0:00:00[Music]
0:00:07From Relay FM, this is Connected episode 334. Today's show is brought to you by Pingdom,
0:00:14Bombas and Baronfig. My name is Myke Hurley and I am joined by Federico Fatici. Hi Federico.
0:00:19Hello. Hi. You've jumped the gun there. Well I'm very, I'm very excited to talk to you today.
0:00:25It's just me and you today.
0:00:27That's the reason.
0:00:27Babe, he's in the city today.
0:00:30Yeah, he's cheating on us.
0:00:33I know, I know he's cheating on me.
0:00:36I know he is.
0:00:37Okay.
0:00:38But yeah, it's just me and you today.
0:00:40We have a bunch of fun topics, the kind of stuff that Steven wouldn't let us talk about.
0:00:45Yeah, I believe my message to you was let's make it weird.
0:00:48Yes, as always.
0:00:50So we're gonna be a little bit weird today.
0:00:52We should start with follow-up though.
0:00:54I guess. I do actually have follow-up this time. Usually I like to eschew follow-up when
0:01:01Steven's not here, but there are some things that I legitimately want to talk about and
0:01:06I guess they could technically be classed as follow-up, or we could give this whole
0:01:10segment a new name for today.
0:01:13What if it wasn't called follow-up? How would you call it? Like in 2021, if you were to
0:01:18describe this kind of section for a podcast...
0:01:21I don't really have a good name.
0:01:23The warm-up?
0:01:24Warmer reflections.
0:01:28Reflections.
0:01:30Boomerang, TJ suggested in the chat room.
0:01:35Which I guess is interesting because we're kind of reflecting on what is coming back from last time.
0:01:40Anywho, Mark Gurman reports that Apple are working on a MagSafe battery pack.
0:01:45So on last week's episode, we were talking about a MacRumors article.
0:01:50call where I think it was Stephen Moser at MacRumors was digging through some of the
0:01:56code to find reference to what seemed to be a battery pack and Mark Gorman has reported
0:02:02that Apple are in fact working on one. But whether we see it or not, who knows? I assume that they're
0:02:09probably being careful. They don't want to get themselves into an air power like situation,
0:02:14but it doesn't matter anyway because Anker gone done did it and they've released one already. So
0:02:20Anker have a new product, what is it called? The Anker PowerCore Magnetic 5K Wireless Power Bank,
0:02:28which just rolls right off the tongue as a name. Yeah, Anker and Sony, they should really get
0:02:33together and collaborate on product names. Then it would be called like the Anker PowerCore 566609.
0:02:40No, the WF PowerCore Magnetic 1000 XM5. At least for both of them it might be an upgrade
0:02:49in their naming right because at least it would give sony naming at least some kind of description
0:02:54with english words yes so this is a 5000 milliamp hour battery which will take the pro max from zero
0:03:02to 75 in charge all of the other phones that will have smaller batteries it will basically take them
0:03:08to full if not full charge it is magsafe compatible like all of our anchors other products in this
0:03:16MagSafe, it's MagSafe compatible.
0:03:18Meaning it has magnets in it and it G-charges, but it's not official.
0:03:23So I've seen different websites reporting different figures,
0:03:28but it will charge somewhere between five to 7.5 watts.
0:03:32So you're going to get regular G-charging speeds,
0:03:35not the faster MagSafe speed.
0:03:39The Amazon page for this that I was looking at,
0:03:43which was linked to the 9to5Mac article.
0:03:45had an illustration, like an image on it, which seemed to suggest to me that you could
0:03:52put the battery pack on a Qi charger and then your phone on top of that so you could charge
0:03:57them both at the same time. I love my family enough to not do that because I am convinced
0:04:06that that would set my house on fire. That is literally the stack of battery pancakes
0:04:11that we mentioned last week. That we should be doing that.
0:04:14That is exactly it. I wouldn't want to do that. I don't know, man. None of this makes
0:04:25me feel comfortable. I don't like the thought of this product. I don't know. It's not for
0:04:31me.
0:04:32The fact that Anker is not doing official MagSafe accessories, in this case it's a pretty
0:04:38big deal because they are effectively limited to charging to half or maybe even lower than
0:04:46the lower than half of the officially supported charging rate for MagSafe.
0:04:52MagSafe, official MagSafe accessories, they can deliver up to 15 watts of charging.
0:04:58I believe the MagSafe Duo charger that Apple makes peaks at about 14 watts.
0:05:06But that could be because it's splitting the power out to two different things though, right?
0:05:10Exactly, but I believe that officially MagSafe can deliver up to 15 watts of charging.
0:05:14So if Apple does this, I assume they will release a MagSafe battery pack that snaps to the back of the phone
0:05:23and delivers 15 watts of fast charging to your device.
0:05:28It's a pretty big difference compared to 5 or 7.5 watts.
0:05:33It's like going to the first generation Qi charging for the iPhone, whatever, the iPhone 10, 11? I don't remember.
0:05:40And it used to be very slow, and then Apple, the following year, maybe two years later, they supported the faster 15W charging for Qi.
0:05:50So, the moment I saw that Anker had one of these devices, I almost wanted to get one.
0:05:58and then I remember that they're not doing official MagSafe, but MagSafe compatible
0:06:03and I think I'm just gonna wait for Apple to release their one
0:06:07which, obviously, is gonna be super expensive
0:06:10and it's gonna be thicker, I think
0:06:15but I still wanna get the faster charging
0:06:19I'm really intrigued by the idea of...
0:06:23and I wanna see how it works in practice
0:06:26But the idea of me going out with an iPhone and a bunch of different things that I can sort of attach to the back of my phone, depending on the situation.
0:06:35I guess, you know, it would be nice to have an iPhone and then when you need it, you put on the wallet.
0:06:41When you don't need the wallet, you put on the battery pack.
0:06:44It's almost like you're constantly exchanging things to attach to the back of your iPhone.
0:06:48It's like modular, which is cool.
0:06:50Yeah, yeah.
0:06:51Yeah. You know? And you keep each of these things in a different pocket?
0:06:57You just get like a utility vest, you know, like a fishing vest and basically you just
0:07:03put all of these things facing out and you just stick the iPhone onto the vest magnetically
0:07:07wherever you need it. So you put it like on your right breast pocket when you want it
0:07:11charged. If you need your wallet, you just like clip it to the pocket and slide it out
0:07:15and the wallet will come out with it.
0:07:17Man, somebody should make that product.
0:07:20It definitely will now. This is like some like conference in the future.
0:07:24Federico's walking around with his like MagSafe vest.
0:07:27MagSafe vest.
0:07:29We have a we have a talent for willing jokes into existence.
0:07:33So I'm sure that this will somebody will think of this.
0:07:36It's a great idea. That's why.
0:07:38Sure. You can.
0:07:39I'm sure you will not look ridiculous going
0:07:42out and about wearing that MagSafe vest.
0:07:45But yeah, I'm going to get the Apple one regardless,
0:07:49Because it's like my tradition, I always get the Apple battery cases or packs when they release them annually.
0:07:57So moving on in follow up, last week we talked and to an extent we criticized the latest Craft update.
0:08:06Craft, it's the note taking app that we're both using.
0:08:10I believe, Myke, in your collection of note taking apps, Craft has a place.
0:08:14It is one of the three or four apps that I'm currently using.
0:08:17Yes.
0:08:17Perfect.
0:08:18The thing we criticized was the new feature called Toggle List,
0:08:23which is sort of like a mini outliner built into Craft
0:08:28that allows you to create lists that you can expand and collapse.
0:08:33So you can there's a little toggle icon that you can click to reveal children
0:08:38nodes, I guess, and you can expand and collapse the list as you go.
0:08:43It wasn't really intuitive to use in its first release.
0:08:46Thankfully, it appears that a bunch of people complained
0:08:50and the team at Craft listened.
0:08:53And in the update released over the weekend,
0:08:56it is now much easier to operate.
0:08:58So there's a couple of differences
0:08:59that I wanna point out from the original version.
0:09:02You can now see these vertical lines
0:09:04connecting all the different toggles.
0:09:07So it's easier to see the structure and the indentation
0:09:10of the nodes and the indented items within them.
0:09:15items within them. It's much easier to follow the structure of a toggle list.
0:09:20And also there's a new keyboard shortcut to expand all nested notes.
0:09:27You can option click and you will basically open, expand all of the children nodes within a list, which is really nice.
0:09:37So it's easier to use. I still wish that it was... I believe you mentioned this, Myke,
0:09:43that when you're using the iPhone app, dealing with indentation, it's not great.
0:09:50Obviously, it's better on iPad because you have a physical keyboard attached.
0:09:54But sometimes I really wish that the iPhone software keyboard had a tab button.
0:10:02Yeah, well, I mean, lots of applications manage indent left and indent right quite nicely
0:10:11with tapping the enter key twice, that kind of stuff.
0:10:16A lot of apps manage it, and at this point,
0:10:22with some of them, say like even Google Docs and Apple Notes,
0:10:24they do a really good job, and they sometimes use swipe gestures or something.
0:10:28And I think Croft can still have ways to go there,
0:10:32because now they have two outlining modes.
0:10:34You can use bulleted lists, or you can use their toggling lists.
0:10:38And I think it would now be cool if they spent a bit of time observing how other apps manage
0:10:44outlining features, especially on the iPhone, and what you can and can't do with the keyboard,
0:10:49and kind of integrate some of those gestures and shortcuts effectively into the app. Because if they
0:10:55did that, I mean this is, I'm not putting them in like some kind of hostage situation here,
0:10:58but like if they did do that, I would find it way easier to move some of my other stuff to Craft,
0:11:04because I tend to write in an outline format.
0:11:07Two other things I want to mention in this craft update.
0:11:11Document preview when searching. This is super cool.
0:11:15So both on the Mac and an iPad, when you open the search UI,
0:11:18it's like Spotlight.
0:11:20So there's the list of search results on the left side of the search window.
0:11:25But on the right, you will see a preview,
0:11:27like a thumbnail preview of the selected document.
0:11:30So it's a very nice touch because you can, in addition to the title,
0:11:33you can visually preview the document you're about to open from search.
0:11:36That's nice.
0:11:37I wish it wasn't available on iPhone too.
0:11:40And also, you can now create spaces.
0:11:43This is part of the, one of the initiatives of the Kraft team of
0:11:48putting you in control of your data.
0:11:50And one of the things they're doing, in addition to exporting and sharing data from Kraft to other applications,
0:11:57now you can create a space in an external location on your device.
0:12:02So this means you can, instead of using the Kraft servers,
0:12:05you can create a space in iCloud Drive or Working Copy,
0:12:08any other compatible location on your device.
0:12:12So that's cool.
0:12:13If you don't want to use the online Kraft Sync,
0:12:17you can create the space that is entirely offline,
0:12:19or you can use iCloud Drive,
0:12:21or you can use any other storage location provider
0:12:24on your device.
0:12:25So that's pretty nice.
0:12:26I'm not going to do this, but that's cool.
0:12:28-That surprised me, honestly.
0:12:30-Yeah.
0:12:31It seems like something that they don't have to do.
0:12:35I thought it was cool.
0:12:37Well, I think a lot of people are...
0:12:39They prioritize the idea of data ownership these days,
0:12:47which I totally understand.
0:12:48So it's cool.
0:12:50It's your right.
0:12:50So I think it's cool that they are addressing this
0:12:53within a few months of their first release, really,
0:12:57instead of saying, "Yeah, this is one of the things
0:12:58that we're going to do down the road."
0:13:00as a lot of companies promise and few of them actually deliver upon.
0:13:05And this is also taking advantage of a built-in iOS and iPadOS API.
0:13:10So it's like it's very cool to see that
0:13:13it's both the message and the implementation of it that I appreciate.
0:13:18But, you know, I get it and they make it clear
0:13:21if you use that, you lose some features.
0:13:23So obviously collaboration tools, which is powered by their engine,
0:13:26well, you're not going to get that.
0:13:27But I think that's perfectly fine.
0:13:29like this is what you're trading off against.
0:13:32I saw a friend of the show, underscore David Smith,
0:13:36posted a tweet showing the usage of the kind of the Apple watches
0:13:43that he can see in use in WatchSmith.
0:13:46And I wanted to bring this up to touch on what we were talking about
0:13:50in regards to if the Apple Watch SE is successful or not.
0:13:56because I figured that whilst David's data is obviously going to be skewed to WatchSmith users,
0:14:05that probably also skews it, I think maybe to early adopters, I'm not sure. But basically,
0:14:14what did the conclusion that David was drawing from his data is that series 3 watches are still
0:14:20very much in use. So 26% of WatchSmith users have a Series 3 watch which is quite high.
0:14:27It's actually the highest of any watch, any of any watch at all that uses WatchSmith.
0:14:33So Series 3 has stuck around for a long time. Now I wanted to say that like there's a couple
0:14:40of things that are interesting here. The other is the SE is 6% which is really small. You
0:14:47So the Series 4 is 20%, Series 5 is 23%, Series 6 is 18%, and the SE watch is 6%.
0:14:56So kind of indicating that there aren't a lot of WatchSmith users with an SE.
0:15:03And I just thought that that was interesting.
0:15:06I think what I'm looking at here is I think people would look at the SE and say, "Oh,
0:15:12there's like a cost thing there."
0:15:14But I think what's happening and the reason we're seeing so many Series 3 watches still
0:15:19in use is the Apple Watch probably is not a year-over-year purchase for most people.
0:15:26And I wouldn't assume that those Series 3 users are going to migrate to the SE because
0:15:31of price.
0:15:32They'll probably migrate to the Series 7 or Series 8 because it will be multiple years
0:15:36between purchase.
0:15:37Well, I was not expecting this kind of slow upgrade cycle though for an Apple Watch.
0:15:44Because the Series 3 came out three years ago?
0:15:48Mhm.
0:15:48Almost four?
0:15:49Mhm.
0:15:50Hm.
0:15:51But, the main thing that you don't get is the always on display, right?
0:15:58But outside of that, you don't really...
0:16:00Yeah, but I think whilst that is a cool feature, right?
0:16:04I don't know if people are clamoring for it, right?
0:16:07Gotta get my ECG.
0:16:08Like, it's a great feature if you have it, but like, I don't, you know.
0:16:12Clearly it's not enough of a driver because there's a lot of people still using series 3 watches.
0:16:16I just think it's one of those things where, like, most technology products, people do not buy one every year.
0:16:24Phones, people do, because they're so important.
0:16:27But everything else, by and large, like, why would you get a new one every year?
0:16:33Especially if you have to buy a new phone, right? Or you want to buy a new phone.
0:16:36At that point, how are you using the Apple Watch?
0:16:40If like, what does the casual Apple watch user that upgrades every three to four years
0:16:46use the Apple watch for?
0:16:47As a watch?
0:16:49What? Notifications, watch and fitness.
0:16:52There's a series 3 plus all that.
0:16:54But I guess you're not really that into fitness if you're...
0:16:58Because if you are, you will get a new one with a better sensors and the ECG and the
0:17:04blood oxygen rate.
0:17:05That's if you're...
0:17:06See, you're thinking of health and not fitness.
0:17:09Because fitness is fitness tracking, which it does, right?
0:17:15The things that you're mentioning, they are mostly towards the health end, right?
0:17:21I want the Apple Watch to make sure I'm alive, you know what I mean?
0:17:26And so I think for most people, those features tend to be nice, but not necessary, where
0:17:36a lot of the sensors are maybe more necessary.
0:17:38I want something to track my steps or I want something to track just my general health
0:17:43and fitness. But I would expect most users that are on a Series 3 watch are probably
0:17:51using it for the connected stuff like the text messages and notifications.
0:17:55I think you're right. I think you're right. I think it's perfectly fine for that.
0:17:59They are exactly like my mom who uses a Series 3 Apple watch and she uses it because she
0:18:05She thinks it's cool that she's got the Mickey Mouse watch face and she can look at the time
0:18:12and she can read iMessage and WhatsApp notifications.
0:18:16That is literally all she does with an Apple Watch.
0:18:20So I actually think that there's a lot of people like that.
0:18:23I thought it was just my mom.
0:18:25Clearly not.
0:18:26No, and also I could imagine it's a lot of people that they have it and they like it.
0:18:33They don't love it.
0:18:34So they're not in a rush to get the best thing.
0:18:37Maybe some days they forget to put it on and it's fine.
0:18:43Hmm.
0:18:44They're different from us.
0:18:46Well from me.
0:18:47Well, from you.
0:18:48But you know, I just think like some of the fitness stuff, right, is if you're not necessarily
0:18:55a fitness person but you like the fact that your watch does the tracking for you, it's
0:19:00like nice and easy, right?
0:19:02you know, it's like, oh good, all my steps have been counted. It's reminding me to stand
0:19:06up every hour. It's like super basic stuff that people are happy with, but they're not
0:19:10necessarily clamoring for what is my heart rhythm, what is my blood oxygen level as things
0:19:17that, you know, I mean, we lived before Apple watches, you know, I know that that isn't
0:19:25necessarily the case for everyone. There's lots of really great stories, but I don't
0:19:30know if it is a driver for enough people. I think clearly it's not a driver for enough
0:19:36people. A lot of people, but not everyone to upgrade all the time.
0:19:40I think you can maybe every few years, you know, like people might want to get it for
0:19:45like the three or four sensors that they're missing.
0:19:48And maybe because the battery lasts longer.
0:19:50Yep. And they're always on display. See, always on display I think a lot of people don't realize
0:19:55how good it is until they've used it. Unless it's something that you're particularly
0:20:00after maybe you don't notice it? I don't know. But I just thought that these statistics were
0:20:05interesting, especially because I would have assumed Underscore's app users would skew
0:20:11more towards "I upgrade my watch more frequently".
0:20:14Well, he's a global developer now.
0:20:19Yeah, but WatchSmith is surely more, is much more niche still, you know?
0:20:24Sure, but also I think, I don't know.
0:20:30I was not expecting this, so this was fascinating for sure.
0:20:36That's also a very good point, like what kinds of people are using WatchSmith?
0:20:40Man, look at that series.
0:20:46This is the SE numbers, which is very interesting to me.
0:20:50I'm not surprised.
0:20:51I really don't think it has a huge amount.
0:20:55What they'll probably do is, I wouldn't be surprised if whatever is the series 3 goes
0:20:59away and the SE is just then the base cheap model going forward.
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0:22:21It happened Spotify HiFi for Fi. I don't like the name though I said it out loud. Spotify
0:22:27HiFi Spotify. Yes, they should have done that Spotify. It doesn't the name out loud doesn't
0:22:37work for me but written down it's perfectly fine. This is what is it high quality is that
0:22:43what they're calling it? CD quality as they call it. CD quality lossless streaming coming
0:22:50later this year at some point in selected markets as they always say. Do you have an
0:22:57American account? I do, I do. So at the very least I think I will be able to upgrade to
0:23:03that this is in reference to the lyrics feature, which is also coming at some point later this
0:23:08year in selected markets. But yes, they announced this with Billie Eilish of all artists, by
0:23:16the way.
0:23:17Apple's favorite?
0:23:19Yeah, which is... John mentioned this in the linked post on Mac, so it's quite a nice coincidence
0:23:26that they used Billie Eilish to announce this feature.
0:23:30It's coming in a few months,
0:23:31and there are basically no details,
0:23:35no technical details at the moment about Spotify HiFi.
0:23:39They mentioned CD quality.
0:23:41I assume this is gonna be...
0:23:45So I'm basing all of this on personal speculation
0:23:49at this point.
0:23:50I assume that this is going to be different
0:23:55from things like Tidal Masters, for example. It's going to be more similar to what Amazon is doing
0:24:01with Amazon Music HD. So we can expect, I would say, by mentioning CD quality, I guess Spotify
0:24:09is going to do 16-bit, pretty standard, 44.1 kHz kind of encoding, instead of what they're doing
0:24:21now which is mp3 320 kilobits per second streaming literally just they're just
0:24:28gonna do CD quality I don't even think they're gonna do 24-bit high-resolution
0:24:33audio which Amazon music HD does for some recordings I think they're gonna
0:24:37stick to CD quality based on what they're saying and it's gonna be
0:24:41different from title masters it's gonna be different from what Tidal is doing
0:24:45with MQA, which is another encoding technique.
0:24:48And obviously, I want to see what they're going to do in terms of pricing, because
0:24:55as we talked a few weeks ago, Amazon entered the space of high lossless music
0:25:03streaming a few months ago and they undercut the competition on all fronts,
0:25:07basically. And they are very competitive.
0:25:09And the Amazon Music HD app, it's pretty terrible on desktop.
0:25:15It's OK on mobile, I think.
0:25:17What's interesting here, besides the sort of going against Amazon and what they're
0:25:25going to do for pricing, I think it's the implication behind Spotify getting into
0:25:32the lossless music streaming space and what it means for the ecosystem of Spotify
0:25:38Connect enabled speakers made by third party manufacturers.
0:25:43So Spotify Connect is this technology that allows you to instantly connect your Spotify account to any device that wants to support Spotify.
0:25:53Spotify Connect works on the Amazon Echo, it works on PlayStation, on Xbox, and it works on a collection of speakers made by all kinds of companies.
0:26:02And it's different from AirPlay because it talks directly to your Spotify account, which means you can control those speakers from an iPhone, from an iPad, from your Mac.
0:26:13It's not like device to speaker sort of streaming like Airplay does.
0:26:17It works over the internet.
0:26:19It's kind of like Chromecast.
0:26:21It's kind of like that.
0:26:23So I think it will be interesting to see, because there is a...
0:26:28There's so many companies making high-end gear, high-end speakers,
0:26:33with Spotify Connect integration, and I think having a high-fi tier
0:26:39is going to be a pretty compelling offer.
0:26:41If you're that kind of user, and if you have those kinds of speakers, you're probably going
0:26:46to want to upgrade your Spotify account to the Hi-Fi tier.
0:26:50What's also interesting here is the fact that at this point everybody has, or will soon
0:26:58have some kind of Hi-Fi tier for their music streaming service, except the very company
0:27:06making high-end prosumer products, which is Apple.
0:27:11[laughter]
0:27:12And I think it's very fascinating that Apple, you know, the company that makes the HomePod
0:27:17and AirPods Max, and has Apple Music, and has a pretty perfect use case for a bundle
0:27:25of this kind of more expensive tier, they're not doing it.
0:27:30But like, whether it was in their plans or not, now that Spotify's done this, I kind
0:27:36of have to now, right?
0:27:38Well, I think so.
0:27:41We were having this conversation months ago, and we were already saying they have to.
0:27:46Like, why are you not doing this?
0:27:48You have Apple One, you have Apple One Premier, which is the more expensive one, and you have
0:27:53a HomePod and these really expensive and really good sounding headphones.
0:27:58why are you not taking advantage of this? But at this point, you know, when Spotify
0:28:04does it, I think it lights a fire under Apple, and I think they're going to do it at this
0:28:10point.
0:28:11Well, because Apple do have to, I believe, they do have to match Spotify feature for
0:28:17feature if they want to remain competitive against them. And you may say, "This isn't
0:28:24important to me and that's fine, but you just don't want to look like you're
0:28:29falling behind.
0:28:30Right. Right.
0:28:31And it's very surprising to me the idea that Apple would leave that money on the
0:28:36table, even if it's a niche kind of offering, even if and look, every time we
0:28:42talk about this stuff, we always get the tweets from people saying this is all
0:28:45snake oil. You cannot hear high resolution audio.
0:28:49You cannot hear difference.
0:28:50OK, that's your opinion.
0:28:52we're talking about like in the broader context of companies.
0:28:55There is a difference between like MP3 to CD though. Like that is, you know,
0:29:00you can argue maybe pass there, like some people wouldn't hear it and it gets to a
0:29:05certain point and there is smaller.
0:29:07I think you could tell, like if you care about music and you have good equipment,
0:29:11you can tell the difference between an MP3 and a CD.
0:29:14Some people will even argue against that,
0:29:17but that's beyond the scope of this argument.
0:29:20here we're just discussing the fact that multiple companies have, at this point, different tiers of
0:29:25their music streaming services, and Apple, which you would typically associate with the idea of
0:29:31having premium services and making premium hardware, for arguably their most important
0:29:39service, they do not. And I think it's very surprising at this point. It's like if
0:29:47the Apple TV wasn't 4K.
0:29:50Right. Well, yes. That is a very good analogy. Yes. Imagine that.
0:29:56Well, actually, maybe a better analogy is the Apple TV box is 4K, but Apple TV's content is 1080p.
0:30:05Right? So, like, for all mankind, it's a 1080p show that you can watch. You can't get it higher quality than that.
0:30:13Yeah, so I think it would make sense to offer this in Apple One Premier, the more expensive
0:30:22bundle that they have.
0:30:25And I would imagine that would fit in nicely with that kind of more expensive bundle.
0:30:32It would be nice because you will be able to have lossless streaming shared with the
0:30:37family.
0:30:38it would work really well with the HomePod, with AirPods Max.
0:30:43I can't imagine this tier existing.
0:30:48But then again, why haven't they done it before?
0:30:53And will they do it now just because Spotify has it?
0:30:57I think they have to, but we were wrong before on this.
0:31:01But I could imagine them thinking that maybe the consumer appetite wasn't there, or at
0:31:07least like maybe they've been working on it but it's not been high priority for
0:31:10that reason but now their main competitor has done it I wouldn't be
0:31:16surprised if it lit a fire under them and the idea of making it I think
0:31:22actually exclusive to Apple one premiere is interesting as an idea I think there
0:31:29is something to be said for adding features like that to the Apple one
0:31:35bundles as a way to encourage the bundles like sweeten the bundles a
0:31:40little bit more like you get some extra stuff rather than it just being like you
0:31:46get all of the things slightly cheaper actually being like oh and you also get
0:31:51access to these additional things I think that would be a good idea too yeah
0:31:56but at this point it aligns with every incentive Apple has as a company to do
0:32:03this because you could charge more money, which is services, and you care about that.
0:32:07It aligns with your high end audio equipment and you now need to do it to remain competitive
0:32:13with your number one competitor who are unusually for Apple, at least modern day,
0:32:21something that Apple cares about a lot. And they are they have a smaller market in,
0:32:27Right, which is Spotify.
0:32:29Spotify is much, much larger than Apple Music worldwide, at least.
0:32:33So, yeah, it's intriguing.
0:32:36I think that they should do it.
0:32:37I don't know when, but I would be surprised
0:32:43if we went out this whole year without them doing it.
0:32:46Did you make it an annual pick?
0:32:47I don't remember.
0:32:49Did I? Let's look at the bottom of our document.
0:32:51I'm taking a look here now.
0:32:53It's not in your actual picks, picks.
0:32:56No, you didn't.
0:32:57You didn't make it a pic.
0:32:59See, this is what happens when I don't trust my instincts.
0:33:03Passion. Where's the passion?
0:33:04Where's the passion? I let myself down here.
0:33:08Well, last night you tweeted an app idea that I want to read.
0:33:12I just thought it was intriguing.
0:33:14Here's a free, sustainable, I have no clue, idea for an app I find myself
0:33:19increasingly wish existed.
0:33:21Choose friends from Twitter whose taste you trust.
0:33:24Only show me the tweets that they loved, which I assume you mean like, right?
0:33:28Like that what we say, like it's like the heart icon.
0:33:31Yeah. Give me filters for articles, photos and videos that they like.
0:33:35Literally nothing else for context.
0:33:37Over time, I've noticed I have a regular group of 10 to 15 people
0:33:41that I follow on Twitter who always like interesting articles, videos,
0:33:45threads or photos.
0:33:46And instead of opening each profile manually,
0:33:48I just want to see a unified timeline for those liked tweets.
0:33:52Yes. OK, so the.
0:33:54the subsequent tweet explains exactly what I do.
0:33:58I'm trying to spend less time just scrolling my Twitter timeline during the day,
0:34:04and what I've noticed about myself doing lately, two things.
0:34:08One, I use the algorithmic timeline at the end of the day, like in the evening,
0:34:13if I want to spend like 15 minutes to see what I missed,
0:34:17I switch to that timeline and I get the highlight from the day.
0:34:22The second thing I do is I have this group of like close friends, and this is different from a list.
0:34:31Pay attention. I don't want to see their timelines. I just want to see the tweets they liked.
0:34:37You don't want to see what they have to say. You want to see what they enjoyed.
0:34:39No, I just want to see the things they liked. Because usually I always find a lot of good stuff in there
0:34:46that they don't necessarily re-share, but they hit the like button on.
0:34:51Right?
0:34:52See, I would like to...
0:34:54Don't answer yet.
0:34:55I would like to believe that I'm on this list because you like my tastes.
0:34:59However...
0:35:00It's you, Steven, Steve Canton Smith, Jason, our friend, Mohammed Taher, a bunch of writers
0:35:09from Polygon, for example.
0:35:11That group of people that I know, they are very active on Twitter and they always say
0:35:17interesting stuff.
0:35:18Because I was going to say, I am a... I consider myself a serial liker. I like way too much stuff.
0:35:26I don't know if that means that I'm good or bad for this list. I would assume that meant I'm bad.
0:35:32So I appreciate that you at least say that I'm on it.
0:35:35Yeah, and the thing is, this is different from... because obviously, when you tweet something...
0:35:42something that I've noticed lately, I guess lately means the last 10 years. Whenever you
0:35:52tweet something, even the thing that you think, "Well, I cannot be possibly criticized for
0:35:58this tweet." There's literally nothing you can point and criticize, but no, even in this
0:36:05case... If that's what you think, Federico, you are not trying hard enough. Even for the
0:36:09the safest politically correct tweet, there's still gonna be something that people criticize
0:36:15you for. And in this case, a bunch of people told me, "Oh, so you wanna have a bubble for
0:36:20your bubble?" Okay, sure. Whatever. Just say, "I just wanna see what my friend liked." No,
0:36:28that's not okay. Still. How dare you? How dare you wanna see what your friends like?
0:36:34Yes, that was also something that was said.
0:36:38What's funny about this is that a few years ago, Jason Kotke launched exactly this service that I forgot about.
0:36:47It was called Stellar.io, and it was a web service that aggregated likes from a bunch of different social networks, including Twitter and Flickr, which obviously used to be a thing.
0:36:59I have a vague memory of Stellar.
0:37:02I know that a lot of people were really into it,
0:37:05and obviously it was shut down a few years ago.
0:37:07I believe-- - Sold the name,
0:37:09'cause it's now the five-star influencer marketing platform.
0:37:11- Yes, now it's the domain.
0:37:13I hope that Jason sold it for a really nice amount of money
0:37:18to those people.
0:37:19But yeah, I believe it was shut down
0:37:22because of obviously the Twitter API.
0:37:25And the thing is, yes, I just wanna have a system
0:37:30to an app, whatever, a place where I can go in,
0:37:35and there is a timeline.
0:37:36However, the timeline is not the tweets or the retweets,
0:37:41but just the things they liked.
0:37:43It seems, obviously, I got a bunch
0:37:48of really interesting replies to this.
0:37:50Obviously, once again, the problem is the Twitter API.
0:37:53It appears that, and I included the response
0:37:57by Nathan Lawrence, I believe.
0:38:01Yes, they're one of the developers of Nighthawk,
0:38:04which is a very unique Twitter client.
0:38:07And according to the API information that Nathan shared,
0:38:12you can only get the 20 most recent tweets,
0:38:17but they seem to be limited to,
0:38:21there seems to be like whether you're the type of developer
0:38:26that you are for the Twitter platform,
0:38:29you can get either 20 or 75,
0:38:31but you're still limited to throttle
0:38:34that request every 15 minutes.
0:38:36So there's obviously limitations in the Twitter API.
0:38:38You cannot get, say, hundreds of likes every two minutes.
0:38:42I don't think that would be strictly necessary
0:38:45for the kind of application that I would like to use,
0:38:48but still, that's worth keeping in mind.
0:38:50So I started to look around.
0:38:54Ideally, somebody will take this free idea and do something with it.
0:39:00And I will give you my money if you do so.
0:39:03It's literally the app that I want to use at the end of the day, every day.
0:39:07But I've been looking at potential alternatives right now.
0:39:11So a bunch of things were recommended to me.
0:39:14One of them is called OneFeed, which is this web app to sort of create a very lightweight
0:39:20RSS client.
0:39:22However, what sets it apart is that you can paste in links to YouTube channels, to blogs,
0:39:31obviously, but also to Twitter profiles, and it gives you the latest updates from those
0:39:36places, but it doesn't support Twitter likes.
0:39:40So it's different from that.
0:39:44Right now I'm hoping that the developers, who are, by the way, Italian, so that makes
0:39:49me always happy, of this service called MailBrew will be able to do what I asked. So MailBrew
0:39:56is a really fascinating web service that I should have tried years ago and I always forgot,
0:40:02and now I did try it and I think I really like it. The idea is that it's an aggregator
0:40:09for newsletters and social updates and RSS feeds, and at the end of the day you get a
0:40:16single newsletter containing links to all of that stuff. It's like a daily digest, basically.
0:40:22So you create an account and say, "Hey, I want to subscribe to these newsletters and
0:40:26I want to get updates from these YouTube channels and these Twitter profiles. Send me a single
0:40:31thing at the end of the day." And you can specify the time. It's very nice. The UI is
0:40:36really well done. And I'll tell you, Myke, the thing I think you're going to appreciate.
0:40:41It's a very good PWA on iOS.
0:40:44Ah, you know I love it good.
0:40:46What is it? I can always forget. It's like...
0:40:49Programs of Attitude. That's it?
0:40:51It's a program of attitude.
0:40:54I know you love it.
0:40:56Why don't they make an app, though?
0:40:58It's really well done.
0:40:59This feels like an app.
0:41:01I hope that they make it a native thing.
0:41:05So, today, they launched top links from Twitter,
0:41:10which is basically what Nasl... Remember Nasl?
0:41:12Yeah, I remember Nasl.
0:41:13used to do. So in your daily digest it gives you your most shared links from your Twitter timeline.
0:41:20And they told me they're gonna look into likes, Twitter likes. So maybe this could be a solution.
0:41:28Like at the end of the day I get a digest and it contains likes from select accounts that I follow on Twitter.
0:41:35However, a few minutes ago, as we were preparing for the show, listener and reader Ben
0:41:41Ben told me that this is possible in Fitbin.
0:41:45It appears that you can subscribe to anyone's likes via Twitter on Fitbin.
0:41:53So I was not aware of this.
0:41:57This is now really fascinating to me, because I am a Fitbin user, I am a Fitbin subscriber.
0:42:03And Ben shared a screenshot. Let me see if I can paste this link in the Discord.
0:42:11It appears that there's an actual setting that allows you to do this.
0:42:15And you can subscribe to anyone's like just by appending /likes to their Twitter profile URL.
0:42:22So I'm gonna consider this. However, at the same time, MailBrew is also like as a concept.
0:42:28very fascinating to me. I am now trying it for, I believe, the first couple of newsletters that you get are free.
0:42:37And what I did is I took all the newsletters that I'm subscribed to, like the Pitchfork one, the one from The Verge,
0:42:45I put them into the Mailbrew account, added a bunch of Twitter accounts, a couple of RSS feeds,
0:42:53and I received my digest at 7pm just before doing the show and it's very nice.
0:42:57So, I don't know, maybe I will be able to do this with Fitbin, maybe I will be able to do this via
0:43:05Mailbrew if the developers add support for Twitter likes, maybe somebody will make a native application
0:43:11for this. But, as always, I was literally in my pajamas in bed and I thought "Hey, you know, this is
0:43:20a fun idea for a tweet." And I was not expecting that kind of response.
0:43:25Story of your life there.
0:43:30Yes, yes. Sometimes the best tweets are always issued in those conditions, yes.
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0:45:09So, hey, we're gonna talk about hey.
0:45:14-Hey. -Uh, we're good.
0:45:16Steven's not here, let's talk about email.
0:45:18Um...
0:45:19There's two things I wanted to talk about with hey today,
0:45:22-and the first one... -Okay.
0:45:23...is kind of not really about email at all.
0:45:25Um, so Jason Fried, one of the co-founders,
0:45:28posted on Twitter, like, a link to an article called Hey World,
0:45:33And it is a blog post that was created by Hay, by emailing something, right?
0:45:41So he, within the Hay app, sent an email to an email address,
0:45:47which then took the text and created a blog post out of it.
0:45:51Basically publishing a blog over email,
0:45:55using the text editor built into the Hay app,
0:45:59including formatting and media attachments, because there's also an image.
0:46:03in this blog post, and it was sent to a specific email address.
0:46:09The subject becomes the title of the blog post, and the blog post leaves at a world.hey.com
0:46:17webpage that includes support for subscribing via RSS, or obviously via email as a newsletter.
0:46:29And Jason said, "We don't know what we're gonna do
0:46:32with this right now.
0:46:33It's just an experiment that we're testing."
0:46:35Jason is doing it.
0:46:38What's the name of the other Hey co-founder?
0:46:40- David Hanomani has it. - David.
0:46:43Yes, they each have their own Hey world pages.
0:46:48And I just think this is very,
0:46:50oh, there's a bunch of posts in here on the homepage.
0:46:54I just thought it was a single blog post.
0:46:56Jason published more stuff after that.
0:46:58Cool. So this instantly reminded me of a service that used to exist years ago called "Posturus".
0:47:09Remember Posturus, Myke?
0:47:11When I saw this in the show notes, I felt like a wave of nostalgia hit me in the face.
0:47:17Yeah, I remember Posturus.
0:47:19Yes. So this was a service that existed in 2010, 2011. It was later, obviously, as many,
0:47:30many good things that we used to use back in the day. It was acquired and then shut
0:47:35down by, guess what, Twitter. That obviously did nothing with it.
0:47:40Oh my god. Really?
0:47:42Yes. Why did they do that?
0:47:46Twitter years ago, years ago, in 2013, acquired a service that potentially could have solved
0:47:57the problems of tweet storms, for example, that potentially could have solved, or could
0:48:05have been like the original version of things like Substack, which is now so popular as
0:48:11a newsletter platform.
0:48:14It could have been all of that and nothing ever came of it.
0:48:19It was Postgres was kind of like Tumblr, right?
0:48:23Right.
0:48:24Am I remembering that right?
0:48:26Right.
0:48:27Well, you could email a blog post into your Postgres account and it would be published
0:48:33on this very lightweight, very simple, kind of like a Tumblr blog webpage.
0:48:42And you could send, like from mobile devices, you could send obviously an email, but also
0:48:47the email could include attachments, so photos, mp3s, video.
0:48:53And it was a very simple sort of a frictionless way to have a blog without having to publish
0:48:59via like a text editor, via an API.
0:49:03Just you could email your thoughts.
0:49:05And it was a very simple way to publish something on the web, including attachments, without
0:49:11complication typically involved with a blogging, with the CMS, really. And it was like a lot of
0:49:18people were really into Posterous back then. Remember, those were the days of South by Southwest
0:49:24when it was a big deal, sort of being the hot new startup in that space. And then, yeah, Twitter acquired
0:49:32Posterous and they did nothing with it. Yeah, there was an iPhone app to email photos
0:49:41into your posteros page. Pick posteros. Pick posteros, yes. And I think it's, as a few
0:49:49minutes ago we mentioned, this is literally how history works. It always repeats itself
0:49:53with familiar patterns presented in new ways. And in a way this is what the folks at Hay
0:49:59are testing now. If history truly repeats itself, Twitter's gonna buy Hay. Well, let's
0:50:05Let's hope that this is only true to an extent.
0:50:11But I think it's fascinating that we're now circling back to that idea.
0:50:15Having a blog is still too difficult, which I will not argue with that, because I think
0:50:21there's some truth to that.
0:50:22I think the barrier to having your own domain and your own space and CMSs are still too
0:50:30difficult to explain.
0:50:33And yes, I don't fully disagree with that.
0:50:37What if it could be easier?
0:50:39What if you could just send an email, which is something that basically everybody can
0:50:43relate to?
0:50:45What if it was as simple as that?
0:50:47You write the email as if it was a blog post, and you can include attachments, you can include
0:50:51photos, and you put it in a little subject field, and then it becomes a blog post, and
0:50:57you have a link that you can share with your friends, you can share on social media.
0:51:00I think it's a beautiful idea, and I really hope that it becomes part of the personal
0:51:07"hey" subscription plan.
0:51:09I would love to have this kind of feature, just even as a simple way to publish something
0:51:14that doesn't fit in a tweet, but is obviously not a post for Mac stories in my case.
0:51:20Some personal news.
0:51:21Yeah, just some...
0:51:22Yes, exactly.
0:51:23Some personal news.
0:51:25Some personal news.
0:51:26I have now quit my job.
0:51:28And I'm now a professional...
0:51:30I forgot how to use email.
0:51:32Yes.
0:51:33I do see stuff like this.
0:51:35I will be honest, my initial thought is,
0:51:39"Hey, focus!"
0:51:41Right?
0:51:42Like, I see something like that and it's kind of like,
0:51:45"Okay, new email service, you've probably got a bit of work to do,
0:51:49why don't we focus on the email service and not the blogging platform that you now want to build because..."
0:51:55the Evernote syndrome. You can't just do this, you're gonna have to give people tools to
0:51:59go in and edit it in case there's spelling errors, right? Like, gotta, you know, keep
0:52:04the focus, come on, you can do it. I don't know, man. Fun, yes, definitely. Fun little
0:52:10feature. I'm sure people would love it, but I do kind of... That's my initial feeling
0:52:18when I saw it, to be honest. It was kind of like, okay, make your email up, please. I
0:52:24I also don't disagree with that.
0:52:25- But maybe I'm cynical.
0:52:27- Well, it helps to be cynical these days.
0:52:31So I think it's cool.
0:52:34I also don't disagree with you,
0:52:37especially because Hey is such a young service
0:52:40with a long way to go in terms of addressing,
0:52:42as we're gonna talk about shortly,
0:52:44features that compete in email services,
0:52:47especially for professional users, they already offer.
0:52:51So I think it's cool.
0:52:52I also think you have a point.
0:52:54So I'm not really siding with anybody, but I just think as an idea in isolation, the idea is the right one.
0:53:02Because lowering the barrier to entry for publishing thoughts online,
0:53:06I welcome all solutions when it comes to that.
0:53:11But then strictly speaking about, hey, yes, maybe they should focus more on the...
0:53:18But they did say this is like a thing that we built and we're not sure if we're going to do anything here.
0:53:24Don't tell anyone.
0:53:25Why do you have to tell anyone?
0:53:28Right?
0:53:29It's just your little fun thing that you've got.
0:53:31It's just for you.
0:53:32But it's kind of like this isn't your problem to solve.
0:53:37Email service.
0:53:39Like the idea of making it more simple to post online.
0:53:44Like this isn't...
0:53:46You don't have to solve this problem.
0:53:48And you do open, you know, every time you do something like this as a paid service,
0:53:54especially a new one, you open yourself up to people being more frustrated at you.
0:53:59Because if there are things that you're still working on, that your cost paying
0:54:04customers want you to do for the service that you're paying them for, and then
0:54:07you're like, "LOL, but we just made a blogging platform."
0:54:10It's like, "Uh, okay.
0:54:12Can you get around to this feature that I need, please?"
0:54:16You know, I'm not saying not to do it, but I'm just I don't know how I feel about it.
0:54:21It just seems a little peculiar to me.
0:54:23Yeah. So what are these features that you as a Hey user are frustrated about?
0:54:30Well, over the past few months, it came a time when we had to convince Sylvia that she
0:54:38also needed to use because of the things she does at Mac Store is that she also needed to
0:54:42use hate. And she tends to be, rightfully so, very picky with the services and the apps
0:54:51that she has to use for work.
0:54:53Well, because as well she doesn't have, I assume, the natural curiosity about new apps
0:54:58and services that you do. So she gets none of that benefit out of it and only gets the
0:55:03downsides.
0:55:05She hates, and hate doesn't quite describe it. She actually deeply despises the idea
0:55:12of trying new stuff. She just wants to use one app and stick with it effectively forever.
0:55:20Which is funny considering what I do for a living, but hey, that's a different thing.
0:55:27And having seen how she's complaining about "Hey", I have identified, I think, at least
0:55:35two core issues that maybe eventually Hay will have to figure out. The lack of folders
0:55:42is one of them. She really doesn't... and I think this is one of the things that you also wanted to
0:55:49talk about, Myke. The fact that... the way that the inbox works, the fact that you cannot archive,
0:55:59The fact that you cannot move a message from the inbox to another folder and just leave it there
0:56:06that's one of our issues.
0:56:09Yeah, you can tag, you can label, you can add to collections, but she just wants to take one message
0:56:18and put it in a different folder for, you know, however you want to call it.
0:56:25The second issue is she misses a lot the more advanced filtering system from Gmail,
0:56:33and especially the fact that you can create a complex search query for things like if a
0:56:40message contains these words in the subject field and if it comes from this particular sender,
0:56:47then label the message as such and such or delete it or archive it, whatever. And you can,
0:56:55Again, you can label in "Hey", but you cannot create those kinds of more advanced filters yet.
0:57:01You cannot say "If it comes from this address and..." so you can combine multiple conditions.
0:57:08"And if it contains these words in the subject field, then do something."
0:57:12And she used to do that a lot in Gmail, especially for like receipts, for particular
0:57:19emails related to the business. So I think eventually, especially on the second one,
0:57:26on the filtering, I can see Hay doing this and I think they should focus on this, especially for
0:57:31their Hay for Work professional accounts. But personally this is not a big deal for me,
0:57:40the overall flow of Hay works for me as Federico, but I know that both John and Silvia,
0:57:49they have a different kind of email volume to deal with,
0:57:53and they have different kinds of emails to deal with.
0:57:56Like me, I just get mostly emails from developers,
0:58:02like actual people.
0:58:04Like I don't get receipts, I don't get invoices,
0:58:07that kind of stuff.
0:58:08And I understand where they're coming from.
0:58:12- Okay, so you do get, there is a labeling system.
0:58:14I wasn't even sure if there was a labeling system.
0:58:16- There is one, there is one.
0:58:18Which is cool, but as you say, automatic assigning of labels is a powerful feature, really, you
0:58:26know?
0:58:27Especially considering the fact that, hey, their whole thing is like trying to be smart
0:58:32about the email that's coming in, right?
0:58:37I signed up for Hey Today.
0:58:40Interesting.
0:58:41So I put this in the show notes because I was just wondering how it was going.
0:58:48And it seems like for you it's going fine, the issues in the Vitici household are Sylvia's, not yours.
0:58:54So I assume that you seem very happy with Hay, right?
0:58:58I am, she's not. I'm still trying to smooth the situation.
0:59:04I have a lot of work to do.
0:59:08Because I received the Hay for Work email and I wanted to try it and I got an invite.
0:59:15but then realized today it took me so long to set it up.
0:59:17Anyone can just sign up now. It's like I went to sign up. It's like, all right,
0:59:21where to put my code? And I never needed to do that.
0:59:24So I think it's open to everybody now.
0:59:26And so here's the thing for me.
0:59:29I was always assuming that I would probably try hang out under
0:59:34the terms that I've done it,
0:59:36which is there is an email address that I use,
0:59:40which is a legitimate email address that I want to use more.
0:59:44and I purposefully want to keep it outside of Spark.
0:59:48And this is the Cortex brand email address.
0:59:51So, uh, business@cortexbrand.com is the email address. Um,
0:59:56I've spoken about it publicly in the past.
0:59:58People can send in suggestions there for like,
1:00:01if they have products that they think could be cool for us or whatever. Uh,
1:00:06but also it's going to be like a, as time goes on,
1:00:08a public facing email address, uh, that I manage. Um,
1:00:13people are already asking if I'm making Gray use Hay, no I manage that email account. If
1:00:18he ever wants to and I stick with Hay then he's going to have to get Hay account too.
1:00:24And I also thought like I could with Hay's thing I could easily set up like Myke@cortexbrand.com
1:00:31because they have that thingamajig whatever they call it, the aliases or whatever. So
1:00:36So I thought I was keeping this, it was in Gmail, and I was keeping it in Outlook, right?
1:00:44Because I didn't want this, I wanted this to be an email account that I would just go
1:00:47to when I wanted to see that we would say, but in case there was a large volume of email,
1:00:54which isn't now, but when I was originally talking about it, there was way more email
1:00:58coming in than I would have wanted to be in my regular email inbox.
1:01:03So I thought, well, this seems like a perfect use case for me to try it out.
1:01:07And also there hasn't been a lot of volume to that email account recently, so I would
1:01:14be fine with making the change in case I have any downtime.
1:01:18And also I've dealt with pretty much all of the email that I want.
1:01:22And I don't really need that backlog because anything that I wanted to pursue in there
1:01:28I've taken out and stored in craft anyway.
1:01:32It's just like, here's some ideas and that kind of stuff.
1:01:35But I exported the email because I still want that Google
1:01:40Apps address. I still have the Gmail there.
1:01:43Like I'm not going to get rid of my Google Apps account also,
1:01:45because I'm not convinced that I'm going to stick with.
1:01:47Hey, but I set it all up today.
1:01:49The sign up process is pretty easy.
1:01:52DNS records are a terrible system for anything.
1:01:55And I can't believe it still exists and we're still doing this.
1:01:58MX records especially for email.
1:02:02Just all of it. I can't believe we're still doing it.
1:02:05There should be some kind of API that all of these applications and domain registrars could talk to each other from.
1:02:11And they are a sponsor of the show, but Hover do have a thing called Hover Connect
1:02:16where with some services that they work with, you can just press a button, it takes you to one,
1:02:21takes you back to the other and it's done. Which I just think is like, that's how this stuff should work.
1:02:25work, right? Like a kind of OAuth-like system. You know, like I'm deleting things and it's
1:02:31like, oh, it could take up for an hour. I mean, maybe you did it right, maybe you broke
1:02:35it. We'll find out in an hour. And it's like, this is horrific as a system. But I set it
1:02:40up. It took a while for a little while, weirdly. Email was appearing in both places. I don't
1:02:46know how that was the case, but like I was sending some test emails to myself and I was
1:02:51getting them both in Hay and Gmail even though I'd already removed Gmail from all of the
1:02:56AMX records and then eventually that stopped happening.
1:03:01I didn't set up a forward or anything and it didn't really feel like it was necessary.
1:03:05So I've only really tinkered around in Hay today and this is going to be a long term
1:03:09process for me because I want to see how it goes over a long period of time.
1:03:18I don't get a lot of email to his email address and there's probably something I will do more
1:03:22I will start sending from that email address as well.
1:03:27But I can't really put it through its paces until I receive a lot, right?
1:03:30Because that's the whole thing.
1:03:31But there was a few things that I did.
1:03:34So you kind of asked one.
1:03:35There's no archive function and I think that that's bananas.
1:03:39And then I have to constantly see the recently seen email.
1:03:43I don't want to see it.
1:03:44I want it gone.
1:03:45See, you're like Sylvia, yes. Why do I need it there? I've dealt with it.
1:03:51Why do you keep showing it to me? Well, the idea is that they want to remove
1:03:57the burden of archiving messages. Right, but then I have the burden of always
1:04:03seeing the email, right? Sometimes I reply to things and I'm annoyed
1:04:09by the reply that I send. So I reply, I archive the message so I don't have to think about
1:04:14So I come back to my email three hours later, I'm not reminded about how annoyed I was about that email
1:04:18But if I do that with hey, it's always there in my face
1:04:22I don't know why
1:04:26Like the feed and the paper trail they're sequestered into their own areas
1:04:30But recently seen has to be at the bottom of the im box
1:04:33It should be its own view very valid or could or collapsible even I don't know why
1:04:41Collapsible could work.
1:04:43It's like, it's my inbox, and my inbox is empty but also full all the time.
1:04:49Yeah, it's the Schrodinger's inbox.
1:04:51It is, and I don't understand it.
1:04:55What are notifications like?
1:04:57Do you use them at all?
1:04:59You...
1:05:00Yes I do.
1:05:01You can set notifications on a per contact basis.
1:05:04Yeah.
1:05:05And also I noticed that they're off by default, which I thought was interesting, and I like
1:05:09that they said, and I would need to test, you could turn off notifications for an entire
1:05:13domain, and I just thought that was very clever.
1:05:17Yeah, and you can also mute threads, you can turn off domains, and you can enable them
1:05:24for contacts. Which is what I do, I only turn them on for specific contacts or specific
1:05:30threads, but mostly contacts. So I just go into the contact page, and from there you
1:05:36can choose where to auto file messages from that contact and to enable notifications or
1:05:41not.
1:05:42I have another question for you. How do I know when there's new email in either the
1:05:48feed or the paper trail?
1:05:50You do not, unless you enable notifications for those addresses.
1:05:53Right, and so you see this is an issue for me. So let me explain to you why I think this
1:05:57is a problem.
1:05:58Well, or you could use the widget.
1:05:59I could use the widget. So it shows you in the widget but not inside of the app?
1:06:05Well, it doesn't... well, no, there's no badges or anything like that. You just gotta open
1:06:10the menu and switch to those pages.
1:06:12So every time I check "Hey, I have to check three places if I want to see how much email
1:06:17I've got." And I don't know how that's supposed to help me, right? So like, you would... the
1:06:25automatic filing of stuff is meant to keep you focused on your email, right? That's the
1:06:30idea makes perfect sense but for me to check how much email I ever have I have
1:06:35to check everywhere potentially four places if I've got a screener hmm yeah I
1:06:41don't know because this is this is the type of person that I mean maybe they're
1:06:47not building for me where I am the type of person that wants to know and so like
1:06:55for example, I have, uh, I use SaneBox, right?
1:06:59And I have SaneLater and SaneNews,
1:07:01which are basically the feed and paper trail, right?
1:07:04It's like that's kind of what they're doing.
1:07:05But in my email clients, they badge them.
1:07:10Now I can see those badges and choose to go in if I want to,
1:07:14because I can see that there's new email there. But with Hey,
1:07:19I would have to be going there every single time to check if there's new email
1:07:24there and most of the time there wouldn't be. But I still want to know what's in there.
1:07:30I guess you got to use the widget.
1:07:31But I don't want to use the widget though.
1:07:33Right?
1:07:34But then you're out of luck. Yeah.
1:07:36Do you know what I mean? It's like I don't...
1:07:38I know. Yeah.
1:07:39I definitely don't want my email app as a widget because I don't want to know how much
1:07:47email I've got when my email app is closed. Right? Because now we're like if... Because
1:07:53You see that the failure in logic here for me is if you use the widget it's okay to know
1:08:00if you have email in the feed or the paper trail but if you're in the app it's not okay.
1:08:07So they think it's okay sometimes to show you the numbers but not all the times?
1:08:13Plus I hate that their app is just a web view on the Mac.
1:08:18That is also a concern, yes.
1:08:20So I know that right now all I have is the frustration because I've not had the opportunity
1:08:28to really use the service.
1:08:31I have not yet gotten to a stage where it's doing stuff to my email for me, which is clearly
1:08:37what's good about this.
1:08:39That's why people like it, it's why you like it, it's why lots of people like it.
1:08:43Because it can free up your email inbox for just the stuff you want to see.
1:08:49And so I have to give it some time and I'm in it for the long haul.
1:08:51I'm not going to move away.
1:08:53I want to give this a long time trial because also it's not my most important email.
1:08:59So I'm fine with it for right now.
1:09:03Right.
1:09:04Like I'll just leave it for a while and I'll see how it goes.
1:09:06But my first run experience has not been very positive.
1:09:12And I think it's purely because for whatever reason this system wasn't built for the type
1:09:17of email user I am, which is totally fine.
1:09:20Not everything has to be built for me, but I can still
1:09:23communicate what I think are some issues with the service.
1:09:27Yeah. And you are an email power user
1:09:30who deals with a lot of email, much more than I do.
1:09:35And I totally understand these issues.
1:09:38And hopefully, like as you start working with it, as you start receiving
1:09:42more emails, you will also appreciate the things that I appreciate.
1:09:46Like for example, it's stack season right now in the US, and like John and I,
1:09:51we've really been taking advantage of things like collections to file messages
1:09:56and to keep a timeline of messages belonging to a particular topic.
1:10:01Obviously leaving a comment on messages, which is something that you do in Spark, for example.
1:10:08We use that a lot in Hay as well.
1:10:11And personally speaking, for my own usage, just the separation between the inbox and the feed.
1:10:17The paper trail, I just I don't really care about.
1:10:20I keep things like confirmation emails.
1:10:23I basically never check it.
1:10:24I mostly split between the inbox and the feed.
1:10:27And having also the reply later area that I use a lot.
1:10:35Just I like the idea of having no new stuff under the new for you section.
1:10:42So hopefully over time you will also appreciate these things.
1:10:46And otherwise you're just going to have to switch back to something else.
1:10:51But I think give it a few months and see how it goes.
1:10:54And hopefully, as you do this, hopefully the company will add some new functionality.
1:11:03Like this week, for example, they finally, I would say,
1:11:06they made it easier to switch between multiple accounts.
1:11:09They have a proper account switcher UI
1:11:11that is pretty fast to use,
1:11:13and they also have a unified view for all accounts.
1:11:15So they are working on catching up with the competition
1:11:19and hopefully search, filters, that kind of stuff is next.
1:11:23Although I really like your idea of collapsing
1:11:28the recently seen section,
1:11:30and I would like to see folders.
1:11:34Just maybe let me create my own section.
1:11:38Just let me create my own reply later.
1:11:41Let me create, basically, those are,
1:11:43if you think about it, those are folders.
1:11:44So let me create my own area.
1:11:46You can call it a folder,
1:11:48you can call it a section, whatever,
1:11:49but basically a way to move a message
1:11:51from one place to another.
1:11:52We'll see.
1:11:54I hope that they're not too stuck on the original idea,
1:11:59and that they are willing to listen to users.
1:12:04This is always the problem with opinionated software,
1:12:07if you will.
1:12:09The developer has some really deeply rooted ideas
1:12:14and it's hard to move them away from those,
1:12:17but I think you gotta find the balance eventually.
1:12:19- I don't know how normal or not I am,
1:12:23but I probably get about 50 to 60 emails a day.
1:12:27And you know a lot of that is stuff that requires my attention. Quite a
1:12:35portion of it is stuff that I would love to be automatically just obliterated but
1:12:43unfortunately a lot of that stuff is stuff that as of yet like I can't get
1:12:48rid of until it's come in the first time which is like hey you should have this
1:12:52person as a guest on a show and I can get that I could put those in the same
1:12:56black hole thing that I use and then I never hear from that person again but it
1:13:00doesn't mean I'm not gonna get enough of five of those emails tomorrow from
1:13:04different people like you know my email is a constant game of whack-a-mole but
1:13:09there is also a vast majority of email that I get does require my attention
1:13:15it's not like email newsletters like I get those but not a lot of them I may
1:13:22I have the type of job where I deal with a lot of email.
1:13:27So I'm always interested in things that can try
1:13:29and make that easier for me.
1:13:31And so I wanna give it a shot,
1:13:36'cause I'm willing to let go of things that I want
1:13:40for something that is better overall.
1:13:42Like I'm willing to let go of some of my particulars
1:13:47if I can get a better system,
1:13:49which is like how I felt with Spark.
1:13:51I was willing to let go of some things about how I like an email app to be designed because
1:13:55the service is so good.
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1:16:27So a couple of weeks ago, you asked me a question, which was, are there new apps anymore?
1:16:34And I put a pin in this because I figured we would want to talk about it at some point
1:16:37and today's that time.
1:16:38So I want to know where this feeling is coming from for you.
1:16:42So I've been thinking about this and I think it's a combination of different things that
1:16:48I believe and that I've noticed, especially over the past year or so.
1:16:55The idea that more than before I am frequently resisting the urge to try new stuff.
1:17:07And I've been thinking about it and obviously the first, almost default answer was, "Hey,
1:17:11that's what happens when you grow old."
1:17:12And I don't think that is it necessarily because when I find something new, I get very excited
1:17:23still.
1:17:24I mean, look at, hey, look at Spotify.
1:17:26Like just in recent months, we've seen examples of me being excited and, you know, happy to
1:17:33try new stuff.
1:17:35Doing your thing.
1:17:36my thing. The problem is it's much harder for me to be surprised these days by new apps.
1:17:46And so I've been thinking about this. Why is that? And I've come up with a few points
1:17:51that I would like to mention and discuss. The first one I think is that over time I've
1:17:58I've been doing Mac stories for the past 12 years at this point.
1:18:03And I have obviously developed my own tastes, my own needs, my own requirements.
1:18:10And especially when it comes to work-related apps, I think more than ever I sort of demand some kind of maturity,
1:18:20some kind of a high degree of maturity and flexibility from the apps that I know I'm going to rely on.
1:18:27So I think my threshold for something new is higher than ever.
1:18:33And it gets very challenging for developers to meet that, especially with the 1.0 release.
1:18:40Which again, when it happens, again, look at Kraft, for example, when it happens, I'm the
1:18:48happiest man on earth.
1:18:50When I see the 1.0 that ticks all those boxes, I am blown away.
1:18:56but it's much, much harder, and it used to happen more frequently before.
1:19:01Now it's a very rare thing.
1:19:04The second issue I see lately on the App Store, on places like, what's it called, the public thing for test flights, airport?
1:19:17App airport.
1:19:18App airport, yeah.
1:19:19I see a lot of, John calls them cookie cutter apps.
1:19:25They basically all look similar. I don't want to say the same.
1:19:29Is that SwiftUI?
1:19:31I've been thinking about this.
1:19:33Thinking SwiftUI.
1:19:35Maybe that's the downside of something like SwiftUI.
1:19:38It democratized and it made it easier for a lot of people to get into app development.
1:19:43Well, the second thing too, maybe it's not just that.
1:19:48Something like App Airport exposes you to more applications from first-time developers
1:19:56and smaller developers than you would otherwise see.
1:19:59Yeah. Yes. Yes.
1:20:01And I try not to think about that too much because I know that Airport is not like the App Store.
1:20:06There's a lot of apps that always stay there and they never come out publicly.
1:20:10And there's, look, there's a lot of gems that I discovered on airport.
1:20:18One of them, denim. It's this really well done utility that allows you to make custom cover images for your Apple Music playlists.
1:20:28This is very pretty.
1:20:30Yeah, I discovered it on airport. It's now on the App Store. So I'm not saying that all test flights are bad and they never turn into shipping products because experience proves otherwise. But a lot of them, they are either similar or pretty much, you know, almost the same. And yeah, so there's that.
1:20:53So there's that. The other problem, this is an obvious one.
1:20:56I get demoralized when I see a new application
1:21:02and I start keeping an eye on it.
1:21:06We have our own internal tool at Mac Store is called UpdateBot,
1:21:11which is a thing that keeps track of app releases on the App Store.
1:21:15And I get...
1:21:17It's very sad when I see this new, potentially promising utility
1:21:23and it obviously gets abandoned after like two updates.
1:21:28It's like, well, this could have been something,
1:21:31but it's been six months and I don't see any updates,
1:21:34so I guess the developer's done.
1:21:37So that, you know, yeah, it makes me sad.
1:21:41It's just, eh, you know, could have been interesting.
1:21:44I guess they're not working on it anymore.
1:21:47The other major turnoff for me is apps that are
1:21:52that are, again, potentially interesting, and then you download them, and one of two
1:21:59things happen on first launch. They want me to create an account.
1:22:05Everything's a service now.
1:22:08Everything's a service. Create an account. Just let me... Which I think it's actually
1:22:12against App Store review guidelines. You should provide some kind of demo functionality without
1:22:18requesting...
1:22:19Wasn't that the exact thing that got "Hey"?
1:22:22I think so.
1:22:24I think that was what they said.
1:22:26"You just give us a login screen,
1:22:28and you won't let anyone create an account."
1:22:30Remember how they had to create the demo version of the app?
1:22:36Yes.
1:22:38Vidit makes a really good point in the Discord.
1:22:42SF Symbols have also made a lot of apps look similar to each other.
1:22:46Very good point.
1:22:47Because there's no custom iconography anymore.
1:22:49In a lot of apps there's no custom iconography anymore. So that definitely contributes to that.
1:22:54So as I was saying, they either asked me to create an account, which like I could understand for like a
1:23:00document collaboration service, sure, I need to create an account.
1:23:04Why do I need to create an account for a calculator or a note-taking app? Help me understand here.
1:23:10What am I exactly creating an account for? So that annoys me.
1:23:13The other thing is you download something and the first thing it shows you,
1:23:18"Hey, subscribe! There's a free trial, but first I'm gonna throw a subscription screen in your face
1:23:25and you cannot demo the product, you cannot try it. First
1:23:29give me your confirmation that you want to try this thing for free for two weeks,
1:23:32and then you'll get the chance to try the app." Which,
1:23:35you know, I hate to
1:23:38mention names, but we're gonna talk about this in a few minutes. These new apps by...
1:23:44what's it called?
1:23:45Andy Works?
1:23:46- Andy Works, yeah.
1:23:47- No more boring apps.
1:23:49They released a calculator, a weather app.
1:23:52The first thing you see is a subscription screen.
1:23:54You can like, and I thought the dichotomy between,
1:23:59hey, this is not a boring app.
1:24:02This is the most fun you've ever seen
1:24:04on the App Store in years.
1:24:06And, but first, here's a subscription screen for you.
1:24:09Otherwise you cannot try the super fun thing we built.
1:24:12I thought that was a fascinating contrast
1:24:16for a first run experience.
1:24:18So to sum up, the combination of all these problems,
1:24:23but mostly I would say apps that look similar to each other,
1:24:28like, yeah, I've seen this before,
1:24:30and I've seen this before, and I've seen this before,
1:24:33that makes me bored.
1:24:35But also the fact that over time
1:24:39I've been doing this long enough
1:24:41that I think I have a very high threshold for being surprised.
1:24:49And lately it's happened like a cannon on one hand.
1:24:53Like the times that I've been like...
1:24:55genuinely blown away by a new product.
1:25:01In most recent memory,
1:25:04Kraft.
1:25:06For sure.
1:25:07Or Tio, maybe the new text editor.
1:25:10Like it happens very...
1:25:13Oh, Tai...
1:25:15We never talked about this?
1:25:16Oh, I mentioned it on App Stories.
1:25:17There's this new text editor, which is like the spiritual successor to editorial.
1:25:22It's called TAIO.
1:25:23T-A-I-O.
1:25:25It stands for Text All-In-One, which...
1:25:28I know, it's not the best acronym.
1:25:32But it's an amazing and very...
1:25:36See, that's one of the very promising new apps that I'm keeping an eye on.
1:25:41Oh, I know what this is now. I heard you talk about it.
1:25:43It combines a text editor...
1:25:44I thought you said "tile".
1:25:46No, "tai-yo".
1:25:47"Tai-yo".
1:25:48"Tai-yo".
1:25:49Yeah.
1:25:50"Tai-yo".
1:25:51T-A-I-O. Text all in one.
1:25:53But it happens very rarely.
1:25:56And I am very...
1:26:00Sometimes I see, like, for example, a few days ago, everybody tweeted about this new weather app,
1:26:06this new timer and calculator app, and I thought,
1:26:09"Yeah, well, that looks fun, but is it really doing anything different besides showing you numbers with a 3D effect?"
1:26:18It's like, where's the innovation?
1:26:21Alright, so I brought this to your attention, I think, the Antiborgz apps.
1:26:25because I don't remember how I saw them but I saw somebody retweet them and it
1:26:29was like a couple weeks ago or whatever and I know this because I got the
1:26:34subscription thing today. I'd let them bill me because I'm intrigued
1:26:40and this is like a collection of applications that are intending to be
1:26:50different. So they're made of a game engine I'm not sure which one but that's
1:26:55one of the reasons why they look so incredibly different. I agree with you that one of the things
1:27:00that they do is the first thing when you either download any of the three apps that they make,
1:27:04one is a timer, one is weather and one is calculator, is they try to have you subscribe,
1:27:10which I think is not the best thing to do. I get it, right? But I think maybe they should try and
1:27:17have something. So Vidit Sanks will SceneKit in SwiftUI, right? So SceneKit is an interesting way
1:27:23to build apps like this, right? Like SceneKit is a game engine. And I understand, right?
1:27:29Make your money, like I get it, but I think at least some kind of idea of what I was paying for
1:27:33would have been helpful. But I was approaching these as a information research exercise,
1:27:42so I was willing to pay. What I will say is none of these applications have something to them
1:27:52where I feel like it's the app that I need to use for its purpose.
1:27:57But what I will say is I appreciate what they are trying to do.
1:28:03And the way that I take, by looking through their materials,
1:28:09this isn't the end result for what they're attempting here.
1:28:14This is like a beginning of a movement.
1:28:18And I think that the movement that they are attempting to get to is coming from what you are finding, right?
1:28:27That there is potentially could be argued that apps are becoming a bit boring sometimes now.
1:28:36And so like, I think what, you know, whether I don't know if they would say that what they've done here is like the perfect encapsulation of what they're attempting.
1:28:46But they're trying to, I think, bring back some of the more playfulness of, say, iOS 6 applications
1:28:58in a more modern aesthetic. And if that is what they have attempted to do, I think that they have
1:29:04succeeded greatly on that. Because these applications feel playful, they have sound to them, and lots of
1:29:11really good tactics and animations. And so they're fun to just play with, but they feel
1:29:18modern. Most applications that I have tried that harken for that old time feel old when I use them,
1:29:25right? Or it's that, what is that halfway point that I see a lot now? What is that called? You
1:29:33know what I'm talking about? Where like, it's that design style, which is, it looks like a kind of
1:29:39a SwiftUI type app, but is it Neomorphism?
1:29:42Oh yeah, yeah.
1:29:44Well is it?
1:29:46I don't remember the name, but that really doesn't do it for me.
1:29:50It looks like the application elements are popping out of a piece of paper.
1:29:55Oh yeah, Neomorphism, yeah that thing, yeah, it just makes no sense.
1:30:00That style I don't particularly like, and there is something that I find intriguing
1:30:04about the design of these applications.
1:30:09And I'm not necessarily advocating for them as great apps, but as a project for "I want
1:30:21to do something a little bit different."
1:30:25I like it.
1:30:26Now, again, I also think that there is a spectrum of feeling on here, and I don't think I'm
1:30:33exactly in the same boat as you, but we had come at things differently, right? Where I don't look
1:30:40for new apps as much as you do, but a couple of years ago I did note that I've had this similar
1:30:49feeling. And this was during one of the State of the Apps episodes that we did for Cortex every year
1:30:54where I felt like there wasn't really anything. And the conclusion that I came to for myself was
1:31:02I had gotten to the point where moving to something else felt like such a hassle for
1:31:08a lot of the tools and services that I used that it had to be really good for me to want to do it
1:31:14and that was something that I was noticing but maybe it was more of a me problem.
1:31:19But I do find interesting what you're saying about design that maybe...
1:31:28So there was a time when design would be the reason.
1:31:33But I think what's happened is the bar of design has raised, right?
1:31:39Because like just a standard SwiftUI application
1:31:42looks so much better to me than any standard UIKit application did.
1:31:48So the bar of like this is a baseline app
1:31:52I think is a lot better now than it ever was. So I think it
1:31:56it makes it harder to stand out? I don't know. Is there anything else on this? Like, what do you want?
1:32:03Right? What do you want that will make this better for you, do you think?
1:32:07Well, I noticed that I now tend to gravitate toward really mature and flexible apps. And by
1:32:17flexible I mean look at things like Carrot Weather, for example, right?
1:32:21Carrot Weather, I mean, we said this when it came out. That's a trend that we all want to
1:32:25to see, right? Like really heavy customization, toolkits in applications.
1:32:30Yes, heavy customization. Things like Good Task also is a really good example. You can
1:32:36make your own utility, basically. Or the other end of the spectrum is no customization but
1:32:45a lot of, like, a lot of care for a lot of details. Again, look at Craft or Timery. Like,
1:32:53Obviously, even if you don't have customization, even if you don't have a toolkit for making your
1:33:01own UI, but a lot of attention to things like multiplatform, shortcuts integration, keyboard
1:33:10shortcuts, widgets, implementing the latest APIs. And I think what's really tricky these days is
1:33:22coming up with trying to match all of this aspect in a 1.0 for a new developer, I realize
1:33:32it's difficult. But I think it happens in any market, right? And the App Store has existed for
1:33:41we're going into our 13th year of the App Store. And there's obviously developers who've been
1:33:48around since the beginning, like Peacock for example. And imagine being a new developer
1:33:55in 2021 who wants to make a calculator for pro users and you're like, "Well, I have 13 years
1:34:03of Peacock to catch up with here. Is it even possible?" And I don't have a straight answer
1:34:10to that, right? It's obviously very challenging, so either you try something different like
1:34:15Andy works, even though I dislike their implementation of the first run experience.
1:34:20Or maybe you just go for it and you try to take advantage of the things that Apple has simplified
1:34:27and made easier for you, maybe like design. Maybe you try to differentiate on having a
1:34:33universal app, having shortcuts integration, having Siri integration, that kind of stuff.
1:34:37But I think personally speaking, I look at my home screen and when I see stuff like
1:34:44Good Task, Kraft, Timery, what's the other one, Carrow Weather, Music Harbor, Apollo.
1:34:55And I look at these apps and I'm like, well, there's something in common between all of
1:34:59these, which is the developers are always working on these apps, right?
1:35:05They're constantly updating them.
1:35:07They're constantly taking advantage of new features.
1:35:11And most of them, even Apollo, I would consider one of the most customizable apps I've tried
1:35:17on my devices, they prioritize that idea of the ecosystem is mature enough, apps are mature
1:35:26enough, what's a good way to differentiate, to bring back the fun?
1:35:31Customization.
1:35:32You make it your own.
1:35:34And I think that's it.
1:35:35In 2021, especially considering what we witnessed in iOS 14.
1:35:40I think that's a pretty safe way to ensure that you can keep the passion from people
1:35:47like me, I think.
1:35:48Maybe customisation removes the concern of apps looking similar on the...
1:35:55I absolutely agree with that, yes.
1:35:58It's a good way to ensure that you can stay fresh and interesting, I think.
1:36:03Because look, we all like to customise, and those who say they don't, they just don't
1:36:09know it yet. I firmly believe this. Lastly, what I would say is something that would not
1:36:20rekindle because there's nothing to rekindle here. I still love testing and writing about
1:36:25apps. Something that would help. Well, two things. More pro apps for iPad, but especially
1:36:37made by Apple. Like, I want to see Apple lead by example here. There are pro apps on iPad.
1:36:43I still think that Apple should come out and say, "Hey, here's Logic, Final Cut, and Xcode."
1:36:50Like, the bare minimum they should do. And the second thing is, I feel like it would
1:37:00be generally like a new beginning for me and for Mac stories if there ever was Gatekeeper
1:37:07on iOS and iPadOS. If Apple were ever to bring proper side loading to iPhone and iPad so
1:37:14that you can install apps from other sources. Because I've also considered like, the fact
1:37:23that I have this thought and that I have this question for Myke, "Are apps boring now? Are
1:37:28there any new apps anymore? Is it because after 12 years of Mac stories I'm now bumping into
1:37:38App Store limitations? Is that one of the potential issues? Maybe. And I know that if folks like Panic,
1:37:46for example, could bring their apps without any restrictions to iPad and could charge for them,
1:37:57however they want, I know that that would do a lot in terms of, you know, "Hey, here's a whole new market of apps for you."
1:38:06I don't think it's ever going to happen.
1:38:10In a way that it could do is people that feel like they might be pushing,
1:38:15have an idea that will push the boundaries might say, "I'm not going to bother with this."
1:38:20Right? And there's an app you potentially lost out on because they figure it won't get through App Review.
1:38:26But if there was side loading, then they might be more willing to give it a go.
1:38:33Because no one can stop them.
1:38:36But you're not going to get that.
1:38:38No, I don't think so.
1:38:39You'd have to hope for other stuff, I don't think you're going to get that.
1:38:44So to sum up, it's not like I don't like apps anymore.
1:38:50It's that I... it's becoming increasingly more difficult for me to be genuinely surprised
1:38:57by new apps for all the reasons we mentioned here.
1:39:01Well, thank you for sharing.
1:39:03Sure, it felt like therapy.
1:39:06If you would like to find out more about this episode of Connected, you can use the web
1:39:11if you like, or the relay.net/connect/334.
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1:39:31Anybody that has signed up, thank you so much.
1:39:33If you are going to sign up, also thank you so much.
1:39:36I would also like to take a moment to thank our sponsors of this week's episode.
1:39:39They're the fine people at Pingdom, Bombas and Baron Figg.
1:39:43If you want to find Federico online, you can go to maxstories.net and he is @Vittici.
1:39:47I am @imike, I M Y K E and Steven, who will be back next week, is at ISMH. The episode
1:39:56of Liftoff that Steven did with Ron Moore from For All Mankind is super good. I recommend
1:40:02trying that out. And hey, if you like this show, let me tell you about another show here
1:40:06at Reel AFM. It's a show called Pictorial. So look, we all love art in some way, right?
1:40:11But maybe we're tired of elitism keeping beautiful art stories out of reaching expensive classrooms.
1:40:16Soa Quinn and Betty, they host a pictorial podcast all about art history.
1:40:20You can find pictorial to listen more and learn yourself at relay.fm/pictorial or search
1:40:27for pictorial wherever you get your podcasts.
1:40:31We'll be back next time.
1:40:32Oh, hold on, Myke.
1:40:34Oh, whoa.
1:40:35Hold on.
1:40:36I have a question for you.
1:40:37Hey, look at that.
1:40:38Yeah, I wasn't going to do it.
1:40:40Okay, go on.
1:40:41You have a question.
1:40:42Okay.
1:40:43Would you rather be invincible but not immortal?
1:40:50Like you can be invincible but you're still gonna leave this world someday?
1:40:56Or would you prefer to be very weak, like no physical strength whatsoever, but immortal?
1:41:05So weak forever or invincible for a short period of time?
1:41:10Well to find short, is that like a regular life expectancy?
1:41:13Mm-mm.
1:41:14Yeah, invincible but regular life expectancy.
1:41:18Okay, interesting.
1:41:20I don't like the idea of being incredibly weak and living forever.
1:41:24That sounds horrible.
1:41:25Plus I don't think-
1:41:26You can live forever, you can try a lot of stuff.
1:41:30I don't think anyone should live forever if they're gonna be unique in that.
1:41:34Really?
1:41:35Really? You have to watch everyone you love die.
1:41:40But still, you can witness a lot of cool things and you can do everything you can possibly
1:41:45want to do, travel the world multiple, multiple times over and over?
1:41:48Right, but that means you are eventually going to run out of things to do?
1:41:53No, you can never run out of things to do. There's always new things to do.
1:41:57No, I would prefer strength and regular life expectancy.
1:42:01- Invincible but regular life expectancy.
1:42:03- Yeah. - Okay.
1:42:04- Thank you for that question.
1:42:06What would you prefer?
1:42:07- See, I'm not as sure as you.
1:42:13- Okay.
1:42:13- Because the idea of living forever
1:42:15is actually pretty compelling.
1:42:17I think we gotta define weakness,
1:42:19like because I say incredibly weakness.
1:42:21- You defined it, Federico.
1:42:22You defined it. - Would you like to be
1:42:23very frail and--
1:42:25- That was how I described,
1:42:27'cause what I thought you were gonna say was invincible
1:42:30and mortal or immortal and... invincible? I don't know the opposite of invincible.
1:42:38Fallible? That's what I thought you were going to say and then it's like oh that's a bit
1:42:42more interesting of a thought process right? Like I can be hurt but I can't die. But you
1:42:49went with very weak. So I was kind of like well I don't want to be very weak. That sounds
1:42:55horrible. So you set the parameters on that one. I still don't think I'd change my answer
1:43:02though.
1:43:03Yeah, because, yeah, maybe I'm, like, if I had to pick I would say invincible and regular
1:43:06life expectancy, because man, imagine being invincible.
1:43:10Sounds pretty great, right?
1:43:11But also, like, would you care about being invincible? Like, are you the type of person
1:43:15who prioritizes being invincible? Like, do you get into many fights?
1:43:20I would if I was invincible.
1:43:22If it was invincible, I'd just go solve everything I wanted to solve, right? Like, I can't be
1:43:28hurt. I like this idea of an invincible but mortal person, that they couldn't be hurt
1:43:34by anything and then one day, gone.
1:43:37You know what made me think of it? You know what made me think of it? When you collect
1:43:40the star in Super Mario, you are invincible but for a short period of time.
1:43:45Well, I mean, I hope it would be longer than Mario, because that's really not very long.
1:43:49Like I guess if you want to put it in Mario terms, would you want to get the star, or
1:43:53would you want to be short Mario, you know, before you get the mushroom forever?
1:43:57But again, you're not giving, like, much of a... who wants to be the tiny Mario forever?
1:44:04That sounds horrible.
1:44:05Hey, maybe there's some... hey, maybe some folks like to do that.
1:44:09That's why I asked you.
1:44:10Yeah, no, I definitely like invincible but mortal.
1:44:14Yeah, okay.
1:44:15Okay, alright.
1:44:16Thank you for that question.
1:44:17Sure.
1:44:18you like getting these questions actually. It's very intriguing. Alright, we'll be back
1:44:24next time. Until then, say goodbye Federico.
1:44:26Adios, El Chirio.