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Connected

102: Zwidge

 

00:00:00   [Music]

00:00:07   From Relay FM, this is Connected, episode 102.

00:00:11   Today's episode is brought to you by Squarespace, Ring, and Pingdom.

00:00:16   My name is Myke Hurley and I am joined by Steven Hackett.

00:00:18   Hello, Steven Hackett.

00:00:19   Hello, Michael Hurley.

00:00:21   And Federico, welcome to the show.

00:00:23   Hello, Myke.

00:00:24   How can we verify that it's really you?

00:00:27   You just go to my Twitter profile and you see a little blue checkmark.

00:00:30   Wow.

00:00:31   You went there.

00:00:32   You really went there.

00:00:33   You started it.

00:00:34   Like what were you expecting me to say?

00:00:36   I was thinking of something funny.

00:00:38   Like say something in, you know, with the British accent.

00:00:40   But you really had to go there and remind me of the Twitter verification.

00:00:44   Okay, cool.

00:00:45   I'm sorry.

00:00:46   Can I talk to you?

00:00:47   Are you verified?

00:00:48   Am I allowed to?

00:00:49   Should I call your assistant first?

00:00:50   You have to confirm with @verified first.

00:00:53   Okay.

00:00:54   So I am the only one of the three of us that nabbed the Twitter verification, right?

00:00:58   You are the VIP very important podcaster.

00:01:01   Yeah.

00:01:02   It doesn't really make any sense, does it?

00:01:04   Like why was it me?

00:01:05   Like I don't know why.

00:01:07   I dropped my Wikipedia page in the thing.

00:01:10   That's what it was.

00:01:11   It has to be what it was.

00:01:12   Yeah, so that's what I think kind of nabbed it for me was that I have a Wikipedia page.

00:01:16   Because it's like an external verification.

00:01:19   The next time I apply I'm going to say "send me your square cash tag and I will just pay

00:01:24   you for a check mark and see how that and see if bribing works next time.

00:01:29   You should take your wife out to dinner. It'll be on me.

00:01:32   It'd be a shame if something happened to your San Francisco apartment.

00:01:35   Alright we're gonna do follow-up because there's a lot of follow-up and there's a lot of topics

00:01:40   this week.

00:01:41   Follow-up.

00:01:42   Up first, follow-up. Up first we're going to revisit the conversation about how Apple

00:01:48   may be or may not be training its photo algorithm to know what is a horse and

00:01:53   what is a mountain and what is a bearded British verified person. And a lot of

00:01:59   people emailed / tweeted / faxed us asking why Apple's web crawler project

00:02:06   couldn't be used to find images and you know I think I understand where this

00:02:13   question is going but it that's not what Apple's web crawler is really for.

00:02:20   Yeah maybe we didn't do a good enough job of like explaining what we believe to be the

00:02:25   issue here and it wasn't where the photos necessarily came from and we did spend a lot

00:02:29   of time talking about that but the key part is how these images get any kind of knowledge

00:02:36   based on them like the raw images are great but you need to know what they are and where

00:02:40   does that data come from.

00:02:42   And I mean even if you even if you crawl the page and you look at the alt or title, you

00:02:48   know the metadata for in the HTML so you can insert an image and say with the alt attribute

00:02:54   say this is a picture of a tree.

00:02:56   So Applebot can go out there and crawl images, crawl videos, crawl anything and you can even

00:03:01   read from the description of those images this is a tree or this is you know a fish.

00:03:08   But what we were saying last week is you can crawl anything you want, but without a system

00:03:14   to determine what's relevant and what is not, which is what Google is doing, then it sort

00:03:23   of begs the question, so how is Apple saying, "Okay, this is an accurate picture of a tree?"

00:03:28   Because if I have a website, I can put up a picture of Myke and say, "This is a picture

00:03:32   of a forest."

00:03:34   Apple bulk goes out there, finds the picture of Myke, but in the alt attribute it says

00:03:38   this is a forest. So when, you know, if that's the only system that you have in place, well then later

00:03:45   when you perform a query on the algorithm, it says okay, this is, you're searching for a forest,

00:03:49   here you go with this British person. So you need a system where there's, okay, you're crawling stuff

00:03:56   from the web. Sure, that's cool. But then you need to actually make sure that the stuff that you

00:04:01   crawled is accurate and that's what Google is doing with Google Images.

00:04:05   They're crawling web pages and then over time if users click on those pictures

00:04:10   they know which ones are accurate because they know what people are

00:04:14   searching for and they know what people are clicking on. Same with the

00:04:18   captchas. The reason why they ask you "can you tell us what's a construction

00:04:23   machine?" Over time they're gonna use data from those captchas to say "okay these

00:04:28   photos, they are machines, these other photos, they are forests, so you know we can improve

00:04:33   our system with manual user intervention. And Apple by itself cannot do that.

00:04:40   No, and Apple may have some kind of system in place but we just don't know what it is,

00:04:44   right? So when we were discussing this, just conceivably to us, Google has a system which

00:04:49   is in place, has been in place for a long time with Google Images and will continue

00:04:54   to be in place and didn't they just release or like re-release that image matching game?

00:05:01   Yes, just last week it doesn't really work on the iPhone, I think I tried from Safari but it doesn't

00:05:07   work, but yes you can contribute to the... what's the name of the Google, it's not called PageRank

00:05:14   and maybe it's not DeepMind, anyway you can contribute to the photo recognition engine by

00:05:20   matching pictures with what Google is asking you. Like, "What is a tree?" and then you click on the picture of a tree.

00:05:28   It's fun. And it's a fun way to help Google.

00:05:31   But sure, you see, you need something like this.

00:05:35   And we don't know, because Apple is not a public search company,

00:05:40   we don't know where or how it's happening and we'll have to judge the final product in iOS 10,

00:05:46   which, fun fact, in beta 4 they reset all of the data for people.

00:05:55   Not for scene, so they're calling "Scene Search" because it looks at scenes in your photos, such as horses and mountains.

00:06:03   But they reset data for people. I want to see if it gets better.

00:06:08   And sure, matching people and matching scenes are two separate parts of photos,

00:06:13   But it looks like things are still changing. That's the point.

00:06:16   And my iPhone and my iPad had to redo the entire indexing of my photo library last night,

00:06:22   which took a couple of hours. So we'll see if it gets better, I guess.

00:06:26   So in the thread of iOS 10-related follow-up, we also had some comments about iMessage Preview,

00:06:34   which we spoke about a couple weeks ago and again last week maybe.

00:06:37   and we talked about OpenGraph and you know the concern that if Apple's what

00:06:44   Apple has to scrape to build those previews and James along with a lot of

00:06:48   people pointed out that Apple doesn't actually scrape a whole webpage they

00:06:51   just pull the HTML which is obviously much smaller than all the CSS and all

00:06:55   the images and all the JavaScript and then grab whatever image OpenGraph

00:06:58   points to it's a much smaller payload to render the preview in iMessage and then

00:07:04   when you force touch or when you tap on the link you then get of course the full

00:07:09   web page in Safari or in the in app browser. I think that's a good point I think that's where we're

00:07:14   trying to get. I think we got a little off track in that conversation. I've

00:07:18   noticed though on iOS 10 at least in the public beta it seems that those previews

00:07:23   aren't always automatic like I feel like sometimes I get a click you know or like

00:07:28   tap to preview. Federica have you seen that? Are they changing the way that

00:07:32   works or am I just noticing something that's been there for a while?

00:07:35   So up until Beta 3 it was all kinds of inconsistent where I thought, and I think I said this on the show,

00:07:44   that you only needed to confirm once and then from that point on all of the web page previews would load by default.

00:07:52   But then in Beta 3 I found myself tapping, you know, tap to load every time but inconsistently across different threads.

00:08:00   It seems like, so I just sent with Beta 4 a link to a friend and it expanded by default.

00:08:08   I didn't have to tap anything on my end.

00:08:10   I don't know what happened on his end.

00:08:13   So I guess again, this is one of those things that is still changing probably because Apple

00:08:17   is collecting feedback from people and they're still figuring out what's best.

00:08:21   I do hope that it's, you know, the kind of feature where you make it work once it's set

00:08:29   and you don't have to think about it anymore but I'm just concerned that some people will

00:08:34   get upset you know because it consumes X kilobytes for you know each preview image and then over

00:08:40   time people are gonna say hey what's this data usage I don't know I'm not sure.

00:08:45   I notice that it seems to be inconsistent so maybe they're playing with it and taking

00:08:48   feedback from people.

00:08:50   We're now going to move on to 123 Notetaker which of course is the suite of productivity

00:08:56   applications that Myke is building for iOS.

00:08:59   So it turns out that the 123 brand has made an appearance a long, long time ago.

00:09:05   Sean wrote in to point out that on episode 56 of Bionic, this is more examples of people

00:09:11   listening back to the back catalogue, on August 23, 2013, during an ad for Squarespace, I

00:09:18   mentioned 123blogmaker.com.

00:09:20   Wow.

00:09:22   So that was the ancestor of 123 Not Taker.

00:09:25   Yeah, it's a since retired blog making system because it was crap and Squarespace was awesome.

00:09:31   So it started as a web service, the 123 branding, and then you move from web development to

00:09:37   native app development, which makes sense.

00:09:40   Why is, why is it a career choice?

00:09:42   Something I find really interesting about this, not only has Sean decided to go back

00:09:45   to listen to the old catalog, he's also listening to the old ads as well, which I think is amazing.

00:09:51   Like he didn't skip the ads, it's like 3 years old and he's still listening to him, so much

00:09:56   respect to you Sean.

00:09:58   I will put a link in the show notes to the episode and also to the overcast timestamp

00:10:03   link that Sean provided which will jump you straight to that moment but if you're listening

00:10:06   somewhere else it's around 19 minutes and 40 seconds is when I mention 123 Blogmaker.

00:10:12   It's also interesting to listen to that because just of how weird I sound, like I sound so

00:10:16   different to me anyway, I can hear a much thicker London accent than what I have now,

00:10:23   which is now my weirdo transatlantic accent.

00:10:26   Yeah, you've definitely shifted west in the way that you sound.

00:10:29   Yep.

00:10:30   So we're going to end follow-up with something really pretty awesome from Nathan, who mentioned

00:10:35   on Twitter, "Apple's earning calls," which we're not covering today, but if you want

00:10:38   to hear some about it, go listen to Upgrade 100.

00:10:41   "Apple's earning calls are like two-thirds of a connected FM show.

00:10:44   a southerner that is follow-up and an Italian that gets into the nitpicks.

00:10:49   We need Johnny to come on and talk about aluminium a bunch and then we're set, right?

00:10:54   Can you imagine him on a earnings call?

00:10:56   I bet he's quite angry a lot.

00:10:58   Yeah, I feel like he doesn't give one iota of care about quarterly costs.

00:11:04   He just doesn't care at all.

00:11:06   He's like, "Oh, oh yeah, we are publicly traded.

00:11:08   Who knew?"

00:11:09   Well, I'm sure his accountant knows.

00:11:11   Yeah, well they've got some sweet stock options.

00:11:14   I think Luca has a much thicker accent than I do. I don't know.

00:11:20   I've never listened to one of those calls.

00:11:22   Really?

00:11:22   Yeah, never.

00:11:23   Oh, you're missing all the fun, Myke.

00:11:25   No.

00:11:25   Yeah, it's fun.

00:11:26   I never ever listen to them. I can't deal with it.

00:11:28   It's great. I mean, I listen to the calls only for Gene Master at this point because I really want to see the reaction from team.

00:11:35   I feel like Gene and team are like, you know, two frenemies, you know?

00:11:42   They're both friends and enemies, but they sort of, they get snappy at each other sometimes.

00:11:48   It's always fun.

00:11:49   The earnings calls seem to always happen at weird times of day for me,

00:11:52   because I always feel like I'm catching up on it like hours and hours later.

00:11:56   It's kind of like late-ish in my evening time, around kind of dinner time or something.

00:12:00   I think it's interesting to hear.

00:12:01   I don't know if Luca's accent is thicker than yours, Federico,

00:12:05   I think they're pretty different.

00:12:07   But yeah, everyone should listen to one every once in a while.

00:12:10   It's fun to hear these guys answer questions from people who clearly don't pay attention

00:12:17   to the way that we do.

00:12:18   Someone asks a really boneheaded question and you just kind of want to put your head

00:12:23   down on your desk.

00:12:24   I'm sure there have been times where Steve Jobs or Tim Cook have just muted the phone

00:12:27   call and just thrown something across the room and then unmuted the phone call and answered

00:12:32   the stupid question.

00:12:33   Maybe I just imagine that. It's quarterly call fanfic, really, is what I'm doing.

00:12:40   Just before the show went on the air today, Logitech released a new Create keyboard for

00:12:46   the 9.7 inch iPad Pro. So the Create keyboard was one of the first two products that came

00:12:53   out with the original iPad Pro, and it was one of the smart connector keyboards. And

00:13:00   and now we have a 9.7 which seems to have improved upon the 12.9 in a bunch of interesting

00:13:06   ways. One of them is that it has an Apple pencil holder built into the case which I

00:13:11   think is a fantastic attachment and addition to the case. You can kind of slide it into

00:13:17   the back of the case and it will stay there nice and neatly. It also has backlit keys.

00:13:24   Does the 12.9 inch one have backlit keys Federico?

00:13:26   Yeah.

00:13:27   Okay. So I didn't know that. When we were talking about the Razer stuff last week, it

00:13:32   didn't cross my mind that there was actually a product.

00:13:36   I think you had the same reaction when we covered the keyboard in November and I told

00:13:42   you it was backlit. We were like, "Huh, really? Like, are we all surprised?" You know, the

00:13:47   surprised voice that you do. I'm not sure.

00:13:50   This one. This one right here. Wow.

00:13:52   That voice. That voice. You did that voice back in November and now you're doing it again.

00:13:56   So yes.

00:13:57   So this one's in black and blue and I'm happy that there is finally something which isn't

00:14:01   like a super boring color right like it's not all gray all the time.

00:14:05   It's $130 and it looks pretty cool.

00:14:08   I have pre-ordered one because I'm interested in trying this one out because it is a bit

00:14:15   more I don't know like it feels like a bit more than a smart camera.

00:14:18   It's got like it looks like it has interesting keys.

00:14:20   I like the idea of it being backlit.

00:14:23   I tend to do quite a lot of work when all the lights are off at home, so that might

00:14:28   be nice to have backlit keys, maybe I could just use this in the evening or something,

00:14:32   who knows, depending on how I like it.

00:14:35   Because it is a full case which I'm not too keen on, and it doesn't really... and there's

00:14:41   kind of the cloth backing, I'm not sure how well that will take to stickers, so...

00:14:45   I don't know what I think about this.

00:14:47   I'm curious to try this, even if I don't really use the 9.7, because it looks like a better

00:14:52   version of what I reviewed in November. So I complained about the size, the fact

00:14:57   that it was bulky and that it was too difficult to put the iPad in the case

00:15:01   and remove it from the case because it was all janky like the

00:15:05   the corners of the plastic. I didn't like those. And I also didn't like the fact

00:15:09   that the the red texture got all dirty in a couple of weeks and that it

00:15:15   basically the stickers for the volume buttons they just came off in about a

00:15:21   couple of days. And it looks like this version is an improvement over the 12.9,

00:15:27   not to mention the Apple Pencil Holder which is really nice, but they

00:15:32   didn't update the 12.9 version of the Create keyboard which kind of makes me

00:15:36   sad because I wish I could give it another try. But this one

00:15:41   smaller, I guess lighter, and maybe they were able to fix some of the

00:15:47   shortcomings of the first version should be a decent keyboard. It's still kind of

00:15:52   weird that basically we only have two accessories for the smart connector

00:15:56   which is the Create and the Razer. It's really odd, it's been almost a year of

00:16:04   iPad Pro at this point and we've seen what? Two companies besides Apple doing

00:16:10   smart connector accessories? It's strange. One thing that this keyboard has which

00:16:17   no other iPad keyboard has is a choice of layouts. So if you're not on the US website,

00:16:23   if you're on one of the European websites, you can pick from UK US International, I don't

00:16:28   know what that is, I expect that is just US layout with some keys in different places

00:16:32   so it won't have the nice return key that I wished I could have. It has Dutch, Spanish,

00:16:38   French, Italian, Swiss and... I'm struggling with one in this list, I can't think of what

00:16:46   what language this is because it's in the native language.

00:16:49   So I'm just gonna back away from that one.

00:16:52   Sorry whoever is Dansk, Norsk,

00:16:56   it would be like from Norway or something?

00:16:58   Come on Myke, you can do it. Sweden? Yeah, or something like that but I don't know what the

00:17:02   language is.

00:17:03   So anywho, this is now available in a bunch of different layouts

00:17:07   so that's a good thing. Federico, I assume you might want to pick up an Italian one.

00:17:11   Yeah, if I'm going to pick up one it's gonna be Italian.

00:17:14   Same reason why I cannot type on the Smart Keyboard anymore, not just because I don't like it,

00:17:19   but because of the keys. I got a Magic Keyboard and it's got a lot of my accented characters,

00:17:25   and the layout that I'm used to in Italy. The Smart Keyboard is still US only, which I really don't understand.

00:17:32   But yes, if I'm gonna pick up one, it's gonna be the Italian, sweet, sweet Italian layout.

00:17:38   So we'll try it out.

00:17:40   I mean I'm looking at it and I'm wondering like

00:17:42   Will I have to remove the little pen loop that I have on the back of my iPad to get this thing to fit in

00:17:47   The case probably so who knows this thing might actually arrive

00:17:51   I try and use it and just immediately send it back

00:17:53   But I'm willing to give it a go just because it looks like a kind of cool case and cool keyboard. So

00:17:58   I'm pleased to see there's still more happening

00:18:01   Yeah

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00:19:58   Underscore doing what he does in the chat room is helping me to correct my previous

00:20:03   blunder on keyboards we're looking at Danish, Norwegian, Swedish and Finnish so

00:20:07   Scandinavian would be what we were looking for there. I was looking at the

00:20:12   countries felt like I knew what they were but my brain couldn't compute.

00:20:16   So there we go I had stage fright everyone.

00:20:18   So we're going to talk about the iPod Classic.

00:20:22   What year is this?

00:20:24   Well that's kind of the point of the story there was an article over on the ringer about the

00:20:29   crazy life the iPod classic has had since Apple discontinued it which was

00:20:34   back in 2014 I think about two years ago and there's this whole like explosion of

00:20:42   value on these things you go on eBay and they're like a thousand dollars that the

00:20:47   author links to one at $1,700 on eBay right now people are just buying these

00:20:54   things up now people want them like new and in box and all fancy and everything

00:20:59   but there just seemed to be like this weird sort of hipster thing going on

00:21:04   around around these iPods and the writer kind of goes into why she thinks this

00:21:10   may be happening.

00:21:11   There are two parts that I really wanted to talk to you guys about besides hearing

00:21:17   your obvious pain at talking about this is a topic at all but this idea that

00:21:21   there's so many options on streaming services so if you open Spotify or Apple

00:21:25   music and you're presented with the search box or a browse button that you have a

00:21:31   tendency to kind of play the same stuff like over and over. I mean discounting

00:21:37   something like the discovery features in Spotify and Apple Music

00:21:42   but if you just want to go listen to something that's not being like sort of

00:21:45   pushed at you from the algorithm or from the editors, if you're going to

00:21:49   search for something it's kind of hard to remember or hard to discover things

00:21:53   like in your memory if you can't see them. And so she thinks that the iPod Classic obviously

00:21:59   you sync your whole music library to it and you're gonna scroll through and be like "oh

00:22:02   I haven't listened to this album by whoever since college and I want to listen to it again."

00:22:06   And that sort of sends a discovery I think is it's kind of an interesting way of looking

00:22:12   at it as opposed to something like a search box and Spotify. I don't know what do you

00:22:16   guys think about that? I don't know about this. I don't know about this because I mean

00:22:20   I compile a library of the stuff that I like in my streaming services.

00:22:25   So when I open Apple Music, I have a bunch of artists and a bunch of albums in there.

00:22:31   I mean, it's not everything I've ever owned, but the likelihood of me listening to something

00:22:36   that I haven't listened to for 15 years, I think is slim for me.

00:22:41   If I haven't listened to something for 15 years, there's probably a reason for that.

00:22:45   And if you're someone who just searches, I get that, but I think a lot of people add

00:22:52   music to their streaming service library like I do.

00:22:55   I know not everybody does this, I don't think Federico does this, but I assume lots of people

00:22:59   do, hence why the feature exists.

00:23:01   Like otherwise why would Apple even build the ability to add a library and to add stuff

00:23:07   to your collection of songs?

00:23:08   And I think that I don't feel like I'm listening to the same stuff all the time because I do

00:23:12   one or two things, or one or three things. I'm either going to listen to a thing that's

00:23:16   specifically in my head that I want to go and listen to, or I'm scrolling through my

00:23:21   list of albums and lists of artists to find something that I want inspiration for, or

00:23:27   I'm opening up For You, which I do probably the majority of the time, and picking one

00:23:32   of the playlists which will give me some stuff that I know and some stuff that I don't. And

00:23:37   the idea of music discovery is really important now and there's no way that an iPod Classic

00:23:42   can do that. Like it can't show me stuff I don't know because it doesn't have it.

00:23:45   So this just feels like, to me, and again this isn't an issue, but this just feels like

00:23:50   somebody to me who has a very specific view of how to consume music, which like I do right

00:23:55   now which I'm explaining, and this just seems like somebody who is like you Steven, who

00:23:59   likes to just have a library. I don't think that it inherently means that the iPod Classic

00:24:04   is a superior way to listen to music. I don't think it's necessarily a superior

00:24:09   way either but I do think it highlights the differences between the way you and

00:24:13   I consume music and then clearly there's people on both sides of it.

00:24:18   Part of this idea is true that you can do it offline right that you don't have to

00:24:21   listen to music or have your phone tied up if it's plugged into a

00:24:27   sound system or something but the music can kind of be an isolated media in a

00:24:33   way that on an iPod that it can't be on an iPhone. I don't think that's as big a

00:24:37   a part of it, but I think it's part of it as well.

00:24:40   I think it all comes down to your idea of what kind of music you want to listen to,

00:24:47   because it's not about the device or the service that you use to listen to music, it's what

00:24:52   you... how and what you want to listen to, in the sense that if you're at a point in

00:24:58   your life where you say "I don't want to discover anything new, I just want to listen to this

00:25:03   music that I know, I just want to discover some old music that's in my library.

00:25:10   That's fine, I mean an iPad Classic or even a collection of CDs, whatever, as long as

00:25:15   it's music it's fine.

00:25:16   But when I'm looking at my usage of Spotify and Apple Music, I don't think there's a single

00:25:25   way that I listen to music.

00:25:26   I'm just moving around, jumping around between sections, and I still like to be surprised.

00:25:33   And I cannot be surprised by something that is not there.

00:25:36   And I like to find things I don't know, still.

00:25:43   And that's why I like Discover Weekly in Spotify, that's why I'm looking forward to Discovering Mix in Apple Music.

00:25:49   And I don't browse my library for this very reason.

00:25:54   because I don't want to listen to the same stuff over and over and

00:25:57   When I do want to listen to something that I know it's because I think about it and when I think about it

00:26:03   I use search otherwise I either jump between the browse page or playlist like Myke does and I

00:26:10   Feel like it's these two ways to enjoy music there. They can be complementary to each other, you know

00:26:19   And I do understand the perspective of someone who says there's just too many options and there's the paradox of choice and I

00:26:26   really can't choose anymore. And if I can draw a parallel here, it would be similar to me saying

00:26:32   there's just too many video games on the eShop, on the PlayStation Store, on the App Store.

00:26:38   I just want to go back to my parents house and play the video games that I already own. And that makes sense,

00:26:43   that can be done. There's people who, you know,

00:26:47   really into retro gaming and they don't buy new games, they just play old games, and they

00:26:52   still have fun. So I don't think the article, or I don't think we should be saying "Well,

00:27:00   look at us, we're ruined. We invented music streaming and now we're stupid people constantly

00:27:06   obsessed with finding new singles." You know, life goes on, there's new music, it's fine.

00:27:12   I mean, I'm starting to feel like in many, when it comes to a lot of tech opinions, my final conclusion is always "it's fine".

00:27:23   I don't know if it's because I'm changing or if I...

00:27:27   But really, I'm starting to think that if you don't like something that I like, it's okay.

00:27:35   I don't know, I've noticed this sort of new behavior of mine a lot in the past year.

00:27:41   It's not that I don't care. It's that it's fine. There's no winner or loser.

00:27:47   It's just you like the iPod classic? Cool. I like Apple music. Cool. You know?

00:27:52   I don't know, man.

00:27:54   No, you have to argue your point with everyone.

00:27:56   I don't wanna argue.

00:27:58   I really don't. That's the problem.

00:28:00   No, this is what comes with BANSEs and technologists.

00:28:04   If you're not arguing your point, then what are you even doing?

00:28:06   What is that you argue? If this person likes to listen to Les Epplin and the Beatles on

00:28:11   an Apple Classic, that's awesome. And I want to listen to Panda by designer on Apple Music,

00:28:18   that's also fine, you know? Oh man.

00:28:20   You're doing it wrong, man. You got it all wrong.

00:28:23   Am I?

00:28:24   Yeah.

00:28:25   Are you?

00:28:26   Take it to medium, Myke. Okay, I'm gonna go write a hot Thinkpeace blog take on all of

00:28:31   this.

00:28:34   You should have a Medium blog, Myke.

00:28:35   That's where all of the hot taking is happening these days.

00:28:39   Yeah, I don't think I have that many.

00:28:41   I don't think I have enough to sustain a Medium blog.

00:28:44   So yesterday we got Apple's long-promised Apple TV remote iPhone app.

00:28:49   This was discussed.

00:28:50   Federico, when did Apple first mention this?

00:28:53   John Gruber's talk show episode with him and Federico and Q.

00:28:58   So back in like February or March, it's finally here.

00:29:01   There's a link to a Mac Stories article about it.

00:29:04   And there are a couple things that we just need to get out of the way before we get into

00:29:09   how it actually works.

00:29:11   There's no iPad app, which I find frustrating because I don't know about you guys, but in

00:29:16   the evenings if we're watching TV very often I'll have my phone charging in our bedroom

00:29:20   and I may just keep the iPad around.

00:29:22   You know, somebody comes up and it'd be nice to have this as an iPad app and it's just...

00:29:28   Well, okay, so I have two thoughts on this.

00:29:30   it's even as an iPad person.

00:29:31   One, I think it just makes way more sense on the phone.

00:29:34   - Well, sure.

00:29:35   - The other is you could just download it and use it.

00:29:37   It will still work.

00:29:39   - Ugh.

00:29:39   - But it will work, though.

00:29:41   - Blown up iPhone apps on the iPad made me sad.

00:29:44   Number two, what's,

00:29:48   if you haven't seen the icon of this thing,

00:29:49   it is basically a top-down view of the Apple TV.

00:29:54   So it's like a, it's not even all the way black.

00:29:56   It's like a gray background

00:29:57   with the Apple TV logo stamped into it.

00:29:59   What I don't like about the logo is how dim it is.

00:30:02   The logo itself, just with the Apple TV icon logo thing

00:30:06   is fine, but it just looks too dim

00:30:09   and I can't understand why.

00:30:12   I just don't get it.

00:30:13   - Yeah, I think it's 'cause it's sort of low contrast.

00:30:15   There's also a saw tweet goodbye, I don't remember from who,

00:30:18   saying that it was actually kind of hard to find it

00:30:22   because it's kind of forgettable, which made me sad

00:30:26   for the Apple TV design intern.

00:30:28   and I mean the real question is why like what what took so long I mean clearly

00:30:34   there there's something in tv/os that had to be added or changed to make this

00:30:39   remote work but it's um you know it's like why did you bring it up in

00:30:45   February or March did you think you were close to it then did you bring it up

00:30:48   just to appease people because there was some contention around the fact that it

00:30:53   wasn't here but the Apple TV shipped back in the fall so by the time the talks

00:30:57   rolled around the product been out like four or five months and then you wait

00:31:01   another two or three months to get it out just kind of the timings are very

00:31:05   strange to me but as far as the app itself goes it's pretty straightforward

00:31:10   you launch the app and like the old remote app it says hey enter the

00:31:13   four-digit pin that we are showing on the Apple TV so turn your TV on enter

00:31:17   the four digit pin and then it's paired and it looks basically like the serum

00:31:21   but it's a black UI lots of lots of gray again people in the chat room talking

00:31:26   dark mode. This could fit into a dark mode at some point really easily. And the

00:31:32   remote basically has two modes if you will. The sort of default mode is you

00:31:38   have some buttons on the bottom part of the screen and the top part of the

00:31:42   screen is a large, basically a large touch area so you can move your thumb around

00:31:48   on the surface of your iPhone and it you know just like moving your thumb across

00:31:53   the service of the Siri remote. That's fine but it also doubles as a game

00:31:58   controller so at the top of the screen there is an icon that looks like the

00:32:02   Nimbus gaming controller kind of. You tap that and the UI rotates so you know

00:32:08   it wants you to turn your phone on its side and this works even without with

00:32:11   rotation lock on. I always leave rotation lock on my phone and it ignores that

00:32:16   like the UI just does its own thing and then you have a game controller button

00:32:21   like the A button you have an X menu button and then you have a touchpad area

00:32:28   so I played I mean just for a couple minutes but I played Sonic and I played

00:32:33   Asphalt 8 the racing game with this and it gets the job done

00:32:38   it's not as awkward to me as a Siri remote just because my phone is much

00:32:42   bigger kind of easier to hold on to but definitely not as good as the as the

00:32:49   Nimbus which is not a great game controller but I think it's better than

00:32:53   using this thing but it again I think it's passable for these very simple

00:32:56   games that you have on the Apple TV. When does the button show up? Like do you have to

00:33:00   be in a game for it to show up? It may be when you open a game. I may have opened

00:33:04   Sonic and then... It must be contextual. Yeah it may be. And you can see

00:33:07   screenshots on on the Mac Stories piece. I mean it's it's a it's a pretty simple

00:33:11   app I think they do kind of a good a good job actually of mimicking the Siri

00:33:14   remote as far as the way it looks but um it's a nice alternative you can't find

00:33:19   your Siri mode or if you break it and don't want to spend the whatever it is

00:33:22   $49 to repair it or to replace it but um there's no volume control which is to me

00:33:29   the biggest downside yet you know I once I turn on my television all I need is my

00:33:34   Apple TV remote and it'd be nice if they had brought that functionality into the

00:33:41   you know the remote app. Now I don't know maybe the chat room knows it may be that

00:33:46   it can't do whatever it has to do with like sending the volume commands or may

00:33:51   just be an oversight. It needs infrared which it can't have. Right. I think

00:33:55   that stuff is all done by infrared. So there's the answer and but it's

00:34:00   responsive and it gets the job done. My big question is what took so long?

00:34:04   Yeah the buttons are really responsive it is good I like it I mean the

00:34:09   controller thing like it's never going to be as good as the physical controller

00:34:12   because when you're playing Apple TV games you're supposed to not be looking

00:34:15   at the controller and it's difficult to use a touchscreen buttons when you're

00:34:20   not looking at it it's much easier to have something you can feel so it works

00:34:25   that way but as a way to control my Apple TV when either I can't find the

00:34:31   remote or the remote is broken which is likely to happen at some point I'm happy

00:34:37   that I have this now. It's just I'm just gonna leave it in my Apple folder but

00:34:40   it's there when I need it. Yeah I mean I don't really use the Apple TV so I'm

00:34:45   just listening to you two talk about this. I use it every single day multiple

00:34:49   times a day. Yeah what are you watching like TV shows? Yeah. YouTube? TV shows on

00:34:55   YouTube. Like right now we're watching The Sopranos and there's a service in

00:34:58   the UK called Now TV and we're watching The Sopranos on Now TV and we watch it

00:35:03   on our Apple TV. The Now TV app sucks so bad but we're able to watch the stuff on there

00:35:08   easily. I like it for that and I like watching YouTube videos on it and stuff like that.

00:35:13   So it's good. I use it way more than I expected I would. Like I really thought that the Apple

00:35:17   TV was just going to be a dud product in my house but it's something that I have been

00:35:21   using every day for a while now and it's fit quite nicely into our setup and my expectation

00:35:29   will be that when we move, when we get out of place, it will be the only thing plugged

00:35:32   into the TV in the front room because I'll still have all of my games consoles probably

00:35:37   in my office. But it's the only box that we use and it works really well for us. You know,

00:35:43   Steven you mentioned about turning the TV on, like we're in that lucky camp where our

00:35:48   Apple TV remote is able to control the television like completely. So the only remote that I

00:35:54   use, yeah I know, the only remote that I use is the Apple TV remote. I press the little

00:35:58   button and it turns it on and then I hold it and it turns off the TV and it's great.

00:36:02   Yeah I wish mine would do that because I mean the only thing I use my TV remote

00:36:06   for now because the only thing we have we have a Mac mini on another

00:36:10   HDMI input but we rarely use it. The Apple TV is TV in our house and so

00:36:15   it's like I'm I mean I'm not changing cable cable channels or anything so oh

00:36:20   well. And as they point in the chat room yes I am a CEC unicorn that is what I am.

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00:39:16   relay FM. So let's talk about some changes in the media. Both iMore has made some big

00:39:25   changes this week and also Joshua Topolski has come out of hiding to unveil his new project.

00:39:33   Steven, can you break down what's going on over at iMore?

00:39:37   Sure. So I think the short version is they are putting an end to their sort of daily

00:39:43   news operation. I don't really know what this means in practice so I write a

00:39:51   monthly column for iMore but I'm not part of their staff. I had no knowledge of

00:39:55   this before it happened but it seems like they are going to scale way back on

00:40:01   posting the same sort of news that everyone else does. So the stories that

00:40:06   end up on you know Macworld and MacRumors and 9to5Mac I don't think you're

00:40:13   going to see those so much on iMore anymore. So even just yesterday when like

00:40:17   the developer beta 4 of iOS and tvOS and Mac OS Sierra dropped what iMore had

00:40:24   instead was some useful information about if you want to run the betas how

00:40:28   to do it and some guides and stuff around that and that seems to be really

00:40:32   where they are aiming now where they are going to be focusing much more on their

00:40:38   content around tips and how to use and

00:40:41   guides and they've been maybe been

00:40:43   paying attention they've been ramping

00:40:44   that up for a long time now and it seems

00:40:47   like that's the direction that they they

00:40:49   are going and I think it's really

00:40:53   interesting for a couple of reasons

00:40:56   I mean I think that sort of there's a

00:40:58   there's a limited number of websites

00:41:00   that can sustain themselves doing the

00:41:01   same thing that everyone else does and

00:41:03   these sort of like big news operations

00:41:06   are expensive and a lot of people subscribe to a bunch of them and so why

00:41:11   just be one more article you know lots of people going to cover developer beta 4

00:41:16   coming out but if you took your resources and instead had content around

00:41:20   how to prepare for that how to back it up should you do it or not like the sort

00:41:25   of more non-news sort of softer stuff then that I can see where that can make

00:41:33   a lot of sense. There's also of course an SEO angle here as well where if you are

00:41:38   writing things like how to do X and X is popular in the news right now then

00:41:43   you will benefit from some of the search engine voodoo that's going on around

00:41:48   that topic and that I think irks a lot of people. Not just with iMore but with lots of

00:41:54   websites. The comments yesterday to Renee's piece were pretty gross in

00:41:59   places. People really complaining about that sort of thing.

00:42:01   - That's comments though, right?

00:42:03   - Yeah, I mean, don't ever look at 'em.

00:42:05   I guess I'm always doing what they feel like they need to

00:42:07   to stay relevant, and I think that's good.

00:42:10   Everyone on staff at I'm works great,

00:42:11   and I like what they do,

00:42:12   and I like being a columnist there.

00:42:15   But it's just an interesting change,

00:42:17   and one that is not super surprising

00:42:20   if you've been paying attention to their coverage,

00:42:21   or even the market in general.

00:42:24   I mean, Federica, you and I were talking about it yesterday,

00:42:27   where like, Max Stories really isn't in the news game either.

00:42:31   long time ago you decided to focus on what you focus on and your website's

00:42:34   better for it and I think the same thing will be true and I'm more over time.

00:42:40   Yeah I mean since we we decided to move away from you know the news cycle and not

00:42:46   just not covering news because I still think there's value in in in max stories

00:42:52   highlighting the most important news but in following the the urgency of news you

00:42:59   of constantly being obsessed by being first.

00:43:03   Since we moved away from that, personally I've been

00:43:07   really much more relaxed and I've lived

00:43:11   a better life and I've enjoyed my job more. And I also think

00:43:15   that if you want to be in that game, because of course

00:43:19   whether it's TV or tech news or tech websites

00:43:23   there's value in breaking news, there's value in being

00:43:27   first and

00:43:29   Unless you have a lot of money to pay a lot of people and staff

00:43:34   There's going to there's always gonna be websites bigger than you

00:43:37   Operations bigger than you whether it's the Times or the Verge or BuzzFeed or Bloomberg

00:43:42   They're always gonna beat you no matter how many people constantly looking at Twitter you have if only because most of the time

00:43:51   news and

00:43:53   And especially tech news doesn't just happen somewhere in the world and then you get a rush to know what's happened.

00:44:00   They're prepared beforehand.

00:44:01   And there's just websites with NDAs and embargoes and if you don't have it, then all you're left to do is re-block them.

00:44:08   And after a while, it gets tiring and it's exhausting because you know you're never gonna be first

00:44:15   because those people have much better, you know, much wider staffs, resources and connections.

00:44:23   And so I feel like there's no single solution for everyone, and everyone decides the kind of audience and the kind of website that they want to have.

00:44:33   I can only speak from personal experience.

00:44:35   I think the kind of site that I want to have is to have a personal relationship with the reader and with the members.

00:44:46   And I feel like there's a place for websites like Mac Stories where we cover apps, we cover news more in depth with a more calm style when necessary, and we do links.

00:45:01   And there's a place for 9to5Mac and MacRumors, and Apple Insider I would say, there's a place for The Verge.

00:45:07   And I think iMore is making a wise choice in focusing on guides and tutorials and explaining things to all kinds of Apple users.

00:45:16   I think that strategy is a good investment for the future, because a lot of people can find that content, whether it's new or old.

00:45:28   And I have to say, when I'm looking for solutions to simple Apple problems,

00:45:35   and by simple I mean obvious things that are supposed to work but they don't,

00:45:38   iMore is usually well positioned on Google.

00:45:42   And it makes sense from my iMore reader perspective to focus on that.

00:45:47   Because they know, they have style, they know how to do guides.

00:45:51   And so not doing news, and by news it's very rarely original news.

00:45:57   it's reblogging, adding a little color, a little context, which is fine, but I understand why

00:46:02   from a personal perspective it's exhausting and from a professional standpoint, it's not really rewarding after a while.

00:46:11   I'm not surprised. I think it makes sense. I think it's probably the best decision at this point.

00:46:17   And of course I wish I weren't the best, Rene is a great guy, so we'll see how it works out for them.

00:46:26   Federico, how do you decide what news you do post?

00:46:30   That's a great question.

00:46:33   There's a personal attachment to some

00:46:36   news. For instance, I haven't been posting much on Mac Stories for the past weeks

00:46:42   because I've been

00:46:43   working on the iOS 10 review. But last night,

00:46:46   John texted me and he was like, "Look, there's a new iPad Pro commercial

00:46:51   on YouTube." And because of my personal attachment to the iPad Pro,

00:46:56   I knew that was one thing I wanted to have on the site.

00:47:00   So I think it depends on two factors, at least for max stories.

00:47:05   How much I want to do it myself, how much I want to cover news myself,

00:47:11   either because it matters to me and by extension to readers who follow me,

00:47:16   or how much personal context I can add.

00:47:22   And then the second kind, I would say, is important things that by not covering them you'll be doing a disservice to the reader.

00:47:32   So even if I'm not personally attached to that, let's say that an Apple release is a No S10 or Mac OS update with a brand new feature that my people should know about.

00:47:44   I'm not gonna do that myself because I don't necessarily care about it, but I recognize that it's important and that, you know,

00:47:51   I try to imagine Max Stories readers as a very diverse audience and I try to imagine that these people are busy,

00:47:59   you know, they have families, they have jobs and

00:48:01   maybe they like to catch up in the evening, sit down and see what's new on Max Stories.

00:48:08   And if something

00:48:11   importance has happened and we don't have it, then we're not helping those readers, right?

00:48:17   So even if it doesn't matter to me, even if it's not a... even if I don't have a personal attachment

00:48:23   to news such as the iPad Pro last night, if I think... I try to put myself in the shoes of a

00:48:31   Mac stories reader and I say "if I don't see these on Mac stories am I gonna be upset?" and when the

00:48:36   the answer is yes, then I ask someone on the team to cover it for me or to just say "do

00:48:42   you think this is important?"

00:48:43   It's a very collaborative approach at this point.

00:48:47   I talk to John, I talk to Graham, I talk to Alex or Jake and when we decide this is worth

00:48:53   having on the site, then we go for it.

00:48:57   One general rule of thumb that we have is we don't cover rumors and it's really the

00:49:04   same reasoning.

00:49:06   One, we cannot beat Bloomberg or 9to5Mac at their own game.

00:49:10   And two, if I were a Mac Sorrys reader and I invest my time, so I look at readers as

00:49:19   people who invest their time on Mac Sorrys, I invest my time on this unconfirmed news.

00:49:24   That's maybe gonna be true, maybe not, but if it's not, did I just waste 10 minutes reading

00:49:29   something that is just completely made up information?

00:49:32   Is it useful?

00:49:33   So ultimately that criteria, you know, is it useful? Is it a good time investment?

00:49:39   That's how I decide.

00:49:40   So there's a personal aspect and there's a respect for the reader aspect.

00:49:46   And I just feel it's something you have to practice over time.

00:49:51   You know, respect for readers is a skill that you need to hone and that you need to...

00:49:58   Yeah, to keep true... I mean it's been seven years at this point, you know?

00:50:03   It's not easy, and sometimes when I'm on vacation and something happens and no one's ready to cover it,

00:50:11   I get the itch, you know? I should maybe do it myself.

00:50:15   And eventually we always figured it out.

00:50:18   Does it make any sense? It's a whole process, you know?

00:50:21   and I think I think ultimately that publications of all shapes and sizes not

00:50:25   just web are better once someone is thinking about things that critically

00:50:31   that if you just are starting out or if you're running some you know

00:50:35   organization that just its goal is to get as much out there as possible like

00:50:39   like that's fine and this is really blending into the Topolski thing but if

00:50:44   you want to build something that has a specific reader in mind and you want to

00:50:50   build something that you can be proud of every single post you put up.

00:50:54   That's a different thing.

00:50:55   I think that's what iMore is doing.

00:50:56   I think it's definitely what this Topolski thing is doing.

00:51:00   He announced on Monday in the Wall Street Journal that his new venture is called The

00:51:07   Outline and it is going to be a site with content focused on power as it relates to

00:51:16   like politics and business, culture, and what he's calling the future. And he has

00:51:21   said, he says in this article that their goal is to reach 10 to 15 million

00:51:27   users and they've raised five million dollars to do that. That he is not going

00:51:33   after absolutely everyone. You know, you look at something like, we'll take The Verge

00:51:37   for instance, which he helped found, started life as a gadget blog, really, and

00:51:44   And it has just exploded into covering all sorts of things.

00:51:47   Space, cars, culture, media.

00:51:49   - Animals.

00:51:52   - Animals, which it just,

00:51:54   I find that series annoying.

00:51:59   As it has grown, they've had to increase the number

00:52:02   of ads on the site, and they have,

00:52:06   Vox is trying to squeeze more out of it.

00:52:07   And a weird side of, as a sidebar to that,

00:52:11   I find it really interesting to see reporters come and go

00:52:13   from sites like The Verge, these huge sites

00:52:15   that are just pumping out content all day.

00:52:17   Clearly, you're just gonna run people

00:52:18   under the ground at a point.

00:52:20   But Topolski's thing, which is again called The Outline,

00:52:24   seems to be a little bit different.

00:52:27   And he wants to move away from impression-based advertising,

00:52:31   props to you to think that you can

00:52:35   make that work on the web, and I hope that he can,

00:52:38   but that's gonna be really difficult.

00:52:40   but he is looking, clearly looking to like craft

00:52:43   a specific audience and saying that you're gonna do that

00:52:46   with like 15 to 20 pieces of content a day,

00:52:48   which The Verge does that many times over most days.

00:52:52   It's just an interesting contrast to me

00:52:56   and I like these two article or these two news stories

00:52:58   being kind of on our minds this week

00:53:01   because it really goes to this bigger question, Federica,

00:53:03   that you answered of like how do you approach your audience?

00:53:07   Actually I know with 512 I have a very particular audience in mind.

00:53:11   I know that with this show the audience is different.

00:53:14   I think 512 readers and connected listeners, obviously there's tons of overlap, but connected

00:53:19   is bigger and broader.

00:53:21   Connected is where I get to do my Apple news stuff.

00:53:23   You know there's stuff, Federica, that you and I talk about on this show that we don't

00:53:26   write about or that we don't link to.

00:53:28   And for my part it's because I kind of cover it here and I don't necessarily want to cover

00:53:32   the news on 512 as much as I maybe did five or six years ago.

00:53:37   It's like all of this goes into that conversation of who is your site for and iMore is trying

00:53:42   to answer that in a new way.

00:53:44   The outline is clearly trying to do it in a new way and I think it's going to be really

00:53:47   interesting to watch those things take shape over the coming months.

00:53:54   I'm also in the same boat as you.

00:53:58   I really want Topolski to do well because I like his work.

00:54:03   I've been a fan of his work for a long time and I like his approach here.

00:54:07   I think it's interesting to try and not go after everyone and make that clear.

00:54:12   And I guess even to the people he's investing, well, definitely to the people he's investing

00:54:15   to, he's even making that clear, which I assume he's got some very particular investors that

00:54:20   like that style, right?

00:54:22   Rather than just wanting to get the maximum, maximum return possible.

00:54:28   I am very interested to see how he convinces current web advertisers to throw everything

00:54:34   they think they know out of the window.

00:54:38   It's gonna be hard and that's really what I'm most curious about this.

00:54:42   I'm with you, I'm a huge fan of him.

00:54:44   I think I have no question that the content is gonna be great.

00:54:47   The Wall Street Journal talks about some of the people he's hired and they're all like

00:54:51   top-notch reporters.

00:54:53   I think it's gonna be really well done, really well produced, I think it's gonna look good.

00:54:57   That is the core question here of can you build a readership that then you can sell

00:55:04   advertising against that's not just sort of like the gross impression-based ads that have

00:55:10   taken over so much of the web, right?

00:55:12   It's what people complained about iMore a lot, unfortunately.

00:55:17   A lot of their ads are really kind of gross.

00:55:19   A lot of bigger websites really struggle with that because as you go broader it's harder

00:55:26   to sell meaningful advertising, right? If you have something that's really specific

00:55:32   like the pen addict on Relay or Brad's website, you know exactly who that audience is and

00:55:37   you can sell advertising for that content pretty easily because you know that these

00:55:43   people are into these things. And as you get broader and bigger that's harder and I wonder

00:55:47   if 10 to 15 million users is too big or too broad but I think time will tell with that.

00:55:53   But you're right, it is, that's a really interesting thing

00:55:55   that I want to keep an eye on,

00:55:56   if he can pull that off or not.

00:55:58   Quip.

00:56:01   Yeah, so, we're just jumping all around this week,

00:56:06   but as we were preparing last night,

00:56:09   the news broke on TechCrunch and then on the Quip blog

00:56:12   that Salesforce had purchased Quip.

00:56:16   And it's for a whole bunch of money,

00:56:20   like it's what, $700 million or something?

00:56:22   yeah which is a ton of money but I wanted to to read this from the quip

00:56:27   blog because I think we're going to get into talking about a what we think is

00:56:33   going to happen to quip. Quip is a document system like google docs by the way in

00:56:37   case you don't know what it is it's what we use for the show we've mentioned it

00:56:39   in the past but just in case you want to refresher it's kind of like a a google

00:56:43   docs google sheets type of competitor

00:56:46   yeah they've got iOS apps and web apps and Mac app so they say we're committed

00:56:50   growing expanding quips productivity

00:56:52   platform as a part of Salesforce if

00:56:54   you're a quick customer please know that

00:56:56   we continue to provide you with service

00:56:58   and products that you can expect from us

00:57:00   if you're not yet a customer sign up

00:57:02   your team and they said they're hiring

00:57:04   like the next paragraph like we're

00:57:05   hiring jobs click on this link

00:57:07   submit your resume but I can't help but

00:57:10   think that quip eventually is going to

00:57:13   become part of Salesforce CRM and

00:57:17   enterprise tools and that people like us

00:57:19   So we don't have, like Relay does not have an account

00:57:22   with Quip, we have a bunch of like individual accounts

00:57:24   that we share stuff with.

00:57:26   We don't pay for Quip at this point.

00:57:30   And my guess is that that's gonna go away

00:57:33   and that you can only use Quip as part of like

00:57:34   Salesforce bigger system.

00:57:37   So Salesforce does lots of things at its core.

00:57:40   It's like a CRM, so a customer relationship management tool.

00:57:46   know you can keep up with sales stuff and lead generation and all that stuff

00:57:50   there's a there's a place for that but I guess this clip is going to be like you

00:57:55   can collaborate with documents inside of this but um I don't know like I'm happy

00:58:00   for the guys who run Quip I mean I've got my problems with their Mac app but it's a

00:58:04   great service it seems to be built by people who really care about it but my

00:58:10   guess is that we're going to be back in Google Docs at some point if they flip

00:58:12   the switch off on like free individual accounts.

00:58:15   Yeah, so sad. I mean, and it's even funnier for us because we have just recently recorded

00:58:23   our Relay FM connected members special. So in August, kind of mid to late August, if

00:58:30   you are a Relay FM member, we're going to be releasing a bunch of special episodes.

00:58:35   And you can still sign up now. You'll get them go to relay.fm/membership and you can

00:58:40   find out more about that. And on that show we're talking about our home screens and we

00:58:44   all talk about Quip and we all talk about it being the best choice for us and how it

00:58:48   works the best on iOS and that's why we use it and because we can use split screen and

00:58:52   it's the only one and Google Docs can go die on a fire and all that kind of stuff and now

00:58:58   unfortunately Quip might be going away at some point and it's just the connected curse

00:59:04   all over again.

00:59:05   Yeah, but sometimes you like something and it goes away and all you can do is make a

00:59:11   podcast about it.

00:59:14   If you love a web app, you gotta let it go.

00:59:18   We're all coping with loss here and in this case it's about, I don't even know if I'm

00:59:24   supposed to be ashamed or happy that I don't know what Salesforce is.

00:59:28   I'm gonna go with happy.

00:59:29   There's no reason.

00:59:30   It would be weird if you knew.

00:59:33   You don't do sales, you've never been in sales.

00:59:35   It would be very strange if you fully...

00:59:36   - Sales of what?

00:59:38   - Anything.

00:59:39   - Oh, okay.

00:59:40   - Salesforce is huge, huge.

00:59:42   You must have heard of Salesforce though, right?

00:59:44   You know Salesforce.

00:59:45   - I have heard of the CEO being this kind of odd guy

00:59:50   and they make a convention

00:59:52   with all kinds of weird things going on.

00:59:55   - Sure, sure, sure, sure.

00:59:56   - Right?

00:59:57   - I mean, I don't know that part,

00:59:58   but yeah, that sounds about right.

00:59:59   - Okay.

01:00:00   You know, is there a word for like when corporations

01:00:04   Try to be hip and cool?

01:00:06   No, but there should be one.

01:00:08   There's probably a German word for it.

01:00:11   What about like, if we just go with "corporation"?

01:00:14   "Culperation"?

01:00:16   Yeah.

01:00:17   "Culperation"?

01:00:18   "Culperation".

01:00:19   Yeah, that's how I picture these companies, like Cellforce.

01:00:24   Oh, it's like "manufactured fun", that kind of thing.

01:00:26   No, "culp-arate" is better.

01:00:28   "Culperate", there we go.

01:00:30   "Culperate".

01:00:31   We got there.

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01:02:32   So there's a new iOS 10 beta, guys, came out yesterday and it's got some news in it, which

01:02:40   is Apple is doing new emoji.

01:02:43   Now Apple is not yet showing their takes on the Unicode 9 standard of new emoji, like

01:02:51   new characters such as the bacon emoji or the what's it called the Pinocchio

01:02:56   lying face there's a bunch of new characters coming with a with Unicode 9

01:03:01   but still what we're getting is more gender diverse emoji in iOS 10 it's

01:03:08   currently available in iOS 10 beta 4 and I assume they're gonna be available in

01:03:11   iOS 10.0 like the first version in September and in addition to diversity

01:03:18   We're also getting a slight redesign of the entire emoji line with new shading.

01:03:25   And it's kind of more like a 3D look, more shadows, more, you know, the lighting of the characters is different.

01:03:36   And they do feel like a modernized version of the original MSN, you know, Microsoft Messenger emoticons from many, many years ago.

01:03:46   Now, I think new emoji or more emoji, whatever,

01:03:52   emoji changes are the best strategy to get people to upgrade,

01:03:57   and doing it in stages across the first version of iOS 10,

01:04:01   and then maybe iOS 10.1 with the new Unicode 9 characters,

01:04:06   that's the best strategy Apple has to entice people to upgrade.

01:04:10   And also, there's a press release for this on the Apple press release newsroom.

01:04:15   Yeah, I think this has been proven out now that emoji is a really great way to just enforce

01:04:20   OS adoption, which I think is great because people want them and also it's a visual thing.

01:04:24   Like if I'm sending you a new emoji and you're on an old platform, you just can't see it.

01:04:29   So it works really well for that, I think, which is nice.

01:04:33   Now I have lots of thoughts about this, about this new emoji stuff and about why Apple's

01:04:40   doing it right now and things like that.

01:04:42   So as of like today, right now, the current Unicode conference is on.

01:04:48   And one of the things that's being spoken about a lot is a lot of the gender neutral

01:04:51   stuff.

01:04:53   And many of these things have already been agreed upon, like having more diverse gender

01:04:58   and neutral gender things.

01:05:00   When we're seeing stuff like female swimmer, male swimmer, female basketball player, male

01:05:05   basketball player, male dancing, male bunny suit, this is part of the overall moving all

01:05:12   all of these things and one of the things that is happening in the Unicode

01:05:16   conference for this week is expanding on that and going into detail a little bit

01:05:20   more about it. So the fact that we have more men more women emojis so like

01:05:25   breaking that out and making it more level this is something that was decided

01:05:30   on a while ago and Google had already announced it and they're trying to push

01:05:34   it even further and Microsoft had already announced it and they actually

01:05:38   to implement it today for everybody.

01:05:47   My belief is that Apple has been working on Unicode 9 in the background and the new emojis

01:05:53   coming with it but wanted to have a press release to confirm that they are doing something

01:06:00   with the gender stuff so they've done that now and put it out there along with some other

01:06:05   smaller changes like some redesigns that they've done of the yellow faces but

01:06:09   this isn't all that there is for Unicode 9 so that's what makes me think that

01:06:14   they're doing this now just to make sure that they have their kind of intentions

01:06:18   clear for the fact that there is the gender stuff now so they're like we are

01:06:24   done this don't worry like that is out there we care about this too so we put

01:06:29   it out so there's more here so as I said they don't have all the other Unicode 9

01:06:34   stuff that will be coming and that's why I expect that they've done this right

01:06:37   now for this reason as opposed to releasing the entire set or doing

01:06:40   nothing. They've put the stuff out there which means that they're showing that

01:06:43   they're thinking more about the gender stuff. And there's something that I

01:06:47   wanted to talk about which is ZWJ emoji combinations. Now I want you all to bear

01:06:53   with me a little bit here. Do you call them ZWJ or Switch? I wouldn't

01:06:59   know what to call them. We can call them Switch. We'll call them Switch from now on.

01:07:02   So, the zwidge emoji stuff has been noticed that Apple is implementing it because some

01:07:09   people found a rainbow flag inside of iOS 10 as of yesterday.

01:07:16   So this is a pride flag and the pride flag takes advantage of the zwidge Unicode stuff

01:07:22   to combine a flag, a white flag, a standard flag, and a rainbow.

01:07:27   And when, if you combine both of those two things together on, say like you do it on

01:07:32   iOS 9 or something, on iOS 10 it will show as a pride rainbow flag, right?

01:07:37   Yeah.

01:07:38   But this zwidge stuff goes much further than this, it's much deeper than this.

01:07:43   All of the gender stuff that we've seen here, all of the stuff that we're seeing that's

01:07:47   come out, they are all zwidge emoji combinations.

01:07:52   Now I've put a link in the show notes to an Emojipedia article which explains some of the

01:07:57   the dendro emoji stuff and it has a table, like a kind of list, which actually shows

01:08:01   the switch combinations. Because, like, so for example, if you want to see a male office

01:08:08   worker and female office worker, the male office worker is the little dude with the

01:08:12   mustache plus a briefcase. If you put those two things together in the underlying Unicode,

01:08:18   right, and you, it's kind of complicated how this happens. Like, I'm not 100% sure how

01:08:24   the system detects all of this. But if you want to display male office worker or female

01:08:29   office worker, you use those two emoji together and when they are displayed together, the

01:08:34   system understands that you're trying to show X and it will display it. This is a way that

01:08:39   platform vendors are able to make more emoji without them being have to be approved by

01:08:45   the Unicode Consortium. Because getting an actual emoji approved to be in the standard

01:08:51   is really long and slow.

01:08:54   So all of these gender emoji are just the vendors,

01:08:57   the platform vendors kind of agreeing

01:08:59   that this is how it's going to be displayed.

01:09:01   And then they put them out there.

01:09:02   So all these emoji are, are combinations of multiple emoji

01:09:07   that when put together, it displays a new character.

01:09:10   Which is kind of weird.

01:09:14   And I can prove this to you.

01:09:16   And the way that I can prove this to you

01:09:19   is if you open a Twitter client

01:09:21   and you type in the smiley face emoji,

01:09:24   it's probably one character.

01:09:26   But if for example, you type in the family,

01:09:30   so the four person family, it is seven characters, I believe.

01:09:35   - Try this.

01:09:36   So where's the family?

01:09:38   - Because what's happening is the amount of text

01:09:41   that you're entering. - That's true.

01:09:43   - Is multiple characters.

01:09:45   And so this exists in previous emoji.

01:09:47   So those family emoji has been like that for a while,

01:09:49   But the new emoji, so if you take something like,

01:09:52   maybe I think one of the new ones,

01:09:55   like if you take something like,

01:09:56   I just pick off the top of my head,

01:09:58   say that male construction worker,

01:10:00   female construction worker,

01:10:00   there might be like three or four actual characters

01:10:04   that are being entered,

01:10:05   but they are displayed as one image.

01:10:08   So in an Outlander and a Shetron,

01:10:10   you're completely right, flags are two characters

01:10:11   because they are different codes,

01:10:13   so it is flag plus country.

01:10:15   So there's a lot of emojis done like this.

01:10:17   So I'm just basically dropping a bunch of knowledge

01:10:20   that I know, and I know this because Jeremy Burge

01:10:23   of Emojipedia is a friend of mine,

01:10:25   and we talk about emoji a lot when we have lunch in London.

01:10:27   So I've known about the way that these codes

01:10:29   have been working for a while.

01:10:30   I even showed Jeremy my notes last night

01:10:32   to make sure that I was getting this completely right.

01:10:35   He said I was just about there.

01:10:36   So basically I just wanted to say,

01:10:38   like this stuff, so these are not actual real emoji.

01:10:42   These aren't real emoji in the sense of

01:10:46   in the Unicode standard.

01:10:48   Some of them are, some of them aren't,

01:10:50   but it's a new way that they're doing it,

01:10:52   and Unicode is kind of saying, yes, you can do this,

01:10:54   so they don't have to go through the whole big process

01:10:59   of getting something approved.

01:11:00   They're able to use this kind of new substandard

01:11:03   so that more emoji can be kind of agreed upon.

01:11:06   - So in theory, you should be able,

01:11:07   like just hypothetically, too,

01:11:09   if you wanna have an emoji of man eating pasta,

01:11:13   you could join the man emoji and the pasta emoji and make a new one that it's actually

01:11:20   a rich combination of the two.

01:11:23   Perfect. Yep. That's exactly how it's being done.

01:11:25   Very nice.

01:11:26   Now, what I haven't tested is, and I don't know about this, like if you type those two

01:11:29   emoji next to each other, how it shows? So like if I, on an older device, put man and

01:11:37   briefcase together, does it show business person?

01:11:41   No, because you're declaring your intention of having a man and a briefcase as two separate characters.

01:11:47   Yeah.

01:11:48   Like you're thinking of joining them together automatically. I don't think that's gonna happen.

01:11:53   But what I do believe would happen is if you do it in the reverse, so if I on iOS 10

01:12:00   sent you something on iOS 9 that was one of the news witch emoji...

01:12:04   Yeah, so when you sent me today, it was a new girl emoji, or maybe it was a new man emoji, I don't know.

01:12:14   Anyway, on the phone I saw it as a new gender diverse one.

01:12:19   On the watch, which was on an old beta of iOS 10, so beta 3, I got it as two characters.

01:12:29   So it's doing, like, retroactively, it's unjoining them and displaying them as two characters.

01:12:37   So there you go. That's how that works.

01:12:40   I just used a very, very ugly word, I'm sorry.

01:12:43   Unjoining them.

01:12:45   Unjoining is fine. No, it's terrible. Just terrible.

01:12:49   But this wasn't all that Apple did yesterday.

01:12:52   They also re-imagined the gun emoji on iOS 10.

01:13:00   It's, to my knowledge, the only emoji that was changed.

01:13:03   I think it's the only emoji that has ever been changed from Apple, like significantly.

01:13:10   And what they've done is they've taken the old, what is called the pistol, and they have made it a water pistol.

01:13:16   And there are many layers to this, which I find interesting.

01:13:20   interesting. So I don't personally like the fact that there is a gun. I've used a gun

01:13:25   or whatever to make jokes or whatever but it would be nice if there wasn't a gun emoji.

01:13:30   Because guns are a violent thing. And Apple have decided to change it to a water pistol

01:13:36   which is on the face of it much nicer. It's nicer to have a little water pistol than to

01:13:40   have an actual pistol. But in changing something like an emoji, what will happen is, let's

01:13:48   Let's say that somebody had sent a message to me with a gun in it to make a specific

01:13:54   point.

01:13:55   Now, if I open that same message, that gun will now be a water pistol.

01:14:01   Because emoji aren't images, they're basically a font.

01:14:06   So making a change to what the artwork is rendered as will retroactively change any

01:14:12   usage that someone will see on any Apple platform of the gun emoji and that is

01:14:18   interesting.

01:14:19   Yeah I mean imagine if this happened to text like someday

01:14:24   someone wakes up and says look the character A of the alphabet is offensive

01:14:31   and we need to change that so from today on all A characters will actually be a

01:14:37   a modified B because we think it's more fun.

01:14:41   Now, I personally agree with you, Myke.

01:14:44   I wish there wasn't a gun emoji,

01:14:48   but I also understand,

01:14:52   I mean, you can see the comments from people.

01:14:54   They're taking away our rights to have a gun emoji.

01:14:57   But anyway, it does raise a concern

01:15:00   about the permanence of text

01:15:04   in our digital communications.

01:15:06   And it's even more... not confusing but complicated when you think about the different implementations

01:15:17   of emoji across different platforms.

01:15:19   So right now a person who tweeted a gun emoji two years ago, the original tweet was with

01:15:28   an actual pistol.

01:15:30   Now on iOS that tweet is a water gun.

01:15:32   But if you go on Android, the same tweet from two years ago, steal a pistol.

01:15:37   And on Windows, it's a water gun, but it's gonna be a pistol tomorrow because Microsoft

01:15:42   is gonna change emoji again.

01:15:44   Well actually, you say that.

01:15:47   That happened.

01:15:48   I don't know if you know this.

01:15:49   No, no, that's why I said it, because I saw Jeremy do it.

01:15:52   Poor Microsoft.

01:15:54   I know, I know, right?

01:15:56   They had previously, until today, rendered the gun as a ray gun. Like a space buzz light,

01:16:04   a kind of ray gun, space gun. They have now changed it to a revolver pistol as of today.

01:16:11   Oof.

01:16:12   Right, but that's because they were falling in line with literally every other vendor.

01:16:17   That's the most Microsoft thing ever.

01:16:20   But the thing was Microsoft did the right thing because interpretation is key.

01:16:27   And if every other person who saw that emoji saw a pistol, like an actual gun pistol that

01:16:35   we see in the real world, then it should be that.

01:16:38   Because a ray gun is a fun, cute thing, the same as a water pistol is.

01:16:44   And the interpretation of those two things are very different.

01:16:48   Like me sending a ray gun emoji to you is maybe more fun than me sending a revolver

01:16:54   pistol emoji to you, right?

01:16:56   So they were trying to kind of do something, but now they've kind of felt like, right,

01:17:00   everybody else seems like they've dug their heels in, it's a pistol, we'll change it to

01:17:04   a pistol so it looks like everybody else's emoji.

01:17:06   So even new emoji sets like Twitter's emoji set are being created and they're having pistols,

01:17:11   right?

01:17:12   to be made about Apple being the moral arbiter of our communications. Because if

01:17:20   you exclude a gun from emoji because a gun is an object that's sole purpose is to

01:17:26   kill or to hurt other human beings, then why do you have a cigarette emoji in the

01:17:33   emoji keyboard? Because you know what you do with cigarettes. A lot of these

01:17:37   emojis like the cigarette and the gun they were approved a long time ago and

01:17:42   when emoji wasn't a thing like it is now when it was like you had to get

01:17:47   that secret keyboard type thing and my understanding is now if something like a

01:17:52   gun or a cigarette was brought to the Unicode Consortium it would not get

01:17:56   through in the way that the rifle didn't get through a few weeks ago right there

01:17:59   was a there was a proposal to have a hunting rifle which was going to be as

01:18:03   part of like the activity section right like you would have a tennis racket you

01:18:08   to have a hunting rifle because it's considered a sport but that didn't get

01:18:12   through because they didn't want to put another gun or any more guns in the in

01:18:17   the emoji set in this in the like a visual emoji set so that stuff is not

01:18:21   getting through now and like you're right cigarette is really weird to have

01:18:24   in there but if somebody brought a cigarette to the emoji to the Unicode

01:18:29   consortium now it probably wouldn't get through on the grounds that you think

01:18:32   it's strange. I'm just saying like who are these companies to decide how people

01:18:38   live their lives? Yeah. Because I mean if you have a cigarette and you also

01:18:43   have alcohol emoji because you have the martini glass emoji you know who's why

01:18:50   are we trusting these companies to decide for us? Alcohol is a whole other

01:18:54   thing because there are gonna be more alcohol emojis. I do agree with Apple's

01:18:58   stance, right? And I would probably personally do the same, but I do

01:19:03   understand the concerns of "okay so now Apple is deciding to exclude some

01:19:10   objects which they don't politically align with because maybe by hiding them

01:19:16   from the emoji keyword they're sort of sending a message" and do we want the

01:19:21   emoji keyboard to send a message or do we want it to be a reflection of human

01:19:25   life however messed up and problematic that might be.

01:19:30   I am really struggling with this one.

01:19:33   Yep, me too.

01:19:34   Because I am very happy that there is no longer a gun emoji.

01:19:38   Yes.

01:19:39   Like, going forward from today, I am happy.

01:19:42   Agreed.

01:19:43   There are two things that I'm unhappy about.

01:19:44   I'm unhappy about the idea of retroactive changing of messages and intent from people.

01:19:52   and what I also don't like is because this is an agreed upon standard

01:19:56   that it's not images

01:19:59   it's interpreted by different platforms. I could send somebody

01:20:04   a fun water pistol but on their Android phone

01:20:09   I've just sent them a gun.

01:20:12   Yeah that's to me the biggest problem. I mean if you want to

01:20:16   get rid of the gun emoji then just hide it I guess

01:20:19   but replacing it with something that is so different in context is the problematic thing.

01:20:27   That's a great point because no vendor needs to show the entire emoji keyboard.

01:20:33   No, just don't use it and have the next version Unicode include a water gun if you want a

01:20:38   water gun.

01:20:39   But you're right, there's a tweet, it'll be in the show notes, it's in the chat too, from

01:20:45   Benjamin Mayer that really sums it up really well.

01:20:48   And you should go see that.

01:20:52   That to me is the problem here.

01:20:53   I agree with you, I like Apple's stance on it.

01:20:57   But what you have done is you've, instead of doing the right thing in the right way,

01:21:02   you've done the right thing in sort of a really bad, sort of clumsy way that's going to lead,

01:21:08   could lead to a lot of weird situations if people are doing things cross-platform.

01:21:13   If you're all iPhone, great, but not everyone has an iPhone.

01:21:16   This is an example of the best and worst of Apple. They're doing something that they think

01:21:23   is right for people and for humanity, which they tend to be really good at, but they're

01:21:29   doing it in a completely controlling and restrictive way to everybody else. It's like everybody

01:21:38   outside of the Apple ecosystem will get a worse deal now.

01:21:45   can they do right because they're dealing with Unicode what are they called

01:21:49   code points drop drop the gun we just said just don't show it yeah just just

01:21:53   take it out yeah but then you're gonna have people complain that on iOS you

01:21:56   don't have a gun emoji yeah but we don't now anyway well you have a water gun but

01:22:01   it's not the same yeah but you have something I think Myke's point is that

01:22:05   instead of doing something that would only be a little awkward they've done

01:22:09   something that is very inward looking and is going to lead to a lot of really

01:22:15   strange conversations. If they wanted a water gun, they could have just created

01:22:19   a zwidge emoji of a wave and a gun, hit the gun, and put the water gun in. So from

01:22:24   then on, if you need to use a gun for something and you're going to use the

01:22:27   water gun, you use that. But on other platforms, people either don't see it,

01:22:30   they see a weird gun with a wave, which doesn't make any sense, but like whatever,

01:22:34   it doesn't matter, but then it could also force other vendors to actually adopt the

01:22:38   water gun. There's no reason that Apple needed to change this because it's like,

01:22:43   "Oh, we shouldn't have guns anymore." They could just remove that emoji. Like, it could just go.

01:22:48   - Yeah. - Like, so this is why I struggle with it, because I agree that there shouldn't be a pistol.

01:22:53   I don't think that that is necessary to be there, but the kind of... this kind of, like, enforcing...

01:23:01   It's really difficult. I'm struggling with it, because I feel so strongly in both directions.

01:23:06   It's making me very confused. - I just wonder if we're gonna have lots more of these discussions,

01:23:13   because once you open up the Pandora box of unwanted emoji,

01:23:17   then you can apply this same idea to a whole other kind of emoji,

01:23:22   such as, I don't know, is there a bomb emoji?

01:23:24   I'm pretty sure there's a bomb emoji.

01:23:26   So what are you going to do? What's the purpose of a bomb?

01:23:29   So, you know, are you going to replace a bomb with a huge piñata box?

01:23:33   I don't know.

01:23:34   Water balloon.

01:23:34   Water balloon.

01:23:35   Maybe they're just going to switch the entire, you know,

01:23:39   gun themed emoji to water themed figurines. I don't know. But you can see how, I mean,

01:23:45   these objects in some way or another, they do exist in the real world. And people have

01:23:52   pistols, people have knives, and people unfortunately they also have bombs.

01:23:57   Yeah, we have knives and swords and hammers and pickaxes.

01:24:01   So what are you gonna do? Change them all to water themed pistols and bombs and balloons?

01:24:07   Difficult. What, you have like a foam sword?

01:24:10   Like, I don't know. This is why, like, this is a tricky thing that they've done to make a statement,

01:24:14   but there's maybe better ways they could have made that statement. But on the underlying level, I agree with the statement they made.

01:24:21   I'm only concerned, I do, I 100% with their idea.

01:24:26   But, as a company, once you make one of these statements,

01:24:29   then it's always gonna be a statement. Because you do it once, then you gotta do it forever, because otherwise it just sticks out.

01:24:37   you have the water gun emoji but you have a bomb emoji that's weird and then you're gonna get

01:24:41   complaints from people "oh why do you have water guns but don't you think bombs are also a problem

01:24:45   don't you think knives are also a problem you know knives kill as well" and it's just you dip your

01:24:51   toe into this discussion then it's you know the path to drowning it it's gonna be really short

01:24:58   let's let's finish on a more maybe even more controversial point

01:25:01   something else in beta for today is new keyboard sounds

01:25:05   They're awesome.

01:25:07   So, me and Steven were in alignment on the keyboard sound change previously.

01:25:12   You know when they changed it and we didn't like it and then they changed it back?

01:25:15   And you're crazy.

01:25:17   Now there are multiple keyboard sounds.

01:25:19   Yes.

01:25:20   And I like these ones.

01:25:22   So now you like them.

01:25:25   Let me tell you why.

01:25:26   What I didn't like last time was it was like change for change's sake.

01:25:31   Like there was no need to change the sounds.

01:25:33   Like you're just changing the sounds.

01:25:34   like why are you doing that? But now they've changed the sounds and added utility

01:25:39   because you can now hear when you hit the spacebar. There's a utility to that.

01:25:45   So it sounds different to the other keys?

01:25:48   Spacebar and Delete have a different sound to the other keys.

01:25:51   Nice.

01:25:51   It's like they added a new dimension for typing on the keyboard and there's like different layers of

01:25:59   here's what you're doing in a sound effect kind of way.

01:26:04   So that I'm on board with, right?

01:26:06   It's like, change it if you've got a reason to change it.

01:26:09   Just like changing it for like, oh, new sound for no reason

01:26:13   after 10 years.

01:26:14   Just seemed like a bit strange to me.

01:26:16   But changing it because now you're giving people

01:26:19   like a different use.

01:26:19   Like if you're not looking and you're typing

01:26:21   and you think you've hit the space key

01:26:23   but you don't hear that sound, you know you haven't.

01:26:24   I like that, that's cool for me.

01:26:26   I'm on board with that.

01:26:27   - Yeah, so now you're gonna keep your sounds enabled

01:26:29   or still? - No.

01:26:32   Why do you have to be so serious with your muted keyboard?

01:26:36   It's not about being serious. It's about the only time I ever type on the software keyboard is at night.

01:26:43   And the reason I do that is because I don't want to make sound on the hardware keyboard because Idina's sleeping.

01:26:49   So I don't want to make sound on the software keyboard either.

01:26:53   Don't you type on your iPhone during the day?

01:26:56   Yeah.

01:26:56   I'm just saying you should add a little more fun to your life and these bubbles are fun.

01:27:01   Maybe I'll turn it back on on my phone.

01:27:04   Although, I mean, who knows if I'm going to switch away from Gboard?

01:27:09   Oh my God.

01:27:10   Still going with Gboard.

01:27:13   Because it is far superior to Apple's keyboard for me.

01:27:16   The predictions and the autocorrect is better.

01:27:20   I guess when you don't need to type into languages, it's fine.

01:27:24   The swiping is fantastic.

01:27:27   And the ability to search for emoji by text?

01:27:31   Can't beat it.

01:27:32   We'll talk about it again.

01:27:35   We'll follow up on this in a couple of weeks.

01:27:38   Why don't you promise this to me?

01:27:41   Give a try to the Apple keyboard.

01:27:43   And tell me how it goes.

01:27:45   I will when I upgrade my phone.

01:27:47   Whenever that will be.

01:27:48   I don't know when that's gonna be.

01:27:49   Oh, still not on iOS 10?

01:27:51   Not on my phone. On my iPad Pro I am.

01:27:53   my big iPad Pro, but not on my iPhone.

01:27:56   - All the time I've been texting you these stickers

01:27:59   and iMessage stuff, and I assume I'm just annoying you

01:28:03   on the phone.

01:28:04   - Nope, I'm on my iPad.

01:28:05   I'm at home.

01:28:06   - Yeah, but when you open the phone,

01:28:08   you get all of these weird messages.

01:28:10   - Yes.

01:28:11   - I'm sorry.

01:28:12   - I don't care.

01:28:13   If you wanna find our show for this week,

01:28:14   head on over to relay.fm/connected/102.

01:28:18   Thanks again to our lovely sponsors,

01:28:20   the great folk over at Pingdom, Ring and Squarespace.

01:28:23   If you want to find us online, Federico is at maxlories.net

01:28:26   and he is @Vittici on Twitter, V I T I C C I.

01:28:30   Steven is at 512pixels.net and he's @ismh

01:28:34   and I am @imike, I M Y K E.

01:28:38   We'll be back next time.

01:28:39   Until then, thank you so much for listening.

01:28:41   Say goodbye guys.

01:28:42   - Adios. - Adios.