Connected

00:00:00 ◼   ► (upbeat music)

00:00:02 ◼   ► - Hello and welcome to Connected, episode 222.

00:00:12 ◼   ► It is brought to you this week by our sponsors,

00:00:14 ◼   ► Luna Display, Squarespace, and Simple Contacts.

00:00:18 ◼   ► I'm your host, Steven Hackett,

00:00:19 ◼   ► and I'm joined on one side by my co-host, Federico Vatici.

00:00:22 ◼   ► Federico, how are you?

00:00:24 ◼   ► - Hi Steven, I'm good, how are you?

00:00:26 ◼   ► - I'm doing well, I'm excited to be with y'all today.

00:00:29 ◼   ► And on the other side, I'm joined by Myke Hurley.

00:00:31 ◼   ► - Hello.

00:00:32 ◼   ► - I was thinking about this, like where,

00:00:35 ◼   ► like if one of you on each side of me,

00:00:36 ◼   ► but when we do live shows, Myke's always in the middle

00:00:39 ◼   ► and I'm on the end if Federico's on the other end.

00:00:41 ◼   ► - I was just thinking that exact same thing.

00:00:42 ◼   ► You planted that thought into my brain.

00:00:44 ◼   ► - I was actually thinking the opposite,

00:00:46 ◼   ► like what if instead of being on the sides,

00:00:48 ◼   ► we're up and down?

00:00:50 ◼   ► Like what kind of dimensions are we looking at here?

00:00:52 ◼   ► - I think I'm always in the middle, I think.

00:00:55 ◼   ► I feel like that that just like works.

00:00:58 ◼   ► Well, because we've done it every time now.

00:00:59 ◼   ► Like I sit in the middle.

00:01:00 ◼   ► Even when we recorded in an Airbnb, I was in the middle.

00:01:06 ◼   ► You were.

00:01:06 ◼   ► But you two were on the opposite sides when we recorded the Airbnb.

00:01:10 ◼   ► It is odd how that has worked out.

00:01:12 ◼   ► Maybe it's because we do often do ingenious.

00:01:14 ◼   ► So you and I are like already next to each other.

00:01:16 ◼   ► Then Federica comes in, you know, just, I don't know.

00:01:18 ◼   ► Next time you see us live, take note of where we're sitting.

00:01:21 ◼   ► And if it's changed, let us know.

00:01:22 ◼   ► Well, I think it's a holdover from me being the like introducer.

00:01:26 ◼   ► Right.

00:01:28 ◼   ► but now it's just the way it is.

00:01:30 ◼   ► - It's that Micah energy, everybody wants a piece of that.

00:01:34 ◼   ► - The chat room says it's because Micah's

00:01:36 ◼   ► in the middle geographically, but that is all dependent

00:01:39 ◼   ► on how you're looking at the map.

00:01:40 ◼   ► - It depends where you start, right?

00:01:42 ◼   ► - Yeah, that's a matter of perspective, really.

00:01:46 ◼   ► More than anything else.

00:01:48 ◼   ► - Speaking of geography, most people in Italy

00:01:52 ◼   ► have discovered over the past couple of weeks

00:01:54 ◼   ► the existence of flat earthers, thanks to a television program that did like a series

00:02:00 ◼   ► on these people. And like everybody's talking about them now. And it's very funny because

00:02:05 ◼   ► I get approached by like my mom or like my girlfriend's sister. Everybody's like, did

00:02:11 ◼   ► you know that these people exist? You know, like, yeah, I'm familiar with them. Thanks

00:02:15 ◼   ► to YouTube. I would like if people are interested in learning

00:02:19 ◼   ► more about that, Flat Earth Societies, they should listen to episode 13 of the

00:02:25 ◼   ► Ungenius podcast. When me and Steven get into it. And Steven, so quick

00:02:30 ◼   ► behind the scenes, Steven writes most of Ungenius and he tends to write me as if

00:02:35 ◼   ► I am a conspiracy theorist. So in that episode, I am kind of a Flat Earther, so you've got that going for you if you want to hear what that's like.

00:02:46 ◼   ► You also doubted the lunar landings, I believe?

00:02:49 ◼   ► Yep, moon landing.

00:02:50 ◼   ► Yep, there was one more, but I don't remember off the top of my head.

00:02:53 ◼   ► Yeah, I don't remember what the last one was.

00:02:54 ◼   ► The Flat Earthers found our email address, though.

00:02:56 ◼   ► That was exciting.

00:02:57 ◼   ► They did.

00:02:58 ◼   ► They did.

00:02:59 ◼   ► Oh no.

00:03:00 ◼   ► Oh no.

00:03:01 ◼   ► We're going to move right into talking about things we've already talked about in a segment

00:03:06 ◼   ► we call Follow Up.

00:03:09 ◼   ► We spoke now two episodes ago?

00:03:11 ◼   ► Three episodes?

00:03:12 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:03:13 ◼   ► Time.

00:03:14 ◼   ► I was going to say time is a flat circle, but that's a terrible--

00:03:15 ◼   ► Time is a flat earth.

00:03:17 ◼   ► - Time is a flat earth.

00:03:19 ◼   ► - Don't do it.

00:03:20 ◼   ► Don't go there.

00:03:20 ◼   ► - Federico, you talked about how you're accessing

00:03:23 ◼   ► the files on your Mac mini remotely,

00:03:26 ◼   ► and I didn't talk about that,

00:03:28 ◼   ► and then I sort of realized this week,

00:03:30 ◼   ► it popped in my brain that I don't need

00:03:32 ◼   ► to have that need very often,

00:03:34 ◼   ► because the majority of my working files are on Dropbox,

00:03:38 ◼   ► but when I did need it, I was using back to my Mac,

00:03:43 ◼   ► which is now gone in Mac OS Mojave,

00:03:47 ◼   ► back to my Mac, is no more.

00:03:49 ◼   ► - You just stumbled, nearly stumbled on something

00:03:52 ◼   ► that I can't believe we have not thought of before,

00:03:55 ◼   ► which is Mac OS Mojave.

00:03:57 ◼   ► That sounds so good.

00:03:59 ◼   ► Like why have we not been doing this the whole time?

00:04:01 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:04:02 ◼   ► Mac OS Mojave.

00:04:04 ◼   ► I love it.

00:04:05 ◼   ► - That is good.

00:04:06 ◼   ► That's what we'll go with now.

00:04:07 ◼   ► - Thank you, Mac OS.

00:04:09 ◼   ► So I had, again, this thought at some point,

00:04:13 ◼   ► and realized that I needed a new way to do this.

00:04:16 ◼   ► And I didn't want to do what Ferrico had done.

00:04:19 ◼   ► And we're going to talk about what you've changed here

00:04:21 ◼   ► in a second.

00:04:21 ◼   ► But opening up SMB sharing on a Comcast connection--

00:04:26 ◼   ► Comcast actually doesn't let you do it.

00:04:27 ◼   ► You got to jump through some hoops.

00:04:29 ◼   ► And I really didn't want to go that route anyways.

00:04:32 ◼   ► And so what I'm using is screens and screens connect,

00:04:37 ◼   ► which is this really nice remote management app.

00:04:40 ◼   ► It runs on Mac OS and iOS.

00:04:42 ◼   ► And Screens Connect is this little program.

00:04:46 ◼   ► It used to be a system preference pane.

00:04:47 ◼   ► And now it sits in the menu bar, which I preferred it

00:04:50 ◼   ► as a system preference pane so it

00:04:51 ◼   ► wasn't in my face all the time.

00:04:53 ◼   ► But it runs on the Mac in the background.

00:04:55 ◼   ► And it basically acts as a conduit.

00:04:58 ◼   ► So if I'm on my iPad somewhere else,

00:05:01 ◼   ► or if I'm on my MacBook Pro somewhere else,

00:05:03 ◼   ► and I need to get into my Mac Mini,

00:05:05 ◼   ► I can just open screens, screens connect,

00:05:08 ◼   ► figures out where I am, where the other computer is,

00:05:10 ◼   ► and lets me in.

00:05:11 ◼   ► So there's no port forwarding,

00:05:13 ◼   ► there's no router configuration.

00:05:15 ◼   ► You basically just turn on screens connect

00:05:19 ◼   ► and at least with my home network setup,

00:05:23 ◼   ► it just works really nicely.

00:05:26 ◼   ► And so I have screens connect running on my iMac Pro

00:05:29 ◼   ► and my Mac Mini and I just made a Dropbox folder.

00:05:33 ◼   ► I named it Bridge, just because it seemed clever.

00:05:36 ◼   ► And that's the only Dropbox folder I sync to the Mac Mini.

00:05:39 ◼   ► And so if I need-- and I'm telling you,

00:05:41 ◼   ► I've done this like three times in the last probably two years.

00:05:44 ◼   ► This is very rare for me.

00:05:45 ◼   ► But if I need something, I can just remote into the Mac Mini,

00:05:48 ◼   ► find it on my Drobo, put it in the Dropbox folder,

00:05:51 ◼   ► and let's let Dropbox sync it to me.

00:05:53 ◼   ► And I have to deal with transferring files directly

00:05:56 ◼   ► over my connection.

00:05:57 ◼   ► And I've been, at least in testing, really happy with it.

00:06:00 ◼   ► And in nine months, when this need comes up again,

00:06:02 ◼   ► I'll let you know how it works.

00:06:03 ◼   ► It was a time for me to reevaluate screens

00:06:06 ◼   ► and Screens Connect and it's always been

00:06:08 ◼   ► an impressive application.

00:06:09 ◼   ► Version four is really nice and it's a good alternative

00:06:13 ◼   ► if you don't want to deal with like port forwarding

00:06:15 ◼   ► and stuff.

00:06:16 ◼   ► But Federico, you have changed how you're accessing

00:06:19 ◼   ► your Mac Mini from the internet, so what are you doing?

00:06:21 ◼   ► - Yes, I turned off SMB sharing after feedback

00:06:26 ◼   ► that I was sent by some kind connected listeners

00:06:28 ◼   ► and I'm now using just SSH and SFTP which is encrypted and preferable to SMB.

00:06:34 ◼   ► People sending you pictures of your file system.

00:06:37 ◼   ► Like, "Oh hey, look!"

00:06:39 ◼   ► Thankfully it hasn't happened. I also adopted a longer and more complex password,

00:06:44 ◼   ► which I thought was going to be annoying, but actually thanks to the Apple Watch unlocking system,

00:06:49 ◼   ► when I'm at home I just need to press the space bar on the Magic Keyboard and the Mac Mini unlocks,

00:06:55 ◼   ► thanks to the Apple Watch.

00:06:56 ◼   ► You don't get this Michael, because you don't wear an Apple Watch anymore.

00:06:59 ◼   ► You don't know what I get.

00:07:02 ◼   ► Well, are you wearing two watches?

00:07:05 ◼   ► No.

00:07:06 ◼   ► [Laughter]

00:07:08 ◼   ► Maybe I should like set up a fake arm and just put the Apple Watch on it next to my Mac.

00:07:12 ◼   ► Sure.

00:07:13 ◼   ► And then I can just tap it.

00:07:15 ◼   ► That's not creepy at all.

00:07:17 ◼   ► But I could see actually like a mannequin in your office just holding the Apple Watch

00:07:23 ◼   ► so that you can fake use Apple Watch features.

00:07:27 ◼   ► I could use that mannequin quite well.

00:07:29 ◼   ► I could put my VR headset on its head.

00:07:31 ◼   ► I could put an Apple Watch on its arm.

00:07:33 ◼   ► See? And that wouldn't be creepy at all.

00:07:36 ◼   ► I'm sure your wife would be supportive of the idea

00:07:39 ◼   ► of a mannequin wearing tech gadgets.

00:07:42 ◼   ► Anyway, yes, I'm using SFTP and SSH,

00:07:45 ◼   ► still using file browser, and I can use Prompt.

00:07:48 ◼   ► I can use all these other iOS apps to access my Mac Mini,

00:07:51 ◼   ► which is very nice.

00:07:52 ◼   ► What, who would the mannequin look like?

00:07:54 ◼   ► I wasn't thinking of that, but...

00:07:57 ◼   ► It will look like Prince Charles.

00:07:59 ◼   ► Mmm.

00:08:00 ◼   ► Uh, so, uh, I'm sure that would be fine.

00:08:03 ◼   ► Didn't Matt Alexander have a mannequin made of himself for a thing?

00:08:07 ◼   ► At some point, yes he did.

00:08:10 ◼   ► Okay, we'll just, we'll find that one.

00:08:12 ◼   ► [laughs]

00:08:13 ◼   ► Oh my god.

00:08:14 ◼   ► I don't know if I can find that.

00:08:16 ◼   ► Probably.

00:08:17 ◼   ► It's on his Instagram, maybe. We can find it.

00:08:18 ◼   ► Yeah, I'll find that.

00:08:20 ◼   ► Or it could be like not necessarily a mannequin but like a like a wax statue.

00:08:24 ◼   ► You know those? Like they look like real people but they're not?

00:08:29 ◼   ► Oh, oh wax like a wax statue like a man-of-two-swords type dealio.

00:08:33 ◼   ► Yes that that kind of stuff. Some of them are super creepy and super realistic.

00:08:39 ◼   ► Scott Forstall wax mannequin.

00:08:40 ◼   ► 100% you nailed it. I couldn't think of who I would want it to be but now I know who I want it to be.

00:08:46 ◼   ► Now we know.

00:08:47 ◼   ► With his eyes wide open?

00:08:49 ◼   ► So it's wide open, big colorful shirt.

00:08:51 ◼   ► Nice.

00:08:52 ◼   ► Nice.

00:08:53 ◼   ► There's a button and he just says, "It's blow away.

00:08:56 ◼   ► It's blow away."

00:08:57 ◼   ► It's blow away.

00:08:58 ◼   ► And you introduce him as Scotty to people visiting your house, that would be amazing.

00:09:03 ◼   ► That would be good.

00:09:05 ◼   ► Federico, in the section where we're talking about this in the previous episode, you had

00:09:08 ◼   ► mentioned that you were using the app File Browser.

00:09:11 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah.

00:09:12 ◼   ► Which actually does not support AFP.

00:09:15 ◼   ► So the Mac has a couple of file sharing options.

00:09:17 ◼   ► You have SFTP, SSH, like what you're doing.

00:09:21 ◼   ► You have SMB.

00:09:22 ◼   ► You guys are saying a lot of acronyms that I don't understand right now.

00:09:25 ◼   ► Just want to let you know that.

00:09:26 ◼   ► AFP, SMB, I don't know what any of this stuff is.

00:09:29 ◼   ► Yeah, SMB, it's actually SMB2 now on the Mac, but AFP.

00:09:33 ◼   ► Oh good, that makes it easier.

00:09:35 ◼   ► Yeah, 2 is better than the 1 before it.

00:09:37 ◼   ► AFP has been deprecated though, and so like File Browser doesn't even support it, and

00:09:41 ◼   ► it's sort of going away in Mac OS over time, so SMB limits your options if your ISP doesn't

00:09:47 ◼   ► allow you to open it up on the network which is true for a lot of ISPs but

00:09:51 ◼   ► there's lots of good options now for this sort of thing and I do kind of

00:09:55 ◼   ► wonder like how big of a need this is like how if back to my Mac was really

00:10:00 ◼   ► popular would Apple have killed it off I can't imagine many people were actually

00:10:04 ◼   ► using it. In a post Dropbox world people don't do this stuff as much. Yeah right.

00:10:12 ◼   ► Man, I don't know about you guys, but like pretty much my entire file system is in Dropbox.

00:10:17 ◼   ► Right? Like I don't, you know, the only things that do not go into Dropbox are podcast production

00:10:24 ◼   ► files, unless I know, and like the only times they ever go in there or the only times I ever

00:10:28 ◼   ► need them, they're in there because I've put them in there because I know I'm going to be traveling

00:10:33 ◼   ► or whatever, right? Like I don't start a project on my desktop if I'm going to be finishing it

00:10:40 ◼   ► away from my desktop.

00:10:41 ◼   ► And and if I am going to finish it away from my desktop, it will go into Dropbox.

00:10:45 ◼   ► You know what I mean?

00:10:45 ◼   ► Like, it's not like this isn't a thing where I'm like, oh, rats.

00:10:49 ◼   ► I don't have the file, right?

00:10:50 ◼   ► Because it's just not, you know, that's just not how I work.

00:10:53 ◼   ► So I think that that's why I'd like something like back to my Mac

00:10:57 ◼   ► just doesn't doesn't really make sense anymore,

00:10:59 ◼   ► especially when Apple's trying to get you to sync all of your documents.

00:11:03 ◼   ► It's very I got my Mac mini today and I took great care

00:11:07 ◼   ► to make sure I unchecked that box of like, sync my desktop!

00:11:11 ◼   ► - Yeah, do not want.

00:11:12 ◼   ► - Just watch everything delete from my iMac or something

00:11:15 ◼   ► like that, great, there it goes, that's what I wanted.

00:11:18 ◼   ► See how my Mac Mini arrived, I can provide

00:11:20 ◼   ► some important follow up, the accessory kit,

00:11:23 ◼   ► cable, it's just a power cable.

00:11:26 ◼   ► That was all that was in there,

00:11:28 ◼   ► there was nothing else in there.

00:11:29 ◼   ► I was disappointed that the stickers were white.

00:11:32 ◼   ► - So the Apple sticker color deal is interesting, right?

00:11:35 ◼   ► because if you get a MacBook Air,

00:11:39 ◼   ► and it's like space gray or something,

00:11:40 ◼   ► the stickers are colored.

00:11:42 ◼   ► My Mac Pro came with dark apple stickers,

00:11:44 ◼   ► but the Mac Mini doesn't.

00:11:45 ◼   ► I don't think the MacBook Pro does.

00:11:47 ◼   ► It's real hit or miss.

00:11:48 ◼   ► - The Mac Pro comes with black ones.

00:11:50 ◼   ► So I don't know why the Mac Mini

00:11:52 ◼   ► doesn't come with gray or black ones.

00:11:54 ◼   ► It comes with white ones.

00:11:55 ◼   ► - It's real confusing.

00:11:57 ◼   ► - Also, can I give a PSA?

00:12:00 ◼   ► - Sure.

00:12:01 ◼   ► - I wanna talk about stickers for a minute.

00:12:03 ◼   ► - Oh no. - Okay.

00:12:04 ◼   ► Very rightly, I think lots more people are putting Apple stickers,

00:12:08 ◼   ► or stickers in general, I should say, onto their iPads because the

00:12:12 ◼   ► iPad keyboard folio is a boring expanse of nothingness.

00:12:16 ◼   ► So I'm seeing lots of people putting stickers on it.

00:12:19 ◼   ► Very happy about this.

00:12:21 ◼   ► I would like to ask people, please don't put those white Apple stickers

00:12:25 ◼   ► on your devices.

00:12:27 ◼   ► It's too big and the sticker is not very good.

00:12:30 ◼   ► Just spend like a minute Googling for Apple logo stickers

00:12:34 ◼   ► and you can get yourself like a nice rainbow one or something like that.

00:12:38 ◼   ► Those big white Apple stickers, please don't use them.

00:12:41 ◼   ► And if you're going to use them,

00:12:43 ◼   ► please don't put them where you think the Apple logo should go.

00:12:46 ◼   ► Put them like in another pot.

00:12:48 ◼   ► Like don't put it right in the middle. It's way too big.

00:12:50 ◼   ► It doesn't look right.

00:12:51 ◼   ► Like if it was scaled down to the size of the Apple logo on the iPad,

00:12:56 ◼   ► it would be fine.

00:12:57 ◼   ► But that sticker is like it's like the biggest Apple logo that ever exists.

00:13:00 ◼   ► Like there is no Apple logo on any product that is the size of the sticker

00:13:04 ◼   ► they put in the box. It looks wrong. Just trust me on this one. My PSA is over.

00:13:09 ◼   ► Do you guys have literally any opinions on what I just said?

00:13:13 ◼   ► It sounds more like a complaint than a PSA, honestly.

00:13:20 ◼   ► No, it is a public service announcement to make people's sticker devices look better.

00:13:25 ◼   ► OK. Now, I agree with it. I just don't have any opinion.

00:13:28 ◼   ► I think you're right. Agreeing with it is all I wanted.

00:13:32 ◼   ► Yes, I agree with it officially.

00:13:34 ◼   ► Today's episode is brought to you in part by our friends over at Luna Display,

00:13:39 ◼   ► the hardware solution that turns your iPad into a wireless display for your Mac.

00:13:43 ◼   ► So you have a super portable second display

00:13:45 ◼   ► with stunning image quality and basically zero lag.

00:13:48 ◼   ► So my Mac Mini arrived today and I've tested the Luna Display.

00:13:53 ◼   ► I played around with it on my iMac a little bit and it was great.

00:13:55 ◼   ► But now I've spent some like some extended periods of time with it

00:13:59 ◼   ► because I have literally just been setting up my Mac Mini with just the

00:14:03 ◼   ► lunar display. I plugged it into a monitor to get like the initial setup

00:14:06 ◼   ► done. Once that was done in went the lunar display and I've been using it for

00:14:10 ◼   ► like an hour or so today. It is this this thing is unbelievable. Like I cannot

00:14:15 ◼   ► believe how responsive this like everything becomes. Like it is wild to be

00:14:21 ◼   ► able to use your Mac like this like with an Apple Pencil. Like it's so wild. Like I

00:14:27 ◼   ► I can't believe how responsive it all is.

00:14:29 ◼   ► It just really, honestly, like just works.

00:14:33 ◼   ► I am absolutely so excited about this.

00:14:37 ◼   ► I've been waiting for this, right?

00:14:38 ◼   ► I've been talking about it for weeks, right?

00:14:39 ◼   ► Getting the Mac mini, plugging the Luna Display in,

00:14:42 ◼   ► and now I'm using it and I love it.

00:14:44 ◼   ► And here's one thing that I thought was fun

00:14:46 ◼   ► because one thing the Luna Display can't do is send audio.

00:14:50 ◼   ► But what my Mac can do is connect to my HomePod.

00:14:55 ◼   ► So I was just to test out what it could do.

00:14:57 ◼   ► I was watching a YouTube video

00:14:59 ◼   ► with sending the audio to my home pod and it was flawless.

00:15:04 ◼   ► Like, I cannot believe how it can do this so well.

00:15:08 ◼   ► Like the video looked amazing and the audio was perfectly in sync.

00:15:12 ◼   ► Like this stuff is incredible.

00:15:14 ◼   ► Like seriously, like you if you have a Mac and an iPad,

00:15:19 ◼   ► just pick one of these things up, just even just to play around of it.

00:15:23 ◼   ► But like I now have the ability to access my Mac Mini from wherever I want.

00:15:27 ◼   ► I can access my Mac Mini now without because I'm just going to leave it

00:15:30 ◼   ► on all the time, right?

00:15:31 ◼   ► Like it's just going to do its thing and I can access it whenever I need.

00:15:34 ◼   ► Like I'm super, super excited about this.

00:15:36 ◼   ► I think you should check it out.

00:15:37 ◼   ► And we've got a great discount for you.

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00:15:44 ◼   ► Use the promo code connected and you'll get 10% off.

00:15:47 ◼   ► That's Lunadisplay.com and the promo code connected.

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00:15:52 ◼   ► Our thanks to Luna Display for their support of this show and Relay FM.

00:15:56 ◼   ► I shared something with y'all over iMessage the other day and I was trying to scroll through.

00:16:00 ◼   ► I believe Federico's quote was "you have to say this on the show or I will" which felt

00:16:05 ◼   ► like a threat.

00:16:06 ◼   ► I'm just going to be honest with you.

00:16:08 ◼   ► I think people know that I bought a second HomePod for Black Friday.

00:16:11 ◼   ► It was like a hundred bucks off at Best Buy.

00:16:15 ◼   ► And so my HomePod status has been one in the studio, one in the kitchen, and we had an

00:16:21 ◼   ► Amazon Echo in our bedroom.

00:16:24 ◼   ► And a funny thing was happening.

00:16:28 ◼   ► Sometimes I just put technology in my family's lives, and then I just sit back like a scientist

00:16:33 ◼   ► and watch how they respond to it, you know, just as an experiment.

00:16:36 ◼   ► I just want to observe, take notes.

00:16:40 ◼   ► And what I was observing is that people would come

00:16:43 ◼   ► into the bedroom and ask Siri for things.

00:16:47 ◼   ► And Siri couldn't answer because

00:16:49 ◼   ► Siri was in the other room.

00:16:51 ◼   ► This was going on about the same time

00:16:53 ◼   ► where there was some sort of issue between

00:16:56 ◼   ► the iHome switches, or the power allodials

00:17:00 ◼   ► that we have to turn lamps on and off.

00:17:02 ◼   ► Some of it was going on where the Echo

00:17:03 ◼   ► wouldn't talk to those, but the HomePod would.

00:17:07 ◼   ► And I was just, I was watching these two things

00:17:10 ◼   ► on a collision course for each other.

00:17:13 ◼   ► And when they collided, what came out was a third HomePod.

00:17:16 ◼   ► It's very strange how that happened,

00:17:19 ◼   ► but Target had a cell and we are now a three HomePod family

00:17:23 ◼   ► and the Amazon Echo Now is plugged in here in my office

00:17:27 ◼   ► 'cause I wanna check Apple Music out on it

00:17:29 ◼   ► when that launches, I think later this week or next week.

00:17:32 ◼   ► But we're basically all HomePod now in the house.

00:17:35 ◼   ► You took advantage of what was called the Green Monday sale.

00:17:40 ◼   ► What is this?

00:17:41 ◼   ► That's not a thing.

00:17:42 ◼   ► Come on.

00:17:43 ◼   ► Yes it is.

00:17:44 ◼   ► It's a new shopping day.

00:17:45 ◼   ► It's called Green Monday.

00:17:46 ◼   ► Why?

00:17:47 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:17:48 ◼   ► We already have two.

00:17:49 ◼   ► Green Monday is an online retail industry term similar to Cyber Monday.

00:17:53 ◼   ► The term was coined by eBay in 2007 to describe the best sales day in December.

00:17:59 ◼   ► Green Monday.

00:18:00 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:18:01 ◼   ► Don't you know that today is is yellow Wednesday?

00:18:05 ◼   ► Are you not familiar with yellow Wednesday?

00:18:09 ◼   ► What's tomorrow? Yeah, tomorrow is purple Thursday.

00:18:13 ◼   ► Purple Thursday. I knew about that one.

00:18:16 ◼   ► I didn't realize it was coming up so soon. I thought it was next week.

00:18:19 ◼   ► Don't try to move away from the topic yet. So now do we get to make fun of you?

00:18:23 ◼   ► You don't, but I can.

00:18:25 ◼   ► Okay, considering all the things you said about my three home pods,

00:18:29 ◼   ► I feel like you came up with a bunch of stories to justify your purchase of a third home pod.

00:18:34 ◼   ► Whereas I was just honest.

00:18:36 ◼   ► I just said I like it so I want a third one.

00:18:39 ◼   ► But instead you need to have this entire introduction.

00:18:43 ◼   ► Just like the home pod and you get a third one.

00:18:45 ◼   ► It's fine.

00:18:46 ◼   ► But now you understand why I got three of them.

00:18:49 ◼   ► Now you do.

00:18:50 ◼   ► I do understand.

00:18:51 ◼   ► I also understand.

00:18:53 ◼   ► So the first two were the white, which I really like.

00:18:57 ◼   ► The third one is black.

00:18:59 ◼   ► The room that it's in black looked a lot better.

00:19:01 ◼   ► The black looks really good.

00:19:03 ◼   ► Like I kind of wish I'd done black on all of them, which again is something I believe

00:19:06 ◼   ► you told me early on.

00:19:08 ◼   ► So Federico, I submit to your wisdom in the HomePod Arena.

00:19:11 ◼   ► Thank you.

00:19:12 ◼   ► Yeah, I even set it up as a studio pair for a little while.

00:19:14 ◼   ► They're in separate rooms now, but I wanted to experience that.

00:19:17 ◼   ► Holy moly, it is good.

00:19:19 ◼   ► Yes, it is very good.

00:19:20 ◼   ► If you're listening to music a lot, like that is the best way to do it.

00:19:26 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:19:27 ◼   ► because they're in different rooms but when I set it up I was like I just want

00:19:29 ◼   ► to experience this because the one in the studio like where it's plugged in to

00:19:33 ◼   ► get it out is like pretty serious remodeling at this point. It's like that

00:19:38 ◼   ► one is here forever but this the stereo stuff is really cool and we woke up this

00:19:43 ◼   ► morning and they're they're discounted yet again like Apple has everything on sale.

00:19:47 ◼   ► Well kind of I think this might just be in the UK. Apple is emailing some Apple

00:19:56 ◼   ► music customers, this came from 9to5Mac, to give them a £50 discount to bring it to £269 for us.

00:20:03 ◼   ► So that's just like another thing that they're doing. But this one, this is like a promo code

00:20:08 ◼   ► coming directly from Apple, where all of the sales have been through third parties like Best Buy.

00:20:13 ◼   ► But I hadn't seen any sales on the HomePod here. I hadn't seen any. I wasn't looking,

00:20:21 ◼   ► but that I hadn't seen any. But yeah.

00:20:26 ◼   ► Having bought two at sales price now, I firmly believe $349 is about $100 too expensive for

00:20:33 ◼   ► this product. I would never pay, I mean, my first one I paid full price for on launch

00:20:38 ◼   ► day but no one should. These are on sale often enough, like wait till it's on sale.

00:20:43 ◼   ► Is my...

00:20:44 ◼   ► $250 is the right price.

00:20:45 ◼   ► Do we talk about smart HDR?

00:20:46 ◼   ► We can talk about it. There's this photo that I saw on Twitter shared by Tyler Stolman.

00:20:56 ◼   ► And I think it's a good example of what I was trying to articulate, I think it was last

00:21:01 ◼   ► week or a couple of weeks ago, about the iPhone camera and how I sometimes, I said sometimes,

00:21:08 ◼   ► often or sometimes. Sometimes often. It depends. Some weeks it's sometimes, some weeks it's

00:21:16 ◼   ► often. It depends on the pictures. I get it. I get you. It depends on the weather, it depends

00:21:19 ◼   ► on a bunch of factors. I don't like the pictures that come out by default from the iPhone XS

00:21:25 ◼   ► camera and I think this photo here, comparing the same subject on a photo from the XS and

00:21:33 ◼   ► a photo from the iPhone 7, you can see the obvious differences between them, such as,

00:21:38 ◼   ► for example, the iPhone 7 version, the highlights are kinda blown out on the subject's face,

00:21:45 ◼   ► and in the hat she's wearing, and the iPhone XS version, using Smart HDR, everything is

00:21:51 ◼   ► more uniform, so everything is correctly exposed, and the colors are more balanced out.

00:21:58 ◼   ► When I sent you guys this link, I said something along the lines of, this is what I try to

00:22:08 ◼   ► say when I was talking about how old iPhones produced more punchy looks in pictures.

00:22:18 ◼   ► For example, if you look at the iPhone XS version, look at the face, look at the jacket

00:22:24 ◼   ► and look at the shirt, the red of the jacket and the white color of the shirt and the details

00:22:32 ◼   ► of the face are more flat to my eyes in the XS version.

00:22:37 ◼   ► This iPhone 7 version, the red is brighter and the white is brighter and the face, even

00:22:42 ◼   ► though the highlights on the nose are kinda blown out, they create that kind of contrast

00:22:49 ◼   ► that I don't get in the default XS version.

00:22:53 ◼   ► Now, I shared this opinion in a reply to Tyler on Twitter,

00:22:58 ◼   ► and a bunch of really clever people,

00:22:59 ◼   ► including Sebastian Dewitt, he works on Highlight.

00:23:02 ◼   ► They replied to me.

00:23:03 ◼   ► And I said, I tried to come up with these arguments

00:23:08 ◼   ► for and against the look of the iPhone XS camera,

00:23:11 ◼   ► because it is clearly, at this point,

00:23:13 ◼   ► everybody sort of agrees that it is

00:23:15 ◼   ► a sort of a creative decision by Apple,

00:23:18 ◼   ► even more than a technological one, perhaps.

00:23:23 ◼   ► With Smart HDR, so the argument 4, the XS captures more data than it would otherwise be captured by older iPhones without Smart HDR.

00:23:33 ◼   ► And thanks to these more data points, you can recover some details when editing a picture in post, essentially.

00:23:43 ◼   ► So it's sort of like RAW, I mean it's of course less data than RAW,

00:23:47 ◼   ► but thanks to Smart HDR you're able to adjust more aspects of a picture

00:23:53 ◼   ► than you would be able to adjust with an old iPhone without Smart HDR.

00:23:58 ◼   ► So most people told me on Twitter, if you don't like, for example, the flat colors of the jacket

00:24:04 ◼   ► or the flat skin tone, for example, just bump up the contrast a little bit

00:24:10 ◼   ► a little bit and the result will be better thanks to Smart HDR than doing the same on

00:24:17 ◼   ► an old iPhone without Smart HDR. But the argument against, in my opinion, is that I don't

00:24:24 ◼   ► want to do this.

00:24:25 ◼   ► No, I don't. I understand that argument. Great, great point. I don't. It doesn't work

00:24:30 ◼   ► for me. The argument doesn't work for me. Like, I would never really think to do that

00:24:35 ◼   ► because I don't know. If I don't like an image, most of the time I don't know what

00:24:40 ◼   ► I don't like about it because I don't have the knowledge.

00:24:43 ◼   ► Like I would never if you would have said to me like, OK, look at this image,

00:24:47 ◼   ► how do you make it look like the other one?

00:24:49 ◼   ► I don't know. Turn up the brightness.

00:24:51 ◼   ► But no, it's not. It's the contrast, right?

00:24:52 ◼   ► Like I don't know what to do.

00:24:54 ◼   ► But I will say I really like this.

00:24:58 ◼   ► This this this image pair.

00:25:00 ◼   ► It's fun to me because Tyler posted it as a here is how good the tennis camera is.

00:25:05 ◼   ► Right. So like this is like one of those things where it's like I

00:25:09 ◼   ► 100% understand and can see everything you're saying, but I disagree.

00:25:15 ◼   ► And it's I don't think you're wrong.

00:25:17 ◼   ► This is a this is a difference in like personal taste.

00:25:21 ◼   ► I think the 10S photo here blows away the 7S

00:25:25 ◼   ► because it's more it just feels more balanced to me.

00:25:28 ◼   ► All the details look better.

00:25:29 ◼   ► I guess this is it's just a difference.

00:25:33 ◼   ► And this is a lot of the problem with camera comparisons anyway.

00:25:37 ◼   ► It's like people actually like different things.

00:25:39 ◼   ► And, like, I like, I am a big fan of the photos, you know, the portraits you see, where like

00:25:46 ◼   ► the sharpness is like all the way to the very end, and it has that like real, it has a very

00:25:51 ◼   ► specific look to it.

00:25:53 ◼   ► But most, a lot of people do not like that.

00:25:55 ◼   ► But I do like that.

00:25:57 ◼   ► I guess what I'm trying to say is, if it is possible to improve the default Smart HDR

00:26:04 ◼   ► with edits later, I would like Apple to produce a better default picture that implements some

00:26:13 ◼   ► of those edits without requiring me, the user, to go in and do those edits manually.

00:26:19 ◼   ► So I want them to keep Smart HDR and keep improving it for the future.

00:26:24 ◼   ► I just think the version of Smart HDR that they chose for the launch, for the first iteration

00:26:31 ◼   ► of it can produce, sometimes, like I said, results that are a little boring, a little

00:26:39 ◼   ► too flat. And I don't think this is just me saying this thing, I've seen this comment

00:26:44 ◼   ► from a bunch of people. And I think there's room for Apple to produce pictures with Smart

00:26:52 ◼   ► HDR that balance out all the details that produce uniform colors and exposure and highlights

00:26:59 ◼   ► and all of that while still having that extra little kick in the contrast, in the color,

00:27:05 ◼   ► whatever it is.

00:27:06 ◼   ► But yeah, I mean, it's totally fine if you prefer the iPhone XS version.

00:27:11 ◼   ► I can see why people prefer that.

00:27:14 ◼   ► And I'm not saying that the iPhone 7 is necessarily a better picture, but like, again, just look

00:27:19 ◼   ► at the head and you will see the problems there.

00:27:22 ◼   ► But when I look at it, like I showed this picture to Silvia, right?

00:27:25 ◼   ► So I zoomed into the picture so that I would cover the 10s and 7 model names, and I asked

00:27:32 ◼   ► her "which one do you prefer?"

00:27:34 ◼   ► And straight away she told me "well, the one on the right is so much better".

00:27:38 ◼   ► So I don't think I'm alone in this, but I understand why some people, most people maybe,

00:27:46 ◼   ► don't agree with me, or others like me.

00:27:51 ◼   ► So this picture we mentioned was taken by Tyler Storman.

00:27:56 ◼   ► Tyler's a very interesting content creator.

00:27:58 ◼   ► I enjoy his stuff a lot.

00:27:59 ◼   ► He's good on Instagram and YouTube.

00:28:01 ◼   ► And I was on an episode of his podcast recently.

00:28:03 ◼   ► I'll put all those in the show notes.

00:28:04 ◼   ► And the model is...

00:28:05 ◼   ► Her name is Anya and she is also an awesome Instagram person.

00:28:12 ◼   ► She's like an influencer and a model and she has a really cool Instagram page too.

00:28:16 ◼   ► And Tyler and Anya are married and Tyler takes a lot of Anya's photos.

00:28:20 ◼   ► really called you are. So I'll put links to all their stuff in the show notes.

00:28:25 ◼   ► So Federica, the next bullet point here in follow-up says Belkin launches wireless charging

00:28:30 ◼   ► dock and you are the king of the docks, it seems like.

00:28:33 ◼   ► Okay. Am I? Okay.

00:28:35 ◼   ► You're the dock king. What's going on with this one?

00:28:39 ◼   ► So this is the, so what happened here is that I don't know what Belkin is doing since they

00:28:45 ◼   ► were acquired by Foxconn. Remember that?

00:28:47 ◼   ► Holy crap!

00:28:48 ◼   ► No, Belkin is a Foxconn.

00:28:49 ◼   ► Yeah, they are. They are a Foxconn subsidiary, I suppose. Anyway, just so, last week there

00:29:00 ◼   ► was the Apple Store refresh with... What did Apple launch last week? A bunch of new watch

00:29:05 ◼   ► bands and something else.

00:29:07 ◼   ► And the iPhone XR clear case.

00:29:09 ◼   ► Yes, the case. And so I had been checking for a few weeks at that point because I realized

00:29:16 ◼   ► that on October 30th, when Apple was doing their Brooklyn event,

00:29:19 ◼   ► Belkin announced the only USB-C to HDMI adapter

00:29:25 ◼   ► with support for 4K at 60Hz and HDR output.

00:29:31 ◼   ► So I've been looking for adapters like this, couldn't find anything

00:29:36 ◼   ► that supported 4K 60Hz and HDR with Dolby Vision and HDR10.

00:29:43 ◼   ► And Belkin thought that announcing this in the middle of an Apple event was a good idea.

00:29:48 ◼   ► So I don't think a lot of people noticed. I noticed because I was checking out their

00:29:54 ◼   ► press newsroom page.

00:29:55 ◼   ► As king of the docks would do.

00:29:58 ◼   ► Of course. So I had been checking the Apple online store for a few weeks. And last week

00:30:04 ◼   ► I saw the Apple Watch bands and the iPhone XR case and I was like, "Hmm, let me check

00:30:12 ◼   ► if Belkin actually released something today and told nobody about it.

00:30:17 ◼   ► So I went to the US Apple Online store and didn't see anything.

00:30:22 ◼   ► Then I went to my local Italian Apple store and I saw both the new Belkin USB-C to HDMI adapter

00:30:29 ◼   ► and the BoostUp charging dock for iPhone and Apple Watch.

00:30:33 ◼   ► So it appears that Belkin kind of soft launched both of these accessories just in European Apple Online stores.

00:30:41 ◼   ► I have no idea why, but this is the case.

00:30:46 ◼   ► I acquired the USB-C to HDMI adapter, works as advertised, I had an article about this

00:30:52 ◼   ► on Macstories a few days ago.

00:30:54 ◼   ► But the boost up...

00:30:55 ◼   ► So, this is an evolution of the original Belkin Valet charger that featured a lightning connector

00:31:04 ◼   ► and an Apple Watch stand.

00:31:07 ◼   ► This one has a wireless charging pad for modern iPhones and a horizontal Apple Watch charger

00:31:14 ◼   ► so that you can take advantage of nightstand mode when the watch is charging.

00:31:18 ◼   ► And the wireless pad for the iPhone uses Qi charging of course at 7.5W.

00:31:26 ◼   ► So this is, unlike Android, 7.5W is considered fast wireless charging on iOS by Apple.

00:31:33 ◼   ► I think Android devices can go up to 10 watts, if I'm not mistaken.

00:31:38 ◼   ► Anyway, this is an expensive dock, it's gonna cost 140 pounds or 160 euros, so not cheap,

00:31:46 ◼   ► but I have been informed by Santa Claus reading my girlfriend that I will be getting one of

00:31:51 ◼   ► these for Christmas.

00:31:53 ◼   ► So I'm very much looking forward to this in the white version, which is gonna go great

00:31:59 ◼   ► with my IKEA nightstand.

00:32:03 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean, I already have a Logitech, it's just called Logitech wireless charger in Europe.

00:32:11 ◼   ► I have a Logitech charger, which is great.

00:32:13 ◼   ► It's very nice, very minimal, goes great with this IKEA furniture.

00:32:18 ◼   ► But I want an integrated solution for both the iPhone and Apple Watch, and this is it,

00:32:21 ◼   ► even though it costs a lot of money.

00:32:23 ◼   ► And I don't understand why it costs so much money, but you know, no alternative is as

00:32:28 ◼   ► pretty as this one. And also I should say the USB-C to HDMI adapter, also expensive,

00:32:39 ◼   ► costs 60 euros or 50 pounds. It's a thick dongle, let me tell you.

00:32:46 ◼   ► Yeah, I got one. I think it's huge.

00:32:49 ◼   ► And even more annoying and surprising is that you pay 60 euros for this and you don't even

00:32:57 ◼   ► get the option to charge the iPad while outputting video to an external monitor. There's no USB

00:33:05 ◼   ► power delivery built in, so this is literally just one adapter for 4K at 60 HDR output.

00:33:12 ◼   ► Works great, that's what it needs to do, supports iTunes and Netflix thanks to HDCP 2.2, but

00:33:19 ◼   ► your iPad's battery is going to run out if you keep streaming video. So I'm looking forward

00:33:25 ◼   ► to somebody ever doing 4K at 60 with HDR in a USB-C hub. I think that's going to take

00:33:33 ◼   ► a while though, because this is a lot of chips that need to go into this dongle, and I'm

00:33:37 ◼   ► not sure if, you know, I mean they could do probably a USB-C hub that is as big as the

00:33:42 ◼   ► iPad, and that would support it, but...

00:33:45 ◼   ► Looking at this image on MacStories, the dongle looks like it's half as tall as the iPad is.

00:33:50 ◼   ► That's an 11-inch iPad, but yes, it's not small.

00:33:54 ◼   ► It also seems like that dongle's big enough they could build a battery bank into it.

00:33:59 ◼   ► It's very big.

00:34:00 ◼   ► So you don't have to have power delivery because there's a battery in there letting everything

00:34:04 ◼   ► charge.

00:34:05 ◼   ► It's Papa Dongle.

00:34:06 ◼   ► That's what it is.

00:34:07 ◼   ► He's the king of all dongles.

00:34:08 ◼   ► On that day, by the way, Apple also put the 18 watt charger for sale.

00:34:14 ◼   ► Oh yes, that's the thing that was missing from my list.

00:34:18 ◼   ► Which is particularly exciting if you are somebody who needs to charge of a UK plug

00:34:25 ◼   ► because this is the first time that Apple has shipped a collapsible UK plug since the

00:34:33 ◼   ► Apple Watch. The Apple Watch had a collapsible UK plug where the prongs would collapse inside

00:34:39 ◼   ► of the plug. I remember I saw somewhere like an interview with Johnny Iov and he said like

00:34:43 ◼   ► how long he'd been working to try and make this product and now the second time this

00:34:48 ◼   ► has popped up is with the 18 watt USB-C power adapter charger. I can't believe it's taken

00:34:53 ◼   ► them this long to roll it out more, but I just bought a couple of these because this

00:34:57 ◼   ► is the best charger I've ever seen for a UK plug now because it collapses down so it won't

00:35:02 ◼   ► poke you.

00:35:03 ◼   ► And as Casey, let's just told us all, this is the superior plug type.

00:35:07 ◼   ► So yeah, Casey loves them. He actually, weirdly enough, like it was very expensive for him,

00:35:12 ◼   ► but he had somebody go to his house and replace all of his wall outlets with UK outlets. It

00:35:17 ◼   ► He has to make a lot of really particular purchasing decisions now about his electronics

00:35:24 ◼   ► and stuff.

00:35:25 ◼   ► But yeah.

00:35:26 ◼   ► Casey prefers something non-American?

00:35:29 ◼   ► This is his favorite.

00:35:30 ◼   ► He had everything in his house changed over to the UK plug system and that's it.

00:35:35 ◼   ► And he loves it.

00:35:36 ◼   ► So I'll be sending a couple of these Casey's way because he loves them so much.

00:35:43 ◼   ► I mean there's a if Casey likes something from the UK I have a whole list of European things he could like so

00:35:50 ◼   ► like health care

00:35:53 ◼   ► Democracy we have a couple of brief things to round up what has been a record-setting

00:35:58 ◼   ► segment of follow-up

00:36:01 ◼   ► First there's a really nice segment on this week's upgrade about the iPhone. That's a good show iPhone air quotes discounts

00:36:09 ◼   ► You and Jason Myke you and Jason spoke a lot about the iPhone 10 are the tennis and how Apple is really pushing

00:36:16 ◼   ► People to trade in old phones

00:36:17 ◼   ► We touched on that last and last week's connected and I had this like whole follow-up thing in my head and then listen to upgrades

00:36:23 ◼   ► Like well Jason said everything I thought so just go listen to Jason

00:36:25 ◼   ► Yeah

00:36:25 ◼   ► I liked what Jason was saying because he provided maybe like a different opinion and a little bit of like potential clarity for why this

00:36:31 ◼   ► Thing is happening. I still maintain that super weird

00:36:34 ◼   ► It is weird, but I think Jason has had a good viewpoint on it

00:36:38 ◼   ► Lastly, longtime listeners will know that at the end of the year, every year, here on

00:36:45 ◼   ► Connected, we do a year in review episode where we sort of walk through the calendar.

00:36:50 ◼   ► And as if we're walking through the forest picking flowers, each flower is a story as

00:36:55 ◼   ► we go through the months.

00:36:57 ◼   ► And sometimes the stories we laugh at because we thought it was a big deal at the time and

00:37:02 ◼   ► it didn't go anywhere.

00:37:03 ◼   ► Some things are really small at the time and it being big.

00:37:05 ◼   ► It's really fun to see how things turn out.

00:37:08 ◼   ► we need. Do you usually laugh at flowers, Steven? Well, the metaphor did fall down a little bit.

00:37:14 ◼   ► Okay. Okay. I was hoping we could just keep going. We need your help a little bit though. So if you

00:37:19 ◼   ► have a story topic from 2018 you'd like us to revisit, just tweet with the hashtag #ConnectedYear

00:37:26 ◼   ► and we have a little, a little robot going around and scooping all those up into its basket.

00:37:32 ◼   ► That episode will come out on December 26.

00:37:36 ◼   ► You're being very, very visually metaphoric today.

00:37:40 ◼   ► Why has the robot got a basket?

00:37:42 ◼   ► Well, where would the robot put the tweets?

00:37:44 ◼   ► That's true. I guess he prints them out? I don't know.

00:37:47 ◼   ► I think there is one obvious best topic of the year, and that is so obviously weird fish.

00:37:56 ◼   ► I mean, of all the things we discussed, Weird Fish is the absolute winner.

00:38:02 ◼   ► But we are up for discussing other topics of the year, even though Weird Fish is the

00:38:09 ◼   ► best topic.

00:38:10 ◼   ► Don't we also have some predictions to go through?

00:38:15 ◼   ► Yes, we do.

00:38:16 ◼   ► And we will do the one that episode, probably.

00:38:21 ◼   ► We have some 2018 predictions that we can go through.

00:38:23 ◼   ► writing it down that we're doing this on that episode. One of the three of us needs to write

00:38:27 ◼   ► that down so we remember.

00:38:29 ◼   ► Steven.

00:38:30 ◼   ► Alright, great.

00:38:31 ◼   ► I said Steven.

00:38:32 ◼   ► Great, okay.

00:38:33 ◼   ► Alright, start on year in review outline and what should I say? I'm putting this in my

00:38:41 ◼   ► task manager.

00:38:42 ◼   ► And review predictions.

00:38:45 ◼   ► Include 2018 predictions.

00:38:47 ◼   ► This is what people tuned in for, right? To listen to Steven put things in to remember

00:38:51 ◼   ► the milk.

00:38:52 ◼   ► There's still room for air power to come out for airports.

00:38:58 ◼   ► There is no more room!

00:39:00 ◼   ► There absolutely is.

00:39:01 ◼   ► I got my first AirPods on December 20-something two years ago.

00:39:08 ◼   ► It is absolutely possible.

00:39:10 ◼   ► The time you bought something, that's not...

00:39:14 ◼   ► That's where you bought it.

00:39:15 ◼   ► They didn't release it on December 20th.

00:39:18 ◼   ► It doesn't matter.

00:39:19 ◼   ► That's not... if you ever worked at Apple operations, you know this is not how it works.

00:39:27 ◼   ► I didn't, but I like to say that. Some people do on Twitter, so I can say that too. Do you

00:39:33 ◼   ► work at Apple? Do you?

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00:40:39 ◼   ► it really was. I mean, I joke, but like it had like everything, all of the information

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00:41:23 ◼   ► We have to talk about the smart battery iPhone case.

00:41:27 ◼   ► Remember this thing from several years ago?

00:41:29 ◼   ► The humpback.

00:41:30 ◼   ► That's right.

00:41:31 ◼   ► for how it looked but it turns out that it worked pretty well. There is a there

00:41:36 ◼   ► are rumors by Mr. Rambo over on 9to5Mac that the smart battery case could be

00:41:41 ◼   ► making a comeback and watch OS 5.1.2 which is the best version number of

00:41:48 ◼   ► watchOS yet. He found a case, references to a case, three individual cases

00:41:55 ◼   ► actually all of slightly different sizes that could be for the XS, XR, and XS Max.

00:42:00 ◼   ► He believes they will be out this year so they could squeak in under the wire

00:42:05 ◼   ► actually had this in the show notes a couple of days ago kind of assuming that

00:42:10 ◼   ► it would be out yesterday or today it's not out yet but it seems like it could

00:42:15 ◼   ► be. Oh here's the thing right now this feels like something that you would

00:42:21 ◼   ► match up with air power right it's all battery related so I'm sure this

00:42:26 ◼   ► This charges via, it's got to be charging, you'd expect, but I bet it's not, but it would

00:42:32 ◼   ► be nice if it was.

00:42:33 ◼   ► Imagine that all at the same time.

00:42:35 ◼   ► Wouldn't that be nice?

00:42:36 ◼   ► That'd make you happy Federica.

00:42:37 ◼   ► That'd be weird.

00:42:38 ◼   ► I don't think this would work with AirPower though.

00:42:40 ◼   ► I can't imagine this being wireless.

00:42:43 ◼   ► Like it would be cool if the battery case could wireless charge and then it could charge

00:42:47 ◼   ► your phone.

00:42:48 ◼   ► It's like a fire brigade of power.

00:42:50 ◼   ► However, the image on 9to5Mac has a lightning port on the bottom.

00:42:56 ◼   ► What if the battery is larger and it's toward the bottom because they need to fit a wireless

00:43:03 ◼   ► charging coil on top of the battery?

00:43:05 ◼   ► I think it'd be cool.

00:43:06 ◼   ► Because you could just leave this in the case all the time but still use wireless charging

00:43:10 ◼   ► and then when you pick your phone up you have bonkers battery life.

00:43:14 ◼   ► Yeah, I would be surprised honestly if Apple did release a product like this and it wasn't

00:43:19 ◼   ► wireless charging enabled.

00:43:22 ◼   ► It feels like that you would be adding like ugly complexity, you know, if you're like,

00:43:28 ◼   ► "Well, your phone charges wirelessly and we want you to get that, but your case, you have

00:43:32 ◼   ► to plug that in."

00:43:34 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:43:35 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:43:36 ◼   ► So is this something that y'all want?

00:43:37 ◼   ► Oh yeah.

00:43:38 ◼   ► Oh yes.

00:43:39 ◼   ► No.

00:43:40 ◼   ► That's impossible.

00:43:41 ◼   ► All right, Federica, you first.

00:43:42 ◼   ► I love, I was one of the few people in the Apple community, it's so fancy, that publicly

00:43:49 ◼   ► exp-

00:43:50 ◼   ► Of which I am king of the dicks.

00:43:51 ◼   ► Publicly expressed is a positive opinion in favor of the iPhone 7 smart battery case.

00:43:58 ◼   ► Did you use it? I have no memory of you using it.

00:44:00 ◼   ► I loved it. I had an entire section of my iPhone 7 story about it. I loved how native to the iPhone

00:44:09 ◼   ► it was. No need to manage anything. No need to turn it on and off. It was all integrated right

00:44:13 ◼   ► there in the batteries widget. I loved it. And I was so sad when starting with the...

00:44:20 ◼   ► They never made a version for the Plus models, they never made a version for the iPhone X.

00:44:25 ◼   ► We recently gave this old iPhone 7 to Sylvia's mom with the smart battery case and she's

00:44:33 ◼   ► absolutely loving it.

00:44:35 ◼   ► She never has to charge the phone during the day, it just works and once you get used to

00:44:39 ◼   ► the thickness of it, I think it basically doubles the battery of the phone.

00:44:45 ◼   ► And if that's a compromise that you're willing to accept, this is the best option that you

00:44:51 ◼   ► can find on the Apple Store.

00:44:53 ◼   ► And so I want to get a XS Max version of this as soon as it comes out, because I never want

00:44:59 ◼   ► to plug in my phone during the day, as I'm doing right now, but the phone is sitting

00:45:03 ◼   ► on top of this wireless charger on my desk.

00:45:05 ◼   ► I don't want to do this.

00:45:06 ◼   ► I want to have the iPhone in my hands.

00:45:08 ◼   ► And with the SmartBuddy case, I could do that.

00:45:11 ◼   ► Ask any tech blogger and they'll make fun of the hump on the back of the case and criticize

00:45:15 ◼   ► Apple's industrial design. Appearances are debatable but the smart battery case has some

00:45:19 ◼   ► serious practical advantages over third-party battery cases that I've always wanted to experience

00:45:24 ◼   ► for myself. Yes, that's me. Yeah, that's a good quote. You said that. It's a real good

00:45:31 ◼   ► quote. It is, it's good. Yeah. I just don't need battery, extra battery life on my phone.

00:45:37 ◼   ► Like it is absolutely, this phone is absolutely fine. Like I have no requirements for additional

00:45:44 ◼   ► I would like it for travel. Even then. Because here's my thing, right? I am always still

00:45:54 ◼   ► gonna bring an external battery pack. Yeah, but batteries like RAM, the more you have

00:45:59 ◼   ► in the phone, you're never gonna complain about it. Yeah, but it isn't a problem for

00:46:03 ◼   ► me because, well, a couple of reasons. Most planes have something you can plug into these

00:46:07 ◼   ► days, right? So I will just plug a cable into the seat outlet. But other than that, I have

00:46:14 ◼   ► massive Anker battery which I have that can charge anything that I will take

00:46:19 ◼   ► with me right on a trip. Will it charge your USB-C iPad Pro? Yes because it's

00:46:24 ◼   ► actually like this is it's the one that charges the switch and the switch is

00:46:28 ◼   ► incredibly power hungry. Will you put a link to that in the show notes? I don't

00:46:32 ◼   ► know what one it is but I'll find it I'll find it. I recently acquired a the

00:46:38 ◼   ► wire cutter recommendation for USB-C batteries this is a brand that I was now

00:46:43 ◼   ► familiar with. It's called the ZMI USB PD backup battery. So this thing is the best

00:46:55 ◼   ► battery I've ever used. It supports a 45 watt output. I'm gonna buy that one, because my

00:47:02 ◼   ► only does 30 watts. So you don't want my link. My link sucks. What's your link? Okay, so

00:47:10 ◼   ► this is the current wire carrier recommendation.

00:47:14 ◼   ► I needed to wait a week from Amazon to get this delivered.

00:47:17 ◼   ► But today Sylvia needed to use her MacBook Pro,

00:47:21 ◼   ► which was turned off.

00:47:22 ◼   ► This thing turned on the 13 inch MacBook Pro

00:47:26 ◼   ► and kept it charging as she was using it.

00:47:30 ◼   ► So.

00:47:31 ◼   ► - Here's the thing though,

00:47:32 ◼   ► I've never heard of this company.

00:47:33 ◼   ► - Yeah, but I've had this battery for two weeks.

00:47:38 ◼   ► I haven't caught fire.

00:47:40 ◼   ► I haven't exploded. The wire cutter recommends it. I think you should be fine. Also I checked

00:47:46 ◼   ► and this company makes other things like cables and other accessories. And it looks very premium

00:47:53 ◼   ► actually like the battery itself. It's like an LED indicator. And what's even better about

00:47:59 ◼   ► this battery is that it doubles as a USB hub. So once you're charging, it's also a hub,

00:48:06 ◼   ► It's a battery hub.

00:48:08 ◼   ► It's insane. It's awesome.

00:48:10 ◼   ► And it's it's looks very, very stylish and classy.

00:48:14 ◼   ► It's got this sort of space gray color.

00:48:16 ◼   ► I love it. It's like, hmm, I'm not sure if it's available.

00:48:19 ◼   ► Yeah. Was it forty five?

00:48:21 ◼   ► What I think it just might have a different maybe.

00:48:24 ◼   ► What is it called? ZMI.

00:48:26 ◼   ► Yeah, like the actual name.

00:48:29 ◼   ► Is it the power pack? 20,000?

00:48:31 ◼   ► No, just just click.

00:48:34 ◼   ► I'm looking at one. Just click on the wire cutter link a little.

00:48:37 ◼   ► Yeah, it takes me to a search when it finds zero results.

00:48:40 ◼   ► Oh, okay, so you need to copy the name and search for it on Amazon.com or Amazon Italy has it.

00:48:45 ◼   ► It's advertised as the battery for the MacBook, MacBook Pro, Pixelbook, Nintendo Switch and a

00:48:52 ◼   ► bunch of other phones. Yeah, all right, maybe I'll get it from Amazon.com then.

00:48:56 ◼   ► Yeah, anyway, you were saying Michael something.

00:49:01 ◼   ► Oh, I've just searched for it on Amazon.com and it's not there either.

00:49:05 ◼   ► What? Are you sure about this?

00:49:10 ◼   ► So, yeah.

00:49:12 ◼   ► Well, you can read the wire cutter explanation of it.

00:49:16 ◼   ► Yeah, that's like having it.

00:49:18 ◼   ► It's on Amazon Italy. If you know Italian, you can sign up for an Amazon Italy account

00:49:23 ◼   ► and buy it from Italy. Maybe it's an Italian company. Maybe the "I" stands for Italy.

00:49:29 ◼   ► Yeah. I see it in the US. It's right here.

00:49:32 ◼   ► Just in my browser. It's such an Amazon.com and it's not finding it.

00:49:35 ◼   ► I don't know what's going on here. Right here. Okay.

00:49:38 ◼   ► The aforementioned watchOS 5.1.2

00:49:43 ◼   ► brought with it for Apple, for US Apple watches I should say,

00:49:48 ◼   ► the ECG functionalities. This was something that was

00:49:51 ◼   ► teased way back when the Apple Watch

00:49:54 ◼   ► Series 4 was announced and we're not doctors. I know that we may sound like we are, but

00:50:02 ◼   ► we're not. So I don't know if we can give a super thorough explanation of how this works,

00:50:07 ◼   ► but effectively what the watch does is monitors electrical impulses across your body. So it

00:50:13 ◼   ► uses a new sensor on the back of the Series 4 and then, so that's on your wrist and you

00:50:18 ◼   ► touch your index finger to the digital crown after opening the new ECG app and

00:50:24 ◼   ► you're supposed to kind of sit still and it will monitor electrical impulses

00:50:29 ◼   ► from your heart across your body and what it is looking for... I'm so sorry but

00:50:33 ◼   ► can I give some real-time follow-up? I'm so sorry. Is it about Amazon? It's about this

00:50:38 ◼   ► battery. It's listed differently in different countries. I found the same

00:50:43 ◼   ► thing on Amazon.co.uk. It's called the ZMI QB820. That's the product code. It's listed

00:50:51 ◼   ► differently in different countries, but that's the product. I'm sorry.

00:50:55 ◼   ► That's a sign of quality.

00:50:57 ◼   ► But I figured I had to get it out there so we can stop people from tweeting at us. I

00:51:02 ◼   ► found it. It's going to be Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk. It's listed differently, but this way you

00:51:08 ◼   ► should find it.

00:51:09 ◼   ► Okay.

00:51:10 ◼   ► I'm sorry now we can move back onto ECG's so easy G's are looking at

00:51:14 ◼   ► Is this electrical impulse generated from your heart is it in a regular?

00:51:20 ◼   ► rhythm called sinus rhythm or is it

00:51:24 ◼   ► Acting up and you could have a health issue and so the ECG looks at that

00:51:28 ◼   ► I played with this when it came out whenever five point one point two came out several days ago

00:51:33 ◼   ► And it works basically how Apple described it on stage you open the app it walks you through

00:51:39 ◼   ► some like setup screens, you have to like enable it

00:51:43 ◼   ► on your iPhone as well.

00:51:44 ◼   ► Some of that actually is a little confusing.

00:51:46 ◼   ► I think Apple could have done a smoother job

00:51:47 ◼   ► at the onboarding, but they really want to make clear

00:51:50 ◼   ► that like if this shows you have an issue,

00:51:53 ◼   ► or even if this doesn't show you have an issue

00:51:54 ◼   ► and you think you have a health issue,

00:51:56 ◼   ► like go see a doctor, like there's a lot of

00:51:58 ◼   ► lawyer speak in some of this stuff.

00:52:02 ◼   ► But once you get it all set up, you just open the app,

00:52:04 ◼   ► it walks you through, you have to sit still.

00:52:06 ◼   ► So I did it and I actually moved a little bit

00:52:08 ◼   ► like my finger moved in the digital crown and it basically said it had to restart.

00:52:12 ◼   ► But 30 seconds counted down, I got a healthy return, which is good.

00:52:18 ◼   ► And then that is, when the test is done, you get a screen saying, "Do you want to basically

00:52:24 ◼   ► write down any symptoms that you're having?"

00:52:27 ◼   ► And it depends all that in the health app.

00:52:29 ◼   ► So say that you felt lightheaded and you did this and then the reading is inconclusive

00:52:35 ◼   ► for shows that you may have something going on, you can write down, "I felt lightheaded,"

00:52:40 ◼   ► or "I felt dizzy," or whatever that may be.

00:52:42 ◼   ► So when you go speak to your doctor, you have a very clear record of what happened.

00:52:48 ◼   ► And the Health app will actually—this is so cool—will generate a PDF of all of your

00:52:53 ◼   ► test results that you can just send to your doctor or print out a hand to them so they

00:52:58 ◼   ► have this over time.

00:53:00 ◼   ► Because some of these issues can be intermittent from what I've read.

00:53:04 ◼   ► This isn't something that's going on all the time.

00:53:06 ◼   ► Sometimes it kind of comes and goes.

00:53:07 ◼   ► And so if you've been doing this for a month and you caught three of them, that could be

00:53:12 ◼   ► really useful information to your healthcare provider.

00:53:15 ◼   ► And Health App just takes care of documenting all that for you.

00:53:20 ◼   ► It's really pretty cool.

00:53:22 ◼   ► And I was glad to see that I'm healthy, at least in this regard, which is nice.

00:53:26 ◼   ► And I like that it's here.

00:53:27 ◼   ► Myke, I know you haven't been able to play with it.

00:53:30 ◼   ► Your watch is not a US model.

00:53:32 ◼   ► Oh, you don't even have a Series 4.

00:53:33 ◼   ► What am I saying?

00:53:34 ◼   ► Federico, you have a US watch in your household though, correct?

00:53:37 ◼   ► - Yeah, Sylvia does, because I bought a Series 4 watch for her when I was in Brooklyn.

00:53:43 ◼   ► So I tested this, and initially I had a very, very wrong idea in that I tried to perform

00:53:51 ◼   ► an ECG as my post-dinner digestion was going on, and my heart rate was too high for the

00:54:00 ◼   ► ECG.

00:54:01 ◼   ► So you get a message.

00:54:02 ◼   ► I was getting inconclusive and one of the reasons listed by the ECG app was maybe your

00:54:08 ◼   ► heart rate is a little too high right now and that usually happens when your body is

00:54:13 ◼   ► going through digestion.

00:54:14 ◼   ► I was like "what did you eat?"

00:54:17 ◼   ► "Okay, it seems normal, I didn't know that."

00:54:19 ◼   ► It was not a light dinner I should say, so that was not surprising.

00:54:24 ◼   ► So what I did is I just waited, I just waited a little, relaxed, ran the ECG test again

00:54:29 ◼   ► And it's not like I was worried because I just had an ECG at an actual doctor, you know,

00:54:34 ◼   ► the classic one with 10 electrodes on your body, like a couple of weeks before. So I

00:54:40 ◼   ► knew that I was fine, but I ran the test again and it came back. We know, sign was written,

00:54:45 ◼   ► all good. There's a bunch of, when you set it up the first time, there's a bunch of screens

00:54:50 ◼   ► and like explanations that you need to read. You need to provide details about your, you

00:54:56 ◼   ► know, about your, like, your age and your weight, I think, like, details that the

00:55:01 ◼   ► HealthDAP can compare, you know, to produce these summaries for you. And, I

00:55:08 ◼   ► mean, it was great. I think much of the skepticism surrounding ECG is that

00:55:15 ◼   ► you're comparing, you know, going to a cardiologist and having ten, usually

00:55:22 ◼   ► ten electrodes attached to your body, to your limbs, to your arms, to your chest. You're

00:55:28 ◼   ► comparing that, which is a lot of medical equipment going on, to a bunch of cables and

00:55:37 ◼   ► they need to put some gel on your skin to make sure that the electrodes attach correctly.

00:55:44 ◼   ► You're comparing that to wearing a watch, putting your finger on the side of the watch,

00:55:50 ◼   ► which looks kind of ridiculous, but I compared the printed result of the traditional ECG

00:55:57 ◼   ► to the watch ECG and the graph of the heart rhythm. It was basically the same. It was actually kind

00:56:06 ◼   ► of the same heart rate and the same rhythm and the same shape of the graph, if that makes sense.

00:56:13 ◼   ► So I think, I mean, I'm not sure if it's going to be,

00:56:17 ◼   ► it's like the heart rate measurement.

00:56:20 ◼   ► I don't think it's going to be as accurate as wearing a chest strap.

00:56:24 ◼   ► For example, in this case,

00:56:25 ◼   ► I don't think it's going to be as precise as wearing electrodes

00:56:30 ◼   ► when you go to the cardiologist, but I think it's close enough.

00:56:34 ◼   ► And I think this idea of creating a closed circuit by putting the finger on one

00:56:39 ◼   ► side and having the watch on the opposite side of your body,

00:56:42 ◼   ► I think it works and if they get approved by the FDA they're clearly onto something.

00:56:47 ◼   ► So I think it's awesome that they're doing this.

00:56:50 ◼   ► I really love this line from John Paxoski's article on BuzzFeed.

00:56:53 ◼   ► He says "The point here is not that the watch can't do a medical grade ECG, it's that it

00:56:59 ◼   ► can do an ECG at all."

00:57:02 ◼   ► It's like, yeah sure it's not the same as a 10 lead ECG, but it is a version of it that

00:57:08 ◼   ► can do whenever and wherever you want. Like, that is kind of incredible because like, look,

00:57:16 ◼   ► if you've had something in your chest and it feels weird, if you want to get an ECG

00:57:20 ◼   ► done that day, you got a long day ahead of you if you're going to get seen today, right?

00:57:24 ◼   ► Like you're going to have to go somewhere, like all that kind of stuff. And if you could

00:57:28 ◼   ► just immediately test yourself to give yourself some level of peace of mind, great. And there

00:57:32 ◼   ► is a, there was an example of this already, right? There was this guy on Reddit who was

00:57:37 ◼   ► playing around of it and was getting weird results. Tried it on his wife, it was fine,

00:57:46 ◼   ► put it back on him. Weird results, weird results. It was saying "afib", like "afibulation".

00:57:51 ◼   ► Went to a healthcare place, they tested him, and they were like "this probably saved your

00:57:55 ◼   ► life". So it's wild. And again, this was inevitable to happen, that exact thing was

00:58:02 ◼   ► inevitable to happen. Funnily enough, it happened on the exact day that the feature came out.

00:58:07 ◼   ► So, you know.

00:58:09 ◼   ► I wanted to say something about people complaining about the fact that it's US only for now,

00:58:15 ◼   ► and saying this is software, why don't you just roll it out, even though you don't have

00:58:20 ◼   ► certification by each local government.

00:58:24 ◼   ► Seems wise.

00:58:27 ◼   ► First of all, I don't think these people get the idea of how providing people with a quasi-medical

00:58:34 ◼   ► feature can expose yourself to class action lawsuits and all kinds of troubles when it

00:58:42 ◼   ► comes to "oh my watch didn't detect AFib and I died and now I'm suing you because you gave

00:58:49 ◼   ► me a watch that didn't tell me". It's important to have oversight, it's important to have

00:58:55 ◼   ► approval and to have clear regulations in place because when you're telling people you

00:59:01 ◼   ► you buy this watch, you buy this device, and you can run an ECG, and it'll tell you if

00:59:06 ◼   ► it detects signs of AFib. I think it's important that you get all of your, that you get everything

00:59:14 ◼   ► covered in terms of working with the local government, working with the local medical

00:59:19 ◼   ► institutions, getting approved for sale in a local market, because this is not like,

00:59:24 ◼   ► "Oh, I don't get Apple News in Italy," or "I don't get the Apple TV app in the UK,"

00:59:29 ◼   ► or something like that.

00:59:30 ◼   ► This is serious stuff.

00:59:32 ◼   ► And people are gonna use this feature to perform tests

00:59:37 ◼   ► that are up until today were performed

00:59:40 ◼   ► at the doctor's office.

00:59:42 ◼   ► And they're going to install a software update

00:59:45 ◼   ► that in the background will monitor them

00:59:48 ◼   ► and tell them if it detects signs of a medical condition.

00:59:52 ◼   ► I mean, this is not a joke.

00:59:53 ◼   ► And when it comes to this kind of functionality,

00:59:56 ◼   ► I think it's extremely important

00:59:59 ◼   ► that any company, not just Apple, but in this case,

01:00:02 ◼   ► we're talking about the Apple Watch,

01:00:03 ◼   ► that they work with each local government

01:00:06 ◼   ► and each local healthcare institution,

01:00:10 ◼   ► whatever you want to call it,

01:00:12 ◼   ► to make sure that it is approved

01:00:14 ◼   ► and that if you go to a hospital,

01:00:17 ◼   ► those people will know what you're talking about,

01:00:19 ◼   ► that if you generate a PDF

01:00:21 ◼   ► and you bring it to your local health office,

01:00:25 ◼   ► they will know why you have that PDF.

01:00:27 ◼   ► it's all these details that I am, what I understand the argument of, it's just software, so it's

01:00:34 ◼   ► technically possible. I think in this case, unlike news apps, unlike watching TV shows,

01:00:43 ◼   ► it's extremely important to make sure that each citizen can use this feature while knowing

01:00:49 ◼   ► that it was approved by the local government, that they pay taxes for, and by the health

01:00:54 ◼   ► organization, the health institutions that are local to their country. People are probably

01:01:01 ◼   ► going to disagree with me. I just, I think any software feature that deals with the health

01:01:09 ◼   ► aspect of your daily life needs to be approved by the country where you live and needs to become

01:01:17 ◼   ► compatible, for the lack of a better word, with your health institution and local organizations

01:01:22 ◼   ► and your doctor and your, you know...

01:01:24 ◼   ► It's why we don't have, for example, the health integration with local hospitals for blood tests.

01:01:30 ◼   ► They could enable that, but it's not just as easy as saying, "Oh, there's an open API,

01:01:36 ◼   ► now your hospital can work with that."

01:01:38 ◼   ► They need to get approved.

01:01:39 ◼   ► And they need to get approved for your safety, for their safety, because Apple doesn't want to expose itself

01:01:45 ◼   ► to lawsuits by people complaining about this feature.

01:01:48 ◼   ► feature. So it's a bureaucracy, but in this case I feel like it's needed.

01:01:54 ◼   ► I completely agree. Like, this is a super tricky thing. You want to make sure you get

01:02:00 ◼   ► it right. You want to make sure that it meets everybody's cool with it. Especially because

01:02:05 ◼   ► any of these types of things will increase the stress on the healthcare system. People

01:02:12 ◼   ► being able to test themselves at home is a good thing and a bad thing, right? Because

01:02:20 ◼   ► if the software isn't 100%, which it probably isn't, right, like it's not going to get every

01:02:25 ◼   ► reading correct, it may give false readings and people go and get themselves tested and

01:02:31 ◼   ► there was no problem. But even if it does give them a problem, right, like that is a

01:02:34 ◼   ► person that wouldn't have taken that reading. I mean, as terrible as that is that they may

01:02:38 ◼   ► have had a problem, right? But you know, that's going to drive more people into medical institutions,

01:02:44 ◼   ► anything like this. It is something that I believe people should have the access to because

01:02:50 ◼   ► we have the technology. So people should be able to use it. Like if we have the ability

01:02:56 ◼   ► to democratise healthcare in this way around the world, that should be done, right? But

01:03:03 ◼   ► everybody needs to understand, it comes with complications and problems.

01:03:08 ◼   ► You know, there are also issues with like people becoming obsessive about testing

01:03:13 ◼   ► themselves, which is also not a good thing, right?

01:03:15 ◼   ► Like there are there are a lot of issues that come with stuff like this that we need

01:03:19 ◼   ► to understand and deal with properly as a society.

01:03:23 ◼   ► But it is 100 percent something that should exist, but it needs to exist within the

01:03:29 ◼   ► institutions that already are in place.

01:03:32 ◼   ► Like Apple can't just roll in and be like, we put our testing sensor in this thing.

01:03:38 ◼   ► It's the whole problem now. Like it's irresponsible.

01:03:41 ◼   ► They need to work with the governments and the governing bodies to make sure that this stuff is implemented correctly.

01:03:47 ◼   ► Health features need to be regulated.

01:03:51 ◼   ► That's my...

01:03:52 ◼   ► And tested.

01:03:53 ◼   ► That's my perspective on it.

01:03:54 ◼   ► So, yeah, but as soon as possible, really, they should work.

01:03:58 ◼   ► I hope that in 2019 we'll see the rollout of this feature in a bunch of countries.

01:04:02 ◼   ► So we'll see.

01:04:04 ◼   ► And one last question for you guys on this.

01:04:07 ◼   ► Are these features like serious selling points of the Apple Watch?

01:04:13 ◼   ► So like at this point you have ECG, so you've got AFib detection,

01:04:17 ◼   ► Irregular Heart Rate detection, 4 detection and emergency assistance.

01:04:21 ◼   ► Like are these are these is this kind of stuff a serious selling point for the Apple Watch?

01:04:27 ◼   ► Yes, I think it is.

01:04:30 ◼   ► I've said on the show in the past that if I had a family member who was at risk of some

01:04:35 ◼   ► of these things, I would buy them one.

01:04:38 ◼   ► And not too many details out there, but I've got a family member who has had some recent

01:04:43 ◼   ► health issues and I'm thinking about buying them an Apple Watch because one of the things

01:04:48 ◼   ► that they're going through, the watch could really be helpful in their situation.

01:04:52 ◼   ► I think that's a good idea.

01:04:53 ◼   ► I think you should do that.

01:04:54 ◼   ► It is an expensive gift, it's an expensive device, but I think that the stuff they're

01:05:05 ◼   ► doing now with the sensors builds on what they were doing a couple of years ago.

01:05:10 ◼   ► The reason I wear an Apple Watch most days, I don't wear it every day, but the days that

01:05:16 ◼   ► I wear it, it is for the fitness and tracking stuff.

01:05:20 ◼   ► right. So go work out, go for a bike ride, go for a run. I want to quantify that and

01:05:25 ◼   ► see how I'm doing over time with my activity level. The notifications and that stuff, like

01:05:31 ◼   ► I use less and less of it mainly because I work at home. Like I'm always here. It's like,

01:05:36 ◼   ► I see when notifications happen, I don't necessarily need to be tapped on my wrist. So I've dialed

01:05:39 ◼   ► that way back. But the fitness stuff is important for a lot of people. All those stories we

01:05:44 ◼   ► heard, we still hear them, but especially when the watch came out, and like watchOS

01:05:50 ◼   ► and three when the fitness stuff really got kind of more open to developers. People saying

01:05:55 ◼   ► the Apple Watch helped me lose this many pounds or I've exercised 90 days in a row and like I'm

01:06:01 ◼   ► still closing the rings. This health stuff on top of that feels like the next level, right? Where

01:06:07 ◼   ► the stories like that guy on Reddit who you know the deduction is probably saved your life like

01:06:12 ◼   ► our friend James Green, right? Like the Apple Watch did save his life and those things are

01:06:19 ◼   ► really important and it's when like I like talking about this I like talking about the

01:06:23 ◼   ► Apple watch I'm interested in it mainly because of this sort of thing because Apple can apply

01:06:29 ◼   ► its like hardware software services you know magic to things that really matter you know

01:06:37 ◼   ► it's one thing to like oh I synced all my contacts around and like I know FedRico would

01:06:41 ◼   ► kill for that right now but it's a different thing to apply that to oh hey you may have

01:06:45 ◼   ► have a heart condition or hey you know your aunt had a fall and no one would

01:06:51 ◼   ► know except that the watch called now we want to call it to you as her emergency

01:06:55 ◼   ► contact that stuff matters and Apple doing more in this arena is really

01:07:02 ◼   ► exciting to me because so far they've done a really good job of it and so I

01:07:05 ◼   ► think it's a huge selling point maybe not for the whole population but at

01:07:08 ◼   ► least for a segment of it I think it puts it miles ahead of something like a

01:07:12 ◼   ► fitbit that just can't do this stuff.

01:07:14 ◼   ► Yeah, totally agree.

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01:09:31 ◼   ► All right, so we're going to round out this episode talking

01:09:34 ◼   ► about article that Federico wrote called the mini setups of

01:09:37 ◼   ► the iPad Pro. And so we spoke about your Mac mini setup and

01:09:43 ◼   ► how you're doing some of that we talked how the iPad sort of

01:09:45 ◼   ► interplays with that at your desk. But this article, you kind

01:09:48 ◼   ► of walk through the different ways you have used your iPad Pro

01:09:53 ◼   ► and some different methodologies you're using depending on how

01:09:56 ◼   ► you want to work. That's I think a really unique thing about the iPad, at least in the

01:10:00 ◼   ► Apple ecosystem, where like a MacBook Pro is kind of a MacBook Pro, but an iPad you

01:10:04 ◼   ► can put in all these different situations depending on what you want to do. So do you

01:10:08 ◼   ► want to walk us through a little bit about some of the keyboards you're using and the

01:10:11 ◼   ► USB-C stuff? So the first, the idea of this article was to show the setups that I tried,

01:10:19 ◼   ► but also make the point of the iPad Pro, the iPad in itself is more versatile than something

01:10:29 ◼   ► like a MacBook because of its form factor and how it can change depending on the accessories

01:10:34 ◼   ► that you use, but also make the point of USB-C being a bigger deal than maybe initially expected

01:10:42 ◼   ► because it unlocks compatibility with a bunch of accessories that you probably already own

01:10:48 ◼   ► for your Mac, which you can now use with your iPad Pro. And the setups that I detailed,

01:10:55 ◼   ► so let's see, the Magic Keyboard that I initially used with the Studio Knit Kanopy Stand, but

01:11:01 ◼   ► now I'm using with the Finti Cover. It's a product that I got from Amazon.com, and Jason

01:11:10 ◼   ► Snell was, he told me, actually I forgot about this, but I used to own one of them. The Finti

01:11:17 ◼   ► cover that I'm using, it's very much inspired by the original origami stand.

01:11:23 ◼   ► Oh my word, yeah.

01:11:25 ◼   ► Yeah, I totally forgot about that, but this is where it draws its inspiration from.

01:11:31 ◼   ► This is a cover for the Magic Keyboard.

01:11:33 ◼   ► You put the Magic Keyboard in a plastic shell, so it sits into the shell, it doesn't move,

01:11:40 ◼   ► and you can close the cover on top of the keyboard.

01:11:42 ◼   ► It's got magnets, so they sort of attach to the bottom of the cover.

01:11:47 ◼   ► When you want to use it in typing mode with the iPad, those two little magnetic tabs,

01:11:53 ◼   ► they create a stand, like a triangular shaped stand, and you can put the iPad on top of

01:11:59 ◼   ► that stand and it's not going to fall off, it's not going to open accidentally.

01:12:03 ◼   ► And this is my favorite setup when I want to use the Magic Keyboard.

01:12:07 ◼   ► I also detailed how I'm using the Viozon vertical stand, the thing that looks like a mini iMac

01:12:14 ◼   ► foot made of aluminum to raise the iPad to my line of sight and with that setup

01:12:20 ◼   ► I mentioned again the Magic Keyboard but mostly the Mattias Mini Tactile Pro

01:12:27 ◼   ► keyboard. This is a mechanical keyboard that's based on USB that I've been using

01:12:34 ◼   ► and I really enjoy it. The article has a bunch of details about what kind of

01:12:39 ◼   ► mechanical keyboard it is, but it's very much inspired by the tradition of classic

01:12:45 ◼   ► Mac keyboards, and it's very noisy, it's very loud. Sylvia hates it, I love it.

01:12:51 ◼   ► I'm probably gonna have to stop using it soon because she really doesn't like it.

01:12:57 ◼   ► Can I ask you a question about the Matthias? What do you think about the way it looks?

01:13:03 ◼   ► It's not pretty. I think the pictures that I had in the article made it look prettier than it is.

01:13:12 ◼   ► Yeah, it is an unfortunate looking thing.

01:13:19 ◼   ► It's ugly and it's bulky and it's heavy and you need to hide the thing when people visit your

01:13:27 ◼   ► house. It's heavy?

01:13:28 ◼   ► It's not light.

01:13:29 ◼   ► It's not light. It's powered by steam, like what do you expect?

01:13:35 ◼   ► Each key has its own mechanism. So there's quite a bit of metal.

01:13:41 ◼   ► I would never have thought that. That surprises me actually to hear that they're heavy. I

01:13:47 ◼   ► will say on those images, very good job by the way. You did a very good job with the

01:13:50 ◼   ► imagery in this post.

01:13:51 ◼   ► Cynthia took them.

01:13:52 ◼   ► So she's got the eye.

01:13:55 ◼   ► you have a new design expert, like what would we call it? Like a creative...

01:13:59 ◼   ► What are they called? Creative director. There you go.

01:14:03 ◼   ► Yes, creative director. That's what she does.

01:14:04 ◼   ► But yeah, and so I detailed the mechanical keyboard, the wheels on stand, and then I

01:14:11 ◼   ► moved on to the topic of USB-C hubs and how the first one that I bought was not an iPad

01:14:18 ◼   ► Pro hub, it was a MacBook hub. My bad for assuming that it was going to work well. It

01:14:25 ◼   ► was a hyper hub called the Solo 7-in-1.

01:14:30 ◼   ► - I have one of these. - I should have assumed

01:14:33 ◼   ► it was gonna be a good solution for the iPad Pro.

01:14:35 ◼   ► In fact, they made a new thing for the iPad Pro

01:14:40 ◼   ► that has a grip specifically designed

01:14:43 ◼   ► to attach to the iPad Pro, like a soft rubber grip.

01:14:45 ◼   ► There's a Kickstarter campaign going on right now

01:14:49 ◼   ► for this new hyper hub specifically designed

01:14:53 ◼   ► for the iPad Pro.

01:14:54 ◼   ► But I ended up, I settled for now on the OWC USB-C hub.

01:14:59 ◼   ► This is a review unit, they got in touch with me.

01:15:04 ◼   ► I was skeptical of this product,

01:15:06 ◼   ► but I actually really like it.

01:15:08 ◼   ► There's two things I don't like.

01:15:11 ◼   ► The USB-C cable is too short,

01:15:13 ◼   ► and as you can see in one of the pictures,

01:15:16 ◼   ► when I use the iPad Pro on the stand with the USB-C hub,

01:15:20 ◼   ► it's hanging off the iPad

01:15:22 ◼   ► because it cannot sit flat on the desk because the cable is too short. And also it doesn't

01:15:27 ◼   ► support USB 3.1 Gen 2, which is 10 Gbps transfers, but only Gen 1, which is 5. And also doesn't

01:15:36 ◼   ► have, as I mentioned a few minutes ago, doesn't have 4K at 60, but only 4K at 30 Hz. But yeah,

01:15:45 ◼   ► so it was this kind of long article, longer than I expected, going through this idea of

01:15:51 ◼   ► How you can extend the iPad Pro using keyboards, using cases, using stands and mostly using

01:15:58 ◼   ► USB-C. Oh and also there's a final section about using the iPad with an external display

01:16:02 ◼   ► with the ultra-fine 4K that I've been talking about.

01:16:07 ◼   ► And a bunch of keyboard shortcuts.

01:16:09 ◼   ► What USB-C hub are you actually using now?

01:16:12 ◼   ► I'm using the OWC one now.

01:16:13 ◼   ► That's the one I'm using for now.

01:16:16 ◼   ► I mentioned in the article I'm not completely sure this is the thing I'm gonna stick with.

01:16:21 ◼   ► I have two more on the way.

01:16:23 ◼   ► So I made a pledge for the Hyper Hub on Kickstarter, which should be coming out in January.

01:16:31 ◼   ► Coincidentally though, Satechi, they announced their own USB-C hub this week, and it's shipping

01:16:40 ◼   ► this week.

01:16:41 ◼   ► I have one on the way, I think later this week at some point with UPS.

01:16:44 ◼   ► And it's very similar to the Hyper-1, kind of similar specs.

01:16:48 ◼   ► It doesn't have a soft grip for the iPad Pro, so I want to see how well it's going to attach

01:16:55 ◼   ► to the side.

01:16:56 ◼   ► But, yeah, I want to test these two and I guess I'll follow up in January.

01:17:02 ◼   ► What is that, the Type-C USB 3.0 3-in-1 Combo Hub?

01:17:05 ◼   ► No, there's an article on MacRumors yesterday I'm going to send you a link.

01:17:09 ◼   ► Oh my god, okay.

01:17:10 ◼   ► Thank you.

01:17:11 ◼   ► So, just reading your article, and just in general, just ever so slightly looking at

01:17:17 ◼   ► this, all of this stuff is so confusing.

01:17:21 ◼   ► It's so confusing.

01:17:22 ◼   ► What is confusing for you?

01:17:24 ◼   ► Everything about USB-C.

01:17:25 ◼   ► Okay, okay.

01:17:26 ◼   ► What do you think is confusing?

01:17:28 ◼   ► The fact that like, oh, well, if you want it to do this, you need this specific one

01:17:34 ◼   ► and it's got to support 3.2 or 3.1, but oh, but don't worry, don't think about

01:17:38 ◼   ► Thunderbolt.

01:17:39 ◼   ► all of this stuff and like you are doing a great job of breaking it down but like so

01:17:44 ◼   ► the confusing part is like everything that gets to the conclusions that you get to right so like the

01:17:49 ◼   ► stuff that you're doing is a great service to people like me who don't want to buy 20 hubs

01:17:54 ◼   ► but like just reading through everything that you're having to go through it's a it's a little

01:17:59 ◼   ► bit of a lot of info yeah okay yeah that is true so which one of these like just like having looked

01:18:06 ◼   ► at the imagery of this Satechi and the HyperDrive. Which one are you more interested in?

01:18:12 ◼   ► I don't know, they're very similar. I think at this point I'm more interested in the Hyper one

01:18:19 ◼   ► because of this patent pending grip that they have.

01:18:23 ◼   ► All right, let's not go crazy.

01:18:25 ◼   ► That's what they're saying. I mean, I want to see how it works.

01:18:29 ◼   ► I think the Satechi one will be fine. I think both products...

01:18:34 ◼   ► I have the solo hyperdrive thing, right? I bought it for my MacBook Pro. It works great.

01:18:41 ◼   ► It is a little bit looser than I would like, which I get why it is that way for the MacBook,

01:18:49 ◼   ► because of where the USB-C ports are on the MacBook. Like, I'm maybe more excited about

01:18:55 ◼   ► this one because the USB-C port is in the middle, so it will be more balanced, right?

01:19:00 ◼   ► which is I would assume.

01:19:02 ◼   ► Yeah, I think I'm going to back this too.

01:19:04 ◼   ► And I expect they'll probably make their shipping date

01:19:07 ◼   ► because they're an existing company that knows how to make products

01:19:10 ◼   ► exactly like this one. Right.

01:19:12 ◼   ► You'd expect

01:19:13 ◼   ► you would think that they might they might know what they're doing.

01:19:16 ◼   ► You would hope.

01:19:18 ◼   ► Yeah, but.

01:19:19 ◼   ► Oh, I guess get in.

01:19:21 ◼   ► There's only 16 left of the early bird special.

01:19:24 ◼   ► So there we go. I'll get one of those.

01:19:26 ◼   ► Yeah, this is a nightmare.

01:19:28 ◼   ► This stuff right now,

01:19:29 ◼   ► I do have some other questions for you Federico.

01:19:31 ◼   ► How frequently are you actually using your iPad

01:19:36 ◼   ► with the monitor? - Very frequently.

01:19:38 ◼   ► Whenever I wanna write for at least a couple of hours,

01:19:42 ◼   ► I'm gonna use the monitor.

01:19:43 ◼   ► Yeah, because it's more comfortable over,

01:19:48 ◼   ► if I'm writing for like 30 minutes or an hour,

01:19:51 ◼   ► I'm gonna use the iPad.

01:19:52 ◼   ► But if I know I'm gonna write for like two, three hours,

01:19:55 ◼   ► then I'm gonna sit down and use the monitor.

01:19:58 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:19:58 ◼   ► Okay.

01:19:59 ◼   ► That makes sense.

01:19:59 ◼   ► And you had a picture in your article of you using the Apple pencil.

01:20:04 ◼   ► Yes.

01:20:04 ◼   ► With the, with the iPad on the desk.

01:20:08 ◼   ► And I wonder how does, how does that actually work?

01:20:11 ◼   ► How are you doing?

01:20:12 ◼   ► Like, how are you using that?

01:20:13 ◼   ► So with the iPad next to me on the right side of the desk, I, it's sort of, I can

01:20:20 ◼   ► just use the pencil to navigate and tap on things.

01:20:24 ◼   ► so that I don't have to use my fingers because it's more...

01:20:29 ◼   ► you know this, it's easier on my wrist to use the pencil.

01:20:35 ◼   ► And sometimes I have to look down at the screen to make sure I'm tapping the right things,

01:20:39 ◼   ► but if I'm just scrolling, I mean, it's fine.

01:20:42 ◼   ► I can just quickly glance at it.

01:20:44 ◼   ► Like, if I want to open an article in a list of multiple articles,

01:20:49 ◼   ► I can just quickly glance at it and tap.

01:20:52 ◼   ► it's not a big deal really.

01:20:54 ◼   ► And it's kinda like using,

01:20:57 ◼   ► I think you use a Wacom tablet as you're used to,

01:21:00 ◼   ► I don't know.

01:21:01 ◼   ► - I do.

01:21:02 ◼   ► - It's basically the same idea,

01:21:03 ◼   ► but in this case the tablet is also a computer

01:21:06 ◼   ► with the screen, so.

01:21:07 ◼   ► It is unfortunate that when you're doing mirroring

01:21:11 ◼   ► to an external display,

01:21:13 ◼   ► the iPad's display never turns off

01:21:16 ◼   ► because this is basic mirroring,

01:21:17 ◼   ► this is not like a Mac that you can put in clamshell mode

01:21:20 ◼   ► and have the display be off.

01:21:22 ◼   ► but video out is going to the monitor.

01:21:25 ◼   ► It's not like that.

01:21:26 ◼   ► But I made the best out of a bad situation

01:21:31 ◼   ► so I can use the screen of the iPad,

01:21:33 ◼   ► which is always on, as a trackpad to control the UI

01:21:36 ◼   ► that I see on the bigger monitor.

01:21:39 ◼   ► - I am greatly enjoying watching you go through

01:21:41 ◼   ► all this stuff.

01:21:42 ◼   ► These articles are really good.

01:21:43 ◼   ► They're really fun.

01:21:45 ◼   ► - Next up will be, so I'm not sure

01:21:47 ◼   ► because now on Mac stories we're working on all of our

01:21:51 ◼   ► end of the year app and game roundups.

01:21:54 ◼   ► So I don't know if I'm gonna have the time

01:21:56 ◼   ► for another smaller article before the end of the year.

01:22:00 ◼   ► I would like to have one to explain how I enabled,

01:22:05 ◼   ► there's an accessory that I bought

01:22:09 ◼   ► that I wanna write about to turn the Smart Keyboard Folio

01:22:13 ◼   ► into a similar setup to the Smart Folio.

01:22:18 ◼   ► So using the iPad in touch mode,

01:22:20 ◼   ► which the SmartKey portfolio doesn't support.

01:22:23 ◼   ► It's like this kickstand that I'm gonna worry about it.

01:22:27 ◼   ► But yeah.

01:22:28 ◼   ► - Not 100% sure what you mean,

01:22:29 ◼   ► but let's leave it at that

01:22:30 ◼   ► so people can wait for your article.

01:22:32 ◼   ► - Yes, it's a very weird product, but it works.

01:22:34 ◼   ► But yeah, it's fun to,

01:22:36 ◼   ► it's both fun and a nightmare to go through this stuff.

01:22:40 ◼   ► It took me weeks and I needed to talk to people like Marco

01:22:43 ◼   ► and Steve John Smith.

01:22:45 ◼   ► I had Steve actually make, send me his script,

01:22:49 ◼   ► like a Swift Playground thing that runs code

01:22:54 ◼   ► to check the resolution of the external display.

01:22:57 ◼   ► Yeah, it was a whole thing,

01:23:00 ◼   ► but it's fun to do this research for me.

01:23:03 ◼   ► I love doing these kinds of research

01:23:05 ◼   ► and buying things on Amazon and confirming that they work

01:23:08 ◼   ► and complaining what don't work.

01:23:10 ◼   ► It's fun.

01:23:11 ◼   ► Also expensive, but it's fun.

01:23:14 ◼   ► - There were hobbies you could have.

01:23:15 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:23:16 ◼   ► - It feels like we're done.

01:23:17 ◼   ► If you want to find links to the stuff we talked about,

01:23:21 ◼   ► to this battery that has no name,

01:23:23 ◼   ► or to KBase article about Back to My Mac being dead,

01:23:26 ◼   ► you can find all that on the website

01:23:28 ◼   ► relay.fm/connected/222.

01:23:33 ◼   ► While you're there, you can get in touch.

01:23:34 ◼   ► There's an email link in the sidebar.

01:23:36 ◼   ► You can send feedback and follow up via email,

01:23:39 ◼   ► or you can do it over on Twitter.

01:23:41 ◼   ► You can find Myke there as I-M-Y-K-E.

01:23:44 ◼   ► Myke, of course, is the host of a lot of shows here

01:23:47 ◼   ► Relay FM. You can find Federico on Twitter @Fettucci, he's the editor-in-chief at

01:23:53 ◼   ► MacStories.net. You can find me there as @ismh and I, like Myke, host a lot of shows

01:24:00 ◼   ► here and I write 512pixels.net. I'd like to thank our sponsors this week, Luna

01:24:05 ◼   ► Display, Squarespace, and Simple Contacts for making the show possible. Until next

01:24:10 ◼   ► week guys, say goodbye. Adios. Adios.