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Connected

116: Undead Zombie Echo Fish

 

00:00:00   [Music]

00:00:06   From Relay FM, this is Connected, episode 116.

00:00:10   Today's show is brought to you by Gemini 2 from MacPaw and MailRoute.

00:00:15   I am back from the dead and my name is Myke Hurley, and I am joined by Mr. Steven Hackett.

00:00:20   Welcome back, Michael.

00:00:22   Thank you, and Mr. Federica Vittucci.

00:00:24   Hey, Myke, welcome back.

00:00:25   Every time I'm away from the show, I don't know when or why this started,

00:00:29   Listeners of the show may know that I am for some reason pronounced as dead every single

00:00:35   time.

00:00:37   To the point now where I think I heard it last time, I can't remember exactly what you

00:00:41   said last week but it was pretty far in that direction to which I exclaimed something at

00:00:48   the time I can't remember and then thought to myself one day I will be and then that's

00:00:52   on you.

00:00:54   I think it was that we could find you in the afterlife.

00:00:57   There you go.

00:00:58   That was it.

00:00:59   - Yep, that was at the end.

00:01:01   There was also one at the start as well.

00:01:02   But yeah, the Afterlife one,

00:01:05   I really, really enjoyed that one.

00:01:06   I think I heard it on the plane

00:01:07   and made a sound that I shouldn't have made

00:01:09   with people around me.

00:01:11   It was fun.

00:01:12   But I am back from the dead.

00:01:14   Zombie mic.

00:01:15   - Yes.

00:01:16   So we should follow up.

00:01:18   We are going to start in what you named Dongle Town

00:01:22   on this week's upgrade, which was very--

00:01:24   - Take a little trip down to Dongle Town.

00:01:27   That's the place where everybody visits now,

00:01:30   nobody wants to be there.

00:01:31   The Dongle Town tourism board is doing its best.

00:01:34   - Are you done?

00:01:36   - I think so.

00:01:37   - So you guys already covered it, it happened on Friday,

00:01:41   but Apple has dropped the dongle prices.

00:01:44   And thankfully for people like me

00:01:47   who bought a bunch of them early,

00:01:49   I got a bunch of store credit,

00:01:50   which I will probably put towards--

00:01:52   - More dongles. - Air pods, air pods,

00:01:54   whenever they ship.

00:01:56   And I think more interestingly, the displays

00:01:59   that they have made with LG are cheaper as well.

00:02:02   That's not something I saw coming.

00:02:03   I think it was a surprise to a lot of people.

00:02:06   But what I wanted to talk about was not necessarily

00:02:10   the cheaper dongles, but the displays,

00:02:12   like everything else Apple announces,

00:02:15   are not shipping for a while.

00:02:17   So the Apple Watch is still several weeks out.

00:02:20   The displays are like months out.

00:02:22   The Touch Bar MacBook Pros are still a couple weeks out.

00:02:26   For a company run by the operations guy,

00:02:28   Apple sure has a hard time getting stuff

00:02:30   out the door on time these days, right?

00:02:33   And it's not like they are,

00:02:36   I mean the displays maybe are different,

00:02:38   LG is maybe manufacturing them,

00:02:40   I don't really know those details,

00:02:41   but they're not selling the Apple Watch

00:02:44   in the quantities they are the iPhone, right?

00:02:47   It's not, this is very frustrating

00:02:50   as someone who wants to spend money sometimes

00:02:53   that you have to wait.

00:02:54   And it's a thing that Apple used to be better at,

00:02:57   and it seems like as they've gotten bigger,

00:02:59   they have a hard time getting that ramp scaled up.

00:03:02   - Yeah, I've been thinking about this recently.

00:03:05   And this obviously isn't the case, but it's like,

00:03:08   is it Jeff Williams, the operations guy now?

00:03:13   - Yes. - I think so, yeah.

00:03:14   - Like, is it just the case that he's just not as good

00:03:17   as Tim, but then I think to myself, like, it's not like,

00:03:20   I can't imagine Tim Cook was actually, you know,

00:03:22   making calls to the factories, right, to arrange this stuff. But you assume that, you know, he

00:03:28   probably had a really big hand in it. And I'm just, I'm kind of, I'm just a little bit confused by

00:03:35   it. It does seem really strange, right, because this seems like a money problem, you know, like

00:03:39   a problem you solve with money. And again, they have all of that. It's just very strange to me. I

00:03:46   I can't kind of work out why they are having these problems

00:03:51   with so many lines.

00:03:52   I mean the LG thing, that's not onto them, right?

00:03:54   That's up to LG.

00:03:55   But you know, you mentioned AirPods is a great thing

00:03:59   that you know, the iPhones continue to have problems

00:04:01   especially when they use new materials.

00:04:04   The watches, they're out, but they're, you know,

00:04:06   nobody can buy them.

00:04:07   It's weird.

00:04:08   - Yeah, it's just, it's just sort of frustrating I think.

00:04:13   - And also, you know, if the rumors are to be believed,

00:04:15   are Macs that should be out now as well but they're not. Right. So yeah, so something

00:04:20   that just kind of sprang to mind and looking at these prices like there's a lot of stuff

00:04:24   um it's late these days. Myke you have some thoughts on dongles it seems like. I think

00:04:31   that Apple's arrangement of dongles that they have like the amount that you can buy are

00:04:36   mainly dumb. Like if I want to get a USB-A and also have power I have to also get like

00:04:44   a display connector as well. Those options just don't feel good to me. I don't understand

00:04:49   why Apple doesn't sell a dongle that has two USB-A ports on it and a USB-C port on it for

00:04:54   pass-through power. Doesn't that just seem like the dongle that everybody would want?

00:05:00   How many people need a display thing? I know lots of people do and that's fine, but all

00:05:06   we're looking to do is just plug in our old peripherals, right? It just seems strange

00:05:09   to me. So I went on Amazon and I found an Anker thing for my new MacBook which I'll

00:05:16   talk about later which has three regular USB 3.0 ports like the A connector, the standard

00:05:21   connector and USB C port for power and it's great and in my mind that thing is just going

00:05:27   to live on the end of the charging cable and it will just be there forever and then I will

00:05:32   just plug it in and then I have all the USB ports that I need. And it just really surprises

00:05:37   me that Apple don't make a dongle like this. It's just strange to me that the only way

00:05:41   you can get a regular USB port is to also couple it with some kind of display port,

00:05:46   whatever it be. I think you do like a VGA one and they do like a HDMI one. They just

00:05:50   seem like really strange configurations of things to me when most people probably don't

00:05:55   need that one all the time.

00:05:58   And they also lack some, what I would think are pretty common ones. So I don't remember

00:06:04   specific ones I ordered but I think there's like the Ethernet one they don't

00:06:09   make but Belkin does and you know they're relying on their parties to make

00:06:12   some of them at least the ones that they sell themselves of course you can go on

00:06:16   Amazon there are you know there are stories out there there's some problems

00:06:21   with some like cheap USB C stuff out there and the so you kind of got to

00:06:29   watch out for like getting like quality stuff and especially with the cables

00:06:33   Yeah, I went with Anker. It wasn't the cheapest on Amazon, but I went with them because I have other products by them

00:06:39   You know, so and they've been fine. So I'm just gonna hope that they do a good job

00:06:43   Yeah, yeah, I think so. So I think you're probably safe. But if you're buying stuff, that's not like first-party

00:06:49   I think it's just worth doing a little homework

00:06:51   So I also bought a dongle myself for the iPhone 7

00:06:56   Yeah, I bought the Belkin Rockstar

00:07:02   Yeah, I know. I think it's the only dongle that allows you to charge and listen on the iPhone 7 by providing two lightning ports at the same time.

00:07:16   Apple themselves don't make this kind of dongle and I think it's the only one of its kind on the Apple online store.

00:07:22   So I bought it and it told me, well, you gotta wait two to three weeks, two days ago, and then the dongle came today.

00:07:28   So that was a nice surprise.

00:07:30   And it's frankly, I mean it gets the job done for sure, but it's quite bulky in the sense that

00:07:36   the cable is a little bit thicker and stronger than the

00:07:41   headphone jack adapter that Apple makes, so that's nice, but the port at the bottom

00:07:47   it's probably thicker than the old, so the thing that doubles, the lightning ports,

00:07:53   it's thicker and I think also taller than the old 30-pin connector,

00:07:58   so it does add a ton of bulk to the iPhone 7.

00:08:01   And once you connect that dongle and then all the headphones with the headphone jack adapter,

00:08:09   the whole setup becomes kind of ridiculous because you have like this 20cm buffer

00:08:14   between the iPhone and the actual headphone jack.

00:08:17   But sure, it gets the job done, you know, so I'm probably gonna leave this dongle attached

00:08:22   to my B&O H6 headphones, which are the most comfortable ones of the wired headphones I have.

00:08:31   I'm probably gonna leave it attached to the headphone jack adapter and to the headphones and carry it with me.

00:08:38   I'm just surprised that Apple doesn't make anything like this because

00:08:41   it is going to be a problem for some people that want to charge and listen at the same time.

00:08:45   I'm not gonna say this should be included in the box.

00:08:48   I feel like including the basic headphone jack adapter in the box is the right choice

00:08:53   But at least Apple should make an option, you know

00:08:55   Because I paid 40 euros for this and I feel like Apple should make their own probably cheaper even 19

00:09:01   20 euro option. So is the only way currently to

00:09:05   Listen to audio and charge at the same time

00:09:09   I think so. Is through this thing, but then you still need the headphone to lightning dongle as well

00:09:15   So you're double dongling just to get the...

00:09:18   It's really awkward man.

00:09:20   Like I do not, again, you guys covered it so well last week

00:09:25   and I'm mostly in agreement, right,

00:09:27   that this is the march of progress,

00:09:28   like we've got to do these things,

00:09:29   we have to go through these short term pain things,

00:09:32   but I'm really not enjoying like just the amount of dongles

00:09:35   that are in my life right now

00:09:36   and will need to be in my life right now

00:09:38   and/or the extra purchases that I'm having to make

00:09:43   to reduce that annoyance.

00:09:45   It's an uncomfortable time to be in. It is. Especially when there are so many

00:09:51   products now, right, that Apple make that we buy, as well as like we also get like

00:09:55   watches now as well from them, as well as the phones and the iPads and the Macs.

00:09:59   It's just it's a lot of stuff going on. It's uncomfortable.

00:10:04   And it's confusing in places. Like we have a link in the show notes to Apple's

00:10:08   support document about the Thunderbolt 3 to Thunderbolt 2 adapter, which can do

00:10:14   almost everything the old Thunderbolt port can do except drive display port

00:10:21   stuff so it's like if you have a mini display port to a driven screen you

00:10:30   can't use the dongle that has the same port on the end of it like it's just

00:10:35   there's lots of these little edge cases you know if you have the MacBook Pro you

00:10:39   You have Thunderbolt 3 and USB-C together,

00:10:43   but the MacBook can only use USB-C stuff

00:10:46   because it doesn't have the Thunderbolt chipset

00:10:49   even though the ports look the same.

00:10:51   And I just don't know how a normal Mac user

00:10:54   just goes and updates their computer

00:10:56   every four or five years and they get a new one

00:10:59   and they don't know about this stuff.

00:11:01   They don't listen to our shows.

00:11:02   They don't read our websites.

00:11:04   This has got to be confusing, right?

00:11:06   That the ports that look the same do different things.

00:11:09   I get I'm like oh hi it's a mess like it's it's and it is a some of this is

00:11:19   transitional but if the MacBook always has USB C and never Thunderbolt which is

00:11:26   probably I think will be the case because that chipset doesn't support

00:11:29   Thunderbolt from Intel then there's always gonna be that divide of like in

00:11:34   my household I've got the MacBook Pro my wife has the MacBook and she can't just

00:11:39   like pick up something off my desk and plug it into a computer unless it is USB-C and

00:11:44   doesn't require the Thunderbolt to be on the same port. It's just really messy and confusing

00:11:51   and I wish that the future would just hurry up and get here already.

00:11:58   Steven do you think that the Mac Pro is dead like me when I'm away?

00:12:03   No.

00:12:04   No?

00:12:05   No, so let's start with this a little bit.

00:12:07   So the, in the wake of the Mac event,

00:12:10   obviously there's lots of criticism about the new Mac Pro,

00:12:15   I think we addressed most of that last week,

00:12:17   but it's also been this thread of conversation

00:12:19   about the Mac Pro, that shiny, black, trash can desktop.

00:12:24   Apple shipped it three years ago,

00:12:26   and hasn't touched it since.

00:12:30   And Marco Arment wrote a really good post about it.

00:12:35   I disagree with his idea that it's never going to be updated again.

00:12:40   I think Jason covered that really nicely.

00:12:44   But he does make a good case that there are things that the Mac Pro does that even a high-end

00:12:51   iMac can't do.

00:12:53   And he lists all those things, you can go read the post.

00:12:56   But I think the Mac Pro does slot into the lineup

00:13:00   and it serves a segment of Apple's user base

00:13:06   that is an important segment.

00:13:07   And quite honestly, most of the time,

00:13:10   people who spend that kind of money on a desktop

00:13:14   are Apple's from Apple's, some of the Mac's biggest fans.

00:13:18   And I think it's time that Apple come out

00:13:21   and say something about this computer.

00:13:25   If it's dead, then why is it still for sale?

00:13:28   If there's not a new one coming, then just end it.

00:13:32   If there is a new one coming, say with Skylake E, which will be spring-ish, early summer

00:13:39   next year hopefully.

00:13:41   If that is the case, I think it's time for Apple to make a statement about that.

00:13:46   They did this in 2012.

00:13:47   Remember, this is not a new frustration.

00:13:52   In 2012 they revved the Mac Pro but just barely and they had the same case so they just put

00:13:59   slightly better chips in it and it was a long time between meaningful updates when it comes

00:14:04   to performance.

00:14:06   And someone emailed Tim Cook and said, "Hey look what's going on?"

00:14:09   And he responded that we're working on something for next year that Pro Mac users are going

00:14:14   to be really happy about.

00:14:15   And of course that took the form of the Trashcan Mac Pro that shipped at the end of the year.

00:14:21   At WDC there was the very famous Phil Schiller quote about not being able to innovate anymore.

00:14:28   And that probably hurt sales of that machine, but at this point who cares?

00:14:35   Like they can't be selling many of them.

00:14:37   I feel sorry for anyone who has to buy one or who buys one who doesn't know that it's,

00:14:43   you know, I think the people who buy Mac Pros all know that it's outdated, but if anyone

00:14:48   just walks in and buys one, it's pretty sad.

00:14:50   Straight up shouldn't be available to sale right now like through regular channels

00:14:54   You should have to really kind of hunt through Apple's website to be able to get this thing

00:14:58   Like I saw somebody tweeting the other day that on the product page

00:15:02   They talk about aperture speeds like speeds to run the aperture out. Oh, yeah, which was discontinued like two years ago

00:15:08   Mm-hmm, and they have all their footnotes when performance testing mentioned

00:15:14   Mac OS 10 10.9

00:15:17   And you walk to an Apple store

00:15:19   you walk into an Apple store there's usually just one and it's plugged into

00:15:24   the discontinued Thunderbolt display. Everything about this is sad.

00:15:29   It's the museum that they put in every store now.

00:15:31   I guess. But I think it's time for Apple to say look we're working on

00:15:36   something new and it'll be out next year and so hang on I think that should come

00:15:42   with a price cut. If they don't do that I mean I'll be surprised if they do I

00:15:46   I fully expect Apple to remain silent.

00:15:48   That's their,

00:15:49   that's their, you know, their game plan.

00:15:54   Like that's their, what they do.

00:15:55   - The modus operandi.

00:15:56   - Thank you, that's what I was looking for.

00:15:58   But I think they've gotta give something

00:16:02   to these pro users saying,

00:16:03   "Hey look, don't freak out, it is coming."

00:16:05   And if it's not, if the Mac Pro is dead,

00:16:08   then just take it down.

00:16:09   Now why is it still for sale?

00:16:11   - Yeah.

00:16:11   - And let's just move on.

00:16:15   all move on with our lives, right? I mean it should be nice to get some kind of pro

00:16:19   event next spring where Apple talks about the Mac Pro and the iPad Pro, so the two sides

00:16:24   of pro Apple users. That would be cool. Yeah. I like that. It's sad, right? Because it just

00:16:37   feels, it feels kind of wrong for them to continue selling this computer. This Mac should

00:16:44   just not be on sale. Like it just shouldn't be on sale. It is irresponsible for people

00:16:50   to buy this computer. Like for Apple to be selling it. Because it is so old at this point

00:16:57   and as I said, the things that they focus on, there's use that you can get out of it

00:17:02   if you own it, right? I'm sure. But to still be selling it at the same price that you sold

00:17:07   it years ago, I don't think that it's acceptable at this point. I think they need to do something

00:17:12   about it and maybe they don't want to cut the price right because if they cut

00:17:16   the price now then it's gonna be more difficult to put the price up again but

00:17:20   like I just feel like how many of these are you selling just stop it just stop

00:17:24   selling it just stop I totally agree it I'm not in the market for a Mac Pro I

00:17:32   mean the iMac and the MacBook Pro meet my needs with what I do but I at least

00:17:38   want to know the options there and for people who do need it you know they're

00:17:42   really strained it. There are a bunch of people using these things and they're

00:17:45   aging and before too long the first ones that went out the door are gonna be out

00:17:50   of AppleCare. Like that's not a great place to be in. Like what if what if

00:17:56   yours has some catastrophic failure? It's out of warranty. Like do you replace it

00:18:01   with the same computer three years later? Like there's nothing good about this

00:18:04   situation and that they they messed up by skipping the generation. They got kind

00:18:10   of messed over by Intel. That's all in the past and now it's about how Apple handles

00:18:14   it moving forward and so far they have not done a good job at managing the situation.

00:18:19   And I feel like that there's got to be enough hubbub in the next couple of weeks that a

00:18:24   statement should be made. You know, they felt the desire and they felt the real pressing

00:18:28   need to cut dongle prices because people were upset. Like, I think it's time that they actually

00:18:34   do something. Just to give some kind of lifeline, some kind of smoke signal to people, I think

00:18:39   that's really important right now.

00:18:41   - Agreed.

00:18:42   So up next, it's not really follow up,

00:18:45   it's something that was just sort of weird

00:18:46   we wanted to point people to.

00:18:48   - It's just terrifying, it's just terrible.

00:18:50   This is terrible.

00:18:51   - So people may be familiar with the singing fish thing

00:18:55   that you can buy at a drugstore and you walk by it

00:18:58   or hit a button and it sings and it's super creepy.

00:19:00   - Big mouth Billy Bass.

00:19:02   - There you go.

00:19:02   Someone hooked an Alexa up to it.

00:19:04   So you speak to the echo and the fish answers you and it's the most terrifying thing you've

00:19:13   ever seen.

00:19:14   I like that the mouth doesn't really move correctly to the audio.

00:19:19   That's my favorite thing.

00:19:20   It makes it worse.

00:19:21   So that the mouth is just kind of like just flapping around and sounds are coming out.

00:19:25   It's not a good look.

00:19:27   Brian Cain is a madman.

00:19:30   of like mostly like undead zombie echo fish. Yep it's got that kind of just dead look in

00:19:38   its eyes that thing is ready to automate your entire life and there's nothing you can do

00:19:44   about it. Lastly we wanted to point people to a new show on Real AFM named Mixed Feelings.

00:19:50   It debuted last week. It is a new weekly show about news and politics and pop culture stuff.

00:19:59   It is a big break from our sort of normal topic area on Relay and that's really exciting.

00:20:07   And it is hosted by two college women, Quinn Rose and Jillian Parker.

00:20:13   And their point of view is very different, I think, from most of us on Relay and I think

00:20:20   that is great.

00:20:22   And I've really enjoyed the show.

00:20:24   They had a demo that went out to members a couple weeks ago.

00:20:27   episode one went up last week and it is definitely worth going to check out so

00:20:31   we'll have some some links in the show notes to that show mixed feelings what I

00:20:36   like about the show is not only do I learn about things from another

00:20:39   perspective I learn about things that I just flat-out didn't know about so it's

00:20:45   it's a really great show as Steven said with a different perspective and I think

00:20:48   it's well worth checking out so go to relay.fm/mixedfeelings and you can

00:20:53   Download episode 1 and there'll be another episode this week. It's a weekly show. Gotcha connect.

00:20:57   This week's episode of connected is brought to you by Gemini 2 from MacPaw.

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00:22:09   The offer is valid through to November 20th of this year.

00:22:12   I think in this world of SSDs and smaller SSDs and especially for me moving from a MacBook Pro to a MacBook

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00:22:27   thank you so much to MacPaw for their support of this show

00:22:30   and Relay FM

00:22:34   alright so I will talk about my Macbook so

00:22:37   I mentioned this last week right that I was buying a Macbook that was my decision

00:22:41   and I was very proud of myself that I bought from a department store

00:22:44   it was two weeks ago I spoke about this, I bought from a department store instead of Apple

00:22:48   because I got the price cut down. However there were some some snags in this. The department

00:22:54   store John Lewis did not deliver in time for reasons unknown I paid for next day delivery.

00:23:00   They couldn't fulfill it and the MacBook actually arrived on the afternoon of the morning I'd

00:23:07   already left for Ireland. So that was no good. So I then spent a couple of days knowing that

00:23:13   MacBook was at home and thinking that I was just going to send it back because I didn't

00:23:17   have any travel. So this device for me is purely because I sometimes need a Mac when

00:23:22   I travel and I was looking for the thinnest and lightest thing so it takes up the least

00:23:27   amount of space in my bag and I don't feel it like it's just easy. Then I always have

00:23:32   the Mac that I need to run the applications that I need to publish videos, to publish

00:23:36   audio, to edit, to you know whatever it is that I need that some because of some of the

00:23:40   pro applications that I use that are not available on the iPad I prefer to just have the Mac

00:23:45   there in case I desperately need it. So it didn't arrive in time and I was thinking like

00:23:50   is it worth keeping it and I decided to myself that I was just going to send it back because

00:23:53   I don't have any overseas travel plan for the rest of the year. Then we were completing

00:23:59   on our house this week, which is amazing, I'm so happy and I realised that I'm probably

00:24:06   going to be spending a lot of time over the next month or two going backwards and forwards

00:24:11   from home to the new place for different trades people to come, for different engineers and

00:24:15   all that sort of stuff. And looking at just some of the appointments we have booked in

00:24:19   right now, I'm going to need to be recording from the new place. So I figured it's a lot

00:24:23   of back and forth. That's the reason that I would want the MacBook. So I decided to

00:24:28   keep it. Plus because if I buy it in two months time, I'm going to be paying more again because

00:24:35   the prices have all gone up now because everybody's followed Apple's lead. So that's why I'm going

00:24:40   to keep it for now. I'm going to keep this thing. I've got it all set up. A lovely gold

00:24:45   MacBook. And so it's there for when I'm going to be moving backwards and forwards and now

00:24:49   I have this little, the last piece of a portable recording studio.

00:24:53   So I got a couple of questions for you. The MacBook is obviously less of a machine than

00:25:04   the new MacBook Pros and it is smaller and lighter. Is that the key metric here?

00:25:11   Because when you and I were speaking I was trying to push you

00:25:15   into the MacBook Pro I just bought without the touch bar. Yep. Because it is

00:25:19   thin and light, the battery life is really good, but it is noticeably faster than

00:25:28   this machine. So I'm curious about what trade-offs like what was the most

00:25:31   important thing for you in that hierarchy? I am optimizing for portability.

00:25:36   Like that is the 100% like that is the number one point is more than anything

00:25:43   else this thing is just to be portable that that's what I'm going for and I've

00:25:48   played with the the new MacBook the escape as Marco calls it which I really

00:25:53   like that name Jason Snow had one and I picked it up and it was too heavy like

00:25:57   it's heavier than I want and as soon as I took the MacBook out of the box I was

00:26:01   was completely sold like that is the computer that I want for this purpose. Now I may get

00:26:08   very angry about how slow this thing is compared to my iMac, I'm sure I will, but the main

00:26:14   reason that I'm going for this is like this is purely a travel machine, it's the only

00:26:19   time I will ever use it is when I need something that's as small as possible and so that's

00:26:26   why I think this is the right one for me. It's the same reason that when I travel I

00:26:30   I take my 9.7 inch iPhone Pro and look at 12.9.

00:26:33   Like I'm optimizing for maximum portability

00:26:36   and that is 100% what I get out of the MacBook.

00:26:40   Like if I wanted the power of the MacBook escape,

00:26:43   I would just keep my MacBook Pro

00:26:45   because then I'm going for power.

00:26:47   If I'm going for power,

00:26:48   that thing is more than enough for what I need, right?

00:26:51   But it's, for me, it's too heavy and it's too thick.

00:26:55   Like it made packing my carry-on more difficult,

00:27:00   like everything about that on the last trip

00:27:04   was just annoying.

00:27:05   It was just annoying.

00:27:06   The battery needs to be charged way more.

00:27:08   It was just a frustrating experience

00:27:10   to be lugging around this big computer.

00:27:12   So I feel happy in my choice

00:27:17   and that the MacBook really does feel

00:27:19   like the right solution for what I'm trying to solve.

00:27:23   Like the MacBook escape is a way more powerful machine.

00:27:26   It's thinner and lighter, but it's still too much.

00:27:31   For me, it's just still too much.

00:27:32   - I think it's time we talk Federico

00:27:33   into one of these machines.

00:27:35   I think we've made our cases.

00:27:37   - You know what I've been doing this past week?

00:27:39   I needed to use a Mac and I just went ahead

00:27:42   and created a new user on Silvia's MacBook Pro.

00:27:45   And I just been using that instead.

00:27:49   Because she doesn't use her computer offer anymore.

00:27:51   She does a bunch of things on her iPad Pro.

00:27:55   And it's just easier, you know, we have a MacBook,

00:27:59   nobody's really using it.

00:28:01   And so, I mean, I'm considering using that MacBook Pro

00:28:05   to do the shows now, because whenever I do the shows,

00:28:08   she's usually not at home, so the computer is unused.

00:28:11   And I got a user for myself in there

00:28:13   with a bunch of my things.

00:28:15   So maybe the solution is not to get a new MacBook,

00:28:18   but it's actually to have one MacBook Pro in our house

00:28:22   and just share the computer.

00:28:24   you're like a macbook hobo

00:28:27   if you like stickers

00:28:29   uh... by i have a macbook pro that's unused

00:28:33   you can have it! I'm not looking for charity I'm just saying

00:28:38   I have this computer now. Thank you. I don't know what to do with this by the way

00:28:43   I'd consider, I mean, because now I just have this big computer right that I don't need

00:28:48   now I'd considered, I can't sell this thing, nobody

00:28:52   Nobody will want to buy this, right?

00:28:54   Because it's just completely covered in stickers.

00:28:57   I considered auctioning it for charity.

00:28:59   - You should do that.

00:29:01   - Do you think that people would be interested in this?

00:29:04   Like listeners of the show,

00:29:06   if this is something you would potentially be interested in,

00:29:10   that we would auction off the MacBook

00:29:13   with the proceeds going to St. Jude,

00:29:16   is that something that people would care about?

00:29:19   Because I don't want this thing.

00:29:21   I'm moving house and I don't want to take it.

00:29:24   I don't care about selling it for myself

00:29:27   because I wouldn't be able to charge

00:29:29   a good amount of money on it

00:29:31   because the thing is completely defaced.

00:29:33   So I'm thinking that maybe to auction it off.

00:29:37   If this is something that we get a response from

00:29:41   that people seem like they're happy to do,

00:29:44   then we'll go for it.

00:29:46   Jason Stone in the chat room is suggesting

00:29:47   auction or raffle.

00:29:48   I don't know what's the best one to do there.

00:29:50   would have to think about that but yeah I want to get rid of that. Also if you

00:29:54   like Bonanza the show that I do with my Alexander I also have the old keyboard

00:29:59   that I used to use for the to trigger the sound effects it's got my handwriting

00:30:03   all over it up maybe I'll do that one too. I need to get rid of stuff and I

00:30:07   figure auctions sounds like a good like a good idea so if that's something that

00:30:11   people like the sound of I'll look into how you do that kind of thing because I

00:30:14   have no idea. Steven maybe you can help me. Okay we'll figure something out.

00:30:19   I like the idea there.

00:30:20   Awesome, because this thing, I got enough to do of it. I don't want to do of it. I don't

00:30:25   want it and I definitely can't sell it. I bought something else. I bought the Beats

00:30:31   Solo 3 headphones.

00:30:33   Yay, nice.

00:30:34   Purely on your recommendation Federico.

00:30:36   Oh god, I feel responsible now. What have I done?

00:30:40   And also because I was traveling, right, so I was getting on a plane and I needed to listen

00:30:46   to stuff and to charge. This is just a thing that happens to me when I travel. So I knew

00:30:51   I needed to give in to Bluetooth overlords and I decided I would buy them in the airport

00:30:55   because I can get them without the VAT on them. The pairing is magical as Federico described

00:31:00   and then sharing with the iCloud is great because then I just picked up my iPad when

00:31:04   I was at the hotel and I was able to just choose them which is great. I like how they

00:31:07   fold up into the little case. They fold up to be super small and I also like that you

00:31:13   You get all of the cables as well in case you need them.

00:31:16   To plug it in as if you could just, I think it's a headphone cable, right?

00:31:19   You could just plug it into something.

00:31:20   I like that it comes with that so if the battery dies on you and you have the case with you,

00:31:25   you have another option.

00:31:26   I think that's kind of cool.

00:31:29   I don't know if you mentioned this Federico, I don't remember, but it has on-ear controls

00:31:33   which is great for play/pause and volume up and down, for skipping left and right.

00:31:37   That is a must have for me with headphones like that.

00:31:42   got to have some kind of control to them so I think that's awesome like that you

00:31:46   know that's way more than we're gonna get from from the AirPods. I found them

00:31:50   mostly comfortable I do prefer over the ear to on ear they're like the smaller

00:31:55   ones that go on air because I have a long periods of time on ear headphones

00:31:58   they hurt me because of my glasses yeah same yeah and so it kind of hurts the

00:32:04   back of my ear and they can be adjusted and it can be good but but that you know

00:32:09   Now this isn't anything with the Beats, this is all on-ear headphones, but I do prefer

00:32:13   over the ears personally.

00:32:15   Yeah, when I use the H6, the B&O, they're super comfortable, I don't even feel them

00:32:21   because they're over-ear.

00:32:22   Yep.

00:32:23   And I wish Beats had something like that, like the Beats sound, which I'm not ashamed

00:32:27   to say I like, but with the over-ear design of the H6.

00:32:30   Never gonna happen, but I can dream.

00:32:32   40-hour battery life is bananas.

00:32:36   It's brilliant, right?

00:32:37   is such a great thing.

00:32:39   I mean, again, wherever I will have the problem

00:32:41   that I've mentioned in the past of like,

00:32:43   then I forget to charge them,

00:32:45   but because they come with that cable

00:32:47   and I have the dongle in my bag,

00:32:49   then I could just plug them in, right?

00:32:51   And it would be okay.

00:32:52   That is like a fail-safe solution.

00:32:54   And/or I've also got the charging cable

00:32:56   and I always have one of those battery packs with me.

00:32:58   I'll just plug it in.

00:32:59   And what is it, like 15 minutes for seven hours or something?

00:33:02   - Yeah, kind of something like that.

00:33:03   - It's like, you know, you're fine.

00:33:05   just plug it into my power for 15 minutes and I'm good to go again. Also they sound

00:33:10   way better than I expected. Like from using other Bluetooth headphones this is like something

00:33:16   else completely. They sound to me like to my ears like it didn't really sound any different

00:33:20   to when I used my ear pods. Like it was fine like it was great like I was listening to

00:33:25   podcasts it sounded crystal clear they sounded rich like I was surprised I didn't think that

00:33:30   that's the kind of sound quality that I was going to get because all of my previous Bluetooth

00:33:34   headphone experience has just been like it's not so different, you know that's kind of

00:33:38   how it sounds, not good but these things they're really good so I recommend them um especially

00:33:45   if you're in a situation like I guess I was when I'm traveling and I know I need bluetooth

00:33:52   because you know you gotta try and veer away from dongle town where you can and we have

00:33:57   no idea when the airpods are going to come out so these are good I mean I would still

00:34:01   use these because when I'm on planes I like to have something that's covering my ears

00:34:06   more just because it's better for the sound isolation because I can't use the noise cancelling

00:34:13   because it makes me feel like I'm sick which is terrible.

00:34:16   So these are a good travelling solution for me but I'm still interested in the AirPods

00:34:20   for kind of just day to day use.

00:34:23   I'm looking forward to them whenever they come out and it is confusing to me.

00:34:26   I can't work out why, what's wrong with the AirPods right?

00:34:31   in theory you'd think oh it's the new technology but that's in the Beats

00:34:35   headphones and they're fine. Yeah I think it's the new technology in that smaller

00:34:40   body you know or it could be the charging case we don't know. Maybe they're

00:34:44   just making sure that the batteries don't catch on fire because that'd be

00:34:47   real unfortunate on your ears right? Yeah that could be a little bit of an issue.

00:34:51   Yeah we don't want that you do not want a little bit of ear fire going on it's not good for

00:34:56   anybody but yeah I have to say I'm happy with these two little purchases

00:35:01   that I've made. I don't think I would recommend the MacBook for everybody. I

00:35:05   like the keyboard by the way I like the size of the keycaps that's what I really

00:35:09   like. The feeling of typing on it isn't amazing right I'm not the first

00:35:14   person to say that but the bigger keycaps I love that I think that's really

00:35:18   good. That's more comfortable for me as somebody who doesn't really know where

00:35:21   their hands are going when they're typing so that's a big thumbs up and I

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00:37:42   All right, so there is a new notes app in town,

00:37:49   which is something I feel like we've not focused on

00:37:51   in a long time.

00:37:52   I think we've all been pretty happy with Apple Notes, right?

00:37:55   I think we've all been users of Apple Notes.

00:37:57   - Yeah. - Yeah.

00:37:58   But a little while ago, I think we all kind of found out about this application.

00:38:03   I believe that we were all checking out the beta for it as well.

00:38:08   We've been testing this app now for a few weeks, and I have to say that I kind of like

00:38:12   it and it's bare notes.

00:38:14   B-E-A-R notes.

00:38:16   And Federico has come out of retirement to write a relatively chunky review.

00:38:22   I haven't seen you do one of these for a while.

00:38:24   What kind of retirement, Myke?

00:38:26   You haven't done a big app review in a long time.

00:38:29   There haven't been any good apps.

00:38:31   Oh!

00:38:32   No, I mean, there haven't been any, well, I think you mean any, that kind of productivity

00:38:40   app that I spend some time with.

00:38:42   You just start walking that statement back, buddy.

00:38:45   No, I was making a joke, but.

00:38:47   Yeah, yeah.

00:38:48   You know.

00:38:49   I know what you mean, though.

00:38:50   There haven't been any really large, like, brand new app introductions in a while.

00:38:55   Exactly, brand new indie app for productivity on the iPhone and the iPad.

00:39:00   We've all been using mostly the same things for the past year, I would say.

00:39:04   So, can you kind of give us the skinny on bare notes?

00:39:10   What is it and why is it compelling?

00:39:13   It's a note-taking app that mixes different elements of Markdown,

00:39:17   so you can type out notes and format them using plain text and Markdown.

00:39:22   And it combines some elements of Apple Notes, such as the ability in a note to go beyond text,

00:39:28   in the sense that within a note you can add images, you can add documents like PDFs.

00:39:34   It combines the best aspects of CloudKit.

00:39:38   So you only need to authenticate, actually you don't need to authenticate at all.

00:39:43   CloudKit uses your email account, your iCloud account.

00:39:47   It doesn't consume your iCloud space.

00:39:49   It's based on iCab authentication, but it doesn't use your storage.

00:39:54   So the syncing is the same of Apple Notes.

00:39:56   Super fast, reliable in my experience.

00:39:59   It combines some elements of task paper.

00:40:02   It can be used as a very lightweight task manager, because you can add checkboxes in Notes,

00:40:09   and you can see the progress of all of the different to-dos that you've added in a Note.

00:40:16   And then he has all these different little touches that are sort of like a mix of Apple Notes, Evernote, Taskpaper, a Text Editor.

00:40:25   There's a ton of export options. Whenever you create a note you can send it out as Markdown or PDF, HTML, Rich Text, even Word.

00:40:35   So it's this mix of Markdown and Apple Notes with a lot of power user features.

00:40:40   because unlike Apple Notes, which really kind of set a new standard for note-taking apps with iOS 9,

00:40:49   unlike Apple Notes, Bear has a lot of automation features through URL schemes for now,

00:40:55   and hopefully in the future there will be native workflow actions.

00:40:59   You can use all these different URL schemes to automate note-taking and search,

00:41:06   And it's also got tags. So unlike Apple Notes, which is based on folders, and the management of folders in Apple Notes on iOS is kind of clunky,

00:41:15   there's not a lot of flexibility, you can add tags to Notes in Bear. And with all of the versatility that entails, which include a note can have multiple tags,

00:41:26   or you can browse tags in a sidebar, you can filter by tag, you can search by tag.

00:41:32   So it's this mix of Apple Notes and Markdown with a little more flexibility, a little more automation,

00:41:39   very cool design, very fast sync and a different business model.

00:41:43   Because unlike the note-taking apps that we're used to, it's not free or paid upfront,

00:41:48   it uses the new App Store subscriptions for recurring revenue.

00:41:56   So you can sign up for pro features, right?

00:41:59   Not just for syncing, but it's kind of strange to understand it first.

00:42:04   So you can unlock sync with the subscription, otherwise you're just going to use Bear for free on one device

00:42:10   and you're not one sync across devices.

00:42:12   But if you buy the annual subscription, which is $15, you also unlock the themes and advanced export options forever.

00:42:24   So the annual subscription, besides recurring the next year, also acts as a one-time in-app purchase for some features.

00:42:35   Alright, so I have some thoughts and some questions for you, right?

00:42:40   Because I know you've taken a deeper dive into this than me.

00:42:42   So I just wanted to hit on the tags, as you mentioned, because what I really like about the tags

00:42:50   is that they don't, it's not like putting notes in folders where it kind of like sequesters the note

00:42:55   and then that's where it lives. I get to see all my notes in one list but then can open the sidebar

00:43:00   and tap on one of the tags to treat it like a folder basically. But from then I can also have

00:43:07   basically one note in a bunch of different folders. So something I've been using Bear for is to write

00:43:13   the scripts and the copy for our ads and it allows me to assign a tag for the company and also for

00:43:20   the time period in which the ad has been written, which is really great for me. I've been looking

00:43:25   for a new application to move to because the one that I was using to write this stuff because

00:43:31   I wasn't doing them in Apple Notes because I wanted the markdown stuff I'm concerned about, it's

00:43:35   longevity. So Bear is now what I'm using because it is really beautiful and it does a lot of things

00:43:44   in a way that I like. Now, I want to ask you a question Federico about the syncing stuff,

00:43:50   because there was some discussion about Bear when I was at Oul, because Oul is primarily attended

00:43:59   by indie Apple developers, and there seemed to be a lot of hush tones about the fact that you can't

00:44:07   or you shouldn't be able to charge for CloudKit syncing. How are they doing this?

00:44:13   I think, so in the Apple Developer Guidelines, the App Store Review Guidelines, there's a note about

00:44:20   developers not being able to charge for iCloud storage, iCloud sync, and I think by using

00:44:26   CloudKit it's not like Barry saying we're gonna put iCloud Drive access behind the paywall, so if

00:44:34   you want to export your notes and save them to iCloud Drive you're gonna pay us because we need

00:44:38   to unlock that feature. CloudKit uses your iCloud account for authentication

00:44:43   but it doesn't use your iCloud Drive space. It's a separate service for

00:44:48   developers, something like Pairs for example, which I don't think exists

00:44:52   anymore. So it's Apple's solution to the database in the cloud, storage

00:44:56   in the cloud, and I feel like developers are free to ask users to pay for that

00:45:02   feature because it's separate from iCloud Drive storage space and also

00:45:07   because CloudKit is free for developers with limits. So if you get a lot of users

00:45:11   and you need to store a lot of records, CloudKit has a pricing model

00:45:17   that developers need to account for. So by looking at that difference between

00:45:22   iCloud Drive and CloudKit and by considering the fact that Apple chose

00:45:26   Bear as the editor's choice on the Mac App Store and the iOS App Store, I think

00:45:31   they're okay. So I guess the difference is you're not double playing for

00:45:35   storage because you don't pay for this anyway, right? Like as a user, this doesn't go to

00:45:40   my iCloud storage. And I guess the way that Bear is doing it is like, you're not directly

00:45:46   paying for syncing, you're paying for pro features, which includes syncing. I assume

00:45:51   that there's a lot of this was from back and forth with Apple about how to get this right,

00:45:56   which I'm only going to assume happened, as you say, because they are an editor's choice.

00:46:00   I don't think that this could have...

00:46:02   Well, I mean...

00:46:04   - Yeah, I mean, you know how these things work, right? - We've been through this before, right?

00:46:05   I mean, you know, for all we know,

00:46:07   Abert gets pulled out of the App Store in 24 hours.

00:46:10   But it seems like everything's okay.

00:46:12   Yeah, it does seem that way,

00:46:14   especially because Apple likes to arrange these promotions way beforehand.

00:46:18   So I think everyone is in the know, and I think this is going to be okay.

00:46:23   Again, it's not like they're putting the iCloud Drive share sheet behind the subscription.

00:46:29   That's not the case. So I think they're gonna be fine.

00:46:32   Couple of other things that I like about Bear, I really like all the themes,

00:46:35   because you get to choose. I wish I could...

00:46:38   Well, yeah, you know, I like this sort of stuff.

00:46:40   I use the theme called "Panic" because it's a dark background

00:46:43   and it also has some splashes of color in it.

00:46:45   I wish I could create my own, though.

00:46:48   They have so many themes.

00:46:49   It seems kind of strange to me that I can't tweak them.

00:46:53   Yeah, I feel like it's gonna come in the future,

00:46:55   because I saw a few people requesting that on Twitter,

00:46:57   and they replied we're actually considering that feature so maybe...

00:47:01   It seems like a logical evolution because they have like nine different themes, right?

00:47:05   Like it's that you have so many at a certain point you may as well just let people go crazy

00:47:09   and make what they want.

00:47:10   The other thing that I really like, the share extension, it allows you to append or prepend

00:47:14   to a note.

00:47:15   I mean, with Apple's Notes app, all you can do is append to any note, which is amazing

00:47:21   and it completely changed the way that I work.

00:47:23   But there are times where I kind of arrange documents in interesting ways.

00:47:28   I have some stuff for this show where right at the very top I have future topic ideas

00:47:33   and then at the bottom of the note I put "follow up for the next week" and it would be really

00:47:38   cool if I could add things to the top or bottom of the note depending on what they are.

00:47:43   So this is actually an interesting thing for me to look at.

00:47:48   I'm not considering right now making,

00:47:51   like definitely making Bear my Notes app replacement,

00:47:55   but it has replaced my markdown text editor.

00:47:59   Bear is now my markdown text editor.

00:48:01   However, I'm gonna keep using it

00:48:04   and I'm gonna keep putting it through its paces,

00:48:06   but in theory, it should be able to do everything

00:48:09   I'm using Apple Notes for.

00:48:11   Like I can save PDFs in it for when I travel.

00:48:14   I'm able to use the share extension

00:48:16   and it does a good job of showing some, like,

00:48:20   does it do the, when it shows links, does it show images?

00:48:23   No, it doesn't, does it right now, it's just text?

00:48:25   - Yeah, exactly, there's a bunch of things that I'm,

00:48:28   like you, I'm still not sure

00:48:30   if I'm gonna switch to bare full-time.

00:48:33   There's a bunch of issues,

00:48:35   like it doesn't have rich links like Apple Notes,

00:48:39   which I found really useful to preview a link

00:48:42   before opening it.

00:48:44   It also, unlike Apple Notes,

00:48:45   which of course is a first-party app on iOS, when you save things from the extension, from the bare extension,

00:48:52   and this happens to me all the time. For example, I save a link from the extension on my iPhone,

00:48:59   and then I save a PDF into the same note from the extension on my iPad.

00:49:06   And if you don't open the app after saving from the extension,

00:49:12   you just save and do something else. Then when you open the app again,

00:49:16   the app won't be able to reconcile changes from the extension on two different devices.

00:49:20   Ooh, that's no good. I didn't know that.

00:49:23   It will create... that's because you didn't read my review. And that it will create

00:49:27   and it will create a completed copy.

00:49:31   This is something that Apple Notes takes care of by doing, you know, merging and conflict resolution,

00:49:36   you know, by default you don't ever see, you know, requests for

00:49:42   solving a conflict in Apple Notes. The app takes care of that on its own.

00:49:46   And I brought this up with the developers and they say it's really hard

00:49:49   for a third-party app without the privileges of Apple Notes to do that

00:49:53   kind of background checking all the time whenever the extension saving and you

00:49:57   want to make a network call and say look we have new data from the extension

00:50:01   we gotta sync back to the cloud. It's really hard for a third-party app to do

00:50:04   that but I think they're working on conflict resolution and merging tool

00:50:09   that whenever it sees that there's a change from the extension on a device

00:50:12   where bear was not opened they're gonna try to not create a

00:50:16   completed copy. It's really tricky problem to solve unless Apple opens

00:50:21   up the background and the extension API is a little more. But that said, there's a

00:50:26   bunch of minor issues with text editing and selections but really

00:50:30   minor problems. I signed up for a month, I'm gonna probably renew for the next

00:50:36   month and I want to try for a couple of months and see how it goes.

00:50:41   I'm very content on continuing to use this application for the purpose that I outlined.

00:50:47   Which is writing out things.

00:50:49   The app is great on all platforms, the syncing is really good.

00:50:55   For the things that we spoke about, things that you've mentioned.

00:50:57   By the way, I didn't read the whole review but I read most of it.

00:51:00   I just want to let you know that.

00:51:01   I just didn't read that part.

00:51:03   I was going for the happy stuff, not the sad stuff.

00:51:04   I was picking out by headlines.

00:51:07   I don't read, man.

00:51:08   What do you want from me?

00:51:10   Anywho, I can't see it right now taking place of Notes

00:51:15   because the thing that I love most about Notes

00:51:20   is I never have to worry about what it's doing.

00:51:22   - Exactly.

00:51:24   - Because even in the times where I'll say something

00:51:27   from my iPhone, then I'll say something from my iPad,

00:51:30   I know that the order might not be great,

00:51:32   but I know it's all gonna be in there.

00:51:34   Like, nothing gets lost.

00:51:37   And I don't want to have to start thinking about that.

00:51:39   I've had a thing recently with Air Mail, my email app,

00:51:42   which is frustrating me.

00:51:44   But sometimes it just doesn't send the email

00:51:45   that I thought it had sent, because it

00:51:47   crashes in the background.

00:51:49   And it saves it, but I don't know.

00:51:52   So I'm having this thing recently,

00:51:53   wherever I send an email that has an attachment on it,

00:51:56   I have to keep checking it until I see it shows up

00:51:59   in the sent email folder.

00:52:01   This is a thing that's starting to frustrate me.

00:52:03   but Airmail is so good in many of the ways

00:52:06   that I like to use it, I'm gonna keep using it,

00:52:07   but that is a frustration for me.

00:52:09   I don't want to have another app in my life

00:52:11   where I have this type of frustration.

00:52:13   - Yeah.

00:52:14   - And the reason I switched to Airmail

00:52:17   is because no other mail client could give me what I needed.

00:52:20   I have no reason to leave Notes.

00:52:23   Notes gives me exactly what I need.

00:52:25   So I'm not willing to trade off the stability

00:52:29   that I have with Notes for a couple of extra features

00:52:31   with Bear if I then have to start worrying about whether all of my links are going to get saved.

00:52:37   That's exactly how I feel and the reason why I ended the review saying I want to subscribe for a couple of months

00:52:44   because there's a few nice things that I feel like could be useful, especially on the automation side

00:52:49   and the markdown aspect, it's really convenient for me. But I also want to see what the roadmap looks like.

00:52:55   Is it gonna be that kind of app, you know, made by an indie studio that only receives a couple of updates every year?

00:53:02   Or is this going to be an actively developed product which receives changes and fixes all the time?

00:53:07   And I know that I'm not expecting new features from Apple in Notes every few weeks,

00:53:14   but at least it's got those privileges that make it work reliably.

00:53:18   So it's like a scale and I'm weighing the different privileges and the different benefits that each app has.

00:53:24   It's gonna be power user features, but a little less reliability or not a lot of changes,

00:53:31   but a lot of stability always works, always does the right thing.

00:53:36   And so that's why I wrote, I need to wait, I need to see what it looks like two months

00:53:42   from now.

00:53:43   It's gonna be the same app, which is gonna make me think, well, maybe it's gonna be one

00:53:47   of those apps that only receives three updates every year or something else.

00:53:52   I don't know yet.

00:53:53   But as I said, for the purposes of which I'm using it right now,

00:53:57   I'm going to keep using it for that.

00:53:59   But I don't know if it's going to extend.

00:54:02   Steven, how much have you spent time with with Bare Notes?

00:54:06   Is it something that could fit into your workflows?

00:54:09   I do like that it does markdown.

00:54:11   And that's my biggest frustration with Apple Notes

00:54:14   is that you can write in markdown,

00:54:16   but if you want it to be skimmable,

00:54:18   got to use their like weird pseudo rich text stuff. So I did import a folder of

00:54:26   notes. Unlike you I do really like folders. I have never been a fan of

00:54:32   tagging in any system and the lack of folders in bare notes or that's a pretty

00:54:40   big deal for me. I got some real-time follow-up from Steve Dutton Smith on

00:54:47   Twitter, it shared a message about, I said, a couple of updates a year doesn't

00:54:55   count as actively developed. I should probably rephrase that and by that I

00:55:00   meant I feel like the way that we're getting things done on iOS and maybe

00:55:06   Myke can relate to this, is so constantly changing, so constantly in flux, whether

00:55:13   it's the new services that we try or new iOS features because it's obvious that

00:55:19   iOS is changing more quickly than the Mac and so the tools that we use are

00:55:23   changing and adapting more quickly. Just look back a couple of years ago

00:55:27   we didn't have Workflow or Pythonista or all the things that we have now and so

00:55:32   when I say an app that receives a couple of updates a year and maybe one of those

00:55:36   is just a bug fix, when I feel that an app cannot keep up with the pace of

00:55:41   progress with the pace of evolution on iOS and with my ever-changing needs, you

00:55:47   know, and requirements that doesn't inspire a lot of confidence. And that's

00:55:51   also why it's so tricky for indie developers today, especially when you

00:55:56   when you want to make a productivity app, right? It's not like you're making a

00:55:59   utility app that does one thing exceptionally well, a feature that

00:56:03   does never change and then you're like, "Okay, well, I gotta use this," right? But

00:56:08   Just look at workflow, for example,

00:56:10   and how the team behind workflow is constantly adapting,

00:56:14   constantly supporting new apps, new services,

00:56:16   new features, new designs.

00:56:19   Not a lot of developers can do that.

00:56:20   And it makes me sad,

00:56:22   but also I gotta think about the way that I work.

00:56:24   And I gotta think about the way that I make money

00:56:26   and the tools that I use.

00:56:27   And so,

00:56:28   I cannot afford to lose money

00:56:34   because of good feelings and all that.

00:56:37   I want to support in the developers,

00:56:38   but at the end of the day,

00:56:39   I also got to choose the tools that make me work best.

00:56:42   - Especially when this application has launched

00:56:44   with some areas that could be improved,

00:56:47   like that you can clearly see can be improved.

00:56:50   Like you say, like, okay, they've launched with URL schemes.

00:56:55   Great, there should be workflow actions, right?

00:56:57   Like you can see it, it's like, yes,

00:56:58   that should be a thing that is worked on.

00:57:01   Like the theme stuff,

00:57:02   there should be a different theme stuff.

00:57:04   They should be working on what, you know,

00:57:06   you talk about the conflict resolution stuff.

00:57:08   These are all areas that should be expanded upon.

00:57:11   Bridge links, I don't know how you do it.

00:57:12   Like I don't know if you can do it.

00:57:14   But like-- - You can do it,

00:57:15   you can do it. - I'm sure.

00:57:16   But there are things here that we can see

00:57:19   that this application can do.

00:57:21   So just the idea of seeing, and these updates,

00:57:25   like they don't need to be like big features all the time,

00:57:28   but you just wanna see it showing up in your updates

00:57:30   to have every now and then, right?

00:57:31   So you know that it's still alive.

00:57:34   I get what you're saying, I get what Steve is saying about,

00:57:39   it's maybe a lot to ask.

00:57:41   - Yeah.

00:57:42   - But if this application wants to roll in

00:57:44   to the productivity note space,

00:57:47   you gotta be ready for it, right?

00:57:48   'Cause this is, I mean, Vespa just died, right?

00:57:52   Like we see this, like this stuff happens,

00:57:55   and the way that you stop that happening

00:57:57   is by continuing to innovate,

00:57:58   continuing to push it forward,

00:58:00   and making it something that people can't live without.

00:58:02   and you do that by making it more and more powerful,

00:58:05   more and more reliable.

00:58:06   - Yeah, and they're saying that expectation

00:58:08   by having subscriptions in the first place, right?

00:58:10   - Yeah, that is such a great point.

00:58:13   Yeah, yeah, definitely.

00:58:14   - So if they go six months and the bugs that are there today

00:58:18   are still there or the feature set hasn't vastly improved,

00:58:21   like the other thing I was gonna say,

00:58:23   I don't expect them to add folders,

00:58:24   but I would expect them to add sort options right now.

00:58:27   It is only sortable by last modified,

00:58:30   which I hate, I want alphabetical sorting.

00:58:32   Notes added it this year,

00:58:35   and I have been thankful to the Notes team ever since.

00:58:38   That sort of stuff, like you said,

00:58:42   Notes gets updated once a year,

00:58:43   but there's some expectation of that.

00:58:45   But in this new subscription world,

00:58:49   the way Apple described it,

00:58:51   the way Apple pitched it was,

00:58:53   apps that are under development,

00:58:56   apps that are being worked on,

00:58:58   apps that provide an ongoing service.

00:59:02   And this app seems right at the line of all of that.

00:59:06   And regardless of the CloudKit stuff and how you feel about it, I think they've got to

00:59:13   make the case that that monthly or annual bill is worth it.

00:59:17   And the way they do that is progress.

00:59:19   Yeah, you've really raised an excellent point for this, which is like this is a different

00:59:24   world.

00:59:25   productivity app charging on a monthly or annual basis, updates are expected.

00:59:30   This isn't like a one-time payment thing and I think that is a different world to

00:59:34   the one that this app is playing in. Like if I'm paying every month then I

00:59:40   expect some stuff to happen, right? Is that unfair to say? I don't think

00:59:47   it's unfair because for example when people sign up for Club McStories and

00:59:50   they start paying me every month. I guess it depends on the way that you sell your subscription

00:59:58   because I clearly sell an ongoing product. You've got to expect an email every week.

01:00:06   And if you sign up and you don't get an email, that I'm not really holding up my end of the

01:00:11   promise between the two parties. So I guess it depends on the way that a developer chooses

01:00:15   to sell a subscription. Are you just selling support, recurring support? That's not the

01:00:21   case because you're selling sync and features in this case. But I feel like it even no matter

01:00:27   how you sell from a marketing perspective your subscription, there is an expectation

01:00:34   of a product that changes over time, that is fixed, that is improved over time. And

01:00:41   This is tricky, right, for indie developers when we talk about subscriptions could be a solution for the problems of the App Store.

01:00:49   They sure create a recurring avenue for revenue that is not like $3 upfront and that's about it.

01:00:55   But they also create an expectation from the customers who say "I'm giving you $2 every month and I'm getting an App Update every six months."

01:01:03   months it doesn't seem really like it's worth it and I know that you know

01:01:08   there's a lot to consider when it comes to competition on the app store it can

01:01:13   be really tough for a studio made of two people for example but that's the

01:01:18   reality that we're in and neither you choose to compete and you gotta compete

01:01:21   well and you gotta accept this reality that people have expectations for

01:01:24   products that are improved constantly every few weeks basically definitely not

01:01:30   twice a year or every two years or you don't compete at all. Don't put markdown

01:01:37   in your app if you want customers that don't expect updates, right? Putting markdown in,

01:01:43   you're making a clear statement of the type of person that you're going after.

01:01:46   Right, and they're entering a market that, to your point, is one that the

01:01:52   customer base is nerdy and they're entering one market that has had a lot of failures.

01:01:57   I mean how many Notes apps or tech setters have we seen come and go over the years?

01:02:03   I don't even know.

01:02:05   And also at this point there is a system app which is not going to go away which is really

01:02:11   good.

01:02:12   And we know that the company behind it is not going to go bankrupt.

01:02:15   I mean probably not unless they don't ever release a Mac Pro again.

01:02:21   (laughing)

01:02:22   - That's right, so Bayer, they're hanging their hat

01:02:25   on design and they're hanging their hat on markdown.

01:02:27   And I mean, good luck, like I hope it does well.

01:02:32   I want competition.

01:02:33   I would use this app if it wasn't all based

01:02:39   on stupid tagging, but, and that's a personal preference,

01:02:43   but-- - You gotta adjust

01:02:44   your hashtag workflows, man.

01:02:45   - Oh, can I just hang up Skype now?

01:02:49   But it's a hard market to be in,

01:02:52   and they're doing it in a very interesting way,

01:02:54   which I think is why we're all talking about it.

01:02:56   But I just don't know what the future holds

01:02:58   for apps like this.

01:02:59   Can they have a big enough market

01:03:03   to sustain ongoing development?

01:03:06   And I don't know.

01:03:08   It's gonna be really interesting to see

01:03:10   how this one ends up.

01:03:11   - I think people should check it out, right?

01:03:12   'Cause it's free to try,

01:03:14   and I think it's even,

01:03:15   you get a week free with the subscription,

01:03:17   so you should definitely try it.

01:03:19   - You get a month free, we get a month free

01:03:21   if you do the annual, you get a week with the monthly.

01:03:24   - I think people should try it

01:03:25   because it is really, really, really nice

01:03:27   and you might have a place for it in your systems,

01:03:31   like many of us do.

01:03:33   It's not replace notes but it could

01:03:36   and I would be willing to try it

01:03:38   but it needs a few things first.

01:03:41   Before we wrap up today, I just wanna tell people

01:03:43   about an amazing app that I've been introduced to.

01:03:47   Jack Bremer on Twitter told me about this.

01:03:51   It's called a Maisio Graph.

01:03:53   If you have an iPad that has an Apple Pencil,

01:03:56   you need to try this application.

01:03:58   It's like 79 pence, 99 cents.

01:04:01   It's really difficult to describe.

01:04:03   There is a video in the App Store which will help.

01:04:06   It's basically, it allows you to create

01:04:10   like a kaleidoscope-like drawings.

01:04:13   Like there are a bunch of different templates

01:04:15   that you can draw from.

01:04:17   in that you will draw something and it gets replicated across a canvas.

01:04:21   It's amazing.

01:04:23   It's super hard to explain.

01:04:24   I'm going to include three little doodles that I did with this in the show notes.

01:04:30   If you have an apple pencil with your iPad, you definitely should pay the money to just

01:04:36   try this thing out because it's so much fun to doodle with and to see the amazing patterns

01:04:42   that you create.

01:04:43   It's like drawing your own kaleidoscopes.

01:04:45   awesome. So it's a PSA for people. You should try this out. It is really really fun. And

01:04:53   I think it's made by one person. At least that's how like the... It's made by Marina

01:05:00   Stakova. I don't know how this application was like discovered. I haven't seen it anywhere.

01:05:07   But Jack sent it to me and I really really really love playing with this app.

01:05:13   All of your drawings look like the creation of a British man on LSD.

01:05:19   Exactly.

01:05:20   It's quite impressive.

01:05:21   Well done Myke.

01:05:22   Yeah, it is the world that I see after I have my first coffee in the morning.

01:05:27   This is what I see.

01:05:28   Yeah, are you sure that's coffee Myke?

01:05:29   I have no idea what you're talking about.

01:05:34   So that wraps up this week's episode.

01:05:37   If you want to catch our show notes for this week, which we have all of our links in it,

01:05:40   Relay.fm/Connected/116. Thanks again to the lovely folk over at MacPaw and MailRoute for

01:05:47   supporting this week's episode. If you want to find Federico online he is @Vitiici on Twitter.

01:05:54   Steven is @ismh and I am @imike. You can find Federico's work at macstories.net and Steven's

01:06:03   at 512pixels.net. This show is a part of Relay FM, we have a whole host of shows at Relay

01:06:09   FM that you should check out. We have stuff for the technology focus, for the gaming focus,

01:06:13   for creative people and now we are adding the lovely mix feelings to our network as

01:06:18   well which focuses on more current events which is a nice break from the type of shows

01:06:24   that we're used to creating. So there's always stuff there, if you only listen to Connected

01:06:28   you need to fix that situation immediately. There's a ton of stuff at Relay FM that I

01:06:32   I am very confident you would enjoy.

01:06:35   Thank you so much for listening to this week's show.

01:06:37   We'll be back next week.

01:06:39   Until then, say goodbye guys.

01:06:40   - Arrivederci.