Connected

00:00:00 ◼   ► [Music]

00:00:08 ◼   ► From Relay FM, this is Connected, episode 372.

00:00:12 ◼   ► Today's show is brought to you by Fitbud, Trade, and Amazon Music.

00:00:17 ◼   ► My name is Myke Hurley and I'm joined by Federico Fettucci.

00:00:20 ◼   ► Ciao Federico.

00:00:20 ◼   ► Ciao Myke. Hello, how are you?

00:00:22 ◼   ► Oh very good. There's no Steven today. Steven has lost his voice.

00:00:26 ◼   ► or at least he's in that kind of stage where trust me, you don't want to hear him.

00:00:30 ◼   ► I had a call with him today and he sounded like garbage.

00:00:34 ◼   ► Stephen would like everybody to know that it's not COVID.

00:00:37 ◼   ► Not COVID.

00:00:38 ◼   ► He had a COVID test, not COVID.

00:00:40 ◼   ► I love this, by the way, you know, like you have anything, not COVID.

00:00:43 ◼   ► It's not, it's not COVID.

00:00:45 ◼   ► So yeah, relay FM members may have heard him on a backstage.

00:00:50 ◼   ► Oh, and on genius as well.

00:00:51 ◼   ► Stephen was not feeling too under the weather.

00:00:53 ◼   ► It got worse since that point.

00:00:54 ◼   ► And so no Stephen today.

00:00:56 ◼   ► But Steven did also want us to pass along a note that Magtricky orders have begun packing.

00:01:03 ◼   ► So at least he's working on that with his zero voice.

00:01:09 ◼   ► Steven will also be editing this episode so if anything's put in and makes me and Federico

00:01:13 ◼   ► sound silly, Steven did that.

00:01:15 ◼   ► [crickets chirping]

00:01:19 ◼   ► There's plenty of things you can do without a voice, like packing lots of boxes, which

00:01:23 ◼   ► Steven has been doing lately. It's a big postal energy going on with Steven right now.

00:01:30 ◼   ► He loves posting this stuff.

00:01:32 ◼   ► He does love the post office too.

00:01:34 ◼   ► It seems like it. I mean, he has to go to this post office. We have a PO box, Relay

00:01:40 ◼   ► FM has a PO box for sending bills and cheques to and stuff, and he has to go there often.

00:01:46 ◼   ► I've been there and I've unlocked the PO box, so this is a pointless story.

00:01:50 ◼   ► Let's do some follow up. Apple had given us what we wanted. iOS 15.2 now has an actual

00:01:59 ◼   ► proper toggle for macro photography. So to kind of go back to the beginning of the story,

00:02:06 ◼   ► with the new iPhones you can take your camera near something and it will automatically switch

00:02:13 ◼   ► to the ultra wide and crop in so you get a macro look to an image. So it's really it's

00:02:18 ◼   ► a really cool thing that it does, but it was activating too frequently and it was impossible

00:02:24 ◼   ► to change. Like if you wanted to take a picture of something but you didn't want to take a

00:02:28 ◼   ► macro photo, you couldn't stop it from doing that. And sometimes I found in low light situations

00:02:33 ◼   ► I would prefer the regular sensor. I'm not trying to take a macro of something, I'm just

00:02:37 ◼   ► close to it. Then they added something in 15.1 to turn off the automatic switching,

00:02:45 ◼   ► then you couldn't get, I spoke about this on the show,

00:02:48 ◼   ► if you used the ultra wide and got close to something,

00:02:51 ◼   ► it didn't give you the exact same effect

00:02:53 ◼   ► as the quote macro mode would.

00:02:56 ◼   ► So now in 15.2, they've done a couple of things.

00:03:00 ◼   ► And one of them is when you go close to something now,

00:03:04 ◼   ► a little icon pops up and this is great,

00:03:06 ◼   ► like only to be there when you need it, right?

00:03:08 ◼   ► Like when the phone detects it and it's got little flower,

00:03:11 ◼   ► which is what you use that is the photographic symbol of a macro.

00:03:15 ◼   ► And you can turn that on and off then if you want to toggle the ultra wide macro mode.

00:03:21 ◼   ► So I think this is perfect because they're still doing the automatic switching,

00:03:24 ◼   ► which I think is good, but you're able to have a way to cancel out of it.

00:03:28 ◼   ► And I think you can now turn it off completely and the setting is more clear.

00:03:32 ◼   ► So I'm very into this. I'm excited about it.

00:03:34 ◼   ► Yeah. Yeah. And they also changed the name of the setting

00:03:38 ◼   ► in the camera section of the Settings app.

00:03:42 ◼   ► It's now called the Macro Control. It's enabled by default

00:03:47 ◼   ► and the text says "Show camera control for

00:03:50 ◼   ► automatically switching to the ultra-wide lens to capture macro photos

00:03:55 ◼   ► and videos."

00:03:55 ◼   ► This is enabled by default, which means when you get close to something

00:03:59 ◼   ► it shows you the flower button in the bottom left corner

00:04:03 ◼   ► and it's, again, by default it's enabled so the button gets highlighted in yellow

00:04:08 ◼   ► and you can tap the flower button to disable macro mode

00:04:12 ◼   ► and if you do that, it's going to be standard ultra-wide capture without macro photography.

00:04:18 ◼   ► I'm very pleased that they're doing it, I think this is great

00:04:22 ◼   ► because I love the macro thing but I don't need it, I want it all the time

00:04:25 ◼   ► this is what I'm saying, I didn't want to turn it off completely because then I felt like I was missing out

00:04:29 ◼   ► so I think that this is a great way to do it

00:04:31 ◼   ► and I actually think it's the right way rather than adding another permanent mode or button to the camera app

00:04:37 ◼   ► I think this is a...

00:04:38 ◼   ► It's a dynamic button.

00:04:40 ◼   ► It's a button but it appears when it makes sense, which is a fair compromise.

00:04:46 ◼   ► I think it is. Compromise I think is a great word for this.

00:04:49 ◼   ► I'm pleased that they're still iterating on it.

00:04:51 ◼   ► Right, this is months after they put out the feature.

00:04:53 ◼   ► I'm pleased that they're still iterating on it.

00:04:55 ◼   ► I'm pleased that they didn't just kind of be like, oh, it's fine, or and or, we'll deal with it in 16.

00:05:00 ◼   ► Right, like is anything else in 15.2 of interest to you?

00:05:05 ◼   ► I'm sure you're running it.

00:05:06 ◼   ► I have a whole not... I'm just pulling up in my obsidian... minor things, right? So, for example,

00:05:15 ◼   ► you can search inside your playlists in music or... Well, the TV app is kind of new. The TV app has

00:05:23 ◼   ► a new sidebar on iPad and there's a new store section, so they are doing more work to sort of

00:05:31 ◼   ► consolidate everything into one place, which is the TV app. No longer a top bar on iPad,

00:05:38 ◼   ► the sidebar makes a lot more sense for the iPad, and you can open the store view from within the

00:05:45 ◼   ► TV app itself. Now, it's still not perfect, because I've found, like, I'm one of those old heroes that

00:05:51 ◼   ► still buys music from the iTunes... movies and TV shows, I'm sorry, from the iTunes store. Like, I

00:05:57 ◼   ► I still purchase TV shows and movies from iTunes.

00:06:01 ◼   ► I still do that too.

00:06:03 ◼   ► Okay, so...

00:06:04 ◼   ► Because sometimes something's not available or you want it quickly or...

00:06:09 ◼   ► Exactly.

00:06:10 ◼   ► For me, like if I have a movie that I like really, really love and I know I'm going to

00:06:13 ◼   ► watch it a bunch or I have watched it a bunch, I'll own it so I can just easily download

00:06:17 ◼   ► it and don't have to deal with like, oh, you're on...

00:06:20 ◼   ► Netflix has decided that you need to refresh your connection and, oh, you're on a plane.

00:06:26 ◼   ► The iTunes Store is great and you get 4K, Dolby Vision, Dolby Atmos, it's really good

00:06:31 ◼   ► stuff.

00:06:32 ◼   ► Anyway, the Store tab in the, or section, in the TV app, it still kicks you out to the

00:06:39 ◼   ► iTunes Store for a bunch of different purchases.

00:06:42 ◼   ► It's very inconsistent.

00:06:44 ◼   ► It's like they put like a mini version of the iTunes Store inside of the TV app, but

00:06:51 ◼   ► they only got halfway there.

00:06:52 ◼   ► And so when you want to make a purchase, you're still taken to the iTunes Store app, which

00:06:57 ◼   ► is a separate thing.

00:06:58 ◼   ► I wonder if maybe down the road they'll do the proper version of this, which is the iTunes

00:07:05 ◼   ► Store app will be gone and you will have this legacy, if you will, store views inside of

00:07:12 ◼   ► TV, music, what else?

00:07:14 ◼   ► What else do they sell?

00:07:16 ◼   ► I don't think they will put a store in the music app, though.

00:07:19 ◼   ► They're literally keeping this iTunes store app installed on device.

00:07:25 ◼   ► The music app is basically Apple Music, right? That's the app by and large.

00:07:30 ◼   ► I know you can put your own music in it, but if you do that, Apple still wants to really remind you that Apple Music is a thing.

00:07:37 ◼   ► But I guess they could find a way, maybe just a button that says "Store" but it's behind two different windows.

00:07:44 ◼   ► Yeah, that's what I'm thinking. That's what I'm thinking.

00:07:46 ◼   ► Because I mean, right now on the iTunes store, they have music.

00:07:49 ◼   ► Okay, there's Apple Music.

00:07:51 ◼   ► Movies and TV shows, they are doing the store tab in the TV app.

00:07:55 ◼   ► Then what's left is ringtones.

00:07:56 ◼   ► So I guess the big question is what happens to the tones store,

00:08:01 ◼   ► which is still...

00:08:01 ◼   ► They put it in the phone app.

00:08:03 ◼   ► [laughter]

00:08:04 ◼   ► Oh my God, yes. Oh my God.

00:08:06 ◼   ► It's the phone store.

00:08:07 ◼   ► Yeah, I'm looking at the tones store.

00:08:11 ◼   ► It's a DJ Snickers charting high.

00:08:14 ◼   ► I feel like maybe at one point the iTunes store used to have audiobooks too, and they're in the books app now.

00:08:20 ◼   ► Exactly, along with books.

00:08:22 ◼   ► So, you know, it has been split into multiple apps already, so I don't know.

00:08:29 ◼   ► Anyway, 15.2 you're going to find a store view inside of the TV app, and then it's a bunch of minor stuff.

00:08:37 ◼   ► I mean, you talked about the child safety features on upgrade with JSON that's coming.

00:08:44 ◼   ► There's a new design for the notification summary, which I complained, if you remember from my review,

00:08:51 ◼   ► I complained like, "This is boring. It's a boring design." They have tried to make it less boring,

00:08:57 ◼   ► so now you get these floating sort of cards for the top notifications in the summary.

00:09:05 ◼   ► Looks nicer, I still don't care because I don't use this thing.

00:09:08 ◼   ► No, I feel like in idea this is a better feature than in practicality.

00:09:15 ◼   ► While we're talking about notifications, I would just like to register a complaint

00:09:18 ◼   ► having now used iOS 15 for a really long time and I haven't gotten used to it and I don't like it.

00:09:23 ◼   ► How small the buttons are when you, you know, like if you long press on a notification.

00:09:29 ◼   ► Oh, they are smaller.

00:09:31 ◼   ► They're too small. The buttons are way too small to do anything.

00:09:33 ◼   ► They used to be easier when they were bigger.

00:09:35 ◼   ► The buttons are absolutely tiny and I've still not gotten used to there being no

00:09:41 ◼   ► dedicated button to get out of that view.

00:09:43 ◼   ► If you long press on a notification, like you have to kind of just like push the

00:09:48 ◼   ► notification away.

00:09:48 ◼   ► There used to be a little X button on the top right hand side.

00:09:52 ◼   ► So like they made that view all everything to do with that view, like of long

00:09:56 ◼   ► pressing notification, they made worse like, and I wish that they would tidy

00:10:01 ◼   ► that up a little bit for some point in the future.

00:10:05 ◼   ► - This is a longer conversation,

00:10:06 ◼   ► but I still find myself wishing for actual organization

00:10:10 ◼   ► of notifications.

00:10:12 ◼   ► The thing that really gets to me is,

00:10:15 ◼   ► I wanna be able to define types of notifications.

00:10:20 ◼   ► And I know that Android has tried to an extent

00:10:23 ◼   ► to get this right before.

00:10:24 ◼   ► I really don't wanna have the conversation of,

00:10:27 ◼   ► "Oh, Google did this first, like I don't care."

00:10:29 ◼   ► What I know is what I want from iOS.

00:10:32 ◼   ► And what I want is to get really granular and say,

00:10:37 ◼   ► okay, like if this kind of notifications

00:10:42 ◼   ► from this specific app comes in at this specific time,

00:10:46 ◼   ► do this, and I understand why this is such

00:10:50 ◼   ► like a power user feature, right?

00:10:53 ◼   ► - Yeah, but they made focus modes.

00:10:55 ◼   ► - But I mean, they made focus modes

00:10:56 ◼   ► and they made the notification summary.

00:10:58 ◼   ► So that argument is no longer valid of like,

00:11:00 ◼   ► oh, but power users want this.

00:11:02 ◼   ► I mean, look at those features, right?

00:11:04 ◼   ► Those are power user features.

00:11:05 ◼   ► It's like, in spirit,

00:11:08 ◼   ► they built features for notification power users,

00:11:12 ◼   ► but in practice, I don't think they were designed

00:11:15 ◼   ► by notification power users.

00:11:17 ◼   ► I feel like, it's like,

00:11:19 ◼   ► oh, what do those kinds of people want?

00:11:21 ◼   ► We're gonna give them these features,

00:11:23 ◼   ► but, you know, there's so much more work still left to do.

00:11:27 ◼   ► So I would also like to register a complaint about focus modes.

00:11:31 ◼   ► Okay. Why do I have to start with nothing? No people, no apps.

00:11:37 ◼   ► The system tries to make some intelligent suggestions, which it doesn't.

00:11:41 ◼   ► I want to do the reverse sometimes, like maybe not always,

00:11:45 ◼   ► but I would like the option of like select all applications,

00:11:48 ◼   ► select all contacts and then remove the ones I don't want. Like I,

00:11:52 ◼   ► I would like both options please.

00:11:54 ◼   ► So just have a select all and then let me uncheck stuff would also be really nice.

00:11:59 ◼   ► Anyway.

00:12:00 ◼   ► Anyway.

00:12:01 ◼   ► Have you seen Hyper's 15 port laptop dock?

00:12:05 ◼   ► I have seen a photo of this thing, yes.

00:12:07 ◼   ► I also got an email because I signed up for one of their campaigns.

00:12:11 ◼   ► Like I think I bought a battery like two years ago and then they always get in touch with

00:12:16 ◼   ► me.

00:12:17 ◼   ► This is the main reason I have mentioned this, which is what you've just got just mentioned

00:12:20 ◼   ► and I'll get to that in a second but like they've made a dock that is basically is that

00:12:25 ◼   ► is as long as one of the new MacBook Pros and is intended to sit underneath that you

00:12:29 ◼   ► kind of like prop it on the back so it lifts your laptop up a little bit and then it's

00:12:34 ◼   ► got like 15 ports it's got like a bunch it's just got a bunch of everything it just like

00:12:39 ◼   ► an interesting product so I wanted to just mentioned it because I like to mention weird

00:12:42 ◼   ► products every now and then on the show but mostly just as like a PSA if you ever back

00:12:47 ◼   ► one of Hypers products on Kickstarter they will spam you about every product that they

00:12:52 ◼   ► ever make forever. Like I backed the same as you one of their it was like an iPad thing

00:12:57 ◼   ► and every time they launch a new product they set it as an update to their existing Kickstarter

00:13:03 ◼   ► campaign and that really grinds my gears because that is not what the update thing is for and

00:13:10 ◼   ► And I cannot find a way to leave this.

00:13:14 ◼   ► So I get these notifications from them all the time.

00:13:17 ◼   ► No, no, you can never leave the hyper marketing machine.

00:13:22 ◼   ► Like once you're in, you're in forever.

00:13:25 ◼   ► You're in for good.

00:13:26 ◼   ► I guess to be honest, like if they're not telling me about them, Steve is just posting

00:13:30 ◼   ► about them on his blog anyway.

00:13:31 ◼   ► So I'm always finding out about them sometimes.

00:13:33 ◼   ► They're going to find you.

00:13:34 ◼   ► You change your email address, they're going to know somehow that you have a new email

00:13:38 ◼   ► address.

00:13:39 ◼   ► They're tracking you.

00:13:40 ◼   ► I saw something on MacRumors today

00:13:42 ◼   ► that I wanted to put into the show

00:13:43 ◼   ► because I felt like it was for you,

00:13:45 ◼   ► which is that it was rumored that WhatsApp

00:13:47 ◼   ► is working on an app for iPadOS

00:13:50 ◼   ► that will also have a catalyst version on the Mac.

00:13:53 ◼   ► Oh, I'm so happy. I'm so happy.

00:13:55 ◼   ► This is great news.

00:13:57 ◼   ► I know that I'm pretty sure that even Sylvia does this.

00:14:02 ◼   ► People have been using the WhatsApp WebView

00:14:06 ◼   ► as a desktop version of it,

00:14:08 ◼   ► But here we're--

00:14:09 ◼   ► - This is what I do with Instagram on my iPad, same thing.

00:14:12 ◼   ► - Oh, okay. - Yep.

00:14:13 ◼   ► - Yeah, so WhatsApp is a web view

00:14:16 ◼   ► that you connect to your WhatsApp app on the phone

00:14:20 ◼   ► by scanning a QR code, I believe that's how it works.

00:14:23 ◼   ► But here we're talking about a proper

00:14:25 ◼   ► like multi-device support for WhatsApp,

00:14:28 ◼   ► which has been historically tied to one device at a time.

00:14:32 ◼   ► And here we're talking about a catalyst app

00:14:35 ◼   ► for iPad and macOS.

00:14:37 ◼   ► This is going to be amazing for me.

00:14:39 ◼   ► Uh, and at that point, realistically, like the only reason that I'm using iMessage is for you guys and John and a couple of other friends, but all my real life, well, not real life, Italian friends, really.

00:14:51 ◼   ► All my real life friends, Federico.

00:14:53 ◼   ► Well, it's been so long since I, since I last saw you.

00:14:58 ◼   ► I know what you mean.

00:15:00 ◼   ► But all of my Italian friends and family, we all use WhatsApp.

00:15:03 ◼   ► So I am very happy.

00:15:05 ◼   ► - I have this with everyone I know too,

00:15:08 ◼   ► in that everybody that I know only uses iMessage for me

00:15:11 ◼   ► because everybody else uses WhatsApp.

00:15:13 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:15:14 ◼   ► - So like I have some family group,

00:15:15 ◼   ► like me and my two brothers have a group text

00:15:18 ◼   ► and they only use iMessage for me.

00:15:21 ◼   ► They use WhatsApp for each other.

00:15:23 ◼   ► All of my family send me iMessages,

00:15:24 ◼   ► but to each other they all use WhatsApp.

00:15:27 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:15:27 ◼   ► - What can I say?

00:15:28 ◼   ► I don't like WhatsApp.

00:15:29 ◼   ► I really dislike WhatsApp.

00:15:32 ◼   ► I don't know what it is.

00:15:33 ◼   ► I wish that I could stop using it.

00:15:36 ◼   ► I really do.

00:15:36 ◼   ► - You don't want to.

00:15:37 ◼   ► Right, I get you.

00:15:39 ◼   ► - But like, I wish that I could,

00:15:41 ◼   ► but I also don't wanna use Telegram.

00:15:44 ◼   ► And yes, I have heard about Telegram.

00:15:46 ◼   ► I have heard about all the alternatives.

00:15:48 ◼   ► The problem is my family and my friends

00:15:50 ◼   ► will never leave WhatsApp.

00:15:51 ◼   ► So I'm stuck with it.

00:15:52 ◼   ► Like ideally, I wish that I could use one messaging app.

00:15:57 ◼   ► Like I really want to,

00:15:58 ◼   ► but also I really wanna talk to my friends, you know?

00:16:02 ◼   ► So that's the problem.

00:16:03 ◼   ► - I do have some WhatsApp groups that I can't get away from,

00:16:08 ◼   ► but that's just how I communicate with some people.

00:16:11 ◼   ► But he who must not be named confirmed that Facebook

00:16:14 ◼   ► was working on multi-device support for WhatsApp,

00:16:19 ◼   ► which is a thing that has not actually been possible really

00:16:23 ◼   ► because of the way that it's architected,

00:16:25 ◼   ► but they were doing something to make that possible,

00:16:27 ◼   ► which would then allow for an iPad app.

00:16:30 ◼   ► Because currently an iPad app for WhatsApp

00:16:32 ◼   ► would be useless. Yeah, just be empty. I wonder here if there's a the beginning maybe of a

00:16:43 ◼   ► trend because I see this news here of WhatsApp. Did you also see that Amazon is bringing or

00:16:52 ◼   ► brought Prime Video to macOS via Catalyst? Yeah. I wonder if we're starting to see what

00:16:58 ◼   ► Catalyst was meant to be, maybe, and 2 is just, you know, too small a number. But this

00:17:06 ◼   ► is what Catalyst was supposed to achieve, right? To make it easy for these big companies,

00:17:10 ◼   ► and small developers too, but also big companies, to unify their codebases and be like, "Well,

00:17:16 ◼   ► I guess we're doing native versions for iPad and Mac now because they're based on the iPhone

00:17:21 ◼   ► version." So maybe we gotta keep an eye on this if there's more companies.

00:17:25 ◼   ► It's an encouraging trend, I think.

00:17:27 ◼   ► I think it's good.

00:17:29 ◼   ► Maybe not a trend, maybe an encouraging sign for now, but hopefully if it becomes a trend

00:17:34 ◼   ► I'm going to be really happy.

00:17:35 ◼   ► You know, all these apps that I got to use on my iPhone.

00:17:38 ◼   ► There's these websites that I keep finding every time there's a WhatsApp rumor.

00:17:43 ◼   ► What's it called?

00:17:44 ◼   ► What's WA Beta Info.

00:17:47 ◼   ► This is amazing.

00:17:48 ◼   ► It's a blog that has been around for years.

00:17:51 ◼   ► And all they do is cover WhatsApp betas.

00:17:54 ◼   ► I love these kinds of websites. Like, very, very specific.

00:17:59 ◼   ► - It's been around forever. - WA Beta Info.

00:18:01 ◼   ► WA Beta Info dot com.

00:18:04 ◼   ► Look at this. It's just WhatsApp news.

00:18:07 ◼   ► Yes. Very topical.

00:18:10 ◼   ► They're posting, like, multiple times a day.

00:18:14 ◼   ► Yes! It's incredible.

00:18:16 ◼   ► It's like, what if Serebii was a website about WhatsApp?

00:18:21 ◼   ► This is an incredible thing.

00:18:25 ◼   ► They really post multiple times a day, every single day.

00:18:30 ◼   ► For years.

00:18:31 ◼   ► WhatsApp beta for Android 2.21.23.12. What's new?

00:18:36 ◼   ► WhatsApp beta for Android 2.21.23.13. What's new?

00:18:41 ◼   ► They were posted like one day after each other.

00:18:43 ◼   ► This is incredible.

00:18:45 ◼   ► They post like every point point point release.

00:18:49 ◼   ► This is now a WA Beta Info appreciation podcast.

00:18:53 ◼   ► Yeah, so fan podcast.

00:18:54 ◼   ► This is all we're going to do now.

00:18:56 ◼   ► This episode is brought to you by our friends

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00:21:00 ◼   ► Today, Apple announced the Apple self-service repair program in truly a move that if you

00:21:09 ◼   ► would have asked me to make a financial bet with you, I would have bet against.

00:21:14 ◼   ► This is really a very, very surprising thing. So I'll give you some details.

00:21:20 ◼   ► This is starting with the iPhone 12 and iPhone 13 line of phones, soon to be followed by M1 Max.

00:21:29 ◼   ► It's going to start in the US in early 2022, expanding throughout the year to different

00:21:35 ◼   ► countries. Apple will be providing repair manuals for their products and the ability for you to

00:21:42 ◼   ► order parts online. Apple will have available over 200 individual parts and tools and includes stuff

00:21:51 ◼   ► like camera units and batteries and all kinds like loads of different types of parts that they're

00:21:59 ◼   ► going to be having available for people to be able to order themselves like the ones that are

00:22:04 ◼   ► I don't know, maybe the most user service replaceable?

00:22:07 ◼   ► And safest maybe for people to use?

00:22:10 ◼   ► From a quote in Apple's press release,

00:22:12 ◼   ► "This is intended for individual technicians with the knowledge and experience to repair electronic devices."

00:22:19 ◼   ► Apple's also announced that they will be continuing to expand the Apple Authorized Service Provider program

00:22:26 ◼   ► as part of this.

00:22:27 ◼   ► Bit of a surprise, huh?

00:22:29 ◼   ► I am honestly shocked.

00:22:31 ◼   ► Like, I still... like, initially, when I was... when I was... so I first saw the headline,

00:22:36 ◼   ► I thought, "Oh, this is gonna be one of those boring press releases."

00:22:39 ◼   ► You know, now that those jobs are boring, they're just boring for me.

00:22:45 ◼   ► Like about the authorized service providers, you know, that kind of stuff that we don't

00:22:50 ◼   ► really cover.

00:22:51 ◼   ► And then as I started reading, I was like, "You're gonna be able to order 200 parts from

00:22:55 ◼   ► a store?"

00:22:58 ◼   ► My first reaction was, "Is this an April Fool's joke?

00:23:01 ◼   ► Like, I struggle to believe what I was reading.

00:23:05 ◼   ► But yeah, they are launching a store where you can buy the parts of iPhones and Macs,

00:23:13 ◼   ► and you're gonna have instructions with manuals on how to open them up and do the repair yourself.

00:23:20 ◼   ► It really is quite incredible.

00:23:23 ◼   ► This is the same company that made it so difficult for everyone, really everyone, to operate

00:23:30 ◼   ► open up and access iPhones and iPads and other devices.

00:23:34 ◼   ► I guess this is what happens

00:23:37 ◼   ► when governments get involved, right?

00:23:40 ◼   ► - So yeah, okay, I was gonna ask you

00:23:42 ◼   ► why do you think they've done this?

00:23:43 ◼   ► Do you think this is a getting out ahead

00:23:46 ◼   ► of right to repair stuff?

00:23:48 ◼   ► - We can't know, right?

00:23:51 ◼   ► Because out of the goodness of their hearts,

00:23:54 ◼   ► Apple thought now in 2021 to launch this new program

00:23:59 ◼   ► this new program because it's because why because they hired more people to make this

00:24:07 ◼   ► happen because it's the right time to do it right so you it would be pretty naive to think

00:24:17 ◼   ► that it's not related at all well here's my counterpoint that I'll pose to you they haven't

00:24:24 ◼   ► done something like this for the App Store. For the App Store. Yeah, they are fighting

00:24:29 ◼   ► multiple fronts right now, right? Because you could argue the App Store area is the

00:24:35 ◼   ► biggest one and they have not done something like this. This is how it goes, right? You

00:24:43 ◼   ► don't want to switch up your real money maker. You want to switch up the smaller thing and

00:24:48 ◼   ► and you have to believe that repairs are on the smaller side of Apple's service revenue.

00:24:54 ◼   ► The argument that people make, I don't know if this is accurate or not, but the argument

00:24:58 ◼   ► that people make is Apple do not allow you to repair phones because they want you to

00:25:03 ◼   ► buy new phones and buying new phones is their biggest money maker.

00:25:06 ◼   ► Yeah, but I could also see a future where as these phones, they get better and better

00:25:12 ◼   ► and people are holding onto them longer and longer, they want to make more money off of

00:25:16 ◼   ► services instead.

00:25:18 ◼   ► Yes. So you want to make it easy. So here's how the way I see this. You want to get ahead

00:25:24 ◼   ► of the right to repair movement and you don't want to. We know that Apple really doesn't

00:25:30 ◼   ► want to change the App Store. So I could see a scenario in which like maybe I've been watching

00:25:35 ◼   ► too much succession, but the way the new season is really bad and boring, but I'm still watching

00:25:40 ◼   ► it because I got another story. But here's how I would approach this. You go to the government

00:25:45 ◼   ► and you're like, okay, so let's make a deal, right?

00:25:47 ◼   ► You get off our back on the App Store stuff,

00:25:50 ◼   ► and we're gonna give you the right to repair stuff,

00:25:52 ◼   ► and we're gonna make it easy for people

00:25:53 ◼   ► to open up and access iPhones,

00:25:55 ◼   ► but you gotta make a concession

00:25:57 ◼   ► on what you want us to change on the App Store.

00:26:00 ◼   ► Again, maybe I've been watching too much succession.

00:26:02 ◼   ► - I can imagine this may be flying with Europe.

00:26:06 ◼   ► - Not in the US though.

00:26:07 ◼   ► - I don't think so.

00:26:08 ◼   ► And maybe, I mean, I don't know.

00:26:09 ◼   ► I think it's potentially that like,

00:26:12 ◼   ► this is an easier one for them to do

00:26:15 ◼   ► and to get the big PR hit on

00:26:18 ◼   ► and they know how many people are gonna do this.

00:26:21 ◼   ► Right, like this honestly puts the right to repair thing

00:26:27 ◼   ► basically to bed because now they can point and say,

00:26:32 ◼   ► "You can do it."

00:26:33 ◼   ► Yeah, you can do it.

00:26:34 ◼   ► - That's what's the issue.

00:26:35 ◼   ► - Not only do we have Apple stores,

00:26:37 ◼   ► not only do we continue to expand

00:26:39 ◼   ► our authorized service provider program,

00:26:42 ◼   ► If for some reason you can't or don't want to go to one of them, you can now buy the parts and replace them yourselves.

00:26:49 ◼   ► I, yeah, yeah.

00:26:51 ◼   ► Right, so like this one, they can put this one away quite nicely.

00:26:56 ◼   ► Yes.

00:26:56 ◼   ► Where the app store is much more ingrained and much more of a bigger problem that I think they fundamentally believe that they shouldn't need to change.

00:27:06 ◼   ► And I could also see an argument being made by Apple, either behind the scenes or publicly,

00:27:14 ◼   ► where they say something along the lines of, "Look what happens if you allow us to build things our way."

00:27:22 ◼   ► - "Look how convenient and nice and..." - And look at this enough.

00:27:26 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - Right?

00:27:27 ◼   ► Like, look how nice of an experience we can put together with the colorful manuals, with the dedicated store.

00:27:34 ◼   ► Now imagine if you also gave us enough time to do what you would like to see changed on

00:27:39 ◼   ► the App Store, but done our way.

00:27:43 ◼   ► Let me tell you what I'm excited about, and we'll come back to this, but just saying that

00:27:46 ◼   ► I cannot wait to see how good their tools look.

00:27:49 ◼   ► I want to see the store for the tools, like how do you actually buy them.

00:27:55 ◼   ► The box, oh you've got to believe that the box will not be a boring package.

00:27:58 ◼   ► Like is there going to be a photo of the little sensor that you can buy?

00:28:03 ◼   ► Maybe.

00:28:04 ◼   ► gasket that you can buy from Apple.

00:28:06 ◼   ► But like they are going to sell actual tools.

00:28:08 ◼   ► Like they will have a screwdriver and stuff, I'm sure.

00:28:11 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:28:12 ◼   ► Right.

00:28:13 ◼   ► Like basically, I mean, like the, it's basically what is Apple's iFixit kit?

00:28:17 ◼   ► Like that's what we're going to get here.

00:28:19 ◼   ► And I'm actually pretty pumped about it.

00:28:21 ◼   ► I also, my bet would be the store will have character.

00:28:25 ◼   ► Like it won't look like the Apple store.

00:28:27 ◼   ► It will be like more like, Hey, you're a technician.

00:28:31 ◼   ► More homely.

00:28:32 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:28:33 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:28:34 ◼   ► This right to repair stuff is, for me, okay, so I'll just say for me, everybody has their own feelings about everything, right?

00:28:43 ◼   ► For me, this self-service repair program, the way that they've announced it, we'll see how it actually is when it comes out, what's available, what isn't.

00:28:51 ◼   ► This to me feels like, for my own personal beliefs, solves Apple's service problems.

00:28:58 ◼   ► like there are going to be people that have wildly varying

00:29:02 ◼   ► sets of opinions on these.

00:29:04 ◼   ► Like I'm not a huge right to repair advocate

00:29:08 ◼   ► because I do think that it can get a lot of people

00:29:13 ◼   ► into trouble, like if they try and repair something

00:29:15 ◼   ► themselves, this stuff is not easy to do,

00:29:18 ◼   ► but I'm pleased that they will have it for people

00:29:22 ◼   ► that feel confident enough to do it.

00:29:25 ◼   ► Like I would, I would feel confident enough now.

00:29:29 ◼   ► I feel like I could do some of this stuff.

00:29:31 ◼   ► - Is this gonna open up a new generation of YouTubers

00:29:35 ◼   ► and bloggers like covering how to do these things?

00:29:39 ◼   ► - I mean, they already exist, man.

00:29:41 ◼   ► Like they're already there.

00:29:42 ◼   ► They're just doing it themselves.

00:29:43 ◼   ► Like anybody can open an iPhone and take it apart.

00:29:46 ◼   ► Like you can do it.

00:29:47 ◼   ► It's not easy, but you can do it.

00:29:49 ◼   ► Like I'm intrigued.

00:29:50 ◼   ► I'm intrigued too, to be like,

00:29:51 ◼   ► will they start to make different design decisions now

00:29:54 ◼   ► a world where they have to let people take this stuff apart because they must have, right?

00:29:58 ◼   ► I bet with the iPhone 12 and 13, they wouldn't pretend, I don't know, but what I'm saying

00:30:05 ◼   ► is true here, but they might from now be like, well, they might make some different concessions

00:30:09 ◼   ► or different decisions based upon the fact that they know people are going to need to

00:30:12 ◼   ► take these things apart themselves, or they need to provide the ability if people are

00:30:16 ◼   ► taking them apart themselves. I don't know. They're clearly choosing the devices very

00:30:20 ◼   ► specifically. Maybe they're doing it because they know that

00:30:23 ◼   ► in the future you will not open anything at all because everything is gonna be foldable

00:30:30 ◼   ► and rollable so there's nothing to open anymore you know years from now.

00:30:34 ◼   ► I mean you can still do it.

00:30:36 ◼   ► Right now.

00:30:37 ◼   ► So like I watch, do you know the YouTube channel JerryRigEverything?

00:30:40 ◼   ► Ah yes I'm familiar with it.

00:30:43 ◼   ► Yeah so that guy Zach he takes apart, I don't know why I love to watch these videos but

00:30:49 ◼   ► many people do too, right? But like I love to watch him take apart devices and he's very

00:30:55 ◼   ► much as you can imagine very against Apple on their right to like their right to repair

00:31:00 ◼   ► stuff right as you can imagine. I don't want to get into like the weirdness of like being

00:31:05 ◼   ► an advocate for like recycling but also destroying all the never mind I don't want to get into

00:31:10 ◼   ► the messes of that I don't even know why I said it we'll just just leave that as it is

00:31:13 ◼   ► But like I'm in, I am genuinely intrigued to see what people in that world ultimately

00:31:21 ◼   ► say about this program.

00:31:23 ◼   ► Because in my mind, it's like this is exactly what you wanted, right?

00:31:27 ◼   ► Like this is what people wanted.

00:31:29 ◼   ► And this is something that you would never expected.

00:31:31 ◼   ► I don't think any smartphone manufacturer is doing this.

00:31:35 ◼   ► I think Apple would be the first to do this.

00:31:37 ◼   ► They're probably the only one that can because of the amount of phones that they make, like

00:31:43 ◼   ► both in volume and in limited scope.

00:31:48 ◼   ► Like, Samsung couldn't provide this feature

00:31:51 ◼   ► for all of the phones that they make

00:31:53 ◼   ► because they make too many of them.

00:31:55 ◼   ► It would be a nightmare.

00:31:57 ◼   ► But yeah, I think this is kind of cool.

00:31:59 ◼   ► I do have some questions.

00:32:01 ◼   ► I want to see what you think of these.

00:32:03 ◼   ► We obviously don't have the answers.

00:32:05 ◼   ► There are not a lot of answers to this.

00:32:06 ◼   ► I feel like that they have just the bare bones of this program

00:32:09 ◼   ► right now because they did not release

00:32:11 ◼   ► lot of information about it. What's going to happen to warranties? Like do you

00:32:15 ◼   ► immediately void a warranty at the moment that you open the device even if

00:32:19 ◼   ► you're using Apple's tools? I would think so. I think yeah but it's weird right

00:32:26 ◼   ► but if you remember like if even though iPhones are water resistant if it has

00:32:34 ◼   ► water in it like if water's gotten in it it can void your warranty you cannot get

00:32:38 ◼   ► water damage repair to an iPhone even though iPhones are water resistant so

00:32:43 ◼   ► what the warranties are weird if you have Apple care and you botch a repair

00:32:50 ◼   ► will they fix it right right so if you try to take the screen off and you

00:32:58 ◼   ► puncture the screen and break the screen is that an accidental screen replacement

00:33:05 ◼   ► - Not really in theory.

00:33:07 ◼   ► - These are like, and also,

00:33:09 ◼   ► what are the tools and parts going to look like?

00:33:11 ◼   ► You know, like I wish Steven was here today, by the way,

00:33:14 ◼   ► 'cause I'm convinced he will just buy a bunch of the parts

00:33:17 ◼   ► and just have them.

00:33:18 ◼   ► - Oh, he will.

00:33:19 ◼   ► - And there will be a lot of people that would do that.

00:33:20 ◼   ► They'll just buy them 'cause they want them.

00:33:23 ◼   ► - Is it going to be like an Apple branded screwdriver?

00:33:25 ◼   ► Like- - That's what I think.

00:33:26 ◼   ► They said they will make,

00:33:27 ◼   ► they are going to offer tools and parts.

00:33:30 ◼   ► So like- - They found a new market

00:33:33 ◼   ► For the real Apple fans, you know.

00:33:36 ◼   ► I want to use these on taking apart and putting together keyboards.

00:33:41 ◼   ► Like you need, you're going to need screwdrivers.

00:33:44 ◼   ► You're going to need like little suction cup things.

00:33:46 ◼   ► You're going to need little pry tools. You need all of that.

00:33:49 ◼   ► Now it's up to Apple if they want to sell it all or not.

00:33:52 ◼   ► But I would expect that you will buy a kit and that kit,

00:33:56 ◼   ► like iFixit do this currently, right? So like,

00:33:58 ◼   ► I have one of those.

00:33:59 ◼   ► But they also do kits of like battery replacement kits and you get everything that you need

00:34:06 ◼   ► in one package.

00:34:07 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah.

00:34:08 ◼   ► And I expect Apple will also do that, right?

00:34:11 ◼   ► Like you will say, "I want to replace the battery on my iPhone."

00:34:14 ◼   ► And they're like, "Great, you're going to need this tool, this tool, this tool, and

00:34:17 ◼   ► these two parts and you'll just buy that as a singular package."

00:34:21 ◼   ► And it comes with the manual.

00:34:23 ◼   ► I cannot believe that this is an actual real thing.

00:34:27 ◼   ► We could have given you this topic on the 1st of April,

00:34:31 ◼   ► and you would have believed it was an April Fool's joke.

00:34:34 ◼   ► - Who had this on their annual predictions?

00:34:37 ◼   ► - Nobody, and anybody that says that they did is a liar.

00:34:40 ◼   ► This would have been the Rickiest of picks.

00:34:44 ◼   ► - Oh my God, yes.

00:34:45 ◼   ► Apple branded tools and a store for parts.

00:34:49 ◼   ► Like this is incredible.

00:34:51 ◼   ► - I'm so excited about it.

00:34:53 ◼   ► I think it's great.

00:34:53 ◼   ► - Honestly, I kinda am,

00:34:55 ◼   ► because I want to buy the kit.

00:34:57 ◼   ► I want to buy the tools from Apple,

00:34:58 ◼   ► even if I don't need them.

00:34:59 ◼   ► I'm not a very manual person myself.

00:35:04 ◼   ► Like all I can do is like, you know,

00:35:06 ◼   ► swap the battery of a PSP or something like that.

00:35:10 ◼   ► But I want to get the kit.

00:35:14 ◼   ► I want to get the tools just to see what they look like.

00:35:16 ◼   ► Maybe they're not going to be Apple branded.

00:35:18 ◼   ► - Oh, come on.

00:35:19 ◼   ► - But they really should be, right?

00:35:21 ◼   ► - They will be.

00:35:22 ◼   ► - You think?

00:35:23 ◼   ► I hope so.

00:35:24 ◼   ► They will be designed, right?

00:35:25 ◼   ► Like these will be designed tools.

00:35:27 ◼   ► They're not just gonna like,

00:35:29 ◼   ► oh here's some random screwdriver we found.

00:35:32 ◼   ► - This is the most comfortable handle for a screwdriver

00:35:34 ◼   ► that you've ever held in your life before.

00:35:37 ◼   ► So.

00:35:38 ◼   ► - I gotta say that's a pretty great design job.

00:35:40 ◼   ► Like if you are an industrial designer at Apple,

00:35:44 ◼   ► designing tools to take apart the devices

00:35:46 ◼   ► feels like a pretty,

00:35:48 ◼   ► there is like a group of people who are like,

00:35:50 ◼   ► this is my dream.

00:35:51 ◼   ► Do you think these tools are like the body parts of Liam the Robot?

00:36:00 ◼   ► I don't want to think about that.

00:36:02 ◼   ► Like, are they selling individual Liam robot body parts as tools?

00:36:08 ◼   ► It is a possibility, yes.

00:36:09 ◼   ► Like the screwdriver is a finger of Liam?

00:36:12 ◼   ► It's very possible.

00:36:14 ◼   ► Get your very own Liam finger.

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00:38:08 ◼   ► from trade. Thanks to trade for their support of this show and relay FM. Oh, I think it

00:38:14 ◼   ► was last week. Yeah, it was during the roast. We realized that you were using tweetbot and

00:38:20 ◼   ► you said you were creeping on me that I wasn't using tweetbot. And now today we have a bunch

00:38:25 ◼   ► of Twitter things to talk about. One is they just, I think they set their new API as like,

00:38:32 ◼   ► This is our API now, it was in beta for a while, like their version 2.

00:38:37 ◼   ► And people on Twitter's API team have been giving interviews and they published a big

00:38:42 ◼   ► blog post and stuff.

00:38:44 ◼   ► And it seems like Twitter really is swinging back the other way with the approach to their

00:38:49 ◼   ► API.

00:38:50 ◼   ► Their goal now is to become a decentralized platform, doubling down for developers to

00:38:55 ◼   ► drive the future innovation on Twitter.

00:38:58 ◼   ► They have a public Trello roadmap,

00:39:00 ◼   ► and their whole thing is they want to make it even easier now

00:39:03 ◼   ► for third-party apps to compete with them again.

00:39:07 ◼   ► What do you think about that?

00:39:08 ◼   ► I think it's a fascinating change of direction.

00:39:12 ◼   ► I think none of us really believed them when they said,

00:39:15 ◼   ► a couple of years ago, I think we got the first hint of this

00:39:19 ◼   ► when Jack Dorsey said, we want to be more open with developers.

00:39:22 ◼   ► We want to repair this broken relationship

00:39:26 ◼   ► that we now have because of the old API.

00:39:28 ◼   ► And we all kind of was like,

00:39:30 ◼   ► "Yeah, well, we don't really believe you.

00:39:31 ◼   ► It's too late."

00:39:32 ◼   ► Now, they have done, unlike others, I will say,

00:39:35 ◼   ► they have done a lot of work.

00:39:37 ◼   ► Like Twitter is still not perfect,

00:39:39 ◼   ► but they have done a lot of work

00:39:41 ◼   ► in terms of dealing with harassment,

00:39:44 ◼   ► bringing new tools for controlling the quality

00:39:48 ◼   ► of a conversation on Twitter.

00:39:50 ◼   ► And that was encouraging.

00:39:53 ◼   ► But then at the same time,

00:39:55 ◼   ► I've also done the work for building this new API.

00:39:59 ◼   ► So v2 of this new API, which was in beta before,

00:40:03 ◼   ► sort of closed access.

00:40:04 ◼   ► It's now in public access, officially launched.

00:40:07 ◼   ► And the old API, which is version 1.1,

00:40:10 ◼   ► which is the one that all of the old Twitter clients

00:40:14 ◼   ► that we used to talk about and cover years ago

00:40:17 ◼   ► were based on, that one will be deprecated

00:40:21 ◼   ► and it's only receiving bug fixes,

00:40:22 ◼   ► like critical bug fixes at this point.

00:40:25 ◼   ► So now they are delivering on this idea of,

00:40:28 ◼   ► we wanna have a new and better relationship with developers,

00:40:33 ◼   ► not just for, and this was one of the things

00:40:36 ◼   ► that they were doing initially.

00:40:38 ◼   ► A couple of years ago, they were telling this story of,

00:40:43 ◼   ► we wanna have an API, sure,

00:40:45 ◼   ► but only for things like bots or enterprise tools.

00:40:52 ◼   ► We don't want to give developers access to the fire hose of tweets in your main timeline.

00:40:57 ◼   ► And that story has changed.

00:40:59 ◼   ► That narrative has changed.

00:41:01 ◼   ► Now Twitter is saying, we're fine with all kinds of developers.

00:41:05 ◼   ► We are fine with developers building alternative experiences to Twitter, bots, enterprise tools,

00:41:10 ◼   ► business tools, we're fine with all of them because we want to become a decentralized

00:41:15 ◼   ► network that powers all kinds of conversations online.

00:41:18 ◼   ► I mean, sure, words are one thing, but in this case we have the actual product, which

00:41:25 ◼   ► is the API, and it's out, and it's working, and developers can sign up for it, and they

00:41:32 ◼   ► are upping the limit of how many API calls you can make per month.

00:41:39 ◼   ► I believe that the base tier of the API has been increased to half a million tweets per

00:41:47 ◼   ► month and I want to say that the new default, what's it called, the escalated tier, something

00:41:53 ◼   ► like that, high level tier, I don't remember, it should be 2 million API, 2 million tweets

00:41:59 ◼   ► per month, I believe, so that's a lot of tweets.

00:42:01 ◼   ► How does that work? Do you know like the 2 million, like what is that counting?

00:42:06 ◼   ► They literally count how many tweets your app is receiving from the API, I think.

00:42:12 ◼   ► Is the app like...

00:42:13 ◼   ► So for example, Tapbots, they make Tweetbot and Tweetbot is using the API and the Tweetbot,

00:42:20 ◼   ► I'm guessing, they have a certain number of hundreds of thousands of users, maybe, ideally.

00:42:27 ◼   ► And in total, those users in aggregate, they, you know, not aggregate, in total each month

00:42:33 ◼   ► they consume 1.8 million tweets.

00:42:39 ◼   ► as a person I see what 700, 800 tweets per day now multiply that for hundreds of thousands

00:42:46 ◼   ► of users and you get your number of tweets.

00:42:49 ◼   ► Right okay cool so yeah but something that they would somehow know like Twitter reports

00:42:54 ◼   ► that to them I guess.

00:42:56 ◼   ► And you have developer console you can check the kind of numbers that you have broadly

00:43:01 ◼   ► speaking that's how it should work so what I think is encouraging here so this idea of

00:43:08 ◼   ► decentralized platform, right? This is the kind of thing that a bunch of services have

00:43:12 ◼   ► tried before. I feel like I'm contractually obligated by RelaFM to mention App.net, which

00:43:20 ◼   ► is the kind of service that, you know...

00:43:21 ◼   ► That's... I don't know. This has got nothing to do with me. I don't know why.

00:43:25 ◼   ► Steven would love it, but it's not here today. App.net was kind of based on this idea. We

00:43:31 ◼   ► have other services today sort of doing this. Micro.blog, for example. Mastodon, of course,

00:43:37 ◼   ► the other service that a lot of people want to tell you they're using. They're all trying

00:43:42 ◼   ► to solve this problem of, can you keep having conversations on the same network, with the

00:43:49 ◼   ► same profile, like at iMic, but it doesn't have to be the one Twitter.com website, or

00:43:58 ◼   ► the one Twitter app from the App Store. And in this case, Twitter is saying, we want to

00:44:04 ◼   ► have that kind of decentralized platform. So we're fine with the likes of Tapbots and

00:44:10 ◼   ► IconFactory making Twitterific. All developers, like the Aviary app for Twitter that is now

00:44:17 ◼   ► one of the new clients for Apple platforms, we're fine with these folks making alternative

00:44:22 ◼   ► experiences. Now, the big question here, and ultimately why I still remain a bit skeptical,

00:44:28 ◼   ► is, OK, these developers, in the big picture,

00:44:35 ◼   ► they are a small piece of the pie for Twitter, right?

00:44:39 ◼   ► Because there's many more millions of users

00:44:41 ◼   ► who are just fine using the official app, which now also

00:44:45 ◼   ► has a subscription built in, which we're going

00:44:47 ◼   ► to talk about in a few minutes.

00:44:49 ◼   ► But I have to wonder, still, the users that are open in Twitter

00:44:54 ◼   ► and seeing Twitter via those alternative third-party tools,

00:44:58 ◼   ► They're not getting any ads, right?

00:45:00 ◼   ► They're not getting any--

00:45:03 ◼   ► Twitter is not monetizing those users at all.

00:45:06 ◼   ► They may be monetizing developers.

00:45:08 ◼   ► I think the API has a cost for the higher plans, maybe.

00:45:15 ◼   ► Is Twitter going to be OK with this forever?

00:45:21 ◼   ► Or are we going to reach a point where Twitter is like, yeah,

00:45:24 ◼   ► we want to have a decentralized platform,

00:45:27 ◼   ► but you gotta inject some of these tweets in your API.

00:45:32 ◼   ► Every 30, every 50 tweets, you're gonna see an ad.

00:45:37 ◼   ► I have to wonder if that will happen at some point,

00:45:41 ◼   ► because you can only be decentralized and free for so long.

00:45:46 ◼   ► So I still remain a bit skeptical on that,

00:45:50 ◼   ► but so far, there's a new,

00:45:54 ◼   ► the ecosystem of Twitter clients has sort of picked up again.

00:45:59 ◼   ► And I try to keep an eye on this on the App Store.

00:46:03 ◼   ► There's more Twitter clients now than I've

00:46:06 ◼   ► seen in the past five years.

00:46:09 ◼   ► And it's a good thing that developers can play around with.

00:46:13 ◼   ► It's one of the most popular API there has ever been.

00:46:16 ◼   ► I mean, for Apple platforms, I can

00:46:18 ◼   ► think of Dark Sky as another popular API in our community.

00:46:23 ◼   ► And that was a quiet.

00:46:25 ◼   ► So to see Twitter back, I'm happy to see this,

00:46:29 ◼   ► but I still remain somewhat skeptical

00:46:32 ◼   ► on the long-term outcome.

00:46:35 ◼   ► - I would say Twitter is like the example

00:46:38 ◼   ► of an API that apps are built on.

00:46:41 ◼   ► Like, I think that's kind of where it started,

00:46:46 ◼   ► because it was early.

00:46:47 ◼   ► Twitter apps were one of the first iPhone apps,

00:46:51 ◼   ► you know, like, "Tuturrific" or whatever, right?

00:46:53 ◼   ► Like, it was very early.

00:46:55 ◼   ► I mean, I hope that the API continues to expand

00:47:02 ◼   ► to the point where it really is,

00:47:06 ◼   ► like, in parity with each other.

00:47:09 ◼   ► It's interesting, really, right,

00:47:10 ◼   ► because this, I mean, this enables Twitter

00:47:12 ◼   ► to make money in a different way, which is intriguing,

00:47:17 ◼   ► but it is weird to be doing this at a time

00:47:20 ◼   ► when they have launched Twitter Blue,

00:47:22 ◼   ► which is their subscription stuff

00:47:24 ◼   ► that only exists in the Twitter app,

00:47:28 ◼   ► which I guess really is like,

00:47:30 ◼   ► maybe this is what they're talking about,

00:47:32 ◼   ► where they're saying about competition.

00:47:34 ◼   ► I could imagine there being a thing of in Twitter

00:47:38 ◼   ► where they're like, "All right, Twitter Blue team,

00:47:40 ◼   ► you have to make this good enough

00:47:44 ◼   ► that people won't want a third party app."

00:47:46 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:47:47 ◼   ► you know, and like that's an interesting way of doing things.

00:47:51 ◼   ► So Twitter Blue includes Undo Send, which is just like a timer where you can hit and

00:47:58 ◼   ► it just deletes the tweet and lets you type it out again.

00:48:02 ◼   ► It's kind of, you know, it's an interesting way of doing things.

00:48:05 ◼   ► Add free articles so publishers can opt in to, if they're in the program, they get a

00:48:11 ◼   ► little bit of money if you view their article and there's no ads on it.

00:48:17 ◼   ► bookmark folders, so you have a folders for your bookmarks, app icons and app themes.

00:48:23 ◼   ► Now you can upload longer videos, they have a top articles feature which is like in the

00:48:27 ◼   ► last 24 hours what are the people you follow tweeting about, this is like Nuzzle, they

00:48:31 ◼   ► bought Nuzzle. Custom navigation, so you can change what's in the bar at the bottom, so

00:48:36 ◼   ► if you want to get rid of the spaces thing, that's the way to do that. And a reader mode

00:48:41 ◼   ► for longer threads, so like long threads, they've like made a way to view it.

00:48:45 ◼   ► Oh, did you see they acquired Threadr? That popular? So yeah, that was cool. Yeah, I mean,

00:48:52 ◼   ► this is $3 a month, right? Some features that arguably they should be built in to Twitter

00:48:59 ◼   ► itself and they are like, I shouldn't have to pay to get rid of the useless spaces icon.

00:49:06 ◼   ► Like Twitter, stop trying to make spaces happen. It's not going to happen.

00:49:09 ◼   ► Growth hacking.

00:49:10 ◼   ► I know, I know, I know. And it's, it is, this is my personal opinion. Like I've seen some

00:49:16 ◼   ► folks tweet about how our Twitter is playing around with crypto and NFT stuff and I personally

00:49:23 ◼   ► believe that's gross.

00:49:25 ◼   ► And everyone, everyone is. It's not just every tech company right now.

00:49:30 ◼   ► Very disconcerting for me personally, because I think it's absolutely disgusting, but that's

00:49:34 ◼   ► my opinion. Feel free to disagree. You know, killing the planet in the name of acquiring

00:49:39 ◼   ► writes to a JPEG, but I digress. Anyway, $3 a month compelling subscription, right? You

00:49:46 ◼   ► get nozzle stuff, you get undo, you get ad-free articles, which is a whole other story about

00:49:52 ◼   ► like what's the publisher relationship gonna be like here. Do you trust Twitter as a company

00:49:58 ◼   ► to take care of you if you're a publisher? But you...

00:50:04 ◼   ► I mean publishers know where their traffic's coming from and I think for a lot of them

00:50:07 ◼   ► is coming from Twitter, so they're already embedded with the company anyway, the rules

00:50:11 ◼   ► will make some money out of it.

00:50:12 ◼   ► Well, as you said, you now have that duality of free API, right, and paid subscription,

00:50:24 ◼   ► where you want to push people to stay in your native app, see ads, or actually, as you say,

00:50:33 ◼   ► subscribe because this subscription, it doesn't get rid of ads. Right? So you're just paying

00:50:38 ◼   ► for additional features. That's why I'm excited that the API is back up again and it's now

00:50:45 ◼   ► open to all developers. The approval process should be much, much faster than before. Like,

00:50:51 ◼   ► you should be automatically let in as soon as you make a request to be part of the V2

00:50:56 ◼   ► of the API. It used to be an approval process that required days. Now it should be immediate.

00:51:02 ◼   ► - It was a manual.

00:51:03 ◼   ► - And it was a manual, like, yeah, we agree with your app

00:51:07 ◼   ► or we don't agree with your app.

00:51:08 ◼   ► And I don't think it's that anymore.

00:51:10 ◼   ► - But I guess I've been burned before, you know,

00:51:13 ◼   ► is how I approach this.

00:51:14 ◼   ► Like, I remember years ago,

00:51:17 ◼   ► we were all excited about the API.

00:51:19 ◼   ► And to be fair, there are still many, many features

00:51:22 ◼   ► that are not part of the API.

00:51:24 ◼   ► And now, here's where it gets interesting.

00:51:29 ◼   ► Could Twitter blue, if you pay for it,

00:51:32 ◼   ► be available in the API?

00:51:33 ◼   ► Like is it even possible?

00:51:36 ◼   ► Like of course you would, right?

00:51:39 ◼   ► Like of course you wouldn't get access to features

00:51:42 ◼   ► that are specific to the Twitter app,

00:51:44 ◼   ► like the icons or the themes,

00:51:48 ◼   ► but the app loads, top articles, you know?

00:51:52 ◼   ► - Why?

00:51:52 ◼   ► You know, as you're saying,

00:51:54 ◼   ► shouldn't a third party developer be able to make

00:51:56 ◼   ► all of these features themselves?

00:51:57 ◼   ► - Well, the thing is that some of these features,

00:51:59 ◼   ► here's the thing about the API,

00:52:01 ◼   ► some of the features from Twitter are still not part of the API,

00:52:05 ◼   ► and there are still some odd inconsistencies. Like for example, in Tweetbot,

00:52:09 ◼   ► you can now create polls from Tweetbot,

00:52:13 ◼   ► but the API doesn't have the necessary

00:52:17 ◼   ► commands for voting on a poll in your timeline.

00:52:22 ◼   ► Oh, I thought the whole point was you could now vote in Tweetbot.

00:52:25 ◼   ► But you can't vote.

00:52:26 ◼   ► But you can't vote.

00:52:29 ◼   ► Why even only ship half of that?

00:52:31 ◼   ► Like, I mean, obviously they're going to ship the voting,

00:52:34 ◼   ► but why ship 50% of that?

00:52:37 ◼   ► You know what I mean?

00:52:38 ◼   ► - And ultimately that's why I remain, again,

00:52:40 ◼   ► somewhat skeptical because yeah, you're doing it,

00:52:43 ◼   ► but there's still things that I want to understand better.

00:52:47 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, I would like to be able to pay

00:52:50 ◼   ► for like Twitter Blue Plus that gets rid of ads

00:52:52 ◼   ► and I would pay 5.99 a month for it.

00:52:55 ◼   ► - Blue Plus, that's a good name.

00:52:57 ◼   ► - Twitter Blue is not available,

00:52:59 ◼   ► like it worldwide yet, it's only in a few countries,

00:53:01 ◼   ► it's not in the UK, it's not in Italy.

00:53:03 ◼   ► But you're on Tweetbot now anyway.

00:53:06 ◼   ► Tweetbot just came out of a new version too, right?

00:53:09 ◼   ► It has the poll things, does it have anything else in it

00:53:12 ◼   ► that you're particularly excited about?

00:53:14 ◼   ► 'Cause I know like last time you spoke about the reasons

00:53:15 ◼   ► that you were using Tweetbot.

00:53:17 ◼   ► - They also added support for limiting replies,

00:53:22 ◼   ► like limiting who can reply to your tweets.

00:53:25 ◼   ► That was one of--

00:53:26 ◼   ► - That's a good thing to get added to the API quite quickly.

00:53:28 ◼   ► Exactly. That's a good thing to have in the API.

00:53:30 ◼   ► It's the kind of feature when we first saw it last year, we all thought,

00:53:34 ◼   ► "Oh, this is never going to be available to third-party developers."

00:53:37 ◼   ► But no, it's available now in the API.

00:53:39 ◼   ► Great sign. And yet, look, I'm fully aware that in Tweetbot,

00:53:43 ◼   ► I don't get still a lot of features.

00:53:47 ◼   ► Like I don't get the algorithmic timeline.

00:53:49 ◼   ► That's another conversation.

00:53:50 ◼   ► Like, could there be API support for the algorithmic timeline eventually?

00:53:55 ◼   ► Maybe. Who knows?

00:53:57 ◼   ► I mean, I think, generally speaking, that these days, if a technology company, like

00:54:02 ◼   ► if these big companies, they want to do something, they can do it, right?

00:54:06 ◼   ► It's no longer a matter of, "Oh, they don't have resources."

00:54:09 ◼   ► Like, if you really want to do something, you can do it, if you're one of these companies.

00:54:13 ◼   ► The matter is, do you want to do it?

00:54:16 ◼   ► Does it actually make sense for your company to do this?

00:54:20 ◼   ► It's no longer a question of, "Oh, that's not possible."

00:54:22 ◼   ► No, anything is possible.

00:54:23 ◼   ► Like, roughly anything.

00:54:24 ◼   ► But yeah, tweetbots.

00:54:25 ◼   ► tweetbot. So I'm aware that I don't get some features from Twitter. For now, I'm okay with it.

00:54:31 ◼   ► Because I was coming from a place where I was really missing a lot of interesting tweets.

00:54:36 ◼   ► And by interesting tweets, I mean John was literally sending me tweets at the end of the

00:54:42 ◼   ► day for new apps or articles that we could link on Mac stories that I hadn't seen in my timeline at

00:54:49 ◼   ► all. And there's an underlying problem here for me personally, which is I've always been

00:54:56 ◼   ► a timeline completionist. As much as I've tried to kick this habit many, many times,

00:55:02 ◼   ► believe me, I just can do it. And so I found myself trying to be a timeline completionist

00:55:08 ◼   ► with the Twitter app, with the official client, and it's just impossible, because it never

00:55:12 ◼   ► keeps your place and it doesn't have timeline sync. So that's why I came back to Tweetbot

00:55:17 ◼   ► now that it's in a functional, modern state again.

00:55:23 ◼   ► Who knows what the future holds for me?

00:55:25 ◼   ► Maybe if Timeline Sync becomes a Twitter blue feature,

00:55:28 ◼   ► I'm just going to pay for it and I'm going to switch back to Twitter.

00:55:31 ◼   ► But really, for me, Twitter is work, right?

00:55:34 ◼   ► Twitter is where I discover stuff, I would say.

00:55:37 ◼   ► It's such a place for funny tweets and the kind of stuff that I share with you guys.

00:55:41 ◼   ► But it's mostly work.

00:55:43 ◼   ► Developers, apps, video games, music, like that kind of stuff.

00:55:46 ◼   ► And for work, Timeline Sync is just incredible.

00:55:50 ◼   ► Like, it's super useful to have.

00:55:52 ◼   ► But I always keep my options open.

00:55:56 ◼   ► So we'll see.

00:55:57 ◼   ► I can't sign up for Twitter Blue, I can tell you that.

00:56:00 ◼   ► Even though I use the US App Store,

00:56:03 ◼   ► it detects that I'm in Italy.

00:56:06 ◼   ► But I haven't tried with the VPN yet.

00:56:09 ◼   ► So maybe I should try that.

00:56:10 ◼   ► Usually these services, you can't see the sign up.

00:56:16 ◼   ► But then once you sign up, you do have access.

00:56:19 ◼   ► Even if you are outside of the country where the feature is locked into.

00:56:23 ◼   ► So that's what I want to try.

00:56:25 ◼   ► I want to try and sign up with the VPN, then turn off the VPN and see if I can keep using Twitter Blue in Italy.

00:56:31 ◼   ► Until it launches in Italy.

00:56:33 ◼   ► Which probably won't be that long.

00:56:35 ◼   ► I hope so.

00:56:36 ◼   ► There aren't reasons other than they're just like, I guess, estimate and roll out and how it works and stuff.

00:56:42 ◼   ► It's not like they have content issues that they're dealing with.

00:56:45 ◼   ► Maybe they're waiting for certain places until they get enough, like, as well.

00:56:49 ◼   ► Maybe the ad-free articles thing, like, they have to actually be some people.

00:56:53 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:56:53 ◼   ► Or like some partnerships. Yeah, I could see that.

00:56:56 ◼   ► Maybe. Yeah, I mean, it's interesting, like, the whole Twitter API thing is still such a

00:57:02 ◼   ► weird and interesting thing, because, like, realistically, it does not make sense for them

00:57:06 ◼   ► to offer this. Like, if you actually sit and think about it, this is not a thing they should offer.

00:57:13 ◼   ► they should have the app that they make be good enough that everybody wants to use it.

00:57:16 ◼   ► Twitter is not a service, it's not like a public utility, it is a social media app and it's very

00:57:28 ◼   ► weird and they are the only one that's really popular and has this thing. If they never did it

00:57:36 ◼   ► at first they never would have started it. I feel like. So it is super weird but I'm pleased to

00:57:43 ◼   ► to see them doing things again.

00:57:44 ◼   ► Because I get on with a Twitter app,

00:57:46 ◼   ► but it's not like my favorite app.

00:57:48 ◼   ► Me and a Twitter app get on okay.

00:57:50 ◼   ► I would prefer to not see their ads

00:57:52 ◼   ► because Twitter's ads are really bad.

00:57:54 ◼   ► Like I'm not like a no ads on social media person

00:57:56 ◼   ► because I like Instagram's ads.

00:57:58 ◼   ► I think they're really good.

00:57:59 ◼   ► They're very relevant to me.

00:58:00 ◼   ► And there's always stuff in there

00:58:01 ◼   ► that I'm even intrigued about,

00:58:03 ◼   ► or I think is visually nice.

00:58:05 ◼   ► But Twitter's ad platform is so bad.

00:58:08 ◼   ► Like the things that it thinks that I'm interested in,

00:58:10 ◼   ► I could not be less interested in.

00:58:12 ◼   ► so, you know, if they just did a better job than I wouldn't mind so much.

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01:00:11 ◼   ► All right, so the last, I don't know, three weeks,

01:00:14 ◼   ► we spent a ton of time talking about the new MacBook Pro.

01:00:18 ◼   ► So let's go right the way back in the absolute opposite direction

01:00:22 ◼   ► and talk about the iPad Mini.

01:00:24 ◼   ► Because we've had them for a while and we were all super excited

01:00:27 ◼   ► when they came out, right?

01:00:28 ◼   ► Like this is everything we wanted.

01:00:30 ◼   ► like it's perfect, I love it so much.

01:00:33 ◼   ► Now we've had them for a few months.

01:00:34 ◼   ► I kind of want to know how you're feeling

01:00:37 ◼   ► and for us to check in.

01:00:39 ◼   ► Are we still using them the same?

01:00:40 ◼   ► Has anything changed?

01:00:41 ◼   ► That kind of thing.

01:00:42 ◼   ► So how is your iPad mini set up?

01:00:45 ◼   ► You're using just the iPad mini 100% of the time now?

01:00:48 ◼   ► Is that it?

01:00:49 ◼   ► - Yeah, this is everything I love it so much.

01:00:51 ◼   ► That's what I would still say.

01:00:53 ◼   ► No, I'm not using the iPad mini 100% of the time.

01:00:57 ◼   ► It's my secondary iPad.

01:01:00 ◼   ► It's my perfect little travel iPad and consumption device.

01:01:08 ◼   ► I really love it.

01:01:10 ◼   ► Everything, like I was looking back at my review from,

01:01:14 ◼   ► what was it, late September?

01:01:15 ◼   ► And everything still pretty much holds up.

01:01:18 ◼   ► Like, I love using this iPad Mini for reading.

01:01:21 ◼   ► That would be the sort of top activity

01:01:24 ◼   ► that I perform on the Mini, reading.

01:01:26 ◼   ► Safari, articles, books, manga,

01:01:30 ◼   ► Like all that, like it's a perfect reading device.

01:01:33 ◼   ► I also like to, because it's such a,

01:01:36 ◼   ► like it runs iPadOS, right?

01:01:38 ◼   ► So you got all those widgets on the home screen.

01:01:41 ◼   ► I realized that it's a great little device

01:01:46 ◼   ► for planning the next day at the end of the day.

01:01:50 ◼   ► Like, you know, making sure that my tasks are in order,

01:01:54 ◼   ► you know, saving a few ideas for tomorrow,

01:01:57 ◼   ► for shortcuts that I wanna make,

01:01:58 ◼   ► or for articles that I want to write, like sort of a end of the day brain dump, if you

01:02:04 ◼   ► will. It's perfect for that. Not so many video games, but that's a bigger story for me. I've

01:02:13 ◼   ► tried time and time again, I just can't get into Apple Arcade. I just prefer to play video

01:02:19 ◼   ► games on consoles. It's just who I am. And that's fine.

01:02:23 ◼   ► There really isn't, in my opinion, much of a need to get too deep onto iPad gaming.

01:02:28 ◼   ► Like, iPad gaming has never really worked for me.

01:02:31 ◼   ► I like iPhone games, and I like game console games.

01:02:36 ◼   ► iPad gaming, really only when I'm in an environment where I have access to nothing else.

01:02:42 ◼   ► It's your last resort gaming fix.

01:02:45 ◼   ► That's what it is.

01:02:47 ◼   ► Some interesting things that I've been doing.

01:02:50 ◼   ► USB-C, I've realized this iPad mini, it can work very nicely as, even during the day,

01:02:59 ◼   ► if I want to stream high-res lossless music from Apple Music, and I'm working on the iPad

01:03:05 ◼   ► Pro, or I'm trying to work on the MacBook Pro review unit lately, I published an article

01:03:11 ◼   ► from a MacBook Pro a couple of days, like the Tweetbot one actually.

01:03:15 ◼   ► I wrote and published from a Mac.

01:03:19 ◼   ► - Wow, you wrote a Mac story.

01:03:21 ◼   ► - I wrote a Mac story for Mac stories, yes.

01:03:25 ◼   ► - About an iPad app.

01:03:28 ◼   ► - This is like the DiCaprio meme pointed at the screen,

01:03:31 ◼   ► like, yes, I did a Mac story.

01:03:35 ◼   ► It's there.

01:03:35 ◼   ► First time in like five years, six years, yeah.

01:03:41 ◼   ► So during the day when I'm working,

01:03:43 ◼   ► the iPad mini I can keep to the side,

01:03:47 ◼   ► And because it's got USB-C, I can plug in my external DAC very easily via USB-C,

01:03:53 ◼   ► and I can stream lossless audio to my good headphones if I want to evaluate an album from Apple Music

01:04:00 ◼   ► before I actually buy the record for my personal collection.

01:04:05 ◼   ► It's perfect for that because of USB-C, so I don't have to have an extra dongle just, you know,

01:04:10 ◼   ► being there and wasting space on my desk.

01:04:13 ◼   ► So that's nice.

01:04:15 ◼   ► I still think the way that I could get into gaming on this device would be via emulation.

01:04:25 ◼   ► However, and I've mentioned this in my review of the iPad Mini, I've showed off screenshots

01:04:30 ◼   ► of Dolphin, the emulator for the Nintendo GameCube, for example, working on the iPad

01:04:35 ◼   ► Mini.

01:04:36 ◼   ► my public plea or request for someone to either recommend or go out and make, please, just

01:04:50 ◼   ► hear me out, just hear me out, either tell me if it exists or if it doesn't, make it

01:04:54 ◼   ► yourself. I want to use a PlayStation 5 controller. I don't want to use a DualSense controller

01:05:02 ◼   ► and have a little attachment that makes the iPad mini float on top of it.

01:05:07 ◼   ► I have this sort of mount for my iPhone 13 Pro Max.

01:05:13 ◼   ► The iPad mini is not that much heavier than an iPhone 13 Pro Max with the case on.

01:05:18 ◼   ► It's only like...

01:05:19 ◼   ► If you use an iPad mini without a case, I believe it's, what, 19, 20 grams heavier

01:05:25 ◼   ► than an iPhone 13 Pro with the case.

01:05:27 ◼   ► And I never remove the case from my iPhone.

01:05:30 ◼   ► I would love to just put the iPad mini there on a mount on top of a DualSense controller,

01:05:35 ◼   ► so that I could hold the DualSense and have a bigger display that is an iPad mini floating

01:05:42 ◼   ► on top of it.

01:05:43 ◼   ► There's plenty of similar mounts for iPhones.

01:05:48 ◼   ► Just go on Amazon, you can buy them cheap for like $7.

01:05:51 ◼   ► I have one for my iPhone.

01:05:53 ◼   ► I want the same thing but for the iPad mini.

01:05:56 ◼   ► If it exists and it works with the DualSense, please let me know.

01:05:59 ◼   ► I would also like to see those controllers where you snap the tablet in between the two

01:06:05 ◼   ► sides of the controller, so like a Gamevice or like the Backbone.

01:06:11 ◼   ► Gamevice does have a version.

01:06:14 ◼   ► Gamevice would be the company that sued Nintendo because they said that they copied the Nintendo

01:06:18 ◼   ► Switch from them, by the way.

01:06:20 ◼   ► There's a lawsuit going on between the two.

01:06:23 ◼   ► Wow.

01:06:24 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:06:25 ◼   ► they do make an iPad mini controller, but it's for the old iPad mini. They don't have a new version.

01:06:32 ◼   ► So the game control, I could see a scenario in which I start using the iPad mini for gaming, and that would be via emulation.

01:06:38 ◼   ► Lastly, I mentioned this on an App Stories episode, I did a bit of, you know...

01:06:46 ◼   ► It's funny because I mentioned before, I'm not a manual person, but I have done some manual modding of the iPad mini.

01:06:54 ◼   ► but actually Silvia did it, not me. So long story short, I bought a cheap fake

01:07:03 ◼   ► SmartFolio from Amazon, cost like nine dollars. I cut one half of this

01:07:11 ◼   ► fake SmartFolio. I kept the back part only, so the one that attaches magnetically

01:07:18 ◼   ► to the iPad Mini. And so to this half of this fake SmartFolio, I

01:07:23 ◼   ► I attached a PopSocket in the lower left corner.

01:07:28 ◼   ► So now I can hold my iPad mini with the PopSocket

01:07:32 ◼   ► and I didn't have to--

01:07:33 ◼   ► - You have a huge magnetic PopSocket is what you're saying.

01:07:36 ◼   ► You have a massive PopSocket. - Exactly.

01:07:38 ◼   ► That's because I didn't wanna attach the PopSocket directly

01:07:42 ◼   ► to the iPad mini itself.

01:07:44 ◼   ► I need a platform for it, right?

01:07:46 ◼   ► So I used the one half of a fake,

01:07:49 ◼   ► cheap SmartFolio from Amazon.

01:07:52 ◼   ► I love it.

01:07:52 ◼   ► It's just, it's perfect. Like, I can hold it in my left hand, and it's perfect for reading,

01:07:57 ◼   ► perfect for watching, like, 10 minute YouTube videos, totally fine.

01:08:02 ◼   ► And if I don't want to use it, I can just detach it, and I can use my iPad Mini without a case.

01:08:08 ◼   ► So, to sum up, I love my iPad Mini.

01:08:12 ◼   ► I wish that the game controller situation was better.

01:08:16 ◼   ► If you have recommendations, please let me know.

01:08:18 ◼   ► But otherwise, I'm really happy with it for reading and for music,

01:08:22 ◼   ► and for end of the day sort of not taking brain dump for the next day.

01:08:29 ◼   ► So the iPad mini is the only iPad that I use.

01:08:32 ◼   ► Interesting.

01:08:33 ◼   ► Which is...

01:08:34 ◼   ► The only one.

01:08:35 ◼   ► Such a massive change for me.

01:08:36 ◼   ► Okay, so because you mentioned this on Cortex a couple of weeks ago and I guess it's still...

01:08:40 ◼   ► So you are confirming the Cortex topic is what I'm hearing.

01:08:46 ◼   ► Okay.

01:08:47 ◼   ► It is.

01:08:48 ◼   ► That is it.

01:08:49 ◼   ► It's the only iPad.

01:08:50 ◼   ► And I use it as two things, I use it as kind of like an entertainment device and I also

01:08:55 ◼   ► use it as my home computer, right?

01:08:58 ◼   ► Like it is the main device that I use at home for whatever.

01:09:03 ◼   ► Like if I'm at home and I want to respond to an email, I use my iPad mini.

01:09:06 ◼   ► If I'm at home and I want to read Twitter, I use my iPad mini, right?

01:09:09 ◼   ► Like it's just the main device that I use at home.

01:09:12 ◼   ► More than my iPhone, more than a Mac or whatever, like it's just the device like that I use.

01:09:18 ◼   ► I love it.

01:09:21 ◼   ► Maybe my iPhone's pretty similar actually, because I don't, you know, if I use, I'll

01:09:25 ◼   ► read on my iPhone in bed or whatever, I don't take the iPad mini into the bedroom.

01:09:29 ◼   ► The iPad mini is just in the living room, it's just on the couch all the time.

01:09:34 ◼   ► That's where it lives and that's where I use it.

01:09:37 ◼   ► But my 11 inch iPad Pro I don't use, my 12.9 inch I don't use, and I keep going backwards

01:09:44 ◼   ► and forwards, I'm going to sell one of them.

01:09:47 ◼   ► I don't know which one.

01:09:49 ◼   ► I haven't worked it out yet.

01:09:51 ◼   ► My reasoning for each just keeps changing and I've not landed on what the right option

01:09:57 ◼   ► is.

01:09:59 ◼   ► The iPad mini is the perfect size for what I'm looking for from an iPad right now.

01:10:05 ◼   ► I am finding myself needing to grab my MacBook Pro out of my backpack at home more, like

01:10:11 ◼   ► if I have to do something a bit more intensive, like if I need to deal with two things side

01:10:16 ◼   ► by side for example and it's like something is going to take me like more than five or

01:10:20 ◼   ► ten minutes to do I'm going to get my MacBook because the amount of screen real estate that

01:10:26 ◼   ► is lost with the on-screen keyboard just kind of makes the iPad mini not really usable in

01:10:30 ◼   ► these ways where a previous iPad I would have been able to handle it a lot more. So like

01:10:35 ◼   ► for example if I need to look at a Google sheet and write an email which is a thing

01:10:39 ◼   ► that I do quite frequently you know like I have a Google sheet on one side and I'm like

01:10:42 ◼   ► I've got information that I need to relate to someone in an email from that sheet. If

01:10:47 ◼   ► I tried to do this in the iPad mini, I'm only going to do something that's going to take

01:10:50 ◼   ► me a couple of minutes because it's such a pain because you see so little. And like this

01:10:57 ◼   ► is a good example of like where portrait split screen doesn't work as well because you need

01:11:01 ◼   ► the information. So it's a case of like hide keyboard, do what I need, show keyboard, write

01:11:07 ◼   ► it down. And I'm only going to do that if it's going to take me a couple of minutes.

01:11:10 ◼   ► if it's going to take me longer I'm just going to get my MacBook Pro. But I'm kind of fine with that

01:11:14 ◼   ► because I also really love using my MacBook Pro but like I don't want it out all the time.

01:11:19 ◼   ► I don't really understand people that use laptops on the sofa as like this is what I'm using on the

01:11:29 ◼   ► sofa. Like I don't get that. Like that really doesn't like align in my brain. You know like

01:11:36 ◼   ► people that would use a laptop for all of the things that I'm using this iPad for, you know,

01:11:41 ◼   ► like just entertainment and that kind of stuff. Like James Thompson says, "That is what I use on

01:11:47 ◼   ► the sofa." I know people do it. That's what Silvio does as well. I know people do it. I see people

01:11:53 ◼   ► do it. I don't get it. It doesn't make sense to me. Like laptops are like work machines. Like they

01:12:00 ◼   ► are for work, but I don't know. Where I feel like an iPad has always been able to mix that

01:12:06 ◼   ► to fight for me and really it's about what you pair it with. Like if I'm just hanging

01:12:11 ◼   ► out on an iPad Pro then I don't need the magic keyboard and you put the magic keyboard onto

01:12:15 ◼   ► what anyway. But yeah I'm finding that the iPad mini really does the job for me most

01:12:20 ◼   ► of the time and if I need something bigger I'll get something bigger. I will say I definitely

01:12:26 ◼   ► noticed the jelly scrolling. Oh you do? Yeah big time. So this is if you're in portrait

01:12:32 ◼   ► mode and you scroll up and down I can see one half of the screen move a little bit quicker

01:12:38 ◼   ► than the other half of the screen. I'm going to try it again. This is just a thing like

01:12:42 ◼   ► all devices have controllers in them some are better than others and it can be better

01:12:48 ◼   ► and different between LCD and OLED and I put an article in the show notes on the verge

01:12:53 ◼   ► where they talk about it in a bit more detail.

01:12:55 ◼   ► It doesn't bother me, but I notice it.

01:12:58 ◼   ► I still don't see it.

01:13:00 ◼   ► So I think it honestly will vary from device to device.

01:13:04 ◼   ► And in the apps that you use, there's a lot of variables

01:13:07 ◼   ► for if this is a noticeable thing for you.

01:13:08 ◼   ► Do you have to scroll fast or slow?

01:13:10 ◼   ► Doesn't really make a difference.

01:13:13 ◼   ► Like, I could be reading an article

01:13:15 ◼   ► and I scroll the article and I see it.

01:13:17 ◼   ► My eyes are stupid. I don't see it.

01:13:20 ◼   ► Maybe, like honestly, maybe my iPad is in a worse situation than yours for this, you know?

01:13:26 ◼   ► I don't know.

01:13:26 ◼   ► But I see it, it's like a thing, it's really, it's the only knock I have on the product.

01:13:32 ◼   ► Like, you know, in general, this, I would love the screen to be better quality than it is,

01:13:36 ◼   ► but like I'm fine with it, it does the job for me.

01:13:38 ◼   ► But I just can't shake that feeling of like, don't get too attached to this because

01:13:44 ◼   ► you'll be in, you'll be really annoyed of it in four years time when it hasn't changed.

01:13:49 ◼   ► - But in the meantime, you know, you can love it.

01:13:52 ◼   ► And that's the thing with love, right?

01:13:55 ◼   ► Never know how it's gonna end,

01:13:56 ◼   ► but you can cherish it while it lasts.

01:13:58 ◼   ► - Whoa.

01:13:59 ◼   ► - So.

01:14:00 ◼   ► - Whoa.

01:14:01 ◼   ► - You know?

01:14:02 ◼   ► - Wasn't expecting that.

01:14:03 ◼   ► But yeah, I love my iPad mini, you love your iPad mini.

01:14:05 ◼   ► Your iPad mini is really great, it's super great.

01:14:08 ◼   ► This tail end of the year has been awesome

01:14:09 ◼   ► for little weird things that Apple's been up to, yeah.

01:14:13 ◼   ► They've done a really good job, yes.

01:14:14 ◼   ► - We haven't even talked about the Beats Feed Pro

01:14:16 ◼   ► that I have with me.

01:14:18 ◼   ► So I guess we're going to talk about those.

01:14:20 ◼   ► I think we might talk about those next time,

01:14:22 ◼   ► because I think Stephen recorded a little bit with Mary,

01:14:25 ◼   ► because I think Mary got those too.

01:14:27 ◼   ► So we might save that for the next episode.

01:14:29 ◼   ► Very nice, very nice.

01:14:30 ◼   ► But yeah, it's been a really good couple

01:14:31 ◼   ► of months for new hardware.

01:14:34 ◼   ► I honestly love everything that I got here.

01:14:37 ◼   ► Really no big negative points.

01:14:43 ◼   ► Just some small complaints, but overall,

01:14:46 ◼   ► pretty good showing from Apple in terms of hardware in this final part of 2021. So yeah,

01:14:53 ◼   ► thumbs up. Well done. Now, what's going to happen from now until the spring? What are

01:15:01 ◼   ► we going to talk about?

01:15:02 ◼   ► Well, that's the job, isn't it?

01:15:06 ◼   ► I know. Yeah.

01:15:07 ◼   ► That's the job. Well, Apple surprised us by creating a system for repairing devices. So

01:15:15 ◼   ► just gonna keep doing stuff like that. Hey we're gonna talk about that. I guess

01:15:19 ◼   ► we're gonna become a screwdriver and tools podcast. Screwdriver review show.

01:15:24 ◼   ► I mean you gotta you gotta talk about the company right? You gotta you gotta

01:15:28 ◼   ► find something. I genuinely cannot wait for all of the tool reviews. I can't wait

01:15:33 ◼   ► I'm so excited about it like that. Do you think there's gonna be like embargoes

01:15:37 ◼   ► for the tools? I hope that Apple engage with creators in the tech YouTube space

01:15:48 ◼   ► that are focused on device repair like the aforementioned JerryRigEverything

01:15:55 ◼   ► like Linus Tech Tips. It would be smart to do that. I would like to see them do

01:16:01 ◼   ► that if they believe that they have a good product here and that they think

01:16:06 ◼   ► this solution is good, I would like to see them put their money where their mouth is and go out

01:16:13 ◼   ► to the people that are the most critical of them and say, "Well, here you go then. What do you think

01:16:18 ◼   ► of this?" Because if they feel like that they're confident enough to do that, then they've developed

01:16:24 ◼   ► something good. And honestly, I don't see why they shouldn't be confident. Like this shouldn't be a

01:16:29 ◼   ► thing that's difficult to do well right like having good guides and

01:16:36 ◼   ► availability of parts and tools that do the job like this should be a win all

01:16:41 ◼   ► round like they did not really seem to provide a lot of this information to

01:16:46 ◼   ► many places that it was just mainly like the traditional publications but I'm

01:16:51 ◼   ► very I'm very curious as a concern discord for the reaction of people that

01:16:56 ◼   ► do care about this like I think I fix it gave some quotes I think to tech crunch

01:17:02 ◼   ► where it was kind of like as you would expect which is fine it's like hey this

01:17:05 ◼   ► isn't perfect but we'll take it right like it's a star you know yeah we'll

01:17:10 ◼   ► say I mean I'm very intrigued because really again it's like it isn't really

01:17:15 ◼   ► too helpful for just people's reactions because there isn't any information

01:17:19 ◼   ► we've given you all the information there is no more information right like

01:17:24 ◼   ► it's really now what's going to matter is when people actually have this stuff

01:17:28 ◼   ► and until then I'm super excited about it.

01:17:31 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:17:32 ◼   ► Alright thanks for listening to this week's episode of Connected.

01:17:34 ◼   ► If you would like to get longer ad-free episodes of this show you can go to

01:17:40 ◼   ► getconnectedpro.co. Today members will hear me and Federico's excitement about

01:17:46 ◼   ► Adele's upcoming album and I share a fun Adele related story. So you can go to

01:17:50 ◼   ► get connected pro.com and sign up for that. Thank you to everybody that has. Thank you to

01:17:55 ◼   ► Amazon Music, Trade and Fitbod for their support of this week's episode. But of course, thank you

01:18:01 ◼   ► for listening. I think the plan is next week we will all be back together. Hopefully Stephen

01:18:07 ◼   ► recovers from his not COVID sickness that he has right now. You can find Stephen online. He's at

01:18:14 ◼   ► at 512pixels.net and he's @ismh on Twitter. Federico is @vitichi, V-I-T-I-C-C-I. Federico

01:18:22 ◼   ► is the editor-in-chief of maxstories.net. You can find me online. I'm imike, I-M-Y-K-E.

01:18:29 ◼   ► Go buy a journal at cortexbrand.com or cortexmerch.com. I gave you the wrong URL, but they both go

01:18:34 ◼   ► to the same place. Federico!

01:18:37 ◼   ► Yes.

01:18:38 ◼   ► Are you excited about the Pokémon game?

01:18:40 ◼   ► Oh man, I'm... Yes, yes. Tomorrow at midnight for me.

01:18:46 ◼   ► So just about 26 hours left for me until I unlock the game.

01:18:53 ◼   ► I'm gonna preload the game tonight on my Nintendo Switch.

01:18:56 ◼   ► I'm getting diamond, getting the Pokémon diamond.

01:18:58 ◼   ► I got diamond too. I preloaded.

01:19:00 ◼   ► Oh, you got diamond? Should I get pearl?

01:19:03 ◼   ► Well, I don't know. Do we need to do specific trades? I don't know.

01:19:05 ◼   ► Well, I mean, no. We don't need to do trades. It's fine.

01:19:09 ◼   ► We've never done it before.

01:19:10 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah, it's fine. No, and I got the Pokemon in my Pokemon Home account anyway, so I'm good. Yeah. Yeah, I'm super excited. Yes.

01:19:18 ◼   ► I'm not massively excited and I'm hoping that I will prove wrong.

01:19:22 ◼   ► I feel like I need right now this, that kind of simple old-school chill game.

01:19:28 ◼   ► Okay.

01:19:29 ◼   ► That however has some modern quality of life enhancements, like auto save, you know, some of the features from Pokemon Sword.

01:19:37 ◼   ► but it's very much an old-school Pokemon game like I need that kind of game right

01:19:41 ◼   ► now very chill, no tension. I'm very keen to hear what you have to say

01:19:47 ◼   ► about this I guess we'll talk about it on remaster next week right? Yes we will

01:19:51 ◼   ► yeah and I want to talk about Forza a bit too. Okay I will prepare I will get ready

01:19:57 ◼   ► people should subscribe to remaster if they like video games I mean why

01:20:01 ◼   ► wouldn't you like video games? It's like exactly what are you a monster?

01:20:06 ◼   ► I don't like music. I mean, there are people who don't like music, but come on.

01:20:10 ◼   ► We'll be back next week. Until then, say goodbye, Federico.

01:20:13 ◼   ► Arrivederci.