Connected

00:00:00 ◼   ► [Music]

00:00:08 ◼   ► Hello and welcome to Connected episode 307. It is made possible this week by our sponsors

00:00:14 ◼   ► Squarespace, ExpressVPN, and Mint Mobile. My name is Stephen Hackett and I am joined by Mr. Myke Hurley.

00:00:22 ◼   ► Hello! How are you? Fine and warm. Fine and warm. Fine and warm. Like a

00:00:29 ◼   ► a baby wrapped in cloth or a fresh loaf of bread?

00:00:33 ◼   ► - I prefer loaf of bread, but yes,

00:00:37 ◼   ► I'm like a fresh baked loaf of bread over here.

00:00:40 ◼   ► - And we're also joined by Federico Vittucci.

00:00:42 ◼   ► - Hello, hi.

00:00:43 ◼   ► - I guess you're also probably warm, everyone's warm.

00:00:46 ◼   ► - I am like a hot slice of pizza.

00:00:49 ◼   ► Now the mozzarella is melted on top of it.

00:00:52 ◼   ► - Wait, no, that's fine.

00:00:54 ◼   ► It's fine to have the mozzarella melted, that's fine.

00:00:57 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:00:58 ◼   ► What's a melting situation that's not good in Italian food?

00:01:02 ◼   ► - A melting situation, well--

00:01:04 ◼   ► - A melted tiramisu.

00:01:06 ◼   ► - A melted tiramisu, I was about to say,

00:01:08 ◼   ► a melted gelato where all the different flavors

00:01:12 ◼   ► have mixed together, also very bad.

00:01:14 ◼   ► - Yeah, that doesn't sound good.

00:01:16 ◼   ► - It's terrible, not good, not good.

00:01:18 ◼   ► - Oh boy.

00:01:20 ◼   ► We have some very important follow-up.

00:01:24 ◼   ► Last week we spoke about the company Tipco.

00:01:29 ◼   ► Somehow, I don't remember how.

00:01:31 ◼   ► - They were, so I was trying to think of this.

00:01:34 ◼   ► They were a company that sued Apple for something.

00:01:37 ◼   ► - That's right.

00:01:38 ◼   ► Yes, I think so.

00:01:40 ◼   ► Anyways, and we said, "Oh, they are real."

00:01:41 ◼   ► Turns out not only are they real,

00:01:43 ◼   ► but they're a sponsor of at least one F1 team.

00:01:46 ◼   ► - They had rendezvous.

00:01:48 ◼   ► Yeah, so Kim wrote in, which is kind of,

00:01:51 ◼   ► it's just a kind of coincidence

00:01:53 ◼   ► that makes you wonder if you live in a simulation.

00:01:57 ◼   ► That my favorite racing driver, Lewis Hamilton,

00:02:01 ◼   ► on his helmet is the brand, TIPCO.

00:02:05 ◼   ► They are a sponsor of the Mercedes F1 team.

00:02:09 ◼   ► You know, it's like, what kind of world do we live in

00:02:12 ◼   ► where some kind of coincidence like that can occur?

00:02:15 ◼   ► 'Cause it's like, I'd never heard of this company.

00:02:17 ◼   ► I'd never seen this logo before,

00:02:18 ◼   ► but yet I have seen this logo a lot.

00:02:22 ◼   ► I wonder if BlablaCar sponsors any F1 teams.

00:02:25 ◼   ► - They don't, but well, that I know of.

00:02:27 ◼   ► - Yeah, I was gonna say.

00:02:29 ◼   ► - What do I know?

00:02:31 ◼   ► - Last week, Federico, you spoke about

00:02:33 ◼   ► the COVID notification you got saying that you were all fine

00:02:36 ◼   ► which again, I agree is a bad notification,

00:02:40 ◼   ► but some other people wrote in,

00:02:43 ◼   ► Simon said they had also received this notification

00:02:46 ◼   ► and like you, they basically had a heart attack

00:02:48 ◼   ► when they saw it.

00:02:50 ◼   ► And it turns out that this is part of the OS.

00:02:55 ◼   ► We were debating that or not,

00:02:58 ◼   ► or something like the app you had in it, Force It.

00:03:00 ◼   ► It is part of Apple's exposure notification framework.

00:03:04 ◼   ► And that's what provides all the information

00:03:07 ◼   ► of encounters with app users.

00:03:10 ◼   ► And eventually whenever phase two comes,

00:03:13 ◼   ► just with the user directly

00:03:15 ◼   ► without an app necessarily installed.

00:03:17 ◼   ► - So in the news today,

00:03:18 ◼   ► our app in England is going into testing. Oh, nice.

00:03:25 ◼   ► And based on Google and Apple's thing. So maybe in a couple of weeks we'll have it set up.

00:03:30 ◼   ► That's cool. Well, I mean it will be cool for me to get all those terrifying...

00:03:38 ◼   ► I haven't gotten any more of those, by the way. Only one time, so yeah.

00:03:43 ◼   ► Well, maybe it just hasn't been a week yet. It was a weekly update, wasn't it?

00:03:48 ◼   ► Oh, it hasn't been a week then I guess.

00:03:50 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:03:50 ◼   ► Yeah, you're... Oh my god.

00:03:51 ◼   ► And as is everything in life, there was an XKCD comic.

00:03:55 ◼   ► Obviously.

00:03:56 ◼   ► About exposure notifications since our last episode.

00:04:00 ◼   ► Because you would assume similar thing happened to the XKCD person.

00:04:03 ◼   ► And then it's just...

00:04:06 ◼   ► The notification says, "Good news! You recently had close contact with someone who was not tested positive for COVID."

00:04:13 ◼   ► [Laughter]

00:04:15 ◼   ► Which is very funny.

00:04:17 ◼   ► It's really like I get it that you're trying to give me good news, but just it's the fact that I'm seeing that notification

00:04:23 ◼   ► That's yeah

00:04:24 ◼   ► Well, it's it's whether they because it's the doublespeak of it, right?

00:04:28 ◼   ► Like you recently had close contacts with someone who has not tested positive

00:04:32 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah

00:04:35 ◼   ► It's like I really feel like these apps and these systems are

00:04:38 ◼   ► Should be designed in a way that no news is good news and the moment that you give me a notification

00:04:44 ◼   ► like my heart is gonna skip a beat no matter what. It's like, what it should be like is like those

00:04:50 ◼   ► wild weather alert systems that you have in America. Yes, just let me know when something really bad has happened or is about to happen.

00:04:57 ◼   ► Yeah, it's like you don't get a notification every day like "weather's fine!" like that doesn't happen.

00:05:01 ◼   ► Like exclamation mark, the weather is sunny, like okay. It's all good! Like it doesn't, you know.

00:05:09 ◼   ► Like, imagine getting like one of those... what are they called? Like the

00:05:14 ◼   ► the US alerts for like kidnap people. Yeah, Amber Alert. Imagine getting

00:05:19 ◼   ► like an Amber Alert that says nobody's been kidnapped.

00:05:24 ◼   ► No crime!

00:05:26 ◼   ► No crime! Good news! We couldn't find any crimes around you.

00:05:31 ◼   ► Children are all safe!

00:05:33 ◼   ► We looked really hot.

00:05:35 ◼   ► But it's all good.

00:05:37 ◼   ► So yeah, I mean, I appreciate the weekly update.

00:05:41 ◼   ► I just wish that it wasn't on by default.

00:05:43 ◼   ► Like I can't imagine why there may be some people

00:05:46 ◼   ► may actually like the idea of a weekly update.

00:05:49 ◼   ► It's just the idea of it being on by default

00:05:51 ◼   ► and the fact that I didn't even know that it was on

00:05:54 ◼   ► that surprised me in a very bad way.

00:05:57 ◼   ► - I kind of assume that at some point in the future

00:06:00 ◼   ► I will get like a tandem notification.

00:06:02 ◼   ► Like one is screen time telling me I used my phone too much.

00:06:05 ◼   ► and the next one is the COVID app telling me that like I'm fine like I can test those two like things

00:06:10 ◼   ► I'm like oh god it's like a one-two punch for me yeah screen time did you still did you guys still

00:06:18 ◼   ► use it this is my question you just said the words in a high-pitched voice that's not a question

00:06:24 ◼   ► screen time yeah it was like a eureka moment it was more like it wasn't really a question it was

00:06:30 ◼   ► more like this is I have created a subheading which is screen time and then my question

00:06:35 ◼   ► was going to be do you do anything with screen time?

00:06:41 ◼   ► Not anymore and I feel like that's the kind of feature that was the result of like conversations

00:06:52 ◼   ► that we would have on the internet and on social media a couple of years ago. Like I

00:06:58 ◼   ► I really feel like it was the, you know, to go back to something that we mentioned in

00:07:02 ◼   ► the pre-show, which by the way only connected pro listeners can get access to, where can

00:07:07 ◼   ► people go Myke?

00:07:09 ◼   ► If you want to sign up for connected pro.

00:07:11 ◼   ► Go to get connected pro.com.

00:07:15 ◼   ► No, no, come on.

00:07:16 ◼   ► Connectedpro.co, that's where you go.

00:07:19 ◼   ► Connectedpro.co and you can sign up, $5 a month and you get more content and no ads.

00:07:24 ◼   ► So I really feel like screen time and sort of this like quality of life features around

00:07:30 ◼   ► notifications, but especially screen time and the idea of we're spending too much time

00:07:34 ◼   ► looking at our phones.

00:07:36 ◼   ► Like that feature was the byproduct of changes in social media a few years ago, namely starting

00:07:43 ◼   ► in 2016 with the political situation and landscape change in the US.

00:07:48 ◼   ► We started spending, of course, a lot of time on social media being horrified.

00:07:53 ◼   ► what we were seeing on social media and on the news in general. And then I guess it was

00:07:58 ◼   ► only natural to say, well, maybe we need to curb this time that we're spending on our

00:08:03 ◼   ► phones because it's not good for us. And therefore initiatives like Screen Time were born a couple

00:08:09 ◼   ► of years ago. And I feel like we are now moving past that because maybe we just learn to accept

00:08:17 ◼   ► that everything is horrible. And it's like, yeah, we're looking at our phones anyway.

00:08:21 ◼   ► of my back screen time. I'm just gonna look at my phone and, you know, at least I get

00:08:25 ◼   ► to talk to my friends, especially now with the pandemic and everything. Like, yeah, just,

00:08:30 ◼   ► I don't care. I'm gonna spend five hours on my phone because I'm chatting and FaceTiming

00:08:34 ◼   ► with my friends. Like, I don't need your, you know, I don't need your judgment screen

00:08:38 ◼   ► time. So I think it still has a place for families and for parental controls, not so

00:08:44 ◼   ► much for individuals like us, maybe. So I've just opened screen time and have noticed that

00:08:50 ◼   ► since I've been using this Mac Mini on Catalina, that data is coming in here, which is new

00:08:57 ◼   ► to me, right? Like, this is the first time a Mac has ever, like, reported into my screen

00:09:03 ◼   ► time. And I have things that are very confusing to me, like, that on Wednesday I had activity

00:09:09 ◼   ► in the music app for seven and a half hours, and I don't know how that is possible. That

00:09:14 ◼   ► doesn't seem like something that I would have done. So, like, I'm really kind of puzzled

00:09:18 ◼   ► now. But also the funny thing is because I now have it on my Mac, can you guess what

00:09:23 ◼   ► application is dominant, like vastly dominant for me in screen time?

00:09:29 ◼   ► Finder. Apple news.

00:09:32 ◼   ► Can we both of you take more serious guesses? Logic.

00:09:35 ◼   ► No, no, it's not going to be logic otherwise you wouldn't have asked the question. Safari.

00:09:41 ◼   ► OmniFocus. Skype.

00:09:44 ◼   ► Skype.

00:09:45 ◼   ► Ah, Skype.

00:09:46 ◼   ► Oh, I have screen time turned off on my Mac Pro.

00:09:50 ◼   ► Turn on.

00:09:51 ◼   ► Well, I guess it makes sense.

00:09:52 ◼   ► You host like 20 podcasts.

00:09:55 ◼   ► So yeah.

00:09:57 ◼   ► I would love more information about that music thing though.

00:09:59 ◼   ► I don't understand how that happened.

00:10:02 ◼   ► I would say the screen time is a really cool widget in iOS 14.

00:10:06 ◼   ► Does it?

00:10:07 ◼   ► Yeah, there's a lot of, like, there's a graph in there, just like multiple sections.

00:10:11 ◼   ► It's really nicely done.

00:10:13 ◼   ► It's basically the screen time page, but in a widget, and especially in the large version

00:10:18 ◼   ► of the widget.

00:10:19 ◼   ► It's really quite impressive, graphically speaking.

00:10:22 ◼   ► Sorry, I just came across something which is hilarious.

00:10:26 ◼   ► You know pickups?

00:10:30 ◼   ► You can see how many device pickups you've had?

00:10:34 ◼   ► Apparently I pick up my Mac.

00:10:37 ◼   ► Do you?

00:10:39 ◼   ► I had nine device pickups.

00:10:43 ◼   ► I think that's wake from sleep is how they do it, but they didn't change the text.

00:10:46 ◼   ► I'm sure that's what it means, but it shouldn't be called pickups, which is just kind of hilarious.

00:10:50 ◼   ► Well, you need a computer with handles and wheels, you know?

00:10:54 ◼   ► And then you can pick it up.

00:10:56 ◼   ► We've talked about this before, all electronics should have a handle, like the GameCube, or

00:11:01 ◼   ► wheels, like the Mac Pro.

00:11:02 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:11:03 ◼   ► Can I talk about Mac Pro wheels?

00:11:04 ◼   ► Sure.

00:11:05 ◼   ► Why don't we take a break first, and then you can talk about Mac Pro wheels.

00:11:09 ◼   ► Just chucking and jiving all over the place here.

00:11:11 ◼   ► Yep, moving things along.

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00:12:52 ◼   ► next move, make your next website. Tell us about Mac Pro wheels. Did you buy a $700

00:12:58 ◼   ► set of wheels? Is that what you're talking about? Is that how much they cost? Seven? I did not. I did not do

00:13:03 ◼   ► that, but OWC has announced a product called Rover Pro, and what these are, it's

00:13:14 ◼   ► a set of four wheels, and they have a collar, and they have like the wheel part,

00:13:19 ◼   ► and it goes over the foot of your Mac Pro, so you don't have to like take it

00:13:25 ◼   ► apart and take the feet apart with a weird screwdriver. They just screw over

00:13:29 ◼   ► the feet and they're all made of metal and the wheels look really nice.

00:13:34 ◼   ► They're gonna be $249 for the set or $200 if you pre-order and get this it

00:13:42 ◼   ► comes with a set of wheel stops unlike Apple's $700 wheels. Coming with a set of

00:13:50 ◼   ► wheel stops is nice but I think it would have been better if they would have put

00:13:53 ◼   ► a brake on the wheel. I do too because you have to like pick up the Mac Pro to

00:13:57 ◼   ► get it out of the wheel stop a little bit.

00:13:59 ◼   ► Oh they're like chocks right so you could just like tilt it and put it in there right?

00:14:05 ◼   ► Yeah I think so.

00:14:06 ◼   ► I definitely pre-ordered a set because I want to do a video on them and it's not $700 I

00:14:11 ◼   ► was not gonna do that so this is uh this is exciting I think it looks really nice.

00:14:15 ◼   ► OWC makes nice stuff they look really nice.

00:14:18 ◼   ► Have you considered that maybe like the better video is comparing?

00:14:24 ◼   ► Look man, we're really trying to get you to buy those wheels.

00:14:29 ◼   ► We're just trying to buy the real wheels.

00:14:31 ◼   ► We really want you to buy them.

00:14:33 ◼   ► Because now if you do it to compare them, you will have spent $200 more than you needed

00:14:37 ◼   ► to.

00:14:38 ◼   ► Oh yeah, no that wasn't lost on me.

00:14:40 ◼   ► Yeah, because then you've bought both sets of wheels.

00:14:44 ◼   ► But you're saying a comparison video is a good idea is what you're saying.

00:14:47 ◼   ► A comparison video is the best idea.

00:14:49 ◼   ► I think so.

00:14:51 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:14:52 ◼   ► Because what?

00:14:53 ◼   ► got these wheels and now it's got wheels right? Hooray. But now if you're able to

00:15:01 ◼   ► compare and say like oh now I've used Apple's wheels and the OWC wheels I can

00:15:08 ◼   ► say that the OWC wheels are better for what you're getting but you might say

00:15:14 ◼   ► you know what now I've used Apple's wheels I would prefer to spend the extra

00:15:18 ◼   ► extra $500 and get a superior experience.

00:15:21 ◼   ► Or, you know, who knows?

00:15:23 ◼   ► - That is a good point.

00:15:24 ◼   ► - This Mac Pro is becoming, like,

00:15:32 ◼   ► for everyone that owns it, like,

00:15:35 ◼   ► just an absolute money pit.

00:15:37 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:15:38 ◼   ► - Everyone that I know that bought one of these things

00:15:40 ◼   ► continues to spend money on it constantly.

00:15:42 ◼   ► Apple are geniuses, right?

00:15:46 ◼   ► They made everybody wait, charged them way too much for the computer itself, and then

00:15:52 ◼   ► continue to get more money out of these people constantly.

00:15:56 ◼   ► You still gotta give them money.

00:15:59 ◼   ► Because these are also the same people that can't help themselves, right?

00:16:02 ◼   ► And they want to keep spending money on their computer.

00:16:07 ◼   ► Buying a Mac Pro is like buying a house.

00:16:09 ◼   ► It costs way more money than you think it will, and then you can't stop renovating it.

00:16:15 ◼   ► It's true. It's very good. Very good analogy.

00:16:18 ◼   ► And then like you buy an expensive display and that's like paving the pathway and putting

00:16:23 ◼   ► a new roof on the garage, right? And then, you know, you just keep going and going and

00:16:28 ◼   ► going forever.

00:16:29 ◼   ► We'll see what video comes out the other end.

00:16:33 ◼   ► I guess we will. Did you buy one of those expensive cables?

00:16:39 ◼   ► What expensive cables?

00:16:40 ◼   ► They're like $129 USB-C cable.

00:16:43 ◼   ► $129 USB-C cable? The fabric wrapped Thunderbolt one? Basically Apple made a USB-C cable that

00:16:51 ◼   ► eliminates the question of what USB-C cable should I buy to get all the features I need. No,

00:16:56 ◼   ► it's the Thunderbolt cable that comes with the Pro Display. They just have it sold separately now.

00:17:01 ◼   ► No, but it's like it removes like the oh is this one going to work with my eGPU or not or is this

00:17:07 ◼   ► one gonna like that's that's what this cable gives you right like it does 40

00:17:13 ◼   ► gigabit a second data transfer it's USB 3.1 gen 2 does that super speed did that

00:17:19 ◼   ► get named I forget what they call what well anyway it's a really expensive US

00:17:25 ◼   ► Thunderbolt 3 cable that if you buy you can feel like you've got everything you

00:17:31 ◼   ► needed can you also use it like as a rope like

00:17:35 ◼   ► besides you know data transfer probably at least you can justify the expense

00:17:40 ◼   ► like if you need to I don't know Steven you have a pickup truck you can do

00:17:44 ◼   ► something with with that cable you know I mean if it's anything like the power

00:17:48 ◼   ► cable in the Mac Pro it's really nice but but you don't have it no right not

00:17:53 ◼   ► as a but you looked on you you you have considered the option I mean I printed

00:17:59 ◼   ► the page and like taped on the inside of my wallet but one day yeah it's a goal

00:18:04 ◼   ► I'm looking at the picture now, it's a very nice cable indeed.

00:18:08 ◼   ► It is a very nice cable.

00:18:10 ◼   ► Alright, moving on just quickly, watchOS 7 and Big Sur public betas are out.

00:18:17 ◼   ► This happened right after we recorded last week.

00:18:20 ◼   ► Jason has a first look at the Big Sur public beta.

00:18:24 ◼   ► It's Big Sur, we've been talking about it.

00:18:26 ◼   ► The public beta was delayed for whatever reason, Apple hasn't been really clear on why, but

00:18:31 ◼   ► here now and watchOS 7 is here as well. I have no interest in touching the watchOS 7 beta at this

00:18:39 ◼   ► point with no Apple Store open so I'm gonna leave the watch on watchOS 6 until it comes out.

00:18:44 ◼   ► Yeah, I'm on the watchOS 7 beta. I think it's better than the iOS 14 beta on my phone.

00:18:54 ◼   ► That's what I'm gonna say.

00:18:55 ◼   ► Well, we'll look at, you know, we spoke about this last time, like the, the, the beta is, was,

00:19:01 ◼   ► has gotten worse this round. I don't, we don't know why, but it had been okay.

00:19:07 ◼   ► But the watchOS 7 beta is, feels stable?

00:19:11 ◼   ► It feels okay to me.

00:19:14 ◼   ► And this is the public or developer beta?

00:19:17 ◼   ► Developer beta. I'm not on the-

00:19:19 ◼   ► Dave. Dave's been bad to you.

00:19:21 ◼   ► Dave, so you want, is that like Dave beta 4 for the watch?

00:19:25 ◼   ► I think so.

00:19:26 ◼   ► And have you been running the watchOS 7 beta since the beginning?

00:19:30 ◼   ► Yes.

00:19:31 ◼   ► Okay, I couldn't remember if that was the case.

00:19:33 ◼   ► Do you have any takeaways from watchOS 7 so far?

00:19:37 ◼   ► Not really.

00:19:38 ◼   ► I think what I've noticed so far is that adding and managing complications is a lot nicer

00:19:43 ◼   ► on the watch face.

00:19:46 ◼   ► Just because it's like the whole edit screen is different now.

00:19:51 ◼   ► And all the pages have been redesigned, and for each complication they are grouped in

00:19:59 ◼   ► sections.

00:20:00 ◼   ► So the same app can offer multiple complications, and when you go into that screen, they're

00:20:05 ◼   ► all nicely grouped together.

00:20:07 ◼   ► So it's very nice to choose between multiple complications for the same app.

00:20:12 ◼   ► So that's very cool.

00:20:13 ◼   ► That sounds a little bit like the widget thing on iOS.

00:20:16 ◼   ► Yeah, it's kind of like that.

00:20:18 ◼   ► It's really kind of like that.

00:20:20 ◼   ► open a configuration page and each app can have multiple things assigned to it.

00:20:24 ◼   ► Is it better to have set them up in the phone app or on the watch?

00:20:30 ◼   ► I think it's actually nicer to do so on the watch now.

00:20:34 ◼   ► Because it's just more like you see an actual preview of the complication in there.

00:20:39 ◼   ► So I think it's a lot nicer to do on the watch.

00:20:42 ◼   ► Something that I don't like is that due to the removal of Force Touch, we mentioned this

00:20:49 ◼   ► before, clearing all notifications now on the watch, like clearing all notifications

00:20:55 ◼   ► at once, is kind of terrible, because you need to scroll all the way to the top of the

00:21:00 ◼   ► notification list to find the clear button. This button should really be at the bottom,

00:21:07 ◼   ► because it's like, I always forget to dismiss notifications as they come in, and so later

00:21:12 ◼   ► I have to scroll and scroll to find this button at the top of the list. And what is nice,

00:21:19 ◼   ► I think also what I've noticed is that obviously shortcuts.

00:21:22 ◼   ► Shortcuts is on the watch.

00:21:23 ◼   ► So I've assigned a couple of shortcuts that I can run directly on the watch.

00:21:28 ◼   ► So that's cool. And I'm still putting around-

00:21:30 ◼   ► What does that mean? Can you explain that to me?

00:21:32 ◼   ► So there's a shortcuts app, first of all.

00:21:35 ◼   ► So you can actually run shortcuts directly on the watch.

00:21:40 ◼   ► So that's nice.

00:21:41 ◼   ► And other shortcuts you can install as complications.

00:21:45 ◼   ► So you can put a complication for a specific shortcut on your watch face, and when you tap it, it opens the shortcuts up and runs the shortcut on the watch.

00:21:55 ◼   ► It doesn't run on the phone, right? It runs on the watch itself.

00:22:01 ◼   ► So like, it can present lists and show you data or create reminders in my case, like that kind of stuff. It happens directly on the watch.

00:22:10 ◼   ► So like I've been playing around with the idea of creating HomeKit complications, for example,

00:22:17 ◼   ► to control specific accessories, or I have these reminders shortcuts that give me lists of tasks,

00:22:25 ◼   ► and those can run on the watch as complications.

00:22:29 ◼   ► But I assume there's limits to that, right?

00:22:31 ◼   ► Like not every shortcut that I can run on my phone could run on the watch, surely?

00:22:36 ◼   ► I think it will be possible.

00:22:39 ◼   ► But what if like an app doesn't have a watch app?

00:22:45 ◼   ► So Apple basically presented like three different possible scenarios and the app that doesn't

00:22:51 ◼   ► have a watch counterpart is one of them.

00:22:54 ◼   ► In that case it will fall back to the phone, but it's also possible like one of the scenarios

00:23:00 ◼   ► is that if you have an iPhone, so if you have a shortcut that requires a shortcut action

00:23:06 ◼   ► for a third-party app. And if that app has a watch version, they can support shortcuts

00:23:13 ◼   ► and they can support, thanks to parameters, they can run directly on the watch without

00:23:20 ◼   ► taking you to the phone at all. So it's totally possible for developers to make actions that

00:23:26 ◼   ► run... Yeah? I can't get my head around that. So like if you have, for example, let's just

00:23:30 ◼   ► say that OmniFocus makes a watch app that runs on watchOS 7.

00:23:35 ◼   ► And you create a shortcut that uses an OmniFocus action

00:23:40 ◼   ► to do something.

00:23:42 ◼   ► If OmniFocus uses the latest stuff in watchOS 7 shortcuts,

00:23:49 ◼   ► it'll run directly on the watch.

00:23:50 ◼   ► So if you install it on the watch,

00:23:52 ◼   ► and say you have an action that creates, I don't know,

00:23:54 ◼   ► a task in OmniFocus with a specific due date or something,

00:23:58 ◼   ► it'll run on the watch.

00:23:59 ◼   ► But so then what if I...

00:24:01 ◼   ► So then in that same instance, right?

00:24:03 ◼   ► So I had an OmniFocus shortcut,

00:24:05 ◼   ► but OmniFocus didn't have a watch app.

00:24:08 ◼   ► - You run it on the watch

00:24:11 ◼   ► and it'll say continue on your iPhone.

00:24:13 ◼   ► - And if my iPhone is in location,

00:24:17 ◼   ► would it still do it or would it be like a...

00:24:21 ◼   ► You know what I mean?

00:24:22 ◼   ► Like if my phone was near my watch and they were connected,

00:24:25 ◼   ► would it still run the shortcut on my watch?

00:24:28 ◼   ► No, I think it'll tell you to continue on the phone.

00:24:30 ◼   ► OK, so there has to be...

00:24:33 ◼   ► It has to use the new shortcut stuff for it to happen on the watch.

00:24:37 ◼   ► For it to run independently, I think it needs to be on the watch.

00:24:42 ◼   ► Like you need to...

00:24:44 ◼   ► And I need to look into this again.

00:24:47 ◼   ► And independently means...

00:24:49 ◼   ► See, this is where watch independence as a phrase has become really complicated

00:24:55 ◼   ► because it means multiple things now, depending on what year you're in.

00:24:58 ◼   ► So, independently, for shortcuts, means like the phone is not involved at all, right?

00:25:06 ◼   ► Yeah, so let's say you're out for a run, and you have a shortcut on your watch, and that

00:25:11 ◼   ► shortcut involves a third-party action. My understanding of this, and I need to look

00:25:17 ◼   ► into this again because I'm not writing about shortcuts on the watch, obviously, but I think

00:25:25 ◼   ► the way that it works is if you have the watch app installed and if the watch app runs on

00:25:29 ◼   ► watchOS 7 and supports modern shortcut actions with parameters, it'll run on the watch.

00:25:37 ◼   ► Even if the phone is not nearby.

00:25:40 ◼   ► I think that's the way it works.

00:25:43 ◼   ► Maybe this just comes from me not using an Apple Watch regularly enough, and I reckon

00:25:47 ◼   ► it probably is that.

00:25:48 ◼   ► But like, I still kind of can't get my head around the idea of the Apple Watch as an independent

00:25:54 ◼   ► computer of its own. It still feels very much to me like when I think of the

00:25:59 ◼   ► Apple Watch like it needs the phone. So like when I hear things like that I'm

00:26:03 ◼   ► kind of like "wait really?" because I know that there's like things the watch has

00:26:07 ◼   ► been able to do for a while like you can put music on it and stuff right? But I

00:26:11 ◼   ► think this comes from the last time that I was using my Apple Watch was the first

00:26:15 ◼   ► time that Apple said that the Apple Watch could do things independently and

00:26:18 ◼   ► it couldn't really right? Like when they put LTE on the watch right and it was

00:26:22 ◼   ► like, "Oh, it'll be fine now," but everything took like a million years to load still, right?

00:26:27 ◼   ► Like it almost felt like the original Apple Watch again.

00:26:30 ◼   ► But I guess now it seems like that...

00:26:33 ◼   ► So like it's responsive and stuff when it's doing that?

00:26:36 ◼   ► When it's running those shortcuts you've found?

00:26:38 ◼   ► I think it's pretty good, honestly.

00:26:41 ◼   ► They run reasonably fast.

00:26:44 ◼   ► And like some stuff that involves like, for example, fetching like a lot of reminders

00:26:50 ◼   ► lists all at once and presenting lists to choose from. It's a bit slower than the phone,

00:26:59 ◼   ► obviously, but also I'm not having a great experience with shortcuts on the phone at

00:27:03 ◼   ► the moment either.

00:27:04 ◼   ► No, it's a little... Anything menu or list related is what?

00:27:10 ◼   ► Or typing in messages or using the camera or...

00:27:14 ◼   ► Well, okay, but specifically about shortcuts, but yes, there are problems throughout the

00:27:20 ◼   ► current Dave. Shortcuts right now, on the iPad you cannot even press command return

00:27:27 ◼   ► to like confirm text in an alert. Like it used to be that shortcuts would bring up an

00:27:33 ◼   ► alert and you would type text into the box and you would just do like in any other app

00:27:38 ◼   ► you would do command return to dismiss the alert, right? It doesn't work right now. And

00:27:43 ◼   ► if you press return I think it dims the screen or something like that. Like it's super broken

00:27:49 ◼   ► at the moment. It's kind of like "shhh". It's like "shhh, you're not supposed to do this

00:27:54 ◼   ► yet. Go back to whatever it is you were doing." Yeah. But I think, like, so my summary of

00:28:03 ◼   ► WatchOS 7 is I've tried the hand washing reminder stuff. It was cool for a couple of hours and

00:28:10 ◼   ► that started telling me to wash my hands when I was doing like random things like grating

00:28:19 ◼   ► my parmigiano cheese for example. But I thought they spent years on that. Sure, maybe they

00:28:25 ◼   ► should have created more parmigiano. I don't know what the answer is. But it was picking

00:28:31 ◼   ► up a lot of false positives. So I disabled that. And I don't know what else is new really.

00:28:38 ◼   ► The complication stuff I've noticed, shortcuts I've noticed. I guess there's gonna be like

00:28:42 ◼   ► Have you looked at the sleep tracking?

00:28:46 ◼   ► No, no, because I found it to be really…

00:28:51 ◼   ► I have a couple of problems with that.

00:28:54 ◼   ► First is the idea of winding down.

00:28:56 ◼   ► It doesn't really work for me.

00:28:58 ◼   ► My sleep schedule is too irregular, especially in the summer.

00:29:01 ◼   ► Like I'm going out with friends and sometimes I'm coming back home at one, other days

00:29:06 ◼   ► I'm coming back home at 3am.

00:29:08 ◼   ► Like the idea of winding down at a specific time doesn't really work for me.

00:29:12 ◼   ► Can you not like say to the phone like start wind down now?

00:29:16 ◼   ► You can, you can, well no you gotta set a time right? You gotta have a schedule.

00:29:21 ◼   ► So that doesn't really work for me. And also I'm not the type of person who needs

00:29:25 ◼   ► a wind down routine. Like when I'm tired I'm just gonna sleep. Like I turn to one side of the bed

00:29:32 ◼   ► that I really like and I sleep. And I fall asleep like in five minutes. I don't need like a, like to

00:29:38 ◼   ► to do, like listen to a podcast before sleeping, I find really curious as an idea, because

00:29:44 ◼   ► then you fall asleep and you don't listen to the podcast. So it kind of defeats the

00:29:48 ◼   ► purpose of it.

00:29:50 ◼   ► What that's about though, Federico, is there is a whole genre of podcasts called sleep

00:29:54 ◼   ► podcasts where all you're supposed to do is like, you listen to this to help you go to

00:29:58 ◼   ► sleep.

00:29:59 ◼   ► How do they make money? Do they give you the ads upfront?

00:30:03 ◼   ► Yes.

00:30:04 ◼   ► Oh, before you fall asleep?

00:30:05 ◼   ► Of course they do. Like, what else are they gonna do?

00:30:08 ◼   ► This episode is brought to you by...

00:30:10 ◼   ► Silence.

00:30:12 ◼   ► So yeah, the sleep routine doesn't really work for me.

00:30:18 ◼   ► And the sleep tracking, I did try for a few days, and I found it to be very much inaccurate

00:30:26 ◼   ► compared to, say, auto-sleep or sleep++.

00:30:30 ◼   ► It's very bland and generic at the moment.

00:30:35 ◼   ► I have a feeling that it's going to be a lot better with future watch hardware, but right

00:30:40 ◼   ► now it's basic sleep data that is not as accurate as third-party alternatives.

00:30:47 ◼   ► And also you gotta go into the Health tab.

00:30:50 ◼   ► Like I just prefer to get my AutoSleep notification in the morning and that's it.

00:30:55 ◼   ► And I honestly don't know what else is new.

00:30:57 ◼   ► I guess there's going to be like a bunch of app changes, just like iOS 14, like lots of

00:31:03 ◼   ► enhancements and addressing common feature requests, but I haven't noticed anything else

00:31:11 ◼   ► major myself. I think it's fine. Maybe there's going to be a lot more, again, with future

00:31:17 ◼   ► hardware. I honestly don't know what else is new. You don't have the pinned conversation

00:31:23 ◼   ► view in messages on the watch, of course, and I have my usual problems with the watch,

00:31:28 ◼   ► I don't know, Shazam never works for me on the watch for example. Like the other

00:31:33 ◼   ► day I was at the beach and there was this really good song playing on the on

00:31:37 ◼   ► the radio and I was just like by the there's like a coffee shop right there

00:31:43 ◼   ► by the beach and I was just waving my hand in the air like an idiot trying to

00:31:47 ◼   ► put the watch close to the speaker that was playing the song and it wasn't

00:31:51 ◼   ► picking up the song and the owner looked at me with a funny face I was like I'm

00:31:55 ◼   ► sorry I just really like this song and I'm using the watch with Shazam and she

00:31:59 ◼   ► was like uh-huh look at this guy look at this idiot with his arms around for Shazam on a watch

00:32:07 ◼   ► yeah so I don't know what else is new I guess I'm I should go back and read our

00:32:11 ◼   ► own overview on Mac stories maybe do you guys know what else is new?

00:32:18 ◼   ► Cycling in maps so yes this also doesn't work because one there's no cycling

00:32:24 ◼   ► support for maps in Italy, and two, don't ride a bicycle in Rome unless you want to die.

00:32:29 ◼   ► That's probably why they don't support it.

00:32:31 ◼   ► But also it's not supported, so. Oh yeah, you can share watch faces. I think this is gonna be

00:32:37 ◼   ► pretty cool. I totally forgot about this because I don't have anybody to share a watch face with,

00:32:43 ◼   ► but it's potentially interesting to... not because I don't have any friends,

00:32:46 ◼   ► but because I don't have any friends running the watch by 7 beta.

00:32:49 ◼   ► The social share... the social aspect of the sharing and the fact that they thought about

00:32:54 ◼   ► that I think is the best is the most well thought out part of it.

00:32:57 ◼   ► I mean when has Apple ever fumbled the ball with social stuff?

00:33:02 ◼   ► Well the good thing is they didn't try and create the Apple Watch social network.

00:33:06 ◼   ► What would they call it?

00:33:09 ◼   ► Watchme?

00:33:11 ◼   ► Timely.

00:33:12 ◼   ► Oh Timely is a good name.

00:33:15 ◼   ► Time.ly.

00:33:16 ◼   ► TikTok.

00:33:18 ◼   ► Come on TikTok that's good right?

00:33:20 ◼   ► Come on.

00:33:22 ◼   ► Come on.

00:33:23 ◼   ► Other new things that I should have mentioned, dance workouts.

00:33:27 ◼   ► It's going to be cool for Silvia, if not for me.

00:33:30 ◼   ► Oh yeah, this is very nice.

00:33:31 ◼   ► Something that I had noticed a couple of days ago, actually.

00:33:34 ◼   ► You get a notification on your phone

00:33:35 ◼   ► when your watch is fully charged, which is really nice,

00:33:39 ◼   ► especially for multi-watch users like myself.

00:33:43 ◼   ► Right, right.

00:33:44 ◼   ► They did that because of the sleep tracking, right?

00:33:46 ◼   ► Yes, yes.

00:33:47 ◼   ► So maybe I should try again sleep tracking

00:33:50 ◼   ► in a couple of betas, see if the situation improves.

00:33:53 ◼   ► I was really not impressed. But I did try with Beta 1 or 2. Either Beta 1 or 2, so it

00:34:00 ◼   ► was very early on in the process. I tried Wind Down on my phone, and I realized, "Oh,

00:34:06 ◼   ► this is basically like a fancier version of Bedtime, which is an existing feature." So

00:34:11 ◼   ► they basically took that and added these winding down shortcuts that doesn't really work for

00:34:15 ◼   ► me. Like, of all things that I have a routine for in my life, I don't want to have a routine

00:34:21 ◼   ► for sleeping. And I'm sorry it's probably bad for me, I know that, and I'll, you know,

00:34:26 ◼   ► etc. But yeah. It is what it is. And handwashing, really not impressed.

00:34:32 ◼   ► That is something that I expect will be refined before the release version though, right?

00:34:39 ◼   ► Like, I reckon maybe try it out again before the shipping version. Like, I would hope and

00:34:45 ◼   ► expect they would tighten that up.

00:34:48 ◼   ► I want to try again slipshacking, and I want to try again for sure the hand-washing reminder.

00:34:54 ◼   ► And I want to play around.

00:34:56 ◼   ► So I guess if you're working on watchOS 7 betas, please get in touch, because I really

00:35:00 ◼   ► want to try the new complication stuff and sharing watch faces.

00:35:03 ◼   ► I think of all the features, besides shortcuts, complications and sharing faces, I am super

00:35:10 ◼   ► curious about, especially for the potential of like, you know how on the newsletter we

00:35:14 ◼   ► share home screens by readers.

00:35:18 ◼   ► I think it would be pretty cool to share watch faces by readers and actually make them so

00:35:25 ◼   ► that you can tap a link and install the watch face. I think that's the best part and something

00:35:30 ◼   ► that you cannot do with the iPhone. It would be cool if you could share your home screen.

00:35:34 ◼   ► No, I mean it would be too difficult to do with an iPhone.

00:35:37 ◼   ► Yeah, I guess so.

00:35:39 ◼   ► I think the thing that works really well about the Apple Watch implementation for what I've

00:35:44 ◼   ► into is that when you go through the process it prompts you to install the

00:35:50 ◼   ► required applications to get everything if you don't have them all and I just

00:35:53 ◼   ► think that's just genius like just really is very very clever.

00:35:56 ◼   ► Anything else on Betaland? I've installed Big Sur on an external drive.

00:36:05 ◼   ► Yeah I mean I can confirm everything I said I think it looks beautiful the

00:36:10 ◼   ► icons. Most of them are really nice and I think it looks very, very pretty, but I don't

00:36:16 ◼   ► have anything else to say. I think it messages super nice that it's now like a real app instead

00:36:23 ◼   ► of whatever it is it used to be. There's something so good about that sentence, which will upset

00:36:29 ◼   ► so many people. It's a real app coming from the iPad. No, I know what you mean. I know

00:36:33 ◼   ► what you mean. But the thing is, like, it's now catalyst. Like, that's what's happening.

00:36:38 ◼   ► That's why I said the real app. Like, all the words I use are there for a reason.

00:36:47 ◼   ► No words out of place. Wow.

00:36:53 ◼   ► No subtext is left unconsidered. Anyway, yes, Big Sur looks stunning, I think. It generally,

00:37:03 ◼   ► it's the first time that I'm excited for anything Mac-related. So I will tell you, I've purchased

00:37:11 ◼   ► an external drive just because I wanted to use Big Sur. So, big commitment, you might

00:37:17 ◼   ► say. Big Sur commitment. Big Sur commitment. But yeah, that about concludes my tour of

00:37:24 ◼   ► WatchOS 7 and Big Sur. That's all you need to know. No need for reviews. Just listen

00:37:31 ◼   ► into this segment in September, ideally October, and you're going to be fine. That's all you

00:37:36 ◼   ► need to know. Ideally October. Ideally October. Like I was reading through, there's this thread

00:37:44 ◼   ► happening on Twitter today between Gruber and Rambo and some other people and how Gruber

00:37:50 ◼   ► at some point said, maybe the fact that they said that the iPhones are going to be a few

00:37:55 ◼   ► weeks later, maybe it also suggests that the software is behind. And I really wish that

00:38:02 ◼   ► I could, like, I really want that to be true. Like, I keep thinking that it would be super

00:38:07 ◼   ► nice to have until early October.

00:38:10 ◼   ► We're going to have this conversation every week.

00:38:12 ◼   ► And I'm going to be so disappointed.

00:38:14 ◼   ► It would be lovely if it was true. But you can't live your life thinking that.

00:38:19 ◼   ► I know, but imagine the thrill, right? The thrill of the promise. You know, the adrenaline.

00:38:25 ◼   ► You know that meme of like the arm with the goosebumps?

00:38:28 ◼   ► Yes, what makes you feel like this? And the October release?

00:38:35 ◼   ► It's just iOS 14 coming in October. You should tweet that. That's a funny tweet.

00:38:40 ◼   ► Ah, that's a very funny tweet.

00:38:44 ◼   ► I saw somebody in my timeline retweeting,

00:38:48 ◼   ► like quote-tweeting a tweet yesterday with that picture.

00:38:52 ◼   ► I'm gonna find it and do my version of it.

00:38:55 ◼   ► Very good idea, Michael, thank you.

00:38:57 ◼   ► My version, but yeah, it can also be your version.

00:39:00 ◼   ► Your version.

00:39:01 ◼   ► It's a collab, let's just say.

00:39:05 ◼   ► It's a collab, okay.

00:39:06 ◼   ► It's a collab, yeah, yeah, yeah, we collabbed.

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00:40:11 ◼   ► Go to expressvpn.com/connected and you'll get an extra three months of ExpressVPN for

00:40:17 ◼   ► free.

00:40:18 ◼   ► That's expressvpn.com/connected.

00:40:22 ◼   ► Our thanks to ExpressVPN for the support of the show and Relay FM.

00:40:26 ◼   ► I have another question for you both, as today I seem to keep thinking about things that

00:40:32 ◼   ► I want to ask you features to use.

00:40:34 ◼   ► Do either of you use the messages announcing via AirPods feature?

00:40:39 ◼   ► Oh no.

00:40:39 ◼   ► You don't use that?

00:40:41 ◼   ► Okay.

00:40:41 ◼   ► I just turned it on a couple of weeks ago.

00:40:45 ◼   ► Wow, really?

00:40:46 ◼   ► I was out on a bike ride and someone texted me and it was important and I missed it.

00:40:51 ◼   ► And so I've turned it on.

00:40:54 ◼   ► And you know, I really only use my AirPods at this point when I'm exercising.

00:40:59 ◼   ► I don't wear them around the house or anything.

00:41:02 ◼   ► And so I find that if I'm on a bike ride or working out

00:41:05 ◼   ► that I'd like to hear those.

00:41:08 ◼   ► And the trick is to mute your busy group threads,

00:41:11 ◼   ► like the one I'm in with the two of you and John.

00:41:13 ◼   ► And so if someone needs to get a hold of me,

00:41:16 ◼   ► it will announce it.

00:41:17 ◼   ► It makes a little noise and quietly talks to you

00:41:21 ◼   ► and you can respond.

00:41:21 ◼   ► I have found that I really like it, actually.

00:41:23 ◼   ► - Well, you say that the group thread muting

00:41:27 ◼   ► actually has like a fun little bug with that,

00:41:29 ◼   ► which has been around for a while,

00:41:31 ◼   ► where, so let's imagine you get two messages.

00:41:35 ◼   ► One is from, say, me, and then one is from, say,

00:41:39 ◼   ► Federico and the group thread.

00:41:40 ◼   ► If you get them at the same time,

00:41:42 ◼   ► it will announce them both,

00:41:44 ◼   ► even if it's from a muted conversation.

00:41:46 ◼   ► I have this happen quite a lot.

00:41:47 ◼   ► So if I have multiple message threads

00:41:50 ◼   ► popping off at the same time,

00:41:51 ◼   ► I will hear from all of them, even if you have it muted.

00:41:55 ◼   ► - I haven't noticed that yet, but now I'm worried.

00:41:58 ◼   ► - Which is very annoying.

00:42:00 ◼   ► But I do use this feature. I kind of like it. I've been using it the whole time. I never turned it off.

00:42:07 ◼   ► And then I it's kind of like I'm wondering if I want to keep it on or not which is why I wanted

00:42:13 ◼   ► to see if you two were using it. Federico you just you hate it or something? Not for you?

00:42:18 ◼   ► If I'm wearing AirPods it's because I don't want to be disturbed by anybody and I feel like if it's

00:42:25 ◼   ► it's an emergency you're just gonna call me on the phone. I don't think anybody with an

00:42:31 ◼   ► emergency is gonna text me. I don't do it for emergency reasons. I just have it on and

00:42:39 ◼   ► see what happens. So if I'm wearing AirPods it's because I really wanna, because I wanna

00:42:44 ◼   ► chill or because I'm working out and I'm listening to a podcast or music or I'm doing chores

00:42:50 ◼   ► around the house and again I'm listening to music or podcasts and so I don't I

00:42:55 ◼   ► don't enjoy having the audio be interrupted by Siri you know reciting a

00:43:02 ◼   ► message because I'm just gonna pick up the phone and look at it myself I think

00:43:07 ◼   ► it's faster and I just don't enjoy the interruption of audio okay do you use it

00:43:15 ◼   ► Okay, do you like it? Well, that's just what I'm saying. Like, I do and then I also don't.

00:43:22 ◼   ► Sometimes funny things happen, which I enjoy. Like, Adina texts me today,

00:43:28 ◼   ► "Oh no!" of an exclamation mark, and Siri said, "Oh no!" and I was like, just like that.

00:43:33 ◼   ► And I was like, "Oh, thanks, Siri." It's kind of funny to hear some of the ways that Siri tries to

00:43:41 ◼   ► to pronounce or announce things. And it's like for most of the time where I am wearing AirPods, I

00:43:48 ◼   ► mostly do want that. Like if I'm doing chores then I would like to have the messages read to

00:43:56 ◼   ► me or if I'm like commuting I would like to have the messages read to me. I don't respond ever,

00:44:04 ◼   ► but I do like via Siri because you can respond via Siri right? Like I never do that. But like

00:44:09 ◼   ► I find it fine to hear them, but I'm not, it's just kind of like the jury's still out for me

00:44:14 ◼   ► with this feature, so I was wondering how YouTube felt about it. Now I know.

00:44:18 ◼   ► I'm still trying to look for that tweet, by the way.

00:44:22 ◼   ► I think I've, so I have no idea, yes, the goosebumps. I have no idea who shared it,

00:44:30 ◼   ► so here's where I'm at, a real-time follow-up. I have no idea how I shared it, however I have an

00:44:34 ◼   ► idea for how to find it, but I'm gonna need your and our audience's input. So my

00:44:41 ◼   ► idea is I use an advanced Twitter search to filter the people I follow and the

00:44:48 ◼   ► twitter.com URL, so that in that way I will find tweets that were quoting other

00:44:55 ◼   ► tweets, right? However, this is not working, because I'm not finding the tweet, so I

00:45:02 ◼   ► I must be missing some filters along the way. Oh, maybe minimum retweets is an idea because

00:45:10 ◼   ► it was a meme. So maybe this is the way to go.

00:45:15 ◼   ► I have no idea how to help you with this. This seems like something for the Discord.

00:45:21 ◼   ► They can find it, I'm sure. I have a very specific tweet in mind and I'm

00:45:27 ◼   ► not finding it with filters on Twitter.com and I think I've seen it in the

00:45:32 ◼   ► past two days I think it was yesterday yeah I know I've seen it this is what

00:45:37 ◼   ► made me think of it so we both follow somebody who who did this we both follow

00:45:43 ◼   ► somebody who did this okay well if I find it I will let you know in real time

00:45:49 ◼   ► on the show. Thank you. Yeah. So next week is Relay FM's sixth birthday. To celebrate on Tuesday

00:45:59 ◼   ► at 1130 Eastern, that is the 18th of August, Tuesday, August 18th, 1130 AM Eastern, Myke and

00:46:07 ◼   ► I will be doing a stream on the Relay Twitch channel answering your questions. So you can

00:46:16 ◼   ► tweet with the hashtag relay QA or use the command question mark relay QA in

00:46:23 ◼   ► the discord and they'll go in the spreadsheet and we're gonna pick some of

00:46:27 ◼   ► those and talk about that. We will also be sharing some exciting news on that

00:46:32 ◼   ► stream so be sure to to tune in it'll be up on YouTube once we're done streaming

00:46:37 ◼   ► and keep an eye on Twitter we'll be reminding people as we get closer to

00:46:41 ◼   ► this but it'll be fun to see each other and and stream for a little while. Yeah

00:46:45 ◼   ► Yeah, so like these are kinds of questions you want to know about what's going on at

00:46:49 ◼   ► Relay FM. If you kind of want to ask us big picture questions, small picture questions,

00:46:55 ◼   ► medium picture questions, history questions, you know, all that kind of stuff.

00:47:00 ◼   ► History picture is what you're saying? Medium picture, history picture?

00:47:03 ◼   ► History pictures, any kind of picture related question or non-picture related question about

00:47:10 ◼   ► kind of what we're up to here at Relay FM. As we celebrate yet another year around the

00:47:15 ◼   ► the sun? Sure. Is that correct? Yeah, that's correct, isn't it? You go around the sun once

00:47:21 ◼   ► a year. That's how years work. I just said it, I was like "Oh god, did I say it wrong?"

00:47:25 ◼   ► No, that's how it works. You know, I've recently discovered that one of my friends is a flat

00:47:34 ◼   ► Yes. So yeah, I felt, I felt dirty myself. Yeah. So.

00:47:49 ◼   ► How much of a flat earther? Oh, really, really much. Well, it all started

00:47:58 ◼   ► because the same people, the same person is a COVID conspiracy.

00:48:02 ◼   ► Of course they are. Of course they are. And then we went from there.

00:48:08 ◼   ► Just pause if you don't know about this phenomenon. Episode 13 of UngenIeust is about Flat Earth

00:48:14 ◼   ► societies where, because Steven writes the scripts, like the outlines, Steven, I believe,

00:48:20 ◼   ► made me portray the role of a Flat Earther on that episode. Underscore found the Goosebump

00:48:29 ◼   ► How? Of course. Because he's underscore, underscore, confined anything.

00:48:34 ◼   ► How? He probably put all of Twitter into a YouTube video and then like transcribed it.

00:48:40 ◼   ► Oh, thank you. Underscore, confined, literally anything. It's one of his many, many, many

00:48:48 ◼   ► special skills. Anyway, what was I saying before that? Oh, about flat earthers. Alright,

00:48:56 ◼   ► So I want to know Federico, do you try to argue with this person?

00:49:03 ◼   ► No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

00:49:05 ◼   ► Because it does feel kind of pointless, right?

00:49:07 ◼   ► I tried when the conversation began with the COVID-19 argument, and I tried for a few minutes

00:49:16 ◼   ► there.

00:49:17 ◼   ► And then as soon as this person started basically saying things like, "Oh, don't you know that

00:49:23 ◼   ► government is controlling us and COVID is like a plan for big pharma, you know, the usual stupid

00:49:30 ◼   ► things. I just, I just, I checked out of the conversation there. I was like, okay, okay, sure.

00:49:38 ◼   ► And then he started saying like, Oh, don't you know that like other things that, that they're

00:49:42 ◼   ► lying to us? For example, like it literally said, how can you know that the earth is not flat?

00:49:52 ◼   ► And he started saying things like "Have you ever been in space? Can you actually personally

00:50:01 ◼   ► confirm that it's a globe?" And now, at that point, you just gotta be like "Okay, sure,

00:50:07 ◼   ► sure, you have a point. Point taken. I'm not an astronaut, so please disregard centuries

00:50:13 ◼   ► of science, but sure, your theory is correct." There really isn't a good way to deal with

00:50:20 ◼   ► discovering that a friend of yours is a conspiracy theorist. That's what I've learned. To a certain

00:50:28 ◼   ► degree, it really feels like you've lost a person there, at least for me. It really feels

00:50:36 ◼   ► like it's not like obviously that person died, but it really sucks to... but part of them

00:50:44 ◼   ► did, right? It really sucks to discover that a friend of yours thinks and believes such

00:50:50 ◼   ► things that the Earth is flat, that COVID-19 does not exist, that chemotherapy is a scam.

00:50:56 ◼   ► Like, you know, it's like part of them dies with that belief. And so, yeah, it sucks.

00:51:03 ◼   ► I can tell you, like, personally that it sucks.

00:51:05 ◼   ► If you bury somebody who's a flat Earth and you dig too deep, they just fall through the

00:51:09 ◼   ► disk. I mean, that's bad.

00:51:10 ◼   ► They fall to the disk and you know they believe that at the end like there's no

00:51:14 ◼   ► There's no poles. There's like a giant ice wall at the end of the disk. Yeah

00:51:20 ◼   ► Nobody's ever climbed over the wall. I guess if you do you're gonna fall off so

00:51:30 ◼   ► All right, so Tuesday

00:51:34 ◼   ► August 18th

00:51:37 ◼   ► 1130 a.m.

00:51:39 ◼   ► Hashtag really QA question mark really QA in the discord we have some announcements to make to please join us. Yep. It'll be fun

00:51:46 ◼   ► Let's let's check in on

00:51:49 ◼   ► Your review Federico, so we are now basically the middle of August

00:51:54 ◼   ► iOS could be out in as little as two weeks or as many as 12 weeks

00:51:59 ◼   ► If it's not in two weeks, I'm screwed big time

00:52:04 ◼   ► South September 2nd

00:52:07 ◼   ► Well, you're gonna know though, right? You're gonna have a GM and you're gonna have developers submitting apps

00:52:12 ◼   ► Like it's not it's not like it's just gonna happen

00:52:15 ◼   ► Yeah. Yeah, that's a good point. They would at least still say like, you know developers later and week in advance

00:52:21 ◼   ► We are gonna get

00:52:24 ◼   ► at least one week

00:52:26 ◼   ► Was it with 19 they gave people like a weekend or maybe it was with

00:52:31 ◼   ► Catalina there was some recent update recently

00:52:34 ◼   ► they were like, "It's coming out Monday, release your apps." And it was a Friday. Maybe it

00:52:38 ◼   ► was Catalina.

00:52:39 ◼   ► Hmm.

00:52:40 ◼   ► Yeah, maybe it was Catalina. No, with 13, they did the thing where they split it into

00:52:46 ◼   ► releases 13 and 13.1.

00:52:47 ◼   ► That's right. Yeah. What a mess.

00:52:48 ◼   ► And 13.1. Yeah. But iPadOS was actually 13.1. And then they gave us a date, something like

00:52:57 ◼   ► September 30th for 13.1. And then a couple of days after, they changed their mind and

00:53:03 ◼   ► be like "oh no, it's actually coming September 24th" or something like that. Like, it was

00:53:08 ◼   ► all over the place. So, okay, the review. I think I'm about halfway through, honestly.

00:53:18 ◼   ► As I mentioned before, it's been going slower than usual. Again, you can listen to the pre-show

00:53:23 ◼   ► to sort of get the context around that. However, I feel good about the fact that the most challenging

00:53:29 ◼   ► chapters, actually, I have done up front. And so it makes me feel good to know that

00:53:37 ◼   ► I've done the introduction, which I always struggle with, and home screen. So home screen

00:53:43 ◼   ► includes widgets and the app library and all that stuff. And I'm basically done with design

00:53:49 ◼   ► as well. I think as soon as I'm done with the iPadOS chapter, I really feel like it's

00:53:56 ◼   ► It's all going to be much easier from there, because then I'm going to have to write about

00:54:01 ◼   ► shortcuts and apps.

00:54:03 ◼   ► And shortcuts, I feel like it's going to be really easy this year, because there aren't

00:54:08 ◼   ► that many new actions to write about, and the apps chapter is going to be basically

00:54:14 ◼   ► just write about all the new features in every single app.

00:54:20 ◼   ► Because I would imagine a lot of the things in shortcuts you would maybe cover in design.

00:54:26 ◼   ► Very good point. Some of them I do.

00:54:30 ◼   ► So the shortcuts chapter itself probably isn't

00:54:34 ◼   ► that big, even though a lot happened. Because again, it's like, as well, a lot of the stuff that

00:54:38 ◼   ► was really good about shortcuts this year, it's building on

00:54:42 ◼   ► what was started last year. Exactly.

00:54:46 ◼   ► So I'm gonna start

00:54:50 ◼   ► iPadOS tomorrow. The iPadOS chapter tomorrow. And once I'm done with

00:54:54 ◼   ► that I'm gonna feel a lot better, because I feel like Shortcuts Apps and the conclusion,

00:55:00 ◼   ► those are easily chapters that I can do in late August and early September, because it's just a

00:55:07 ◼   ► matter of, like, there's no big overarching theme, right? Like, Messages has a bunch of new features,

00:55:14 ◼   ► and, you know, what's new in Mail, what's new in Safari, and the fact that I've been able to deal

00:55:21 ◼   ► with these bigger themes now, so compact UI and widgets, and what's happening on iPad.

00:55:29 ◼   ► That's the meaty part of the review.

00:55:32 ◼   ► So a bit slower than usual, however feeling good about it.

00:55:38 ◼   ► And if they...

00:55:39 ◼   ► I'm assuming that...

00:55:41 ◼   ► So if this is coming out in mid-September, as usual, I have about a month, and I'm feeling

00:55:45 ◼   ► pretty good about that, especially because it looks like I'm gonna be at home early September,

00:55:53 ◼   ► like I'm not going anywhere, I have to stay home, so that works well for me. If it's late

00:55:59 ◼   ► September, then great. And if it's early October, even better. So, but let's just say that I

00:56:04 ◼   ► have about a month, maybe like 35 days, right? In previous years it launched around September

00:56:11 ◼   ► 15th or 16th. So I will make it happen if it's mid-September. If it's any earlier than

00:56:18 ◼   ► that, I will not be ready and people are going to have to wait. Otherwise, like in terms

00:56:26 ◼   ► of the process itself, I've been using MyNode a lot. I mentioned this before, I think. I've

00:56:34 ◼   ► been using this Visual Tags, which is a new feature in MyNode, basically to tag different

00:56:40 ◼   ► sections of the map, using a mind map to manage all the different chapters and sections and

00:56:45 ◼   ► subsections of the review. And I have these tags in my node that mean different things.

00:56:51 ◼   ► There's a tag called "write later", which as the name says, it's something that I cannot

00:56:58 ◼   ► write about right now, such as setup and performance, because I want to write about

00:57:02 ◼   ► that stuff at the very end of the beta process. There's another tag called "titbits", which is

00:57:09 ◼   ► like the small and hidden features that I want to make sure I can collect in a single

00:57:14 ◼   ► place this year. So I've been using this new feature of MindNote 7 a lot. And everything

00:57:20 ◼   ► else, I mean, I'm still using iA Writer. I plan on using the content blocks feature of

00:57:28 ◼   ► iA Writer again.

00:57:29 ◼   ► That's the way you can bring in, like, images, right?

00:57:33 ◼   ► Yes. Yeah, that's right. That's right. Content blocks allow you to embed local

00:57:38 ◼   ► image attachments in a markdown document.

00:57:43 ◼   ► And so that when you preview the document,

00:57:45 ◼   ► it looks like you actually have uploaded images inside the HTML,

00:57:52 ◼   ► but you actually don't.

00:57:53 ◼   ► You have a reference to a local file in there.

00:57:57 ◼   ► Which is these two features, content blocks and my custom preview theme,

00:58:01 ◼   ► in IE Writer, they are the reason why I'm not using Ulysses.

00:58:05 ◼   ► Because if I remember correctly, that custom theme that you have,

00:58:09 ◼   ► I think I had to snap, sorry, it looks like the template for the review itself, doesn't it?

00:58:16 ◼   ► I have two custom preview templates in A-Rider.

00:58:19 ◼   ► One that looks exactly like the regular website,

00:58:22 ◼   ► and the other that looks exactly like the iOS review.

00:58:25 ◼   ► So it's really helpful to confirm that the review is looking fine before I even put it on the website.

00:58:33 ◼   ► And these two features are the reason why I'm not using Ulysses. I have considered Ulysses again,

00:58:38 ◼   ► especially because they now have this super handy feature in the sidebar. They have an outline view

00:58:46 ◼   ► where you can easily jump around between sections of a document. And as you can imagine,

00:58:50 ◼   ► these longer chapters that are like 8,000 words, it really would be convenient to have an outline

00:58:58 ◼   ► of all the sections and jump around to those sections with just a single tap.

00:59:03 ◼   ► But that's available in Ulysses now. I know that apps like Jafs have the same feature.

00:59:10 ◼   ► IaWriter does not. However, in considering life...

00:59:14 ◼   ► Even Google Docs has that.

00:59:15 ◼   ► Yeah. However, in thinking about this, am I willing to give up my custom preview

00:59:25 ◼   ► and my content blocks based system because of an outline mode?

00:59:30 ◼   ► And I think the answer is no, because I think those features are really, really important to me.

00:59:36 ◼   ► I have a question from Matt in the Discord, which is a good question.

00:59:39 ◼   ► How do you handle the content blocks thing when it comes to publishing on WordPress?

00:59:43 ◼   ► Like, what happens to the content block?

00:59:46 ◼   ► Ah, good question.

00:59:47 ◼   ► So what I do is a couple of things are happening.

00:59:51 ◼   ► So in terms of the text itself, I have a document called "0-TableOfContents".

01:00:01 ◼   ► The 0 is necessary because in IE Writer, if I sort alphabetically, it sits at the very

01:00:07 ◼   ► top of my document list.

01:00:09 ◼   ► The TableOfContents has itself content blocks for all the chapters.

01:00:15 ◼   ► And here's where the trick comes in.

01:00:18 ◼   ► I have different versions of the table of contents depending on what version of the review I am compiling.

01:00:27 ◼   ► I have a table of contents for the website and I have another table of contents for the ebook version for Club Maxories members.

01:00:34 ◼   ► So different sections, like different pieces of syntax, go in each different table of content.

01:00:41 ◼   ► For the images, what I do is I have a script.

01:00:46 ◼   ► This is great because this is going to be really, really geeky.

01:00:52 ◼   ► So, the beauty of IEI Writer is that it uses iCloud Drive.

01:00:57 ◼   ► Because it uses iCloud Drive and because it supports content blocks,

01:01:01 ◼   ► it means that I can save screenshots as local references in iCloud Drive

01:01:07 ◼   ► inside the iarider/iosreview/images subfolder.

01:01:13 ◼   ► The real sleight of hand here is to use Scriptable,

01:01:17 ◼   ► so the JavaScript utility by Simon Stovering

01:01:21 ◼   ► as sort of like the middleman in this process.

01:01:24 ◼   ► So, once I have the draft of the review ready,

01:01:29 ◼   ► all my images are content blocks references.

01:01:32 ◼   ► None of them has been uploaded.

01:01:34 ◼   ► I've created this script that lets me select a line of text.

01:01:40 ◼   ► So it lets me select this path of the content block.

01:01:44 ◼   ► I run the script and thanks to bookmarks, Scriptable can actually look into that ia-writer

01:01:51 ◼   ► subfolder.

01:01:52 ◼   ► So Scriptable sees the line of text, which is a file path, goes to that file path, takes

01:01:59 ◼   ► the local image, uploads the image to my CDN, turns that public HTTPS link to the markdown

01:02:08 ◼   ► image syntax, and all of this happens in like four seconds, right? And then I can, in the

01:02:14 ◼   ► document, the content block path is still selected. So all I need to do is Command+V,

01:02:20 ◼   ► and I paste, and the content block path is replaced by a public HTTP URL to the image.

01:02:29 ◼   ► So there is kind of a, whilst there's a lot of automation happening here, which is amazing,

01:02:33 ◼   ► there's still a manual part of it where you're replacing each link manually, is that right?

01:02:40 ◼   ► Like every content block? But you want to review them anyway, I'm sure, but yeah.

01:02:45 ◼   ► Exactly. I was about to say this is on purpose because when I run the script, it brings up

01:02:51 ◼   ► really quickly a quick look preview that lets me just double check, okay, yes, this is the

01:02:55 ◼   ► right image.

01:02:56 ◼   ► Nice. That's clever.

01:02:59 ◼   ► Yeah, so I know, like last year I timed myself. I've been able to go through, I think, 250

01:03:08 ◼   ► local image references in like 45 minutes. Really, really awesome automation. I created

01:03:14 ◼   ► this automation, like it's one of those examples of like, oh, this is really complicated. Why

01:03:18 ◼   ► would you do this sort of automation? Just use a Mac, blah, blah, blah. I created this

01:03:23 ◼   ► automation two years ago and it served me well literally thousands of times for all

01:03:31 ◼   ► the big stories that I've done. Beyond the tablet and the iOS 13 review and there was

01:03:38 ◼   ► another story that I used it for. I think also the iOS 12 review maybe actually. So

01:03:42 ◼   ► yeah, I created this automation years ago and it's still working and it's still awesome.

01:03:48 ◼   ► So, yeah, that's how that works behind the scenes.

01:03:53 ◼   ► And the final thing I want to say, I guess, DevOnThink, we talked about it before, all

01:03:59 ◼   ► my research and PDF documents were stored in there, I made a good call, I'm really happy

01:04:04 ◼   ► with it, I used DevOnThink as a database for PDFs saved from Apple.com, and I used Highlights,

01:04:13 ◼   ► which is a PDF annotation utility on the iPad, to go into that devon.think location, because

01:04:22 ◼   ► Highlights uses the Files document browser. And I just annotated with Highlights and exported

01:04:29 ◼   ► my annotations with Highlights, so that worked really well. And I've been using the max storage

01:04:36 ◼   ► shortcuts icons in MindNode. So I know that those were made for shortcuts, but I figured

01:04:45 ◼   ► they also kind of work in MindNode as a way to give a bit of visual flair to the map.

01:04:51 ◼   ► And so all my chapters, they have a specific shortcuts icon, which works because both the

01:04:59 ◼   ► icon and the map have a solid white background, so those icons really blend in quite well.

01:05:05 ◼   ► and yeah my only issue right now is the as I mentioned the slower than usual

01:05:12 ◼   ► progress however I think everything will be fine and the fact that the betas are

01:05:17 ◼   ► really buggy especially beta 4 it's not not great and so been going kind of slow

01:05:23 ◼   ► on that front as well. Steven have you started or decided on a big set review?

01:05:30 ◼   ► Yeah, so what I'm gonna do is instead of a wide-reaching review, I'm going to do

01:05:37 ◼   ► what I did with macOS 10 Yosemite and write a review basically focused on the

01:05:43 ◼   ► design of the OS. So Yosemite was the first version that gave us the look we

01:05:48 ◼   ► have now, the kind of flat look, and I was able to really dive into that and talk

01:05:56 ◼   ► about a lot of the features in detail as far as the design. I kind of

01:06:03 ◼   ► leave the rest of it alone. Now I did it then because my wife and I just had our

01:06:08 ◼   ► third child and we launched Relay FM like the same fall. The fall of 2014

01:06:12 ◼   ► was very hectic. But in thinking about Big Sur what it'll be remembered for is

01:06:18 ◼   ► the design and eventually the Apple Silicon stuff but I kind of am treating

01:06:22 ◼   ► as a separate thing and so that that's my plan so I do have some notes and some

01:06:27 ◼   ► screenshots kind of slowly building reference material and I hope to start

01:06:33 ◼   ► writing relatively soon. The first couple betas they changed some things in fact

01:06:40 ◼   ► the most current beta that has changed the way dark mode and vibrancy work

01:06:44 ◼   ► together so I've been holding off a little bit but I feel like if we get

01:06:49 ◼   ► another beta down and it's the same as this one then I will probably start in on this.

01:06:55 ◼   ► But it's not as wide reaching as definitely the full OS review and shouldn't be nearly

01:06:59 ◼   ► as long. So that's my plan as it stands.

01:07:04 ◼   ► I think a design review makes the most sense for this one anyway because it's a lot and

01:07:11 ◼   ► even if you wrote a regular review you'd spend most of your time talking about the design

01:07:15 ◼   ► anyway so you know.

01:07:17 ◼   ► Yeah, and I mean, and my plan is to cover the Apple Silicon stuff when it happens.

01:07:22 ◼   ► And so I feel like in a big Sur review saying something like, "Oh, and it will run iPad

01:07:26 ◼   ► apps," like, we don't know what that's like yet.

01:07:28 ◼   ► I can deal with that when it happens.

01:07:30 ◼   ► Yeah, that makes more sense to know that you'll be writing some other big stuff kind of maybe

01:07:35 ◼   ► review kind of size later on in the year, right?

01:07:38 ◼   ► And so you kind of pass it out a little bit.

01:07:41 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:07:42 ◼   ► So that's my plan with all those factors.

01:07:44 ◼   ► So yeah, I'm excited about it.

01:07:45 ◼   ► I think it's an exciting year for the Mac. It's just one that is going to be really busy

01:07:51 ◼   ► between now and the end of the year. This episode of connected is brought to you by

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01:09:31 ◼   ► support of the show and Relay FM. So to round out this episode we're gonna get

01:09:38 ◼   ► into sort of a weird topic it's one that's been on my mind for a little

01:09:42 ◼   ► while and I thought it would be fun to to talk about on the show and that is

01:09:47 ◼   ► looking at Apple's strategy specifically around press releases. So I've been on a

01:09:54 ◼   ► bit of a vision quest through the Apple newsroom archives they have everything

01:09:58 ◼   ► going back to 2000 on their website, which for Apple is like ancient history.

01:10:04 ◼   ► I can't believe it goes back so far. You can find even older stuff on things

01:10:08 ◼   ► like the Wayback Machine. But I wanted to look at a few things. I wanted to look at

01:10:12 ◼   ► the number of releases per year and why those numbers have changed and kind of

01:10:17 ◼   ► what we think about what Apple currently views as worthy of a press release.

01:10:24 ◼   ► because I think that's really the heart of this is what do they see as being worth that

01:10:30 ◼   ► space and people's attention.

01:10:32 ◼   ► One might say you've channeled your inner Jason Snell to do this.

01:10:37 ◼   ► Yes, I've made a chart that'll be in the show notes and it's in the discord right now looking

01:10:42 ◼   ► at the number of Apple press releases per year from 2000 to 2019.

01:10:50 ◼   ► So 19 years worth of history.

01:10:53 ◼   ► Can't do 2020 obviously because we're still in the middle of it.

01:10:56 ◼   ► So and I should say a couple like meta notes.

01:10:59 ◼   ► The chart does not include separate Apple TV press releases.

01:11:03 ◼   ► That's like its own separate press website and I just want to look at Apple itself.

01:11:07 ◼   ► I didn't really know how to like work in the Apple TV stuff and so I thought it was simpler

01:11:11 ◼   ► just to kind of leave that off the table.

01:11:15 ◼   ► And just for...

01:11:16 ◼   ► If Apple decide to leave it out, then you can leave it out, right?

01:11:19 ◼   ► Yeah, if it was on their main website, I would have counted it.

01:11:21 ◼   ► Well, because as well, some TV press releases do get newsroom releases if they're big enough.

01:11:29 ◼   ► And some just stay on the Apple TV one, so it could be a bit peculiar.

01:11:34 ◼   ► 2020 so far, so to just have that number out there, as of today, only 41 releases in 2020.

01:11:41 ◼   ► So if you look at this chart, 2019 was 136, an all time high.

01:11:47 ◼   ► So they are a little behind at this point in 2020, but we can get to that.

01:11:53 ◼   ► So there's some other numbers just to kind of lay some groundwork.

01:11:58 ◼   ► 2012 to 2015 was a bit of a low spot with an average of about 50 of an average of 51

01:12:05 ◼   ► and a half releases out each year.

01:12:08 ◼   ► So about one a week on average.

01:12:10 ◼   ► That doesn't mean there is one a week.

01:12:12 ◼   ► WWDC there's eight in a day, right?

01:12:13 ◼   ► It's just on average about one a week.

01:12:16 ◼   ► So that's how averages work.

01:12:18 ◼   ► No, no, it was more like I was wondering, it seemed high, like the numbers seemed high,

01:12:23 ◼   ► but I didn't think that like, on a day that Apple does one thing, they frequently do like

01:12:28 ◼   ► five things.

01:12:29 ◼   ► Yes, they're very lumpy in their releases.

01:12:31 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:12:32 ◼   ► 2019, like I said, had 136, an average of 2.6 per week.

01:12:37 ◼   ► Again, that doesn't mean every week at 2.6, they're still lumpy.

01:12:42 ◼   ► I had kind of thought that the early years would be smaller, but that's actually not

01:12:47 ◼   ► true.

01:12:48 ◼   ► So 2000, 2006 had an average of 89 a year.

01:12:51 ◼   ► And then in 2007, the year of the iPhone, Apple published 75.

01:12:56 ◼   ► So they were...

01:12:57 ◼   ► There's a weird logic to that though.

01:13:00 ◼   ► Because in 2000 to 2006, Apple will maybe a little more thirsty for press coverage.

01:13:08 ◼   ► So they would maybe put a release out about everything, which they might not do now.

01:13:15 ◼   ► I don't know.

01:13:16 ◼   ► Maybe.

01:13:17 ◼   ► So you can look at this graph again.

01:13:18 ◼   ► It's in the show notes and go check it out.

01:13:21 ◼   ► So it's been up and down over the years, but in the current era, it's been up and up and

01:13:27 ◼   ► up.

01:13:28 ◼   ► So there are some things that you look at this and make some assumptions that I think

01:13:34 ◼   ► we need to look at.

01:13:36 ◼   ► So I think the biggest assumption is, well, Apple has more press releases because Apple's

01:13:39 ◼   ► a bigger company now.

01:13:41 ◼   ► And that is partially true, but it's not a hard and fast rule.

01:13:47 ◼   ► That quiet time from 2012 to 2015, Apple had more products than they did in 2002.

01:13:54 ◼   ► Right?

01:13:55 ◼   ► They had the iPhone and the iPad.

01:13:58 ◼   ► The beginning of those years, the iPods were still kicking around kind of, more Macs.

01:14:02 ◼   ► had more products but it was quieter for some reason. We're gonna get into maybe

01:14:07 ◼   ► some of my reasons why I think it was. In the early years though it was really

01:14:12 ◼   ► focused on products so software releases hey there's a new version of this or

01:14:18 ◼   ► that software that Apple makes. Mac hardware of course will get press

01:14:23 ◼   ► releases. Early services like iTools and .Mac show up in here and then events so

01:14:30 ◼   ► So WWDC, Macworld Expo, there used to be several Macworld events a year and often Steve Jobs

01:14:37 ◼   ► or others would speak at several a year.

01:14:39 ◼   ► They all get announced in this, these press release archives.

01:14:43 ◼   ► And then especially early on, a lot of corporate information.

01:14:46 ◼   ► So quarterly calls, changes to the board of directors, which there were a lot of in Jobs

01:14:51 ◼   ► early years.

01:14:53 ◼   ► And sort of oddly, especially in the early like 2000, 2001, 2002, multiple lawsuits that

01:14:59 ◼   ► Apple won against other companies for infringing on their designs or the

01:15:04 ◼   ► technology or something like that. So a lot of sort of corporate-y stuff in those

01:15:11 ◼   ► early couple of years. Over time, iPod showed up, iTunes Music Store showed up,

01:15:17 ◼   ► they're just all over the place in the early to mid 2000s. There are a ton of press

01:15:21 ◼   ► releases of "Hey, we've sold X number of iPods, X number of songs on the iTunes

01:15:25 ◼   ► Music Store. And older products began to fade. You don't see a lot of Web objects

01:15:30 ◼   ► and Apple works press releases in the mid-2000s, but you do see things like

01:15:35 ◼   ► iMovie and iDVD and eventually iLife and iWork sort of come to prominence in

01:15:40 ◼   ► the mid to late 2000s. And you also see the growth of Apple retail. So we see

01:15:49 ◼   ► a lot of that now. That's one thing I want to talk about in the current era,

01:15:51 ◼   ► But even in the early to mid-aughts a lot of you know new Apple stores opening up

01:15:56 ◼   ► Hey, we've we've made this much money in retail stores as many visitors

01:16:00 ◼   ► Were in this new country for the first time a lot of that in those early days as well as we move on a little bit

01:16:07 ◼   ► to 2012 to 2015

01:16:09 ◼   ► Looking back. This was kind of a quiet couple of years for Apple right it's the first years under Tim Cook

01:16:15 ◼   ► There was no quote new product until the Apple watch was announced

01:16:19 ◼   ► Right the Mac hardware cycle has slowed down a lot now the iPhone and iPad were coming along in these years

01:16:25 ◼   ► But this is the time frame where a lot of people

01:16:28 ◼   ► Especially towards the end of it were complaining that Apple had its eye off the ball with Mac releases, right? You don't have a lot of

01:16:35 ◼   ► New stuff you have the trash can Mac Pro sitting there unchanged starting in 2013

01:16:41 ◼   ► MacBook Pros falling behind Mac Mini's getting worse

01:16:46 ◼   ► kind of a down time for the Mac and I think that's reflected in the number of releases they had I

01:16:52 ◼   ► like the thought of the the Apple watch kind of would have changed things because it's just like another product right so that we will

01:16:59 ◼   ► increase the averages because

01:17:00 ◼   ► You get at least one or two or three more a year every time you introduce a new product line

01:17:05 ◼   ► Right, like that's you know, more probably multiple

01:17:08 ◼   ► And the chat room points out I Kate they said that you know

01:17:13 ◼   ► what happened in 2009 and it may be that is sort of recession post recession in

01:17:17 ◼   ► the United States so Apple was maybe moving a little bit more slowly or being

01:17:23 ◼   ► more judicious about what it would elevate to a press release I think

01:17:29 ◼   ► that's definitely possible and then we get to the current era in the 2016 and

01:17:35 ◼   ► up and we see I think there are two big changes one features of software start

01:17:42 ◼   ► gaining their own press releases. So the last several years we've had press

01:17:45 ◼   ► releases about new emoji, things in the health app, health studies, Siri features.

01:17:51 ◼   ► There was one last year or maybe earlier this year about Siri and the Super Bowl

01:17:56 ◼   ► like individual features or components of software.

01:18:00 ◼   ► Oh was that the rock commercial?

01:18:02 ◼   ► I don't know maybe.

01:18:04 ◼   ► Siri and the Super Bowl? I think it was the one... do you remember that?

01:18:07 ◼   ► Siri and the Rock video?

01:18:09 ◼   ► We all know you love the rock.

01:18:10 ◼   ► Everyone loves The Rock.

01:18:12 ◼   ► I think that commercial...

01:18:14 ◼   ► I wanna believe that The Rock either retweeted or replied to John Voorhees on Twitter.

01:18:23 ◼   ► I think he did. I think that's true.

01:18:27 ◼   ► Yeah, I think John tweeted about it and The Rock loved it. He was super happy about the tweet. I'm gonna find that tweet.

01:18:36 ◼   ► I will find it. Hold on. Please.

01:18:39 ◼   ► I found it! It includes the gif of Eddie Q dancing.

01:18:46 ◼   ► Really?

01:18:47 ◼   ► Yeah, that was-

01:18:48 ◼   ► How- where is it?

01:18:50 ◼   ► I'll put it in the show notes in Discord.

01:18:54 ◼   ► There you go.

01:18:56 ◼   ► And Jon said- Jon- Jon quote tweeted The Rock and said "I can't wait to do it" and then

01:19:01 ◼   ► The Rock quote tweeted Jon and said "You better get ready to groove this!"

01:19:07 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:19:09 ◼   ► When you watch our new Apple commercials tomorrow.

01:19:15 ◼   ► So that was the summer of 2017, so not the Super Bowl.

01:19:21 ◼   ► Okay, that's amazing.

01:19:23 ◼   ► Man, Jon, way to go Jon.

01:19:26 ◼   ► Don't worry.

01:19:27 ◼   ► He's close personal friends with The Rock.

01:19:30 ◼   ► So we also see a lot of the feature stuff.

01:19:35 ◼   ► We also see more coverage of the App Store.

01:19:37 ◼   ► But I think a big change is Apple's public good initiative.

01:19:41 ◼   ► So things like converting to green energy,

01:19:45 ◼   ► other environmental projects Apple takes on,

01:19:48 ◼   ► civil rights, all these sort of political

01:19:53 ◼   ► or sociological things that Apple is doing.

01:19:57 ◼   ► Some of those now end up in the press releases.

01:20:01 ◼   ► And that's a very modern Apple thing.

01:20:02 ◼   ► That's even in just the last few years.

01:20:04 ◼   ► people like Lisa Jackson and others taking on a bigger role in the company.

01:20:07 ◼   ► I think it's great. I think that stuff should be given the same platform as, "Hey,

01:20:12 ◼   ► we have new AirPods or a new iPad mini or whatever." Also seeing roundups. So,

01:20:18 ◼   ► WBC used to be, you know, eight or nine releases. Now they also do roundup

01:20:23 ◼   ► releases like, you know, here's everything that went down. They talk about reviews

01:20:27 ◼   ► of their products. So, the last couple years they've had, "Hey, the new iPhone is

01:20:31 ◼   ► out. These are what the reviewers are saying out as a press release stories about people

01:20:35 ◼   ► how you use their products. So they've really added softer stories to the Apple newsroom

01:20:41 ◼   ► over time, not just this is a new computer. This is how fast it is, but this is what we're

01:20:45 ◼   ► doing out in the world or how our computers are used, et cetera. Now I'm curious what

01:20:51 ◼   ► you guys think about this. Like, do you think Apple does it too often? Do you think the

01:20:54 ◼   ► balance is good? Any thoughts?

01:20:57 ◼   ► Well, I don't see most of the press releases, right? So like, the only press releases that

01:21:03 ◼   ► I ever see are the ones that, in a way, I want to know about. So like, I don't follow

01:21:09 ◼   ► the Apple newsroom like I know Federico does.

01:21:13 ◼   ► Yeah, I have, it's the only alert I have in Apple news.

01:21:17 ◼   ► I wish it was just that. I follow the newsroom and I have notifications for that.

01:21:21 ◼   ► Yes, what I mean, it's not just like a, like, I'll like put it in RSS. No, it's like,

01:21:25 ◼   ► if something gets published to Apple newsroom, I think like a siren goes off and Federico's...

01:21:33 ◼   ► I follow Twitter account just for those and I have pushover alerts for, yeah, it's a whole,

01:21:40 ◼   ► it's a whole thing that I have going, yeah. So like, you know, I don't really feel

01:21:47 ◼   ► like I get a lot of the press releases, right?

01:21:52 ◼   ► So like they could put one out every day

01:21:54 ◼   ► and it wouldn't make much of a difference to me, right?

01:21:57 ◼   ► Like I just wouldn't notice unless it was something

01:21:59 ◼   ► that is gonna get shared.

01:22:01 ◼   ► Or like, you know, there might be like a certain time

01:22:05 ◼   ► where I'm checking the newsroom

01:22:06 ◼   ► because I think something's gonna happen, right?

01:22:09 ◼   ► You know, like, you know, like you get those weeks

01:22:11 ◼   ► where it's like, oh, is this the week

01:22:13 ◼   ► where they're gonna do something new every day

01:22:15 ◼   ► at like 10 a.m., right?

01:22:17 ◼   ► and so I'll check then, but most of the stuff,

01:22:19 ◼   ► like I don't see it.

01:22:21 ◼   ► And to be honest, I don't really want to either, right?

01:22:24 ◼   ► Like this is my strategy when it comes to any type of news

01:22:28 ◼   ► of following the right sources

01:22:31 ◼   ► so I just get the bubbled up information that I want.

01:22:36 ◼   ► Like I don't wanna read every press release Apple puts out,

01:22:39 ◼   ► nor do I really wanna read many of the press releases, right?

01:22:42 ◼   ► Like even the ones, the stuff that I'm interested in,

01:22:45 ◼   ► it's very rare that I'll read the press release because I will go to the actual home of the thing.

01:22:51 ◼   ► Right, so if Apple put out a press release, this is new Macbook Pro, well I'll go to the Mac web,

01:22:58 ◼   ► like the Mac page on their website and look at the product, you know what I mean? So it doesn't

01:23:04 ◼   ► really, I'm pleased that they do it so it's there if I need it but like I don't feel that connected

01:23:11 ◼   ► to the Apple newsroom except for images for chapter artwork. I like it for that.

01:23:19 ◼   ► Most press releases I don't care about. A lot of them, because I also follow the Italian

01:23:26 ◼   ► newsroom right so I'm exposed to two layers of press releases there. Some of them from

01:23:34 ◼   ► the US. I really don't care about because they are about like very US specific things

01:23:43 ◼   ► that either we cannot use or we don't have here nearly or just an initiative that Apple

01:23:49 ◼   ► is only doing in the United States. So personally speaking, I keep the notifications on and

01:23:56 ◼   ► I still follow them all. Sometimes I've seen announcements and like in talking over slack

01:24:03 ◼   ► with John and Ryan, we went like, "Did that really need to be a press release?"

01:24:08 ◼   ► Like sometimes they feel a little, you know, over-eager to share, maybe to hit the publish

01:24:16 ◼   ► button on the newsroom.

01:24:18 ◼   ► However, I will say that professionally speaking, so as, you know, as the person in charge of

01:24:23 ◼   ► a website that writes about Apple, I appreciate the fact that Apple is now much more open

01:24:29 ◼   ► in detailing all the things that they're doing. Like all these initiatives that get press

01:24:35 ◼   ► releases, like, I think it's great because it allows us to have like official statements

01:24:40 ◼   ► and numbers and stats that we can write about. And it's been, I think it's been really interesting

01:24:47 ◼   ► to follow like professionally speaking like all these things that Apple is doing on the

01:24:51 ◼   ► side like the Everyone Can Code initiative for example that always gets a press release.

01:24:56 ◼   ► I think it's been really fascinating to observe the evolution of that over the years.

01:25:00 ◼   ► And I think having a place like the newsroom where they can share photos and they can share,

01:25:04 ◼   ► you know, they can be...

01:25:07 ◼   ► I feel like the old press portal was just about, like, product releases.

01:25:15 ◼   ► And I feel like the newsroom, because of the photography, because of the different design,

01:25:20 ◼   ► I feel like that allows them to be much more open and to feature and highlight stories

01:25:26 ◼   ► that maybe before they wouldn't have done.

01:25:29 ◼   ► And so I think overall, again, professionally speaking, that's a positive.

01:25:36 ◼   ► Personally speaking, sometimes I've gone, "Eh, well, I don't really care personally."

01:25:42 ◼   ► I think overall, even though some press releases feel like, "Yeah, this could have just been

01:25:47 ◼   ► a statement to a website or something," overall, I will take the newsroom over the older system.

01:25:55 ◼   ► I think even though the number has increased and it's become a much more

01:25:59 ◼   ► it's more high volume than before I

01:26:02 ◼   ► Really like it though. I like I look I love the design the notifications via Apple news

01:26:09 ◼   ► So I will take it over the older

01:26:11 ◼   ► design over the older page and you know the older approach that it was strictly like either product based or

01:26:19 ◼   ► Yeah, Steve Jobs saying we sold a million iPhones in 40 days something like that

01:26:25 ◼   ► that. So I love the more, you know, free form sort of approach, maybe. It's like a blog,

01:26:31 ◼   ► which obviously I appreciate. And to thank Federico, they do all of this

01:26:36 ◼   ► without a named chief of... Right? I know, right? Without a person that

01:26:43 ◼   ► you can say, "Oh, that person, the head of PR." If only they gave us... Because there

01:26:50 ◼   ► must be right there must be somebody in charge and maybe maybe they'll do it in

01:26:55 ◼   ► early 2021 they don't need to do it any sooner than that I don't think we just

01:26:59 ◼   ► need a name we just need I just need you put your name up there I got my point

01:27:04 ◼   ► we're all happy you're happy because you've officialized the person in charge

01:27:08 ◼   ► I'm happy because that point will allow me to win the annual rikis it's all you

01:27:14 ◼   ► are aware that is not your Ricky right like that is just your round one and

01:27:19 ◼   ► and you'll pick. Sure, but that, you know, it's the... in Italy we have a saying, it says it's the

01:27:26 ◼   ► sum that makes the total, you know? That's just math. Every... every... yes, but every single point counts,

01:27:34 ◼   ► so it may be a single individual point, but it'll get me the win, I'm sure.

01:27:42 ◼   ► Well, if you get that one single point, it will currently just tie you with me and Steven.

01:27:47 ◼   ► Look, you're gonna lose, somehow. Am I? I don't think I am. Just wait, it's August,

01:27:57 ◼   ► soon it'll be September, and with that it'll be the change of the seasons, and the tide,

01:28:05 ◼   ► the tide will, does the tide change? What does the tide do? Turns. Tides shift, turns.

01:28:10 ◼   ► The tide will turn in my favor. The tide doesn't turn. That's the phrase. It's a phrase. No,

01:28:16 ◼   ► You're thinking of the tables turn.

01:28:18 ◼   ► The tide? No.

01:28:19 ◼   ► The tide too. Look in America we have a saying, okay?

01:28:22 ◼   ► And the tide turns.

01:28:24 ◼   ► This is not a phrase!

01:28:27 ◼   ► The turning of the tides.

01:28:30 ◼   ► The tide tides, okay?

01:28:33 ◼   ► Don't worry about it.

01:28:35 ◼   ► I don't...

01:28:37 ◼   ► Just wait for the tide.

01:28:38 ◼   ► Okay, so they're like googling saying that the tide turns is a thing.

01:28:43 ◼   ► See?

01:28:44 ◼   ► Oh, how the tables turn. How the turntables. How the turntables. If you want to find

01:28:53 ◼   ► links to everything we spoke about head on over to the website relay.fm/connected/307

01:29:03 ◼   ► While you're there you can get in touch with an email or you can become a

01:29:06 ◼   ► member to enjoy an ad-free extra long version of every episode including this

01:29:10 ◼   ► one. If you have your calendar out make a note for Tuesday August 18th at 11 30

01:29:16 ◼   ► a.m. Eastern Time catch Myke and I at twitch.tv/relayfm really excited

01:29:21 ◼   ► about that. You can find us all on Twitter Federico is there as Vitici

01:29:25 ◼   ► V I T I C C I and he's the editor-in-chief of Max stories dot net.

01:29:30 ◼   ► You can find Myke online as I M Y K E and Myke hosts a bunch of shows here on

01:29:36 ◼   ► relay FM Myke name one of the shows you host got connected if you haven't heard

01:29:49 ◼   ► that before it's pretty good the the American he'd never mispronounce

01:29:54 ◼   ► mispronunciates anything oh my god you know how the tides turn you said that

01:30:02 ◼   ► That would rung in two different ways.

01:30:06 ◼   ► Yeah, well, please subscribe and leave a like.

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01:30:27 ◼   ► Twitter as is mh and find my writing about old computers and new computers at 512 pixels.net.

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01:30:40 ◼   ► And until next time, guys, say goodbye. I do that. Cheerio. I bought the wheels.