0:00:00Hey guys, it's Stephen. Before the show started, I wanted to take a little time and remind
0:00:04everybody that September is National Childhood Cancer Awareness Month. Here in 2014, cancer
0:00:10is still the leading cause of death for children in the United States, despite amazing breakthroughs
0:00:15in both medicine and science. At the forefront of this battle is St. Jude Children's Research
0:00:20Hospital right here in Memphis, Tennessee, my own backyard. Each year, St. Jude treats
0:00:25thousands of kids, including my own, without charging their families for a single appointment,
0:00:31meal or night of housing.
0:00:33All the research St. Jude does into the human genome, treatment options and more is freely
0:00:38shared with the medical community at large.
0:00:41St. Jude's operating costs are $2 million a day and the doors stay open at the generosity
0:00:46of the public.
0:00:48Let's make September about these kids, about my kid and these families.
0:00:53You can learn more and donate at 512pixels.net/September.
0:00:58Thanks.
0:00:59[MUSIC PLAYING]
0:01:06Hello and welcome to episode number three
0:01:09of Connected on Relay FM.
0:01:11Today is September 3, 2014.
0:01:14This episode of Connected is brought to you by Igloo,
0:01:17ICONIC, and Squarespace.
0:01:19And we're going to tell you about those guys and gals
0:01:21a little bit later on in the show.
0:01:23My name is Myke Hurley.
0:01:24Today I am joined by Mr. Steven Hackett.
0:01:27Hello, sir.
0:01:28- Hello, sir.
0:01:29- And that is it.
0:01:30- Federico's off celebrating.
0:01:34- Federico's a party, listeners of The Prompt
0:01:39may remember La Machina, which we spoke about before.
0:01:42It's that time of year again.
0:01:44So that's where Federico is.
0:01:46He is at La Machina.
0:01:48- Was that episode three last time?
0:01:51No no episode 12 according to Google yeah so yes Federico will be back next
0:01:58week we are joined by Jason Snell in a little while but first we have some
0:02:02follow-up follow-up sorry yeah we don't do the sound anymore can't help it so
0:02:08underscore David Smith did the best thing ever the best thing ever so good
0:02:14so there is now a official Safari extension that switches episode numbers
0:02:19on relay.fm to Roman numerals. Now it is all episode numbers so my
0:02:26standpoint was this should just be connected but you should definitely
0:02:29download this and change the way that our site works in your browser. You
0:02:33shouldn't have a bias for one show anymore. But yeah. Technically they're
0:02:39all your shows. I mean they're more my shows but they're... Wow. I'm on the
0:02:44more what do you want from me I'm very tired I'm drawing my redrawing my
0:02:51contract real quick you're gonna be my co-host on every show now yes okay cool
0:02:57just checking so this is awesome and you should run it in Safari and if you don't
0:03:03run Safari you should switch to Safari so you can do it I'm are you running it
0:03:06Myke I'm running it I use Chrome so look at me I need Google Docs like what do
0:03:12you want from me. It works in Yosemite Safari. Oh really? I'm in it
0:03:17right now yeah it's great. What Google Docs? Yes because it does not work in
0:03:22Safari and Mavericks at all. This is great news because it doesn't seem like
0:03:26Chrome are gonna do a lot to support the new extensions in iOS so I probably will
0:03:31want to switch back to Safari. Yes. But I like you know tab syncing and I like
0:03:36shared history and that sort of stuff so yes so I'll be happy. The next
0:03:41follow-up item is in our document called "Steven is a liar" and so Paul Lu on on
0:03:52Twitter says "ismh you never said why you don't like my fitness pal" which is
0:03:57true I think I said that I would say why I didn't like it but then I didn't say
0:04:01why I didn't like it and now I will say why I don't like it. I don't know I
0:04:04assumed Federico put that in there and said you were a liar I don't think it was me and that
0:04:09That definitely seems like something you would say.
0:04:12It's pretty funny.
0:04:14So MyFitnessPal is, it's a fine app, I don't want to disparage any developer, but it does
0:04:22some things that I don't really care for, especially on the marketing side.
0:04:27Like they send a lot of emails and they're really big into the social end of it and I
0:04:32don't particularly care if Myke knows how much I weigh.
0:04:35Like I don't care for the social aspect of it and so LoseIt is a little more sort of
0:04:39Solitary and lose it does do I think some social stuff on their website, but it's sort of a different thing
0:04:44My fitness pal is great. It's extremely popular. It's just I like the way that lose it sort of works and looks
0:04:52For me so not really anything like groundbreaking there, but it's kind of how it is just don't like how it looks I understand
0:05:01What's next in the follow-up Stephen Hackett, oh yes next in the
0:05:09follow up item is the iPod halo effect and so we spoke what two weeks ago about
0:05:16the iPod and we kind of passed over it about the the iPod halo effect and so we
0:05:25got some we got a link from Becky Hansmeyer who has this this great blog
0:05:31post about her iPod collection and kind of how that how that sort of unfolded
0:05:38over history, over history. And the the closing of this blog post really grabbed my attention.
0:05:43And it was the iPod was more than a music player. It was my first real introduction
0:05:49into all things Apple. It was prompted my first white iBook by a black MacBook and then
0:05:54a MacBook Pro. And I think Becky story is really common that that people bought an iPod
0:06:02and then ended up with a Mac. And we spoke a little bit about that even on the show with
0:06:07Federico and and the kind of his his gateway into Apple and I I went the
0:06:13iPod route you know I apologize I had and and then to the rest I am I was Mac
0:06:20first but of course you were it but uh yeah so I took up this article for Mac
0:06:25world from 2006 written by Jim Darrow pull about how the iPod changed Apple's
0:06:31fortune. So in this article Jim talks about the Mac business at the time that
0:06:37the iPod was introduced and then in the fourth quarter of 2006 you know 746
0:06:44thousand Macs versus 1.6 million Macs and it's you know I think it's very
0:06:50clear you look at those numbers and you look at stories like yours and Federico's
0:06:53and Becky's and lots of other people the iPod really was a gateway drug to the
0:06:59sort of Apple ecosystem and that's kind of what we mean by halo effect that you
0:07:03know you you pick this one device and it radiates outward and I think that that's
0:07:08definitely true of the iPod I think it's true to maybe a lesser degree for the
0:07:14for the iPhone and iPad and I don't know about you Myke but I think the stuff
0:07:19with iOS 8 and handoff and continuity and all that stuff like that's even a
0:07:22bigger like a bigger push into making iOS you know kind of recapture some of
0:07:28that. Definitely. I mean it was my story you know that that that's how I got into
0:07:34all this stuff. Like the iPod wasn't just my kind of halo into Apple it was my
0:07:38halo into technology really you know in general. It was a big thing for me.
0:07:44Yeah and you know Apple's obviously a different company than they were in 2001
0:07:49right. The Mac was if the Mac is the underdog now it definitely was in 2001.
0:07:54I mean just the iMac was just two years old at that point and so it is a
0:07:59different different world now but I still think that that Apple can benefit
0:08:03from that you know Apple does best when the consumer is using kind of Apple
0:08:08end-to-end right iCloud is that glue that holds these devices together and so
0:08:13to look at the iPod or iPhone and say you know what like this is a great
0:08:16device and they work well together but if you have a Mac like it really work
0:08:20well together I could say it's a whole nother level of productivity and
0:08:24integration, that's not a bad thing for Apple at all.
0:08:27So we're about to take a break for our first sponsor of this
0:08:32week's episode. And when we come back, we're going to be joined
0:08:35by Mr. Jason Snell. So you can look forward to that. But first,
0:08:39let me tell you about our friends over at Igloo. We do
0:08:44love Igloo. Igloo have been with us since the start of the launch
0:08:47of this fine podcast network of which Connected is a part of. So
0:08:52Igloo is the internet that you will actually like because it's built with you in mind.
0:08:57They have super easy to use apps like shared calendars, twitter-like micro blogs, file sharing
0:09:03and oh so much more. And these all integrate into Igloo's fantastic internet platform and are really
0:09:08simple to set up and configure to exactly how you need and want them to be. Everything that you're
0:09:13going to need with Igloo is built right in and everything is social. This means that when you
0:09:17upload a file to your igloo? Maybe you write a blog post or you upload a music track you've
0:09:24been working on over the weekend to share with some co-workers. Your team can share it around
0:09:27with each other, they can comment on it, rate it, like it. This is just like the social apps that
0:09:31you're used to using every single day. It's like bringing those conventions, the stuff that you're
0:09:36used to talking with your friends into your conversations with your co-workers too. It just
0:09:42helps bridge that gap a little bit. With igloo's latest release you can also manage all of the
0:09:46tasks that are associated with your content. Like, for example, updating the
0:09:51show notes for this week's episode. I can give Stephen the task of doing all the
0:09:56follow-up. I can give Federico the task of taking the week off if he likes. And I
0:10:02can delegate actions after this week's show, you know, maybe to do some editing
0:10:06or something like that to me if necessary. This is the type of stuff that
0:10:09you can do in Igloo. You can give people little tasks to do and all of this is
0:10:13integrated right into their intranet platform. And this was just released, this functionality,
0:10:17out to all igloo customers with their most recent unicorn release. Igloo's task management is
0:10:22designed for people. You can manage your projects, your personal to-dos and everything in between,
0:10:27in one unified view, all inside your intranet. Igloo have really built something that's going
0:10:32to help you keep on top of your work, as well as interact with your co-workers. If your company has
0:10:38a legacy intranet built on SharePoint or old portal technology, you should be giving Igloo a try.
0:10:43or if you just want to be more connected, more social, more productive in your workplace,
0:10:46igloo is for you. And it is free to use with up to 10 people and you can sign up today
0:10:52at igloosoftware.com/connected. Thank you so much for igloo for supporting us at this show
0:11:02and all of Relay FM. We love you igloo, even if I can't say it sometimes. I just get so choked
0:11:08up when I think about you. Show your support to them and us by going to igloosoftware.com/connected.
0:11:16And we have a special guest today to talk about the September 9th event which is just
0:11:21around the corner, the one and only Mr. Jason Snell. Hi Jason.
0:11:25Hey guys, it's good to be here. You're back on relay after like, not even
0:11:29a week. It's been a week. Another week, another relay
0:11:32I just appear on I can't help it. I just I just love talking to you. So yeah
0:11:38So I love I love the show and it's very weird to be on the other side of a show that I listen to
0:11:43Regularly, so yeah, it's a sweat ear on this side, isn't it? It's kind of weird. I don't know. It's pretty pleasant over here
0:11:50It's all air-conditioned and nice. It's plush. This is the plush new relay dot FM. Look at me. I live in California
0:11:56No, I mean the pot your podcast network is plugging it forget it
0:12:02- Well, this was a good show.
0:12:03We should just...
0:12:04(laughing)
0:12:05- Bye, everybody.
0:12:06- Yeah, so, Tuesday, little less than a week from now,
0:12:11Apple's gonna have a little shindig
0:12:13at the Flint Center, right?
0:12:17Which is interesting.
0:12:17- Flint Center, yeah.
0:12:18They haven't been there since the iMac, the original iMac.
0:12:21- Yeah, oh yeah, I guess you were there.
0:12:23Did you fist bump?
0:12:24- I wasn't there.
0:12:26- No?
0:12:26- No, actually, it's funny.
0:12:28The event that Apple called before that,
0:12:30And this was back before Apple events were a thing.
0:12:34It was the dark times.
0:12:35And they did something where they got all the press
0:12:37to come to Cupertino for some briefing.
0:12:39And it turned out there was no new hardware,
0:12:41and it was some software initiative.
0:12:43And I don't even remember what it was.
0:12:44But I remember we all felt so ripped off
0:12:47that when they did this next event, and they said, oh, no,
0:12:50you need to come to this event.
0:12:52It's going to be really good.
0:12:53And we're like, sure, guys.
0:12:54Sure, it's going to be good.
0:12:56And we sent a token.
0:12:59One person went to that event, and it turned out
0:13:02to be the iMac, and we never missed another event.
0:13:05I never missed another event after that.
0:13:06I guess-- I'm trying to think what would be before that,
0:13:09like Mac OS 8.6 or--
0:13:11it's before OS 9.
0:13:13But I'm telling you, it wasn't even that.
0:13:15Like I said, it was some weird--
0:13:16It was like an Apple Works update.
0:13:18--internet initiative or something.
0:13:20I think it wasn't even a product.
0:13:21I think it was like-- we all felt ripped off.
0:13:23It was somebody's PR baby, and they
0:13:25decided like, "Hey, we'll call the press." But we won't tell them what it is until we
0:13:30get there, and then you feel totally ripped off. So when they did it again for the iMac,
0:13:35we're like, "I guess somebody needs to go." So we sent somebody, because you can't not
0:13:39have Macworld at an Apple event, and yet suddenly it turned out to be this big thing. Literally,
0:13:46the editor-in-chief called the staff afterward and said, "I'm driving back now, assemble
0:13:51in 40 minutes in my office and this is huge and it was huge.
0:13:56So I'm assuming this is the Flint Center for the Performing Arts, right?
0:13:59That's the one. Guys, have you seen their website?
0:14:03Yeah, it's really good. Flintcenter.com, it's
0:14:07going to be in the show notes. It's a special, special website.
0:14:11I think it might have an image map, maybe some blink tags.
0:14:14Wow, look at this. It's
0:14:18pretty epic. And for all of the wrong reasons. So Jason we wanted to talk to you today. I mean
0:14:24I would like to think that everybody loves to sort of guess what's going to come up. I think this is
0:14:31the sort of the usual thing that we'll do before an event like this. We'd like to try and put in
0:14:38our best estimates as to what we think we're going to see depending on like the rumors that have come
0:14:42out or just like from our best guesswork and we figured you know who better than you to to talk
0:14:47about this stuff. So let's start with the phone. I may be a terrible guesser though,
0:14:51that's the problem. Well, we're gonna rely on your experience on this one.
0:14:54All right. So let's start with the phone. All right, I guess that there will be a phone.
0:14:59We're going to assume that. Now, what are we thinking about lineup here? So,
0:15:04the standard rumor is we're going to see two new phones, like two new screen sizes, like a,
0:15:11What are we looking at? 4.5, 4.7, and like 5.5 is kind of the general sort of rumors given out at this point.
0:15:20Do you think that we're going to see this if we do see two new phones?
0:15:23What happens to like the C line? Is that going to stick around or will that be gone already?
0:15:28Oh wow, like I said I'm bad at predicting. The rumors seem too strong for there not to be two phones, right?
0:15:36Although I kind of have expected them to do a big phone last year and it didn't happen.
0:15:40there were some minor buzzing about that.
0:15:43So I think two phones is a good rumor.
0:15:47The big question is, yeah, what happens?
0:15:49I presume they wouldn't just kill the existing product
0:15:55line and product size and that there probably will still
0:15:57be a phone that's a 5, let's say, of some kind--
0:16:015S, 5C, 5 something else--
0:16:05that they keep around at the lower end of the line.
0:16:08I would think so.
0:16:09I think there's just too much.
0:16:11This is part of their product strategy, having these one and two year old models still available
0:16:15at lower prices.
0:16:16Because the naming is going to get potentially really clunky, right?
0:16:19We could end up with a 5C, a 5CS, a 6 Pro.
0:16:28The naming is just this thing that whenever we come into these announcements, it's always
0:16:33such an interesting thing to think about.
0:16:37There are some sort of things that Apple do which you can kind of guess at with naming,
0:16:41but then every now and then they throw a spanner into the works, like when they call the fifth
0:16:46iPad just the iPad.
0:16:48Yeah, the new iPad.
0:16:51And I feel like the iPhone, if we're going to get two new iPhones and then potentially
0:16:56bump two older models down the chain again so they've got the lower end as well, I think
0:17:02we're going to end up in some really interesting naming territory again.
0:17:06is not consistent with the names either because I could see them sticking a letter on one
0:17:11of these models. I could also see them saying that they're both the iPhone 6 and you can
0:17:16choose your size. Yeah, that's not a bad thought actually. Right, they could do that. They
0:17:22could just say, "Look, this is the new iPhone 6 and it comes in this size and then it'll
0:17:25also come in this size, oh, and everybody is amazed by that." Or they could say, "It's
0:17:30the 6 and it's the 6L," or something like that because it's large. And I don't know,
0:17:35really inconsistent because you've got the iPad where they tried to take the generation
0:17:40out of it and say it's just the new iPad, but it still is, you can count the generations.
0:17:45They have the iPad mini, but then with the iPhone they've kept the numbering scheme,
0:17:49and then if you look at the Mac side, you've got the MacBook Air, and then there's an 11-inch
0:17:52MacBook Air and a 13-inch MacBook Air, and likewise with the iMac and the MacBook Pro.
0:17:59They're not consistent across these devices, and in the iPhone line they seem to be perfectly
0:18:05happy to add capital letters on at the ends of numbers.
0:18:09So your guess is as good as mine here.
0:18:14Every time they complicate a product line like this,
0:18:16there's that question of how is Apple
0:18:18going to attempt to communicate the complexity of this product
0:18:20line?
0:18:22It's interesting, too.
0:18:25If you look at the iPad line, having two devices now
0:18:31that are identical except screen size--
0:18:33and they do have different names--
0:18:35on the computer end of things, you know,
0:18:37a MacBook Air, like they don't, in marketing at least,
0:18:41say, you know, MacBook Air parenthetical 11.6 inch.
0:18:45Now that's in the technical documentation
0:18:47for those of us who are K-based lovers.
0:18:50- Sure. - But it's, yeah,
0:18:51love the K-based. - Mid-2011.
0:18:53- Yeah, you should upgrade, that's getting old.
0:18:57Yeah, it is interesting. - Oh, I've upgraded.
0:19:00- Oh, oh. - I've upgraded.
0:19:02Now I'm mid-2013, I've moved to the middle of last year
0:19:04from the middle of many years ago.
0:19:08- So, you know, if you were on a Mac Mini,
0:19:09it doesn't really matter at all.
0:19:12So, you know, it is interesting--
0:19:14- Last year's model is 2011 model.
0:19:16And the 2009 model.
0:19:18- All of the Mac Mini fans are just weeping silently.
0:19:21- I'm waiting to buy, I wanna buy a new Mac Mini
0:19:23and I just can't bear to buy the one that they've got now
0:19:25'cause it is not new, it is very old.
0:19:26- Yeah, well we live stream on a Mac Mini
0:19:29and I bought a used one off somebody
0:19:31'cause it's like, what's the point?
0:19:32Like, it doesn't matter.
0:19:35So the naming is interesting,
0:19:38but I think ultimately,
0:19:41I think Apple's marketing department can figure that out.
0:19:44I always, I really like what they do now with like,
0:19:47I just rewatched the Yosemite part of the keynote
0:19:50from WWDC and they're like, Craig Federighi's like,
0:19:53"Oh, like OS X Weed,"
0:19:55and like OS X all these crazy California names.
0:19:57So I think they've got the names under control.
0:20:02But what's interesting to me at least is looking at,
0:20:05okay, you're gonna have two phones that are the same size,
0:20:07potentially, I mean, new ones.
0:20:10Are those phones specced the same,
0:20:12or is there something different about the bigger one
0:20:15besides screen size?
0:20:16- You'd think that this would be an opportunity
0:20:21for them to throw something in there at the super high end,
0:20:24although I don't know, I feel like,
0:20:27I think the best thing to do would be to say,
0:20:30if it's the iPhone 6 line,
0:20:31iPhone 6 line is all, you know, it all has those features. But, you know, I haven't
0:20:36seen any rumors about the idea that there's some sort of withheld feature. I
0:20:39don't think I've seen like the rumors about doing, you know, payment system and
0:20:44near-field communication chip and things like that. They don't seem to be
0:20:47rumors that there's going to be, well, that's only going to be in one model. I
0:20:52think that they expect that it'll be in in both the models. I don't know, this big
0:20:57phone thing is a big mystery too, because what if they said you can run, I don't know,
0:21:04two apps side by side? Probably not. That seems like a terrible idea in general. I don't
0:21:08know, I kind of feel like the beauty of the big phone is just that it's a bigger iPhone,
0:21:12but it's still an iPhone, so I hope they keep it simple.
0:21:15We can pray for battery life.
0:21:17Well, I think that comes with the territory, right? Presumably, the larger an area, the
0:21:23a volume of a phone, the more battery, although I worry that this is like an algebra problem
0:21:30and that Apple solves for battery life and the battery life they're solving for is what
0:21:35we've currently got and they think that's enough.
0:21:37And I don't think it is.
0:21:39And I think that this is a great opportunity to set that number higher and say, "Look,
0:21:43now we've got 20 hours of battery life instead of 10."
0:21:49One of my big things is I want the iPhone to have a larger screen for a few different
0:21:55reasons.
0:21:57I feel like it could be wider.
0:21:59I would like to be able to have more apps on one screen at one time, like on the home
0:22:04screens.
0:22:06The content area that you get from a larger phone, like whenever I've used Android devices,
0:22:10I always like that.
0:22:12But battery life is a big thing for me.
0:22:15I constantly wear, sorry, have a,
0:22:19well I also wear it, a battery.
0:22:22- A belt pack.
0:22:23(laughing)
0:22:24A battery belt pack.
0:22:25- I wear a battery around my waist.
0:22:26No, I have my phone in a mofo.
0:22:28- It's not even charged, it's just the style.
0:22:31- It's just the style, it's just the style at the time.
0:22:34Because my iPhone doesn't get me through a day.
0:22:37It doesn't get me through, sometimes just by the time
0:22:40I get to the office in the morning,
0:22:42I'm like at 35% or something like that.
0:22:45And it just doesn't work for me.
0:22:48I've never understood how people say
0:22:50they get a whole day out of the phone.
0:22:52It doesn't make sense to me.
0:22:53I just don't get it.
0:22:54So I would love to see a much improved battery life
0:22:59from a phone with a larger screen
0:23:03and a larger phone overall.
0:23:06- I mean, more volume means more battery room, I think.
0:23:11I hope.
0:23:12Because the guts of this thing
0:23:13are not going to be that dramatically different, I think, other than the screen.
0:23:16But behind the screen, not that dramatically different from what we've seen in existing
0:23:20iPhones, which means there's more room for battery, and on an even bigger one, there's
0:23:24even more room for battery.
0:23:26I hope that that's actually one of the big selling points of that larger screen phone,
0:23:31if it exists.
0:23:32Not only does it have a nice big screen, but man, you should look at the battery life,
0:23:35because for some people, that really, really matters.
0:23:38And that's a place where Android has had an advantage over the iPhone.
0:23:42There are some phones out there that are big and chunky and have a big battery with long
0:23:46life and some people need it.
0:23:48Yeah, and that's a really good point, Jason.
0:23:52This is one of those situations where Apple is not the first to do this.
0:23:56Say that Apple has a 4.7 inch phone.
0:24:00There's a lot of phones at that size.
0:24:01I've got the Moto G which is 4.5 inch and the size is actually pretty nice.
0:24:08But I can remember not that long ago where Apple community people, air quotes, sort of
0:24:15mocked those bigger phones and now we're here sitting talking about all the advantages.
0:24:20I find that shift kind of interesting and I've done it.
0:24:24I still think a 5.5 inch phone is pretty ridiculous but I think that history over the last 18
0:24:31months, two years, has shown that people like that.
0:24:34today Samsung had an event and they announced two new Galaxy Notes that are
0:24:38you know I think at least as big as this big iPhone would be and one has like a
0:24:43crazy like curved screen on the edge which doesn't make any sense but um
0:24:46those will be in the show notes but it you know like it's it's a weird shift
0:24:51for us to be talking about these in kind of different ways now I think. Yeah it's
0:24:54um you know sometimes some of it is tribal some of it is like well we don't
0:24:59do that and they do do that so we're gonna say that what we do is good and
0:25:01what they do is bad. And I get that. And some people have smaller hands and I hear from
0:25:09women especially who have smaller hands who don't really like this trend toward larger
0:25:13phones. Personally, I've tried a bunch of different Android phones, put them in my pocket
0:25:18and my reaction is always, "That fits, it's fine." I mean, there's plenty of room in my
0:25:24pocket for a bigger iPhone because the Android phones fit in there just fine. Now the super
0:25:29jumbo iPhone, I think that's a question. Is that going to be like that Samsung, the Galaxy
0:25:35Note where they had like Shaq holding it or Yao Ming holding it, and it's literally like,
0:25:39it looks like, when a giant person holds it, it looks like a normal sized phone, or what?
0:25:44I think that's an open question, but certainly these larger Android phones don't, I mean
0:25:51they fit in my pocket just fine, and sometimes they're thinner around the edges, and I don't
0:25:56walk around with one of those phones in my pocket and think this is ridiculous.
0:25:59In fact, for a while when I was trying out the Galaxy S3, I think, I had a Galaxy S3
0:26:04and an iPhone 5 in my pocket simultaneously, and it was fine.
0:26:09It was a little bit tight, but I mean, there's room in there, and you get the bigger screen,
0:26:14which is really nice.
0:26:18I may be proving the point of now saying big screens are nice, but I never really understood.
0:26:22I like that the iPhone is compact and I can reach everywhere on the screen with my thumb
0:26:27and all that, but at the same time when I tried the Android phones they seemed fine
0:26:30too.
0:26:31Sometimes it's hard to know until you can experience these things.
0:26:35I wasn't sure I ever wanted larger than the 3.5 inch screen until I played around with
0:26:43some Android devices and realized that 4 point something was great.
0:26:47I say that about 4.5 to 4.7 feels like a sweet spot for me. The larger screen,
0:26:54like the even larger screen, I'm interested. I don't know if I want it but
0:26:59I'm interested to see what Apple try and bring to that if they go that route. Like
0:27:05if they go Galaxy Note route, where do they go? Because the Galaxy Note makes
0:27:11sense because it has the stylus, right? So you can kind of... I feel like
0:27:17in a way you can see it is the size of like a notepad so why not give it a
0:27:21little pen and people can take notes on it. So I wonder what Apple will say is
0:27:26their reason, like what is the reason for going that large if they do? Because
0:27:31I think it's difficult to try and understand it especially if they don't
0:27:35start doing extra software features in iOS which I highly doubt, you know, like
0:27:40having being able to have more things on screen at a time however that might be
0:27:45more than just what developers do, like what will Apple do themselves to try and
0:27:50justify why a five, like over five inch device makes sense when they then have
0:27:56like iPads which it's bumping up towards at that point. Although I like the idea
0:28:00of, I don't think it's a mainstream product, I think it is an edge case
0:28:05product, I think that's why Apple hasn't introduced one yet, even if they do now
0:28:09it will be very late in the game. You know, I look at the note, I talk to
0:28:12people who have things like the Note,
0:28:13and usually what they say is they like the fact
0:28:16that they have one device instead of having a tablet
0:28:18and a smartphone, they just have this thing
0:28:20that's like a small tablet, and yes,
0:28:25it's also got a phone feature in it,
0:28:26but that's kinda not the point,
0:28:28and the point is that they've got cellular data,
0:28:30and that they can take this one device around with them,
0:28:33and I suspect those devices actually appeal more to women
0:28:36in the sense that they're much more baggable
0:28:38than they are pocketable, and I don't know,
0:28:41I find it kind of intriguing. I have an iPad mini and I love it and I think about this
0:28:46large iPhone and think, "If it wasn't too much of a burden to fit in my pocket and it
0:28:53meant that I sort of just had the one device everywhere instead of the two, maybe that
0:28:57would be a better thing?" I think for some people it would and for a lot of other people
0:29:01it wouldn't. Up to now, Apple's like, "Look, we just do one iPhone. This is the best one.
0:29:05We do this. This is the best fit for us." And now, we may be seeing them saying, "Well,
0:29:10for different folks and the big phone is never gonna be everything.
0:29:16This is why I'm still a little skeptical about the big phone because it seems not quite Apple-like
0:29:20to say this is gonna be a little more of an oddity.
0:29:23But maybe the product line is diverse enough now because it's been around with the iPods,
0:29:29right?
0:29:30It needs to diversify and at some point some of these things like the iPod shuffle was
0:29:33an oddity too, but it filled a particular need.
0:29:38The interesting thing that you mention about the one device, that is a real consumer reason
0:29:47for a device like that, but it's not a marketable one.
0:29:51Because Apple want people to have both still.
0:29:54That's what I find really interesting.
0:29:56I just try and wrap my head around, if they don't give some sort of additional features
0:30:01in that device, which I think the general consensus is they probably wouldn't do that,
0:30:07it's likely that they won't be unveiling like the iPhone 5c and the 5s. These are
0:30:12gonna be two top tier phones, right? That they're just gonna have like potentially
0:30:17the standard and then the pro or something like that they may go with now.
0:30:21I just try and I try and put myself in their shoes and wonder what is the the
0:30:27Apple justification of it and like the only thing that I can think of that you
0:30:32can easily get away with is battery life but then they didn't do that
0:30:37with the Air and the iPad, sorry, the Air and the Mini, the
0:30:42iPads. They have the same battery life as well as like the rest of the same
0:30:45internals. It's just an interesting thing to me and I want to talk about
0:30:50Avanto but before that, if we're going to look at different screen dimensions, what
0:30:56do you guys think are going to happen to existing third-party apps? Are we going to
0:31:00be in one of those like scaling up scenarios like if developers haven't prepared for like
0:31:07the new like resolution independence or something like that what are we going to do in that
0:31:14regard?
0:31:17There was an interesting conversation on I guess now last week's talk show with Gruber
0:31:21and Craig Hockenberry of the Icon Factory and kind of thinking about especially on the
0:31:295.5 what happens and I think where they settled and I don't disagree is that iOS
0:31:34is just gonna scale those apps up so it won't be as bad as like 1x and 2x when
0:31:39they went retina but it will be maybe a little bit fuzzy until until developers
0:31:45deal with it I don't think they're gonna letterbox they did that when they went
0:31:49to the 5 because it just went taller but letterboxing an app in the center of the
0:31:53screen with like black all the way around it leads to a lot of issues right
0:31:57like where is the keyboard end up? Is the keyboard full width of the app not?
0:32:00Like I don't, I think Apple is going to deal with with it by scaling up because
0:32:04it's the simplest solution and yeah it doesn't look great but it's better than
0:32:09having apps like kind of floating in space in the middle of this phone.
0:32:12Well it's going to be multiple, multiple steps right where there's a you know can
0:32:16it, can't, does it have these these liquid layouts?
0:32:20No it doesn't. Okay well then we'll either scale it up or we'll letterbox it
0:32:25and it depends on what the aspect ratios of the phone if it's more or less with
0:32:29the 5S is then maybe it would just scale it up. But you know developers all the
0:32:35all the cool apps will get updated very rapidly to support it just like they did
0:32:40with the 5S and and just like they did with retina. I am a little curious about
0:32:45what's going to happen in terms of what target resolution developers are working
0:32:49on and I my theory and I know I mentioned this on another podcast the
0:32:53the other day is I keep wondering if they're gonna do
0:32:56with the iPhone what they did with the Retina MacBook Pro,
0:33:00which is end up targeting like a false resolution,
0:33:04a resolution that's actually higher
0:33:09than the resolution of the display, and then scale it.
0:33:12Because I know that there are a lot of people
0:33:15who are worried about like,
0:33:17perfect, you know, pixel perfect designs
0:33:19and things like that.
0:33:19And I think one of the weirdest things that Apple did
0:33:22with the Retina MacBook Pro was break away from the idea of a perfect pixel display resolution
0:33:27on a flat panel.
0:33:29They render it at an enormous resolution.
0:33:32If you take a screenshot on the Retina MacBook Pro, it's much larger than the actual screen
0:33:36resolution.
0:33:37And that's because it's rendering at this incredibly high level, and then they're
0:33:42resizing it on the fly for your screen.
0:33:44And that sounds like it would look terrible.
0:33:46It doesn't look terrible.
0:33:47And the reason it doesn't look terrible is, at some point the resolution of your screen
0:33:50is so high that you can't see the terrible, fuzzy part of the pixels because they're too
0:33:56tiny to see.
0:33:58And I wonder if maybe that's going to be the solution to some of this stuff with the bigger
0:34:02screen is some screen math where they're rendering it at 4x or something and then scaling it
0:34:06to 3x or whatever on the fly.
0:34:10So that's going to be a wrinkle too, where we don't know what they're going to render
0:34:13at and we don't know what's going to happen to apps that are moving independently like
0:34:18little interface elements are sliding here and there and then what happens
0:34:22when does the OS throw its hands up and say I don't know what to do with this
0:34:24app here just
0:34:25use it like the iPad does now with iPhone apps
0:34:29yeah just like whatever here it is it's a 2x scaled up and
0:34:32just take it.
0:34:36So let me talk about our next sponsor for this episode
0:34:39of Connected and we have a new sponsor today
0:34:43and that is a lovely book
0:34:46called ICONIC. It's a photographic tribute to Apple and design. ICONIC is a coffee table
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0:34:59prototypes, iPods, iOS devices and packaging. It's got the whole lot, all with the use of
0:35:04stunning and unique photography. The project began in 2009 when author Jonathan Zuffi decided
0:35:10he wanted to start to photograph and catalogue his incredible and huge collection of Apple
0:35:15products. Over four years, the team working on Iconic took over 150,000 photos, choosing
0:35:21the very best examples to put into this fantastic 350 page book. To go along with the images,
0:35:27there are a collection of essays from contributors such as Ken Siegel, Lauren Brickter and Daniel
0:35:31Kottke, as well as forewords from Jim Darenport and Steve Wozniak.
0:35:36Now we want to take a quick moment to talk about a product that we found in Iconic that
0:35:39really means something to us and when I was flicking through the book, something that
0:35:44What I loved very much to see was one of the main images of the iPod mini in the book is
0:35:50a pink one, which made me very happy.
0:35:55It was basically the image, it's kind of across a two page spread and it has a quote from
0:36:00MG Siegler about all of the little things that Apple does and it's got the iPod mini,
0:36:06a beautiful pink iPod mini, being opened in the box as it sits in the box that you would
0:36:10take it out of.
0:36:11I remember the unboxing experience of that iPod Mini. It was the first Apple product
0:36:16that I had the pleasure of opening in that way. Apple were the pioneers of that sort
0:36:22of unboxing. Opening a product like that was fantastic. Seeing it in the book like that
0:36:27was so awesome. One of the other images that I love, I love all of the iPod images in here
0:36:32because of the colors of them. It shows all of their nanochromatic, the colored nanos.
0:36:38They've got them all side by side and I like the they have all of the square iPod
0:36:43Nanos as well of all of the different watch faces on like a tile pattern
0:36:46like the imagery in this book is just so beautiful. Steven I'm sure that you love
0:36:53looking at all of the old Macs as well there. Yeah I love the there's a page
0:36:58that has all of the old Apple disk drives so Apple had a bunch of different
0:37:02you know five and a half and then three and a half and double stacked and single
0:37:07stacked and one with release doors and whatnot they changed it a bunch and
0:37:10there's a page with all those in a grid and for me at least is like an old Apple
0:37:15hardware or really a hoarder like I have a ton of this stuff at home it it really
0:37:20was like awesome to see all that all in one place. There is just so much stuff to
0:37:26look at in here as an Apple nerd and just marvel at you know if you're a guy
0:37:30like Steven you like looking at dish drives this book is for you. Iconic has
0:37:34been fully self-published and is printed on beautiful and really thick and great
0:37:38paper stock. When the book actually arrived I didn't think it could be the
0:37:43book because it was so heavy. They've spared no expense and it
0:37:48makes the perfect gift not only for you but for any of the geeky loved ones in
0:37:53your life and we have a great deal for you. You can get 20% off either the
0:37:57classic or classic plus edition which is made of even better materials by going
0:38:01to iconicbook.com/relayfm. Thank you so much to ICONic for their support of
0:38:07Connected and all of Relay FM. So go to iconicbook.com/relayfm and you'll
0:38:13also see some examples of some of the fantastic imagery that they've got on
0:38:16the site there too. Thank you. Awesome. So wearables, do you want to talk about that?
0:38:26Sure. Seems like a thing. Right? How do they work? So what are we thinking? Are we
0:38:38gonna see another product, a wearable product tomorrow? I mean the general
0:38:43consensus being, right, iOS 8 and health and you would assume that a product like
0:38:49this would interface with the iPhone in a key way. Maybe it has health, you know,
0:38:54There's also rumors about payments, and that would most likely go with it too.
0:38:58There's all this stuff of handoff and identity and how that's all changing between devices.
0:39:05If Apple were going to do something wearable, would they be looking to unveil it at the
0:39:11same time as they unveil the iPhone?
0:39:15Well, here's a funny thing.
0:39:18A lot of us in the people who are watching and writing and talking about technology world
0:39:24get really excited about wearables and think,
0:39:25oh, this is gonna be a whole new category of products
0:39:27and isn't it exciting?
0:39:29And you lose sight of the fact that
0:39:31most of these wearable devices at their core
0:39:34are accessories, right?
0:39:37They're accessories for your device
0:39:40that you've always got with you, which is your smartphone.
0:39:42In almost all cases, that's the case.
0:39:44They're accessories.
0:39:45And if that's really true,
0:39:47that a wearable device from Apple
0:39:48really is best when used with an iPhone
0:39:51and it's part of the iPhone ecosystem
0:39:53and it makes the iPhone better,
0:39:55and iPhone users are the ones who are gonna wanna buy it,
0:39:59which I think is, obviously, any wearable that Apple makes
0:40:02is going to work with just Apple stuff,
0:40:04I think that's pretty clear, and that's fine.
0:40:07What better place to introduce that product
0:40:10than alongside the iPhone for two reasons.
0:40:12One is it's in the ecosystem, it fits with the iPhone,
0:40:16and presumably with iOS 8,
0:40:18and so that's the best time you could introduce it
0:40:21because they're attached, they're joined at the hip.
0:40:24And then the other thing is that this is the big one
0:40:27for Apple.
0:40:28The iPhone launch gets more attention than any other launch
0:40:31they do all year long, and I can tell you that
0:40:32just from personal experience looking at traffic on the web
0:40:36or the stories that we've done about it
0:40:37and the live blogs that we do about it,
0:40:39the iPhone event is it.
0:40:41So if you're gonna launch a new product category,
0:40:43what better time to do it than when the intention
0:40:45of the entire world is on you?
0:40:46So for those reasons, I think it's the perfect place.
0:40:50- Yeah, but I take a little bit of problem with that.
0:40:55Every time Apple does an event--
0:40:57- That was the most polite way to disagree I've ever heard.
0:41:00- Yeah. - Little problem with that.
0:41:01- A little problem with that. - Let me have it, let me have it.
0:41:04- Mr. Snell, Mr. Snell. (laughs)
0:41:07Apple has the world's attention
0:41:09at any time they step on stage.
0:41:11So why share the stage with the iPhone?
0:41:15- They have some attention, right?
0:41:17but I feel like this is the big one though.
0:41:21They get the most attention.
0:41:22I mean, by a surprising factor,
0:41:25I can just tell you from our traffic perspective,
0:41:29the interest in this, this is also the event
0:41:30where everybody's like, what's gonna go on the new iPhone,
0:41:32what's the deal with the new iPhone?
0:41:33And so, no, they don't have to do it now.
0:41:36They could do it in January.
0:41:37If it's not gonna ship until next year,
0:41:39they could probably do that.
0:41:40But then I will refer you to my previous statement,
0:41:44which also fits in the ecosystem.
0:41:46I feel like this is not a story on its own, it's a story with the iPhone.
0:41:50And assuming they want to put it in production and then know the hardware is going to leak,
0:41:54because the reason we haven't seen leaks about this is because it's not in the supply chain
0:41:57yet.
0:41:58Because Apple and most hardware companies leak from their supply chain, there's just
0:42:03too many people involved in making too many parts.
0:42:05But right now it's inside Cupertino where there are very few leaks.
0:42:10So this is, you know, they would need to announce it like this month or next month at one of
0:42:14presumably there'll be a second event like there usually is in October for an
0:42:17iPad launch. They got to do it now or it is gonna leak and it's really part of
0:42:23the iPhone ecosystem so it seems to me like it's the best it's the best choice
0:42:27for now would be to just tie it in because then they tell the story with
0:42:31iOS 8 right it's gonna be about the health kit and the health app and iOS 8
0:42:34and perhaps some other features on these new iPhones and then also this wearable
0:42:38device is part of the story. Yeah that's that's the thing if it is together there
0:42:43has to be that narrative.
0:42:44Apple likes telling, stringing these things together
0:42:48as a narrative.
0:42:50We've done a lot of Apple keynote kind of recaps
0:42:55on the show, and that's always something that's true.
0:42:57With the iPod, we really love music.
0:42:59And because we love music, we made something
0:43:01that was portable and had good battery life
0:43:04and was easy to use.
0:43:05The iPhone, very famously, the three things,
0:43:10the internet communicator, the phone, and the iPod.
0:43:12and that thread was carried throughout.
0:43:15So if it is health, I think it does make sense.
0:43:18If it's not, if it's a hey, we have these two iPhones,
0:43:23which they haven't done before, really.
0:43:26I mean the 5C kinda counts,
0:43:27but no one cares about the 5C.
0:43:29And then this, it's just gonna be a busy Tuesday.
0:43:36- It could be, yeah, it does feel overstuffed.
0:43:38I don't know, I maybe think that they
0:43:42want to do it this way too because this is a product we expect to be blown away and have
0:43:46this be the end of the world, the greatest product ever, right?
0:43:49And instead, I think it's perhaps best judged in the context of being an iPhone accessory,
0:43:56and I think it actually takes some of the anticipation and the high expectations out
0:44:03of the product a little bit if you say, "Hey, this works with the iPhone and here it is,"
0:44:08instead of saying we are going to create this brand new amazing event for this brand new
0:44:12amazing product.
0:44:13Does that make sense?
0:44:14I mean, I think a lot of times Apple's products suffer from, and their events suffer from
0:44:17these ridiculous expectations that can never be met.
0:44:20And this might be a way to slide this product out there without it having to face quite
0:44:25as much scrutiny as it would on its own, especially since it really does need to presumably to
0:44:30work with the iPhone.
0:44:32How much money could you charge for an iPhone accessory irrespective of what it could and
0:44:37couldn't do. Let's assume it does everything we expect. So we'll talk about payments in
0:44:42a minute, but let's say it does something like that. Let's say it does health tracking.
0:44:45Let's say it gives you notifications, and let's say it does one other thing that nobody
0:44:49can see, right? Because that's what people say, "Oh, we can't imagine what Apple would
0:44:54do." So let's say it does all of those things.
0:44:57By people, you mean Federico.
0:44:59Yeah, Federico. Let's say it does this magical thing that Google could never do, right? How
0:45:05How much money could you charge for this?
0:45:07Could you charge $300?
0:45:08Could you charge $400?
0:45:10Bearing in mind the phone costs $600?
0:45:13Yeah, but your cell phone provider presumably isn't going to rebate your wearable purchase.
0:45:23I feel like this $400 or $450 rumor is like the $1000 iPad rumor.
0:45:31I feel like it's a fake that's actually put out by Apple to lower, to raise unreasonable
0:45:36expectations so that they can undercut it.
0:45:38And they do that.
0:45:39I mean, Apple has been known to leak information in order to try to control the enthusiasm
0:45:47because they know that things can kind of run away with enthusiasm.
0:45:51And it wouldn't surprise me if they also did something like this, that literally this way
0:45:56people will be surprised when they find the price out.
0:45:59I think this is the kind of thing that you have to do for like $2, $2.50, so I expect
0:46:04Apple to do it for $300.
0:46:07And I'm not trying to be silly, but that tends to be, you know, it's always like everybody
0:46:11else does it at this amount, so they do it a little bit more.
0:46:16Like when we were looking at the iPods a couple of weeks ago, right?
0:46:19It was like, "Well, it does like 90% more and we only charge you $50 more."
0:46:25You know, I feel like it will be one of those scenarios.
0:46:29You know, and it was the same with the 5C, right?
0:46:33Everyone expected it to be super cheap and it was just a bit cheaper.
0:46:37Yeah, I mean, yeah, the whole 5C thing is a whole interesting case study and like sort
0:46:44of the rumor mill kind of spiraling in on itself.
0:46:49But I do think it's got to be something that can live on its own to a degree.
0:46:56It can't be completely crippled unless the iPhone is present if it's going to be several
0:47:01hundred dollars.
0:47:02And talking about expectations, that's Apple's whole thing leading up to these is managing
0:47:08that if it's controlled leaks.
0:47:13I agree with you, Jason, that that thousand dollar rumor and then it being halfway, I
0:47:17could see that being at play again. Now what's not helping is that they built a
0:47:22giant like white building attached to the Flint Center. So like I don't know
0:47:26what's going on in there I hope it's not that silly WWDC thing from last year of
0:47:30the guys with the robot race cars like I hope they haven't built bigger ones and
0:47:34that's what's in there. Real cars. Yeah yeah real car yeah real cars. So you know
0:47:39if it's something health related maybe there are some activities going on out
0:47:42there you know you can you can see Phil Schiller swim laps. Jason you'll get to
0:47:47- You'd be on a treadmill.
0:47:48- Yay!
0:47:49(laughing)
0:47:51- They'll do it.
0:47:52They'll do a relay race with the journalists.
0:47:54- It's probably like a demo room or briefing rooms
0:47:56because they have the, you know,
0:47:58if you're one of the elite group that has the early phone
0:48:03where you get it and you get a week to write about it,
0:48:06which I've been in that group
0:48:07and I've not been in that group.
0:48:09I've had it both ways.
0:48:10If you're in that group,
0:48:11they need a place to take you secretly
0:48:13and give you a phone and let you talk to executives
0:48:16and that might be it.
0:48:17I don't know enough about the Flint Center to know if they need to add on a hands-on
0:48:21area somewhere or if there's some place in the Flint Center that's going to be good enough
0:48:25because they usually have an area afterward with 20 of every product that they announced
0:48:30all on a table being watched over.
0:48:34Each one is being watched by at least one and sometimes two Apple employees and then
0:48:39the press comes and paws all over them.
0:48:42That could be it too.
0:48:44This is a weird thing logistically.
0:48:45haven't seen them do this. Most of their events are either in Town Hall on the
0:48:50Apple campus or Yerba Buena or Moscone West in their keynote configuration or
0:48:56there have been a couple at the California Theatre in San Jose. This is
0:48:59none of those so I don't know. It's been ages so I suspect it's one of
0:49:05those though that either it's a hands-on area or they wanted their private secret
0:49:09you know double secret briefing area for Walt Mossberg it's just for Walt
0:49:16Mossberg and John Gruber the only ones allowed in it yeah those like red chairs
0:49:21yeah a lot of space oh yeah yeah that's good they could be doing their own
0:49:24little all things D up there with just Walt and Kara and Tim Cook so the to
0:49:32kind of back up a second you know the rumors of mobile payment like this is
0:49:37rumor that never dies right like I think it started with like that maybe the
0:49:40iPhone like 4 or 4s that you know NFC was gonna be in it NFC is bigger overseas
0:49:46than it is here in the States like Myke every time you're here you're like
0:49:49mesmerized that we have to like physically swipe our debit cards from
0:49:52the to work. And you still use checks like it's true I order checks for our
0:49:57business this week because we're in America and we do things silly ways.
0:50:03get I don't know if the world is ready for this and a sort of big scale and the
0:50:12world I really mean America yeah because the rest of the world is doing it yeah
0:50:17a little by the world I mean America yeah I've whoo we got to do against one
0:50:24Myke it's two against one that's right do I have to go on that monologue again
0:50:29why I say why this is relevant. Consider that Italy gets no representation this week and
0:50:35yeah yeah just be lucky that you're even here and allowed to be on our podcast with us. Yeah
0:50:40in the free world right? That's right number one. Yeah good grief. I'm in California we're
0:50:50going to secede anyway so anyway go ahead. Yeah so do you think this is the year that this finally
0:50:55comes true?
0:50:56What was the question?
0:50:57Sorry, I was too busy with my...
0:51:02I'm folding up my American flag now.
0:51:05Is this the year the NFC finally comes to Apple products?
0:51:08Oh yeah, payment, boy, yeah, the US is so messed up in terms of payments.
0:51:11I do...
0:51:12Well, Chip and Pin is coming too, so I actually do think that we are...
0:51:16When you look at things like the Target data breach and the fact that that got Visa and
0:51:20MasterCard to finally agree to do chip and pin.
0:51:24Just like everybody finally caved.
0:51:27All of the credit card companies realized they were refunding way too much money in
0:51:30fraud transactions and it wasn't worth it anymore.
0:51:33And so I actually think this is a really fluid time for payment systems in the United States.
0:51:37So I think it's a great time.
0:51:39I actually think this is one of those cases like Apple does so often where everybody wants
0:51:45Apple to jump into something really fast and Apple just kind of sits back and watches things
0:51:50play out for a while. They did this with, like, Bluetooth was an example from back in
0:51:55the day where everybody wanted Bluetooth on Macs right away and they're like, "Yeah, we'll
0:51:59see." And like two years passed and then they finally kind of came in after it had settled
0:52:02down. And I feel like with Google and Android devices with NFC hanging around and now with
0:52:09this move toward chip and pin in the US, like, it seems to me like maybe Apple has just waited
0:52:15long enough that they can come in now and add their clout. It's already moving in that
0:52:19direction and that maybe that will be, that people will be ready now.
0:52:24Because there was a shift.
0:52:25The fact that the US was ever going to go to chip and pin, I thought that's like going
0:52:29to the metric system.
0:52:30I thought it would just literally never happen in the US.
0:52:33And finally things got so bad and consumers were being ripped off so much and the credit
0:52:39card companies were eating so much in refunds that this has finally changed.
0:52:44So I think it might not work but I think it's as good a time as any for anybody to try to
0:52:49try, because it seems like things are finally changing.
0:52:52My concern is that Apple are going to do the Apple thing and not want to do NFC, but do
0:52:58their own system. Because even with Apple, it's unlikely that that will get adopted.
0:53:05They kind of have to move to NFC for this, because that's what currently exists in Europe.
0:53:15And it's what will move for you guys as well.
0:53:18Currently now we have a system, a relatively new system in the UK called Contactless, where
0:53:25debit cards have an NFC chip in them.
0:53:27So for any amount under £20, I just tap my debit card on a reader which is attached to
0:53:34the chip and pin machine.
0:53:35They're like one and the same.
0:53:38And I don't even need to put my pin number in, it just debits my account and that's it.
0:53:42So like for small transactions, no, I don't need cash, and I just go beep and that's it.
0:53:47And I've paid for something.
0:53:48So that's what needs to be integrated into phones and I mean I know for a fact that there
0:53:55are movements from the card processing companies here that in some instances if like a supplementary
0:54:03app is used, like a banking application for example, you could pay for amounts up to hundreds
0:54:10of pounds because you can press it. The phone recognizes the banking app is there. The banking
0:54:15app pops up, asks you to put in a four-digit PIN number, and it will debit. So there is
0:54:20a potential future where we could pay for everything with these devices, and it could
0:54:26be even more so if it was attached to your wrist because you don't need to get your phone
0:54:30out of your pocket. You just put your wrist, wave your wrist over the cash register, and
0:54:36you've just paid for your bagel.
0:54:38I'm imagining too using like touch ID to authorize a payment.
0:54:43That would be pretty cool.
0:54:44There is, where that makes a lot of sense, there is still financial institutions still
0:54:51get wary of this because it's not their system that is doing the authorization.
0:55:00So even though in theory a fingerprint is more secure than a four or six digit PIN number,
0:55:07some financial, more entrenched financial institutions are less likely to want to
0:55:12support Touch ID because it's Apple's thing, not their thing, and they have no
0:55:18way of like doing the verification themselves. They just have to trust that
0:55:22Apple say it's that person. Which, you know, that's not necessarily when it's
0:55:28coming down to they could end up losing their money in this to financial
0:55:32institutions. They're less likely to want to support that.
0:55:35Can you imagine where this information is coming from?
0:55:38Right, and Dr. Drayton makes a good point in the chat of, you know, Apple doesn't have
0:55:43the smartphone momentum in the market that they did, say in 2008 or 2009, where Android
0:55:49is the market leader in a lot of metrics.
0:55:53And so even if Apple said, "Hey, you know what, we're going to do this thing," they
0:55:58don't hold the market share, they don't hold the majority of that in such a way that they
0:56:03they can force the hand and kind of force the issue.
0:56:06And so like if Apple does their own thing
0:56:10and even if some banks are like, you know what,
0:56:12sit like, you know, my small credit union,
0:56:14like a local bank would never do this.
0:56:16Like they barely have online banking and it's terrible.
0:56:19They would never do this.
0:56:20I would need to go to a bigger institution
0:56:24even if they did support it.
0:56:25So I don't know.
0:56:28It's one of those things where I think,
0:56:30I think Myke, I think you're absolutely right.
0:56:31I think Apple's got to kind of play into the already established system.
0:56:36And I don't think that's the end of the world.
0:56:37I don't think that means that this is dead on arrival.
0:56:41No, it's the right thing to do.
0:56:43And Apple will still get their amount of money.
0:56:45They'll still get their processing fee from their little slice of that from the card companies.
0:56:51As I recall, there were reports that Apple did try to build their own payment system,
0:56:57and they ran into a lot of trouble.
0:56:59And I think this is something that we, I think Dr. Drang is right in saying that if Apple
0:57:04could have done this, you know, a few years ago was when they could have tried it.
0:57:08I'm not sure it would have worked because the financial services market is really huge
0:57:12and slow to move.
0:57:13And that's why I mentioned how like the move to chip and pin and the target data breach
0:57:17and a bunch of things like that.
0:57:19This is a good time because things are moving now.
0:57:21Things are fluid.
0:57:22And I, you know, I don't think the financial services sector was going to do an Apple,
0:57:27know, an Apple-only thing ever. And I think that's sort of what Apple wanted to do.
0:57:31And this is going to be more like Apple lending its weight to this might be the
0:57:37thing that sort of greases the skids for it to just happen. And, you know,
0:57:43I'm optimistic about that. I think, like I said, if you told me
0:57:47that we were changing to the metric system, I would laugh and laugh and laugh.
0:57:50And I would have said that about Chip and Pin, but funny how life works that
0:57:55enough horrible data breaches happen and somebody says, "Oh, this is costing us money," and then
0:58:00magically we get chip and pin after all. So I think it's a good time for all of this stuff.
0:58:05Yeah. So the other sort of issue on the table today is iOS 8 and Yosemite ship dates. So if
0:58:14history holds up and, you know, iOS 8 would ship with the new phones, you know, the new phones would
0:58:19be running iOS 8, not really anything to discuss there, the question becomes what about Yosemite?
0:58:25where iOS 8 and the new version of OS 10 obviously do a lot of stuff there's a
0:58:30lot of the handoff and continuity stuff which I've been playing with and the
0:58:34parts that work right now are really pretty handy and there's been some some
0:58:40thoughts of do they need to ship these things at the same time and I for one
0:58:47don't think that they do I think that iOS 8 can stand on its own and then when
0:58:53OS X is ready probably in October then they you know maybe they release OS X
0:58:59and the new iPads together which I think is what they did last year pretty pretty
0:59:03close and and then you know with the iPads you can talk about handoff and all
0:59:09this great stuff and then your iPhone kind of automatically just does it with
0:59:12the Mac after your somebody's out like they don't I've I for one don't think
0:59:16that they have to ship together I think saying that they do is a little
0:59:19short-sighted. A lot of things in fact, in the "really pragmatic" "stalling for time"
0:59:24category, I think if you know Yosemite is not going to ship until October, which I
0:59:30mean that's when maverick shipped I believe, so it makes sense.
0:59:33Also it allows you to, it gives you a lot of clarity as an iOS developer about
0:59:37what bugs to focus on. Like you can just not worry about handoff and ship iOS 8
0:59:43knowing that there'll be an 801 or 802 that will drop right around the same
0:59:48Yosemite drops that's got all of the handoff stuff all buttoned up tight. I mean, it's
0:59:53actually one of the beautiful things is you can say it's in iOS 8, but not have it be
0:59:57there right away because Yosemite's not there. So they can just like whistle a little bit
1:00:02past the graveyard and be like, "We'll be back later!" and be gone. Because, right?
1:00:08And if you look in the public beta, it's very clear that that handoff doesn't really, you
1:00:12know it's not really working very well right now or at all in some cases and I
1:00:18think that's I think that's because they know they've got more time for that than
1:00:21they do for other iOS features. But then iCloud Drive is the elephant in the room
1:00:26like because if you upgrade to iCloud Drive it destroys all documents and
1:00:32data-sinking. Well that's and that's not that's not really true I mean the way it
1:00:36works if you go to iOS 8 or Yosemite and you don't enable iCloud Drive all your
1:00:41other iCloud stuff is still there it's sort of in a different place and again
1:00:45like handoff Apple could ship iOS 8 without iCloud Drive they could use the
1:00:50old iCloud structure or they could just leave it janky for a month like I don't
1:00:56know if that's enough to say Yosemite's gonna be out you know with with the new
1:01:02iPhones now that said I'm planning to have my review ready by then just in
1:01:06case and I think a lot of people who pay attention to this are you know maybe
1:01:10preparing that they don't follow the pattern but I think if if next Tuesday
1:01:15comes and goes and we are you know still running Mavericks like like like animals
1:01:20I don't think that's the end of the world. The iCloud Drive thing though like you
1:01:24can't well it's a choice to upgrade right doesn't iOS I mean
1:01:30that we're talking about the beta now but doesn't it give you the option so
1:01:33what would stop them from just not giving anybody the option and just not
1:01:36having it be there for the first month. That would be the best thing to do. And
1:01:40then turn it on in October, say iCloud Drive is coming in October. Woo! Yeah, I
1:01:44mean that's the way to do it. Back away. If they're happy with the fact that they've
1:01:48promoted it, right? So as long as they're happy to then just throw a little sticker
1:01:52up, say like, "It's coming to October now!" Because you could do it between the iPhone and the
1:01:56iPad, then you'll be fine and it will be lovely. Because at the moment if you
1:02:02you enable it things like like for example clear will not sync for me
1:02:07anymore because I dared to sign in on an iPod touch and wasn't paying attention
1:02:12because that's the problem I wasn't paying attention nobody else really pays
1:02:17attention and you just during that setup process just go yes yes yes yes yes and
1:02:22then you know and when I say nobody else of course I don't mean you two because
1:02:26you're smarter. I mean everybody else like regular people like me who don't
1:02:32pay attention to what they're signing up to and then just go through and just say
1:02:38yes to everything and then well their iCloud apps don't sync anymore.
1:02:43Anyway on that great note, Mr. Jason Snell, are you gonna be at the
1:02:50event? I will be there. I got invited. It was very very kind of Apple.
1:02:54actually I think there are four people from Macworld who are going to be there, which
1:02:58is a record for us in recent years. So yeah, I'll be there.
1:03:02I look forward to seeing pictures of you on treadmills and exercise bikes and stuff like
1:03:06that, trying out the health devices. And then around the, you know, they'll probably have
1:03:10like a fake supermarket in there as well so you can try out the payment stuff. So enjoy
1:03:14all of that. Those will be really, really beautiful photos
1:03:17too. It'll be like when they unveiled the iPod
1:03:20Hi-Fi, which is also in the iconic book by the way, Trami smile and they had like they set up the house
1:03:25It's gonna be like that. Yeah
1:03:28They also released if memory serves me correctly leather like iPod
1:03:33Cases at that event that sold for like $100 and had like the embossed Apple logo on the back
1:03:39Yeah, I don't know if was $100 but they were laughable expensive. I think they were $50 cases
1:03:43Maybe that was it $60 cases and that was that was not
1:03:48Not good. That event was like, I don't know, I felt like that was like Steve Jobs
1:03:54had a really bad attitude that week and just decreed that this is what they were gonna do.
1:03:59And actually, you know, Apple's product discipline is so great.
1:04:03And even though Steve Jobs always had the attitude that everybody who was a third party
1:04:09was stealing money from his good work and Apple's good work and that Apple needed to find ways to take the money off the table.
1:04:15and that was absolutely his attitude.
1:04:17You rarely saw it as brazenly as with the iPod Hi-Fi,
1:04:22which was literally like,
1:04:23wow, Bose is selling a lot of sound docs,
1:04:26let's take that action from them.
1:04:28And it failed, which is the beauty of it.
1:04:30I actually use an iPod Hi-Fi as my external Mac speakers
1:04:34at home to this day, 'cause it's got an aux port,
1:04:37so it's still actually functional.
1:04:39But man, that was the whole reason that product existed,
1:04:42is just because they were really bent out of shape,
1:04:44I really believe it was Steve Jobs was mad that Bose was making so much money
1:04:47off of the greatness of the iPhone and so they made their own thing. That thing was so big.
1:04:53Well I mean yeah it's like a it's like the size of a like classic 80s like dual
1:04:58cassette deck portable tape player kind of thing. And Bose are doing those tiny
1:05:02little things. Yeah. But you know it was fine because Steve replaced his high-end
1:05:07audio equipment anyway so. It sounded good. It sounds good I listen to it almost
1:05:13every day still and it sounds perfectly fine it was just overpriced and kind of
1:05:18pointless and then sadly also it all the iPod charging in it even though it had
1:05:22little swappable like place where you could put in different dock connectors
1:05:25and things like that it was using the original firewire charging which meant
1:05:30like a year later when they changed to USB charging where the pins were
1:05:34different and all these different chargers car chargers broke so did the
1:05:39iPod Hi-Fi and that was the end. Yeah I can't use my beloved iPod Classic
1:05:44with one. Nope. I will say though I do keep my iPod Classic in a green
1:05:49iPod sock so... Hey good for you! I know right? I have an iPod
1:05:54Classic I'm in the club for the iPod Classic too I have one in my car. Does the
1:05:58iPod Classic have the 30 pin? Yes. Yeah so I have both style
1:06:04cables in my car. Mr. Jason Snell, thank you so much for joining us. Where can
1:06:13people find you on the internet, sir? You can find me on Twitter @jsnell. You can
1:06:18find much of my writing on Macworld, and you can find many of my fine, artisanal,
1:06:23handcrafted podcasts at TheIncomparable.com. Thank you. You can find me
1:06:28listening to this show every week on my iPhone in my in my car so
1:06:34power sliding while listening to your show yes thank you Jason thank you
1:06:40Arrivederci
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1:09:27So we should probably go for AppPix now, right?
1:09:29Let's do it.
1:09:30Do you want to take the lead?
1:09:32Yep.
1:09:33So I would like to talk about, it's a very quick one for me today, I think, Product Hunt,
1:09:38which is a website that I came across recently.
1:09:42I think I started getting into it when people let us know that we were on Product Hunt recently.
1:09:47relay FM when we launched. It's basically a Y Combinator backed project and it's effectively
1:09:55just a list of new things that have launched. People submit things to Product Hunt like
1:10:01Digg or something like that and people upvote them. It's that sort of Digg style that you're
1:10:05used to. But all it is is for things, new services, new apps, new projects, new products
1:10:11that have launched. And it's a really cool way to go on and find new little web services
1:10:16our apps and I found a few apps. So like today we've got like the Logitech K480
1:10:22is the top of product hunt today and it's a keyboard, a new Logitech
1:10:29keyboard that you can use with basically any device. It's like made to be like
1:10:33Android, iOS, that sort of stuff. So the app is very simple. You're
1:10:37authenticated via Twitter for the application. You can go in, you can view
1:10:42all of the comments that are attached to each product that's listed. You can
1:10:46add comments if you like. And you can also view the associated websites and if
1:10:50you like it you can upvote it. It's just a cool way to... I kind of want to do like a
1:10:54double thing like it's it's a cool service to find new stuff and their app
1:10:58is very simple very clean it's a nicely designed application as well so check it
1:11:03out. It's called Product Hunt and it's in the app store.
1:11:07Cool. Mine, mine, my pick is an app by Jared Sinclair of Unread and Whisper and
1:11:18Riposte, a new app called Time Zones. It's an iPhone app and it does basically what
1:11:24you think it would. It is a time zone and world clock application and it does a
1:11:30couple things really well. You might say, "Steven, the iOS system does this. You can
1:11:36just open the clock app and I do have my timezones in there and and that's that's
1:11:41fine but one thing that that timezones does is it has a little little feature
1:11:49called is it called a quick check check quick check and so you can go in here
1:11:54and I'm gonna have a screenshot in the in the show notes because it's not the
1:11:58one that I'm deleting now from the document one so I can go in here and I
1:12:04I can say, okay, I have an event Monday, September 8th
1:12:08at 11 p.m.
1:12:09and I can say that event is in,
1:12:17pick a city, Myke, just pick a city.
1:12:19- London.
1:12:19- So I can say London.
1:12:22So I'm gonna pick East London, South Africa.
1:12:26- Okay, great, yeah, that's what you wanna do.
1:12:28- And I can do quick check and it will tell me
1:12:30when that event is based on my local time.
1:12:34So I give her the time that I was given from the event host
1:12:37in their time zone and it tells me what it is my time.
1:12:42And that sounds confusing, but it's really not.
1:12:44It's really quick and it's great.
1:12:47But you know, if listening to a live podcast
1:12:49or you know, wanna catch something on TV
1:12:51or if someone says, "Hey, we're gonna have a phone call,"
1:12:54to go in there and just very quickly know
1:12:56when it is in your time zone
1:12:57instead of doing what I used to do,
1:12:58which would be like, you know, for Myke,
1:13:00you and I are six hours apart,
1:13:02Federico and I are seven hours apart,
1:13:04Jason and I are two hours apart,
1:13:05and trying to figure all that out mentally
1:13:08is just a good way to go crazy.
1:13:09So Time Dental takes care of all that.
1:13:11It's free with the in-app purchase to get rid of ads.
1:13:14It looks great on iOS 7 and 8,
1:13:16and it's definitely, if you deal with this sort of thing,
1:13:19definitely the tool you should be using.
1:13:21- I want to add a couple of things to this.
1:13:23So when you're doing the quick check,
1:13:25so you can kind of go in and say,
1:13:28I want to know what 8 p.m. is in all of,
1:13:30And it gives you a list and shows you all of the time zones
1:13:33that you've entered, 'cause you can enter
1:13:34multiple time zones.
1:13:35It shows you what that time is in all of them,
1:13:37so that's really useful for, like for me,
1:13:40when I'm trying to work out what time this show streams,
1:13:43I can go in and be like, I know it's 10 p.m. London time,
1:13:46right, so that's X time, like, so it's like,
1:13:49that's a three, so I'm not using it right now,
1:13:52otherwise I'd know.
1:13:53Two p.m. San Francisco time, five p.m. Eastern time,
1:13:57et cetera, and you get that list.
1:13:59But then you can jump backwards and forwards
1:14:02by 30 minute increments.
1:14:03So if you're trying to schedule a time,
1:14:05be like, oh no, that doesn't work for Steven.
1:14:08Maybe an hour's time would be good for him,
1:14:10so you just hit the button a couple of times
1:14:11and it lets you do that.
1:14:13You can also rename time zones.
1:14:15So I have time zones by city, but also by people as well.
1:14:18So I can't necessarily remember what time zone
1:14:22such and such person's in.
1:14:23I don't remember that they live in this city,
1:14:25but I can just put their name in.
1:14:26And also, one of the reasons I love this app
1:14:29is I helped Jared with some of the thinking behind it.
1:14:34So the actual, the idea for this application
1:14:38came in a conversation that me and him had
1:14:41after he was on command space.
1:14:43I was talking to him, we were just talking,
1:14:45I was talking to him about the fact
1:14:46that there are no good timezone apps,
1:14:48and then I told him all the things that I needed,
1:14:51and then he made it.
1:14:52For some reason, he doesn't credit me with this,
1:14:54and it upsets me so greatly.
1:14:56- Wow.
1:14:57- Even the quick check thing, right?
1:14:58So the jumping between like the 30 minutes,
1:15:00like going in ahead, I said, "You add that."
1:15:02And he had, you know, just saying, Jared, you know,
1:15:05you don't have to give me any money,
1:15:06but you could just say Myke helped.
1:15:08That's what's all I asked for.
1:15:10I don't know why he refuses to acknowledge
1:15:13my existence, Steven.
1:15:15- Wow. - It upsets me.
1:15:16- Not that you're upset.
1:15:18- Or bitter in any way.
1:15:19- Yeah, so you can find Product Hunt online,
1:15:21you can find time zones in the iOS app store.
1:15:25All of those are available at our show notes,
1:15:29which are on the internet somewhere.
1:15:31- I'm not really that bitter, by the way.
1:15:33I just wanna make that clear.
1:15:35- Relay.fm/connected/three.
1:15:39- Something like that.
1:15:40- Something like that.
1:15:42- So we come to the end of this week's episode.
1:15:45Thank you so much for listening.
1:15:46Thank you to Jason again for joining us.
1:15:49We've got a very special episode next week
1:15:51'cause it's the first Apple event
1:15:54that we'll be covering on Connected.
1:15:56So you will wanna tune in for that.
1:15:59We broadcast this show live on the internet.
1:16:04We broadcast at 10 p.m. London time,
1:16:082 p.m. San Francisco time, so Pacific time,
1:16:11and 5 p.m. Eastern time.
1:16:15So you wanna definitely tune in.
1:16:16It's gonna be a fun show next week for sure.
1:16:18If you wanna catch the show notes that Stephen mentioned,
1:16:21relay.fm/connected/3.
1:16:25We are _ConnectedFM on Twitter.
1:16:28I am @imike, I am YKE, and Steven is @ismh.
1:16:33Steven also writes over at 512pixels.net.
1:16:36We'll be back next week.
1:16:37Until then, bye bye.