Connected

00:00:00 ◼   ► [MUSIC PLAYING]

00:00:03 ◼   ► Hello, and welcome to Connected, episode 352.

00:00:12 ◼   ► My name is Steven Hackett, and I'm

00:00:14 ◼   ► joined by Mr. Federico Vatici.

00:00:16 ◼   ► Hello, Steven Hackett.

00:00:17 ◼   ► Welcome back.

00:00:18 ◼   ► Thank you.

00:00:18 ◼   ► It's good to be back.

00:00:20 ◼   ► We're also joined by Myke Hurley.

00:00:21 ◼   ► Myke, how are you?

00:00:22 ◼   ► I'm good.

00:00:23 ◼   ► Nobody's happier that you're back than me.

00:00:25 ◼   ► So you don't have to edit?

00:00:26 ◼   ► Exactly.

00:00:27 ◼   ► I appreciate your work every week.

00:00:29 ◼   ► Thank you. I enjoyed the show. It's fun to listen to it. I don't get to do that very often.

00:00:34 ◼   ► You could just listen back every week if you wanted to.

00:00:36 ◼   ► Well, I do during the edit, but...

00:00:38 ◼   ► There you go. You get to do it every time. You're the only one of us that does listen back.

00:00:41 ◼   ► We have some follow-up about email applications.

00:00:46 ◼   ► Big mail.

00:00:47 ◼   ► Big mail.

00:00:48 ◼   ► So it launched... It launched rockily, I think is probably the best way to put it.

00:00:55 ◼   ► There were tons of bugs, but I'm not surprised.

00:00:58 ◼   ► Honestly, this seems like a really complicated type of app

00:01:00 ◼   ► to just launch.

00:01:01 ◼   ► Many people, including my two co-hosts here,

00:01:07 ◼   ► decided not to bother using the application

00:01:10 ◼   ► after they found out there was no archive feature.

00:01:13 ◼   ► I actually didn't use it.

00:01:15 ◼   ► I started using the app for the first time today.

00:01:18 ◼   ► Because I was busy that day, and you'd both downloaded it

00:01:21 ◼   ► and just said, there's no archive in this application.

00:01:24 ◼   ► I'm not gonna do this.

00:01:25 ◼   ► Like there was no ability to archive an email,

00:01:27 ◼   ► nor was there an archive to view.

00:01:29 ◼   ► - Yep, I've tried it since then.

00:01:30 ◼   ► So I have a couple, I mean I tried it today.

00:01:32 ◼   ► So I have a couple thoughts, but please continue.

00:01:35 ◼   ► - But I tried it all for the first time this morning

00:01:37 ◼   ► because there was an update that came out

00:01:39 ◼   ► that fixed a bunch of bugs, which is cool.

00:01:42 ◼   ► And the developer added an archive feature,

00:01:44 ◼   ► which I think is also cool.

00:01:45 ◼   ► I'm gonna hand it to, what's the developer's name?

00:01:49 ◼   ► - Philip something.

00:01:51 ◼   ► - We'll say Philip, we'll just go with Philip.

00:01:52 ◼   ► -Is it like Cordell or something? -Yes.

00:01:54 ◼   ► I got to hand it to him, right, that like, obviously, he had an opinion.

00:01:59 ◼   ► Like, this is a very opinionated application, right?

00:02:01 ◼   ► And his opinion was you don't need an archive like our friends over at Hay.

00:02:06 ◼   ► Not friends, that was the point of that.

00:02:09 ◼   ► Because I complained about this back when we were first talking about Hay.

00:02:14 ◼   ► I didn't like that there was no archive.

00:02:16 ◼   ► It was just once you saw an email, it became seen.

00:02:18 ◼   ► And then that was just lived in that little area forever.

00:02:21 ◼   ► but he took on the feedback and added an archive immediately, basically, to the application.

00:02:26 ◼   ► I will talk you through some of my experiences having used it just a little bit.

00:02:32 ◼   ► I like the approach of breaking email out into sections in the application. It is like a

00:02:39 ◼   ► tab bar segmented app. On the iPhone there are too many sections though. There are more sections

00:02:48 ◼   ► that live underneath the little dots than there are on the tab bar. However, there is also this

00:02:54 ◼   ► "Here's what's new" view, which shows you a summary of everything that's happened

00:03:01 ◼   ► since you last opened the app, basically, in all of those sections. It's called the "latest".

00:03:07 ◼   ► But in general, this idea of making sections in the app is, I don't know, I kind of like it.

00:03:16 ◼   ► you know it's like a supercharging of what Google's been doing for a while right with like

00:03:21 ◼   ► promotions and all that kind of stuff where they they basically put your email into buckets for you

00:03:26 ◼   ► messages I found are formatted quite strangely so like I had an email from Apple I think it was

00:03:35 ◼   ► like the Apple store because I had to buy new tips for my AirPods because one of them just like

00:03:41 ◼   ► ripped off this morning which is an interesting thing that happened to me like you know like

00:03:45 ◼   ► the little rubber tip it just like came off the plastic part just like came off I don't know

00:03:51 ◼   ► and so I ordered some of those and the email was like zoomed in and I couldn't zoom out I could

00:03:59 ◼   ► just pan around the email which was weird so like the formatting the way it's like formatting email

00:04:05 ◼   ► and I know this is difficult because I've seen this with applications in the past right like

00:04:11 ◼   ► airmail and spark. They're much better at it now, but initially there's a bunch of stuff

00:04:16 ◼   ► you have to try and do to get the email to stay within the confines of the screen that

00:04:22 ◼   ► it's looking at. The conversations view, I know what this is meant to be, which is this

00:04:29 ◼   ► is meant to be all of the email that I exchange with people, so I see kind of like the conversations.

00:04:35 ◼   ► So if me and Stephen are emailing back and forth on something, this is where you could

00:04:39 ◼   ► find all of those, whether they're new or old. But I have a couple of issues with it.

00:04:44 ◼   ► One, it doesn't give me any kind of indication as to how many emails are in the thread, unless

00:04:50 ◼   ► I click into it. And it also does a bad job of threading. I feel like maybe I've taken

00:04:56 ◼   ► for granted apps like Spark that do a really nice job of formatting, and Apple Mail does

00:05:01 ◼   ► this too, right? They format an email thread like it's all separate emails without you

00:05:07 ◼   ► needing to look through all of the indent nonsense.

00:05:11 ◼   ► This app doesn't do that.

00:05:13 ◼   ► But my biggest issue with the conversation view

00:05:15 ◼   ► is most of the stuff that's in there is really old.

00:05:20 ◼   ► Like, it isn't pulling in all of my email

00:05:24 ◼   ► that I've sent or the conversations that I'm having.

00:05:28 ◼   ► And it's also showing every single one of them

00:05:30 ◼   ► as a conversation with myself.

00:05:32 ◼   ► So the name of every thread is just Myke Hurley,

00:05:37 ◼   ► which that doesn't feel right.

00:05:40 ◼   ► I think what it should be showing

00:05:42 ◼   ► is the person I've emailed,

00:05:44 ◼   ► but instead it's just showing my name

00:05:47 ◼   ► hundreds and hundreds, if not thousands of times,

00:05:50 ◼   ► which I don't know,

00:05:51 ◼   ► that doesn't seem like that's working properly.

00:05:54 ◼   ► It has a newsletter section, right?

00:05:57 ◼   ► So, and this is one of the things that the application,

00:05:59 ◼   ► it's like an area where you can go in

00:06:00 ◼   ► and just read all your newsletters

00:06:01 ◼   ► and they format them nicely. I find it peculiar though that you have to tell the app that

00:06:06 ◼   ► a newsletter is a newsletter. I just kind of assumed that it was going to work that

00:06:11 ◼   ► out on its own. It's also kind of weird to me that there's a discovery section of newsletters

00:06:18 ◼   ► in the application that you can then go and subscribe to. And I don't really... That's

00:06:23 ◼   ► just like a... I don't know, that just feels peculiar to me.

00:06:26 ◼   ► Wait, like you can find newsletters you aren't subscribed to and go sign up for them?

00:06:31 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:06:32 ◼   ► I wonder if that's like a business thing?

00:06:34 ◼   ► I mean this app is expensive but like do you think that's...

00:06:37 ◼   ► I have no idea.

00:06:38 ◼   ► I mean when I click out one of the links, like Chatecarries in there, it doesn't like

00:06:42 ◼   ► format an affiliate link or anything in the email, in the link.

00:06:46 ◼   ► So maybe it's just...

00:06:47 ◼   ► It says at the bottom, "These links are being provided as a convenience and for informational

00:06:52 ◼   ► purposes only.

00:06:53 ◼   ► They do not constitute an endorsement or an approval."

00:06:55 ◼   ► Oh okay, there you go.

00:06:56 ◼   ► But it's just, I mean, there is an endorsement and approval because they've been specifically

00:07:02 ◼   ► picked.

00:07:03 ◼   ► I don't know, it's not like every email newsletter in the world, the developer picked them, but

00:07:07 ◼   ► legal stuff or whatever.

00:07:10 ◼   ► I guess, you know, ultimately I get to tell the app what the newsletters are, but I also

00:07:15 ◼   ► assumed that there would be some smarts applied to it.

00:07:18 ◼   ► Because, I mean, I don't, I haven't tried this yet because I haven't had the opportunity

00:07:22 ◼   ► to make something a newsletter but I have no idea if that information is going to sync

00:07:27 ◼   ► from device to device because like none of the accounts do so like you I have to sign

00:07:32 ◼   ► in to every account manually on every device that I want to use it on which I understand

00:07:39 ◼   ► why that is because then there's no like I know this is like a thing about other apps

00:07:43 ◼   ► where people were like oh they're saving you login credentials and it's just like a whole

00:07:47 ◼   ► big thing so like fine but I have no idea if that information will sync I would like

00:07:52 ◼   ► to believe that it would though.

00:07:56 ◼   ► One thing I found peculiar, there's a bunch of categories right?

00:07:59 ◼   ► So you've got like purchases, events, that kind of stuff.

00:08:03 ◼   ► None of my old email is saved in these buckets so it seems like a lot of this stuff will

00:08:11 ◼   ► apply from today rather than stuff that's back in time.

00:08:16 ◼   ► Which is difficult because then I can't get an idea of what this is going to look like

00:08:21 ◼   ► until it happens. Yeah, I had, I mean there's the bouncer which is like the

00:08:28 ◼   ► screener in Hay, it had things that were in my inbox like in my Gmail inbox and

00:08:34 ◼   ► it moved them there before they would show up. So like some stuff gets pre or

00:08:39 ◼   ► gets sorted into things immediately and some stuff doesn't. I found that to be a

00:08:43 ◼   ► little confusing. And don't mess with things that are already in my inbox. Yes,

00:08:48 ◼   ► It requires app specific passwords for Gmail and I don't know why.

00:08:56 ◼   ► So I think what has happened here is Google has changed their authentication for mail

00:09:03 ◼   ► clients.

00:09:04 ◼   ► Mailplane is a Mac app a lot of people like, including Jason, and they have recently announced

00:09:09 ◼   ► that they're actually shutting down partially because of what Google has done with like

00:09:17 ◼   ► the login flow and that sort of thing. So maybe it's that. I don't know for sure. I'm

00:09:24 ◼   ► not sure if they're even related, but I do know Google has made changes in that area.

00:09:30 ◼   ► Okay. Because that was just weird to me. Every other email app I've ever used just gives

00:09:36 ◼   ► you the sign in with your Google account thing.

00:09:41 ◼   ► And unlike Fantastical, where you have to sign into all your accounts everywhere, or

00:09:47 ◼   ► at least Fantastical used to be that way, what Bigmail does is once you create that

00:09:56 ◼   ► app specific password, it saves that to iCloud Keychain.

00:09:59 ◼   ► So I set up on my Mac, then I launched the iOS app, I told it to restore purchases, because

00:10:05 ◼   ► I won't talk about the flow going into it because I think it's confusing, and then it

00:10:09 ◼   ► "Hey, we notice that you have this one-time password saved for this account. Do you want

00:10:14 ◼   ► to enable that account?" So at least you don't have to do it on all of your devices. Once

00:10:18 ◼   ► you do it once, it's like in the big mail universe.

00:10:20 ◼   ► Okay, well that's cool then. That's cool then. I was just, I'd never come across that before.

00:10:25 ◼   ► Like I have it for iCloud, right? Apple have done this for ages with iCloud, but I'd never

00:10:29 ◼   ► seen that with Gmail. There are no swipe actions on email. So like I had a bunch of stuff in

00:10:35 ◼   ► my inbox like five or six that were just like Google alert things because I'd signed in,

00:10:42 ◼   ► right? So I'd like six emails or whatever because Google just loves to alert you because

00:10:47 ◼   ► I signed in with two different, no I signed in with one Gmail account but it just sent

00:10:50 ◼   ► a bunch of email and I had to like deal with them all individually by either opening and

00:10:55 ◼   ► archiving them or just long pressing and archiving them. I do really like the layout and the

00:11:03 ◼   ► design in general. I think that in that respect it has lived up to what I think a lot of people

00:11:10 ◼   ► were looking for which is imagine if Apple put effort into the mail app it would maybe look

00:11:17 ◼   ► something like this right it looks like a platform native app right it looks like all of the typical

00:11:25 ◼   ► conventions of design that an iOS app should with some additional with some extras right like it has

00:11:31 ◼   ► these little previews of an email in the notifications which I like that like a

00:11:36 ◼   ► visual preview of what the email looks like inside I like that kind of stuff

00:11:41 ◼   ► like I feel like I've been very critical but there is a lot of stuff that needs

00:11:48 ◼   ► to be worked on with this app I think but I do have faith in the developer to

00:11:54 ◼   ► add features because so far he seems to have been pretty responsive with that

00:12:01 ◼   ► So, it has not been a flawless launch by any stretch of the imagination at this point,

00:12:13 ◼   ► but I am intrigued to see if or how it is going to continue from now on.

00:12:23 ◼   ► I'm a little bit disappointed because I was really hoping, like from last week's conversation,

00:12:29 ◼   ► was going to be the new app for me. But I've put some accounts into it. I'm not going to

00:12:38 ◼   ► be like moving anything to it. I'm just going to kind of run them in parallel for a while

00:12:42 ◼   ► and see how it goes. But it's rough around the edges.

00:12:49 ◼   ► Something that I struggled to understand when I tested the app, and that was before the

00:12:53 ◼   ► the 1.1 update that added the archive feature was to understand the flow of bigmail. And

00:13:01 ◼   ► I'm not sure I get it still. Like, does the app have a concept of "this is new mail, this

00:13:10 ◼   ► is old mail you've already dealt with"? Yes.

00:13:15 ◼   ► Because it's... OK. It does. So, I mean, again, I don't know what you saw, right? Because

00:13:19 ◼   ► I never looked at the app that way, but all of the new mail is shown to you in the section

00:13:24 ◼   ► called the latest.

00:13:26 ◼   ► And then everything else is either in the specific buckets like the conversations bucket

00:13:34 ◼   ► or whatever, and then you can go into the other areas and then they also have something

00:13:40 ◼   ► called everything, which is where everything lives.

00:13:44 ◼   ► Yeah, that was the impression that I got, that there were too many ways to look at the same stuff.

00:13:50 ◼   ► Yes, there is a regular email client hidden inside this application,

00:13:55 ◼   ► which is under the "everything" area.

00:13:58 ◼   ► And that's what I found kind of confusing, because then I was also expecting, "Okay,

00:14:02 ◼   ► then I guess I should be able to see my email folders in here." But I don't think you can

00:14:07 ◼   ► see those folders. If you have a "sane later" or "sane news mailbox." And obviously,

00:14:13 ◼   ► I think this kind of application wants you to stop using that kind of additional service, right?

00:14:17 ◼   ► Because it's organizing email for you, so using SaneBox is kind of redundant for this kind of app.

00:14:23 ◼   ► It's trying to be that.

00:14:24 ◼   ► It's trying to be that, but locally on device and all that.

00:14:27 ◼   ► But I was confused because I opened the conversations view,

00:14:31 ◼   ► and that was basically like a replica of my sent folder, right?

00:14:34 ◼   ► Those are conversations that I'm participating in, which means I've sent a message.

00:14:39 ◼   ► Like usually when I want to see something that I've replied to, I just go to my sent

00:14:42 ◼   ► email section. And those are my conversations, right? And I struggle to understand, like,

00:14:50 ◼   ► how is it different, you know, conversations and sent? What's the difference here? And

00:14:54 ◼   ► then I didn't understand, like, is Bigmail moving messages out of my inbox or not? Like,

00:15:03 ◼   ► the sections that I see, newsletters, purchases, conversations, the latest. If I open mail

00:15:10 ◼   ► or Gmail, which I'm keeping on the side,

00:15:13 ◼   ► am I still going to see duplicate messages in the inbox?

00:15:17 ◼   ► Does it leave stuff in the inbox?

00:15:19 ◼   ► Or is the organization that it does within Bigmail

00:15:24 ◼   ► just a custom thing?

00:15:26 ◼   ► - I think it's a custom thing.

00:15:27 ◼   ► - So if you open Gmail, you see everything in the inbox

00:15:33 ◼   ► still, right?

00:15:34 ◼   ► - Well, unless I archive it, I mean, again,

00:15:37 ◼   ► this is what I don't know what it was like before, right?

00:15:40 ◼   ► So I'm still archiving the email when I'm done with it.

00:15:43 ◼   ► So then it's archived, like that will reflect

00:15:46 ◼   ► in other applications.

00:15:48 ◼   ► But like the application doesn't create

00:15:51 ◼   ► like a folder structure,

00:15:52 ◼   ► like something like Sparrow used to, right?

00:15:55 ◼   ► It hasn't like gone ahead and created

00:15:57 ◼   ► a bunch of big mail related folders.

00:16:01 ◼   ► There is a little slight addendum to that,

00:16:03 ◼   ► which Steven's gonna mention in a minute, I think.

00:16:05 ◼   ► But it hasn't created like a bunch of folders

00:16:07 ◼   ► that it's now putting all my email into.

00:16:10 ◼   ► - It hasn't done that.

00:16:11 ◼   ► - All right.

00:16:12 ◼   ► - Which I think is related to this thing

00:16:14 ◼   ► that Steven found today before we recorded.

00:16:16 ◼   ► - Yeah, so I played with it and I like what it's trying

00:16:20 ◼   ► to do, but I just don't want my email

00:16:22 ◼   ► in a bunch of different buckets.

00:16:24 ◼   ► But one thing I noticed going back to Apple Mail

00:16:27 ◼   ► is that all of a sudden I had a big mail folder set up

00:16:32 ◼   ► as like an IMAP folder in my account.

00:16:34 ◼   ► And you clicked in there and it has messages

00:16:38 ◼   ► that have attachments on them

00:16:40 ◼   ► that seem to be settings files.

00:16:42 ◼   ► So one of the things with big mail is that

00:16:46 ◼   ► it is doing the sorting and stuff all locally, right?

00:16:50 ◼   ► That it's not going through some sort of cloud server

00:16:55 ◼   ► and whatever, like that's fine, do what you wanna do,

00:16:59 ◼   ► but this app does it all locally.

00:17:00 ◼   ► And I think the way they're doing it, at least partially--

00:17:04 ◼   ► - I found the help article.

00:17:06 ◼   ► - Is with this little file.

00:17:06 ◼   ► Why do I have loads of emails called app data in a Bigmail folder?

00:17:11 ◼   ► To sync settings for reply layer at the bouncer and scene categorizations, Bigmail uses a

00:17:15 ◼   ► special folder called Bigmail to write data that can be read from all your devices.

00:17:20 ◼   ► Bigmail manages this folder automatically.

00:17:21 ◼   ► It will periodically add, remove, and combine these emails, so it's best not to remove anything

00:17:26 ◼   ► in this folder, otherwise you may lose some of your settings.

00:17:28 ◼   ► That's a pretty smart way of doing it, I think.

00:17:32 ◼   ► Because none of that information is now leaving your email accounts, right?

00:17:36 ◼   ► it's able to keep in sync that way. It feels a little janky, but it's kind of

00:17:42 ◼   ► ingenious maybe? Yeah, I don't know. I mean it's hidden in big mail. I only saw it

00:17:47 ◼   ► when I went back to Apple Mail. Right. So I think this is very promising. I just

00:17:52 ◼   ► think that this launch has been rougher than expected and I think people

00:17:59 ◼   ► are a little surprised at the high price. Also the the onboarding is is really... I

00:18:05 ◼   ► I don't think it's good.

00:18:06 ◼   ► Like you open the app for the first time and it's like,

00:18:08 ◼   ► do you want monthly or yearly?

00:18:10 ◼   ► Both come with a trial.

00:18:12 ◼   ► - Yeah, a lot of apps do that these days

00:18:14 ◼   ► and I don't like it.

00:18:15 ◼   ► - Yeah, especially with something like this,

00:18:16 ◼   ► like let me poke around first

00:18:19 ◼   ► and then as I approach those 14 days,

00:18:22 ◼   ► put a banner up in the app or something,

00:18:24 ◼   ► you know, let me know.

00:18:26 ◼   ► - This is the thing with hay, remember?

00:18:29 ◼   ► - I'm trying to think about it.

00:18:30 ◼   ► - And then Apple said,

00:18:31 ◼   ► you need to give people the ability

00:18:33 ◼   ► to create a demo account so they can go in and look at the app.

00:18:37 ◼   ► Well, this doesn't require an account.

00:18:40 ◼   ► Right.

00:18:40 ◼   ► This is just--

00:18:41 ◼   ► But I think this app could benefit from me

00:18:44 ◼   ► being able to go in and see, even with fake data,

00:18:49 ◼   ► what it's going to do before I give them $70 a year

00:18:53 ◼   ► or whatever it is.

00:18:55 ◼   ► I think so.

00:18:56 ◼   ► So I signed up for the two-week trial.

00:18:58 ◼   ► I'm going to see how it goes over the next couple of weeks

00:19:01 ◼   ► if they continue to put out updates,

00:19:04 ◼   ► who knows where it might end up going in the future.

00:19:06 ◼   ► But I don't know.

00:19:08 ◼   ► I'm, um, I'm, decided, I like decided

00:19:12 ◼   ► to keep an open mind on it.

00:19:14 ◼   ► - That's a good approach.

00:19:16 ◼   ► - Purely because like, I like what the app

00:19:19 ◼   ► is wanting to do, and I am encouraged by

00:19:24 ◼   ► the changes in the app so far.

00:19:30 ◼   ► So I want to, you know, I want to, I'm going to keep an open mind of it and I'm

00:19:35 ◼   ► going to keep poking around, but this isn't the only mail app you've tried.

00:19:38 ◼   ► Right?

00:19:40 ◼   ► No, I downloaded an app called, I assume this is called Mime Stream.

00:19:44 ◼   ► Where did this come from?

00:19:46 ◼   ► I've downloaded a big mail on my iPhone, but I'm also using Gmail on my iPhone.

00:19:52 ◼   ► Remember I have all these email accounts and I don't want them in the same place.

00:19:55 ◼   ► Right?

00:19:56 ◼   ► So my Cortex brand email, I really want in its own application, even if I don't do anything else.

00:20:03 ◼   ► I've always done this. I've just wanted that email separate because it's like so different to the

00:20:08 ◼   ► other types of email that I get. It's like whiplash. So I wanted to keep that email on its own.

00:20:13 ◼   ► First I had it in Outlook, then I moved it to Hey. Now it's back to Gmail again, and I've been using

00:20:19 ◼   ► the Gmail app on my iPhone or my iPad. But there isn't a Gmail app for the Mac, right?

00:20:27 ◼   ► And I don't want to be like, it's too tricky for me to be logged in all the time because

00:20:31 ◼   ► then like I have so many Google accounts. So I was thinking I wanted to get an app for

00:20:37 ◼   ► the Mac for Gmail. People love MailPlane, but that's going away. And I remembered an

00:20:42 ◼   ► application that I heard Stephen talk about on Mac Power Users called Mime

00:20:48 ◼   ► Stream? Mime Stream? I don't understand the name. Isn't Mime some sort of email?

00:20:56 ◼   ► Mime is an email thing, right? Yeah, email protocol or something? I don't care, it's a

00:21:00 ◼   ► bad name, but nevertheless, really nice app. It's like, again, an Apple Mail

00:21:08 ◼   ► looking thing if Apple Mail was modern right because it integrates all of the

00:21:15 ◼   ► Gmail features and can you know like sorting things automatically for you

00:21:20 ◼   ► highlights when there's a attachment this is a very nice application so I've

00:21:25 ◼   ► been checking this out today I just started using it today but I think it's

00:21:29 ◼   ► really nice it's like it's a beta. Did you see who builds it? No. It's this guy

00:21:35 ◼   ► Neil Havari who spent seven and a half years at Apple working on mail. Makes

00:21:43 ◼   ► perfect sense because not only does it is it work and feel good I'm sure this

00:21:47 ◼   ► person was frustrated maybe and decided to go make their own app. Do Mon! Yeah it's

00:21:51 ◼   ► really good it's really really good I really would recommend because it's in

00:21:56 ◼   ► beta right now I really would recommend a different name because Mime stream it

00:22:00 ◼   ► it sounds like a streaming video thing, right?

00:22:04 ◼   ► Like it doesn't- - With no sound, just get it.

00:22:07 ◼   ► - Yeah, the name just doesn't,

00:22:10 ◼   ► the name does not connect for me.

00:22:12 ◼   ► - Yeah. - Right, at all.

00:22:13 ◼   ► - Neil, can you please make an iOS version of this?

00:22:16 ◼   ► - Yes. - Yes, nice, right?

00:22:18 ◼   ► - Thank you, Neil.

00:22:19 ◼   ► This looks really nice and man, it really does show

00:22:22 ◼   ► just how much Apple is just leaving Apple Mail

00:22:27 ◼   ► in the past at this point, right?

00:22:29 ◼   ► - Yep.

00:22:30 ◼   ► And I wrote this today, like, it's incredible to realize this after the year that we just

00:22:38 ◼   ► lived through with remote work and just, you know, not being at the office and using email

00:22:42 ◼   ► a lot.

00:22:43 ◼   ► Like, how is it possible that Mail still basically looks the same as 10 years ago with no new

00:22:50 ◼   ► features?

00:22:51 ◼   ► And when they did try to bring something new to Apple Mail with the weird toolbar buttons,

00:22:57 ◼   ► the entire user base revolted and now the toolbar is back to ROML again.

00:23:04 ◼   ► They are working on an iOS and iPadOS app.

00:23:06 ◼   ► But just imagine if Apple Mail got the Apple Notes treatment, right?

00:23:14 ◼   ► It's fun to dream.

00:23:16 ◼   ► Myke, did you notice in its settings that you can have the thing you want where, say

00:23:22 ◼   ► Say you have two unread messages and you archive the first one, it doesn't automatically select

00:23:27 ◼   ► and mark as read the next one?

00:23:29 ◼   ► I have not come across this yet because I haven't had enough email in that account,

00:23:34 ◼   ► but it makes me so happy when an application adds this.

00:23:39 ◼   ► I have been lucky enough to force this feature into a couple of email apps of them in my

00:23:43 ◼   ► lifetime because I don't understand this idea of like, if I deal with one email, what I

00:23:49 ◼   ► definitely want is the next one immediately.

00:23:52 ◼   ► I must have it open.

00:23:53 ◼   ► So that's cool. I would have,

00:23:54 ◼   ► I would have gone searching for that.

00:23:56 ◼   ► So I'm very pleased that you've told me that it exists.

00:23:58 ◼   ► It also has a related setting.

00:24:01 ◼   ► Mark messages as read immediately after a delay or manually.

00:24:06 ◼   ► So you can,

00:24:06 ◼   ► Oh my God, that's so good.

00:24:08 ◼   ► This person understands email.

00:24:10 ◼   ► Come on, Neil.

00:24:12 ◼   ► We need two things, Neil.

00:24:14 ◼   ► We need an iOS version and we need just a slight change to it.

00:24:18 ◼   ► Why do you call it my mail?

00:24:21 ◼   ► Why stream? I think streams my issue.

00:24:23 ◼   ► Why stream?

00:24:24 ◼   ► My...

00:24:26 ◼   ► I don't understand the stream part.

00:24:28 ◼   ► My mail.

00:24:29 ◼   ► Why mime?

00:24:31 ◼   ► Well, it's because it's a thing, right?

00:24:33 ◼   ► Some email protocol.

00:24:35 ◼   ► It's a mail nerd.

00:24:35 ◼   ► I don't like it, but that's I can understand it.

00:24:38 ◼   ► I don't get the stream part.

00:24:39 ◼   ► I'm sure that there's something I'm missing, right, about this.

00:24:42 ◼   ► But it doesn't email.

00:24:44 ◼   ► It's just the reason I would suggest it.

00:24:47 ◼   ► It's not it's not memorable.

00:24:50 ◼   ► I knew this app. I knew what it looked like. I knew its features. I could not think of what it was called.

00:24:55 ◼   ► And I had to ask Steven, and luckily Steven's memory is better than mine.

00:24:59 ◼   ► You can also set the keyboard shortcuts to Gmail or Apple Mail. It's got all sorts of cool stuff in it.

00:25:06 ◼   ► Oh, this is like... All these options, they remind me of... What's it called? MailMate on the Mac?

00:25:13 ◼   ► Yeah, but MailMate's like a markdown text editor with IMAP bolted to it. It's weird.

00:25:18 ◼   ► That sounds fun.

00:25:19 ◼   ► That sounds great.

00:25:20 ◼   ► Big recommend for MimeStream.

00:25:22 ◼   ► It's in beta right now, but...

00:25:24 ◼   ► As soon as he adds printing, this is gonna be my mail client on the Mac.

00:25:29 ◼   ► It doesn't have printing?

00:25:31 ◼   ► Not yet.

00:25:31 ◼   ► Oh, like export to PDF?

00:25:34 ◼   ► Yeah, it doesn't have either.

00:25:35 ◼   ► Like you're not actually printing your email?

00:25:38 ◼   ► No app does this better than Spark, by the way.

00:25:42 ◼   ► Spark has a dedicated PDF button that you can press.

00:25:47 ◼   ► This episode of connected is made possible by memberful.

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00:27:33 ◼   ► Our thanks to memberful for the support of the show and Relay FM.

00:27:36 ◼   ► I have a little more follow up. Eric sent us a link to an episode of the MXU podcast,

00:27:44 ◼   ► or M by U podcast, it's M little x u, wherein they talk to Webster Talston, who is an owner

00:27:51 ◼   ► of a company called Axis Audio, who have supplied some Atmos mixes to Apple for spatial audio.

00:27:59 ◼   ► The main takeaway here is that Apple is not using some of the data supplied by audio engineers

00:28:07 ◼   ► concerning binaural audio, which is something that is included in the at most information

00:28:17 ◼   ► that it's turned over.

00:28:18 ◼   ► Federico, can you give an explanation for binaural audio?

00:28:21 ◼   ► I can try if you can.

00:28:23 ◼   ► No, I cannot.

00:28:24 ◼   ► I have no idea.

00:28:26 ◼   ► Binaural audio.

00:28:28 ◼   ► You can create binaural audio with a binaural microphone and the main selling point here

00:28:33 ◼   ► is binaural audio allows for, when using headphones, audio to sound like it's coming from around

00:28:42 ◼   ► you.

00:28:43 ◼   ► It can put audio in different areas and it makes it sound like you've got that open sound

00:28:47 ◼   ► stage right?

00:28:48 ◼   ► Because it sounds like things are coming from, like it fakes the surround sound kind of thing.

00:28:52 ◼   ► Open sound stage.

00:28:53 ◼   ► So, but instead of using this information

00:28:55 ◼   ► that is coming from the audio engineers,

00:28:57 ◼   ► Apple have created their own algorithm

00:28:59 ◼   ► that synthesizes it what they want to be a virtual studio

00:29:03 ◼   ► around your head.

00:29:04 ◼   ► So the idea I think is that it's bigger,

00:29:07 ◼   ► like not everything's not happening like directly

00:29:09 ◼   ► in your ears, it could feel like it's happening

00:29:11 ◼   ► also far away.

00:29:14 ◼   ► So something that Webster said on the show is that

00:29:19 ◼   ► the algorithm has also continued to be tweaked

00:29:22 ◼   ► since the launch of Spatial Audio Apple Music and he believes getting better.

00:29:31 ◼   ► So I just wanted to share that thought it was interesting.

00:29:34 ◼   ► So that may explain why some songs with Spatial Audio at launch, they sounded really strange

00:29:41 ◼   ► and why some readers told me over the past few weeks like I believe they fixed the song and they

00:29:48 ◼   ► updated some songs and I thought that was also strange like how can you update

00:29:54 ◼   ► songs but I guess if software is involved and algorithms are involved

00:29:59 ◼   ► this is just kind of the world that we're living in now songs can be updated

00:30:03 ◼   ► and they sound different which is funny to think about. I guess that they're

00:30:08 ◼   ► probably not even updating the songs. Right. They're just updating the way that

00:30:14 ◼   ► the audio is interpreted by the headphones. Right, but from an experience standpoint you're listening

00:30:21 ◼   ► to one song and it sounds a certain way and then a few days pass or a few weeks pass and you listen

00:30:25 ◼   ► again it sounds different. Buddy Holly 2021.06. Wonderwall 2.5.

00:30:32 ◼   ► So yeah, cool follow-up. Stephen Brokkin of a product.

00:30:41 ◼   ► Are we surprised? I like it. Stephen broke an Apple watch. Stephen broke his watch.

00:30:45 ◼   ► Care to explain?

00:30:49 ◼   ► I was... Explain yourself. ...camping with my family and

00:30:52 ◼   ► where we were had waterfalls and and stuff and I was gonna

00:30:56 ◼   ► there's a section where you can like jump down this waterfall into the water below and I went to go do that and

00:31:04 ◼   ► smashed my

00:31:07 ◼   ► Apple watch on a rock under the water.

00:31:10 ◼   ► It survived like I mean the screen was shattered, but it still worked and I could still kind of make out the time

00:31:16 ◼   ► I thought it would be dead instantly

00:31:18 ◼   ► I mean it was I can't believe water didn't get in it, but like every 15 minutes. It would be like the

00:31:25 ◼   ► loud noise warning

00:31:27 ◼   ► Like even if I was just like I was laying down a hammock that afternoon

00:31:31 ◼   ► It was like it's 90 decibels in here you're gonna lose your hearing and I couldn't turn it off

00:31:37 ◼   ► because where the where the setting was for that the screen didn't respond to touch so

00:31:41 ◼   ► That was a bummer, but I got home, and I had my series 5 here, and I thought well

00:31:48 ◼   ► I'll just I'll just wear my series 5 until there's a new watch so I

00:31:54 ◼   ► Then went through the process of unpairing the series 6 to create a backup

00:31:59 ◼   ► That's only that's how you back up an Apple watch you have to unpair it and the backup is created so I did that

00:32:06 ◼   ► Set up the series 5 you know plugged it. Hey, you know had it on the charger, so it has some juice again and

00:32:10 ◼   ► it would

00:32:13 ◼   ► Not apply the backup it would only see backups that were really old. It's like. Oh, it's probably running watch OS

00:32:20 ◼   ► 6 right we're on 7 now 8 is coming, so it's probably on an older version of watch OS so I

00:32:27 ◼   ► Unpaired that one

00:32:30 ◼   ► Set it up again as like a new watch

00:32:34 ◼   ► Updated watch OS on it which took forever like boys the series 6 it sir seems faster

00:32:40 ◼   ► I don't know if it actually is maybe it's a a watch watch never boils, but I

00:32:45 ◼   ► was eventually I

00:32:48 ◼   ► Was eventually able to

00:32:52 ◼   ► Repair it and then select the backup from the series 6 and that backup went on fine no problems

00:32:59 ◼   ► But it really just reminded me like how tedious this process is also you can't seem to get rid of old watch OS backups

00:33:05 ◼   ► I have watch OS backups from like watch OS 2 and 3 in there, but oh well. I guess I'm just carrying those around forever

00:33:11 ◼   ► That's weird. This is the second Apple watch you've broken

00:33:15 ◼   ► Yes, I've never broken an Apple watch. No, you don't wear one. I'm wearing it today actually

00:33:21 ◼   ► Hmm. So take that Steven. I don't know what to say to you anymore. Be more careful. Really? Yeah

00:33:29 ◼   ► So how did you do it? Well we jumped down into the water like I didn't hit a rock

00:33:35 ◼   ► but... Okay stop right there why are you jumping into the water? Yeah because like that's what

00:33:40 ◼   ► you do with this place like you... You kind of did hit the rock though I don't

00:33:44 ◼   ► understand how you could say you didn't hit the rock. So like my I sound like I slammed

00:33:48 ◼   ► into a rock with my body but... Well the watch the watch the watch did saved you if

00:33:53 ◼   ► you weren't wearing the watch you would have busted your wrist. The watch was

00:33:56 ◼   ► like your shield. Yep. It's like in movies when like someone gets shot and then they

00:34:02 ◼   ► take a Bible out of their pocket and the Bible caught the bullet. That's basically what happened

00:34:06 ◼   ► to you but with an Apple Watch, your wrist and a rock. Have you written a letter to Tim

00:34:12 ◼   ► Cook about this yet? Maybe I can be in the commercial with Kyle. Yeah, the Apple Watch

00:34:20 ◼   ► saved me from a graze in my wrist. I was sliding down a waterfall and the Apple Watch saved

00:34:26 ◼   ► my life I can see the headlines on like what's it called Tennessee Tennessee

00:34:32 ◼   ► news whatever like a tennisopolis 40 year old saved by Apple watch 40 yeah

00:34:42 ◼   ► round 35 yeah you could round up from that to full it's not even my half

00:34:47 ◼   ► birthday yet I'm still feel like I'm rounding down you can round up to 30 you

00:34:52 ◼   ► You went too far. You round down to 35 round up to 40. So yeah another Apple Watch.

00:34:57 ◼   ► Are you gonna replace it? Probably not right? I don't even know if this one has

00:35:03 ◼   ► AppleCare on it I need to look. I mean like even if it did like if it didn't

00:35:08 ◼   ► you wouldn't get a new Series 6. No that's why I went back to my Series 5.

00:35:13 ◼   ► I was like it's I mean it's basically July so. What materials are your Series 6?

00:35:19 ◼   ► Which one did you get? The gray aluminum. Okay, so you've gone from aluminum back to titanium.

00:35:27 ◼   ► Yes. Or I guess titanium as you would call it.

00:35:30 ◼   ► T-t-titanian-titanianopolis. No, titanium, right? Al- aluminum. Titanium.

00:35:37 ◼   ► Titan, right? Sure. That must be how it works.

00:35:44 ◼   ► I like the titanium a lot more than I remembered, but it's definitely heavier and you know the

00:35:50 ◼   ► series 6 has the screen brightness way better when your wrist is down and it's funny now

00:35:56 ◼   ► to like catch it brightening up but it's fine.

00:35:59 ◼   ► I've just remembered I don't own a series 6.

00:36:01 ◼   ► I have a series 5.

00:36:02 ◼   ► Do I own a series 6?

00:36:03 ◼   ► Of course you do.

00:36:04 ◼   ► I think I do, right?

00:36:06 ◼   ► I'm just looking behind my watch.

00:36:10 ◼   ► Yeah I do.

00:36:11 ◼   ► Okay cool.

00:36:12 ◼   ► How was it different?

00:36:13 ◼   ► Oh yeah, the blood oxygen stuff.

00:36:15 ◼   ► That and the screen is brighter when in sort of wrist down mode.

00:36:21 ◼   ► Oh yeah, it's brighter in... the always on display is brighter.

00:36:26 ◼   ► Cool, okay.

00:36:27 ◼   ► Yeah, I guess I never noticed.

00:36:29 ◼   ► So there's less of a like transition.

00:36:31 ◼   ► Yeah, I bet, I bet.

00:36:33 ◼   ► So anyways, no one tell David Sparks because he thinks that I break a lot of Apple devices

00:36:38 ◼   ► and I think that's ridiculous.

00:36:39 ◼   ► What are you talking about?

00:36:41 ◼   ► We tell you you break a lot of Apple devices.

00:36:44 ◼   ► Why is David--

00:36:45 ◼   ► - I'm just saying he's under that impression, falsely.

00:36:48 ◼   ► - The impression that everybody else is under?

00:36:51 ◼   ► - Yes.

00:36:52 ◼   ► - You are unlike anyone I've ever met.

00:36:55 ◼   ► I don't know anybody that does the things that you do.

00:36:57 ◼   ► I don't understand it.

00:36:59 ◼   ► - I mean, in hindsight, jumping off a waterfall

00:37:03 ◼   ► with an Apple Watch on was probably a bad idea.

00:37:05 ◼   ► - And like, the thing is,

00:37:07 ◼   ► you don't even strike me as a clumsy person.

00:37:09 ◼   ► - I'm not.

00:37:11 ◼   ► I don't think.

00:37:12 ◼   ► How would you explain this?

00:37:14 ◼   ► I don't think that you are as well

00:37:16 ◼   ► like particularly daring,

00:37:18 ◼   ► like maybe more daring than me.

00:37:20 ◼   ► But maybe it is though.

00:37:22 ◼   ► But maybe it is.

00:37:23 ◼   ► Maybe like the level that

00:37:25 ◼   ► I am at is the amount

00:37:27 ◼   ► of daring just before

00:37:29 ◼   ► you break things.

00:37:30 ◼   ► Like just the

00:37:33 ◼   ► same for you Federico.

00:37:34 ◼   ► Just like just one click

00:37:36 ◼   ► up is where Steven is and that is

00:37:38 ◼   ► where you break everything.

00:37:40 ◼   ► I don't jump off anything, really.

00:37:42 ◼   ► - That's not gonna break anything.

00:37:44 ◼   ► - Bad things will happen if I jump off platforms

00:37:47 ◼   ► or whatnot, yeah.

00:37:48 ◼   ► - You could say I'm a real fireball, 'cause I'm daring.

00:37:52 ◼   ► - Ooh, I've chosen not to say anything.

00:37:56 ◼   ► - What do y'all think about iPads getting bigger?

00:37:59 ◼   ► - Please, yes, thank you, I want one.

00:38:02 ◼   ► - Cool, moving on.

00:38:03 ◼   ► Now this is from Mark Gurman.

00:38:06 ◼   ► He's in the newsletter business,

00:38:08 ◼   ► but the newsletter is owned by his employer.

00:38:11 ◼   ► - And it's free.

00:38:12 ◼   ► - But it's free.

00:38:14 ◼   ► I have it set up to go to Feedbin

00:38:16 ◼   ► with all my other newsletters.

00:38:17 ◼   ► And Garmon suggested Apple's working on larger iPads,

00:38:21 ◼   ► possibly 14 or 16 inches in size.

00:38:24 ◼   ► This seems to be multiple years away.

00:38:26 ◼   ► This isn't like coming this fall,

00:38:29 ◼   ► but I think it makes a lot of sense.

00:38:32 ◼   ► Federico, what do you think?

00:38:34 ◼   ► - Yeah, this is fun.

00:38:35 ◼   ► I actually remember talking about this idea

00:38:37 ◼   ► in a briefing at WWDC many, many years ago,

00:38:42 ◼   ► like throwing around the idea of like,

00:38:43 ◼   ► yeah, I would actually love a bigger iPad Pro.

00:38:46 ◼   ► And I still believe that--

00:38:48 ◼   ► - So you're saying you're responsible,

00:38:50 ◼   ► is that what you're saying?

00:38:51 ◼   ► You're responsible for this?

00:38:52 ◼   ► - Look, I'm responsible for many things, all right?

00:38:54 ◼   ► - Okay, all right.

00:38:56 ◼   ► - Maybe this is one of them, I don't know.

00:38:58 ◼   ► But no, seriously, I mean, if you're Apple,

00:39:00 ◼   ► you must be thinking about this sort of stuff, right?

00:39:04 ◼   ► Especially given the sort of direction

00:39:06 ◼   ► that they're going with iPadOS and multitasking.

00:39:09 ◼   ► I think it's one obvious idea would be,

00:39:13 ◼   ► well, we've built this new foundation in iPadOS 15.

00:39:17 ◼   ► Maybe we're even considering freeform multi-windowing now,

00:39:21 ◼   ► if you look at Quick Note,

00:39:22 ◼   ► we're gonna talk about that in a few minutes.

00:39:24 ◼   ► And I guess the obvious next step would be,

00:39:28 ◼   ► well, what if we took things a step further

00:39:32 ◼   ► and we made an even bigger iPad Pro

00:39:34 ◼   ► that allowed you to do more of that kind of multitasking.

00:39:38 ◼   ► So you could imagine multiple split views instead of just two

00:39:43 ◼   ► apps open at the same time, maybe even multiple floating

00:39:46 ◼   ► windows that you can resize like a picture-in-picture type

00:39:50 ◼   ► window.

00:39:51 ◼   ► And I think they should do this.

00:39:54 ◼   ► And it's fun to think about--

00:39:57 ◼   ► you look at Windows 11 and all the things

00:40:00 ◼   ► that Microsoft has been doing.

00:40:01 ◼   ► Microsoft has always been ahead of Apple

00:40:03 ◼   ► when it comes to multitasking and snapping and that sort of stuff.

00:40:07 ◼   ► And you look at Windows 11 and what they do with the snapping menu and all the multiple

00:40:10 ◼   ► layouts that you can choose from.

00:40:12 ◼   ► And that is exactly the kind of feature that I would love to have on iPadOS and that I

00:40:17 ◼   ► could also see, however, being somewhat tricky to get right on an 11-inch iPad or on a 12.9-inch

00:40:24 ◼   ► iPad Pro.

00:40:25 ◼   ► So bigger iPad, more freedom for snapping and split view layouts, and maybe even proper freeform windowing

00:40:35 ◼   ► that is not exactly like on Mac OS, but maybe inspired by the Mac, and more similar to what we have on iPad

00:40:45 ◼   ► with Quick Note in iPadOS 15 and Picture-in-Picture.

00:40:49 ◼   ► Yes, you can resize the window, but you have limited options.

00:40:53 ◼   ► You can throw it around, but it automatically docks to certain corners of the display.

00:40:58 ◼   ► So that kind of thing, I believe it will lend itself well to a bigger iPad Pro.

00:41:04 ◼   ► Now obviously the question is, well, how big do you want to go with an iPad that still

00:41:09 ◼   ► needs to remain an iPad, right?

00:41:11 ◼   ► We're not talking about a 20-inch iPad, right?

00:41:16 ◼   ► needs to remain a tablet that if you want you can detach from from the magic

00:41:21 ◼   ► keyboard and holding your hands. Does it though? Can't they just make a desktop

00:41:26 ◼   ► that runs iPadOS? Well sure. Is it called an iPad at that point? MacPad. Is it an

00:41:32 ◼   ► iPad? Like is it still a tablet? No, I think that one's taken. What about... I don't know. I don't have any other ideas.

00:41:43 ◼   ► Is that the end? We found the end of that joke.

00:41:45 ◼   ► iPad studio.

00:41:47 ◼   ► I don't know. I feel like...

00:41:49 ◼   ► So Myke and Jason actually talked about this in the latest episode of Upgrades.

00:41:52 ◼   ► Like, you could see how if they do this, they could potentially show it off in specific contexts, right?

00:41:59 ◼   ► Instead of... Like, if they announce a 15-inch or 16-inch iPad Pro,

00:42:03 ◼   ► instead of showing people holding this giant iPad with one hand,

00:42:07 ◼   ► you would show people using it on their lap and using the pencil.

00:42:10 ◼   ► I can barely hold the 12.9 with one hand.

00:42:12 ◼   ► Exactly. Exactly. But I feel like it would be also fine to say this is an iPad that you

00:42:21 ◼   ► can still use as an iPad, but it's more optimized for that kind of workflow, for that kind of

00:42:28 ◼   ► use case. Just like an iPad mini, it's not optimized for the kind of multitasking you

00:42:34 ◼   ► can do on an iPad Pro. And that is okay, because different sizes, different workflows, and

00:42:39 ◼   ► totally fine. So I think it's time to go bigger. We have small iPads, we have the

00:42:45 ◼   ► smallest iPad with the iPad mini and we could probably have a bigger iPad as

00:42:51 ◼   ► well. I would be into it because I used the 12.9 like it's a laptop anyway like

00:43:00 ◼   ► I could go to 14 I could go to 16 like that would I would be perfectly happy

00:43:06 ◼   ► happy with that. I would actually quite welcome it. Why not? I mean, you know, you say like

00:43:12 ◼   ► how much bigger is 14 than 12.9? I mean, it's bigger. Any more is more, right? Like you

00:43:18 ◼   ► just keep making these things bigger like they have in the past. Like we started out

00:43:22 ◼   ► with a 9.7 inch on the small version and now we're up to 11 and that's been a significant

00:43:30 ◼   ► difference over time. So I would very much welcome it going up to

00:43:34 ◼   ► say 15 inches or whatever. I think that would be great. Do you think they

00:43:39 ◼   ► would make it fit? I mean it would get physically bigger still, right? Like

00:43:42 ◼   ► they're probably gonna keep those bezels on the iPad. I don't imagine them

00:43:47 ◼   ► getting rid of them. No, I think you've got to have some place to tuck

00:43:51 ◼   ► face at it again too. And they want the bezels to be

00:43:56 ◼   ► be the same all the way around like I don't think they're gonna notch it so

00:43:59 ◼   ► well I mean eventually they're gonna be able to put the face ID under the

00:44:04 ◼   ► display so if that's a few years away yeah but I think even then you're gonna

00:44:08 ◼   ► have some sort of bezel I mean it could get smaller the thing that I really

00:44:13 ◼   ► wonder about in this is the opportunity for accessories like not the sad

00:44:20 ◼   ► docking thing that Federico has. A stand. Yeah. A proper stand. What does this look like if you

00:44:27 ◼   ► want to use it more like a desktop? Like that's the opportunity for Apple to do more stuff,

00:44:33 ◼   ► it's an opportunity for third parties to do more stuff, because the iPad has never really been that

00:44:37 ◼   ► good as a productivity device without something holding it up or having a keyboard on it. So I

00:44:43 ◼   ► think it would be really exciting to see like what that would be like, even if it wouldn't be for me,

00:44:48 ◼   ► I think it would be exciting to see what new things could happen in that space.

00:44:54 ◼   ► Apple have released 22 new Apple Watch bands, not for the Olympics, don't

00:45:03 ◼   ► get it twisted, they're just for the international love of sport of course.

00:45:09 ◼   ► Right, people love sports internationally. And now's the time to internationally

00:45:17 ◼   ► released some international bans. 14? These are obviously for the Olympics but

00:45:23 ◼   ► the expectation I guess is there is some kind of legal reason that without paying

00:45:28 ◼   ► the Olympic Committee a bunch of money they can't say it because they do they

00:45:32 ◼   ► really like it is they do some somersaults. There you go I'm keeping it in theme

00:45:36 ◼   ► here to get around not saying Olympics in this press release and Apple have

00:45:42 ◼   ► done this in previous times for the Olympics. I think in the past they have

00:45:47 ◼   ► actually said it's for the Olympics but they have this time you got to imagine

00:45:51 ◼   ► someone at Apple has been sitting on this for a year at this point, right? Like these were made a long time

00:45:58 ◼   ► ago and they're gonna have again app clips in the boxes so you can get your

00:46:04 ◼   ► Apple watch face that corresponds of it but if you on an iPhone go to the Apple

00:46:09 ◼   ► website there is somewhere you can get the watch faces from for the different

00:46:15 ◼   ► countries. Some of them look really good. I like them. Yeah, I do really want to

00:46:23 ◼   ► know what that looks like. Oh, we have this warehouse full of Apple Watch bands

00:46:26 ◼   ► and then the Olympics get put on hold for a year. It's like, uh, like now what?

00:46:32 ◼   ► You know, someone's job to like babysit those, but... One of my favorite things

00:46:38 ◼   ► about when they do this is the fact that they do tie it to countries because it

00:46:45 ◼   ► It is almost redundant how many red, white, and blue ones there are.

00:46:48 ◼   ► In various... right?

00:46:52 ◼   ► If they just made them the colors rather than saying that they're for a different...

00:46:56 ◼   ► like, so you got France, Great Britain, Italy, the USA, South Korea, and Russia.

00:47:06 ◼   ► They're all just red, white, and blue.

00:47:09 ◼   ► That's... well, Great Britain, I should say, rather than the UK.

00:47:13 ◼   ► the Mexican one is basically the Italian one as well.

00:47:16 ◼   ► Like if you're Italian and you want to buy a watch band

00:47:21 ◼   ► for your country, you can easily get either the Italian one

00:47:24 ◼   ► or the Mexican one.

00:47:25 ◼   ► And depending on your taste,

00:47:27 ◼   ► I think the Mexican one is actually better

00:47:29 ◼   ► because it's got the green. - It is kind of funny.

00:47:31 ◼   ► I know the Italian tie to blue in sports.

00:47:35 ◼   ► - Yes.

00:47:36 ◼   ► - But the Italian watch band

00:47:38 ◼   ► is predominantly a blue watch band.

00:47:40 ◼   ► - Yes.

00:47:40 ◼   ► - Which is a bold choice.

00:47:42 ◼   ► If you show it off to someone without telling them like what's the Italian one, I think

00:47:48 ◼   ► they would say the Mexican one is the Italian one.

00:47:51 ◼   ► Yeah, definitely.

00:47:52 ◼   ► Right?

00:47:53 ◼   ► Because it's the tricolor, right?

00:47:54 ◼   ► Like it's, well, whatever you would call it.

00:47:55 ◼   ► Do you call it the tricolor or is that just in France?

00:47:56 ◼   ► Yes, that's actually correct.

00:47:57 ◼   ► No, it's correct.

00:47:58 ◼   ► Okay.

00:47:59 ◼   ► It's very funny to me.

00:48:00 ◼   ► See, you know Europe, Myke, unlike somebody else.

00:48:05 ◼   ► I like the Netherlands one.

00:48:06 ◼   ► The Netherlands one's nice.

00:48:09 ◼   ► The New Zealand one is nice too.

00:48:11 ◼   ► The Greek one is nice.

00:48:12 ◼   ► just the blue and white vocal stripe and the Canadian one too I like. I think the

00:48:18 ◼   ► New Zealand face looks the best of all the faces. It's nice and simple right?

00:48:22 ◼   ► Yeah. Yeah it's fun. Go sports. I mean it's not the Winter Olympics. Hooray for

00:48:29 ◼   ► international sports happening at any point. Every four years international

00:48:35 ◼   ► sports happen. Unless there's a pandemic. Yes. I do love by the way that it

00:48:42 ◼   ► still called the 2020 Olympics.

00:48:44 ◼   ► What had to happen where they decided

00:48:48 ◼   ► they would keep it the same?

00:48:49 ◼   ► - I was talking about this with Sylvia a few days ago.

00:48:52 ◼   ► I think I read somewhere that one of the big issues

00:48:54 ◼   ► was that all the marketing material had been produced

00:48:58 ◼   ► and it would have been such a waste

00:49:02 ◼   ► of like to throw all of that away,

00:49:03 ◼   ► like from flyers and just, you know,

00:49:08 ◼   ► printed materials to all kinds of toys.

00:49:11 ◼   ► There's so much wasted anyway though because like we're in a completely different context.

00:49:15 ◼   ► Yeah I know.

00:49:16 ◼   ► Right like if you produced a like a thing and it showed like full stadiums like well

00:49:22 ◼   ► that's gonna be weird.

00:49:25 ◼   ► It's like when Apple shipped was it the iPhone 10s and it mentioned AirPower in the literature?

00:49:30 ◼   ► Same thing.

00:49:31 ◼   ► It's the same as like all of these are gonna have like a really weird date on them.

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00:51:38 ◼   ► - So the public beta is for iOS and iPadOS

00:51:42 ◼   ► were released today, just slightly before we recorded.

00:51:46 ◼   ► Federico published a big article

00:51:48 ◼   ► where and I think Federico actually wrote

00:51:51 ◼   ► his entire iOS review.

00:51:54 ◼   ► I will quote from Federico's article.

00:51:56 ◼   ► "If you're installing the iOS 15 public beta today

00:51:58 ◼   ► and wanna show it off to your friends,

00:52:00 ◼   ► know this live text in the camera and custom focus modes make for the best

00:52:04 ◼   ► demos followed by the new weather app and rethought multitasking controls on

00:52:08 ◼   ► iPad share play is neat but can feel already dated now that more countries

00:52:11 ◼   ► are rolling out vaccinations the new Safari needs some more work mail is

00:52:15 ◼   ► surprisingly unchanged despite the rise of remote work in the past year that's

00:52:19 ◼   ► how I describe iOS and iPadOS 15 in two sentences as of the first public beta

00:52:24 ◼   ► release today so wrap it up everyone yeah you got the summer off baby

00:52:28 ◼   ► Congrats! I'm done! Thank you, thank you. Well, that is actually like the, also the,

00:52:36 ◼   ► I think this article you're taking a look at a preview of what the review is going to

00:52:42 ◼   ► be like, right? Some of the themes that I shared.

00:52:46 ◼   ► Could we say that this is the public beta of Federico's iOS review?

00:52:50 ◼   ► Oh, man!

00:52:51 ◼   ► Yes! That is actually true! That is absolutely correct. Like, and we're going to talk about

00:52:57 ◼   ► this later because you're curious as to why I wanted to publish this story. But yeah,

00:53:02 ◼   ► this is a preview of what I've been working on and sort of how I'm approaching these updates.

00:53:09 ◼   ► And I think actually looking through some of the other stories that I saw on other websites

00:53:13 ◼   ► today, I feel like this is more or less the consensus right now. Like, these updates are

00:53:20 ◼   ► a grab bag of features, and there's not a single big thing that is the obvious one to

00:53:26 ◼   ► to say, "Yeah, iOS 15 has this thing."

00:53:29 ◼   ► Like you could have said, "13, dark mode, iOS 14, widgets."

00:53:34 ◼   ► And you usually have that kind of big feature

00:53:37 ◼   ► that you explain to someone who doesn't follow tech news.

00:53:41 ◼   ► In this case, you have a bunch of smaller things

00:53:44 ◼   ► and some of them are pretty good.

00:53:46 ◼   ► Some of them feel already old.

00:53:49 ◼   ► And some of them, they are gonna need a lot more work,

00:53:52 ◼   ► like Safari.

00:53:53 ◼   ► Did we know at the time that it was widgets last year?

00:53:58 ◼   ► - Well, we had a feeling that it was gonna be the thing

00:54:03 ◼   ► for developers to focus on,

00:54:05 ◼   ► and it was like gonna be the feature to talk about.

00:54:07 ◼   ► And at least personally, that's why I spent,

00:54:11 ◼   ► like the home screen chapter is the one

00:54:13 ◼   ► that I spent the most time on in my review last year.

00:54:16 ◼   ► We did not expect the sort of home screen aesthetic

00:54:21 ◼   ► viral thing. Thanks David. Yeah but also when it happened like we were surprised

00:54:29 ◼   ► but we understood why like yeah I guess you know this is fun to play around with. I think the surprise was it was just weird for

00:54:36 ◼   ► something that the nerds are so excited about for everyone to also be excited

00:54:40 ◼   ► about it. I wonder what that'll do to the adoption rate you know 14 had a really

00:54:45 ◼   ► good adoption curve as opposed to 13 which had a really rough start and I

00:54:49 ◼   ► think a pretty bad reputation pretty early on but now with 15 assuming it goes

00:54:54 ◼   ► well and it's not a buggy stew of sadness when it comes out like will

00:55:02 ◼   ► people be willing to update for a new feature I'm not sure there's anything in

00:55:06 ◼   ► here like widgets I'm not sure the last time there was something like widgets

00:55:10 ◼   ► it's usually emoji right which comes later it's like the thing that people

00:55:14 ◼   ► update for... I don't think that... I can't recall an operating system feature that

00:55:20 ◼   ► went viral other than widgets. I don't think that that has been a normal

00:55:25 ◼   ► thing. I will actually ask you now, because we kind of... I want to drill into

00:55:30 ◼   ► a little bit about some of the stuff that you were talking about Federico,

00:55:32 ◼   ► but why have you like written this story? Isn't it taking time off from writing

00:55:38 ◼   ► the review, which ultimately is the most important thing for you to be doing

00:55:41 ◼   ► right now? Right, well first of all I put this together in a couple of days so

00:55:47 ◼   ► though I was really happy about that I was able to make it happen on a

00:55:51 ◼   ► relatively short notice but also like you know like every I mean yeah a couple

00:55:58 ◼   ► of days is a couple of days but like if that's half a week it's not that many

00:56:02 ◼   ► weeks yeah I know September middle of September you know it comes up fast I'm

00:56:06 ◼   ► saying this is someone as if they you don't know how fast it is September

00:56:11 ◼   ► But you know the thing is though that a lot of the a lot of the sections that I've shared here

00:56:17 ◼   ► And I've done this before

00:56:19 ◼   ► Nobody ever notices, and if they do they understand like a lot of this stuff

00:56:24 ◼   ► I am going to reuse and I'm going to recycle in the review, so it's like

00:56:28 ◼   ► Yeah, technically I haven't written the review this past couple of days

00:56:33 ◼   ► But also I also kind of did because most of these sections

00:56:37 ◼   ► I will incorporate in the main story and I will update them and I will revise them, I will dig deeper into some aspects

00:56:44 ◼   ► but the sort of the core structure of things like focus, for example, and iPad multitasking, like all of that

00:56:51 ◼   ► I can reuse and I can expand upon, but the work is already done, right? So,

00:56:56 ◼   ► I actually have a note in Obsidian called "Sections I can reuse" and that contains

00:57:03 ◼   ► links to things that I'm working on this summer, like in Maxories Weekly for example, or in this case this article,

00:57:10 ◼   ► that when the time comes that I'm gonna be working on those chapters, I will be cutting and pasting and

00:57:17 ◼   ► going from there. I guess maybe that's like the

00:57:21 ◼   ► factual parts, right? Like the opinion part could change, or might not, but could change, right?

00:57:27 ◼   ► honestly, the main risk with this story was how much time do I want to spend talking about Safari?

00:57:34 ◼   ► Because I feel like that's the one feature that could change a lot. And that technically,

00:57:39 ◼   ► to your point, could mean wasted time right now while I should be focusing on the review.

00:57:43 ◼   ► But then I also thought, well, if I have a chance to somewhat influence some changes right now

00:57:52 ◼   ► in Safari because I really care about Safari, then I guess I should share my opinion. You know,

00:57:57 ◼   ► besides the podcast, like, I should have a place on Mac Stories where, you know, maybe somebody at

00:58:02 ◼   ► Apple can go and be like, "Hey, look at this guy. He doesn't like this feature in Safari."

00:58:06 ◼   ► So I thought maybe if it's useful to have it on the record on Mac Stories, I want to just point

00:58:14 ◼   ► out and have a list of all the things that aren't working for me right now. Is that also part of the

00:58:20 ◼   ► thinking behind the section I really enjoyed, which was what I'd like to see

00:58:24 ◼   ► improved for each portion. Yes, so I thought what could be...

00:58:30 ◼   ► So I went about those sections in two ways. One, I want to make it easier for

00:58:36 ◼   ► people who maybe may have the power to affect some change. I wanted to make it

00:58:42 ◼   ► easier to see a list of things, like a bullet list of things I do not like.

00:58:48 ◼   ► But also I thought it could be easier and also fun to take a look at these

00:58:56 ◼   ► bullet points in a few months, right, and do a comparison of like what's changed

00:59:02 ◼   ► in the in the final release of iOS 15. And so it's for me and for other

00:59:08 ◼   ► people as well. And also like it's a public beta, so like I wanted to make it

00:59:13 ◼   ► easier to... you know, I have the story and all the sections and the

00:59:19 ◼   ► opinions and all that, but also have a quick actionable place where you

00:59:24 ◼   ► can go and see the things I don't like. Yeah, I think that was a really smart way

00:59:28 ◼   ► of doing it as opposed to having it all as just one big thing. Wall of text, yes.

00:59:35 ◼   ► Right, and I think especially with Safari, there are going to be people who download

00:59:39 ◼   ► the public beta and freak out about how safari is and so having that available to them is

00:59:45 ◼   ► good.

00:59:46 ◼   ► I guess it also is fun in a way, not that I'm saying you would do this of course Federico,

00:59:52 ◼   ► but it's fun in a way to as things change if they do change stuff you can point, someone

00:59:57 ◼   ► could point to your article and be like "see I told you."

01:00:00 ◼   ► No bragging rights.

01:00:01 ◼   ► Not that you would do that.

01:00:02 ◼   ► No I would do that.

01:00:03 ◼   ► No I would do that.

01:00:04 ◼   ► No I would do that.

01:00:05 ◼   ► No I would do that.

01:00:06 ◼   ► No I don't care.

01:00:07 ◼   ► I mean come on.

01:00:08 ◼   ► I mean, I've done the work and I believe in my opinions, so why not?

01:00:13 ◼   ► So you broke this down into three main sections you were covering, which are arguably, or

01:00:19 ◼   ► maybe not even arguably, the main areas of change.

01:00:22 ◼   ► Focus, Safari, and iPadOS multitasking.

01:00:25 ◼   ► I guess I honestly do think SharePlay could be more of a thing, but we haven't really

01:00:30 ◼   ► been able to experience all that SharePlay can do yet.

01:00:33 ◼   ► Like this might be a thing that we need to wait a bit more time to see, for you to at

01:00:37 ◼   ► at least you would need to wait a bit more time

01:00:39 ◼   ► to get some apps.

01:00:40 ◼   ► - I'm very skeptical about that.

01:00:41 ◼   ► Like, I think it's technically impressive,

01:00:44 ◼   ► but the more time I spend looking at it

01:00:49 ◼   ► and talking to developers who are building SharePlay apps,

01:00:53 ◼   ► the more I feel like I'm living through the summer

01:00:57 ◼   ► of iOS 10 again, and with iMessage apps.

01:01:02 ◼   ► I am really getting that kind of vibe.

01:01:05 ◼   ► - Really?

01:01:05 ◼   ► Yeah, I think it's technically impressive, it's really cool.

01:01:10 ◼   ► Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think this will catch on, really.

01:01:17 ◼   ► I'm hoping to see some interesting collaboration things built out of the technology.

01:01:24 ◼   ► OK, so here's the thing.

01:01:25 ◼   ► If you want to use collaborative software, do you really want to be on a FaceTime call every single time?

01:01:32 ◼   ► Do you always have to be on a FaceTime call?

01:01:34 ◼   ► I thought there was that whiteboard app that everyone keeps talking about that they demoed

01:01:37 ◼   ► in a thing. Was that on a FaceTime call?

01:01:40 ◼   ► I think they always have to be initiated via FaceTime, right?

01:01:45 ◼   ► I have no idea. If that's the case, then I don't want anything to do with it.

01:01:50 ◼   ► That's my main issue with it. I believe SharePlay needs to be initiated from the FaceTime call,

01:01:56 ◼   ► whether it's audio or video, but you need to be on a FaceTime call.

01:01:59 ◼   ► I think so.

01:02:00 ◼   ► it's not like Google Docs collaboration

01:02:03 ◼   ► or Apple Notes collaboration.

01:02:05 ◼   ► - Right, okay.

01:02:06 ◼   ► - SharePlay is part of FaceTime,

01:02:08 ◼   ► which is why I don't wanna be on a call every single time.

01:02:13 ◼   ► And I may be wrong, again,

01:02:16 ◼   ► developers have been able to submit SharePlay betas

01:02:18 ◼   ► as of last night, I believe.

01:02:20 ◼   ► And I haven't written the SharePlay chapter

01:02:24 ◼   ► of my review yet, so I may be wrong.

01:02:26 ◼   ► But I also, I'm pretty sure that it's all based

01:02:30 ◼   ► FaceTime. So... But anyway, the areas that you focus on focus is one of the focus points.

01:02:36 ◼   ► I'm excited about this feature. I haven't really spent the time setting stuff up properly yet

01:02:41 ◼   ► because I only have focus. I only have iOS 15, iPadOS 15 on my iPad. I feel like until I put it

01:02:49 ◼   ► on my iPhone, I'm going to wait to really spend the time setting up properly. So far, have you

01:02:56 ◼   ► been enjoying having like a focus mode for your iOS review?

01:03:00 ◼   ► Has it been beneficial to you?

01:03:02 ◼   ► Yeah, it's been great.

01:03:03 ◼   ► And it's been especially nice on iPad, where with the focus

01:03:07 ◼   ► mode, you can obviously silence notifications,

01:03:11 ◼   ► but also you can combine hiding other home screen pages, right?

01:03:16 ◼   ► And I can also run shortcuts automatically

01:03:19 ◼   ► when a specific focus is triggered.

01:03:22 ◼   ► So that combination of, like, you enable a specific focus in Control Center and multiple things happen,

01:03:29 ◼   ► that's been really beneficial to me. So that when I turn on the iOS Review Focus,

01:03:34 ◼   ► I see my iOS Review home screen and a Timery shortcut is activated so that I can start a timer

01:03:41 ◼   ► in toggle. So that's been really helpful, and I'm actually thinking about other home screens

01:03:49 ◼   ► based along this idea, like maybe a music home screen could be fun, like when I'm sitting down

01:03:54 ◼   ► and then listening to music with my Sony headphones and either an audio player or

01:04:00 ◼   ► lossless in Apple music, maybe I could have a music home screen with a bunch of music widgets

01:04:05 ◼   ► and you know that kind of stuff. I'm exploring that idea, yeah.

01:04:08 ◼   ► I love how it can be tied into shortcuts. Yeah. Like it's so obvious, you know, like when you

01:04:16 ◼   ► it's like that makes so much sense that as well as at having like a special home screen

01:04:21 ◼   ► it could also just do things on the device for you. I'm into that, like I think that

01:04:26 ◼   ► that's really smart. And I also like that it's two-way, right? That it can trigger some

01:04:31 ◼   ► shortcuts when you turn it on, right? Or shortcuts can turn one on. If that makes sense. Like

01:04:39 ◼   ► it's in two different ways it can be used. Yes. Which is cool. Yeah, that is really cool.

01:04:44 ◼   ► And I think it, I think that makes it more likely that more people will use it as opposed

01:04:49 ◼   ► to like it's a manual thing you forget all the time.

01:04:52 ◼   ► Anything you can automate that way is better.

01:04:55 ◼   ► I'm curious though, because this is much more up the alley of the two of you than it is

01:05:00 ◼   ► me.

01:05:02 ◼   ► Is this something like you will have something in use all the time, something that you will

01:05:06 ◼   ► just have under certain circumstances?

01:05:08 ◼   ► Like what have you learned about it and how you may use it so far?

01:05:11 ◼   ► Well, I think for focus I prefer to activate it when I'm working, like for sure.

01:05:18 ◼   ► Especially when I'm writing, and I need to just... I really need to concentrate and just

01:05:26 ◼   ► think about writing, whether it's the review or the newsletter or max stories,

01:05:31 ◼   ► that's been really helpful. I created my own driving focus because I didn't like the default

01:05:38 ◼   ► one, like for example with the default driving mode, it disables interactions

01:05:43 ◼   ► altogether on the iPhone. And I'm not saying that I want to use my iPhone while

01:05:48 ◼   ► I'm driving, but that also means that my girlfriend needs to confirm every single

01:05:52 ◼   ► time, like I'm not driving, let me use this iPhone if she wants to control

01:05:56 ◼   ► music on my device, which is connected to Bluetooth. And also if I'm

01:06:02 ◼   ► waiting at a stop because I got a red light for example I need to say I'm not

01:06:08 ◼   ► driving but I'm still technically driving so I think that's a bit

01:06:13 ◼   ► tiresome after a while so I created my own driving

01:06:17 ◼   ► focus that basically does all the things that the Apple one does but it doesn't

01:06:22 ◼   ► have the disabling interactions on the lock screen. And the other modes... so I

01:06:30 ◼   ► I was thinking a few days ago, like, I could have a beach mode, for example, where when

01:06:36 ◼   ► I turn on--and I haven't built this yet, but I think I will--where I could use focus not

01:06:42 ◼   ► necessarily to silence notifications, but as a trigger for other things.

01:06:48 ◼   ► So like enabling low-power mode, for example.

01:06:52 ◼   ► Switching off the 5G network, because I don't have 5G at the beach, despite being vaccinated.

01:06:59 ◼   ► it. And, you know, so basically using Focus as a manual trigger for contextual changes

01:07:10 ◼   ► that I want to apply to my iPhone. I am also not the kind of person who is going to keep

01:07:15 ◼   ► Do Not Disturb enabled at all times during the day, right? If I'm browsing Twitter or

01:07:21 ◼   ► Or if I'm doing email, not that kind of creative work, it's fine if I get notifications.

01:07:29 ◼   ► So for me, I think on a regular basis, I'm mostly going to enable it when I'm writing.

01:07:36 ◼   ► Even when I'm recording podcasts, for example, I need to be able to see notifications if

01:07:40 ◼   ► something happens.

01:07:41 ◼   ► Like if my dogs do something in the other room and I have a HomeKit camera, or if Sylvia

01:07:46 ◼   ► is texting me.

01:07:48 ◼   ► I need to be able to get alerts when I'm doing a podcast.

01:07:51 ◼   ► But when I'm doing creative work, that's when I want to block distractions.

01:07:56 ◼   ► So for me, it is what you just said, which is what I like.

01:08:00 ◼   ► So at the moment, all I have is all notifications of Do Not Disturb.

01:08:05 ◼   ► And my plan is to make some focus modes for certain things.

01:08:09 ◼   ► Like I would have a recording podcast focus mode, which would allow certain notifications

01:08:15 ◼   ► to come through.

01:08:16 ◼   ► It's like I have Do Not Disturb on my iMac all the time,

01:08:20 ◼   ► so I'm not getting all kinds of notifications

01:08:22 ◼   ► while we're recording, so I'm not distracted.

01:08:25 ◼   ► But it could mean that I miss something important.

01:08:28 ◼   ► Like, if one of you needs to tell me something

01:08:30 ◼   ► during the show, I just have to hope I'm going to see it, right?

01:08:34 ◼   ► Like, randomly, because I noticed

01:08:36 ◼   ► that the iMessage thing is ticking up, right?

01:08:39 ◼   ► Like, the badge on the app icon.

01:08:42 ◼   ► But what I would really like is on my Mac for, say,

01:08:45 ◼   ► are group thread on iMessage to actually be able to notify me rather than then and then

01:08:51 ◼   ► also being able to get rid of messages from everybody else during that period of time

01:08:54 ◼   ► you know. So for me like I'm gonna be pretty granular I think and I'm gonna set up a bunch.

01:09:00 ◼   ► I'm not gonna have I think it sync across all my devices so like I leave my iPads in

01:09:08 ◼   ► do not disturb all the time. Same. Because I just don't need that but that means like

01:09:13 ◼   ► you know I can't have those sync so like for example I may just set up like an

01:09:16 ◼   ► iPad focus mode and just put both of my iPads on that one right for example or

01:09:21 ◼   ► something like that so I'm really into it but one of the other things which is

01:09:25 ◼   ► super cool about it is the home screen things like you're saying about the

01:09:28 ◼   ► beach right that there might be a certain set of apps which are like more

01:09:31 ◼   ► helpful for you to have right there on the home screen when you're at the beach

01:09:35 ◼   ► or widgets or whatever so all of that stuff is like it's awesome I think yeah

01:09:41 ◼   ► that has impressed me about it so far is how deep the customization seems to be and I think we could debate and and I

01:09:49 ◼   ► suspect that you will

01:09:51 ◼   ► in the review about

01:09:53 ◼   ► Sort of the opt-in versus opt-out and type of settings you have like I think it could be even

01:09:59 ◼   ► Easier in some ways, but the fact that it touches home screen changes

01:10:05 ◼   ► Which we saw show up last year for the first time the fact that it sinks across like

01:10:09 ◼   ► It's a new feature, but it's taking advantage

01:10:12 ◼   ► of other features that Apple already has had.

01:10:14 ◼   ► And I like when they are able to build on

01:10:17 ◼   ► what they've had in the past.

01:10:19 ◼   ► Sometimes Apple has something come out and it's like,

01:10:22 ◼   ► "Well, this is connected to this other thing,

01:10:24 ◼   ► but you didn't hook it up.

01:10:26 ◼   ► Why aren't these things talking to each other?"

01:10:28 ◼   ► And with this, it feels like focus is really thought through

01:10:32 ◼   ► across all the different platforms and features

01:10:35 ◼   ► where it makes sense.

01:10:36 ◼   ► - Even the fact that you can,

01:10:38 ◼   ► applications can make it so like if you if Steven messaged me on slack it would

01:10:43 ◼   ► still come through for example because it's still Steven. Yeah hopefully they do

01:10:47 ◼   ► that. Although I don't exactly know how that works yeah no that is a thing that

01:10:51 ◼   ► can happen. Oh I know I know I'm saying hopefully slack takes advantage of that

01:10:54 ◼   ► because. Yeah I don't really know how that works but that's not for me to know.

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01:12:58 ◼   ► of the show and Relay FM. Safari, I mean I've read your article so I know the answer to this,

01:13:05 ◼   ► but any change in feelings? There's a few things that I like in the new Safari, right?

01:13:13 ◼   ► the start page extensions, well, the fact that the tab view is now a grid view, I think that's really,

01:13:23 ◼   ► that's so much better than iOS 14. But the more I use Safari, the more I feel like,

01:13:28 ◼   ► especially on the iPhone, I think we mentioned this before, I feel like the iPad version

01:13:33 ◼   ► is somewhere in the middle. I know that Steven also has a lot of opinions about Safari on the Mac,

01:13:40 ◼   ► and I feel like Safari on the iPhone, the more I use it, the more I keep coming to the same conclusion.

01:13:47 ◼   ► I got one positive change out of this, which is, yeah, I have an address bar at the bottom,

01:13:55 ◼   ► and that's easier to reach. But because of that single positive change, there's a whole list of

01:14:04 ◼   ► negative changes, right? A whole list of trade-offs that needed to happen in order to make that design

01:14:11 ◼   ► possible. And it's been three weeks, right? So you will hope that if the argument was "it's just a

01:14:20 ◼   ► matter of muscle memory," you will hope that in almost a month, since I've been using this, I

01:14:26 ◼   ► will get the hang of it, and I will be used to it at this point, especially because I'm really using

01:14:31 ◼   ► it, and I'm taking notes, and I'm writing about it, and I'm using it every day. But every time I use

01:14:36 ◼   ► it, I'm like, man, I really don't like this. Like, yeah, it's easier to reach, but everything else

01:14:42 ◼   ► is, at least for me, worse than before. And I pick up my XS Max running iOS 14, which is my test

01:14:51 ◼   ► device for the old OS, and I look at Safari, and I'm like, you know, the address bar is at the top,

01:14:57 ◼   ► but everything else is so much nicer. I got proper navigation arrows and a share button

01:15:02 ◼   ► and a reload button, and I got a pop-up menu for website settings. Everything is in its right place,

01:15:08 ◼   ► and I don't have to go hunt down things in secret menus or via hidden gestures. And so I have to

01:15:16 ◼   ► wonder, which is also what I wrote in the story, I have to wonder, is it really worth it to accept

01:15:25 ◼   ► all these trade-offs just to have that unified address bar at the bottom. And that's on the

01:15:31 ◼   ► iPhone. On the iPad you could also say it's somewhat better because you have a sidebar

01:15:37 ◼   ► that makes access to certain features easier, because they're right there in the sidebar,

01:15:42 ◼   ► but that tab view on iPad with the unified design where the current tab is also the address bar

01:15:50 ◼   ► and you don't have the separation between tabs and address bar anymore,

01:15:54 ◼   ► that's also really rough. And again, I wonder, sure, I've probably gained like 20, 30 pixels

01:16:04 ◼   ► on web pages, right? I see 20 more vertical pixels on a web page, but everything else is so much

01:16:12 ◼   ► worse than before. Is that really worth it? And I'm not sure the answer is yes. I don't think the

01:16:18 ◼   ► answer is yes. Now, I also feel like Apple really believes in this design, and I mean,

01:16:26 ◼   ► you can tell because they also did a WWDC session about designing for the new Safari.

01:16:31 ◼   ► That's usually not a good sign as to how much things can change, right? I mean, the company

01:16:36 ◼   ► did a session about it, and they have documentation, so...

01:16:40 ◼   ► That's what I keep thinking about, like, if they change it, does that session just, like,

01:16:43 ◼   ► quietly go away? It's like, "It is never here!"

01:16:46 ◼   ► Do you just invalidate the session? So maybe the solution is just make it a setting.

01:16:53 ◼   ► And I know that it's not an attractive proposition.

01:16:57 ◼   ► Well, there's no point keeping it if you make it a setting.

01:17:00 ◼   ► Well, maybe some folks like the address bar at the bottom.

01:17:04 ◼   ► Maybe some folks don't want to have this standalone address bar.

01:17:08 ◼   ► I don't think this is the kind of thing where a single universal design completes everyone.

01:17:15 ◼   ► No, they're gonna choose, in my opinion, they choose a route.

01:17:19 ◼   ► They stick to what they're doing now, or they refine what they're doing now, or they go back.

01:17:23 ◼   ► Because stuff like the fact that they want the entire web to redesign to deal with this,

01:17:30 ◼   ► they're not gonna get that if you can turn it off, right?

01:17:35 ◼   ► I would be really surprised if they made any of the Safari UI stuff a setting.

01:17:41 ◼   ► Like I cannot imagine that being a thing that they would do.

01:17:45 ◼   ► well then I guess...

01:17:46 ◼   ► they're just gonna make you like it right?

01:17:48 ◼   ► or you know as in like you're just gonna have to deal with it

01:17:51 ◼   ► or they'll change it

01:17:53 ◼   ► honestly I think that's what's gonna happen realistically

01:17:57 ◼   ► they're just gonna listen to feedback, apply some changes

01:18:01 ◼   ► like maybe the reload button will come back

01:18:03 ◼   ► maybe you know the largest part...

01:18:06 ◼   ► that's just part of the way there right?

01:18:07 ◼   ► so iPadOS and MacOS beta 2 have brought the reload button back in some way

01:18:12 ◼   ► on hover yeah

01:18:13 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:18:14 ◼   ► Kind of.

01:18:15 ◼   ► They kind of brought it back.

01:18:17 ◼   ► But yeah, I think you're right.

01:18:19 ◼   ► I don't think they're going to make it a setting.

01:18:21 ◼   ► I think they're just going to force us to use this for a year until, you know, maybe

01:18:28 ◼   ► actually we'll see another replica of what happened with Mail, where they tried to force

01:18:34 ◼   ► us to use the Simplified toolbar in Apple Mail, and as soon as they pushed it out to

01:18:40 ◼   ► public release, everybody started complaining like, "I don't know how to archive my mail

01:18:45 ◼   ► anymore. I don't know how to reply to mail anymore." And they needed to change that in

01:18:49 ◼   ► the next bit. What was that? iOS 13, I think, or 14?

01:18:52 ◼   ► Yeah, everything was just behind the reply button.

01:18:55 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:18:56 ◼   ► And a lot of stuff still is. They moved like two things out of it. So I think if that's

01:19:02 ◼   ► the recipe, then we'll see a couple of minor Safari changes. I think mostly on the iPhone,

01:19:07 ◼   ► I agree with you. I think that's where it's the worst and yeah, but the rest of us here to stay

01:19:12 ◼   ► I can tell you I

01:19:14 ◼   ► Gave my iPhone to see you a few days ago because I asked her can you look up something on Google and she opened Safari?

01:19:20 ◼   ► And I could tell that she didn't know what to do because she just kept staring at the phone and I was like oh

01:19:26 ◼   ► Yeah, that's the new Safari and she the only thing she said was I hate it. So

01:19:34 ◼   ► She's got a pretty good sense of how the general public sees these things.

01:19:41 ◼   ► I want to see how this goes, honestly.

01:19:43 ◼   ► This is why they do the public beta, though, right?

01:19:46 ◼   ► Still, regular people don't install the public beta.

01:19:49 ◼   ► Right? It's still like tech.

01:19:51 ◼   ► I think it's more than you think, man.

01:19:53 ◼   ► Yeah, they gave a number a couple of years ago, and it was millions and millions of users.

01:19:59 ◼   ► I mean, it wasn't a billion, but it's more than just the connected audience.

01:20:04 ◼   ► There is a like there's like expanding circles of people and like there are people that are quote

01:20:12 ◼   ► interested in technology that we would consider general users right because they're not listening

01:20:21 ◼   ► to this show or any tech podcast but they love gadgets we've all met these people in our lives

01:20:26 ◼   ► right people who love gadgets like the type of person that will say to you oh man Apple sucks

01:20:32 ◼   ► for all these reasons and you know like you like or like hey do you know I was

01:20:37 ◼   ► reading do you know that Apple plans for their devices to go obsolete you know

01:20:43 ◼   ► we've all met these people right like it's that kind of user who I think is

01:20:48 ◼   ► still more of a general user but they are interested in technology and I think

01:20:54 ◼   ► that is a very large amount of people and they're gonna be as upset about

01:21:00 ◼   ► Safari as probably you and every other user in the world. Well, maybe if they work harder, they'll become Admiral users

01:21:06 ◼   ► That's good. Not just general users. That's really good. We'll see. We'll see

01:21:11 ◼   ► I wonder if those people also file feedback that Apple sees and act upon like there's also a conversation to be had here

01:21:19 ◼   ► Yeah, what what's the feedback like what's Apple's relationship to feedback in this case my expectation?

01:21:26 ◼   ► With the public beta is Apple pays attention to what is trending on Twitter? I hope so

01:21:32 ◼   ► Yeah, so with our look it'll trend the day iOS 15 comes out. I mean

01:21:37 ◼   ► Yeah, Safari's got to be in the top

01:21:40 ◼   ► Three or four most used apps on the phone, but people are gonna freak out

01:21:45 ◼   ► Especially because this tab design and this layout isn't anywhere else

01:21:50 ◼   ► It's not like messages and mail and files

01:21:54 ◼   ► Got all this like stuff at the bottom and doing all these weirdo slidey things like it's just Safari

01:22:00 ◼   ► if it were everywhere, maybe people would be

01:22:03 ◼   ► Less

01:22:06 ◼   ► Upset about it or like upset in a different way. That's a really good point Steven. Why is only Safari like this?

01:22:13 ◼   ► Mm-hmm. Give me those tabs and finder. No, I was kidding. Please. Please don't Apple. Please don't but just like

01:22:18 ◼   ► Also, just like moving the most important UI to the bottom

01:22:22 ◼   ► Yeah, well, and they've done it in Apple Maps, but Apple Maps looks totally different from

01:22:25 ◼   ► Safari. It's like, pick a lane.

01:22:27 ◼   ► Honestly, you want to hear my opinion on this?

01:22:30 ◼   ► Yes.

01:22:31 ◼   ► This to me feels like the kind of thing where someone in design spent a lot of time using

01:22:38 ◼   ► Safari on the iPhone last year, and they decided, "You know what? I think we need to put this

01:22:44 ◼   ► at the bottom, because I think it's harder for me to use." I'm not convinced that a lot

01:22:50 ◼   ► of engineers in the Safari team like the new Safari. But it's just how these things go,

01:22:56 ◼   ► you know? You're told high up enough. You're told that you need to ship a certain design,

01:23:02 ◼   ► and that's just what you gotta do, and then maybe you don't like it, and maybe you try

01:23:07 ◼   ► to work things out with your manager, right? And you tell them, "Look, this is bad for

01:23:12 ◼   ► this and these reasons, but that manager needs to go to another manager." You know? You know

01:23:17 ◼   ► know how these companies work, Myke, you worked in a big company. And it's like sometimes

01:23:22 ◼   ► someone high up makes a decision and it trickles down and you just got to make it happen. And

01:23:28 ◼   ► but this is why we this is why we do podcasts. This is why we write articles. This is why

01:23:33 ◼   ► I do the bullet list, right? To try and and sway opinions in certain directions when I

01:23:39 ◼   ► believe that things are not good enough. And and this really honestly this really sucks

01:23:46 ◼   ► for me because I really love Safari, and I really like... I know a lot of people who

01:23:50 ◼   ► work on Safari, and they're really smart people, and Safari has always been like one of the

01:23:56 ◼   ► few apps that I take out from my apps chapter, and I make it a standalone chapter in my review.

01:24:03 ◼   ► That's how much I care about Safari, because I really use Safari a lot. But this is not

01:24:09 ◼   ► good enough. I don't know. I don't know.

01:24:13 ◼   ► In iPad OS multitasking, I would like to take a moment here to talk about a regression in

01:24:17 ◼   ► beta 2 that I'm really upset about.

01:24:19 ◼   ► So in beta 1, there were two keyboard shortcuts that you could use.

01:24:25 ◼   ► One to replace the app on the left and one to replace the app on the right.

01:24:29 ◼   ► These have been replaced now with one keyboard shortcut, which replaces the app that you're

01:24:34 ◼   ► currently focused on, which isn't always as clear as it seems.

01:24:39 ◼   ► You might want to replace the app on the left and you do like globe another key down and

01:24:47 ◼   ► it replaces whatever app the iPadOS thinks is in focus.

01:24:52 ◼   ► That might not be the one that you wanted to change.

01:24:56 ◼   ► So I think they've made a mistake here with this change because they have, when you only

01:25:02 ◼   ► have one app open, there is two keyboard shortcuts, tile window left and tile window right.

01:25:08 ◼   ► you can pick the other one. But then when you have two open, it goes to one keyboard

01:25:12 ◼   ► shortcut which is replace app. And I don't understand why they've done this. Because

01:25:19 ◼   ► then the tile window left and tile window right ones, the new ones, what they let you

01:25:24 ◼   ► do is flip the apps that you're using. Right? So the left one becomes the right one, the

01:25:29 ◼   ► right one becomes the left one. It feels like that they have made it both more simple and

01:25:33 ◼   ► more complicated than it was in beta 1 and I don't understand why they've done this.

01:25:38 ◼   ► So what you're asking for is to restore separate keyboard shortcuts for replacing the app on

01:25:47 ◼   ► either side. So replace app on the left, replace app on the right.

01:25:51 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean it's just "tile window left" and "tile window right", but always.

01:25:56 ◼   ► Which is what it was before. But now, when you have two apps open, "tile window left"

01:26:00 ◼   ► and tile window right, those keyboard shortcuts do a different thing, which is flip the apps

01:26:06 ◼   ► around.

01:26:07 ◼   ► Right, right.

01:26:08 ◼   ► And I don't really know why you'd do that.

01:26:09 ◼   ► I feel like these keyboard commands that you're asking for, they should exist, and you could

01:26:14 ◼   ► potentially also combine them with Spotlight, right?

01:26:17 ◼   ► So you could see how, because right now, and I wrote about this in the story, right now,

01:26:22 ◼   ► if you want to bring in a different app into a split view using search, you need to kind

01:26:27 ◼   ► do it backwards, which is first you need to tile a window and then you need to search.

01:26:34 ◼   ► Whereas I think it would be much easier to just say "let me search, let me highlight

01:26:39 ◼   ► the app I want to use" and then let me press a keyboard command to say "put this on the

01:26:44 ◼   ► left" or "put this on the right".

01:26:46 ◼   ► I hope the reason that they have changed the shortcuts is because they're working on that

01:26:51 ◼   ► feature.

01:26:52 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:26:53 ◼   ► That's what I hope.

01:26:54 ◼   ► But that is a hope.

01:26:55 ◼   ► But at the moment it seems like they have I think made it more complicated and not as

01:27:01 ◼   ► useful as it was in beta 1.

01:27:03 ◼   ► Where you could have a reliable shortcut, a keyboard shortcut that did the reliable

01:27:08 ◼   ► thing every time.

01:27:09 ◼   ► You did the one for left and you changed the app on the left, you did the one for right

01:27:12 ◼   ► and you changed the app on the right.

01:27:14 ◼   ► Where now you can do that when you have one app open but then when you have two app opens

01:27:18 ◼   ► it just swaps the apps around.

01:27:19 ◼   ► Which doesn't make any sense to me.

01:27:21 ◼   ► And then you have to do a different keyboard shortcut to replace one of the apps but the

01:27:24 ◼   ► app that, but whenever you hit that you have to already know which app is in focus, which is not

01:27:29 ◼   ► an easy thing to do still on iPadOS, or it can be easy to know which is in focus, but to get the

01:27:35 ◼   ► iPadOS to change which app it thinks is the focused app is still a problem. I still kind of wish that

01:27:42 ◼   ► there was a like an accessibility setting to make the active app indicator more visually prominent.

01:27:49 ◼   ► So, like, I think a really good example here is Obsidian. When you open multiple notes and you have

01:27:56 ◼   ► multiple panes open in Obsidian, you get this thin colored bar right underneath the title bar.

01:28:06 ◼   ► And that's really helpful because it's like a highlight for the active note, right?

01:28:14 ◼   ► And I kind of would like to see that, like colored highlights,

01:28:20 ◼   ► like something else besides the little pill-shaped indicator

01:28:25 ◼   ► that gets slightly darker for the active application

01:28:29 ◼   ► in the split view.

01:28:31 ◼   ► I still feel like that should be more visually obvious as to

01:28:35 ◼   ► which app of the two is the active one.

01:28:37 ◼   ► I'm going to see how this goes.

01:28:39 ◼   ► I think if it's not changed in the next beta,

01:28:41 ◼   ► I'll file the feedback.

01:28:42 ◼   ► because this is a particularly difficult one for me to try and explain in a feedback because

01:28:47 ◼   ► it's complicated and also I don't remember what the previous shortcuts were, right? So

01:28:53 ◼   ► like to try and explain it is complicated. I did file one feedback, remember I think

01:28:58 ◼   ► I was complaining about the fact that they broke indenting and out then or was it indent

01:29:02 ◼   ► left and indent right? They fixed it. They haven't updated my feedback but they fixed

01:29:07 ◼   ► it. So, hooray! You can't have everything you want, Myke. That's true. That's very true.

01:29:12 ◼   ► I can only get one thing at a time. That's right. So if I want indent, what is it indent left and indent right? Mm-hmm

01:29:19 ◼   ► I have to lose the multitasking shortcuts that I want. Yeah, you can only have one left to right feature

01:29:26 ◼   ► So too bad anything else in beta 2 we should talk about?

01:29:30 ◼   ► Maybe not today

01:29:33 ◼   ► Okay. Yeah, we will revisit this because we have a long summer of betas ahead of us

01:29:38 ◼   ► Until then if you want if we may have beta we may have beta 3 next week, so right

01:29:44 ◼   ► We'll see where they go back to Safari from iOS 7

01:29:46 ◼   ► You want it simple huh look honestly brushed metal Safari on the iPhone

01:29:52 ◼   ► Okay, I'm saying they have it somewhere on a hard drive

01:29:57 ◼   ► I will say Federico if they bring back that old tab view because of you. I'll never forgive you

01:30:03 ◼   ► No, you can keep the grid view. Look, it's not that difficult.

01:30:07 ◼   ► Literally every other iPhone browser does this. They have a button to open tabs

01:30:13 ◼   ► and when you click that you see a grid view. The grid view does not depend on the other things.

01:30:20 ◼   ► It's fine.

01:30:22 ◼   ► I see. Just like, "You don't want the new Safari features, huh? You don't get any of them. They're all gone."

01:30:28 ◼   ► All right well if you want to find links of stuff we spoke about including Federico's excellent overview of where

01:30:34 ◼   ► iOS and iPad OS 15 are

01:30:37 ◼   ► Check out our show notes this week. You can find those links on the web at relay.fm/connected/352

01:30:45 ◼   ► While you're there you can get in touch with feedback or follow up

01:30:49 ◼   ► There's an email link there on the side of the page, or you can do it on Twitter

01:30:53 ◼   ► You can find us all there Federico is there is Vitici V I T I CCI

01:30:57 ◼   ► of course he's the editor-in-chief of MacStories.net and hard at work on

01:31:02 ◼   ► reviews I know John is too so y'all are busy boys. You can find Myke on Twitter

01:31:08 ◼   ► as @imike Myke what's something else cool that you do? I would like to

01:31:15 ◼   ► recommend people go and listen to the most recent episode of The Test Drivers

01:31:19 ◼   ► where we interviewed Panos Panay who's the chief product officer at Microsoft

01:31:24 ◼   ► for Windows and devices. It was a really great interview. I really enjoyed it.

01:31:29 ◼   ► He's a cool guy. Very cool. You can find me on Twitter as ismh and my

01:31:35 ◼   ► writing over at 512pixels.net. If you like this show and looking for other

01:31:40 ◼   ► cool podcasts from Relay FM check out Make Do. You don't have to monetize your

01:31:45 ◼   ► hobbies but if you want to Make Do is ready to be your cheerleader in podcast

01:31:49 ◼   ► form. Listen as you work on your hobby with Tiff Armit and Julia Scott over

01:31:54 ◼   ► at relay.fm/makedoo or search for Make Do wherever you get your podcasts.

01:31:59 ◼   ► I'd like to thank Memberful, Hello, and OneBlocker for sponsoring this episode of

01:32:05 ◼   ► Connected and until next time guys say goodbye.

01:32:08 ◼   ► Adios, adios.

01:32:09 ◼   ► Cheerio.

01:32:10 ◼   ► Bye y'all.