Connected

00:00:00 ◼   ► (upbeat music)

00:00:02 ◼   ► - Hello and welcome to Connected, episode 313.

00:00:12 ◼   ► It's made possible this week by our sponsors,

00:00:14 ◼   ► Ahrefs, StoryWorth, and Reidel.

00:00:17 ◼   ► My name is Steven Hackett,

00:00:18 ◼   ► and I am joined by Mr. Myke Hurley.

00:00:20 ◼   ► - Hello.

00:00:21 ◼   ► - Howdy, how are you?

00:00:23 ◼   ► - Good.

00:00:24 ◼   ► - We're also joined by Mr. Federico Vittucci.

00:00:26 ◼   ► - Hi.

00:00:27 ◼   ► - Hello.

00:00:28 ◼   ► - Hello, hello, how are you guys?

00:00:29 ◼   ► Good tired, but good. I

00:00:32 ◼   ► Can imagine very tired was a big week for you guys last week. Yeah. Hey, you were a big part of it, man

00:00:39 ◼   ► So we're recording this just a handful of days after our podcast

00:00:44 ◼   ► a thon podcast of on to as it was as it was named a

00:00:47 ◼   ► Well ended up being an almost seven hour live show

00:00:51 ◼   ► Myke and I hosted with a bunch of awesome relay people including Federico and a whole bunch of other hosts again

00:00:57 ◼   ► and thank you to everyone on the network who came,

00:01:01 ◼   ► came on the show, it was a lot of fun.

00:01:03 ◼   ► We raised just a ton of money.

00:01:05 ◼   ► We raised basically twice what we did

00:01:08 ◼   ► during the Podcast-a-thon last year.

00:01:10 ◼   ► And as I record this, we are at $345,000 for the month,

00:01:14 ◼   ► which like, y'all, that's amazing.

00:01:17 ◼   ► There were several times during the Podcast-a-thon

00:01:20 ◼   ► where on my laptop, I had like the backend

00:01:23 ◼   ► of the donation platform.

00:01:24 ◼   ► I was like that, like it is moving so fast.

00:01:26 ◼   ► every time I glance over all the names are new because people were just

00:01:29 ◼   ► donating and donating so thank you so much. If you haven't seen the Podcastathon

00:01:34 ◼   ► or you had to duck out for a little while which is totally understandable

00:01:37 ◼   ► because it's six and a half hours long it is on the Relay FM YouTube channel so

00:01:42 ◼   ► we got that uploaded there and you know I think it's definitely worth watching.

00:01:47 ◼   ► Myke you said on upgrade that the last 90 minutes is kind of the if you're

00:01:50 ◼   ► gonna watch any of it do that and I agree I think it was I think it was all

00:01:54 ◼   ► really good. I was really proud of how it came out, but you know by the end of it

00:01:58 ◼   ► we're a little loopy. It's really late for Myke so it was fun to sort of

00:02:03 ◼   ► unwind a little bit as the time went on. And if you are a monster you can listen

00:02:08 ◼   ► to 418 minutes of the audio version as well, which I'll put in the show notes, but I

00:02:14 ◼   ► think if you do that you really are an incredible monster of a person to want

00:02:19 ◼   ► to listen to what was a live video stream just in audio form.

00:02:24 ◼   ► Yeah, we put it there just to do it.

00:02:26 ◼   ► We don't expect many people to listen to that.

00:02:29 ◼   ► It's merely there of record, but that's about it.

00:02:33 ◼   ► Yeah, I think also Departures has one of my favorite

00:02:36 ◼   ► show art designs on the whole network.

00:02:38 ◼   ► Didn't you do that one?

00:02:40 ◼   ► I feel like that.

00:02:41 ◼   ► I think maybe Frank and I shared it.

00:02:45 ◼   ► I was definitely involved, but I just,

00:02:47 ◼   ► I love the way it came out

00:02:48 ◼   ► and we don't get to use it very much.

00:02:50 ◼   ► But, especially this year, because we've had--

00:02:52 ◼   ► - Well, we would, I know, it would have been used more,

00:02:55 ◼   ► but it's the live show feed, which, you know,

00:02:58 ◼   ► there aren't a lot of those at the moment.

00:03:00 ◼   ► - I'll point people to this coming Sunday's Mac Power Users

00:03:04 ◼   ► in the member section at the end of the show.

00:03:07 ◼   ► David and I talked about the technical aspects

00:03:09 ◼   ► of how the show and stream went together,

00:03:12 ◼   ► but I'll say here publicly again,

00:03:14 ◼   ► thank you to everyone at St. Jude and Allsac

00:03:16 ◼   ► who helped pull it together.

00:03:18 ◼   ► We jumped through a lot of hoops

00:03:20 ◼   ► for me to be on campus safely,

00:03:22 ◼   ► everyone to be there following all the city and county rules

00:03:26 ◼   ► in addition to St. Jude's regulations.

00:03:29 ◼   ► And that was all totally worth it.

00:03:31 ◼   ► It was so great to be in that studio to host the show.

00:03:36 ◼   ► I was sad.

00:03:37 ◼   ► I was, I didn't say this on Friday, Myke,

00:03:40 ◼   ► 'cause I didn't wanna bum you out,

00:03:41 ◼   ► but like, I was genuinely sad.

00:03:42 ◼   ► Like, I was like in the green room, like by myself.

00:03:45 ◼   ► Last year it was both of us.

00:03:46 ◼   ► and Mary and Nadina were there.

00:03:48 ◼   ► It was like, I'm just here by myself.

00:03:50 ◼   ► Like there's, I mean, Mary couldn't even come with me.

00:03:52 ◼   ► It was just me and a handful of people,

00:03:55 ◼   ► way smaller production crew than last year

00:03:58 ◼   ► because of the pandemic.

00:03:59 ◼   ► But it was really special to be there.

00:04:01 ◼   ► And if you haven't given yet, there's still time.

00:04:04 ◼   ► We're fundraising throughout the end of the month.

00:04:07 ◼   ► Stjoe.org/relay is where you wanna go.

00:04:10 ◼   ► Now we do have a couple of upcoming events.

00:04:12 ◼   ► So on Friday at noon Eastern,

00:04:17 ◼   ► Myke and I will be in a little competition

00:04:20 ◼   ► drawing Relay FM show artwork from memory.

00:04:23 ◼   ► So we're gonna have a show picked randomly

00:04:27 ◼   ► and then we have to draw or sketch the show art

00:04:30 ◼   ► and then we will grade how we did.

00:04:32 ◼   ► So that should be a lot of fun.

00:04:34 ◼   ► - Yeah, Stephen didn't mention it during the show.

00:04:38 ◼   ► Well, 'cause I said beforehand,

00:04:40 ◼   ► I really didn't wanna focus on the fact

00:04:42 ◼   ► that we weren't going to be together, right?

00:04:44 ◼   ► Like I feel like it was something that was worth

00:04:47 ◼   ► just celebrating for what it was

00:04:49 ◼   ► and not commiserating for what it would have been.

00:04:52 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:04:53 ◼   ► - And I think that we did a good job.

00:04:54 ◼   ► - Me too.

00:04:55 ◼   ► - I definitely wouldn't have had a gazebo at St. Jude.

00:04:59 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:05:00 ◼   ► - Well, I say you wouldn't own a gazebo.

00:05:01 ◼   ► We could have had one, but you wouldn't own a gazebo.

00:05:04 ◼   ► - I now own one, yeah.

00:05:06 ◼   ► And also I will say the cleanup of the six to 700 balloons

00:05:09 ◼   ► was incredibly fun.

00:05:12 ◼   ► I just got a poster tube, you know what you put a poster on?

00:05:15 ◼   ► And I stuck some needles on the end of it,

00:05:18 ◼   ► like sewing needles, just went to town, it's fantastic.

00:05:22 ◼   ► I had a great time.

00:05:22 ◼   ► I actually put that on my Instagram,

00:05:24 ◼   ► I'll put that in the show notes too,

00:05:25 ◼   ► if people wanna see what it looks like

00:05:26 ◼   ► for 600 balloons to be popped.

00:05:29 ◼   ► - That's awesome. - But Steven,

00:05:30 ◼   ► tell people why they should be still continuing

00:05:31 ◼   ► to donate during September.

00:05:33 ◼   ► - Oh, there's so many good reasons.

00:05:35 ◼   ► I wanna talk a little bit about the impact St. Jude has had

00:05:38 ◼   ► over its 50 plus year history.

00:05:41 ◼   ► So when St. Jude got started here in Memphis,

00:05:43 ◼   ► I'm like, you should go read the history of it,

00:05:44 ◼   ► it's actually really fascinating.

00:05:46 ◼   ► But when they started, very little attention,

00:05:50 ◼   ► very few resources were given

00:05:54 ◼   ► to dealing with childhood cancer, pediatric cancer.

00:05:59 ◼   ► During its history, St. Jude has really moved the needle

00:06:02 ◼   ► in a meaningful way.

00:06:03 ◼   ► So when they started, the survival rate for childhood cancer

00:06:08 ◼   ► was about 20%.

00:06:11 ◼   ► And today, 50 something years later, it is over 80%.

00:06:16 ◼   ► That's within a lifetime, right?

00:06:19 ◼   ► Like that's what the, I mean, that is amazing progress

00:06:22 ◼   ► and it is really impressive to think about

00:06:26 ◼   ► in what is relatively a short period of time

00:06:28 ◼   ► how far it has come.

00:06:30 ◼   ► And St. Jude is not stopping.

00:06:32 ◼   ► You know, there's this saying from the founder, Danny Thomas,

00:06:35 ◼   ► it's all over the hospital.

00:06:37 ◼   ► It says, "No child should die in the dawn of life."

00:06:39 ◼   ► And that is what St. Jude is,

00:06:43 ◼   ► like all of their effort, all of this,

00:06:45 ◼   ► all of these resources, all the research,

00:06:47 ◼   ► it's all bent towards that goal.

00:06:48 ◼   ► And it's only possible by people donating.

00:06:51 ◼   ► So not only are they bringing that number

00:06:54 ◼   ► closer and closer to zero,

00:06:55 ◼   ► but they're doing so by caring for families and patients

00:06:59 ◼   ► and taking care of all the bills for them.

00:07:01 ◼   ► No family is charged a dime for St. Jude treatment

00:07:04 ◼   ► or costs associated with it, travel,

00:07:08 ◼   ► meals, housing, all of that stuff. So again, that's only possible thanks to you all. So

00:07:13 ◼   ► stangil.org/relay. Definitely go give and we would really appreciate it.

00:07:18 ◼   ► So I got a iPad mini for the podcast of thumb.

00:07:21 ◼   ► Yes.

00:07:21 ◼   ► Because I wanted to have an iPad to, like a screen to watch the stream as it was live.

00:07:29 ◼   ► It worked perfectly for the job that I bought it for. I was very happy with the purchase. I

00:07:34 ◼   ► I got a little smart cover for it and stood it up on my little video table and it was

00:07:39 ◼   ► perfect.

00:07:40 ◼   ► It gave me a dedicated screen to just see what the stream was doing so I could make

00:07:44 ◼   ► sure that everything looked fine from my end.

00:07:48 ◼   ► And I just wanted to follow up with some little thoughts, my impressions of using an iPad

00:07:51 ◼   ► mini again.

00:07:53 ◼   ► I think that it is super nice to have something that can do what an iPad can do but in a form

00:08:00 ◼   ► factor that you can hold in one hand.

00:08:03 ◼   ► couldn't have your entire hand around it. It was kind of funny because when there

00:08:10 ◼   ► was an episode of Adapt that you did Federico where you were telling Brian

00:08:13 ◼   ► about your experiences of using an iPad mini again, you were talking about how

00:08:18 ◼   ► like it was very it was like oh it's super thin super light that kind of

00:08:24 ◼   ► stuff and I was thinking to myself but like it's the iPad Pro is thinner like

00:08:29 ◼   ► it is that weirdly enough it's a thing that a lot of people forget it's easier

00:08:33 ◼   ► to forget, but the iPad Pro is thinner than the iPad mini.

00:08:36 ◼   ► But you don't, it doesn't feel like that when you're holding it.

00:08:40 ◼   ► And it's the weight, that's the thing that I've come down on.

00:08:43 ◼   ► The thing that makes the biggest difference, it's not the physical size, it's not the thinness

00:08:47 ◼   ► for me, it's the weight in that you can hold any iPad in one hand, but it's not comfortable

00:08:54 ◼   ► for long periods of time.

00:08:56 ◼   ► But the iPad mini is very very easy and comfortable to hold in one hand because you can grip it

00:09:01 ◼   ► very well because you can get most of your hand around the device to support it and then

00:09:06 ◼   ► it's also super light. And also you know one of the great things about the smart cover

00:09:10 ◼   ► is that folded smart cover grip you know like when you kind of fold it on itself so it gets

00:09:14 ◼   ► like thickness on one side and you hold it kind of like what the Kindles do. So it was

00:09:19 ◼   ► not I found the form factor really nice but 64 gigabytes which is the iPad that I got

00:09:26 ◼   ► completely untenable. I barely installed a few apps on it and then it was completely full.

00:09:31 ◼   ► I don't know how it happened. I don't save photos or whatever, like I'm doing everything that Apple

00:09:38 ◼   ► is suggesting that I do in the storage management page, but just the kinds of apps that I use like

00:09:43 ◼   ► Dropbox, Google Docs, the iWork Suite, stuff like that, like completely filled up the entire

00:09:48 ◼   ► 64 gigabytes. So yeah, I continue to recommend people do not get 64 gigabyte products where they

00:09:57 ◼   ► can. I think that is what the new iPad Air starts at and I think that that on the last episode I

00:10:06 ◼   ► said that I thought that that was ridiculous and now having used an iPad for just a week with 64

00:10:12 ◼   ► gigabytes of storage, I stand by what I said. Like, that is an almost in the

00:10:19 ◼   ► modern day an almost unusable storage size because seven gigabytes was taken

00:10:23 ◼   ► up by the system. Like, it says it on the bottom. I'm barely left of anything at

00:10:28 ◼   ► that point. Like, I wasn't downloading any music to it. I wasn't downloading any

00:10:33 ◼   ► content to it. Just purely installing the apps that I needed filled it up.

00:10:38 ◼   ► Do you have iCloud photo on it all, like the thumbnails on the device?

00:10:42 ◼   ► I am whatever the system sets me to be by default.

00:10:45 ◼   ► Because I looked at mine when I saw this in the show notes.

00:10:48 ◼   ► Mine is also 64 gigs and it's almost out of space, but Photos is taking up a lot of that

00:10:53 ◼   ► and Apple should manage that automatically.

00:10:56 ◼   ► But I agree with you on the whole though.

00:10:59 ◼   ► 64 gigs, especially when you're selling devices that shoot 4K video and these amazing photos

00:11:05 ◼   ► and all these rich apps, like it just doesn't go very far.

00:11:09 ◼   ► And it feels like yesterday,

00:11:10 ◼   ► but of course it was years ago,

00:11:11 ◼   ► we were arguing this about 16 gigabytes,

00:11:13 ◼   ► but the technology has really come along that much

00:11:17 ◼   ► in just a few years where I really think 128

00:11:21 ◼   ► is the minimum that most people can get by on,

00:11:24 ◼   ► because most people probably don't use iCloud photo.

00:11:27 ◼   ► So they can't offload their photos.

00:11:29 ◼   ► They just have the pictures they've taken.

00:11:30 ◼   ► They may not subscribe to Apple Music or Spotify.

00:11:34 ◼   ► Maybe that, you know, it's like we as nerds have like tools to manage this and even if we can't manage it

00:11:41 ◼   ► It's like then it's not tenable at all

00:11:43 ◼   ► Let me go get my iPad real quick. Okay. I'll give you a breakdown of what's on it

00:11:47 ◼   ► Hey Federico

00:11:50 ◼   ► Do you have an iPad mini? I do. Yeah, it's really good right like it's really small and portable

00:11:56 ◼   ► Yeah, I feel like it's made some sort of comeback

00:11:58 ◼   ► Maybe it's just the three of us and John but it really seems like the you know

00:12:03 ◼   ► the minis found a home again in people's lives?

00:12:06 ◼   ► - I think so, because it's such a unique form factor

00:12:10 ◼   ► at this point where we have, like even a large iPhone,

00:12:14 ◼   ► I know that people point out the difference

00:12:16 ◼   ► that seems to be very small in terms of like

00:12:18 ◼   ► the display size, but it's the form factor

00:12:20 ◼   ► that is still so different between an iPad mini

00:12:22 ◼   ► and even a big iPhone.

00:12:24 ◼   ► And just also the OS, of course,

00:12:25 ◼   ► like the fact that it runs iPad OS

00:12:27 ◼   ► and you can still do things like Split View,

00:12:29 ◼   ► which is kind of ridiculous on a small display,

00:12:31 ◼   ► but you can do it, right?

00:12:33 ◼   ► And like, I absolutely cannot wait for the iPad mini

00:12:38 ◼   ► to get the iPad Pro design treatment.

00:12:41 ◼   ► I think it was rumored, it was your risky pick, Steven.

00:12:44 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah, it was.

00:12:45 ◼   ► - I think you picked the wrong year.

00:12:47 ◼   ► - Probably.

00:12:48 ◼   ► - It should happen next year, I think.

00:12:49 ◼   ► - I did it with Arm Max too, I was off.

00:12:52 ◼   ► I did that last year.

00:12:53 ◼   ► - That took a little longer than I was expecting,

00:12:55 ◼   ► but I have it now.

00:12:56 ◼   ► - That's cool.

00:12:57 ◼   ► So I'm currently at 61 and a half out of 64 gigabytes used.

00:13:02 ◼   ► Um, one of the things that's,

00:13:04 ◼   ► seems to be taking up a lot of my space is, uh, messages, right?

00:13:10 ◼   ► I believe because it's telling me I can save up to 22.8 gigabytes

00:13:16 ◼   ► by reviewing my large attachments. But I don't know what that means.

00:13:21 ◼   ► Like I have messages in the cloud on,

00:13:25 ◼   ► And then when I go to review the attachments,

00:13:27 ◼   ► it's like I have to manually delete videos, like one by one,

00:13:31 ◼   ► which seems very strange to me.

00:13:34 ◼   ► So I don't really know what's going on here,

00:13:37 ◼   ► but it's not a good scene.

00:13:41 ◼   ► I've got multiple gigabytes taken up in apps.

00:13:45 ◼   ► And then at the moment, 47 gigabytes

00:13:48 ◼   ► is quote, "other system data," whatever that means.

00:13:53 ◼   ► So there you go.

00:13:55 ◼   ► It adds up quick.

00:13:56 ◼   ► It sure does.

00:13:57 ◼   ► Maybe you should have gotten a bigger iPad Mini.

00:13:59 ◼   ► Well, I mean, honestly, for what I was installing,

00:14:03 ◼   ► which is basically what I put on it

00:14:04 ◼   ► was a bunch of applications that don't download a bunch of data.

00:14:08 ◼   ► I just figured that that would be fine.

00:14:11 ◼   ► Like I wasn't planning on putting anything on it.

00:14:14 ◼   ► Everything's changing at the moment.

00:14:16 ◼   ► And now other, what's quoted as other,

00:14:18 ◼   ► is now 39 gigabytes of information.

00:14:21 ◼   ► and I have eight gigabytes, which is messages,

00:14:23 ◼   ► but that eight gigabytes of messages

00:14:25 ◼   ► is just what the system is choosing to store

00:14:27 ◼   ► because I have messages in the cloud turned on.

00:14:30 ◼   ► So yeah, basically all of this is a long way

00:14:34 ◼   ► of saying again, like 64 gigabytes is the new 16 gigabytes.

00:14:38 ◼   ► It doesn't work in today's world.

00:14:40 ◼   ► We deal with way more data just in our typical lives, so.

00:14:46 ◼   ► - iOS 14.2 beta is out.

00:14:51 ◼   ► Nine to Five has an article with the changes.

00:14:56 ◼   ► There's some, the media controls are revamped.

00:14:59 ◼   ► I think they're worse.

00:15:00 ◼   ► You have the, what is it that Apple bought

00:15:03 ◼   ► that listens to songs and tells you what it is?

00:15:05 ◼   ► - Shazam. - Shazam.

00:15:07 ◼   ► It is in Control Center now.

00:15:09 ◼   ► So it's been demoted to just a button in Control Center,

00:15:11 ◼   ► which is kind of cool.

00:15:12 ◼   ► And you can tap it and then it will tell you what's playing

00:15:16 ◼   ► and it will give you an option to listen to it on Apple Music.

00:15:22 ◼   ► It's not just that it's going to listen

00:15:24 ◼   ► to what's playing around you using the microphone, right?

00:15:28 ◼   ► I think the most important change here

00:15:30 ◼   ► is that Apple is calling this music recognition, not just

00:15:34 ◼   ► Shazam.

00:15:34 ◼   ► And I mean, it's obviously Shazam

00:15:35 ◼   ► because it's got the logo.

00:15:37 ◼   ► But what they're doing is they can listen via the microphone,

00:15:39 ◼   ► of course.

00:15:40 ◼   ► But now that feature can also recognize audio

00:15:43 ◼   ► playing inside any app.

00:15:45 ◼   ► So even if you're listening to your headphones

00:15:48 ◼   ► or your AirPods,

00:15:50 ◼   ► the music recognition feature can just take a look

00:15:53 ◼   ► at the audio track essentially and find the music play,

00:15:57 ◼   ► what music is playing inside that audio track for you,

00:16:02 ◼   ► even if nothing is coming out of the iPhone speakers.

00:16:06 ◼   ► And I think that's pretty incredible, right?

00:16:08 ◼   ► It's the kind of integration that Apple can now do

00:16:10 ◼   ► because they own Shazam,

00:16:12 ◼   ► which obviously Shazam couldn't have done before

00:16:14 ◼   ► because it's not like as a third party app,

00:16:16 ◼   ► you can take a look at what's playing inside other apps,

00:16:19 ◼   ► but now they can do that.

00:16:20 ◼   ► So imagine, like I think that the bigger topic here is,

00:16:25 ◼   ► I think it's pretty clear that 14.2

00:16:29 ◼   ► is gearing up to be the headphones update for iOS,

00:16:33 ◼   ► because you take a look at all these features.

00:16:36 ◼   ► - So everything's audio related.

00:16:38 ◼   ► - Everything is audio related.

00:16:39 ◼   ► So you have the new suggestions

00:16:42 ◼   ► in the now playing tile in Control Center

00:16:46 ◼   ► and on the lock screen when nothing is playing.

00:16:49 ◼   ► You have the new media controls.

00:16:52 ◼   ► You have the new AirPlay Picker,

00:16:53 ◼   ► which is no longer a full screen thing.

00:16:55 ◼   ► I mean, that's not a surprise given Compact UI this year.

00:16:58 ◼   ► And then you have music recognition in Control Center.

00:17:00 ◼   ► So all these things are audio related

00:17:02 ◼   ► and perhaps the most intriguing of all,

00:17:05 ◼   ► music recognition also works with AirPods and headphones.

00:17:09 ◼   ► And I think that if Apple is indeed about to announce this new AirPods Studio or HeadPods,

00:17:15 ◼   ► whatever, I think this is going to be a big selling point, right? You can have this feature

00:17:21 ◼   ► work for you and you have the direct Apple Music integration. I think it's a very cool

00:17:25 ◼   ► addition to Control Center. I would have liked to see, I'm just nitpicking here,

00:17:32 ◼   ► it would be nice if you could associate a playlist for music recognition to save songs into. Instead,

00:17:38 ◼   ► right now is just saying, "Here's a song, do you want to listen to Apple music?" But

00:17:42 ◼   ► one of the cool things about Shazam, the app, is that when I recognize songs, they get automatically

00:17:48 ◼   ► saved into a playlist. This feature doesn't do that yet. So that would be nice. But overall,

00:17:54 ◼   ► I think 14.2 is going to be the headphones, the audio update. I think in a way, it's kind

00:18:00 ◼   ► of cool because Apple used to have music events in the fall, now they're going to have the

00:18:04 ◼   ► music update. So I think that's kind of nice.

00:18:07 ◼   ► But then also the other thing which we haven't mentioned but it's like 14.1 is lost somewhere.

00:18:13 ◼   ► Like it fell down the back of a couch at Apple Park and they can't find it.

00:18:18 ◼   ► It's like the iPhone 9.

00:18:19 ◼   ► It's like the iPhone 9 never existed.

00:18:23 ◼   ► It's uh, you know, I think is where they stashed all the secret iPhone features.

00:18:27 ◼   ► 14.1 is for the iPhone 9 only.

00:18:31 ◼   ► That's the only device with 14.1.

00:18:33 ◼   ► Now I don't know, maybe it doesn't even exist 14.1.

00:18:35 ◼   ► maybe it's on the iPhones, I think. Yeah, makes more sense. Yeah, I mean, they've done

00:18:39 ◼   ► this before they did it like 10 years ago, where they had the iPad on iOS three still

00:18:44 ◼   ► that I was for came out for the phone and then like 4.2 I think is where they merged

00:18:50 ◼   ► them. And so maybe that's how this goes is the phones come with 14.1. And maybe even

00:18:55 ◼   ► that day or a couple days later, 14.2 comes to unify the new phones and the iPad all at

00:19:03 ◼   ► want. So I think that makes a lot of sense. I guess the only part of it though is that

00:19:07 ◼   ► 14.2 clearly doesn't reference the iPhone 12 in any way because otherwise it would have

00:19:13 ◼   ► been mined by now. So I just find that interesting, right? Because our assumption is like a similar

00:19:20 ◼   ► assumption for why one of the reasons they may have released the GM basically immediately

00:19:26 ◼   ► after announcing products is so that they could keep some of the stuff in it secret.

00:19:30 ◼   ► it's just this weird thing of like iOS 14.2 doesn't, clearly doesn't reference any new

00:19:35 ◼   ► products so will it end up being 14.2 that goes on the new iPhone? It's very weird, it's

00:19:41 ◼   ► all very weird right? Everything's very weird right now and this is part of it so I thought

00:19:45 ◼   ► 14.1 is lost somewhere probably in a Foxconn factory in China.

00:19:51 ◼   ► Like where'd it go? Where'd that USB key go?

00:19:56 ◼   ► We dropped it.

00:19:57 ◼   ► It's gone.

00:19:58 ◼   ► IOS 14 adoption is very good.

00:20:01 ◼   ► Current estimates suggest that it is outpacing IOS 13,

00:20:06 ◼   ► which is 25% adoption versus 20% adoption

00:20:08 ◼   ► after five days of release.

00:20:11 ◼   ► Obviously you can't do like, remember 13 was weird,

00:20:15 ◼   ► but like this is the kind of a thing that there

00:20:17 ◼   ► is being assumed from when it was actually released.

00:20:20 ◼   ► And this isn't surprising for two reasons.

00:20:23 ◼   ► One, 13 was known to be not good, right?

00:20:26 ◼   ► and that was the message that was circulating, I think,

00:20:30 ◼   ► as soon as iOS 13 was released.

00:20:32 ◼   ► But iOS 14 has widgets,

00:20:34 ◼   ► and as it's impossible to ignore right now,

00:20:37 ◼   ► widgets are the talk of the town,

00:20:39 ◼   ► and we're gonna touch on that a little bit later on.

00:20:42 ◼   ► But it's like how, I mean, again,

00:20:44 ◼   ► I'm not saying anything original here,

00:20:46 ◼   ► but I think it's just worth noting,

00:20:47 ◼   ► it's kind of like how emoji has always pushed forward

00:20:51 ◼   ► the adoption of new versions of iOS.

00:20:54 ◼   ► I think it's pretty clear that widgets are doing it for iOS 14 because widgets have gone

00:21:00 ◼   ► viral in a way that iOS releases do not go viral. This isn't a thing that happens, right?

00:21:06 ◼   ► That like it becomes this thing where it's not just that your phone is updating and whatever.

00:21:11 ◼   ► It's like, no, I want to do this so I can do what my favorite influencers are doing

00:21:15 ◼   ► to make their home screens a static AF.

00:21:19 ◼   ► Yeah, I'm not surprised that these numbers are up, especially in the context of widgets.

00:21:26 ◼   ► And in fact, I'm trying... we're gonna talk about that later, but I needed to convince

00:21:32 ◼   ► a friend today not to update her iPhone to iOS 14 for reasons that we're gonna talk about

00:21:40 ◼   ► shortly. And it was a struggle because she really wanted to try the widgets. So I'm not

00:21:48 ◼   ► sure if I managed to convince her. We'll see. But yeah, people want widgets man, what

00:21:54 ◼   ► you got to do about it? Honestly I was not expecting this, so it's quite the surprise.

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00:23:45 ◼   ► and Relay FM. So Federico, you have jumped on the iOS 14

00:23:52 ◼   ► customization train in the best way you know how by creating a shortcut to do it. Can you

00:23:58 ◼   ► talk about Wall Creator? Yes, so Wall Creator, this shortcut that I

00:24:03 ◼   ► I shared yesterday. It lets you create wallpapers for your iPhone and iPad either using solid

00:24:09 ◼   ► colors, so like if I have a red or purple or black wallpaper, or using gradients. You

00:24:16 ◼   ► can have a gradient that is top to bottom or diagonal from the top left to the bottom

00:24:21 ◼   ► right. And so this shortcut, it started off two years ago. I originally shared the first

00:24:28 ◼   ► version of this shortcut in MacStories Weekly, I believe in November or December 2018. And

00:24:34 ◼   ► now that I saw, like, obviously widgets going viral and people customizing their home screens,

00:24:40 ◼   ► and I thought, "How can I help and how can I sort of put out something useful that people

00:24:46 ◼   ► can use?" Especially because, like, so many people are discovering shortcuts now. And

00:24:51 ◼   ► I'm not kidding, the traffic to the MacStories Shortcuts Archive this week is, like, up 350

00:24:58 ◼   ► percent or something. Like it's kind of ridiculous. Do you know what they use? Like what people

00:25:02 ◼   ► are? Yes, I do. So most of them are obviously coming from Google, right? They just search

00:25:10 ◼   ► for shortcuts and the Mac Stories or Shortcuts Archive is popular enough that it's actually

00:25:13 ◼   ► really well positioned and people go there. And it also was linked by TechCrunch and a

00:25:20 ◼   ► bunch of other blogs this week. And I guess the people sort of discovering shortcuts arrive

00:25:24 ◼   ► on that page. A lot of them also discover one shortcut in particular that is in the

00:25:30 ◼   ► archive called "homescreen icon creator," which is something that I did a couple of

00:25:36 ◼   ► years ago that lets you create custom launchers using colors or custom photos and files. If

00:25:44 ◼   ► you want to have like a custom icon, the launch is something.

00:25:47 ◼   ► So like...

00:25:48 ◼   ► Oh hey, look, it's me.

00:25:49 ◼   ► Yeah, there's you in there.

00:25:50 ◼   ► There's me in there.

00:25:51 ◼   ► Yeah, so thousands of people this week have discovered the archive. Like, I'm not kidding,

00:25:57 ◼   ► in a week the archivist had the same traffic that he would get in like six months. It is

00:26:03 ◼   ► ridiculous, in the best way possible. And so I thought, well, if they are discovering

00:26:09 ◼   ► shortcuts and, you know, maybe a small percentage of those people also convert to being like

00:26:16 ◼   ► Max Stories readers and maybe my followers, so maybe I can give them something useful

00:26:20 ◼   ► And I thought, like I went looking through my archives and I noticed, well, I actually made a wallpaper shortcut a while back and I can probably update it.

00:26:29 ◼   ► So I took the basic structure of that shortcut and I came up with a technique because I figured, you know, if I put this out, the shortcut right now requires you to input manual color codes.

00:26:45 ◼   ► right? Whether you use the English name of an HTML color or the hex color code. And I thought,

00:26:51 ◼   ► "But if I put this out now, most people are going to have no idea what a hex color code is."

00:26:57 ◼   ► So I thought, "Is there any way that I can have a random color generation thing

00:27:02 ◼   ► happen inside Shortcuts without using third-party apps?" Right? Shortcuts doesn't have a native like

00:27:08 ◼   ► make image or create color action. So what I ended up doing is I implemented this very stupid and

00:27:18 ◼   ► silly and ugly workaround for running, for executing local JavaScript inside Shortcuts.

00:27:26 ◼   ► So by default, Shortcuts doesn't have like a run code action. The only JavaScript thing

00:27:35 ◼   ► that Safari has, that Shortcuts has, is a Safari action that lets you run JavaScript inside a web

00:27:42 ◼   ► page. However, that only works if you run a shortcut from the share sheet in Safari. There's

00:27:48 ◼   ► no other way to run JavaScript unless you implement my stupid technique, which is, and I know you guys

00:27:55 ◼   ► are gonna make fun of me for obvious reasons, but trust me, this works. I mean, you've tried

00:28:00 ◼   ► World Creator yourself, so you know that it works. Don't you tell me what I think you're about to say.

00:28:05 ◼   ► You assemble a local web page in Shortcuts. Inside the web page, which is literally like

00:28:11 ◼   ► you open an HTML tag and you close the HTML tag, in there you put a script object and

00:28:19 ◼   ► inside the script you put the JavaScript code.

00:28:22 ◼   ► Oh, I thought you were going to tell me it was base64.

00:28:24 ◼   ► Oh no, wait, just you wait, it's coming. So what you do is you base64 encode this web

00:28:31 ◼   ► page.

00:28:32 ◼   ► You've put a Trojan horse in my phone again.

00:28:35 ◼   ► Now my iCloud is going to get messed up.

00:28:37 ◼   ► - You base 64 encode the webpage.

00:28:43 ◼   ► Then you use the get contents of webpage action.

00:28:46 ◼   ► So what happens basically?

00:28:48 ◼   ► Well, it's different from the previous times, right?

00:28:51 ◼   ► It's different because the shortcuts that you remember,

00:28:54 ◼   ► they actually had a base 64 text action already contained

00:29:01 ◼   ► inside them. Those shortcuts were problematic because they were actually large in size,

00:29:07 ◼   ► like Apple frames, for example, right? The assets for those frames, they are embedded

00:29:12 ◼   ► within the shortcut. That's what causes problems. This is different in that the basic C4 is

00:29:19 ◼   ► generated on the fly by the shortcut every single time. It's not stored inside the shortcut,

00:29:25 ◼   ► which is why it runs super quickly. So what you do basically is you tell... This is a

00:29:30 ◼   ► stupid technique, but it works. You tell Shortcut basically to, like, run JavaScript every single

00:29:36 ◼   ► time the shortcut runs, and every time the shortcut runs, the script that I created,

00:29:42 ◼   ► which is adapted from another person that I found on Stack Overflow, which I modified to my needs,

00:29:48 ◼   ► it basically creates a random hex color code every single time. So every time, if you choose the

00:29:54 ◼   ► random option, you can create a random wallpaper that uses either a random solid color or a random

00:30:02 ◼   ► gradient. And it's fun! I really like it. It's fun. I've been doing it while we've been talking,

00:30:07 ◼   ► to just keep cycling new ones, new ones, new ones. And you get really cool looking colors.

00:30:13 ◼   ► Yeah, you do. And it's very fun, especially if you use it as a widget on the home screen. Thanks

00:30:20 ◼   ► Thanks to Compact UI, you can just confirm and start creating wallpapers from the home

00:30:27 ◼   ► screen.

00:30:28 ◼   ► And you get the quick look preview, of course.

00:30:30 ◼   ► And another cool thing about this shortcut is that you don't have to say, "Oh, I'm using

00:30:34 ◼   ► an iPhone," or "I'm using an iPad."

00:30:37 ◼   ► The shortcut figures it out on its own, because shortcuts have actions to tell the display

00:30:44 ◼   ► size of the current device.

00:30:47 ◼   ► And so by using those numbers and a bunch of calculations inside the shortcut that you

00:30:51 ◼   ► don't need to know, it understands, "Am I on an iPhone, on an iPad?"

00:30:59 ◼   ► And also if it's an iPhone, "Is this a 2x display or a 3x display?"

00:31:05 ◼   ► So that's kind of cool.

00:31:06 ◼   ► And yeah, you can just create wallpapers and then you can save them to the photos library,

00:31:10 ◼   ► or you can just keep creating new ones.

00:31:13 ◼   ► So I thought maybe people will like this, and it seems like people are liking it, because

00:31:19 ◼   ► many of them are downloading it.

00:31:20 ◼   ► So just a fun distraction to do, to write in the middle of my iOS review.

00:31:28 ◼   ► It took me like an hour to put it together a few nights ago.

00:31:31 ◼   ► So yeah.

00:31:32 ◼   ► I love it, man.

00:31:33 ◼   ► And it is one of those things where like, on the surface, this seems like a really simple

00:31:37 ◼   ► shortcut, but hearing you talk about it, I'm realizing that there's way more going on,

00:31:41 ◼   ► And I always like that about shortcuts because it has a full range of things it can do.

00:31:47 ◼   ► Yeah, that's a very important point, I think, over the years. What I've understood about

00:31:53 ◼   ► the people who come to Mac Stories and also the way that I like to publish these things

00:31:58 ◼   ► is all the shortcuts that I've published, especially over the past two years, I want

00:32:04 ◼   ► to make sure that they seem really simple, even if they do really complex things. So

00:32:09 ◼   ► The real challenging part for me lately has become, how do I make this very complex task,

00:32:16 ◼   ► and how do I present it in shortcuts in a way that you don't need to know anything about

00:32:20 ◼   ► the way that it works, and there's as little as possible that you need to configure manually.

00:32:26 ◼   ► So that's always a challenge, right?

00:32:28 ◼   ► Because there's these crazy shortcuts that people put together, like on Reddit for example,

00:32:33 ◼   ► and they require you to do this heavy configuration up front, or to confirm all of this dial-up

00:32:39 ◼   ► logs, right? And while a lot of them are impressive, technically speaking, I want to produce stuff

00:32:46 ◼   ► that even a random person who doesn't even know what Mac Stories is can download a shortcut

00:32:53 ◼   ► and run it and it does what it needs to do and it hides the complexity from you as much

00:32:57 ◼   ► as possible.

00:32:58 ◼   ► Yeah, I get frustrated sometimes when I get a shortcut of some kind and it asks me a bunch

00:33:04 ◼   ► of setup questions. The setup questions feature is really good that it exists, but I'm not

00:33:10 ◼   ► always expecting to have to do it, you know? And it's kind of like, you know, they start

00:33:15 ◼   ► asking a bunch of questions and I'm like, I don't know.

00:33:17 ◼   ► What do you want from me?

00:33:18 ◼   ► I'm just here to have some fun. Like, what are you getting all up on my case for?

00:33:23 ◼   ► Yeah. Yeah. That was also like the same approach to MusicBot, right? It was just how do I take

00:33:29 ◼   ► all these features and just present them in a list. And you as the user don't need to

00:33:36 ◼   ► know anything about this. The shortcut takes care of different scenarios, different conditions,

00:33:41 ◼   ► and adapts to them for you. So yeah, it's a challenge, but this one was a fun one to

00:33:46 ◼   ► put together, because especially with the understanding of the different devices that

00:33:50 ◼   ► it's running on, it may not seem like a lot of complexity, but every time you stop the

00:33:57 ◼   ► shortcut and put up a dialogue that says "Is it an iPhone or an iPad?" Like you're slowing

00:34:02 ◼   ► the user down, and that's not fun.

00:34:05 ◼   ► Federico, I want to know, but I also don't want to have to put you under any pressure,

00:34:11 ◼   ► but I will ask anyway, because I know people are interested as you review coming along.

00:34:17 ◼   ► Okay, so my goal is to be... Well, obviously I'm late, right? So with that out of the...

00:34:24 ◼   ► obvious, like I'm late, iOS came out, there's nothing I can do about it, whatever. My goal

00:34:30 ◼   ► is to finish... Well, I should be finished writing by Saturday or Sunday, like all the

00:34:36 ◼   ► remaining sections, all the... This week? This week. This upcoming... Oh, that's fantastic.

00:34:42 ◼   ► Yes. So all the sections that I left, like as temporary placeholders in the review and

00:34:48 ◼   ► the conclusion, all those things, I should be finished by Sunday with the writing. We

00:34:53 ◼   ► We already started editing the review, so we're on two separate tracks at the moment.

00:34:59 ◼   ► I'm still writing some things, and I'm also editing with Ryan other chapters.

00:35:06 ◼   ► My goal is to be finished with the actual writing for every single section, including

00:35:10 ◼   ► the new stuff in 14.2 this Sunday.

00:35:15 ◼   ► So next week...

00:35:16 ◼   ► Oh, you're adding in 14.2.

00:35:18 ◼   ► That's clever.

00:35:19 ◼   ► I have to, right?

00:35:20 ◼   ► Well, you don't have to, but I understand why you have.

00:35:23 ◼   ► Yeah, so all the new stuff will be covered in the review as well.

00:35:26 ◼   ► And so next week, it's gonna be like just editing and preparing all the extras and finishing

00:35:32 ◼   ► the graphics and the animations, all that stuff.

00:35:35 ◼   ► So I think realistically we're looking at my original goal, right?

00:35:40 ◼   ► This is coming up, I'm guessing in the first ten days of October at this point, which is

00:35:44 ◼   ► is like, I've realized these past few days that as much as I wanted to be ready earlier,

00:35:53 ◼   ► there's nothing I can do about the fact that it takes me a certain amount of time to do

00:35:57 ◼   ► this review. And I said it in June after WWDC, I think I'm going to be ready in early October.

00:36:04 ◼   ► And in fact, it turns out that I'm going to be ready in early October. There's nothing

00:36:09 ◼   ► I can do about it.

00:36:10 ◼   ► It turns out, funnily enough, it takes as long to get your app ready for a new version

00:36:15 ◼   ► of iOS as it does for Federico to write a review about it. Because that's what you've

00:36:20 ◼   ► found, right? It's the two to three weeks that were lost for WWDC being late is the

00:36:26 ◼   ► exact amount of time that you will be late after iOS coming out.

00:36:30 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah. And also like...

00:36:31 ◼   ► So it takes just that amount of time.

00:36:34 ◼   ► It's not like I'm developing an app, right? And I only need to think about the app. Like

00:36:41 ◼   ► I'm reviewing both iOS and iPadOS and I need to care about every single feature of those

00:36:48 ◼   ► operating systems. Like there's not a single thing that I can ignore. And it takes me this

00:36:56 ◼   ► amount of time. And honestly, like, you guys have been a huge help in sort of keeping me

00:37:03 ◼   ► in Czech in terms of like feeling good about it and not feeling stressed or depressed or

00:37:09 ◼   ► sad. But like I'm pretty happy at this point that I've been able to reach this point even

00:37:14 ◼   ► if I'm late, like despite all the things that have happened in my life over the summer,

00:37:18 ◼   ► which are still happening and I'm dealing with them, like the fact that I still have

00:37:22 ◼   ► this thing coming along, I'm pretty happy that I was able to put it together. Like I

00:37:26 ◼   ► think given the issues that I've had to deal with over the past few months, I think a lot

00:37:32 ◼   ► of people would have just given up. And I'm feeling pretty good about myself from that

00:37:36 ◼   ► perspective that I'm thankful to have like a support network with Sylvia and with you

00:37:42 ◼   ► guys and with Jon that, you know, and obviously with the people that I'm working with. So

00:37:47 ◼   ► Brian and Ryan, people who are helping, you know, sort of saying to me like, don't worry,

00:37:54 ◼   ► you work on the review, we're going to take care of all these other things. So that's

00:37:58 ◼   ► been a huge help. And yes, it's going to be late. A lot of people will have already watched

00:38:04 ◼   ► YouTube videos, and that's fine. I don't think I've seen any other in-depth review of iOS

00:38:11 ◼   ► and iPadOS. I haven't seen any written reviews. The market for those articles has already

00:38:15 ◼   ► shrunk over the past couple of years, so I'm not surprised. And I've sent segments and

00:38:24 ◼   ► chapters of the review to you guys, and of course to Ryan as well. And I'm pretty confident

00:38:28 ◼   ► about the fact that, as usual, there's going to be a lot of detail in the review and things

00:38:33 ◼   ► that people, even after having watched all those YouTube videos, like little details

00:38:38 ◼   ► that they're not familiar with. And obviously, it's more about understanding why certain

00:38:47 ◼   ► things are done in a certain way. There's always been the goal of my reviews to explain,

00:38:51 ◼   ► Yes, there's a new icon, there's a new menu and it looks like this, but why does this

00:38:57 ◼   ► feature work a certain way? So yeah, I'm going to be late, but I think I'm fine with it now.

00:39:03 ◼   ► Obviously I'm super excited about all the extras that I'm preparing and the graphics

00:39:08 ◼   ► that we're putting together this year. We're doing some really wild things in that department.

00:39:16 ◼   ► I have, unfortunately, run into a problem, big problem, just today.

00:39:23 ◼   ► Oh, yes, yes, yes.

00:39:26 ◼   ► And it's totally my fault. So you know I had a backup phone to take screenshots on iOS

00:39:34 ◼   ► 13.

00:39:35 ◼   ► Your night phone.

00:39:36 ◼   ► My night phone, my XS Max, to do comparisons between iOS 13 and 14. Now, because I'm a

00:39:44 ◼   ► stupid person, I forgot that that phone had the automatic software update feature on.

00:39:52 ◼   ► And now I normally, like, I didn't worry about it because I never left that phone charging

00:40:00 ◼   ► overnight, and during the day the dialogue would come up saying "Do you want to update

00:40:06 ◼   ► your software and I would just say no. But then last night, stupidly, as with the past

00:40:16 ◼   ► few nights, I was up at 5am writing, and I was sleepy, I was very tired, and I didn't

00:40:24 ◼   ► think about it. I put the phone on the charger, and without thinking about it, I clicked OK

00:40:30 ◼   ► on the software update dialogue, thinking "Oh, this is just going to update to 13.7",

00:40:36 ◼   ► it was on 13.6. And much to my surprise, I woke up today and noticed that the phone was

00:40:42 ◼   ► running 14. Which is a big problem for me, because now I don't have a device to take

00:40:47 ◼   ► screenshots for iOS 13 anymore. Well, at least I don't have another max phone, which is the

00:40:54 ◼   ► same size of my 11 Pro Max, to do the proper comparisons between two iPhones of the same

00:41:00 ◼   ► size, between 13 and 14. I've tried to use the simulator, but the simulator sucks. It's

00:41:07 ◼   ► terrible. Like, the performance is horrible and it doesn't have all the apps that I need.

00:41:12 ◼   ► Like Home, for example. You cannot use Home with your account and your accessories on

00:41:17 ◼   ► a simulator. So, the aforementioned friend whom I tried to convince not to update her

00:41:25 ◼   ► phone, she has a XS Max that I could probably use for screenshots. But I mean, realistically,

00:41:33 ◼   ► right? She has a life. She has friends. She communicates with people a lot over WhatsApp.

00:41:40 ◼   ► I don't want to intrude and say, "Hey, can you lend me your phone for like six hours

00:41:45 ◼   ► today?" She's never going to be up for that, right? So realistically speaking, I think

00:41:52 ◼   ► I'm looking at having, tonight, in a few hours, a conversation with Silvia to explain how

00:41:59 ◼   ► I'm going to need to buy an iPhone 11 Pro Max from the Apple Store and return it in

00:42:07 ◼   ► two weeks. Well, the part in the middle is "hope that it still has 13 on it", which

00:42:13 ◼   ► would be the assumption, but we don't know, but you would assume. Assuming that that phone

00:42:18 ◼   ► still has 13 instead of 14. So, yeah, this is a mess because I saved the screenshot taking

00:42:31 ◼   ► step as the very last thing that I do for my iOS reviews during the final stages of

00:42:38 ◼   ► the editing process. And usually that's never a problem.

00:42:42 ◼   ► Never is. Because the iOS version is not usually out

00:42:46 ◼   ► is in usually out. And the backup phone doesn't have the beta profile installed.

00:42:50 ◼   ► You're finding new wonderful things that can get in your way that you've never had to experience

00:42:57 ◼   ► before.

00:42:58 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah. So the hope is that, well, there's multiple levels of hoping, right? First, I

00:43:08 ◼   ► gotta hope that Silvia will understand the problem, that she will understand that this

00:43:14 ◼   ► is the only reasonable measure that needs to be taken at this point. And I also need

00:43:20 ◼   ► to hope that the phone that I buy from the Apple store will have iOS 13 on it instead

00:43:27 ◼   ► of 14. So imagine if I buy it, right? And I get it and it's got 14 and it's useless

00:43:35 ◼   ► and I got to return it. Well, the other thing I was thinking about

00:43:38 ◼   ► is like you start it up and it forces you to update.

00:43:42 ◼   ► - Oh no, can it do that?

00:43:44 ◼   ► No, I think it can.

00:43:45 ◼   ► I think it forces you if you wanna restore from a backup

00:43:49 ◼   ► that was done on the next version.

00:43:52 ◼   ► - I think that's true, okay.

00:43:53 ◼   ► - Otherwise, the solution is just to convince my friend

00:43:56 ◼   ► and promise her a lot of money or a nice present

00:44:01 ◼   ► or something like, please let me use your phone

00:44:04 ◼   ► for like six hours today or just the whole day.

00:44:07 ◼   ► You cannot use your phone.

00:44:08 ◼   ► You need to give me, you need to get me your phone.

00:44:11 ◼   ► And I can take the screenshots.

00:44:13 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:44:14 ◼   ► I honestly, I'm at a loss.

00:44:15 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:44:16 ◼   ► If the phone that I buy from Apple,

00:44:18 ◼   ► if I can convince Sylvia and I get it

00:44:21 ◼   ► and it doesn't have 13, then it's gonna be a big problem.

00:44:24 ◼   ► - Federico, I have the solution.

00:44:26 ◼   ► This is the Galaxy Brain solution

00:44:28 ◼   ► to your problem here, right?

00:44:29 ◼   ► - Okay.

00:44:30 ◼   ► - Convince your friend to not update.

00:44:32 ◼   ► Buy the new phone.

00:44:34 ◼   ► If the new phone has 14, you give it to her.

00:44:37 ◼   ► No, that's quite a gift.

00:44:40 ◼   ► I mean, we're close, but not that close.

00:44:42 ◼   ► What are you going to do, right?

00:44:44 ◼   ► Whatever option do you have at that point?

00:44:47 ◼   ► Well, I guess she can use the phone for a couple of days.

00:44:51 ◼   ► You think that's going to be enough?

00:44:53 ◼   ► That's your Galaxy Brain solution.

00:44:55 ◼   ► You just burn a bit of money.

00:44:59 ◼   ► I think that, yeah.

00:45:02 ◼   ► I have another Galaxy Brain solution for you, something completely different.

00:45:06 ◼   ► Okay.

00:45:07 ◼   ► Your iPhone review, your iOS review is not late if you say it's the iOS 14.2 review.

00:45:13 ◼   ► Sure.

00:45:14 ◼   ► I don't want to put the .2 thing in the title.

00:45:19 ◼   ► Just make it really small.

00:45:21 ◼   ► Like a footnote, like a little tube?

00:45:23 ◼   ► Yeah, like, yeah.

00:45:25 ◼   ► Super small.

00:45:26 ◼   ► That is also a Galaxy Brain idea.

00:45:28 ◼   ► It's not late.

00:45:30 ◼   ► in the Discord recommending solutions like crowdsourced screenshots. Now, what you need

00:45:36 ◼   ► to know about me as a person is that I am very particular when it comes to screenshots.

00:45:44 ◼   ► I have tried this before, right? To crowdsource screenshots from other people. It never works

00:45:50 ◼   ► out. The data won't match. The things won't match and the data will be different and people

00:45:57 ◼   ► will take screenshots with like small details that I cannot accept.

00:46:00 ◼   ► Oh you know what? Actually as a person who has provided screenshots for Federico in the

00:46:05 ◼   ► past, it's a nightmare. Because he's like "oh your battery's too low, you gotta charge

00:46:10 ◼   ► your phone first". You know what? The worst...

00:46:13 ◼   ► You kept the line in the bottom, can you just move the screen down to hide that little...

00:46:19 ◼   ► Like, working with Federico for this, it's nightmarish. So no, there's no other person

00:46:25 ◼   ► in the world that can do this for him?

00:46:26 ◼   ► The worst is when people send me screenshots and there's the scroll bar showing on the

00:46:32 ◼   ► right side of the screen.

00:46:33 ◼   ► Oh, then what are these people?

00:46:35 ◼   ► Don't you know how to take a proper screenshot?

00:46:38 ◼   ► You're supposed to wait a few seconds, let all the interactions stop, this includes the

00:46:43 ◼   ► pointer on iPad, let the scroll bar disappear and then you can take the screenshot.

00:46:49 ◼   ► I mean, I don't need to teach anybody this and yet people get it wrong all the time.

00:46:52 ◼   ► So yeah, I need to do this myself, I realize. Crowdsourcing screenshots is not a solution.

00:46:59 ◼   ► Oh, and it's why you're going to have to give an acquaintance a really expensive present.

00:47:07 ◼   ► That's an idea. Yeah.

00:47:12 ◼   ► Worse comes to worst, and the situation is pretty bad at that point, but worse comes

00:47:16 ◼   ► to worst, that is the way around it, I suppose.

00:47:19 ◼   ► And you're going to explain this to my girlfriend?

00:47:21 ◼   ► No, that's up to you.

00:47:22 ◼   ► That's up to Jon. Let Jon do it.

00:47:23 ◼   ► I mean, you can play Sylvia this part of the show,

00:47:27 ◼   ► and then you can then provide all of the additional context

00:47:30 ◼   ► that Sylvia will require from you.

00:47:33 ◼   ► I mean, you can tell her, if you want, that it was my idea.

00:47:36 ◼   ► I have no problem with that.

00:47:38 ◼   ► But I don't have to, like, take it across the finish line.

00:47:42 ◼   ► That's up to you.

00:47:43 ◼   ► I will have a conversation with Sylvia tonight,

00:47:45 ◼   ► explain -- because, like, we can --

00:47:48 ◼   ► I can buy a phone and I can return it in two weeks. I checked the Italian support pages,

00:47:54 ◼   ► it can be done. The delivery guy will come to pick it up at home for you, you just need to

00:48:00 ◼   ► print out the shipping label. So that can be done. But yeah, it's a conversation that we need to have,

00:48:04 ◼   ► I guess. I am incredibly confident that if you buy that phone, it will have 13 on it. I'm incredibly

00:48:12 ◼   ► confident. It may not even be 13.7. Yeah, it will be whatever it was when that thing shipped. Right,

00:48:17 ◼   ► Your issue will be if there's any kind of software update in the process.

00:48:22 ◼   ► I mean, and then your other problem is like, what if it's 13 point something?

00:48:27 ◼   ► That's fine.

00:48:29 ◼   ► But it's not the right...

00:48:32 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:48:32 ◼   ► No, it's fine.

00:48:33 ◼   ► There are no meaningful changes, design-wise or feature-wise.

00:48:38 ◼   ► For example, reminders in 13.6 and 13.7, it's the same.

00:48:45 ◼   ► And also, I'm going to have a disclaimer in the review, just like I did last year,

00:48:51 ◼   ► to explain on which devices where this screenshot is taken. So that's going to be fine.

00:48:57 ◼   ► But yeah, the primary issue here is getting the phone. And I think my only solution here

00:49:04 ◼   ► is to actually buy one from Apple and give it back in two weeks. Which means I will have to be done

00:49:10 ◼   ► not in two weeks. Or at least the screenshots will have to be done.

00:49:14 ◼   ► At least the screenshots. I mean, that's like a thing. That's a thing you could do, right?

00:49:18 ◼   ► Like, you know. Finish writing by Sunday and then think about editing and doing the screenshots

00:49:23 ◼   ► and returning the phone. That's the plan. Yeah. This has been an adventure this summer.

00:49:31 ◼   ► It's been the most difficult thing I've done to date, I think. But despite that, I don't

00:49:39 ◼   ► feel destroyed yet I may be asked me again in a couple of weeks.

00:49:44 ◼   ► Well I mean I think the benefit is in the sense that you knew you were gonna

00:49:51 ◼   ► be late and so late you've not increased the pace of work based on where you

00:49:56 ◼   ► would normally be this time every year. I have over the past week but yeah I mean

00:50:02 ◼   ► I'm staying up late yeah. But there's always a crunch period no matter what

00:50:06 ◼   ► Yeah, right. So, you know, I

00:50:08 ◼   ► Don't I get the impression that you are on like a similar trajectory that you would be every year

00:50:15 ◼   ► Because it's like that thing we were talking about last week if they had said the iOS 14 came out on the 25th of September

00:50:22 ◼   ► You would have busted your butt to get it done because you would have had like a semi achievable goal

00:50:29 ◼   ► But them saying like it was the best thing could have happened to you them saying tomorrow

00:50:34 ◼   ► There's just no way it could have been done. So now you're just kind of working to a somewhat regular timeline

00:50:40 ◼   ► Which is very true

00:50:41 ◼   ► Noted about three weeks after where you would have been which kind of makes sense because you lost three weeks at the start

00:50:46 ◼   ► I think it's a confusing feature someone clicks later and they think they're gonna be

00:50:50 ◼   ► Reminded later not that it's gonna download and install at night

00:50:55 ◼   ► I guess there's so much in there that I think could be clearer for people

00:50:58 ◼   ► Yeah, but I shouldn't have

00:51:00 ◼   ► clicked

00:51:01 ◼   ► Buttons at 5 a.m. Right? I was so tired. I was like, yeah, whatever. I'm just gonna click

00:51:06 ◼   ► Okay that that I will I will say that that was that was short-sighted

00:51:10 ◼   ► Yes

00:51:13 ◼   ► Yes, but again now you've learned a valuable lesson about to testifies

00:51:19 ◼   ► Mmm. Yeah

00:51:22 ◼   ► And especially when iOS releases are early or I'm late. Yeah

00:51:26 ◼   ► Yeah, you'll have a whole system in place and then never have to do this again

00:51:29 ◼   ► That's how it's going to go.

00:51:34 ◼   ► This episode of Connected is brought to you by StoryWorth.

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00:53:43 ◼   ► So watchOS 7 is out as well as iOS 14 and I wanted to talk about a few things that I

00:53:51 ◼   ► have noticed and liked about watchOS 7.

00:53:54 ◼   ► So I've been wearing my watch for the last few days or whatever since it came out because

00:53:59 ◼   ► I wanted to kind of get a sense of what was going on and also I was intrigued by some

00:54:03 ◼   ► of the new watch faces.

00:54:05 ◼   ► I really like the typograph face.

00:54:08 ◼   ► I think it is very attractive.

00:54:10 ◼   ► It is not very good as a watch face itself in the way that I have it set up.

00:54:16 ◼   ► This is the one that's basically just the big numbers and you have a few different options

00:54:20 ◼   ► for the font that you want to use and stuff like that.

00:54:23 ◼   ► But I use the version where it's just the four very large numbers and I think it's in,

00:54:30 ◼   ► I'm not sure what font it is but it might be some version of the New York font that

00:54:35 ◼   ► Apple is using.

00:54:36 ◼   ► basically I'm using it in the configuration that Apple ships it in

00:54:39 ◼   ► right but I'm just using with white numbers on a black background. The problem

00:54:45 ◼   ► is it's with the numbers being as large as they are it's actually a little bit

00:54:48 ◼   ► more tricky than usual to sometimes work out exactly what hour the watch is

00:54:52 ◼   ► pointing to but the reason that I'm using this face is because I find it

00:54:57 ◼   ► aesthetically pleasing. I like it so it looks very nice and I'm happy with it.

00:55:02 ◼   ► I realise that my typical tastes for Apple Watch faces are the ones that are actually

00:55:14 ◼   ► the least useful, so I like California and typograph the most.

00:55:20 ◼   ► I don't like the California version where it turns it into a circle and you put the

00:55:23 ◼   ► infograph things around the outside.

00:55:27 ◼   ► What this kind of continues to show to me is that I would really appreciate Apple continuing

00:55:35 ◼   ► to open up and really think about this because I could very easily put at least one or two

00:55:41 ◼   ► small complications on the typograph face because there is like the corners, like I

00:55:46 ◼   ► could just have one of the circle ones, not like the corner ones but like the little circle

00:55:49 ◼   ► ones to allow me to do something.

00:55:52 ◼   ► I still think that there is a way that they can go with a lot of these watch faces to

00:55:58 ◼   ► still make them more useful without completely compromising their design.

00:56:02 ◼   ► And there seems to be, it's very weird to me where it's like you can either have this

00:56:08 ◼   ► thing that looks nice or you can take away everything that looks good about it so you

00:56:11 ◼   ► can put complications on it.

00:56:13 ◼   ► And there's no middle ground.

00:56:15 ◼   ► Like in the California face is the one that really does it for me.

00:56:18 ◼   ► So this is the one that they introduced last year that in its standard configuration, which

00:56:23 ◼   ► is how I have it, you have Roman numerals on the top half and numbers on the bottom

00:56:26 ◼   ► half.

00:56:27 ◼   ► And the only way that you can add complications to this face, there's one you can put on the

00:56:32 ◼   ► middle but if you don't want one of the circle ones you have to completely destroy it in

00:56:36 ◼   ► my opinion by turning it from going all the way around the outside to being just in the

00:56:41 ◼   ► middle and then it just, I think it ruins what I like about it aesthetically.

00:56:45 ◼   ► I just feel like they have yet to find for a lot of their watch faces a middle ground

00:56:51 ◼   ► between functionality and form.

00:56:54 ◼   ► Nevertheless I do really like this one.

00:56:57 ◼   ► The GMT face I also do really like but I have realized that the typical design of the corner

00:57:04 ◼   ► complications I don't like.

00:57:06 ◼   ► I find them too busy.

00:57:07 ◼   ► So these are the ones that have some icon and then a bar that goes around the outside.

00:57:13 ◼   ► it's a little too busy for me.

00:57:15 ◼   ► So I'm still tweaking it and I want to see if there's some kind of view

00:57:19 ◼   ► that I can get that I enjoy, but there's just too much, right?

00:57:23 ◼   ► So like, for example, I have Carrot Weather on the top left

00:57:27 ◼   ► on the GMT face and my activities on the top right.

00:57:31 ◼   ► And they both have an icon that sits in the corner

00:57:33 ◼   ► and then some kind of text or visual representation of like a bar

00:57:36 ◼   ► that goes around the watch face.

00:57:38 ◼   ► You guys are following me, right? You know what I'm talking about?

00:57:40 ◼   ► But the bars, so like carrot weather has a temperature one, right?

00:57:45 ◼   ► So it shows you from like the lowest to the highest temperature and where you are

00:57:49 ◼   ► on that level right now, right?

00:57:51 ◼   ► That goes around, kind of follows around the outside of the circular face.

00:57:54 ◼   ► And then the activity complication has your numbers, right?

00:57:59 ◼   ► So your move numbers, your exercise numbers, that kind of thing.

00:58:01 ◼   ► But they're completely different physical sizes.

00:58:04 ◼   ► So it looks off to me.

00:58:08 ◼   ► And so like it just visually it's mismatched, it tastes symmetrical.

00:58:13 ◼   ► And I really don't like the way that that looks.

00:58:16 ◼   ► So basically I continue and I think I'm going to continue for all of time

00:58:22 ◼   ► to beat the drum of the form and function of Apple Watch faces doesn't match up.

00:58:28 ◼   ► It's either you can have it look beautiful.

00:58:30 ◼   ► This is all my opinion, right?

00:58:32 ◼   ► For me, for my tastes, I can either have it look really nice

00:58:35 ◼   ► or I can have it look like bleep bloop.

00:58:37 ◼   ► I'm a computer and there's nothing in the middle that I find works.

00:58:43 ◼   ► And again, if I wore my Apple Watch every day, I would go with I want a data led face

00:58:50 ◼   ► because then I'm wearing my watch for information.

00:58:54 ◼   ► But that's not how I typically want my watch to be.

00:58:58 ◼   ► Anyway, a feature that I do really love, surprisingly, is the hand washing feature.

00:59:05 ◼   ► I like it.

00:59:06 ◼   ► I think it's really nice. It turns on sometimes when I expect it not to, or when I'm not washing

00:59:12 ◼   ► my hands, like if I was washing something in the sink or something, where I don't need

00:59:17 ◼   ► to be in hand washing mode. But I think it's really good to know, I am doing, boys, I'm

00:59:23 ◼   ► doing a good job washing my hands.

00:59:25 ◼   ► Do you even need those reminders anymore? Like has it not become second nature?

00:59:30 ◼   ► I don't need the reminders, so I don't have the reminders on, but when I am washing my

00:59:36 ◼   ► hands I like to know that I'm doing a better job than what I should be.

00:59:43 ◼   ► Because my typical average hand washing time is 27 seconds, which is longer than most people

00:59:49 ◼   ► will tell you is necessary.

00:59:51 ◼   ► It's like I think the typical time is 20 seconds, right?

00:59:54 ◼   ► I really like to get in there, scrub these hands.

00:59:57 ◼   ► I have a process, like I have like a whole process that I do.

01:00:02 ◼   ► But there have been times recently where I'm kind of, I'm like not paying attention and

01:00:07 ◼   ► I wash my hands and I'm like, oh did I, I don't know if I did a good enough job there.

01:00:11 ◼   ► That's happened to me.

01:00:12 ◼   ► But now the Apple Watch is reminding me, plus it gives me the little thumbs up and it's

01:00:15 ◼   ► like ah I feel good about myself, right?

01:00:17 ◼   ► Like I did it everyone, stayin' healthy.

01:00:20 ◼   ► So it's nice, right, but it is not a vital feature, it is not a perfectly reliable feature,

01:00:27 ◼   ► But it's at least something where it's like I'm enjoying the moment, the little thumbs

01:00:30 ◼   ► up.

01:00:31 ◼   ► It's like, you're doing a good job boy, keeping yourself clean.

01:00:35 ◼   ► I think I'm washing my hands way more than the average person because when I'm at my

01:00:40 ◼   ► studio I am moving in between safe and unsafe areas more than a normal person would do.

01:00:51 ◼   ► when I'm in the studio, we're like, okay,

01:00:53 ◼   ► everything is under our control.

01:00:55 ◼   ► But if I ever go outside of it,

01:00:58 ◼   ► so if I'm going out to get water or whatever,

01:01:01 ◼   ► I wanna make sure I'm doing the good hand washing process.

01:01:03 ◼   ► So it's like a whole thing.

01:01:05 ◼   ► So yeah, I do have a feeling,

01:01:08 ◼   ► and I want you to kind of get your opinion

01:01:10 ◼   ► on this, the two of you.

01:01:12 ◼   ► I have the feeling of thinking of maybe trying

01:01:15 ◼   ► to actually use my Apple Watch more like an Apple Watch

01:01:18 ◼   ► at the moment to actually try and get back into sense

01:01:22 ◼   ► of what it is like to use an Apple Watch.

01:01:24 ◼   ► So what I wanted from the two of you was for me to,

01:01:29 ◼   ► over the next week, bring back some of the more typical

01:01:33 ◼   ► Apple Watch features and I want you two to give me

01:01:36 ◼   ► suggestions of the things that I should be doing.

01:01:39 ◼   ► - Okay.

01:01:43 ◼   ► - So bear in mind, so bear in mind,

01:01:44 ◼   ► I wanna just give you guys just the lay of the land, right?

01:01:48 ◼   ► My Apple Watch is on Do Not Disturb constantly,

01:01:52 ◼   ► and I could not even tell you what apps

01:01:54 ◼   ► I have installed on it.

01:01:55 ◼   ► - Okay, okay.

01:01:55 ◼   ► - So like, just to give you the lay of the land here.

01:01:57 ◼   ► - But what's your stance on workouts?

01:02:02 ◼   ► - I mean, all right.

01:02:02 ◼   ► - Besides, but like, can you, like, do you,

01:02:07 ◼   ► knowing you, I don't think you like to go running,

01:02:09 ◼   ► for example.

01:02:11 ◼   ► - No, I'm actually, the 30 minute workout thing

01:02:15 ◼   ► is a bit of a sore spot for me right now,

01:02:17 ◼   ► because I'm dealing with an injury.

01:02:20 ◼   ► You can customize it now. I think you can bring it out ten minutes in virtual seven.

01:02:24 ◼   ► So that can be changed.

01:02:26 ◼   ► I haven't tried that.

01:02:27 ◼   ► Okay. But like something like yoga, for example, I think is that all right as an option?

01:02:33 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:02:34 ◼   ► Okay. Okay. So do we need to give you ideas now or next week?

01:02:40 ◼   ► Well, we can do it next week if you two want to think about it, and then I can do it from

01:02:44 ◼   ► next week for a week.

01:02:45 ◼   ► I have a couple that you should already consider.

01:02:49 ◼   ► One of them is putting a complication on your watch face for Home Run, which is the Home

01:02:53 ◼   ► Kit utility that lets you super quickly activate specific scenes from your watch.

01:02:59 ◼   ► Yeah, but you see, I don't really have any scenes.

01:03:02 ◼   ► I have one scene.

01:03:03 ◼   ► Like, I only have a lot of Home Kit devices.

01:03:08 ◼   ► You have lights?

01:03:09 ◼   ► You have a HomePod?

01:03:11 ◼   ► You can do things?

01:03:12 ◼   ► Yeah, but like...

01:03:13 ◼   ► What?

01:03:14 ◼   ► I mean, okay.

01:03:15 ◼   ► scenes for changing the colors for playing music but I don't do any not

01:03:19 ◼   ► even playing music I don't like oh my god it's gonna be challenging I don't

01:03:24 ◼   ► play a lot of music at home and I'm also not at home in the daytime anymore what

01:03:30 ◼   ► about the studio do you don't have home pods here we're an echo we're an echo

01:03:33 ◼   ► unit come on you're not making it easy for myself though well I never said that

01:03:38 ◼   ► this was gonna be a simple challenge how am I supposed to win at this challenge

01:03:42 ◼   ► if you don't give me the tools to win.

01:03:44 ◼   ► Oh, there wasn't a case for you to win.

01:03:47 ◼   ► You said it was a challenge for us and I took it literally.

01:03:50 ◼   ► Oh, sure. I said it was a challenge for you.

01:03:53 ◼   ► I need to give you better ideas than Steven. That's the point.

01:03:56 ◼   ► Ah, I see now. Alright.

01:03:59 ◼   ► So do you two want to go away and think about it?

01:04:03 ◼   ► Yes.

01:04:04 ◼   ► Okay. So next week...

01:04:06 ◼   ► There's an obvious one. I cannot believe I didn't mention this. Shortcuts. You can put

01:04:10 ◼   ► shortcuts on your watch.

01:04:11 ◼   ► Yeah, I have one to add tasks to OmniFocus and I put it on the watch face.

01:04:16 ◼   ► But you see, the thing is, I want to kind of take all of the suggestions in from you

01:04:21 ◼   ► because if we're going to start doing complications, then I need to choose a new watch face.

01:04:25 ◼   ► Because the watch face that I'm using doesn't allow for complications.

01:04:28 ◼   ► I think complications are critical to using it like an Apple Watch.

01:04:32 ◼   ► Because then...

01:04:33 ◼   ► Yes, forget about the dock, just use complications.

01:04:36 ◼   ► I want to think on it too, but I think step one will be take that thing off of Do Not

01:04:40 ◼   ► disturb and manage your notifications, decide what you really want there. Just

01:04:45 ◼   ► like everyone else, you know, everyone wades through the garbage fire

01:04:50 ◼   ► of their notifications and you should too. Alright so here's where we'll start

01:04:53 ◼   ► with this, right? We'll make this like a couple of week process. The first thing

01:04:57 ◼   ► I'll do is what I have just done, my watch is now off do not disturb. Okay. So

01:05:02 ◼   ► over the next week I'll be trying to use notifications more like a regular Apple

01:05:06 ◼   ► watch user again and then on next week's show the two of you can each give me two

01:05:12 ◼   ► things that you so if you two both pay attention to how you use your Apple

01:05:16 ◼   ► watches over the next couple of weeks and outside of the next week and

01:05:19 ◼   ► outside of notifications give me two things that you really love to do that

01:05:24 ◼   ► your Apple watch does that makes a material difference in your day to day

01:05:28 ◼   ► life and then I will I will enable those things and run that for another week

01:05:33 ◼   ► Does that sound good?

01:05:34 ◼   ► In the meantime, can you buy an AirPlay speaker for the studio?

01:05:37 ◼   ► Yeah, but...

01:05:38 ◼   ► [Laughter]

01:05:40 ◼   ► But like...

01:05:41 ◼   ► Look, I gotta buy a phone! The least you can do is buy a speaker.

01:05:44 ◼   ► What do I need it for?

01:05:46 ◼   ► For me to win the challenge of ideas.

01:05:49 ◼   ► Okay. So like, what is an AirPlay speaker? Like, what?

01:05:52 ◼   ► An AirPlay 2 speaker.

01:05:54 ◼   ► Yeah, but like, what though? Like, what products are AirPlay 2 speakers outside of HomePod?

01:05:59 ◼   ► Maybe, I don't know, Bose maybe or something with Airplay support, B&O, they probably have

01:06:05 ◼   ► one.

01:06:06 ◼   ► I'm not sure.

01:06:07 ◼   ► Sonos, I mean Sonos has a bunch.

01:06:08 ◼   ► But like I have like two Echos and a Sonos.

01:06:11 ◼   ► Yeah, like it's...

01:06:12 ◼   ► Alright, alright, it's fine.

01:06:14 ◼   ► Okay, we will not do Airplay automations.

01:06:17 ◼   ► But I will think about it.

01:06:21 ◼   ► Before we move on, one of my favorite watchOS 7 features is the screen where you add complications

01:06:28 ◼   ► now gives you a preview of what those complications look like. So I'm on the utility face and

01:06:36 ◼   ► the large one, I'm tapped and scrolling through and I can see heart rate and news and Nike

01:06:40 ◼   ► Run Club and all these other things. And I get a feel for what they will look like and

01:06:45 ◼   ► what they can do. I think that's a really nice addition, much better than just like

01:06:49 ◼   ► scrolling through a bunch of app names trying to guess what you want. It's nice. It's a

01:06:53 ◼   ► nice touch.

01:06:54 ◼   ► But I will say Federico, I have no intention of buying a new Apple Watch.

01:06:58 ◼   ► You see, I don't believe you. I don't believe you. Like I respect you, but I don't believe

01:07:03 ◼   ► you. I think it's going to happen.

01:07:05 ◼   ► I have a question in the respect that you have.

01:07:07 ◼   ► No, I just need to say it upfront, because maybe you may think that also with the lack

01:07:11 ◼   ► of an Apple Watch comes the loss of respect. That's not the case. However, I do not believe

01:07:17 ◼   ► you.

01:07:18 ◼   ► Okay. All right. That's fine.

01:07:19 ◼   ► I think you will get it. And also soon. I think I will say before the end of the year.

01:07:23 ◼   ► Yeah, we had a, we have a date in the document of December 16th has Myke bought a series

01:07:28 ◼   ► six Apple watch. Okay. I really want to buy one on December 17th now just to like, Oh

01:07:33 ◼   ► no. Oh, I just got my first notification. It was from John Voorhees. He sent, he sent

01:07:40 ◼   ► me a text message. So there we go. I just wanted to say the reason I've mentioned this

01:07:45 ◼   ► is because that was a physically weird experience for me to film my watch tap me because that

01:07:50 ◼   ► has not happened in a very, very long time.

01:07:52 ◼   ► So I'm gonna have to get used to that.

01:07:55 ◼   ► - I have one listener request before we move on.

01:08:00 ◼   ► I have tried out a bunch of the new watch faces.

01:08:02 ◼   ► I think the GMT watch face is really cool.

01:08:05 ◼   ► It's kind of like throws back to the time travel feature.

01:08:07 ◼   ► Like you rock the crown and something happens,

01:08:10 ◼   ► which is neat.

01:08:11 ◼   ► How in the world do you set which time zone show up

01:08:16 ◼   ► in that scroll-y bit?

01:08:18 ◼   ► If you can, I cannot find it.

01:08:20 ◼   ► My guess is that Apple just did this halfway

01:08:22 ◼   ► and didn't bother to adjust it, but I cannot find it.

01:08:27 ◼   ► - Oh no, it's doable.

01:08:29 ◼   ► It's in, oh man, see I've done it,

01:08:32 ◼   ► and now I don't remember how I did it.

01:08:35 ◼   ► - It's not the world clock app

01:08:36 ◼   ► because that has just the cities I want

01:08:38 ◼   ► and that's not reflected on the GMT watch face.

01:08:42 ◼   ► It's not on the edit watch face screen, best I can tell.

01:08:44 ◼   ► I can change the color and the complications,

01:08:47 ◼   ► but I can't seem to change the cities.

01:08:50 ◼   ► And under settings, I'm scrolling through settings now,

01:08:54 ◼   ► don't really see a place where it could be.

01:08:58 ◼   ► - Now I know I've done it, and now I can't find it.

01:09:01 ◼   ► - So if you go to GMT, it shows you a custom list.

01:09:04 ◼   ► - A custom list of what?

01:09:05 ◼   ► - So if you go to the GMT watch face,

01:09:07 ◼   ► and you tap or you scroll with the digital crown

01:09:10 ◼   ► to see the different time zones,

01:09:12 ◼   ► have you customized that list?

01:09:16 ◼   ► Or does it have like two dozen cities in it you don't care about?

01:09:18 ◼   ► I honestly, I can't, I don't know what you're talking about right now.

01:09:22 ◼   ► Do you, are you wearing your Apple watch right now? You're wearing it right now.

01:09:24 ◼   ► Go to the GMT watch face. Yeah. And scroll the digital crown.

01:09:29 ◼   ► Oh yeah. Sorry. Okay. Okay. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry.

01:09:32 ◼   ► You tapped the middle of the watch face.

01:09:34 ◼   ► Yes. Or scroll the crown. Both get you into this mode. Yeah.

01:09:37 ◼   ► I cannot work out like it's, uh,

01:09:40 ◼   ► all these cities in here that I don't care about. Sorry.

01:09:44 ◼   ► It doesn't matter. The cities don't matter though. You've just got to pick the time zone.

01:09:50 ◼   ► You're picking a time zone. So this is the way...

01:09:52 ◼   ► But every world clock that Apple sips lets you customize it by city in their own world

01:09:58 ◼   ► clock app in their watchOS. It's right there.

01:10:01 ◼   ► I can help you. Let me help you.

01:10:03 ◼   ► I don't want to hear about your fancy GMT watches in the real world. This is a computer

01:10:07 ◼   ► watch. Let me customize it.

01:10:08 ◼   ► What's happening?

01:10:09 ◼   ► This is one of the things that they're doing.

01:10:11 ◼   ► I see you're upset.

01:10:12 ◼   ► One typical watch design. Now you can argue as to like for some reason Apple picks and

01:10:17 ◼   ► chooses whenever it wants to do this. But in typical watch design when you have world

01:10:21 ◼   ► timers which is a SIS or a GMT you just you are setting to the time zone and the biggest

01:10:29 ◼   ► city in that time zone. So what time zone are you looking for?

01:10:33 ◼   ► I want to look and see where what time is it where people I work with live. Just the

01:10:39 ◼   ► way the world clock works just the way their other complications work.

01:10:42 ◼   ► Yeah, well you've, alright, so you just need to remember, like, I have London, Paris, Rome,

01:10:47 ◼   ► here, Athens.

01:10:49 ◼   ► Yeah, and then a bunch of places you don't know where anyone lives.

01:10:52 ◼   ► Like this is what I'm, this is my, like, core frustration with the Apple Watch is they,

01:10:57 ◼   ► they pick certain things that they're saying, "Oh my gosh, we cannot cross this line because

01:11:02 ◼   ► watches have been this way for a thousand years."

01:11:03 ◼   ► Yes.

01:11:04 ◼   ► And they have other ways, other things they just burn things down and do things new.

01:11:08 ◼   ► It's like, this is one of those things that...

01:11:09 ◼   ► That's exactly what I was saying. It's the form function thing, right? Sometimes you

01:11:13 ◼   ► want to be a watch and sometimes you want to be a computer, but you for some reason

01:11:17 ◼   ► can never mix those two things together. And this is one of those where they have decided

01:11:21 ◼   ► they want to be a watch.

01:11:23 ◼   ► I find it a stupid limitation. It's a computer, like let me customize it.

01:11:29 ◼   ► I do think that as well as the standard list, if you add something in in the world clock

01:11:34 ◼   ► on the phone, it also adds, which is why I have Rome, because I wouldn't have Rome. I

01:11:39 ◼   ► would just have Paris in this list. But you and I also have Memphis and I

01:11:45 ◼   ► wouldn't have Memphis. Right, yeah, yeah, it adds them but I want to remove the

01:11:49 ◼   ► others and I think that's like a silly limitation. Then it's just giving you the

01:11:54 ◼   ► list of the world's time zones. It's like so close to what I want. The story of the

01:11:59 ◼   ► Apple Watch. Yeah, but to see the thing is though like I know what you're saying

01:12:03 ◼   ► but if you're thinking of it as a world timer which this is it's actually more

01:12:07 ◼   ► of a world time in a GMT but nevertheless. But only fancy watch people care about that stuff.

01:12:12 ◼   ► No but there's genuine utility to having a second time zone and it's also super useful.

01:12:17 ◼   ► Okay this watch would be more useful for you now with all of these options if you were traveling

01:12:22 ◼   ► right because you will go to a place you're like oh I'm in a different time zone oh but it's not

01:12:27 ◼   ► one that I track and then you can just add it in. I only go to the west coast like it's the only

01:12:31 ◼   ► place I travel to. I mean, this watch face to me just it is the epitome of why

01:12:39 ◼   ► watchOS is frustrating because Apple is not consistent in its own decision

01:12:42 ◼   ► making. Like and I get that like I totally get and actually respect that

01:12:47 ◼   ► this is like a watch category and I think like the mechanical watches the

01:12:50 ◼   ► way they work like in this type is fascinating like that's awesome but give

01:12:57 ◼   ► me the option because I've got a computer on my wrist to say I don't necessarily want

01:13:01 ◼   ► all all the time zones I just want the time zones that I've selected or I just want the

01:13:06 ◼   ► cities that I've selected because most people even though the art and history and like all

01:13:11 ◼   ► that all that is cool like I'm not discounting that but on the Apple watch I should be able

01:13:16 ◼   ► to say I don't want that I want this other thing that is actually more useful to me.

01:13:22 ◼   ► I have a secondary annoyance about the GMT face.

01:13:26 ◼   ► You can have multiple colors but only the ones Apple allows.

01:13:30 ◼   ► Yes, frustrating.

01:13:31 ◼   ► Why can't I say I want this color and this color?

01:13:34 ◼   ► Why do I have to choose from a billion color list but they're only colors that they've

01:13:39 ◼   ► pre-chosen for me?

01:13:41 ◼   ► I totally agree with you.

01:13:42 ◼   ► Turns out people like customization.

01:13:45 ◼   ► You know, my closing thoughts on watchOS 7 is it's very rare that a new version of watchOS

01:13:50 ◼   ► changes the way that I use the Apple Watch

01:13:54 ◼   ► or the way I interact with it.

01:13:55 ◼   ► And I feel like watchOS 7 falls in that category.

01:13:57 ◼   ► Like, yeah, like there's some niceties,

01:13:59 ◼   ► but none of it has really like radically changed

01:14:03 ◼   ► how I feel or think about my watch.

01:14:05 ◼   ► This episode of Connected is also brought to you by Reedle.

01:14:09 ◼   ► Reedle is a maker of essential productivity apps

01:14:12 ◼   ► and they're always updating and improving their products.

01:14:16 ◼   ► 150 million people have downloaded their apps.

01:14:19 ◼   ► And what's cool is they're a self funded company with about 200 people.

01:14:23 ◼   ► They were there on day one of the App Store 12 years ago.

01:14:28 ◼   ► And their apps are adding amazing widgets and other features for iOS 14.

01:14:33 ◼   ► Documents is an app super app for file actions, widgets or files and actions picture and picture

01:14:39 ◼   ► support on the iPhone scribble support.

01:14:41 ◼   ► And their spark which is an email client for professionals like Myke where a person and

01:14:46 ◼   ► their team can work around an email message. Again, there's widgets for emails and calendar.

01:14:53 ◼   ► You can see the most important emails or upcoming events right on your home screen with spark

01:14:57 ◼   ► and you have an option soon to set it as the default email app on iOS 14, which is a great

01:15:03 ◼   ► feature. I think you can do that now. I think that that I think that went through I've actually

01:15:07 ◼   ► done it. So you can you can I now have spark as my default application for email. They

01:15:13 ◼   ► They also make calendars, which is a beautiful and intuitive calendar app, again with widgets

01:15:17 ◼   ► for events and tasks, Siri shortcut support, the option to create events with your voice,

01:15:23 ◼   ► and really fast search.

01:15:25 ◼   ► So you said you set Spark as your default email.

01:15:30 ◼   ► Give me something that you love about Spark over Apple's built-in email app.

01:15:34 ◼   ► So I, like many people, have to file receipts for my taxes, right?

01:15:41 ◼   ► And the way that I do that is I have an application that my accountant makes me use where I upload

01:15:47 ◼   ► the receipts to.

01:15:50 ◼   ► And I can do this with a shortcut.

01:15:51 ◼   ► So I have a PDF and then I can just buy a shortcut, put it in a Dropbox folder which

01:15:55 ◼   ► this application pulls stuff from.

01:15:58 ◼   ► But the way I need to do that is to create a PDF from an email.

01:16:02 ◼   ► Now if you use many email applications you will have to go maybe go into a menu and select

01:16:09 ◼   ► PDF or go into a menu and select print and then do the pinch to expand type thing. But

01:16:14 ◼   ► Spark has two features to make this easy. One is a native action to turn an email into

01:16:19 ◼   ► a PDF which is a tap of a button. So you're looking at an email, you can just tap a button

01:16:24 ◼   ► and it's right there. And also the every email has like a bar along the bottom with little

01:16:28 ◼   ► actions like reply and archive and that stuff. But you can customize that. And I have added

01:16:33 ◼   ► the PDF button to that bar. So I'm in an email and there's a button that says PDF, I tap

01:16:38 ◼   ► it and then the share sheet just pops up like what do you want to do with it and just run

01:16:42 ◼   ► my shortcut super easy. I love it for that. I do this multiple times a day and it is so

01:16:47 ◼   ► much nicer than any of the other ways that I've ever tried to do my receipt stuff. So

01:16:53 ◼   ► go check out read all's impressive collection of essential productivity apps at read all

01:16:57 ◼   ► dot com that's r e a d d l e dot com and you can check out sparks website at spark mail

01:17:05 ◼   ► app.com. Our thanks to Riedel for the support of the show and all of Relay FM.

01:17:11 ◼   ► So let's talk about widgets and home screens and all that fun stuff because that's clearly

01:17:16 ◼   ► for multiple reasons it's the big thing especially for iPhone iOS right like iOS 14 on the iPhone

01:17:23 ◼   ► is the big thing and also has been the talk of the town because of the many applications

01:17:28 ◼   ► that are allowing for widgets to be added in.

01:17:31 ◼   ► Obviously, we would be talking about Widgetsmith

01:17:36 ◼   ► because we love _DavidSmith on this show,

01:17:38 ◼   ► and it's an app that we've all been using.

01:17:40 ◼   ► So we have been meaning to talk about widgets for a while

01:17:43 ◼   ► and just hadn't gotten to it.

01:17:45 ◼   ► We were going to talk about it before iOS.

01:17:47 ◼   ► And Widgetsmith was a thing that we were all going to talk about.

01:17:51 ◼   ► But then the entire world started

01:17:52 ◼   ► talking about Widgetsmith anyway, as it has gone just--

01:17:55 ◼   ► We're so lucky that we knew Underscore before he was famous.

01:18:01 ◼   ► Hopefully, he can still talk to us.

01:18:03 ◼   ► I wonder if our questions will have to go through his assistant now.

01:18:06 ◼   ► He's the world's most famous developer.

01:18:10 ◼   ► Right now, he might be?

01:18:14 ◼   ► Honestly, I think he is.

01:18:15 ◼   ► Like, I'm not kidding.

01:18:16 ◼   ► Right now, Dave might be one of the most famous developers in the world.

01:18:22 ◼   ► his app is charting higher than TikTok on the App Store.

01:18:26 ◼   ► So it's still number one, you know, it's been number one free app since Friday.

01:18:31 ◼   ► It's just unbelievable. But anyway, so there's been lots of widget stuff.

01:18:36 ◼   ► So I kind of wanted to talk a little bit about widgets in general, how I'm feeling about them,

01:18:43 ◼   ► and then maybe also talk about some of the ones that I've been using.

01:18:48 ◼   ► My kind of widget strategy right now is still in flux a little bit because there are applications

01:18:54 ◼   ► that I'm confident will have widgets or I hope will have widgets and they don't yet.

01:19:01 ◼   ► So I don't want to remove their icons from my home screen nor do I really want to tinker around with

01:19:08 ◼   ► my home screen too much until I kind of feel like everything's in place. So what I mean by this is

01:19:13 ◼   ► I'm using the fantastical widget, right? But I still have fantastical on my home screen

01:19:17 ◼   ► because I don't want to remove just that one application because that's not enough to add in,

01:19:23 ◼   ► say, like a small widget. I need to remove like another three applications, which may be possible

01:19:28 ◼   ► for me in the future, but not right now. You following? Right? Like I don't want to start

01:19:32 ◼   ► removing stuff until I feel like I've got all of the widgets in place that I want to be able to use

01:19:39 ◼   ► and then I will like completely blow away my home screen again.

01:19:42 ◼   ► So as it stands right now I have a four by four grid of applications on my main

01:19:49 ◼   ► home screen with one medium widget at the top which I'm

01:19:53 ◼   ► cycling between Fantastical and Carrotweather as my widgets that

01:19:57 ◼   ► live at the top there in a stack. Then I have a second page

01:20:00 ◼   ► where I have the Widgetsmith world timer

01:20:05 ◼   ► like thing that the the time zones thing so i can see multiple time zones

01:20:09 ◼   ► i have the widgetsmith pedometer a widgetsmith photo and album

01:20:13 ◼   ► and then two time re-widgets the time re-widgets are still in beta by the way

01:20:18 ◼   ► so that's kind of where i am right now but like

01:20:21 ◼   ► i will want to use uh i want there to be a widget for

01:20:26 ◼   ► omni focus which i'm currently using as my task manager of choice

01:20:29 ◼   ► there isn't one right now so i figure that will become a thing

01:20:33 ◼   ► Maybe. I don't know. Maybe. And then maybe some other applications. I'm in flux.

01:20:38 ◼   ► You guys following me? Because I feel like we haven't yet seen all of the widgets that we

01:20:43 ◼   ► could currently see. And so I don't want to completely obliterate my home screen until I

01:20:49 ◼   ► kind of know I want those widgets. Right? Because like for example, a good thing of this is like,

01:20:54 ◼   ► oh, Dew. I use Dew all the time. I use it every single day. They have widgets, but I don't want

01:21:00 ◼   ► to use the DUE widget because the DUE widget shows me what's in my list of stuff to do,

01:21:08 ◼   ► but it turns out I don't need to see that information. I don't need it. I will just

01:21:13 ◼   ► deal with DUE when it pops up to give me the notification. I don't need to see the list.

01:21:17 ◼   ► So this is the thing that I'm realizing is just because you use an app multiple times a day

01:21:24 ◼   ► doesn't mean you need to see its widget. And I might feel that way about OmniFocus,

01:21:29 ◼   ► that I don't need to see any information from inside of OmniFocus, so therefore I

01:21:34 ◼   ► may as well just keep the app icon and not replace it with a widget. So I feel

01:21:37 ◼   ► like I'm still in a bit of limbo as to what I'm gonna do with my home screen

01:21:42 ◼   ► but I'm pretty happy where I've got it right now with like basically one

01:21:47 ◼   ► complete home screen, but my second screen is just widgets and they're ones

01:21:52 ◼   ► that I'm using a lot and then I have like just that one kind of medium bar at

01:21:56 ◼   ► the top.

01:21:58 ◼   ► One thing that I have noticed is, and I started to feel this before, now I especially feel

01:22:03 ◼   ► it because of all of the trends right now of really kind of customizing your widgets

01:22:07 ◼   ► is I want developers to remember to leave some customization options available.

01:22:14 ◼   ► Even if you do light and dark mode for a widget, let me choose, don't make the decision for

01:22:19 ◼   ► me.

01:22:20 ◼   ► That's a pretty important thing because I've seen this with some apps that I use that they

01:22:24 ◼   ► They just automatically assume that I want the dark widget because I use dark mode.

01:22:29 ◼   ► I don't want apps to make that assumption for me.

01:22:32 ◼   ► Let me choose.

01:22:33 ◼   ► Does that make sense?

01:22:35 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:22:36 ◼   ► So, that's kind of where I am with it right now.

01:22:39 ◼   ► Yeah, my home screen is in flux as well.

01:22:42 ◼   ► Mostly, there's a bunch of different reasons.

01:22:45 ◼   ► One is I needed to try a lot of different widgets for my review.

01:22:50 ◼   ► You may have seen Todoist in my screenshots, and the reason why I started using Todoist

01:22:56 ◼   ► wasn't to make this big proclamation about the task manager that I'm using now.

01:23:00 ◼   ► It's just that they had really, really, really good widgets, and they provided me with all

01:23:05 ◼   ► the examples that I needed for my review, so I just started using it.

01:23:10 ◼   ► And also, like, I need to balance the fact that I'm supposed to be taking screenshots

01:23:15 ◼   ► for my review. And I don't want to revolutionize the whole thing right now, because I'm not

01:23:21 ◼   ► yet done with the screenshots. But I'm thinking of a bunch of different ideas. So for now,

01:23:27 ◼   ► the setup that I have is, I'm using the Today page, still, for things that are related to

01:23:33 ◼   ► today, or the time. So, at the very top, there's one of the excellent Fantastical widgets.

01:23:40 ◼   ► They have this two month calendar widget that shows you the current month and the next month

01:23:46 ◼   ► in the same medium widget.

01:23:48 ◼   ► It's really, really well done.

01:23:49 ◼   ► So I have that at the very top.

01:23:51 ◼   ► Then I have another fantastical widget that shows me just a simple list of all my upcoming

01:23:57 ◼   ► events.

01:23:58 ◼   ► It's not up next, it's just a list of events that are coming up, even if the next one is

01:24:05 ◼   ► in three days.

01:24:07 ◼   ► I have two small widgets next to each other. I have Carrot Weather for the basic daily forecast,

01:24:15 ◼   ► and next to it I have a list of time zones from the World Clock app. It's called World Clock

01:24:22 ◼   ► Widget, I think. I like it because it's colorful and it's a very simple list of cities,

01:24:29 ◼   ► and the small widget fits four different cities. So I can take a look at San Francisco, Chicago,

01:24:35 ◼   ► New York and Tokyo. It's very easy, very compact. And at the very bottom, I have the large widget

01:24:42 ◼   ► for Timery, for all my saved timers, which is really convenient. On the home screen right

01:24:47 ◼   ► now, this is where I'm like, right now I'm using this approach of...

01:24:52 ◼   ► So was that what you were talking about? Was that a second screen?

01:24:55 ◼   ► That was my Today page.

01:24:56 ◼   ► Oh, it's in your Today page? Okay. I always forget what that's called.

01:25:00 ◼   ► Yeah, that I'm still using for things related to today or events, time zones, that kind

01:25:06 ◼   ► of stuff.

01:25:07 ◼   ► Yeah, I have in there, I think it might be kind of similar to some widgets that I'm using,

01:25:11 ◼   ► like the fantastic home one, but the large one.

01:25:13 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:25:14 ◼   ► Right, so I don't have the large one on my home screen, but I've just put the large one

01:25:17 ◼   ► in there because why not?

01:25:19 ◼   ► My approach to home screen pages right now is to do these categories of pages.

01:25:26 ◼   ► So like the first one is like my dashboard in a way and it's got like my absolute must

01:25:32 ◼   ► haves.

01:25:33 ◼   ► So at the very top, music stuff, I have the excellent Soar widgets.

01:25:39 ◼   ► So Soar is an Apple Music client.

01:25:42 ◼   ► They have a Now Playing widget which is really beautiful and well done.

01:25:46 ◼   ► And they have a widget that is called the Magic Mixes and it basically starts Soar into

01:25:52 ◼   ► a Magic Mix.

01:25:53 ◼   ► So Magic Mix is like smart playlists, which Apple hasn't done, but this indie developer

01:25:58 ◼   ► did.

01:25:59 ◼   ► And so it's a very easy way for me to instantly start shuffling either Oasis or Death Cab for

01:26:04 ◼   ► Cutie or My Chemical Romance with just a single tap.

01:26:07 ◼   ► And the best part is because it's an Apple Music client and it uses the system audio

01:26:11 ◼   ► player.

01:26:12 ◼   ► Even if I start playing something in SOAR, I can then later control it from the music

01:26:17 ◼   ► app.

01:26:18 ◼   ► So it's not like a custom player that uses its own thing.

01:26:21 ◼   ► uses the default player by Apple. So you can start playing music in Soar, but then you

01:26:26 ◼   ► can manage music in Apple Music, which is really convenient.

01:26:30 ◼   ► I assume it does open the Soar app when you tap it though, right?

01:26:33 ◼   ► It does. It does open the Soar app, yes. Which, you know, no big deal because it's a beautiful

01:26:37 ◼   ► app. And then on the home screen I have Twitter, Instagram, WhatsApp, Messages, Photos and

01:26:42 ◼   ► Fantastical. So like the absolute must-haves. And in the dock I have the Task Manager, Notes,

01:26:48 ◼   ► Safari shortcuts. So pretty usual stuff. And then I'm playing around with stacks on the home screen.

01:26:54 ◼   ► So I stacked three different Apple Notes with a small widget, and in the bottom right corner I stacked

01:27:02 ◼   ► the "Today" widget for Todoist,

01:27:06 ◼   ► the current timer from Timery, and

01:27:13 ◼   ► and the shortcut that opens a copied link in Safari View Controller,

01:27:17 ◼   ► which is very nice because it opens a Safari View on the home screen.

01:27:22 ◼   ► It doesn't actually open Safari.

01:27:23 ◼   ► So anytime I have a copied link, I can just preview the link from the home screen,

01:27:27 ◼   ► which is super awesome.

01:27:29 ◼   ► And then all the other pages I'm not sure about, basically.

01:27:33 ◼   ► Like, I have three pages before the App Library, and I'm not sure about any of them.

01:27:38 ◼   ► Right now the second page is like more work-related stuff. So like there's Apollo,

01:27:47 ◼   ► Lear, which is my RSS client, IE Writer, Files, Slack...

01:27:52 ◼   ► Are they just like lost though? Like are you ever going to those pages?

01:27:56 ◼   ► This is my question. This is what I'm wondering right now. Like on the second page work stuff,

01:28:01 ◼   ► and then on the third page like entertainment stuff with Twitch and YouTube, but I'm not sure

01:28:06 ◼   ► like, is this the best approach for me? Like, am I... I'm still not in the habit of

01:28:13 ◼   ► going to those pages, you know what I mean? Like, because I don't see the icons,

01:28:18 ◼   ► like, I'm fighting against 12, 13 years of muscle memory in that the

01:28:24 ◼   ► stuff that I use the most has an icon on my first home screen.

01:28:29 ◼   ► But on the other hand, I also want to use widgets.

01:28:34 ◼   ► So I still need to find that balance of how do I keep the convenience of icons, but also take

01:28:44 ◼   ► advantage of widgets. And I've seen all these custom creations, these amazing home screens

01:28:50 ◼   ► that people are putting together. And I think personally, I think it's a beautiful thing

01:28:54 ◼   ► that people are customizing their devices and they are using these clever workarounds with

01:29:00 ◼   ► shortcuts and custom icons and widgets that blend into like wallpapers of the same color.

01:29:07 ◼   ► I think that's a beautiful thing. People taking control of their computers, I'm all in favor for

01:29:11 ◼   ► that. But I thought, "Can I be one of those people? Do I want to put together this extremely custom

01:29:18 ◼   ► layout?" Like I was looking at the stuff that Michael Flerup is doing with this custom home

01:29:24 ◼   ► screen. He shared a YouTube video a couple of days ago on his Twitter account, and he put together

01:29:29 ◼   ► these custom pages, right? With like the title of the page in the middle.

01:29:35 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:29:36 ◼   ► And I think it's really cool and I think it's really awesome. But then I started thinking

01:29:39 ◼   ► like knowing myself, am I the type of person who can accept the fact that I'm wasting a

01:29:48 ◼   ► small widget slot for a tax label? Like, can I, Federico Vittucci, be one of those people

01:29:56 ◼   ► who's allotting a widget slot just to a string of text?

01:30:02 ◼   ► Or do I want to have, like, more functional things in there?

01:30:05 ◼   ► So on a theoretical level, on a conceptual level, I appreciate these very custom home

01:30:12 ◼   ► screens.

01:30:13 ◼   ► On a practical level, because I know myself, I don't think I would be able to live with

01:30:17 ◼   ► the idea that I'm "wasting" a widget space just to make it pretty.

01:30:24 ◼   ► You know what I mean?

01:30:25 ◼   ► I think it's awesome that people are doing it,

01:30:28 ◼   ► but I'm too much of a nerd to do it myself.

01:30:30 ◼   ► - I think where I land on this is,

01:30:33 ◼   ► was not what I expected,

01:30:35 ◼   ► is that the app library has given me some sort of freedom

01:30:39 ◼   ► just to try a whole bunch of apps all of a sudden,

01:30:41 ◼   ► because I can just download them,

01:30:42 ◼   ► like, Sore, you mentioned earlier, check that out.

01:30:45 ◼   ► It is awesome, it's very nice,

01:30:48 ◼   ► but I'm not committed to like putting it on my home screen,

01:30:50 ◼   ► or before I was a folder person,

01:30:52 ◼   ► I was like, oh, I gotta think what folder it goes in.

01:30:55 ◼   ► The App Library has sort of just let me deal with things, or should I say not deal with

01:31:00 ◼   ► things.

01:31:01 ◼   ► Yeah, see this is funny, because I feel like I'm losing apps now.

01:31:06 ◼   ► I download something and then just forget about it.

01:31:08 ◼   ► I mean, there's some freedom in that too, I guess.

01:31:10 ◼   ► Oh, that has become a habit for me, going to the library and checking the recently added

01:31:15 ◼   ► category.

01:31:16 ◼   ► That I do all the time now.

01:31:18 ◼   ► Okay, I need to get used to doing that then.

01:31:20 ◼   ► That I've gotten used to.

01:31:21 ◼   ► It's the swiping to the other pages that I...

01:31:25 ◼   ► Get rid of them, man.

01:31:26 ◼   ► Liberate yourself.

01:31:27 ◼   ► I only have application icons on one screen now.

01:31:31 ◼   ► That's it.

01:31:32 ◼   ► Otherwise I'm searching for them anyway.

01:31:34 ◼   ► Steven, do you have icons still on multiple pages?

01:31:37 ◼   ► Yes, I'm down to two pages.

01:31:40 ◼   ► Before I had two pages of apps, like primary apps, secondary apps, and the third page was

01:31:44 ◼   ► folders.

01:31:46 ◼   ► That third page just got turned into the app library.

01:31:49 ◼   ► And so I've got two home screens with a four by four grid of applications and a medium

01:31:55 ◼   ► widget at the top fantastic L. Which is new as of today I was using calendar and the main

01:32:01 ◼   ► task.

01:32:02 ◼   ► So came out that in time zones in a stack time zones within widgetsmith and then the

01:32:06 ◼   ► photos one on the second page and then it's the app library.

01:32:09 ◼   ► I like the simplicity I like the today view being what I feel like is a much nicer place

01:32:14 ◼   ► to be now because the widgets look nicer and so I've got a bunch of stuff stacked up.

01:32:19 ◼   ► in the today view, including all of three carat weather

01:32:22 ◼   ► widgets in a stack, shortcuts, Todoist activity,

01:32:26 ◼   ► a whole bunch of stuff.

01:32:28 ◼   ► But what has struck me about all of this,

01:32:30 ◼   ► and I didn't expect this was,

01:32:33 ◼   ► it's like it's fun to fiddle with this stuff.

01:32:35 ◼   ► Like I feel like for the first time in years,

01:32:38 ◼   ► like everything on my phone is up for grabs,

01:32:41 ◼   ► and that's kind of a fun feeling.

01:32:43 ◼   ► - It is fun, it is fun.

01:32:44 ◼   ► I spent, should say wasted, like an hour last night,

01:32:49 ◼   ► what I was supposed to be editing,

01:32:52 ◼   ► just playing around with different layouts.

01:32:54 ◼   ► Like I installed a black wallpaper

01:32:56 ◼   ► and I started designing.

01:32:58 ◼   ► There's this application that the developer

01:33:00 ◼   ► has been very active on Reddit and they have a test flight.

01:33:03 ◼   ► It's called Wigy.

01:33:05 ◼   ► And it's like, imagine Photoshop for widgets.

01:33:10 ◼   ► Like they let you design your own custom widgets manually

01:33:15 ◼   ► as if it was like a graphics editor.

01:33:17 ◼   ► Like you can actually do multiple layers

01:33:20 ◼   ► and control all the different blocks.

01:33:22 ◼   ► And it's amazing.

01:33:24 ◼   ► And it's surprisingly easy to use on a phone.

01:33:28 ◼   ► Like they did a really excellent job

01:33:30 ◼   ► with like placing text and changing the font and the color

01:33:34 ◼   ► and like creating images.

01:33:36 ◼   ► Like it's super well done.

01:33:38 ◼   ► But I realized a couple of things.

01:33:40 ◼   ► One, this is a huge,

01:33:42 ◼   ► it can become a huge waste of time.

01:33:45 ◼   ► And also, again, conceptually, I'm all in favor of designing my own things.

01:33:51 ◼   ► But then I realized I'm a very bad designer.

01:33:54 ◼   ► Like, I have no idea how to align text properly and how to make something pretty.

01:34:01 ◼   ► Which brings me back to the idea of, am I the type of person who can design their own

01:34:07 ◼   ► widgets? Am I bad enough of a designer that I'm better off just using widgets made by

01:34:13 ◼   ► other people who actually know what they're doing. I have a feeling that all my widgets

01:34:18 ◼   ► are going to end up being ugly, self-made creations. And it's like, I wish there was,

01:34:25 ◼   ► like I would hire a person to design custom widgets for me. But I don't think I have the

01:34:32 ◼   ► skills to make them pretty myself.

01:34:35 ◼   ► Alright, I'm going to send you both a picture. Steven, you can put this in the show notes

01:34:38 ◼   ► if you want to, which is my second screen.

01:34:42 ◼   ► Because I was thinking this.

01:34:43 ◼   ► I was like, I was using Widgetsmith,

01:34:45 ◼   ► and all of my Widgetsmith widgets were just black,

01:34:48 ◼   ► because whatever.

01:34:49 ◼   ► Like I was like, I didn't even think about it.

01:34:51 ◼   ► And then I was seeing all these people

01:34:53 ◼   ► do these incredibly nice things.

01:34:55 ◼   ► And then when Dave added the custom color chooser,

01:34:58 ◼   ► I was like, you know what?

01:34:59 ◼   ► I'm gonna make my Widgetsmith widgets

01:35:02 ◼   ► thematically fit with my wallpaper.

01:35:05 ◼   ► And I changed the fonts,

01:35:07 ◼   ► so they would be prettier looking. And like this is the thing that I think that we can all do,

01:35:13 ◼   ► right? Like you can customize the widgets that you have with the options that they have to make them

01:35:18 ◼   ► more visually attractive, but you don't have to feel like you need to, I think, change up your

01:35:24 ◼   ► entire thing. So you see what I mean? Like these, I think that the widgets that I have here, I think

01:35:30 ◼   ► I think they look really nice.

01:35:32 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah, they do.

01:35:33 ◼   ► And I think part of the feeling

01:35:37 ◼   ► that everything's up for grabs is like your second screen,

01:35:39 ◼   ► you have no apps on, right?

01:35:41 ◼   ► It's just an ode to dashboard, right?

01:35:45 ◼   ► It's just widgets and that's cool.

01:35:47 ◼   ► And that's something that we as iPhone users

01:35:50 ◼   ► have maybe wanted for a long time,

01:35:51 ◼   ► looking at Android people, but now we have it.

01:35:53 ◼   ► And yeah, I think this looks nice.

01:35:56 ◼   ► And because it makes your phone

01:35:58 ◼   ► or this part of your phone, its own little world, right?

01:36:03 ◼   ► Like if you need these things, this is where they live.

01:36:05 ◼   ► They don't live with other things, they're just right here.

01:36:07 ◼   ► And that's pretty sweet.

01:36:09 ◼   ► - Oh, by the way, you may remember

01:36:12 ◼   ► that I mentioned a while ago

01:36:13 ◼   ► that I have an album of photos on my phone

01:36:15 ◼   ► that are just super close-up pictures of Adina.

01:36:17 ◼   ► That is that album.

01:36:19 ◼   ► So if you're wondering why it's just a picture

01:36:21 ◼   ► of somebody's forehead, it's because the album that I chose

01:36:24 ◼   ► from the picture in album thing is just that album

01:36:27 ◼   ► because it makes me laugh every single time I go to the second screen and see one of my

01:36:31 ◼   ► ridiculously zoomed in photos.

01:36:34 ◼   ► I sent you a picture of Wigy.

01:36:36 ◼   ► So you get the idea of what I was doing, right?

01:36:39 ◼   ► I wanted to have like this large black widget that would blend in with the black wallpaper

01:36:47 ◼   ► and that would have a bunch of like dynamic text and data.

01:36:51 ◼   ► So like there was a "now playing" section and there was the date and there was an SF

01:36:56 ◼   ► for the calendar, right? And to have like this custom presentation. But like, I realized

01:37:03 ◼   ► I have no idea what I'm doing here with different like font sizes and sizes and weights and

01:37:09 ◼   ► alignment. I think people can, with these kinds of like advanced utilities, like I'm

01:37:14 ◼   ► referring to, there's a bunch of apps like this. Another one I think is called Widgeridoo.

01:37:19 ◼   ► Yeah, like didgeridoo. That's a good name.

01:37:25 ◼   ► I played around with it and then I realized I have no idea what I'm doing, like moving

01:37:29 ◼   ► these different blocks around.

01:37:31 ◼   ► Yeah I looked at that one, I think it was in your story.

01:37:35 ◼   ► Yeah it was.

01:37:36 ◼   ► I saw it.

01:37:37 ◼   ► And all of them were like, I see what you're going for but this is not what I want.

01:37:42 ◼   ► And so it's like what I've been happy about with what Dave has done is that the widgets

01:37:46 ◼   ► themselves are relatively simple and then I can customize them.

01:37:51 ◼   ► But it's not with me feeling like I'm doing web design on my iPhone.

01:37:54 ◼   ► Exactly. But yeah, because David took care of the design for you.

01:37:58 ◼   ► And then you just customise the data and the presentation, which is like,

01:38:02 ◼   ► it's very smart because you have these building blocks and you can just mix and

01:38:06 ◼   ► match however you want, which I think is the right approach right now.

01:38:09 ◼   ► And I would say, I mean, this is exactly why Widgetsmith has gone viral,

01:38:12 ◼   ► because he did just the right amount.

01:38:14 ◼   ► Yeah. I do think that in the future, though, there will,

01:38:18 ◼   ► especially once widgets come to iPad, which I really don't understand why,

01:38:23 ◼   ► I'm guessing they just didn't have the time to make it happen on iPadOS easier.

01:38:26 ◼   ► But I think in the future for power users, so for people like us, for nerds,

01:38:31 ◼   ► there is real potential for something like a what you see is what you get editor

01:38:35 ◼   ► for widgets, for designing your widgets.

01:38:37 ◼   ► Well, because all of those design tools make more sense on the iPad anyway,

01:38:40 ◼   ► just because there's a larger screen.

01:38:41 ◼   ► Yes. Trying to like design something on my iPhone,

01:38:45 ◼   ► the screen's just not big enough.

01:38:46 ◼   ► And also the large screen, like the large widget size is perfect for the iPad.

01:38:51 ◼   ► Like, I'm barely going to use, I'll probably use one large widget on my iPhone, which is

01:38:56 ◼   ► what I have in the Today View.

01:38:57 ◼   ► I have one of the Fantastic L ones.

01:38:59 ◼   ► But outside of that, I just don't imagine myself using the large one, because the large

01:39:02 ◼   ► one is just too big.

01:39:03 ◼   ► But it won't be too big on my 13-inch iPad screen.

01:39:07 ◼   ► So like, I could imagine doing that, like having like a bunch of widgets that are pulling

01:39:10 ◼   ► in a bunch of data, but for the iPhone, it's just not right.

01:39:14 ◼   ► One last thing. If you're a developer and you have shortcuts actions for your apps,

01:39:25 ◼   ► I think it's more important than ever right now to provide actions that allow you to take

01:39:33 ◼   ► the data out of the app. I'm going to give you some examples. Something like Things and

01:39:39 ◼   ► And even Todoist, I think they only have shortcuts actions for creating tasks, right?

01:39:45 ◼   ► They don't offer any actions to get the tasks out of the app.

01:39:52 ◼   ► So like, there's no action in things to say, in shortcuts, show me the tasks that are due

01:39:58 ◼   ► today for example.

01:40:00 ◼   ► You can do this with reminders, but you cannot do it with Todoist, you cannot do it with

01:40:04 ◼   ► things, you can do it with OmniFocus.

01:40:06 ◼   ► And I think this is going to be important because we are going to see these utilities

01:40:14 ◼   ► that allow you to create widgets, like custom widgets, based on data extracted with shortcuts.

01:40:22 ◼   ► Again, this is a power user thing, but I think it'll become popular over time.

01:40:27 ◼   ► This utility launched yesterday on the App Store, and I think there's more coming.

01:40:31 ◼   ► It's called WidgetPack, and it lets you design your own widgets.

01:40:35 ◼   ► Again, same idea. However, the twist is that you fill the widgets with data assembled via shortcuts.

01:40:43 ◼   ► So if you're a developer and you don't offer actions to take the data out of your app and make

01:40:51 ◼   ► it available to shortcuts natively, that's going to be a problem if this is a category of utilities

01:40:56 ◼   ► that takes off over time, especially for power users, right? Because my idea was, "Oh, it's going to be

01:41:01 ◼   ► awesome, I can use WidgetPack to make my own Todoist widget, right? And I can take data

01:41:08 ◼   ► out of Todoist and assemble my own widget, and the best part is I can design the widget

01:41:13 ◼   ► with shortcuts, which is incredible. Like, they actually have actions in WidgetPack to do things

01:41:19 ◼   ► like create a stack and, like, lay out these things horizontally, like, it's awesome. And then

01:41:25 ◼   ► you can update the widget, and you can imagine, again, a power user thing, but because of

01:41:30 ◼   ► automations now, you can update those widgets automatically, because those widgets are actually

01:41:37 ◼   ► made with shortcuts, right? But those apps, if they don't offer actions to extract data, then it's kind

01:41:44 ◼   ► of useless. So if you're a developer and you have shortcuts integration, think about your integration

01:41:51 ◼   ► the other way around as well. Not just how do I let the user input data into my app using shortcuts,

01:41:58 ◼   ► but how do I let the user take data out of my app

01:42:03 ◼   ► and present it in shortcuts?

01:42:05 ◼   ► And I think especially with custom widgets

01:42:07 ◼   ► and with compact UI, right,

01:42:09 ◼   ► in that you can use shortcuts on the home screen,

01:42:12 ◼   ► I think it's super important

01:42:13 ◼   ► that the other way around is also true here.

01:42:16 ◼   ► It's not just about using shortcuts to enter data.

01:42:19 ◼   ► It can be useful to take data out and present it as well.

01:42:23 ◼   ► - So let's talk about the aesthetics of all this.

01:42:28 ◼   ► Widget Smith and other apps have unlocked this great potential to customize your home screen.

01:42:34 ◼   ► Shortcuts is added to that being able to swap out all of your app icons and I think Apple

01:42:39 ◼   ► should make that easier and better.

01:42:41 ◼   ► Maybe we can talk about what we think Apple should do here.

01:42:45 ◼   ► But there are a couple things that are interesting about this to me.

01:42:49 ◼   ► One that a lot of us sort of in the nerdy community are surprised at how far some people

01:42:54 ◼   ► have pushed this system and honestly how amazing some of these setups are that people have

01:42:59 ◼   ► done.

01:43:00 ◼   ► I think all of us, you know, looked at Widgetsmith and these other things as utility and other

01:43:05 ◼   ► people see them as creative tools and I think that's not only fascinating but very cool.

01:43:11 ◼   ► I think it shows that people have wanted to do this for a really long time and now Apple

01:43:16 ◼   ► has done it and the dam is broken and like people are just doing it in a big way.

01:43:21 ◼   ► It really makes me want Apple to just let us do watch faces

01:43:25 ◼   ► on the Apple Watch.

01:43:26 ◼   ► Like, that feels so frustrating that it's still so locked down.

01:43:30 ◼   ► But I said it before, I think this is a beautiful thing,

01:43:33 ◼   ► letting people take control of their devices.

01:43:36 ◼   ► And also, I feel like the backlash from some people

01:43:40 ◼   ► that I've seen on Twitter, saying, oh, Apple lost its mind.

01:43:44 ◼   ► This is bad for their brand.

01:43:46 ◼   ► Why are people doing these ugly things?

01:43:50 ◼   ► I think it's pretty silly, because all of this is optional, right?

01:43:55 ◼   ► You don't have to do this.

01:43:57 ◼   ► Like, you can't just take an iPhone and use whatever default design Apple chose for you

01:44:03 ◼   ► and just use native Apple widgets, and that's fine.

01:44:07 ◼   ► But now you have the option, if you want to tinker and if you want to play around with

01:44:12 ◼   ► it, to customize your own thing.

01:44:13 ◼   ► I think customization as an idea in general, it's a beautiful thing to do, to personalize

01:44:22 ◼   ► a computer, an object, for example, look at Myke and his iPad with stickers, right?

01:44:30 ◼   ► To accessorize in real life, because you really care about the way that you're dressed.

01:44:34 ◼   ► I think it's a beautiful thing to take control of the appearance of yourself or the things

01:44:39 ◼   ► that you use, and to make them your own.

01:44:43 ◼   ► And I feel like, honestly, life is too short to get upset about people customizing computers

01:44:49 ◼   ► in fun and colorful and different ways. And calling them out because they do so, it's

01:44:56 ◼   ► just, why? What's the point? You're not Dieter Rams. You cannot criticize, you know, this

01:45:04 ◼   ► high-level design ideas. Like, you're a nobody. You're just making fun of people for no reason,

01:45:11 ◼   ► to be controversial on Twitter. So I think it's beautiful. I want to see more of this.

01:45:17 ◼   ► I think we're going to feature this wild, Myke, you will not be disappointed by the

01:45:22 ◼   ► home screen that we're going to feature in Mac Stories Weekly this Friday. It's going

01:45:26 ◼   ► to it's video game themed. And if we can make it happen, it's going to be amazing. John

01:45:31 ◼   ► found it. I really hope that we can make it happen. But I think this is beautiful. I think

01:45:36 ◼   ► should pay attention, I don't think they are compromising on the purity, if you will, of

01:45:42 ◼   ► their vision, because all of this is optional. You're just giving people the tools to use

01:45:48 ◼   ► a computer like a computer, and it's a beautiful thing. And if anything, the shortcuts team

01:45:53 ◼   ► should be paying attention, and they should go to Craig and say, "Look, you really got

01:45:58 ◼   ► us. You really need to let us install custom icons for real." Because right now, if you

01:46:04 ◼   ► install a custom icon, it still launches shortcuts as sort of like the middleman, right, between

01:46:11 ◼   ► the home screen and the app that you want to launch. What's also, and this is the last

01:46:18 ◼   ► thing I'll say, what's kind of funny and sad at the same time is that all these people

01:46:23 ◼   ► making fun of others in a useless way, they seem to have a short memory because the Mac,

01:46:30 ◼   ► the platform that they so very much are in love with,

01:46:33 ◼   ► has a rich and long history of visual and UI customization.

01:46:38 ◼   ► You look at things like Candy Bar, right?

01:46:42 ◼   ► The work that the icon factory used to do in the '90s

01:46:45 ◼   ► and the early 2000s.

01:46:47 ◼   ► The Mac has a long history and tradition

01:46:49 ◼   ► of custom app icons, custom themes.

01:46:53 ◼   ► You may be surprised to hear this,

01:46:55 ◼   ► but I'm from the generation who grew up on Mac themes,

01:46:59 ◼   ► looking at custom UI themes for Mac OS X.

01:47:04 ◼   ► And I got to know so many people on those forums.

01:47:06 ◼   ► It was incredible.

01:47:07 ◼   ► So to have some of that tradition come back

01:47:12 ◼   ► in a modern and different way on iOS, I think it's amazing.

01:47:16 ◼   ► And I think exposing more people to shortcuts

01:47:19 ◼   ► and to widgets and to indie developers like Dave,

01:47:22 ◼   ► what's not to love about all of this happening right now?

01:47:24 ◼   ► I don't get it.

01:47:25 ◼   ► - Not only is the Mac have that UI history,

01:47:29 ◼   ► both in classic Mac OS and Mac OS X.

01:47:34 ◼   ► But if you go back even further than that,

01:47:36 ◼   ► like the brand of home computer you bought

01:47:40 ◼   ► in the 80s and 90s, like that itself was a statement

01:47:43 ◼   ► about who you were, right?

01:47:45 ◼   ► Like there's a reason that Mac users in that time

01:47:49 ◼   ► banded together, right?

01:47:50 ◼   ► And they thought that they were in like this weird,

01:47:52 ◼   ► cool club and I agree, like I think that was great.

01:47:56 ◼   ► And that's like, that's one side of it.

01:47:59 ◼   ► The other side of it, which as much as I disagree with what we just spoke about,

01:48:03 ◼   ► like it's wild to like be upset that someone else did something with their

01:48:08 ◼   ► own device, is the idea that it's bad for Apple. Like if A) Apple's brand is boring

01:48:14 ◼   ► and I think it could use a lot of this color and personality that we're seeing,

01:48:18 ◼   ► but 2) if people take the time and customize their iPhones they're only

01:48:23 ◼   ► going to love them more and they're only going to want to be more likely to

01:48:27 ◼   ► replace it with another iPhone next time they upgrade. Right?

01:48:30 ◼   ► That's only good for Apple. Apple wants and needs its users

01:48:34 ◼   ► to love their devices and to make them their own. I think

01:48:37 ◼   ► that's why we saw things like that MacBook Air commercial a

01:48:41 ◼   ► few years ago was like all the stickers on the Mac players like

01:48:44 ◼   ► Apple's trying to tap into this. Now whether or not they foresaw

01:48:47 ◼   ► how far it's gone, I don't know probably they may have no one

01:48:51 ◼   ► no one knew this was gonna happen. I don't know. I think I

01:48:54 ◼   ► I think they may have had maybe some idea,

01:48:57 ◼   ► but I don't know.

01:48:59 ◼   ► It doesn't really matter because this doesn't matter

01:49:02 ◼   ► from Apple's brain perspective.

01:49:04 ◼   ► It's like, oh no, Apple's losing their design focus.

01:49:08 ◼   ► No, they're giving tools to the people

01:49:11 ◼   ► to make their own stuff,

01:49:12 ◼   ► and nothing is more Apple than that, nothing.

01:49:15 ◼   ► And I don't know, it's a tired argument,

01:49:18 ◼   ► and the only reason we brought it up here,

01:49:21 ◼   ► and I wrote a thing about it this morning,

01:49:23 ◼   ► it's in the show notes,

01:49:23 ◼   ► But the only reason we're talking about this is because we've seen some of it.

01:49:27 ◼   ► And it's like, you know, like, there, that's just a silly complaint.

01:49:31 ◼   ► And just because, like, I want to be more utility focused on my home screen, like, doesn't

01:49:38 ◼   ► in any way minimize if someone wants to take the time and make a really themed home screen,

01:49:44 ◼   ► right?

01:49:45 ◼   ► And if you search like iOS 14 home screen on Twitter, or if you look on Reddit or Instagram

01:49:50 ◼   ► or any social media, like, some people, like, they're spending real time making amazing

01:49:55 ◼   ► things. And just because I don't want to take that time or it doesn't really jive with how

01:49:59 ◼   ► he's my device, doesn't mean that it's not valid.

01:50:02 ◼   ► Yeah, very well spoken. I think creativity is always beautiful in all its shapes and

01:50:08 ◼   ► forms. And in this case, it's like people are doing these cool things with icons and

01:50:13 ◼   ► wallpapers and colors and widgets. It just, whenever I see someone, no matter if they

01:50:18 ◼   ► are more proficient at using iOS devices or iPads than me are not, but they're doing something

01:50:25 ◼   ► cool with it, I'm fascinated by it. And I think it's kind of sad, honestly, that people

01:50:31 ◼   ► don't see the beauty of that, right? Of like a teenager coming up with a theme for their

01:50:38 ◼   ► iPhone that they spent like hours designing. Like I see people designing their own icons.

01:50:44 ◼   ► I think it's incredible. I think it's beautiful, and if you don't see why that's beautiful,

01:50:49 ◼   ► I feel sorry for you.

01:50:51 ◼   ► I really hope that Apple does something sooner than iOS 15 to just allow for the shortcuts

01:50:57 ◼   ► app, to do something that allows people to just throw them straight through the application.

01:51:00 ◼   ► You know, because I just think that that would be really taking advantage of something that

01:51:05 ◼   ► people want right now. They don't have to go so far as to have custom icon packs. Apple's

01:51:11 ◼   ► already done enough by allowing you to set it up that way. Millions of people are doing

01:51:15 ◼   ► it with shortcuts. It's actually not that hard to do. There's a lot of steps, but it's

01:51:18 ◼   ► not hard to do. And it works in the system already. I think one of my favorite things

01:51:23 ◼   ► about this is that people are getting frustrated about like, "Oh, it looks ugly," or whatever,

01:51:28 ◼   ► when there are many, many people who are creating things that they know aren't good looking,

01:51:33 ◼   ► and that's kind of the point. And that is like a gen- that's like a part of the aesthetic,

01:51:39 ◼   ► like that that might be what you're going for of like a it's ironic and I

01:51:45 ◼   ► think that's kind of fantastic really in and of itself like you see these these

01:51:50 ◼   ► like the windows 95 one that went around that the person that made that they're

01:51:54 ◼   ► not like oh man the windows 95 aesthetic is exactly what I'm looking for my phone

01:51:59 ◼   ► but it's just like this is funny to me and interesting to me and I just want to

01:52:05 ◼   ► see if I can make it happen and lol it looks amazing you know but they're not

01:52:08 ◼   ► doing it because it's like this is my dream aesthetic maybe it is maybe you're

01:52:12 ◼   ► super into Windows 95 and that's fine too totally fine I mean maybe so anyways

01:52:17 ◼   ► don't don't shame people for their home screens embrace the change and just to

01:52:22 ◼   ► wrap this up can we just all like laugh at iPad OS for not doing this like that

01:52:28 ◼   ► section of my review is going to be fun I wrote it months ago and I stand by

01:52:34 ◼   ► every word of it. So yeah, having those widgets locked to the side is bad. No app library

01:52:40 ◼   ► is bad. I don't know what the deal is with that. I mean, I've shared this theory before

01:52:44 ◼   ► that part of I don't really believe this, but part of me thinks like maybe they just

01:52:48 ◼   ► leave low hanging fruit. So like when they announced 15, everyone's like, Oh yeah, which

01:52:51 ◼   ► is anywhere. I'm sure it was a resources issue. I kind of don't care about the app library,

01:52:56 ◼   ► but the widgets thing. Oh man, I want to banish all folders. I'm not saying I don't want it,

01:53:01 ◼   ► like comparing those two things, right?

01:53:03 ◼   ► Like the no widgets on the home screen for the iPad

01:53:07 ◼   ► was a wild decision they made

01:53:10 ◼   ► when you could actually make the argument

01:53:12 ◼   ► that it's more useful on an iPad screen than a iPhone screen.

01:53:16 ◼   ► - Yeah, someone in the Discord many messages ago was like,

01:53:19 ◼   ► "It'd be great to have an iPad mini

01:53:20 ◼   ► "and set it up as like a virtual dashboard.

01:53:23 ◼   ► "Like you can just see all this data coming in all the time,

01:53:25 ◼   ► "like stick it on the wall."

01:53:26 ◼   ► - Status board, baby.

01:53:28 ◼   ► would be awesome to see that sort of utility like the iPad is just the

01:53:32 ◼   ► perfect device for it and they've just left it on the table. I think that does

01:53:36 ◼   ► it. If you want to find links to the stories we spoke about, things we covered,

01:53:41 ◼   ► go to relay.fm/connected/313. While you're there, there's some fun

01:53:48 ◼   ► activities you can take part in. You can send us an email with feedback or

01:53:52 ◼   ► follow-up. You can join and get Connected Pro each week, which is an ad-free longer

01:53:57 ◼   ► version of the show, which is a lot of fun. You should also go

01:54:00 ◼   ► to stju.org/relay and donate we are raising money through the

01:54:04 ◼   ► end of the month. Thank you so much to everyone who has already

01:54:06 ◼   ► participated. If you haven't, you still have a few days to do

01:54:10 ◼   ► that. I'd encourage you to go check that out. If you want to

01:54:13 ◼   ► find us online, we're easy to find Federico is on Twitter as

01:54:16 ◼   ► Vitici V I T I C C I and he's the editor in chief of max

01:54:21 ◼   ► stories.net Federico What was the name of your first pet? Oh,

01:54:27 ◼   ► this is a long story. This is a very, I can tell you the name, it means nothing, but I

01:54:33 ◼   ► don't have time for the full story. The name was Bob Udall. Remind me, yes. Follow up.

01:54:43 ◼   ► This is the next pre-show. Oh yeah, go to connectedpro.co and you'll find out on our

01:54:47 ◼   ► next pre-show why Federico's first pet was called Bob Udall. Is that what you said? Yes.

01:54:54 ◼   ► Alright, okay.

01:54:55 ◼   ► I'm very curious about that.

01:54:59 ◼   ► You can find Myke on Twitter as @imyke.

01:55:04 ◼   ► Myke is the host of a bunch of podcasts.

01:55:06 ◼   ► Myke, what is the most recent podcast you've listened to?

01:55:10 ◼   ► The Stratechery Daily Update.

01:55:12 ◼   ► Oh, me too.

01:55:13 ◼   ► I just finished a little while ago.

01:55:15 ◼   ► We're the same.

01:55:17 ◼   ► You can find me on Twitter as @ismh and my writing over at 512pixels.net.

01:55:22 ◼   ► I'd like to thank our sponsors this week,

01:55:24 ◼   ► Ahrefs, StoryWorth, and Reidel.

01:55:26 ◼   ► Until next time, guys, say goodbye.

01:55:29 ◼   ► - I love you, that's you.

01:55:30 ◼   ► - Cheerio. - Bye, y'all.