Cortex

00:00:00 ◼   ► Oh, I should probably open the show notes, that would be helpful.

00:00:03 ◼   ► Oh god this Google Docs is blindingly white.

00:00:09 ◼   ► But the first thing in the show notes is Google Docs has a dark mode somewhere.

00:00:12 ◼   ► Google Docs dark mode.

00:00:16 ◼   ► Where are you?

00:00:18 ◼   ► If I was dark mode, where would I hide?

00:00:21 ◼   ► Oh, are you looking for it in the web browser?

00:00:24 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:00:25 ◼   ► You're not gonna find it there.

00:00:26 ◼   ► What do you mean I'm not gonna find it there?

00:00:27 ◼   ► Because it doesn't exist yet.

00:00:29 ◼   ► You say there's dark mode in Google Docs.

00:00:31 ◼   ► It says it right here.

00:00:32 ◼   ► - On iOS, there is dark mode on iOS.

00:00:34 ◼   ► - Okay.

00:00:35 ◼   ► (laughs)

00:00:36 ◼   ► - I'm not 100% sure why they are so slowly rolling this out,

00:00:41 ◼   ► but I'll tell you now, great, Google Docs in dark mode,

00:00:45 ◼   ► yeah, ain't that great?

00:00:46 ◼   ► (laughs)

00:00:47 ◼   ► It looks weird.

00:00:49 ◼   ► So I'll say it's way better in Docs.

00:00:52 ◼   ► In Sheets, it doesn't work so well.

00:00:54 ◼   ► The colors are all wrong.

00:00:56 ◼   ► - Okay.

00:00:57 ◼   ► - So if you use Google Sheets for anything

00:00:59 ◼   ► and you're coloring cells or rows like I do,

00:01:02 ◼   ► it just doesn't work when you've, like from white to dark,

00:01:05 ◼   ► like really you have to rebuild all the colors again

00:01:07 ◼   ► and stick to one or the other.

00:01:10 ◼   ► But I think Google is aware of this

00:01:12 ◼   ► because they have a per document toggle.

00:01:16 ◼   ► - That's not a bad idea for a spreadsheet.

00:01:19 ◼   ► - No, and it works. - That's not a bad idea.

00:01:21 ◼   ► - I now have everything in dark mode

00:01:24 ◼   ► and when I need to see something in light mode,

00:01:26 ◼   ► I just turn it on or off again,

00:01:28 ◼   ► which at least I have dark mode now,

00:01:30 ◼   ► is an option that is available to me.

00:01:32 ◼   ► I like looking at Google Docs in dark mode,

00:01:35 ◼   ► but I would also really love it on my Mac

00:01:37 ◼   ► because right now on my Mac,

00:01:39 ◼   ► I have five windows open in front of me

00:01:42 ◼   ► and all but two of them are dark.

00:01:45 ◼   ► The one that is light is like a light gray and it's tiny.

00:01:49 ◼   ► It's the call recorder window, which I don't care about.

00:01:52 ◼   ► The only one of them which is taking up

00:01:53 ◼   ► any significant space is Safari

00:01:56 ◼   ► and it is blindingly white but it's full of Google Docs.

00:02:00 ◼   ► - Let me recommend a Safari extension to you.

00:02:04 ◼   ► I like Dark Reader for the dark mode.

00:02:07 ◼   ► That's what I'm using to force Google Docs

00:02:09 ◼   ► to not be brightened into my eyeballs.

00:02:11 ◼   ► - Dark Reader.

00:02:13 ◼   ► How does this work though?

00:02:14 ◼   ► Well, I don't like this website.

00:02:15 ◼   ► It's weird looking.

00:02:17 ◼   ► How does this work?

00:02:18 ◼   ► Dark Reader for Safari.

00:02:19 ◼   ► - What do you mean how does it work?

00:02:20 ◼   ► It makes the page dark.

00:02:22 ◼   ► - No, but will it do it for every website?

00:02:25 ◼   ► Okay, I like Dark Reader for two reasons.

00:02:29 ◼   ► It does have an individual toggle,

00:02:30 ◼   ► so you can say, yes, Google Docs, no, my bank, right?

00:02:35 ◼   ► Like that kind of thing.

00:02:36 ◼   ► So you can uncheck it on your bank website

00:02:38 ◼   ► and then it won't ever run.

00:02:39 ◼   ► And then what I also really like,

00:02:41 ◼   ► which is different from all of the other plugins I've tried,

00:02:44 ◼   ► is it has a couple of different modes

00:02:47 ◼   ► that it tries to make the page dark.

00:02:50 ◼   ► So you know how like on some pages,

00:02:52 ◼   ► the first guess about how should this page

00:02:54 ◼   ► look good in dark mode might not be right.

00:02:56 ◼   ► So you can go in and say like,

00:02:58 ◼   ► this mode doesn't work, try the other mode,

00:03:00 ◼   ► and then have it remember like which darkification

00:03:03 ◼   ► works better for which website.

00:03:05 ◼   ► So I like it, it gives a couple of options

00:03:07 ◼   ► and it makes Google Docs able to be looked at

00:03:10 ◼   ► as well on my screen where everything is dark

00:03:12 ◼   ► and I'm like, I'm not gonna sit here for two hours

00:03:15 ◼   ► recording a podcast with a white piece of paper

00:03:18 ◼   ► in front of me the whole time,

00:03:19 ◼   ► blasting into my eyeballs, like no way.

00:03:21 ◼   ► So Dark Reader is my recommendation.

00:03:24 ◼   ► I've tried a bunch of these and I like Dark Reader the best.

00:03:26 ◼   ► - Well, I mean, I've installed it right now.

00:03:29 ◼   ► - Okay.

00:03:29 ◼   ► - But so here's the thing that I want though.

00:03:31 ◼   ► I want it to just opt into some websites

00:03:35 ◼   ► and not everything.

00:03:36 ◼   ► - I don't think I can help you with that.

00:03:37 ◼   ► - I don't think it does that, right?

00:03:38 ◼   ► I have to turn it on and then opt stuff out.

00:03:41 ◼   ► Like that's all, okay.

00:03:43 ◼   ► - Yeah, you just leave it on and you opt stuff out

00:03:45 ◼   ► as you don't want to use that stuff.

00:03:47 ◼   ► - Yeah, see, I don't know if that's what I want.

00:03:49 ◼   ► - No, give it a try.

00:03:50 ◼   ► It'll be fine.

00:03:51 ◼   ► you'll discover very fast is you forget that it's even there for most places.

00:03:54 ◼   ► And you're going to run into like an 80/20 principle real fast of like the

00:03:57 ◼   ► couple places that you don't want to have dark mode, like always bank websites or

00:04:01 ◼   ► whatever. There's not actually a lot of them so

00:04:04 ◼   ► you just untick a couple of them and you solve like

00:04:07 ◼   ► 80% of your problem of "I don't want this to be in dark mode with just a handful

00:04:12 ◼   ► of websites." Give it a try.

00:04:14 ◼   ► Yeah, I'm gonna try it out. I'm gonna try it out.

00:04:17 ◼   ► I'm already like, I'm just flicking between my tabs and I'm seeing some

00:04:21 ◼   ► and I'm turning them off for those websites.

00:04:22 ◼   ► OK, I can I can I'm happy to try this out for a while.

00:04:25 ◼   ► But what it has done is made the Google Docs window darker

00:04:29 ◼   ► and I've changed some of the contrast and I think I'm happy with this.

00:04:33 ◼   ► Yeah, we all know light mode.

00:04:36 ◼   ► Light mode is the worst.

00:04:37 ◼   ► The dark side is cool and the light side is dumb.

00:04:42 ◼   ► Well, let me tell you something that is funny, though.

00:04:44 ◼   ► Both Sheets and Docs, they look exactly color wise how they look on iOS.

00:04:50 ◼   ► So whatever Google is doing is exactly the same as what this developer is doing,

00:04:54 ◼   ► which is annoying me even more because it's proving the point that

00:04:59 ◼   ► Google didn't really spend a ton of time on this.

00:05:02 ◼   ► No, I imagine not. I've always been really terrible as like a color designer. I'm very

00:05:08 ◼   ► aware this is one particular weakness of mine, is that like I'm very bad at selecting colors

00:05:13 ◼   ► that go well together. But I'm very certain looking at light versus dark mode stuff,

00:05:18 ◼   ► that there's just way fewer options with dark mode of how to make things look good that way.

00:05:24 ◼   ► Yes, definitely.

00:05:26 ◼   ► And so that also makes me just wonder when companies are rolling out dark mode like,

00:05:30 ◼   ► "Hey guys, you don't have an infinite rainbow of palettes to choose from here, right?"

00:05:36 ◼   ► It's like, you've got two or three dark backgrounds to pick from

00:05:41 ◼   ► that range from dark gray to darker gray and black,

00:05:46 ◼   ► And then on those, you have a very small handful of colors that look okay.

00:05:50 ◼   ► Like, you shouldn't be investing three members of staff and six months into

00:05:56 ◼   ► picking your dark mode colors. Like, it's just, it's a much, much more confined range.

00:06:01 ◼   ► But also, if you're going to do a really good job,

00:06:05 ◼   ► and some companies have done better jobs than others.

00:06:08 ◼   ► You know what's really annoying? I'm so upset about this.

00:06:13 ◼   ► Google Sheets, they automatically direct to docs.google.com.

00:06:18 ◼   ► So I can't have Sheets always white,

00:06:21 ◼   ► Docs always doc with this plugin.

00:06:24 ◼   ► - Oh, okay, right.

00:06:25 ◼   ► - We'll see, we'll see how this goes,

00:06:27 ◼   ► but for the rest of the episode,

00:06:28 ◼   ► I will be using this doc reader thing.

00:06:31 ◼   ► I like that I could get it from the App Store.

00:06:33 ◼   ► That's cool, I like that.

00:06:34 ◼   ► - Yeah, I don't know how much

00:06:36 ◼   ► of an additional layer of security that is,

00:06:38 ◼   ► but particularly for installing stuff in the browser,

00:06:41 ◼   ► I feel like--

00:06:42 ◼   ► browser extensions. So I'm happy to have at least had a little bit more peace of mind in getting it

00:06:48 ◼   ► through the App Store. Yeah, installing a browser extension from a random website just feels like

00:06:53 ◼   ► asking to get hacked. I wanted to follow up on the podcast, ATHON GREY. How did it go? It was

00:07:00 ◼   ► a fantastic success. We hosted the event for seven hours in total, so this was our charity fundraiser

00:07:06 ◼   ► for St. Jude Children's Cancer Research Hospital. I would say that content level,

00:07:11 ◼   ► I think we did a vastly better job than the previous podcast, and I actually

00:07:15 ◼   ► think it was more entertaining, which you know that came from just having done it

00:07:19 ◼   ► once and that kind of stuff. Technically we pulled it off, it wasn't perfect but

00:07:24 ◼   ► again it's one of those things I kind of learn for next time. There's something

00:07:28 ◼   ► that I've realized is video conferencing software tends not to like seven hours

00:07:32 ◼   ► of constant connection, and towards the end my audio and video was out of sync and I wasn't

00:07:38 ◼   ► aware of it.

00:07:39 ◼   ► So if I would have maybe just quit Discord and reopened it again, I maybe would have

00:07:43 ◼   ► been able to make my end look a little bit better towards the end.

00:07:47 ◼   ► But as Steven put – I'm sure you can sympathise with this, you work really hard at something,

00:07:53 ◼   ► and then something small happens like that, really, and you end up feeling deflated from

00:07:59 ◼   ► it because it's like, oh yeah, right, because it wasn't quote-unquote perfect.

00:08:02 ◼   ► But as Stephen very rightly put to me, it clearly didn't harm anything because we

00:08:07 ◼   ► got the job done, because during the podcast was on itself we raised enough

00:08:11 ◼   ► money to meet our $315,000 goal for the month.

00:08:15 ◼   ► Sweet, that's amazing.

00:08:16 ◼   ► So we ended up going for an extra hour because we were getting so close that we

00:08:21 ◼   ► decided to push it for another hour to meet that goal. And overall in the month

00:08:26 ◼   ► September relay FM and the community raised $456,000 for St. Jif this year.

00:08:31 ◼   ► Woah!

00:08:32 ◼   ► Which is, when I said that then I got like a little shiver in my spine.

00:08:37 ◼   ► So yeah, we've absolutely smashed it and I'm so...

00:08:41 ◼   ► Jeez, like that.

00:08:42 ◼   ► It was such a proud moment to have hit those kinds of figures.

00:08:47 ◼   ► So between both years now we've raised $771,000.

00:08:53 ◼   ► So we'll go for a million next year, I guess.

00:08:55 ◼   ► Total raised over those three years.

00:08:57 ◼   ► Yeah, so proud of this.

00:09:00 ◼   ► We had no idea what it was gonna be like going into it.

00:09:02 ◼   ► Not just the Podcastathon itself, but the fundraising, right?

00:09:05 ◼   ► 'Cause the landscape of the globe is very different

00:09:08 ◼   ► to what it was a year before.

00:09:10 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah.

00:09:11 ◼   ► - And to see the kind of support that we got

00:09:14 ◼   ► for this incredible charity this year

00:09:16 ◼   ► was really very, very amazing, very special.

00:09:20 ◼   ► If you wanna catch the Podcastathon, it's all on YouTube,

00:09:22 ◼   ► So you can go and watch it if you want to.

00:09:24 ◼   ► I'll put it in the show notes.

00:09:25 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:09:26 ◼   ► Really, really thrilled.

00:09:27 ◼   ► That's an amazing response from everyone.

00:09:30 ◼   ► Cause yeah, I was, I was a little bit worried because of like the

00:09:33 ◼   ► global situation this year and I didn't know what the final number was until now.

00:09:38 ◼   ► And, and $456,000 is,

00:09:43 ◼   ► look, you have a hundred thousand here, a hundred thousand there.

00:09:49 ◼   ► It starts, it starts turning into real money real fast.

00:09:51 ◼   ► So yeah, that's incredibly impressive.

00:09:54 ◼   ► And I think a lot of people were tuning in for the balloon room for sure.

00:09:58 ◼   ► Balloon room was a big success, man.

00:09:59 ◼   ► Even my own father who listened to Cortex was like, Myke's going to be in a balloon room.

00:10:04 ◼   ► Where can I see this thing?

00:10:06 ◼   ► I will say balloon room was successful.

00:10:10 ◼   ► People liked it.

00:10:11 ◼   ► I took a bunch of like Instagram stories and put them into a little collection.

00:10:16 ◼   ► And so I'll put those in the show notes as well, which includes stuff of filling

00:10:20 ◼   ► the balloons and then also my favorite thing which was popping them. Gray, I had so much

00:10:28 ◼   ► fun doing that. Like it was, I will say it was like, this maybe sounds a little dramatic

00:10:34 ◼   ► but like it was me, it's like a dream realized to do this because I've wanted to do this

00:10:37 ◼   ► for ages to be in this room and it was like slowly filling up with balloons around me

00:10:41 ◼   ► and I was walking around and I could hide in them which was fun.

00:10:45 ◼   ► You got a lot of balloons in there. I was watching that and I was like this is a bunch

00:10:48 ◼   ► of balloons.

00:10:49 ◼   ► we put like six or 700 in there.

00:10:52 ◼   ► - Oof.

00:10:54 ◼   ► - And like I would, we would come back from the video

00:10:56 ◼   ► and I'll be like hidden and I could just like appear

00:10:58 ◼   ► from the balloons, but popping them was brilliant.

00:11:01 ◼   ► Like I got, you know, like a tube that a poster comes in,

00:11:03 ◼   ► poster tube.

00:11:04 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:11:05 ◼   ► - And we just got some electrical tape

00:11:07 ◼   ► and stuck some sewing needles on the end of it.

00:11:10 ◼   ► So there was like just three sewing needles poking out.

00:11:12 ◼   ► - Okay.

00:11:13 ◼   ► - And I was just like running around in there,

00:11:14 ◼   ► just popping these things.

00:11:16 ◼   ► It was fantastic.

00:11:17 ◼   ► So yeah, I would say absolute success.

00:11:20 ◼   ► Everything went perfectly well.

00:11:21 ◼   ► The balloon room was better than I thought

00:11:23 ◼   ► and even the cleanup was fun.

00:11:24 ◼   ► So, and then along the way,

00:11:26 ◼   ► we raised nearly half a million dollars.

00:11:28 ◼   ► So yeah, pretty great.

00:11:30 ◼   ► - Yeah, that's really amazing.

00:11:32 ◼   ► That's really amazing.

00:11:33 ◼   ► - On the last episode,

00:11:35 ◼   ► you put out a quest to call Texans to--

00:11:37 ◼   ► - No, don't ask me this now, Myke, okay.

00:11:41 ◼   ► - What is the problem?

00:11:43 ◼   ► - Okay, okay, so look,

00:11:45 ◼   ► I know you're gonna bring up the mask thing.

00:11:47 ◼   ► I'm like, "Oh, great."

00:11:48 ◼   ► Grey asked everybody for a mask.

00:11:50 ◼   ► And I'm like, "I'm so sorry to do this to everyone."

00:11:53 ◼   ► So, you know, talk about community responses being great,

00:11:56 ◼   ► right?

00:11:57 ◼   ► There were also a ton of mask suggestions from people,

00:12:00 ◼   ► which is totally the same as raising half a million dollars

00:12:03 ◼   ► for children's cancer.

00:12:04 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:12:05 ◼   ► - I wasn't really thinking of it like this, for sure.

00:12:08 ◼   ► I get what you're saying.

00:12:09 ◼   ► We've moved on.

00:12:10 ◼   ► We're into the next segment, you know?

00:12:12 ◼   ► - Yeah, this is the transition.

00:12:14 ◼   ► - I played a little diddling sound.

00:12:16 ◼   ► Everyone knows that the way that the time works wants the biddling sounds.

00:12:21 ◼   ► It could have been 20 seconds or two hours in between those two things.

00:12:24 ◼   ► So it's fine, don't worry.

00:12:25 ◼   ► No one knows.

00:12:26 ◼   ► Except the problem is when we're recording, I don't hear the little sound.

00:12:30 ◼   ► Would you like me to do it?

00:12:32 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:12:33 ◼   ► If you think it's going to be the little sound, why don't you just go for it in the recording?

00:12:36 ◼   ► That would be something I would enjoy is you can just go for it when you think it's time.

00:12:42 ◼   ► Biddling?

00:12:42 ◼   ► [laughter]

00:12:47 ◼   ► But yeah, so I realized in getting ready for today's episode, I was like,

00:12:52 ◼   ► everybody participated in "Let's have a lot of mask suggestions for Grey"

00:12:57 ◼   ► and they're probably going to want to know the answer to which mask in Grey liked the best.

00:13:03 ◼   ► And I think I bought them all. Like I bought all of the masks that people suggested.

00:13:09 ◼   ► That's the only way you could have known.

00:13:11 ◼   ► Yeah, okay, so here's the thing. I did find one that I really like, but the problem is the mask

00:13:16 ◼   ► does not on it list the manufacturer. I was going through... This is useless what you were doing.

00:13:23 ◼   ► Just let me finish. Okay, so listen. So I was going through the Reddit and I was like,

00:13:32 ◼   ► "Well, I'll just find it's... Surely the one I like is definitely top voted in this thread."

00:13:37 ◼   ► I was going through and opening the links and like,

00:13:39 ◼   ► "I can't figure out which of these masks is the one that I bought."

00:13:43 ◼   ► And so then I was like, "Well, at least I have two dozen,

00:13:47 ◼   ► three dozen, four dozen receipts for masks that were sent to my house.

00:13:51 ◼   ► I'm sure I can work it out by going through those."

00:13:55 ◼   ► And I cannot.

00:13:58 ◼   ► And I'll tell you,

00:14:00 ◼   ► no one is more frustrated than me because I would like to buy more than one of these.

00:14:04 ◼   ► So here's the deal, listeners.

00:14:07 ◼   ► If, between now and when Myke edits and posts the show, I can figure out which mask it is,

00:14:15 ◼   ► there will be a link in the show notes.

00:14:18 ◼   ► But if I can't figure it out, we can play crowdsource again, and I'll give Myke pictures

00:14:24 ◼   ► of the mask, and people can figure out which one it is.

00:14:28 ◼   ► And so we'll get the answer one way or the other.

00:14:30 ◼   ► But yeah, so I have a mask that I quite like, and I have no idea what company made it.

00:14:36 ◼   ► Thanks everyone.

00:14:37 ◼   ► Did you buy the Adidas ones that I recommended?

00:14:40 ◼   ► Yeah, I hated them.

00:14:41 ◼   ► I hated everything about them.

00:14:42 ◼   ► What do you not like about them?

00:14:44 ◼   ► The logo.

00:14:45 ◼   ► The logo was awful.

00:14:46 ◼   ► It's so obnoxious.

00:14:47 ◼   ► I said that though, didn't I?

00:14:49 ◼   ► Do you remember?

00:14:50 ◼   ► No, I know perfectly well that you said it.

00:14:53 ◼   ► And I looked at it on the page and I thought, "Maybe I can live with this."

00:14:59 ◼   ► But the answer is, when it arrived in the house, I was like, "I'm so physically revolted

00:15:06 ◼   ► by this giant logo that isn't even, you know, it's not like a nice design. It's just words.

00:15:12 ◼   ► Adidas.

00:15:13 ◼   ► No, it's got the little lines on it.

00:15:16 ◼   ► It's written on my face. So, no, I absolutely hated it. Thank you for the suggestion. Zero

00:15:22 ◼   ► out of five stars.

00:15:24 ◼   ► If you remember on the last episode I mentioned that there was a mask that I wanted to try

00:15:27 ◼   ► by a company called Atoms. They are now shipping to the UK. I have bought some and they're

00:15:34 ◼   ► on the way but these look to me to be similar in style to the Adidas ones

00:15:40 ◼   ► right like which is what I like which is like that kind of like polyestery kind of material and

00:15:46 ◼   ► yeah I don't like cloth coverings I don't like surgical ones I don't like ones that are made

00:15:51 ◼   ► out of like thick material like this just really works for me though I've ordered a bunch of these

00:15:55 ◼   ► so I may follow up with you but I don't know what about the logo on the atoms mask it just says

00:16:01 ◼   ► atoms on it. Is that acceptable to you?

00:16:05 ◼   ► I don't love it, but I could live with it because it's significantly less obnoxious

00:16:10 ◼   ► than the Adidas logo.

00:16:12 ◼   ► Right. Okay.

00:16:13 ◼   ► Or the Adidas logo.

00:16:15 ◼   ► No, so you said it... Okay, so there are two ways to say it, and you said it a third way.

00:16:21 ◼   ► What do you mean?

00:16:22 ◼   ► It's Adidas, which is the American way, or the UK one, which is Adidas.

00:16:25 ◼   ► Adidas. What are you talking about?

00:16:27 ◼   ► Which I actually think Adidas is the correct way to say it, because the guy's name was

00:16:32 ◼   ► Addy Dazzler.

00:16:33 ◼   ► Wait.

00:16:34 ◼   ► His name was not Adee Dazzler.

00:16:36 ◼   ► Wait, A-D-I space Dazzler?

00:16:39 ◼   ► Is that what you're saying?

00:16:41 ◼   ► Yes.

00:16:42 ◼   ► Mr. Dazzler?

00:16:43 ◼   ► Addy Dazzler.

00:16:44 ◼   ► Uh, well, okay, his name was Adolf Dazzler, but Addy for sure.

00:16:47 ◼   ► Ooh, that's awkward.

00:16:48 ◼   ► Adolf is an unpopular name.

00:16:50 ◼   ► I mean, he was born in 1900, so he couldn't have known.

00:16:55 ◼   ► He was a German cobbler.

00:16:56 ◼   ► still retroactively awkward.

00:16:58 ◼   ► Yeah, it's funny that, really, isn't it? It's a name that can never be used. Who would

00:17:03 ◼   ► do that? Who would call their kid Adolf? It's just never going to happen. That name is lost

00:17:07 ◼   ► to time. There's not many names, I think, that that's happened to, but that's definitely

00:17:11 ◼   ► one of them.

00:17:12 ◼   ► Yeah, for sure.

00:17:13 ◼   ► Right? I don't know if I can think of another one.

00:17:16 ◼   ► Yeah, but also because of the problem, Joseph Stalin didn't make Joe go out of style.

00:17:21 ◼   ► Which is interesting, right? Because I bet that there were lots of people called Adolf, but they were just maybe in one part of the world.

00:17:29 ◼   ► Yeah, I think, yeah.

00:17:31 ◼   ► Where like Joseph, sounds like Joseph in many different languages, right?

00:17:36 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:17:37 ◼   ► But I don't know what like the anglified name of Adolf is, but you know, most names have some kind of like parallel to them, don't they?

00:17:46 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:17:47 ◼   ► So we don't call him Adolf Dassler.

00:17:50 ◼   ► Let's not focus on that.

00:17:53 ◼   ► He was known as Addy Dassler and he created the German sportswear company Addydas.

00:17:58 ◼   ► Okay, well I don't like his name, I don't like his logo.

00:18:01 ◼   ► End of story.

00:18:01 ◼   ► This episode of Cortex is brought to you by Teamistry,

00:18:06 ◼   ► a podcast that tells the stories of teams who work together in new and unexpected ways

00:18:11 ◼   ► to achieve remarkable things.

00:18:13 ◼   ► Every episode of Teamistry tells a story, and in each story,

00:18:17 ◼   ► you'll find practical lessons for your team and your business.

00:18:21 ◼   ► On this season, the show travels deep into the underwater caves of Northern Thailand

00:18:25 ◼   ► to discover how divers, medics, soldiers and volunteers freed a group of trapped teenagers.

00:18:31 ◼   ► You might remember that story.

00:18:33 ◼   ► It explains how a world renowned watch company pitted their two factories against each other

00:18:39 ◼   ► in an attempt to become the best watchmaker in the world.

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00:18:47 ◼   ► in scandinavia to an interesting example of how the virus can be dealt with.

00:18:52 ◼   ► You can discover stories that entertain, packed with business cases you can actually use.

00:18:58 ◼   ► Season 2 of Teamistry is out now, hosted by award winning documentary filmmaker Gabriella

00:19:03 ◼   ► Coppethwaite, the director of Blackfish.

00:19:06 ◼   ► I got a sneak preview of season 2 of Teamistry.

00:19:09 ◼   ► The episode that I listened to was all about an application called Wildbook which helps

00:19:13 ◼   ► helps conservators and researchers keep track of wild animals like whale sharks and zebras

00:19:18 ◼   ► via an AI analysis of imagery. Super fascinating stuff that is helping with conservation efforts

00:19:25 ◼   ► and understanding the world around us that little bit better. A project like this was

00:19:29 ◼   ► a huge undertaking involving many, many people. But the typical problems that are the same

00:19:35 ◼   ► as a team of any size, stuff like data management, communication, these were the things they

00:19:40 ◼   ► have to solve. These are things that we all have to manage. This show really indicates

00:19:45 ◼   ► and highlights that teamwork comes in many many forms. It's not just about office work

00:19:50 ◼   ► by any stretch of the imagination. Search for Teamistry anywhere that you listen to

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00:20:01 ◼   ► of this show and Relay FM.

00:20:04 ◼   ► Cortexmerch.com

00:20:06 ◼   ► So we've mentioned this in the past but we're working hard on a new version of the Theme

00:20:13 ◼   ► System Journal and we have some of the original journal in stock right now at cortexmerch.com

00:20:20 ◼   ► and because we are working on something new we're doing something that most companies

00:20:24 ◼   ► do in the merchandising space in that we are putting our current product on sale.

00:20:29 ◼   ► All of this stuff is new to us because it's the first time we've done any of these types

00:20:32 ◼   ► of things, but the remaining stock of version one of the theme system journal is on sale

00:20:39 ◼   ► now for $15, which is a 25% decrease.

00:20:44 ◼   ► We usually sell it for $20.

00:20:46 ◼   ► New stock is being produced for version two, which will go on sale sometime later this

00:20:51 ◼   ► year.

00:20:52 ◼   ► It is worth noting version two will be higher priced than version one because of some of

00:20:57 ◼   ► the changes that we're making to the notebook and how it's made.

00:20:59 ◼   ► So $15 for a theme system journal is an absolute bargain and it is worth remembering, I will

00:21:05 ◼   ► say it here again, so if you do buy one of these, the layout and the system in the journal

00:21:11 ◼   ► is not changing.

00:21:13 ◼   ► So the way that the journal is actually put together and the system itself isn't changing

00:21:17 ◼   ► between version 1 and version 2, there's just some tweaks we're making to how the stuff

00:21:21 ◼   ► is put together, the product that we're using and there's a couple of little fun features

00:21:25 ◼   ► that we're putting in.

00:21:26 ◼   ► But if you buy version one, it's not like you're going to be using version one of the system,

00:21:31 ◼   ► if that makes sense, right?

00:21:32 ◼   ► Right, yeah. We haven't invented a new theme system for the new journal. It's the same

00:21:38 ◼   ► theme system, it's still the same basic idea of what's happening.

00:21:42 ◼   ► Yeah, there's just some visual tweaks, really, and then a couple of extra little features.

00:21:46 ◼   ► But yeah, so if you have a journal, or you want a journal, or you've been interested to try it out,

00:21:52 ◼   ► you can now get one for $15. And I will remain, it is a great time to re-theme your year still.

00:21:59 ◼   ► I have been very happy, Gray, and we'll talk about this in a couple of episodes time,

00:22:04 ◼   ► when we do the 2021 yearly themes, but I have been very happy.

00:22:07 ◼   ► I cannot believe that's coming up so soon.

00:22:08 ◼   ► I know, I can't even-

00:22:09 ◼   ► It's like, oh my God. I just realized where that sentence was going.

00:22:13 ◼   ► We are a few, literally a few episodes away from 2021 yearly themes,

00:22:19 ◼   ► But I have been very happy with setting a new theme and it has really invigorated my theme system

00:22:25 ◼   ► journaling over the last few months in doing that because I feel like I'm actually moving towards something and living along something I can achieve

00:22:32 ◼   ► Rather than just spending the whole time thinking about how I can't do any of the things that I wanted to do at the beginning

00:22:37 ◼   ► Of the year, so right. I really recommend it

00:22:41 ◼   ► There's still a few months left of the year so you can go and get a journal now for just $15 and try it out

00:22:46 ◼   ► For yourself looking outside

00:22:48 ◼   ► What's happening Myke the leaves are turning?

00:22:51 ◼   ► What is this the new season the new season is a great time to get a new theme journal on sale now?

00:22:59 ◼   ► $15 cortex merch

00:23:02 ◼   ► Com

00:23:06 ◼   ► I have been waiting for this episode

00:23:14 ◼   ► for months, and I have been so excited over the last couple of days that we can share our iOS 14 home screens.

00:23:22 ◼   ► Okay, well, I'm calling shotgun straight away. You have to go first. That's totally fine.

00:23:28 ◼   ► Okay, just to lay the groundwork as to why I'm excited about this while we're doing this.

00:23:33 ◼   ► iOS 14 introduced two key things to the iOS landscape as to why our home screens may look different.

00:23:40 ◼   ► One of them is the app library, which means that we can now hide applications from the home screen.

00:23:45 ◼   ► They no longer need to be on the home screen.

00:23:47 ◼   ► You can hide whole screens, you can turn screens on and off if you want to.

00:23:52 ◼   ► I've seen people say this, including in Federico Vittucci's wonderful iOS 14 review,

00:23:56 ◼   ► which is available now if you want to get more information on this kind of stuff.

00:24:00 ◼   ► But he mentioned something that I thought if you're not doing, something you might like to do is

00:24:04 ◼   ► to have like a home screen of applications that you can just turn on and off when you want to see it.

00:24:09 ◼   ► It's kind of like a nice little idea.

00:24:11 ◼   ► So you could have all of your work apps on a screen,

00:24:14 ◼   ► and you can just long press on the home screen,

00:24:16 ◼   ► and you can turn screens on and off, which is kind of nice.

00:24:19 ◼   ► - Okay, so this is one of these things,

00:24:20 ◼   ► I have to stop you right there,

00:24:21 ◼   ► because I sort of forgot that this was even a thing.

00:24:24 ◼   ► - Yeah. - Right?

00:24:25 ◼   ► And it's like, there is a lot of aesthetic differences

00:24:28 ◼   ► between last time and this time.

00:24:30 ◼   ► And so even right now, it's like, okay,

00:24:33 ◼   ► so how do I set a screen to be turn-offable?

00:24:37 ◼   ► 'Cause I can't figure it out.

00:24:38 ◼   ► Long press anywhere to go into jiggle mode, right?

00:24:40 ◼   ► - Okay, I'm jiggling, just jiggling.

00:24:42 ◼   ► - Now you know you've got the little dots

00:24:44 ◼   ► to indicate which home screen you're on?

00:24:47 ◼   ► Tap that.

00:24:48 ◼   ► It shows you all of your pages

00:24:51 ◼   ► and then you can turn pages on and off.

00:24:54 ◼   ► So like when I installed iOS 14,

00:24:56 ◼   ► all I did was I immediately went there

00:24:58 ◼   ► and just turned off my pages two and three

00:25:00 ◼   ► so I don't have to see them anymore

00:25:01 ◼   ► and that's where all my apps were, right?

00:25:03 ◼   ► And they just got rid of them.

00:25:05 ◼   ► So yeah, but like if people do this

00:25:07 ◼   ► and I think it can make sense, right?

00:25:08 ◼   ► Like you can put all of your work-related applications there

00:25:12 ◼   ► and then when you're on vacation or it's the weekend,

00:25:14 ◼   ► just turn them off and you don't even get distracted

00:25:16 ◼   ► by notification badges anymore.

00:25:18 ◼   ► Okay, so here's the thing about iOS 14.

00:25:22 ◼   ► There is a lot of really cool stuff here,

00:25:24 ◼   ► but a lot of it is hard to find.

00:25:26 ◼   ► So App Library is one, so we can now no longer need

00:25:30 ◼   ► to have every app need to have a place on a home screen

00:25:33 ◼   ► or in a folder, they can just go straight

00:25:35 ◼   ► to the app library.

00:25:36 ◼   ► And then also of course, the big one is widgets.

00:25:39 ◼   ► So there are now widgets available

00:25:42 ◼   ► on the iPhone home screen, which has never happened before.

00:25:45 ◼   ► So Apple has finally joined Android in this.

00:25:48 ◼   ► I overall have been really excited about the widget stuff.

00:25:51 ◼   ► The design and the customization and the flexibility

00:25:54 ◼   ► is more than I expected it would be,

00:25:56 ◼   ► but we'll get into that a little bit more.

00:25:58 ◼   ► But yeah, so now I have widgets on my home screen.

00:26:01 ◼   ► I am assuming you may have at least something on yours.

00:26:04 ◼   ► - We'll have to see.

00:26:05 ◼   ► I am mostly intrigued to see how or if you have changed your home screens now that you

00:26:10 ◼   ► have more control over what you can and can't see.

00:26:14 ◼   ► Oh, we'll see.

00:26:15 ◼   ► Alright, anyway, I spent some time today putting together a nice little graphic for you.

00:26:21 ◼   ► Ooh, okay, this is great.

00:26:23 ◼   ► This is super great.

00:26:24 ◼   ► So I have taken a screenshot of all of my pages.

00:26:29 ◼   ► Oh my goodness, okay.

00:26:31 ◼   ► And stitched them together.

00:26:32 ◼   ► This includes-

00:26:33 ◼   ► - Oh, that's a much better idea, okay.

00:26:35 ◼   ► - Right, so I will do-- - Wow.

00:26:37 ◼   ► - With anything you share with me,

00:26:39 ◼   ► I will do this the same for the show notes.

00:26:41 ◼   ► So when you look at the image,

00:26:42 ◼   ► basically what I've done is,

00:26:44 ◼   ► starting from the today view,

00:26:46 ◼   ► I have taken a screenshot of my widgets,

00:26:49 ◼   ► and also, 'cause you can layer widgets

00:26:52 ◼   ► on top of each other, like a stack, right?

00:26:54 ◼   ► It's cool.

00:26:55 ◼   ► So I've also swiped through the stacks

00:26:57 ◼   ► and taken images there,

00:26:58 ◼   ► so you can see every widget I have, right,

00:27:01 ◼   ► because otherwise some will be hidden.

00:27:03 ◼   ► Does that make sense?

00:27:04 ◼   ► So if you're looking at the far left,

00:27:06 ◼   ► I have a stack of shortcuts widgets on top of each other.

00:27:09 ◼   ► So I've taken screenshots of the widgets.

00:27:12 ◼   ► I only took two screenshots

00:27:13 ◼   ► 'cause the third widget's thing is just a set of timers,

00:27:15 ◼   ► which I actually don't really use anymore,

00:27:17 ◼   ► so I think I'm gonna get rid of that widget.

00:27:19 ◼   ► And then we go through the today view

00:27:21 ◼   ► and then to my home screens.

00:27:22 ◼   ► - Okay, okay, hold on.

00:27:24 ◼   ► I need a minute to take all this in.

00:27:26 ◼   ► There's so much going on. - There's a lot going on.

00:27:28 ◼   ► Yeah, this is a visual bombardment here.

00:27:31 ◼   ► - Okay, so the stuff to the left,

00:27:35 ◼   ► are we just scrolling down your formerly called today view

00:27:38 ◼   ► or still called today view?

00:27:39 ◼   ► - I think it's still called today view.

00:27:40 ◼   ► I don't know what it's called anymore.

00:27:42 ◼   ► But yeah, we are scrolling down today view.

00:27:44 ◼   ► - That word never made any sense.

00:27:46 ◼   ► - The first two, they're the same section, right?

00:27:49 ◼   ► But I've just gone through different widgets.

00:27:51 ◼   ► Then we scroll down and we have calendar,

00:27:53 ◼   ► time-ary, we have OmniFocus.

00:27:55 ◼   ► This is the beta version of the widgets.

00:27:57 ◼   ► I don't think they'll be available yet,

00:27:59 ◼   ► but they'll be available soon.

00:28:01 ◼   ► and then we have more time reason

00:28:03 ◼   ► and photos and batteries, right?

00:28:04 ◼   ► So that's my today view.

00:28:06 ◼   ► - Oh, so you're running the beta of OmniFocus, right?

00:28:09 ◼   ► Okay, that makes sense of what some of this stuff is.

00:28:10 ◼   ► I was like, how are you doing this?

00:28:11 ◼   ► But you're in the beta program for OmniFocus.

00:28:14 ◼   ► - I think it's an open beta though, so you can join it.

00:28:17 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, but someone once was like,

00:28:21 ◼   ► "Oh, you wanna upgrade to the beta with you

00:28:23 ◼   ► "or a task manager, do you?"

00:28:24 ◼   ► And I was like, you know what, maybe I should never do this.

00:28:26 ◼   ► That was a terrible idea.

00:28:27 ◼   ► - So there were two things when that happened.

00:28:29 ◼   ► One, that was when they were doing the database.

00:28:30 ◼   ► migration, which is not a thing that I would do.

00:28:33 ◼   ► - That's a great time to do the beta.

00:28:35 ◼   ► - But I really wanted the widgets, right?

00:28:37 ◼   ► - Right, yeah.

00:28:38 ◼   ► - All right, so let me,

00:28:40 ◼   ► I'll do an actual run through for you here.

00:28:42 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:28:43 ◼   ► - It says you or any of the listeners

00:28:44 ◼   ► don't know what certain widgets are, right?

00:28:45 ◼   ► So, we have a stack of shortcuts widgets to begin,

00:28:50 ◼   ► and they live on the left hand side in the today view,

00:28:53 ◼   ► because that's where it's all been for me

00:28:55 ◼   ► for a long time, right?

00:28:56 ◼   ► Like these shortcuts widgets replace the shortcut widget

00:28:59 ◼   ► that was previous and this is where I always had that.

00:29:02 ◼   ► So we have a grid of eight in total widgets.

00:29:06 ◼   ► I have a couple for OmniFocus.

00:29:08 ◼   ► I have my show prep shortcut where I tap that

00:29:11 ◼   ► and it asks me what show I'm working on,

00:29:13 ◼   ► sets the timer and opens the appropriate

00:29:15 ◼   ► Google Doc for that.

00:29:16 ◼   ► I then have a home fan and a studio fan,

00:29:20 ◼   ► so they're like fans and heaters that I have at home

00:29:23 ◼   ► and in the studio, so I can turn those on and off

00:29:25 ◼   ► via shortcuts.

00:29:27 ◼   ► I have a Cortex posting checklist thing.

00:29:31 ◼   ► So more text listeners will know about this.

00:29:33 ◼   ► I spoke about this a couple of episodes ago

00:29:36 ◼   ► where I reworked some automation that I had

00:29:39 ◼   ► using drafts and things for a checklist

00:29:42 ◼   ► that I produce whenever I publish an episode of Cortex,

00:29:45 ◼   ► so that lives there.

00:29:46 ◼   ► And then also something boring, a CPM calculator.

00:29:50 ◼   ► CPM is an advertising metric for how much you charge,

00:29:55 ◼   ► and I just have a calculator for it

00:29:56 ◼   ► because I can never remember the calculation.

00:29:59 ◼   ► So I built a shortcut to do it for me.

00:30:01 ◼   ► Then underneath that, right,

00:30:02 ◼   ► so we have to look on the right image now,

00:30:04 ◼   ► so it gets a little confusing,

00:30:06 ◼   ► for what's underneath in that stack.

00:30:09 ◼   ► These are my time tracking related shortcuts.

00:30:12 ◼   ► So I have start any timer, so I just tap that

00:30:15 ◼   ► and it will give me a list of all of my timers

00:30:17 ◼   ► I can tap and it just begins.

00:30:19 ◼   ► It doesn't need to open any application,

00:30:21 ◼   ► that's the one thing that Shortcuts has.

00:30:23 ◼   ► Every other widget opens an app,

00:30:25 ◼   ► but the shortcuts widget doesn't need to open the app.

00:30:28 ◼   ► Recording and editing is another one

00:30:30 ◼   ► where when I tap that shortcut,

00:30:31 ◼   ► it asks me, are you recording or editing right now?

00:30:34 ◼   ► And if I say recording,

00:30:35 ◼   ► it sets a timer based on what's in my calendar.

00:30:38 ◼   ► So I like that one.

00:30:39 ◼   ► - Yeah, I always think that's one of my favorite

00:30:42 ◼   ► like little clever automation things

00:30:44 ◼   ► that you've ever mentioned.

00:30:45 ◼   ► Like it never would have crossed my mind.

00:30:46 ◼   ► I was like, oh, of course,

00:30:47 ◼   ► you already have this data somewhere.

00:30:48 ◼   ► I could just love that as a shortcut.

00:30:50 ◼   ► - You have to name things particularly, right?

00:30:52 ◼   ► - Oh, of course, yeah.

00:30:53 ◼   ► - But if you do that,

00:30:54 ◼   ► And honestly, I actually didn't have to change anything,

00:30:57 ◼   ► but I just have to be careful stuff I had in the future.

00:31:00 ◼   ► Plus track time is one that I use all the time,

00:31:02 ◼   ► which is if I've forgotten to set a timer

00:31:05 ◼   ► for the work that I'm doing,

00:31:07 ◼   ► I can hit that and it will say how many minutes

00:31:09 ◼   ► and then which thing do you want to assign it to.

00:31:11 ◼   ► So I like that.

00:31:12 ◼   ► Update tag will just update the current time tracker

00:31:15 ◼   ► with a different tag.

00:31:16 ◼   ► And then I have stop timer and open time array.

00:31:18 ◼   ► So they're my time tracking shortcuts.

00:31:21 ◼   ► I use those less and less now because of the time array

00:31:24 ◼   ► widget, there are many different time-re widgets, and that's the one that's sitting

00:31:27 ◼   ► underneath and it's showing I was preparing for Cortex whilst putting this

00:31:31 ◼   ► stuff together obviously. So the time-re widget is better and worse in

00:31:36 ◼   ► different ways, it's not through fault the developer, like one of the things

00:31:39 ◼   ► with widgets in iOS 14 is they cannot be interactive, unless it's a shortcuts

00:31:44 ◼   ► widget, it's the only one that can be interactive. So the the old time-re widget

00:31:48 ◼   ► used to have a bunch of buttons and you tap them and it would start and stop

00:31:51 ◼   ► timers right? We never need to open the app. That isn't the case anymore but I've

00:31:55 ◼   ► gotten really used to having the added utility of, so I have that like the

00:32:00 ◼   ► current running timer there and I can tap that and it gives me a lot of

00:32:04 ◼   ► different options right when you're actually opening the application so I've

00:32:08 ◼   ► gotten used to it and plus there are some other timer-y widgets that I have

00:32:12 ◼   ► which didn't exist before or couldn't have existed before and overall for me

00:32:16 ◼   ► it's kind of like made up the whole package to make it worth it.

00:32:21 ◼   ► Fantastic Cal underneath. So this is the big Fantastic Cal widget. So I've got the

00:32:27 ◼   ► date and a calendar and then showing me what's on my calendar for the day.

00:32:32 ◼   ► Oh your heat map of calendar busyness makes me feel physically ill just looking at it.

00:32:38 ◼   ► I thought you wouldn't like that. I mean I yeah yeah.

00:32:42 ◼   ► That's a fantastic feature. It's a cool feature yeah.

00:32:46 ◼   ► I remember turning it on once and being like, "Oh, of course this makes no sense for me at all,"

00:32:49 ◼   ► because almost every one of my days is like, "There's nothing scheduled for today."

00:32:53 ◼   ► And then there's just like a couple of things.

00:32:55 ◼   ► But I think that's a really, really nice feature.

00:32:58 ◼   ► And in a widget, that's a great way to like, "Oh, let me have a quick look at my calendar."

00:33:03 ◼   ► Yeah, the idea of the information being glanceable is a perfect thing.

00:33:08 ◼   ► At first, I didn't like it because it's quite visually busy,

00:33:12 ◼   ► but I kind of left it on for a bit and I've grown to enjoy it.

00:33:16 ◼   ► And it's basically when you look at the image, it starts off with like nothing to yellow to orange.

00:33:23 ◼   ► And it's basically like a traffic light system of how busy your day is. And the deeper the color,

00:33:28 ◼   ► the more events you have on the calendar. So it's just an easy way, like at a glance, to see like,

00:33:33 ◼   ► when am I busy, when am I not busy? Then I have underneath that, so we're on to the third image

00:33:38 ◼   ► in this panel now, right? This is a time-ary widget showing what I have tracked for the day.

00:33:45 ◼   ► Then we have one of the OmniFocus widgets underneath,

00:33:49 ◼   ► which is showing me kind of my forecast

00:33:51 ◼   ► over the next few days,

00:33:52 ◼   ► and then it also has a list of stuff that's due today.

00:33:55 ◼   ► - As someone who's in the OmniFocus beta,

00:33:58 ◼   ► I just have to ask now,

00:33:59 ◼   ► like the forecast view was interesting.

00:34:01 ◼   ► I presume that you can just set a custom perspective

00:34:04 ◼   ► for one of those instead,

00:34:06 ◼   ► like that's an option on the widgets?

00:34:08 ◼   ► - They have a separate set of widgets in the current beta,

00:34:12 ◼   ► it could all change,

00:34:13 ◼   ► that are called perspective widgets.

00:34:14 ◼   ► and I don't believe they show the forecast,

00:34:17 ◼   ► but you can just get a list of all tasks in a perspective.

00:34:19 ◼   ► - Yeah, great, that's what I'm looking for.

00:34:21 ◼   ► Like, I specifically don't want the forecast,

00:34:23 ◼   ► but I was like, oh, I hope that forecast

00:34:25 ◼   ► isn't attached to everything.

00:34:26 ◼   ► So that's why I had to know,

00:34:27 ◼   ► I had to interrupt you there for my own selfish reasons.

00:34:31 ◼   ► (laughs)

00:34:31 ◼   ► - Then I have underneath that another Timery widget.

00:34:34 ◼   ► This is also something I like.

00:34:35 ◼   ► You can have multiple widgets

00:34:37 ◼   ► with multiple different information types.

00:34:39 ◼   ► And at a request that I made,

00:34:42 ◼   ► the developer of Timery, Joe,

00:34:44 ◼   ► allowed for me to selectively change the theme.

00:34:47 ◼   ► I think all widgets should have this.

00:34:50 ◼   ► Widgets have dark and light themes to them.

00:34:52 ◼   ► A lot of developers have actually worked

00:34:55 ◼   ► to create lots of different color options,

00:34:57 ◼   ► and I love that, so I can choose

00:34:59 ◼   ► what I want the colors to be.

00:35:00 ◼   ► But other than that, they will all pretty much

00:35:03 ◼   ► have dark and light themes to them.

00:35:06 ◼   ► I want the developer to allow me to choose

00:35:09 ◼   ► if I want the widget to have a light or a dark theme

00:35:12 ◼   ► and not just take it by what's on the system.

00:35:14 ◼   ► because that's what I wanted here.

00:35:15 ◼   ► Like, I have two widgets that look very similar.

00:35:18 ◼   ► They're just graphs, right?

00:35:20 ◼   ► But I know the light one means today

00:35:22 ◼   ► and the dark one means this week.

00:35:25 ◼   ► -Yeah. -What I also love

00:35:26 ◼   ► is with these time-re-widgets, you can make lots of choices.

00:35:29 ◼   ► So this is just showing me podcast-related stuff,

00:35:34 ◼   ► what I've tracked in a week per show.

00:35:36 ◼   ► -Okay, that's what this is. Right.

00:35:37 ◼   ► -So this is a combination of prep, recording,

00:35:40 ◼   ► and editing with just show tags in them.

00:35:44 ◼   ► Busy week for upgrade this week, why was that Myke?

00:35:47 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah, yeah, Apple event again.

00:35:50 ◼   ► So upgrade and connected actually, that's more than I would usually spend one episode

00:35:56 ◼   ► in a week.

00:35:57 ◼   ► Oh yeah, connected is right behind it.

00:35:58 ◼   ► Yeah, in a week.

00:35:59 ◼   ► But yeah, five hours for each of those, basically a full on work day nearly for each show, but

00:36:05 ◼   ► that's kind of how it goes.

00:36:06 ◼   ► Then I have the photos widget.

00:36:07 ◼   ► The photos widget is an absolute joy.

00:36:10 ◼   ► This is the Apple's Photos widget, and it surfaces just photos from your library.

00:36:15 ◼   ► And every day I get something where I'm like, "Oh, look at that!" or "Hey, that happened!"

00:36:19 ◼   ► I like that widget a lot.

00:36:21 ◼   ► Shortcuts and photos are the only Apple widgets that I'm using.

00:36:25 ◼   ► Then I have the batteries widget, which I always forget exists, but it's there.

00:36:30 ◼   ► Now we move on to my actual home screen.

00:36:34 ◼   ► Question one is, why do you have the Fantastical widget duplicated?

00:36:39 ◼   ► You have it on the Today View and you have it on your home screen.

00:36:42 ◼   ► Why?

00:36:43 ◼   ► Well, I don't very frequently look in my Today View.

00:36:47 ◼   ► Right, so really, the Today View serves to get to my shortcuts and also a time-ary.

00:36:55 ◼   ► But if I want to, like if I'm purposefully thinking, "Oh hey, I want to just get a quick

00:36:58 ◼   ► glance at stuff," I could look at the Canada widget there.

00:37:02 ◼   ► Really, the top two widgets in Today View, past that, I don't really look at them very

00:37:06 ◼   ► often.

00:37:07 ◼   ► like here's a bunch of data in case I want it.

00:37:10 ◼   ► - Right, okay, that makes sense.

00:37:11 ◼   ► - But if I want to see my calendar,

00:37:13 ◼   ► I want it on my home screen.

00:37:15 ◼   ► - Okay, and so you just have it in a stack with the weather

00:37:17 ◼   ► so you can flip to it if it's not already presented to you.

00:37:20 ◼   ► - Yeah, I have Fantastical and Carrot Weather

00:37:22 ◼   ► in the top slot.

00:37:24 ◼   ► They're both medium-sized widgets.

00:37:26 ◼   ► And I have this one doing the auto-rotating

00:37:28 ◼   ► that Apple does.

00:37:30 ◼   ► And most of the time I feel like I see what I want,

00:37:33 ◼   ► but it's because I only have the two widgets there,

00:37:34 ◼   ► it's really easy to flip between the two of them.

00:37:37 ◼   ► What I've been able to do with these two,

00:37:39 ◼   ► and this is like a thing that I've been trying out,

00:37:41 ◼   ► is now I no longer have Fantastic Al and Carrot's apps

00:37:45 ◼   ► on my home screen.

00:37:46 ◼   ► - Right, right, yeah, because yeah, you don't need them.

00:37:49 ◼   ► - Because when I wanna get to them,

00:37:50 ◼   ► I just tap the widget and it opens the app.

00:37:53 ◼   ► Took a little bit of getting used to that,

00:37:55 ◼   ► but now I'm pretty used to it

00:37:57 ◼   ► after like a couple of weeks of doing this.

00:38:00 ◼   ► And I would say Fantastic Al and Carrot Weather,

00:38:03 ◼   ► they're like my favorite, you know?

00:38:06 ◼   ► I really love time read widgets too, but like these,

00:38:09 ◼   ► the widgets that I'm using,

00:38:10 ◼   ► they're the ones that have standard test of time,

00:38:12 ◼   ► but the fantastic count on carat ones are excellent.

00:38:14 ◼   ► I think probably my favorite widget

00:38:15 ◼   ► is the carat weather widget,

00:38:17 ◼   ► because this one widget, I use the forecast widget,

00:38:21 ◼   ► and it's just fantastic,

00:38:23 ◼   ► because it shows different types of data at different times.

00:38:28 ◼   ► So like in the morning, I get a,

00:38:32 ◼   ► like in the early afternoon,

00:38:34 ◼   ► I get a daily by hour forecast, right?

00:38:39 ◼   ► What the rest of the day's gonna be like.

00:38:40 ◼   ► In the evening, it changes to a weekly forecast.

00:38:44 ◼   ► So I can see what's coming up over the next few days.

00:38:48 ◼   ► Because in the evening, I don't really need to know

00:38:51 ◼   ► the hour by hour, right?

00:38:52 ◼   ► - Right, yeah, at that point you don't care,

00:38:54 ◼   ► like what was the high today.

00:38:56 ◼   ► - Exactly. - It's not relevant

00:38:57 ◼   ► information anymore.

00:38:58 ◼   ► - And if it's going to rain, or if it's raining,

00:39:01 ◼   ► it changes to the rain widget.

00:39:03 ◼   ► like rain information in the widget.

00:39:05 ◼   ► So like, it's gonna rain for the next hour

00:39:08 ◼   ► and here's the graph of rain.

00:39:09 ◼   ► - Yeah, once again, I'm continually impressed

00:39:13 ◼   ► by the Carrot developer and just like the aggressive use

00:39:18 ◼   ► of all of the new features that come out every time

00:39:23 ◼   ► and also almost always thinking about them

00:39:24 ◼   ► in an interesting way.

00:39:26 ◼   ► - It's like I use this widget, but all of those widgets,

00:39:29 ◼   ► all of those view types that I just mentioned,

00:39:31 ◼   ► they're also their own independent widgets.

00:39:33 ◼   ► So if you only wanna have always the hourly one,

00:39:36 ◼   ► you can do that.

00:39:37 ◼   ► And also, all of the information in that widget

00:39:39 ◼   ► is configurable.

00:39:41 ◼   ► So I said I want the high and low,

00:39:43 ◼   ► the precipitation and the UV index,

00:39:46 ◼   ► and I also want the temperatures and feels like,

00:39:48 ◼   ► because it's the only temperature that matters.

00:39:50 ◼   ► - It's the only temperature that matters.

00:39:51 ◼   ► (laughs)

00:39:52 ◼   ► - And you can do all of that.

00:39:54 ◼   ► And so yeah, the Carrot Weather widget is just stupendous.

00:39:57 ◼   ► Like it's absolutely stupendous.

00:40:00 ◼   ► Again, as you said, as always.

00:40:03 ◼   ► And then else on my home screen,

00:40:04 ◼   ► I have the small forecast widget for OmniFocus,

00:40:08 ◼   ► which I at first wasn't sure about this,

00:40:11 ◼   ► but I actually really like it now.

00:40:14 ◼   ► What I don't need is past so much.

00:40:17 ◼   ► I would prefer today in the next two days

00:40:20 ◼   ► rather than past today and the next day.

00:40:23 ◼   ► Because it's just not really something that I'm fussed about.

00:40:26 ◼   ► But I also understand it could look a bit visually weird

00:40:29 ◼   ► to have the highlighted day be on the left most side

00:40:32 ◼   ► that three column. But nevertheless I like this and when I tap it, it opens OmniFocus

00:40:37 ◼   ► to the forecast view, which is where I mostly am. I have it in a stack with a shortcut underneath,

00:40:45 ◼   ► which is my OmniFocus task shortcut, which is the only way I enter tasks into OmniFocus.

00:40:51 ◼   ► Oh, okay. So this is for input, the OmniFocus. Oh, that's clever to have it under there.

00:40:58 ◼   ► I was wondering what the deal was. I thought you might just be using this shortcut to open

00:41:01 ◼   ► perspective but I thought that doesn't seem like Myke, this is going to do something else.

00:41:04 ◼   ► That's actually a really good idea to have the input be in a stack that's under something else.

00:41:11 ◼   ► You can just flick up, tap, and enter a task into OmniFocus. That's a really good idea.

00:41:16 ◼   ► Yeah on their larger widget sizes they have like a button, well like when you tap it,

00:41:21 ◼   ► it opens to the entry, but I like entering OmniFocus tasks by shortcuts. Like their

00:41:28 ◼   ► Their shortcut support's very good,

00:41:29 ◼   ► it's very easy to build.

00:41:30 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's very good. - And it's way faster.

00:41:33 ◼   ► This is the same shortcut that I have

00:41:35 ◼   ► in the shortcuts widget that's in my today view,

00:41:38 ◼   ► and I'm trialing it out here as well,

00:41:40 ◼   ► but there's just something I like about the logic

00:41:43 ◼   ► of where I can just flick it over

00:41:44 ◼   ► and press that to enter a task.

00:41:46 ◼   ► Before we move on, how are you feeling about my home screen?

00:41:50 ◼   ► Is the, this is the only place where there's apps now

00:41:53 ◼   ► is on this one screen, as you can see.

00:41:56 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah, I like your wallpaper selection there.

00:41:59 ◼   ► - Do you? - I feel like, yeah,

00:42:01 ◼   ► I think that's a good one.

00:42:02 ◼   ► - Thank you. - It's a little busy,

00:42:04 ◼   ► but I think it works because it's flat.

00:42:06 ◼   ► - It is a photo I took of the wallpaper

00:42:09 ◼   ► at the Beverly Hills Hotel.

00:42:10 ◼   ► - Oh, that's nice. - That's what that is, yeah.

00:42:12 ◼   ► - That's nice, okay.

00:42:14 ◼   ► Okay, I can aesthetically understand that.

00:42:17 ◼   ► That makes sense.

00:42:18 ◼   ► So yeah, I like it.

00:42:19 ◼   ► You've definitely had worse wallpaper, Myke.

00:42:20 ◼   ► - Oh, I know, yeah.

00:42:22 ◼   ► This is why I'm happy,

00:42:23 ◼   ► because I think this is my favorite wallpaper.

00:42:26 ◼   ► I actually have it on all of my devices.

00:42:28 ◼   ► I love it so much.

00:42:29 ◼   ► And so I'm pleased that you're not repulsed by it,

00:42:32 ◼   ► and I'm especially enthused

00:42:34 ◼   ► that you think it's actually quite nice.

00:42:36 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's extra funny

00:42:37 ◼   ► that it is literally wallpaper as well.

00:42:39 ◼   ► - Yeah, I hadn't thought of that,

00:42:41 ◼   ► but yeah, that's a good joke in there.

00:42:42 ◼   ► Yeah, I really struggled with paring down my screens here,

00:42:46 ◼   ► 'cause I wanted to just have one.

00:42:48 ◼   ► That was what I wanted.

00:42:50 ◼   ► I made changes in the future,

00:42:51 ◼   ► but that was what I wanted to go for.

00:42:53 ◼   ► And I had to sacrifice a couple of applications

00:42:57 ◼   ► so I could fit that two by two widget in there.

00:43:00 ◼   ► Because I was able to free up some space

00:43:03 ◼   ► because there was some apps that I didn't need anymore,

00:43:05 ◼   ► but it was really a thing of trying to work it out.

00:43:07 ◼   ► I never had the clock on my main home screen.

00:43:11 ◼   ► It was always on a second screen.

00:43:13 ◼   ► But of applications that I am opening and closing every day,

00:43:16 ◼   ► the clock is one of them because I turn on and off alarms.

00:43:19 ◼   ► I don't have the same alarm every day.

00:43:21 ◼   ► I selectively turn on alarms

00:43:23 ◼   ► depending on when I want to wake up the next day.

00:43:25 ◼   ► So like the clock app had to come forward, right?

00:43:28 ◼   ► Which meant something had to go.

00:43:29 ◼   ► So yeah, it took a bit of time to get there,

00:43:33 ◼   ► but I feel pretty happy about the selection of apps

00:43:36 ◼   ► that I have on the home screen.

00:43:39 ◼   ► - Yeah, I was originally like, why is Discord on there?

00:43:43 ◼   ► But of course, while you were talking,

00:43:45 ◼   ► I worked my way through of like,

00:43:46 ◼   ► oh, I know why Discord's on there.

00:43:49 ◼   ► - Well, there's actually a couple of reasons.

00:43:50 ◼   ► So I spend a lot of time in Discord now

00:43:53 ◼   ► because we have the Discord available for Relay FM members,

00:43:56 ◼   ► of which if you go to getmoretext.com and get more text,

00:44:00 ◼   ► which is more call text with no ads,

00:44:02 ◼   ► you can also get access to the Relay FM members Discord.

00:44:06 ◼   ► But also the keyboard hobby is very Discord heavy.

00:44:10 ◼   ► - Oh, oh right.

00:44:11 ◼   ► You're, I forgot, you're participating

00:44:14 ◼   ► in your keyboard scene on Discord.

00:44:16 ◼   ► That's where the cool kids hang out for the keyboard stuff.

00:44:18 ◼   ► - It's also good for product releases.

00:44:21 ◼   ► Like if you're in Discord, they'll ping the Discord

00:44:23 ◼   ► and say like, "Hey, we have a new product."

00:44:24 ◼   ► And so, I'm a part of like 20 Discords,

00:44:29 ◼   ► but I don't look at any more than two of them.

00:44:33 ◼   ► - Okay.

00:44:34 ◼   ► - The rest of them are just like, I'm there in case

00:44:35 ◼   ► they say, "Hey, this new thing is available

00:44:39 ◼   ► for sale right now," right?

00:44:40 ◼   ► And so I have that, and it's just like a thing

00:44:42 ◼   ► where I can lurk in these places if I want to.

00:44:45 ◼   ► But yeah, as I dive deeper and deeper

00:44:47 ◼   ► into mechanical keyboards, Discord is becoming more of a thing.

00:44:50 ◼   ► Okay.

00:44:51 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:44:52 ◼   ► So yeah, that makes, that makes, that makes total sense.

00:44:54 ◼   ► The one that catches my eye, but this is just because I've, you know, I've been on

00:44:59 ◼   ► a renewed crusade about this with people, but I was like, Oh, you've got, you've

00:45:02 ◼   ► got Twitter down there, like how often are you opening Twitter every day, Myke?

00:45:05 ◼   ► Like I don't, it's on your dock, like real estate.

00:45:09 ◼   ► My screen crimes and tell you, can't I?

00:45:11 ◼   ► Yes, you can tell me in your screen crimes.

00:45:16 ◼   ► screen time, scream crime, god damn it I still can't do it.

00:45:20 ◼   ► Why is it so hard?

00:45:22 ◼   ► - It isn't for most people though.

00:45:26 ◼   ► - It is, no, it's like, it's a tongue twister.

00:45:29 ◼   ► Screen time crimes, it's impossible.

00:45:32 ◼   ► No one can say it.

00:45:33 ◼   ► - Well, again, it tells you it's the app you open

00:45:36 ◼   ► after pickups, right?

00:45:37 ◼   ► And on average, it's 22 first used after pickup.

00:45:42 ◼   ► But that's, you know, but really, like,

00:45:44 ◼   ► if I look over the week, it's always the top one or two applications for me.

00:45:50 ◼   ► Twitter.

00:45:50 ◼   ► It's in top one or two for pickups?

00:45:52 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:45:53 ◼   ► For first to use after pickup?

00:45:54 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:45:55 ◼   ► And also for actual usage.

00:45:57 ◼   ► Hmm.

00:45:58 ◼   ► I spend a lot of time.

00:46:00 ◼   ► Although I will say actually that the numbers are starting to get skewed now

00:46:03 ◼   ► because I'm using a Mac with Catalina, which also reports into these figures.

00:46:09 ◼   ► Oh, oh right, right.

00:46:10 ◼   ► Okay, so yes, you, yeah, this is, um, I don't know,

00:46:14 ◼   ► Like, do we have a regular time when we talk about screen crimes?

00:46:17 ◼   ► I can't remember.

00:46:18 ◼   ► We do not, but I have it in my topic list for a future episode.

00:46:23 ◼   ► Well, I want to go through that again, mainly because I realized that where it's

00:46:27 ◼   ► like, oh, I actually have a much bigger picture.

00:46:30 ◼   ► See, like things that things are misreporting, right?

00:46:32 ◼   ► Because I have here, I'm looking at it now, nine hours in Notion.

00:46:37 ◼   ► I'm not using nine hours of Notion.

00:46:39 ◼   ► It's just open on the Mac.

00:46:41 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:46:41 ◼   ► We never talked about this, but like in the last rollout, like I've always been

00:46:46 ◼   ► extremely frustrated with, you know, the way Apple does this stuff and just like

00:46:51 ◼   ► the way downtime works and the way time reporting works and yeah, after that last

00:46:56 ◼   ► rollout where they include the Mac, it's like, Hey guys, you know what I don't need

00:47:00 ◼   ► to see?

00:47:01 ◼   ► You've got Finder open for 47 hours of the past week.

00:47:05 ◼   ► It's like, thanks.

00:47:06 ◼   ► I really appreciate that.

00:47:08 ◼   ► Oh, there was a finder window open on my computer while I was doing other

00:47:11 ◼   ► stuff for 47 hours, really useful.

00:47:13 ◼   ► I understand why they're doing it because they're primarily viewing it as a like

00:47:19 ◼   ► parental time control tool and like incidentally a let us tell you how

00:47:26 ◼   ► you're using your computer thing.

00:47:27 ◼   ► But yeah, the moment that rolled out within a week, I was like, Oh my God, I

00:47:30 ◼   ► have to turn off the share across all devices because this is, this is totally

00:47:35 ◼   ► crazy and madness and also the weird way that I want to run my phone is infecting absolutely

00:47:42 ◼   ► everything else and so it's very odd now.

00:47:45 ◼   ► Yeah, we'll come back to the skin cramps at a later date, but yeah I just did that too,

00:47:50 ◼   ► like just turn it onto one device or the other and it really changes things. But yeah, Twitter

00:47:54 ◼   ► is high on Twitter is high for me, you know, it's like one of those things. Should I use

00:48:02 ◼   ► Twitter less, yes, sure, but doom scrolling, that's where I have in my life sometimes these days.

00:48:08 ◼   ► I know, but it's just like, oof, the doc, it makes me sad to see it on the doc there,

00:48:13 ◼   ► and then like, oof, top one pick up, don't do it, don't do it, man.

00:48:17 ◼   ► I tweet less, but consume as much.

00:48:20 ◼   ► Yeah, okay, so, you know, tweeting less is great, it is great, but I think Twitter

00:48:25 ◼   ► literally makes people crazy, and even if you're just doom scrolling, it's like,

00:48:29 ◼   ► I've seen people become real weirdos and I think you can point to Twitter a lot for the cause of that.

00:48:36 ◼   ► But I'm not here to shame you, but it just did catch my attention.

00:48:40 ◼   ► No, no, I know. It's a good question, especially on this show, these kinds of questions are good.

00:48:45 ◼   ► And yes, I think it is something I would like to try and start addressing again.

00:48:50 ◼   ► Maybe I'll make it a New Year's resolution.

00:48:52 ◼   ► Yeah, make it a New Year's resolution. You're gonna quit smoking and Twitter.

00:48:58 ◼   ► All right, should we move on? Is there anything else on my home screen you wanted to point to?

00:49:02 ◼   ► No, I was just curious if you happen to remember like who didn't make the cut for the widgets,

00:49:08 ◼   ► because like the thing that I think is sort of interesting about upgrading for the first time

00:49:13 ◼   ► to this version of the operating system and then playing around with widgets is I know one of my

00:49:18 ◼   ► immediate experiences, even as someone who, you know, if we take a look at the last time we looked

00:49:23 ◼   ► at my home screen like there wasn't a lot there. I still feel like woof these widgets take up a lot

00:49:30 ◼   ► of space and they really do force a trade-off because there's a great utility in having four

00:49:36 ◼   ► buttons and since many of the widgets are really like conveying some limited information I think

00:49:45 ◼   ► when you first start playing with them it really does force you to like have to make some tough

00:49:49 ◼   ► tough decisions about what do you want there.

00:49:52 ◼   ► So I'm just curious if you happen to remember who got cut.

00:49:54 ◼   ► - I can tell you, I have an old screenshot in front of me.

00:49:56 ◼   ► - Who got cut.

00:49:57 ◼   ► - So the music app got cut, the files app got cut,

00:50:01 ◼   ► Calzones got cut for good reason,

00:50:04 ◼   ► which we'll get to in a bit.

00:50:05 ◼   ► Fantastic Cal got cut because it could be cut

00:50:07 ◼   ► for the widget.

00:50:08 ◼   ► - Right, right.

00:50:09 ◼   ► Well, if you still had the Fantastic Cal icon on there,

00:50:11 ◼   ► I'd be questioning your sanity.

00:50:13 ◼   ► - Indeed.

00:50:14 ◼   ► The Canary app got cut.

00:50:15 ◼   ► I just realized notifications.

00:50:17 ◼   ► This is my home security camera thing.

00:50:19 ◼   ► - Right, okay.

00:50:20 ◼   ► - Carrot got cut, Narwhal, Reddit client that I use,

00:50:23 ◼   ► Airtable, Pipedrive, but those weren't really

00:50:27 ◼   ► being used very much.

00:50:28 ◼   ► Shortcuts, Timery.

00:50:30 ◼   ► - Okay, all right, that makes sense.

00:50:32 ◼   ► - There were a couple of applications on here

00:50:33 ◼   ► that I was using to like fill out my home screen

00:50:36 ◼   ► because I couldn't work out what to replace them with, right?

00:50:38 ◼   ► - Right, of course.

00:50:39 ◼   ► - And then there was some that I got to get rid of

00:50:42 ◼   ► because of the fact that I was adding their widgets, so.

00:50:46 ◼   ► - And you haven't gone the cool kid route

00:50:49 ◼   ► of redoing all of your home screen icons

00:50:52 ◼   ► with shortcut shortcuts.

00:50:54 ◼   ► - No, no.

00:50:55 ◼   ► I will say if Apple removed the requirement

00:51:00 ◼   ► to have it open shortcuts first, I would consider it.

00:51:04 ◼   ► - Interesting, interesting to hear you say that.

00:51:05 ◼   ► - You know, I did have a thought of like,

00:51:08 ◼   ► CGP Grey ahead of the curve, right?

00:51:11 ◼   ► All these teens have discovered having custom shortcuts

00:51:14 ◼   ► for icons, but you were doing it for years.

00:51:17 ◼   ► - My only thought on this is like, well, well, well,

00:51:20 ◼   ► like everyone thought I was crazy.

00:51:22 ◼   ► Like your whole home screen is shortcuts,

00:51:24 ◼   ► that's ridiculous.

00:51:25 ◼   ► And I was like, I'll just wait.

00:51:27 ◼   ► I'll wait and like, I forged the world with my attention

00:51:31 ◼   ► and the world will eventually come to me.

00:51:33 ◼   ► And it was like, here we are.

00:51:34 ◼   ► But I honestly, I wasn't sure if you would decide

00:51:37 ◼   ► to go all in on this,

00:51:39 ◼   ► of like now would be the time to try the shortcuts.

00:51:41 ◼   ► But for you, opening the shortcut app

00:51:43 ◼   ► is still the deal breaker.

00:51:45 ◼   ► - I don't like it.

00:51:46 ◼   ► Visually, I think it's super cool, right?

00:51:49 ◼   ► And I applaud people who are taking the time

00:51:53 ◼   ► to pick or create their own icons and set them all up.

00:51:56 ◼   ► If you have no idea what we're talking about,

00:51:57 ◼   ► I'll put some links in the show notes,

00:51:59 ◼   ► but it's so meme-y that if you use an iPhone,

00:52:01 ◼   ► you probably have heard about this thing

00:52:03 ◼   ► if you're not already doing it yourself.

00:52:04 ◼   ► - And if you've been listening to Cortex,

00:52:06 ◼   ► like you've heard us talk about this for years as well.

00:52:08 ◼   ► - 'Cause you've been doing it for years.

00:52:09 ◼   ► But if Apple did do that,

00:52:10 ◼   ► if they would just like stop having to open

00:52:12 ◼   ► shortcuts app or if they created an official like this is how you change your icons type thing,

00:52:18 ◼   ► I would 100% do it. I would find some cool icons online, lots of people selling great icon packs

00:52:24 ◼   ► now and I would have something that was maybe a little bit more to my aesthetic tastes or whatever

00:52:29 ◼   ► and or something I thought of like I could have certain applications that when I tap them they

00:52:33 ◼   ► open to exactly where I want them to be in that app because that's something that you could maybe

00:52:39 ◼   ► do, right, where it's like, you know, I might have like an OmniFocus icon which

00:52:43 ◼   ► just opens to a specific view in OmniFocus rather than the last place I

00:52:46 ◼   ► left off or whatever. But no, I haven't done that because I don't like

00:52:51 ◼   ► the jumping between applications. It would annoy me. I know it would annoy me.

00:52:55 ◼   ► That's why I've never done it, because that step is a frustration for me.

00:52:59 ◼   ► Yeah, I think that's a totally fair frustration.

00:53:03 ◼   ► Alright, so you have one more screen then when we slide over, or two more screens.

00:53:07 ◼   ► Two more screens of just widgets.

00:53:09 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's one and a bit, because the very final screen,

00:53:12 ◼   ► there's just widgets I'm testing or playing around with.

00:53:14 ◼   ► - Ah, okay.

00:53:15 ◼   ► - But the next one is fixed.

00:53:17 ◼   ► So I have two, three WidgetSmith widgets.

00:53:20 ◼   ► And most people listening to this show,

00:53:22 ◼   ► well, I will say, of course I have WidgetSmith widgets.

00:53:25 ◼   ► And most people would hear that and say,

00:53:27 ◼   ► well, yeah, of course, because like everyone knows

00:53:29 ◼   ► WidgetSmith, but my, of course, is because WidgetSmith

00:53:32 ◼   ► is made by one of my closest friends, underscore David Smith,

00:53:36 ◼   ► who we have mentioned on this show before.

00:53:37 ◼   ► He was also the developer of apps like Calzones, which is an app that I

00:53:41 ◼   ► had mentioned on Cortex multiple times.

00:53:43 ◼   ► Yes.

00:53:43 ◼   ► Frequently mentioned on the show, _DavidSmith.

00:53:47 ◼   ► Fastest developer in the West.

00:53:49 ◼   ► And we are now just saying this to try and prove how cool we are that we

00:53:52 ◼   ► know the guy who made WidgetSmith.

00:53:53 ◼   ► WidgetSmith, which was like number one app in the world.

00:53:57 ◼   ► I got to hang out with _atWWDC.

00:54:01 ◼   ► Like that's so cool.

00:54:02 ◼   ► I've been to his house, okay?

00:54:05 ◼   ► I think, I know I was, I don't know if you were testing WidgetSmith during the beta period.

00:54:09 ◼   ► You weren't running betas, were you?

00:54:11 ◼   ► No, I was late to the show.

00:54:14 ◼   ► So Dave was number one for many weeks and is still, I think, in the top 10 in the US and other countries.

00:54:19 ◼   ► It really was, it was just the app, right? Like it was the app, it's what you downloaded, right?

00:54:25 ◼   ► Like, I know I was thinking about this, I joked with him about it, but I genuinely believe it's true.

00:54:29 ◼   ► Like, there were people updating their iPhone to get WidgetSmith, right?

00:54:34 ◼   ► That was like a real thing, which is an absolutely wild notion.

00:54:38 ◼   ► He was basically the emoji of this release.

00:54:42 ◼   ► But I was using two Widgetsmith widgets before it went wild, which was the time one, so this

00:54:48 ◼   ► just shows me all the times in the time zones that I need to know about, and the steps widget,

00:54:53 ◼   ► so it shows how many steps I'm doing on a daily basis.

00:54:56 ◼   ► And then after Widgetsmith exploded, I was like, "Oh, it does actually have all these

00:55:01 ◼   ► other types of widgets and customization options that I never would have thought to look at.

00:55:05 ◼   ► And that was the whole funny thing about this of like, I think everyone that I knew that

00:55:09 ◼   ► was testing the app, we are all just thinking like, what is the best utility I can get out

00:55:14 ◼   ► of this application when the rest of the world was like, how can I use this application to

00:55:18 ◼   ► customize my home screen?

00:55:20 ◼   ► So after that was when I was like, why don't I actually try and theme these widgets to

00:55:24 ◼   ► my background?

00:55:26 ◼   ► Which I did.

00:55:27 ◼   ► Yeah, it looks nice.

00:55:28 ◼   ► It looks really nice.

00:55:29 ◼   ► And I am very happy with that actually.

00:55:30 ◼   ► were just black before. I was like no I can make them look good and then also I

00:55:33 ◼   ► use the photos widget. One of the widgets that Widgetsmith has is it can

00:55:38 ◼   ► look in an album and I have an album of photos which I think is hilarious and

00:55:44 ◼   ► adorable. I call it the close-up album and it's a selection of pictures that I

00:55:48 ◼   ► take of Adina uncomfortably close to her face. Which I just think is

00:55:54 ◼   ► hilarious so I just have these like large selection of images where it's

00:55:59 ◼   ► it's just too close and I think that's so funny and I have just have these

00:56:03 ◼   ► images going over time so it just pulls different ones there for me and some of

00:56:08 ◼   ► them are hilarious and some of them are adorable and that and I like that a lot

00:56:11 ◼   ► and then I also have another one of the photos widgets there so it's just the

00:56:15 ◼   ► same one it's like a smaller version of Apple's photos widget right and then on

00:56:18 ◼   ► the very final screen there's another widgets with widget which I'm testing

00:56:22 ◼   ► because Dave is working on analog clock stuff,

00:56:25 ◼   ► so I was testing one for him to make sure it looked okay.

00:56:28 ◼   ► And then the two at the top are like a trend of widgets

00:56:32 ◼   ► that I've seen, which I really like,

00:56:33 ◼   ► which are brilliant and hilarious.

00:56:36 ◼   ► So one on the right is called Sticky Widgets,

00:56:37 ◼   ► and it is a widget version of the Stickies app on the Mac.

00:56:42 ◼   ► -Okay.

00:56:43 ◼   ► -So you can tap on that, type whatever you want in there,

00:56:47 ◼   ► and it's just like a sticky note that lives on your home screen,

00:56:49 ◼   ► and you can customize it.

00:56:50 ◼   ► You can have as many of them as you want.

00:56:52 ◼   ► It's kind of like brilliant and hilarious at the same time.

00:56:56 ◼   ► And then Scriblet is something similar,

00:56:58 ◼   ► which is it uses the pencil kit stuff.

00:57:01 ◼   ► So you can draw with your finger of an Apple pencil

00:57:03 ◼   ► on the iPad and bring it over to the iPhone.

00:57:05 ◼   ► And you can also bring up images and doodle on images.

00:57:08 ◼   ► So they're just like two widget types of like,

00:57:11 ◼   ► if you wanted to keep basic information on your home screen.

00:57:14 ◼   ► So I liked both of those and I've been kind of like

00:57:16 ◼   ► playing around and testing them out.

00:57:17 ◼   ► So that is my iOS 14 home screen selection, Gray.

00:57:22 ◼   ► - I mean, there's a lot going on.

00:57:25 ◼   ► I mean, I know even with just the,

00:57:27 ◼   ► oh, there's eight screenshots in front of me to survey.

00:57:32 ◼   ► But I mean, I gotta say, I think this is,

00:57:36 ◼   ► I would rank this as one of your,

00:57:38 ◼   ► maybe the best looking of your home screens

00:57:42 ◼   ► in the years that we've known each other.

00:57:43 ◼   ► - I'm happy with it.

00:57:45 ◼   ► like the aesthetics of it, I'm very happy with it.

00:57:48 ◼   ► I like that I only have one screen that I have to focus on

00:57:51 ◼   ► and then every other screen is just superfluous now

00:57:54 ◼   ► and then the rest of it is just searches.

00:57:57 ◼   ► I don't use the app library very much.

00:57:59 ◼   ► In the initial betas I did

00:58:01 ◼   ► because the app library was my second screen,

00:58:03 ◼   ► I didn't have a second screen,

00:58:05 ◼   ► so I was using it all the time.

00:58:06 ◼   ► But the fact that I have to swipe like three times

00:58:09 ◼   ► to get to it means I'm not using it very much.

00:58:11 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah, three swipes instead.

00:58:12 ◼   ► - What I would really like is a swipe up

00:58:15 ◼   ► on the home screen to bring up the app library,

00:58:16 ◼   ► just like on Android.

00:58:18 ◼   ► That's what I would like.

00:58:20 ◼   ► - Oh, that's interesting.

00:58:21 ◼   ► Yeah, I guess swipe up doesn't do anything

00:58:22 ◼   ► on the home screen, does it? - No.

00:58:23 ◼   ► - I think that that gesture is free.

00:58:25 ◼   ► - You know, like right at the very bottom,

00:58:26 ◼   ► that's how you get to like the home or multitasking

00:58:29 ◼   ► or whatever. - Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:58:30 ◼   ► - But in the same way that you pull down to go to search,

00:58:33 ◼   ► I would like to pull up, right,

00:58:37 ◼   ► to bring up the app library.

00:58:38 ◼   ► That's what I would like.

00:58:40 ◼   ► - Hmm.

00:58:41 ◼   ► Huh, you found you use it that much.

00:58:43 ◼   ► Okay, that's interesting.

00:58:44 ◼   ► - I would use it that much if it was there.

00:58:47 ◼   ► Because when I only had the one screen,

00:58:50 ◼   ► I was reflexively would swipe to the right

00:58:54 ◼   ► to go to more applications,

00:58:55 ◼   ► but I didn't have the home screens there, right?

00:58:57 ◼   ► Then I would go to the app library

00:58:59 ◼   ► and I found that the sorting was pretty good,

00:59:01 ◼   ► or if not, I could just search right from that screen.

00:59:03 ◼   ► But yeah, I was using it, but now I'm not

00:59:06 ◼   ► because it takes so many swipes to get over there,

00:59:08 ◼   ► but I would use it more if it was more readily available

00:59:11 ◼   ► to me.

00:59:12 ◼   ► So how are you thinking about widgets in this widget world?

00:59:16 ◼   ► - So I think I mentioned on this show,

00:59:19 ◼   ► when we were talking about self-determinacy,

00:59:24 ◼   ► that my hope, my best case scenario with widgets

00:59:28 ◼   ► is that whilst we would lose functionality in interactivity,

00:59:33 ◼   ► that we would gain in some way, right?

00:59:38 ◼   ► That like, yes, we've lost something

00:59:40 ◼   ► in having widgets, being able to do things

00:59:42 ◼   ► inside of applications, but we will make a gain.

00:59:44 ◼   ► And I think overall that the availability of widgets,

00:59:49 ◼   ► the type of information and the applications

00:59:52 ◼   ► that they're connected to,

00:59:53 ◼   ► vastly outweighs any downsides.

00:59:57 ◼   ► Because my phone now gives me all of this information.

01:00:02 ◼   ► To some extent, my iPad, but Apple really need to,

01:00:06 ◼   ► with iOS 15, find a way to make this work,

01:00:09 ◼   ► to put widgets on the home screen.

01:00:11 ◼   ► Because then, like, shit is popping off at that point.

01:00:15 ◼   ► My iPad is gonna be incredible with all this information,

01:00:18 ◼   ► right, it will be like command center.

01:00:21 ◼   ► It'll be amazing.

01:00:22 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah, and for sure, for sure,

01:00:26 ◼   ► if Apple had known how big of a deal

01:00:28 ◼   ► widgets were going to be,

01:00:30 ◼   ► they would not have like quarantined off

01:00:34 ◼   ► the widgets on the iPad. - They would have put

01:00:35 ◼   ► the work in. - Yeah, like they would have

01:00:36 ◼   ► done it if they would have known.

01:00:37 ◼   ► - 'Cause I believe this is just a case of like priorities

01:00:40 ◼   ► or whatever, there is no reason to do it

01:00:41 ◼   ► other than the fact that they didn't do it.

01:00:43 ◼   ► Every reason Apple has given is just like,

01:00:45 ◼   ► ah, let's mark it and speak, right?

01:00:46 ◼   ► - Dudes, widgets are so popular, you will sell iPads

01:00:50 ◼   ► because people want more widgets.

01:00:52 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:00:52 ◼   ► - Like, they have to do it.

01:00:54 ◼   ► - Basically, what Widgetsmith did,

01:00:56 ◼   ► which it was Widgetsmith that did it, right,

01:00:59 ◼   ► has made widgets more popular than anybody

01:01:03 ◼   ► ever would have expected them to be

01:01:05 ◼   ► without a shadow of a doubt, right?

01:01:07 ◼   ► And now I think people are more willing

01:01:09 ◼   ► to try out widgets from other applications that they use

01:01:12 ◼   ► because hey, they're already used to adding widgets.

01:01:15 ◼   ► So, you know, like, yeah.

01:01:17 ◼   ► But what I like about them

01:01:19 ◼   ► is that I'm getting this information.

01:01:21 ◼   ► I have the weather on my calendar available to me

01:01:24 ◼   ► all the time.

01:01:25 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:01:26 ◼   ► - You know, I'm on my home screen a lot, right?

01:01:29 ◼   ► And so that information is there

01:01:31 ◼   ► and it's readily available to me.

01:01:33 ◼   ► And I really like having even just those two things.

01:01:37 ◼   ► If I had nothing else, I would be happy to have that information because it's information

01:01:42 ◼   ► I frequently want, frequently need, and now I have it there.

01:01:47 ◼   ► I'm more aware of when it's going to rain because the Carrot weather widget is telling

01:01:53 ◼   ► me when I'm looking at my home screen.

01:01:56 ◼   ► That is useful information.

01:01:57 ◼   ► Having the photos widgets brings a smile to my face more in the day than before because

01:02:04 ◼   ► I see these little memories.

01:02:05 ◼   ► It's like, "Oh, that was nice."

01:02:07 ◼   ► So I have that for me there.

01:02:09 ◼   ► And overall, I really like the aesthetics

01:02:12 ◼   ► of finally having a different look to my home screen.

01:02:15 ◼   ► That it is no longer just a grid of icons.

01:02:18 ◼   ► Super good.

01:02:19 ◼   ► So I'm very pleased with what has happened so far,

01:02:24 ◼   ► even though really, you know,

01:02:25 ◼   ► like widgets haven't been available for very long

01:02:27 ◼   ► and more applications that I use are adding them over time.

01:02:31 ◼   ► So yeah, I think it's really great.

01:02:33 ◼   ► And we all thought Apple would do more in year two

01:02:37 ◼   ► of widgets, you know, maybe to make them more interactive

01:02:39 ◼   ► or whatever, whatever they end up doing,

01:02:41 ◼   ► you know they're gonna do more of it

01:02:43 ◼   ► because widgets have been an absolute

01:02:45 ◼   ► unmitigated success for them.

01:02:47 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah.

01:02:48 ◼   ► I think like for sure, there's been a lot of meetings

01:02:51 ◼   ► at Apple about like, so widgets.

01:02:53 ◼   ► (laughs)

01:02:55 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:02:56 ◼   ► - What's the widget roadmap and whatever it was,

01:02:59 ◼   ► compress it, compress it by a quarter.

01:03:02 ◼   ► You know, we now have the widgets team.

01:03:03 ◼   ► You know what?

01:03:05 ◼   ► I wouldn't be the least bit surprised that if there's a dedicated widgets team

01:03:09 ◼   ► in a way that there wasn't before.

01:03:10 ◼   ► I'm sure there's at least a cross department working group, Gray.

01:03:13 ◼   ► I'm sure they've got something going on.

01:03:15 ◼   ► Oh, wow.

01:03:16 ◼   ► You make it sound so exciting with your business talk.

01:03:18 ◼   ► Cross department working group.

01:03:23 ◼   ► Oh boy.

01:03:23 ◼   ► I did choose particularly the worst sounding, least sexy name for this, but

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01:05:25 ◼   ► So come on then.

01:05:27 ◼   ► Okay let me show you my home screen.

01:05:29 ◼   ► Okay so I can see...

01:05:32 ◼   ► Oh is this the home screen?

01:05:34 ◼   ► Yeah this is the home screen.

01:05:36 ◼   ► What did you think I sent you?

01:05:38 ◼   ► I thought it was the today view.

01:05:40 ◼   ► No I have the today view. I can send you the today view.

01:05:42 ◼   ► Yeah I want all of them.

01:05:44 ◼   ► Okay.

01:05:45 ◼   ► Right because I need to be able to view them the way that I sent them.

01:05:49 ◼   ► them. Right, yes, I understand what you want. Those are the only two screens. Well there's another

01:05:55 ◼   ► screen because I can see... I know there's a dot but that the dot has just been where I've been

01:05:59 ◼   ► a place to put widgets that I want to try but there's nothing really on that screen. It's just

01:06:03 ◼   ► like so I don't mess up the home screen. These are the only two actual screens which is my home

01:06:09 ◼   ► screen and the Today View and these are the widgets that I'm currently running on those.

01:06:14 ◼   ► I will say, by and large, this is exactly what I was expecting.

01:06:20 ◼   ► Okay, you were expecting a 100% widget-y world.

01:06:24 ◼   ► I was expecting no apps on your home screen, and that's what we've got.

01:06:29 ◼   ► What we have four widgets.

01:06:32 ◼   ► The reason it surprised me was because it's like the batteries widget.

01:06:36 ◼   ► I'm surprised that's on your home screen.

01:06:40 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:06:43 ◼   ► That's why I for some reason just immediately assumed that it was the today view.

01:06:49 ◼   ► Also I have to say, the other thing that really confused me, and I'm going to say it now,

01:06:52 ◼   ► I cannot believe how much color is on this screen.

01:06:55 ◼   ► It is a pink to blue gradient.

01:06:59 ◼   ► And I think that really threw me for a minute.

01:07:02 ◼   ► What's happening here?

01:07:03 ◼   ► What do you mean?

01:07:04 ◼   ► What do you mean?

01:07:05 ◼   ► That's just not a very...

01:07:06 ◼   ► That this, you know, if I...

01:07:08 ◼   ► Basically, if somebody just opened links and went to this one first, they would assume

01:07:12 ◼   ► that this was my home screen, I think.

01:07:14 ◼   ► - Look, I'm just living the outrun life

01:07:16 ◼   ► and sometimes you just want to change and it looks cool.

01:07:19 ◼   ► - It looks great.

01:07:20 ◼   ► Like I love it, right?

01:07:22 ◼   ► But that's just a surprise to me.

01:07:24 ◼   ► - It actually like, it partly was a thing that you said,

01:07:28 ◼   ► okay, this is gonna sound really weird,

01:07:30 ◼   ► but so my home screen was just black before

01:07:33 ◼   ► and it put the widgets on and especially in the beginning,

01:07:37 ◼   ► all of the widgets are like, oh, hey, it's dark mode,

01:07:39 ◼   ► we're going to be black.

01:07:41 ◼   ► And there were also just fewer options as it was playing around with things.

01:07:44 ◼   ► There's a weird way in which the black widgets on the black background,

01:07:49 ◼   ► I thought just looked terrible.

01:07:50 ◼   ► It somehow made the whole phone seem even darker and we, and inconsistently dark.

01:07:57 ◼   ► I just didn't like it.

01:07:58 ◼   ► So I was, I was looking around for something.

01:07:59 ◼   ► I was like, let me try something that's more colorful.

01:08:01 ◼   ► And I just, I stumbled upon this, but yeah, so I'm, I'm with you totally that.

01:08:06 ◼   ► widget designers need to have options to set the background colors separately from whatever

01:08:12 ◼   ► the system mode is. I get why over the summer when everybody was working on it this wouldn't

01:08:16 ◼   ► have crossed anybody's mind like oh I'll just have it follow the system setting but the moment

01:08:21 ◼   ► you start to use them you realize even if my phone is in dark mode it does not mean that I want the

01:08:28 ◼   ► home screen to be in dark mode and I just think like that's a distinction that people haven't

01:08:33 ◼   ► considered. What I really want app makers to do is to offer lots of options, but at the bare minimum,

01:08:41 ◼   ► considering you've probably already made light and dark, at least let me choose between those.

01:08:45 ◼   ► And then maybe later we can talk about different colors, right? But immediately,

01:08:52 ◼   ► just let me choose between light and dark. Yeah, so I was just looking for a brighter wallpaper

01:08:57 ◼   ► because I felt like if I've got to have all of these black rectangles on my screen, I feel like

01:09:01 ◼   ► like I have to lighten it up elsewhere.

01:09:03 ◼   ► I do have the battery widget on

01:09:05 ◼   ► because the main thing has been like my,

01:09:08 ◼   ► it's an easy way to keep an eye on the watch battery

01:09:12 ◼   ► for me to just be like, okay,

01:09:13 ◼   ► when do I need to just top it up

01:09:15 ◼   ► if I'm sitting at my desk?

01:09:16 ◼   ► And also the, I really like having a sense

01:09:19 ◼   ► of the headphone batteries as well.

01:09:21 ◼   ► So I find it useful enough

01:09:24 ◼   ► that I do like having it right there on the home screen.

01:09:27 ◼   ► - It's like, I agree with all of that, right?

01:09:28 ◼   ► Like I like to know that information.

01:09:30 ◼   ► I just don't like to know it so much that I would give it such prominence.

01:09:35 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah.

01:09:36 ◼   ► I do.

01:09:37 ◼   ► I don't know.

01:09:37 ◼   ► I just, I want to see, I want to see the circles.

01:09:39 ◼   ► I like them and I like, you know, it's like, oh, they're charged.

01:09:42 ◼   ► And, uh, I was really surprised when it worked with my Sony wireless headphones.

01:09:46 ◼   ► I'm like, oh, this will, it'll show the battery for this as well.

01:09:48 ◼   ► Like that's fantastic.

01:09:49 ◼   ► I just assumed that would only work with Apple devices.

01:09:52 ◼   ► Nope.

01:09:52 ◼   ► It works with some other stuff that connects to the phone.

01:09:55 ◼   ► I've been surprised like not everything, but some things.

01:09:58 ◼   ► I guess maybe if it uses a certain type of Bluetooth or whatever, like where it can report that information back to the system.

01:10:04 ◼   ► Yeah, so it's- I like it there. I'm also using the Carrot weather the same way that you are. It's, you know, absolutely fantastic.

01:10:11 ◼   ► So are you using the small version of the forecast?

01:10:14 ◼   ► Yes, I'm using the small version of the forecast there. And again, Carrot can never be more impressed,

01:10:21 ◼   ► but they do just such a good job of figuring out like when to flip over into a different mode. I really like that.

01:10:27 ◼   ► Like I said this before, I'll say it again, I mean, we've loaded them with enough praise

01:10:30 ◼   ► in this episode, but I'm going to do it again.

01:10:32 ◼   ► I genuinely think it's one of the very best iOS apps ever made.

01:10:36 ◼   ► And like it is in a very small category of apps that I would consider in that, and Carrot

01:10:41 ◼   ► Weather is 100% one of them.

01:10:44 ◼   ► Yeah, for sure.

01:10:45 ◼   ► Then just like, what I have is Timery at the top, which is showing me the how much time

01:10:50 ◼   ► have you logged on various things.

01:10:52 ◼   ► I do like the little bar graph, and then I have Fantastic Cal at the bottom of here's

01:10:56 ◼   ► the items that are on your schedule for the day. And so yeah, I like this as the home

01:11:00 ◼   ► screen. I was asking about your feeling about widgets because I've never been more unsettled

01:11:08 ◼   ► and uncertain about home screen setups.

01:11:12 ◼   ► Oh, I have had this and I still am a little, but over the last maybe week I kind of crystallized

01:11:19 ◼   ► on a bit, which it helped with OmniFocus adding theirs because I was really waiting on that.

01:11:24 ◼   ► Yeah, OmniFocus is the real, like, let's see what happens one.

01:11:28 ◼   ► LINDSAY Yeah, and so I've kind of gotten to a bit

01:11:30 ◼   ► more comfort with it, but I do still feel like my home screen is in flux, depending

01:11:37 ◼   ► on what other widgets may or may not appear, and so there is definitely this feeling of

01:11:44 ◼   ► unease with it, but where I am with it right now, I like it a lot, but I can certainly

01:11:50 ◼   ► understand it, especially because of the route that you have taken on the home screen here,

01:11:54 ◼   ► of just like no apps, four widgets.

01:11:56 ◼   ► You have no stacks, right?

01:11:58 ◼   ► There were just single widgets?

01:12:00 ◼   ► - Yeah, they're basically single widgets.

01:12:02 ◼   ► The fantastic L1 is sitting on top

01:12:04 ◼   ► of the like automatic Siri shortcuts thing,

01:12:06 ◼   ► but that is gone.

01:12:08 ◼   ► I just didn't happen to get rid of it today.

01:12:10 ◼   ► It was like, this prediction algorithm is not good enough

01:12:13 ◼   ► to take up this much real estate on my home screen.

01:12:15 ◼   ► - Is that what shows you the applications?

01:12:17 ◼   ► Right, it's like a one that's like the eight grid of apps,

01:12:20 ◼   ► two by four of apps?

01:12:21 ◼   ► - No, no, no, no, no.

01:12:22 ◼   ► it's the Siri suggestion one.

01:12:25 ◼   ► It's their version of like,

01:12:26 ◼   ► what does it think you want to do?

01:12:28 ◼   ► And it tries to automatically recommend

01:12:31 ◼   ► either your shortcuts or anything in the whole system

01:12:34 ◼   ► that plugs into shortcuts.

01:12:35 ◼   ► And my experience is like,

01:12:36 ◼   ► you're guessing is too terrible on this.

01:12:39 ◼   ► Like it's not good enough.

01:12:40 ◼   ► - Whatever system Apple uses for this

01:12:42 ◼   ► is really good at guessing what app I want

01:12:44 ◼   ► when I go to the search field,

01:12:45 ◼   ► but terrible anything else.

01:12:48 ◼   ► - Yeah, that's why I was shocked at how bad it was.

01:12:51 ◼   ► And I kept thinking like,

01:12:52 ◼   ► Oh, it must just need some time to calibrate was like, no, it doesn't.

01:12:55 ◼   ► It's not doing well here.

01:12:56 ◼   ► And I cannot understand how it can do so well at guessing apps and so poorly at

01:13:01 ◼   ► shortcuts, especially cause like just mentally running it through with like,

01:13:04 ◼   ► Oh, Hey guys, guess what?

01:13:05 ◼   ► It's six 30 in the morning.

01:13:07 ◼   ► I'm going to run a timer.

01:13:09 ◼   ► I've just finished my boot up timer.

01:13:11 ◼   ► Guess what timer it's going to be?

01:13:13 ◼   ► Like it's going to be the starting writing timer.

01:13:15 ◼   ► Like it is every time at this time.

01:13:18 ◼   ► Like, how can you not know that it's been two weeks of doing this every day.

01:13:22 ◼   ► And they're like, "Would you like to check the weather now?"

01:13:24 ◼   ► Like, "No, I f*cking wouldn't.

01:13:26 ◼   ► Carrot is right above you, you morons.

01:13:28 ◼   ► Like, why would I check the weather?"

01:13:30 ◼   ► So anyway, yes, there's technically a stack,

01:13:32 ◼   ► but no, there isn't really.

01:13:34 ◼   ► - I'm surprised that you are still using the folders

01:13:39 ◼   ► there at the bottom.

01:13:40 ◼   ► - Okay, yeah, so all right.

01:13:43 ◼   ► So the folders at the bottom were my like,

01:13:46 ◼   ► what's going to happen here?

01:13:48 ◼   ► And so I used to have four folders,

01:13:51 ◼   ► And the way that I'm using the folders is, is actually just, I would like to have all

01:13:58 ◼   ► of the badges for certain kinds of things in one spot.

01:14:02 ◼   ► It's a grouping, right?

01:14:03 ◼   ► So the one that had to go was I had a generic other grouping and I was like,

01:14:08 ◼   ► well, I really want at least one shortcut that I can always just hit on the home

01:14:14 ◼   ► screen, which is my generic shortcut to like launch every other shortcut, you

01:14:18 ◼   ► menu system that I built for myself. So I can just go like tap, tap, enter to OmniFocus,

01:14:23 ◼   ► you know, or tap, tap, tap, invoke a template for all the actions for the next Cortex, like whatever.

01:14:28 ◼   ► So like that little rocket ship launcher there is my like, you can pry that out of my cold dead

01:14:34 ◼   ► hands. Like I will never give that up. But it meant I only have four slots on the bottom. So

01:14:37 ◼   ► I had to get rid of one of the folders. But the other three folders are like the first one on the

01:14:41 ◼   ► the left is basically OmniFocus and Reminders, like it's all of the task notifications.

01:14:48 ◼   ► The second one is mostly iMessage, it's like social notifications. And then the third one

01:14:55 ◼   ► is like Slack messages and a couple of other like important work-related messages. So those

01:15:02 ◼   ► are the way I'm like grouping things together into those three. So they're not really folders.

01:15:08 ◼   ► just like, how can I collect these things together? And then everything else like whoosh

01:15:13 ◼   ► away into the app library you go, and I never look at it. Like I just never ever look at

01:15:19 ◼   ► the app library. I do everything from searching. I don't love it. I like the, the asymmetry

01:15:24 ◼   ► sort of bothers me that it's like three folders and the launcher, but there's no way around

01:15:30 ◼   ► it. Like I can't make it look better. I don't want to compress two of those categories into

01:15:37 ◼   ► Like, I could compress maybe, like, work and tasks or social and work into one and then

01:15:46 ◼   ► put the rocket launcher in the center and it would look significantly better, but I

01:15:51 ◼   ► don't think I can genuinely do that because I wouldn't like the ambiguity in what the

01:15:55 ◼   ► tasks are.

01:15:56 ◼   ► It's that little notifications trick which is a thing that you stumbled upon for yourself

01:16:00 ◼   ► and are now kind of boxed into it because there's no way to replicate that any other

01:16:05 ◼   ► way.

01:16:06 ◼   ► of multiple applications can have the notifications,

01:16:10 ◼   ► but they get bundled together and shown to you

01:16:11 ◼   ► as a group on the folder.

01:16:14 ◼   ► - Yeah, so the only way to do it

01:16:17 ◼   ► is to collapse three down into two,

01:16:18 ◼   ► and I just don't like the,

01:16:20 ◼   ► there's no version of those combinations, which is great.

01:16:24 ◼   ► Like social and work would be the best,

01:16:28 ◼   ► but it's still not fantastic,

01:16:31 ◼   ► because there's a big distinction between,

01:16:33 ◼   ► there's a message on Slack I should look at,

01:16:35 ◼   ► at and like there's a text from my wife.

01:16:37 ◼   ► Like I don't really want to combine those two into one little area and then be like,

01:16:40 ◼   ► "Oh, I wonder which one it is."

01:16:41 ◼   ► Part of the whole point is like, I don't have to wonder what the notifications are.

01:16:45 ◼   ► But yeah, so I like, I feel very in flux about this design.

01:16:51 ◼   ► Overall, I'm very happy with widgets.

01:16:54 ◼   ► I think perhaps my main frustration, and I don't know if this is, if this is related

01:17:01 ◼   ► to like the tools developers have or whatever, but I feel like a lot of the

01:17:05 ◼   ► widgets, they take up a lot of space and their information density is very low.

01:17:12 ◼   ► And so lots of the widgets I feel like, come on, you can put you could put more

01:17:16 ◼   ► on here. Like even the the timer re-widget up at the top like, okay I don't really

01:17:22 ◼   ► care about the total tracked time. Like you can you could show me the total

01:17:25 ◼   ► track time and you could fit in what's the current running timer. Like almost

01:17:30 ◼   ► all of the widgets I feel like you could you could squeeze something else here.

01:17:34 ◼   ► Like the fantastic Cal one at the bottom, you can see like this basically is half

01:17:38 ◼   ► of it is totally wasted space.

01:17:40 ◼   ► Like there's nothing that's being used there.

01:17:42 ◼   ► I just find that as like a recurring frustration with a lot of the widget

01:17:45 ◼   ► design, but I have a suspicion that maybe it's to do with the tools

01:17:49 ◼   ► Apple has given developers, but I don't, you know, I just don't know.

01:17:52 ◼   ► But I think overall it's definitely a net win.

01:17:57 ◼   ► And then right now my, the today view exists almost entirely as like a legacy tool at this point.

01:18:07 ◼   ► Yeah, because the old widgets can be there.

01:18:09 ◼   ► Yeah, the old widgets can be there.

01:18:10 ◼   ► What's keeping you on calzones?

01:18:12 ◼   ► The thing that is keeping me on calzones is that it did not occur to me until you showed me your home screen that I could reproduce this in Widgetsmith, which I just totally will do.

01:18:21 ◼   ► That's what I was double checking.

01:18:23 ◼   ► There's no particular reason, it didn't cross my mind that I could do it that way.

01:18:29 ◼   ► And you don't even have to have the guilt of leaving behind an app that your friend made.

01:18:33 ◼   ► Because your friend made the other app.

01:18:35 ◼   ► That's exactly it, right? There's this other thing of like, oh if you're showing off your home screens,

01:18:39 ◼   ► there's also a big difference of like, and I'm not using Underscores app anymore, right?

01:18:44 ◼   ► But it's like, oh no, that's fine, I don't have this problem this time, I'm keeping the same one.

01:18:48 ◼   ► And now you're getting to use Underscores' favourite child, right?

01:18:52 ◼   ► Yes, exactly.

01:18:54 ◼   ► So Calzones, I'll switch over.

01:18:56 ◼   ► OmniFocus is also there because I'm not on the OmniFocus beta, so I wanted that there.

01:19:01 ◼   ► The only thing though that I do wonder is on the Today View, I do use this widget to

01:19:08 ◼   ► tap, like to check off OmniFocus options quite a lot.

01:19:13 ◼   ► You're not gonna have that option anymore.

01:19:15 ◼   ► Okay, so the old Legacy widget doesn't even exist anymore in the new beta.

01:19:19 ◼   ► In the beta they actually have kept the legacy widget.

01:19:22 ◼   ► I haven't seen any other application do this, so I don't know if you're allowed to, or if

01:19:29 ◼   ► they've just made the decision that other apps aren't making.

01:19:34 ◼   ► I'm not really sure what the deal is there, I don't know if you can keep them both, but

01:19:37 ◼   ► of all of the apps that I've used, it is the only app that I have installed that has remained

01:19:43 ◼   ► with the old one as well, so I actually don't know what the situation is there, and I also

01:19:48 ◼   ► can't speak to if they will keep it around, right?

01:19:51 ◼   ► - Right, right, of course.

01:19:53 ◼   ► The reason I was just thinking about that is like,

01:19:54 ◼   ► if I had the option to keep the OmniFocus one there, I might.

01:19:57 ◼   ► - Oh, actually, Carrot has got the old one there as well,

01:20:00 ◼   ► so I think maybe this is a thing that developers can do.

01:20:05 ◼   ► Personally, I'm just trying to get used to not having them

01:20:08 ◼   ► because they're gonna go eventually.

01:20:11 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah, of course.

01:20:12 ◼   ► It's like, we're playing a game of hangman

01:20:15 ◼   ► that they're all gonna lose with every time

01:20:18 ◼   ► there's any change in the operating system for sure.

01:20:20 ◼   ► I think the only other reason I was thinking that the Today View is kind of

01:20:23 ◼   ► nice is the ability to slide over, you know, without like having to open the

01:20:27 ◼   ► phone properly, which is why I also have the widget there for just checking,

01:20:31 ◼   ► like, what is the current timer that's running without having to go to the home

01:20:35 ◼   ► screen?

01:20:35 ◼   ► That's another reason why I do have some duplication, like at the calendar and

01:20:38 ◼   ► stuff, because I can grab that straight from the lock screen.

01:20:41 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:20:42 ◼   ► So one of the things I've been doing a lot, which is I really mostly quite like

01:20:46 ◼   ► is I've been slowly making sure to convert all of my shortcut timers into being like

01:20:54 ◼   ► things that I can say to Siri. And so like, I can just say track this, track that, and like,

01:21:00 ◼   ► the timer just runs and it all runs from my phone. And I've slowly built up a system so like,

01:21:05 ◼   ► there's a little notification that shows like, yes, this is the timer running. But every once

01:21:09 ◼   ► in a while, I do have that moment of like, did you really do that, Siri? I don't know if you did. And

01:21:13 ◼   ► And so I just want to be able to quickly like swipe over onto the today screen and see like,

01:21:18 ◼   ► yes, the Cortex prep timer is running.

01:21:21 ◼   ► Yeah, that's one of the things that I have there.

01:21:22 ◼   ► So I was really happy actually, because I didn't think it's possible that there is a live running timer on the widget.

01:21:28 ◼   ► Yes. Yeah.

01:21:30 ◼   ► That's one of the only things that Apple enabled of like, this is a constant because everything else just updates on a schedule that the developer can try and set, but the system ultimately decides.

01:21:40 ◼   ► Ah, interesting. Okay.

01:21:42 ◼   ► but they kept, like, count up and count down as a live element that you could have on widgets.

01:21:48 ◼   ► Oh, thank goodness, because yes, the time tracking is one of the main things.

01:21:52 ◼   ► I would have been heartbroken if there wasn't a way for that to work,

01:21:55 ◼   ► of like, you know, like every 10 minutes it updates, it's like, no, this isn't useful,

01:21:59 ◼   ► because you've made this very, very bad.

01:22:02 ◼   ► When I tell Siri to track whatever, I wanted, like, I'm almost always checking within five seconds,

01:22:08 ◼   ► from like, "Mmm, did that run?"

01:22:11 ◼   ► And I wouldn't want to have that be

01:22:12 ◼   ► an every 10 minutes kind of thing, so.

01:22:14 ◼   ► - I will say as a timer,

01:22:15 ◼   ► you've done a very, very good job

01:22:17 ◼   ► of watching out for the system.

01:22:21 ◼   ► So like, my understanding is this is not very easy to do,

01:22:25 ◼   ► like that I can use shortcuts to start a timer

01:22:29 ◼   ► and the time re-widget picks it up.

01:22:31 ◼   ► - Okay, so it's looking for system notifications.

01:22:35 ◼   ► - My understanding at least is that is a non-trivial thing

01:22:38 ◼   ► to make that work seamlessly.

01:22:40 ◼   ► And I know from the beta that it took a bit, right?

01:22:43 ◼   ► For the developer to get that right.

01:22:46 ◼   ► Also trying to notice when other devices

01:22:49 ◼   ► are updating it as well, it also does a good job of that.

01:22:52 ◼   ► Which again, my understanding is, not an easy thing to do.

01:22:55 ◼   ► Like if I start a timer on my iPhone,

01:22:57 ◼   ► is it picked up by my iPad?

01:22:59 ◼   ► So yeah, when I say about favorite apps,

01:23:02 ◼   ► I mentioned it earlier, timer is one of them.

01:23:04 ◼   ► Actually, let's not get into this,

01:23:05 ◼   ► 'cause state of the apps is coming too.

01:23:07 ◼   ► We're doing Stay at the Apps so soon.

01:23:08 ◼   ► Don't start doing a rundown of like your favorite apps.

01:23:10 ◼   ► - Home screen, screen crimes,

01:23:12 ◼   ► and Stay at the Apps, only one episode.

01:23:14 ◼   ► Madness around here, what are we doing?

01:23:16 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:23:17 ◼   ► - But yeah, so I don't know, I just feel like,

01:23:20 ◼   ► I feel uncertain with a lot of this.

01:23:25 ◼   ► And you know, most of the time when we do this episode,

01:23:28 ◼   ► I'm like, here's the home screen.

01:23:30 ◼   ► I've been rocking it for a while and I love it.

01:23:33 ◼   ► And I think this is also just a side effect of,

01:23:35 ◼   ► clearly lots of people were caught off guard by the widget stuff.

01:23:40 ◼   ► And so tons of my apps are slowly rolling out like,

01:23:43 ◼   ► "Hey, we've got a widget, we've got a widget."

01:23:45 ◼   ► - It is also worth remembering that developers

01:23:47 ◼   ► did have significantly less time

01:23:50 ◼   ► to make enhancements this year.

01:23:52 ◼   ► - Well, yeah, because iOS 14 is released tomorrow.

01:23:55 ◼   ► It's just my favorite thing I've seen in an Apple keynote

01:23:58 ◼   ► in a really long time.

01:23:59 ◼   ► I literally laughed out loud.

01:24:02 ◼   ► like, "Tim, you crazy maniac!"

01:24:05 ◼   ► [laughter]

01:24:06 ◼   ► F*** all of you! You complain over the summer?

01:24:09 ◼   ► Yeah, I loved it because it was also like, "Oh hey, just FYI, iOS 14 tomorrow. Bye!"

01:24:16 ◼   ► And he walked off stage, I was like, "That's amazing. People will remember this in the

01:24:21 ◼   ► development community for 20 years."

01:24:23 ◼   ► Yeah, this is one of those things that will always be brought up. You remember that time

01:24:27 ◼   ► on iOS 14? We had less than 24 hours notice.

01:24:29 ◼   ► Yeah, I was like, that's amazing.

01:24:31 ◼   ► And here I was like sitting doop-a-doop like I haven't run the betas and like, oh, great.

01:24:36 ◼   ► I just get the whole thing tomorrow.

01:24:37 ◼   ► Amazing.

01:24:38 ◼   ► But yeah, so like, I feel like I'm doing just way more playing around and because of, of like the information density thing, I feel like I still keep swapping a lot of this up of like, eh, should I do it this way?

01:24:54 ◼   ► Should I do it that way?

01:24:55 ◼   ► I don't know.

01:24:56 ◼   ► But I do think I'll probably still land ultimately on like two screens in this way, like the

01:25:08 ◼   ► today screen for stuff to check that I don't need like running on the home screen the whole

01:25:14 ◼   ► time and a more like home screen information board of like here are the things that you

01:25:22 ◼   ► actually do want to be reminded of all the time when you open up the home screen.

01:25:25 ◼   ► You want to know if your batteries are running low, you want to know if it's raining outside,

01:25:29 ◼   ► you want to know if you forgot that Cortex is recording today despite Myke's constant reminders,

01:25:36 ◼   ► and you want to know if you're being like just unreasonably lazy and your unintentionally timer has been running for the last two hours

01:25:44 ◼   ► and now it's the most frequent thing that you've done in the day.

01:25:47 ◼   ► I feel like that's a relatively good mental divide, like check an information board, but

01:25:55 ◼   ► I'm very, very uncertain.

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01:27:51 ◼   ► New iPhone time, kind of, kind of.

01:27:54 ◼   ► What do you mean kind of?

01:27:55 ◼   ► Well we know when we know about them, but it's mid-October and depending on the phone

01:28:01 ◼   ► if you want it's like over a month until you can get it.

01:28:05 ◼   ► This is notable, I guess, for multiple reasons really. There are now four iPhones in three

01:28:11 ◼   ► different sizes. Depending on the phone that you want, I guess you get some different features,

01:28:17 ◼   ► but it's mostly the same. They all have OLED screens now. They all have a new design, which is

01:28:24 ◼   ► flat sides as the design. Can we just pause right there and say, "Please, Apple, these round edges,

01:28:33 ◼   ► Let's never do this again.

01:28:35 ◼   ► I think you're good for a while at least, right?

01:28:38 ◼   ► Because they've clearly decided this is the route, right?

01:28:42 ◼   ► And I think when Apple makes a decision like this,

01:28:45 ◼   ► which is like, well, now they have three different product lines

01:28:50 ◼   ► that have this flat edge design.

01:28:52 ◼   ► We have the iPad Pro, the new iPad Air,

01:28:53 ◼   ► and now all the iPhones.

01:28:56 ◼   ► The rumor is the iMac is gonna look like this too.

01:28:59 ◼   ► I think you're good for a while with flat edges, honestly.

01:29:02 ◼   ► Yeah, I hope so.

01:29:03 ◼   ► Like I am with you on this, but I just always worry that four years from now,

01:29:08 ◼   ► they'll be like, you know, it would be cool to have a phone with round edges.

01:29:13 ◼   ► And be like, guys, no, we've done this before.

01:29:15 ◼   ► These soap phones are terrible ideas.

01:29:18 ◼   ► When I saw that they had the flat edges, I was like, Oh, thank the Lord in heaven

01:29:23 ◼   ► above, like I have a phone that I can hold with my monkey paw, like, yeah, a flat edge.

01:29:29 ◼   ► Don't give me the round edges.

01:29:30 ◼   ► like round edges from, what was it, six onward?

01:29:33 ◼   ► It was just awful, and I hated them every year.

01:29:36 ◼   ► And it just, they made cases mandatory.

01:29:38 ◼   ► And now it feels like, oh, it's a phone,

01:29:40 ◼   ► I can hold it with my hands

01:29:41 ◼   ► without having to have a case on it.

01:29:43 ◼   ► So I'm thrilled about the flat edges.

01:29:45 ◼   ► Like I could not be, this is one of my favorite features.

01:29:48 ◼   ► Like top three flat edges.

01:29:50 ◼   ► - Well, we'll see.

01:29:51 ◼   ► I mean, like we haven't held them yet, right?

01:29:53 ◼   ► Like we don't know what they're gonna,

01:29:54 ◼   ► I mean, like my assumption is they'll feel good to hold,

01:29:56 ◼   ► but again, like the sizing of them is different, right?

01:29:59 ◼   ► Like, they were flat edges when these phones could very easily fit in one hand, and most

01:30:04 ◼   ► of these phones, I think all except one of them, doesn't really anymore, right?

01:30:09 ◼   ► And even the smallest one is bigger than the phones were back then.

01:30:13 ◼   ► I understand, but unless they're making the sides out of a frictionless material, I just,

01:30:19 ◼   ► I can't conceive of any way that the flat edges aren't going to be easier to grip, to

01:30:25 ◼   ► pick up, less droppable, or even just little things like, "Hey, you know what's nice?"

01:30:30 ◼   ► Sometimes being able to set your phone on an edge to take a picture when you walk away,

01:30:34 ◼   ► right? Like, couldn't do it with those round edges, like, flamp all over the phone would

01:30:38 ◼   ► go. So, three thumbs up to flat edges for me. That's my rating.

01:30:43 ◼   ► Back to the old gray rating scale there. New colors. So, in the Pro line we have blue and

01:30:49 ◼   ► gold and there is red, blue, black, white, and green in the regular line.

01:30:57 ◼   ► Better cameras across the board.

01:30:59 ◼   ► Um, I will say that the camera stuff is tag confusing.

01:31:03 ◼   ► Essentially there are better, there are improvements for all of the phones,

01:31:07 ◼   ► but depending on which phone you want, you may get more or less improvements.

01:31:10 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:31:10 ◼   ► I also feel like Apple intentionally a little bit seemed to obfuscate some of

01:31:16 ◼   ► the, in the, in their original presentation, it was like, was very

01:31:20 ◼   ► unclear about which phones have which features.

01:31:23 ◼   ► And I went back later and I was watching their little summary of the iPhone thing.

01:31:28 ◼   ► And I had to screenshot the like two seconds where they actually show

01:31:32 ◼   ► you what the real differences are.

01:31:33 ◼   ► And we're like, okay, let me really compare this because your comparison

01:31:37 ◼   ► page on your website is worthless for all the information that I actually

01:31:40 ◼   ► want to know about what's the difference between the lenses and

01:31:44 ◼   ► the sensors and everything else.

01:31:46 ◼   ► So I feel like there was a little bit of like,

01:31:50 ◼   ► don't look too closely at this.

01:31:52 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's definitely tricky to nail down

01:31:56 ◼   ► some of the camera stuff.

01:31:57 ◼   ► Like what I know is that the Pro Max

01:32:00 ◼   ► has a vastly better camera,

01:32:03 ◼   ► 'cause they detailed that way more.

01:32:05 ◼   ► And it seems like for the other cameras,

01:32:07 ◼   ► there are improvements, I think mostly in the regular lens,

01:32:12 ◼   ► right, what is called the wide lens,

01:32:14 ◼   ► but it's the regular lens.

01:32:16 ◼   ► Why they call it a wide lens is maddening.

01:32:18 ◼   ► The normal lens.

01:32:19 ◼   ► - Yeah, I hate that.

01:32:20 ◼   ► Yeah, and there's software improvements, right?

01:32:22 ◼   ► So like night mode can be done on any lens now

01:32:25 ◼   ► and stuff like that.

01:32:26 ◼   ► But the Pro Max gets LiDAR,

01:32:28 ◼   ► which apparently helps with focusing in low light

01:32:31 ◼   ► and enables portrait mode in night mode.

01:32:34 ◼   ► But it also has more zoom on the telephoto,

01:32:37 ◼   ► it goes to 2.5.

01:32:39 ◼   ► It has a better main camera with a much larger sensor,

01:32:43 ◼   ► which will make better low light

01:32:45 ◼   ► and that basically means indoor photography is better.

01:32:48 ◼   ► And there's a new stabilization system

01:32:51 ◼   ► on the main camera as well,

01:32:52 ◼   ► which is more akin to the way that a DSLR is stabled,

01:32:56 ◼   ► where instead of just stabilizing the lens,

01:32:59 ◼   ► they also stabilize the camera sensor itself.

01:33:02 ◼   ► - That was one of those things,

01:33:03 ◼   ► as soon as they said it, I thought,

01:33:04 ◼   ► I'm sure there are technical reasons

01:33:06 ◼   ► why it didn't happen before,

01:33:08 ◼   ► but this seems like obviously the better path to go.

01:33:12 ◼   ► Don't try to stabilize the lens, stabilize the sensor.

01:33:15 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, which is why good expensive cameras

01:33:17 ◼   ► do this, right?

01:33:18 ◼   ► But I think it's a like miniaturization,

01:33:22 ◼   ► technical challenge and physical size of phone problem.

01:33:26 ◼   ► 'Cause this is the biggest iPhone ever made.

01:33:28 ◼   ► The screen is massive in the Pro Max,

01:33:30 ◼   ► but it's not physically that much larger

01:33:33 ◼   ► than the Pro Max it replaces,

01:33:35 ◼   ► but it's a little bit larger.

01:33:36 ◼   ► But the screen is larger, they made the borders smaller.

01:33:40 ◼   ► I will say these phones, I think all look fantastic.

01:33:43 ◼   ► Like the visuals of them look fantastic.

01:33:45 ◼   ► I am very into the gold.

01:33:48 ◼   ► - I was gonna ask if you have a color preference here.

01:33:51 ◼   ► - I thought I was gonna be all in on blue.

01:33:53 ◼   ► But when they showed the gold stainless steel rails,

01:33:59 ◼   ► I was like, "Oh no, that's the one for me."

01:34:02 ◼   ► - Wait, gold stainless steel rails?

01:34:04 ◼   ► What do you mean the rails?

01:34:05 ◼   ► - Yeah, so you know the outside of the phone, right?

01:34:08 ◼   ► They color match it to the phone.

01:34:10 ◼   ► - Oh, okay, I see what you mean.

01:34:12 ◼   ► - Yeah, that does look pretty good.

01:34:14 ◼   ► - The gold stainless steel, I think looks fantastic.

01:34:18 ◼   ► So gold is gonna be what I'm going for.

01:34:20 ◼   ► Obviously I'm going for the larger phone.

01:34:22 ◼   ► - I was gonna say, there's no way you're not going

01:34:24 ◼   ► for the iPhone Pro Max.

01:34:27 ◼   ► - Pro Max. - Like for sure.

01:34:28 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, I think, so yeah, I was like wondering,

01:34:31 ◼   ► I was like, oh, I'll see what they've got, right?

01:34:32 ◼   ► Like maybe I'll change, who knows, right?

01:34:35 ◼   ► Because I was, and I remain a little bit concerned

01:34:38 ◼   ► about the screen continuing to get bigger, right?

01:34:40 ◼   ► Like it's not a lot bigger, but it is bigger.

01:34:43 ◼   ► And I think that maybe the current phone

01:34:46 ◼   ► is like the maximum at which it feels even remotely

01:34:49 ◼   ► comfortable to use in one hand.

01:34:51 ◼   ► And like that phone continuing to get bigger

01:34:54 ◼   ► at now 6.7 inches diagonally might be like,

01:34:59 ◼   ► I think we've passed the point, right?

01:35:03 ◼   ► Where it's comfortable to use.

01:35:05 ◼   ► But they have done for the Pro Max,

01:35:08 ◼   ► what they did for the original Plus phones

01:35:10 ◼   ► in that they have made that phone tangibly better

01:35:14 ◼   ► in one of the most important ways an iPhone can get better,

01:35:17 ◼   ► which is the camera.

01:35:19 ◼   ► And I'm really pleased about that

01:35:20 ◼   ► because I think that's what this phone deserves.

01:35:23 ◼   ► It is the most expensive, it is the most inconvenient

01:35:26 ◼   ► because it's so physically large.

01:35:28 ◼   ► Continue to make that worth my while

01:35:31 ◼   ► outside of screen and battery life improvements, right?

01:35:35 ◼   ► Like put more cool technology in this thing

01:35:38 ◼   ► and I am super excited to try out these cameras.

01:35:42 ◼   ► - Yeah, I was just looking around,

01:35:45 ◼   ► like I could see just tons of people complaining about like,

01:35:49 ◼   ► oh, the bigger phone has the better camera.

01:35:52 ◼   ► But I just think people are thinking about it the wrong way

01:35:56 ◼   ► 'cause it's like, you know, guys,

01:35:58 ◼   ► I agree with you that there should be this differentiation,

01:36:01 ◼   ► but it's not for the purpose of product differentiation.

01:36:06 ◼   ► It's like, look guys, if they make the Pro Max and the Pro have the same camera,

01:36:12 ◼   ► it's not because they have decided to not differentiate it's because they

01:36:18 ◼   ► have decided to not take advantage of the larger space that they have.

01:36:24 ◼   ► Which means that the Pro Max has a worse camera than it theoretically could.

01:36:29 ◼   ► You will always be able to make a better camera with more space.

01:36:35 ◼   ► And if you don't like it, take it up with physics.

01:36:38 ◼   ► Like that's where your complaint department has to be.

01:36:42 ◼   ► And you know, so when people are like,

01:36:44 ◼   ► "Oh, I want the better camera on the smaller front."

01:36:46 ◼   ► It's like, it is never gonna happen.

01:36:48 ◼   ► - You have to wait, right?

01:36:50 ◼   ► In a couple of years probably,

01:36:51 ◼   ► they will find a way to do the sensor shift

01:36:53 ◼   ► on the smaller front.

01:36:55 ◼   ► Because again, it's like the reason

01:36:57 ◼   ► they've been able to do it now

01:36:58 ◼   ► is because they can make the technology small enough.

01:37:00 ◼   ► Give them enough time at enough scale,

01:37:02 ◼   ► Apple will work out how to shrink it down.

01:37:03 ◼   ► History has shown this.

01:37:04 ◼   ► they do these wild things and they end up making the cameras way better again.

01:37:07 ◼   ► But I agree.

01:37:08 ◼   ► I am super pleased that they are once again, taking advantage of the canvas

01:37:12 ◼   ► that they have in the phone being massive, using that physical size

01:37:17 ◼   ► to the advantage of the phone.

01:37:19 ◼   ► Like you can fit more in the case, do more with it.

01:37:22 ◼   ► So, um, what are you leaning towards?

01:37:26 ◼   ► Because for me, like I was like, I thought that you might want the better camera,

01:37:30 ◼   ► but I could also imagine you being intrigued by the mini.

01:37:34 ◼   ► Oh, Myke, I have never been more torn in my whole life of iPhone buying.

01:37:44 ◼   ► No exaggeration.

01:37:46 ◼   ► I am genuinely finding this a gut wrenching decision.

01:37:50 ◼   ► Like I can't decide.

01:37:53 ◼   ► And I keep going between all three phones.

01:37:58 ◼   ► And so it's like, God, do I love the idea of the 12 mini, right?

01:38:05 ◼   ► I love it.

01:38:05 ◼   ► Uh, actually I really love the blue on the 12 mini.

01:38:09 ◼   ► I actually think the blue on the mini is nicer than the blue on the pro.

01:38:13 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:38:14 ◼   ► I, I, it is the only time I have found myself really pulled to buy a phone that is not black.

01:38:23 ◼   ► I do like the, I do like the Pacific blue on, on the pros.

01:38:27 ◼   ► black like the graphite looks terrible in the images.

01:38:32 ◼   ► Oh I haven't even looked at it.

01:38:33 ◼   ► Oh it's like it looks brown. It's very weird.

01:38:35 ◼   ► Oh yeah you're right it does look like a terrible black.

01:38:37 ◼   ► Because they've changed it now it's now called graphite like the watch.

01:38:40 ◼   ► Oh we're not in space anymore.

01:38:43 ◼   ► Space gray a color name that makes just as much sense as space orange.

01:38:47 ◼   ► Like have you guys looked at space?

01:38:49 ◼   ► And they gave up on the 25 million different color options that has been space gray over time.

01:38:54 ◼   ► I'm sure someone's done it, but there's got to be a fantastic infographic of like,

01:38:58 ◼   ► what Apple thinks space grey is, and like, here's 70 versions of grey.

01:39:02 ◼   ► It's like, it's always infuriating.

01:39:05 ◼   ► Like, I hated everything about it.

01:39:06 ◼   ► I like space orange, by the way.

01:39:08 ◼   ► We may have to make like, some kind of Cortex brand product in space orange at some point.

01:39:13 ◼   ► Let's do it.

01:39:14 ◼   ► Let's do it for sure.

01:39:17 ◼   ► But yeah, so the mini, the blue, I think it looks fantastic.

01:39:22 ◼   ► And I've always been pulled by the smaller phones.

01:39:25 ◼   ► Like I just, like, I just really liked the idea of the smaller phone.

01:39:29 ◼   ► But so then here's where I was like, I was really looking at the camera differences

01:39:36 ◼   ► and having done some professional photography in the past, you know, just

01:39:41 ◼   ► like trying to look at the actual specs of it, like, okay, this is what this means.

01:39:45 ◼   ► And, and blah, blah, blah.

01:39:45 ◼   ► Like the differences in the pro max are very significant.

01:39:50 ◼   ► Like this, the sensor size thing is huge.

01:39:53 ◼   ► Sensor size doesn't just matter in low light.

01:39:56 ◼   ► Like it matters for every image you take.

01:39:59 ◼   ► Stabilization is also one of those things.

01:40:01 ◼   ► Like you can never get enough stabilization, especially if

01:40:04 ◼   ► you're doing any kind of video.

01:40:06 ◼   ► You know, so I was looking at those Pro Max things.

01:40:09 ◼   ► I was like, this camera is a lot better.

01:40:12 ◼   ► And I've, I've always said that.

01:40:14 ◼   ► The only thing Apple needs to say every year to get me to upgrade is the

01:40:20 ◼   ► two words, better camera. And like, that's it. If you change

01:40:24 ◼   ► nothing else, but you make the camera better, I will give you

01:40:26 ◼   ► money for a new phone. Like it's a totally done deal. But goddamn,

01:40:30 ◼   ► I feel like I know I will be unhappy with the size of that

01:40:34 ◼   ► phone. Yeah, I didn't like the size of the max before. It's

01:40:38 ◼   ► like I could tolerate it, but I always found it annoying. And

01:40:41 ◼   ► the pro max is a lot bigger, but being a little bigger is like,

01:40:46 ◼   ► I don't love it. I don't know if you know this, and I'm not

01:40:49 ◼   ► gonna make it any easier for you in telling you this but the 12 mini is

01:40:53 ◼   ► smaller than the iPhone SE, the current SE.

01:40:55 ◼   ► Oh god damn it!

01:40:57 ◼   ► Like okay that's infuriating.

01:41:00 ◼   ► This is also I have never more wanted to see the phones in person but also like if there's any place like crawling with people in central London is like I am not going into an Apple store in central freaking London like that is not happening.

01:41:16 ◼   ► So yeah, like I'm, I'm totally drawn towards the mini like that is the phone, the blue

01:41:21 ◼   ► mini is the phone I want to buy.