Connected

00:00:00 ◼   ► [Music]

00:00:06 ◼   ► From Relay FM, this is Connected. Today's episode is episode 71 and it is our year in review show.

00:00:13 ◼   ► This episode is brought to you by Braintree and TexExpander from Smile. We'll be talking about

00:00:18 ◼   ► those a little bit later on. My name is Myke Hurley and I have the pleasure of being joined

00:00:22 ◼   ► by Mr Federico Fattici. Hey Federico. Oh hey Myke and Merry Christmas. Oh Merry Christmas to you.

00:00:27 ◼   ► Happy Holidays!

00:00:28 ◼   ► Happy Holidays!

00:00:29 ◼   ► It's nearly New Year so I'll in advance say Happy New Year.

00:00:33 ◼   ► And I extend those same airs and graces to Mr. Stephen Hackett.

00:00:38 ◼   ► Good morning gentlemen.

00:00:39 ◼   ► It's nice to be back with you.

00:00:41 ◼   ► Good morning.

00:00:42 ◼   ► We have a great show lined up today.

00:00:44 ◼   ► We're going to be doing our Year in Review episode which we started last year and I'm

00:00:47 ◼   ► happy is now becoming a little bit of a tradition so we're going to break down every month and

00:00:51 ◼   ► talk about the things that happened and look back fondly at the news of the year but we

00:00:56 ◼   ► We do have a very slight piece of follow-up.

00:00:59 ◼   ► We didn't want to do any follow-up today, but we kind of had to address this.

00:01:02 ◼   ► Stephen, what happened?

00:01:04 ◼   ► I would say that we're in a transition period as the human race, really, between the year

00:01:11 ◼   ► of Myke was right and the 18 months of Tichi was right.

00:01:16 ◼   ► And in this transition, the Myke was right remnant has had a bit of a boost.

00:01:25 ◼   ► an article this week in the Wall Street Journal

00:01:27 ◼   ► talks about nose tapping on the Apple Watch.

00:01:29 ◼   ► - Yep.

00:01:30 ◼   ► I am aware of this article because it has been sent to me

00:01:33 ◼   ► approximately 250 times.

00:01:36 ◼   ► - Yes.

00:01:36 ◼   ► - Well, that's what happens when you're a big deal

00:01:38 ◼   ► on the internet, Myke.

00:01:39 ◼   ► It's an article that has words in it

00:01:43 ◼   ► that I assume someone read, I didn't read.

00:01:46 ◼   ► But there is a wonderful little graphic of a guy

00:01:49 ◼   ► touching his nose to an Apple Watch.

00:01:51 ◼   ► - They did a stipple.

00:01:52 ◼   ► - Like a Wall Street Journal, yeah.

00:01:53 ◼   ► - That's what it's called, right?

00:01:54 ◼   ► Stipple? Yeah. Yeah. It's all timey looking.

00:01:58 ◼   ► I should have made this my profile picture for a while.

00:02:03 ◼   ► So this is an article here you can go read about it, but it was long.

00:02:08 ◼   ► I have something very important to say in regards to Myke was right a little bit later

00:02:12 ◼   ► on in the show.

00:02:13 ◼   ► I just want to point out how the title on the Wall Street Journal is different from

00:02:19 ◼   ► the permalink of the article itself.

00:02:23 ◼   ► Oh, they do that all the time, don't they?

00:02:24 ◼   ► So the real title should be "Nosy Apple Watch Users Discover Another Way to Go Hands-Free"

00:02:31 ◼   ► but for some reason on the webpage there's no "Nosy" before Apple Watch users.

00:02:36 ◼   ► I think that's a... and if you combine the title with the first photo, it's just perfect.

00:02:42 ◼   ► Beautiful.

00:02:43 ◼   ► This is what you've been working for this year, to get some recognition of your, I guess,

00:02:50 ◼   ► facial abilities.

00:02:52 ◼   ► I feel kind of sorry for people that work at the Wall Street Journal.

00:02:55 ◼   ► Why?

00:02:56 ◼   ► Because for the past two or three days, they keep getting this hashtag tweeted to them

00:02:59 ◼   ► that they can't possibly understand.

00:03:01 ◼   ► Didn't know.

00:03:02 ◼   ► Right?

00:03:03 ◼   ► Like, they just...

00:03:04 ◼   ► I've seen it so much, right?

00:03:06 ◼   ► Because people tagged me and I was like searching the hashtag.

00:03:08 ◼   ► And so many people were just like tweeting at Joanna Stern and I think is it David Galloway,

00:03:13 ◼   ► the guy who wrote the article?

00:03:14 ◼   ► And just saying Myke was right.

00:03:16 ◼   ► Like, what can that mean?

00:03:18 ◼   ► Like when you see that?

00:03:19 ◼   ► It must be so weird.

00:03:20 ◼   ► They must have thought it was some kind of new spam, you know?

00:03:25 ◼   ► That's a good point. Maybe that's what they thought it was, but yeah, I feel sorry for

00:03:28 ◼   ► them. But I'm pleased that they wrote this and it's a really great way to finish the

00:03:34 ◼   ► year of... well, again, we'll get to that shortly. So should we begin? I'm going to

00:03:40 ◼   ► start with January. We're going to go round robin style, which is our favorite way to

00:03:44 ◼   ► to conduct any type of list.

00:03:46 ◼   ► So I'm gonna talk about a small selection

00:03:49 ◼   ► of the big stories that happened in January.

00:03:51 ◼   ► We kick off with Mark Gurman leaking the 12-inch MacBook.

00:03:54 ◼   ► If you remember, he wrote that massive piece

00:03:57 ◼   ► talking about all of the things that he'd found out

00:03:59 ◼   ► in regards to what would eventually become the MacBook.

00:04:02 ◼   ► Microsoft introduced the HoloLens,

00:04:05 ◼   ► an event that they did where they were talking

00:04:06 ◼   ► about Windows 10, and Marco Arment wrote his blog post

00:04:11 ◼   ► about the functional high ground.

00:04:13 ◼   ► Now I want to start off by talking about the 12 inch MacBook Air in a little bit more detail.

00:04:19 ◼   ► I mean I remember just us and every other Apple focus podcast talking about this for

00:04:24 ◼   ► weeks.

00:04:25 ◼   ► You know we were saying you know how could they make a laptop so small, how could they

00:04:29 ◼   ► only have one port and they ended up doing it.

00:04:32 ◼   ► And I just wonder like Stephen what do you think looking back at this kind of one how

00:04:35 ◼   ► crazy it was that Gherman got it just so right even down to like the design details but also

00:04:40 ◼   ► the fact that we're now kind of in this world where the MacBook exists.

00:04:44 ◼   ► I mean the leak really was an incredible piece of work on his part.

00:04:50 ◼   ► If you look at those renderings in that 9to5 article it looks like

00:04:55 ◼   ► it is the MacBook, it really is uncanny. And I think that as much as

00:05:00 ◼   ► Apple heralds the MacBook as the kind of the future of notebooks, which is

00:05:04 ◼   ► like a phrase the future of X, Apple has used over the years for a bunch of

00:05:08 ◼   ► different things. Clearly the Macbook I think is the future. I think that

00:05:14 ◼   ► computers, notebook computers, will look more like the MacBook in the future than

00:05:17 ◼   ► they do now. But I think the MacBook itself is still really early on in its

00:05:23 ◼   ► life as a product. You know, we've, my wife owns one, I use it pretty often.

00:05:27 ◼   ► It's a fine machine. I don't want to talk down about it because it fits with what

00:05:32 ◼   ► a lot of people want and need out of a Mac notebook. But it's definitely got some

00:05:36 ◼   ► limitations depending on what's important to you and I look forward to

00:05:40 ◼   ► becoming a little bit faster in the future but I think that it's sort of

00:05:45 ◼   ► leading the way in what Apple thinks notebook should be. I'm not saying that

00:05:50 ◼   ► every notebook is gonna have one port on it I think that's a concession they've

00:05:54 ◼   ► made on this one but I think the idea that a laptop should be fanless and run

00:05:59 ◼   ► cool and be super lightweight and thin is something that Apple's been working

00:06:03 ◼   ► for uh towards for a long time. I'm excited for an update to this laptop because now in my iPad Pro

00:06:11 ◼   ► world um I don't need a MacBook Pro anymore all I need is a Mac that I can take on holidays and on

00:06:18 ◼   ► trips and on vacations in case I need to edit audio like that's all I need and now the MacBook

00:06:24 ◼   ► is too big and too heavy because I'm carrying the laptop with my iPad Pro which is my favorite

00:06:29 ◼   ► computer. I was doing a lot of work on it this morning Federico. I was

00:06:33 ◼   ► annotating images and turning them into PDFs or workflow. It was glorious,

00:06:37 ◼   ► absolutely glorious. So I'm interested to see and I've got my

00:06:42 ◼   ► fingers crossed that the 12-inch MacBook is like the original MacBook Air and

00:06:45 ◼   ► that the next one is going to be super powerful. I don't think it's gonna happen

00:06:49 ◼   ► but I've got my fingers crossed for it anyway.

00:06:51 ◼   ► Yeah looking back on this leak and the announcement I wonder what's gonna

00:06:56 ◼   ► happen first. If my MacBook Air is gonna die and I'll have to buy one of these

00:07:01 ◼   ► MacBooks or if the iPad Pro will get audio recording features with iOS 10.

00:07:07 ◼   ► I am pretty convinced you'll be buying a new Mac before that.

00:07:11 ◼   ► Oh, so pessimistic.

00:07:13 ◼   ► I just don't see it happening.

00:07:15 ◼   ► Because it just doesn't feel like that that is important enough to Apple to

00:07:19 ◼   ► make it so you can podcast from yours.

00:07:21 ◼   ► You have no faith in the strength of my

00:07:24 ◼   ► you know, MacBook Air. I mean it's in pretty bad shape but it's still, you know,

00:07:29 ◼   ► still going. Didn't I read somewhere that you have to use a third-party app to log in to your laptop?

00:07:37 ◼   ► Well, sometimes! Why not just change your password not to use that key?

00:07:41 ◼   ► You're using a third-party app that installs like a kernel, it does crazy stuff,

00:07:48 ◼   ► instead of changing your password. Well, it's not as easy as it sounds because

00:07:52 ◼   ► because basically the damage of the single E key

00:07:56 ◼   ► extended to the entire row

00:07:59 ◼   ► like the Q W E R T row

00:08:03 ◼   ► and so for some reason

00:08:06 ◼   ► sometimes that row of keys don't work.

00:08:10 ◼   ► So maybe I should use a password that just uses the bottom two rows.

00:08:16 ◼   ► Oh that's a good idea Simon actually.

00:08:18 ◼   ► I should change my password.

00:08:20 ◼   ► Yeah, oh my gosh.

00:08:22 ◼   ► Do you guys want to talk about any of the other stories from January?

00:08:24 ◼   ► The functional high ground one is, you know, Marco unfortunately got a lot of attention

00:08:29 ◼   ► he didn't want for that piece, but I think that the merit was still there, and what I

00:08:32 ◼   ► like the most now is that functional high ground has become a meme in our circle.

00:08:36 ◼   ► That's my, if you ask me, that's the best thing that came out of it, right?

00:08:40 ◼   ► That we have the functional high ground meme.

00:08:43 ◼   ► Yeah, I don't know if Marco likes it that way, you know, that it's sort of a meme.

00:08:47 ◼   ► I definitely said it to him at one point, so I think he laughed.

00:08:51 ◼   ► Okay, so he's okay with it.

00:08:53 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean, he made really strong points, but there was at least some truth to it.

00:09:04 ◼   ► It's no secret that Apple...

00:09:05 ◼   ► There was, this was about all the Discovery D stuff, right?

00:09:06 ◼   ► And it was just a nightmare.

00:09:08 ◼   ► Yeah, but you can extend that to iOS, to OS X, to Apple Watch, you know, with such a wide

00:09:16 ◼   ► product line, and this is one of the big topics of 2015, Apple has a bunch of new products

00:09:21 ◼   ► and platforms, there are many issues that need to be fixed. And you could argue that

00:09:26 ◼   ► Apple when they had fewer products, they were maybe in a sense more stable or maybe more

00:09:32 ◼   ► finished when they launched, because the company wasn't stretched so thin to manage a bunch

00:09:40 ◼   ► of different ecosystems and devices. And so maybe, you know, Marco got the attention that

00:09:46 ◼   ► he didn't want. And the timing, he also said, wasn't really on his part because basically

00:09:52 ◼   ► it was before CES, I think, and everyone was looking for something, was looking for news

00:09:58 ◼   ► before the big trade show. So he definitely got, you know, a lot of attention, maybe even

00:10:04 ◼   ► more than... I mean it was on TV, you know, the article. So... but maybe... I think he

00:10:11 ◼   ► said he almost wished he didn't write the post, but I think there was some excellent

00:10:18 ◼   ► points he raised. Yeah, I think even though maybe the intention

00:10:22 ◼   ► wasn't the same and the action wasn't as desired, I think it was still worthwhile.

00:10:28 ◼   ► Yeah. So should we move on to February?

00:10:31 ◼   ► Let's do it.

00:10:32 ◼   ► So February had some interesting tech news, but I really wanted to focus on two things.

00:10:40 ◼   ► The beginning of Myke was Right, which we just spoke about the end of it a second ago,

00:10:45 ◼   ► but most importantly, February 26th, 2015 was a very special day.

00:10:52 ◼   ► It's the best day the internet has ever had.

00:10:57 ◼   ► In hindsight, historians will look on this day as the pinnacle of what the internet is.

00:11:03 ◼   ► Two things happened.

00:11:04 ◼   ► First, the "what color is the dress" situation.

00:11:08 ◼   ► It's black and gold, man!

00:11:12 ◼   ► It is most of the time.

00:11:13 ◼   ► Sometimes it's blue and black.

00:11:15 ◼   ► Who knows how it works.

00:11:16 ◼   ► It is blue and black.

00:11:17 ◼   ► Oh, come on, guys.

00:11:18 ◼   ► Still arguing about this.

00:11:19 ◼   ► It's blue and black.

00:11:20 ◼   ► It's white and gold.

00:11:21 ◼   ► I have looked at it a couple times preparing notes for this show, and it's changed on me

00:11:23 ◼   ► just doing that.

00:11:25 ◼   ► Seriously.

00:11:26 ◼   ► that as white and gold. Something is definitely wrong with your eyes if you see white and gold.

00:11:32 ◼   ► Anyway, sorry. Uh, but a couple hours before that, um, you remember that two llamas made a great

00:11:40 ◼   ► escape to Phoenix, and in this BuzzFeed page there's a vine and there's these llamas just

00:11:45 ◼   ► running down the street with police cars chasing them. I'm so happy we have two BuzzFeed links in

00:11:51 ◼   ► our show notes for this episode. It's a unique time here on Connected. So I don't know,

00:11:59 ◼   ► Favourite 26 was a pretty great day in my opinion. It was amazing and I remember the

00:12:04 ◼   ► llama, one of the llamas also went on TV as some kind of guest on a talk show. I mean

00:12:11 ◼   ► obviously the llama can talk but you know. That would be a whole different in a day.

00:12:17 ◼   ► It was pretty awesome. I remember I was in my kitchen just making some coffee and I was

00:12:22 ◼   ► looking at the livestream for the llamas. It was seriously amazing. So good job, Internet.

00:12:28 ◼   ► And then the beginning of Myke was Right, which I believe is episode what, 28 of this

00:12:33 ◼   ► fine program?

00:12:34 ◼   ► Yeah, so this is what I wanted to talk about. So this is the news for me. So we have two

00:12:40 ◼   ► things here. Are we deciding that Myke was right is only 12 months? That was what the

00:12:45 ◼   ► ruling was, right?

00:12:46 ◼   ► Yes, which means you have a little more time. So that means I have until the end of February. Yeah

00:12:51 ◼   ► well, it can overlap with the

00:12:53 ◼   ► Year of teaching. Okay, good. So now I get I get my 12 months. We're not we're not done yet guys

00:12:58 ◼   ► It's gradual another two months of this insanity

00:13:02 ◼   ► Well, look, what can I say? Like you got this Wall Street Journal article occurring like it's still rolling on

00:13:07 ◼   ► What have I done?

00:13:10 ◼   ► Remind us how how it started

00:13:13 ◼   ► My question started with the iPhone, right?

00:13:16 ◼   ► I believe, yeah, it was you guys had just gotten the 6 Plus.

00:13:22 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:13:23 ◼   ► And...

00:13:24 ◼   ► That was kind of where it started. And one of you said it in the episode and then it kind of took off from there.

00:13:31 ◼   ► Yeah, I remember you were trying to convince us that the 6 Plus was the better size.

00:13:36 ◼   ► You've been doing that for... I think you had been doing that for a while and then...

00:13:41 ◼   ► - Well, it was from September to February, right?

00:13:43 ◼   ► It was a long time.

00:13:44 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, yeah.

00:13:45 ◼   ► Steven and I are forced to listen to you.

00:13:49 ◼   ► And then eventually Steven and I got the iPhone 6 Plus

00:13:54 ◼   ► and we were like, "Actually, we're liking this phone."

00:13:57 ◼   ► And so you were like, "Oh yeah, I told you guys."

00:13:59 ◼   ► And you were like all gloating and stuff.

00:14:02 ◼   ► And I think I like half jokingly said,

00:14:05 ◼   ► "Yeah, #mikewasright," and then a monster was born.

00:14:11 ◼   ► Well, you know, it became it had a life of its own.

00:14:14 ◼   ► That's lasted all the way up to the end of the year and will continue

00:14:17 ◼   ► through to next year.

00:14:19 ◼   ► Are you proud of the of the things you've carried under the Micro's

00:14:24 ◼   ► Right banner? Yeah.

00:14:25 ◼   ► I mean, in all seriousness, the thing that I'm most proud of is the iPad Pro thing

00:14:30 ◼   ► where I called that they would do the iPad Pro the September event

00:14:34 ◼   ► and everyone said I was wrong.

00:14:36 ◼   ► So not not the nose.

00:14:37 ◼   ► No, I mean that thing is like I'm happy that that occurs but after John Siracusa

00:14:42 ◼   ► like systematically destroyed All Our Hopes and Dreams on an episode of ATP where they

00:14:47 ◼   ► were talking about that I've kind of backed away from the nose tapping thing as my crying

00:14:51 ◼   ► achievement.

00:14:52 ◼   ► Mm-hmm, okay.

00:14:55 ◼   ► So I think my crying achievement for Myke was right was the calling the iPad at the

00:15:00 ◼   ► September event.

00:15:01 ◼   ► All right.

00:15:02 ◼   ► What else happened in February, Steven?

00:15:05 ◼   ► We also have the beginning of rumors of the Apple car project, Project Titan, and we see

00:15:12 ◼   ► photos.app for the first time.

00:15:15 ◼   ► So kind of stories about something that may be way down the road, really trying to say

00:15:21 ◼   ► way down the road, but I said it anyways, as far as car rumors and then of course photos,

00:15:28 ◼   ► which photo management you guys may remember we talked about like once or twice.

00:15:35 ◼   ► This is apples shot at it, and I think for the most part people like it and for the most part. It's been

00:15:40 ◼   ► Successful for people so what do you guys think I mean the car thing?

00:15:45 ◼   ► I think is more interesting as photos is kind of it is what it is

00:15:48 ◼   ► but if the car is a multi-year story and we're kind of

00:15:52 ◼   ► Kind of been quiet. We know there's

00:15:55 ◼   ► Hiring going on and there's a lot of trading of blows between

00:16:00 ◼   ► Apple and Tesla in that department and I know do you guys have any like thoughts on what this could could end up meaning for?

00:16:08 ◼   ► Next year or down the road further

00:16:11 ◼   ► Well, I think we're definitely gonna hear a lot more at least in terms of rumors and hires next year

00:16:18 ◼   ► Making a car seems to me the kind of effort that some kind of

00:16:24 ◼   ► major leak is gonna occur, you know?

00:16:26 ◼   ► Whether it's testing or hiring people or buying new materials or setting up, you know, new manufacturing plants,

00:16:34 ◼   ► something's gonna leak, something major next year. At least that's how I feel.

00:16:39 ◼   ► I'm keeping an eye on this project because it's so...

00:16:43 ◼   ► It's so different, right?

00:16:46 ◼   ► I mean, it's one thing to say Apple is making a computer, then he's making an iPod, then he's making a phone,

00:16:51 ◼   ► and now they're also making a watch, but it's all in the realm of computers in a way.

00:16:56 ◼   ► But a car is a transportation vehicle, so that's, I mean, and it's of course based on computers and stuff,

00:17:02 ◼   ► but it's so different from anything they have done before, and no Steven, the iPod socks don't count, so

00:17:10 ◼   ► it's so different and it requires such a different set of skills and people and, you know,

00:17:18 ◼   ► suppliers and that kind of stuff.

00:17:21 ◼   ► It's really interesting to me and you know the

00:17:24 ◼   ► the multiple remarks by Jeff Williams and Tim Cook or

00:17:29 ◼   ► Like we don't want to talk about the car

00:17:31 ◼   ► But they're obviously working on something for the car and every time they say yeah, we have carplay and sure, okay

00:17:38 ◼   ► We'll see. We'll see what happens. I wouldn't be surprised if

00:17:42 ◼   ► 2016

00:17:43 ◼   ► Gorman will have a major scoop on the Apple car, you know, we'll see

00:17:48 ◼   ► I kind of don't want to think about the Apple car like the whole license the whole idea of it still seems ridiculous to me

00:17:54 ◼   ► And I can't completely see why they would want to do it

00:17:57 ◼   ► But one of my other favorite stories from February was the New Yorkers profile of Johnny Ive

00:18:02 ◼   ► Yeah, that was a good one. That was a great piece kind of unprecedented and I like that exists as a thing

00:18:10 ◼   ► I thought it was really interesting to read

00:18:13 ◼   ► So yeah, that's that's cool. I'm pleased that they did that and I remember I didn't read this

00:18:19 ◼   ► I read a narration that somebody did I can't remember where that came from

00:18:22 ◼   ► Somebody narrated it for me and then I just listened to it was awesome. Oh, I remember that also from February

00:18:29 ◼   ► I think we saw the first in a string of acquisitions from Microsoft

00:18:35 ◼   ► They bought sunrise the popular and free

00:18:39 ◼   ► Calendar app for iOS and Android and the web and the Mac also

00:18:43 ◼   ► So it wasn't a bunch of platforms and we wondered what's gonna happen with sunrise and you know

00:18:49 ◼   ► Microsoft is kind of switching to be more of a cloud/mobile company and you know

00:18:55 ◼   ► Everyone that I knew loved sunrise. It was the kind of calendar app with great design and integrations with a bunch of services

00:19:03 ◼   ► So we as we'll see during the next few months in this

00:19:07 ◼   ► roundup

00:19:09 ◼   ► Microsoft has been doing quite a few of these acquisitions and, you know, kind of reimagining

00:19:13 ◼   ► their portfolio of iOS apps. But I think we can trace back the, you know, this trend to

00:19:18 ◼   ► to terrorize. Yeah.

00:19:20 ◼   ► Yeah. And now look where they are, right? Integrating into Outlook. Like, it's an interesting

00:19:25 ◼   ► time for Microsoft, especially if you're an iOS user.

00:19:29 ◼   ► So that wraps up February. So I'm going to take a quick break and then we'll get into

00:19:33 ◼   ► March, which Federico, March is March is your month, man. I'm excited to hear you talk about

00:19:37 ◼   ► This episode is brought to you by Braintree code for easy online payments

00:19:41 ◼   ► If you're a mobile app developer check out Braintree. Braintree is the payment solution used by companies like Uber

00:19:47 ◼   ► Airbnb, Hotel Tonight, Living Social and Monterrey. Braintree has made the payment experiences that you will use in these apps

00:19:54 ◼   ► Seamless and now you can add a similar magical experience to your own app as well

00:19:59 ◼   ► They have excellent customer service and simple integration for developers

00:20:03 ◼   ► you can very easily get Braintree into your app so you can receive your payments quickly.

00:20:09 ◼   ► Braintree has continuous support, they are always making their platform better and they're

00:20:15 ◼   ► always there for their customers and users to make sure that it's all good, everything's

00:20:19 ◼   ► fine and dandy. They also have fast payouts as well which means you'll be prepared as

00:20:23 ◼   ► your company grows from your first dollar to your billionth.

00:20:27 ◼   ► Braintree is also helping solve the problem of mobile car abandonment by offering a best

00:20:32 ◼   ► in class mobile checkout experience. You are able to add a similar experience to your own

00:20:41 ◼   ► app with Braintree's full stack payment solution. This gives you support for all of the payment

00:20:46 ◼   ► types that your customers might want. This includes PayPal, Apple Pay, Bitcoin, Venmo,

00:20:51 ◼   ► Card payment and many more types. All with just that one single integration. It will

00:20:56 ◼   ► be with you and your customers across all platforms with the superior fraud protection

00:21:00 ◼   ► that they have and their fantastic customer services and fast payouts. To learn more and

00:21:06 ◼   ► for your first $50,000 in transactions fee free go to Braintreepayments.com/connected.

00:21:12 ◼   ► Thank you so much to Braintree for their support of this show in 2015. There you go. This one's

00:21:18 ◼   ► on you.

00:21:19 ◼   ► So, so aside from the Pebble Time raising 20 million on Kickstarter.

00:21:24 ◼   ► Which is a big thing. I was like, I mean, I'm going to just put that in there because

00:21:27 ◼   ► That was a crazy amount of money they made.

00:21:30 ◼   ► Yeah, it was a lot of money.

00:21:31 ◼   ► How's Pebble doing these days, by the way?

00:21:33 ◼   ► I don't think they're doing so well anymore.

00:21:36 ◼   ► Sorry for the guys.

00:21:37 ◼   ► Some great people are working at the company.

00:21:40 ◼   ► But yeah, as we've said before, I

00:21:45 ◼   ► don't know if there's a place between the Apple Watch

00:21:48 ◼   ► and the Android Wear smartwatches

00:21:50 ◼   ► for this kind of platform.

00:21:51 ◼   ► They have to go all in on Android, I think,

00:21:54 ◼   ► is the way that they continue.

00:21:55 ◼   ► They have to.

00:21:56 ◼   ► So aside from Pebble News and Kickstarter, March for me was the month of two things.

00:22:03 ◼   ► It's a whirlwind, man.

00:22:04 ◼   ► Yeah, it was crazy.

00:22:06 ◼   ► And it's definitely like I think March and September are the highlight of my year.

00:22:12 ◼   ► But in March, I published the health story of how the iPhone helped me get back in shape

00:22:20 ◼   ► after cancer and treatments.

00:22:22 ◼   ► And it was an article that I had kept in the back of my mind for at least two years.

00:22:28 ◼   ► And I didn't want to publish it or I didn't want to write it.

00:22:31 ◼   ► Not just because it was heavy, you know, to kind of reminisce and kind of look at all the old pictures

00:22:36 ◼   ► and talk about the process of going through chemo and getting back in shape.

00:22:42 ◼   ► I also didn't want to give the impression that I was looking for easy page views on the website,

00:22:47 ◼   ► because it's a kind of topic, you know.

00:22:49 ◼   ► the story of a guy who went through chemo and now is using technology to get back in

00:22:53 ◼   ► shape and now is using the disease as a sort of to catch attention. And I didn't want

00:23:00 ◼   ► to do that. But then, you know, my girlfriend, and you guys, you all pushed me to just write

00:23:10 ◼   ► about the truth and write about my story that I shouldn't be ashamed of my story or I

00:23:16 ◼   ► shouldn't be afraid of other people's judgment on how I use that or how I talk about that.

00:23:23 ◼   ► And so I published this article and I spent, you know, in retrospect, I only spent three

00:23:30 ◼   ► weeks to produce a story that was about two years or three years of my life. And I've

00:23:38 ◼   ► always been like that, you know, I keep articles in my mind for a long time and then in like

00:23:42 ◼   ► a couple of weeks I write them all and it's all done. But what I didn't expect was the,

00:23:50 ◼   ► not just the success of the article itself in terms of page views, because I don't necessarily

00:23:54 ◼   ► care about that, but it was the feedback that I got. And I got hundreds of people sending

00:24:02 ◼   ► me emails about their story and that was also possibly heavier than the article itself because

00:24:08 ◼   ► Because when you hear, you know, I heard from people who had kids with cancer, and I heard

00:24:15 ◼   ► from, you know, brothers and sisters, sons, daughters, all types of stories from Europe,

00:24:22 ◼   ► from America, from Brazil.

00:24:24 ◼   ► And it was definitely both awesome and heavy to realize I have people reading this story,

00:24:31 ◼   ► but there's so many other people in a much, much worse scenario than me.

00:24:35 ◼   ► So that was heavy, and it was heavy and great at the same time, and it was so weird.

00:24:41 ◼   ► But what I didn't really expect was getting a tweet from Phil Schiller, from Apple, to

00:24:48 ◼   ► the article.

00:24:49 ◼   ► And that was the point where, like, this noble effect kind of began.

00:24:55 ◼   ► And so Schiller tweeted an article, a link to the article.

00:25:00 ◼   ► And it got me quite a few more people on the site.

00:25:04 ◼   ► And then the next day, or maybe two days later, I got an invitation from Apple to go to the

00:25:12 ◼   ► event in San Francisco. And so I, so in two days I had to arrange everything and I went

00:25:22 ◼   ► to San Francisco and I went to the March event, March 9th in the Yerba Buena Center, and I

00:25:31 ◼   ► stood there and watched the keynote where Apple introduced the new MacBook, so the one

00:25:37 ◼   ► that leaked in January, ResearchKit, which is an open source initiative to allow developers

00:25:43 ◼   ► to build apps for medical research, and of course the Ray introduction to the public

00:25:50 ◼   ► of the Apple Watch. And I also went in the demo area, I tried the Apple Watch, tried

00:25:56 ◼   ► the MacBook and finally got to meet quite a few handsome people such as Jason, Serenity,

00:26:03 ◼   ► and René of course and so many other friends that I never met in real life. And it was

00:26:09 ◼   ► all over in 48 hours. So I went there, flew back and I was in London, back in Rome. I

00:26:19 ◼   ► meet Myke in London at that time, but we'll see, we'll see, we'll see in the future.

00:26:26 ◼   ► And I was back in Rome and the first thing I did, I'm kind of ashamed of myself, but

00:26:32 ◼   ► the first thing I did was I was so hungry I went to a McDonald's to eat because it

00:26:36 ◼   ► was like 11. Yeah, it was 11 at night and I didn't know where else to go. I didn't

00:26:43 ◼   ► want to cook pasta and I was just so exhausted and we went with my girlfriend and a friend

00:26:49 ◼   ► of mine we went to McDonald's and it was all over in two days. So it was beautiful. Do

00:26:55 ◼   ► you remember #TGTRAVELS? I remember #TGTRAVELS. That was one of the most fun days I've had

00:27:01 ◼   ► on the internet because I was so excited that you were in San Francisco and you were in

00:27:05 ◼   ► the event and obviously what happens quite a lot is like journalists will tweet pictures

00:27:09 ◼   ► of them in line and I took it upon myself to search for you in every image and then

00:27:15 ◼   ► kind of I was tweeting about like a crazy person and then people started jumping on

00:27:19 ◼   ► board and sending me pictures that they'd found of you in them and that was such a great

00:27:23 ◼   ► day and it was just a great time that you got that invite and that really made March

00:27:29 ◼   ► special for me. Like the event was fun, there was so much announced, right? We got the MacBook,

00:27:34 ◼   ► the Apple Watch and all the other stuff that you mentioned but you being there and it being

00:27:38 ◼   ► your first event and your first time in America really made it a very special time I think.

00:27:44 ◼   ► Yeah, I also ate pasta in San Francisco at an Italian restaurant. It was pretty good,

00:27:50 ◼   ► you know. Rene and Serenity took me there. It was a great place. And I'm still thinking

00:27:56 ◼   ► about that day, you know, I was in San Francisco. I remember, Myke, when I surprised you on

00:28:02 ◼   ► a podcast with Jason.

00:28:04 ◼   ► Oh, God.

00:28:05 ◼   ► I remember your reaction.

00:28:07 ◼   ► Oh, that was horrible.

00:28:09 ◼   ► We should have an audio clip in here, Myke.

00:28:12 ◼   ► It was the best kept secret of the day was that Federico Vittigia arrived in San Francisco

00:28:19 ◼   ► today to partake in the Apple event.

00:28:22 ◼   ► He got an invite.

00:28:23 ◼   ► We'll talk about that on Connected.

00:28:25 ◼   ► That's a whole big story.

00:28:27 ◼   ► I'm looking forward to Connected this week, actually.

00:28:29 ◼   ► Or we can talk about it now if you want, Myke.

00:28:32 ◼   ► Oh.

00:28:33 ◼   ► Hello.

00:28:34 ◼   ► Oh my God, that really scared me.

00:28:36 ◼   ► Hi Federico.

00:28:37 ◼   ► Hi Myke, how are you?

00:28:38 ◼   ► What are you doing there?

00:28:39 ◼   ► A podcast, obviously.

00:28:40 ◼   ► A podcast, obviously.

00:28:41 ◼   ► How long have you been there?

00:28:43 ◼   ► The whole time.

00:28:44 ◼   ► The whole time.

00:28:44 ◼   ► And I surprised you during upgrade and I was at the Macworld offices. It was such a crazy,

00:28:57 ◼   ► crazy series of emotions and events. Definitely one of the two highlights of my year.

00:29:03 ◼   ► Should we move on to April?

00:29:08 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:29:09 ◼   ► this guy's got two bullet points. Yeah April wasn't a big month. In April Becoming Steve

00:29:14 ◼   ► Jobs was released, the book, which is the only book I've read this year so congratulations

00:29:20 ◼   ► Becoming Steve Jobs taking that title for me. And also the Apple Watch went on sale and started

00:29:28 ◼   ► a trend for Apple of really weird ship dates for the year. Yeah that's one of the themes of this

00:29:36 ◼   ► What's going on with the ship dates?

00:29:38 ◼   ► Nobody knows.

00:29:40 ◼   ► So what was going on? It was just that people were

00:29:42 ◼   ► ordering some watches

00:29:44 ◼   ► and they were going to take months, right?

00:29:46 ◼   ► That was the big thing. It was different skews

00:29:48 ◼   ► of the watch were taking much

00:29:50 ◼   ► much longer to arrive than maybe

00:29:52 ◼   ► the sports and stuff like that. But even

00:29:54 ◼   ► different colors of the sport bands

00:29:56 ◼   ► were taking longer. Very quickly

00:29:58 ◼   ► people making an order

00:30:00 ◼   ► in April got a July

00:30:02 ◼   ► ship date. So that was

00:30:04 ◼   ► That was weird, of course.

00:30:06 ◼   ► - Yeah, that was super, super strange.

00:30:09 ◼   ► - And it's strange from a company that's run

00:30:11 ◼   ► by the old operations guy.

00:30:13 ◼   ► - Maybe the problem was there was nobody looking after it.

00:30:17 ◼   ► Maybe it'll be fine now.

00:30:18 ◼   ► - It was before Jeff Williams got promoted.

00:30:21 ◼   ► - No one was looking at operations 'cause Cook was gone.

00:30:24 ◼   ► - I mean, I guess, what do we talk this up to now?

00:30:27 ◼   ► Just the issues in manufacturing?

00:30:29 ◼   ► That's the only thing I can think of,

00:30:31 ◼   ► that they couldn't get them in bulk fast enough.

00:30:34 ◼   ► But I know mine shipped pretty quickly,

00:30:36 ◼   ► but I mean, a lot of people waited,

00:30:38 ◼   ► I mean, just like you guys said,

00:30:39 ◼   ► for, I mean, seemingly weeks and weeks and weeks.

00:30:43 ◼   ► - What was even stranger,

00:30:44 ◼   ► and I think we almost forgot at this point,

00:30:47 ◼   ► but remember, the Apple Watch couldn't be bought

00:30:50 ◼   ► in a store initially.

00:30:52 ◼   ► It was only available online.

00:30:54 ◼   ► You couldn't go to an Apple retail store to--

00:30:56 ◼   ► - But they did the try-ons,

00:30:57 ◼   ► which was a really interesting thing to do.

00:31:00 ◼   ► you could go in and try on the product, which was the way it should have been done. But

00:31:03 ◼   ► the fact that you couldn't then place an order or pick one up for months was really weird.

00:31:08 ◼   ► Yeah, and they were trying to spin this as we want to change our retail mechanism to

00:31:15 ◼   ► only be online and then you go to the store just to get a try on or a demo. And they got

00:31:20 ◼   ► so many, so many, you know, articles and, you know, people from the press saying that

00:31:27 ◼   ► it wasn't really a good move. And eventually, like a couple of months later, they said "Yeah,

00:31:34 ◼   ► well, now we are okay with the shipments, so we can provide units to the Apple retail

00:31:40 ◼   ► stores, you can walk in and buy an Apple watch". I don't know if it was like Apple recognizing

00:31:46 ◼   ► the mistake or if maybe it was a plan all along, but definitely, you know, people having

00:31:51 ◼   ► to make an appointment to try on a watch, but then being unable to buy it directly in

00:31:56 ◼   ► a retail store, it was definitely strange. And I, you know, I had to buy an Apple watch

00:32:04 ◼   ► from Germany thanks to… remember that! Remember that!

00:32:08 ◼   ► Yeah, I remember. You didn't remember. I bought an Apple watch

00:32:12 ◼   ► from Germany using the courtesy of a friend of mine and then I paid like a hundred euros

00:32:20 ◼   ► to get the overnight from Germany to Rome, Italy with DHL.

00:32:27 ◼   ► And DHL worked beautifully, by the way.

00:32:30 ◼   ► So I got my black sport Apple watch from the German retail store.

00:32:37 ◼   ► And yeah.

00:32:38 ◼   ► Yeah, I remember your card being like waiting to be charged.

00:32:43 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:32:44 ◼   ► There was an issue with the credit card, but then it all worked out.

00:32:48 ◼   ► I called, I was like a free number from Apple to confirm that my credit card was okay. And

00:32:57 ◼   ► the guy told me, "You're the first person to call in about the Apple Watch today." I

00:33:02 ◼   ► was like, "Oh yeah, nice."

00:33:03 ◼   ► First of I'm sure thousands.

00:33:08 ◼   ► The try-on experience really was something the stores really haven't done like that

00:33:14 ◼   ► before you know you went in and I mean lots of things at the Apple store are by

00:33:19 ◼   ► appointment now but you know I wrote a blog post about my experiences a lot of

00:33:23 ◼   ► the people did and it was really great I mean it was like hands-on one-on-one

00:33:27 ◼   ► time with someone who clearly have been trained and and knew the product and you

00:33:33 ◼   ► know I think I think a lot of things about the Apple watch are experimental

00:33:37 ◼   ► to Apple including the retail experience and even now you walk in the store and

00:33:41 ◼   ► it's you know they're still in that table where they're sunk under the glass

00:33:44 ◼   ► and it still feels like a very high-end experience when you go in to look at or

00:33:49 ◼   ► buy an Apple Watch and I think that that's intentional and done by design on

00:33:54 ◼   ► Apple's part but it is very different than you know it's the same story you

00:33:58 ◼   ► can go in and buy a phone case with Apple Pay on your phone and never talk

00:34:01 ◼   ► to a human being like it is sort of the the far other end of that experience in

00:34:05 ◼   ► retail. Yeah I think the the Trion was one of the best retail experiences or

00:34:11 ◼   ► or actually probably the best retail experience

00:34:13 ◼   ► I've had this year.

00:34:14 ◼   ► Like it was great to go in and try it on.

00:34:18 ◼   ► And you know, I took a dinner and she loved it as well.

00:34:20 ◼   ► That's why she ended up buying one

00:34:22 ◼   ► because when she tried it on, she just loved it.

00:34:24 ◼   ► And that was a really good idea.

00:34:26 ◼   ► And I think that in an ideal world,

00:34:29 ◼   ► you would be buying them immediately.

00:34:30 ◼   ► Like as Federico said, I completely agree.

00:34:32 ◼   ► That was complete spin about them trying

00:34:34 ◼   ► to change their retail, the way that they work.

00:34:35 ◼   ► They just didn't have enough of them to put them in stores.

00:34:37 ◼   ► 'Cause now you can do it.

00:34:39 ◼   ► I think it was purely, they were just trying

00:34:40 ◼   ► find a way to hide the fact that they

00:34:42 ◼   ► couldn't get enough of the mate for

00:34:44 ◼   ► whatever reason that ended up being.

00:34:47 ◼   ► So May we saw a couple things we saw the

00:34:49 ◼   ► new MacBook Pros got revved with the

00:34:52 ◼   ► Force Touch trackpad. It was in the 13 first

00:34:55 ◼   ► and then the 15 which is the machine that

00:34:57 ◼   ► I'm talking through right now. We saw

00:35:00 ◼   ► Microsoft... I don't know if this went anywhere yet

00:35:06 ◼   ► allowed developers to bring Android and

00:35:09 ◼   ► iOS apps to Windows 10 devices, not if you use Swift yet, Spotify announced support for

00:35:17 ◼   ► video and podcast.

00:35:19 ◼   ► Again, I'm not sure how much of that's gone on yet.

00:35:22 ◼   ► This is my favorite thing about May, is so many things that happened in May have just

00:35:27 ◼   ► led to nothing.

00:35:28 ◼   ► Yeah, basically.

00:35:30 ◼   ► Maybe include the next one, Vox acquires ReCode, and now of course they've intermingled their

00:35:35 ◼   ► staff a little bit and then I think the most interesting is the last one Johnny

00:35:40 ◼   ► I've being promoted to chief design officer which was like a super weird

00:35:44 ◼   ► article in the Telegraph remember they released it like fry yeah was it like on

00:35:48 ◼   ► a weekend like it was like super late one night or it was out of the news

00:35:53 ◼   ► cycle but it wasn't it wasn't like late in the night whatever it's UK time that

00:35:57 ◼   ► was that was what was weird about it to Americans is it happened in the UK

00:36:01 ◼   ► morning so it was in it like the middle of the night for you guys yeah America

00:36:04 ◼   ► Americans don't understand any other time besides America time. Well, I mean that's unusual because Apple is traded and based here

00:36:12 ◼   ► like yeah

00:36:14 ◼   ► details

00:36:16 ◼   ► So details about the release aside

00:36:19 ◼   ► I mean

00:36:19 ◼   ► It's super interesting news for a couple of reasons right this set off a firestorm of speculation that

00:36:24 ◼   ► He was on his way out and this was some sort of

00:36:29 ◼   ► Way for Apple to restructure the organization beneath him to take over a lot of his stuff so he could exit in a couple years

00:36:36 ◼   ► There's also the argument that he's focusing on more big-picture stuff like in the 60 minutes thing just a couple weeks ago talking about

00:36:43 ◼   ► His involvement with the campus project and maybe that sort of thing

00:36:46 ◼   ► lent itself to this

00:36:49 ◼   ► sort of

00:36:51 ◼   ► Promotion, but I don't think he's on his way out

00:36:54 ◼   ► But I do think that it is a clear indication of just how much power

00:36:57 ◼   ► He and his team have within the the company now. I

00:37:00 ◼   ► Mean eventually he's gonna leave right? So you've got a star

00:37:05 ◼   ► Succession planning at some point and I think this is an element of succession planning but not necessarily

00:37:11 ◼   ► Based on the fact that Johnny wants to go

00:37:13 ◼   ► But you've got a plan right like they had a plan for Steve

00:37:19 ◼   ► You've got to have a plan for Johnny and part of that plan is building up a couple of individuals who can

00:37:24 ◼   ► Become the next Johnny I've right that just seems like a sensible thing to me

00:37:29 ◼   ► But I can see why it would put some people on edge

00:37:31 ◼   ► Yeah, there was a lot of a lot of speculation about Oh Johnny is about to leave Apple because other

00:37:36 ◼   ► Apple people have done this before they got this fancy promotion and then like a year later they left Apple

00:37:43 ◼   ► considering

00:37:46 ◼   ► Johnny's passion for

00:37:48 ◼   ► you know, the automotive industry and, you know, car design.

00:37:53 ◼   ► I think Johnny is staying at Apple and he's working on the Apple car.

00:37:56 ◼   ► And this promotion is just that, a promotion to kind of leave behind

00:38:01 ◼   ► or to other people some day-to-day operations to focus more on the big picture design language of Apple

00:38:08 ◼   ► and the next major products.

00:38:10 ◼   ► And I don't see any subplot here.

00:38:13 ◼   ► Well, another thing that I see when I look at this is recognition for him.

00:38:17 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:38:18 ◼   ► Also.

00:38:18 ◼   ► To give him the title which matches his likely influence in the company.

00:38:23 ◼   ► I think that obviously Johnny was working at a level much higher than a senior vice

00:38:29 ◼   ► president in the decisions that he was making and how much his work and influence

00:38:34 ◼   ► stretches.

00:38:35 ◼   ► So I think part of it may have just been like a thank you for everything you do.

00:38:40 ◼   ► Here is a C-level position to back up how important we think you are.

00:38:44 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:38:45 ◼   ► Yeah, I agree.

00:38:46 ◼   ► We'll see.

00:38:47 ◼   ► June, June is the big month Federico, what did we get?

00:38:51 ◼   ► - So WWDC, and of course it's the month of Apple

00:38:55 ◼   ► when they announce everything

00:38:56 ◼   ► that's gonna ship later in the year.

00:38:58 ◼   ► And it's also the moment when basically

00:39:00 ◼   ► I go into lockdown mode and I don't work on anything else

00:39:04 ◼   ► for the next three months.

00:39:05 ◼   ► Anyway, WWDC this year saw the introduction of iOS 9,

00:39:09 ◼   ► OS X El Capitan, WatchOS 2, Apple Music,

00:39:13 ◼   ► and as an aside, during the same WWDC week,

00:39:16 ◼   ► Phil Schiller as a guest on John Gruber's The Talk Show.

00:39:21 ◼   ► So starting with iOS 9, it didn't bring a lot of major interface or functionality changes

00:39:29 ◼   ► to the iPhone.

00:39:30 ◼   ► It brought a bunch of improvements, new intelligence features for Siri and search, but not a lot

00:39:37 ◼   ► of, you know, at least not until 3D Touch with the iPhone 6s in the fall.

00:39:43 ◼   ► iOS 9 that we saw at WWDC was more of an iPad-focused release.

00:39:49 ◼   ► And on the iPad we got multitasking with slide-over and split view, we got new keyboard functionalities,

00:39:56 ◼   ► we got some design changes for notification center and other system features, and we got

00:40:01 ◼   ► support for external keyboard shortcuts finally, and Apple really wanted to stress how iOS

00:40:09 ◼   ► iOS 9 was the beginning of the iPad's future in a way for people who work on an iPad as

00:40:15 ◼   ► a computer. And I remember during the keynote

00:40:19 ◼   ► I was at home watching the live stream and the moment that I think Rick Federighi

00:40:25 ◼   ► brought up iPad multitasking, I got like 50 tweets from people like saying no look at the iPad, look at the iPhone.

00:40:32 ◼   ► The room that we were in watching it

00:40:35 ◼   ► we're in the room that the release end guys put together and like just everybody started

00:40:38 ◼   ► talking about you. It's like well this is what he wants so yeah it's the Federico time

00:40:43 ◼   ► everyone. And so OS X Capitan, now I'm gonna need Steven's help here and also Myke. It's

00:40:52 ◼   ► basically like a snow leopard release for Yosemite. I guess kind of right like it was

00:41:01 ◼   ► kind of like what they said about iOS as well, security and stability was one of the key

00:41:05 ◼   ► things above them.

00:41:06 ◼   ► Right, I mean they did add some forward facing stuffs, but not to your point, not a huge

00:41:13 ◼   ► update to OS X, which I think is kind of the case these days now that you're on an annual

00:41:18 ◼   ► cycle that for the most part things are going to be a little bit slower.

00:41:22 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean iOS 9 for the iPhone wasn't a huge update either.

00:41:26 ◼   ► Like there really wasn't a lot, and like the features that they put in there, I mean I

00:41:29 ◼   ► I barely even know that they exist.

00:41:31 ◼   ► Like the intelligent assistant stuff, it's like that could be turned off and I don't

00:41:35 ◼   ► think I'd know the difference.

00:41:36 ◼   ► I'm sorry to say.

00:41:37 ◼   ► But that's kind of how it is for me.

00:41:39 ◼   ► And I turned off all the new stuff and things like that.

00:41:42 ◼   ► I just don't want to see it.

00:41:43 ◼   ► So I don't even get a lot of the suggestions.

00:41:46 ◼   ► And I actually find that the smarter spotlight on the iPhone quite frequently just doesn't

00:41:50 ◼   ► understand what I'm asking it to do.

00:41:54 ◼   ► It is impossible for me to get the Amazon app via searching in Spotlight.

00:41:59 ◼   ► I can type the word Amazon and it doesn't come up.

00:42:02 ◼   ► It feels like to a point that Apple have hardcoded it in.

00:42:05 ◼   ► Like, it's like, how could you not be finding it?

00:42:07 ◼   ► The app is called Amazon.

00:42:09 ◼   ► Like what is the problem here?

00:42:11 ◼   ► It's a cold war there, buddy.

00:42:12 ◼   ► Yeah, it seems like it.

00:42:13 ◼   ► It's no good.

00:42:14 ◼   ► Yeah, I'm finding that either with the Spotlight search or with Siri, Apple's intelligence

00:42:22 ◼   ► features still don't understand the same commands that I ask Google Voice Search with a Google

00:42:27 ◼   ► app.

00:42:28 ◼   ► But there are things that it does that are fantastic, right?

00:42:31 ◼   ► Like for example, all of the apps that I have that have integrated Spotlight Search, it's

00:42:37 ◼   ► brilliant.

00:42:38 ◼   ► Like I can find Google documents via Spotlight Search.

00:42:41 ◼   ► So you ended up using Spotlight Search quite a bit.

00:42:45 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:42:46 ◼   ► My main way of interacting with things on my iPhone is searching for them, especially

00:42:50 ◼   ► with the iPad Pro and the keyboard because I just hit the command space and it takes

00:42:55 ◼   ► me out of the current app and straight into Spotlight so I could just find the next thing

00:42:59 ◼   ► that I want.

00:43:00 ◼   ► But there's just, it's just not as good as it could be and there are some things that

00:43:03 ◼   ► are super inconsistent.

00:43:05 ◼   ► Like for example, I wanted to call my mum and I typed the word mum in and it wouldn't

00:43:09 ◼   ► give me a contact.

00:43:10 ◼   ► It gave me somebody called Amy.

00:43:12 ◼   ► Like I was like, I don't even understand how you got here.

00:43:14 ◼   ► Like what are you doing?

00:43:15 ◼   ► Like it needs to be a lot better, but I do use it a lot and apps that have integrated

00:43:20 ◼   ► the spotlight sort of search stuff, I find that to work more consistently than searching

00:43:24 ◼   ► for apps. But yeah, that's kind of my thing. This has been on my mind for weeks and I've

00:43:29 ◼   ► been meaning to talk about it, so I'm pleased that we got to touch on it.

00:43:31 ◼   ► I wanted to say that in the end I'm the opposite. I find myself launching apps, but I thought

00:43:38 ◼   ► that I would love it, but I don't search for files and documents much with Spotlight or

00:43:44 ◼   ► iOS 9. And really, going into iOS 9, I thought that was going to be a major change for the

00:43:49 ◼   ► way that I access content, really, and maybe the problem is I should kind of call my sources

00:43:57 ◼   ► and kind of manage the apps and data that ends up in my Spotlight. Maybe the problem

00:44:02 ◼   ► is it's too crowded in there. I don't know, but I haven't found myself reliably and consistently

00:44:08 ◼   ► going to Spotlight to say "Oh, I want to open this note" or "I want to open this document".

00:44:12 ◼   ► I still open the app and then search for the document or, you know, anything else. Maybe

00:44:18 ◼   ► just a problem, a habit and eventually it'll grow on me.

00:44:21 ◼   ► Anyway, WWDC also watchOS too. After the much-criticized debut of WatchKit apps

00:44:29 ◼   ► with Apple Watch in April, Apple announced a new version of the watch operating system,

00:44:37 ◼   ► debuting a new name with the also much-criticized lowercase watch before uppercase OS

00:44:46 ◼   ► and WatchOS 2 brought native, almost native apps to the Apple Watch, allowing for deeper

00:44:56 ◼   ► interoperability between a network on the iPhone and the Apple Watch, and a way to load

00:45:08 ◼   ► app content natively on the device and in theory it should have been a major

00:45:14 ◼   ► change for the platform and the reality is and I'm pretty sure this is not

00:45:20 ◼   ► just my personal impression is that watchOS 2 hasn't set the the watch app

00:45:28 ◼   ► store on fire and I mean I've seen so many apps not release watchOS 2

00:45:34 ◼   ► updates and so many developers still saying "yeah I wanna wait until maybe next year to

00:45:42 ◼   ► see if I should really bring my original watch app to watchOS 2 or watchOS 3".

00:45:48 ◼   ► So many developers are kinda rushed to have an Apple Watch app ready for the device launch

00:45:55 ◼   ► and maybe then they kinda didn't upgrade to watchOS 2 at all and maybe just me, you

00:46:04 ◼   ► know but I'm not using apps on my on my Apple watch that much I'm just using it

00:46:09 ◼   ► as a watch and and you know notifications time the complications

00:46:13 ◼   ► man love me some complications like I was saying this an upgrade yesterday the

00:46:17 ◼   ► Apple watch for me is not a device that I go to to get any information is it

00:46:22 ◼   ► just a device that presents me with information I'm happy with that and

00:46:25 ◼   ► watchos2 the complication stuff that made me happy like I use fantastical

00:46:29 ◼   ► and I use Carrot Weather and they are exactly what I want that Apple's ones don't give me and so I'm very happy with them.

00:46:37 ◼   ► Yeah, it could be that the apps that I use don't have a complication yet, but maybe in the future

00:46:42 ◼   ► you know when To Do gets a complication, maybe it'll grow on me a lot. We'll see.

00:46:46 ◼   ► Apple Music. I don't know if you remember but this is the reason why a lot of people didn't like Apple's

00:46:54 ◼   ► WWDC 2015 keynote because it was so long with the final Apple Music segment that featured,

00:47:02 ◼   ► of all people, Eddie Q and Drake, the rapper.

00:47:05 ◼   ► Oh, it was bad. I mean, I know that you thought it was okay.

00:47:08 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:47:09 ◼   ► And that was just, you know, that was an argument we had a long time ago, but a lot of people

00:47:14 ◼   ► didn't like it. I didn't like it. But I can see, I saw your point at the time. I still

00:47:19 ◼   ► see your point now but my feeling was that part of the keynote sucked it

00:47:25 ◼   ► sucked it had I have I'm missing his jokes we had Q dancing we had Drake

00:47:29 ◼   ► coming out to talk about something he wasn't supposed to talk about but he had

00:47:32 ◼   ► a cool apple jacket he did have a cool apple jacket really cool jacket really

00:47:35 ◼   ► and it went on for too long and it was a shame because I mean we don't need to

00:47:41 ◼   ► get I like Apple music I know there's been a ton of problems for a lot of

00:47:44 ◼   ► people but it it does what I needed to do and I like it but you know I know

00:47:48 ◼   ► I know it's destroyed many people's music libraries, but me and Federico, you know,

00:47:53 ◼   ► speaking for you Federico, I wasn't in the place where I had a music library to destroy.

00:47:56 ◼   ► I've been a streamer for a long time.

00:47:58 ◼   ► Oh yeah, it's really simple.

00:48:00 ◼   ► I think me and you are the same.

00:48:01 ◼   ► When we want to listen to music, either we get a recommendation that's already there,

00:48:05 ◼   ► so we just tap play and we're like, okay, done.

00:48:08 ◼   ► Or I think of an album, I'm like, oh, I want to listen to the neo-artic monkeys.

00:48:12 ◼   ► I just search, tap play, done.

00:48:15 ◼   ► Like we don't have anything to manage.

00:48:17 ◼   ► either you get me a recommendation or I'm searching for something. And at least for

00:48:23 ◼   ► me Apple Music does that quite well.

00:48:25 ◼   ► Mhmm, I agree, completely.

00:48:28 ◼   ► Shiller on the talk show. I think that was a kind of major event. At least if you were

00:48:33 ◼   ► on Twitter because it was live, I wasn't really expecting to see an Apple Senior Vice

00:48:40 ◼   ► president on the talk show with John Gruber. And, you know, when John introduced Phil Schiller

00:48:47 ◼   ► during the live stream, I wasn't there, so I was watching. A lot of people on Twitter

00:48:52 ◼   ► were like freaking out. And because they thought it was a joke, right? When there was like

00:48:56 ◼   ► a couple of seconds after Gruber said, "Ladies and gentlemen, Phil Schiller." And it was

00:49:01 ◼   ► not coming out on stage. And you could hear the audience kind of saying, like laughing

00:49:06 ◼   ► and maybe realizing it was a joke, but it wasn't a joke, it was the real Shiller. And

00:49:12 ◼   ► it was a great discussion, you know, very good questions from Gruber, and very honest

00:49:17 ◼   ► answers, I would say, from Shiller, about a bunch of topics like iOS stability, and

00:49:23 ◼   ► you know, 60 gigs iPhones still being sold, and it's really, if you haven't watched

00:49:29 ◼   ► the episode video, go check it out because it's totally worth it.

00:49:36 ◼   ► Two last news from June. Google Photos and Taylor Swift against Apple. So let's start

00:49:45 ◼   ► from Google Photos. It's a new service from Google that organizes your photos and allows

00:49:51 ◼   ► you to search for events and search for content inside your photos thanks to machine learning.

00:49:58 ◼   ► So Google offers you unlimited and free storage for high quality photos, which is not the

00:50:06 ◼   ► best or maximum quality, you gotta pay for that.

00:50:09 ◼   ► But for most people, 16 megapixels I think, they're more than enough to store your photos

00:50:15 ◼   ► for free.

00:50:16 ◼   ► And because Google has some crazy computers and algorithms looking into your pictures,

00:50:21 ◼   ► you can then go to the Google Photos app and type like "cat pictures" and it will show

00:50:26 ◼   ► you cats.

00:50:27 ◼   ► can go even crazier and say desks or specific items such as boats or computer on a desk,

00:50:35 ◼   ► so you can combine these search queries. And then you can find these pictures. For example,

00:50:41 ◼   ► a few weeks ago I was looking for Christmas decorations because I wanted to see my old

00:50:45 ◼   ► pictures with the Christmas tree. And sure enough, Google gave me pictures from the past

00:50:51 ◼   ► three to four years of my Christmas tree and decorations inside the house. Or you can search

00:50:55 ◼   ► for Tiny Dog, which is my favorite search query because it shows me my girlfriend's

00:50:59 ◼   ► dog which is really tiny. And so, you know, this is kind of amazing for me. I'm using

00:51:05 ◼   ► Google Photos as a free backup for my iCloud 4 library. And it's okay. In many ways,

00:51:12 ◼   ► I prefer Google Photos to the Apple Photos app. If anything, because the search stuff

00:51:17 ◼   ► is just, you know, downright amazing. And I also like how, at least, I know it's possible

00:51:24 ◼   ► with iCloud, but it's easier for me, at least the way that I understand it, you can create

00:51:29 ◼   ► a shared album in Google Photos, then you can invite people and everyone can upload

00:51:34 ◼   ► pictures to that folder. I know that it's possible with iCloud, I just find the interface

00:51:38 ◼   ► easier to use on Google Photos. And also, I want to mention, there's an assistant feature

00:51:43 ◼   ► that lets you, that creates like animated GIFs or short videos or collages for you.

00:51:50 ◼   ► My favorite thing that it does is creates albums of trips that I take.

00:51:56 ◼   ► It recognizes I've gone somewhere, it recognizes that I've taken a bunch of photos over a period

00:52:01 ◼   ► of time and it suggests, "Should I put these into a little album for you?"

00:52:05 ◼   ► I have a weird problem with duplicates on Google Photos, I think it's because of the

00:52:09 ◼   ► way I have the sync set up, which is kind of strange on my iPhone.

00:52:12 ◼   ► It's like I have everything uploaded via my Mac so when I open it on my iPhone it's like,

00:52:17 ◼   ► We can see these pictures, but these pictures aren't synced and it's looking at my photo

00:52:21 ◼   ► library on my phone.

00:52:23 ◼   ► But I know that what's actually in Google is just one image, it's just the phone UI

00:52:27 ◼   ► is a bit upset about it all.

00:52:30 ◼   ► What I use Google Photos for is a search and it's just all my photos are there and they're

00:52:35 ◼   ► there for free and I can search for them.

00:52:37 ◼   ► That's what I use it for and then I still have all of my main photos living in Dropbox,

00:52:42 ◼   ► but it is a fantastic search function.

00:52:45 ◼   ► really replaced Carousel for me where if I want to look for something that's not synced

00:52:50 ◼   ► to my phone as an album, that's where I go now.

00:52:55 ◼   ► And finally Taylor Swift against Apple Music. The issue here was that Apple announced a

00:53:01 ◼   ► three month trial for Apple Music. And during that trial period from starting at the end

00:53:12 ◼   ► of June until the end of September, their original plan was to not pay royalties to

00:53:18 ◼   ► artists on Apple Music. Taylor Swift rightfully so got upset because, you know, you want to

00:53:24 ◼   ► offer a trial, it's not my problem if you don't want to pay me. You want to give your

00:53:28 ◼   ► customers a free trial, but we're still making the music that you're offering for free. And

00:53:32 ◼   ► so she wrote a blog post against Apple on a Sunday, and I remember because I was at

00:53:39 ◼   ► the beach back then and sure enough the note started spreading online and by the end of

00:53:48 ◼   ► the day I think, EdiQ replied to Taylor Swift publicly on Twitter and to a bunch of press

00:53:55 ◼   ► outlets and they changed their minds. They said "Yes, you're right, we're gonna pay artists

00:54:01 ◼   ► during the three month free trial of Apple Music". So all's well that ends well I guess.

00:54:06 ◼   ► Yeah, it was a good story. It cemented Taylor Swift's complete dominance of the entire planet.

00:54:14 ◼   ► Yeah, especially this year was the year of Taylor Swift.

00:54:17 ◼   ► No doubt. July, Apple released an iPod touch of an A8 chip to calls of question marks from

00:54:24 ◼   ► everybody. Apple Music launched in July. My favorite piece of news for the month was that

00:54:31 ◼   ► that Steven finally went independent.

00:54:33 ◼   ► We've got Apple Pay in the UK,

00:54:36 ◼   ► my second favorite piece of news for the year.

00:54:38 ◼   ► I love Apple Pay, I use it all the time.

00:54:40 ◼   ► We had the whole Safari is the new IE conversation.

00:54:45 ◼   ► - Oh yeah, remember that.

00:54:46 ◼   ► How did that turn out?

00:54:47 ◼   ► - I don't know.

00:54:50 ◼   ► This was the month where everybody decided

00:54:52 ◼   ► that they hated mobile websites.

00:54:55 ◼   ► - Yeah, guess why?

00:54:56 ◼   ► Especially iOS.

00:54:59 ◼   ► - Especially iOS, we'll get back to that

00:55:01 ◼   ► in another month, I think.

00:55:02 ◼   ► And one of my favorite things that happened in July

00:55:05 ◼   ► was Slack launched emoji reactions.

00:55:07 ◼   ► I love the emoji reactions.

00:55:09 ◼   ► - You love them.

00:55:10 ◼   ► - I use them all the time.

00:55:11 ◼   ► - I like the idea.

00:55:13 ◼   ► Maybe it's the implementation that's a bit slow,

00:55:16 ◼   ► or maybe there's something like--

00:55:18 ◼   ► - It's way better on the Mac now.

00:55:21 ◼   ► You can just hover and click,

00:55:22 ◼   ► and I think they're gonna try and make it better on iOS.

00:55:25 ◼   ► It should be better on iOS. - Oh yeah, I see.

00:55:26 ◼   ► I see, I see.

00:55:27 ◼   ► I'm on the Mac now.

00:55:28 ◼   ► Oh yeah, much better.

00:55:29 ◼   ► So it's not much nicer on the Mac,

00:55:31 ◼   ► but I think they're gonna have to

00:55:32 ◼   ► and they will work on it on iOS.

00:55:34 ◼   ► So Apple Pay was probably one of the biggest things for me

00:55:38 ◼   ► that's happened this year.

00:55:39 ◼   ► I mean, I use it constantly.

00:55:40 ◼   ► Wherever I can, I do.

00:55:42 ◼   ► And Apple Pay is so,

00:55:45 ◼   ► or contactless payment is just everywhere here.

00:55:47 ◼   ► So it's just so easy to use it.

00:55:49 ◼   ► It's more rare for me now to not be able

00:55:54 ◼   ► to use Apple Pay somewhere

00:55:56 ◼   ► than it is for me to be able to use it.

00:55:58 ◼   ► So I'm very happy with that.

00:56:01 ◼   ► But you know, can't bury an elite.

00:56:04 ◼   ► Steven you've been independent now for like six months.

00:56:06 ◼   ► How are you feeling?

00:56:07 ◼   ► Yeah it's really been good.

00:56:11 ◼   ► I was thinking a lot about this sort of, you know, the end of the year you always reflect.

00:56:15 ◼   ► And writing that post in July was really crazy and I think, you know, I think the three of

00:56:22 ◼   ► us probably were talking before I published it just like freaking out because it's one

00:56:26 ◼   ► thing to like I'd already quit my job at this point actually had quit my job or

00:56:30 ◼   ► given notice several weeks before and I was like okay it's time to like announce

00:56:36 ◼   ► like make the big like public push and I was more nervous about that than

00:56:39 ◼   ► actually leaving. It's sort of strange but it's it's gone really well you know

00:56:43 ◼   ► Relay's been successful the writing and stuff that I do has been successful and

00:56:48 ◼   ► it's it's really great and I feel like the the bumpy like introduction to this

00:56:56 ◼   ► It's like figuring out like what does it look like to work at home when you have a family and like all that stuff is

00:57:01 ◼   ► really sort of settled down now and I can just

00:57:03 ◼   ► Focus on work and get it done and then when it's time for work to be over

00:57:06 ◼   ► go and focus on family stuff and I feel like I'm finally kind of hitting a

00:57:10 ◼   ► Good pattern there and it's taking some work to get there

00:57:15 ◼   ► it's it's been much harder than I thought it would be but overall I'm very happy and

00:57:18 ◼   ► Very excited to be able to do what I love and pay the bills with it. So

00:57:24 ◼   ► Good.

00:57:25 ◼   ► All of the mobile stuff kicked off here because obviously people were using Safari content

00:57:34 ◼   ► blockers at this point in beta because the iOS beta was out.

00:57:37 ◼   ► So this is where I think one of the places it started was a criticism of iMore, which

00:57:42 ◼   ► I think then stretched out to the Verge and then it got picked up by a bunch of other

00:57:47 ◼   ► places and started a chain of events that will take us all the way up until September.

00:57:53 ◼   ► So we'll touch on that again in September.

00:57:55 ◼   ► - Mm-hmm.

00:57:56 ◼   ► - Right, let's take a break and get into August.

00:57:58 ◼   ► This week's episode is brought to you

00:58:00 ◼   ► by TextExpander from Smile.

00:58:02 ◼   ► If you're ever in the situation

00:58:03 ◼   ► where you're typing the same sentences, phrases,

00:58:05 ◼   ► or even words on a regular basis,

00:58:07 ◼   ► you should be using TextExpander.

00:58:08 ◼   ► It will save you time and effort

00:58:10 ◼   ► by expanding short abbreviations

00:58:12 ◼   ► into frequently used texts and pictures.

00:58:14 ◼   ► Steven, I'm gonna jump on you right now.

00:58:15 ◼   ► I didn't tell you I was gonna do this.

00:58:16 ◼   ► What do you love about TextExpander?

00:58:18 ◼   ► - For me, I think there are a lot of people

00:58:21 ◼   ► who get work done using a computer,

00:58:24 ◼   ► I have a lot of repetitive stuff that I do, right?

00:58:27 ◼   ► So stuff that happens each week or each month

00:58:29 ◼   ► that is just part of the way that I work,

00:58:33 ◼   ► the way that my job works in these repeatable timeframes.

00:58:37 ◼   ► And so there are things that I need to type

00:58:40 ◼   ► or forms I need to fill out on a regular repeating basis.

00:58:43 ◼   ► And instead of going through

00:58:45 ◼   ► and doing it manually every time,

00:58:46 ◼   ► I, Texas Pander, can just go in

00:58:48 ◼   ► and take care of stuff for me.

00:58:49 ◼   ► So one thing I do a lot is, for instance,

00:58:53 ◼   ► is I type our P.O. box for Relay just all the time.

00:58:57 ◼   ► And it's got a bunch of numbers in it

00:58:58 ◼   ► and I can't ever remember what it is.

00:58:59 ◼   ► And so I've got Intex Expander.

00:59:01 ◼   ► We're just with a couple keystrokes.

00:59:03 ◼   ► I can expand it into a form.

00:59:05 ◼   ► If we're filling out paperwork for an advertiser

00:59:07 ◼   ► or we're ordering something

00:59:08 ◼   ► and they need a mailing address,

00:59:10 ◼   ► it's all super fast and it's about taking the edges off

00:59:15 ◼   ► of stuff that I do all the time to let me work faster

00:59:18 ◼   ► and time is money and TextExpander gives me both back.

00:59:23 ◼   ► You can even sync the snippets that you create amongst your multiple devices.

00:59:26 ◼   ► You can store them on iCloud Drive or Dropbox.

00:59:28 ◼   ► This means that they're going to be with you everywhere on your multiple Macs, but it can

00:59:31 ◼   ► also be on your iOS devices too.

00:59:35 ◼   ► Smile has an iOS app for TextExpander which will help you sync your snippets of a bunch

00:59:39 ◼   ► of apps that support TextExpander natively like OmniOutliner, DayOne, Fantastical, Drafts,

00:59:45 ◼   ► Launch Center Pro, editorial and many many more and smile have even built their own custom

00:59:49 ◼   ► keyboards so you can use the text expander snippets in any app on iOS. Text expander 5 for the mac

00:59:55 ◼   ► costs $44.95 upgrades are available for $19.95 for existing users and it's free to those who

01:00:01 ◼   ► purchased on January 1st 2015. Text expander 5 has a new look and feel it has a new way to suggest

01:00:09 ◼   ► abbreviations to you for things that you type frequently and it's so awesome you can find out

01:00:14 ◼   ► more by going to smilesoftware.com/connected. Please note that Texas Matter 5 requires Yosemite

01:00:19 ◼   ► and is ready for El Capitan and Texas Matter for iOS is available on the App Store for

01:00:24 ◼   ► iPhone and iPad. Thank you so much to Smile for their continued support of this show throughout

01:00:29 ◼   ► 2015. We love Smile and I think that they love us too.

01:00:33 ◼   ► Stephen?

01:00:34 ◼   ► August.

01:00:35 ◼   ► August is generally a quiet time in our circles but a couple things of note.

01:00:43 ◼   ► First we discovered or I would say Federico discovered Blabokar.

01:00:48 ◼   ► I can't when I was going through the notes I cannot believe how long ago that was.

01:00:53 ◼   ► It felt like it was just a couple of weeks ago. We've been talking about this since August.

01:00:57 ◼   ► Yes, yes we did. I remember clearly and very dearly the day that a friend of mine explained Blabokar to me.

01:01:05 ◼   ► And I remember very dearly the story that you told.

01:01:08 ◼   ► - Yep, and we have, so to look into our relationship,

01:01:12 ◼   ► I have a picture of the mascot guy

01:01:16 ◼   ► that sometimes that is randomly terrorized you guys with.

01:01:19 ◼   ► - No, no, he sends me this picture basically

01:01:21 ◼   ► on a weekly basis always.

01:01:22 ◼   ► - Well, I see it every time I open photos

01:01:24 ◼   ► 'cause we have that really old shared photo stream

01:01:29 ◼   ► and it's always there, always there.

01:01:32 ◼   ► - It's the last photo in there.

01:01:33 ◼   ► just a little emotional terrorism every time you open photos. Google restructured

01:01:38 ◼   ► and became alphabet. Of course big news that I think we're going to be seeing

01:01:44 ◼   ► the results of for years to come. And then lastly but definitely the most

01:01:49 ◼   ► exciting, at least to us, is that Relay FM was profiled in TechCrunch. Really great

01:01:56 ◼   ► article that we continue to see benefits from. It was really great to have that

01:02:00 ◼   ► coverage and very exciting to send that link out to my friends and family like

01:02:06 ◼   ► look my job is real. One of my favorite things about that is the

01:02:12 ◼   ► story was we didn't know when the story was going to be published and it was

01:02:14 ◼   ► published just as we began recording an episode of this show and I couldn't

01:02:19 ◼   ► concentrate for like 20 minutes. That was fun. Yeah it was really awesome and still

01:02:26 ◼   ► point I still point people there from time to time and it was just it was nice

01:02:31 ◼   ► to see what we've worked so hard for being recognized elsewhere yeah

01:02:38 ◼   ► Federico yes goes to September which is another big event you keep getting

01:02:43 ◼   ► with the big ones yeah I've ever worked on this outline but thank you for giving

01:02:48 ◼   ► March and September. So September was for me I think maybe the most important month

01:02:58 ◼   ► of the year because I had been working on two things for a very long time and I was

01:03:06 ◼   ► timing them with announcements and events from Apple. So from an Apple perspective,

01:03:14 ◼   ► September was the month of the Apple Fall event when they introduced the iPhone 6s and

01:03:18 ◼   ► 6S+, the iPad Pro and the new Apple TV with TV OS and the new Apple TV App Store.

01:03:25 ◼   ► And during this event we saw the new devices, of course the iPhone 6S is not a redesign

01:03:32 ◼   ► but an improvement on the iPhone 6 from 2014 with new features such as faster touch ID,

01:03:38 ◼   ► 3D touch, much improved camera and a lot faster. And the iPad Pro was the bigger iPad that

01:03:46 ◼   ► were expecting. We were not expecting the iPad Pro to be announced in the same event

01:03:53 ◼   ► of the iPhone and Apple TV.

01:03:55 ◼   ► Not everyone was.

01:03:56 ◼   ► Not everyone was. And this is the, as you said Myke, this is the crown jewel of the

01:04:02 ◼   ► Myke was right movement, I would say. And the iPad Pro was of course part of the same

01:04:10 ◼   ► event and it's a bigger iPad and I think it's the iPad that we're all using now and it's

01:04:17 ◼   ► a bigger screen, Apple Pencil, bunch of accessories, ios 9 multitasking is truly meant for this

01:04:25 ◼   ► device.

01:04:26 ◼   ► We didn't do this in follow up but still no Google docs, kills me every day, makes it

01:04:29 ◼   ► worse and worse and worse.

01:04:31 ◼   ► Still no Google docs, I think at some point Mykey you will have to consider something

01:04:34 ◼   ► else but we'll see.

01:04:35 ◼   ► No they're going to do it, they're definitely going to do it.

01:04:37 ◼   ► I'm just very confident. Well, because Google Drive... I'm not getting into this.

01:04:41 ◼   ► Okay. September also iOS 9 and OS X El Capitan are released. And this is for me the key point

01:04:51 ◼   ► of the month. So since June I have been working on my first real iOS review. So for the past

01:05:01 ◼   ► five years of Mac stories. I had always done some type of coverage of a new version of

01:05:08 ◼   ► iOS, but it wasn't... it was never a full review. It was always a story or an article

01:05:15 ◼   ► about a specific angle or a specific feature. And instead this year, with all the changes

01:05:24 ◼   ► to the website and my focus on the iPad and iOS, I wanted to go all in and do a full review.

01:05:33 ◼   ► And it was, when I started in June, it was definitely not the type of effort that I imagined

01:05:40 ◼   ► it would be. By the end of those two months and a half, I was physically and psychologically

01:05:48 ◼   ► exhausted and I had been working on this crazy 50,000 word review and when I was done I realized

01:06:01 ◼   ► that I needed to time the release of this review not just with Apple releasing iOS but

01:06:08 ◼   ► with my other initiative for September which was the launch of Club Maxories, a membership

01:06:16 ◼   ► to gain access to exclusive additional Mac stories content.

01:06:24 ◼   ► So we hit a bunch of delays and technical issues

01:06:29 ◼   ► with getting the club set up on the website.

01:06:33 ◼   ► And we basically got to the beginning of September.

01:06:37 ◼   ► And I had a feeling that I needed

01:06:40 ◼   ► to release to launch the club a week before iOS 9.

01:06:45 ◼   ► I obviously didn't want to do it during the week of iOS 9.

01:06:51 ◼   ► I just knew that I wanted to have a few days ahead

01:06:57 ◼   ► of publishing my iOS 9 review, because I

01:07:00 ◼   ► wanted to offer the review as an e-book to members.

01:07:04 ◼   ► So we chose to launch the club just a few days before iOS 9

01:07:09 ◼   ► was released to the public.

01:07:10 ◼   ► And looking back is such a blur to me, the way that we managed to finish the, you know,

01:07:20 ◼   ► getting the club ready for the website and finalizing my review, launching the pagination

01:07:28 ◼   ► layout on the website, putting together the ebook version.

01:07:34 ◼   ► I cannot remember how we did it.

01:07:36 ◼   ► I just know that it was done in time.

01:07:40 ◼   ► And for me, I mean, I was looking back at the stats of the website yesterday, and it's

01:07:46 ◼   ► the iOS 9 review, it's the most read article of this year on Mac stories.

01:07:50 ◼   ► And it makes me really happy.

01:07:51 ◼   ► That's good.

01:07:52 ◼   ► Yeah, and it makes me really happy because I worked really hard on it.

01:07:56 ◼   ► And my sleep schedule, my entire schedule was all destroyed, basically.

01:08:02 ◼   ► it was all weird and unhealthy for many, many weeks. But I'm happy because it is the article

01:08:10 ◼   ► I'm most proud of, and it is the story that I feel like I've been working for six years

01:08:16 ◼   ► to get to that point, to be able to say, "I wrote a review of an operating system, and

01:08:21 ◼   ► it's basically an e-book, and it's here." And the Cub has become, you know, the feedback

01:08:28 ◼   ► has been amazing and the financial and the, I would say the feedback also from people

01:08:33 ◼   ► has been totally worth it and it's become basically the second model for Mac stories.

01:08:42 ◼   ► And looking into 2016, I'm planning a bunch of new stuff, so it's gonna be fun. So aside

01:08:50 ◼   ► from what I did on the website, it was the month of Apple in many ways for so many releases.

01:08:57 ◼   ► iOS 9, OS X El Capitan didn't come out until October, I think. So OS X El Capitan was not

01:09:06 ◼   ► in September. But with iOS 9 and watchOS 2, it was so many... it's always difficult to

01:09:17 ◼   ► keep track of all these news and releases, for example, when they occur on the same day.

01:09:23 ◼   ► But I remember that there was a problem with watchOS 2.

01:09:26 ◼   ► You guys remember this?

01:09:27 ◼   ► It was like delayed for a few days.

01:09:30 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:09:31 ◼   ► There was something severely wrong, right?

01:09:33 ◼   ► And they had to pull it.

01:09:35 ◼   ► Like literally the 11th hour.

01:09:37 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:09:38 ◼   ► And there was something wrong and it came out like the week after.

01:09:41 ◼   ► But I would say that aside from iOS 9 multitasking and the major change on the iPad, I would

01:09:48 ◼   ► say that on the iPhone the big story was content blockers.

01:09:52 ◼   ► So this technology that allows users to install basically Safari extensions to remove certain

01:09:59 ◼   ► types of content from web pages when used in Safari and Safari View Controller.

01:10:05 ◼   ► And of course by certain types most people mean ads and trackers from web pages, so you

01:10:12 ◼   ► don't see advertisement, you're not being tracked by scripts that require a few seconds

01:10:18 ◼   ► to execute and that basically make web pages heavier in terms of megabytes transferred

01:10:25 ◼   ► from the server to your device. And I had installed the content blocker during the beta

01:10:32 ◼   ► of iOS 9 and I dedicated an entire section of my iOS 9 review to content blockers because

01:10:37 ◼   ► I saw the net benefit of being able to save several megabytes each week and to browse

01:10:43 ◼   ► the web, you know, much much faster. But I would say that in our little corner of Twitter

01:10:52 ◼   ► and the internet, the big news was Marco Arment made a content blocker based on...

01:10:56 ◼   ► Yeah, I think it stretched a little bit bigger than our corner of the internet though.

01:11:00 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean...

01:11:01 ◼   ► He was number one on the App Store.

01:11:02 ◼   ► It started out as, you know, as a sort of... I don't think Marco, again, I don't think

01:11:08 ◼   ► Marco expected the content blocker to be so popular. So he made a, but in hindsight it

01:11:15 ◼   ► should have, you know, I mean of course it was popular. Peace was the name of the app,

01:11:21 ◼   ► was a content blocker based on Ghostery technology. So Ghostery for those unaware is probably

01:11:26 ◼   ► the most popular ad blocker on OS X. And it lets you block not only ads and banners, but

01:11:32 ◼   ► also, and with a special focus I would say, on web pages that track you across the web.

01:11:39 ◼   ► And so all these little JavaScript and other types of scripts that publishers use to track

01:11:46 ◼   ► your browsing habits and preferences.

01:11:51 ◼   ► And so by licensing the Ghostery database, Peece became effectively the most powerful

01:11:57 ◼   ► and popular content blocker on the App Store, so it jumped to the first spot on the top

01:12:01 ◼   ► and basically the tech press went crazy.

01:12:06 ◼   ► The internet kind of opened up and exposed all of its badness for a couple of hours

01:12:13 ◼   ► on every single side, on all sides from readers, users, journalists, podcasters

01:12:21 ◼   ► everyone kind of showed a side to themselves which might upset other people

01:12:27 ◼   ► right? Everybody had their opinions and it really became like a hellscape for like a day or two.

01:12:33 ◼   ► And you know, and that led many people, I mean, I felt really kind of burnt out from the internet

01:12:40 ◼   ► for like a couple of weeks. It was what eventually led to me taking like a whole week away from

01:12:45 ◼   ► Twitter, um, sometime this year and the way that it affected Marco being kind of the figurehead

01:12:52 ◼   ► of all of it. He ended up being a de facto person who was ad blocker guy. So he pulled

01:12:59 ◼   ► peace. That was a big story. I think he pulled his ad blocker piece from the App Store and

01:13:03 ◼   ► everybody got a refund. And Marco wrote a really great blog post about why he didn't

01:13:07 ◼   ► want to do it and why it didn't feel good to him. That ended up becoming another big

01:13:11 ◼   ► story that the tech press all seemed to love so dearly. But now, I mean, one of the reasons

01:13:17 ◼   ► I want to talk about this is we look back at it now, nobody talks about ad blockers

01:13:20 ◼   ► anymore. Whether they're in use or not, I don't know, but no one's talking about them.

01:13:24 ◼   ► No one's gone out of business yet. It doesn't really feel like it had the effect that people

01:13:29 ◼   ► expected it was going to, or if there is an effect, it's going to be much longer than

01:13:34 ◼   ► what we expected. Nothing exploded.

01:13:36 ◼   ► I read an article on Neman Lab a few weeks ago about the mobile ad blocking apocalypse

01:13:41 ◼   ► hasn't arrived yet. And it talks about a lot of popular websites are seeing mobile ad blocking

01:13:48 ◼   ► in terms of 1% to 7% of their readers.

01:13:52 ◼   ► So it's more of a problem on the desktop, really,

01:13:55 ◼   ► because ad blockers have been around for years

01:13:58 ◼   ► on desktop computers.

01:14:00 ◼   ► And even if you look at the App Store top charts

01:14:03 ◼   ► for free or paid apps, the last time I looked,

01:14:06 ◼   ► there's no content blocker in sight.

01:14:08 ◼   ► So it seems to me like a lot of tech people like us

01:14:13 ◼   ► installed a content blocker back in September,

01:14:17 ◼   ► left it enabled.

01:14:18 ◼   ► But that's just a niche of the millions and millions

01:14:22 ◼   ► of iOS users and people who read popular blogs or websites,

01:14:26 ◼   ► like the New York Times or The Verge, iMore,

01:14:30 ◼   ► CNET, all these popular websites with a lot of advertisements.

01:14:35 ◼   ► It definitely-- I really didn't like the way

01:14:40 ◼   ► that a lot of people reacted to Marco's decision

01:14:45 ◼   ► to pull peace from the App Store.

01:14:47 ◼   ► And I ended up on following a bunch of people, really,

01:14:51 ◼   ► and blocking some because of their reaction on Twitter.

01:14:55 ◼   ► And the reason why it made me so upset

01:15:00 ◼   ► it was because we can poke fun at each other every day.

01:15:06 ◼   ► But a lot of people are so jaded and so cynical,

01:15:11 ◼   ► they don't understand there's another person

01:15:13 ◼   ► on the other side of the Twitter stream.

01:15:15 ◼   ► And in this case, Marco was just a guy who made an app using technologies made available

01:15:20 ◼   ► by Apple. And in the end, the kind of reaction that he got, you know, it was just awful from

01:15:28 ◼   ► so many sides. And he decided to be done with it. And thankfully, Apple made an exception

01:15:35 ◼   ► and they issued refunds to everyone about peace. And even at that point, not understanding

01:15:42 ◼   ► why someone may not be willing to put himself so, you know, in the spotlight for, you know,

01:15:49 ◼   ► and in front of so many negative people. Not understanding that. How could you? You know,

01:15:57 ◼   ► and especially after reading the blog posts from Marco and still making fun of him, you

01:16:04 ◼   ► know, I just, at a personal level, so many people should really take a break from Twitter

01:16:10 ◼   ► and trying to understand how human interactions work.

01:16:13 ◼   ► But anyway, I mean, in the end, it all worked out.

01:16:16 ◼   ► Again, we were all so upset.

01:16:19 ◼   ► It was like the end of the world for everyone,

01:16:21 ◼   ► for the App Store, for Marco, for Apple.

01:16:24 ◼   ► And I'm not trying to discount the negative stuff

01:16:28 ◼   ► that happened to Marco here,

01:16:29 ◼   ► but from our side as commentators and as an audience.

01:16:34 ◼   ► - It shook out to a whole lot of nothing.

01:16:37 ◼   ► That's what ended up happening, right?

01:16:38 ◼   ► It just all shook out and then there was no aftermath.

01:16:41 ◼   ► - Yeah, basically a couple of weeks later,

01:16:44 ◼   ► we moved on to something else.

01:16:47 ◼   ► - I don't even use a content blocker.

01:16:49 ◼   ► Oh, I have one installed called Cookie Box

01:16:52 ◼   ► that just blocks the EU cookie notifications.

01:16:55 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:16:56 ◼   ► - That's all it does.

01:16:57 ◼   ► I don't use an app blocker.

01:16:58 ◼   ► It just doesn't sit with me.

01:17:00 ◼   ► - I use one blocker and I use it

01:17:02 ◼   ► because it's got this custom CSS rules.

01:17:05 ◼   ► So it lets me modify the way that I look at some websites.

01:17:09 ◼   ► And when I go to those websites on my Mac,

01:17:12 ◼   ► and they're different because I don't have those CSS rules,

01:17:17 ◼   ► it's so strange.

01:17:18 ◼   ► Like, I'm not used to all these layouts and ads and banners

01:17:22 ◼   ► and boxes and sidebars anymore.

01:17:23 ◼   ► What's going on?

01:17:25 ◼   ► But yeah, I think our story is similar to many other people.

01:17:29 ◼   ► We installed the content blocker many, many months ago.

01:17:32 ◼   ► and now it's buried in a folder on our iPhone

01:17:36 ◼   ► and we forgot about it.

01:17:37 ◼   ► But anyway, September, man, it was crazy.

01:17:41 ◼   ► - Brings us on to October.

01:17:44 ◼   ► The Apple TV went on sale all of a sudden one morning

01:17:48 ◼   ► without anybody knowing that it was gonna happen.

01:17:50 ◼   ► - The best type of release.

01:17:52 ◼   ► - Yep, it's just like, oh, here we go, it's there now.

01:17:55 ◼   ► That was that then and then that went on sale

01:17:57 ◼   ► and people bought them or didn't.

01:17:59 ◼   ► Twitter named Jack Dorsey their permanent CEO after a long back and forth.

01:18:05 ◼   ► Jack is back.

01:18:06 ◼   ► Jack is back and you're going to be in trouble.

01:18:08 ◼   ► The Relay FM app launched to the world.

01:18:11 ◼   ► There were new iMacs and new smart peripherals that came out in October.

01:18:16 ◼   ► The Steve Jobs movie featuring somebody that Federico doesn't know, Mr. Michael Fassbender.

01:18:21 ◼   ► Who's the guy?

01:18:22 ◼   ► Seriously?

01:18:23 ◼   ► Exactly.

01:18:24 ◼   ► Who is that guy?

01:18:25 ◼   ► and Amazon stopped selling the Chromecast and the Apple TV. Mm-hmm.

01:18:31 ◼   ► Well, quite a month I would say, Myke. There was a lot of stuff that happened in

01:18:35 ◼   ► October. I think you meant magic peripherals, not smart. I did mean

01:18:40 ◼   ► magic, yes. Smart is iPad, magic is the Mac. Too many adjectives. Yep. Smart and

01:18:47 ◼   ► magic and powerful. I'm waiting for powerful, powerful mouse. That's what I'm

01:18:51 ◼   ► looking for. They got rid of that when they moved to

01:18:54 ◼   ► Intel. They're like, "We're done with power." It's like, "That's not really a sentence you

01:18:57 ◼   ► want me to have said." No more power! Whoo! Yeah, I mean, out of that, the Apple TV, I

01:19:02 ◼   ► think, is what sticks with me. It's really become, even more so than the previous one,

01:19:09 ◼   ► just the way we watch TV. And yes, there are issues with it. Yes, it's sort of a de-less

01:19:16 ◼   ► the remote app just now works and wasn't there on day one while all of us were running our

01:19:20 ◼   ► crazy passwords, but overall it's a huge improvement

01:19:23 ◼   ► to what they had and I think that with or without

01:19:26 ◼   ► the over the top service coming, it's still for what it is

01:19:31 ◼   ► as a box you plug into your TV to get internet stuff

01:19:35 ◼   ► onto it really good and I really like ours.

01:19:40 ◼   ► And I hope that they can figure out the developer story,

01:19:44 ◼   ► there's issues there, I hope that they continue to iterate

01:19:47 ◼   ► on the first party stuff. There's still some Apple stuff that's a little weird in places,

01:19:52 ◼   ► but overall I think it's a really good platform for them to build on into the future, and

01:19:57 ◼   ► the old one clearly wasn't. So I'm excited about what it could bring.

01:20:01 ◼   ► Yeah, and about the movie, I don't want to repeat myself, but I mean, is it really a

01:20:04 ◼   ► surprise that you use a guy no one knows and then the movie bombs?

01:20:08 ◼   ► No, you should be using them!

01:20:10 ◼   ► Okay, okay, okay, whatever. I mean, you draw your own conclusions, people.

01:20:16 ◼   ► not going through this again. Michael Fassbender is a huge movie. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So

01:20:22 ◼   ► huge. The movie was a huge success. Yeah, but they also knew Seth Brogan. They had Danny

01:20:27 ◼   ► Boyle director and Aaron Sorkin write it like on paper. This was a huge movie. However,

01:20:33 ◼   ► nobody went to see it. Oh, well, I guess why it's nothing to do with Michael Fassbender.

01:20:38 ◼   ► Okay. All right. We're not, I don't want to have this argument again with you because

01:20:42 ◼   ► Because you don't know somebody doesn't mean that they're not a big star.

01:20:45 ◼   ► Yes, and some people made that clear to me and to us in emails. So I'm sorry, I don't

01:20:51 ◼   ► mean to offend you people.

01:20:52 ◼   ► You offend me. You're offending me.

01:20:55 ◼   ► I don't want to offend you. I didn't know you took such pride in knowing Michael Fassbender

01:21:01 ◼   ► before. I'm just saying, you know, again, if you want to run a test, call my mom and

01:21:06 ◼   ► ask about Michael Fassbender. Anyway.

01:21:09 ◼   ► Let's move on. You're really kind of setting up the parameters of that test there, Federica.

01:21:16 ◼   ► Well, my mum or any other friend here. Anyway, please move on.

01:21:20 ◼   ► What we know is Michael Fassbender is unknown in Italy. That's all we've come to establish.

01:21:25 ◼   ► Maybe Italy was the target market for the movie and that's why it didn't work out.

01:21:29 ◼   ► Thank you. Thank you, Myke.

01:21:31 ◼   ► Can you bring us back to something a bit happier, Steven, for November?

01:21:35 ◼   ► Yeah, so we're coming up near to the the present and

01:21:40 ◼   ► November of course is the iPad pro release which brought a couple of things it brought Myke your review of the Apple pencil

01:21:47 ◼   ► But much more adorably the two of you guys finally met mm-hmm

01:21:53 ◼   ► We didn't talk about Michael Fassbender at all

01:21:56 ◼   ► I was expecting Myke to show up with a bunch of pictures and magazines with photos of Fassbender

01:22:04 ◼   ► are bringing with me. I'm like, look, here he is!

01:22:07 ◼   ► He's famous, you see? No, no, he was all very lovely.

01:22:11 ◼   ► And Myke took care of me. He brought me from, you know,

01:22:15 ◼   ► we were on the tube and then he paid for my ticket with Apple Pay.

01:22:21 ◼   ► It was all very, very magical, you know, to finally see and touch

01:22:26 ◼   ► and hug Myke in real life. I almost couldn't believe it was real.

01:22:31 ◼   ► Well, I had to protect you and your precious cargo.

01:22:34 ◼   ► Yes, and so it was when I was back in Rome the same night, it all felt so far away,

01:22:45 ◼   ► both in terms of not just location but in time, like a couple of hours before I was with Myke and

01:22:50 ◼   ► I was back home, you know, already working on this iPad Pro review. And man, it was crazy. It was so

01:23:00 ◼   ► So great to finally meet Myke.

01:23:04 ◼   ► And of course we took a bunch of pictures and every once in a while I still take a look

01:23:09 ◼   ► at the photos.

01:23:10 ◼   ► So lovely.

01:23:11 ◼   ► Well I hope that 2016 brings two things.

01:23:16 ◼   ► It brings more time that we spend together and also brings the first meeting of you two.

01:23:21 ◼   ► And I hope that it happens in San Francisco, California.

01:23:24 ◼   ► Me too.

01:23:25 ◼   ► So that's my big hope for 2016.

01:23:29 ◼   ► Federico, do you want to round us out to the current month that we're in? What happened

01:23:32 ◼   ► in December of 2015?

01:23:35 ◼   ► So the big news from Apple, as promised, Zwift, the programming language from Apple, goes

01:23:42 ◼   ► open source. It's available on GitHub, and not only is that kind of open source when

01:23:50 ◼   ► people can see, and Apple is going all in with open source and Zwift. They have a mailing

01:23:57 ◼   ► list, when they can discuss the improvements, reply to feedback from the developer community,

01:24:04 ◼   ► and they open sourced—now, I'm no programmer, so excuse my terminology—but they open sourced

01:24:10 ◼   ► some parts of the programming language that people were not expecting to see. So, you

01:24:15 ◼   ► know, like frameworks and libraries that, you know, kind of took the developer community

01:24:19 ◼   ► by surprise. And not only that, but also Craig Federighi went on a bit of a press tour with

01:24:28 ◼   ► interviews and the guest's appearance on the talk show with John Gruber to talk about Zwift

01:24:34 ◼   ► going open source and what it means for Apple. And based on the first reactions that I've

01:24:38 ◼   ► seen from people in the past few weeks, they all seem very positive about the approach

01:24:46 ◼   ► that Apple has taken with opening up Swift and kind of setting a roadmap for the evolution

01:24:53 ◼   ► of the Swift programming language and the road towards Swift 3.0. I think it should

01:25:00 ◼   ► be the next major release. Also from this month, Sketch, the popular design tool for

01:25:09 ◼   ► OS X leaves the Mac App Store citing the usual problems with Apple's Mac Store, such as

01:25:16 ◼   ► a lack of trials, lack of integration between the developer side and the customer side.

01:25:25 ◼   ► So for example, no way to reply to reviews or to get in touch with the customer, no way

01:25:29 ◼   ► to offer paid upgrades for existing customers who want to switch to a new version of the

01:25:35 ◼   ► and it made quite a few headlines because Sketch was an Apple Design Award winner a few years before and

01:25:41 ◼   ► it's possibly one of the most popular apps for designers on OS X and it once again started a discussion on

01:25:49 ◼   ► the problems with the Mac App Store and you know

01:25:53 ◼   ► the many ways in which Apple left

01:25:56 ◼   ► the Mac App Store behind and Mac developers behind when compared to iOS developers and the iOS App Store

01:26:04 ◼   ► Apple also released, again, one morning you wake up, there's a new Apple product waiting

01:26:11 ◼   ► for you. And this time it's a battery case. And so many people went crazy on Twitter that

01:26:17 ◼   ► day because of the hump on the case.

01:26:20 ◼   ► One of the things about the battery case, which is why I want it to be put in there,

01:26:26 ◼   ► it symbolizes another long-running theme of Apple this year, which is discussions about

01:26:30 ◼   ► battery life. And this kind of really brought it all to a head where it was like now even

01:26:36 ◼   ► Apple is saying that the iPhone battery life could be better. So, you know, it kind of

01:26:41 ◼   ► is a way to sum up that conversation, I think.

01:26:45 ◼   ► Yeah, and it, you know, the case it's iPhone 6 and 6s only not for the iPhone 6s Plus.

01:26:55 ◼   ► And Apple's excuse seems to be because there's no official statement that if you want more

01:27:00 ◼   ► battery you go with the plus model because it's bigger but it's not the same as using

01:27:06 ◼   ► a case because this case gives you more hours of battery life not just one hour or maybe

01:27:12 ◼   ► two hours that you can get with an iPhone 6s Plus. Anyway, a lot of people went crazy.

01:27:19 ◼   ► We saw quite a few hot takes on many many blogs about the design and Apple losing its

01:27:25 ◼   ► way, so many heartaches. Apple losing its way, Apple design got boring, got ugly, Apple

01:27:31 ◼   ► is doomed, and you know the usual circles of people and comment, you know, about Apple

01:27:38 ◼   ► being doomed and Johnny Ive being Satan essentially. Dropbox, Dropbox has killed, Myke I'm sorry,

01:27:47 ◼   ► has killed Carousel and Mailbox. No, I'm doing pretty good. Oh yeah? So tell me. Outlook

01:27:53 ◼   ► is giving me a new outlook on email.

01:27:58 ◼   ► Oh, wow! So for those who don't know, 2015 has also been the, at least the second half,

01:28:08 ◼   ► has been the year of Myke and CGP Grey discussing their crazy email problems on Cortex, another

01:28:16 ◼   ► show on Real AFM. And a very peculiar problem is that Myke has his own way to manage and

01:28:24 ◼   ► respond to emails. So he wants to have certain features that were only available in Mailbox.

01:28:31 ◼   ► And when Dropbox kind of abandoned Mailbox unofficially, and then officially said, "Yeah,

01:28:37 ◼   ► we're going to discontinue this product," Myke was really sad initially. And he went

01:28:42 ◼   ► a bit of a vision quest to understand what you wanted to use and eventually it settled

01:28:48 ◼   ► on Outlook, which I also use to manage my email on iOS. The main problem here, Myke,

01:28:55 ◼   ► is that there's no Mac version of Outlook. So what is it that you're doing?

01:29:00 ◼   ► I'm using, I think a little bit begrudgingly using AirMail, just because the Apple Mail

01:29:06 ◼   ► app is horrific and I won't take anybody telling me it's not, the thing is a nightmare, it's

01:29:12 ◼   ► a disaster. So I'm using Air Mail right now, and it does an okay job. It's fine.

01:29:20 ◼   ► It's not a disaster.

01:29:22 ◼   ► But it's not as good as Outlook is on iOS. Just flat out.

01:29:25 ◼   ► Yeah, and Outlook I also named as the runner-up of my iOS app of the year. Such a fine job

01:29:33 ◼   ► Microsoft is doing here. To circle back to Sunrise in February, Microsoft has now integrated

01:29:42 ◼   ► sunrise into outlook. At least they have started the integration process. They said that we're

01:29:48 ◼   ► going to be a full integration by the end of the year, but right now we've only seen

01:29:55 ◼   ► basically some of the sunrise design language being moved into outlook and an announcement

01:30:02 ◼   ► from Microsoft saying "yeah, we're going to integrate sunrise into outlook with all the

01:30:07 ◼   ► the design touches, all the features and the views available for your calendar, the integrations

01:30:12 ◼   ► with their party services, but right now we've only started doing this, you know, we've only

01:30:17 ◼   ► started moving from Sunrise to Outlook and expect to see more. And we're still waiting

01:30:21 ◼   ► to see more about it. You know, Outlook is really a fine product on the iPhone and iPad,

01:30:27 ◼   ► and Apple Watch too, because one of the few big companies to fully support watchOS 2,

01:30:33 ◼   ► the new iOS 9 features, 3D Touch, iPad multitasking. Microsoft is really being fast with updates,

01:30:44 ◼   ► supporting new iOS features, and they're doing, if you ask me, they're doing much, much better

01:30:49 ◼   ► than Google when it comes to fully embracing iOS and Apple Watch.

01:30:56 ◼   ► I would say that the last major Apple news from the year would be Jeff Williams becoming

01:31:03 ◼   ► COO of Apple, so taking on the old Tim Cook role at the company, and Phil Schiller being

01:31:10 ◼   ► promoted to be kind of in charge of the App Store.

01:31:13 ◼   ► I don't know what kind of name they use.

01:31:15 ◼   ► It's difficult, and there was somebody who was mentioning this to me, and you know, there

01:31:21 ◼   ► There is a school of thought that Schiller has had something bad happen to him because

01:31:27 ◼   ► he's had Mark on, marketing communications taken away from him and they have a new SVP

01:31:31 ◼   ► in place doing it.

01:31:33 ◼   ► I mean I don't know what's good or bad but like Schiller has a new job and you know it

01:31:38 ◼   ► doesn't seem like he did anything wrong right like that they would take it away from him.

01:31:43 ◼   ► Apple's advertisers have been great but they've gone for a little bit of a restructure again

01:31:46 ◼   ► and potentially what they want to do with the app stores are too big, right?

01:31:51 ◼   ► So maybe he needs to, if they're going to give it to him,

01:31:53 ◼   ► he needs to really take a full view on it.

01:31:56 ◼   ► So that's just been a change.

01:31:58 ◼   ► Sheila's role has changed.

01:31:59 ◼   ► I don't know whether it's like promotion demotion or just like a sideways move.

01:32:04 ◼   ► Who knows?

01:32:05 ◼   ► Yeah. Not me.

01:32:06 ◼   ► And lastly, Myke, Steven,

01:32:10 ◼   ► you guys want to talk about the Relay FM memberships?

01:32:14 ◼   ► Yeah, it was just a change that we made to our business, I think, towards the end of this year.

01:32:18 ◼   ► We looked at what you were doing and what Jason was doing with six colors.

01:32:24 ◼   ► We can see, especially if you look at some of the ways that people have been looking at making money online over the last year,

01:32:32 ◼   ► we spoke about a bunch of stuff. I think it's just important to think about the way that your business runs

01:32:37 ◼   ► and the way that your business makes money, and we decided that we wanted to try out membership.

01:32:41 ◼   ► and it's been pretty good so far. The response that we've had has been pretty good. We're learning a lot, we're adapting and growing

01:32:46 ◼   ► and we're trying to get some fun stuff out to our members and we're thinking about the way that we can increase that and this

01:32:53 ◼   ► for us is a long-term plan and we have a long-term view on it.

01:32:56 ◼   ► So we really support, we would really appreciate if you supported us or any show at Real AFM by

01:33:03 ◼   ► becoming a member and giving money directly to the shows that you love. For everybody that has done that, thank you so much.

01:33:09 ◼   ► It means the absolute world to us that you would consider giving us money. So thank you so much

01:33:14 ◼   ► And I think that about wraps up what happened in December unless you guys want to add a little more

01:33:21 ◼   ► It's been a big year man. Yeah, I like doing this, you know

01:33:26 ◼   ► it's it's a nice way to kind of wrap up the year to look back at everything and

01:33:30 ◼   ► Excited to see what 2016 is gonna bring

01:33:33 ◼   ► iOS 10, you know, we're gonna start talking about that soon, but I think that's gonna be a big deal

01:33:38 ◼   ► I think that's going to be our big story.

01:33:40 ◼   ► iPhone 7.

01:33:41 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean, the iPhone 7 is going to be awesome, obviously, you know, it will do whatever

01:33:46 ◼   ► it does.

01:33:47 ◼   ► But I just think that just in my mind that that 10 number is something significant.

01:33:52 ◼   ► But we'll wait and see.

01:33:53 ◼   ► We'll wait and see.

01:33:54 ◼   ► Maybe it becomes like maybe then from then on, we just go 10.1, 10.2.

01:33:57 ◼   ► Maybe 10 is as high as Apple can get.

01:34:01 ◼   ► And then we're just we're just going to continue along the 10 line forever now.

01:34:05 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:34:06 ◼   ► We'll see.

01:34:07 ◼   ► I'm gonna mix up the language a bunch on the show.

01:34:09 ◼   ► I'll just go ahead and...

01:34:11 ◼   ► Just don't say iOS X, please.

01:34:13 ◼   ► Yeah, no, that's a ridiculous mistake that I would not make.

01:34:18 ◼   ► All right, so I think that about wraps up this week's episode.

01:34:20 ◼   ► We have a ton of show notes over at relay.fm/connected/71.

01:34:26 ◼   ► You can check those out.

01:34:27 ◼   ► They're also, of course, in your podcast app of choice.

01:34:29 ◼   ► I want to take a moment again to thank our friends over at TechSickPanda from Smile and

01:34:34 ◼   ► and Brain Tree for helping support this week's episode. Most importantly, thank you all for

01:34:38 ◼   ► listening to this show throughout the whole year, we really really appreciate it. Obviously

01:34:42 ◼   ► we'll be back now in 2016, we all hope that you have a fantastic new year. If you want

01:34:47 ◼   ► to find us online there's a couple of ways you can do that, you can go to maxstories.net

01:34:50 ◼   ► to find Federico, you can go to 512pixels.net to find Steven and we're all on Twitter. Federico

01:34:55 ◼   ► is @Vittici, V I T I C C I, Steven is @ismh and I am @imike, I M Y K E. We'll be back

01:35:03 ◼   ► next time. Until then, thank you so much for listening. Bye bye.

01:35:07 ◼   ► Arrivederci e buon anno.

01:35:09 ◼   ► Ah, you guys, it's done again.

01:35:11 ◼   ► Adios.

01:35:13 ◼   ► It's not fair, I don't know any other Spanish. You know the entire language.

01:35:19 ◼   ► [