Cortex

00:00:00 ◼   ► - Ready to go? - I'm ready to go.

00:00:01 ◼   ► State of the Apps 2022.

00:00:04 ◼   ► - Bum bum bum! - Oh, okay!

00:00:06 ◼   ► That's a good level of drama.

00:00:09 ◼   ► I was last night, so I was like thinking about the show last night,

00:00:13 ◼   ► and I was like "Ooh, I feel a bit of pressure coming into this now."

00:00:16 ◼   ► - Yeah, me too. - Like, we do 12 episodes a year, right?

00:00:19 ◼   ► And now two of those episodes, which is a quite significant percentage,

00:00:23 ◼   ► which happen back to back, which I also don't like,

00:00:26 ◼   ► I feel like there's a lot of importance on them, right?

00:00:29 ◼   ► So State of the Apps, and then I'm sorry to keep mentioning it, but yearly themes next time.

00:00:32 ◼   ► I don't know, I feel like there's a lot of pressure coming into these episodes now.

00:00:37 ◼   ► You set these big traditions.

00:00:38 ◼   ► Yeah, well I refuse for there to actually be pressure on this episode.

00:00:43 ◼   ► I was mainly doing the "bom bom bom" because it's finally here,

00:00:47 ◼   ► and the last wall of defense before the theme episode.

00:00:50 ◼   ► True.

00:00:50 ◼   ► Like we've now breached it.

00:00:51 ◼   ► We're in the endgame now.

00:00:52 ◼   ► Yeah, it's the endgame now, so.

00:00:54 ◼   ► So State of the Apps.

00:00:55 ◼   ► We've been doing this for a number of years now,

00:00:57 ◼   ► and it was originally inspired by a blog post that you wrote many years ago in the same name.

00:01:02 ◼   ► It's like, you know, if you're kind of looking like a state of the nation, that kind of thing,

00:01:06 ◼   ► what are the apps and services that we are using right now?

00:01:10 ◼   ► What are the decisions that we've made over the last year that have led us to them if we've made changes?

00:01:15 ◼   ► Or why are we sticking with certain apps and services?

00:01:18 ◼   ► And also what would we like to see change in the years ahead?

00:01:22 ◼   ► We have a selection of categories that we go through from productivity to communication

00:01:27 ◼   ► and we have a really great lightning round at the end where we talk about all the little fun apps that we've been using in the last year

00:01:33 ◼   ► that otherwise don't fit into those categories.

00:01:35 ◼   ► One of the things we like to do in this episode as well is to share our home screens with each other,

00:01:40 ◼   ► which I think is what we'll start with today, and then we can start diving into some of the apps,

00:01:44 ◼   ► but maybe there's some interesting insights into each other that we can glean from our home screens.

00:01:50 ◼   ► Who do you want to go first, me or you?

00:01:52 ◼   ► Uh, yes, well actually, hold on a second.

00:01:54 ◼   ► I just, I need to reposition my, my backup recording microphone, which was on my desk

00:02:00 ◼   ► because it just dropped and it dropped in such a way.

00:02:03 ◼   ► I was trying to ignore that sound personally.

00:02:06 ◼   ► I didn't want to pay attention to the noise that had occurred.

00:02:09 ◼   ► But my backup microphone dropped in such a way that it perfectly hit my keyboard to stop

00:02:17 ◼   ► the main recording on my computer.

00:02:20 ◼   ► Do we have to start again?

00:02:21 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:02:22 ◼   ► No, no, we're like, we're good, we're good.

00:02:24 ◼   ► I just--

00:02:25 ◼   ► - No, but you don't have a recording.

00:02:26 ◼   ► - Do you have, you have a recording of me.

00:02:28 ◼   ► Like you've got a local recording, so we're good.

00:02:30 ◼   ► - No, I don't have a local recording of you.

00:02:32 ◼   ► You have the local recording of you.

00:02:34 ◼   ► I have a Zoom recording of you.

00:02:36 ◼   ► - Yeah, but I have the backup recording of me talking.

00:02:38 ◼   ► Oh, I probably shouldn't be waving around

00:02:40 ◼   ► this local microphone.

00:02:41 ◼   ► I should put this.

00:02:42 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:02:44 ◼   ► - Like I just said all this stuff about like,

00:02:47 ◼   ► this episode's important to me, there's pressure to it.

00:02:51 ◼   ► and you're (beep) throwing microphones around

00:02:53 ◼   ► and stopping your recording.

00:02:55 ◼   ► - Right, well, no, but it's like,

00:02:56 ◼   ► this is an important life lesson,

00:02:57 ◼   ► which is to click off the app that is recording

00:03:01 ◼   ► so that I can't have accidental keyboard input.

00:03:04 ◼   ► - Where are you recording now?

00:03:06 ◼   ► - I'm recording into QuickTime on the Mac,

00:03:09 ◼   ► and I have a Zoom microphone on the desk

00:03:12 ◼   ► as the backup recorder.

00:03:13 ◼   ► So we're good, we're good, Myke, don't worry about it.

00:03:15 ◼   ► - But you are recording again?

00:03:16 ◼   ► - Yes, I'm looking at it being recorded right now.

00:03:18 ◼   ► I can see the little levels going, so we're all set.

00:03:20 ◼   ► Why do you need to do this to me?

00:03:22 ◼   ► I'm trying to get in like a good mental space here.

00:03:25 ◼   ► And you're fucking pushing the equipment around.

00:03:27 ◼   ► I don't know how many more times we need to do this.

00:03:30 ◼   ► Why is this still happening?

00:03:32 ◼   ► Years we've been doing this.

00:03:34 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:03:35 ◼   ► - Look, I'm trying to do the reverse.

00:03:37 ◼   ► You're trying to be serious.

00:03:38 ◼   ► I'm trying to lower the stakes, right?

00:03:41 ◼   ► So this is perfect as far as I'm concerned.

00:03:43 ◼   ► This is some excellent stakes lowering.

00:03:46 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:03:47 ◼   ► So we're all set, Myke, don't worry.

00:03:50 ◼   ► So now I'll ask again, who's gonna go first

00:03:53 ◼   ► with sharing their home screen?

00:03:55 ◼   ► - You wanna do home screen sharing?

00:03:57 ◼   ► I'm happy to go first.

00:03:58 ◼   ► - I actually think I want that.

00:03:59 ◼   ► I think I need that.

00:04:00 ◼   ► - I just realized I don't have iMessage installed

00:04:02 ◼   ► on the computer that I was going to do that.

00:04:04 ◼   ► So let me just--

00:04:05 ◼   ► - I don't even know how that's a possibility.

00:04:05 ◼   ► I don't even, how do you not, how?

00:04:09 ◼   ► Can you uninstall iMessage?

00:04:11 ◼   ► - Well, and I mean-- - You're just not signed in.

00:04:12 ◼   ► We've had this conversation before.

00:04:13 ◼   ► I don't wanna have this conversation again.

00:04:15 ◼   ► And as I'm saying these words,

00:04:17 ◼   ► I'm remembering having said this before.

00:04:19 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:04:22 ◼   ► - Myke, I'm on the writing computer.

00:04:23 ◼   ► Like, what's so hard to understand?

00:04:25 ◼   ► Okay, I have airdropped myself the photos.

00:04:28 ◼   ► I will send you all of the photos of all of my screens.

00:04:32 ◼   ► We're gonna start left to right.

00:04:34 ◼   ► - Okay.

00:04:35 ◼   ► - What is the name for that screen all the way on the left?

00:04:37 ◼   ► - I think it's still called the Today View.

00:04:40 ◼   ► - Huh.

00:04:41 ◼   ► - I think it's still called that.

00:04:42 ◼   ► - I feel like that poor Today View is--

00:04:44 ◼   ► - It's not long for this world.

00:04:45 ◼   ► - You think it's not long for this world?

00:04:47 ◼   ► - They'll change it up again.

00:04:48 ◼   ► They've changed what that screen does

00:04:50 ◼   ► like 17 times in the last six years.

00:04:52 ◼   ► Like that will change it.

00:04:54 ◼   ► 'Cause currently at the moment

00:04:55 ◼   ► it's basically just where widgets go

00:04:57 ◼   ► and they I think would prefer you to put widgets

00:04:59 ◼   ► on the home screens.

00:05:00 ◼   ► - Right, okay.

00:05:01 ◼   ► So there we go.

00:05:02 ◼   ► I think I've sent you all four in order from left to right.

00:05:05 ◼   ► - Wow, there's some stuff I do understand here.

00:05:08 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:05:09 ◼   ► - Okay, yeah, well, so some of the stuff may seem confusing

00:05:12 ◼   ► because we're also dealing with now we're in the world

00:05:15 ◼   ► of focus modes and screens that can disappear and reappear.

00:05:20 ◼   ► - We need to talk about that, like the focus mode stuff.

00:05:25 ◼   ► And I thought maybe we would talk about it today,

00:05:27 ◼   ► but I don't know if we're gonna have time

00:05:29 ◼   ► with everything else.

00:05:30 ◼   ► So I make a promise to the cortexes,

00:05:33 ◼   ► we will talk about iOS 15 and focus modes at some point,

00:05:36 ◼   ► if not today, 'cause I do think it's important,

00:05:39 ◼   ► but it might be too much for this episode, I think,

00:05:43 ◼   ► unless you disagree with me.

00:05:45 ◼   ► Yeah, I bet money on us talking about focus modes this time.

00:05:49 ◼   ► And also, with your intro, we have many things to discuss,

00:05:52 ◼   ► but one of the things we have to discuss before the end is

00:05:54 ◼   ► resolving our travel bet from last year.

00:05:57 ◼   ► So we have to get to that at some point as well.

00:05:58 ◼   ► - Oh, I've got that in there, don't you worry.

00:06:00 ◼   ► The travel bet's in there.

00:06:01 ◼   ► All right, so, your home screens.

00:06:02 ◼   ► So we have the Today view, we just have a Calzones widget

00:06:05 ◼   ► as the only one there.

00:06:07 ◼   ► I'm wondering, why does that widget

00:06:10 ◼   ► not find its way onto a home screen?

00:06:12 ◼   ► Why does it live there?

00:06:13 ◼   ► So that calzones widget is the old school one.

00:06:16 ◼   ► As far as I know, calzones is the app by underscore--

00:06:20 ◼   ► - Oh, of course it can't live on the home screen.

00:06:22 ◼   ► - Right, it can't, right?

00:06:24 ◼   ► So he made this app, I think basically at your request

00:06:28 ◼   ► years ago about like not having a good app

00:06:30 ◼   ► for tracking different time zones.

00:06:33 ◼   ► And I still prefer calzones for planning meetings

00:06:37 ◼   ► across time zones.

00:06:38 ◼   ► - It has a great UI.

00:06:39 ◼   ► The app itself has a great UI to work out what time is.

00:06:41 ◼   ► Yeah, like the killer feature of calzones for me is that when I look at the widget,

00:06:45 ◼   ► okay, great, now I know what time it is in all of these different places,

00:06:48 ◼   ► but much more importantly, the app itself allows me to just scroll back and forth

00:06:55 ◼   ► to see like when it's 1pm in London, what time is it everywhere else?

00:07:00 ◼   ► And like I'm in a position where often enough I'm trying to coordinate moving meetings slightly across time zones

00:07:08 ◼   ► and that kind of thing is just, it is so helpful to not do the mental math of the timezones

00:07:15 ◼   ► and to just be able to look, be like, "Okay, if we move it two hours this way, you know,

00:07:19 ◼   ► what does that mean for the three participants in this call?"

00:07:22 ◼   ► So I really like calzones, and that app is old.

00:07:27 ◼   ► I'm not sure if Underscore is still maintaining it or not, but it is one of the old style

00:07:33 ◼   ► widgets.

00:07:34 ◼   ► - If it's available, he's maintaining it, but I don't, that would be my assumption,

00:07:37 ◼   ► but I don't know what the future holds for it because he's a very busy man, he's Mr.

00:07:42 ◼   ► Widget.

00:07:43 ◼   ► Yeah, he's the Widget Wizard now.

00:07:46 ◼   ► He puts the Smith in Widgetsmith.

00:07:47 ◼   ► Yes he does.

00:07:49 ◼   ► Very successful with Widgetsmith, his most loved apt child at this point.

00:07:54 ◼   ► That's why Calzones lives on my today view, because that is the only place where I can

00:07:58 ◼   ► put the widget because it is one of the old style widgets for Apple.

00:08:03 ◼   ► While in Widgetsmith he does have a timezones thing, when you tap on it, it takes you into

00:08:08 ◼   ► Widgetsmith and it doesn't have the same UI as calzones does.

00:08:12 ◼   ► So that's why calzones is the last remaining holdout on my today view for old style widgets,

00:08:20 ◼   ► but I still use it quite a lot.

00:08:21 ◼   ► I don't like to ask for things of friends in public, such, but I will say I would love

00:08:30 ◼   ► it if Widgetsmith had the same time zone moving thing as Calzones does.

00:08:36 ◼   ► I mean, Myke, how hard can development be, right? He just has to just copy and paste

00:08:41 ◼   ► some code.

00:08:42 ◼   ► You've already done it once, you know? How hard can it be? Very hard, I'm sorry, Dave,

00:08:47 ◼   ► we love you.

00:08:49 ◼   ► It just selects the text that is code and you hit, you know, Apple C and then you go

00:08:55 ◼   ► over to your other app and you type Apple V and it's done. What more could there possibly

00:08:59 ◼   ► be. It's funny to me that you call it Apple. Oh God yeah that's yeah. Command. Yeah no

00:09:04 ◼   ► it is it is command. I think that is a holdover from back in university I had to use one of

00:09:09 ◼   ► the old Apple systems where they used to they used to use Apple as the little command icon.

00:09:13 ◼   ► It was like this system is so dumb I hate it I hate these apples everywhere and I think

00:09:17 ◼   ► somehow it got into my head that like the little commands are called Apple still but.

00:09:20 ◼   ► It makes you sound like one of those people that call Apple Mac you know they call the

00:09:24 ◼   ► the company Mac.

00:09:25 ◼   ► That's what it makes you sound like

00:09:27 ◼   ► when you say stuff like that.

00:09:28 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:09:29 ◼   ► Mac, they make the iPhone, right?

00:09:30 ◼   ► - Yes, that is what they make.

00:09:32 ◼   ► - So I'm noticing here,

00:09:33 ◼   ► I'm expecting this is a focus mode thing

00:09:35 ◼   ► that maybe it's not actually,

00:09:37 ◼   ► there's just not really a lot of apps on your home screens,

00:09:39 ◼   ► there's just a lot of widgets.

00:09:41 ◼   ► I am really confused about this set of screens.

00:09:44 ◼   ► The information that you're showing is weird to me,

00:09:48 ◼   ► which makes me think you're in a focus mode right now

00:09:50 ◼   ► because I've got a bunch of widgets.

00:09:52 ◼   ► So we've got on the screen one,

00:09:53 ◼   ► Timery, Cara, Batteries, and OmniFocus.

00:09:56 ◼   ► That makes sense to me, right?

00:09:57 ◼   ► Is knowing you as a person,

00:09:59 ◼   ► and like the things that you like on your devices,

00:10:01 ◼   ► like those widgets, I actually, that makes a lot of sense.

00:10:03 ◼   ► And I can imagine that like,

00:10:05 ◼   ► now that we're far removed from widgets,

00:10:07 ◼   ► you're pretty happy that like,

00:10:08 ◼   ► you don't have to put those random folders

00:10:10 ◼   ► on the home screen anymore,

00:10:11 ◼   ► and you can just put all the information that you want, right?

00:10:14 ◼   ► I bet you like that.

00:10:15 ◼   ► - Yes, I do like widgets.

00:10:18 ◼   ► I like seeing the information on the home screen.

00:10:20 ◼   ► I feel like I have a lot of conflicts about widgets,

00:10:23 ◼   ► but overall I do think it's an improvement.

00:10:25 ◼   ► It's way better than just having dumb app icons

00:10:28 ◼   ► on the home screen.

00:10:29 ◼   ► Yeah, for sure. - Oh, I just noticed

00:10:30 ◼   ► you're a big 5G boy.

00:10:31 ◼   ► Look at you.

00:10:32 ◼   ► Do you get lots of speed?

00:10:33 ◼   ► Do you work at the speed of light now?

00:10:35 ◼   ► - Yes.

00:10:36 ◼   ► Oh, that's great. - I don't have 5G.

00:10:38 ◼   ► I never-- - Wasn't my whole life

00:10:39 ◼   ► gonna change because of 5G?

00:10:41 ◼   ► There was a big presentation about 5G is the best G.

00:10:44 ◼   ► - My plan with my provider is I like my plan.

00:10:47 ◼   ► Like I like what I get for it for the money.

00:10:50 ◼   ► And so they won't give me 5G unless I change my plan.

00:10:53 ◼   ► I'm like, well, I'm not changing my plan.

00:10:54 ◼   ► I don't want 5G, you know?

00:10:56 ◼   ► It's like, I don't need it.

00:10:57 ◼   ► I came to stay with what I got, thanks.

00:11:00 ◼   ► All right, so then, oh, you got the carrot on one screen

00:11:02 ◼   ► and a bigger carrot on another.

00:11:04 ◼   ► And another, oh my goodness, there's three carrot widgets.

00:11:07 ◼   ► Four, there's four carrot widgets.

00:11:10 ◼   ► Wow!

00:11:11 ◼   ► You love weather as much as you love 5G.

00:11:15 ◼   ► They're everywhere.

00:11:16 ◼   ► - Okay, okay, okay.

00:11:17 ◼   ► So look, let me try to explain this,

00:11:19 ◼   ► 'cause this again is a byproduct

00:11:21 ◼   ► of the weird focus mode stuff.

00:11:22 ◼   ► I'm glad you're giggling at five camera widgets.

00:11:25 ◼   ► The first home screen is functionally the thing

00:11:28 ◼   ► that I'm looking at 99% of the time.

00:11:32 ◼   ► I like the time tracking up at the top,

00:11:34 ◼   ► I like the time tracking up at the, oh my (beep) god.

00:11:37 ◼   ► I like the time tracking up at the--

00:11:38 ◼   ► - Just knock the microphone over and start again, Gray.

00:11:40 ◼   ► You know?

00:11:41 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:11:43 ◼   ► - I like the time tracking up at the top,

00:11:45 ◼   ► so to have an overview of what's going on.

00:11:48 ◼   ► that's great with Timery.

00:11:49 ◼   ► The current weather, batteries widget, love it.

00:11:52 ◼   ► And then at the bottom I have OmniFocus,

00:11:55 ◼   ► although there's some interesting things to say

00:11:57 ◼   ► about OmniFocus later.

00:11:58 ◼   ► This is basically the information dashboard

00:12:02 ◼   ► of the things that I actually care about.

00:12:03 ◼   ► And then as has been the case for years and years,

00:12:05 ◼   ► when I want to open a specific app,

00:12:07 ◼   ► I just, I'm in the habit of just searching for it.

00:12:09 ◼   ► That's what I do.

00:12:10 ◼   ► And I have my three little shortcuts at the bottom,

00:12:12 ◼   ► one of which is to open the camera,

00:12:14 ◼   ► one of which is my little replacement

00:12:17 ◼   ► for Launch Center Pro from years ago,

00:12:20 ◼   ► where I just have some common shortcuts for various things.

00:12:24 ◼   ► - Oh, so that launches a shortcut, does it?

00:12:26 ◼   ► - Yeah, the little rocket ship

00:12:27 ◼   ► is the homage to Launch Center Pro.

00:12:28 ◼   ► - I don't remember exactly how those things work.

00:12:30 ◼   ► Does that open shortcuts, or does it just pop open a UI

00:12:33 ◼   ► for you on the screen for you to tap?

00:12:34 ◼   ► - I know, the way I have it set up is it opens up a list

00:12:37 ◼   ► of like, here's the five things that I can tap on,

00:12:40 ◼   ► and I can launch anything with those.

00:12:41 ◼   ► - But does it open shortcuts to do that,

00:12:43 ◼   ► or do they come down like a notification?

00:12:45 ◼   ► It comes down like it's a notification,

00:12:47 ◼   ► and the notification has a bunch of options in it.

00:12:50 ◼   ► - It's like, I know, like it's nice,

00:12:52 ◼   ► it's nicer than like Launch Center Pro could have been,

00:12:55 ◼   ► right, like I know there's no way that they could have done

00:12:57 ◼   ► what Shortcuts can do, but it's just,

00:12:59 ◼   ► this is the way it should be.

00:13:00 ◼   ► - Yeah, I completely agree, it's the way that it should be.

00:13:03 ◼   ► I just, since it does come down from the top,

00:13:06 ◼   ► it's one of those things like,

00:13:07 ◼   ► oh, I have to reach my finger,

00:13:09 ◼   ► oh, all the way to the top of the phone.

00:13:11 ◼   ► And I kind of wish it came out of the icon.

00:13:14 ◼   ► - Yeah, that would be real good.

00:13:15 ◼   ► That would be real good.

00:13:16 ◼   ► They should do that.

00:13:17 ◼   ► - Yeah, so I just have some frequently used things in there

00:13:21 ◼   ► and then the little hourglass icon

00:13:23 ◼   ► is my most used time tracking timer,

00:13:26 ◼   ► which is just for, I call it loading.

00:13:29 ◼   ► And it's basically when I've finished doing some task

00:13:31 ◼   ► and I haven't yet fully decided

00:13:33 ◼   ► what's the next thing that I'm gonna do,

00:13:35 ◼   ► I just hit that as like, oh, I'm loading up.

00:13:37 ◼   ► What's the next thing that I'm gonna do?

00:13:39 ◼   ► It's my way of tracking in between time.

00:13:42 ◼   ► So that's why I just have it there

00:13:43 ◼   ► 'cause I just want it to be dead easy to just hit

00:13:45 ◼   ► of like, yeah, that's the number one timer.

00:13:47 ◼   ► - What does the camera one do?

00:13:49 ◼   ► - The camera one opens the camera.

00:13:50 ◼   ► - Why does it, you want visual consistency

00:13:52 ◼   ► in the dock there?

00:13:53 ◼   ► - I want visual consistency in the dock.

00:13:55 ◼   ► Like I can't have an icon.

00:13:56 ◼   ► - Okay, okay, no, no, no.

00:13:57 ◼   ► - That's the camera icon.

00:13:59 ◼   ► When the other two are shortcuts icons.

00:14:01 ◼   ► - Whatever you need, man.

00:14:02 ◼   ► - It's extremely important to maintain visual consistency.

00:14:05 ◼   ► - Now you know what, I agree with what you've done here.

00:14:08 ◼   ► It would look really weird to have the standard camera icon

00:14:12 ◼   ► next to it, because it just would look strange, right?

00:14:16 ◼   ► Otherwise, unless you custom-made icons

00:14:19 ◼   ► that looked similar to the camera icon

00:14:21 ◼   ► for the rocket ship and the hourglass,

00:14:23 ◼   ► you know what I mean?

00:14:24 ◼   ► Like, they were black on the inside,

00:14:26 ◼   ► so they matched the camera icon.

00:14:28 ◼   ► - Yeah, there is one real downside to doing it though,

00:14:31 ◼   ► which is, I'm gonna send you a screenshot,

00:14:33 ◼   ► which is, when I hit that camera icon--

00:14:37 ◼   ► - God, you get the notification, don't you?

00:14:38 ◼   ► - But here's the thing, I do get the notification,

00:14:41 ◼   ► which I don't mind.

00:14:43 ◼   ► It loads the camera basically instantly,

00:14:45 ◼   ► like it doesn't go through shortcuts like it used to.

00:14:48 ◼   ► It loads the camera instantly.

00:14:50 ◼   ► The camera is ready to go,

00:14:53 ◼   ► but then the notification comes down that says,

00:14:55 ◼   ► "You ran a shortcut that opened cameras."

00:14:58 ◼   ► And when that notification comes down,

00:15:02 ◼   ► the camera no longer works for a second.

00:15:05 ◼   ► - Oh, it like blocks out the view, right?

00:15:07 ◼   ► - Which is very frustrating.

00:15:08 ◼   ► - Oh my God, that's the worst.

00:15:09 ◼   ► - It blocks out the view of the camera.

00:15:11 ◼   ► - That is the worst.

00:15:13 ◼   ► - It is very frustrating.

00:15:15 ◼   ► - Just get someone to make you a rocket ship

00:15:18 ◼   ► and an hourglass that visually look like the camera,

00:15:22 ◼   ► and then you can change them up, man.

00:15:23 ◼   ► - Wait, what do you mean?

00:15:24 ◼   ► What is your suggested solution here?

00:15:26 ◼   ► - All right, so move the actual camera icon to the dock

00:15:30 ◼   ► and make custom shortcuts.

00:15:33 ◼   ► - Oh.

00:15:34 ◼   ► - All right, so make a rocket ship that's black

00:15:37 ◼   ► on the inside instead of white and an hourglass that's black on the inside instead of white.

00:15:41 ◼   ► Thematically they look the same. Do that.

00:15:45 ◼   ► Ooooh. That's really intriguing.

00:15:47 ◼   ► Look at me. I'm improving lives today.

00:15:49 ◼   ► You are improving lives today. I'm actually just gonna call on someone in the Cortex audience

00:15:53 ◼   ► to do that. Hey, could someone in the D.I. come to visually manage?

00:15:55 ◼   ► No, you're gonna get a thousand of them. Don't do that.

00:15:57 ◼   ► But then I can just pick the best.

00:15:59 ◼   ► Okay. Okay.

00:16:00 ◼   ► Hey, leave it in the Cortex subreddit. But that is a great idea, Myke. That is some real

00:16:06 ◼   ► like galaxy brain stuff there, like wait!

00:16:10 ◼   ► Just invert the whole thing.

00:16:11 ◼   ► That's perfect, I really like that.

00:16:12 ◼   ► I just finished a cappuccino, so I'm at like peak recommendation.

00:16:16 ◼   ► My brain is on 100% functionality.

00:16:19 ◼   ► That's great, I'm glad I have you in this great capacity to improve my life.

00:16:22 ◼   ► It's because I consider today to be an important day.

00:16:24 ◼   ► I don't push my microphone over, you know?

00:16:26 ◼   ► Before we move on, there's just something funny about like just the way the data is

00:16:30 ◼   ► displayed.

00:16:31 ◼   ► In your time re-widget, it says cortex three times.

00:16:34 ◼   ► Cortex-cortex, preparation cortex.

00:16:35 ◼   ► and I know you've got projects and tags, right?

00:16:38 ◼   ► I get why that's happening, but it's just very funny to me.

00:16:41 ◼   ► Cortex, cortex, preparation cortex.

00:16:43 ◼   ► - Yeah, this is a holdover from,

00:16:45 ◼   ► I think this is the thing that everyone goes through

00:16:46 ◼   ► when they start time tracking,

00:16:48 ◼   ► is that you start being overly precise

00:16:52 ◼   ► with what you wanna track.

00:16:54 ◼   ► And so I used to have five different ways

00:16:57 ◼   ► that I tracked cortex.

00:16:59 ◼   ► It was like, you know, cortex preparation,

00:17:01 ◼   ► cortex recording time, cortex editing.

00:17:04 ◼   ► And I think I had like Cortex admin/chats.

00:17:09 ◼   ► And this is just what happens when people time track.

00:17:11 ◼   ► Like you start overly precise, then you go,

00:17:13 ◼   ► what the hell am I doing?

00:17:15 ◼   ► Like, why do I actually care

00:17:17 ◼   ► about this level of detail in Cortex?

00:17:19 ◼   ► So I still do just out of muscle memory

00:17:22 ◼   ► have the only distinction between like Cortex preparation

00:17:26 ◼   ► and Cortex everything else.

00:17:28 ◼   ► But yeah, so like in the backend,

00:17:30 ◼   ► there's all these five different ways to track Cortex

00:17:32 ◼   ► and with a ton of other projects, it's the same thing.

00:17:34 ◼   ► but it doesn't matter, I only ever just look at it

00:17:37 ◼   ► at the whole like, how much time does Cortex

00:17:39 ◼   ► take up in my life level.

00:17:40 ◼   ► - Yes, this is why I have like, so I have projects and tags

00:17:44 ◼   ► and my tags are only shows.

00:17:47 ◼   ► So I have like show prep and podcast recording

00:17:50 ◼   ► and podcast editing, they are projects

00:17:52 ◼   ► and then they are tagged with the relevant show.

00:17:54 ◼   ► That's all I do.

00:17:54 ◼   ► - Right, yeah, that makes sense.

00:17:56 ◼   ► Yeah, time tracking is a whole other thing

00:17:58 ◼   ► that I really should go into it and really clean it up.

00:18:03 ◼   ► I think this is a good time to do that.

00:18:04 ◼   ► Like I just have a lot of weird legacy stuff in there.

00:18:06 ◼   ► - You know why we've never done this?

00:18:09 ◼   ► - Why?

00:18:10 ◼   ► - Because there's no competitor to toggle.

00:18:12 ◼   ► So there's never been a reason to start over.

00:18:14 ◼   ► - Mm, right.

00:18:17 ◼   ► Like the great to-do list migration

00:18:19 ◼   ► when you just- - You tidy up.

00:18:20 ◼   ► - Nuke your entire life and begin again.

00:18:23 ◼   ► - Because toggle has an API,

00:18:26 ◼   ► it means we can use apps like the very wonderful Timery.

00:18:29 ◼   ► So like there isn't really a need

00:18:31 ◼   ► to go in and clean up the data.

00:18:33 ◼   ► Like if Timery had their own service,

00:18:36 ◼   ► which I think they should look at one day,

00:18:38 ◼   ► but that's like a whole different thing, right?

00:18:40 ◼   ► I'm not recommending that of them,

00:18:41 ◼   ► but I wouldn't mind it at the same time.

00:18:44 ◼   ► Then you could go in and like, all right,

00:18:45 ◼   ► now I'm gonna go in and I'm gonna tidy up

00:18:48 ◼   ► as I'm moving from one to the other.

00:18:50 ◼   ► But because when we moved from the terrible toggle app

00:18:53 ◼   ► to Timery, or like a set of like hastily made shortcuts

00:18:57 ◼   ► to Timery, we didn't need to change anything

00:18:58 ◼   ► because we just logged in with the old API.

00:19:01 ◼   ► So like all the data is the same.

00:19:03 ◼   ► So as you say, it's not like if you change Notes app,

00:19:05 ◼   ► or if you change to do app

00:19:07 ◼   ► and you're doing like a manual migration,

00:19:09 ◼   ► you're like, you start looking at it and like,

00:19:11 ◼   ► why do I have these two projects?

00:19:12 ◼   ► They could be one project and you move all stuff together.

00:19:15 ◼   ► - Yeah, that's a good point.

00:19:16 ◼   ► - All right, so that's screen one.

00:19:18 ◼   ► So then on screen two, there's more weather.

00:19:20 ◼   ► - Okay, so here's the thing to explain.

00:19:22 ◼   ► The idea with the focus modes is that you're able

00:19:24 ◼   ► to have different screens

00:19:27 ◼   ► for different things that you're doing.

00:19:29 ◼   ► And so this second screen, if you notice,

00:19:32 ◼   ► it has a real theme if you're looking at all of the apps

00:19:35 ◼   ► on the bottom. - Yes, I can see it.

00:19:36 ◼   ► Yeah, it's very thematic to I'm shooting a video.

00:19:40 ◼   ► - Yes, exactly.

00:19:41 ◼   ► So more Texans will know that I took a trip out

00:19:45 ◼   ► to Cherokee, North Carolina.

00:19:47 ◼   ► And like one of the things that I was just thinking about

00:19:50 ◼   ► with my phone is, oh, I can just set up a screen

00:19:53 ◼   ► that can be the default screen

00:19:55 ◼   ► if I know that I'm going to be out all day.

00:19:59 ◼   ► and then this just has everything that I could possibly want on it.

00:20:02 ◼   ► And if you are outside filming, the weather really matters.

00:20:06 ◼   ► So I have Carrot at the top, showing me like the map of like our clouds coming,

00:20:10 ◼   ► which I actually find more useful than the like the little rain alert thing.

00:20:15 ◼   ► I can see like what time, you know, is like the blue hour or the golden hour for filming.

00:20:19 ◼   ► And at the top I have the hours for like what's the weather going to look like.

00:20:24 ◼   ► And then at the bottom I just have a bunch of apps that are related to filming.

00:20:27 ◼   ► like here's the camera, here's Filmic Pro, all the DJI stuff, GoPro, and two really little

00:20:33 ◼   ► fun apps, which are basically like lightning round apps, but they are Sunseeker and Moonseeker,

00:20:38 ◼   ► which are like AR apps which will show you, you can use them to look around and see where

00:20:43 ◼   ► will the sun be at a particular time, or like where will the moon be at a particular time.

00:20:48 ◼   ► They work really great. So this is the just, oh I can use this as my home screen if I know

00:20:55 ◼   ► that I'm just going to spend the day trying to film something.

00:20:58 ◼   ► So I really don't ever look at this.

00:21:01 ◼   ► Most of the time it's just hidden, but for going through the home screens, I was like,

00:21:05 ◼   ► oh, I might as well just show all of the home screens that exist.

00:21:09 ◼   ► And so that's what this one is for.

00:21:10 ◼   ► Like it serves a functional purpose, but it is not like a home screen on my phone unless

00:21:17 ◼   ► it's very particular circumstances.

00:21:18 ◼   ► Okay.

00:21:19 ◼   ► I didn't know we were doing this.

00:21:21 ◼   ► So you have this set up as a...

00:21:25 ◼   ► Typically will only appear under certain focus modes, right?

00:21:28 ◼   ► But you've included it for this image sharing?

00:21:31 ◼   ► - Yeah, well, I thought like this makes sense, right?

00:21:32 ◼   ► If we're going through your screens,

00:21:33 ◼   ► we have to talk about like,

00:21:35 ◼   ► what are the different things?

00:21:36 ◼   ► So that's why I knew we're gonna talk about focus modes

00:21:40 ◼   ► because I was gonna talk about focus modes going through this.

00:21:43 ◼   ► - All right, that's good.

00:21:43 ◼   ► This is good 'cause now I've just taken another screenshot

00:21:45 ◼   ► 'cause I'm working on it.

00:21:46 ◼   ► I haven't finished like a screen, but I'm working on one.

00:21:49 ◼   ► So when I send you mine, I'll send you that one too.

00:21:52 ◼   ► This is what I thought this was,

00:21:54 ◼   ► which is why I was surprised it was in the list.

00:21:56 ◼   ► But I guess most of the time what you're saying,

00:21:58 ◼   ► this isn't available to you.

00:22:00 ◼   ► You're in like a certain focus mode for shooting video

00:22:02 ◼   ► and then this will pop up.

00:22:04 ◼   ► Is this your main home screen when you do that?

00:22:06 ◼   ► - Yeah, what I actually have done,

00:22:09 ◼   ► what I think just works best is I just,

00:22:11 ◼   ► I do that trick that you taught me

00:22:13 ◼   ► where you hold down on the little dots

00:22:14 ◼   ► that indicate the different home screens.

00:22:16 ◼   ► and I use that to just turn off the home screen at the start.

00:22:21 ◼   ► And so then this becomes like the main home screen.

00:22:24 ◼   ► - So you're not using a focus mode for that then?

00:22:26 ◼   ► - I am not explicitly using a focus mode for this one, no.

00:22:29 ◼   ► - You're just taking advantage of this feature

00:22:31 ◼   ► that was added because of focus modes.

00:22:33 ◼   ► - Yes, that's exactly right.

00:22:35 ◼   ► So like this does technically live as like the screen

00:22:39 ◼   ► that's off to the side a lot,

00:22:40 ◼   ► but I just never ever swipe right on my device.

00:22:45 ◼   ► like I just don't ever do it.

00:22:47 ◼   ► I'm only swiping over to the Today View

00:22:49 ◼   ► to sometimes open calzones.

00:22:50 ◼   ► I'm looking at the one that has the time tracking

00:22:53 ◼   ► and OmniFocus and the batteries,

00:22:55 ◼   ► and I just never swipe over under any normal circumstances.

00:22:58 ◼   ► So if I just disable this first home screen,

00:23:00 ◼   ► then this one that's like video shooting mode

00:23:03 ◼   ► is the one that pops up as like,

00:23:05 ◼   ► now this is your home screen.

00:23:07 ◼   ► - See, I do think I wanna have a bigger discussion

00:23:09 ◼   ► about focus modes later,

00:23:10 ◼   ► 'cause I still haven't really fully understood

00:23:14 ◼   ► the way that I want to use it.

00:23:15 ◼   ► It's actually something I want to work on

00:23:17 ◼   ► over the next few weeks.

00:23:18 ◼   ► But this is a good intro to it.

00:23:20 ◼   ► - No, but like, let's talk about it now.

00:23:22 ◼   ► - We can, we are, we are talking about it.

00:23:24 ◼   ► We are, I'm just saying like,

00:23:25 ◼   ► I think it will become apparent to you

00:23:27 ◼   ► when I share with you what I've got,

00:23:28 ◼   ► is I'm still working out how I want to use it.

00:23:30 ◼   ► So like right now, all right, we're doing it.

00:23:32 ◼   ► Right now I have a regular mode, right?

00:23:35 ◼   ► I have a recording focus mode,

00:23:36 ◼   ► which all it does is just turns off all my notifications.

00:23:39 ◼   ► It's like a beefed up do not disturb.

00:23:42 ◼   ► And it just allows messages from Adina

00:23:45 ◼   ► and Slack messages from Kerry,

00:23:48 ◼   ► Vice President of Sales, she got promotion.

00:23:50 ◼   ► And so like, 'cause they're really when I'm recording,

00:23:54 ◼   ► if Adina needs me, then she can get to me.

00:23:56 ◼   ► And if Kerry needs me, sometimes it can be like

00:23:58 ◼   ► for an ad I'm about to record.

00:24:00 ◼   ► So I kind of want those messages

00:24:02 ◼   ► and it just shuts everything off.

00:24:04 ◼   ► And what I love the most now is that syncs

00:24:06 ◼   ► across all my devices when it's turned on.

00:24:08 ◼   ► I think that's great.

00:24:09 ◼   ► So I don't get notifications on anything.

00:24:11 ◼   ► And then I also have a fitness one.

00:24:12 ◼   ► So when I'm working out,

00:24:13 ◼   ► it turns off notifications from absolutely everybody.

00:24:17 ◼   ► And I have it automatically turn on

00:24:20 ◼   ► during certain workout types.

00:24:23 ◼   ► I used shortcuts to do this

00:24:24 ◼   ► because I don't want it to turn on

00:24:26 ◼   ► whenever the Apple Watch thinks I'm working out.

00:24:29 ◼   ► Because sometimes that's when I'm walking around

00:24:31 ◼   ► and then I don't need.

00:24:33 ◼   ► - Right, right, right.

00:24:34 ◼   ► - I don't want it to turn on then.

00:24:35 ◼   ► But shortcuts allows you to set a personal automation

00:24:39 ◼   ► and choose the workout types

00:24:42 ◼   ► that you will activate the focus mode for.

00:24:44 ◼   ► The issue is Shortcut sends you notifications

00:24:47 ◼   ► when it does it because it just loves

00:24:48 ◼   ► to send you notifications about everything.

00:24:49 ◼   ► But that way it's like only when I'm doing

00:24:52 ◼   ► the types of workouts where I consider that I'm working out

00:24:55 ◼   ► is when it will activate itself.

00:24:57 ◼   ► And then when the workout stops,

00:25:00 ◼   ► it turns off that focus mode

00:25:01 ◼   ► and goes back to my regular focus mode.

00:25:03 ◼   ► So that's all I've set up right now.

00:25:05 ◼   ► But what I'll show you in a bit

00:25:06 ◼   ► is I wanna set up a travel one,

00:25:08 ◼   ► but I haven't fully done it yet.

00:25:09 ◼   ► I want to dig into it more,

00:25:11 ◼   ► but I haven't had the time to really sit down

00:25:15 ◼   ► and be like, what do I want all of these different

00:25:17 ◼   ► home screens to look like?

00:25:18 ◼   ► And under what circumstances,

00:25:20 ◼   ► and what people, what apps?

00:25:22 ◼   ► I haven't really, this is what I'm saying,

00:25:25 ◼   ► I feel like I want to do more with it,

00:25:27 ◼   ► but I haven't yet done that.

00:25:29 ◼   ► That's why I think it might come up again in the future.

00:25:31 ◼   ► And also I was thinking you would have done a lot with it,

00:25:33 ◼   ► but it seems like maybe you haven't.

00:25:35 ◼   ► Yeah, well, so it's interesting to me to hear that this is your experience because I've

00:25:40 ◼   ► basically had the exact same experience with the focus mode stuff of I've used it. I like

00:25:47 ◼   ► it way better than the old system, which was terrible. And I complained about multiple

00:25:52 ◼   ► times for being buggy and not working. But yes, it's like I don't. There's one thing

00:25:58 ◼   ► I can definitely blame it on. But there's another thing which is just it's been such

00:26:03 ◼   ► a weird year that it's almost felt like, I don't know, like I don't have it solid in my mind of

00:26:11 ◼   ► what do I want all of the various modes for either. It's also surprisingly complicated for a feature

00:26:18 ◼   ► that Apple has made. I think to its advantage in a way, because you can really get granular,

00:26:24 ◼   ► but setting one up is a lot of work. Yeah, I agree. Like I'm very glad that they did it,

00:26:30 ◼   ► Obviously for this for this kind of like notification stuff. I want a ton of options, but it does make thinking about it

00:26:37 ◼   ► very

00:26:39 ◼   ► Strange even some of the things like I've had a hard time

00:26:42 ◼   ► Recontextualizing it's like okay, so

00:26:45 ◼   ► The do not disturb while driving is now a focus mode and I have a bunch of options for this like

00:26:51 ◼   ► What do I want that to mean and obviously I mostly haven't been doing a bunch of driving

00:26:57 ◼   ► but when I was in America, I was again.

00:26:59 ◼   ► And that was, again, one of these moments of like,

00:27:02 ◼   ► I need to think through what I want this to be.

00:27:06 ◼   ► It's just been very funny.

00:27:06 ◼   ► I feel like the focus mode stuff

00:27:09 ◼   ► is almost like a project for next year

00:27:13 ◼   ► after the themes episode.

00:27:15 ◼   ► I've just been very aware of, I haven't dug into it

00:27:18 ◼   ► - Oh my God, yes. - too much.

00:27:20 ◼   ► - I can imagine this being a thing where like,

00:27:24 ◼   ► the themes help inform the focus mode

00:27:27 ◼   ► because it's setting up how I want my device to be.

00:27:30 ◼   ► Yeah, I like that.

00:27:31 ◼   ► See, this is what I was getting at when I was saying,

00:27:34 ◼   ► I think we're gonna talk about this later,

00:27:36 ◼   ► is because I feel like I've just started

00:27:39 ◼   ► and I'm hearing like our friends,

00:27:42 ◼   ► David Sparks, Federico Fittigi,

00:27:43 ◼   ► they're like really into it and they're using it a lot.

00:27:45 ◼   ► And like, they have like, I know Federico's doing this,

00:27:48 ◼   ► he's always in a focus mode of some kind.

00:27:51 ◼   ► And I find that really interesting.

00:27:54 ◼   ► So like, I wanna spend more time with it,

00:27:56 ◼   ► but I feel like I haven't been able to really understand what I want.

00:28:00 ◼   ► And so, but, and I think it's because I am in this moment right now where I'm

00:28:05 ◼   ► working out what I want from work in general.

00:28:09 ◼   ► And as is obvious, like from everything we talk about on our show,

00:28:14 ◼   ► our devices are extensions of the way that we work.

00:28:17 ◼   ► And so they mirror that.

00:28:19 ◼   ► So if I'm not sure, my devices aren't going to be sure either.

00:28:23 ◼   ► And also like in the last few months,

00:28:25 ◼   ► the devices that I'm using, especially in the last year,

00:28:28 ◼   ► and it's all changed so much.

00:28:29 ◼   ► Like something I wanted to talk about

00:28:31 ◼   ► as we get into the apps is,

00:28:33 ◼   ► I'm really back on the Mac for basically all work now.

00:28:37 ◼   ► And so what I'm looking for with the apps that I'm using

00:28:40 ◼   ► is different to before.

00:28:41 ◼   ► Now, I only really want to get into something

00:28:44 ◼   ► if it's truly cross-platform.

00:28:46 ◼   ► - Yes, yeah, I completely agree.

00:28:49 ◼   ► So I have had that same experience of

00:28:51 ◼   ► like the last half year has been a very strange in-between time,

00:28:58 ◼   ► and that has made thinking about the focus mode surprisingly difficult.

00:29:02 ◼   ► And yeah, so it's very interesting to hear that you've had the same response,

00:29:07 ◼   ► and like I ultimately want to be doing the same thing,

00:29:10 ◼   ► which is my phone should be set up in such a way

00:29:14 ◼   ► so that I am constantly in a focus mode of some kind,

00:29:18 ◼   ► but I haven't done that at all.

00:29:20 ◼   ► What I've actually just done is I've, I basically have only two

00:29:25 ◼   ► focus modes that I'm really using.

00:29:27 ◼   ► The first one I call core and that's to protect like the core

00:29:32 ◼   ► working hours in the morning.

00:29:34 ◼   ► That is trying to replicate what I used to be doing, where I tried to lock

00:29:38 ◼   ► down the phone in a whole bunch of ways of like before 2 PM, I don't want to

00:29:43 ◼   ► hear like anything from anyone and just like lock down the device as much as I could.

00:29:48 ◼   ► What's great for you is just how easy it is to set up a focus mode that does that.

00:29:52 ◼   ► It's really very, it's like the default, which is really interesting.

00:29:56 ◼   ► Yeah, it is interesting.

00:29:58 ◼   ► And I do like the way that it works.

00:30:00 ◼   ► I've also not run into these weird problems of blocking critical apps.

00:30:04 ◼   ► It used to have so many problems with Safari,

00:30:06 ◼   ► and now those don't exist anymore, which is fantastic.

00:30:09 ◼   ► I love that it syncs across devices. That's really great.

00:30:11 ◼   ► So I have core turns on the minute the sleep focus ends,

00:30:16 ◼   ► is the way I have it set up.

00:30:18 ◼   ► But then that just sort of turns off at the end of the day.

00:30:21 ◼   ► And ultimately I do want to, I want to have that thing of like deliberately

00:30:24 ◼   ► moving from mode to mode, but just because of this in being in this in between time,

00:30:29 ◼   ► I somehow have like had a hard time being very precise about like, what do I want my

00:30:35 ◼   ► phone to actually be like on weekend Wednesday?

00:30:37 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:30:38 ◼   ► Right.

00:30:38 ◼   ► Cause in theory you should have a weekend Wednesday focus mode that like on

00:30:42 ◼   ► Wednesday just sets your devices to be like, all right, no slack.

00:30:46 ◼   ► no none of this, it's all like entertainment applications

00:30:50 ◼   ► and you know, all that kind of stuff.

00:30:52 ◼   ► Like in theory that's what you want,

00:30:53 ◼   ► but yeah, you gotta really sit down and work with it.

00:30:56 ◼   ► And I actually think it's an interesting feature

00:30:58 ◼   ► in that way of like, as long as they continue

00:31:01 ◼   ► to make sure that it's a going concern,

00:31:04 ◼   ► which I think they will, 'cause it's a pretty important part

00:31:07 ◼   ► of the system, because they wrap Do Not Disturb

00:31:09 ◼   ► into it as well, right?

00:31:10 ◼   ► That I think it's something that you will grow with

00:31:15 ◼   ► As our lives change and our work changes,

00:31:18 ◼   ► we're like, I think I need my devices to work this way now.

00:31:21 ◼   ► And so we can have better ways

00:31:24 ◼   ► of customizing and tweaking them.

00:31:26 ◼   ► So I think there's a lot of promise there,

00:31:28 ◼   ► but I think it's something that's gonna take a little while

00:31:30 ◼   ► to realize fully.

00:31:32 ◼   ► - The only thing I don't love about it

00:31:34 ◼   ► is I don't love that the notifications

00:31:36 ◼   ► still go to that slide down lock screen.

00:31:40 ◼   ► And it's a habit I've been trying to break myself of.

00:31:44 ◼   ► I used to slide down that screen a bunch

00:31:47 ◼   ► and now I know like, oh, when I'm in the core mode,

00:31:50 ◼   ► the notifications are still hiding there.

00:31:52 ◼   ► So this has been a kind of deliberate training

00:31:57 ◼   ► of just try to never use that,

00:32:00 ◼   ► like try never to slide down the screen

00:32:02 ◼   ► 'cause you'll just see the notifications there.

00:32:04 ◼   ► I do like the way that when you're in the focus mode,

00:32:07 ◼   ► they sort of minimize them

00:32:08 ◼   ► so it doesn't show as like a ton of icons.

00:32:11 ◼   ► It shows as like a brief little description.

00:32:14 ◼   ► That's way better, but I still wish there was a way

00:32:16 ◼   ► to completely hide them anywhere.

00:32:18 ◼   ► - I think you can.

00:32:19 ◼   ► So if you go into the focus mode and you go to lock screen,

00:32:24 ◼   ► there's a toggle for silence notifications

00:32:27 ◼   ► which says show on lock screen.

00:32:29 ◼   ► And I think you can turn that off

00:32:30 ◼   ► and it will get rid of them.

00:32:32 ◼   ► - Yeah, so I have the show on lock screen turned off.

00:32:36 ◼   ► - Oh, when you pull up, they still come up, okay.

00:32:39 ◼   ► - Yeah, but when you pull down, right,

00:32:41 ◼   ► they still show up there.

00:32:42 ◼   ► And it's just like, it's a funny thing.

00:32:44 ◼   ► I never really tuned into the fact that I have the habit of doing that to check the

00:32:50 ◼   ► day and date.

00:32:52 ◼   ► And so then you still like see, oh, here are the notifications.

00:32:54 ◼   ► Like I wish you could properly hide them from there.

00:32:57 ◼   ► But honestly, like the system is so improved from the old system that is a relatively minor

00:33:02 ◼   ► complaint.

00:33:03 ◼   ► But so I created this like core working focus mode.

00:33:07 ◼   ► And then I have one other which I really do like and this is going to be the screenshot

00:33:13 ◼   ► that probably confuses you the most, which is the third screen over.

00:33:17 ◼   ► Yeah, I don't get this one at all.

00:33:20 ◼   ► Carrots, Widgetsmith, Reminders, and the Widgetsmith one, Eastbourne is receding.

00:33:26 ◼   ► I don't know what this is.

00:33:27 ◼   ► I have no idea what this means.

00:33:30 ◼   ► Myke, Eastbourne is receding.

00:33:32 ◼   ► I don't understand what's unclear about that.

00:33:34 ◼   ► Is this astrology?

00:33:35 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:33:36 ◼   ► - It says 1256, 1850, 132, 725.

00:33:40 ◼   ► - I'm assuming that's sunrise and sunset?

00:33:43 ◼   ► - No, it's not sunrise and sunset, it's the tides.

00:33:46 ◼   ► That's what that one is.

00:33:47 ◼   ► - Okay.

00:33:48 ◼   ► Are you in tune with the tides?

00:33:52 ◼   ► Great, isn't it?

00:33:53 ◼   ► - No, no, okay.

00:33:54 ◼   ► So the only other focus mode that I set up

00:33:57 ◼   ► is I made a holiday focus mode.

00:34:01 ◼   ► - You got a boat now?

00:34:01 ◼   ► - No, I do not have a boat.

00:34:02 ◼   ► - Are you sailing?

00:34:03 ◼   ► - No, I think.

00:34:04 ◼   ► - No, I'm not saying. - As a cray sailing

00:34:06 ◼   ► the high seas of Eastbourne.

00:34:08 ◼   ► - So my wife and I took our first trip on our own somewhere

00:34:15 ◼   ► and we went to Eastbourne, which is by the sea.

00:34:19 ◼   ► And so while we were on holiday, when we're there,

00:34:22 ◼   ► the tide coming in and out really matters,

00:34:26 ◼   ► but what you can do, can you go out to the beach

00:34:28 ◼   ► or can you not go out to the beach?

00:34:30 ◼   ► It's one of those beaches where it's like a really long

00:34:33 ◼   ► in and out based on what the tide was.

00:34:35 ◼   ► And I just had this funny thing where when we got there, we asked the guy at

00:34:39 ◼   ► reception at our hotel, like, Oh, when, when does the tide come in and out?

00:34:43 ◼   ► And he goes, Oh, I've never been able to figure that out.

00:34:46 ◼   ► I was like, dude, you work at the reception of a hotel on the seafront, like,

00:34:53 ◼   ► shouldn't you have a tide clock on the wall or it feels like this is something

00:34:57 ◼   ► surely all the guests must ask you.

00:34:59 ◼   ► But I guess not.

00:35:00 ◼   ► So while we were on our first holiday together,

00:35:04 ◼   ► I put this as a widget on my home screen

00:35:06 ◼   ► because it's like I wanted to know

00:35:08 ◼   ► when was the tide going to be out

00:35:10 ◼   ► and when was the tide going to be in.

00:35:12 ◼   ► But I've left it there, not because I care about knowing

00:35:15 ◼   ► if Eastbourne is currently receding or not,

00:35:18 ◼   ► but just as an actual reminder of,

00:35:22 ◼   ► because you can't label the screens,

00:35:24 ◼   ► like this is the screen that should appear

00:35:27 ◼   ► when the phone is in holiday mode.

00:35:31 ◼   ► And so I set up holiday mode

00:35:33 ◼   ► so that it can finally do the thing

00:35:35 ◼   ► that I was never able to do before,

00:35:36 ◼   ► which is on holiday,

00:35:38 ◼   ► only people I have labeled as family

00:35:41 ◼   ► should be able to send me messages of any kind

00:35:43 ◼   ► and everything else should be silenced.

00:35:46 ◼   ► - You could use Widgetsmith to just create a text widget

00:35:49 ◼   ► that says holiday and put that there,

00:35:51 ◼   ► but maybe you prefer respawn receding, I don't know.

00:35:54 ◼   ► - Yeah, that's like an extra step.

00:35:56 ◼   ► No, I'll just, I have this there just to remind me of what it is and I'll just swap it out.

00:36:02 ◼   ► So you're gonna be like on holiday in the South of France and you'll be like "Oh, Eastbaun's receding."

00:36:06 ◼   ► That's just gonna be-

00:36:07 ◼   ► Uh, no. Well then if I need to know something about where I am in France,

00:36:10 ◼   ► like then I'll swap out a different more useful widget for that one.

00:36:13 ◼   ► So you, so again, like this home screen's always there. It's just always your third home screen.

00:36:18 ◼   ► So no, this one doesn't appear most of the time on the phone.

00:36:22 ◼   ► This only appears if I put it into holiday mode.

00:36:25 ◼   ► That's the way this one works.

00:36:26 ◼   ► - But you enabled it for these screenshots, gotcha.

00:36:29 ◼   ► - Yeah, so I just wanted to show you

00:36:30 ◼   ► all the different things.

00:36:31 ◼   ► And then also, this is such a dumb little thing,

00:36:33 ◼   ► but I feel like it comes up on holiday a bunch,

00:36:35 ◼   ► is I do have the reminders widget there,

00:36:38 ◼   ► 'cause I feel like constantly when you're on vacation,

00:36:41 ◼   ► you remember that you need to get something

00:36:44 ◼   ► from the local boots,

00:36:46 ◼   ► there's always these weird little things that pop up.

00:36:49 ◼   ► I don't wanna use OmniFocus

00:36:50 ◼   ► that's way too heavyweight for this.

00:36:53 ◼   ► So I do just wanna have, oh, here's the errands list.

00:36:56 ◼   ► - You don't want to see the work tasks.

00:36:57 ◼   ► - Yes, exactly.

00:36:58 ◼   ► - You know, like if you're on,

00:36:59 ◼   ► you keep saying holiday, I'm gonna call it vacation.

00:37:01 ◼   ► We'll just do a nice little swap there.

00:37:03 ◼   ► So when you're on vacation--

00:37:04 ◼   ► - Okay, that's not the way that should work at all.

00:37:05 ◼   ► - I know, but it is the way it's working.

00:37:07 ◼   ► There's nothing we can do about it.

00:37:08 ◼   ► When you're on vacation, you don't want to see like,

00:37:11 ◼   ► oh, when I'm back from my wonderful vacation,

00:37:14 ◼   ► I've got all this stuff to do.

00:37:15 ◼   ► So you just put it in reminders.

00:37:16 ◼   ► That's a good idea.

00:37:18 ◼   ► - Yeah, so I just have it there.

00:37:19 ◼   ► It's nice and easy to be like,

00:37:20 ◼   ► oh, we need to get an extra thing of toothpaste,

00:37:23 ◼   ► you know, or we need to pick up some aspirin or something.

00:37:25 ◼   ► Like just those kind of little one-off things that happen

00:37:27 ◼   ► that are also, when you're mentally in holiday mode,

00:37:31 ◼   ► are real easy to forget of like,

00:37:33 ◼   ► "Oh yeah, we needed to do that

00:37:35 ◼   ► "before the pharmacy closed," or something.

00:37:36 ◼   ► - Especially when you're completely not used to taking trips.

00:37:40 ◼   ► So it's like, you never have, like my wash bag is empty.

00:37:44 ◼   ► It's like, "Hang on, there's supposed to be stuff in here.

00:37:45 ◼   ► "Nope, it's all gone."

00:37:47 ◼   ► You used it all. - Yeah, exactly.

00:37:48 ◼   ► - When you couldn't buy deodorant during lockdown.

00:37:50 ◼   ► and take the children out of the wash bag and use that.

00:37:53 ◼   ► - So this is my screen for that mode.

00:37:56 ◼   ► - Yep, makes sense.

00:37:57 ◼   ► - Again, I do really like that with the focus modes of,

00:38:01 ◼   ► like this was constantly the problem before

00:38:03 ◼   ► of being on vacation and not wanting to get any messages

00:38:08 ◼   ► from anyone but my wife.

00:38:10 ◼   ► And it was just always a real frustration

00:38:12 ◼   ► that I had to have the phone like completely open

00:38:14 ◼   ► to everyone or totally shut down.

00:38:16 ◼   ► Those were the only options.

00:38:16 ◼   ► So I'm really, really grateful to the focus mode team

00:38:20 ◼   ► for enabling this kind of thing, because it really did make the trip so much nicer to know,

00:38:25 ◼   ► "Oh yes, my wife can message me in the morning because we might be apart

00:38:29 ◼   ► and then we're trying to figure out where to meet up,

00:38:31 ◼   ► but I don't have to worry about getting random messages about work

00:38:35 ◼   ► that are just going to derail your thoughts when they shouldn't otherwise."

00:38:38 ◼   ► So that is currently how I'm using the focus modes.

00:38:41 ◼   ► But I will just say, the one other thing that has put me off slightly is,

00:38:46 ◼   ► Ideally I want to have way more of these custom screens, but I feel like Apple's system for

00:38:55 ◼   ► adding widgets and moving around apps, I feel like I'm constantly building some crazy Jenga

00:39:02 ◼   ► tower, that if I make any mistake, it totally messes up everything else that I've been working

00:39:08 ◼   ► on.

00:39:09 ◼   ► It's really frustrating and was genuinely off-putting.

00:39:13 ◼   ► will destroy the next screen that you weren't doing anything to.

00:39:17 ◼   ► And like now the widgets are over there.

00:39:19 ◼   ► Like, yeah, they need to work on making this a better experience.

00:39:23 ◼   ► It's felt like it's needed for a while.

00:39:25 ◼   ► But now, especially with the widgets and that you're encouraged to make more of them,

00:39:29 ◼   ► it's like, oh my God.

00:39:31 ◼   ► Yeah, that's why I say like a Jenga tower,

00:39:33 ◼   ► because like if it was just hard on the screen that I'm working on,

00:39:36 ◼   ► that would be fine.

00:39:37 ◼   ► But the fact that if I want to put in a big widget,

00:39:40 ◼   ► I can knock three home screens worth of stuff completely out of alignment is infuriating.

00:39:46 ◼   ► And it really makes me not want to work on these individual screens.

00:39:50 ◼   ► I remember I was trying to set up a home screen for like,

00:39:54 ◼   ► "Oh, this is the way my phone should work when I'm in admin mode."

00:39:57 ◼   ► And I did something and I messed up a bunch of my screens.

00:40:00 ◼   ► I was like, "F this."

00:40:01 ◼   ► Like, I'm just gonna leave it as, "I've got these three screens.

00:40:05 ◼   ► They're good enough.

00:40:06 ◼   ► The end.

00:40:06 ◼   ► I will work on this later when I know more clearly what it is that I want to do."

00:40:10 ◼   ► But yeah, I would definitely put that on my wish list for the next version of iOS is

00:40:16 ◼   ► please give us a better way to design these home screens and to move around widgets and apps because the current way is

00:40:23 ◼   ► so unbelievably infuriating.

00:40:26 ◼   ► And then your final screen is just a folder that says shortcuts. I'm very confused about this one.

00:40:32 ◼   ► Okay, so you may remember that

00:40:35 ◼   ► When you search for things using the default Apple pull-down search menu, they prioritize apps over shortcuts.

00:40:44 ◼   ► So things that live in the shortcuts app are relatively low on the list when Apple is showing you what you're searching for.

00:40:51 ◼   ► So anything that I want to have a shortcut that I'm going to frequently run, which is very often timers,

00:40:58 ◼   ► I make it into a shortcut on the home screen.

00:41:03 ◼   ► And now the phone counts it like an app, so it shows up way higher on the list when I search for stuff.

00:41:10 ◼   ► So that whole folder is just full of things that are like, these are shortcuts in the shortcut app that I run frequently,

00:41:18 ◼   ► but I've made them exist on the home screen so that they show up higher on the list when I search for it using Spotlight.

00:41:26 ◼   ► So that is the only reason this folder exists.

00:41:29 ◼   ► I normally just have it hidden, but that's just like a little trick for getting the shortcuts to show up higher.

00:41:34 ◼   ► Which I do find it frustrating. It's like, "Hey, Apple, you know I run this shortcut multiple times a day?

00:41:39 ◼   ► Maybe you should put it at the top of the search results when I search for it?"

00:41:43 ◼   ► But they don't. It'll still always be below a bunch of like weird junk that Siri has found for me on the internet that I don't care about.

00:41:50 ◼   ► But if it exists as a fake app, then it can and will often be at the top. So that's why I do this.

00:41:56 ◼   ► So that's everything.

00:41:58 ◼   ► I've shown you mine, Myke.

00:41:59 ◼   ► You need to show me yours.

00:42:00 ◼   ► - Oh boy.

00:42:01 ◼   ► So I'm sending you two now.

00:42:02 ◼   ► I'm sending you one image, which is all one big image,

00:42:05 ◼   ► which is my home screen as it is.

00:42:07 ◼   ► And then I've sent you a second one.

00:42:08 ◼   ► - Oh God, it's your iPad.

00:42:09 ◼   ► Oh no, wait, it's not your iPad home screen.

00:42:10 ◼   ► That stuff is like Jesus Christ, Myke.

00:42:13 ◼   ► - Four iPhone home screens,

00:42:15 ◼   ► like put next to each other, right?

00:42:16 ◼   ► So you've got the visual consistency.

00:42:18 ◼   ► - Oh, look how fancy you've been.

00:42:19 ◼   ► - Gonna do this for yours.

00:42:20 ◼   ► It will be in the show notes.

00:42:22 ◼   ► So people just see it in one long image

00:42:24 ◼   ► so you can kind of just see everything in situ.

00:42:26 ◼   ► And then I've sent you a second one,

00:42:28 ◼   ► which we'll talk about afterwards,

00:42:29 ◼   ► which is the Focus Mode home screen that I'm building,

00:42:32 ◼   ► that I'm not done with yet.

00:42:33 ◼   ► - Okay.

00:42:34 ◼   ► All right, so you use the Today screen much more than I do.

00:42:37 ◼   ► So you've got a bunch of shortcuts over here?

00:42:39 ◼   ► - Yeah, that's where all my kind of,

00:42:40 ◼   ► that's why I just have a bunch of shortcuts widgets there.

00:42:43 ◼   ► They launch my most used shortcuts,

00:42:45 ◼   ► and I've set that up manually,

00:42:47 ◼   ► 'cause I just know the stuff that I use the most,

00:42:49 ◼   ► and things move in and out of there as necessary.

00:42:53 ◼   ► - That's actually a good idea though.

00:42:54 ◼   ► I hadn't thought of maybe also just putting

00:42:56 ◼   ► some shortcuts there.

00:42:57 ◼   ► That's really interesting, I might steal that.

00:42:59 ◼   ► - 'Cause they run just immediately when you tap the thing.

00:43:03 ◼   ► You know, it's not like other widgets

00:43:05 ◼   ► where it opens the app, right?

00:43:06 ◼   ► The shortcuts widget is different to other widgets.

00:43:08 ◼   ► So I tap any of those blocks and it fires off

00:43:10 ◼   ► that specific shortcut.

00:43:12 ◼   ► - That's the widget that's just a folder of things

00:43:14 ◼   ► that you have selected, is that how that works?

00:43:17 ◼   ► - Yeah. - Okay, cool.

00:43:18 ◼   ► - So I create folders.

00:43:19 ◼   ► Like I have a Mac folder now as well,

00:43:21 ◼   ► Mac focus shortcuts, which we might talk about in a bit.

00:43:24 ◼   ► So I have a couple of widget folders in the shortcuts app,

00:43:28 ◼   ► and then I just select the ones that I want.

00:43:30 ◼   ► I have one which is a general one,

00:43:31 ◼   ► which is that one on the top.

00:43:32 ◼   ► Then I have one which is a bunch of time tracking actions,

00:43:35 ◼   ► which you see at the bottom there underneath it,

00:43:37 ◼   ► which is a smaller selection.

00:43:39 ◼   ► - I have just added that as a widget to my own phone

00:43:44 ◼   ► to remind me to play around with that later.

00:43:45 ◼   ► I think that's a really good idea.

00:43:47 ◼   ► Okay, and so on your main home screen,

00:43:49 ◼   ► You have a bunch of apps,

00:43:52 ◼   ► and then what's that, Fantastical at the top?

00:43:54 ◼   ► - Yeah, that's a stack.

00:43:55 ◼   ► Carrot weather lives under Fantastical.

00:43:58 ◼   ► - Ah, okay.

00:43:58 ◼   ► How many copies of Carrot weather do you have on your phone?

00:44:01 ◼   ► - Just one, believe it or not.

00:44:03 ◼   ► Just one.

00:44:03 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:44:05 ◼   ► - Only one, oh.

00:44:06 ◼   ► How do you know what the weather's like, Myke?

00:44:08 ◼   ► - Here's the forecast one.

00:44:10 ◼   ► The forecast one's really great

00:44:11 ◼   ► because that's the widget that changes.

00:44:14 ◼   ► In the morning, it shows you a whole day,

00:44:17 ◼   ► like today's weather.

00:44:18 ◼   ► In the evening, it shows you the next week's weather,

00:44:21 ◼   ► and if it's raining, it shows you the rain.

00:44:24 ◼   ► It's such a great widget.

00:44:25 ◼   ► I just use that one widget in Carrot Weather,

00:44:28 ◼   ► and it lets me know what the important weather thing is.

00:44:31 ◼   ► I don't need to think about it.

00:44:32 ◼   ► - Yeah, no, that is great,

00:44:33 ◼   ► and that's the one that I'm using as well

00:44:35 ◼   ► on my home screen.

00:44:36 ◼   ► It's Carrot Weather.

00:44:39 ◼   ► I do have one major complaint about you this year,

00:44:42 ◼   ► but it is an amazing app,

00:44:43 ◼   ► and just that predictive widget is so nice.

00:44:47 ◼   ► I feel like it really does hit that magical,

00:44:50 ◼   ► just show me what I want to know at any moment.

00:44:53 ◼   ► Like it hits that sweet spot really well.

00:44:54 ◼   ► Okay, so that exists in a stack with FantasticAl.

00:44:58 ◼   ► How good do you find iOS's

00:45:01 ◼   ► at switching between the two of those?

00:45:03 ◼   ► - I feel like it's pretty good.

00:45:05 ◼   ► I feel like most of the time I get what I want,

00:45:07 ◼   ► but I know they're there, so it's very easy for me.

00:45:10 ◼   ► Like I mindlessly swipe them to open them

00:45:12 ◼   ► because FantasticAl, the way I open my calendar

00:45:16 ◼   ► from that widget. Like I removed the Fantastic Health app icon off my phone, right? Because

00:45:21 ◼   ► that made sense to me. And I open my calendar a lot and I don't feel like I'm endlessly

00:45:27 ◼   ► swiping, you know? So it's either it's there most of the time when I want it or it's just

00:45:31 ◼   ► a swipe tap and it's just like not a thing that I even think about.

00:45:34 ◼   ► Hmm. I should try, I should try those stacks more. I don't have any stacks on my phone,

00:45:38 ◼   ► but I think, I think maybe I should give that more of a try.

00:45:40 ◼   ► I've created a bunch of like logical stacks. So the Timery widget is on the bottom right.

00:45:46 ◼   ► Underneath that is a shortcut,

00:45:48 ◼   ► which is called plus track time,

00:45:50 ◼   ► which you'll also see on the today view.

00:45:53 ◼   ► And what that does is it's a shortcut

00:45:55 ◼   ► that allows me to manually add tracked time.

00:45:59 ◼   ► Like if I've been working on something

00:46:01 ◼   ► and didn't set a timer up for it,

00:46:02 ◼   ► because I don't do what you've done,

00:46:04 ◼   ► I don't know if you still do this,

00:46:05 ◼   ► where I've always got a timer going,

00:46:07 ◼   ► sometimes I'm like working on something like,

00:46:09 ◼   ► oh, I didn't set a timer for this.

00:46:11 ◼   ► So I just add 15 minutes to a project, you know?

00:46:14 ◼   ► - Oh, interesting.

00:46:14 ◼   ► - I didn't know that was a thing

00:46:16 ◼   ► that you could do in Timery.

00:46:17 ◼   ► - You can do it with shortcuts.

00:46:19 ◼   ► You have to build a shortcut to do it, right?

00:46:21 ◼   ► And they have a thing where you can add a chunk of time

00:46:24 ◼   ► and I just do like, I have a shortcut,

00:46:26 ◼   ► which is basically what is the current time,

00:46:30 ◼   ► reduced by 15 minutes, basically, at the start date,

00:46:33 ◼   ► and then add from start date to now

00:46:35 ◼   ► in the Timery shortcut thing.

00:46:37 ◼   ► - Hmm, that's interesting.

00:46:38 ◼   ► I have to say, I quite like aesthetically

00:46:42 ◼   ► the way you have the widget on the bottom right

00:46:45 ◼   ► and the apps going around it.

00:46:46 ◼   ► I think that's a good look.

00:46:47 ◼   ► - It looks pretty good, right?

00:46:48 ◼   ► I do like that.

00:46:49 ◼   ► And it's the Timery one is there

00:46:51 ◼   ► because it's what I interact with the most

00:46:55 ◼   ► is either opening or looking at Timery

00:46:57 ◼   ► or doing that time tracking thing

00:47:00 ◼   ► when it comes to like tapping on a widget.

00:47:02 ◼   ► And I like having it there.

00:47:03 ◼   ► And I also, I aesthetically like the apps

00:47:05 ◼   ► kind of like wrapping around them.

00:47:08 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah.

00:47:08 ◼   ► Apple does not give you a lot of options

00:47:11 ◼   ► for the way you want to have things look.

00:47:13 ◼   ► And I feel like, ooh, that does look good though.

00:47:15 ◼   ► I like that.

00:47:16 ◼   ► I might copy that style for a different home screen

00:47:19 ◼   ► when I eventually decide to put in all the time

00:47:22 ◼   ► to sort them all out and I'm willing to spend an entire day

00:47:25 ◼   ► carefully constructing a Jenga tower.

00:47:27 ◼   ► I might want to steal that as a layout.

00:47:29 ◼   ► So that's really nice.

00:47:31 ◼   ► So yeah, I feel like this is relatively unchanged

00:47:35 ◼   ► in terms of the apps that you normally use.

00:47:38 ◼   ► - I think the things that might be different.

00:47:40 ◼   ► - It's like Craft maybe?

00:47:42 ◼   ► - Craft, yeah, we'll come to Craft later on.

00:47:44 ◼   ► I wanna talk about that.

00:47:45 ◼   ► But the apps themselves are very similar

00:47:47 ◼   ► and so is the layout.

00:47:49 ◼   ► Some of the stuff that I know that has changed is,

00:47:51 ◼   ► I think Train Beacon is new.

00:47:53 ◼   ► That is a stack of two widgets

00:47:55 ◼   ► that I have on top of each other

00:47:57 ◼   ► that tell me the train times

00:47:58 ◼   ► between the station that I use for home

00:48:01 ◼   ► and the station I use for the studio.

00:48:02 ◼   ► - Oh, okay.

00:48:04 ◼   ► - Really love that app.

00:48:05 ◼   ► And so basically it's just telling me

00:48:07 ◼   ► when my next trains are for the locations

00:48:10 ◼   ► something going between all the time.

00:48:12 ◼   ► And then the third page is where I'm trying some stuff out.

00:48:15 ◼   ► When we were doing our fundraising for St. Jude,

00:48:17 ◼   ► we had a wonderful group of people in the Relay Discord

00:48:22 ◼   ► created a widget that tracked the fundraising.

00:48:25 ◼   ► It was really awesome.

00:48:26 ◼   ► So I had that on that third page.

00:48:28 ◼   ► - That is pretty sweet.

00:48:29 ◼   ► - And so then I just had that going

00:48:31 ◼   ► and then when the fundraiser was over,

00:48:34 ◼   ► I wanted to basically use that third page

00:48:36 ◼   ► as let me try out some widgets.

00:48:37 ◼   ► So I've got fitness.

00:48:40 ◼   ► I actually really like the fitness widget.

00:48:41 ◼   ► I think it's laid out really nicely, that medium one.

00:48:44 ◼   ► It gives me all the information I would want.

00:48:46 ◼   ► Then I've got a Timery one,

00:48:48 ◼   ► that's all of the stuff I've tracked this week,

00:48:50 ◼   ► and then a Craft widget as well,

00:48:52 ◼   ► which I'm just trying out.

00:48:53 ◼   ► So there's just some stuff that I'm playing around with.

00:48:55 ◼   ► That's what I use that third screen for.

00:48:57 ◼   ► - Ah, okay, so that's a Craft widget.

00:48:58 ◼   ► I was wondering about the Cortex brand one.

00:49:00 ◼   ► I was like, "That doesn't look familiar to me at all."

00:49:02 ◼   ► - That's the four most recently changed documents

00:49:05 ◼   ► or notes in Craft.

00:49:07 ◼   ► - Okay, okay.

00:49:08 ◼   ► And you can tap each of those and launch them.

00:49:11 ◼   ► But the titles of those notes are full of secrets.

00:49:14 ◼   ► So they've been blocked out.

00:49:14 ◼   ► - Right, yes, that's why they've been pixelated, of course.

00:49:17 ◼   ► Since this is, of course,

00:49:18 ◼   ► the place where we're talking about the apps,

00:49:18 ◼   ► I do have a public quest for Timery,

00:49:21 ◼   ► which is, I wish the this week thing

00:49:23 ◼   ► could instead be the last seven days.

00:49:26 ◼   ► Like I don't actually really care about this week.

00:49:29 ◼   ► I really care about what the last seven days were.

00:49:33 ◼   ► I feel like that widget would be significantly

00:49:34 ◼   ► more useful to me if I could do it that way instead.

00:49:36 ◼   ► 'cause it's like a rolling thing rather than a fixed thing.

00:49:40 ◼   ► - Yeah, and it's weird when the week starts

00:49:43 ◼   ► and now my day and the week timer are exactly the same.

00:49:46 ◼   ► I just, I don't really understand how I would ever

00:49:49 ◼   ► wanna think about it in terms of a week.

00:49:52 ◼   ► - You can change it, Gray.

00:49:53 ◼   ► I just looked, you can do it.

00:49:55 ◼   ► - No way, really? - Yep.

00:49:56 ◼   ► There's an option for last number of days.

00:50:00 ◼   ► - Oh my God, this is magic. - And then you choose

00:50:01 ◼   ► the days. - Okay, great.

00:50:03 ◼   ► - Look how quick they added that.

00:50:04 ◼   ► This is what makes Joe such a good developer,

00:50:06 ◼   ► creator of Timery.

00:50:07 ◼   ► As we're saying it, the app is changing.

00:50:09 ◼   ► Now, if you can do settings on widgets, right?

00:50:12 ◼   ► So you long press on the widget, edit widget,

00:50:15 ◼   ► and one of the options is duration,

00:50:16 ◼   ► and there's a bunch of durations there,

00:50:18 ◼   ► and the bottom one of those is last number of days,

00:50:20 ◼   ► and you just put the number of days in.

00:50:22 ◼   ► - Wait a second, where the hell are you seeing the durations?

00:50:24 ◼   ► I don't see that at all.

00:50:25 ◼   ► The time period is this week or today.

00:50:27 ◼   ► I don't have this option on my app.

00:50:29 ◼   ► I don't know what you're talking about.

00:50:30 ◼   ► - Are you on summary report?

00:50:31 ◼   ► - You have different options than me.

00:50:33 ◼   ► - You on the most recent version of the app?

00:50:35 ◼   ► Are you on some kind of beta?

00:50:36 ◼   ► Do you have a fancy beta?

00:50:37 ◼   ► - I am on a beta, but I don't know

00:50:39 ◼   ► what the shipping version of the app is.

00:50:42 ◼   ► - Well, I can tell you right now,

00:50:43 ◼   ► the shipping version of the app does not have that.

00:50:45 ◼   ► You have sneaky beta access.

00:50:46 ◼   ► - Well, you know.

00:50:47 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:50:49 ◼   ► - There we go.

00:50:50 ◼   ► I can show you right now.

00:50:51 ◼   ► I don't have that, but you know what?

00:50:53 ◼   ► It's coming, great.

00:50:54 ◼   ► I'm thrilled about that.

00:50:55 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:50:57 ◼   ► - Yeah, okay, sorry.

00:50:58 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:51:00 ◼   ► Are we using the same widget though?

00:51:01 ◼   ► Like, I don't know if it's the same widget.

00:51:04 ◼   ► - Yeah, we're using the same widget.

00:51:05 ◼   ► - All right.

00:51:07 ◼   ► Sorry, Joe.

00:51:08 ◼   ► I keep doing this.

00:51:09 ◼   ► I forget.

00:51:10 ◼   ► - You're spoiling.

00:51:11 ◼   ► You're spoiling his surprises for what's going to come.

00:51:15 ◼   ► But okay, that's great.

00:51:15 ◼   ► Okay, good to know it's gonna be there.

00:51:18 ◼   ► Fantastic, I love it.

00:51:19 ◼   ► - Oh man, well, there you go.

00:51:20 ◼   ► It's coming.

00:51:21 ◼   ► Timery's best.

00:51:22 ◼   ► Go get Timery.

00:51:23 ◼   ► Timery's the best.

00:51:23 ◼   ► I'm gonna talk about it in a bit.

00:51:24 ◼   ► I feel like I shouldn't keep doing what I keep doing here,

00:51:27 ◼   ► but we're gonna talk about Timery in a bit.

00:51:29 ◼   ► All right, so do you have any more?

00:51:30 ◼   ► I think you could have more questions about this,

00:51:32 ◼   ► about the apps on the screens,

00:51:34 ◼   ► but I'm gonna talk about them.

00:51:35 ◼   ► So there's no point getting to them.

00:51:37 ◼   ► - Yeah, well, I am also just wondering about the like,

00:51:39 ◼   ► trialing out the activity app,

00:51:41 ◼   ► like that's quite interesting to me.

00:51:43 ◼   ► That feels like a different sort of mic.

00:51:45 ◼   ► I was just wondering if you have anything to say about that.

00:51:47 ◼   ► - I don't really wanna get into it too much,

00:51:49 ◼   ► but I am a much more fitness oriented person

00:51:52 ◼   ► than I've ever been in my adult life.

00:51:54 ◼   ► - Oh, okay.

00:51:55 ◼   ► - Myke Hurley is in the best shape of his life right now,

00:51:57 ◼   ► but that's the end of that.

00:51:59 ◼   ► - Okay, all right.

00:52:00 ◼   ► Maybe we'll talk about that next time.

00:52:02 ◼   ► Maybe. The thing is, I feel like over the years, I've spoken a lot about different fitness things that I've wanted to do and try.

00:52:10 ◼   ► And then I do them for a while and I stop and then I get embarrassed because I spoke about them. You know what I mean?

00:52:15 ◼   ► Yeah, I get that. But I think that's fine. That's not some unique experience you're having there.

00:52:25 ◼   ► I know.

00:52:25 ◼   ► I think that's a very common experience.

00:52:28 ◼   ► But I'm taking my health more seriously.

00:52:30 ◼   ► - If you wanna feel better, like, I have fallen off the wagon from the swamp of uncertainty time,

00:52:38 ◼   ► and then I landed in America, like, I fell off the wagon of health so hard, like, you cannot believe

00:52:44 ◼   ► how hard I fell off that wagon. Like, that's fine. Like, this is what happens. I always say, like,

00:52:50 ◼   ► what matters is you get back on the wagon, so, like, I'm just, I'm happy to see the activity

00:52:55 ◼   ► app there, and if you say that you're in the best shape of your life, like,

00:52:59 ◼   ► That's great. Like I'm very happy about that.

00:53:02 ◼   ► I'm feeling very good. I don't have RSI anymore.

00:53:05 ◼   ► Nice.

00:53:05 ◼   ► I haven't had an RSI pain or a back pain in like three months.

00:53:10 ◼   ► Like I'm doing more frequent exercises.

00:53:12 ◼   ► I'm gonna guess that you're physically stronger then?

00:53:14 ◼   ► Okay, yes. There we go. Right.

00:53:16 ◼   ► Okay, so you're doing strength exercises.

00:53:18 ◼   ► I can bench now, boy.

00:53:19 ◼   ► Oh, wow. That's very exciting.

00:53:21 ◼   ► I'm very happy to hear that.

00:53:23 ◼   ► So yeah, that's just been a thing in my life over the last few months.

00:53:27 ◼   ► and the fitness widget is on my home screen

00:53:31 ◼   ► as a constant reminder for me,

00:53:33 ◼   ► and it's why I wear an Apple Watch every day now,

00:53:36 ◼   ► and I've been wearing an Apple Watch every day

00:53:37 ◼   ► since September, and it's been, I think, before then,

00:53:41 ◼   ► actually, maybe like July or August,

00:53:42 ◼   ► and that was like the start of it,

00:53:44 ◼   ► and now more frequent exercises

00:53:46 ◼   ► and pushing myself in new ways and stuff like that.

00:53:48 ◼   ► So it's been a big change in my life,

00:53:51 ◼   ► and I'm feeling pretty good about it, and yeah.

00:53:53 ◼   ► - Do you leave on the Apple,

00:53:56 ◼   ► the like coaching stuff that the watch does where it kind of pings you throughout the

00:54:00 ◼   ► day.

00:54:01 ◼   ► Yeah, like how much of how much of Apple notifying you about your health do you leave on?

00:54:05 ◼   ► I didn't know about any of that.

00:54:08 ◼   ► So I have the trends thing turned on if that's what you're talking about.

00:54:12 ◼   ► But yeah, in okay in the watch there's a setting which I think they call like coaching, but

00:54:17 ◼   ► it just it tries to harass you if you look like you're being lazy on a particular day.

00:54:22 ◼   ► I was just wondering if you if you leave that stuff on or if you don't leave that stuff

00:54:25 ◼   ► on.

00:54:26 ◼   ► what you're talking about.

00:54:27 ◼   ► - In the watch app, under activity,

00:54:29 ◼   ► there's a thing called daily coaching.

00:54:31 ◼   ► - Oh my gosh, I had notifications off.

00:54:33 ◼   ► I just pressed allow notifications

00:54:35 ◼   ► and a hundred settings appeared.

00:54:37 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:54:38 ◼   ► - Yeah, there you go.

00:54:39 ◼   ► - All right, I'm gonna turn all these on.

00:54:40 ◼   ► I had no idea any of these existed.

00:54:44 ◼   ► This was from when I was wearing an Apple Watch

00:54:46 ◼   ► and didn't care about fitness.

00:54:48 ◼   ► So I wanted you to leave me the (beep) alone.

00:54:50 ◼   ► All right, I'm gonna leave these on

00:54:53 ◼   ► and see what that's all about for a bit.

00:54:55 ◼   ► Oh my God, that's so funny.

00:54:56 ◼   ► It was like, I was like, I have no idea what you're talking about.

00:54:58 ◼   ► There's no options here.

00:54:59 ◼   ► And then it's like, bang!

00:55:01 ◼   ► And then there's like a hundred.

00:55:02 ◼   ► All right.

00:55:03 ◼   ► So they're all on.

00:55:03 ◼   ► I'll see what that's like.

00:55:04 ◼   ► I would recommend turning off the stand reminders because they're just

00:55:07 ◼   ► pointlessly annoying in my take of it.

00:55:10 ◼   ► But like the daily coaching ones are sort of interesting.

00:55:13 ◼   ► It's also interesting that when I first fell off the wagon, the Apple watch was

00:55:18 ◼   ► like trying to be real encouraging.

00:55:20 ◼   ► Like, oh, it seems like you haven't worked out in seven days.

00:55:23 ◼   ► Like maybe you want to try.

00:55:24 ◼   ► "Oh, you haven't done anything in two,

00:55:26 ◼   ► ooh, your activity is way down."

00:55:28 ◼   ► And then after a month, it was like the Apple Watch

00:55:30 ◼   ► just gave up and stopped bugging me.

00:55:33 ◼   ► - Well, 'cause you got a new trend now, right?

00:55:35 ◼   ► - It somehow felt even worse.

00:55:35 ◼   ► - And the trend is you don't do it, so.

00:55:38 ◼   ► (both laughing)

00:55:40 ◼   ► - Yeah, it was like, "Oh, Apple Watch,

00:55:42 ◼   ► I didn't like it when you bothered me,

00:55:44 ◼   ► but somehow I like it even less when you just gave up

00:55:47 ◼   ► and stopped harassing me into go exercise, dude."

00:55:52 ◼   ► But yes, anyway, I think they are annoying,

00:55:57 ◼   ► but I think that they are usefully annoying.

00:56:00 ◼   ► Like that's kind of their purpose.

00:56:02 ◼   ► So anyway, there you go.

00:56:03 ◼   ► You have some options of notifications to play around with.

00:56:05 ◼   ► - And then I sent you another one,

00:56:07 ◼   ► just a singular home screen.

00:56:09 ◼   ► This is the travel focus mode home screen

00:56:13 ◼   ► that I'm working on.

00:56:14 ◼   ► I've not used it yet,

00:56:16 ◼   ► and I'm trying to see if this is something that I would like.

00:56:20 ◼   ► And so this includes a bunch of widgets.

00:56:22 ◼   ► I've got a Tripsy widget and a Flighty widget,

00:56:25 ◼   ► batteries and notes, and those notes,

00:56:27 ◼   ► one is it's a stack of things that I'm gonna use.

00:56:29 ◼   ► It includes like an Apple note

00:56:31 ◼   ► that has my passport information about it,

00:56:32 ◼   ► and it also is an Apple note

00:56:34 ◼   ► for the relevant trip that I'm on

00:56:37 ◼   ► and the PDFs of trip information

00:56:42 ◼   ► that I keep in an Apple note,

00:56:43 ◼   ► just so I've got them locally downloaded.

00:56:45 ◼   ► - That's also an interesting idea

00:56:48 ◼   ► with a note that's a particular folder.

00:56:50 ◼   ► I like that for travel.

00:56:52 ◼   ► That's a really good idea.

00:56:53 ◼   ► - So like the notes widget, you can choose like his,

00:56:56 ◼   ► just have it be this note

00:56:58 ◼   ► and it just gives you quick access to that.

00:57:00 ◼   ► - I think this is another idea of yours

00:57:01 ◼   ► that I am going to steal because when I was traveling,

00:57:05 ◼   ► I thought like, oh, the only thing

00:57:07 ◼   ► that I really need is Flighty.

00:57:09 ◼   ► So I swapped out, I think I swapped out OmniFocus for Flighty

00:57:13 ◼   ► and had that listed.

00:57:15 ◼   ► But something for like, I'm traveling right now,

00:57:19 ◼   ► particularly with that notes folder of like,

00:57:20 ◼   ► Here's all the, I had just various instructions for,

00:57:24 ◼   ► here's how you need to properly reenter the UK

00:57:27 ◼   ► and like the paperwork and stuff.

00:57:29 ◼   ► Yeah, that feels like it's useful to have a different mode

00:57:32 ◼   ► where I can just have quick access to that kind of thing.

00:57:35 ◼   ► - And this one is like active travel.

00:57:37 ◼   ► I still wanna set up like a vacation one as well.

00:57:40 ◼   ► So like this is, I'm on the move.

00:57:43 ◼   ► - Oh yeah, no, I totally get it.

00:57:46 ◼   ► That is a different mode from,

00:57:48 ◼   ► I'm at the location and chilling out is different from I'm on the move, which is also why I

00:57:53 ◼   ► see it almost feels like aspirational or inspiring there to have the Hawaiian Airlines app icon

00:58:01 ◼   ► in the bottom by just like something pleasant to think about.

00:58:04 ◼   ► Basically, this is the spots where that will swap out depending on where I'm going, like

00:58:09 ◼   ► the airlines that I'm using.

00:58:11 ◼   ► And so they're just like two airline apps that I have installed and so I put them on

00:58:14 ◼   ► there.

00:58:15 ◼   ► I don't know why in airlines.

00:58:17 ◼   ► And then it's like wallet, which is, you know,

00:58:19 ◼   ► you gotta have the wallet, Google maps,

00:58:20 ◼   ► Instagram camera messages, Slack,

00:58:22 ◼   ► and then my regular doc.

00:58:24 ◼   ► That feels pretty set for me.

00:58:25 ◼   ► Like I kinda, I think I kinda like it

00:58:27 ◼   ► and I will be trying it out soon enough.

00:58:30 ◼   ► We've taken a trip soon.

00:58:31 ◼   ► So I'll let you know how that works.

00:58:33 ◼   ► - Yeah, I'm literally adding United Airlines

00:58:37 ◼   ► and a few of my other travel apps to a screen

00:58:39 ◼   ► to remind me that this is a thing

00:58:40 ◼   ► that I wanna set up in the future.

00:58:42 ◼   ► I really like this idea.

00:58:43 ◼   ► So I am going to copy this from you.

00:58:46 ◼   ► What is Tripsy again?

00:58:47 ◼   ► That's the one where you plan the itinerary for the trip.

00:58:50 ◼   ► Is that what that app is for?

00:58:52 ◼   ► - Yeah, we spoke about it before

00:58:53 ◼   ► and you said you liked it,

00:58:54 ◼   ► but the one thing it didn't have that you wanted

00:58:56 ◼   ► was a map of all the things that you wanna go to on.

00:58:58 ◼   ► They have since added a map option.

00:59:01 ◼   ► So you can view all of the things

00:59:03 ◼   ► that you wanna do on the map.

00:59:05 ◼   ► - Yeah, no, but you know,

00:59:06 ◼   ► my map girl Meg Frost added what I wanted

00:59:09 ◼   ► in the Apple Maps. - Oh yes.

00:59:10 ◼   ► I forgot about that.

00:59:12 ◼   ► I forgot about that.

00:59:13 ◼   ► - Apple Maps, the most interesting and exciting app

00:59:17 ◼   ► on the phone, and I'm not even joking about that.

00:59:19 ◼   ► I love Apple Maps.

00:59:20 ◼   ► And so, yes, now I have hundreds of dots all over the world

00:59:25 ◼   ► that I've added to Apple Maps,

00:59:26 ◼   ► and Apple Maps keeps bugging me.

00:59:28 ◼   ► They go, "Hey, you seem to have added a lot of locations.

00:59:31 ◼   ► Are you okay with us using this in our database

00:59:33 ◼   ► to improve maps?"

00:59:34 ◼   ► I'm like, "No, these are all my secrets."

00:59:37 ◼   ► - How do you?

00:59:37 ◼   ► State of the maps.

00:59:39 ◼   ► - State of the maps.

00:59:41 ◼   ► *laughs*

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01:01:39 ◼   ► (beep)

01:01:40 ◼   ► Okay, you wanna go through categories?

01:01:42 ◼   ► - It's time for categories.

01:01:43 ◼   ► We will start with productivity,

01:01:45 ◼   ► and obviously the most important productivity app

01:01:48 ◼   ► is your To-Do app or your task management app.

01:01:51 ◼   ► And I have gone through a huge change this year

01:01:54 ◼   ► that I have neglected,

01:01:57 ◼   ► and that I have resisted talking about until now.

01:01:59 ◼   ► I wanted to wait and talk about it now.

01:02:02 ◼   ► And I have moved from OmniFocus back to Todoist.

01:02:06 ◼   ► - Interesting, yeah, 'cause I listened to last year's show

01:02:08 ◼   ► and you were, I think, moving from Todoist

01:02:11 ◼   ► into OmniFocus at that point in time.

01:02:13 ◼   ► And so now you have moved back.

01:02:15 ◼   ► - And now I've moved back.

01:02:17 ◼   ► So I moved back to Todoist about six months ago.

01:02:20 ◼   ► And I've been very happy since.

01:02:22 ◼   ► I had a couple of things that changed for me.

01:02:25 ◼   ► One is I felt like OmniFocus was too complicated

01:02:29 ◼   ► for what I was doing.

01:02:31 ◼   ► I think that I ended up in a situation

01:02:33 ◼   ► where I was having to add too much metadata

01:02:37 ◼   ► to a task for the system that I was using.

01:02:40 ◼   ► And really, all I needed was very simple,

01:02:43 ◼   ► just a list of projects, some buckets,

01:02:45 ◼   ► I don't need projects and tags.

01:02:47 ◼   ► I thought I might like all of that,

01:02:49 ◼   ► but then ultimately it wasn't what I wanted.

01:02:51 ◼   ► You know, it's like, oh, I'll add all these tags

01:02:53 ◼   ► and I'll create all these perspectives

01:02:54 ◼   ► and they can show to me at different times

01:02:57 ◼   ► and I can have these like overviews or I never used it.

01:03:00 ◼   ► What I use and all I ever use is a list of tasks

01:03:05 ◼   ► like chronologically, all of my tasks just on a,

01:03:10 ◼   ► what am I doing over the next seven days or whatever.

01:03:13 ◼   ► And what I've always enjoyed about Todoist

01:03:15 ◼   ► is their view of this is endless.

01:03:18 ◼   ► So it shows you easily the next few days,

01:03:21 ◼   ► but you can just keep scrolling forever

01:03:23 ◼   ► and continue to get that on like a list calendar kind of view

01:03:28 ◼   ► of all of your tasks.

01:03:30 ◼   ► And really that's all I want.

01:03:32 ◼   ► I also really missed the natural language entry everywhere.

01:03:36 ◼   ► That's why I have that on the iPhone,

01:03:39 ◼   ► I have that on the Mac,

01:03:40 ◼   ► and I could just add the tasks in natural language.

01:03:42 ◼   ► I think I kinda like that I can add tasks

01:03:44 ◼   ► into the application, just into the application.

01:03:47 ◼   ► For me, on the iPhone especially,

01:03:50 ◼   ► I had to end up creating a shortcut

01:03:51 ◼   ► to just add a task simply to OmniFocus.

01:03:55 ◼   ► Adding a task in the OmniFocus app is a real to-do in it.

01:03:59 ◼   ► not in the way that that is a thing you don't want to do.

01:04:02 ◼   ► It's always a real to do.

01:04:04 ◼   ► Why did I pick the exact wrong phrase to use?

01:04:07 ◼   ► My brain is so stupid.

01:04:09 ◼   ► And I honestly, I find Todoist's UI

01:04:12 ◼   ► so much more consistent on the platforms that I use.

01:04:14 ◼   ► Like we spoke about this at the time

01:04:16 ◼   ► that the OmniFocus Mac app

01:04:17 ◼   ► feels like it's made a different company.

01:04:20 ◼   ► And I've kind of been leaning back towards simplicity.

01:04:23 ◼   ► So they are the reasons that I went to Todoist,

01:04:28 ◼   ► but there is another reason I moved from OmniFocus.

01:04:31 ◼   ► So OmniFocus currently have a new version

01:04:35 ◼   ► of the application in beta,

01:04:37 ◼   ► and I've been playing around with it.

01:04:38 ◼   ► And yes, it's in beta,

01:04:40 ◼   ► but ultimately I think OmniFocus are moving

01:04:42 ◼   ► in some directions that I don't think of for me,

01:04:44 ◼   ► from like a visual perspective

01:04:46 ◼   ► and a layout perspective of the app,

01:04:49 ◼   ► that over the entire period of the beta process,

01:04:54 ◼   ► I think they are making some decisions

01:04:57 ◼   ► that are not what Myke wants.

01:04:59 ◼   ► And so I think that ultimately I'm not gonna be happy

01:05:03 ◼   ► with the new version of OmniFocus.

01:05:05 ◼   ► And so I've decided, I decided pretty early on to be like,

01:05:09 ◼   ► I'm gonna remove myself from something

01:05:12 ◼   ► that's gonna happen to me before it happens to me.

01:05:15 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah.

01:05:16 ◼   ► UI changes can be even subtle ones,

01:05:20 ◼   ► real devastating sometimes.

01:05:21 ◼   ► - To get a bit nerdy about it,

01:05:23 ◼   ► Omni have decided to make the next version of OmniFocus

01:05:25 ◼   ► completely out of Swift UI.

01:05:27 ◼   ► like they are using SwiftUI for this.

01:05:29 ◼   ► - Right.

01:05:30 ◼   ► - And I'm not convinced that SwiftUI is ready

01:05:33 ◼   ► for an application as complicated as OmniFocus.

01:05:35 ◼   ► - Ah, interesting.

01:05:36 ◼   ► - And there are parts of admittedly the beta, right,

01:05:40 ◼   ► they're still working it.

01:05:40 ◼   ► I would say it has gotten a lot better

01:05:42 ◼   ► over the period of time,

01:05:44 ◼   ► but I feel like sometimes like I tap things

01:05:46 ◼   ► and they just don't do what I want,

01:05:48 ◼   ► or tap targets are way too small.

01:05:51 ◼   ► For the way that I use the application,

01:05:53 ◼   ► which is mostly looking at a list of tasks,

01:05:55 ◼   ► it feels like it's not really best in that view anymore.

01:06:00 ◼   ► So what I'm sure it will do once they get it

01:06:03 ◼   ► to a point where they're happy with it,

01:06:04 ◼   ► it will bring a level of unification

01:06:07 ◼   ► to the app's user interface across all the platforms.

01:06:09 ◼   ► It's kind of the point of SwiftUI.

01:06:11 ◼   ► But I just, I don't think it's for me.

01:06:15 ◼   ► And now I'm much happier back on Todoist again.

01:06:19 ◼   ► I tried OmniFocus, I tried to complicate my system

01:06:23 ◼   ► to give me more data to therefore potentially

01:06:25 ◼   ► make me more productive, it didn't do that.

01:06:28 ◼   ► And I felt like ultimately I was working with something

01:06:33 ◼   ► that was looking for more from me

01:06:36 ◼   ► than I was willing to give it,

01:06:37 ◼   ► where Todoist is much more simple for me,

01:06:40 ◼   ► and also from a user interface perspective, I prefer it.

01:06:43 ◼   ► And I especially prefer it to where I think

01:06:46 ◼   ► OmniFocus might be moving towards.

01:06:48 ◼   ► - Yeah, that's interesting, you know,

01:06:49 ◼   ► 'cause I'm not a fancy beta boy like you are,

01:06:53 ◼   ► so I'm not on the OmniFocus beta.

01:06:55 ◼   ► Just looking at screenshots, it doesn't look that different,

01:06:59 ◼   ► but this is one of those things where I think screenshots

01:07:01 ◼   ► don't give you any sense of how does it feel

01:07:04 ◼   ► to actually use.

01:07:05 ◼   ► So I'm just on the regular OmniFocus for my data.

01:07:09 ◼   ► - They've had it in beta for a long time,

01:07:11 ◼   ► and I think it's because they know that what they're doing

01:07:13 ◼   ► is like a big, big job.

01:07:14 ◼   ► And I'm not, what I'm, I really want people to listen

01:07:17 ◼   ► to what I'm saying here in that I am using

01:07:20 ◼   ► an unreleased version of the application, right?

01:07:22 ◼   ► I'm not saying that the app is going to be bad.

01:07:26 ◼   ► What I'm saying is the decisions that they are making,

01:07:29 ◼   ► I don't think are what I want from that app.

01:07:32 ◼   ► And so I've decided to like cut my losses.

01:07:35 ◼   ► But you know, I know that they have a very wide

01:07:38 ◼   ► and open beta process so they can get feedback from people.

01:07:42 ◼   ► And so they've made a bunch of tweaks to the application,

01:07:44 ◼   ► but just like the main view of the app that I like

01:07:47 ◼   ► is what I described in Todoist,

01:07:48 ◼   ► which is here is a list of tasks on a chronological view.

01:07:53 ◼   ► In the new version of OmniFocus, the way it is shown,

01:07:58 ◼   ► it just, it looks more like now,

01:08:01 ◼   ► here's one project of tasks.

01:08:05 ◼   ► And that's not what I want.

01:08:05 ◼   ► I want things divided up with date more.

01:08:07 ◼   ► And I like to see my tags there.

01:08:10 ◼   ► And when you have, when I was using OmniFocus,

01:08:12 ◼   ► I was using multiple tags,

01:08:13 ◼   ► and then the tags go over multiple lines.

01:08:16 ◼   ► and it's like, it looks too busy

01:08:18 ◼   ► and it's not broken up in the way that I wanted.

01:08:21 ◼   ► And maybe that works for some people.

01:08:22 ◼   ► I don't think it works for me.

01:08:24 ◼   ► And I think that just that view, which is important to me,

01:08:28 ◼   ► I think is gonna have changed too much.

01:08:30 ◼   ► And I don't know if that's right for me going forward.

01:08:33 ◼   ► - Yeah, no, that makes sense.

01:08:34 ◼   ► And I do think visually the one problem

01:08:37 ◼   ► that OmniFocus has always had is just too busy.

01:08:42 ◼   ► Like I do think, I called it before,

01:08:45 ◼   ► like redundant information syndrome of like they show you the same thing like three times.

01:08:51 ◼   ► It's always been a problem that the app has had visually.

01:08:55 ◼   ► And so I can see that if they've changed the way some things look like if you use tags a bunch,

01:09:01 ◼   ► the way they display those tags, if it's just not the way that you were thinking about them can be a real problem.

01:09:06 ◼   ► So I totally get it.

01:09:07 ◼   ► Like it makes sense.

01:09:08 ◼   ► And if Todoist is working better with the way that your brain thinks about things, which is like you want an infinite list,

01:09:14 ◼   ► scrolling off into the future, then go for it.

01:09:18 ◼   ► I feel like this for you is a little bit like

01:09:19 ◼   ► that time that I tried running,

01:09:21 ◼   ► and I gave it a real go, and then it's like,

01:09:23 ◼   ► "No, I can put this aside,

01:09:25 ◼   ► "and I know that I will never go back to this.

01:09:27 ◼   ► "I tried it once, and I never have to worry again."

01:09:31 ◼   ► - I think that is exactly it.

01:09:33 ◼   ► You were saying stuff, and it sounded really interesting,

01:09:35 ◼   ► and I was like, "All right, let me try it."

01:09:36 ◼   ► And I tried it, and I was like, "I don't work this way."

01:09:39 ◼   ► - Yeah, and now you know,

01:09:40 ◼   ► you never have to wonder about OmniFocus again.

01:09:43 ◼   ► It is totally not for you.

01:09:45 ◼   ► - You're still omni-focus, right?

01:09:46 ◼   ► Or big omni-focus all the time?

01:09:47 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:09:50 ◼   ► I am.

01:09:51 ◼   ► I think this is...

01:09:53 ◼   ► (both laughing)

01:09:56 ◼   ► What's so funny, Myke?

01:09:57 ◼   ► - I sounded very sure.

01:09:58 ◼   ► You sounded so sure then.

01:10:00 ◼   ► - Well, it's been,

01:10:02 ◼   ► I don't know if you're aware, Myke,

01:10:03 ◼   ► but it's been a funny time,

01:10:05 ◼   ► roughly, let's say the last 18 months or so.

01:10:09 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:10:10 ◼   ► And just one thing I am aware of is I have just,

01:10:15 ◼   ► just to be clear what I'm about to say is not good.

01:10:18 ◼   ► I have totally fallen out of the habit

01:10:21 ◼   ► of like actually using a to-do app.

01:10:25 ◼   ► - Oh boy.

01:10:26 ◼   ► - Yeah, I just, I think it's--

01:10:27 ◼   ► - Are we about to cancel the show?

01:10:28 ◼   ► Are we done now?

01:10:30 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:10:33 ◼   ► - Yeah, no, this is the end of everything.

01:10:35 ◼   ► No, I think it's just a byproduct of life being very,

01:10:40 ◼   ► being very compressed in a way.

01:10:43 ◼   ► So yeah, it's not a thing that I was intentionally doing,

01:10:47 ◼   ► but I think if you were tracking, like,

01:10:51 ◼   ► how often am I actually using OmniFocus,

01:10:58 ◼   ► or any to-do app, to tick off things as I'm going,

01:11:05 ◼   ► versus doing the thing where I'm like retrospectively cleaning up what I have done.

01:11:11 ◼   ► Like that has definitely been on a downward trend for the last 18 months or so.

01:11:16 ◼   ► And then particularly over like the last, I would say, three to four months?

01:11:23 ◼   ► Like my to-do app usage has been near zero in an actual effective way.

01:11:29 ◼   ► Part of that is because I've just recently taken a bunch of time off of work

01:11:33 ◼   ► so like I don't really need to use a to-do app, but even still it's just an interesting,

01:11:37 ◼   ► I think, byproduct of the times. I don't expect that this is a long-term trend, but I would

01:11:43 ◼   ► say never has OmniFocus' hold on me been less than at this very moment. I'm very aware that

01:11:52 ◼   ► like I need to get back into this, but I have wondered if this is a maybe if this is a good

01:11:58 ◼   ► time to re-evaluate the tools that I use.

01:12:02 ◼   ► I think this is the perfect time.

01:12:03 ◼   ► Yeah, so maybe-

01:12:05 ◼   ► You're never gonna do it unless you do it now.

01:12:07 ◼   ► Maybe this is a good time, like, I think after Christmas I'll maybe take a look at like all of the various options and see what's out there because I just-

01:12:17 ◼   ► My OmniFocus task list is like not actually representative of anything in the state of my life.

01:12:25 ◼   ► Like, that's always one of the tricky things with to-do apps is keeping them in parallel with

01:12:30 ◼   ► where are you really, what are you actually doing.

01:12:33 ◼   ► And so yeah, this is just something that I do need to change is,

01:12:36 ◼   ► "Oh, I've fallen out of this habit, which is like a core habit for keeping life going,

01:12:41 ◼   ► and I need to pick this back up."

01:12:45 ◼   ► But yeah, I think I need to wait for this funny transition time to be over in order to do that.

01:12:50 ◼   ► So yeah, that's why I kind of look at this as...

01:12:54 ◼   ► I don't know, it's a very strange time to be doing State of the Apps.

01:12:58 ◼   ► It's like I do feel like I'm at the end of this weird transition time or it'll really be over like

01:13:05 ◼   ► after Christmas and then I just I think I am going to be doing like a bunch of re-evaluation of

01:13:11 ◼   ► of several things and like I don't expect that I will switch away from OmniFocus but I'm just

01:13:18 ◼   ► I'm just aware that like this is a good time to do another survey of the landscape of what's out

01:13:23 ◼   ► out there and I still say that the concept of defer dates

01:13:28 ◼   ► is for me the absolute killer feature of OmniFocus

01:13:31 ◼   ► and I just don't really see anything else that does that.

01:13:34 ◼   ► But if people do have other apps that they like

01:13:36 ◼   ► that are aware of that concept,

01:13:39 ◼   ► I might be interested in just seeing in the subreddit like,

01:13:41 ◼   ► ooh, what's out there?

01:13:42 ◼   ► And I'll take a look at everything in a couple months.

01:13:44 ◼   ► So I still technically use OmniFocus to track my projects

01:13:48 ◼   ► but it's not very active in my life.

01:13:50 ◼   ► And in a weird way, I have actually just been using reminders

01:13:55 ◼   ► for some of the time-sensitive stuff that I have to remember,

01:13:58 ◼   ► mainly because I don't like natural language input,

01:14:02 ◼   ► but it is so easy to tell Siri to remind you

01:14:05 ◼   ► about something at a particular time.

01:14:08 ◼   ► And so that's like this weird fallback I've been using

01:14:10 ◼   ► for some critical things where it's like,

01:14:12 ◼   ► ooh, I absolutely have to do this tomorrow.

01:14:15 ◼   ► And then I'll just speak out loud to the ether

01:14:18 ◼   ► and tell Siri to remind me about this thing

01:14:20 ◼   ► at a particular time tomorrow.

01:14:22 ◼   ► But yes, I need to get back into to-do apps pretty seriously

01:14:26 ◼   ► 'cause this is not a great habit to have fallen into.

01:14:30 ◼   ► - Yeah, that's interesting.

01:14:31 ◼   ► I can see why it's happened, right?

01:14:32 ◼   ► Because you say you've been away for a bit

01:14:34 ◼   ► and also it is a time of the year

01:14:36 ◼   ► when you might think about things

01:14:37 ◼   ► a little bit differently, right?

01:14:39 ◼   ► - Yeah, and it's also been, I think,

01:14:41 ◼   ► a byproduct of several really intense video projects

01:14:44 ◼   ► in a row where when something feels

01:14:47 ◼   ► like it is consuming 100% of your life,

01:14:51 ◼   ► it feels almost weirdly superfluous

01:14:53 ◼   ► to put a bunch of tasks in a task manager,

01:14:57 ◼   ► 'cause it's like, this is the only thing I'm thinking about.

01:14:59 ◼   ► Like, I can't possibly forget any of the things

01:15:02 ◼   ► that I'm working on, like, this is the only thing

01:15:03 ◼   ► in my life, so I think that's partly also

01:15:06 ◼   ► what has been the contributing factor,

01:15:08 ◼   ► is really intense projects, and then also just a break

01:15:13 ◼   ► from working on stuff, and has left me in a like,

01:15:16 ◼   ► "Oh, I should probably just nuke my whole OmniFocus database

01:15:21 ◼   ► because it doesn't represent reality and start over."

01:15:23 ◼   ► But if I'm going to do that, then that also makes sense as a time to look around

01:15:27 ◼   ► and see what's available.

01:15:28 ◼   ► So I'll put that on my to-do list to check out to-do apps.

01:15:32 ◼   ► I'm very keen to hear how this goes.

01:15:37 ◼   ► I want to follow up on this because if there's other,

01:15:40 ◼   ► "Hey, look, if there's other cool to-do apps out there, I want to know about them."

01:15:43 ◼   ► Yeah, for sure.

01:15:44 ◼   ► Last year or so has been a note-taking quest for you.

01:15:48 ◼   ► I'm assuming, you know, Obsidian is the note-taking app, right?

01:15:53 ◼   ► Like Obsidian forever, Obsidian, Obsidian, we love it.

01:15:56 ◼   ► [laughs]

01:15:57 ◼   ► - Notes.

01:15:59 ◼   ► What are they, Myke?

01:16:00 ◼   ► - Who can tell? - No one knows.

01:16:01 ◼   ► - Nobody knows.

01:16:02 ◼   ► [laughs]

01:16:03 ◼   ► - Nobody knows what notes are.

01:16:05 ◼   ► Yeah, so obviously I've talked about Obsidian a lot.

01:16:08 ◼   ► I think the actual big deal thing here is not about notes,

01:16:13 ◼   ► But it is that Obsidian has slowly, slowly taken over

01:16:20 ◼   ► and become not just the Notes app, but it has also become my writing app.

01:16:26 ◼   ► So it has dethroned Ulysses as the app that I am currently writing all of my scripts in.

01:16:34 ◼   ► We were talking about UI changes.

01:16:36 ◼   ► This is one of those things where last year Ulysses made a relatively small UI change,

01:16:43 ◼   ► but it just totally killed the way that I used the app

01:16:47 ◼   ► and I just found it really, really frustrating.

01:16:49 ◼   ► And the more I was using Obsidian to take notes,

01:16:54 ◼   ► the more I kept thinking,

01:16:56 ◼   ► "Well, I can also just sort of write the scripts in here as well."

01:17:01 ◼   ► And while it is not perfect as a writing app,

01:17:04 ◼   ► there are a bunch of things that I would want it to do differently,

01:17:08 ◼   ► it does work better for me than Ulysses does

01:17:11 ◼   ► after their change to hide a bunch of information from you.

01:17:15 ◼   ► I will say you're jumping ahead. Writing is a category later on.

01:17:19 ◼   ► I will ask you questions about this then. Okay.

01:17:21 ◼   ► Right now we're talking about notes. We have a very strict order around here.

01:17:25 ◼   ► Oh! Okay.

01:17:26 ◼   ► I'm so sorry. I didn't realize. I didn't mean to be jumping ahead that much.

01:17:29 ◼   ► You're ruining the chapters, right? We're in notes now.

01:17:33 ◼   ► You set this order. I didn't set this order. I have nothing to

01:17:37 ◼   ► do with these show notes that we're going through. I have typed nothing here.

01:17:40 ◼   ► No, no, you set this order when you created the blog post.

01:17:43 ◼   ► What, like six years ago? I'm not beholden to past me in any way. I don't care what order

01:17:48 ◼   ► he set for things. Well, then you're beholden to current me. We're talking about writing later.

01:17:54 ◼   ► Yeah. Right now.

01:17:55 ◼   ► Okay, we'll talk about writing later. That's fine. So I will just say yes, Notes. What are they? No

01:18:00 ◼   ► one knows. I still don't know what Notes are. Obsidian is definitely the app that I use for

01:18:04 ◼   ► notes. I'll also say that I've been really impressed this year with just Apple's Notes app.

01:18:13 ◼   ► I've been just using it a surprising amount. It's not anything in particular, I just feel like they

01:18:19 ◼   ► have added slowly, slowly a bunch of little features that have all added up to I'm using

01:18:26 ◼   ► the Notes app a lot more. I particularly just such a killer feature, but I love being able to

01:18:33 ◼   ► tap the pencil on the screen and it brings up a note and you can just start writing on that.

01:18:39 ◼   ► It's really, really nice. And when I was teaching my mom magic when I was there visiting her,

01:18:45 ◼   ► it's like I constantly had the Notes app out. And so I would like draw little diagrams of like,

01:18:51 ◼   ► "Oh, here's how this works." And I wrote up a bunch of notes for her about how different parts

01:18:58 ◼   ► of the game work. It's like, and I just, I never even thought twice about it. Like I will just 100%

01:19:03 ◼   ► use the actual notes app to do this. So it's very interesting. But notes has been, it's not

01:19:10 ◼   ► completely yet, but it is very clearly cannibalizing my GoodNotes app that I used to use.

01:19:17 ◼   ► Myke: I'm so confused. What goes into GoodNotes on notes that doesn't go into Obsidian?

01:19:23 ◼   ► Look, Myke, don't start asking questions you don't want the answers to.

01:19:27 ◼   ► Don't start asking questions that your feeble mind cannot understand!

01:19:30 ◼   ► [Laughter]

01:19:32 ◼   ► Yeah, if we're going to start talking about SettleCasting again, then I rescind my question.

01:19:37 ◼   ► No, we're not going to do that. Look, don't worry about what goes where, okay?

01:19:40 ◼   ► I have a whole squirrely system that makes sense to me.

01:19:43 ◼   ► That's great, though. I'm happy for you.

01:19:46 ◼   ► But I'll just say, I have been aware that the number of times I opened the GoodNotes app

01:19:53 ◼   ► over the last year has really started to fall off and Apple's Notes app is just slowly taking over

01:20:00 ◼   ► that and this trip to America, particularly when I was teaching my mom how to play Magic,

01:20:06 ◼   ► like I was just very aware that Notes as the go-to place to hand write stuff and to draw diagrams and

01:20:14 ◼   ► to make documents for her was just the no-brainer winner all of the time there.

01:20:19 ◼   ► - It just feels good, the tools are fantastic,

01:20:22 ◼   ► they're nice and simple, but they have exactly

01:20:23 ◼   ► what you need, like the drawing stuff.

01:20:26 ◼   ► It's really good, I love apps that integrate that though.

01:20:29 ◼   ► So I use Craft, right?

01:20:30 ◼   ► Craft I've been using for everything related

01:20:33 ◼   ► to Cortex brand.

01:20:34 ◼   ► So I was using this in Notion last time,

01:20:37 ◼   ► and I spoke about looking at Craft as an option,

01:20:40 ◼   ► and I'm really happy about my choice.

01:20:42 ◼   ► But like one of the things they do is like,

01:20:44 ◼   ► you can draw stuff in Craft, you know,

01:20:46 ◼   ► using the Apple Pencil, and they use Apple's tools,

01:20:49 ◼   ► which is a thing that developers can use as an API

01:20:52 ◼   ► for I think it's called Pencil Kit.

01:20:53 ◼   ► So you get all of the benefit of that

01:20:57 ◼   ► inside whatever app you want,

01:20:59 ◼   ► and then the drawings live in line

01:21:00 ◼   ► with the other things within the document,

01:21:03 ◼   ► the note that I've got going on.

01:21:04 ◼   ► And that's what I really like craft for.

01:21:06 ◼   ► It's so good at multimedia stuff,

01:21:09 ◼   ► images and text and drawings,

01:21:12 ◼   ► and all that stuff really lives together

01:21:14 ◼   ► inside of a note very nicely,

01:21:16 ◼   ► which is really good for me is like, you know,

01:21:18 ◼   ► I'm working on product design stuff.

01:21:20 ◼   ► Like I have sketches and then I have photos

01:21:22 ◼   ► and I have text and all that kind of stuff.

01:21:25 ◼   ► One thing I really wanted from them was tables

01:21:28 ◼   ► and they've added very, very, very basic tables.

01:21:31 ◼   ► I want stuff that can do calculations

01:21:33 ◼   ► and all that kind of stuff.

01:21:34 ◼   ► And they're not doing any of that yet.

01:21:36 ◼   ► It's very basic, but at least is allowing me

01:21:39 ◼   ► to display some information in the way I want,

01:21:41 ◼   ► which is in a table,

01:21:43 ◼   ► but I want them to continue pushing on that.

01:21:46 ◼   ► Craft feels great everywhere.

01:21:48 ◼   ► Like it's on iOS and it's on the Mac,

01:21:50 ◼   ► you know, they use, it's a Catalyst app,

01:21:52 ◼   ► but it's one of the best Catalyst apps that I've ever used.

01:21:55 ◼   ► It just feels good on the Mac.

01:21:57 ◼   ► And it means that they keep the whole set of apps

01:21:59 ◼   ► in lockstep from a feature perspective, which is so rare,

01:22:03 ◼   ► but that's what the benefit

01:22:04 ◼   ► of using this kind of technology is.

01:22:07 ◼   ► Obviously I like their widget, right?

01:22:08 ◼   ► Like I showed you that,

01:22:09 ◼   ► I have that widget on my iPad as well.

01:22:11 ◼   ► It's just like a real easy way to jump

01:22:12 ◼   ► into some recently used notes.

01:22:15 ◼   ► And as a reminder for people,

01:22:16 ◼   ► all of my notes for everything else go in Apple's notes.

01:22:19 ◼   ► So these are personal notes, show preparation notes.

01:22:23 ◼   ► Like I mentioned it earlier,

01:22:25 ◼   ► stuff like a trip confirmation emails, PDFs go in there.

01:22:28 ◼   ► Like I have hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of notes

01:22:30 ◼   ► that Apple Notes have, I think it's awesome.

01:22:33 ◼   ► And the Notes app would do great for all of the stuff

01:22:36 ◼   ► that I use craft for too, for Cortex brand.

01:22:39 ◼   ► But what I've wanted to do with a lot of stuff

01:22:41 ◼   ► related to Cortex brand is keep things related

01:22:44 ◼   ► to our company in their own applications

01:22:47 ◼   ► so they're siloed away.

01:22:49 ◼   ► Like it is a thing I wished I would have done

01:22:51 ◼   ► with all of my Relay FM related notes as well.

01:22:54 ◼   ► But it's too late now, it's too integrated, you know?

01:22:57 ◼   ► But like it would have been nice for me

01:22:59 ◼   ► to have a specific app where all of my show preparation

01:23:02 ◼   ► lived that was different to where my personal notes lived.

01:23:05 ◼   ► But it's, you know, now it's kind of like all intertwined

01:23:07 ◼   ► and I don't want to undo it because I'm very used

01:23:09 ◼   ► the way the system works and I've not found anything that works exactly the way that I

01:23:13 ◼   ► want which is what Notes does, you know? Like the way that the share extension works and

01:23:18 ◼   ► all that kind of stuff. It just, it's perfect for me like for the adding links to it and

01:23:22 ◼   ► stuff like that. I really like the way it works for that. And I've played around maybe

01:23:26 ◼   ► turning it into a different craft because craft have like these workspaces so I could

01:23:30 ◼   ► have like two workspaces. I might do this in the future like have a Relay FM workspace

01:23:36 ◼   ► and a Cortex Brown workspace, and they live independently from each other, but inside

01:23:40 ◼   ► of the same app, which is an interesting way of doing it.

01:23:43 ◼   ► Like, and I tried creating folders in Notes and putting all the Cortex Brown stuff in

01:23:47 ◼   ► there, but I don't like that.

01:23:49 ◼   ► So that's where I'm kind of split across these two apps right now, but I do really

01:23:53 ◼   ► like how I've got them set up.

01:23:55 ◼   ► Yeah, like, I'm always a big fan of siloing things if you can in different apps.

01:24:00 ◼   ► Like, I do think there is a real psychological benefit for that.

01:24:04 ◼   ► And also, obviously I can understand why Cortex brand feels like a very different kind of

01:24:09 ◼   ► thing from everything else, so it does make sense to have its own place to live.

01:24:15 ◼   ► The Notes app for a while was just a total joke, and then it really seemed like Apple

01:24:19 ◼   ► woke up one day and went, "Oh, we should really keep improving this."

01:24:23 ◼   ► And even just recently I accidentally discovered that, oh, they've added tags now, so if

01:24:28 ◼   ► you do, like, if you add a hashtag and put that in, like, it just shows up in the sidebar,

01:24:32 ◼   ► and it's like, oh wow, that's great.

01:24:34 ◼   ► They've added another way that you can sort through

01:24:36 ◼   ► or organize all of your notes.

01:24:38 ◼   ► So like the team has just done a really good job

01:24:41 ◼   ► and just like keep making it a little better.

01:24:43 ◼   ► - It's one of the best apps.

01:24:45 ◼   ► It's one of the best apps that Apple makes

01:24:47 ◼   ► like without a shadow of a doubt.

01:24:49 ◼   ► It's so good and they keep making it better.

01:24:51 ◼   ► And it's so funny because it was a joke

01:24:53 ◼   ► for so many years it was a joke, you know,

01:24:55 ◼   ► when it was just like the font was Marker Felt,

01:24:58 ◼   ► you know, and it looked like a legal pad.

01:24:59 ◼   ► It was like, it was just a joke, you know,

01:25:01 ◼   ► 'cause the rest of iOS was changing,

01:25:04 ◼   ► but notes didn't change.

01:25:05 ◼   ► And then one year they were like,

01:25:06 ◼   ► "Oh, we redid it and now it's incredible."

01:25:09 ◼   ► And since then, they've only continued

01:25:11 ◼   ► to add more features to it.

01:25:13 ◼   ► And people want things from it,

01:25:15 ◼   ► but I think some of the stuff that people want

01:25:16 ◼   ► are too much.

01:25:17 ◼   ► People want like, "What about backlinks?"

01:25:19 ◼   ► It's like, "I don't know, man.

01:25:21 ◼   ► That might be a bit soon for that."

01:25:23 ◼   ► You know, all the stuff that you get in these apps

01:25:25 ◼   ► like Notion and Kraft and Roam and all that,

01:25:27 ◼   ► where you could tie all the stuff together.

01:25:29 ◼   ► But I think that it's such a good app, what it does.

01:25:33 ◼   ► Again, especially if you're pairing it

01:25:34 ◼   ► with an iPad and Apple Pencil.

01:25:36 ◼   ► - Yeah, and even the, like why I find

01:25:38 ◼   ► the handwritten note stuff just so surprisingly useful

01:25:41 ◼   ► is like, goddamn, is there text recognition

01:25:43 ◼   ► for handwriting so much better

01:25:46 ◼   ► than I would ever expect it to be?

01:25:47 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:25:48 ◼   ► - I am still consistently shocked

01:25:50 ◼   ► that it does a great job recognizing what words

01:25:54 ◼   ► I have written in my super duper,

01:25:57 ◼   ► sloppy, cursive handwriting.

01:26:00 ◼   ► Like that just seems like a miracle to me

01:26:02 ◼   ► that it's able to do it.

01:26:04 ◼   ► And that's why it's like,

01:26:05 ◼   ► boy, it has gotten real good over the years.

01:26:08 ◼   ► - And that's without even talking about Quick Note,

01:26:11 ◼   ► which is not really a feature that I've used very much,

01:26:13 ◼   ► but the ability to pull up a note

01:26:15 ◼   ► from wherever you are in the system,

01:26:17 ◼   ► and it's integrated in an interesting way

01:26:19 ◼   ► to grab links and add them to it.

01:26:20 ◼   ► And I can see how that's really great for some people,

01:26:23 ◼   ► but it's not really for my use cases.

01:26:26 ◼   ► - It's so funny.

01:26:27 ◼   ► I kept thinking that I had no use for quick notes at all.

01:26:30 ◼   ► I was like, there's no, I just have no place for this in my life.

01:26:33 ◼   ► But I did realize suddenly it's like, Oh, I have one place where this is

01:26:38 ◼   ► absolutely perfect is when playing magic, I'm designing my own decks.

01:26:43 ◼   ► So I'm like picking the cards that I want.

01:26:45 ◼   ► And I kept realizing like during games, I would constantly think, Oh, I need to

01:26:49 ◼   ► have one extra copy of this, or I have one too many copies of that.

01:26:54 ◼   ► And I would forget by the end of the game what it was that I wanted to change.

01:26:58 ◼   ► And I realized, "Oh, this is exactly what Quick Notes is for."

01:27:01 ◼   ► Like, I don't care to have this exist in my real system.

01:27:04 ◼   ► I can just pull it up while I'm in the game without having to close it out.

01:27:08 ◼   ► And the good thing is that it knows, right?

01:27:10 ◼   ► So every time you enable Quick Note, it knows that you've got the Magic app open,

01:27:15 ◼   ► so it will show you the note that you were working when you last had the Magic app open.

01:27:18 ◼   ► It's very clever.

01:27:19 ◼   ► It's really great to be able to just pull that up and swipe up and be like,

01:27:23 ◼   ► and be like, "Okay, one less swamp," and then just at the end of the game look at what

01:27:28 ◼   ► my little notes were and make those changes. Even for me where I thought, "Oh, I have

01:27:32 ◼   ► no use for this feature," it's like, "Ooh, actually though, in the right circumstances,

01:27:36 ◼   ► it is very useful."

01:27:38 ◼   ► - Calendars. I have a bunch of stuff here, which is, I wasn't expecting it.

01:27:44 ◼   ► - Yeah, I'm absolutely shocked that you have a bunch of stuff. Because from my perspective,

01:27:49 ◼   ► like calendars, well there's only one answer. Fantastical is amazing.

01:27:53 ◼   ► I agree. What more could there be to say about calendars? But apparently Myke has a lot to

01:27:57 ◼   ► say about calendars. So Fantastical is the calendar app, right?

01:28:02 ◼   ► It's excellent, fantastical in every platform, I love it. One of the things that I really

01:28:06 ◼   ► love that they added this year is if you have an event that has a Zoom meeting or a Webex

01:28:13 ◼   ► meeting or whatever attached to it, on the Mac it shows a little icon next to the menu

01:28:18 ◼   ► bar when that event's coming up and you can just click it and then it will join the meeting.

01:28:22 ◼   ► Oh interesting I didn't know about that one.

01:28:24 ◼   ► So cool like you click the icon and it gives you a join meeting button you press it and

01:28:28 ◼   ► it will open that relevant application and join the meeting with the information attached