0:00:00(upbeat music)
0:00:02- Hello and welcome to episode 68
0:00:05from your friends at Relay FM.
0:00:07My name is Steven Hackett and I'm joined this week
0:00:10by Mr. Federico Vittucci.
0:00:13- Hello Steven.
0:00:14- Hey buddy.
0:00:15- How are you?
0:00:16- I'm good.
0:00:17I'm once again pretending to be Myke.
0:00:20- Yeah, I mean your accent kind of gives it away
0:00:23a little, just a little.
0:00:25- They're slightly different.
0:00:28Just very minor difference.
0:00:30Our British friend is away.
0:00:33He's in the land of the free.
0:00:35He's in your country, Steven.
0:00:36- He's in my country.
0:00:37He's in New York City.
0:00:39He and his lady are taking a little vacation time,
0:00:41which is awesome, well deserved.
0:00:44So he is away this week.
0:00:46And you know, it always happens on Connected.
0:00:49I think because there's three of us,
0:00:51we are a little more flexible with the schedule.
0:00:53And so if someone, like it always seems like
0:00:56we have this couple week spans where there's not all three of us.
0:01:00Yeah.
0:01:01Definitely in the summer because Italy takes the summer off and you're just gone to the
0:01:04beach.
0:01:05Basically.
0:01:06Yes.
0:01:07And now, you know, around the holidays I was out last week with some family stuff.
0:01:10Your mic's gone this week.
0:01:14And yeah, that's that.
0:01:16So.
0:01:17But we're here.
0:01:18It's not dead.
0:01:19It's not dead.
0:01:20I mean it could be.
0:01:21I haven't spoken to him in a couple hours.
0:01:23I mean, he's gone to Walmart and I'm pretty sure I saw some pretty scary pictures of people
0:01:27at Walmart on the internet.
0:01:29So pay attention, Myke.
0:01:32Be safe.
0:01:33We're thinking of you.
0:01:34But still, we're going to do a show.
0:01:36Steven, I believe Myke was also part of the follow-up.
0:01:40Myke is part of the follow-up.
0:01:41Myke is the follow-up.
0:01:42Okay.
0:01:43Yeah.
0:01:44So we straightened the follow-up early.
0:01:46But there's really another pressing question about the staff of Connected.
0:01:54Oh, really?
0:01:55It is what you did for Thanksgiving.
0:01:57Okay, so it wasn't exactly a Thanksgiving dinner, after all.
0:02:02It was more like a casual party with a hint of Thanksgiving.
0:02:08So as I said, one of Sirius' teachers, dance teacher, is American.
0:02:14So he wanted to celebrate Thanksgiving.
0:02:16Only this dinner basically turned into a sort of multiracial dinner.
0:02:23So there was like a Filipino dish.
0:02:26It was like some rice with some meat and potatoes that I'm not sure.
0:02:32There was a Nigerian dish from another guy who goes to the same school.
0:02:36And the American teacher prepared like...
0:02:40It was like sausages wrapped in bacon.
0:02:43They were delicious. And I'm not sure if it's American or if it's something that he invented
0:02:49or if it's Italian and he just pretended to be American. I don't know, but they were delicious.
0:02:53And most of all, the food was nice, but it wasn't really the traditional Thanksgiving.
0:03:02The focus of the dinner was really beer and drinking. So it wasn't really a Thanksgiving
0:03:07dinner was more like a Thanksgiving party with a bunch of guys from Rome.
0:03:12So just a Thursday night really?
0:03:15Basically yes. It was just a Thursday night. We had fun. It was fun. I'm typically not
0:03:26the kind of person who eats a lot of, I call it strange food because to me, you know, non-Italian
0:03:33food is always strange.
0:03:34An unusual food for you.
0:03:35- Unusual food.
0:03:37It's nice every once in a while to taste new stuff
0:03:41and it was good, so yeah, it was a fun night.
0:03:44But still, no turkey, no traditional Thanksgiving meal
0:03:48for me, so you guys will have to take care of me eventually
0:03:51for Thanksgiving.
0:03:53- Yeah, we'll have to get you over here for some point
0:03:55and do it upright.
0:03:56So we have, and what has become a thing on our show?
0:04:03we have some more automotive follow-up.
0:04:07And so, long time follow-upper, follow-upper?
0:04:12- Yes. - Follower-upper.
0:04:14Long time follower-upper.
0:04:15Luca has sent us another note about,
0:04:19this is the Enjoy company, is that who this is?
0:04:22- Yes, Enjoy.
0:04:24- And they also have three wheel scooters,
0:04:28I guess available for people in Milan.
0:04:31And I have a lot of questions about this.
0:04:33- Me too, actually.
0:04:35- It seems crazy, and maybe this is just
0:04:38the dad in me talking, but three-wheel scooters
0:04:40seem crazy dangerous, and you're just gonna
0:04:43let anyone on it?
0:04:44I don't know how to drive with it.
0:04:45I would crash a three-wheel scooter immediately.
0:04:48I can just go run one.
0:04:50- Actually, I was about to say, I think it's safer
0:04:52than a two-wheel scooter.
0:04:54- Well, it's gotta be safer than that.
0:04:56- It's ugly, just plain ugly.
0:04:58- Yeah, they're not good looking.
0:05:00You know?
0:05:01I don't know, is it?
0:05:02This is one of my preconceptions that I gotta clear up.
0:05:06Is American traffic also full of scooters?
0:05:11- No. - As much as it is in Italy?
0:05:12- No. - No.
0:05:13I mean, maybe in like real big cities, but like,
0:05:16I mean, I live in a pretty typical American city
0:05:19and there's none of that business.
0:05:21I mean, everyone's in a car. - No scooters.
0:05:23- No scooters.
0:05:24- Oh, that's so strange.
0:05:26Like in Rome, you gotta,
0:05:27You don't have to pay attention to the cars in traffic as much as you gotta pay attention to the scooters.
0:05:32Because people on scooters are crazy.
0:05:34I think actually scooter people are the craziest people around.
0:05:39They just zigzag around, you know, they go left and right and don't care about the normal rules of traffic.
0:05:46I'm always keeping an eye out for the scooter man, you know?
0:05:50It's just...
0:05:52That's the scariest part of driving in Rome.
0:05:55these people on scooters going everywhere.
0:05:58So the three wheel scooters with the Enjoy sharing.
0:06:02I also have questions about parking and the,
0:06:06you know, because you can,
0:06:07I imagine leaving a car in a good spot
0:06:11or in a good condition is easier than leaving a scooter,
0:06:15you know, out in the open.
0:06:16So it's interesting, but this Enjoy company,
0:06:19now that I know how it works,
0:06:21I see these Enjoy cars everywhere.
0:06:23It's like, you know, that phenomenon that you hear a new word and suddenly everyone is speaking that word?
0:06:28Yeah.
0:06:29Now I'm seeing you enjoy cars like all the time. So...
0:06:32Yeah, thank you. Luca was also a good friend of mine for the scooter follow-up.
0:06:39Steven, we gotta convince Myke. Now that he's gone, we can, you know, talk about Myke.
0:06:46We gotta convince Myke to drive one of these cars and see what happens.
0:06:49Yeah.
0:06:50Or maybe the scooter?
0:06:51Because he doesn't draw I mean
0:06:53He has driven
0:06:57But he doesn't have a driver's license, and he doesn't drive on a regular basis
0:07:00So it would just really what you want is Myke to be in a car wreck which is not cool, man
0:07:03No, maybe we can find an empty road and just see for that for the funds you know I did
0:07:10One time when he was here. I did have the thought of like I would let him drive my car in a parking lot
0:07:15But then I was like no
0:07:19So we got a we got an email this week from listener Brandon
0:07:23About some JavaScript stuff, and then there's notes in here about JavaScript and Coda, so I'm just gonna let you talk about this
0:07:30So yeah last week. I think it was I
0:07:33complained about the lack of a JavaScript
0:07:37interpreter on iOS and
0:07:39In fact a few people got in touch with me about this so lisar Brandon first
0:07:46sent us an email arguing that it should be possible to create a JavaScript app like Pythonista for JavaScript, basically, and
0:07:55maybe even with fewer
0:07:57problems than what Pythonista ran into, because on iOS there's a JavaScript core engine,
0:08:05which is the same used by Safari, for example, when you when you want to use a JavaScript work market in the browser.
0:08:10The JavaScript core engine is available on iOS, can be called by other apps, and you put together
0:08:16a playground demo with Xcode. And not sure if it was in Swift or not.
0:08:22Anyway, it executes JavaScript code and I tested it on my Macbook Air with Xcode,
0:08:29and it works! Indeed, it shows a message and it shows that JavaScript
0:08:33core can be executed by other apps and hopefully, you know, this will be... Brandon
0:08:39says that it should be possible to make the kind of app that I want. It is
0:08:43possible it's just that no one's making it so you know maybe eventually we'll
0:08:47get something. In the meantime and I was told this by a reader and good friend
0:08:54Pedro Lobo on Twitter I hope I don't spell his name right it is possible now
0:09:00to do JavaScript playgrounds in Coda so Panix Coda app for iOS you can now
0:09:07create in the top bar, if you press the plus icon, you can now create a
0:09:13playground. And the playground is not like a full IDE for JavaScript, you can
0:09:19only execute, you press enter, the code executes and
0:09:25now you gotta write the code again. But still, it can show you alerts, it can
0:09:30show you errors, so it is something. It's not a full JavaScript developer
0:09:34environment like the one that I want but it is you know it is a good start so
0:09:40that's about it for you see Steven we're jumping from automotive to automation I
0:09:47feel like this is very good follow-up
0:09:49Steven very good structure thank you
0:09:52I you know it's just really just a bulleted list but I'm happy to help
0:09:56no no you gotta see a deeper meaning follow-up and I put this in the follow
0:10:02it's not really follow-up, it's sort of like a mini topic, but yesterday as we
0:10:07record this, the word came down from on high that Apple Music was coming to the
0:10:13Sonos platform. If you're not super familiar with Sonos, it is basically a
0:10:18sort of like an ecosystem for audio. I mean they've got an app,
0:10:22they've got like really nice speaker systems you can put in your house or
0:10:26your office or whatever, and they also sort of have like this content section
0:10:31and their thing as well.
0:10:32And so, you can load music into their app,
0:10:37and I've read and heard big things about the podcasting,
0:10:41I'm not really up to date on that,
0:10:42what they're doing there, but Apple Music is coming.
0:10:45And, which is like, people who are into this stuff,
0:10:49or like Sonos fans, are really into it.
0:10:52Like, have you noticed that people
0:10:53get really excited about this?
0:10:54- Yeah.
0:10:55- And like, I would like to check it out,
0:10:56but I have bills to pay, so I'm not gonna do that.
0:10:59But it does seem like Apple Music's on Android now,
0:11:04now they're doing here.
0:11:05I mean, they're really,
0:11:06what's interesting about this to me,
0:11:09is I don't have a dog in the Sonos fight,
0:11:12is that Apple Music is really expanding
0:11:14past Apple hardware.
0:11:16Generally and historically, Apple's services and software,
0:11:20like look at the iTunes store,
0:11:23it was built for the iPod, right, and for iTunes.
0:11:26And now, I think Apple wants music to be bigger
0:11:31than just the iPhone or just the Mac,
0:11:33which is crazy, right, 'cause the iPhone
0:11:34is like a crazy big business.
0:11:37But they really want Apple Music to sort of be
0:11:39the service that you can work, it does work
0:11:43on Apple hardware, and that's fine,
0:11:45but it can also work with all of your other stuff, too.
0:11:48And I think that's really like, it's an interesting
0:11:50like shift of strategy from Apple,
0:11:51and I think it's one that they need to do
0:11:53if Apple Music is going to be successful, right?
0:11:54they need it to be huge because Spotify is everywhere.
0:11:58Spotify is on, I mean, it's on my dishwasher, I think.
0:12:01RDO is nowhere anymore, but they tried to do that as well.
0:12:06They were cross-platform.
0:12:08And so it's interesting that Apple's doing this,
0:12:10and I think it's like if you're a Sonos user
0:12:12and you like Apple Music, for that section
0:12:15of the population, they're gonna be really excited.
0:12:18- Yeah, I mean, these services can only,
0:12:21I think they can only survive if they achieve
0:12:23some kind of scale, so if they're available everywhere to as many people
0:12:27as possible on as many platforms as possible. And we have seen this kind of
0:12:32idea from Apple actually from the first few weeks when they also
0:12:39enabled integration with Shazam and I'm pretty sure also SoundHound,
0:12:45to allow you to recognize a song and stream it instantly from
0:12:49these apps and now they're continuing to do so even to a higher degree
0:12:54with the Sonos speaker ecosystem which I think it's a good idea. I really I was
0:13:01kind of surprised by the amount of people excited by this news. I didn't
0:13:06honestly know Sonos was this popular. I used to... I reviewed one of the old Sonos
0:13:13before they changed the name to the Play 3 or Play 5. Many many years ago they
0:13:19sent me a review unit and I remember it was really really nice and but it was
0:13:25also quite expensive you know and so I'm I'm curious to see how it works I just
0:13:31don't want to spend the money on a speaker also because I feel like I
0:13:35listen to music more with headphones than speakers because you know speakers
0:13:40especially when they're loud I don't want to bother you know other people in
0:13:44the house I don't want to bother my neighbors so I just feel like I can
0:13:47enjoy headphones more, so I'm not really a speaker person, but maybe just out of curiosity
0:13:55if I can find a used unit or a cheap version, I don't know, we'll see.
0:14:03Every time Apple Music has an update, I enjoy it. And by enjoy I mean, it's not really enjoyment,
0:14:12but it's just an observation, Jim of the loop.
0:14:16He's having quite a few problems with Apple Music.
0:14:20And he makes some good points, I think.
0:14:24Jim is very into music, he's a music fan.
0:14:30The comparison would be, if people like me, we are power users for productivity apps,
0:14:38Jim is the power user for music stuff.
0:14:40And it doesn't really like Apple Music, and it continues to have all these crazy bugs
0:14:46and all these crazy technical problems, which I don't see, because I don't use my music
0:14:51library as much as Jim does.
0:14:53But I find it interesting that Apple is kind of not paying attention to these problems.
0:14:57And it's not just Jim.
0:14:58There's a lot of people who have the same issues.
0:15:01And I'm running the iOS 9.2 beta, and I don't -- again, I don't use the Music Library features,
0:15:08you know, the My Music section.
0:15:10But I still see quite a few glitches and problems with the interface.
0:15:15Missing albums that I once added to my music or that I liked or loved, whatever is the
0:15:21proper name.
0:15:22They're not loved anymore, which is sad.
0:15:27Or maybe music that I added to a playlist which just disappeared.
0:15:33So there's still technical problems which Apple is not fixing.
0:15:36And I wonder, are they gonna wait for iOS 10 to fix these issues, people like Jim and
0:15:44in general?
0:15:45I don't know.
0:15:46But hey, you get streaming on the Sonos.
0:15:49I agree with you, I think Apple Music is so problematic in areas, and clearly Jim has
0:15:58had more problems than most people with his sort of platform.
0:16:04always that that stress of tying like OS releases with fixes and stuff we're
0:16:11gonna talk more about that with iCloud photo library here in a second but um
0:16:14yeah it's it's it's cool like if you like Sonos and you like Apple Music it's
0:16:18great for me not using either it doesn't do much for me but it's nice to have
0:16:22options so yeah hey Federico did you know this week's episode of connected is
0:16:29sponsored by lynda.com. Oh nice. It is. lynda.com is the online learning platform with
0:16:35over 3,000 on-demand video courses to help you strengthen your business,
0:16:39technology, and creative skills. For a free 10-day trial visit lynda.com/connected
0:16:45That's L-Y-N-D-A dot com slash connected. lynda.com is for problem solvers, for the
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0:16:55Excel, strengthen your negotiation tactics, build a website, or boost your
0:16:59Photoshop skills, lynda.com can help you feed your curious mind. I've been
0:17:04actually checking out lynda.com and they've really got some really amazing
0:17:08courses on there. They've got a lot of stuff for like the Adobe CC suite, so
0:17:12Illustrator or Photoshop or InDesign for various design and type skills. All
0:17:19that stuff's in there. I was looking at some stuff for wireframing recently. In
0:17:23Illustrator, you can take care of that, there's a really nice course on that.
0:17:26There's a lot of stuff, we were talking about JavaScript earlier, there's a lot of
0:17:29programming stuff in here. You can work with JavaScript, you can work with Xcode,
0:17:34with Swift, with iOS app development, or you know maybe you're more on the
0:17:39business side and you need to look at something like getting things done or
0:17:42going paperless in your office or figuring out how to bootstrap your
0:17:47business. All of this stuff is at lynda.com and you can watch and learn from top
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0:17:59videos is structured in a way that you can watch them start to finish or you
0:18:02can jump around. What I really like is there's a transcript with each one and
0:18:06so you can follow along, you can search for something and skip to that part in
0:18:09the video. So if you come at it from like a video angle like Myke does or from a
0:18:13sort of reading angle like I do you can do that with lynda.com. You can
0:18:19create and save playlists of courses you want to watch to customize your learning
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0:18:43visit lynda.com/connected and sign up for your free 10-day trial.
0:18:47That's L-Y-N-D-A dot com slash connected.
0:18:51Thank you so much, Helena dot com,
0:18:52for supporting this show and all of Relay FM.
0:18:55Sketch had a blog post this morning.
0:19:00- Yeah, this just happened basically like an hour ago.
0:19:03- Yeah, and the crux of it is that they are leaving
0:19:06the Mac App Store, so if you're not familiar with Sketch,
0:19:10it is a design tool for the Mac.
0:19:14It's extremely popular, extremely successful.
0:19:17and it has been Mac App Store only, I believe,
0:19:21since day one, and now it is, they are leaving.
0:19:26And so this blog post kind of outlines why,
0:19:29and there's not much in here that's super surprising,
0:19:32right, which is maybe even the saddest part about this,
0:19:35that I kind of knew the reasons before I read it.
0:19:37It's things like, what did I say, review time,
0:19:41sandboxing, App Store guidelines,
0:19:43and that upgrade pricing is unavailable.
0:19:47It's kind of just more of the same.
0:19:51And one thing I like about this post a lot
0:19:53is that they say it's not a knee jerk reaction
0:19:55to the certificate issue of a couple weeks ago
0:19:57where, I'm sure you remember,
0:19:59a bunch of Mac App Store apps,
0:20:01a bunch of users had to reinstall their Mac App Store apps
0:20:03because a certificate was broken in the App Store
0:20:07and it corrupted the apps.
0:20:08I got hit by it, I didn't reinstall a bunch of apps.
0:20:13It was super frustrating.
0:20:14And they say that wasn't the reason,
0:20:16but they said that made them feel justified.
0:20:20They'd already made the decision, it seems like,
0:20:21and that was sort of just icing on the cake.
0:20:23And I think this is a big deal.
0:20:26I mean, Sketch is a popular app, it's an expensive app,
0:20:30and now it is leaving.
0:20:32- Apple designed a word winner three years ago,
0:20:37now leaving the very store that allowed them
0:20:40to achieve success.
0:20:42I think it is a problem.
0:20:43And I think at this point, we're actually past the stage
0:20:46of saying the Mac App Store may have a problem.
0:20:51We all acknowledge the problem,
0:20:54and the only thing we can do is either find a solution
0:20:57or hope that Apple listens.
0:20:59But it's been, I would say that there have always been
0:21:03problems with the Mac App Store since it launched.
0:21:06It'll be five years in January.
0:21:09- It's crazy.
0:21:10From yeah, and from the very first day, so January, I still remember, January 6, 2011.
0:21:17The following day, there were developers who were asking Apple to improve the Mac App Store
0:21:22with the same issues, the same problems that we're talking about today.
0:21:26So it's been five years and the Mac App Store has not changed. It has somehow,
0:21:31you know, just continued to exist without any major improvements.
0:21:38Sure, Apple brought nicer featured pages or nicer banners, maybe?
0:21:46They started selling, or actually making available for free, the version of OS X on the Mac App
0:21:52Store.
0:21:54But that's it.
0:21:55So developers are still asking for the same features, and if anything, the Mac App Store
0:21:58got worse for developers, because since Apple started enforcing the sandboxing rules, preventing
0:22:04apps from accessing certain files and locations on a user's computer, it even became harder
0:22:11for developers to make software that is not a menu bar utility on the Mac.
0:22:19And the simple reality is that we're now at the point where the best apps for the Mac
0:22:28cannot be sold on the Mac App Store because it's just too much of a hassle, too much of
0:22:33a problem and developers are, they still have a way, you know, you could argue but it's
0:22:39not really a problem because you got Gatekeeper and you can install software securely from
0:22:45outside the Mac App Store.
0:22:46But you see, this is not the kind of argument that you can have two sides of the coin.
0:22:51You cannot say the Mac App Store is still the best place, is the best place to sell
0:22:55software, you gotta be on the Mac App Store and then when you are confronted with reality
0:23:00you say "but hey, you still have Gatekeeper".
0:23:02So it's either the Mac App Store is the best place or the solution, it's not really a solution.
0:23:11It's a temporary alternative, which is not the perfect alternative actually for developers,
0:23:20because if you decide to release an app outside of the Mac App Store, you lose a bunch of
0:23:24benefits.
0:23:25The first one, of course, is exposure and availability in a simple to use store.
0:23:32And there are also a bunch of other technical limitations.
0:23:35For instance, you cannot use iCloud if you decide to sell an app outside of the Mac App
0:23:39Store.
0:23:40So this is a very simple argument.
0:23:43These apps, and it's, you know, Sketch, BB Edit, Dan Council has a great list of apps
0:23:50that are not available on the Mac App Store.
0:23:52These are not stupid people.
0:23:55These are great apps.
0:23:57And it's a very simple problem.
0:23:58You look at this list and you're like, "Okay, these are great pieces of software.
0:24:02Why are they not available on the Mac App Store?
0:24:04If I were someone at Apple in charge of this situation, if there's still anyone in charge
0:24:09at this point of the Mac App Store, or if it's just like an X serve left on a shelf
0:24:16binding the store, I would say, I would look at this list, I would say, "Okay, this is
0:24:22great software.
0:24:24The people who use these apps are not insane.
0:24:26They are professionals.
0:24:27They are creatives.
0:24:28They are normal people.
0:24:30not any less intelligent than me, why is this list of software not available on the Mac
0:24:35App Store?
0:24:36And I would fix it.
0:24:37And the principles that are guiding Apple, such as simplicity or sandboxing or security,
0:24:46can only go as far when it comes to getting work done.
0:24:49And we have talked about this at length in the past.
0:24:52I believe in the safe and secure model of the Mac App Store and the iOS App Store in
0:24:57general. But you cannot force people to change the way that they get work done.
0:25:03If I want my design tool to access files on my computer, you cannot say "yeah you
0:25:11cannot do that" because at the end of the day getting work done is getting work
0:25:15done and you cannot tell people "yeah you gotta spend $200 and you're not gonna be
0:25:21able to try that beforehand. You see, the principle is good on principle, but in
0:25:28practice you gotta do something. Well, all the details are wrong, right? I mean, you
0:25:33know, again this is a little bit of rehash, but I mean, software existed on the Mac
0:25:39for a long, long time before the App Store showed up, and the App Store
0:25:42basically took the iOS model and just kind of pasted it on top of the Mac
0:25:47without the consideration of the way things have been done.
0:25:51And that people do expect things like
0:25:54being able to trial an app or have upgrade pricing.
0:25:59And I get that on day one, but you hit it on the head.
0:26:03It's been five years and there's been no evolution.
0:26:06I mean, look at TestFlight, right?
0:26:07TestFlight's been out on iOS well before Apple bought them.
0:26:12And there's still nothing like that on the Mac.
0:26:14And if you're running Mac beta,
0:26:15you basically like send out zip files and hope for the best and it's
0:26:18It's it's I understand that on day one if it wasn't a good fit
0:26:23That's fine. Like I can get over that because I can go buy apps elsewhere and I do
0:26:27but
0:26:29Having no evolution no meaningful change in this long
0:26:33either shows one of two things one is that just no one cares at Apple, which I
0:26:39struggle to find it I
0:26:43Struggle to believe that I think that they do care about the Mac and they do care about Mac software
0:26:47So I think the second one is true
0:26:49which is more worrisome is that people are paying attention to it and they don't think there's a problem and
0:26:54that they view that the iOS model can work on the Mac and
0:26:58That maybe we'll all just come around eventually and between the two that's more worrisome to me because clearly it's not working, right?
0:27:05it's not just people like me who
0:27:07are old and and
0:27:10cranky it is like sketch is a real business like their
0:27:14Their founder spoke at release notes gave a great talk about his business and it's like this is a real company making a really good
0:27:21powerful application and that a lot of people rely on do their jobs and
0:27:26because of the of Apple's
0:27:29Unwillingness or inability to change or to fix this in fact. They've made it worse right I mean
0:27:35with sandboxing being sort of a bigger problem to deal with than it used to be
0:27:40Clearly they're not interested in the same things and that's fine as long as you can survive on the outside
0:27:47But like you said you lose
0:27:49The spot in the storefront right that you you don't have the you don't have the benefits of being in the App Store if you're
0:27:56out on your own and so I think sketch will do well because sketch is
0:28:00It's big and well known
0:28:03But if you're a small app developer being in the app store, maybe your only choice
0:28:09Maybe your only shot to gain an audience and I don't know what if you want to be what if you want to be the next?
0:28:15catch
0:28:16Yeah
0:28:18Yeah, absolutely solution. It's really hard. I mean it's really tough and it's not I don't envy any
0:28:25Envy anyone having to make those decisions
0:28:28But I just do wish that Apple would listen because
0:28:33You know you can write one or two apps off. You know you know something like
0:28:37Transmit that you know needs root level permission to your disk and maybe that's not a good fit
0:28:42But like Sketch doesn't you know Sketch is leaving for a bunch of reasons not just one and they're not just technical they're political
0:28:48And that I think something Apple needs to pay attention to
0:28:50Yeah, and you know you could argue that
0:28:54Is the problem you know with the Mac App Store
0:29:00making Apple sell fewer Macs, so is it really a problem for the millions of computers that they sell every quarter?
0:29:07Right now, maybe it's not a problem.
0:29:10But the people who run into these kind of problems,
0:29:14they are the people who recommend to their friends and to their families to buy a Mac.
0:29:20Maybe it's not a big deal right now, but I believe when you're in charge of a big company,
0:29:27You gotta spot this, you know, it's not when you're in charge of a company like Apple
0:29:33it's not about solving the problem as much as it is about diagnosing the problem very early on and
0:29:41when all these millions of
0:29:44Dollars are at stake and when you have a developer ecosystem
0:29:48You gotta be able to recognize the problem when it's starting and it's been five years
0:29:53which is why we're all this concerned about the Mac App Store because it's been a long time and
0:29:58there's still nothing just silence and
0:30:02It's become even more ridiculous in the past year since you know test flight and all these other
0:30:08Changes for developers analytics is another one that I forgot to mention
0:30:12and it's just radio silence on the Mac, which is you know concerning because you clearly have
0:30:20You clearly have a problem and the doctor doesn't say anything.
0:30:23Imagine that if you were a patient. The Mac App Store is ailing and there's no communication from Apple.
0:30:30No changes, just nothing.
0:30:32How are you supposed to react to that? I don't know. Well, we'll see what happens, I guess.
0:30:38Yeah, I don't expect much.
0:30:41But we'll see. And there are good things about the iCloud.
0:30:46There's the ability to easily go in and see what you've purchased and redownload it.
0:30:49I mean there are nice things about it and I just wish that those nice things came with better trade-offs, you know
0:30:55Anyways, um, so on the on the subject of
0:31:02Apple and sadness. I had a rough weekend, Federico. I had a real rough Sunday. So
0:31:10I'm sure a bunch of people saw this because it was all over the place. But um
0:31:15the
0:31:18During the beta of photos, which is like a like a year ago now like it was like
0:31:22It's been a while. It's been like months and months and months
0:31:26So you know what as I do was part of my job. I need to check this out, right?
0:31:31So I download the photos beta sign up for the iCloud photo library beta
0:31:35I import my photo library is roughly 70 gigs in size
0:31:38Probably a little smaller a year ago
0:31:41Imported it all from Dropbox. That's where I've kept it which we're not reopening the photo management
0:31:48can of worms today I promise.
0:31:50Umm...
0:31:51But uhh...
0:31:53Uploaded them all and it was just a mess.
0:31:55It was beta, it was real buggy, it was slow.
0:31:57It really wasn't for me at the time.
0:31:59So I was like, you know what, that's fine.
0:32:00I still have my Dropbox and Finder system, which I like.
0:32:02I'll just remove my photo library and
0:32:05with umm...
0:32:08with iCloud
0:32:11you can go in and you can
0:32:14basically tell it to remove your
0:32:17your photo library from the cloud. So the kind of way it works the photo app on the Mac syncs the photos up and
0:32:23then you can sync them back down to iOS devices and
0:32:25and go from there. And so I did that right and it says hey
0:32:29it's gonna be 30 days before I delete this. It's like a safety mechanism, which I like. I like that it's not
0:32:34going to just nuke all my stuff immediately, which is which is nice. So I
0:32:40tell it to delete. I wait the 30 days
0:32:43It seems to have done it. I get the storage space back in my iCloud account, right? It seems to all be gone.
0:32:49And I move on. And so over the last couple weeks I've been thinking, "Hey, you know, I'd like to try this again.
0:32:58It seems to be better under Akapitan. The app seems better. People seem to be happy with the iCloud photo library these days."
0:33:03So I just did it again, right? Imported the photos, didn't take that long.
0:33:07Uploaded them, which is pretty quick for me.
0:33:10Everything's cool for a couple days.
0:33:13and it seems kind of subtle so I go to my iPad and like okay I'm gonna turn
0:33:16iCloud photo library on on my iPad and I do it and it just spins for like two
0:33:23days like it just never happens and it's this is like over Thanksgiving right so
0:33:27I'm not checking in on this right just kind of like oh it's still working okay
0:33:31I'll put it back down and this weekend I pick it up and I open photos on the Mac
0:33:35and I have a big mess. So basically I have albums that from my old, from the
0:33:43previous library, have been synced back in and most of them were just duplicates
0:33:49which I could deal with right? It'd be a pain but I could deal with duplicate
0:33:52albums like that's not the end of the world. But what is the end of the world
0:33:55is that they didn't all duplicate that there was a number of them that over
0:34:00local data on disk with an empty album from iCloud and that's not great.
0:34:08So I wrote this thing, I wrote it you know kind of as it was happening. I think it's
0:34:12pretty clear what happened in the article but I was I was upset and I think
0:34:15rightfully so and you know I've gotten a bunch of feedback on this more than I
0:34:22have in a long time but anything I've written on all sides of it there were
0:34:26like I don't know how many comments on the Hacker News thread I just closed the
0:34:29and went on with my day, but it's a problem.
0:34:34And the error that iCloud made was it overwrote data
0:34:38on my local disk with empty data from the cloud.
0:34:41That was old that I told it to delete months ago, right?
0:34:44And so I'm just over it.
0:34:50I really would like to use iCloud Photo Library.
0:34:52I think it'd be really nice to have all of my photos
0:34:54accessible on my iPad, but I have to be able to trust it.
0:34:59it and as you know more so than with documents and more so than with music I
0:35:05have to feel like I could trust my photo solution because that stuff is
0:35:10irreplaceable and and really what kicked me over the edge was one of the albums
0:35:14that over it was our make-a-wish trip and I was just like you know what I've
0:35:16done like you know that's a big no and and so I've heard from a few people
0:35:22people in the chat room right now saying I've had the same issues and and there
0:35:26people who it's run smoothly for, which is great.
0:35:29I think it runs smoothly for most people.
0:35:31But again, and maybe I fell into the Dalrymple hole
0:35:35of Apple Music and I'm just in that with photos.
0:35:38But there's no transparency with iCloud, right?
0:35:43You can't really see what it's doing.
0:35:47You can't really go in and reset anything or redo anything.
0:35:51One thing I really like about Google,
0:35:53you can go to Google Takeout and you can
0:35:56Download all your data and you can like close different services on your account
0:36:01you can close your whole account and you and you can see what it has right and and
0:36:04Apple just doesn't have that and I think they think they need it
0:36:09and
0:36:10You know, I'm hopefully working with Apple support and some people at Apple try to get this resolved
0:36:16But like it shouldn't have to come to that to to make this work for me, you know
0:36:20Yeah, no, but what happened to you sounds extremely bad
0:36:25Again, different use cases, different, you know, I just take pictures on my iPhone, they
0:36:32show up on the iPad, I'm okay.
0:36:35But I can perfectly understand, you have a library of years and years of photos, and
0:36:40you want to start using iCloud, and it overwrites what you already have, that's bad.
0:36:48There's just no way around it, you can justify the behavior, it doesn't mean that it's right.
0:36:54to work better. I mean, I think you should continue to use Dropbox and maybe other backups.
0:37:03I hear quite a lot of praise for Google Photos.
0:37:06Yeah, I use that. So the system has been, and I think will continue to be, stuff in
0:37:11Dropbox, which makes it show up on two computers and my NAS and a bunch of time machine drives.
0:37:20And I then also have the Google Photos backup app sitting and running and watching that
0:37:26folder.
0:37:27And what's nice about that is that I have the Google Photos app on my phone.
0:37:31If I need to find something that I haven't synced over, that's how I do it because it's
0:37:35fast and Google Photos is basically magic.
0:37:39But I still want my photos local so that Google Photos for me is like that backup and kind
0:37:42of online view.
0:37:43If that makes sense.
0:37:44Yeah.
0:37:45I want to try Google Photos again.
0:37:47I deleted it this summer because I really wanted to try the Photos app.
0:37:53Now I want to put all my photos in Google again.
0:37:58Speaking of which, we had a double iCloud/Google topic this week.
0:38:06So you talked about iCloud and Photos, I want to talk about iCloud Calendar and Google Calendar.
0:38:15But before I do that, I think you want to thank our friends at igloo.
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0:40:12Thank you so much to igloo for supporting connected and all of Relay FM.
0:40:15So what's going on with your calendar?
0:40:19So
0:40:21every year I like to
0:40:23try iCloud calendar again because every year there seems to be a new feature that
0:40:28you know, it makes me curious to check it out. And this year after I wrote about, you know,
0:40:33ICLR calendar last year, this year I wanted to try the new time-to-leave notifications,
0:40:39which were sort of an evolution of the driving time information screen label, whatever, that they
0:40:47added back in what was the OS X before Yosemite, was it Mavericks? What was the name? Mavericks,
0:40:58Are you sure? So it's Mavericks, Yosemite and what's... Oh, El Capitan. Yeah, El Capitan.
0:41:03So anyway, they added the driving time in calendar a few years ago. This year
0:41:09it's time to leave notifications, which the idea is you create a calendar event with
0:41:14with an address and
0:41:17you can choose to receive an alert on your phone when it's time to leave. So depending on traffic,
0:41:24Depending on your location and other conditions. In theory, such as the weather also, or road accidents ahead of you, or road work,
0:41:32all these other variables, you get a notification when it's time to leave. As I wrote in my
0:41:37iOS 9 review, these time-to-leave notifications have been useless for me. They fire too early,
0:41:46so I know that I have an event that takes me, I don't know, about 15 minutes to drive there.
0:41:53In theory I should be able to get, I don't know, maybe 5 to 10 minutes before the driving time
0:41:59So maybe I would say 20 to 25 minutes ahead of time. I get the time to leave notifications
0:42:04So I get like 5 or 10 minutes to get ready. That's what I want.
0:42:08Instead Apple, for an event that takes me 15 minutes to get there, they send me notification like
0:42:1550 to 55 minutes before, which is just useless because by the time I gotta leave I
0:42:20forget maybe or maybe I start doing something else and then I don't know that I'm supposed to leave.
0:42:25And this has never worked for me. I don't know if it's an American thing that Americans maybe want
0:42:31to arrive at destinations early. I just don't care because I don't have to arrive early
0:42:39at anywhere. It's just uncommon for me to arrive early. I arrive when it's time.
0:42:46Anyway, I remembered that the Google app was able to look into the Google Calendar account
0:42:54and send you actual, precise notifications for driving times, time to leave.
0:43:02So, last week I was about to drive to an event and I had, for an unrelated reason,
0:43:12installed the Google app on my iPhone. And I just needed to check out, I think, the new design or
0:43:19just another feature. Anyway, I logged into with my Google account and by chance it had an old
0:43:28repeating event that I didn't delete in my Google Calendar account. And I just happened to be about
0:43:35to drive to the same event, to the same location, because I should mention here I don't create a lot
0:43:41of calendar events with locations. I don't do a lot of, actually I never do meetings in real life,
0:43:48at least. I drive to specific places a few times each week and it's always the same event.
0:43:56It is what you would call a routine. I just happened to have one of those events already in
0:44:03my Google Calendar, so I was just sitting there with my iPhone and the Google app sent me a
0:44:08notification. I was like "huh, you remembered." And looking at the time, it was just perfect.
0:44:15The timing, it was about 10 minutes ahead of time. It knew that it would take me about
0:44:2015 minutes to get there, and it was just perfect. Instead,
0:44:25iCloud Calendar sends me notifications way ahead of time, and then for some reason, while I'm already
0:44:34driving, sometimes it decides to send me the notification again, only with just the wrong
0:44:41time. So what I decided to do is I'm going to move back to Google Calendar. And this
0:44:50is a much bigger topic than those couple of events that I got in my calendar. And it's
0:44:57a bigger idea and I think I also touched on this in my in my ISNI review. I appreciate
0:45:03Apple's commitment to privacy and you know to keeping customer data secure and
0:45:10to not look at the information across different services. So for example
0:45:16they could you know look at what you browse in Safari and give you music
0:45:20recommendations in Apple Music. I appreciate that and I think that a lot
0:45:24of people also do. I'm a fan of the transparency of Apple and Tim Cook's commitment to privacy.
0:45:33I like that. It's just that for some features and for some apps, the practical benefit and
0:45:40the trade-off of Google's approach just works better for me. Because, again, it's a matter
0:45:45We all love to talk about principles and ideas, but ultimately I got a house that I gotta pay the bills for, I got a life, and I got a routine.
0:46:01And it doesn't matter, you know, I can hold my principles for more important matters.
0:46:10But when it comes to "Do I want to get a notification when it's time to leave so I'm not late?"
0:46:16I like that.
0:46:17It's a practical feature and it just doesn't work with iCloud.
0:46:20And maybe it doesn't work for, because you know, Apple doesn't like to look at a bunch
0:46:24of different data points.
0:46:27And it's a nice idea, but Google's approach just works better in practice.
0:46:32And I realize that maybe I'm giving up some of my privacy.
0:46:38But to an extent, I would say I'm okay with that, when the service that I receive in return
0:46:43just works better in everyday life.
0:46:48And this is reflected for me in Google Calendar the most, because it can look at Google Maps,
0:46:55it can look at my history.
0:46:56And I understand why people don't want to use Google services.
0:47:03This doesn't want to be one of those stupid wars between Apple and Google.
0:47:09I'm just saying here that for what I need to do, for my life outside of the website
0:47:16and the principles and the ideas, I'm just a regular human being who doesn't want to
0:47:22be late.
0:47:23And the Google app helps me to do that with Google Calendar.
0:47:27And also, I want to say, I struggle to see what could ever happen to me if there was
0:47:37ever a breach in Google Calendar.
0:47:40Would people know my address?
0:47:41Well, that's basically public anyway.
0:47:44Would there be someone that comes knocking at my place?
0:47:49We're gonna have fun, I think.
0:47:51You know, I'm just not...
0:47:55Quite a few readers email me, "Are you not scared of the kind of data that you put into
0:47:59Google?"
0:48:00Well, you know, there's a lot of scary things in life, and I would say I'm more scared by
0:48:05the scooter man in Rome and the traffic and, you know, bad news that you see on TV that
0:48:11I'm scared about data breach on Google.
0:48:14Again, it's about the practical benefit.
0:48:16And when it comes to the calendar, iCloud is just not working for me, so I moved back
0:48:21to Google Calendar, which again takes me like two minutes because I don't have many events.
0:48:27But just for those few events, I see the upside, which is I get notifications when it's time
0:48:33to leave, they are accurate, and they take into account, which is also nice, you can
0:48:38see in the Google app if there's any accident on the road, if there's any problems, any
0:48:44slowdowns, traffic jams, it's useful.
0:48:47And I don't get the data with Apple Maps or with iCloud Calendar.
0:48:51So it just works better for me.
0:48:54I'm not afraid of the security and actually the privacy concerns.
0:49:00I realize that a lot of people are upset by this way of living life, but it's just, you
0:49:06know, I live each day this way.
0:49:09Yeah.
0:49:10Yeah.
0:49:11that's interesting to me talking about this and I use iCloud basically for
0:49:18contacts, calendars, like the whole thing, my personal email. I use iCloud calendar
0:49:24and for the big reason is that it's really easy to share and so like I've
0:49:28got two, I've got like me and then I've got work and we have one for like family
0:49:34events, my wife has one, and we share that it's really seamless to share those and
0:49:40And so for me, like moving systems would involve
0:49:44like dragging her into it as well.
0:49:47But I mean I think what you're saying makes a lot of sense
0:49:51and it comes down to that just sort of like
0:49:53fundamental difference is that Google can do that
0:49:55really well because they apply what they learn
0:49:58like in mass and Apple's system is local on your device
0:50:02and maybe not as powerful.
0:50:06I will say I've had pretty good luck with the
0:50:09hey can you know remind me when it's time to leave type thing on iOS it seems
0:50:13to work pretty well for me maybe it's that their map data is better where I am
0:50:16than you are I mean who knows but I will say that the where it falls down for me
0:50:24is like Apple software like that the built-in calendar app like I've had it
0:50:28they all go change an event and it will revert back after a sync and I don't
0:50:31have that happen in fantastic our busy cows like there's a whole bunch of
0:50:35moving parts with calendars and with contacts and everything.
0:50:39But for me, where I feel at the most of where I look
0:50:43at going back to Gmail is just with the email stuff,
0:50:46with the email rules and the spam filtering and everything.
0:50:47iCloud just isn't as powerful as what Google's doing.
0:50:51And I think that that idea that Google knows this about you,
0:50:56like I understand people's concern and I don't wanna,
0:51:00I don't wanna belittle anyone's concerns at all.
0:51:03But it's just not something I worry about.
0:51:05Like I trust that their privacy stuff is in good shape
0:51:09and that yes, I'm sharing it with a company
0:51:11and with their really smart computers,
0:51:12but I'm not, you know, that stuff's not gonna get
0:51:16published anywhere.
0:51:17And so I agree with you.
0:51:18I think you just have to make the decision of like,
0:51:21is the trade-off here worth it for me?
0:51:25And that's what Myke said months ago
0:51:26when we talked about this last time.
0:51:27For him, it made sense.
0:51:29- Yeah, absolutely.
0:51:31And actually right now I am a little curious to see what's going on with the Google App
0:51:36and Google Now on iOS.
0:51:39I don't know if you saw my tweet last night, but I'm basically getting the Google Now cards
0:51:47from apps on iOS.
0:51:48It used to be an Android feature.
0:51:50I think it's rolling out on iOS right now, so the idea is certain apps allow you to connect
0:51:56to your Google account so you can see relevant snippets of data in Google Now, which is interesting.
0:52:03I'm not sure what apps I can try that have this feature on iOS, but it's something that
0:52:08I also want to try.
0:52:10Yeah, they have that good ecosystem of stuff that all works together and pulls from that
0:52:16central information in your account.
0:52:19And again, that's really powerful, and if that makes sense for you and you need that,
0:52:23that's great.
0:52:24I keep coming back to this because the photo library thing in particular
0:52:29just really burned me a little bit. The idea of no one company,
0:52:35we cover Apple here, we like Apple, but just as we cover Apple and we like them,
0:52:39and we like their products, doesn't mean that they're perfect and it doesn't mean
0:52:43that every other company is the opposite of perfect. And the beauty
0:52:49of the modern era we live in is that your iPhone can be a
0:52:53Google machine right you can you can use Google services on iOS and it works
0:52:56really well same thing on OS X and that flexibility is really nice and it's
0:53:02something that I think makes iOS really powerful that you can use all these
0:53:06differences like you work in exchange like cool plug your exchange thing in if
0:53:09the built-in stuff doesn't work for you go download outlook that works with
0:53:12exchange if you have all these options but the idea that like we or anyone else
0:53:19is supposed to be like, tightly in allegiance with one, like, "I'm only going
0:53:23to use Apple stuff," and like, I had someone, like, basically call me like,
0:53:28sensationalist for writing what I wrote. It's like, "Well, no, like, I wrote what
0:53:31happened to me," and that's all I, you know, like, I didn't show up, I was like,
0:53:37"It was, you know, with pitchforks, right?" It's like, "Well, you should have emailed, you
0:53:40should have called their support first," you know what, I did, and we have a call set
0:53:45up to work through it, like, you know, I didn't just write it for the page use, I
0:53:49that you're not doing this just to inflame the Apple-Google war, you're doing it because
0:53:53it makes sense for how you need to use your devices, right?
0:53:57I mean, you can even stretch that argument back to the iPad and Mac thing where, "Oh,
0:54:01you just use the iPad to make the points."
0:54:04No, use an iPad because it makes sense for you.
0:54:07Why does that conversation need to go past that statement?
0:54:10No, no.
0:54:12It's just this applies to a lot of aspects in life.
0:54:18the problem becomes much bigger on Twitter.
0:54:20It can be tricky to understand that people have different opinions than you
0:54:27and they have different lives and different experiences.
0:54:30That's part of being an adult and maybe a responsible adult
0:54:34to understand that people are different and what works for you doesn't work for me.
0:54:38And the great thing about technology is that it's always different.
0:54:41So I can take selfies on my iPhone and, you know, Austin Mann can go to Switzerland and take awesome pictures with the same iPhone.
0:54:50Again, saying that something doesn't work, I think it's actually one of the best things that you can do to criticize a product, to help make it better.
0:55:02And I actually don't think there's a lot of utility in praising unnecessarily a product,
0:55:10even when you know that it's got flaws and problematic aspects, just because you like a
0:55:16company. I think being fair, being honest, is a good thing. And I don't see what you wrote as
0:55:23sensationalism. I think it's just the truth. It's what happened to you. Again, it's a very basic
0:55:29idea. Shouldn't have happened, but it happened. So why? Can we fix it? Can we make it better?
0:55:34It's very simple. This was a good discussion, Steven.
0:55:39Yeah, and again, it's that, you know, there's options, there's these things you can fit
0:55:43together to solve the problem that you have. So if, you know, if the directions in "Leave
0:55:51on Time" feature doesn't work for you in one, go to somewhere else. And I think that's nice,
0:55:58I mean there are people who are gonna do it all,
0:56:02you can do it all self-hosted.
0:56:05You know, there's all these different ways you can do it
0:56:07and I think that's great.
0:56:09So yeah, anyways, we're gonna go with the next iPhone
0:56:16because apparently it's that time of year again.
0:56:18It seems early.
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0:58:58So iPhone 7, it's so early for this.
0:59:02Oh God, really?
0:59:03Are we really doing this?
0:59:04I'm still learning 3D Touch on my success.
0:59:07We are.
0:59:08We are doing this.
0:59:10- So the rumor of the day from the Japanese website,
0:59:14Mac,
0:59:16- You can do it, go on, go on.
0:59:20- I can't do it, Mac Odokara, Odokara?
0:59:24- I would say, Mecha Takara, yeah.
0:59:25- Perfect.
0:59:26- Or maybe is it Japanese Mecha Takara, I don't know.
0:59:31- I did not hear the difference between those two things.
0:59:34Where's Myke?
0:59:35So this rumor and this Japanese, this site,
0:59:39Has pretty good track record which Mac rumors points out is that Apple is playing to remove the 3.5
0:59:46millimeter headphone jack on the next iPhone in favor of their lightning connector
0:59:52So the background is a little bit is that you can now like you can go buy lightning
0:59:57equipped headphones Apple supports audio in and out over lightning I
1:00:02Think that's true since the iPhone
1:00:066 I think it was in 2014 they announced that it's part of the made for iPhone program
1:00:13it's
1:00:16You know so it's been around right and this kind of Apple does things like Apple's like hey we have this new spec
1:00:20It's gonna be really important like a year. You know or two years
1:00:24and
1:00:26So the the rumor basically comes down to the 3.5 million Jack if you look at on the bottom of your iPhone
1:00:32It's the thickest thing on your phone
1:00:34Several people point out to it. It's also very deep
1:00:36the amount of the depth of that port, you know, if you look at the iPod nano I
1:00:43think I saw an image of like that whole bottom lip on the nano is there to
1:00:46support that jack. It's big and it's bulky and it's problematic because it
1:00:51gets broken off and so people are saying this report is saying that
1:00:58Apple can make their phone thinner and simpler and what I'm interested in is
1:01:04maybe even a little more waterproof
1:01:06if they get rid of this thing.
1:01:07Which is a little bit crazy.
1:01:13- It is crazy.
1:01:14- Because, I mean this, I wrote about this, I mean,
1:01:17the eighth inch or 3.5 milliliter stereo jack
1:01:23is like the most universal thing I can think of
1:01:26in consumer technology.
1:01:28Like every single device that takes audio
1:01:33or sends audio uses this thing.
1:01:35It's in cars, it's in AV systems,
1:01:38it's in home theater systems, it is in classrooms,
1:01:42any place you can, it's so universal,
1:01:45you just walk in and plug your thing into it,
1:01:46and it doesn't, I mean, I could be playing music
1:01:48off my first gen iPod or my phone or a tape player.
1:01:52It doesn't matter, I can get audio out through this thing.
1:01:55And this report is saying that Apple's gonna get rid of that
1:01:58to gain thinness.
1:02:00and that's a very interesting trade-off to me.
1:02:03- Okay, so let me ask you the same question in another way.
1:02:09In 100 years, do you see the human race listening to audio
1:02:15by plugging a connector into a hole?
1:02:17- No, I don't.
1:02:20- Okay, so if not in 100 years, why not in five?
1:02:24I mean, if it's clearly the future,
1:02:29If it's obviously the future, why not do it now?
1:02:34It's going to be problematic. It's crazy.
1:02:36And I totally agree, and they're going to sell you an adapter, whatever.
1:02:40But if it's obviously what's going to happen, and I believe it is inevitable,
1:02:43with all these cables and buttons and physical objects
1:02:48that you either plug or click or move, they're going away.
1:02:53But if it's inevitable, why don't get started on it?
1:02:59- Yeah, I mean, I don't disagree with that.
1:03:01And it's not,
1:03:02it's not that you can go into this lightly, right?
1:03:08It's not like transitioning from PowerPC to Intel,
1:03:10where you can run Rosetta and all your old stuff works,
1:03:12right, like you can't be like, oh well,
1:03:14you can have the jack sometimes, right?
1:03:15And Apple had a patent a couple years ago
1:03:17for a smaller headphone jack,
1:03:19and that seems to have just gone by the wayside.
1:03:23Maybe they built it, maybe it didn't work,
1:03:24there's no telling, right?
1:03:25Apple patents all sorts of stuff they never use.
1:03:27And there's no doubt that lightning is like superior hardware in basically every way.
1:03:36And if they can make it more robust like that's great and there will be an adapter and I will
1:03:43have to buy 12 of them because that's how adapters go. I agree with you right it's going to be
1:03:48problematic there's no way to ease into this because this thing is such a well-used like
1:03:56universal type thing, it is going to be painful
1:03:58whenever they do it.
1:03:59And so I agree with you, it's inevitable, right?
1:04:03This is, it's sort of a bad deal, it's super old school,
1:04:06very analog, kinda gross.
1:04:08But whenever it is, it is gonna be painful.
1:04:14And there's going to be that round of discussion of like,
1:04:17well, they did this to make it thinner,
1:04:20but we don't need thinner phones.
1:04:21And again, I think, we've talked about this before,
1:04:24Thinness and lightness go together right like the the new phone is a little bit thicker and a little bit heavier than the old one
1:04:30Apple doesn't like that
1:04:32Myke in our in our
1:04:35Non-skype conversations was like well
1:04:38He did this means they made a way to make the battery better and so they can make it thinner and lighter and still retain
1:04:43their battery life
1:04:44And so the 3.5 millimeter jack has to go
1:04:47But the transition is gonna be hard like you're not gonna be able to use your earpods and move from your phone
1:04:53to your older iPad or to your computer even,
1:04:57'cause I mean, the Macs don't ship with lightning at all,
1:04:59and so are we gonna start seeing lightning
1:05:01show up on the Macs?
1:05:02I mean, there's lots of like weird questions here,
1:05:04and what's gonna happen is people are gonna have an adapter
1:05:06or they're gonna have two sets of earbuds,
1:05:07or it's just gonna be painful.
1:05:10- Yeah.
1:05:11I believe that a lot of people are against a rumor,
1:05:16which is really like a very ironic state of affairs,
1:05:21But anyway, a lot of people are against this idea,
1:05:24because it's almost like,
1:05:27oh man, I really don't wanna deal with this right now.
1:05:29I wish that my son in 20 years,
1:05:33the future generation would have to deal with the problem
1:05:35of dropping the 3.5 millimeter jack.
1:05:38But I feel like it's a change that's gonna come
1:05:42sooner or later, and we gotta deal with this right now.
1:05:47I am a proponent of dropping physical interfaces in the form of cables, plugs, buttons, stuff
1:05:56that moves and requires space.
1:06:01The argument that we don't need thinner phones...
1:06:07Do we want thicker phones?
1:06:09We may not need thinner phones, but do we want them to be thicker?
1:06:14Do we want them to be heavier?
1:06:16Or is it just this fantasy that we have created for ourselves that, "Oh, if only the iPhone
1:06:22had a much bigger and heavier battery, I would be so happy."
1:06:25But then you would run into another problem that would be bulky and uncomfortable to use.
1:06:29And I think we have sort of convinced ourselves that we don't want the iPhone to be thinner,
1:06:35but every year it gets thinner and we're happy.
1:06:37And when it doesn't, such as this year, that it's slightly thicker, we complain.
1:06:42So it appears that you can write a nice article, such as "The Verge", with a nice sketchy headline
1:06:49"We don't need thinner iPhones", but in reality we all want them and we all like them when
1:06:54we have them.
1:06:55So it's easier to forget about this part.
1:06:59As for the connector itself, it is going to be a problem and it is going to be problematic.
1:07:05Graham Spencer at MacStory said a nice, I believe a nice article today about this.
1:07:12It is going to be inevitable, and it is going to be a problem,
1:07:17but there's a few ways that Apple could make this better, and maybe a smoother
1:07:21transition for users. And I think that it makes some good points about
1:07:27maybe just give a few adapters for free with each iPhone. They give you an
1:07:33adapter for free. I mean, it's not free, you pay for, but it's for free in the box.
1:07:38When you buy an Apple Pencil, if they make this switch... So of course make your
1:07:43EarPods, Bluetooth or Wi-Fi, whatever, and give people an adapter or maybe a couple
1:07:50of adapters in the box. And maybe if you want to also sell one separately, just
1:07:56don't make it 20 bucks, make it like 5 or 10 bucks tops like 999. Just, I feel like moving away from
1:08:06the standard audio jack is going to be a more, it's going to be a messier move than the 30 pin
1:08:14to lightning, which was already messy and already people still are cracking jokes about it. I
1:08:20remember Tim Cook was on Colbert a few weeks ago and he made a joke about the connector.
1:08:25So it's still in everyone's minds, and if you change from the audio jack to Bluetooth or something else,
1:08:33it's going to be a much, much bigger story.
1:08:35So Apple has a few ways to kind of ease people into this change, and the solution is to not do
1:08:43whatever they have done so far when it comes to adapters and when it comes to moving from one
1:08:48standard to another. And because you know, the Lightning transition wasn't a problem
1:08:54for us because we're nerds and we just, okay, we're gonna spend 50 bucks on cables and new
1:09:00adapters. But people like my mom, people like my friends, they still hate. I mean, now they
1:09:05got used to it, but it didn't help the goodwill of the Apple community, you know, when it
1:09:12happened. Because Apple very famously likes to ask for quite a bit of money for cables
1:09:17and adapters. So there's a few ways that they could make this better, but I totally believe
1:09:22that it's going to happen, and I also think it should happen, because we should move away
1:09:26from these components that occupy space and they are prone to damage, and it's just ugly
1:09:34to look at, and it's just an old idea. It's been around for like a century, the 3.5mm
1:09:41jack. It's a very old piece of technology, and if you think about it, it's incredible
1:09:46that we still use one. And again, I ask you, if you think that in our ideal future we're
1:09:52not going to be using jacks to listen to audio, why not create the future now? It's going
1:09:58to be messy, it's going to be problematic, it's going to be a transition that we all
1:10:01got to take care of, but you know, the human race survived worst things, so I think we
1:10:08can survive moving from audio jacks to something else.
1:10:12And a theory that I see on Twitter, and this is the last point, a theory that I see on
1:10:16Twitter, and that it's kind of interesting, my friend Zach Saichi is in favor of this
1:10:24idea.
1:10:25What if Apple doesn't roll out this audio jack free change on the main line of the iPhone,
1:10:35but on a separate iPhone model?
1:10:38I think the parallel here is the original MacBook Air and what Marco calls the MacBook
1:10:44One, so the new MacBook, with USB Type-C only available on the new MacBook, which is clearly
1:10:52the feature, but it's not available on the main lines of the Mac ecosystem yet.
1:11:00So you cannot buy an iMac with only one single USB Type-C port.
1:11:04What if Apple starts to do this kind of major breakthrough?
1:11:08So an iPhone without audio jack connector, and maybe even an iPhone without the home
1:11:14button, just a screen that does everything wirelessly or via touch, but it's not the
1:11:20main iPhone yet.
1:11:21This is not even a rumor, this is just speculation, but I feel like it's fun to imagine.
1:11:26Yeah, I mean, they kind of do that because old phones stick around, and we know that
1:11:30people buy old phones. So even if it's just on the new one, it's still a transition period,
1:11:36right? Look how long it took for everyone or most people to have a retina phone, then
1:11:42how many people have an LTE phone? I mean, that stuff takes time. Yeah, I mean, I don't
1:11:47know. I think that the best, the simplest thing they can do is throw an adapter in the
1:11:54box but you know even when the Mac went from Mac safe to Mac safe to you buy you
1:11:59know $2,500 MacBook Pro and you can't use your old power adapter without buying a
1:12:04$9 thing like I just don't have faith that Apple's gonna do it I think they
1:12:09should and I think you know this is such a big deal that then maybe they have to
1:12:13but I don't know I mean it I want the trade-off to be they have to sell it
1:12:20right? They have to say we are doing it because X. And X better not just be thinness because
1:12:27I get it and I appreciate it but even to me that's not enough of a trade-off. I think
1:12:33to the general public it's definitely not because people put their phones in big bulky
1:12:38cases and they don't notice that the phone is thinner, right? And I mean last night we
1:12:43bought a new success for my wife and part of the conversation was well what case do
1:12:47she puts her phone in a case and that's fine but that's just what people do.
1:12:53And so most people are not going to notice it's a millimeter thinner and they are going
1:12:59to notice that they can't plug it into their car anymore without an extra thing.
1:13:03So we'll see.
1:13:04I think I'll be curious to see how this moves forward and what they do.
1:13:10If that jack is one of the reasons that the phone still has a big chin underneath the
1:13:15screen like I would love a plus-sized screen in a smaller chassis right with
1:13:21less of that stuff at the top and bottom like I want Apple to be focusing on that
1:13:24sort of stuff you look at the iPhone X any any other sort of flagship Android
1:13:28phone most of them that have smaller bezels at the top and bottom than Apple's
1:13:32using and those sort of trade-offs I mean yes they have the home button and that's
1:13:36not really there on Android phones in the same way but I think it's time that
1:13:40Apple starts looking at some of these things that have been around since day
1:13:44one like how do we make this better and I don't I'm not convinced that just
1:13:50thinner equals better but I do think that Apple is thinking about that sort
1:13:54of thing and we'll see how it goes and it's December and we're talking about
1:13:59the next year's iPhone so that's just crazy in and of itself I guess. Yeah I
1:14:05mean it's been what two months since the new iPhone we're already talking about
1:14:09but the iPhone 7.
1:14:10I cannot survive with this crazy schedule, Steven.
1:14:15It is too much.
1:14:16My poor heart is gonna suffer for this iPhone craziness.
1:14:21- And there is part of my brain that says,
1:14:25if this is true and this is out there early,
1:14:28is that on purpose?
1:14:30- Actually, you know what I'm thinking?
1:14:32What's gonna happen to Marco and his headphones?
1:14:35- It's thousands of adapters.
1:14:37(laughing)
1:14:39And that's what I'm gonna have to do.
1:14:41Like, you know, I mean, I use,
1:14:42I actually don't listen to headphones
1:14:44with my iPhone very often.
1:14:46And something too we should talk about,
1:14:50I think there's articles out there
1:14:52that if I were to look for them, I could find them.
1:14:54But I would imagine, I think common sense just tells you
1:14:56that most people who use headphones or earbuds
1:15:00with their iPhone use the ones that come in the box with it,
1:15:03rather than just use the EarPods.
1:15:04And even again last night unboxing this new phone,
1:15:07I'm like, "Hey, you have new earbuds."
1:15:09And she's like, "Yes, my old ones were destroyed."
1:15:11And like, "Why didn't you tell me they were destroyed?"
1:15:12Like, "I have like three sets of them,
1:15:14"I could just give me another one."
1:15:16People just use what comes in the box, right?
1:15:18And so the ear pods,
1:15:20assumedly would obviously move to some sort of lightning
1:15:24plug at the end of it.
1:15:25And so you could buy a new phone,
1:15:27"Oh, my new earbuds work, that's great."
1:15:29And that is a big deal that does take care
1:15:33of a lot of people who are just going to use
1:15:37what comes in the box.
1:15:38And maybe they don't plug in their car,
1:15:39maybe they use Bluetooth in their car,
1:15:40because that's very, I mean, even my Corolla I bought new
1:15:44last year has Bluetooth in it, right?
1:15:45It's not an expensive car.
1:15:47And so, you know, most people, if most people just use
1:15:50the headphones that come in the box
1:15:51and maybe Bluetooth in their car,
1:15:52then maybe it's not as big of a deal.
1:15:55And maybe it's only people like us who, you know,
1:15:58my phone, at least in a previous life,
1:16:00got plugged into a bunch of AV systems,
1:16:01and does get plugged into various things around the house.
1:16:05And maybe that my sort of usage is not as mainstream
1:16:09as I think it is, and that by just changing the ear pods,
1:16:13most people would be relatively okay.
1:16:15And so there's that angle too, right,
1:16:17that Apple has that data.
1:16:18Apple, they also have Beats, right?
1:16:21And if you're telling me that Beats
1:16:23wanna have lightning equipped headphones on day one,
1:16:26then I would be just blown away.
1:16:28They're gonna have that.
1:16:29And so people who are even into that brand
1:16:33and who like those products will have options as well.
1:16:36And so I don't, you know, it is gonna be problematic,
1:16:39but maybe it isn't the end of the world for everyone
1:16:42because Apple can do these things
1:16:44with their first party stuff.
1:16:46- Yeah, I agree.
1:16:48It's definitely going to be,
1:16:50I think it's gonna be more interesting just to observe.
1:16:54I'm probably gonna have to buy a bunch of adapters
1:16:57because if they do this it's the kind of adapter
1:17:00that I'm going to lose like 100 times.
1:17:04And again, there should be a couple in the box
1:17:07if they move away.
1:17:09But I see whenever I go, I take the bus or,
1:17:14actually I don't take the bus, what am I saying?
1:17:15I take the train occasionally, never take the bus.
1:17:18- It's like a bus.
1:17:19- Stoned rails.
1:17:21Whenever I take the train or the plane,
1:17:23I see people either with the standard iPhone earpods or with Beats.
1:17:29And increasingly I'm seeing wireless Beats, which I also have.
1:17:33The Studio 2, Studio 1, I don't know.
1:17:37Anyway, they're wireless Beats.
1:17:39And they're pretty good, but Bluetooth still has issues.
1:17:42And I don't know if it's an iOS 9 problem or if I gotta update the firmware of my headphones, which is crazy.
1:17:49But anyway, I get dropped connections or sometimes I just get back quality or if you want to watch videos with the Beats headphones in wireless mode,
1:18:01you get a delay between the video and the audio, which basically makes video unplayable with the Beats wireless.
1:18:08So there's still going to be problems to fix and it's up to Apple to kind of sell this change, to say "Hey, we made this transition from a cable to wireless audio,
1:18:18it's better in such and such ways. We'll see what happens. But we got quite a few...
1:18:2510 months, Steven. We can literally make a baby in the meantime, and the baby will be
1:18:31born to wireless audio. You and I can't make a baby. Well, it's just
1:18:36a figure of speech. I think that's probably the end of the show.
1:18:42Maybe forever. If you want to get in touch with us, there are a bunch of ways you can
1:18:46do that you can find the show notes and
1:18:49email link you can email us from our website
1:18:51relay.fm/connected this is episode
1:18:5568 so all the show notes will be at that
1:18:59page or in your podcast app of choice
1:19:01bunch of links we talked about today you
1:19:03can leave us feedback on twitter the
1:19:04show is underscore connected FM you can
1:19:07find Federico online @Vatici on
1:19:10twitter or at the lovely and glorious
1:19:13smacstories.net. You can find me on Twitter @ismh and
1:19:18f512pixels.net and get in touch we want to hear from you. You can visit our three
1:19:24sponsors go check them out. Thank you very much to lynda.com, igloo and foot
1:19:29cardigan. We'll be back next week all three of us should be back and with a
1:19:33lots more to talk about but until then Federico say goodbye.
1:19:37Arrivederci. Adios.