0:00:00[Music]
0:00:07From relay FM, this is Connected, episode number 41.
0:00:12This week's episode is brought to you by Hover, simplified domain management,
0:00:16PDF/Pen, ScanPlus from Smile, the app for mobile scanning and OCR, and OmniFocus, now on the Apple Watch.
0:00:24My name is Myke Curley and I'm joined as always by the editor-in-chief of Mac Stories
0:00:28and co-host of mine on virtual relay FM the one and only mr. Federico Fattici
0:00:33hello Myke how you doing buddy I'm doing well how are you I'm very well I'm happy
0:00:38to return the author to this show the author of all K base and 512 pixels mrs.
0:00:44Stephen Hackett hey guys it's good to be back I missed I missed being with you and
0:00:48our special time last week you were sorely missed how did the kidnapping go
0:00:53Stephen I mean I guess as far as kidnappings went pretty well there was
0:00:57- There was no violence really, it was just a lot of hugs
0:01:00and they gave me a Sprite, it was very nice.
0:01:03- A Sprite, that's very kind of them.
0:01:05- Yeah, well you know, I was like,
0:01:08oh what do you want to drink?
0:01:09It's like I don't drink, so here's a Sprite, I don't know.
0:01:11It was fine, I'm glad to be back, like I said.
0:01:13I missed our special time and I am relieved to take,
0:01:18I'm relieved to know that follow up can go on without me,
0:01:21I should say, but I am, I welcome the burden back.
0:01:25I think we'll just jump right in.
0:01:27- Please, please.
0:01:28- Okay, so we have a lot of follow up this week.
0:01:30We're gonna start in the world of Apple Bands.
0:01:32We spoke about the third party watch band
0:01:36that Apple announced a couple weeks ago.
0:01:39And several people wrote in about this,
0:01:41you know, with ideas of like
0:01:42what they would want to see in bands.
0:01:44You know, some people want some more options
0:01:46that are athletic, maybe things that Velcro,
0:01:47so they're easy to get on and off one handed.
0:01:49Lots of ideas, lots of good ideas.
0:01:53one listener wrote in and the name is tricky.
0:01:58Federico, you try.
0:01:59- Let's see, Joachim.
0:02:03- That's exactly how I would have said it, Joachim.
0:02:06- Cool. - Yeah.
0:02:07- Good, good.
0:02:08So the idea is that the band program may signify
0:02:15that Apple is actually going to stay with this design,
0:02:18at least for a couple of years.
0:02:19So remember when the, before the watch came out
0:02:21And even now people were like, oh, if they change the design
0:02:26or change the case thickness, the lugs won't fit
0:02:28and your bands won't be any good.
0:02:29You know, you buy all these bands,
0:02:31they're only good for a year.
0:02:32And I tend to agree with this line of thinking
0:02:34that the Apple Watch band program may show
0:02:36that Apple's gonna stay with this design
0:02:38for a couple of years, at least, you know,
0:02:41where if you go out and buy a really expensive band,
0:02:44you don't want it to be dead in 12 months
0:02:48or 18 months or something like that.
0:02:49But, you know, there'll be some longevity there.
0:02:51And I think that's good. I think that's important.
0:02:53You know, even Apple's bands range, you know, from, you know,
0:02:57relatively inexpensive to quite expensive.
0:02:58You go to that link bracelet and it's hundreds of dollars.
0:03:01And so I think it would be nice to, you know,
0:03:04have this thing stick around for a couple of years.
0:03:06I know you guys spoke about it last week, but
0:03:10do you guys just have one band for your watches?
0:03:13Is that correct?
0:03:14Yeah. So far I only have the sport band. Yeah.
0:03:17I went into an Apple store this weekend
0:03:21to see if they had any bands in stock and they they did tell me that they had
0:03:26had some but like just a couple but they are starting to come in and they told me
0:03:32that for whatever they know that they're gonna have a lot more in like two weeks
0:03:35like they're trickling in right now but in about two weeks time they're gonna
0:03:39start getting lots and lots in like the moment just sports but they're gonna start
0:03:42getting more and more so I mean that kind of seems to match what we're seeing
0:03:46I guess around in regards to the to this point about the Apple watch design and
0:03:53the bands I think the the bands the lug sizes will probably remain the same but
0:03:58I think there's still a lot of leeway for design changes around the lugs right
0:04:03you know I don't think I don't think you're saying this Steven but I think
0:04:08you could you can make a lot of changes to the way this device looks and have
0:04:11the original straps still fit? I think so too. If you want to worry about Apple Watch bands and
0:04:20compatibility in the future, like the closest parallel that I can run is would be the
0:04:26the dock connector on the iPhone. And if you use the dock connector and so the therapy in old one
0:04:34and the new Lightning connector. As the examples, Apple needed to replace the old connector
0:04:42for two reasons. One, it was too thick for new iPhones and two, they wanted to bring
0:04:49new features in terms of reversibility and faster performance, that kind of stuff. So
0:04:55Unless, now that I'm using these examples to consider Apple Watch bands, unless the
0:05:03lugs need to get dramatically thinner and Apple wants to bring new features to the way
0:05:10that the bands are attached to the watch, I don't see the design of the attachment changing
0:05:15anytime soon, frankly.
0:05:18You can have plenty of changes from a visual perspective, but the connector itself, I don't
0:05:23see why Apple would want to change that in two or three years unless they had this major
0:05:28breakthrough in terms of thinness for the watch, which is another topic that we could
0:05:33talk about.
0:05:34I don't think that a watch that is too thin would be as cool as a medium-sized watch or
0:05:42if they come up with some crazy idea for what a band can do when it's connected to the watch.
0:05:50So I don't know.
0:05:51even iPhone cases though if you compare watches to cases you get a couple of
0:05:56years on them in you know on the average because they don't tend to really change
0:06:00the the iPhone shell design too much right they were used outside that
0:06:07outside design for ever since the first phone you know the first one was a
0:06:10one-off but ever since then it's been every every other year they they keep
0:06:15the physical design so side by side unless you're a nerd you would never
0:06:18the difference between the two. There is an argument to be made about durability of some
0:06:24Apple Watch bands. Like I wonder if in two years my sport band will look as good as it is today,
0:06:30you know, because it touches your skin, you know, sweat and, you know, water, all kinds of
0:06:35possible damage that it's exposed to. I wonder if you even want to keep the same, you know, band for
0:06:44for more than two years. I don't know. I don't know. It's a...
0:06:48So you guys just have one band each. I have bought a couple. So mine came with the black sport band.
0:06:54I ordered a white sport band basically the same time and that's actually what I'm wearing most of the time.
0:06:59And I really like the way it looks with the stainless steel. But I've also ordered the classic leather buckle.
0:07:03And it came in last week. And what I worry about, like from the perspective that you just brought up Federico,
0:07:09Federico of longevity and durability
0:07:11The the sport ones, you know
0:07:13if you take your watch off and slide it out the sport band the the part that slides into the the channel is
0:07:18rubber itself and it has these little these little nubs that they grab on where the
0:07:23classic leather buckle out of the other nice ones and Milanese loop and some others have a
0:07:28Stainless steel lug that slides into the channel that feels much more solid and much more robust in the sport one
0:07:35So I wonder that if you know if I change these bands out every once in a while
0:07:39Oh the sport one is gonna wear out where they don't they don't
0:07:41Connect as firmly or they don't feel as secure in the way that they attach
0:07:46Where the stainless steel and obviously wouldn't do that because that that metal is not gonna get worn down over time
0:07:50No, no, I do wonder, you know, I think if you're buying the sport band, I think it's probably wise to go into it
0:07:57You know kind of knowing that it might not last as long as something, you know more expensive
0:08:01But it is it is nice to change them out with a stainless steel
0:08:04I don't have to worry about matching you know the lugs like like Federico you your dark aluminum support watch
0:08:10I would never put a band on with steel lugs because that's the way that I'm wired
0:08:15I want to be able to live with myself but um
0:08:17The the steel one gives you some flexibility and so it is fun to change them out like like Sunday
0:08:23You know we're went to church with the family. I didn't want to wear like the white sport band because it is flat
0:08:28More people have noticed the Apple watch when I wear the white band than with the others
0:08:32I think because it's just a white watch and is brighter and you notice it more
0:08:36And so I swapped it out for the classic leather buckle, which looks really great Marco Arman's got one
0:08:40You know, he said that it's very comfortable. I totally agree with that
0:08:42It's a it's a great band and it's just nice to like dress it up or dress it down or you know
0:08:48I kind of like the white one because it's a little unusual looking and it's a lot of fun
0:08:51and so I think you know getting back to the follow-up point of
0:08:55this third-party
0:08:58Program is gonna be really interesting to watch what comes out and I think it'll be a lot of fun to
0:09:02See what their parties do with it and to have options right just to be able to look at outside of what Apple's offerings
0:09:09are
0:09:11So up next we have a link from Conrad Hackett on Twitter who I'm not related to just a coincidence
0:09:19So if a you should totally follow Conrad's Twitter account because it is basically just
0:09:29Tweets of research. So he's a Pew research demograph
0:09:32demographer
0:09:35Steven and Conrad would make for a fun science show. Oh, yeah, it's a big
0:09:42So basically it's just tweets of like random facts and figures throughout the day and I just I love it
0:09:48And and just the other day
0:09:51Had a tweet yesterday had a tweet
0:09:53Drive on the left side of the road blue drive on the right side of the road red
0:09:57so it's a world map and you can see that the vast majority of the of the world of
0:10:01humankind as a pot as a species of
0:10:05breathing organisms drives on the correct side of the road, which is the right side and then there's some people who
0:10:10Seem to be crazy who live in these in these left side of the road countries. We spoke about that a couple weeks ago and
0:10:17While I may be in the vast minority for putting month and then date when I write
0:10:25Write the date. So today is o5 - 26 not 26 - o5
0:10:29I will claim victory in the side of the road that I Drive on and I think that's um
0:10:34I think that's a unique perspective that only our international tech podcast can can bring it's good. It's good stuff
0:10:40So I'm gonna tell you guys a story real quick
0:10:43So I saw this tweet from Conrad hack and I said, oh my gosh
0:10:47Like I feel so good and then I went to check my email and Ken
0:10:51Didn't ruin my day, but he brought me down a notch Ken humbled me
0:10:55He links to a similar
0:10:58graphic of right side versus left side driving and then he says and by the way regardless of which side of the road you drive
0:11:03On if you're driving a standard car for that country
0:11:06The driver is always positioned in the middle of the road next to the center line. So my hypothesis of
0:11:12Well the way that that we drive in the way that the people drive and say the UK, you know
0:11:18There's safety differences because you are
0:11:21If you're if you're on a head-on collision, you're further away from the center
0:11:25And of course, I'm a dummy and you know forgot or didn't register that
0:11:29If Myke gets in a car and you know, I keep in the steering wheels on a different side
0:11:33Yeah, so it was a it was a lot of it was an emotional roller coaster putting this follow-up together
0:11:39I think I need to lie down but um, why don't you let me take over for a moment then? No
0:11:44Okay, because I know what's next
0:11:47So some this was sent in to us by Jason Paul on Twitter
0:11:50And it's but I don't know how I hadn't come across this before it is incredible. It is a blog
0:11:56by a latest like a website and blog by a lady called Michelle Vandy or Vandy and
0:12:02She designs she is a designer and she does her design with her nose on a magic trackpad
0:12:08And it's one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen and her artwork is incredible
0:12:13And actually I've seen this this pop up more and more this week actually it's like people seem to be picking it up now
0:12:19It's like an interesting thing because nose tapping is a real revolution
0:12:23I don't know if you guys are familiar with that, but it is an actual revolution now
0:12:26And her work is incredible and it's fun to see her setup as she has like a magic trackpad
0:12:33attached to a tripod with velcro
0:12:36and I really like like the header image where she's using her nose to draw something and
0:12:41Like you can see the back of a Mac and then she's showing her hands and her website is called look no hands
0:12:45Not me which and I love it. I'm so happy that this has become part of my life
0:12:50It's it's a great URL and you should definitely go watch. I just was mesmerized
0:12:55You know Micah unlike you I you're much more video driven
0:12:59I want to read and so there are a lot of times if I start watching a video
0:13:02I just sort of skip through it and I was just mesmerized by the work that she's doing and the way that she's doing it
0:13:08And she's really good reasons for it
0:13:09is not just out of craziness but sort of out of a necessity and I think it's I
0:13:14think it's I think it's wonderful and and now we come to the time where I have
0:13:18to confess to you my brothers that I've sent I I have I have nose tapped and I
0:13:28have no swiped within the last 48 hours this is the best you could have ever
0:13:36- You people are crazy.
0:13:38- So here's what happened.
0:13:42Again, it's story time with Uncle Steven today
0:13:44in the follow up.
0:13:45I was on a bike ride yesterday,
0:13:47and so I had the workout app set to bike.
0:13:50I had it open ended, and you know,
0:13:52you can flip your wrist over, and you can see,
0:13:54you know, I had it set to how many miles I had gone,
0:13:56'cause it was a fixed course.
0:13:58I knew how long the bike ride would be,
0:13:59and I wanted to know kind of, hey, am I 25% or am I 40%?
0:14:03You know, kind of where am I?
0:14:05And at one point I turned my wrist over
0:14:08and it didn't wake up because that's the thing
0:14:10the Apple Watch does.
0:14:12And I didn't want to take my hand and cross it.
0:14:17So if you're riding, if you're on a bicycle
0:14:20and you're riding quickly, you don't want to cross hands.
0:14:22So you don't want to bring your left hand
0:14:24over to the right side 'cause something happens,
0:14:26you want your hands to be on either side.
0:14:28And it's very easy to get confused quickly
0:14:29if your hands are crossed or near each other.
0:14:31And so without, honestly without thinking,
0:14:35without Myke's face popping in my head.
0:14:37I brought the watch to my nose and tapped it
0:14:41and woke it up and it was actually on the wrong screen
0:14:44so I swiped over and saw the Miles again.
0:14:46And then I looked around and realized
0:14:49that at least one person had seen me do it
0:14:51that I was riding with and sort of gave me this weird look.
0:14:53- A thumbs up they gave you 'cause they were so proud of you.
0:14:55- No, it was more of a sort of what are you doing also
0:15:00is that the Apple Watch type look on their face.
0:15:04So I'm not joining the ranks of the nose-tapping revolution,
0:15:08but I have, I did my toe in a little bit, so.
0:15:14- Yeah, look, I even tried.
0:15:17It doesn't make any sense.
0:15:18If you, I don't know.
0:15:20- It makes sense. - Maybe the problem is--
0:15:21- If your hands are full, it makes sense.
0:15:23- If your hands are full,
0:15:25maybe you shouldn't use an Apple Watch.
0:15:27- What?
0:15:28Better to go. - If you're so busy
0:15:30that your hands are full,
0:15:31Just look at the watch and resume your manual watch activity when you have your hands free.
0:15:37Otherwise, why don't you use anything with your nose?
0:15:40Why don't you use any object in your house with your nose?
0:15:43I do. These days I just nose tap everything.
0:15:46I just walk around.
0:15:46So you just click buttons with your nose, you turn on the microwave with your nose.
0:15:53OK. Well, you must be some kind of weird human being.
0:15:57Hey, you may call me weird,
0:16:00But you've seen the amount of people that are doing this.
0:16:03That's not so dangerous for your nose to touch all the stuff.
0:16:06I don't really.
0:16:07Noses aren't supposed to touch stuff.
0:16:09They're supposed to smell stuff.
0:16:11I only use my nose in my Apple Watch.
0:16:13But I don't think it's weird because many people are doing it.
0:16:16You and I are outnumbered on this show.
0:16:18Many people are doing it because you launched a trend.
0:16:22Not because it's a good thing to do.
0:16:26It's like a club, you know?
0:16:29It's not a proper implementation of the nose.
0:16:32Wow.
0:16:33Open a radar.
0:16:35We have some exciting news Federico from you.
0:16:38So what did you receive in the mail this week?
0:16:42The connected t-shirt.
0:16:44I'm wearing it right now, in fact.
0:16:47I'm recording with our t-shirt.
0:16:49It's like an inception of wearable devices.
0:16:53In this case a shirt.
0:16:55And it looks great.
0:16:57Great quality.
0:16:58I do like the sentence in the front.
0:17:01I think it really makes for a good t-shirt.
0:17:06So congratulations to the designer of the t-shirt, I guess.
0:17:11Mr. Frank Talos.
0:17:12Yes, he's awesome.
0:17:14He/she, I don't know.
0:17:16A person who exists and never met this person.
0:17:22Could be an alien for me.
0:17:23He is an enigma.
0:17:25That's true.
0:17:27My favorite part about this tweet, besides your handsome photo here, is your replies
0:17:32are basically split between how handsome you are and how badly you need a haircut, which
0:17:36I find...
0:17:37Do I?
0:17:38I don't know.
0:17:39Really funny.
0:17:40No!
0:17:41Well, it was right after a shower, you know?
0:17:42No, my hair used to be that long.
0:17:43It's fine.
0:17:44But it just sort of cracked me up when I loaded this in a new tab just now, just looking through
0:17:50your replies.
0:17:51Yeah.
0:17:52There's some people who always tell me that I need a haircut.
0:17:54I guess I'm at the point where not even my dad tells me that I need a haircut so
0:17:59I think I'm good. It's like how people were compelled to tell me I need to cut
0:18:03my beard. Yeah that was weird right? Why would they tell you that? Why are people so
0:18:10compelled to tell you to go to the to get a trim? I don't know. It's silly and in
0:18:17Federico I think that you have more than earned the right to wear your hair
0:18:20however you want to so. Thank you. I think if you show up one day with a
0:18:23a bright red mohawk, I think it's fine.
0:18:27Although your headphones might have trouble going on over that.
0:18:30Probably.
0:18:32So do you want to take us home on the follow-up about your watch and some fitness thoughts?
0:18:36Yeah, just a quick follow-up that may sound dumb on the surface, but I think that there's
0:18:42actually a theme or at least a small topic to discuss.
0:18:47So it's basically something that I did today.
0:18:50So this morning I wanted to try something new and I wanted to try to do my daily workout
0:18:57on the indoor bike in the morning, right after breakfast instead of the afternoon, right
0:19:03after lunch.
0:19:05So my idea was that because these days I'm busy and I need to save as much time as possible,
0:19:11I would try to wake up earlier and have breakfast and then go have my workout.
0:19:17So I felt exhausted in the morning, it was like 30 minutes after I woke up and I'm not
0:19:22used to that kind of exercise in the morning.
0:19:26By the way, my morning would be like noon for people in Italy, so my concept of morning
0:19:33is basically based on the US time zone.
0:19:36Anyway, it was terrible because I wasn't used to doing workouts in the morning and I had
0:19:41to stop after 15 minutes, basically, instead of 30 minutes.
0:19:48So my exercise ring on the watch was half full or empty, if you're a negative person,
0:19:57I guess.
0:19:58And that was really bothering me today.
0:20:02I was just a couple of hours away from recording the show tonight after dinner, and there were
0:20:09those seven minutes because then this afternoon I walked a little and there were seven minutes
0:20:17of empty exercise staring at me in the green circle on the watch and I was very much bothered
0:20:24by those missing minutes. So because Myke knows I have a kind of big balcony in my house
0:20:33So I set the watch to an open outdoor walk workout and I walked alone on my balcony for
0:20:42seven minutes until I filled the green circle.
0:20:47So if you happen to be one of my neighbors from the other buildings and you were watching
0:20:53a person walking on the balcony, very intensively, for seven minutes, that was me.
0:20:58And I'm not crazy, I was just, well I guess I'm crazy by some standards.
0:21:02I was just trying to fill my exercise rings.
0:21:05The topic, the serious topic here, is how the watch is kinda pushing me to...
0:21:11Like with these circles, right?
0:21:12And I think that Marco brought about this this week.
0:21:16For visual people like me and I guess Marco, having that kind of encouragement and visualization
0:21:25helps me kind of get my activity done, like G-A-D, sort of like GTD for fitness people,
0:21:36maybe.
0:21:37It's like, I need to get this done today.
0:21:39I need to walk more.
0:21:40I need to exercise and I need to fill those minutes.
0:21:43And I know that maybe if you ask a physician or maybe like any kind of fitness expert,
0:21:48they will tell you, well, it doesn't really matter, you know, the circles and the interface
0:21:52and whatever.
0:21:53But to a person who doesn't know, like, "Is it okay if maybe I have a 15-minute workout
0:21:58today instead of a 30-minute one?"
0:22:01To somebody who's not an expert, that kind of interface and that kind of design pushes
0:22:06me to do more, and it bothers me when it's empty, so I guess that it's working.
0:22:13It is weird.
0:22:14I was walking on my balcony alone.
0:22:18My girlfriend was making fun of me.
0:22:20She told me I was crazy.
0:22:21She's probably right.
0:22:23But still, I got my reward on the watch.
0:22:26I'm not yet going to the lengths of walking on the balcony.
0:22:32But I am finding myself thinking about the activity rings more than I expected I would
0:22:39have done.
0:22:40I love it when I fill them.
0:22:42And I do make conscious decisions.
0:22:43Like today, I went to lunch with Dan Murrin and Matt Alexander and it's very obvious they're
0:22:48both in London right now, which is very nice.
0:22:52I could have cut my journey time down into London by 10 minutes by taking a
0:23:00tube or I could have had a 25 minute walk instead and I was like that will
0:23:05probably do quite well for the exercise ring I'm gonna go for the walk so I did
0:23:09and it helped so I'm making those kinds of decisions which I like I like that
0:23:13I'm doing that yeah I totally agree I've definitely my experience have been the
0:23:19same as y'all where it's something I think about something that I want to
0:23:23achieve and you know for me it's it's interesting the move and the stay in
0:23:27one are really easy for me to do because I'm I'm out about a lot during the day
0:23:31going to meetings and seeing clients and we have an open office so I'm just
0:23:34walking around the office and it's that exercise one that is harder to get
0:23:38because it measures elevated heart rate and yes that doesn't always happen
0:23:42walking around the office and so there's ever been a couple evenings it was like hey
0:23:45I'm gonna you know I'm gonna go walk around or maybe I'm gonna walk
0:23:48you know the long way to the parking garage to get my car or
0:23:52Definitely gonna take stairs now so the elevator to the office so
0:23:55It is funny. You know it like like you said it was easy to write that off and some people still are but I think it
0:24:02Is you know clearly?
0:24:04something that
0:24:06At least the three of us and other people wanna you know want to meet that goal
0:24:10And I think that's great, and it's I don't know about you guys
0:24:12But I don't I don't feel like that the watch is pushy with it like sometimes the stand thing is a little annoying like like yesterday
0:24:17I was I got home and and just kind of working on the couch for a little while
0:24:21And it's like hey you need to stand up like wow I'm in the middle of this
0:24:23I'm going to ignore you
0:24:25But other than that I just feel like it's a it's just a nice like subtle reminder to get up and do something and
0:24:30While not badgering you to death about it. Yeah, so I see people getting upset about the stand
0:24:35Goal thing like the reminder. It doesn't bother me at all
0:24:39I like that it's there and I can very easily ignore it about getting angry at it, you know
0:24:43Well people also get upset that they die eventually
0:24:45So, you know that is true. I might as well stand up a little more
0:24:50I don't think that ultimately solves the problem of death
0:24:54What you know anything helps and so I'm standing up more. I don't wanna you know, I already
0:25:02Already used one of my chances. So I'm standing up
0:25:08Should we take our first break?
0:25:09Yes.
0:25:10This week's episode is brought to you by Hover, the best way to buy and manage domain names.
0:25:16I love Hover.com.
0:25:17I feel like I start every Hover read with me saying I love Hover.com.
0:25:21It's because I do love Hover.com.
0:25:23I was talking about them to some friends today.
0:25:26And the great thing about Hover is that they just make this stuff simple.
0:25:33like it's not rocket science that you would have a company come in and just
0:25:37make the idea of creating domain registration like in just making it nice
0:25:42and easy and simple to use however no other company does it like hover does
0:25:47that you can go to hover.com you have a great idea for your project you have a
0:25:50name for any website you want to start something like that or you want to I
0:25:54don't know you want to buy a joke for a friend or a cute thing for a loved one
0:25:58I do all of those things with domains I'm a very weird person but I think
0:26:02you're all kind of a little bit weird like me and buy domains for these reasons.
0:26:05You just go right there, you type in the word or the domain that you're looking
0:26:08for, Hobber's very intelligent and smart domain robots will go behind the scenes
0:26:12and do some very quick searching for you. They'll tell you if the domain you want
0:26:16is available, they'll show you all of the TODs that they have that you can buy
0:26:20.com, .co, .me, .fish, .plumbing, .academy, you name it they've got it. Or they will,
0:26:26if none of them are available, they will show you some alternatives. So they might
0:26:30give you some different words and different suffixes and prefixes to go
0:26:33with what you've put in to give you a great domain. A great domain you are
0:26:37going to get for $12.99 for example if it's a .com that's where their domain
0:26:41starts like for .coms which is super cheap they have over 200 TOD options
0:26:46that you can take your pick from and they all and all of Hovers domains
0:26:50include who is privacy for free which is absolutely fantastic. They tick that box
0:26:54for you you don't even need to know about it but you've got your private
0:26:58information is going to be kept private. I love that they give this to you for free.
0:27:01I've in the past before I was enlightened to hover.com and used domain registrars but
0:27:06they didn't do that and people could just go online and find my personal information
0:27:10which just seems kind of crazy to me and hover take care of that for you. They have fantastic
0:27:15customer support, they have a no hold, no wait, no transfer telephone support policy.
0:27:19If you give hover a phone call you're going to be talking to somebody that's going to
0:27:22help you, they're not going to transfer you around to 20 different departments before
0:27:25they will. They have great email support as well which I've used in the past.
0:27:29They've really helped me fix some tricky situations that I seem to get myself
0:27:32into. They have great guides, they have great support documents as well. They
0:27:36have volume discounts if you want to buy your domains in bulk and bulk renew them.
0:27:40They have custom email addresses, storage and forwarding if you want to set up an
0:27:44email account for yourself or father you can do that. And they have their valet
0:27:47service as well where hover will take all of your domains from your current
0:27:49provider and transfer them over for you quickly and easily.
0:28:19most happening guys yet something something we have some Q&A that we want
0:28:27to do today couple of couple of Q&A tweets I saw you collected up for us
0:28:31Stephen yes so so up first from cost us yes I don't know why I always try to
0:28:40enter these things and I can't pronounce names do you guys wear your watches in
0:28:45the shower no I'm not a rubber scoble no under no circumstances agreed I I don't
0:28:53for a couple reasons a it just apples is not to you so I don't and I there's
0:28:59nothing in the world that I would need to alert me when I'm in the shower like
0:29:04nothing it you know just what what could be important to interrupt shower I don't
0:29:10now. Yeah I also take off my watch when I'm doing dishes. I just don't want to risk it,
0:29:18you know? I mean I got this expensive gadget all the way from Germany and you know it's
0:29:23been an adventure to get it here and now I should take a shower and do dishes with the
0:29:28watch? No way. I want to play it safe. I do, I will tweet about this how it feels really
0:29:35weird but I do rinse it off so like after a bike ride or working in the yard
0:29:40or something I will you know take it off and rinse it just just with water and
0:29:45then dry it now Apple says that's fine now Apple says things like soap you
0:29:49shouldn't do so so for that reason I don't I don't do it I don't wear it
0:29:52when I when I wash the dishes either but I definitely have rinsed it off because
0:29:57you know it gets it gets sweaty and kind of gross and I like to keep it clean so
0:30:01You've got to keep it clean. I just... I'm not... like my girlfriend, she takes hers
0:30:09off if she's even like washing her hands. She's just a little bit
0:30:13concerned about it. And I say it's fine and I don't worry about things like that. I
0:30:16don't worry about getting a little bit wet but like I didn't... I know you know
0:30:20I've heard people say like they could you could maybe swim with it. I'm not
0:30:23doing that and I'm... I just... I'm not gonna take it in the shower. I'm not gonna take
0:30:27in the bathtub like I can take it off for a few minutes and I'm fine I would
0:30:31just prefer not to go down that road I know Jason showers a bit on and that is
0:30:37crazy to me it's just crazy to me. Up next Justin he has a link and he
0:30:46says basically how do you guys name your devices so my method is very
0:30:55very basic I basically just put my Twitter handle ismh in front of the
0:31:00device name so ismh6+ or ismh air 2 it's not great but it's really just so I
0:31:09can I can spot one of my devices on the network like it like at work or
0:31:12something so what about what about the two of you?
0:31:16It is one of those things that I don't have an opinion about I just keep the
0:31:23default name? I used to, up until a little while ago, I would name all of my devices
0:31:30in a series. So like at one point they were all Avengers characters, another
0:31:35point they were all characters from Scott Pilgrim, and I would like give them
0:31:39names depending on the like the products characteristics, you know. Like I think
0:31:43like my MacBook Pro was like the Incredible Hulk because it was the
0:31:48biggest, the most powerful, that kind of thing. But then it kind of got to the
0:31:51point where I just for some reason I got one device and did I think it was when I
0:31:56got the 6+ I just didn't give it a name and then and now I just don't do it at
0:31:59all it's just a lot to keep up on I don't even know what my products are
0:32:02called like I have no idea what I've named them all like they're just
0:32:06whatever they are but but I get the naming thing I get why people do it but
0:32:13but yeah I don't do it. Stephen do you name anything like hard drives or like
0:32:16storage devices and stuff like that? Usually not my my NAS at home and the
0:32:25Mac Mini at home have names that sort of relate to each other but I'm definitely
0:32:30not as hardcore as some people. I've got a buddy of mine who's named
0:32:34computers after artists or after planets in the Star Wars system like really into
0:32:38it and again I get that but it's like it's another layer of things you have to
0:32:42remember so you know mine is really just a way for me to say hey this is mine I
0:32:45I can find it easily but still using the product name to keep it not completely abstracted
0:32:52away.
0:32:53But it's fun.
0:32:54It's fun that you get to do it.
0:32:55If you don't know how to do it on the Mac, it's in sharing system preferences and on
0:32:59iOS it's under general about and you can change your device name.
0:33:03And I think you do it in iTunes as well if you still use a cable to sync your device
0:33:06like a gentleman.
0:33:08I guess I would care more if I use the Mac because maybe you see the device name pop
0:33:14up on on stand more than you do on iOS so it makes sense for you guys to to
0:33:19care about this yeah I think that's definitely something I was you don't
0:33:25ever really see it so so we got one more should mention that these tweets know
0:33:33these questions have all come in on the Twitter via the connected QA hashtag if
0:33:38that's something that you would like to get involved with you can feel free to
0:33:42to do that and we pick them out every now and then to read it. I find it is
0:33:47nice for interaction. I'm all about the listener interaction these days and this
0:33:52is one way that keeps it nice and fresh.
0:33:56I think so. I think it's a lot of fun.
0:33:59So the last question is from someone whose name on Twitter is a period, so that's exciting.
0:34:08From all the places you have visited on earth what was your favorite and how
0:34:11long can you survive disconnected? I like that he specified or she specified on
0:34:17earth. Well you know I can't yeah I like to tell you about that trip but I can't
0:34:23yeah. What about you Federico? Okay so I'm totally the obvious one I'm gonna say
0:34:31a place in Italy first time that I went was three years ago in the Amalfi Coast
0:34:37and the entire Amalfi Coast is just beautiful but there was one place in
0:34:42particular which is called Ravelo which is this little town, very small town,
0:34:49that just on the top of the Amalfi Coast so you see the entire coast from
0:34:55this town and there's a specific spot in this town where there's
0:34:59like an open balcony, people go there to take pictures and you just you stand
0:35:05there and you look down and you see the entire coast like kilometers and
0:35:09kilometers of coast. It looks fake for for how much it's beautiful and I still
0:35:17take a look at the pictures that I that I that I that I took there just to
0:35:22remind myself of how beautiful that place was and it's I know that it's
0:35:26obvious because I'm in Italy and this place is in Italy but it was the first
0:35:30time that I visited these geomorphicals and this town three years ago and it made an impression
0:35:37of me on me and yeah, it's a go to the geomorphicals and go to Ravello, it's beautiful.
0:35:44I'm adding that to my travel dream journal as we speak.
0:35:50Do you keep one of those?
0:35:52No but I can start one.
0:35:56What about you Michael?
0:35:58So I was thinking about this, I mean I really enjoyed my time in Palermo last year, but
0:36:06I think I just enjoyed it because it was a really nice relaxing holiday as opposed to
0:36:10it necessarily being one of the best places that I've ever been to, but I did enjoy it
0:36:14a lot and will very much go back there.
0:36:17But I think probably the place that has left the biggest impact on me would probably be
0:36:23Portland, Oregon.
0:36:25I enjoyed it very very much when I was there and I look forward very much to going back
0:36:30again in September.
0:36:31I'm hoping to attend XOXO again.
0:36:35I really really love Portland a lot.
0:36:37It has a lot of what I like in a place.
0:36:39It has good food and good people and it's got a nice cool vibe to it which I quite enjoy.
0:36:45And I don't really last long being disconnected.
0:36:51I kind of tend... what I do... I don't really like to completely disconnect. I like to
0:36:56just significantly pare back what I do online. So I, you know, I have my phone or
0:37:03whatever with me and I'll keep it on and... but I'll like cut things out and I'll
0:37:08cut the amount of time that I spend online. But I don't... I don't like to fully
0:37:12disconnect myself. It just doesn't... I think... I think I would be too distracted
0:37:19by the anxiety of something going wrong that I need to fix, then if I
0:37:26just knew that I could be grabbed if it was needed, I feel better
0:37:30that way I think. Yeah I think that's where I line up as far as
0:37:36the disconnecting. You know, like, "Hey I'm not gonna do anything
0:37:40active but if a VIP or somebody emails me or texts me
0:37:45deal with it but not like going out spending time online like actively if that difference
0:37:51makes any sense. Yeah well I didn't, sorry, I didn't reply to this question. I've been
0:37:59forced to stay off the internet for weeks in the past and it was awful and like I don't know if
0:38:08it's some sort of like drug in a way that I need to get my daily dose of internet and
0:38:17Twitter and news, could be, but in the past when I went without being on the internet
0:38:24and replying to email and checking tweets, it was kind of terrible because it made me
0:38:29feel like in another age.
0:38:33So I feel like asking how long can you be without the internet would be like asking
0:38:38to someone who drives how long can you stay without a car.
0:38:43And you can stay without a car if you're being forced to but it would really suck.
0:38:50And that was my experience with not having the internet like three years ago.
0:38:56It was kind of awful but I survived.
0:38:58I mean I'm alive.
0:39:00So I don't know.
0:39:01I guess maybe for a couple of days.
0:39:04Like there was a couple of years ago, I wanted to kind of detox from Twitter.
0:39:09And I stayed off RSS and Twitter for like a week.
0:39:13But I came back crawling.
0:39:15Because I guess the internet is part of myself and my life at this point.
0:39:21And it would be, I wouldn't say like taking oxygen out of me because that would be too dramatic and too much.
0:39:27But, you know, it's a highly used utility that I can survive without, but I would kind
0:39:38of feel not miserable, but very much stuck in another era.
0:39:43Yeah, it would suck.
0:39:47Yeah.
0:39:48I was just going to wrap up by saying, by place, I spent some time in the Czech Republic
0:39:54in college, or in between high school and college, I think,
0:39:59and spent some time in the city of Prague,
0:40:01which is beautiful.
0:40:02This question is tricky because I'm sure there are places
0:40:06better than the places we have picked,
0:40:07but the beauty of it is places we have been.
0:40:10And Prague was just amazing in many different ways,
0:40:14and I would definitely love to go back
0:40:16to that part of the world at some point.
0:40:18It's a really interesting part of the world.
0:40:20And it's a good question.
0:40:23all good questions this week. And like Myke said, #ConnectedQA on Twitter. You can really
0:40:32ask us anything, as the kids say.
0:40:34Can ask anything that you want, but it doesn't mean we'll answer.
0:40:37So can I have a real-time #ConnectedQA for a question that I've been thinking about for
0:40:44a few days? Of course, I didn't tweet it because it would be weird for me to tweet. Can I just
0:40:51ask you guys?
0:40:52Yeah, so do you know if Dark Sky, Myke this is probably something that you know, supports
0:41:03notifications for weather alerts in Italy or in Europe?
0:41:07It does for me in London, yeah I can get rain alerts and stuff like that.
0:41:12Can you get those on the watch?
0:41:15Yes.
0:41:16So basically when it starts raining you get a notification.
0:41:21If I wanted to, I actually don't have the rain one set up anymore because it used to
0:41:25just happen in real time and it made me sad.
0:41:28Yeah, I mean you live in London and it's just like always vibrating, just endlessly.
0:41:32It's always raining.
0:41:34Yeah, I gotta check it out because there's, you know, lots of people love Dark Sky.
0:41:40I wanna love it too, it just doesn't wanna love me back.
0:41:43Oh I love Dark Sky, that's the weather app that I use and it's mainly because I like
0:41:48some of the things that it does but it's rain stuff is excellent and you know we
0:41:53have a rain thing here so it's nice to know.
0:41:56Do you? Really?
0:41:57Uh-huh. Happens once every couple of years.
0:42:00That's why you want to live in Portland. It's like the same weather.
0:42:04Yeah.
0:42:05I see what you've done.
0:42:07Can we move on? I'm sorry, Myke.
0:42:12No, it's good. It's good. That was a good question because it's good for people to know that.
0:42:17because I recommend that.
0:42:19When I talked about the weather last time, people got upset
0:42:23because I told you guys about looking out of the window
0:42:28and we got people saying "I don't have a window"
0:42:30and it was kind of a bummer for me, so I don't, you know.
0:42:34I forgot about that. That was a lot of fun.
0:42:36Yeah. No, it really wasn't. I don't know.
0:42:40So, yeah, Dark Sky. I'll check it out again. Thank you.
0:42:43I don't know what's wrong with you Federico Viticci, you can just look out of the window.
0:42:46Mm-hmm.
0:42:47But he doesn't have a window!
0:42:51This week's episode of Connected is also brought to you by OmniFocus.
0:42:56I flat out love OmniFocus.
0:42:58I personally have tried every other task management system and for me, nothing gives me what I
0:43:03want like OmniFocus does.
0:43:05I put everything in there, my life is totally planned out.
0:43:08Like I think I'll be a little bit lost about it.
0:43:10I think you can pretty much assume that you would have no podcasts from me if OmniFocus
0:43:15didn't exist because it all goes in there.
0:43:17I have like all to remind me to do the prep, to remind me to sometimes do the editing,
0:43:21you know, all sorts, everything goes in to OmniFocus.
0:43:24It is one of my most important tools for being able to get my work done and it's just becoming
0:43:29more and more important for me every single day, especially since I became full time doing
0:43:33the stuff that I love.
0:43:35I currently use and love OmniFocus 2 for the Mac and the recent universal update for iOS
0:43:40as well. OmniFocus on the iPad and the iPhone now live together in one
0:43:45universal app which just keeps getting better and better and today I want to
0:43:48tell you a little bit more about OmniFocus for the Apple Watch. It comes
0:43:52for free with that universal version of OmniFocus. It's just waiting for you to
0:43:56install right there. It's just sitting there waiting for you to become more
0:44:00productive on the go. The app itself, so the OmniFocus app on the Apple Watch is
0:44:06a really easy way to get just a quick view of what you have due for today and
0:44:10what's upcoming and maybe anything that's in the past as well. You can very
0:44:13quickly and easily get a glance what you need to, no pun intended, to take care of
0:44:18and you can even check things off right from within the Apple Watch. I do this
0:44:21all the time. Or like you know actionable notifications are a great one they come
0:44:25up I can complete things and snooze things that all comes up on the Apple
0:44:28Watch as well. You can also use the power of Siri and OmniFocus for the Apple
0:44:32Watch to add items directly to your inbox and it kind of makes you look and
0:44:36feel like a super productive secret agent if that's the kind of thing you
0:44:38want. You can have with continuity as well you can pick up from the last
0:44:42perspective, context or project that you were looking at on your iPhone making
0:44:46sure you are always where you need to be. And if you want to just get a quick view
0:44:50of what's next on your list for today then the Apple Watch Glance has got you
0:44:55covered as well. The awesome people at the Omni Group have been have created
0:44:59this. This is something I haven't seen before. This is really really cool. They have a
0:45:02pretty much full functioning demo of OmniFocus on the Apple Watch on their
0:45:06website. So if you go to omni-group.com/omnifocus you can get a feel for how OmniFocus on the
0:45:12Apple Watch works before you go ahead and buy the Universal OmniFocus for iOS app. The
0:45:18OmniGroup back everything up that you've just spoken about with an amazing support team
0:45:22and they are so confident that you're going to love OmniFocus that they even offer a 30
0:45:27day return policy. This isn't something that you see a lot of iOS app developers do, but
0:45:31OmniFocus do.
0:45:32So go check out OmniFocus today by going to omnigroup.com/omnifocus.
0:45:38Thank you so much to the OmniGroup for supporting this show and helping us out here at relay.fm.
0:45:44So the next time you two think I'm crazy, I'm gonna send you this bit of Spotify news
0:45:52as confirmation of the fact that sometimes I may be crazy, but other times I'm not so
0:45:59stupid.
0:46:00The thing is, when you started that off, I was expecting you to go "the next time you
0:46:05think I'm crazy, you can see this and you know I'm right" but it ended up being like
0:46:08"sometimes I'm still a little bit crazy and sometimes I'm still a little bit stupid, but
0:46:12this shows me that sometimes I'm kind of not".
0:46:16I don't like to brag, and I'm a honest guy, sometimes I'm stupid, sometimes I'm not. I
0:46:22feel like more people should be open about their stupidness, or stupidity, whatever it's
0:46:27called I don't know. Anyway, did you know that there was a Spotify event last week
0:46:35and did you know that you can now sync music to your running tempo? Did you know?
0:46:42I saw that and it made me think of the old Nike+ iPod integration where you
0:46:50could have like a power song so if you were going up a hill or needed like a
0:46:53boost you'd be like "power song" and it would play your favorite I don't know
0:46:57One Direction tune. Yeah because that's what the kids listen to right? I don't know.
0:47:05Literally the first band name that popped in your mind was One Direction.
0:47:13I was thinking about that it was in my mind because Stephen Hawkins had
0:47:18that question and answer was like maybe there's a universe where One
0:47:21direction didn't break up and there was lots of hilarious things about that but
0:47:26so what you're saying is if I'm running a certain pace it can pick music to
0:47:30match my pace so I'm running slow because I'm slow if I'm running fast
0:47:33throw ups and Norwegian death metal how does it do that though do I need to tell
0:47:38it like how does it know how so it's not kind of it's not clear because of course
0:47:43Spotify cannot doesn't have an Apple watch app and they cannot even even if
0:47:48they did, they couldn't access the heart rate sensor in this version of the WatchKit developer
0:47:56tools. So the last time we spoke about music on the Apple Watch, I'm bringing this up because
0:48:02I mentioned that it would be cool if Apple's music app could look into your heart rate when you're
0:48:09doing, you know, running, walking or doing any kind of exercise and match music to your beat,
0:48:15basically. And Spotify announced this new Spotify running, it's called a new feature, a new listening
0:48:22mode, I guess. And it's not clear exactly what kind of technology they're using because this is
0:48:28only on the iPhone. So it could be GPS and the accelerometer, so that's my best guess. They're
0:48:37using a combination of the two to kind of guess how fast you're going. You can also manually
0:48:45tweak the BPM that is displayed on screen, but otherwise Spotify tries to detect a new BPM
0:48:52every X minutes and they try to match songs to basically how fast you're running. And it's a
0:49:01It's a good idea, I think.
0:49:04I'm not sure about its limitations on the iPhone.
0:49:08It would make more sense with a full Apple Watch SDK or any other wearable device that
0:49:13offers a heart rate sensor that lets you look into your actual heart rate instead of trying
0:49:20to guess your speed by using the GPS and accelerometer.
0:49:24But it proves that there's potential to the idea of, you know, let's use all these fitness
0:49:32and health features to change the behavior of apps that are not related to fitness, like
0:49:37Spotify.
0:49:38It's a music app.
0:49:40What's the deal with fitness?
0:49:41Well, it turns out that because a lot of people are using Spotify to listen to music while
0:49:45they're working out, you know, doing exercise and running, it could be a good idea to try
0:49:49to put them better in the mood, to kind of encourage them with music that is matched
0:49:56to their speed. So it's a nice idea. I still don't have the feature on my Spotify account.
0:50:03It's apparently available to users, I just don't see it, so probably it's rolling out
0:50:09globally, I don't know. Myke, do you have the feature in your Spotify?
0:50:14>> I'm taking a look right now.
0:50:17Because if you do, you need to go running right now in London in the middle of the night.
0:50:25Not gonna do that, buddy.
0:50:26But I don't have it.
0:50:27I don't have it.
0:50:28Because apparently it pops up in the sidebar and it's like "Hey, would you like to try
0:50:32out something new?"
0:50:36Can you try to go to the settings?
0:50:37Because I saw some people go to the settings and get a message to try the new running mode.
0:50:42And I'm thinking if it's not the accelerometer, they could be using the motion stuff on an
0:50:49iPhone.
0:50:50The M7?
0:50:51Yeah, the M8 I think it's called on the latest iPhone.
0:50:55Yeah, the motion coprocessor or whatever.
0:50:59And they could detect if you're running, I'm not sure if you can detect the speed of running
0:51:05in the settings, right?
0:51:06I went into the settings, didn't see anything, went back out to the main menu and it said
0:51:10running on the side.
0:51:12It's fine.
0:51:13Tips with Tichi, Spotify edition.
0:51:17Because they have, I thought this was the case, they have some music that's specifically
0:51:20been made to benefit from this, like TSO did a bunch of stuff, where the BPM can change
0:51:25and the tempo can change, so it can adapt to the way that you run.
0:51:30Yeah okay, there we go, look at that.
0:51:32I'll have to ship my iPhone to you Federico because I don't run, I don't like running.
0:51:37I think that this is limited to certain countries right now, I think, is the way that they're
0:51:42doing it.
0:51:43And they're rolling it out slowly as these things tend to happen.
0:51:48But it's very interesting.
0:51:49I think that it's a smart thing to do.
0:51:52This wasn't the thing that I was most interested by at that event though, which was, as you
0:51:59can imagine for me, was Spotify is adding podcasts to their playlist functionality.
0:52:07What do you think of having not just audio podcasts but also video content they're doing?
0:52:13They're doing some partnerships also with some exclusive content which they love to
0:52:18have exclusive stuff in their brand.
0:52:20Yeah, I think video is kind of like, no that's not what people are.
0:52:23Kind of weird.
0:52:24That's not, you know, you are streaming, you're music streaming and audio streaming I can
0:52:29get on board with, like any type of audio.
0:52:32But don't try to be a video app as well, that's something totally different.
0:52:35leave that to YouTube because you're not gonna win there. You can't beat YouTube.
0:52:41You could create a compelling all types of audio platform, right? Because that
0:52:46that space is not one. Like SoundCloud's doing an interest in playing it but it's
0:52:52not over yet. YouTube it's over, right? At least for a for quite a while YouTube's
0:52:58got that tied up and Spotify having exclusive content from some comedy TV
0:53:02shows is not going to make isn't it will not make for a compelling video play
0:53:06they even need to do a lot more or just not blow up but I think the podcast stuff
0:53:12is really interesting and we've had a few people ask but you know just to make
0:53:17it clear all of the podcasts are currently on Spotify are there because
0:53:21Spotify asked them there is no method I've looked it up there is no way to get
0:53:27anything included. They have no terms, they have nothing. This is very much a "we will
0:53:34ask you" at the moment. But maybe in the future, who knows? Depending on what their terms look
0:53:39like, we may want to put our shows there. But I think it's interesting. Again, I haven't
0:53:47seen what the podcast function looks like, because that I can't see right now. I don't
0:53:54know where you would even find that. I don't think they have a specific section even.
0:53:58Oh you need to go running first.
0:54:00I don't think that that's true.
0:54:01I'm searching for this American life. No it's not, it's not there. So I don't know, again,
0:54:09I don't know how that works, maybe that's coming as well, who knows, it's basically impossible to tell.
0:54:14But this is something that's interesting to me but I don't think that Spotify are really doing
0:54:22enough to make them a real player here yet. Maybe that's something that comes later.
0:54:29But they didn't really seem to say of any specific features or any functionality that they're going
0:54:35to do. It's kind of just like, "Oh, you'll be listening to a mix and then sometimes a
0:54:39two-hour tech podcast will pop up in the middle." It's like, "Okay, that's not really, again,
0:54:45what we're looking for." I understand what they're trying to do with that. They're trying to make
0:54:48radio. They're trying to make radio, that's what they're trying to do. It reminds me of Silicon
0:54:52Valley. I put radio on the internet! Oh you watch it season two? Yeah. Oh it's so good.
0:54:57It's very, in my opinion it's better than season one. But yeah, that's another story for another
0:55:01day. But like that's all it is and I don't think they're doing enough there. But this is just the
0:55:07start. Like I expect them to build this up and I think if you're gonna try it, the best way to try
0:55:13it is to curate some selected partners that you can work with to try and improve your offering.
0:55:16but Spotify doing this makes sense to me. I don't know if you guys think about that.
0:55:21I mean I guess my question is as someone who doesn't use streaming services, which is well
0:55:29established on our show, it from the outside it feels like okay why like are you trying to
0:55:36to go from like the place I go for music to the place I go for all like entertainment on my
0:55:44my computer and like if so this is a very weird way it seems like a very
0:55:48weird way to go about it like if you want to be like my podcast client on my
0:55:54Mac then like you should let me add podcasts you should let people like us
0:55:57who own a network to partner with you and it I don't know maybe it's just an
0:56:02early step and maybe there's another shoe to drop but it feels like it's sort
0:56:07of like half done and I don't really know why it's half done.
0:56:10So, I have a thought that I've kind of been thinking about for a while and it pertains
0:56:18maybe in a way to Spotify also.
0:56:21And so I've been noticing, like, I wouldn't say a trend, maybe a common pattern in some
0:56:27companies, especially in the past year.
0:56:30And there's quite a few companies who are consolidating all, you know, multiple technologies
0:56:38in a single place.
0:56:40So take a look, and this happens with video streaming, take a look at YouTube and they're
0:56:45doing traditional video stuff but they're also doing live streaming and they're also
0:56:51kinda trying to take on Twitch, you know, for streaming video games and they're trying
0:56:56to bundle all these features together.
0:56:59And there's Spotify, it's trying to bring music and podcasts and now video together
0:57:06in the same kind of silo, in the same Vrunce ecosystem, because it's just a Spotify service,
0:57:11it's a big, big service. So they're trying to bring all these features together. And
0:57:15this is also happening with media sites. Take a look just now, for example, at Vox Media,
0:57:21they acquired Rekode, the website from Walt Mossberg and Carlos Wisher, and all these
0:57:27big conglomerations, all these big companies that are trying to put everything together
0:57:32in a single basket. Whether it's music or video or media content that you read and watch
0:57:38on the internet. And I don't know how I feel about that. Because on the other hand, there's
0:57:44companies like Google and Apple, they have different apps and services and solutions.
0:57:51So Apple has the Apple ecosystem, but they have the podcast app, they have the iTunes
0:57:58store and then they're gonna have music streaming and Google, Google has a lot of properties
0:58:06but they also have, you know, Google Music and they don't have podcasts I think.
0:58:12But basically it's like a contrast between these big companies, they have ecosystems
0:58:18and these other companies are trying to make big services with tons of features and I don't
0:58:23know what that contrast means, I just think it's kind of weird as a user to have on one
0:58:31hand huge ecosystems, on the other hand there used to be a bunch of different websites and
0:58:38services and apps and now all these maybe smaller companies because they are not ecosystems,
0:58:44they're trying to bundle together all this stuff and it can be confusing.
0:58:51Yeah, I think there's this interesting thing where some companies are unbundling, like
0:58:58Facebook, and then some companies are bundling.
0:59:02There's no trend right now.
0:59:04It's like if there's anything media related, actually, they seem to be just...
0:59:07Everyone's just trying to pull it all in, we'll take it all.
0:59:10But if it's an app like this, like a social network, they're all about, "Let's just break
0:59:14it up into tiny thousand pieces."
0:59:16Twitter's doing the same, right?
0:59:17we're gonna talk about a bit more about that kind of thing with them in a minute
0:59:20but there is like everybody's just kind of like if you're in media you want all
0:59:26of the media and yeah I don't know I did want to say it before we before we did
0:59:32move on about this I'm feeling myself just going back to Spotify now Beats
0:59:37music is just annoying me too much I use Spotify exclusively on the desktop now
0:59:41because I can't deal with with the Beats Music web player anymore it's driving me
0:59:47crazy and then that's also pushing me towards the iOS app but you know I'm not
0:59:54gonna make any decisions for at least a couple of weeks right because we might
0:59:57end up seeing something but Beats is too buggy and I know it's
1:00:02because I don't think it's being actively worked on and that's
1:00:05frustrating me so Spotify is and the app works fine and I'm enjoying using it again.
1:00:11Yeah I have my Spotify subscription all paid up until next
1:00:19month so good timing for you know waiting for Apple.
1:00:23Perfect, that is pretty perfect. Right should we talk about, we'll take a break but when we
1:00:29come back I want to talk about Roma, I saw her in the now Vox Media
1:00:34own recode about Twitter and Flipboard which seems very interesting and kind of peculiar.
1:00:42This week's episode of Connected is also brought to you by Smile Software and PDF/Pen Scan Plus
1:00:47which is the app for mobile scanning and OCR. With PDF/Pen Scan Plus for the iPhone and
1:00:53iPad you can scan your documents and use OCR directly on the device from wherever you are.
1:00:59It's a super powerful, really great looking app.
1:01:02It's always in your pocket, it's always with you and that's what makes the key difference.
1:01:06Having all this power is one thing, but having it in your pocket all the time, that takes
1:01:11you to a whole new level.
1:01:12PDF PenScan+ 2.0 is incredible.
1:01:16So if you're an existing owner of this app and you haven't upgraded to 2.0, you can.
1:01:20It's a free upgrade for existing users and it does some stuff that I don't even know
1:01:25how it does it.
1:01:26just seems like it's magic of some description. So what you can do now is
1:01:31let's say you have a stack of documents that you need to scan, maybe a stack of
1:01:34receipts, a stack of invoices or anything, you need to scan it and you want to send
1:01:38it off to your services or you want to send it off to PDF/PEN to do some
1:01:41editing in afterwards. You can set them on your desk, you can grab your iPhone,
1:01:46you can open PDF/PEN scan plus, you point it at your document and then that's it.
1:01:51And all you need to do is point it, take the next document away, point it, take the
1:01:54document away. You don't press any buttons, you don't need to tap anything to adjust anything.
1:01:58PDF/PEN Scan+ will automate capturing the image. It will crop it for you, it will set all of the
1:02:03sizes that you need and also the color depth of the scan. You don't need to do anything,
1:02:07it takes all of the taps out of the process. You just point your phone and go. You can export
1:02:12multiple documents at once, you can send them to iCloud, you can send them to Dropbox and you can
1:02:18scan them all of OCR, it's all on the device. So it will name your files by using OCR, it will name
1:02:23your files by date automatically and you can also grab the text of your scan for copying
1:02:28and pasting into other apps. This is just super super cool. PDF/Pen Scan Plus is available
1:02:34now in the PDF Business Kit Bundle from Smile in which you will get PDF/Pen Scan Plus and
1:02:40PDF/Pen for iPad and iPhone. So you can scan everything in PDF/Pen Scan Plus and then do
1:02:45some amazing editing and adjusting and sign things, redact things in PDF/Pen for iPad
1:02:51an iPhone. You can get both of these apps in the PDF business kit bundle for £21.99.
1:02:57If you were to buy them on their own, PDF Pen Scan Plus is £6.99. This is US dollars
1:03:00by the way. And PDF Pen for iPad and iPhone is £19.99. So you can get them both for £21.99.
1:03:07It's a fantastic deal that you should be taking advantage of. The best scanner is the one
1:03:12that you have with you. So go and grab PDF Pen Scan Plus from the App Store today. You
1:03:18You can learn more at smile software dot com slash connected.
1:03:21Thank you to smile for the continued support of this show.
1:03:26So I saw on recode that apparently twitter are in talks to buy flipboard.
1:03:36This doesn't seem like something that's completely outlandish because it kind of seems to mesh
1:03:43with what twitter are doing right now.
1:03:46They are a media company in essence and they are trying to collect everything.
1:03:51But then they also want to keep it all nice and separate like they do with Periscope and
1:03:55Vine and that kind of thing.
1:03:56But they want to have their collection.
1:03:58So my first question, I don't.
1:04:00Do either of you use Flipboard anymore?
1:04:02No.
1:04:03No.
1:04:04No, but I get lots of traffic from Flipboard.
1:04:06So there must be someone using Flipboard.
1:04:08So what is that?
1:04:09Is that people setting it up themselves?
1:04:10They're using RSS?
1:04:11Is Max Stories on Flipboard?
1:04:13I don't even know.
1:04:14I don't know if that makes sense.
1:04:15I have a, what do they call them, custom publications.
1:04:20Like I, Mac Stories on Flipboard gets a really fancy, nice layout and we do revenue sharing
1:04:29for ads with Flipboard.
1:04:31And it's actually quite a good program.
1:04:33We get, you know, a nice kickback from readers on Flipboard and they don't see the sponsorships
1:04:40but they get this nice layout and if they choose to, for some reason, maybe they wanna,
1:04:47I don't know, maybe they wanna see an animated gallery, one of those animated charts that
1:04:52we do or maybe they wanna take a look at a script, you know, they wanna have the full
1:04:58site features, they can jump back to the original website inside Flipboard and that's where
1:05:04I see the traffic from Flipboard.
1:05:07It's quite a good program.
1:05:09The layout on Flipboard is very nice, I just don't use it because I personally prefer to
1:05:15use RSS and Twitter, and I think I'm fine.
1:05:20But there's lots of people who use it to follow magazines from other people, to follow specific
1:05:27sections like recipes or being healthy.
1:05:31It's very popular, I think.
1:05:33So is that what they do now then?
1:05:34Is that like a big part of Flipboard, is like these custom publications?
1:05:38Because I don't even know what they're doing these days.
1:05:42They do a bunch of stuff, like with big or relatively big websites.
1:05:49They do this kind of "hey, do you want to have a custom design, do you want to implement
1:05:53ads on Flipboard and stuff?"
1:05:55They also are quite big on the magazine functionality, so it's like a social network kind of as a
1:06:03user.
1:06:04You can curate your own magazines which is basically like a collection of links and those
1:06:10links turn into nice articles on Flipboard because they get the nice typography, the
1:06:15nice image previews and you can curate a bunch of magazines.
1:06:20I actually used to have a video game magazine that people could subscribe to to see the
1:06:26links of video game articles and reviews that I was reading.
1:06:30So it's like a sort of fancy bookmark system that is public and people can follow and that
1:06:37has been a big focus for the company in the past year.
1:06:41And now they're also on the Apple Watch for some reason.
1:06:45You can also download Flipboard for the Apple Watch and I don't understand how it works
1:06:49because it kind of shows me news that I don't care about but if I open the app I see interesting
1:06:56highlights so I don't know how the watch app works.
1:07:00But yes, Myke, there are tons of websites with custom designs and there are, I don't
1:07:06know how many users do in magazines, they have statistics I think on their blog, and
1:07:12they also, I think last year, they made this big splash with using some kind of custom
1:07:19web technology to write the Flipboard web app, and I think John Gruber also linked to
1:07:25the HTML stuff, or not.
1:07:28I don't remember if it was some kind of advanced HTML5 or not,
1:07:33that Freeboard was doing to have high performance on the web.
1:07:38They've been doing, especially on the technology side,
1:07:41I think they've been doing really interesting stuff.
1:07:44And I think personally that's why Twitter
1:07:46may be looking at the company.
1:07:49Especially, I mean, to me, it is kind of obvious why.
1:07:54Just look at the timing.
1:07:56Just after Facebook launches Instant Articles, Twitter is rumored to be having talks with
1:08:03Flipboard, which is kind of like Instant Articles, because it is closely tied to your Twitter
1:08:10account.
1:08:11It is by far the best way to pull links from a social account, is to use Twitter with Flipboard,
1:08:18and they turn those links into nicely formatted articles that have better performance on a
1:08:25mobile device than opening an inline web view.
1:08:29So it's kind of obvious to me why they may consider this stuff.
1:08:34Especially, again, also if Twitter wants to kind of increase the way that they present
1:08:41themselves to users as a way to discover what's interesting to you.
1:08:47Twitter rolled out a redesign of their homepage with a focus on like you can come to Twitter
1:08:54and find interesting stuff, whether it's politics or sports or technology, video games, music
1:08:59and Flipboard, you know, the magazines, the highlights, the social accounts, they seem
1:09:04to be in line with the "let's find interesting stuff" on Twitter.
1:09:09Yeah, I mean, I agree.
1:09:13I think, you know, we're talking about Spotify, like adding things on to its core service
1:09:19to like expand its footprint and I could see them you can see Twitter wanting to
1:09:24bring more content you know natively to their their applications and their
1:09:29website and from that perspective it makes sense. Let me ask you this Federico
1:09:35I do not have the same agreement with Flipboard that you do I mean a lot of
1:09:38people read 512 and Flipboard but it's through adding RSS or searching it's
1:09:42not like this custom layout that you do. If Twitter were to buy them like what
1:09:47What would Twitter have to do to keep you around or what could Twitter do to make you
1:09:52want to break that agreement and move on?
1:09:56Well, I don't know.
1:10:00I guess, I mean, I already have a custom design.
1:10:05So unless they start injecting weird stuff into my articles, which by the way anyone
1:10:14could do as long as you pull my RSS feed which is a full text RSS and you try to reformat
1:10:19it and you want to put ads in the middle of my text, anyone can do that.
1:10:25I just have an agreement with Flipboard to do this program for publishers and they also
1:10:30give me nice statistics on the number of readers and flips, it's what they call the views,
1:10:35called flips.
1:10:37So I don't know what Twitter could possibly do to make me say "hey this is too creepy
1:10:43at this point or maybe it's not worth it. Because I mean, if they really want to, anyone
1:10:50can already read my articles from IRS without visiting my site. But my advantage I guess,
1:10:59my decision to base my business model not on page views anymore but on sponsorships
1:11:07and talking about apps, that doesn't affect me at all.
1:11:13So no matter the device you want to read, as long as you read me, I'm fine.
1:11:21That's actually quite good for me because it frees me from having to worry about the
1:11:26kind of stuff that you mentioned, having to worry about Twitter changing the program.
1:11:30"Hey, what if people don't come to my site anymore?"
1:11:33That's fine as long as they read me, but you know.
1:11:37- Yeah, no, I think it's fair,
1:11:39and I think it will be interesting.
1:11:41I think it does make sense from the content perspective.
1:11:44I don't think they need Flipboard for their web technology,
1:11:47but we'll see where that goes.
1:11:50I mean, it's interesting.
1:11:52Thought we could wrap up this week
1:11:56talking about Johnny Ive a little bit.
1:11:57So there was an article in The Telegraph yesterday,
1:12:01which was a holiday, a memorial day here in the States.
1:12:05Written by Stephen Fry, kind of a part,
1:12:09day in the life of Johnny Ive a little bit,
1:12:12which we've seen a lot of, talking about his roles
1:12:15and his responsibilities, and then sort of breaking the news
1:12:19that he is now Apple's chief design officer.
1:12:23That was confirmed via a company-wide memo
1:12:28that 9to5 leaked or had leaked to them.
1:12:30And then also in the show notes we have an article from Ben Thompson about his thoughts
1:12:36on it.
1:12:37It is really worth a read, a really great article from Ben.
1:12:42I didn't know what you guys thought about this.
1:12:44I mean, on one hand, people are saying, "Hey, that's great.
1:12:48Clearly it's a title that's well deserved."
1:12:52And a lot of people, including myself, my immediate thought was, "Oh, well, this is
1:12:55like you know Apple securing their future with him by saying hey you know
1:13:00you can be a chief officer I'm sure it comes with a lot more money a lot more
1:13:04power we want you to be here a long time but but Ben's take and not to ruin his
1:13:08article you should definitely go read it is that maybe that's not the case maybe
1:13:12this is sort of the beginning of the end because in the article Stephen Fry you
1:13:18know he names some lieutenants and says you know they're taking over day-to-day
1:13:23day management stuff of these big projects and Johnny Ive's gonna be able
1:13:26to kind of be free to do these these bigger picture things. I just I don't
1:13:30know do you guys think this is good news bad news and different news? Well I'm I
1:13:37guess what is it called? Johnny is kind of like Schrodinger's cat. He's both
1:13:43simultaneously promoted and he's living Apple. If you read Twitter people are
1:13:52freaking out because it's being promoted and that's in theory a good thing
1:13:57because you can hand off you know day-to-day operations to people so you
1:14:02get to sit in a chair travel more and you still have quite you know a say on
1:14:09what people do but also apparently there's a theory that people who get
1:14:15promoted it's like the beginning of the end and in a way maybe I can understand that.
1:14:24It's like first you start by handing off you know responsibilities and day-to-day operations to
1:14:31people and you get a promotion but it's kind of like a way to say yeah I'm you know backing off
1:14:37and then you know in a couple of years I'm gonna retire and do whatever I want with all my millions
1:14:43of dollars in the bank. So if you want my opinion, Stephen, I do. I don't know.
1:14:51Like, how am I supposed to have an opinion on what it means? Like, it's always fun to speculate,
1:15:04you know, on Apple and this kind of stuff. You know, iOS, OS X, new MacBooks. But that's a level
1:15:10a lot of speculation that maybe can take us somewhere. But in this case we have no chance
1:15:18of knowing or even possibly understanding all the motivations behind this. So what's
1:15:28What's the other? I'm just citing all these paradoxes and facts from life today.
1:15:39The Occam's razor? In this case I would go with the simplest explanation.
1:15:45Maybe Apple just wanted to promote Johnny Ive and they wanted to also highlight these
1:15:52two new managers. Because apparently they've done a good job in the past few years.
1:15:57So they wanted to tell the world that there's new design talent at Apple, like Alan Dye
1:16:03and Robert, I don't know his last name, Haworth, I think.
1:16:10Maybe that's the point, to just promote Johnny, make him live a better life, you know?
1:16:16He can travel more, he can go watch the soccer in the UK if he wants.
1:16:24And there's new people who do good design at Apple.
1:16:27Maybe that's the simplest explanation.
1:16:28I don't know.
1:16:30But in this case I'm going to go with the simple option because otherwise you get caught
1:16:34up in all the speculation and only Tim Cook knows the truth.
1:16:37So maybe Tim Cook should tip-tack me and tell us what he thinks.
1:16:41Yeah, I think there's a lot of truth in that.
1:16:47These two designers, their names have popped up and all the press running up to the watch.
1:16:53And you know Apple suffered in the days after Steve Jobs passing and really the first couple
1:17:03years of Tim Cook running the thing of like can Apple survive without Steve Jobs?
1:17:08Is Apple the same the same company with the new CEO and all that stuff right?
1:17:13We talked about a lot of it over the years here.
1:17:16And I can't help but wonder if the move here is to show, "Hey, look, there are more people
1:17:25here than just I've."
1:17:27The person I had from reading those other articles was that he was just really worn
1:17:32out and really just overworked.
1:17:36And maybe this is a way for Apple to say, "Hey, we appreciate you, and we can take things
1:17:42off your shoulders and let you do what you do best.
1:17:47And help alleviate that thought of like, well, if you know, say that Johnny Ivey is on his
1:17:50way out, I don't know if he is or not.
1:17:53I tend to think that he's not at least in the short term.
1:17:57But when that day comes, Apple is trying to get out ahead of it and say, you know what,
1:18:00like, we have really good people here, we can continue to do what we do without him.
1:18:04Yes, it is a loss.
1:18:05Yes, when Steve Jobs died, it's a huge loss to the company.
1:18:10Apple is okay and an apple will survive this too and and maybe they're trying to get out in front of that somehow and I think
1:18:16That makes like a lot of sense in like Tim Cook's pragmatic Apple. I
1:18:20Mean I agree I think it's all
1:18:24All of the reasons that people are staying for why this could happen like I think it's all of them
1:18:30like
1:18:32You know, he's been promoted because he's worked really hard over the last few years, correct?
1:18:37He's been promoted because they actually do need to split UI and industrial design, correct.
1:18:43He's been promoted because he's going to leave Apple one day. That is also correct. Like he cannot be there forever.
1:18:50He cannot be alive forever.
1:18:52Like all of it is true. You're like the opera of opinions.
1:18:58Well, you know...
1:18:59You get an agreement and you get an agreement and you can...
1:19:02But it's just like this decision. This is a decision that you make
1:19:05because of multiple reasons. And there is no one reason for doing something like this unless
1:19:12something's gonna happen in like a month's time. Like he leaves in a month's time. Which is not
1:19:17gonna happen. Because Johnny Ive either retires or he sets up his own design agency. Like that's it.
1:19:28No one can hire him. You can't hire Johnny Ive because he already has the best job in the world.
1:19:35Maybe he goes to Broadway with Scott.
1:19:38Maybe he does that.
1:19:38Just saying.
1:19:40But do you know what I mean? Like he is either gonna, you know,
1:19:42there's this idea that he's always gonna go live in England now.
1:19:46Yeah, he probably will spend quite a bit more time in England now because he doesn't need to
1:19:52be chained to a desk in San Francisco anymore. Like, but that again, it doesn't mean that now
1:19:57like the iPhone is gonna be triangular. Like, but there are so many things that accompany
1:20:04of Apple's size has to do and what they showed with Steve Jobs is that they can
1:20:11definitely continue but they just need to do that again with Johnny Ive and the
1:20:14best way to do that is to start early. So now they are trying to push some
1:20:18designers up they're making sure these divisions can run on their own again
1:20:22which is interesting to me though right that they kind of brought them together
1:20:26and split them apart again. They clearly just wanted Forst to run out.
1:20:31like that was all it was. Get him out.
1:20:33You can make the argument for bundling and unbundling also for companies, and Apple in this case.
1:20:41It's all about bundles today, we're just bundling it all up.
1:20:44Yeah.
1:20:45Yeah, you know, it's kind of just like I see something like this and I'm like, I see all of these potential reasons
1:20:53and it's like, they all are equally true in my opinion. They all just seem like they all make sense
1:20:59They are all things that will eventually happen. So yes, you need to prepare for all of them.
1:21:03That is good succession planning right there. That's what it is. This is succession planning
1:21:08in one way or another. And you know, Johnny Ive doesn't need to continue to design every single
1:21:14Apple product because he probably doesn't. And this, I think this is a smart move. I think it's
1:21:20something that clearly Apple needs to do. And considering you have Johnny Ive, make Johnny
1:21:26I've as happy as you can make him. That's the smart thing to do and if this makes him happy just do it
1:21:31So yes, the cat is both alive and dead only in this case Johnny is the cat and thankfully Johnny is not in a box
1:21:41That really got twisted up there buddy
1:21:45The cat is both retired and working full-time. That's what the cat is doing. Yes
1:21:52Right. So is that about it for this week?
1:21:56I think so. Awesome. So if you want to catch our show notes for this week then you can go online
1:22:02and do that as well as being in your podcast app of choice of course you can head over
1:22:06to relay.fm/connected/41. If you want to find us all online you can do that in a myriad of ways.
1:22:12You can find Stephen at 512pixels.net you can also find him at ismh. You can find Federico
1:22:19go at maxstories.net and he is @vitiicci and I am @imike. You can find me and this show
1:22:27relay.fm. I have a bunch of shows, I'm on quite a few of them and we have more. We have
1:22:33lots of stuff. If you have a podcast that you would like to listen to, I hope that it's
1:22:37at Relay because we have lots of them and they're all very very good. I like them all.
1:22:42Especially the ones that I'm on and some, you know, also the ones that I'm not. Thanks
1:22:47again to our sponsors this week. I don't know where I was going with that. Hover, OmniFocus
1:22:52and smile with PDF-Pen-Scan Plus. They have been very kind in helping make today's episode
1:23:00happen. And I would like to thank you, the listener, for listening and we'll be back
1:23:05next time. Until then, say goodbye gentlemen. Adios.
1:23:10[BLANK_AUDIO]