75: Home Again

0:00:00We had a real marathon of a show last time, Myke.

0:00:03I was tired, very tired. I think I'm still tired.

0:00:05I don't remember what it was. I just know I had some plans after last episode

0:00:10that as soon as I was done recording, I was like, "You know what I'm gonna do?

0:00:13I'm just gonna sit on the couch and I'm gonna watch Netflix until I fall asleep on the couch.

0:00:17And that's gonna be the rest of my day." And it was.

0:00:19It was a real day.

0:00:22I'm very happy for you because we recorded the episode a little bit late,

0:00:26So my task that evening was to start editing it.

0:00:29I think that's why I'm still tired.

0:00:32- I'm sorry.

0:00:35So you had to go through that conversation twice in one day.

0:00:38- Yeah.

0:00:38- I have occasionally done the record and edit

0:00:45on the same day and it's, in some ways it's easier

0:00:48because it's fresh in your head,

0:00:49but in some ways it's 10 times more exhausting

0:00:53and particularly for an episode like that.

0:00:56But you did get me the edit, and I just have this little point of feedback, which

0:01:02it's a point of feedback for me on that episode, because I was listening during

0:01:08this edit and it will never cease to amaze me how, listener, if you ever, if

0:01:14you ever start a podcast, you think, oh, I can just talk and ideas come out of my

0:01:19head and they, and they make sense.

0:01:21And I say them into the air and they go out there and it's like,

0:01:24cause that's how we all work.

0:01:25Right?

0:01:25Like, and that's just every day you say things because that's a good idea.

0:01:28Or like that's interesting is you're just talking.

0:01:30It's how people communicate.

0:01:32Yeah.

0:01:32You think you're just talking and it is only when, when you have to listen to

0:01:37yourself that you are faced with the reality of how poorly you communicate

0:01:41ideas sometimes.

0:01:42And I was listening to myself in that episode and I kept thinking, when is this

0:01:48idiot going to make this fundamental point clear and spoiler, he never did.

0:01:53And it's always like, it's always just such an amazing disassociative experience to hear yourself on a podcast in important conversations.

0:02:02It's like, this isn't clear at all.

0:02:04So we were having a discussion about podcasts versus YouTube and all of the algorithms and like this whole thing.

0:02:13And you were the heroic defender of podcasters in this conversation, I believe is that I think that's what it was.

0:02:21And like, I kept trying to agree with you,

0:02:24but I was doing it in just the worst way.

0:02:26So let me try to just say the thing now

0:02:29that I wish I had said in the last episode,

0:02:32which is part of the reason I mentioned podcasts

0:02:37as an example is precisely because they don't have

0:02:42these algorithmic properties that we were discussing

0:02:48last time that like YouTube does,

0:02:49where YouTube learns what keeps you there.

0:02:52And the reason it was such a red flag for me,

0:02:58my podcasting behavior, is precisely because I felt like,

0:03:02oh, my brain has been put into like a weakened,

0:03:07less attentive, less focused state

0:03:15by all of the algorithmic content that it is exposed to.

0:03:20So that even in a scenario, like with podcasts,

0:03:24where those algorithms don't exist,

0:03:27I'm still acting almost as though they do,

0:03:30because my brain has been trained this way.

0:03:34So that's why it struck me as like a real red flag behavior

0:03:36because like the algorithms aren't even here,

0:03:40but I'm still, I've been trained in this pattern

0:03:44of information consumption that is being spread out into other places where information consumption

0:03:53can be easier or simpler than something like reading a book. So that's all it was. I

0:04:00feel like this is a relatively straightforward sentence that I just somehow never said in

0:04:05the show. So that's all. That's my point of follow-up for past me and his inability

0:04:11to say this particular point.

0:04:14So I think I'm understanding you.

0:04:17Like what you're saying is you just can't stop binging them because your brain continues

0:04:24to tell you to do that even though the medium isn't necessarily made for that.

0:04:30I've built this little loop of going in a circle between a bunch of websites where I'm

0:04:34just like "oh I'm checking this place and then I'm going over here and I'm reading this

0:04:37comment thread and then I'm going back and I'm reading this other comment thread and

0:04:40and then I returned back to the place that I just came from even though nothing has changed.

0:04:43I will tell you, since we recorded that episode, I've been much more aware of me doing that

0:04:48stuff.

0:04:49Oh really?

0:04:50Yeah, I've just noticed that like, and it's something that comes up every now and then,

0:04:54that like you open an app, close the app, and open it again.

0:04:57But I've just been much more aware of my personal loops and patterns than I think I have been

0:05:03before.

0:05:04That's interesting to hear.

0:05:05It is such a funny thing and I think it's easy to blow off that behavior, but I really

0:05:13think that that behavior is induced in a person intentionally.

0:05:16That's the intended outcome.

0:05:19But there are certain tools that are trying to induce that behavior.

0:05:24And you are right, that is my feeling of it, that it's like I've been trained in these

0:05:29little loops and the training results in like shorter attention spans or less ability to focus.

0:05:37And then this is manifesting itself in all sorts of other areas that don't actually have anything

0:05:45to do with the source of the problem. So it's it's it was much more like my podcast listening habits

0:05:53and particularly the thing with the shower for me is like a real symptom, but it's a symptom of

0:06:00something else. And so that's really what I was just trying to say.

0:06:04It makes more sense to me.

0:06:07If I had only said it at the time.

0:06:09I know, because my main complaint was like, the algorithm and the podcast didn't go together,

0:06:16but you were missing that middle part of explaining the bridge, which wasn't in your video,

0:06:21which you were saying, like, "I didn't explain my point, but then you never explained it."

0:06:26- Right, but I never explained it again.

0:06:28But that's why, like, when I was listening back to me, I thought,

0:06:30"That guy who was recording the podcast with you,

0:06:34he knew this connection that the guy who made the video didn't.

0:06:40He had articulated this thought by that time in his own head,

0:06:43but then he neglected to actually communicate that part to you."

0:06:47But this is why, you know, in that conversation,

0:06:52it was very clear, like I've been thinking this topic

0:06:55through and it's like, it really feels like it's

0:06:57a developing thing and again, it is interesting,

0:07:02it's super interesting to me that like after the last show,

0:07:06tons of people that I know in my personal

0:07:10and professional life, you know, reached out and were like,

0:07:13sort of like you just said there,

0:07:16that they noticed habits in themselves

0:07:18that they just didn't really,

0:07:19they weren't mindful of before

0:07:21or expressed a similar idea.

0:07:25But there's something in this topic

0:07:27which seems to touch a lot of people in different ways.

0:07:30Like it doesn't express itself in everybody in the same way,

0:07:33which is part of what makes it so difficult to talk about.

0:07:37But I really find that if this topic resonates with someone,

0:07:41it resonates with them pretty strongly.

0:07:45but it can be very hard to define the boundaries of what is and is not exactly what we're

0:07:52talking about here.

0:07:53I 100% agree. Like I think this ties into what I was talking about last time with like

0:08:01just thinking through some different stuff and like making some small changes. You know,

0:08:07the more I think about what you're doing, whilst I have no desire to follow the path

0:08:12that you've chosen because it's just not for me, right? Like the complete removal,

0:08:17it's just not something... I feel like I would be punishing myself as opposed to getting a relief,

0:08:22which yeah, I think that's the difference between the two of us.

0:08:25Yeah, and then that would be dumb and pointless.

0:08:27Yeah, it's like there's no good in that, right? Like I'm punishing myself and also

0:08:31making myself worse at my job, right? Like I just don't understand the benefit for me.

0:08:35But it has kind of just brought forward into my mind to think a little bit more consciously

0:08:42about what I'm doing in a day. And I don't know what that means yet. And I think that this is the

0:08:50start of me working out my theme for next year. I think that I'm building towards something here.

0:08:56I don't know what it is yet. I've seen some interesting characterizations in the Reddit of

0:09:00what I was talking about last time, right? Like people like throwing out some names and that's

0:09:04like, "Oh, okay, like if that becomes a thing, I don't want to spoil it. No spoilers. You

0:09:08can't do yearly themes until we all know this, right? Yearly themes come in January."

0:09:12Even though it seems like it's a great time to talk about it, but okay.

0:09:14But we don't need to do that. I did actually notice a lot of feedback in the Reddit of

0:09:18people, and this was like happening in between the time that we recorded and published. There

0:09:24were multiple threads in the Cortex subreddit about people thinking of their new themes.

0:09:27And I was like, "Huh, this must be the time that like..."

0:09:31It is the time.

0:09:32No, it's the time you start thinking, it's not the time you set it.

0:09:34We haven't set it yet.

0:09:35You think, it's like, "Oh, I'm thinking about it."

0:09:38The leaves are starting to change.

0:09:40It's like it is the perfect time to start reflecting on your previous year and starting

0:09:47to think about what you want the next one to be.

0:09:49In all seriousness, it's the perfect time for that.

0:09:51I think it's too soon to just be like, "All right, I'm thinking about it.

0:09:55I've set it and I'm going to go."

0:09:56That doesn't work for me.

0:09:58I want some time to let it embed.

0:10:01And so like, you know, I'm just in that phase right now. And I think that considering my

0:10:05usage of everything in my life a little bit more, not just the internet, like how much

0:10:11time I spend on video games, and they're just like, just trying to take stock of it all

0:10:15a little bit. I think that's kind of where I am right now.

0:10:17Yeah, I'll mention another phrasing that I have used since I started the time tracking.

0:10:26And I should say, since I started the time tracking full time, you know, when I wasn't

0:10:30just tracking the work hours.

0:10:32And what is an extremely important tag for me

0:10:36across some activities is intentional versus unintentional.

0:10:41And so watching Netflix is,

0:10:49it's a totally different experience,

0:10:51whether it is intentional or unintentional.

0:10:55Like, oh, I'm sitting down to watch a thing

0:10:59is very different from I'm sitting on the couch

0:11:02and I'm just bored and I want something to occupy me, right?

0:11:06Like the second one is like this unintentionally,

0:11:08like I'm just looking for whatever.

0:11:11And there are a lot of activities that are like that

0:11:14where I have a marker for these two different things.

0:11:17Like am I playing video games intentionally?

0:11:21That's great.

0:11:22That's actually high quality time

0:11:23if I have sat down and decided

0:11:25that this is the thing that I want to do now.

0:11:27Or am I just unintentionally doing this thing?

0:11:32Like, oh, I just kind of blew the evening on the internet

0:11:36and I didn't mean to.

0:11:38Whereas like when shows went up and I would go on the Reddit,

0:11:42like that is tracked as intentional internet.

0:11:44Like I'm here, I'm looking at feedback,

0:11:46I'm replying to people and then I'm out of here, right?

0:11:49And it's like, that's intentional internet versus like,

0:11:51oh, I just sat down on the couch

0:11:53and the iPad was next to me.

0:11:54And then I put it on me and I just read the Reddit

0:11:59and oh, Netflix is also just on in the background

0:12:01and I'm not paying attention to Netflix

0:12:03and I'm not paying attention to Reddit either.

0:12:06It's like, oh, that's terrible.

0:12:08Like it's a terrible way to spend a life.

0:12:10Anyway, I just mentioned that because I find

0:12:12that phrasing really useful because even though I am

0:12:16taking this rather dramatic break from the internet,

0:12:19in normal life, there are lots of activities

0:12:22where the intentionality matters.

0:12:25And I think it's really important to have

0:12:29like a war on unintentionally in your life.

0:12:31Like don't do things unintentionally,

0:12:33do them intentionally.

0:12:34Hello, cortexins.

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0:15:36Great, I get feedback for shows, right? Like all the shows that I do people send

0:15:42in suggestions and they send in comments and stuff like that. It's great. I have

0:15:45never ever, for any show I've ever done in the last eight years, received as much

0:15:51feedback as I did for suggestions on music. And I know now this is going to be

0:15:59something that continues probably for the next five years.

0:16:02Yeah, yeah. But I am not complaining because I have found some brilliant

0:16:10stuff from Cortex listeners. But there are hundreds of comments, hundreds of

0:16:16threads with more comments in them. But by that pure amount, some names bubbled up a

0:16:26a lot. So like that just getting the pure amount has allowed me to surface a few specific artists

0:16:34that I really like. Okay so do you have some lyric-less suggestions for me? I do. I'm looking

0:16:39for music like this and I always find it very hard so what have you distilled down for me here?

0:16:44Okay so one is Tycho. Oh I on heavy rotation so when I try to find this music there's like

0:16:53in Apple Radio there's something that's like some radio station called Electronic Chill.

0:16:57- Yeah, a bunch of people recommended those types of things to me too.

0:17:01- Yeah, it's not very good but occasionally it hits just right. And there's some Tycho song

0:17:07that I found which has just been on really heavy background loop. But I never really thought to

0:17:14investigate farther. So okay, this sounds like a winner.

0:17:16- So I've been listening to Tycho's album Awake a lot and I've added

0:17:22all of their previous albums to my Apple music. I haven't started listening to those yet.

0:17:27Timecop 1983, an album called Night Drive. There is an instrumental version and a version with

0:17:35lyrics. It is so good. It's just 80s electronic music. It's so good. So good. I love this album.

0:17:44There's an entire genre of music called synthwave. And I've been finding some compilations of this.

0:17:52and I'm trying to find what I like and don't like about it, so I'm still kind of like digging into that.

0:17:56I don't have any artists specifically.

0:17:58Um, deadmau5, you know, D-E-A-D-M-A-U-5, the mouse guy, you know, deadmau5, right?

0:18:06Sure, you would know him if you saw him.

0:18:08No, yeah, I remember-

0:18:09The DJ who wears the big mouse head, the big fun mouse head.

0:18:11I remember a YouTube clip where he threw a concert on a Minecraft server,

0:18:16where at the end he dumped everyone into lava.

0:18:18That is how I know deadmau5.

0:18:20Deadmau5.

0:18:21Alright, well, whatever it is, you've got some kind of cultural touchpoint.

0:18:26The most important cultural touchpoint, I'm sure.

0:18:28And I've been listening to an album called Where's the Drop quite a lot, and also Explosions

0:18:34in the Sky is another band.

0:18:37And I've slightly listened to that today, I'm not 100% sure how I feel about that

0:18:41yet.

0:18:42What I have come to understand about myself is primarily the stuff that I seem to be drawn

0:18:47to is electronic music.

0:18:49I didn't really know that I liked electronic music as much as I do, but it turns out I really really like it

0:18:54There is an album that I've been listening to a bunch right now, which it isn't is full of lyrics, but it's so friggin good

0:19:01I can't stop listening to it and it's and I actually think you should try this one as well

0:19:05So back with jungle who I really like and they just released a new album called forever

0:19:09Which is just excellent, but like their music the way they the way they present it like the the lyrics

0:19:17They're very melodic, so it's easy to tune out.

0:19:20It's not very lyric focused.

0:19:23So yeah, these are the ones that I've added so far

0:19:26and have been listening to a bunch.

0:19:28There's also an entire genre of music called lo-fi hip hop,

0:19:32which has been recommended to me about 70 billion times.

0:19:36I have yet to find a definitive thing for this.

0:19:41I don't know where to look,

0:19:44because I keep finding stuff that sounds very different.

0:19:48So, and also people keep sending me Spotify playlists,

0:19:51which is no good for me.

0:19:52I appreciate that a lot, but I use Apple Music.

0:19:55- Yeah.

0:19:56- And there's kind of nothing I can really do about it, but.

0:19:57- Yeah, well, are you gonna be able to put

0:20:00a bunch of Apple Music links in the show notes

0:20:02so that I can just load up this stuff as well?

0:20:03- 100%, yes.

0:20:04Well, you bet, it's gonna be in there.

0:20:06Loads of Apple Music links is what you're gonna find in there.

0:20:09- That's what I want.

0:20:10- But also all the stuff that I've recommended,

0:20:12they're not like playlists so you can get them on any service.

0:20:15But people have been recommending like compilation playlists to me for lo-fi

0:20:20hip hop, which I can't do anything with. And again,

0:20:22very helpful because there's been some stuff where like I've picked out some

0:20:25artists and I've tried them out,

0:20:27but they just haven't been for me for whatever reason.

0:20:29Because really I think we were all going together on a journey to understand what

0:20:33type of music does Myke want to listen to? Because I didn't know.

0:20:35And lo-fi hip hop and electronic are very different in style.

0:20:39Now they perform the same task for lots of people, like good background music.

0:20:44Like again, like a lot of people have suggested, try music that is not in your

0:20:48language, and I've been thinking about like K-pop and J-pop, so I would love some

0:20:55recommendations there as well, because that's a good thought, right?

0:20:59It's like, there can be lyrics, but if I can't understand them,

0:21:01then it doesn't matter, you know?

0:21:04So...

0:21:04The only thing I've ever listened to that sort of works like that is Sigur Ros.

0:21:09I've seen Sigur Ros mention a lot a lot too.

0:21:12I have a bunch of stuff from them that I quite like, but it never occurred to me, because

0:21:20everybody knows, I sure do like the worst of the worst top 40 pop songs, like boy, as

0:21:27right in the core of my musical preferences.

0:21:32As Britney Spears released a new song, that's gonna be on loop for a while.

0:21:37But it never occurred to me to try to find that stuff in another language.

0:21:41Maybe that would work even better.

0:21:43Because I can have such a feeling in my head that there's a particular sound from some

0:21:49pop music that's like, "Yes, that is exactly what I just want on loop that works for work."

0:21:54And I'd be curious to see if I could find that in another language.

0:21:57So I'll be curious to let you filter through all the recommendations.

0:22:02You would find that sort of stuff in K-pop for sure.

0:22:05language stuff I would like to try but my brain latches on even I found in the

0:22:12past like some songs in Japanese and stuff that I've listened to my brain

0:22:17just tries to latch on and I try to sing them right you know what I mean like so

0:22:21like I don't know if it what what would happen with that but anytime I've ever

0:22:26heard any type of like kpop or jpop it does excite me like the music is really

0:22:31fun. So again, I would love more recommendations. I feel like I'm just setting myself up to

0:22:36get this forever. But I will also say this is the most useful feedback I've ever received

0:22:43from a show because I it is it's like helping me change something. I'm listening to music

0:22:50all the time now all the time. There is music on when I'm at home and I'm enjoying that

0:22:56a lot. I'm very excited about it. So I appreciate the feedback.

0:23:01I'm interested to go through this stuff because I always want background noise on. I've always

0:23:07tended to favor like thunder sounds or rain or just nature sounds but I do have this problem

0:23:14that they make my wife very sleepy. So I always have to turn them off when she comes back.

0:23:21I guess so. I guess that makes sense. You know, but like if I leave my thunder sounds

0:23:28on she'll be asleep within 20 minutes like she just can't stay awake so I have to you

0:23:32know I was like oh well I can't leave this on but I have been trying the reason I've

0:23:37been using that Apple radio thing is I've been trying to build together a list of songs

0:23:43that's like this one taiko song that I found where I can just have it on in the background

0:23:47and it won't put her to sleep but it also means I'm not in a totally silent room.

0:23:51I don't under- this is like one of those things where I feel like I can't understand your

0:23:55brain. If you wanted songs like that one, why didn't you just check out an album or

0:24:01two of his?

0:24:02I can tell you why, because I've had a bunch of experiences where I find a song that I

0:24:06like and then I go to look at the artist and it's a weird one-off for some reason.

0:24:11Like a one-hit-wonder type deal. I know what you mean.

0:24:14So I think that's just why. It hadn't occurred to me to go look because I've been on a

0:24:19a long string of "oh I like this one song and I like nothing else that you've done".

0:24:25One of the key ones for me, you've ever seen the movie Drive?

0:24:28No.

0:24:29It's an incredible movie, Drive, Ryan Gosling. You should watch the movie, it's a very good

0:24:33movie. There's a song in that movie called Night Call by a band called Kipinski, I think

0:24:38it's Kipinski, and I love that song so much and it's like electronica and stuff and it's

0:24:44got a really nice vocal in it. And that like Kipinski's album is kind of like it, but it's

0:24:52not this it's not as good. Right. Or it's like, it's Kavinsky sorry, not Kipinsky Kipinsky.

0:24:59Like it's from their album Outrun, which is all like focused on like, it's electronica

0:25:03with an 80s flare. But it's just not as good as Night Call. Right. Like Night Call stands

0:25:08out so strongly that it's just like, "Oh man, I thought I'd found like the perfect band."

0:25:14Well, good luck filtering through all those suggestions, Myke. They're going to be coming

0:25:21from now until you die. But this is useful though. It's not like, you know, I said something wrong

0:25:26one time and I hear about it forever. Like this is like people adding value to me. I did want to say

0:25:30like why I don't use Spotify because I used to use Spotify. The reason I use Apple Music is because

0:25:35The best device in my house for music is my HomePod.

0:25:38And so for the HomePod, you should use Apple Music because it's the only thing that's supported.

0:25:42Like, we used to use Spotify, I used to listen to it on the Echo,

0:25:46but the Echo kind of sucks, right? Like the Echo we have, it just doesn't sound very good.

0:25:50But the HomePod sounds incredible, so I'm using Apple Music primarily now because

0:25:55that's where I listen to the music, so I love the HomePod.

0:25:59The audio on that thing is incredible. Do you have one?

0:26:02Oh man, when you play a stereo, a recorded stereo thunderstorm on a pair of HomePods...

0:26:09You got a pair? I've been thinking about getting a second one.

0:26:12You need an umbrella to listen to that.

0:26:14I've heard in a stereo pair at Jason Snell's house and it sounded incredible.

0:26:22And at the time I was like, "Oh, I don't listen to music that much."

0:26:25But now I do, so maybe I need a second one.

0:26:27Yeah, well, the HomePod is vital once you start using a lot of shortcuts.

0:26:32Siri and I, we're much more friendly now that shortcuts is around,

0:26:38which means HomePods, they're sprouting up everywhere.

0:26:41cortexmerch.com

0:26:43cortexmerch.com

0:26:46Thank you to everybody who's bought some of our merch from our most recent merch drop.

0:26:50We do still have some limited edition items that are only available for a week more,

0:26:56So don't miss out on these. You want to go to cortexmerch.com

0:27:00Find out. There have been a bunch of people, Gray, who are getting their pins arriving already

0:27:03and they've been sending me pictures. Mine are like days away from getting here and I'm so

0:27:07freaking excited because those pins look so good. So good.

0:27:12I've got pins on the way. I don't know when they're coming, but I do have pins coming.

0:27:17Everybody loves the pins. I figure I gotta get in on this pin action.

0:27:20Yeah, they look excellent. I can't wait. And yeah, there's a bunch of stuff going on so you

0:27:25So you gotta go check it out because it's not gonna be around forever.

0:27:28Cortexmerch.com.

0:27:29Go check out some of the limited edition stuff.

0:27:31They have a whole cornucopia of items for you.

0:27:34Cortexmerch.com.

0:27:35>> Cortexmerch.com.

0:27:36>> Oh, my.

0:27:37There's a lot of explosions when it comes to merch.

0:27:42>> I was trying to think about, like, it's a drop.

0:27:45Like a bomb is dropping, but the sound came out all wrong.

0:27:47I gotta work on that.

0:27:48We gotta workshop that.

0:27:52Did you get a new iPhone?

0:27:57Did I get a new iPhone?

0:27:58Yeah.

0:27:59I did get a new iPhone, Myke.

0:28:00Okay.

0:28:01Did you get a new iPhone?

0:28:02I got a new iPhone.

0:28:03So we both have new iPhones.

0:28:05Did you get a XS Max?

0:28:06I've got a XS Max.

0:28:07It's right in front of me.

0:28:09It's huge.

0:28:10Alright, let me ask you about that, right?

0:28:11Like you say it's huge.

0:28:13Do you feel like it's too big?

0:28:19How do you feel?

0:28:20I feel that like this is a big phone.

0:28:23I know it's a bigger phone like in screen than I've ever used before,

0:28:28but it's not, I don't find it unwieldy.

0:28:31It's interesting.

0:28:33It's interesting using this phone.

0:28:35I'll tell you what my mind keeps going to.

0:28:40It's the TV show Westworld.

0:28:45Okay.

0:28:46I don't know if you've watched Westworld or not.

0:28:47I haven't seen it.

0:28:48If you just do a quick Google for Westworld phones,

0:28:52they do, they have a very, like whoever is the guy

0:28:56who has like the design for that show,

0:28:59like the tech design, that team, they're great.

0:29:03They use these super duper big phones in Westworld.

0:29:08- Oh right, okay.

0:29:09- They're all screen.

0:29:12- Yeah.

0:29:12- They expand out, but in their default version,

0:29:15they're all screen.

0:29:15- They look nice.

0:29:17I keep thinking about those phones because

0:29:20my initial impression is that what I hoped

0:29:26would be the case is the case.

0:29:28That because the entire front of the phone is display,

0:29:33it really does change the feeling of it.

0:29:37It just feels like the whole thing is so much more useful.

0:29:41I don't feel like they're these big, dumb dead zones

0:29:45at the top and the bottom that you can't do anything with.

0:29:49So it does feel very big to me,

0:29:54but it feels appropriately and usefully big.

0:29:59So my initial reaction is this is a big phone,

0:30:04but I love it.

0:30:06I really love it so far. - Yeah, you do.

0:30:09Nice club.

0:30:10(laughing)

0:30:12- I mean, I still have a week before I have to make

0:30:15the final decision about am I returning it or not?

0:30:17It is very big in the pocket,

0:30:19which we can come to in a little bit.

0:30:20But I really like it.

0:30:23I like it a lot.

0:30:23I think this, the all screen on the front

0:30:28is super duper nice.

0:30:30I mean, I presume as the founding member

0:30:33of the giant phone club, no longer the plus club.

0:30:37- Max Club. - The Club Max?

0:30:39You gotta call it Club Max, I think.

0:30:40Club Max.

0:30:42I assume you love it as well.

0:30:44Oh, I love it. Like there was a phrase that I that came to mind kind of after about 10 minutes.

0:30:50I'm not using this phone. It's like, oh, I'm home again.

0:30:53Like, oh, it felt just so right.

0:30:57Like, right.

0:30:59Because there was always this thing about the 10 of like, I knew it was a smaller phone, like it was always smaller.

0:31:05And like I liked it because I loved the design, but it was always.

0:31:08Smaller and it wasn't too small, but it was smaller.

0:31:13And there were just a lot of things that I would notice where it was like, oh, this

0:31:17feels different. And it's like I can hold it in one hand.

0:31:21It's like, OK, I can do that, but like comfortably and like easily, which is nice.

0:31:25But like it feels weird because it's not what I've been used to.

0:31:28And it took 10 minutes for the 10 to feel like a baby's phone.

0:31:33Like I picked it up like I'm doing the transfer process.

0:31:36I'm like, what is this tiny phone?

0:31:39So, yeah, I love it.

0:31:42I really love it. It definitely doesn't have as many kind of improvements that the 6+ did to the 6,

0:31:54right? Where you'd look at it and be like, okay, so you get all these extra cameras and extra

0:31:59battery and there's way more space on screen and that sort of stuff. The 10 and the 10s are way

0:32:04closer together, but even the small gains that it gives me in battery life, in being able to see

0:32:12a couple more emails on a screen or whatever. It's what I want. I always want the big one.

0:32:18I always want that because I just any more space I can get on my pocket computer. I want it.

0:32:24Yeah, I will just say for the listeners every once in a while when I see Myke's phone in person,

0:32:30I'm always shocked at how how small you crank down the font.

0:32:36Very small.

0:32:37your phone. Like, you showed me last time we were in person, I think I saw you using Twitter

0:32:42on your phone. It was something like that. And I think you had two dozen tweets visible on the

0:32:49screen at once because you had you had done like the reverse accessibility option to make the font

0:32:54just micro. Like you are a man who wants content on his phone. And lots of it.

0:32:59- If I'm gonna get it, I want as much as I can get, right? Like it just it that was always just

0:33:04just made sense to me and I don't know why.

0:33:07- It just makes me laugh because I'm the exact reverse here

0:33:10where I want big screens because I want the text

0:33:14to be enormous, right?

0:33:15Whereas like, I've always like, oh great,

0:33:17it's a bigger screen, I can crank it up.

0:33:18- It makes so much sense, you have more space,

0:33:21you can more comfortably have a bigger text size

0:33:25and not lose a lot.

0:33:26But I think this is a holdover from when I ran a business

0:33:29from my phone, right?

0:33:31And that it was just like, if you can get information

0:33:34on these things, I want all of the information.

0:33:37- Yeah, I mean, I remember listening to you talk about that,

0:33:39I think back in the pre-Cortex days, maybe?

0:33:42I don't know, I can't quite think of the timeline,

0:33:44but I remember that was a big deal for you,

0:33:46like you were running the business off of the Plus phone

0:33:49when it came out, and yeah, so that does make sense

0:33:53that if you are doing that, you want all the content

0:33:56you can possibly get on the phone.

0:33:58- But it is big, I did pay a horrific amount for AppleCare.

0:34:03Apple care is so expensive now.

0:34:05Look, you got to increase that average selling price somehow.

0:34:07I know, I know.

0:34:08And the way you increase it is by making Apple care $2 more expensive every year.

0:34:12But, and I put it in a case, oh, what color did you get by the way?

0:34:16Oh, space gray, of course.

0:34:17No, the chocolate, the color of chocolate color. Don't like it.

0:34:20It's not chocolate.

0:34:21Don't like it, it's not gray enough. It's like this weird brownie color. It's very strange.

0:34:25I got gold.

0:34:26You must have, I swear to God, you have a different phone than I do.

0:34:29Because mine is like, Batman black.

0:34:31I do have a different phone. I have beautiful gold.

0:34:35The gold does look good. I won't disparage you for the gold. I think it looks good. Some

0:34:40years I like their golds better. They're more or less gold, but the gold on the phone looks

0:34:45pretty good.

0:34:46So I've just done that thing where I've taken it out of the case. I love the way these phones

0:34:49feel without cases on them. But I just can't trust myself. I have to have a case. So I

0:34:55went with the blue, like a dark blue case because I think it looks good with the little

0:34:58gold pieces that you can see, but I just, as much as I don't want to, I can't trust myself.

0:35:03Okay, so let's talk about cases and pockets and many other things.

0:35:10We know you love pockets.

0:35:11Any excuse to talk about a pocket.

0:35:13God damn it, Myke.

0:35:14No, I'm not, it's not about the pockets.

0:35:17It's about the holding of things.

0:35:19I don't understand why I seem to be the odd man out here and everybody else has some kind of

0:35:25war on pockets and convenience.

0:35:28I'm just trying to make things easy.

0:35:30And pockets is one way to make things easy.

0:35:33But this phone, it is pretty big in the pocket.

0:35:38Like it's a little bit uncomfortably big.

0:35:41And that for me is the trade-off.

0:35:43It's like, boy, I like the screen.

0:35:44Boy, I don't like feeling a bunch of things in my pockets.

0:35:49I don't want that.

0:35:52And when you put the case on it,

0:35:58I just have the default Apple case.

0:35:59Boy, does it make a significant difference.

0:36:02And I swear, just the larger physical size

0:36:07changes the whole interaction

0:36:08between the friction in your pocket and the phone.

0:36:11Like, I find it much harder with the exact same case

0:36:14to get the Plus phone in and out of my pocket

0:36:16than I do with the X.

0:36:18It's like, oh, just a little bit bigger,

0:36:21the friction increases with the square

0:36:23of the size of the Surface.

0:36:24Like, that's the way it feels.

0:36:26So I'm like, I don't really want a case on this thing.

0:36:28I don't know, like I'm going back and forth.

0:36:30I have to say, you a while back recommended

0:36:35that I try popsockets on phones.

0:36:38- Ah, yeah, yeah.

0:36:41- So do you want to explain to the people

0:36:42what a popsocket is?

0:36:43- You have seen these in the world.

0:36:46They are these little disks that sit

0:36:49on the back of people's phones,

0:36:51typically people that have larger phones.

0:36:53and you can pull the disc away from the phone.

0:36:58It's like stuck on the back of this adhesive.

0:37:00And there's this like rubber that's left behind

0:37:03in an almost like a funnel shape, like a cone shape.

0:37:06And what that does is it means you can put the pop socket

0:37:09in between your fingers when it is extended,

0:37:12and it allows you to be able to hold onto the phone

0:37:15without the requirement of gripping the entire thing

0:37:17all the way around.

0:37:19So it helps for either A, people have smaller hands,

0:37:22B, people have phones that are too big for their hands,

0:37:25which is pretty much everyone at this point.

0:37:28And so I have used one of these things for a while

0:37:32and I continue to use it.

0:37:35I really, really like it.

0:37:36It just means that I'm able to adjust my grip.

0:37:39Sometimes I will hold my phone regularly,

0:37:41but sometimes I don't want to.

0:37:42Sometimes I want to either just like hold it

0:37:45and put the pop socket in between my fingers

0:37:47or I like grip the whole pop socket in my fist

0:37:51and kind of hold it like that and just look at my phone.

0:37:53Or I can rest my phone in between like my pointer finger

0:37:56and my thumb, can just rest it there.

0:37:59It allows for me to be able to adjust my grip,

0:38:01which anyone that's listened to this show for long enough

0:38:04knows that me and you really like to adjust the way

0:38:06that we do things with our hands.

0:38:08- Yep, yep.

0:38:09- And I've found that since I started using the Popsocket,

0:38:12it's just become way easier for me

0:38:14to be able to handle my phone all the time.

0:38:16- When we meet up in person,

0:38:17I would always see you playing around with the Popsocket.

0:38:19- Oh, so it's a great fidget toy.

0:38:20- Yeah, exactly. - Great fidget toy.

0:38:21- I get fun to fidget with.

0:38:22It makes a very satisfying pop sound

0:38:24as you extend it or compress it.

0:38:27It's a really interesting thing.

0:38:31And I was always curious when I saw you using it,

0:38:33and at some point, I don't know, in the last six months,

0:38:36I caved and I decided to get one for my iPhone X.

0:38:40I was like, "I put it on the phone."

0:38:41And I was like, "I try it, and oh, it's kind of interesting.

0:38:44"Hmm, I don't know."

0:38:45And I would say to you, "Oh, how do you use it?"

0:38:47I was going just back and forth with this thing,

0:38:50and I was like, eh, I couldn't really quite decide,

0:38:53and so I put it in a drawer.

0:38:55And then when the tennis max came,

0:38:58I stuck it on the back, and I thought, oh.

0:39:02Oh, this makes a pretty big difference

0:39:05to have this pop socket on here.

0:39:07- I have noticed it make a much, much bigger difference

0:39:09to me on the max than on the regular 10.

0:39:12- Yeah. - I'm using it even more.

0:39:14- So let me tell you this arc that happened.

0:39:17So I put the PopSocket on the back of the phone.

0:39:19Now, no case on the phone, just the PopSocket.

0:39:23And I'm like, "Oh wow, this is great."

0:39:24So I'm using it for a week.

0:39:26And as the course of the week goes on, I think,

0:39:28"Oh yeah, it's pretty good,

0:39:29but I think I like it maybe less than I did at the start.

0:39:32I don't know, I'm not really paying attention."

0:39:34But just so happens in this past week

0:39:36that I had family visiting.

0:39:38And just like with you, when I saw you using the PopSocket,

0:39:41everybody wanted to know,

0:39:42"Hey, what's that thing on your phone?"

0:39:44And so, of course, people wanted to try it on their phone.

0:39:47I was taking it on and off

0:39:48and sticking it on other people's phones,

0:39:50and they were trying it out,

0:39:51and it's like, "Ooh, this is interesting."

0:39:52So, of course, what happened is the glue on my Popsocket

0:39:55became not as strong.

0:40:00- Yeah, you can't just keep doing that.

0:40:02- Well, now I know.

0:40:04I didn't know then.

0:40:06And so I eventually went to re-affix it onto my tennis max,

0:40:12and it sadly would not stick.

0:40:15And that is the moment I realized,

0:40:18oh, this accessory became a 100% vital accessory

0:40:23for this phone.

0:40:26When I thought, oh, I'm not sure how much I like it,

0:40:29what actually had occurred is

0:40:31this has just been completely incorporated

0:40:33into the way you use the device,

0:40:34so you're not thinking about it as much.

0:40:36But right now, I don't have a pop socket on my phone

0:40:40because the glue became too weak.

0:40:42So I have express ordered three, right?

0:40:45So I have replacements available and it's like on the way,

0:40:48it's like, I need this thing immediately.

0:40:51Because I was really surprised, but with the big phone,

0:40:55it's so much more comfortable to hold it on the back

0:40:59with one, 'cause you're gonna need two hands anyway.

0:41:02So to hold it on the back with the pop socket

0:41:04and then use the front, like you don't have to have

0:41:07this death grip around the edges of your phone

0:41:09when you're holding it.

0:41:10So it's like, I like the bigger phone,

0:41:15but I think the PopSocket is totally a necessary part of it.

0:41:19Like I couldn't believe how much of a difference

0:41:21it made on the big phone.

0:41:22But this is where I, but now, now Myke,

0:41:27we start to descend into this world.

0:41:28This like, this frustrating, this frustrating world.

0:41:33- You're right over there.

0:41:34- No, I'm genuinely not.

0:41:36- Okay.

0:41:37- Because it's this frustrating world.

0:41:38- Oh.

0:41:39can never get everything that you want in life. Yeah. And all I want is everything to

0:41:45go my way. But you can't get everything to go your way. So what is not going my way,

0:41:51Myke, you can't charge it. Okay, now, we have wireless charging. If, if when you take the

0:42:01phone out of your pocket. If you have the very forgiving Mophie charger and if the ambient

0:42:10temperature in your room is low enough so that the popsocket hasn't slightly expanded

0:42:17due to the heat.

0:42:18Wow, you've really gone through all this.

0:42:20And you, look, I've got an office, I keep it very cold in here. And you place the phone

0:42:26exactly in the center of the wireless charger,

0:42:30it will wirelessly charge at, I think, about half a watt.

0:42:35That's like, it will charge.

0:42:38The battery chart is hilarious

0:42:40because it goes up extremely slowly.

0:42:43You can, in theory, get it to work,

0:42:45but now you have given up all of the advantages

0:42:50of wireless charging, which is,

0:42:52you don't have to think about it.

0:42:53You just place it on the thing and it just charges.

0:42:56And it's like, boy, I really love the wireless charging.

0:42:59To me, the wireless charging is like the go-to example

0:43:02of how removing what seems like a trivial amount of friction

0:43:07from a process actually makes a huge difference.

0:43:10So it's like, oh, I've got to choose between the popsocket

0:43:13and the wireless charging, and I don't like this at all.

0:43:17It's very frustrating.

0:43:19But then, okay, this starts a little bit of a cascade,

0:43:24because then I think, well,

0:43:26if I can't have the wireless charging anyway,

0:43:29I can put a case back on the phone.

0:43:32Now, I don't want a case on the phone,

0:43:36except having a case has a huge advantage,

0:43:40which is my glass cube office

0:43:45has one of those little security credit card things

0:43:49that you need to tap on a bunch of doors.

0:43:51- Oh, okay.

0:43:52It's the dumbest office setup in the world.

0:43:55Because if I'm in my glass cube,

0:43:57and I wanna go to the cafeteria and get a coffee,

0:43:59I think I need to tap like four or five security doors

0:44:02to get there.

0:44:04It's so dumb.

0:44:05It provides, it's like, the building said,

0:44:07"Hey, how can we have all of the hassle of security

0:44:11with none of the actual security?"

0:44:14But nonetheless, I need to carry this little card with me.

0:44:16And it doesn't work very well in my wallet

0:44:19because all of the other RFID cards block it.

0:44:22So I put a little RFID blocker behind just that one.

0:44:25Like I've done all these crazy things,

0:44:27but if I can put it in the case of the phone,

0:44:30ooh, this is suddenly a very big advantage.

0:44:33But then it's like, do I want a PopSocket

0:44:35and the case and a card behind the phone as well?

0:44:40I don't know, I don't know.

0:44:42I feel extraordinarily uncertain

0:44:45about what's gonna happen with like the case setup.

0:44:47I also have like a little bumper case that's on the way to try out.

0:44:51I feel like I'm about to descend into a madness of what is the combination of pop

0:44:57sockets and cases.

0:45:01Bumper case and pop socket would be interesting.

0:45:03So I found one that looks pretty good, which is from Rhino Shield or Rhino Case, something

0:45:09like that.

0:45:10Okay.

0:45:11No, you don't like it?

0:45:12I've hated their stuff in the past.

0:45:13I haven't looked at the most recent one.

0:45:15They are the only one that I could find that seemed to make what was like the classic bumper

0:45:19case that Apple had for the 4.

0:45:22It looks like it's the closest for that for the Max.

0:45:25But I don't know.

0:45:26I'm like, I don't.

0:45:28I like having extra grip around the side of the phone.

0:45:30But then this brings us to the final complication where I'm trying to weigh these trade offs.

0:45:35The trade off is it's big in the pocket.

0:45:38Fortunately, before I left the internet, last time we had a discussion about pockets, our very helpful audience introduced me to a whole world of tactical jeans.

0:45:53So jeans that are designed for discrete carry of stuff.

0:45:58And I'd saved all of those links in a little document.

0:46:03And then I sent out emails to a bunch of companies asking

0:46:05exactly what their pocket size was,

0:46:07trying to narrow down like side pockets

0:46:09and if they would fit the phone.

0:46:10So I've ordered a few other pair of jeans

0:46:12that are on their way to me right now

0:46:14to try to be side pockets to hold the phone.

0:46:18- Oh, I remember what I didn't like about RhinoShield.

0:46:20- What?

0:46:21- The bumper cases go all the way around,

0:46:25So you couldn't easily activate the home gestures wiping?

0:46:28Hmm.

0:46:30Because the Apple cases stop at the bottom, right?

0:46:32Right. Right.

0:46:34The bumper cases don't.

0:46:35And I had I bought the Rhino Shield for the 10.

0:46:39And I couldn't properly activate the the home buttons wiping stuff.

0:46:47So that will be worth checking out.

0:46:49I'd be intrigued to know if they've made any kind of difference on that.

0:46:53looking at the design doesn't look like they have.

0:46:56So I'm keen to see what your experience ends up being.

0:46:59- I might be able to cut it down.

0:47:01You can always try to modify these things.

0:47:02- Sure that won't affect the structural integrity

0:47:05of the case if you just start cutting chunks out of it.

0:47:07- I don't think it will.

0:47:09- Okay.

0:47:10- But yeah, so it's like, there's this whole,

0:47:11I feel like I'm in this uncertain matrix

0:47:15of what are all of the options going to be.

0:47:18Like the pop socket and the case and the pants,

0:47:21they all depend on each other.

0:47:23And I just, I don't know, I don't know what's going to happen.

0:47:26And I do feel like you said at the beginning

0:47:29of this conversation, which is just the normal iPhone

0:47:33with nothing else on it is also just so nice.

0:47:36Like it's such a pleasing design.

0:47:38So I don't know.

0:47:39I feel great uncertainty and I don't know

0:47:44what's gonna happen with all these cases and designs.

0:47:46I just look, all I want is everything.

0:47:48I want a pop socket and I want no case.

0:47:50And I also want to be able to put a card on the back of the phone or a hotel card on the

0:47:55back of the phone.

0:47:56And I also want to use wireless charging.

0:47:58Would that card not then interfere with your ability to use Apple Pay?

0:48:03It doesn't.

0:48:04The card doesn't interfere with the ability to use Apple Pay.

0:48:08But the wireless charging will totally fry the card.

0:48:14Just FYI for anybody else who wants to put the card at the back of the phone in between

0:48:18the case.

0:48:19going to fry that card.

0:48:21I probably shouldn't say this because this is going to sound crazy, but I went so far

0:48:27as to...

0:48:28So I found some x-rays of the phone to see where the Qi charger is, and then I took the

0:48:35card and I melted it down with acetone to take out just the chip and the little antenna.

0:48:41And I threaded the antenna as tightly as I could around where the camera casing is with

0:48:48the little chip on the side.

0:48:49And I thought, this is with the 10

0:48:51when I was trying to get,

0:48:52'cause I hate cards in my wallet, Myke.

0:48:54Like I don't want them.

0:48:56I want to get rid of this stupid wallet.

0:48:58I threaded it around.

0:48:59It was like, it worked, but only for a few days.

0:49:03And I think it was the same problem

0:49:04that it was still too close to the wireless charger

0:49:06that it was getting fried.

0:49:07- How far away are you from like embedding this

0:49:10into your fingertip?

0:49:11- I mean, if I could do it, I would.

0:49:15Like if I just, like I will do anything

0:49:17not have to carry these things. So anyway, this is all to say it's like there are these

0:49:23different options and I just I don't know where I'm going to settle with this, but I

0:49:32really want to make this bigger phone work because I really do like it.

0:49:36Could you find a way to try and embed that coil into a watch band?

0:49:40That's an interesting idea. That's an interesting idea. I might have to report back later on

0:49:46that.

0:49:47that then someone might make an Apple watch band that you could put something

0:49:50inside anyway but like you might be able to try and find a way to get it in a

0:49:53watch band hmm I'm gonna I'm gonna mull on that I'm gonna mull on that this

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0:52:02Relay FM.

0:52:03Did you get a new Apple Watch too?

0:52:06Because you seemed way more excited about the watch than the phone last episode.

0:52:09Oh yeah, for sure.

0:52:10The watch was the much more interesting product from the announcement.

0:52:14I'm really pleased with the phone, but I was super interested in the watch.

0:52:18That camera though.

0:52:20My god, it's so good.

0:52:24They undersold that camera a lot.

0:52:26So bad.

0:52:27It's like they didn't even bother.

0:52:28Like it's so good.

0:52:31Between us recording that episode and then the episode actually going up, a bunch of

0:52:35reviews came out which talked about how like, oh, this camera is super amazing.

0:52:38And I just kept thinking about how I said nothing burger in the show and I was like

0:52:41oh no.

0:52:42Well but that was they really did not position they just didn't position it well enough I

0:52:47don't think and I'm not 100% sure why.

0:52:50I'm always happy for camera improvements so that makes me feel a lot better like doubly

0:52:54better about upgrading like bigger size better camera.

0:52:57But yeah the watch.

0:52:59I have had the new watch for less than 24 hours.

0:53:04Oh but you guys got one that's great.

0:53:06Yeah, so I was able to get one yesterday.

0:53:09I'm wearing it on my wrist at this very moment.

0:53:11Which one did you get?

0:53:13I got the big one, 44 millimeters, black, stainless steel, that's my watch.

0:53:19Okay, okay.

0:53:23And I like the big iPhone screen.

0:53:30I totally love, love, love the bigger watch screen.

0:53:36This made sense because this was what you said as much on the last episode,

0:53:39"I'm gonna love this because I like big watches."

0:53:41It just seemed like inevitable.

0:53:42Like there was no way I wasn't going to like it, right?

0:53:45And unlike the phone, I don't have to shove the watch in my pocket, right?

0:53:48There's no pocket conundrum here, so this is no problem.

0:53:53I have to say, just like getting text messages and alerts and timers and things on the watch in the last 24 hours,

0:54:00the big screen, it's so nice.

0:54:02Like, it's the, I even feel like with timers,

0:54:07I don't have to think about hitting the button,

0:54:09like I don't have to care about positioning my finger.

0:54:11It's like, boom, I can just hit the button.

0:54:14- Yeah, 'cause it was always this like,

0:54:16I feel like I need a chiseled point of a finger

0:54:19to hit some of this stuff reliably.

0:54:21- The one to me that's the clearest example of it

0:54:25is a timer where you had the two buttons,

0:54:27which is like stop and restart

0:54:28and they're next to each other.

0:54:30and is like, oh, this is just a much more comfortable

0:54:33gesture, plus they've pushed the buttons down

0:54:36and into the corners, they've kind of used

0:54:37the rounded edges of the phone, so the buttons are big

0:54:41and there's enough space on either side of them.

0:54:43Like when I get a Slack message alert through this watch,

0:54:48it's like, oh, look at all this text I can see,

0:54:50it's amazing, so of course, because I'm me and not you,

0:54:53I've already felt like, oh, I gotta go in those settings

0:54:55and increase the text size, right, to make it bigger.

0:54:58- Removing all of the benefit.

0:54:59(laughing)

0:55:01- No, no, you go halfway, right?

0:55:03I'll take like half the size back

0:55:05and lose half of these extra words.

0:55:08I'm not Myke going in like cranking the text

0:55:09all the way down.

0:55:10- How small can I make this now?

0:55:12- Yeah, exactly.

0:55:13But man, the bigger screen, it's just great.

0:55:18I could do even bigger still, but this to me is like,

0:55:23ah, I don't feel like it's a little small.

0:55:26Like I always love the Apple Watch,

0:55:28but I always felt like, man, I could use a bigger screen.

0:55:31I could do bigger.

0:55:32And now they did bigger.

0:55:33I'm super duper happy with it.

0:55:37Now, if I remember correctly,

0:55:41Adina was going to get a watch

0:55:42and you were going to play with it.

0:55:44Was that the plan?

0:55:45Have you gotten your hands on a watch?

0:55:47- Yeah, there's like an arc to this.

0:55:50- Okay.

0:55:51- So it began with me picking up my iPhone,

0:55:53like morning of, right?

0:55:55So I ordered the iPhone and Adina's 40 millimeter watch

0:55:58and I went to pick them up,

0:55:59but on that day they have everything out.

0:56:03So I went and tried on the 44 gold stainless steel

0:56:08and immediately fell in love with it.

0:56:11- With the band, with the Milanese band

0:56:12or with something else?

0:56:14- Actually, they didn't have the Milanese,

0:56:15they just had like a selection of sport bands.

0:56:17They didn't have the gold Milanese

0:56:19as a thing that you could try on,

0:56:20but I looked at it, I could see it, right?

0:56:22They had it in the case, but I couldn't try it on.

0:56:24So I just tried on the gold watch with like another band,

0:56:28like a couple of different bands, I changed them out.

0:56:31That thing is beautiful.

0:56:32I think it is absolutely stunning.

0:56:35It is the first time I have genuinely liked the look

0:56:39of an Apple watch.

0:56:40Like prior to this, it's kind of just been like,

0:56:43let me pick the one I like the look of the most,

0:56:46but it's always been a bit of an ugly duckling.

0:56:48- Right.

0:56:49- But this one, it's like everything about it,

0:56:51like it being thinner, the gold steel,

0:56:54really love is the first time I've ever liked a stainless steel watch as well I

0:56:58don't I don't like the original kind of this the silvery stainless steel one and

0:57:02it just never really spoke to me I always preferred the aluminium ones but

0:57:05it being in like gold as a color was really nice and just the finish of it

0:57:08was nice to screen going all the way to the edges just looks so much better

0:57:12everything about it I loved everything about it and was like well they had none

0:57:16in stock on that day so I didn't get one but I was like I'm gonna get one of

0:57:20these things like I'm gonna get one I love it oh you mean you're gonna get one

0:57:24for yourself? This was my feeling at that moment. Okay, wait, you say was though? This

0:57:29was my feeling at that moment. Alright, this is a real roller coaster. Yeah, I bought Adina's

0:57:34watch, took it home, and I wore it for 12 hours, right, like set it all up, wore it,

0:57:41and found myself hating it. I hated it. Okay, why? This was something that was not the case

0:57:47before but I hated getting notifications on my wrist.

0:57:52Right because you have now gone, I mean how long has it been since you wore the Apple

0:57:57Watch?

0:57:58Since May.

0:57:59I haven't, since May.

0:58:00I mean I've put them on, I put it on like a day here or there, you know, but like it's

0:58:03been, it's been since May.

0:58:06And I never stopped wearing it because I disliked it.

0:58:09Like that was never the thing.

0:58:11It was that I found this Apple Watch I liked more.

0:58:13Like it wasn't that I had a problem with the Apple Watch.

0:58:16I always loved the Apple Watch.

0:58:17I love the notifications, right?

0:58:18But I noticed it most where

0:58:22I was streaming a video game, right?

0:58:25So I was playing video game, streaming a game.

0:58:27And I'm playing and while I'm playing, my wrist is just going buzz, buzz, buzz.

0:58:33And I'm like, I can't do anything with this right now.

0:58:35Right. Like I'm doing something.

0:58:37And now the watch is like vying for my attention.

0:58:41Where my iPhone, I just put it down and it can be buzzing and going crazy.

0:58:46but like it doesn't interrupt me unless I see it.

0:58:50Where like the watch, I don't have to be looking

0:58:53at this thing and it's trying to get my attention

0:58:56when I'm busy.

0:58:57- Right.

0:58:58- And I think it's just in the time that I've not used it,

0:59:01I've developed new habits and my new habits are

0:59:05that I don't want to be interrupted

0:59:08when I don't want to be interrupted.

0:59:11And--

0:59:12- I can understand that very well, Myke.

0:59:14Exactly. And the Apple Watch inherently will do that.

0:59:18Like I can put it in do not disturb.

0:59:20Right. But then like, what's the point?

0:59:21So basically the kind of conclusion that I've come to is I don't want an Apple

0:59:25Watch anymore for the foreseeable future.

0:59:28I have no interest in one because since I've stopped wearing it, nothing bad has

0:59:33happened. Right.

0:59:35All of my fears, nothing happened.

0:59:37Everything's fine because when I need to be available, I have my phone on me and

0:59:44What I also like is I can put my phone down

0:59:47and just walk away and I'm away from it all.

0:59:49And it's unintentionally away, but I've noticed just,

0:59:54I think that a lot of this stuff,

0:59:56so a lot of my yoga and the music,

1:00:01it's all coming from this, I think,

1:00:04this new place of me being a little bit more chill.

1:00:08And I think part of that is I'm not so connected

1:00:12to everything anymore. Right? Like a message coming in that is not important for now, it's

1:00:20just dealt with later. Or any message really. But like messages that are not important,

1:00:24they're just getting dealt with and they're getting dealt with. On the Apple Watch, I

1:00:27was immediately aware of them all the time. So I think that there's just like a change

1:00:32in my mood which has come from me not wearing this thing every day. So if I was going to

1:00:36wear an Apple Watch now, I would significantly pare down the notifications for it, right?

1:00:42now just like why am I even bothering I'm just gonna buy the watch I want

1:00:45which is not an Apple watch it's a beautiful something else right which is

1:00:50super thin and you know what else drove me crazy couldn't see the time when I

1:00:54wanted to see it I noticed it like the first time I raised my wrist to look at

1:00:58the time and it took like however many milliseconds it took but it was too slow

1:01:02like for the screen to come on it's like my instinct now is to just see it I see

1:01:07I just looked right like I can give it a quick glance like I can get the time

1:01:11from my watch quicker and put my wrist down again, then the Apple Watch can show me the time in the first place.

1:01:18That is a big behavior change that if you go to the Apple Watch, you have to learn.

1:01:23You're on your computer and you're just typing away and you can look down at your real watch and

1:01:30just see the time without having to trigger it, without having to do a little gesture. And that

1:01:36that does take a lot of getting used to.

1:01:38And if you've gone back to a nice, real mechanical watch,

1:01:43that is a frustration if you are wearing the Apple Watch

1:01:47and like, I can't just look at it,

1:01:50I have to do this little gesture to trigger it

1:01:52to show me what the time is.

1:01:53- And that drove me crazy.

1:01:55But like, so there are those things,

1:01:56like they're the reasons I don't wanna wear one anymore,

1:01:58but I did find two new things,

1:02:01which is why I might wanna wear one.

1:02:02One was I'm now doing a form of exercise

1:02:06every single day and it's not being tracked properly.

1:02:10'Cause I'm not going and putting my Apple Watch on,

1:02:12turn my Apple Watch on, I'm not gonna do all that

1:02:15'cause I'm not gonna-- - Yeah, no, that's crazy.

1:02:16- It's like whatever, I'm not gonna do that

1:02:17just for 25 or 30 minutes every day, it's too much hassle.

1:02:20But if I was wearing one all the time,

1:02:22'cause I did a yoga workout with the watch on

1:02:24and it was great 'cause I got an accurate reading

1:02:27of how the workout went, right?

1:02:29Like I got all of that information

1:02:30from the senses that it has because the yoga app

1:02:33that I use logs things to Apple Health,

1:02:36well actually, so here's the thing,

1:02:37it can log things to Apple Health,

1:02:39but not on the iPad, because health isn't on the iPad,

1:02:42and I watch the videos on the iPad, so it can't log them.

1:02:45So I've set up a shortcut that logs a 30-minute activity

1:02:49to the Health app every day, but it's almost pointless

1:02:51because there's no usable information in it

1:02:54because it's just like you were exercising.

1:02:56- Yeah, it's just a binary track, like you did this thing.

1:02:59You might as well be keeping track of it

1:03:00in like a habit tracking or streaks kind of app.

1:03:04- Yeah, there's nothing to it, right?

1:03:06But like that shortcut also puts Do Not Disturb on,

1:03:09like it does a couple of things,

1:03:11like for 30 minutes, right?

1:03:12So like my phone won't buzz,

1:03:13and it's like a little shortcut that I built for that.

1:03:16And also like the yoga app,

1:03:18it tells you how many calories you burned, right?

1:03:21But that's just how many it assumes.

1:03:23It's wildly different to what the Apple Watch was telling me

1:03:25'cause the app knows nothing about me, right?

1:03:28but the watch knows how I'm breathing and it knows how my heart rate is so it's able to

1:03:33more accurately guess the calories that I'm burning so it was great for that and

1:03:37also I'm using Siri way more now for music and for shortcuts and all that

1:03:42kind of stuff and I really like the raised speak in the new watches so all

1:03:48you do is I think this is on the series 3 as well you just raise it right to your mouth and

1:03:52just start speaking without saying the trigger word you know they "hey" something

1:03:56trigger word. He's hearing. Exactly. I didn't want to say it purely because my phone will go off. I

1:04:02wasn't doing it for anyone else's help but my own. It's like I don't want my phone to go off right

1:04:06now. But that so that was really good because the HomePod will take every request, right? If it's

1:04:12in your home, it is scary. I like whispered into my phone in the bedroom yesterday and the HomePod

1:04:18went off. I was like, Oh God. And sometimes I don't want that. Can I just say what's crazy about the

1:04:25HomePod is how, so again, like with family visiting,

1:04:30I'm doing a bunch of tutorials about like,

1:04:31here's how to use thing.

1:04:32And I was trying to do a Siri tutorial on the shortcuts.

1:04:36And so I'm showing this person how to do Siri triggers

1:04:40with the shortcuts.

1:04:41Now they're not in, like they're not registered in my house.

1:04:44It's a totally different iCloud account, right?

1:04:46They have nothing to do with this.

1:04:48But what I thought was kind of crazy is when they,

1:04:50when you say the trigger word, I could see, oh,

1:04:52this iPad that I'm trying to demo on,

1:04:55that doesn't belong to this household at all,

1:04:57starts, Siri starts to wake up,

1:05:01but then the HomePods get it,

1:05:04like they take over and then Siri shuts down on the iPad.

1:05:07It's like, this is crazy.

1:05:08Siri must have some kind of ad hoc network in the house

1:05:12where every device is seeing who's,

1:05:15but it like, it's, I don't know if it's great

1:05:18or if it's not great that even across everybody's device,

1:05:22it's still doing this, but so the funny thing was is,

1:05:25We had to go into another room in the house and like close the door and sort of whisper

1:05:31so that Siri couldn't hear us.

1:05:33It's like, we're hiding from Siri in this room.

1:05:36HomePod by far hears you better than any other of these digital assistant products.

1:05:40Like it is incredible.

1:05:42But the problem is it doesn't always understand you.

1:05:44Hears you, doesn't always understand you.

1:05:46So that still frustrates me.

1:05:47It's like, Apple's ability to create this hardware is almost unparalleled,

1:05:52but Siri the software is still not good enough.

1:05:54Like, you know, that I can give it the same command twice.

1:05:57One time it doesn't understand.

1:05:58Second time it understands. It's like, well, I don't.

1:06:01Also, I'm trying to use Siri more and it drives me crazy.

1:06:03Like I've got to set up some home actions right to like turn lights off

1:06:08at night.

1:06:10So like before we go to bed, it turns the lights off everywhere.

1:06:12But the bedroom and actually turns the bedroom lights on to 10 percent. Right.

1:06:15So it's like a nice just way to go.

1:06:17So I say like, hey, set bedtime.

1:06:21And then it's like.

1:06:23"Okay, I've set your bedtime in your humble abode."

1:06:26It's like, "Shut up. Shut up."

1:06:29Like, it gives me this, like, phrase, this long phrase,

1:06:32where the echo just goes, "Okay."

1:06:35Right? And that's it. It's all I ever want.

1:06:36But the home part, like, it said to me two days ago, it's like,

1:06:39"I have set bedtime in your humble abode."

1:06:42It's like, "Shut up, you stupid thing! I don't care!

1:06:45Like, I just want you to do it!"

1:06:47Like, don't give me all that nonsense.

1:06:50- Yeah, Siri for sure needs what Carrot has,

1:06:53the ability to set the verbose-ness.

1:06:56And it's like, I wanna turn it all the way down.

1:06:59My frustration with that is in doing the lights,

1:07:03just because of the way our house is set up,

1:07:05there's always somewhere in the house

1:07:07where one of the sockets has been physically turned off.

1:07:10And so if we say something like,

1:07:11"Hey, Siri, turn on all the lights,"

1:07:13Siri will always be like,

1:07:15"Oh, I've turned on all the lights for you,

1:07:16"but just so you know,

1:07:18"a couple of the lights aren't responding in.

1:07:19You might want to check on that. It's like, yeah, I get it.

1:07:22Every, like, don't ever say this to me again.

1:07:25It's always going to be like this every time.

1:07:28Like, I don't need to hear this whole story about how a couple of light bulbs aren't checking in.

1:07:33I know they're not checking in. I don't care. Just turn on all the things you can turn on.

1:07:38It's good for music, though.

1:07:40It is good for music. And thunder sounds.

1:07:42I mean, also some of the shortcut stuff, it works pretty well, right?

1:07:45Like, I'm still trying to work out, like, how I want to run all of my shortcuts,

1:07:51like how I want to trigger them off and what ones I want and what ones I don't want.

1:07:55And I'm finding myself, I'm using the shortcuts way more on the devices than I am just like with

1:08:01HomePod. But I'm kind of, I'm still building through that stuff, but I am building more

1:08:07shortcuts at rate faster than I ever built workflows.

1:08:10Yeah, oh yeah, for sure. And this is just to go back to what started this, this is where I find the watch without needing the trigger word is really nice.

1:08:19Yeah.

1:08:20Because particularly in the house, because the HomePods are not on my account for personalized stuff, but they always want to pick up whatever I'm saying.

1:08:30but I find that doing the watch to raise

1:08:33and then talking to the watch tells it like,

1:08:35"Hey, I'm talking to the watch.

1:08:36I'm not talking to you, HomePods."

1:08:38And that's great for doing all the timers.

1:08:40And this is one place where I do have to give Apple

1:08:43total credit because I think we talked about it

1:08:46on the Cortex after WWDC,

1:08:49but I thought there is no way that feature

1:08:52where you can just raise to talk to Siri

1:08:55without using the trigger word was gonna work.

1:08:57Like, I was like, there is no way.

1:09:00- Yeah, here we go, we're gonna have a million stories,

1:09:02and I have to give Apple total credit,

1:09:04it has not falsely triggered once.

1:09:08Like they genuinely nailed that,

1:09:11and I thought there was like a 0% chance

1:09:14that was gonna work, but it turns out, joke's on me,

1:09:17I've had a 0% failure rate on it.

1:09:20- I didn't get it to trigger every time though.

1:09:22- I know, that's not what I'm saying.

1:09:24- Yeah, no, I know you're not, I'm saying like--

1:09:25- It doesn't always trigger.

1:09:26- It doesn't always trigger, but it never misfires.

1:09:29Yeah, it never misfires, which is the much more important thing.

1:09:33You may have missed this actually, because yes, you definitely have missed this. And

1:09:38I hope I can give you some information now that you're happy about.

1:09:41Do you know that there is a way to get shortcuts to talk to IFTTT?

1:09:47I do. Oh, you found it?

1:09:49I saw this on... MaxLauris?

1:09:51Yes, I saw this on Federico's site. Did you see my little Roomba? Did you see

1:09:57him? I haven't seen your Roomba, I don't know about

1:09:59- This is in the article, there is an embedded video.

1:10:01- Oh, is that your Roomba?

1:10:02Oh, okay. - That's little Robbie.

1:10:04- Oh, I didn't realize.

1:10:04- So like now I can, and I do, I get my Roomba to go

1:10:07and to stop by talking to my home pod.

1:10:10- I saw that, I actually, I have a little project

1:10:12in OmniFocus called Automate Roomba,

1:10:14because I wanna do the two things which I'm now,

1:10:17oh, now I know I can obviously do,

1:10:19is like you can control Roomba via your voice with shortcuts,

1:10:23which is crazy, like that ability to plug into webhooks,

1:10:27It's like the horizon is open in every direction.

1:10:30And I know that I can do, like with Google Sheets

1:10:34and IFTTT, I've figured out, oh, I can do the thing

1:10:38where when the last person leaves the house,

1:10:40the Roomba goes automatically.

1:10:42It's like, oh, this is great, I can't wait to do this.

1:10:45- Ooh, I wanna see how that ends up when you set that up.

1:10:49- I'll let you know.

1:10:49- I'm still at the point, I don't know if you felt like this,

1:10:51but I'm still at the point where I'm not confident

1:10:54send in my Roomba out when I'm not at home.

1:10:57- Oh, no.

1:10:58- I just get scared that he's gonna break everything

1:11:00and get lost again.

1:11:01- No, no, no, in our house Roomba's great.

1:11:03We trigger him if we're out at dinner

1:11:07and we suddenly think, oh, we'd like to come home

1:11:09to a cleaner household.

1:11:10Let's send Roomba out to do his job.

1:11:13- We just need to get, it's like sending him off to school.

1:11:17- That's exactly what it is.

1:11:19- We're just a little scared he's gonna hurt himself.

1:11:21- Yeah, you're thinking, oh, he's there,

1:11:23He's got his little backpack, he's dressed all up for the first day of school,

1:11:26and you have to let him go on his own.

1:11:29This is part of growing up.

1:11:31Have you ever gotten the "Help, I'm stuck" notification?

1:11:35Yeah.

1:11:35It's so funny.

1:11:37He's just chewed up the rug in the bathroom,

1:11:40and closed the door on himself.

1:11:42The phrasing of some of them,

1:11:45the one that gets me is "Help, I'm stuck" on a cliff?

1:11:47Yeah, that's what I got.

1:11:49"Hold on, Roomba, I'll be right there!"

1:11:50"Where did you go?"

1:11:52(laughing)

1:11:54It makes me feel like, it makes me feel so bad for him.

1:11:57Like, oh, I'm coming home.

1:11:59I'm coming home right now.

1:12:00- Why did you use the word cliff?

1:12:02- Okay, now Myke, you may remember

1:12:08when we first started talking about downtime.

1:12:11I kept saying this thing about how,

1:12:15oh, I'm really interested in this,

1:12:17but it really depends on the implementation details.

1:12:21I might find this super useful, but a very slight,

1:12:26ooh, going this way or going that way

1:12:28in exactly how Apple implements it

1:12:31will make or break this feature for me.

1:12:33And just as a while ago,

1:12:38we were trying to get Apple to do things

1:12:43in a certain way with the Apple Pencil.

1:12:44I was like, "Oh, do it this way, please.

1:12:46Don't do it that way."

1:12:48I was, during the beta process,

1:12:50repeatedly sending feedback about one of the implementation details for downtime.

1:12:57And this has not gone my way.

1:13:02So now that iOS 12 is out and we have the final version of the way it works, there is

1:13:09an implementation detail that is absolutely killing me.

1:13:14So let me explain.

1:13:17I, unlike you, want all of my notifications to come through the Apple Watch.

1:13:24Okay.

1:13:25That's how I want to manage things.

1:13:26Well, you know, I was like, again, I understand that, but you probably have less notifications

1:13:31than I do anyway, right?

1:13:34Yeah.

1:13:35As we saw last time we checked our stats, literally an order of magnitude less.

1:13:39So yeah, it's a very different situation.

1:13:42Now here's the thing that kills me.

1:13:47The Apple Watch has no understanding of the concept of downtime.

1:13:56So what this means in practice is, in the morning, when I wish not to be disturbed by

1:14:03the outside world, I have been putting iMessage in downtime.

1:14:10Texting is not available to me in the morning on the phone.

1:14:14And it's fantastic.

1:14:16No iMessages come in, and what I really love, I don't even see the little bubble, the alert

1:14:22bubble.

1:14:23That's not there, and nothing is in Notification Center, and it will all just reappear after

1:14:28lunch when I'm ready to be exposed to the outside world.

1:14:33Except that all of those iMessages joyously come straight to my watch, and it's killing

1:14:41me!

1:14:42Oh!

1:14:43killing me that if somebody messages me in the morning,

1:14:47it just pops right up on the watch,

1:14:49pops up on the watch like nothing has gone on.

1:14:52And sometimes there are these situations with Apple

1:14:57where you feel like you get a little punished

1:15:00for buying completely into the ecosystem.

1:15:02- Do you know, I'd never even thought of this as a thing.

1:15:05- So I had been using the feedback system

1:15:09and messaging with some of the engineers

1:15:11and I got the impression that this was not a behavior

1:15:15that they wanted, and then they went dark

1:15:18for a very long period of time, and I thought, oh no.

1:15:21And of course, when the gold master came out

1:15:24and it appeared in the final version,

1:15:26this was not the case.

1:15:28So the watch has no concept of downtime.

1:15:33So apps that you put into downtime still just are able

1:15:36to be used on the watch, and it's infuriating.

1:15:40And I also think it's behavior that an adult, say,

1:15:43trying to cut down on the amount of time

1:15:45that their child texts, would not expect.

1:15:49And I hope this gets changed,

1:15:52but I get the impression that like,

1:15:54somebody lost a battle inside of Apple,

1:15:57and this didn't happen.

1:16:00But so I'm just like, I love the Apple Watch so much,

1:16:05but this is one of these cases

1:16:06where I'm super duper frustrated,

1:16:08because I was using downtime in this very particular way

1:16:12where it's like, oh, fantastic.

1:16:14I can just get notifications from the apps

1:16:16that I want in the morning

1:16:17and I can close off everything else

1:16:19and it works automatically every day.

1:16:21And now that doesn't work

1:16:24because all the apps that I don't wanna hear from,

1:16:26they're just like, hey, I'm on the Apple Watch.

1:16:28You can hear straight from me.

1:16:29And it's like, there's no sensible way to fix this.

1:16:33- And I guess, you just don't ever want them

1:16:36to come through, right?

1:16:37because it's not going to work for you.

1:16:39Here's the problem.

1:16:39Do not disturb is too much of a blanket.

1:16:42It's nothing can talk to you.

1:16:44So for me, when I'm using my exercise app in the morning,

1:16:46it's like, exercise app can't send me notifications

1:16:49that this interval is done because we're

1:16:50in do not disturb mode.

1:16:52That really sucks.

1:16:53Calendar reminders that I set in the morning

1:16:55because there's something different in the day

1:16:57that I need to know about, they can't come through

1:16:59because the watch-- it would be in do not disturb mode.

1:17:02So here is the workaround that I have made so far.

1:17:07So if anybody else wants to live like me,

1:17:09here's the best I have found, but it's super frustrating.

1:17:13I've set a reminder for myself to manually turn on

1:17:20Do Not Disturb on the watch at night,

1:17:23and then to remember to turn it off

1:17:27with another alert in the afternoon.

1:17:30So since I have to make a decision about all or nothing

1:17:35with alerts on the watch, it's really important for me

1:17:39not to receive distracting interruptions in the morning.

1:17:42So it's like, well, I just have to put this

1:17:44in do not disturb mode.

1:17:46Like this is the equivalent of why I used to run two watches,

1:17:48but I really don't want to do that anymore.

1:17:50So I've just got to put the watch in do not disturb mode

1:17:54during the morning.

1:17:56And then everything else that I don't want to get bothered by

1:17:59on the phone is in downtime,

1:18:02so none of those notifications come through,

1:18:06but OmniFocus and Calendars and the exercise app

1:18:10can send messages to the phone

1:18:13because now I'm not running Do Not Disturb

1:18:16on the phone during the morning.

1:18:18But it's a frustrating and annoying situation

1:18:23because I'm mentally split now

1:18:27between where am I getting notifications from.

1:18:30And I love just like,

1:18:31oh, the watch is just where all notifications come from.

1:18:33And now it's like this split attention.

1:18:36But so anyway, this is a really, really frustrating

1:18:40result for me.

1:18:42And I'll again put it in this bin

1:18:45that I find it kind of infuriating

1:18:48how the ability to genuinely control notifications

1:18:51on the phone is so limited.

1:18:53And especially now with Apple having screen time,

1:18:58it's like, oh great, people can know

1:19:00here's where you're getting all of these notifications from.

1:19:03But if you wanna do anything more than just say no or yes,

1:19:07you still don't have a lot of options.

1:19:10So anyway, that's the sad end

1:19:15to my concern about implementation details.

1:19:19- It really does feel like something that will be changed.

1:19:21- I really hope so.

1:19:23I really do.

1:19:24It feels like this was just something that was completely missed because it goes against

1:19:27everything they're attempting to do here.

1:19:29I hope you're right.

1:19:31I really do hope you're right.

1:19:32But as can sometimes happen with these things, if they do want to change it, I hope I don't

1:19:39have to wait a year.

1:19:41And I hope that Apple doesn't think, oh, they're cool with notifications now and no more ability

1:19:49to fiddle with notifications is introduced for the next several years. So that's always

1:19:55the concern. But my workaround sort of works, but it's just frustrating because I felt

1:20:01like, oh, I was so close. I was so close to making everything work. But it doesn't work.

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1:21:48next website.

1:21:50Last episode we left our listeners of what had been described by some as the worst cliffhanger

1:21:55in history.

1:21:56Wow.

1:21:57Some people-

1:21:58That's quite the feedback.

1:22:00They really want to know what is going on with your home screen.

1:22:05I don't understand what there is to know about.

1:22:09Well, there's nothing weird about it. Of course, we just want to know more about it. So can

1:22:12Can you share with me an updated version of your home screen and we can take a little

1:22:17look at this?

1:22:18Okay, all right.

1:22:19Let me give you the current version.

1:22:22Slightly different from the old one.

1:22:24But here, here is my screen right now.

1:22:27All right, I will share mine with you too.

1:22:30I think mine is mostly standard, but you know,

1:22:32yeah, because there's there's no extra spaces for icons on the tennis max.

1:22:38So you don't you don't have like the catastrophe of everything needs to be rearranged because

1:22:41Is it like an extra row or something like that?

1:22:44So, yeah, I imagine there's not as much iPhone icon

1:22:48shuffling this year as there would be last year.

1:22:50-No, but my home screen will definitely have changed

1:22:53since the last time I shared it.

1:22:56I know there's new stuff on there.

1:22:57-What a nice wallpaper, Myke. What is that wallpaper?

1:23:00-That is the, like, OG Cortex wallpaper.

1:23:04-That looks nice. -Right?

1:23:05It's created by the wonderful Simon Buckmaster,

1:23:08and it's the OLED version.

1:23:10looks so good on OLED.

1:23:11- I love it.

1:23:13I love it on the OLED phone.

1:23:16So yeah, that will be in the show.

1:23:18So again, if people wanna check it out.

1:23:19It's really good as for the big phone too.

1:23:21It's just something about it.

1:23:22It makes everything pop.

1:23:23The icon colors pop a lot more.

1:23:25Like it's really excellent on the black phone,

1:23:28which is why you went, like the OLED phone,

1:23:31which is why you went for an all black, I'm sure, right?

1:23:34'Cause it just looks really good.

1:23:35- Yeah, it's like you gotta go with black on OLED,

1:23:38you know, at least for a while.

1:23:39'cause it's just, it's so good.

1:23:41It's so super good.

1:23:43- We can talk about my home screen real quick

1:23:44if you want to.

1:23:45Like, I don't know if there's anything

1:23:46specifically new on there,

1:23:48but I'm intrigued to know if you have any thoughts on it.

1:23:50- I don't.

1:23:51I have no thoughts on your home screen.

1:23:52It's just overwhelming.

1:23:53It's too much, Myke.

1:23:54- Well, I'll ask you,

1:23:55is there any icons that you're intrigued about?

1:23:57There is one on there

1:23:58that I think you might be intrigued about,

1:24:00but you just might not know it yet.

1:24:02- Oh, I wasn't sure if we're allowed to talk about this.

1:24:04- Well, we can at least mention it.

1:24:08It's the timer, right?

1:24:09It's the timer app, you know?

1:24:11Yeah, so isn't this some, like, toggle beta thing?

1:24:14- Yes. - Isn't that what this is?

1:24:15It is, and it's amazing.

1:24:17Like, so this isn't an app that is released yet.

1:24:21I, the developer did say that I could mention it.

1:24:24Okay.

1:24:25It is effectively the toggle app that you want

1:24:27if you use toggle, because they've built, basically,

1:24:29a new front end for toggle, and it's incredible.

1:24:32Like, there's a widget, which is fantastic.

1:24:35It shows the currently used one,

1:24:36and you can save specific timers

1:24:38you want to activate a bunch.

1:24:40You can then create timers that are saved

1:24:44with Siri shortcuts.

1:24:46So you can ask the HomePod to start and stop them,

1:24:48but then you can also integrate them into other shortcuts.

1:24:52It's an amazing app.

1:24:53- Okay, that is fantastic.

1:24:55- I don't know how soon it is before it comes out.

1:24:58It's moving along, but it's awesome.

1:25:02Like it's really good.

1:25:03- I'll be looking forward to that

1:25:04because there are Siri shortcuts

1:25:07that work for the default timer app,

1:25:11but they remember none of the fiddly information

1:25:15that I care about. - They suck.

1:25:16- They're terrible.

1:25:17- This is like, you can set the projects,

1:25:19all the related tags, and name the project,

1:25:22and then you can create that as a standalone item,

1:25:25which you can trigger from the app.

1:25:28You can also log just rudimentary times in there.

1:25:31Like, they don't have to be saved.

1:25:32just like saved times that you can trigger,

1:25:35but then all of the saved times can be turned

1:25:37into Siri shortcuts, we can then be turned,

1:25:39put into the shortcuts app as well.

1:25:41It's really good, it's very, very good.

1:25:43- That's very cool.

1:25:44- Like even, I don't even think the name is finalized yet,

1:25:47but like when this app is out, you can rest assured

1:25:50I'm gonna be talking about it again.

1:25:53- Yeah, you gotta let me know when that one comes out.

1:25:54- But I couldn't put this, so this is the thing,

1:25:56it's like I wanted to put my home screen in the show notes,

1:25:59but I emailed the developer and said, can I mention it?

1:26:02and they said yes, you can mention it.

1:26:04- I love that you've even chosen

1:26:05the clown vomit icon for carrot.

1:26:07- Yeah. - Boy.

1:26:08- It's good though. - Some things never change.

1:26:10- I feel like they added that for me.

1:26:11So the timer app has a bunch of colorful ones,

1:26:13but I won't move red

1:26:14'cause it just made the most sense to me.

1:26:16- Yeah, it makes the most sense.

1:26:17- The carrot one, it's like, it could just be anything.

1:26:19You know, like, I like it like that.

1:26:21It's good.

1:26:22It's good to have a bit of color on the home screen,

1:26:23especially with the black wallpaper.

1:26:25- Colorful p-calc. - Yep.

1:26:27- I feel like if any one of these things,

1:26:28if they gave you more color, that's what you choose.

1:26:30The timer has a six color rainbow option but I didn't choose it. I'm not out of control.

1:26:35Oh okay. I'm glad to know that you're restraining your crazy color choices.

1:26:39You're still using every slot on your phone, huh Myke?

1:26:41Well of course I am.

1:26:43All the content! Myke wants all the content of course. I guess this is all on theme.

1:26:48Such a misunderstanding. Like I like to fill everything up. If it can be filled up I'll fill it up.

1:26:53- You know what, no, I think I finally understand.

1:26:56Okay, if I can reframe this in the context

1:26:59of the way your Twitter looks,

1:27:01I think maybe I can understand the mind of Myke

1:27:03a little better.

1:27:04- Okay. - That's why you want

1:27:05everything filled up on your phone

1:27:07so there's not an inch of breathing space.

1:27:09- Yeah, if you've got the space, you know, fill it.

1:27:11You've actually gone in the inverse

1:27:13where you've gotta make a phone.

1:27:14- Well, yes, of course. - Now you have less icons

1:27:16than you did last time.

1:27:17- I worked very hard to have fewer icons than last time.

1:27:21Yes, Myke. (laughs)

1:27:22You're doing that hidden thing again. How do you do that? Do you use some kind of guide?

1:27:27Oh, how do I get the blank row on the top? I'm actually just doing it in shortcuts.

1:27:32I just made a blank shortcut that does nothing, and then you can set a custom picture, and

1:27:37since it's just black, I just put a black thing there.

1:27:40You should put some secret stuff in there!

1:27:42Oh, like secret launchers? Actually, that's not a bad idea! That's an interesting idea.

1:27:46It's a way to get a bit more real estate on the screen.

1:27:48Like you press a blank screen and all your hue lights go red or something, you know,

1:27:52like you can just do some secret stuff up there?

1:27:55Actually that's a great idea, I didn't think about that, but it is a way to have

1:27:58some more buttons on the phone without the visual distraction of the buttons.

1:28:02I'm going to give that a thought.

1:28:04That's quite fun actually.

1:28:05I like that.

1:28:06Yeah, I like that a lot.

1:28:07So you're still running, I'm looking at this, this is 100% shortcuts that you can

1:28:14see and I'm sure that the four folders on the top they contain applications right?

1:28:17Okay so yes although essentially every app is in just shoved into that first folder.

1:28:28Okay okay but like there has to still be apps on the phone because the shortcuts have to go.

1:28:33Yes Myke there are apps on the phone right I haven't let's let's not be crazy Myke there

1:28:38are apps on the phone. I'm intrigued now having a look at this I want to play a little game.

1:28:43Okay, I want to see if I can guess what the buttons do. Okay, do you want to try to like,

1:28:49I'll explain high level what's going on. But if you want to play a guessing game first,

1:28:52you go right? No, no, no, no, explain high level what's going on. So people can understand what

1:28:56we're talking about. And then I'm going to try and guess what the buttons do. Okay, there's two

1:29:00high level things here. One is aesthetic, and one is practical. The aesthetic one is, I think this

1:29:08phone, the way I have set it up using icons that all match that have a color scheme that

1:29:17is coordinated between them and that also importantly have no dumb words below them

1:29:23looks beautiful. Every time I look at this screen, I think it looks really beautiful

1:29:31because it's consistent. It does look nice and it's simple. It does. It is almost it's

1:29:35It's like the perfect home screen for you, right?

1:29:38Because you are able to force design consistency.

1:29:40Yeah, I can force design consistency across it.

1:29:43And there are badges right now because it's the afternoon and I'm open to the world.

1:29:49And you know, like when we're done recording this podcast, I'll work through trying to

1:29:53clear all of those badges.

1:29:54But particularly in the mornings, the phone is just so pleasing to use, because all of

1:30:01those badges disappear because everything with a badge is put into downtime.

1:30:05So it's like, ah, what a beautiful phone.

1:30:07So that's the aesthetic target here.

1:30:10Now, the second thing that's going on is

1:30:14the whole time I was using the beta

1:30:18and thinking about shortcuts,

1:30:21and what eventually led me to think,

1:30:23oh, I think I can actually do this is

1:30:27because shortcuts are so integrated with the system,

1:30:33They have access on this level to all of the apps

1:30:37that Workflow was never able to have.

1:30:40So they can launch all of the apps at a bare minimum

1:30:42and they can do all of these different things.

1:30:45It totally changed the way I thought about the home screen

1:30:49from a collection of the most used apps

1:30:54to instead being a collection of the most performed actions.

1:31:00- Sure.

1:31:02So that's like, but once you start to really think

1:31:05about that, it changes the idea of what do you want there?

1:31:10And so that's why I've gone for this 100%

1:31:14shortcut home screen, because I've tried to rethink

1:31:19what are the actions that I want to do,

1:31:23and then creating shortcuts that perform that action.

1:31:28Now, maybe that's opening an app,

1:31:31but maybe it's doing something else.

1:31:33Those are the high-level goals of this home screen.

1:31:36And I do have to say, it was experimental last time,

1:31:40but since that show and this show,

1:31:42especially since iOS is now out

1:31:45and more apps are integrating with shortcuts,

1:31:48it's like, this is the way I'm going.

1:31:50This is no longer an experiment.

1:31:52This is my life.

1:31:53- I have a question. - Yes.

1:31:55- You said about opening apps.

1:31:56How are you, I mean, 'cause not every app

1:32:00has a shortcut to open the app.

1:32:02So what are you doing there?

1:32:04- Now that Shortcuts is part of the system,

1:32:07I have yet to find an app it won't open.

1:32:10Whereas back when it was Workflow,

1:32:13there were a bunch of apps it wouldn't open.

1:32:15So I have not run into that.

1:32:17- What action are you running though?

1:32:19- So Shortcuts has a command that's just open app.

1:32:22And as far as I can tell,

1:32:23that command contains every app on the phone.

1:32:27- Interesting, okay.

1:32:28So when you tap on those,

1:32:30does it immediately open the application

1:32:33or does it open shortcuts first?

1:32:35- Here's the one thing that is a little strange,

1:32:40but I'm absolutely sure there is some glitchy behavior

1:32:45in the current implementation of iOS

1:32:49because I have a bunch of like weird content restrictions

1:32:52set for myself around the browser as well.

1:32:55But the way these icons are working

1:32:59is that all of them are actually a little URL.

1:33:03So what happens is you press it,

1:33:05it quickly bounces to Safari,

1:33:07but all Safari has is this URL,

1:33:10which bounces back to Shortcuts, and then Shortcuts runs.

1:33:15I'm messing with the settings a little bit,

1:33:16but sometimes I've run into this thing

1:33:18where it tries to bounce into Safari,

1:33:19and it's like, "You've run out of time on Safari today."

1:33:21It's like, "No, no, no, that's not remotely what I want,

1:33:23'cause I'm just using this to open an app."

1:33:24But that is just like, there is clearly a glitchy thing

1:33:29because I used to be able to whitelist these things.

1:33:32So I think that will be fixed for anyone who's trying it now

1:33:35and is also weird like me and has content restrictions.

1:33:37But it works, like it just bounces to Safari

1:33:39and then it runs the shortcut

1:33:41and the shortcut does whatever.

1:33:43Now, one of the things that is helpful here

1:33:47is I have turned on the accessibility feature

1:33:53to reduce motion in iOS.

1:33:56And that makes the process of bouncing to Safari

1:34:00and then bouncing to shortcuts almost instant.

1:34:03Because there's no animation,

1:34:05like the screen is just white for a split second

1:34:07while it goes to Safari,

1:34:08and then it's immediately in shortcuts.

1:34:11And quite frankly, I don't really notice anywhere

1:34:14in the system where the reduced motion bothers me.

1:34:16The only thing is the app multitasker,

1:34:19the physics of it seem a little weird,

1:34:21but I've totally gotten used to it now,

1:34:23and now I don't even think about it.

1:34:25So turning on reduced motion, it's great.

1:34:28As far as I'm concerned, there's no trade-off,

1:34:30and there's only benefit

1:34:31that the shortcuts load way, way faster.

1:34:33- Okay, so I'm looking at this now,

1:34:36looking at this screen,

1:34:37and I can imagine that there's a mix

1:34:40of performing some kind of action,

1:34:43logging some kind of timer,

1:34:45opening some kind of application, right?

1:34:48So I'm gonna start with the doc,

1:34:50and previous history of this show has told me that the green plus mark that is launching

1:34:57a toggle timer, right?

1:34:59Yeah, that one has been on the dock for a long time.

1:35:02Yeah, I remember that.

1:35:04That brings up a list of all of the possible workflows that I have that are related to

1:35:09timers. So that may eventually disappear, but I'm still using that as I'm slowly

1:35:16going through the long tail of converting a bunch of timers over to Siri actions. But

1:35:21yes, that is the default. I want to start a timer. Here it goes.

1:35:26All right, spaceship, using my knowledge of the apps that you use, is going to open Launch

1:35:32Center Pro. Okay, I'm going to give you that. It does

1:35:36not open Launch Center Pro. But I'm using it as a replacement for a bunch of the stuff

1:35:42that Launch Center Pro used to do for me. Like little actions. So now I have just built,

1:35:47when I press that, it opens up a menu and it's like, here's a bunch of junk I used to

1:35:51have in Launch Center Pro.

1:35:53That's now shortcuts.

1:35:54Yeah, I've rebuilt Launch Center Pro with a shortcut.

1:35:57So I'm assuming from this, you must have lots of shortcuts because you're building shortcuts

1:36:03for shortcuts, right? Which is a thing you can do where like, you can build a bunch of

1:36:07many actions and then build one action that calls all those many actions.

1:36:12Yeah, so yeah, so this is this is like, if you have any experience programming at all,

1:36:18it really pays off here. Because I'm trying to think about modularity of like, don't build

1:36:24a big shortcut to do everything, build shortcuts that can call other functions. And there's

1:36:32great tricks about you can use the the pace board on iOS as a place to temporarily store a value.

1:36:39So you can have one shortcut, write a value to the clipboard, and then it launches another shortcut,

1:36:45which then reads the clipboard and pulls that value in. So there's like, you have a variable

1:36:52that can be passed back and forth between different shortcuts, which is great. But yes,

1:36:58I'm having lots of shortcuts launch other shortcuts.

1:37:01I built this one that needed that. Like it needed, I need something I was doing. I needed

1:37:05to use the clipboard and I was really proud of myself that I built like a non-destructive

1:37:10clipboard version by taking the clipboard, pasting it into a note, like that's in shortcuts,

1:37:17pasting it into a text field, then using the clipboard and then the final action of the

1:37:22shortcut is to take the original pasted element. Oh, that's clever.

1:37:26So if I have something on my clipboard, I don't want it to be destroyed by running the shortcut?

1:37:31That's very clever.

1:37:32Thank you. I was proud of myself on that one, because I was like, hmm,

1:37:34I'm frequently copying things and then going somewhere else and pasting them in,

1:37:39and if I'm using shortcuts to move between documents, like in Google Docs,

1:37:44I don't want it to destroy it, so I kind of built this really weird version of clipboard history.

1:37:49It's just writing it once and then taking it again.

1:37:53Alright, so the clipboard I'm assuming is some kind of notes or like, oh no, it's a

1:37:59checklist. It's a checklist of some kind, right? It's gotta be.

1:38:03Excellent guess. You're wrong. Ah. Okay. Let me explain. We don't really have to go through

1:38:09all of these, but let me explain. Well, you won't go. I know you won't go through all

1:38:12of them, right? Like some of you, I'm not telling you what that is and we'll have to

1:38:15move on. I know that's how it's going to go. The chess piece in the top left, the blue horse,

1:38:20night and the clipboard at the bottom. Both of those are omni-focus related.

1:38:26Okay. And the night is acting as my top level

1:38:33perspective. So I have a perspective in omni-focus, like a way of filtering the particular tasks.

1:38:38And it's like my number one perspective that I'm using is like high level and super important stuff

1:38:47for the day, but stuff that is not necessarily urgent,

1:38:51but things that like, man, I feel like I've had a great day

1:38:54if I do these things.

1:38:56And so I always wanna make sure to try to clear that list

1:39:00before I get sucked in by like more urgent things

1:39:05as the day goes on.

1:39:07So the night is there because I always just wanna be able

1:39:09to like bam, hit that and go straight into this perspective.

1:39:13This again is where like, man, shortcuts in Siri integration

1:39:17with all the apps is just amazing

1:39:19because you can just go exactly

1:39:22to where you want in the app.

1:39:24And the little clipboard on the dock

1:39:27just brings up a list of all of the other perspectives

1:39:31I might want to access in OmniFocus.

1:39:34And then I can just select from there

1:39:35and it opens OmniFocus right where I want to be.

1:39:39And it sounds dumb,

1:39:41like you're not really saving any steps,

1:39:43but it totally, like it, again,

1:39:45And this is just like reducing a little bit of friction makes things way easier.

1:39:49Well, it shifts your mindset.

1:39:51Like you said, like it takes you away from the silo of apps to broadening it out to think

1:39:58of actions or projects.

1:39:59Yeah.

1:40:00And so I'm, yeah, I'm finding that I'm using the perspectives much more than I did before.

1:40:06Just because it's very simple that the step isn't like, go to OmniFocus.

1:40:10"Oh, what state was it left in back up to the main page

1:40:14and then go to the place that I want to go?"

1:40:16It's like, "No, no, I pressed the button,

1:40:18take me to Aaron's right now."

1:40:20Or like, "Take me to this other place right now."

1:40:23And it just goes, it's so nice.

1:40:25It's so super nice.

1:40:27So those two are for OmniFocus.

1:40:31And let me do a little bit of a diversion here

1:40:34to tell you about the top row of folders

1:40:36and what's going on since we're talking about OmniFocus.

1:40:38So the four folders at the top, I am using

1:40:42as the four kinds of notifications that I wish to receive.

1:40:47Like what do I want badges for?

1:40:49And so because these things are shortcuts,

1:40:53shortcuts cannot display a badge

1:40:56for whatever should be on them.

1:40:57Only apps can do that.

1:40:59So I want OmniFocus to be able to have badges

1:41:02because I want to be aware of this number

1:41:05that I'm always trying to get down to zero

1:41:06over the course of the day.

1:41:08So that first folder at the top left

1:41:11with the little purple check mark in it,

1:41:13that is the number that is being displayed in OmniFocus.

1:41:18And I have a couple of other little to-do apps in there,

1:41:22like I have Do in there,

1:41:24which has different kinds of notifications for it.

1:41:26So that first folder is acting for me

1:41:29as here are all of the action items

1:41:34that you have to perform in the day.

1:41:36And it's really important for me to be able

1:41:38to see those badges.

1:41:40I totally love it.

1:41:41And what I really love is that if you force press

1:41:46on any of those folders, the system will show you

1:41:50the breakdown of which app is displaying

1:41:53how many number of badges,

1:41:54and you can jump straight to that app.

1:41:57- It's a very nice feature.

1:41:58- It's a really nice feature.

1:42:00I never used it before now, but suddenly it's vital.

1:42:03Like it's super great.

1:42:05And then continuing across the top row,

1:42:07the next one over is iMessage badges.

1:42:10Now the third one over then is my company Slack.

1:42:15And then the last one is like miscellaneous

1:42:19other kinds of communication that may come into me.

1:42:22So VIP emails, secondary Slack,

1:42:25a couple of other like communication things.

1:42:28So across the top row,

1:42:31It's also roughly ordered in priority.

1:42:35- How can you have slacks in two different folders?

1:42:37- Oh, Myke, you can have slacks in two different folders.

1:42:41Did you not know this?

1:42:43- No.

1:42:44- Okay, okay, let me tell you something.

1:42:47Don't tell anybody about this

1:42:49because I'm afraid they're gonna pull it.

1:42:50But if you search for Slack in the store

1:42:53and then you go to the spot

1:42:56where it says more by this developer,

1:43:00there is an Enterprise Edition of Slack that you can download.

1:43:05And so you can have two Slack apps running on your phone.

1:43:11-Holy sh--.

1:43:12-Which means you can have all of your lower-priority Slacks

1:43:18in the Enterprise Edition

1:43:20and your higher-priority Slack in the main Slack.

1:43:23-Holy sh--. That's incredible.

1:43:26But, like, what's the difference?

1:43:29The difference is, the Enterprise version seems to get the exact same updates maybe a week or two later.

1:43:35But other than that, it's the same.

1:43:37Oh my god.

1:43:39We've potentially ruined this by talking about it.

1:43:43But I feel like Slack cares so much about the Enterprise that that app exists for a reason.

1:43:48But you've just like, changed everything for me.

1:43:52Because I'm, you know, like everyone, I'm a member of too many Slacks,

1:43:56and I don't need the notification badges for most of them.

1:44:00Or at least I would like notifications,

1:44:02but I don't need them as urgently.

1:44:05- Here's what you want to do, because this is what I do,

1:44:07that for my company Slack, I wanna know right away

1:44:12when someone messages me, right?

1:44:14'Cause it's like, here's the thing,

1:44:16I don't wanna be the bottleneck,

1:44:17I wanna turn it around, great.

1:44:19But for all of the other Slacks,

1:44:22the iOS implementation of deliver quietly is fine, right?

1:44:27Like when I pull down notification center,

1:44:29I can just see what all of that stuff is.

1:44:32Or when I'm working across clearing these badges

1:44:34from left to right, like I'll get to it.

1:44:36I'll see that there's something there,

1:44:38but it's not the top priority item.

1:44:41So by having two instances of Slack,

1:44:44it means that you can have two different iOS levels

1:44:48of notification.

1:44:50So it's great.

1:44:51someone at Slack next week saying, "Wow, what happened to the downloads on the Enterprise

1:44:55Edition?"

1:44:56Myke, you're not really going to leave this in the show and ruin it for us, are you?

1:45:01I'm going to leave it in. There's no way they can get rid of it. Like, Enterprise is too

1:45:05important for them. They clearly need this application.

1:45:08I'm going to blame you if you ruin it for us, Myke.

1:45:10We've got to share this with the people. They need to know.

1:45:14All right, well, I'm sure all the people will be very discreet about it.

1:45:17Yeah, don't tell anyone.

1:45:19You will have to download it on different days.

1:45:22Alright, you work together, download it at different times.

1:45:25Alright, let me see if I can knock some of these ones out here, right?

1:45:28So, the globe is probably Safari.

1:45:30The globe is not Safari, no.

1:45:32I try never to use Safari on my phone. Do you even know me, Myke?

1:45:36That's why I have the content restrictions on me.

1:45:38Alright, alright, alright, alright.

1:45:39I figured you'd still want to use the web browser sometimes, though.

1:45:43I never want to use the web browser on my phone.

1:45:45- Okay.

1:45:46- It's glitchy right now in iOS 12,

1:45:48but I am trying to set it so that the web browser works

1:45:51for nothing but the URLs that Shortcuts is launching it.

1:45:54- Well, let me take a second shot

1:45:56and say it's something to do with maps.

1:45:58- It is maps.

1:45:59- Okay, great.

1:45:59- So this is one of these pleasing little things

1:46:01where I like to have maps on the home screen.

1:46:04I don't use it a ton, but I do like to have it there

1:46:06instead of searching for it.

1:46:08And I do switch between Apple Maps and Google Maps,

1:46:11and I was never gonna put two not super frequently used apps

1:46:16on the home screen.

1:46:17But so now the globe, I have one button.

1:46:20It asks me, do you want Apple maps or Google maps?

1:46:22And I just pick which one and then it opens it.

1:46:24- Ooh, you know, just for stuff like that,

1:46:27that's really clever.

1:46:31'Cause you could even like have one for Slack,

1:46:33like which Slack app do you want?

1:46:35- Exactly. - Do you want the good one

1:46:37or the secret one?

1:46:38(both laughing)

1:46:40- Yeah, so there's like the red icon at the top,

1:46:44which is the database icon.

1:46:46- Yeah.

1:46:46- That's a similar thing.

1:46:47Like there's just a bunch of sort of related,

1:46:50but not super frequently used apps under there.

1:46:53And it's like, great, I can just pull up this menu.

1:46:56It's easier than swiping down

1:46:59and starting to type the names.

1:47:00It's just like, boom, I hit that one.

1:47:02It's like, oh yeah, I want Anki right now,

1:47:04the flashcard program, oh, launch that thing, go.

1:47:07So it's a really useful thing to think about

1:47:11if you're going to try to run a shortcuts-only home screen

1:47:15is you can clump together similar things

1:47:19that you would never want to take up

1:47:21four slots on the home screen.

1:47:23- I feel like I can knock out the rest of that third row.

1:47:26- Okay. - Books.

1:47:27So that's probably Kindle or iBooks, right?

1:47:30You're open either.

1:47:31- The thing that's nice about the books one

1:47:33is I launch it, it asks me, what are you reading,

1:47:37non-fiction or fiction, I select, it starts the appropriate toggle timer, and then opens

1:47:41up Kindle.

1:47:42But it's just nice that I don't have to do the timer as a separate thing.

1:47:46So here's one that I built which is kind of similar.

1:47:48It's called Show Prep.

1:47:49So I leave it in my widget.

1:47:51So I use the widget for this, the shortcuts widget.

1:47:55So I press that button, it asks me which show you're prepping for right now.

1:48:00I'll tap the appropriate show.

1:48:02opens the Google Doc and then sets the show prep timer for that show.

1:48:05Right? Yeah. Yeah, it's great. So it's like little stuff like that. This is what shortcuts

1:48:10is so good for. Alright, the next one is going to be photos the orange flower. Yep, yep,

1:48:15just photos. And then you got music is the pink music note. Alright, so that's that row

1:48:20taken care of the one below it the microphone. It's something podcast related. Okay, so this

1:48:25is this is one of the first ones that I made. I'm super pleased about it. And it helped

1:48:31cascade this whole thing into existence.

1:48:34It's not really complicated, but it's nice.

1:48:38So if you're me, if you're Myke,

1:48:41you're walking along in the world,

1:48:43you know, you're just thinking thoughts,

1:48:44and you'll think, oh, I have an idea

1:48:48for something that I wanna talk about on a podcast.

1:48:51Now, what you don't wanna do is

1:48:56then open up your Notes app

1:48:58and search for where the note for that podcast is,

1:49:02then tap on it and then insert your cursor

1:49:05into the right spot and then start typing.

1:49:07Because ideas, they're ephemeral.

1:49:11They can fly away at a moment's notice.

1:49:13So when I tap the podcast microphone,

1:49:17it opens up a shortcut and it immediately gives me

1:49:20a text box to type whatever the thought is.

1:49:24And then when I'm done typing the thought,

1:49:26I hit OK, and it brings up a menu.

1:49:28It says, which podcast is this for?

1:49:30I select it, and it automatically dumps it

1:49:33into the bare note that I'm using it.

1:49:35And very nicely, it pre-pends as opposed to app pending.

1:49:40So it's at the top of the note, it's not at the bottom.

1:49:44Now, I have very few podcasts compared to a mic,

1:49:49but I think you in particular may find

1:49:52that a super useful shortcut to have on your home screen.

1:49:55I do but I use Apple notes for this stuff and I don't think I can do that.

1:50:00So you cannot do the app and prepend thing with Apple notes.

1:50:05And this is where I've actually shifted a ton of my storage stuff to Apple notes, but

1:50:13I'm leaving the podcast in bear precisely because of that ability to say like, I can

1:50:17pick it goes here or I can pick it goes there.

1:50:20So I've tried with bear a couple of times to move my podcast notes stuff to it for the

1:50:24the App and Prepand.

1:50:26But I've had two problems with it.

1:50:27One, it doesn't do as good a job with adding URLs to Notes

1:50:31as Notes does.

1:50:33And the other, the conflicts, they drive me mad.

1:50:37I've found it to duplicate Notes to deal with conflicts.

1:50:41They may have gotten better at this.

1:50:42I hope they've gotten better at that.

1:50:44But like, so when I use so many devices, right,

1:50:46I would add something on my iPhone,

1:50:48then I would add something on my iPad or from the extension,

1:50:52And then when I open up one device, it's like,

1:50:55ah, we created three versions for you

1:50:57'cause we don't know what to do with it.

1:50:58- See, this is much less of a problem

1:51:00when really the only iOS device you're using is your phone.

1:51:05So I don't run into the duplication problem so much, Myke.

1:51:10But nonetheless, you may be able to find another solution.

1:51:14I know that Evernote has shortcuts

1:51:16to Append, Prepend, to Notes.

1:51:18Maybe you wanna give Evernote a try for your show notes.

1:51:20- Don't even.

1:51:22I can't.

1:51:23Like, you know, the Apple Notes one works pretty well.

1:51:25Like I could actually just, I could create,

1:51:27as I was thinking about as we were talking,

1:51:29create something that just opens the specific note, right?

1:51:32And then that would probably be enough.

1:51:34'Cause I do have that thing where I have to search

1:51:35through all the notes, right?

1:51:37Like where is the note that I want right now?

1:51:39- Just opening to the note you want

1:51:41is already saving you a bunch.

1:51:43So yeah, you should totally build something like this.

1:51:45- Or like, you know, I could do something where

1:51:47I could create some text and then,

1:51:50like so the first thing I'm doing is either recording

1:51:52or writing the text down,

1:51:54and then it copies it to the clipboard,

1:51:56then opens the note, and then I paste it in.

1:51:59- Yeah. - Those are the types

1:52:00of things you could do.

1:52:01Okay, so that makes sense.

1:52:02- This is an example, though,

1:52:03of where I think it's really important

1:52:05to think about it from action center

1:52:08rather than app centered.

1:52:09And when you're thinking about it action centered,

1:52:12it then becomes obvious.

1:52:13What I wanna do right now is write down an idea.

1:52:18So hit me with a text box

1:52:21So I can type things in now,

1:52:23and I can do the fiddly stuff about sorting later.

1:52:27I don't wanna do what an app-based world requires,

1:52:30which is the total reverse.

1:52:32You've gotta do the fiddly stuff of finding the right spot,

1:52:35and then you can write down the idea

1:52:38that you're barely able to hold onto with your fingers

1:52:41as it tries to flutter away.

1:52:43You wanna do it in the opposite direction.

1:52:45- The blue credit card-looking thing,

1:52:48I assume it's something money-related.

1:52:50- It's a good guess.

1:52:51It's an index card is what it is.

1:52:54And that is my version of the podcast thing,

1:52:58but for OmniFocus.

1:53:00So it's the same idea.

1:53:02I hit that little button.

1:53:04It's like, here's a little index card

1:53:05or something that I want to keep track of.

1:53:07I type in whatever it is.

1:53:09It can be an errand.

1:53:10It can be, oh, I need to reply to this person.

1:53:12It can be, here's a thing I need flagged in this,

1:53:14whatever it is.

1:53:16And then the shortcut then brings up like the,

1:53:20I think I have like five or six.

1:53:22Here are places you might want to put this in OmniFocus,

1:53:26and I just select the one,

1:53:27and then it boom goes right into the system.

1:53:30So beautiful now with OmniFocus 3,

1:53:32like with all of the correct tags

1:53:34and in the correct folder, in the correct project,

1:53:37and it just goes into the system,

1:53:39and it's so nice. - Sounds good.

1:53:41- Yeah, it's really nice.

1:53:43- I got that wonder in my...

1:53:44(laughing)

1:53:46- I know, Myke, Myke, let me tell you,

1:53:47my OmniFocus 3 is really good.

1:53:49I mean, I'm still waiting, OmniFocus,

1:53:51I'm still waiting for that floating time zone fix.

1:53:55You told me it's coming.

1:53:56I know it's coming.

1:53:57I'm still waiting for it.

1:53:58- I'm not even gonna look at it until they add that,

1:53:59but if they add that, I will look at it again.

1:54:01- But let me tell you, OmniFocus 3, it's so good.

1:54:04Can I tell you my favorite OmniFocus trick, Myke,

1:54:06or should I save it for later?

1:54:08- No, you can tell me.

1:54:09- Okay.

1:54:11I have, one of the things that's hiding

1:54:14under my launch center replacement

1:54:17is the action that then brings up the shortcut,

1:54:20which brings up all of my templates for OmniFocus.

1:54:23One of those templates is of course travel,

1:54:26like, oh God, I'm gonna travel somewhere.

1:54:29Now, when you travel,

1:54:31there's things you can't bring across security, right?

1:54:34Like they won't let you bring water.

1:54:36It's like the little hassle thing.

1:54:37So there's always a bunch of stuff you wanna buy

1:54:39when you're at the airport.

1:54:41You wanna get some water for the flight.

1:54:44You wanna get some almonds or some food or what,

1:54:46Like you want to have just like a couple little things that you can only bypass security.

1:54:50So I've always had a whole list of these things, but I sort of forget at the airport to actually

1:54:54buy them.

1:54:56So I wanted alerts for when I arrive at the airport.

1:54:59Hey, buy these things, you're gonna need them.

1:55:02But of course, there's many airports that I go to.

1:55:06How will I get an alert at that airport?

1:55:09The answer is, I just tag every one of those items with every airport in the world that

1:55:16I might be at. All of those tags will trigger on the location of showing up at that airport.

1:55:22Oh f*** that. Get out of here, I hate you.

1:55:26It's so good!

1:55:27That's insane.

1:55:29You could do this for example with grocery shopping. You could have a tag for all of

1:55:34the grocery stores you might go to and it will location trigger at any of them.

1:55:38How reliable is it?

1:55:40It is worked 100% of the time for me.

1:55:42So as soon as you get there, it pops up and it's like, "Hey, you gonna do this?"

1:55:46Yeah, it actually almost always works as the car is pulling up to the airport, which is perfect.

1:55:52Like, there's just enough time where it's like, "Ah, it's popped up, there's five things you wanna buy."

1:55:56I hate you so much.

1:55:57And I can get through security fast enough and I'm on the other side and I'm buying it.

1:56:01But it is like, my default tagging list for that is hilarious.

1:56:06It's like, "Here we go! London Heathrow, Amsterdam Schiphol, JFK Airport, San Jose, LAX, LAS!"

1:56:13Right? Like, I've got 10 of them in there for all the airports I've been to.

1:56:18Let me confirm how this happens. You have to, like, start the workflow so they're in your inbox or whatever, right?

1:56:25And then when you arrive at the place, those active tasks will trigger. Is that how it works?

1:56:30you in OmniFocus three, you can associate a tag with a location. And then you can say that this

1:56:36tag with this location should trigger either upon your arrival or departure from that location.

1:56:44But what is it triggering though? Like is it triggering a task which is already active?

1:56:50I'm not quite sure what you're asking. Right. So when you get to the airport,

1:56:54like what is only focus doing? OmniFocus will show on the screen,

1:56:58you have five tasks at this location.

1:57:01Right, but you have already put those tasks into the system beforehand.

1:57:04So like when you've left in the morning, you're like, "I'm going to the airport."

1:57:08And then it adds like 10 tasks into your airport project

1:57:12that won't fire until they hit a location.

1:57:14And when you arrive at the airport,

1:57:16those tasks that are already in OmniFocus have been surfaced.

1:57:19Okay, cool.

1:57:20Yes, that's right. That's what's happening.

1:57:22Yeah, it's part of this whole template.

1:57:23Because I was wondering, like, the ultimate thing would be that,

1:57:27like you arrive and it creates a project, right? Now that would be like next level.

1:57:34So you don't even need to think about starting it, right? Like you get there and it's like,

1:57:39oh, you're at the airport. That means you must need these things as opposed to you saying

1:57:43like, and again, like, it's too much. It might be too much to ask, but like, that would be

1:57:47the dream.

1:57:48No, no, no, no, no, no, like, Myke, Myke, no, but just just so you know, like what you're

1:57:51asking for is totally possible. Because you could just have a project with tasks that

1:57:56recur after a day at a particular location, so that you just say like, "Here's all the

1:58:02things I want at an airport. All of these are recurring tasks that appear after one

1:58:07day." And then every time you arrive at the airport, those things will trigger. And they

1:58:11just they're tagged with all the airports. Like what you're asking for is totally possible.

1:58:14Myke: Right, but they have no dates, so they don't show my forecast or anything.

1:58:17Alok; Right, again, this is where you can filter it out.

1:58:20Myke; Oh, God. I hate you.

1:58:21Alok; Look, look, Myke, what's going to happen here is, you know you're going to be using

1:58:25OmniFocus 3 and you also know you're going to end up with a home screen that has nothing

1:58:29but shortcuts on it without words. We all know this is where it's going. Listen, we

1:58:35all know that the Cortex subreddit is going to be filled with nothing but hundreds of

1:58:41screenshots of people's beautiful shortcut home screens.

1:58:45I already know what Future Myke's path is because I know I'm going to listen to this

1:58:51tomorrow. And when I'm listening to this part when I'm editing, I am downloading OmniFocus

1:58:59and starting to set up at least that trip thing so I can play with it and kind of get

1:59:03my sense around how that works. I already can see my future. I know when it's going

1:59:08to happen. Alright, let's try and finish this thing. I know that that football isn't a football.

1:59:15I know that's not launching BBC Sport or something.

1:59:19(laughter)

1:59:20Right?

1:59:21- You don't know me.

1:59:24- Is it like Iron Man or something?

1:59:25Like what are you doing with that one?

1:59:27What is that?

1:59:28I have no idea what that could be.

1:59:29'Cause I know the icon that I know it to be,

1:59:31it's not representing that.

1:59:33- Okay, it's the closest I could find to the concept

1:59:38that I was trying to express, which is physical health.

1:59:41- Right, okay.

1:59:42So that one is another collection of apps

1:59:45that I don't want any particular one

1:59:47to take up the home screen,

1:59:49but all of them together are worth a spot

1:59:51on the home screen.

1:59:52- What you have done here is create the ultimate folder.

1:59:56- Yeah, it's a better folder than folders.

1:59:57- Because you can have a list of apps that open or actions.

2:00:02- And I feel like this whole home screen

2:00:05is just one of the examples why you and I

2:00:10were so excited about Shortcuts integration

2:00:13into the system at WWDC is because like back then,

2:00:18the vision of this beautiful home screen

2:00:20was not even the tiniest of sparks in my mind,

2:00:23but we both knew like, man, this is going to make

2:00:25some really interesting stuff possible.

2:00:28And this to me, I feel like, oh,

2:00:31this is such a good example of,

2:00:34this is not remotely the intended use case of Shortcuts,

2:00:39But because it's so flexible and because it's so powerful,

2:00:44here's something that I've been able to do

2:00:47that would just never have been possible on iOS's gone by.

2:00:52So I'm like, I'm so happy with it.

2:00:55And what Shortcuts can do is just amazing.

2:00:58And every day more and more of the apps are updating

2:01:02to be able to do even more with Shortcuts.

2:01:05So this home screen,

2:01:07It feels like this is even just the baby steps

2:01:09of what is ultimately possible.

2:01:11So I'm super happy.