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Connected

370: MacBook Venti

 

00:00:00   [MUSIC]

00:00:08   Hello and welcome to Connected episode 370.

00:00:12   It's made possible this week by our sponsors StoryWorth, Bombas, and Squarespace.

00:00:18   My name is Stephen Hackett and I'm joined by Mr. Federica Faticci.

00:00:21   Hello. Hi.

00:00:23   Hello. We're also joined by Myke Hurley.

00:00:25   What?

00:00:28   And live from Federico's bedroom, a special guest.

00:00:32   (laughs)

00:00:33   Ciao, guys.

00:00:34   - Ciao, Federico.

00:00:35   Oh, it's John Vojis.

00:00:36   - That's not me.

00:00:37   This is me.

00:00:38   - The one true John has joined us for this episode,

00:00:40   but do not worry to passionate ones.

00:00:42   I know that everyone now thinks

00:00:43   that there's a concern about one of our lives.

00:00:46   So John is here, but because all three of us are here,

00:00:50   nobody has suffered grievous bodily harm.

00:00:53   - Yet.

00:00:53   - Oh my God, what's that knife, John?

00:00:55   (laughs)

00:00:56   Put that knife away!

00:00:57   - Oh my God.

00:00:58   - The line of succession remains intact for today.

00:01:02   John has not come here to replace any of us,

00:01:05   but it kind of feels like cyber bullying

00:01:09   if John's with Federico and he's not on the show.

00:01:12   Like he's just like looking at Federico

00:01:14   and listening to one third of the conversation.

00:01:15   So hi, John.

00:01:16   - Hello, you don't know about the rest of the plot.

00:01:19   You don't know that Jason Snell has stowed away

00:01:21   on a FedEx cargo plane and is in Memphis right now.

00:01:25   - And then James.

00:01:26   This is this is all this was all technically possible

00:01:29   so if this doesn't happen and then the triple J is honestly failed because like this was

00:01:34   right this if if if you've got if you've gone all the way to Italy and the other two just couldn't make it to the

00:01:41   Other side of their respective countries then the three of you cannot get anything

00:01:44   Do you think if they want to take over the show?

00:01:46   They're gonna like try and kill us at the same time sort of like on Inception how they need to synchronize all the levels of

00:01:53   the dream. Or like the long knives. He killed all the guys at the same time.

00:01:57   Or like in Godfather, like with the settling all family business. It's one of

00:02:04   those kind of... any of those. It's a long episode guys. There's a lot that

00:02:08   could happen during the show. Well let's get started. Let's run towards our

00:02:14   untimely deaths. Let's run towards it. First off we have Magtricky. Magtricky.com.

00:02:21   our magnetic Ricky tracker as of this point oh I'm logged into the wrong

00:02:29   account I was gonna tell you how many of y'all have been awesome and ordered but

00:02:33   Myke you tell people about what it is yeah so the mag tricky is an at-home

00:02:37   trophy tracker of who holds the chairmanships for the annual and

00:02:41   keynote chairman it's a connected logo artwork magnet and you get a set of

00:02:48   smaller magnets that you can use and place in the in like whether over our

00:02:52   countries for who has the each chairmanship so you can keep along at

00:02:56   home and then during the closing ceremonies of the Riki's whenever they

00:03:01   occur you will be able to move your magnets around along with us with our

00:03:05   big wooden trophies here so you can follow along and track exactly who the

00:03:10   chairperson is at any one time this set as well as the magnets comes with a

00:03:16   a couple of stickers of a Ricky's Trophy artwork created by Lex Postma who created rickys.co.

00:03:23   Is it rickys.co or the rickys.co? rickys.co.

00:03:27   rickys.co, there you go. And so you can go to magtricky.com and you can buy one of these

00:03:32   sets for yourself and then you will be able to participate in the closing ceremonies of

00:03:38   the Ricky's. Does it have crypto? Yes. I'm only buying crypto stuff myself. So I'm pleased

00:03:45   to hear that it's got crypto. This is crypto magnets is what it's called. Nice. Cool cool cool. As long as you got crypto, you know, I'm up for it. So go get it.

00:03:53   Whether you're into magnets or crypto. Magtricky.com. Stephen did you log in

00:03:59   because you were logging into something? Yeah almost almost 300 orders have been

00:04:05   placed. Wow. So do you want to join one of the passion all of these 300

00:04:10   passionate ones. The passionate 300. This is like our army. Like, what is it, the 300

00:04:17   Roman soldiers you know about this Federico? You must know about this. Like the ones that

00:04:21   they made the movie on.

00:04:23   Well, it wasn't Romans, it was Spartans.

00:04:26   Spartans.

00:04:27   Wow.

00:04:28   Yes. It's like two different countries, Myke.

00:04:32   What is that then? Nothing. Where were the Spartans from then?

00:04:35   Although, now that you mention it, was the movie incorrect?

00:04:41   And they were not actually Greek, but the original story from literature, they were

00:04:47   Romans?

00:04:48   Oh, see, now I'm confused.

00:04:49   Now I'm doubting myself because...

00:04:50   I have one in the chat saying it's Greece.

00:04:52   I don't know why I thought they were Romans, so, you know, sorry.

00:04:56   But I also remember this app.

00:04:59   There was some, like, historical inaccuracy to that movie, if I'm not mistaken.

00:05:04   And I'm sure there's gonna be like some history professor or, you know, someone in our listeners

00:05:10   correcting us pretty soon.

00:05:11   So if you do know that original story, please get in touch with me because now I'm obsessed.

00:05:16   So I'm actually gonna Google it now.

00:05:18   I mean I'm trying and it's not helping me at all so I think we should just move on from

00:05:22   this.

00:05:23   But anyway, magtricky.com, you can pre-order by November 11th, until November 11th I should

00:05:29   say, and orders will ship by the end of November.

00:05:33   I returned my AirPods 3.

00:05:35   Oh, that didn't last long.

00:05:37   Those don't fit.

00:05:39   Oh, I know what I was thinking of.

00:05:42   I'm sorry, guys.

00:05:43   I know what I was thinking of.

00:05:44   Okay.

00:05:45   The movie was correct.

00:05:46   You know who was incorrect in referencing this movie?

00:05:51   Me?

00:05:52   Kanye West.

00:05:53   Because in the song, it says, "300 like the Romans."

00:05:56   Oh, that's what it is.

00:05:57   You know, I just listened to this song like three days ago.

00:06:01   So I'm gonna blame Kanye West.

00:06:03   Yeah, it's Kanye's fault.

00:06:04   For my inaccuracy.

00:06:05   This is all Kanye's fault.

00:06:06   But the movie was correct.

00:06:08   It was Kanye that was incorrect.

00:06:10   So moving on.

00:06:11   Thank you Kanye for sending that in.

00:06:15   Federico, what did Sylvia think about the AirPods 3?

00:06:18   Last time I think she felt like I did.

00:06:20   Has her opinion changed?

00:06:22   Not really.

00:06:23   I mean she's trying them now.

00:06:25   We reset them a couple of days ago and she paired them with her iPhone.

00:06:31   She's trying them, she doesn't seem exactly happy about them.

00:06:36   We were just chatting about it this morning after we picked up John.

00:06:40   She continues to believe they're too big for her ears, and especially one, I believe, right

00:06:47   ear.

00:06:48   It's just too big and it's uncomfortable and she gets like this pain after a few minutes

00:06:55   wearing the AirPods 3. So I think she's just, she's trying them now, but she's gonna stick

00:07:02   with the AirPods 2 as long as they're making them.

00:07:05   Yeah, it's the AirPod that's too big to be very clear about this, not Sylvia's ear.

00:07:10   Yes.

00:07:11   Yeah, that was...

00:07:13   Thank you for that clarification, Jon. We knew there was a reason to have you on this

00:07:17   episode.

00:07:19   I'm glad to be of service.

00:07:21   She has normal size ears, you know, just for additional clarification, it's the AirPods,

00:07:27   that is the problem.

00:07:28   There is a new set of earbuds, the Beats Fit Pro, so these are, they're kind of, I think

00:07:36   the Verge described them as "sporty AirPods Pro", so they're like, they have ANC and transparency

00:07:45   mode, they don't have wireless charging, apparently they fit really nicely because they have that

00:07:50   little wing thing that also like holds the earbuds in your ear, but they do have the

00:07:55   silicone in-ear thing, so if you don't like that, maybe it won't work, but if your issue

00:08:00   is maybe that you don't mind the feeling but they don't stay in your ears, then this would

00:08:04   probably be better for that. They're $200, and they're available now, I think.

00:08:10   They look really nice. I think they look terrific. I've used Jabra headphones before, which have

00:08:14   a similar little wing thing that keeps them in your ear, and it works super well, but

00:08:18   These, they're not very waterproof, they're water resistant.

00:08:21   I forget what the rating is, but it's pretty low compared

00:08:23   to some of the other ones that are designed for working out.

00:08:27   - Apparently they set these sound really good too.

00:08:29   Like I was hearing that about the previous beats in-ears,

00:08:33   I don't remember what they're called now.

00:08:35   They're naming Studio Buds.

00:08:37   Yeah, so Austin, my cohost and a test driver,

00:08:40   he much prefers the Studio Buds to AirPods

00:08:44   from a sound perspective.

00:08:45   So, you know, all these things are tweaked differently, right?

00:08:48   Beats has a different, has always had like a bit of a distinct sound.

00:08:52   So, so yeah, I don't know.

00:08:53   It's another option at least, because my concern is for Steven and Sylvia,

00:09:00   is that at some point Apple's going to move away from the design.

00:09:06   That's what I told her.

00:09:09   Yeah.

00:09:09   Like it seems to me like this design is kind of done at this point and

00:09:15   they're not, unless like this major controversy happens

00:09:18   and Apple realizes, oh no, we're not selling AirPods anymore

00:09:21   because people hate the new shape,

00:09:24   unless that happens and they need to walk back this design,

00:09:28   seems like it's a dying sort of design at this point,

00:09:32   the AirPods 2 generation,

00:09:34   and it seems like we're heading toward the future

00:09:36   where the default AirPod shape is the AirPods 3

00:09:40   and the AirPods Pro.

00:09:41   So I don't know, like I told her like,

00:09:43   As long as the AirPods 2 are fine, you can keep using them.

00:09:46   As long as Apple is making them, you can probably keep buying them.

00:09:50   But I can tell you what's going to happen three years from now, you know?

00:09:52   Yeah.

00:09:53   So worth keeping an eye at least, I think, on what other options are available,

00:09:57   because there might be a better track.

00:09:59   I'm intrigued by the Beats Fit Pro, and especially the part about-- also,

00:10:03   The Verge mentioned this in the review, too,

00:10:05   like the sound quality being slightly better than the AirPods Pro.

00:10:09   But I cannot buy them yet.

00:10:12   They are launching in US only, followed by China in 2021,

00:10:19   and more countries 2022.

00:10:22   Oh, OK.

00:10:23   I guess they really want to get this in China

00:10:25   for the holiday season.

00:10:28   Although, is there a holiday season in China?

00:10:30   It doesn't--

00:10:31   Chinese New Year.

00:10:32   And when's that, in January?

00:10:35   Yeah.

00:10:36   Yeah.

00:10:36   So yeah, I guess they are prioritizing US and China.

00:10:41   and maybe we'll get this in the spring, hopefully,

00:10:44   or I can get John to send me a pair, maybe.

00:10:47   - There we go.

00:10:48   Yeah, that's something I haven't done in a while.

00:10:50   I actually brought a pair of headphones here today.

00:10:53   - You know what I got, Myke?

00:10:54   - What'd you get?

00:10:55   - The Pokemon headphones.

00:10:57   The Grado.

00:10:58   - The Grado ones?

00:10:59   - Yeah, yeah.

00:11:00   - Oh my God. - I got those.

00:11:01   - Do you have them?

00:11:02   - Yeah, right beside me.

00:11:04   - Wow.

00:11:05   - Lunar New Year is on the 1st of February this year,

00:11:08   just as a bit of follow up before we get the follow up.

00:11:11   The Pokemon, Santa, Grado, did I sound good?

00:11:15   - I haven't tried them.

00:11:16   I literally just unboxed them before the show.

00:11:19   I need to get new custom ear pads though,

00:11:23   because I knew this was gonna be a problem.

00:11:25   The default Grado ear pad is really uncomfortable for me.

00:11:28   - Yeah, I feel like I've seen this a lot of like,

00:11:30   sounds really good, terrible to wear.

00:11:33   (laughing)

00:11:34   - Yep, and I got exactly the one.

00:11:36   So there's a link that you just pasted in the Discord.

00:11:40   I got exactly that flavor,

00:11:42   like the wooden color with the colored Pokeball.

00:11:47   That's the one that I got.

00:11:48   It looks fantastic in person,

00:11:50   but yeah, I gotta get custom ear pads

00:11:52   that are more comfortable than the default ones.

00:11:54   - They have Pikachu ones too, which are cool looking.

00:11:57   - Mm-hmm. - Interesting.

00:12:00   Did you get those or did John get those for you?

00:12:02   - I picked them up in the US

00:12:03   and brought them here with me, yeah.

00:12:05   Did you have to bring a separate case for all the things

00:12:09   that you had to bring him?

00:12:10   - I can't even tell you how much stuff I brought.

00:12:12   And it wasn't just for Federico,

00:12:14   'cause we were bringing things for my son too in Dublin.

00:12:16   And then some of the stuff that I had,

00:12:18   that I had in Dublin, she took back with her yesterday

00:12:22   and then I brought new things to Federico.

00:12:24   It's been a whole luggage situation

00:12:26   of things shifting around.

00:12:27   So, but yeah.

00:12:28   - There's one suitcase that keeps,

00:12:30   that the contents keep changing.

00:12:31   - John is really a headphone smuggler at this point.

00:12:35   It's just smuggling headphones

00:12:36   in and out of multiple countries, you know?

00:12:39   - Yeah, I actually brought a pair of AirPods Max to Finn.

00:12:42   So he, you know, I had two sets of headphones in my bag.

00:12:45   - Steven, did you hear from people

00:12:46   about the AirTag battery thing?

00:12:48   - I did.

00:12:49   I got quite a few emails and tweets and things and Discord.

00:12:53   And it seems like most people's AirTags are totally fine.

00:12:56   Like the batteries are still good now,

00:12:59   however many months on.

00:13:00   But some people said, "Yeah, I have had one die,

00:13:03   like just in the last few weeks.

00:13:05   And so maybe there was like a weird batch

00:13:07   of batteries or something.

00:13:09   I put a new battery in the old AirTag

00:13:10   and we'll see how it goes.

00:13:12   - Yeah, these are just the ones that sat around

00:13:14   in warehouses for three months

00:13:16   while Apple was deciding what to do with them.

00:13:18   - Maybe, I mean, 'cause they were rumored forever, right?

00:13:20   - Yeah.

00:13:21   - But I bought a four pack.

00:13:22   It was like one, the other three are fine.

00:13:26   It's very strange.

00:13:27   This episode of Connected is made possible by StoryWorth.

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00:15:03   of the show and Relay FM. So I think I've worked out, Steven, why Jon needs to be

00:15:09   here today. Uh-huh. Because Federico requires representation now because he's

00:15:14   too fancy for us. So like we have to, like Jon has to sit here while Federico

00:15:18   talks and make sure that we're not asking Federico questions he doesn't

00:15:21   and on, so stuff like that.

00:15:23   - Yeah, because Federico is now a reliable

00:15:27   and oft-quoted source for the New York Times.

00:15:32   - Yes.

00:15:33   - Yeah, and I feel like I need my handler over here.

00:15:39   - Ask your questions carefully, because you don't know,

00:15:43   you don't want to take down notice

00:15:44   to have this episode taken down later on this week.

00:15:47   - Yeah, I mean, if you ask me stuff

00:15:49   that I'm not supposed to answer,

00:15:51   John is just going to cut you off. So, you know,

00:15:53   my client is not going to answer that. So, um, I mean,

00:15:58   we can talk about the times we can talk about, um, some behind the scenes,

00:16:02   but that's enough. That's enough.

00:16:05   Hang on, John, when you were an attorney, did you ever get to say,

00:16:12   I advise my client not to answer that?

00:16:15   Yes. Yes I did.

00:16:18   - Yeah, but that was so cool.

00:16:19   - Yeah, not because of criminal stuff,

00:16:22   but because it's like, you know, there's boundaries.

00:16:24   - They're not your clients anymore.

00:16:25   You can say if they were criminal.

00:16:27   - Yeah, no, they weren't.

00:16:28   (laughing)

00:16:29   Well, they may have been, but they weren't,

00:16:31   not the part that I was involved in.

00:16:34   - I just tried to open a New York Times story

00:16:36   and now Safari is beach balling.

00:16:38   - Yeah, 'cause it's a bad browser.

00:16:40   - What, Safari?

00:16:41   You use Chrome now?

00:16:42   - Yeah, I switched to Chrome earlier this year.

00:16:44   - Whoa, wait, what?

00:16:45   We haven't spoken about this, have we?

00:16:47   - No.

00:16:48   - No, why, why those, why?

00:16:51   - 'Cause Safari was really ugly all summer

00:16:53   and now I've gotten used to all my stuff

00:16:55   working in Google Chrome.

00:16:56   Like my favorite thing that doesn't work in Safari 15

00:17:00   is if you try to search in a Google Sheet,

00:17:02   it won't find anything.

00:17:03   It pulls up the browser search instead of the sheet search

00:17:07   like one out of three times.

00:17:09   And as someone who lives in a Google Sheet for his job,

00:17:12   it's very frustrating.

00:17:14   - I have to force quit Safari now.

00:17:16   So that's done. I've done that.

00:17:18   That's fine.

00:17:19   And it was reopening.

00:17:20   New York Times.

00:17:22   And the New York Times tab just didn't reopen,

00:17:25   so I'm just gonna leave it.

00:17:26   John, Justin from Discord wants to know,

00:17:29   did you ever get to slam your hand on the table

00:17:31   and yell, "Objection!"

00:17:33   No, unfortunately not.

00:17:35   You wanna do it now?

00:17:36   Objection!

00:17:37   (laughing)

00:17:39   All right, John, you have,

00:17:45   I want to grant you the ability to do that at literally any point during the show, whenever

00:17:50   you feel is necessary.

00:17:52   Got it.

00:17:53   So Federico, why were you quoted in the New York Times?

00:17:58   I was about to slam his hand on the table again.

00:18:02   It was just hovering there.

00:18:06   So Daisuke from the New York Times de-addened me last week, saying we're working on a story

00:18:15   about the apple polishing cloth, and I was wondering if I could ask you some questions

00:18:23   because I saw that you received one and you've been tweeting about it. And so now you need

00:18:28   to understand the context of how I received this message. I was out at a birthday party

00:18:33   and I was having drinks. And imagine sort of that scene and I got a DM from a New York

00:18:41   Times reporter saying that he wants to interview me about a cloth because he saw my stupid

00:18:47   tweets about it. Like that was a, that was like, I showed the message to Sylvia. I was

00:18:52   like, can you believe this stuff? So yeah, we got on the phone the next day, we chatted

00:18:58   for like 20 minutes and of course, you know, asking a bunch of questions and what made

00:19:03   it into the story was that the fact that initially I thought it was a ridiculous product and

00:19:09   I thought that it was a joke and then I realized, oh, this is probably gonna be, you know, it's

00:19:14   got meme potential for like stupid jokes and that kind of stuff. And how the tweets that

00:19:21   I've been, that I sent last week about the polishing cloth had hundreds and thousands

00:19:27   of likes and retweets and that kind of stuff. And the story was about the most anticipated

00:19:33   product right now from Apple is a $19 cloth. So it was funny. What was even funnier was

00:19:45   the fact that when I told my mom that I was in the New York Times for this kind of interview

00:19:51   about a piece of cloth. She printed out the article at work and she hung it up at work

00:19:58   as photocopies. Like my son, Federico, is in the New York Times. The problem is it's

00:20:05   like, yes, mom, I am in the Times. Do you feel embarrassed that this is what she's proud

00:20:10   about? Like, you know? Exactly. My mom, I've done things in my life. I'm very proud of

00:20:15   things that I've built in my life being interviewed about a cloth, not my top five, you know?

00:20:21   Yeah, but it's like old media, right? So it feels like a big deal to the...

00:20:27   It's also how it always goes, right? It's the story that's the one that you spent five

00:20:32   minutes writing that takes off and goes viral. Yeah, it's the one phone you record in your

00:20:37   bedroom that ends up on the CBS morning show. And it's still the times, like, you cannot decline,

00:20:45   You know, you cannot say "No, you know, I'm too cool for the New York Times."

00:20:49   So, and also it's fun to keep, to have these connections and to have your name, you know, Mr. Vitici, on the New York Times.

00:20:57   Now it's the second time actually that Mr. Vitici has made an appearance in the New York Times.

00:21:03   Which are you more proud of, your amp rant or your cloth?

00:21:07   Honestly, I'm more proud of my polishing cloth reporting, you know?

00:21:13   The tweets were really funny.

00:21:16   I am right about AMP, but the tweets about the cloth were funnier.

00:21:21   So, I mean, it's -- hold on.

00:21:23   John, this is the cloth, by the way.

00:21:26   Is this your first experience with the cloth?

00:21:28   Oh, come on. I've got one here.

00:21:29   It's not a big deal.

00:21:30   No, I've never seen one, though, Steven.

00:21:32   I've never seen one.

00:21:33   I came all the way to Rome for this.

00:21:35   Try and polish the screen.

00:21:36   Mm. Oh, it works very well.

00:21:38   How's the polishing experience?

00:21:41   It's wonderful.

00:21:42   I'm using it with my iPhone.

00:21:42   - It's got a lot more grip to it than you expect.

00:21:44   - It does, it almost feels rubberized.

00:21:46   Yeah, it's kind of almost feels rubberized or something.

00:21:49   - I actually don't like it as a cleaning cloth, I will say.

00:21:52   (laughing)

00:21:53   - Perfect.

00:21:54   - I do not like it as a cleaning cloth.

00:21:56   It is difficult to clean anything with this cloth.

00:21:58   It takes away more effort than you would want.

00:22:03   It's very grippy.

00:22:04   Stephen, do you often clean your expensive monitor

00:22:07   with this thing?

00:22:08   - I do.

00:22:09   Got a little smudge on it right here.

00:22:10   just now it's gone.

00:22:12   - Do you not worry you're gonna push the whole monitor over?

00:22:15   Like I don't like, I just tried cleaning my iMac with it

00:22:18   and it's--

00:22:19   - Yeah, but the iMac weighs nothing.

00:22:20   The Pro Display XDR is 900 pounds.

00:22:23   - Yeah, I have to like, I genuinely have to hold

00:22:26   the foot down because if I push on the iMac

00:22:28   it's gonna go over.

00:22:29   - Yeah, I mean there's no way they could put all

00:22:31   this technology in the laptop screen,

00:22:32   so why wouldn't it be 4,000 pounds?

00:22:35   You know, it's really, it's the reason I bought the stand.

00:22:37   You know?

00:22:38   - Right.

00:22:39   So I could do this.

00:22:40   So you could clean it.

00:22:42   Mm-hmm.

00:22:43   Oh, by the way, Steven, this didn't make the New York Times, but I did mention you specifically

00:22:47   in the interview.

00:22:48   Oh, man, your mom could have been proud of me too.

00:22:50   She is already.

00:22:51   Don't worry about it.

00:22:55   I mentioned...

00:22:56   So the guy asked me, "Do you have any other examples of Apple making ridiculous products

00:23:03   that are also expensive?"

00:23:04   And so I went, "Okay, so I have a friend.

00:23:08   He's actually a really good friend and my co-host on one of the podcasts that I do,

00:23:13   he bought the wildly expensive Pro Display XDR with the stand and he's got wheels for

00:23:20   the Mac Pro.

00:23:21   He's got it all.

00:23:22   So I think I said, you know, there's a market for these kinds of people buying these kinds

00:23:27   of accessories from Apple.

00:23:30   And I know one personally in real life, they exist.

00:23:33   Yeah.

00:23:34   The wheels are very good.

00:23:35   Yeah.

00:23:36   They cut that part from the interview.

00:23:38   That's a bummer.

00:23:39   I got quoted in Wired this week.

00:23:40   Not as cool as the New York Times.

00:23:42   Really?

00:23:43   What?

00:23:43   Yeah.

00:23:44   I saw that, Mr. Focus Mode.

00:23:46   I saw that.

00:23:46   I don't know why this happened, honestly.

00:23:48   So, Tyler from Wired sent me a message to ask for like, what I thought about Focus Mode

00:23:55   for an article they were working on.

00:23:57   And it's just a quote from me and then some examples of different Focus Modes.

00:24:01   Oh yeah.

00:24:01   I don't know what...

00:24:03   Like, I mean, I said what I thought about it.

00:24:05   I don't, I had just assumed there was going to be quotes from a lot of people in this

00:24:09   article but it was just me.

00:24:11   So clearly I am a focus mode influence.

00:24:13   I'm going to read your, I'm going to read this quote.

00:24:16   Please do.

00:24:17   You are credited as Relay FM co-founder, which I appreciate.

00:24:19   He asked and I said that's what I wanted.

00:24:22   Between the two of you I'm very close.

00:24:25   Wait, what?

00:24:29   If it goes New York Times, Wired, what is next?

00:24:32   John will be quoted in, I don't know, the Atlantic or something.

00:24:36   I also have a workout focus that blocks everything except the activity app.

00:24:43   Yeah. I set up an automation in the shortcuts app.

00:24:46   You should have called it series shortcuts to trigger this one.

00:24:49   Whenever I start a small set of workouts.

00:24:51   So wouldn't it go off as I was taking a walk just went in specific exercises.

00:24:56   You put a literal flex in your quote.

00:25:01   I got a workout focus.

00:25:03   - Look at you, Mr. Muscle.

00:25:06   Look at you being so fancy.

00:25:08   - Muscle Hurley over there.

00:25:10   I don't have bolts holding my foot together.

00:25:13   - I'm flexing right now when I do the show.

00:25:15   Look at my muscles over here.

00:25:17   I have a focus for my--

00:25:18   - No, Federico, he has a recording focus

00:25:21   that only allows text messages from his wife

00:25:24   and Slack messages from our VP of sales

00:25:27   to get through to me.

00:25:28   So if you or I need to talk to him during recording,

00:25:29   we can't do it.

00:25:30   You're doing, you're talking to me right now!

00:25:32   But sometimes we have to back channel.

00:25:34   Yeah, well, I have to just rely on the notifications going up.

00:25:39   I don't like to be distracted when I record, so I have to...

00:25:42   Because if I allow the two of you, I love you both,

00:25:45   if I allow messages from the two of you, that's constant, right?

00:25:48   I don't know what you're talking about.

00:25:50   It's not so bad, come on.

00:25:52   The four of us, so we had, the four of us,

00:25:55   four of us this is this is actually just a real-time this is this is what our

00:26:01   text group chat is like all the time yeah if I allow that Joe tell Carrie to

00:26:06   text Myke for me I allow all that to just continue we're good I won't be able to

00:26:11   concentrate on anything yeah it is kind of constant see it's really not that bad

00:26:17   you know what the real focus lies within you shouldn't be the phone that helps

00:26:22   you focus. See now I see I have three unread iMessages which I'm sure is

00:26:27   something to do with the two of you. Can't be. Let me go check. See that? Do you

00:26:32   not know anybody else? That's kind of sad. Not constant, come on, it says. That's

00:26:37   spread over three messages. So see what I'm saying? This is like you you you sent

00:26:43   Stephen sends these kinds of messages to us while we're recording all the time

00:26:47   and usually it's like when someone else is talking so like I'm going through

00:26:51   this big thing and then he should send in a bunch of messages. This is why I

00:26:55   need a recording focus and why Steven is not in it.

00:26:58   Harsh. See that is another two messages. One says "for real" the other says "fake

00:27:03   news" so this is this is what's going on. Oh and now John said a gif.

00:27:08   Well congratulations both of you big media boys over there. Remember us when

00:27:13   you're famous. Federico just broke through. You know what you could do with this thing to like to get through the

00:27:21   notifications yeah he's just done that to me I now realize what I've done yeah

00:27:25   oh this is bad news you've just completely completely made your

00:27:31   recording focus you should have put that on record now it's a problem

00:27:38   and remember when wired was a magazine that was fun that's an unnecessary burn

00:27:43   come on it still is a magazine is it yeah yeah they came back it was a

00:27:48   Magazine magazine went away magazine came back. I didn't know

00:27:52   Myke your MacBook Pro is in yeah, man remind us what you got and give us some some hot and hurt Lee takes

00:28:00   I got I have to go and look second of room

00:28:02   I mean if you haven't already promised an exclusive to wired, I mean, I'm sorry to have to tell you this but no

00:28:08   I'm oh no. Can you know I got a 14 inch MacBook Pro in space gray?

00:28:13   64 gigabytes of unified memory

00:28:16   The M1 Max 10 core with 24 core GPU. I got a 16 core neural engine, which everyone loves

00:28:24   Oh, that's good. Of course. I actually did use this the other day. I was using the ML super resolution thing and

00:28:31   Pixelmator Pro. It's really fast. There's all 16 cores of it. I was like, oh, you know what?

00:28:36   I've actually just used the neural engine so hooray for me

00:28:39   Two terabyte when I try to when I try to run that on my Mac Pro. It really makes me sad really

00:28:44   Yeah, it's not nearly as fast as this laptop because I guess it doesn't have it right. It's just

00:28:49   Forces it I guess

00:28:53   But you know in other things the MacBook Pro and my Mac Pro basically just trade blows. So that's fine. I'm fine

00:28:59   So I got yeah, so that's what I got

00:29:03   The thing for me that I was not expecting which is actually my favorite thing about this computer is the design

00:29:10   It's like I look at it and I'm like you are a very good-looking computer

00:29:14   It's like subtly different but in enough ways that overall I really enjoy it

00:29:19   Like I just I absolutely love the way this computer looks because most of the time I am seeing it closed

00:29:25   When I'm here at the studio because I'm plugging it into my monitor which makes me so sad now

00:29:30   Because I have a monitor that I used to really like but the monitor on the MacBook Pro like the screen is vastly better in

00:29:38   colors obviously promotion which is flaky but does work in some places and

00:29:43   Like the black levels and stuff. It's just so much better on the

00:29:47   MacBook Pro than on the og display that I have so that makes me sad

00:29:52   There's nothing I could do about that. I'm just gonna have to stomach it for a while

00:29:56   I'm not buying a pro display XD artists. It's not gonna happen

00:29:59   It's incredibly powerful, right?

00:30:01   I'm very thankful for RAM because I no longer have to see the "Hey, you have no more RAM" message

00:30:06   that I used to get every single day on my MacBook Pro.

00:30:09   That's a thing they used to get?

00:30:11   You have no more RAM?

00:30:12   On my M1 MacBook Pro, it used to tell me that I had too many apps open

00:30:17   and it wouldn't let me close them.

00:30:18   Yeah, it used to happen to me every day.

00:30:20   I actually saw a report on MacRumors that this has been happening to people

00:30:26   on the new ones and there seems to be a memory leak. So I don't know if that was happening to

00:30:31   me on my M1 MacBook Pro or if it but I have not had any issues at all on the current one.

00:30:37   And so I'm this is why I went for 64 gigabytes of RAM honestly. I never wanted to see that thing

00:30:42   again because it was really annoying. I like to have lots of apps open and then I can just do what

00:30:47   I want to do with them. I did some basic benchmarks and it's about 20% 20-25% faster at my most

00:30:54   intensive tasks so this is like bouncing an episode of a show, it's like exporting it

00:30:59   from Logic or doing some audio effects or matching or volume matching and all that kind

00:31:05   of stuff like processing of stuff.

00:31:07   Faster than what?

00:31:08   Oh sorry, than my M1 iMac which was about the same speed as my iMac Pro for all of this

00:31:15   stuff right so it's you know basically this is 20% faster than any other machine that

00:31:21   I own. But the thing is, all of that stuff's great, but I'm not actually using this computer

00:31:26   for any of those tasks. But it does make me feel excited for the future when I will at

00:31:33   some point have a more like a M1 Pro or something like that in a desktop machine that will replace

00:31:40   my M1 iMac. But that's not, you know, that's not gonna be anytime soon. However, you know,

00:31:44   I like that I have this power when I'm going to be traveling in the future, I will have

00:31:51   all of that available to me for recording and editing, which is great.

00:31:55   Because honestly, that's when I always want things to be quickest anyway.

00:31:59   If you're traveling, I want the processing to be as fast as it can be because I tend

00:32:04   to have less time than when I'm recording under regular circumstances.

00:32:07   But overall, it's just such a good computer, man.

00:32:11   Oh my God, I love it so much.

00:32:12   It's really awesome.

00:32:13   I'm very happy about it.

00:32:16   It really, I don't know, I'm not saying anything people haven't already said, but there is

00:32:21   something about this computer which is, it does feel like a different Apple now.

00:32:28   You know, because it was, I think the M1 iMacs, which we're going to talk about a little bit

00:32:32   more in a little bit, the thinness of that computer is really awesome, but did still

00:32:38   feel like a typical Apple Flex, right?

00:32:43   - It's like unnecessarily thin.

00:32:45   - Completely, right?

00:32:46   Like they did it because they could.

00:32:48   And I think what they come out with is like,

00:32:50   I as a user of this machine,

00:32:52   I love it because it's so thin,

00:32:53   but it has made it worse to use in some ways

00:32:56   because there's some ports they couldn't put on this machine

00:32:58   'cause they're too thick, right?

00:33:00   Or they had to put them in weird ways,

00:33:01   like in the power connector on the side, right?

00:33:04   So I think that there was still a little bit of concern

00:33:07   going up to this MacBook Pro, right?

00:33:09   Of like, what if they continue that approach

00:33:12   in

00:33:33   look like and that there will be these two areas where it's like for consumer products,

00:33:38   consumer focused products like the MacBook Air, the iMac, that kind of stuff, they're

00:33:42   going to keep making those things in theory thinner and lighter and more portable because

00:33:46   it makes sense in those environments to do that.

00:33:49   But then where more power is required or more flexibility is required, you still want to

00:33:55   be able to have access to all of that and thinness and lightness isn't necessarily the

00:34:01   thing to optimize for and that's what these new MacBook Pros feel like so I think it's

00:34:04   great. Yeah I've only been more impressed with mine the more time I've spent with it.

00:34:10   It really is a just a fantastic machine and I agree with you like I can't really find

00:34:18   any major compromises they made with it. I guess some people would say the notch is a

00:34:22   compromise but a weekend like I totally don't care about it. It's a non-issue. Federico

00:34:30   So did you order one?

00:34:31   I ordered two of them actually.

00:34:33   Not one.

00:34:35   So yeah, I did place in an order for one MacBook Pro for Sylvia, another MacBook Pro for me.

00:34:43   And as expected, I am selling my Mac Mini and I'm going back to the MacBook Pro lifestyle

00:34:50   for all my podcasting and who knows, maybe even more, maybe I'll use the Mac more, I

00:34:55   don't know.

00:34:56   And yeah, we got a base model M1 Max for Silvia, and base model M1 Pro for me.

00:35:05   Both with 32GB of RAM.

00:35:08   I figured Silvia needs more performance than I do for her design work.

00:35:13   I just need to do some podcasts and, you know...

00:35:16   Yeah, I actually think the way you've mixed those two together, it makes a lot of logical

00:35:20   sense.

00:35:21   Cos+ as well, you know, I know that Silvia held onto her last laptop for a while, so

00:35:26   will do that too, like if she wants to just have this machine and not worry about changing

00:35:30   it around, like going the Macs, you will get a little bit longer out of it too.

00:35:34   Exactly, exactly. Both 14-inch models, so we got the smaller one, and I'm excited honestly

00:35:41   because I'm getting kind of tired of this Mac Mini and the fact that in the summer when

00:35:49   I spent three months at the beach house I couldn't take it easily with me and I had

00:35:53   to ask every time Sylvia to borrow her computer, and it was an old computer, like it was a

00:35:58   2017 MacBook Pro with a touch bar, with a stupid keyboard, and the battery was starting

00:36:04   to give out a little, so we are both excited to get a new MacBook Pro for different reasons.

00:36:09   The only thing that I would add, one thing of note regarding the design, when she first

00:36:16   saw the pictures of the MacBook Pro, and I guess eventually we should get Sylvia on the

00:36:21   show maybe because she does have a lot of opinions that make for good follow-up material

00:36:26   and connected. She looked at the photos of the Macbook Pro and she was like "I don't

00:36:31   like it, it looks old and chunky" and I thought that was an interesting perspective. It's

00:36:38   like "why is it not thin and beautiful like my current one?" and I was like "well, because

00:36:43   like they are adding more battery and better performance and the new screen technology

00:36:48   and all that. Just like, yeah, well, okay, I'll get it, but it looks ugly.

00:36:53   Have you actually seen it, seen it, or just seen images of it?

00:36:56   Just seen images and videos like video reviews from YouTube and that kind of stuff.

00:37:00   Okay. I wonder if her opinion will change on it when you actually have it.

00:37:04   I wonder the same. I'm curious. I think she dislikes the sort of flat edges aesthetic.

00:37:10   She, I feel like she was a big fan of the Johnny Ive design of Apple stuff, you know?

00:37:19   Like thin, curved edges, you know, that kind of aesthetic.

00:37:23   Which is not necessarily there anymore when you look at the latest stuff.

00:37:30   Yeah, it's boxy, it's not much thicker, it looks thicker, that's the thing.

00:37:33   It's boxy, boxes are the word.

00:37:34   Because there's no tapering now.

00:37:37   Yeah.

00:37:38   So it definitely, but see like what I think what I like about it is it does feel like a throwback and that's what I like

00:37:44   But that's my taste right? Where like I'm like that looks like a power book

00:37:51   I like it, you know

00:37:52   But if if you're just moving along with the design trend and don't have nostalgia for weird old computers

00:37:58   Then maybe I can see why she would say like I don't know. It's also it's very aggressive. The design is quite aggressive

00:38:04   I think. Would you, I could potentially say it's a masculine design and I think that...

00:38:12   I think what would be very traditionally masculine, right, like if you would consider...

00:38:16   this is a harder thing to explain right now. That's why I use the word "aggressive"

00:38:21   in its kind of look because, I don't know, maybe they're going for that like professional look,

00:38:27   like it's like, you know, I don't know, like here we go, you know. It's hard to describe,

00:38:31   but I know what you're saying.

00:38:33   Yeah, judging from her first reactions,

00:38:36   why is it so, like, with these flat edges and thicker

00:38:40   and looks like an older computer?

00:38:43   And I think she has a point there.

00:38:48   So I think it's-- but personally, I like it.

00:38:50   I like that aesthetic.

00:38:51   I like that it's thicker, because I know

00:38:53   there's more power in it.

00:38:54   But I also know she's going to use this computer on her lap

00:38:58   all the time.

00:38:59   And so that's slightly concerning,

00:39:02   but also like there's no better solution.

00:39:04   Like I told her, like, look,

00:39:06   you can't keep using this computer.

00:39:08   You need a new MacBook Pro for your work.

00:39:10   Your only alternative here is to use Windows

00:39:13   or to use a MacBook Air.

00:39:15   I don't think you want to use a MacBook Air.

00:39:17   So what, you're going to get a Windows computer?

00:39:19   And so it's like, no, no, no,

00:39:21   I mean, I get the MacBook Pro,

00:39:22   but I prefer the design of the old one.

00:39:25   - Jon, is there a MacBook Pro in your future?

00:39:28   - There is not.

00:39:29   I've come really close to purchasing one and I really, I mean, for me, I think the display

00:39:35   is the thing that really attracts me to it more than anything else.

00:39:38   I've been using a MacBook Air since, I guess, November of last year and I absolutely love

00:39:45   it.

00:39:46   And while I would love to have the extra power that the Pro provides, I'm kind of a holdout.

00:39:51   I mean, we'll talk about it a little bit in a bit, but I'm going to hold out and see what

00:39:55   happens next year.

00:39:56   Kind of in the Jason Snell camp if you've listened to Upgrade.

00:40:00   I'm waiting for a bigger screen of some kind.

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00:42:04   So John, I know that you've had a 24 inch M1 iMac for a while, a review unit, and I

00:42:12   I kind of want to check in and see how that's been treating you.

00:42:14   It's been going great. I mean, I got this right before WWDC.

00:42:19   So early June,

00:42:21   it really made the Monterey review this year a lot easier just because I had

00:42:26   somebody else's computer to put it on and, and I didn't have the, you know,

00:42:29   the concern of wrecking my own. And I ran my old Mac mini,

00:42:34   which is like Federico's here in the closet basically,

00:42:38   and had a couple of things that I still did on that because

00:42:41   iZotope and Adobe Audition weren't always working

00:42:46   on the Monterey betas.

00:42:47   I'm actually not sure about Audition now

00:42:49   because I haven't tested it in a while, but.

00:42:50   - Yeah, it's good now.

00:42:52   - Oh, is it?

00:42:52   That's good to know.

00:42:53   But I was running an older--

00:42:54   - There's also an M1 version of Audition now,

00:42:57   which Adobe's so mad, like maddening to me,

00:43:01   where you can download multiple versions of an application.

00:43:05   Like, I had like three versions of Audition

00:43:09   and they're all being updated

00:43:10   and they were all on my machine.

00:43:12   So double check it. - And they're all huge.

00:43:13   - They're massive, yeah.

00:43:14   And so I would, if anybody that uses any Adobe products,

00:43:17   just pay attention to it because you may have

00:43:19   an M1 version of the application on your Mac,

00:43:23   but because you're launching it from your dock like I am,

00:43:25   you're still launching the Intel version.

00:43:29   So just keep an eye on that.

00:43:31   - Right, no, that's a good tip.

00:43:33   I mean, I got into the habit over the summer

00:43:36   when it wasn't working of doing loudness matching

00:43:39   and the iZotope stuff on my old Intel Mac Mini

00:43:44   in the closet using screens.

00:43:45   And that actually works really well

00:43:47   'cause I could have that kind of working in the background

00:43:49   while I was doing something else

00:43:51   and then I'd see when it was done

00:43:52   and just start doing the edit on the iMac.

00:43:55   But literally everything else that I did

00:43:57   starting in June through now has been on the iMac.

00:44:01   I've worked almost exclusively on the iMac since June

00:44:04   and almost exclusively in Monterey too.

00:44:07   So the model that they sent me was the silver one,

00:44:12   which was kind of a bummer

00:44:13   because I really would like an orange one.

00:44:16   That's the color that if I were buying one for myself,

00:44:18   I'd get, but, you know, or maybe blue, I suppose,

00:44:22   is another one I might consider, but I have silver.

00:44:26   What's nice about the silver is that if you have it out

00:44:28   in an open area in your house,

00:44:30   it just kind of blends into the, you know, any decor.

00:44:33   It's just so neutral looking that it works really well

00:44:36   'cause my desk is in a real open area.

00:44:39   And the two things that I think,

00:44:42   well, there are two things that have really set it apart

00:44:45   for me from using the Mini.

00:44:47   One is the screen is just so gorgeous.

00:44:49   I mean, it's why I want Apple to make a display

00:44:54   because it's such a good screen on that iMac.

00:44:58   And the keyboard, I love the keyboard

00:45:00   because of the touch ID.

00:45:02   It's so easy, just like my MacBook Air,

00:45:04   to place my finger up there and log into websites all day long.

00:45:09   So it's like a quality of life thing

00:45:11   that just accumulates over time and has been fantastic to have.

00:45:17   I guess the one thing about this machine I don't like

00:45:21   that they sent me is that it's only 500 gigabytes.

00:45:24   I got to the end of the Monterey beta season,

00:45:27   and I actually had one of the last betas.

00:45:29   I had to delete a bunch of things

00:45:31   just to install it because I'm not

00:45:34   really good about cleaning up my drives. I do delete my working files from podcast editing

00:45:40   every week, but I keep all the Logic projects and I usually eventually put them on some kind

00:45:45   of external storage, but I have lots and lots of Logic projects and other big files. Plus,

00:45:51   I was testing a bunch of apps. But it's been fantastic. I'm really torn because I do have

00:45:58   to send it back very soon within the next month. And I'm not really sure what I'm going to do yet.

00:46:03   I think what I'll probably do is run my MacBook Air,

00:46:08   because I really can't go back to the Intel machine.

00:46:10   I love the M1 so much because it's so fast

00:46:13   that I'll probably run the MacBook Air in clamshell mode

00:46:18   and then connect it to an external display

00:46:21   and then see what Apple does early next year.

00:46:23   I'd really like to get an M1 Mac Mini with more ports

00:46:28   and use an external Apple display

00:46:31   or else a large iMac Pro.

00:46:36   Something like 27 inches would probably be perfect

00:46:38   for the space that I'm in, so.

00:46:40   - So that's your idea, was an iMac,

00:46:44   a Mac Mini with some kind of display.

00:46:46   Why would you want that over a more powerful iMac?

00:46:50   - Because I don't feel like I need the power, necessarily.

00:46:53   I'm more concerned, I really want the screen

00:46:56   more than anything else.

00:46:57   I've been working on this MacBook Air for so long,

00:47:00   And the thing that's amazing about the MacBook Air

00:47:02   is the battery life.

00:47:03   I mean, it actually outlasts the new MacBook Pros,

00:47:06   which is one of the reasons I kind of decided

00:47:08   to stick with it because, you know,

00:47:10   when you start traveling again,

00:47:11   one of the first things you'll find

00:47:13   is you'll forget to bring something with you,

00:47:15   which I did on this trip.

00:47:16   I did not bring a charging brick of any kind whatsoever.

00:47:19   - Wow, John.

00:47:20   - I hear all the cable. - Yeah, practice, man.

00:47:23   - I know.

00:47:24   I left this video on my desk because Federico

00:47:27   and I were recording right before I left.

00:47:29   But yeah, I left it at home, I had all the cables,

00:47:33   but I really didn't need it

00:47:34   because we were doing graduation stuff in Dublin

00:47:38   for my son's graduation.

00:47:40   And I was using it on and off here and there,

00:47:43   but it lasted two days without doing any charging.

00:47:46   And really the same with my phone

00:47:48   'cause I had the battery backpack too to extend that.

00:47:51   And then I borrowed a brick from Finn.

00:47:54   So I'm gonna stick with the air, I think, for travel stuff.

00:47:58   - I agree.

00:47:59   I think is right.

00:48:01   I just wanted to say that.

00:48:02   Just wanted to pop in and say I agree.

00:48:04   - I think a lot of people are sort of in that

00:48:06   in between space right now,

00:48:09   where they really want to move to Apple Silicon,

00:48:13   but maybe the machine that really is for them

00:48:17   isn't quite there yet, if that makes sense.

00:48:22   - Right, right.

00:48:23   I mean, the thing that would push me over

00:48:25   to buying a Pro machine, either a MacBook Pro

00:48:28   or something else that hasn't been announced yet,

00:48:30   would be the ports because, you know,

00:48:32   the MacBook Air does only have two Thunderbolt ports,

00:48:35   and that's not great, although I haven't found it

00:48:38   to be that big of a constraint, and the iMac has four,

00:48:42   and that's plenty for me on my desk.

00:48:44   I love that the ethernet's on the floor,

00:48:47   and that I only have a couple of things

00:48:49   connected to the iMac.

00:48:50   It just looks really nice sitting there.

00:48:52   It's a beautiful computer, and it declutters my desk,

00:48:55   which is pretty cool.

00:48:57   How have you dealt with the screen size, like the 21.5?

00:49:00   Because like for me, I got the second monitor

00:49:04   for when I'm recording, like that's what I use it for.

00:49:07   All my audio hijack stuff is there.

00:49:09   Like I didn't feel like the 21 inches

00:49:12   was enough for a desktop machine for me.

00:49:14   - Yeah, I think it's 24.

00:49:16   - 24, sorry, 21 was the old one, but still the 24.

00:49:20   - Yeah, it's a little too small, I think.

00:49:22   And that's why I'm not running out

00:49:23   and buying one of these for myself

00:49:25   when I send this one back to Apple,

00:49:26   because I think 27, I've got a 27 inch 4K external display

00:49:31   and that's kind of my minimum.

00:49:34   I would potentially go larger,

00:49:36   but I think given my current setup,

00:49:38   27 would be just about the sweet spot.

00:49:41   It hasn't bothered me too much.

00:49:44   I think when I'm writing, I can have Safari and Obsidian

00:49:49   open half and half side by side and that's perfectly fine.

00:49:53   And then usually when I'm doing things like podcast editing,

00:49:56   I'm just in logic full screen anyway.

00:49:58   So I haven't, it hasn't bothered me that much,

00:50:02   but it can be cramped if you're trying to switch

00:50:03   between a lot of different apps.

00:50:05   - Well, John, I'm sorry you've gotta send it back.

00:50:08   It is a great machine.

00:50:09   I was sad to send the one I had back,

00:50:12   especially 'cause it was orange.

00:50:13   It is the right color.

00:50:14   - It is the right color.

00:50:15   - And what a good computer.

00:50:18   - I've extended the loaner twice,

00:50:20   so I think it's time that it has to go back.

00:50:22   I don't think I can ask a third time.

00:50:25   Probably not.

00:50:26   You need to let it go, you need to let it go, Jon.

00:50:28   Yeah, you need to let it go.

00:50:29   That computer wants to go home.

00:50:30   If you love something, let it go.

00:50:32   You know?

00:50:33   Yes.

00:50:34   You know, talking about Macintosh's, because I figure, you know, we've got you in here,

00:50:37   we keep talking about the Mac.

00:50:39   Steven, you wrote a thing on 512 about a bigger MacBook Air, that's like a possibility, and

00:50:45   I wanted to hear your thinking on this.

00:50:48   Like, why do you think that there should be a bigger MacBook Air?

00:50:51   And I think people

00:50:53   like

00:50:56   big

00:50:57   screens and if you look at Apple's lineup

00:51:00   It's really I mean part of it is is I didn't write this in the piece part of it

00:51:05   I hope they don't go smaller again. I think that's more confusing like return to the MacBook time

00:51:09   You know 2015 that era

00:51:12   but I think that there's totally room in the lineup for the MacBook Air to be 13 and

00:51:17   15 inches and that 15 inch epic air taking the price point of the you know, the touch bar MacBook Pro still around the m1

00:51:25   Really to hold that price point

00:51:28   I think if Apple made a bigger MacBook Air to hit that price point the MacBook Pro could be expensive

00:51:33   it could be the 1999 that it starts at and

00:51:36   I think there were a lot of people who would like a bigger display than 13 inches, but don't need or

00:51:44   Can't afford or should afford the 16 inch

00:51:46   MacBook Pro it's always been the case with Apple laptops that this you know

00:51:53   The the more powerful ones are usually bigger and they've broken that with the m1 pro and m1 max machines

00:52:00   You can get them basically the same

00:52:02   but I think you could break down even further and

00:52:05   Give people who want just like a bigger consumer notebook give them an option

00:52:12   They did it once also in 2002. They had a 14 inch iBook for a long time. So there's some precedent for it

00:52:18   I just it feels to me like a machine that could be

00:52:20   Really successful for them. You know what I want. I want the 11 inch MacBook Air to come back as an M1

00:52:28   Yes, I heard from all those people like I want a small computer again. Okay, you can have it

00:52:34   We're gonna both sense both ends. Honestly, there should be all sizes of everything. I mean look at the iPad, right?

00:52:40   There's a whole range.

00:52:42   - Yeah, there should be mini, regular, big, bigger.

00:52:46   There should be one size for everything.

00:52:51   - Small, small, medium, medium, medium, large, and large.

00:52:54   - Yeah. - Just go all the way.

00:52:55   - Yeah, it's like they should follow the Starbucks approach.

00:52:59   When you go to Starbucks and you have the whole menu,

00:53:02   the whole UI for-- - Venti, Grande.

00:53:04   - They should make like a MacBook Venti, for example.

00:53:08   - This guy knows nothing about Starbucks.

00:53:09   No, I know my Starbucks because I've been to London Heathrow and that's the only coffee

00:53:15   that you can get. And so you go downstairs and there's the Starbucks and you get in line

00:53:19   and you're like, I want a coffee. And they look at you like, what coffee? It's like espresso.

00:53:25   I was like, what's your name? Frederico. Oh, Frederico. Okay, thank you. I know Starbucks

00:53:30   and I know that I cannot, they cannot spell my name right. I'll tell you that much.

00:53:35   So I don't spell anybody's name right at Starbucks. It's kind of the whole thing.

00:53:39   I know they have sizes at Starbucks, right?

00:53:43   They do.

00:53:44   There should be sizes for MacBook Air.

00:53:46   I do think though this proposed larger MacBook Air is probably more what Sylvia would want

00:53:53   than this MacBook Pro.

00:53:54   Like going back to what we were talking about earlier.

00:53:56   Yeah, she does like that design.

00:54:00   Right, because that's going to be thinner, tapered, you know, more powerful, bigger screen,

00:54:06   more modern, but with that design for design aesthetic.

00:54:11   - Yeah, Sylvia wants the venti MacBook Air.

00:54:17   - They can't.

00:54:18   (laughing)

00:54:20   - Yeah.

00:54:21   - I mean, there's also a rumor that in the future,

00:54:26   there could be a iPhone 14 Max, right?

00:54:31   That is the iPhone 14, but bigger.

00:54:34   Again, people like big screens.

00:54:36   - Is that a rumor?

00:54:37   Is that a big rumor? - It's been talked about, yeah.

00:54:39   I don't know how serious.

00:54:41   - So not the pro, like the regular one.

00:54:44   - Yeah, it's been floating around for a while.

00:54:46   I don't know, it just seems like such a, I don't know.

00:54:51   Some of the people, it just seems like the thing to do

00:54:55   in so many ways to me.

00:54:57   - I'd like it, I'd love to have it.

00:54:59   - Yeah, see, Jon's on board.

00:55:01   - I mean, if they get rid of the mini,

00:55:03   but they do a bigger size as people are gonna be upset.

00:55:06   - And like you said, there's still room for a tiny one.

00:55:09   Don't name it MacBook, for once,

00:55:11   just fix your naming problem.

00:55:13   - Why isn't buying Apple computers like buying a T-shirt?

00:55:18   You pick the model and then you pick the size.

00:55:21   - Because T-shirts are really easy to buy and manage

00:55:24   in very large quantities, computers trick you.

00:55:27   - But Apple ships the iPhone, nothing is hard.

00:55:30   - But also they have like a trillion dollars.

00:55:32   So I feel like you reach a certain threshold of money.

00:55:36   Anything is-- like, everything can be easy

00:55:38   if you really want to.

00:55:39   Yeah, people talked about that in terms of, like, oh,

00:55:41   bringing colors to more laptops.

00:55:43   Like, oh, it would be so hard.

00:55:44   It's like, after the iPhone, nothing is difficult.

00:55:47   So they'll be fine.

00:55:49   Now, making a car, now that is difficult.

00:55:52   Yeah, that could be tricky.

00:55:53   Adding sizes and small car, cars, rockets, I mean--

00:55:59   So what--

00:56:00   You know, that kind of stuff.

00:56:01   decided today is that there needs to be six different sizes of all Macs?

00:56:09   And then of everything. Like I honestly, like, you may think that I'm kidding, but I'm really

00:56:14   not kidding. I honestly think there should be multiple size and color options for everything.

00:56:21   Because right now, if you look at Apple's lineup, it's like they believe in personalization

00:56:28   and flexibility in the lineup, but only they only go so far. They like tease you with flexibility

00:56:35   and options, but then they don't really have that many when you think about it. And they

00:56:39   have a very inconsistent lineup when it comes to size options and when it comes to color

00:56:44   options. I mean, the color story is all over the place, but the size story, I don't understand

00:56:48   why the iPad has such an expensive lineup when it comes to sizes. But then you look

00:56:53   at the MacBook Air, like Steven said, and there's only one model.

00:56:57   Or just Mac laptops in general, right? Where now...

00:57:00   Or just Mac laptops in general. Now there's an exercise, but only because they

00:57:03   want the screen a bit bigger. It's like, it's 13, 14, 16, like that's it. But they're not

00:57:09   even the same product line. Yeah. So I feel like with all that money, there should be

00:57:16   more consistency when it comes to colors and more options when it comes to sizes. I, I,

00:57:22   It's starting to get a bit tiring in my opinion, this thing of "Pro devices are only big and regular people devices are only small."

00:57:33   Why isn't there an iPad Pro that is smaller than the 11-inch? Or why isn't there, you know, like, the iPhone Pro capabilities in a smaller form factor?

00:57:45   feel like, I know that it's a challenging thing to do, especially for supply chain and

00:57:49   all that kind of stuff, and the pandemic and the chip shortage, like I understand all of that,

00:57:53   but more like ideologically speaking, if you will, that to me feels like the right approach. You pick

00:58:00   the kind of computer that you want, and then it's about color and size. I do feel like you would

00:58:06   struggle to get a lot of the good parts of an iPad Pro in a mini form factor though, right?

00:58:12   Sure, I understand that. So whenever, as much as science allows,

00:58:17   that should be the qualifier there, as much as science allows,

00:58:22   I would welcome more size configurations for all of their devices.

00:58:28   So like, if we took the iPad and laid that over the Mac, you would have like

00:58:35   consumer focused 11 inch or 12 inch right then consumer focused say 13 or 14 pro 13 or 14 say pro

00:58:46   14 and then pro 16. So that you know that then you would be kind of matching up right which even that

00:58:56   just sounds much it just sounds nicer right that you would have a little bit more options. I guess

00:59:03   I guess that would also be similar to the,

00:59:05   if you took the iPhone and applied it to the Mac as well.

00:59:08   So what's kind of missing at the moment

00:59:11   is another consumer option,

00:59:13   which goes back to what Stephen's saying,

00:59:15   but then maybe with the Mac,

00:59:16   it's actually better to have a larger size

00:59:20   come into the lineup than a smaller size.

00:59:22   'Cause I think that would hit more people.

00:59:24   An 11-inch MacBook Air sounds great,

00:59:27   but I think you would make more people more happy

00:59:29   you made like a 15 inch MacBook Air to go along with the 13. I don't know. Yeah,

00:59:36   just it was interesting to think about what they could do towards the bottom of

00:59:40   the lineup because clearly that M1 Touch Bar MacBook Pro is not going to stay.

00:59:46   Right? So we know something is going to happen and I can't imagine that they

00:59:51   want $1,000 in between the MacBook Air and the MacBook Pro starting prices. This

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01:01:49   John you wrote this piece about

01:01:51   shortcuts on the Mac and

01:01:54   Applications that were taking advantage of it

01:01:56   I know even just today's we're recording craft was updated with a bunch of Mac shortcut actions

01:02:03   How is that going? Do you feel like?

01:02:05   developers are getting on board I do and it's really kind of the silver lining of shortcuts for Mac because

01:02:12   It's you know, the app itself is rough. I know you guys have talked about that a lot

01:02:17   I talked about it in my review, but developers seem to be very much on board, which is a fantastic

01:02:24   thing. I mean, I think if Apple really needs to move on shortcuts and improve it rapidly because

01:02:29   they don't, they shouldn't squander the goodwill that they've got from third-party developers,

01:02:35   because a lot of developers have incorporated it, and it's not just the apps that are available on

01:02:43   on iOS or iPad OS too.

01:02:45   I mean, there are apps that are Mac only

01:02:49   that are coming out with shortcuts integrations

01:02:51   and some really interesting uses too.

01:02:53   So I'm hoping that we'll see this trend continue

01:02:58   but Apple really does need to pay some attention to the app

01:03:01   so it's easier to use.

01:03:02   - Yeah, I think one of the good things about more Mac apps

01:03:05   or at least the ones that I use

01:03:08   getting updated with shortcut support

01:03:10   is I never have to open shortcuts on the Mac to do anything.

01:03:13   Like, you know, like I just, they work.

01:03:15   So like a lot of the issues with shortcuts for Mac

01:03:19   are in the app, right?

01:03:20   Like it's a buggy experience in a lot of places

01:03:23   to actually build some shortcuts right now.

01:03:26   But I like, so for all of my time tracking related shortcuts

01:03:29   or shortcuts that do something with Timery,

01:03:32   I don't need to do anything

01:03:33   because Timery has already supported it.

01:03:34   So I haven't had to go in and tweak anything.

01:03:37   I haven't yet hit on any of the shortcuts

01:03:39   that I've wanted to run.

01:03:40   The thing where it's like, hey, you can't do this.

01:03:43   Yeah, no, that's very true with a lot of apps, especially if they started out on the iPhone

01:03:48   or the iPad.

01:03:49   And then, you know, the Mac only apps, the two that I would call out that are doing some

01:03:54   really interesting stuff is BetterTouchTool, which has something like three dozen actions

01:04:01   that control just about anything the app can do and the app can run shortcuts itself.

01:04:07   So there's a lot of potential there for coming up with some really interesting things that

01:04:12   that run scripts and other system level stuff on your Mac.

01:04:17   And Pixelmator Pro, which has another huge set

01:04:21   of its image editing tools all built into shortcuts now,

01:04:25   because that's not an app you can get

01:04:27   on the iPad or the iPhone.

01:04:28   And those two are really stand out in my mind.

01:04:31   But you've got all the iOS and iPadOS apps

01:04:35   that you'd expect, like Kraft that Steven mentioned,

01:04:38   and drafts and bear, Ulysses things, OmniFocus.

01:04:43   OmniFocus is kind of interesting

01:04:46   'cause they've built their Omni automation tools

01:04:50   into their shortcuts actions.

01:04:52   So you can access those on the Mac

01:04:55   and use their scripting and other tools

01:04:57   that are built into that

01:04:58   as part of the shortcuts that you build.

01:05:00   That's kind of a philosophical approach

01:05:03   that I'm not so sure that I agree with

01:05:06   only because it requires people to learn their system

01:05:10   and shortcuts, whereas they could have gone the route

01:05:13   of like BetterTouchTool, for instance,

01:05:16   and simply built all the stuff you can do in Omni automation

01:05:21   as actual actions with parameters and that kind of thing.

01:05:25   But, you know, I think time will tell

01:05:27   where developers land on that

01:05:29   and whether the approach that Omni has taken

01:05:32   is gonna be more standard or whether they'll,

01:05:35   developers will go a different direction.

01:05:37   - I mean, I feel like it's kind of going against

01:05:41   the idea of what Shortcuts is for, right?

01:05:44   - Yeah, it is and it isn't.

01:05:46   And it's like one of these funny things

01:05:48   because I feel a little bit the same way

01:05:50   about AppleScript and Shortcuts,

01:05:52   where I'm very happy that AppleScript

01:05:55   is available in Shortcuts.

01:05:57   However, one of the issues that I always had with Automator

01:06:01   was at any time I wanted to do something complicated,

01:06:03   I felt like I had to fall back to AppleScript

01:06:06   or some other scripting.

01:06:08   And I don't want AppleScript to end up being the crutch

01:06:12   for shortcuts.

01:06:13   - Shortcuts has to build all the things in

01:06:16   that people need to go out to AppleScript for,

01:06:19   otherwise shortcuts on the Mac

01:06:21   isn't gonna be as good in the long run.

01:06:22   It's not actually gonna replace anything.

01:06:24   - Right, exactly.

01:06:25   So, and right now, I mean, Apple did a great job

01:06:29   introducing a whole bunch of automated actions

01:06:31   as part of shortcuts for Mac,

01:06:33   but that's where it stopped.

01:06:35   I mean, that was all there in the first beta

01:06:37   and nothing really changed during the course

01:06:39   of the beta period of any significance.

01:06:41   So I think they really need to,

01:06:43   I mean, they need to demonstrate

01:06:44   that they're gonna start building those things out.

01:06:46   - Do you have any examples of the kinds of things

01:06:49   that you would like to see that they don't allow for?

01:06:54   - Yeah, one that's right at the top of my list

01:06:57   is that the Safari actions just don't work properly.

01:07:01   I mean, on iOS, you have the ability to grab articles

01:07:06   using Safari Reader and to get web pages from Safari.

01:07:11   And that is built into,

01:07:13   that's built into the Mac version.

01:07:16   However, it doesn't work.

01:07:18   And so like Jason Snell wrote about this recently

01:07:21   and I wrote about it in my review

01:07:22   and he and I have been talking about it a little bit.

01:07:24   You have to, if you want to do something as simple

01:07:27   as grabbing selected text and combining it with a link,

01:07:31   for instance, to do a block quote,

01:07:33   you have to have two different paths in your shortcut.

01:07:36   You have your iOS path and your Mac path

01:07:39   that it has to rely on AppleScript.

01:07:43   - Yeah, and that's really the problem.

01:07:45   And it's so weird because they did the work

01:07:47   to make sure that Safari actions coming from iPhone and iPad,

01:07:51   they would be recognized by the Mac.

01:07:53   So you can see them in the Mac version of shortcuts,

01:07:56   but they just don't work

01:07:57   because they're just not hooked up to shortcuts at all.

01:08:00   And when John says you cannot get web pages,

01:08:04   the real big problem there is that Safari web page,

01:08:08   that's the, like the official name,

01:08:09   it's a default type in shortcuts.

01:08:12   You know how you have types in shortcuts, right?

01:08:14   You have image or media or music,

01:08:18   and Safari web page is one of them,

01:08:20   is one of the default types.

01:08:21   And the Safari web page contains a bunch of properties.

01:08:25   It's got the title of the web page, it's got the link,

01:08:28   it's got the selection.

01:08:29   And then if you parse the web page as an article, you can get even more properties, like the author, or the word count, or the body text, all that kind of stuff.

01:08:39   It just doesn't work on the Mac. It's just not there. And so you got all these shortcuts that work with Safari.

01:08:45   They just don't work. All you can do is you can get the URL of a tab on the Mac, and that is an old automator action that was

01:08:57   sort of translated for shortcuts.

01:09:00   And so you got this weird mix of,

01:09:04   "Oh, you can see the actions coming from your iPhone

01:09:07   and iPad for Safari, but they don't work."

01:09:10   And if you want to use Safari on the Mac,

01:09:12   you got to use this old action from Automator.

01:09:14   And you want to get more data out of Safari on the Mac,

01:09:17   you got to use AppleScript.

01:09:19   And I feel like part of the problem here

01:09:22   and part of my problem with stuff that I've seen in apps

01:09:26   like the OmniGroup stuff, for example, for automation,

01:09:29   is this old mindset of the automation tool

01:09:34   is just the shell that lets you put together

01:09:38   the real automation underneath via scripting.

01:09:43   And I feel like as much as I love, you know,

01:09:44   I love these folks and I love Saul Segojian

01:09:46   working on the Omni automation stuff,

01:09:49   but that's the old mindset.

01:09:51   That doesn't take, if Apple is saying,

01:09:54   If Apple is saying shortcuts for Mac is the future of automation on Apple platforms,

01:09:58   that is in direct opposition to this mindset of, "Oh, yeah, the visual automation is the shell,

01:10:08   but the real automation is the script." I welcome the ability to run scripts alongside

01:10:16   my shortcuts, but that shouldn't be the primary interface on my shortcuts. And that's the problem

01:10:21   with all of this, "Oh yeah, just fall back to AppleScript," or, "Oh yeah, just fall back to the shell."

01:10:26   That's good to have as a side tool for specific tasks, but it shouldn't be the main

01:10:34   interface that people have to use.

01:10:35   Because that's where it loses a user like me, right?

01:10:38   When that's what has to happen, I'm done.

01:10:42   Because I don't even fully understand how to use a lot of the stuff inside of shortcuts.

01:10:49   There's a lot of stuff inside of shortcuts that I don't understand how to use, let alone

01:10:55   now that I would have to go out and write an Apple script to get something to work.

01:11:00   The inbuilt stuff, some of it is too complicated for me or is too confusing for me.

01:11:05   Like, "Oh, just use the get."

01:11:07   Like, "No, I'm done now.

01:11:10   You've lost me now."

01:11:12   So I like when I can build things pretty visually and it's got different...

01:11:16   The apps are working out nicely.

01:11:18   One thing that you mentioned, John, about the Mac knowing where it's come from, I keep

01:11:25   seeing people talk about the shortcut action that you can tell which device you're on and

01:11:31   then run a shortcut based on that.

01:11:34   So you would replicate, are you all doing this?

01:11:37   Like where you would have like, oh, if you're on a Mac, run it this way.

01:11:42   If you're on an iPad or iPhone, run the shortcut this way?

01:11:45   Yeah, you can do that.

01:11:48   You could just create a conditional block and then you check the device type basically.

01:11:53   If it's a Mac, you go down one path with one set of actions and if it's an iPhone or an

01:11:59   iPad you go down another path.

01:12:02   For these kind of Safari type shortcuts, the actions are completely different.

01:12:08   There's very little in common.

01:12:10   You can do it one of two ways.

01:12:12   you can do that and go down, you know, have multiple paths,

01:12:16   or you can just create separate shortcuts.

01:12:19   When I did the review, I created just some Mac shortcuts

01:12:22   because I'm not really keen on over-complicating

01:12:26   my shortcuts with a bunch of conditionals,

01:12:28   you know what I mean?

01:12:29   - This is what I was gonna ask,

01:12:30   'cause like I've created some Mac shortcuts.

01:12:33   I heard on Mac Power, you said, Steven,

01:12:34   you saying you've done the same.

01:12:35   We've actually done the same thing.

01:12:36   I have a folder called Mac

01:12:38   and I've been putting them in there.

01:12:40   But I figured something that maybe people are doing

01:12:42   you could do is to create two shortcuts, but then you only have one shortcut and that one

01:12:47   shortcut checks what device you're on and then runs the other shortcut, right?

01:12:51   Right, absolutely. Yeah, you can do it. And I know Jason's done this. I mean, he wrote

01:12:55   an article about it, I think it was last week about it, what he's doing. And I mean, he

01:13:00   and I have talked about this quite a bit in Federico about this stuff because, I mean,

01:13:04   obviously one of the very first shortcuts I tried to set up was based on Safari. It's

01:13:09   It's just what we do working on the internet is deal with Safari all day long.

01:13:14   And the fact that Safari is fundamentally broken and that the share sheet isn't available,

01:13:20   the share button, you know, Apple did an amazing job of putting shortcuts everywhere on the

01:13:26   Mac.

01:13:27   I mean, even the touch bar, which it's discontinued basically, is, you know, a place you can trigger

01:13:31   a shortcut, but the share button isn't one of those.

01:13:35   And some of my very most important shortcuts that I use are based on the share sheet.

01:13:40   And it's not all Safari based stuff.

01:13:42   It's like go to the App Store and grab an App Store URL and shoot it over to Trello

01:13:47   for the Club Max Stories newsletter.

01:13:50   That kind of stuff.

01:13:51   But I guess the silver lining though, Myke, is that so many developers are supporting

01:13:56   this.

01:13:57   And I hope that that continues because it really solves the problem that you raised,

01:14:04   which is you don't want to have to learn another system.

01:14:07   You don't want to have to fall back to AppleScript

01:14:09   because this Mac app that you use doesn't support shortcuts.

01:14:14   So far, a lot have, and my article has 27 of them in it.

01:14:18   And since then, a whole bunch more have come out.

01:14:20   So there's a lot of support out there.

01:14:22   I just hope it continues.

01:14:25   - Yeah, I think it will.

01:14:26   I mean, it's still early days,

01:14:27   and I think there are developers who want to see

01:14:30   how it sorts out before they jump in.

01:14:33   And I think in particular around some of the stuff that we've spoken about of not having

01:14:40   to do weird things so your shortcuts can work on either platform.

01:14:44   Some of that I feel like Apple should be able to abstract that away from users and for whatever

01:14:50   reason they haven't.

01:14:52   And I'd like to see them really tidy some of that up.

01:14:55   I think if you look closely and if you pay attention you can see that they are aware

01:15:01   of this kind of stuff and they are making some changes. I want to point out a couple

01:15:07   of things. One of the additions to shortcuts in iOS and iPadOS 15 is the next action suggestions.

01:15:16   Those sit at the bottom of the shortcut editor when you're making a shortcut. The editor

01:15:22   is just suggesting the next action that you want to put in, so they're making it easy

01:15:25   for people to connect multiple steps together. Some of those suggestions are a little too

01:15:30   too generic for my taste, but I think the system is getting better. I've actually tapped

01:15:34   on those suggestions a few times myself, starting with 15.1. The other change, they are aware

01:15:42   of the fact that people are going to be making these shortcuts that have different conditions

01:15:47   based on the computer that you're running the shortcuts from. And they have made device

01:15:53   details a default variable in shortcuts. It didn't used to... like it wasn't this

01:15:59   way before. Now if you just create a blank, like an empty, a new shortcut and

01:16:04   it's blank, doesn't have anything in it, and you can test this yourself, you add a

01:16:10   single text action to it and it's empty. You tap into it, the keyboard comes up

01:16:16   and if you look above the keyboard you will see the device details is now a

01:16:21   default variable. That variable contains the name of the computer

01:16:26   that you're currently using, so it says iPhone, iPad or Mac. And more than that,

01:16:32   they have made device details a default variable in the conditional if blocks. So

01:16:40   if you add an if block to a shortcut and it doesn't have any parameter set, when

01:16:46   you tap on the empty blue field, you will see device details as a default option.

01:16:52   So they know that folks are going to be making the shortcuts that are structured like "if

01:16:59   this is a Mac, do this. If this is an iPhone, do that." But I wonder if there's maybe a

01:17:04   more intuitive way to present this information, both visually and functionally. It seems like

01:17:11   step too many to say, "Oh, you want to have this behavior on the Mac?" You have to build

01:17:17   it manually yourself, like, drag in the "if" block and then tap on the parameter. Like,

01:17:22   I wonder if maybe there's a more visual menu system that they could do, where you literally

01:17:29   see like branching paths maybe, or something like that. And I wonder if in the future of

01:17:35   shortcuts, that's a possibility that we could see. If people are going to be making the

01:17:39   shortcuts that run different branches depending on the computer you're using. We're so used to

01:17:45   seeing the Automator-like UI in shortcuts, you know, top to bottom. It's always been this way,

01:17:51   even since the days of Workflow. I wonder if maybe in the future we could see something more similar

01:17:56   to Chorus Composer or the Alfred Workflow UI, you know, where it's like the sort of mind map style

01:18:03   with the nodes and the branches. Maybe that could be an optional mode, I don't know, but I can tell

01:18:09   you that if people are going to be making these shortcuts with more and more actions,

01:18:13   and people are going to be more familiar with shortcuts, you know, and Apple itself is helping

01:18:18   you make shortcuts with more actions, with these suggestions and all these things they're doing,

01:18:22   the vertical view becomes a bit of work. And sure, you can collapse and expand blocks of actions now,

01:18:34   But I still wonder if maybe in the future of shortcuts there could be a new and optional

01:18:40   view system where it's not vertical, it's horizontal now.

01:18:44   So I've been wondering about that too.

01:18:47   I know we've been complaining about some of it, but I'm super glad that it's here.

01:18:51   And it is already...

01:18:52   I love that I have it.

01:18:53   Yeah.

01:18:54   I mean, just I have three shortcuts that I've run all the time and now I can run them on

01:18:58   my Mac and I can just pick up my iPhone for it.

01:19:00   I'm very happy about that.

01:19:02   Yeah.

01:19:03   I sometimes think I come off as too negative about it

01:19:06   because I do have a lot of complaints

01:19:08   about shortcuts for Mac,

01:19:09   but I'm actually extremely excited about it

01:19:12   and gonna be spending a lot of time building new shortcuts

01:19:15   and writing about them on Mac stories

01:19:16   because I think Apple is committed

01:19:19   and I think Apple is gonna fix these problems,

01:19:21   but we're gonna be kind of loud about it until they do

01:19:24   because it shipped in a state that was more like a beta

01:19:27   than it was a finished app.

01:19:29   And I don't think it should,

01:19:30   if it was gonna be in beta form,

01:19:33   it really should have been called a beta, I think.

01:19:34   Look, look, if we didn't care, we wouldn't talk about it.

01:19:39   Like clips.

01:19:41   You know, EA said that.

01:19:46   Why didn't they just call this a beta from the beginning?

01:19:48   I don't know,

01:19:50   because there's plenty of other things in Monterey that are labeled a beta,

01:19:53   like private relay.

01:19:54   There's zero reason.

01:19:56   Like if it's brand new and you knew it was going to be a lot of work,

01:19:59   just call it a beta and like so much would be forgiven.

01:20:03   'Cause then we'd go, well, you know,

01:20:04   I know it's a beta, but we don't say any of that.

01:20:07   It's like, no, this shipped in the operating system.

01:20:08   We're real bad.

01:20:09   - Well, it's a combination of it shipped

01:20:12   and they said it's the future of automation on the Mac.

01:20:15   And they were very, right?

01:20:17   They were very firm about that at WWDC

01:20:19   and we took them out of their word for it.

01:20:21   And I still think it's true.

01:20:23   I just think that if it is the future of the Mac,

01:20:25   they've got some work to do.

01:20:27   Maybe next year there will be another shortcuts redesign.

01:20:31   I don't know.

01:20:32   Is there another UI framework we can use over here

01:20:34   for the next shortcuts update?

01:20:36   Because we use them all.

01:20:37   We're out of UI frameworks over here with this app.

01:20:40   So maybe now we're set.

01:20:42   - Marzipan, we're going to Marzipan.

01:20:44   Remember that?

01:20:45   Remember Marzipan?

01:20:46   - That used to be a thing.

01:20:47   Marzipan used to be a thing.

01:20:49   - I think that is SwiftUI, right?

01:20:51   - I thought it was Catalyst.

01:20:52   - No, it's Catalyst.

01:20:54   - There was another one, it had another code name

01:20:56   and that was SwiftUI, which is the declarative one, right?

01:20:59   - Ah, what was the code?

01:21:02   Yeah, okay, I know what you mean.

01:21:04   It had a code name.

01:21:05   - Amber, says Zach. - Amber, yes, yes.

01:21:08   That was SwiftUI.

01:21:10   - I think that about does it this week.

01:21:12   If you wanna find the links to the stories we spoke about,

01:21:15   head on over to the website, relay.fm/connected/370.

01:21:20   There you can get in touch with feedback or follow up.

01:21:24   You can also become a member and receive longer,

01:21:29   ad-free versions of the show each and every week.

01:21:32   Thank you all who have signed up for Connected Pro.

01:21:36   If you haven't, go do it, getconnectedpro.co

01:21:39   or just right there on the episode page.

01:21:41   It's very handy.

01:21:43   John, thank you for joining us.

01:21:45   Where can people find you on the internet?

01:21:47   - They can find me at macstories.net, of course,

01:21:49   and John Voorhees on both Twitter and Instagram.

01:21:53   I do this on my show, J-O-H-N-V-W-R-H-W-E-S.

01:21:58   I was like, wait a second, come on, say it.

01:22:00   Talk to you next week, Federico.

01:22:02   Ciao, John.

01:22:03   (laughing)

01:22:05   Ciao, Michael.

01:22:08   Do the thing, do the thing, do the thing, yes.

01:22:12   We're all Leonardo DiCaprio pointing at John right now.

01:22:15   Oh boy.

01:22:19   If you wanna follow Myke on Twitter, he is I-M-Y-K-E.

01:22:22   is Joey Chen, B-W-E-S. Chat to you next time, Federico.

01:22:31   Ciao, Myke.

01:22:33   Federico is online too. Do you all know his Twitter handle?

01:22:41   J-O-H-N.

01:22:43   J-O-H-N.

01:22:45   We're all John Boris today.

01:22:50   - I've forgotten my Twitter handle.

01:22:53   I think it starts with a J.

01:22:54   - O-H-N.

01:22:56   - V-O-O-O-R-R-H-E-E-S.

01:23:00   - Talk to you next week, Steven.

01:23:01   - Ciao, Federica.

01:23:03   - You have a lot of letters in your name, Jon.

01:23:05   - Way too many.

01:23:07   Yes, people get it wrong a lot.

01:23:09   That's why I spell it like I do,

01:23:10   because people get it wrong all the time.

01:23:12   - Are you Jonathan?

01:23:13   - No, I am not.

01:23:15   I'm just J-O-H-N. - You're just Jon?

01:23:16   - Yep.

01:23:18   - Just Jon.

01:23:18   - His real name is Jovani.

01:23:20   I need Voorhees.

01:23:22   But everybody calls him Jon.

01:23:24   [Laughter]

01:23:26   I'd like to thank our sponsors this week.

01:23:30   StoryWorth, Bombas, and Squarespace.

01:23:33   And until next time guys, say goodbye.

01:23:36   Arrivederci.

01:23:37   Magtricky.com.

01:23:38   Bye.

01:23:39   Bye, y'all.