0:00:00[Music]
0:00:05Hello and welcome to episode 15 of Connected from Relay FM.
0:00:11This week's episode of Connected is brought to you by Drafts, where tech starts on the
0:00:16iPhone and the iPad, now easier and more powerful than ever.
0:00:20It's also brought to you by Studio Neat, makers of the Glyph, the Cosmonaut and the Neat Ice
0:00:25Kit and Dash, where you can create beautiful dashboards with just a few clicks.
0:00:29My name is Myke Hurley and I have the pleasure of being joined by Mr. Steven Hackett.
0:00:33Hi Steven.
0:00:34Hey Myke.
0:00:35And Mr. Federico Bottice.
0:00:36Hi Federico.
0:00:37Hello guys.
0:00:38So we're back together again as a three.
0:00:41Happy Thanksgiving.
0:00:43I guess so.
0:00:44In Steven's mind this has been multiple weeks since we've all been together.
0:00:48I listened to last week's episode and heard the two of you discussing the fact that Steven
0:00:53wasn't on the previous one when in fact he was.
0:00:56And that's my main piece of follow up from last week's show.
0:00:58You're sitting there going, "Oh, yeah, I wasn't on last week's episode."
0:01:02I'm like, "Yeah, you were."
0:01:04Getting old is hard.
0:01:05Stephen, do you have a review of life now that you're old?
0:01:11I do.
0:01:12I've been testing life for almost three decades now.
0:01:16You like it?
0:01:17It's kind of mean in places.
0:01:20Stephen, are you ready to give thanks?
0:01:23Yes, Thanksgiving tomorrow year in the world's greatest country, if you will.
0:01:30We don't celebrate it yet.
0:01:32Yeah.
0:01:33Yeah, I mean, yeah, it's time for family and friends and eating food that I was trying
0:01:38to explain to you guys earlier that sounds...
0:01:41When you describe what a Thanksgiving meal is out loud, you realize why everyone thinks
0:01:48of Americans is like fat terrible people because it's terrible fattening food. But it's so good.
0:01:55On upgrade this week, Jason quizzed me about how much...
0:01:59Who's Jason?
0:02:00Jason Snell.
0:02:01You do another show?
0:02:02No, no, no.
0:02:03Just joking.
0:02:04This is just a memory that I have. He quizzed me on how much I know about Thanksgiving and
0:02:09I don't think I did very well.
0:02:11I know about the turkey.
0:02:12Yeah.
0:02:13I think I'm actually an expert about Thanksgiving, even though I live in Italy.
0:02:18Like, I watch a lot of TV shows where they have Thanksgiving.
0:02:22So I think I have an opinion on Thanksgiving.
0:02:25Yeah, I was saying that most of my...
0:02:29Most of the knowledge that I have about Thanksgiving comes from friends.
0:02:32Like, the TV show Friends.
0:02:34Yeah.
0:02:35Or Friends the TV show, you mean, not just Friends in real life.
0:02:40Yeah, Friends the TV show.
0:02:42You watch Friends, Myke.
0:02:44I have.
0:02:44Have you never seen Friends?
0:02:45You must.
0:02:46No, never.
0:02:46Oh.
0:02:47It's really old.
0:02:48I don't like to watch old stuff because it makes me feel old.
0:02:52I watched a lot of it whilst it was happening.
0:02:55Yeah, no.
0:02:55I was too young.
0:02:57I was thinking about Harry Potter and Pokemon back then.
0:02:59We're the same age, buddy.
0:03:00We're the same age.
0:03:01No, really.
0:03:03You age differently in the UK.
0:03:06I wouldn't disagree with that, actually.
0:03:09We get very old very quickly.
0:03:10We had a bunch of sad moments already.
0:03:17We should talk about happy stuff.
0:03:19It's not as sad as when you guys...
0:03:20Like the Macintosh Classic 2 equipment.
0:03:21I'm not letting you go along yet.
0:03:24I need to just point out the fact that again, again, you said that I died.
0:03:30Eventually that will be true.
0:03:33One day it's going to happen and you guys are going to feel really bad about it.
0:03:37Yeah.
0:03:38You think it's true?
0:03:40I do. I do think.
0:03:42- The question is, so we need to deal with this.
0:03:44Relay doesn't have a successor if one of us dies.
0:03:47- No.
0:03:48- We should have a relay testament.
0:03:51Like the New Testament?
0:03:54- It will be newer.
0:03:55- You can send the emails to Myke.
0:03:59Yeah, it's an interesting thing.
0:04:02No, we went longer than we normally do
0:04:05before we proclaimed your death.
0:04:08And when it happened, it was sort of accidental.
0:04:11But then it continued many, many times.
0:04:14Well, I mean, once you step over that line,
0:04:18there's no reason to go back.
0:04:21Just keep going.
0:04:23Let's do some follow up.
0:04:25The Macintosh Classic II Aquarium--
0:04:27Perfect.
0:04:28Next.
0:04:29--is pretty awesome by a listener
0:04:34of the show and friend of all humanity, Ryan M.
0:04:38shares with these and you should check them out
0:04:40and I kinda wanna build one so I might do that.
0:04:44- Oh, this is really nice.
0:04:47- It's cool, right?
0:04:48- What type of-- - I would actually buy
0:04:49a Mac for this.
0:04:51- What type of fish would you keep in your Macintosh?
0:04:56- I think you have to keep a beta.
0:04:57But he would just sort of crash into the walls
0:05:01accidentally sometimes.
0:05:03It's a statement on the current SaveApple software in the fish that I picked.
0:05:11Stephen Hackett's one man show will be coming to an hour near you.
0:05:15I'm an analyst, I've always been an analyst.
0:05:20You know what you should do, Stephen?
0:05:22You should start doing posit tweets.
0:05:25Nope, not doing that.
0:05:27Jason Snell in the chat room.
0:05:29the original Macquarium was by Andy Enakto. Enakto, it's hard to say.
0:05:36Enakka.
0:05:37Agakkaka. And so there is an HTML document in the show notes. Federico, where are the show notes?
0:05:45So the show notes are a web page where you can find all the links and the stuff that we mentioned
0:05:56in the episode. And basically, the web works thanks to DNS. And DNS is basically a way to associate
0:06:07domain names with IP addresses from servers. So once everything is working correctly,
0:06:13you can use a web browser, such as the WAP browser on your Nokia phone, or one of those
0:06:21internet navigators that you get in car entertainment systems.
0:06:25You can go to relay.fm, thanks to DNS, /connected/15 and you will find a link to the Macquarium
0:06:35to all the links that we talked about and hopefully many, many interesting things from
0:06:44the web.
0:06:45That is really one way of putting it.
0:06:47Thank you Federico.
0:06:49- Sure.
0:06:51- That's good.
0:06:52- That was my posit.
0:06:53That was my posit.
0:06:55- Thank you.
0:06:55- Myke, can you talk about Android Wear?
0:06:59- Not with any real knowledge.
0:07:03- That's fine.
0:07:04- Yes, but I do know this is the case,
0:07:06and it's something that is brought up quite a bit to us
0:07:10and many others.
0:07:11When you guys were talking about the Apple Watch last week,
0:07:14it is worth noting that Android Wear has offline GPS
0:07:17and an offline music player,
0:07:19so you don't need to be connected.
0:07:21An offline music player could actually
0:07:23and probably is something that the Apple Watch will have
0:07:26via Bluetooth because you can store music on it.
0:07:29Why else would you store music on it
0:07:31if it's connected to the phone?
0:07:33But we don't know any more details about that yet.
0:07:36I, until today, forgot that I have an Android Wear watch
0:07:41and I'm happy to remember.
0:07:43- Yeah, it's one of those things
0:07:44that you buy while you're out.
0:07:47I'm getting better at that now, by the way.
0:07:50- Like you don't go half conscious,
0:07:53walking around buying stuff anymore?
0:07:54- Not as much.
0:07:56- I appreciate that.
0:07:57- That's good news, I think.
0:07:59- I spent quite a bit of time last week,
0:08:01a lot of time upgrading my Nexus 5 to Android L.
0:08:07- What's a Nexus 5?
0:08:08- It's an Android phone, you know that.
0:08:10- Okay, no, no, I really don't.
0:08:12That was an honest question.
0:08:14Like I thought he was a,
0:08:15- No, like I thought it was one of those tablets
0:08:18that Google used to do.
0:08:19- That's the Nexus 7, Nexus 5.
0:08:21- I don't know, how am I supposed to know?
0:08:22- 'Cause the number denotes the screen size.
0:08:25- I thought it was the model, you know?
0:08:28- Four inch, the four was four inch, five, five inch.
0:08:33- The Nexus 1 was really tiny.
0:08:35- I mean, the iPhone 5 is called the iPhone 5,
0:08:37it's not a five inch screen.
0:08:38- Yeah, I know.
0:08:39- Because it's the, in theory, it's the fifth iPhone.
0:08:43It's funny now that my Nexus 5, the screen feels tiny.
0:08:47It's like, this phone is minuscule.
0:08:52I spent so much time trying to do all the crazy things
0:08:56that you have to do and use the command line
0:08:58and all that sort of stuff.
0:08:59And I finally did it and then was like,
0:09:01why did I do this?
0:09:01And then just turn the phone off again.
0:09:03I don't know why I did it.
0:09:06- That's a rousing review of Lollipop.
0:09:08- It looks nice, but I don't really know
0:09:10what I'm attempting to get out of it.
0:09:12So I have it sitting on the desk.
0:09:16Maybe I'll play, spend a bit more time playing around with it.
0:09:19And then maybe I can--
0:09:20>>
0:09:38I'm going to get Matt Alexander to find a shirt like that,
0:09:41and then I'm going to ship it to you along with the Nexus phone and then you can conduct the experiment.
0:09:45To me? Was this some sort of punishment?
0:09:48No, no, just an experiment.
0:09:50That's kind of weird, but okay.
0:09:53Homescreen.is has launched.
0:09:56Can I talk about this? This was my link.
0:09:59I would like you to talk about it very much.
0:10:01So people, it turns out that people really like to take a look at other people's homescreens.
0:10:07and there's a new service by Betaworks, you know, the company that has many many apps and services
0:10:14such as IstoPaper and Dig. And now they have this website called homescreen.is
0:10:22and it's also an iPhone app that lets you share your iPhone's home screen
0:10:29and what's nice is that when you share this screenshot
0:10:33They do some sort of analysis on the image and they recognize the apps that you have installed.
0:10:41And when you go to the web page, you can click the icon and it shows you a description of the app.
0:10:46So when you take a look at other people's home screens, you can see links to the actual apps that they use.
0:10:53This is nice, but there's a problem.
0:10:56The problem is the status bar.
0:10:59And the problem is that the app doesn't clean the status bar.
0:11:05Like, I mean, it's not just me anymore because Apple or Stane Yosemite, they do clean the
0:11:12status bar when you do a screen recording of an iOS device with QuickTime.
0:11:18So the, I mean, obviously it is clear that at this point that the clean status bar is
0:11:23the way to go.
0:11:24And this home screen service doesn't clean the status bar.
0:11:28So when you go to the homepage and you browse the gallery of home screens, you see all these
0:11:34mess of low battery indicators and low signal or perhaps some weird carrier name.
0:11:45It's really sad.
0:11:47It's like walking around in a cemetery, I think.
0:11:52Of what?
0:11:53Of status bars.
0:11:55Okay.
0:11:56I like how it's like, this is a real problem.
0:11:58I think mainly this is a problem for you.
0:12:02I think nobody is more affected.
0:12:04No, no, really.
0:12:05There must be some engineer at Apple who thought
0:12:08that the status bar was a real problem too.
0:12:10So hopefully my soulmate is working
0:12:12on the QuickTime team at Apple.
0:12:15Whatever you are, I don't know,
0:12:19whoever you are, you're a great person.
0:12:22They're in tune. QuickTime engineer.
0:12:25They're totally in tune with you.
0:12:30How does everybody feel about this homescreen sharing service?
0:12:34This is a real problem.
0:12:35Steven, I cannot believe that you don't agree with me.
0:12:40I do agree with you, but maybe homescreen audio 2.0.
0:12:45You're not as passionate.
0:12:48You can't launch the perfect product.
0:12:50You have to improve it, and maybe that's how they improve it.
0:12:53It is a pretty cool app.
0:12:58I have noticed, so if you haven't seen one of these,
0:13:02maybe Myke can put ours in the show notes,
0:13:03but you click on it and it has the apps
0:13:08that people have on their phones,
0:13:09but it gets it wrong sometimes.
0:13:11It gets pretty good, but sometimes it gets it a little weird.
0:13:14The other thing that's really interesting, looking through these
0:13:16on their home page, is how many--
0:13:18these are jailbroken?
0:13:20Like on their homepage right now, out of the 12,
0:13:23it looks like at least two, maybe three are jailbroken.
0:13:26Just a little surprising to me.
0:13:28- I used to jailbreak all the time.
0:13:32- So did I.
0:13:33- Never. - A long time ago.
0:13:34- Never did it.
0:13:35- That's not true, come on, Myke.
0:13:37- No, I've never jailbroken an iPhone.
0:13:39- Really?
0:13:40- It's just us and several tens of thousands of people,
0:13:43you can tell the truth.
0:13:44- And I don't know why I would have done it.
0:13:48So you're saying that you use the terminal to do Android stuff and you never jailbroke your iPhone?
0:13:55I jailbroke an iPod touch.
0:13:57Okay, so we're getting some sort of truth out of you.
0:14:01But I never jailbroke... Why would I have... Why do you guys do it? Why did you do it?
0:14:05I had no reason to do it. It was fine, leave me alone.
0:14:08I really liked all the tweaks, the customized stuff, you know?
0:14:15Right.
0:14:17Like, I was, of course, I mean, this is obvious in hindsight. There used to be a tweak called
0:14:24Activator, that at some point it allowed you to, like, launch URLs from anywhere,
0:14:33from the copy and paste menu as a shortcut. Yeah, that was one of my favorite tweaks.
0:14:42It added custom options to the copy and paste menu,
0:14:45which I believe will come eventually as extensions, hopefully next year.
0:14:51But that's another discussion.
0:14:53Yeah, I used to JetBreak.
0:14:55And I used to be the go-to guy for my friends when it came to JetBreak.
0:15:00People would come to me and ask for a JetBreak.
0:15:03How did you do it? Did you go through all the crazy apps and stuff?
0:15:08I remember there was one. The one that I did was when you could just go to a web page.
0:15:11Yeah, there were a couple of those. Yeah, I cannot remember the names right now. One
0:15:17of them was like Ice something I think. Icy, I don't know. It was a long time ago. Back
0:15:27when, what's the name of the guy who got in a dispute with Sony, J-Hot? You remember?
0:15:38Like the hacker?
0:15:39Yeah, that was a long time ago man, come on.
0:15:43This is making me feel sad.
0:15:45George...
0:15:46We should move on.
0:15:47That's his name.
0:15:48That's the guy.
0:15:49He's 25.
0:15:50Yeah.
0:15:51Geez.
0:15:52He's genius, yeah.
0:15:53Anyways...
0:15:54I have literally no idea what you guys are talking about.
0:15:57That's fine.
0:15:58I don't know what's going on today.
0:16:00Myke, we have a store.
0:16:01We do have a store.
0:16:03There is an official Relay FM store now where we're selling stickers and t-shirts.
0:16:09We've had many people say over the course of Relay FM's life that they would like to
0:16:13support us in some way.
0:16:15This is a way to do that.
0:16:18You can go and buy stickers of your favorite shows and you can buy t-shirts of your favorite
0:16:23podcast network.
0:16:26We hope to keep...
0:16:27Well, the plan is to keep the store ongoing.
0:16:32basically we were thinking about adding all sorts of different types of
0:16:37merchandise throughout the future, show shirts and other types of fun things so
0:16:42I hope that you go there and you buy some stuff and make us all very happy.
0:16:45Can I have a relay scarf? We can definitely add that to the list of
0:16:51things to look at. Cool, thanks. No problem buddy. That would be pretty sweet though
0:16:57actually. Yeah, like the scarf guy from the iPhone 6 keynote. One of those
0:17:03kinds of scarf, you know. I think we've missed the time to sell
0:17:08scarves. No, why? It's winter. Yeah, but I don't know if we could get it
0:17:14designed and made and ready in time. We might have to wait and we can start
0:17:19brainstorming some scarf ideas in the summer and we can have them ready
0:17:25for the Fall/Winter Collection 2015.
0:17:29Or we could have connected swimsuits.
0:17:32Yeah, we could start working on those now.
0:17:36Yeah, okay. We'll look at that.
0:17:41Very nice. Very nice. So yeah, store.relay.fm
0:17:45Go and buy some cool stuff. I'm sure you're gonna love it.
0:17:51Yeah, otherwise Mykey's gonna be upset. I will be very sad actually.
0:17:54So please go buy stuff with money. You don't want to be sad on the web. Mm-hmm. No, no
0:17:59We don't we don't want you to be sad Myke
0:18:01never
0:18:03You're like the happiest person I know so
0:18:06Please never be sad. Okay, I will try I will try my best. Do you know what makes me happy guys?
0:18:13The Queen
0:18:17The Queen and also drafts by agile tortoise drafts is the quick and easy way to capture and share text on iOS
0:18:24And it is one of the most popular productivity apps on the App Store and it's gone to a whole new level in drafts for
0:18:30Federico
0:18:32Yes, would you please be able to explain to our listeners what drafts is and why it's the best
0:18:38It is an awesome app if you want to quickly enter any kind of text and save it and
0:18:46And by save I mean whether you want to save it just into the app or whether you want to send it to any other app on your phone or iPad or on the web.
0:18:57So, basically Drafts lets you create all these actions.
0:19:01And actions can be something simple as "take this text and do a Google search for this text".
0:19:08or you can say take this text and make a tweet out of it
0:19:13or maybe make a tweet and then post it to Facebook
0:19:16at the same time.
0:19:17So you can do this basic stuff,
0:19:18but the real power of drafts is in the way
0:19:23that it lets you create actions that have multiple steps.
0:19:27So you can, for instance, connect multiple apps together
0:19:30and create these complex actions.
0:19:33Then when you start combining those
0:19:36with the fact that you can write in markdown in drafts
0:19:40and that you can have these custom keys above the iOS
0:19:44keyboard, it basically becomes a really powerful solution
0:19:49to enter text and make it go anywhere.
0:19:54It is one of my most used apps on my iPhone or my iPad.
0:19:58I use it all the time to just save text and forget about it.
0:20:02And later, I can do stuff with that text.
0:20:05For example, when I want to create a new task in Todoist,
0:20:10which is the to-do management app that I've been using lately,
0:20:14I just open drafts and I just type the name of my task.
0:20:19Then on another line, I type the due date of the task.
0:20:23And with an action, I just need to tap a button
0:20:25and it opens the Todoist app and all the information
0:20:28is already filled for me.
0:20:30And I just need to tap Save and the task is saved.
0:20:33So this is just an example of the kind of flexibility that Drafts has.
0:20:40There's a whole layer of advanced Draft functionality that I mean it's too much to go into detail
0:20:47right now.
0:20:49I think the best part is that Drafts is a simple app and it can remain a simple app
0:20:56and even when you want to unlock all the advanced features, it still is a simple app that you
0:21:02just need to open and type because at the very basic level you just need to tap the
0:21:08icon and save text.
0:21:12I think when you can make a powerful app but still make it remain simple, that's a good
0:21:21feature.
0:21:22Good design.
0:21:23Thank you Federico, I couldn't have said any of that better myself.
0:21:27You should go right now to agiletortoise.com/drafts to find out more, although really Federico
0:21:32has told you everything you're ever going to need to know.
0:21:34You should already be rushing to the App Store where you can search for "Drafts 4".
0:21:39It's available on the iPhone and the iPad.
0:21:42It's universal now and looks fantastic on all of the screen sizes.
0:21:45It's optimized for the 6 and 6 Plus and it looks great.
0:21:48So go right now and get it.
0:21:49Thank you so much to Agile Tortoise and Drafts for sponsoring this week's episode of Connected
0:21:54and helping support Relay FM.
0:21:55So guys, what do we have on the dock today?
0:22:00I have a little small topic that I want to talk about.
0:22:06Please, tell us all.
0:22:07If you'll allow me.
0:22:08I would love to.
0:22:09I saved this topic 0.5.
0:22:12It's a really peculiar and quick mention.
0:22:18So I tweeted yesterday that I was looking for an iOS version of ImageOptim.
0:22:24So ImageOptim is this crazy, magical, powerful Mac app that basically takes any image and
0:22:32it makes it smaller. Not in terms of size, but in terms of file size. So like how many
0:22:38megabytes or kilobytes it weighs. And I use this app all the time on my Mac mini server
0:22:45to optimize the images that I use on Mac stories. So instead of being like two megabytes, it's
0:22:51like one megabyte and the quality is most of all, you know, it's in general
0:22:55it's the same quality of the image. It's just smaller because it uses algorithms
0:23:00and magic, I think, to optimize files. So for me that's huge
0:23:07because it lets me save money in CDN costs. So now that I've been using the
0:23:14iPerf2 every day, I basically don't use my Macbook anymore. I only open my
0:23:19MacBook to talk to you guys. I don't have an iOS version natively on the iPad of ImageOptim.
0:23:30I asked yesterday because I was hoping that maybe in the past few months somebody came
0:23:39up with an iOS version of ImageOptim. It turns out that it's not possible because licensing
0:23:46problems with the GPL. I never actually understood what it means to have an open
0:23:52source GPL license, but it appears that it's not possible to get open
0:23:58source software with this kind of license into the App Store. So there's no
0:24:02image opt-in on the App Store, so I started looking for a solution. I thought
0:24:06that maybe I could optimize my images in Python using Pythonista.
0:24:13I kind of came up with something. I wasn't super satisfied because the savings that I was getting
0:24:21they were not as significant as using image opt-in on my Mac Mini.
0:24:29So I gave up on replicating the kind of workflow in Pythonista and after much consideration,
0:24:40which means, you know, just a couple of cups of coffee after dinner.
0:24:46I decided that I wanted to keep using image optima on my Mac mini server because that
0:24:50was the best way, but I wanted to change the kind of workflow that I have on my iPad.
0:24:56So now I cannot talk about the specifics because the app that I'm using is not out yet.
0:25:04So let's say that hypothetically I have this way to automate the iOS 8 document picker.
0:25:14And the iOS 8, like the document picker when it lets you open files and when it lets you save files.
0:25:22So now, right now I'm using this sort of workaround.
0:25:29Using the native iOS document picker, I pick an image from the camera roll.
0:25:37Using the same picker, I put the image with a clean status bar and convert it back to jpg
0:25:45into the Dropbox app using the Dropbox document extension. On the Mac Mini, Hazel
0:25:56basically opens ImageOptim, ImageOptim optimizes the image in like a second and it puts the file
0:26:03into another Dropbox folder. Into this workflow on the iPad that I have another document picker
0:26:10comes up, it lets me take the optimized image from the Dropbox document extension and then I use this
0:26:18new app that is called DropShare which is basically the app that I was waiting for that lets me upload
0:26:24screenshots natively to the Rackspace cloud files CDN and all this back and forth and
0:26:31it means that in like five seconds I have my image with a clean status bar thanks to Dr. Drang and to
0:26:41the CleanBar script that he put together last year. I have an image with a clean status bar
0:26:48converted to jpg, optimized on the Mac Mini with image opt-in and uploaded natively on iOS to
0:26:54Rackspace using DropShare, and I have a link to the image in my clipboard. So I'm happy about this.
0:27:03Is that as fragile as it sounds?
0:27:06No, that was my concern as well. The only problem... So yeah, it's kind of fragile,
0:27:15but it could be worse and I think it's more stable than what I used to have.
0:27:21Basically for MacStories we wrote this custom script that uploaded files from Dropbox to
0:27:29Rackspace and it was very prone to crashing or just hanging for some reason. Now this is better
0:27:39because Hazel with Dropbox, that's not the problem. The problem is the document picker.
0:27:45on iOS, which sometimes crashes and just for some reason it stops receiving any input.
0:27:54So the problem is not the server side, surprisingly, because image optimum and
0:28:00Hazel are super stable. I don't have any problem with those. I tested with many, many images
0:28:06overnight, like 100 screenshots. The problem was always the document picker, which sometimes just
0:28:13hangs on my iPad.
0:28:14So I need to restart.
0:28:16- I do hope you see the irony of trying to move away
0:28:19from a Mac to get your work done.
0:28:22And then said it requires a Mac in the data center.
0:28:24(laughing)
0:28:25- Yep, to do this.
0:28:26I know, I know.
0:28:28The problem is that I actually,
0:28:31I was prepared for this sort of remark, Steven.
0:28:35The problem is that there's no developer
0:28:37who's coming out with an image optimizer for the iPad
0:28:40because they think that nobody would ever optimize images on the iPad.
0:28:45So that's not my fault, you know.
0:28:48I mean I would pay so much money for that.
0:28:50What about something like Pixelmator?
0:28:53Does that not do anything like this?
0:28:55No, it doesn't have the kind of optimization that image optimizes.
0:28:59And I don't know what's the deal with it.
0:29:01Correct me if I'm wrong, but is the word of open source licenses kind of messy?
0:29:06Because it seems to me that every once in a while there's a case of an app that's based
0:29:12on some sort of open source license like VLC, which is not on the App Store anymore because
0:29:18of these GPL whatever issues.
0:29:21No, it's back now.
0:29:23They fixed it.
0:29:24It's back?
0:29:25Oh, okay.
0:29:26But I mean, I think there's a lot of room for interpretation in some of those systems.
0:29:32some of those documents. So what besides like crazy things like you just talked about,
0:29:41like what's left for you on the Mac? Podcasting? Podcasting, quick time screencast recording.
0:29:51Yeah, because that's one that's just like become even better, isn't it, on the Mac. So it makes it
0:29:58it even harder to move away because it's just become perfect.
0:30:02It's basically perfect on the Mac right now.
0:30:05QuickTime lets you record your iOS device's screen and there's no alternative on iOS.
0:30:12Not if you want to use a native app, not if you want to do some server-side stuff like
0:30:16I did with the Mac we need, there's no solution.
0:30:21So podcasting, screencasts, GIF generation, the obvious ones, backups, betas with iTunes
0:30:33and finder, these are the big ones I think.
0:30:36I still can't believe that for everything I can find there doesn't seem to be any good
0:30:42app on iOS at the moment that can take burst images or just a selection of images and turn
0:30:47them into a GIF.
0:30:48I cannot understand how that doesn't exist.
0:30:49Because there's no burst mode for screenshots.
0:30:54That's something that I was thinking about.
0:30:55Yeah, well even if you manually made them, there's not a way to stitch them into a GIF.
0:30:59Well I have a way.
0:31:01Yeah, but it's probably like a data center and all kinds of crazy stuff.
0:31:06No, it's an app that, it's workflow.
0:31:08It's coming up soon.
0:31:10Yeah, but you are very lucky.
0:31:13Everybody else.
0:31:14No, everybody will be lucky soon.
0:31:16Okay.
0:31:17My understanding is there is actually an API now for taking burst mode and outputting them
0:31:24as a GIF.
0:31:25That is something that somebody told me once.
0:31:28But yet nobody's taking advantage of this and making an app, which people would pay
0:31:32for, I think.
0:31:34So I think it sounded really, really complicated, the stuff that I did for the image uploads
0:31:41on iOS.
0:31:42want to say that it is much much better than what I used to have and even if there's a
0:31:48bunch of steps involved I'm really happier about the result because the previous solution
0:31:55which I used for two years now, it worked for two years but it was super crashy and
0:32:05This one, if Apple manages to fix the document picker crashes, which occur just randomly,
0:32:13not all the time, it is much better.
0:32:16I'm happier and faster now, thanks to this.
0:32:19And DropShare, the new app, I'm so, so, so happy about it.
0:32:26I told Steven, I think, or Myke about my level of happiness with this app.
0:32:32got an extension to AppLog to Rockspace from anywhere, it's really, I'm so glad that this
0:32:41app exists.
0:32:42So yeah, that was my subtopic about images, I guess, clean status bars, working on the
0:32:51iPad, so you guys can keep on making fun of me.
0:32:57When you were explaining the way that you do that stuff with Image Upton, one thing
0:33:02that I didn't get to say that I wanted to say is that I love you.
0:33:06That was it.
0:33:07No thanks.
0:33:08Just that level of insane geekery in the nicest possible way.
0:33:16There is something so incredibly admirable about that.
0:33:20I just would not have the patience.
0:33:22I couldn't go through working out how to do something like that.
0:33:27I think it would drive me to distraction.
0:33:31I don't know if I'd be able to take it.
0:33:33But I love that you do it, and you're like a trailblazer, Federico.
0:33:37You're set in the path.
0:33:38Thank you.
0:33:39I don't know.
0:33:40See, I have a very, at least I think I'm this way, I think I have a very practical approach
0:33:46to automation.
0:33:47Like I used to do automation just for the fun of automation.
0:33:51Now for the past year, I think especially, I've been doing scripts and automated stuff
0:33:58only if it's really useful and makes me faster and basically earn more money.
0:34:08So for instance, I have all this workflow for max-service deals.
0:34:14And I showed you, Myke, the result.
0:34:17lets me gather discounts from the App Store in a second. And sure, it took me an afternoon
0:34:25to put together the latest update to the workflow. I've been working on it for the past 12 months.
0:34:33But the result is that I'm, you know, my, the links with the Mac Stories deals, they
0:34:39happen so quickly. I used to do all this stuff manually and now it takes me just a couple
0:34:44milliseconds. So yeah, I think automation in general, it's like when it's practical,
0:34:53when it has a real benefit, when it's not just a demonstration, I think it's more fun,
0:34:59you know, when you see the result.
0:35:01And as well, talking about the document pickers, I mean this seems to kind of have been like
0:35:09not that great an output in the end because of the bugs that are there. Does anybody know
0:35:14if Dropbox is ever going to actually appear and work. I mean it shows but it doesn't work,
0:35:21right? Is that still the case? What do you mean it doesn't work? Well, I mean, well maybe
0:35:26it might be fixed now, maybe I'm not paying enough attention. But it was like, say for
0:35:30example you'd open pages and you'd go to the document picker and Dropbox would be a selection
0:35:34but it didn't let you select Dropbox as one of the iOS 8 document pickers. Am I very late
0:35:42on this has just been fixed now? No no no, I know that people were complaining about
0:35:46that. I haven't checked in Pages lately because I don't use Pages. I'm in Pages now, yeah,
0:35:54so I select it from the list, so I turn it on, but it doesn't show up. I know this is
0:36:00also a problem with Google Drive, I think. Yeah, it's also, I think it's also... So the
0:36:04The way that I'm using it, it lets me pick an image and it lets me export an image to
0:36:11Dropbox.
0:36:12I think it is kind of annoying that you need to change the location in Document Picker
0:36:17every time.
0:36:18You cannot set the Document Picker to open in Dropbox mode by default.
0:36:24You need to tap on the location button in the top left and change from iCub to Dropbox.
0:36:31Hopefully next year there will be a default setting.
0:36:33So maybe this is the iWork Apps problem that I'm referring to as opposed to a Dropbox problem.
0:36:39Probably.
0:36:40Probably.
0:36:41Man, iWork, huh?
0:36:44Is that...
0:36:46We should try it in the cloud.
0:36:48Can we skip to the next topic, please?
0:36:51We can talk about our friends at Studio Neat.
0:36:54That's what we can do.
0:36:55This episode of Connected is brought to you by Tom and Dan at Studio Neat.
0:36:59They are a design company with just those two employees and they make cool stuff with
0:37:04the aim of making your life that little bit more delightful.
0:37:07I'm a huge fan of the products that these guys make because they make really great stuff
0:37:12and I want to talk to you about the Glyph today.
0:37:14The Glyph is an accessory that lets you mount your iPhone to a tripod or prop it up at an
0:37:18angle like a kickstand so you could maybe watch a movie on the plane or something.
0:37:22But the Glyph, the new version of the Glyph, can actually fit any phone.
0:37:26It's now adjustable so no matter how big or small your phone is you will be able to fit
0:37:30it into the glyph so you can attach it to a tripod and take some fantastic photos.
0:37:34The glyph is something that ends up being useful in a ton of situations, especially
0:37:38with all of the new photo and video apps that keep appearing these days and the great cameras
0:37:43on the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus.
0:37:45It's something that just gets more and more useful and it's a great gift for anyone who's
0:37:49getting a new iPhone this holiday season.
0:37:51Now Tom and Dan have suggested a couple of things that you can do with your iPhone over
0:37:56the holidays this year so you could maybe take some family portraits so
0:37:59you're not the person always left out of the pictures so like where is Stephen
0:38:03he's never in the pictures was because he's usually taking them but now you can
0:38:06mount your iPhone to a tripod and use the glyph and take advantage of the
0:38:10timer feature that's in the camera app to make sure you get the perfect shot
0:38:13maybe you could prop your phone up and take a time-lapse video of all the chaos
0:38:16of wrapping paper being torn apart on Christmas morning when your family are
0:38:20opening gifts it seems like the perfect thing to airplay to the TV later that
0:38:23day like that kid did in the Apple ad many years ago.
0:38:26Or you could set your glyph up in front of the fire and create some beautiful slow-mo
0:38:32video in the evening if it's something you'd like to do.
0:38:35With the glyph and some nifty apps at your disposal, your phone can do so much more than
0:38:38just take still photos and videos.
0:38:40And talking about apps, Studio Neat make their own app.
0:38:42It's called Slow Fast Slow.
0:38:44It makes your slow-mo videos even cooler and it's now free on the App Store.
0:38:49So head on over to StudioNeat.com, check out the glyph, check out Slow Fast Slow and all
0:38:53of the other cool stuff that these guys make.
0:38:55And whilst you're there, you can get a 10% off anything at StudioNeat.com if you use
0:39:02the code "Connected" at checkout.
0:39:04They have some great stuff there, they have some great gifts for the holiday season.
0:39:08StudioNeat are a great company and we thank them very much for supporting this week's
0:39:12episode of Connected and helping us out at relay FM.
0:39:19You know how we make fun of Myke for buying things?
0:39:21Yeah.
0:39:22Now it's my turn. Now it's me. What did you buy Steven? I bought a pebble.
0:39:28Now? Yeah. We talked about this, how I might do it and I did it. Oh because of the experiment
0:39:36to understand wearable devices. So the idea was to see if, in particular, risk notifications,
0:39:46if those were helpful. So a little history, I backed the pebble on Kickstarter, got it,
0:39:53and reviewed it in March 2013, was not very kind to it. But it has come a long way. iOS,
0:40:00the way notifications work in iOS has come a long way. I still have many,
0:40:05many complaints, which we might get to. But since, I guess since Friday, put it on Friday,
0:40:12I have been wearing it every day all day and getting making my wrist vibrate when things happen on my phone
0:40:19Mm-hmm. I said your wrist fallen off yet. It's still there
0:40:25Point number one is you should just turn the vibrate motor off as a veteran pebble user
0:40:32That's why I'm claiming myself to be now
0:40:34it's better to just have that off and just you actually tend to notice the
0:40:40light come on on your wrist
0:40:42If you don't see it, you probably don't want to see it
0:40:46So the vibrate motor kind of just gets in the way that would be my suggestion
0:40:49Like just just turn it off and keep it off. Yeah, I've been using it so far
0:40:53Just as it is out of the box. I there have been a couple times as I'll talk about a second rev
0:40:59Turned it to like phone call only but so far have been running it just as God intended it out of the box and I
0:41:09feel
0:41:10Just objectively that I have a lot fewer notifications coming to my phone than most people and it's still going off all the time
0:41:19And it's annoying
0:41:22To some degree. I think the vibrate would help and I think maybe starting on Friday. I'll make that change and run it for a week
0:41:28that way
0:41:30But for now just as it is out of the box, it's really a lot of things going on
0:41:35Well, it depends what notifications you have on if it's going off all the time and that's a problem then either the issue
0:41:41I think will be you would feel a lot better if it's not vibrating
0:41:45The other will be maybe you still have too many notifications turned on if you think it's too much for you
0:41:49yeah, and I've whittled my notifications down on iOS to like
0:41:53Critical stuff but a good example of something that I do is I have a couple like messaging apps
0:42:01They only allow them my phone to change the badge and they can't make sound they can't light the screen
0:42:08But if I open it if I unlock my phone, hey, you know, it's got a badge on it. I need to check it out
0:42:12Because iOS
0:42:15Notification controls are really simple and pebble is sort of like bolted onto the back of that
0:42:20Even a notification this increases the badge count pushes to the watch like with the message
0:42:26Which is a little frustrating and hopefully I'm really hoping the Apple watch gives us better like deeper controls of that sort of thing
0:42:34like it'd be great for on the watch like
0:42:36Currently in iOS you can change
0:42:38notification badge
0:42:40Banners and pop-ups and I think sound like I would love for like sent to Apple watch be an option in there. I
0:42:47think a trade-off could be
0:42:50That notifications could be tied to a VIP. So like anytime my wife
0:42:55Sends me a text message send that to my wrist, but if you know like random person sends me one
0:43:01It doesn't so we'll see we'll see how that turns out with the watch
0:43:05Yeah, cuz I remember I noticed Instagram notifications
0:43:10I didn't really pay attention to them previously cuz they don't make sound they don't buzz like they just were in notification center
0:43:15And that was when I turned them off when I got my pebble. It's like oh, it's notifying me like in a different way
0:43:22There's the thing like the pebble can't can't see your notification settings
0:43:26So it as you say like it treats all notifications the same. Oh
0:43:30That's insane because there's no there's no way it can do it that the support isn't there in iOS to send that information
0:43:37So you just keep getting all the notifications. Yep
0:43:40Yeah, that's
0:43:44The I hope they hit the Apple watch will have a setting like Steven said otherwise, that's crazy
0:43:49I think at a minimum it needs to observe the same settings, right?
0:43:52So like if you only have a badge count, probably the watch shouldn't ever be notified
0:43:59Or maybe if you want to to have a notification just on your Apple watch but not on the iPhone
0:44:05Yeah, this should be just a toggle like Steven said
0:44:07I would like to think that there will be a companion app which like like what Google have
0:44:12For the Android wear stuff where you can where you can trick some of that out
0:44:17Like I don't think it should be like I
0:44:19Should have to change my note my phone's notification settings to change the watch notification settings
0:44:26So it should just be like a bridge between them and I can pick what I want and how I want it to be displayed
0:44:31I think that works a lot better, but
0:44:34really though we when I
0:44:37Before I turn the vibration off. I felt very much like how you did
0:44:41First it enabled me to remove a lot of the notifications that I actually didn't need to receive like Instagram notifications
0:44:47It's just not something that's important in any way really to me
0:44:51So I turn those off because I kind of didn't really notice them
0:44:54But
0:44:58Turning the vibrate motor off really really helps because the light can catch your eye on the watch
0:45:03Which is fine for me really because I can kind of choose to ignore it or whatever but having it having it
0:45:10notify me if I vibrate I'm not sure about it's like I'm also not sure about with the Apple watch too because I actually find it
0:45:17Kind of kind of frustrating and distracting especially because the phone will also vibrate so the phones in your pocket
0:45:22you can't a vibrant in the leg and a vibrant on the wrist and
0:45:24Typically the like a party the pebble is is is slightly behind
0:45:29With receiving the notification. So like you feel it on the wrist and so fill it in your pocket and feel it on the wrist
0:45:35It's kind of like
0:45:37Yeah, yeah, so that could be very exciting. It's very very exciting
0:45:41I will say what you said about no forget or a distraction. Excuse me is is interesting
0:45:46I've had a couple times where it's going off and I'll glance at it and
0:45:50To me I know that I'm just like looking at an incoming notification
0:45:55But to other people looks like I'm checking my watch which is considered rude and like meetings
0:45:59In fact, I had someone this thankfully it was not a work meeting. It was this weekend with somebody just
0:46:06Talking with somebody and they're like, oh do you need to go and I was like, oh no
0:46:09I'm like what I do like to explain that I'm checking like a text message from Myke on my watch
0:46:14Or do I just be like, oh no, I'm good. I was just checking the time like do you explain who Myke is?
0:46:20No, everybody. I just well I wear a shirt with Myke's face on it all the time. So people just
0:46:24Just know that you need what you'll get. I mean, this is what I have now
0:46:30so like if I'm if I'm sitting around a table with somebody I have like a
0:46:34if I want to like I have a specific place that I could put my wrist and kind of glance at it like you end up
0:46:38learning like the skills that
0:46:41The stealth skills for checking your purple one. Myke you don't have meetings anymore. Yeah, I do
0:46:46Where I have meetings with people they're just not in an office environment now. Mm-hmm
0:46:53I have mainly lunches and parking lots, but I'm just picking up the things that Casey puts there
0:47:00yeah, so I feel like
0:47:03Maybe you guys remember this when you've got your first iPhone, you know
0:47:06I was a very early iPhone adopter and it
0:47:08it was kind of a big deal to like pull it out in a crowd of people because people would ask to see it and
0:47:14like I felt very self-conscious about it almost to a point where like I
0:47:18Felt like I'm gonna pull this out of my pocket and I'm gonna get mugged right like it it was
0:47:23sort of a situation where society hadn't caught up to the technology and I think
0:47:28The smart watches are definitely still in that phase, right?
0:47:31like some people have them like the fact that I have it on at work at a company that exists on the internet like
0:47:37I'm with designers and developers all day. It's not a big deal. Some other people have pebbles but
0:47:42Like this weekend at Thanksgiving, right?
0:47:46Like if someone notices it lighting up
0:47:48They're gonna be like what what is happening over there like so much so that I actually have thought about like wearing my regular watch
0:47:55To family stuff this weekend just so not to draw attention to it now try it see what happens
0:48:00I probably will but even like at home right so I get home like at the dinner table. It lights up and like
0:48:05My son is like. Oh, what's happening. You know like if he's attracted everything that lights up and makes noise
0:48:10But it's it's sort of that gap between like nerds are doing this weird little thing and it's weird from the outside and sort of
0:48:19could be perceived as rude in certain
0:48:22Circumstances where like in a year if the Apple watch is successful
0:48:25People aren't gonna think twice about it because a bunch of more people are doing it
0:48:30So like I haven't felt that people that people don't really see the pebble and think that it's a weird thing
0:48:36If it's just the watch face because it just looks like a digital watch like it just looks like a whatever
0:48:40It's a digital watch. Yeah, but I you guys steal. I think this still helps with that. Oh, yeah
0:48:45Yeah, I bought the nose the cheap ugly black plastic one and like it looks weird like yeah
0:48:51it doesn't look it looks like something else like it it doesn't look like a watch
0:48:55it kind of looks like a weird thing or like it's like a watch but it's like a
0:48:59super weird watch like why have you got that weird watch but anyway like what
0:49:02what I do notice though is and what makes me feel self-conscious at times
0:49:05sometimes you'll be sitting talking to someone and your wrist lights up and you
0:49:09see them look at it like I've caught people like reading it this was much
0:49:12worse with the Android watch because it was actually more readable so it was
0:49:16bright and colorful but I see people that look at it and they can see them
0:49:20look at it and I kind of turn my wrist a little bit because I don't know what you guys are
0:49:24saying to me.
0:49:25I don't want you to show my heartbeat to anyone else.
0:49:30It's like Inspector Gadget's watch.
0:49:34You guys remember?
0:49:35Yeah, I wish I could pull a little aerial out of it or something.
0:49:39Steven, are you using any apps?
0:49:42I've got one that does weather and I have a timer app.
0:49:49That's it.
0:49:50Only the two.
0:49:51So I found that over time I used none of them.
0:49:53Yeah, the weather, like, I kind of did it to see what the experience of loading an app
0:49:58was and it's not super great.
0:50:01The Pebble still suffers from like, it's sort of got rough edges in the software and it
0:50:07all works.
0:50:08I didn't have any problems installing an app, but it was like I go into the Pebble app and
0:50:11I can only have like, what is it?
0:50:13Five or seven things loaded on the phone at once.
0:50:15Um, but it's, you know, the weather one is like, it's kind of clever and I've shown
0:50:21that as sort of an example of people ask me like, what, you know, people who know
0:50:25I'm doing it, that's kind of the one things I show them is like, oh, it pulls
0:50:28this from my phone, but you know, I can just click a couple of buttons and do it.
0:50:31Um, but it's weird.
0:50:33I'm going to, I'm gonna keep doing it for, I'm gonna do it for the remainder of the
0:50:3630 days and kind of see if my thoughts change but currently like the idea is
0:50:43really interesting I think risk notifications could be really useful but
0:50:46you have to have like complete control over the way they work and right now
0:50:50with iOS and the pebble you don't. Risk notifications have become a thing that
0:50:58has become pretty critical isn't a word but it's extremely important for me now
0:51:04that I wouldn't... I like that experience so much that I wouldn't want to
0:51:10go back from it. And I know that there are gonna... well I feel that there might be
0:51:16things about the way that I'm used to it on the Pebble which would be
0:51:19interesting to getting used to it on the Apple Watch. Like for example when the
0:51:23when my phone is in Do Not Disturb I still receive notifications on my
0:51:28Pebble. That's actually something that I personally like because most of the time
0:51:35when my phone's in Do Not Disturb it's because I'm recording so my phone's not
0:51:37buzzing but if something crazy is happening then the Pebble starts going
0:51:42off then I can glance at it to see if it's something that needs to be dealt
0:51:45with. I'm gonna assume that as you would think logically that the Apple
0:51:50Watch will probably observe Do Not Disturb on the phone. I think so. I would
0:51:54imagine so. You know so there's like it's just interesting I'm not saying one is
0:51:58better than the other I think it's just gonna be interesting for me to make that
0:52:02transition now because I'm so used to the Pebble having used it for as many
0:52:06months as I've used it. Yeah I will say that even after just a week I'm more
0:52:11interested in the Apple Watch than I was before like seeing what the how far the
0:52:15Pebble has come in a year and a half since it's been out and kind of seeing
0:52:20where those holes are where you can imagine what Apple could do because they control the
0:52:25whole stack.
0:52:26You know, the Pebble is riding on top of what iOS does.
0:52:28They don't have any special hooks.
0:52:30It's really compelling to see how they flesh some of this stuff out.
0:52:35And it seems like maybe 2014 is almost over, so hopefully we don't have too far into 2015
0:52:42before we know a lot more.
0:52:44But I do know, having used the Pebble for the time that I've used it, that I will be
0:52:47buying an Apple Watch as soon as I possibly can.
0:52:52You will?
0:52:53Yeah, I will definitely.
0:52:54Because I think from just on a base level it's going to have everything that I like
0:52:58about the Pebble and it's going to have a lot more.
0:53:03My only concern will be battery life.
0:53:05So how have you found the battery life on the Pebble?
0:53:08It was about 60% when it came out of the box on Friday and I charged it for the first time
0:53:14two nights ago, so Monday night, but it was only at like 20%.
0:53:18I just did it because I was sitting at my computer for a while.
0:53:21It had not run down.
0:53:22So, I mean, if you take that out, that's, you know, easily four or five, six days.
0:53:27Um, you'll get like an extra two days out of it.
0:53:30If you turn it off at night.
0:53:31Yeah, I have been doing that.
0:53:34So I did, I've been doing that because I leave my phone on at night.
0:53:37It's in do not disturb, but even if I take the watch off and put it like my
0:53:41nightstand drawer comes out and it's full of junk, so I just put my pebble in there.
0:53:44it sounds like a bomb going off. So I've been powering it all the way
0:53:50off when I'm not wearing it at night and I feel like that's definitely helped
0:53:54me. That's six, seven, eight hours at a time where it's just off.
0:53:59Yeah, it's best to turn it off. Federico, do you have any thoughts, questions, posits or
0:54:06anything I have to share with us about this topic?
0:54:11Not really. I'm just waiting for an Apple watch to see how much it costs. Personally,
0:54:21I don't think I really need notifications on my wrist all the time because I spend most
0:54:30of my days at home working and when I'm out I usually don't care about work stuff and
0:54:40if I get a notification that I want to check out when I'm out it's either a message that
0:54:44I need to check out on my phone or a phone call.
0:54:49So I don't really see the appeal of being able to glance because I don't have this kind
0:54:54I don't commute, I don't walk to get to work.
0:54:58I really don't need to.
0:55:00I really don't need to.
0:55:02- Sit up in bed and get your iPad.
0:55:04- I don't need easier access to notifications.
0:55:08And when I'm out, I don't want notifications at all.
0:55:12So we'll see.
0:55:13As I told you guys before, my interest in wearable devices
0:55:18is more about the wearable part
0:55:19rather than the notifications part.
0:55:22So we'll see.
0:55:23And that's an interesting dividing line.
0:55:26The Pebble is very much about notifications.
0:55:28Yes, you can put some apps on it, but they're very basic.
0:55:31You can control audio to your iOS device,
0:55:34which is actually really cool to pause a podcast without having
0:55:37to get my phone if my hands are wet or something.
0:55:40But the Pebble, the bulk of what it does is notifications.
0:55:44And you could say that it's--
0:55:48I would say that Apple hasn't really sold us
0:55:51on a single reason the Apple Watch exists,
0:55:54but notifications are a big part of it,
0:55:56but I don't think it's as big of a piece of the pie
0:55:59as it is on the Pebble.
0:56:01So I think the notifications are going to be a big part
0:56:06of the Apple Watch, but I think that it will do a lot more
0:56:10than the Pebble does outside of that.
0:56:12But I still like, when you look at the Pebble,
0:56:15like it's pretty easy to see,
0:56:16like this is for notifications, it's the reason it exists.
0:56:19The Apple Watch I don't think is as clear.
0:56:21Like I don't know if Apple's really answered the question
0:56:23as to why it exists or why someone should buy it.
0:56:25They're kind of saying, "Hey, it does all these things."
0:56:27And you can pick and choose what's important.
0:56:29And it sounds like to you Federico, you're more interested.
0:56:32I know from our previous conversations
0:56:35and the other things it does.
0:56:36Like the notifications might be handy,
0:56:39but not like not the reason you're buying it.
0:56:41- Yeah, cool.
0:56:45- Yeah, so we will follow up on Pebble stuff
0:56:47over the next couple of weeks, I'm sure.
0:56:49We always follow up on things.
0:56:52I want to take a moment to thank our third and final sponsor for this week's episode
0:56:57of Connected and that is our friends at Dash.
0:56:59Dash is a super cool website that allows you to quickly create real-time custom dashboards.
0:57:06These dashboards allow you to get a visual overview of important data for your website,
0:57:09business or even your life.
0:57:11And it does this by allowing you to pull in data from a variety of different sources and
0:57:16turn them into little widgets that you can see all in one page, all on one web page.
0:57:21They have services like AppFigures, Google Analytics, GitHub, Twitter, ChartBeat, many
0:57:27more.
0:57:28Maybe you have a WhyThing scale like Federico does, you can pull that information in.
0:57:34But also maybe you have some information in a web service or something like that and you
0:57:38want to pull that in yourself so you have some of your own data.
0:57:41Dash has an API that allows you to share data from Dropbox or from anywhere around the web
0:57:46and create your own custom widgets too to see basically any information that you want.
0:57:50So let me give an example of the type of thing that you may use for this.
0:57:55Maybe you have a podcast network called Relay FM.
0:57:59If you did, then you may have the @_relayfm Twitter feed pulled into Dash, along with
0:58:06information about Google Analytics, you know how many people are on the site.
0:58:09Maybe you have the iTunes top charts in there as well, so you can see what's going on in
0:58:13that world.
0:58:15And GitHub issues as well, to see what's tracked, to track what's going on on the site, you
0:58:18can have all of that in.
0:58:19or maybe you want to create a Dash dashboard for your favourite sports team and have Google
0:58:23News and Twitter Stream pulled in.
0:58:25Basically, you can pull all this stuff in there and create any kind of experience that
0:58:31you want.
0:58:32The pricing model for Dash is a lot like GitHub.
0:58:35Everyone gets unlimited public dashboards so that you share your live data with the
0:58:39community, there is a directory of all the different dashboards that are out there and
0:58:43you can go and view them and get inspiration or you can actually subscribe to somebody
0:58:47else's dashboard. So say there is one for that sports team, somebody's already created
0:58:52it, well great, you can just bring it into your account and then you're able to view
0:58:55it whenever you want. But if you upgrade to their pro account, which is $10 a month, you'll
0:59:00also get unlimited private dashboards too, so these are just for you to see. They're
0:59:04not put into the communities. This is where you might want to put all your personal data,
0:59:08like for example the information from your wiping scale unless you're very open. Dash
0:59:12is currently running an also limited time promotion though for listeners of the show.
0:59:16If you sign up for a free account today at thedash.com, you'll also get one private dashboard
0:59:22in addition to your free accounts and limited public dashboards.
0:59:25There's no credit card required and you keep your private dashboard forever, so there's
0:59:29no reason why you shouldn't be trying this out.
0:59:31I bet you're going to love it.
0:59:32So go sign up right now at thedash.com.
0:59:35Thank you so much to Dash for supporting this show and Relay FM.
0:59:42So Stephen, tell me about what Twitter did today.
0:59:46Twitter had a release, actually I don't know if it was a press release, they sometimes
0:59:51sort of just drop things on their support pages, you can find a bunch of links in the
0:59:54show notes.
0:59:55I saw it first on Recode, that basically just as a release is that to build, and I'm quoting,
1:00:05a more personal Twitter experience, that Twitter is going to begin collecting a list of apps
1:00:10installed on your mobile device and the list of apps will kind of go into their big machine
1:00:18that decides what ads are most relevant for you and sort of make their ad platform more
1:00:26valuable.
1:00:27Which I have no, I own an ad based company, I don't have a problem with the ads at all.
1:00:33Where it's icky a little bit is that they're collecting a list of applications that you
1:00:37have installed.
1:00:38Now, to be fair before we get into this, you can turn it off, but it is opt-out, which
1:00:45I think is the wrong default.
1:00:46I think it should be not opt-out, but it is.
1:00:51They seem to be rolling it out.
1:00:52Some people on Twitter today have said that, "Hey, I can't turn it off."
1:00:56Other people say that they can't turn it off yet, which is not uncommon.
1:00:59Twitter rolls things out slowly.
1:01:00It's a huge service.
1:01:01They can't just flip a switch and everyone get a new setting box.
1:01:05Why?
1:01:06It seems to be, that's the way, web apps are huge.
1:01:10And I mean like the cynic, which I think Myke,
1:01:14you said in our chat earlier, is like,
1:01:16they do it so you'll forget about it.
1:01:19They will say that they will notify you about the feature
1:01:23when you've been opted into the feature
1:01:24by giving you a prompt in your app, I guess.
1:01:28- Okay, that's not so bad then.
1:01:29If they tell me, I'm okay with it.
1:01:30I don't care about rolling it out.
1:01:31- But I don't use the Twitter app.
1:01:32It's not even installed on my phone,
1:01:33So like, I guess maybe if I log into the web I'll see it.
1:01:38And I'm not convinced that I'm going to go in, like I have a bajillion Twitter accounts,
1:01:41I'm not going to go in and turn it off on all these things.
1:01:44But it reads like they can't, like I'm not going to be any good to them because I run
1:01:50Tweetbot which is like a whole 'nother topic.
1:01:53That's kind of like the news of the day, they're going to be looking at the apps on your phone
1:01:57and putting that in their ad machine.
1:02:01So people went crazy.
1:02:03I don't like it.
1:02:05People went a little crazy.
1:02:06There's a lot of debate on how they're doing it.
1:02:10There's a really interesting post by our friend Nick over at RealMax saying that it's probably
1:02:18by URL schemes, which is a pretty good way to see what's available on your device, but
1:02:23not every app has URL schemes, so it might not be a perfect picture.
1:02:26It is the only way to look at the apps that you have installed.
1:02:30there's no manifest that an iOS is available to sandboxed apps. The
1:02:35system has to know what's there but apps can't really see other apps unless
1:02:41of an extension or URL scheme. So it's probably URL schemes. I mean I agree with
1:02:47you I can't think of another way they're doing it but it's
1:02:52it's a little weird and I tend to agree with Myke that it's a little icky but
1:02:59But Federico, you on Twitter had a pretty good counter argument, so let's hear what
1:03:05you had to say.
1:03:06Yeah, I mean, it's nothing new really that apps can look at your list of installed apps
1:03:13using the URL scheme.
1:03:15And on Twitter, I shared a screenshot of the Launch Center Pro Action Composer that has
1:03:22a list of all your installed apps.
1:03:24And now I understand that this is really different, that Launch Center Pro is using the Action
1:03:29composer as a utility and Twitter wants to use this data to better optimize their advertising
1:03:37on the Twitter apps. But still, I think that people, at least some people, are overreacting
1:03:44to this. You know, coming up with tweets like "oh my god I cannot believe that this is possible
1:03:50on iOS" or that Twitter is doing this. Because I think that they haven't been paying attention.
1:03:56And I think that what also annoys me is that I do believe that most of this hate, I would say,
1:04:04is related to the fact that some people like to make fun of Twitter, and especially the
1:04:10Twitter app for the iPhone and iPad, because they use something like tweetbotter and twiterific.
1:04:15And I think that whenever Twitter announces a new feature for the Twitter app, now this is not a
1:04:22feature I understand that just let me go on with the argument. Every time Twitter
1:04:26announces a new feature they usually make fun of it or they criticize it. I
1:04:31think that people need to come to terms with the fact that Twitter doesn't care
1:04:34about third-party apps anymore. Either you accept it or you stop using Twitter
1:04:39I guess at this point because I guess that a hard truth that people don't want
1:04:45to accept is that the Twitter they see in the third-party client is not the
1:04:49real Twitter anymore. It's a legacy Twitter and it is up to you I guess to understand
1:04:59that or not. But it is undeniable that if you keep using third party clients you're
1:05:04gonna miss out on many many parts of the modern Twitter experience. Now this stuff about the
1:05:10ads, I mean you can say that it's sticky or that it's weird for many many other companies
1:05:16that use ads. You could say that about Apple, with iAd, or you could say that of course
1:05:23about Google, you could say that about Firefox, which now has ads on Mozilla, on the Firefox
1:05:30homepage. So, you know, I mean, you could say that it's weird, that it's personal. I
1:05:39I don't think that having a list of your installed apps,
1:05:44which by the way is a list that many other apps
1:05:47can look at and you don't even know
1:05:51because they don't need to ask you for permission
1:05:54to access that list because it's basically just looking
1:05:57at a URL and determining whether that URL,
1:06:01like tweetbot colon slash slash can be opened or not.
1:06:05It's really simple.
1:06:07And so many other apps can do that.
1:06:10There wasn't a big deal about this before.
1:06:13Yeah, I think that's kind of the breaking point, though,
1:06:15of like, who cares if Launch Center Pro can do it,
1:06:17but Twitter is a publicly traded company.
1:06:19Like, I think that's kind of--
1:06:20Yeah, what are they gonna do with your data, anyway?
1:06:22I mean, it's a list of installed apps.
1:06:24You could literally have Flappy Bird and Angry Birds
1:06:27and editorial on your phone, and they wouldn't care.
1:06:30They wouldn't be able to do anything with it.
1:06:32I guess that, I mean, if the problem is
1:06:34that you don't like the Twitter app,
1:06:36you're not going to see the ads in Tweetbot or Twitterific anyway.
1:06:40If it's just a matter of principle, why weren't you upset about the fact that iOS
1:06:45can expose a list of URLs before?
1:06:48Can I start now?
1:06:51I have been, actually I just actually opened the Twitter app and in the timeline it says,
1:06:58it came up to say to me, I haven't got it here now, but it was something along the lines
1:07:04of Twitter now to see your apps to give you a more tailored experience.
1:07:14Review your settings now if you'd like to change this to something.
1:07:16And then it's taken me to review the settings.
1:07:18The dialog says "Tailor Twitter based on my apps" and there's a button that says "Learn
1:07:24More" which takes me to the App Graph Help Center information.
1:07:29I don't like that it's mainly focused around
1:07:34it's improving my who to follow suggestions,
1:07:36adding tweets, accounts, or other content to your timeline
1:07:39that we think you'll find especially interesting
1:07:42and showing you more relevant promoted content.
1:07:44I don't think that there's anything that this is for
1:07:47other than to sell my data to companies for ads.
1:07:51That's what this is about.
1:07:53That's what people are upset about.
1:07:55They may use this data for other things,
1:07:58but the purpose of this is to sell it.
1:08:01Now that's the problem and that Federico
1:08:03is why I cannot understand why you're okay with this
1:08:06because yes, Launch Center Pro can view it
1:08:08but that's for a benefit for me.
1:08:10Twitter are gonna take this information
1:08:11and they're gonna sell that information about me to--
1:08:14- How do you know that it's not a benefit for you?
1:08:16What do you know if maybe someday you discover an app
1:08:18through an ad on Twitter?
1:08:19- Oh my God, this is the problem you have with Google.
1:08:22This is the exact same thing.
1:08:23Google sell your information to advertisers
1:08:26so they can show you ads.
1:08:28Are you seriously comparing the fact that Google can read my email to the fact that Twitter can see what installed apps you ever...
1:08:34Nobody's reading your email. It's the same...
1:08:36What do you know?
1:08:37So what... I don't understand why is Twitter creepy and Google is not that they've been doing much much worse
1:08:43with the kind of content that they get access to.
1:08:46It's the idea... It's like the change of Twitter.
1:08:49No, it's the fact that people...
1:08:51People are in love with this idea of Twitter seeing through tweetbot or Twitterrific and that's okay.
1:08:57it's just not Twitter anymore. That's what drives me kind of crazy.
1:09:02But I just I don't like that the company's changing. I don't like it.
1:09:07Yeah, see that's not up to you. I know it's not up to me. I'm not saying it is,
1:09:11but it doesn't mean that I can't have emotions about it. I don't like that
1:09:14Twitter is changing, and I don't like that it's changing away from what I
1:09:19like, and I don't like that it's changing from my perspective for the worst for
1:09:25what I like to use it for.
1:09:26I don't like that.
1:09:29- Well, we've seen app.net what happened.
1:09:32- Exactly, I don't like--
1:09:33- They need to make money in some way.
1:09:35- I don't like that they are having,
1:09:39I don't like it when companies change these things on you
1:09:41and they opt you in, right?
1:09:44They just opt you in.
1:09:45And I don't like when I feel that I'm trying to be duped.
1:09:49The idea of like, to make my experience better,
1:09:51it's not what it's about.
1:09:53Like, you are selling my information to serve ads to me.
1:09:57That's what you're doing.
1:09:58Like, you may be doing these other things,
1:10:00but I can assure you that the reason this is happening
1:10:02is not because they wanna show me other accounts to follow.
1:10:05That is a reason.
1:10:07It is not the primary reason.
1:10:09The primary reason is to sell my information
1:10:11so they can make money.
1:10:13So we clearly feel differently about this
1:10:16as we do many things in regards to this topic.
1:10:19I appreciate that this is very much like Google,
1:10:21But when I went in to Google, I expected this.
1:10:25They were out front with this, this is what they do, right?
1:10:28This is not necessarily what I expected from Twitter.
1:10:31And Twitter's become such an important part of my life.
1:10:34And I can just change email provider
1:10:38and change a thing for my life.
1:10:40Because everyone can still contact me
1:10:42and I can still contact everyone.
1:10:44I can change search engine.
1:10:45Again, I can search for the same things
1:10:47that I went to search for before.
1:10:49I can't change Twitter.
1:10:51there isn't another one.
1:10:52And if I go--
1:10:53- Well, there used to be, but they went out of--
1:10:55- But that's the problem.
1:10:57Anything that pops up, it's not the same,
1:10:59because all of the stuff that I get out of it is not there.
1:11:02People can't contact me in the same way
1:11:03that they could before.
1:11:04All the things that I like in the company are gone,
1:11:06and I think that's why it upsets people.
1:11:08Other companies, when they do these things, like Google,
1:11:12everything that they do, you can just change it,
1:11:14and it doesn't actually have a detrimental impact on you
1:11:17in the same way that this does.
1:11:19If you love Twitter and what you see as Twitter,
1:11:22not Twitter the company, Twitter the service, right?
1:11:26The API service.
1:11:28If you love that the same way that everybody else does,
1:11:30when it changes and when it looks like it's gonna change,
1:11:32it looks like it's slipping away from you,
1:11:34I feel it's a concern.
1:11:36And the other thing about this is,
1:11:38I'm starting to wonder now,
1:11:39how far will I let them go
1:11:41that I wouldn't let other companies go?
1:11:43Like, whatever, look, I've turned it off now,
1:11:47I don't care anymore.
1:11:48like it's done with, but what will they do?
1:11:50Like what could they do?
1:11:51And like, oh, by the way, now we read your DMs
1:11:54and we sell that information.
1:11:55Like, am I okay with that?
1:11:56I don't know.
1:11:57- But they're not doing that.
1:11:58- No, no, no, I'm not saying they're doing that.
1:11:59I didn't say that.
1:12:00I said, how far could they go, right?
1:12:02So I'm imagining this like 1984 hellscape, right?
1:12:06How far will I let Twitter go before I leave?
1:12:11And I think I would let them get away with more
1:12:15than another service.
1:12:17like Facebook or something.
1:12:19- I just don't understand why people are so upset
1:12:21about this while Facebook and Google can do much worse,
1:12:24you know, by looking at your data.
1:12:27- The reason is I think because you can go elsewhere
1:12:30for these other services.
1:12:32- No, where can you go elsewhere for Facebook to Google+?
1:12:34- Yeah, but you just don't have an account.
1:12:37But my point is like, if I don't want a Facebook account,
1:12:40like I can just get rid of it
1:12:41and it doesn't actually make any impact on my life.
1:12:44And I think a lot of nerds are the same
1:12:45because it seems that this Twitter-loving nerd
1:12:48doesn't really use Facebook in the same way
1:12:50as the general public, so it's like,
1:12:51whatever, I'll just let it go.
1:12:52You hear many people don't even have a Facebook account.
1:12:55I have a Facebook account.
1:12:56I only have it for the few people
1:12:58that send me group messages that way
1:13:00and for events that people might send me to.
1:13:02Other than that, I don't upload photos there.
1:13:04I don't look at the wall.
1:13:04I don't look at anything.
1:13:06With Gmail's Google stuff,
1:13:08I can just use any of the competing services.
1:13:11It doesn't really affect my life in the same way.
1:13:13If I leave Twitter, I leave Twitter, not the company.
1:13:18That service in Tweetbot that I look at all day every day,
1:13:22and currently there is no replacement for that
1:13:24for me to get a similar or the same experience.
1:13:26That is my concern.
1:13:28I understand that what they are doing is the same
1:13:31as so many companies and many companies
1:13:34that I don't have a problem with.
1:13:35And it's not about the fact of what they're doing.
1:13:40It's my selfish--
1:13:42my selfish concern about the fact that the service that I love is changing in a way that I didn't want it to change.
1:13:50I appreciate that it's selfish and I don't have any right to tell them what they can or can't do.
1:13:55But it doesn't mean that I can't be upset about it because it upsets me.
1:13:58Where does that leave us?
1:14:00That's my whole point as to what I'm trying to say is like, what do we do?
1:14:05Like, what do we do? Like, I don't think we can do anything.
1:14:08And is that a good thing or a bad thing?
1:14:10When I say either you get used to it or you leave Twitter you understand that I that I have a point right because oh
1:14:16Yeah, I know. I'm not saying that's what I'm saying. That is what I'm saying
1:14:20I'm just coming at it from a different angle to you. You're being more positive about it than I am
1:14:23Yeah, I mean there's no real alternative to Twitter right there was app.net there was tent is and
1:14:30we've seen how things have played out there and
1:14:35If you don't let Twitter become what it wants to become you're not gonna you're not gonna have the Twitter API that you know
1:14:42and love anymore anyway
1:14:44Because it needs to make money in some way, you know
1:14:47And clearly you cannot you cannot be the service that millions and millions of people use is if you put a paywall or premium features
1:14:55instead of advertisements and
1:14:59Honestly, I don't think that being able to see the list of apps that you have installed
1:15:06is as crazy as being able to...
1:15:09Maybe that they don't have humans read an email, but still being able to read email or your browsing history or you know
1:15:17your thermostat data or you know what you do on Google Maps, what you do on Facebook.
1:15:23I honestly don't see the big deal and I think that a component of all this criticism is the fact that people
1:15:29just don't want Twitter or third-party clients to die so they cannot conflate
1:15:34the arguments. Can I just say one more thing on that? Yes. So I think one of the other differences and one of the
1:15:41reasons I see this is different is all the stuff that Google sees is
1:15:44information I give to Google so like they don't read my Outlook email they
1:15:48read my Gmail email they don't read my Apple Maps data they read my Google Maps
1:15:52data. The apps on my phone are not inside of Twitter so like they are reaching out
1:15:57of their app to pull that information from me. That is not Twitter's
1:16:01information. If they are reading the tweets that I send, even if they do read
1:16:06the DMs that I send to make that sort of stuff, it's like I'm putting it in there.
1:16:10What do I expect? You're a public traded company that sells
1:16:13ads. The apps on my phone, that is not their data to sell.
1:16:20I'm not giving that to them willingly. I don't put it into their service. They are
1:16:26reaching out, seeing what I use and selling that information to other people.
1:16:30That is like, for me, that is the problem that I have.
1:16:33I don't care that they sell ads, I care about like on the stuff that I write or the content
1:16:38that I put into their system.
1:16:40It bothers me when they are breaking outside of their application to sell that data.
1:16:45That's my concern.
1:16:46That's what upsets me about it.
1:16:47Okay.
1:16:48So I guess that for me it falls more into the whatever spectrum and you're more upset.
1:16:53Yeah.
1:16:54It's interesting how with these inverse ways, like I'm like whatever about Google, but this
1:16:59really upsets me.
1:17:00It's just differences of opinion and what you think is fair.
1:17:03I don't think this is fair.
1:17:05But don't you think, Myke, that not just about today's news about the ads and the installed
1:17:11apps, don't you think that in general, whenever Twitter does anything new to their iOS app,
1:17:18people are upset because it's not coming to the third-party API?
1:17:21Yeah, because we want our Twitter to be safe and amazing forever.
1:17:25I appreciate that that is not our decision to make, and that is their decision to make,
1:17:29and we shouldn't be so upset about it.
1:17:31Like, this search thing, I think Twitter are well within their right to keep that out of
1:17:34the API.
1:17:35Like, that is a compelling reason to use the app.
1:17:39And I think that's their decision.
1:17:41And I don't think people should necessarily be upset about it.
1:17:44I think that there's a preconception to hate Twitter in many people.
1:17:51- And remind you, Myke, just in general,
1:17:53like, of course you gotta despise the new feature
1:17:56that Twitter puts in the iPhone app, because it's evil.
1:17:59- Yeah.
1:18:00- And that's, especially when you don't try the app,
1:18:03like you talk about the Twitter app
1:18:06as some sort of rumor or legend that you heard, you know?
1:18:11Like so many people say, "Oh, whatever, the Twitter app,
1:18:14"uh," you know?
1:18:15And they never try the app?
1:18:18I just don't understand.
1:18:20People are scared. People are scared of what Twitter we're going to do. No, no, no, not the app.
1:18:25People are scared that Twitter the company is going to take their thing away.
1:18:29That's how people feel about it.
1:18:31I think that's inevitable.
1:18:32I know. I think that's why we're even more scared, because we know it's going to happen. It's just when.
1:18:37It's not if.
1:18:39Yeah, Federico, I agree with you that I have definitely... there's some people I follow on Twitter, like in the Apple space,
1:18:46who are just like, wash their hands of it instantly.
1:18:50I think part of that is the fear that like,
1:18:55Tweetbot or Twitterrific or whatever you use,
1:18:58like we are, to Everest's point, it was an hour ago,
1:19:02we are legacy Twitter, right?
1:19:03Like we use it the way that Twitter worked back in the day.
1:19:08Like I, for one, can't really imagine the internet
1:19:10without Twitter, like if Twitter implodes
1:19:13or people move on, unless something replaces it
1:19:16that is very similar, I will miss it.
1:19:19It is a very central part of what I do on the internet
1:19:24and very central to Relay's success.
1:19:27All of our fans are on Twitter,
1:19:28we talk to people on Twitter,
1:19:29that's how we get the news out about things.
1:19:31It's very weird to think about that going away.
1:19:34But I do think nerds are more inclined
1:19:39to frown upon this thing,
1:19:42Because we do know in the back of our heads,
1:19:44this is one more thing, one more stone on the scale
1:19:49and it's gonna tip and their party clients
1:19:53are gonna be done.
1:19:55And it's, I think that's inevitable.
1:19:57And what makes it weird is I know that I'm going to
1:20:02have to use the Twitter app, not from a perspective of
1:20:04they do all these things that are kinda weird.
1:20:06I'm kinda in between the two of you on this.
1:20:08But I don't wanna use the Twitter app.
1:20:10It's not, in my opinion, an app that I don't enjoy using it.
1:20:13I have used it for periods of time in the past.
1:20:17I don't like the way that it works.
1:20:20I like the way Tweetbot works.
1:20:21So it kind of clicks with the way I think.
1:20:23And so that's part of it, too, right?
1:20:24I have this habit of using this app that works the way I like it.
1:20:27And one day, that'll probably stop.
1:20:30By the end of the day, to someone's point, Twitter is a company.
1:20:34They do have to make money.
1:20:35They're publicly traded.
1:20:36to monetize their service or the whole thing is bust, right?
1:20:40Like I would rather have Twitter in the official app and be annoyed than have no Twitter at
1:20:44all and they have to figure out how to make their business work and I'm sure it's a very
1:20:49expensive business to run and they're trying to get things out the doors to get that income
1:20:56back.
1:20:58So I don't think that Twitter is evil for trying to make money.
1:21:03I think you said it really well that the dividing line is that you're not putting this information
1:21:09into Twitter, it's pulling it in from you.
1:21:12I think it's a really interesting relationship there that you pointed out.
1:21:18I think that's like, I hadn't really thought about that way, but I think that is one reason
1:21:21I feel it's a little weird because the app is reaching out and doing something on my
1:21:23device and I'm not, like, I know that when I go to Facebook and I'm giving the Facebook
1:21:29machine information about me and I'm doing that voluntarily, I'm actually doing it because
1:21:32my family members make me, but more or less voluntarily.
1:21:38Where an app doing things on my phone and like props for them, like I truly mean this,
1:21:43like I'm a good move to alert you that they're doing it because if they did it without telling
1:21:49you, that would be really bad.
1:21:52And if it came to light, it would be a PR disaster.
1:21:56So no, I think this is one more step towards like those of us in legacy land getting drug
1:22:01into what Twitter's future is and like that's not great but I'd rather that
1:22:07than not have the service anymore so I don't know. I love the timing too like
1:22:13the Wednesday night before Thanksgiving. Oh yeah. Facebook did the same like I think
1:22:19yesterday like they updated their privacy policy. Yeah, Slack did too. I don't know guys I may
1:22:26have a problem maybe I just don't understand people like I don't understand
1:22:31why, how can you not miss entire parts of the Twitter experience in third-party
1:22:39clients and not at least be curious to see what's up in the official app. Like
1:22:44like you cannot send pictures in DMs in in Tweetbot and Twitterrific and
1:22:49Twitterrific doesn't even show you tweets with multiple photos in the
1:22:52timeline. They don't show you animated GIFs. I guess the Tweetbot does now.
1:22:57You're missing out on dozens of features and people just don't care.
1:23:03I go in and look every now and then but I don't like the way that it handles remembering
1:23:09my place in the timeline for example.
1:23:11I don't like that.
1:23:12So just for that?
1:23:13No, no, no, but that's a key thing for me Federico.
1:23:16That is something that is really important for me.
1:23:19It took me away from using Twitterific and into Tweetbot.
1:23:23That something for me is really important.
1:23:25I like that, because a lot of people are tweeting when I'm asleep, and I wake up in the morning
1:23:31and I like to read back from where I left off.
1:23:35That's not the main thing, it's a thing, it's a big thing.
1:23:39And that's something that I really like.
1:23:42There are things about the layout of the Twitter app that I don't like.
1:23:46The favorite button is right there and I keep hitting it whenever I'm scrolling through.
1:23:52a bunch of little things but the Twitter app does some stuff a lot better. I
1:23:56really like the notifications view. I think it's fantastic. You know like the
1:24:02way it shows someone retweeted a tweet that you were mentioned in like nowhere
1:24:07else can give you that information. I really like that. I think it's
1:24:11really good. I love the way the profile view looks. I think it's way better than
1:24:15any third-party client. There are things that I like but unfortunately the things
1:24:19that I don't like are some of the biggest things that I use.
1:24:24I don't like that when I just did it now, when it loads a gap, it pushes the data down.
1:24:29That's not the way I read Twitter.
1:24:30I read Twitter from bottom up.
1:24:32So then I have to just go find it.
1:24:34And that, again, that was something that has made me switch around and move clients before.
1:24:39So I also don't like the blue line thing, but maybe I just need to get used to that
1:24:42because you said that you liked that.
1:24:44It made me discover so many tweets that I missed.
1:24:48Like in practice it's useful.
1:24:51I'm grown up enough I think to appreciate that there are some things that I don't like
1:24:55because I'm not used to them, but there are some things that I know I don't like because
1:25:00I've tried them this way before in other apps that weren't a Twitter app and I don't like
1:25:04it.
1:25:05Like the gap detection and the way that it loads in new tweets and stuff like that.
1:25:09I don't like that because I don't like the way that that works.
1:25:13But yeah, I appreciate what you're saying about the way that people kind of poo-poo
1:25:18the Twitter app because it's the Twitter app.
1:25:22Yeah, because they bought Twitter and because they changed it, you know.
1:25:26This is now of course about you Myke, I know that at least you have some degree of curiosity
1:25:32to check out the app every once in a while, but there's really people who, you mention
1:25:36the Twitter app and they're like "Oh my god, you use the Twitter app?
1:25:39You of all people?"
1:25:40Like it's some sort of sign?
1:25:41- It is kind of crazy.
1:25:43It is kind of crazy 'cause it's like, you are-
1:25:46- Is it crazy?
1:25:47I mean, okay, I'm talking to developers, right?
1:25:49So I'm talking to a bunch of developers
1:25:51because I'm trying new apps
1:25:53and they're asking me via DM,
1:25:55"Hey, did you check out the app?"
1:25:57And maybe I stumble across a bug.
1:25:59So I send a screenshot in a DM, isn't that useful?
1:26:03- Yeah, but it's just like you are this,
1:26:05you know, you are like the poster child of Power Apps and-
1:26:10- This is a power app.
1:26:12That's my point.
1:26:13- In its own ways.
1:26:15- That's my point.
1:26:16That's what people don't understand.
1:26:18It is a power app.
1:26:19When it lets you do all this stuff, it is a power app.
1:26:23- Yeah, yeah, okay.
1:26:25It's a power app in a different way though.
1:26:27Like Tweetbot has more power in ways
1:26:30that the official app does and vice versa.
1:26:33- I'm not saying that Tweetbot and Twitterific
1:26:35don't have their own useful features.
1:26:38And in fact, I'm working on it.
1:26:39So I told you guys, I'm working on this huge article about Twitter clients.
1:26:44I've been working on this, taking notes for months.
1:26:47And there are two features primarily, timeline sync,
1:26:51and the fact that you can use the share sheet in Tweetbot and Twitterific.
1:26:57And the Tweetbot maybe has a non-model web view.
1:27:03Then there's the other stuff, like Tweetbot
1:27:06lets you filter out hashtags and keywords, which can be huge for some people, I guess.
1:27:12Although I gotta wonder why don't you just unfollow people if you're so annoyed by some
1:27:18tweets. But anyway, I guess that Twitter is a really personal experience and I totally
1:27:23understand why you want to use tweet, but why you want to use Twitter. I don't judge,
1:27:31You know? I mean, everybody can use their own client. I'm just saying that it looks
1:27:35like Twitter, the future of Twitter may be not an API, and this is not an "it looks
1:27:44like" statement. This is an objective statement. Many features of modern Twitter are not available
1:27:50in other apps. So when I say you're missing out on a huge part of the modern Twitter experience,
1:27:56not something that you can say that's not true, because it is true. And so that's my
1:28:01point. That's why I don't understand why some people wouldn't say, "Okay, yeah, I'm missing
1:28:05out on many features of Twitter, maybe I should just give this app a chance and see what's
1:28:10up." And I don't know why. I don't know why, because they're scared. I mean, it's a free
1:28:19And so I thought about it and I guess that if you're so upset about Twitter doing these kind of changes
1:28:28and if you're so upset about the app and it's a... I mean when I tweet about this stuff, when I talk about this stuff,
1:28:34when I write about Twitter clients, I get so many emails and tweets from people who seem... who sound at least...
1:28:40they sound angry and upset because they say "You, you use the Twitter app, you should be like ashamed".
1:28:46And I just don't get it, you know, because it's just a Twitter app and people are so upset.
1:28:51This is what we get upset about though. These are the things, you know, the apps people use.
1:28:56Yeah, I mean it doesn't really make sense, to me at least.
1:29:00Like I understand why you prefer another app, but why would you go all the way out to send me an email
1:29:06or to send me a tweet just to say I cannot believe you use the Twitter app or like to say
1:29:12or the Twitter app is a piece of, you know, that kind of stuff. Like, there's no need
1:29:16to and especially when you say, "I don't even want to try the Twitter app." Okay.
1:29:22Have you ever been on the internet?
1:29:24I have been. I have been. It just surprises me that people would be upset for Twitter clients.
1:29:31And people get upset about weirder things than that, my friend.
1:29:34Yeah.
1:29:35You know, I've been on the internet. I've seen weird stuff. I've seen weird people.
1:29:40just never with people about Twitter clients.
1:29:44That was a new one for me.
1:29:45So yeah.
1:29:47I'm sure you're going to get a lot of people come out of the woodwork now.
1:29:50Oh yeah.
1:29:51Yeah.
1:29:52Oh, especially after I published the article.
1:29:55I'm trying to be as objective as possible, especially with the features.
1:30:01When it comes to features, you cannot object features.
1:30:04They're either there or they're not.
1:30:07So I got that going for me, you know?
1:30:11That's good stuff.
1:30:13I like when you cannot object points.
1:30:16Time to wrap up.
1:30:19I know it's been a good episode of Connected when I have a headache.
1:30:22Today is one of those days.
1:30:25If you would like to find the show notes for this week's episode, you want to open your
1:30:28web browser and point it at relay.fm/connected/15.
1:30:32Don't forget to check out our store.
1:30:34We'll love you very much if you do.
1:30:35store.relay.fm. Thanks so much to our sponsors this week, the great people over at Drafts,
1:30:42Studio Neat and Dash. I am at iMyke, I-M-Y-K-E and I host many shows over at relay.fm. You should
1:30:49check them out if you haven't already. Federico is at Vitici, V-I-T-I-C-C-I and he writes the
1:30:55fantastic MacStories.net and my co-founder at Relay FM, Mr. Stephen Hackett, he is @ismh on Twitter
1:31:04and he writes thegreat512pixels.net where you can find more coverage of Stephen's attempts at using
1:31:10a pebble if you would like and Federico will one day write the book about about Twitter app
1:31:16experiences which I'm looking forward to, forward to reading very much and I'm sure we'll have more
1:31:23to talk about it on this show when that happens. Until then thank you so much for listening,
1:31:28we'll be back next time. Bye bye.
1:31:30Adios.
1:31:32[ Silence ]