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Connected

123: 2017 Apple Predictions

 

00:00:00   [Music]

00:00:06   From Relay FM, this is Connected Episode 1, 2, 3, Episode Maker.

00:00:14   This episode is brought to you by Casper and Squarespace.

00:00:17   My name is Myke Hurley, I am joined by Mr Federico Vittucci. Ciao Federico.

00:00:23   Hi Myke, how are you? I'm good, how are you?

00:00:26   I'm doing better, yeah.

00:00:29   Good, that's always good to hear.

00:00:30   Mr. Steven Hackett, welcome to the show.

00:00:33   Happy New Year, boys!

00:00:34   Happy New Year, happy New Year.

00:00:36   I didn't realize until I started talking that this is 123.

00:00:41   So this is 123 Episode Maker.

00:00:44   That's what this show is all about.

00:00:46   This is your branded episode, Myke.

00:00:48   This is the show.

00:00:49   I've been waiting for this one.

00:00:51   First of… this is the year of the 123 brand, 2017.

00:00:55   If your 2016 was big for the 123 brand, wait until you see what 2017 is going to bring.

00:01:01   You were put on this planet, Myke, for this very episode, so try not to blow it.

00:01:05   Okay.

00:01:06   Wow.

00:01:07   This is your moment, Myke.

00:01:09   This is my time to shine.

00:01:11   Yes.

00:01:12   Are you going to take it all the way to 4 for 2017?

00:01:14   Oh, I hadn't even thought of that.

00:01:17   You could just, you could go up.

00:01:19   That's good.

00:01:20   Okay.

00:01:21   So we're gonna do some follow-up and MT Walker on Twitter has sent us a link to

00:01:26   an episode of The Prompt which is the show, people may not be familiar, The Prompt

00:01:31   was the show we did before Connected. This is episode 10, the date is August

00:01:36   21st 2013 and in this episode we were talking about gaming on the iPad and I

00:01:45   say that I would really like Super Mario on the iPad and the two of you really shoot me

00:01:52   down. Shoot me down real hard over it.

00:01:54   Yep, and I will continue to because what you were looking for is not what we have and I

00:02:00   stand by my original statement that Super Mario on the iPad, classic Super Mario, which

00:02:06   is what you were talking about, wouldn't work. So I stand by my original statement. The Mario

00:02:14   game that we were talking about back then in episode X of the prompt is not

00:02:20   is not what we have so also it's not me on that show you could you can listen to

00:02:26   the voice is clearly different there must be an imposter or something someone

00:02:30   you you you called as a you know as a guest I guess it's not me definitely not

00:02:36   me so I'm not apologizing for anything Steven well I will I will I will bend I

00:02:42   I will bend on one thing here, which is that we, me and Federico are also like

00:02:49   incredulous in the fact that it would never happen.

00:02:52   And I think that when I said that it would, I think I said that it wouldn't be

00:02:56   a good game, like it wouldn't work.

00:02:58   And I'm referring to old Mario, but I think me and Federico both say something

00:03:03   along the lines of it would never happen.

00:03:04   As in Nintendo would never make a Mario game for iOS.

00:03:09   And so I will say on that part that we were incorrect.

00:03:13   But I stand by my original statement of traditional Mario would not work

00:03:19   because you need buttons, which is what I said at the time.

00:03:21   And I can I still stand by that, like, which is why I think Nintendo went

00:03:25   the route that they did with like just Super Mario one being a single tap,

00:03:28   because there are so many like really good looking platformer games on iOS.

00:03:35   But I just can't play any of them because I hate those like on screen

00:03:38   D-pads and stuff? Right. Yeah, they're no good. So many things have changed in

00:03:44   nearly four years, especially for Nintendo. I mean the Wii U had just

00:03:49   come out I think in the fall before the episode. Which you think at that

00:03:56   time was the follow-up to one of the most successful games consoles of all time.

00:04:00   Exactly and we were all waiting for Nintendo to take on Sony and Microsoft

00:04:05   again and I guess it was normal to say Nintendo's never gonna do an iPhone game

00:04:12   just because he made no sense at the time which is I guess it's a lesson to

00:04:17   be learned about you know never say never which is totally you know it sounds

00:04:25   so obvious but in hindsight we got that aspect wrong because so many things have

00:04:31   changed, the Wii U didn't do well, and of course now Nintendo is doing not

00:04:35   just Mario but a whole family of iOS games. Yep. So yeah. Also we sound

00:04:42   horrific in this episode. Yeah. Once again it's not me, I'm just commenting on

00:04:49   another person's opinions here. But yeah. So bad. Interesting. So we wanted to I think

00:04:56   quickly talk about AirPods. They've been out a couple weeks now. We've all had ours.

00:05:00   We got them right like right around the time of the last episode, but the last episode was dedicated to

00:05:05   putting 2016 in the ground

00:05:08   I would say for me quickly like super too big thumbs up

00:05:12   the air pods

00:05:15   For me at least are comfortable. They sound good. They they work as advertised

00:05:19   The Bluetooth range is like hard to believe

00:05:21   So at my house I can if I leave my phone in the kitchen and walk to our like our master bedroom

00:05:28   My Apple Watch and phone will disconnect but the AirPods show like no struggle whatsoever to stay connected

00:05:35   It's really impressive

00:05:37   And I want to point people if you haven't seen it someone named Casey. I don't know how to pronounce his last name

00:05:43   L is I think it's it's I think it's French. It's lyse. Oh, okay. Okay

00:05:49   So thank you your PSA lyse

00:05:51   Wrote a really nice post about AirPods and just like the pain of this little scene of him and his wife

00:05:56   watching something when their kids slept. It's a really nice post and it's something that I

00:06:01   think a lot of us feel really good about this product because it sort of rekindles

00:06:06   like some of the magic of Apple hardware in the past.

00:06:10   When I look at the AirPods and when I fiddle with the case, it brings me the same kind of like tactile happiness that

00:06:15   some of the old iPods brought me. And I think it's cool, so I'm a big fan.

00:06:20   Now Myke, I know you traveled with them recently. How did that go?

00:06:26   Kind of as I expected

00:06:28   mostly

00:06:29   The good parts is that they are very simple. They use they work so well, right?

00:06:34   You know, like you just pop them in and it's connected and you're just ready to go

00:06:37   The box and you know the little case or whatever you'd call the min-lok in the battery

00:06:43   That's also really small really light which is fine that I find the air pods to be comfortable

00:06:48   I found the ear pods to be comfortable, right?

00:06:51   Like I thought that is a good thing to mention that everything was fine for me there

00:06:55   So these are even better because they're so light right this this kind of it feels like nothing the battery life was fantastic

00:07:01   I had absolutely no issues. I charged them before I left

00:07:06   For I took two transatlantic flights and used the air pods on both flights

00:07:12   I didn't charge it any more than that and I still had battery life when I came home. So the battery is fantastic

00:07:19   The problem with air travel is exactly what I expected the two two kind of things

00:07:25   There are times where they're not loud enough

00:07:28   When we were coming into land in New York, it was it was much it was far too loud

00:07:34   the plane was far too loud and I couldn't hear the movie that I was watching and

00:07:40   They're also like that the fiddliness of them can be an issue like getting them in and out of the case like at one point

00:07:48   like I took one out of the case and it kind of slipped out on my hand and I just caught

00:07:52   it in time.

00:07:53   Because one place that you don't want to drop your AirPods is on an airplane because they

00:07:58   get in between those seats and you can kind of lose them forever.

00:08:01   Including one moment where me and Adina were talking about them and she wanted to try them

00:08:06   and I gave it to her and she immediately dropped it down in between the two seats.

00:08:10   Immediately as we were talking about it and she was able to fish it out which was great.

00:08:16   But that is a concern I think when using these things is that they are so light and so small

00:08:22   that they can be a bit unpredictable in that way.

00:08:27   But I feel like this is one thing that we'll just get used to over time and we'll just

00:08:32   be able to maybe, you know, at least I found myself on the flight home just being cautious

00:08:36   in different ways, like not to the point where it was making things difficult, but just like

00:08:41   when I got up to use the bathroom I just took them out of my ears and put them immediately

00:08:45   in the case. As opposed to like maybe what I would have done in the past which is just

00:08:50   leave my headphones on or just throw them onto the seat when I got up or something.

00:08:54   Right, you could just tape them to your ears and then stay put.

00:08:58   Yeah, I've got a big rubber band, put them around my head.

00:09:00   Perfect.

00:09:01   It's all good.

00:09:02   It's really stylish.

00:09:03   I've also been traveling with the AirPods. I haven't been on a plane, I've been on a train

00:09:10   And I just love them so much. I think they're they must be my favorite Apple purchasing ears maybe.

00:09:17   Even more than the new iPhone or the new watch just because they feel so new and so different.

00:09:23   Yeah like those products, the watch and the phone, they're just iterative.

00:09:27   They didn't give you anything like completely new in the way that the AirPods did.

00:09:32   Exactly because even the first watch it was a new product from Apple but it was a watch.

00:09:37   It was like a digital version of a pre-existing item in the human history.

00:09:45   Whereas the AirPods, I know that similar earbuds exist, but it's still very early and Apple

00:09:51   is already in this game of totally wireless earbuds.

00:09:56   And they've been working great for me, like you said, my great battery life.

00:10:00   I think the case, the system is genius, the way that you flip it open and you see the

00:10:06   light and if it's green they're charged if it's charging the light is orange.

00:10:11   I think it's great the you know good audio quality. I've been using it on a

00:10:16   train and I love how when you take one AirPod out of your ear the music stops

00:10:24   playing. But I also noticed that I've been keeping the AirPods. I've been

00:10:30   wearing the AirPods when I'm at home. And doing so I use Siri a lot more just because

00:10:38   it's so much easier and so much more accurate than using Siri on the iPhone because you

00:10:45   have these two microphones basically around your mouth and so the recognition is much

00:10:50   better and also it's just convenient to double tap the AirPods and ask stuff to Siri.

00:10:56   So you have double tap for that then?

00:10:58   Yes.

00:10:58   I changed it to pause because that is something I want to do more.

00:11:02   I would like to have separate gestures for each AirPod.

00:11:07   So like the left one is pause and the right one is Siri.

00:11:10   I guess that will come in the future.

00:11:13   And I have some minor complaints or maybe like little nitpicks.

00:11:17   The case is kind of hard to clean

00:11:20   and it's a little bit of a lint magnet.

00:11:24   I've got so much in mine. It was unbelievable.

00:11:26   Like in the seams and like, yes,

00:11:29   magnetic mechanism like at the back and yeah, it's terrible.

00:11:32   But I guess that's to be expected if you want, you know, this little toy

00:11:37   that you carry around. That lives in your pocket constantly, right?

00:11:39   Exactly. That's that's to be expected.

00:11:41   And but I wish there was a there was a black version of the AirPods.

00:11:46   I never knew how much I wanted this until you just said it.

00:11:48   Yeah, it'd be awesome.

00:11:50   I would way prefer a black version of these than a white version of these.

00:11:53   There are some concepts around and even just looking at the Photoshop it looks terrific.

00:11:59   And I feel like the black glossy version would alleviate a lot of the problems with the lint

00:12:06   and with the fact that it lives in your pocket. But still, I'll take the white model over no model at all.

00:12:13   And I also noticed that again, it's not just music, because once you have Siri in your ear,

00:12:24   you can do a lot more things. And there's an article by Ben Bajarian at Tech Pinions about this.

00:12:31   It's a very good piece about how the AirPods unlock a whole new layer of Siri interaction,

00:12:38   which makes me wonder if this is another incentive for Apple to expand Siri even more.

00:12:46   Because imagine if, you know, right now for example you can ask the AirPods to play Apple music and to send payments with PayPal and Venmo,

00:12:54   which I did today, Myke knows about it.

00:12:58   So you have these limited domains, for example you can start a workout with the AirPods,

00:13:04   But I wonder, imagine if you could do a lot more things like listen to podcasts with Siri and the AirPods or

00:13:10   add stuff to your task manager or to your calendar app.

00:13:14   You know, there's a...

00:13:16   Even we were talking about, you know, Apple needs to have more SiriKit domains for developers.

00:13:23   And now with the AirPods, I feel like that's even a stronger argument in favor of Apple needs to expand Siri even more.

00:13:30   Because now with the AirPods, it's the perfect combination of the two.

00:13:33   to.

00:13:34   Yeah, that's a really good point.

00:13:37   One of my favorite things, when you're talking about the way that you mentioned podcasts

00:13:42   and stuff, but it's like a slight aside, I'm listening to a show on the speaker of my iPhone,

00:13:48   and then I'm going to leave the house and I put the AirPods in and it changes.

00:13:51   Yes.

00:13:52   It's just little things like that, which just make this, it feels like a typically Apple

00:13:58   thought out product and I think it's because it's not as complex as an iPhone or a Mac,

00:14:05   right? Like it is as complex as an iPod. You know, it is focused, it is a simple idea so

00:14:12   you can completely polish the execution of it because there are less dependencies, there

00:14:18   are less things that can go wrong. So it's like, I think the reason we're all feeling

00:14:22   so like happy about this is because there's some nostalgia to it because it reminds us

00:14:26   of the products that originally got us interested in Apple, especially for me and Federico,

00:14:32   like the iPod stuff and the first iPhone. It's just this thing that they could chisel

00:14:37   away at and polish until it was perfect. And I think they were able to release that product.

00:14:44   And it really is just brilliant. It really is just brilliant. And this is such a great

00:14:49   starting point for what I think will be a really great line of products into the future.

00:14:55   There is one thing that AirPods are missing which is a way to find them if you lose them

00:15:00   and there is an application that I saw today, a couple of people linking it on Twitter,

00:15:04   which I don't understand how it exists, it's called Find Your AirPods and it is an application

00:15:10   that you launch it and basically you can use it to locate AirPods that you may have missed

00:15:18   placed around the house, or anywhere really.

00:15:21   So I tried it at home, I took one of my AirPods out of the case and put it in a place in my

00:15:25   my house. I open the application and then it does like a basically a hot or cold,

00:15:30   you know, like hotter colder as you get closer and further away from it and it

00:15:34   worked. I don't... do you guys know how this is working? Like how is it doing this?

00:15:40   It uses Bluetooth proximity. There's a bunch of apps that actually do this. You

00:15:46   can find Fitbit finders for example or just other Bluetooth finder

00:15:52   types of apps that use the strength of the Bluetooth signal to

00:15:58   basically put together this kind of experience and I bought the app this

00:16:04   morning and it's kind of shady I think because he uses artwork from the Apple

00:16:09   website like the the AirPods animation is straight up from the Apple.com website.

00:16:15   Hey look if you're gonna do it you know you gotta get it right.

00:16:19   Yes, but I mean it did work as expected.

00:16:22   So I don't know if Apple wants this kind of app on the App Store.

00:16:26   That's one of the reasons I bought it immediately.

00:16:28   Yes, yes, I think it's going to be removed.

00:16:31   Especially because of the deliberate use of Apple trademarks.

00:16:36   But yeah, it does work as expected.

00:16:40   So if you're listening now, try the link.

00:16:43   This developer just makes, this is what they make.

00:16:45   Like finders for Bluetooth things.

00:16:48   - Exactly, exactly.

00:16:49   - It's a whole busy model. - I don't know why they didn't

00:16:51   go with their current branding and just like,

00:16:53   'cause like they have a branding scheme

00:16:55   for their applications,

00:16:56   but they changed it for the AirPods one.

00:16:58   Like everything kind of looks the same,

00:17:00   but they changed it for this one.

00:17:02   Anyway, but like--

00:17:02   - Maybe to get covered on a popular Apple podcast.

00:17:05   - Probably, I wish, 'cause the thing is like, yeah, I agree.

00:17:09   It's like, it's a little weird and it's not like

00:17:11   super simple, but it's something,

00:17:13   'cause otherwise there's nothing.

00:17:15   Like if I dropped one or like lost one even at home,

00:17:20   like there's no way to find it

00:17:21   other than just finding it, right?

00:17:23   Like there's no find my AirPods.

00:17:26   - Yeah, it is something that is a curious omission

00:17:29   and maybe it's because Apple wanted to keep it simple

00:17:32   but I would not mind seeing iOS, you know,

00:17:36   gain this feature at some point

00:17:37   where it basically is doing what this third party app

00:17:41   is doing just because they are so small

00:17:44   and they're expensive and if you lose one,

00:17:46   you can get just one replacement through AppleCare,

00:17:49   but it's still a chunk of change.

00:17:52   So I got the app too, really just 'cause I think

00:17:55   it may go away and I wanted to make sure I had access to it.

00:17:59   But yeah, I think it's something that Apple

00:18:01   could add at some point, I think it would be welcome.

00:18:03   'Cause most people are never gonna know about this app

00:18:05   or download it or I think it was like three bucks

00:18:07   and never gonna pay for it.

00:18:08   - Nope.

00:18:09   - But having it built into iOS seems like a pretty natural

00:18:11   extension of what they're already doing.

00:18:13   Especially when there seems to be some like rudimentary support for something

00:18:17   like this. Like it works well enough right that you could do it. Maybe that's

00:18:21   Apple's problem is that it's not like as precise but I hope that we can see

00:18:26   something in the future some kind of tracking via Bluetooth. You know there

00:18:30   are products on the market that do this type of stuff right like those little

00:18:33   tracking devices that you can get. Yeah just like the problem is the AirPod

00:18:37   is so small right like you don't have to take a tile reader on the AirPod that would look

00:18:41   Hilarious. So there's a little story going around right before the new year

00:18:46   about 10.3 and we should say that if if this year is like last year we will see

00:18:52   10.3 at least a preview of it probably here in the next week or two. 9.3

00:18:57   was right after the new year last year and this article is interesting

00:19:01   everyone MacRumors talking about a new theater mode there's a Sonny Dickinson

00:19:08   who has been accurate in the past with some rumors

00:19:12   saying that a 10.3 will include a new theater mode

00:19:16   and gain a popcorn-shaped icon in Control Center,

00:19:18   which just really cracks me up.

00:19:20   - It doesn't make any sense to me.

00:19:21   Like, I don't even know what it means.

00:19:23   - Yeah, so that's my problem with this,

00:19:25   and maybe he doesn't know,

00:19:26   maybe it's all he knows or he can share.

00:19:28   When I first read this, I was like,

00:19:30   "Oh, they're gonna do a dark mode."

00:19:32   And like, a theater mode is like

00:19:34   the perfect Apple product marketing name for dark mode,

00:19:38   But A, like those names don't leak very often.

00:19:42   And I think the more I think about it,

00:19:45   this is all just very strange and I really don't know,

00:19:48   I really don't know what to make of it.

00:19:50   Down in the comments and there was some debate online

00:19:53   and Reddit and stuff about like, well, maybe it's,

00:19:56   maybe it's not dark mode, maybe it's something that,

00:19:58   you know, forces your phone to like a real low brightness

00:20:01   mode and, you know, make sure that it's in like a

00:20:04   do not disturb like thing, but.

00:20:06   - Why the popcorn?

00:20:07   Well because it's a theater mode. You go into a movie and they say put your phone in theater mode and you just hit the popcorn because you're at the movie.

00:20:13   Why not just don't use your phone in the movies?

00:20:16   Because people are inconsiderate.

00:20:18   Yeah I don't think that makes sense as like a control center shortcut.

00:20:23   I agree.

00:20:25   I agree. I think that's super valuable real estate and I think if they're going to do a dark mode and that's what this is then hey that's cool.

00:20:34   I don't really buy it. I don't really believe that yet.

00:20:37   It seems strange. I don't know. Yes.

00:20:40   I bring it up because the whole story is super weird and like, maybe this dude is right.

00:20:44   It'll be a popcorn button in Alvar Control Center. I really don't see that.

00:20:48   Can you imagine there being a dedicated shortcut for a mode for your phone to put in when you

00:20:54   go into a theater, but not for the power saving mode?

00:20:59   very specific and like I don't know maybe maybe maybe what I can buy is

00:21:06   there's going to be iOS 10.3 it's gonna add customization to control center and

00:21:13   now you can swap any of the toggles and by the way you can also put this new

00:21:19   popcorn icon now that I can get behind yeah that the whole control center is

00:21:25   becoming customizable and there's also this new mode that I understand but to

00:21:30   have the same control center with the same static layout and the popcorn

00:21:36   button just you know just because you're going to the movies it makes a little

00:21:41   sense to me honestly. But a popcorn button would be so much fun. Now I agree with you

00:21:45   this this thing is strange. It will be fun it will be fun but for what it's

00:21:49   what I continue to hear. As we discussed last year that 10.3 is gonna have major

00:21:56   iPad features. I don't know the extent of the major qualifier but I'm very

00:22:05   optimistic about seeing stuff that we didn't see for the iPad back in June

00:22:10   at WWDC and I think it's gonna be fun. And again as we discussed I think on the

00:22:16   last episode. I don't know what the timeline is gonna be in terms of, I'm

00:22:19   gonna get a beta, then we're gonna get new iPads in March, maybe April, we don't

00:22:23   know, but I think it's gonna be fun if you're an iPad user, which again puts me

00:22:27   in the scenario of should I put the beta on my work device or not,

00:22:32   should I put on the second iPad, but the problem is now Silvia is using the

00:22:36   second iPad, so maybe I need a third iPad. Yeah, here it is. No, no Myke, no, no, no I don't.

00:22:42   so we'll see. Mykey we're just waiting for that. Oh yeah I'll be getting a third

00:22:49   iPad I'm sure in maybe a third and a fourth who knows in March if they update

00:22:55   the line. You guys are just going all in on that. Yeah man I think that the

00:23:01   pattern set last year I think that makes a ton of sense we've covered this last

00:23:05   year but having there's a lot to do with iOS to get that fall release ready and

00:23:10   and the iPad gets all that stuff for free,

00:23:12   and if the iPad is going to continue to be their force

00:23:15   for the future of computing, which I don't see changing,

00:23:18   then it deserves more attention

00:23:20   than just getting whatever the iPhone gets.

00:23:22   And I think the spring timeframe makes a ton of sense.

00:23:26   They're pushing these things in education,

00:23:27   they're pushing these things all over the place.

00:23:29   Having it separate from the iPhone cycle is critical.

00:23:32   Even for people like us who upgrade,

00:23:34   if not every year, every couple of years,

00:23:36   it just makes it a little bit easier

00:23:37   you're not buying a phone and a tablet in the fall. So I'm a big fan of what they did

00:23:42   last year with 9.3 in the spring release and I really hope that that's the pattern from

00:23:46   here on out.

00:23:47   It'd be a pretty big "Techie was right" moment.

00:23:51   Let's hope so. What happens if I'm right? Do you buy me a present, for example?

00:23:57   I'll buy you an iPad.

00:23:59   Okay. People, you listen to what Myke said, "Oh, he's going to buy me an iPad." Do I get

00:24:06   to choose the model? No. You're gonna get a 16 gigabyte Mini 2. Thank you, at least it's got a

00:24:14   random display. Hey Myke I can sell you a original iPad if you want on the cheap

00:24:19   and give it to him. Yep. We can totally do that. Everybody just send me their

00:24:24   iPads and I'm gonna send them to Federico like all the iPads. This is the worst bet I've

00:24:29   ever participated in. You should have stipulated times quicker. Just terrible.

00:24:34   - It's your own fault, it's your own fault.

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00:26:55   So, we have licensed drafting technology from Jason Snell and we are going to do an Apple

00:27:05   predictions draft for 2017. We have three rounds, we're going to go round robin style.

00:27:13   Who is going to go first? Me, me.

00:27:16   Alright, Federico is going to go first. What we're going to do is, we're each going to

00:27:20   get a pick that we're gonna have over three rounds of the predictions that we want. No

00:27:25   predictions can be reused and then we will be held to these predictions as the year goes

00:27:30   through and then I have now decided that there will be a predictions champion by the end

00:27:34   of the year.

00:27:35   Wow. Okay.

00:27:36   If you're gonna do this you may as well have a winner. That is what made the event drafts

00:27:43   for me and Jason really fun when we decided that there would be a winner at the end of

00:27:47   it. So Federico, you are first up. What is your first... Oh, by the way, and it's an

00:27:52   extra rule, we decided that we couldn't go for super simple things like Apple will release

00:27:56   an iPhone. It's got to be specific and something... Mine are very specific. Specific is great.

00:28:03   Specificity is king in predictions drafting. So Federico, please go ahead with the first

00:28:10   prediction for 2017. Okay. My first prediction is, following the

00:28:16   success of the Amazon Echo and Alexa. I'm not gonna say that Apple is gonna make a

00:28:22   speaker but I'm going to say we will see Siri on the iPhone and the iPad and

00:28:28   especially on the iPhone I think gain more verbal spoken responses. Basically

00:28:37   I think Siri is gonna talk more even more than it talks now when activated

00:28:45   via voice. So right now in iOS 10 Siri changes whether you activate it via

00:28:51   voice or with the home button but it basically shows you more interface

00:28:57   elements on the screen when you're holding the phone and it speaks more

00:29:00   when you're also speaking to Siri because it assumes you're not touching

00:29:06   the phone therefore you're not looking at the screen therefore I need to talk

00:29:09   more and I think we're going to see an even more conversational series that

00:29:16   reads the news, that gives you details about music, that basically, like Alexa, is

00:29:24   able to hold longer conversations and to make sure that you're not looking at the

00:29:31   phone to perform some actions. And I think, especially because of the AirPods,

00:29:36   we will see this kind of new deeper Siri interactions, longer conversations, fewer

00:29:45   interface elements and less need to take out your phone and look at the Siri

00:29:52   interface. That's a really good and very specific pick so you fit the bill

00:29:57   perfectly. Yeah. Steven, I will allow you to go next. Oh that's very kind of you.

00:30:03   - You're being very kind today, very kind.

00:30:05   - I'm going to say that instead of a edge-to-edge

00:30:10   unicorn iPhone, we're going to see an iPhone

00:30:18   that looks more or less the way the 7 and 7 Plus looks.

00:30:22   That this cycle will get an S and that we will have

00:30:26   four years of more or less the same chassis design.

00:30:31   design. I don't like this prediction. Well it's gonna be true. Mykey's not happy Stephen.

00:30:39   No I really am concerned about that idea that we will, what would it be the fourth iteration

00:30:49   of this design? Yes, fourth. That would be concerning to me honestly. If we went out

00:30:57   this year with the fourth iteration of this design, they would be having to pack some

00:31:02   serious features into the phone for me to kind of feel cool about that, you know?

00:31:08   No, I don't like the idea, but I think it's going to happen.

00:31:15   Just to make this very clear, we are not advocating for these things. They're just things that

00:31:19   we believe may be true. But you know, it would just be like, I think it would just feel bad,

00:31:25   other companies are making new phone designs, whether you like them or not, there are different

00:31:30   things happening. It would be concerning to me if we had a 4 or 5 phone with the same

00:31:36   design. I would wonder what was happening at Cupertino, honestly. Because this is the

00:31:43   most valuable product and people like new and fresh designs and new designs allow for

00:31:47   new features, right? And it would be a shame.

00:31:53   It would be a shame but I'd love to be wrong but I just have this feeling that this is

00:32:02   how it's going to play out.

00:32:04   What about you Myke?

00:32:05   What is your first round pick?

00:32:08   So I'm going to go weird with this one just from what I'm saying.

00:32:12   I believe that 2017 will give birth to a more powerful iMac.

00:32:22   the need for the Mac Pro to go away.

00:32:24   Whoa.

00:32:25   And Apple phases out the Mac Pro.

00:32:27   Whoa.

00:32:28   I can imagine now some people marching towards your house, burning posters of iMacs and you

00:32:38   know just.

00:32:39   If Apple was able to pack in like I don't know like 6, 12, 18 cores into the iMac in

00:32:47   a way that made sense.

00:32:49   At that point why even bother?

00:32:51   The Mac Pro is not expandable, realistically, anymore.

00:32:57   It is just a cylinder that you attach a screen to.

00:33:01   So I really see a world where they just say, "Well, we don't need this anymore, we'll just

00:33:05   make the iMac more powerful and then just sell one machine and it's just really expensive."

00:33:11   And I understand the issues of the screen dying and a Mac Pro will last longer than

00:33:17   a screen, right?

00:33:18   can replace the screen and keep the computer the same.

00:33:21   But when's the last time an iMac screen died four years in?

00:33:24   That feels old school.

00:33:26   I agree with that idea, but I can imagine there being concern from people from that,

00:33:31   right?

00:33:32   Or if screen technology improves, well, you can't do anything about it, even though the

00:33:38   guts of your machine don't improve at as quick a rate.

00:33:40   But whatever.

00:33:41   That's when I think it's going to happen, because I genuinely think that it doesn't

00:33:46   make sense for Apple to continue with both of these lines. I just don't think it makes

00:33:52   them the money that they want. So a good way to kind of keep everyone happy would be to

00:33:57   try and find a way to make the iMac more powerful than the Mac Pro. Right? Like, I don't, I

00:34:04   don't know enough about how you do this stuff, but it just seems like the right option to

00:34:08   me. Like, even if like, this one had a slightly different design, right, that maybe it was

00:34:14   a bit thicker. I still think it would make more sense for them in the long run to find

00:34:19   a way to make that work than to continue trying to keep both of these product lines going.

00:34:25   And also from an innovation perspective as well, like I think that they if they had all

00:34:29   their focus on one desktop Mac, like and also with this, the Mac Mini goes away as well,

00:34:33   like there is just the iMac, like that's all there's going to be.

00:34:36   So you adding that to your prediction, the Mac Mini is going away. That makes your prediction.

00:34:41   You said it.

00:34:42   Alright keep it in.

00:34:44   The Mac Mini, I'm typing this out also.

00:34:47   This is why you've got to cut those predictions quick because you had that talking session

00:34:51   to a corner.

00:34:52   Yeah you've talked yourself into a big corner and you took one of mine.

00:34:54   One of mine was going to be the Mac Mini is end of life.

00:34:57   Yeah I'm now going to say, because I'm going to go wild with this, that by the end of 2017

00:35:03   there is one desktop Mac and it's the iMac.

00:35:06   Wow.

00:35:07   Wow.

00:35:08   That's intense man.

00:35:09   Because this is right, this is the thing.

00:35:11   If nothing happens, whatever.

00:35:13   But if this does happen, right?

00:35:15   This is what Myke was founded on.

00:35:18   Wild speculation that could turn out to be true.

00:35:23   Just digging your own grave, Myke.

00:35:25   I'm fine with that.

00:35:27   Okay.

00:35:28   So round one we have Siri getting better at verbal communication, not making you look

00:35:33   at the screen.

00:35:34   We have the iPhone 7s and 7s plus looking like the 7 and 7 plus.

00:35:39   And we have Myke killing all the desktop Macs except the iMac and potentially what we would

00:35:48   dub a more powerful high-end iMac.

00:35:51   You know the Steve Jobs grid?

00:35:52   In Myke's version, it's just a square.

00:35:55   Just a circle and it's got one pro in the middle.

00:35:57   In the middle, just iMac.

00:36:00   But then it goes back into the square because there will still be laptops.

00:36:03   Sure, that's right.

00:36:05   Yeah, I feel like I went too far.

00:36:07   I wish I could walk it back but it's too late now.

00:36:10   - But it's in the Google Doc and it's going to be

00:36:12   in my note to revisit in December of this year.

00:36:14   So round two, I get to go first

00:36:17   'cause we are round robining our predictions

00:36:19   which is very confusing.

00:36:21   So I got a bunch of stuff here.

00:36:23   Like I said, you took the Mac Mini will get dropped

00:36:25   so I'm scratching that off my page.

00:36:27   I am going to go with, I'm talking about iCloud

00:36:34   And in particular the storage limitations of iCloud.

00:36:39   And I'm going to say that 2017 is the year where we see the 5GB free plan finally get

00:36:47   updated.

00:36:48   I'm not going to say to what, that's too specific.

00:36:50   But I think it's time, I think Apple is going to do it, I think they have the capacity to

00:36:54   increase that 5GB free plan to something bigger.

00:36:59   That's a good one, I agree.

00:37:01   They build another floor on top of the North Carolina data center.

00:37:04   Yeah, I mean, that's probably what it would take.

00:37:06   I miss that place, you know?

00:37:08   Yeah.

00:37:09   I think it's time.

00:37:11   So that's my round two prediction.

00:37:14   Now, Myke, you just burned a lot of bridges in round one, so maybe you should go conservative

00:37:18   this time.

00:37:19   Try not to upset a thousand other people.

00:37:22   I'm not going conservative.

00:37:23   I have made, I have a small list of predictions here, and I've decided I'm going for the wildest

00:37:29   of them all.

00:37:30   Oh God.

00:37:31   I'm just trying to provide some balance.

00:37:33   So my second is that there will be an iPhone Pro which gains Apple Pencil support.

00:37:38   This was a rumoured product.

00:37:40   I think it is a product that is worth moving forward with.

00:37:46   I think that there will be two Apple Pencils that will be available before the end of the

00:37:53   year.

00:37:54   There will be the standard large one and a smaller one and the smaller one will be used

00:37:58   by the iPhone and the iPad mini.

00:38:00   I'm doing it again.

00:38:02   I don't know why I keep doing this.

00:38:03   But yeah, I think that there will be a

00:38:06   an iPhone Pro which which has Apple pencil support.

00:38:10   And if Steven's prediction is true, then

00:38:13   this will help make that sellable.

00:38:17   Right. There will be

00:38:19   there will be something in the iPhone line which is which is new.

00:38:23   And it is the iPhone Pro which has Apple pencil support.

00:38:27   and I'm sure some other features, but I'm not going to even think about what they might

00:38:30   be because I can't go any further into this right now.

00:38:35   Yeah.

00:38:36   Wow.

00:38:37   That's interesting.

00:38:38   I wrote a thing for Federico about pencil support on trackpads and how it'd be nice

00:38:45   to have that input on the Mac.

00:38:46   But I see the same case being built for the phone.

00:38:48   They have the software there on the iPad.

00:38:52   It's kind of there in iOS.

00:38:54   And I agree with you.

00:38:56   could make another year of the same case design a little more palatable to

00:39:01   people. So yeah, it's really interesting.

00:39:04   Well, what about you Federico? What's up?

00:39:07   Alright, my second prediction is Apple Music is gonna be redesigned again and

00:39:12   it will gain more Spotify-like algorithmic features. And especially I

00:39:19   expect Apple to provide a solution to two aspects of listening to music based

00:39:24   based on algorithmic recommendations. An Apple version of the Spotify Daily Mix, which is

00:39:33   an easy way to just start listening to something you like, and a way to discover back-catalog

00:39:45   songs from artists you don't know.

00:39:49   Man, you are pulling a mic on this prediction.

00:39:52   Yes, basically I expect, it's very simple, I expect Apple to redesign Apple Music again

00:39:57   and to copy Daily Mix and Discover Weekly.

00:40:00   Yep.

00:40:01   That's it.

00:40:02   And back catalogue songs from artists that you don't know?

00:40:04   That's Discover Weekly.

00:40:05   Right, okay.

00:40:06   Back catalogue songs from artists you don't know.

00:40:09   Yeah.

00:40:10   Alright.

00:40:11   It's actually quite simple.

00:40:12   What does a redesign of Apple Music mean though?

00:40:15   I don't mean as drastic of a change as last year, but still significant enough to be called

00:40:24   a redesign.

00:40:25   So it's visually different as well again.

00:40:30   Not as drastic as iOS 8 to iOS 9 to iOS 10, but let's call it, I don't know, Apple, if

00:40:37   this is Apple Music 2.0, Apple Music 2.5.

00:40:42   So it's going to focus more on additional features as opposed to a new user interface.

00:40:46   Yeah, but, yes, but also, you know, like, a lot of, still a lot of visual changes, the

00:40:52   same underlying structure, so you can look at it and see, okay, it is Apple Music, but

00:40:58   it's changed a lot.

00:41:00   Like when you go from Tweetbot in iOS 6 to Tweetbot in iOS 7, right, it's the same structure,

00:41:06   but you can see that it's different, right?

00:41:09   the elements were still in the same place, but the graphics were all new.

00:41:13   Because I think there's a lot of things that don't work in Apple Music.

00:41:17   The information density is all wrong, there's no easy way to see the progress of a song

00:41:22   in the now-playing widget, getting to the shuffle controls, even with iOS 10.2 is still too difficult for a lot of people.

00:41:30   There's a bunch of things to fix and to improve.

00:41:33   So I feel like a significant redesign is needed,

00:41:37   And I also feel like Apple knows that it's behind Spotify in terms of algorithmic features

00:41:42   and I feel like they want to do them and I think we're gonna see them.

00:41:47   All right. So is it me next?

00:41:50   Yes, you lead round three and I honestly am a little nervous.

00:41:55   All right, because I'm going big. I'm going big to go home.

00:41:58   All right, all right. Hit us. Hit us.

00:42:00   In 2017 we will see some element of an AR focused device from Apple.

00:42:13   Tim Cooks, I'm going to cut you off before you say anything crazy.

00:42:16   Tim Cook has been talking about this for years.

00:42:18   Like they talked about sensors and stuff.

00:42:20   I'm saying nothing more but I think that there will be something which is, it's augmented,

00:42:27   augmented reality.

00:42:28   We will see an alternate reality device from Apple.

00:42:35   Your other picks are an alternate reality device.

00:42:37   Yeah, I think augmented reality by the end of the year in some form. And it is purely

00:42:43   because Tim won't shut up about it, right? Like every time somebody talks about VR, he's

00:42:48   like, "Well, what about AR? This is Tim." And yeah, so I think that that might be, again,

00:42:56   So the only addition that I will make is just that

00:43:00   this could help the September announcement.

00:43:04   All right, if there is something here,

00:43:08   if the iPhone is gonna see no change.

00:43:11   And there have been rumors that are that, right?

00:43:13   Saying that like the body's gonna be the same,

00:43:15   but we're gonna get a red one.

00:43:18   If that sort of stuff is true,

00:43:19   then that might help this out.

00:43:22   So there you go, there's my three wild picks.

00:43:26   So to go big, just as Myke did for the final prediction, I'm gonna say what I originally had as an extra, if possible, if allowed by the rules.

00:43:40   Yeah, your picks, they can be wherever you want them to be.

00:43:43   Okay, so my third prediction is we're gonna see an executive shakeup in the Mac and iOS

00:43:52   teams.

00:43:53   Some kind of major change to reorganize the way that the Mac, Mac OS and iOS are organized

00:44:05   and developed inside Apple.

00:44:08   So I don't know, I don't have any details of course, it's just my idea.

00:44:15   Just a prediction of, we're gonna see some changes in terms of how the teams are structured,

00:44:22   you know, who's responsible and whatnot.

00:44:24   So I think we're gonna see that.

00:44:26   That would be exciting.

00:44:27   It would be, I'd be okay with that if it meant certain things.

00:44:35   So I'm gonna go crazy and I'm gonna play defense against Myke with my final pick.

00:44:42   I did have the Mac Mini would be in, you know, see an end of life in 2017.

00:44:47   But I also had that the Mac Pro will have a redesign in 2017.

00:44:54   I think that it is still for sale for a reason.

00:44:58   And I think that the, you said it yourself, the cylinder design doesn't work really.

00:45:02   So I have a 5k iMac just like you do Myke and I can upgrade the RAM in it and that's

00:45:07   it.

00:45:08   Now on the Mac Pro to be fair you can do the RAM and you can do the SSD but you can't do

00:45:15   anything else.

00:45:16   You can't put cards in it, you can't put extra you know more than the two drive slots, you

00:45:19   can't do anything like that.

00:45:20   So I'm not saying they're gonna go back to a tower I don't know what this looks like

00:45:23   but I think that the cylinder design has proven too limiting for pros and I think the whole

00:45:30   idea of building around dual GPUs and you're gonna use the GPUs for your apps and you're

00:45:36   gonna do math problems really fast, that just hasn't happened.

00:45:39   And I think that it was a bold try to push computing on the Mac in that direction and

00:45:47   it hasn't worked and they need to realign it with what people actually want and need.

00:45:51   And so I'm gonna say for my last pick, redesigned Mac Pro.

00:45:55   That's it.

00:45:56   Do we wanna do some extras?

00:45:57   Now the extra picks, I would like to institute another rule here considering that this is

00:46:02   now a competition I guess.

00:46:05   I would say they can't hurt you but they can help you.

00:46:08   Oh you're saying they can help?

00:46:09   I was going to say no points.

00:46:12   I would say that if you get an extra right then it's, I don't know, I don't know, let's

00:46:17   just see what happens.

00:46:18   I would say no points because you didn't feel it was enough to give it a round one, two

00:46:22   or three right?

00:46:23   So that's a good point.

00:46:25   didn't have enough confidence in it or at least you know you weren't going for

00:46:29   it so I will start with my extra I have one and it's one that I actually think

00:46:33   is more likely to happen than any of the things that I picked I think we each

00:46:36   pick one I think we just have each have one all right so my extra I think that

00:46:42   will definitely happen but I wanted to go wild a 10.9 inch bezel the side pad

00:46:48   Pro.

00:46:49   OK.

00:46:51   And I think that there is a lot of smoke around this fire.

00:46:54   And I have the reason that I think that that we may see it kind of again.

00:47:00   I keep going to this, but leads into what Stephen was saying.

00:47:03   So if we have an iPhone design, it doesn't change.

00:47:11   One way for Apple to prove that they are still able to do this stuff, but for whatever

00:47:16   reason the iPhone won't change is that they can point to the iPad and show that

00:47:21   they have a bezel device indicating that this is a design that will come to the

00:47:24   iPhone in the future. That's one trend of it. The other is this is just where all

00:47:29   the devices are going this year and the iPhone will be the same. But I think that

00:47:34   the iPad may get it first because it may actually be easier to do with a bigger

00:47:38   device because you have more space under the rest of the screen to fit everything

00:47:42   in so that I think that it will happen but I wanted to I'm in a bit of a crazy

00:47:50   mood today so I wanted to go a bit wild in my my actual predictions are we sure

00:47:56   we cannot have two extras you can have another extra so why not yeah okay okay

00:48:03   so so why don't you go with one and then I'll go and you go with your second all

00:48:06   Alright, so I'm gonna go with, in iOS 10.3, Split View is gonna be redesigned and when

00:48:16   you swipe down to change apps, you're not gonna see the vertical tray anymore, you're

00:48:22   gonna see the home screen.

00:48:24   So you can find all your apps and put whatever you want next to another one.

00:48:29   So it's gonna be straight up replication of your home screens?

00:48:33   Yes.

00:48:34   Like in portrait mode?

00:48:35   Yes. Interesting.

00:48:37   OK.

00:48:39   I mean, I like that.

00:48:41   I hope that they took that.

00:48:42   Mine is also iPad related.

00:48:47   I'm not going to marry.

00:48:50   Well, I guess I can't. There's no point.

00:48:51   So I'm not going to marry myself to a release number.

00:48:53   But I'm going to say that the multi user support that we saw

00:48:57   in nine point three for education, that we see that

00:49:01   available to the masses

00:49:05   in one way or another. So multi-user support and iPad is something that I've

00:49:08   wanted for a long time as a dad with two older kids who share an

00:49:13   iPad it's a real pain and I think it's time.

00:49:17   Alright so my final extra is we're gonna see new iPad accessories from Apple that

00:49:25   combine a keyboard or a case with an Apple Pencil Holder. So there's going to

00:49:32   be an integrated solution from Apple to have a keyboard and protection

00:49:37   and the pencil all together in the same accessory.

00:49:39   That would be nice.

00:49:42   I mean, I use that, but Logitech make it.

00:49:44   Yes, exactly. It's true.

00:49:47   Yeah, I still think that even if Apple did it, maybe Logitech's next version

00:49:51   would still be better

00:49:52   just because they have different ideas of what the keyboard is going to be.

00:49:55   You know. But we'll see.

00:49:58   I mean, I like the backlit keyboard and the clicky keys,

00:50:01   and I don't think that Apple's keyboard would be that.

00:50:03   I think it would just be the smart keyboard, right?

00:50:06   Because they want to keep it thin and light.

00:50:07   But it would still be cool, though,

00:50:09   maybe for the big one, because the big Logitech create is a monster.

00:50:12   I was just trying it again the other day, and it's just so bulky.

00:50:18   It's just so much.

00:50:20   But the little one is fantastic.

00:50:22   All right, so that's it.

00:50:23   We'll check back on this, I guess, you know, maybe throughout the year,

00:50:26   if things happen and we remember them, we can touch on them.

00:50:29   but otherwise, towards the end of the year, we will we will assess

00:50:34   how wrong I was and look at how right the other guys might be.

00:50:38   There you go.

00:50:41   This week's episode is brought to you as well by our friends at Squarespace

00:50:45   and to the offer code world, check out WORLD

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00:52:43   So we are going full on first episode of the year today.

00:52:46   We've made predictions for the year and we're also now going to take a moment to talk about

00:52:50   some New Year's technology resolutions inspired by the fact that Steven made a great YouTube

00:52:56   video. Thank you. It's my favorite of your YouTube videos because it really made me

00:53:03   laugh a lot. You should go and watch it. Steven has a very weird way of

00:53:08   outlining and outlining his technology predictions for the year. I will not

00:53:12   spoil it. But Steven what are your actual things that you're trying to do in

00:53:18   technology this year? So mine aren't so much about technology itself but how

00:53:25   could use it in some different projects.

00:53:28   And the first, the biggest one is taking

00:53:32   a photo a day in 2017. So sometimes these

00:53:35   are called project 365. I've done three

00:53:37   of them. I did one in 2008, one in 2009, and

00:53:41   then one I believe in 2013, I think is my

00:53:44   last one. It is super difficult to take a

00:53:48   picture a day. Like by the time you get to

00:53:50   March you run out of ideas. But it's really

00:53:52   creatively challenging to get out

00:53:55   and take a photo. The first couple years I did it, it was like what made that day

00:53:59   special. This year I'm not really holding myself to a theme like that. I just want

00:54:03   to have a photo processed and posted every day. So I'm taking it with either

00:54:08   my iPhone or either two of my cameras. I have a Sony RX100 and then a Canon 70D.

00:54:14   It doesn't matter what camera I take it on. I can take it with my iPad if I want.

00:54:18   But just having a little story about the day. I'm sharing them on Instagram and a

00:54:23   photo website called 500px. I still have a Flickr account but I just can't bring

00:54:28   myself to put anything on it. In fact I'm probably gonna end up closing that

00:54:31   account relatively soon because I don't want that content going to whoever is

00:54:34   going to own Yahoo. But um so sharing a photo every day. As far as editing I'm

00:54:40   being conservative. If I shoot with my real my quote-unquote real cameras I'm

00:54:44   shooting in raw so I'm using Photoshop to edit. I'm saving them all in photos

00:54:49   with iCloud Photo Library having them everywhere.

00:54:52   So you know that's not really like a technology resolution

00:54:55   but it's one that will use technology every single day.

00:54:58   And using, you know, learning my cameras,

00:55:04   understanding them better,

00:55:05   understanding what I can do with them better

00:55:07   is something I'm looking forward to.

00:55:10   Really the second one is being kind of online less.

00:55:14   And so most of the time if I'm sitting down at my desk,

00:55:17   right now, Tweetbot is open on the left, you know,

00:55:21   fourth of my screen, and that's just been that way forever.

00:55:26   I mean, you know, coming up on a decade now,

00:55:28   we've had Twitter and Twitter clients,

00:55:30   and that's something that I'm trying to dial back.

00:55:34   I'm not leaving Twitter, I'm not taking a sabbatical

00:55:37   like some people have.

00:55:38   Myke, I know you tried that last year,

00:55:39   and I think that you learned a lot from that.

00:55:41   Mine isn't going to be that extreme,

00:55:44   but sort of dialing it back.

00:55:45   So if I'm at work and I'm doing something,

00:55:49   if I'm recording a show or I'm editing

00:55:50   or if I'm doing bookkeeping, not having Tweetbot open.

00:55:55   Just, it scrolls in the background, don't need to see it.

00:55:58   And when I do have it open, I've implemented Quitter,

00:56:00   which is an application by our friend Marco.

00:56:03   Lots of apps do this, you can basically tell Quitter,

00:56:05   hey, after set number of minutes, after five minutes,

00:56:09   hi, Tweetbot, or quit Slack.

00:56:12   You can tell it to do a bunch of different things.

00:56:14   And so kind of making this stuff go away

00:56:16   if I'm not actively using it.

00:56:18   Just being less passively on Twitter

00:56:20   is something that I think is going to be good

00:56:22   and will make the inevitability

00:56:24   that Twitter goes out of business easier for me to stomach.

00:56:26   So it's kind of a win-win.

00:56:27   So those are my two things.

00:56:31   As far as like setup or process,

00:56:34   I've been thinking a lot about this.

00:56:36   I feel pretty set in my ways in the way that I work

00:56:39   and the hardware and software that I use.

00:56:42   It's not to say that I'm not experimenting

00:56:43   trying new things but my workflows feel really solid and I don't really want to

00:56:48   rock the boat there much with with what I'm doing and how I'm doing it so it's

00:56:52   more about just kind of how I interact with it as a person and not so much

00:56:56   about the technology itself. In 2017 I want to give myself more time just in

00:57:03   general I just want time back and we're thinking about ways to do that from

00:57:09   from logistically as a business,

00:57:11   but there's also some things I think I can do

00:57:13   with my workflows to allow me to do this,

00:57:16   and I had decided that my technology workflow theme

00:57:21   for the year is to be more like Federico.

00:57:24   (laughing)

00:57:24   That is my theme, and this theme takes

00:57:28   a few different pillars.

00:57:29   One is switching to Todoist,

00:57:31   and I have been threatening to do this

00:57:33   for what feels like a million weeks now.

00:57:36   - Do it.

00:57:37   - I'm gonna do it, but to do it,

00:57:39   I need to sit and manually write out everything because there's no easy way to switch that

00:57:43   I can find.

00:57:44   I'm using OmniFocus right now.

00:57:46   And there's a couple of reasons.

00:57:48   One of them ties into everything else.

00:57:50   It's that the fact that I'm able to automate my task manager in some way.

00:57:55   Things can get posted to it from calendar events.

00:57:57   I can speak to my echo and have it dictate things into there.

00:58:02   I was recently traveling.

00:58:04   When I arrived in a different time zone, it asked if I wanted to switch all of the times

00:58:08   me which was just like a Hallelujah moment so that my tasks aren't triggering at 5am

00:58:15   because it's in the local time zone. They would be triggering at the correct time zone

00:58:21   in the correct time. That is what I want.

00:58:23   >> It would be tickling in the right time zone.

00:58:25   >> It would tickle me in the right time zone. Part of this will also be then switching some

00:58:30   of my calendars to Google Calendar so I can integrate them with Todoist. So that will

00:58:36   be an interesting thing to do. I don't think I'm going to switch everything but I may switch

00:58:40   my kind of podcast recordings calendar to Google calendar so they can trigger into Todoist

00:58:46   to tell me that I need to edit a show which is one of the main things that I'm excited

00:58:50   about. I want to get into time tracking because I feel like the time tracking will help the

00:58:57   whole thing if I'm trying to get more time back to understand what are the areas I put

00:59:01   too much time into. So that's something I want to look into this year. And then automation

00:59:06   because automation will help me with all of these things.

00:59:11   So bringing together things into Todoist

00:59:13   and time tracking and all that stuff.

00:59:15   So looking into Zapier and workflow a bit more.

00:59:19   I feel like it's time to try and get some of these apps

00:59:21   to work for me rather than me working for them.

00:59:26   - Yeah, it's good.

00:59:27   - Federico, will you be my personal coach?

00:59:30   - I can be your muse, Myke, if you want.

00:59:35   - Yeah, okay.

00:59:37   - The time tracking one is interesting.

00:59:39   I did a lot of that when I first started out

00:59:43   as an indie person, I guess now, a year and a half ago.

00:59:48   And for me it was really important just to understand

00:59:50   that how much time I was spending and making sure

00:59:52   that it was roughly equivalent to how much money

00:59:54   I was making in these different areas.

00:59:56   And after about six months, I sort of slowly dropped it

01:00:01   as I understood my workflow and kind of how things

01:00:03   were going.

01:00:04   And recently, Federico, I know you've been doing this with Toggle, which is a really

01:00:10   nice app and web service to do time tracking.

01:00:16   Their Mac app is not very good, but they don't have an iPad app.

01:00:20   But I set that up maybe four weeks ago and started tracking my time again and very quickly

01:00:29   felt like it wasn't helpful, like that it was sort of forcing me to work in chunks.

01:00:35   I know Myke, you and Gray have talked a lot about this in Cortex, that he works in like

01:00:38   these big, whatever it is, 40 minute chunks.

01:00:41   And I really don't work that way.

01:00:45   Maybe it's that I have too much going on, but I try to be responsive to certain things.

01:00:49   So if certain types of emails come in or certain types of problems come up, I drop what I'm

01:00:54   doing to go to work on those.

01:00:56   The part of that is just running the type of business that we run.

01:00:59   Like Relay does have emergencies sometimes.

01:01:02   And so I felt the time tracking was really, like really stressful.

01:01:07   Like I didn't enjoy what I was learning from it.

01:01:10   In the couple weeks I was doing it, I learned basically that my pie chart is basically how

01:01:15   it's been.

01:01:16   That I wasn't really surprised by anything in there.

01:01:18   So I dropped it again.

01:01:19   And I'm very curious, I want to come back to this and I want, Federica, especially when

01:01:23   how you're doing it on iOS. I think this is a whole topic we need to get into but

01:01:29   it really jumped out at me that you and I both Myke you and I both talked about

01:01:32   this like in December and I kind of jumped into it for a while and really

01:01:37   didn't like it like it really felt hamstrung in my work and so have backed

01:01:41   out of it but we can we can touch base on that again maybe maybe later this

01:01:46   month. All right so my my New Year's resolutions are really not about tech

01:01:53   And I feel like last year, 2016, I went through a lot of changes, both from a technological

01:02:01   perspective for the tools that we use and the services that we use at Mac stories.

01:02:06   And also in terms of staff, you know, writers and new people.

01:02:10   And I feel like this year I want to relax more, delegate more, sleep more.

01:02:19   Those are the most important things that I want to do.

01:02:22   I want to find a better balance, I want to put the tools that I have to use and I want to have more presence from other writers on Max Stories.

01:02:36   Which is not to say that I don't want to write anymore, in fact I want to do less management and I want to do more writing.

01:02:46   And I feel like if I can find a better balance, I can relax more, have a better sleep schedule,

01:02:52   I can write more often, more stories, more reviews, and basically not do a repeat of last year,

01:03:02   which was more about setting up the infrastructure for the club, for Max Stories, all those other things.

01:03:10   That said, I also want to exercise at least four times a week, which is a goal that I've been trying to complete for the past couple of weeks before I left for vacation and then I got sick.

01:03:29   So I'm trying to assemble a kind of home gym with a bunch of equipment and try to exercise at least four times a week. I think that would go for me.

01:03:41   And in terms of professional resolutions, I guess one of the areas where I should improve is I need to read and I need to participate in more stories about Apple that are not necessarily inside my usual area of interest.

01:04:06   I want to read, I want to understand more stories about Apple and about Apple users that are not about iOS and people use iOS.

01:04:16   I feel like I've focused on iOS so much it's easy to lose perspective about what other types of Apple users, what their problems are, who they are and how they're using Apple devices.

01:04:33   this is my job, I have a website about Apple and I don't want to live in an echo chamber that is all about iOS.

01:04:41   I don't plan on switching from iOS, but I feel like it'd be healthy for me to listen and read and understand different stories.

01:04:51   And on that line, I'm also gonna add...

01:04:54   This is something that I probably do once a year and

01:04:59   And I think it'd be good for me to do it more often.

01:05:03   I want to use more Apple services for longer periods of time.

01:05:09   In the past year I switched to a lot of third-party services like Spotify for example.

01:05:15   And I think it'd be good for me to try Apple Music again, to try Apple News,

01:05:21   to try Siri more,

01:05:26   to use more HomeKit devices to understand better the kind of new ecosystem that Apple is building.

01:05:33   Because I think just like it was good for me to dip my toes into third-party services

01:05:42   and see what's outside my usual sphere of coverage,

01:05:48   I think it'd be good now to see again what Apple has done with iOS 10,

01:05:53   iOS 10, what they're doing with Siri, what they're doing with services. So I think it'd

01:05:58   be interesting to kind of gain this new Apple perspective this year. But I'm really excited

01:06:07   about relaxing more and sleeping more, honestly.

01:06:09   I wish you the best of luck in that, man.

01:06:12   Thank you. I will try.

01:06:15   It's tricky. It's tricky. Like, you know, like listening to you talk about those things

01:06:20   And you're kind of like, one part is like, I want to bring more people in and delegate

01:06:24   more and then the other part is like, I want to write more and I'm not sure.

01:06:28   No more people. No more people.

01:06:30   Okay. Well, like, you know, the idea of less management, more delegation and I'm interested

01:06:38   to see if that's going to work out for you.

01:06:40   Yeah, I know. It's tricky for me because I like to control every little aspect of my

01:06:47   business and I don't plan to change that but my idea is with the structure now in place

01:06:54   I don't have to think about the structure anymore. I don't have to do the setup again

01:06:59   basically. It's like setting up a new gadget. Once it's set up you just need to keep using

01:07:03   it and so if Mac Sorrys is my iPhone now I just need to keep using it because I did the

01:07:09   setup last year. That's the idea.

01:07:14   Good luck man.

01:07:15   Thank you.

01:07:16   Not that I don't think you can do it, but like it's hard.

01:07:19   - I know, I know. - It's very hard.

01:07:21   - Yeah, yeah.

01:07:22   - All right, I think that's wrapped it up, right?

01:07:25   We're all feeling like we're going into a brand new year

01:07:28   with predictions in our pocket and resolutions in our hearts.

01:07:33   If you want to find our show notes for this week,

01:07:35   go to relay.fm/connected/123shownotesmaker.

01:07:40   Thanks again to our sponsors this week,

01:07:44   Casper and Squarespace.

01:07:45   If you want to find Federico online, go to maxstories.net or find him at @Vittici.

01:07:52   Steven is @5tobexels.net and he is @ismh.

01:07:56   On Twitter I am @imike.

01:07:59   Thank you so much for listening, we'll be back next time.

01:08:02   Until then, say goodbye guys.