Connected

00:00:00 ◼   ► (upbeat music)

00:00:02 ◼   ► - Hello and welcome to Connected, episode 228.

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

00:00:14 ◼   ► Luna Display, Draughts, and Squarespace.

00:00:17 ◼   ► I'm your host, Steven Hackett,

00:00:18 ◼   ► and I am joined by Mr. Federico Vittucci.

00:00:21 ◼   ► - Hello, Steven, how are you?

00:00:23 ◼   ► - I'm good, how are you?

00:00:24 ◼   ► - I'm running a bit of a fever, but I'm fine.

00:00:27 ◼   ► I'm a... first time I do a feverish podcast, I think.

00:00:31 ◼   ► Actually, not the first time. Back in the prompt days, I did an episode where I had

00:00:36 ◼   ► really a high fever, but today I'm actually doing pretty okay compared to that time.

00:00:41 ◼   ► So yeah, I will manage.

00:00:43 ◼   ► If I disappear at some point, it's because I died. No, I'm kidding. I'll be okay.

00:00:49 ◼   ► I'm gonna drop a clip of that show in right here.

00:00:51 ◼   ► No, no! Oh, God.

00:00:53 ◼   ► [Music]

00:00:56 ◼   ► I'm almost sweaty and sore and I just, you know, I drank some milk.

00:01:03 ◼   ► And Myke Hurley's here as well.

00:01:05 ◼   ► Every episode is like a fever dream to me, and here I am.

00:01:09 ◼   ► It's good, it's good.

00:01:10 ◼   ► Fever dreams are wild.

00:01:15 ◼   ► So we're back.

00:01:16 ◼   ► There's a lot to talk about.

00:01:17 ◼   ► You know, sometimes January is slow, and that is not the case this year.

00:01:22 ◼   ► This week has been a month.

00:01:24 ◼   ► It's been a real big one.

00:01:26 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:01:27 ◼   ► It really feels that way.

00:01:28 ◼   ► But before we get to all that, we have some follow up.

00:01:31 ◼   ► And my only question really is, Myke, are you still using your iPad screen protector?

00:01:35 ◼   ► Yes.

00:01:36 ◼   ► Oh my god, why?

00:01:40 ◼   ► Basically, my opinion has remained mostly unchanged from last week.

00:01:44 ◼   ► It's like, it does feel nice to use.

00:01:48 ◼   ► I do still can very much see that it's on there.

00:01:51 ◼   ► But the Apple Pencil does feel nicer on it.

00:01:53 ◼   ► So I feel like my opinion remains exactly the same, so it's not come off yet.

00:02:00 ◼   ► Because I haven't had any realizations in either direction.

00:02:06 ◼   ► So it might be sticking around, I don't know, it might be sticking around.

00:02:08 ◼   ► Would you consider an artist, Myke, yourself at this point?

00:02:14 ◼   ► Given that you're using paper and... okay.

00:02:16 ◼   ► I'm using paper and fountain pens right now.

00:02:19 ◼   ► Mm-hmm.

00:02:20 ◼   ► So, you know, I'm fancy.

00:02:23 ◼   ► Very fancy.

00:02:24 ◼   ► We'll continue to check in over the next few weeks.

00:02:29 ◼   ► I really don't think you will come to WWDC with the Paperlike on your iPad.

00:02:34 ◼   ► But well, you won't see it because I won't bring that one.

00:02:37 ◼   ► Well, that's cheating then.

00:02:39 ◼   ► But to be honest, if I keep if I keep it on the 12/9

00:02:43 ◼   ► until June, I probably would have got it for my 11 by then.

00:02:47 ◼   ► Right. As the official adjudicator of this controversy,

00:02:51 ◼   ► I should be able to check whether you have the Paperlike installed or not.

00:02:54 ◼   ► Well, you'll probably come to my home anyway, so even if I don't have it on the 11, but

00:02:59 ◼   ► I say I'm keeping it on the 12, then you'll be able to see it.

00:03:01 ◼   ► You can verify it.

00:03:02 ◼   ► Okay, we'll live stream the results.

00:03:05 ◼   ► Please do.

00:03:08 ◼   ► This is definitely something nobody will remember.

00:03:11 ◼   ► Oh boy, we've been speaking about rumors of new iPads and everyone's friend Steve Trout

00:03:18 ◼   ► Smith has found evidence in iOS 12.2 of four new iPads, two Wi-Fi and two cellular.

00:03:28 ◼   ► They don't seem to have face ID.

00:03:31 ◼   ► And there's also evidence of an iPod touch with no touch ID and no face ID.

00:03:35 ◼   ► So I don't know what's going on with the iPod touch.

00:03:38 ◼   ► But these things, I think I'm a believer.

00:03:40 ◼   ► I think we're going to see new iPads and iPod touches here pretty soon.

00:03:43 ◼   ► The iPod touch bothers me.

00:03:45 ◼   ► Why?

00:03:46 ◼   ► Don't rain on the parade.

00:03:47 ◼   ► It just seems weird.

00:03:48 ◼   ► seems so weird. Like unless it looks like a iPhone 10, then I just don't understand

00:03:56 ◼   ► why they're doing it now. Right. Like it just seems so strange to me.

00:04:00 ◼   ► It's like a notch, but with no face ID. That'd be that'd be exciting.

00:04:04 ◼   ► But like, oh, yeah, that's a good point. But like, it just if you use it, then great. Like

00:04:11 ◼   ► more power to you. And I'm sure this is going to be great for you. And I even kind of feel

00:04:14 ◼   ► this way with the iPad mini to a part as well, but I just don't understand why you would

00:04:20 ◼   ► leave a product around for so long unchanged and then change it a little bit, right? Because

00:04:26 ◼   ► let's be real, that iPod touch is most likely just going to get a processor update or whatever,

00:04:32 ◼   ► and then it's kind of just like I don't understand why this product still exists. How many are

00:04:35 ◼   ► you really selling? It just seems really strange to me. I don't know. I don't know. I don't

00:04:41 ◼   ► get it.

00:04:42 ◼   ► So what you're saying is you're not going to pre-order iPod Touch?

00:04:46 ◼   ► It is unlikely. I would consider that to be quite unlikely.

00:04:50 ◼   ► If you did, would you put a screen protector on it?

00:04:52 ◼   ► No.

00:04:53 ◼   ► Well, not into screen protectors for screen protector's sake, you know. There isn't one

00:04:58 ◼   ► going on my iPhone. It's all to do with the Apple Pencil. That's what it's all to do with.

00:05:03 ◼   ► What if this iPod Touch upgrade is just like one of those things that Apple does? It's

00:05:07 ◼   ► like a price change and some minor component change and maybe it's like $20 more expensive.

00:05:14 ◼   ► Like it's not a new iPod touch, it's just a minor spec bump.

00:05:18 ◼   ► But that's my point though, like I just don't get why you would leave it for so long and

00:05:23 ◼   ► then do so little. Right? When was the last update on the iPod touch?

00:05:29 ◼   ► It was a couple of years ago when I bought it last summer, you remember? And then I forgot

00:05:36 ◼   ► that I had one. It was July of 2015 and it was upgraded then to include the Apple A8

00:05:48 ◼   ► processor. So like that's in the HomePod. This is my question or it's just like if

00:05:54 ◼   ► you leave it for four years untouched I just it's just seems strange. It went three years before that.

00:06:05 ◼   ► I mean the touch is on a slow refresh cycle at this point.

00:06:08 ◼   ► All right, so what if it's a 10R without the phone part,

00:06:16 ◼   ► without, you know, maybe slightly worse cameras and Apple keeps saying this is a game console?

00:06:22 ◼   ► I mean, I think so that's what I'm saying.

00:06:25 ◼   ► Like, I would have no problem.

00:06:28 ◼   ► I don't like have a big problem.

00:06:30 ◼   ► Like, it's just like, I'm just like wondering about it, right?

00:06:32 ◼   ► But like, if they made some visual design change, like how do you change the hardware,

00:06:36 ◼   ► like it's a new product, I would be like, okay, fine, right? Like, but there's something about

00:06:43 ◼   ► like, if they're all they do is they just open it up, they put a chip in, they close it up again,

00:06:47 ◼   ► and keep selling the exact same product. It just seems weird to me, where it's like,

00:06:52 ◼   ► why would you leave? Why? If it's important enough for you to change it at all,

00:06:57 ◼   ► why do you leave it for years between revisions?

00:07:01 ◼   ► Maybe part of it is price that if they say they put an A9 in this thing or maybe even an A10,

00:07:07 ◼   ► the prices come down on those chips at this point where they can do that and still sell this thing

00:07:12 ◼   ► for whatever it is, $249. Right. Right. But I just wonder how many they're selling. It's so funny to

00:07:23 ◼   ► me the the uh the iPod touch web page on apple.com it's like a time machine yeah yeah well the it's

00:07:29 ◼   ► if you go to apple.com slash shop blah blah blah by iPod touch it is the old store design

00:07:36 ◼   ► oh my god yeah that's incredible that that'll be in the show notes what what what how how is that

00:07:45 ◼   ► yeah also i want to correct myself it starts at 199 for the 32 gig so it is i mean it's cheap and

00:07:52 ◼   ► So my thought on this is that if they do this, they've got to keep it at this low price point.

00:07:59 ◼   ► That necessitates some things like no face ID. And according to what Steve has found,

00:08:04 ◼   ► no touch ID either. It doesn't have touch ID now, just a regular old home button. So

00:08:09 ◼   ► maybe all they do is, like you said, crack it open and just put another CPU in it,

00:08:13 ◼   ► which I think is all it takes really. Just like slip it in in the air gap and shut it real quick

00:08:16 ◼   ► so it can't get out. Yeah, it's probably getting any dust in there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Do it quick.

00:08:21 ◼   ► quick.

00:08:22 ◼   ► Sure, look, if they're gonna do it, then do it. I wonder about the decisions that get

00:08:28 ◼   ► made that lead to something like this, and it just seems really strange to me. I do wonder

00:08:33 ◼   ► as well, again, for a large audience of people, do you need both the iPod Touch and the iPad

00:08:40 ◼   ► Mini? Is there not close enough overlap between those two products at this point?

00:08:46 ◼   ► Yes there is some. I just figured that the iPod touch is for toddlers and the iPad mini

00:08:51 ◼   ► is for kids aged 6 and up. Something like that.

00:08:55 ◼   ► Paired same with Federigo.

00:08:57 ◼   ► It's...

00:08:58 ◼   ► That's how it works, right?

00:08:59 ◼   ► No, I'm sure that like, this is something that people do, but like, that can't be why

00:09:05 ◼   ► these products exist though, right?

00:09:07 ◼   ► Maybe then it just, I don't know, why do you think they exist?

00:09:13 ◼   ► So it currently fills a line on a spreadsheet, like, let's look at our pricing options across

00:09:20 ◼   ► the...

00:09:21 ◼   ► Well, there you go, that's a good enough explanation to me.

00:09:22 ◼   ► But, but like...

00:09:23 ◼   ► It's not an ideal situation, but...

00:09:27 ◼   ► It's also the only iOS device that sits with a headphone jack, so it has that going for

00:09:32 ◼   ► it if you're into that.

00:09:33 ◼   ► I don't think that's a priority.

00:09:34 ◼   ► I don't think that's...

00:09:35 ◼   ► It is for some websites.

00:09:37 ◼   ► Right, so then it's like, then like, that's when I start to think, like, this is strange,

00:09:42 ◼   ► right, that like Apple would ship a new product that has both a headphone jack and a home

00:09:45 ◼   ► button.

00:09:47 ◼   ► And it's just like, it seems really weird, right?

00:09:51 ◼   ► It is weird, but I mean, you know, if the price point's important to them, then they've

00:09:57 ◼   ► got to do this sort of thing.

00:09:59 ◼   ► You know, I do wonder, we're not going to really talk about it, I don't think.

00:10:04 ◼   ► Y'all talked to, y'all did a really good section on this on upgrade this week.

00:10:06 ◼   ► I'll point people there.

00:10:07 ◼   ► Like this rumor that Apple's gonna do a game streaming service of some sort, like, who

00:10:13 ◼   ► knows.

00:10:14 ◼   ► But, maybe this is the way into that.

00:10:18 ◼   ► Maybe they really rebuilt this thing.

00:10:19 ◼   ► It's not gonna be powerful enough for most of the good games that they would want to

00:10:22 ◼   ► be talking about.

00:10:24 ◼   ► Probably not if it's $1.99, but if it's $2.99 and you could put A11 in it, maybe it is.

00:10:29 ◼   ► But then who's buying, like, but then at that price, with those specs, there's probably

00:10:34 ◼   ► a better product closer. Which is then an iPad, right? Of some description. Which would

00:10:40 ◼   ► be better for games anyway. Maybe the iPod touch is just the new expensive

00:10:45 ◼   ► Siri remote. It works better than the Siri remote.

00:10:50 ◼   ► Maybe that's what it actually does. With 12.2, I guess it will work and it's

00:10:54 ◼   ► got about as many useful buttons on it as the Siri remote does. Bigger touchscreen area.

00:10:59 ◼   ► Yeah, let's go for it. So we'll all just buy them for... It's like how we all buy Mac

00:11:04 ◼   ► minis for home servers will buy iPod touches for Apple TV remotes.

00:11:08 ◼   ► That's right. I have some real-time follow-up that the 9.7 inch iPad and the iPad mini you

00:11:14 ◼   ► can still buy still comes with the headphone jack. So I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

00:11:19 ◼   ► Right, but it's new products, right?

00:11:22 ◼   ► New products, yeah.

00:11:23 ◼   ► Because when the 9.7 inch was released, you could still buy iPhones with headphone jacks

00:11:29 ◼   ► on them.

00:11:30 ◼   ► Who knows? I just find it interesting because this is a product that clearly the three of

00:11:35 ◼   ► us at least are struggling with to kind of put in the world. And so I think Apple, like

00:11:42 ◼   ► they could just update it and whatever, do it with a press release. But if they tell

00:11:46 ◼   ► a story around it, I'll be really interested to see what that is. I want to know what Apple

00:11:50 ◼   ► thinks, who Apple thinks this device is for. That's an interesting question to me.

00:11:54 ◼   ► I straight up don't think you're going to get an answer out of them.

00:11:58 ◼   ► You don't think they're gonna like seed it to cool YouTubers and they're like, that's

00:12:02 ◼   ► probably not gonna happen is it?

00:12:04 ◼   ► No, no.

00:12:05 ◼   ► I don't think it would.

00:12:06 ◼   ► Right?

00:12:07 ◼   ► Like, I honestly I feel like it will probably just make some slight revisions to this very

00:12:13 ◼   ► very out of date page and then just like that's it.

00:12:16 ◼   ► Unless they do some kind of big visual design which as much as I would want them to do if

00:12:20 ◼   ► they're gonna make a new product like this, I doubt is gonna happen.

00:12:25 ◼   ► So moving on, the year of Steven has suffered a blow.

00:12:35 ◼   ► You had like the half of an episode of Steven, that was all you got, and then we're back

00:12:40 ◼   ► here again because your good friend Jonny with an H, Jonny Srouji, is reportedly staying

00:12:46 ◼   ► at Apple now, and he's not in the running for the Intel CEO position.

00:12:51 ◼   ► It's poor Johnny. I hope that that got him like a pay rise, you know, like the the

00:12:55 ◼   ► Rumor of him leaving Timmy brought him in and gave him a pay bump and he's like, haha

00:13:00 ◼   ► I was gonna do anything in the first place and it's all down to you Steven. You did this.

00:13:04 ◼   ► Steamy Johnny.

00:13:05 ◼   ► He's upset with our coverage of this and he heard the episode said screw that guy. I'm staying.

00:13:10 ◼   ► Sure, you can believe that.

00:13:12 ◼   ► He really doesn't want you to win the predictions.

00:13:14 ◼   ► Avid connected listener Johnny Srouji didn't want Steven to win. His hobby, besides making

00:13:23 ◼   ► chips is participating in connected.

00:13:26 ◼   ► He dislikes you so much he doesn't even want you to get the ungraded points.

00:13:30 ◼   ► I was gonna say, jokes on him, it's not even graded.

00:13:32 ◼   ► He doesn't even want you to have bragging rights.

00:13:36 ◼   ► Nothing. He doesn't want you to have a thing.

00:13:40 ◼   ► So, you spoke last time about reading and you asked the audience for suggestions and

00:13:46 ◼   ► like I saw like the email account and Twitter account, lots of suggestions.

00:13:49 ◼   ► So what is going on in the #TechieBookClub?

00:13:52 ◼   ► Okay, so first of all, thank you everyone who sent and is still sending book suggestions

00:13:57 ◼   ► on Twitter.

00:13:58 ◼   ► I'm saving the most interesting ones.

00:14:01 ◼   ► The recommendations so far have been really, really great, but something happened with

00:14:06 ◼   ► one specific recommendation that triggered something in me that I hadn't felt in several

00:14:12 ◼   ► years.

00:14:13 ◼   ► So, I'm gonna give you the summary of what happened first, then I wanna share some details.

00:14:20 ◼   ► I started reading a book last week and I'm now at iBooks, or Books, the app, says that

00:14:28 ◼   ► I'm 70% into this book.

00:14:31 ◼   ► So I think I'm gonna finish it between tonight or tomorrow.

00:14:35 ◼   ► So the book is called "Red Rising" by Pierce Brown. This recommendation came from listener

00:14:42 ◼   ► and Maxories reader, he says, Andras, I hope I'm pronouncing that correctly, and it was

00:14:50 ◼   ► the perfect recommendation for me. I'm just quoting a few, he sent me a very nice email,

00:14:55 ◼   ► I'm just quoting a few parts. Andras wrote "You said you love fiction like Harry Potter

00:15:01 ◼   ► and Lot of the Rings and were looking forward to get yourself into sci-fi a little more

00:15:05 ◼   ► but not too deeply. So that was key. I think I have the perfect recommendation for you,

00:15:09 ◼   ► and that's Pierce Brown's Red Rising books. So this is a whole series.

00:15:13 ◼   ► It's a whole series. There's, I think, three books already out, and one of them, the fourth one,

00:15:19 ◼   ► is coming out in 2019. What convinced me, besides the fact that he said it's like Harry Potter and

00:15:28 ◼   ► and Lord of the Rings, and sci-fi, but just not too deeply.

00:15:32 ◼   ► He wrote that even though I only have time to read while commuting,

00:15:37 ◼   ► I read the whole three available,

00:15:40 ◼   ► the series of three available books very quickly. So a busy person who got hooked on these books,

00:15:47 ◼   ► despite the fact that he has a job and cannot read during the commute,

00:15:50 ◼   ► Harry Potter style mixed with sci-fi, I mean. So I started reading and I was hooked in the first chapter.

00:15:58 ◼   ► Basically, it's the story of this...

00:16:02 ◼   ► It looks like there's five books.

00:16:04 ◼   ► Oh, five? Okay.

00:16:05 ◼   ► So...

00:16:05 ◼   ► Yeah, there's four out now, the fifth comes out in July.

00:16:08 ◼   ► The idea would be that it's set in the distant future,

00:16:11 ◼   ► I think the year 2700 or something.

00:16:14 ◼   ► Space has been colonized,

00:16:18 ◼   ► and Earth has fallen to these colonies.

00:16:23 ◼   ► There's a group of people leading this new space society called "The Society"

00:16:29 ◼   ► and the society has created various colonies on Mars and the Moon and I think Mercury even

00:16:36 ◼   ► and there's a hierarchy to the society and the protagonist is a slave.

00:16:43 ◼   ► Basically all the people are organized by colors so there's the reds and the blues and the greens

00:16:50 ◼   ► and the leading races are the golds.

00:16:53 ◼   ► And this is the story of this, I don't want to spoil it, but this is basically in the first,

00:16:57 ◼   ► not even the first half of the book, this person, this protagonist, who is setting up to

00:17:04 ◼   ► overthrow the society. That would be the basic story. And what I love about this book is that

00:17:09 ◼   ► it's not, when I say Harry Potter style, it's not that it's got magic, of course we have

00:17:17 ◼   ► crazy futuristic technology and all kinds of things that don't exist, but it's the pace of

00:17:25 ◼   ► the narration and the setting. So you have a young teenager as the main character and then you have

00:17:32 ◼   ► a school setting, so you get to know the protagonist in a school environment with schoolmates and

00:17:39 ◼   ► relationships between people who go to this school. It's very, very easy to read, very well done.

00:17:48 ◼   ► And I just keep thinking about the book when I'm not reading the book. All I want to do is read

00:17:58 ◼   ► this book. So I've stopped watching my TV shows, I've stopped playing video games because I just

00:18:03 ◼   ► want to finish the first book, and I cannot wait to see how it ends and I want to start on the

00:18:08 ◼   ► the second one. And I want to specify how I hadn't felt this way in years, like, basically

00:18:15 ◼   ► since the last Harry Potter book came out. So thank you Andras. Excellent recommendation.

00:18:23 ◼   ► Sounds like it's primed to be turned into a TV show or a movie.

00:18:26 ◼   ► I think the rights to the movie were actually sold to Sony a few years ago and the movie

00:18:31 ◼   ► is still in the works. Maybe that's what Wikipedia says at least.

00:18:36 ◼   ► author Pierce Brown is very handsome too. I'm very young. I looked on his Amazon page.

00:18:41 ◼   ► So if that is of concern to you, you now know that it was written by a handsome individual.

00:18:48 ◼   ► That is my official input on your book. I find the author handsome. Moving on.

00:18:54 ◼   ► Alright, I ordered a copy. I put it on my Kindle, so I'm gonna check that out. This

00:19:00 ◼   ► week marks the ninth birthday of the iPad, nine years since that keynote. We're not gonna

00:19:05 ◼   ► that today because nine years is a silly year to do that. We'll do that next year if we want.

00:19:10 ◼   ► But I do want to point people to connected episode 24 where we walked through that. We

00:19:18 ◼   ► walked through that keynote that was back in 2015. Solid episode. I listened to part of it the other

00:19:24 ◼   ► day and I think it holds up. So that keynote is really pretty outstanding. It's not iPhone level.

00:19:32 ◼   ► I don't think anything is iPhone level, but it's definitely got its own feeling that I

00:19:37 ◼   ► think is good.

00:19:39 ◼   ► And I had put that in the show notes and then I went to Twitter and Neil Aptel, the editor

00:19:45 ◼   ► chief of The Verge, tweeted that nine years ago today I published the first images of

00:19:50 ◼   ► an iPad before it was ever announced.

00:19:52 ◼   ► And I had totally forgotten about this.

00:19:55 ◼   ► But I remember those images.

00:19:56 ◼   ► I remember when it happened and I remembered how months later everybody figured out how

00:20:04 ◼   ► in the same pictures there was a hidden iPhone 4.

00:20:09 ◼   ► And we didn't notice at the time but it was there along with the first iPad.

00:20:15 ◼   ► It was right there in a corner of the pictures.

00:20:19 ◼   ► Totally nailed it, including running the Maps application.

00:20:23 ◼   ► This was a huge leak.

00:20:25 ◼   ► I remember people just freaking out.

00:20:27 ◼   ► So it was fun to--

00:20:29 ◼   ► Oh, yeah, look at that iPhone.

00:20:30 ◼   ► Ha, that's hilarious.

00:20:32 ◼   ► He's just sitting there on the table.

00:20:34 ◼   ► Yeah, just plugged right in.

00:20:35 ◼   ► That's brilliant.

00:20:36 ◼   ► God, that iPhone 4 had a wild life.

00:20:38 ◼   ► It sure did.

00:20:40 ◼   ► All right, tiny topic number two.

00:20:44 ◼   ► The most important thing.

00:20:45 ◼   ► This is the most important thing we're talking about today.

00:20:47 ◼   ► Yeah, we could just end the show after this.

00:20:49 ◼   ► This should be a large topic, not a tiny topic.

00:20:53 ◼   ► This is a massive topic.

00:20:55 ◼   ► This is a sizable topic.

00:20:57 ◼   ► I would say.

00:20:57 ◼   ► Apple this morning announced that Apple music subscribers can now stream from

00:21:04 ◼   ► Apple music on flights with American airlines that are equipped with wifi.

00:21:09 ◼   ► So I'm sure a lot of people are familiar, but if you're not a lot of airplanes

00:21:14 ◼   ► have wireless, but you got to pay for it.

00:21:15 ◼   ► Right?

00:21:15 ◼   ► So it's like, whatever it is, 10 bucks and you get to use wireless on the flight.

00:21:19 ◼   ► I, for one, I'm usually a sucker for this because usually I have work to do.

00:21:23 ◼   ► Not everyone wants to pay for it or can afford it, but it's there as an option for some.

00:21:28 ◼   ► And now you can use that and basically Apple Music is free over that wireless.

00:21:35 ◼   ► If you sign up while you're on an airplane, which is like, let's just take pause for a

00:21:39 ◼   ► second.

00:21:40 ◼   ► I don't know who is like subscribing to new music services while on an airplane.

00:21:43 ◼   ► Like because it was free, you decided to sign up.

00:21:47 ◼   ► I don't.

00:21:48 ◼   ► I do it all the time.

00:21:49 ◼   ► I go on flights just to sign up for free stuff.

00:21:52 ◼   ► I tried Tidal last time I went to Chicago, but... just kidding.

00:21:59 ◼   ► This is where if Myke was editing there'd be cricket sounds, but I'm not gonna do that

00:22:02 ◼   ► to myself.

00:22:03 ◼   ► Oh, you should.

00:22:05 ◼   ► If you were an impartial editor you would.

00:22:07 ◼   ► Yep.

00:22:08 ◼   ► But he's not.

00:22:09 ◼   ► My integrity's been called into question.

00:22:11 ◼   ► It's about ethics in podcast editing, Steven.

00:22:14 ◼   ► Do what you will, the listeners will judge.

00:22:17 ◼   ► I'm just saying.

00:22:18 ◼   ► (crickets chirping)

00:22:21 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:22:23 ◼   ► The most amazing part of this press release though

00:22:25 ◼   ► is the artwork.

00:22:27 ◼   ► This is drawn like the,

00:22:30 ◼   ► this is how you get out of the airplane

00:22:31 ◼   ► if it's on fire artwork that you are supposed to read

00:22:33 ◼   ► but no one does.

00:22:34 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:22:36 ◼   ► - It's so good. - It's amazing.

00:22:37 ◼   ► - This guy, he's just, he's choosing his music

00:22:41 ◼   ► and then he's enjoying it more than anybody's ever enjoyed

00:22:44 ◼   ► music on an airplane.

00:22:46 ◼   ► It's so good, out of context, they're so good.

00:22:49 ◼   ► We had a back and forth today between all of us on Twitter.

00:22:53 ◼   ► It was hilarious.

00:22:54 ◼   ► I will put a link in there.

00:22:55 ◼   ► I thought it was hilarious.

00:22:56 ◼   ► Where we just were assuming what that guy was listening to.

00:22:59 ◼   ► And this is why it has completely taken over

00:23:02 ◼   ► our brains today.

00:23:04 ◼   ► All I can think about is this guy.

00:23:06 ◼   ► I've downloaded the artwork,

00:23:07 ◼   ► so I'll have it on my computer forever.

00:23:09 ◼   ► It's just, the artwork is really funny.

00:23:12 ◼   ► Like it's just funny.

00:23:14 ◼   ► I also, like I was saying to Steven earlier, I don't understand why they did it.

00:23:19 ◼   ► This is way too much work from an artistic perspective than is required for this press

00:23:25 ◼   ► release.

00:23:26 ◼   ► In a photo of an Apple, just Apple Music, like any Apple Music image that they have

00:23:31 ◼   ► on a hard drive somewhere that they use for any press release would do, it did not require

00:23:35 ◼   ► this level of art direction, but I love so much that they bothered to do it, because

00:23:40 ◼   ► it's hilarious.

00:23:41 ◼   ► theory is that if you scroll the press release and you go all the way to the bottom you will

00:23:47 ◼   ► see that the press contact for Apple is Brian Bumbury. And my theory is that Brian in his

00:23:53 ◼   ► free time likes to draw. So what you see, the guy is actually Brian. This is him. It's

00:24:01 ◼   ► a self-portrait. It's like, he really enjoys it. This is what Brian does on the Apple paid

00:24:08 ◼   ► for flights to Chicago or whatever on American Airlines. This is Brian. This is what he does.

00:24:16 ◼   ► So thank you Brian for the artwork and the excellent press release. Really good job.

00:24:22 ◼   ► You should pursue your career as an artist also.

00:24:25 ◼   ► It's so meme-worthy. Like, just, it's, I love it so much.

00:24:30 ◼   ► It's really good. It's the show art this week. Go look at your podcast player.

00:24:37 ◼   ► I'm honestly considering that we just rebrand the entire show and it's just all based around this this airplane guy

00:24:42 ◼   ► Brian's the name is Brian

00:24:45 ◼   ► right

00:24:47 ◼   ► We've got a lot more to talk about this week

00:24:49 ◼   ► But first I want to tell you about our first sponsor and if you have a Mac or an iPad

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00:26:42 ◼   ► So we've got a couple of things that I want to talk about today

00:26:46 ◼   ► with the biggest caveats of like they are really complicated and

00:26:52 ◼   ► They are still developing stories

00:26:54 ◼   ► But we cannot let this week's episode go by without talking about them. And the first one is the FaceTime issue

00:27:02 ◼   ► So as a very quick recap a couple of days ago

00:27:06 ◼   ► This was this was a Monday, right? I think it was on Monday

00:27:11 ◼   ► That sounds about right

00:27:14 ◼   ► Basically some

00:27:17 ◼   ► News has started to appear in certain outlets having been picked up from social media and reddit and places like that

00:27:23 ◼   ► That it was possible if you performed a series of steps to be able to call somebody on FaceTime

00:27:31 ◼   ► and if you added your own number to the phone call quickly it would

00:27:35 ◼   ► Consider that the call was failed on the recipients end but would open their microphone

00:27:41 ◼   ► So you could listen in to them and if you again press the series of buttons

00:27:46 ◼   ► I think it's like the volume buttons, you could for somehow turn on their microphone.

00:27:50 ◼   ► It's like the weirdest, strangest bug that somehow related in a pretty severe

00:27:59 ◼   ► privacy situation, funnily enough on Data Privacy Awareness Day, as our good old friend

00:28:09 ◼   ► Mr Cook tweeted, and then like an hour later this FaceTime bug started to appear.

00:28:15 ◼   ► Apple did the best thing they could have done in this situation was to on the server side

00:28:20 ◼   ► disable group FaceTime. This is only affected on group FaceTime calls. If it's one on one,

00:28:26 ◼   ► you can't add somebody to a call so you can't activate the microphone. And Apple released

00:28:31 ◼   ► a statement to say that they will have a fix out within the coming days to fix this. That doesn't

00:28:37 ◼   ► surprise me because honestly, this feels like a very serious bug that I'm sure is going to take

00:28:44 ◼   ► a ton of testing and work to fix. You know, I can see a lot of people being like, "This

00:28:48 ◼   ► is unacceptable, this amount of time." But I mean, I don't know enough about software

00:28:53 ◼   ► development, but I can only assume that a situation like this, you cannot call it completed

00:28:59 ◼   ► within a day because the amount of work it's probably going to take to fix it and test

00:29:03 ◼   ► it because you now have to test it way better than you tested it the first time. But at

00:29:10 ◼   ► at least Apple was very lucky I think that this is just a problem for group

00:29:14 ◼   ► FaceTime because if it was FaceTime as a whole I don't know if they could have

00:29:19 ◼   ► taken it down so easily because this is a communication method that people rely

00:29:24 ◼   ► on. It's not good I mean as far as bugs and Apple software in recent history

00:29:33 ◼   ► this I think for me is the worst by far. So I was thinking about this is this

00:29:38 ◼   ► worse than the root admin thing?

00:29:40 ◼   ► - So I want to compare it to that in a minute.

00:29:43 ◼   ► I'm going to put that in the parking lot for a second.

00:29:45 ◼   ► But because it enables microphone or camera access

00:29:49 ◼   ► without your knowledge, like that to me is beyond

00:29:56 ◼   ► anything else Apple has screwed up over the years.

00:29:59 ◼   ► And to be from a company that says they take this seriously,

00:30:04 ◼   ► it's awful.

00:30:06 ◼   ► I mean, I agree with the people who say

00:30:08 ◼   ► it's an inexcusable bug.

00:30:10 ◼   ► And it's one that they responded quickly

00:30:14 ◼   ► and they're gonna get a push out this week.

00:30:17 ◼   ► My guess is we'll see a version of iOS

00:30:19 ◼   ► maybe even tomorrow to fix that, if not this afternoon.

00:30:21 ◼   ► As far as things you can screw up,

00:30:23 ◼   ► I can't imagine many things worse

00:30:25 ◼   ► than camera and microphone access.

00:30:28 ◼   ► - I think this kind of thing couldn't be more embarrassing

00:30:31 ◼   ► than it is for Apple, right?

00:30:33 ◼   ► Like, of all companies, this is most embarrassing for them.

00:30:38 ◼   ► Like I've seen them, they put that big banner up,

00:30:43 ◼   ► didn't they, during CES?

00:30:45 ◼   ► Like, what happens on your iPhone stays on your iPhone.

00:30:48 ◼   ► I've been seeing that memed quite a lot

00:30:51 ◼   ► over the last couple of days,

00:30:52 ◼   ► because that is categorically, in this case, not true.

00:30:56 ◼   ► I mean, I even saw today,

00:30:57 ◼   ► like this is the thing,

00:30:58 ◼   ► this story is still continuing to develop,

00:31:00 ◼   ► but I saw today on MacRumors

00:31:01 ◼   ► that a lawyer is suing Apple for this

00:31:04 ◼   ► because somebody did this to them

00:31:07 ◼   ► and heard something about a case

00:31:09 ◼   ► that they was working on, right?

00:31:12 ◼   ► And so yeah, so Apple is here over a lawsuit

00:31:15 ◼   ► over FaceTime eavesdropping bug.

00:31:17 ◼   ► - Or think about people with like domestic abuse situations.

00:31:21 ◼   ► Like there is no good that comes out of a bug like this.

00:31:24 ◼   ► Right, it is--

00:31:24 ◼   ► - No, I mean, I even saw someone say like,

00:31:26 ◼   ► what about the president?

00:31:28 ◼   ► Right, like world leaders that have iPhones, right?

00:31:31 ◼   ► That is the part that has concerned me the most is, besides the actual consequences of this,

00:31:38 ◼   ► is the reaction that I've seen from a lot of people on Twitter saying that, basically,

00:31:44 ◼   ► a response along the lines of "So what? I have nothing to hide." And that, to me, is the symptom of,

00:31:51 ◼   ► I would call it a disease, actually, that as a society we've been numbed to believe that any

00:32:01 ◼   ► kind of privacy invasion is fine as long as we got nothing to hide and

00:32:05 ◼   ► the fact that we accept as

00:32:08 ◼   ► inconsequential a

00:32:11 ◼   ► Problem such as your phone can now listen into your private conversation

00:32:15 ◼   ► Or I got people saying well, so what I'm sleeping or so what I have a home pod or an Amazon echo

00:32:21 ◼   ► I saw that one as well, right? I already have microphones around me that can listen at all times the fact that you cannot see how

00:32:29 ◼   ► not even problematic doesn't even describe it, how wrong and dangerous it is.

00:32:35 ◼   ► For all kinds of people, whether you're sleeping or whether you're the president of a country or whether you're a lawyer working on a case,

00:32:43 ◼   ► being able to...

00:32:46 ◼   ► The ability for a phone to listen in the background is a problem, is a major problem

00:32:52 ◼   ► that shouldn't happen. And just because it happened to Apple and group FaceTime doesn't mean they are

00:32:58 ◼   ► from this because just as we get upset at Facebook or Google, we should

00:33:06 ◼   ► hold Apple accountable when these things happen to them. And the fact that I've

00:33:10 ◼   ► seen these reactions from people who tend to... these are the same people that

00:33:15 ◼   ► tend to justify anything that Apple does, which I don't think they're, from this

00:33:20 ◼   ► point of view, their opinion really counts. But the general sentiment of "I'm

00:33:24 ◼   ► I'm fine with the government or with Google or with Facebook or with Apple in this case

00:33:30 ◼   ► invading my privacy because I got nothing to hide.

00:33:33 ◼   ► That is what, and I'm not exaggerating here, this is what leads to the downfall of the

00:33:38 ◼   ► concept of individual privacy to the eyes of the government or any major organization.

00:33:43 ◼   ► It's so wrong I cannot even describe it.

00:33:46 ◼   ► This isn't even an AO, an Apple problem.

00:33:51 ◼   ► This is Apple having a hole in their software that enabled somebody else to break into somebody

00:33:57 ◼   ► else's privacy.

00:33:59 ◼   ► This isn't a situation where accidentally a bunch of information got uploaded to Apple's

00:34:04 ◼   ► servers but they were able to get rid of it.

00:34:07 ◼   ► This is a hole in their software enabled for a period of time which I don't even think

00:34:13 ◼   ► anybody knows how long that period of time could have been.

00:34:17 ◼   ► That's the other problem.

00:34:19 ◼   ► I would assume the worst that it's when they shipped this new group FaceTime and

00:34:23 ◼   ► iOS, what is it? 12.1. So it's been months.

00:34:26 ◼   ► Right. So, and you, I mean, look, we all know how the internet works.

00:34:30 ◼   ► There are people that have known about this and have been using this for a while.

00:34:33 ◼   ► Right. Like someone's found this and some people have been using this for nefarious

00:34:37 ◼   ► purposes, right?

00:34:38 ◼   ► Without saying anything about it.

00:34:39 ◼   ► Yeah. These communities exist right on the internet, right?

00:34:42 ◼   ► Like that is 100% the thing that happens.

00:34:44 ◼   ► And it may not have been a lot of people.

00:34:46 ◼   ► It may not have been for very long, but these,

00:34:48 ◼   ► I don't know if there can be bugs of this scale.

00:34:51 ◼   ► The only one person was able to find out, right?

00:34:54 ◼   ► Like, I don't believe that that's the way the internet works.

00:34:57 ◼   ► But the issue is here is it's not that like Apple screwed something up,

00:35:01 ◼   ► which meant that it went to Apple.

00:35:03 ◼   ► They screwed something up, which meant that any individual

00:35:06 ◼   ► could listen in to any individual's conversations.

00:35:09 ◼   ► Like you were able to open up very easily in very simple,

00:35:15 ◼   ► reproducible steps, a direct line of hearing to somebody else's world. That is absolutely

00:35:24 ◼   ► unforgivable. I'm very surprised and I hope that this is rectified that we've not seen anything

00:35:31 ◼   ► in the way of an apology from Apple on this one. I know that they have done stuff like this more

00:35:36 ◼   ► recently but like my only assumption is that they're waiting till they fix it and maybe do

00:35:42 ◼   ► some due diligence so they can try and try and explain what happened but like this is something

00:35:46 ◼   ► that they must address you they cannot leave this it was like i if i remember correctly with the

00:35:52 ◼   ► high sierra uh admin bug they did actually issue an an apology right like they did apologize

00:36:00 ◼   ► and i haven't and mean and you guys can correct me if i'm wrong but all i've seen is a statement

00:36:05 ◼   ► anything coming from apple right now in regards to statements on this is we are working on fixing

00:36:09 ◼   ► this. I think so. And that's actually how it worked with the root deal. So this was with,

00:36:15 ◼   ► yeah, this was in November 2017. And so in High Sierra, basically, you could unlock things by

00:36:22 ◼   ► just entering username, root and no password. And that was that's really that's awful. It's not the

00:36:30 ◼   ► privacy invasion thing we're talking about now necessarily. But these two things have to be in

00:36:36 ◼   ► in the physical space of somebody's computer, right?

00:36:38 ◼   ► Which adds a different level.

00:36:40 ◼   ► - I don't remember if you could do it remotely or not.

00:36:41 ◼   ► But the thing that I come back to with this

00:36:46 ◼   ► is both the root thing and this,

00:36:48 ◼   ► you would think, I think, would be relatively simple

00:36:53 ◼   ► to find if your QA process worked.

00:36:57 ◼   ► It just would, right?

00:36:58 ◼   ► Like, how do we all, I mean, if you get a phone call

00:37:01 ◼   ► and you don't want it, you hit the sleep/wake button

00:37:03 ◼   ► to send it to voicemail, right?

00:37:04 ◼   ► Like you just hit the volume button down.

00:37:07 ◼   ► If that's triggering the camera,

00:37:09 ◼   ► like how did they not find that in QA testing?

00:37:13 ◼   ► I don't understand, but something seems

00:37:17 ◼   ► like fundamentally broken in Apple's process with this

00:37:22 ◼   ► to allow bugs like this out the door.

00:37:24 ◼   ► It's, you know, and the thing that really,

00:37:27 ◼   ► really grates me about this is they delayed

00:37:29 ◼   ► group FaceTime because it was buggy.

00:37:31 ◼   ► Remember, we tried it in the beta

00:37:33 ◼   ► And then your phone just exploded.

00:37:35 ◼   ► It didn't work.

00:37:36 ◼   ► And they said, "Hey, we're gonna hold it back.

00:37:38 ◼   ► "We're gonna make it work.

00:37:39 ◼   ► "We've used it since then.

00:37:40 ◼   ► "Three of us used it on a call last week."

00:37:42 ◼   ► It worked well.

00:37:44 ◼   ► But if you already delayed it 'cause you had QA issues

00:37:46 ◼   ► and then something like this comes out,

00:37:49 ◼   ► whatever QA process you have,

00:37:51 ◼   ► whatever QA team you have is not working.

00:37:56 ◼   ► They're not doing their job.

00:37:57 ◼   ► The process isn't doing what it's supposed to do.

00:38:00 ◼   ► - From the other end of the story,

00:38:02 ◼   ► how this bug was reported to Apple.

00:38:05 ◼   ► I find the entire process,

00:38:08 ◼   ► so there was an article on The Verge

00:38:10 ◼   ► that detailed the timeline of how this 14-year-old kid

00:38:15 ◼   ► discovered the bug and his mother,

00:38:17 ◼   ► who was a lawyer, I think, in Arizona,

00:38:20 ◼   ► they started contacting Apple and she, as a lawyer,

00:38:24 ◼   ► actually wrote a formal letter to Apple.

00:38:27 ◼   ► They got in touch with the email

00:38:28 ◼   ► that Apple advises people to use

00:38:30 ◼   ► for discovering security issues.

00:38:32 ◼   ► And yes, they wanted to participate

00:38:34 ◼   ► in the bug bounty program that Apple has

00:38:36 ◼   ► to reward people who discover important security issues.

00:38:40 ◼   ► But I've seen people make jokes about that.

00:38:42 ◼   ► And honestly, I think it's fine.

00:38:43 ◼   ► Every company has these programs

00:38:45 ◼   ► and people are allowed to take advantage of them.

00:38:48 ◼   ► The fact is that this person gets in touch with Apple

00:38:52 ◼   ► and sends a video and a letter.

00:38:57 ◼   ► There are details on how to reproduce this problem,

00:39:00 ◼   ► But still-- - They filed a radar.

00:39:02 ◼   ► - So first, this person is asked,

00:39:05 ◼   ► so a regular citizen with no developer expertise

00:39:09 ◼   ► is asked to sign up for a developer account

00:39:12 ◼   ► and file a radar.

00:39:13 ◼   ► So they actually do that.

00:39:15 ◼   ► They file a radar on the bug report website,

00:39:18 ◼   ► and the radar is marked as a duplicate, of course,

00:39:22 ◼   ► radar being radar.

00:39:23 ◼   ► And two to three days pass, and Apple does nothing,

00:39:27 ◼   ► and at this point, the person goes public

00:39:29 ◼   ► with the disclosure of the bug.

00:39:31 ◼   ► This is incredible to me.

00:39:34 ◼   ► I don't know what you guys think, but this is incredible.

00:39:35 ◼   ► - I had some like complicated feelings about this

00:39:39 ◼   ► as it was unfolding,

00:39:40 ◼   ► but by the time that we got all of the information out,

00:39:43 ◼   ► I agree with you that it is unbelievable.

00:39:45 ◼   ► Like, 'cause at first it was like,

00:39:46 ◼   ► there was just the email that was sent

00:39:49 ◼   ► to like Apple product security.

00:39:50 ◼   ► And my thought was like,

00:39:52 ◼   ► they must get so many of these every single day.

00:39:55 ◼   ► And it's people that are like, I found a bug.

00:39:58 ◼   ► My printer quit working.

00:39:59 ◼   ► Or it's just like, I found a bug.

00:40:02 ◼   ► Give me money.

00:40:03 ◼   ► Right?

00:40:04 ◼   ► Not, you know what I mean?

00:40:05 ◼   ► Like, I'm sure people find bugs in iOS every day and then try and get money out of it because

00:40:08 ◼   ► like whatever.

00:40:09 ◼   ► But it was once I had seen everything that ended up coming out via like, it was the reporting,

00:40:16 ◼   ► I think a lot by John Mayer of, I'm not sure where he was publishing this.

00:40:23 ◼   ► Right?

00:40:24 ◼   ► But like, it was, was that right?

00:40:26 ◼   ► Like there's a guy called John Mayer who seemed to be having a lot of conversations with people

00:40:30 ◼   ► about this.

00:40:31 ◼   ► Yes.

00:40:32 ◼   ► I think he's linked a lot, but I'm not sure where it was actually being published other

00:40:36 ◼   ► than on his Twitter account.

00:40:37 ◼   ► But his tweets have embedded it in there.

00:40:38 ◼   ► The Verge wrote an article linking to his tweets also.

00:40:40 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah.

00:40:41 ◼   ► So I mean like I'm not sure where, like how and where he got in touch with this.

00:40:45 ◼   ► Like I don't, I'm not familiar with the guy, but like he seemed to be doing a lot of the

00:40:50 ◼   ► initial reporting.

00:40:51 ◼   ► like as it was starting to unfold like I don't understand how something wasn't

00:40:57 ◼   ► done about this like at the point that it got to radar at the point that it was

00:41:01 ◼   ► then marked as a duplicate which means someone's looked at it like I don't

00:41:06 ◼   ► understand how something wasn't done more quickly it just seems so peculiar

00:41:13 ◼   ► to me like and I'm not gonna I'm not gonna attempt to say that like I

00:41:16 ◼   ► I understand how these things run, right?

00:41:20 ◼   ► Or like, for all we know they were working on it and just didn't want to publish anything

00:41:24 ◼   ► about it because they didn't want to like get it around.

00:41:26 ◼   ► Like, I don't know.

00:41:27 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:41:28 ◼   ► But what I do know is that this whole process appears from the outside to be fundamentally

00:41:34 ◼   ► flawed.

00:41:35 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:41:36 ◼   ► And also, something that I've seen on Twitter a lot is a common type of comment on the story

00:41:43 ◼   ► of, well, there are people working at Apple and I sympathize with people because people

00:41:50 ◼   ► can screw things up sometimes. And that to me is just a pretty way to defend Apple in

00:41:59 ◼   ► the sense that yes, even doctors who have incredibly complex surgeries are people and

00:42:06 ◼   ► then can screw it up sometimes. But the purpose of being a professional is to have responsibility

00:42:14 ◼   ► and to be held accountable for your work. And to say, "Oh, well, people screw it up

00:42:20 ◼   ► sometimes." Would you say that to a doctor who was supposed to save your life, but he

00:42:24 ◼   ► didn't? Would you say that to the rocket scientist that was supposed to fly a rocket, but she

00:42:28 ◼   ► screwed it up and the rocket exploded? Would you share that type of comment? Or, "Well,

00:42:34 ◼   ► I understand it's people and people screw... like that doesn't mean anything. That comment

00:42:39 ◼   ► does nothing to this discussion. So it's a screw up and hopefully it's a lesson that

00:42:46 ◼   ► Apple can learn from.

00:42:48 ◼   ► With things like this, if you are a company that purports themselves to be better than

00:42:54 ◼   ► everybody else, you open yourself up to more scrutiny. Like if what you are saying is,

00:43:00 ◼   ► If you're like one of your core tenants for your brand is privacy and security and you

00:43:05 ◼   ► have a privacy and security flaw, it's worse for you because you've already told me that

00:43:11 ◼   ► you are going to be better at this than everybody else.

00:43:14 ◼   ► You have told me that by buying your product, I am more secure.

00:43:19 ◼   ► So when you have a security issue, it's worse for you than it is for the other people because

00:43:24 ◼   ► you've told me they're not telling me, right?

00:43:27 ◼   ► Like Company X is not saying to me like buy this phone because then you're secure.

00:43:33 ◼   ► You told me that as a selling point of your product.

00:43:36 ◼   ► So when you have a problem it is worse.

00:43:40 ◼   ► It's like when I promised people I was going to talk about the iPad Pro and then I didn't.

00:43:44 ◼   ► Exactly and then everyone's like well you we made an agreement here where you were going

00:43:48 ◼   ► to tell me about the iPad Pro but you didn't do it and you let everybody down.

00:43:52 ◼   ► But then you ended up living up to it and you issued your apology.

00:43:55 ◼   ► Yeah, I did.

00:43:58 ◼   ► This episode of Connected is brought to you by Drafts, where text starts.

00:44:03 ◼   ► When an idea strikes, you don't want to write it down later, you want to write it down right

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00:47:45 ◼   ► Our thanks to draft for their support of this show

00:47:47 ◼   ► and relay FM.

00:47:49 ◼   ► TechCrunch on Tuesday reported that Facebook,

00:47:54 ◼   ► Josh Constantine at TechCrunch,

00:47:59 ◼   ► Facebook was secretly paying people to install

00:48:04 ◼   ► what they call Facebook research VPN.

00:48:06 ◼   ► So we gotta back up a second.

00:48:08 ◼   ► We remember last year, Apple removed Facebook's Onavo.

00:48:17 ◼   ► How do we want to say this?

00:48:18 ◼   ► I say Onavo, but I don't know.

00:48:20 ◼   ► I'm going to go with that.

00:48:21 ◼   ► Onavo.

00:48:22 ◼   ► Onavo.

00:48:24 ◼   ► Sounds Italian enough.

00:48:25 ◼   ► Oh, no.

00:48:26 ◼   ► Ovo.

00:48:27 ◼   ► Voe.

00:48:29 ◼   ► This was a VPN by Facebook.

00:48:33 ◼   ► And they were using it-- because if you have a VPN,

00:48:35 ◼   ► the VPN provider, if they're so inclined,

00:48:38 ◼   ► they could potentially see what you're doing.

00:48:40 ◼   ► And Apple said, you can't do that.

00:48:42 ◼   ► And they removed it.

00:48:43 ◼   ► It was removed in August.

00:48:45 ◼   ► Facebook decided that that wasn't acceptable.

00:48:48 ◼   ► And they were allowing people to sideload it

00:48:52 ◼   ► through what is called a Enterprise Certificate, Enterprise

00:48:57 ◼   ► Developer Program Certificate.

00:48:58 ◼   ► So this is a tool that you can use

00:49:00 ◼   ► if you're a developer to run internal apps on devices.

00:49:06 ◼   ► So for instance, say that Federico was writing a Espresso tutorial app for the iPhone and

00:49:13 ◼   ► iPad and he wanted us to test it.

00:49:16 ◼   ► Instead of dealing with TestFlight, you could, if you were an enterprise developer, which

00:49:20 ◼   ► obviously you would be, you can distribute this so there's a profile that the user downloads

00:49:25 ◼   ► on their phone and that profile allows them to install this application.

00:49:30 ◼   ► And then from there, it's just an app running on the phone.

00:49:32 ◼   ► So it's a way to get around Apple's systems.

00:49:36 ◼   ► And it is designed for people who are testing apps at scale to say, "Hey, we have a thousand

00:49:42 ◼   ► employees.

00:49:43 ◼   ► Let's let them all use this new build of whatever and see if they find any bugs."

00:49:47 ◼   ► Maybe Apple should have done this with a group of FaceTime.

00:49:49 ◼   ► But you can see how this is used, right?

00:49:53 ◼   ► So it's built with the intention for testing purposes.

00:49:58 ◼   ► A lot of big companies, like it's come out with Facebook, use it for all sorts of internal

00:50:01 ◼   ► things.

00:50:02 ◼   ► We've all been to their campus. It's like Disneyland. You can order burrito on your on your burrito app Facebook burrito app

00:50:08 ◼   ► And it shows up at your office or whatever

00:50:10 ◼   ► Where this where they broke the rules is that they were using this with members of the public to install this application and

00:50:19 ◼   ► This application already been banned from Apple from the App Store, but they still wanted people to use it

00:50:25 ◼   ► So this Facebook research app was part of a larger project called project Atlas

00:50:32 ◼   ► There's a pretty good code name for taking everyone's data.

00:50:36 ◼   ► Hats off to you for picking a good code name, Facebook.

00:50:39 ◼   ► This was a VPN to track and look at data plan usage, but part of the overall project was

00:50:48 ◼   ► like, "Hey, could you maybe upload what you've ordered from Amazon?"

00:50:55 ◼   ► And basically Facebook was just using this program,

00:50:59 ◼   ► this VP in Apple was part of the program,

00:51:01 ◼   ► to gather ungodly amounts of data on these users.

00:51:05 ◼   ► And some of these users were given $20 a month in gift cards

00:51:10 ◼   ► so I guess that's the price of privacy for some people.

00:51:14 ◼   ► But clearly bad.

00:51:15 ◼   ► So this comes out in TechCrunch and it's safe to say

00:51:19 ◼   ► at least our corner of the internet

00:51:20 ◼   ► just burned to the ground, right?

00:51:22 ◼   ► People are furious and people are calling on Apple

00:51:25 ◼   ► to respond to this.

00:51:27 ◼   ► And there are people, and I will count myself in this group,

00:51:30 ◼   ► that think Apple gives big companies

00:51:33 ◼   ► more leniency than small companies.

00:51:35 ◼   ► If this were an indie developer,

00:51:37 ◼   ► they would be banned from the App Store forever.

00:51:40 ◼   ► No questions asked, you are done.

00:51:44 ◼   ► Instead, what Apple has done here

00:51:45 ◼   ► is they have revoked this certificate,

00:51:48 ◼   ► which not only breaks this application,

00:51:51 ◼   ► but breaks all of Facebook's internal applications.

00:51:54 ◼   ► reporting. There was a actually while we have been recording the show, Facebook had a statement

00:52:00 ◼   ► to recode basically saying all of our internal apps are broken. We're trying to negotiate with

00:52:04 ◼   ► Apple to get this turned back on. So that's the story. That's kind of where we are today. We're

00:52:09 ◼   ► recording this. This could be different in a matter of hours. But while they've been recording, it's

00:52:15 ◼   ► also broken that Google has sort of a similar project running using their enterprise certificate.

00:52:22 ◼   ► So Facebook is not the only one to break this rule.

00:52:25 ◼   ► Google seems to be doing it too.

00:52:26 ◼   ► This, I mean, that story got published like as I'm speaking right now, seven

00:52:30 ◼   ► minutes ago.

00:52:31 ◼   ► So that is a very new part of this.

00:52:32 ◼   ► So I think I feel like that's the news, but I want to see how, what you guys

00:52:37 ◼   ► think of it.

00:52:38 ◼   ► What do you think of Apple's response to it?

00:52:39 ◼   ► And like, what is the way forward for these two, now three companies to get

00:52:44 ◼   ► along?

00:52:45 ◼   ► I think ultimately Apple has done the best thing that they could, given the

00:52:50 ◼   ► situation that they had at hand. You know, it would be really great if they found a way

00:52:56 ◼   ► to maybe punish Facebook more, but you've got to assume that they're trying to not then

00:53:08 ◼   ► upset all of Apple's own users, right?

00:53:12 ◼   ► So what does, let's be specific, what does punish Facebook more mean? Does it mean pulling

00:53:16 ◼   ► Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram from the App Store?

00:53:18 ◼   ► Sure. I mean, like that's the that's you know, that's what they would do to a smaller developer

00:53:23 ◼   ► in a situation like this, right? Like they would be like, you're done now. Goodbye.

00:53:27 ◼   ► But like the problem is in that situation, it hurts more people than just Facebook. And I think

00:53:32 ◼   ► that's the line you have to walk, right? There are a lot of things that Apple can also do behind the

00:53:38 ◼   ► scenes, I guess, to make things more difficult for Facebook, right? Like promotion and all that kind

00:53:44 ◼   ► kind of stuff like that's all going to be I guess we're going to go back to the drawing

00:53:48 ◼   ► board for a lot of those types of things right like and like PR for new app launches and

00:53:54 ◼   ► stuff like that. They have done I think what they have done is very interesting in that

00:54:05 ◼   ► they have made things exceedingly difficult for Facebook as a company right like what

00:54:12 ◼   ► have done is make things very very complicated and very very uncomfortable for Facebook and

00:54:18 ◼   ► its employees without harming the users of the apps. And like for good or bad, right

00:54:24 ◼   ► so here's the thing, if they did this I would be super mad that I wouldn't be able to use

00:54:29 ◼   ► Instagram. I would be, right? Me. I want to use Instagram. And if they were like "Nope,

00:54:34 ◼   ► Facebook, you're gone and all your apps are gone." I would be upset about that, right?

00:54:38 ◼   ► Like let's be, I want to be real about this.

00:54:40 ◼   ► be a huge blow to their entire ecosystem.

00:54:42 ◼   ► Yes, and like, so they've got to kind of like, weigh up what they can weigh up, is my opinion.

00:54:49 ◼   ► 20 minutes ago, Facebook confirmed to Bloomberg that all of its, all of its employee-only

00:54:56 ◼   ► internal apps are offline.

00:54:58 ◼   ► They are trying to negotiate with Apple right now.

00:55:03 ◼   ► So my thoughts on this, I have said this before, I want to go on the record with this.

00:55:08 ◼   ► I don't care if you disagree with me, you don't need to tell me. My personal belief

00:55:13 ◼   ► is that Facebook is ruining modern society. It is the prime cause of the... it's called

00:55:19 ◼   ► the Dunning-Kruger effect, you can Google it and see what it's all about. It is ruining

00:55:24 ◼   ► all kinds of people and their thoughts and their self-esteem and love for an idea of

00:55:32 ◼   ► privacy. So I wish that Apple did more. I realize how unrealistic that is to

00:55:39 ◼   ► think that Apple is suddenly gonna pull Facebook from the App Store or Instagram

00:55:44 ◼   ► or WhatsApp or Messenger. This feels like the right approach of going behind the

00:55:50 ◼   ► scenes to hurt them without actually causing trouble to the users. The users

00:55:55 ◼   ► have done nothing wrong here. People like my mom or my girlfriend or Myke and I or

00:56:00 ◼   ► Steven, we've done nothing wrong, we didn't participate in this program, and to remove

00:56:07 ◼   ► Facebook or Instagram or WhatsApp from the App Store would be unrealistic, would be maybe

00:56:12 ◼   ► too much right now, but to hurt Facebook in this way from a technical standpoint is the

00:56:18 ◼   ► right approach.

00:56:20 ◼   ► Now, is Apple going to negotiate with Facebook?

00:56:23 ◼   ► Is an apology going to be enough?

00:56:27 ◼   ► things gonna go back to normal by tomorrow? Maybe, because ultimately these

00:56:32 ◼   ► are corporations, they can work behind the scenes, they can

00:56:36 ◼   ► have a handshake and everything is gonna be fine. So it's possible

00:56:43 ◼   ► that things will be back to normal in a couple days time. I think overall,

00:56:49 ◼   ► all, as you know, beyond the App Store, beyond Apple, beyond the details of this latest screw-up

00:56:57 ◼   ► from Facebook. We are, I am optimistic that we are on a path to get rid of Facebook from

00:57:05 ◼   ► our lives. It's going to take years, but I think people are just fed up. It's one story

00:57:09 ◼   ► after the other, and it's too much.

00:57:13 ◼   ► It's unbelievable. I don't even think it's desensitising. I think a lot of people can

00:57:20 ◼   ► make the argument that like, "Oh, there's so many things, it's desensitising." But it's

00:57:24 ◼   ► so many different things.

00:57:27 ◼   ► It's just unbelievable.

00:57:28 ◼   ► So I would say that by and large, when I've heard you say this kind of stuff in the past

00:57:33 ◼   ► and like many of our friends, I've kind of been a bit like, "Eh, I don't know." But I

00:57:39 ◼   ► I think over the last couple of weeks, especially, I've really started to turn a corner on what

00:57:45 ◼   ► I think about Facebook as a company.

00:57:49 ◼   ► I feel like I've had enough personally too.

00:57:52 ◼   ► I can really see how terrible they are.

00:57:57 ◼   ► I feel like I'm becoming very aware of it.

00:58:02 ◼   ► It's unbelievable.

00:58:07 ◼   ► It is unbelievable that there are people consciously making these decisions about what they want

00:58:13 ◼   ► to do with the data of their users and the way they want to treat them.

00:58:17 ◼   ► So are you going to remove your account?

00:58:18 ◼   ► Probably.

00:58:19 ◼   ► I mean, I don't even use Facebook.

00:58:20 ◼   ► I mean, Facebook proper, right?

00:58:24 ◼   ► Facebook prime.

00:58:25 ◼   ► I don't use it.

00:58:26 ◼   ► And I haven't used it for years.

00:58:28 ◼   ► My account just sits there and it's for like dealing with events that my family invite

00:58:33 ◼   ► me to effectively.

00:58:34 ◼   ► Like that's I don't I don't feed Facebook with anything and I don't access it

00:58:38 ◼   ► but I am an Instagram user and I am a whatsapp user and

00:58:41 ◼   ► I have no desire to remove those services from my life. Like I'm being honest

00:58:47 ◼   ► All right, like this goes back to the thing of like well, I

00:58:51 ◼   ► Don't personally I don't think that those two decisions have to be the same of like I don't like this company

00:58:59 ◼   ► I don't like what it's doing

00:59:01 ◼   ► Then point two is then do I harm my own life because of it?

00:59:05 ◼   ► Because Instagram brings me happiness in my life and whatsapp is required for me to be able to communicate with some of my family members

00:59:12 ◼   ► So like what am I gonna do?

00:59:15 ◼   ► Like what is what is my what is my path here?

00:59:18 ◼   ► Like do I feel like I need to make a personal stand for the sake of everybody? No

00:59:23 ◼   ► I don't think I need to do that

00:59:25 ◼   ► I can tell you what I think about it right now and you can decide to make your own point on it

00:59:28 ◼   ► I don't think that Myke Hurley leaving Facebook is going to really affect the needle that much.

00:59:33 ◼   ► No.

00:59:33 ◼   ► But so, like, so yeah, I probably will get rid of my Facebook account when I get around to bothering to do it.

00:59:39 ◼   ► But I'm not, but the point is I'm not gonna remove my Instagram account,

00:59:44 ◼   ► and I'm not gonna remove my WhatsApp account. Like, I'm not gonna do those things.

00:59:49 ◼   ► The...

00:59:50 ◼   ► What I believe should happen is that

00:59:52 ◼   ► the entire board of Facebook should be replaced and Facebook itself should be heavily

00:59:58 ◼   ► regulated in every country where it operates. Because it's not just like, it is kind of

01:00:06 ◼   ► generic to say Facebook is running society. I do believe that by indulging in the sweet

01:00:13 ◼   ► lie that is that in democracy, every opinion counts, no matter how, no matter the degree

01:00:19 ◼   ► of truth that each opinion has. Facebook has found the system to monetize, spreading lies

01:00:26 ◼   ► and alternative facts, some people will call them, and turning the minds of teenagers and

01:00:36 ◼   ► people over six years old, all kinds of people, to believe that certain things that are objectively

01:00:43 ◼   ► not true are actually true, but the system doesn't want to tell you and therefore Facebook

01:00:48 ◼   ► is the truth because only Facebook can show you those facts, from vaccines to global warming

01:00:54 ◼   ► to all kinds of modern truth accepted by people of average intelligence. Facebook has found

01:01:02 ◼   ► the system to monetize the spreading of these lies and for this reason alone it should be

01:01:07 ◼   ► heavily regulated because it's a system largely designed to deceive people for their own gain.

01:01:15 ◼   ► I cannot believe that. There's rumors of, for example, the Italian government looking

01:01:20 ◼   ► to tighten the screws on Facebook, for example, and Google for how they present news and quote

01:01:26 ◼   ► unquote news. I honestly believe that 2019, I honestly hope that 2019 is the year that

01:01:32 ◼   ► this happens because it's, this is just too much. This is too much.

01:01:36 ◼   ► I personally, the belief that in general, like large companies, large, large companies

01:01:42 ◼   ► don't necessarily have a requirement for heavy regulation, but I feel like it gets to a

01:01:50 ◼   ► certain point where you're not allowed to continue. And I feel like Facebook has passed

01:01:56 ◼   ► that point now, where I don't necessarily believe that just because a company is large

01:02:01 ◼   ► that it has then walked itself into requirement of heavy regulation from the world's governments.

01:02:08 ◼   ► But you only are allowed so many mess ups. And this is not even mistakes. Mistakes is

01:02:17 ◼   ► one thing, right? Like this thing that Apple has found themselves in, right? Like what

01:02:24 ◼   ► most likely happened is they just didn't test it well enough. But a lot of this Facebook

01:02:28 ◼   ► stuff including especially this VPN project that they've been going on was like they weren't

01:02:35 ◼   ► trying to do anything other than get data from people that they could use in different

01:02:38 ◼   ► ways, right?

01:02:39 ◼   ► It was an active decision to build this.

01:02:41 ◼   ► Yes. So like that is when you start to lose your ability to run yourself is when you can't be trusted.

01:02:49 ◼   ► And they can't be trusted at this point. So like, yeah, I think that they should have to answer to governments, which they currently are choosing not to.

01:02:58 ◼   ► Like Facebook are doing absolutely everything they can to ignore the government in my country.

01:03:04 ◼   ► Like, the UK government has requested the presence of Mark Zuckerberg on multiple occasions

01:03:11 ◼   ► now, and he will not come.

01:03:14 ◼   ► They keep sending other people.

01:03:15 ◼   ► And I think that that is honestly ridiculous, right?

01:03:20 ◼   ► That the government of a country in which you operate in requires your CEO to come and

01:03:24 ◼   ► talk to them about the things that his company has been doing, and he just decides not to

01:03:28 ◼   ► show up?

01:03:30 ◼   ► I think that nothing exemplifies the way that this man thinks about the world than something

01:03:37 ◼   ► like that.

01:03:38 ◼   ► Tim Cynova Yeah, you know, it's so complicated.

01:03:43 ◼   ► Sitting here, you know, hearing y'all talk about it.

01:03:46 ◼   ► So I left Facebook years ago and actually just spoke to y'all last week about it,

01:03:51 ◼   ► how I had a situation catching up with some old friends who I hadn't seen in years and

01:03:55 ◼   ► like just having the realization like I don't know what's going on in everyone's life

01:04:00 ◼   ► because in my social circle, at least Facebook is still sort of the currency.

01:04:03 ◼   ► You know, it's where people share things.

01:04:06 ◼   ► And I expressed to y'all like sort of like this feeling of, you know,

01:04:10 ◼   ► I kind of don't know what's going on with some people because I'm not there.

01:04:13 ◼   ► And maybe I should revisit that.

01:04:15 ◼   ► I can tell you this has cured me of that feeling and 100%.

01:04:19 ◼   ► But I do use WhatsApp and I use Instagram and like you, Myke,

01:04:24 ◼   ► WhatsApp is critical for communicating with some people in my life.

01:04:27 ◼   ► and Instagram is something that I just enjoy.

01:04:32 ◼   ► I don't know what it would take for me to leave those.

01:04:35 ◼   ► The rumor of them combining the messaging may be enough, honestly.

01:04:40 ◼   ► But clearly, I think anyone could look at this with any sense and realize that Facebook,

01:04:47 ◼   ► the way that it is structured and the way that it operates, cannot continue.

01:04:52 ◼   ► And Zuckerberg is basically invincible.

01:04:55 ◼   ► But something you said that really I thought about for a second was we cover this on download

01:05:02 ◼   ► a lot, but Facebook and Google and Twitter, these CEOs have all spent time in front of

01:05:07 ◼   ► Congress here in the United States.

01:05:08 ◼   ► And every single time the questions are laughable, right?

01:05:13 ◼   ► Like a congressman asked Mark Zuckerberg how Facebook makes money.

01:05:17 ◼   ► And his answer was, "Sir, we run ads."

01:05:20 ◼   ► Until we have leaders in all three of our countries and beyond who understand this stuff

01:05:27 ◼   ► and who can talk about it intelligently, it's never going to change.

01:05:30 ◼   ► I don't have the hope that you have Federico that it's going to fade, because who can

01:05:34 ◼   ► do it?

01:05:35 ◼   ► Governments can do it, but governments don't understand it.

01:05:38 ◼   ► That's something that I want to consider more and more moving forward.

01:05:42 ◼   ► How do we as societies arm ourselves better to deal with these sorts of companies?

01:05:50 ◼   ► My instant reaction to this is not a good one, which is just like, "God, I don't

01:05:56 ◼   ► think we can."

01:05:57 ◼   ► I just don't think it's possible.

01:06:01 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:06:02 ◼   ► I mean, feeling defeated in the—like, who has the power to bring Facebook on?

01:06:07 ◼   ► Only governments.

01:06:08 ◼   ► That's it, right?

01:06:10 ◼   ► No one else can do it.

01:06:12 ◼   ► Maybe it's just something that we've got to learn to live with.

01:06:15 ◼   ► Some people smoke, for example, and it's just something that exists.

01:06:20 ◼   ► Some people have Facebook accounts. Some people use Facebook and believe what's on Facebook.

01:06:23 ◼   ► What if you, like in the future, you go to a bar and like there's a sign, it's like,

01:06:28 ◼   ► you cannot use Facebook in here. You have to go outside in the cold. You know, like

01:06:31 ◼   ► that is an excellent idea for a bar. Actually, I would, I would go to that bar. You want

01:06:35 ◼   ► to invest? You want to invest? Let's do it. We're going to open, we're going to open a

01:06:38 ◼   ► bar. What's the name? What's the name? Oh man. Um, I don't know. IRL. IRL. That'll be

01:06:46 ◼   ► the code. That's the code name. It's the project code name, at least.

01:06:48 ◼   ► OK, OK.

01:06:50 ◼   ► Huh? Is that it?

01:06:51 ◼   ► I don't want to talk about this anymore.

01:06:52 ◼   ► This is all depressing and upsetting.

01:06:54 ◼   ► So depressing is so depressing.

01:06:56 ◼   ► Like I'm I'm genuinely sorry that we have had to have this conversation

01:07:01 ◼   ► because the downfall of society is not a fun topic.

01:07:03 ◼   ► Turns out, no, like because I would just say like as somebody

01:07:07 ◼   ► who enjoys listening to podcasts, we have presented to you an episode

01:07:10 ◼   ► which you cannot enjoy.

01:07:12 ◼   ► So I apologize for that because that's not the type of content

01:07:15 ◼   ► that I like to make, but I feel like we had to talk about it.

01:07:19 ◼   ► We I feel like we would have it would have would have been a disservice

01:07:24 ◼   ► to our listeners if we would not address these topics today.

01:07:26 ◼   ► And we don't we purposefully make a habit of of trying to stay away from stuff

01:07:31 ◼   ► where we were really all we're going to do is just be upset and mad for like an hour.

01:07:35 ◼   ► But I feel like that there was there was no way of avoiding these two things today,

01:07:40 ◼   ► because it's companies that have done things that are that need

01:07:45 ◼   ► that they need to beg for our forgiveness.

01:07:49 ◼   ► And I don't know if everyone's even going to bother doing it, but we'll find out, I

01:07:54 ◼   ► guess.

01:07:55 ◼   ► This episode of Connected is brought to you by Squarespace.

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01:08:43 ◼   ► beautifully designed for you to show off your great ideas. So one thing Squarespace

01:08:48 ◼   ► offers is really nice landing page templates. So I recently updated mine so

01:08:55 ◼   ► my sort of like email address for 512 pixels and my other stuff is hackit.fm

01:09:01 ◼   ► and I just wanted a simple page there so someone saw my email address and wanted

01:09:06 ◼   ► to see what that was about, they can go there, they see a picture of me, a couple paragraphs

01:09:10 ◼   ► of what I do, and a link to get in touch.

01:09:13 ◼   ► Really simple, and Squarespace made it so easy to put together in just a couple of minutes,

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01:09:42 ◼   ► first purchase.

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01:09:50 ◼   ► That's a nice little website you've got going on over there.

01:09:53 ◼   ► Thanks!

01:09:54 ◼   ► It's got my cool neon picture for this year on there.

01:09:56 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:09:57 ◼   ► It's fun.

01:09:58 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:09:59 ◼   ► It would be a shame if something were to happen to it.

01:10:01 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:10:03 ◼   ► Well, Squarespace has that covered.

01:10:04 ◼   ► I'm not worried about you de-dawsoning me.

01:10:06 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:10:08 ◼   ► Okay, so I wanna talk about the iPhone XR a little bit.

01:10:14 ◼   ► We'll end with something colorful and fun.

01:10:16 ◼   ► So for a while now, Apple has been saying

01:10:19 ◼   ► that the iPhone XR is the best selling iPhone

01:10:23 ◼   ► of this generation.

01:10:24 ◼   ► So there was an interview on CNET a while back about it

01:10:27 ◼   ► and in their quarterly results call this week,

01:10:30 ◼   ► It was mentioned again that the order of sale is 10R,

01:10:34 ◼   ► 10S Max, and then the 10S bringing up the lead

01:10:36 ◼   ► for new phones, right?

01:10:37 ◼   ► So I don't know where the eight and seven, et cetera,

01:10:40 ◼   ► mix into that.

01:10:41 ◼   ► But most people who do what we do,

01:10:45 ◼   ► podcasts and rival technology for a living,

01:10:47 ◼   ► gravitate towards, usually towards the high end.

01:10:49 ◼   ► I think most listeners of this show,

01:10:51 ◼   ► a large portion of them at least,

01:10:52 ◼   ► gravitate towards the high end.

01:10:54 ◼   ► And this year that was the 10S Max.

01:10:56 ◼   ► That's what all three of us bought.

01:10:57 ◼   ► So a lot of our friends bought,

01:10:58 ◼   ► I love our friends with a 10S.

01:11:00 ◼   ► But it's been sort of rolling around in my head

01:11:02 ◼   ► that the 10R, if it's the most popular phone,

01:11:06 ◼   ► like I feel like it's worth us understanding why that is.

01:11:10 ◼   ► And really examining the phone as not just something

01:11:14 ◼   ► on the website or something we saw on the store,

01:11:16 ◼   ► something we lived with for a while.

01:11:17 ◼   ► So last week I embarked on a little experiment,

01:11:22 ◼   ► as I want to do sometimes.

01:11:24 ◼   ► And I picked up a blue 10R.

01:11:27 ◼   ► and I put my SIM card in it, moved my stuff to it,

01:11:29 ◼   ► 'cause I wanted to understand what this phone offers

01:11:32 ◼   ► and how it compares to Apple's other products this year,

01:11:36 ◼   ► because the XR is substantially less money,

01:11:39 ◼   ► $250 less than the XS and a whopping $350 less

01:11:44 ◼   ► than the XS Max, and I wanted to know

01:11:48 ◼   ► what that money bought you and if that money was worth it.

01:11:52 ◼   ► So I would love to talk about that,

01:11:55 ◼   ► I'd love to answer any questions you all have about it.

01:11:58 ◼   ► I will defend that blue is the best color choice

01:12:00 ◼   ► if I need to, so what do you guys want to talk about this?

01:12:03 ◼   ► - Don't agree with that.

01:12:04 ◼   ► I think coral is clearly the best choice.

01:12:08 ◼   ► But I think one of the best things about the XR

01:12:10 ◼   ► is that you have that choice.

01:12:12 ◼   ► Well, I think my first question to you is

01:12:16 ◼   ► where is this XR now?

01:12:18 ◼   ► - It's right here on my desk, next to my XS Max,

01:12:22 ◼   ► which is off.

01:12:23 ◼   ► lot of iPhones in here. So which are you still using? Yes. I saw a picture your wife posted on

01:12:31 ◼   ► Instagram of you using it and I was and I thought I locked that one away in my brain. He's still

01:12:36 ◼   ► using it. Yeah, I've got till Monday before the return policy is up. So this is a purchase a thing

01:12:43 ◼   ► as a review unit and then return it or not return it. Which I know is like, like, I know, like,

01:12:49 ◼   ► we took some flack for this on Twitter. Like, I know that's ridiculous. Like, I know that I'm

01:12:52 ◼   ► I'm privileged to be able to do this.

01:12:54 ◼   ► I'm privileged that my business can afford it,

01:12:55 ◼   ► and it's a business, like, I understand all of that.

01:12:57 ◼   ► I understand most people can't do this.

01:12:59 ◼   ► But I was able to, and so I really wanted to compare them,

01:13:02 ◼   ► because most people are just gonna buy a single phone,

01:13:04 ◼   ► not even every year like we do.

01:13:07 ◼   ► And so I felt like I had the opportunity to compare them,

01:13:11 ◼   ► like in a direct way, like the XR versus the XS Max.

01:13:15 ◼   ► Using the iPhone X last year,

01:13:16 ◼   ► I can sort of assume some things about the XS

01:13:20 ◼   ► that I think are accurate still.

01:13:21 ◼   ► So I am still using it, my SIM card is still in it.

01:13:24 ◼   ► I have until Monday to decide what to do.

01:13:27 ◼   ► - And where are you leaning on it?

01:13:28 ◼   ► - I'm leaning towards keeping it.

01:13:30 ◼   ► And I'm leaning towards keeping my SIM card in it.

01:13:33 ◼   ► Because I think that it is,

01:13:38 ◼   ► if this was the only iPhone this year,

01:13:40 ◼   ► it would be a great phone.

01:13:42 ◼   ► Like it is, we talk about the differences between it

01:13:45 ◼   ► and what I think about those differences,

01:13:47 ◼   ► but I think especially for the money,

01:13:49 ◼   ► and yes, it is too expensive.

01:13:51 ◼   ► I wish that it was $699 instead of $749,

01:13:55 ◼   ► which would have been the price of the iPhone 8.

01:13:57 ◼   ► The pricing right now is right in between

01:13:58 ◼   ► the 8 and the 8 Plus.

01:14:00 ◼   ► It's a little too expensive for what it is,

01:14:02 ◼   ► but it's a really enjoyable iPhone.

01:14:05 ◼   ► There's a lot that I really like about it,

01:14:07 ◼   ► and something that honestly surprised me

01:14:10 ◼   ► and maybe what pushes me over the edge,

01:14:13 ◼   ► and I know this is gonna be painful to say

01:14:15 ◼   ► because it's the two of you

01:14:17 ◼   ► and because Casey Lissa's listening,

01:14:19 ◼   ► I think the XS Max is too big for me.

01:14:21 ◼   ► I think that the XR is actually the biggest phone I want to carry.

01:14:26 ◼   ► I think it doesn't bother me because the XR is still bigger than the XS.

01:14:30 ◼   ► That's true.

01:14:31 ◼   ► Still in the big phone club.

01:14:32 ◼   ► It's just not the biggest phone club.

01:14:33 ◼   ► The medium phone club.

01:14:34 ◼   ► Which is the best phone club, but you would be in a medium phone club with the smallest

01:14:40 ◼   ► one being the worst club to be in.

01:14:44 ◼   ► Who wants to be in a small club?

01:14:46 ◼   ► Nobody does.

01:14:47 ◼   ► I don't know.

01:14:48 ◼   ► Big clubs only.

01:14:49 ◼   ► the XR size, I think the Max is a little too big for me. And I didn't know that, it's one

01:14:54 ◼   ► of those things like you can't know that until you go back and like I unboxed the XR and

01:14:58 ◼   ► started using it, it's like oh, oh boy. Yeah, it is, it's the sweet spot. Yeah, it's the

01:15:05 ◼   ► Goldilocks, I call it the Goldilocks phone in my review, like it is the in-betweeny phone.

01:15:09 ◼   ► What is Goldilocks? Uh, Goldilocks and the three bears, do you know this? Nope. Goldilocks

01:15:15 ◼   ► I mean she's lost in the forest and she goes into a house.

01:15:18 ◼   ► So this is a story.

01:15:19 ◼   ► This is a story.

01:15:20 ◼   ► It's like a fairy tale.

01:15:22 ◼   ► Fable?

01:15:23 ◼   ► What is porridge?

01:15:24 ◼   ► I don't know which one it would be.

01:15:25 ◼   ► It's like oatmeal, but worse.

01:15:26 ◼   ► Oh gosh.

01:15:27 ◼   ► Yes.

01:15:28 ◼   ► What's oatmeal?

01:15:29 ◼   ► Okay, you have to remember I don't share your traditions of the Anglo-Saxon world.

01:15:35 ◼   ► Right, the thing is though Federico, you throw these things in every now and then.

01:15:40 ◼   ► Of what?

01:15:41 ◼   ► The amount of them that like, "Oh I don't get this" or like "I don't have that here".

01:15:44 ◼   ► I don't know what Goldilocks is. Hang on, I believe you. But the thing is, it's very

01:15:49 ◼   ► easy to forget because there are so many that you do know. Right? Like Goldilocks and the

01:15:55 ◼   ► idea of Goldilocks has been used in so many cartoons and TV shows that like you are probably

01:16:01 ◼   ► more aware of it than you would know that you are. It's a word I've seen before. I just

01:16:06 ◼   ► never bothered to search. I would bet that you have seen some cartoon or TV show that

01:16:13 ◼   ► has referenced this directly, that like if I was to sit down and really explain it to

01:16:18 ◼   ► you, we could find a common ground, but there's like no point.

01:16:20 ◼   ► I have googled Goldilocks and porridge. Porridge looks horrible. Do people eat this? This is,

01:16:28 ◼   ► it's like a poor man's risotto. What is this? Oh my God.

01:16:32 ◼   ► It's breakfast risotto is what it is. Nope. Close.

01:16:35 ◼   ► It's a breakfast food. Common w. Goldilocks. Okay. I will read Goldilocks

01:16:40 ◼   ► and the three bears thank you sorry it's a star wars story

01:16:48 ◼   ► anyway

01:16:50 ◼   ► i don't know where we're going so the size the size is really nice i really

01:16:54 ◼   ► like the size uh i do want to talk about the screen

01:16:57 ◼   ► because that's the screen and the camera are the biggest

01:16:59 ◼   ► differences so yes having used an oled phone for a year

01:17:04 ◼   ► over a year going back to an lcd it's a little bit

01:17:08 ◼   ► bit of a bummer like the colors aren't as nice I mean oh that is just a nicer

01:17:11 ◼   ► technology and yes the bezels are thicker than on the XS and XS Max that's

01:17:18 ◼   ► gonna bother some people but we have to remember who the XR is for and who I

01:17:23 ◼   ► think it's for is people upgrading from an iPhone 6, 6s or 7 and if you want a

01:17:30 ◼   ► modern iPhone with face ID and no home button the XR clearly according to the

01:17:36 ◼   ► numbers is the most popular option for those sorts of consumers and those

01:17:40 ◼   ► sorts of consumers it has basically no bezel compared to what they had and the

01:17:44 ◼   ► screen is just more of what they had before so it is the same pixel

01:17:50 ◼   ► density as the iPhone you know six seven eight you know that that same density

01:17:56 ◼   ► we've had since the retina iPhone first appeared it is not the higher density

01:18:00 ◼   ► that we've seen on the plus phones and then on the iPhone 10 and 10s phones but

01:18:06 ◼   ► But if you have an iPhone 7 in your pocket now and you like that LCD, you will like the

01:18:11 ◼   ► LCD on the iPhone XR because it is the same screen, there is just more of it.

01:18:15 ◼   ► It just flows into the corners like it does on the OLED display.

01:18:19 ◼   ► So yes, coming from an iPhone X, it's a little bit of a bummer, but 99.9% of people aren't

01:18:28 ◼   ► doing that.

01:18:29 ◼   ► It's just people like me who have time on their hands to fiddle with these things.

01:18:35 ◼   ► The lack of 3D touch is really interesting.

01:18:38 ◼   ► So the iPhone XR ships with haptic touch,

01:18:42 ◼   ► which is more or less long press,

01:18:45 ◼   ► and you hold there for a second,

01:18:46 ◼   ► and you get a haptic feedback, and then the thing happens.

01:18:48 ◼   ► So this is built into control center,

01:18:50 ◼   ► and into the lock screen.

01:18:51 ◼   ► So you can do the flashlight and the camera.

01:18:54 ◼   ► It's slightly slower than 3D touch,

01:18:56 ◼   ► and you do lose things like the app screen,

01:18:59 ◼   ► or the app home screen shortcut thing.

01:19:01 ◼   ► What is that called, Federico?

01:19:02 ◼   ► That's a name, right?

01:19:03 ◼   ► the 3D touch on the app icon. Quick actions? Quick actions on the home screen.

01:19:08 ◼   ► You don't have those. For me, my personal experience, all I can speak to, I don't

01:19:13 ◼   ► miss those. Like I never really used them and so not having them on the XR is not

01:19:18 ◼   ► a huge loss. Now if that's really important to your workflow, you're gonna

01:19:22 ◼   ► have a sad time. What's interesting about getting rid of that though is the

01:19:26 ◼   ► confusion between 3D touch and long press is gone. So I think we've all had

01:19:30 ◼   ► people like how do you move screen apps on your screen where you put your thumb down

01:19:34 ◼   ► they wiggle around and you move on oh I press too hard and now I have this menu and now

01:19:38 ◼   ► I didn't press hard enough like all that's gone it's just it's just simpler so that for

01:19:45 ◼   ► me at least is not a big deal I do miss that's my deal breaker 3d touch is my deal breaker

01:19:52 ◼   ► with the iPhone XR you really like it I use it a lot and the haptic touch is not good

01:19:59 ◼   ► enough in some of my key areas. One is like notification previews and initially it didn't

01:20:05 ◼   ► have them but then when they added them it's it's weird. They've done a bad job of it because

01:20:12 ◼   ► for some reason they haven't implemented it the same way they've done it on the iPad which

01:20:16 ◼   ► doesn't make any sense to me. So on the iPhone with 3D Touch and on the iPad you know you

01:20:22 ◼   ► just press down and it opens up and then you can look at it and then you could like without

01:20:26 ◼   ► even lifting your finger off the screen, you could just swipe down, head over like a button

01:20:31 ◼   ► and then you could let go and it activates the button for example, right? Like it's one

01:20:35 ◼   ► smooth action. But on the XR you have to take your finger or thumb off the screen for the

01:20:42 ◼   ► notification content to be presented to you in the pop action. And I don't know why they

01:20:48 ◼   ► did this, it seems very strange to me and I think that that kind of breaks it for me.

01:20:54 ◼   ► breaks my interaction method it makes it less nice to use and I'd use just general peak

01:20:59 ◼   ► and pop throughout the iPhone that I miss a lot and so I would I would I did miss this

01:21:07 ◼   ► when I was testing a 10R and I it is a regression if you are a user of that technology it is

01:21:16 ◼   ► and that's that's the thing for me that I miss the most in the realm of 3D touch what

01:21:20 ◼   ► What I would like to see Apple do is build Haptic Touch to replace everything with 3D

01:21:26 ◼   ► Touch and then bring it to the iPad.

01:21:27 ◼   ► So like the iPhone, whatever model you get, and the iPad all work the same way in this

01:21:33 ◼   ► regard.

01:21:34 ◼   ► The iPad is not going to get 3D Touch, I don't think.

01:21:37 ◼   ► The XR, you know, there's a rumor that the XR2, for lack of a better name, could be getting

01:21:41 ◼   ► an OLED display, which maybe brings 3D Touch back, in which case Haptic Touch is like a

01:21:45 ◼   ► weird side story to this phone.

01:21:48 ◼   ► But if it's the future, if they're gonna get rid of 3D touch, like it has been rumored

01:21:51 ◼   ► for a long time, they need to make this work all the same everywhere.

01:21:55 ◼   ► And right now it's just pretty messy.

01:21:58 ◼   ► So again, something to consider that if these are features that you want, then like is the

01:22:04 ◼   ► $250 worth it or are you just gonna stay on your old phone for another year and see what

01:22:08 ◼   ► happens?

01:22:09 ◼   ► Which is probably what most people are gonna do looking at Apple sales numbers.

01:22:11 ◼   ► The other big thing, and is a bigger thing for me, is the camera.

01:22:16 ◼   ► So the rear shooter is a single lens camera on the back.

01:22:20 ◼   ► It is the same wide angle lens, it's on the XS.

01:22:23 ◼   ► Those pictures, the wide angle pictures

01:22:24 ◼   ► between my XS Max and XR are effectively identical.

01:22:28 ◼   ► I cannot tell the difference.

01:22:30 ◼   ► But it lacks the zoom lens, which I used,

01:22:34 ◼   ► turns out, I didn't kind of realize it,

01:22:36 ◼   ► but actually a fair amount.

01:22:37 ◼   ► Now I don't shoot portrait photos on my phone, ever.

01:22:41 ◼   ► I was looking at my iCloud photo library,

01:22:44 ◼   ► I have like six portrait images in there.

01:22:47 ◼   ► I have 42,000 pictures.

01:22:48 ◼   ► But if you use portrait mode, the XR can do it.

01:22:54 ◼   ► It does it in software.

01:22:56 ◼   ► It's not as good, I think, to my eye as it is on the XS,

01:23:01 ◼   ► but it is there.

01:23:02 ◼   ► It's using the wide angle,

01:23:03 ◼   ► so the cropping is different.

01:23:05 ◼   ► You kinda have to walk up to somebody,

01:23:06 ◼   ► you have to zoom with your feet.

01:23:08 ◼   ► But I used the zoom lens in the past

01:23:10 ◼   ► just like taking regular pictures

01:23:14 ◼   ► Or if, for instance, I would need to take a picture

01:23:16 ◼   ► of like a business card, I could do like the 2x zoom

01:23:19 ◼   ► and punch in closer so the text was bigger

01:23:21 ◼   ► when I wanted to enter into contacts later.

01:23:23 ◼   ► That sort of stuff is a bummer.

01:23:26 ◼   ► And the zoom lens is, it might be the deal breaker for me.

01:23:31 ◼   ► I haven't made a decision what I'm gonna do here.

01:23:34 ◼   ► Like I'm not keeping both phones, I don't think.

01:23:35 ◼   ► I gotta make a decision.

01:23:37 ◼   ► I have a family member who's like in desperate need

01:23:39 ◼   ► of an iPhone so they may get whatever I don't keep.

01:23:42 ◼   ► but not having the zoom lens is, for me at least,

01:23:47 ◼   ► coming from the plus phones a step back.

01:23:50 ◼   ► Now again, if you were using an iPhone 6 6S7,

01:23:53 ◼   ► you weren't in the plus club.

01:23:55 ◼   ► This is a huge camera upgrade and the zoom lenses

01:23:57 ◼   ► wasn't gonna be for you anyway.

01:23:59 ◼   ► So it's all about putting this phone into context

01:24:02 ◼   ► and that's what I wanted to do with this review.

01:24:04 ◼   ► It's what I wanted to do with these two weeks

01:24:06 ◼   ► trying it on Apple's return policy of like,

01:24:10 ◼   ► trying to understand this phone,

01:24:11 ◼   ► not from the perspective of a XS buyer,

01:24:14 ◼   ► but from the perspective of somebody who would be upgrading.

01:24:16 ◼   ► And in that context,

01:24:21 ◼   ► the XR to me is a huge hit.

01:24:23 ◼   ► It's a great iPhone,

01:24:25 ◼   ► and one that I think people should be

01:24:28 ◼   ► probably even more excited about.

01:24:30 ◼   ► You know, it's a lot cheaper.

01:24:31 ◼   ► If you look at the monthly upgrade pricing,

01:24:34 ◼   ► it's 37, this is in the US for an unlocked phone,

01:24:39 ◼   ► 64 gigabytes the 10r is 37 41 a month the tennis is

01:24:44 ◼   ► $49.91 a month and the tennis max is

01:24:47 ◼   ► $54.08 a month so if you're looking at $54 versus $37 over the course of a year or two years or

01:24:55 ◼   ► 749

01:24:57 ◼   ► 999 or 1099 like the 10 are is

01:25:00 ◼   ► Cheaper by a healthy amount and I at least think what I've walked away with this is I'm not sure

01:25:08 ◼   ► That $250 is worth it

01:25:10 ◼   ► It may if you want that phone and you can afford it. That's awesome

01:25:14 ◼   ► but if you're coming from an older phone and you don't want to spend a

01:25:17 ◼   ► Ridiculous thousand dollars on an iPhone. I don't think what you get for the 10r is

01:25:24 ◼   ► Like you're leaving a lot like what you're leaving on the table

01:25:29 ◼   ► I think is fine for the price and I think that they've positioned it well and

01:25:34 ◼   ► It's kind of guys. It's kind of won me over like I really like this phone and I think that that it has sort of gotten a

01:25:41 ◼   ► Gun not the attention. It deserves sort of in like the tech journalism sphere

01:25:47 ◼   ► And so at least in our corner of that I want to change that like this is a great phone for a lot of people

01:25:51 ◼   ► I feel like everyone's had really good things to say about it

01:25:55 ◼   ► But just nobody's decided to use it for their right like Joanna Stearns using it

01:25:59 ◼   ► She and John Gruber talked about that on the on a recent episode of the talk show

01:26:02 ◼   ► And I think she is probably the most prominent person who is using one.

01:26:07 ◼   ► People are using it, right?

01:26:08 ◼   ► But it's so easy to focus on the high end, right?

01:26:13 ◼   ► When the Mac Pro comes out, that's all I'm going to want to talk about for a month.

01:26:16 ◼   ► And you guys are going to have to stop me.

01:26:18 ◼   ► But when the Mac Mini comes out, we talk about it for a week.

01:26:21 ◼   ► People who are into this stuff want to talk about the most powerful, like the high end

01:26:24 ◼   ► stuff.

01:26:25 ◼   ► But the XNR has really been eye-opening to me how good it is.

01:26:31 ◼   ► I think the price is a touch high, but I think what you get for it, it's reasonable.

01:26:37 ◼   ► Well, but here's the thing though, right?

01:26:43 ◼   ► You are still somebody who wants to have the latest and greatest, and whilst the XR gives

01:26:50 ◼   ► you most of that this year, I would be surprised if it kept being the case.

01:26:57 ◼   ► gets all of the technology bar like a few small things.

01:27:01 ◼   ► So that's a really interesting question of what happens this year.

01:27:05 ◼   ► So I think there's a world that you just described where the XR stays on the A12 and the XS2

01:27:13 ◼   ► or 11 or whatever gets a new processor and the XR maybe drops in price but doesn't get

01:27:18 ◼   ► updated again.

01:27:19 ◼   ► It becomes effectively the new iPhone SE.

01:27:22 ◼   ► Remember the iPhone SE came out.

01:27:24 ◼   ► It had the 6s guts when the 6s was still on sale and then it languished until just a couple

01:27:29 ◼   ► of weeks ago when it finally went away.

01:27:31 ◼   ► That could be the fate of the XR.

01:27:33 ◼   ► It could be that this phone is the modern now, but Apple is going to let it wither on

01:27:37 ◼   ► the vine.

01:27:39 ◼   ► That would be sad and I think it would be a mistake if the new iPhones start at $1,000.

01:27:44 ◼   ► If the new iPhones, the iPhone 11 or whatever, the 2019 new iPhone, if that starts at $749,

01:27:51 ◼   ► good riddance XR.

01:27:52 ◼   ► Apple's fixed the price problem.

01:27:54 ◼   ► But in a world where the flagship starts at $1,000, I think Apple needs to keep something

01:28:01 ◼   ► in this price point updated.

01:28:03 ◼   ► And so I am hopeful that we do see a 10R2 or whatever it's going to be called, 11R,

01:28:07 ◼   ► whatever, that is updated and holds this price point with a new phone.

01:28:12 ◼   ► Because I think it would be a mistake for Apple, especially in light of their earnings,

01:28:18 ◼   ► for the cheapest new phone to be $1,000.

01:28:23 ◼   ► year we had the 10 at that price point but we had the 8 at $699 and the 8+ at $799.

01:28:30 ◼   ► So they've done this now for a couple of years so I expect that the 10R would be updated

01:28:34 ◼   ► and hold its price point unless they really blow things up and the flagships are cheaper

01:28:38 ◼   ► and then the need for this price point goes away because they have it covered elsewhere.

01:28:43 ◼   ► Yeah, I can totally understand why you would be into this, but I don't think you would

01:28:56 ◼   ► stick with this in the long term, like the multiple year term.

01:29:00 ◼   ► No, no, but I mean, I can't change who I am.

01:29:03 ◼   ► I have a vice of buying a new iPhone every year, but it is a phone that I'd be happy

01:29:08 ◼   ► to use for a year.

01:29:09 ◼   ► And if they say that next year, the iPhone 11 is $1,000 and it has three lenses and the

01:29:16 ◼   ► iPhone 10 R to 11 R whatever is 749 again, and as it adds the zoom lens, like I don't

01:29:25 ◼   ► know what I would do, like, because the zoom lens is the biggest thing for me.

01:29:30 ◼   ► And if they added that, like then what then like, we have to reevaluate is the money worth

01:29:35 ◼   ► to upgrade.

01:29:36 ◼   ► So like, it's all open ended at this point.

01:29:38 ◼   ► I can only speak of where we are today until these new iPhones come out in September.

01:29:42 ◼   ► But today, if you're looking to upgrade, I feel solidly that the XR is the right answer

01:29:48 ◼   ► for almost everybody.

01:29:50 ◼   ► Yeah, I would say that I by and large came away with that feeling with the caveat of

01:29:59 ◼   ► unless you're someone like me.

01:30:02 ◼   ► But you haven't come away with that.

01:30:04 ◼   ► I haven't.

01:30:05 ◼   ► might be sticking with it but Myke Hurley knew that he couldn't. And part

01:30:10 ◼   ► of that is because I do it for a living part of it is like I am sort of

01:30:14 ◼   ► interested in like what the experience would be for a year using the phone that

01:30:19 ◼   ► like most of the people I work with aren't using right like would the would

01:30:23 ◼   ► the things they've taken away to hit the price point bother me long term you know

01:30:28 ◼   ► in June July August would I still feel this way about this phone or like I

01:30:34 ◼   ► I could be it, I mean, and very well possibly could be,

01:30:36 ◼   ► like in the honeymoon phase, like it's great, it's fun,

01:30:39 ◼   ► I like the size a lot, but like would I change my mind

01:30:43 ◼   ► over time, and for that experiment alone, I may keep it.

01:30:47 ◼   ► Just to live with something that's not the high end

01:30:52 ◼   ► for the better part of a cycle, to like really understand

01:30:56 ◼   ► where this phone is, because it's an important,

01:30:59 ◼   ► in some ways I think it's the most important iPhone

01:31:01 ◼   ► Apple makes right now, and the most important one

01:31:03 ◼   ► sell and is two weeks a fair time to judge that as like a tech commentator I

01:31:08 ◼   ► don't know probably not but I made my mind up pretty quickly like I could see

01:31:14 ◼   ► why it was great but I could also just tell that this isn't stuff for you it's

01:31:18 ◼   ► just it's not the thing I want like and I said this in the review like what I

01:31:23 ◼   ► probably like what I probably should do like the middle ground for me is next

01:31:27 ◼   ► year don't do the max do the the the regular size like iPhone 10 sized phone

01:31:35 ◼   ► because I do feel like the max is too big but if I still want those features

01:31:39 ◼   ► and like the 10s slot is probably where I should be balancing these things all

01:31:44 ◼   ► out but we'll cross that bridge when we get there in September I guess I wonder

01:31:50 ◼   ► so this is this is my thing all right so you're gonna get the 10 on now well you

01:31:55 ◼   ► lost until September. I wonder, I just wonder. I don't know if I'll be willing to say either

01:32:04 ◼   ► way.

01:32:05 ◼   ► Whenever I ever flip-flopped on technology decisions.

01:32:07 ◼   ► Yeah, right, whenever.

01:32:08 ◼   ► The thing is, is that I do feel like with this specific thing, that if you do really

01:32:13 ◼   ► like the XR, you might be able to last because there aren't really that many differences.

01:32:19 ◼   ► Maybe the camera, maybe the 2X camera would be really great on you over time, but you

01:32:24 ◼   ► just don't know that yet. That's the thing right now. I feel like that might be the thing, right?

01:32:28 ◼   ► Like we all go somewhere and like everyone can get a great picture except you, right? Like,

01:32:34 ◼   ► you know, because I've been in those situations. Steven and his blue phone are left out in the

01:32:39 ◼   ► party. I've been in those situations but when it was just on the plus where like I could get a

01:32:43 ◼   ► great picture and other people couldn't because they couldn't get the zoom that they wanted.

01:32:48 ◼   ► So yeah, but I don't know. I don't know. I'm intrigued. I'm interested to see what you do.

01:32:54 ◼   ► I bet you keep it. I bet you keep it and I bet you give your Max away to whoever it is in your

01:32:59 ◼   ► family that wants a new phone. But I am not willing to talk of as much certainty to say

01:33:05 ◼   ► that you'll keep that $10 all the way to the end of the year. Yeah, yeah. Especially if the 11 Max

01:33:13 ◼   ► as like three cameras and a bunch of new camera features.

01:33:17 ◼   ► Oh, I was 100 percent the moment that the Max gets more features

01:33:21 ◼   ► than the other phone.

01:33:22 ◼   ► Stephen will come in to come back to the Max Club without a shadow of a doubt.

01:33:25 ◼   ► You think you're going to stick with the 11R? I don't think so.

01:33:27 ◼   ► So enjoy it while it lasts.

01:33:29 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:33:31 ◼   ► This next eight months, you're a pretty colorful phone.

01:33:35 ◼   ► But you're going to put a case on it, though.

01:33:38 ◼   ► He doesn't like the clear one. He wrote so in the review.

01:33:41 ◼   ► I don't like clear cases.

01:33:42 ◼   ► I picked up a Spigen case where it is like a rubber bumper with a clear back and the bumpers

01:33:50 ◼   ► match to the blue. I'll dig up a link to it for the show notes. It's really nice. I have the phone

01:33:56 ◼   ► in that case right now. I think it will probably be the case that I use with this phone. Again,

01:34:01 ◼   ► I don't like clear cases because it shows a bunch of junk in the back. And after a few days,

01:34:05 ◼   ► there's like a hair back there that's like really making my eye twitch. But the speaking case is

01:34:10 ◼   ► still going to have that problem. That's what I'm saying it's in the Spigen case and it at least the

01:34:14 ◼   ► bumper covers all the stuff around the edges but if stuff gets in the back then uh yeah I don't know

01:34:19 ◼   ► why Apple just didn't make a leather case and then just punch holes in it like the like the 5c case

01:34:23 ◼   ► that would have been fine with me. Has nobody made just a bumper? I don't know the Spigen case came

01:34:28 ◼   ► recommended um actually by Joanna on the talk show she talked about it so that's the one I picked up

01:34:34 ◼   ► but uh we'll see. I would take a look at I wonder if Rhino Shield because Rhino Shield make bumper

01:34:40 ◼   ► for the 10 line, so they might make one for the 10R line.

01:34:44 ◼   ► Because that's gonna give you the protection

01:34:46 ◼   ► that you as a human being desperately need on your phones

01:34:49 ◼   ► 'cause you break them all.

01:34:50 ◼   ► But without giving you the issue of having a clear case,

01:34:56 ◼   ► when putting a case that covers up the color

01:34:59 ◼   ► of these phones, there's at that point,

01:35:01 ◼   ► why are you even bothering, right?

01:35:03 ◼   ► - Which is why Apple didn't do it, right?

01:35:05 ◼   ► It's why they didn't ship leather cases.

01:35:07 ◼   ► looks like they do make a bumper by the way. You should try out the Rhino

01:35:12 ◼   ► Shield line. I have problems with their initial 10 bumper

01:35:17 ◼   ► because it got in the way of me being able to do the gestures but I've been

01:35:23 ◼   ► told by people since that apparently their newer ones are better. Well the

01:35:27 ◼   ► Apple Clear Case and the Spigen both do that. They have a lip all the way at the

01:35:31 ◼   ► bottom where the Apple leather and silicone have a cut out. So we'll see.

01:35:35 ◼   ► I'll keep you all posted, but right now I really like this blue iPhone.

01:35:39 ◼   ► This crash guard NX is what I'm looking at.

01:35:41 ◼   ► You can do a bunch of colors and stuff.

01:35:45 ◼   ► You can change the colors of the buttons and stuff like that.

01:35:49 ◼   ► Go wild.

01:35:50 ◼   ► Go crazy.

01:35:51 ◼   ► I think that does it for this week on Connected.

01:35:54 ◼   ► If you want to find links to stuff we talked about, head over to the website, relay.fm/connected/228.

01:36:00 ◼   ► While you're there, you can get in touch.

01:36:02 ◼   ► You can send us an email or you can find us on Twitter.

01:36:05 ◼   ► You can find Myke there is I M Y K E I Myke.

01:36:10 ◼   ► Myke hosts a bunch of shows here on relay FM.

01:36:13 ◼   ► So head over to relay.fm/shows.

01:36:16 ◼   ► You can find something else with Myke's lovely voice on it.

01:36:19 ◼   ► You can find Federico on Twitter, VITICCI.

01:36:24 ◼   ► Federico is the editor in chief of Max stories.net where they publish all sorts of madness.

01:36:32 ◼   ► You've shown us some stuff you're working on with some new automation stuff and it's

01:36:35 ◼   ► mind blowing.

01:36:36 ◼   ► I was going to say, stay tuned.

01:36:39 ◼   ► You can find me on Twitter @ismh.

01:36:42 ◼   ► You can find my writing at 512pixels.net.

01:36:46 ◼   ► And until next week guys, say goodbye.