Connected

00:00:00 ◼   ► (upbeat music)

00:00:02 ◼   ► - Hello and welcome to Connected, episode 213.

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

00:00:15 ◼   ► Linode, and PayPal.

00:00:16 ◼   ► I am your host, Steven Hackett,

00:00:18 ◼   ► and I am joined, as I am, every single week.

00:00:21 ◼   ► That's not actually true.

00:00:22 ◼   ► Most weeks, it's the three of us.

00:00:23 ◼   ► - It's not true at all.

00:00:24 ◼   ► - I've got Myke Hurley.

00:00:25 ◼   ► - Ciao, Steven.

00:00:28 ◼   ► And I have Federico Vatici.

00:00:30 ◼   ► - Hey guys, hey Steven, how are you?

00:00:33 ◼   ► - I'm good.

00:00:33 ◼   ► - Ciao Federico. - Ciao.

00:00:35 ◼   ► - Ciao Myke.

00:00:36 ◼   ► Why the sudden influx of Italian in your--

00:00:40 ◼   ► - 'Cause I just, I was in Rome, baby.

00:00:43 ◼   ► I was in Rome all weekend with Federico Vatici.

00:00:45 ◼   ► - Basically one day-- - The greatest guide.

00:00:48 ◼   ► - Basically one day Myke just text me,

00:00:50 ◼   ► and I'm like, "Hey, I'm in Rome."

00:00:51 ◼   ► And he just showed up.

00:00:52 ◼   ► And I was like, "I'm at the airport,

00:00:53 ◼   ► "I don't know what to do, I don't know where to go."

00:00:55 ◼   ► - Come collect me.

00:00:56 ◼   ► Please come save me.

00:00:58 ◼   ► Come get me.

00:00:59 ◼   ► I was in Rome.

00:01:01 ◼   ► We spent a long weekend in Rome.

00:01:03 ◼   ► I saw the bakery.

00:01:04 ◼   ► Unfortunately, I didn't go in the bakery.

00:01:07 ◼   ► Every time we were at the bakery, the bakery was closed.

00:01:09 ◼   ► Yeah, but I saw it.

00:01:11 ◼   ► I saw that it exists.

00:01:12 ◼   ► The sign.

00:01:13 ◼   ► I saw the sign. I know where it is.

00:01:15 ◼   ► I can picture it.

00:01:15 ◼   ► It's a yellow building.

00:01:17 ◼   ► That's that's as much, you know,

00:01:19 ◼   ► OPSEC and all that stuff.

00:01:21 ◼   ► I won't give it away.

00:01:21 ◼   ► So people steal your bakery.

00:01:24 ◼   ► I have, I've had Federico prepare me espresso. I've had, I've seen Federico make espresso.

00:01:31 ◼   ► I ate some of the greatest food I've ever eaten in my entire life in Rome.

00:01:35 ◼   ► My God, that, oh my God, there was a tiramisu.

00:01:39 ◼   ► You're still thinking about the tiramisu.

00:01:41 ◼   ► I'm still thinking about that tiramisu, it was so good. And yeah, we had a really great time.

00:01:46 ◼   ► Federico showed me the sights. I put some pictures on my Instagram. We went to the Coliseum.

00:01:51 ◼   ► It was very nice. Very, very nice.

00:01:53 ◼   ► I have a question about the bakery situation.

00:01:56 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:01:57 ◼   ► - You said every time you went it was closed.

00:01:58 ◼   ► Is it possible that the bakery is somehow monitoring

00:02:03 ◼   ► where Federico is and when he gets within a certain radius,

00:02:06 ◼   ► they put the clothes--

00:02:07 ◼   ► - They just pull the shot down.

00:02:08 ◼   ► - Yeah, they pull the clothes sign out

00:02:10 ◼   ► and they hide behind the counter,

00:02:12 ◼   ► like holding their breath that he walks by

00:02:13 ◼   ► without coming in.

00:02:14 ◼   ► - They made a shortcut.

00:02:16 ◼   ► They have some like home automation like stuff, you know,

00:02:19 ◼   ► and then whenever he comes near, they just,

00:02:21 ◼   ► They put a beacon in his shoe, an eye beacon, and whenever he comes near it just closes up.

00:02:27 ◼   ► Didn't you see though, one day, a few nights ago when I took you guys back to the hotel,

00:02:35 ◼   ► we saw that the light was on inside because the guy was making bread and pizza for the

00:02:39 ◼   ► morning after.

00:02:40 ◼   ► So, they're definitely inside.

00:02:43 ◼   ► I don't know why they're closing when I'm around.

00:02:45 ◼   ► Honestly, I think it was just late.

00:02:48 ◼   ► One day was a Sunday and they didn't work on Sundays and then it was just late in the

00:02:52 ◼   ► evening and they like to close early because they wake up early so it kind of makes sense.

00:02:58 ◼   ► But yeah it was fun.

00:02:59 ◼   ► I mean as someone who lives in Rome, I was actually telling Myke about this, we don't

00:03:04 ◼   ► usually go to the center of Rome because it's a whole thing to plan, you need to park your

00:03:09 ◼   ► car and walk a few kilometers.

00:03:11 ◼   ► I have in my lifetime, I've been to many of the biggest cities in the world.

00:03:16 ◼   ► I live in London, I visited New York, I visited San Francisco, Paris, Memphis, all the big

00:03:22 ◼   ► hubs. The center of Rome is the busiest place I've ever seen in my entire life. The concentration

00:03:30 ◼   ► of people to space is untenable. It's bonkers there, it's really wild. I don't think that

00:03:37 ◼   ► there's necessarily more people, there's just way less space for the people that are there.

00:03:44 ◼   ► I was very taken aback by that.

00:03:46 ◼   ► Yeah, the narrow streets and, you know, people parking everywhere.

00:03:51 ◼   ► And those are just people with permits to drive cars in the center of Rome.

00:03:56 ◼   ► Imagine if they would let anybody drive a car there.

00:03:59 ◼   ► It would be just an incredible mess.

00:04:03 ◼   ► But yeah, we don't often go to the Colosseum.

00:04:04 ◼   ► I think it's actually, since I moved here in Rome four, five years ago, this is the

00:04:11 ◼   ► first time I've actually gone to the Colosseum.

00:04:13 ◼   ► You haven't been there since the big blogger fight that happened in the Coliseum a few years ago, right?

00:04:19 ◼   ► Yes, that was you'd never go back. Yeah, there was the the

00:04:22 ◼   ► Blog blogger fights others the emperor of tech meme that stand standing and you know doing the thing with the thumbs up in the thumbs

00:04:30 ◼   ► Down they go tip up or sit down. They got the we got a tip up and you're raised

00:04:35 ◼   ► And then you get pushed up you get pushed down totally if you get pushed down

00:04:42 ◼   ► basically nobody cares about your blog posts. You walk away in a parade of shame. You walk

00:04:52 ◼   ► away like that. I mean, I've seen the Coliseum but just driving around it because you can

00:04:58 ◼   ► drive around the Coliseum. There's a road that people can, you know...

00:05:03 ◼   ► Power sliding? Power sliding around it?

00:05:05 ◼   ► If you want, you can. The police is probably going to arrest you, but you can try. So yeah,

00:05:09 ◼   ► It was fun.

00:05:11 ◼   ► We walked with...

00:05:13 ◼   ► We brought the dogs too, so we have photos of the dogs in front of the Coliseum, which

00:05:17 ◼   ► was fun.

00:05:18 ◼   ► Steven, you're up next.

00:05:20 ◼   ► When are you coming to Rome?

00:05:23 ◼   ► I'm gonna come by this afternoon, I think.

00:05:24 ◼   ► I'll get the show up and I'll just...

00:05:27 ◼   ► Do you prefer pasta or pizza for dinner?

00:05:29 ◼   ► We'll see.

00:05:30 ◼   ► We can figure something out.

00:05:32 ◼   ► Gluten-free options.

00:05:34 ◼   ► I have them.

00:05:35 ◼   ► I actually have them.

00:05:36 ◼   ► That's good.

00:05:37 ◼   ► So Myke, did you experience the 14 HomePods in Federico's house?

00:05:44 ◼   ► I saw three of them. The thing that is more intriguing in the Vittucci household is the

00:05:50 ◼   ► amount of cameras that there are. There are lots of cameras everywhere. And it made me

00:05:56 ◼   ► kind of, I was thinking about something because, you know, it was kind of one of the things

00:06:01 ◼   ► where I was checking my canary more than I do on any other trip just because the cameras

00:06:06 ◼   ► were just more of a thing that I was seeing in my life. I know that Federico likes to

00:06:10 ◼   ► monitor the movement of his dogs. We don't need to do that so much because we don't have

00:06:14 ◼   ► dogs, but you know. But it did. I was looking at my camera at one point and I thought to

00:06:19 ◼   ► myself, "Huh. The Canary has that microphone functionality, right?" So I tested it out

00:06:26 ◼   ► and it worked. I was able to activate my HomePod via the speaker in my Canary.

00:06:32 ◼   ► yeah I saw it I saw it in in person it actually works I tried to do this with

00:06:38 ◼   ► the echo like when when the canary first got this stuff it didn't work but the

00:06:44 ◼   ► home part is so much better at detecting it so I was able to turn my lights on

00:06:48 ◼   ► and off from Rome via the canary's microphone thing it was very cool I don't

00:06:54 ◼   ► know what I can do with this new power that I have but it's you know it's

00:06:59 ◼   ► always in my back pocket in case I need it. A really wild Internet of Things Rube Goldberg

00:07:03 ◼   ► machine. But another thing is, so this was a piece of follow-up and this was kind of

00:07:10 ◼   ► something that I had in the back of my head last week when we were talking about the fact

00:07:14 ◼   ► that Federico refused to try a popsocket. I was thinking to myself, "haha, he won't

00:07:18 ◼   ► have a choice when I see him next week." So I forced him to try my popsocket, which

00:07:23 ◼   ► use this very strange sentence, on my iPhone and Federico, I would say that I think I may

00:07:31 ◼   ► have converted you.

00:07:33 ◼   ► I liked it. I definitely understand why you find it useful. I think Silvia is more convinced

00:07:41 ◼   ► about it than I am.

00:07:43 ◼   ► Yeah, she seemed very intrigued. Like, she was like, "Ah, okay." And I was kind of explaining

00:07:48 ◼   ► why I like it and showing all the different ways I can hold the phone with it.

00:07:52 ◼   ► Yeah, I'm still not sure if I want to get one, primarily because I really like the idea

00:08:00 ◼   ► of wireless charging at night, so just putting the iPhone on the ugly but functional Samsung

00:08:06 ◼   ► charger that I have on my nightstand, because I have a precedent for this, which is when

00:08:13 ◼   ► my iPhone used to charge via a cable, and the cable was basically touching the floor

00:08:20 ◼   ► I have this plug on the right side of my nightstand so I can plug in the charger, but then the

00:08:27 ◼   ► cable touches the floor, unless I wrap it around the nightstand, basically.

00:08:32 ◼   ► And so, last year, Ginger, one of my dogs, was running, she ran into the cable, and with

00:08:38 ◼   ► the cable also came the phone, and the phone basically shattered on the ground.

00:08:42 ◼   ► So ideally I don't want to have cables that the dogs can run into and cause similar damage,

00:08:49 ◼   ► But also at the same time, having tried the popsocket, I do find it convenient and I do...

00:08:58 ◼   ► I'm thinking about it.

00:09:00 ◼   ► Especially because I'm finding myself watching a lot of videos at night on the access...

00:09:05 ◼   ► I just said access...

00:09:06 ◼   ► Well, whatever.

00:09:07 ◼   ► On the max at night and reading using the phone at night in bed and having what you

00:09:14 ◼   ► do with holding the pop socket with your fist closed and holding it in between two fingers,

00:09:21 ◼   ► I think that's really convenient. So I'm thinking about it. But also I kind of want to wait

00:09:25 ◼   ► for the new iPads and see if maybe having the new, I don't know, 10.5 in a new lighter,

00:09:33 ◼   ► more comfortable design, maybe I'm going to switch to using that to read at night and

00:09:37 ◼   ► watch videos. So we'll see. Keep us posted. Mmhmm. Yeah.

00:09:43 ◼   ► We have some frisbees. We have some frisbee follow up.

00:09:45 ◼   ► Oh my god. Oh my god. This was like so many tweets about this.

00:09:49 ◼   ► I kind of got my frisbee thing slightly wrong. I was on the right line, but just ever so

00:09:55 ◼   ► slightly wrong. I mean, as wrong as you could be while still

00:10:00 ◼   ► being partially right. Yeah, I'm fine with that. Basically, so there

00:10:04 ◼   ► were many people that wrote in about this, including Marco Arment, who says, "Has anyone

00:10:09 ◼   ► told you yet, the answer was yes, quite a few people, that you confused Whammo, maker

00:10:14 ◼   ► of the frisbee, with Aerobee, maker of the Aerobee flying disc. So Aerobee make a frisbee

00:10:21 ◼   ► that isn't a frisbee, because frisbee is a brand name, Aerobee make their own frisbee-like

00:10:27 ◼   ► thing, right, called the Aerobee flying disc. They're the company that makes AeroPress.

00:10:32 ◼   ► So they make stuff like frisbees, not frisbee. So I was-

00:10:36 ◼   ► I'm looking at pictures, this is a frisbee.

00:10:39 ◼   ► Right, that's what I mean, but frisbee is a brand, right?

00:10:44 ◼   ► Like Kleenex and Hoover and stuff like that, and Google, but it's one of those brands that

00:10:49 ◼   ► gets turned into a word, you know?

00:10:51 ◼   ► Like a generic product, like an iPod when it was not an iPod, but just an MP3 player.

00:10:58 ◼   ► So I was close, but just got the company slightly wrong.

00:11:00 ◼   ► But then, as just an interesting tidbit, listener Brian responded to this thread to say "Error

00:11:06 ◼   ► press is now an independent company because the Aerobee brand and toy line was sold off

00:11:12 ◼   ► to a company called Spin Master. That's a good name. The founder of Aerobee kept Aeropress

00:11:20 ◼   ► and created its own company. So the Aeropress is now a company of its own and the Aerobee

00:11:25 ◼   ► flying disc is now owned by Spin Master. Spin Master is a good name. I feel like Spin Master

00:11:31 ◼   ► should be the title of the head of Apple PR. I'm a spin master. I can spin stories however

00:11:39 ◼   ► I want to.

00:11:41 ◼   ► Spin is not a good term for PR though. It's got negative connotations.

00:11:45 ◼   ► I know, right?

00:11:46 ◼   ► But you can offset that though if you spell "master" with a "z" in the middle of it.

00:11:51 ◼   ► What if you also put "general" at the end? Spin master general.

00:11:55 ◼   ► Spin master, oh. I like that.

00:11:57 ◼   ► It just sounds cool.

00:11:59 ◼   ► That's good. So there's that. Federico, you have some follow-up about red envelopes.

00:12:04 ◼   ► Yes. Turns out that a bunch of people were sending us links and confirmation that red

00:12:10 ◼   ► envelopes are in fact used for weddings too.

00:12:13 ◼   ► No, no, no. Not in fact, also. You can't say "in fact" because they are also used.

00:12:18 ◼   ► For weddings too, in addition to New Year's celebrations. So during the tea ceremony for

00:12:27 ◼   ► the traditional Chinese wedding, there's a moment when gifts are exchanged and usually people,

00:12:35 ◼   ► and this is an extremely brief summary of this post that listener Dave sent, basically people

00:12:44 ◼   ► put money in these red envelopes that they give to the groom and the bride, and that's the gift.

00:12:50 ◼   ► So the gift is a red envelope with money, could be a red envelope with money, but that's a

00:12:55 ◼   ► traditional thing that people do. There's pictures in the link that you will find in

00:13:00 ◼   ► the show notes. Myke, what are the show notes?

00:13:03 ◼   ► Show notes are more of an idea, they're more of a concept than a reality.

00:13:09 ◼   ► But they're useless then. Listen, shouldn't use the show notes. That's just an idea.

00:13:15 ◼   ► They're all in your mind, man.

00:13:18 ◼   ► Okay, moving on. Have you fixed your dropler? This is such a terrible name.

00:13:27 ◼   ► No, I've not fixed my dropler problem. It doesn't really seem like there are a lot

00:13:31 ◼   ► of really competitive solutions. It seems like DropShare, which is the one we mentioned

00:13:36 ◼   ► last week, is the only one that is almost slightly like what I'm looking for because

00:13:42 ◼   ► it is very similar to Dropla and it actually does have a plan that you know

00:13:49 ◼   ► you can give them money or you could just use their applications with your

00:13:54 ◼   ► own storage solutions so I am going to probably switch to drop share but

00:14:00 ◼   ► ultimately all I really want is for Dropla to just fix their iOS app right

00:14:04 ◼   ► that's like all I really want I'm already a paid paying customer of Dropla

00:14:08 ◼   ► like I have a lifetime account which I bought from some it was like included in

00:14:13 ◼   ► some like package deal thing once you get like here's five productivity apps

00:14:17 ◼   ► for $99 and one of the reasons I did it was because I got a lifetime account for

00:14:23 ◼   ► like $20 or something silly like that and so I don't really want to have to

00:14:28 ◼   ► switch to something where I now need to pay every month because I already have

00:14:31 ◼   ► this thing and it used to work for me so good but now they change their app and

00:14:33 ◼   ► it sucks but I'm probably just gonna have to move to drop share I think about

00:14:37 ◼   ► this lifetime accounts, right? Because I also have a bunch of these lifetime accounts, probably

00:14:42 ◼   ► with Feedly, the RSS service. And I, like every time I see this lifetime accounts, it

00:14:48 ◼   ► kind of makes me sad. And it makes me...

00:14:50 ◼   ► It's not good. Yeah, I don't think it's a good thing.

00:14:53 ◼   ► Like until I die, I have to use Feedly and Dropler because...

00:14:58 ◼   ► That wasn't how I was thinking of it, but sure.

00:15:01 ◼   ► No, it's like, it makes me think about, it makes me think about mortality, like lifetime

00:15:05 ◼   ► account so forever I'm entitled to using this service like it makes you think man that's

00:15:12 ◼   ► what I'm saying it's you know like until like when I'm 80 years old will I still be checking

00:15:19 ◼   ► RSS feeds and 95 Mac and okay I mean that's a you know it's a it's something it's an a

00:15:27 ◼   ► it's a big it makes me feel bad about my lifetime Evernote account there's not much left in

00:15:32 ◼   ► it though, right? You have a lifetime Evernote account? No, I don't. So yeah, Jopler, fix

00:15:40 ◼   ► your iOS app for Myke, please. Thank you. This episode of Connected is brought to you

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00:16:45 ◼   ► and Relay FM.

00:16:46 ◼   ► - We have some news that I feel like the two of you

00:16:49 ◼   ► may be excited about.

00:16:50 ◼   ► I don't particularly care,

00:16:52 ◼   ► but I want to share it with y'all.

00:16:53 ◼   ► Stardew Valley, which is apparently some sort of game.

00:16:56 ◼   ► - I like the way you say it.

00:16:58 ◼   ► Even the way that you say this stuff,

00:17:00 ◼   ► it's like you're somehow judging it?

00:17:03 ◼   ► Like Stardew Valley?

00:17:06 ◼   ► Like it's just the way you said it,

00:17:07 ◼   ► it was just like, you know, I'm judging you.

00:17:09 ◼   ► And I don't know why.

00:17:10 ◼   ► - No, I know it's extremely popular,

00:17:13 ◼   ► and they're bringing it, the news is,

00:17:14 ◼   ► they're bringing it to iOS, which I think is pretty cool.

00:17:17 ◼   ► So it's a port being done by an outside studio,

00:17:21 ◼   ► which I don't know how these things normally work,

00:17:22 ◼   ► but I found that interesting.

00:17:23 ◼   ► This is done all the time.

00:17:24 ◼   ► This is done all the time.

00:17:25 ◼   ► This is this is the nature of like

00:17:27 ◼   ► you create a game for one platform

00:17:29 ◼   ► and then you want to bring it

00:17:30 ◼   ► to another platform.

00:17:31 ◼   ► There are like specialty studios

00:17:34 ◼   ► who make that happen for you.

00:17:35 ◼   ► It's weird because it sounds like

00:17:37 ◼   ► it would be a negative,

00:17:38 ◼   ► but it's actually a positive

00:17:39 ◼   ► because the company

00:17:40 ◼   ► because actually Stardew

00:17:41 ◼   ► value was developed by one dude

00:17:43 ◼   ► and mostly still is.

00:17:45 ◼   ► They have a little bit more help now.

00:17:49 ◼   ► Need where it's needed.

00:17:50 ◼   ► Is his name Stardrew?

00:17:52 ◼   ► Star Drew? His name is Star Drew Valet.

00:17:55 ◼   ► Star Drew Valet.

00:17:58 ◼   ► No, uh, what is the guy's name? I was just talking about this recently.

00:18:03 ◼   ► The guy's name is...

00:18:06 ◼   ► Is it Star? No. Is it Valet? It is Eric Boron.

00:18:11 ◼   ► Well... Goes by Concerned Ape is his handle.

00:18:14 ◼   ► Okay. Um, online. But um, this is a big surprise

00:18:18 ◼   ► because I straight up never expected that this game would come to iOS.

00:18:24 ◼   ► It just felt like it was kind of like, well, if they haven't done it already,

00:18:29 ◼   ► they probably never would.

00:18:30 ◼   ► It's on pretty much all the consoles now.

00:18:34 ◼   ► The switchboard is really good and they are bringing again, I'm very surprised

00:18:38 ◼   ► the full game except for the multiplayer stuff.

00:18:40 ◼   ► So I am.

00:18:42 ◼   ► Both excited and nervous because Stardew Valley

00:18:47 ◼   ► will take every second you can possibly give it. It is one of those types of games. So

00:18:54 ◼   ► I have no idea what this is going to do to my life, but I assume it's just going to be

00:19:00 ◼   ► the iOS game I play whenever I want to play an iOS game for a very long time. Like how

00:19:05 ◼   ► threes is like I still play threes all the time and I expect Stadiu will start to fill

00:19:11 ◼   ► that role for me for sure.

00:19:13 ◼   ► going to be $8 and the blog post says that it is sort of been like rebuilt for

00:19:20 ◼   ► touchscreen gameplay but it is still like the same the same game so yeah it

00:19:25 ◼   ► wouldn't be incredibly hard to rebuild this game for touch screens because it

00:19:31 ◼   ► was made for the PC so everything is point-and-click right yeah I can see

00:19:35 ◼   ► that right so you know they have as long as they've done it well like I don't

00:19:40 ◼   ► know how this is going to play on a phone. It will be really good on the iPad. Maybe

00:19:45 ◼   ► if they do some resolution stuff it will be good on the XS Max. But I think you're going

00:19:49 ◼   ► to need a decent screen for this for it to be really good but you could play it on the

00:19:53 ◼   ► iPhone. I really hope that it syncs on iOS versions. You can't sync it to your game

00:20:03 ◼   ► on other platforms but if you play on the PC you can transfer your save data via iTunes.

00:20:08 ◼   ► So I guess it's like you just drop the file in through iTunes and it will transfer your

00:20:14 ◼   ► save over and you can just continue from there but it won't be syncing to the other platforms.

00:20:20 ◼   ► When I was a kid I played a game and you guys can help me remember the name of it.

00:20:24 ◼   ► We played it on the 64.

00:20:27 ◼   ► Harvest Moon.

00:20:28 ◼   ► Harvest Moon.

00:20:29 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah.

00:20:30 ◼   ► So I sunk a lot of time into that as a kid.

00:20:31 ◼   ► And you're going to love this because Stardew Valley was created because Harvest Moon got

00:20:36 ◼   ► bad.

00:20:37 ◼   ► Like Eric Barone was a huge Harvest Moon fan and the series kind of started to suck over time

00:20:43 ◼   ► So he created Stardew Valley. So if you enjoyed that you'll probably like this

00:20:49 ◼   ► All right. I'm gonna put it in my to-do list. Check it out comes out October 24th. Yeah in the IRS app store

00:20:56 ◼   ► I'm very very very excited

00:20:58 ◼   ► I'm excited that it's coming to iOS. I'm not going to

00:21:03 ◼   ► Buy this one because I'm really not a Stardew Valley type of person. Have you played it? I don't remember

00:21:08 ◼   ► Did you play I've seen I've seen streams and videos. I don't think it's a game for me

00:21:13 ◼   ► I get bored with these types of games

00:21:15 ◼   ► Usually so I get I mean it looks fantastic. I'm super happy that it's coming to iOS just not a game for me

00:21:23 ◼   ► I can sort of get behind Animal Crossing

00:21:26 ◼   ► but then again

00:21:27 ◼   ► I got addicted to Animal Crossing real bad 15 years ago on the DS and

00:21:32 ◼   ► Like that was real bad

00:21:35 ◼   ► Like I was keeping an agenda for different days of the year and different chores that I needed to do during the day

00:21:42 ◼   ► Like I wasn't I wasn't meeting up with friends anymore because I needed to catch fish or you know

00:21:49 ◼   ► Look after my garden

00:21:51 ◼   ► So I got real bad and from that I sort of got burned and I tried to avoid these types of games as much as possible

00:21:57 ◼   ► I don't feel a pull toward Stardew Valley and

00:22:01 ◼   ► I will probably try

00:22:04 ◼   ► Like when Animal Crossing comes out on the switch, I'll check it out for sure

00:22:07 ◼   ► But I need to take it easy because I really don't want to end up like 15 years ago was real bad

00:22:14 ◼   ► I got addicted to Ninten dogs first and then to and then to Animal Crossing on the DS

00:22:20 ◼   ► My mom still remembers the dogs from Nintendogs and every once in a while when I mentioned

00:22:27 ◼   ► The Nintendo I'm playing with the Nintendo. She goes like have you have you checked on the dogs?

00:22:32 ◼   ► I mean even ten years later and she makes me feel bad saying that the dogs are dead

00:22:36 ◼   ► Game man. Why does she do that to you? I don't know. She's terrible. Sometimes my mom

00:22:42 ◼   ► She does things like I don't know like so so terrible comments to make me feel bad

00:22:47 ◼   ► Nintendogs was basically a dog Tamagotchi on the Nintendo DS if you need a little bit of context.

00:22:53 ◼   ► And it was adorable because you could pet the dogs with the stylus.

00:22:56 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah. So I mean they're probably dead or they're probably super upset.

00:23:01 ◼   ► I would assume that they don't die.

00:23:03 ◼   ► I don't think they don't die.

00:23:04 ◼   ► Because you didn't play.

00:23:06 ◼   ► You find them in really, really bad shape. They don't look at you. I think that's what I

00:23:12 ◼   ► researched 10 years ago, 15, actually maybe 13 years ago when I stopped playing the game,

00:23:17 ◼   ► I actually tried to make sure that they wouldn't die in the game. So yeah, it's a whole thing.

00:23:22 ◼   ► So I try to avoid these types of games whenever I can. I understand your reservations now,

00:23:27 ◼   ► but then I will show you when we're on a plane next together, the game. You showed me,

00:23:34 ◼   ► you showed me Stardew Valley already. Did I? I watched you play Stardew Valley on Twitch. Oh,

00:23:40 ◼   ► - Oh, I didn't know that.

00:23:42 ◼   ► - Yes, I'm aware of you playing the game.

00:23:44 ◼   ► - Just keep watching me play, you don't need to play.

00:23:46 ◼   ► Just watch me instead, it's fine.

00:23:48 ◼   ► - He has a TV dedicated to your Twitch stream, actually.

00:23:51 ◼   ► - Yes. - What's Myke doing today?

00:23:53 ◼   ► All right, up next, there is a report

00:23:54 ◼   ► that Apple has acquired Danish computer vision

00:23:57 ◼   ► startup Spectral.

00:23:58 ◼   ► So this company's pretty interesting.

00:24:01 ◼   ► They have developed some technology using AI

00:24:05 ◼   ► and neural networks and all the buzzwords you can think of

00:24:09 ◼   ► to effectively make green screen effects possible

00:24:12 ◼   ► through a smartphone camera.

00:24:14 ◼   ► So it cuts out you from the background

00:24:18 ◼   ► and then it can replace the background with something else.

00:24:23 ◼   ► And seems like some pretty interesting technology.

00:24:25 ◼   ► It seems to fit in maybe with what Apple's doing

00:24:27 ◼   ► with AR and some other stuff.

00:24:29 ◼   ► It made me think about iChat AV.

00:24:31 ◼   ► So back in the day you could video conference with people

00:24:34 ◼   ► and then you could, basically it made you slide

00:24:38 ◼   ► out of the frame so it could capture the whole background and then it would put you on a

00:24:42 ◼   ► roller coaster or in the jungle or under the ocean.

00:24:45 ◼   ► And it was very basic and if you move too quickly there was a lot of image tearing and

00:24:50 ◼   ► stuff.

00:24:51 ◼   ► But now with the technology we have today and it seems like what this company was doing,

00:24:55 ◼   ► Apple could do something like this and it would be pretty nice.

00:24:58 ◼   ► I'm kind of excited about this.

00:24:59 ◼   ► I could see this being a lot of fun.

00:25:02 ◼   ► This technology is still available on the Mac in the form of Photo Booth, right?

00:25:08 ◼   ► Yes.

00:25:09 ◼   ► And I'm gonna send you guys right now a picture that I just generated in Photo Booth for your

00:25:17 ◼   ► enjoyment and you maybe see why they've mostly abandoned this technology at this point.

00:25:23 ◼   ► I don't think it works very well.

00:25:26 ◼   ► Oh no!

00:25:27 ◼   ► So...

00:25:28 ◼   ► Did you move out of the frame like I told you to?

00:25:32 ◼   ► Yeah, you have to move out of the frame or it won't it won't work. So

00:25:35 ◼   ► I'll put that in the show notes for people.

00:25:38 ◼   ► I'm gonna try to...

00:25:40 ◼   ► Gotta hope the spectral is better than this. I like how there's a hole in your head.

00:25:46 ◼   ► It's very upsetting, isn't it? I think it doesn't like

00:25:50 ◼   ► my beard. I think that's what it's really upset with.

00:25:54 ◼   ► It just doesn't like you in general. It's not just a beard.

00:25:58 ◼   ► It is worth remembering though that Clips has this functionality. So my expectation is that this this is

00:26:05 ◼   ► probably a more

00:26:08 ◼   ► advanced or maybe a

00:26:11 ◼   ► less bandwidth intensive version of this type of technology

00:26:15 ◼   ► Because my expectation is Apple's buying this to either put it in FaceTime or put it in the iMessage camera

00:26:20 ◼   ► That they want to put this stuff in because wouldn't it be fun if you could put your animoji into any like

00:26:27 ◼   ► place in the world, right? Like, you're an emoji character in Paris or whatever.

00:26:32 ◼   ► They must have something that is superior to what Apple is already doing with the TrueDepth system,

00:26:38 ◼   ► because that feature of clips is dependent on the TrueDepth

00:26:43 ◼   ► sensors and camera array of the X and XS.

00:26:48 ◼   ► They must have something that Apple seems to find convenient and

00:26:55 ◼   ► possibly useful to integrate in the future.

00:26:57 ◼   ► I mean these features are always super fun if done well, and I think you know

00:27:02 ◼   ► my experience with the filters in clips has been pretty awesome. I think they work pretty well.

00:27:08 ◼   ► But I think it would be more interesting to see this technology applied to the rear-facing camera because right now clips,

00:27:17 ◼   ► these filters, these scenes, I think they're called, they use the true depth,

00:27:21 ◼   ► So the front-facing camera and I think it would be fun to have this sort of effects

00:27:25 ◼   ► For just when taking pictures or when using the rear-facing camera

00:27:29 ◼   ► Steven's yours your image is better than mine

00:27:33 ◼   ► It's still not perfect, but it's better and you're wearing a cool t-shirt. Yeah, well, we'll put those both in the show notes

00:27:39 ◼   ► But yeah

00:27:40 ◼   ► I see what you're saying Federico like this could at least we could enable to put on other devices and or just make it better

00:27:45 ◼   ► Right like in general

00:27:47 ◼   ► It's maybe less because any time the true depth camera is used at length the phone basically catches on fire

00:27:54 ◼   ► I think it's hot right like it really doesn't like using that for a long period of time

00:27:59 ◼   ► so yeah, it's

00:28:02 ◼   ► How did this one come out by the way?

00:28:04 ◼   ► Cuz like did Apple announce it or did it just like someone updated their link to know it?

00:28:08 ◼   ► I think a local newspaper had an article about it

00:28:12 ◼   ► So I don't think I don't think at this point Apple's confirmed it

00:28:15 ◼   ► But this seems like very much an Apple-like company to buy.

00:28:18 ◼   ► Right?

00:28:19 ◼   ► It's like, oh, yeah, of course.

00:28:20 ◼   ► That makes a ton of sense.

00:28:21 ◼   ► Algorithms and cool engineers.

00:28:23 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:28:24 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:28:24 ◼   ► So yeah.

00:28:25 ◼   ► You see clips benefiting from it.

00:28:26 ◼   ► You see the AR stuff benefiting from it.

00:28:28 ◼   ► This makes a lot of sense to me.

00:28:30 ◼   ► So yeah.

00:28:31 ◼   ► I guess we'll see if some-- a WBC or two from now,

00:28:35 ◼   ► we see something that's like, oh, maybe that's

00:28:37 ◼   ► what came from that Danish company.

00:28:39 ◼   ► Talking about cool companies that Apple bought,

00:28:41 ◼   ► there is a--

00:28:42 ◼   ► FileMaker.

00:28:43 ◼   ► Yes, we're going to talk about FileMaker. FileMaker is that independent company, right?

00:28:47 ◼   ► It's a wholly owned subsidiary.

00:28:50 ◼   ► Subsidiary.

00:28:51 ◼   ► Let me back up one second. If we were recording this podcast in 1994,

00:28:57 ◼   ► Federico would be living his best FileMaker life.

00:29:01 ◼   ► I would be six, first of all. You would be 20.

00:29:03 ◼   ► If we were this age in 1994, you would be a FileMaker wizard.

00:29:09 ◼   ► Probably.

00:29:11 ◼   ► I used to use Bento.

00:29:12 ◼   ► Oh, me too actually.

00:29:14 ◼   ► Yeah, me too.

00:29:14 ◼   ► Wasn't that a FileMaker product?

00:29:16 ◼   ► It was.

00:29:17 ◼   ► It was like, it was, it was like kind of like iLife or iWork, you know, it's like numbers, pages, and then Bento, Shruggy emoji guy.

00:29:24 ◼   ► It didn't last very long, but yeah, I used it.

00:29:26 ◼   ► We used to use it at my Apple authorized service provider to track like stock of stuff before we had like a fancy point of sale system.

00:29:34 ◼   ► We used it for like six months and it was pretty good.

00:29:37 ◼   ► Man, FileMaker, like, their website is a lot more modern than I had expected it would be.

00:29:44 ◼   ► Like it actually looks like a website Apple would make, like filemaker.com.

00:29:50 ◼   ► They are introducing the workplace innovation platform, which I guess is good to know.

00:29:54 ◼   ► Oh, finally, I've been waiting for that.

00:29:56 ◼   ► But like all of the text and all of like the buttons and stuff?

00:30:00 ◼   ► This is an Apple website.

00:30:02 ◼   ► It looks like an Apple website, which wasn't what I expected.

00:30:05 ◼   ► and the buttons, yeah this is totally an Apple website. You can escape the work

00:30:09 ◼   ► work from anywhere and bridge the gap so that's good. It's important to bridge the

00:30:13 ◼   ► gap. You can streamline your scattered information and inefficient processes.

00:30:19 ◼   ► I'm always trying to do that. This is what this show is all about, scattered information.

00:30:23 ◼   ► I bet there are a lot of companies that still have their basically their entire

00:30:29 ◼   ► business in a file maker database. I can give you some examples Home Depot or

00:30:36 ◼   ► Nissan Motor, Berkshire Hathaway, Costco, Panasonic. I thought you were just pulling

00:30:42 ◼   ► these out your brain. No, no, I'm actually reading. FileMakerStories.net coming.

00:30:48 ◼   ► Anyway, Shortcuts 2.1, the beta version has been released. So this is

00:30:54 ◼   ► is interesting because it shows that shortcuts is being actively developed

00:31:01 ◼   ► like throughout the year we would expect right that it's that the app is gonna

00:31:05 ◼   ► receive updates which now I think for me at least I mean probably isn't an

00:31:09 ◼   ► original thought but has answered the question of why is this not included in

00:31:13 ◼   ► the OS I think it's because it's gonna be updated like an app would receive

00:31:16 ◼   ► updates on a regular schedule and it appears at least for now that the that

00:31:23 ◼   ► betas of this are going to be somewhat publicly available. You have to sign up on the developer

00:31:28 ◼   ► website the same as with the original shortcuts beta. But 2.1 is now out on the beta train

00:31:36 ◼   ► and Federico, can you give us a rundown of what is new?

00:31:40 ◼   ► Sure. In this first version there's only one major new feature and the rest is just a bunch

00:31:47 ◼   ► of bug fixes. So if you have problems with App Store actions for example, you should see the fix

00:31:54 ◼   ► in the new version. Apple is also saying that some of the clock actions, the series suggestions for

00:32:01 ◼   ► setting alarms, have been fixed, but this weekend Myke and I checked on his device running iOS 12,

00:32:09 ◼   ► not 12.1 beta, and those actions were not fixed. So it's unclear if maybe this bug fix sort of

00:32:16 ◼   ► slipped in the release notes or maybe you need to have 12.1.

00:32:21 ◼   ► The new feature, which was actually announced and shown on stage at WWDC but didn't make

00:32:27 ◼   ► it to shortcuts 2.0, the App Store release, is weather integration.

00:32:33 ◼   ► So there's a few actions now for checking the weather and getting forecasts from the

00:32:40 ◼   ► Weather Channel, which is the data provider of the weather app on iOS.

00:32:45 ◼   ► This is great because it now allows you to automate certain weather-based shortcuts and

00:32:51 ◼   ► routines without having to use an API like the Dark Sky API or third-party shortcuts

00:32:57 ◼   ► like the excellent Kerat weather shortcuts.

00:33:01 ◼   ► You can get the weather for the current location.

00:33:04 ◼   ► Of course, you can pass any location you want to the weather action.

00:33:08 ◼   ► So you can either get your current location and check the weather, or you can do things

00:33:11 ◼   ► like pass a specific address and check the weather for that location or extract the location

00:33:17 ◼   ► from a photo or from a contact card and check if you want.

00:33:23 ◼   ► People have been asking me like why would you want to extract the location of a photo

00:33:26 ◼   ► and check the weather there.

00:33:28 ◼   ► Maybe you're a blogger and you need to shoot specific videos at certain locations and it

00:33:35 ◼   ► may be useful to check the weather there.

00:33:38 ◼   ► You can also get the details of what shortcuts returns from the weather app.

00:33:45 ◼   ► This means that you can extract individual data points.

00:33:48 ◼   ► So you can say "I want to have a full forecast" or "I just want to get the temperature", "I

00:33:52 ◼   ► just want to get the high and the low" or "I want to get the humidity" or "I want to

00:33:56 ◼   ► get the rain chance".

00:33:57 ◼   ► So all of these individual details and data points can be extracted and you can do stuff

00:34:02 ◼   ► with them.

00:34:03 ◼   ► It's easy to imagine how people may in the future do things such as if it's raining,

00:34:08 ◼   ► make my lights blue, or if it's sunny outside, make them gold, or something like that.

00:34:14 ◼   ► So it will be interesting to see how people can integrate weather actions.

00:34:18 ◼   ► I think that most of us are probably going to integrate them as part of our morning routine

00:34:23 ◼   ► shortcuts.

00:34:25 ◼   ► Everybody has a morning routine shortcut, and I think I'm going to swap the current

00:34:28 ◼   ► solution that I have with this new weather summary, which is faster and easier to use.

00:34:36 ◼   ► I think there will be more betas for version 2.1. I hope that there's more coming, that

00:34:43 ◼   ► this is not just the only feature. One of my major complaints right now, in addition

00:34:49 ◼   ► to the big missing features that maybe we can talk about briefly in a minute, my main

00:34:55 ◼   ► problem is that one of the iCloud sync features that was launched with Shortcuts 2.0, the

00:35:02 ◼   ► ability to sync the order of shortcuts between devices is completely broken for me. Like

00:35:06 ◼   ► it just plain doesn't work. Every time I enable that option, all my shortcuts get scrambled

00:35:11 ◼   ► on both devices, so it's been impossible to keep track of them. What I'm doing now is

00:35:16 ◼   ► I have iCloud sync enabled, because that works well, but I disabled the toggle for syncing

00:35:21 ◼   ► shortcut order. So I'm keeping the same order but manually on both devices.

00:35:27 ◼   ► I just feel like sometimes the order of my shortcuts just changes. Like it just changes.

00:35:32 ◼   ► I have no idea why it's happening.

00:35:34 ◼   ► If you have that option enabled you probably want to disable the sync shortcut order.

00:35:38 ◼   ► Because that's what it's...

00:35:39 ◼   ► I didn't even know there was an option.

00:35:40 ◼   ► Yes, you need to go into...

00:35:41 ◼   ► Yeah there it is, sync shortcut order.

00:35:43 ◼   ► You want to disable that and keep an eye on the beta.

00:35:46 ◼   ► That is in the settings app by the way. I had no idea there was all this stuff in the

00:35:50 ◼   ► settings app. I didn't even know that there were settings for shortcuts.

00:35:53 ◼   ► Is there any... do you guys have the frustration where it's sort of crashy?

00:35:58 ◼   ► Like I have it if I go to edit something or if I'm rearranging sometimes it'll

00:36:02 ◼   ► just like bomb out to the springboard?

00:36:04 ◼   ► Yeah I had that a few times. It's a... I think it's one of the long-standing

00:36:08 ◼   ► bugs of workflow that in some shape or form also made it into shortcuts.

00:36:14 ◼   ► Sometimes when I'm trying to open and edit a long shortcut, like the one that I

00:36:20 ◼   ► did today for adding device frames to screenshots. Sometimes it crashes.

00:36:25 ◼   ► I love that device frames thing by the way, I was just playing around with it now while

00:36:29 ◼   ► you were talking to see if I could get shortcuts to crash because I know it's doing a lot of

00:36:32 ◼   ► crazy stuff. Thank you.

00:36:33 ◼   ► But I just found like a screenshot of Beats music and I ran it through it and it put it

00:36:36 ◼   ► in like an iPhone 5 or something.

00:36:41 ◼   ► Should be an iPhone 6 because I don't support iPhone 5 but yeah, it should work.

00:36:46 ◼   ► Must be an iPhone 6. But it's something for hot buttons.

00:36:49 ◼   ► all look the same to me now. No, it's a really clever... let's actually talk about this for

00:36:54 ◼   ► a second. So you worked on this for a while. I know that that iMac is a screenshot of my

00:36:59 ◼   ► desktop. How does this work? So you are not supplying sliced up images, right? You're

00:37:10 ◼   ► doing this mathematically? Okay, how does... walk us through this. So this shortcut, it

00:37:15 ◼   ► It began as a way to add iPhone XS frames to iPhone XS screenshots.

00:37:21 ◼   ► And now it can add device frames to iPhones, iPad Pro, the 12.9, the 13-inch MacBook Pro,

00:37:28 ◼   ► the 5K iMac, and the Apple Watch Series 4, the 44mm version.

00:37:34 ◼   ► The way that it works is, you will see on Reddit and other blogs similar shortcuts that

00:37:41 ◼   ► require you to manually install these frames, which are transparent PNGs, where you overlay

00:37:48 ◼   ► the screenshot.

00:37:49 ◼   ► That's basically what it is.

00:37:51 ◼   ► My shortcut takes a different approach.

00:37:54 ◼   ► It doesn't require you to install images in Minecraft Drive, like these image templates.

00:38:01 ◼   ► You don't need to install anything, you don't need to configure anything, because the images

00:38:06 ◼   ► are encoded inside the shortcut, and you may ask how can you encode a file, because shortcuts

00:38:13 ◼   ► do not support file attachments.

00:38:16 ◼   ► And the trick is to use a base64 encoded version of the image.

00:38:21 ◼   ► So you're turning an image into text.

00:38:25 ◼   ► This is like, I don't know, I can't fully wrap my head around the concept.

00:38:30 ◼   ► The basic idea is that...

00:38:32 ◼   ► I already struggled with this when he tried to explain this to me over the weekend.

00:38:36 ◼   ► I was like, wait, an image is text? I don't understand.

00:38:39 ◼   ► Yes, the idea would be that there's some kind of algorithm that is able to turn files, file objects,

00:38:48 ◼   ► into binary representations in text. So I don't know fully the way that it works,

00:38:57 ◼   ► but it's a way to convert a file into a long string of text.

00:39:01 ◼   ► and the algorithm later can take the string of text and recompose it, basically,

00:39:06 ◼   ► in a way that it becomes the same file again.

00:39:08 ◼   ► You can base 64 encode anything.

00:39:11 ◼   ► You can encode text, you can encode links, you can encode images,

00:39:14 ◼   ► even videos and zip documents or PDFs, whatever.

00:39:17 ◼   ► Of course, the bigger the file, the longer the text string,

00:39:21 ◼   ► and even just encoding the 5K iMac template,

00:39:27 ◼   ► Just copying the text and pasting the text, it required a few seconds inside shortcuts,

00:39:35 ◼   ► because you're moving around this insanely long string of random gibberish text.

00:39:41 ◼   ► Like, it's insane how big it is.

00:39:43 ◼   ► The entire shortcut, because of these long strings of encoded text, it weighs 10 megabytes.

00:39:52 ◼   ► A shortcut file is usually like an XML or actually plist file. It's a text file.

00:39:59 ◼   ► It's a configuration file that you see as a visual thing in the shortcuts app,

00:40:04 ◼   ► but it's actually a text document with a bunch of XML structure. This one weighs

00:40:10 ◼   ► 10 megabytes, so imagine 10 megabytes of text. It's a lot of text. So yeah, this

00:40:17 ◼   ► This was fun to put together, it was fun to test the limitations of shortcuts.

00:40:22 ◼   ► This shortcut will not run inside Siri, it will not run from the widget, and it will

00:40:29 ◼   ► not complete when activated from the extension.

00:40:32 ◼   ► You can trigger it from those places, it'll just take you to the shortcuts app to continue

00:40:37 ◼   ► and finish putting together the images.

00:40:40 ◼   ► But I was able to create these insane combinations of like 5 iPhones and 2 iPads and a bunch

00:40:46 ◼   ► of Apple Watches, a MacBook Pro and an iMac and it worked just fine. Just last night I

00:40:51 ◼   ► saved a 50 megabyte composite image from shortcuts to the Photos app and it worked. In fact I

00:40:58 ◼   ► think it took longer for the file to be saved to Photos than for the shortcut to actually

00:41:04 ◼   ► finish running. So that gives you the idea.

00:41:07 ◼   ► Also it's not every device yet, right? Like you're kind of limited to some specific devices.

00:41:13 ◼   ► It's most of the modern devices that Apple is selling.

00:41:16 ◼   ► So these images, these templates, they are the official Apple ones.

00:41:20 ◼   ► And these are basically most of the official Apple templates that you can find on the Apple

00:41:25 ◼   ► marketing website.

00:41:26 ◼   ► I think of those devices, I only lack support for the iPod Touch and the MacBook Air, but

00:41:33 ◼   ► I really wanted to release it and I didn't want to waste time putting together shortcuts

00:41:39 ◼   ► for the MacBook Air.

00:41:41 ◼   ► If I can come across old templates from Apple for the iPhone 5 and the 5s or the SC and

00:41:49 ◼   ► old iPads, I will update the shortcut.

00:41:52 ◼   ► But right now I just wanted to support the same devices that Apple is supporting with

00:41:56 ◼   ► templates.

00:41:57 ◼   ► I didn't want to use templates from other people.

00:41:59 ◼   ► Not because I don't trust them, just because I want to have an official thing that people

00:42:05 ◼   ► ...

00:42:06 ◼   ► I have them all because I save all the images from Apple's PR site.

00:42:09 ◼   ► So let me know what you want.

00:42:10 ◼   ► I'll invite you to a Dropbox folder.

00:42:12 ◼   ► You have the PSDs?

00:42:15 ◼   ► For some stuff, we'll talk.

00:42:19 ◼   ► My people will get with your people.

00:42:20 ◼   ► Yeah, I feel like the power of you two combined on this one is something that the world should

00:42:25 ◼   ► be concerned about.

00:42:27 ◼   ► My payment is though that you do one for the EMAC, so I really need to be able to do that

00:42:32 ◼   ► in shortcuts.

00:42:33 ◼   ► Mm-hmm.

00:42:34 ◼   ► All right.

00:42:35 ◼   ► Do you have any EMAC screenshots that you have?

00:42:38 ◼   ► You know what an emac is?

00:42:41 ◼   ► Is that the Newton thing?

00:42:44 ◼   ► It's an emate.

00:42:45 ◼   ► It's close.

00:42:46 ◼   ► It's an emate.

00:42:47 ◼   ► What's an emate?

00:42:48 ◼   ► Which is different from a chessmate.

00:42:49 ◼   ► They're all different things.

00:42:50 ◼   ► Is it from a chessmate?

00:42:52 ◼   ► There's a note in this section of the document, Steven, you really want folders in shortcuts.

00:42:58 ◼   ► Is that right?

00:42:59 ◼   ► I do.

00:43:00 ◼   ► I don't have a ton of shortcuts.

00:43:01 ◼   ► I mean, I probably have probably two dozen.

00:43:03 ◼   ► I know lots of people have many more.

00:43:05 ◼   ► But even with that number, I find it frustrating that I can't organize them in any way beyond

00:43:12 ◼   ► order and color.

00:43:13 ◼   ► So I do have some sort of color scheme I've created, sort of like this type of thing is

00:43:18 ◼   ► this type of color, but it would be nice to have folders.

00:43:22 ◼   ► I know that would introduce some potential complexity when firing one of these things

00:43:27 ◼   ► from something like the share sheet.

00:43:28 ◼   ► They'd have to do some filtering and get rid of the folders or it'd be an extra tap or

00:43:32 ◼   ► something.

00:43:33 ◼   ► that main screen, we were scrolling through that list,

00:43:37 ◼   ► I think having folders would make it

00:43:39 ◼   ► a little easier to deal with.

00:43:41 ◼   ► Now, they have to fix the iCloud syncing,

00:43:42 ◼   ► because like you said, it completely scrambles them

00:43:45 ◼   ► when you turn that on, but I think just some additional ways

00:43:48 ◼   ► to organize these, you know, maybe it's not folders,

00:43:51 ◼   ► maybe it's like things, and you can just have headers,

00:43:54 ◼   ► like these are my ones about to-do lists,

00:43:57 ◼   ► these are my ones about images,

00:43:58 ◼   ► these are my ones about alarms,

00:44:00 ◼   ► like just some way to group these things,

00:44:02 ◼   ► Because as people, as all of us create more and more of them,

00:44:05 ◼   ► it feels like it's getting kind of out of hand

00:44:07 ◼   ► when you're looking for something.

00:44:10 ◼   ► - Yeah, this is one of the features

00:44:13 ◼   ► that I really want to see.

00:44:15 ◼   ► Besides the ability to run shortcuts at specific times

00:44:18 ◼   ► or specific locations, instead of having to use

00:44:21 ◼   ► stuff like Launch Center Pro or Launcher

00:44:23 ◼   ► to have these triggers for shortcuts,

00:44:26 ◼   ► I want to have a native automatic trigger feature

00:44:28 ◼   ► in the shortcuts app.

00:44:30 ◼   ► I really hope to see folders eventually.

00:44:32 ◼   ► I almost can't believe that it's still not a thing

00:44:37 ◼   ► four years after Workflow came out.

00:44:39 ◼   ► - You mentioned earlier that having the ability

00:44:42 ◼   ► to update this app outside of OS releases is good,

00:44:44 ◼   ► and I agree it is good for shortcuts,

00:44:46 ◼   ► but it doesn't make me so sad for apps like Mail

00:44:49 ◼   ► and Safari and Notes.

00:44:51 ◼   ► David Sparks wrote a thing today about how he's trying Bear,

00:44:54 ◼   ► and one reason is that Notes only gets updates annually,

00:44:58 ◼   ► if that, and I just wonder if some of these other apps

00:45:01 ◼   ► decoupled from the system, they could update them quicker.

00:45:04 ◼   ► It's what Google does with Google Play services.

00:45:06 ◼   ► It can update things like Gmail and Maps separate from Android

00:45:10 ◼   ► and while iOS is still this monolithic thing.

00:45:13 ◼   ► It's an interesting difference, and I wish more apps

00:45:16 ◼   ► could get the attention Shortcuts does.

00:45:18 ◼   ► Have you guys seen any problems with searching

00:45:21 ◼   ► in Notes in iOS 12?

00:45:23 ◼   ► I've started to have an issue where I have a file name,

00:45:28 ◼   ► say like October tour and I search the word tour and it gives me no results.

00:45:33 ◼   ► I don't think I ever search in notes.

00:45:38 ◼   ► Yeah, I don't either.

00:45:39 ◼   ► Yeah, I do. I do. Like just to find a note, right? Because I have lots of notes. I keep

00:45:43 ◼   ► a lot of stuff in notes. And that's just the searching is just getting worse. Like actual

00:45:48 ◼   ► text that I have in notes is not finding anymore, which is just super weird. But hey ho, this

00:45:53 ◼   ► is what happens.

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00:47:42 ◼   ► of this show and relay FM.

00:47:44 ◼   ► - So we have a lot of Google stuff to talk about.

00:47:47 ◼   ► The company had a press event in New York City

00:47:50 ◼   ► earlier this week talking about new phones

00:47:52 ◼   ► and some other stuff.

00:47:53 ◼   ► So I thought we could go through some of the stuff

00:47:56 ◼   ► they announced and kinda talk about it as we go through.

00:47:59 ◼   ► So let's start with the Google Home Hub.

00:48:04 ◼   ► So I think last year we saw the first

00:48:06 ◼   ► like Google Smart Display from Lenovo.

00:48:09 ◼   ► So it's like, kinda like the Echo Show, right?

00:48:11 ◼   ► like it's a small tablet and a speaker base you put in your kitchen or somewhere.

00:48:14 ◼   ► Some quick specs for y'all. It's got a seven inch touchscreen LCD.

00:48:18 ◼   ► It has a true tone feature. They call it ambient HQ,

00:48:22 ◼   ► where if the light is warmer than the screen is warmer, that sort of thing.

00:48:26 ◼   ► A physical mute switch to kill the microphone so it's not listening.

00:48:30 ◼   ► And I think perhaps most interesting, there is no camera.

00:48:35 ◼   ► So there's no...

00:48:36 ◼   ► And they said they made like a conscious decision to not put a camera on it.

00:48:40 ◼   ► so you could feel comfortable putting it in your bedroom.

00:48:43 ◼   ► And there's there's two parts of this one, which is like the side, which is like,

00:48:47 ◼   ► yeah, that is cool. And the other side of like, why should it not be cool?

00:48:50 ◼   ► Like the phones that they sell have cameras in them.

00:48:53 ◼   ► Well, I think there's anyway, I think it's just the deal.

00:48:56 ◼   ► Two things. I think Amazon made it creepy with the drop in feature.

00:48:59 ◼   ► And Google could have not picked a better week to announce something without a

00:49:03 ◼   ► camera because it was like a day after the Facebook video messenger

00:49:07 ◼   ► Echo type thing that they've released that.

00:49:10 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:49:11 ◼   ► It got broadly mocked, at least in the circles of Twitter I'm in.

00:49:14 ◼   ► So I think it's interesting.

00:49:15 ◼   ► I think something in the kitchen, you know, like with a phone, you can put it in the drawer,

00:49:18 ◼   ► but it's out all the time.

00:49:19 ◼   ► So it's interesting.

00:49:21 ◼   ► So this is like, it's Googley, right?

00:49:24 ◼   ► So it's the Google Assistant.

00:49:27 ◼   ► Their OS is very, it's very nice looking, very colorful, lots of voice interaction,

00:49:32 ◼   ► but it's got a touchscreen as well.

00:49:34 ◼   ► It can play videos from YouTube, plus YouTube Music, Spotify, Pandora, and iHeartRadio support.

00:49:39 ◼   ► so lots of streaming stuff.

00:49:41 ◼   ► And they're doing this thing that Amazon's trying to do

00:49:43 ◼   ► of like create a centralized location

00:49:48 ◼   ► for all of your smart home stuff.

00:49:50 ◼   ► So like for me, for instance, I have several Nest cameras,

00:49:54 ◼   ► a Nest thermostat, I have a bunch of Hue bulbs,

00:49:56 ◼   ► I have some switches or like outlets from iHome.

00:50:01 ◼   ► It's like all my stuff works with HomeKit

00:50:03 ◼   ► except the Nest stuff, and I gotta go into

00:50:05 ◼   ► these individual apps and do things,

00:50:07 ◼   ► and I don't have one cohesive place

00:50:11 ◼   ► to control all of this stuff,

00:50:13 ◼   ► because again, I use Nest products.

00:50:15 ◼   ► Well, the Home Hub is designed to kind of bring

00:50:18 ◼   ► all that stuff into one interface.

00:50:20 ◼   ► So they showed, of course they have Nest stuff,

00:50:23 ◼   ► 'cause Google owns Nest,

00:50:24 ◼   ► but then they had Hue stuff and other light bulbs

00:50:26 ◼   ► and smart switches, and they sort of have a level of UI

00:50:31 ◼   ► above all those third-party apps,

00:50:34 ◼   ► so you can get a good overview of what everything is doing.

00:50:38 ◼   ► Sort of like the TV app does on Apple TV, right?

00:50:40 ◼   ► You have all of your individual content providers

00:50:43 ◼   ► and the TV app is sort of like a layer on top.

00:50:46 ◼   ► I think it's really an interesting approach

00:50:49 ◼   ► with smart home stuff because very often

00:50:51 ◼   ► we do mix and match brands and HomeKit

00:50:53 ◼   ► isn't supported by everybody.

00:50:54 ◼   ► So this does have to be supported

00:50:57 ◼   ► by the various manufacturers.

00:50:58 ◼   ► It seems like they have all the major players here,

00:51:00 ◼   ► at least a lot of them.

00:51:01 ◼   ► So I think that's a pretty big deal.

00:51:05 ◼   ► And it's only $149.

00:51:07 ◼   ► I thought for sure this was going to be $250 or $300.

00:51:11 ◼   ► Maybe I'm just used to being an Apple customer.

00:51:13 ◼   ► But $149 for a seven-inch Google Home Hub with no camera.

00:51:18 ◼   ► What do y'all think?

00:51:21 ◼   ► I like the idea of having this dedicated interface for home

00:51:26 ◼   ► stuff.

00:51:26 ◼   ► And there's this idea that I had of it's

00:51:30 ◼   ► It's kind of like CarPlay, but for your home.

00:51:33 ◼   ► So you get this -- it's like based on integrations and stuff that you manage on the phone, but

00:51:38 ◼   ► it gives you this personalized and different, easier to use probably, UI to manage accessories

00:51:45 ◼   ► and to manage different features that you would also get on the phone, but you get them

00:51:50 ◼   ► on this display, which makes more sense for a shared use.

00:51:55 ◼   ► I love how it doesn't have a home screen, but it shows you actions and how you can swipe

00:52:02 ◼   ► down to get this sort of control center for your home.

00:52:05 ◼   ► This is so much better, for example, the UI of the home hub and also the new design for

00:52:15 ◼   ► the Google Home app on iOS is so much better than what Apple is doing with the Home app

00:52:22 ◼   ► on iOS 12 even.

00:52:25 ◼   ► It's colorful, it gives you actual explanations for what the buttons do, there's different

00:52:31 ◼   ► types of icons, so there's like, in the Home app from Apple, everything looks the same,

00:52:37 ◼   ► basically.

00:52:38 ◼   ► It's either a rectangle for scenes or a square for all kinds of accessories.

00:52:43 ◼   ► And I think it's so much better to have this kind of design where everything is clearly

00:52:46 ◼   ► presented and it gives you actions like shortcuts to stuff that you can do.

00:52:53 ◼   ► It just looks better and more intuitive.

00:52:56 ◼   ► I think it's great that it's launching with support for multiple voices and multiple timers.

00:53:02 ◼   ► It feels to me like it's an Echo Show, but done better by Google.

00:53:08 ◼   ► I'm not interested in this product, I'm not interested in the Google ecosystem, but boy

00:53:13 ◼   ► do I wish that Apple made one of these.

00:53:15 ◼   ► That's my takeaway.

00:53:16 ◼   ► I want these but from Apple with a better UI

00:53:20 ◼   ► than the current home app on iOS.

00:53:22 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's one thing I sort of skipped over.

00:53:25 ◼   ► The Google Assistant has multiple voice support

00:53:28 ◼   ► so it can tell you and your significant other apart.

00:53:32 ◼   ► They have a lot of family limit stuff now

00:53:35 ◼   ► that just kind of like iCloud does.

00:53:38 ◼   ► And so you can even set like,

00:53:39 ◼   ► hey, if one of my kids talks to it,

00:53:41 ◼   ► they only have access to this sort of content

00:53:43 ◼   ► or it won't respond to them within these hours.

00:53:46 ◼   ► You can set the whole thing in a do not disturb mode

00:53:48 ◼   ► so the screen won't come on.

00:53:49 ◼   ► All it will do is alarms.

00:53:51 ◼   ► So it seems like it's very flexible,

00:53:53 ◼   ► very well thought through.

00:53:55 ◼   ► I agree with you.

00:53:56 ◼   ► I've got Apple Music.

00:53:58 ◼   ► I'm not interested in any other streaming service.

00:54:01 ◼   ► I do have Nest stuff, so this would be nice.

00:54:02 ◼   ► But having something like this from Apple would be nice.

00:54:05 ◼   ► Like a HomePod with a screen.

00:54:07 ◼   ► And it seems like it's something

00:54:10 ◼   ► all these other companies are doing.

00:54:11 ◼   ► If it continues to take off,

00:54:13 ◼   ► I think Apple will have to look at it.

00:54:14 ◼   ► So here's something kind of strange.

00:54:17 ◼   ► I didn't watch this video live, like I didn't watch your presentation live.

00:54:24 ◼   ► I watched the presentation later on in the evening because I was recording another show

00:54:31 ◼   ► when it was going on. And I thought I would check in and see what was being announced

00:54:36 ◼   ► and that kind of stuff. And just because I figured if there was anything that I wanted

00:54:41 ◼   ► to buy just by looking at the products, I would need to put the order in sooner rather

00:54:46 ◼   ► than later and then I was going to watch the presentation later on in the evening, which

00:54:50 ◼   ► I did. And I saw this thing and I was like, "Huh, that seems interesting." And I preordered

00:54:56 ◼   ► it. Like I put a preorder.

00:54:58 ◼   ► Nice.

00:54:59 ◼   ► After I watched the video, I cancelled my preorder.

00:55:03 ◼   ► Really?

00:55:04 ◼   ► And I don't really know why. I just saw it and I was kind of like, two things I think

00:55:10 ◼   ► It's like one is like I don't really think I need this

00:55:12 ◼   ► I don't know a hundred percent really sure where it go in my life

00:55:15 ◼   ► Like where I would put it in my home and the other was I think I kind of remembered

00:55:19 ◼   ► How frustrating I found

00:55:22 ◼   ► the Google home to be

00:55:25 ◼   ► Right like and it's some of the frustration that I have with the home pod

00:55:30 ◼   ► But I find the home pod to have other advantages in that it sounds really good

00:55:34 ◼   ► But you remember I have one of those Google home minis. Yeah, and I just found it way too

00:55:39 ◼   ► conversation, like way too conversational compared to the echo.

00:55:44 ◼   ► I just was like, it has way too much to say.

00:55:48 ◼   ► And when you ask a question like it's so much more verbios,

00:55:52 ◼   ► especially when my echo a couple of days ago said to me,

00:55:56 ◼   ► like I asked it a question like to internalize or whatever.

00:55:59 ◼   ► And it just said, oh, hey, by the way, if you want, I can say less.

00:56:02 ◼   ► Just just let me know. Like, would you want me to do this?

00:56:05 ◼   ► I can make play sounds instead. And I was like, yeah.

00:56:08 ◼   ► and now it just says when I ask it to turn on the lights it just goes like it doesn't say okay

00:56:12 ◼   ► anymore. It's kind of funny that like as I was getting frustrated about my HomePod being too

00:56:17 ◼   ► chatty the Echo was like "I know what I can do I'll say less that will make him love me more"

00:56:22 ◼   ► um so I was kind of just like if I was going to get one of these things it would make more sense

00:56:29 ◼   ► for me to get an Echo Show because I am more in the Echo camp like I'd have to probably change out

00:56:35 ◼   ► my other devices for the Google Home and at this point I don't really feel like the Google Home

00:56:42 ◼   ► gives me much more that I would really want to use than the Echo ecosystem does. So I decided not to

00:56:50 ◼   ► go for it right now. Plus I found the hardware at the back to be very attractive at the front to be

00:56:56 ◼   ► super ugly like the bezel is huge but I don't know why they make such a big thing about having it

00:57:01 ◼   ► it blend into your home when all of the faces are white,

00:57:05 ◼   ► considering the bezels are so big.

00:57:07 ◼   ► Like they do a black one, but the bezels are white

00:57:09 ◼   ► on the front of the screen.

00:57:11 ◼   ► And that would look terrible in my kitchen

00:57:13 ◼   ► because everything else is like,

00:57:15 ◼   ► it would fit way better if I got the black one,

00:57:18 ◼   ► but then the front of it's white.

00:57:19 ◼   ► Like I wasn't that impressed with the hardware.

00:57:21 ◼   ► I actually think like, you can see why this thing

00:57:25 ◼   ► costs $149, I think that the hardware shows that.

00:57:29 ◼   ► I think it not having a camera, that might be one of the reasons it actually doesn't

00:57:33 ◼   ► have a camera, because they wanted to make this thing $150.

00:57:37 ◼   ► But I actually am not impressed really with the way that the hardware looks.

00:57:41 ◼   ► I actually think, we haven't spoken about it, but the new Echo Show I think looks better

00:57:46 ◼   ► than this one.

00:57:47 ◼   ► Have you seen the new Echo Show?

00:57:50 ◼   ► The Echo Show 2?

00:57:51 ◼   ► It's way better than the original.

00:57:53 ◼   ► Way better.

00:57:54 ◼   ► I prefer the design of the Echo Show 2 to this Google Home product. It's just kind of

00:58:03 ◼   ► it looks, you know, it's got black screen on the front. It's a little bit more what

00:58:07 ◼   ► I would want in my home. It has the home product fabric like everything else does. But yeah,

00:58:17 ◼   ► I just figured that I don't really think that this is a device for me purely because like

00:58:21 ◼   ► I'm not really I don't want a third assistant at home.

00:58:25 ◼   ► Right. I don't want to use Siri and Alexa and Google Home.

00:58:31 ◼   ► You can use them, right?

00:58:31 ◼   ► I don't want to use them all like I don't.

00:58:35 ◼   ► And and I'm pretty happy with what I currently have.

00:58:39 ◼   ► I don't know if I need this right now.

00:58:42 ◼   ► It's kind of my thinking on it. That's fair. But there you go.

00:58:44 ◼   ► So if I haven't found enough reason to buy an Echo Show, why would I buy this?

00:58:48 ◼   ► Yeah. That was kind of why I ended up canceling. Sure.

00:58:51 ◼   ► So let's move on to the Pixel Slate.

00:58:54 ◼   ► It is a tablet, 12 inch tablet that runs Chrome OS,

00:58:59 ◼   ► has an optional keyboard and trackpad,

00:59:01 ◼   ► a couple hundred bucks, with backlit keys,

00:59:03 ◼   ► which is nice, but they're circular,

00:59:05 ◼   ► which is kind of weird.

00:59:06 ◼   ► Like other recent Chrome OS devices,

00:59:10 ◼   ► it runs Android apps, and it's powered by Intel,

00:59:13 ◼   ► so you can get a Celeron M3, i5, or i7 CPU.

00:59:17 ◼   ► You can price this thing up from $599

00:59:20 ◼   ► all the way to basically $1,700 depending on the specs.

00:59:24 ◼   ► It's a--

00:59:25 ◼   ► - There's a lot of customizability in this thing,

00:59:27 ◼   ► which is interesting.

00:59:28 ◼   ► - Way more than I thought there would be.

00:59:31 ◼   ► 3000 by 2000 display, that puts it at 293 pixels per inch,

00:59:35 ◼   ► which is higher than the iPad,

00:59:36 ◼   ► but not as high as the iPhone.

00:59:38 ◼   ► Eight megapixel front and rear cameras.

00:59:41 ◼   ► The front camera is sort of wide-angled,

00:59:43 ◼   ► so you can do video chat a little bit easier.

00:59:46 ◼   ► Two front-facing speakers, two USB-C ports,

00:59:50 ◼   ► a fingerprint reader on the power button,

00:59:53 ◼   ► no SD card reader, no headphone jack.

00:59:55 ◼   ► There is a headphone adapter in the box.

00:59:58 ◼   ► I think what's interesting about this is the software

01:00:01 ◼   ► that is running Chrome OS,

01:00:03 ◼   ► Android on tablets seems to be dead.

01:00:06 ◼   ► I think it should be, that never really took off.

01:00:08 ◼   ► But in their presentation, Google threw a lot of shades.

01:00:13 ◼   ► They call things like the Surface, too much like a PC,

01:00:16 ◼   ► and other tablets, who will remain nameless,

01:00:19 ◼   ► kind of too much like a big iPhone.

01:00:21 ◼   ► And they think--

01:00:22 ◼   ► - This annoyed me. - Yep.

01:00:24 ◼   ► - This really angered me. - Yeah.

01:00:25 ◼   ► - Because they kept going back to this well a lot.

01:00:30 ◼   ► And they were throwing overall way more shade at Apple

01:00:34 ◼   ► for saying that like, oh, you know,

01:00:36 ◼   ► it's not like a phone app, it's a real app.

01:00:38 ◼   ► It's not like a phone OS, it's a real OS.

01:00:41 ◼   ► But here's the thing about this.

01:00:43 ◼   ► It's like Google don't understand

01:00:45 ◼   ► what they're actually selling.

01:00:48 ◼   ► The only tablets that exist today that are like big phones are Android tablets.

01:00:53 ◼   ► Yes.

01:00:53 ◼   ► Because Apple has a rich ecosystem of tablet apps, which Google doesn't have, right?

01:01:03 ◼   ► Like, so you can use the Chrome browser.

01:01:07 ◼   ► That the operating system, Chrome OS, is basically what's in the browser.

01:01:10 ◼   ► And it is a, I mean, you know what's really nice?

01:01:12 ◼   ► A full version of Chrome.

01:01:14 ◼   ► That is super cool because you can use web apps and all that sort of stuff.

01:01:17 ◼   ► But if you don't want to use a web app, the only apps that you have are Android apps,

01:01:21 ◼   ► and Android apps on tablets are terrible, so you end up with just phone apps.

01:01:27 ◼   ► The actual operating system that runs phone apps on a tablet is this one, and that's what

01:01:33 ◼   ► I found so interesting about this.

01:01:36 ◼   ► And also in the presentation, they don't even mention the Android apps, because I think

01:01:39 ◼   ► they know this.

01:01:41 ◼   ► They just talk about web apps.

01:01:43 ◼   ► That's what they're talking about.

01:01:44 ◼   ► Chrome OS apps.

01:01:45 ◼   ► And the Android apps are there for where companies haven't got in on the Chrome OS thing.

01:01:52 ◼   ► And so I just found that like, I think they should, they had a really cool product here,

01:01:57 ◼   ► but I think they need to rein in the shade because they can do whatever they want, but

01:02:02 ◼   ► this thing's not going to sell very well.

01:02:04 ◼   ► And they're going to end up with egg on their face, right?

01:02:06 ◼   ► Like I just don't, like most people are going to buy an iPad.

01:02:10 ◼   ► If you don't buy an iPad, you're probably going to get a Surface before you're going

01:02:13 ◼   ► to get this unless you're in an education environment, I think.

01:02:16 ◼   ► Now, like, there were also, Dieter Baum got to look at this thing a little bit

01:02:20 ◼   ► early and he made a video about it.

01:02:22 ◼   ► And like when I was watching it, I was like, yeah, a full web

01:02:26 ◼   ► browser could go a long way for me.

01:02:29 ◼   ► Right. Like we use Google Docs all the time, use Google Sheets all the time.

01:02:32 ◼   ► But I don't always want to use websites like I like native apps.

01:02:37 ◼   ► I like the way that they feel.

01:02:38 ◼   ► I don't always want to use web apps.

01:02:40 ◼   ► Yeah, but Apple could...

01:02:41 ◼   ► Ideally what you're using.

01:02:43 ◼   ► But Apple could give us both if Safari on the iPad was

01:02:46 ◼   ► Big Boy Safari.

01:02:48 ◼   ► And it's not.

01:02:49 ◼   ► 100 percent. Yeah. Yeah.

01:02:50 ◼   ► But that's where if you live in Google Docs and Google Sheets, something like

01:02:54 ◼   ► this is attractive because you get the full the fuller versions.

01:02:58 ◼   ► Oh, 100 percent.

01:02:59 ◼   ► I agree with that.

01:03:00 ◼   ► And that's what they should have spent more time pitching rather than just trying

01:03:03 ◼   ► to say that they had the best product when I don't think that they do here

01:03:08 ◼   ► as well. Something that was interesting.

01:03:10 ◼   ► MKBHD did a video with the Pixel, which we'll talk about in a bit,

01:03:13 ◼   ► but he called this out specifically that the OS on this device was super glitchy.

01:03:19 ◼   ► And you can see it indeed the bones video.

01:03:22 ◼   ► But he makes literally no mention of the fact that like using this thing

01:03:27 ◼   ► looks like a train wreck right now. And it could be that it's early.

01:03:30 ◼   ► Like when I don't even know if they said when this is shipping,

01:03:33 ◼   ► but on the Google website right now, like at least for me in the UK,

01:03:36 ◼   ► it just says to join the waiting list.

01:03:38 ◼   ► So maybe they still have.

01:03:39 ◼   ► That's all there is.

01:03:41 ◼   ► It's probably too early and that's

01:03:44 ◼   ► why I mean, I hope that's why it

01:03:45 ◼   ► looks so bad because it was super

01:03:47 ◼   ► jittery.

01:03:48 ◼   ► But I just think that Google

01:03:50 ◼   ► have come a long way in their

01:03:51 ◼   ► presentations and they

01:03:53 ◼   ► seem to in you know, they do

01:03:55 ◼   ► with the pixel, they throw some

01:03:57 ◼   ► shade at Apple.

01:03:58 ◼   ► But I think in some interesting

01:03:59 ◼   ► ways, I think that this was

01:04:00 ◼   ► misguided and they were trying way

01:04:02 ◼   ► too hard. And I think that

01:04:04 ◼   ► I think this is going to come back

01:04:06 ◼   ► to bite them a little bit when the

01:04:07 ◼   ► reviews come out. But we'll wait and

01:04:08 ◼   ► Yeah, I think it's interesting to see the list that they're just pretending that nobody

01:04:14 ◼   ► is getting work done on the iPad Pro at this moment.

01:04:19 ◼   ► Every time I see these companies making fun of other tablets, or just people in general

01:04:25 ◼   ► writing these articles about tablets today, I thought that this was a discussion that

01:04:33 ◼   ► that was over three years ago with the iPad Pro,

01:04:36 ◼   ► but it feels like some people still want to sort of try

01:04:40 ◼   ► and make the point again when the facts

01:04:42 ◼   ► are just picking for themselves.

01:04:44 ◼   ► There's a rich ecosystem of native tablet apps

01:04:46 ◼   ► on the App Store.

01:04:47 ◼   ► There's some crazy stuff that you can do

01:04:49 ◼   ► on an iPad Pro today.

01:04:50 ◼   ► Yes, it could be better.

01:04:51 ◼   ► Yes, it could use a desktop browser.

01:04:54 ◼   ► Yes, we need more desktop, not even desktop class,

01:04:58 ◼   ► that's not a term that I like,

01:04:59 ◼   ► but actual desktop apps on the iPad.

01:05:02 ◼   ► there's Photoshop coming, there's Illustrator coming, but we need more. But to say that

01:05:08 ◼   ► the current iPad OS is a big fun OS, that is, besides being completely false, it just,

01:05:17 ◼   ► it betrays this kind of, I don't know, it just not, it's just not cool to the point

01:05:26 ◼   ► where I want to see what happens when these reviews come out, and if any reviewers will

01:05:31 ◼   ► point out the differences between the Slate and the iPad Pro or even the Surface, which

01:05:36 ◼   ► is an excellent tablet for different use cases. I just think it's funny that you can just

01:05:42 ◼   ► pretend other tablets don't exist or are not good.

01:05:47 ◼   ► You can buy it, you can't buy this right now, but like I'm pretty sure that I am going to

01:05:51 ◼   ► buy it just so I can review it on this show or whatever, because I really feel like, because

01:05:56 ◼   ► Because even in Dieter Bohn's video he's like saying that you can't work on an iPad but

01:06:02 ◼   ► you can probably work on this thing and it's just like I really don't, I mean I think that

01:06:07 ◼   ► a lot of reviewers are coming to this in like an interesting way that I don't fully understand.

01:06:15 ◼   ► You know it's like they say that because you don't have a full web browser you can't use

01:06:19 ◼   ► Google Docs but like that's...

01:06:21 ◼   ► I mean if your company uses a CMS that depends on having a desktop browser sure you cannot

01:06:26 ◼   ► get work done on an iPad. And that's probably it for a lot of these people, right? That

01:06:30 ◼   ► like, they can't get their work done, so they just assume nobody can work on it. Where I

01:06:35 ◼   ► think for people to do it's the difference. Like, I can, I know that not everybody can.

01:06:40 ◼   ► I can't do all my work on an iPad. I can do most of it. But I do want to be able to compare

01:06:45 ◼   ► these two things because I think I will be surprised at how much of my work I can do

01:06:50 ◼   ► really comfortably on a device like this because of how much time I do spend in Google products.

01:06:56 ◼   ► And I really wish they would have focused more on that as opposed to being like,

01:07:02 ◼   ► "We've solved it guys, don't worry, like, Google's come and save the day." Like,

01:07:06 ◼   ► it just seems super strange to me. It is funny to me that this thing has two USB-C ports because,

01:07:11 ◼   ► like, laptops can't do that in some instances. Like, Microsoft just announced a bunch of Surface

01:07:17 ◼   ► stuff which has no USB-C ports on it which is wild like I'm really surprised about that.

01:07:22 ◼   ► But like this annoys me because this looks like a cool product but like their overall rhetoric has

01:07:28 ◼   ► frustrated me. But it has a keyboard and the keyboard has a trackpad which is super cool.

01:07:33 ◼   ► It has a kind of a case that comes with the keyboard which allows for adjustability of

01:07:39 ◼   ► angle which is good but the keyboard is not like firmly attached to the case which basically makes

01:07:45 ◼   ► it unusable in your lap. This is like that Logitech create case, the newer one, which

01:07:50 ◼   ► I hated. If the keyboard doesn't have a firm connection to the tablet, when you're trying

01:07:57 ◼   ► to type on it on your lap, the keyboard is just going wild. It just goes everywhere.

01:08:03 ◼   ► This is not really a lapable thing, I think, but it will be really good on tables because

01:08:08 ◼   ► it has an adjustable viewing angle, which is something that I wish Apple would have

01:08:11 ◼   ► which is why I use the bridge keyboard for my iPad Pro,

01:08:14 ◼   ► because it has the adjustable angles on it,

01:08:18 ◼   ► which I really like.

01:08:19 ◼   ► But yeah, it's like, I wish that they didn't

01:08:21 ◼   ► rile me up so much, 'cause I think I'd be more excited

01:08:23 ◼   ► about this, but like, I could have taken one hit of this,

01:08:27 ◼   ► it's like, okay, cool, I get what you're doing,

01:08:29 ◼   ► but the whole presentation was just dripping in this like,

01:08:32 ◼   ► don't worry guys, we solved it, when Google's history

01:08:36 ◼   ► for these types of devices hasn't been that great so far.

01:08:39 ◼   ► So I feel like it should take--

01:08:41 ◼   ► I mean how else are they gonna pitch it?

01:08:42 ◼   ► Right like they get up there and be like as I said they didn't have to go so hard right like they could have

01:08:48 ◼   ► They could have pitched it for what the product actually is which is

01:08:51 ◼   ► This is the best Chrome OS device you can buy and there are people that will be able to get their work done on it

01:08:57 ◼   ► And you can say that without then saying oh, it's not like those phone OSes

01:09:02 ◼   ► Oh, and it's not like a it does you know it's not like some rubbish thing which has a fan in it like you don't

01:09:07 ◼   ► need to bash everyone else to say that your product's good. Yeah, I mean, I don't

01:09:11 ◼   ► know, I just I don't take it as personally as y'all do, but... There's a

01:09:14 ◼   ► there's a few things that I... Can't get work done on a Mac, that's what they said.

01:09:18 ◼   ► Did you hear him say that? I heard them say that. Now, are you upset now, huh? There's a few

01:09:23 ◼   ► things that I like. There's a there's the the home screen, whatever you want to

01:09:30 ◼   ► call it, on the slate has these actions, these launchers, that are suggested

01:09:37 ◼   ► suggested through machine learning. If you remember, a few episodes ago, here on Connected,

01:09:43 ◼   ► we were speculating about how could Apple improve the iOS home screen next year. And

01:09:49 ◼   ► one idea that I shared was, what if, in the future, in addition to icons on the home screen,

01:09:56 ◼   ► you could also get shortcuts suggested by the system, or you could manually pin some

01:10:01 ◼   ► of your favorite shortcuts. And this is kind of the idea, right? On the slate, you will

01:10:06 ◼   ► get these actions, which have a different name on Android, I'm not sure what they're

01:10:11 ◼   ► called, probably shortcuts or actions.

01:10:14 ◼   ► But you have them at the top of the home screen and they are suggested by the OS, which I

01:10:18 ◼   ► think is interesting and something that I would also like Apple to explore.

01:10:24 ◼   ► There's the power button as a fingerprint sensor in it, so again, Apple is probably

01:10:31 ◼   ► going to dispense with Touch ID to make room for Face ID, but it's always fascinating to

01:10:36 ◼   ► me how these companies are finding ways to sort of tuck the fingerprint sensor into different

01:10:43 ◼   ► buttons that are not actually home buttons, which I think is fascinating. The keyboard

01:10:48 ◼   ► supports multiple angles, which I like. I thought it was fascinating that Google made

01:10:53 ◼   ► a comment on the design of the round keys. In the interview with Dieter Bohn at The Verge,

01:10:59 ◼   ► one of the project managers said that while it looks strange initially, Google did a bunch

01:11:05 ◼   ► of user testing and they realized the round shape for the keys, this is where we actually

01:11:09 ◼   ► need Jason Snell on the show, they discovered that users were making fewer mistakes, so

01:11:16 ◼   ► fewer typos, after getting used to the round design of the key.

01:11:21 ◼   ► It looks like a typewriter to me, like one of the old typewriters that my dad used to

01:11:25 ◼   ► have, not sure about it, but it looks cool, and there's a bigger point that I really want

01:11:30 ◼   ► Apple to rethink the smart keyboard as an actual keyboard with backlit keys and probably

01:11:35 ◼   ► a trackpad too. But still, I want an actual keyboard with plastic keys that are backlit

01:11:39 ◼   ► and that looks and behaves like a computer keyboard.

01:11:44 ◼   ► And a trackpad.

01:11:45 ◼   ► And a trackpad. Yeah, also USB-C, there's a, what would you call this, follow out? Myke,

01:11:53 ◼   ► I need to mention something that you guys are saying on upgrade.

01:11:55 ◼   ► Yeah, it's follow out.

01:11:57 ◼   ► out the idea of adding USB-C to the iPad Pro, to the future version of the iPad Pro. The

01:12:06 ◼   ► rumor from 9to5Mac saying that Apple is doing this to use external displays. I also wrote,

01:12:14 ◼   ► I think in the iOS review, maybe Myke you actually read this out loud, or maybe it was

01:12:19 ◼   ► another post on Mac stories, there should be a way to plug in a USB drive via USB-C

01:12:26 ◼   ► and have there be a location of the Files app.

01:12:29 ◼   ► So you...

01:12:30 ◼   ► Yeah, you said this for the last couple of years in the review.

01:12:32 ◼   ► You should have the option to plug in a drive.

01:12:36 ◼   ► And it's not like you get a hard drive icon on your home screen.

01:12:42 ◼   ► You just get a location in the Files app.

01:12:45 ◼   ► Apple already has a...

01:12:46 ◼   ► If Apple add a USB-C port to the iPad and don't do this,

01:12:50 ◼   ► it's like a slap in the face.

01:12:51 ◼   ► So the Slate has two USB-C ports, good on them.

01:12:56 ◼   ► that's a good idea. I really hope that Apple switches to USB-C on the Apple 2.

01:12:59 ◼   ► There will only be one of them, huh?

01:13:02 ◼   ► Yeah, one of them, not two.

01:13:04 ◼   ► There's only going to be one.

01:13:05 ◼   ► There's not going to be two if they do add it.

01:13:07 ◼   ► Johnny doesn't like two ports.

01:13:08 ◼   ► There can be only one.

01:13:09 ◼   ► No, he doesn't.

01:13:11 ◼   ► All right. Let's talk about the phones.

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01:14:15 ◼   ► we set up a form on the website and then it filled in a Google sheet on the backend. So

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01:15:16 ◼   ► and Relay FM, Squarespace.

01:15:17 ◼   ► Make your next move, make your next website.

01:15:20 ◼   ► - So let's move on and talk about the Pixel 3

01:15:24 ◼   ► and Pixel 3 XL.

01:15:25 ◼   ► They have a similar two-tone design to last year,

01:15:28 ◼   ► so it's like a color and then like a glass window

01:15:30 ◼   ► at the top that's a similar color but different finish.

01:15:33 ◼   ► They've retained that, but they've made it all glass

01:15:36 ◼   ► on the back, so like one glass has like a different finish.

01:15:38 ◼   ► - And no two-tone design this year, which is a real shame.

01:15:43 ◼   ► I love that two-tone one.

01:15:44 ◼   ► You like the white and black?

01:15:45 ◼   ► What? No, no, it's... Oh yeah, yeah, the panda one's gone, but I mean like...

01:15:50 ◼   ► The panda's gone.

01:15:51 ◼   ► It's like white and like off-white.

01:15:53 ◼   ► Sorry, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like two slightly different...

01:15:57 ◼   ► Finishes.

01:15:58 ◼   ► Colours in the same colour. They have a white one, a black one, and a pink one.

01:16:01 ◼   ► Yes.

01:16:02 ◼   ► What? It's called Not Pink. I kinda like...

01:16:03 ◼   ► Not Pink.

01:16:04 ◼   ► I like their names. I like their names. Like I think that they're kinda cute and it's like

01:16:08 ◼   ► a funny name. What do they call them? It's like Not Pink and...

01:16:13 ◼   ► Just Black, Clearly White, Not Pink.

01:16:15 ◼   ► I like those names. I can't tell you why, but I just like them.

01:16:18 ◼   ► I feel like I should be in charge of making these names.

01:16:22 ◼   ► I feel like this is something that I would be good at.

01:16:24 ◼   ► I actually agree with that.

01:16:25 ◼   ► Somewhat orange or kind of purple.

01:16:30 ◼   ► Like, I would love to, like as a job, I would love to be the color

01:16:34 ◼   ► chooser for Google.

01:16:36 ◼   ► Did you guys notice like throughout this presentation

01:16:39 ◼   ► the kind of Apple-y like way that they were doing things, like

01:16:43 ◼   ► where they had their like head designer talking about their design process and

01:16:48 ◼   ► they had videos and stuff. Did you notice that?

01:16:50 ◼   ► Yes. Yeah, absolutely.

01:16:51 ◼   ► I found that interesting. Right. And also like,

01:16:53 ◼   ► I kind of agree with it because I kind of feel like they are doing good jobs

01:16:58 ◼   ► with their design and that they should be able to talk about it in a similar way

01:17:03 ◼   ► that Apple does if they believe that they are being as focused.

01:17:06 ◼   ► But I just found it was like an interesting change and I kind of welcomed it

01:17:10 ◼   ► because I want to see a little bit more about that stuff at Google.

01:17:15 ◼   ► I think they know they're playing in a world where that sort of stuff is important to show

01:17:19 ◼   ► off.

01:17:20 ◼   ► You know, Apple does it, Samsung started it.

01:17:23 ◼   ► Especially when they're charging the same prices.

01:17:26 ◼   ► We will get to that.

01:17:27 ◼   ► It's very expensive.

01:17:28 ◼   ► So the big deal with the Pixel, of course, is the camera.

01:17:31 ◼   ► So the rear is now a 12.2 megapixel camera.

01:17:36 ◼   ► They've added a bunch of software stuff.

01:17:38 ◼   ► It does seem like it's an improved hardware.

01:17:40 ◼   ► They weren't super clear about hardware differences,

01:17:44 ◼   ► I didn't think, not the way Apple normally is,

01:17:46 ◼   ► but new software including Top Shot,

01:17:49 ◼   ► which selects the best image,

01:17:51 ◼   ► automatically taken from a burst series.

01:17:53 ◼   ► They've got some stuff where if you wanna take a selfie,

01:17:55 ◼   ► you just pick up and it sort of knows what's going on

01:17:58 ◼   ► and takes the picture for you.

01:18:00 ◼   ► And there's still just a single camera

01:18:03 ◼   ► where everyone else has two,

01:18:05 ◼   ► now three cameras in some cases.

01:18:07 ◼   ► But on the front, they did add a second one.

01:18:10 ◼   ► So the front facing camera,

01:18:12 ◼   ► you have the regular selfie camera,

01:18:13 ◼   ► and now you have what they call a group selfie camera

01:18:16 ◼   ► with a Y 97 degree lens.

01:18:18 ◼   ► So it's not fish eye,

01:18:20 ◼   ► like the pictures look pretty good

01:18:22 ◼   ► from their sample photos.

01:18:24 ◼   ► But you know, if you're taking a group shot,

01:18:26 ◼   ► you don't have to squeeze everybody in now,

01:18:27 ◼   ► it's a little bit easier.

01:18:28 ◼   ► Which I think is great,

01:18:29 ◼   ► it makes a lot of sense for how people use these things.

01:18:32 ◼   ► - It is definitely a good practical use.

01:18:34 ◼   ► It is just kind of funny to me

01:18:36 ◼   ► that like Google feel like they're proving a point

01:18:39 ◼   ► with one camera on the back, but they put two on the front.

01:18:42 ◼   ► And it is true, like they don't,

01:18:44 ◼   ► for everything that all other companies

01:18:46 ◼   ► are adding multiple cameras on the back of a phone for,

01:18:49 ◼   ► they're doing all of that stuff in software.

01:18:51 ◼   ► And it still seems like they're better at it

01:18:54 ◼   ► than anybody else's, right?

01:18:55 ◼   ► For like, they're even, I mean,

01:18:58 ◼   ► I'm super keen to see what this looks like.

01:19:01 ◼   ► They're using AI to do software zoomed photos now.

01:19:05 ◼   ► And like, so you can zoom and apparently

01:19:07 ◼   ► it's gonna look really good because they're using,

01:19:09 ◼   ► the shaking of your hands, it's like all this weird AI stuff that they're doing. But like,

01:19:14 ◼   ► you know, they seem to be saying we only need one camera on the back as long as it's a good camera

01:19:18 ◼   ► and we can fix everything in software. But the idea of having more people in a selfie,

01:19:24 ◼   ► I actually kind of like this. I think I would actually really like this feature personally,

01:19:28 ◼   ► right? To have a wider angle lens when needed for group pictures would be kind of cool.

01:19:37 ◼   ► They showed some stuff that they have a new like low light mode that they've given a name to it's

01:19:43 ◼   ► like night light or something I can't remember the exact name but they showed a picture one taken on

01:19:49 ◼   ► the iPhone XS and one on the Pixel 3 and again as with Apple all these pictures they show the best

01:19:58 ◼   ► ones possible but if this is true and that is the difference in low light photography my word

01:20:06 ◼   ► like that is huge. It looks really good. It seems like it's sort of impossible actually.

01:20:13 ◼   ► It almost feels like that was a... I don't know, I'm sure it's not the case.

01:20:17 ◼   ► But it looks like the picture on the XS was taken badly on purpose almost. Like it's

01:20:26 ◼   ► too... like the comparison is too good in favor of the Pixel 3. As I say, these things always,

01:20:34 ◼   ► They always choose the best things possible. But like even if it's like half the way there, right?

01:20:41 ◼   ► Like it's gonna be a hugely noticeable difference

01:20:44 ◼   ► So this is one of those things where like I'm just waiting for him KB HD show me some photos now

01:20:48 ◼   ► Right like and then I'm gonna know

01:20:50 ◼   ► but

01:20:53 ◼   ► It is super interesting and talking about MKB HD. He did a real good video

01:20:57 ◼   ► He got an exclusive while he's wearing a peacock shirt in his video, too

01:21:01 ◼   ► which is so awesome for James like it's very cool but like he kind of said that

01:21:08 ◼   ► it's kind of weird that all of the enhancements that Google are talking

01:21:13 ◼   ► about and they kind of confirmed it to him too in the camera they're all

01:21:17 ◼   ► software there's except for that selfie thing the hardware is doing none of the

01:21:22 ◼   ► advancements Google are charging like a lot more money for these phones they're

01:21:27 ◼   ► like, how much more are they? They're like $150 more in some cases. And it seems like,

01:21:33 ◼   ► you know, except for the fact that there is a bigger screen, right, on them too. But like,

01:21:38 ◼   ► all of the enhancements that they seem to be talking about are software enhancements.

01:21:43 ◼   ► So it's like a real interesting thing. And they're saying they're not going to bring

01:21:46 ◼   ► it to the other phones. It's just for the three line. I mean, and that's, you know,

01:21:51 ◼   ► we talk about this with Apple, right? Like that is Google's prerogative to do this. It's

01:21:55 ◼   ► just in I just find it interesting especially with the camera stuff where

01:21:58 ◼   ► they have a bunch of new camera features but they're all software

01:22:01 ◼   ► features it's not being enabled by different hardware on the devices where

01:22:06 ◼   ► it seems like at least some of what Apple's doing or at least what they're

01:22:10 ◼   ► saying is is enabled by hardware for the smart HDR because they got the neural

01:22:15 ◼   ► chip or whatever so there's something that I'm really interested in called

01:22:19 ◼   ► it's like autofocus but basically you it's like tap to focus on the iPhone you

01:22:24 ◼   ► tap what you want and the focus follows it so if a dog or a kid is sort of

01:22:29 ◼   ► running back and forth in the frame the focus will follow it. 100% apples to copy

01:22:35 ◼   ► this. I want this so badly on my iPhone. Yes this will be will be perfect

01:22:40 ◼   ► because my dogs they do not want to pose for pictures unless we have plenty of

01:22:45 ◼   ► trees so yes please copy autofocus for puppies and babies thank you this is an

01:22:51 ◼   ► excellent idea. You have a great brand name there. It's good. I think out of all the stuff

01:22:56 ◼   ► they announced on the camera, this is a thing of like, oh man, this is really smart. Really

01:23:01 ◼   ► smart. Yeah, I think this is just not a thing that I need because I don't have puppies or

01:23:05 ◼   ► babies. Don't you have a... I can see why it would be cool. You got a Roomba. The Roomba

01:23:09 ◼   ► moves around. Not that fast though. You can ask Kadina to run around the house and take

01:23:12 ◼   ► pictures of her. Right, but that's the specific thing that I'm then requesting. Like, that's

01:23:17 ◼   ► my own fault. She just typically doesn't do that.

01:23:20 ◼   ► She's not a fast-moving wife, Myke.

01:23:25 ◼   ► If she wants to be, sure. But I don't really know if I take pictures of her in those moments.

01:23:30 ◼   ► What is happening? I think the Pixel 3 is going to continue to be at the top of the

01:23:36 ◼   ► heap when it comes to smartphone cameras. I think that the Pixel 2…

01:23:41 ◼   ► Everyone saying the 2 is still better.

01:23:42 ◼   ► Yeah, a year later.

01:23:45 ◼   ► I am super keen to see how this ends up looking.

01:23:48 ◼   ► - I do that, we talked about Google's positioning earlier,

01:23:50 ◼   ► and they're still finding their way in these events,

01:23:52 ◼   ► and so maybe they overstepped in some things.

01:23:54 ◼   ► But they said multiple times that how honored they were

01:23:59 ◼   ► that the Pixel 2 was still regarded the best

01:24:02 ◼   ► in a year of really good phones.

01:24:05 ◼   ► Yes, they compared directly to the XS,

01:24:08 ◼   ► but they seem to understand that they're the new kids

01:24:11 ◼   ► on the block and that they are trying to respect that in a way that I found sort of refreshing.

01:24:17 ◼   ► So can I just say, considering I got so upset a moment ago, all of the stuff around the

01:24:22 ◼   ► Pixel I think they did right in comparing it to others. They said they were better in

01:24:26 ◼   ► places that we all know they are, right? And they were also really humble. And this is

01:24:32 ◼   ► on a product that exists that is successful, where the slate is this new thing and they're

01:24:36 ◼   ► already coming in and saying it's better than everything else. So I thought their positioning

01:24:40 ◼   ► on the pixel stuff especially was really good because they were saying and I

01:24:43 ◼   ► really liked it where they were like people say that it's the best camera

01:24:46 ◼   ► still and we're like super honored about that because there are all these other

01:24:49 ◼   ► great cameras that have come out in the last year and it's like that is a really

01:24:53 ◼   ► cool way to show your number one like it's a humble brag they did a good job

01:24:58 ◼   ► of it and I thought that they positioned that well. Me too. It's got a couple of

01:25:02 ◼   ► things we talk about there's a $79 wireless stain that sort of puts it up

01:25:06 ◼   ► at an angle that enables some like hands-free Google Assistant stuff. They're not the first

01:25:11 ◼   ► to do this. In fact, the Palm Pre in webOS had a dock mode that if you put it on its

01:25:16 ◼   ► touchstone charger it did some things. So just saying. Just saying. There is no headphone

01:25:22 ◼   ► jack. Last year with the Pixel 2 they made a big deal that they still had the headphone

01:25:26 ◼   ► jack. They got rid of it this year. There was no explanation of it. It's just gone.

01:25:31 ◼   ► So I mean what's the explanation right? Everybody's doing it because there's no explanation. The

01:25:35 ◼   ► The explanation is everybody's doing it.

01:25:38 ◼   ► So the Pixel Slate, to back up for a second, also no headphone jack.

01:25:43 ◼   ► And in the Dieter Bohn video, he asked them about that.

01:25:45 ◼   ► He says, "Well, you know, people are using Bluetooth on their phones, and so we figure

01:25:48 ◼   ► they don't want to carry wired and wireless, so we'll just go Bluetooth everywhere."

01:25:52 ◼   ► It's like, well, that's sort of a backwards way of thinking.

01:25:55 ◼   ► That's a non-answer answer.

01:25:56 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:25:57 ◼   ► "Oh, everyone got riveted on their phones, including our new phones."

01:26:00 ◼   ► So what can you do?

01:26:02 ◼   ► The sizes are a little bit bigger.

01:26:04 ◼   ► So the Pixel 3 is 5.5 inches up from five before.

01:26:09 ◼   ► It starts at $799 for a 64 gigabyte model.

01:26:13 ◼   ► 100 extra bucks gets you 128 gigs of storage.

01:26:16 ◼   ► That is more expensive than last year.

01:26:19 ◼   ► As we will see, this is a refrain

01:26:22 ◼   ► with the Pixel 3 this year that they are more expensive.

01:26:26 ◼   ► And they are trying to position themselves as the,

01:26:29 ◼   ► if you want a really clean Android experience,

01:26:31 ◼   ► and you want nice hardware, in some cases

01:26:34 ◼   ► the best hardware you can buy, then you're gonna pay for it.

01:26:36 ◼   ► They're trying to, as premium phones,

01:26:39 ◼   ► like the Nexus line back in the distant past was not that.

01:26:44 ◼   ► The Pixel is like the premium Android phone.

01:26:46 ◼   ► But it's still less than a lot of Samsung flagship phones

01:26:50 ◼   ► and less than if you're gonna buy like an iPhone XS Max.

01:26:55 ◼   ► So they are cheaper than other flagships,

01:26:58 ◼   ► but they are more expensive than they used to be.

01:27:00 ◼   ► And again, I follow a lot of tech reporters

01:27:04 ◼   ► and people that are maybe even more focused on Android,

01:27:07 ◼   ► but it does seem like the general rhetoric is like,

01:27:10 ◼   ► it's more expensive for a reason that we can't find.

01:27:13 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's not, if there was a second camera on the back,

01:27:17 ◼   ► like okay, that doesn't really justify $150,

01:27:20 ◼   ► but I understand I'm getting something.

01:27:23 ◼   ► - Like a material difference, right?

01:27:25 ◼   ► The materials are the same, they're still using Glass.

01:27:28 ◼   ► Again, it's like, it's all excuses,

01:27:30 ◼   ► but like Apple used stainless steel, right?

01:27:32 ◼   ► Which is more expensive, like whatever, you know,

01:27:33 ◼   ► like it's one of the reasons that there's the difference

01:27:36 ◼   ► in pricing between the XS and the XR

01:27:37 ◼   ► is the materials used on the device, so.

01:27:40 ◼   ► - We gotta talk about the 3XL though.

01:27:41 ◼   ► So once again, the little Pixel

01:27:43 ◼   ► and the big Pixel phone have different designs.

01:27:46 ◼   ► So this year, the 3XL is 6.3 inches

01:27:51 ◼   ► from six inches before,

01:27:52 ◼   ► but my friends, it has a notch.

01:27:57 ◼   ► and Google says, Google says it has an edge to edge design.

01:28:01 ◼   ► I would argue with that.

01:28:02 ◼   ► It still has a pretty big chin.

01:28:04 ◼   ► - They actually didn't.

01:28:05 ◼   ► The way, okay, so the way they explained it on stage,

01:28:07 ◼   ► I wrote it down because it was so funny to me.

01:28:10 ◼   ► The presenter says, "This display extends all the way

01:28:14 ◼   ► to the upper corners."

01:28:16 ◼   ► And I was like, "Oh yeah, 'cause the bottom, right?

01:28:19 ◼   ► It's not going to the corners on the bottom, is it?"

01:28:22 ◼   ► And I thought that was like a really funny way

01:28:25 ◼   ► that they positioned it.

01:28:26 ◼   ► And they try and say like, I mean, they do say the reason that there is that space on the bottom is for the front facing stereo speakers.

01:28:33 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:28:35 ◼   ► OK.

01:28:36 ◼   ► I mean, yes, that's probably true.

01:28:39 ◼   ► I don't know how important that is.

01:28:40 ◼   ► Like, I'm sure it's nice to have front facing stereo speakers, but I don't know if front facing stereo speakers is worth not having the screen space.

01:28:51 ◼   ► I would wonder how many people if they ask them,

01:28:54 ◼   ► right, we're gonna move the speaker down to the bottom now,

01:28:56 ◼   ► like where it is on the iPhone,

01:28:59 ◼   ► and you're gonna get more screen space.

01:29:01 ◼   ► They would say, no, no, please, please, my stereo speakers.

01:29:03 ◼   ► Like I don't think that's a thing a lot of people would say.

01:29:07 ◼   ► Like the notch is really big.

01:29:11 ◼   ► I think the notch is bigger than pretty much

01:29:13 ◼   ► any other phone that has a notch.

01:29:15 ◼   ► I think it is made to look even bigger

01:29:17 ◼   ► by the fact that there's the chin

01:29:19 ◼   ► on the bottom of the phone.

01:29:20 ◼   ► Don't think that this is a particularly good-looking phone to be honest

01:29:23 ◼   ► Like I'm I liked the way the old pixels looked when they came out

01:29:28 ◼   ► I'm not sure that I'm convinced on the way the screen looks on this thing. I don't think they've done a

01:29:37 ◼   ► Incredible job with the the way this thing looks on the front. Yeah, I agree

01:29:42 ◼   ► It looks bigger and the if the angles are sharper going into it

01:29:49 ◼   ► So it doesn't feel as as sort of gradual in a way that the yeah does there's something about the the way that it

01:29:56 ◼   ► Cuts out of the border that feels more aggressive

01:29:59 ◼   ► I think it makes it look bigger and that's probably just because they've tried to minimize the amount right because it's going so deep

01:30:05 ◼   ► That they've made the corner quite sharp. So it's not taking even more of the screen than it needs to yeah

01:30:12 ◼   ► I kind of wish that they had

01:30:15 ◼   ► Not done the notch and they look the same and even though that would mean the XL has to be bigger to fit all that

01:30:20 ◼   ► Stuff up there. It just it doesn't look

01:30:22 ◼   ► Doesn't look great

01:30:24 ◼   ► and again

01:30:25 ◼   ► It's super weird that these phones are so different from each other when like

01:30:28 ◼   ► The iPhone way to do it like the Samsung like between the galaxy s9 and the galaxy s9 plus and even the note

01:30:35 ◼   ► Like that's all pretty much the same design language just scaled up

01:30:38 ◼   ► Yeah

01:30:38 ◼   ► Yeah, and how old does the Pixel 3 look now? Like it looks like a really old phone.

01:30:46 ◼   ► Yeah, it's, they've got some way to, they got some some way to go and then there's

01:30:51 ◼   ► there are rumors with the past ones you know that it was like a an HTC or

01:30:55 ◼   ► somebody else you know basically they picked up a phone they were working on

01:30:58 ◼   ► and made it a Pixel and I don't know if anyone knows for sure about these phones

01:31:02 ◼   ► But clearly there it's not it doesn't have the design

01:31:06 ◼   ► Either time or the engineering experience something about it isn't to the part of Apple and Samsung yet. I think they'll get there

01:31:13 ◼   ► Maybe this is only their third round, you know, the iPhone 3gs wasn't great either the galaxy s3 wasn't great

01:31:19 ◼   ► It's like it takes time to really kind of understand how this goes together

01:31:22 ◼   ► But the 3xl will cost you $899 for the 64 gig and a thousand bucks for the 128

01:31:29 ◼   ► So again more expensive than previous years they ship here in just a week or so

01:31:34 ◼   ► Looking now October 18th is the date here in the US for most of them

01:31:38 ◼   ► Some of them are pushed out to November 1st. I think that's the date

01:31:42 ◼   ► In other countries as well, but pretty soon they'll be out in the world and I expect we'll see full reviews here

01:31:48 ◼   ► You know in the next week or so, I have ordered one. Oh boy

01:31:54 ◼   ► Two reasons I ordered a pixel 3 XL ship in November. We're gonna be in New York when this thing is available

01:32:01 ◼   ► So like if I can pick one up in New York

01:32:03 ◼   ► I will and just cancel my order because it's it's a it's like two weeks later. It ships outside of the US

01:32:08 ◼   ► So it's two reasons that I bought this phone

01:32:11 ◼   ► I was probably gonna get one anyway

01:32:13 ◼   ► because I like to have an Android phone around like I always like to play around with the new version of Android so I can

01:32:19 ◼   ► kind of compare it to iOS.

01:32:20 ◼   ► And I don't like I really don't like the feeling of being out of touch,

01:32:24 ◼   ► even though I don't spend a lot of time talking about Android.

01:32:28 ◼   ► I just like to know what's out there.

01:32:30 ◼   ► The other thing is.

01:32:32 ◼   ► I hear a lot about the cameras and like I can see what the pictures

01:32:36 ◼   ► that people take, and but I want to do my own comparison

01:32:40 ◼   ► because I feel like I'm spending so much time now just kind of like

01:32:44 ◼   ► saying the Pixel 2 camera is better because I hear people say it.

01:32:48 ◼   ► who's I trust, like, and I'm not saying that they're wrong, but like, I want to see, like,

01:32:53 ◼   ► what does it look like when I take a picture on the Pixel 3 compared to the 10S Max?

01:32:58 ◼   ► And like, so I really have an idea of just how much better it is, you know, so that these are kind of like the two big reasons that I wanted to do this.

01:33:08 ◼   ► And there's like a lot of little things, right?

01:33:10 ◼   ► Like I want to see, like, how does Android deal with a notch compared to how iOS deals with a notch?

01:33:15 ◼   ► and I'm intrigued by the hardware itself and stuff like that.

01:33:19 ◼   ► So I have an original Pixel, which has lasted me for a couple of years now.

01:33:24 ◼   ► And then I'll get this one and it'll probably last me for two or three more years

01:33:27 ◼   ► until I want to upgrade.

01:33:29 ◼   ► But there was enough in this one compared to the old one,

01:33:33 ◼   ► where like the camera has jumped so significantly since the original Pixel

01:33:37 ◼   ► that like I've become significantly intrigued again,

01:33:40 ◼   ► because I find myself on a daily basis

01:33:43 ◼   ► being absolutely astounded at how good the camera is on the XS Max.

01:33:47 ◼   ► Right. Like I am continually blown away, like where I keep going, like,

01:33:51 ◼   ► look how good this looks like it happens all the time.

01:33:54 ◼   ► So how good will I feel about this camera if it if we expect it's going to be

01:34:00 ◼   ► even further ahead?

01:34:02 ◼   ► And I want to kind of see what that looks like myself, as opposed to just

01:34:07 ◼   ► looking at sample images or listening to other people have to say.

01:34:11 ◼   ► I'm the same way.

01:34:11 ◼   ► I've had an Android phone for forever.

01:34:13 ◼   ► I have a Nexus 5X right now.

01:34:15 ◼   ► And I've held off because I was waiting on the Pixel 3.

01:34:18 ◼   ► So I haven't ordered yet.

01:34:20 ◼   ► But I will probably pick up the smaller one,

01:34:22 ◼   ► just because it's not going to be a primary phone for me,

01:34:25 ◼   ► and spend some time with it.

01:34:27 ◼   ► For all the same reasons you said,

01:34:28 ◼   ► I need to be up on it for work.

01:34:31 ◼   ► I like having a phone--

01:34:32 ◼   ► You have way more reason than I do, right?

01:34:34 ◼   ► Like Download talks about this stuff extensively.

01:34:38 ◼   ► So I need to do that.

01:34:39 ◼   ► And so I will order a smaller one here

01:34:44 ◼   ► probably in a couple weeks.

01:34:45 ◼   ► I'm gonna let the dust settle a little bit,

01:34:46 ◼   ► make sure there's nothing crazy wrong.

01:34:48 ◼   ► They've had some quality issues in the past

01:34:50 ◼   ► with early phones.

01:34:52 ◼   ► But yeah, I think it's exciting.

01:34:54 ◼   ► I think this is an important phone in the world

01:34:58 ◼   ► because it can serve as a, you know,

01:35:00 ◼   ► it is a flagship phone, but it's not like Samsung

01:35:03 ◼   ► holds that title in the Android world

01:35:05 ◼   ► and other brands are even ahead of Google.

01:35:07 ◼   ► but I think it's important that Google has a phone

01:35:09 ◼   ► so they can set the example of what an Android phone can be.

01:35:14 ◼   ► And for, you know, this is an enthusiast device.

01:35:17 ◼   ► They're not gonna sell in the numbers of the iPhone

01:35:20 ◼   ► or the Galaxy phones do.

01:35:21 ◼   ► But for Android enthusiasts who want a really pure version,

01:35:25 ◼   ► you know, they've been limited to things

01:35:26 ◼   ► like the OnePlus series or, you know,

01:35:30 ◼   ► other phones sort of in that range.

01:35:32 ◼   ► And if you want something nicer than that,

01:35:34 ◼   ► but you want a clean experience,

01:35:36 ◼   ► want Google's take on Android, then this is the phone that you buy. And I think if you're

01:35:40 ◼   ► in that camp, this is a great upgrade if you're coming from an original Pixel or a Nexus 6P

01:35:45 ◼   ► or something. Federico, how many are you going to buy?

01:35:49 ◼   ► Five each year. Wow. Just hand them out to all your friends and family.

01:35:54 ◼   ► No, I'm not going to buy any of these. I don't think I, I just don't want to. Like when I

01:36:03 ◼   ► want to play with Android. I like to be informed so I'm gonna watch videos and

01:36:08 ◼   ► I'm gonna watch reviews. I just don't want to spend money on a phone that I'm

01:36:12 ◼   ► that I'm gonna keep in a drawer just to check out every once in a while. So yeah

01:36:17 ◼   ► I think it's it. Which is the actual sensible thing to do. I mean I totally got it

01:36:24 ◼   ► like... No it is like because I will use it for a period of time and then the

01:36:28 ◼   ► majority of time it will sit on a shelf. Like it is way more sensible to not do

01:36:33 ◼   ► it but there is a part of me that just wants it because it's a cool new toy and

01:36:37 ◼   ► there's a part of me that does genuinely believe that I will get value from it so

01:36:43 ◼   ► but then you'll hear me and Steven talk about it and then that's all you need

01:36:46 ◼   ► you know you can be like the wonderful connected listeners who get their

01:36:50 ◼   ► information from us yeah I can say my friends are saying that you know I can

01:36:54 ◼   ► say sources tell me that the pixel takes good photos and sources is Myke and

01:37:00 ◼   ► Stephen. Sorry that I just blew your cover. You're my source. Yeah, it's fine.

01:37:06 ◼   ► All right, so if you want to find show notes this week of stuff we talked about

01:37:10 ◼   ► head over to relay.fm/connected/213. Of course those links are also right

01:37:18 ◼   ► here in your podcast app of choice. I'd like to thank our sponsors this week, Squarespace,

01:37:22 ◼   ► Linode, and PayPal for making the show possible. If you have feedback or follow

01:37:27 ◼   ► or questions or comments, you can send us an email

01:37:31 ◼   ► from that page on Relay FM or you can find us on Twitter.

01:37:34 ◼   ► Federico is @vitiici, V-I-T-I-C-C-I,

01:37:38 ◼   ► and of course Federico is also the editor-in-chief

01:37:41 ◼   ► of maxstories.net, the home for all the finest

01:37:44 ◼   ► shortcuts material you could ever need,

01:37:46 ◼   ► plus lots more, app reviews, game reviews,

01:37:49 ◼   ► all sorts of good stuff.

01:37:51 ◼   ► You can find Myke on Twitter as @imyke,

01:37:54 ◼   ► and Myke is the host of a whole plethora of shows

01:37:58 ◼   ► here on Relay FM.

01:38:00 ◼   ► If you like connected, you can probably go find something

01:38:02 ◼   ► else that Myke makes that you would like.

01:38:04 ◼   ► You can find me as ISMH and I write and host

01:38:08 ◼   ► the 512Pixels YouTube channel.

01:38:10 ◼   ► So, you know, like and subscribe, as the kids say.

01:38:14 ◼   ► I think that's it, so until next week gentlemen,

01:38:18 ◼   ► say goodbye.

01:38:19 ◼   ► - Adios, that's you.

01:38:20 ◼   ► - Cheerio.

01:38:21 ◼   ► - Adios.

01:38:22 ◼   ► [ Silence ]