Connected

00:00:00 ◼   ► [Music]

00:00:06 ◼   ► From Relay FM, this is Connected, episode 90. Today's show is brought to you by

00:00:12 ◼   ► Memories. My name is Myke Hurley and I'm joined by Mr. Steven Hackett. Hello, Steven Hackett.

00:00:17 ◼   ► Hello, Michael Hurley. And ciao Federico Vittucci.

00:00:21 ◼   ► Hello, Myke. How are you?

00:00:24 ◼   ► I'm doing great. Why are you saying ciao? What's your occasion?

00:00:29 ◼   ► I like to localize, you know?

00:00:31 ◼   ► Oh yeah? You do?

00:00:33 ◼   ► Talking about localizing,

00:00:35 ◼   ► whenever I sell t-shirts now, I like to localize

00:00:38 ◼   ► to the US or Europe,

00:00:40 ◼   ► so people don't have to pay high shipping rates.

00:00:43 ◼   ► Oh yes, ladies and gentlemen, new connected t-shirt time!

00:00:47 ◼   ► And we have a link, a special link in our show notes,

00:00:51 ◼   ► if you go to our show notes, Federico.

00:00:54 ◼   ► Where can people find the show notes?

00:00:56 ◼   ► You can go to relay.fm/connected/90

00:01:01 ◼   ► And you will see a lovely link to our t-shirt

00:01:04 ◼   ► You'll be able to click that and if you are in the US or Europe or whichever you're closest to

00:01:09 ◼   ► They will be this t-shirts will be shipping from that region. So you'll be able to get better prices

00:01:17 ◼   ► They're not all shipping from the US as we've done in the past

00:01:19 ◼   ► We've worked with Teespring who've been great and they've been able to hook us up with that

00:01:23 ◼   ► So there are two kind of two parallel campaigns

00:01:25 ◼   ► but if you click that link it will just automatically throw you to the right one and you'll be able to get a

00:01:30 ◼   ► Fantastic t-shirt it is to celebrate

00:01:34 ◼   ► Stephen collecting all of the IMAX which we'll talk about in a little bit

00:01:39 ◼   ► He collected all of the IMAX all 13 and we have created a t-shirt which

00:01:44 ◼   ► Kind of also riffs on the meetup

00:01:48 ◼   ► Poster that our designer Frank made for us. We loved it so much

00:01:52 ◼   ► we decided to have a Steven made and then once we had a Steven made we decided to have a bunch of IMAX made

00:01:59 ◼   ► these t-shirts are

00:02:02 ◼   ► Basically commemorative items because there's so much involved in the printing that we're basically making no money on them

00:02:09 ◼   ► Yeah

00:02:10 ◼   ► But we love this design so much and I hope that you will all love it and you should buy it and if I see

00:02:15 ◼   ► Anybody at WWDC wearing this they will get a big hug. Yes, maybe from all three of us

00:02:21 ◼   ► I'll give you an iMac.

00:02:23 ◼   ► I got loads of them, man. I just bring them down.

00:02:26 ◼   ► Yeah, and a lot of people, including you, Myke, told me that on the t-shirt I look like Dave Grohl from Foo Fighters, which is great.

00:02:34 ◼   ► It's true.

00:02:35 ◼   ► It's very nice. And for some reason, Frank used a t-shirt that I actually have, but I didn't know that I have that exact t-shirt in my collection.

00:02:47 ◼   ► Oh, he knows everything. He knows everything.

00:02:49 ◼   ► It kind of, that character kind of does look like me.

00:02:54 ◼   ► So yeah.

00:02:55 ◼   ► These T-shirts are a limited design.

00:02:56 ◼   ► They're available until the 19th of May and we tried to get them out as soon as possible

00:03:01 ◼   ► and because we have the localised shipping, if you're kind of in Central Europe, the UK

00:03:07 ◼   ► or in the continental United States, probably Canada, you should have these just in time

00:03:13 ◼   ► for WWDC if you're coming.

00:03:16 ◼   ► If you're not, doesn't even matter, but they're great.

00:03:19 ◼   ► They're gray, they're blue, you can choose which one.

00:03:21 ◼   ► You should buy both like I did

00:03:23 ◼   ► and enjoy them because they're awesome.

00:03:26 ◼   ► Thank you very much.

00:03:27 ◼   ► All right, so Steven.

00:03:30 ◼   ► - Yes.

00:03:31 ◼   ► - You wanted to talk about 90th anniversary gifts.

00:03:33 ◼   ► I see a thing here.

00:03:35 ◼   ► - We've been doing this as we hit bigger

00:03:37 ◼   ► and bigger numbers on connected.

00:03:39 ◼   ► And so I just felt like it would be wrong to skip over this.

00:03:43 ◼   ► So for you, Myke, the traditional gift

00:03:46 ◼   ► in the United Kingdom is "stone". I don't know what that means, you're gonna get some

00:03:50 ◼   ► rocks. Or get... stoned. I don't think that's what it means. No? Is that not what it is?

00:03:56 ◼   ► I mean, if you're 90 years old, I feel like that's probably okay, but... Oh yeah. If I

00:04:01 ◼   ► make it to 90 it's gonna be a game over. Every other country on this website, US Spain, Germany,

00:04:08 ◼   ► France and Italy granite is the gift and then as far as gemstones emerald is the

00:04:18 ◼   ► rock of choice for the 90th anniversary Club so so basically some kind of stone

00:04:23 ◼   ► with an emerald in the middle and we're all good I think that's that um that's

00:04:27 ◼   ► pretty good so I know people were dying to know what that what that would be so

00:04:32 ◼   ► I felt like I had an obligation to fulfill their curiosity.

00:04:37 ◼   ► Perfect. But more importantly, you have collected all of your IMAX now. You have all 13 IMAX.

00:04:46 ◼   ► I do. There are actually 16, which is a funny story, but I have one of each color.

00:04:51 ◼   ► It's probably not that funny.

00:04:52 ◼   ► No, it's just that I had some bum ones that I replaced.

00:04:55 ◼   ► but um yeah so all 13 are here

00:04:59 ◼   ► I've put together a page that will be in the show notes

00:05:02 ◼   ► a project page on 512 pixels that has

00:05:07 ◼   ► basically links to all the other stuff

00:05:10 ◼   ► I'm doing so there's I did a big blog

00:05:12 ◼   ► post with like high-res like product

00:05:15 ◼   ► photos that you can go and play with

00:05:17 ◼   ► like someone told me they're making a

00:05:18 ◼   ► poster out of one of them like go do

00:05:20 ◼   ► with them as you wish they are they are

00:05:22 ◼   ► yours to play with and there's a youtube

00:05:25 ◼   ► video which I put up of the basically me doing the photo shoot which was a lot of

00:05:30 ◼   ► fun and there's a bunch more coming so I think I'll hide those as we go but we

00:05:38 ◼   ► are off to the races as far as exciting content for an 18 year old computer yeah

00:05:44 ◼   ► content I love the video that you did and it's good I assume that was the

00:05:49 ◼   ► video which resulted in the photography right yes so the pictures that I'm taking

00:05:54 ◼   ► in that video are the pictures you can download in the blog post.

00:05:57 ◼   ► Yeah, I like it a lot because you get to see, I like it, there's a subtle thing that you

00:06:02 ◼   ► may or may not notice when you watch the video how the colors change during the time lapse.

00:06:07 ◼   ► Yeah. Which I thought was quite clever.

00:06:09 ◼   ► Yeah, so you know, it's just, um, I had fun making it, it was fun to do a bunch of time

00:06:13 ◼   ► lapse stuff. Um, and uh, and I like too that it's a lot of like behind the scenes that

00:06:18 ◼   ► you can see how messy our, our office is right now. But um, it is, it is sort of funny, uh,

00:06:24 ◼   ► If you look at the video, the first little bit is me setting up a light that actually

00:06:29 ◼   ► it happens in the time lapse, but it's so fast you can't see it actually cut the back

00:06:32 ◼   ► of my like two of my fingers open saying that light up just exciting little tidbit of information

00:06:38 ◼   ► real behind the scenes here.

00:06:39 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:06:40 ◼   ► And and you can see to the right like there's like backpacks and stuff packed up.

00:06:43 ◼   ► So I make movies about old computers.

00:06:45 ◼   ► My brother is going to Africa to shoot a documentary this summer.

00:06:48 ◼   ► And so it's like we share this space and do like the most opposite things in it that you

00:06:52 ◼   ► could think of.

00:06:53 ◼   ► - Yeah, but who's doing the real important work here,

00:06:55 ◼   ► you know?

00:06:56 ◼   ► - I would say that it's him.

00:06:57 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:06:58 ◼   ► It was a lot of fun making it,

00:06:59 ◼   ► I think people seem to be enjoying it.

00:07:01 ◼   ► So yeah, there's a lot more coming.

00:07:03 ◼   ► - I've gotta say, when you started off on this,

00:07:06 ◼   ► I thought it was kinda crazy,

00:07:07 ◼   ► and whilst it is still crazy,

00:07:09 ◼   ► I am becoming more and more interested in it.

00:07:12 ◼   ► - Oh, thanks man, that's good.

00:07:14 ◼   ► I was telling you guys before we recorded,

00:07:16 ◼   ► what this project is,

00:07:17 ◼   ► like this is the byproduct of me

00:07:21 ◼   ► not having anyone to answer to anymore. Like, if I have all the time and like, you know,

00:07:26 ◼   ► there I spent some money on this, it wasn't real expensive. Like, like I said, the video,

00:07:29 ◼   ► like half of these are donated by listeners and readers, which is awesome. Thank you so

00:07:33 ◼   ► much. But like, this is what happens when I work for myself, like without any checks

00:07:38 ◼   ► and balances that I do 13 computers and have a video about them. But people seem to be

00:07:45 ◼   ► enjoying it. I've got a lot of great response. It's it's a lot of fun to hear from people

00:07:50 ◼   ► about their stories of this computer and I think it is an important computer so

00:07:53 ◼   ► it's a lot of fun exploring some new ways to kind of tell people about it.

00:07:59 ◼   ► Yeah, you are the iMac man now. Seems that way.

00:08:02 ◼   ► So last week we spoke about the Logitech base for the iPad Pro and Jason Snell of

00:08:12 ◼   ► Six Colors and Upgrade, he got one of these and wrote a little review of it

00:08:17 ◼   ► And you know, Jason overall seems pretty positive about this device, I guess you'd call it.

00:08:25 ◼   ► But basically what his main, he has kind of two main complaints, which I completely feel

00:08:31 ◼   ► would definitely stop me from buying this, is the viewing angle is kind of okay, but

00:08:37 ◼   ► you can't adjust it naturally, right?

00:08:38 ◼   ► So you're kind of just stuck with what it is.

00:08:40 ◼   ► But the biggest one for me is taking the smart cover, you know, we spoke about this last

00:08:44 ◼   ► time, off every single time is frustrating.

00:08:47 ◼   ► Yeah, it just looks like a strange product to me, that we waited all of these months

00:08:53 ◼   ► for a second smart connector accessory to come out, and it's just a base where you

00:09:00 ◼   ► connect the iPad and you cannot do anything else. There's no fancy solution for an audio

00:09:06 ◼   ► enhancer type of acoustic shell. There's no pencil holder for the iPad Pro. It's just

00:09:15 ◼   ► a base, you cannot adjust the angle. I mean, it looks terrific, it looks very nice. And

00:09:19 ◼   ► I can imagine, like in some scenarios, like you're a designer working at a desk, you don't

00:09:24 ◼   ► need to adjust the angle, which I doubt, but it's possible. Or maybe like a, what did they

00:09:30 ◼   ► call those iPads in the museum, like a kiosk or something? I could imagine that, but it

00:09:36 ◼   ► looks like, I mean, if you want to use an iPad Pro in a museum with a Logitech base,

00:09:41 ◼   ► I mean, it must be a real fancy museum, but sure.

00:09:45 ◼   ► I mean, I could imagine the big iPad Pro 13 inches almost, it makes sense.

00:09:50 ◼   ► It looks very nice, but it's mostly a disappointment for me because I wanted to see a little more.

00:09:56 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean, I don't really fully...

00:10:00 ◼   ► The more I think about this, I can't really understand what you would use it for, right?

00:10:03 ◼   ► Like, in an artist's perspective, you wouldn't want it at that angle.

00:10:09 ◼   ► I can't really imagine people using it. Maybe you would put it in here and type on an external keyboard?

00:10:16 ◼   ► You, Federico, just bought your Magic Keyboard, which we're going to get to in a minute.

00:10:22 ◼   ► Would you maybe want to put your iPad in this and then type with it? Or would you want to put it on something else?

00:10:28 ◼   ► Or would you just leave the Smart Cover on and just stand it up on that thing?

00:10:31 ◼   ► I don't need to buy this because I can just leave it on the Smart Cover.

00:10:35 ◼   ► It's one less thing to have around my house. The smart cover is perfectly fine for my preferred

00:10:43 ◼   ► viewing angle when typing. So it looks nice. Again, it looks very nice, but I don't need

00:10:48 ◼   ► it.

00:10:49 ◼   ► Yeah, I've got to say, in actual usage, I don't really get this so much anymore. On

00:10:57 ◼   ► paper, it just seems like a nice product, like "oh, this is a cool thing that someone's

00:11:00 ◼   ► doing with a stand", but there kind of isn't really a lot to it.

00:11:05 ◼   ► Yeah, I wonder, and I was talking with Jason about this, I wonder if it's a problem of

00:11:10 ◼   ► the smart connector, the first revision being

00:11:13 ◼   ► not offering a lot of control to manufacturers, or if maybe we'll see a software update that will unlock more

00:11:22 ◼   ► functionalities in the smart connector, or if there has to be a hardware revision, because it's kind of odd that

00:11:28 ◼   ► in seven months we've only seen essentially two

00:11:32 ◼   ► accessories for this new connector from third parties, which happen to be the same company,

00:11:39 ◼   ► so it's the Logitech Create keyboard case and the Logitech Base, and of course the Smart

00:11:43 ◼   ► Keyboard from Apple.

00:11:45 ◼   ► And when I reviewed the iPad Pro I was told we'll have more international layouts for

00:11:50 ◼   ► the Smart Keyboard soon, and I wonder if 7 months lies within the soon threshold, I doubt

00:11:57 ◼   ► it.

00:11:58 ◼   ► kind of strange you know that seven months on we've only got one American keyboard layout

00:12:03 ◼   ► for the smart keyboard from Apple and only two third-party accessories for the smart

00:12:08 ◼   ► connector which come from the same company so you know it's kind of odd.

00:12:13 ◼   ► It is strange. On keyboards, so what do you think about the Magic Keyboard?

00:12:18 ◼   ► I love it. It's definitely the best keyboard I've bought in many many years actually and

00:12:24 ◼   ► I'm surprised why I didn't consider this before.

00:12:27 ◼   ► Like, what was I thinking?

00:12:29 ◼   ► So the size is just right for me.

00:12:34 ◼   ► The size of the keys,

00:12:37 ◼   ► the size of the distance between each key works for me.

00:12:42 ◼   ► I do love how they sound, how they click.

00:12:45 ◼   ► So I don't understand what some people hate.

00:12:47 ◼   ► I guess--

00:12:48 ◼   ► - I think it depends what you're coming from.

00:12:50 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah. - Because it clicks less,

00:12:52 ◼   ► right?

00:12:53 ◼   ► And yeah, some people really do love their clicks, like deep clicking keyboards.

00:12:58 ◼   ► And I understand that, but it works for me, I love the sound, it's super comfortable,

00:13:06 ◼   ► and it seems even easier to connect to the iPad.

00:13:10 ◼   ► So I used to... what was it called, the Apple Wireless keyboard a few years ago?

00:13:16 ◼   ► I used to have one of those back in the days of my iPad 2 and the iPad 3, and it was always

00:13:26 ◼   ► a mess to connect to it.

00:13:29 ◼   ► You needed to go into the Bluetooth settings because it got stuck.

00:13:32 ◼   ► Now there's a switch on the Magic Keyboard which I like.

00:13:35 ◼   ► It's easy to turn off and on.

00:13:40 ◼   ► One of the things that I miss from the dedicated iPad keyboards is the standalone iPad keys,

00:13:50 ◼   ► like a screenshot key, a home screen key, and I know that I can go back to the home

00:13:59 ◼   ► screen by hitting Command+H.

00:14:01 ◼   ► Yeah, that's how I live my life.

00:14:03 ◼   ► Yeah, it's just easier to go back with a standalone key, for me at least.

00:14:10 ◼   ► But other than that, I really, really do like it.

00:14:14 ◼   ► I'm only just wondering, I think I gotta buy some kind of cleaning product, because it's

00:14:21 ◼   ► white and I know how it's gonna end up when I spend the entire summer writing on it.

00:14:29 ◼   ► And I don't know what Apple recommends when it comes to cleaning white keyboards, so I

00:14:33 ◼   ► gotta look that up.

00:14:35 ◼   ► But I'm very happy with the purchase, it works well with the Smart Cover, I just prop the

00:14:39 ◼   ► iPad app and I type.

00:14:42 ◼   ► And yeah, I also miss the, you know, it's on the Logitech keyboard, and other keyboards,

00:14:49 ◼   ► but on the Logitech One you get this globe key to switch between keyboards, you get like

00:14:53 ◼   ► a little pop-up in the middle of the screen.

00:14:55 ◼   ► I don't remember if there's a similar shortcut to do the same on the Magic Keyboard.

00:15:01 ◼   ► And another thing that I noticed is that in iOS 9, there's still, iOS 9.3 even,

00:15:08 ◼   ► there's still some weird keyboard inconsistencies.

00:15:11 ◼   ► Like sometimes Command-Tab doesn't work, I need to perform it again like twice or three times for it to work,

00:15:19 ◼   ► it gets stuck for some reason, or like some other weird bug, like the caps lock key gets

00:15:28 ◼   ► also stuck, so when it's off I type uppercase, when it's on I type lowercase, which is confusing,

00:15:36 ◼   ► and I need to disconnect and connect again. So there's still some oddities in keyboards

00:15:42 ◼   ► on iOS 9, but overall I give it a solid 85%. Were you looking for an approval rate, Myke?

00:15:49 ◼   ► Yes.

00:15:51 ◼   ► It's 85%.

00:15:53 ◼   ► That's good. I think most people would be pretty happy with that kind of approval rating.

00:15:57 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:15:58 ◼   ► Two things. I put a knowledge base article in the show notes of what Apple says, how

00:16:05 ◼   ► Apple says to clean it.

00:16:06 ◼   ► Oh, thank you. Thank you.

00:16:08 ◼   ► I will give full credit to Kyle's the gray in the chat room. He pasted it there basically the same moment

00:16:13 ◼   ► I pasted into quip, so we'll give him credit

00:16:16 ◼   ► And - I I've used the magic keyboard since its debut and out of the

00:16:22 ◼   ► Generations of Apple keyboard I have at my disposal. It's really

00:16:26 ◼   ► one of my favorites if not my favorite the um

00:16:29 ◼   ► The keythroat, you know took a little getting used to it's not as shallow as something like the MacBook

00:16:35 ◼   ► But one of my favorite things honestly, and I guess I guess you don't get this really with the iPad is the

00:16:40 ◼   ► Being able to charge it over lightning. So actually today I came into the office and my keyboard is like 4%

00:16:47 ◼   ► You know, it's got I had a notification on my computer and I just unplugged the lightning cable

00:16:52 ◼   ► I usually have on my phone and just put it over here on the

00:16:55 ◼   ► Keyboard or you don't have to worry about dealing with double-a batteries and all that sort of stuff. So

00:16:59 ◼   ► I'm a big fan of this of this little keyboard

00:17:03 ◼   ► Yeah, I think the battery thing is good

00:17:05 ◼   ► That's why one of the reasons that I love the new magic trackpad for the same reason, right?

00:17:10 ◼   ► Like I love it because I can just charge it by lightning and I have a gajillion lightning cables now

00:17:15 ◼   ► You know just like all over the place

00:17:17 ◼   ► So it's easy for me to just grab on and charge it so I can totally see why you would want that for the keyboard

00:17:22 ◼   ► right for the same reason but I

00:17:25 ◼   ► as I said before like that keyboard just

00:17:30 ◼   ► It's fine for me, but I much prefer when I'm using my Mac

00:17:33 ◼   ► to use the Microsoft one,

00:17:35 ◼   ► because it's more comfortable for me.

00:17:37 ◼   ► And then when I'm using my iPad,

00:17:39 ◼   ► I'm happy with the smart keyboard

00:17:40 ◼   ► 'cause I can kind of maneuver it in a way

00:17:42 ◼   ► that I can get comfortable quite easily,

00:17:44 ◼   ► but it's also always there.

00:17:47 ◼   ► That's what I like about it, right?

00:17:49 ◼   ► But I totally see, for the reason that you have bought it,

00:17:52 ◼   ► Federico, makes perfect sense for you

00:17:54 ◼   ► because as I said to you last week,

00:17:56 ◼   ► you should not be typing those 10,000 words on the screen because it just can't be good for you.

00:18:02 ◼   ► I wish there were 10,000.

00:18:05 ◼   ► Sometimes there's only 10.

00:18:06 ◼   ► Yeah, I'll probably bring the smart keyboard to San Francisco,

00:18:12 ◼   ► just because it's a not-in-one kind of solution, it's easier to carry,

00:18:16 ◼   ► but I think I did the right thing in buying the Magic Keyboard for this summer, you know?

00:18:22 ◼   ► And it's also very nice how I can look up the battery information in the notification center widget.

00:18:28 ◼   ► Which I also get with the... I mean, no, I don't get it with the smart keyboard because it uses a smart connector.

00:18:34 ◼   ► I get it with the Beats headphones.

00:18:36 ◼   ► And the pencil.

00:18:37 ◼   ► And the pencil. So it's nice. Seriously, the only thing that worries me is the white color.

00:18:43 ◼   ► And the way that it will get dirty over time.

00:18:49 ◼   ► So, I will thank you Steven and Kyle for sending me the link. I will look up the Apple recommended

00:18:57 ◼   ► cleaning methodology. It really doesn't get real bad. I mean, unless

00:19:01 ◼   ► you're... Okay.

00:19:02 ◼   ► I sort of have a bad habit of eating at my desk, like for lunch, and you know, you'll

00:19:07 ◼   ► get food and stuff on it, but like in general use, like this one at my office I've had up

00:19:11 ◼   ► here for nine months, and like it... I mean, looking at an alicate seems fine. They're

00:19:15 ◼   ► They're pretty durable.

00:19:16 ◼   ► Alright.

00:19:17 ◼   ► Unless you're just really dirty.

00:19:19 ◼   ► Are you really dirty?

00:19:20 ◼   ► No, not at my desk.

00:19:24 ◼   ► This week's episode is brought to you by Memories.

00:19:28 ◼   ► Memories, the corners of my mind.

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00:19:40 ◼   ► It's the one that Picture Life quickly implemented.

00:19:42 ◼   ► And now I think Picture Life is going the way of the Dodo 2.

00:19:45 ◼   ► I think that was recent news that I saw somewhere, right?

00:19:48 ◼   ► Picture life is going away.

00:19:49 ◼   ► I know Casey was upset.

00:19:51 ◼   ► So now Memories for iOS gives you that feature

00:19:54 ◼   ► for the photos that live in your iCloud photo library.

00:19:57 ◼   ► This isn't going to be something that's cast to the shadows

00:20:01 ◼   ► that you can find prompt.photos.

00:20:04 ◼   ► Do you remember that?

00:20:05 ◼   ► I just saw Kyle put that in the chat room.

00:20:07 ◼   ► This isn't gonna happen with Memories

00:20:08 ◼   ► because it's just taking the photos

00:20:10 ◼   ► that you have in your iCloud photo library

00:20:12 ◼   ► and it shows you them sort of what you did.

00:20:15 ◼   ► a year ago. You can travel back in time and revisit those old photos that you might otherwise

00:20:26 ◼   ► never see again. You can get a notification each day to tell you how many memories you

00:20:35 ◼   ► have that day and you can quickly see them in a lovely today view widget as well.

00:20:43 ◼   ► If you want to see a specific date, you can very easily just pick that date.

00:20:48 ◼   ► Memories makes it also easy to share these photos and if you've come across some that

00:20:52 ◼   ► you'd rather forget, it's really easy to remove them from the app as well.

00:20:56 ◼   ► Go to memories.land/connected to find out more and check it out for yourself.

00:21:00 ◼   ► Thank you so much to Memories for their support of this show.

00:21:04 ◼   ► I do like how epic it sounds when you say that the show is brought to you by Memories.

00:21:08 ◼   ► Like it just sounds pretty awesome.

00:21:11 ◼   ► It's a super cool app.

00:21:12 ◼   ► Yeah, I like it. I've been playing with it and I like it a lot. It's great. So you should go check it out.

00:21:16 ◼   ► Have you found any photos that you'd like to forget about, Myke?

00:21:19 ◼   ► Most.

00:21:20 ◼   ► So let's go from photo management to music streaming services.

00:21:28 ◼   ► I feel like there needs to be a big disclaimer before we talk about this.

00:21:33 ◼   ► It is not our intention to kill Apple Music or to kill Spotify.

00:21:39 ◼   ► You know just want to make sure that people don't say that we jinxed it or that we're bad luck or whatever

00:21:44 ◼   ► It's just a rumor. We're just reporting. No, it's not a curse. It's a set of unlucky coincidences

00:21:52 ◼   ► So I figured we break down the news only you guys talked about it since you guys actually use this stuff more than I do

00:22:01 ◼   ► a

00:22:03 ◼   ► Article came out in Bloomberg which like as a sidebar Bloomberg is killing it with the Apple coverage recently

00:22:09 ◼   ► They have a big article saying that sweeping changes are coming to Apple Music as soon

00:22:15 ◼   ► as WWDC, which of course is really as we speak today only about a month away.

00:22:22 ◼   ► And that this is going to be sort of a twofold change a big user interface change to make

00:22:28 ◼   ► it more intuitive, the better great integrate online radio and music downloads, and that

00:22:34 ◼   ► would also according to a nine to five

00:22:37 ◼   ► articles these things are kind of coming

00:22:40 ◼   ► at the same thing two different

00:22:41 ◼   ► directions that it would be a big change

00:22:44 ◼   ► for the for you tab and the new tab and

00:22:48 ◼   ► apparently iTunes connect is still there

00:22:51 ◼   ► you know the connect tab that should be

00:22:53 ◼   ► going away and that all this is being

00:22:56 ◼   ► spearheaded and this is really the

00:22:58 ◼   ► paragraph that is troubling to me is

00:23:02 ◼   ► is that the new look is being overseen by like 18 people, including Robert Kondrick.

00:23:08 ◼   ► I don't know how you say that name. Kondrick. Kondrick. Trent Reznor, Johnny and Johnny

00:23:14 ◼   ► Ive and Eddie Q and Ive Eyn. So everyone really. It's a bunch of people and it seems like a

00:23:19 ◼   ► little bit of design by committee which we can get to. But I think the big headline is

00:23:24 ◼   ► here that Apple Music just a year in seems to be at least slated for big changes. You

00:23:31 ◼   ► this isn't just like, oh, we're just gonna tweak something.

00:23:33 ◼   ► Like if this, if all this comes true, this is like major surgery, you know,

00:23:37 ◼   ► on a service that's 12 months old.

00:23:38 ◼   ► Yeah. But a lot of, I mean, I look at this, you say like, oh,

00:23:42 ◼   ► Bloomberg are killing it. And you know, they've definitely had the article,

00:23:45 ◼   ► but this news came during a week where lots of people were complaining about

00:23:50 ◼   ► Apple music. So Apple saying to Bloomberg, oh,

00:23:54 ◼   ► hey, we're changing so much, like feels like a thing that might happen.

00:23:59 ◼   ► So, you know, lots of people were upset this week about Apple Music deleting music.

00:24:05 ◼   ► Has that ever happened to you guys, by the way?

00:24:08 ◼   ► I don't have a local music library that I have really cared about and taken care of over the last years.

00:24:14 ◼   ► I moved to streaming years ago.

00:24:16 ◼   ► So all of my music is sitting on a hard drive, but it's not on my machine.

00:24:19 ◼   ► Okay. Yeah, I'm the same. Yeah.

00:24:24 ◼   ► So, I mean, Steven, I don't think you've really got into the situation where it would be a

00:24:29 ◼   ► problem for you because...

00:24:30 ◼   ► Right.

00:24:31 ◼   ► I do have iTunes Match turned on, which I let laughs, but I've actually re-updated because

00:24:37 ◼   ► it actually is helpful.

00:24:38 ◼   ► But I'm not using Apple Music.

00:24:41 ◼   ► We do have a Spotify account now, mainly for the Amazon Echo, so we can just shout at it

00:24:45 ◼   ► to play something because the Amazon Prime Music Library is pretty hit or miss.

00:24:49 ◼   ► But yeah, I mean, I think yeah, I think like the all the background noise right now is

00:24:54 ◼   ► that Apple music, I think, especially on the Mac, because they really like as janky as

00:25:00 ◼   ► the iOS music app can be where they sort of glued music.app and beats together, like in

00:25:05 ◼   ► iTunes on the Mac, it's even worse.

00:25:07 ◼   ► And so there's a lot of like, just low level dissatisfaction with how this is working right

00:25:16 ◼   ► now from at least the tech community?

00:25:20 ◼   ► The idea of making big user interface changes is not something that surprises me with a

00:25:26 ◼   ► service like this.

00:25:28 ◼   ► Like Apple, in the way that they do, they just put it out there and then every year

00:25:33 ◼   ► will make big changes to it.

00:25:34 ◼   ► Like Spotify just did some changes in the background to their UI, but they just do them

00:25:39 ◼   ► whenever they want to do them.

00:25:41 ◼   ► And they make these small changes which might last over a year.

00:25:44 ◼   ► So the idea of Apple doing one release every year and it making big user interface changes

00:25:48 ◼   ► doesn't surprise me.

00:25:50 ◼   ► Because they put it out there, lots of people didn't like the way that a bunch of things

00:25:53 ◼   ► worked so now they're going to be changing them in the next version.

00:25:57 ◼   ► I don't think that these sweeping changes are going to be as big as the Bloomberg article

00:26:02 ◼   ► says.

00:26:04 ◼   ► Making things more intuitive doesn't mean that they need to basically rip the guts out

00:26:07 ◼   ► and start all over again.

00:26:09 ◼   ► reorganizing some tabs and changing the names of them, you know, changing the "for you"

00:26:13 ◼   ► tab a little bit more, making that a bit better, and discontinuing the new tab, calling it

00:26:19 ◼   ► "browse" and showing all the same stuff in a different way.

00:26:21 ◼   ► Like, none of this is huge, it just feels like changes that need to be made.

00:26:28 ◼   ► And the idea of getting rid of "connect" as well, like, that's a good idea, and they're

00:26:32 ◼   ► saying it's going to be rolled into the "for you" tab.

00:26:35 ◼   ► But again, it's like these just feel like a big collection of small changes as opposed to like "we started over again"

00:26:41 ◼   ► No, they cannot start over realistically. I mean the streaming infrastructure is there

00:26:47 ◼   ► And what else is to change about uh beats one, but you know adding new

00:26:52 ◼   ► New shows and the reports from bloomberg and 925mec don't even mention beats one

00:26:57 ◼   ► So it seems like it'll stay mostly unchanged. So the sweeping changes that bloomberg refers to

00:27:04 ◼   ► sounds to me like they're changing the color scheme of the interface, they're reorganizing

00:27:09 ◼   ► a bunch of areas of the app. So it's more of a cleanup or more of a, you know, restructuring,

00:27:15 ◼   ► but it's not a sweeping change, it's not like Apple Music is turning into Spotify all of

00:27:19 ◼   ► a sudden, you know? So it sounds like what we should expect from Apple, and this is a

00:27:25 ◼   ► sort of a pattern that we've seen with other apps. The design changes once a year, the

00:27:31 ◼   ► feature additions throughout the releases of iOS and OS X. If you look at Notes, OS X

00:27:38 ◼   ► and other apps, if you look at stuff like Safari, we're seeing design, once a year,

00:27:45 ◼   ► features throughout the year, which I think makes sense. And I think we'll see these

00:27:50 ◼   ► design changes with Apple Music at WWDC. Judging especially from the 9to5Mac article, it sounds

00:27:58 ◼   ► like they're doing away with the artwork influencing the background of the app, so if you open

00:28:07 ◼   ► like an album that has a red artwork, you get a red background, you know, that kind

00:28:13 ◼   ► of stuff, it seems like they're changing to a simpler black and white background and text

00:28:19 ◼   ► all the time.

00:28:20 ◼   ► I want to throw out a weird theory about this black and white thing.

00:28:26 ◼   ► I know what you're going with.

00:28:28 ◼   ► You know where I'm going, don't you? I can feel it.

00:28:30 ◼   ► So there has been a few, like, leaked black and white designs recently.

00:28:35 ◼   ► Yes.

00:28:36 ◼   ► I saw a story of Instagram trying out a new black and white design.

00:28:40 ◼   ► iOS 10 might have some different design stuff going on here, which is focusing on black and white.

00:28:46 ◼   ► I don't know why they would do this, but it seems super weird to me that Instagram would even consider doing this tested black and white design.

00:28:54 ◼   ► and then there's rumors of Apple doing these black and white designs.

00:29:00 ◼   ► It feels like there might be something, because if Apple's going to work with some companies,

00:29:06 ◼   ► Instagram's going to be one of them.

00:29:08 ◼   ► Yeah, and you know, black and white, when you flip it, it's easier to achieve a dark

00:29:13 ◼   ► mode with more consistency.

00:29:15 ◼   ► It is, isn't it?

00:29:17 ◼   ► And look, the idea of the general overall user interface isn't going to change, right?

00:29:24 ◼   ► because that is still consistent, but the idea of this over-blur and taking the theme

00:29:32 ◼   ► colors from the artwork, that's all dead now. That's old. That's many years old.

00:29:38 ◼   ► That's really been a problem also for the accessibility community. When you have such

00:29:42 ◼   ► low contrast between text and the translucent background fetched from the artwork, I think

00:29:50 ◼   ► switching to a simpler, you know, here's the background, here's the text, and here's your

00:29:54 ◼   ► artwork, and it's separate from the rest of the interface. I think it should bring more,

00:29:59 ◼   ► you know, sort of clarity to the interface. But I'm also interested in the functional

00:30:06 ◼   ► changes. So, 9to5Mac has more details than Bloomberg. Bloomberg is all, "Yeah, there's

00:30:11 ◼   ► going to be sweeping changes."

00:30:12 ◼   ► Well, because the Bloomberg story came from Apple PR, and the 9to5Mac story comes from

00:30:17 ◼   ► leaks from Apple.

00:30:18 ◼   ► seems likely, but, you know, giving them the benefit of the doubt.

00:30:23 ◼   ► 9to5Mac says, there's going to be a simplification of the For You section, Connect is going to

00:30:29 ◼   ► lose its dedicated tab at the bottom of the app, and it's going to be rolled into For

00:30:35 ◼   ► You in what they call a demotion. So, it sounds like a demotion, but also having it in the

00:30:42 ◼   ► For You section should also give it more visibility, maybe? Because right now, you go to For You,

00:30:48 ◼   ► you see no Connect stuff, right? But there's a dedicated, you know, standalone Connect

00:30:53 ◼   ► area. In the future, it sounds like you're gonna lose the standalone Connect page, but

00:30:58 ◼   ► you will get Connect recommendations in the For You section.

00:31:02 ◼   ► Which if you imagine For You becoming more like a timeline, so like, "Here is a new

00:31:07 ◼   ► artist we think you might like, and then here's something from Coldplay because you follow

00:31:11 ◼   ► them, and here's a new playlist." So it's less a static page that refreshes, but like

00:31:16 ◼   ► a timeline of stuff that you go through. Like that's how I imagine you could integrate those

00:31:20 ◼   ► two things together. I saw a tweet the other day, and I wish I would have marked this down,

00:31:24 ◼   ► about the 4U recommendations, that apparently like it's really fundamentally built on the

00:31:30 ◼   ► artist selections that you initially make. Yes, yes, yes. And I hadn't realized this,

00:31:35 ◼   ► so my thought was the people that are complaining about the 4U thing, redo the artist selection,

00:31:40 ◼   ► and maybe you'll get a better... I don't think you saw a tweet, I think you saw a link in

00:31:45 ◼   ► my newsletter, Myke? I saw a link in your newsletter. That's why I couldn't find

00:31:50 ◼   ► it. Look at that. I read it! See, I read it! I just don't remember where it comes from.

00:31:54 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah, nice. You're honest. Clubmax stories, everyone. Thank you. You know, what's

00:32:00 ◼   ► my idea for improving for you? So can I tell you? Yeah. I suppose I can also tell Steven

00:32:05 ◼   ► or Tom, he's maybe sleeping at this point. Anyway, you there, buddy? Still there? I'm

00:32:10 ◼   ► here. So here's the thing. One of the things that annoy me about For You is that I always

00:32:20 ◼   ► get stuff that I know. So artists that I know, albums that I know. And I know that that's

00:32:27 ◼   ► because Apple is more skewed towards familiarity, maybe, than discovery of unknown bands, unknown

00:32:34 ◼   ► EPs and singles. And I know that it's also heavily based on the initial selections that

00:32:40 ◼   ► you do for the kind of music that you want to listen to, the artists that you like, what

00:32:45 ◼   ► I would do is I would change that initial screen to have sort of like a slider that

00:32:53 ◼   ► says, "Are you more interested in artists that you know or stuff you don't know?"

00:32:58 ◼   ► So you yourself, at any point you can change it, can say, "I want to discover new stuff,"

00:33:04 ◼   ► or I just want a stream of familiar content that I already know but that maybe I haven't

00:33:10 ◼   ► listened to in a while. I think Beats Music had this, but maybe I'm wrong, or maybe I've

00:33:16 ◼   ► seen it somewhere else, but like a discovery toggle that you can say... because I can recognize

00:33:22 ◼   ► how Discovery Weekly on Spotify is heavily skewed towards Discovery of unknown bands.

00:33:28 ◼   ► There's literally no band nor artist that I know in my Discovery Weekly.

00:33:33 ◼   ► Yeah, see, I don't want either of those extremes. I want something that's closer to the middle.

00:33:38 ◼   ► Yeah, exactly. So I wouldn't mind to have a revised, for you, setting screen that you

00:33:43 ◼   ► can easily open any time, and you can say, "Look, this week I'm in the mood for something

00:33:48 ◼   ► new, so give me something new." Or maybe in general, I want something in the middle,

00:33:52 ◼   ► so stuff that I know, some stuff I don't know, because right now it's all stuff that I know,

00:33:57 ◼   ► and Spotify is all stuff that I don't know, which I can understand why for many people

00:34:01 ◼   ► is maybe too much because it feels like you're doing homework instead of listening to music.

00:34:06 ◼   ► It's like "oh my god I gotta learn all of these songs". So somewhere in the middle

00:34:11 ◼   ► a "better for you" section would be nice.

00:34:14 ◼   ► I agree with that completely and I hope that that's part of what we're gonna see.

00:34:18 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah. So what do you think of Connect?

00:34:20 ◼   ► I don't know anything, is there?

00:34:23 ◼   ► Yeah me neither. And I've seen so many artists initially posting videos and pictures and

00:34:30 ◼   ► audio clips to connect, then it quickly grew into artists posting weird short links to

00:34:41 ◼   ► their websites, and then now just nothing. A lot of people that I follow there, like

00:34:48 ◼   ► bands that I follow there, don't post anymore, and I get the random picture every once in

00:34:53 ◼   ► a while and I just never open it.

00:34:55 ◼   ► I had a theory that like the music labels and Apple did a deal and that like some of

00:35:00 ◼   ► these artists and bands were contractually obliged to post things

00:35:03 ◼   ► initially probably because why would they have been so excited about it I

00:35:07 ◼   ► don't know why you would be it's why you get Drake on stage I think all of this

00:35:13 ◼   ► stuff is good as I said like I use Apple music and ultimately I find it to be

00:35:18 ◼   ► good it's fine it does what I need it to do I would love it to be better on the

00:35:22 ◼   ► Mac when I do play music on the Mac because it's it feels like Apple music

00:35:25 ◼   ► is fighting against iTunes.

00:35:28 ◼   ► When you do a search, it tries to search your existing library

00:35:31 ◼   ► before it will search Apple Music, which

00:35:33 ◼   ► doesn't make any sense to me.

00:35:34 ◼   ► You should just search the whole thing.

00:35:37 ◼   ► I know that this is what happened,

00:35:39 ◼   ► but it really feels like Apple Music was just squeezed in.

00:35:42 ◼   ► And then part of the problem that I

00:35:43 ◼   ► know a lot of people face on the iPhone

00:35:46 ◼   ► is that basically Apple Music is squeezing out the local music

00:35:51 ◼   ► collection.

00:35:52 ◼   ► If you don't subscribe to Apple Music,

00:35:53 ◼   ► Apple is like, they basically spam you with sign up, sign up, sign up every time you open

00:35:59 ◼   ► the app. So I think that could be better. Some people have suggested, and I think I

00:36:03 ◼   ► saw a drunk group of suggestors like to make a separate app. I don't think that's a good

00:36:07 ◼   ► idea because what do you call them? What music and Apple music? Like I don't think that works,

00:36:12 ◼   ► but I think that there is, you know, if you're going to get rid of the connect tab, I think

00:36:16 ◼   ► you could have a tab for local music. Um, if people really want to do that or you could

00:36:20 ◼   ► just find a good way to mix them all together and kind of stop trying to push one out and

00:36:25 ◼   ► keep one in. I think overall that these changes sound good, but I don't think it means that

00:36:34 ◼   ► Apple Music is being smashed down to the ground and rebuilt. I really don't think that that's

00:36:40 ◼   ► what's happening here. I think they're just making the changes that the users of Apple

00:36:43 ◼   ► Music have wanted to see for a few months since it's changed at least. And I really

00:36:48 ◼   ► do think that a lot of this stuff came out just because there was some bad press. There

00:36:55 ◼   ► was another piece of news about Apple Music and this is a strange one I think. Apple Music,

00:37:01 ◼   ► you can now get a 50% discount if you're a student. I think it kind of authenticates

00:37:06 ◼   ► depending on where you are.

00:37:09 ◼   ► No I think it authenticates with an email address.

00:37:12 ◼   ► Ah, okay.

00:37:13 ◼   ► Like an edu email address. And I've seen someone say that it's even more

00:37:18 ◼   ► restrictive than it should be? I think?

00:37:21 ◼   ► Well, that's not a surprise. It's a very strange one to me.

00:37:24 ◼   ► Like, student pricing feels like a Microsoft 2003 thing.

00:37:29 ◼   ► I'm not saying it's a bad thing, but like it just sounds strange to me now.

00:37:34 ◼   ► Like getting a student discount on software product?

00:37:37 ◼   ► It feels very weird.

00:37:40 ◼   ► Well, Spotify has it. Spotify has it.

00:37:42 ◼   ► I'm not saying they don't. I'm sure many people do.

00:37:44 ◼   ► It's just like now, in today's kind of like application economy, it just seems like

00:37:49 ◼   ► a pick- it just sounds strange to my ears after, you know, so many years of seeing like

00:37:54 ◼   ► Microsoft Office Student Edition, you know?

00:37:57 ◼   ► You know, because getting students with clear issues with cash on a monthly basis to sign

00:38:06 ◼   ► up and eventually those students grow up and get a job and they stay with your service

00:38:11 ◼   ► and they stay with your platform, I think it's like one of those investments that you

00:38:16 ◼   ► make to get people to use your service and to make sure that in the future even a tiny

00:38:20 ◼   ► percentage of them stays with you.

00:38:22 ◼   ► Give it to them for free.

00:38:23 ◼   ► No, not for free, but you know, half the price, because you're a student and because whatever

00:38:29 ◼   ► reason, you know, it's, I mean, I understand why you do this, it's sort of weird to have

00:38:36 ◼   ► like an educational discount in this modern age where it's like there's an app store and

00:38:42 ◼   ► it's the same price for everyone, but I understand why, you know, Apple Music the service wants

00:38:48 ◼   ► to offer this. Actually, I've seen a few people suggesting "Could there be, with the same

00:38:53 ◼   ► system, student discounts for the app store coming?" and I've seen a few developers responding

00:39:00 ◼   ► well to that on Twitter, saying "I would actually raise the price of my own apps if I were able

00:39:06 ◼   ► to offer student discounts. It's interesting to think about, to have student pricing on

00:39:13 ◼   ► the App Store.

00:39:14 ◼   ► Yeah, I've seen a couple of people say this, "Well, obviously there is some kind of authentication

00:39:19 ◼   ► going on here, so it would be kind of cool if there was a way to bring this sort of stuff

00:39:25 ◼   ► out to more people." I would like that.

00:39:29 ◼   ► Yeah, and Kyle in the chatroom is saying that it's not just email authentication, it goes

00:39:34 ◼   ► through this college web interface for, you know, saying "I am a student at this college."

00:39:41 ◼   ► So I think it's interesting. It makes sense a bunch of other services have it. Spotify

00:39:46 ◼   ► has it, and there's a big banner on the Spotify front page right now that says "If you're

00:39:51 ◼   ► a student, get Spotify for $5 a month." I think it'll be interesting to see... I mean,

00:39:58 ◼   ► There has to be some kind of app store announcement at WWDC, right?

00:40:03 ◼   ► Now this has nothing to do with Apple Music, but there has to be some app store changes

00:40:09 ◼   ► coming, right?

00:40:10 ◼   ► Well, I mean, you'd expect it.

00:40:12 ◼   ► There's some weirdness happening right now, right?

00:40:14 ◼   ► Like apps are getting accepted and put for review significantly faster, right?

00:40:21 ◼   ► What's happening there?

00:40:22 ◼   ► Faster than TestFlight, even.

00:40:24 ◼   ► Approval.

00:40:25 ◼   ► It's strange.

00:40:26 ◼   ► And initially I thought, historically, app review times were always lower in May, but

00:40:32 ◼   ► I looked it up on a story that we had on the site a while ago, and it's never been under

00:40:39 ◼   ► 48 hours or even 24 hours. It's always been around 7 to 9 days around this time of the

00:40:46 ◼   ► year. So there's something going on, like more stuff, or Apple has a new app review

00:40:53 ◼   ► policy we don't know about, but definitely 24 hours to get an app approved for the App

00:41:00 ◼   ► Store. It's definitely new. And I'm seeing a lot of positive feedback from the developers

00:41:04 ◼   ► like they're really liking this. In fact, I'm not kidding. App Review is faster at the

00:41:10 ◼   ► moment for several apps than TestFlight beta approval, which is crazy because TestFlight

00:41:18 ◼   ► is just for testers and app review is for the public app store.

00:41:22 ◼   ► But still, I wonder, it's been a rough year, it's been a rough couple of years for the

00:41:27 ◼   ► app store and the Mac app store, and we've seen the executive shakeup, you know, Phil

00:41:33 ◼   ► Schiller now in charge of the app store.

00:41:35 ◼   ► I do wonder if Apple has been preparing some, in that case, I'll allow it some sweeping

00:41:40 ◼   ► changes for the app store.

00:41:43 ◼   ► And we'll see those at WWDC.

00:41:46 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:41:47 ◼   ► Yeah, this is an interesting kind of like story that nobody can do anything with because no one's saying anything

00:41:53 ◼   ► Right, like Apple isn't saying anything about this

00:41:56 ◼   ► All we know is that the average review times are down to like two days for iOS and one day

00:42:03 ◼   ► for the Mac based from appreviewtimes.com

00:42:06 ◼   ► It's like okay. This is crazy, but great. Yeah with the thing that's

00:42:12 ◼   ► Interesting to me and all of that like we see this leading up WBC most years

00:42:17 ◼   ► We can like see the ground shifting a little bit. And so we have things like the student pricing you have things like

00:42:22 ◼   ► You know review times coming down like something is coming, right?

00:42:27 ◼   ► I can always enjoy this part of the year because it's fun to try to read the tea leaves and see what's going on

00:42:32 ◼   ► but um

00:42:34 ◼   ► You know, I think the what underlies both of these stories is you know apples?

00:42:41 ◼   ► ongoing insistence that they are becoming a services company, right?

00:42:44 ◼   ► Those in the quarterly results, Tim Cook says that every interview is on right now,

00:42:48 ◼   ► that services are an increasingly important part of Apple's business and you can see that in their results.

00:42:54 ◼   ► And so if that is true, then they have to make these moves, right? They have to do things like

00:43:00 ◼   ► increase the Apple Music user base, and I think a discount to college students is a pretty smart way of going about that.

00:43:06 ◼   ► They have to make the App Store better for developers and users.

00:43:09 ◼   ► They have to do things like maybe iCloud pricing adjustments or up that free tier of storage,

00:43:16 ◼   ► which they don't do at WDC, like everyone's going to be sad again. But I think this sort

00:43:21 ◼   ► of stuff is going to be in the news more and more as Apple puts an increased emphasis on

00:43:27 ◼   ► its various and its under services that they offer.

00:43:30 ◼   ► I completely agree with you because they're also a service to the people that develop

00:43:36 ◼   ► on their platforms, right? Like, that's part of the whole service package, I guess.

00:43:42 ◼   ► There's a question that it's not about services and that we didn't discuss before, but that

00:43:47 ◼   ► just came to mind, and that I would like to ask you both, if you don't mind, which is

00:43:53 ◼   ► do you believe that fundamentally the changes that Apple could make for indie developers

00:44:04 ◼   ► matter to the general public or to Apple as a company? Do you believe that they care about

00:44:12 ◼   ► what's better for indies when the App Store is making so much money with the big companies?

00:44:20 ◼   ► I think that there's a couple of parts to this. I think that indie developers have shown

00:44:27 ◼   ► in the past and continue to advance and develop iOS apps in new and inventive ways which feel

00:44:34 ◼   ► filter out to the bigger companies.

00:44:37 ◼   ► They help Apple kind of push and test things in ways that big companies won't because they

00:44:41 ◼   ► can't, and I think it helps Apple grow their APIs and think differently about this sort

00:44:46 ◼   ► of stuff.

00:44:47 ◼   ► I also believe that any changes that they make for indie developers are going to find

00:44:53 ◼   ► some way to help the bigger developers too.

00:44:57 ◼   ► The reason that WWDC is an open event is because Apple believe in the community of independent

00:45:03 ◼   ► developers because otherwise they could just do a video and just bring in you

00:45:08 ◼   ► know King and EA you know they could just bring those people in I think that

00:45:12 ◼   ► they genuinely do believe in the independent developer because it helps

00:45:16 ◼   ► them advance the platform right like you just know that everybody at Apple is

00:45:20 ◼   ► using apps made by people like Underscore right they're just doing that

00:45:25 ◼   ► because that's something that they do the same as we do so I think that the

00:45:29 ◼   ► people that help make these rules, they use these apps and want these apps to get better,

00:45:34 ◼   ► and they know that one of the ways that they can make it better is by making it better

00:45:37 ◼   ► for indies. That's how I feel, you know? And funnily enough, in parallel, I feel the same

00:45:42 ◼   ► way about podcasting as well. There's been a whole big hullabaloo about all of this,

00:45:46 ◼   ► you know, and Apple do help out the bigger players, but I genuinely believe that they

00:45:50 ◼   ► care about the needs of people like me and you because we'll help push the medium in

00:45:55 ◼   ► new and different ways the same as we always have done. And I think having the balance

00:45:59 ◼   ► making everyone happy, like the big players and the indies, means that they're going to

00:46:04 ◼   ► get a better platform overall. And I think Apple know this.

00:46:07 ◼   ► Yeah, I agree. Yeah, I think so.

00:46:10 ◼   ► So for that reason it's interesting to me to kind of imagine what they're going to do

00:46:15 ◼   ► and to see what they're going to do because like I see two approaches to the App Store.

00:46:23 ◼   ► The romantic one, which is to care for the indies and to nurture the indies, and to kind

00:46:29 ◼   ► of make, sort of like treating software development as kind of an artistic form, and to enable

00:46:35 ◼   ► the best possible environment for those creators, for those makers.

00:46:41 ◼   ► And then I see the realistic approach, which is to just look at the money, to just look

00:46:45 ◼   ► at the biggest names on the App Store, and those big companies, what they need, and to

00:46:51 ◼   ► kind of have features for those companies because those are driving sales and driving

00:46:55 ◼   ► downloads. So it's definitely, when you think about it, it's a tough spot to be in, like

00:47:01 ◼   ► to have the sort of idealistic approach and to be sort of romantic about software development

00:47:08 ◼   ► and as an artistic endeavor and to be realistic and look at the spreadsheets, look at the

00:47:14 ◼   ► numbers and say, yeah, you know, people just want to play Clash of Clans. And so we're

00:47:19 ◼   ► going to have features on the app store for those people? I don't know what I would do,

00:47:23 ◼   ► that's why I'm not an executive at Apple, but from the outside it's fascinating, you

00:47:28 ◼   ► know. We're going to be talking about this more as we lead up to because we are very

00:47:32 ◼   ► close to WWDC now. We're a month away this week. Yes. So that's what you can expect from

00:47:38 ◼   ► us, you can expect lots of this talk now, it is the most wonderful time of the year.

00:47:43 ◼   ► it is really.

00:47:45 ◼   ► It will be even more wonderful if you're wearing one of our t-shirts. Don't forget, go to our

00:47:50 ◼   ► show notes relay.fm/connected/90 and you'll find the link there to go and grab one of

00:47:57 ◼   ► our fantastic t-shirts, our rainbow connected t-shirts. You can go to teespring search rainbow

00:48:02 ◼   ► connected as well and you'll find the campaign for you either US or EU but we suggest going

00:48:07 ◼   ► to our show notes because you'll also find a bunch of other great links there. If you

00:48:11 ◼   ► If you want to find Steven online head to 512pixels.net and he is @ismh on twitter.

00:48:16 ◼   ► Federico is @vitiici and he writes over at maxstories.net and I am @imikeke.

00:48:26 ◼   ► Check out Upgrade this week if you're interested in mine and Jason's thoughts about the New

00:48:30 ◼   ► York Times Apple podcasting thing.

00:48:34 ◼   ► We spend a bit of time talking about that so I think that's interesting.

00:48:37 ◼   ► interesting for us. If you find it interesting, then you might want to go and listen to that

00:48:41 ◼   ► section and we put chapter markers in it for your convenience because some people won't

00:48:46 ◼   ► want to listen to it and some people only want to listen to it. So that is a good reason

00:48:49 ◼   ► for a chapter marker. Thanks to Memories for sponsoring this week. Thank you for listening.

00:48:54 ◼   ► We'll be back next time. Until then, say goodbye guys.

00:48:57 ◼   ► Arrivederci. Adios.