0:00:00(upbeat music)
0:00:02Hello and welcome to Connected, episode 338.
0:00:13It is made possible by our sponsors,
0:00:16Pingdom, ExpressVPN, and Delete.me.
0:00:19My name is Stephen Hackett and it is an even episode,
0:00:22so I get to introduce my friend Federico Vatici first.
0:00:26- Hello, hi, how are you?
0:00:27- I'm good, how are you?
0:00:29I'm fine. Well, I'm upset about something, but I'm also fine at the same time.
0:00:33You can be both upset and fine if you, you know, if you try and, you know,
0:00:38people can separate feelings.
0:00:39Interesting. Maybe if you weren't upset, you'd be good,
0:00:42but because you're upset, you're fine.
0:00:44Then I'm upset and good. Like I can, you know,
0:00:47put the upset feeling in a little drawer and then when I think about it,
0:00:51I get upset, but otherwise I'm good.
0:00:53Oh, I'm going to take the upset feeling and put it in a drawer.
0:00:56I'm gonna push it deep deep down in the drawer lock the drawer and I'll be fine
0:01:00Myke how are you? I'm I'm both good and fine
0:01:12Perfect. So no problems here got your emotion and jars on a shelf you go pick one up
0:01:17Examine it. Mm-hmm. Put it back. We should start the show with follow-up and not feelings
0:01:23Although this follow-up item is about feelings. Okay. I've been running the iOS 14.5 beta
0:01:29I don't remember why I put the beta on because I haven't put the beta on the Apple watch
0:01:36which I don't wear to unlock it with a
0:01:39Face-mask thing so I don't I don't I just realized I got I'm not sure why I'm running the beta anyways
0:01:44I have the beta on my phone, and I've got I listen to Apple music
0:01:48I've got an Apple music account, but I have Spotify installed and
0:01:51I've gotten just really exhausted of
0:01:54Siri via CarPlay asking me
0:01:58What music service would you like to play that album on?
0:02:01And so I why do you don't you like your assistant to be intelligent?
0:02:06I would like my assistant to have a setting and I could just pick and so I have uninstalled Spotify for my phone
0:02:12To keep it from asking me
0:02:14This reminded me. I think it stopped or maybe after like five years mine has finally learned
0:02:20but HomePod Siri has this deal like hey, you know, tell me the news and
0:02:25This is the news from I just said to NPR
0:02:29I said if you want I can also play news from Fox or whoever else
0:02:34It's like I don't need you to tell me every single time that I can change the news source
0:02:39Like if you just had a setting like the Amazon voice assistant does I could just say when I ask for the news
0:02:45Pull it from this source. I don't want to hear about these other ones
0:02:48it's just I don't know why Apple all of a sudden is allergic to having this as a setting and
0:02:52So anyways, I did what Apple wanted. I rage uninstalled Spotify. So you win
0:02:58That is what they wanted
0:03:01You're playing the game now. Yes
0:03:03well, I
0:03:05Can we talked about this a few episodes ago?
0:03:08I can I continue to confirm and I wrote this in the in my story that will be out
0:03:13I'm working on the story like a it's not a review but it's like a this sort of
0:03:18an overview about 14.5, which I usually don't do because I'm usually exhausted after my
0:03:25annual reviews. But this update felt like I really wanted to write about it. And so
0:03:30I'm writing about it.
0:03:31It's been a while too, though.
0:03:33It's been a while. And so I can kind of, you know, get a little like writing exercise done.
0:03:37It's fine. It's good for me. And I've read in the story, like, I can confirm that it's
0:03:42been over two months that I've been using 14.5, I didn't see any further prompts to
0:03:51pick a different music service. And I've tried a bunch of things. I've also tried the method
0:03:56suggested in the "clarification" that Apple sent to TechCrunch, like, hey, when you ask
0:04:02for playing a playlist or a radio station to a different app, and you specify, like,
0:04:08Pandora or in Spotify, Siri may prompt you again. But nope, I don't get those prompts.
0:04:16Like I chose Spotify months ago and it's stuck with that. So I don't know, man. Maybe only
0:04:24CarPlay Siri is the intelligent one and the one on the phone is like a small brain. CarPlay
0:04:29Siri is big brain, you know, having all those prompts.
0:04:32Maybe it's actually the opposite and like they just haven't properly got this set and
0:04:37running for the CarPlay version. Is that even possible? I don't know.
0:04:44It's impossible to tell, right? Because obviously there's no page in Settings.
0:04:48It's like everything is invisible here. And it's so strange how the whole
0:04:55thing is... Like, I get it. The idea of a default... Again, we talked about this
0:05:02a while back, the idea of a default for audio is essentially different from browsers and
0:05:10email clients. If anything, because browsers and email clients, they have a consistent
0:05:17URL scheme that you can use to launch them. It's HTTP for browsers and Mailto for emails.
0:05:25There's no such thing as a URL scheme for audio. There's no unified linking system for
0:05:31podcasts, right? So obviously the idea of what's a default, it mostly involves Siri.
0:05:39So I get it, why you're asking Siri, "Hey, I want to listen to music via Spotify." Like,
0:05:44makes sense. But it's the whole idea of that request is invisible. It only exists within
0:05:53the memory of Siri. There's no proof of it in settings. And the whole thing is weird.
0:06:00I still... like I understand... I can read Apple's glorification.
0:06:05I can even understand it to an extent. I still disagree with it. I still think it doesn't make a lot of sense.
0:06:12In your article, you linked to something about what Spotify are doing.
0:06:17And I just wanted to just make reference to it here, that you seem to be very happy using Spotify for your podcast listening.
0:06:25It's one of those things that you can admit that you're liking, but also you can feel
0:06:30bad about it at the same time instead of like eating too much chocolate. Yes. So I, I, I'm
0:06:38liking it. Like I was just listening to you and Grey Myke and catching up on cortex and
0:06:43it's like this morning I was finally listening to the new Obama and Bruce Springsteen Spotify
0:06:51original show. It's actually really nice. It's a couple of days. Just chillin. Yeah.
0:07:00I mean, it's Barack Obama and Bruce Springsteen. I mean, it's actually talk about serious stuff
0:07:05too. I don't know. I like it. I like the idea of you open the Spotify app and in the single
0:07:12home page you have both kinds of audio. Now I get it. This is either something that you
0:07:17love or something that you hate. Yesterday on Twitter, I got a lot of people saying this
0:07:23is exactly why I switched from Spotify to Apple Music, because I was tired of Spotify
0:07:31pushing too aggressively these podcasts that I don't really want on the homepage, because
0:07:36all I want is music. And I totally get it. I totally understand. On the other hand, I
0:07:40also got replies from people saying something along the lines of, "That is my favorite thing
0:07:46about Spotify having access to both kinds of audio so that no matter like when I know
0:07:51that I want to listen to something I can choose from the same app or even I can have a queue
0:07:58of audio that mixes and matches both music and podcasts so that if I want to go out for
0:08:04a walk or out for a run I can have like 10 minutes of a short podcast and then some music
0:08:09and then another interview. So I think it's something that you either like or fundamentally
0:08:14dislike. I'm liking it so far. And I know there's always those people that ask me, "How
0:08:20can you live without chapter markers?" And you know, all those, like, I totally understand.
0:08:27A lot of people are really serious about their podcast listening habits. They want to have
0:08:30all kinds of controls. Me personally, I never use chapters. And all I do is I hit play.
0:08:38And if my girlfriend is talking to me, I press pause. I don't skip around. I don't use
0:08:44chapters I don't open show notes like I just listen to the audio and it's fine
0:08:51people could do as they please but just like for me personally I just
0:08:55diametrically opposed to the idea of thinking I want to listen to audio right
0:09:01like oh I would like audio let me open my audio app and then what kind of audio
0:09:05would I like would I like music or podcasts like my brain doesn't think
0:09:08that way okay you know I just I think like I want to listen to a podcast so I
0:09:12open my podcast app, you know what I mean? And I'm not saying one is right or one is
0:09:16wrong. This is just a preference thing. But it's like, as you mentioned, like, you know,
0:09:20I, you know, I open up Spotify and I choose what I like to listen to. I'm never in that.
0:09:24Like it's, I either want music or I want a podcast. Like I, I would never choose one
0:09:30or the other because I was prompted. Like I always know what I want before I start the
0:09:36process.
0:09:37All right. And I guess that's really what we're, what we're different maybe because
0:09:40So I, like, there's many times during the day, like when I'm washing the dishes, for
0:09:46example, and I'm like, I want to have something in the background because I'm not interested
0:09:50in what's on TV, for example.
0:09:52And I'm like, I just want to have some stuff going on.
0:09:56And then I open Spotify, and I guess what I like is, because of the recommendations,
0:10:01I don't have to make a decision.
0:10:03And I think the older I get, the more I appreciate stuff that removes decisions from my life.
0:10:10having to make decisions all the time. And so it's like I open it and it's like,
0:10:14"Hey dude, here's a podcast, here's a music you could like." And I appreciate that.
0:10:19That it's like, "Oh, you're making it easy for me to play something." So, but I
0:10:25totally understand why a lot of people don't like it. I also feel like, podcast
0:10:31aside, what Spotify is doing on the homepage is a lot more interesting than
0:10:37what Apple is doing in the "Listen Now" tab. What they're doing with the... they have
0:10:43this update coming out this month. They're adding new sections to the home
0:10:47page. They're adding three months of your recent listening activity. They have
0:10:55sections for playlists made for you. They can push new releases from your favorite
0:11:02artists to the top of the page. Like, it's a lot more dynamic, it's a lot more
0:11:06personalized than what Apple is doing with the ListenNow page, and as I wrote
0:11:11in my iOS 14 review last year, I'm not a fan of how they changed
0:11:19the ListenNow page in iOS 14. I think it's a regression from what it used to
0:11:23be, and it's also the speed of it, like the performance of it. The Spotify
0:11:32app is really fast, both when you open different sections and when you search, and Apple Music
0:11:37is... you get that two-second delay when you first open ListenNow or when you search for
0:11:44stuff, and once you try Spotify you can really see the difference. On the other hand, real-time
0:11:51lyrics, man, those are super nice in Apple Music, and they're gonna get even better in
0:11:5514.5. So I'm still very much in the face of liking Spotify more and more. There's a few
0:12:03things from Apple Music that I really, really do miss. But I don't know, I think this is
0:12:09good for me. The whole "let's try Spotify out for a year and see what happens". I recommend
0:12:15it as an experiment if you're curious about what's going on on the other side. It's really
0:12:21eye-opening. I could get on board maybe for music but there's just stuff that
0:12:26they don't support for podcasts that I'm just never gonna be able to reconcile
0:12:31like I want show notes okay right you know and like you don't know everyone
0:12:36has to want them I do and they just don't support that you know this stuff
0:12:41like I wish they would support chapters and chapter images but I can get on
0:12:45board with them not having that you know like whatever like I would like that but
0:12:49to me show notes is like super important I like it I like having links the types
0:12:53of podcasts that I listen to typically have very good show notes so I just I
0:12:57want that and they just don't have any of that stuff and frankly I don't
0:13:01understand why like I don't know why they're not supporting any of this stuff
0:13:05but they're just not. Apple has killed some more computers off they keep to
0:13:11keep doing this last week some of the 21 and a half inch iMacs they're also for
0:13:19sale but the options are more limited you can now only get them with a 256 SSD
0:13:24or one terabyte fusion drive the other options are all gone so simplifying that
0:13:29lineup it's a not a good time to buy one of those iMacs don't don't buy one of
0:13:35them and the iMac Pro is completely yeah they that went way faster than I thought
0:13:40it would it was for sale while supplies last and I guess they had like six of
0:13:44them in a warehouse and that was it. Someone bought more. Mm-hmm. How fast
0:13:49that happened it kind of feels pointless to even take that intermediate
0:13:53step now like in hindsight like you should just got just gone right just
0:13:58like straight out forget about it because it was like six days from while
0:14:04supplies last to we don't this is if this product never existed like there
0:14:08isn't even a product page for it on the website anymore so I think it may as
0:14:11I've just gone straight to step B, but yeah, yeah, maybe they just wanted to give you know, those people one last shot
0:14:17Very strange much chance. Did you to make your decision if you wanted to buy it?
0:14:22Maybe you just want like a cool gray Intel computer. Okay
0:14:27IOS 14.5 continues to be in beta
0:14:31developers got beta 5
0:14:34What was it earlier this week? It was yesterday. Yes yesterday and
0:14:39There are some secrets in this beta
0:14:42according to Mac rumors Beta 5 has reference to an
0:14:48a14x chip
0:14:50Which we have not seen
0:14:52and that is believed to go into a
0:14:55Next generation iPad Pro which seems like should be out any time now. I
0:15:01Mean at this point it seems like 14.5 is just waiting on
0:15:07New hardware and then it'll it'll come out although we're gonna talk in a minute about some other things they've done in that beta
0:15:12But it sure seems like there's a lot of evidence pointing to this new iPad being being here pretty soon. I hope so
0:15:20This beta also changed some of the language around the Apple TV remote
0:15:26So it removes reference of the seer remote replacing it with Apple TV remote
0:15:32I guess someone did like a find and replace across the project
0:15:35It also changes the home button name to the TV button.
0:15:40So the Apple TV remote has menu and the next to it,
0:15:47it looks like a TV.
0:15:48And for a while that would take you home
0:15:51and you can make it go to your TV app
0:15:54back when Apple thought that's what everybody wanted to do.
0:15:57And they've renamed that from the home button
0:15:59to the TV button in tvOS 14.5.
0:16:04So some tweaks to those names.
0:16:05I don't know if this actually means anything,
0:16:07but it's interesting.
0:16:09- It should mean that they're getting rid
0:16:11of that stupid device.
0:16:12It's honestly like the worst accessory
0:16:14that Apple ever designed.
0:16:16Silvia found out two days ago, two days ago.
0:16:20So the Apple TV, so this current version of the Apple TV
0:16:23with the Siri remote and everything,
0:16:25how long has it existed?
0:16:262014?
0:16:31When did the first version of the Apple TV
0:16:33to your remote come out? Let me look. You should know about this stuff. I want to say 2013, 2014 maybe.
0:16:39It was in 2015. Okay, so 2015. So for almost six years, Sylvia and I, we have watched TV with the
0:16:49Apple TV. She just found out two days ago that you can swipe on the remote. It supports touch controls.
0:16:57So was she tapping? I don't know what she was doing. How was she moving around? Well, you can tap on the
0:17:03edges. Here's the thing. I am pretty sure that she tried to use it a while back, one
0:17:08of those times when I was at WWDC, and she couldn't get it to work. And I believe that
0:17:14she kept using the Apple TV in two ways, either from the iPhone with the virtual remote, or
0:17:21with our regular TV remote, because a regular TV remote, it can also control the Apple TV
0:17:27UI. And so, and I was like, don't you know how to use an Apple TV remote? And I was like,
0:17:32You gotta swipe and control via touch."
0:17:35And she was looking at it, like, "Where am I supposed to touch this?
0:17:39Don't you see the touchpad?"
0:17:40It's like a solid 30 seconds of just trying to figure out how the Siri remote worked.
0:17:46And like, she's not wrong.
0:17:48Like I get it.
0:17:49It's a stupid remote.
0:17:51It's not intuitive at all.
0:17:52It's bad.
0:17:55If there were trophies for things you hate the most in the world, I would give number
0:18:01one price to the Siri remote. Like, it's honestly an object that I fundamentally hate. And,
0:18:08I mean, I threw one in the trash and I sent you guys video proof of it.
0:18:12Oh yeah, I remember when you did that.
0:18:15Honestly, whoever designed the Siri remote should feel bad about the stress and anxiety
0:18:20they caused in people trying to understand that remote. And, like, I forgive you, but
0:18:26you should still feel bad about that design.
0:18:28macOS Big Sur has a corresponding beta 11.3 beta 5 is out as well.
0:18:35It also contains strings for new hardware iMac 21 comma 1 and 21 comma 2.
0:18:43So these are models that are not out.
0:18:46Assumably these would be Apple Silicon iMacs.
0:18:50I can't imagine there's going to be a new Intel iMac ever again.
0:18:53And so you know with the iMac Pro and now the low-end iMac either being dropped or sort
0:18:58of trimmed down. Maybe this is close as well. I really hope we don't have to wait to WVDC.
0:19:05We may have to, but new Macs are coming too, guys.
0:19:07Are you guys going to buy this new Apple Silicon iMacs?
0:19:11Probably not.
0:19:12Okay. Just to get an idea of what computers are you both waiting for?
0:19:17I want a replacement for my iMac Pro.
0:19:20Okay.
0:19:21Which is probably not going to be the first iMac. Because I would expect, and let's say
0:19:28surprise us, I expect the first iMacs will have M1 chips in them and then there will
0:19:35be a second generation chip which will power the MacBook Pro and possibly a more powerful
0:19:41iMac. That's what I'm waiting for. Or, depending on when they release that, if there's any
0:19:46more rumblings of this tiny Mac Pro, I'm also intrigued about that. So, I haven't... basically
0:19:53I want something, I do want something to replace my iMac Pro.
0:19:57That is Apple Silicon, obviously.
0:20:00And I'm just, I haven't made my mind up yet about what route I would prefer to go down.
0:20:04If they showed them to me at the same time, even without seeing them, I would probably
0:20:08want to get the little small Mac Pro.
0:20:11But we'll have to wait and see on that.
0:20:13But the first round of iMacs, I can't imagine that that's something that I would want to
0:20:20replace this machine.
0:20:21Even though I'm sure it'll be great and I'll be lusting after it if it has a new, fantastic
0:20:25design, it will be probably giving me in some areas, if it's anything close to the M1 in
0:20:32the iMac Pro, similar performance in a lot of areas to what my iMac Pro can do, which
0:20:39is fantastic, obviously, for those machines, but doesn't make it a compelling upgrade for
0:20:44me.
0:20:45Yeah, I don't have a place for an iMac, really, in my life.
0:20:48For a while Mary used one, but she's got the M1 MacBook Air and she likes having a notebook
0:20:54and then when she's at her desk, she uses it in clamshell mode with the LG 4k ultra
0:20:59fine.
0:21:00And so she's set.
0:21:02I don't need it.
0:21:03I definitely gonna see what Apple silicon Mac Pro looks like and go from there.
0:21:10I mean, I'm happy with my Intel one, I'm going to continue to run it for a long time.
0:21:14But when it is time to replace it, if there is an Apple Silicon Mac Pro that I can put
0:21:19drives in and put cards in, then I would do that.
0:21:22If the Mac Pro isn't that, if it's not expandable in some way, then I could see myself going
0:21:27back to an iMac.
0:21:28But I really enjoy having a bunch of storage and a bunch of other stuff inside my computer.
0:21:35And so I want to see what that story is before I would make any decisions.
0:21:39Federico, are you still using the studio dock with the iPad?
0:21:42Yes, I'm very much liking it. It's still... that's how I worked all week, that's how I've been writing all week.
0:21:49I continue to believe that I want to free up more space on my desk.
0:21:56Right now I've just been putting the Mac Mini Magic Keyboard and the Mac Mini Magic Trackpad in a drawer when the Mac Mini is turned off.
0:22:05But I also... I kind of want to also put the Mac Mini itself under the desk,
0:22:12try to figure out a better space optimization for it.
0:22:15I know that there's people who have been using VESA mounts and different strategies.
0:22:20Just a bunch of Velcro, man.
0:22:22I mean, it's got to be a lot of Velcro, man.
0:22:26Yeah, strong Velcro. Have you ever heard of Command Strips?
0:22:29They're really strong Velcro, basically.
0:22:31You should just throw a bunch of those on the top of it, stick it under the desk,
0:22:35or stick it to the back of the monitor, you know, go wild.
0:22:38I don't know, maybe.
0:22:39I want to think of ways to free up more space on my desk, but also like, I don't know, we're
0:22:43going to move eventually, so maybe I shouldn't do too many modifications to my existing setup.
0:22:48I don't know, we'll see.
0:22:50Right now, I have a complaint to share with the com- I have a complaint with the company.
0:22:56So I want to complain to the company named Satechi that because they made a really attractive
0:23:03Bluetooth keyboard and I want to give them my money but that keyboard is sold
0:23:08out everywhere so they have this keyboard that 9to5Mac recently reviewed
0:23:13I also got some comments from Maxories readers who were able to get one
0:23:17it's called the Satechi Slim X1 it looks like a magic keyboard it looks like a
0:23:22compact magic keyboard but it's space grey and it supports multi-device
0:23:28pairing which is all I want like for the longest time all I wanted was a compact
0:23:33Magic keyboard, not the extended one that, you know, Apple sells with the NumericPad.
0:23:42It's the only one available in Space Gray. I want a Compact Magic keyboard that is Space
0:23:47Gray and supports multi-device pairing. And the SLEEMAX one does all that, and it's also
0:23:54backlit. So, I really want that keyboard, but it's sold out everywhere. I also tried,
0:24:01on the Satechi website, on Amazon.com, Amazon Italy, Amazon UK, and Amazon Germany. Because
0:24:06sometimes when I try and be very clever about "Oh, something is not available on Amazon
0:24:13Italy, I guess the Germans have it." But no, it's not even on Amazon Germany. So I'm really
0:24:19upset. I mean, I'm joking, but I'm annoyed that this compa- I mean, congrats to them
0:24:23for selling out this keyboard, but I also want to give them my money, and currently
0:24:30my money has not left my credit card because it's sold out. But has it actually ever been
0:24:36available? Because sometimes this happens, right? Like 9to5Mac or Fubo product? Okay,
0:24:41people have it, okay. Because you know, you see this, it's like, here's this new Belkin
0:24:45charger, it's not available, right? They're not selling it yet for like a month, you know.
0:24:49But okay, if people have it then... Let's try again, sateci.net, yeah, out of stock,
0:24:54you see? Yeah, and I was just looking on Amazon in the UK for you and they don't have it either.
0:24:58I really want this keyboard because that means I can get rid of a bunch of stuff, I don't
0:25:04have to put my Magic Keyboard in a drawer anymore, I can just have a single keyboard
0:25:10that looks good, and that can switch between the Mac Mini and the iPad Pro.
0:25:16But yes, to go back to your question, Steven, I'm still using the Studio Doc, and I really
0:25:19like it, but I want to see, of course, what happens with the new iPad Pro.
0:25:25Hopefully it'll still be compatible.
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0:26:41Pingdom from SolarWinds for the support of the show and Relay FM. Last week we
0:26:47had a conversation I really enjoyed about things Apple would not do if the
0:26:56iPhone was starting today and it was and again I would once again like to
0:27:01commend Federico for coming up with that fantastic topic for last week. In this
0:27:05topic there is a great foreshadowing.
0:27:10Among Shortcuts power users we all know that the iCloud.com link you can actually
0:27:17reverse engineer and look at the API that puts together the shared shortcut.
0:27:21That is how I can extract things like the icon that a shortcut uses from the
0:27:29iCloud.com link because if you call on the right web API you can get a bunch of
0:27:35information, a bunch of details about the shortcut itself. So like I'm pretty sure
0:27:39that Apple doesn't like it. Sometimes you say things on this show that I wish for
0:27:46your own sake you didn't say, that's one of them. If you like that you can do that,
0:27:53you shouldn't say it.
0:27:54We all know it. I just kind of like to steer the pot and see what happens. So here am I
0:28:03steering and steering and seeing what happens.
0:28:06So you have just heard Federico talk about Shortcuts Links and I suggest to Federico
0:28:14that he is potentially harming himself by talking about these things.
0:28:18Seven days later, all shortcut links are dead. Can you explain what's going on, Federico?
0:28:27I woke up this morning, got my phone, checked my Twitter replies, and there was a person saying,
0:28:33"Hey, do you know why I can't seem to install your Apple Frames shortcut anymore? I go to the link
0:28:40and it gives me this error." And I was like, "Well, that's weird."
0:28:44My first thought was that finally Apple got me, and they
0:28:49manually killed the Apple Frames shortcut on their servers, because maybe they didn't like the fact that I was using their
0:28:57graphical assets for Apple Frames, which was weird, because I knew that there's people at Apple who actually use Apple Frames,
0:29:04but I thought, you know, maybe they're changing PR people around. They don't want Apple Frames to be around anymore.
0:29:10So I just thought that it was an isolated issue
0:29:13Just about Apple frames and I created a reminder in my task manager saying fix this later
0:29:20Then a couple of hours later
0:29:22Somebody told me are you aware of this thing where all shortcuts links ever
0:29:29Created have been dead since yesterday after iOS 14.5 beta 5
0:29:36Came out and so here's what's going on
0:29:39on. Something happened on Apple's iCloud.com servers yesterday, and all iCloud.com links
0:29:48for shortcuts ever, ever created from the very first version of shortcuts, up until
0:29:54some point yesterday, Tuesday, March 23rd, all those links are currently dead. They return
0:30:03a 404 error saying that the shortcut does not exist anymore.
0:30:07it says on the iPhone, "Shortcut not found. The shortcut link may be invalid or it may
0:30:12have been deleted."
0:30:14In addition to that, I'm not sure when this change happened, but for a long time, so Shortcuts
0:30:22before it was called Shortcuts used to be Workflow. And Apple bought Workflow, kept
0:30:28it on the App Store for a year, and then it relaunched as Shortcuts. But for the longest
0:30:33time, Apple kept those old workflow links working. So in workflow, you could also share
0:30:42your workflows, and they were uploaded to the workflow servers, and they had a workflow.is.is
0:30:50URL. For a long time, Apple automatically redirected those workflow links to iCloud.com
0:30:59links. And that was a really great gesture to cap compatibility with those workflows.
0:31:04Now, I'm not sure when this happened, but those workflow links are also dead. They do not redirect
0:31:10to iCloud anymore. But I'm not sure this happened yesterday. It may have happened a while back,
0:31:17I just wanted to mention it because I think it's important to be complete about this.
0:31:23In any case, the main issue is all shortcuts links created from 2018 until yesterday,
0:31:30so three years of shortcuts links, are at the moment of recording this down,
0:31:36and they've been completely wiped out. Now, last week in our section I mentioned how,
0:31:43for a variety of reasons, I believe that Apple doesn't exactly love the idea of people sharing
0:31:49shortcuts with one another. And I also mentioned how, and you didn't want me to
0:31:55talk about it, Myke, how you can look up shortcuts metadata on Apple servers by
0:32:02using a specific API call. They have a records API that you can use to look up
0:32:08stuff like the icon and the glyph and the color of shortcuts, the creation date,
0:32:14stuff like that. Now, this morning when I noticed that all shortcuts links were
0:32:21down, the first thought was "Oh, Myke was right, obviously, I shouldn't have
0:32:26mentioned this. Somebody listened to Connected and they took down
0:32:31all those links to get rid of the metadata lookup method." And here's where
0:32:38the whole situation is really strange, but at the same time it also gives me
0:32:42hope. You can still create links to shortcuts. New links, new iCloud.com links are working.
0:32:51It's just the old ones that are dead.
0:32:53Maybe they just kill them on a daily basis. Like tomorrow, none of today's will work.
0:32:58Sure, maybe they just haven't, it just lasts 24 hours. Maybe, could be. I mean, could be.
0:33:04Do you know if the API call stuff, does that work against new links or have they turned
0:33:08that off?
0:33:09what I did, right? So I took a new link and I tested my old metadata shortcuts and it's
0:33:16still working. You can still look up shortcuts metadata with that method. You can still extract
0:33:22information from a new iCloud.com link. So all this to me feels like a bug because they
0:33:33didn't, at least as long as I'm concerned, like they didn't change anything
0:33:38for that API lookup method. The shortcuts gallery was also down yesterday, so Apple
0:33:46must have done something with the transition to iOS 14.5 beta 5 and I
0:33:52guess they accidentally took down all the links. At least that's what I want to
0:33:56believe. Also, if Apple suddenly decided to kill sharing shortcuts with other people via
0:34:05iCloud links, they would probably do it the opposite way. They would probably prevent
0:34:10the creation of new links, and they would keep the old ones around, at least for a while.
0:34:17So if their intention was to kill those links, they would probably do the opposite of what
0:34:22doing now. Still, it sucks, because for, like, I woke up this morning and I started getting
0:34:29tweets and emails from people saying, obviously those people know nothing, they're saying
0:34:33"Hey, I just came from, like, for example, Wired a couple of weeks ago. They linked to
0:34:38Apple Frames as one of the most popular shortcuts that you can use on your iPhone." And I got
0:34:44an email from somebody saying "Hey, I was trying to install your shortcuts from Wired
0:34:48and it's not working, can you upload it again, please? And now I gotta explain to these people,
0:34:54like, I have three emails already and a bunch of tweets, and I gotta explain to all these people
0:34:59why it's not really my fault. But at the moment, I'm basically standing here, and I got 230
0:35:05shortcuts in the MaxStory shortcuts archive. All those links are dead. There's probably a hundred
0:35:12more in my previous coverage of shortcuts for stuff that I did not put in the MacStories
0:35:18shortcuts archive. And obviously this goes beyond MacStories. There's entire communities
0:35:24that have years of content that is basically useless now. The shortcuts subreddit, RoutineHub,
0:35:30which is a popular website where people can share shortcuts. Obviously, Matthew Cassinelli,
0:35:37entire shortcuts library is not accessible at the moment. Shortcuts that Rosemary and
0:35:45David share on automators here on relay.fm, as well as the shortcuts that the automators
0:35:51listeners share in the forums, those are dead. Like, it's a very unfortunate situation, and
0:35:59the lack of communication doesn't help. We reached out to Apple for a comment. They do
0:36:05not have a comment at the moment, I believe. So, yeah. So, I mean.
0:36:12I don't like that answer. I don't know.
0:36:18So we're all... And obviously I have a membership program where people give me money to... At
0:36:24least part of the perks. One of the perks is accessing exclusive members-only shortcuts.
0:36:32So yeah, I'm...
0:36:35I bet they didn't mean to do...
0:36:38My feeling is they did not mean to do this, but they have done something that's caused
0:36:43this.
0:36:44I expect that this is a bug caused by them doing something.
0:36:47I expect the something is probably something you're not going to like, but I doubt that
0:36:53they meant to knock out all of these links in one fail swoop, especially because you
0:36:59can still make them.
0:37:00want to clarify before he gets out of hand. Apple did not say no comment to us. We just
0:37:06haven't gotten a reply yet.
0:37:08Oh, okay. I thought that they were like, "Oh, no, we don't know."
0:37:14We haven't gotten a reply yet, but we reached out. So the ball is in their court now. So
0:37:21yeah, we're all just waiting. That's what I was going to say. We're all just waiting
0:37:23to understand what's going on. Maybe this is nothing. Maybe somebody was making a change
0:37:29the shortcuts gallery yesterday and they accidentally changed an ownership property in the Amazon
0:37:37S3 bucket where all these links are stored. I don't know, man.
0:37:41Apple has a status page for iCloud. It doesn't have anything for shortcuts on that page.
0:37:47But similarly, there is also, as of right now, no errors on that page for anything.
0:37:53You could imagine that maybe if some iCloud thing was down it could take this with it.
0:37:59But as it stands right now, there is no notification of any errors with iCloud.
0:38:06Who knows what it is.
0:38:08Grand scheme of things, not that important, but to certain communities incredibly important.
0:38:13I mean it would suck if three years of work were not accessible anymore.
0:38:19because Apple removed two years ago the option to share shortcuts with other people as files.
0:38:27As files, yeah.
0:38:28It used to be that you could share a dot shortcut file with somebody else and they could import
0:38:35the shortcut as a file. Then they changed the whole security system around shortcut
0:38:41sharing in iOS 13. We talked about it before, the whole untrusted shortcut system that you
0:38:49got enabled in settings, and you cannot import shortcut files anymore. So iCloud.com links
0:38:55are the only way for installing shortcuts made by other people. And hopefully this is
0:39:02just a bug. Apple doesn't need to comment, they just need to fix it. But at least I believe
0:39:09it's a bug. Again, if they were planning to kill the feature, they would probably do it
0:39:17the opposite way. They would remove sharing for new shortcuts and new links, but they
0:39:23would keep the old legacy ones around. So it's just a bug. It would be nice to hear
0:39:31what's going on, but let's wait a couple of days and see what happens.
0:39:35So strange. So they did something on the server side that corresponds when a beta came out?
0:39:42I guess. I guess. I mean, my theory is they were doing some work on the shortcuts gallery,
0:39:49because that was down yesterday, and when it came back, someone did something horrible
0:39:57to the database. I mean, it's got to be millions of links, right? I assume. And, you know,
0:40:05somebody changed the permissions of that database or something. I hope they have a backup.
0:40:11(laughing)
0:40:13- Backed up on iCloud, it's fine.
0:40:15- Cool.
0:40:17- It's got to do a full restore
0:40:18to bring the one database back of all of iCloud.
0:40:20Okay, today is the 20th anniversary of Mac OS X,
0:40:25which is pretty wild to think about.
0:40:27There's a lot of great stuff out there to go read about it.
0:40:30I rounded up a bunch of stuff on 512.
0:40:33Mac Power Users episode 580 is basically all about this,
0:40:38and we kind of walk through the transition
0:40:41and the high points of the last 20 years.
0:40:43So I don't want to do that here because I did it there,
0:40:46plus the two of you would be bored.
0:40:49But I do want to talk a little bit--
0:40:51- You chose the right location for the coverage
0:40:55in its entirety as it is on Mac Power Uses.
0:40:58- And I think people would really enjoy that episode,
0:41:02so go check it out.
0:41:03I was really proud of how that came out.
0:41:04So the thing that really, for me,
0:41:08that I wanna talk about with y'all is
0:41:11what has come after that.
0:41:13And so Mac OS X comes out in 2001, five years later,
0:41:18well, the same year the iPod comes out,
0:41:21which had really had nothing to do with OS X,
0:41:23it ran this like weirdo thing they bought for somebody else.
0:41:27They switched to Intel five years later,
0:41:31And then six years later, we get the iPhone.
0:41:34Pretty relatively short period of time.
0:41:38I often don't think about that in terms of like
0:41:42how long it was since Genesis of OS X,
0:41:45but it really was pretty quick.
0:41:47And so for really for most of its life,
0:41:50Mac OS, OS X, whatever you wanna call it,
0:41:53has lived with these sibling OSes.
0:41:56And of course now it's spun off watch OS
0:41:58and tvOS and all these other things.
0:42:00And I don't know if they could have done the iPhone the way they did it had they not done
0:42:04Mac OS X the way that they did it.
0:42:07But at the same time, Apple's also not afraid of shedding old baggage.
0:42:10So things like carbon, 32-bit apps, older apps and services that don't matter anymore.
0:42:17Even though Mac OS is 20 years old and it looks roughly the same, like it sells the
0:42:23dock and the mini bar and stuff, I don't think there's much in it that is actually 20 years
0:42:29old because they've continued to reinvent it and bring new technology into it over the
0:42:34last few years, reunifying it with iOS under the hood, all these things.
0:42:39And I kind of want to know what the two of y'all thought about that and what you think,
0:42:45like how you see Mac OS today kind of fitting into the bigger Apple ecosystem.
0:42:52I find it interesting to really think about the fact that it all stems from OS X, like
0:43:01everything now, right?
0:43:03Like even though watchOS I'm sure shares basically nothing from a technical perspective, it's
0:43:12still...
0:43:13I mean like the kernel's the same, you know, some of the like the low level...
0:43:17Even watchOS?
0:43:18Yeah, some of the low level like network stack.
0:43:20I think a lot of the real deep stuff is the same.
0:43:23Even better to the point that I was trying to make.
0:43:26To think that without OS X all of this stuff wouldn't exist.
0:43:33But from many perspectives, like one, I'm sure it could be argued that without OS X
0:43:38Apple probably wouldn't be around anymore.
0:43:40But that's like a different conversation.
0:43:43But it's kind of fascinating really to think of this technology which is older than 20
0:43:49Some of the underlying technology is next technology, correct?
0:43:53Yeah, so I mean really like mock BSD and some of the real low-level stuff, it gets roots
0:43:59go back 30 years.
0:44:01So I find that quite fascinating really that there is this, I wonder how long it will be
0:44:10into the future for OS X's legacy to continue from like real terms of technology developed
0:44:18for OS X still being used, not just like, "Hey, we know how to make operating systems
0:44:22because of OS X." You know what I mean? Like the real actual, this code that bears similarities
0:44:29and/or is the same at an underlying level as the stuff introduced in 2001 or whatever.
0:44:37It's interesting. Yeah, I mean, when they introduced the iPhone
0:44:42in '07, it was like, "It runs Mac OS X."
0:44:46It's like, well, I mean, at a certain point, that's true.
0:44:49Lots of custom stuff on top of it.
0:44:51And that's still how they work today, where the low-level stuff is the same, but like
0:44:56watchOS, tvOS, iPadOS, they're all different interpretations of it, and they have their
0:45:01own application layer on top of it, even though Apple is slowly moving towards unifying that
0:45:07as well with things like SwiftUI.
0:45:09It's a nice thing to mock.
0:45:11with the world though.
0:45:12Yeah, I don't have any particular thoughts.
0:45:14I just feel like it's impressive that the foundation of this operating system is turning
0:45:2020, but at the same time, here in 2021, we're all witnessing a new beginning for the platform.
0:45:29And I think it's very exciting.
0:45:30I think I honestly feel like there hasn't probably been a better time to be a Mac user
0:45:37than right now, because you can feel like the company is really committed to it.
0:45:41As a... I'm not a Mac user, like I don't consider myself a primarily a Mac user,
0:45:48but I am in a good way, right, jealous of all the excitement that surrounds what's going on with
0:45:57MacOS, what's going on with M1 Macs, and like it's a good thing, it's a great thing to witness
0:46:02this sort of comeback for the platform, both in the software and the hardware. So, yeah, it turns 20,
0:46:10but, you know, in many ways it's, you know, turning one this year. So I think it's really,
0:46:19really exciting. Yeah, I mean, they're using the foundations that they built so long ago to launch
0:46:25all this new stuff. I mean, it is, yeah, it is a remarkable run. Yeah, I mean, man, that's six years
0:46:32between Mac OS X and the iPhone like that is no time. That is the number
0:46:38that really jumped out of me today. Especially when you then go like six
0:46:42years to that and then just it's 13, 14 years to now. Yeah. You think about it
0:46:52felt like OS X have been around forever. Forever. And now it's over twice
0:46:58stat amount of time since. Yep. Weird. Time is weird. This episode of connected is
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0:49:10In a report which was detailing a mysterious temperature sensor in the current HomePod
0:49:15Mini, which is like just a super weird, wonderful report from Mark Gurman, Mark also reiterated
0:49:21a line that he said in the past which is "Apple has been developing new speakers
0:49:26i.e. HomePods with screens and cameras" so he's spoken about this in the past I
0:49:31think there was a report a while ago about the HomePod I think it was
0:49:35detailing a HomePod mini suggesting that there might be a HomePod which was in
0:49:41price between the mini and the current HomePod which I mean there could be more
0:49:46sense to that rumor now than there was before because the other part of that
0:49:50rumor is because the big HomePod won't exist anymore, so who knows, but also detailing
0:49:55that Apple's been looking at HomePod versions or models that have screens on them.
0:50:01Furthermore, Steve Moser at MacRumors, Steve was responsible for finding a bunch of stuff
0:50:06we were talking about earlier on in the show too, Steve found references in tvOS 14.5 to
0:50:13FaceTime, iMessage and image capturing frameworks being added to tvOS.
0:50:19Now you may think to yourself that this sounds peculiar or surely the HomePod already has
0:50:26FaceTime and iMessage stuff.
0:50:28It's like yes and no, there's a few things.
0:50:30So as of 2020, HomePod is part of tvOS not iOS, they changed that over.
0:50:35So HomePod gets its updates via the tvOS stack, not the iOS stack.
0:50:41And also it had some of the parts of iMessage and FaceTime in them in the sense of allowing
0:50:47you to place calls, send messages, that kind of stuff.
0:50:51But what it seems like this is now being integrated into the platform at a more deep level, it's
0:50:58probably a deep and open framework.
0:51:00That's probably what they did by putting iMessage in there.
0:51:03And the key is this is surely intended for the home pod because it makes not a lot of
0:51:12sense to put iMessage on the TV.
0:51:16If these frameworks are going into these devices, it's most likely for a HomePod device, especially
0:51:23image capturing as well.
0:51:25They're never going to put a camera on the Apple TV, you would assume.
0:51:28It doesn't make any sense, why would you do that, but it could be on a HomePod.
0:51:31Dude, you could have a 70-inch FaceTime call.
0:51:33It would be amazing, right?
0:51:35I don't think so.
0:51:37So if we just take this as read, that all of this seems to suggest that there is a likelihood
0:51:43for a HomePod of a screen.
0:51:46And I actually think that there is potentially more case for that now that the big home pod
0:51:51is gone.
0:51:52You know, like the cheap home pod is just audio, the larger home pod has a screen on
0:51:56it.
0:51:57And because there is an existing market growing product offerings that are like this.
0:52:03You know, Amazon makes stuff like this, Facebook makes stuff like this.
0:52:07So if we're looking at this landscape now, what would we want this product to actually
0:52:14do?
0:52:15to say to us, "Alright, here is the next HomePod. It truly is the center of the home.
0:52:22The whole family can get around it and have a FaceTime call. It has what else?" So what
0:52:28would you guys want to see on something like this?
0:52:32Well, so I guess the idea is that what we are imagining is Apple's version of an Echo
0:52:39show or a Nest Hub, basically?
0:52:43Yep.
0:52:44OK. Well, I guess music, for example, would make a lot of sense. So music, you can follow
0:52:51real-time lyrics and you can control music that way. Obviously, the idea of a digital
0:52:57picture frame, right? So you can have your favorite photos and you can have slideshows
0:53:02and have it be automatic or different versions of a digital clock, obviously, with maybe
0:53:10even different watch faces that you can choose from. And I guess just generally speaking,
0:53:17it would be nice to have a centralized hub for things you share in the family. So your
0:53:26family calendar, your family reminders with the grocery list. Maybe you could have like
0:53:32"Find My" and have your kids' position automatically show up and it could give you updates when
0:53:39the location of somebody you're tracking changes.
0:53:42Like all the things that you share
0:53:45with iCloud over family sharing, I
0:53:47think it would be a good place for that
0:53:49on this kind of device.
0:53:52My underlying problem with this assumption
0:53:55is I'm just not sure at this point
0:53:59how much Apple is committed to the home
0:54:03and to the idea of building an ecosystem of products
0:54:08around this, given what happened to the HomePod,
0:54:12given the slow pace of updates with the Apple TV,
0:54:15given that there's not really an ecosystem right now.
0:54:19I mean, a HomePod mini is not an ecosystem.
0:54:22A HomePod mini is a tiny speaker.
0:54:24The ecosystem, I guess, is iCloud,
0:54:26but iCloud is also on the iPhone and iPad, so.
0:54:29- Or HomeKit. - Or HomeKit, yes.
0:54:30But also HomeKit is a framework that Apple makes for others.
0:54:34- Well, I mean, I think what happens
0:54:35if Apple dives back into this and fails again.
0:54:40Like if the HomePod mini just kind of like bumbles along
0:54:45for a while, it never really takes off,
0:54:49but it's like fine for people who just want Apple Music
0:54:52and don't want Amazon in their bedroom or whatever.
0:54:55Like that's not a big market probably,
0:54:56but it could be enough.
0:54:57But if they've really launched something like this
0:55:00that we're talking about with a screen,
0:55:01which I think would be really compelling,
0:55:03and it HomePods again, like it doesn't take off
0:55:07or it fails in some way, like then what happens?
0:55:11'Cause then at that point you're O and two
0:55:14or maybe one and two if the HomePod mini's okay.
0:55:17I just don't know how willing they are to try again.
0:55:22I think they should try again,
0:55:24but I'm not sure how willing they would be to do that.
0:55:27- They just ended up, I feel like, in a weird spot
0:55:32where they have perhaps the most popular mobile operating system around.
0:55:39They have HomeKit, they have Siri, which is not great,
0:55:42they have iCloud and Family Sharing, all great components,
0:55:47but the big piece missing from the puzzle is
0:55:53all these different technologies they don't really resolve
0:55:57in a unified ecosystem for the home. And it's very weird, because they
0:56:02I have all these, you know, most of them really solid components. I mean most of them because Siri is not solid
0:56:10But they're missing a unifying strategy. I would actually like to posit the theory that makes me
0:56:15Feel better is that the HomePod being discontinued is a signal of Apple's recommitment. Okay?
0:56:23It's a signal that we are imagining
0:56:27Potentially suggesting the home pod is the wrong product at its price point
0:56:32For what it people want it to do, right?
0:56:36So like that's kind of what I'm positing here and that they have woke up and been like, okay the home pod mini
0:56:42Does everything the home pod needs to do and so we should not continue to offer this larger product. Yeah
0:56:50Let's get rid of it now while we make way for our next product and at this point I am hoping for
0:56:57very good Apple TV like product which incorporates more home stuff that's what
0:57:03I'm hoping for and or as well like a echo show Google Nest Hub Facebook
0:57:12portal like device made by Apple and I understand that you could say hey why
0:57:19not just put an iPad on a stand I'll tell you I tried that it's not great
0:57:26like it's you're really forcing it to do something that it's not really made to
0:57:33do yeah you know like my echo show for example the screen is always on and
0:57:37showing me something the iPad doesn't do that like it's not what it's for right
0:57:43like it is meant to be a personal device it is yours it's like one person's
0:57:47device where these other products are built around being a device for a family
0:57:53even the HomePod, right? Like you can have multiple people talking to it and it recognizes
0:57:58that and an iPad can't do that.
0:58:00Sometimes.
0:58:01Sometimes, but it does do it. I mean, it might not be completely reliable. I don't know how
0:58:05reliable these other products are at doing it. I found it to be somewhat reliable. There
0:58:10is a difference in having a device like this, which is built around, okay, this is in a
0:58:15shared environment first, now what does it do? It's building from a different direction
0:58:22to and even the HomePod has been built from that mindset where an iPad or an iPhone is
0:58:28not built for that.
0:58:30I would really like to see them go down this route.
0:58:33They could actually make third party apps, right?
0:58:36Let me put Zoom on this thing and it will be great.
0:58:39We use an iPad for all this kind of stuff at home.
0:58:43It would be great for us to just put one of these things somewhere in the house and we
0:58:47could have these calls and it worked really nice.
0:58:51I would really be into that. I don't know if they're going to do it, but I do think
0:58:59I do believe in them when it comes to the home, purely because I've said this before
0:59:05about AR, right? Like why are they even, you know, AR/VR, why are Apple attacking this
0:59:10market? Well, because it's a new market. It's an emerging market, right? And if they want
0:59:17to have the next iPhone hit they've got to try and be in every emerging market
0:59:22right you've got to have something so I do believe that once the home market is
0:59:28never gonna be iPhone sized right because I mean you've already taken it
0:59:33down from say like four divided to one right like if every home had one it's
0:59:37still gonna be a quarter of the amount of phones there are right because
0:59:40everyone has their own phone but it's still a emerging market for consumer
0:59:45technology because Apple's competitors are doing such a good job and are
0:59:53continually iterating. So do you want to just abandon this emerging market for
1:00:00the consumer technology? I don't believe that they would want to especially when
1:00:04the home market really has the ecosystem key. Like it really is a very important
1:00:13component to locking you into an ecosystem.
1:00:17Even with this connected home interoperability thing,
1:00:22that's still not going to be like,
1:00:25what is your syncing system?
1:00:26What is your music system?
1:00:28Where are your photos?
1:00:29You're still going to want that lock-in,
1:00:32and it's always going to be better on the device made
1:00:34by the company that's also making the software part.
1:00:37Even if they all talk to each other,
1:00:38it's always going to be better when you have one and one
1:00:41together, right?
1:00:42And so I think it would not be a good move for Apple
1:00:45to allow Amazon or Google to just take all of this market
1:00:52when it seems like at this point, they haven't really tried.
1:00:56Yeah.
1:00:57The issue there is that they have a long road ahead
1:01:03to catch up, especially with Amazon,
1:01:06when it comes to having lots of options,
1:01:09when it comes to being aggressive with pricing,
1:01:14and when it comes to having devices that can be flexible.
1:01:20You can get an Amazon Echo for cheap,
1:01:22and you can connect all kinds of accessories
1:01:25and all kinds of services to it.
1:01:26Because they have ignored this market for the past three
1:01:30years, maybe, I guess, at the beginning,
1:01:33when years ago, four or five years ago,
1:01:35when everybody was making fun of the icons,
1:01:38Like, hey, who wants to talk to an assistant stuck
1:01:41in a cylinder, right?
1:01:42People, especially in the Apple media ecosystem,
1:01:45were sort of making fun of the echo at the beginning.
1:01:48But Amazon kept going.
1:01:50And they iterated and iterated on it.
1:01:52And now it's something that, especially
1:01:55in the past couple of years, I've seen it here in Italy.
1:01:58As a country in Italy, we tend to be pretty late
1:02:03to discovering new tech products.
1:02:06And it's a combination of, well, it's a long discussion.
1:02:09It's a combination of usually we do not get new tech stuff
1:02:14as soon as Americans do, but also we tend to be,
1:02:18as a people, pretty ignorant when it comes
1:02:20to understanding technology.
1:02:21But that's a failure of the education system in Italy.
1:02:23That's a whole other topic.
1:02:25Still.
1:02:26- It's a more old-fashioned country.
1:02:29- Yes, we are.
1:02:30- And that is also one of Italy's selling points
1:02:33to the rest of the world,
1:02:34so you don't wanna completely give it up.
1:02:35But there's another side to it, which is unfortunate when
1:02:37it comes to technology.
1:02:39However, what I've seen in the past two years
1:02:41is devices like the Amazon Echo and the Google Assistant
1:02:45as well have totally been accepted as regular appliances
1:02:51that you can have in the home.
1:02:53I see my friends referring to them,
1:02:56using them as something that is just as common
1:02:59as a phone at this point.
1:03:02I mean, I went to my accountant's office
1:03:04a few weeks ago, and I heard one of her colleagues
1:03:08asking something to the echo.
1:03:09I was like, wait, do you have an echo in the office?
1:03:12She was like, yeah, we're using it here as well.
1:03:15So it's like totally normal now.
1:03:17And it surprises me that Apple has slept
1:03:20on this for such a long time.
1:03:23And so I wonder now, can you come back
1:03:27from the failure of the HomePod and do it quickly,
1:03:31and do it in a way that is still interesting enough for people,
1:03:36that's really my concern.
1:03:37Because it's really too bad that they
1:03:40are abandoning the market.
1:03:43And I don't want to believe that they are.
1:03:44I believe that they want to do something,
1:03:47but I'm rightfully so, I think, skeptical that they can succeed
1:03:53because they don't have exactly a lot of positive points going
1:03:59them right now. The one other counterpoint that I'll make to Federico
1:04:05what you're saying about like the things that they need to do to combat Amazon is
1:04:10you said price and flexibility of offering right? Yes. Because that's
1:04:17arguably what Amazon have succeeded on right? That they're cheap, they keep
1:04:23making them cheaper and they put it in everything. And you can get them in
1:04:27all sizes and flavors and colors.
1:04:29Yeah.
1:04:30Yeah.
1:04:31And you don't even have to buy a product from Amazon and you can get it.
1:04:34You know, maybe you bought this other product and now you have Echo in your house, right?
1:04:38You have Alexa in your house.
1:04:39I'm taking a particular stand on this.
1:04:42I don't know how much I believe it, but I just want to make the point anyway of the
1:04:45iPhone, right?
1:04:47That there were already lots of options available for phones.
1:04:53Everyone had one.
1:04:54Nokia was killing it, right?
1:04:55Like Blackberry was destroying everyone like it was all good.
1:04:59And then Apple created something which was so compelling that even though it was more
1:05:04limited in some ways like lockdown, more expensive, everyone wanted it because it was so cool.
1:05:12And they've done that many times.
1:05:15Do I think that the HomePod is their next place to do this?
1:05:19No, I actually think even though I have a lot of issues with the idea, I think they're
1:05:23more likely to do this, have this impact in a future AR product or something?
1:05:27You know, I'll add the Apple watch actually to that category of stuff I
1:05:31just mentioned, right? Of like a product where there were already offerings and
1:05:35people saw this type of product from Apple and they were like, "This is more
1:05:39expensive than everybody else's but it is actually cool and I'll get it." They
1:05:43could do that, I mean there's a company that has history of doing it, they could
1:05:46do that for a home product, right? Where they make this thing where it's like
1:05:51like halfway between a HomePod and an iPad and a Mac, right, in the sense of like what
1:05:57you would do with it at home. And, you know, you could, I could imagine a world in which
1:06:03there isn't a family computer anymore because all of the family computers tasks are taken
1:06:07up by this Apple home device that has all this shared stuff that the family needs. Uh,
1:06:14what you know, you know what I'm saying? Like I'm getting a bit like pie in the sky now,
1:06:18But my point is like they have shown in the past that they can create products that disrupt
1:06:24an industry and I want them to make something like this.
1:06:29I don't want them to abandon the home.
1:06:31Oh, I agree.
1:06:32And I don't want them to not abandon the home because I'm someone who's terrified about
1:06:39having Amazon or Google products in my house.
1:06:41This is not where I'm coming from.
1:06:43Because I have these products and I'm happy with them.
1:06:45For me, it's just I think that this is an area that they could do cool stuff in and I want to see them do it
1:06:51I absolutely I hope that they do and I hope that a device of a screen on it is the root that they take honestly
1:06:58Like I want them to get weird like you have lots of money do weird stuff
1:07:04Try all kinds of form factors it
1:07:07Especially for the home. It's not like everything needs to be this super expensive
1:07:14highly refined audio speaker for audio files. Do something that sounds crappy but it's easy to use
1:07:21and it's got Siri that gets the basics right. Like get weird and try stuff. It doesn't have to be
1:07:29like "oh my god I feel like I'm listening to heaven in my ears and now you can get the like these
1:07:35six tweeters and a subwoofer?" No, do something that sounds like crap but is easy to use and you
1:07:42You can get it there and you don't have to use Amazon and Google services and it automatically
1:07:49is set up with your iPhone super quickly, you touch your iPhone, you set it up and you
1:07:52can use FaceTime and that's it.
1:07:54And you can go from something in a box to a functioning speaker with a display in like
1:08:01two minutes and only you can do it because you're Apple and you control the whole thing.
1:08:05But like, try lots of different things.
1:08:08I love when Apple tries weird stuff.
1:08:11What I dislike is when they don't believe in it, and when they abandon it, and when
1:08:15it's like they stop doing updates, and we all know what's happening, this thing is gonna
1:08:19get killed, and then they wait two years to finally kill it.
1:08:24No, do stuff, like try things.
1:08:27It's exciting when Apple tries new stuff, like the AirPods Max, I love them.
1:08:31Like they just did these weird phones that nobody's gonna buy.
1:08:39More weird things.
1:08:40That's what I would like to see.
1:08:41You ready to move on?
1:08:43Yo, I want to talk about these, Steven.
1:08:46Okay.
1:08:47I have been waiting for this next topic for like three weeks.
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1:10:38-All right. So, what have you done, Steven? -Hello.
1:10:40-Hi. What's going on here?
1:10:43Hmm. Please explain yourself.
1:10:47-I've tried a new task manager. -Okay.
1:10:51-And it could be the one. -The one? What is the one for you?
1:10:55-So, happy for you both. -Thank you.
1:10:57Define the one task manager. The one that it does, it works the way I want it to work.
1:11:03Okay. And the apps are nice enough and... Okay.
1:11:06Looks pretty good. Okay. Looks like Todoist to me. Yeah. Just looking at the images now. It is like if Todoist and
1:11:14Good task had a baby, it would come out. Really? That's high praise. Okay. Yeah, it's got some good tasks sort of vibe to it.
1:11:22Okay. Anyways, so I for the last month or so have been using TicTic. TicTic.
1:11:27Which, by the way, you search for it all, it just takes you to TikTok.
1:11:36I don't really feel for them.
1:11:37Yeah, their namespace.
1:11:38I just searched TikTok, like I just typed TikTok into the Omni bar.
1:11:43Is that what it's called on Safari?
1:11:44What do they call it?
1:11:45I don't know.
1:11:46No, I think that's what Chrome calls it.
1:11:48The magic bar.
1:11:49Okay.
1:11:50The bar where now there isn't a search bar, right?
1:11:53I just searched TikTok and it just took me to the TikTok website.
1:11:56It just didn't even take me to Google.
1:11:58Like, it just, "Nope, I know what you want."
1:12:02And I'm like, "No, that was wrong."
1:12:03Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick.
1:12:06It's fun to say.
1:12:07Yes, it is.
1:12:09Trying this out, there's a bunch of stuff that is very similar to Todoist.
1:12:14So like, tick, tick, Todoist, remember the milk, good task, kind of.
1:12:20Like, there are several of these that sort of, in my mind, are on kind of the same,
1:12:25roughly the same playing field. So it has natural language entry for things like dates
1:12:32and if you learn the keyboard shortcuts for things like, you know, what list you want
1:12:36to put something in, the repeating syntax. So you don't have to be clicking around a
1:12:40bunch to set parameters. Click click. Did you just like click click? Yeah. The sync
1:12:52- It's pretty solid.
1:12:54They run their own sync engine.
1:12:57So they're not on top of reminders like Good Tasks is.
1:13:00- What's it called?
1:13:01Sync Sync?
1:13:01- Sync Sync.
1:13:03It has some UI customization, not a ton,
1:13:06but you can set themes and like each list has an emoji
1:13:10and it's kind of got the basics.
1:13:12You can also do customization on how lists are sorted
1:13:17and that sort of thing.
1:13:18You can do smart lists, which is pretty cool.
1:13:20In fact, their smart list tool to build them
1:13:22is actually pretty good.
1:13:24Wait, wait, tell me more about the smart lists.
1:13:26How can you put them together?
1:13:28They're smart smart.
1:13:29OK.
1:13:29Smart smart.
1:13:30List list.
1:13:31List list.
1:13:33How do you choose the filtering conditions, whatever?
1:13:39Yeah, so they have some pre-made ones.
1:13:42So if you wanted to build one that just showed you
1:13:44the next five days, they have some dropdown menus
1:13:48that you can use.
1:13:49but they also have their own syntax.
1:13:53- Okay.
1:13:54- And you can look it up on their website.
1:13:56I think that's probably the easiest way to do it.
1:13:58And you can basically build out your like Boolean search
1:14:03for what you want.
1:14:04So you could say, I want these parameters.
1:14:07I want all my lists except this one list.
1:14:10Or I just want to include this tag with these parameters.
1:14:13So you can combine different elements to make a smart list.
1:14:16- Is it more understandable than the third language
1:14:19have to learn if you want to use to do it. Yeah, it's fine, we support smart list except
1:14:26you gotta speak a new language. So you need to go to the British Museum, consult the Rosetta
1:14:31Stone and then maybe you can create a repeating reminder. It's a little bit like that, but
1:14:37once you kind of get the hang of it, it's not too bad. They've got tags, I don't care
1:14:42about tags, they got priority which is fine. They also have this cool thing where you can
1:14:49mark a task partially complete.
1:14:51Wait, what? Partially complete?
1:14:53For instance, I have a recurring task every Wednesday to make sure that on 512,
1:14:59like the blog sponsor for the next week, I have all their content.
1:15:02I usually send them an email on Wednesday and say, "Hey, you're coming up next week.
1:15:05This is a reminder. This is the content that I need."
1:15:07And so what I've started to do is I've marked that 50% complete once I email them
1:15:12and then fully complete once I actually get the content.
1:15:16So you can kind of like track.
1:15:18And what's the like, okay, what's the what how do you do that though? Like what are you doing?
1:15:22under the task there's like a
1:15:25You click click you milk it is completely a progress bar you click yeah
1:15:31Yeah, and then it shows up like a percentage thing in the list. Okay, I haven't seen that in any other task manager
1:15:38And I kind of dig it. No, it's interesting. I think I can come back to white it isn't a minute. Do you?
1:15:44Have to say in advance like this is a task which can be partly completed
1:15:49No, how do you can you do it on the iPhone? Can you do this thing?
1:15:53How much of what you're saying Steven is exclusive to the Mac or desktop version as far as I know?
1:16:00Everything is everywhere
1:16:03Best I can tell I think one of the reasons you've not seen that in other places is like this
1:16:08As much as you know, I'm sorry to invoke it
1:16:11just so
1:16:14in the face of GTD, which so many of these systems have gone through. It's so wrong.
1:16:18Because it's like, well, actually that's not one task. There's multiple tasks in a project.
1:16:24Right, but Dave Allen's not the boss of me.
1:16:26And also, I don't think that way either. But I'm saying, I think the reason you may not have seen
1:16:31that anywhere else is because it's like, if you think in the more traditional terms of how these
1:16:37systems should be used, you would never work that way. But now, literally you've said that, and now
1:16:42that is the feature that has now made me just go and download this application.
1:16:45That is actually also the thing that stood out the most to me. It's like,
1:16:50no, because I totally, I totally...
1:16:52It's truly different, right? Everything else that you said so far, it's like,
1:16:56okay, what is their interpretation of the features that everybody else has?
1:17:00But that thing, because I also do it all the time, like, I have something, for example,
1:17:05that is due on a specific day, but I prepare for it in advance, right? So that when I need to do
1:17:12it, the work is already done, except that I don't want to mark it as complete because
1:17:17maybe I'm risking that on the day of, I'm going to forget. So it's like, partially complete
1:17:23actually makes a lot of sense. And also, like, keep talking, is such a normal way of working
1:17:31now, and I think we all probably have this, where you have tasks that are dependent on
1:17:34somebody else doing something. So part of the task is you asking for it, or you do,
1:17:39know, like, which is exactly the example that you gave Stephen, but that's become such a
1:17:43more normal way of working that I think is, is more, is much more modern. Like you, you
1:17:49communicate with somebody and say, I need a thing and then you're waiting for it to
1:17:52come back. So technically you've done your part or maybe all you need to do, but the
1:17:57task isn't complete until the other person does what they're supposed to do.
1:18:01What I love is that we are explaining tic tic to Stephen.
1:18:04No, no, no, no, no, no. I'm not, I'm just trying to like, we're talking about why in
1:18:10general this is a thing that people might want.
1:18:13Yeah, or some people may put like a tag on it, like waiting. It's like I don't like tags
1:18:17in any system, so this has jumped out at me as something unique and kind of useful. You've
1:18:23got, you can do subtasks too, which I could make that a task and a subtask, right? Like
1:18:31get sponsorship content and be like sub task one, email them, sub task two, put it in google
1:18:37docs.
1:18:38Like I don't, just don't think that way.
1:18:39Yeah, me too.
1:18:40I've tried the sub task thing like before and basically what I like to do is just write
1:18:45the entire thing and all the sub tasks in the task name and then that's just how I work.
1:18:50Like I don't like the sub task model.
1:18:52Yeah, sub tasks are just separate tasks holding hands.
1:18:57It's silly.
1:18:58Like at that point just create multiple tasks and sort them so that they stick closer together.
1:19:06Agreed.
1:19:07A couple other things that I really like in the task description, you can use Markdown.
1:19:16And so I sent y'all a screenshot of this, but I sometimes, like if I need to post a
1:19:22show or something, I may just keep a bunch of links that I need handy and I could just
1:19:28a little markdown list of them. And it's just a nice way to like just have you know progress
1:19:34or something associated with a task and I like markdown so it's got it's got markdown
1:19:39markdown.
1:19:40And it's something I definitely miss from switching from Todoist to OmniFocus.
1:19:44Yeah Todoist has it but Todoist like it really treats descriptions as comments and so they
1:19:50get all tagged with like a time and a date I don't necessarily need that. So the description
1:19:57is a little more flexible, I think.
1:19:59- Steven, can you mix and match, like in the same list,
1:20:02can you view both tasks and calendar events?
1:20:06- So I don't, calendars are one of the things
1:20:07that I don't mix into my,
1:20:10into my task manager, but yes, you can.
1:20:14So like right now I'm in today,
1:20:16and I see all my calendar items,
1:20:18and I see my tasks intermixed by time.
1:20:22So like I have edit and publish connected
1:20:24and connected pro, do it for 30,
1:20:27that is in between pick my kid up from school and then like a board meeting I have this
1:20:31evening so it doesn't end time order which is cool.
1:20:35Are you on Salesforce, Steven?
1:20:38Yeah man.
1:20:39While I guess while I'm here, so it does have calendar integration, I don't use it.
1:20:45It has a Pomodoro timer which I don't care about.
1:20:51The only place where Pomodoro has to go is on pizza.
1:20:54Oh, time tracking?
1:20:56tomato timer. The tomato is the universal symbol for Pomodoro timers. Yep. You can do habit tracking.
1:21:05I don't do... well, I kind of do, but in a paper notebook. But if you wanted to create habits to
1:21:11track in TickTick, you can do that. I don't care about it. So, and what's cool, if you turn those
1:21:16things off, they disappear from the UI. So it's not like I have like a calendar tab and it's just
1:21:20empty. Like there's no UI even indicating that this app could show me calendars, which
1:21:26I think is helpful.
1:21:27What's the shortcut support like?
1:21:30Yeah, shortcut support is pretty good. So you can bring things in. So I've got a couple
1:21:36of like save to the tick tick inbox, save to a certain list. I've talked about this
1:21:40before, but I have a shortcut to like a link anywhere on my phone, like I want to link
1:21:46to it on 512. So put it in the 512 list due today. And that works really well. It also
1:21:52has some shortcuts for shortcut support, I guess, things that have been with donated
1:21:57to shortcuts. What's the verbiage like the intents?
1:22:00Yeah, the way do you mean parameters or like,
1:22:05yeah, yeah, like the actions you can, you can take, okay, there are several others you
1:22:12You can get tasks from a list.
1:22:15So if you had like one of those daily boot up shortcuts, it could show you a task from
1:22:19any list.
1:22:20You can open any list or calendar directly, you can start or stop the Pomodoro timer,
1:22:26check in the habit, that sort of thing.
1:22:28So it's it's pretty good.
1:22:29I think it's probably on par with something like Todoist in terms of what you can do with
1:22:33it with shortcuts.
1:22:35And you can also get stuff into it via Zapier, which I do quite a bit of.
1:22:40Widgets.
1:22:41It's got widgets, they're pretty basic.
1:22:44I think they look nicer than Todoist's.
1:22:47Todoist has like some weird text rendering stuff
1:22:49in their iOS widgets, but it's simple enough.
1:22:53I've got a small one on one homepage
1:22:54and it kind of shows me the next three or four things
1:22:57and it works well enough.
1:22:58- What about, so one of the things
1:23:00that I really like about using good task
1:23:02is that it uses reminders as its database,
1:23:06which means that whenever I wanna save a new task quickly,
1:23:10I can just talk to my Apple Watch.
1:23:12I can say, "Remind me about this,"
1:23:13and because it's all based on reminders,
1:23:16it shows up in Good Task 2.
1:23:19Does it have an Apple Watch app?
1:23:21Does it have Siri integration that,
1:23:24even if I gotta say, in tic-tac, remind me about this?
1:23:28Like, how quickly can you save stuff?
1:23:30- Pretty quick.
1:23:31So it does have an Apple Watch app,
1:23:33and it can show you the list that you want,
1:23:35and you can quickly input things with your voice.
1:23:39The iPhone app, or I guess the iOS app,
1:23:41has two different ways you can use it with Siri.
1:23:43You can do, the first one you said
1:23:45where you can basically tell it,
1:23:47tell your phone just to remind me
1:23:49and TickTick will scrape the reminders inbox
1:23:51and then just move those things into the TickTick inbox
1:23:54and then get rid of them in reminders.
1:23:56Or you can say, add so and so to my list in TickTick.
1:24:00I've tried both, they work basically
1:24:03as well as each other.
1:24:05So I use the in TickTick version
1:24:07because I do use Apple reminders
1:24:10for like very specific types of things.
1:24:12And so I kind of want to keep that a little bit separate,
1:24:14but it offers both, which is nice.
1:24:17You can kind of work the way you want to.
1:24:19- Tell us why we're not gonna like it.
1:24:21- Yeah.
1:24:22- There's gotta be some stuff-
1:24:23- There has to be a catch.
1:24:24- That, you know.
1:24:26- I don't know, iPad support.
1:24:27Maybe there's no pointer integration or something.
1:24:30- That's a good question.
1:24:32Let's see, I have my iPad here.
1:24:34- Yeah, it's like, what are we not gonna like?
1:24:36There's gotta be some stuff we're not gonna like, right?
1:24:38'Cause right now, you're painting the picture
1:24:41of this is the best to-do app ever made, you know?
1:24:43It sounds fantastic.
1:24:44Every part of it sounds great.
1:24:46- Okay, so the trackpad support is very basic.
1:24:50It doesn't do anything to change shapes or anything,
1:24:52but it does work, it's just not fancy.
1:24:55- iPad keyboard shortcuts?
1:24:56- It has a couple.
1:24:59It's got Command + N will give you a new one.
1:25:04I'm trying to see, I'm trying to pull up the shortcut thing.
1:25:07It's got a few.
1:25:08It definitely could be better on the iPad,
1:25:10but it's perfectly functional, but like, totally fine.
1:25:14Some people won't like that it has its own sync, I think.
1:25:17I think some people like that it syncs
1:25:18a top of Reminders or CloudKit, or you can choose,
1:25:21you know, like the To Do app, you know,
1:25:24to DO, you can sync on iCloud or Dropbox or whatever.
1:25:28This is a service with an app, so you know,
1:25:30you've gotta know and you gotta trust them with your data.
1:25:33Some people won't like that.
1:25:35Like a lot of these apps,
1:25:36it's free with a premium subscription.
1:25:39And I think where they draw the line
1:25:41between free and premium is a little stingy.
1:25:44You know, it's like 28 bucks a year.
1:25:47So it's kind of in line with what Todoist is, I think.
1:25:49And I think some people,
1:25:51I think maybe y'all in particular won't like
1:25:54that it has all these other features
1:25:55that you don't want or need.
1:25:58But because you can turn them off
1:26:00and they'd basically disappear,
1:26:01it really hasn't bothered me that much.
1:26:03but I think that would bother some people knowing that this app does a lot more than what they're using it for.
1:26:08I don't know how that could annoy people if you can turn them off and don't have to see them anymore.
1:26:12Outside, out of mind.
1:26:13Maybe it's just like the overhead maybe, I don't know.
1:26:16The principle of it, that this company is also working on all these other features.
1:26:21Getting distracted.
1:26:22Right, yeah, that's more what I mean.
1:26:24Yeah, like why are they spending time on a tomato timer? I don't need that.
1:26:28Right, but that only bothers me if there are core problems with the main application, right?
1:26:33- Mm-hmm, I will say the Apple Watch app
1:26:35could be more robust.
1:26:37It's pretty simple, and at least in the current release,
1:26:39there's this weird thing where it puts overdue task
1:26:43at the bottom and at the top of the list,
1:26:44and I've contacted them, and they say
1:26:46that that's like a known thing,
1:26:48so I think that's just a temporary bug.
1:26:50But the Apple Watch app is relatively straightforward.
1:26:54There's not a lot of customization you can do there,
1:26:57which with Todoist and with others,
1:26:59you can really like more finely control
1:27:01Apple Watch app but it's basic but it gets it gets the job the job done just
1:27:05fine. It looks cross-platformy like it doesn't really look Mac ish but neither
1:27:12does Todoist. I would argue that it is a good task really a good task. This on the
1:27:16Mac looks like good task. It is a native app so it's not best I can tell it's not
1:27:21Electron but it's definitely not super native feeling but unless you're using
1:27:26OmniFocus or things that's pretty much par for the course. Yeah there's no such
1:27:30thing as Mac like you know like OmniFocus I spoke about it before the
1:27:35Mac app not good doesn't look nice doesn't really feel that great in a lot
1:27:42of places like okay great it's a native application but like it's not a
1:27:49particularly nice one to use all right like you know there is no such thing as
1:27:54Mac like anymore so it's got URL schemes if you're into that that's exciting on
1:27:59on the Mac? On iOS. I'm looking at this blog post from their company blog, "20
1:28:05lesser-known tick-tick features." Let's see, "set time to a task based on flexible
1:28:12time zone options." Nice, that's a good one to have, I like that. "See how many days
1:28:18are left for a task with countdown mode." They call Pomodoro "Pomo," which I don't
1:28:26like when people have those kinds of abbreviations, like when people say let's have a combo or
1:28:32let's do a pod. It's like no please don't but okay.
1:28:36So if you did a show together about time tracking it would be a pomo collab pomo colo pod. I'm
1:28:44trying to put all those words together.
1:28:46A pomo pod. It's a pomo pod.
1:28:48Hub, pub sub hubbub. Remember that?
1:28:51What? What did you just say?
1:28:55sub. Oh, I remember. Pub-sub-hub-hub. It's a Google thing. An open, simple web scale
1:29:05and decentralized PubSub protocol. It's now just called WebSub, which is so much sad.
1:29:11Why didn't you call that years ago? Okay. Yeah. Wow, the Google PubSubHubHubHub. PubSubHubHubHub.
1:29:23I'm reading this training lesson on features.
1:29:26Quickly arrange today's tasks with plan your day.
1:29:30So there's a feature called plan your day.
1:29:32- Yeah, I don't, I just have a list named today.
1:29:35That works for me.
1:29:37- Okay.
1:29:38- But you can, like, if you had a lot of things do
1:29:40in today, you could like bring certain things over
1:29:43to that different view.
1:29:44- Okay.
1:29:45So here's my question for you, Steven, and be honest.
1:29:48Is it one of those apps that when you use it on iOS,
1:29:50It looks kind of weird and web-appy?
1:29:54Or does it feel like an actual native app?
1:29:56Yes.
1:29:57It looks weird?
1:29:58It looks cross-platformy, but other than, I guess, the iPad cursor support stuff, like
1:30:04click and drag and drag and drop, it feels native, but it looks just like their Android
1:30:10app.
1:30:11The app looks the same everywhere.
1:30:12Okay.
1:30:13So is that similar to Todoist, right?
1:30:15Todoist feels like a native app, but it looks nothing like iOS apps.
1:30:19I think out of all of them, most similar to Todoist.
1:30:23Is it true that there's a Kanban view?
1:30:26There is.
1:30:27So you can take any list and you can view it in Kanban view and section things off into
1:30:35different categories or different columns, I guess.
1:30:39So I know Todoist added that last year, I think, and TickTick has it as well.
1:30:46So this is now...
1:30:47So you can can you can can ban ban sub hub and tick tick.
1:30:53So this is now a tick tick podcast.
1:30:54Oh my gosh.
1:30:56Multiple multiple reminders or annoying alert.
1:31:00Yep.
1:31:01I imagine annoying alert is like do you right?
1:31:04I think so.
1:31:05I haven't played with that.
1:31:06One thing I have played with is you can customize the snooze.
1:31:11And so if if something reminds you at 11 and you want to push it back 30 minutes, like
1:31:14can customize those quick actions pretty easily.
1:31:19Oh man, Matt in the Discord has just posted, you know the "Always Sunny in Philadelphia"
1:31:26meme?
1:31:27That is perfect.
1:31:28This is the gang switch at Sick-Tek.
1:31:30That is perfect.
1:31:36This looks nice!
1:31:38argument when we mentioned some people may be concerned that this company is trying too
1:31:45many things and they may be distracted. You can play white noises inside.
1:31:52I just, me and you hit the same part of the website at the exact same time. I was like
1:31:58hang on a minute. Why is there a white noise feature in this
1:32:02application? It's for the Pomodoro timer.
1:32:05Those two things would go together because Pomodoro is about focusing
1:32:10intently on work for a set period of time and you're supposed to leave the
1:32:13timer up viewable to you I believe and so having white noise kind of makes
1:32:17sense you would pair them together right I'm gonna focus 15-20 minutes on this
1:32:22one project I will now put on white noise to help me focus I understand why
1:32:26you would put those two things together I just don't know if it needs it but if
1:32:31If you want to be the one-stop shop for somebody's productivity,
1:32:36a timer is not a huge overhead of resources to put into the application, right?
1:32:42Right. So this app wants to be like a centralized dashboard for all kinds of productivity, I guess.
1:32:50Tasks, events, and everything in the middle of that.
1:32:53Yeah, you can even keep notes in it. But again, if you don't want any of that stuff and you turn
1:32:57it off you don't you don't see like the shell of those features anywhere which
1:33:01which I like. Since you guys seem so interested in that there is import
1:33:04function from Todoist, from Microsoft to do, from Wunderlist, from OmniFocus, from
1:33:12Toodleoo, and from Ico. Wunderlist, which is dead like that's gone now. All of
1:33:19those import features never work as good as you know. I hope they will but yeah I I
1:33:24I just end up taking an hour and just rebuilding from scratch.
1:33:30But there you go.
1:33:31I've been really happy with it over the last month or so.
1:33:34Oh, it's brought up in the Discord.
1:33:36It also has start dates, which Todoist famously does not have.
1:33:40So if you're one that needs a span on a task, like I can do this Wednesday through Friday,
1:33:45but it's due Friday, you can do that in TickTick.
1:33:49I don't work that way, but if you do, it's there.
1:33:53updates are also called defer. In omnifocus. In different applications, in different systems.
1:33:59Or duration. But why are we only discovering this service
1:34:04in 2021? It's kind of been on my radar for a while,
1:34:08but one day I was like, I had real work to do that I didn't want to do, and I switched.
1:34:13I know I heard this before because MKBHD mentioned it in a bunch of videos.
1:34:18He always talks about it, and so much so that even in the App Store page, like in the first
1:34:22sentence they reference him like I'm sure he's sent them a ton of business
1:34:25and I think in my mind I've always thought of tick-tick as a good Android
1:34:31option and I've never thought to look at it yeah all right well I've downloaded
1:34:37it I mean I guess I'm gonna start playing around with it yeah I'd be
1:34:41interested to know what y'all we all think I gotta try it
1:34:45I'm setting an only focus task to check out Tiktok. I think that's it.
1:34:52If you want to find links to the stuff we spoke about head on over to the
1:34:58website relay.fm/connected/338. While you're there you can send us an
1:35:06email with feedback or follow-up. You can become a member, get connected pro that
1:35:13That is a longer ad-free version of the show we do each and every week.
1:35:17This week we talked about the right place to put the dock in macOS.
1:35:22We talked about the time we saw an iPhone X before it was released and weird art installation
1:35:27in Chicago.
1:35:28It's pretty good.
1:35:29Oh, and we gave a critical breakdown of the System Preferences iconography in macOS.
1:35:34Yes.
1:35:35It was a very busy pre-show this week.
1:35:38So go check that out.
1:35:40You can find all of us online.
1:35:42You can find Federico on Twitter as vitiici, V-I-T-I-C-C-I.
1:35:47He is the editor-in-chief of MaxStories.net.
1:35:50Federico, I'm looking forward to reading your iOS 14.5 coverage.
1:35:56When that ships, whenever that ships.
1:35:5875,000 words.
1:36:00Well, no, but it's not going to be a short one.
1:36:04Yeah.
1:36:05Of course it's not.
1:36:06Yeah.
1:36:07Okay.
1:36:08Federico, I do have a question for you.
1:36:11If you woke up and you were suddenly wealthy enough you didn't have to work anymore,
1:36:17was the first thing you would do?
1:36:19Not like what would you do ultimately like buy a boat and live on the beach but like
1:36:22first thing in the morning you get a text message from your bank saying you don't have
1:36:25to work anymore, like what would you do?
1:36:27Why would the bank be the person to tell you this?
1:36:30Just what the bank tells me.
1:36:33I feel like if you become independently wealthy your banker texts you.
1:36:36Just like hey.
1:36:37Okay.
1:36:38Alright.
1:36:39Fine.
1:36:40Alright.
1:36:41Like, would you expect me to be like, original and say something that...
1:36:45No, no, it'd be you.
1:36:47Well, okay, so here's the thing...
1:36:50Like, like what I would do?
1:36:51Yeah.
1:36:52I would, I would probably pay off my house, like, first thing.
1:36:55I'm gonna be boring and save, like, if I were...
1:36:59So like, totally rich, like Bill Gates rich?
1:37:03Yeah, like, you don't ever have to worry about money again,
1:37:06and your grandchildren won't ever have to worry about money.
1:37:08All right, cool.
1:37:09So the first thing I would do is I would just buy an apartment that,
1:37:14like the dream apartment in Rome. Right?
1:37:18So like I would get the kind of house that like if I was a millionaire,
1:37:22I would buy in Rome. Yeah. Well,
1:37:24it's like there's a list of things that I would do right away.
1:37:27I would say the house is the first one.
1:37:31And then I would probably
1:37:37get a new car. Like, I wanna... actually I want to get a bunch of cars. So you bought
1:37:45an apartment with no garage. No, no, no, obviously there has to be a garage. There has to be
1:37:49a garage for like... Jerry Seinfeld lives in an apartment and he has lots of cars. You
1:37:54can make it work. And a 20th anniversary Mac. Yep, you can make it work. Like, I wanna,
1:37:58I wanna get, I wanna get a... also the apartment has to have like a, like a movie theater/giant
1:38:07game room. It's a big apartment. So it's more, I guess it has to be a house. But the problem
1:38:11with living in a house is like I'm scared of not having neighbors. So like it can be
1:38:17a house but there has to be someone nearby. Or I can have my own 24/7 security. There
1:38:25you go. There is also a dream of mine. Like get super rich and have like custom security
1:38:30around. Bodyguards. Yeah, like bodyguards but also security. But like the front gate,
1:38:35always somebody, but there also has to be, like I thought about this, there also has
1:38:40to be, these are the things I think about, there has to be like, when you think about
1:38:44it, security for security, because what if the security guy eventually gets jealous and
1:38:49wants to kill you? So like there has to be somebody keeping an eye on the security guy.
1:38:54So like you gotta have like a two prong system for, if you want to have like three prongs,
1:39:00what about the second prong? What if prong one and prong two, they gang up?
1:39:05What I'm saying is, yeah, that's the concern.
1:39:07So like you gotta have, you gotta have some kind of layering system for your own security
1:39:13people because those people may also be out to get you if you're super rich.
1:39:19So the house, but there has to be somebody, someone like, I don't want to, like, what
1:39:23if something happens to me in the middle of the night and I start screaming and nobody
1:39:27hears me like that is not good.
1:39:30So either neighbors or multiple levels of security.
1:39:35Then I will...
1:39:36So hang on a second, hang on a second.
1:39:39It's a busy morning.
1:39:40I just need to draw a line here.
1:39:45So Federico, what would you do if you got a text message from your bank that said you
1:39:50are wealthy?
1:39:52I might wake up in the night screaming and who's gonna be there?
1:39:59I just want to make sure we're staying on track here.
1:40:02[laughter]
1:40:07You know, the things we think about.
1:40:09I'm just trying to contextualize the thing.
1:40:12No, it's good.
1:40:14So the house, the house, then a beach house, like my own beach house, then a bunch of cars.
1:40:23Then security?
1:40:25than security. Like I want to go visit my friends like a manager and Maserati and I
1:40:30want to walk in there and be like, give me five cars and I'm going to pay cash. I don't
1:40:34care. I'm super rich and I'm going to buy five Maserati cars just like that. You wouldn't
1:40:40have the cash. Well, it's in the bank account. Well, that's not cash. I mean, I got the money.
1:40:46Just paying for it. Yeah. He's not taking a loan out. He's paying for it. Or I could
1:40:50have like a bunch of duffel bags that my own security guy takes like it's paying cash.
1:40:57I don't think they would take that. Why not? Right? Because what like they're just ready
1:41:04to accept like 1.5 million euro like no one can accept that type of cash. You're just
1:41:10having it in a backpack and be like here you go. Whatever that's gonna be a wire transfer
1:41:15for that. And lastly, for like the morning of, I will probably acquire my own dog park.
1:41:23Like I'm gonna have my own facility for letting dogs play and just hang around. Like I wanna
1:41:31have my own dog park. Just a garden? It's not enough? In your house that you're buying?
1:41:37Well, no, it has to be, well, it can be, I gotta decide, it can be by the house or it
1:41:43can be elsewhere. Also what I wanna have, like I don't have, I didn't go to university,
1:41:51right? But I wanna end up... I wanna buy a degree. I wanna buy, no, I want my, I want
1:41:58Italy to like, because I'm so rich, right? And I'm so important, like I wanna be one
1:42:03of those people that receives a degree without going to university. Right. You should just
1:42:10buy a wing of like, I'm going to buy a wing of yours.
1:42:13Like now what you're going to give me a degree or what?
1:42:16It's like, yeah, yeah. Honor an honorary doctorate and being wealthy.
1:42:19And they give you like when they do those ceremonies, they give you like that,
1:42:23that fancy coat or something, the fancy hat and everything.
1:42:28I want to have that.
1:42:29You should, I mean, look, you come from a, does Viterbo have a university?
1:42:33They do.
1:42:34You, you've got to try and get, tell me with the,
1:42:38with like the dean of Viterbo University because you've got to be one of the most world renowned
1:42:44people from Viterbo. Sure. Right? I guess. You've got to try and learn who's the journalism
1:42:49professor at Viterbo University. Well I'm not a journalist right? Right? Try and get
1:42:54that person and find them on LinkedIn. I gotta log into LinkedIn again. Yeah, find the journalism
1:43:00professor at Viterbo University and get your honorary degree. Look, if you're that rich,
1:43:06someone can log into LinkedIn for you. You don't have to see that again.
1:43:09No, I'm talking about he should do this part now. Like this is, this is the thing in current
1:43:13day Federico's life. Get, get your paper son. Like the actual paper, which says you got
1:43:19a degree on it.
1:43:21Uh, yeah. So that's a busy morning for finding out you're a billionaire, I guess.
1:43:29It's very productive.
1:43:30There's a bunch of extras that we can talk about in the future. Like having my own tattoo
1:43:35studio which is also an investment that I like I'm dreaming to like I have you know
1:43:41I own the tattoo place now hiring hiring a private chef and then firing the person immediately
1:43:48saying I cook better than you.
1:43:51A bunch of things like that.
1:43:59Is it the University of Naples Federico the second?
1:44:02This is what they've dug up in the Discord.
1:44:03called the Tuscia University because it's the local area where Viterbo and
1:44:09nearby towns are located. It's called Tuscia, T-U-S-C-I-A. I believe it's called
1:44:17University of Tuscia, something like that. But it's in Viterbo, yes.
1:44:23It's actually very nice.
1:44:24You've got a 5001 arrow trying to go to a website.
1:44:27It doesn't seem good.
1:44:29Maybe you should have started the day with a donation to the university.
1:44:33Maybe we just brought their website down just by everyone.
1:44:35Maybe we just Google it again.
1:44:37You can find Myke online, @IMYKE on Twitter.
1:44:41Myke hosts a bunch of shows here on Relay FM and he hosts the cool kids keyboard club
1:44:47most Fridays at Myke.live over on Twitch.
1:44:50Yep.
1:44:51Big keyboard energy over there.
1:44:52Big keyboard energy.
1:44:54You can find me online as @ismh and I write over at 512pixels.net.
1:44:59souls.net. I want to tell you about another show on relay FM that you may enjoy and that
1:45:04is make do. You don't have to monetize your hobbies. But if you want to make do is ready
1:45:11to be your cheerleader. Listen as you hobby with Tiff Arment and Julia Scott at relay
1:45:16dot FM slash make do or search for make do wherever you get your shows. I'd like to thank
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1:45:29until next week guys. Say goodbye to cheerio. Bye y'all.