Connected

00:00:00 ◼   ► (upbeat music)

00:00:02 ◼   ► - Hello and welcome to Connected episode 249.

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

00:00:15 ◼   ► KiwiCo, Squarespace, and Pingdom.

00:00:18 ◼   ► My name is Steven Hackett and I'm joined by Myke Hurley.

00:00:21 ◼   ► - Hello.

00:00:22 ◼   ► - Welcome back.

00:00:23 ◼   ► - Thank you for filling in for me last week.

00:00:24 ◼   ► I was in Romania and had no stable wifi connection.

00:00:28 ◼   ► Well David Sparks filled in for you.

00:00:31 ◼   ► I was me, like I don't really am.

00:00:34 ◼   ► So thank David.

00:00:35 ◼   ► Always be yourself, Steven.

00:00:37 ◼   ► Never change.

00:00:38 ◼   ► And we are also joined by Federico Vittucci.

00:00:40 ◼   ► Hello everybody, how are you Steven?

00:00:42 ◼   ► I'm good.

00:00:43 ◼   ► We're all together, at least for this week.

00:00:46 ◼   ► And we have some follow-up to talk about.

00:00:48 ◼   ► You don't.

00:00:49 ◼   ► I do.

00:00:50 ◼   ► You can tell Myke's back because this is all of his follow-up.

00:00:51 ◼   ► It's all my follow-up.

00:00:52 ◼   ► My gift for missing last week is I've provided the entire follow-up section single-handedly,

00:00:57 ◼   ► I'm now going to deliver it all to you.

00:01:00 ◼   ► Okay, I'm ready.

00:01:02 ◼   ► Bluetooth controllers for the Apple TV.

00:01:04 ◼   ► This is part of my persona as the Apple TV expert.

00:01:07 ◼   ► So we heard--

00:01:08 ◼   ► It's not a persona, you are the Apple TV expert.

00:01:11 ◼   ► Yes, sorry, my life as the Apple TV expert,

00:01:15 ◼   ► the TV OS expert.

00:01:16 ◼   ► We found out from lots of people

00:01:18 ◼   ► over the last couple of weeks

00:01:19 ◼   ► the reason why Apple called out very specifically

00:01:22 ◼   ► the Xbox One S controller on stage,

00:01:25 ◼   ► And it's because for some really weird reason, the original Xbox One and the original Xbox Elite controller are not Bluetooth.

00:01:33 ◼   ► I don't know why Microsoft decided to do this, but they used a technology that wasn't Bluetooth.

00:01:38 ◼   ► And it's the Xbox One S and later, including the Xbox One X and the Xbox Elite controller two, which is not out yet, but it's coming out soon.

00:01:47 ◼   ► They all have Bluetooth. So that's why.

00:01:49 ◼   ► and we can now close the case.

00:01:51 ◼   ► So the case is now closed on why Apple said Xbox One S controller.

00:01:56 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:01:56 ◼   ► You know, if Apple had been more clear about this,

00:01:59 ◼   ► you could have had a KBase case to close.

00:02:03 ◼   ► I'm going to ignore this comment.

00:02:04 ◼   ► And I'm going to say that I bought a dual shot.

00:02:09 ◼   ► So I have an Xbox One X controller that works with the iPad Pro.

00:02:15 ◼   ► I played around with... I was playing Oddmar, which is a very nice looking platform game on iPad.

00:02:22 ◼   ► I don't love the Xbox controller. I still... I prefer the... I just prefer the DualShock.

00:02:28 ◼   ► So I... You know me, I could have used the DualShock that I already have for the PS4 Pro,

00:02:35 ◼   ► but who wants to pair and unpair a controller every single time you want to switch between

00:02:40 ◼   ► the PlayStation and the iPad Pro? So I bought a DualShock 4 just for the iPad Pro.

00:02:45 ◼   ► A white one which looks really nice.

00:02:50 ◼   ► I go backwards and forwards on the DualShock compared to the Xbox controller.

00:02:54 ◼   ► I really like the way the Elite controller feels.

00:02:57 ◼   ► It is very comfortable to hold.

00:02:58 ◼   ► Yes, but it's a little too heavy.

00:03:02 ◼   ► It is heavy.

00:03:03 ◼   ► I'll give you that.

00:03:04 ◼   ► It's a lot of metal inside.

00:03:06 ◼   ► It's a very serious controller, but for the price they charge, it should be.

00:03:10 ◼   ► It's like $150 or something.

00:03:12 ◼   ► And I feel bad because every time I'm playing with that controller, and at this point I'm

00:03:16 ◼   ► fully aware of the fact that we've lost Steven completely, but every time I play with that

00:03:22 ◼   ► controller I feel bad that I'm not as pro as the controller is.

00:03:26 ◼   ► I feel like I'm not a good enough gamer.

00:03:29 ◼   ► So Steven, this controller allows you to physically change the way that it operates.

00:03:36 ◼   ► It has these latches in it to change the triggers to only need to be fired.

00:03:41 ◼   ► you know, so you know like on a game controller you pull down the trigger on the back right,

00:03:45 ◼   ► like on the back left, you can pull them down halfway, so it's called like a hair trigger,

00:03:51 ◼   ► but that's for like if you're really good at first person shooters and the literal time

00:03:56 ◼   ► that it takes to pull the trigger all the way down means that you would get killed,

00:04:00 ◼   ► I am not even nearly at that level as a gamer.

00:04:04 ◼   ► No, but I have found that for like, for RSI stuff that controller has been really good

00:04:10 ◼   ► for me because I can do things like that, right?

00:04:12 ◼   ► So like the the amount of pressure that I need to exert on the controller is way less.

00:04:17 ◼   ► So I have found that controller to be very comfortable.

00:04:19 ◼   ► You can also remove the analog sticks and replace them with different analog sticks.

00:04:25 ◼   ► Like it's it's like a whole big thing.

00:04:26 ◼   ► The Xbox Elite controller is wild.

00:04:29 ◼   ► Why did you do that?

00:04:30 ◼   ► Ah, because it felt very fancy to do.

00:04:32 ◼   ► Ah, OK. I like to take all of these pieces are held on by magnets as well.

00:04:38 ◼   ► Yes, which is kind of fancy.

00:04:39 ◼   ► And I like to just take them off and put them back on again.

00:04:42 ◼   ► But you can change the height of the stick.

00:04:45 ◼   ► It's all it's all it's all very obscene, really.

00:04:48 ◼   ► Sure. It's a very nice control.

00:04:50 ◼   ► I can see why people are into that.

00:04:52 ◼   ► It's like it's like when you're when you're on a very fancy flight.

00:04:55 ◼   ► And when I am, I always like to order everything available.

00:05:00 ◼   ► And so like with the Xbox controller, I'm like, I'm drunk on sticks.

00:05:04 ◼   ► I have all these sticks and all these buttons that I can customize like.

00:05:08 ◼   ► Yes, give me all the sticks and all the things that I can change and I will change them.

00:05:12 ◼   ► And I've done that.

00:05:13 ◼   ► And it comes with like a braided cable and like a hard case, like a, and all that kind

00:05:17 ◼   ► of stuff.

00:05:18 ◼   ► Yes, so I've changed everything and now I'm not sure if I know how to put it back together.

00:05:22 ◼   ► Like there was an original configuration when I took it out of the box.

00:05:26 ◼   ► Who knows what that is now?

00:05:27 ◼   ► But who knows what it is now?

00:05:28 ◼   ► So it, you know, the sticks have been changed and it's very heavy.

00:05:34 ◼   ► It's very metal.

00:05:35 ◼   ► There's a lot of metal parts, which is probably not good for the weight, but it's super fancy

00:05:42 ◼   ► when you look at it.

00:05:43 ◼   ► But the current one you cannot use with the Apple TV or the iPad Pro, but there is a second

00:05:48 ◼   ► version coming out at some point this year which you will be able to just connect Bluetooth

00:05:52 ◼   ► in.

00:05:53 ◼   ► Yeah, alright.

00:05:54 ◼   ► I have more TV OS related stuff for you, obviously.

00:05:56 ◼   ► And of course you are the TV OS expert.

00:05:59 ◼   ► So Adrian, do you remember last time I was talking about how Control Center will be nice

00:06:03 ◼   ► because it will give us a quick way to change audio output.

00:06:06 ◼   ► Yes.

00:06:07 ◼   ► Turns out there is a shortcut.

00:06:09 ◼   ► Adrian wrote in to let me know, and Adrian was very disappointed

00:06:12 ◼   ► because I was the TV OS expert and didn't know this, as is right.

00:06:16 ◼   ► Everyone should be disappointed.

00:06:17 ◼   ► You can change the sound output by long pressing the play button,

00:06:21 ◼   ► but only on the home screen, which seems kind of silly.

00:06:25 ◼   ► So you only on the home screen, only on the home screen.

00:06:29 ◼   ► So not inside of any apps.

00:06:30 ◼   ► I'm pretty sure that I do it everywhere.

00:06:33 ◼   ► No, you can do the pull down from the top and change it, but to press and hold down

00:06:38 ◼   ► the play button only works on the home screen.

00:06:40 ◼   ► I don't think it does work on the home screen.

00:06:42 ◼   ► I think it works everywhere.

00:06:43 ◼   ► The long press the play button.

00:06:45 ◼   ► I have tried it in a couple of different applications and it didn't work.

00:06:49 ◼   ► I'm clearly not a good enough expert.

00:06:51 ◼   ► Well, you are a newly minted expert.

00:06:53 ◼   ► That's true, I'm still getting my wings.

00:06:55 ◼   ► I have more stuff for you that might be a little bit more expert.

00:06:58 ◼   ► - The picture in picture is coming to tvOS 13.

00:07:01 ◼   ► - Okay, so how does it work?

00:07:03 ◼   ► - You'll be able to watch video

00:07:04 ◼   ► while you're browsing the Apple TV, you know.

00:07:07 ◼   ► - Okay, well.

00:07:08 ◼   ► - I'm not convinced that this feature is as useful

00:07:12 ◼   ► on the Apple TV as it is on the iPad,

00:07:14 ◼   ► but it's possible to do if you wanna do it.

00:07:17 ◼   ► - Just think how great it will be

00:07:19 ◼   ► that you can open all of your shopping apps

00:07:21 ◼   ► on your Apple TV and scroll through

00:07:25 ◼   ► virtual racks of clothing while streaming video

00:07:27 ◼   ► in picture in picture. No, but OK.

00:07:29 ◼   ► But maybe on a more

00:07:31 ◼   ► serious note, maybe

00:07:33 ◼   ► you could like if Google

00:07:35 ◼   ► supports it, well, you know, LOL,

00:07:37 ◼   ► maybe in a couple of years.

00:07:39 ◼   ► But in theory, you could do things

00:07:42 ◼   ► like open a YouTube video, put

00:07:44 ◼   ► it in picture in picture and then

00:07:45 ◼   ► continue browsing YouTube to, I

00:07:47 ◼   ► don't know, browse other channels

00:07:48 ◼   ► and other stuff or things like,

00:07:50 ◼   ► for example, something literally the

00:07:52 ◼   ► only app that I use on my Apple TV

00:07:54 ◼   ► that is not video related is

00:07:56 ◼   ► home cam, which allows me to check on my home kit cameras.

00:08:00 ◼   ► It's got like a grid of real time video feeds from my home cameras.

00:08:05 ◼   ► So in theory, I could I should be able to I don't know if I want to check on

00:08:08 ◼   ► whatever is going on on the balcony or what the dogs are doing in the other room.

00:08:12 ◼   ► I should be able to like while I'm watching the office, enable picture in picture,

00:08:17 ◼   ► quickly check on my cameras and while the video is still playing.

00:08:21 ◼   ► So. So what I don't know, I haven't been able to confirm this,

00:08:26 ◼   ► is if you can watch multiple video streams at once. Now that would be the only real good

00:08:32 ◼   ► use right? That you could have something playing and you could watch another video but I've

00:08:38 ◼   ► not been able to confirm if that's the case. Like that doesn't work on iOS right? You can't

00:08:43 ◼   ► have a video playing and then watch another video. So I'm expecting it's probably the

00:08:47 ◼   ► same because one good use for picture in picture is sports right? So like there's multiple

00:08:55 ◼   ► events happening at the same time, right? And you can watch multiple things. I've not

00:08:59 ◼   ► been able to confirm if it works with one video or another, maybe people can let me

00:09:04 ◼   ► know. I'm not running the tvOS beta on my Apple TV.

00:09:08 ◼   ► What? Wow. You're not a sham of an expert.

00:09:13 ◼   ► I know. tvOS 13 is also bringing something called wireless audio sync. So if you're using

00:09:19 ◼   ► multiple devices with Airplay, you can use an iOS device to test and correct audio latency.

00:09:25 ◼   ► That's cool.

00:09:26 ◼   ► For multiple device setups. It is actually pretty cool. And they have an interesting UI,

00:09:29 ◼   ► which I'll put a link in the show notes, to a tweet from Steve Moser. And they show a bunch

00:09:37 ◼   ► of the setup stuff for that. Like it plays tones and then it's measured from the TV to the iOS

00:09:41 ◼   ► device and then it calibrates it. See, this is the kind of info that you would only get from a

00:09:45 ◼   ► a TVOS expert. Exactly. Me, not Steve Moser. Or if you follow Steve Moser on Twitter. Don't

00:09:52 ◼   ► follow Steve Moser, follow Myke Hurley. He tweets just for me. We love you Steve. We

00:10:00 ◼   ► have Myke Hurley here. You don't need any more than that, surely. Let's be real. Change

00:10:11 ◼   ► hats, and now you are the folding phone expert. So what is going on in the folding phone scene?

00:10:17 ◼   ► I have an important set of updates for folding phones. I just feel like nobody else is going

00:10:22 ◼   ► to give you this information, so I'm going to do it, whether you want it or not. Huawei

00:10:26 ◼   ► have postponed the launch of the Mate X. It was supposed to be coming out this month,

00:10:33 ◼   ► and it's been moved to September. A Huawei representative has said that they are wanting

00:10:38 ◼   ► to work on improving the screen quality of the device. Huawei are not saying it has anything

00:10:44 ◼   ► to do with the crazy situation that they're in right now and the fact that they won't

00:10:49 ◼   ► be able to use Android anymore possibly, but I think it probably has a little bit to do

00:10:53 ◼   ► with that. It may also be something to do with improving the screen technology, but

00:10:59 ◼   ► I think that the timing of this delay would indicate that maybe they're also hoping they

00:11:04 ◼   ► and it can try and sort out their situation with Google

00:11:09 ◼   ► and/or the American government before they try

00:11:13 ◼   ► and put this incredibly expensive phone on sale

00:11:16 ◼   ► because you'd be a fool to buy it, I think, at this point,

00:11:20 ◼   ► to spend that money on a phone

00:11:22 ◼   ► that may never receive a software update.

00:11:24 ◼   ► And Huawei are making a bunch of claims right now

00:11:27 ◼   ► about the updates that they will be able to apply

00:11:30 ◼   ► that seem tricky to follow based upon the facts

00:11:33 ◼   ► everybody else is giving so they have delayed their phone so they're not going to be beating

00:11:40 ◼   ► yet Samsung to market which we hope they would. Apparently the Samsung Galaxy Fold is quote

00:11:47 ◼   ► "ready to hit the market". A vice president for Samsung's display division said this during a

00:11:52 ◼   ► speech in a different place that had nothing to do with the Galaxy Fold. What kind of speech?

00:11:57 ◼   ► like a wedding speech. He was like "at a dinner" or something and says "Most of the display

00:12:03 ◼   ► problems have been ironed out and the fold is ready to hit the market." I don't like

00:12:07 ◼   ► that sentence, by the way. I want to read that again for you. "Most of the display

00:12:10 ◼   ► problems have been ironed out, the fold is ready to hit the market." Wait a second.

00:12:15 ◼   ► At a dinner speech, right? No, but like shouldn't you fix all of them? Before you put it out,

00:12:20 ◼   ► like why just most of them? Like let's fix them all first. It's fine. And then we can

00:12:25 ◼   ► work it out, right?

00:12:26 ◼   ► And when else are they fixed?

00:12:29 ◼   ► This is in contrast to some other comments from Samsung, and this was a report from The

00:12:35 ◼   ► Verge, where there was a rumor that it was going to be coming out in July, and Samsung

00:12:40 ◼   ► were basically like "well, if it was, you would have expected we would have had an event

00:12:43 ◼   ► by now, and we're not having one", which is basically a kind of way to say "no it's not",

00:12:49 ◼   ► which is now leading people to believe that this phone may debut alongside the Galaxy

00:12:54 ◼   ► Note because if they are getting ready to ship this thing, they will be having another

00:13:01 ◼   ► event in August or September and they'll have the Galaxy Note coming out.

00:13:05 ◼   ► But that's whether Samsung will want to put both of these two phones on sale at the same

00:13:09 ◼   ► time.

00:13:10 ◼   ► Samsung have not given up yet.

00:13:12 ◼   ► They're going to release a phone at this event.

00:13:14 ◼   ► The old one caught fire and the other phone they're going to announce used to break after

00:13:18 ◼   ► two days of use.

00:13:20 ◼   ► To be fair, it was two versions of the Note ago that caught fire, but yes, in previous

00:13:25 ◼   ► instances yes, this phone has caught fire.

00:13:28 ◼   ► And then the next one was just a complete failure.

00:13:33 ◼   ► So this is going to be a really interesting event, I expect.

00:13:38 ◼   ► So that is your folding phone update.

00:13:40 ◼   ► Thank you.

00:13:41 ◼   ► I'm still going to buy the Samsung Galaxy Fold FYI.

00:13:45 ◼   ► If it comes out, I'm still buying it.

00:13:47 ◼   ► Because I really want it.

00:13:48 ◼   ► Can't help it.

00:13:49 ◼   ► we need to do an intervention here.

00:13:51 ◼   ► - I am who I am, okay?

00:13:54 ◼   ► - Sure.

00:13:54 ◼   ► - Never change, Myke, never change.

00:13:58 ◼   ► One last quick bit of follow up,

00:14:01 ◼   ► more of a reminder of something coming in the future.

00:14:04 ◼   ► So it's like a follow forward.

00:14:07 ◼   ► We are having our live show in San Francisco

00:14:10 ◼   ► on August 22nd to mark Relay FM's fifth birthday.

00:14:15 ◼   ► Myke and I will be there along with a bunch

00:14:17 ◼   ► of Really FM Hosts for this sort of extravaganza thing we are planning.

00:14:22 ◼   ► There's still some tickets left so there's a link in the show notes to go check those

00:14:25 ◼   ► out and I would say that there is no place on earth too far to travel from for this event.

00:14:31 ◼   ► It's a bold claim but...

00:14:33 ◼   ► The problem is if you say "well this place is too far" then you've put a line in the

00:14:37 ◼   ► sand and there's no lines in the sand when it comes to great podcast content.

00:14:41 ◼   ► That's true actually.

00:14:44 ◼   ► the company motto actually. It's not the company motto. Okay this episode of

00:14:52 ◼   ► Connected is brought to you by KiwiCo. If you have kids you know how great it is

00:14:56 ◼   ► when you find something to do with them that's educational and fun if you're

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00:15:09 ◼   ► a lot of knowledge of crafts that I for one just don't have and if you're a

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00:16:19 ◼   ► and now it's the foot of his bed. And it was great knowing that everything we needed was

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00:16:57 ◼   ► Our thanks to KiwiCo for their support of connected and all of Relay FM.

00:17:01 ◼   ► So on last week's show, you both spoke about this rumour of a smaller, it's difficult to

00:17:07 ◼   ► say smaller phone, smaller iPhone.

00:17:09 ◼   ► It is what, like the, an iPhone 10 with the screen size of an iPhone 6, which would therefore

00:17:18 ◼   ► make it a physically smaller phone in a bunch of ways because they would most likely shrink

00:17:24 ◼   ► the body down, right?

00:17:26 ◼   ► Which is 5.4 inches I should say.

00:17:28 ◼   ► So it's a little bit different in size, right?

00:17:31 ◼   ► It's like 4.7 inches was the iPhone 6,

00:17:34 ◼   ► but a 5.4 inch iPhone 10 style phone

00:17:39 ◼   ► would probably be quite small, right?

00:17:42 ◼   ► - Yeah. - Because you go, yeah.

00:17:44 ◼   ► So let's just assume smaller phone, effectively.

00:17:47 ◼   ► So you was talking about that,

00:17:48 ◼   ► and then Underscore David Smith wrote a quick blog post.

00:17:52 ◼   ► The developer of Podometer++, right,

00:17:54 ◼   ► has a large user base.

00:17:56 ◼   ► And Underscore found out that nearly 50% of the devices used to run his application were

00:18:02 ◼   ► the iPhone 6 size 4.7 inch screen, which is an interesting statistic.

00:18:08 ◼   ► I'm not 100% sure what to draw from it.

00:18:12 ◼   ► Dave kind of draws the conclusion that like, maybe people just really like that size.

00:18:19 ◼   ► Which I'm sure they do.

00:18:21 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean, if you still have that phone, I guess you like that phone in the sense that

00:18:29 ◼   ► you like any object that you own that you need to pay for again.

00:18:34 ◼   ► Like I just like, I would like to talk about like, do they like it on like on a deep, like

00:18:40 ◼   ► sentimental level in the context of, oh, I'm never ever going to switch to a bigger iPhone

00:18:46 ◼   ► because I really like this one.

00:18:48 ◼   ► Or is it more like, well, this iPhone 7 or 6s already works, why should I buy a new one?

00:18:57 ◼   ► So it's not like a fundamental, intentional decision.

00:19:03 ◼   ► It's just, you know, it's an old phone and it still works, whatever.

00:19:06 ◼   ► It's not like they love it, they just accept it for what it is and eventually they're going

00:19:12 ◼   ► to move on.

00:19:13 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:19:14 ◼   ► There were a lot of years of that size, right?

00:19:17 ◼   ► So you got the iPhone 6, the 6s, the 7 and the 8.

00:19:20 ◼   ► They were all that size, right?

00:19:23 ◼   ► So that's many years.

00:19:24 ◼   ► I think it's also worth noting and I'm not we're not making an argument

00:19:28 ◼   ► against small phones here, but just like as like a counterpoint.

00:19:32 ◼   ► The other thing worth remembering is like that was the peak in iPhone sales.

00:19:36 ◼   ► Yeah. So yeah, like there are a lot of those because

00:19:41 ◼   ► that was when the iPhone sales really went through the roof, right? It was like the six.

00:19:46 ◼   ► And it was during this time frame that the prices crept up and up and up. And so people who have

00:19:52 ◼   ► a 6s or a 7 to replace that phone is now going to cost them more than it would have. And so,

00:19:58 ◼   ► you know, they're holding on to it longer. There's a lot of them out there. This is a multi

00:20:02 ◼   ► factor deal here. It's not as simple as, you know, which is one reason I don't think.

00:20:09 ◼   ► So like I have no doubt that people like the phone at that size and don't want a bigger phone.

00:20:15 ◼   ► Like I totally get it because if they did want, if everybody just wanted bigger phones,

00:20:19 ◼   ► you would see more of the plus phones in David's statistics, which is not the case, right? Like

00:20:24 ◼   ► there are still a lot of those, but it's not as high as the regular size ones. But I think that

00:20:32 ◼   ► there is a lot of play here. I am genuinely like, I think it is a great idea to make a smaller phone.

00:20:38 ◼   ► I think there is something super weird about people that are currently using the iPhone XS

00:20:44 ◼   ► and will go to the iPhone 11 that the iPhone 12 it probably won't be called the 11s right if it's in

00:20:52 ◼   ► 2020 because it would be like a new screen size so I can't imagine that they would

00:20:56 ◼   ► keep it as an S but anyway we can that's we have multiple years to work that one

00:21:02 ◼   ► I would be... it's interesting to me that people would just be like, "okay, so my phone's smaller."

00:21:08 ◼   ► That seems strange to me, right? Like if you're on that size, that's the size you want. You want the

00:21:15 ◼   ► newest, latest, and greatest phones, so you don't want to go to the R. That now your phone will just

00:21:20 ◼   ► be a smaller phone, like in screen size and physical size. I don't see them doing that. I

00:21:26 ◼   ► mean, I think they'll they would split the product line again. Is that what you think? Because that's

00:21:31 ◼   ► That's not, I mean like Minchi Quo seems to kind of like hint that it's three phones.

00:21:35 ◼   ► You think there'll be four?

00:21:38 ◼   ► I mean if you're talking like two cycles down, I mean if a small phone is gonna make a comeback,

00:21:44 ◼   ► I think that's the only way they do it.

00:21:45 ◼   ► I don't think they take the, what is now the mainline phone and make that smaller.

00:21:52 ◼   ► That would be weird.

00:21:54 ◼   ► So who knows, like you said we have years to figure that out.

00:21:58 ◼   ► One thing that I'm looking at this chart that David did and I found it really interesting

00:22:04 ◼   ► that out of his user base the iPhone XS is 3% but the iPhone 5s which is old is 4%.

00:22:13 ◼   ► He does not have a lot of brand new phones in this chart.

00:22:17 ◼   ► Now part of it is that they've only been on the market for what is six months now.

00:22:22 ◼   ► And they also sell less.

00:22:23 ◼   ► They sell less of them and you get the iPhone 10 at 9%.

00:22:31 ◼   ► That phone was only on the market for one year.

00:22:33 ◼   ► Remember the 10 went away when the XS and XR came out.

00:22:37 ◼   ► I think the X was a...

00:22:39 ◼   ► We don't know because they don't share unit numbers anymore, but I think the X was maybe

00:22:44 ◼   ► a high point again, relatively speaking, and the XS and XS Max and XR are well below that.

00:22:51 ◼   ► This is just looking at a subset of the App Store, of course, but it's a pretty interesting

00:22:57 ◼   ► relationship between all these phones, and one that I didn't anticipate.

00:22:59 ◼   ► I figured, "Oh, I'll find the XS.

00:23:01 ◼   ► It'll be one of these big chunks."

00:23:02 ◼   ► And it just isn't.

00:23:03 ◼   ► No, I think one of the reasons that makes David's data worth sharing and talking about

00:23:11 ◼   ► is because Podometer++ seems to be such a mainstream application, right?

00:23:16 ◼   ► like he has especially compared to most of the people that are kind of like in

00:23:21 ◼   ► our community like he probably has one of the most diverse groups of people like

00:23:29 ◼   ► of customers I mean like he says one thing I mean this is probably gonna be a

00:23:32 ◼   ► problem for him iOS 13 is gonna gonna kill 17% of his user base because he'll

00:23:38 ◼   ► lose the 5s the 6 and 6 plus yeah the phone slowly evaporate out of their cases

00:23:43 ◼   ► as the night iOS 13 comes out.

00:23:45 ◼   ► It's like the underscore just snaps your fingers and all those phones just disappear.

00:23:49 ◼   ► I think Craig Federighi snapped his finger is actually how that works.

00:23:54 ◼   ► Podometer++ is the only app out of all of our friends, out of all the people I know

00:23:58 ◼   ► who make iPhone apps, that is the only app I've seen on like a random family member's

00:24:04 ◼   ► home screen.

00:24:06 ◼   ► No offense to Overcast or Peacock or anybody else, I've never seen those out on my cousin's

00:24:12 ◼   ► wife's phone or something at Thanksgiving.

00:24:14 ◼   ► It's like, oh, I didn't say anything

00:24:16 ◼   ► 'cause I didn't want to be that guy.

00:24:17 ◼   ► I was like, oh, look at that.

00:24:18 ◼   ► You got a little underscore with you.

00:24:20 ◼   ► I think that's kind of interesting.

00:24:21 ◼   ► - I've never seen any app from any of my friends

00:24:24 ◼   ► on any Italian phone, which is very sad.

00:24:27 ◼   ► It's like my friends don't exist for these other people

00:24:31 ◼   ► here in Italy. - Wow.

00:24:32 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's like a parallel universe, basically.

00:24:35 ◼   ► I'm kind of ashamed of the apps that my mom uses, honestly.

00:24:41 ◼   ► I try to pretend, you know, she's not the mother of the person who runs Mac stories.

00:24:47 ◼   ► She has terrible taste in apps, you know?

00:24:50 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:24:51 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:24:52 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:24:53 ◼   ► And sometimes, sometimes, like, she calls me and she's like, "Hey, do you think this

00:24:58 ◼   ► app is fine?"

00:24:59 ◼   ► I'm like, "What's this app?"

00:25:01 ◼   ► She's like, "I saw it in a TV commercial and it's always some kind of shopping app or some

00:25:07 ◼   ► kind of, I don't know, she's just, she's got terrible taste in apps."

00:25:11 ◼   ► should read Mac stories more without the Google translator. Oh my god the bees! The

00:25:15 ◼   ► bees are everywhere. Also like another piece of follow-up to what you guys were

00:25:18 ◼   ► talking about last time about like getting like creating the perfect

00:25:21 ◼   ► iPhone. Steven I think it was you who said like Apple needs to do

00:25:25 ◼   ► something to improve the selfie camera? Like I'm just poking around now and you

00:25:29 ◼   ► know it's probably not I mean I know it's not the exact same camera but like

00:25:33 ◼   ► the iPhone XS has a 7 megapixel camera and so did the iPhone 7. Oh man. I mean

00:25:40 ◼   ► but at the same time the 7 also says as a 12 megapixel back camera but I don't

00:25:47 ◼   ► expect a lot has actually changed on those selfie cameras between then and now

00:25:52 ◼   ► I agree that I would love to see that change I would love to see them do more

00:25:56 ◼   ► I would what I would like to see is the two like one wide-angle one regular on

00:26:03 ◼   ► the front and then like the three cameras on the back I think that's a

00:26:06 ◼   ► a part of that is going to come true. Yeah, I really do hope that they, the

00:26:11 ◼   ► Apple do have a smaller phone. I'm just intrigued to see where it goes in the

00:26:14 ◼   ► lineup. I can't imagine four iPhones for sale. New ones. That seems like too much

00:26:19 ◼   ► to me. I mean, maybe they they position it as kind of how the SE was, right? The SE

00:26:26 ◼   ► came along, the case design had already changed, it was sort of a remix of what

00:26:30 ◼   ► was there before, you know. There was a story like a year ago, I think

00:26:34 ◼   ► Steve Tran Smith was involved in, he probably was, where like there was

00:26:38 ◼   ► evidence of an iPhone 7 style phone but had a new internal part number and that

00:26:45 ◼   ► would make sense to me. You know after the eight cycles out out of the end you

00:26:48 ◼   ► know at the bottom of the line keep that form factor around and give it you know

00:26:53 ◼   ► a new CPU every couple of years and just keep that 4.7 inch phone as it is. Now

00:26:58 ◼   ► eventually they want to move off touch ID and go face ID only but I don't think

00:27:02 ◼   ► that has to happen anytime super soon and that may give people an option if they don't

00:27:09 ◼   ► want the XR or the XS.

00:27:12 ◼   ► So maybe it's not like a new phone, it's just sort of a remix like last time.

00:27:15 ◼   ► I don't know, I mean it's not what Quo is saying.

00:27:17 ◼   ► Quo says it's a...

00:27:18 ◼   ► Yeah, but what is it?

00:27:19 ◼   ► I mean, come on.

00:27:20 ◼   ► What does that guy know?

00:27:21 ◼   ► Okay.

00:27:22 ◼   ► He knows everything.

00:27:23 ◼   ► Everything?

00:27:24 ◼   ► Yeah, I don't know.

00:27:25 ◼   ► I really don't know.

00:27:28 ◼   ► a very interesting thing to think about, like to go with small. I mean, again, it's not

00:27:34 ◼   ► that much smaller, but it is smaller, right? You're going from 5.8 to 5.4 inches, right?

00:27:41 ◼   ► Well, I think it's the size. But if they were to keep it in the seven form factor, and it

00:27:47 ◼   ► worked, you and I are talking about different future phones now, right? But but part of

00:27:50 ◼   ► the conversation of someone not wanting to buy a new phone is they're familiar with their

00:27:55 ◼   ► current phone. They're familiar with the home button. They're familiar with touch ID. And

00:28:02 ◼   ► they feel intimidated or they just don't want to deal or maybe they don't like face ID.

00:28:06 ◼   ► And so there's also that angle to this of, hey, you know, if you still like this stuff,

00:28:10 ◼   ► we're gonna let it hang on for a little bit longer. I don't know if that's enough to justify

00:28:16 ◼   ► this particular like imaginary phones existence. But in talking to people who are looking at

00:28:20 ◼   ► at like going from a 6S to a XR,

00:28:23 ◼   ► that's a big jump in terms of how the phone

00:28:25 ◼   ► just actually works.

00:28:27 ◼   ► And some people don't wanna make that jump yet.

00:28:29 ◼   ► You know, I had this in my own household.

00:28:30 ◼   ► My wife had an iPhone SE for a long time

00:28:33 ◼   ► and it was just falling apart.

00:28:34 ◼   ► And she particularly wanted a better camera.

00:28:37 ◼   ► And I gave her my iPhone X and she basically handed back

00:28:41 ◼   ► to me and said, I'd like an eight.

00:28:43 ◼   ► 'Cause she wanted the home button,

00:28:43 ◼   ► she wanted that user experience.

00:28:46 ◼   ► And I think there are a lot of people

00:28:47 ◼   ► who are in that boat too.

00:28:48 ◼   ► Yeah, I really just, when I look at this rumor and I think about how it's 2020, that smaller

00:28:55 ◼   ► phone is going to look like an iPhone X.

00:28:56 ◼   ► It's going to have face ID.

00:28:57 ◼   ► It's going to be all that stuff.

00:29:00 ◼   ► And yeah, I think it probably should be, but I just do think that there are people who

00:29:03 ◼   ► will be disappointed.

00:29:05 ◼   ► Yeah, but they will have been disappointed in 2019 as well.

00:29:09 ◼   ► So because like, I can't imagine Apple creating a new iPhone that doesn't have all this technology

00:29:16 ◼   ► in it now.

00:29:17 ◼   ► That's where they are right now.

00:29:18 ◼   ► It's one of those things that like people are gonna have to either get used to it. I'll move to Android

00:29:24 ◼   ► Like that's kind of that but that's kind of where it is, right?

00:29:27 ◼   ► Like I can't imagine them being like ah, we just kept we just made a new iPhone 7

00:29:32 ◼   ► Like it just seems like it's too late for that now

00:29:35 ◼   ► When really they could they could try and do something to push the product in different ways

00:29:40 ◼   ► Maybe a smaller phone might make it cheaper, you know, they might have like a cheaper starting price

00:29:45 ◼   ► Which is like another thing they probably want to do, right?

00:29:48 ◼   ► Yeah, they could have it as sort of like a 10r style deal right one fewer cameras and

00:29:54 ◼   ► Slightly different case design like I think there's that would follow in their current sort of system of thinking about the iPhone line

00:30:02 ◼   ► Mm-hmm

00:30:03 ◼   ► Anyways, the will will continue to talk about new iPhones because the secret is there's always new iPhones coming

00:30:09 ◼   ► Topic that's the one thing you can count on you can set your watch to new iPhones

00:30:13 ◼   ► Every September something you'll be within a couple weeks on your watch

00:30:17 ◼   ► I mean that's close enough. That's what you need really

00:30:20 ◼   ► Speaking of things that come around every year the public betas are here Apple

00:30:26 ◼   ► It's a July it's June their watch is just set to every couple of weeks

00:30:30 ◼   ► So you're in the time frame and I was so surprised that it was this early

00:30:35 ◼   ► Especially because they seem to be the same builds are very close to developer beta 2

00:30:41 ◼   ► Just a little a little rough around the edges for some people but nevertheless they're here

00:30:46 ◼   ► People are getting their hands on them and I'm curious Myke you you seem I know and I message you've been

00:30:52 ◼   ► You've been very worked up about iPad OS. Have you made the plunge? No, I was gonna do it

00:30:58 ◼   ► So like the public beta came out and I was like, alright, okay, and now it's that's too much

00:31:03 ◼   ► I was still gonna go for the developer beta, but I was like public bears out

00:31:05 ◼   ► I'm gonna do it and then I was I'm in an hour and I was talking to you guys and

00:31:09 ◼   ► I message and Stephen was like, oh you should just do it and I was deciding what iPad and

00:31:15 ◼   ► And then before I did it, I just spent like 10 minutes on Twitter and everybody that I know was like urging the rest of the world please not to touch them.

00:31:21 ◼   ► So I haven't done it.

00:31:24 ◼   ► Probably a good idea.

00:31:26 ◼   ► You think so? I mean, I know you are having, and I heard this last time and I know we're going to talk about it again today.

00:31:32 ◼   ► You are having a particularly difficult time.

00:31:35 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:31:36 ◼   ► Which may be unique to you or may have been a problem from beta one or like whatever, but you are having a particularly bad time.

00:31:43 ◼   ► but it seems like just in general there is a level of unreliability that you would expect from

00:31:50 ◼   ► a beta typically. I have in the past waited for beta 3 and maybe I'll, and I think right now

00:31:56 ◼   ► I'm just gonna wait to see what beta 3 is like. I'm getting ready to go away again and I really

00:32:02 ◼   ► don't want to be traveling with a super buggy iPad. So I've held off, I'm holding off still,

00:32:10 ◼   ► But I really want to use iPadOS so badly, but I'm holding off.

00:32:15 ◼   ► Yeah, I think waiting for beta 3 is probably a good idea.

00:32:18 ◼   ► These are the worst

00:32:22 ◼   ► first two betas that I've seen in a few years.

00:32:25 ◼   ► And maybe we got, you know.

00:32:28 ◼   ► Which is not, again, like and I think it's always worth mentioning,

00:32:31 ◼   ► like when we when you mention that, that is not a criticism particularly, right?

00:32:35 ◼   ► Like it could be and sometimes should be bad, right?

00:32:39 ◼   ► Like it's in development.

00:32:40 ◼   ► I don't think that it's necessarily a

00:32:43 ◼   ► and you could correct me if I'm wrong, but like it doesn't

00:32:46 ◼   ► necessarily feel like it's a criticism of

00:32:48 ◼   ► iOS 13 in its current state.

00:32:51 ◼   ► Right. Like it's expected to be a bit broken.

00:32:54 ◼   ► It's not a criticism, but it is surprising because

00:32:58 ◼   ► I mean, let's face it, there's a responsibility for Apple

00:33:02 ◼   ► to make sure that these betas are at least

00:33:06 ◼   ► somewhat stable because yes, it's a developer beta, but I mean, you know that all kinds

00:33:12 ◼   ► of people are going to install it anyway and the bigger Apple gets and the more people

00:33:17 ◼   ► use iPhones and iPads, you know, there's going to be lots and lots of attention.

00:33:20 ◼   ► Well, I guess that's the interesting point, isn't it really? Because you're using developer

00:33:25 ◼   ► beta 2 and having lots of problems as are many other people and the public beta is apparently

00:33:31 ◼   ► developer beta 2 in some form.

00:33:34 ◼   ► And so like if that is the case, then then I mean, because I understand what you're saying,

00:33:37 ◼   ► but I feel like the fact that the public beta exists kind of excuses them a little from

00:33:42 ◼   ► needing to worry about that for the developer beta, right?

00:33:45 ◼   ► Because they have like plausible deniability, like there's a public beta, you shouldn't

00:33:48 ◼   ► be touching the developer beta.

00:33:50 ◼   ► But if the developer beta is...

00:33:52 ◼   ► Well, it's based on that.

00:33:54 ◼   ► So exactly that.

00:33:55 ◼   ► And if the public beta is bad, then yeah, it does make it a bit trickier, especially

00:33:59 ◼   ► when Apple actually do go to some lengths to talk about it.

00:34:03 ◼   ► Like it got in the keynote, it was like the public beta is coming in July, woo!

00:34:07 ◼   ► Right, like it's, you know, they are going some way to promote that system now in ways

00:34:13 ◼   ► that they didn't before and probably because there is great benefit to them, right?

00:34:17 ◼   ► Like in getting huge adoption of a beta, you'll find out a lot of what's broken, but it

00:34:26 ◼   ► depends on how badly it breaks things, I suppose, as to whether that's a good thing or not.

00:34:30 ◼   ► Yeah, I really don't understand why it was necessary to put out the public beta for iOS

00:34:36 ◼   ► now. It's not like they're being forced or they made some, they actually said July.

00:34:42 ◼   ► So what was the rush?

00:34:43 ◼   ► Yeah, I can't work it out. Yeah, yeah, I can't work it out. Like, we were talking about this

00:34:48 ◼   ► on upgrade on Monday and someone in the chat room said that like, you know, any more time

00:34:53 ◼   ► is more time to collect data, which is a good point, but they were targeting July. So there

00:34:59 ◼   ► There must have been a reason for that.

00:35:00 ◼   ► - Unless like they are intentionally,

00:35:02 ◼   ► maybe that upgrade listener has a good point.

00:35:04 ◼   ► Maybe they want to intentionally test

00:35:07 ◼   ► some major bugs that they have.

00:35:10 ◼   ► They wanna see what the data that they get at scale is like.

00:35:13 ◼   ► So I think that's a plausible explanation,

00:35:17 ◼   ► but I would personally advise on waiting.

00:35:21 ◼   ► If you still haven't put out, I mean, it's Wednesday,

00:35:24 ◼   ► so on Monday, we're probably gonna get Beta 3.

00:35:26 ◼   ► Wait for that.

00:35:28 ◼   ► wait a couple of hours, see what people are saying on Twitter, see what people are saying

00:35:32 ◼   ► on Reddit, and then maybe put it on your devices. Beta 3, you know, I know that Myke, you put

00:35:39 ◼   ► it on in previous years, you waited until Beta 3, it feels to me like it's a good compromise

00:35:47 ◼   ► between you want to get on the beta train early, but you also want to have some stability.

00:35:53 ◼   ► We're starting to see now some basic compatibility updates from developers on the App Store.

00:35:59 ◼   ► We're starting to see that the first test flight betas for iOS 13 and iPadOS 13 apps.

00:36:09 ◼   ► So beta 3, you know, it's been almost a month.

00:36:13 ◼   ► I think it's a good time, you know, if you absolutely want the beta, but you don't want the bad bugs of beta 1 and 2, beta 3 is a good compromise.

00:36:22 ◼   ► compromise.

00:36:23 ◼   ► Because once you get to like three or four, you're about halfway.

00:36:27 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:36:28 ◼   ► Right?

00:36:29 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:36:30 ◼   ► So, you know, which is a horrific thing to consider, right?

00:36:33 ◼   ► When you…

00:36:34 ◼   ► Don't even mention it.

00:36:35 ◼   ► Don't even mention it, please.

00:36:36 ◼   ► Oh yeah, sorry, I forget about you.

00:36:39 ◼   ► I was just thinking about like developers, but yeah, of course, you as well.

00:36:42 ◼   ► Sorry about that.

00:36:43 ◼   ► I never said anything.

00:36:45 ◼   ► Let's talk about your issues in a minute.

00:36:47 ◼   ► I want to come back.

00:36:48 ◼   ► We're going to get an update.

00:36:49 ◼   ► The weekly update of Federico's various problems because I know it's horrific for you

00:36:54 ◼   ► But there is some kind of like macabre enjoyment to get from it. Sure. I'm sorry

00:36:59 ◼   ► It's all it's all for the show and it's all content. But Steven how you

00:37:03 ◼   ► Have iPad OS on your iPad now. Yeah, I put it on my iPad Pro

00:37:08 ◼   ► Yesterday or the day before and it's it's rough. I've got some apps that are crashing it locks up sometimes

00:37:17 ◼   ► Notifications on the home screen or just sometimes they just don't load their content

00:37:21 ◼   ► I mean, it's a little rough, but I can see the promise

00:37:24 ◼   ► That one of the first things I did was load in a banking website after use pretty often

00:37:29 ◼   ► That just doesn't work in mobile Safari and it just works now like it's a real browser. It's fantastic and

00:37:35 ◼   ► and I can see how the multiple app instant stuff and the new multitasking is going to be a

00:37:43 ◼   ► Lot more powerful. I'm not sure how discoverable it all is, especially the multi app and slide over business

00:37:49 ◼   ► But I have spent very little time with that yet

00:37:52 ◼   ► So I'm reserving my judgment for more usage

00:37:56 ◼   ► But yeah, if it's you know, like you Myke where you're doing your work on your iPad, I agree with Federico

00:38:02 ◼   ► I'd wait one more. Yeah as I again, it's like I would be putting it on the device that I will take

00:38:09 ◼   ► With me on a trip. I feel like that's probably unwise

00:38:13 ◼   ► Probably probably so and as far as Catalina. I was running it on a 12-inch MacBook and

00:38:19 ◼   ► That was just a poor choice. That's that's not a fast machine. It's an original 12-inch MacBook

00:38:26 ◼   ► That's not a fast machine in Mojave and he put a beta OS on it and it really was struggling

00:38:31 ◼   ► So I moved it to an external SSD that I can boot my MacBook Pro from and I have all my data on that

00:38:37 ◼   ► I've actually used migration assistant to get my stuff onto Catalina. And it is, it's a mess.

00:38:43 ◼   ► That's it's real buggy. And the battery life's real bad. It's not not a good time on the Catalina

00:38:48 ◼   ► beta. So we're gonna hear about Federico's woes. But first, let me tell you about our second

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00:41:04 ◼   ► next website. All right, Federico laid on us. How's it going?

00:41:09 ◼   ► Let's start from the bad news. It's been it's been a week. Really, for me. I've been filing

00:41:19 ◼   ► lots of raters and taking lots of sysdiagnose files on my iPhone and the iPad that I've

00:41:30 ◼   ► been unable to basically take notes on my iPhone. I've been forgetting to save things

00:41:39 ◼   ► because like one of the reasons that I love the Notes app when it works is that I can

00:41:45 ◼   ► just save an idea that I have or a thought that I have and forget about it. When I'm

00:41:50 ◼   ► on the phone it'll show up on the iPad later. It works in the background, it doesn't create

00:41:55 ◼   ► conflicted copies. And so because I wasn't able to save notes from my phone I would often

00:42:03 ◼   ► think of something and then I wasn't able to save it. And that was lost forever in the

00:42:11 ◼   ► maze of my brain.

00:42:12 ◼   ► So so you could create them, but they just don't go anywhere.

00:42:17 ◼   ► Right. Yeah, basically.

00:42:19 ◼   ► Or actually, my main problem was that the iPhone app kept crashing

00:42:23 ◼   ► every every few minutes, really.

00:42:26 ◼   ► So it was basically impossible to use.

00:42:28 ◼   ► I was able to to to salvage all of my notes

00:42:33 ◼   ► on the iPad by moving them to local storage.

00:42:38 ◼   ► So I've been using notes on the iPad through the "on my iPad" location, which is fine.

00:42:46 ◼   ► It just means that I've only used my iPad for notes. So I am sort of behind the schedule that

00:42:53 ◼   ► I had in mind for the iOS 13 review, but I think I'll be fine because it's still June.

00:42:59 ◼   ► It's not even, you know, in the past I started writing like by July 10. So I'm slightly behind

00:43:06 ◼   ► schedule but it's a schedule that I had all in my mind because you know I tend

00:43:12 ◼   ► to get anxious about all of this so I'll be okay I think. More bad news my Memoji

00:43:19 ◼   ► are gone forever it seems. That is the real horror, the tragedy. That Memoji was

00:43:25 ◼   ► perfect and you know that we put it together years ago when it came out and

00:43:30 ◼   ► it was it was such a good representation of me I'm really bummed about the fact

00:43:36 ◼   ► that the Memoji died. So both of them are dead.

00:43:41 ◼   ► - That's quite a thing to think about.

00:43:45 ◼   ► - Yeah, they are lost forever in iCloud. RIP Memoji.

00:43:50 ◼   ► So those will have to be recreated at some point,

00:43:54 ◼   ► unless Beta 3 brings them back from the dead.

00:43:56 ◼   ► I don't know if that's even possible.

00:43:58 ◼   ► - That would be kind of wonderful, wouldn't it?

00:44:00 ◼   ► - It would be wonderful.

00:44:01 ◼   ► So I basically spent the past week taking notes

00:44:05 ◼   ► on the iPad without iCloud. When I was on the phone I wasn't able to take notes so

00:44:11 ◼   ► I actually started using Reminders to save ideas which is like, it's terrible. It's

00:44:17 ◼   ► slightly better now.

00:44:18 ◼   ► So Reminders is syncing, it's just Notes that isn't syncing?

00:44:22 ◼   ► Oh yeah, Notes was the main problem. Everything else slowly came back with Beta 2 except for

00:44:30 ◼   ► So whatever happened with Memoji, those are gone.

00:44:34 ◼   ► Should this, I mean, okay, the answer is obviously no, but should this be happening?

00:44:38 ◼   ► Did anything change with Notes? Like, why is this happening?

00:44:42 ◼   ► I don't know. I have no idea. Now to the better news.

00:44:46 ◼   ► I cannot get into the details, but I'm just gonna say that

00:44:50 ◼   ► by filing radars

00:44:54 ◼   ► and by using the feedback reporting tool,

00:44:58 ◼   ► whoever, you know, engineers at Apple really followed up multiple times on my

00:45:05 ◼   ► report here and that was really, that was really like, it was a really good service

00:45:10 ◼   ► honestly, like to just be able to add comments with the feedback assistant and

00:45:16 ◼   ► be able to add links to the debug reports, to the crash reports and you

00:45:23 ◼   ► know, I was really happy with the kind of support that I received from

00:45:30 ◼   ► using the Feedback Assistant app and I was really impressed by, like, I

00:45:37 ◼   ► got the sense that they really wanted to make sure that this would get fixed and

00:45:43 ◼   ► it appears just today that we may have a fix. I don't want to jinx it because

00:45:53 ◼   ► I feel like, you know, maybe something's gonna break again, but it appears that my notes

00:45:58 ◼   ► are now fine. And this is just as of 30 minutes ago, like before starting the show.

00:46:05 ◼   ► So they've, they've, you've synced them all now.

00:46:06 ◼   ► I synced them all again. I have the same number of like total notes between the iPhone and

00:46:14 ◼   ► the iPad. I still haven't checked iCloud.com or my Mac, but it appears that there's parity

00:46:22 ◼   ► between the two devices and iCloud is working and the Notes app is not crashing anymore.

00:46:30 ◼   ► There's tons of logs in my analytics data, all of these files that the system just generates

00:46:37 ◼   ► for whatever is going on. I don't know exactly what happened. My interpretation is that something

00:46:43 ◼   ► horrible happened with the Notes area of my iCloud account. And by filing all these reports

00:46:51 ◼   ► through the feedback assistant that got the attention of the necessary folks at

00:46:56 ◼   ► Apple. So I'm really thankful for the feedback assistant system and

00:47:01 ◼   ► to just be able to comment multiple times and add details. So, you know,

00:47:08 ◼   ► I'm guessing that it was a terrible bug that they discovered in my account.

00:47:13 ◼   ► It's probably why it was so helpful, right? Because like they've found something so bad,

00:47:18 ◼   ► they need to get to the bottom of it. Yeah. So I, I, I, they just opened it up and it was all

00:47:24 ◼   ► just a soup of base 64, just simming around in the server that is actually possible. I still

00:47:32 ◼   ► maintain that every problem you have on your iPhone is related to base 64 in some way,

00:47:37 ◼   ► no matter what it is. I just think that you, the voodoo that you did with all of that stuff is just

00:47:43 ◼   ► like you will feel the effects of that forever.

00:47:47 ◼   ► I haven't used Base64 in months.

00:47:50 ◼   ► I feel like an addict now.

00:47:53 ◼   ► Like I haven't used it in like three months.

00:47:56 ◼   ► Right?

00:47:57 ◼   ► What is like the methadone version of Base64?

00:48:01 ◼   ► It's like, I don't know,

00:48:02 ◼   ► I don't know, watching shortcuts videos on Reddit.

00:48:08 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:48:10 ◼   ► Like watching other people do it.

00:48:12 ◼   ► Okay. But yeah, so it was a terrible bug. It got the attention of the folks at Apple

00:48:21 ◼   ► through my reports in the Feedback Assistant. I actually have been using the Feedback Assistant

00:48:27 ◼   ► app a lot. It's on my home screen. There's a lot of discussion as to like, does it actually

00:48:36 ◼   ► work fighting raiders? And there's a whole debate with our friends like Marco and Casey,

00:48:42 ◼   ► everybody has an opinion on this. Here's my opinion, if you care about it.

00:48:48 ◼   ► No.

00:48:49 ◼   ► Maybe, maybe, well, there you go. That's the show. Goodbye. Arrivederci.

00:48:53 ◼   ► See ya.

00:48:55 ◼   ► Okay. So maybe we could argue about, like, is it a dysfunctional organization if you

00:49:01 ◼   ► can only file bugs in, within the span of three weeks in June and early July? I don't

00:49:07 ◼   ► That's a discussion. But you know what? I'm gonna do my job. I'm gonna file my complaints

00:49:14 ◼   ► I'm gonna file my suggestions and I'm gonna file my feedback

00:49:18 ◼   ► Then the ball is in Apple's court and like they decide what they want to do with it

00:49:23 ◼   ► But at least I've done my part. It's like when you're a citizen, like if you're a good citizen of a country

00:49:29 ◼   ► You know and you just ate like a slice of pizza and then you gotta you know

00:49:35 ◼   ► you have some trash that you gotta get rid of,

00:49:37 ◼   ► you don't get rid of the trash in the middle of the street.

00:49:39 ◼   ► You look for a trash can.

00:49:41 ◼   ► So like, you're following the law,

00:49:43 ◼   ► you're being a good citizen.

00:49:44 ◼   ► And I also wanna follow the law here.

00:49:46 ◼   ► Like, I have complaints, I have ideas, I follow radar.

00:49:49 ◼   ► Then whatever happens, happens, I don't know.

00:49:51 ◼   ► But at least I've done my part.

00:49:53 ◼   ► - It seems like the feedback assistant is a easier--

00:49:57 ◼   ► - It's much easier to use than before, yes.

00:50:00 ◼   ► - Than radar at least anyway, or at least it has been.

00:50:02 ◼   ► So that's a benefit.

00:50:04 ◼   ► - It's like, I don't know.

00:50:05 ◼   ► Maybe it doesn't work.

00:50:06 ◼   ► But I feel like I've done my part,

00:50:09 ◼   ► and now I'm in a position to complain about it.

00:50:12 ◼   ► Because I know that I've filed my reports and my ideas

00:50:16 ◼   ► and my suggestions.

00:50:19 ◼   ► I wouldn't like to complain if I didn't do my part.

00:50:22 ◼   ► Now, it's like when you complain about who won the elections

00:50:27 ◼   ► and you didn't even vote.

00:50:28 ◼   ► You've got to shut up if you didn't vote.

00:50:30 ◼   ► You can't complain about who won.

00:50:33 ◼   ► So it's just a way that I like to live my life.

00:50:37 ◼   ► You know, I get to complain and I get to share my opinions when I'm in a position to share them.

00:50:42 ◼   ► So have you seen the David Lertman Kanye West interview?

00:50:47 ◼   ► No.

00:50:48 ◼   ► Okay.

00:50:49 ◼   ► Because I watched that last night and that exact thing came up.

00:50:51 ◼   ► It's a very interesting interview, but you know, Kanye's being Kanye and he kind of mentions at one point about he's never voted.

00:51:00 ◼   ► And then David Lertman is just like, you have no opinion.

00:51:02 ◼   ► And it's kind of incredible.

00:51:03 ◼   ► It's actually a really interesting interview. I recommend people watch it.

00:51:05 ◼   ► I like, I like Clermont. He's a good, he's a good man. So,

00:51:08 ◼   ► It's really fun before the, the, they like show him getting ready to go on stage and he's like,

00:51:13 ◼   ► I'm so nervous. And then he goes on stage. It's, it's like the whole thing is actually really good.

00:51:18 ◼   ► There's some good stuff and then there's some wild stuff and there's some like infuriating stuff,

00:51:22 ◼   ► but I recommend people watch it. This looks like a really random tangent, but it's just because that

00:51:26 ◼   ► exact thing came up and I saw it last night. So I wondered if you'd seen it too.

00:51:30 ◼   ► No, no, I didn't. But yeah, so basically, fighting all these crash logs and sysdiagnos

00:51:39 ◼   ► worked, I guess. Fingers crossed maybe the problem has been fixed. Really, my main problem is not,

00:51:46 ◼   ► like, complaining about beta bugs. That is fine. It's really that I'm the kind of person that,

00:51:55 ◼   ► even though I could have used some alternatives, like, for example, using local storage instead of

00:52:01 ◼   ► iCloud or using some third-party note-taking app. My main problem is my brain in the sense that

00:52:09 ◼   ► just knowing that something isn't working makes me go insane. Like, knowing that some part of iCloud

00:52:19 ◼   ► is not working fine for me, bothers me like at a physical level that you have no idea.

00:52:26 ◼   ► Well, I mean, I would just be constantly concerned about what the other part is that is obviously

00:52:30 ◼   ► broken.

00:52:31 ◼   ► Exactly. Yes. I've spent the past week being constantly concerned about, oh, am I going

00:52:35 ◼   ► to lose my reminders? Am I going to lose my mail? Am I going to lose my Safari bookmarks?

00:52:40 ◼   ► Like that is no way to live. And so just knowing that some part of my account was not behaving

00:52:47 ◼   ► correctly, such huge stress. It was not about notes necessarily, right? It was not about...

00:52:54 ◼   ► That was just a symptom, like the thought of having this invisible problem that I was

00:53:01 ◼   ► unable to fix myself. That's what has been driving me a little crazy over the past week.

00:53:06 ◼   ► But again, fingers crossed it's been fixed, probably. So I can go back to live my life

00:53:11 ◼   ► and take notes and actually start working on a mind map for the review.

00:53:15 ◼   ► a wild thing to have happened. Yeah, it was really bad. It was really, really bad. Yeah,

00:53:22 ◼   ► and it's funny, every time I open these crash logs, there's like all this text that makes

00:53:28 ◼   ► no sense to me, like "private frameworks.delib", whatever, all these codes for problems like

00:53:36 ◼   ► "0.0.xb", like what is this? It's funny, it means nothing to you, but somebody opened

00:53:43 ◼   ► it and they're like "oh no!" Somebody's like "uh-huh, yeah I know these words, I

00:53:48 ◼   ► know what they mean." No, no, I mean it's not like, I mean like somebody's opened

00:53:51 ◼   ► it and like it's their worst nightmare. Yeah. Like all of the codes that they never

00:53:56 ◼   ► want to see, they're all there, you know? Yeah. Everything's broken. Can you tell

00:54:01 ◼   ► me about parameters and shortcuts? What do you want to know? You tweeted about this,

00:54:08 ◼   ► that you'd had a third-party application that had implemented them, so I would love

00:54:12 ◼   ► like a just a very quick refresher and something that is exciting to you like

00:54:17 ◼   ► why you think it's exciting what kind of things you think you might see from it

00:54:20 ◼   ► so I think it's basically the kind of shortcuts API that we've been discussing

00:54:27 ◼   ► for the past really the past few years since it was workflow and now it's been

00:54:32 ◼   ► made available to developers through parameters in in the short in the series

00:54:37 ◼   ► shortcuts API and I have a beta, a single beta so far of JSON, not Snell but it's

00:54:46 ◼   ► a utility by Simon Stovering, he also makes Scriptable the JavaScript app for iOS and

00:54:53 ◼   ► JSON it allows you to preview and browse .json files, JSON content on your iOS devices and

00:55:04 ◼   ► he just released a beta, there's probably a link to the test flight on Twitter somewhere,

00:55:09 ◼   ► and he's taking advantage of the new shortcuts parameters API to let you do some really beautiful

00:55:17 ◼   ► things with JSON. So effectively you can now install, quote-unquote install, you can find

00:55:25 ◼   ► the JSON shortcut in the shortcuts app when you search for the name of the app, and just like

00:55:32 ◼   ► before you will find a suggestion for a series shortcut for a third-party app,

00:55:37 ◼   ► just like iOS 12. What is different is that this shortcut is

00:55:43 ◼   ► customizable. It's got fields, it's got parameters that you can customize. Some

00:55:47 ◼   ► of them can accept plain text, others are like switches, like toggles that you can

00:55:53 ◼   ► flip on and off. It's exactly what we were arguing last year that we

00:55:59 ◼   ► wanted to have visual actions for third-party apps that could be customizable, but without

00:56:08 ◼   ► having them be based on URL schemes and X callback URL.

00:56:13 ◼   ► And then the other benefit being that you can set everything up in shortcuts.

00:56:19 ◼   ► Yes.

00:56:20 ◼   ► Right, and can make...

00:56:21 ◼   ► Instead of doing it before...

00:56:23 ◼   ► Right.

00:56:24 ◼   ► Like, in iOS 12, if you wanted to customize a shortcut,

00:56:28 ◼   ► you needed to do in the original app

00:56:30 ◼   ► that offered the shortcut to the system.

00:56:33 ◼   ► And it was not dynamic.

00:56:36 ◼   ► You could only configure the shortcut beforehand.

00:56:39 ◼   ► And if you wanted to have some dynamic input,

00:56:43 ◼   ► for example, you look at apps like James Thompson

00:56:45 ◼   ► and his shortcuts for Pcalc,

00:56:47 ◼   ► he used the system clipboard as a sort of workaround.

00:56:51 ◼   ► -It was all very complicated, basically.

00:56:53 ◼   ► It was all very hacky and not stable enough. But this means that now you can have shortcuts

00:56:59 ◼   ► for third-party apps in your custom shortcuts, in the main shortcuts app, and you can actually

00:57:05 ◼   ► customize the data that they work with. Or the example that I shared on Twitter was,

00:57:12 ◼   ► I have a shortcut that works with the Trello API. So my shortcut gets some JSON content

00:57:18 ◼   ► from Trello and passes that content to the JSON app via a native Siri shortcut that I

00:57:25 ◼   ► configured and customized inside the shortcuts app. This is based on parameters.

00:57:30 ◼   ► Can all this happen in the background?

00:57:32 ◼   ► Yes, it can.

00:57:33 ◼   ► So I could have a third-party application fetch data from within the third-party application

00:57:39 ◼   ► and pass it to another chain in the shortcut without anything ever needing to happen.

00:57:44 ◼   ► In fact, I did not tweet this, but just last night Simon posted a second build of the beta

00:57:51 ◼   ► that allows you to retrieve from the shortcuts app the JSON text of a document that you keep

00:58:00 ◼   ► in the document library of the JSON app.

00:58:04 ◼   ► So right from shortcuts you can say install this series shortcut for JSON and there's

00:58:10 ◼   ► There's a file name field, a file name parameter.

00:58:13 ◼   ► You go in there, you type in the name of the file

00:58:16 ◼   ► that you want to fetch, and totally in the background,

00:58:19 ◼   ► without having to open JSON and switch back to shortcuts,

00:58:23 ◼   ► it fetches the-- that document fetches the text,

00:58:27 ◼   ► and that text is now a variable that you

00:58:28 ◼   ► can use in another action.

00:58:30 ◼   ► OK, that's incredible.

00:58:31 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:58:32 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:58:32 ◼   ► So imagine this for task managers.

00:58:35 ◼   ► Imagine this for document-based apps.

00:58:37 ◼   ► You will be able to create to-dos.

00:58:39 ◼   ► You will be able to, I don't know, edit images.

00:58:42 ◼   ► You will be able to make it work in the background

00:58:45 ◼   ► or show you a UI or switch to that app.

00:58:48 ◼   ► You will be able to retrieve documents

00:58:50 ◼   ► or maybe specific metadata about a document,

00:58:54 ◼   ► like give me the file name or the creation.

00:58:57 ◼   ► Like you can do whatever you want

00:58:59 ◼   ► because everything is customizable.

00:59:00 ◼   ► Developers just need to build these shortcuts.

00:59:04 ◼   ► You cannot build them yourself, of course.

00:59:06 ◼   ► The developer has to support that technology,

00:59:08 ◼   ► But you can customize the parameters.

00:59:11 ◼   ► You can put in whatever you want.

00:59:12 ◼   ► You can put in some plain text, or you can use variables.

00:59:17 ◼   ► It's all up to you.

00:59:18 ◼   ► And it's amazing.

00:59:18 ◼   ► It's exactly what I wanted.

00:59:22 ◼   ► And it's now possible developers just need to adopt them.

00:59:26 ◼   ► It'll be really good.

00:59:28 ◼   ► I think I'm more excited for this, of course,

00:59:31 ◼   ► than the multi-window at the moment.

00:59:35 ◼   ► I'm trying to imagine all the ways that I can rewrite my shortcuts by getting rid of

00:59:43 ◼   ► X callback, by getting rid of multiple actions and just replace them with a single series

00:59:50 ◼   ► shortcut for a third-party app that has parameters and that lets me process data or fetch data

00:59:57 ◼   ► without doing all the hacks and the workarounds and the X callback dance that I used to do

01:00:05 ◼   ► to do before, it's really, really good.

01:00:07 ◼   ► And yeah.

01:00:09 ◼   ► I'm very excited about the possibility of being able to do stuff

01:00:13 ◼   ► that doesn't require apps to be opened.

01:00:15 ◼   ► And it does also feel like it would be and it will be,

01:00:19 ◼   ► again, provided that this gets the developer support that it needs,

01:00:22 ◼   ► which I think could I mean, like, you know, I mean,

01:00:25 ◼   ► I know that like shortcuts hasn't as of yet,

01:00:29 ◼   ► it's not been like an incredibly advanced

01:00:33 ◼   ► system so far, right? But it has gotten a lot of support. Like I still see apps updating

01:00:40 ◼   ► like major apps from big companies and they add shortcut support in some way, right? Like

01:00:44 ◼   ► it doesn't, I know this is a different beast, but at least it feels like we might see some

01:00:49 ◼   ► of this stuff trickling out over a while. And when I say like, you know, the complexity

01:00:54 ◼   ► thing, it's just like a lot of companies just add very basic support, but it's still something.

01:00:59 ◼   ► But this seems like obviously a much better system to be able to have multiple third party

01:01:06 ◼   ► applications talking to each other, right?

01:01:11 ◼   ► What this would give is that world which as of yet has not really been able to be brought

01:01:19 ◼   ► into effect, right?

01:01:21 ◼   ► As it stands right now, it's like, well, you can do a bunch of things, but it's just a

01:01:25 ◼   ► bunch of applications talking to shortcuts and shortcuts talking back and that's the

01:01:28 ◼   ► the end of the conversation, right? Between the two apps. But now it's like, well, I could

01:01:33 ◼   ► use this third party app to give a piece of information to this third party app to give

01:01:37 ◼   ► a piece of information to this third party app. And that's like what we've always wanted

01:01:42 ◼   ► from this system, but it's not been possible. But now we are beginning the road to this

01:01:49 ◼   ► future, which is kind of incredible.

01:01:52 ◼   ► Do you think this future ends in the death of X callback URL? Like, is this powerful

01:01:57 ◼   ► enough to replace it. You couldn't have a stronger sign that,

01:02:01 ◼   ► and let me just quote here because I think I actually saved it. Uh,

01:02:06 ◼   ► while I was at a session at WWDC, um,

01:02:10 ◼   ► well thank, thankfully your notes are working.

01:02:12 ◼   ► My notes are working. So there you go.

01:02:17 ◼   ► I'm browsing my notes and it's not exploding. So.

01:02:21 ◼   ► Can you imagine if they just all started deleting now, like just live on the show?

01:02:25 ◼   ► Why? Okay. And I'm quoting here.

01:02:28 ◼   ► Custom URL schemes are inherently insecure and can be abused by malicious

01:02:33 ◼   ► developers. New uses of custom URL schemes are highly discouraged.

01:02:39 ◼   ► That was said on stage?

01:02:40 ◼   ► Yes, there was a recession.

01:02:42 ◼   ► And so I believe that it's not going to happen, you know,

01:02:47 ◼   ► in a week. It's not going to happen this year.

01:02:50 ◼   ► It's probably not going to happen next year. But I think,

01:02:53 ◼   ► If not deprecated entirely, I believe they're going to lock down the system more and more.

01:03:03 ◼   ► And I think just one last point that I wanted to add about third-party apps communicating

01:03:08 ◼   ► with each other.

01:03:09 ◼   ► The beautiful part of all of this for me is the fact that you're in the middle of it,

01:03:15 ◼   ► there's still shortcuts and there's still the content graph engine.

01:03:20 ◼   ► So the technology that Ari and Carad and their team came up with years ago, in 2013 and early

01:03:28 ◼   ► 2014, that is still the glue.

01:03:31 ◼   ► And of course it's been enhanced and improved and revised, but at a fundamental level, that

01:03:36 ◼   ► idea of shortcuts, having the content graph engine and taking care of transformations

01:03:43 ◼   ► of data, like text can become a PDF, can become an image, a link can become something else.

01:03:50 ◼   ► That technology is still at the core of all of this.

01:03:54 ◼   ► And to you, the user, it's exposed in a visual programming environment where you drag and

01:04:00 ◼   ► drop actions and you have these variables and now you have the new editor, of course.

01:04:06 ◼   ► But there's a beauty in the fact that a couple of kids came up with this idea years ago.

01:04:13 ◼   ► and of course it's been much improved but at the very essence of it is still the technology that powers

01:04:20 ◼   ► this amazing communication between apps in iOS 13.

01:04:23 ◼   ► It's kind of funny really, like this is, this has been, this information has been relatively low-key so far this year.

01:04:31 ◼   ► Like, I know that there are obviously people like you and David and Rosemary like on Automators talking about it

01:04:36 ◼   ► but like it wasn't as part of the larger presentation, but like this is what we were hoping

01:04:43 ◼   ► last year was gonna be.

01:04:46 ◼   ► Right? It was like this level of control and it feels like that maybe

01:04:51 ◼   ► this year is when it happens but it's been

01:04:54 ◼   ► kind of... it's a bit more under the radar.

01:04:58 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah I mean it was not in the keynote, it was probably just mentioned

01:05:03 ◼   ► that the State of the Union.

01:05:04 ◼   ► I'm just super excited. I have a hundred and sixty shortcuts that I

01:05:09 ◼   ► got to update.

01:05:10 ◼   ► Also, I should mention...

01:05:12 ◼   ► Sounds like a wild weekend.

01:05:14 ◼   ► Yeah, I should mention that as I was hoping would be the case, I think I said on the show

01:05:20 ◼   ► that all of my shortcuts broke, but that I was confident that the data was still hiding

01:05:27 ◼   ► in there.

01:05:29 ◼   ► That was indeed the case, because beta2 basically restored all of...

01:05:34 ◼   ► Most of the variables that were hiding, they were still in there, they were just not exposed

01:05:39 ◼   ► correctly in beta one, but with beta two they came back.

01:05:42 ◼   ► So there was some like translation that was done incorrectly basically.

01:05:46 ◼   ► Yeah, but all the variables and all the data.

01:05:48 ◼   ► It didn't remove anything.

01:05:49 ◼   ► It just couldn't read what was written properly.

01:05:52 ◼   ► Yes. Yes. So basically all of my shortcuts are working again.

01:05:57 ◼   ► I just need, they are in a working state.

01:06:00 ◼   ► And I guess maybe next week we're going to talk about some of

01:06:03 ◼   ► the changes to shortcuts and sharing that are going on in

01:06:08 ◼   ► this version of the app, but I just want to update them because they're not so elegant

01:06:14 ◼   ► anymore. I have the option of removing a lot of actions, and the fewer actions you have

01:06:22 ◼   ► in a shortcut, the better it is. So they are working, they're just not elegant, so I want

01:06:27 ◼   ► to make them a little nicer. So I'm going to update them anyway.

01:06:30 ◼   ► Man, I can't wait to see what will come of all this stuff. It's very exciting.

01:06:35 ◼   ► Yeah, I guess I gotta start sharing some shortcuts, at least on Club Max Stories. There's a few

01:06:42 ◼   ► basic things that I would like to share. I'm gonna save some of them, of course, for the

01:06:47 ◼   ► review. Probably gonna have a section with shortcuts examples like last year.

01:06:52 ◼   ► Probably gonna, yeah. I might talk about shortcuts in the review, who knows.

01:06:56 ◼   ► Maybe, I guess, if I really have to. I mean, jeez, I don't know.

01:07:00 ◼   ► Still a lot of character for you, but, you know, I guess if you're gonna do it.

01:07:05 ◼   ► (laughs)

01:07:06 ◼   ► All right, we're gonna wrap up today

01:07:07 ◼   ► talking about Catalyst apps,

01:07:10 ◼   ► but first let me tell you about our final sponsor,

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01:08:39 ◼   ► I have some very important breaking news.

01:08:43 ◼   ► Apple have expanded business chat to Shopify stores.

01:08:50 ◼   ► You can find the show notes at relay.fm/connected/249.

01:08:56 ◼   ► I'm kind of making a joke because of business chat, but that is actually pretty cool because

01:09:02 ◼   ► that's a lot of stores.

01:09:04 ◼   ► Yes, I know.

01:09:05 ◼   ► So, Shopify is now supporting in business chat, so that will make it a lot more useful

01:09:09 ◼   ► to a lot of small companies.

01:09:11 ◼   ► I have not used it yet.

01:09:12 ◼   ► I need to find it.

01:09:14 ◼   ► Is it even outside of the US?

01:09:15 ◼   ► I have no idea.

01:09:16 ◼   ► I don't even know because I've never been in.

01:09:18 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:09:19 ◼   ► Okay.

01:09:20 ◼   ► did in Italy. It kinda did work. But yeah, this is great. I mean, I've noticed Shopify

01:09:26 ◼   ► storefronts on a lot of things that I've bought online recently. Especially like keyboards.

01:09:32 ◼   ► Like every time I buy a keyboard, it's from a Shopify store. Yeah, so this is very nice.

01:09:40 ◼   ► So that is a cool thing to have, at least as a thing. I'm pleased that they did that.

01:09:45 ◼   ► I didn't initially misread the headline and thought it said Spotify and I was very confused.

01:09:52 ◼   ► It's like why?

01:09:54 ◼   ► Apple wouldn't let Spotify business chat with people.

01:09:57 ◼   ► Not unless they charged them 70%.

01:10:00 ◼   ► Over on Mac Stories this week and on episode 117 of App Stories, Federico, you and John

01:10:07 ◼   ► talked about Catalyst apps and there's been a lot of grumbling in parts of the community

01:10:14 ◼   ► about catalyst, which we can get into about john. So some people have some people have

01:10:22 ◼   ► called it a sweet solution, like the building web app for the iPhone. Remember that that

01:10:26 ◼   ► was no fun. I disagree with all that we can get into that. But I definitely point people

01:10:30 ◼   ► to that article. The app stories episode was excellent. And so let's let's get into this

01:10:36 ◼   ► a little bit. Federico, how do you feel about catalyst apps? So the main thesis of the story,

01:10:43 ◼   ► which I fully agree with, John has been thinking about this article for a long time, is we,

01:10:52 ◼   ► and by we I mean at Mac Stories, we don't think that Catalyst is just about bringing

01:11:00 ◼   ► toy apps or like small utilities and games and video streaming apps to the Mac.

01:11:07 ◼   ► We think it's more than that.

01:11:09 ◼   ► We think it can be more than that.

01:11:12 ◼   ► And our main argument that John really put well in the story is if you use the iPad to

01:11:21 ◼   ► get work done, to do more than just browsing Netflix and YouTube, you know that there absolutely

01:11:29 ◼   ► are apps that could be useful to have on the Mac that would make for excellent Mac apps

01:11:36 ◼   ► provided that the developers put in the work to optimize them for the macOS platform.

01:11:41 ◼   ► And to think that the iPad does not have any productivity apps to offer to the Mac, that

01:11:50 ◼   ► just feels short-sighted and a little out of touch with reality.

01:11:54 ◼   ► That is my personal opinion.

01:11:56 ◼   ► It's not what John wrote, but it's what I believe.

01:11:59 ◼   ► John actually came up with a list.

01:12:02 ◼   ► He didn't share the full list in the article, but he has like 60 apps that are not like

01:12:08 ◼   ► entertainment or toy related.

01:12:11 ◼   ► would make for excellent Mac versions. Maybe you'll get to share this full list somewhere

01:12:16 ◼   ► in the newsletter. I don't know. He mentioned a few examples in the story. You got things

01:12:20 ◼   ► like Working Copy, you got things like the Apollo Reddit client, or shortcuts, of course.

01:12:28 ◼   ► All of these, LumaFusion, Ferrite, all of these iPad first, and sometimes iPad only

01:12:34 ◼   ► productivity apps that exist on iOS, people are using them. See, it's not just me and

01:12:40 ◼   ► John Voorhees, these two special snowflakes using the iPad as a computer, you open Reddit,

01:12:46 ◼   ► you go to reddit.com/r/iPad, you will find thousands of people using the iPad as a computer,

01:12:54 ◼   ► getting work done, getting video editing done, professional photo editing done. These people

01:13:00 ◼   ► exist in the world, on planet Earth. It's a thing, whether you like it or not. And so,

01:13:07 ◼   ► To think that Catalyst is just about "Oh yeah, make YouTube available on the Mac and

01:13:12 ◼   ► Netflix available on the Mac and a bunch of games for those kids."

01:13:16 ◼   ► That just feels a little condescending, personally speaking, and just untrue.

01:13:21 ◼   ► So that was the point of the story, to illustrate how there's more than...

01:13:31 ◼   ► Nothing wrong with games and entertainment, of course.

01:13:32 ◼   ► Nothing wrong with that.

01:13:33 ◼   ► But there's more to it.

01:13:35 ◼   ► Maybe Apple could have done a better job at making this argument at WWDC.

01:13:40 ◼   ► Maybe fully agree with the fact that Apple should have done a better job with their catalyst apps.

01:13:45 ◼   ► They're not setting a high bar, you know, with their examples. I agree with that.

01:13:50 ◼   ► And look at podcasts, for example, coming in Catalina, they're doing a bunch of custom work

01:13:55 ◼   ► to make that as decent as it is right now. Fully agree with that sentiment.

01:14:00 ◼   ► but from a third-party developer perspective there's a lot more to

01:14:04 ◼   ► Catalyst than just you know "oh yeah I can now watch Netflix on my Mac"

01:14:08 ◼   ► that's the argument of the story.

01:14:10 ◼   ► Why don't you tell me how you really feel?

01:14:12 ◼   ► Like I feel like you're holding back if you could just give me

01:14:19 ◼   ► like a little bit more would be great. I think really the biggest problem here is

01:14:25 ◼   ► is, and I put problem in inverted commas, was the introduction of SwiftUI. It was the

01:14:32 ◼   ► right time to do it because it's an important technology for a bunch of different reasons,

01:14:37 ◼   ► but it put an expiry date, potentially, on Catalyst in a lot of people's minds. Unfortunately,

01:14:46 ◼   ► the technology feels like... So the idea of the sweet solution is actually kind of an

01:14:53 ◼   ► interesting one, like comparing it to that. Because if you remove the fact that the sweet

01:15:00 ◼   ► solution was bad, it was a bad idea, where Catalyst doesn't seem to be a bad idea or

01:15:05 ◼   ► the technology isn't bad, it will actually work and it will give you some of what you

01:15:08 ◼   ► want. But it was the idea of like, Catalyst is clearly a stopgap or like a point in the

01:15:19 ◼   ► roadmap to the future with the future being much more involved. If SwiftUI really works,

01:15:26 ◼   ► that seems to be a much more complete solution for people. But before you can get there,

01:15:33 ◼   ► there's a lot of work and in the meantime, Catalyst exists and this is very clearly

01:15:39 ◼   ► the path. Apple now have multiple technologies to put applications in multiple places

01:15:48 ◼   ► in platforms that don't currently allow for that, right?

01:15:52 ◼   ► Like, there's no way currently to take your iOS app

01:15:55 ◼   ► and put it on the Mac, but Apple is going to give

01:15:58 ◼   ► two technologies which will enable that in different ways.

01:16:00 ◼   ► Like, it is very clear what the future is at this point.

01:16:03 ◼   ► - And importantly, Catalyst is a way to do that today.

01:16:06 ◼   ► - To now, now, yes. - Or this fall.

01:16:08 ◼   ► Where I don't think there's gonna be many developers

01:16:10 ◼   ► who are totally rewritten for SwiftUI on day one.

01:16:14 ◼   ► There may be a few, but that is a longer term,

01:16:18 ◼   ► bigger project. And what catalyst does is it unlocks the bajillion iOS apps that are

01:16:26 ◼   ► on the App Store. It unlocks those for the Mac in the here and now it Swift UI is, I

01:16:33 ◼   ► fully believe a decade long thing is it's it can't do everything that you need to do

01:16:38 ◼   ► now. It's extremely resource resource intensive. And it only supports the newest OS. So if

01:16:44 ◼   ► are like underscore and you have a bunch of people on old devices you can't actually move

01:16:49 ◼   ► to it.

01:16:50 ◼   ► Yeah it's like it's like Swift in general right like Swift was announced a long time

01:16:53 ◼   ► ago and yeah five years it's being used by a lot of people but not the masses it's not

01:16:58 ◼   ► being and I think everybody's resigned to the fact that ultimately they will be using

01:17:02 ◼   ► it but it's just not yet even Marco's learning it so rest in peace what exactly we're like

01:17:09 ◼   ► That needs to be clarified.

01:17:10 ◼   ► Objective C.

01:17:11 ◼   ► OK.

01:17:12 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:17:13 ◼   ► OK.

01:17:14 ◼   ► I don't know.

01:17:15 ◼   ► So the problem I have with the debate that's going on is people look at SwiftUI as like

01:17:20 ◼   ► a, OK, maybe they agree with me that it's a six, eight, 10-year thing.

01:17:25 ◼   ► And at some point, Apple will require all new apps to be in SwiftUI.

01:17:30 ◼   ► But that doesn't make CataList less important.

01:17:33 ◼   ► There was the joke, and maybe it wasn't a joke, like, oh, well,

01:17:38 ◼   ► Catalyst was end of lifed in the same keynote it was announced

01:17:42 ◼   ► in.

01:17:43 ◼   ► I just don't see that being the case,

01:17:45 ◼   ► because Catalyst is going to be here for a long time.

01:17:50 ◼   ► And Catalyst gives developers an opportunity

01:17:54 ◼   ► to have their apps make more money.

01:17:56 ◼   ► And if they make more money, maybe they'll

01:17:58 ◼   ► be more likely to invest in rewriting in SwiftUI.

01:18:01 ◼   ► Catalyst is a blessing to those developers

01:18:05 ◼   ► for the next several years, maybe the next 10 years,

01:18:07 ◼   ► hopefully giving them the flexibility and latitude

01:18:11 ◼   ► to move to this new future paradigm.

01:18:13 ◼   ► Say that Catalyst didn't exist,

01:18:15 ◼   ► and Apple just announced Swift UI a couple weeks ago.

01:18:19 ◼   ► No doubt people would be excited about it.

01:18:21 ◼   ► No doubt it would be as groundbreaking

01:18:24 ◼   ► and as kind of paradigm shifting as it seems to be,

01:18:28 ◼   ► but in the same thing, it's like,

01:18:30 ◼   ► well that's off in the future. Like well I can't what can it can't do anything

01:18:34 ◼   ► for me for the next couple of years and kind of like Swift by the time it's good

01:18:39 ◼   ► enough and by the time your user base is on OS that can support it some of the

01:18:43 ◼   ► newness has worn off and some of the excitement has worn off and what

01:18:45 ◼   ► catalyst does is it gives developers a bridge to that future and it gives the

01:18:53 ◼   ► Mac and the iPad more stable footing until that future arrives. No doubt if

01:18:59 ◼   ► If Apple could have waved a magic wand and say,

01:19:01 ◼   ► okay, any Swift app, you can run anywhere,

01:19:04 ◼   ► no catalyst needed, it just works,

01:19:06 ◼   ► that would have been ideal,

01:19:08 ◼   ► but that's not the world that they're in.

01:19:10 ◼   ► They needed something to get them there.

01:19:13 ◼   ► And while Swift UI is exciting,

01:19:14 ◼   ► and I genuinely think it is,

01:19:16 ◼   ► it's not here today for most people.

01:19:19 ◼   ► And so you have to have something to get to that future.

01:19:23 ◼   ► And I do wanna talk about the carbon and cocoa thing

01:19:25 ◼   ► in a minute, but I'm curious what y'all think about that.

01:19:28 ◼   ► Do you, am I thinking about that in a way that makes sense to the two of you?

01:19:31 ◼   ► Yeah, but I just think that like the introduction of Catholics to the world has been met with

01:19:39 ◼   ► too many stumbling blocks, which puts it at risk of maybe not getting to where it could

01:19:47 ◼   ► or should be, right?

01:19:48 ◼   ► So like they are, it was overshined at the keynote when it was actually introduced to

01:19:53 ◼   ► the world.

01:19:54 ◼   ► Apple have not done the best possible job at showing off what it can do, right?

01:19:59 ◼   ► So people have like a bad taste in their mouth about it because there is one app

01:20:03 ◼   ► that's pretty decent which is built now and then there's a bunch of kind of

01:20:08 ◼   ► non-updated apps from before which have a lot of weirdness in them. A lot of the

01:20:13 ◼   ► conversation that is occurring around the time of year when people should be

01:20:17 ◼   ► thinking about whether they want to actually make an app for this thing is

01:20:20 ◼   ► is pretty negative because of a lot of this stuff.

01:20:23 ◼   ► And nobody can try a catalyst app made by a third party developer yet because nobody's

01:20:29 ◼   ► finished him.

01:20:30 ◼   ► Right.

01:20:31 ◼   ► Right.

01:20:32 ◼   ► They're not done.

01:20:33 ◼   ► So like, we can't even sit here now and be like, Oh, but we tried this one.

01:20:35 ◼   ► And it's actually amazing and works just how you want.

01:20:38 ◼   ► Sure.

01:20:39 ◼   ► Because nobody's made it.

01:20:40 ◼   ► So like, my concern is that the general conversation is trending towards negative because of these

01:20:46 ◼   ► like confluence of bad events.

01:20:48 ◼   ► Well, to a degree, that's Apple's own secrecy working against them.

01:20:53 ◼   ► So take something like the new Reminders app, which is an AppKit app on Catalina.

01:20:59 ◼   ► Had Catalyst been ready a year ago when that Reminders work started, or had the Reminders

01:21:08 ◼   ► team been brought in to the Catalyst program and said, "Hey, we know you're working Reminders.

01:21:13 ◼   ► We'd love for it to be the flagship app using this technology.

01:21:17 ◼   ► we could have had a catalyst reminders app on Mac OS 1015. But we don't because either

01:21:23 ◼   ► it wasn't ready internally, or they didn't want to tell anybody, probably honestly, both.

01:21:28 ◼   ► And so you run into that and Apple sometimes, okay, there's this new thing over here, who's

01:21:32 ◼   ► using internally? Well, no one because no one knew about it. That was actually came

01:21:35 ◼   ► out a little bit and Jason's interview with the Swift UI guys on upgrade a couple weeks

01:21:39 ◼   ► ago. And so I would expect that whatever's after Mac OS Catalina, there will be I had

01:21:47 ◼   ► this in a predictions or somewhere that they would have something like messages or mail

01:21:53 ◼   ► be a catalyst app.

01:21:55 ◼   ► I think it's too early for that.

01:21:56 ◼   ► I agree with you.

01:21:57 ◼   ► I wish that they had like a really shining example.

01:21:59 ◼   ► I wish it had been reminders.

01:22:00 ◼   ► I think that would really gotten people's attention, but they're just not there yet.

01:22:04 ◼   ► And so this first year, I don't know if it's going to be the flood of iPad apps on the

01:22:09 ◼   ► Mac that I maybe thought it was going to be because it does seem like it's more work than

01:22:14 ◼   ► just checking a box and there's so much iOS stuff to do first like a lot of

01:22:18 ◼   ► developers say well I got to be ready for iOS 13 and once that's all done I'll

01:22:23 ◼   ► look at the Mac version so it may be a slower start but I don't know how much

01:22:28 ◼   ► of that is the fault of the negativity around it versus just how the how the

01:22:33 ◼   ► chips ended up landing right but then it's like a cause and effect type

01:22:37 ◼   ► situation right which is that that's kind of what I'm getting to we're deep

01:22:41 ◼   ► on the chicken and egg. Then if there's none this year, well what's the reason? And then what happens?

01:22:45 ◼   ► Like I still am optimistic that if there is an opportunity for a company to make money, then they

01:22:53 ◼   ► should look at that seriously. And that, you know, like if a developer feels like this is a good

01:22:59 ◼   ► option for them, then they will do it irrespective of what the community is saying, right? Like

01:23:06 ◼   ► because you would be silly not to give it a go, but it feels like it might start slowly.

01:23:13 ◼   ► But I remain optimistic because it seems like a wise business decision to at least try it.

01:23:21 ◼   ► Oh yeah, I think you're right about that.

01:23:23 ◼   ► And I hope that people will still put the effort into giving it a go because as an iPad first user,

01:23:32 ◼   ► I still remain very excited about the opportunity to have some applications, you know, some of the

01:23:37 ◼   ► ones like what Federico and John have mentioned, but you know, like for me, apps like Timery and

01:23:42 ◼   ► Calzones, which are like applications I use every day and would be fantastic on the Mac because they

01:23:49 ◼   ► the counterparts to them don't work very well. And I would love to see applications like that.

01:23:56 ◼   ► And yeah, they maybe are smaller applications. They maybe are like things that I'm not spending

01:24:00 ◼   ► in 600 hours a day in, but like I check in and out of.

01:24:03 ◼   ► But like, what's a calendar like?

01:24:05 ◼   ► That's what I do with calendars.

01:24:07 ◼   ► We don't call calendars utility apps. You know what I mean?

01:24:09 ◼   ► So I would like to see a lot of that type of stuff appearing.

01:24:14 ◼   ► But it's just a case of of waiting and seeing for for how it goes.

01:24:19 ◼   ► I get the impression there's some of the oh, the iPad isn't for real work

01:24:22 ◼   ► bleeding into this conversation. Yes. From other people.

01:24:24 ◼   ► Yes, I find that frustrating.

01:24:26 ◼   ► Like just because the iPad isn't up for your work doesn't mean that there's not good.

01:24:30 ◼   ► apps that could come over. It's difficult when you're when when I think it's just it's difficult

01:24:35 ◼   ► when your identity and way of life is challenged. And that's what this does. Yeah, I mean, the

01:24:41 ◼   ► people that are saying, oh, the Mac doesn't need help from the iPad, like you're just wrong. You're

01:24:45 ◼   ► just you're just wrong about that. Because the Mac is not Apple's most important platform. It's not

01:24:52 ◼   ► even Apple's second most important platform. I choose to see all this as like Apple wouldn't be

01:24:59 ◼   ► doing catalyst if it thought the Mac was dying? Because like, why would you spend the I'm sure

01:25:04 ◼   ► vast amount of resources to make all of this work? Why would you make Swift UI work on Mac OS,

01:25:11 ◼   ► if you didn't think Mac OS was going to be around? So like, I don't think it's a matter of,

01:25:16 ◼   ► oh, that the Mac is dying. And like this is Apple says, this is the only lifeboat. And I just don't

01:25:21 ◼   ► believe it. Like, I just think a lot of that is, is got some flawed logic in it. And, you know,

01:25:26 ◼   ► You know, the idea that the iPad is a toy and like we don't need those, you know, the

01:25:30 ◼   ► silly little apps on our big important computers, like just you're missing the bigger picture.

01:25:36 ◼   ► And if if those types of Mac users out there, and there are plenty of them.

01:25:41 ◼   ► But so if you look at the the ecosystem, the Mac exists in, there are still really good

01:25:46 ◼   ► Mac apps out there.

01:25:47 ◼   ► And yes, there are people still making independent like good app kit apps, but you can name them

01:25:52 ◼   ► on one hand.

01:25:54 ◼   ► that's even the iPad is a vastly larger ecosystem.

01:25:58 ◼   ► If you really love this platform,

01:26:00 ◼   ► why wouldn't you want access to those applications?

01:26:05 ◼   ► It really confuses me, that point of view.

01:26:09 ◼   ► Anyways, before we wrap this up,

01:26:11 ◼   ► I did wanna talk about carbon for a second.

01:26:13 ◼   ► - This is one of those situations where you're concerned,

01:26:17 ◼   ► you're alienating Mac users and they won't believe you

01:26:19 ◼   ► to be an authority anymore,

01:26:22 ◼   ► So you have to talk about some like ancient technology.

01:26:24 ◼   ► - That's right.

01:26:25 ◼   ► You're the TVOS guy.

01:26:27 ◼   ► - I'm the carbon guy. - We're talking about carbon.

01:26:29 ◼   ► Like I have a dog cow tattoo.

01:26:30 ◼   ► What more cred do I need?

01:26:31 ◼   ► But if you're, no, really I just wanted to explain this

01:26:34 ◼   ► because this argument has included like,

01:26:37 ◼   ► oh, it's like carbon or like cocoa.

01:26:39 ◼   ► And I'm not sure everyone,

01:26:41 ◼   ► most of our listeners weren't around for that.

01:26:43 ◼   ► And even if they were like, it's a complicated topic.

01:26:46 ◼   ► So I just kind of wanted to explain it

01:26:48 ◼   ► so as people have these debates online,

01:26:51 ◼   ► you know what this is about because there are some parallels between now and the carbon

01:26:56 ◼   ► deal, but it's not a perfect analogy.

01:26:58 ◼   ► And I think people who say it is, they're missing some points.

01:27:01 ◼   ► So anyways, just to promise I'll make this brief, as Federica and Myke slowly back away

01:27:06 ◼   ► from their microphones.

01:27:08 ◼   ► But when OS 10 came about, as obviously a new platform, because it was powered by next

01:27:15 ◼   ► technology, so not the classic Mac OS.

01:27:18 ◼   ► And the initial plan was to have sort of two environments in this new operating system.

01:27:26 ◼   ► It was called Rhapsody.

01:27:27 ◼   ► That was the code name Rhapsody was released as Mac OS X server 1.0.

01:27:32 ◼   ► Those details aren't important.

01:27:33 ◼   ► But the plan for a while was you can write new apps that work on the next technologies

01:27:41 ◼   ► that was AppKit.

01:27:43 ◼   ► But if you have a classic Mac OS app, so the whole library of Macintosh software up to

01:27:48 ◼   ► this point that was gonna have to run in this emulated environment if you want

01:27:53 ◼   ► the new features like protected memory and and preemptive multitasking the

01:27:58 ◼   ► things that made this new operating system good and secure if you want those

01:28:02 ◼   ► things you got to rewrite your app and so that's kind of like like today if

01:28:07 ◼   ► Apple was saying if you want to be on iOS 13 you have to rewrite and Swift UI

01:28:12 ◼   ► UI, people would freak out because you're you are requiring a ton of work.

01:28:19 ◼   ► And the payoff is not super obvious.

01:28:21 ◼   ► So that's where Apple was for a long time.

01:28:24 ◼   ► Those are called yellow box and blue box.

01:28:25 ◼   ► By the way, that the new was yellow box, the oldest blue box.

01:28:28 ◼   ► So I have a new shiny app, rent an app kit, or I have my old bus, the classic Mac OS app

01:28:34 ◼   ► running an emulator in a separate, like totally separate environment.

01:28:38 ◼   ► that wasn't going to work, because why would Adobe or Microsoft rewrite their app in this

01:28:44 ◼   ► weird Objective C language and put a bunch of money into it into a company and a platform

01:28:51 ◼   ► that literally was dying in the late 1990s. And basically everyone revolted. And so Apple

01:28:57 ◼   ► shifted gears, there was a technology called carbon. And carbon was a bridge. So I could

01:29:01 ◼   ► have my classic Mac OS app, I could tune it up, I could get rid of some really old API's

01:29:06 ◼   ► and clean it up a little bit. But then magically it would come like coming into its own on

01:29:12 ◼   ► Mac OS 10. Because carbon was native to Mac OS 10. So people are comparing that to catalyst,

01:29:18 ◼   ► I have this app on this other platform, I do some stuff to it, but not a rewrite, just

01:29:23 ◼   ► tidy it up. And boom, it runs on the Mac, the new Mac OS 10. Carbon was, in hindsight,

01:29:32 ◼   ► most important software decision of this timeframe because it allowed the library of Mac OS applications

01:29:39 ◼   ► to run on Mac OS 10. Mac OS 10 really struggled in the early days with native apps, it would

01:29:44 ◼   ► have been 100 times worse without carbon. So you can see why people talk about this,

01:29:48 ◼   ► right? Like, oh, a carbon is like catalyst and cocoa is like Swift UI, it's the future,

01:29:53 ◼   ► but we don't have to get there yet. So I see why people are using that analogy. So that's

01:29:57 ◼   ► kind of like the the heart of it. There are some differences, though. So like, we were

01:30:01 ◼   ► just talking about how there's not like a other than podcast, there's not a flagship catalyst app

01:30:07 ◼   ► on Mac OS Catalina. Well, to prove its metal Apple wrote finder in carbon, like they really

01:30:14 ◼   ► were committed to it in a way that we haven't seen. They did. They went big on that one.

01:30:18 ◼   ► You just go on the Yeah, you can't get any bigger on the Mac. And, and then later they rewrote it

01:30:24 ◼   ► in cocoa to like, Oh, and now it's time to finder was sort of this canary in the coal mine of like,

01:30:28 ◼   ► this is the API set you should be paying attention to.

01:30:32 ◼   ► So it is different, but fundamentally why it's different

01:30:36 ◼   ► is because AppKit is not doomed to extinction anytime soon.

01:30:41 ◼   ► And the classic Mac OS was.

01:30:44 ◼   ► The classic Mac, like, the reason Apple

01:30:46 ◼   ► was going out of business is 'cause the classic Mac OS

01:30:47 ◼   ► was so bad, and they had to move to something more modern,

01:30:52 ◼   ► and that's just not where Apple is today.

01:30:54 ◼   ► Apple is pitching a future where you can write an app

01:30:57 ◼   ► and it runs on all their platforms,

01:30:59 ◼   ► the system they have now is clearly successful.

01:31:03 ◼   ► Look how much money they have in the bank.

01:31:04 ◼   ► Look how many apps are in the app stores.

01:31:06 ◼   ► Look how many users they have.

01:31:07 ◼   ► They're coming to this from a position of strength.

01:31:11 ◼   ► We can complain about the Mac ecosystem

01:31:13 ◼   ► or the iPad ecosystem for that matter,

01:31:15 ◼   ► but they are still world stronger

01:31:18 ◼   ► than the classic Mac OS was.

01:31:20 ◼   ► So I think comparing the two isn't quite right,

01:31:24 ◼   ► but that's kind of what people are talking about.

01:31:26 ◼   ► - It's the closest comparison though.

01:31:28 ◼   ► - It is, it totally is.

01:31:29 ◼   ► And it really proves how good Apple is at this.

01:31:34 ◼   ► And I think that's missing in some of this conversation.

01:31:37 ◼   ► Like no company in technology is as good at transitions

01:31:41 ◼   ► as Apple is, full stop.

01:31:43 ◼   ► Look at, let's look at Windows.

01:31:45 ◼   ► They have tried, Microsoft has tried for years

01:31:48 ◼   ► to get rid of baggage,

01:31:50 ◼   ► to get rid of historical cruft in Windows.

01:31:53 ◼   ► They tried Windows RT, Windows on ARM,

01:31:55 ◼   ► And they can't shed it because their customer base demands that they run the same app they

01:31:59 ◼   ► wrote in 1996.

01:32:01 ◼   ► And Apple, for better or for worse, is willing to make those changes, but also willing to

01:32:06 ◼   ► bring their users and developers along.

01:32:08 ◼   ► It's never for free.

01:32:09 ◼   ► There's always work to do.

01:32:10 ◼   ► Look, carbonizing an app was work, catalyzing an app also work.

01:32:17 ◼   ► But if you do that work, you're rewarded by new features.

01:32:20 ◼   ► And eventually you're sort of in this utopia of everything works everywhere.

01:32:24 ◼   ► So that's kind of wanted to fill that out for people because I think people are throwing

01:32:27 ◼   ► those terms around and I think it's helpful to revisit that stuff on occasion.

01:32:32 ◼   ► But just make carbon worked is like the end of this like carbon made Mac OS 10 viable

01:32:39 ◼   ► and it got deprecated and mountain lion is finally all gone this year because 32 bit

01:32:44 ◼   ► stuff is going away.

01:32:46 ◼   ► Carbon lasted like almost 20 years, right?

01:32:49 ◼   ► Like it was ever really over 20 years.

01:32:53 ◼   ► I don't think catalyst will be that long.

01:32:55 ◼   ► But writing off catalyst today is as short-sighted

01:32:58 ◼   ► as writing off carbon in 1998 or 1999.

01:33:02 ◼   ► I'm like, oh, that's never gonna work.

01:33:05 ◼   ► You just gotta write AppKit apps

01:33:06 ◼   ► and go native on the next step stuff.

01:33:09 ◼   ► That was short-sighted because it didn't value

01:33:11 ◼   ► the time in the middle of the transition.

01:33:14 ◼   ► And I think that's what people are doing now.

01:33:16 ◼   ► This is an important step forward

01:33:19 ◼   ► for the Mac and for the iPad.

01:33:21 ◼   ► And writing it off because you don't understand it,

01:33:23 ◼   ► or the apps that you use are already on the Mac,

01:33:26 ◼   ► that's just looking at your angle of it.

01:33:28 ◼   ► But you get the big picture.

01:33:29 ◼   ► This is important for Apple because it's important for them

01:33:31 ◼   ► to unify their platforms.

01:33:33 ◼   ► And this is just step one of 12 of that, just like Carbon was.

01:33:37 ◼   ► Maybe it's better to say unifying the app platform.

01:33:41 ◼   ► Yes.

01:33:41 ◼   ► Or the app store platform than the platform itself.

01:33:44 ◼   ► Yes.

01:33:45 ◼   ► They are not moving-- I mean, they had that big slide, right,

01:33:47 ◼   ► saying we're not combining Mac OS and iOS.

01:33:49 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:33:50 ◼   ► They didn't say yet, but the yet was hanging there.

01:33:52 ◼   ► Like, I don't care what anyone says.

01:33:54 ◼   ► It's a yet.

01:33:54 ◼   ► It's not a never.

01:33:55 ◼   ► But to a degree, if you combine the app platform,

01:34:00 ◼   ► the question is sort of moot.

01:34:03 ◼   ► Right, but at a certain point, you've

01:34:05 ◼   ► got to assume that the Mac just gets smaller and smaller

01:34:08 ◼   ► and smaller as we go into the future.

01:34:10 ◼   ► And then how much do you-- uh-oh, I shouldn't do--

01:34:13 ◼   ► I probably shouldn't be having this conversation.

01:34:15 ◼   ► Let's pretend I never said that, and we'll just move on.

01:34:19 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:34:19 ◼   ► OK.

01:34:19 ◼   ► What is in the show?

01:34:20 ◼   ► We'll just walk away.

01:34:22 ◼   ► If you want to find links to stuff we spoke about this week,

01:34:25 ◼   ► head over to the website relay.fm/connected/249.

01:34:30 ◼   ► While you're there, you can get in touch.

01:34:31 ◼   ► There's an email link in the sidebar.

01:34:34 ◼   ► You can email us about your favorite story

01:34:36 ◼   ► from the carbon days.

01:34:37 ◼   ► I will read those.

01:34:37 ◼   ► It'll be great.

01:34:38 ◼   ► If you want to leave us feedback on Twitter,

01:34:41 ◼   ► you can do that as well.

01:34:43 ◼   ► You can find Myke there as imyke, I-M-Y-K-E.

01:34:47 ◼   ► Myke, of course, is the host of a bunch of shows here at relay FM.

01:34:51 ◼   ► So go, go check those out.

01:34:52 ◼   ► You can find Federico on Twitter as Viti, V I T I C C I, and you can, uh, follow

01:34:59 ◼   ► his work@maxstories.net where they're writing about Mac apps all of a sudden.

01:35:04 ◼   ► It's a, it's a crazy world over there.

01:35:05 ◼   ► You can find me on Twitter as ISMH and I write five 12 pixels.net.

01:35:09 ◼   ► I think our sponsors this week, they are KiwiCo Squarespace and Pingdom.

01:35:14 ◼   ► Without them, the show would not be possible.

01:35:16 ◼   ► And until next week gentlemen, say goodbye.

01:35:19 ◼   ► - Cheerio.

01:35:20 ◼   ► - Adios. - Adios.