Connected

00:00:00 ◼   ► (upbeat music)

00:00:02 ◼   ► - From Relay FM, welcome to Connected, episode 189.

00:00:12 ◼   ► Here's a fun fact, Casey List once called this

00:00:15 ◼   ► the world's greatest podcast.

00:00:17 ◼   ► - He was right, wasn't he?

00:00:18 ◼   ► He was right.

00:00:19 ◼   ► - He was.

00:00:21 ◼   ► Yeah, he was.

00:00:22 ◼   ► Rest in peace, buddy.

00:00:24 ◼   ► It's brought to you this week by Linode, Pingdom, and Hover.

00:00:28 ◼   ► You've already heard one of my co-hosts, Myke Curley.

00:00:30 ◼   ► Myke, how are you?

00:00:31 ◼   ► - I'm good, very good.

00:00:33 ◼   ► - That's good.

00:00:34 ◼   ► Federico, you're there somewhere?

00:00:36 ◼   ► - I'm here, I'm just listening to your sweet, sweet voice.

00:00:39 ◼   ► You sound really nice, Stephen.

00:00:41 ◼   ► - Thanks.

00:00:43 ◼   ► I think Myke and I are both about half an octave deeper

00:00:45 ◼   ► than we normally are, 'cause we were just in Atlanta

00:00:48 ◼   ► doing some stuff, which we will--

00:00:50 ◼   ► - What's that in the metric system?

00:00:53 ◼   ► An octave deeper.

00:00:55 ◼   ► How many decibels is that?

00:00:58 ◼   ► Can you provide that?

00:00:59 ◼   ► - I don't think that that is--

00:01:01 ◼   ► - No, it's the same thing, shut up, Myke.

00:01:03 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:01:05 ◼   ► - Oh, we're off the rails early.

00:01:11 ◼   ► - Shut up, I hate you.

00:01:15 ◼   ► It's 70 decibels, that's how many it is.

00:01:18 ◼   ► It's one of them.

00:01:18 ◼   ► - Oh, okay.

00:01:20 ◼   ► All right, so you were saying, Steven, I'm sorry.

00:01:24 ◼   ► Where were you?

00:01:26 ◼   ► - So Myke and I, we were in Atlanta.

00:01:27 ◼   ► Myke did a live episode of The Pen Addict,

00:01:30 ◼   ► his show about fountain pens and high-end stationery

00:01:34 ◼   ► and notebooks and stuff.

00:01:36 ◼   ► It's an awesome show.

00:01:37 ◼   ► Had like 100 people turn up.

00:01:39 ◼   ► We filled the room, which is very exciting.

00:01:40 ◼   ► So if you were there, thank you very much for coming.

00:01:43 ◼   ► It's always good to hang out.

00:01:46 ◼   ► We did a live episode of Ungenius,

00:01:48 ◼   ► which is, Myke, it's your and I's show

00:01:50 ◼   ► about weird stuff on Wikipedia.

00:01:53 ◼   ► Totally a podcast.

00:01:54 ◼   ► We did an episode of that as like a warm-up act.

00:01:57 ◼   ► I think it went really well.

00:01:58 ◼   ► I will have links to those in the show notes

00:02:00 ◼   ► if you wanna go check them out.

00:02:01 ◼   ► If you haven't heard those shows and they sound interesting,

00:02:03 ◼   ► go listen to them, I think you'll enjoy them.

00:02:05 ◼   ► - Yeah, it was fun to do the shows live.

00:02:07 ◼   ► It was also fun when I realized

00:02:08 ◼   ► that I was my own warmup act.

00:02:11 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's true.

00:02:13 ◼   ► - I don't know how I feel about that.

00:02:15 ◼   ► - Look, when you're a leader,

00:02:17 ◼   ► you have to, sometimes you just gotta get in there

00:02:21 ◼   ► and do stuff that--

00:02:22 ◼   ► - Lead by example, right? - Doesn't seem

00:02:24 ◼   ► all that exciting.

00:02:25 ◼   ► - It was exciting, though.

00:02:27 ◼   ► We talked about toilet paper.

00:02:28 ◼   ► Co-founder, yeah, co-founder and oremicpact.

00:02:31 ◼   ► And toilet paper explainer.

00:02:33 ◼   ► I've been around the town recently.

00:02:37 ◼   ► I also filled in for Fraser on an episode of Canvas.

00:02:41 ◼   ► You did, yeah.

00:02:42 ◼   ► For Federico.

00:02:43 ◼   ► We spoke about using multiple iPads.

00:02:45 ◼   ► That was fun, so you can go check that out too.

00:02:47 ◼   ► I'm just all over the place right now.

00:02:49 ◼   ► I can't be stopped.

00:02:50 ◼   ► Okay, won't stop.

00:02:53 ◼   ► Always on, worldwide you may say.

00:02:56 ◼   ► Speaking of which, we have some Apple Music follow-up from our friend Russell. He says

00:03:08 ◼   ► he lives in Australia. I still don't fully believe that, but he says he does.

00:03:13 ◼   ► What proof does he have?

00:03:14 ◼   ► I mean, exactly. Every time I feel like I'm always seeing Russell in the United States.

00:03:18 ◼   ► So for all that I know, he could be an American in disguise.

00:03:23 ◼   ► Maybe he thinks you're an American in disguise though by that logic.

00:03:26 ◼   ► I mean that's possible.

00:03:28 ◼   ► That is certainly possible.

00:03:31 ◼   ► And he was, so I think he sent us on Slack a note about the Apple Music subscriber numbers

00:03:39 ◼   ► that we were talking about a couple of weeks ago or last week.

00:03:42 ◼   ► And he said that one of the reasons that Apple Music is popular in Australia, it's because

00:03:47 ◼   ► they're basically giving away paid subscriptions with phone contracts and with carriers. So

00:03:55 ◼   ► this is actually, once Russell mentioned this, stuff like you can get a six month plan with

00:04:01 ◼   ► your carrier and you can get a six month subscription to Apple Music. And I thought about this because

00:04:06 ◼   ► I also, I see this stuff in Italy all the time, especially with Spotify, but also with

00:04:13 ◼   ► Apple Music, the carriers they do these promotions and you see them on TV so

00:04:17 ◼   ► there's like this this talent show that people watch in Italy and they do talk

00:04:24 ◼   ► about this kind of promotions that you get if you sign up with because Vodafone

00:04:28 ◼   ► is one of the sponsors of this program and I believe they have some

00:04:33 ◼   ► kind of Apple Music deal so yeah. Yeah I forgot about this, this happens in

00:04:38 ◼   ► England too. EE giveaway six free months. They even gave it to me but like

00:04:43 ◼   ► by that point I'd already signed up so I couldn't do anything about it, it just seemed like

00:04:47 ◼   ► a big hassle. But yeah it is a thing that they do already. But whilst this is a good

00:04:53 ◼   ► point I think a bunch of people brought it up when we were talking about the fact that

00:04:57 ◼   ► Apple have no trials, right? We were saying that it was impressive because there's no

00:05:03 ◼   ► free tier and I think a bunch of people brought this up as like "oh they do have a free tier"

00:05:08 ◼   ► but like this isn't the same thing in my opinion. Like this is not a free tier, this is like

00:05:12 ◼   ► a benefit that you get from your contract, right? Like I think what I was surprised about

00:05:18 ◼   ► and remain surprised about is you can't go to Apple and just try out their music service

00:05:24 ◼   ► for free. There has to be some kind of value exchange going on because that's, you know,

00:05:31 ◼   ► and I think that that's really interesting because then why are so many people signing

00:05:36 ◼   ► up for Apple Music just to pay for it when Spotify has a free plan and then that pushes

00:05:41 ◼   ► you towards the paid plans. So I thought that was interesting but yes of course there are

00:05:45 ◼   ► a probably non like a like a sorry I should say a significant percentage of people are

00:05:53 ◼   ► using Apple Music maybe tied in with some carrier or something but the numbers are still

00:05:58 ◼   ► impressive nonetheless I think because I would expect a lot of people they could put in that

00:06:03 ◼   ► six month thing don't cancel it like they just roll on and then it becomes a thing they

00:06:08 ◼   ► pay for. Kyle's the Gray, my son, is doing good work in the knowledgebase and he

00:06:13 ◼   ► provided us a link in the chat to a support article talking about what

00:06:18 ◼   ► countries and providers offer Apple Music through the phone bundle. So it's in

00:06:24 ◼   ► Australia, Germany, Israel, Mexico, Portugal, South Korea, and the United Kingdom. So I

00:06:28 ◼   ► was not super aware of this and so it's cool to see that it's a thing.

00:06:33 ◼   ► It's impressive it's in the K-Bass.

00:06:36 ◼   ► What I remember must be some kind of Spotify deal and for the Apple Music part I think,

00:06:42 ◼   ► and this is totally against net neutrality, but I believe that my carrier used to offer

00:06:48 ◼   ► a plan or an option that made Apple Music streaming on cellular not count against your

00:06:54 ◼   ► monthly quota.

00:06:56 ◼   ► So yeah, that's also a thing that carriers do.

00:07:00 ◼   ► This is what EE do in the UK with their six month plan.

00:07:03 ◼   ► It doesn't count against your data during that period.

00:07:06 ◼   ► So you get it for free and you get the data for free as well.

00:07:12 ◼   ► So yeah, that does happen.

00:07:14 ◼   ► Yeah, that's a real interesting net neutrality question that we don't have time to get into

00:07:17 ◼   ► this week.

00:07:18 ◼   ► Nope.

00:07:19 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:07:20 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:07:21 ◼   ► I wanted to mention just something that I think people should go and see if they haven't

00:07:24 ◼   ► seen.

00:07:25 ◼   ► Host of query on relay FM and editor. I'm all Stephen is Serenity and editor. I'm your

00:07:34 ◼   ► editor senior editor, basically the boss senior editor. Yeah, I couldn't work out exactly

00:07:41 ◼   ► how high up she is. I know it's like the very top of the tree, but I wasn't sure how big

00:07:45 ◼   ► the tree was Serenity did a wonderful video review of the 2018 iPad of Apple pencil. This

00:07:53 ◼   ► This is one of the best product review videos I think I've ever seen because it does what

00:07:59 ◼   ► I love so much about what Federico does a bunch where kind of bringing in some emotional

00:08:05 ◼   ► personal experience into a review whilst also talking about the product itself.

00:08:12 ◼   ► It is just a wonderful video about iPads and how they enable creativity and the thing that's

00:08:19 ◼   ► even more impressive about it is the entire thing was made on an iPad as well and there's

00:08:24 ◼   ► stuff in this video I don't know how she did it like there is a bunch of like editing tricks

00:08:29 ◼   ► and stuff and like I was really surprised when she said it was all done on the iPad

00:08:34 ◼   ► like I now need to check out at the end shows a great thing shows all the apps that she

00:08:37 ◼   ► uses and I need to check out some of the video apps because there's like some picture in

00:08:41 ◼   ► picture video stuff that she's doing and I don't know I mean I didn't know you could

00:08:45 ◼   ► even do that on the iPad. Like, this is just a wonderful, wonderful video. It's like six

00:08:50 ◼   ► minutes long and it is so worth your time. And if you haven't seen it, change that. You

00:08:54 ◼   ► should see it. It's really just excellent.

00:08:57 ◼   ► Yeah, and the article on iMore has an explanation of some of the tricks that she used.

00:09:02 ◼   ► Cool. Okay.

00:09:03 ◼   ► So, part of the entire workflow is an app called LumaFusion, which I highly recommend.

00:09:09 ◼   ► It's kind of the sequel to what I used to use for video editing on my iPad Pro. It used

00:09:15 ◼   ► to be called Pinnacle Pro, Pinnacle Studio Pro.

00:09:18 ◼   ► - Oh, that was the one you used for the hip hop video, right?

00:09:22 ◼   ► - Yes, that's the one.

00:09:23 ◼   ► Now it's called LumaFusion and it's $20 on the App Store,

00:09:25 ◼   ► I think, and it's really, really powerful.

00:09:28 ◼   ► And Serenity explains how she was able to speed up

00:09:31 ◼   ► the videos by using the built-in speed up tool up to 6x.

00:09:36 ◼   ► And sometimes she wasn't fast enough,

00:09:39 ◼   ► so she kinda saved the video, re-imported the video again,

00:09:42 ◼   ► and sped it up again.

00:09:43 ◼   ► - That's great. - Really clever, yeah.

00:09:44 ◼   ► So go check out the video and then the Making Ava article because it's really good.

00:09:48 ◼   ► It's like, I think one of the things that's so impressive about it is she made an incredible

00:09:52 ◼   ► review about a not interesting product, ultimately, right?

00:09:56 ◼   ► Like that this iPad itself, it didn't have anything that was super surprising.

00:10:02 ◼   ► We knew everything it could do because other iPads have already done it all, but yet she

00:10:06 ◼   ► still made something that was super interesting, which I think that, I mean that shows her

00:10:10 ◼   ► talent.

00:10:11 ◼   ► So yeah, it's excellent and I really loved it.

00:10:13 ◼   ► It was very, very good.

00:10:14 ◼   ► There was also a more hints I guess an iPhone SE, this was from 9 to 5 Mac today. There

00:10:21 ◼   ► was some regulatory filings with the Eurasian Economic Commission, which every time I see

00:10:28 ◼   ► that I think of George Orwell, like there's just something about Eurasian. I know what

00:10:34 ◼   ► the word means, like and I know it's a real thing, but like every time I see it, it's

00:10:39 ◼   ► like it just trips something in the back of my brain. It really freaks me out but anyway,

00:10:45 ◼   ► there were some more approvals, regulatory approvals that suggest an iPhone. We saw this

00:10:53 ◼   ► recently with iPads right and that ended up becoming true because an iPad was released.

00:10:58 ◼   ► So logic would dictate at this point that if there is any iPhone going to be released,

00:11:04 ◼   ► it's probably gonna be an SE, right?

00:11:08 ◼   ► Because we've seen the red iPhone, iPhone 8,

00:11:12 ◼   ► it's very unlikely, in my opinion,

00:11:14 ◼   ► you guys can disagree if you want,

00:11:16 ◼   ► that we're gonna see any kind of change to the iPhone X.

00:11:20 ◼   ► It would seem, logically, that the SE would be something

00:11:25 ◼   ► if there was something just around the corner.

00:11:28 ◼   ► - Mm-hmm. - Right?

00:11:30 ◼   ► - Yeah, I think so.

00:11:31 ◼   ► I mean, I don't see any reason Apple would break

00:11:34 ◼   ► from the September release cycle for the other phones.

00:11:38 ◼   ► Like I said, we just saw the red eight,

00:11:40 ◼   ► so I can't imagine anything else

00:11:41 ◼   ► going on in the eight line either.

00:11:43 ◼   ► I mean, I think the only weird thing about this

00:11:47 ◼   ► is that there are several models listed in this paperwork,

00:11:51 ◼   ► and it kinda seems like a high number.

00:11:54 ◼   ► I think it said 11 different model numbers appeared,

00:11:58 ◼   ► and that seems really high.

00:11:59 ◼   ► So like-- - Well, it's like three colors,

00:12:01 ◼   ► three storage sizes.

00:12:05 ◼   ► It's not, I mean, I know that it's not possible.

00:12:06 ◼   ► - Well, the storage sizes don't change the model number,

00:12:08 ◼   ► I don't think. - Oh, really?

00:12:09 ◼   ► - But it may be that, so there's some countries

00:12:11 ◼   ► listed in here that don't have the SE now,

00:12:14 ◼   ► so maybe there's some regulatory stuff

00:12:15 ◼   ► that they've gotta do different model numbers

00:12:17 ◼   ► or different things.

00:12:18 ◼   ► It's a little unclear, but the SE's the only thing

00:12:20 ◼   ► that comes to mind, right?

00:12:21 ◼   ► I don't think they're gonna have a new low-cost,

00:12:26 ◼   ► new phone, right?

00:12:28 ◼   ► Oh, it's a 6S, but it's in a plastic case,

00:12:30 ◼   ► and we're calling it the 6SC,

00:12:32 ◼   ► like I don't think any of that's going on.

00:12:34 ◼   ► The most logical thing is that it is a new iPhone SE.

00:12:38 ◼   ► And you know, it seems like we kinda thought

00:12:40 ◼   ► it was gonna be the spring,

00:12:41 ◼   ► and so okay, maybe it's gonna be late spring or early summer,

00:12:44 ◼   ► but that's still roughly two years

00:12:46 ◼   ► from when it was announced.

00:12:48 ◼   ► If it's not the SE, then I think we're in for a surprise.

00:12:54 ◼   ► But it seems like to me like this is kinda like

00:12:57 ◼   ► the end of the window for the SE 2.

00:12:59 ◼   ► Like, if this phone is gonna get an update,

00:13:01 ◼   ► it seems like it's now or never.

00:13:03 ◼   ► Like if we get to September and there's still no SE2,

00:13:07 ◼   ► then it's definitely not happening.

00:13:08 ◼   ► But it feels like if Apple's gonna do it, now's the time.

00:13:11 ◼   ► And I think this kinda goes with that thought

00:13:15 ◼   ► that we're gonna see an updated low-end phone,

00:13:17 ◼   ► which would make a lot of people,

00:13:18 ◼   ► including my spouse, very happy.

00:13:21 ◼   ► - Yeah, I would expect, if I was gonna put money on this,

00:13:25 ◼   ► It's an iPhone SE that supports wireless charging,

00:13:29 ◼   ► but not much else.

00:13:31 ◼   ► I don't think it's gonna be any significant differences,

00:13:33 ◼   ► but I reckon it'll support wireless charging

00:13:35 ◼   ► and it comes out at the same time as AirPower.

00:13:37 ◼   ► - To do that, they gotta change the case.

00:13:38 ◼   ► So that may be more than they're willing to do.

00:13:43 ◼   ► I would not be surprised

00:13:44 ◼   ► if it does not have wireless charging, honestly.

00:13:46 ◼   ► - My only thinking is just because

00:13:49 ◼   ► I would expect anything would come with AirPower.

00:13:51 ◼   ► I mean, I expect everything's gonna come with AirPower,

00:13:53 ◼   ► right like as in an announcement time so like any press release in theory should

00:13:59 ◼   ► also include air power so like that's how I tie it up in my brain right air

00:14:03 ◼   ► power that like air power still has to be released yeah so if they release air

00:14:08 ◼   ► power alongside a phone that phone should also support wireless charging

00:14:12 ◼   ► like if air power had already come out I would expect that the iPhone SE might

00:14:16 ◼   ► not include wireless charging so I don't know I mean I think I see what you're

00:14:21 ◼   ► saying but I think that's but I think those two things aren't tied together at

00:14:25 ◼   ► all like air power is gonna ship whenever it ships and the SC2 will ship

00:14:28 ◼   ► whenever it ships and if they end up together or a part that wasn't planned a

00:14:32 ◼   ► year ago you know I think the name of the game with the SC is the price point

00:14:39 ◼   ► and we have built this model or this enclosure for a really long time and

00:14:45 ◼   ► super cheap now for Apple to do that and switching the metal back for glass

00:14:50 ◼   ► would disrupt both of those points

00:14:54 ◼   ► that I think are key to the SE's existence.

00:14:56 ◼   ► So I'd love to be surprised,

00:14:58 ◼   ► I'd love for it to have wireless charging,

00:15:00 ◼   ► but I just don't,

00:15:01 ◼   ► I really think it's gonna look the same as it does,

00:15:03 ◼   ► it's just gonna have the guts of a seven

00:15:04 ◼   ► instead of a 6S inside.

00:15:06 ◼   ► We'll see soon, I guess.

00:15:07 ◼   ► - Fingers crossed, right?

00:15:09 ◼   ► - Yeah, there was a conversation on Twitter this morning

00:15:11 ◼   ► that I wanted just to kinda visit Stephen Trout and Smith

00:15:14 ◼   ► and a few others were talking about,

00:15:16 ◼   ► hey, this filing shows that these phones are running iOS 11.

00:15:20 ◼   ► And there's there's kind of been a separate discussion about does it make sense for like,

00:15:28 ◼   ► like, what is iOS 11, and iOS 12, and the differences between them and what it's gonna

00:15:33 ◼   ► look like the summer.

00:15:35 ◼   ► But anything released before September, regardless of what happens at WDC is going to run iOS

00:15:41 ◼   ► 11, right that unless this phone is has leaked really early and historic.

00:15:46 ◼   ► So historically, we should back up historically, things show up on this list.

00:15:49 ◼   ► to four weeks before Apple announces them. And so we could assume by this that

00:15:53 ◼   ► whatever is in these model numbers is shipping before WWDC and well before

00:16:00 ◼   ► September. So even if Apple released a new iPhone in August, which would be

00:16:04 ◼   ► bananas, it's still going on iOS 11 and not 12. So I think the idea of like, "Oh these

00:16:10 ◼   ► are on iOS 11, what does that say?" I don't think that's like a thing because iOS 11

00:16:14 ◼   ► is here to stay until September. But we're gonna talk a little bit more about

00:16:18 ◼   ► about that, I think, after the break, right?

00:16:21 ◼   ► Yeah, we should talk about that, because there's

00:16:23 ◼   ► a lot that can get tied up with that, as like, what is 11,

00:16:26 ◼   ► what is 12.

00:16:27 ◼   ► So let's take a break and thank our first sponsor of this week,

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00:18:10 ◼   ► Alright so, let's talk about what we think is going to happen at WWDC.

00:18:17 ◼   ► So we spoke about on this show, I think Federico put it in his picks for the year, and then

00:18:23 ◼   ► there was some kind of, I think there was a Bloomberg report that seemed to suggest

00:18:26 ◼   ► the same, that this version of iOS this year would be mostly like, I don't know, a spit

00:18:32 ◼   ► and polish release, right?

00:18:33 ◼   ► They're just going to make sure that everything is tidied up, they're going to make sure that

00:18:37 ◼   ► All the bugs are taken care of and that is going to be like Apple's public focus of iOS

00:18:42 ◼   ► 11, right?

00:18:43 ◼   ► Like stabilize and improve.

00:18:47 ◼   ► No more bugs, right?

00:18:48 ◼   ► To try and get rid of a public perception of buggy software.

00:18:52 ◼   ► So if that's the case, what is best to name this version of iOS?

00:18:58 ◼   ► Do you want to call it iOS 12?

00:19:01 ◼   ► Because that would denote there's going to be some new features, which there obviously

00:19:04 ◼   ► will be, right?

00:19:05 ◼   ► they're not going to release a version of iOS without new features, even if they are

00:19:08 ◼   ► focusing mostly on bug fixes. Or do you double down and call it iOS 11.5 let's say to say

00:19:17 ◼   ► like hey we're still working on iOS 11 we're making it as good as it can possibly be so

00:19:22 ◼   ► because of that we're going to hold off the big features and we're going to make this

00:19:26 ◼   ► the most refined version of iOS ever because we're going to work on it over two years.

00:19:31 ◼   ► are some hints towards this I think in the sense that iOS 11.4 is still to drop and Federico

00:19:39 ◼   ► you can correct me if I'm wrong but has Apple ever got to a point four before of iOS?

00:19:44 ◼   ► I think with iOS 8 there used to be iOS 8.4 but that was a three years ago.

00:19:49 ◼   ► So it's rare?

00:19:51 ◼   ► It's rare yes.

00:19:52 ◼   ► Right like if they ever do it it is it is very rare for them to do especially because

00:19:56 ◼   ► they're still they still have iOS 11 features announced iOS we spoke about this a couple

00:20:01 ◼   ► weeks ago iOS 11 announced features that have not yet shipped like messages in

00:20:06 ◼   ► the cloud and Airplay 2. So I guess really that one of the big questions is

00:20:12 ◼   ► like what's in a name? What is the best name for a version of iOS that is for

00:20:18 ◼   ► bug fixes primarily if you're going for that from a marketing perspective? Do you

00:20:22 ◼   ► call that iOS 11 or do you call that iOS 12? And then on the flip side well what

00:20:27 ◼   ► if that's not gonna be what you'll focus on from a marketing perspective? Like you

00:20:31 ◼   ► are going to focus on it but you have other things too. If that's the case do

00:20:35 ◼   ► you go iOS 11 or do you go to iOS 12? Federica what do you think? I think

00:20:39 ◼   ► there's two variables that we need to consider right now. The first one is just

00:20:45 ◼   ► how big an effort it is for Apple this project marzipan. How much time and

00:20:50 ◼   ► resources they have invested into building this solution according to the

00:20:56 ◼   ► rumors to bring iOS apps to the Mac. And like what if WWDC comes by and of 90

00:21:03 ◼   ► minutes of keynote an entire hour is dedicated to Project Mars Japan and we

00:21:09 ◼   ► have 30 minutes to talk about watchOS and iOS. Is that possible? I don't know.

00:21:12 ◼   ► Is that likely? Maybe. I have no idea. It depends how big this project is. And the

00:21:19 ◼   ► second variable I think it's all in the messaging. It's all in the what

00:21:25 ◼   ► does Apple want people to think about the next version of iOS?

00:21:30 ◼   ► And this is a fascinating marketing and also kind

00:21:34 ◼   ► of strategic problem to have in the sense that the--

00:21:40 ◼   ► if you call it iOS 12, on one hand, you have the new factor.

00:21:45 ◼   ► It's new.

00:21:46 ◼   ► It's got a new number.

00:21:48 ◼   ► People get curious.

00:21:49 ◼   ► People want to install it because it's new.

00:21:51 ◼   ► It feels new.

00:21:52 ◼   ► It's got a new name.

00:21:54 ◼   ► On the other hand, it's yet another major software update

00:21:59 ◼   ► and people have kind of gotten scared and afraid

00:22:02 ◼   ► and worried about software updates

00:22:04 ◼   ► because they break things, they make their phones slower,

00:22:07 ◼   ► and iOS 11 kind of confirmed all of these conspiracy theories

00:22:11 ◼   ► that we had for years.

00:22:12 ◼   ► But then you may say, well, what if Apple comes out

00:22:16 ◼   ► and says, yes, we know it's a new software update,

00:22:19 ◼   ► what we promised for real this time.

00:22:21 ◼   ► this one, iOS 12, it's got a new name, but don't be scared because we focused on fixing things and

00:22:28 ◼   ► making it faster. It's got, you know, this chart with no, you know, this basis chart of crazy

00:22:34 ◼   ► performance improvements and all these bugs fixed, so you gotta install it. It comes out in September.

00:22:38 ◼   ► It's really wonderful, we promise you're gonna love it. Or, do you say, well, we wanted to focus on

00:22:46 ◼   ► improving the foundation of iOS. So instead of going towards another major version,

00:22:51 ◼   ► we're working with the one we have, we're releasing iOS 11.5, it's got minor changes for developers,

00:22:58 ◼   ► there's going to be a beta and SDK, but our primary focus this year is to make it faster

00:23:03 ◼   ► for everybody. And I kind of understand why some people think that the second timeline is possible,

00:23:12 ◼   ► that it's 11.5, that there's no real iOS 12 because we haven't heard any rumors.

00:23:17 ◼   ► But that's a major break with tradition and it's also potentially, you know, not calling it iOS 12,

00:23:27 ◼   ► not saying that there's a major new version of iOS. I wonder if the possible negative consequences

00:23:35 ◼   ► that you that Apple may face there, like what if the new iPhone comes out and it's still running

00:23:42 ◼   ► iOS 11 people don't see the differences, people don't buy the new phone.

00:23:46 ◼   ► Okay, there's going to be a bigger phone, but how important it is for the software that

00:23:51 ◼   ► runs on an iPhone to convince people to get the iPhone?

00:23:55 ◼   ► You might say, "Well, people just want to buy an iPhone, it doesn't matter what software

00:23:58 ◼   ► it runs."

00:23:59 ◼   ► I don't think that's entirely the case.

00:24:02 ◼   ► I think people are interested in the new phones because they also have new features, and new

00:24:09 ◼   ► new features are made possible by software. I struggle to imagine Apple doing iOS 11.5.

00:24:17 ◼   ► I find the theory fascinating, especially if Apple truly wants to double down and say

00:24:22 ◼   ► "No, no, no, we're not doing 12, we're postponing everything to next year, this year we're gonna

00:24:28 ◼   ► use what we have and make it better." Man, that would be really different from the entire

00:24:35 ◼   ► history of iOS essentially. So I don't know, I think maybe I guess that kind of messaging,

00:24:45 ◼   ► that kind of saying "we want to improve things, we want to make it better, we want to fix

00:24:50 ◼   ► bugs" can coexist with "it's called iOS 12, but don't be scared because it doesn't introduce

00:24:57 ◼   ► all these new things that will break your phone". I think the two can coexist and can

00:25:02 ◼   ► be the same OS.

00:25:04 ◼   ► It's got a major new number,

00:25:05 ◼   ► but also we focused on stability and speed.

00:25:08 ◼   ► - You know, looking at the landscape,

00:25:13 ◼   ► so you mentioned the history of this

00:25:16 ◼   ► is a new iOS update every year,

00:25:19 ◼   ► which like in and of itself,

00:25:21 ◼   ► before we talk about the future,

00:25:22 ◼   ► that's an incredible track record, right?

00:25:24 ◼   ► Like I, a couple months ago,

00:25:26 ◼   ► just spent some time kind of looking through old

00:25:29 ◼   ► iOS keynotes, and the rate of improvement,

00:25:32 ◼   ► especially in those first four or five years was bonkers.

00:25:36 ◼   ► But we are not, to your point,

00:25:40 ◼   ► in those first four to five years anymore.

00:25:43 ◼   ► And I think if you look at the industry as a whole,

00:25:47 ◼   ► you can see that there are other people

00:25:51 ◼   ► thinking in this way, right?

00:25:52 ◼   ► So like Windows 10, Microsoft has said,

00:25:54 ◼   ► it's like the last version of Windows, right?

00:25:56 ◼   ► Windows 10 is now sort of the brand,

00:25:58 ◼   ► and they have big updates,

00:26:01 ◼   ► They call them creator updates, the last couple ones,

00:26:03 ◼   ► 'cause they can't come up with another name, I guess.

00:26:06 ◼   ► And it's updates to Windows,

00:26:08 ◼   ► but it's still Windows 10, right?

00:26:10 ◼   ► That's different than what you had on the Mac,

00:26:13 ◼   ► where you had a decade of Mac OS X,

00:26:16 ◼   ► and now we're several years into the Mac OS era,

00:26:18 ◼   ► but each version still had its own unique branding.

00:26:22 ◼   ► And the updates were larger or smaller over time,

00:26:26 ◼   ► but they still had unique names and numbers,

00:26:31 ◼   ► and stuff, so I think if we're thinking about iOS 11.5

00:26:34 ◼   ► as being, it's the iOS 11 you've had for a year,

00:26:38 ◼   ► but we're making it better, we're focused on these things,

00:26:39 ◼   ► that's more like the Windows 10 idea than the Mac OS idea.

00:26:44 ◼   ► And I think it's a really interesting one,

00:26:47 ◼   ► especially 'cause we haven't seen it in mobile.

00:26:49 ◼   ► Like we haven't, we're just now seeing it on the desktop

00:26:52 ◼   ► with Windows 10 in the last couple of years,

00:26:55 ◼   ► but Android doesn't do this, right?

00:26:57 ◼   ► Android has every year or so a new major version

00:27:01 ◼   ► and it has its own branding and yes,

00:27:04 ◼   ► there are lots of people who don't know

00:27:05 ◼   ► what version of Android they're running,

00:27:06 ◼   ► but the people who care know.

00:27:09 ◼   ► Just like most people don't know exactly

00:27:10 ◼   ► what version of iOS they're running,

00:27:12 ◼   ► but the people who care, they know.

00:27:15 ◼   ► So this would be a big change

00:27:18 ◼   ► and one that I think even if Apple comes on stage

00:27:24 ◼   ► and they pull out the Snow Leopard card,

00:27:26 ◼   ► which I wanna come back to in a second,

00:27:28 ◼   ► but they say, you know, this year, for realsies,

00:27:32 ◼   ► fixing things, polishing things,

00:27:34 ◼   ► giving you the tools to do this other development work,

00:27:39 ◼   ► then maybe it's okay to slow down,

00:27:41 ◼   ► to have that number stay the same,

00:27:49 ◼   ► but I think that message only resonates with people

00:27:50 ◼   ► who are watching the keynote,

00:27:52 ◼   ► or who really pay attention to this.

00:27:54 ◼   ► and you look at something like the stock market

00:27:58 ◼   ► or like analysts and they would say,

00:28:01 ◼   ► "Oh, there's no iOS 12,"

00:28:03 ◼   ► and they've rained down hellfire on Apple for it.

00:28:06 ◼   ► And maybe that's enough for Apple to say,

00:28:08 ◼   ► "Hey, look, we are slowing down,

00:28:10 ◼   ► "but we're still gonna give it a new name."

00:28:11 ◼   ► And between us, it's kind of the same OS it's been,

00:28:15 ◼   ► but we need to give it a new name and a new number

00:28:17 ◼   ► because there are a segment of people

00:28:19 ◼   ► who are looking for that as an indicator

00:28:21 ◼   ► that we're moving forward,

00:28:22 ◼   ► whether or not we're actually moving forward

00:28:24 ◼   ► in ways that they would deem useful or not.

00:28:27 ◼   ► So they have to walk that line.

00:28:28 ◼   ► I don't know what the right answer is.

00:28:30 ◼   ► My guess is that we're gonna see iOS 12,

00:28:34 ◼   ► and it's going to basically be what you predicted

00:28:36 ◼   ► at the end of last year,

00:28:37 ◼   ► where it is bug fixes, polish, and improvement.

00:28:41 ◼   ► So it's not a major release by any stretch

00:28:43 ◼   ► of the imagination, but I'm just gonna be really surprised

00:28:46 ◼   ► if they stand up and say,

00:28:48 ◼   ► "We're sticking with iOS 11 for another year."

00:28:50 ◼   ► I don't think that you have to keep the number the same to say that you're fixing stuff.

00:28:57 ◼   ► You can just say you're fixing stuff.

00:28:59 ◼   ► And also, I think that if you say, "Oh, we're just fixing stuff so it's 11," it kind of

00:29:07 ◼   ► devalues the importance of bug fixes in an OS or just in software in general.

00:29:13 ◼   ► Like, "Oh, this is only fixes and improvements so we're not going to call it 12 because that's

00:29:20 ◼   ► that's not good enough for 12.

00:29:22 ◼   ► Do you know what I mean?

00:29:23 ◼   ► Like, it just seems a bit weird,

00:29:24 ◼   ► like in a developer conference to be like,

00:29:27 ◼   ► bug fixes aren't important, we're gonna do 'em,

00:29:30 ◼   ► but like, you know, you can't make money on those, right?

00:29:33 ◼   ► I don't know, like it just seems kind of weird to me

00:29:35 ◼   ► to say one thing and then not do the other.

00:29:39 ◼   ► Like you can't stand on stage and be like so proud

00:29:42 ◼   ► of the fact that you're gonna fix all of your bugs

00:29:45 ◼   ► and then not iterate the name of the OS.

00:29:48 ◼   ► For me, that's how it feels.

00:29:49 ◼   ► it would just be super weird to be like,

00:29:51 ◼   ► we've made a strong decision,

00:29:53 ◼   ► like we're really proud of this,

00:29:54 ◼   ► we're gonna make our software better than it's ever been,

00:29:56 ◼   ► and we're calling it iOS 11.5.

00:29:59 ◼   ► Like it just, it feels like it will kind of

00:30:01 ◼   ► take the wind out of the sails of standing there

00:30:04 ◼   ► and being like, everything's gonna be even better

00:30:06 ◼   ► than it's ever been.

00:30:08 ◼   ► Like you could just call it like the turbocharged version,

00:30:10 ◼   ► it's iOS 12, right, like it's faster and better.

00:30:13 ◼   ► - Crank to 11, and then one more.

00:30:15 ◼   ► - 11.11, that's what they're gonna call it.

00:30:18 ◼   ► But you know what I mean?

00:30:19 ◼   ► I understand the thinking of like,

00:30:22 ◼   ► it will probably be in spirit iOS 11.5, right?

00:30:26 ◼   ► Because if you look at how things have done in the past,

00:30:29 ◼   ► they're not gonna add any new major architectures.

00:30:32 ◼   ► But yeah, I also like it,

00:30:35 ◼   ► I know that we said the term major release or whatever

00:30:38 ◼   ► in the previous, like during this conversation,

00:30:40 ◼   ► I think we can all agree that like,

00:30:42 ◼   ► if Apple make a real effort of fixing everything,

00:30:46 ◼   ► It's major, but major in our vernacular here means,

00:30:49 ◼   ► here are the eight new features,

00:30:52 ◼   ► which you could never do before,

00:30:54 ◼   ► that are completely changing everything, right?

00:30:56 ◼   ► Like, here's a brand new way to interact with the iPad.

00:30:59 ◼   ► Here's the Files app, we're not expecting stuff that big,

00:31:02 ◼   ► and that is what has typically been considered

00:31:04 ◼   ► a major release.

00:31:05 ◼   ► There's still gonna be new features,

00:31:07 ◼   ► but they're probably gonna be quite small,

00:31:09 ◼   ► and there's probably gonna be bug fixes,

00:31:11 ◼   ► and that's kind of a stability release,

00:31:13 ◼   ► or something like that, right?

00:31:14 ◼   ► Like if you were going to give them like pin little names on them.

00:31:18 ◼   ► I do think it's interesting we keep coming back to this conversation.

00:31:20 ◼   ► So hi Sierra.

00:31:22 ◼   ► Hey Sierra.

00:31:24 ◼   ► Hi.

00:31:25 ◼   ► Apple didn't use that sort of language on stage.

00:31:30 ◼   ► They I mean they said yeah we're repolishing and stuff but really Federighi doubled down

00:31:35 ◼   ► on that during the live talk show and I think a lot of us including me who put it in my

00:31:41 ◼   ► headline in my review equated High Sierra with like a snow leopard moment

00:31:47 ◼   ► for like the modern Mac OS. Quote-unquote modern email mic. Because I think a lot

00:31:53 ◼   ► of us feel like we want that sort of release either on the Mac or on iOS or

00:32:01 ◼   ► both because we feel like things are broken or things are weird at the edge

00:32:05 ◼   ► cases or whatever it might be like you know we all have our bugs that we they're

00:32:09 ◼   ► are really just really sticking our minds.

00:32:11 ◼   ► And maybe there's more of them now, maybe there's fewer.

00:32:14 ◼   ► I have a hard time of judging the past fairly

00:32:18 ◼   ► because we have Rose-tinted glasses on.

00:32:23 ◼   ► And so there's all that at play in this conversation, right?

00:32:26 ◼   ► That is iOS 11 factually, on paper,

00:32:31 ◼   ► worse or buggier than iOS 8, 9, or 10?

00:32:36 ◼   ► - I don't think it is.

00:32:38 ◼   ► Yeah, I don't think it is either.

00:32:40 ◼   ► - No, I think it's one of those things

00:32:42 ◼   ► that just got perpetuated as a thing.

00:32:44 ◼   ► I think back to something like iOS 7.

00:32:46 ◼   ► iOS 7 was a disaster.

00:32:48 ◼   ► - Yes.

00:32:49 ◼   ► - Like, iOS 11, my phone isn't rebooting every day, right?

00:32:53 ◼   ► Like, I'm not getting weird graphical glitches.

00:32:56 ◼   ► Like, none of that stuff's happening.

00:32:57 ◼   ► That's what I consider to be a really bad release.

00:33:00 ◼   ► Like, iOS 11 is basically fine for me every single day

00:33:05 ◼   ► and has been since it was released.

00:33:07 ◼   ► but what people experience is different to them.

00:33:10 ◼   ► But I don't think that it is one of the,

00:33:13 ◼   ► like I've seen people say like,

00:33:14 ◼   ► "Oh, it's the worst version of iOS ever."

00:33:16 ◼   ► And I just don't agree with that.

00:33:18 ◼   ► Federico, do you feel that way?

00:33:20 ◼   ► - About iOS 11?

00:33:21 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:33:22 ◼   ► - No, I don't think it's the worst.

00:33:24 ◼   ► I think it's got problems, maybe more than 10,

00:33:29 ◼   ► because they're doing, you know,

00:33:30 ◼   ► a bunch more different things than 10.

00:33:34 ◼   ► - Right.

00:33:34 ◼   ► They introduced more things that could have problems.

00:33:36 ◼   ► - Yeah, like on the Springboard, for example,

00:33:39 ◼   ► stuff like that, I think it's more problematic than 10.

00:33:41 ◼   ► I don't think it's the worst version ever.

00:33:44 ◼   ► That's still iOS 7 to me.

00:33:47 ◼   ► - Yeah, and on the Mac side, you can ask,

00:33:50 ◼   ► is High Sierra, factually on paper,

00:33:52 ◼   ► worse than its predecessors?

00:33:53 ◼   ► I would say in some ways yes, in other ways no.

00:33:57 ◼   ► I think they've resolved most of those issues by now.

00:33:59 ◼   ► But that's something to keep in mind here

00:34:03 ◼   ► when we're talking about we want Apple to slow down.

00:34:05 ◼   ► That's part of it.

00:34:07 ◼   ► But I think the other part of it this year in particular

00:34:09 ◼   ► is if Project Marzipan is real,

00:34:11 ◼   ► and it's happening this year,

00:34:14 ◼   ► which it seems like it is,

00:34:15 ◼   ► then that's like,

00:34:17 ◼   ► that needs to go into this equation

00:34:18 ◼   ► in talking about iOS 11 and 12, right?

00:34:21 ◼   ► If Apple says,

00:34:22 ◼   ► "Hey developers,

00:34:24 ◼   ► "we haven't really added that many more APIs than iOS 12.

00:34:27 ◼   ► "We've really polished what's there

00:34:29 ◼   ► "because we want you to focus on,

00:34:31 ◼   ► "and we are focusing on this transition

00:34:34 ◼   ► to have iOS apps run on the Mac.

00:34:36 ◼   ► That feels like the other side of this coin to me.

00:34:39 ◼   ► Because iOS 11 on its own, like the two of you just said,

00:34:44 ◼   ► doesn't really demand this type of release on its own.

00:34:50 ◼   ► But if you factor in this other thing that may be going on

00:34:54 ◼   ► that we may be just six weeks away from hearing about,

00:34:57 ◼   ► then all of a sudden this conversation

00:34:59 ◼   ► makes a lot more sense to me,

00:35:00 ◼   ► where they can say, "iOS 11,

00:35:03 ◼   ► Marzipan apps, if you're targeted to iOS 11

00:35:08 ◼   ► and you're there, then this is gonna be a lot easier for you

00:35:11 ◼   ► and if not, we're gonna give you another year

00:35:13 ◼   ► to get to that point because we're not changing

00:35:14 ◼   ► that much in 12 and really this year is about

00:35:18 ◼   ► moving all this stuff to the Mac through this new fancy

00:35:23 ◼   ► magical framework that the three of us aren't developers

00:35:26 ◼   ► so we don't really understand.

00:35:28 ◼   ► That is like-- - It's just when you press

00:35:29 ◼   ► that button and make it a Mac app.

00:35:31 ◼   ► - Yeah, I think that's all it is.

00:35:32 ◼   ► - That's what it's gonna be.

00:35:33 ◼   ► Yeah, a button in Xcode. I hope it's like a real like old-school Aqua button, you know, it's like pulsating blue

00:35:39 ◼   ► No, I hope it's shaped like a block of marzipan, right? Like it's just a little cube and it's like it looks all nice

00:35:45 ◼   ► It's covered in icing sugar or something and you just do you guys actually like marzipan? I

00:35:50 ◼   ► Am allergic to nuts. Oh, okay. So Connie it almond. Mmm googling it

00:35:56 ◼   ► Okay. Yeah, that sounds like something I'd eat

00:35:59 ◼   ► Looks good

00:36:01 ◼   ► Well, oh my gosh, the Wikipedia page has marzipan molded into little pigs. That's adorable

00:36:07 ◼   ► Yeah, so that's one of the big uses of marzipan is it's that used for?

00:36:11 ◼   ► creating

00:36:14 ◼   ► Little figures to go on top of cakes. Yeah, because it's good for molding. Yeah

00:36:19 ◼   ► That'll be in the show notes

00:36:21 ◼   ► I'm I'm gonna I'm gonna make a note and start working on my jokes that marzipan would kill Myke

00:36:27 ◼   ► I feel like we have an entire catalog of possible jokes for the entire summer. So I'm gonna start my note here

00:36:34 ◼   ► Do you like marzipan Myke? No

00:36:37 ◼   ► Okay, so with the next episode the first episode that I take off after

00:36:42 ◼   ► WWDC you now have a reason for why I died Michael and death the marzipan Michael and death jokes about marzipan

00:36:49 ◼   ► It's now in the Apple notes app

00:36:51 ◼   ► Dot txt. No, it's not

00:36:55 ◼   ► Not in the database somewhere something something. I don't know some kind of HTML

00:37:01 ◼   ► Remember Evernote used to do what's the name of the weird?

00:37:07 ◼   ► E-nml

00:37:09 ◼   ► Yeah

00:37:10 ◼   ► E-nml an animal an animal an animal

00:37:13 ◼   ► It's an animal hmm. That's maybe that was the joke

00:37:17 ◼   ► I don't know the little elephant animal today's episode is brought to you by our amazing friends at Pingdom

00:37:23 ◼   ► The reason that Pingdom are awesome is because they help keep sites like ours online.

00:37:28 ◼   ► Pingdom monitor your site at all times so you don't ever have to.

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00:37:35 ◼   ► Let's be real, stuff breaks on the internet all the time every month.

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00:37:56 ◼   ► because if you put something on the internet, you want people to go to it, right? I think that's

00:38:00 ◼   ► typically why people put things online. If you have a public website, you want people to go to

00:38:04 ◼   ► that website. If they go to that website and it's down, that's a shame and you really don't want to

00:38:08 ◼   ► be in that situation where somebody sends you a tweet like, "Hey, your website's down, that's why

00:38:13 ◼   ► you want Pingdom." Because all you need to do, you give Pingdom the URL that you want to monitor,

00:38:17 ◼   ► they take care of the rest. If something bad's happening to your site, they will alert you in

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00:38:47 ◼   ► Our thanks to Pingdom for their support of this show, their support of Relay FM, and

00:38:51 ◼   ► also for letting us know when our website's down. I like it when I see those emails, like

00:38:55 ◼   ► Pingdom's like "Hey, there's a problem" and then I get another one a few minutes later.

00:38:59 ◼   ► No worries, I like it. They don't actually say that.

00:39:01 ◼   ► That's because I freaked out and fixed it.

00:39:05 ◼   ► Well that would be why then, wouldn't it? So I would like to thank Pingdom and Steven

00:39:09 ◼   ► this instance for making sure that our website stays online. In my mind it's just like "oh

00:39:14 ◼   ► it fixed itself!" That's what I think every time, but obviously it's you and I've just

00:39:18 ◼   ► realized that now so thank you buddy, I appreciate your hard work.

00:39:21 ◼   ► Apple news. A few weeks ago we spoke about the fact that Apple bought texture, well there

00:39:26 ◼   ► is a report on Bloomberg by Mark Gurman and Jerry Smith and they're reporting that Apple

00:39:30 ◼   ► is going to be integrating the texture team, even though there was some that got laid off,

00:39:34 ◼   ► which apparently is a peculiar thing for Apple, like they usually don't do that, they usually

00:39:39 ◼   ► just incorporate everybody but I would expect it's like salespeople or something right like

00:39:44 ◼   ► this like an arm of texture that Apple don't need. So they're going to be integrating the

00:39:49 ◼   ► rest of the texture team into Apple News to help them create a premium news service. So this is

00:39:56 ◼   ► something that you will pay for this is another push from Apple to generate revenue from services

00:40:02 ◼   ► will be my expectation will be why they're doing this. They want to increase that services revenue.

00:40:06 ◼   ► The updated news app is expected to launch within the next year with a portion of the

00:40:11 ◼   ► revenue that people pay going directly to the publishers of the magazines and publications

00:40:16 ◼   ► that decide to be part of this program.

00:40:19 ◼   ► So my question is, why is this not just Newsstand again?

00:40:23 ◼   ► Like will having a Netflix-style subscription help it succeed more than the pay-for-what-you-want

00:40:30 ◼   ► model did?

00:40:31 ◼   ► it will probably have a better icon this time around.

00:40:35 ◼   ► So there's that.

00:40:36 ◼   ► Do you remember that?

00:40:37 ◼   ► It was like a folder, but it was all wood grain.

00:40:39 ◼   ► - It was like a folder that opened on the home screen.

00:40:41 ◼   ► - Oh my gosh, and it was like a shelf, right?

00:40:44 ◼   ► 'Cause everything else was linen.

00:40:45 ◼   ► - Yeah, that was the original shelf.

00:40:47 ◼   ► - That was where the shelf is!

00:40:48 ◼   ► That's where it was!

00:40:50 ◼   ► The shelf!

00:40:51 ◼   ► They already did it, and it didn't work,

00:40:53 ◼   ► so they got rid of it.

00:40:54 ◼   ► - Oh, it was only five years late.

00:40:55 ◼   ► - Oh, I'm so sorry Federico.

00:40:56 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:40:57 ◼   ► - I mean, I think there's some--

00:40:58 ◼   ► - How is it taking us this long?

00:41:00 ◼   ► I think there's some big differences between that world

00:41:03 ◼   ► and this world.

00:41:04 ◼   ► So the texture product basically services content

00:41:08 ◼   ► from within magazines and it can,

00:41:10 ◼   ► you can go and read a magazine

00:41:12 ◼   ► or you can just go read articles.

00:41:13 ◼   ► And it can like decouple the content from the magazine

00:41:17 ◼   ► as opposed to back in the newsstand.

00:41:18 ◼   ► It's like I remember getting a new Macworld magazine

00:41:22 ◼   ► every month and my iPad downloading like a 400 megabyte file

00:41:27 ◼   ► because it was all just a stack of images, right?

00:41:30 ◼   ► And every month that'd be like,

00:41:34 ◼   ► cursing the name of Jason Snell that this wouldn't go faster

00:41:37 ◼   ► but that technology's gone, texture,

00:41:40 ◼   ► plus like the Apple News format,

00:41:41 ◼   ► I think that definitely plays a role here.

00:41:44 ◼   ► I think it will be a much better user experience

00:41:47 ◼   ► and if it's a better user experience,

00:41:48 ◼   ► people will be more likely to enjoy it when they use it.

00:41:53 ◼   ► The other thing that I think is interesting here,

00:41:55 ◼   ► to actually answer your question,

00:41:56 ◼   ► about a Netflix style subscription model is,

00:42:00 ◼   ► so if I go to Netflix,

00:42:02 ◼   ► there's a lot of stuff I really like there,

00:42:04 ◼   ► and there's also a lot of stuff I don't care about, right?

00:42:06 ◼   ► Or even actively dislike,

00:42:07 ◼   ► but it's fine because I feel like

00:42:09 ◼   ► what I watch out of Netflix and enjoy

00:42:11 ◼   ► is worth the money I give them each month.

00:42:14 ◼   ► And it's not about their whole catalog,

00:42:16 ◼   ► it's about what works for me.

00:42:18 ◼   ► And I think that will be a factor in this.

00:42:21 ◼   ► If people just wanna read, you know,

00:42:24 ◼   ► three or four or five magazines or newspapers

00:42:27 ◼   ► or other journalistic outlets in this new system

00:42:31 ◼   ► and they're paying for it, then they get to feel

00:42:34 ◼   ► like they're paying for what they want to support

00:42:35 ◼   ► and all that other stuff is just kind of there.

00:42:39 ◼   ► And it centralizes, right?

00:42:40 ◼   ► Like one problem I have in my household right now

00:42:42 ◼   ► is like some stuff we want to watch on this app

00:42:44 ◼   ► or this app over here and like we're paying

00:42:46 ◼   ► for more services all the time.

00:42:47 ◼   ► And that's sort of the same on the web

00:42:50 ◼   ► when it comes to news, right?

00:42:51 ◼   ► If I want to read Wired, I gotta pay for their paywall.

00:42:53 ◼   ► "I wanna read the New York Times or the Washington Post,

00:42:55 ◼   ► "I gotta pay for their paywall."

00:42:56 ◼   ► And it can, it may not be actually that much more a month

00:43:01 ◼   ► if it was all bundled, but it feels worse

00:43:03 ◼   ► because I'm getting hit for $5 all over the place, right?

00:43:06 ◼   ► And with Netflix, I don't ever feel like the cost

00:43:11 ◼   ► of like, oh, I wanna add a new TV show

00:43:13 ◼   ► to what I'm gonna watch this year, right?

00:43:14 ◼   ► Because I already pay for it, I'm already in the system,

00:43:17 ◼   ► it's all I can eat, I can just add stuff as I want,

00:43:20 ◼   ► and I don't have to feel that $5 a month.

00:43:23 ◼   ► Even though for me at least, and this is totally,

00:43:26 ◼   ► I'm in a privileged position,

00:43:27 ◼   ► an extra $5 a month is gonna make or break me,

00:43:30 ◼   ► that's fine, and so I've got that freedom,

00:43:32 ◼   ► but that's not true for everybody.

00:43:34 ◼   ► It's something like Netflix,

00:43:35 ◼   ► you have freedom within that world.

00:43:37 ◼   ► So I think it's really fascinating,

00:43:40 ◼   ► and I think it's already just where it sits today,

00:43:43 ◼   ► Apple's in a much stronger position

00:43:45 ◼   ► than it was in the newsstand days to make this work.

00:43:47 ◼   ► - Alright, before we move on, I have a question for you.

00:43:50 ◼   ► What Netflix shows do you actively dislike?

00:43:54 ◼   ► - That's a good question.

00:43:55 ◼   ► - 'Cause you mentioned it.

00:43:56 ◼   ► You were like, "There's some stuff I don't care about.

00:43:57 ◼   ► "There's some stuff that I actively dislike."

00:43:59 ◼   ► And I was like, "What is it that you like?"

00:44:02 ◼   ► - I started something a couple months ago

00:44:03 ◼   ► that was a Netflix video that I really didn't like,

00:44:05 ◼   ► but I don't remember what it was now.

00:44:06 ◼   ► It'll come to me. - Okay.

00:44:08 ◼   ► 'Cause it just seemed really interesting to be like,

00:44:09 ◼   ► I can imagine you flicking through Netflix,

00:44:11 ◼   ► like, "Oh God!"

00:44:12 ◼   ► And then you have to flick through again

00:44:13 ◼   ► 'cause you see that thing, it just makes your blood boil.

00:44:16 ◼   ► You're like, "Ugh!"

00:44:17 ◼   ► throw the $70 Apple TV remote at the wall. Imagine like Steven now sticking like a letter

00:44:23 ◼   ► on the fridge and be like "We as a family now dislike this program on Netflix." We are

00:44:30 ◼   ► not a House of Cards family, not in my house. So my question is, is this even something

00:44:38 ◼   ► that people actually want? Like do we want magazines like we want music or TV? And the

00:44:44 ◼   ► The reason that I think this is different to something like a Netflix or something like

00:44:48 ◼   ► an Apple Music is most publications that create magazines have a web version where they also

00:44:55 ◼   ► publish a lot of the same articles. Like you don't get like, Netflix don't put like select

00:45:03 ◼   ► episodes of their shows on YouTube except for pilots they do do that but that's not

00:45:07 ◼   ► my point here. It's like it's like random like they don't just take like episode three

00:45:11 ◼   ► and six and upload them to YouTube so you can still get them if you want to.

00:45:19 ◼   ► I just don't understand in today's world why someone would want to pay money upfront for

00:45:27 ◼   ► content that they can probably just get for free on the internet.

00:45:30 ◼   ► If a magazine produces something that is really good and they're really proud of it, you could

00:45:37 ◼   ► correct me if I'm wrong, but like if they have a web version, they will publish it

00:45:40 ◼   ► there so they get the views that they need. Yeah, this is where this discussion

00:45:44 ◼   ► loses me, in the sense that if you are a publisher, you have a website, and as you

00:45:53 ◼   ► said, there's much more money to be made by publishing a good story that you have

00:45:57 ◼   ► on the web. And so the way that I see magazines, and there are exceptions, you

00:46:02 ◼   ► know, like magazines for very specific audiences that they care about

00:46:05 ◼   ► about typography or design.

00:46:06 ◼   ► - That's a totally different model.

00:46:08 ◼   ► - That's a totally different word than model.

00:46:10 ◼   ► But the magazine, what is a magazine today?

00:46:13 ◼   ► The magazine is a backup copy that comes out once a month

00:46:17 ◼   ► that is physical and that you can put in the waiting room

00:46:20 ◼   ► at the doctor's office, like stuff like that.

00:46:23 ◼   ► It's a backup physical copy of stuff that is already online.

00:46:28 ◼   ► And the news is older and the facts are from

00:46:31 ◼   ► couple of weeks ago because it needed to be printed

00:46:34 ◼   ► and it needed to be shipped.

00:46:35 ◼   ► So what is a magazine actually today?

00:46:39 ◼   ► Why does Apple need to--

00:46:41 ◼   ► - What is a computer?

00:46:42 ◼   ► - Why does Apple need to make a service about magazines

00:46:47 ◼   ► where you can just go on the web and read articles

00:46:51 ◼   ► that are actually from a couple of hours ago?

00:46:53 ◼   ► - My only thinking is that this is being,

00:46:56 ◼   ► this only makes sense logically to me

00:46:59 ◼   ► if this is being reported incorrectly.

00:47:01 ◼   ► I just can't understand why you would want to sell magazines today. Like, why you think,

00:47:07 ◼   ► like, I have a great idea. We're going to sell magazines. Like, I just don't. Like,

00:47:14 ◼   ► I mean, they bought a company that was failing, right?

00:47:17 ◼   ► Nobody, nobody is nostalgic about magazines. You can make the argument that some, some

00:47:22 ◼   ► people like Casey or someone else, they want to buy vinyl and that type of music releases

00:47:28 ◼   ► because they have some nostalgic aspect. I mean besides...

00:47:32 ◼   ► You're gonna... People will... I mean... Okay, so...

00:47:34 ◼   ► Sure, sure, sure, yeah, whatever. I'm gonna get the comments from people that say that they sound

00:47:37 ◼   ► better, whatever. I believe... Let's say I believe you. Fine. Nobody is nostalgic about magazines.

00:47:44 ◼   ► Like, nobody wants more paper. Unless Asterisk, it's about a very specific audience, a very

00:47:49 ◼   ► specific type of magazine and all that. Like Edge.

00:47:52 ◼   ► Like Edge, for example. Me and you both bought Edge in October,

00:47:55 ◼   ► because it had Mario in it. But like, these are collectible things.

00:48:00 ◼   ► You know what? I wish I could read The Verge on paper.

00:48:04 ◼   ► Who did that? Who was it that did that? Was it C something? Oh my gosh, who did it?

00:48:11 ◼   ► CGP?

00:48:12 ◼   ► No, no, no. One of these… CNET! CNET made a magazine, right? Like a year ago.

00:48:17 ◼   ► Really? Seriously?

00:48:18 ◼   ► Yeah! Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. They made a magazine. I think they still sell it. Yeah,

00:48:23 ◼   ► - They've seen it in a magazine.

00:48:25 ◼   ► It's like a thing, and they made a physical magazine.

00:48:27 ◼   ► - My point is that magazines used to be a necessity

00:48:30 ◼   ► because there was no--

00:48:32 ◼   ► - Yes, 'cause it was how you got that information.

00:48:34 ◼   ► - Now you have a better way, so why make a service

00:48:37 ◼   ► about emulating something that is no longer necessary?

00:48:41 ◼   ► - So I think another distinction is that magazines were,

00:48:46 ◼   ► it was all bundled together, right?

00:48:49 ◼   ► So you had the cover article,

00:48:52 ◼   ► article and a couple other big features and then you had a bunch of smaller

00:48:58 ◼   ► stuff that filled it out. And something like Wired, which I got in them I got

00:49:02 ◼   ► wired in the mail for years and I love the big articles but Wired's little

00:49:08 ◼   ► columns, little one-page regular things were always so good and that's the sort

00:49:13 ◼   ► of stuff that the web doesn't really do well and something like texture could

00:49:21 ◼   ► bring back but that ship is probably already sailed because texture also

00:49:25 ◼   ► unbundles articles from the magazines they're in and Apple News unbundles

00:49:30 ◼   ► articles from the newspapers they're in so something like the New York Times

00:49:33 ◼   ► still makes it a print product and you can go buy it but the New York Times

00:49:37 ◼   ► also just does a bunch of articles that are like debundled and sort of islands

00:49:42 ◼   ► unto themselves and that's something that's not like that's not gonna change

00:49:47 ◼   ► It's not gonna go back, right,

00:49:49 ◼   ► because the web changed that permanently.

00:49:51 ◼   ► Something like Mac Stories or 512 Pixels

00:49:54 ◼   ► has a narrative thread through it,

00:49:56 ◼   ► but a lot of our articles--

00:49:58 ◼   ► - It's not the same.

00:49:59 ◼   ► - Yeah, a lot of our, you know,

00:50:00 ◼   ► you have an article that goes on the front page

00:50:01 ◼   ► of Hacker News and 30,000 people read it.

00:50:05 ◼   ► They don't have necessarily all the context

00:50:07 ◼   ► of who you are and the website and why you use the iPad

00:50:09 ◼   ► or why you collect old Macs.

00:50:11 ◼   ► And so the piece kinda has to stand on its own,

00:50:13 ◼   ► whereas in the past if Mac Stories was a monthly magazine

00:50:17 ◼   ► and my God, it would be awesome.

00:50:19 ◼   ► You know, like a print version of Mac Stories,

00:50:20 ◼   ► like nicely bound, I'm in for that.

00:50:23 ◼   ► - Okay.

00:50:24 ◼   ► - You would have all that context

00:50:25 ◼   ► because it's in your hands, right?

00:50:27 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:50:28 ◼   ► - You know, a Mac Stories magazine

00:50:30 ◼   ► with the Moeller Mac on the cover for April,

00:50:32 ◼   ► I think would be a really hot product.

00:50:34 ◼   ► But that should be sound.

00:50:36 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's gone.

00:50:36 ◼   ► - We live in a different time now.

00:50:38 ◼   ► - It's true.

00:50:39 ◼   ► - I mean, it doesn't appear to me

00:50:41 ◼   ► that the web publishing industry is dying, right?

00:50:44 ◼   ► Like, if that is what is happening,

00:50:47 ◼   ► then we're in a different world,

00:50:48 ◼   ► where like, then I might want to pay

00:50:51 ◼   ► to support 9to5Mac, The Verge, TechCrunch, and you know?

00:50:56 ◼   ► - So what's happened is, it's gone to the extreme.

00:50:58 ◼   ► So there's nobody middle-sized anymore,

00:51:01 ◼   ► there's no local newspaper anymore,

00:51:02 ◼   ► there's no magazines the size of Macworld anymore.

00:51:04 ◼   ► It is sites like The Verge and Wired and Tronc,

00:51:09 ◼   ► you know, owns a bunch of brands.

00:51:10 ◼   ► And then there's people like me in Federico,

00:51:12 ◼   ► who are like single or just a few people

00:51:16 ◼   ► making a decent living at it, but we're not moguls, right?

00:51:20 ◼   ► And really, FM is a business,

00:51:23 ◼   ► falls in that second category, not the first.

00:51:25 ◼   ► We're not some big giant with VC funding and stuff.

00:51:28 ◼   ► We're basically a small business producing a lot of content.

00:51:31 ◼   ► And the web is what forced that to happen,

00:51:34 ◼   ► but in that, there's a great leveling, right?

00:51:37 ◼   ► So yes, the middle ground is gone,

00:51:39 ◼   ► But what it gave us was the opportunity

00:51:42 ◼   ► for small content creators, small publishers,

00:51:46 ◼   ► to make a name for themselves.

00:51:47 ◼   ► So a guy from Rome with an iPad,

00:51:49 ◼   ► or a guy from Memphis with a bunch of old Macs,

00:51:51 ◼   ► could have a worldwide audience.

00:51:53 ◼   ► That's what the web gave us.

00:51:55 ◼   ► Now, can a texture-powered Apple news subscription

00:52:00 ◼   ► like do that again?

00:52:01 ◼   ► Probably not, but it is interesting

00:52:05 ◼   ► that these technologies do level the playing field

00:52:07 ◼   ► to a degree where the big do get bigger,

00:52:09 ◼   ► the rich do get richer, but at the same time,

00:52:12 ◼   ► it does allow independence to come in in a way that like,

00:52:15 ◼   ► in the magazine world, Federico and I

00:52:17 ◼   ► could not be publishers, right?

00:52:18 ◼   ► Like, before the internet, what we do was not possible.

00:52:22 ◼   ► Now it is, but at the same time, like,

00:52:25 ◼   ► giants like Vox Media didn't exist either.

00:52:27 ◼   ► You know, it's a weird thing that's happened.

00:52:29 ◼   ► - I think part of my feelings towards this,

00:52:33 ◼   ► I can actually look now and realize

00:52:36 ◼   ► The way I feel this way is because of how our businesses run.

00:52:39 ◼   ► We are advertising supported.

00:52:41 ◼   ► I know that if there was a system where people gave money and got our shows and it wasn't

00:52:47 ◼   ► advertising supported, I don't think we would be as successful as a business as we are now.

00:52:51 ◼   ► I just don't think that there is enough people that would just pay to get the content.

00:52:59 ◼   ► That's the model.

00:53:00 ◼   ► We have a membership scheme, which is amazing, but it's a support mechanism.

00:53:04 ◼   ► is a I want to support people and get something extra. Like if we said you have to pay to

00:53:10 ◼   ► get connected now, I don't think that we would make as much money as we make in advertising.

00:53:16 ◼   ► I just don't think that that would be the case because that's a completely different

00:53:20 ◼   ► business model at that point, right? And like to be able to get that, you have to do a lot

00:53:26 ◼   ► of things very, very differently to how we do them. Like you need to have a lot of money

00:53:31 ◼   ► behind you because you need to market your product.

00:53:34 ◼   ► We don't do that, right?

00:53:35 ◼   ► It's a very different business.

00:53:37 ◼   ► And I think that's why I feel this way where it's like, I just don't see magazines or publications

00:53:43 ◼   ► creating content that is completely behind this paywall that they won't release for free

00:53:48 ◼   ► elsewhere and that they will somehow make a ton of money because they're in Apple's

00:53:52 ◼   ► news program.

00:53:53 ◼   ► It just doesn't make sense to me that it will happen that way because I just look at my

00:53:58 ◼   ► own business and I look at what our numbers are and I know why we do it the way we do

00:54:03 ◼   ► it in the same reason that The Verge isn't a magazine, right? And that Wired is putting

00:54:09 ◼   ► all their stuff online. The reason that Macworld shut down their magazine, right? These are

00:54:13 ◼   ► the reasons because free with ads will always make more in this type of industry than paid

00:54:19 ◼   ► up front. Like if you are producing this kind of content because it's been created under

00:54:26 ◼   ► these pretenses for such a long period of time that it is valued in that way. The same

00:54:31 ◼   ► way that people think apps are free because people made them free and now they're valued

00:54:36 ◼   ► as free. That's just what happens if you drive the content towards free with some kind of

00:54:43 ◼   ► supporting, typically advertising, then you value it that way. And people like us, we

00:54:50 ◼   ► make our businesses based on that and we're fine with it. I have no problem releasing

00:54:54 ◼   ► this show for free because it has ads on it. My business is built that way, I have no problem

00:54:58 ◼   ► with it. But if I'm going to start saying to people, "Now you need to pay me," my business

00:55:03 ◼   ► is so different in a way that I just don't think that any publication is going to significantly

00:55:08 ◼   ► change their business model to go all in on Apple's news service. And because people won't

00:55:13 ◼   ► go all in on it, it won't work. People will put the thing on Apple News and it will cost

00:55:19 ◼   ► five dollars and they'll say, "Oh, but in two weeks time, it's on our website." People

00:55:23 ◼   ► will wait or they won't care.

00:55:24 ◼   ► - Yeah, and I also struggle to imagine how

00:55:28 ◼   ► if you are a creator and if you make stuff online,

00:55:31 ◼   ► even if you either work for The Verge

00:55:34 ◼   ► or you have your own small business like Steven and I,

00:55:37 ◼   ► medium business really, you make a good living, right?

00:55:41 ◼   ► And you're free to do whatever you want.

00:55:43 ◼   ► Why would you want to jump on board

00:55:45 ◼   ► with a proprietary system that locks you

00:55:47 ◼   ► into a specific platform and it gives you that kind of,

00:55:50 ◼   ► it gives you a quote unquote advantage

00:55:52 ◼   ► in that you gain quote unquote exposure

00:55:55 ◼   ► by being on the platform, but then guess what?

00:55:57 ◼   ► You're just-- - What about everyone on Android?

00:55:59 ◼   ► - What about everybody else?

00:56:01 ◼   ► And I cannot stress this enough.

00:56:03 ◼   ► I get emails from people, right?

00:56:04 ◼   ► I get emails from people who say,

00:56:06 ◼   ► "I wanna start my own blog,

00:56:07 ◼   ► "but I feel like everybody now has a blog

00:56:09 ◼   ► "and I don't really know what I'm supposed to,

00:56:13 ◼   ► "how am I supposed to be different

00:56:14 ◼   ► "from everybody else at this point?"

00:56:16 ◼   ► And I get these comments from people that say,

00:56:19 ◼   ► "Maybe I should be on this very specific platform,

00:56:21 ◼   ► or should I use this plugin?

00:56:23 ◼   ► And my advice is always no, don't use any plugin.

00:56:27 ◼   ► Don't jump on board on any locked in platform.

00:56:30 ◼   ► There's this crazy beautiful thing called the web

00:56:32 ◼   ► and it lets you publish HTML pages

00:56:35 ◼   ► in whatever look or form you want

00:56:38 ◼   ► and everybody can read you.

00:56:39 ◼   ► And then you're free to do whatever you want.

00:56:41 ◼   ► And that is why I am uncomfortable.

00:56:43 ◼   ► Every time I have to use a service,

00:56:47 ◼   ► when it comes to Mac stories,

00:56:48 ◼   ► when it comes to the stuff that you see on my website,

00:56:50 ◼   ► Even the service that handles our membership stuff, I am a bit uncomfortable about the

00:56:56 ◼   ► fact that it's not entirely managed by me.

00:57:00 ◼   ► Because what if the people at Memberful, some day they change their minds and they say,

00:57:05 ◼   ► "No, enough with the memberships.

00:57:06 ◼   ► Now we're going to do something else."

00:57:08 ◼   ► And jumping on board with these services and saying, "We're going to make you read our

00:57:13 ◼   ► articles.

00:57:14 ◼   ► If you give us $5 and they're only on Apple News for three weeks, there is a terrible

00:57:18 ◼   ► business decision.

00:57:19 ◼   ► And you may love Apple.

00:57:20 ◼   ► I like Apple, I like what they do, but I wouldn't put my words and my creations into a platform

00:57:27 ◼   ► that yes, can reach millions of people, but also it's not entirely under your control

00:57:31 ◼   ► and it's made by a corporation that ultimately they don't care about you living in Rome and

00:57:36 ◼   ► writing a blog about the iPad.

00:57:39 ◼   ► Not because they're evil, but because it's not in there.

00:57:42 ◼   ► They're also running a business and the business is about not caring about these details.

00:57:47 ◼   ► I don't know. I think we're all kind of in agreement to this. It's like you have to sell this super hard and make it very

00:57:54 ◼   ► compelling for it to be something that people will want and

00:57:57 ◼   ► History would indicate that that probably won't happen and

00:58:03 ◼   ► You know the only way I can see something like this working is if this is bundled as part of a larger

00:58:12 ◼   ► subscription that includes something like music and news like if you're saying oh

00:58:16 ◼   ► Like sorry music and TV and then it all says it's new stuff. It's like oh, yeah, like

00:58:21 ◼   ► by the way, we've also working with these

00:58:25 ◼   ► Magazine publishers to provide you this content like then maybe people it might get in front of enough people because they want to get the TV

00:58:33 ◼   ► Shows or whatever, but like a separate subscription just for Apple news

00:58:37 ◼   ► I think that that is a huge ask to try and convince people why they would want to buy that

00:58:43 ◼   ► that. And it's a shame, it's a shame, right, that content is valued this way, but it's

00:58:49 ◼   ► not a shame that people can make businesses still, right? Like, I think it's only a real

00:58:53 ◼   ► shame if, like, no one can actually make money writing on the web. That's not the case, right?

00:58:59 ◼   ► So it's harder than it used to be, but it's still possible. Yeah, I mean, everything always

00:59:06 ◼   ► gets harder and then new things come along, right? Like, I think it's easier to make money

00:59:10 ◼   ► in podcasting now than it is in writing on the web. That's just because it's a new medium

00:59:14 ◼   ► that's come along. And then one day it's going to be hard to make money in podcasting and

00:59:18 ◼   ► it will be like, I don't know, AR programming.

00:59:22 ◼   ► Relay VR. Relay.VR.

00:59:24 ◼   ► You heard it here first, everyone. It's just to change the industry. It's like, I agree,

00:59:29 ◼   ► it's harder to make money writing online now because I think so many people have tried

00:59:33 ◼   ► to do it. It's saturated it and then there's new models that come along, like video and

00:59:38 ◼   ► audio. That's where the money is now, right? So that's just the march of time. And I don't

00:59:44 ◼   ► think that premium Apple news is going to be the savior of the industry. I mean, I kind

00:59:51 ◼   ► of don't really understand why they're doing it because a paid for service goes against

00:59:57 ◼   ► a lot of what was being said about having trusted news sources or whatever. You don't

01:00:01 ◼   ► have to pay Apple to get that, right? Like if the idea is bringing more trusted news

01:00:06 ◼   ► sources to the people, you give them that for free, right? You don't make them charge

01:00:10 ◼   ► for it. Like, so you want to like all this stuff is like rubbing against each other in

01:00:14 ◼   ► ways that doesn't make sense to me. Obviously, because none of it is actually, we don't know

01:00:19 ◼   ► anything, right? And it's all just conjecture, but I'm intrigued to see what they do. I hope

01:00:24 ◼   ► it doesn't take 45 minutes at WWDC and Drake comes out and like talks about his new article.

01:00:32 ◼   ► His new article? Drake, Drake has read it.

01:00:36 ◼   ► Who would come out instead? Like Malcolm Gladwell or something? Like comes out wearing apples,

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01:01:19 ◼   ► and FM would indicate to you that maybe audio is involved, right? That is a thing that has

01:01:24 ◼   ► become over time, right? If you see .net, it's on the internet, right Federico? That's

01:01:28 ◼   ► how that works. That's why you got Macstories.net to tell everyone I'm on the internet.

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01:02:51 ◼   ► So there were some app updates today that I liked the look of and of course if there

01:02:56 ◼   ► is a cool app update in the world, you can find the coverage of that over at the internet

01:03:01 ◼   ► website MacStories. Which is on the internet. A couple of them, it's on the internet, that's

01:03:06 ◼   ► why you got the .net. I know, I understand how this stuff works, that's how the internet

01:03:10 ◼   ► works. I get it, I get it, it's like Myke Hurley .net, I'm on the internet. That's what

01:03:15 ◼   ► it means. Drag and drop support in Dropbox, so a long time coming but they've implemented

01:03:22 ◼   ► it pretty well. When I saw the app update I was like "oh this is just going to be one

01:03:26 ◼   ► of those things where I'm able to drag and drop stuff around inside of the application"

01:03:30 ◼   ► which is useful because sometimes when files app fails me I go to Dropbox and I'm always

01:03:36 ◼   ► frustrated by like hitting the dots and hitting move and then going through all the different

01:03:41 ◼   ► files, but now you can drag and drop stuff around inside of Dropbox but also in and out

01:03:46 ◼   ► of the application as well which I was really happy about because there was you know I was

01:03:49 ◼   ► thinking are they going to pull a Google on me but no they did not so you can drag files

01:03:54 ◼   ► in and out and how have you found that Federico I'm sure that you were excited about this

01:03:58 ◼   ► too. Yeah I think it works nicely. First I had some issues but then it worked fine. I

01:04:04 ◼   ► was able to export text files. They export it as the full text content of the document.

01:04:11 ◼   ► Images, screenshots. I haven't tried with audio and video files because those are heavy

01:04:16 ◼   ► and I feel like that was going to break something, but it works really nicely. You can import

01:04:22 ◼   ► documents from other apps into Dropbox, you can manage files within the Dropbox UI, and

01:04:28 ◼   ► then you can export them. So I try to share them to Mail, to Messages, to Gladys, which

01:04:34 ◼   ► is the shelf app that I use, and it worked really, really nicely. So good job.

01:04:39 ◼   ► Keep your magazines in there, right? That's what that means, it's a magazine app?

01:04:42 ◼   ► It's a magazine app where I print out copies of 512 pixels in magazine form.

01:04:49 ◼   ► And you bind them together.

01:04:50 ◼   ► And I just bind them together and I read Steven's words as a magazine.

01:04:55 ◼   ► Every six months I catch up on the entire 512.

01:04:57 ◼   ► Oh come on!

01:04:58 ◼   ► So I see you man, I need to be cut out.

01:05:06 ◼   ► He does it on the 5th of December and on the 12th of May.

01:05:09 ◼   ► That's when he does it.

01:05:11 ◼   ► Just only then.

01:05:12 ◼   ► pick 512 day no matter what date format you use if you use the correct one or the incorrect

01:05:18 ◼   ► one. I'll let you decide which is which.

01:05:20 ◼   ► And if you ever wonder why I ask you about everything about your articles at WWDC it's

01:05:25 ◼   ► because I'm fresh from my read-through.

01:05:27 ◼   ► Oh boy.

01:05:30 ◼   ► Oh no.

01:05:33 ◼   ► Zapier support added for things. Things 3.5 it brought a bunch of refinements.

01:05:41 ◼   ► - I mean, kind of.

01:05:42 ◼   ► - Including Zapier support.

01:05:44 ◼   ► What, what's the problem?

01:05:46 ◼   ► - They're using the mail to things feature.

01:05:50 ◼   ► So it's not like there's a things API.

01:05:54 ◼   ► - Yeah, 'cause they have, so they have their own sync engine

01:05:57 ◼   ► so at some point they could do that if they wanted to, right?

01:06:01 ◼   ► It's like they're stuck in an iCloud container somewhere

01:06:04 ◼   ► they can't get to.

01:06:04 ◼   ► - Right, right.

01:06:05 ◼   ► - So hopefully that's coming, like do you have any indication

01:06:07 ◼   ► that they may be looking at that at some point

01:06:09 ◼   ► or do you think this is it?

01:06:10 ◼   ► I don't, I don't, but I mean technically it's possible, but also technically I could fly

01:06:15 ◼   ► somehow.

01:06:18 ◼   ► So if you strap wings big enough to yourself you could fly.

01:06:21 ◼   ► Exactly, I could, but I don't have any indication of that.

01:06:26 ◼   ► So we are making so many people angry, like just, you know, like developers and just people

01:06:32 ◼   ► that write mags, everyone's going to be mad at us this week.

01:06:34 ◼   ► Steven, I'm sorry about your email.

01:06:37 ◼   ► I mean, if you have an opinion, someone is going to be upset.

01:06:41 ◼   ► That's true.

01:06:42 ◼   ► So what do we need to do here?

01:06:46 ◼   ► Things 3.5, I think it's interesting,

01:06:48 ◼   ► because they are-- so I was taking

01:06:51 ◼   ► a look at the release notes.

01:06:53 ◼   ► They fixed a lot of weird UI inconsistencies and glitches.

01:06:58 ◼   ► They made a bunch of things better.

01:07:00 ◼   ► So the widget is cleaner.

01:07:02 ◼   ► It's got these icons that inform you

01:07:04 ◼   ► whether something is due during the day or in the evening.

01:07:07 ◼   ► There's a bunch of changes to the automation stuff

01:07:10 ◼   ► that they did with version 3.4.

01:07:11 ◼   ► So now you can update in addition to create data

01:07:15 ◼   ► inside of things, you can update existing tasks

01:07:18 ◼   ► and existing projects.

01:07:20 ◼   ► That's really a good idea.

01:07:22 ◼   ► There's changes to the way the tagging works.

01:07:26 ◼   ► So there's a search bar that allows you to search for a tag

01:07:29 ◼   ► and also create a new one if it doesn't exist.

01:07:31 ◼   ► when you search for tags, you also see the nested ones

01:07:36 ◼   ► inside the main one, if it's a tag group,

01:07:39 ◼   ► I think it's a name.

01:07:40 ◼   ► So there's a bunch of things that they actually call this,

01:07:43 ◼   ► I think in their blog post, the spit and polish release,

01:07:46 ◼   ► because they--

01:07:47 ◼   ► - That's definitely why that phrase was in my head.

01:07:50 ◼   ► I said spit and polish earlier.

01:07:51 ◼   ► - I thought so.

01:07:52 ◼   ► - And I thought to myself, why did I say that?

01:07:54 ◼   ► - That was my guess. - And because I read that.

01:07:56 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:07:57 ◼   ► Wow, brains are just stupid things, aren't they really?

01:08:00 ◼   ► They're just like sponges.

01:08:03 ◼   ► Yeah, so that was why I said that.

01:08:05 ◼   ► Okay, interesting.

01:08:06 ◼   ► - I am looking forward to see whether they,

01:08:08 ◼   ► now that they've done these two things.

01:08:10 ◼   ► So with version 3.4, they did automation.

01:08:14 ◼   ► And with 3.5, they kind of polished everything up.

01:08:17 ◼   ► So it feels to me as if they are ready

01:08:20 ◼   ► for kind of tackling something big in the next release

01:08:25 ◼   ► because they took care of the foundation a little bit.

01:08:29 ◼   ► And now, I mean, I would love to see some iPad updates

01:08:34 ◼   ► because things on the iPad is fine,

01:08:36 ◼   ► but it could be so much more.

01:08:39 ◼   ► It doesn't really take advantage of the iPad

01:08:41 ◼   ► in any meaningful ways.

01:08:42 ◼   ► There's a lot of white space.

01:08:43 ◼   ► There's no real drag and drop support.

01:08:46 ◼   ► You can drop stuff in,

01:08:47 ◼   ► but you cannot manage via native drag and drop

01:08:50 ◼   ► and you cannot export via drag and drop.

01:08:53 ◼   ► There's a bunch of things that they could borrow

01:08:55 ◼   ► from the Mac and bring them to the iPad.

01:08:57 ◼   ► So, so we'll see.

01:08:59 ◼   ► But the big app today is a kind of update,

01:09:02 ◼   ► kind of new release, right?

01:09:03 ◼   ► It's Drafts 5.

01:09:05 ◼   ► And I was listening to Upgrade this week

01:09:09 ◼   ► and Mel was filling in for me

01:09:11 ◼   ► and he was waxing lyrical about Drafts 5,

01:09:15 ◼   ► but it was on its way out.

01:09:17 ◼   ► The app is now out today

01:09:19 ◼   ► and there is a huge review over at Max Stories,

01:09:22 ◼   ► which I'm assuming if it's a huge review,

01:09:24 ◼   ► surely Federico wrote it, right?

01:09:26 ◼   ► Doesn't he write all the big reviews?

01:09:27 ◼   ► It wasn't you Federico?

01:09:28 ◼   ► - It wasn't me. - Well, well.

01:09:31 ◼   ► - Yeah, I was approached last year.

01:09:34 ◼   ► We looked in the original email thread.

01:09:35 ◼   ► It was in May 2017.

01:09:37 ◼   ► So Tim, and I'm gonna get his last name wrong, Nahumk.

01:09:41 ◼   ► I'm not sure how to say this last name.

01:09:44 ◼   ► How would you say it, Myke?

01:09:46 ◼   ► - Like you just did.

01:09:47 ◼   ► I mean, honestly, like this is one of those names

01:09:49 ◼   ► and Tim knows this.

01:09:50 ◼   ► Tim has lived his entire life

01:09:52 ◼   ► having people pronounce his name incorrectly, right?

01:09:54 ◼   ► Surely it's N-A-H-U-M-C-K

01:09:57 ◼   ► because that UMCK sound, that like isn't a sound in English, right? I can't think of

01:10:03 ◼   ► any word in the English language that has those collection of characters next to each

01:10:07 ◼   ► other. Right? Nahunk. I guess it's like that. Nahunk. But anyway, so yes, don't feel bad

01:10:14 ◼   ► about it, I would expect.

01:10:15 ◼   ► So Tim approached me. Tim is the person that knows the most about drafts. I mean, besides

01:10:22 ◼   ► Greg Pierce, the developer.

01:10:24 ◼   ► like the Federico Vitticchio workflow.

01:10:27 ◼   ► Okay, yeah, I suppose that's a way to put it. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, he's passionate

01:10:34 ◼   ► about it. He wrote about what he wanted to see in Drafts 5. He had like a concept/wishlist

01:10:43 ◼   ► article two years ago. And if you look at his original wishlist, it's very close to

01:10:48 ◼   ► of what we actually got. So he knows drafts in and out. And he approached me last year

01:10:55 ◼   ► and was like, "I know that Greg has started working on this and I would love to write

01:11:00 ◼   ► about it for Max Stories." I was like, "Yes, I would love it if you took care of this."

01:11:05 ◼   ► For a couple of reasons. One, because I'm sort of moving to a model or to a kind of

01:11:13 ◼   ► set up for Max Stories. What I want to have like my, like a sort of team, I want to find

01:11:19 ◼   ► new talent for people that are really passionate about specific topics and to bring them in

01:11:26 ◼   ► and to have, there's a word for this that I'm missing, like an incubator, but it's not

01:11:30 ◼   ► really an incubator. I mean, it's not like a physical official place, but I want Max

01:11:34 ◼   ► Stories to be...

01:11:35 ◼   ► You're like a mother hen.

01:11:36 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:11:37 ◼   ► You want to incubate.

01:11:38 ◼   ► Yes.

01:11:39 ◼   ► Right?

01:11:40 ◼   ► That's what I do. But I, you know, there's a bunch of apps that are really popular that

01:11:47 ◼   ► I don't use and that I don't…

01:11:50 ◼   ► Tim has tweeted at us. It's Na Hummock.

01:11:54 ◼   ► Oh, really?

01:11:55 ◼   ► There you go.

01:11:56 ◼   ► Okay.

01:11:57 ◼   ► Real time follow up.

01:11:58 ◼   ► Na Hummock.

01:11:59 ◼   ► Na Hummock. Okay.

01:12:00 ◼   ► Na Hummock.

01:12:01 ◼   ► Na.

01:12:02 ◼   ► Na Hummock. There you go. It's like Na Hummock. There you go. We got it. Okay, great.

01:12:08 ◼   ► It's like, do you want a snack? Nah, hummus. Nah, hummock. Again, every time we do this,

01:12:16 ◼   ► what if it's French? And it's Nahumick? Or... What if? See, now we're not sure anymore.

01:12:22 ◼   ► Anyway, to sum it up, Tim knows a lot about drafts. I want to have people who know a lot

01:12:27 ◼   ► about stuff that I don't use, write for Mac stories. So it was a perfect plan, and he

01:12:32 ◼   ► worked on this review for months. It's out today. It's on four pages on the site. If

01:12:38 ◼   ► If you're a Club Maxories member, you can get the ebook version.

01:12:41 ◼   ► There's a ton of actions that you can download and steal because team made those available

01:12:46 ◼   ► for you.

01:12:47 ◼   ► And I'm actually doing this because I don't know a lot about Drafts 5.

01:12:50 ◼   ► And I downloaded all of team's actions and I'm modifying them to my needs.

01:12:55 ◼   ► It's really fun.

01:12:56 ◼   ► But I wanted to tell you, Myke, that I listened to Upgrade and Merlin said I don't want to

01:13:01 ◼   ► get into the specifics of Drafts 5.

01:13:04 ◼   ► And that was an excellent discussion.

01:13:05 ◼   ► But I do want to get in the specific features of this version.

01:13:09 ◼   ► I want to talk about the specifics.

01:13:10 ◼   ► This is the relay of Relay, right?

01:13:12 ◼   ► So like Merlin set it up and he passed it over to you and now you're gonna just give

01:13:17 ◼   ► us some specifics.

01:13:18 ◼   ► Yes.

01:13:19 ◼   ► So there's a few features that I want to highlight.

01:13:21 ◼   ► And the first one, and it's the big focus of the review, is the idea of drafts being

01:13:28 ◼   ► a modular app.

01:13:31 ◼   ► This is not about Mac Pro.

01:13:32 ◼   ► So if you're a Mac user and the word "modular" is some kind of trigger for you, I'm sorry,

01:13:38 ◼   ► this is not about processors and RAM and storage, whatever.

01:13:42 ◼   ► Could be, if you want it to be.

01:13:44 ◼   ► I mean, sure, anything could be modular if you really want to.

01:13:47 ◼   ► Yeah, if you just cut it up into pieces and put it back together again.

01:13:51 ◼   ► Can you cut an app into pieces?

01:13:54 ◼   ► Modular is more of an emotional concept than it is...

01:13:59 ◼   ► Modular is a state of mind.

01:14:01 ◼   ► It is from Matt Crowe.

01:14:08 ◼   ► Anyway.

01:14:09 ◼   ► We'll get there.

01:14:12 ◼   ► We'll get there.

01:14:14 ◼   ► We'll get there.

01:14:15 ◼   ► We'll get there.

01:14:16 ◼   ► It's okay.

01:14:17 ◼   ► You know, everyone's sticking around for the draft tips.

01:14:23 ◼   ► There's this feature called workspaces that basically means you can create saved views

01:14:30 ◼   ► that require you to modify a bunch of settings.

01:14:34 ◼   ► So like you can say, I wanna see all my drafts

01:14:37 ◼   ► that have the tag, which is a new feature,

01:14:38 ◼   ► you can now tag your notes, that have the tag articles,

01:14:43 ◼   ► and I wanna sort them by creation date,

01:14:46 ◼   ► and I wanna hide the preview.

01:14:47 ◼   ► So like in the Finder on the Mac, for example,

01:14:49 ◼   ► you can have different types of views.

01:14:52 ◼   ► Now you can save these views in drafts

01:14:54 ◼   ► and you call them workspaces,

01:14:56 ◼   ► and you can switch between them from the main sidebar.

01:14:59 ◼   ► I think we need to back up like just two steps and just like very quickly give an overview

01:15:05 ◼   ► of what Drafts is.

01:15:06 ◼   ► Oh, it's a note-taking app.

01:15:08 ◼   ► It's a note-taking app that allows you and what's always made it so powerful and the

01:15:12 ◼   ► reason that people like it is it is a simple view where you can put any text but then the

01:15:16 ◼   ► power comes in what you can then do with that text like sending it to different services,

01:15:21 ◼   ► manipulating it in different ways.

01:15:23 ◼   ► So like for example if you had an articles workspace it may be anything you type in here

01:15:29 ◼   ► there are a bunch of predefined actions that can send it to a certain place, send it to a certain

01:15:34 ◼   ► person, that kind of thing. So you might write a paragraph and then send it to another application

01:15:39 ◼   ► to append it to something, or send it to your editor or something, right? That might be what

01:15:44 ◼   ► you might want to have predefined actions to take on a snippet of text. Yeah, so the workspaces now

01:15:52 ◼   ► allow you to set up different spaces in the app for whether it's writing quick notes or long

01:15:58 ◼   ► form articles or like a journal, for example,

01:16:02 ◼   ► you can journal in drafts and you can switch

01:16:04 ◼   ► between workspaces on the left and you can switch

01:16:07 ◼   ► between action groups on the right side.

01:16:10 ◼   ► So this was already possible

01:16:12 ◼   ► in the previous version of drafts, but now it's easier

01:16:15 ◼   ► and it's done better on the iPad.

01:16:17 ◼   ► You can actually pin one of the two sidebars

01:16:22 ◼   ► in there on the either on the left or the right.

01:16:24 ◼   ► There's a divider that you can tap

01:16:26 ◼   ► and you can have like a multi column view

01:16:28 ◼   ► which is really nice.

01:16:29 ◼   ► And this idea of using the same app for different purposes

01:16:33 ◼   ► and having a built-in way to switch between these spaces

01:16:38 ◼   ► and these action groups, I think it's really powerful.

01:16:40 ◼   ► And it, the draft is walking this fine line

01:16:45 ◼   ► of being a minimalistic note-taking app

01:16:49 ◼   ► and doing a lot of things all at once.

01:16:52 ◼   ► And I think it's really clever in how this design helps

01:16:57 ◼   ► that kind of balance in that you open the app,

01:17:00 ◼   ► it's still a blank page.

01:17:02 ◼   ► But then if you know what you're doing,

01:17:04 ◼   ► you can switch views and you can switch actions,

01:17:06 ◼   ► you can have action groups, it's really well done.

01:17:09 ◼   ► It's really balanced.

01:17:10 ◼   ► That's one of the impressions that I have from version five.

01:17:14 ◼   ► Other features, scripting, the scripting engine.

01:17:18 ◼   ► So this is not necessary.

01:17:20 ◼   ► You don't have to write any script if you don't want to.

01:17:23 ◼   ► But if you know JavaScript,

01:17:25 ◼   ► And if you read through the documentation of drafts5,

01:17:29 ◼   ► it's kind of amazing.

01:17:31 ◼   ► So drafts now includes a complete implementation

01:17:34 ◼   ► of JavaScript core, which I believe

01:17:36 ◼   ► is the JavaScript interpreter engine.

01:17:39 ◼   ► I don't know what the correct word is.

01:17:41 ◼   ► It's basically the same engine that's inside iOS.

01:17:44 ◼   ► Now you can use it in drafts.

01:17:46 ◼   ► And in addition to that, so you can use standard JavaScript

01:17:49 ◼   ► and create script actions, so little scripts

01:17:52 ◼   ► that do stuff for your text.

01:17:55 ◼   ► But in addition to that, Greg Pierce, the developer,

01:17:58 ◼   ► he created a bunch of custom modules.

01:18:02 ◼   ► So JavaScript-like modules and objects

01:18:08 ◼   ► for app-specific features.

01:18:11 ◼   ► So you can script the editor itself, the page of the app.

01:18:15 ◼   ► You can script the system clipboard.

01:18:18 ◼   ► You can script the UI.

01:18:20 ◼   ► So you can make your own menus.

01:18:22 ◼   ► You can make your own prompts.

01:18:24 ◼   ► And those can have date pickers and checkboxes and text views.

01:18:29 ◼   ► It's kind of like writing mini apps.

01:18:31 ◼   ► And it's an idea that editorial and Pythonista kind of

01:18:35 ◼   ► pioneered years ago, this idea of letting

01:18:38 ◼   ► you create native UI kit stuff with a few lines of custom

01:18:43 ◼   ► code.

01:18:44 ◼   ► And now you can do the same in just five.

01:18:46 ◼   ► And it's really powerful.

01:18:47 ◼   ► I've been playing around with these custom prompts.

01:18:50 ◼   ► It's a really-- it's a beautiful idea

01:18:52 ◼   ► to let you make your own stuff without the overhead of Xcode.

01:18:57 ◼   ► You're not making real, full apps,

01:18:59 ◼   ► but you're making custom interfaces,

01:19:01 ◼   ► which is fascinating.

01:19:03 ◼   ► There's a focus mode, so you can focus on the note

01:19:05 ◼   ► that you're writing without having to--

01:19:08 ◼   ► going back to the main sidebar to switch notes.

01:19:10 ◼   ► There's a syntax highlighting for Markdown, JavaScript, Task

01:19:14 ◼   ► Paper, other formats that I don't remember.

01:19:18 ◼   ► There's this Apple Watch app.

01:19:21 ◼   ► Myke, you're going to like this.

01:19:22 ◼   ► So you can configure the drafts app on the watch

01:19:25 ◼   ► with the complication that as soon as you tap it,

01:19:28 ◼   ► you go into dictation mode

01:19:30 ◼   ► and you can just start talking immediately.

01:19:32 ◼   ► So you tap it.

01:19:33 ◼   ► - Oh, I do.

01:19:34 ◼   ► - You tap it on the watch face and you talk.

01:19:36 ◼   ► You speak text and it gets saved in drafts

01:19:39 ◼   ► and the next time you open the iPhone app,

01:19:41 ◼   ► you will see your drafting there.

01:19:44 ◼   ► And I believe.

01:19:45 ◼   ► - So there's a question I have for you.

01:19:47 ◼   ► Is it possible for me to have the watch app

01:19:51 ◼   ► automatically do something with the text that I enter?

01:19:54 ◼   ► - There's something that you can do,

01:19:56 ◼   ► which is you can automatically tag your Apple Watch notes

01:20:01 ◼   ► with a specific tag, so that later you can go on the iPhone

01:20:05 ◼   ► or the iPad and see just the notes

01:20:07 ◼   ► that you created from the watch.

01:20:09 ◼   ► - Okay, I mean, that's something.

01:20:10 ◼   ► Like I was thinking like, obviously, you know,

01:20:12 ◼   ► there are so many actions you can do to specific tags.

01:20:14 ◼   ► Like, wouldn't it be nice if I could, yeah.

01:20:17 ◼   ► - Yeah, you can do that.

01:20:18 ◼   ► It's kind of like there,

01:20:19 ◼   ► you can add the text to the bottom or before you can delete.

01:20:24 ◼   ► You can tap on a note and you open the plain text view

01:20:29 ◼   ► on the watch essentially.

01:20:30 ◼   ► And there's a bunch of buttons at the bottom

01:20:32 ◼   ► that let you do stuff.

01:20:35 ◼   ► - Cool.

01:20:36 ◼   ► - And there's a lot more features,

01:20:37 ◼   ► honestly you should just read the review.

01:20:38 ◼   ► But there's this--

01:20:39 ◼   ► - It seems huge.

01:20:40 ◼   ► - Yes.

01:20:41 ◼   ► - Like almost like scarily--

01:20:45 ◼   ► - Yes.

01:20:46 ◼   ► - And complicated and big.

01:20:47 ◼   ► - That's the point that I wanted to make.

01:20:48 ◼   ► So I remember when JAVS 1.0 came out,

01:20:53 ◼   ► and it was literally a notepad with 10 actions, maybe,

01:20:59 ◼   ► like Twitter, clipboard, like super minimal--

01:21:03 ◼   ► - Email. - Email messages,

01:21:05 ◼   ► super minimal notepad.

01:21:07 ◼   ► - And you can still use it that way, right?

01:21:08 ◼   ► Like none of that's been taken away,

01:21:10 ◼   ► and the app begins that way, right?

01:21:12 ◼   ► Like it is set up the same, basically.

01:21:15 ◼   ► But now with version 5, it is so flexible.

01:21:19 ◼   ► You can, if you want to, you can use drafts as a text editor

01:21:24 ◼   ► in the sense that you can replace Ulysses with this.

01:21:29 ◼   ► It's not gonna be as full featured as Ulysses

01:21:34 ◼   ► when it comes to stuff like--

01:21:35 ◼   ► - Well, but you, turns out you can build

01:21:37 ◼   ► a lot of that stuff yourself, right?

01:21:39 ◼   ► Like you can build a lot of features,

01:21:40 ◼   ► which is really interesting, right?

01:21:42 ◼   ► I know obviously it's never gonna have everything, but--

01:21:44 ◼   ► I like surprise twists.

01:21:46 ◼   ► And the twist that I've been keeping for this entire segment

01:21:49 ◼   ► is that the things article that I published today

01:21:52 ◼   ► on Mac Stories was entirely put together with drafts.

01:21:55 ◼   ► And it was fine.

01:21:57 ◼   ► I mean, I took a couple of hours last night

01:22:00 ◼   ► to set up a bunch of workflows.

01:22:02 ◼   ► And I realized, so I was script, I was doing scripts,

01:22:07 ◼   ► I was doing like all these custom actions,

01:22:09 ◼   ► and then I realized, you know what I'm doing here?

01:22:11 ◼   ► I'm replicating the same workflows

01:22:13 ◼   ► that I put together in editorial five years ago.

01:22:16 ◼   ► Because my footnote workflow and my find and replace stuff.

01:22:21 ◼   ► - Now that is very interesting, right?

01:22:23 ◼   ► Because editorial feels basically dead at this point.

01:22:27 ◼   ► - Yep, yep.

01:22:28 ◼   ► - Whilst drafts, if you want the Prosto,

01:22:31 ◼   ► which I think is an amazing move by Greg,

01:22:33 ◼   ► you pay monthly for it.

01:22:34 ◼   ► Like that makes so much sense to me.

01:22:37 ◼   ► And I'm really pleased that he's doing that, right?

01:22:39 ◼   ► Like the app is free, right?

01:22:41 ◼   ► and then you pay for pro features.

01:22:44 ◼   ► And those pro features even include stuff like themes,

01:22:46 ◼   ► which is great for like maybe more casual users

01:22:48 ◼   ► if you want the app to be black, right?

01:22:50 ◼   ► Which I would want.

01:22:51 ◼   ► So I pay for that.

01:22:53 ◼   ► But then you get all of this incredibly complex

01:22:56 ◼   ► and powerful stuff, right?

01:22:58 ◼   ► So I like that.

01:23:00 ◼   ► - Yeah, so I'm, I mean, I'm still using Ulysses

01:23:03 ◼   ► because I've built so much automation on top of Ulysses

01:23:07 ◼   ► with workflow, especially in the past year.

01:23:10 ◼   ► But the idea of it's a modern editorial,

01:23:15 ◼   ► as you can imagine, is really intriguing for me.

01:23:19 ◼   ► Especially-- - Yeah, it also has

01:23:21 ◼   ► a very clean and modern design as well.

01:23:22 ◼   ► - Yes, yes. - I actually really like

01:23:25 ◼   ► some of the stuff that Greg has done.

01:23:27 ◼   ► Especially, he uses a lot of the iOS 11 headers

01:23:31 ◼   ► and stuff in places, which makes the app feel now,

01:23:35 ◼   ► which I like a lot too. - Do you want

01:23:36 ◼   ► an extra teachy tip, Myke?

01:23:39 ◼   ► - I always want--

01:23:40 ◼   ► go into the drafts settings because it uses a native font menu you can use custom fonts

01:23:48 ◼   ► so I'm using San Francisco Mono as my font in drafts.

01:23:52 ◼   ► Very nice.

01:23:53 ◼   ► Yeah it looks really nice.

01:23:55 ◼   ► So anyway.

01:23:56 ◼   ► I feel like I need to spend time with this application and like there was something that

01:24:01 ◼   ► Max Tempkin tweeted to you today which is how I always feel.

01:24:04 ◼   ► I completely feel how Max feels.

01:24:06 ◼   ► I can see this app is amazing.

01:24:09 ◼   ► I feel like I need a one-on-one

01:24:11 ◼   ► where someone can just show me,

01:24:16 ◼   ► how can my life be better in using an application like this?

01:24:19 ◼   ► And I did this with workflow, right?

01:24:21 ◼   ► I spent some significant time on my own

01:24:25 ◼   ► and with your help, understanding the application

01:24:27 ◼   ► to the point now where I'm not a power user like you,

01:24:30 ◼   ► but I can build and have built many of my own workflows now

01:24:33 ◼   ► because I spent the time to understand what the app can do.

01:24:37 ◼   ► And I feel like I could do that with drafts as well, right?

01:24:40 ◼   ► But I guess one of the other, and like workflow,

01:24:43 ◼   ► there is a directory of stuff too, right?

01:24:46 ◼   ► - Yes, you can go on the new website,

01:24:48 ◼   ► which I think it's called getdrafts.com.

01:24:51 ◼   ► And there's a ton of links and pages and documentation

01:24:55 ◼   ► that you can read through.

01:24:56 ◼   ► And there's the action directory where you can go

01:24:58 ◼   ► and download stuff from other people.

01:24:59 ◼   ► - Yeah, I see it.

01:25:00 ◼   ► - The sharing is now easier in drafts.

01:25:03 ◼   ► So you're not forced to create multiple versions of an action every time you make a modification.

01:25:10 ◼   ► You keep the same link, so you can share a link with people and just tell them,

01:25:13 ◼   ► "Look, the action has been updated." If you fix something or make a change to the action.

01:25:18 ◼   ► Anyway, it's a really beautiful update. It's a subscription-based now, so go check it out.

01:25:25 ◼   ► There's a free trial and you need to understand whether this is something useful for you or not.

01:25:30 ◼   ► And I want to just sum it up by saying that this idea of...

01:25:34 ◼   ► it's a single app that can be the notepad that I open, I save something and I'm done,

01:25:42 ◼   ► and a text editor for my articles and markdown stuff at the same time,

01:25:49 ◼   ► with automation and with scripting, this is really intriguing for me.

01:25:54 ◼   ► Really intriguing. And I'm gonna be playing around with this.

01:25:57 ◼   ► I don't know... and now I'm gonna get tweets from people.

01:26:00 ◼   ► Are you switching to drafts? I don't know. This is gonna take me months because I have

01:26:05 ◼   ► really established workflows in Ulysses. But I'm intrigued. So yeah, you should go check

01:26:11 ◼   ► it out because it's pretty cool.

01:26:14 ◼   ► I'm gonna read this review and spend some time with it. I wanna play around with it.

01:26:19 ◼   ► Even just the watch stuff could be really useful for me. Even though I do like Just...

01:26:24 ◼   ► Just Press Record? I always think... I always get a name wrong in my head, I think. Just

01:26:27 ◼   ► press record. I like the app a lot because the audio is good. There's a lot of interesting

01:26:31 ◼   ► stuff in here. Plus Greg is great and I'm really pleased to see Draft continue to get

01:26:37 ◼   ► this level of focus and I think this is a great candidate for subscription. Like I think

01:26:43 ◼   ► this is the perfect, like when this was originally announced, like the Apple subscription model

01:26:48 ◼   ► that they were bringing in, this always felt like a perfect kind of app. Like a very niche

01:26:53 ◼   ► app that people that use it really care about it, right? Like, if you use this application,

01:26:59 ◼   ► it's not for absolutely everyone in the world, but it's for a significant amount of people

01:27:03 ◼   ► that if they pay for it on a monthly basis could support its development for a long time.

01:27:08 ◼   ► And I think that's great and I hope that that's what happens. So yeah, Drafts 5 and there's

01:27:13 ◼   ► a great review by Tim Nahummas. That's all I think about now is Nahummas because that

01:27:21 ◼   ► was great. Nahumik on Max stories. Tim has been, what is he, broken out from the eggshell

01:27:31 ◼   ► of Max stories. That's it, right? Because of the incubator?

01:27:34 ◼   ► Tim is awesome, yes. Tim is awesome, you should go follow him on Twitter. He's a great guy

01:27:38 ◼   ► and he's passionate about this and I love it when, you know, when someone really likes

01:27:44 ◼   ► something, you can feel it and it's contagious. It's a beautiful feeling when someone is really

01:27:49 ◼   ► passionate about a product or about teaching other people to do stuff and that's a...

01:27:54 ◼   ► I just did what you said. I just followed him on Twitter. I do exactly what you tell

01:27:57 ◼   ► me. I did it. I've done it.

01:28:01 ◼   ► You can really tell this is his thing. Like, making this stuff work. It is. It's exciting

01:28:06 ◼   ► to read. I mean, I feel like I'm kind of like you. Like, Drafts hasn't really ever clicked

01:28:11 ◼   ► for me, but I'm excited about this. I've got it on my phone and my iPad and I'm looking

01:28:16 ◼   ► forward to digging in.

01:28:17 ◼   ► If you want to find our show notes for this week, it includes links to practically everything

01:28:21 ◼   ► we've spoken about.

01:28:22 ◼   ► Whoa!

01:28:23 ◼   ► Whoa!

01:28:24 ◼   ► Steven's really excited about something.

01:28:25 ◼   ► Are you overthrowing my government?

01:28:26 ◼   ► What are you doing?

01:28:27 ◼   ► Whoa!

01:28:28 ◼   ► Whoa!

01:28:29 ◼   ► Hey!

01:28:30 ◼   ► Step back, son!

01:28:31 ◼   ► Who is this?

01:28:32 ◼   ► Who am I?

01:28:33 ◼   ► What have you done, Myke?

01:28:35 ◼   ► I've lost my mind at this point.

01:28:37 ◼   ► I'm gonna leave now.

01:28:39 ◼   ► Goodbye everyone!

01:28:40 ◼   ► Bye!

01:28:41 ◼   ► Myke's gone.

01:28:42 ◼   ► I think what Myke was trying to do was to end the show, but he's forgotten.

01:28:45 ◼   ► Maybe you just weren't doing your job well enough because like...

01:28:49 ◼   ► I don't know if we were ending, usually we're like, "Hey, is that it?"

01:28:51 ◼   ► No, but it's way better if you just come in with the clothes, right?

01:28:55 ◼   ► Then like everyone goes, "Hey, is there anything else?"

01:28:57 ◼   ► We clearly finished, we all see the document, we know there was nothing else.

01:29:00 ◼   ► Actually, do you want me to start talking about GDPR?

01:29:03 ◼   ► Because like it's next.

01:29:04 ◼   ► Alright, so...

01:29:05 ◼   ► No, that's been in the document for a long time.

01:29:08 ◼   ► Right, is this what you want me to do now?

01:29:09 ◼   ► You want me to start doing this topic?

01:29:10 ◼   ► Yeah, we'll talk about that next time.

01:29:13 ◼   ► Dead or fighting.

01:29:20 ◼   ► If you want to find show notes this week, you can do so on the website relay.fm/connected/189.

01:29:28 ◼   ► While you're there, you can do a bunch of stuff.

01:29:29 ◼   ► You can become a member and support this show.

01:29:32 ◼   ► We're advertising based, but membership money helps to support us directly.

01:29:36 ◼   ► It'd be super awesome if you signed up.

01:29:38 ◼   ► You can send us an email as well with any follow up or praise or gifts you think that

01:29:44 ◼   ► I would enjoy.

01:29:45 ◼   ► You put out into the world what you want to receive, right?

01:29:49 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:29:50 ◼   ► Yes.

01:29:51 ◼   ► And I'm saying if you send me negative email, I'll read it but then I'll be sad.

01:29:54 ◼   ► But if you send me positive email, I'll read it and then I'll be happy.

01:29:57 ◼   ► And then you might reply too.

01:29:58 ◼   ► I reply to almost every email we get.

01:30:02 ◼   ► I value that conversation with our audience.

01:30:04 ◼   ► You just broke the heart of the person whose email you didn't reply to.

01:30:07 ◼   ► - I know, I'm really sorry that one person.

01:30:10 ◼   ► If you wanna find us on Twitter,

01:30:12 ◼   ► where we can throw a heart your way,

01:30:14 ◼   ► or a star, or reply, or retweet,

01:30:17 ◼   ► you can do that as well, Myke is I-M-Y-K-E.

01:30:21 ◼   ► And Myke hosts a bunch of great shows on relay.fm,

01:30:24 ◼   ► go check him out.

01:30:25 ◼   ► If you like this show, I promise you'll find something else

01:30:26 ◼   ► that you love as well.

01:30:28 ◼   ► You can find Federico at V-I-T-I-C-C-I,

01:30:32 ◼   ► and he is the editor-in-chief of MacStories.net.

01:30:35 ◼   ► It's like a magazine, but in your web browser.

01:30:37 ◼   ► It's amazing.

01:30:38 ◼   ► It's mother hen.

01:30:39 ◼   ► You can find me on Twitter as ismh and if Mac stories is a magazine then 512 pixels

01:30:48 ◼   ► is some sort of stone tablet.

01:30:52 ◼   ► Are you Moses?

01:30:53 ◼   ► Is that what you're saying?

01:30:55 ◼   ► Maybe.

01:30:56 ◼   ► I'm going to grow my beard back and my hair is longer.

01:30:59 ◼   ► I mean we were joking that you were old but not that old.

01:31:03 ◼   ► Oh man.

01:31:05 ◼   ► So that's how you get in touch with us.

01:31:09 ◼   ► We like to thank our sponsors this week, Linode, Pingdom, and Hover.

01:31:12 ◼   ► They make this show possible.

01:31:14 ◼   ► And finally, after about four hours on Skype, gentlemen, say goodbye.