Connected

00:00:00 ◼   ► (upbeat music)

00:00:02 ◼   ► - This is the introduction to this podcast.

00:00:10 ◼   ► This podcast is named "Connected."

00:00:11 ◼   ► It is episode 179.

00:00:14 ◼   ► It is brought to you this week by three sponsors,

00:00:17 ◼   ► Linode, Squarespace, and Casper.

00:00:19 ◼   ► I'm a host of the show.

00:00:21 ◼   ► My name is Stephen Hackett.

00:00:22 ◼   ► I have two co-hosts.

00:00:23 ◼   ► One, whose name is Myke Curley.

00:00:25 ◼   ► How are you, Myke?

00:00:26 ◼   ► - From Relay FM, this is Myke Curley.

00:00:28 ◼   ► - That's not.

00:00:29 ◼   ► That's... it was going really well.

00:00:34 ◼   ► The other co-host is named Federico Vittucci.

00:00:37 ◼   ► This is the worst NPR introduction I've ever heard on a show, I think.

00:00:43 ◼   ► I'm nervous because we have a special guest today.

00:00:45 ◼   ► Myke, since I did the intro so well, do you think you can follow in my footsteps and introduce

00:00:50 ◼   ► our guest with the same level of polish and professionalism that I've already brought

00:00:54 ◼   ► to the table?

00:00:55 ◼   ► Yes.

00:00:56 ◼   ► time that I am honored to introduce the creator, founder and operator of Emojipedia.org, the

00:01:03 ◼   ► wonderful Mr. Jeremy Burch.

00:01:04 ◼   ► It's great to be here on the serial podcast. I can't wait to hear who did it.

00:01:09 ◼   ► Today we are solving the mystery of emoji. Where is it? How did it come from?

00:01:15 ◼   ► Steven is the killer. It's Steven.

00:01:18 ◼   ► Stay tuned for episode 13.

00:01:20 ◼   ► Where we'll give our opinions as to whether emoji actually committed the crime. Steven,

00:01:24 ◼   ► Please follow up, come on, let's do this.

00:01:26 ◼   ► So Myke, you were gone last week, you were celebrating your birthday.

00:01:29 ◼   ► My 41st birthday it turned out to be.

00:01:32 ◼   ► Did you like the good wishes on Twitter, Myke?

00:01:34 ◼   ► Yeah, I found out a lot of people's favorite colors.

00:01:38 ◼   ► Blue and red were very popular in the favorite colors.

00:01:42 ◼   ► Red?

00:01:43 ◼   ► Really?

00:01:44 ◼   ► I figured like blue or green, like blue is kind of the default answer.

00:01:48 ◼   ► I mean we're just going through the RGB scale basically here.

00:01:52 ◼   ► head blue. So, make sense. Keep it simple. There has been a lot of breaking

00:01:57 ◼   ► news, #breakingnews, about this tiny heads phenomenon.

00:02:03 ◼   ► Yeah. Is phenomenon a word or are we going to go with some crisis or pandemic? What have

00:02:09 ◼   ► we got going on? Ooh, pandemic. The tiny head pandemic. That

00:02:12 ◼   ► makes it sound like an actual disease. Well, I mean, something's going on in which

00:02:18 ◼   ► all of these unrelated companies are catching this tiny head problem from each other. It's

00:02:23 ◼   ► everywhere. This is one of those things that once people mention it to you, you can't help

00:02:28 ◼   ► but see it everywhere. And our listeners are seeing it everywhere.

00:02:32 ◼   ► You know, I'm not joking. There's actually a word for when you, when you, like, when

00:02:37 ◼   ► you, when you don't know something, it's a German word and then you don't know something

00:02:42 ◼   ► and then suddenly you know and you see it everywhere.

00:02:45 ◼   ► It's actually called the Beta-Meinhof phenomenon.

00:02:48 ◼   ► Yeah, that's probably, it's not a word, it's more like a concept.

00:02:51 ◼   ► It's a concept.

00:02:52 ◼   ► It's, yeah, you see, like, a friend of yours gets a new car, and then you see the same

00:02:57 ◼   ► car everywhere.

00:02:58 ◼   ► It's called the Beta-Meinhof phenomenon.

00:03:00 ◼   ► So yes, that's what's happening with tiny heads.

00:03:03 ◼   ► And this is something that people were finding old examples of and current examples of, and

00:03:08 ◼   ► we have some for the show notes.

00:03:10 ◼   ► Jon sent in to us Evernote, Evernote doing this with a tiny head, big body, and also

00:03:16 ◼   ► something more interesting, tiny feet going on at Evernote.

00:03:20 ◼   ► This is going two for two here. It's a tiny head and tiny feet.

00:03:24 ◼   ► Hey, Evernote is just trying to stay relevant any way possible.

00:03:27 ◼   ► Oh no!

00:03:28 ◼   ► You want to break it?

00:03:29 ◼   ► No!

00:03:30 ◼   ► Come on!

00:03:31 ◼   ► Have you heard about tiny chat?

00:03:34 ◼   ► And then we have Air Table, which is tiny heads against skinny tiny feet, but they introduce

00:03:42 ◼   ► a lot of really fun colors to it.

00:03:44 ◼   ► The Air Table one is very colorful.

00:03:47 ◼   ► There is also like a sub set of this where like the tiny heads seem to be followed by

00:03:52 ◼   ► simple block colors in most of the times.

00:03:56 ◼   ► Somebody basically somebody created this and now it's just like everywhere and it is everywhere

00:04:01 ◼   ► because we have even more examples.

00:04:03 ◼   ► We do.

00:04:04 ◼   ► We have Procreate as an Instagram, Procreate is being used I guess you could say to create

00:04:12 ◼   ► some of the stuff.

00:04:13 ◼   ► So there's an Instagram link in the show notes with many examples, a whole tiny head army

00:04:18 ◼   ► of people, mostly with dogs just hanging out on Instagram.

00:04:24 ◼   ► So actually pretty good illustrations but the heads are really tiny.

00:04:28 ◼   ► So tiny heads, but normal size earrings, which is interesting, but the head is tiny. So something

00:04:38 ◼   ► that goes on your head must be tiny, but accessories can be normal sized, which I think is an interesting

00:04:43 ◼   ► rule to follow.

00:04:46 ◼   ► Some of these get real tiny in this Instagram post, and then just really, really tiny heads.

00:04:52 ◼   ► Really tiny heads.

00:04:53 ◼   ► Yes.

00:04:54 ◼   ► The wonderful Kate who is great on Twitter as @rhl_ has created a tiny head drawing of the three of us

00:05:03 ◼   ► Which is nice to see. Yeah, I especially appreciate how tiny Steven's head is.

00:05:08 ◼   ► Steven has the tiniest head.

00:05:11 ◼   ► This is a great drawing. I'd like to see your heads get smaller again. Just keep making them smaller.

00:05:17 ◼   ► Keep making them smaller. I mean, this is great, but I want to see them get smaller again.

00:05:21 ◼   ► This is the most amazing piece of fan art the details in this are incredible the little pieces of tape

00:05:28 ◼   ► I have on my microphone stands. Yeah cables. It's all in the correct place

00:05:32 ◼   ► I choose to look at it though is that my head is not tiny, but I'm just super buff all of a sudden

00:05:39 ◼   ► Have you ever watched there, what's the name of the the Ken Shiro anime?

00:05:48 ◼   ► you know with the guy with the

00:05:51 ◼   ► Super tiny head and I should send you a link actually, I don't know if it's called Ken Shiro in Italy

00:05:57 ◼   ► I'm not sure if it's a Ken of the Seven Stars something in America. I'll send you a link

00:06:02 ◼   ► I don't think you're gonna get a lot of help in this group

00:06:05 ◼   ► Unfortunately Federico with the anime. Ken of the Seven Stars? No, no, no, no.

00:06:11 ◼   ► Juffle Jeremy had it. It's like oh, I know all about it the tiny head anime, but no. I'll find it. I'll find it

00:06:18 ◼   ► So connected listeners if you find more examples of tiny heads, you know where to send them we we must know

00:06:25 ◼   ► About what is happening in the tiny head world?

00:06:28 ◼   ► Keep us keep us updated

00:06:31 ◼   ► we have some important follow out as well and this this was not just a

00:06:37 ◼   ► Way to get our special guests to join us. Although I think I think it helped but

00:06:43 ◼   ► Jeremy you host a podcast called emoji wrap which I just absolutely love and you had

00:06:49 ◼   ► The latest episode I believe is about some of the original story

00:06:54 ◼   ► Or some of the story about the original emoji at Apple. Can you tell us a little bit about that episode?

00:06:59 ◼   ► Yeah, so the first thing that's fun about by the way hosting an emoji podcast is seeing the tweets when people find it and they sort

00:07:07 ◼   ► of I don't know that 50%

00:07:10 ◼   ► amazed and they're like how on earth is there a podcast about emoji every month and then the other half sort of dismayed with the

00:07:16 ◼   ► World that there's a podcast about emoji every month. I get this with I can't believe there's a podcast about pens

00:07:22 ◼   ► Yes, I suspect it's a really similar split, right?

00:07:25 ◼   ► Yeah, very very simple like people like how can you talk about like trust me?

00:07:30 ◼   ► Every everything every industry has news, right?

00:07:34 ◼   ► It's just it's a thing and you think oh, well, maybe you're scraping the bottom of the barrel

00:07:40 ◼   ► But there's more, there's things that you wouldn't discuss that you just don't have time for, right?

00:07:43 ◼   ► There's more than you can do.

00:07:45 ◼   ► So, and the same thing happens on Emoji Wrap, that every month, you know,

00:07:49 ◼   ► what you came on, Myke, last month, and we had about 10 different things to get to,

00:07:53 ◼   ► and we were just trying to burn through them.

00:07:55 ◼   ► But this month, we had Angela Guzman, who was one of the original Apple emoji designers,

00:08:01 ◼   ► which is pretty cool, because as everybody knows, you don't often get people from Apple on the record.

00:08:07 ◼   ► about a whole bunch, so you have to wait a lot of years until they've kind of moved on

00:08:10 ◼   ► a little till they open up and they want to chat. So that was actually really cool that

00:08:14 ◼   ► she was an intern at the time.

00:08:17 ◼   ► That's wild. I listened to it today. I couldn't believe that the person who was responsible

00:08:23 ◼   ► for designing so much of the original emoji set was an intern. Considering how important

00:08:29 ◼   ► emoji is today, I can't imagine Apple just grabbing an intern and being like, "You do

00:08:36 ◼   ► this."

00:08:37 ◼   ► Funny that I guess I'd heard sort of that over the years and that different interns and I'd heard bits and pieces about

00:08:43 ◼   ► Different people who did different parts of it, but in particular the very first core set. Yeah, it was basically an intern and

00:08:50 ◼   ► Her mentor someone that was already a full-time employee at Apple and the two of them

00:08:55 ◼   ► Basically got down to business and made just about all the emojis

00:08:59 ◼   ► So it was fun to have her on she kind of talked about some of the ones that she made personally

00:09:03 ◼   ► She she was saying she's also gonna post online that she wrote about it how she sort of started with some of the easy ones

00:09:08 ◼   ► and then

00:09:10 ◼   ► moved through the list and

00:09:12 ◼   ► She didn't want to I I didn't want to pick on specific instances and all that people give a hard time to the two camels

00:09:19 ◼   ► That they've got the the good camel and the bad camel

00:09:22 ◼   ► I didn't want to make her tell me whether she was the good camel or the bad camel, but

00:09:26 ◼   ► But nonetheless, yeah, it is pretty fun

00:09:29 ◼   ► when you look at those original sets there is sort of a bit of divergence even though she did say they really tried hard then

00:09:34 ◼   ► to kind of

00:09:35 ◼   ► Match each other's style and look back and forth at what each other were doing just to make sure that the final set at least looked

00:09:40 ◼   ► mostly like one one product

00:09:42 ◼   ► And I guess what's interesting is whilst I assume that the actual work that Angela did probably doesn't exist anymore as Apple's like

00:09:51 ◼   ► increased the

00:09:53 ◼   ► the quality of the emoji over time

00:09:56 ◼   ► She still defined the look and the look hasn't changed very much in a lot of the emoji

00:10:01 ◼   ► Right, like they look the same but they probably been reproduced. So I guess she's she's got a bit of a legacy

00:10:07 ◼   ► Yeah, some of that stuff is just never gonna change

00:10:09 ◼   ► Right, like that party popper is a party hopper and so many people said that was one that she did and you know

00:10:15 ◼   ► Even the new one today. It's 3d rendered and the confetti is done in 3d

00:10:19 ◼   ► But it still looks about the same and when you think of it in your head is sort of what's a party like image

00:10:25 ◼   ► That one there. I don't know how many years from now. We'll still be thinking of that particular image, but right now

00:10:29 ◼   ► Yeah, she had a huge part to play and it was yeah, it was really cool getting to have her on the show

00:10:34 ◼   ► Which is wonderful because it looks like no party popper I've ever seen but I only think of it as the party pop, right?

00:10:40 ◼   ► You said on the show it looks like a party hat. Yeah with some streamers coming out of it, but that's that's party man

00:10:47 ◼   ► That's what it's all about. Tada. That's suddenly yeah

00:10:50 ◼   ► We're using this new thing that we wouldn't have otherwise used but because it looks like that in the emoji

00:10:54 ◼   ► were like, oh, that's fine. That's what a party popper is.

00:10:56 ◼   ► So this is the light side of emoji.

00:10:58 ◼   ► This is the good side.

00:11:00 ◼   ► But there is a dark side of emoji.

00:11:02 ◼   ► There is especially right now in the Apple community.

00:11:05 ◼   ► And that's what we have Jeremy to talk to us about today,

00:11:08 ◼   ► about some of the some of the darker side of emoji.

00:11:11 ◼   ► And we're going to get to that in just a moment.

00:11:13 ◼   ► But first, let me thank our first sponsor for this week's show,

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00:12:40 ◼   ► Alright Mr. Burge we've had you here today because nobody knows emoji like you and you

00:12:46 ◼   ► know a lot of the legalities around emoji and these are conversations that me and you

00:12:50 ◼   ► have had many times, so you are perfectly suited to talk about what is going on right

00:12:55 ◼   ► now with Apple App Review.

00:12:57 ◼   ► So what is the story here?

00:12:59 ◼   ► It seemed like there was a bit of a hubbub going on over the last couple of days on Twitter

00:13:04 ◼   ► about app rejections or something like that.

00:13:08 ◼   ► What I've been hearing over the last six months or so is every now and then someone will come

00:13:14 ◼   ► along and go, "Hey look, my app got rejected because I put an emoji in it," or "I put a

00:13:17 ◼   ► bunch of emojis in it."

00:13:19 ◼   ► And these things have sort of come and gone and, you know, it's always hard when someone

00:13:22 ◼   ► jumps on Twitter and just makes an announcement to say, "My app got rejected because of this,"

00:13:27 ◼   ► because you don't really know, is it just that.

00:13:30 ◼   ► App review rules have changed, right?

00:13:33 ◼   ► And it takes a bit of time to like kind of really get down to the business and figure

00:13:37 ◼   ► out, was it that or is this person overblowing the situation or whatnot?

00:13:42 ◼   ► So it was only last week a developer called Sam Eckert.

00:13:46 ◼   ► Sorry, Sam, if I've got your name pronounced slightly incorrectly there, but he documented

00:13:54 ◼   ► the rejection notices he got for an app called BitTracker, and effectively it was quite clear

00:14:00 ◼   ► this time.

00:14:01 ◼   ► For the first time it sort of had rejection wording from Apple saying, "Look, you've

00:14:04 ◼   ► used emojis in these parts of your app, specifically here, here, and here."

00:14:09 ◼   ► And he said he spoke to Apple and they confirmed, "Yes, you can't use emojis in your app

00:14:13 ◼   ► whatsoever unless a user types it in or you're rejected.

00:14:17 ◼   ► And this sort of set a chain in motion of people going, "What is going on?

00:14:20 ◼   ► How can we not use emojis in apps?"

00:14:22 ◼   ► - Isn't emoji just a font?

00:14:24 ◼   ► How is this a problem?

00:14:25 ◼   ► - I mean, yes.

00:14:26 ◼   ► So Apple has what the font is called Apple Color Emoji, and it's on every system.

00:14:32 ◼   ► And I guess that is what's tricky is most developers, not all, some of them are sort

00:14:35 ◼   ► of rendering a copy of Apple's emoji and sticking it around the app, but most of them are just

00:14:39 ◼   ► saying, "Hey, display the pooh here.

00:14:42 ◼   ► the light bulb emoji here and it pulls it out of Apple's own font. So I guess that's

00:14:47 ◼   ► what some of the confusion is, is that you'd think, well I'm just calling a font on the

00:14:52 ◼   ► system like any other. But the tricky thing being, of course, that is Apple's color

00:14:57 ◼   ► emoji font just a font? It doesn't really fall into the traditional definition of sort

00:15:01 ◼   ► of a black and white glyph. So I guess the line is that Apple in the past hasn't enforced

00:15:08 ◼   ► this too much. So we're really going to look at is this treated like a font for copyright

00:15:14 ◼   ► and other reasons or is it treated like images that Apple owns like Apple logo or the iPhone

00:15:19 ◼   ► you know traditionally you see people get apps rejected if they have icons that look

00:15:23 ◼   ► too much like an iPhone in it. So is this just a font or is it images and it's sort

00:15:28 ◼   ► of a bit of both and that's I think why there's so much confusion.

00:15:31 ◼   ► So like you mentioned about owning. Like does Apple own, what does Apple own? It's text

00:15:37 ◼   ► Right? Like how do they own it?

00:15:39 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean, so Apple owns the rendering. They own the images that they put in their emoji font.

00:15:44 ◼   ► So effectively, so if I'm a developer and I put in a bunch of

00:15:49 ◼   ► effectively text where I say display this emoji, this emoji, this emoji, the way it pops out is Apple's

00:15:55 ◼   ► copyrighted images. And of course that means that Apple has some say over what happens there.

00:16:01 ◼   ► It's tricky though because that's never been an issue. People, you know,

00:16:05 ◼   ► if you type a font, if you use a system font in your app, that's fine because you're just typing the text

00:16:10 ◼   ► and people feel like they're doing the same thing.

00:16:12 ◼   ► But let's say you take an app and you make the logo an emoji, or you make the entire brand of the app

00:16:18 ◼   ► really based around Apple's emoji images. Apple owns those images, so

00:16:22 ◼   ► they do have some leg to stand on. It's just a matter of figuring out

00:16:27 ◼   ► are they going too far with this? Are they, when they don't let you put a single emoji in some text,

00:16:31 ◼   ► is that too much because that's sort of what emojis are for, or is it just well within

00:16:36 ◼   ► their rights to say, "Look, hey, we earn the copyright on these, we don't want you to use

00:16:40 ◼   ► them anymore, too bad, our app store, our rules." And that seems to be sort of what's

00:16:44 ◼   ► happening right now.

00:16:46 ◼   ► Let's assume for a moment that like this, I mean, because we're going to get, you've

00:16:49 ◼   ► spoken to a lot of developers and we're going to get into some of the specifics of what

00:16:52 ◼   ► people are being rejected for. But let's just imagine for a moment that this is a new rule

00:16:58 ◼   ► and that basically if it's not being typed in a text field,

00:17:02 ◼   ► Apple will not allow people to use emoji, right?

00:17:05 ◼   ► Like, let's just assume that for a moment.

00:17:07 ◼   ► Why would they do this and why would they do this now?

00:17:11 ◼   ► - So, yeah, as you say,

00:17:12 ◼   ► let's say if this is genuinely the rule.

00:17:14 ◼   ► If a user doesn't type it, you can't put it in your app.

00:17:17 ◼   ► And I think the main reason Apple would want to do it

00:17:20 ◼   ► is they want to bring back some control

00:17:22 ◼   ► of their own emoji set.

00:17:23 ◼   ► They've got an emoji now,

00:17:24 ◼   ► which a lot of their iPhone X ads are using not just an emoji but their

00:17:30 ◼   ► existing emojis all over the ad. You know, their sort of Apple's public marketing

00:17:34 ◼   ► and public presence in a way is quite heavily tied to their emojis and just

00:17:38 ◼   ► like they wouldn't let you use, you know, their own imagery in your own ads for

00:17:43 ◼   ► your company, they own those emoji images. So I think from Apple's

00:17:47 ◼   ► perspective their concern would be that our company's being building their entire

00:17:52 ◼   ► the brand of their app around Apple's emojis specifically, and if so, would the common

00:17:58 ◼   ► person think, "Oh, this is an app from Apple," or would they think, "This must be endorsed

00:18:02 ◼   ► by Apple in some way because it's got so much of Apple's imagery in it." So I think that's

00:18:06 ◼   ► where it's really coming down. Apple appears to be wanting to bring back some control that

00:18:12 ◼   ► they haven't really done in the past. They've sort of let it go, they've let people do whatever

00:18:16 ◼   ► they like, and I think now someone at Apple, either for legal reasons or just for branding

00:18:22 ◼   ► and marketing has said, you know what, we want to have a bit more control over how people use

00:18:27 ◼   ► our specific emoji images. Now I know that in the past you've reported on this a bunch of times

00:18:32 ◼   ► about apps like WhatsApp and Telegram using Apple's emoji set, which they've probably

00:18:39 ◼   ► scraped of somehow on Android, right? Do you think this could be a factor here?

00:18:44 ◼   ► This is what that part's way easier. You know, to me, I think those are outside of Apple's

00:18:51 ◼   ► control as such, they don't own the App Store on Android of course, but I definitely

00:18:55 ◼   ► have never understood why that's been allowed to stand for major companies like Facebook

00:18:59 ◼   ► who owns WhatsApp, Telegram, Signal, even Slack, I mean I love Slack, sort of other

00:19:05 ◼   ► than its memory and all the things, but the fact that they would literally scrape Apple's

00:19:11 ◼   ► images and then embed them in their apps, particularly on Android and Windows, because

00:19:16 ◼   ► they'd go "oh well users love Apple's ones, why don't we just put them over here?"

00:19:20 ◼   ► So I'm surprised it took Apple that long and I suspect these all might be part of a

00:19:25 ◼   ► similar, they might have had a similar origin.

00:19:27 ◼   ► I don't know whether it was a meeting or a lawyer or marketing.

00:19:31 ◼   ► Someone I think somewhere has said in the last little while, "Hey, we should pay a

00:19:35 ◼   ► bit more attention to how our emojis are being used."

00:19:38 ◼   ► And at least I think it's fully a great idea.

00:19:41 ◼   ► I think it's a great idea that they are going after at least Android apps embedding

00:19:45 ◼   ► their own emojis in them.

00:19:47 ◼   ► I'm just a little bit iffier on exactly where the line is on iOS.

00:19:51 ◼   ► Yeah, there was news kind of in this timeframe too

00:19:55 ◼   ► from Slack. Slack has kind of famously been behind

00:19:59 ◼   ► adding emoji. I think they didn't even have the 2016 class

00:20:03 ◼   ► in there. And I believe they were using Apple's image set

00:20:07 ◼   ► everywhere. They've got a blog post out and this update is rolling out now where

00:20:11 ◼   ► you will see all of Apple's emoji

00:20:15 ◼   ► in Slack if you're on a Mac or on an iOS device.

00:20:18 ◼   ► And then if you are elsewhere, you will see,

00:20:21 ◼   ► I believe they're using Google's emoji font

00:20:24 ◼   ► for all non-Apple users.

00:20:26 ◼   ► So it seems like maybe they were aware of this

00:20:29 ◼   ► or wanted to get around it.

00:20:31 ◼   ► And the benefit to Slack users is you can use

00:20:34 ◼   ► a bunch of new emoji that you didn't have access to before.

00:20:37 ◼   ► - You know what?

00:20:38 ◼   ► I do think that Apple,

00:20:41 ◼   ► it feels like the timing is quite coincidental, right?

00:20:44 ◼   ► was last year that WhatsApp for years had been using Apple's emoji images.

00:20:48 ◼   ► They switched last year to a set that looks a lot like Apple's, but it's not.

00:20:51 ◼   ► And then this week, Slack stopped using Apple's ones.

00:20:55 ◼   ► All these rejections are mounting up on the iOS app store.

00:20:58 ◼   ► It does feel like Apple might have changed position on this.

00:21:02 ◼   ► And Slack in particular.

00:21:04 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean, they did used to offer you the choice.

00:21:06 ◼   ► You could pick any of them. You could pick Google emoji.

00:21:08 ◼   ► You could pick Twitter. You could pick Apple's.

00:21:10 ◼   ► But the difference is Twitter and Google have open source licenses

00:21:13 ◼   ► on their emoji sets, and Apple doesn't.

00:21:15 ◼   ► Apples are copyrighted, and I would absolutely not be surprised if someone had tapped them

00:21:20 ◼   ► on the shoulder and said, "Hey Slack, it'd be awful nice if you could stop using our

00:21:24 ◼   ► images on other platforms."

00:21:27 ◼   ► My only question is, is this really necessary?

00:21:31 ◼   ► Does the biggest corporation in the world really need to go after people using emoji

00:21:37 ◼   ► in their apps?

00:21:38 ◼   ► I honestly cannot... maybe it's just me, but I have never heard of anybody being confused

00:21:44 ◼   ► by an application that features an emoji as a UI element and being confused that that

00:21:51 ◼   ► app has been made by Apple.

00:21:54 ◼   ► It just seems petty to me that, because they own it and because of copyright reasons, which

00:22:00 ◼   ► I understand, but my question is, I understand whether if it's copyright, if it's a legal

00:22:05 ◼   ► reason, but do you really have to?

00:22:08 ◼   ► What's the benefit to the company, to the bottom line of Apple, to have this kind of

00:22:13 ◼   ► control over emoji?

00:22:15 ◼   ► Just seems like pettiness and going after developers who use them, just not even out

00:22:20 ◼   ► of spite, but just because you can.

00:22:23 ◼   ► But I wonder if you really have to.

00:22:26 ◼   ► And I think that's a question that a bunch of people are asking.

00:22:29 ◼   ► Do you really have to go after people using emoji in apps?

00:22:32 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:22:33 ◼   ► I mean, when I look at the examples, I would agree with some of them.

00:22:36 ◼   ► In particular, some that just sort of use them within text.

00:22:39 ◼   ► I think it's fine when you've got a fun sentence that says, "Hey, here's some new features,

00:22:43 ◼   ► party popper."

00:22:44 ◼   ► I think that's totally fine.

00:22:46 ◼   ► The UI stuff, I'm also pretty, you know, I get where Apple is coming from, but you're

00:22:51 ◼   ► right.

00:22:52 ◼   ► When it's sort of a subtle UI bit of decoration, it's fine.

00:22:54 ◼   ► I think what might have happened is that they wanted to get rid of the most excessive examples

00:23:01 ◼   ► of apps that might entirely be using Apple emoji as game icons in particular. If you're

00:23:07 ◼   ► sort of gaming characters or they're thinking if you're making apps hypothetically that

00:23:13 ◼   ► look too much like an emoji, which Apple has a history of doing, they don't want apps that

00:23:16 ◼   ► are too similar to their own apps, which can be a fine line. So I think that they've tried

00:23:22 ◼   ► to get the worst offenders and they've actually ended up getting everybody. And at least just

00:23:28 ◼   ► before we've gone to where here I have actually heard from some people that maybe some things

00:23:33 ◼   ► are changing. I know this is sort of, I can't go into details right now and I actually don't

00:23:37 ◼   ► know where this is going to go. I have no firm information whether Apple's decided to

00:23:43 ◼   ► backflip on this or whether they're reconsidering or not. I'm just hearing murmurings that maybe,

00:23:48 ◼   ► just maybe, something could change. So I'm going to have to keep an eye on this because

00:23:52 ◼   ► I don't know, did some app, was it just a few stray app reviewers that got a bit wild

00:23:56 ◼   ► with a well-intentioned guideline or was this something more meaningful and I think we're

00:24:03 ◼   ► gonna find out hopefully in the coming weeks if we see all the apps not use emojis or whether

00:24:07 ◼   ► we see actually this seems to be sticking.

00:24:12 ◼   ► So what have you seen actually been rejected?

00:24:15 ◼   ► Because if I'm right you've had quite a few people reach out to you to tell you about

00:24:20 ◼   ► rejections that they've had.

00:24:21 ◼   ► Like, was it a lot of companies that are developers that were having these problems?

00:24:27 ◼   ► And what were the kind of the standard issues that were occurring?

00:24:30 ◼   ► Yes, it seemed to be the ones that I saw were all smaller developers.

00:24:34 ◼   ► And to be honest, they went through the whole spectrum.

00:24:38 ◼   ► They went from things that I would consider maybe a bit egregious, as I said before,

00:24:42 ◼   ► like using having games where every character is an emoji or the entire interface is made up of emojis

00:24:49 ◼   ► right through to ones that just said, "Yeah, we've got new features," or one of them

00:24:53 ◼   ► seemed a bit ridiculous. This bit tracker had, on the Apple Watch, it had just a little

00:24:58 ◼   ► that little chart decreasing emoji of the stocks going down, and it just had a tiny

00:25:03 ◼   ► UI element where it said, "Oh, stocks are down 2%," little downward pointing emoji,

00:25:08 ◼   ► and that was still cited as a problem. So it seemed to be the entire spectrum. As long

00:25:14 ◼   ► as there were small developers, it seemed like there had been at least one example of

00:25:18 ◼   ► Apple getting rid of everything from splash screens with emojis right through to little

00:25:21 ◼   ► tiny bits of text. And on the other hand I did see a few that got through recently as

00:25:26 ◼   ► well so it's definitely, it's definitely inconsistent right now. I had a developer

00:25:30 ◼   ► today who just said "oh yeah my app just got reviewed today with all these emojis all

00:25:34 ◼   ► over the UI". So it's, I don't know, it's not being consistent in those clear examples

00:25:39 ◼   ► where the same thing is being allowed in one spot and not in another, which is hard to

00:25:43 ◼   ► tell who's wrong. Was the reviewer that let it through in the wrong or was the reviewer

00:25:47 ◼   ► that rejected the other ones in the wrong.

00:25:51 ◼   ► It seems like it may have at least been more than one reviewer, right? With the amount

00:25:55 ◼   ► of apps that have gone through this issue. I mean, there is a long history of this type

00:26:00 ◼   ► of stuff happening, where there will be a certain thing that becomes a bugbear in App

00:26:05 ◼   ► Review for like a week or two, and then it's all taken care of. But this is the first time

00:26:10 ◼   ► I think that emoji has been caught up in this. And it's an interesting discussion, because

00:26:15 ◼   ► I understand and agree with what you're saying Federico, like who is it harming really. I

00:26:23 ◼   ► do understand a little bit from Apple's perspective that there are maybe too many companies that

00:26:30 ◼   ► are aligning their brand to something that Apple owns, which is their emoji set. And

00:26:39 ◼   ► I think it's tricky, right? I mean we said this before, like we were complaining about

00:26:44 ◼   ► Slack, right? They have so much of their brand tied up in emoji but it took them so long

00:26:52 ◼   ► to get their emoji update out. But they're also a good example. Apple created this emoji

00:26:58 ◼   ► set and then Slack used it everywhere because it matched with their marketing, because their

00:27:03 ◼   ► marketing was using Apple's emoji. And I think it's tricky, right? They are still images

00:27:09 ◼   ► that Apple own and if they do want to do something like an emoji, they don't want those emoji styles

00:27:16 ◼   ► to be used on another platform because someone else is going to come up with their version of

00:27:22 ◼   ► an emoji. That feels like a given at this point that some other developer or some other OS is

00:27:30 ◼   ► going to come up with their version of an emoji. Some Android firm will have a version soon and I

00:27:35 ◼   ► And I guess that Apple wants to try and protect their styles in all of this would be my thinking.

00:27:41 ◼   ► And it's not just because of Animoji, but just in general.

00:27:44 ◼   ► Like, Apple makes a change to Emoji, to the way their emoji looks, and every other vendor

00:27:49 ◼   ► follows.

00:27:50 ◼   ► And I guess maybe they're getting a little bit peeved about that?

00:27:53 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:27:54 ◼   ► But I don't know if it's worth rejecting people, but it might be worth coming up with some

00:27:59 ◼   ► new guidelines that state when and where emoji can be used.

00:28:03 ◼   ► I think if you are using it in text, you are fine.

00:28:07 ◼   ► If you are using it as some kind of graphic in your application where no text is used,

00:28:14 ◼   ► maybe that needs to be looked at a little bit more clearly.

00:28:18 ◼   ► They're not just little pictures that you can put all over the place.

00:28:22 ◼   ► That's not what they're for and it's not what Apple created them for.

00:28:26 ◼   ► So I guess it's worth just Apple coming up with something.

00:28:31 ◼   ► If they want to actually start rejecting people, as always, they need to actually come up with

00:28:35 ◼   ► some kind of clear guidance that they give to the world.

00:28:38 ◼   ► But I wouldn't be surprised to see them somehow try and strengthen their rules around this.

00:28:44 ◼   ► I mean, arguably though, if you're a developer and you're using a Mac, you can type an emoji

00:28:51 ◼   ► with a keyboard.

00:28:52 ◼   ► So effectively you'll be telling people you cannot type an emoji with a keyboard in Xcode.

00:28:57 ◼   ► So you're basically, I don't want to say that you're banning text, but it gets messy when

00:29:06 ◼   ► you think about it.

00:29:07 ◼   ► Right, but there are people that use them not as text, though, right?

00:29:09 ◼   ► So if you're...

00:29:10 ◼   ► Yes, but you type them as text with a default control on the Mac.

00:29:14 ◼   ► You also can use Command-C to copy an image from anywhere and use it, right?

00:29:18 ◼   ► You don't say that by saying that you can't use this copyright image, you're not banning

00:29:23 ◼   ► the use of copy and paste, right?

00:29:26 ◼   ► I get that they are developed, that they are shown via text, but everybody knows it's generating

00:29:33 ◼   ► an image.

00:29:34 ◼   ► And if you're using, let's say you're using it on some kind of promotional artwork, you

00:29:39 ◼   ► may have typed the text in into Photoshop, but you know what you're doing at that point.

00:29:43 ◼   ► You're not treating it like a text character.

00:29:45 ◼   ► You're treating it as an image, like a sticker, right?

00:29:48 ◼   ► That's what you're treating it as in that point.

00:29:51 ◼   ► I don't think that it needs to be taken away when someone uses emoji and copying their

00:29:56 ◼   ► application. I think that's too far.

00:29:58 ◼   ► I just have a personally bad feeling about the idea of artwork that can be reproduced

00:30:08 ◼   ► by anybody, because it's a keyboard feature, but still subject to copyright. That really

00:30:15 ◼   ► does not work well with the way that I think about copyright and owning things. Because

00:30:21 ◼   ► Because yes, it is art by Apple, designed by Apple and owned by Apple, but you're limiting

00:30:26 ◼   ► the usage.

00:30:27 ◼   ► Because it's not like Apple, you know, they made the Mona Lisa and the Mona Lisa is in

00:30:32 ◼   ► the Louvre in France, and if you want to see the Mona Lisa, you need to go there.

00:30:37 ◼   ► This is like a set of images or fonts or colors, whatever you want, and anybody can use them.

00:30:42 ◼   ► And now you're regulating the usage of something that is in the hands of everybody.

00:30:47 ◼   ► And I really don't...

00:30:48 ◼   ► Like it doesn't leave me with a good feeling.

00:30:50 ◼   ► I don't like the idea.

00:30:52 ◼   ► I don't like the idea.

00:30:54 ◼   ► And it just seems in most cases, it seems just petty to me.

00:30:57 ◼   ► Yeah, I can totally see it because at this point it's too light

00:31:02 ◼   ► because emoji has become part of our language.

00:31:05 ◼   ► Like right now they left it too long if they wanted to actually try

00:31:09 ◼   ► and pull some of this in.

00:31:10 ◼   ► Now, I totally understand them

00:31:13 ◼   ► put like raining in some areas, right?

00:31:16 ◼   ► like not allowing WhatsApp to use Apple's emoji on Android, right? Because it's not needed, right?

00:31:23 ◼   ► There is already Android emoji. And the example that you were using, Jeremy, about like creating

00:31:27 ◼   ► a video game using emoji, right? It's like it's not, it's, that's not what it's for, right? But

00:31:34 ◼   ► I think anywhere that text is used, anywhere that text is seen, it should be okay. But there are edge

00:31:40 ◼   ► cases that maybe they should be protecting against. Yeah, I would agree with that. I feel like most

00:31:45 ◼   ► Most people agree it shouldn't be used on other platforms, because that's not even text.

00:31:49 ◼   ► Once it's on Android, it's just an image by then.

00:31:51 ◼   ► If you just embedded the emoji, the Unicode character, it would show with the Android

00:31:55 ◼   ► image.

00:31:56 ◼   ► So I think we all agree that it would be weird for them to be cool with it being on Android,

00:32:02 ◼   ► but it's just when we're talking about iOS specifically, yeah, I would tend to fall down

00:32:07 ◼   ► the line.

00:32:08 ◼   ► If it's sort of within text, if it's conversational, if it's there as part of your app and it's

00:32:13 ◼   ► sort of flowing around text, totally fine. Don't make it the whole point of your app

00:32:17 ◼   ► to use emoji, Apple's emoji specifically as your brand. And I would say, Federico as

00:32:22 ◼   ► well, that if you think about it, that Apple's logo is one of the characters on iOS. You

00:32:27 ◼   ► can type it and they wouldn't be cool with that if you opened up your app and if you

00:32:32 ◼   ► just type the Apple logo everywhere all over your app because it's included in Apple

00:32:35 ◼   ► fonts on iOS, I'm pretty sure they'd say, "Hey, can you not put our logo everywhere

00:32:41 ◼   ► in your app?"

00:32:42 ◼   ► That's a good point.

00:32:43 ◼   ► But yeah, but overall I think that's where we're sitting there.

00:32:46 ◼   ► It seems to – looking at some of these examples, I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't

00:32:50 ◼   ► seen the proof from the developers that there are some incredibly minor offenses here where

00:32:55 ◼   ► a soul emoji is used next to text and they've been rejected for it.

00:33:00 ◼   ► And those ones I think have gone too far.

00:33:03 ◼   ► And really it's just – Apple should, as you say, Myke, put some guidelines out there,

00:33:08 ◼   ► have a couple of examples.

00:33:09 ◼   ► This is too far.

00:33:10 ◼   ► This is fine.

00:33:11 ◼   ► and then we'll then would only be debating the gray area whereas right now we're potentially

00:33:15 ◼   ► talking about any emoji use that isn't done by a user and that just seems over the top.

00:33:20 ◼   ► Yeah, I often when I look at these things like I apply the working in a large office

00:33:27 ◼   ► problem to this. Like the Apple app review team must be a lot of people for them to be

00:33:34 ◼   ► able to cope with what they cope with. I'm assuming it's many hundreds of people that

00:33:38 ◼   ► work somewhere and it seems like with a lot of this stuff that somebody gets told or everybody

00:33:43 ◼   ► gets told we're focusing on this if you see this you got to stop it and what happens is people

00:33:48 ◼   ► overreact so like somewhere inside of apple app review i believe that people were being told to

00:33:55 ◼   ► reject apps that are using excessive emoji in marketing materials or something like that

00:34:00 ◼   ► and then people were seeing one emoji used in a line of text somewhere and they're like rejecting

00:34:08 ◼   ► because they're not clearly outlining the rules or someone is overreacting or someone didn't fully

00:34:14 ◼   ► understand the new policy change inside of Apple and then we end up with these stories and then

00:34:19 ◼   ► they have to like codify it and then it sorts itself out and that's what I assumed going to

00:34:23 ◼   ► happen. There will be some kind of more standardized rule around the way it's used but I expect that a

00:34:30 ◼   ► lot of the apps that have been rejected so far will probably get taken care of. Is that where you

00:34:34 ◼   ► think this is going, Jeremy? What do you think is going to be the result of all of this?

00:34:38 ◼   ► That's my gut. I feel like in the past week, this is sort of getting a bit of momentum.

00:34:42 ◼   ► It is, you know, nobody wants this in iOS. App developers don't want restrictions,

00:34:48 ◼   ► users don't want restrictions. This is just something that Apple wants to do

00:34:52 ◼   ► for their own copyright and their own IP and their own branding. And I think they maybe didn't realize

00:35:00 ◼   ► how annoyed it would make people, and yeah, I feel like a common ground will be made,

00:35:04 ◼   ► but I don't think this was entirely accidental. Maybe Apple just didn't realise the backlash,

00:35:10 ◼   ► because a number of developers I've spoken to have been on the phone with App Store Review,

00:35:14 ◼   ► and that's normally a different tier already. By the time you speak to someone, it's not just

00:35:18 ◼   ► someone working a few hours a week, you know, clicking buttons there. So I feel like there

00:35:23 ◼   ► is or was a very specific policy that was too restrictive and that maybe now some higher

00:35:32 ◼   ► ups are starting to see some consternation and that hopefully, hopefully Sane Ahead will

00:35:37 ◼   ► prevail and we'll all agree that whatever Apple comes out with in the end is hopefully

00:35:42 ◼   ► something quite reasonable. But I guess we're just going to have to wait and see.

00:35:47 ◼   ► Jeremy Virge, thank you so much for joining us. Where can people find out about all of

00:35:51 ◼   ► the work that you do in creating emoji?

00:35:53 ◼   ► Ah, you snuck it in there.

00:35:57 ◼   ► I did not create emoji.

00:36:00 ◼   ► You created your own emoji set though.

00:36:02 ◼   ► There is an Emojipedia emoji set, so you did create that.

00:36:04 ◼   ► True, and stay tuned very soon.

00:36:06 ◼   ► Emoji whenever the new emoji updates for 2018 are out.

00:36:10 ◼   ► We'll have our new, we do designs also in Apple's style.

00:36:14 ◼   ► I hope we're on their good side.

00:36:15 ◼   ► We do them to sort of look like what we think the emojis will look like when Apple does

00:36:19 ◼   ► them.

00:36:20 ◼   ► But your imagination is being copyrighted Jeremy.

00:36:24 ◼   ► But this is the problem though right?

00:36:28 ◼   ► Like that is the problem.

00:36:29 ◼   ► Like Apple's emoji design has become the way people think that emoji should be drawn.

00:36:36 ◼   ► And I guess this is why if they were ever going to fight anything that's probably why.

00:36:40 ◼   ► Yeah I mean yeah I really just think they want to bring back some control.

00:36:43 ◼   ► They know emoji is big business.

00:36:45 ◼   ► They don't want to get left out of the game if somehow it gets used so wildly all over

00:36:49 ◼   ► the place that everyone just assumes they're public domain, which I feel like a lot of

00:36:53 ◼   ► people actually already do think of Apple's emoji in that way.

00:36:56 ◼   ► So no, you can jump on Emojipedia.org to check out all the emojis, or I'm just @JeremyBirge

00:37:02 ◼   ► on the tweets.

00:37:03 ◼   ► Thank you very much Jeremy.

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00:38:19 ◼   ► for this show. We thank Squarespace for their continued support of Relay FM. Squarespace,

00:38:24 ◼   ► make your next move, make your next website. Let's take it back. Let's take it down a notch,

00:38:28 ◼   ► right? No more emoji. No more speaking about those little pictures. Let's get to the serious

00:38:34 ◼   ► business.

00:38:35 ◼   ► No more fun. No more fun. If you read some of these reviews. Yeah.

00:38:37 ◼   ► So Stephen, what is the consensus? I think the TLDR here is that the HomePod sounds great,

00:38:47 ◼   ► and Apple put a lot of work into the audio quality and fidelity of this thing. They worked on it for

00:38:53 ◼   ► a long time, they built special labs that look like spaceships, but it's sort of a bummer that

00:38:59 ◼   ► it's locked to Apple Music. It's sort of a bummer that Airplay 2 hasn't shipped yet,

00:39:04 ◼   ► And it's a bummer that Siri isn't very good sometimes.

00:39:07 ◼   ► And so it seems like it's an amazing sounding speaker,

00:39:10 ◼   ► but sort of the smart side of it maybe doesn't hold up to its competition.

00:39:15 ◼   ► Which isn't, it's not super surprising to me.

00:39:18 ◼   ► It was just, we got shocked by those reviews.

00:39:20 ◼   ► It's basically everything we thought it would be.

00:39:23 ◼   ► And I think John Gruber had a good line in his article about it that

00:39:27 ◼   ► it's basically Apple said it would be nothing more.

00:39:30 ◼   ► And I think we were all under the impression that Siri on the HomePod would have some secret

00:39:38 ◼   ► trick, you know, especially until a few months ago.

00:39:41 ◼   ► We were certain that it would do multiple users or multiple voice recognition, multiple

00:39:48 ◼   ► timers, and instead everything is just single user, single voice, single timer.

00:39:54 ◼   ► And nothing more than that.

00:39:56 ◼   ► And we don't even know based on these reviews, because at least to my knowledge, nobody has

00:40:02 ◼   ► put the SiriKit stuff through their paces, you know, with the third-party apps running

00:40:08 ◼   ► on the iPhone.

00:40:09 ◼   ► We don't even know how well it works.

00:40:12 ◼   ► Like if I have things or Todoist on my iPhone and I want to collab to the HomePod to create

00:40:18 ◼   ► tasks.

00:40:19 ◼   ► In theory, that should be possible, because the Apple developer website says it is.

00:40:23 ◼   ► But these reviews don't go into detail.

00:40:25 ◼   ► So we don't know if it works, how well it works, how fast it is or it's not.

00:40:30 ◼   ► And I don't want to say that we are...

00:40:33 ◼   ► I mean, I guess we are disappointed by the fact that Siri is so much behind, but I think,

00:40:38 ◼   ► especially over the past month, I was prepared for this possibility that there was no secret

00:40:46 ◼   ► trick coming, that it was all there is on the Apple website.

00:40:50 ◼   ► No AirPlay, no fancy multiple user stuff.

00:40:53 ◼   ► speaker that does Apple music sounds great but Siri is even more limited than on the iPhone.

00:41:00 ◼   ► Yeah I saw in Joanna Stern's video review she attempted to call an Uber and it's just like

00:41:07 ◼   ► I can't do that. So there is SiriKit stuff there but as we've known right it's not all there

00:41:14 ◼   ► and you know there's a funny thing about like I know what you're saying about like nobody really

00:41:18 ◼   ► tested it. I think that is indicative of SiriKit, but just no one really bothered.

00:41:24 ◼   ► Yes, it says something. The fact that we haven't seen that, like all these reviews,

00:41:31 ◼   ► I haven't seen a single, like even a box on the side saying, by the way, we tested with,

00:41:37 ◼   ► you know, Apple, say if you go on developer.apple.com/SiriKit, I think you will see a mention

00:41:42 ◼   ► that the list and notes domains are supported on the HomePod,

00:41:47 ◼   ► so you can add stuff to your note-taking application

00:41:51 ◼   ► or tax manager using the HomePod as a bridge

00:41:54 ◼   ► between the app running on the iPhone and your voice.

00:41:58 ◼   ► -So is it just those two?

00:41:59 ◼   ► -I think it's just -- I'm pretty sure it's --

00:42:01 ◼   ► -I mean, if that's the case, that's why no one's showing you,

00:42:04 ◼   ► because it's pointless, basically.

00:42:06 ◼   ► It's so little, it's not even worth really getting into, right?

00:42:10 ◼   ► Saving, reminding, using alternatives to reminders is pretty useful, I think. But I agree that

00:42:17 ◼   ► the whole syntax involved with sending commands to third-party apps, and even the fact that

00:42:24 ◼   ► sometimes Siri, as we talked about before, cannot understand some app names like Todoist

00:42:31 ◼   ► is a problem. So why even bother? I guess you're right, yeah.

00:42:37 ◼   ► You know what I mean? It's like, that's not really even a very good...

00:42:43 ◼   ► I mean, what are you going to do? Like in your comparison between this and the Amazon Echo

00:42:48 ◼   ► when you're talking about the fact that the Echo has loads more skills.

00:42:51 ◼   ► You go, "Well, they have loads of skills. You can add your shopping company, you can play games of it,

00:42:57 ◼   ► you can add all of your HomeKit devices just by adding a skill."

00:43:00 ◼   ► Oh, but also Apple lets you add reminders.

00:43:02 ◼   ► So the domains are messaging, lists, and notes.

00:43:07 ◼   ► So in theory you could say, I know right?

00:43:10 ◼   ► In theory you could say, send a WhatsApp to somebody,

00:43:13 ◼   ► or add a reminder to a task manager, or save a note.

00:43:18 ◼   ► Three examples of these on iOS, on iOS 11 would be, I guess, WhatsApp,

00:43:23 ◼   ► lists things, or Todoist, or OmniFocus.

00:43:30 ◼   ► Notes, I don't know. Devontink, I guess. I'm not surprised that, you know, the Wall

00:43:35 ◼   ► Street Journal didn't test Devontink for the HomePod.

00:43:40 ◼   ► The thing is, you're the only person to bother testing this, because you're literally

00:43:46 ◼   ► the only person that cares.

00:43:47 ◼   ► I'll give them a pass on the failed Devontink test. I will make sure to try it when I get

00:43:55 ◼   ► it.

00:43:56 ◼   ► Guys, can I just take a very quick pause from the HomePod conversation? Because I have

00:44:00 ◼   ► literally some breaking news for you. So I am hearing from our previous guest, Mr. Jeremy

00:44:07 ◼   ► Burge, that Sam Eckert, developer of BitTracker, has had his app retroactively approved. So

00:44:14 ◼   ► that is happening right now as the show is going on. So we don't know what it means yet,

00:44:19 ◼   ► but it looks like something's happening. The emojis of the version with the emojis in has

00:44:24 ◼   ► gone through app review now. They have, Apple's proactively approved it retroactively, right?

00:44:30 ◼   ► They have gone out and sent another thing to him and said, "Go for it."

00:44:33 ◼   ► So who knows what's going on?

00:44:36 ◼   ► It's I think only more proof of our conversation in that these things, they have to be, and

00:44:41 ◼   ► I don't know how Apple is still having this problem, that they are not setting these rules

00:44:46 ◼   ► clearly for anyone or talking about them upfront before they try and enforce them.

00:44:50 ◼   ► And every single time there is a real change, we end up having this conversation.

00:44:55 ◼   ► It's wild to me that this is still going on.

00:44:57 ◼   ► So that is our breaking news.

00:44:58 ◼   ► So we can now return to our regularly scheduled programming.

00:45:01 ◼   ► So yeah, we were talking about dev and think.

00:45:04 ◼   ► Please, let's go back to talking about dev and think.

00:45:07 ◼   ► Good.

00:45:09 ◼   ► No, I mean, you're right.

00:45:10 ◼   ► The fact that most people didn't bother-- in fact,

00:45:14 ◼   ► nobody tried SiriKit for third-party apps--

00:45:19 ◼   ► is indicative of the fact that SiriKit is complicated.

00:45:23 ◼   ► I guess it's a good word to describe it.

00:45:26 ◼   ► It's just too many rules involved with spelling app names

00:45:31 ◼   ► and sometimes it doesn't hear you

00:45:34 ◼   ► and you gotta use the app name within your sentence.

00:45:38 ◼   ► It's not natural.

00:45:39 ◼   ► And at this point, I've said it before,

00:45:41 ◼   ► I think it's also in my review of iOS 11,

00:45:43 ◼   ► there should just be a screen in settings

00:45:46 ◼   ► where you say, here's the different domains

00:45:49 ◼   ► for which on iOS and therefore on your Apple Watch

00:45:53 ◼   ► or on the HomePod, you can pick a different default app.

00:45:57 ◼   ► I don't think Apple should allow developers to say,

00:46:01 ◼   ► Google Chrome is not your default browser on the iPhone.

00:46:05 ◼   ► But I think default apps could be done--

00:46:06 ◼   ► - They totally should, by the way.

00:46:07 ◼   ► They totally 100% should allow me.

00:46:09 ◼   ► - That's another topic.

00:46:11 ◼   ► What I'm saying is the default apps,

00:46:13 ◼   ► the way we think about them is probably wrong.

00:46:16 ◼   ► I want to see default apps for SiriKit.

00:46:19 ◼   ► So when I'm talking to Siri,

00:46:21 ◼   ► My default app for messaging is WhatsApp,

00:46:23 ◼   ► and my default app for reminders is Things.

00:46:26 ◼   ► So default apps for how you talk to the assistant,

00:46:30 ◼   ► not default apps in the sense of I'm using Google Chrome

00:46:33 ◼   ► and I'm using Gmail as my default apps,

00:46:36 ◼   ► not in that sense, but default apps for Siri,

00:46:38 ◼   ► that would be so much better.

00:46:41 ◼   ► - Well, while we're talking about default apps,

00:46:42 ◼   ► let's talk about Spotify, shall we?

00:46:44 ◼   ► 'Cause this is something that every single review touches on

00:46:47 ◼   ► for good reason.

00:46:49 ◼   ► you can use only Apple Music or some kind of Apple-ordained music service because you can use

00:46:56 ◼   ► iTunes Match and purchase music with the HomePod too. Everybody, all of the reviewers mentioned

00:47:01 ◼   ► this because it is a frustration, no support for Spotify. And I really like the way that

00:47:08 ◼   ► Nilay Patel put it, right? Like he went, I think it was Nilay that did this, going through all of

00:47:12 ◼   ► the competitors saying like this one will allow it, like this is a Google product, Google have

00:47:17 ◼   ► their own music and they allow Spotify. You know, Amazon have their own music service,

00:47:22 ◼   ► they allow Spotify, right? Like everybody else is seeming to just allow this stuff,

00:47:28 ◼   ► allow Spotify to work because Spotify is the world's biggest music streaming service. But

00:47:33 ◼   ► Apple decided not to. And I do wonder and I do believe that less people will buy this

00:47:38 ◼   ► product. I mean, I don't know how many more, but less people will probably buy this product

00:47:42 ◼   ► because of it, right? Because it's, if you use Spotify, if that's what you've chosen

00:47:47 ◼   ► to use. I believe Federico, which one are you on now?

00:47:51 ◼   ► Both. Both. I jumped between them. I'm using Apple

00:47:56 ◼   ► Music more over the past month, three weeks, but

00:48:00 ◼   ► really I'm paying for both of them. And you can AirPlay, so you can open

00:48:05 ◼   ► your phone and connect the AirPlay and you can do it that way and you can

00:48:08 ◼   ► still use voice controls for Play, Pause and Skip, which is good once you've

00:48:12 ◼   ► connected. But really we should be able to use SiriKit for

00:48:15 ◼   ► this right because I want to be able to use overcast because the thing is I

00:48:20 ◼   ► haven't seen anybody talk about this which makes me believe that you can't do

00:48:24 ◼   ► it that there is not going to be a voice way to connect via airplay that doesn't

00:48:29 ◼   ► seem like that's the case like I've seen people talking about oh it's just a

00:48:33 ◼   ► couple of taps to to use airplay like what I would want to do is be like a

00:48:39 ◼   ► high telephone connect to my phone or something like that and then resume but

00:48:45 ◼   ► But it looks like I'm going to have to get my phone every time I want to do that.

00:48:49 ◼   ► With my Echo, I can just say, "Hey Tube, connect to my phone."

00:48:55 ◼   ► It connects and then I can say "Resume" and it will just play.

00:48:58 ◼   ► I don't need to have my phone to do that.

00:49:02 ◼   ► And the point of a product like this is to use your voice for as much as possible.

00:49:08 ◼   ► So many of these things end up in the kitchen and your hands are full or they're in the

00:49:12 ◼   ► sync with a bunch of dirty dishes and you want to play a song that comes to mind.

00:49:17 ◼   ► And yes you can use Spotify and Airplay but it is it is clunkier and I do I

00:49:22 ◼   ► agree with you I wish Apple would open Siri kit to two audio apps and I just

00:49:31 ◼   ► this is you know this is part of the deal with Apple right they have a music

00:49:35 ◼   ► streaming service and they have a speaker so they're not gonna let anybody

00:49:38 ◼   ► else play in that space and it doesn't matter to them the rest of the apps like

00:49:43 ◼   ► overcast get caught up in that right it's like well we're not gonna allow this

00:49:47 ◼   ► entire category because we operate in that and it's it's different I had an

00:49:54 ◼   ► email from a download listener asking it how this was different than them

00:49:58 ◼   ► allowing like things and to do us access to Siri kit because well Apple has a

00:50:03 ◼   ► reminders app they have a notes app but they allow these third-party apps to to

00:50:07 ◼   ► work with SiriKit. The difference is obvious I think is that Apple Music is a

00:50:13 ◼   ► paid subscription and they want to push you to that so their services revenue

00:50:17 ◼   ► continues to go up. That's not a bad thing. They're a company that need to make money.

00:50:20 ◼   ► I'm not judging. I'm saying that's how it works. And if a customer uses Notes or

00:50:26 ◼   ► Evernote or Reminders or things, it's no real skin off Apple's back because Notes

00:50:33 ◼   ► and Reminders aren't paid services. They don't use a lot of iCloud storage so

00:50:37 ◼   ► So it's not like they're trying to get you to use it

00:50:39 ◼   ► so you upgrade your iCloud space.

00:50:41 ◼   ► It's a very different type of thing.

00:50:43 ◼   ► And I just, I think if you're a Spotify user,

00:50:47 ◼   ► the HomePod's not the right product for you

00:50:49 ◼   ► because again, voice is so important.

00:50:51 ◼   ► And if you really want one and you're a Spotify user,

00:50:52 ◼   ► I wouldn't hold your breath for Apple to open it up.

00:50:55 ◼   ► I just, I don't see it happening anytime soon.

00:50:56 ◼   ► - Do you not?

00:50:57 ◼   ► - I think that they are so focused on Apple Music

00:50:59 ◼   ► becoming a really big product for them

00:51:03 ◼   ► is a report that they may soon pass Spotify

00:51:07 ◼   ► and market share in the US.

00:51:08 ◼   ► Worldwide Spotify kills them,

00:51:10 ◼   ► but in the US that may change.

00:51:12 ◼   ► And I think they want that to be true.

00:51:14 ◼   ► And it is interesting that all these reports

00:51:19 ◼   ► say that Apple has started to work on this

00:51:22 ◼   ► sometime in like 2010 or 2011,

00:51:24 ◼   ► like six or seven years ago.

00:51:27 ◼   ► That was before Apple Music was a thing,

00:51:29 ◼   ► But I'm sure that once Apple Music came into existence,

00:51:34 ◼   ► that these two products got married internally

00:51:36 ◼   ► at Apple real quick.

00:51:38 ◼   ► What's the name for this problem, the Apple tax,

00:51:43 ◼   ► in the sense of you're both the company that

00:51:46 ◼   ► wants to sell hardware to people,

00:51:49 ◼   ► and therefore people expect flexible functionality

00:51:53 ◼   ► from a speaker, but also you're the company that

00:51:56 ◼   ► controls the platform with the streaming service.

00:51:59 ◼   ► and so you're kind of working against yourself

00:52:01 ◼   ► and having to pick, do I prioritize customers

00:52:04 ◼   ► who want Spotify on their speakers

00:52:06 ◼   ► or do we prioritize ourselves with Apple Music?

00:52:10 ◼   ► Therefore, locking down the entire platform

00:52:12 ◼   ► and the speaker to just Apple Music

00:52:15 ◼   ► and the built-in podcasts.

00:52:18 ◼   ► It's an interesting problem.

00:52:19 ◼   ► Like, sort of a pick your poison situation.

00:52:24 ◼   ► Do you want to go against your customers

00:52:27 ◼   ► or do you want to go against your services revenue? I don't know what the solution is,

00:52:33 ◼   ► but it's an interesting problem to discuss. Because obviously from a customer perspective,

00:52:39 ◼   ► and maybe if Apple prioritizes the "customer is always right" approach, therefore the customer

00:52:46 ◼   ► must have options. But it's also a corporation that wants to make money from services. They

00:52:51 ◼   ► really care about those services and they really care about the Apple Music growth.

00:52:55 ◼   ► So I don't know, but it's um, what do you guys think they should do?

00:53:01 ◼   ► I think that they should be, I think, they should create Zirikit.

00:53:08 ◼   ► Like I understand, the way to get people to sign up for your music streaming service is

00:53:13 ◼   ► not by giving them only one choice.

00:53:17 ◼   ► Like actually make the service something people want to sign up for.

00:53:20 ◼   ► Like you don't, you're doing it the wrong way around.

00:53:24 ◼   ► And if that is why there is no SiriKit audio intent, I mean we don't know the reason, but

00:53:30 ◼   ► if it is an anti-competitive thing, then they've made the wrong decision, because that's not

00:53:36 ◼   ► the way to do it.

00:53:37 ◼   ► The way to do it is to make a service that's so compelling people want it, not to lock

00:53:41 ◼   ► down all of your devices so people can't sign up for it.

00:53:44 ◼   ► It's the wrong way to do it.

00:53:47 ◼   ► Maybe it will get you more subscribers that way, but I don't think it's the best thing

00:53:50 ◼   ► for customer satisfaction.

00:53:52 ◼   ► Because if we follow – I agree with you completely – if we follow the same thinking

00:53:57 ◼   ► here, we could argue that we can probably – what's the analyst's name that was

00:54:07 ◼   ► always talking about the Apple television?

00:54:09 ◼   ► Gene.

00:54:10 ◼   ► Muster.

00:54:11 ◼   ► You know, we could summon the ghost of Gene Muster and argue that –

00:54:15 ◼   ► That's not bad.

00:54:16 ◼   ► He's still around.

00:54:17 ◼   ► But I mean, metaphorically speaking on a podcast, we could argue that someday Apple will make

00:54:25 ◼   ► a video service and the only way to watch Apple shows is to buy an Apple television.

00:54:30 ◼   ► Because this is what's happening with the HomePod. If you want to listen on a good speaker,

00:54:35 ◼   ► you buy the HomePod and, you know, it's Apple Music. I really think that to make great services

00:54:45 ◼   ► is two things. One is you actually make a great service that is compelling and that,

00:54:51 ◼   ► you know, has features that people want to give you money for. And the second is your

00:54:55 ◼   ► service is everywhere. So, you know, Apple Music is on Android and there's this weird

00:55:04 ◼   ► distinction between Apple Music is on Android, but if you want the HomePod, it's only for

00:55:09 ◼   ► iPhones. So I really cannot reconcile the thinking here that the service can be for

00:55:17 ◼   ► Android users, but the speaker is only for Apple Music. And it's such a weird distinction.

00:55:25 ◼   ► Yeah, that is a good point, right? Like, why have it on Android? And then if you're focusing,

00:55:33 ◼   ► like, "Oh, this is an Apple Music speaker." Well, but it's not, though, because not all of the Apple

00:55:37 ◼   ► your Apple Music subscribers can use it because you need an iPhone to set it up.

00:55:41 ◼   ► It makes it very, it's just like very confusing. So we're spending a lot of

00:55:44 ◼   ► time talking about the negatives, right, which were obvious and I'm sure we'll

00:55:49 ◼   ► have things to say differently when we actually get them in our hands, but it

00:55:53 ◼   ► does seem like the audio engineering paid off because everyone is talking

00:55:57 ◼   ► about the fact that this thing sounds incredible and I'm excited to see what

00:56:02 ◼   ► that is like. I don't know if I am a person who can tell the difference between the quality

00:56:08 ◼   ► of music speakers. Because people talk about like "oh that's flat and that's tinny and

00:56:13 ◼   ► the mids are something and the bass is bumpin'" but I don't feel like I can hear any of that.

00:56:19 ◼   ► I wouldn't be able to tell you what was tinny and what was mids and what the highs and the

00:56:23 ◼   ► lows and the basses were all about. I feel like I don't have a good sense for what that

00:56:31 ◼   ► means when I'm listening to music? Well I think a lot of people pretend they know. So,

00:56:36 ◼   ► you know, fake it until you make it is always the best approach. Oh yeah, well it's like

00:56:39 ◼   ► I say when the bass is bumping, you know? That's my new phrase by the way. Exactly.

00:56:43 ◼   ► That is what the kids say, I think. Yeah, that's my new catchphrase. I think you will

00:56:49 ◼   ► be able to tell the difference between an echo and the home part. Even if you don't

00:56:53 ◼   ► know the right terminology. When a speaker is a good speaker and is a great speaker,

00:57:00 ◼   ► You can tell, even if you don't know what's the right word to describe this sound that

00:57:04 ◼   ► I'm hearing in a different way, but you can tell, oh yeah, this is a better speaker.

00:57:09 ◼   ► And honestly, in most cases, that's enough.

00:57:12 ◼   ► Like if you jump from a Google home, which sounds terrible, I have one.

00:57:17 ◼   ► I don't know why I bought one.

00:57:18 ◼   ► We were together when I did.

00:57:21 ◼   ► You were just excited to be on the Google store.

00:57:23 ◼   ► I was really excited.

00:57:24 ◼   ► It's like I bought a mug, but I do love my mug though.

00:57:26 ◼   ► Yeah, yours was a better purchase. You can tell that it sounds better than a Google Home.

00:57:34 ◼   ► And now I don't know if you can tell the difference between a Sonos One and a HomePod, and honestly

00:57:40 ◼   ► I would also struggle there. I think I'm, at least I was used to listening to, you know,

00:57:47 ◼   ► back when we were in a band that Steven likes to listen to very so often, we had this guy

00:57:55 ◼   ► guy, he was our audio engineer, and he made us, effectively made us, do blind tests for

00:58:02 ◼   ► speakers and stuff to sort of be able to discern different sounds and different speakers and

00:58:08 ◼   ► what it means for the way that you produce music.

00:58:12 ◼   ► So I have a basic understanding of what's going on here, but also if I were to do a

00:58:20 ◼   ► blind test today between a Sonos One, which according to the reviews it sounds very similar

00:58:25 ◼   ► to the HomePod and an Apple HomePod, I don't know if I would be able to tell the difference

00:58:30 ◼   ► right away and I think that's fine because ultimately, yes it sounds great but you're

00:58:35 ◼   ► also buying the speaker for the ecosystem and you're buying it because it runs Apple

00:58:39 ◼   ► Music and it lets you do some Siri in some fashion.

00:58:44 ◼   ► Yeah I'm intrigued by it. I just, I really can't work out what I would use it for. I'm

00:58:52 ◼   ► gonna see. I mean it looks nice, sounds good, I'm gonna give it a real try but...

00:59:00 ◼   ► and I hope it can... do you know what? I hope that I can listen to it and be like

00:59:04 ◼   ► "oh my gosh, this is incredible, why do I play music on anything else?" because I am

00:59:10 ◼   ► an Apple Music subscriber, it's what I use. I only have a Spotify account because of

00:59:15 ◼   ► my Amazon Echo. Hmm, I have seen you ask the Echo to play songs in your apartment

00:59:22 ◼   ► Yeah, but that's just because we mostly play music when we have guests.

00:59:26 ◼   ► Oh, okay. So that was very kind of you.

00:59:28 ◼   ► Yeah, it was very kind. Just for you. Give you some music.

00:59:31 ◼   ► Let me ask you, how do you use the echo? Like, what are the skills or the commands that you

00:59:36 ◼   ► use, like, on a regular basis?

00:59:38 ◼   ► I've been thinking about this in preparation for trying out the HomePod. I ask it for...

00:59:46 ◼   ► I've written this down. Let me get it so I can see, because I have actually written it

00:59:49 ◼   ► down. I use it for turning on the lights and you know that kind of stuff. Weather,

00:59:58 ◼   ► measurement questions, so like how many ounces in a something, timers, right so

01:00:06 ◼   ► when I'm cooking and every now and then the occasional pop culture question but

01:00:13 ◼   ► then I also use a couple of skills and the most important one is the shopping

01:00:17 ◼   ► service that we use, which is called Ocado, we can add things to the shopping to our trolley,

01:00:24 ◼   ► which is excellent. So like when I'm cooking and I realize we've run out of olive oil,

01:00:29 ◼   ► I can say, "Hey Echo, tell Ocado to add olive oil to my shopping list." And then it adds

01:00:35 ◼   ► it to our next actual order.

01:00:38 ◼   ► Is it extra virgin olive oil or just regular one?

01:00:41 ◼   ► Only extra virgin, of course. But the system is very good. If I just say olive oil, it

01:00:46 ◼   ► looks through my previous purchases and that's the one that we bought the most or most recently.

01:00:51 ◼   ► It's very, very clever. And I wouldn't want to give something like that up because it's

01:00:56 ◼   ► like so many people use these products when they're cooking for helping them cook, right?

01:01:02 ◼   ► So like measurements and timers. And another big part of that for me is when I am cooking

01:01:08 ◼   ► and I realize I'm in the recipe, right? Like I'm doing the thing. I don't have time at

01:01:13 ◼   ► that point because I've already got stuff on the go to grab my phone out and add the

01:01:17 ◼   ► thing to my shopping list in the Ocado app. But I can just be walking around the kitchen

01:01:21 ◼   ► and speaking at it. And obviously this product is not built for that because they have made

01:01:27 ◼   ► no considerations, none, not one, to make it for this. Because the easy one was just

01:01:34 ◼   ► adding multiple timers but it didn't even bother to do that. Not even name timers, they

01:01:38 ◼   ► just didn't do it. So Apple has made a big stand and like every time they ever

01:01:43 ◼   ► show this product it's always in a living room. That's where it is. It's a

01:01:46 ◼   ► living room product. So this is obviously not what they're going for but that's

01:01:52 ◼   ► why like it doesn't matter how much I love the HomePod it will not replace

01:01:58 ◼   ► Echo for me because where I'm using it most the HomePod does not fit right now.

01:02:05 ◼   ► now. It can, this is all software, all this stuff is software and they can make this

01:02:09 ◼   ► product better but they haven't done a lot of this stuff right now. Yeah my uses

01:02:16 ◼   ► of the Echo are very similar to yours and honestly I think except for the

01:02:21 ◼   ► shopping cart deal but I think the thing that's gonna break it for us if they

01:02:25 ◼   ► don't they don't update it is the multiple timer thing. Like I've just been paying

01:02:28 ◼   ► attention over the last couple weeks of how we use ours and almost every night

01:02:34 ◼   ► when we're cooking, there's more than one timer going.

01:02:37 ◼   ► And we name them, so you know what's done when.

01:02:41 ◼   ► And it just, it seems like such an obvious thing

01:02:44 ◼   ► to have supported.

01:02:46 ◼   ► But even the iPhone can't do it.

01:02:48 ◼   ► Even the iPhone's stuck with one timer.

01:02:50 ◼   ► So I hope they can add that,

01:02:53 ◼   ► 'cause I think that is important to a lot of people.

01:02:54 ◼   ► Like that's been a popular thing I've seen on Twitter

01:02:58 ◼   ► and heard another podcast.

01:02:59 ◼   ► I don't think it's just us that want that.

01:03:03 ◼   ► One other thing that I'm concerned about with the home part is the same problem that the

01:03:07 ◼   ► Google Home has, how verbose it is, and I'm concerned that Siri's gonna wanna make jokes

01:03:12 ◼   ► every time I turn the lights on and off. Or at least just be like, "Okay, turning the

01:03:17 ◼   ► living room light on." I'm interested to see what that ends up looking like because one

01:03:23 ◼   ► of my favorite things about the Echo compared to the Google Home, I've mentioned this before,

01:03:28 ◼   ► is about the fact that when I ask it to do something, it keeps it short and sweet, which

01:03:32 ◼   ► is what I want. I don't need it to try and have a conversation with me when I'm turning

01:03:35 ◼   ► the lights off at night. So I'm keen to see how this thing's going to turn out, but so

01:03:41 ◼   ► far I think the reviews have played exactly the way you could have predicted them to.

01:03:46 ◼   ► Like great hardware, terrible software and service, right? Like we're gonna, I mean,

01:03:51 ◼   ► I don't think we're going to have much more to say outside of that. Obviously Federico

01:03:55 ◼   ► will be giving us comprehensive reviews of SiriKit, no actions next week.

01:04:00 ◼   ► But that's, I guess that's what people tune in for, right?

01:04:04 ◼   ► Because the minutiae that we provide.

01:04:06 ◼   ► I think I will be one of the first people in Italy with a HomePod.

01:04:10 ◼   ► I've gone to great lengths to make sure that I will have a HomePod soon enough.

01:04:16 ◼   ► That means basically giving UPS a lot of money.

01:04:19 ◼   ► You do?

01:04:20 ◼   ► Oh, okay, you're going to do an overnight situation.

01:04:22 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:04:23 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah.

01:04:24 ◼   ► I've done that.

01:04:25 ◼   ► Marco overnighted an Apple Pencil to me when you couldn't get them anywhere on the planet,

01:04:29 ◼   ► it but he managed to get one and then I wrote a review of it.

01:04:33 ◼   ► I remember the Apple Pencil.

01:04:34 ◼   ► Yeah, I was using mine today. I was filling out a document and was using my Apple Pencil.

01:04:40 ◼   ► So that's the home part. That's what we know so far. Look out for more next week.

01:04:46 ◼   ► Can I just say something before we move on to the next topic?

01:04:48 ◼   ► Of course.

01:04:49 ◼   ► There's something strange that happened thanks to the chat room on the Relay website. So

01:04:56 ◼   ► We mentioned our My Old Band, and somebody said...

01:05:00 ◼   ► Seniors, everyone's favorite band, the Seniors, there'll be links in the show notes.

01:05:03 ◼   ► And here's a clip you can listen to right now.

01:05:06 ◼   ► You know that something's a change You know that something's a change

01:05:11 ◼   ► You know that something's a change We call it time

01:05:19 ◼   ► And there's no more singing alone There is nothing we can do

01:05:25 ◼   ► Oh no! Anyway, pasta boy in the chatroom said "It's also on Apple Music" and I was like

01:05:31 ◼   ► "Wait, what? It's not supposed to be on Apple Music, I never signed anything to be on Apple

01:05:36 ◼   ► Music" and I thought it was maybe a mistake, so I searched for "Seniors on Apple Music"

01:05:41 ◼   ► and sure enough, there's an entry for Seniors on Apple Music. It only has two songs with

01:05:49 ◼   ► Apparently in an EP that we...

01:05:52 ◼   ► This cover, I don't remember, I remember taking this photo. I don't remember the cover. It's got two songs

01:05:59 ◼   ► from 2008 under Enjoy Record as the label and also there's another song that we didn't actually

01:06:07 ◼   ► make

01:06:10 ◼   ► so

01:06:12 ◼   ► Somebody must be representing us, I guess. I have no idea

01:06:17 ◼   ► What is going on here?

01:06:19 ◼   ► Can you see it? Can you see it too?

01:06:21 ◼   ► I haven't I'm still trying to find it, but I can't believe that that exists

01:06:27 ◼   ► Your music royalties any day now?

01:06:30 ◼   ► It's from 2008 under pop as the genre and

01:06:37 ◼   ► There's two I have no idea. Maybe it's what's the name of the song that is yours?

01:06:44 ◼   ► Try Who's There, for example. These are terrible titles.

01:06:49 ◼   ► Is that... Wait, so this album artwork I'm looking at, is that you?

01:06:54 ◼   ► That is me in the middle. Oh wow, see I don't recognise you without

01:06:59 ◼   ► facial hair. Yeah, as soon as I previewed it, I needed

01:07:03 ◼   ► like half a second to hear the Federico Vittucci Oasis style and I knew exactly that it was

01:07:09 ◼   ► the band that I love so much. But I don't remember the other song, Even

01:07:13 ◼   ► "Evening Shadows Falling" that is something that I never sang.

01:07:16 ◼   ► Have you listened to it? Is it you?

01:07:18 ◼   ► I don't know. Should I try?

01:07:21 ◼   ► Yeah, you gotta... I see too who's there and what I tried to say to you last night.

01:07:26 ◼   ► Yeah, and "Evening Shadows Falling" which... what is this? I have no idea.

01:07:31 ◼   ► That's not available on my EP here. Maybe that's just an Italy only song.

01:07:35 ◼   ► Oh, it doesn't play for me. I click on it and it does nothing.

01:07:39 ◼   ► I think that's mis-categorized, but I see that, but I don't think that's you.

01:07:42 ◼   ► Well look at you! Federico Vittucci on Apple Music!

01:07:46 ◼   ► This is strange, but...

01:07:48 ◼   ► I must remember, the very first song that I asked for my home pod to play for me is

01:07:53 ◼   ► "Who's There?" by The Seniors, so I can really get some of that bump in bass playing through.

01:08:00 ◼   ► What is Enjoy Record? I don't know.

01:08:02 ◼   ► You gotta hunt them down, they're making money on you, man! They're selling that!

01:08:06 ◼   ► I want all my two euros from these royalties, they're mine!

01:08:11 ◼   ► Especially after this episode, everyone's gonna go listen to it. It's in the show notes.

01:08:15 ◼   ► Exactly.

01:08:16 ◼   ► Wow. Wow. I don't know how we're gonna come back from that. I think we have to take a

01:08:20 ◼   ► break so everybody can calm down a little bit. And the best way to calm down is to take

01:08:24 ◼   ► a little nap and wear a bed on a Casper mattress. Casper are the company focused on sleep. They're

01:08:29 ◼   ► dedicated to making you exceptionally comfortable one night at a time. You spend a third of

01:08:34 ◼   ► - it's on Spotify too! It's in the chair! It's in Spotify too! I can't believe it!

01:08:38 ◼   ► But there's another song in the middle!

01:08:40 ◼   ► There's another one!

01:08:41 ◼   ► Federica's music is everywhere!

01:08:43 ◼   ► Anyway, you spend a third of your life sleeping.

01:08:45 ◼   ► If you spend a third of your life doing anything,

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01:09:38 ◼   ► Stephen Hackett, I know you have a Casper mattress.

01:09:40 ◼   ► Would you say that it has all of the right support in all of the right places?

01:09:44 ◼   ► I would say that, yes.

01:09:45 ◼   ► So you feel greatly supported every night when you tuck into bed?

01:09:49 ◼   ► I feel supported physically, emotionally.

01:09:52 ◼   ► It's really comfortable, it's great.

01:09:54 ◼   ► Big fan.

01:09:55 ◼   ► I'm pleased to hear that.

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01:10:19 ◼   ► It comes to life before your eyes.

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01:10:24 ◼   ► I once moved, I have a moving story, I'll make it quick.

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01:11:00 ◼   ► offer code connected. Our thanks to Casper for their support of this show.

01:11:06 ◼   ► So a couple of weeks ago I saw an article from the wonderful Matt Burchler at

01:11:12 ◼   ► birchtree.me about watchOS 5. So we're going into the fifth version of

01:11:19 ◼   ► watchOS. It's crazy. Is it been five years? Is that what that means? No it doesn't mean that.

01:11:24 ◼   ► that yeah the first one went by real quick remember they replaced it okay I

01:11:31 ◼   ► thought I just lost a significant portion of my life right there well I

01:11:34 ◼   ► mean you're 30 now so one year is not that significant yeah sure I thought I

01:11:38 ◼   ► was 41 I just loved 11 years of it well then I guess we are on what choice 16

01:11:44 ◼   ► my oh no yeah it does seem crazy that that they're already on five and when

01:11:51 ◼   ► When I saw this, my thought was,

01:11:54 ◼   ► if you think between iPhone OS 1 and iOS 5,

01:11:59 ◼   ► how many things were added, how many things were different,

01:12:04 ◼   ► the evolution that took place over that time,

01:12:08 ◼   ► and I just don't see that on WatchOS.

01:12:09 ◼   ► Like, yes, the underlying technology's better,

01:12:13 ◼   ► yes, they got rid of glances and now they're cards

01:12:16 ◼   ► or something and they've rearranged some stuff,

01:12:18 ◼   ► and it's a lot faster,

01:12:20 ◼   ► watchOS still feels fundamentally the same as it always has to me and I just

01:12:27 ◼   ► I just I saw that number and I sort of had lost track and it surprised me. I

01:12:31 ◼   ► think it's that the iterations that they've made have kind of just like

01:12:36 ◼   ► moved it along. They haven't obviously and I don't think it's coming and I

01:12:40 ◼   ► don't think we're even close to it it hasn't had like its iOS 70 moment where

01:12:44 ◼   ► they like rebuilt a bunch of it visually or in any significant way so like it

01:12:49 ◼   ► It feels like everything's just moved along real smooth throughout watchOS's life.

01:12:54 ◼   ► But Matt broke down a bunch of feature improvements that he'd like to see for watchOS, and it's

01:12:59 ◼   ► a great post full of lovely concept imagery.

01:13:02 ◼   ► Stephen's very happy because remember the milk sneaks in there somehow.

01:13:05 ◼   ► It's true.

01:13:06 ◼   ► And even though Matt recommends or uses remember the milk, I still trust what he has to say.

01:13:12 ◼   ► One of the big things is the Siri watch face and some improvements there.

01:13:16 ◼   ► I still use the Siri watch face every day and I like it very much, but I agree completely

01:13:20 ◼   ► with Matt that the ability for third-party applications to be able to put data here would

01:13:25 ◼   ► be awesome.

01:13:26 ◼   ► Like for me to be able to see weather stuff from Carrotweather, Calendar from Fantastic

01:13:30 ◼   ► Out, and todos from Todoist would be incredible.

01:13:33 ◼   ► Like it would give me the exact thing that I would want from my Apple Watch.

01:13:39 ◼   ► Because I really, really honestly do like the Siri watch face, but it does feel a little

01:13:43 ◼   ► bit restricted at times as to what data I'm actually seeing.

01:13:47 ◼   ► Yeah, totally agree.

01:13:49 ◼   ► There should be an API for developers to plug into it

01:13:52 ◼   ► and say, these are my apps items.

01:13:55 ◼   ► They have due date or time.

01:13:58 ◼   ► And there you go.

01:14:00 ◼   ► And the system figures out what to do.

01:14:03 ◼   ► They can take into account dates, times, location.

01:14:06 ◼   ► Apple sees if you tend to use an app in your car or at the office

01:14:10 ◼   ► or in your home.

01:14:11 ◼   ► And so there should be a way for developers to say,

01:14:14 ◼   ► here's my data, and for Apple to say,

01:14:17 ◼   ► we're going to take this, and Siri, as an intelligence,

01:14:20 ◼   ► is going to sift through this data

01:14:22 ◼   ► and create a watch face for you.

01:14:24 ◼   ► It makes subtle sense.

01:14:26 ◼   ► Steven, you have put in our documents something

01:14:29 ◼   ► that I've been thinking about a lot recently about complications

01:14:33 ◼   ► and the Siri watch face.

01:14:35 ◼   ► It would be great to see, like you said, third party stuff.

01:14:41 ◼   ► But I can also see, so the idea of complication was

01:14:44 ◼   ► you put it on there and it's a little piece of data that updates throughout

01:14:48 ◼   ► the day. So like for instance

01:14:49 ◼   ► on my watch if I use the

01:14:53 ◼   ► the modular face one of the ones that I show

01:14:57 ◼   ► is Todoist. So I could see how many to do items I have left. It's a little number

01:15:02 ◼   ► and sometimes it remembers the sync with my iPhone and it updates

01:15:05 ◼   ► as I check things off. But it's very basic right? If I want to actually see any

01:15:10 ◼   ► information I have to tap into it and then wait for it to load. I could see a

01:15:14 ◼   ► world where the Siri watch face expands on this idea. So like you said I don't

01:15:21 ◼   ► just see that I have six items left but I see you know the next item based on

01:15:25 ◼   ► importance or the next thing due by time. You know it being intelligent and

01:15:29 ◼   ► surfacing things as they become as they become relevant to me. And complications

01:15:36 ◼   ► can kind of do that, but complications require me to do it.

01:15:39 ◼   ► So if I want to keep up with a basketball score,

01:15:43 ◼   ► I can put some sort of sports score keeping complication

01:15:47 ◼   ► on my watch, but I gotta remember to do that.

01:15:49 ◼   ► I gotta remember, oh right, there's a game,

01:15:50 ◼   ► I wanna keep up with it, I'm not gonna be able to watch it,

01:15:52 ◼   ► I just want my watch to remind me.

01:15:55 ◼   ► Apple talks about Siri being the proactive assistant

01:15:57 ◼   ► and being really intelligent, it's like,

01:15:59 ◼   ► well then do that on the watch.

01:16:01 ◼   ► You have all this information on my phone

01:16:05 ◼   ► that watch face could do so much more it could it could take the idea of

01:16:08 ◼   ► complications and like expand it into the next level and that would be that

01:16:14 ◼   ► would be really really great and then just in general watch face improvements

01:16:19 ◼   ► always on yes definitely like the battery life can 100% support this now

01:16:24 ◼   ► like please make it happen and then third party developed faces Federico do

01:16:29 ◼   ► Do you think that this is gonna happen at some point?

01:16:32 ◼   ► - I don't know.

01:16:33 ◼   ► I would love to see it, especially for,

01:16:37 ◼   ► maybe as a way for apps to bundle a watch face.

01:16:42 ◼   ► Like I imagine that if you are

01:16:45 ◼   ► like a really productivity oriented type of person,

01:16:48 ◼   ► you could say Todoist now comes with a watch face.

01:16:51 ◼   ► And you can customize it.

01:16:53 ◼   ► You can put in multiple complications from other apps.

01:16:58 ◼   ► But I imagine that maybe apps could offer an extension,

01:17:02 ◼   ► a watch face extension, that lets you replace

01:17:06 ◼   ► the Apple watch face with a third party one.

01:17:08 ◼   ► And there could be different types,

01:17:11 ◼   ► like a to-do list, watch face could have a bunch of shortcuts

01:17:14 ◼   ► to your lists, to your to-dos, or there could be like,

01:17:18 ◼   ► I don't know, fitness watch faces,

01:17:20 ◼   ► I imagine would be amazing because they make a lot of sense.

01:17:23 ◼   ► I don't know if there should be a watch face marketplace

01:17:27 ◼   ► of sorts, because in theory, all of these extensions

01:17:33 ◼   ► that we've seen Apple do over the years,

01:17:35 ◼   ► all kinds of extensions from widgets to complications

01:17:38 ◼   ► to extensions on the iPhone, they've

01:17:41 ◼   ► always been bundled with apps.

01:17:43 ◼   ► And even with custom keyboards on the iPhone,

01:17:47 ◼   ► it's strange when you need to download something just

01:17:52 ◼   ► to get the extension.

01:17:53 ◼   ► I don't think Apple is really good at sort of pushing people

01:17:57 ◼   ► to-- because the App Store is their only marketplace.

01:18:00 ◼   ► And so people are used to the idea, I go to the App Store,

01:18:02 ◼   ► I download an app.

01:18:04 ◼   ► But then when I go to the App Store--

01:18:05 ◼   ► and we've seen this with iMessage apps,

01:18:07 ◼   ► iMessage only apps-- the confusion that generates from,

01:18:11 ◼   ► I go to the App Store, I download something,

01:18:13 ◼   ► but it's not on my home screen.

01:18:14 ◼   ► And so I imagine it would maybe be easier to say,

01:18:17 ◼   ► the watch faces are tied to the apps that you have.

01:18:21 ◼   ► But also that creates another problem, that what if Todoist--

01:18:25 ◼   ► and I'm using them as an example,

01:18:27 ◼   ► they have an idea for a watch face,

01:18:31 ◼   ► but it's got nothing to do with Todoist as a product.

01:18:34 ◼   ► So there's pros and cons to this approach.

01:18:37 ◼   ► It would be interesting to see though,

01:18:40 ◼   ► the Apple Watch App Store,

01:18:43 ◼   ► maybe there's another idea,

01:18:44 ◼   ► sort of pivot to being something else,

01:18:47 ◼   ► like a place where you go to download not apps

01:18:50 ◼   ► that you get from the iPhone App Store anyway,

01:18:53 ◼   ► But you go to the watch app store to get complications,

01:18:56 ◼   ► to get watch faces, and to get all these additions

01:18:58 ◼   ► to your Apple Watch.

01:19:00 ◼   ► That could be maybe like breathe new life

01:19:02 ◼   ► into the watchOS app store, which is not a wasteland,

01:19:06 ◼   ► but I don't know anybody who goes--

01:19:09 ◼   ► - Less about apps and more about just general customization

01:19:13 ◼   ► of the watch. - Yes, yes.

01:19:15 ◼   ► - Is a better way to think about the Apple Watch today

01:19:19 ◼   ► than like these specific applications.

01:19:21 ◼   ► It doesn't make sense.

01:19:23 ◼   ► and hasn't made sense.

01:19:25 ◼   ► - It would be better, you know,

01:19:26 ◼   ► because Apple, they have, for example, on the Watch app,

01:19:28 ◼   ► they have that Watch face gallery,

01:19:30 ◼   ► and I think that's pretty good looking,

01:19:32 ◼   ► and it makes sense as a feature.

01:19:35 ◼   ► I would love to see an entire app store

01:19:37 ◼   ► that's just like that, not apps.

01:19:39 ◼   ► I'm going to the app store for apps anyway.

01:19:42 ◼   ► I wanna go to the Watch app store

01:19:44 ◼   ► to get customization features, options,

01:19:48 ◼   ► and it's done contextually within the Watch app

01:19:51 ◼   ► that when you tap something, you go back into the settings

01:19:54 ◼   ► and you see it, it would make so much sense, I think,

01:19:57 ◼   ► to have the kind of reboot for the watch app store.

01:20:00 ◼   ► - Matt also talks about a frustration he has

01:20:02 ◼   ► with workouts where like if you forget to say

01:20:05 ◼   ► you're on a workout, well, you've lost the ability to do it.

01:20:07 ◼   ► So Apple should try and add some kind

01:20:09 ◼   ► of automatic workout detection.

01:20:11 ◼   ► And while something like this is never gonna be perfect,

01:20:13 ◼   ► it would be a great backup for the times

01:20:16 ◼   ► where you forget to start a workout

01:20:17 ◼   ► and then you don't get your green ring close to the day.

01:20:20 ◼   ► And I like Matt's proposal that the watch will notify you,

01:20:23 ◼   ► give you a little tap if it thinks you're working out

01:20:26 ◼   ► to which you can confirm or deny.

01:20:28 ◼   ► I like that.

01:20:29 ◼   ► Rest days should totally be a thing.

01:20:32 ◼   ► If you're sick, you'll lose your streak, right?

01:20:35 ◼   ► Like it's as simple as that.

01:20:36 ◼   ► And I like the way that _DavidSmith,

01:20:39 ◼   ► he does a great job of this in like activity plus plus.

01:20:42 ◼   ► Like if you, for some reason,

01:20:44 ◼   ► don't do your exercise goal one day,

01:20:46 ◼   ► it doesn't break your streak.

01:20:47 ◼   ► You just got a rest day and that's healthy, right?

01:20:50 ◼   ► that's fine, it's fine to do that. That would be a nice thing to see Apple implement.

01:20:54 ◼   ► And of course, the big one, sleep tracking.

01:20:57 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:20:58 ◼   ► And I know you would love this Federico, I'm assuming, native sleep tracking, because you

01:21:02 ◼   ► do this, don't you? Do you still do this?

01:21:04 ◼   ► I do this every day, every night, I guess. But yeah, I use Autosleep on my watch and

01:21:09 ◼   ► on the iPhone, and I have the data going into gyroscope, going into streaks to make sure

01:21:16 ◼   ► that I get all my, you know, my six or seven hours. I would love for Apple to add, I don't

01:21:23 ◼   ► know if maybe a fourth ring, because sleep is more of a passive thing, whereas the activity

01:21:30 ◼   ► is more like I have an active lifestyle, but I think the Apple Watch should have sleep

01:21:36 ◼   ► tracking built in that goes into her kit. Also, I don't think that it would be a good

01:21:40 ◼   ► idea for them to like add it as a ring because it's telling people to do it and most people

01:21:46 ◼   ► will still charge their phone or charge their watch or don't want to sleep with the watch

01:21:50 ◼   ► on. Right, like I think that might be too much but like you know in the way that Breathe

01:21:54 ◼   ► exists you know like it's another application which you can do a thing in if you want to

01:21:59 ◼   ► and you can set it up to remind you but it doesn't actually make an effect to your activity

01:22:04 ◼   ► scores and stuff. That might be cool. And the last one is podcast support. Like at the

01:22:09 ◼   ► the very least there should be an Apple shipped podcast, an Apple podcast app for the Apple

01:22:13 ◼   ► watch. But what I think we would like to see way more, and I know many people that would

01:22:18 ◼   ► love this too, is Apple to improve the API, is to allow third parties to create valid

01:22:24 ◼   ► independent podcast applications that don't need to be setting up as workouts or taking

01:22:29 ◼   ► in little hacks. So I can take just my AirPods and my Apple watch out into the world and

01:22:33 ◼   ► listen to a podcast. That would be great, wouldn't it? I hope they do that. That would

01:22:38 ◼   ► be wonderful.

01:22:39 ◼   ► great. So that's some some thoughts on WatchOS 5. I think we all agree with this. I recommend

01:22:43 ◼   ► people go and take a look at this article just to see the lovely little mock-ups that

01:22:49 ◼   ► Matt has worked on. I like the way that he has displayed some of his ideas kind of visually.

01:22:57 ◼   ► Before we finish today, I have more emoji breaking news for you. It's all happening.

01:23:01 ◼   ► It turns out that Jeremy was very kind of his time because basically immediately after

01:23:06 ◼   ► leaving us, there's a post on Emojipedia about the 2018 emoji list, the 157 new emoji added

01:23:15 ◼   ► to the standard. I'm looking at the video now, it's really well done, as always, by

01:23:21 ◼   ► Jeremy and team. So this is emoji 11, this is 11.0, and some of the highlights, it includes

01:23:29 ◼   ► superheroes and supervillains, more hair color types, so red hair, curly hair, bald people,

01:23:37 ◼   ► and white hair are in there. There's a very creepy looking leg that is in the Emojipedia

01:23:42 ◼   ► representation. There is a bone, I can't imagine that being used out of context. There's a

01:23:50 ◼   ► lab coat, a skateboard is in here. Some great looking emoji, or some great representations

01:23:57 ◼   ► of Emojidex are going to be coming. Oh look at that! Cold face and hot face, party face,

01:24:00 ◼   ► I like the party face. That would be good for World Emojidex because that's the World

01:24:04 ◼   ► Emojidex icon, which is a holiday that Jeremy created, which has become a real thing that

01:24:10 ◼   ► people pay attention to, which is hilarious. Jeremy Burge is one of the most interesting

01:24:15 ◼   ► people that I know, without a shadow of a doubt. He has a very interesting life. Like

01:24:20 ◼   ► I know many people that have jobs, like all of us, which is like, how is that a job? But

01:24:25 ◼   ► But I think that about Jeremy.

01:24:27 ◼   ► How is emoji his job?

01:24:29 ◼   ► Turns out it is.

01:24:30 ◼   ► By the way, a little bit of follow out.

01:24:33 ◼   ► Me and Steven do a podcast called "Ungeniused" and Jeremy filled in for me on an episode

01:24:38 ◼   ► a couple of weeks ago where Steven asked him about emoji and how it was created and kind

01:24:45 ◼   ► of where it came from and how it's become the thing it is today.

01:24:47 ◼   ► So you can go listen to that too.

01:24:49 ◼   ► It's "Ungeniused" episode 43 emoji.

01:24:53 ◼   ► So I think that wraps it up for today.

01:24:54 ◼   ► Wow, what an action-packed episode.

01:24:58 ◼   ► But I'm unable to finish the episode

01:25:00 ◼   ► because we have to throw it back over

01:25:02 ◼   ► to the new host of the show, Stephen Hackett,

01:25:05 ◼   ► to round out the show today.

01:25:07 ◼   ► - So that's the end of the podcast.

01:25:08 ◼   ► It's basically over now.

01:25:10 ◼   ► We're gonna do the same stuff we kind of always do.

01:25:12 ◼   ► We're gonna tell you where to find the show notes.

01:25:15 ◼   ► Relay.fm/connected/179.

01:25:20 ◼   ► There's a bunch of tiny heads artwork in there

01:25:21 ◼   ► should click and just be amazed by that trend. You can get in touch with us there. You can

01:25:28 ◼   ► send us an email or you can find us on Twitter. Myke is I-M-Y-K-E. Federico is V-I-T-I-C-C-I.

01:25:37 ◼   ► And again, there's links to all of his music in the show notes. You can find me on Twitter

01:25:42 ◼   ► as I-S-M-H. You can find Federico on Apple Music. And Spotify.

01:25:51 ◼   ► So bad. You're bad. Just ask your smart speaker of choice to play this. You're a bad, bad

01:25:57 ◼   ► person. What I love about this is this was a thing you did in your past that you can't

01:26:02 ◼   ► get rid of. You have no way of removing this and now it's just there for us all to listen

01:26:06 ◼   ► to. No, you could even ask a smart speaker about it. Who owns the copyright to this music?

01:26:12 ◼   ► I have no idea. I don't know. Because, you know, we could totally just change our theme

01:26:17 ◼   ► song to the show. No we cannot. To be a senior's track. To be a senior's original track. We

01:26:22 ◼   ► don't need that classical music anymore. Maybe outro music at least. The seniors do not exist

01:26:29 ◼   ► anymore. Yeah we don't have outro music. We could 100% just add this in as outro music.

01:26:36 ◼   ► We don't need it. We'll just see what happens. I'm gonna put all this stuff in Logic, I'm

01:26:40 ◼   ► gonna shake my computer up real hard and we'll see what comes out the other end. You just

01:26:43 ◼   ► you never know you know that's how podcasts are made thank you to our three sponsors uh this week

01:26:50 ◼   ► lenode squarespace and casper for making the show possible and until next week gentlemen say goodbye

01:26:56 ◼   ► goodbye

01:27:00 ◼   ► [Music]

01:27:07 ◼   ► [Music]

01:27:14 ◼   ► [Music]

01:27:21 ◼   ► [Music]

01:27:26 ◼   ► Adios.