Connected

00:00:00 ◼   ► (upbeat music)

00:00:02 ◼   ► Hello and welcome to Connected episode 303.

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

00:00:14 ◼   ► Hover, Bombas and ExpressVPN.

00:00:17 ◼   ► My name is Stephen Hackett and I'm joined by Myke Hurley.

00:00:20 ◼   ► - Hello.

00:00:21 ◼   ► - Hey buddy, are you good?

00:00:23 ◼   ► - Oh yeah. - Yeah.

00:00:25 ◼   ► - Yeah, you just said hi.

00:00:26 ◼   ► I didn't know I had to say anything else.

00:00:27 ◼   ► - Hey.

00:00:28 ◼   ► for you to welcome back our beloved friend. And now I'm here to welcome back our beloved

00:00:33 ◼   ► friend, Mr. Federico Vittucci. Hello, I am beloved friend and I am back on the show,

00:00:39 ◼   ► so thank you. It's good to be back. I mean, I didn't want to leave you talking about Apple,

00:00:44 ◼   ► Silicon Macs for like multiple weeks. Just one episode is enough. So, you got that out

00:00:49 ◼   ► of your system. Are you okay now? Are you cool now, Steven? For now. For now. When I

00:00:54 ◼   ► get one in the office which is going to talk about for weeks. Yep. That is gonna be fun.

00:01:00 ◼   ► I'm very excited about that genuinely. Like, for different reasons. Like, I'm excited about

00:01:06 ◼   ► it because I'm really intrigued to see what it's like to run an iOS app on a Mac. Plus,

00:01:13 ◼   ► there are genuinely applications that I would like to run, like Timery, because nothing

00:01:19 ◼   ► else is good for time tracking on my Mac and I will like that but then I'll get into like

00:01:26 ◼   ► a weird mode where my iMac can't do it but my laptop can do it and it's gonna be a whole

00:01:32 ◼   ► big time.

00:01:33 ◼   ► I wonder if you're gonna have a real situation where you think I should just work on a Mac

00:01:37 ◼   ► all the time. I have all my apps here. Google Docs works better.

00:01:41 ◼   ► I will say to you I have had that thought but I don't think it's gonna happen but I

00:01:47 ◼   ► have had that thought.

00:01:49 ◼   ► We'll see.

00:01:50 ◼   ► It's going to be an exciting time later this year.

00:01:52 ◼   ► The fact that I do not, as I've expressed to you I believe on this show last week, that

00:01:56 ◼   ► I do not like the traditional desktop window interface, I think that that will continue

00:02:02 ◼   ► to keep me going back to iPadOS.

00:02:05 ◼   ► It's too messy.

00:02:07 ◼   ► Windows are too messy.

00:02:08 ◼   ► Wow.

00:02:09 ◼   ► I think about everyone else on the planet would say that sent us in the other direction.

00:02:12 ◼   ► But okay.

00:02:13 ◼   ► I know they would.

00:02:14 ◼   ► The only thing I like about the Mac at this point, I mean besides, you know, like, well,

00:02:19 ◼   ► - Certainly. - Or the battery goes bang of a bang.

00:02:21 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:02:22 ◼   ► - Certain, no, that's like a single thing

00:02:23 ◼   ► that I really appreciate.

00:02:25 ◼   ► There's a bunch of other niceties like the terminal

00:02:28 ◼   ► and like running stuff like Homebridge, for example,

00:02:31 ◼   ► like that's super cool.

00:02:32 ◼   ► But what I really like, what I realized recently

00:02:34 ◼   ► that I really like is the menu bar.

00:02:36 ◼   ► Like I generally like the menu bar, like as an idea,

00:02:39 ◼   ► like as a concept, like having this little thing

00:02:41 ◼   ► with multiple icons and each icon opens a menu.

00:02:43 ◼   ► - You know what I like about the menu bar?

00:02:45 ◼   ► that if there's something I believe an app can do,

00:02:48 ◼   ► but I don't know how to do it,

00:02:51 ◼   ► there's a place where everything is.

00:02:54 ◼   ► That's what I like about the menu bar.

00:02:55 ◼   ► That's a good point.

00:02:57 ◼   ► - I don't think they're making that podcast anymore.

00:03:00 ◼   ► - Oh.

00:03:01 ◼   ► - Yeah, but I'm talking about the...

00:03:03 ◼   ► Jesus.

00:03:04 ◼   ► - Thanks, Dan.

00:03:08 ◼   ► The help thing is a big part of that, right?

00:03:14 ◼   ► that you could just type what you want in the help field

00:03:16 ◼   ► and it will highlight in the menus.

00:03:18 ◼   ► - That's really cool.

00:03:19 ◼   ► - It's all very nice.

00:03:20 ◼   ► Yeah, I like that stuff.

00:03:21 ◼   ► - So yeah, a menu bar on iPad would be interesting, I think.

00:03:25 ◼   ► I'm pretty sure that, who was it that did a concept

00:03:28 ◼   ► a few months ago, maybe?

00:03:29 ◼   ► - Oh, one of the 50 people that made it.

00:03:32 ◼   ► - No, but I'm talking about one in particular.

00:03:35 ◼   ► No, I'm talking about like a--

00:03:38 ◼   ► - Steven Spicy today.

00:03:40 ◼   ► - Yeah, I don't know why, like I live for a week.

00:03:42 ◼   ► What have you done to Steven, Myke?

00:03:44 ◼   ► do anything. It was your absence that did this.

00:03:46 ◼   ► Oh, Steve, that's so...

00:03:48 ◼   ► I missed you.

00:03:49 ◼   ► Well, Kyle in the chat room has given us his concept shows how Apple could implement a

00:03:54 ◼   ► main menu for iPad OS apps. Is that it?

00:03:57 ◼   ► I thought that was too complex, that one. I remembered that one.

00:04:00 ◼   ► This is the Windows Start menu.

00:04:02 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:04:03 ◼   ► No, no, that was not... Maybe it was Vidit, one of the developers of Lookup, the dictionary

00:04:08 ◼   ► app.

00:04:09 ◼   ► Vidit is my favorite concept person.

00:04:13 ◼   ► Yes.

00:04:14 ◼   ► That it always does the things that I think are closest to being likely.

00:04:18 ◼   ► Yeah, because it's very pragmatic, it's obviously good taste.

00:04:23 ◼   ► I mean, if you've ever used Lookup, it's absolutely beautiful.

00:04:26 ◼   ► And his concepts are straight to the point, no...

00:04:31 ◼   ► Like this start menu, it looks super fancy, it looks fancier than it should be, really.

00:04:37 ◼   ► Or too much in that you've gone too far, right?

00:04:41 ◼   ► The best concepts are the ones that just go a step further rather than 20 steps further.

00:04:48 ◼   ► So anyway, there was a concept of a menu bar for an iPad and I thought, you know, it could

00:04:53 ◼   ► be interesting.

00:04:54 ◼   ► Oh yeah, I remember now, Vidit imagined an expanded status bar on an iPad, so it was

00:05:01 ◼   ► just slightly thicker than it is right now, and the thicker status bar could be used to

00:05:06 ◼   ► manage split view.

00:05:08 ◼   ► So you would have like, in his concept he had like a split view icon and you could use

00:05:12 ◼   ► that to manage multitasking and I thought that was really interesting.

00:05:15 ◼   ► But yeah, anyway, I don't even know what we're talking about the menu bar.

00:05:18 ◼   ► It's probably my fault.

00:05:19 ◼   ► You just loved it, that you just thought it was great.

00:05:22 ◼   ► As usual, I'm sorry.

00:05:24 ◼   ► We were doing some kind of introduction, I believe.

00:05:27 ◼   ► We're getting ready to move to follow-ups, let's talk about follow-up.

00:05:30 ◼   ► The public iOS 14 beta is out.

00:05:34 ◼   ► and I are both running it now on our phones. Actually I'm on the, you're on the

00:05:40 ◼   ► dev beta, you're on the Dave beta. Oh I forgot about that. Yeah I'm on Dave beta. Yeah. And you're on what, Paul beta?

00:05:48 ◼   ► Like what would be public? Mmm yeah Dave and Paul. I'm on the Paul beta. Dave and

00:05:53 ◼   ► Paul. And it, I really like it. Myke you spoke about this on Monday's upgrade. I

00:06:00 ◼   ► spoke about it on more power users that comes out on Sunday. So we've talked

00:06:04 ◼   ► about this other places, but I would just say that I think the ideas for the phone in

00:06:09 ◼   ► particular are really good. I like widgets, I like the app library. We're going to talk

00:06:12 ◼   ► about the app library later in this episode, I think.

00:06:14 ◼   ► I have thoughts about that.

00:06:16 ◼   ► There's a whole two-page manifesto written by Federico in our Google Doc. And it's been

00:06:24 ◼   ► really stable for me. I haven't had any issues. I know there's always issues with bank apps

00:06:29 ◼   ► and certain types of things.

00:06:30 ◼   ► My bank app works even though they told me it wouldn't work until August but it works

00:06:34 ◼   ► now.

00:06:35 ◼   ► They told you you were like Mr. Hacker because you were like...

00:06:38 ◼   ► I was jailbreaking and how dare I. But it started working. They did an update like today

00:06:43 ◼   ► and it started working already so they fixed it sooner than they said they would. Which

00:06:47 ◼   ► is good.

00:06:48 ◼   ► I want to draw attention to something that appeared in the Relay FM members Discord a

00:06:53 ◼   ► few days ago which is a website called ismr.space which is made by Aiden Nagel who over the

00:06:59 ◼   ► last three days I think has listened to 25 episodes of connected to pull out every instance

00:07:06 ◼   ► where Steven does his famed ASMR. ASMR. Yes like those and if you do you remember the

00:07:14 ◼   ► Myke Oracle website where people pulled out the clips of me when I was sick. Of course.

00:07:20 ◼   ► So that's that that one I think may have been like part of the inspiration for this and

00:07:26 ◼   ► basically there's just a button which just says "Whisper" and every time you press it you hear

00:07:32 ◼   ► a different ismr thing. My voice kind of trembled there a little bit because I pressed it and heard

00:07:39 ◼   ► "Pokemon" and it threw me off. Because that "Pokemon" one, there's one where you say "Pokemon"

00:07:45 ◼   ► and that's the one that for some reason like it just it embeds itself in my brain the most.

00:07:49 ◼   ► Also let's talk about the purple photo that was used for Steven on this webpage.

00:07:54 ◼   ► There's lots of them. They cycle through.

00:07:58 ◼   ► Oh, they cycle. Because the one that I'm looking at right now is the glorious mustache Steven

00:08:04 ◼   ► from a few months ago. Really the best look you've ever had.

00:08:09 ◼   ► Are you back with the mustache again?

00:08:10 ◼   ► Nah, I'm growing the beard out so it's kind of all the same length now.

00:08:13 ◼   ► Ah, the mustache was better.

00:08:15 ◼   ► It was. You really... I don't know a lot of people that could pull off a mustache but

00:08:20 ◼   ► you managed to do it.

00:08:22 ◼   ► Yes, yes, I agree.

00:08:24 ◼   ► But there you go, go to ismr.space and you can get ismh asmr whenever you want it.

00:08:30 ◼   ► Whenever you want it.

00:08:33 ◼   ► No, no! Don't say things like that! Don't do that! No, no!

00:08:40 ◼   ► Look, he's got to expand his repertoire, alright?

00:08:44 ◼   ► No, no!

00:08:45 ◼   ► Expanding.

00:08:46 ◼   ► Steven, have you ever heard of OnlyFans?

00:08:48 ◼   ► OnlyFans.

00:08:49 ◼   ► [laughter]

00:08:53 ◼   ► There you go, Federico has it.

00:08:55 ◼   ► Yeah, you should look into that.

00:08:57 ◼   ► You should get an Onlyfans.

00:08:59 ◼   ► [laughter]

00:09:04 ◼   ► Could be the next perk, Steven.

00:09:08 ◼   ► Yeah, who needs membership?

00:09:10 ◼   ► You get an Onlyfans, then you can make the money.

00:09:12 ◼   ► You have an Onlyfans, Steven.

00:09:14 ◼   ► [laughter]

00:09:19 ◼   ► Can I sign up for it?

00:09:21 ◼   ► Yeah, go for it.

00:09:23 ◼   ► You could charge some serious money there.

00:09:25 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean you can have multiple tiers.

00:09:27 ◼   ► Mm-hmm.

00:09:29 ◼   ► Members only content.

00:09:31 ◼   ► [laughter]

00:09:33 ◼   ► Members only.

00:09:35 ◼   ► Yes, yes exactly.

00:09:37 ◼   ► You keep taking the worst things to say!

00:09:40 ◼   ► [laughter]

00:09:43 ◼   ► We have some really exciting news.

00:09:45 ◼   ► Yeah, we do.

00:09:48 ◼   ► You wanna explain this?

00:09:50 ◼   ► We have an arly pants now.

00:09:52 ◼   ► A few years ago, what was it, 2016?

00:09:59 ◼   ► We were just before WWDC, discussing, like shaking up the artwork for this show a little

00:10:05 ◼   ► bit.

00:10:06 ◼   ► Connected was one of the original five Relay FM shows and then over the years, whilst our

00:10:12 ◼   ► artwork still has a kind of consistency. The actual artwork for all of the shows became

00:10:19 ◼   ► more complicated over time, like more complex in a good way. Like there was more texture added,

00:10:24 ◼   ► more layers, more depth. And we kind of, you know, we had, we started off with a very strict

00:10:30 ◼   ► guideline created by the wonderful Simon, who's our incredible designer. And,

00:10:38 ◼   ► But then over time, we kind of, as is usual, you kind of stretch out a little bit from where you start off, right?

00:10:46 ◼   ► Things develop and adapt. And before 2016, we were thinking like, "Oh, maybe it's time to mix up our artwork," right?

00:10:55 ◼   ► Which has been, for the last nearly six years, the six-color globe with a white background.

00:11:01 ◼   ► And there are lines that go around the globe, which are like, I guess could signify planes.

00:11:07 ◼   ► and in case you don't know, it's a fun fact, the three lines cross over each other where

00:11:15 ◼   ► we all live. There is also the original version, was it Iceland that got omitted from the original

00:11:21 ◼   ► version? Was it Iceland? Greenland, maybe. Was it Greenland? Okay, yeah, Greenland was

00:11:27 ◼   ► left out which is just kind of like an accident but a fun thing that happened, Greenland.

00:11:33 ◼   ► So, before WWDC that year, we were talking about changing it up, and then the show got

00:11:38 ◼   ► featured in the WWDC keynote, and we kind of could not do that.

00:11:42 ◼   ► Because I have a picture on my wall here of Tim Cook standing in front of a massive version

00:11:48 ◼   ► of the connected artwork, which is physically bigger than him.

00:11:52 ◼   ► So we were like, "Well, we can't change it now."

00:11:55 ◼   ► Then over WWDC week we were featured in the Apple Podcasts directory and they used a version

00:12:04 ◼   ► of our artwork where it was the globe in its colours with a six colour background behind

00:12:11 ◼   ► it and people were like "Oh that's amazing!

00:12:15 ◼   ► Where did that come from?

00:12:16 ◼   ► Did Apple make that?"

00:12:18 ◼   ► That kind of stuff.

00:12:19 ◼   ► thing is that artwork is five years old. When Relay FM was founded, we were very lucky to

00:12:29 ◼   ► get some featuring from Apple in the Apple Podcasts directory when we began. And when

00:12:35 ◼   ► you work with Apple, and anybody can do this now with the Podcast Connect thing that they

00:12:40 ◼   ► have, but I don't think you could at the time, you can submit your own promotional artwork

00:12:45 ◼   ► for consideration if Apple was to feature you. So they had some guidelines and we did

00:12:49 ◼   ► that. In the run up to WWDC it was a similar thing. We were working with a person there

00:12:55 ◼   ► when we arranged for our interviews to be set up and they asked for some promotional

00:13:00 ◼   ► artwork and because the timelines were quite tight I just thought I'll just give them the

00:13:05 ◼   ► one that we already have not thinking that they would use it but I also really liked

00:13:09 ◼   ► it.

00:13:10 ◼   ► It's also missing Greenland by the way.

00:13:11 ◼   ► Oopsies!

00:13:12 ◼   ► Apple's used.

00:13:13 ◼   ► Sorry Greenland!

00:13:14 ◼   ► In our defence, Apple didn't check either.

00:13:16 ◼   ► Well they use Apple Maps, how could they know?

00:13:22 ◼   ► Hey-o!

00:13:23 ◼   ► Yeah, also Apple believes in the conspiracy that Greenland does not exist.

00:13:28 ◼   ► But this is also proof of the fact that this artwork is five years old, because it was

00:13:33 ◼   ► created when our original set of artwork was created.

00:13:36 ◼   ► So we had a lot of people being like "Oh that looks so cool, looks so different!"

00:13:41 ◼   ► And what this is, in my opinion, is like the proof of the fact that fashion style is cyclical.

00:13:50 ◼   ► Because that looked cool like five years ago and then we kind of left it and now it's become

00:13:56 ◼   ► cool again.

00:13:58 ◼   ► So basically this is a very long way of saying that we have out updated the connected artwork.

00:14:03 ◼   ► If you look in your podcast app, as long as it's one that supports chapter artwork, you'll

00:14:06 ◼   ► see it and then it will be changing over the next week or so because different applications

00:14:12 ◼   ► cache artwork. But over the next week or so you'll see a new version of the connected

00:14:16 ◼   ► artwork which still keeps a lot of its original design but now instead of the white background

00:14:22 ◼   ► we have a rainbow background and we've added more glow to it. Honestly we've skewed more

00:14:28 ◼   ► and faster the connected artwork. It's 3D! It's 3D! It's curvy! This is what I'm saying

00:14:34 ◼   ► about taste, right? Like, we have the flat version of the artwork and we had this 3D

00:14:39 ◼   ► version of the artwork and we decided to go with the flat version because that was the

00:14:43 ◼   ► thing you did in 2014. But now, here in the heady days of 2020, we're all going back to

00:14:50 ◼   ► texture again. So now the connected artwork, as they're saying in the chat, has been big

00:14:54 ◼   ► surr- how would you say it, Federico?

00:14:57 ◼   ► It has been big surrified.

00:14:59 ◼   ► There we go, it's been big-surfied. Thank you very much. So yeah, that's where we are.

00:15:04 ◼   ► We, you know, we had considered, when we're back in 2016, we had considered like completely

00:15:12 ◼   ► rethinking the design. But I'm really happy with where we are now because it's still very

00:15:18 ◼   ► much the show, but is more, is more modern. So I mean, there you go.

00:15:23 ◼   ► I mean, we can do flat, we can do curvy, we can do whatever you want. We can, we can change

00:15:27 ◼   ► it every... we can change it every other week if we want to. We don't care, but we've decided

00:15:32 ◼   ► that we're gonna keep the 3D one. So the idea was it's like the globe is a glass ball kind

00:15:38 ◼   ► of so that the stripes get refracted as they go through them. It's a lot of fun. Really

00:15:42 ◼   ► happy with it. Yep. Someone was very upset with the fact that in an earlier version of

00:15:46 ◼   ► the artwork some of the globe lines, colors lined up with the lines in the background.

00:15:51 ◼   ► Yep. Yeah, and that got changed

00:15:53 ◼   ► It got changed

00:15:56 ◼   ► Steven you like video games, right?

00:15:59 ◼   ► They're fine you do like Lego though

00:16:02 ◼   ► I just

00:16:03 ◼   ► There is absolutely no reason for us to talk about this other than the fact that I want to talk about this and otherwise won't

00:16:08 ◼   ► Get to talk about it

00:16:09 ◼   ► Anyway, Lego is making a Super Mario Nintendo Entertainment System set and it's absolutely incredible

00:16:14 ◼   ► And I'm gonna buy it so fast when it becomes available. Mm-hmm

00:16:19 ◼   ► Mm hmm. Doesn't it look cool?

00:16:22 ◼   ► It looks very, very good.

00:16:23 ◼   ► And there's a crank to play the game on the Lego TV.

00:16:27 ◼   ► Oh, it's Playdate.

00:16:28 ◼   ► Yeah, they copied the crank.

00:16:31 ◼   ► They copied the crank.

00:16:33 ◼   ► Now everyone's doing cranks.

00:16:35 ◼   ► Interesting.

00:16:36 ◼   ► Yeah. Cranks.

00:16:38 ◼   ► Yeah, it looks amazing.

00:16:39 ◼   ► I am going to Wyatt.

00:16:40 ◼   ► It's coming out in August and I'm going to build it

00:16:43 ◼   ► and it will take pride of place in my studio, I think, as a display thing.

00:16:47 ◼   ► It's super cool.

00:16:49 ◼   ► Like, they've gone, I saw somebody say this on Twitter and it's so true, they've really

00:16:53 ◼   ► gone way further with this than they needed to, because they have the TV too with the

00:16:57 ◼   ► little crank on it.

00:16:58 ◼   ► Like, they could have just made the NES and it would have been more than enough.

00:17:02 ◼   ► Would have been fine because the NES has some actual details like the controller that actually

00:17:07 ◼   ► connects to the console and like the cartridges and like, that would have been fine.

00:17:13 ◼   ► And you push the cartridge down and it looks like it has a spring effect to it.

00:17:17 ◼   ► Yeah, but they also made the TV which is just incredible.

00:17:21 ◼   ► And then also if you get one of the new Lego Mario sets which has the Mario in it with

00:17:27 ◼   ► a little CD and the speaker, if you put it on top of the TV and do the crank it will

00:17:31 ◼   ► play the appropriate sound effects for where the Mario is in the little scene that you're

00:17:36 ◼   ► at.

00:17:37 ◼   ► Awesome.

00:17:38 ◼   ► Like super great.

00:17:40 ◼   ► Like super great.

00:17:42 ◼   ► 2,600 pieces, $230 or something, which is a pretty decent brick to dollar ratio.

00:17:50 ◼   ► I can't judge, I mean I've got LEGO sets all over my office that cost as much or more.

00:17:56 ◼   ► I think it's really cool and I like that it's interactive.

00:18:00 ◼   ► I really want to hear how this goes and how you feel about it when you get it in.

00:18:03 ◼   ► Oh, it's not available to buy yet, but as soon as it is I will be placed in an order.

00:18:10 ◼   ► I'm super into this. This is like they have found like the real sweet spot for me with

00:18:15 ◼   ► a set like this. It's really cool because like the Lego stuff, the, the, the, the, sorry,

00:18:19 ◼   ► the Lego Mario stuff that they're doing looks cool. But I was a bit like, ah, I was kind

00:18:24 ◼   ► of hoping for something a little bit more model than play set. And they've done exactly

00:18:30 ◼   ► that now. Right? Like when, when, when it was like, Oh, Lego and Mario were doing something

00:18:34 ◼   ► together. I just wanted to build like pretty much exactly what they've given me. Right?

00:18:39 ◼   ► Like I wanted to just make like a classic Mario like scene, right?

00:18:44 ◼   ► Sure.

00:18:44 ◼   ► But instead they've built this like playset thing, which is, which is fine,

00:18:49 ◼   ► but it's, it's not what I wanted, but this NES is like, yes, perfect.

00:18:53 ◼   ► Bravo Nintendo.

00:18:54 ◼   ► Like this is great licensing.

00:18:56 ◼   ► Do we want to take a break?

00:18:57 ◼   ► Mm-hmm.

00:18:58 ◼   ► This episode of Connected is brought to you by Hover, one of the

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00:20:47 ◼   ► iOS 13.6, is that it?

00:20:51 ◼   ► It's 13.6.

00:20:52 ◼   ► It's been released today.

00:20:54 ◼   ► Wild, in a way, that there's still releases going while the beta is going for the other

00:20:59 ◼   ► thing.

00:21:00 ◼   ► especially because there's new features being added to iOS at this point.

00:21:02 ◼   ► Today's release basically has a bunch of stuff for Apple News in it.

00:21:08 ◼   ► There's a couple of different features.

00:21:12 ◼   ► One is audio stories, where Apple's going to collect up some stories from large publishers,

00:21:19 ◼   ► have them professionally read, edited, and you'll be able to listen to them instead of reading them.

00:21:24 ◼   ► The other is something which is coming to Apple News and also Apple Podcast.

00:21:30 ◼   ► It's called Apple News Today. Apple's getting into the Daily News Podcast world, which is really interesting.

00:21:39 ◼   ► I need to think more about this because this has only come out today.

00:21:43 ◼   ► We knew that there were going to be the audio stories thing, but the Daily News Podcast that came out,

00:21:53 ◼   ► That was a bit of a surprise to me.

00:21:55 ◼   ► So I want to think about this a little bit more, about what this could mean, maybe what

00:21:59 ◼   ► Apple's motivations are for doing this.

00:22:02 ◼   ► But yeah, this is something that will exist from now, I believe.

00:22:06 ◼   ► So it's a daily 10 minute news podcast from Apple.

00:22:10 ◼   ► And they've got a couple of hosts who they're naming, which is interesting, Sumita Bezu

00:22:17 ◼   ► and Duarte Gildino.

00:22:20 ◼   ► This is, you know, it's in the past, I think there's been criticism of Apple that they

00:22:24 ◼   ► haven't been very good at giving credit for the people that produce their stuff, right?

00:22:30 ◼   ► So like the App Store editorial team are not named, the Apple Music editors are not named.

00:22:39 ◼   ► And of course, Duarte and Shimitar are hosts of a show, right?

00:22:43 ◼   ► So it's like a little bit trickier.

00:22:45 ◼   ► But I'm very pleased that it's not like, "Hey, we're the Apple News Today team and we're

00:22:49 ◼   ► You know what I mean? Which they could have just done that.

00:22:51 ◼   ► They were not supposed to tell you our names.

00:22:53 ◼   ► But you could imagine a world in which they did it that way.

00:22:55 ◼   ► You know, I liked seeing that Serenity Coldwell was named.

00:22:59 ◼   ► She had a personality during the WWDC stuff, which didn't just live in a developer app.

00:23:04 ◼   ► It was on YouTube and stuff like that.

00:23:06 ◼   ► So yeah, this is really interesting.

00:23:09 ◼   ► I'm keen to understand what is the breadth of this?

00:23:15 ◼   ► are they just going to be talking or citing sources that are in Apple News?

00:23:19 ◼   ► Is it just going to be US only kind of content? Will they bring this stuff out to other regions?

00:23:26 ◼   ► Maybe have like a European news team? Like this is yeah there's a lot to think about with this,

00:23:32 ◼   ► but of course the reason it's in the show today is because this finally secures Steven with one of his

00:23:38 ◼   ► yearly picks. That's right the year of Steven continues. It's not the year of Steven. We are

00:23:43 ◼   ► currently tied. Also I'm not sure I want to claim 2020 as the year of Steven honestly. Yeah,

00:23:49 ◼   ► actually you know what? You have it. 2020 is your year baby. No! Yeah, so this is interesting.

00:23:55 ◼   ► There's a lot to unpack here I think. So I was just playing around with the audio player for

00:24:02 ◼   ► the Apple news stories as we were doing the pre-show for current cut pro and it's fine.

00:24:09 ◼   ► It's basically the Apple podcast player with a different background and it lives inside

00:24:13 ◼   ► the news app on 13.6. This is not available in the iOS 14 beta yet, so we have a bit of a

00:24:20 ◼   ► discrepancy there at the moment between the different releases. But there's a new audio

00:24:26 ◼   ► page. It's in the bottom top bar inside news on the iPhone and the player is fine and in a nice

00:24:34 ◼   ► touch, you can, while you're listening to a story, you can long press and the

00:24:39 ◼   ► context menu will give you an option to read the original story instead. So if

00:24:44 ◼   ► you're listening and you feel like "I actually want to read this one", you can jump to

00:24:47 ◼   ► that, to the text version of the story very quickly, so that's nice. But there's,

00:24:51 ◼   ► I mean, we knew this was coming 9 to 5 Mac had the screenshots for this feature

00:24:56 ◼   ► before, it's exactly what you expect. And there's a selection of articles, like I'm

00:25:00 ◼   ► looking right now in news, I have it on my backup phone. And you have stories from all

00:25:08 ◼   ► the usual suspects. So Popular Mechanics, Wired, Vogue, Bloomberg, Businessweek. Yeah.

00:25:15 ◼   ► All of the usual suspects that are left, I guess.

00:25:19 ◼   ► Those that are left, of course. There's actually multiple articles from Bloomberg Businessweek

00:25:24 ◼   ► and some other like a bunch of like Men's Health and what's this one, Runner's World,

00:25:33 ◼   ► so a bunch of fitness publications as well and Wired. So it's fine.

00:25:37 ◼   ► Here's a question. Do you think they would ever read a story that involves Apple?

00:25:47 ◼   ► Yeah I was thinking about that.

00:25:48 ◼   ► From Bloomberg Businessweek.

00:25:49 ◼   ► Yeah, what are the... like, what does the selection of these stories look like from

00:25:56 ◼   ► an editorial standpoint? And honestly, I don't know. I think we've talked about this before

00:26:04 ◼   ► in the context of the Apple News Digest, that is an existing feature of Apple News. And

00:26:10 ◼   ► And I believe that they do cover Apple in the digest section. So yeah, I'm not sure.

00:26:19 ◼   ► I think they're... Now, though, reading them would be slightly awkward. I don't know. I

00:26:27 ◼   ► honestly don't know. So I guess we'll see what this is going to be like. And I mean,

00:26:32 ◼   ► I'm still not paying for Apple News Plus. So I really don't know if like all these stories

00:26:39 ◼   ► will be available to me. I noticed that as soon as I reopened the app, it says "Listen

00:26:45 ◼   ► only in Apple News Plus" and there's a big promo box in the middle of the page that says

00:26:50 ◼   ► "Get Started" and when I reopened the app a splash screen came up as well telling me

00:26:54 ◼   ► to subscribe. But I can listen to the intro post for free News Plus audio at the top of

00:27:00 ◼   ► the window.

00:27:01 ◼   ► Yeah, the hosts both seem to have come from WNYC. I believe they were both a part of a

00:27:07 ◼   ► a show there called The Takeaway, which was a daily national public radio program.

00:27:13 ◼   ► So I was just like, they're both on Twitter.

00:27:15 ◼   ► So I was just kind of like looking at, looking at, looking them up right now.

00:27:19 ◼   ► And it seems that's where they both came from.

00:27:21 ◼   ► So professionals in this industry, like Apple hasn't brought some people from

00:27:26 ◼   ► inside of Apple to do this.

00:27:28 ◼   ► Like they've hired from outside people that do this stuff that read news and have

00:27:33 ◼   ► been doing it for some time, it looks like.

00:27:34 ◼   ► So yeah, I'm intrigued to see how that one shakes out.

00:27:37 ◼   ► Can I tell you about some of the other changes in 13.6?

00:27:41 ◼   ► Yes, please.

00:27:42 ◼   ► Because I have the release notes.

00:27:45 ◼   ► So digital car keys are actually available in 13.6.

00:27:49 ◼   ► No need to wait for iOS 14.

00:27:52 ◼   ► So it's not an iOS 14 feature then?

00:27:55 ◼   ► Yeah, just like the new symptoms in the health app

00:27:58 ◼   ► that they mentioned at WWDC, like new symptoms

00:28:02 ◼   ► for cycle tracking, I believe, and the new ECG integration

00:28:07 ◼   ► in health.

00:28:08 ◼   ► That's available in 13.6, even though Apple mentioned those

00:28:11 ◼   ► as iOS 14 features, but those are actually here today.

00:28:15 ◼   ► And so now you can log symptoms like fever, chills,

00:28:19 ◼   ► sore throat, and coughing.

00:28:21 ◼   ► So those are available in health.

00:28:24 ◼   ► And car keys, you can share them with iCloud.

00:28:27 ◼   ► You can share a digital key over iMessage,

00:28:30 ◼   ► just like Apple showed the WWDC in 14, but that's available in 13.6.

00:28:35 ◼   ► And you can have multiple profiles for multiple drivers,

00:28:39 ◼   ► and you can have restrictions.

00:28:41 ◼   ► So if you want to make sure that your teenager kid does not drive

00:28:46 ◼   ► over a certain distance, I believe you can do that.

00:28:49 ◼   ► So that's pretty cool.

00:28:50 ◼   ► That stuff is really cool, by the way.

00:28:52 ◼   ► It's very cool.

00:28:52 ◼   ► We haven't spoken about it, but all of those features around that car--

00:28:56 ◼   ► when I first heard about that car key thing,

00:28:59 ◼   ► It was kind of like, "Ah, this is going to be like Snoozetown."

00:29:02 ◼   ► But when they were announcing the features, it was kind of like,

00:29:06 ◼   ► "Yeah, you know what? That stuff sounds really good."

00:29:08 ◼   ► It's very clever because you have that family sharing integration

00:29:12 ◼   ► that absolutely makes sense if you're a parent.

00:29:14 ◼   ► And obviously you have maps integration and you can share over iMessage.

00:29:19 ◼   ► It's really well done. I think it's really well done.

00:29:21 ◼   ► Too bad it's limited to a specific BMW model.

00:29:24 ◼   ► For now, obviously.

00:29:27 ◼   ► For now. We're actually looking into renting that car this summer because we want to write

00:29:32 ◼   ► about it. So, which one of you is going to drive around? John is looking into the BMW.

00:29:43 ◼   ► Oh my God. That's genius. That's very funny. Yes. We're looking into that. Also, let me tell you

00:29:50 ◼   ► about some of my favorite bug fixes in 13.6 because there's some really fascinating stuff.

00:29:58 ◼   ► For example, a fix is an issue that causes some phone calls from, and I'm going to try

00:30:07 ◼   ► my best here. I can do this for you if you need, but try it. Saskatchewan? Yeah, you

00:30:15 ◼   ► got it. Saskatchewan. Yeah. Saskatchewan? To appear as originating from the United States.

00:30:21 ◼   ► Now I believe that Saskatchewan is in Canada. Is it in Canada? Yes. Really? Wow. Look at

00:30:29 ◼   ► me. I know geography. Yeah. No, you don't. I listened to one of your many podcasts where

00:30:34 ◼   ► you were very clear about not knowing geography. Why do you need to mention that? What else?

00:30:43 ◼   ► Let's see. There's really nothing else exciting. I just thought that the Saskatchewan one was

00:30:49 ◼   ► really exciting because it's called Saskatchewan.

00:30:51 ◼   ► Well, it also fixes an issue that could cause Japanese hardware keyboards to be incorrectly

00:30:56 ◼   ► mapped as a US keyboard.

00:30:57 ◼   ► Sure.

00:30:58 ◼   ► Is there a US-focused bug issue here, right?

00:31:01 ◼   ► Thanks, California.

00:31:02 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:31:03 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:31:04 ◼   ► Well, I mean, to be fair, America's got more bugs than anybody right now.

00:31:09 ◼   ► Oh my God. What did you do today?

00:31:13 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:31:15 ◼   ► You're very, very on the comedy.

00:31:17 ◼   ► No, I do know. I slept in.

00:31:19 ◼   ► I got more sleep than I do.

00:31:19 ◼   ► Ah, there you go. It made you punchy.

00:31:22 ◼   ► You're like live shows, Steven.

00:31:23 ◼   ► You know what you need?

00:31:25 ◼   ► To relax, listen to some ASMR, and chill,

00:31:29 ◼   ► and then come back and do the show.

00:31:31 ◼   ► Podcast and chill.

00:31:32 ◼   ► Like that.

00:31:35 ◼   ► I think all the Apple news stuff is really cool.

00:31:39 ◼   ► I'm glad they're jumping into the daily podcast move.

00:31:43 ◼   ► I'm glad Iowa's 13.6 is here.

00:31:45 ◼   ► Good breaking news segment.

00:31:46 ◼   ► - I still remain skeptical in the same way

00:31:50 ◼   ► that I was skeptical when Apple first announced

00:31:53 ◼   ► that news initiative that I don't remember

00:31:55 ◼   ► what happened with.

00:31:56 ◼   ► Remember when they, I think they were pledging money

00:31:57 ◼   ► or something.

00:31:58 ◼   ► - Yes, save journalism.

00:32:01 ◼   ► - There is still a part of me that is like,

00:32:04 ◼   ► I don't know how I feel about technology companies,

00:32:07 ◼   ► no matter who they are controlling the news that people see.

00:32:12 ◼   ► And this is an element of them hand picking the news stories

00:32:17 ◼   ► that they want to promote.

00:32:19 ◼   ► And it's coming from Apple.

00:32:22 ◼   ► Now this could be good, this could be bad, I don't know,

00:32:25 ◼   ► but it's still a thing that is happening, right?

00:32:28 ◼   ► Like this is not algorithmically generated,

00:32:31 ◼   ► like there are editors, they are picking this stuff

00:32:34 ◼   ► and then they are filtering it through their own voices in some instances

00:32:39 ◼   ► and delivering it back to you.

00:32:41 ◼   ► And I still feel that it is healthy to pause about that,

00:32:47 ◼   ► just to remember this.

00:32:50 ◼   ► So yeah, I still am keeping what I consider

00:32:54 ◼   ► to be a healthy level of skepticism about this for now.

00:32:59 ◼   ► - I don't disagree.

00:33:00 ◼   ► I think you make a really good point.

00:33:03 ◼   ► It's a bias view and like there is nothing wrong with bias.

00:33:07 ◼   ► Like we all have bias, right? Like I think people that said they don't have bias,

00:33:11 ◼   ► uh, I, I, I question that. Um, maybe that's a bias that I have,

00:33:17 ◼   ► but like we will have our biases. Uh, but yeah, it's like,

00:33:21 ◼   ► you know,

00:33:22 ◼   ► in the same way that you should always think of the fact that whenever we're

00:33:26 ◼   ► talking about stuff, we come from a bias of being fans of Apple products, right?

00:33:31 ◼   ► Like, that's an important thing that you need to know about this show before you start listening

00:33:35 ◼   ► to it.

00:33:37 ◼   ► But we do still question it like I am right now.

00:33:40 ◼   ► Anyway, this is a spider's web to get caught up in.

00:33:43 ◼   ► But it's still just something that I want to mention, I think, whenever I see stuff

00:33:47 ◼   ► like this about Apple and their news initiatives.

00:33:50 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean, I totally relate to this argument.

00:33:54 ◼   ► I mean, I come from a country where, for many years, the Prime Minister was also the owner

00:34:00 ◼   ► of a major TV network. So, you know. You say like, how could it be legal? But the person

00:34:07 ◼   ► who's setting the laws. Well, you know, so, you know, I get it. It can be, it's an awkward

00:34:14 ◼   ► position. I mean, this is obviously different. Apple is no political party, but you got that

00:34:19 ◼   ► conflict of interest going on maybe to an extent. And you got to consider that when

00:34:23 ◼   ► you consume your news from, from Apple news. And I know that they have like, they mentioned,

00:34:29 ◼   ► I believe years ago, that they have like, like it's a separate entity of sorts with

00:34:34 ◼   ► like an editorial board. And this is, I believe they had something years ago in the New York

00:34:42 ◼   ► Times, like there was a story that detailed the structure of the Apple News journalistic

00:34:48 ◼   ► team. So maybe somebody can find it. But yeah, I mean, it's always like right there in the

00:34:54 ◼   ► back of your mind like, "Yeah, isn't it kind of weird though that they're doing

00:34:58 ◼   ► this?" And to an extent I think it is. Just like it would be strange if like

00:35:03 ◼   ► Facebook did it or Google did it, like these giant corporations that wield such

00:35:08 ◼   ► a terrific amount of power, both, you know, culturally and financially, that they

00:35:15 ◼   ► want to do... And politically. And politically that they want to do journalism just

00:35:20 ◼   ► because they can just because like journalism is a feature of their

00:35:23 ◼   ► products it can be a little weird you know maybe you just keep that in mind I

00:35:29 ◼   ► think it is very clear that Apple as a company wants to do everything now right

00:35:37 ◼   ► like like many other technology companies many before this yeah but like

00:35:42 ◼   ► before them right you like your Amazon's and Google's were doing this before and

00:35:47 ◼   ► now Apple are kind of in this space of like if there's a thing we can do we're

00:35:52 ◼   ► gonna do it and there's good and bad in that but they are definitely in that

00:35:59 ◼   ► Wally by and large like mentality right you're everything from Apple they'll

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00:37:47 ◼   ► I had some rough times with Apple Photos

00:37:50 ◼   ► and I just wanted to share it

00:37:51 ◼   ► in case listeners had a similar issue.

00:37:54 ◼   ► So I have a lot of albums.

00:37:55 ◼   ► I'm a big believer in albums and photos.

00:37:58 ◼   ► That's how I organize things.

00:38:00 ◼   ► And as a person with many albums,

00:38:02 ◼   ► I want them sorted alphabetically

00:38:04 ◼   ► so I can get to what I want to quickly.

00:38:07 ◼   ► And they fall out of order sometimes in the Mac Photos app.

00:38:10 ◼   ► It's like sometimes you open it

00:38:12 ◼   ► and there's not in the same order anymore,

00:38:14 ◼   ► but you've always been able to right click on my albums

00:38:17 ◼   ► in the sidebar and re-sort them.

00:38:19 ◼   ► You can sort them by date or by name,

00:38:21 ◼   ► I think some other things.

00:38:22 ◼   ► So I sorted them by name.

00:38:24 ◼   ► The problem I was having is that the order was out of sync

00:38:27 ◼   ► on my iOS devices.

00:38:28 ◼   ► So my Mac would say they're in alphabetical order,

00:38:31 ◼   ► but on my phone and iPad, they weren't.

00:38:34 ◼   ► and the iPhone and iPad were in the same order.

00:38:39 ◼   ► And that was also the order set on iCloud.com

00:38:41 ◼   ► because you can log into iCloud.com

00:38:43 ◼   ► and see your photo library.

00:38:45 ◼   ► Now on iCloud's website,

00:38:47 ◼   ► there's no mechanism to deal with this.

00:38:50 ◼   ► There's no sorting there.

00:38:51 ◼   ► I thought, well, if I could sort them on the iCloud website,

00:38:55 ◼   ► maybe that'll like jumpstart the sync on the iOS devices.

00:38:58 ◼   ► And everything else was still working.

00:38:59 ◼   ► I was still getting photos.

00:39:01 ◼   ► Things were still going the right places.

00:39:03 ◼   ► It was just the order of the albums that was wrong.

00:39:07 ◼   ► And I couldn't do anything on iCloud.com to fix this.

00:39:12 ◼   ► And I was getting ready to do the terrible thing

00:39:14 ◼   ► of like signing out of iCloud Photos

00:39:16 ◼   ► and then signing back in.

00:39:18 ◼   ► And then I thought, well, I could rebuild the library.

00:39:21 ◼   ► Maybe that would fix it.

00:39:23 ◼   ► And you do that by starting Photos,

00:39:25 ◼   ► holding down, I think, Command and Option,

00:39:27 ◼   ► and it rebuilds the library

00:39:29 ◼   ► and makes sure everything's in sync.

00:39:32 ◼   ► That took a little while, I've got over 50,000 items

00:39:35 ◼   ► in my photos library, but it fixed the issue.

00:39:39 ◼   ► And so now I can have everything synced

00:39:41 ◼   ► in the order I want it.

00:39:43 ◼   ► And that really was bugging me, especially on iOS 14,

00:39:46 ◼   ► because now the photo picker isn't just the old list

00:39:51 ◼   ► that it used to be, now you have search

00:39:52 ◼   ► and you have albums in there.

00:39:54 ◼   ► So I really wanna be able to quickly go to an album

00:39:56 ◼   ► and pull out a photo, and they were all out of order

00:39:58 ◼   ► and I can never find anything.

00:39:59 ◼   ► So I'm psyched that this fixed it.

00:40:01 ◼   ► I'm not sure why rebuilding the photo library on the Mac did it, but it was enough, I guess,

00:40:07 ◼   ► to get it syncing again and now things are good.

00:40:10 ◼   ► Mmm.

00:40:11 ◼   ► The end.

00:40:12 ◼   ► Do you guys pick albums users?

00:40:13 ◼   ► No.

00:40:14 ◼   ► No.

00:40:15 ◼   ► Do you have any albums?

00:40:16 ◼   ► Two.

00:40:17 ◼   ► Yes, but mostly because I don't know how to delete them.

00:40:23 ◼   ► I have a selection of shared albums, but I don't count those.

00:40:27 ◼   ► Sure.

00:40:28 ◼   ► But I have one album, which is my wedding photos,

00:40:32 ◼   ► and one album, which is the photo booth

00:40:34 ◼   ► that we had at the wedding.

00:40:35 ◼   ► They're the only two albums that I have.

00:40:37 ◼   ► - And so you just search for anything else?

00:40:39 ◼   ► - Search, yeah.

00:40:40 ◼   ► - Yes, I use search a lot, actually.

00:40:43 ◼   ► Like search by, I really use search by location

00:40:48 ◼   ► and by date, and often by those two things combined.

00:40:53 ◼   ► So like beach, like the location of the beach, 2019.

00:40:56 ◼   ► Like I do that a lot actually, yes.

00:40:58 ◼   ► - I actually more just search by my own eye.

00:41:03 ◼   ► Right, like I know roughly when the photo was

00:41:05 ◼   ► that I'm looking for, and I just scroll

00:41:08 ◼   ► until I know I'm around that area.

00:41:10 ◼   ► That's kind of how I do it.

00:41:12 ◼   ► - Yeah, for recent photos, like for photos

00:41:14 ◼   ► in the last like couple of months, I do that as well.

00:41:17 ◼   ► - Okay.

00:41:17 ◼   ► - But like the other day, for example,

00:41:19 ◼   ► I was looking for a specific video

00:41:21 ◼   ► of one of our dogs swimming at the beach,

00:41:25 ◼   ► and I knew that it was last year,

00:41:27 ◼   ► so I searched by location and time, and it just worked.

00:41:31 ◼   ► So yeah, that search has actually gotten quite,

00:41:35 ◼   ► I don't wanna say great, it's pretty good though.

00:41:39 ◼   ► It's not, I mean, the content stuff

00:41:42 ◼   ► leaves a lot to be desired,

00:41:44 ◼   ► but if you just use those filters,

00:41:46 ◼   ► like date and time, location.

00:41:49 ◼   ► - Do you still have to just search one word at a time?

00:41:51 ◼   ► - No, you can combine them.

00:41:53 ◼   ► Okay. Could you remember when that was a thing?

00:41:55 ◼   ► It was a thing and then they changed it last year.

00:41:57 ◼   ► Last year they changed it with 13.

00:42:00 ◼   ► Tokenized searches.

00:42:01 ◼   ► How many things are in y'all's photo libraries?

00:42:04 ◼   ► How many items?

00:42:05 ◼   ► Oh, I wanna say, let me, 14,000 maybe.

00:42:10 ◼   ► Let's see.

00:42:12 ◼   ► Okay.

00:42:13 ◼   ► No, actually 23,000.

00:42:16 ◼   ► Woof, I'm 12,800 photos, 523 videos.

00:42:21 ◼   ► - Wow, so I'm way ahead of y'all.

00:42:23 ◼   ► Welcome to being a parent, I guess.

00:42:25 ◼   ► But that's interesting, 'cause I find myself searching

00:42:29 ◼   ► more than I used to, but I have trouble letting go

00:42:32 ◼   ► of the album.

00:42:34 ◼   ► And then scrolling through here,

00:42:35 ◼   ► there's probably 100 of 'em, 150 of 'em.

00:42:37 ◼   ► Like, I have a lot of them.

00:42:39 ◼   ► And photos--

00:42:40 ◼   ► - The problem is, when you're an album person,

00:42:42 ◼   ► you can never get away from it.

00:42:44 ◼   ► - That's kinda how I feel.

00:42:45 ◼   ► I feel like I can't ever--

00:42:47 ◼   ► - When you stop.

00:42:48 ◼   ► - Yeah, I'm like in this methodology,

00:42:50 ◼   ► and I can't move out of it.

00:42:52 ◼   ► Like even just using favorites,

00:42:54 ◼   ► I have like two pictures listed as favorites

00:42:56 ◼   ► 'cause even that feels too wishy-washy.

00:42:59 ◼   ► - So I used to make albums in iPhoto.

00:43:02 ◼   ► - Sure.

00:43:03 ◼   ► - And I got into that habit and I hated it, right?

00:43:05 ◼   ► Where it was like I'm making them constantly.

00:43:07 ◼   ► And then when they moved from iPhoto to photos,

00:43:10 ◼   ► I just stopped.

00:43:11 ◼   ► It gave me the like the excuse to stop.

00:43:14 ◼   ► So I just stopped.

00:43:15 ◼   ► - Yeah, and mine came from,

00:43:16 ◼   ► I used to have my photo library on Dropbox in subfolders

00:43:19 ◼   ► based on topic. So like what kind of albums do you do, Steven? Like just for special occasions,

00:43:25 ◼   ► like do you actually organize everything? Like even just like random days that you spend at home?

00:43:30 ◼   ► Yeah, I have a smart album that says "not in albums" and there's four photos in it right now

00:43:36 ◼   ► that I need to file. So for instance, I'll just read some. I've got one for my daughter, so it's

00:43:40 ◼   ► pictures of primarily her. I have... So by subject. Okay. It's all by subject. I have Apple Hardware,

00:43:47 ◼   ► which has 1800 pictures. Bikes and cars.

00:43:53 ◼   ► Wow. Bikes and cars? Yeah, yeah, bikes and cars. Interesting. Okay.

00:43:59 ◼   ► I've got one for our old house, just like pictures of the house and house

00:44:03 ◼   ► projects, one for the new house. So you don't do occasions like birthday

00:44:07 ◼   ► parties and like Thanksgiving or something? Like, each

00:44:11 ◼   ► kid has their album and then an album for all

00:44:14 ◼   ► of their birthdays. So it's all like, you know, nine of my

00:44:17 ◼   ► daughter's birthdays in one album. Interesting. And then, you know, like various trips,

00:44:23 ◼   ► one for relay FM live shows, so not an album for individual live shows, but they're all there

00:44:32 ◼   ► together. Yeah. You know, on and on and on. I mean, they just, they never end. And you do this every

00:44:38 ◼   ► day? Like, disorganization? I mean, every once in a while I just sit down and look at the smart album

00:44:44 ◼   ► called Not in Albums and then I put them where they should go. Every photo goes in an album?

00:44:51 ◼   ► Or it's deleted. Wow. Wow. Oh, I lied. By the way, I have one more album, which is... I think

00:45:01 ◼   ► this is very funny. I like to sometimes take pictures of Adina's face way too close.

00:45:14 ◼   ► So like we're standing next to each other, I got my phone out and I just take a picture

00:45:18 ◼   ► which is just way too close and I have all of those photos in an album because it's hilarious

00:45:23 ◼   ► to me to look at these pictures.

00:45:24 ◼   ► That's good.

00:45:25 ◼   ► That's a very good album.

00:45:27 ◼   ► Yep, it's a cool close up.

00:45:30 ◼   ► Of course.

00:45:31 ◼   ► Yes.

00:45:32 ◼   ► Steven that's wild that you do that.

00:45:34 ◼   ► I've got an album for 10 years of Instagram history so Instagram 2011, Instagram 2012,

00:45:40 ◼   ► Instagram 2013.

00:45:41 ◼   ► Wait, what?

00:45:42 ◼   ► Yeah. Hold on. I don't know. I don't understand that. So every photo you post on Instagram

00:45:49 ◼   ► also goes to a fold to an album. Yeah. Photos up. Yeah. I guess. And how does that happen?

00:45:56 ◼   ► Well manually the Instagram app, if you have it, save your photos, makes an Instagram album

00:46:01 ◼   ► at the end of the year. I make an archive of all those posts for the year. And so at

00:46:06 ◼   ► the end of the year I'll make an Instagram 2020 album and put all the

00:46:11 ◼   ► Instagram 2020 images in there. I'm not saying this is like a weird thing to do

00:46:17 ◼   ► I'm sure many people do it I just wasn't expecting that. It's a lot of work it's

00:46:22 ◼   ► not weird it's just a lot of work. Yeah it's a lot of work. I commend your patience

00:46:28 ◼   ► yeah but I feel like I can quickly find things. Oh of course because they're

00:46:33 ◼   ► organized in buckets that make sense to your brain yeah right way if you're like

00:46:38 ◼   ► I want to find a car well you just go to bikes and cars that's right if I want to

00:46:41 ◼   ► look at a at a Hurley bachelor party they're all in there together you know

00:46:47 ◼   ► wait we've only been one oh so you do have events then some if it's like a

00:46:54 ◼   ► true one-off like yes it makes approach yeah find what becomes an album you just

00:47:02 ◼   ► got to feel it. Right. You know it when you see it. Exactly. Yes. Yeah. And would you

00:47:10 ◼   ► say that you have more albums for people or objects in your life? I think it's a pretty

00:47:18 ◼   ► solid mix between people, like types of object, and then events. So like, every fall we go

00:47:29 ◼   ► to this pumpkin patch and so I have one called pumpkin patch and it's you know five or six

00:47:34 ◼   ► years of photos all at the same place so I can very quickly see like my kids get older

00:47:39 ◼   ► every fall. So again it's hard to it's hard to judge where the line is but what if you

00:47:45 ◼   ► had a birthday party at the pumpkin patch then what would you do? I think the birthday

00:47:50 ◼   ► party would override the pumpkin patch. Right okay there's a hierarchy yeah. And I also

00:47:56 ◼   ► have a follow-up question. Does the dog have its own album? She does. Eva Korn dog is her

00:48:03 ◼   ► own album. Perfect. Do you have albums for all of the animals or do some of them get

00:48:11 ◼   ► grouped together? Well there's, oh like previous pets? Yeah. The previous pets I think are

00:48:19 ◼   ► mixed in other places. Is the album called "Previous Pets"? No, I don't. I'm saying I don't have a lot of pictures of them.

00:48:30 ◼   ► Okay, okay. Also, I have another follow-up question. Do you have a photo album for

00:48:35 ◼   ► your enemies? I do. That is called "Max Stories". They're on there. Okay, perfect.

00:48:45 ◼   ► Fantastic, okay. Are there any unexpected albums in there? What do you mean?

00:48:51 ◼   ► Like, do you keep an album of photos which you would consider to be

00:48:56 ◼   ► abnormal to what people would normally put in their photos? Kind of like bikes and cars.

00:49:02 ◼   ► I mean I have a bunch of photos of laptops and computers. There you go, yeah.

00:49:07 ◼   ► So do you have a computer pictures photo album? I have an Apple hardware

00:49:12 ◼   ► album that has pictures of tons of Macs and then I have a non Apple Hardware

00:49:19 ◼   ► album that is a bunch of other stuff. Is it possible for you to find out which

00:49:25 ◼   ► albums you have the most photos in? I bet you can make a serious shortcut for it.

00:49:31 ◼   ► Because I want to know how highly the Apple Photos stacks. It's high. And like

00:49:40 ◼   ► which one of your children you have more pictures of laptops. Maybe I can

00:49:44 ◼   ► eyeball that so Apple hardware has 1742. You have more pictures of Apple

00:49:52 ◼   ► hardware than I do of my wedding. Yeah oh yeah our daughter only has 1022

00:49:57 ◼   ► photos. Stevens is a marriage for life with old Apple hardware. So you

00:50:07 ◼   ► have more pictures of Apple computers than your middle child? Yeah, and

00:50:11 ◼   ► definitely the youngest child, because he has the fewest, because he's lived the

00:50:15 ◼   ► shortest. Look, it's not weird, alright? It's his passion. It's his hobby. So... Do you

00:50:21 ◼   ► have a photo album of Mary? Of course. Do you have more pictures of the

00:50:26 ◼   ► computers than Mary? I don't feel like I have to answer that. That's a yes, Dan.

00:50:31 ◼   ► I really want to see the previous Pat's album.

00:50:34 ◼   ► That's not like I'm obsessed with that album.

00:50:37 ◼   ► Like I need to see it.

00:50:38 ◼   ► I could go through and find all the pictures

00:50:40 ◼   ► of Mary's old cat and put him in there, I guess.

00:50:42 ◼   ► That was a troublesome cat.

00:50:44 ◼   ► Yeah, he was not good.

00:50:45 ◼   ► Photos.

00:50:49 ◼   ► There we go.

00:50:49 ◼   ► Who would've thought?

00:50:51 ◼   ► We learned something new about you, Steven,

00:50:53 ◼   ► in detail also.

00:50:56 ◼   ► So thank you for bringing this to our attention.

00:50:59 ◼   ► I found it interesting.

00:51:00 ◼   ► neither of you asked if I had albums of you.

00:51:02 ◼   ► - Do you?

00:51:03 ◼   ► - Do you?

00:51:04 ◼   ► - There's a mic album.

00:51:05 ◼   ► - There's no Federico album.

00:51:08 ◼   ► - Oh.

00:51:09 ◼   ► - You're mostly confined to the WWDC album.

00:51:11 ◼   ► - I was gonna say, to be fair,

00:51:14 ◼   ► I do see Steven in places other than just events.

00:51:18 ◼   ► - I mean, he's seen me a bunch of times

00:51:20 ◼   ► and he's taken a bunch of pictures of me.

00:51:21 ◼   ► I don't even get my own album, wow.

00:51:23 ◼   ► - Sorry.

00:51:24 ◼   ► - Do you have a Federico face in your faces library?

00:51:26 ◼   ► - Yes, I do.

00:51:27 ◼   ► - Wow.

00:51:28 ◼   ► He has a face and he just couldn't be bothered to set up an album for me, but he does have

00:51:32 ◼   ► bikes and cars and previous pets.

00:51:34 ◼   ► The face is unnamed, like the phoners just realized there's a person and it's just like

00:51:39 ◼   ► whatever.

00:51:40 ◼   ► Just the Italian flag emoji.

00:51:41 ◼   ► Yeah, actually, am I in the enemies album, Steven?

00:51:44 ◼   ► No, it's just Jon.

00:51:47 ◼   ► Yeah, as it should be.

00:51:51 ◼   ► Okay, well, after this disappointing revelation, I feel like we need to move on because I'm

00:51:56 ◼   ► very sad.

00:51:57 ◼   ► I haven't even got an album.

00:52:00 ◼   ► Wow.

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00:53:22 ◼   ► Let's talk about the App Library.

00:53:26 ◼   ► One of the new features that we've all got to grips with

00:53:30 ◼   ► a little bit over the last week or so, as we've been running

00:53:34 ◼   ► Dave Beta since the beginning, and

00:53:38 ◼   ► me and Steven are now on the Betas now too.

00:53:42 ◼   ► I've been running iPadOS Beta since

00:53:46 ◼   ► the day after WWDC or something, but I'm getting used to now

00:53:50 ◼   ► using the App Library.

00:53:54 ◼   ► Federico is the one, the person out of the three of us

00:53:57 ◼   ► who's been using this for about nearly a month, honestly.

00:54:01 ◼   ► What are your main takeaways from the App Library lifestyle?

00:54:06 ◼   ► I've resisted the idea of the App Library for a long time.

00:54:14 ◼   ► I mean, I've only sort of accepted this experiment a few days ago. It's been really challenging

00:54:24 ◼   ► for me, honestly, to let go of the icon grid. And I think, broadly speaking, my main problem

00:54:32 ◼   ► right now is that I'm currently living a home screen crisis. Like, everything is a mess.

00:54:38 ◼   ► And because of widgets and because of the app library and because of all these new features,

00:54:43 ◼   ► I feel like I need to rethink... Well, I have to rethink such a fundamental aspect of how

00:54:49 ◼   ► I use my phone, which is when I go back to the home screen, what do I see? And that's

00:54:55 ◼   ► something that I do hundreds of times a day, and because of widgets, and because of these

00:55:01 ◼   ► new ways of launching and organizing apps, I need to rethink it all. And this takes me...

00:55:07 ◼   ► It's going to take me time, right? It's going to take me a long time to figure out what's

00:55:11 ◼   ► the optimal placement of the widgets that I want to use, which widgets do I want to

00:55:15 ◼   ► use, and also right now I only have Apple widgets. What will happen once third parties

00:55:21 ◼   ► are getting on this action as well? So...

00:55:25 ◼   ► We should be, I mean, for people that are on beta any day now, I would expect, we'll

00:55:30 ◼   ► start seeing the first third party widgets.

00:55:32 ◼   ► Yeah, the app review for TestFlight is, from what I hear, very slow at the moment.

00:55:38 ◼   ► Right.

00:55:39 ◼   ► But usually it happens about this time of year, like beta 3 in late July seems about right for starting to accept.

00:55:48 ◼   ► You've got to assume that this is a time where maybe Apple are looking a little bit more closely at what's being submitted to make sure they haven't made a huge mistake.

00:55:57 ◼   ► Yeah. So basically, my issue is that the App Library requires me to let go of over a decade

00:56:09 ◼   ► of muscle memory in the sense of when I go back to the home screen, I see a grid of icons

00:56:16 ◼   ► across multiple pages. Now, the App Library also takes away control from me, right? Because

00:56:25 ◼   ► of that smart organization that it does, that intelligent organization that it does for

00:56:30 ◼   ► you on your behalf. You don't have to organize it. In fact, you cannot organize it at all.

00:56:36 ◼   ► There's nothing you can do. The App Library surfaces recently used apps and recently added

00:56:42 ◼   ► and then puts everything in these automatic categories, which can be a little hit or miss,

00:56:49 ◼   ► like the type of filing that it does for you. But that's the general idea. And then if you

00:56:54 ◼   ► For one, there's a search bar and you can see a list and you can search manually.

00:56:57 ◼   ► How pointless is that search bar?

00:57:00 ◼   ► Kind of, because you can just swipe down on any...

00:57:03 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:57:04 ◼   ► Well, I guess that it's faster because it's restricted to just showing you apps instead

00:57:09 ◼   ► of other content.

00:57:10 ◼   ► And also there's like a whole discussion about search that we're going to need to have at

00:57:14 ◼   ► some point because it's better and worse than the old search in some key ways for me.

00:57:20 ◼   ► And I'll fire up the teachy-teachers and I'll put that in there.

00:57:24 ◼   ► We'll see, yes. So anyway, right now I'm living a moment of crisis because...

00:57:31 ◼   ► So last night I went in and I knew that we were going to talk about this on the show and so I

00:57:37 ◼   ► figured why not. I removed all my folders, so that's a nice touch because you can long press

00:57:44 ◼   ► on a folder and you can put the entire contents of a folder back into the app library, hiding the

00:57:52 ◼   ► entire folder and the apps inside the folder from the home screen with just one action.

00:57:58 ◼   ► So that's very nice. So I went in and my third and my fourth page, I hid them from the home

00:58:05 ◼   ► screen. So those are now living into the app library. But I still have two pages of icons

00:58:12 ◼   ► and one page of widgets that I need to understand what am I going to do there. So I'm trying

00:58:19 ◼   ► to tackle this by starting with some very specific ideas. And then, the home screen

00:58:28 ◼   ► organization, I think, is going to be a topic that we're going to talk about over and over

00:58:32 ◼   ► over the next few months. But for now...

00:58:34 ◼   ► Yeah, because it's like a completely different thing.

00:58:37 ◼   ► It's a completely different thing. So something that I'm experimenting with at the moment

00:58:40 ◼   ► It's this idea of having these core corners on my home screen, based on activity, if you

00:58:50 ◼   ► wish.

00:58:51 ◼   ► Like, for example, if you wish.

00:58:53 ◼   ► If you wish, yes.

00:58:54 ◼   ► So, on my first page, I'm playing around with this idea of the top section of the home screen.

00:59:02 ◼   ► I can put four icons and a small widget, so the what is 2x2 layout, so a small widget next to it

00:59:12 ◼   ► and that will be like my media corner. So right now, let me look, right now I have music, I have

00:59:18 ◼   ► the App Store, Instagram and Castro, which we'll talk about it at some point, and next to it I have

00:59:26 ◼   ► the Apple Music widget. And then I thought, okay, so that's the media corner. So that's like the spot

00:59:32 ◼   ► on my home screen where anything media-related lives. And then I thought, okay, so this is

00:59:39 ◼   ► obviously like... this corner contains a bunch of actions, a bunch of apps, that I do a lot,

00:59:45 ◼   ► like listening to music, opening the App Store, and, you know, finding a podcast, or browsing

00:59:49 ◼   ► Instagram. And then I thought, okay, what else do I do with my phone a lot? I take a lot of notes,

00:59:55 ◼   ► and I save a lot of links. So I thought, okay, so at the bottom of the page I will have like a

00:59:59 ◼   ► note-taking corner. And so Notes, Raindrop, Tod, your favorite mic, and Safari. So these icons.

01:00:10 ◼   ► And then next to them, a stack of Apple Notes widgets. One of them that opens my... At the moment

01:00:17 ◼   ► I have like this note called Everything Bucket, which is like a note in my eye.

01:00:23 ◼   ► - I'll do for everything.

01:00:24 ◼   ► - It's a note in my iOS review folder

01:00:28 ◼   ► where I can just drop anything that I find,

01:00:31 ◼   ► I will drop in there, screenshots, links, tweets,

01:00:34 ◼   ► like literally anything.

01:00:36 ◼   ► And then later I will organize it

01:00:37 ◼   ► and bring it into my mind map.

01:00:40 ◼   ► And the second one in the stack is my scratch pad.

01:00:44 ◼   ► So I do keep a scratch,

01:00:45 ◼   ► but like a general scratch pad in notes.

01:00:48 ◼   ► So I thought, okay, this could be another corner

01:00:50 ◼   ► for combining icons and widgets, because I don't feel like I want to go all widgets for

01:00:57 ◼   ► my first page of the home screen. I still think I want to have a combination of icons

01:01:02 ◼   ► and widgets. There are some weird limitations, though. You cannot have a small widget surrounded

01:01:12 ◼   ► by two icons. You always need to have four icons in a corner and a small widget in the

01:01:18 ◼   ► other corner. I wish there was a little more flexibility in terms of like the

01:01:22 ◼   ► layouts and the placement of icons, maybe next year, we'll see. And then I thought

01:01:27 ◼   ► okay so now my first page I have these two distinct areas and I feel pretty

01:01:32 ◼   ► good about them so we'll see how it goes. Then I thought okay what do I

01:01:39 ◼   ► want to do for the second page? And right now I'm playing around with this idea of

01:01:43 ◼   ► of, on the second home screen, instead of having more icons, the second page I want

01:01:50 ◼   ► to do just widgets. And so the theme, if you wish, right now for the second page is Glanceable

01:01:56 ◼   ► Life Updates, which is not a great name, but it gives you the idea. So I have the Calendar

01:02:03 ◼   ► widget, the Reminders widget, Weather, and the Batteries widget, which is not great,

01:02:11 ◼   ► but I couldn't figure out anything else that could add that kind of context.

01:02:15 ◼   ► You just put in a mole in there, right?

01:02:17 ◼   ► Yeah, the big calendar layout, the big calendar widget...

01:02:21 ◼   ► No, actually this is the medium one.

01:02:23 ◼   ► So medium calendar, medium reminders, small weather, small batteries.

01:02:27 ◼   ► This is what I'm doing at the moment.

01:02:29 ◼   ► Then I have the third page, and I'm probably going to hide everything here as well.

01:02:35 ◼   ► So realistically I think I'm going to end up with the first home screen,

01:02:39 ◼   ► a second page just with widgets, and then the App Library.

01:02:44 ◼   ► And I'm gonna use this for a while

01:02:46 ◼   ► and I'm gonna see how it works.

01:02:48 ◼   ► Now, this is very temporary because I do believe

01:02:52 ◼   ► that everything is gonna change once third-party developers

01:02:54 ◼   ► can adopt widgets.

01:02:56 ◼   ► Still, in this experimentation phase,

01:02:59 ◼   ► I can tell you a bunch of things that I think,

01:03:02 ◼   ► a bunch of thoughts that I have.

01:03:04 ◼   ► It's gonna be really challenging for me,

01:03:06 ◼   ► about the App Library, it's gonna be really challenging

01:03:07 ◼   ► for me to accept the lack of control. The fact that, like I get it, like a lot of people

01:03:16 ◼   ► could use the automatic organization, and I think it's, you know, I know a lot of folks

01:03:21 ◼   ► like John, for example, a friend of the show, John Voorhis, could use something like the

01:03:26 ◼   ► app library to organize his hundreds and hundreds of apps that he has on his phone. But I'm

01:03:32 ◼   ► the kind of person who likes to control everything, especially on my computer and especially on

01:03:37 ◼   ► my phone, so the inability to say "no, this folder, the way that you name this folder

01:03:43 ◼   ► is not right", I kind of dislike that. And also, my other problem right now, and sure

01:03:50 ◼   ► enough could be just a beta thing and things can change between now and September, I don't

01:03:54 ◼   ► think they will, but they can, there are just some odd limitations with widgets at the moment,

01:04:02 ◼   ► and I wanted to mention three of them, three different widgets.

01:04:05 ◼   ► Files, so the Files widget, which is new in Beta 2, is OK, it shows you your recently

01:04:13 ◼   ► modified, I guess, files.

01:04:17 ◼   ► And it's nice because you can tap on an individual file and it'll open, and it also shows you

01:04:22 ◼   ► the app that opened the file, so like, IARider for example has a little text document in

01:04:28 ◼   ► my files widget, and there's a little IA Writer icon next to it, because it is a

01:04:33 ◼   ► markdown document that I open in IA Writer, so that's nice. But what I really

01:04:37 ◼   ► would like to do with the files widget is just let me create a small widget

01:04:42 ◼   ► that opens as either a specific file or a specific folder in the files app.

01:04:49 ◼   ► That's literally all I want. Like, I want to have a quick, like, bookmark, if you

01:04:54 ◼   ► wish to a folder or a file. That's all I want, and it's not possible right now.

01:05:00 ◼   ► Music, like the Music widget, I really like. I also like in the Medium layout.

01:05:06 ◼   ► In the Small layout it shows you a single item, a single recently played item.

01:05:11 ◼   ► And in the Medium and Big layout, and Large layout, it shows you multiple

01:05:18 ◼   ► recently played items. But I have the same problem with files here. The app defaults to showing you

01:05:27 ◼   ► recently, in this case, played albums or songs, and I just want to be able to go in there and

01:05:34 ◼   ► configure the widget and say "I want to create a widget that opens this playlist" or opens this

01:05:41 ◼   ► his album or opens this section of music. Like, I don't want to be constrained to recently

01:05:49 ◼   ► played by the widgets. Like, let me configure... You have this system that allows me to configure

01:05:56 ◼   ► widgets. Why is this one limited to recently played stuff? Like, there's so much more content

01:06:02 ◼   ► that I could choose from, and it's totally possible to do it. So I honestly don't get

01:06:08 ◼   ► it.

01:06:09 ◼   ► especially the music one, that's where a third party could come in and make something.

01:06:14 ◼   ► Sure, they could do that maybe. And lastly, shortcuts. So shortcuts, I feel like it is a very good widget in the sense that they use...

01:06:25 ◼   ► and I mean it's no surprise because widget configuration is based on the Intents framework, which of course the Siri and shortcuts team are in charge of.

01:06:35 ◼   ► The Shortcuts widget uses configuration to let you pick a folder of shortcuts that you want to display in the widget.

01:06:43 ◼   ► So because of that, you can have multiple Shortcuts widgets on your home screen,

01:06:47 ◼   ► each showing you widgets from a specific folder in the app. So that's very cool.

01:06:53 ◼   ► My main problem with the Shortcuts widget is that it wastes a lot of space.

01:06:59 ◼   ► It has like... you could double the amount of shortcuts you can have in your configuration.

01:07:04 ◼   ► You could honestly double the number of shortcuts because they use these rectangles for individual shortcuts.

01:07:11 ◼   ► And they are quite large.

01:07:14 ◼   ► They're comically large.

01:07:15 ◼   ► They are super big and I feel like if I'm the kind of person who's going to use the shortcuts widget

01:07:22 ◼   ► and is going to configure the shortcuts widget, I probably know what I'm doing and I probably know how to use this one.

01:07:28 ◼   ► and I feel like I don't need the giant top target for, you know... I mean, in the

01:07:34 ◼   ► large version of the widget, you can only see eight shortcuts, and I feel like you

01:07:40 ◼   ► could show 16 or maybe even 20. So I do like everything else about the widget. I

01:07:46 ◼   ► do love the fact that shortcuts from the widget now run with Compact UI, so you

01:07:51 ◼   ► can have interactions on the home screen, including...

01:07:55 ◼   ► Question for you on that.

01:07:56 ◼   ► Yes.

01:07:57 ◼   ► Do some of your widgets load really slowly sometimes?

01:08:00 ◼   ► Yes, yes they do.

01:08:01 ◼   ► Okay, cool.

01:08:02 ◼   ► Not the only one then.

01:08:03 ◼   ► You're not the only one and some of my shortcuts also don't run anymore at all.

01:08:08 ◼   ► And that's to be expected I guess with every new version of shortcuts every summer.

01:08:13 ◼   ► I've had a day today where I've had to start trying to rebuild one.

01:08:17 ◼   ► It was on its last legs anyway, like it was a workflow action, right?

01:08:23 ◼   ► it was, do you remember Federico? You made this one. It was to take, I think it was things,

01:08:34 ◼   ► like basically to take a bunch of text and add them, like it was to basically take a

01:08:39 ◼   ► template set of tasks and add it to things.

01:08:42 ◼   ► That's something I would do, yes.

01:08:45 ◼   ► I was using that widget, well that shortcut still, and it's completely broken now.

01:08:50 ◼   ► That's from like three years ago, I think.

01:08:53 ◼   ► It was a bit ropey, so now I'm rebuilding it with the native actions and going from there.

01:09:01 ◼   ► Yeah, so I think honestly these are some very specific complaints about widgets and maybe

01:09:07 ◼   ► they will get fixed, maybe not.

01:09:09 ◼   ► But I think the bigger picture here is that I'm gonna have a hard time letting go of the

01:09:15 ◼   ► home screen grid because I'm just so used to it and because with icons you can pack

01:09:22 ◼   ► a lot of them on a single page, and with widgets you cannot. On the other hand, I really like

01:09:28 ◼   ► widgets, even though they're not as interactive as I enjoyed, but this is a bigger discussion

01:09:33 ◼   ► for later. I really like widgets, and I really like having these glanceable tiles on my home

01:09:41 ◼   ► screen, and I know I want to use them, and I want to use them a lot, but in using them

01:09:47 ◼   ► a lot, I'm gonna end up with multiple pages anyway. So if I'm gonna have multiple pages on my iPhone,

01:09:54 ◼   ► and because the App Library I can only reach by swiping all the way to the right,

01:10:02 ◼   ► do I even wanna use it? Because it's like counterintuitive in some way, because the App

01:10:10 ◼   ► Library you can only reach if you scroll all the way to the right side of the home screen.

01:10:15 ◼   ► But then if you want to use widgets a lot, the App Library gets more difficult to get to.

01:10:23 ◼   ► And I sort of wish that the App Library replaced the "Today" view on the iPhone,

01:10:32 ◼   ► or I wish that it was easier to access in some other way, because I find myself in the situation

01:10:39 ◼   ► where, OK, I want to use a lot of widgets, but I also want to use the App Library, but then it

01:10:44 ◼   ► feels like I kind of need to choose between the two of them, right? Because if

01:10:48 ◼   ► I want to use a lot of widgets then it takes me like multiple swipes on screen

01:10:52 ◼   ► to open the library and I just wish that it was easier. So, again, I don't know what

01:11:00 ◼   ► to do at the moment. Everything is a mess and I'm playing around with a

01:11:03 ◼   ► bunch of different approaches and I'm not yet sure which one is best for me

01:11:07 ◼   ► but what I do know is that this is very difficult because I'm the kind of nerd

01:11:11 ◼   ► who thinks a lot about home screen layouts, and I need to undo 13-something years of home screen tinkering.

01:11:22 ◼   ► I would have liked App Library to be a swipe up on the home screen.

01:11:27 ◼   ► Yeah, that's what I'm thinking as well. Like, make it easier somehow. Use one of the gestures that you're not using on the home screen.

01:11:35 ◼   ► But also, yeah, I guess swipe up on the icons could work.

01:11:40 ◼   ► Because right now--

01:11:41 ◼   ► - Yeah, like in the same way that you swipe down

01:11:43 ◼   ► to get the search. - Down to search,

01:11:44 ◼   ► you could swipe up to, yeah, that could work actually.

01:11:48 ◼   ► - I feel like I know why they put it at the end though.

01:11:50 ◼   ► - Yeah, like conceptually, I can understand

01:11:54 ◼   ► what's the thinking, the ledger there.

01:11:57 ◼   ► But also it takes, like, I don't like swiping

01:12:00 ◼   ► multiple times to open it, you know?

01:12:04 ◼   ► Steven, where are you with this?

01:12:06 ◼   ► - I like the app library,

01:12:08 ◼   ► but I'm not sure it's gonna be

01:12:10 ◼   ► completely game-changing for me.

01:12:12 ◼   ► So all I've really done at this point is

01:12:15 ◼   ► I got rid of all my folders.

01:12:16 ◼   ► So I've had three home screens for a while,

01:12:18 ◼   ► sort of primary apps, secondary apps,

01:12:21 ◼   ► and then a bunch of folders at the end.

01:12:23 ◼   ► All of those folders got removed

01:12:24 ◼   ► and just dumped into the app library.

01:12:27 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:12:28 ◼   ► - I have widgets on all three of my screens still,

01:12:32 ◼   ► So I kept three screens and I've got widgets

01:12:34 ◼   ► taking up two, like I guess four by two at the top.

01:12:39 ◼   ► Some of them are two widgets,

01:12:41 ◼   ► like I have weather and calendar side by side.

01:12:43 ◼   ► I like Efederico, I'm just waiting for third party widgets

01:12:46 ◼   ► 'cause I think it's all temporary until then.

01:12:48 ◼   ► So I've retained the three screens

01:12:50 ◼   ► and getting rid of the folders and adding the widgets,

01:12:52 ◼   ► it basically balanced out where what I have available to me

01:12:56 ◼   ► is roughly the same and things are kind of roughly

01:13:00 ◼   ► in the same place, but it took some fiddling to get there.

01:13:05 ◼   ► I do think App Library is in the wrong place.

01:13:07 ◼   ► I feel like there's a lot of confusion

01:13:10 ◼   ► and like unnecessary complication.

01:13:12 ◼   ► Like why is it not available in the search field

01:13:15 ◼   ► if I pull down, like why is it way over there?

01:13:18 ◼   ► I just don't, I wish they could consolidate

01:13:20 ◼   ► some of that stuff.

01:13:22 ◼   ► - Yeah, that's also true.

01:13:24 ◼   ► It feels like, and especially with search,

01:13:26 ◼   ► it feels like you have the same feature in two places,

01:13:29 ◼   ► but it's slightly different in each instance of it.

01:13:32 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:13:34 ◼   ► So yeah, and also like, oh,

01:13:36 ◼   ► I wanted to mention something else.

01:13:38 ◼   ► Another approach could be

01:13:41 ◼   ► to have an entirely dynamic home screen

01:13:45 ◼   ► in the sense that what you can do

01:13:47 ◼   ► is take the series suggestions widget,

01:13:51 ◼   ► use it in the large configuration.

01:13:54 ◼   ► That widget is gonna show you icons,

01:13:57 ◼   ► like regular app icons, but those icons are chosen by Siri.

01:14:02 ◼   ► So you could have like a quote unquote

01:14:04 ◼   ► intelligent home screen that uses a traditional layout,

01:14:09 ◼   ► but is actually entirely powered by suggestions.

01:14:12 ◼   ► That's also something that you could consider,

01:14:14 ◼   ► or maybe like just one area of a home screen page,

01:14:17 ◼   ► you could have like some static icons

01:14:20 ◼   ► that you manually place, and then the other ones

01:14:23 ◼   ► could just rotate based on Siri suggestions,

01:14:25 ◼   ► and you wouldn't know, because when you place it

01:14:27 ◼   ► the home screen, I believe only the text label of the icons is different when

01:14:33 ◼   ► they are based on the Series Suggestions widget, I think. Like, the text label of

01:14:38 ◼   ► the icon is slightly dimmed when it's from the Series Suggestions widget.

01:14:43 ◼   ► So that's also an approach. Yeah, there's a lot to do here,

01:14:47 ◼   ► and I honestly don't know what it's gonna end up looking like at the

01:14:51 ◼   ► moment. And I can also say that we're gonna talk about it at some point. The

01:14:57 ◼   ► more I spend time on my iPhone configuring things and playing around with different widgets

01:15:03 ◼   ► and the app library, the more it doesn't make any sense to me that you cannot place widgets

01:15:08 ◼   ► anywhere on the iPad home screen. It absolutely makes no sense. Like the app library missing

01:15:14 ◼   ► an iPad, I can sort of maybe make an argument for it, but widgets, no. No, it doesn't make

01:15:20 ◼   ► any sense.

01:15:21 ◼   ► So I immediately got rid of everything.

01:15:27 ◼   ► I have no folders, no second screen.

01:15:30 ◼   ► I have a 4 by 4 grid of apps and then the dock.

01:15:34 ◼   ► And I completely reorganized my home screen.

01:15:38 ◼   ► Nothing is in its original position, really,

01:15:40 ◼   ► for any particular reason anymore.

01:15:42 ◼   ► I've redone it.

01:15:43 ◼   ► I have a widget stack at the top.

01:15:45 ◼   ► And this is just where I'm going to be for now, probably

01:15:48 ◼   ► for the next couple of months.

01:15:49 ◼   ► I plan to like, I want to have a completely different home screen by the time iOS 14 is

01:15:56 ◼   ► shipped.

01:15:57 ◼   ► And I really want to go heavy on widgets because I feel like there's probably of the, I don't

01:16:03 ◼   ► know, of the 16 apps that I have, I reckon maybe five or six of them, I will probably

01:16:09 ◼   ► replace their icons with widgets anyway.

01:16:11 ◼   ► Right?

01:16:12 ◼   ► Like FantasticOwl is going to have a widget, surely.

01:16:15 ◼   ► I won't have the app icon on my screen anymore.

01:16:17 ◼   ► Carrot weather, I won't have the app icon on my screen anymore.

01:16:20 ◼   ► I hope that Google makes one for Google Maps and that's gone.

01:16:24 ◼   ► Like Timery, that will be gone.

01:16:27 ◼   ► So then I will be able to have these applications in a way that makes more sense to me.

01:16:34 ◼   ► Because I'm going to get used to, as I have, scrolling through the stacks.

01:16:38 ◼   ► Trusting that iOS is going to give me what I want sometimes, but other than that I know

01:16:43 ◼   ► it's going to be in one of the stacks.

01:16:45 ◼   ► also like I have been a search to open app person for a long time which is why I was

01:16:50 ◼   ► so happy to get rid of my other screens because nothing had any organization after the first

01:16:56 ◼   ► screen right and like the idea of Apple creating folders for me in the app library I actually

01:17:00 ◼   ► kind of like because now I don't have to think about what folders things go in anymore like

01:17:04 ◼   ► I couldn't stand it and I've been using the app library as well though like I've been

01:17:09 ◼   ► going I have been scrolling over there a lot and I will say I think it's doing a pretty

01:17:14 ◼   ► good job of showing me the applications that I need most of the time. So like when I swipe

01:17:19 ◼   ► over like to get to my bank app, like it's there because I keep swiping over and opening

01:17:24 ◼   ► it. So like you I'm training the system at the same time, right? And so like I think

01:17:30 ◼   ► that's fine. And honestly, like I know what you mean that some of the categorization is

01:17:34 ◼   ► weird. Like that bank app is in the productivity category, which is like not what I would have

01:17:40 ◼   ► done but like I'm not paying attention to the folders that they're in right I'm kind of learning

01:17:46 ◼   ► just learning where they are because really like my folders that I created they started to make

01:17:52 ◼   ► no sense right because I was running out of space so I was just throwing things in like a folder

01:17:58 ◼   ► that only kind of made sense like I had a folder called tools that had just everything like just

01:18:05 ◼   ► anything and everything in it. So I'm kind of happy to get rid of that honestly. And

01:18:11 ◼   ► it's also helping me get rid of some of my applications because I opened those pre-made

01:18:17 ◼   ► folders, and I'm like "what is that app?" and I just delete it. So it's helping me get

01:18:23 ◼   ► rid of some stuff too. So I actually like, the app library is fine, but the main thing

01:18:27 ◼   ► for me was just removing home screen clutter was what I wanted to do the most and that's

01:18:32 ◼   ► where like when I start seeing more widgets, I'm excited to be able to like really get

01:18:37 ◼   ► rid of more and more of that stuff.

01:18:39 ◼   ► It's really difficult.

01:18:40 ◼   ► I might not do the widgets, like might not go as heavy on the widgets thing, right?

01:18:44 ◼   ► Like it might be that I realized that no, I still want my calendar app icon on the home

01:18:49 ◼   ► screen as well as having the widget.

01:18:51 ◼   ► Like I just don't know yet.

01:18:53 ◼   ► But the thing that I'm excited about is the possibility to change it all up.

01:18:57 ◼   ► And I probably will have a second screen that just has widgets on as well.

01:19:02 ◼   ► But that feels better to me than just having more and more app icon screens.

01:19:07 ◼   ► It's very exciting though, imagining this feature where there's so many different widgets

01:19:13 ◼   ► to choose from.

01:19:15 ◼   ► And I know that it's gonna kind of not be that good when certain widgets are gonna lose

01:19:21 ◼   ► some of that functionality that they have right now, like the Timery widget.

01:19:25 ◼   ► I know it's gonna be different and maybe the developer will be able to replicate it in

01:19:30 ◼   ► in some way, even though we already know that certain animations and interactions from the

01:19:37 ◼   ► current widget for Timery will not be possible in iOS 14. But maybe there's a way to mitigate

01:19:42 ◼   ► those with a different design, with a different activation, I don't know. But I think it's

01:19:47 ◼   ► exciting that having these widgets and all the concepts that I've seen on Twitter of

01:19:54 ◼   ► developers working on them, they look beautiful. I don't know if it's because of SwiftUI making

01:19:59 ◼   ► easier for developers to make something that looks pretty and modern. I'm sure

01:20:03 ◼   ► that's part of the part of the equation here. I also think that because it's

01:20:08 ◼   ► because they are kind of have to be simple right because you can't be in

01:20:13 ◼   ► like you can't really make there's no point covering them in buttons yeah I

01:20:17 ◼   ► think it's that's helping a little bit of the design stuff because people are

01:20:21 ◼   ► making things that are just more visual rather than covering the widgets and

01:20:25 ◼   ► buttons. I think too though there'll be an element where we all go widget

01:20:30 ◼   ► bananas and then scale it back. And then bring it back. We're gonna go widget wild for a while.

01:20:37 ◼   ► And then we'll... Widget wild! I guess that's why I'm having a tough time because I'm

01:20:41 ◼   ► like trying to think ahead because I know that I've done this before and I

01:20:45 ◼   ► know that it's not gonna work so it's taking me longer because I'm trying to

01:20:50 ◼   ► to skip that step of, oh, I want to go all in.

01:20:55 ◼   ► And instead, I'm trying to think,

01:20:56 ◼   ► what's a balanced approach?

01:20:59 ◼   ► And that's why I think it's taking me longer,

01:21:01 ◼   ► because I know that I could go all in with the widgets.

01:21:04 ◼   ► And I know that I'm going to hate myself for doing that,

01:21:07 ◼   ► because I cannot let go of icons completely.

01:21:10 ◼   ► I guess that's my issue right now.

01:21:13 ◼   ► And I'm honestly staring at my phone.

01:21:16 ◼   ► I'm not even doing anything, just thinking.

01:21:19 ◼   ► for like longer than it would be acceptable for a normal human being to do.

01:21:24 ◼   ► Like you're sitting on my home screen and thinking without doing nothing.

01:21:28 ◼   ► I think that does it for this week.

01:21:29 ◼   ► I think so.

01:21:31 ◼   ► If you want to find links to stories we spoke about, head on over to the website,

01:21:35 ◼   ► relay.fm/connected/303.

01:21:38 ◼   ► While you're there, there's a lot of fun activities you can take part of.

01:21:42 ◼   ► You can send us an email with feedback or a follow-up.

01:21:44 ◼   ► You can join and become a member and have access to Connected Pro, an ad-free

01:21:49 ◼   ► version of the show with pre and post show extra content which is a lot of fun

01:21:53 ◼   ► bonus content whoa mm-hmm that rocks me to my core you can find us all on

01:22:03 ◼   ► Twitter Myke is there as I my ke Myke is the co-host of a bunch of great shows

01:22:07 ◼   ► here on relay FM Myke name a podcast you're on the pan addict you did that

01:22:13 ◼   ► last week? Oh, it's probably because it's the one I record before this one.

01:22:19 ◼   ► Analog. Go check out Analog. You can find Federico on Twitter @Vittici.

01:22:26 ◼   ► He is the editor-in-chief of MacStories.net. We didn't get to talk about

01:22:31 ◼   ► Federico's current status of his iOS 14 review, but I assure you it is underway

01:22:36 ◼   ► and coming to us all this fall, which is very exciting. What if he just decided

01:22:41 ◼   ► not to bother this year we'll never know because we didn't talk about it.

01:22:44 ◼   ► Or now he's on the hook because I mentioned it.

01:22:45 ◼   ► Yeah, thank you Stephen, I appreciate it.

01:22:51 ◼   ► You can find me on Twitter as ismh and my writing at 512pixels.net.

01:22:56 ◼   ► I'd like to thank our sponsors this week, Hover, Bombas, and ExpressVPN.

01:23:01 ◼   ► Until next time guys, say goodbye.

01:23:04 ◼   ► Adios.

01:23:05 ◼   ► Cheerio.

01:23:06 ◼   ► Bye y'all.