00:00:08 ◼ ► From Relay FM, this is Connected, episode 471. Today's show is brought to you by Squarespace,
00:00:13 ◼ ► ZocDoc, and CleanMyMac X. I'm one of your co-hosts, Federico Vittucci, and it's my pleasure to introduce,
00:00:19 ◼ ► coming to you directly from a beach somewhere, Mr. Stephen Hackett. Hello, Stephen. Hello, Federico.
00:00:26 ◼ ► How are you? I'm relaxed. It's good. Okay, that's good. Yeah. Good for you. Yeah. We are joined
00:00:33 ◼ ► directly from a studio someplace in the London area by Mike Hurley. Hello, Governor. How's the
00:00:40 ◼ ► London area treating you today? Weather's weird in London at the moment. It feels like on a daily
00:00:45 ◼ ► basis it's oscillating between shorts weather and chinos weather. Like, I'm... It's very complicated
00:00:52 ◼ ► for me to work out what to wear every day at the moment. So that's how London is treating me right
00:00:57 ◼ ► now. We have some follow-up and it's about me, so I'll go first because I like it when it's about me.
00:01:13 ◼ ► the Horween? The Horween leather. I mean, okay, so it's good leather for sure. I mean, it's a very
00:01:20 ◼ ► nice leather and I love, like, it's got this very... I don't know how to describe it. It's
00:01:25 ◼ ► very smooth but the texture is very... It feels very dense. Like, the texture of the leather
00:01:32 ◼ ► feels denser than the Apple leather case that used to be last year. Would you call it rich
00:01:40 ◼ ► Corinthian leather? Would you call it that, Stephen? I don't know. Would you? You are the
00:01:45 ◼ ► Corinthian expert, it seems. I would say that it's a very nice leather. The case, as you pointed out,
00:01:55 ◼ ► it does add a bit of bulk to the bottom of the phone, but because the bottom lip of the case
00:02:04 ◼ ► sits relatively flush against the display, I have found that it doesn't bother me when I try to
00:02:11 ◼ ► swipe with my thumb to, like, open the app switcher or just exit from an app to the home screen. It
00:02:17 ◼ ► doesn't get in the way, like, you don't feel that difference of height between the case and the
00:02:24 ◼ ► display, so that's good. This case has a proper action button that feels great to use. The side
00:02:32 ◼ ► button also has this very nice sort of metallic texture, like pattern on top of it, which looks
00:02:40 ◼ ► nice in my opinion. And I guess the one thing that I... I mean, honestly, I don't like that it's real
00:02:49 ◼ ► leather, right? I would have preferred fake leather, but Nomad, they don't make one. And the other
00:02:56 ◼ ► thing is the USB-C cutout is fine. I haven't run into any USB-C cable with an adapter that doesn't
00:03:05 ◼ ► fit, but some of them are a tight fit. And I guess maybe I would have liked to have a slightly larger
00:03:13 ◼ ► cutout for the USB-C connector, but it's still larger, this Nomad one, than the fine woven case,
00:03:21 ◼ ► so it's okay. The USB-4 cable that I have that I use for everything, I use for charging, I use for
00:03:27 ◼ ► display out with my Nintendo Switch, with my ROG Ally, like that cable fits, but it's a very tight
00:03:36 ◼ ► fit. So maybe in a future revision, Nomad could consider an even bigger cutout for USB-C, but
00:03:42 ◼ ► overall this is the case that I'm using. It's very nice leather, the action button works properly,
00:03:49 ◼ ► and I can recommend it, even though it is not an affordable case. It's on the more expensive side.
00:03:55 ◼ ► I've been really happy with it too, and I have not run into the port size issue, but I can see it. I
00:04:05 ◼ ► mean, I'm looking at my case now, like yeah, if you have a little bit bulky of a cable, but it is better
00:04:09 ◼ ► than Apple's cutouts for sure. Yes. And it's centered on the bottom of the phone. What an idea. So
00:04:18 ◼ ► I don't know if you guys have been seeing this, but people have been now sharing photos of their
00:04:23 ◼ ► off-center iPhone cases. It's just all over the place. I don't know what's going on over there,
00:04:28 ◼ ► but I'm pleased that you like the Nomad. I agree with you, it is expensive, but if you want like
00:04:35 ◼ ► a nice leather case, that's a two out of three connected hosts recommend it. I dropped my phone.
00:04:42 ◼ ► Oh, I heard. A couple of nights ago, I was in the bathroom. I had my phone in my hand, and I don't
00:04:50 ◼ ► know how I did this, but I slipped out of my hand, hit the tile floor, and kind of bounced, and it's
00:04:57 ◼ ► done this thing, which is very strange, where it's kind of bent the titanium frame a little bit, like
00:05:04 ◼ ► in the top corner above the camera, and it's kind of like, it's like, you know like the curve that
00:05:09 ◼ ► goes around. It's almost like flattened it out. There's a little, it's hard for me to explain,
00:05:14 ◼ ► but I've made a small dent, and there's now a part of my iPhone next to one of the antenna lines.
00:05:21 ◼ ► It's just a little bit sharp if you run your finger across it. That's terrible. I'm so sorry.
00:05:26 ◼ ► Well, no, I don't care, because it hasn't affected my phone's usability in any way, and I dropped my
00:05:33 ◼ ► phone really badly on tile, and the screen's fine, so the cameras are fine. That's all I care about.
00:05:40 ◼ ► I expect these things to get dinged up. If I didn't want them to get dinged up, I'd put them
00:05:44 ◼ ► in a case, you know, but very happy with the durability of the iPhone, because it didn't smash
00:05:50 ◼ ► into a billion pieces, which it should have, because it didn't just drop down. It went forward,
00:05:56 ◼ ► like bounced, you know, like that. This thing went for it, and it's fine, but I dropped it.
00:06:22 ◼ ► Yeah. Good surprise. Well, I guess they've... Yeah, okay. They're not necessarily good surprises
00:06:28 ◼ ► when they begin, but usually by the end they are, you know? Sometimes they're like scary. You don't
00:06:33 ◼ ► know what's going to happen. Last week, we joked on the show that some people would want a transcript
00:06:38 ◼ ► of the Podcast-a-thon, and after the recording was done, I loaded up Mac Whisper and put it
00:06:46 ◼ ► on maximum and fed it, and fed it the 12-hour audio file. It took my M2 Pro, MacBook Pro,
00:07:24 ◼ ► I didn't know this was a thing that could be done on the internet. I don't understand how this is,
00:07:29 ◼ ► like, I don't understand this. This is me not understanding how websites are made. I don't know
00:07:46 ◼ ► You don't know either. I'm very confused about this. I'm worried this is going to break your
00:07:53 ◼ ► It is an amazing text document. I will say, if you download it, BB Edit's the only thing that
00:07:59 ◼ ► can open it without really struggling. Like, I opened it in Byword, and the poor thing can't
00:08:04 ◼ ► scroll. Like, it's just beach balling. But this is a wild document, and you should just go search
00:08:14 ◼ ► Oh yeah, no. It looked like it had an end at the end. Nope, that didn't work. Hi, can you
00:08:19 ◼ ► hear me? Do you understand? Laughing. Of the way. Where was it? What a beautiful day. Oh yeah, no.
00:08:25 ◼ ► It looked like it had an end at the end. What a beautiful stand. Laughing. Don't you? Don't
00:08:31 ◼ ► go understand. Don't go under sand. I don't want to go under the sand, Jason. It's cool,
00:08:39 ◼ ► Good spin. Wheel spinning. Lip reading. Alright, let's go. Alright, okay. I'm just sitting here.
00:08:46 ◼ ► Other people can sit. Mike, choose your partner. Jason, alright. You're too tired to move. I'll
00:08:51 ◼ ► just let you know. I'm actually impressed. This is incredible. I'm actually impressed by the
00:08:57 ◼ ► transcript picking up the sound effects. Like, laughing. Yeah, like it knows what a wheel
00:09:02 ◼ ► spin is. That's really weird, right? Yeah. Cheering, yelling, ball bouncing, upbeat music.
00:09:09 ◼ ► Yeah, later on it has race car engine revving. Triumphant music. Triumphant music. I just saw
00:09:15 ◼ ► that. Oval with claws. Hey, that's what lobsters are. That's it. Man, this is a real thing in here.
00:09:24 ◼ ► The Calax. 25 points to the winner. Incredible. Fundraising is fun. Fundraising is fun.
00:09:35 ◼ ► Wow, this is, this is, man, the AI is coming for us. It really is. So, you can go check out
00:09:42 ◼ ► the transcript. We do want to thank everyone who donated and was involved with the St. Jude
00:09:47 ◼ ► fundraiser. The final number, if you didn't see it on Mastodon or Discord or somewhere, $775,000,
00:09:54 ◼ ► which is just an incredible amount of money. That's basically 70 grand more than last year.
00:10:11 ◼ ► It's, it's incredible. The community really stepped up. It puts our lifetime total since
00:10:16 ◼ ► 2019 at 2.98 million. I've already been rounding up to quote nearly $3 million over five years.
00:10:27 ◼ ► like we'll, we'll hit the 3 million in like the first week or something, which would be nice.
00:10:37 ◼ ► it takes a lot of work. It takes a lot out of us. I know all of us involved, basically. I mean,
00:10:52 ◼ ► Yeah. So it means, it means the world to us. And thank you. Just thank you. Now we've got some,
00:11:04 ◼ ► Yeah. Rafi says, uh, it's interesting to see that long-time Mac users like Steven and Jason don't
00:11:22 ◼ ► desktops were introduced, I enjoy having, uh, and when multiple desktops were introduced,
00:11:26 ◼ ► I enjoyed having all of my important apps open all of the time in many different spaces.
00:11:31 ◼ ► I added widgets to my Mac, but they're all hidden behind open windows. I would prefer if
00:11:35 ◼ ► widgets were anchored to a specific desktop. Now here's one. I have two points in this question.
00:11:40 ◼ ► Like, I think there is that. I think there is something at play here, but I just want to say
00:11:44 ◼ ► for the record, I don't understand why Steven is considered this long-time Mac user. I think me
00:11:50 ◼ ► and Steven have been using Macs for about the same amount of time. And I think Federico as well.
00:11:58 ◼ ► cause he's an old, old soul. Yeah. Just because he has really old computers. Like he hasn't been
00:12:04 ◼ ► using them for 40 years. Let's put our cards on the table. When did you start using the Mac on a
00:12:09 ◼ ► regular basis? Um, probably when I was, no, I know when it was when I was 18 years old.
00:12:15 ◼ ► What year? 2006. 2006 Mike. So yeah. Mike, you are my age. Yeah. 2006. Yeah. Okay. So I've got about
00:12:25 ◼ ► five or six years on you. And I started in 2008. All right. But that doesn't make you like
00:12:31 ◼ ► comparatively, I think that different. No, I'm closer to you than I am to Jason. Yeah. For sure.
00:12:36 ◼ ► But if you combine those five years with the fact that he's an old soul, like it exponentially grows.
00:12:44 ◼ ► No, I mean, I agree that Steven and Jason are in the same bucket. I just want it to be like,
00:12:48 ◼ ► I feel like my, my like credentials are being like questioned here. You know what I mean?
00:12:55 ◼ ► Like I've been using the Mac consistently every day. Well, here's the thing. That was when I had
00:13:00 ◼ ► my first Mac I'd been using Macs in school too. Yeah. But I didn't own one. Like my first Mac was
00:13:08 ◼ ► when I was 18. So anyway, the thing is, I think there's a different mindset of play here. Like,
00:13:14 ◼ ► I think me and Federico have been iPad pilled or something probably. And so like desktop clutter,
00:13:19 ◼ ► it's just not a thing that we want. Like not too many open windows, not loads of overlapping
00:13:23 ◼ ► windows. I think that's what it is. I don't think that this is a like legacy Mac thing as to why or
00:13:29 ◼ ► why not you might want to use widgets on the desktop or why you might like them. And I don't,
00:13:33 ◼ ► I don't want to speak for Jason. But for me, it's not that I don't see the value in the widgets. I
00:13:37 ◼ ► think they're in the wrong place. I think having them on the desktop is the wrong solution. That's
00:13:42 ◼ ► all. Bring back some sort of dashboard they could live on or something. Can't someone just make
00:13:48 ◼ ► this? I don't know. I know. So on Sunday's episode of MPU, John Syracuse is our guest. We recorded it
00:13:56 ◼ ► yesterday. And we talked for a long time with that episode about, you know, he has front and center.
00:14:01 ◼ ► And he basically said like window management stuff on the Mac is extremely difficult to write.
00:14:07 ◼ ► And so it may not be that a developer has any visibility into like where these widgets are to
00:14:13 ◼ ► be able to manipulate where they live. So I don't know. I could, I would be surprised if someone
00:14:18 ◼ ► could, could write like some sort of shim that made it more dashboard. Like I would love it.
00:14:23 ◼ ► And if it's out there, let me know. But I would be surprised. I could imagine in a couple of years,
00:14:28 ◼ ► Mac OS skyline is released and they say like, everybody loves widgets on the desktop and now
00:14:36 ◼ ► we're going to bring them right in front of your eyes. You just press this new key on the keyboard
00:14:41 ◼ ► or whatever, you know, and like, you will be able to see the skyline of your widgets. Here we go.
00:14:46 ◼ ► And it's a good throwback. So Jeffrey Waring asking, shortcuts triggered with the action
00:14:51 ◼ ► button whilst on the lock screen that require any type of user input or a time delay are borderline
00:14:57 ◼ ► useless as the screen shuts off dims if you are on an always on display after a few seconds and
00:15:04 ◼ ► cancels the shortcut altogether. I'd love to know if Federico has a workaround for keeping the lock
00:15:08 ◼ ► screen on or is he solely using the action button and shortcuts only when the phone is unlocked?
00:15:14 ◼ ► The second one, Jeffrey, because there's basically no way to know if a shortcut is running in the
00:15:22 ◼ ► context of the lock screen. This is one of the biggest limitations of shortcuts for power users
00:15:26 ◼ ► right now. Shortcuts doesn't have any idea of, or rather it does, but very little, like which context
00:15:34 ◼ ► am I running in? Like, am I a shortcut right now that's running on the home screen? Am I running on
00:15:41 ◼ ► the lock screen? Am I running from Notification Center? Am I running from the share sheet? Like,
00:15:45 ◼ ► you can, all you can do is basically just say, am I running on an iPhone, iPad or Mac or watch?
00:15:53 ◼ ► Like, that's all you can do. All these additional, like, areas of the operating systems are basically
00:16:00 ◼ ► unknown to shortcuts. There are some third-party workarounds to do this, right? But even if you try
00:16:07 ◼ ► the popular and free-to-download Actions app, it does have an action that I believe is called
00:16:15 ◼ ► "Is iPhone locked?" but that only tells you if the iPhone is actually locked. So if you pick up,
00:16:23 ◼ ► and I tested this a few days ago, if you pick up your phone and assume it's got face ID,
00:16:30 ◼ ► you look at it and you tap on a shortcut that has one of these actions to tell you if the phone is
00:16:38 ◼ ► on the lock screen, it's just going to tell you the phone is unlocked. And that's no different
00:16:43 ◼ ► from running that action on the home screen. It's always going to tell you the phone is unlocked.
00:16:48 ◼ ► There's no native way to say, okay, this shortcut, like when I tap the shortcut, is it running inside
00:16:56 ◼ ► the shortcuts app, in the lock screen, is it on the home screen? I would love to have these features
00:17:03 ◼ ► in shortcuts because that would allow for much greater flexibility. Like, for example, I would
00:17:10 ◼ ► design all of my shortcuts to be simpler if you're using them from the lock screen, because if you're
00:17:18 ◼ ► using them from the lock screen, I'm assuming you want to have quicker interactions, right? I would
00:17:22 ◼ ► do that, but I cannot, because there's no way to know if a shortcut is running on the lock screen.
00:17:28 ◼ ► And so, Jeffrey, essentially I do most of my action button shortcuts usage from the home screen, or
00:17:35 ◼ ► if I'm actually using my phone anyway. Yeah, this was a frustration, or like a limitation I found
00:17:41 ◼ ► out pretty early on, because my action button usage is typing tasks in, right? And I would type
00:17:47 ◼ ► like half of a word and then it would just cancel. I don't know why they have this limitation in place
00:17:54 ◼ ► that like if the phone is locked, it will, everything will work as long as you're fast enough.
00:17:59 ◼ ► Like I'm not really, this feels like a, like a, an unintended thing, because I can't work out what the
00:18:12 ◼ ► Like it just is weird, like, so if I have to type something, then it will start taking the first few
00:18:17 ◼ ► letters and then just cuts off. And so it feels to me like this is something that could and should be
00:18:24 ◼ ► fixed, but I would be surprised if it was considered to be like high importance, if like,
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00:20:45 ◼ ► Last week we were talking about the fact that Federico was basically unable to use the natural
00:20:52 ◼ ► language text entry in Reminders, and I said it was working fine for me. Well, Gaz wrote in to say,
00:20:59 ◼ ► "There's a Reminders bug on the UK English keyboard and devices that does not allow you to set a due
00:21:06 ◼ ► date for the upcoming Sunday. No matter what you type, it always suggests the next Sunday.
00:21:20 ◼ ► on my keyboard, try and do anything where I'm saying like this Sunday or Sunday, it always goes
00:21:28 ◼ ► to the following Sunday. So like today is the 11th and no matter what I do, it wants to put the task
00:21:42 ◼ ► Yeah. Okay. So sometimes, sometimes I ask myself this question, right? And I know that the answer
00:21:49 ◼ ► is complex, but still the answer is complex if you work at Apple, but you get a, I guess what I'm
00:21:56 ◼ ► trying to say is if you work at Apple and you're listening to this segment, try and put yourself
00:22:01 ◼ ► in the shoes of people from the outside. We'll look at this and our, and our natural reaction
00:22:06 ◼ ► is, and I don't blame ourselves for having this reaction. Does anyone at Apple even test this?
00:22:20 ◼ ► if this is a feature that you have, does nobody ever do anything on Sundays? Like what is happening?
00:22:35 ◼ ► you know, remember to buy this thing from the grocery store. Like that's all going in reminders,
00:22:47 ◼ ► those issues I've continued in beta two of 17.1, beta three, which came out yesterday. And I guess
00:22:56 ◼ ► we're going to talk about shortly. The bug is still there. Sometimes when I type in a natural
00:23:01 ◼ ► language, they just randomly assigns another date. And because of these problems, I mean,
00:23:06 ◼ ► I had to be realistic as much as I love reminders and all the new features and the UI changes in 17.
00:23:13 ◼ ► I, for now, for now, I had to move back to things as my task manager because at the very least,
00:23:28 ◼ ► like complicated or is such like a, of a detriment to reminders is adding a date and time to a
00:23:40 ◼ ► Why do I have to hit a toggle switch first? What is that? Like what is going on? And so like,
00:23:47 ◼ ► but this isn't an issue if you have good natural language input, which I think every to-do app
00:23:52 ◼ ► should have good natural language input. And like to me, that is like pure table stakes of
00:23:58 ◼ ► what it is to be, I think an app that requires any kind of text entry like this, like your calendar
00:24:03 ◼ ► apps, uh, to do apps, all of this kind of stuff. Yeah. If it just doesn't work, that is wild.
00:24:10 ◼ ► There are a couple of third-party apps, uh, InstaRemind on the Mac and remind me faster on iOS
00:24:15 ◼ ► that basically are a natural language process layer on top of reminders. But I agree with
00:24:22 ◼ ► you. It's it's too fiddly, especially on the Mac. And there's, there's things on the Mac. You can't
00:24:27 ◼ ► do an iPhone and iPad easily. It's so close to being good. And I mean, I used reminders all
00:24:33 ◼ ► summer and I'm back on Todoist because my spouse does not like reminders at all. And we have a
00:24:38 ◼ ► couple of shared lists and so, and I'm fine being a Todoist, but it is, it is frustrating because
00:24:43 ◼ ► we remind it's like, it's right there on the edge, but it feels like a lot of the clicking around and
00:24:49 ◼ ► toggles and check boxes you need. It just feels like it wasn't designed in 2023. It's like they're,
00:24:56 ◼ ► they're bringing forward this old design year after year. And I wish they would take some time and,
00:25:00 ◼ ► and really look and see where the market is and, and try to try to help move things along because
00:25:09 ◼ ► it is, it is really clunky in a lot of areas. Yeah. I'm, I'm still going to use it for what I
00:25:14 ◼ ► wanted to use it for, which is like for a better way to manage house projects with a shared list
00:25:19 ◼ ► and not be in my typical to do app. I don't want to cross the streams and it's going to be fine
00:25:25 ◼ ► for that, but this is not a tool that I would want to rely on for work if I can't easily or even
00:25:33 ◼ ► accurately enter due dates. Like I would never trust that the due date was correct and I'd have
00:25:39 ◼ ► to check it every time. Like, and that would be too annoying to me to do. Because then it makes
00:25:44 ◼ ► you, it makes you think about it and you're not supposed to think about it. The whole point of
00:25:48 ◼ ► these tools is that you, that they become a way for you to, to reduce the noise in your mind. And
00:25:53 ◼ ► if every time I'm adding a task, I'm unsure of whether the task got added to the right place,
00:25:58 ◼ ► like or the right day that, that would, that would just be too stressful for me really.
00:26:16 ◼ ► let me tell you about what I think is incredibly named Spotify. Supreme. I love this product name.
00:26:25 ◼ ► Supreme. Passionately like this is genius. Someone deserves a raise for this. I think whoever came
00:26:33 ◼ ► up with this name, they deserve to get one year of all of the increase fees. They just, it's good.
00:26:51 ◼ ► Super. Incredible. Yeah. I wished that I had a member's show to call Supreme. You know what I
00:26:58 ◼ ► mean? Like how we did like plus and stuff like that, but like, we just don't, I don't know if
00:27:02 ◼ ► we have any that could fit, but who knows maybe it's going to be connected to premium anyway.
00:27:06 ◼ ► So Spotify Supreme will have lossless audio, audio books. So an amount of audio books premium
00:27:15 ◼ ► gets this. I don't know if it'd be the same amount or more. This hasn't actually been officially
00:27:19 ◼ ► announced yet. I don't think, um, AI playlist generation. I don't really know what that means.
00:27:31 ◼ ► that kind of stuff. The last one I don't like, I don't like the sound of, of, uh, they're gonna
00:27:37 ◼ ► basically be, although I guess there are. Federico, this is like beats music or something.
00:27:42 ◼ ► This feels to me like I want a playlist of the, that's the third one. That's the third one.
00:27:48 ◼ ► The fourth one, the third one is beats music. Like give me a playlist. Like the fourth one playlist
00:27:56 ◼ ► mixing tools to adjust songs for tempo. Like, does it mean that it's like, is it, is it going to
00:28:01 ◼ ► change the pitch and tempo of songs? No, I don't think that. I just think it's like, I, it, it,
00:28:08 ◼ ► it is creating a playlist with songs of a similar tempo. That's how I read it. In that case,
00:28:13 ◼ ► it's awesome. Okay. I can't imagine they're going to adjust music. I mean, there's a whole,
00:28:18 ◼ ► there's a whole culture of, of people listening to remixed. Like, have you ever heard of like
00:28:24 ◼ ► nightcore versions of songs? Yeah. It's like a whole thing of like, especially, uh, young,
00:28:31 ◼ ► younger folks listening to like slightly different versions of songs that are sometimes more
00:28:38 ◼ ► electronic and it's like, they, they spend hours on YouTube streaming them. Um, and yeah, so I
00:28:44 ◼ ► thought it was that, but it makes more sense to, uh, that it's, uh, it's just like, yeah, we're
00:28:49 ◼ ► going to put together a playlist for songs that have the same mood or tempo that makes more sense.
00:28:54 ◼ ► This package, it will cost $20 a month, which is, but it's so premium, very expensive for a streaming
00:29:00 ◼ ► server for a music streaming service. I think that's twice the price of premium. It is. Yeah.
00:29:06 ◼ ► That's quite pricey. I do want to touch on the audio book thing just for a second. They did
00:29:12 ◼ ► announce that premium members, we get 15 hours of audio books a month, which just seems like a weird
00:29:21 ◼ ► way to measure audio. And I'm not an audio book person. So maybe this is how everybody does it.
00:29:24 ◼ ► But what if you're listening to a 16 hour book and you get to the end is like, Oh, I have an hour
00:29:30 ◼ ► left and you're, you're, you're cut off. Well then you pay them. Then I guess so. And their CEO has
00:29:36 ◼ ► this quote, uh, the verge has it. I believe this will bring a whole new generation of listeners to
00:29:39 ◼ ► audio books. Now take this with a grain of salt that we own a podcast company. Spotify did not do
00:29:46 ◼ ► well in podcasts. I mean, they have now a growing base, but in terms of purchasing podcasts and
00:29:54 ◼ ► content, they, I think blew that pretty badly. I'm just very curious to see this. Like, I can't
00:30:02 ◼ ► imagine they're going to get into audio book creation. I think they're, I think they've
00:30:05 ◼ ► learned their lesson probably about, Hey, we were streaming service. We're not a content platform,
00:30:12 ◼ ► but it also feels a little bit like they're still trying to get spoken word into Spotify.
00:30:18 ◼ ► They want to be the app that all of your audio is in. And while that sounds pretty nuts to a lot of
00:30:24 ◼ ► us who want podcasting specific features that Spotify doesn't have, or we just want our music
00:30:30 ◼ ► and podcasts separate. There are a lot of people who do like having podcasts in Spotify. We've seen
00:30:35 ◼ ► in our own numbers, Spotify listenership growing over time. And so then moving into audio books,
00:30:42 ◼ ► at least in this new way, I think is going to be really interesting to keep an eye on because
00:30:47 ◼ ► audible, which is owned by Amazon, at least in the U S is basically the platform. And can Spotify
00:30:54 ◼ ► take some of that? Like they've taken some podcasting away from Apple. I'm just fascinated
00:30:58 ◼ ► by this move and I'm going to be watching it very keenly to see how this goes for them over the next
00:31:03 ◼ ► couple of years. I think it will work fine because people get it as part of their plan. Right. So
00:31:11 ◼ ► like you might be, I got, I think it was, I think it was Ben Thompson who was talking about this
00:31:22 ◼ ► then Spotify can just give you the book, right? Like go listen to the book. Like that's quite a
00:31:30 ◼ ► compelling thing. I think like, you know, I'm sure there's many ways that that could expose itself.
00:31:36 ◼ ► That was kind of interesting to me, but I give you, it is funny that it's like this 15 hour thing,
00:31:41 ◼ ► like, and then you have to do something about it, but like audible is also weird, right? Like
00:31:45 ◼ ► audible, you pay them monthly and you get credits that you can spend on books. Like there's, there's
00:31:52 ◼ ► all this just like strange ways in which audio book stuff works, which I'm sure is all related
00:31:56 ◼ ► to some kind of publishing agreement thing, but yeah, this is part of their overall package for
00:32:01 ◼ ► Supremium, which, you know, obviously they have spent this whole time trying to work out how to
00:32:08 ◼ ► make, how to make lossless audio available in a way that competes with free. Like when Spotify
00:32:16 ◼ ► announced HiFi, Apple hadn't announced lossless music, audio for Apple Music. And Apple doesn't
00:32:22 ◼ ► charge more for it. It's just built in. Exactly. It's just built in. So now if they're going to do
00:32:26 ◼ ► it, they can't just be like, Hey, here's this and it's $20 a month. Like they have to make a package.
00:32:31 ◼ ► I would say as a package without all of the details, like we don't know if you get, and I
00:32:36 ◼ ► expect you do get more audio book hours or something. Um, it's a pretty decent package for
00:32:41 ◼ ► like a Spotify super user, but I think that is quite an expensive price for a service like this.
00:32:51 ◼ ► But Hey, maybe it will work. I dropped a link in discord to the nightcore version of titanium.
00:33:25 ◼ ► This is faster. It's faster and the pitch is higher. Um, yeah. This sounds like all of the
00:33:37 ◼ ► We talked in connector pro about wireless carplay a little bit more, but my phone is named ISMH
00:33:46 ◼ ► titanium with the I and the a like tie. So a bunch of I's and A's and the truck shows like,
00:33:54 ◼ ► Oh, connecting to, and then the phone name. And, uh, so I had to explain that to a family member
00:33:59 ◼ ► the other day. Like why is your phone called? The way to explain it is you just go, Hey,
00:34:05 ◼ ► Siri play titanium by David Guetta. You know, I should have, I should have an automation that
00:34:10 ◼ ► when my phone connects to carplay, it plays that song. Mike, there was a report out about the
00:34:15 ◼ ► refresh rate of the vision pro headset, and it seems like it could be good news for you
00:34:21 ◼ ► living in the UK. Could you explain this to us? Yeah. So previously Apple had spoken about the
00:34:27 ◼ ► fact that the headset would max out at 90 Hertz. Like that's what they were. Uh, it's like 90
00:34:33 ◼ ► frames per second, basically. That's what they were suggesting developers target. Um, but I'll
00:34:39 ◼ ► read from, this is from Mac rumors and this post was written by Julie Clover and the quote is
00:34:46 ◼ ► code found by M one Astra confirms that the maximum vision pro refresh rate is 100 Hertz,
00:34:52 ◼ ► but 100 Hertz is a mode that only activates to compensate for detected 50 Hertz flicker from
00:34:58 ◼ ► artificial lighting. Thank you, Apple. This is my concern. Cause like sometimes when I use, uh, like
00:35:05 ◼ ► a, the meta quest pro, which by the way, don't I feel great about buying that that was a very
00:35:10 ◼ ► long shelf life for that product. Yeah. The three kills that right. Uh, killed by anything else.
00:35:22 ◼ ► which I do actually think is really important for, for like meat and stuff, but yeah. Oh boy. Anyway,
00:35:30 ◼ ► please stop writing into me to tell me that I shouldn't have it. I don't like it either,
00:35:33 ◼ ► but the room is very big and leave me alone forever. Uh, I w like though I would sometimes
00:35:38 ◼ ► the lighting would flicker. Um, and this is an issue I've had with other Apple products.
00:35:43 ◼ ► Like my studios players had this issue for a while. Um, where I would be on a call with someone and
00:35:48 ◼ ► the camera would just be freaking out because it's affected by the overhead lighting, the fit,
00:35:54 ◼ ► which is 50 Hertz here, not 60. And that's just the way lighting is. Um, and I was worried that
00:35:59 ◼ ► the vision pro would have this problem. So I am really, really happy to hear that they have
00:36:05 ◼ ► considered this and considered it specifically for this use case. Cause my concern was that I
00:36:10 ◼ ► would turn it on and it would be like some kind of rave in my eyes, which would not have been a good
00:36:15 ◼ ► experience. So I'm very enthused about this. How's your studio display camera doing? So, uh,
00:36:20 ◼ ► it has been on and off, which is the most frustrating thing for a while. I couldn't use it
00:36:24 ◼ ► at all because every time I turn it on, it would be just flickering and like tripping out. Then it
00:36:31 ◼ ► was okay. Then something, one of the Mac OS settings things fixed it. Then it stopped working
00:36:37 ◼ ► again on now it's like intermittent. Sometimes I'll turn the camera on and it would, and it would
00:36:41 ◼ ► adjust to the lighting. Sometimes it wouldn't. I have actually found an app, a Mac app called
00:36:48 ◼ ► webcam settings. Oh, this app lets me change the refresh rate of the camera from 60 to 50.
00:36:58 ◼ ► An app lets you do it? Yes. I don't know how. An app who quotes 2012 episodes of podcasts
00:37:06 ◼ ► as reviews. Well also, I mean, take a look at the, the, the, this was last updated three years ago.
00:37:12 ◼ ► Uh huh. Firewire camera is not supported. That's a bummer. If you are using an external webcam,
00:37:20 ◼ ► you get tons of settings with this app, right? Like you can change brightness, contrast, hue,
00:37:26 ◼ ► sharpness, gamma, zoom, pan, tilt, loads of stuff. All of that doesn't work with the studio display,
00:37:32 ◼ ► but changing the refresh rate from 60 to 50 does work. And so now I have, every time I have this
00:37:39 ◼ ► app open on my Mac, it fixes the problem. I hope that the vision pro team can send a note to the
00:37:45 ◼ ► studio display team and we can just have this taken care of for good. So we spoke last week
00:37:52 ◼ ► about the, uh, the work that I'm doing on version two of multi-button, which is going well. Uh,
00:37:58 ◼ ► and one of the things I'm doing is, um, adding support for sort of contextual actions inside
00:38:11 ◼ ► shortcuts that perform something specific while you are using the app. Um, the, as soon as like,
00:38:19 ◼ ► we recorded this on Wednesday and the Halide folks had already come out with, um, new actions for the
00:38:26 ◼ ► action button that do exactly what I meant. So in the latest version of Halide, um, you can install
00:38:33 ◼ ► this shortcut that unless you use multi-button, of course, this will take over, uh, all the other
00:38:39 ◼ ► shortcuts you may have configured with the action button. But with this shortcut, um, when you press
00:38:46 ◼ ► it and you're using Halide, uh, inside the app, you will trigger different features. You will be
00:38:53 ◼ ► able to switch between lenses to control your exposure mode, your focus mode, your resolution,
00:38:58 ◼ ► the capture mode of the app. And I think this is a very clever idea to add a physical contextual
00:39:06 ◼ ► control to the app that you're currently using. These are all like, these actions are all based
00:39:12 ◼ ► on the latest shortcuts technology, the app intents that any developer can use. And, uh,
00:39:18 ◼ ► it's just a great example of tying a physical control to something contextual to the app that
00:39:24 ◼ ► you're using at the moment. And it's exactly what I meant last week. Uh, so far, I have two examples
00:39:31 ◼ ► of apps that have this sort of support in shortcuts for performing something based on what
00:39:38 ◼ ► you are doing inside the app. Uh, Halide is one and the other, as I mentioned last week, is Things,
00:39:44 ◼ ► which I have been using with my action button. So it's very nice when I, when I am in, in Things,
00:39:50 ◼ ► um, instead of having to use the Things UI for scheduling tasks, like adding a date or adding a
00:39:58 ◼ ► time, all I need to do is select an item, select a task, press the action button, and the shortcuts
00:40:04 ◼ ► date picker comes up, which is much faster than the Things date picker. And I can just schedule
00:40:10 ◼ ► shortcuts from there just by pressing the action button. And that's what I hope more developers
00:40:16 ◼ ► will implement with shortcuts, like come up with actions that do something based on selection,
00:40:23 ◼ ► based on what you're doing in the app. I don't know, take a look at what Things is doing,
00:40:36 ◼ ► well, I'd love to see if other apps do it. And I would love to know if people are using it,
00:40:46 ◼ ► thing that I just want to, as soon as I don't understand how it works, like technically,
00:40:50 ◼ ► like I know, but I also don't know, you know what I mean? Like, why doesn't it just keep opening the
00:40:55 ◼ ► app over and over and over again? Uh, because you are, because the app is open, but like,
00:41:00 ◼ ► yeah, I just don't, how is it a trick the system? No, it's not a trick. See, that's the thing. It's,
00:41:07 ◼ ► it's not a trick. It's me. And I think a lot of people when they saw this were like, oh,
00:41:18 ◼ ► And the Intense Framework is telling app perform this. And if the app is in the foreground,
00:41:31 ◼ ► it's not a workaround. It's not like a private API, which I've seen people suggest. No, it's not.
00:41:36 ◼ ► It's just, typically you're used to using shortcuts actions while you're doing something else. Like
00:41:42 ◼ ► you are on the home screen, you are in a widget or something. Here, it's doing the same thing,
00:41:48 ◼ ► but in front of your eyes. I think the bit where it just trips me up is like the first thing,
00:41:52 ◼ ► the first time you press the button, it doesn't open the app and perform the action, does it? It
00:41:57 ◼ ► just opens the app. But then when you press it a second time, it, like when the app is open,
00:42:01 ◼ ► it then performs the chosen action. Yes. Like that's the thing that I can't get my head around.
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00:42:15 ◼ ► recommendations? You want to find a doctor who gets you, listens to you and makes you feel
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00:43:53 ◼ ► Mystery number one. What's going on with Find My Alerts? I keep my Find My Alerts are going
00:44:03 ◼ ► wild right now. Everywhere I go, I'm forgetting things, but you know what? I'm not. They're in my
00:44:07 ◼ ► pocket or in my bag. They are going off left, right and center. I've been seeing a lot of
00:44:12 ◼ ► people talk about this in our Discord too. My favorite one yesterday where I was listening
00:44:26 ◼ ► I have the same problem. It's almost like my AirPods are having an identity crisis or something.
00:44:44 ◼ ► Oh, by the way. Actually, by the way, I got the USB-C AirPods. I forgot to tell you guys.
00:44:50 ◼ ► I just figured, "Yeah, you know what? I'm going to want them when the Vision Pro is out."
00:44:58 ◼ ► I will do them for the Vision Pro. The reason I didn't get them yet, I never plugged my...
00:45:09 ◼ ► like a couple of weeks ago. I was like, "See, now I cannot plug them in anymore," because I removed
00:45:15 ◼ ► all the lightning cable from the house. So yeah, that's why I got them. But yes, these are alerts.
00:45:20 ◼ ► My issue there is traveling because at the moment... And I don't plan on a MagSafe traveling
00:45:27 ◼ ► setup. It's just because it's just going to take too much aggravation. I might do it later,
00:45:31 ◼ ► but I'm not planning on it. So I'm going to have to keep carrying a lightning cable for
00:45:35 ◼ ► when I'm traveling. I guess I'll ask actually connected listeners, if you have good MagSafe
00:45:48 ◼ ► and maybe we could talk about them in the future episode. But please mention they got to be MagSafe,
00:45:53 ◼ ► because otherwise people are just going to send you a bunch of Qi chargers. They're like
00:46:03 ◼ ► Like official MagSafe? Doesn't need to be official MagSafe, but MagSafe compatible. So like,
00:46:08 ◼ ► it's gotten a blessing. I would like the blessing. Now you're going to get a lot of recommendations.
00:46:12 ◼ ► Yeah, but that's okay though, right? Because what I want is MagSafe compatible, right? Like,
00:46:17 ◼ ► that's good. Is that what I'm saying? I want the one where they're getting the full speed charging.
00:46:22 ◼ ► Yeah, then you want MagSafe. Okay, because sometimes they're not MagSafe pucks is what I
00:46:28 ◼ ► mean, right? They're like... I mean, the Anchor Cube doesn't have a MagSafe puck like the Apple
00:46:35 ◼ ► one, but it's MagSafe certified. Yeah, I want the full MagSafe certification. That's what I want.
00:46:40 ◼ ► Okay, all right, cool. Yeah, because that also lets you use the standby, remember my charger
00:46:48 ◼ ► feature. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I want all that. Even if it's just like you have a thing and you've put
00:46:53 ◼ ► two MagSafe pucks in it or whatever, like, but it's like a thing that you like, you can send me
00:46:58 ◼ ► that too. Even if I have to supply my own MagSafe charges. Second mystery. Okay. So I saw this on
00:47:06 ◼ ► 9to5Mac and then I've been seeing every single day for the last three days, every single day for
00:47:12 ◼ ► the last three days. I have been seeing people posting the Relay FM members discord that their
00:47:19 ◼ ► iPhones are turning off overnight. And the way that they know this is they try and unlock their
00:47:25 ◼ ► phone in the morning and it wants the passcode. Then you go to the battery section of your iPhone
00:47:32 ◼ ► and there is a gap in the charging. Oh, so what it looks like, I mean, I don't, I don't think
00:47:37 ◼ ► anybody knows. Like Zach Hall wrote about this on 9to5Mac. I don't think people know that the iPhone
00:47:43 ◼ ► has actually turned off, but these are the two things that are happening. And every day, and I
00:47:48 ◼ ► just scored for the last three days, people have been posting. This is also, as you can imagine,
00:47:52 ◼ ► a big post about this on Reddit where it's like something's going on with the phones and they're
00:47:57 ◼ ► either turning off, they're rebooting or they're doing some kind of weird, like don't ask us about
00:48:01 ◼ ► charging kind of thing. So there's two mysteries going on right now boys. I think there's ghosts
00:48:06 ◼ ► in the iOS. There's Tim Cook visiting you at night, just randomly shutting off your phone.
00:48:12 ◼ ► You know, it's just like, let me turn this off. And you wake up and you got to put in a passcode.
00:48:18 ◼ ► This is weird. I assume it's some kind of bug. The phone is not supposed to reboot on its own.
00:48:25 ◼ ► So I'm sure this is a random bug that will get fixed at some point. Interesting mystery though.
00:48:32 ◼ ► Two mysteries, you know, spooky season. You've got to have your mysteries in spooky season.
00:48:44 ◼ ► Weekly releases. Yes. There's been a bunch of changes. The action button now detects if it's
00:48:50 ◼ ► in your pocket and therefore will take longer to activate when you're pressing, if you don't take
00:48:55 ◼ ► out your pocket. So we'll reduce accidental touches. I say, if they're in there and they're
00:49:00 ◼ ► fiddling about with the action button, give us a double tap. Yeah. Now do that. Like you're already
00:49:07 ◼ ► adding like conditions to the action button. Like, oh, so, but if it's in your pocket, it takes on,
00:49:13 ◼ ► yes. Okay. This is the right direction. Now do more activation triggers or whatever. Yes.
00:49:19 ◼ ► Federico, they fixed your shortcuts issue that you were having, right? What was the problem and
00:49:24 ◼ ► how have they fixed it? If you recall in my review, there was a screenshot of the shortcuts
00:49:28 ◼ ► library comparing iOS 16 to 17 and the caption of the, of the image was look how they massacred my
00:49:35 ◼ ► boy. And that was a screenshot. Basically 17 shipped with the, the main library view of the
00:49:50 ◼ ► shortcuts app. If you have folders in shortcuts, it only showed you like the top four or top five
00:49:58 ◼ ► shortcuts for each folder. And then there was an arrow icon that you needed to press. If you wanted
00:50:04 ◼ ► to dig into a folder and see all the shortcuts in a folder that didn't make any sense because like,
00:50:10 ◼ ► if I'm in the all shortcuts view as it's the name of that tab show me, well, all my shortcuts
00:50:18 ◼ ► instead of a subset of them. This has been fixed. I heard from, from a couple of people that
00:50:28 ◼ ► that that was an accidental thing that shipped. I, well, I, I'm not sure I buy it. I ended like
00:50:39 ◼ ► there are accidents. And then there are accidents where you specifically design an icon that
00:50:45 ◼ ► performs an action in the S was an arrow button that lets you expand a thing like, sure. That
00:50:52 ◼ ► was an accident. I slipped and fell on the keyboard. I could pour myself a glass of wine
00:51:21 ◼ ► Uh, I have ordered the Mophie three and one travel charger with magsafe. This thing looks awesome.
00:51:26 ◼ ► That was fast. I don't know if it's going to fit into my, uh, uh, the, uh, like dongle pouch that
00:51:34 ◼ ► I use. If it doesn't, then I'll have to try something else, but this is really nice. It
00:51:38 ◼ ► just folds up into a little thing and it's got a space for all three devices. I'm a bit, I like it.
00:51:43 ◼ ► This looks real good. And it's on the official Apple store. So there's a new tap back menu on
00:52:02 ◼ ► whether you perform a two finger click from the track pad versus a long press with your finger
00:52:08 ◼ ► on screen. Those like, for example, the copy, have you ever noticed how the copy and paste menu
00:52:13 ◼ ► on iPadOS looks different if you're bringing it up with your finger or from the track pad?
00:52:18 ◼ ► That's something that Apple started doing last year to sort of have slightly different UIs,
00:52:24 ◼ ► whether you are invoking the menu via touch or via pointer. And this is another of those sort
00:52:30 ◼ ► of slightly customized context menus. Now, when you two finger click with your track pad on a
00:52:35 ◼ ► message in the messages app, you get a new tap back menu that is optimized for the pointer. It
00:52:41 ◼ ► comes up immediately and it also works on the Mac. And still no stickers, still no custom tap back
00:52:48 ◼ ► reactions here, but they're obviously preparing for that. I assume in 17.2. So yeah, this is a
00:52:56 ◼ ► very nice change. We don't really have time to explore this today, but it's ridiculous to me that
00:53:01 ◼ ► the forward action is still under more and it's the only thing under more. Why is it in there?
00:53:06 ◼ ► Make it a top level thing. And who's forwarding an iMessage? This is not an email. Why is it even
00:53:12 ◼ ► there? Just get rid of it. Ah, so don't you ever forward things on WhatsApp? I do it all the time.
00:53:21 ◼ ► WhatsApp forwarding is like part of the downfall of civilization. Well, tell it to my mom. You
00:53:29 ◼ ► know, when you tell it to my mom, I got all these stupid memes from her all the time, you know,
00:53:34 ◼ ► get rid of forwarding. No one should forward messages. What should happen is when someone
00:53:39 ◼ ► forwards a message, it just gets deleted. Like no one will ever know. Just like just gone forever.
00:53:44 ◼ ► You also remember I said that Apple was adding for the UK via the open banking thing to show
00:53:51 ◼ ► bank account balances in the wallet app. Well, they've done this for Discover Card in the US.
00:54:02 ◼ ► better banking options. I don't know. This episode of Connected is made possible by CleanMyMac X.
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00:55:38 ◼ ► I am in the metaverse. Well, not right now. I am not in the metaverse now. But yes, I wanted to talk
00:55:43 ◼ ► briefly about these glasses that I got. Exreal Air glasses that I bought last week and that I've been
00:55:52 ◼ ► using for the past week. So it's a very actually simple idea. Obviously, I'm very excited for the
00:55:58 ◼ ► Vision Pro in the future. And I wanted to get a little, a very, very, very little taste of what
00:56:05 ◼ ► working with a display in front of my eyes could be. Now, these glasses, they are an extremely
00:56:14 ◼ ► simplified version of what a real Vision Pro is going to be. It's not even an approximation of
00:56:22 ◼ ► what a Vision Pro will be. These are just glasses that you put on and they project a display in
00:56:28 ◼ ► front of your eyes. These are literally USB-C glasses that you can use with any computer or
00:56:34 ◼ ► video game console that has a USB-C video out port. That's it. They just project... And they're
00:56:41 ◼ ► actually called, like, they are part of this idea of having a private display. And that's what really
00:56:49 ◼ ► intrigued me. I've always been fighting this battle, Mike knows, of me, because I sleep less
00:57:02 ◼ ► than Sylvia and I fall asleep usually a few hours later than Sylvia does. And I've always been
00:57:10 ◼ ► fighting this battle of whatever display I'm currently using in bed, whether it's my iPad,
00:57:16 ◼ ► or maybe I'm watching something on TV, or maybe I'm playing with my Nintendo Switch, I always
00:57:21 ◼ ► end up disturbing Sylvia somehow because she's very sensitive to light sources in the bedroom.
00:57:31 ◼ ► We did. And there's also been the portable screen. The lengths this man will go to play video games
00:57:38 ◼ ► in bed, they are unrivaled. Yeah, because, you know, I could go... So what I've been doing for
00:57:46 ◼ ► the past year since we've moved, I can go in the living room and play on my big beautiful TV. But
00:57:52 ◼ ► the thing is, sometimes I'm tired and I just don't want to get up. Or usually what also happens is I
00:58:00 ◼ ► go to the living room and my dogs end up doing the, you know, "Oh, let me check on you," or "Let me
00:58:05 ◼ ► go back to the bedroom," "Let me check on you again." Like, they don't know where they're supposed to be
00:58:09 ◼ ► at night because they're like, "Well, mom is in bed, but dad is in the living room, so we don't know, we
00:58:15 ◼ ► gotta check on both." And they start doing this dance and I'm like, "Anytime, go to sleep," and they
00:58:21 ◼ ► don't understand. So it would be preferable if I could play video games in bed, but I also don't
00:58:26 ◼ ► want to bother Sylvia. And so I don't know how I was browsing around. I just came up, came across
00:58:34 ◼ ► this idea of, well, now there's this new sort of generational products. There are these glasses.
00:58:41 ◼ ► They look like regular glasses, just slightly chunkier, and all they do is they accept a USB-C
00:58:48 ◼ ► video source and they project a 1080p display per eye in front of your eyes. So that's what they do.
00:58:57 ◼ ► They have two 1080p displays per eye, the X-Real Air, by default they have 60Hz refresh rate.
00:59:06 ◼ ► If you perform the latest software update, you can go up to 120Hz. So you can use it at 120Hz.
00:59:15 ◼ ► And the update process itself was wild. I plugged my glasses into my MacBook Air and I had to open
00:59:24 ◼ ► a web page in Google Chrome and I updated the firmware of the glasses from Google Chrome via
00:59:32 ◼ ► the web. I guess it's part of the new USB access API that web browsers have. You can just do it
00:59:40 ◼ ► from a web page. And that was wild, incredibly convenient. And so for the past week, I've been
00:59:47 ◼ ► carrying these glasses around. For example, every Monday I go to Viterbo and I usually take the iPad
00:59:56 ◼ ► with me. Now in Viterbo I don't have a proper setup. I'm only there for a few hours. I don't
01:00:02 ◼ ► have a studio display like I do at home. And so I used to carry around a bigger portable monitor
01:00:08 ◼ ► with me because even the big iPad Pro, I would prefer the comfort of a bigger display if I'm
01:00:14 ◼ ► supposed to write or get some email done for a few hours. Last Monday, well two days ago,
01:00:21 ◼ ► I just brought the glasses with me. So iPad Pro and the glasses. And it was great. I can just
01:00:31 ◼ ► turn down the brightness of the iPad Pro so that I don't see it in the corner of my eye.
01:00:47 ◼ ► it's a very, very, very, very small taste of a Vision Pro experience, but in a much more
01:00:56 ◼ ► affordable device that is not a real computer, right? This is just a display. I've been using
01:01:02 ◼ ► them to play games as well. Now that's been my favorite part so far. I've been playing,
01:01:08 ◼ ► I've been playing Zelda by looking straight up at the ceiling, for example. And let me tell you,
01:01:15 ◼ ► it's the best thing ever. Like you just, you are in bed with a controller in your hands,
01:01:20 ◼ ► just looking at the ceiling. And on the ceiling, there's a 1080p giant Nintendo Switch. It's
01:01:35 ◼ ► You just plug it in and it works. I also gotta say that I find, and I'm gonna upset some people here,
01:01:43 ◼ ► the iPadOS way of dealing with external displays to be much more intuitive than whatever macOS does.
01:02:03 ◼ ► the difference between main display and extend display. Like with the iPad, you plug it in,
01:02:11 ◼ ► you enable stage manager, and that's it. You have two displays. Like you go from one to the other.
01:02:17 ◼ ► On the Mac, like sometimes the dock would be on one display, but not on the other. Like it just,
01:02:24 ◼ ► it seemed very confusing. Much easier on the iPad. So overall, I would say the glasses alone have
01:02:32 ◼ ► been perfect for sofa usage. I've also been working from the sofa with this. And especially for the
01:02:40 ◼ ► bedroom. Silvia has been sleeping so well. She told me, she's like, "Hey, did you shut off the
01:02:46 ◼ ► TV? Did you not use your iPad these past few nights?" And I was like, "Uh-huh. You see,
01:02:55 ◼ ► I used the glasses." And then she looked at me and I quote, "Oh, you did the Robocop thing again."
01:03:03 ◼ ► So you mentioned this on App Stories Plus. And Silvia was not happy about this thing entering
01:03:14 ◼ ► the home, correct? She was not. But I could see a light in her eyes. No, she could see the light
01:03:22 ◼ ► in your eyes. But when she put it together, she's like, "Wait, if he's doing the silly Robocop thing,
01:03:31 ◼ ► but it means that I can sleep better, then maybe I'll, like I could see that maybe." What is the
01:03:39 ◼ ► picture quality like of these glasses? Like how good does it look? Is text crisp enough? Like,
01:03:45 ◼ ► it's crisp enough if you bring the display. So here's the parentheses. You can buy just the glasses alone
01:03:52 ◼ ► and just use the glasses without any other accessory. The X-Real company, they make this
01:03:58 ◼ ► external sort of device. It's like, imagine an iPod. It's got an actual click wheel on top of it.
01:04:06 ◼ ► But it's also a battery pack. It's this USB-C pass-through device called the Beam. And the Beam
01:04:14 ◼ ► basically is a little computer that does extra processing if you want to have spatial computing
01:04:21 ◼ ► features. So if you use the glasses, you cannot resize the display. You cannot move it. It follows
01:04:31 ◼ ► you around, so you turn your head. The display is always in front of you. It doesn't feel very
01:04:35 ◼ ► comfortable. It's okay for stationary usage. With the Beam in the middle, so it's this very compact
01:04:43 ◼ ► device, you can choose between three different modes. You can have the display follow you around.
01:04:49 ◼ ► You can leave it in a fixed position, or you can put it in picture-in-picture mode. And on the
01:04:56 ◼ ► other side, you can use some of the other built-in X-Real apps, which I haven't tested yet. The
01:05:04 ◼ ► spatial computing works, but it's kind of fiddly to get right. Just because I'm not a huge fan of
01:05:10 ◼ ► how you can resize the display diagonally, it is kind of fiddly. But in addition to display size,
01:05:20 ◼ ► the Beam also lets you adjust simulated distance, and that's what helps to make text more crisp and
01:05:26 ◼ ► legible. So if you make the display... The optimal distance for me to comfortably read, say, Ivory
01:05:32 ◼ ► and catch up on Mastodon, or read a draft for a Maxories article, is to make it a virtual 120-inch
01:05:59 ◼ ► So overall, it's been going really well so far. But because you know me, and this is a whole new
01:06:21 ◼ ► R-O-KID? A-RO-KID? Like it's one word. R-O-KID? R-O-KID? The R-O-KID Max. These are even more
01:06:32 ◼ ► odd-looking glasses, so it'll be fun to see. But a lot of people on Reddit... So take that with a
01:06:39 ◼ ► huge grain of salt. A lot of people on Reddit who are into this scene have commented that they have
01:06:47 ◼ ► a bigger field of view, the image quality is better, but most importantly for me, they have
01:06:52 ◼ ► built-in diopter adjustments. So each eye has a little... Each lens has a little wheel on top of
01:07:08 ◼ ► prescription for these things. So yeah, I'm keen to try these out, see if the image quality is
01:07:13 ◼ ► better than the X-Real. If not, I will return them. But yeah, so this idea of you don't need
01:07:20 ◼ ► to carry around a portable monitor with you anymore, or you don't need to bother someone
01:07:25 ◼ ► sleeping next to you. You can just have the display just only in front of you. I am sold.
01:07:40 ◼ ► my anticipation for the Vision Pro, because the Vision Pro is going to be this more bulky for sure.
01:07:45 ◼ ► I understand that, but also the image quality is going to be way better. I know because I've
01:07:50 ◼ ► tried it, and this is just an appetizer, if you will, for a few months until I get the real thing,
01:07:59 ◼ ► and that's going to be awesome. But I wanted to check, "Hey, are you still excited about
01:08:16 ◼ ► contextualize a lot of thinking before I tried the Vision Pro. Then when I went into that experience,
01:08:21 ◼ ► I was going in with a specific thought in my mind. There is a value right now in you and others
01:08:30 ◼ ► trying out these kinds of devices as a way of trying to prepare for what is going to be a really
01:08:38 ◼ ► weird set of new things for us to talk about that we've not spoken about before coming at some point.
01:08:43 ◼ ► When I was hearing you talk about this, I was intrigued. I'm intrigued to hear what the other
01:08:49 ◼ ► device is like. If you really like it, I might give it a go too, just in the sense of understanding
01:08:56 ◼ ► the working in, because that's not a thing that we got to try. It's like, "What is it like to use
01:09:03 ◼ ► my Mac or whatever in front of my eyes as big as I want?" That is intriguing to me. I look forward to
01:09:21 ◼ ► Xreal. They used to be called Nreal, and I think they renamed it to Xreal because it's got XR
01:09:50 ◼ ► If you want to find links to the stuff we spoke about this week, including the product pages for
01:09:55 ◼ ► the Xreal Air and the other one whose name I've already forgotten, the Rocket Max, check out the
01:10:02 ◼ ► website relay.fm/connected/471. Those links are also in your podcast player. A couple of things
01:10:08 ◼ ► I want to draw your attention to. The first is the submit feedback link. There you can send us
01:10:13 ◼ ► feedback or follow up about this episode or tell us what's going on in your life. You can also
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01:10:28 ◼ ► discord, the best community on the internet and a newsletter and some membership only podcasts.
01:10:34 ◼ ► A bunch of cool stuff there for connected pro members. You can find us all online. You can find
01:10:39 ◼ ► Federico's work at maxstories.net and you can find him on Mastodon as Vitici at maxstories.net.
01:10:46 ◼ ► You can find Mike online. He hosts a bunch of shows here on relay.fm, does amazing work over
01:10:52 ◼ ► at Cortex brand. He is on Mastodon as imike at mike.social. You can find my writing at 512pixels.net
01:11:00 ◼ ► and I co-host Mac Power Users here on relay.fm every Sunday. You can follow me at ismh@eworld.social