Connected

00:00:00 ◼   ► (upbeat music)

00:00:02 ◼   ► - Hello and welcome to Connected, episode 226.

00:00:12 ◼   ► It is made possible this week by PDF pen from Smile,

00:00:15 ◼   ► Away and Squarespace.

00:00:17 ◼   ► I'm your host, Steven Hackett,

00:00:19 ◼   ► and I'm joined by Mr. Federico Vittucci.

00:00:21 ◼   ► - Oh, hello, hi, how are you?

00:00:23 ◼   ► - Hello, you're first this week.

00:00:24 ◼   ► - That caught me by surprise. - Like every week.

00:00:28 ◼   ► - It's always first.

00:00:30 ◼   ► - And we have Myke, he's here too.

00:00:32 ◼   ► - Hello.

00:00:33 ◼   ► - Hey buddy, we have a fun episode for everyone this week.

00:00:37 ◼   ► We're going to be joined in a little while

00:00:38 ◼   ► by Tyler Stallman.

00:00:39 ◼   ► Tyler's an incredible creator and he's gonna teach us

00:00:42 ◼   ► how to edit photographs on iOS devices.

00:00:45 ◼   ► So I think that's gonna be a lot of fun.

00:00:47 ◼   ► - I wish him the best of luck.

00:00:48 ◼   ► - First, Tyler's stuck in the green room waiting

00:00:52 ◼   ► 'cause we have to talk about follow-up.

00:00:54 ◼   ► And I'm just gonna go ahead and call it,

00:00:57 ◼   ► I think 2019 could be the year of Steven.

00:01:01 ◼   ► - That's a bit of an exaggeration for one rumor,

00:01:04 ◼   ► to call it the year of Steven, but go ahead.

00:01:07 ◼   ► I don't wanna kill your excitement.

00:01:11 ◼   ► Please explain why are you so optimistic.

00:01:16 ◼   ► - So excited?

00:01:18 ◼   ► So I had a pick last week, and it is a non-graded pick,

00:01:22 ◼   ► so I mean, it's the year of non-graded Steven, I guess.

00:01:25 ◼   ► And my pick was that someone on the Apple Executive webpage

00:01:30 ◼   ► would be gone in 2019.

00:01:34 ◼   ► I don't know who, just feels like there could be a shakeup.

00:01:36 ◼   ► And lo and behold, there's a rumor

00:01:39 ◼   ► that Intel could be looking at an Apple Executive.

00:01:44 ◼   ► - Everybody's favorite executive, Johnny Ceruggi,

00:01:47 ◼   ► who is the Senior Vice President

00:01:48 ◼   ► of Hardware Technologies at Apple,

00:01:51 ◼   ► is currently being, according to Axios,

00:01:54 ◼   ► is at the top of the list for Intel's potential list of CEOs.

00:01:57 ◼   ► But you can be on a list.

00:02:00 ◼   ► You can be on a-- that doesn't mean he's going there.

00:02:02 ◼   ► Yeah, it doesn't mean anything.

00:02:04 ◼   ► It's like, do you know what?

00:02:05 ◼   ► Johnny Ceruggi is actually on the top of my list

00:02:08 ◼   ► to be my next podcast co-host.

00:02:10 ◼   ► I mean, I'm all for that.

00:02:12 ◼   ► But this would make such great sense for Intel.

00:02:16 ◼   ► So think about where Intel is.

00:02:18 ◼   ► Their CEO got booted out because he

00:02:21 ◼   ► had a relationship with an employee,

00:02:22 ◼   ► is not a great look. They are desperately behind, especially in mobile. And who's the

00:02:29 ◼   ► leader of that? Apple. And who's the leader of that at Apple? Our friend here, Johnny.

00:02:33 ◼   ► Like this is, would be a really different, there's a lot of them. Another reason, right?

00:02:39 ◼   ► There's too many.

00:02:40 ◼   ► It's Johnny with a H. That's how you remember him.

00:02:42 ◼   ► He's also one in, which is hilarious to me. I've never seen Johnny with a H and one end

00:02:48 ◼   ► before.

00:02:49 ◼   ► John Y. So John Y would be a great hire for Intel. This makes a ton of sense. I don't

00:02:56 ◼   ► know if they could lure him away from Apple, but if they could, it would be a huge win

00:03:00 ◼   ► for Intel.

00:03:01 ◼   ► It would also be a huge deal if they hired Tim Cook, right?

00:03:06 ◼   ► But he's not their chip guy.

00:03:07 ◼   ► He could build the list.

00:03:09 ◼   ► Maybe I'm on the list. I have some personal news. #personalnews.

00:03:14 ◼   ► I'm leaving around Intel. I'm not just going there. I'm going to be in charge.

00:03:21 ◼   ► They've been so impressed with what I've done with our podcast network. They said the skills

00:03:25 ◼   ► are basically the same to run a podcast network and the largest chip manufacturer.

00:03:30 ◼   ► It's all made out of sand. All the podcasts, chips.

00:03:33 ◼   ► That is how MP3s are formed. So anyways, something to keep an eye on. It would be huge for both

00:03:39 ◼   ► companies and I just wanted to point it out. I also want to point out that as promised

00:03:45 ◼   ► on last week's episode I wrote about the Intel Developer Transition Kit that went up on Mac

00:03:50 ◼   ► Stories today on Wednesday. So I mentioned this weirdo Mac that you couldn't buy unless

00:03:56 ◼   ► you were a developer and then you had to send it back. It was a G5 but it had an Intel in

00:04:00 ◼   ► it, but not an Intel chip that ended up in any shipping Macs and it ran a weird version

00:04:05 ◼   ► Anyways, super weird computer.

00:04:07 ◼   ► We talked about it on the show last week, so I wanted to follow up and write about it

00:04:11 ◼   ► this month on MacStories and you can go read that.

00:04:13 ◼   ► It's a pretty wild story that they made this machine for developers and it's out there

00:04:19 ◼   ► and you can go read about it.

00:04:21 ◼   ► It's one of those things that when I read it, I couldn't believe that I had no idea

00:04:26 ◼   ► this thing existed.

00:04:27 ◼   ► Like, this weird computer.

00:04:29 ◼   ► And if you take a look at the photo that you were able to use in the story, it's super

00:04:32 ◼   ► weird because it's basically empty inside, like half of the structure is unused and it's

00:04:39 ◼   ► so weird and amazing that Apple required developers to send back the unit, but some of them, as

00:04:46 ◼   ► you mentioned in the story, ended up, you know, still in the hands of developers and

00:04:52 ◼   ► some folks around the world and they show up on online auctions and those kinds of places

00:04:56 ◼   ► every once in a while. And today on Twitter, I saw somebody saying that they have a friend

00:05:01 ◼   ► who still has one of these computers back, you know, from the days of Steve Jobs back at Apple.

00:05:06 ◼   ► Super weird, super interesting. And you sort of... I like how you, in your conclusion,

00:05:12 ◼   ► you try to suggest that maybe a similar strategy could be used for a transition to ARM in 2019 and

00:05:22 ◼   ► 2020 but there's the big difference that up until today Apple has sold already

00:05:29 ◼   ► millions of ARM devices unlike back in the Intel days these were their first

00:05:35 ◼   ► Intel machines so they didn't have a portfolio of ARM devices already. It's a

00:05:41 ◼   ► very fascinating story and super weird and fascinating computer. I imagine

00:05:46 ◼   ► Steven has immediately just gone diving for your mentions to find the person who

00:05:50 ◼   ► knows someone who has one of these, so we can just offer them some money.

00:05:53 ◼   ► It's on Twitter.

00:05:54 ◼   ► No, I had someone tell me, "Oh yeah, I still have one," and they linked to a blog post

00:05:58 ◼   ► they had written about it.

00:05:59 ◼   ► So they're out there.

00:06:00 ◼   ► If anyone wants to ship me one, just let me know.

00:06:03 ◼   ► I also wanted to follow up about the MacBook Air.

00:06:07 ◼   ► I shared a couple weeks ago that I was looking to purchase one for my wife, and I was complaining

00:06:12 ◼   ► about the ridiculous SSD configurations of the MacBook Air.

00:06:17 ◼   ► You can go from 512 to a terabyte and a half, but there's no in between.

00:06:22 ◼   ► It's a really big price jump to a terabyte and a half, as you may imagine.

00:06:26 ◼   ► And I thought that sort of put the machine out of budget and made it really expensive.

00:06:32 ◼   ► So I went kind of diving through her iMac and found that she had a bunch of stuff that

00:06:36 ◼   ► was taking up some space that she didn't actually need, like stuff I could move over to the

00:06:42 ◼   ► Drobo that we have.

00:06:43 ◼   ► And so I did that.

00:06:44 ◼   ► So she now has a new MacBook Air with the 512 gig SSD with plenty of breathing room.

00:06:52 ◼   ► I paired it with the LG Ultrafine 4K display, Federico, mainly because of your experience

00:06:56 ◼   ► with it.

00:06:57 ◼   ► And I gotta say, it's a really nice display.

00:07:00 ◼   ► Like yeah, the foot's kind of ugly and like there's not a camera in it, which I didn't

00:07:03 ◼   ► know.

00:07:04 ◼   ► I thought the camera was broken and then I had to Google, I was like, oh, there's no

00:07:06 ◼   ► camera in this.

00:07:07 ◼   ► But it's a really nice looking display with a single USB-C cable, charges the MacBook

00:07:13 ◼   ► Since video, I have her time machine drive hooked up

00:07:16 ◼   ► to the back of the display.

00:07:17 ◼   ► It's a really clean setup.

00:07:19 ◼   ► And I gotta say, I'm gonna write a review

00:07:21 ◼   ► of the MacBook Air, but off the bat,

00:07:24 ◼   ► I'm really impressed with it.

00:07:26 ◼   ► At least in transferring, getting stuff set up,

00:07:30 ◼   ► felt plenty fast.

00:07:32 ◼   ► I heard the fan a couple times and it was doing big things,

00:07:34 ◼   ► but even then it was quiet.

00:07:36 ◼   ► And it is the same footprint as my 13-inch MacBook Pro

00:07:40 ◼   ► with the touch bar, like on top of each other.

00:07:43 ◼   ► they're identical.

00:07:44 ◼   ► And in fact, the MacBook Air I think is a hair thicker

00:07:47 ◼   ► at the back than the Pro is,

00:07:48 ◼   ► but that wedge shape is really nice.

00:07:50 ◼   ► Like it is definitely a,

00:07:52 ◼   ► very, like I see why Apple kept it.

00:07:54 ◼   ► Like I unboxed it, I was like, oh yeah,

00:07:57 ◼   ► this is a good feeling computer.

00:07:58 ◼   ► Like it feels super solid.

00:08:00 ◼   ► The wedge design is really nice.

00:08:02 ◼   ► I'm really happy with it.

00:08:03 ◼   ► She's really happy with it.

00:08:04 ◼   ► And like if I didn't need a quad core 13 inch MacBook Pro,

00:08:08 ◼   ► like if I were just looking to buy a machine

00:08:10 ◼   ► for home or office use,

00:08:11 ◼   ► Now I can definitely say the air is the way to go.

00:08:15 ◼   ► It's really won me over in a way

00:08:16 ◼   ► that I didn't quite expect to be honest.

00:08:18 ◼   ► I kinda thought I'd be frustrated with it somehow.

00:08:21 ◼   ► And at least so far that has not been the case.

00:08:23 ◼   ► I've really liked having one in the house.

00:08:25 ◼   ► It's the year of Mary, year of Stephen, year of Mary.

00:08:28 ◼   ► It's a nice back and forth.

00:08:30 ◼   ► - I'm still not sure about the year of Stephen though.

00:08:32 ◼   ► Because you said two things under your year of Stephen.

00:08:35 ◼   ► One of them was something you wrote.

00:08:37 ◼   ► It didn't become more true because you wrote about it.

00:08:40 ◼   ► Well, I just fulfilled my promise to our listeners.

00:08:43 ◼   ► There you go, that's it.

00:08:44 ◼   ► There you go.

00:08:45 ◼   ► I do it for them.

00:08:46 ◼   ► I don't do it for myself.

00:08:47 ◼   ► Do it all for the listeners.

00:08:49 ◼   ► Do it all for the listeners.

00:08:49 ◼   ► We heard from a lot of people about what bullish

00:08:52 ◼   ► and bearish and where it comes from.

00:08:54 ◼   ► Why?

00:08:55 ◼   ► Why was I talking about this?

00:08:56 ◼   ► It felt like a lot of people were just making it up,

00:08:59 ◼   ► which I enjoyed, but quite a few people said

00:09:02 ◼   ► what Yidhanti said, but Yidhanti put it in a way

00:09:06 ◼   ► which seemed like it was coming from a place

00:09:08 ◼   ► authority and knowledge but I have no idea if it really is. Rising share prices are called bullish

00:09:13 ◼   ► because a bull attacks with its horns upwards because like a bull will like hit you upwards.

00:09:19 ◼   ► Is that true? It can't kill anything smarter than itself?

00:09:21 ◼   ► I don't know, want to try?

00:09:22 ◼   ► No, I think it can. It's just in an upward motion, right? So like you've seen when a like in like

00:09:31 ◼   ► bull fighting, right? You've seen that kind of stuff. It could, you know, a bull can attack

00:09:35 ◼   ► anything but and falling share prices are called bearish because a bear attacks of its poor but

00:09:42 ◼   ► they can attack multiple people multiple people no because bears go down for the salmon right we

00:09:49 ◼   ► were talking about this last time yeah multiple people have written in to say that this is the

00:09:54 ◼   ► case you wished it would stop now by you denying this now you is going to keep happening i don't

00:10:00 ◼   ► I don't know why we have to employ animal cruelty as a metaphor to explain markets.

00:10:10 ◼   ► It's not cruelty! These things hunt!

00:10:12 ◼   ► Like, you know.

00:10:14 ◼   ► Well, it's a cruel image of, you know, a bull that attacks you or a bear.

00:10:20 ◼   ► It's the circle of life. It moves us all.

00:10:22 ◼   ► I am going to propose a more naturalistic metaphor for markets.

00:10:28 ◼   ► thunder-ish, the thunder strikes down, and wind-ish, in that the wind sweeps you up.

00:10:35 ◼   ► Wait, lightning strikes down. Thunder is just a noise.

00:10:38 ◼   ► Lightning meets in the middle. Thunder doesn't strike, thunder's the sound of the lightning.

00:10:43 ◼   ► And you must have seen those slow motion video, right, where the lightning comes from the

00:10:48 ◼   ► ground and from the sky? Yeah, what about then Federico?

00:10:51 ◼   ► Well, I'm sorry, Mr. Science. So what are we calling it? Lightning-ish,

00:10:55 ◼   ► And what was the other one? Windish. Windish. Windish. Windish and Lightning-ish. Right,

00:11:05 ◼   ► so Lightning-ish is bad and Windish is good? Yeah, something like that. Alright, let's

00:11:10 ◼   ► see if we can remember that. When's the next Apple earnings? It's like soon, right? Yeah,

00:11:15 ◼   ► it's next couple weeks. I don't know, you should ask John Borhies because he's gonna

00:11:18 ◼   ► take care of it. John, you're going to take care of it. I am feeling Lightning-ish on

00:11:24 ◼   ► iPhone right now. Really? Yep, yep. This is based upon the fact that we all know that

00:11:30 ◼   ► it hasn't done well. They told us beforehand. I'm feeling very lightning-ish on it. Some

00:11:35 ◼   ► good analysis. We should be analysts and yeah, okay. So thank you everyone for the explanations

00:11:42 ◼   ► about bears and bulls, but we're not gonna use those animals anymore because we don't

00:11:48 ◼   ► like to think about that. At least I don't. It's very cruel and very brutal. Wind is better.

00:11:55 ◼   ► It's not cruel. It's not cruel. It is cruel. It could be brutal, but it's not cruel. It is.

00:12:00 ◼   ► The world is a cruel place, Myke. That's true. We should think about that on the show.

00:12:06 ◼   ► Okay. Okay, we're just leaving this segment behind now.

00:12:10 ◼   ► Yes. We have a topic, but first I want to tell you about our first sponsor. This episode of

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00:14:07 ◼   ► Okay, the topic today is old things or new things.

00:14:12 ◼   ► are new or dead things are alive? Like there's a whole little collection of stories here that is

00:14:19 ◼   ► pretty amazing. And Federico, I think you should take the first one because it's about your beloved

00:14:23 ◼   ► airpower. Yes. So I feel very optimistic about the fact that airpower is still alive. And I told

00:14:33 ◼   ► you guys this on last week's show. Now we have a report from this Hong Kong website called Charger

00:14:41 ◼   ► lab who is citing a credible source saying that basically, this is like a game of telephone,

00:14:49 ◼   ► somebody told somebody that somebody working in a Chinese manufacturer has seen plants

00:14:55 ◼   ► of like product. So here's the story. Somebody told somebody that this Chinese manufacturer

00:15:03 ◼   ► called LuxShare Precision has started production of air power.

00:15:09 ◼   ► They make AirPods.

00:15:11 ◼   ► They make, yes, they are an existing manufacturer for Apple.

00:15:15 ◼   ► They make accessories that are already shipping.

00:15:17 ◼   ► So that's the, that's the element that sort of drives the story here.

00:15:23 ◼   ► One of the existing Apple manufacturers may be already working on AirPower.

00:15:28 ◼   ► So it's not like some new company nobody has ever heard of before.

00:15:34 ◼   ► And again, this is just another rumor that airpower is actually coming out.

00:15:42 ◼   ► We don't have anything else.

00:15:44 ◼   ► We don't have any photo, we don't have any schematics, we don't have any more detail

00:15:49 ◼   ► than just this website saying that they have a credible source that claims that this existing

00:15:55 ◼   ► manufacturer is now producing airpower units.

00:15:59 ◼   ► Now, do we think it's coming out?

00:16:01 ◼   ► I personally think it is.

00:16:04 ◼   ► I think this rumor makes absolutely no difference to me, right?

00:16:08 ◼   ► Like I feel like if you think it's coming out, you still think it.

00:16:12 ◼   ► If you don't, you still think it's not because I still don't think it is.

00:16:18 ◼   ► This is one of those things that you're either a believer or you're not.

00:16:21 ◼   ► And as we've seen, Myke doesn't like fun.

00:16:24 ◼   ► I do.

00:16:26 ◼   ► And that's why I believe in her power.

00:16:28 ◼   ► I still think it is extremely strange, I mean, let aside the fact that the AirPower story

00:16:36 ◼   ► is already extremely strange, but it would be even more extreme for Apple to just completely

00:16:42 ◼   ► ignore the fact that this product never came out, and not even to say it didn't work out,

00:16:48 ◼   ► we cancelled it, but just nothing, just radio silence.

00:16:52 ◼   ► I think the only explanation is they want to release it, but it's still not ready.

00:16:58 ◼   ► I don't believe, and this is just me, right, and a bunch of other people on Twitter who are still believers,

00:17:03 ◼   ► I still think Apple wants to release this product.

00:17:08 ◼   ► And there are some signs here and there, which again, some people would say that's a mistake,

00:17:13 ◼   ► others would say that's probably a sign, such as, for example, the mention of AirPower,

00:17:19 ◼   ► and I know that I'm jumping ahead in this section, spoilers, I'm sorry,

00:17:24 ◼   ► a mention of AirPower on some international websites,

00:17:29 ◼   ► I think the Malaysia store maybe,

00:17:31 ◼   ► for the new iPhone XS and XR battery cases

00:17:35 ◼   ► that Apple has released this week.

00:17:38 ◼   ► And there's an AirPower mention there,

00:17:40 ◼   ► but then it was sort of removed.

00:17:42 ◼   ► It's a very strange story.

00:17:44 ◼   ► We've seen this before with the instruction.

00:17:46 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's not that.

00:17:47 ◼   ► I think the removal, it doesn't help you.

00:17:50 ◼   ► - It doesn't help me, but then why would it still?

00:17:53 ◼   ► I don't know, I don't know.

00:17:54 ◼   ► I still think, again, this rumor doesn't change anything.

00:17:57 ◼   ► I still think it's coming out.

00:18:00 ◼   ► But yeah, there's this rumor now.

00:18:02 ◼   ► So make of that what you want.

00:18:05 ◼   ► I will point out that Charger Lab has been in the news

00:18:09 ◼   ► before.

00:18:10 ◼   ► They were the ones who broke the story about the 18 watt USB-C

00:18:13 ◼   ► charger.

00:18:14 ◼   ► And they said it was going to come with the phone.

00:18:16 ◼   ► But it ended up coming with the iPad Pro.

00:18:17 ◼   ► So they had the product wrong.

00:18:19 ◼   ► But there is some connection here

00:18:20 ◼   ► to what's actually going on.

00:18:22 ◼   ► So who knows?

00:18:23 ◼   ► I think this only helps your case that it's real.

00:18:27 ◼   ► - That was a good reference poll.

00:18:29 ◼   ► That was good.

00:18:30 ◼   ► - Thanks. - Good reporting right there.

00:18:31 ◼   ► - Good job, Stephen.

00:18:32 ◼   ► - Talking about things that are dead

00:18:35 ◼   ► but could be alive again, the iPad Mini.

00:18:37 ◼   ► So this rumor was actually at the end of the year

00:18:39 ◼   ► but it keeps coming back that there is the potential

00:18:43 ◼   ► for a iPad Mini 5.

00:18:47 ◼   ► This is for MacRumors via China Times.

00:18:51 ◼   ► basically saying that this could be a thing again.

00:18:56 ◼   ► And so currently the iPad Mini's in a very sad state.

00:18:58 ◼   ► So it was last updated in September 2015.

00:19:02 ◼   ► There's only one SKU, it's 128 gig for 399,

00:19:06 ◼   ► so it's more than the 9.7 inch iPad,

00:19:09 ◼   ► even though it's smaller and considerably older.

00:19:12 ◼   ► I can't imagine they're selling many of them,

00:19:14 ◼   ► but it's still there.

00:19:16 ◼   ► And it's one of those things like,

00:19:18 ◼   ► maybe it's still there because there's an update coming.

00:19:20 ◼   ► It could be the end of its life, it could be gone tomorrow,

00:19:23 ◼   ► but it's still there for some reason for a really long time.

00:19:26 ◼   ► You know, it's sort of, it and the Mac Pro,

00:19:29 ◼   ► it's like which one makes me the saddest,

00:19:31 ◼   ► but I'm curious y'all's take on it.

00:19:33 ◼   ► We've all used the iPad Mini in the past,

00:19:36 ◼   ► but we've all graduated from it.

00:19:38 ◼   ► Is this something that we're interested in?

00:19:39 ◼   ► Who do we think the market is for this?

00:19:41 ◼   ► How do you think it competes with the 329 iPad?

00:19:47 ◼   ► I'm not interested in this iPad, in a smaller iPad.

00:19:51 ◼   ► Again, I'm fine with the 11-inch iPad Pro,

00:19:56 ◼   ► which we are going to talk about eventually, right?

00:20:00 ◼   ► We were--

00:20:01 ◼   ► - Next week, we promise. - Next week,

00:20:03 ◼   ► we promise we're gonna talk about it.

00:20:05 ◼   ► I have a theory that would explain

00:20:08 ◼   ► the iPad mini sort of coming back,

00:20:09 ◼   ► and my theory is in line with other trends

00:20:13 ◼   ► in Apple's product line, I think Apple could raise the price of the base 9.7 iPad and the

00:20:26 ◼   ► new iPad mini with cheaper and possibly older components will take that price slot at $329.

00:20:35 ◼   ► So the base iPad gets more expensive, the iPad mini comes in and fills that slot so

00:20:41 ◼   ► that Apple is covering all the possible price points.

00:20:46 ◼   ► And that's-- you're assuming there's

00:20:48 ◼   ► a revision to the 9.7 to warrant the more expensive price?

00:20:53 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:20:54 ◼   ► That's actually a good question.

00:20:55 ◼   ► Because that would be super weird if they were just like,

00:20:57 ◼   ► oh, you remember that iPad?

00:20:59 ◼   ► It's just now more expensive.

00:21:00 ◼   ► Like, we didn't do anything to it.

00:21:02 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:21:03 ◼   ► What would they add?

00:21:05 ◼   ► I mean, I guess the obvious thing to me

00:21:06 ◼   ► is they could laminate the screen, but that's--

00:21:10 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:21:11 ◼   ► I don't think I agree that that price point is gonna go up.

00:21:14 ◼   ► I think maybe a year ago I would have thought that it would,

00:21:17 ◼   ► but now I think Apple sort of feels the pressure

00:21:20 ◼   ► of this sort of thing.

00:21:22 ◼   ► And the whole idea of this iPad is to make it

00:21:24 ◼   ► the cheapest way into education,

00:21:28 ◼   ► and I feel like the 9.7 inch form factor

00:21:31 ◼   ► is better for that than the smaller Mini.

00:21:33 ◼   ► So maybe the price would be the same,

00:21:35 ◼   ► or maybe the Mini would be less,

00:21:38 ◼   ► but I think that $329 iPad is in a really sweet spot,

00:21:41 ◼   ► I'm not sure they want to mess with that.

00:21:43 ◼   ► Yeah, there was a follow up story in January

00:21:45 ◼   ► showing like a purported unreleased case for some specs

00:21:50 ◼   ► that it was powered by an A9, which was in the 27 iPads

00:21:53 ◼   ► and and the iPhone 6S, which seems super strange.

00:21:57 ◼   ► And it also showed like a case which Mac rumors call it rose gold.

00:22:03 ◼   ► And I don't know if it's rose gold.

00:22:05 ◼   ► It looks a little bit more like the the regular gold now, which sits in the middle.

00:22:11 ◼   ► But if that is rose gold, then this isn't going to be released because Apple don't make

00:22:15 ◼   ► rose gold anymore.

00:22:16 ◼   ► They're not going to introduce a new rose gold product.

00:22:18 ◼   ► They don't make rose gold products anymore.

00:22:21 ◼   ► They just do like silver, space grey and gold and the new gold is a warmer gold.

00:22:26 ◼   ► So I don't know.

00:22:27 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean that may just be a translation deal or someone thinks it's rose gold and

00:22:32 ◼   ► it's not or I don't think that's a huge flag.

00:22:35 ◼   ► If I'm just saying like if it is specifically said to be rose gold, then I don't think this

00:22:39 ◼   ► specific one that we're seeing right here will ever exist.

00:22:41 ◼   ► Has anybody tried to translate those little dots on the left side of the case?

00:22:50 ◼   ► If you see the photo on MacRumors, the inside of the of the aluminum case, there's some

00:22:57 ◼   ► dots.

00:22:58 ◼   ► Looks like braille language.

00:23:02 ◼   ► It's probably not, but I mean, that must mean something.

00:23:05 ◼   ► Those are very specific shapes.

00:23:07 ◼   ► It might be something for a computer to read, right?

00:23:11 ◼   ► Like a robot.

00:23:12 ◼   ► Maybe it says our power is real.

00:23:14 ◼   ► It's just Johnny Ive trolling somebody.

00:23:16 ◼   ► Oh, well.

00:23:18 ◼   ► Okay, sorry.

00:23:19 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:23:20 ◼   ► I mean, who knows?

00:23:22 ◼   ► This, I just struggle, the current iPad mini, I think all of its market got eaten up by

00:23:31 ◼   ► the 329 iPad, right?

00:23:33 ◼   ► It's bigger, it's cheaper, it's newer, it's faster, it has pencil support.

00:23:36 ◼   ► nicer about it. I just wonder if the Mini 5 is real, what market it has? Like, does it just kind

00:23:43 ◼   ► of go back to like the one you buy your kids? But now, like for a while now, the 9.7 has been that

00:23:49 ◼   ► I think it is for our family, we bought a new 9.7 this year. Or is there a market for people who

00:23:55 ◼   ► have an iPad Pro, but want something smaller for reading and some like light social media

00:24:03 ◼   ► type stuff. Like I have thought about this a couple of times over the years, especially

00:24:08 ◼   ► with the 12.9 iPad Pro. Like I actually tried reading in bed with it the other night and

00:24:12 ◼   ► my wife came in and she's like, "What are you doing? It's like you're going to hurt

00:24:14 ◼   ► yourself. It's so big." Isn't that what the 11 inch is for, right, Federico? Yeah, I could

00:24:18 ◼   ► just buy an 11 inch iPad Pro like Federico did. But the mini is compelling in those cases

00:24:25 ◼   ► but I'm not going to spend money on that. But I don't know, is there room for somebody

00:24:28 ◼   ► who wants just like a secondary iPad and it doesn't matter if it's not as powerful or

00:24:33 ◼   ► or big? I just don't know.

00:24:35 ◼   ► - I don't think, I don't think they're gonna

00:24:39 ◼   ► bring the mini back.

00:24:40 ◼   ► I don't think they're gonna do it.

00:24:41 ◼   ► - You think it's gone?

00:24:44 ◼   ► - I just can't, I'm struggling to understand, like,

00:24:49 ◼   ► what it fits now, like where is it supposed to go?

00:24:55 ◼   ► I don't know, but they still sell the old one,

00:24:56 ◼   ► so I don't know, I'm just really conflicted on it.

00:24:58 ◼   ► 'Cause if it is like, oh here's our new product

00:25:01 ◼   ► like chips in it from two years ago I just don't know how like compelling it

00:25:06 ◼   ► is I don't know I haven't really I'm conflicted on this one genuinely because

00:25:11 ◼   ► I know a lot of people would like it but especially if it's like $2.99 like they

00:25:17 ◼   ► sell pretty well just for the price what's the cheapest and iPads ever mean

00:25:21 ◼   ► is it $3.29 I believe so okay because I remember the mini was cheap right but

00:25:29 ◼   ► But the regular iPad was like 500 then or something anyway, so it may have been like

00:25:34 ◼   ► 3 something.

00:25:36 ◼   ► We have real-time follow-up in the chatroom from Kate that it's not Braille, because Braille

00:25:41 ◼   ► characters are in 2x3 arrangements, which this isn't.

00:25:44 ◼   ► Alright, okay, thank you.

00:25:46 ◼   ► I'm sure it's some sort of laser reading or something.

00:25:49 ◼   ► Yeah, so the original iPad Mini came out at $329 for 16GB of storage.

00:25:55 ◼   ► So that's the lowest.

00:25:57 ◼   ► $329 is the lowest price point for iPads then.

00:26:00 ◼   ► It looks like it.

00:26:02 ◼   ► Just eyeballing this, yeah.

00:26:03 ◼   ► And it didn't say there very long.

00:26:05 ◼   ► The iPad Mini 2 went to $399.

00:26:08 ◼   ► Slowly ratcheting it up.

00:26:10 ◼   ► Now talk about weird products, weird old products coming back.

00:26:14 ◼   ► There was a rumor that several suppliers at CES reportedly told Mac Otakara that a seventh

00:26:22 ◼   ► generation iPod touch might be in development as a replacement for the sixth generation version

00:26:27 ◼   ► that's like minimal viable rumor right like there might be a new one to replace possibly

00:26:35 ◼   ► in development maybe so great said somebody so great remembered that i bought an ipod touch

00:26:41 ◼   ► last summer in july i have no idea i have no recollection of this ipod touch or the reason

00:26:50 ◼   ► why I bought it. I know because... You bought it for iOS 12 performance testing. Oh yeah, oh you're

00:26:56 ◼   ► right, I did. Okay, so where is this iPod Touch? Yep. Okay. Well I haven't got that information.

00:27:03 ◼   ► Okay, look in the drawer under your bed. There's no drawer under my bed. Maybe it's under there.

00:27:08 ◼   ► Okay. Well, that's what you think. Yeah, I picked one up so we could have an Apple Music device for

00:27:16 ◼   ► for our live shows.

00:27:17 ◼   ► So we go and we play a playlist beforehand

00:27:19 ◼   ► and that's all I use it for.

00:27:21 ◼   ► And every time I pick it up, I'm like,

00:27:22 ◼   ► I remember when this screen felt big,

00:27:24 ◼   ► when it was even smaller than this.

00:27:26 ◼   ► But it's itty bitty.

00:27:29 ◼   ► Again, last updated in 2015, has an A8 processor.

00:27:33 ◼   ► It has come with some color options, which is fun.

00:27:35 ◼   ► Mine is blue, which is the best option.

00:27:37 ◼   ► But again, a product that it feels like

00:27:40 ◼   ► there's no market for anymore.

00:27:41 ◼   ► Like the iPad Mini ate the iPod Touch's market

00:27:44 ◼   ► and the iPad mini's market got eaten by the 329 iPad.

00:27:47 ◼   ► Like it's a food chain of sadness.

00:27:49 ◼   ► And I don't see this happening.

00:27:51 ◼   ► Like, Myke, you said that about the iPad mini.

00:27:54 ◼   ► I will be shocked if the iPod Touch gets a revision.

00:27:57 ◼   ► I just don't see why it still exists.

00:27:59 ◼   ► I remember when people used to call it the iTouch.

00:28:02 ◼   ► Oh, yeah.

00:28:02 ◼   ► It's my favorite.

00:28:03 ◼   ► And also, I wanted to note how over the holidays,

00:28:08 ◼   ► I've been talking to some friends,

00:28:09 ◼   ► and they still refer to the Apple Watch as the iWatch.

00:28:13 ◼   ► So that hasn't gone away. I mean, just saying.

00:28:17 ◼   ► What about "Ixere"? Is that still a thing?

00:28:20 ◼   ► Oh, good job. Yes, that is still a thing. And I have given up on trying to respect Apple's

00:28:27 ◼   ► product names and now even in casual conversations, I call it the "Ixesse" and "Ixere" in Italian.

00:28:36 ◼   ► I guess the good thing for you is you can say that and it not pollute when you speak

00:28:41 ◼   ► in English, right? Because they're like two different things. So like to us you can probably

00:28:46 ◼   ► maybe separate it and call it the 10S and 10R because then when you're speaking to your

00:28:50 ◼   ► friends you're saying it in a different language anyway.

00:28:52 ◼   ► It doesn't come natural even in English anymore, you know. I just want to call it the XS and

00:28:56 ◼   ► the XR. It's just... I'm not gonna, as I said, like I don't get,

00:29:00 ◼   ► I wouldn't get mad anymore when they started throwing more letters in there I think they

00:29:03 ◼   ► ruined everything. But yeah, I mean... So we spent this topic talking about rumours

00:29:09 ◼   ► to things that might be coming back but something actually did come back which is the iPhone

00:29:14 ◼   ► battery cases and they're back and better than ever. They're now available, you can

00:29:18 ◼   ► buy them right now, for the XS, the XS Max and the XR and they're shipping later on this

00:29:22 ◼   ► week. They are Qi compatible now which is kind of cool so you can charge it right and

00:29:29 ◼   ► the phone by Qi with the case on it and it gives some pretty impressive battery improvements

00:29:36 ◼   ► So like 75% improvement on the XS in the amount of time you can get.

00:29:41 ◼   ► So you get 21 hours of use with the case when browsing the web.

00:29:46 ◼   ► 54% improvement for the XS Max and 47% improvement for the iPhone XR.

00:29:51 ◼   ► So putting them all over 20 hours of usage, which is wild, right?

00:29:56 ◼   ► That is incredible. Yeah.

00:29:59 ◼   ► I absolutely cannot wait to get mine tomorrow.

00:30:05 ◼   ► This is honestly--

00:30:06 ◼   ► - And they're all the same price.

00:30:07 ◼   ► They all cost $129.

00:30:09 ◼   ► - It's 149 euros in Italy, but whatever.

00:30:13 ◼   ► - I was glad to see that there wasn't a premium

00:30:16 ◼   ► for the bigger phones, because in the previous era

00:30:20 ◼   ► of the battery case, there was only the one size.

00:30:21 ◼   ► The Plus phones never got it, and I gotta imagine

00:30:25 ◼   ► the XR has incredible battery life.

00:30:28 ◼   ► I mean, it's just never, never going to end

00:30:31 ◼   ► with the battery case on it.

00:30:33 ◼   ► So I'm glad it's on the newer ones.

00:30:34 ◼   ► Federico, you said you ordered one.

00:30:36 ◼   ► I did two actually, just 'cause this year,

00:30:39 ◼   ► 2019 has more travel than ever for me,

00:30:41 ◼   ► and that's always where I push my phones,

00:30:43 ◼   ► and I have a small battery in my bag,

00:30:47 ◼   ► and I have to plug it in, but this I can just

00:30:48 ◼   ► slap on the phone and be done with it.

00:30:51 ◼   ► So I'm excited to have it.

00:30:53 ◼   ► I'm not gonna use it every day,

00:30:54 ◼   ► but for these week-long trips I have coming up,

00:30:57 ◼   ► I think it's gonna be a lifesaver.

00:30:58 ◼   ► - Yeah, I don't have a lot of trips planned so far.

00:31:01 ◼   ► I just hit it when it's midnight,

00:31:03 ◼   ► and I see a red battery icon on my phone.

00:31:06 ◼   ► Even if I have still 20% left and I could go to sleep

00:31:12 ◼   ► at like two to three a.m. and it'll be fine,

00:31:15 ◼   ► it just bothers me to have that risk.

00:31:19 ◼   ► Maybe I'm going out, I don't know,

00:31:21 ◼   ► but I don't wanna live with that,

00:31:23 ◼   ► in that precarious situation of a red battery icon

00:31:27 ◼   ► and it's midnight.

00:31:28 ◼   ► So I'm gonna put this case on and leave it all the time

00:31:31 ◼   ► As I used to do with the iPhone 7, for that period of time when I had the iPhone 7 before

00:31:40 ◼   ► upgrading to the 7 Plus, I used the iPhone 7 with the smart battery case on all the time.

00:31:47 ◼   ► The fact that it doesn't fit in my pockets as easily is not a big deal because I can

00:31:56 ◼   ► put the phone in like in the pocket of my sweater or something like a hoodie if it has

00:32:01 ◼   ► pockets. It's not a concern. Or my jacket in the winter. It's not a problem. Also I

00:32:07 ◼   ► have an Apple watch and if I'm going out and I don't like I'm... If I don't want to bring

00:32:14 ◼   ► the phone with me now with the cellular watch I'm totally okay. So the increased footprint

00:32:19 ◼   ► is not a concern. And I just... I mean it's what I wrote with the iPhone 7 two years ago.

00:32:25 ◼   ► dream of the 24-hour iPhone, like actual 24 hours, that's incredible to me. And the fact

00:32:33 ◼   ► that it supports wireless charging, I didn't even know when I clicked buy. Like I clicked

00:32:38 ◼   ► buy so fast, I didn't even read the description. Steven sent us a link to Rene's tweet about

00:32:44 ◼   ► it, and I just went to the, I changed the URL to include the IT for the Italian store,

00:32:50 ◼   ► I clicked buy and I was done. And then I realized it support wireless charging. And I was very

00:32:55 ◼   ► happy about that. I was very happy about that. That feels like a typical kind of

00:32:59 ◼   ► thing that I would do but when I do that I always end up making some kind of

00:33:03 ◼   ► mistake. Well, right. Yeah, you buy the wrong size case. I think it's

00:33:11 ◼   ► great that it supports wireless charging. So for those of us, like that's the way I

00:33:15 ◼   ► charge my phone all the time. The only time my phone gets a lightning cable

00:33:19 ◼   ► plugged into it is if I'm in my car for CarPlay and it's this makes that more

00:33:24 ◼   ► seamless you don't think about oh at the battery case on but I don't have a

00:33:27 ◼   ► lightning by my bed anymore like I'm glad they did that it seems like the way

00:33:31 ◼   ► that it's doing it is pretty smart just just like the old battery case was it

00:33:35 ◼   ► prioritizes iPhone battery life one thing I do want to talk about though is

00:33:40 ◼   ► that the iPhone XS version of this is not compatible with the iPhone X so

00:33:46 ◼   ► again René... no it is it actually is René just tweet I checked for you as

00:33:53 ◼   ► because I know you were gonna mention this,

00:33:55 ◼   ► and turns out it is.

00:33:58 ◼   ► You may get an alert saying that it is not compatible,

00:34:03 ◼   ► but if you dismiss the alert, it's gonna charge,

00:34:05 ◼   ► or you may need to reboot if it's not charging right away.

00:34:10 ◼   ► So this is obviously-

00:34:11 ◼   ► - That doesn't seem very compatible.

00:34:13 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:34:14 ◼   ► - I just assumed that Rene got word from Apple

00:34:19 ◼   ► because he just tweeted,

00:34:21 ◼   ► here's the 100% correct info.

00:34:23 ◼   ► So I just assumed these info cameras from Apple.

00:34:26 ◼   ► This is advertised as an iPhone XS accessory,

00:34:29 ◼   ► but I guess it's gonna work fine with your iPhone X.

00:34:33 ◼   ► There's a bunch of people on Mac.

00:34:34 ◼   ► - It will technically work, right?

00:34:36 ◼   ► Like it will technically work.

00:34:37 ◼   ► - But of course the speaker,

00:34:39 ◼   ► like the speaker and the mics are not aligned

00:34:42 ◼   ► because of the different design of the X and the XS.

00:34:44 ◼   ► So it will work if you absolutely need one

00:34:47 ◼   ► and you still have an iPhone X.

00:34:50 ◼   ► You can sort of buy one.

00:34:51 ◼   ► I mean, at that point, you should you should get like a Mophie one or something.

00:34:54 ◼   ► I feel like this isn't the right option for you if...

00:34:57 ◼   ► Right. It seems like it breaks so much stuff.

00:35:00 ◼   ► I don't know if this is the right option.

00:35:04 ◼   ► I do have a small rant, if you will, about

00:35:08 ◼   ► this case. In the fans of this case, actually, because I and I got this kind of

00:35:15 ◼   ► criticism two years ago for that section of my article about the iPhone 7 and I got the

00:35:19 ◼   ► same kind of comments yesterday when I shared the fact that I was happy that

00:35:23 ◼   ► this product was coming out. I think, like, I don't like the fact that the Smart

00:35:31 ◼   ► Battery case is mostly judged on its appearance alone without actually

00:35:38 ◼   ► considering the benefits of this case. Yes, it's not pretty, it's not a

00:35:43 ◼   ► masterpiece of elegance. Personally I don't think it's that much uglier than

00:35:51 ◼   ► other battery cases. I mean you're adding thickness to your phone, that's what

00:35:55 ◼   ► you're doing. I think it's actually better looking than the previous one.

00:36:00 ◼   ► I think it's better looking than other cases that I see people put on

00:36:03 ◼   ► to their phones. But the functionality that this case provides is so much

00:36:09 ◼   ► better than what you can get from third-party battery cases. And now it even supports wireless

00:36:15 ◼   ► charging, which is just a cherry on top for me. The fact that you can put on this case and not

00:36:20 ◼   ► worry about battery management, in that the case charges alongside the phone, and it discharges

00:36:29 ◼   ► automatically without you having to say "ok, enable case now". Like, everything is automatic,

00:36:35 ◼   ► everything is invisible and you get the integration on the lock screen with the two battery indicators,

00:36:41 ◼   ► you get the extra info in the batteries widget in the widget view. It's so well done and

00:36:50 ◼   ► so well integrated and so natural to use that I think the functionality alone makes it so

00:36:57 ◼   ► much better than anything else you can get from a third-party manufacturer where you

00:37:01 ◼   ► need to manually turn on the case or manually say "Oh, I want to charge the case" or "I

00:37:07 ◼   ► want to charge the phone".

00:37:10 ◼   ► So yes, you can make fun of the design, but I think, objectively speaking, the functionality

00:37:16 ◼   ► is superior to third-party options because Apple makes it and because Apple has decided

00:37:22 ◼   ► to have this tighter integration between the case and the phone.

00:37:25 ◼   ► So it's just something that doesn't necessarily bother me, but I think it's a bit silly to

00:37:31 ◼   ► just say, "Oh, that's Johnny Ive design. Here's what he's making now." I don't care about

00:37:38 ◼   ► Johnny Ive jokes, but I think as a product it's a solid option. It's a better option

00:37:45 ◼   ► than third-party cases. And it's one of those things, right, that people make fun without

00:37:51 ◼   ► necessarily thinking about what it does.

00:37:53 ◼   ► #HotTake.

00:37:54 ◼   ► It's the worst kind of hot take. Yes, it adds a hump to your phone, but the other cases do the same.

00:38:04 ◼   ► If you want to add a battery to your phone, that's what it does.

00:38:06 ◼   ► So, I'm gonna get one tomorrow. I ordered a black one, and I'm gonna test it with all my wireless chargers, see how it works.

00:38:16 ◼   ► Myke, are you getting one of these, even just to try it?

00:38:20 ◼   ► So I thought about getting one to try it, but it would arrive when I went to Seattle

00:38:27 ◼   ► for PodCon.

00:38:28 ◼   ► By the way, if you're going to be at PodCon, or you're going to be in Seattle, you should

00:38:30 ◼   ► go to PodCon.

00:38:31 ◼   ► I'm going to be there this weekend, so I hope to see people there.

00:38:37 ◼   ► And then I was like, "Oh, I'll just leave a get one when I'm in Seattle, or I'll get

00:38:41 ◼   ► one when I come home."

00:38:42 ◼   ► And then I realized, "Oh, but I won't be able to use it.

00:38:44 ◼   ► I'd have to get a pop socket for it," which I could do, because I think personally, the

00:38:50 ◼   ► that would concern me about this case just for me it looks less usable than the old one because like

00:38:57 ◼   ► you could kind of like if you are a pinky phone holder like i am you could rest it underneath the

00:39:02 ◼   ► like the hump but now like it just looks like it's really thick and like i don't know how that's

00:39:07 ◼   ► going to feel to to hold and use i think it will make for a lot of people and i think even for me

00:39:12 ◼   ► someone who has relatively big hands i think i would struggle to use my phone one-handed

00:39:16 ◼   ► with it being pretty much like, I don't know, like twice as thick or whatever.

00:39:21 ◼   ► But I'm intrigued. I mean, I'm intrigued. I really do think that this is a product

00:39:28 ◼   ► that makes more sense if you're a wireless charger, which again, I'm not really. But

00:39:34 ◼   ► I'm excited to see what you guys think of it. That will probably be what would end up

00:39:38 ◼   ► pushing my thinking. I mean, right now I have absolutely no problems at all with my phone.

00:39:45 ◼   ► So I'm going to be getting on a transatlantic flight tomorrow and I'm convinced that I probably

00:39:50 ◼   ► won't need to charge my phone. Like it's crazy. The XS Max is just crazy. I've been having,

00:39:56 ◼   ► I've personally have had great success with the battery life on that phone. But I do think stuff

00:40:01 ◼   ► like conferences, it could be good to have it. So I don't have to like worry about, I don't know,

00:40:10 ◼   ► having to have a mophie with me. But I'm gonna wait. I'm gonna wait and see because like for

00:40:16 ◼   ► all I know like even though you're excited about it you might get it and be like oh it's really not

00:40:21 ◼   ► great because of this you know. So considering I'm not like super personally excited for it

00:40:27 ◼   ► I'm gonna wait to see what you think before I before I think about purchasing. All right okay.

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00:43:24 ◼   ► So we are now joined on Connected by a very special guest.

00:43:26 ◼   ► We have Tyler Storman with us.

00:43:28 ◼   ► Tyler is a YouTuber and a podcaster and my favorite person on Instagram.

00:43:32 ◼   ► Hi Tyler.

00:43:33 ◼   ► Wow, favorite person.

00:43:35 ◼   ► That's amazing.

00:43:36 ◼   ► Hi guys, thanks for having me.

00:43:37 ◼   ► Yeah, you do very good Instagram stories and I want to ask you some questions about those

00:43:42 ◼   ► a little later on.

00:43:44 ◼   ► But we mentioned this last week.

00:43:45 ◼   ► So a few weeks ago, Federico discovered that he was upset about the way that the Smart

00:43:53 ◼   ► HDR looks, right?

00:43:54 ◼   ► you didn't like the fact that you felt like it didn't look as good as pre-Smart HDR photos.

00:44:00 ◼   ► And then we used some images that Tyler published as an example of this and it kind of did a

00:44:09 ◼   ► couple of things. One, I figured we should have Tyler on the show because he's great.

00:44:14 ◼   ► And the other thing, I think me and Federico both started wandering into iOS photo editing

00:44:19 ◼   ► about around the same time. And I mean, I think I can speak for both of us when I say

00:44:25 ◼   ► we have no idea what we're doing. Just like pressing buttons like, "Oh, look at this filter.

00:44:30 ◼   ► I'll just put the structure all the way to the top. Sharpness!"

00:44:33 ◼   ► Oh yes, explosion!

00:44:34 ◼   ► Oh great, so we felt like we needed a real professional. So we've asked Tyler to come

00:44:41 ◼   ► on the show today to give us kind of like a crash course in basic photo editing.

00:44:46 ◼   ► Yeah, and you gave me a real challenge of doing it through audio, so we're going to try to do it in a way that can be completely explained.

00:44:52 ◼   ► I didn't think of that until maybe it was too late, and then I was just like, "Well, let's just see what we can do!"

00:44:56 ◼   ► No, no, no, it's going to work. Most of the most important things can be described and you can apply them without seeing examples.

00:45:02 ◼   ► Of course, you should follow up afterwards and maybe watch some tutorials or look at some examples.

00:45:07 ◼   ► But, I mean, one of the most valuable things in all of this is looking at other people's photos,

00:45:13 ◼   ► photos, even just following great photographers on Instagram, for example,

00:45:17 ◼   ► and remembering what it is about their photos that you like so that you can kind

00:45:21 ◼   ► of create a target of what you're even trying to do.

00:45:24 ◼   ► Like, what is it that you want to edit your photos to look like?

00:45:27 ◼   ► Okay.

00:45:28 ◼   ► So you would say like finding some people that you like and keeping their images

00:45:34 ◼   ► around, like, even though I wouldn't know how to get an image from here to there,

00:45:38 ◼   ► I could at least some, like at least have something to aim for.

00:45:42 ◼   ► Is that what you mean?

00:45:43 ◼   ► Even though I don't know how to achieve it, I can keep working at it.

00:45:48 ◼   ► Yeah, absolutely. That was a big step for me, was just ripping out pages of magazines and putting it next to things I was doing and thinking about, like,

00:45:55 ◼   ► what is it about the skin that looks different in their photo from my photo? And then guessing at steps that I could take to gradually try to bring it closer.

00:46:03 ◼   ► But for you guys, even just deciding on what is, what's the overall goal, right?

00:46:08 ◼   ► right? I mean for me it was trying to build up a portfolio as a photographer

00:46:11 ◼   ► and having work that could get me jobs but you guys probably don't you're not

00:46:16 ◼   ► so concerned about your photos looking like they belong in a magazine you just

00:46:20 ◼   ► want them to look better in some kind of way so finding other people that have

00:46:24 ◼   ► that kind of photography that are doing the same kind of thing that you think

00:46:29 ◼   ► would look good in whatever environments you want to publish in whether it's

00:46:33 ◼   ► social or printing them or you know hopefully it's more than just Instagram

00:46:37 ◼   ► that you're going to do with your photos. It's really good to set that target.

00:46:41 ◼   ► I'm going to disappoint you, I think. All I care about is just making my photos on Instagram

00:46:46 ◼   ► look better. That's all I care about right now. That's just all I want to do.

00:46:50 ◼   ► You're not alone.

00:46:51 ◼   ► Because I like... It's in the same way that I try hard to say

00:46:54 ◼   ► smart things on Twitter and fail all the time. But it's like a similar thing. I just want

00:46:58 ◼   ► my pictures to look good. Like I, having gotten into Instagram stories more recently, I post

00:47:05 ◼   ► less to my Instagram feed because I like the way that the two things kind of match up and

00:47:12 ◼   ► I just try and post like things that I find super interesting or that look nice or big

00:47:16 ◼   ► moments in my life to my actual Instagram feed. So now I feel like I'm imposing a greater

00:47:20 ◼   ► pressure on myself to make those images look better. But I actually am taking that as an

00:47:25 ◼   ► interesting challenge and that's why I wanted to learn a little bit more about this. Federico,

00:47:31 ◼   ► Why did you want to?

00:47:32 ◼   ► Yeah, I feel like part of the reason is that I was dissatisfied with the standard look

00:47:39 ◼   ► of the Smart HDR and just photos taken on the XS.

00:47:46 ◼   ► And part of that was also that I've always been curious to learn about shooting manual

00:47:53 ◼   ► and dealing with RAW files on iOS.

00:47:58 ◼   ► I look at those apps like Highlight for example or Darkroom or Lightroom, I feel like it's

00:48:03 ◼   ► something, it's a skill that I want to learn and it's something that intrigues me, but

00:48:08 ◼   ► I don't know where to start. I don't know if I'm good at it. I don't know how to learn

00:48:13 ◼   ► and I tried multiple times to just, you know, read a couple of tutorials online, watch a

00:48:19 ◼   ► couple of videos, but then I feel like I lack the basic understanding of what the, like,

00:48:28 ◼   ► terminology, what it means, what I'm doing, and I feel like it's like I'm trying to

00:48:32 ◼   ► read the Divine Comedy without knowing the alphabet, sort of. Like, I'm trying to

00:48:41 ◼   ► use this super complex tool, but I lack the very fundamentals to understand what

00:48:47 ◼   ► I'm doing to fully control the output and to fully control my actions even. So

00:48:52 ◼   ► it was a combination of being dissatisfied with the default look of

00:48:57 ◼   ► photos taken on the iPhone XS, but also an effort to try to understand these apps and

00:49:06 ◼   ► this process that intrigues me, but I don't know how to start.

00:49:10 ◼   ► The good news is the fundamentals take you really far. If you just do the most basic

00:49:15 ◼   ► things, which is mostly what we'll talk about today, the simplest way to deal with exposure,

00:49:20 ◼   ► white balance, straightening, all that, that will get you almost all the way to photos

00:49:25 ◼   ► you're really happy with. After that it's it's tweaking and refining and making it more and more

00:49:29 ◼   ► perfect but honestly so many of the basics people actually get pretty far wrong so hopefully I can

00:49:37 ◼   ► help with that a bit and also I gotta take a chance to be here to respond a little to the way

00:49:41 ◼   ► that you guys were talking about the iPhone XS and Smart HDR photos and I so I really love how the

00:49:50 ◼   ► the iPhone XS and XR looks. I think it takes the best photos of any phone that

00:49:54 ◼   ► I've had and in the example that you had in the show I think was a was a very

00:49:59 ◼   ► good example of improvements but there are a lot of photos that come out even

00:50:04 ◼   ► for me that look weird more than any time in the past with any previous phone

00:50:09 ◼   ► this wasn't such an issue and the main time that it gets really awkward looking

00:50:15 ◼   ► is if you have a really dark background and your subject is relatively brighter

00:50:20 ◼   ► Then all of a sudden the camera thinks that you're shooting a dark scene and it starts really pushing that HDR hard to make the

00:50:27 ◼   ► subject, your person,

00:50:30 ◼   ► exposed

00:50:31 ◼   ► for the dark background because the camera doesn't have a perfect understanding of you know, what is the subject?

00:50:37 ◼   ► What is the background? It tries, it guesses, sometimes it's right and the more accurate is the better it does

00:50:42 ◼   ► but if it can't figure it out, it can look totally crazy and over-the-top HDR.

00:50:47 ◼   ► That's that's the one downside of Smart HDR. So you're not wrong that it can ruin your photos sometimes

00:50:52 ◼   ► And I think that's where I am with it

00:50:55 ◼   ► You know, I've got more not saying that I'm an expert but I've got more experience with this than my co-hosts

00:51:01 ◼   ► But where I end up being frustrated when I'm trying to fight what the iPhone wants to do in some of the situation

00:51:07 ◼   ► It's like I've turned the Smart HDR stuff off and that feel I feel like I've got a little

00:51:12 ◼   ► more of a predictable outcome with that being disabled,

00:51:16 ◼   ► but that's kind of where I am.

00:51:17 ◼   ► It's like sometimes I just want it to not do

00:51:19 ◼   ► what it wants to do, and I guess that's where

00:51:22 ◼   ► some of these more professional apps

00:51:24 ◼   ► that let you shoot in raw and do these other things

00:51:26 ◼   ► come into play, but like if your kid's running around

00:51:29 ◼   ► or the dog's doing something cute,

00:51:31 ◼   ► hitting it from the lock screen is the fastest thing,

00:51:33 ◼   ► so I find myself in that default camera app,

00:51:36 ◼   ► even though I know some of these other tools

00:51:38 ◼   ► are far better for what I want.

00:51:40 ◼   ► - Yeah, well let's start with shooting then.

00:51:42 ◼   ► I would say the first thing is typically you can use smart HDR most of the time.

00:51:47 ◼   ► I find for my photography that it works great and does a better job maybe 70% of the time.

00:51:54 ◼   ► A good majority. It's usually how I launch my camera and I'm usually happy that I did.

00:51:59 ◼   ► And one of the differences in how you guys are looking at my example photos is that I know that I'm going to make a few adjustments later.

00:52:08 ◼   ► So something that you saw on the image was that the contrast was too low. It didn't feel punchy enough.

00:52:14 ◼   ► And for me, I'm always, well that's, to me that's totally fine because I know I'm going to be adding that later.

00:52:18 ◼   ► So I'm really not very concerned if I see that when it's coming out of the photo.

00:52:23 ◼   ► But in those really weird situations, that's when I launch Halide.

00:52:28 ◼   ► That is, that has become my go-to third-party camera app.

00:52:32 ◼   ► And it's not too bad to launch. All of them have a way of setting it to the

00:52:37 ◼   ► shortcut screens so that you just kind of have one extra swipe and have a giant open halide button on my left screen or

00:52:44 ◼   ► What is that notification screen? I guess

00:52:46 ◼   ► No, what do you call that screen on the left? Oh, I had this the other day the

00:52:50 ◼   ► No, wait Federico what that's called where the widgets go dashboard

00:52:57 ◼   ► Where do the widgets go? I think it's called the today view

00:53:05 ◼   ► I never would have thought of that.

00:53:07 ◼   ► But it's also the search screen. It's kind of weird.

00:53:11 ◼   ► I think Apple calls it the...

00:53:13 ◼   ► Whichever camera app you land on, it's worth adding a big button in there.

00:53:17 ◼   ► They all have that option to create a widget.

00:53:19 ◼   ► And I just put my highlighted one near the top.

00:53:22 ◼   ► And it's just a giant open camera button.

00:53:25 ◼   ► And usually I'll have already opened my normal camera.

00:53:29 ◼   ► And I see like, okay, this looks weird. It's doing that thing.

00:53:32 ◼   ► I'm going to switch over.

00:53:33 ◼   ► over and then in Halide I just leave it to RAW all the time and I only shoot RAW

00:53:39 ◼   ► when I'm trying to prevent that weirdness or actually this one other

00:53:44 ◼   ► time is also in very low light it does a much better job in low light it's

00:53:47 ◼   ► much sharper a little noisier but the details much more pronounced so the rest

00:53:53 ◼   ► of the time I do use the regular camera you're not gonna find a lot more dynamic

00:53:58 ◼   ► range anymore you did on previous iPhones there's a bigger difference in

00:54:02 ◼   ► shooting RAW but Smart HDR got so good that that gap has been narrowed a little

00:54:08 ◼   ► bit so I don't find myself shooting RAW for normal photos it's just for if

00:54:13 ◼   ► something's going wrong and basically what Halide does is even if you take it

00:54:17 ◼   ► on full auto mode just use Halide as its intended but you shoot RAW in its

00:54:21 ◼   ► default settings you're gonna be able to have a lot more flexibility afterwards

00:54:26 ◼   ► to take out any of that weird HDRness it's gonna look much more like a normal

00:54:30 ◼   ► photo. Alright, so once you've got the picture taken, do you recommend any other third party

00:54:37 ◼   ► camera apps by the way? Or like, I know you use Halide, but I wonder, why do you use Halide

00:54:43 ◼   ► and are there any others that you do like? I also like Lightroom a lot. The only reason

00:54:49 ◼   ► that I go towards Halide instead of Lightroom is that I don't... So Lightroom is also a

00:54:54 ◼   ► camera? Yes, and it's a really good camera. Oh okay. They did a great job of their RAW

00:55:00 ◼   ► and it is as good as Halide really in most ways, but it wants to do a little bit more.

00:55:07 ◼   ► So as you take those Lightroom photos, it starts syncing them into their Lightroom CC

00:55:11 ◼   ► thing, so then they show up on my desktop.

00:55:14 ◼   ► That seems really convenient, but I find it just kind of confuses my workflow to have

00:55:18 ◼   ► it sitting in two different places, whereas Halide is just saving it into my photo library.

00:55:24 ◼   ► And I guess like if you use Lightroom on the Mac or PC or whatever, you don't necessarily

00:55:30 ◼   ► expect all of the photos you took on your iPhone to be in there, I guess, right?

00:55:35 ◼   ► Like it's, that's like two different workflows, I guess, for a lot of people.

00:55:38 ◼   ► Yeah, exactly.

00:55:39 ◼   ► It's just creating a bit of separation between my big camera photos and my mobile photos.

00:55:45 ◼   ► But you will find whichever app that you choose, because there's others.

00:55:48 ◼   ► There's another one called manual.

00:55:49 ◼   ► That's what I was using before I had lied.

00:55:51 ◼   ► also they're all just as good of quality. What I like about Halide is they're

00:55:56 ◼   ► they're just really active in their development and their social stuff and

00:55:59 ◼   ► their support. Sebastian DeWitt came on my show a while ago to talk just to walk

00:56:04 ◼   ► me through everything about smart HDR because it's hard to understand and I

00:56:09 ◼   ► love that they're the kind of developer that will do that. They'll go on podcasts

00:56:13 ◼   ► to explain what the hell this weird camera is doing. So I really appreciate

00:56:19 ◼   ► their sort of active activity in the community so. And there are any others or

00:56:24 ◼   ► are they like the main ones for you? Also Moment from Moment lenses and you might

00:56:29 ◼   ► get some questions in about using those third-party lenses right they are really

00:56:34 ◼   ► appealing like they look really cool mounted to the front of your phone all

00:56:37 ◼   ► of a sudden it becomes what looks like a professional camera and just the most

00:56:43 ◼   ► important thing to know is that even the best of them which I think Moment is the

00:56:46 ◼   ► best. It's not going to improve the quality of your photo. All

00:56:51 ◼   ► it does is change your perspective. So it either lets

00:56:54 ◼   ► you see more in a wider image or less in a zoomed in closer

00:56:58 ◼   ► telephoto image, but there's no better quality. But then Moment

00:57:02 ◼   ► has developed a really great camera app as well that works

00:57:06 ◼   ► fantastic for taking photos. And then if you're shooting

00:57:09 ◼   ► video also just throw in FiLMiC Pro, which gives you full

00:57:12 ◼   ► manual controls. It's really really powerful, more powerful

00:57:15 ◼   ► than you need and yeah really amazing for video production.

00:57:18 ◼   ► Yeah I use that because it's an app that works with like the DJI Osmo like it

00:57:23 ◼   ► actually will work with it so I've used Filmic Pro for that but that's an app

00:57:27 ◼   ► but like a lot of the other apps like like Halide and Moment and I've used

00:57:33 ◼   ► like and we're gonna talk about like Darkroom and stuff and you know apps

00:57:37 ◼   ► like Obscura and stuff they're really beautiful but Filmic is a nightmare.

00:57:44 ◼   ► It's hard to get around.

00:57:46 ◼   ► I don't really...

00:57:48 ◼   ► This is like...

00:57:50 ◼   ► Even Halide I find personally

00:57:52 ◼   ► like I open that app and I'm like

00:57:54 ◼   ► and it kind of whilst it's attractive

00:57:56 ◼   ► I think has some of the filmic problem of like

00:57:58 ◼   ► I feel like I'm not

00:58:00 ◼   ► allowed here. Like there's

00:58:02 ◼   ► way too much stuff happening and I

00:58:04 ◼   ► don't understand any of it and like

00:58:06 ◼   ► if I accidentally put my thumb in the wrong place

00:58:08 ◼   ► everything is just like destroyed.

00:58:10 ◼   ► Like I think that's a lot

00:58:12 ◼   ► of the stuff that can be difficult for people with my absolute zero knowledge, but filmic is

00:58:18 ◼   ► way worse because it's almost impossible to understand unless you want to give an afternoon

00:58:24 ◼   ► to it. And then I guess when you do, it's super useful and there's a bunch of stuff that you can

00:58:29 ◼   ► do, especially with video, right? It has really good controls for video, but it's super daunting.

00:58:35 ◼   ► Yeah, it is more of a professional tool. I mean, the main thing that you would do in Halite,

00:58:40 ◼   ► If you only are going to override one manual option, it would just be to touch on the screen and drag up and down for the exposure.

00:58:47 ◼   ► That does the most and it is a little more predictable than adjusting the exposure in the Apple Camera app.

00:58:58 ◼   ► It'll still just try to guess, right? Because you're only touching a point and then it re-evaluates its automatic modes.

00:59:05 ◼   ► Whereas sliding up and down in Halide will actually manually force the camera to make it brighter or darker,

00:59:12 ◼   ► and it'll always get you a bit closer to what you're hoping for.

00:59:15 ◼   ► Okay, this brings me to my main question.

00:59:20 ◼   ► When I'm shooting RAW, say that I'm using Halide and I have the RAW toggle enabled,

00:59:28 ◼   ► Do I still have to care about good exposure?

00:59:32 ◼   ► Isn't the point of RAW that everything can be changed later?

00:59:36 ◼   ► And can I actually, before you answer that, can I ask you to actually explain why?

00:59:40 ◼   ► Like, why would I shoot RAW?

00:59:43 ◼   ► Is that, can we like start with that and then go into the next question?

00:59:47 ◼   ► That's a good one.

00:59:48 ◼   ► Okay, so RAW is a lot more valuable in bigger cameras, I find.

00:59:52 ◼   ► Like, I 100% of the time shoot RAW on my SLRs or mirrorless cameras that have a large sensor.

00:59:58 ◼   ► and are saving much bigger photos. There is way more data saved to a RAW file on a big camera.

01:00:05 ◼   ► Whereas on a smartphone, Apple is already doing most of the work with Smart HDR to pull

01:00:11 ◼   ► every bit of data out of the sensor possible. So there isn't much left over for you to manually

01:00:17 ◼   ► recover in RAW. The reasons you do it on your phone are because the noise reduction is a little

01:00:24 ◼   ► aggressive on the iPhone. So images will come out a little more smooth or if you

01:00:28 ◼   ► ever have that kind of watercolor effect where it looks a little bit blotchy and

01:00:32 ◼   ► overly smooth that's because Apple's being a little too aggressive for well

01:00:37 ◼   ► for my taste in their noise reduction which kind of makes sense. I think most

01:00:41 ◼   ► people are would have a worse response to noise than to that kind of image so I

01:00:47 ◼   ► think they're making the right choice for the mainstream but if you shoot raw

01:00:51 ◼   ► you're able to make that choice yourself more. So there ends up being more noise

01:00:56 ◼   ► but it's much much sharper. The detail stays in the image more. When it comes to

01:01:02 ◼   ► bigger cameras you do save a lot more dynamic range but yeah again it just in

01:01:07 ◼   ► the iPhone there are less advantages. The one thing that is preserved is white

01:01:12 ◼   ► balance. So when you're saving a JPEG the... wait do you guys know what white balance is?

01:01:18 ◼   ► 'cause I don't know how far back I should start.

01:01:20 ◼   ► - No, please, please, please offer context.

01:01:23 ◼   ► - Assume nothing is about the answer to everybody.

01:01:26 ◼   ► - Let's talk about the two most important things of a photo.

01:01:29 ◼   ► This is both what we're gonna aim for when we're shooting

01:01:31 ◼   ► and then also what we're gonna adjust later.

01:01:34 ◼   ► It's exposure and white balance.

01:01:35 ◼   ► Those are the key things that just matter the absolute most.

01:01:39 ◼   ► Exposure is the brightness of the image, right?

01:01:42 ◼   ► Seems relatively easy to understand.

01:01:44 ◼   ► One thing that isn't completely intuitive

01:01:47 ◼   ► is that there isn't one correct exposure for most photos

01:01:51 ◼   ► because light is hitting everything in a scene differently.

01:01:54 ◼   ► If there's some deep shadows

01:01:56 ◼   ► because the sun is shading a wall

01:01:59 ◼   ► and the light just isn't getting into that area,

01:02:02 ◼   ► you would raise the exposure, you'd make it brighter

01:02:04 ◼   ► if you wanna see into those shadows,

01:02:06 ◼   ► but then some other part of the image might be too bright.

01:02:08 ◼   ► So you're choosing which part of the photo

01:02:11 ◼   ► do I want to be correct.

01:02:13 ◼   ► There isn't necessarily one right answer,

01:02:14 ◼   ► it's a bit of a choice.

01:02:16 ◼   ► Then when it comes to white balance, it's a little bit more you've got to get it right.

01:02:22 ◼   ► Fortunately, the phone does a great job of this. Usually it's not wrong. If you want

01:02:26 ◼   ► to see, probably the best example of when it gets confused and will get it wrong is

01:02:31 ◼   ► if you can shoot with snow in the shade. Federico, you're going to have a hard time with this,

01:02:36 ◼   ► I imagine.

01:02:37 ◼   ► You both are those things.

01:02:40 ◼   ► Same.

01:02:41 ◼   ► But yeah, but what will happen is that like snow turns really, really blue and in so does

01:02:48 ◼   ► shadows. Like the shade in general is bluer than sunshine and you usually don't notice it because

01:02:53 ◼   ► the camera's just doing that work for you. But if you shoot a raw photo afterwards you can move the

01:02:58 ◼   ► white balance from a warmer, yellower, yellow-righter look to a bluer, cooler look and that will make

01:03:07 ◼   ► the photo either look wrong or right depending on what the original light source is.

01:03:12 ◼   ► So it's really something you've got to play with. First, just take some normal photos in raw and

01:03:18 ◼   ► start moving the white balance around in some of the tools that we'll talk about in a minute,

01:03:21 ◼   ► and you'll start to see what wrong looks like, and then you might realize, "Okay,

01:03:25 ◼   ► when that happens to me accidentally, here's how I can get it back to looking correct."

01:03:31 ◼   ► So when you're saying about like the with with raw and smart HDR if I'm taking photos

01:03:39 ◼   ► with the purpose of editing them should I be turning smart HDR off or just shooting

01:03:46 ◼   ► in raw or does it matter can I still just shoot normally and then edit anyway but maybe

01:03:51 ◼   ► I just won't get as much flexibility?

01:03:53 ◼   ► That's what I do yeah I shoot in smart HDR most of the time and use those photos as they

01:03:59 ◼   ► they come out of the camera and this is part of what I like about the 10s

01:04:04 ◼   ► upgrade or update downgrade I mean yeah but the way that they treat these photos

01:04:10 ◼   ► is that they look they do look flatter they have less punch they have less

01:04:15 ◼   ► contrast and this is the reason a lot of people consider the pixel 3 a better

01:04:19 ◼   ► camera which I absolutely don't I don't think it's better in any way it adds

01:04:24 ◼   ► more contrast by default so what you get before you've adjusted anything is

01:04:29 ◼   ► is they just turned up the contrast.

01:04:30 ◼   ► It was basically a choice by the,

01:04:32 ◼   ► each manufacturer could have done this.

01:04:33 ◼   ► Apple could have decided to make the photos

01:04:36 ◼   ► look more contrasty out of the box, but they didn't.

01:04:38 ◼   ► And what that allows me to do

01:04:40 ◼   ► is choose how much contrast I add back.

01:04:43 ◼   ► And in making that choice,

01:04:45 ◼   ► I can keep some of the details

01:04:48 ◼   ► that might otherwise get lost in the shadows

01:04:50 ◼   ► or in the highlights.

01:04:52 ◼   ► You can just kind of have a little more flexibility later,

01:04:54 ◼   ► and you'll find tons of that flexibility

01:04:56 ◼   ► just using Smart HDR.

01:04:58 ◼   ► Okay, so I don't know if I derailed this completely, but did we get to Federico's question about

01:05:03 ◼   ► the exposure?

01:05:04 ◼   ► What was the question again?

01:05:05 ◼   ► So when you shoot in RAW, do you not have to worry about exposure anymore, or does it

01:05:11 ◼   ► still have to be exposed correctly before you do it?

01:05:14 ◼   ► Yeah, absolutely.

01:05:15 ◼   ► Okay.

01:05:16 ◼   ► It needs to be correct, and especially on the phone.

01:05:18 ◼   ► So what I was trying to get to is that the big cameras will give you more flexibility.

01:05:23 ◼   ► phones, it doesn't change much shooting in RAW. You really need to still get the

01:05:28 ◼   ► right exposure.

01:05:29 ◼   ► Okay.

01:05:30 ◼   ► Okay. So that explains why most of those pictures sucked. Because I thought it was just going

01:05:37 ◼   ► to be fine because everything could be fixed later. I guess that's not how it works.

01:05:43 ◼   ► Okay.

01:05:44 ◼   ► It does feel like it's this possible like magical thing, right? It's just like, "Oh,

01:05:48 ◼   ► It just takes all the data and then it's just data and then you just manipulate the data

01:05:53 ◼   ► and then you can make anything out of the image.

01:05:55 ◼   ► It's like base64.

01:05:57 ◼   ► Oh, you see?

01:06:00 ◼   ► This is it, right?

01:06:01 ◼   ► When I found out that base64 existed, it ruined everything I thought I knew about how images

01:06:05 ◼   ► were created.

01:06:06 ◼   ► So why not?

01:06:07 ◼   ► Why could raw not just be the same?

01:06:09 ◼   ► I don't know.

01:06:10 ◼   ► It's all ones and zeros.

01:06:11 ◼   ► I mean, it's kind of like that, just not as much.

01:06:13 ◼   ► Don't say that to me, please, because you're just going to offset me.

01:06:16 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's nothing like that.

01:06:19 ◼   ► - Tyler, you mentioned the snow and shadow

01:06:22 ◼   ► and that sort of stuff being tricky

01:06:24 ◼   ► when it comes to white balance.

01:06:25 ◼   ► Are there some other common things people should look for,

01:06:28 ◼   ► like really easy things to avoid

01:06:31 ◼   ► once you're kind of in tune with them?

01:06:33 ◼   ► - Yeah, another one is indoors.

01:06:35 ◼   ► The normal lights that you have

01:06:36 ◼   ► in a regular household are yellow.

01:06:38 ◼   ► I mean, they're tungsten lights.

01:06:40 ◼   ► Tungsten is kind of the name of the color temperature,

01:06:42 ◼   ► which comes from what's generating the light in the bulb,

01:06:46 ◼   ► but it comes to mean yellow lights and that's what most indoor lighting is.

01:06:50 ◼   ► So even on a sunny day when it looks the same outside and inside,

01:06:55 ◼   ► it's hard to notice that difference with your eyes.

01:06:57 ◼   ► When you take photos, it is actually much, much warmer.

01:07:00 ◼   ► And you can really see it when lights get mixed.

01:07:03 ◼   ► So if you take a photo where you're sitting inside by a window

01:07:07 ◼   ► and half of your face is lit by the window and half is lit by a lamp nearby,

01:07:11 ◼   ► you'll see that the indoor light is completely yellow.

01:07:14 ◼   ► It's a huge difference.

01:07:15 ◼   ► And, uh, well, I mean, most people can't see it, but Myke, your Skype

01:07:19 ◼   ► photo happens to be this you're sitting by a window and I can see the split.

01:07:22 ◼   ► Um, but it's a good experiment.

01:07:23 ◼   ► Just try to find a place that is lit by two different sources.

01:07:26 ◼   ► Take a photo of yourself and see how they're different.

01:07:28 ◼   ► It's like an old avatar I had, but yeah, I was standing next to a window.

01:07:33 ◼   ► That's ruined forever, but it's not necessarily anymore.

01:07:36 ◼   ► I just have an update my Skype photos.

01:07:37 ◼   ► So we're all good.

01:07:38 ◼   ► It's not a bad thing.

01:07:39 ◼   ► It's something that you will see it in Hollywood.

01:07:41 ◼   ► I mean it because it'll give a more natural look in real films.

01:07:45 ◼   ► They still do that because it's what reality looks like.

01:07:48 ◼   ► It's just about being aware that it's happening and knowing to work with it in the right ways.

01:07:54 ◼   ► So we're gonna take one more break and tell you about our final sponsor this week.

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01:09:57 ◼   ► So Tyler, let's talk about apps for editing.

01:10:00 ◼   ► And I think, considering where I want to be sharing my images and also just my general

01:10:06 ◼   ► computing preferences, I care way more about iOS apps.

01:10:09 ◼   ► I'm sure that there are other apps that you would recommend.

01:10:13 ◼   ► But which, what are the ones that you would look at?

01:10:17 ◼   ► I would say I've been playing around with Darkroom a little bit.

01:10:21 ◼   ► I had VSCO, V-S-C-O, I don't know which one you're supposed to say that.

01:10:26 ◼   ► Darkroom is one that I find really cool and lets me do some cool stuff, but I'm interested

01:10:32 ◼   ► to see if I've maybe made the right decision on that.

01:10:36 ◼   ► I think you're pretty safe going with either of those two.

01:10:38 ◼   ► Darkroom has really picked up in popularity lately.

01:10:41 ◼   ► It's a bit more...

01:10:42 ◼   ► I don't think it's a newcomer.

01:10:43 ◼   ► I think it's been around for quite a while, but it wasn't up to par with Fisko at first.

01:10:48 ◼   ► And by the way, you can say I switch back and forth.

01:10:52 ◼   ► VSCO was the original, I don't know if they're the first, but they really came up with the

01:10:58 ◼   ► idea of how good digital photos could look.

01:11:02 ◼   ► Like they started really making it look like film.

01:11:05 ◼   ► For a long time if you'd buy presets, they would just look very fake.

01:11:10 ◼   ► I mean the things that you would do to digital photos was really artificially boost things.

01:11:14 ◼   ► It was kind of just playing with sliders and they went back and took a look at film and

01:11:19 ◼   ► were aiming to really emulate it.

01:11:21 ◼   ► So I kind of stick with them because they were the best first.

01:11:25 ◼   ► I think at this point, Darkroom's pretty much caught up.

01:11:28 ◼   ► The other one I put on the list for you guys to look at

01:11:30 ◼   ► is Lightroom, which I'm not always clear about

01:11:33 ◼   ► what exactly comes with it for free.

01:11:36 ◼   ► I think to really dive into it,

01:11:38 ◼   ► you are probably paying the subscription fee,

01:11:41 ◼   ► and then it does become the ultimate power tool,

01:11:44 ◼   ► but we'll try to talk about it the least

01:11:46 ◼   ► because I don't want everybody to be putting out

01:11:49 ◼   ► 10 bucks a month just to experiment.

01:11:50 ◼   ► All of these apps, though, are subscriptions, aren't they, Federico?

01:11:54 ◼   ► Ummm...

01:11:55 ◼   ► I know VSCO is. It has a subscription.

01:11:58 ◼   ► Is VSCO a subscription?

01:11:59 ◼   ► Yeah, it is now.

01:12:00 ◼   ► Really?

01:12:01 ◼   ► So it's completely optional to do the subscription.

01:12:04 ◼   ► Basically, you'll get all of the filters, all of the presets, if you pay for the subscription.

01:12:08 ◼   ► So I do that because I like to have it.

01:12:10 ◼   ► And there's a few other advanced features, like I think only in the subscription can you get the video editing,

01:12:17 ◼   ► which by the way is the best way to get beautiful colors

01:12:20 ◼   ► in your videos is through VSCO.

01:12:22 ◼   ► But--

01:12:22 ◼   ► - Oh, I didn't even know it did video.

01:12:24 ◼   ► - Yeah, I love it.

01:12:25 ◼   ► So there, actually that's part of my Instagram stories

01:12:27 ◼   ► is when you see really nice colors,

01:12:29 ◼   ► it's 'cause I ran it through VSCO.

01:12:30 ◼   ► But you can also just buy the packs and the app is free.

01:12:34 ◼   ► So you can do all of the adjustments.

01:12:35 ◼   ► A lot of what we're gonna talk about you can do for free.

01:12:38 ◼   ► And it comes with a few filters that are pretty nice.

01:12:41 ◼   ► I really think it's worth just getting one or two.

01:12:44 ◼   ► And I wanna recommend them

01:12:46 ◼   ► everybody doesn't have to go buying everything and to find out the the packs

01:12:50 ◼   ► that I like in VSCO and I don't know in darkroom I haven't spent as much time in

01:12:54 ◼   ► it but the A I think it's called like a collection C and LV those are the three

01:13:00 ◼   ► this is what I said this is so I like darkroom one of the reasons I like

01:13:05 ◼   ► darkroom more is the packs are labeled with real names hmm right right so it's

01:13:13 ◼   ► more memorable. Yes, they're called like Darkroom, Instant, Duo-Tone, Landscapes,

01:13:19 ◼   ► Portraits, and Black and White, and then they just have letters to them. But the

01:13:23 ◼   ► the VSCO ones, they also have the lettering system like Darkroom does, but

01:13:28 ◼   ► it seems to be like way harder for me to have any idea as to how I'm supposed to

01:13:34 ◼   ► be using them. Right. Well, one thing I'd recommend is not to go back to square one

01:13:39 ◼   ► every time. I use the same three or four filters for everything. I very rarely go

01:13:46 ◼   ► back in and try to find new good ones. And for you, do you edit the filters or

01:13:54 ◼   ► do you just leave them as they are? I edit the photo first. Okay so maybe let's

01:13:58 ◼   ► let's start with the actual editing thing. I'll try to go through it in a

01:14:01 ◼   ► little bit of a progressive what you'd actually do when you're editing. The

01:14:07 ◼   ► first thing is that I think it's really helpful to have two ways to think about

01:14:10 ◼   ► what you're doing to the photo that when films are color corrected they are

01:14:15 ◼   ► actually broken out in these two steps that's how movie software looks at it

01:14:19 ◼   ► the first step is correcting it and getting basically an accurate image that

01:14:24 ◼   ► looks right and real and matches the other photos that you have that the skin

01:14:29 ◼   ► looks healthy and that you know whites aren't blue so the first stage is just

01:14:37 ◼   ► going through it and finding that look and then the next is adding a filter,

01:14:40 ◼   ► giving it a look, making it you know look like vintage or whatever you want to do.

01:14:43 ◼   ► But let's let's start with just getting your photo looking right, which this this

01:14:48 ◼   ► is the moment where I said my description skills suddenly are very

01:14:52 ◼   ► important, but a lot of that is having those reference photos available. So if

01:14:57 ◼   ► you've got a let's say a photo of a person, a portrait, it's very helpful to

01:15:03 ◼   ► dig around find a few other images that you really like on Instagram that are

01:15:07 ◼   ► somewhat similar meaning if it was taken indoors these photos were taken indoors

01:15:11 ◼   ► or outdoors or whatever that the lighting the subject is a little bit

01:15:16 ◼   ► close to what you're aiming for. Then first you'd start with the exposure

01:15:22 ◼   ► again this is just the overall brightness of the image and it's also a

01:15:26 ◼   ► good chance to say why I'm not recommending the photos app and why I

01:15:30 ◼   ► I think if you're using photos.app right now to edit your images you should run away.

01:15:34 ◼   ► Same with preview or any of the Apple-based image editing apps.

01:15:38 ◼   ► If you go into photos or any of the apps that we recommend,

01:15:42 ◼   ► and in all of them just take a dark image and turn up the exposure,

01:15:46 ◼   ► you're going to see it go a little crazy inside of photos.

01:15:51 ◼   ► It tries to do far too much and will create this really dramatic HDR image.

01:15:59 ◼   ► or if you go in and like, so I think they call it the light slider.

01:16:03 ◼   ► And then if you actually go in inside of that, you can drill down and find different sliders.

01:16:07 ◼   ► And if you move the exposure slider within that, then you'll find that the highlights get what you'd call clipped,

01:16:14 ◼   ► meaning that they start to become like digital white.

01:16:18 ◼   ► And this is part of that problem in that photo that Federico, you were saying you liked the old photo more.

01:16:24 ◼   ► The whites in that are burnt out, meaning there's just no data left.

01:16:28 ◼   ► They're not white because they are white. They're white because the camera couldn't find anything there.

01:16:32 ◼   ► And that is a giveaway of digital.

01:16:36 ◼   ► So that was a lot of what we were aiming for when film cameras were much better than digital.

01:16:40 ◼   ► We were trying to save those highlights to still have some information in them

01:16:45 ◼   ► so it doesn't give away the format of the photo.

01:16:48 ◼   ► And so you're always trying to avoid that clip.

01:16:50 ◼   ► And photos can go there on its own, which I don't know how they let that happen.

01:16:55 ◼   ► and all these other apps are much more smooth

01:16:57 ◼   ► as you raise the exposure, the photo still looks healthy.

01:17:02 ◼   ► It still looks right as you make it brighter or darker.

01:17:05 ◼   ► How did I do at that point?

01:17:06 ◼   ► Does that make sense so far?

01:17:07 ◼   ► Are you visualizing something

01:17:08 ◼   ► that is a little coherent, I hope?

01:17:11 ◼   ► - I think so, yeah.

01:17:13 ◼   ► I think I'm probably gonna end up listening

01:17:14 ◼   ► to this episode about three times,

01:17:17 ◼   ► but so far I think we're doing it,

01:17:19 ◼   ► I think it's making sense.

01:17:20 ◼   ► - Well, everyone that's not driving

01:17:22 ◼   ► should be following along

01:17:23 ◼   ► trying to play with some of these sliders in the app themselves.

01:17:26 ◼   ► That's true, I should actually be doing that. I hadn't done that myself.

01:17:30 ◼   ► Sorry, I'm opening an app now.

01:17:32 ◼   ► Yeah, any of them.

01:17:33 ◼   ► And again, you can take my word for it, just don't use the Photos app.

01:17:36 ◼   ► It's not great for colors.

01:17:38 ◼   ► One thing it does fine is cropping and straightening.

01:17:41 ◼   ► If that's all you're doing, I do that in the Photos app,

01:17:44 ◼   ► it does the same job as anything else.

01:17:46 ◼   ► The only thing is if you have...

01:17:49 ◼   ► I was going to talk about perspective, let's leave that.

01:17:51 ◼   ► It doesn't do perspective, the other apps do, but you may not want to deal with that right now.

01:17:55 ◼   ► Next, you're going to deal with white balance.

01:17:59 ◼   ► This is the other cornerstone of an image looking correct.

01:18:03 ◼   ► And again, you're going to have to pull out your reference photos

01:18:06 ◼   ► and just try to get the, first of all, the skin.

01:18:10 ◼   ► That is the priority in any photo with the person in it,

01:18:13 ◼   ► is that the person's skin looks right.

01:18:16 ◼   ► And it's hard to say what that is, but it actually is in the same color range,

01:18:21 ◼   ► the same tonal range, regardless of how bright or dark their skin is.

01:18:25 ◼   ► So if you are editing video, there's actually a little line in your color monitor.

01:18:32 ◼   ► Like when you're doing video, it shows you much more information about this.

01:18:35 ◼   ► And you see this little line cutting through the orange that says,

01:18:38 ◼   ► "This is where all skin should be. No matter how dark or bright your skin is,

01:18:43 ◼   ► it should hit the same level of warmth."

01:18:46 ◼   ► and trying to get a sense of what that kind of creamy, orangey-ness is, is really helpful.

01:18:55 ◼   ► And all you can do is look at other photos for that. So pull up a bunch of photos of people that

01:18:59 ◼   ► look kind of like you and move the white balance back and forth until it looks like you. Does that

01:19:06 ◼   ► make a bit of sense? And is that the same as temperature? Yes. Exactly. So that's white

01:19:14 ◼   ► balance. Temperature is the measurement of white balance. So yeah, the temperature is

01:19:21 ◼   ► that cooler is bluer and warmer is redder or oranger. And of course this is only useful

01:19:32 ◼   ► for you if you have white skin? No. Is that a stupid question? No, it's the exact same.

01:19:37 ◼   ► You go through the exact same step no matter what your skin is. And if you adjust it for

01:19:42 ◼   ► The white balance you're gonna find the same thing for white skin or dark skin

01:19:47 ◼   ► Even if both people are in the same photo you could adjust for either person and they're both probably gonna look about right

01:19:53 ◼   ► The main difference will be the actual like brightness or contrast that has more of an effect on the skin tone

01:20:01 ◼   ► Because what you're affecting is the effect that those light sources have had on the color of the skin. Yeah, exactly

01:20:07 ◼   ► Okay, and even she might be why maybe some people call it temperature as opposed to white balance, maybe well

01:20:13 ◼   ► It's not an instead of it's a it's that like white balance is the the bigger circle and inside of that is

01:20:18 ◼   ► Temperature and there's another one called 10. Okay, you'll see both of those things showing up

01:20:22 ◼   ► I am yeah temperatures docroom has them both listed under each other

01:20:27 ◼   ► It's safer to only play with temperature at first which is the range between yellow and blue

01:20:32 ◼   ► There are other colors in an image. And so that'll be going between magenta and green

01:20:37 ◼   ► and you can play with that to see what it does. You usually don't move that one

01:20:42 ◼   ► as far. The temperature will go very far from left to right depending on the

01:20:45 ◼   ► image. The tint usually won't as much. The best example is that fluorescent lights

01:20:51 ◼   ► are very green, so if you shoot under cheap fluorescence you'll have to move

01:20:56 ◼   ► that towards magenta which is removing green from the image. But it's not as

01:21:01 ◼   ► common of a problem so maybe don't worry about it yet.

01:21:04 ◼   ► I will say I'm playing around with this with an image that I took in a restaurant a couple

01:21:09 ◼   ► weeks ago and it's surprising how much of a difference that actually makes.

01:21:14 ◼   ► Yeah, if this is all you do, if you just open up every photo and often it's boosting exposure

01:21:21 ◼   ► a little bit, especially in one of these good apps that does it right, it can just like

01:21:25 ◼   ► give some life back to the photo, it can just make it feel more present and more in your

01:21:30 ◼   ► face in a good way. Just bringing it up a little bit is a little more common, and then

01:21:37 ◼   ► making sure that the other white balance is right. And it goes really far even if you

01:21:41 ◼   ► don't add any filter after.

01:21:43 ◼   ► So what is the difference between... I'm gonna get this wrong... luminance and exposure.

01:21:51 ◼   ► Those are two different things, right?

01:21:53 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:21:54 ◼   ► Because I see luminance in both darkroom and lightroom, but I have no idea what it means.

01:22:00 ◼   ► Luminance is a less used word. I mean it refers to the overall brightness of the image,

01:22:06 ◼   ► but exposure is the most common term. Like exposure is the default term for photography

01:22:12 ◼   ► brightness, so you'll find it more often. And something to think about with exposure as well

01:22:18 ◼   ► is that, oh my god how hard, I don't know what I'm trying to like stay on the edge without getting

01:22:24 ◼   ► too complicated. Exposure will usually bring up the mid-tones of the photo. So

01:22:30 ◼   ► you know something in your photo is usually pure black, something's usually

01:22:33 ◼   ► pure white often. Everything in the middle you're gonna call mid-tones and

01:22:38 ◼   ► exposure is playing with that area and usually leaving the brightest and

01:22:42 ◼   ► darkest parts more or less alone. If you moved up the brightest and darkest or

01:22:47 ◼   ► moved them down that can start to do a bit more damage and that's part of what

01:22:51 ◼   ► the Photos app is doing, part of why VSCO, Lightroom, Darkroom all look good, is they're

01:22:57 ◼   ► doing a very smart way of adjusting the central tones inside of your image.

01:23:02 ◼   ► Did I go too far?

01:23:05 ◼   ► Okay.

01:23:06 ◼   ► No, no, okay.

01:23:08 ◼   ► So most of the time, I see like this, people do this all the time, like they want to make

01:23:16 ◼   ► sure that a photo sort of adds that kind of punch that sort of like that it pops on the

01:23:21 ◼   ► screen and so they turn on the they turn up the saturation all the way to the to the to

01:23:27 ◼   ► the right of the slider and but that makes the image look look sort of fake and like

01:23:34 ◼   ► the colors are like awful so what's the best way but my problem is that I sort of understand

01:23:42 ◼   ► why people do that, because you see these very bright, very intense colors

01:23:47 ◼   ► and they're sort of pleasing, right?

01:23:49 ◼   ► Everybody likes pretty colors.

01:23:53 ◼   ► Well, this is what happened with MKBHD's test, right?

01:23:55 ◼   ► It was like the most saturated foam, which was the Huawei,

01:23:59 ◼   ► and that was why it ended up getting the highest votes.

01:24:02 ◼   ► Yeah. Yeah, it's the Best Buy TV effect.

01:24:05 ◼   ► Yeah. At what point, like where do you draw the line between

01:24:10 ◼   ► an artistic choice, so to speak, like a personal preference, and a photographic mistake. Is there

01:24:17 ◼   ► even a line? There is no real line. I draw my own lines, and you probably draw yours based on your

01:24:24 ◼   ► description of the oversaturated images. You don't like the way they look. Most people don't. So,

01:24:29 ◼   ► again, that's why it's so helpful to have all these references, all these times that you've

01:24:34 ◼   ► seen photos and you're like, "That feels about right. It's a little more punchy than my images,

01:24:38 ◼   ► but not so much so that it's distracting. You don't really think about it. So I would suggest

01:24:43 ◼   ► the best place to start is with the presets inside of these apps. Some favorites that I like, so

01:24:50 ◼   ► there's also desaturated looks that look really nice. So a really popular one that I've used often

01:24:55 ◼   ► is A6 inside of VSEO, and that actually will suck out some of the saturation from your photo,

01:25:02 ◼   ► but it looks very clean and it feels kind of commercial like it could be it would put it in

01:25:09 ◼   ► a magazine really quickly. Then there's others that are inherently more saturated so one of

01:25:14 ◼   ► those that I like is C7 and that one is going to feel very punchy. A lot of my stuff I posted

01:25:20 ◼   ► lately is like that but it's actually only bringing the saturation up a little bit and

01:25:25 ◼   ► importantly in certain colors so these presets aren't just adjusting one thing. When you do

01:25:31 ◼   ► saturation everything gets more saturated and it kind of creates this blinding effect. A lot of the

01:25:38 ◼   ► time what good presets and I should also say going back to film like film had it figured out when we

01:25:44 ◼   ► were in the 90s you know Kodak and Fuji had spent a hundred years very carefully figuring out color

01:25:52 ◼   ► science and what makes an image look good and when digital came around it kind of all got lost for

01:25:57 ◼   ► a decade. There was a long time where all digital photos felt really clinical and gave up on what we

01:26:03 ◼   ► had gained in all that time in film. And this is the reason that we talk about film emulation a lot.

01:26:09 ◼   ► It's not to get a vintage look. We were a little confused when Instagram started that the whole

01:26:15 ◼   ► point was to make them look faded or old or fake old. But the good thing about film is that it had

01:26:22 ◼   ► a really great way of dealing with colors. And we've been moving back towards that. And that's

01:26:26 ◼   ► And that's why there are a lot more

01:26:29 ◼   ► beautiful photos on Instagram.

01:26:30 ◼   ► We kind of figured out like,

01:26:31 ◼   ► "Oh, this is why film looks so good."

01:26:33 ◼   ► If we make these same kinds of adjustments

01:26:35 ◼   ► to our digital photos,

01:26:36 ◼   ► it can look amazing without going over the top.

01:26:39 ◼   ► - I think that's only improved

01:26:40 ◼   ► as the tools have gotten better, right?

01:26:43 ◼   ► Like, say like the iPhone 4 days,

01:26:45 ◼   ► which in its day was a good camera,

01:26:48 ◼   ► better than what came before it,

01:26:49 ◼   ► but we had more limited options, right?

01:26:51 ◼   ► The software wasn't shooting in RAW.

01:26:53 ◼   ► If we wanted it to,

01:26:54 ◼   ► it was gathering less information,

01:26:56 ◼   ► light but it seems like as the hardware and software has gotten better it enables

01:27:01 ◼   ► us in a way to go back to what we had before. It's sort of an interesting path.

01:27:05 ◼   ► What's really interesting about it too is that it's not all that there was

01:27:09 ◼   ► these big technology jumps. A lot of it was taste as well that you could have

01:27:15 ◼   ► edited those photos. You know if you go back and take your iPhone 4 photos and

01:27:18 ◼   ► use modern apps they'll still look much better than they did at the time and a

01:27:24 ◼   ► of it is that we kind of collectively all figured out like, oh, this is what looks good. This is why

01:27:30 ◼   ► we like film photos. It's not because they're covered in dust and the shadows are raised a lot

01:27:37 ◼   ► to make it look faded. It's because the, you know, the colors have these qualities that I can't get

01:27:42 ◼   ► into now. But again, this, so this comes down to you got to start playing with them. I mean,

01:27:49 ◼   ► in both apps, you can experiment with filters quite a bit to get a sense of what they're doing.

01:27:53 ◼   ► The things to look for, this is important, you can choose any preset that you want.

01:27:57 ◼   ► The things to look for that will make a preset good or bad is for one, please don't choose one

01:28:03 ◼   ► that changes the color of the highlights. This is a really common effect especially,

01:28:08 ◼   ► sorry, if you want to have like a polaroid look, like a real vintage look, it'll start to turn the

01:28:15 ◼   ► highlights, the white parts of the image, either yellow or green or whatever, I mean any kind of

01:28:20 ◼   ► of color. If you can keep your highlights and usually your shadows as well neutral,

01:28:26 ◼   ► like somewhat close to what they originally look like, that's a really good sign that

01:28:30 ◼   ► this preset is going to last and you're not going to hate the photo in five years from

01:28:34 ◼   ► now.

01:28:35 ◼   ► It's a lot of stuff to think about.

01:28:37 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:28:38 ◼   ► I'm going to have to take notes.

01:28:45 ◼   ► Once you get it, once you get the hang of it, you can kind of just do the same thing

01:28:49 ◼   ► every time. For me, I just go through the same three or four steps every time I'm

01:28:52 ◼   ► editing an image and I don't usually think all that hard about it unless it's for a

01:28:57 ◼   ► client and it's really really important then I might spend an hour on a photo. But

01:29:01 ◼   ► you know social photos, I'm spending five, ten minutes doing the same few steps every

01:29:06 ◼   ► single time.

01:29:07 ◼   ► Yeah, it's like you set it once and then you know what you're looking for each time

01:29:12 ◼   ► so that ends up being what you go for, right?

01:29:14 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean when you guys set up your podcasting recording situations, you know you probably

01:29:18 ◼   ► spent a long time researching your mics and your preamps and figuring out how to make

01:29:22 ◼   ► it sound good, and now it just sounds great and you turn it on every day and you never

01:29:26 ◼   ► think about it again and it's easy. It's just about getting to that point.

01:29:29 ◼   ► Okay. I mean, there's definitely some stuff in there. I need to spend more time playing

01:29:33 ◼   ► with the apps. So Darkroom is the app that makes the most sense to me from a design perspective,

01:29:38 ◼   ► but even in playing around now, it's doing some stuff now which I don't understand. So

01:29:43 ◼   ► If I change the white balance or whatever, if I then apply a filter, it resets what I

01:29:48 ◼   ► changed and VSCO doesn't do that.

01:29:51 ◼   ► Yeah, actually I didn't know Darkroom does that.

01:29:53 ◼   ► I use Darkroom quite a bit, I don't really use Darkroom.

01:29:56 ◼   ► I just know that other people like it.

01:29:58 ◼   ► Yeah, VSCO is really confusing to me in a lot of places.

01:30:03 ◼   ► The UI is...

01:30:04 ◼   ► Yeah, they had a big change a couple of years ago and I think, at least for me, I still

01:30:10 ◼   ► like the filters and the tools it gives you but the UI and it's like, oh, we're also social

01:30:16 ◼   ► media network. And we also like, I found it a little off putting in places.

01:30:20 ◼   ► They've never been shy about doing crazy design things like they'll upend the whole app repeatedly.

01:30:25 ◼   ► And that can definitely be challenging, especially if you've already learned it. But like before

01:30:30 ◼   ► we drop off, I want to make sure that I just mentioned some others. I mean, I'm sure there's

01:30:33 ◼   ► some people listening that are going to be people will be mentioning Snapseed to you.

01:30:37 ◼   ► popular app. I don't find it has a lot of presets that are useful and it has a

01:30:41 ◼   ► lot of terrible presets that will ruin your photos so I think you have to be a

01:30:45 ◼   ► little more careful in it. So I don't personally recommend Snapseed as your

01:30:50 ◼   ► primary editing app. Another really useful one is Touch Retouch which is

01:30:56 ◼   ► good for removing stuff in photos if you want to clone things out. Another one

01:31:01 ◼   ► that is really simple to use like it's one touch editing is Filmborn just film

01:31:06 ◼   ► emulation and another competitor to Darkroom and VSCO is Afterlight as well.

01:31:11 ◼   ► Can you remind me again what were the the VSCO packs that you recommend?

01:31:16 ◼   ► That's A, C and LV.

01:31:19 ◼   ► LV.

01:31:20 ◼   ► Yeah it was the Levi's collaboration.

01:31:23 ◼   ► Oh and A and C are separate.

01:31:26 ◼   ► A comma C comma LV.

01:31:28 ◼   ► Yeah yeah I think I made the mistake of just buying all of them.

01:31:34 ◼   ► No, it's not a mistake. I mean, the thing is, if you have good presets, it's going to make a bigger

01:31:41 ◼   ► difference. This was a huge takeaway from the MKBHD blind test as well. If people just edited their

01:31:47 ◼   ► photos after, it would make a way bigger difference than the actual cameras would. Like, that's,

01:31:51 ◼   ► you could win any camera shootout if you just edited the photo that you want to win. It would

01:31:57 ◼   ► always be able to win because that's what people really like is just that little bit of extra

01:32:01 ◼   ► polish and refinement that doesn't come out of most cameras by default, or any cameras

01:32:06 ◼   ► by default.

01:32:07 ◼   ► Is there anything else that we should be thinking of?

01:32:09 ◼   ► Well, you asked about stories, which is a little unrelated, but I don't want you to

01:32:14 ◼   ► leave without having my story tips.

01:32:19 ◼   ► I did do a whole YouTube video about this, so if I'm leaving anything out in this quick

01:32:23 ◼   ► description, it's worth watching that because I go through in a bit of detail how I create

01:32:30 ◼   ► them.

01:32:31 ◼   ► If you haven't seen my stories, they are vlog style.

01:32:34 ◼   ► So it's usually, it's moving through a bunch of different clips like a YouTube vlog,

01:32:40 ◼   ► but I'm shooting it on my phone and I'm usually shooting and editing in almost real time,

01:32:45 ◼   ► which is really important about stories for me. I don't want stories to take a long time.

01:32:49 ◼   ► They're supposed to be quick. They're supposed to be of the moment of what's happening right now.

01:32:53 ◼   ► And I don't want to be bogged down in a bunch of editing, but I also want them to feel kind

01:32:57 ◼   ► of professional and you know actually entertain people for a few minutes. So the way that I do

01:33:03 ◼   ► that is using an app called Spark Camera is the primary one. There's a few apps called Spark so

01:33:08 ◼   ► make sure you're getting the right one Spark Camera and it's not the email application just

01:33:13 ◼   ► to be clear. Also not the Adobe design application. There's like three or four more. But it is it's a

01:33:21 ◼   ► pretty old app it actually predates a lot of those and as far as I know it was the first app to have

01:33:26 ◼   ► the swipe left and right to add a filter over it. They actually invented that and

01:33:31 ◼   ► it's kind of been forgotten. But it looks a bit like snapchat in that you just

01:33:36 ◼   ► press and hold anywhere on the screen to start recording. You can double tap to

01:33:41 ◼   ► flip the camera backwards to yourself and that's kind of it. So you press and

01:33:44 ◼   ► hold record for a few seconds look at something else press and hold for a few

01:33:48 ◼   ► seconds and after a while you've kind of built up a little video a little vlog

01:33:51 ◼   ► type video hit export and when you upload it to Instagram now Instagram has a feature where it'll

01:33:57 ◼   ► cut up videos that are up to 60 seconds long into 15 second clips so as people watch through your

01:34:04 ◼   ► stories you don't have to worry about each clip being a full 15 seconds or whatever you can kind

01:34:08 ◼   ► of just do these little moments that piece together a more complete story and that's how

01:34:14 ◼   ► I usually do Instagram stories.

01:34:15 ◼   ► No, that's a good tip.

01:34:18 ◼   ► Okay.

01:34:19 ◼   ► So spark camera.

01:34:20 ◼   ► All right.

01:34:21 ◼   ► And if you want one more, if you are just into posting photos and adding a little design

01:34:25 ◼   ► to them, I would recommend, wait, I forgot what it's called.

01:34:28 ◼   ► Oh, I'd recommend Unfold, which is, it is made exactly for creating beautifully designed

01:34:34 ◼   ► stories.

01:34:35 ◼   ► That's it.

01:34:36 ◼   ► Oh, it's just like one of the ones that does all the frames and stuff.

01:34:38 ◼   ► Yeah, exactly.

01:34:39 ◼   ► And text and layouts and stuff.

01:34:42 ◼   ► Oh, I've seen these everywhere.

01:34:45 ◼   ► Yep.

01:34:46 ◼   ► Now I'm looking at like...

01:34:47 ◼   ► Oh, so that's how people make them.

01:34:50 ◼   ► That's the secret.

01:34:51 ◼   ► There's an app for it.

01:34:53 ◼   ► Are you gonna get thrown out of the Instagram?

01:34:55 ◼   ► Like, you're like, you know that...

01:34:57 ◼   ► Secret society?

01:34:58 ◼   ► You know, you know that show, like the magician secrets revealed or whatever?

01:35:03 ◼   ► You're doing that for Instagram.

01:35:05 ◼   ► That might happen.

01:35:06 ◼   ► I just dropped all the knowledge in one quick segment.

01:35:10 ◼   ► Hopefully, I mean hopefully some of that made sense.

01:35:12 ◼   ► Okay, I think it did.

01:35:14 ◼   ► Unfold spark camera. Bye.

01:35:16 ◼   ► I'm just going through.

01:35:18 ◼   ► Bye, no more. Of course, we'll have links in our show notes for all of these.

01:35:22 ◼   ► Tyler, thank you so much for joining us. Can you give a rundown?

01:35:25 ◼   ► Like what are the best places for people to go to find what you're up to?

01:35:28 ◼   ► I mean if you just search for my name in Google,

01:35:30 ◼   ► S-T-A-L-M-A-N, you're gonna find all my stuff.

01:35:33 ◼   ► But my favorite thing to do is my podcast, which is stahlmanpodcast.com.

01:35:37 ◼   ► where you guys have been.

01:35:38 ◼   ► Both Myke and Steven have been there,

01:35:41 ◼   ► and Federico, I'd love to have you someday.

01:35:43 ◼   ► - Sure, thank you, okay.

01:35:45 ◼   ► Love to.

01:35:45 ◼   ► - Just synchronize your calendars right now.

01:35:47 ◼   ► Just do it right now.

01:35:48 ◼   ► - All right, this makes for great radio.

01:35:50 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:35:52 ◼   ► - All right, Tyler, thank you so much for joining us.

01:35:54 ◼   ► - Thanks guys, take care.

01:35:55 ◼   ► - So I think that about does it for this week.

01:35:57 ◼   ► I feel like I know a lot more.

01:35:59 ◼   ► What about you guys?

01:36:00 ◼   ► Do you feel ready to go conquer Instagram?

01:36:02 ◼   ► - My brain feels more full, is what I'll say.

01:36:05 ◼   ► Is that a good thing?

01:36:08 ◼   ► Probably.

01:36:08 ◼   ► Well, if you want to check out all the apps we talked about

01:36:11 ◼   ► with Tyler or you're really interested in iPod Touch

01:36:13 ◼   ► Rumors, all those links are on the website,

01:36:16 ◼   ► relay.fm/connected/226.

01:36:20 ◼   ► While you're there, you can get in touch with us via email,

01:36:23 ◼   ► or you can do so on Twitter.

01:36:25 ◼   ► Federico is there as Vitici and V-I-T-I-C-C-I.

01:36:29 ◼   ► And of course, he is the editor-in-chief of

01:36:31 ◼   ► maxstories.net.

01:36:32 ◼   ► You can find Myke on Twitter as @imyke,

01:36:35 ◼   ► and Myke hosts a bunch of shows.

01:36:37 ◼   ► You can find them at relay.fm/shows.

01:36:41 ◼   ► You can follow me over there as @ismh,

01:36:44 ◼   ► and you can find my writing at 512pixels.net.

01:36:48 ◼   ► I'd like to thank our sponsors this week,

01:36:50 ◼   ► PDF Pen from Smile, Away, and Squarespace.

01:36:53 ◼   ► And until next week, guys, say goodbye.

01:36:55 ◼   ► - Adios,

01:36:55 ◼   ► Adios.