mostly actually running it on the phone and very

01:41:22   frequently using Siri to do it by just speaking out loud because that is another thing that the

01:41:27   focus modes fixed is weirdly like Siri would refuse to run shortcuts in the old system when

01:41:33   when you put on like "Do Not Disturb"

01:41:35   it was very bizarre.

01:41:35   - Right.

01:41:36   (both laughing)

01:41:37   - As like Siri won't talk to me

01:41:39   if I don't want notifications, whatever, anyway,

01:41:41   that's all fixed.

01:41:42   But the system that I have for time tracking right now is

01:41:47   I'm using Timery and Shortcuts in combination with an app

01:41:52   I had just started to use last year,

01:41:54   which is called Just Timers.

01:41:57   And the reason I'm using that app is because

01:42:00   It's the timer app that has the best integration with shortcuts I have found of anything out there.

01:42:07   Like, Do, which is a great app, has surprisingly little that you can actually do in terms of timers and shortcuts.

01:42:15   Like, I check in every once in a while to see, like, has the developer added this?

01:42:18   But they just haven't.

01:42:20   And so I really like, with all of my various timers, or my time tracking,

01:42:26   to be able to set a countdown timer

01:42:30   of several different lengths

01:42:33   to set off just a gentle little alert

01:42:37   to check in in a sense of like,

01:42:40   hey, are you still doing this?

01:42:42   Or hey, this might be a good time

01:42:45   to stop what you're doing right now.

01:42:47   - Can I ask a question?

01:42:47   I wanna see if I'm understanding what you're doing here.

01:42:50   So you have a shortcut that you run that say writing timer.

01:42:54   And when that runs, timer restarts running,

01:42:57   but then just timers gets activated

01:43:00   to be like in 20 minutes, bugging.

01:43:02   - Yes, that's what's happening.

01:43:03   - All right, so that's a really interesting way

01:43:07   to build a system like that.

01:43:09   I think that's actually really cool.

01:43:12   'Cause I can imagine it's like, as well,

01:43:14   also reminds you to get back on task if you've veered off.

01:43:18   - Yeah, so that's, it's for both uses.

01:43:23   So like, my writing timer, when I flip that, like that starts counting down at an hour

01:43:27   and 20 minutes, and it just like pings me that the timer is up, and I know from long

01:43:33   experience like, that is the exact right amount of time where I should now just get up and

01:43:38   get a coffee, take a few minutes off, like, and then start the timer again, that if like

01:43:44   I keep sitting there, the marginal value of each additional minute goes down real fast.

01:43:49   So when the writing session is done, I start another one which just says "Break" and that

01:43:55   starts like a seven minute timer that like pings me at the end of the seven minutes to

01:44:00   be like "Hey, you should be going back to writing now if you haven't done this automatically."

01:44:06   But the real killer feature and like why Shortcuts integration is very important is, so like

01:44:12   say I've done my writing block, I go and get my coffee, and it's only five minutes and

01:44:17   I go back to the desk and I flip the writing timer again.

01:44:21   What has to happen now is like all of the running timers need to stop, which would mean

01:44:28   that seven minute timer, and then also start like countdown from an hour and 20 minutes

01:44:35   again because what you don't want to have happen is two minutes into writing you get

01:44:40   a notification that says, "Hey, your break is up."

01:44:43   And it's like, no, no, by starting the writing timer, everything should reset.

01:44:48   So I have a lot of time tracking timers that need to give that instruction to an app of

01:44:53   like, reset all running timers, start a new timer now.

01:44:59   And I have some like funny exceptions to that, like running the laundry as a timer of like,

01:45:04   oh, you want to take the laundry out and put it in the dryer.

01:45:06   Like if this three hour timer is running, don't ever reset that one because that's a

01:45:11   a different sort of time, right?

01:45:13   So like I need to be able to give reasonably complicated instructions to a timer app about

01:45:20   which timers get reset when, and the only app that I have found up to the job of doing

01:45:27   that is just timers.

01:45:29   And it's also important to me that while I could do this with alarms, alarms are way

01:45:35   too heavyweight.

01:45:36   Like, alarms are very interruptive and I don't want that kind of thing.

01:45:41   Like I just want something very much like what we use "do" for, of like a gentle reminder,

01:45:47   but if I'm in the middle of writing a sentence and like this is a really great moment, I

01:45:52   can totally blow past that alert and it's not a problem.

01:45:55   Whereas an alarm is like way more interruptive.

01:45:58   The only thing that I find frustrating is that Just Timers doesn't synchronize across

01:46:04   devices and so like I can't get it to work on the Mac or like the timers don't synchronize

01:46:12   between devices and like that's the final piece that I really want because also like

01:46:18   you a huge amount of my work is now just switched back to the Mac like the Mac is now the default

01:46:24   machine and I would use shortcuts on the Mac more for timers if it wasn't for this particular

01:46:33   fact of like, the timers don't sync between the app in different locations.

01:46:37   So I'm still using my phone as the default place for time tracking nearly 100% of the

01:46:44   time, because that's the place where I can count on.

01:46:47   My countdown timers are always accurately representing what the current situation is.

01:46:51   So I love just timers, like it's great, it does exactly what I want it to do.

01:46:56   The only thing that kills me is it doesn't sync across devices.

01:46:59   So I'm hoping either that can get added or like another app can add that as a feature.

01:47:04   But like, what I need in terms of shortcut support for a timer app is reasonably complicated

01:47:11   to make this work.

01:47:12   But aside from that, I'm really happy with the way this works for like, time tracking

01:47:19   shortcuts like communicating between all of the different parts.

01:47:23   And ultimately, I also want to tie this in more tightly with the focus modes, which I'm

01:47:27   not doing right now.

01:47:29   But that's the last piece that I feel will be pretty solid across all of the devices,

01:47:36   doing everything I want every time I set a timer running.

01:47:39   Will: There was a couple of things that I'm more than I meant to mention with Timery,

01:47:43   but I forgot.

01:47:44   One is that they've added reports to the app now, which is really great.

01:47:48   So there's a whole reporting section of the application where you can go in and see

01:47:53   over a certain time period the things that you've done and you can set this year, last

01:47:58   year this month and you have a lot of options.

01:48:00   This is one of, like just, it's basically for me

01:48:03   taking away another reason for me to need to log in

01:48:05   to the toggle website.

01:48:06   Like I can see what I've been doing

01:48:08   over a set period of time.

01:48:10   So I really like that that's in the app now,

01:48:12   as well as just the widgets.

01:48:13   Like it's much more broadly functioned in the app.

01:48:16   And the extra large widget type that's been added

01:48:20   to the iPad.

01:48:22   - Oh yeah, that is great.

01:48:23   That's so cool.

01:48:24   - It's really great 'cause what Joe did was just basically

01:48:27   take four of the medium widgets and just put them in a grid.

01:48:30   And it's like, it's so great.

01:48:32   Cause it's just like,

01:48:33   it's just feels like a command center for timing.

01:48:35   Like I got everything I need in there.

01:48:37   All of my time trackers are running.

01:48:38   It's awesome.

01:48:39   There's also project management as part of this.

01:48:42   And been using Trello, right?

01:48:44   We spoke about it last time using Trello over the last year.

01:48:47   Like me and Adina use it a lot.

01:48:48   We use it for like managing projects with the studio

01:48:52   and with our company here in the UK

01:48:54   and like home stuff as well.

01:48:57   I'm not sure, we're not sure if we're looking for something else.

01:48:59   It's starting to like get a bit frustrating to use in certain ways.

01:49:04   We might be looking for a different tool for this and it's kind of like managing

01:49:08   long-term projects with potentially to-do's and assign them to people.

01:49:14   I think we might start looking for a like

01:49:17   collaborative to-do app rather than something like a Can-Ban.

01:49:23   I'm not sure.

01:49:25   Yeah, I mean I said this last time, I still always feel this way that like, Kanban boards are interesting,

01:49:32   Trello seems like it's the best in class among these things, but every time I have tried it, I just eventually fall off it.

01:49:39   I feel like this isn't really the right solution for what I'm trying to do.

01:49:43   This is how Idina's feeling right now, so...

01:49:45   I don't know, it's like, it's a weird... I feel like it's just a weird intersection of sometimes both too complicated and too simple.

01:49:53   - Yep, that's exactly it.

01:49:55   Yep, nailed it.

01:49:56   (laughing)

01:49:57   That is the issue we are having completely.

01:49:58   So we might start looking for something else.

01:50:01   We're playing around and we're gonna see

01:50:04   like what could potentially work better

01:50:06   for what we're doing,

01:50:07   but we're not sure what that's gonna be yet.

01:50:09   Like at the moment, we don't even really know

01:50:11   what type of application, right?

01:50:13   So it's a bit before we can even start looking

01:50:15   at the options, but that's in there.

01:50:17   Maybe next year I'll have something different

01:50:19   to say for this category.

01:50:21   - I mean, don't you wanna join the Notion Nation?

01:50:23   You can also have Kanban boards there.

01:50:26   Like that could be a thing.

01:50:27   - Okay, so this is one of the things I did wanna touch on

01:50:29   was that you were really going big on Notion

01:50:33   for Grey Industries last time.

01:50:35   Is that still going on?

01:50:37   - It's not that I have gone in big on Notion.

01:50:41   It's my assistant has gone in big on Notion.

01:50:44   And I guess we can describe that as

01:50:47   that is part of the project of managing me

01:50:50   is what's actually occurring in Notion, is that she is managing me in various ways through Notion.

01:50:55   And while I still don't love the tool, I'd like- there's something about the way

01:51:01   navigation occurs in Notion that I just find very odd. I cannot pin it down. It's not an app that

01:51:10   I would use, but luckily it doesn't really matter because it's the app that she is using, and I

01:51:16   would give it a big thumbs up. Like it's working really well for Grey Industries as a business

01:51:23   tool. Like it's very easy for her to lay out a bunch of information. And ultimately, it's very

01:51:29   easy for me to look at what has been laid out in various ways. So there's a bunch of boring, like

01:51:35   internal company stuff that is done through Notion. We do like a monthly administration call,

01:51:41   and that is running through a bunch of projects and current state of things in Notion.

01:51:48   And so it's very useful to be able to go through that.

01:51:51   There's such a dumb little feature of Notion, but I think it's actually quite critical,

01:51:56   which is when you are looking at something in Notion,

01:51:59   it puts a little user icon next to the line that the person is looking at.

01:52:04   It's kind of like how in Google Docs you can see where someone is typing.

01:52:07   But it is, it's surprisingly, like it's very, very responsive.

01:52:11   And more importantly, it doesn't jump around, like the little icon will slide up to whatever the person is looking at.

01:52:19   And I'm just very aware that like, when two people are looking at a document and talking about a thing,

01:52:24   that little user icon is very critical sometimes to know like, wait, which part of this are we both talking about?

01:52:31   Like, just the way that it's displayed, I think is fantastic.

01:52:35   So we're using it for that, and then we're also using it as part of like the fact-checking team for going through scripts.

01:52:42   Like scripts are broken down into a giant table of all facts that are stated in a video,

01:52:48   and then we have two people who are working through all of those facts.

01:52:52   So I would say Notion has been a really big win in terms of project management.

01:52:58   Like, I'm still not doing the actual videos themselves as projects in Notion,

01:53:05   Like, I am still the keeper of the different steps that the project is going through, but

01:53:10   Notion is a great collaborative database that is very flexible.

01:53:15   So again, while I personally don't love it, I can still really recommend it as a tool

01:53:22   for like anyone who's doing anything collaborative with someone else.

01:53:25   Like Notion is a great tool to investigate and see if it works for you.

01:53:29   I will give another recommendation for Kraft, because Kraft does most of this stuff.

01:53:33   - Do you see Kraft as a Notion competitor?

01:53:35   Is that the way you would describe it?

01:53:37   - 100% it is, yeah.

01:53:39   And what I'll say about what Kraft has that Notion doesn't

01:53:43   is a good feeling user experience.

01:53:45   I think part of the problem that you're seeing with Notion

01:53:48   is it's mostly web views.

01:53:50   And so when you're moving around, it feels like that.

01:53:53   And Kraft doesn't feel like that.

01:53:54   I don't think it's as fully featured in some areas

01:53:57   as Notion, but I think that they're moving there for sure.

01:54:00   Like that's the area they're moving towards

01:54:02   like further and further.

01:54:04   So like all the stuff that you're mentioning,

01:54:06   like I have a version of those types of things

01:54:08   in Kraft for Cortex brand.

01:54:09   Like it's where our admin goes and all that kind of stuff.

01:54:12   And it has a lot of the features.

01:54:14   So I think as time goes on,

01:54:17   I believe Kraft will continue to be something

01:54:19   to keep an eye on for this stuff.

01:54:21   - Does Kraft have a web view?

01:54:22   - Yes, they're building it.

01:54:24   It's in beta right now,

01:54:25   but it is something that they're working on.

01:54:27   I have enabled for Cortex brand.

01:54:30   I can show you at some point.

01:54:31   Okay, just in case my assistant is listening right now,

01:54:34   do not worry, I have no intention of forcing you

01:54:36   to move away from Notion.

01:54:38   I'm just asking out of curiosity and for the benefit

01:54:41   (laughs)

01:54:42   and for the benefit of any listeners who are wondering,

01:54:44   but it's also important for gray industries

01:54:47   that Notion is cross-platform,

01:54:48   like that just has to be a requirement.

01:54:50   That's why I was wondering about if Kraft has a web view,

01:54:52   but I also, don't worry, I have no intention of forcing it.

01:54:56   Like you can use the tool that you think is best

01:54:57   and you think that that's Notion, so don't worry.

01:54:59   (laughs)

01:55:00   Nothing's gonna happen here.

01:55:02   I'm just curious.

01:55:02   - Yeah, this is a very focused podcast right now.

01:55:05   We're talking to one person.

01:55:06   (laughing)

01:55:08   - Yeah, and I don't even know if she's listening or not.

01:55:10   So we might be talking to zero people.

01:55:13   - You know what, Gray?

01:55:13   We'll find out.

01:55:14   - Yeah, we will find out.

01:55:15   (laughing)

01:55:17   - This episode of Cortex is brought to you by LinkedIn Jobs.

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01:57:09   Communication

01:57:10   Communication

01:57:11   Considering you're not opening your to-do app, I'm assuming you're not opening your

01:57:16   email app.

01:57:17   Email?

01:57:18   I don't even know what it is.

01:57:20   Here's the only thing I will say in this section.

01:57:22   I really hope that Apple internally is working on their Mail app in the same way that they

01:57:29   worked on their Notes app.

01:57:31   I'm still using Apple Mail for when I do stuff in Mail.

01:57:36   It's fine, I guess, but boy does it feel like it hasn't been touched in 10 years and I think

01:57:43   there's a lot of great stuff that Apple could do with that and I just hope they have some

01:57:47   secret Notes-like project for the default mail app because that thing is

01:57:52   okay, but it is old and creaky and

01:57:56   just the way that I do email, which is as infrequently as humanly possible,

01:58:02   I don't have a lot to gain from investigating a bunch of alternatives

01:58:06   so I am just gonna stick with the default email app and

01:58:09   hope it gets updated nicely at some point in the future, but quite frankly even if it doesn't I don't really care

01:58:16   like I just don't use it enough for that to critically matter.

01:58:21   I don't know about you but for sure Slack has just consumed all of my actual important communication

01:58:29   and has left email largely like a weird, I don't quite want to say ghost town,

01:58:36   but like email feels a lot like the real post mail does to me,

01:58:42   which is like it's 95% junk I don't care about,

01:58:45   and 5% terrifyingly critical pieces of information.

01:58:50   So, like, my dislike of email has only increased over time.

01:58:54   - I want to talk about these two things and just lay out the apps that I'm using.

01:59:00   And then I want to talk about a wider thing, which is similar to what you were saying.

01:59:04   So I don't want to touch on it because I want to just lay the groundwork.

01:59:07   So for email, I'm using three different apps at the moment.

01:59:11   - Okay. - There's a reason.

01:59:13   - Yeah, yeah, no, no, I believe you.

01:59:15   Spark continues to be where all of my personal email goes and where my Relay FM email goes.

01:59:22   The application is fine. It's okay. It does the job. As far as an email app on iOS and

01:59:30   macOS can go, it's about as good as all of them, which I will echo as I always say, there

01:59:36   is no good email app. They're all varying levels of okay to bad because in my opinion

01:59:42   and there's only ever been one good email app

01:59:44   and it doesn't exist anymore, Mailbox.

01:59:47   The one that-- - Pour one out for Mailbox.

01:59:49   - So the best email I've ever made.

01:59:51   It had a feature that I love

01:59:53   that I cannot believe nobody has ever copied,

01:59:56   which was the ability to manually reorder email

02:00:01   in an inbox.

02:00:03   It's genius.

02:00:04   For some reason, nobody else ever wants to make it

02:00:08   and I do not know why.

02:00:09   Spark's killer feature though is its collaboration.

02:00:12   That's why I use it and love it for that.

02:00:16   The ability to be able to collaborate with people on email,

02:00:18   assign them email, have conversations in line

02:00:21   that the person you're sending the email to doesn't see,

02:00:24   all that kind of stuff is so, so good.

02:00:27   And I'm all in on it and don't imagine anything

02:00:30   taking me away from it because that feature

02:00:31   is so critical to how I work.

02:00:34   - Yeah.

02:00:35   - Again, with Cortex brand, I wanted to separate

02:00:38   the email out and not have it come in with my other email.

02:00:41   So I'm using on iOS, just the Gmail app.

02:00:45   I don't like it particularly, but it's doing the job.

02:00:49   Because most of the email that I'm dealing with

02:00:51   is on the Mac where I'm using an app,

02:00:53   which is difficult to,

02:00:55   I don't know how to pronounce this name.

02:00:57   I think it's Mime Stream, M-I-M-E-S-T-R-E-M.

02:01:02   Not greatly named, it is a Gmail app, native for the Mac,

02:01:06   that is truly excellent as far as email apps go for the Mac.

02:01:11   It has every feature done really well, tons of options.

02:01:16   It is a great app.

02:01:19   They are, I believe, working on an iOS version,

02:01:22   which will make me a very happy man

02:01:24   because this is actually a very good email app.

02:01:28   It has all of the features that you want

02:01:30   and tons of customization,

02:01:32   and it just looks like the Apple's Mail app, really.

02:01:36   Mime stream is made by someone

02:01:39   who used to work at Apple on Mail.

02:01:42   - Oh, interesting, okay.

02:01:44   - So this person, their name is Neil Gervari,

02:01:47   and in the about, I worked on Apple Mail

02:01:49   for seven and a half years.

02:01:51   And it shows, because this is very fully featured.

02:01:56   I have never seen an app updated as often as this one.

02:02:02   like multiple updates a week with fixes, new features,

02:02:06   all that kind of stuff.

02:02:07   It's great.

02:02:08   It's really, really great.

02:02:09   - I just had to look it up

02:02:10   'cause this was ringing a bell in my head

02:02:13   because MIME is an acronym that stands for

02:02:17   Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions.

02:02:21   So it is an internet standard that extends the form

02:02:23   of email messages to support text in character sets

02:02:27   other than ASCII.

02:02:28   - I wished he would rename it.

02:02:30   I don't like the name.

02:02:31   It doesn't mean anything to me.

02:02:33   - I think this is like, it means something to nerds

02:02:36   who know something about email and it's like, I get it,

02:02:40   but I would also suggest a renaming

02:02:42   because it's not easy to say.

02:02:45   - I have made this suggestion before.

02:02:47   I make it for free.

02:02:48   I will say it again.

02:02:49   Call your app MyMail.

02:02:51   - Yeah.

02:02:51   - I don't know what stream is.

02:02:53   I don't know why we're, what are we streaming?

02:02:56   There's no stream.

02:02:56   So anyway, it's a great app.

02:03:00   - The only, if the only thing I can complain about

02:03:02   is the name, then do it a very good job.

02:03:05   - Yeah, I was gonna say, yeah.

02:03:07   The only thing to complain about is the name

02:03:09   that is like A plus work on an app.

02:03:11   - And like their product roadmap, you know,

02:03:13   they have that they're working on an iOS app.

02:03:15   Like I just, I like, please, please, you know, please.

02:03:20   It's great, it's a great Mac app

02:03:24   and that's what I use, of course, it's Gmail only,

02:03:27   which would, if they did bring out an iOS app,

02:03:29   I wouldn't be able to use it for all my email,

02:03:31   but I would be able to replace the Gmail app.

02:03:34   And it just, you know, it does a really good job.

02:03:35   It integrates with all Gmail stuff,

02:03:37   so it has like promotions, updates, social folders in it.

02:03:41   And it does something that I really love,

02:03:43   which is a feature I wish to all email apps have.

02:03:45   When you send an email, like you're in the email list,

02:03:48   you send an email, it doesn't open the next email.

02:03:51   It just, that's it.

02:03:53   You know, it archive an email,

02:03:54   it doesn't open the next one and mark it as read.

02:03:56   And that, 'cause that is a feature that you can set.

02:03:58   Because this app, like all good email apps,

02:04:01   has lots of options that you can set,

02:04:05   because email is a very particular thing

02:04:07   that people like to do in certain ways.

02:04:09   So big recommendation for MimeStream.

02:04:11   - That's such a great little detail though.

02:04:13   Like I hate that when you delete something

02:04:15   and then it just opens up and marks as read,

02:04:17   it's like, oh, please, please no, don't do that.

02:04:20   Like those little details really matter.

02:04:23   And of course there's other people out there

02:04:24   who would be driven crazy

02:04:25   by not opening the next message automatically.

02:04:27   but that's why we need stuff like that to be an option.

02:04:31   - So then to continue what we're talking about,

02:04:33   Slack, which is now owned by Salesforce,

02:04:36   that doesn't mean anything,

02:04:37   but that changed since we last spoke about it.

02:04:39   Other types of communication, Discord,

02:04:41   so Discord we use for members,

02:04:43   but there's also business related in that for me.

02:04:45   And Airtable, which is like a sales database,

02:04:47   but I kind of consider it

02:04:48   as a collaboration communication thing.

02:04:51   Here's the overall thing that I wanna talk about,

02:04:53   which is the fragmentation of business communication.

02:04:57   - Yeah.

02:04:58   - So Slack was, we've said this many times, right?

02:05:00   Slack's whole thing is, hey, we're replacing email.

02:05:02   Here's the thing, you can't do that, right?

02:05:04   - Yeah.

02:05:06   - Slack is trying their best to make this happen by like,

02:05:10   hey, now you can integrate with another company's Slack

02:05:13   and you can have these shared channels.

02:05:15   It's a great idea, but that's not how,

02:05:18   like if someone's, if I'm contacting somebody

02:05:20   for the first time or they're contacting me

02:05:22   for the first time, they're not just gonna appear

02:05:24   in my Slack, right?

02:05:26   There has to be an introduction.

02:05:28   So you can't ever truly get rid of email

02:05:32   because Slack just doesn't work that way.

02:05:34   And I also really don't want Slack to work that way.

02:05:37   I don't want people randomly appearing.

02:05:39   I actually don't really ever want to do the

02:05:41   let's join our Slacks together thing.

02:05:43   I don't like that either really is a thing.

02:05:46   Right? - Yeah.

02:05:48   - So, but the thing is though,

02:05:51   what Slack has shown me is that instant messaging,

02:05:54   I much prefer to email.

02:05:56   I like the tone, I like that it's quick,

02:05:58   I like that you can have a conversation

02:06:00   and it's happening in a moment, right?

02:06:03   And then the moment is gone rather than like,

02:06:05   I email you, maybe you'll email me back today,

02:06:07   maybe it will be tomorrow, maybe one is instant

02:06:10   and then the next one takes seven days.

02:06:11   Like that like asynchronous communication is so strange.

02:06:16   When you are so used to now even more so

02:06:19   doing all of your other business,

02:06:20   your internal business is all done in an instant message

02:06:23   and your external business is all done with email.

02:06:26   And I think that it's such a shame

02:06:28   that we have to maintain both of these chains

02:06:30   of communication type now,

02:06:32   that there's like internal and external

02:06:34   and they're massively different.

02:06:35   I actually think that while Slack has made

02:06:39   this type of communication better,

02:06:41   it's actually made the problem worse.

02:06:44   - I'll agree with that.

02:06:47   I will agree with that assessment, yeah.

02:06:48   - So like, if you look at it on a macro scale,

02:06:51   internal communication is a million times better

02:06:54   than it ever was for this type

02:06:56   because of the way that Slack works,

02:06:58   but it only makes the external stuff feel more jarring

02:07:02   and then you're managing both of these things.

02:07:05   And so like, there isn't, honestly,

02:07:07   there is not a way to solve this problem,

02:07:09   but I just wanted to talk about it.

02:07:10   - No, I totally get it.

02:07:12   I agree with you.

02:07:14   Even just as you were talking, it's like, I almost wish,

02:07:17   I wouldn't want to use it all the time,

02:07:21   but it almost makes me wish like there was an app layer above this that I could have something

02:07:27   that could kind of bring the Slack and email world together sometimes when I'm just in the mood to

02:07:35   let me just try to clear everything that's in my communications queue and I don't really care where it came from.

02:07:43   I could imagine Salesforce building this.

02:07:45   I mean maybe.

02:07:46   Because Salesforce have email.

02:07:48   Mmm.

02:07:49   Yeah, that's true.

02:07:50   I'm also just, I'm feeling this particularly painfully right now because I have just come

02:07:56   back from a conference and again, it's like the default mode of, "Hey, let's stay in touch,"

02:08:06   or like, "Ooh, you need to send me that thing."

02:08:09   The default mode for that is email.

02:08:11   So it's like, "Oh, I've got a bunch of emails of people that I want to reach out and other

02:08:16   people have my email and they may send me things randomly and it's just I was feeling very aware

02:08:22   of "oh I need to be" I mean we can talk about this in the themes episode later but this is this is a

02:08:30   thing of like okay the world is opening back up I need to be more on top of external communications

02:08:40   for a bunch of reasons and just really feeling the dread of like I just I find it very frustrating

02:08:46   the way. Email is this totally separate world and it is also impossible to get rid of. And

02:08:54   yeah, I completely agree with you. It's like, you can take Slack out of my cold dead hands.

02:08:59   Like the internal business stuff is so much better because of Slack, but the problem is

02:09:06   weirdly worse on the big picture. It does make email feel more alienating and I'm so

02:09:12   resistant to the increasing number of SLACs in my little sidebar.

02:09:21   Even within SLAC communication is weirdly fragmented.

02:09:25   I agree with you, there isn't a great way to solve this problem, but I do kind of find

02:09:33   myself thinking, "I wish there was just some master cue of 'here are all of the messages

02:09:40   that have been sent to you from people and I don't really care where they originated

02:09:45   from I just want to spend an hour trying to blast through as many of these as I can but

02:09:51   that is asking a lot from integration from very different tools so I guess communications

02:10:00   continues to be a like sad area of the working world

02:10:04   So writing and research, we touched on writing earlier, so you have moved from Ulysses to Obsidian.

02:10:12   Oh, am I allowed to talk about this now?

02:10:14   We can talk about it now.

02:10:15   Now this is the approved writing structure?

02:10:16   There's a structure!

02:10:17   [Laughter]

02:10:19   I don't respect your structures, Myke.

02:10:21   We should be able to talk about—actually, that's a lie.

02:10:23   I do, because now we're talking about writing and research when you want to.

02:10:26   You might say, "I don't respect your structures," but you are respecting the structure, so.

02:10:31   Yes, that's what's happening right now.

02:10:33   Yeah, so no, I did move away from Ulysses for the reasons that I mentioned, that the

02:10:38   redesign was really frustrating and it eventually just totally killed me.

02:10:42   And so I have switched over to Obsidian as not just the Notes app, but also the complete

02:10:51   writing environment app.

02:10:52   - This is a big deal, man.

02:10:54   This is a really big deal, I think.

02:10:56   - Yeah, it is.

02:10:58   I'm still gonna say this, that like, if you are a person who has to do any kind of serious writing,

02:11:08   I would still probably say that Ulysses is my default recommendation.

02:11:12   Like, I just always like this as a problem set of if you don't know anything about a person,

02:11:16   what is the default recommendation?

02:11:19   And I think Ulysses is a good writing app.

02:11:21   It's just like the changes they made were really bad for me.

02:11:24   But I also, this is also one of these cases of,

02:11:27   I am trying a crazy thing with Obsidian

02:11:30   and I think no one should follow me in this direction.

02:11:33   So I just want to kind of preface this discussion.

02:11:36   So I'm going to send you a screenshot of-

02:11:40   - Oh, here we go.

02:11:41   Here we go.

02:11:44   Obsidian screenshots.

02:11:46   - Yeah, I'm going to send you a little screenshot

02:11:48   of what it looks like.

02:11:50   Why are you so sad, Myke?

02:11:52   - I'm not sad.

02:11:53   Are you gonna send me the frickin' brain thing?

02:11:56   Like the--

02:11:57   - No, I'm not gonna send you the brain thing.

02:11:59   - What is that called?

02:12:00   What did I call that?

02:12:01   - They call that the everyone gets distracted

02:12:05   by this picture because it looks pretty,

02:12:07   but it's actually worthless for doing any work of you.

02:12:09   I think that's the name of what that's called.

02:12:10   - This is why I didn't wanna see it,

02:12:12   'cause it doesn't, it does nothing for me.

02:12:14   People-- - I almost never look at that

02:12:16   except every once in a while because it's just pretty,

02:12:18   but it's totally, I think it is not useful in any,

02:12:21   So here is like, actually what a useful writing environment looks like.

02:12:26   Obviously I've pixelated the script of a thing that I'm working on.

02:12:29   - Oh, this is so helpful for me to understand.

02:12:33   Uh-huh, uh-huh.

02:12:34   Mm, yes, yes, yes, I can very clearly see.

02:12:37   [laughter]

02:12:41   It's like, this is what you would see on an episode of Star Trek.

02:12:44   Like, this would be the screen on the alien ship.

02:12:48   - I think that's fair.

02:12:49   I think that's a fair assessment of what this looks like.

02:12:51   - I appreciate that you didn't remove the header tags.

02:12:55   - Oh, well, you know, you need to see where the header tags

02:12:57   are, I bet that's perfectly fine.

02:12:59   Okay, so here is why no one should do what I'm doing,

02:13:04   but also demonstrates like what is the weird power

02:13:08   of Obsidian?

02:13:09   So, Obsidian has a million billion features

02:13:14   and on top of those million billion features,

02:13:17   It also has plugins that you can turn on or off that make the app behave in different ways.

02:13:23   Now, the way I want the app to work when I am, say, writing notes on a topic

02:13:33   is different than the way I want the app to work when I am writing a script.

02:13:39   And so, just as a quick example, a lot of writing apps have something called typewriter mode

02:13:44   where the cursor will stay in the middle of the screen, so as you press the up and down arrows,

02:13:50   the text moves up and down, but the cursor stays put. And so typewriting mode for me when I'm

02:13:57   writing a script is like a total deal breaker feature. Like, if it doesn't work in typewriter

02:14:01   mode, like, I'm completely uninterested because I want the cursor in the middle so I can always see

02:14:06   the thing that I have written before this sentence and everything that I have written

02:14:11   after this sentence and having my cursor on the bottom of the screen is just like totally

02:14:18   dumb and useless and also unergonomic.

02:14:20   - Do you write that way or do you read like edit that way or is it both? It's like always?

02:14:26   - Always, yeah. So if I'm working on the script, I always want it in typewriter mode. So that

02:14:32   like the arrow keys are moving this river of text up and down but the cursor is staying

02:14:38   in the same place because for me it's really critical.

02:14:42   This paragraph is extremely contingent on what comes before and what comes after, so

02:14:48   I always have to be able to see it.

02:14:50   - When you say the same place, what about if you're editing on a line?

02:14:54   Do you move backwards and forwards on the line?

02:14:56   - Yeah, sorry, you can move backwards and forwards on a line.

02:14:58   You can move left and right, but the vertical position of the cursor always stays the same.

02:15:04   And if you use the mouse and you say, like, say you click at some location in a paragraph

02:15:08   that's above, when you click, that will jump down to the center line on the page.

02:15:15   So like, the vertical position of the cursor is unmovable and the text goes up and down.

02:15:21   Absolutely critical for writing scripts, but that behavior is completely infuriating for

02:15:27   a document that may be full of just notes and factual information about the thing that

02:15:33   you are writing.

02:15:34   Like you want to be able to scroll that in a different way or position the like, you

02:15:39   want to be picky for something that is a note for what's on the screen.

02:15:46   Because since it's not a continual river of text that's meant to be like read in an order,

02:15:51   it's just here's a bullet list of like a bunch of facts, you want to be able to have that

02:15:55   be in an arbitrary position on the screen.

02:15:57   So for a note app typewriter mode is a complete deal breaker.

02:16:02   like that would be infuriating if it was in typewriter mode for just this collection of notes that is not a script.

02:16:08   So I had this situation where I'm like, gee, I really like Obsidian.

02:16:12   I want to try writing my actual scripts in it, but I have these two completely incompatible ways in which I work

02:16:20   that I would like the app to do both at the same time, right?

02:16:24   And so I was thinking about this for a little while and Obsidian has this feature that they explicitly say,

02:16:30   We don't recommend you do this, but you can do this,

02:16:35   which is you can open up on your Mac

02:16:40   two copies of the Obsidian app,

02:16:44   which are both looking at the same database of information.

02:16:48   And so I have set up Obsidian so that I can run two versions

02:16:53   that are looking at the same database,

02:16:57   but they are accessing a different preference file for how Obsidian should work.

02:17:05   And so I can have this totally crazy situation where there is the writing version of Obsidian,

02:17:12   which is using my favorite black and green color scheme,

02:17:15   which I've used for years and years for writing scripts,

02:17:19   and it works in typewriter mode,

02:17:21   and it has some features about word count and some other little things.

02:17:25   So it's like, great, I can have one version of Obsidian that's just set up the way I want it for scripts,

02:17:31   and then behind it I can have this version that is just set up for all of the notes and information that I have

02:17:39   about the script that I'm working on.

02:17:42   And that one uses like this Neon 80s theme, which is fantastic,

02:17:46   and I can have it set in a very different way to operate.

02:17:49   So... - This is otherwise known as Sync Conflict Mode.

02:17:54   No, okay, so it's not sync, like, it's not sync conflict mode.

02:17:58   I can't understand how you can have two versions of the application

02:18:02   open at the same time and it not cause problems.

02:18:04   Uh, it doesn't. Like, if anyone wants to—I don't recommend anyone does this—but if anyone wants

02:18:11   to do this, the technical way that it occurs is Obsidian uses the phrase "vault" but they really

02:18:16   just mean a folder, so you can have—let me try to phrase this in a sensible way—I have my Obsidian

02:18:22   database. It exists in a folder and that folder has a file in it which is all of the preferences

02:18:29   for Obsidian. So when I open up Obsidian I point it at the folder. It loads all of the information

02:18:35   and it also loads the preference file. You can take that folder and put it inside another folder

02:18:45   which contains nothing except an additional preference file. And so that's how you can like

02:18:51   open two copies at once is it will look at the preference file that is in the folder you opened

02:18:58   and it will ignore any preference files that are in subfolders. So this is the way that it can work.

02:19:04   I have tested it very extensively that Obsidian is constantly reading all of the text files.

02:19:13   So if I type in one of the versions of Obsidian and I have that file open in the other version

02:19:20   of Obsidian, it changes instantly. Like, there is absolutely no delay. The app is just constantly

02:19:28   live reading all of the text in whatever documents that are open. So this is why I can be very

02:19:34   confident that there's not sync errors happening, because I think, like, it is reading all of those

02:19:41   files constantly when they are open. It is not checking in on them every once in a while. It

02:19:46   It seems like it is a live version of that text folder.

02:19:49   It does sound like scary sync conflicts are inevitable here, but I have had zero problems

02:19:56   with this on the Mac, so I would not be using this if I was worried about that, but I'm

02:20:02   reasonably confident that it isn't actually a problem because of the way that it's working.

02:20:06   So this is my current janky setup that I don't recommend to other people, but I have been

02:20:14   really pleased to have something to move to after Ulysses,

02:20:18   because I was just getting increasingly sad about that situation.

02:20:23   So what I'll just say is, like, this is really awesome.

02:20:27   Obsidian has a couple of killer features that I really like as well.

02:20:30   One of which is, there's a thing that you can enable which is called Workspaces,

02:20:35   where you can save an arrangement of text documents as like,

02:20:41   "Oh, I want to switch from this workspace to another workspace."

02:20:44   And so what is fantastic is if I'm working on two projects at once,

02:20:48   I can fussily arrange all of the different notes that I have about that project,

02:20:53   save it as a workspace, and then like load an older workspace and have it remember like,

02:20:59   "Oh, this is the way that you wanted all of these things arranged the other way."

02:21:03   Yeah.

02:21:03   I like that. That's cool.

02:21:04   It is really great.

02:21:06   And so like, what I'm able to do with the script is have the script in the center,

02:21:11   which is the green and black that you're looking at, and then on the side for this project, have

02:21:17   four or five other little windows of like notes about various parts of this open on the screen

02:21:25   and accessible, and I don't have to reset that up every time. And so one of the things that I'm

02:21:31   doing is like, oh, I can copy and paste paragraphs out where it's like, oh, I think I'm going to

02:21:35   delete this paragraph, but I just want to put it off on the side for a little while and leave it

02:21:39   there. And I want to have it on screen if I find another place where this can go. But if I don't,

02:21:45   that's fine. Or it's like, ooh, I can make a little narrow column that shows me what is the

02:21:50   timeline for when this is going to occur. Like that's really fantastic. Obsidian also has lots

02:21:56   of options for how you want markdown to work in terms of formatting things. So like you can sort

02:22:03   of see it on the little screenshot there. But it's like I can use yellow as like notes to the

02:22:08   animator when I first pass over the script of like, oh, this thing is a highlight. And that's

02:22:13   just a note to the animator. It's not actually in the script. It's really great with the way it

02:22:19   works with comments and like, oh, I can ignore comments from the word count. So I can like comment

02:22:23   out different sections. Oh, that's cool. It is super duper flexible. The only thing that it's

02:22:30   really missing is like two features but this is where, I don't know Myke, I don't know

02:22:36   if this is crazy but I've started to toy with the idea of like, could I hire someone to

02:22:41   work on a plugin to make it do the thing that I want to do?

02:22:45   - Federico has done this exact thing for his iOS review. He hired someone to work on some

02:22:49   plugins for him and he's done some bananas stuff.

02:22:52   - Alright this is immediately less crazy than I was thinking it was. Okay I was expecting

02:22:56   you to think that I've gone off the deep end with this.

02:22:58   - Oh, I do, but so is Federico, like both have.

02:23:02   - So the only two things that I'm missing

02:23:06   and the one that does feel kind of critical,

02:23:09   and it's my only frustration, is in apps like Ulysses

02:23:13   and apps like Scrivener,

02:23:15   like lots of professional writing apps,

02:23:17   they all have this concept that you're not working

02:23:21   with one big, long text document,

02:23:25   you're working with an arbitrarily large number of like little what they call sheets,

02:23:31   so you can divide up the script into arbitrary sheets,

02:23:34   and you can rearrange those anytime you want.

02:23:36   And like, that's the one thing in Obsidian that it is missing as a real professional writing tool,

02:23:42   but I think I can get 90% of the benefit if I could do something like,

02:23:47   I could put like an outline view that shows all of the different headers,

02:23:51   It's like if I could rearrange the order of the sections by dragging and dropping the headers in an outline view,

02:24:00   I feel like that's 95% of what I need from the concept of sheets,

02:24:03   and that would be a huge deal to be able to just like grab a section at the bottom and move it three sections up.

02:24:10   Yeah, I know I can do that through cutting and pasting, but it's so annoying to do it that way,

02:24:16   And it's like, it's way easier just to be able to drag and drop like different

02:24:20   sections up and down in a script, which is a thing I do constantly about deciding,

02:24:25   "Oh, the thing I talked about early should actually happen later."

02:24:27   That's probably the number one thing that I would want.

02:24:30   But this is the interesting thing about Obsidian that makes it different from

02:24:34   other apps is like, I don't have to in theory, just sit around and pray that

02:24:39   the developer adds it, it's like, maybe I could just get someone to make it for me.

02:24:44   It is very interesting, and if I do end up going down this route of trying to get people to make plugins for me that do exactly what I want in Obsidian,

02:24:57   I could see this app becoming nearly impossible to move away from at some point in the future,

02:25:02   because it's like, "Ooh, if I can get all of the picky stuff exactly the way I want it to be,

02:25:08   boy, is that gonna be very, very hard to move away from at some point in the future."

02:25:13   So that is my situation with Obsidian.

02:25:16   It's still a crazy complicated app, but I'm really glad that I came across it.

02:25:24   And I don't give app of the year awards, but I would 100% give it to Obsidian

02:25:29   for slowly taking over almost everything I do that has anything to do with text.

02:25:35   It's funny how you keep saying that every year that you don't give up

02:25:38   at the year awards, but then you keep giving an app of the year awards.

02:25:42   That's not the case. That hasn't happened before.

02:25:44   Fair enough.

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02:27:39   [BEEP]

02:27:40   Lightning round time!

02:27:42   Oh, lightning round. Okay, let's go.

02:27:44   Do you want to start?

02:27:44   Uh, yeah, I will start because I was just going to mention one little thing

02:27:47   which has to do with research, but I can mention it here instead.

02:27:50   I can mention Reader as part of my lightning round.

02:27:53   Oh, okay.

02:27:54   Again, completely because of your suggestion of moving to RSS

02:27:58   and looking for a good RSS reader.

02:28:00   Cool, I wasn't going to say it because basically I had the same thing as last year

02:28:03   for me with research, which is just,

02:28:05   I use the Reader app and RSS,

02:28:08   to get all of the stories that I need for my shows.

02:28:11   I didn't really feel like I had new to add.

02:28:13   But I'm pleased that you're on it too.

02:28:14   It's a great app.

02:28:15   - Yeah, it's a really great app.

02:28:17   The thing that's also interesting to me is,

02:28:19   I asked you last year, like,

02:28:20   "Ooh, what did you think of its Read Later features?"

02:28:22   And it's not something that you use,

02:28:24   but Reader has now displaced what was the oldest app

02:28:29   still in use on my phone, which was Instapaper.

02:28:32   Evernote has left because of Obsidian and Instapaper was now the oldest continually used app on my phone

02:28:39   But Reader has dethroned it like I've stopped using Instapaper and I'm using Reader's Read Later stuff instead

02:28:44   there are still some things I like better about Instapaper, but

02:28:47   Reader's winning out on the convenience front for I can put RSS feeds and Read Later stuff in one spot

02:28:54   So I'm not quite sure anymore what the oldest continually used app on my phone is

02:28:59   But it is no longer Instapaper and I just wanted to say I really appreciated your recommendation for it

02:29:05   It just got under my skin thinking about RSS and I have been very

02:29:11   Intentionally trying to filter the entirety of my internet experience through RSS and it has definitely made my

02:29:19   internetting over the last

02:29:22   year way better like I just I really appreciate being able to do this and I

02:29:27   I think I am coming to the conclusion of if I cannot get it through RSS,

02:29:32   I'm just, it doesn't exist in my world.

02:29:35   I agree with you.

02:29:36   Two big thumbs up for Reader, and also two big thumbs up for RSS as well.

02:29:41   It's a real shame when I come across an interesting blog, but they don't have an RSS feed,

02:29:45   and I'm like, "Well, I'm sorry, you're just not going to get added onto my lists."

02:29:50   My first pick is an app called Parcel.

02:29:53   I have been for a very long time a big fan of the app Deliveries.

02:29:58   It's a parcel tracker. It's available on all platforms.

02:30:02   There was something, though, that Deliveries was a frustration for me.

02:30:05   A lot of the services that I would get Deliveries for

02:30:08   didn't have any information in.

02:30:10   I'd have to go and log in to the website or open the web page and track it.

02:30:14   So, like, say, by royal mail, our postal service,

02:30:17   it would not show me any status updates.

02:30:20   It would just be like, you have to log in,

02:30:21   You have to click, you have to go to the web to see information about this item.

02:30:25   There's a new app called Parcel that has vastly better tracking for many of the

02:30:31   services that I use. So for example, Royal Mail deliveries, it has them, it has all

02:30:36   of the tracking information loaded into the application itself. It gives me push

02:30:40   notifications when I want them for certain things. It is not as visually

02:30:44   pleasing as Deliveries is, but it has I think better tracking for basically all

02:30:50   all of the services that I use.

02:30:52   Plus it has an Amazon integration where you,

02:30:55   in the app, you sign in with your Amazon account

02:30:57   and it automatically adds all of your Amazon items

02:31:01   to the application.

02:31:02   - Ooh, that's killer.

02:31:05   - It's really good.

02:31:06   And if you're using a service and it changes,

02:31:10   like let's imagine you're using USPS

02:31:13   and then it becomes a Royal Mail Delivery,

02:31:14   it recognizes that in the app and asks

02:31:16   if you want to change to the new tracking.

02:31:19   - Mm, nice. - So good.

02:31:22   It's a very, very good app.

02:31:24   I've been very, very happy with it.

02:31:25   - Okay, I have a half recommendation, but I do like it.

02:31:29   It is a bike app.

02:31:31   It's called Bike Citizens.

02:31:33   I think it is by far and away the best route finder

02:31:36   if you're gonna be on a bike and go somewhere else.

02:31:38   - Oh, I've heard of this.

02:31:40   - Yeah, it has a lot of nice features.

02:31:42   Primarily, I don't know how they do it.

02:31:44   It seems like magic, but they do a fantastic job

02:31:48   of offering you two or three different options for the route

02:31:52   based on, do you want to get there the fastest?

02:31:55   Do you want to get there the easiest?

02:31:58   Or are you willing to have like a medium one

02:32:01   where you might make some compromises

02:32:04   of like, this is not always the easiest,

02:32:05   but it will save you a bunch of time over the easy route?

02:32:08   - I would assume easiest tends to mean safest as well

02:32:12   for driving. - Yes.

02:32:13   Yeah, easiest tends to mean safest.

02:32:15   I think they're also taking into account elevation changes,

02:32:18   But yeah, it's largely like, what is the safest route?

02:32:23   And I've ridden around London a lot,

02:32:25   like I've gotten to know quite well

02:32:26   a bunch of different routes in the center of the city.

02:32:29   I'm just amazed at how good of a job

02:32:31   whatever algorithm they're using does

02:32:34   at picking those three variations on the routes.

02:32:37   It's, I don't know, it's like shockingly good.

02:32:41   Sometimes it almost seems like human level intelligence.

02:32:43   They have some crazy database of the city

02:32:46   that includes just tons of little details of,

02:32:51   oh, this street doesn't technically have a connection,

02:32:54   but you can just walk over this tiny bit of pavement

02:32:57   and you can do that because you're on a bike.

02:32:59   Like, I don't know how they get some of the data in there

02:33:01   that they do.

02:33:02   The root algorithm is fantastic.

02:33:05   The only reason it's a tepid recommendation is,

02:33:08   like many apps, they did a redesign

02:33:10   and I hate the redesign.

02:33:13   They added a bunch of social crap

02:33:15   And I'm continually frustrated that they don't, on the map,

02:33:18   like put your location at the bottom

02:33:22   so that I can see where the route goes

02:33:25   for 100% of the phone rather than 50% of the phone.

02:33:28   'Cause like, I don't care what's behind me.

02:33:30   I only care what's in front of me.

02:33:32   So I do find it frustrating sometimes for that.

02:33:34   But God damn, like if you are in a city

02:33:37   that Bike Citizens has mapped, it is fantastic.

02:33:40   Especially if you are just getting started out

02:33:44   on cycling and you want some easy routes,

02:33:48   they can find the best ones.

02:33:50   So this is actually an app that I like,

02:33:52   I secretly hope that Apple acquires them

02:33:54   'cause I think like this needs to get added to Apple Maps

02:33:58   for way better bike route planning.

02:34:00   - If you ever take screenshots on your Mac,

02:34:04   you should get CleanShot X.

02:34:06   - Why?

02:34:08   - So it has way more customization and tools

02:34:12   like if the way that screenshots are dealt with.

02:34:15   I love the drag and drop that you can do.

02:34:18   It has some hover states,

02:34:19   so you can just hover over the image

02:34:21   and a couple of buttons pop up.

02:34:22   One is copy, one is delete, and one is edit.

02:34:27   So you can put some annotation stuff,

02:34:30   there's tons of annotation tools.

02:34:32   It does all of the stuff like you can do video

02:34:35   and make GIFs, or you could do images,

02:34:38   or you can do scrolling images

02:34:40   if you need to catch a webpage.

02:34:42   It's fantastic.

02:34:43   It's such a good application.

02:34:45   I really recommend it.

02:34:47   It has timers, you know, so you can set a timer,

02:34:49   like give me three seconds to get this thing set up,

02:34:52   that kind of stuff.

02:34:53   So many preferences for the way that you deal with things,

02:34:57   which I really, really love.

02:34:59   You can do stuff like if you're capturing your desktop,

02:35:02   you can have it hide the documents on the desktop.

02:35:06   Like, it's so smart.

02:35:07   It does some really smart stuff

02:35:10   and has tons of really great options.

02:35:12   You can set keyboard shortcuts

02:35:13   for every type of screen capture that it does.

02:35:16   You can choose where on the screen

02:35:18   you want the little preview to be,

02:35:19   like how Apple does the preview,

02:35:20   it does their own version of that.

02:35:22   You can choose where on the screen you want it to be,

02:35:24   how big it is, if it will auto close or not.

02:35:28   So like Apple's, it will stay for a little while

02:35:30   and disappear with Clean Shot, you just turn that off.

02:35:32   And you can capture multiple things and they stack.

02:35:35   It's fantastic.

02:35:36   Trust me on this, if you take screenshots on the Mac,

02:35:39   you should be using this app.

02:35:41   - Okay, I'll give it a try.

02:35:42   I feel like the Apple screenshot thing is great on its own,

02:35:46   so that's why I feel dubious, like how could it be better?

02:35:48   But we'll give that one a try. - It's better.

02:35:50   - Okay, I'm gonna say if you ever have to pick colors

02:35:55   that go together well, I'm going to recommend an app called

02:35:59   Coolers, C-O-O-L-O-R-S.

02:36:03   I'm just-- - Cooler colors, right?

02:36:04   - Yeah, cooler colors.

02:36:06   I feel like this is a narrow use case,

02:36:09   but it is one of these areas where I am just,

02:36:12   this is a weakness for me,

02:36:13   I am not good at picking several colors

02:36:16   that look good together.

02:36:17   And I have tried a million color palette tools

02:36:22   and I have never loved any of them.

02:36:25   But Coolers is fantastic.

02:36:28   The thing that I really like about it is

02:36:31   you can start with a color that you like

02:36:35   and kind of lock it in and the app will continue

02:36:38   to show you a bunch of random other colors that it thinks will go well with the color

02:36:42   that you've picked.

02:36:44   And as soon as you find another one that you like, you can lock that color in, and then

02:36:48   it will show you a bunch of random colors that match those two.

02:36:52   Okay, that's cool.

02:36:53   It makes it so nice.

02:36:55   If you have to pick five colors that go well together, this tool is just the best.

02:37:00   And if you don't know where to start, you can just start with it showing you random

02:37:04   colors.

02:37:05   color that you like and again just like lock it in and build up a bunch of other colors that match

02:37:09   with it. Trust me I've tried a million of these things and this is the best one by far.

02:37:15   - I've immediately sent this to Adina because she's always struggling with trying to find

02:37:21   complementary colors for her comics. - Yeah it's surprisingly hard.

02:37:25   - Yeah. - Like some people are just great at this but

02:37:28   I'm really bad at it and so yeah for anyone in the art world if you're one of match colors.

02:37:33   So you find the color from somewhere and then it's like, "Hey, here's some that work with

02:37:37   this."

02:37:38   Yes.

02:37:39   That's really cool.

02:37:40   But like, in particular, like it's the progressive locking in that makes it different.

02:37:45   And also, I think allows you to find unexpected color combos that match.

02:37:50   So yeah, I just I really like it.

02:37:53   It's just so much better than pre-selecting from a bunch of popular color palettes, which

02:37:58   is what most of these apps do.

02:38:00   Or just like, you pick one color and then it just gives you, oh, here's the three that

02:38:06   match best on the color wheel.

02:38:07   It's like, but that's almost never what I actually want.

02:38:10   Like, yeah, I can pick colors that are all 60 degrees apart on the color wheel too.

02:38:14   But like, that's not really what I'm looking for when I'm trying to find some colors that

02:38:18   go together.

02:38:19   So I really like it.

02:38:20   - Bartender.

02:38:21   - Good old Bartender.

02:38:22   - App for the Mac that helps you manage the menu bar items that sit on the top right hand

02:38:27   side of the screen.

02:38:28   that you hide them, show them,

02:38:30   actually create another menu for them.

02:38:32   This is especially helpful

02:38:33   if you have one of the new MacBook Pros

02:38:35   that has a notch on it,

02:38:36   because now it has good support for that.

02:38:39   So you can make sure that all of your menu bar items

02:38:41   are exactly where you want them to be.

02:38:43   And you can have more of them enabled if you want,

02:38:45   but hide the ones that you don't want to see all the time.

02:38:48   It's a great app.

02:38:49   - Yeah, this is like required installation

02:38:51   on a new computer for me as bartender.

02:38:53   Like boy, boy, does that very quickly

02:38:55   become necessary to install.

02:38:57   Speaking of computers with notches, I'm going to recommend an app called Top Notch.

02:39:02   Made by the people who make Clean Shop.

02:39:04   Oh, is it? Okay, I didn't know that.

02:39:06   It is a free app, Top Notch, and it is marketing, really, for Clean Shop.

02:39:10   Oh, I did not realize that, but yes, Top Notch is great.

02:39:13   I do love the new laptops that have been gifted to us from heaven.

02:39:18   I don't mind the notch, but I just like it to look cleaner,

02:39:22   where top notch will just turn the top whatever it is,

02:39:26   you know, three quarters of a centimeter,

02:39:28   black on your wallpaper,

02:39:30   so that it just gives it a cleaner look,

02:39:32   it just puts the menu bar as a pure black thing

02:39:35   along the top, and the notch completely disappears

02:39:38   into that, so I think it is fantastic.

02:39:40   I really like the way that it looks.

02:39:41   - I haven't tried that one yet,

02:39:43   but I think it will just, like,

02:39:44   I have no issue with the notch at all,

02:39:45   I think it looks pretty cool,

02:39:46   but I can imagine that that would also look cool,

02:39:48   just like an all black menu bar,

02:39:50   probably looks pretty sweet.

02:39:51   - Yeah, I like it quite a lot.

02:39:52   I don't think the notch is annoying.

02:39:54   I just like it better looking black.

02:39:55   I feel like it's very slick across the top like that.

02:39:58   - Rocket, so another Mac app.

02:40:00   So Discord and Slack have a really great way

02:40:04   of finding emoji.

02:40:04   You just type colon and then start typing some words

02:40:07   and it gives you emoji suggestions.

02:40:09   Rocket does this for everywhere you input text on a Mac.

02:40:13   - Okay, it's fast emoji search universally.

02:40:16   That's what it is?

02:40:16   - Yeah, I think it also does GIF too,

02:40:18   but I only use it for that.

02:40:20   but it basically just allows you to use the same shortcuts

02:40:23   that you like, you know, text shortcuts,

02:40:26   if that makes sense, in Slack to bring up emoji

02:40:29   that you like.

02:40:29   You can just do this anywhere that you type text at all.

02:40:32   So I use this in messages, I use it, you know,

02:40:35   like on Twitter and stuff like that.

02:40:37   It's really, really great.

02:40:38   Just very simple, it's a nice little application.

02:40:41   And you can also do GIFs and stuff like that

02:40:43   if you want to.

02:40:44   - Nice.

02:40:45   I'm gonna recommend a little plugin for Safari

02:40:47   called PipaFire.

02:40:50   - PipaFire.

02:40:50   - All this does is it allows you to do picture in picture

02:40:54   for anything that's playing a video.

02:40:57   So while picture in picture works by default

02:41:00   in lots of places like YouTube,

02:41:02   it doesn't work with places like Netflix all the time

02:41:04   or Amazon Prime.

02:41:05   And so PipaFire is nice to force some videos

02:41:09   to be the picture in picture thing

02:41:10   that floats in the corner of your Mac.

02:41:12   And so I use that a lot on my computer

02:41:15   when I'm doing some light work

02:41:16   and I also want to be watching a video from some place

02:41:18   that doesn't play well with Picture-in-Picture.

02:41:20   - My final one is also a Safari extension

02:41:24   because Safari extensions also are available

02:41:28   on iOS and iPadOS now too.

02:41:30   And I use this one extension on all of my devices,

02:41:33   it's called SuperAgent.

02:41:35   All it does is automatically fill out

02:41:37   website cookie forms for you.

02:41:39   So you never have to see them.

02:41:43   You set the default preferences you want for cookie types

02:41:46   and you never see them again

02:41:48   because Super Agent just fills them out.

02:41:51   - Nice.

02:41:52   - It's so good.

02:41:53   Just get rid of those things.

02:41:55   I never want to see them again

02:41:56   and Super Agent make sure that I don't.

02:41:57   - Okay, I'm going to finish off

02:41:59   with just a weird recommendation.

02:42:01   I'm going to recommend Numbers,

02:42:03   which is Apple's app that makes spreadsheets.

02:42:06   No, but like, here's the reason I'm going to make this pitch.

02:42:10   Numbers is a spreadsheet app.

02:42:13   It is hands down the app that makes the most beautiful spreadsheets.

02:42:17   They just look really nice.

02:42:18   If you're an individual who needs to work with spreadsheets,

02:42:21   I really suggest that you should use Numbers.

02:42:23   But I know that for years,

02:42:25   there has been one thing that has held people back

02:42:28   from using Numbers, and they say,

02:42:30   "Yeah, but does it have pivot tables?"

02:42:33   And the answer has always been,

02:42:34   "No, Numbers does not have pivot tables."

02:42:37   And they go, "Well, I can't use it."

02:42:39   but Apple has just introduced pivot tables to Numbers.

02:42:43   I have no idea what pivot tables are.

02:42:46   I just know that this is like a critical feature

02:42:48   to lots of people who use spreadsheets.

02:42:51   So if that's you, you can now consider Numbers.

02:42:55   And I have used all of the spreadsheet apps very intensely.

02:43:00   I think Numbers really is great.

02:43:02   And if pivot tables were holding you back,

02:43:04   I just want to have the announcement

02:43:06   that they are in Numbers now.

02:43:08   So I'm going to recommend Numbers as a spreadsheet app.

02:43:11   - All right, you said that we needed to follow up

02:43:14   on our flighty stats prediction, so.

02:43:17   - Yeah, we do.

02:43:19   - In 2019, we played the game we'd never played before,

02:43:22   how many miles had we flown in that year?

02:43:25   And then we made a jokey reference to it in 2020

02:43:28   because 2020, right?

02:43:31   - Right.

02:43:32   - And we made a bet as to whether we would have in 2021

02:43:36   higher or lower air miles flown than in 2020.

02:43:40   - Right.

02:43:41   - Now I have a slight problem with this.

02:43:43   - Okay, what's your problem?

02:43:44   - I'm hoping to take a trip before the end of the year.

02:43:48   (laughing)

02:43:49   So I don't have all my miles yet for 2021.

02:43:53   - Right, but you're not 100% sure

02:43:55   if you're gonna take a trip.

02:43:56   - Well, who can be?

02:43:57   - Right, no one.

02:43:58   - So I don't, I mean, I can do it now,

02:44:00   but like, I would like to push this on a bit

02:44:03   and do it later.

02:44:04   you would like to push this on and do it later?

02:44:06   - The year's not done.

02:44:07   2021 is not done.

02:44:08   - 2021 is not done.

02:44:09   That is true.

02:44:11   I think this is funny because I am in almost

02:44:13   the exact same situation.

02:44:14   So my 2020 number was 11,000 miles.

02:44:19   My 2021 number is 9,400 miles.

02:44:26   And 2021, like, I think it is,

02:44:29   I don't want to bet.

02:44:32   So like, if we're trying to collect the bet right now,

02:44:34   I have been 100% wrong, 'cause I bet it's gonna be higher

02:44:37   in 2021 than 2020.

02:44:38   - We both bet higher.

02:44:40   - We both bet higher.

02:44:41   This was my don't bet against the base rate

02:44:43   and kind of like a return to the average,

02:44:45   which would have been true if like the summer travel

02:44:49   had actually started when summer travel was supposed to.

02:44:52   I would without doubt be above that number now,

02:44:54   but it didn't.

02:44:55   And that's how bets work, it's like, no, I was wrong.

02:44:59   but it is possible that I may just before the end

02:45:03   of the year take another trip,

02:45:05   which we'll just edge it out over.

02:45:08   - So I propose considering we are in 100% control

02:45:11   of this bet, that we just push the bet on maybe

02:45:15   to next time and we have got value eight then.

02:45:18   - I have a conference that I might be going to in America,

02:45:21   which is at the very beginning of January.

02:45:23   And so it was just a question of when do I leave in December

02:45:27   if I'm going to do this or do I leave in January?

02:45:30   Which also now has the confounding factor

02:45:32   of how much do I care about winning the bet

02:45:34   because then I can go earlier.

02:45:36   - You're just winning bets against ourselves.

02:45:38   But I'm just, I am very confident at this point

02:45:41   that my air miles will be high.

02:45:43   I don't know if it's gonna be higher than 2020

02:45:45   'cause I haven't calculated that yet.

02:45:48   But I haven't taken all of the trips

02:45:50   that I'm planning to take.

02:45:52   So I'm hopefully going on vacation,

02:45:54   which might play into our next episode anyway,

02:45:58   which is, so now the barrier is really coming down,

02:46:03   next time on Cortex, yearly themes for 2022.

02:46:09   So get your themes ready, catch up on old theme episodes.

02:46:14   You could also go to theme-system.com

02:46:16   if you want a bit of a refresher as to what a theme is,

02:46:18   'cause we have all of that on the website,

02:46:20   'cause we're gonna be talking about them,

02:46:21   We're both working on them.

02:46:23   So it's nearly that time.

02:46:24   Yearly themes for 2022.