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ATP

325: Relive Your Calculator-Watch Dreams

 

00:00:00   The power of JavaScript, I believe in you.

00:00:04   I will put it on the to-do list for after I ship my app, which in turn is after I create

00:00:29   code for my app. I have this vision, this recurring worry that I'm going to release this

00:00:41   app, hopefully to some amount of fanfare, only to find out that my in-app purchase code

00:00:46   is all broken like hell. Either people won't be able to buy or it will be free somehow,

00:00:52   or something like that, which I know should be controlled on the Apple side, but you never

00:00:55   know. And so I have these recurring daymares, they're not nightmares because I think about

00:01:00   it all the time during the day, so they're recurring daymares of, I'm pretty sure that's

00:01:05   not a word, but you know what I mean, of releasing this app and hoping to just swim in money,

00:01:11   which of course wouldn't happen anyway because it's the app store, but anyway, to swim in

00:01:14   some dollars only to find out that my IAP code is totally broken. I mean, I'm obviously

00:01:19   talking about step 305 and I'm on step 10, but I don't know, I just have this fear that

00:01:24   I'm going to release it and then everything's going to break. Do you want me to do, can

00:01:29   we shill for our shirts? I actually haven't bought shirts yet, I need to do that, I should

00:01:32   listen to my own advice. You only have five days left, Casey. Seriously. Stop what you're

00:01:36   doing right now, pull over your motorcycle. Safely pull over. What else did you say? Safely

00:01:41   put down your water glass and buy a t-shirt. But not too close to your computer. It is

00:01:45   just a couple of days before we stop sales for the summer edition of ATP Shirts and Things.

00:01:55   So as you're listening to me, make the same speech for the third consecutive week. Think

00:02:01   to yourself, I don't want to be that person. I don't want to be that person that says,

00:02:05   "Oh Casey, I didn't listen to you. Can I please have a shirt? Please, please, please, please?"

00:02:09   No you can't. Pull the car over. Stop running. Stop what you're doing safely, gracefully.

00:02:19   Go to ATP.fm/store and just check out our wares. We have plenty of wares. We would like

00:02:24   to share them with you. And by share I mean sell them to you. So check it out. You are

00:02:28   running out of time. You're running out of time. As we record this, it is the evening

00:02:31   of May 8th. This episode will probably come out on the 9th or the 10th. And guess what?

00:02:36   At the end of the day ATP time on Sunday the 12th, that is your last chance. ATP.fm/store

00:02:43   if you please. Thank you everyone who has already listened to me and have made your

00:02:46   purchases. We all appreciate it. So thank you. Let's start with some follow up. MDM

00:02:51   Parental Control Apps Conspiracy Theory. So this is with regard to the New York Times

00:02:56   article/hit piece that we talked about last week. And we were talking about how we kind

00:03:01   of thought it was silly and we didn't really see that much there. But we got a bit of feedback

00:03:07   that we sort of kind of missed the conjecture that some of these apps were trying to put

00:03:14   forth. John, can you explain this to me?

00:03:15   Yeah, it was the most ridiculous theory presented in the article, which is probably why we didn't

00:03:20   talk about it. But it was actually in the article. It was like, you know, some of the

00:03:25   app makers that they interviewed said things directly, not just implying this, but saying

00:03:31   it outright. The idea is that some screen time is the replacement for all these Parental

00:03:36   Control MDM apps and screen time is not as full featured as some of the third party apps.

00:03:43   And so some of the third party app makers said, well, Apple is doing that on purpose

00:03:47   because Apple doesn't want you to use your phone less. So what they want to do is introduce

00:03:52   their own feature that does the same thing as our apps. Get rid of all our apps so the

00:03:56   only game in town is theirs and then screen time is bad at stopping you from using your

00:04:01   phone. Because why would Apple ever want you to stop using your phone? Apple wants you

00:04:05   to use your phone more, not less. So basically, yeah, screen time is intentionally bad. And

00:04:09   that is very, very, very silly theory for many reasons. I mean, one is just the typical

00:04:15   reason these theories are silly is that it's fun to think that a corporation is doing something

00:04:21   evil. But if you can't think of like a financial incentive for do the evil thing, it's probably

00:04:27   not really evil. I mean, you know, so like, it's tricky to talk about that, because lots

00:04:31   of big tech companies do evil things. But there's usually a very, like, clear reason

00:04:35   like Facebook does all sorts of evil stuff. But you can say I see why they're doing this,

00:04:39   because how they make their money, you know, this feeds into that they want more information

00:04:44   about more people, because they want to sell targeted ads and so on and so forth. But like,

00:04:49   in the case of Apple, does Apple, you know, does Apple want you to use your phone more

00:04:55   or less? And because Apple is a business model, like there is something to say about like,

00:05:00   they want you to be on your phone and buying apps from the App Store and stuff like that.

00:05:03   And you can kind of see that but on the flip side of it, Apple's ideal customer, at least

00:05:09   setting aside the services story, but for the whole rest of their revenue, if you look

00:05:14   at the big pie chart of where they make their money, Apple's ideal customer would be buy

00:05:18   a new iPhone every year and never use it. Because then you don't consume any of their

00:05:23   resources. You don't you know, you don't get dissatisfied because you wear down your battery

00:05:28   and whatever like you just give them the money, they get the profit margin and then you never

00:05:32   bother them again. Obviously, the server service story means they want you to use their services.

00:05:35   But again, they would love for you to pay for all their services and then never use

00:05:39   them because they get your money but then don't have to pay to serve you. Apple is not

00:05:43   in the business of watching every single thing you do and selling targeted ads against it.

00:05:48   So no, I don't think that Apple doesn't want you to use your phone less and that's

00:05:53   why screen time is bad at making you use your phone less. That is a silly reason and the

00:05:58   app developers that said that are way off base.

00:06:01   All right, moving on. Some jury duty follow up from Mr. Mark Orman. Can you tell me about

00:06:07   this if you please? I'm surprised we have any follow up about this.

00:06:09   I absolutely can. So I mentioned in last week's after show my various tech needs for bringing

00:06:16   something into the jury duty waiting room because I was going to be bored and want to

00:06:19   listen to podcasts. And I had suggested that the ideal device would be a fifth generation

00:06:24   iPod Nano because it was the last Nano that had the iconic look of like the circular buttons

00:06:29   below the screen that would be recognized by a security guard easily as like this is

00:06:34   just an MP3 player, not a phone or a phone like device. And our friend Steven Hackett

00:06:39   over at Relay wrote in to say that the fifth generation iPod Nano had a video camera on

00:06:44   the back which would have been prohibited in the courthouse, which I had totally forgotten

00:06:48   about. This was like this was this was released back in the early 2000s when I believe it

00:06:53   was trying to compete with the flip camera at the time and I don't think it ever went

00:06:58   anywhere really. But yeah, the fifth generation iPod Nano did indeed have a video camera so

00:07:03   I would have to go with a fourth gen iPod Nano to achieve what I wanted to achieve and

00:07:08   still be permissible in a courthouse. Phillip wrote in to suggest something that no one

00:07:13   else I don't think suggested and I didn't even consider a Game Boy. I had I've never

00:07:19   owned a Game Boy. The Switch is my first portable console that we've ever had which has Wi-Fi

00:07:24   and microphones I think so that wouldn't fly. But yeah, so a Game Boy though most of them

00:07:30   I think or if not all of them would totally qualify as long as they don't have Wi-Fi or

00:07:34   cameras or microphones. And he also pointed out he linked to me to the Play Yan MP3 player

00:07:41   cartridge that has was I don't think ever released in America but it was like a Game

00:07:46   Boy cartridge that you could stick an SD card into not on the original Game Boy but like

00:07:50   on on like the Game Boy Advance SP and some of the some other ones I don't understand

00:07:55   it would be able to play MP3s and some like built in games from this cartridge. So that

00:08:02   is an option I didn't even know the MP3 player existed and I never even considered the possibility

00:08:06   of Game Boys I just didn't even think about them because I've never really been in that

00:08:09   world but thank you Phillip for that suggestion that's pretty cool. Yeah I kind of wish you

00:08:13   had done this. It would be cool to see you in the waiting room with a Game Boy that you

00:08:16   like never touch or look at just sitting there. And I would imagine like the screen would

00:08:22   probably have to be on like it would probably look have to look visibly on. Yeah it would

00:08:26   look like you're just ignoring your Game Boy. Right just burning its battery. All these

00:08:32   possible alternatives like I felt weird enough like I did get some questions from some of

00:08:38   the other nearby waiting jurors when they saw me take out what appeared to be an iPod

00:08:43   with these white headphones. You can't really hide that people like I thought you couldn't

00:08:47   bring phones in here like I put up and they're like oh wow. Is that an iPod? No it's much

00:08:53   worse. Yeah significantly worse. Do you remember the Game Boy camera for the original Game

00:08:57   Boy? Yes I've never seen one I know I remember it existed but it's one of those many peripherals

00:09:03   at the time like the like the Game Gear TV tuner that I just would read about in a magazine

00:09:09   and never in real life ever see one. Pretty sure the Game Boy camera was kind of like

00:09:14   the bit cam the icon factory app that we talked about on a past show and that like it was

00:09:18   a essentially a black and white camera the only thing you could the only thing the screen

00:09:22   could produce was a black or a white quote unquote white pixel and so the camera had

00:09:27   to work with that and it was very dotty to say the least. We are sponsored this week

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00:11:23   start today thank you so much to Backblaze for sponsoring our show and for keeping my

00:11:27   data safe. The one big thing I think we need to talk about today is you know a friend of

00:11:38   the show, Gary Rambo has dropped a series of different blog posts over the last well

00:11:43   there was a week or two ago but you know he spent a few days revealing things that he

00:11:47   has discovered about what he expects about WWDC. Well then you know it turns out that

00:11:52   Mark Gurman said hold my beer I have thoughts and so there was a very large post a couple

00:12:00   of days ago as we record that is to some degree there is some pros here but it is largely

00:12:05   a bullet list of all the stuff that Gurman thinks is coming at DubDub. Before you dive

00:12:09   in before you dive into the list I think this year is interesting in terms of everyone having

00:12:16   all these leaks or rumors or whatever about what's going to be released and that there's

00:12:20   seems like there's a lot more info than there normally is and yet I can't shake the feeling

00:12:24   as we see these dueling rumors across sites that still any of the like that these are

00:12:31   like the not the boring features not the obvious features not the easy features but there's

00:12:36   always something that Apple is holding back related to something or other like very often

00:12:39   that that software features related to hardware right because like they'll be say like after

00:12:44   WWDC we'll all be using betas for a while but none of those betas will contain any trace

00:12:50   of the features that are going to be added to serve some piece of hardware that's released

00:12:54   like a month or two after WWDC you know that type of thing so maybe I'm fooling myself

00:12:57   but I have to think that all the features listed are you know the ones that are in builds

00:13:04   that somebody has access to but there's at least one or two more features that aren't

00:13:08   in any of the builds because they're the super secret features so there's not true and this

00:13:11   is all the stuff it's still plenty I'm not saying there has to be a super secret feature

00:13:14   but I'm getting that vibe from seeing these big lists that they're all proud that they

00:13:18   have all these things but they have but they're missing something and of course none of them

00:13:22   mentioned the Mac Pro or only mentioned in the past so that makes me sad too.

00:13:25   Well I think one of the big things that they're missing is like some of the things like they've

00:13:30   described features that sound a lot like you know multiple window management on iPads but

00:13:37   they don't have any idea like what does it look like how does it work like that it seems

00:13:42   like so much of the info in these reports is gleaned from what seem like ways that are

00:13:49   not actually seeing or playing with this software.

00:13:53   Or they have screenshots if they saw them or they have they'd have sketches or they'd

00:13:56   love you know there's no reason they wouldn't be drawing pictures but all they've got is

00:13:59   a vague notion which is fine they're rumors like you know if there's something about windowing

00:14:03   we'll say good you get credit for that one they just don't have a lot of info but yeah

00:14:06   I don't expect them to post screenshots.

00:14:09   I don't know so let's go through this I will just start calling out things that I thought

00:14:14   were interesting and whenever you two are ready just start interrupting me.

00:14:18   We start with iOS and well it's kind of an amalgamation of iOS and watchOS and watchOS

00:14:22   gets split out later.

00:14:24   Apple plans to add the App Store directly on the watch so users can download apps on the

00:14:28   go.

00:14:29   Why?

00:14:30   This is just not so compelling to me.

00:14:32   I've got a use for this feature are you ready?

00:14:35   So one of the big complaints about the watch that Marco gets is that you just did it on

00:14:38   a past show is like I'm out on my watch and I want to download a single episode of a podcast

00:14:43   right now but there's no API for like please watch do a download thing right now you can

00:14:48   just suggest it to the watch and the watch might get to it eventually right.

00:14:53   But I bet with the App Store on the watch if you go to the App Store on the watch and

00:14:57   download it will download that app right then like surely that's how that feature works

00:15:01   right?

00:15:02   Do you remember when ebooks were single serving applications where you download an application

00:15:07   it was just one ebook we need to make podcast episodes into apps.

00:15:12   That way you can download your podcast immediately so starting after WWDC ATP will each episode

00:15:18   of ATP will be released as a single application.

00:15:20   Pretty soon we'll have hundreds of applications on the store Apple will love us.

00:15:24   See this I have some questions about the implementation details of this like right now apps are delivered

00:15:33   as one iOS app that includes an embedded watch OS app component.

00:15:38   So what happens if you download an app to your watch when your phone is not nearby that

00:15:45   you don't have on your phone?

00:15:48   That's a very astute point I hadn't considered that.

00:15:50   I'm assuming it would make you purchase the whole app pull out just the watch part or

00:15:54   not that is doing this but effective logically speaking would just send you the watch part

00:15:57   but when you look on your phone it would be under your purchases that you had basically

00:16:00   purchased the entire app it still wouldn't be on your phone to Margot's point so that

00:16:04   could be a problem for your watch app when you run it and it's like I'm looking for my

00:16:08   partner phone app on the flip that's always been true like you could always delete an

00:16:12   app off your phone far away from the watch that still has the thing installed.

00:16:16   I'm assuming that they're not changing that weird in my opinion model where the only way

00:16:21   to get a watch app is to buy a phone app that comes with a watch app.

00:16:25   And also like how as a developer how do I test the case where the watch app is installed

00:16:31   but the phone app isn't because there is no build and run directly to the watch.

00:16:37   You cannot install from Xcode you can't build an app from Xcode that installs only on the

00:16:42   watch and skips the phone.

00:16:43   That test slide on the watch too.

00:16:45   Pull a new build of the watch.

00:16:47   That's why like this I have to imagine like either this is wrong or misinterpreted or

00:16:53   there's some major implementation details that maybe make this misleading or incomplete

00:16:59   in some major way because like it's just like the reality of what the watch is.

00:17:03   And I mean by the way like an app store on the watch like are you going to have to accept

00:17:07   all input via Siri like it's just when you start to think about the reality of this you

00:17:12   know what happens if your credit card gets you know you have to type in the verification

00:17:15   code like there's all these different like awkwardness things or methods of input.

00:17:20   How would you find the app?

00:17:21   Are you searching?

00:17:22   Yeah like are you doing a search and scrolling through on the tiny little screen like with

00:17:25   the crown like scrolling past all the junk in the search results?

00:17:28   Are there search ads on the watch?

00:17:31   Who knows right?

00:17:32   Like that's why when you think about the realities of that what that entails it starts getting

00:17:37   really messy really fast and that's why I got to figure like this this is odd especially

00:17:43   because watch apps have largely been such a failure and even like there's even barely

00:17:50   even methods to manage apps on the watch like right now like one of the we'll get to this

00:17:54   in a little bit but like you know some of the some of the rumors are new first party

00:17:59   apps from Apple for various health things.

00:18:02   We still can't like hide or delete or bury in folders apps on the watch so like the watch

00:18:10   home screen is already a mess of like 60 apps you don't want plus like the three that you

00:18:16   use and the entire watch OS environment is so it's still just so primitive and so dependent

00:18:24   on doing so many settings and things on the phone and the apps themselves are dependent

00:18:28   on companion phone apps so much of the time.

00:18:32   I don't see a how they could really do this and be what problem it would really solve

00:18:40   when they had like this is like solving problem 350 like Casey's like before you solve

00:18:45   problems one through five.

00:18:48   Does it make sense for them to do it make sense for many watch apps to be separate from

00:18:53   the phone apps like one way this could be more sensible is a used to be the only way

00:18:57   to you know to distribute a watch app was to make it part of your phone app distribution

00:19:01   but now you can make a standalone watch app because maybe you have an app that really

00:19:04   doesn't need anything from its companion and it's silly to make this shell iPhone app that

00:19:09   just has like a splash screen that says by the way this is a watch app and you should

00:19:13   go use it on your you know I think I've had a couple apps that are like that that just

00:19:17   basically contain instructions on how to launch Apple's Apple watch app so you can transfer

00:19:22   the app to the thing like just saying that there is an independent watch store only for

00:19:28   apps that don't have a companion phone app.

00:19:32   I don't know if that makes sense I don't know what percentage are like that but it would

00:19:35   certainly make this model make a little more sense.

00:19:38   I don't I mean I don't think that's going to be like a majority of watch apps or I think

00:19:43   the number would be very small that that would really like be the right move for but also

00:19:46   just like so many apps still depend on their phone counterparts to do critical things because

00:19:52   watch OS is so incredibly limited like it you know not just the US stuff I was saying

00:19:57   a minute ago but like the API layers the the power budget the computational power available

00:20:04   the CPU time your app can take up before it gets killed without warning it's it's a very

00:20:09   like harsh brutal environment like it's like the it's like the programming environment

00:20:14   of like Antarctica like you have very few resources here use them wisely and if you

00:20:19   step you know if you make one little misstep we're going to kill you like that's that's

00:20:23   about what it's like running on watch OS so like for instance overcast my my long-term

00:20:29   idea what I would like to do since since watch to phone communication or phone to watch communication

00:20:36   is so heavily throttled and out of my control and research this is why people this is why

00:20:41   your downloads don't transfer reliably from overcast to your Apple watch because the the

00:20:46   communication layer between the the phone and the watch app is thoroughly and completely

00:20:53   out of your control and so it'll try it like I as the programmer give the what give watch

00:20:59   connectivity a list of transfers to make and it makes them when it damn well feels like

00:21:04   it and and I have no insight into that process I can't tell it hey can you make this one

00:21:09   happen now or can you make this one go over Wi-Fi instead of Bluetooth so it doesn't take

00:21:12   a half hour like I have so little control over all that my long-term goal is to make

00:21:19   the watch app what you just said John to make it totally independent where you literally

00:21:23   can just like log into your overcast account on your watch somehow maybe you know maybe

00:21:28   I just might sink it over by iCloud or whatever it would have its own login it would have

00:21:31   its own sink it would have its own local data and it would be totally independent from your

00:21:36   phone app you could not have the phone app installed and it that would still work that

00:21:40   way but for me to do that I need a few things like I need first of all way more sophisticated

00:21:46   audio API's so I can do things like smart speed voice boost stuff like that and I also

00:21:51   just need you know for and I need better UI for in a lot of ways you know watch kit is

00:21:57   awful we are still not using the same tools Apple is using for for UI and it still shows

00:22:03   and more importantly like I need things like better support for background downloading

00:22:09   for background refresh stuff like that like just to make like a reasonable experience

00:22:14   if the app was totally separate from the phone I need things that right now watch OS are

00:22:18   either missing or are too primitive or too limited to really make that good and so that

00:22:25   is my long term goal but right now not only can I not really reasonably build that but

00:22:31   also there isn't that much demand for it because most of the time people are using

00:22:34   the watch as a remote to their phone not as an independent device so what most people

00:22:39   want most of the time is for it to just be a companion app to what they're doing on

00:22:44   their phone in which case everything I just said is unnecessary.

00:22:47   So allowing for the normal game of telephone that's involved in these type of vague rumors

00:22:53   one way that this this particular mirror could make a lot more sense is that the app store

00:23:00   that they're referring to that you can use directly on the watch exists solely so people

00:23:05   can drum roll please make and sell third party watch faces which only need to go on the watch

00:23:10   don't need a companion phone app make sense to download directly to the watch but you

00:23:14   think if that was the actual story they would have just said third party watch faces because

00:23:18   that would be a way bigger story than app store on the watch but if you're just looking

00:23:21   at headers and there's some kind of purchase API on the watch OS and you're wondering what

00:23:25   the hell that's for I don't know we all want watch faces that's my silver lining to this

00:23:30   one maybe it means third party watch faces but probably not.

00:23:34   We made mention of this a moment ago there will be new first party health applications

00:23:38   a calculator this is all for the watch still and a books app for listening to audio books

00:23:42   from your wrist sounds good.

00:23:44   Cool what about reading from your wrist?

00:23:48   Didn't the watch first come with news like wasn't that one of the things they demoed

00:23:53   during like 1.0 is like you could read news on your watch.

00:23:56   The ergonomics and size obviously are silly for the watch but I do think about like technological

00:24:01   progress and I think I mentioned this many times on many podcasts before that I read

00:24:05   the entire Lord of the Rings saga plus The Hobbit on a 160 by 160 pixel screen.

00:24:12   Is that a palm something?

00:24:14   Yep and the watch has way more pixels than that I think right?

00:24:16   Yeah but it's also way more dense like reading it on the 160 like I also read a lot of my

00:24:21   palm pilot which is why Instapaper exists hello avant-go but it was you know it was

00:24:25   like a three and a half inch or four inch wide screen right?

00:24:28   I said at the beginning size and the ergonomics of trying to read on your wrist make it ridiculous

00:24:32   but technologically speaking that screen is so much more higher fidelity than screens

00:24:38   that I did a heck of a lot of reading on.

00:24:40   So yeah a books app a calculator let's you relive your calculator watch dreams from middle

00:24:45   school or whenever when you had a calculator watch.

00:24:48   I never had a calculator watch.

00:24:49   And health apps I think that's a good idea for Apple like I often forget that like the

00:24:55   health app the one with the little red heart and the white background thing is the clearing

00:25:00   house for health data fed by other applications but is not itself a full-featured health application

00:25:06   for the most part so Apple should start filling these gaps hopefully the apps that we just

00:25:11   listed will be decent but not so good that they kill the entire third-party market for

00:25:16   similar apps.

00:25:18   Real-time follow-up the news app does exist on the watch right now.

00:25:22   And I don't think that's recent I like I really think that was there in like 1.0 or close

00:25:26   to it like I remember them showing off reading news somehow like in the watch.

00:25:32   That actually makes sense like it's not because you just the headline right obviously not

00:25:36   going to read read news but news condenses down to a form that we accept as a thing headlines

00:25:41   just headlines only and a headline will fit on the watch and so presumably you see the

00:25:45   headline on your watch and it's basically like a notification oh here's the thing I

00:25:48   didn't know was happening and then to learn more you go to your larger device.

00:25:51   Well it makes sense for me from a notification flow standpoint like you get notified you

00:25:56   know tap tap hey look at some celebrity doing something stupid you know whereas I think

00:26:00   what they demoed we should like still try and figure out like what the watch is for

00:26:03   was more of like you'll go to your watch to browse things and nope you're that's that

00:26:07   never panned out that way.

00:26:09   And then catch up on those New Yorker articles that you hadn't been reading just turn that

00:26:14   digital crown a lot.

00:26:16   Oh my word.

00:26:18   Dark mode a black and gray heavy interface optimized for viewing at night that can be

00:26:21   enabled in control center the panel for quickly accessing settings.

00:26:25   I don't feel like this is something I yearn for but that being said it is something I'm

00:26:33   sure I would very much like once it showed up and I'm assuming this is more iOS than

00:26:37   watch west.

00:26:38   You just post a screenshot that you're using dark mode and overcast.

00:26:41   Yeah and tweet bot usually anyway.

00:26:43   Yep it's obvious it's already on the Mac it'll be on iOS there'll be much celebrating very

00:26:48   much like dynamic text and lots of other features some developers will incorporate it and everyone

00:26:55   will be happy and some developers will ignore it and people will be sad.

00:27:00   All right moving on let's see the company is testing a new keyboard option that allows

00:27:05   users to swipe across letters on the keyboard in one motion to type out words.

00:27:09   Apple could choose to keep this feature internal.

00:27:12   This is similar to options on Android handsets where it would compete with third party iPhone

00:27:15   apps such as Swift key.

00:27:16   I briefly I shouldn't even say briefly for about six months or a year I used Gboard at

00:27:21   my current recommendation and I actually really liked it for the most part.

00:27:27   I don't remember what it was that made me go away from it but one of the things I liked

00:27:31   most about Gboard was which is Google's keyboard is that it would let you do the swipe thing

00:27:37   that is being discussed right here and I actually quite liked that particularly for one handed

00:27:44   use.

00:27:46   So I'm really interested in this potentially showing up as a first party solution.

00:27:49   Wasn't this rumor didn't this swipe keyboard rumor is that a couple of years they've talked

00:27:54   about that maybe even one of the years was the third party keyboard you like iOS 8 or

00:27:57   whatever and effectively dig at it through third parties there.

00:28:00   Yeah I'm not quite sure what Apple's deal is there like I feel like by allowing third

00:28:04   party keyboards and eventually making them work in semi reliable fashion that this need

00:28:09   is filled I don't think Apple has to be all keyboardist all people but if they want to

00:28:13   put it out that's fine.

00:28:16   You mentioned Gboard which I think I use for short period of time and it definitely wasn't

00:28:20   for swipe.

00:28:21   I think I was using it for emoji search which by the way is a feature that I don't recall

00:28:25   seeing on this list.

00:28:27   Apple it's ridiculous.

00:28:29   The health app also includes more comprehensive menstrual cycle tracking and I believe there

00:28:33   was something else that was more woman oriented which I can't I don't see it here but I think

00:28:39   there was something else somewhere in this list and I'm all I'm into that I think that's

00:28:42   really awesome.

00:28:43   A new feature similar to popular third party apps Duet Display and Luna Display which have

00:28:48   they sponsored us I believe they have that will let users use their iPad as a second

00:28:53   Mac screen with the ability to draw with an Apple pencil expand the viewing area and get

00:28:56   Mac notifications.

00:28:58   This sounds freaking cool.

00:29:00   I am really interested in this.

00:29:01   Yeah we talked about that on the last show that's I feel kind of bad for third parties

00:29:06   that sort of pioneered in this area but it is the type of feature that is probably better

00:29:10   built into the OS because it's you know like multiple monitor support you wouldn't want

00:29:14   to come for a third party on your Mac so similar deal with this and if it works well it will

00:29:18   help Apple sell more hardware and it'll be cool.

00:29:21   Yeah I mean the problem is like for the third party things to work requires you know a certain

00:29:28   degree of hacking for instance like Luna Display I'm pretty sure I should have researched this

00:29:36   I'm pretty sure that the hardware dongle that it requires is just like a display emulator

00:29:42   and then they have software on the Mac that interprets the things that should be shown

00:29:46   on there and sends them over the network over Wi-Fi or USB with through a different port.

00:29:51   If this was done in the OS like officially supported you wouldn't need a little dongle

00:29:55   to be a hardware emulator you could save a port then and not rely on like oh I forgot

00:30:01   my little dongle at home or whatever like.

00:30:02   Apple's got plenty of ports on their machines you don't have to worry about that.

00:30:06   You're talking to a MacBook adorable owner come on man.

00:30:10   Yeah like I mean I've always been a little hesitant to install or to start relying on

00:30:16   hardware that required kernel extensions or similar like you know low level kind of drivers.

00:30:22   I really would like my computing happiness is optimized by not doing that and like that

00:30:28   like I have a Luna Display set back to Kickstarter I've never installed it because I keep like

00:30:34   putting it off and putting off because I don't really want to install software and for a

00:30:38   lot of people they don't care but I do care about that kind of thing.

00:30:41   I actually just last week spent an inordinate amount of time trying to figure out a way

00:30:48   to get my MacBook adorable and my iPad Pro both working via Luna Display in a hostile

00:30:56   Wi-Fi environment and that's the kicker and this this is a like multi-hour story that

00:31:02   I will condense to as quickly as possible which is to say I have a VPN that I run out

00:31:07   of the house on my Synology which is IPsec over L2TP or vice versa I probably got that

00:31:12   backwards doesn't matter but it appears that something in my network somewhere perhaps

00:31:19   in Eero perhaps the Synology I don't know what has decided that I cannot have two simultaneous

00:31:26   connections to that VPN from the same natted network so I was sitting in a Wegmans trying

00:31:31   to get both my iPad and my MacBook adorable onto my in-home VPN couldn't figure it out

00:31:36   which led me down the path of oh I'm sure I can install open V open what is it called

00:31:40   open VPN or something like that you know what I'm thinking of and so I tried doing that

00:31:46   and I've been trying to figure out a way to get this this utopia of having my one and

00:31:52   only port in my adorable plugged into the Luna Display which is a little frustrating

00:31:57   but be that as it may and in my iPad Pro all in a hostile Wi-Fi environment all behind

00:32:02   the VPN all working with each other and it's not particularly it's not going well and I

00:32:06   think it's a network problem so or a networking problem so I would love for this to be first

00:32:11   party because anytime I do go and work from like a Wegmans or a coffee shop or a library

00:32:16   or what have you I want to do the two-screen dance with my iPad Pro but I don't want to

00:32:22   be I don't want to allow myself to just sit on this unsecured Wi-Fi it just creeps me

00:32:27   out and so I haven't figured out a good solution to this problem and maybe this would help

00:32:32   fix it who knows.

00:32:33   I vaguely recall an ad in computer magazines or maybe the 80s and the slogan on the page

00:32:41   it was for some kind of network related product product product rather the slogan was networking

00:32:47   not working question mark and the idea is if you're networking is not working by this

00:32:52   product and I can't remember what the product was and I did a Google search and guess what

00:32:56   a thousand people have used that similar slogan over the years never gonna find it.

00:33:00   Of course networking not working Casey get out of a Wegmans go back to your house.

00:33:05   Yeah well that's the thing is that occasionally I want to be somewhere else to help you know

00:33:10   really juice my creativity but try the library.

00:33:14   I did but it's still a hostile Wi-Fi environment my friend come on man.

00:33:18   Well the thing is like if and if this was a built-in feature the OS they wouldn't even

00:33:23   have to use Wi-Fi like like in in infrastructure mode they could actually use peer-to-peer

00:33:29   Wi-Fi like what airdrop uses between.

00:33:31   Oh that's very good.

00:33:32   And so they could totally bypass the need for both things to be on a solid Wi-Fi connection.

00:33:38   That would be extremely cool man I would love that.

00:33:42   Alright moving on an updated reminders app that better competes with the several to-do

00:33:45   list programs available on the App Store the new app has a main screen four default sections

00:33:49   laid out in a grid speaking of seeing screenshots gentlemen.

00:33:52   Tasks to be done today all tasks scheduled tasks and flag tasks each section has its

00:33:56   own different colored page so users can add items to.

00:33:58   I don't use the reminders app very often I use the app DUE which I would do which I was

00:34:04   browbeat by Mike Hurley into using and now I can't live without but I still think you

00:34:10   know a more robust first-party app that is you know not a powerful powerful app but more

00:34:16   powerful than like just something super simple you know this is the same thing that went

00:34:22   through that we went through with notes.

00:34:23   Notes used to be super simple and kind of not that useful and then suddenly it became

00:34:27   very useful when it gained just a little bit more functionality and that's what I kind

00:34:31   of see happening here and again I think that sounds good.

00:34:35   Yeah that honestly sounds great I mean what they did to notes it was fantastic they took

00:34:41   a they took an app that was so basic and outdated that it was the butt of jokes literally and

00:34:48   they made to replace it an incredibly good versatile highly featured app that yet is

00:34:57   simple and and is you know well integrated like the new in the current notes app I would

00:35:03   say is one of the best new apps Apple has made in the last decade because they really

00:35:08   like they haven't made a lot of new apps in that time and many of them have not been incredibly

00:35:14   great like they haven't walked that wonderful line of power versus ease of use versus you

00:35:21   know integration everything.

00:35:23   Notes is one example where they absolutely have the notes app is fantastic on all the

00:35:28   platforms it's a pretty good Mac app it's a great iPad app it's a great iPhone app it

00:35:33   is wonderful and you know and they talked about this on connected this week or on upgrade

00:35:38   I believe this week about how like you know notes didn't kill other notes apps no no it

00:35:43   very much did like when notes came out a lot of other notes apps became fairly you know

00:35:50   an uncompetitive by comparison it's that good and so what you know while I don't wish

00:35:55   harm upon to do app makers to have another great option if they're if they're giving

00:36:02   the notes treatment to reminders which it badly needs because reminders is now in a

00:36:07   similar state as notes was before of like it's a pretty basic pretty terrible incredibly

00:36:13   outdated app and that is not anywhere near competitive with the rest of the market so

00:36:17   for Apple to give some attention to that and to bring it into this generation this decade

00:36:23   and if they do a good job with that that's awesome because you know the markets probably

00:36:28   going to be okay because everyone has different needs for to do apps it's that's one of the

00:36:32   reasons there's so many of them but to have a solid first party option again that isn't

00:36:37   the butt of jokes that is actually a good app I'm very much looking forward to that

00:36:41   and and I think they can do it based on how well they did notes notes it might have been

00:36:47   in a little bit different situation because notes that then reminders is because notes

00:36:50   was just really just really bad like this there's simple and there's just like it doesn't

00:36:55   even have enough functionality and it didn't like you know it doesn't doesn't do basic

00:36:59   stuff that people want like syncing between all the Mac stuff and you know like it just

00:37:03   it was falling down on the basics so I think it did really affect the market for note apps

00:37:07   because once it went from incompetence to competence then all of a sudden everybody had a competent

00:37:13   note app and that would hurt things now I think reminders is not incompetent and I think

00:37:18   reminders has an advantage that other no other reminder type applications might not have

00:37:24   is that you can say hey dingus remind me to blah blah blah and it gets added to reminders

00:37:28   like you don't have to learn like you know you don't have to learn any weird Siri incantations

00:37:33   remind me today and things to blah blah blah right so like and I use reminders and it not

00:37:41   only does it not have a lot of features but the features that it does have are like frustratingly

00:37:46   hidden behind sort of an iOS 4 style interface like I just I so want to be able to do what

00:37:53   I do and like Google like no matter how I type a reminder like sometimes I'll be typing

00:37:58   a reminder in iOS because I don't want to talk out loud or whatever and I'll just type

00:38:01   like 1 p.m. haircut and I'll just see it makes a reminder called 1 p.m. haircut and I'll

00:38:06   just be like come on Apple come on the worst is sometimes I get the implementation like

00:38:11   haircut at 1 p.m. or something like that and it sets it to 1 p.m. but still leaves 1 p.m.

00:38:16   in the title of the reminder and you know I have to go edit that out like yeah you pulled

00:38:20   it out you extracted it you correctly surmised that I meant today at 1 p.m. and you and you

00:38:25   made the time in the thing but you didn't take it out of the title that's terrible and

00:38:28   the final thing is if you actually have to manually set up the date and the time because

00:38:33   it's you know it's complicated using their date picker like the little I for info you

00:38:40   know remind me on a day going through the time and I think it's just so many different

00:38:44   controls and it's so just barbaric right but all that said I think it does do reminders

00:38:53   they actually work they have always more or less you know sync between systems like it

00:38:58   it's very basic but it's easy to figure out and when you say remind me it does it so I'm

00:39:02   thinking that them making reminders more sophisticated is not going to take reminders from incompetence

00:39:09   to competence it's going to take it from borderline competence to into the realm of all the other

00:39:15   reminder apps which is oh well this isn't how our reminders are work because the current

00:39:19   thing is like who can argue with it it's like a vertical list of little things and it's

00:39:23   so simple that's like well it's not fancy but whatever but as soon as you start adding

00:39:27   features to it now you're making a choice and in the reminder to do app space like those

00:39:32   choices people like I don't want it arranged this way I don't want to see today and to

00:39:35   do whatever just bring back my regular list of reminders and off you are into the wild

00:39:39   west of reminder applications and to do applications where you have a million different options

00:39:43   so I think it will be less impactful than notes for that reason and I think it might

00:39:50   even be more controversial because I think a lot of people do like the reminders app

00:39:53   for its simplicity and if the main screen is now like four panes that might be confusing

00:39:58   to people people might go and seek out a simpler reminders app which would be a hell of a thing

00:40:03   but anyway I commend Apple for improving its built-in applications I hope I end up liking

00:40:08   it because I use reminders rarely but often enough that I do want to have a reminders

00:40:13   app.

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00:42:14   our show.

00:42:18   A new feature in screen time Apple's tool for controlling device usage will let parents

00:42:22   limit who their kids can and cannot contact at certain times for example a parent could

00:42:27   make it so their kid can't contact anyone but them during the evenings I am not in a

00:42:32   position where I have turned on like screen time or parental controls or anything like

00:42:36   that on any device that the kids would use because they're too young to really know what

00:42:41   to do with them but that being said this does strike me as a really cool idea and a really

00:42:47   and a really good idea if you're the kind of parent that wants to do that sort of thing

00:42:51   which I very well may be in my future I think that's awesome to limit the kids so they don't

00:42:55   stay up until you know three in the morning you know sending text back and forth with

00:42:59   their friends or something like that so this sounds cool.

00:43:02   Yeah that's the this is a good idea because I do I do use this feature on my kids devices

00:43:06   and like my main usage of it is to shut everything down after a certain part of night but to

00:43:13   exclude all the applications that I think they might need sort of in an emergency so

00:43:17   they need like maps and they need phone and they need message and they need like all you

00:43:22   know you want to give them access like those are never banned you can always use those

00:43:25   applications but as you said Casey messages well you want them to be able to message you

00:43:30   but if you say messages will never be banned yes they could text their friends all night

00:43:34   long right so being able to say messages the app isn't banned but whitelist just these contacts

00:43:41   is a welcome change to ensure that your kids can you know do what they need to do with

00:43:48   their phone if they find themselves stranded somewhere in an emergency while still basically

00:43:53   making it so you have you know I think we talked about some screen time came out like

00:43:57   it's not that you're delegating parenting to the thing you still have to do parenting

00:44:02   yourself but it makes it it makes these sort of the confrontation a lot easier when the

00:44:07   impersonal machine is the thing that's turning things off surprisingly you would think it

00:44:11   would make them angrier but I think it just works out better a you can't forget to do

00:44:14   it and be I think my kids anyway except it more as just a thing that happens in the world

00:44:21   when it's not you saying okay it's X o'clock no more texting if the phone just does it

00:44:26   it you know I don't know it was working out better for me anyway so I'm I'm gonna use

00:44:31   this feature when it comes out all right I message gets a I forgot about this one we

00:44:36   talked about this on the forthcoming episode of analog if you'd like to hear more thoughts

00:44:39   about this you understand why I'm sighing momentarily I message gets an upgrade with

00:44:43   whatsapp like enhancement that lets people set a profile picture and display name and

00:44:48   choose who sees it super there's also dedicated menu in the conversation view to send sticker

00:44:55   versions of animojis the virtual characters that users can control with the latest iPhone

00:45:00   and iPad cameras and me emojis which are virtual representations of the users themselves so

00:45:07   cool cool cool cool cool I see I'm not sure but you said in the analog episode but I don't

00:45:12   think this is as bad as you might think for your thing this is just talking about the

00:45:16   image that you present to the public through messages now yeah you might be thinking like

00:45:21   well why is that a separate thing at all why don't yeah I've often thought this because

00:45:27   you know it works for my world view but I understand why it's not a feature is like

00:45:32   the Apple's products very often prompt you in various ways to take a picture of yourself

00:45:38   for it to be associated with your contact that is yourself your me contact or whatever

00:45:44   and once you know you do that like while you're setting up your Mac it'll turn on your camera

00:45:48   and do it or you can pick a picture like if everyone just did that for themselves we wouldn't

00:45:53   need an app like yours Casey because you could sync everyone's picture of themselves every

00:45:58   time they talk to you like it's a picture associated with your Apple ID and that way

00:46:02   when you communicate with anybody over iMessage and they have an Apple ID if you're communicating

00:46:07   with them or either you can use their picture but that's not how the world works people

00:46:10   don't always want their picture of themselves to be seen by everybody so having a separate

00:46:15   avatar or whatever for just for the messaging service is a thing that is so entrenched that

00:46:20   it makes some kind of sense but all that said people like I have like my Skype icon is like

00:46:26   link I think my aim icon was a little link icon and stuff like that that's not my contact

00:46:30   picture but an app like yours even if people set their iMessage avatar picture to something

00:46:39   I might not want their iMessage avatar as a thing associated with their contacts I'm

00:46:43   still in the same position where I want nice pictures associated to all my contacts and

00:46:47   I want to see those instead of the one that they set and I hope that's an option to say

00:46:52   don't use you know if I have a contact picture set for this person don't use whatever they

00:46:56   said is their iMessage avatar thing use my picture instead like it's it starts to get

00:47:01   complicated allowing for this you know sort of dual face to the world but I understand

00:47:06   that's the thing that people want I just hope I have the ability on my phone to see the

00:47:10   pictures I want to see and I would still use your application or similar to populate my

00:47:16   contact pictures with nice pictures of people that remind me what the heck they look like

00:47:19   and isn't just a picture of their favorite cartoon character.

00:47:22   Indeed. Yeah and that's that's largely what the forthcoming episode of analog discussed

00:47:28   was that hey this may not be as terrible as it seemed at first glance but man I was really

00:47:33   really kind of depressed on Monday or whatever day this was that this came out because I

00:47:36   a quick app update I'm getting pretty darn close and and I'm feeling actually fairly

00:47:44   proud of it like I'm scared of a lot of things as previously discussed but I'm mostly

00:47:49   proud of it and so I'm I'm really feeling or was anyway really feeling like the wind

00:47:57   was taken out of my sails by this so hopefully hopefully it'll be an on issue otherwise I

00:48:00   will I'm sure everyone who loved making fun of my feet in my icon I'm sure you will have

00:48:07   plenty of ammunition now if I get Sherlock'd within days or perhaps even before having

00:48:11   released my app.

00:48:13   Moving on. Apple's combining the find my friends and find my iPhone services into a new single

00:48:18   app internally known as Green Torch this could go along with a physical beacon to attach

00:48:21   to non-apple devices like a backpack according to 9 to 5 Mac. I don't really have any issue

00:48:27   with the way find my friends and find my iPhone works right now but I think it was on upgrade

00:48:32   but it wasn't the most recent one I think it was a week or two back that Jason had made

00:48:36   the really good point that there are occasions when say one of either his wife's or his children's

00:48:42   devices is in one place but they're one of their other devices is in another place that

00:48:48   was me on this program was it I thought probably made the same point it's an obvious point

00:48:53   but we discussed this feature in the past and I made that point and I think both of

00:48:58   you will eventually be in that situation because right now your kids they have iOS devices

00:49:03   that they use but it's not quite the same eventually if your kids get to when they get

00:49:07   older they're wearing a hand-me-down Apple watch but they leave their phone at home yada

00:49:10   yada yada so I think you will find the utility of this eventually.

00:49:13   I agree. All right the built-in mail app will be updated with the ability to mute individual

00:49:19   threads blocking coming email from certain contacts and will have simpler folder management.

00:49:24   I am not really one to talk about this because I use the built-in mail app and I think it's

00:49:29   just fine I happen to think that if you need well for me anyway I don't like relying on

00:49:37   these kind of like snooze and and other sorts of weird email features that typically were

00:49:43   never first party I would probably be more apt to use those sorts of things if it was

00:49:48   first party but then again if I ever like use the Gmail web interface then what happens

00:49:52   so I don't know this doesn't really do much for me but I know that some of our mutual

00:49:57   friends like Mike Hurley for example who loves to change email apps as frequently as he changes

00:50:02   his underwear I'm sorry pants whatever anyway he will I'm sure quite like this.

00:50:09   See this a little bit scares me and a little bit intrigues me if you look at the first

00:50:14   two things the ability to mute threads and to block email from certain contacts that

00:50:22   is not very useful if it's only on your phone version of the mail app and so it brings the

00:50:29   question well is it going to sync are they going to sync this with iCloud maybe between

00:50:33   all of your instances of your mail clients and then what about the Mac you know is so

00:50:40   I think if they're going to be putting significant effort into the mail app on the phone maybe

00:50:47   this is the year when mail on the Mac gets updated possibly via marzipan that would be

00:50:53   a pretty big deal mail on the Mac is a huge and very important and very complicated app

00:50:59   so to replace it with a marzipan version with any kind of significant rewrite is a pretty

00:51:04   big job I have heard rumblings here and there I think other podcasts that the that there

00:51:09   is a mail rewrite underway but I don't know anything more about it than those rumblings

00:51:17   so I don't know if that I don't know if this is the right time for that or if it's even

00:51:19   happening but the idea that mail could be getting significant attention would be very

00:51:26   intriguing and very interesting because I too am a user of the Apple mail app and I

00:51:30   pretty much always have been since I switched to Macs like I briefly used Thunderbird when

00:51:33   I was you know back in a mixed PC and Mac environment now I'm all mail and it's great

00:51:38   so I would love for this kind of thing but historically the updates to mail on iOS have

00:51:44   been very minimal and on the Mac have been not only minimal but also like breaking like

00:51:50   every other Mac OS release that breaks Gmail integration or something so anyway to have

00:51:55   a major new mail app would be very interesting and I kind of hope it happens but I'm a little

00:52:00   scared that they might do it badly or incompletely and then the last part of this the end of

00:52:05   the sentence says and we'll have simpler folder management simpler with modern Apple doing

00:52:13   it sounds a lot like feature deletion I don't want Apple to make certain things simpler

00:52:19   that like things I use it's almost like Apple has taken the thing you love and made it thinner

00:52:26   well what did that cost me that's no longer a like you know pure benefit thing like that

00:52:35   has a cost what did I lose what will what am I now paying more for what did I lose and

00:52:40   what is now worse by them making it thinner right you can say this exact same thing about

00:52:45   simpler if something's been made simpler that probably means it's been rewritten and is

00:52:50   more limited than it was before and so if it will have simpler folder management what

00:52:57   exactly does that mean I'm guessing that's not what people want in a mail app because

00:53:04   if you think about like what you know the kind of users who use mail apps these days

00:53:07   what you know what modern usage tends to be you have the gmail crowd which is substantial

00:53:12   who largely don't use folders at all or use tags or whatever else but like the most of

00:53:17   the method for gmail users is just archive everything and use search and by the way search

00:53:23   in iOS mail is terrible and needs to be a lot better and any major update to mail on

00:53:29   iOS I would hope would address search first before anything else so you have search and

00:53:33   for search people folders don't really matter like the apple can do whatever they want with

00:53:37   folders and they those search people usually won't see the folder so it doesn't really

00:53:40   matter no one's asking to make that simpler and for folders users like I actually use

00:53:45   folders not extensively I mostly throw everything into one big archive but I have a couple folders

00:53:49   I use also for folders users you probably don't want things to be made simpler you probably

00:53:57   are fine the way things are because it is already quite simple it is a basic hierarchy

00:54:03   of folders it is kind of hard to make it simpler without losing critical functionality of like

00:54:11   can folders no longer be nested or can you still even make arbitrary numbers of folders

00:54:17   who knows so yeah that in this context simpler folder management I consider a bit of a red

00:54:23   flag.

00:54:24   I was kind of amazed at how many people use the apple mail app on iOS because I always

00:54:28   found it so under featured and so basic that it doesn't even come close to I mean I'm a

00:54:34   Gmail person so Gmail has all sorts of features and things but that's why I think any story

00:54:41   about them improving the iOS app by adding features is good because it needs more features

00:54:45   than it has it is very basic and bare bones it has its strengths in particular like the

00:54:51   basic stuff like it supporting dynamic type or whatever that feature is like I noticed

00:54:56   that my mother has bad vision uses different applications entire popular categories of

00:55:02   applications or manufacturers of applications are just out because they don't allow her

00:55:07   to make the text as big as she wants to make it and apple mail for all its simplicity and

00:55:13   faults does it looks terrible but when you make the text big you can make the text really

00:55:17   big so I'm glad they're adding features to it you mentioned the two features that potentially

00:55:23   could be implemented quote unquote client side like you could mute things and you could

00:55:27   have blocking and all sorts of stuff and that could just happen in the app I remember the

00:55:33   bad old world before I went Gmail I mean it wasn't bad I love some of the applications

00:55:37   I use but I have this struggle where I would I'm a big mail rules and mail filter type

00:55:45   user I would set up a bunch of mail rules for imap or pop or whatever for my 700 email

00:55:51   accounts and I'd set it up in entourage or alto express or whatever Mac client that I

00:55:56   was using at the time and then I would also get email woman at work and especially if

00:56:00   there was an imap back end behind them if the work Mac didn't file stuff the home Mac

00:56:06   would never get a chance to file stuff or if you were doing pop you they need to be

00:56:11   filed in both places and it wouldn't be reflected so you had to constantly try to like make

00:56:15   sure I have the same mail rule set up on my home Mac and my work Mac like doing things

00:56:19   client side was a nightmare but today in the world we live in today we said what are they

00:56:24   going to do sync the stuff with you I think that's the that's the minimum bar any application

00:56:29   that that you make that there's a Mac version an iOS version or whatever that has any kind

00:56:34   of things like that even just preferences but maybe you can set aside but things like

00:56:38   mail rules absolutely all that stuff should sink like Apple has their own you know in-house

00:56:44   API's for all that type of stuff that's the whole point of having an app in both places

00:56:48   not so you can maintain two entirely separate sets of rules but preferences it gets a little

00:56:52   weird but sometimes you want different preferences but at least that should be the option so

00:56:57   if I encounter an application that is on multiple Apple platforms but has no way to synchronize

00:57:01   any you know settings or rules between them that's terrible and so I really hope if and

00:57:08   when they enhance the iOS version of mail and replace the Mac version of mail that the

00:57:13   minimum bar is oh yeah and of course any kind of rules or muting or whatever sort of stuff

00:57:18   we do client-side of course that sinks instantly between all your copies of mail because it

00:57:22   really doesn't make much sense to have different mail rules for the same mail back end like

00:57:26   if you're using IMAP or something and if you get the mail on one client it sorts into one

00:57:30   folder and if you get the mail on it like it doesn't make any sense it absolutely has

00:57:33   to sync so I really hope that's what they're doing the Mac version of mail is not as simple

00:57:38   let's say as the as the iOS version I'm not sure it needs a bunch more features but it

00:57:44   sure is kind of old and crufty and so I feel like I feel like at this point the Apple mail

00:57:49   application on the Mac is about to get the iPhones I photo to photos transition where

00:57:55   it's going to be a new application you might be excited until you see all the stuff that

00:57:58   you used to be able to do in the old version that you can't do anymore I think that's I

00:58:02   think that's coming for mail and it's probably overdue but I think a lot of Apple mail users

00:58:07   are going to be sad but I'll be fine because I use Gmail and I stay the hell away from

00:58:11   Apple's mail apps. I don't know I just don't need much of my mail app and I have eventually

00:58:19   succumbed to the Marco approach of email which is read everything well me I don't know if

00:58:23   you read any everything but I read everything and ignore almost all of it. I mean email

00:58:26   is really a self-solving problem like if you just don't answer emails usually the need

00:58:32   for them goes away in a couple of weeks at most. It's very true I just I still haven't

00:58:37   quite shaken the guilt associated with that though I need to I need to take a lesson in

00:58:41   that just set it down and walk away. Yeah Apple's also planning to let HomePod speakers

00:58:46   respond to different users voices creating a much requested multi-user mode. I still

00:58:50   do not have a HomePod in the house although I'm sure if I did or two or like the teaching

00:58:55   eight then I'm sure I would like this but I don't know since I don't have any of these

00:59:01   it's not really doing much for me now both of you guys have one right. Google Home has

00:59:05   this multi voice thing I remember when it came out I think I had my daughter add her

00:59:11   voice to it because she's the other person who talked to the thing at that point and

00:59:16   this one and by the way speaking of home cylinder things that you talk to because I pay for

00:59:23   like whatever the maximum amount of storage that Google will sell you for their Google

00:59:27   Drive thing they sent a promotion presumably to all people who pay for this amount and

00:59:31   said hey do you want a free Google Home Mini shipping included and I said yes. So they

00:59:36   sent me another free one. It's like because you subscribe to our two terabyte plan and

00:59:40   we're overcharging you for it we'll just give you this for free. So we got one for free

00:59:43   and we put it in my daughter's room because she asked the weather every morning so she

00:59:46   knows how to get dressed or whatever and I recalled that like oh we did that thing a

00:59:52   while ago where it we trained it to know your voice but because these cylinder things are

00:59:59   just like faceless like I was I was struck sitting there like does it know your voice?

01:00:05   How do you teach it another voice? What features are available with the voice and you know

01:00:10   in the end we just didn't do anything because she mostly just asked the weather and it's

01:00:13   probably fine but what I would have liked to say is do you recognize my voice? Who am

01:00:18   I? Can I add another voice? Like again every time this topic comes up with cylinder I say

01:00:22   I want to have a very basic simple conversation with where it understands something about

01:00:27   the meaning of what I'm saying so we can go back and forth and arrive at a solution instead

01:00:31   I probably have to remember whatever incantation is required like for example if my daughter

01:00:36   said do I have any new email not that she would ever say that because she does not check

01:00:40   her email ever ever ever neither do any young children emails for old people. I would hope

01:00:45   that it would know that it's her voice and know what email address is associated with

01:00:49   her maybe that information is in there but I don't know how to verify that I don't know

01:00:54   how to access it and I feel like the same challenge is going to be presented with a

01:00:57   HomePod. Great you so you can distinguish voices. What does that mean practically for

01:01:01   the user and how do they how do they get visibility into what HomePod thinks of the world like

01:01:08   does it recognize you as a separate person? Does it know what things are associated with

01:01:12   you? If you have an Apple Music subscription but someone else doesn't if you ask for a

01:01:17   song will it play it for you but the other person it won't like in this place where there's

01:01:21   no screen and where sort of the thing inside the cylinder is just this sort of very terse

01:01:27   monk that mostly just hits you with a bamboo switch on the back of your hand and doesn't

01:01:33   really give you much. It's such a mystery what's going on in there. So for now I assume

01:01:39   mostly what I'll continue to do with my HomePod is ask you to turn my lights on and off but

01:01:44   I'm glad they're getting multi voice support because that's the first step towards it having

01:01:48   a better understanding of what's actually going on around it.

01:01:51   Goodness. Alright more organized share sheet interface for sharing photos and web links

01:01:56   software will suggest people to send content to based on how frequently you interact with

01:02:00   them. Cool. What does more organized mean? I mean it's not organized now you can drag

01:02:05   things around and sometimes it remembers what position you drag them to. Like what I thought

01:02:11   they were going to say when it said how free based on how frequently it's talking about

01:02:14   like the airdrop contacts and blah blah blah I thought I already did that first of all

01:02:17   but second of all a clever way to do the share sheet thing would be to have a mode where

01:02:24   it starts bubbling up the ones you use more frequently right that's not great because

01:02:28   then things will move around and it's not as predictable but I think the number the

01:02:32   percentage of users that actually rearrange their share icons is very very low. I do you

01:02:39   know but even though I try to do it in every single app and arrange the things just so

01:02:43   I want every once in a while like a new share icon will appear because of some new feature

01:02:48   and I'll forget and it'll start pushing off my frequently used ones to the right

01:02:51   and I realize I keep scrolling to the right to get to the copy link thing I should move

01:02:55   that but I don't I'm lazy so I might even activate the mode that says just bubble up

01:03:01   the ones I frequently use I'll hunt for them every time because at this point because

01:03:06   the is it per app I don't know what it is per app is it per share sheet is it per data

01:03:11   type you have to arrange them multiple times in multiple places and it gets a little bit

01:03:16   tedious so I would be all for arranging based on frequency of use but that's not what

01:03:19   they're talking about unless that's what more organized means.

01:03:22   Yeah who knows the company is testing a downloads manager for Safari web browser so users can

01:03:27   access downloads in a single place like they can on a computer an updated an updated files

01:03:32   app will work better with third-party software man I am all in on improvements to the files

01:03:37   app like the Safari download manager yeah I guess that's cool but you don't think

01:03:40   you can skip over the download manager because the idea of downloading anything in Safari

01:03:44   and iOS is like downloading it to where yeah yeah where is it downloading it to you can't

01:03:49   download anywhere oh maybe I can download to the files app which might actually be worth

01:03:53   a damn in this version of the OS that would be amazing because seriously though like if

01:03:57   they had a download manager what would it show like that you just it's very confusing

01:04:04   to me like what have you ever downloaded anything in Safari and iOS as in actually downloaded

01:04:10   not just displayed in a web page allowed you to play audio or video no like I wouldn't

01:04:15   download things mostly because I don't have anything to do with them in my iOS workflow

01:04:19   yeah yeah like if I was doing all my work on iOS and I had all you know a bunch of different

01:04:23   tools to do various things again that might make some sense like I'm sure you know like

01:04:26   our friends the iPad power users I'm sure would love this kind of thing but I don't

01:04:31   think most iPad users would use this because there's a huge question of like where does

01:04:36   the file go and why am I downloading it in the first place and people what people would

01:04:42   expect in a download manager is finally when I tap on something that Safari can't display

01:04:48   an iOS whatever it is it's a zip file to whatever it would ask me hey where on your phone do

01:04:53   you want me to put this and you'd have some kind of file hierarchy that would let you

01:04:57   put stuff there and and that exists on the phone like that you could even if it just

01:05:01   showed you the iCloud folders there's folders per file type there's folders perhaps like

01:05:05   there's places to put stuff but Safari doesn't like there's no open save dialogue on iOS

01:05:10   and so if the interaction of a download manager I hope this is part and parcel to the entire

01:05:15   like hopefully revolution of file management iOS where finally they will allow some semblance

01:05:22   of file system access in some controlled way in any application that wants it I would hope

01:05:28   so but like I like where do you even put it like I think on the Mac it makes more sense

01:05:33   because the environment that you are using all the time like the hook at like the home

01:05:37   screen of the Mac is the desktop and the dock which has the downloads folder right in it

01:05:43   like they're like the folders and and folder locations on disk are integrated into the

01:05:49   UI of everything you're doing on the Mac there's an iOS like there is no desktop on iOS like

01:05:55   maybe that's the new feature of iOS 13 the desktop you can litter this with files now

01:06:01   you're joking there but like so we already talked about the iCloud folders like there

01:06:07   are places in iCloud to put stuff but you do actually need some representation in the

01:06:14   UI of iOS of local only storage because I mean we're all talking about like oh if I

01:06:18   plug in a USB thing or an SD card or whatever like some some large amount of storage if

01:06:23   your only option is put this into iCloud drive a you're gonna run out of iCloud space or

01:06:27   Dropbox or pick your cloud service you'll run out of space and be what if you don't

01:06:31   want to upload that 17 gig radio file to a cloud service you just want to edit it on

01:06:36   your iPad there has to be the concept of local storage and how you represent that in the

01:06:43   sort of the files interface from the perspective of the application that's a difficult problem

01:06:47   it could just be a free for all like the you know the Mac file system is but Apple's been

01:06:51   finding that so hard that I feel like they're they're not going to give up in its entirety

01:06:55   but they're that distinction is important and it's important enough to surface in the

01:07:00   UI I think Apple has been for too long chasing the dream of transparent network storage or

01:07:05   you don't have to worry about whether it's cloud or not but you do you do have to worry

01:07:09   especially with the prices Apple charges and the meager amount they gave you for you absolutely

01:07:12   have to worry only you know the only company that could chase that is something like Google

01:07:17   where they do like their photos like never run out of room because we'll accept your

01:07:20   photos forever at a reduced quality because we recompress them but whatever like from

01:07:24   user perspective they can they can wave their hand and say oh it's fine and we you know

01:07:28   we won't upload it if you're on and sell like they can make all the decisions for you and

01:07:32   you never run out of space and it's weird and slow but it's transparent but Apple is

01:07:35   not following that path at all so Apple has to distinguish cloud Dropbox OneDrive Google

01:07:42   Drive whatever and local and local with especially the iPad pros is becoming increasingly important

01:07:48   and so I hope really hope they have a representation and a clear distinction in the UI of what

01:07:52   is local storage versus what is cloud. Yeah because it's one of those things like in like

01:07:56   using old Jolan software parlance it's a leaky abstraction like any kind of like you know

01:08:03   network file based operation that you're trying to make appear local that you're syncing to

01:08:09   a network you're syncing between computers via a network like Dropbox like it's a leaky

01:08:13   abstraction because network conditions make everything complicated and so you know you

01:08:18   try to like Apple would try to design things that appear very simple and work very simply

01:08:23   to you and expose no controls to you and tell you no errors or anything like just make it

01:08:29   perfect and make it appear everywhere but the reality is it's really complicated and

01:08:34   there's all these complicated conditions that you can't paper over all the time and you

01:08:39   have to have some kind of UI for things like conflict resolution or or you know error dialogues

01:08:47   or you know trying to fix sync problems like re-syncing or force syncing or pausing sync

01:08:52   like there's all these things and Apple has mostly not been very good about dealing with

01:08:58   that complexity from the user's perspective like they instead it seems like the way they

01:09:03   usually deal with it is fail silently and leave no error message anywhere leave nothing

01:09:08   for the user to possibly do to control or fix or diagnose a problem and just tell people

01:09:13   to like you know restore their phones if something goes wrong and and I hope they're getting

01:09:17   better at that over time I think they might be.

01:09:19   So speaking of that a brief aside my son is using I finally have convinced my son to use

01:09:27   Xcode instead of the terrible web application to do his Swift programming for his class

01:09:33   in school so now he's in Xcode and he's constantly asking me a question about Xcode and I have

01:09:36   no idea how Xcode works I'm like I don't know there's I'm I know how I know what features

01:09:40   must exist but I have no idea where they are anyway.

01:09:42   If only you knew two people who live and breathe it every single day.

01:09:47   By the way how are you not knowing about my favorite bit of wonderfulness in Xcode it's

01:09:53   the only app I've ever seen that assigns a really important action to right dragging.

01:09:58   Right dragging I can't get him to use the arrow keys.

01:10:01   We're starting very soon he's someone who did not grow up with personal computers so

01:10:06   he has no idea what he's doing and he doesn't know what a debugger is and so on and so forth

01:10:09   anyway setting that aside he's been encountering an issue so he'll go over to the computer

01:10:14   and he will I haven't seen him do it I'm assuming he's double clicking on the dot Xcode proj

01:10:21   whatever file but honestly I don't even know but anyway what happens is Xcode launches

01:10:26   and he gets a spinner and then a beach ball and then he comes and gets me comes finds

01:10:31   me in the house and said I'm trying to launch Xcode and it's just sitting there and like

01:10:36   the first time it happened I'm like I don't know reboot whatever but then it kept happening

01:10:42   and I was like well why don't you just reboot it worked last time I actually didn't last

01:10:45   time I rebooted the whole computer and he said last time I rebooted it's still beach

01:10:49   balled and like when you say reboot he didn't mean reboot he meant he logged out so anyway

01:10:54   I showed him what actual reboot is and then then I said oh it must be working now but

01:10:59   then he came back and said no the reboot didn't fix it so basically every time he launches

01:11:02   his Xcode projects he gets a beach ball I'm like well then if it didn't work last time

01:11:05   you didn't come back and find me so how did you resolve that and he's like well eventually

01:11:10   the beach ball went away after like 20 minutes which is typical teenage exaggeration like

01:11:15   20 seconds yeah so I tried it myself I launched his project on a freshly restarted 5k iMac

01:11:22   in Xcode and sure enough an Xcode window comes up a little indeterminate progress spinner

01:11:27   goes in the window and then a couple seconds later we get the good old beach ball cursor

01:11:31   and it spent a while on that beach ball cursor and the reason this is relevant to this topic

01:11:35   is you know what I thought of immediately I bet when we set up his account I foolishly

01:11:39   enabled sync documents on a desktop document folder and desktop into iCloud and I bet what's

01:11:47   happened is these three friggin text files that constitute his Swift program that whatever

01:11:53   the iCloud thing syncing them is having some sort of weird I don't he's never accessed

01:11:58   them from another computer right and so I so I was like I got to turn that feature off

01:12:01   but then I was terrified I'm like I can't turn that feature off because if I do it's

01:12:04   going to erase all of his files and I don't know what the hell to do so he's in this

01:12:08   weird situation where he can never quit Xcode but each time you launch it and it's a while

01:12:11   it's not 20 minutes but it's more than a minute I have no idea what he's doing during

01:12:15   that minute this computer is connected to Ethernet like it doesn't make any sense

01:12:18   whatsoever but I wondered if you had any ideas besides deleting everything in my derived

01:12:23   data folder that is the one cure-all that it will fix all of your problems there's

01:12:29   literally four Swift files that are each a page long this is not a sophisticated program

01:12:33   there is no UI there is no I mean I think he imports foundation but that's it I mean

01:12:37   you wouldn't be the first person to have performance problems with Xcode using Swift

01:12:41   it's just launching it we're not at the point where the sweat doesn't even appear

01:12:45   on the screen yet it's just an empty window it's trying to render it it's it's all

01:12:49   that syntactic complexity it's having trouble highlighting it such a cool project though

01:12:54   I'm so jealous because I didn't have any literally any programming classes at all when

01:12:58   I was in high school because I'm old but his project is like it's like a game design

01:13:04   class and they're doing like tank warfare and so there's yeah make a tank game with

01:13:08   tanks on a grid and it's like render nasty art like the grid is rendered with hyphens

01:13:12   and stuff that's awesome tanks can shoot at each other whatever and it's a contest so

01:13:16   you do you do the game as the assignment but then they have a battle at the end where you

01:13:19   program your tank as like a class or something with rules about how it's supposed to battle

01:13:23   and then they I'm assuming they just copy and paste everybody's classes into one big

01:13:27   project and run all the tanks against each other that's fantastic that is super cool

01:13:31   maybe it'd be a lot less fun if it was a in watch OS and the tanks would get killed if

01:13:35   using two seconds of CPU six yeah oh he was he was asking me how do I use machine learning

01:13:41   to like hone my tank strategy and like that is the thing that's possible wow but you should

01:13:47   probably start with like just the basics he wants to go for like he knows machine learning

01:13:52   is a thing and he knows it might help him make his tank better but he's at the point

01:13:56   where you know just learning the very basics of programming like conditionals and loops

01:14:01   and functions and classes and structures and you know you can get surprisingly far without

01:14:07   actually knowing anything which we all know from when we were beginning programmers like

01:14:11   you can actually get pretty far without having any idea how like you know say structures

01:14:15   actually work or knowing anything about you know the whole whole sections of language

01:14:19   that he has no idea about it but like autocomplete saves him I already gave him the old man's

01:14:23   speech about that like you know when I had to take my variables out I couldn't autocomplete

01:14:27   how does that API spell that to look up in a book on paper like an animal right every

01:14:33   every is autocompleting so spoiled these children I've made this speech before on this very

01:14:39   program but it's been a while one of the funniest things about being a longtime Microsoft person

01:14:44   is that when I can't remember instances when it happened other than the occasional times

01:14:50   I had the opportunity to watch a Microsoft person and by that I mean somebody's cut their

01:14:55   teeth unlike Microsoft Visual Studio jump into Xcode and especially it's actually gotten

01:15:00   the autocomplete has gotten pretty good in the last couple of versions of Xcode but up

01:15:04   until the last couple of versions it was a disaster and watching a Microsoft like a C#

01:15:09   developer try to get by an Xcode where there was no real autocomplete like that's how you

01:15:14   write C# is you just keep figuring things out by autocomplete and eventually you'll

01:15:19   come up with something good I never learned C# all I knew was if you started by typing

01:15:23   system dot you would be able to do everything like so I just type system dot and then I

01:15:28   get a pop-up menu oh I want I don't know how about IO all right dot and then you just keep

01:15:33   going until you find what you want it just it basically is writing your code for you

01:15:36   yep basically so anyway I think Xcode's autocomplete is really good now because I'm watching him

01:15:41   use it it is you know they got rid of the things of like constantly giving you the alphabetical

01:15:46   first one even though you never want that what was the canonical example of that I forget

01:15:49   it was like NSString versus NS what was the stream yeah yeah but it's alphabetically first

01:15:55   but anyway it's that's all fixed and it's fast and like he rides that autocomplete that's

01:16:01   how he gets anything done because he doesn't know what these APIs are even for the arguments

01:16:04   like it just half the time it's like dialogue you know you watch kids and adults dismiss

01:16:10   dialog boxes without ever reading them I think feel like he autocompletes APIs without ever

01:16:14   reading what they are yep that's fine no whatever like you have to read what it says if you

01:16:17   actually wanted to subtract and it said add that makes a difference in your code yeah

01:16:21   he's learning.

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01:18:17   finally rounding out the iOS section the iPad is getting some unique features including

01:18:24   an updated interface for multitasking no details tweaks to the home screen no details and the

01:18:29   ability to cycle through different versions of the same app no details there were details

01:18:33   in somebody's story I forget which person's story these bullet points are fun but the

01:18:37   story I read that I had some more details like about what is the tweaked home screen

01:18:43   and what are the multitasking features but it wasn't much more than like you know the

01:18:50   home screen will basically look the same but have a few more places where you can customize

01:18:54   stuff and the multitasking was like maybe the ability to juggle more apps at once and

01:18:59   it's like it's still vague but I feel like more information is coming out about this

01:19:03   kind of like the multiple window panel thing like it's less vague than it was before

01:19:08   but it's still vague enough that their butts are covered if they show anything remotely

01:19:12   related to Windows but it kind of sounds like I'm not getting my desktop on my iPad

01:19:16   huh I mean I don't know stranger things have happened like did you see the mock-up

01:19:21   a bunch of people had like mock-ups I already have a doc yeah mock-ups of things that they

01:19:24   would like in iOS and one of them had like finder for iPad and you know silly things

01:19:29   like that like the desktop on your iPad or finder for iPad the what makes them silly

01:19:35   or not is entirely dependent on how much sort of goodwill and marketing cache a Apple believes

01:19:41   a particular word has because you can take almost anything you do to springboard or anything

01:19:45   you do to files or whatever and apply that label to like so say iOS 13 has local storage

01:19:51   to distinguish from from remote storage and it's like a first-class citizen and the UI

01:19:55   is built around it if Apple thinks if Apple's marketing department thinks that people like

01:20:00   their desktops and have good association with that word it would be like your desktop on

01:20:05   iOS they could even sync the same contents from your Mac you know cloud desktop sync

01:20:10   thing that I was just talking about if they don't they won't call it desktop same thing

01:20:13   with the finder if they change the files application greatly enhance it and make it better they

01:20:19   could and they think finder has cache a it doesn't but if they think finder has cache

01:20:23   a the marketing people think they could say now iOS has the finder and we would all cheer

01:20:29   but in reality the only person who has any good feelings associated with that name is

01:20:32   me and ten other old people so they're not going to do that but that type of approach

01:20:37   of taking a thing that really has no connection to the desktop or the finder but it's like

01:20:42   kind of performs a similar function in spirit and just applying a beloved name to it is

01:20:46   totally a thing Apple has done and would do so I wouldn't put desktop on iOS past the

01:20:51   moment Marco your dream could come true.

01:20:54   One day maybe the thing that really bumps me out about this is that I have not heard

01:20:59   any real commentary about the files app getting access to like SD cards and stuff like that

01:21:04   because the one thing I would know anyone wants I know that I'm serious like all I want

01:21:09   the world just be able to sit on the couch with an SD card plugged into my USB C port

01:21:14   and go through the the the pictures on my SD card and you know decide oh I want this

01:21:20   one I don't want this one I don't want this one I do want that one and take care of them

01:21:25   on the couch instead of like up here on my iMac it would be so wonderful and I can imagine

01:21:31   there would be plenty of amazing apps that would assist with that process like a friend

01:21:35   of mine wrote an app I believe it's called best photos I'll try to link it in the show

01:21:38   notes that would be perfect for doing this kind of thing and I I would love to be able

01:21:43   to do that on my iPad but if I don't have well not me but you know if developers don't

01:21:47   have file system access it's a non-starter so I am going to be you know John you're going

01:21:52   to be inconsolable if there's no mention of Mac Pro and of course I'll be cackling but

01:21:58   you'll be inconsolable I won't be inconsolable if I don't get file system access in like

01:22:02   files or something or an API or something like that but I'm gonna be really freaking

01:22:05   annoyed yeah and I hope I hope it's done in a if they do this I hope they do this in a

01:22:10   general purpose way like we already have areas of iOS like Siri kit that are very like domain

01:22:19   specific like you can you can integrate with Siri as long as what you want to do is one

01:22:24   of these like 12 things that you're allowed to do and you know it's there are so many

01:22:29   apps that you can come up with that could use something with Siri but oh it doesn't

01:22:33   fit within these 12 things and so you just can't do it if they do some kind of like you

01:22:38   know file like third party mass storage access API but say it only works for photos that's

01:22:45   not very good because there's lots of reasons to use mass storage devices or storage cards

01:22:51   like SD cards that are not for photos or video you know like right now you can import photos

01:22:57   to the camera roll on the device using the camera connection kit or things like that

01:23:01   but you know there's problems like a what if your camera whatever is not supported by

01:23:06   it or whatever it is and then be what if what you want to import is not photos or video

01:23:11   and see what if you don't want what you're importing all being dumped into your iCloud

01:23:16   photo library if you if you deviate from like the rails that they have set for like you

01:23:21   can import photos and videos to photos that app and nothing else like if what you want

01:23:27   falls outside of that you're just kind of out of luck what I hope they do when they

01:23:31   tackle this problem because they inevitably have to tackle this problem like if you look

01:23:35   at the iPad pro reviews from this past fall every single review even from mainstream press

01:23:42   publications every single review when talking about the iPad pro dinged it for not having

01:23:49   mass storage device important files because it's you know as much as we want to pretend

01:23:54   like we live in this world where you never need a thumb drive or whatever the reality

01:23:59   is sometimes you need you need a freaking thumb drive like sometimes that is the best

01:24:03   solution to a problem or the only solution to a problem that you have out there in the

01:24:06   world and so to have the ability to just plug in a thumb drive and copy files from or to

01:24:13   it from or to the iPad like that is a very common thing and if you're going to say the

01:24:19   iPad is a computer or a computer replacement it needs to be able to do this sort of thing

01:24:24   it's no question that that's why the reviews of these you know high-end expensive devices

01:24:31   that are marketed to be computer replacements dinged it for that it's very important so

01:24:35   what I hope they do here is not try to define 12 domains that say okay for these 12 use

01:24:41   cases you can use this new API to have your app integrate with a you know a plugged in

01:24:48   memory stick or something no just have file system access like make it so that you can

01:24:55   plug in mass storage devices and apps can copy files to or from them that is what we

01:25:03   want I know it's hard if you want to like access the files directly on it then you have

01:25:08   to deal with things like unmounting being potentially problematic so just have a copy

01:25:13   API copy files off of it copy files onto it or even like you know even if you allow rights

01:25:19   like you know if you don't allow deletes like whatever it is make it work so that apps can

01:25:24   access the files and modify the files on mass storage devices and I really hope they do

01:25:30   it in a general purpose way not like defining these narrow domains that of course our needs

01:25:36   are not going to be completely expressed by.

01:25:38   The other way they could screw it up and I don't think they'll do this but I reminded

01:25:41   of it because this is a way people have been working around it is make a bunch of API's

01:25:44   but then say and these are just API's it's up to you third-party developers to make applications

01:25:51   that when launched can see mass storage through the USB C port on iPad Pro and then it's up

01:25:56   to those applications to put the thing somewhere do you remember that like there was one that

01:26:00   let you read USB C sticks or something with some hardware software synergy between the

01:26:06   app and the thing that yet there have been things like this like where it's like somebody

01:26:10   like SanDisk or something will make their memory stick will have its own app that can

01:26:15   read the files off of it and but like that's a terrible solution for general purpose is

01:26:21   super terrible like that would that would be the the second worst way they can do it

01:26:26   yours is probably the first worst which is like we have a narrow set of API's like Siri

01:26:29   Intents and you can't deviate the second worst is we didn't want to make an app like this

01:26:32   and we sure as heck not going to expand the files up to do because that would be too useful

01:26:35   so instead here's a framework here's some API's and it's a third-party opportunity but

01:26:39   honestly I think Casey you will be satisfied they are going to extend the files app to

01:26:44   not be as dumb they're just going to do it sure hope so all right let's move on to MacOS

01:26:53   there's not that much here because Mac OS there are only four bullets that I bought

01:26:57   hey no no hold on that's not fair there's a really big thing here for Mac OS that I

01:27:01   think is going to be the focus of most of our summer and fall yeah that's fair that's

01:27:06   not mentioned in these stories like marzipan is a whole separate thing like aside from

01:27:09   marzipan what else is going on in Mac OS and that's what they always mention in these articles

01:27:12   I don't know I mean it the very first bullet in my list which I pulled from the article

01:27:16   is the biggest change coming to Mac the Sears the ability for iPad apps to run on laptops

01:27:20   and desktops yeah I know but they don't go into it it's like yeah yeah marzipan like

01:27:24   we know but that's that's huge like I mean we don't have to talk about it a lot today

01:27:28   because we've already talked about it a lot and we don't know anything new yet but marzipan

01:27:33   is massive and if it happens at all the way that we think it's going to happen I know

01:27:38   a lot of a lot of people are not happy about marzipan and are afraid of it I will most

01:27:43   likely very heartily embrace it and so I'm very excited about it well all are going to

01:27:48   embrace it whether we like it or not right we're all going to be running a lot of iOS

01:27:52   apps pretty soon yeah and it will mostly be good and we talked about it before but yeah

01:27:55   like that aside from our sandwich is you know kind of pre-announced by Apple because of

01:28:00   they what they talked about last year although of course they didn't give deadlines but that's

01:28:03   the obvious one I think the real question is like is there anything else going on a

01:28:07   Mac OS besides marzipanification and I think I think we might have oh it's maybe it's down

01:28:12   this list or whatever but like the other fun thing is related to marzipan is how many Mac

01:28:18   applications shipped by Apple will become marzipanified and there's lots of really good

01:28:24   candidates that are almost sure to go and then there's some questionable ones like mail

01:28:27   you're not sure and then there's the iTunes question or whatever that's a lot of these

01:28:30   other features are actually that in disguise yeah so let me run a few by you that Bloomberg

01:28:36   sites Apple is also planning to bring over a couple of its own iPad apps the Mac this

01:28:40   year podcasts app and the new merged find my iPhone and find my friends app there also

01:28:45   be a new Apple music app which is being developed as a standard Mac program actually let's come

01:28:49   back to that in a moment I love that wording yeah let's let's come back to it let's go

01:28:53   back to him the other in-house software coming to the Mac include screen time effects and

01:28:58   stickers for the messages app yes please in integration with the Siri shortcuts app the

01:29:03   company's new service writing on Siri commands the new reminders app and upgrades to Apple

01:29:07   books so that all I think is exactly what you were talking about John it's a lot of

01:29:12   Iowa stuff coming to the Mac who was it this one because this is another one of those things

01:29:15   where it's like this is German this is like you could tell it was like the Bloomberg style

01:29:19   guide interfering quite a bit here but no but like it's also a typical German thing

01:29:23   effects and stickers from the messages app what you mean surely is that messages is marzipanified

01:29:30   why not just say that why not just say that instead of saying effects and stickers come

01:29:34   to the app just say it's going to be the iOS messages app running on your Mac like that's

01:29:38   one of the almost sure bets because the Mac messages app has been so far behind the iOS

01:29:42   one for so long and there's nothing you know and it's so under featured that it's just

01:29:48   a massive upgrade to get the iOS messages out but to phrase that by saying that it will

01:29:52   have effects and stickers yeah it will because those are things that are on the iOS app and

01:29:56   not on the Mac but why not just say it's the marzipan version we know about marzipan you

01:29:59   just it drives me nuts anyway messages marzipan for sure yeah and then the biggest thing for

01:30:04   me in this list is the Apple music app quote which is being developed as a standard Mac

01:30:11   program now we discussed a few episodes ago I was very concerned that they were going

01:30:16   to marzipanify the iOS music app and replace iTunes with iOS music on the Mac and even

01:30:24   though iTunes gets a bunch of crap I was concerned about that because iTunes actually for just

01:30:28   music is a very full featured and fairly advanced app and the iOS music app is not and I really

01:30:36   don't like the iOS music app and there's a lot of things that we would lose if that was

01:30:40   the direction they took on the Mac but this certainly sounds from every possible way from

01:30:47   both German and other rumblings it sounds like the new Apple music app on the Mac is

01:30:53   not a marzipan app which of course raises the question of what it is and I think it's

01:31:00   it's most likely to be one of the options we theorized earlier which is it's just iTunes

01:31:07   with some of the other stuff stripped out and renamed to music and that sounds exactly

01:31:14   like what they should do like it I really hope that's what they're doing and it sure

01:31:19   does sound like that's what they're doing which is a very good sign because iTunes the

01:31:24   music part of iTunes is not iTunes's problem the reason why iTunes got so terrible and

01:31:29   bloated and everything is all the other crap that got lumped into it if they strip it down

01:31:34   to just be music again or if you never have any reason to go to any other parts of it

01:31:39   and you just live in what is now what we have as a music app that sounds fine I think that's

01:31:43   I think exactly what they should do and and I'm very happy to see that that's probably

01:31:47   what they are doing. What if what if it's not that just for the sake of discussion what

01:31:53   if it's some sort of Spotify ask front end to the Apple music service and nothing else

01:31:57   and like maybe doesn't even touch local files that would be that's back to the bad scenario

01:32:03   I don't I don't see why they would do that and not then just marzipanify the iOS app

01:32:08   at that point like what's why what would they get by having this not be a marzipan app but

01:32:12   still be a brand new app I mean it's possible that like that was a separate team that was

01:32:17   doing the ad I started the app long ago before marzipan was officially going to be the thing

01:32:21   or whatever that's possible but I think it's unlikely that Apple would be devoting that

01:32:26   much you know resources into a music app for the Mac that many years ago like that doesn't

01:32:33   seem very likely.

01:32:34   All right also the iOS music app does play local files like so to make the Mac one not

01:32:40   play local files would seem pretty mean you know of course the the fastest way to tell

01:32:45   or one of the ways to tell without actually having any technical knowledge the provenance

01:32:50   of the Mac music application will be launch it launch preferences and see if it's app

01:32:55   model because if it has a model preferences dialog box guess what it's iTunes under there

01:33:01   if it doesn't have an app model preference dialog doesn't mean it's not iTunes under

01:33:05   there just means they did such a comprehensive gut job that they finally changed the one

01:33:09   defining characteristic of iTunes which is when you bring up the preferences window you're

01:33:13   not doing anything else in that app.

01:33:16   By the way one little detail about like you know local file playback I don't think Apple

01:33:20   wants to get rid of local file playback because local file playback saves them money for the

01:33:28   same reason that Spotify wants to buy podcasts people because every time every minute you

01:33:34   spend listening to Spotify that you're not listening to a commercial music track Spotify

01:33:39   is saving money because they don't pay per play on podcasts but they do pay per play

01:33:44   for music similarly Apple music pays per play like Apple has to pay the artists per or their

01:33:52   labels more more specifically per play of a commercial music track but if you play something

01:33:58   out of your own purchased or imported library they don't this is why one of I think one

01:34:04   of the worst features of the home pod it's kind of a good thing and a bad thing the home

01:34:09   pod I think leans too heavily on your on your collection and doesn't frequently enough venture

01:34:16   out to Apple music when you ask it to play things that you aren't very specific about

01:34:20   so if you say like you know if you say hey hey cylinder play some music that I like or

01:34:25   or this play something I might like or just play some music like even if you say things

01:34:28   like that it will almost always default to your library first which is it might be like

01:34:34   if I'm giving a vague manly bet that's actually not what I want I want it to go find new stuff

01:34:39   for me you mean you don't want to hear fish because percentage wise you're gonna be hearing

01:34:42   fish no and and and there's plenty of times where I want that and when I want that I just

01:34:49   play it I don't have to like I don't have to ask it I like usually I go to my iPad and

01:34:53   I'll pick it right from the Terrell music app and I'll airplay it to the home pods in

01:34:56   that case but like you could tell that like they clearly are defaulting to your own library

01:35:02   a lot from the home pod and I think there's probably a monetary reason there it's probably

01:35:06   because they can just save a bunch of money by not playing that stuff but by not playing

01:35:12   from Apple music so often if they can use a library instead so I think they're they

01:35:16   have you know the strong incentive to maintain local library support in all these devices

01:35:22   because that it literally directly contributes to their profit margin on what is one of their

01:35:27   very important services moving on to watch OS Apple's bringing the voice memos app from

01:35:32   the iPhone iPad and Mac so that users can record the voice memos from their wrist I

01:35:36   am super into this because there have been times that I've really wanted to record something

01:35:40   say when I'm on a run and the only real mechanism I have to do that is my watch and I tried

01:35:45   to do this with voice memos once just a few weeks ago not realizing it wasn't already

01:35:49   there which was a total bummer so I dig it.

01:35:52   How did you try to do it like do you are you going hey dingus into your watch and then

01:35:56   saying take a memo?

01:35:58   No I think I while I was by broke stride to some degree but if I recall correctly I went

01:36:03   to the app launcher thing which I keep in alphabetical mode and I think I went down

01:36:07   to the and I was like oh that's a long way to go I get has to be somewhere where you

01:36:12   can just raise your wrist and do something fairly simple without looking at if you have

01:36:15   to search through the honeycomb or your alphabetical list or something find the tiny voicemails

01:36:20   thing launch it wait for it to launch press a record button and then talk into it that's

01:36:24   not good.

01:36:25   Yeah agreed but I mean I'd still prefer that over nothing though.

01:36:29   Take a memo should work I wonder if that you should try the next time but that.

01:36:32   But directly on the watch like right now?

01:36:34   Yeah like is I mean I granted this is future voicemails doesn't exist yet but there's

01:36:39   no facility for it to just listen to what you say and record it somewhere or I don't

01:36:44   know seems like a thing the watch should already do.

01:36:46   Hey take a memo I love ATP sorry I can't help you with notes on Apple watch.

01:36:51   I tried to make a note out of it I guess take a memo I went to the notes thing it was going

01:36:55   to transcribe it I suppose.

01:36:56   I guess.

01:36:57   Wait why can't it do that?

01:36:59   Yeah I don't know it just like it's amazing that they have these very specific messages

01:37:04   that make it so clear that the watch knows what you wanted to do and you know for a fact

01:37:07   that like the capabilities there but it's not going to do it.

01:37:10   Siri and the watch both make me so sad.

01:37:13   Yeah Apple's also planning on to add Animoji and Memojis stickers to the device that's

01:37:20   synchronized from an iPhone.

01:37:21   Yeah that's cool.

01:37:23   Why?

01:37:24   Because reasons.

01:37:25   There will be two new health related apps for the watch one dubbed dose inside Apple

01:37:29   for pill reminders and another called cycles to track menstrual cycles we kind of touched

01:37:32   on this earlier I dig it.

01:37:35   Apple's adding more watch face complications which I like that there's scare quotes around

01:37:38   that which show additional snippets of information beyond just the time there will be one that

01:37:42   shows the status of audiobooks meh another showing the battery life of hearing aids okay

01:37:46   that's cool and others that measure external noise and rain data and whatever.

01:37:51   I mean that's again that's cool I guess the complication API is yet another area where

01:37:56   third parties can't do what Apple does we have a we have a much more restricted set

01:38:02   of capabilities than what Apple has in particular watch apps can't update complications on

01:38:10   like infinitely like they we can only update them every so often up to a certain limit

01:38:14   per hour or per day or whatever and so things like they just said like you know the the

01:38:19   status of audiobooks that sounds like you know basically a now playing or progress complication

01:38:23   for audiobooks and that's fine I wish I could offer that for my watch audio app but

01:38:28   I can't because I can't be sure that you're not going to like hit play or pause less than

01:38:36   30 times in an hour and therefore like I'll start losing updates to it or they'll they'll

01:38:41   start being throttled like there's all sorts of problems like the basically make it so

01:38:45   I can't do that so yeah I the watch makes me sad.

01:38:50   But you know what would make you happy the company is also planning several new watch

01:38:53   faces a gradient face that makes a gradient look out of color that the user chooses at

01:38:58   least two new extra large faces that show jumbo numbers and different fonts and colors

01:39:02   a California dial that looks like a classic watch face and mixes roman numerals with Arabic

01:39:06   number numerals a redesigned solar analog watch face that looks like a sundial and a

01:39:11   new infograph sub dial one that includes larger complication views like a stock market chart

01:39:17   or the weather this actually sounds pretty good.

01:39:20   Yeah for the most part I mean watch I mean again I still think we need custom third party

01:39:24   watch faces for the Apple watch I think Apple's faces are underserved under maintained visually

01:39:32   I think they're fairly stale most of the time there's very little movement there that I

01:39:37   think is is good or up to date or shows any level of maintenance and this list looks like

01:39:42   they're just continuing the same direction that they have been going in since the beginning

01:39:46   with the Apple watch so the gradient face is just the photo face it's the same thing

01:39:51   sounds like like here's a new way to make like a basic clock with an image behind it

01:39:56   great we already have like 40 of those.

01:39:59   The gradient face is probably going to be some cool generated thing that you know remember

01:40:03   they had like the ones last time it was like the particle effects one and then ones they

01:40:06   filmed in a giant tank like I'm sure.

01:40:08   Right and those are cool for like five seconds and then you realize oh actually I need something

01:40:12   with more functionality.

01:40:14   But I think I think the gradient face is going to be one of those if it actually literally

01:40:17   is like a graphical gradient that sounds like something Android would do.

01:40:21   Yeah well then like you know two new XLR faces that you just have different fonts and colors

01:40:26   great okay well we already had one and it's you know not incredibly useful for most people

01:40:31   the people who need it that's fine but that isn't that exciting.

01:40:34   California dial which is a term in the watch industry for watches that combine roman numerals

01:40:40   with Arabic numerals so I was going to say that's such a gross combination I'm glad to

01:40:43   hear that is actually a term of art where the modifier California gets added something

01:40:47   to make it grosser.

01:40:50   California pizza California dial Ferrari California all the bad variants of things.

01:40:57   Yeah I'm not personally a fan of California dials but I know people are so oh well maybe

01:41:01   California people who knows.

01:41:02   I'm interested in the solar analog watch face because I like the solar face a lot this is

01:41:07   the current solar face which has been there since 1.0 is a digital face so to see movement

01:41:13   there sounds promising.

01:41:15   Infograph subdial that sounds like it just has larger complications that's cool anything

01:41:19   to do to Infograph I think I think the Infograph faces need a lot of help that's why I made

01:41:23   that blog post a few months back about why Infograph has such poor legibility maybe they're

01:41:29   working on that maybe this is a way to improve that maybe there's just like another alternative

01:41:32   that has a little bit better legibility but ultimately they're still like if we still

01:41:38   can't do custom faces they still have the same problems that we've had which is there

01:41:44   is not enough true variety not enough true choice and not enough faces that are really

01:41:52   truly general purpose useful there's a whole bunch that are going to be like five minute

01:41:57   novelties and like three that people actually use and that's that's been the status quo

01:42:03   for a while now and I hope they improve that somehow but it doesn't sound like they are.

01:42:08   You know I was just thinking about the third party watch face marketplace and what that

01:42:13   might look like and an interesting test of Apple's Apple's will Apple's value system

01:42:20   is to see if they allow third party watch faces with the subscription pricing plan.

01:42:27   So as you know you can use this watch face as long as you pay a dollar ninety nine a

01:42:31   month is that a thing that Apple would allow in the store why or why not you know I think

01:42:37   like three years ago no but now that they are so dependent on pushing that services

01:42:45   revenue up because every time they have a subscription that is sold by in-app purchase

01:42:51   in an app Apple counts that as an Apple subscription which sounds ridiculous at first until you

01:42:59   realize that like you know when you subscribe to overcast for ten dollars a year you're

01:43:03   really subscribing to overcast for seven dollars a year and to Apple for three dollars a year

01:43:08   and so it actually makes sense why they would count all of these subscriptions in the app

01:43:14   store as their subscriptions anyway they make a lot of money from all those subscriptions

01:43:19   and so and they are pushing the services narrative and it's doing really well financially for

01:43:24   them and so it actually wouldn't surprise me if today's Apple would allow that whereas

01:43:31   three years ago Apple probably would not.

01:43:34   Also remember it's not it's not a direct comparison but BMW now charges for carplay

01:43:39   after the first year which I just find to be offensive and preposterous but you know

01:43:44   you get a year of carplay for maybe it's more than that but you get some amount of time

01:43:48   for free I thought it was just a year.

01:43:50   I think you're right.

01:43:51   And then after that it's like one or two hundred dollars a year to continue to use

01:43:53   carplay which is just asinine.

01:43:56   So yeah I take your point John I don't think I don't know if they would allow it but it

01:44:03   is an interesting thought exercise.

01:44:05   I have to say though I have to go back just a half step I didn't realize what a California

01:44:08   Dial was until you explained it Marco and I went to your beloved Nomos and found the

01:44:12   club campus which has you know it has numerals for twelve to four eight and ten and then

01:44:20   just lines for all the other hours or other numerals the ten twelve and two so the stuff

01:44:27   that is on the top half of the watch face are Arabic numbers and then the four and the

01:44:32   eight are Roman numerals and this looks friggin stupid to me.

01:44:37   This looks worse than I thought it would.

01:44:38   I was picturing in my head as sort of like some kind of I don't know what I was picturing

01:44:42   maybe I was picturing alternation but I hadn't taken into account the variable lengths of

01:44:45   Roman numerals and the fact that ten and two are different like oh this is terrible.

01:44:50   Why would anyone ever do this?

01:44:51   Yeah I don't this is awful.

01:44:53   Yeah I am not a fan of the look Panerai also has done a few that I think look that I think

01:45:01   of a more balanced look.

01:45:03   They have put the Roman numerals on the top half of the dial so they're shorter there's

01:45:06   no like eight to deal with basically the eight is really long so that's if you search for

01:45:11   Panerai California dial you see a bunch of images of them they look a little bit better

01:45:15   I think but it's still like California dials are a rarity and an acquired taste in the

01:45:21   watch fashion world some people enjoy them they're not for me but they fortunately it's

01:45:27   not usually a thing that comes up because there aren't that many of them.

01:45:30   Yeah I just no thank you.

01:45:32   All right Tom Bullock writes hey what do we listen to when we code I think we've talked

01:45:35   about this before but it's the one of those questions we get asked constantly so I thought

01:45:39   we could review it for me if I'm doing something that's not terribly intense I can listen to

01:45:46   podcasts and often do if I'm doing something that's that's mildly intense I listen to just

01:45:51   about any sort of music usually I'll start with my two weekly playlists on Spotify my

01:45:55   discover weekly and release radar and then if I'm having a particularly intense coding

01:46:01   session I will either listen to like a movie soundtrack or equivalent so like shoot is

01:46:07   it the journey soundtrack but that's by Austin something something John?

01:46:11   Wintry yes.

01:46:12   Yeah yeah Austin Wintry that's really good the social network soundtrack by Trent Reznor

01:46:18   and Atticus Ross is really good and then I believe I've told the story at least a couple

01:46:22   times on the show but Tools 10,000 Days is my I am beating my head against the wall because

01:46:28   I can't figure this out I need my magical totem my whatever in order to get me through

01:46:32   this how do I do it I use Tools 10,000 Days and I have to deploy that extremely tactically

01:46:39   because otherwise I don't want it to lose its charm but but basically in short podcasts

01:46:45   for a lot of the time and music for the rest of the time.

01:46:48   Marco all fish all the time?

01:46:51   Pretty much like not a hundred percent but close because like what's nice about fish

01:46:56   is so I can't I can't listen to podcasts at all like if I'm doing anything work wise I

01:47:01   can't also listen to podcasts like I just won't listen I won't pay attention I'll miss

01:47:04   a hundred percent of what's said so I want something that is music for sure and what's

01:47:10   great about fish is that I don't have to so I listen straight through I don't listen on

01:47:14   shuffle I listen like straight through and when it's not fish I do the same thing with

01:47:18   albums and so what what's nice about like straight through listening is you don't have

01:47:23   like per song decisions you have to make that like distract you from what you're doing to

01:47:27   say oh this one's not so good I want to skip this skip skip skip like that I find distracting

01:47:32   during work so I want to be able to put on like one good album or one good show and have

01:47:36   it just play through and the great thing about fish is that not only are there a lot of them

01:47:42   and there's always you know every time they tour they release new ones and I like pay

01:47:47   for all the downloads from their from their from life fish dot com and so I basically

01:47:53   have like new shows to listen to pretty frequently like there's they do something like 20 shows

01:47:58   a year and then the shows each are so long which everyone makes fun of but they're so

01:48:03   long that if I'm listening all the way through like I don't have to make another decision

01:48:09   about what to listen to for a long time whereas even listen to an album you know most albums

01:48:15   from most bands in for the last couple decades are maybe 45 minutes long if you're lucky

01:48:20   maybe an hour you know if it's a very long album so that means like every 45 minutes

01:48:25   you have to make another decision about what to play next or something else starts playing

01:48:28   next and it distracts you and you and it's not what you want you know you got to go fix

01:48:32   that or whatever so I find I want something optimized for long spans of stimulating my

01:48:38   my ears and my brain in this one way so I can focus on the other things I'm doing you

01:48:43   know on the computer that doesn't distract me by all of a sudden playing like da da da

01:48:48   and you're like where the hell did that come from like I just I want something that I can

01:48:51   just focus on what I'm doing and not constantly be futzing with the music.

01:48:57   John? If I'm not engaging my brain particularly hard I can listen to music but if I'm working

01:49:04   on a hard programming problem no music can't can't deal with it like I'm actually writing

01:49:09   the code and also I can't listen to any music with words if I'm writing prose which you

01:49:14   think wouldn't apply to coding but it does because there's a thing called comments and

01:49:17   I write a lot of them and you should too and so if I'm listening to music with words I

01:49:24   find it difficult to write comments or I find myself stopping listening I'm an active music

01:49:27   listener like I have to actually be listening to the music so if I can't actively listen

01:49:31   to the music I don't want to be listening to music and it starts to bother me the only

01:49:35   exception is occasionally inspirational debugging music but debugging is kind of not that it's

01:49:41   it's not engaging my brain but there is a mechanical nature to debugging like you just

01:49:48   start running the debugging algorithm and you've debugged enough you kind of know the

01:49:52   series of steps you're going to do you're narrowing it down it is a very mechanical

01:49:55   you can kind of do it the same way you can you know drive to work on autopilot without

01:49:58   thinking too hard about where you have to go I could debug like that sometimes too and

01:50:02   so sometimes I'll listen to this journal new music when debugging but same deal the debugging

01:50:06   starts to get hard it's like oh now I thought I was going to immediately find where this

01:50:09   problem is and fix it but now I can't and I'm stumped music goes off so in general my

01:50:14   answer is no with minor exceptions for when I'm doing like relaxing program that doesn't

01:50:19   involve a lot of my brain so I'm curious John so and I think under the answer this are you

01:50:24   a music person or a lyrics person I've talked about this before I I probably if you had

01:50:31   to like you know what is tips to one side or the other I probably tip towards music

01:50:36   but it's a it's close to an even split because I do like my lyrics and I do enjoy it but

01:50:41   when push comes to shove there are songs that I like that have garbage lyrics so I have

01:50:44   to say but like you pay attention a lot to lyrics it seems I mean I know you like you

01:50:49   know you ran your you to site like you know like you have a history of caring a lot about

01:50:52   lyrics I do care a lot about them and that's why I know that a lot of the songs I like

01:50:56   have dumb lyrics because I know the lyrics right but I still like the song like so in

01:51:00   the end the music is the most important is the dominant factor but it's important for

01:51:03   me to also know what they're saying and I can appreciate songs more based on it and

01:51:07   so on and so forth it's just it's not a deal breaker because let's face it lots of pop songs

01:51:10   have very simple or repetitive lyrics but if the music's good I still like it so that's

01:51:15   why I think whether you are a music person or a lyrics person I think might affect whether

01:51:21   you're able to listen to music while you do all kinds of work or only certain things or

01:51:26   no things like I'm like Tiff is a lyrics person I am very much not like I say I pay almost

01:51:33   no attention to the lyrics of anything which is why I can listen to fish and why and where

01:51:38   whereas like and the music I really love but I'm like I whenever there's lyrics like I'm

01:51:44   I zone out I tune them out so like my brain is not like the linguistic processing parts

01:51:50   of my brain are not engaged when listening to any music even music with lyrics because

01:51:54   I'm not listening to them really I'm listening only to the music and so I'm I don't have

01:51:58   restrictions like oh I can't write code well I can't write code comments well I hear music

01:52:03   with lyrics like that doesn't matter any whereas I hear lots of people that are like you were

01:52:06   like they can't listen to music that they know or they can't listen to music that they

01:52:11   don't know or they can only listen to instrumental music when they're doing certain kinds of

01:52:15   work and I don't have that problem at all but even for instrumental music I'm less when

01:52:20   I say when I'm an active listener I'm sort of I'm writing that I'm mentally writing that

01:52:24   music I'm actively listening to that music I'm actively engaged with just the music part

01:52:28   even for totally instrumental stuff which is why if I come to like a hard part of programming

01:52:33   I have to start thinking about what I'm doing more I feel like it's tearing me away from

01:52:37   the music and then it's like well then why is the music even on and now it's just noise

01:52:40   in the background that's bothering me I have to be actively listening which is the same

01:52:44   way like you see this in cars a lot some people will turn on I was gonna say turn on the radio

01:52:49   but you know what I mean we'll turn on the radio in their car but then also have a conversation

01:52:54   when the radio is on and that makes no sense to me we're either listening to music or we're

01:52:57   talking we're not doing both because it's impossible to do both I mean I can't be listening

01:53:01   to music and so yeah if we're talking in the car if we're talking all the music is doing

01:53:07   is making it harder to understand that people talking but I'm I'm either actively listening

01:53:11   to the music that's playing or I'm actively listening to the person I'm talking to but

01:53:15   I can't do both at once that's what I mean when I'm active listening and it's same for

01:53:18   instrumental it doesn't matter if the song has lyrics or not that's what I mean by active

01:53:22   music listener. So what do you do are you a headphone person at work? I can't what spoken

01:53:29   like someone who doesn't hasn't been to work in a while everyone's a headphone work a person

01:53:33   at work because we're all in stupid open offices there's no that's what I thought so so how

01:53:37   do you operate as a programmer in the modern workplace where they're almost all working

01:53:41   in open environments like do you just put on headphones and not play anything sometimes

01:53:45   and just have the silence everybody has headphones yes hey some yet a lot of people do that they

01:53:50   get noise canceling headphones and they put them on and don't play music that is extremely

01:53:54   common I tend not to do that partly because our office and I think this is common has

01:54:00   white noise machines throughout the entire office like spread throughout the ceiling

01:54:04   right like they're just it's just piped in piped in everywhere and that it's kind of

01:54:09   like you're wearing not noise canceling but kind of like you're wearing earmuffs the entire

01:54:13   time so it makes it somewhat more terrible but all across it's also just as giant oppressive

01:54:19   hush noise like your baby trying to go to sleep or something yeah I'll wear headphones

01:54:24   sometimes and sometimes you know I'll be listening to music doing non mentally taxing task and

01:54:30   then it will become mentally taxing and I will stop the music but I'll leave the headphones

01:54:33   on I don't know how anybody has any work done it's a grim world out there in the open office

01:54:38   so true all right Nick writes how do we configure Macs used by other family members I haven't

01:54:47   really run into this yet because Erin has her laptop the one that has been underwater

01:54:51   a couple times and I have my 44 computers so I don't really have any input on this I

01:54:57   think the one who is most likely to have a story about this is probably John so John

01:55:01   how do you configure your Macs used by other family members very carefully it's actually

01:55:07   a difficult thing to do and there's no one policy you can apply and the main bit of knowledge

01:55:13   I think you need is you need to know like sort of a reliability score and a you know

01:55:23   a prognosis for features because for me it's like I'm visiting a relative and setting up

01:55:31   their computer for them I might not be back for a long time so if I enable some feature

01:55:37   that's a turkey I now have to explain how to carefully disable that feature or deal

01:55:41   with the bugs or whatever over the phone or FaceTime or whatever and I don't want to do

01:55:45   that so I have to know I want to set this up for you and generally what I want to do

01:55:49   is like get everybody's you know integrate give them a system for everything so some

01:55:56   kind of cloud file storage thing whether that be Dropbox or iCloud drive or you know insert

01:56:04   whatever Google Drive or whatever get your email set up one system for email hopefully

01:56:08   with some kind of cloud component like they offer all their problems they have to have

01:56:13   a system and the key is knowing what's safe to set up it might not be the things that

01:56:18   I use maybe the things I use a real fidgety and unreliable but I just deal with it because

01:56:22   I need some sophisticated feature I have to know like what is the thing that's safe for

01:56:25   them so it's important for me that they have systems for everything I don't do like a bare

01:56:29   bones like no apps are installed just the Apple stuff blah blah blah and let them figure

01:56:32   it out I don't do that at all like I will install Dropbox for them I will set it to

01:56:37   launch on login and I will show them where it is and I will put it in their doc and I'll

01:56:40   put all their files in it and I'll like you know I'll be like whether you like it or not

01:56:44   guess what now you're using Dropbox because it will solve more problems for you than if

01:56:48   I just left you here where you just did everything on your desktop locally and then your hard

01:56:52   drive crashes because you never did a backup I will set up their backups for them I will

01:56:56   set up time machine I'll attach a drive I will install super duper I'll put it on a

01:56:59   schedule I will do like I want this thing to just run on autopilot with a set of reliable

01:57:04   applications that I think will continue to work for a long time and that's generally

01:57:07   my goal and also setting up is a little bit different when you come like cleaning up like

01:57:12   let's see what havoc they've wreaked on their computer in my absence what kind of weird

01:57:16   stuff have they installed what's sitting in the downloads folder do they have three copies

01:57:21   of Microsoft Office now because they duplicated the folder three times look let's deal with

01:57:25   that you know check their disk what is taking up all their disk space so they have like

01:57:29   giant video files they don't need anymore did they accidentally download a YouTube video

01:57:33   using some weird extension that's sitting on their desktop and it's three gigs like

01:57:37   that's a whole process is it's time consuming it's difficult and there's no real right answer

01:57:42   and the bottom line is you have to know you have to be deep enough into the Mac world

01:57:46   to know what's safe in the Mac world is Dropbox a safe thing to install or is it now a CPU

01:57:51   pig how is iCloud working these days what email application should people use and then

01:57:57   accounting for the special needs that yada yada like do they need an application that

01:58:00   has dynamic text and it syncs with their iOS devices it's a surprisingly complicated problem

01:58:05   so there's no clear answer but my particular technique is get them all set essentially

01:58:11   and I feel like the other end of the spectrum is just give them a bare computer and then

01:58:15   stand back and I do not endorse that plan Marco any thoughts on this no I mean Tiff's

01:58:21   sets up her own stuff and Adam doesn't have a Mac yet like Adam would let you set up his

01:58:26   computer for just wait if he knows how to use it at all which is still up for debate

01:58:31   I'll be interesting to see if either the two of you can actually successfully teach your

01:58:35   children how to use computer because I have failed twice now I mean for whatever it's

01:58:40   worth he does use his iPad very well and without a lot of explanation I have that's not a computer

01:58:45   we already covered oh shots fire I don't I don't mean to know but yeah like my kids use

01:58:50   their iOS devices and they don't really know how to use them but they know so much more

01:58:54   about how to use their iPads than they do about how to use a Mac or god forbid a PC

01:58:59   there's computers they're just not interested in them at all so they're I think they can

01:59:03   take them to the watch too surprisingly well they can do more with their watch than I can

01:59:06   like they know how to like text people from their watch and respond and like they just

01:59:10   I never showed them any of this and they just use it and I think the watch is not intuitive

01:59:13   at all so I'm glad to see they're figuring that out it's just that they just have no

01:59:16   interest in computers or email or any of that old people stuff finally Bree McNish writes

01:59:23   hey what Reese and I'm paraphrasing here what resources helped have helped us become slightly

01:59:29   less ignorant white dudes that was kind of the the premise of what she was saying or

01:59:33   what they were saying it was not verbatim so for me it's just listening particularly

01:59:40   to John listening in general to not just John but anyone who is not like me and believing

01:59:47   them when they say that my experience is the following and that's the most obvious thing

01:59:55   I try to add and inject more and more voices into my say like Twitter timeline and stuff

02:00:02   like that that are not like me both in terms of interest in terms of the way I look etc

02:00:09   but I don't have any really awesome answers for this I mean is it we're on a streak of

02:00:16   answering questions so you've answered before and yeah so they my whole pitch has always

02:00:22   been fine somebody talking about some issues that you're not familiar with but want to

02:00:29   learn more about and I mean I'm using the Twitter thing of like follow them on Twitter

02:00:33   but whatever it may be if you're looking at them on Facebook or any sort of social network

02:00:36   or whatever and just be a receiver don't engage in conversation in the beginning anyway don't

02:00:43   like don't take it as an opportunity to interact or ask questions or whatever just be just

02:00:48   be there receiving what they're putting out and do that for a long time and you will because

02:00:55   you take the pressure off yourself to have to respond or to view it from the beginning

02:00:59   as an engagement with the person you will prevent yourself from doing a lot of boneheaded

02:01:03   things you'll prevent yourself from getting defensive because it'll be like TV like you

02:01:08   can yell back to the TV but you know it's just a one-way experience the picture comes

02:01:11   to you and you watch it and either you like it or you don't just being exposed to different

02:01:15   people's point of views and experiences in a situation where you do not expect there's

02:01:20   no expectation of yourself to engage or respond or debate or do anything like that you will

02:01:26   learn things that way and I've said that same thing many times before the one twist I'll

02:01:32   add now it's not really to us but it's a project that I've been working on for a little while

02:01:37   which is you know a more concrete version of this because that device is kind of big

02:01:41   so I follow people on Twitter and I have I'm a completionist I read everyone's tweets and

02:01:45   so I'm constantly trimming my followers if I feel like it there are too many tweets going

02:01:50   by somebody who's particularly robust on follow again don't take it personally if I unfollow

02:01:55   you doesn't mean I'm not friends with you just means you're tweeting a lot like whatever

02:01:58   that's how I manage my follower list and I've had a policy for several years now which is

02:02:04   if you're adding someone to follow prefer adding somebody who's not a white tech dude

02:02:10   for me that's like 90% of the people who I follow right and I'm trying to alter the percentage

02:02:16   and on the flip side if you're unfollowing somebody because because they're verbose or

02:02:20   because you feel like you're being overwhelmed by tweets prefer to unfollow a white tech

02:02:25   dude and what I'm trying to do through these two simple rules of like they're not hard

02:02:29   and fast rules they're just guidelines and just saying like if you have a choice between

02:02:32   them maybe make that choice is over time shift the percentage of people I follow to to be

02:02:39   like the percentage of white tech dudes that I follow to be lower than it was before and

02:02:43   this is a very slow process and I didn't do some radical thing of like I'm unfollowing

02:02:46   everybody and I'm just following you know different kinds of people didn't didn't do

02:02:51   that at all because I feel like that that wouldn't work for me it's too radical but

02:02:54   this gradual thing of just two simple rules applied over time and I don't follow and unfollow

02:02:58   that often but over the course of a year or two I think I follow you know five or six

02:03:04   new people who are not white tech dudes and unfollow five or six white tech dudes and

02:03:09   it starts shifting the balance again with the same rules about if you're following people

02:03:15   and you're not familiar with their point of view or the things that they tweet about whatever

02:03:20   don't engage for the first year or two maybe just just read their tweets and maybe they

02:03:25   infuriate you because you don't agree with it fine then unfollow them like don't make

02:03:28   yourself sad but if there's something you want to learn more about just start exposing

02:03:32   yourself to it because people have lots of things to say and if you prevent yourself

02:03:37   from being your own worst enemy you can't help but broaden your worldview. Thanks to

02:03:43   our sponsors this week Squarespace, Fracture, and Backblaze and we will see you next week.

02:03:50   Now the show is over they didn't even mean to begin cause it was accidental, oh it was

02:03:57   accidental John didn't do any research Margo and Casey wouldn't let him cause it was accidental,

02:04:07   oh it was accidental And you can find the show notes at ATP.FM and if you're into Twitter

02:04:16   you can follow them at C-A-S-E-Y-L-I-S-S so that's Casey List M-A-R-C-O-A-R-M-N-T-M-A-R-C-O-R-M-S-I-R-A-C-U-S-A-C-R-A-C-U-S-A-C-U-S-A

02:04:23   It's accidental, it's accidental They didn't mean to accidental, oh it was accidental

02:04:44   It's accidental, it's accidental Tech podcast so long

02:04:52   We can talk about Ronin if you'd like Yeah, we gotta hear him

02:04:55   Yeah sure The report

02:04:56   Alright so to set some context I asked Mike to do a Mike at the Movies with me of the

02:05:03   something like late 90s, no it was early 90s, I don't know something in the 1990s movie

02:05:09   Ronin and this, I don't remember if this was spurned, I believe it was spurned by you talking

02:05:14   about heist movies for top four so I watched Ronin again with Mike and I've seen it many

02:05:21   many many many many times but I watched it and tried to come at it like kind of honestly

02:05:28   if I don't know if that's the right word for it but I tried to imagine what it would be

02:05:31   like to have watched this for the first time and not have all the baggage that I have of

02:05:37   just frickin' loving this movie and the conclusion that I came to, spoiler alert, is that I was

02:05:44   I love Ronin as I always have but it's not a very good movie so I had asked Marco to

02:05:51   I ask as also being generous to myself I basically told Marco he needs to include this on his

02:05:59   list of heist movies and he rightfully ignored me but then you did end up watching it and

02:06:06   we didn't have a chance to discuss it so I would love to know Marco what did you think

02:06:09   of Ronin? I thought that your treatment of it on analog

02:06:13   was pretty fair. Okay good. With all the incredibly long car chase scenes I thought I can see

02:06:20   why Casey likes this movie but I actually I didn't think it was a fantastic movie but

02:06:26   it wasn't that bad I thought I overall thought it was a decent movie I enjoyed watching it

02:06:31   one thing I liked a lot about it is how little gets explained in dialogue or even in show

02:06:39   even in like display like showing you so much of the movie is based on subtext or just figuring

02:06:46   stuff out that happened off screen at a different time or that wasn't explicitly stated or explicitly

02:06:53   shown and I found that interesting like it was in many ways it was kind of brave like

02:07:00   a movie for grown ups yeah like to assume you'll figure stuff out and not have to like

02:07:05   hold your hand through the whole thing. You should watch Siriana. Okay I don't know I

02:07:10   mean. That's a joke that's like the ultimate movie that doesn't explain things to you and

02:07:13   people hate it because they're like I don't know what's going on. Yeah this I think walked

02:07:17   the line for me like this is just about as much of that as I can figure out like so anything

02:07:23   that's more subtle than this I probably would have a problem following but this I actually

02:07:29   followed pretty well I think I got most of it and as you mentioned on analog there are

02:07:33   certain things like movie tricks like one of the things one of the times said like oh

02:07:39   you got your instructions from the man in the wheelchair and so your movie watching

02:07:45   brain thinks we're going to see this person later this is going to be a character that

02:07:49   comes up and they just never come up again like there's references like that like references

02:07:53   to people and places and events that like that the characters will use occasionally

02:07:57   in dialogue that in any other movie that would be like that was there for a reason that reason

02:08:02   will come up later like it's like they drop these bread crumbs and they go pick them all

02:08:06   up and this one like drops bread crumbs that it never picks up because that's just how

02:08:10   people talk sometimes like sometimes you just don't get things resolved you don't get things

02:08:14   explained you don't you don't know what they're talking about sometimes and it just stays

02:08:17   that way and I found that pretty good one of my favorite scenes is the make out in the

02:08:25   car scene interesting so he like he kisses her like as a cover for something and then

02:08:29   like you could tell like the decision process in her head of like she's like firstly kind

02:08:34   of like wipes her lips because they're you know wet you can tell she's like alright I'm

02:08:40   going to take more of this and just like take it into her own hands like and then two seconds

02:08:43   and cut that's it and you never see any other part of that relationship in the in the romantic

02:08:50   context all that stuff is like it's it's very subtle they give you like two thirds of what

02:08:56   you would get of what you get in any other movie like they give you two thirds of the

02:09:00   explanation that you would get or the elaboration in any other movie but it's just enough that

02:09:06   you you get what's going on and it's actually kind of more intellectually fun to be a viewer

02:09:12   that kind of movie I think.

02:09:13   Steven: Jon I presume you've seen this a hundred times?

02:09:15   Jon Moffitt I haven't seen it that much I think I haven't seen it in a long time I mean

02:09:20   I think maybe only seen it two or three times and I remember being middle of the road on

02:09:24   it like I enjoyed it I liked I liked the performances I like the sort of tension and a lot of those

02:09:29   sort of character driven scenes where they're you know these people are in a higher high

02:09:34   pressure situation and have doubts about each other that I always go for that type of thing

02:09:38   I didn't think it was particularly you know sort of terse or subtle or difficult to follow

02:09:45   but I tend to like movies that are you know obnoxiously that way again I'm a big fan of

02:09:51   Siriana but I understand why most people hate it I tend not to recommend it to people because

02:09:54   it's not everyone's cup of tea.

02:09:56   Steven You seem like you want to be like intellectually

02:09:58   punished by a movie.

02:10:00   Jon Moffitt Like it's you know it's like people who you

02:10:03   know games like Myst right and that whole sort of puzzle solving type game I've played

02:10:09   a lot of those games but I'm not that into them or some people are like give me the hardest

02:10:14   puzzle you have in the world like I just thought the more obscure and difficult it is the more

02:10:18   they like it so I can understand why people appreciate that but I would not choose to

02:10:23   play a game that would say Myst is for babies try this one like a lot of people are trying

02:10:28   to get me into the witness right which I think is kind of a cool game and I played a little

02:10:31   bit of but that's above my I don't want to be I don't want puzzles to be that integral

02:10:37   to a game and to challenge me to that degree so but with movies I tend to like all the

02:10:41   things you just described are important aspects of movies that I like so I did like that aspect

02:10:46   of Ronin but on the other hand it also read to me in my recollection of it which is somewhat

02:10:52   vague is a little bit kind of mainstream middle of the road action movie with a little bit

02:10:57   of flair and that's not really in my particular genre so I remember if here we can find out

02:11:02   what did what did I think of Ronin.

02:11:05   Jon Moffitt Are you looking at Letterboxd or whatever?

02:11:07   Jon Moffitt Of course I rate every movie that I watch on

02:11:10   Letterboxd and when I first used the service I went through and tried to retroactively

02:11:16   rate every movie I had ever seen in my entire life which is extremely difficult to do and

02:11:21   if I rewatch a movie I adjust the rating so you know so I have a more updated thing.

02:11:26   Let's look for predictions before I find it.

02:11:30   Jon Moffitt I what are we out of five ten?

02:11:32   Jon Moffitt Yeah five stars.

02:11:33   Jon Moffitt Three.

02:11:34   Jon Moffitt I think you probably liked it a little bit

02:11:36   but you're probably also very harsh with your ratings and very stingy with your stars so.

02:11:40   Jon Moffitt Good point good point.

02:11:41   Jon Moffitt I'm going to say two.

02:11:43   Jon Moffitt I could go either way but I'm sticking with

02:11:45   my three.

02:11:46   Jon Moffitt Survey says three and a half.

02:11:48   Jon Moffitt Oh alright.

02:11:49   Jon Moffitt Oh look at me go alright.

02:11:50   Jon Moffitt So but that was not based on a rewatch that's

02:11:52   like based on my memory of it so I bet if I watch it today I would probably downgrade

02:11:56   to three or something but I don't know I haven't seen it in a long time so there's definitely

02:11:59   aspects that I liked of it and that is that is pretty high for me I am very stingy with

02:12:04   my stars.

02:12:05   Jon Moffitt He said surprising no one.

02:12:06   Jon Moffitt Yeah exactly.

02:12:07   Jon Moffitt It's not that I'm stingy it's just that I

02:12:09   feel like I want to use the whole range although they don't let you give zero which I tried

02:12:15   to do recently after a movie that I watched that I do not recommend anyone else watch.

02:12:18   [beeping]

02:12:20   (beep)