0:00:00[Music]
0:00:09Hello and welcome to Connected, episode 301.
0:00:13I had an internal debate if I was going to say 301 or 301.
0:00:17Do either of y'all have thoughts on that?
0:00:18301, it sounds more professional.
0:00:21I thought so too.
0:00:22Yeah.
0:00:23301 is a little casual.
0:00:25Because you could mean like 3.01, right?
0:00:28Like we could start numbering the show like developers number their releases now.
0:00:31It looks like a like a web browser error, like three error,
0:00:36three or one like, you know, disconnected or something.
0:00:39When whatever podcast it was hit episode 404 for the first time,
0:00:43I was very nervous that it was going to break our CMS. But it didn't.
0:00:47Yeah, we just hit it for the pen addict a few weeks ago and I was terrified to
0:00:51publish that episode.
0:00:52Anyway, this is still the intro of a podcast.
0:00:55Yes, so welcome to Connected episode 30.1.
0:00:58My name is Stephen Hackett.
0:00:59This episode is sponsored by our sponsors because they sponsor things Smile, Miro, and
0:01:05Pingdom.
0:01:06It's an odd episode, so Myke, you get to go first.
0:01:08Hi Myke!
0:01:10I would like to request that when you introduce me in the future that you introduce me as
0:01:17His Excellency, the Royal Keynote Chairman.
0:01:19What?!
0:01:20I'm not gonna do that.
0:01:22I have decided that my chairmanship is a Royal chairmanship, as you will see from the @keynotechairman
0:01:28account which now features lots of crowns and decrees. And I would like to be known
0:01:33as His Excellency, the Royal keynote chairman, Myke Hurley.
0:01:37You don't have the lineage for a Royal chairmanship.
0:01:40Sure I do.
0:01:41No, it's not something that you can just come up and say.
0:01:44You only got it because I had it. You were my son.
0:01:46I have Divine Podcasts right. That's what got me here. And so that's what I want. That's
0:01:54what I want.
0:01:55He wins a single thing and look at what he's done to his head. Like, oh my god.
0:02:01His Excellency, the Royal Keynote Chairman, Myke Hurley.
0:02:05You know we're gonna call you this for the next 12 months, every single week.
0:02:10I will be thrilled to be known as...
0:02:12Steven, can you please redo the intro and actually call him? We're gonna put this in
0:02:17the document so he's gonna be happy. I'll do it next time. We'll see. I'll just bring
0:02:23it up. Okay. Hi Federico. Hey Steven, how are you? Hey. I'm a normal person so I don't
0:02:29have any requests. I'm just happy to be here with you. And, what's his name? His Excellency
0:02:35the Royal keynote chairman Myke Hurley. Yeah. It's an honor, sir. Thank you, thank you.
0:02:41always nice to spend time with the subjects. Wow. It keeps me grounded, you know? Wow, wow, wow,
0:02:49we appreciate it. Thank you so much for... You could lose this title anytime. They could have
0:02:54another keynote at any moment. Just a heartbeat away from retaining my crown, which I lost in a
0:03:03stupid coin flip. I'm retaining the crown. You would be regaining, I don't know, a presidency
0:03:10or something. You don't have royalty there.
0:03:12Oh, we could. We're sliding towards it. Okay!
0:03:16Follow up! Federico, teach me everything you know about Xcode Preview.
0:03:21This is fun because, if you recall, one of my passion picks from the previous round of predictions was...
0:03:28No, it was your Ricky pick!
0:03:30Yes, it was a Ricky pick, but it was made with passion, so it was a passion Ricky.
0:03:33Right, right, right, right.
0:03:35that Apple was going to introduce a new development tool for iPad that was not with Playgrounds.
0:03:41And of course, that did not happen. However, it was recently revealed, we've seen in one
0:03:48of the sessions and it was shared by Jordan Singer on Twitter, that Xcode 12, which is
0:03:54the new version of Xcode for Mac OS, does come with a new utility app called Xcode Previews
0:04:01that you can run on your iPhone, that you can run on your iPad, that allows you to have interactive
0:04:07on-device previews of your SwiftUI views. So you can run these Xcode previews utility on your iPhone
0:04:15and your iPad, you're going to have a real-time preview of SwiftUI, and you can, you know, it's
0:04:20better than just having a simulator, you can actually do it on device. And there's an actual
0:04:24icon called Xcode previews, it's a new feature of Xcode, so it is kind of close to having
0:04:31a new development tool for iPad. Of course it does not qualify for my Ricky
0:04:37pic because it does not let you write code on device. This is a preview
0:04:43utility. So it is a developer tool but it does not let you write your
0:04:48own code and test your own code on device. It's an Xcode extension
0:04:53essentially that lets you preview your code but that code still needs to be
0:04:58written on a Mac. So, close, but not what I was actually predicting.
0:05:04It is cool, though. I could see this being really useful working in SwiftUI. Not that
0:05:08I know about development.
0:05:11What is your opinion on SwiftUI, Steven?
0:05:13I think it's a UI idiom.
0:05:17It's declarative, right?
0:05:18Yeah, it declares itself to be Swift.
0:05:21It declares!
0:05:22Yeah, I mean, if there's one thing we can all agree on is that SwiftUI is declarative.
0:05:27can agree on that part. Yeah, yeah. I mean, of course, you know, when it comes to the
0:05:32clarity, but yeah. It's like the most declarative UI really. And again, we can all agree that
0:05:40that is good for scaling across the platforms, which we want. Sure. I mean, declarative is
0:05:46the way to go if you're going to have a, you know, uh, uh, an ecosystem, right? Of modern
0:05:52frameworks. Of modern frameworks. You want to make sure that you're like, you're writing
0:05:56code and you look at your coding and you're like, is this declarative enough? And if not,
0:06:00you know, you gotta really, you gotta reassess your setup.
0:06:03You look at the code and you're like, this isn't declaring anything. And then you throw
0:06:07it away. Start again.
0:06:09We should be developers. I'm just saying.
0:06:12We know, we know what we're talking about.
0:06:14We do. We do.
0:06:15While we're in the lane of WWDC follow up, Apple design awards were held this week. Not
0:06:21the week of WWDC, which is kind of, kind of weird, but I guess they could take all the
0:06:25time they want. John Voorhees, whoever that is, has an article over on MacStories about
0:06:31the winners. No Mac winners, all iOS. Some people are cranky about that. But I think
0:06:38the apps here are all really pretty cool.
0:06:41It's nice to see a lot of iPad apps, I think, in this year's awards, specifically called
0:06:48about. Darkroom, for example, Loom, which is a very fun and innovative animation utility
0:06:55for iPad. There's Shaper, which is of course the 3D modeling app. There's StaffPad, I remember
0:07:01it being a big deal for professional musicians when it came on the iPad. I think StaffPad
0:07:06used to be on Windows before, and they were able to bring out an iPad version as well.
0:07:11And then of course there's some Apple Arcade games, we're going to talk about Apple Arcade
0:07:15later, I think. But yeah, I think it's nice to see, especially on the productivity side,
0:07:20Apple giving these awards to iPad apps. It's a good sign, I like it, personally speaking, of course.
0:07:27The lack of Mac awards, we were actually talking about this in private in our group,
0:07:34also with John Voorhees. There's a real question of, like, who would you give the award to on the
0:07:41the Mac. Sure, stuff like Pixelmator Pro didn't really come out in 2020, though. It was more
0:07:47like of a 2019 thing and it received a bunch of...
0:07:50I just searched because I was intrigued. There were no Mac winners last year either. There
0:07:55was a game that ran on the Mac, but it was an iPhone and iPad game that also ran on the
0:08:00Mac. So this isn't new.
0:08:01Yeah, like the Apple Arcade ones run on the Mac, but they're not what I consider Mac apps,
0:08:06right? They're not cross platformy things. Anyways.
0:08:10That's not to say there are no great apps on the Mac, it's just there's a lot fewer
0:08:17than them, especially on the Mac App Store.
0:08:21In 2018 the app Agenda won for iOS and Mac OS, but let's be honest it probably won for
0:08:28iOS.
0:08:29Mmhmm.
0:08:30I'm like trying to go back, like how far do I need to go back to find an app that was
0:08:35just a Mac app?
0:08:37like 87 88 you know the least apps were dying off 2017 there weren't the only
0:08:44app that ran on the Mac or two actually things in airmail 3 but they were also
0:08:50cross-platform so honestly may have not even be considered for their makness
0:08:54man you guys keep going but I'm gonna keep searching for this so we'll do some
0:08:59real-time follow-up to our follow-up shortcuts got a lot of stuff you know
0:09:04it wasn't mentioned in the keynote, wasn't really in the State of the Union, I don't think, but
0:09:08turns out there's a lot of cool stuff. We talked about some of it last week, but Federico, we
0:09:14wanted to point out one thing in particular here, right? I had no idea that this was actually
0:09:18brought back, but it was first noticed by Simon Stovering, who is the developer of Scriptable
0:09:24and DataJar on Twitter. He noticed that it is now possible again to import shortcuts as files. So,
0:09:33if it used to be possible that you could export an individual shortcut as a .shortcut file.
0:09:41And in previous versions of shortcuts before iOS 13, it was possible to basically create these
0:09:47local backups, these local copies of your shortcuts, and delete them from the app. And then
0:09:53if you wanted to re-import one of those shortcuts, you could just use the file. And this feature was
0:09:59removed last year in iOS 13 as part of the stricter security measures in shortcuts.
0:10:06And a lot of people, including myself, criticized this decision of not allowing people to back up
0:10:15their own shortcuts as individual files offline, instead forcing everybody to use iCloud.com,
0:10:21which is a sharing method, it's not a backup method. Those are two different things. Now,
0:10:26in iOS 14 you can import your .shortcut files again. So very good news, especially if you like
0:10:34me. I have lots of shortcuts and you maybe... maybe you have like a shortcut that is kind of meta, but
0:10:41I have a shortcut that backs up all my shortcuts in a zip archive. And I run this regularly, and in
0:10:47fact I had so much faith that complaining about this stuff would actually work that I've been
0:10:54running this shortcut every month for the past year, even though it wasn't possible
0:10:58to import those shortcuts anymore, because I kept my faith. I'm a man of faith. I keep
0:11:02my faith in things that I feel strongly about. And my faith has been rewarded, because now,
0:11:08well, not that I need to import my backup again, but I was right in feeling that this
0:11:15feature would come back. And I think, generally speaking, it feeds into this idea that Apple
0:11:21has been listening to power users regarding shortcuts for the past few months. In fact,
0:11:26in addition to power user features like this one and the other features that we talked about
0:11:32last week, like copy and paste and folders, there's also some really interesting additions for
0:11:38developers who want to integrate with shortcuts and do something more than just use like a series
0:11:45shortcut to activate like a quick feature. If you're a developer you can now mark some of your
0:11:53actions in shortcuts as deprecated. This is quite common for apps that ship a specific shortcuts
0:12:02integration and then later the developer wants to do something else but they are stuck with that
0:12:07old action. They cannot quite remove it because it would break a shortcut that maybe some people
0:12:13have created, but they want to introduce a new version of the same action. Well, now if you're
0:12:18a developer, you can say this action is deprecated, it'll break in a future version of my app,
0:12:23there's a new action, there's a new different action that you can install in the meantime.
0:12:28So that's very nice. And I know that developers like Simon and like Greg Piers of Jafs have been
0:12:33asking for this kind of functionality. And the second one, this was actually mentioned in one
0:12:39one of the sessions, there's a new API for shortcuts developers. It's called
0:12:45In-App Intent Handling, which basically means that if you're a developer and
0:12:50you have an intents-based integration, so intents are the
0:12:55technology that powers the actions the developers can make for the shortcuts
0:13:00app, now you can handle those intents inside of your own app, instead of
0:13:06of running the intent inside of the extension.
0:13:09Basically, this means that you're not,
0:13:14like the end user, you're not gonna notice anything.
0:13:16It's more of a technical change.
0:13:18But in practice, it means that a lot of actions
0:13:21are gonna be a lot more powerful with iOS 14.
0:13:25Because running an intent-based extension
0:13:29comes with its own limitations,
0:13:31in terms of like APIs and frameworks that you can access.
0:13:35And now if you run the intent in app,
0:13:39you will not have those limitations anymore.
0:13:41A good example of this would be again,
0:13:43Scriptable by Simon Stovring.
0:13:47Previously with the old Intents framework,
0:13:50you couldn't use bookmarks, file bookmarks,
0:13:53created in Scriptable inside of shortcuts.
0:13:58And Simon treated again a video showing how
0:14:02it was able to switch to the new
0:14:03in-app intent handling in iOS 14,
0:14:05and now shortcuts will be able to retrieve and use
0:14:08and access all of your file bookmarks
0:14:11that you created in Inscriptable,
0:14:12because there's no extension in the middle anymore.
0:14:15So a lot of these limitations, I believe, will go away
0:14:18and will have a lot of actions
0:14:20that will be a lot more powerful than before.
0:14:22So again, these are very much like technical changes,
0:14:25but if you're the kind of developer
0:14:28really wants to integrate with shortcuts,
0:14:29you should be taking a look at this stuff,
0:14:32because both of these, like being able to mark actions
0:14:35as deprecated and have a superior handling
0:14:38for your intents.
0:14:40I know developers like Simon, like Greg,
0:14:42have been asking for these features.
0:14:44Also Alex of Toolbox Pro, they've
0:14:46been asking for these features for the past 12 months.
0:14:48And it's very good to see that somebody on the shortcuts team
0:14:52is still listening, even though they may not
0:14:54be as vocal about it on Twitter as before,
0:14:57but they're still listening.
0:14:58And really, for them, this in theory
0:15:01should be low priority stuff. This is not like...
0:15:06This is the most power of power users that use these tools. You've got
0:15:11Shortcut's power users and then you have power user power users who are using
0:15:14like Scriptable and Charti and yeah you know that it's like a... this is not to
0:15:21discredit those applications they are fantastic but they are you know they
0:15:27really are for specific people which is why they're priced that way as well as
0:15:30they should be like they're not cheap applications for that for that reason so
0:15:33by the way 2015 again was the last time that an app let me guess which one okay
0:15:43they were two two of them yeah one of them is capo incorrect oh no
0:15:51Steven, do you want to guess? 2015. 2015.
0:15:55Pixelmator or something. Wrong.
0:15:57Umm... Reader?
0:16:00Wrong.
0:16:02Tot?
0:16:04Noctapel.
0:16:06Fantastical2 and Affinity Designer.
0:16:08Affinity!
0:16:10And they won explicitly for their Mac apps.
0:16:14So it's been five years since a standalone straight up Mac app has won an Apple Design award.
0:16:20So the fact that people seem surprised this year, there you go, don't be.
0:16:25We have some very important follow-up. Myke, I feel like as his Royal Highness you should share this with the people.
0:16:32No, this isn't how it works because we don't have these kinds of documents.
0:16:37Alright.
0:16:38We don't have these kinds of documents in a Royal institution.
0:16:44Right.
0:16:45So I think you should do it.
0:16:46So big news, Batias over on Twitter has created for us a PDF that is the Bill of Rickeys.
0:16:54This is incredible. I cannot believe that this happened so quickly.
0:16:59Now I have a question. Was this in the main show? Or was it in the post show?
0:17:05I don't, I can't tell the difference.
0:17:07Okay.
0:17:08But yes, basically, as a joke, as most of the things I say, it was just like a quick joke of
0:17:15of like, hey, imagine if all the rules behind our Ricky's and our predictions game that
0:17:21we do every year, imagine if it was like presented as like a physical manuscript that looked
0:17:28like the bill of rights or the Magna Carta and somebody actually put this together. So
0:17:35as you can imagine, it looks like an old document with the handwriting.
0:17:39It's very well done. It's very well done. And it begins saying,
0:17:44What's the name of when you start one of these documents and the first letter is bigger than
0:17:51the rest of the text?
0:17:53Drop cap?
0:17:54Maybe. Maybe it's dead. Maybe it is dead.
0:17:57Not when it's bigger, when it also has that very specific look.
0:18:00Yeah, it's got that look.
0:18:03As Jason knows, he was around when they wrote the Constitution.
0:18:05It's got that look.
0:18:06Well, he was.
0:18:07Anyway, it says, "We, the co-hosts of the Connected Podcast, in order to form a more
0:18:13perfect podcast, establish justice, foster network tranquility. Boy, tranquility is such
0:18:19a good word. Promote the weird fish emoji, uphold technology without borders and secure
0:18:26the blessing of Apple related news to ourselves and our listeners. Do ordain and establish
0:18:33this bill of rickies for the connected podcast of relay FM. My word, this is perfect. This
0:18:38is beautiful.
0:18:39It's beautiful. And then it goes on to list all of the rules as they are currently.
0:18:46There is a space for us to sign this and I think the three of us should all sign it.
0:18:52And we have to sign it and send it around to get real signatures.
0:18:56That sounds like a project for me.
0:18:58Should we get this notarized? Like actually notarized?
0:19:02Yes, we should.
0:19:03If you are a listener who is a notary, let us know if this is a crime.
0:19:08Is this legal? Like, can you actually notarize this stuff?
0:19:13I genuinely would like it notarized. How do we do that? Do we have to get on a Zoom call?
0:19:18No, no, we're doing this wrong. We have to sign this in person. So next time we do a
0:19:23live show...
0:19:24Oh my... Oh, yes. Yes.
0:19:26We'll sign it and have it notarized on stage.
0:19:29You've got to make it big. Like, really big.
0:19:32That we will do. So we will find an Otterie who's willing to come on stage for a live
0:19:37podcast recording.
0:19:39I have another thing, and this should probably be added into the Bill of Rickeys. Whoever
0:19:43wins has to take it home, and it is their property, until the next winner wins. And
0:19:53it then has to be sent to that person to be looked after.
0:19:57Wow, yes. Also, what are your guys' thoughts on having some kind of like medieval style
0:20:06announcer read out the Bill of Rickeys before we declare the winner? Like a jester or like
0:20:14somebody? Well, that's a good, I mean we always read the rules anyway. It could be like either
0:20:19a jester or like, like, like, I don't know, somebody and like there's like also trumpets.
0:20:25A town crier? A town crier with a bell? Yes. Oh my god. Is that another job for Jason?
0:20:32Town crier? As long as they don't have to flip a coin we're fine.
0:20:37We can talk. Alright, so this is continuing to get more and more complicated.
0:20:43So I have a PDF of this in our dropbox and we'll go from there. But this is amazing,
0:20:48thank you so much for this amazing work. We have some follow out. I wanted to point
0:20:55people to upgrade episode 304 or Myke you and Jason had a really cool interview
0:21:01yeah we had the opportunity to interview Bob Borchers and Ronak Shah who work on
0:21:06Apple's product marketing teams and we spoke about Mac OS Big Sur and some of
0:21:12the new features in Safari so if you want to check that out I think it was a
0:21:16really great interview came out really well and yeah I'm really pleased that
0:21:20that we were able to get Apple on the show.
0:21:23Like I guess, spoiler alert,
0:21:25like we're about to, after this break, right,
0:21:28we're gonna have another interview,
0:21:29which we'll talk about in a minute.
0:21:30Stephen, would you like to take a break
0:21:31and we'll introduce that?
0:21:32- Let's take a break and then we'll introduce that.
0:21:35How does that sound?
0:21:36(laughing)
0:21:37- Great.
0:21:39- We're on the same page.
0:21:40(laughing)
0:21:42- Federico, what do you think?
0:21:45- Yeah, sure.
0:21:46I mean, why not?
0:21:48Mm hmm. Mm hmm. This episode of connected is brought to you by PDF
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0:23:11All right, so a few days ago, we had the opportunity of sitting down
0:23:15with Jenny Chen and Stephen Tomer from Apple.
0:23:18Stephen is from the product marketing team.
0:23:20And Jenny is an engineer who works on Apple Pencil software.
0:23:24Jenny was in the keynote showing off the new features
0:23:27for the Apple Pencil, which obviously I'm very excited about.
0:23:30So we're going to go to that interview now and you're going to hear all about
0:23:33Apple Pencil and a lot of conversation about iPadOS as well.
0:23:38So for me, definitely both Scribble and the new handwriting and shape recognition features in
0:23:45iPadOS and PencilKit are easily my favorite new features in the entire operating system.
0:23:50So I really want to start talking with these first. So Jenny, do you imagine that these new
0:23:58features are going to make the Apple Pencil even more of a core part of iPad use for a lot of
0:24:05people? Yeah, I mean, definitely. I think one of the really great parts about Apple Pencil and the
0:24:11iPad is, A, the note-taking abilities that we had before, but now we're so much smarter with what
0:24:17you can do with it. Like, you know, we can recognize your handwriting. It's so much easier
0:24:21to select without having to enter any modal type things. And then along with Scribble, it's like,
0:24:28I can go from one to the other, never have to put it down. Yeah, I think that's totally right. And
0:24:33And just to add a little bit more to that is,
0:24:37one of the things we've heard for many years
0:24:39from our very passionate Apple Pencil users is--
0:24:43and I think this is something that you can only
0:24:45appreciate if you really are a passionate Apple Pencil user--
0:24:48is when you're using it, when you're
0:24:50in that flow of drawing or illustration or note taking,
0:24:54putting it down can have that effect of breaking that flow.
0:24:59And you don't want to have to put it down to respond to an i
0:25:02message or do a quick search in maps for, you know, a dinner location or something like
0:25:07that.
0:25:08And so with Scribble, you don't have to put it away to do those kinds of things.
0:25:12And it keeps you in that pencil state of mind, which is tremendously helpful for people who
0:25:18love being in the flow of using Apple Pencil.
0:25:21And that's kind of the, I think that's really the spirit of bringing Scribble to iPad is
0:25:25keeping you in that flow while you're using Apple Pencil.
0:25:29So when I'm using the Apple Pencil, that's the mode that I'm in at that time.
0:25:33Like I have done things like having the little mini keyboard in the side and using the swipe
0:25:39to enter text on that.
0:25:41So I am like so so happy now about being able to just handwriting the text that I want.
0:25:46It's such a fantastic way of keeping me doing what I'm doing rather than thinking about
0:25:51having to switch to typing now.
0:25:54It really kind of keeps the flow on the device that I love.
0:25:57Cool.
0:25:58college we took this user interface class and how efficient the user interface was always
0:26:03judged on how long does it take you to do a task, how many taps does it take, or even
0:26:08in this case, how long does it take me to flip out my keyboard to enter this modal state,
0:26:13enter text again. And I think one of the nice parts about the pencil is that you just put
0:26:18it down. No taps. Quick and easy.
0:26:23So speaking of the flow of working on the iPad, something that I got from watching some
0:26:27of the sessions is this idea of you now have this multiplicity of inputs on iPad.
0:26:34So you have touch, first and foremost it's still a primary touch device, and you have
0:26:38a keyboard and you have the pointer and you have the pencil.
0:26:41And I was wondering, what are some of the challenges of making sure that all of these
0:26:46different inputs can work together so seamlessly on iPadOS?
0:26:49Yeah, so that's actually something that we spent a lot of time refining.
0:26:55I'm sure as you've played with Scribble, you'll notice how the keyboard interacts with it.
0:27:00And so when you start scribbling, the keyboard doesn't start popping up.
0:27:04You stay in this scribble experience, and there's that little palette that shows Go
0:27:10or any of the other quick actions that you may need without the keyboard popping up and
0:27:14getting in your face, even though you clearly aren't using it because you're scribbling.
0:27:19And even with pointer interactions, too, we've done a lot of special things for Scribble
0:27:22to make sure that you know where you're writing, but without it being super in your face.
0:27:28Do you expect that some users will end up in situations where maybe you're using a magic
0:27:32keyboard or an external keyboard and a pencil at the same time? Like, is it something that
0:27:37you see or that you get, like, requests from customers of, "I want to so quickly switch
0:27:42between all these different inputs"? Is that something that you get frequently?
0:27:46Yeah, Federico, absolutely. And I actually think that's one of the main reasons people
0:27:51by an iPad is it has this incredible versatility of inputs. It's arguably the most versatile
0:27:59device we make at Apple, and that's its superpower, right? So I can, without actually changing
0:28:08anything about the UI, and this is genuinely what I love about iPad, is I can go from a device that's
0:28:14touch first, right? That is the center of gravity for us, is touch first. Then I can put it in the
0:28:19Magic Keyboard and I can use the cursor. And then I can use Apple Pencil in that same flow,
0:28:27and I never once have to change the way the UI works. I don't go from some desktop mode to touch
0:28:34mode. The OS just knows what I'm doing and adapts to that. And I think that is how we think about
0:28:42iPad. That's what our customers love about iPad. And so we work really hard
0:28:48and it's at the engineering level, and Jenny could probably talk more about this, is it's
0:28:54really hard to make that seamless, but that's why we do what we do, right? We don't want the customer
0:29:00to have to have to worry about any of that. They should just be able to use the iPad with any input
0:29:04they want, and it seamlessly adapts to them. I've been playing with the handwriting recognition for
0:29:10a couple of days on my beloved iPad mini. I'm trying to get all my friends back into the iPad
0:29:14Mini Club. Hey I'm back in the iPad Mini Club, I'm right there with you. Yeah I know, it's
0:29:18really just Myke. If they keep talking about it I'm gonna end up doing it. It's like, but
0:29:28then I'll have three iPads in consistent use. I told you it's perfect for reading, the thing
0:29:33is you don't like to read. So that's the problem. Then we'll get you. I've been incredibly impressed
0:29:40with not only the accuracy of the handwriting recognition, but the speed of it as well.
0:29:46Could you talk a little bit about how that's happening?
0:29:48Is it on-device?
0:29:49Is it using machine learning?
0:29:51What's going on behind the scenes?
0:29:52Yeah, I mean, we've obviously done a lot of work on the machine learning side.
0:29:57It's all on-device.
0:29:59We've trained a lot of models with a huge amount of data.
0:30:03And then we have this on-device machine learning that we've made sure is super quick, super
0:30:08performant.
0:30:09We've actually done a lot of work this year because we have all of these super
0:30:13responsive handwriting type features that kind of require, you know, immediate
0:30:17feedback to make sure that everything is smooth and zippy.
0:30:20And then even from the user interface side, you know, there was also a lot of
0:30:24work done in terms of like tuning those animations to make sure they also feel,
0:30:28you know, reactive and zippy as well.
0:30:29And I think the other interesting point on this one is there's no
0:30:34training of this system involved.
0:30:37You don't have to go through a give us your handwriting sample,
0:30:41write the quick brown fox seven times or anything like that.
0:30:45We've really worked hard to make sure that this thing works
0:30:48amazing out of the box.
0:30:51And the processing happens all in real time.
0:30:54So as you're taking notes, you can immediately
0:30:56go into data detectors.
0:30:57You can immediately start selecting text.
0:30:59And I think that's a real testament to the work
0:31:02that Jenny and the team have done on the model training
0:31:05part and the A-series processors right in every iPad that our users have is they're incredibly
0:31:11fast, incredibly powerful, and we can do all of this in real time. And it's when you bring that
0:31:17hardware and software integration together that really makes that experience incredibly seamless
0:31:22for the customers. Two things that I've been super impressed about in my testing so far
0:31:28is one how the system doesn't care if I'm writing in like print or cursive or a mixture of both,
0:31:35which is what I do, which I was so surprised that it didn't care. But also I have quite bad
0:31:41handwriting, doesn't matter. And like seriously hats off to that because like this stuff is
0:31:47incredibly hard to do and especially as you say with no training like that is very impressive.
0:31:52Hey Jenny, do you you might also want to talk a little bit about how
0:31:57You guys worked really hard to make sure it works great when you're writing, you know,
0:32:01not in a straight line and some of the considerations there, because I think that's
0:32:05also, there's some really great details that the team thought about here.
0:32:09Yeah, I mean, I think both are really great points. The fact that it recognizes most people's
0:32:14handwritings, even if maybe a human couldn't even read your handwriting, I think is really impressive.
0:32:20And I think that's really a testament to the amount of work that our machine learning team
0:32:25has done, right, and gathering the corpus of training model data so that when you do write
0:32:30on your device, you don't need to have trained it with your own handwriting already. It kind of
0:32:35already knows. And then, in addition, like Stephen said, you could write in a little spiral and it
0:32:41would still recognize it, which I think is also really impressive. And so we've also done a lot
0:32:45of work tracking your strokes as they go to see what path you might have followed. And you can
0:32:53can see that even when you smart select, right, you know,
0:32:56when you smart select, when you select normal text, it's very
0:33:01linear. But I think that's one of the awesome parts that we
0:33:05have with smart selection with your handwriting is that, you
0:33:08know, how often is my handwriting actually a straight
0:33:11line? Probably never. It always has a slight tilt. And you know,
0:33:16maybe I'm feeling a little fun and want to write in a little
0:33:19spiral or like in a little wave. And I think that's one of the
0:33:22really cool parts about smart selection is that, you know, we can still know that you're
0:33:27writing in this wave and select it like that instead of being constrained to this really
0:33:32linear form.
0:33:33JEAN-PAULO
0:33:51that Scribble uses. And so I feel like it's one of those things where it's like, "Oh, yeah,
0:33:57of course you should be able to select handwriting like this. It works with typed text. Easy peasy,
0:34:02right?" But there's so much machine learning happening under the hood. And then in addition,
0:34:07like, as I said before, one of those challenges is that text is just so linear versus your
0:34:13handwriting. It could be diagrams and drawings, nonlinear text, random arrows pointing everywhere.
0:34:20And so that was definitely one of the challenges of handling
0:34:23selection, smart selection, in Notes.
0:34:27So I was playing around with Scribble on iPad S14
0:34:30on my iPad Pro.
0:34:31And something that I noticed is that-- so I
0:34:33tried to handwrite in a bunch of different text fields.
0:34:36And something that I noticed was that when I opened Music
0:34:39and I went to search for something on Apple Music,
0:34:42and I used Scribble in the search field,
0:34:45the placeholder text inside the search field disappeared.
0:34:48And so then I was watching a session about this,
0:34:51and I wanted to ask you, if I'm a third-party developer,
0:34:55and I wanna integrate, and I wanna offer support
0:34:57for Scribble in my text fields,
0:34:59are there any particular considerations
0:35:01that I should account for, such as, for example,
0:35:04in Apple Music, you got the placeholder text,
0:35:07but it disappears because it doesn't wanna get in the way
0:35:09of your handwriting?
0:35:11- Yeah, definitely.
0:35:12I think your music example is a perfect example of that.
0:35:15Other considerations are if your text field moves.
0:35:19So search is actually a good example of this.
0:35:22So if you type in your Safari search bar,
0:35:25you know, with a normal keyboard,
0:35:26you'll actually notice the search bar moves up
0:35:28as you type to, you know,
0:35:29give more room to surface the search results.
0:35:32But when you use a pencil,
0:35:34you actually don't want that, right?
0:35:35Because if you're writing and then all of a sudden
0:35:37the text, the like search bar moves underneath your pencil,
0:35:40like that's such a jarring experience, right?
0:35:43I think one of those principles that we really want third parties to adhere to is, you know,
0:35:48make sure that your text fields stay where they are when users write. Another consideration, too,
0:35:54is how big your text field is in the space. So if you'll open messages, for example, you have
0:36:01a single line text field on the bottom, which, as you're typing, feels pretty natural, but as
0:36:08your writing can get a little awkward as your hand is, you know, hanging halfway off the iPad,
0:36:13or as you like, you know, start entering a multi-line scenario. And so kind of adjusting
0:36:20your text field so that they feel the most natural that you can for writing. I think one of the great
0:36:25parts that we actually also do for you that you don't have to do as a third-party app developer,
0:36:29but you can customize if you want, is that you can be a little sloppy and right outside the box
0:36:34if you want. So even if I start scribbling and my handwriting is too big for this tiny text field,
0:36:40you can still write outside the lines, don't have to follow the lines like you did in elementary
0:36:44school, and will still know what text box you meant to write in.
0:36:48Yeah, and to add a little bit more to that, Federico, since you brought it up,
0:36:52the other thing the team worked incredibly hard on is making sure that the vast majority of
0:36:57third-party apps don't actually have to do any adoption to get scribble.
0:37:01Right, that was my follow-up.
0:37:02So good. You and I are on the same wavelength, which is no surprise at all. Yeah. So this is
0:37:08something that as we were looking at Scribble internally, we wanted to make sure that adoption
0:37:13was only necessary in the places where we might not be able to do that at the system level. Maybe
0:37:19there's something highly custom in the app, but I think you'll find that the overwhelming majority
0:37:23of apps will just work with Scribble. And I think that is, and that includes apps that use web views
0:37:29in their apps and native obviously UI text fields. And I think this is part of really bringing
0:37:35Scribble to life is it just works and you'll find that and I think that's what users will expect
0:37:41right when you think about it. You don't think if a keyboard is going to come up when you tap into
0:37:45a text field and Scribble should work exactly the same way and it does. I am also as well a big pen
0:37:52and paper nerd but one of the things that I love about when you can intersect these analog and
0:37:58digital tools is how they can assist you in places that you would otherwise be lost in.
0:38:05And smart shapes and data detectors are really good examples of that because I can still get the
0:38:12feeling of drawing myself or writing down something, taking a note myself, but still get to take
0:38:18advantage of what a computer can do for me. And I thought that that was such a beautiful way of
0:38:25Bridging the gaps between those two things does that type of stuff ever drive your thinking about trying to find ways to bridge those?
0:38:31experiences for people oh
0:38:33Absolutely. I mean, I think one of the principles that we have with Apple pencils
0:38:38we really want to make it, you know, just as easy as
0:38:40Picking up a normal pencil and paper right? I put my pencil down
0:38:44I'm making marks really easy and like you said, I think at least for me too. There's something really
0:38:51memory enforcing about writing something down. Yeah. And so I
0:38:55take notes aggressively, just so that I can help absorb that
0:38:59information. Another one of those things that we think about
0:39:01is, how can we make it as smooth and easy as possible? But then
0:39:06what can we also provide you? That makes it even better? Like,
0:39:09why would I reach for an iPad over a pencil and paper, right?
0:39:12And I think these smart features really help build on that a lot,
0:39:17so that it's not just the thing you wrote and, you know, help you absorb this information.
0:39:22But also you can take action on it. You can do things to it later. You can, you know, I think
0:39:29one of the great parts is like, "Oh, I needed to insert this whole extra paragraph because I forgot
0:39:35to write it in." And instead of, you know, drawing those really long arrows and trying to fit things
0:39:40in the margins, I can just like move everything and everything still looks really nice.
0:39:44things like search, right? Paper, you can't search your handwriting. And so yeah, I think
0:39:49Jenny's spot on. We want to provide that friction-free experience you get with paper,
0:39:55but then take it to a whole new place. You know, even scanning documents in, right? You scan a
0:40:01document in and you can search that document now in Notes. And so that's, yeah, we're really excited
0:40:07about this kind of whole new way to work with on iPad. Yeah, I was actually, you know, taking
0:40:12notes the other day and then someone was wrote a website and I was like oh I really want that
0:40:16website and I'd handwritten it and then I was able to like go to the website afterwards and I was
0:40:20like wow this is so useful. When the Apple Pencil came around the first time when we first had it,
0:40:26it was really focused on being a creative tool and an artistic tool and that was like a really
0:40:32fantastic purpose for it but now it's it really feels like these features are helping it become
0:40:38the meeting tool, the note-taking tool that many people I think do use the Apple Pencil for,
0:40:44but these new features really help make that a much, much better experience,
0:40:49which I think is really amazing. Yeah, 100% agree. It's been really fun to watch
0:40:55Apple Pencil grow, right? And I think the principles of it, what's great is they've
0:41:02remain the same. We want low latency, right, versatility. All of those things have helped
0:41:08make it give you that feeling of paper. And I think the other key part of this is,
0:41:15and we talked about this last year at WWDC, where we were able to reduce the latency in software.
0:41:20And I think that's one of the incredible parts about Apple Pencil is that we can continue to
0:41:25improve it, both from the hardware and the software perspective. That's what's been helping
0:41:29it grow and grow and grow into this really incredible way to input on iPad.
0:41:36Yeah, to add to Steven's point too, I think iPad itself has seen this transformation from this
0:41:42creative device to this productivity device as well. I can do so much more on my iPad,
0:41:47and then all these pencil features just help you be more productive as well.
0:41:51So Steven, I'd like to dig in a bit deeper on iPad S14 in general, if you don't mind.
0:41:59Believe it or not, Federico has some questions.
0:42:03Exactly, exactly.
0:42:05Look, I have a long list and I had to cut it down, so bear with me.
0:42:09Just a few questions.
0:42:13So I guess the first one that comes to mind is the home screen, right?
0:42:18And on IPRS 14, we have these new widgets,
0:42:20this new widget kit framework for developers,
0:42:23and these widgets that can be glanceable, can be relevant,
0:42:26and of course you've provided some default widgets.
0:42:29We can try it now with Apple Music and Notes and Reminders,
0:42:32and they look fantastic.
0:42:34Now, on the iPhone, the home screen allows you
0:42:37to intermix these widgets with app icons,
0:42:40and so you can have these very custom layouts
0:42:42with widgets of multiple sizes,
0:42:44and then you can have the icons flow around them.
0:42:46On the iPad, in iPadOS 14, however,
0:42:49the widgets are still placed in the left column.
0:42:51And I was wondering if you could elaborate a little
0:42:54on what was the reasoning behind this difference between the two home screen experiences?
0:42:59Absolutely, glad you asked about that. Before I jump into that, I do think, and I think it's worth
0:43:06kind of noting that aside from the difference in where you can place them, the widgets themselves
0:43:12are identical in terms of capability. So the design, the size, the smarts, which we can talk
0:43:18about as well if you'd like, are all the same, which is great. So it really gives you that nice,
0:43:22consistent experience. The short answer is that this year we really decided to focus the iOS
0:43:30experience on intermixing on the home screen. As you know very well, last year we added the
0:43:35ability to pin widgets to pin the Today View as it were next to your apps on iPad. And we really
0:43:42felt this year that that was the right placement for them because you can have them right there
0:43:47with your apps on iPad, the larger screen on iPad also lends itself better to that so you can get
0:43:53more content on the screen. Whereas on iPhone, if you want that experience, you know, prior to iOS
0:43:5814, you had to swipe over to Today View, which you can still do. But putting them on the home screen
0:44:03gave iPhone users that same immediate benefit of accessing the widgets from the home screen. And so
0:44:08that was why we decided to kind of keep those separate. The other feature that is also only on
0:44:14on the iPhone for now, I believe, is the App Library.
0:44:16So you have this new method of organizing apps automatically
0:44:20for you in different categories.
0:44:21And you have also intelligence there
0:44:23because you have suggestions and you have recently added,
0:44:26but that's only on the iPhone.
0:44:27And now this is my personal theory,
0:44:29and you can correct me if I'm wrong,
0:44:31but between the widgets and the App Library,
0:44:34I feel like the App Library makes more sense on the iPhone,
0:44:37like personally speaking.
0:44:38And that's also part of something that I heard
0:44:40in one of the sessions of that the average person
0:44:43goes back to the home screen over 90 times a day.
0:44:47And that to me feels like an iPhone thing.
0:44:48It feels like an iPhone interaction.
0:44:50Like you pick it up and you navigate back and forth
0:44:52between apps and the home screen.
0:44:54If that's the line of reasoning, I guess it makes sense
0:44:57to have the app library on the iPhone
0:44:59because it's the kind of organizational tool
0:45:01that speeds up these interactions
0:45:04between apps and the home screen.
0:45:05- Yeah, I think that could certainly be part of it
0:45:08for a lot of people.
0:45:09I think the other kind of thing to keep in mind too
0:45:12is on iPad again, and I'll I think that's worth kind of continuing to sort of beat this drum of
0:45:18we have a large screen you can have more apps per page and as you know Federico but I'll say it for
0:45:25you know posterity we've got the dock and I think on iPad the dock is something that you can load up
0:45:31with lots of apps you can access it over apps so it becomes that additional way of switching between
0:45:37apps and as well if you have a hardware keyboard on iPad you can command space and launch apps that
0:45:44way and I think this does come back to a higher level point which is you know we really do think
0:45:48about these experiences independently right how can we create the right experience for iPad how
0:45:54can we create the right experience for iPhone and then of course share those technologies where it
0:45:59makes sense for users but also acknowledge that people use devices in different ways their screens
0:46:04are different sizes and so and that's what drives all of our software design and software
0:46:10development. You know that's why you see this really great distinct experience on iPad.
0:46:14While we're talking about iPad design, a phrase that's kind of been used in some of the sessions
0:46:21is designed for the iPad or the iPad idiom and I wanted to know how you think about that. You know
0:46:27there's a lot of consistency like you just said between the phone and the iPad but now there's
0:46:31also consistency between iPadOS and macOS. So kind of how do you feel, how do you think about those
0:46:38things and where does the iPad sort of fit into that spectrum? Absolutely. Great question. Kind
0:46:42of stepping back just a little bit, I think when we think about those three categories of devices,
0:46:46and of course all the other devices we make like Apple Watch, et cetera, the Uber driving force
0:46:52for us is to deliver the right experience for the right device. I think that is, you know, that's how
0:46:57we think about these things, and as I mentioned before, and figuring out how they are consistent
0:47:03and how do they work well together, because a lot of our users have all those devices,
0:47:07right? And so they should work really well together. Then as we think about iPad, what
0:47:12drives us there is how can we make really efficient use of that large screen to help
0:47:19people get more done faster? And I think a great example of that is, and we talked about
0:47:26a little bit earlier before we got started, which was the addition of sidebars really does speed up
0:47:31that experience because what you end up with is you end up with apps that are able to put
0:47:35all of their core functionality right in the main window. So instead of tapping on something and
0:47:41having another panel open or shifting to another place, you can just tap, tap, tap like in photos
0:47:47or music and the content updates on the right hand side. That's a really powerful and efficient way to
0:47:52to work on an iPad. The other nice thing about the sidebars is they support drag and drop
0:47:56and spring loading, as you saw in the demo, so you can pick things up and move them around
0:48:00really naturally and fluidly. And that's an efficiency that we and that's kind of what
0:48:05drives our thinking, which is how can we let users get more done on this beautiful, large
0:48:11multi-touch display? And then the other benefit there, as you alluded to on the Mac side,
0:48:16is any developers that want to bring those apps over to the Mac via Mac Catalyst, those
0:48:21all of those features translate beautifully to the Mac. So you'll get those great sidebars on the Mac,
0:48:26etc. pull-down menus. And I think that's another way to kind of really help the ecosystem out.
0:48:33One other couple other points I wanted to drop in there too, while we're talking about design for
0:48:37iPad elements is, you know, we not only went with sidebars, but we went really deep into the
0:48:44experience. So pull-down menus, which are incredibly efficient. We have a new date picker. So,
0:48:50You know the kind of slot machine style date picker on iPad?
0:48:55That is now a mini calendar where you can type in.
0:48:57I love that so much. I'm so happy.
0:49:01Isn't it awesome?
0:49:01Yeah. I didn't realize that I didn't want the kind of wheel anymore until I started using the
0:49:09trackpad. And then I was like, I have a trackpad and keyboard. I want to type now or tap now.
0:49:15Right. That is really wonderful.
0:49:17Ask and you shall receive.
0:49:20And then the other one is, and Jenny can talk even deeper about this, we now have a system-wide color
0:49:26picker with an eyedropper just like you would expect, and so that will help developers implement
0:49:32this. And the overarching idea here is that we can generalize these tools. Developers can easily
0:49:40integrate them into their apps, including things like Pencil with PencilKit, and our users get this
0:49:47incredibly consistent experience across apps, which is just a great way for them to deliver
0:49:54great apps across all our platforms. While we're here, I'd like to hear a little bit about the
0:50:00color picker. Again, something that's been on the Mac for ages now showing up elsewhere. What
0:50:05considerations went into that? Yeah, I mean, I think, like you said, we kind of take it for
0:50:10granted on the Mac, right? You know, it's this easy to use thing. I can pick colors really easily
0:50:14on the Mac, but at least for on iOS and iPadOS, you know, if you wanted a color picker, you had
0:50:21to implement all of that yourself. And you know, there are lots of different ways to pick colors,
0:50:26there's the grid of colors, there's the spectrum, then you have color spaces and opacity. And all of
0:50:31it is a lot of work to implement as a third party developer and even as a user, right, you know,
0:50:35getting used to different applications, color pickers are kind of a different experience.
0:50:41And so it's really great that we were able to unify this all together so that you don't have to
0:50:45do all this work if you want to just, you know, be able to change colors of like, you know, text
0:50:51or drawings in your app. Something that really stood out to me as soon as I installed the iPad
0:50:57S14 was I look at these sidebars and I look at these pull-down menus and I look at search,
0:51:03and a lot of it felt instantly familiar as somebody who's seen those elements on macOS.
0:51:10but at the same time they also felt like they didn't feel like additions to the iPad
0:51:18didn't make sense for the platform, and I feel like you've struck a really good balance in
0:51:22bringing over these features that maybe are inspired from work that you've done previously
0:51:28on macOS, but they also were adapted to the iPad and they make sense for the platform.
0:51:33And search really stands out to me there, as now you have this floating search bar in the middle
0:51:38of the screen that doesn't hide what you're doing underneath. Can you elaborate on this,
0:51:44sort of, bringing over these elements from the Mac, but while also rethinking their design and
0:51:50their functionality for iPadOS? You know, one of the really unique advantages we have at Apple is
0:51:57we make the world's best phones, the world's best tablets, and the world's best computers. And while
0:52:03we... and we can keep those distinct, and we can share features across them. And as you note,
0:52:08when we share features we don't just bring them over to one device or another. We really do think
0:52:13deeply about how can we take those elements and make them feel kind of exactly as you said Federico
0:52:18considered for that device. And there are some cases where we don't think it's right to bring
0:52:23things over to one platform or the other. Or maybe sometimes we reimagine them completely.
0:52:28I think you're right search is one of those ones that feels instantly familiar. It's the same
0:52:33keyboard shortcut that you're familiar with on the Mac. It does there's kind of some nice fun
0:52:37treatments in there where if you look up an app and you want to open up that app in split view,
0:52:42you can actually drag it out of the search field and over to the side, and that's just a quick way
0:52:47to get into multitasking. And so we really do think about how do we bring these to the platforms
0:52:54and make them feel natural on that platform? How do we make them work great with touch,
0:53:00right? We always come back to this idea iPad is a touch first device. I like to say when you use
0:53:05iPad in its purest form, it's a sheet of glass you hold in your hand, and you should be able
0:53:09to do everything with touch. And then as we layer on other ways to input, like the trackpad
0:53:17and the pencil, those just make the experience better, but everything works with touch. You
0:53:21know, pull-down menus, touch and hold and drag down work fantastic. Of course, if you
0:53:26click on one of those with the new trackpad, it works great too. So we really do think
0:53:31about all of the details there. And I think the result is that that really shows through
0:53:37in the experience.
0:53:39And speaking of those menus, they feel like an evolution of the context menus that you
0:53:46launched last year in iOS 13. And it kind of feels like they have taken over the entire
0:53:51OS because in a bunch of different places, like I was having a phone call with my mom
0:53:55a couple of days ago, and I wanted to switch from the iPhone speaker to one of my home pods,
0:54:02and when I pressed on the speaker icon, I got a pull-down menu. So it does feel like these
0:54:09context menus have sort of taken over, and maybe it's because, as you mentioned, they
0:54:16transition so beautifully from touch input to pointer input. Was that the reason why
0:54:23a lot of menus are now those kinds of pull-down menus?
0:54:26- Yeah, and also there's that,
0:54:28and they're just really an efficient way
0:54:30to pack a lot of functionality into a single location.
0:54:33And I think that, you know, if we've learned something,
0:54:36you know, from our years on the Mac is,
0:54:38context menus can be a great way to give users
0:54:42a lot of functionality right where they need it, right?
0:54:46You don't have to go up to a menu at the top.
0:54:48You can get it immediately in place.
0:54:51And as you probably have noticed,
0:54:53what I love about the iPad context menus is they grow,
0:54:56the animation of they grow right out of where your finger is
0:54:59which gives you that really,
0:55:01that beautiful direct manipulation feeling,
0:55:04whether you're right clicking on the track pad
0:55:05or you're touching and holding.
0:55:06And so I think that really is the spirit of this is
0:55:09they're fast, they're efficient,
0:55:11and they're exactly where you expect them to be.
0:55:14And they just, the context menus just turned out
0:55:17absolutely beautiful.
0:55:18And on iPhone, you'll notice the new menus have a haptic
0:55:22as you move your finger up and down, which is cool.
0:55:24So it gives you that feedback of where you are.
0:55:26And so, yeah, we love these.
0:55:28We think there are great design element for apps.
0:55:31There's a lot of stuff going on in iPadOS,
0:55:35and which is really great to see.
0:55:36Like we were already hoping that the introduction of this new platform
0:55:40last year would continue to bring more evolution year over year,
0:55:43which it definitely has.
0:55:45From a developer's perspective, like we have a lot of developers
0:55:48that listen to the show.
0:55:49How would you describe what a great iPad app in 2020 will be following iPadOS 14?
0:55:56What areas do you think developers should be really put in focus on when it comes to making the best iPad experience?
0:56:02Yeah, that's a great question.
0:56:05You know, I think what we look for in a great iPad app is a few things.
0:56:09Number one, really consider that large screen.
0:56:14There is so much you can do on this large screen on iPad
0:56:19with three column views and more information
0:56:23in the main window.
0:56:24I think that is just, when you really kind of consider
0:56:29this screen, the app experience can be extremely distinct.
0:56:34That's number one.
0:56:35Number two is I think, of course,
0:56:37we want all of our developers to consider
0:56:39implementing size classes so that the app works great
0:56:43you're in split view and slide over and all of those elements which is which is what our
0:56:48iPad customers are now coming to expect which is they can use the app full screen they can use the
0:56:53app and slide over they can split it multi window right that's becoming another part of being a
0:56:59modern iPad app and what I love about when you build a modern iPad app you don't have to worry
0:57:06about implementing other things like trackpad support because that just comes along right
0:57:12it turns out that if you build a great app for touch on iPad, it'll just work great with the cursor,
0:57:17period, right? And so I think that is that part of it users will come to expect. And then I think
0:57:23actually as we come back around to Pencil, that's another area that Jenny and team and she can talk
0:57:28more about PencilKit because I think PencilKit is another thing that users are going to come,
0:57:34you know, in some contexts come to expect that Pencil will work great in apps and PencilKit is
0:57:39an awesome and easy way for our developers to add that capability to their apps.
0:57:45Yeah, I think one of those things to add to Steven's point is, you know, building your own
0:57:49pencil experience before used to be kind of a lot of effort. And one of the great parts about
0:57:54Pencilkit is that we make it really easy. You can just, you know, I think we advertised in our talk
0:57:59last year that it requires only five lines of code and you can get a pencil experience in your app.
0:58:05And so I think that's part of the,
0:58:07one of the really big parts about making your app
0:58:10more friendly, not only just this, you know,
0:58:12being really friendly with multi-window sizing appropriately,
0:58:15but also, you know, helping support all these inputs
0:58:18that users might want to use to interact
0:58:20with your application in an easier way.
0:58:22- Yeah, I think I can speak for all of us.
0:58:25And we say like, we're super excited about iPadOS this year
0:58:29and can't wait to spend much more time with it.
0:58:31And then as the year goes on,
0:58:33and seeing developers integrate and use all these new tools
0:58:37is going to be amazing.
0:58:38So we want to thank you both for taking the time
0:58:40to talk to us today and to share all of this with our listeners.
0:58:43It's been amazing.
0:58:44Thank you so much.
0:58:45Thanks for having us.
0:58:46Yeah, thank you, guys.
0:58:47This was a lot of fun.
0:58:48We always love talking about this stuff.
0:58:50So thanks for carving out some of your time in your day
0:58:52to talk to us.
0:58:55So that was a lot of fun.
0:58:56I enjoyed this interview.
0:58:57It was really cool.
0:58:58Yeah, I was really happy for the time.
0:59:01had lots of questions, obviously about the Apple pencil stuff because as I've said, and
0:59:06I've I'll keep saying it. It's my favorite feature of iPad OS right now. So like I'm
0:59:13super into it. And I was really happy with the information that we got from Steven and
0:59:17Jenny. So I want to thank them and everybody at Apple who made that possible for us.
0:59:22We've got some more stuff to talk about. Up next we're going to spend some time in the
0:59:26Apple Arcade minds. But first, let me tell you about our second sponsor. This episode
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1:00:51relay FM. Alright so a few weeks ago we spoke about Apple Arcade a little bit on
1:00:57the show because Federico cancelled his Apple Arcade subscription and spoke a
1:01:02little bit about being unsatisfied with the overall kind of crop of games. So was
1:01:07Apple because there's been a strategy change for Apple Arcade as reported by
1:01:12Jason Schreier from Bloomberg. This was Jason Schreier's first piece for
1:01:16Bloomberg right? I think working with Mark Gurman, Jason was at Kotaku is
1:01:21Is that right Federico?
1:01:22Yes, you used to be a Kodaku.
1:01:25And so I'm actually really intrigued to see what Jason will bring to Bloomberg as somebody
1:01:29who's been in the games industry for such a long time.
1:01:32But the two of them worked together on this piece that there's been a strategy change.
1:01:35Apple want to see better engagement and retention for the games and Apple Arcade.
1:01:40They have been canceling some contracts and looking for new places for games that can
1:01:47fit this new strategy.
1:01:49the contracts that have been made with developers for upcoming games.
1:01:53Apparently Apple paid developers based on quote
1:01:56"achieved milestones" that have been hit and also told them that they would work
1:02:00with these companies again if they were willing to make the types of games that
1:02:04they were now looking for which is quote from the article
1:02:07"Apple is increasingly interested in titles that will keep
1:02:11users hooked so subscribers stay beyond the free trial
1:02:15of the service. So I wanted to just preface this by saying I am not diametrically opposed to
1:02:24this approach that Apple now wants to take. I agree with everything I'm sure Federico will say
1:02:32in the opposite to this, although I will also preface this by saying Federico was clearly
1:02:36unhappy with the games that were in Apple Arcade already. But the way that I look at what Apple
1:02:42was trying to do here now is to make in-app purchase games without purchase like IAP without
1:02:49P is how I'm thinking of it. Like that they will want to now be funding and publishing the types of
1:02:56games that will keep people hooked. So there was a hope and there are people that say that they
1:03:05They wanted Apple to change the quality of mobile gaming.
1:03:10But I would say for myself, the games that have been on Apple Arcade that are like that,
1:03:15that are either a) trying to be a console experience or games that are better with a
1:03:19controller on any platform, you know, like games that are platformer games that I think
1:03:25tend not to work very well with onscreen controls for myself.
1:03:28I don't want to play those types of games on my iOS devices or my Apple TV.
1:03:34Will play those types of experiences on a games console. I want games that feel like mobile games on
1:03:41My phone so the games that I have liked the most from Apple arcade games like
1:03:47Grindstone round guard what the golf they feel like mobile games and mobile experiences
1:03:54But there were these games. It was like that under the sea game, right?
1:03:58And Nick and I know people love this game, but it's not for me like ocean horn
1:04:02like I'll just play Zelda. If I want kind of big titles I will play them on a console where they
1:04:10can be bigger for whatever reason. The games that I have liked could easily fit into the free to
1:04:19start world, like the in-app purchase world. You can imagine that very easily. In fact, Apple
1:04:25have been citing Grindstone as an example of what they think is a successful title for them going
1:04:30forward when talking to developers. And you can imagine a game like Grindstone very easily
1:04:36with in-app purchase parts of like, oh you've lost a level a bunch of times, pay or wait
1:04:42two hours before you can play again. You can imagine that mechanic fitting very well into
1:04:46that. And a lot of Apple Arcade's original launch titles, you could feel that they were
1:04:52clearly games that were designed around having in-app purchase in them and that was removed.
1:04:58there were games where the Frogger game had different outfits. Why would you do that?
1:05:03Because you wanted people to pay for them, probably.
1:05:06So for me, I think games that work on the App Store that are built to make people engage
1:05:14with them, even though they at times use questionable tactics, they do give people a level of enjoyment.
1:05:25enjoy playing those games. So if you can still give people that enjoyment or that dopamine
1:05:30hit without at the same time gouging them for $50 gems, I would ask, is that such a
1:05:37bad thing?
1:05:38It's not a bad thing per se. I think it makes a lot of sense, right? I just think it's kind
1:05:46of sad when you consider how Apple Arcade was pitched and presented. And when you consider
1:05:54the technological advancements that Apple is bringing to gaming on iPad, I
1:06:00just think it's said that when that Apple Arcade is changing in a way where
1:06:04the only metric that matters is retention. And of course, I mean, it's a
1:06:09service, right? And of course Apple wants to make sure that the people are using
1:06:13the service and continuing to pay for the service. However, what makes me sad to
1:06:20hear this, to read this report, is the fact that Apple is shutting down other ideas because
1:06:29they're not addictive enough, because they're not that kind of game that makes you hooked
1:06:36and pushes you to keep playing. Because when Apple Arcade was... Here's why, for me, this
1:06:43is kind of a letdown. When Apple Arcade was presented, it offered this unique vision of
1:06:49a mix of the games that you just covered, those arcade games without inner purchases,
1:06:55combined. That was the thing for me, because those games were combined with other kinds of games, like those
1:07:02games with the vision, games that had a story to tell, games that are a particular mechanic
1:07:07that wouldn't make sense on consoles, and I'm talking about things like War Cards Fall,
1:07:13Skate City, Mutazione, Over the Alps, Neocap, all these games that some of them eventually
1:07:20also came out on consoles, but games that, you know, by all metrics, they wouldn't be
1:07:26considered addictive games. They are, and of course, Beyond the Steel Sky, which was
1:07:31one of the original announcements, and then it just launched, it finally came out last
1:07:37week, which is kind of weird timing considering this, you know, this is story-based games or games
1:07:44that are like a particular angle, a particular artistic vision, and the promise of Apple Arcade
1:07:50was $5 a month, your one-stop place for gaming on the App Store, and you're gonna find all kinds of
1:07:59games. We're gonna fund games that are easy to play, so puzzle games, platformers, multiplayer games,
1:08:06sports games, family games, but you're also going to find these more sophisticated experiences. Maybe
1:08:12that's a good way to describe it, sophisticated experiences, these more artistic indie games,
1:08:18you know? And to hear that in the end, according to this article, again this is just rumors, but,
1:08:26you know, Jason knows what he's writing about when he writes about video games.
1:08:31In the end it just resolves itself as well,
1:08:34"Yeah, we tried, but we're not addictive enough,
1:08:37so sorry, we're gonna pay you for your milestones,
1:08:39but we're not gonna find any more games."
1:08:41And by the way, if you're looking for a game
1:08:44to make for Apple Arcade, look at this one.
1:08:45Look at this puzzle game. - Make this game.
1:08:47- I mean, it's an amazing game.
1:08:48But to actually go out and say,
1:08:49"Well, we're actually looking for more of this,
1:08:52please and thank you."
1:08:53Like, that's, I don't know,
1:08:54it just makes me kind of sad, you know?
1:08:57Because that was such a good promise,
1:09:00such a good angle to say it's a subscription and you're gonna find all kinds of experiences.
1:09:08And of course some of them are not addictive in a way that going to, you know, going to a museum
1:09:15is not addictive as like watching, you know, reality television could be. Like, those are
1:09:21different kinds of experiences and in life it's, you know, we have different kinds of experiences
1:09:26And so in a arcade you could find the puzzle game, you know, the quip, like what's the name of those games like
1:09:33Myke, you know, infinite clickers, like what's the name?
1:09:38Yeah, you can get like the clicker games, there are like match three games
1:09:42which grindstone is.
1:09:44Super easy games that are perfect for mobile and I'm not criticizing those games because there's a place for those but also
1:09:52there was a place for other types of stories and other types of games and now
1:09:56it looks like there won't be anymore because there, you know, the retention for those is not good enough.
1:10:02So it makes me sad because
1:10:05it's, I just find it
1:10:08artistically speaking kind of sad that a company is shutting down
1:10:12potentially really good ideas
1:10:16Especially now that, you know, with iOS and iPadOS 14, we're gonna have even deeper support
1:10:22for controllers and even, you know, mouse and trackpad and keyboard support for gaming
1:10:28on iPad.
1:10:30Now those developers, you know, they will not be funded by Apple.
1:10:34If they will want to make their game on the App Store, they will gonna have to go to traditional
1:10:39route like set it for price on the App Store.
1:10:42>> Or get a publisher.
1:10:44>> Or get a publisher.
1:10:45Right.
1:10:46Right, but like, I will just say, these games already existed and you weren't interested in them, right?
1:10:54So like, Apple's current crop, which include these games that you think are really awesome,
1:10:59like, that was not enough to get you to keep your subscription.
1:11:03And I think that's kind of...
1:11:05Because they wouldn't come out anymore, because like, Beyond the Seal of Sky came out last week.
1:11:10We both had the point of saying there's a backlog of games that we just never got to.
1:11:16So the content was there, but I think it's just not grabbed either of us.
1:11:21And speaking for myself, the only games that I have really truly enjoyed,
1:11:26I think are the types of games that Apple would still fund, honestly.
1:11:29All those ones that I mentioned, like What the Golf, and I really enjoyed Grindstone
1:11:37and those types of games, I think that they fit with the type of stuff that they're talking about.
1:11:42So I get the point that you're making, but I think if I was going to continue to offer
1:11:48counterpoints, which I will, if people aren't playing them, you know, it's a business. It's
1:11:56not a charity. The point that you made about comparing it to museums, I like that point,
1:12:04But people weren't playing these games or Apple would not be making this move.
1:12:10And it's not like that didn't try.
1:12:12Like they made a tab in the App Store for these and put a ton of marketing behind it.
1:12:18Like, I don't know how much more they could have done to try and get these games in front of people.
1:12:25And it hasn't worked.
1:12:28I don't know. Some things take time.
1:12:30And I just think, you know, it doesn't even be in a year.
1:12:33and now they're already pulling the plug on those because, you know, the numbers were not good enough.
1:12:39I don't know, maybe, you know, maybe...
1:12:42Look, it could be, right, like, they might come back to it.
1:12:46Maybe this is an idealistic vision of we're just gonna keep funding them because it's good for the art of it.
1:12:54And I get it, like, maybe it doesn't make sense.
1:12:56Okay, so this part of Apple, they're not doing things for art right now, you know, like...
1:13:02No art would exist. No art would exist if you looked at numbers. Like sometimes,
1:13:07I don't know, you can make this some argument for music, right? But then again, Apple doesn't run a
1:13:12music studio, so you know, you can be a musician and put up music even though, like, very few
1:13:18people are going to listen to it, but you just do it because it's right. And now I get it. Apple is
1:13:23in a very weird spot because they're not the promoters of art necessarily. They actually fund
1:13:29it. They spend money on it. So they need to sell these subscriptions. Like this is the growth part
1:13:35of their business is selling these subscriptions. Now like you know I think maybe Apple Arcade
1:13:45is feeling the crunch more than Apple TV+ is, right? Because like they're both suffering from
1:13:54the same problem which is neither TV+ or Arcade has had a runaway success, right?
1:13:59But we haven't seen stories of Apple TV+ shows not being renewed, so Apple Arcade is
1:14:09kind of feeling the brunt of this maybe a little bit more, or maybe the situation is much worse.
1:14:17Yeah, I don't know. I just feel like having variety is always good. Maybe Apple is a lot more
1:14:24strict about this than I thought they were. Look, there is also the thing that you must always
1:14:31consider, right, is that the people who have told this story are the people that have had this told
1:14:40to them. Right. Right. So yeah, of course. There could still be a selection of games,
1:14:46which are the games that you want to see, coming to Apple Arcade. But maybe fewer of
1:14:51them. Yeah, maybe fewer of them. I can understand that. That would actually make sense. Instead
1:14:56of just saying... Yeah, like saying like, no, we're not going to do this, but like less
1:15:01of these. And what we need is more games to drive the user base and keep people wanting...
1:15:07There are a lot of other games that they have spoken about, like the ones that you've mentioned,
1:15:10like Beyond a Steel Sky.
1:15:12You complete it and you're done with it.
1:15:14Now that's not a subscription service, right?
1:15:17You need to have bingeable content, good, like this is the Netflix model, right?
1:15:22Bingeable content, great back catalogue content that people want to keep coming back to.
1:15:26So you need these almost like IAP games to get people really in on the system and have
1:15:33this base of games that are considered good that you can play infinitely. And then also
1:15:39have these narrative games to sit alongside it. And I don't think they found that balance
1:15:46yet. And that's maybe what they are retooling to do. I do not deny that there are people
1:15:54that have been told exactly what they have been told. But we can't say for sure right
1:16:01now that this is the case for every developer of every game at Apple Arcade.
1:16:06Yeah, I get it. Makes sense.
1:16:09Like, okay, so Annapurna Interactive, who published Sayonara Wild Hearts, they obviously
1:16:14loved that game and it did well for them because they gave it a design award. So if they want
1:16:19to make Sayonara Wild Hearts 2, I bet Apple will fund that.
1:16:23Right, I hope so.
1:16:26You would expect so, right? Like, they liked it enough to award it. So, I don't know. I
1:16:31don't know. It's difficult.
1:16:33This story doesn't sit well with me because it reaches to this bigger idea that I really
1:16:42dislike of creating anything art-related or content-related based on numbers. Because
1:16:52Because if I live my life like that, I wouldn't publish the articles that I publish, because,
1:16:57you know, some of them I'm really happy with, and they don't do really well.
1:17:00All three of us here have podcast projects that we do, that make no money, but we do
1:17:06them for fun.
1:17:07Yeah.
1:17:08So this idea, having to consider this for games and Apple Arcade, something that I was
1:17:13so excited about, like, the principle of it makes me kind of sad.
1:17:20I want to believe that maybe this happened and there's gonna be a shift but maybe Apple will be able to find that balance of
1:17:26Yeah, we're gonna have you know more of those like types of games like grindstone
1:17:31Like stuff like Sonic Racing, you know this kind of stuff that is very
1:17:36consumer ready and we're gonna continue investing on some of these deeper and like more unique
1:17:45unique experiences but fewer of those
1:17:48But even if that is the way it goes, which is definitely our own manufactured best case scenario,
1:17:54because that's not what this report says, that is still keeping true to the report,
1:18:00which is saying that there has been a change in strategy, because there are games that they were
1:18:06funding that they are no longer funding for these reasons. So there is a change, and I guess we'll
1:18:12just have to hope that there'll still be a balance in the future. Steven, do you like games?
1:18:17They're fine.
1:18:18Good. They're fine. This episode of Connected is also brought to you by Pingdom. While you've
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1:19:55There is a story going around based on some rumors that the next iPhone will not feature a charger
1:20:04in the box. So I'll put a link in the show notes to an article on The Verge by Dieter
1:20:09Bohn and also to a tweet thread from MKBHD. But I want to read Marques's tweets because
1:20:17he summed up that he basically said there are two sides to this argument and I think that he
1:20:22pitched them both perfectly and it's a good way to get into this conversation.
1:20:26Reaction number one. Is this a joke? $1,000 for a phone and the most necessary accessory
1:20:32is sold separately. Has a phone ever shipped with no charger in the box? This is a new
1:20:36level of greed. Classic Apple about to make a lot of money creating a problem and selling
1:20:41the solution. That would be take one.
1:20:45Take two, reaction two, is good. Less e-waste at scale. Almost everyone has a charger already
1:20:51anyway. If people want a faster wireless charger, they can still get one. Around 300,000 tonnes
1:20:58of e-waste came from just inbox charges last year.
1:21:03And that is a statistic taken from a Dieter Bohn's article, I think, which is basically
1:21:08saying that there are people that don't need charges who get charges.
1:21:14And if you think about the amount of time, effort, resources that are put into manufacturing
1:21:22and shipping and then being discarded, it is a lot of waste.
1:21:26So that is the setup to this.
1:21:28I would like to ask you both, from a top level, what do you think about the idea of there
1:21:34being no charger in the box with the next iPhone?
1:21:36Yeah, I mean, it's kind of awkward, right?
1:21:40That you buy something and it doesn't come with a charger.
1:21:43I do, but I do understand the e-waste argument.
1:21:46I think that angle makes a lot of sense.
1:21:48And I honestly don't know how to feel about it because it, I don't know.
1:21:54I just think it's a bit awkward having to explain why you buy it.
1:22:00It doesn't have a charger inside, but I think it's one of those things that, if explained
1:22:04well on stage, that it's good for the environment and that most people have duplicate and duplicate
1:22:10chargers and that most people actually...
1:22:12Like I know that I leave my old chargers in the box of each iPhone that I buy every year
1:22:17because I already have my own charger.
1:22:21So yeah, I always leave them in the box.
1:22:24I don't use them, might as well not put them in there. I just think the principle of it
1:22:30is kind of awkward, because if you do this you open yourself up to all kinds of criticisms,
1:22:35especially if you're Apple and a lot of people already have some preconceived notions about
1:22:40the company, like they're greedy and all this stuff costs too much, all the things that
1:22:45people say. So maybe of all companies, Apple is in the worst position to do this, even
1:22:52though the angle is right, I think they're going to catch a lot of criticism. Just like
1:22:56when they did with the headphone jack. They were sort of right eventually, but they are,
1:23:05you know, of all companies, they're going to have the toughest time justifying this.
1:23:09Like Samsung could do it. And a lot of people would say, oh yeah, Samsung, great job for
1:23:13the environment. You know, great argument. If Apple does it, they may be right and it
1:23:18it could be the right angle, but because it's Apple, they're going to catch a lot of negative
1:23:23press.
1:23:24It will be the headline. Charger gate. And they could be doing like what I believe they
1:23:32did with the headphone jack is like, so we spoke some time ago about a portless iPhone.
1:23:38Maybe that's the next one. Maybe that's 13, maybe that's 14. They get rid of the charger
1:23:42now for the portless iPhone in the future. But Steven, what do you think about this?
1:23:48would you feel? I think Federica is right that even if their heart's in the right
1:23:52place when they do this they already have the reputation for being stingy and
1:23:55this is not going to help that. Now it's Apple's fault that that's their
1:24:00reputation because they have been stingy, right? No one put them in that
1:24:05corner, they put themselves in that corner. I was thinking about how do you
1:24:09mitigate that? How do you do this? It's the right thing to do. Maybe it's you
1:24:15have something in the box that's like hey we know talking about e-waste and
1:24:20promoting the recycling program and saying look we don't put a power charger
1:24:23in here anymore because of these issues and you know some people no matter what
1:24:30they do some people will still lean on the side of apples being stingy but I
1:24:33think there's ways you could get people kind of in the middle on your side so
1:24:36some sort of messaging not only in the keynote but in the box on the box saying
1:24:41"Look, this is why we've made this change."
1:24:44There was another rumor that I think I saw last night
1:24:47or today of the next iPhone box being super thin.
1:24:51- Yeah, that's part of this.
1:24:54- Right, 'cause it would take less fuel and plane space,
1:24:58et cetera, to move these things around the world.
1:25:01Apple, back in the iPod days,
1:25:03when they were doing a new iPod refresh every year,
1:25:07several times that came up, like,
1:25:08"Look, the packaging is 42% smaller,
1:25:11"so we can put more of them on planes."
1:25:13They talk about that with MacBook Air boxes
1:25:15and all sorts of stuff.
1:25:16So you also have that to consider as well.
1:25:19They can do this, but they've just gotta know,
1:25:22they gotta know two things.
1:25:22One, some people are just gonna be mad,
1:25:24and that's just how it's gonna be.
1:25:26But two, or B, I don't know if I said one or A.
1:25:29The second point being,
1:25:31is communicate it somehow to customers who don't pay--
1:25:32- Another point. - Another point!
1:25:34Communicate to customers
1:25:36who aren't paying attention to the keynote.
1:25:38Yeah, I think that there is also the possibility
1:25:41of reducing the iPhone price a little,
1:25:44saying that this is why, right, whether it is or it isn't.
1:25:47But they may be able to reduce the iPhone price
1:25:50while still keeping their margins,
1:25:51and maybe even increasing their margins
1:25:53if it's cheaper to produce these things,
1:25:56cheaper to ship them, all that kind of stuff.
1:25:58- I would go back to the previous argument
1:26:00that Apple is stingy.
1:26:03They're not gonna, I don't think they're gonna reduce
1:26:05the price of the iPhone because of this.
1:26:06They reduced, well, okay, but it might not be because of this.
1:26:09They did reduce the price of the iPhone this last time.
1:26:12They did.
1:26:13So they could still do that.
1:26:16They could make the iPhone thirty dollars cheaper for a million reasons.
1:26:19But this could be one of them.
1:26:21And they could also say this is the reason if they want to.
1:26:23They could also and should also
1:26:27make it a part of the buying process to easily add a charger.
1:26:32Right. So like when you buy your iPhone,
1:26:36say hey, they need to be cheaper, the chargers need to be cheaper if they're going to do this.
1:26:41Chargers, Apple's chargers are way too expensive right now. If they're going to make it a
1:26:46requirement, that crappy slow charger that they put in the box, they need to make it available on
1:26:53the store for a cheaper price than it currently is. It needs to be a small cost to people if
1:26:59they're going to do this. Because look, I bet that there is some statistic that tells them
1:27:05the amount of people using those charges is going down, right?
1:27:10More people were using wireless charges.
1:27:12More people were using third party charges.
1:27:15You know that they know those numbers.
1:27:17And like,
1:27:18I'm not saying that it's a small percentage of people that are using those
1:27:22charges,
1:27:22but if 97% of Apple's customers are using the charger that comes in the box,
1:27:28this would be a really silly thing to do because you would have so many people
1:27:33upset at you, right?
1:27:35So like they must, I'm sure they must know that less people are,
1:27:38and there must be a story for it now, right? Like it makes sense that there is a
1:27:42strong potential that more and more people were using other charging options
1:27:47than the one that comes in the box. Yeah. Right.
1:27:51Cause you know, so many of their customers, it's not their first phone.
1:27:54So many of their customers are using Qi. So many of their customers are using,
1:27:59like, and again, if you are a third party manufacturer,
1:28:03What a great opportunity for you, right?
1:28:05Oh, yeah. Anchor. Oh, man.
1:28:07Yeah, it's Christmas for them.
1:28:08Like, if you sell a cheaper charger than Apple's one,
1:28:12you are going to be rolling in it.
1:28:15Talk about the opposite of antitrust, right?
1:28:17Like, you are just having the greatest time.
1:28:21So I personally, if they are going to do this, I would love
1:28:25what I would love to see them say is like,
1:28:28we're doing it for environmental reasons
1:28:31and the iPhone is going to be a little bit cheaper this year.
1:28:33Do I think that they will do both of those things?
1:28:36No?
1:28:38But that's what I would like to see.
1:28:42But I don't know if it's the right thing to do because you're inviting the criticism.
1:28:47But it will be way worse if they don't talk about it
1:28:51and then people get that little piece of paper in the box.
1:28:55That's a worse story. I'm almost convinced of that.
1:28:58Because that has the ability of going viral, right?
1:29:02Like that has more of, I feel, that kind of ability
1:29:05than if they said upfront like, "Hey, we're doing this."
1:29:09I think that that could end up being less
1:29:11of a blowback situation.
1:29:13- They gotta do all of that.
1:29:14They have to tell people as much as they can
1:29:18before they get the phone in their hands,
1:29:19that it's the case.
1:29:20Keynote, I love your idea about having on the checkout page,
1:29:23you could even have, look, if you want a five watt charger,
1:29:26it's really slow, but it's this much,
1:29:28and then that you can always upsell--
1:29:29- It's $15. - Yeah.
1:29:30You can always upsell to the faster charger.
1:29:32Like I don't use a 15 watt charger for any,
1:29:34or anything anymore, a five watt charger, excuse me.
1:29:37I'm all in on faster charging.
1:29:39And I think a lot of people don't even know
1:29:41faster charging is a thing.
1:29:42Like I agree with you that a lot of people
1:29:44will probably just leave them in the box,
1:29:46but I think they're leaving them in the box
1:29:47because they're using an old five watt charger.
1:29:49- Yeah.
1:29:50- So yeah, you can tell them, hey look,
1:29:51if you do this one, it's 30 bucks,
1:29:52but you can charge in half the time,
1:29:54then you've had an upsell.
1:29:56And Apple loves an upsell.
1:29:57- Like at the moment, a cable is $19.
1:30:02And the 18 watt charger is $29.
1:30:06Yeah that's way too much and those Apple cables and chargers are not really great.
1:30:11And the 5 watt charger is $19.
1:30:14Yeah that's... no. Just no.
1:30:17If you're gonna do this you gotta make a better option.
1:30:21That's not worth... that 5 watt charger is not worth $20.
1:30:25Even if you offer a one-time discount at purchase, right, that you can get the whole thing for 15
1:30:34bucks instead of like 35, I think that might go a long way as well. And like, if you want to charge
1:30:41people more for extra options, you can go for that. But my favorite meme that I saw about this was
1:30:48everyone was asking Apple for a faster charger put in the box and instead they just take the charger
1:30:53way. Which is an incredibly Apple move to do and we can make that joke because it goes
1:31:03into the idea of them being like that kind of company. They make these decisions and
1:31:09we can call it courage and many people will, right? Bring that old joke back again. But
1:31:15I think there are this one, this is a story I can get on board with way easier than the
1:31:20headphone jack removal. The headphone jack didn't change the environment. It doesn't
1:31:25affect any environment. But I can buy that. I genuinely can buy that. They can have whatever
1:31:31reason they want to have for why they do it, but if they say it's because we want to reduce
1:31:35this waste, that is a cause and effect type thing I will accept personally. Other people
1:31:41may or may not, but I never really felt like there was a good reason given for why the
1:31:46headphone jack went away but this is a like a we've done this why have we done
1:31:51this because we want to be but we want to continue our commitment to the
1:31:56environment okay I don't know what they're gonna do this could be like a
1:32:00little flash-in-the-pan story that go out hand or it could be true but I think
1:32:05the reason that it has gained some steam is because it's very conceivable to
1:32:10imagine that this is going on could go on I think that's it yep if you
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1:33:08Until next week, gentlemen, say goodbye.
1:33:10I'll be there too.
1:33:11Cheerio.