Connected

00:00:00 ◼   ► [Music]

00:00:07 ◼   ► From Relay FM, this is Connected, episode 102.

00:00:11 ◼   ► Today's episode is brought to you by Squarespace, Ring, and Pingdom.

00:00:16 ◼   ► My name is Myke Hurley and I am joined by Steven Hackett.

00:00:18 ◼   ► Hello, Steven Hackett.

00:00:19 ◼   ► Hello, Michael Hurley.

00:00:21 ◼   ► And Federico, welcome to the show.

00:00:23 ◼   ► Hello, Myke.

00:00:24 ◼   ► How can we verify that it's really you?

00:00:27 ◼   ► You just go to my Twitter profile and you see a little blue checkmark.

00:00:30 ◼   ► Wow.

00:00:31 ◼   ► You went there.

00:00:32 ◼   ► You really went there.

00:00:33 ◼   ► You started it.

00:00:34 ◼   ► Like what were you expecting me to say?

00:00:36 ◼   ► I was thinking of something funny.

00:00:38 ◼   ► Like say something in, you know, with the British accent.

00:00:40 ◼   ► But you really had to go there and remind me of the Twitter verification.

00:00:44 ◼   ► Okay, cool.

00:00:45 ◼   ► I'm sorry.

00:00:46 ◼   ► Can I talk to you?

00:00:47 ◼   ► Are you verified?

00:00:48 ◼   ► Am I allowed to?

00:00:49 ◼   ► Should I call your assistant first?

00:00:50 ◼   ► You have to confirm with @verified first.

00:00:53 ◼   ► Okay.

00:00:54 ◼   ► So I am the only one of the three of us that nabbed the Twitter verification, right?

00:00:58 ◼   ► You are the VIP very important podcaster.

00:01:01 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:01:02 ◼   ► It doesn't really make any sense, does it?

00:01:04 ◼   ► Like why was it me?

00:01:05 ◼   ► Like I don't know why.

00:01:07 ◼   ► I dropped my Wikipedia page in the thing.

00:01:10 ◼   ► That's what it was.

00:01:11 ◼   ► It has to be what it was.

00:01:12 ◼   ► Yeah, so that's what I think kind of nabbed it for me was that I have a Wikipedia page.

00:01:16 ◼   ► Because it's like an external verification.

00:01:19 ◼   ► The next time I apply I'm going to say "send me your square cash tag and I will just pay

00:01:24 ◼   ► you for a check mark and see how that and see if bribing works next time.

00:01:29 ◼   ► You should take your wife out to dinner. It'll be on me.

00:01:32 ◼   ► It'd be a shame if something happened to your San Francisco apartment.

00:01:35 ◼   ► Alright we're gonna do follow-up because there's a lot of follow-up and there's a lot of topics

00:01:40 ◼   ► this week.

00:01:41 ◼   ► Follow-up.

00:01:42 ◼   ► Up first, follow-up. Up first we're going to revisit the conversation about how Apple

00:01:48 ◼   ► may be or may not be training its photo algorithm to know what is a horse and

00:01:53 ◼   ► what is a mountain and what is a bearded British verified person. And a lot of

00:01:59 ◼   ► people emailed / tweeted / faxed us asking why Apple's web crawler project

00:02:06 ◼   ► couldn't be used to find images and you know I think I understand where this

00:02:13 ◼   ► question is going but it that's not what Apple's web crawler is really for.

00:02:20 ◼   ► Yeah maybe we didn't do a good enough job of like explaining what we believe to be the

00:02:25 ◼   ► issue here and it wasn't where the photos necessarily came from and we did spend a lot

00:02:29 ◼   ► of time talking about that but the key part is how these images get any kind of knowledge

00:02:36 ◼   ► based on them like the raw images are great but you need to know what they are and where

00:02:40 ◼   ► does that data come from.

00:02:42 ◼   ► And I mean even if you even if you crawl the page and you look at the alt or title, you

00:02:48 ◼   ► know the metadata for in the HTML so you can insert an image and say with the alt attribute

00:02:54 ◼   ► say this is a picture of a tree.

00:02:56 ◼   ► So Applebot can go out there and crawl images, crawl videos, crawl anything and you can even

00:03:01 ◼   ► read from the description of those images this is a tree or this is you know a fish.

00:03:08 ◼   ► But what we were saying last week is you can crawl anything you want, but without a system

00:03:14 ◼   ► to determine what's relevant and what is not, which is what Google is doing, then it sort

00:03:23 ◼   ► of begs the question, so how is Apple saying, "Okay, this is an accurate picture of a tree?"

00:03:28 ◼   ► Because if I have a website, I can put up a picture of Myke and say, "This is a picture

00:03:32 ◼   ► of a forest."

00:03:34 ◼   ► Apple bulk goes out there, finds the picture of Myke, but in the alt attribute it says

00:03:38 ◼   ► this is a forest. So when, you know, if that's the only system that you have in place, well then later

00:03:45 ◼   ► when you perform a query on the algorithm, it says okay, this is, you're searching for a forest,

00:03:49 ◼   ► here you go with this British person. So you need a system where there's, okay, you're crawling stuff

00:03:56 ◼   ► from the web. Sure, that's cool. But then you need to actually make sure that the stuff that you

00:04:01 ◼   ► crawled is accurate and that's what Google is doing with Google Images.

00:04:05 ◼   ► They're crawling web pages and then over time if users click on those pictures

00:04:10 ◼   ► they know which ones are accurate because they know what people are

00:04:14 ◼   ► searching for and they know what people are clicking on. Same with the

00:04:18 ◼   ► captchas. The reason why they ask you "can you tell us what's a construction

00:04:23 ◼   ► machine?" Over time they're gonna use data from those captchas to say "okay these

00:04:28 ◼   ► photos, they are machines, these other photos, they are forests, so you know we can improve

00:04:33 ◼   ► our system with manual user intervention. And Apple by itself cannot do that.

00:04:40 ◼   ► No, and Apple may have some kind of system in place but we just don't know what it is,

00:04:44 ◼   ► right? So when we were discussing this, just conceivably to us, Google has a system which

00:04:49 ◼   ► is in place, has been in place for a long time with Google Images and will continue

00:04:54 ◼   ► to be in place and didn't they just release or like re-release that image matching game?

00:05:01 ◼   ► Yes, just last week it doesn't really work on the iPhone, I think I tried from Safari but it doesn't

00:05:07 ◼   ► work, but yes you can contribute to the... what's the name of the Google, it's not called PageRank

00:05:14 ◼   ► and maybe it's not DeepMind, anyway you can contribute to the photo recognition engine by

00:05:20 ◼   ► matching pictures with what Google is asking you. Like, "What is a tree?" and then you click on the picture of a tree.

00:05:28 ◼   ► It's fun. And it's a fun way to help Google.

00:05:31 ◼   ► But sure, you see, you need something like this.

00:05:35 ◼   ► And we don't know, because Apple is not a public search company,

00:05:40 ◼   ► we don't know where or how it's happening and we'll have to judge the final product in iOS 10,

00:05:46 ◼   ► which, fun fact, in beta 4 they reset all of the data for people.

00:05:55 ◼   ► Not for scene, so they're calling "Scene Search" because it looks at scenes in your photos, such as horses and mountains.

00:06:03 ◼   ► But they reset data for people. I want to see if it gets better.

00:06:08 ◼   ► And sure, matching people and matching scenes are two separate parts of photos,

00:06:13 ◼   ► But it looks like things are still changing. That's the point.

00:06:16 ◼   ► And my iPhone and my iPad had to redo the entire indexing of my photo library last night,

00:06:22 ◼   ► which took a couple of hours. So we'll see if it gets better, I guess.

00:06:26 ◼   ► So in the thread of iOS 10-related follow-up, we also had some comments about iMessage Preview,

00:06:34 ◼   ► which we spoke about a couple weeks ago and again last week maybe.

00:06:37 ◼   ► and we talked about OpenGraph and you know the concern that if Apple's what

00:06:44 ◼   ► Apple has to scrape to build those previews and James along with a lot of

00:06:48 ◼   ► people pointed out that Apple doesn't actually scrape a whole webpage they

00:06:51 ◼   ► just pull the HTML which is obviously much smaller than all the CSS and all

00:06:55 ◼   ► the images and all the JavaScript and then grab whatever image OpenGraph

00:06:58 ◼   ► points to it's a much smaller payload to render the preview in iMessage and then

00:07:04 ◼   ► when you force touch or when you tap on the link you then get of course the full

00:07:09 ◼   ► web page in Safari or in the in app browser. I think that's a good point I think that's where we're

00:07:14 ◼   ► trying to get. I think we got a little off track in that conversation. I've

00:07:18 ◼   ► noticed though on iOS 10 at least in the public beta it seems that those previews

00:07:23 ◼   ► aren't always automatic like I feel like sometimes I get a click you know or like

00:07:28 ◼   ► tap to preview. Federica have you seen that? Are they changing the way that

00:07:32 ◼   ► works or am I just noticing something that's been there for a while?

00:07:35 ◼   ► So up until Beta 3 it was all kinds of inconsistent where I thought, and I think I said this on the show,

00:07:44 ◼   ► that you only needed to confirm once and then from that point on all of the web page previews would load by default.

00:07:52 ◼   ► But then in Beta 3 I found myself tapping, you know, tap to load every time but inconsistently across different threads.

00:08:00 ◼   ► It seems like, so I just sent with Beta 4 a link to a friend and it expanded by default.

00:08:08 ◼   ► I didn't have to tap anything on my end.

00:08:10 ◼   ► I don't know what happened on his end.

00:08:13 ◼   ► So I guess again, this is one of those things that is still changing probably because Apple

00:08:17 ◼   ► is collecting feedback from people and they're still figuring out what's best.

00:08:21 ◼   ► I do hope that it's, you know, the kind of feature where you make it work once it's set

00:08:29 ◼   ► and you don't have to think about it anymore but I'm just concerned that some people will

00:08:34 ◼   ► get upset you know because it consumes X kilobytes for you know each preview image and then over

00:08:40 ◼   ► time people are gonna say hey what's this data usage I don't know I'm not sure.

00:08:45 ◼   ► I notice that it seems to be inconsistent so maybe they're playing with it and taking

00:08:48 ◼   ► feedback from people.

00:08:50 ◼   ► We're now going to move on to 123 Notetaker which of course is the suite of productivity

00:08:56 ◼   ► applications that Myke is building for iOS.

00:08:59 ◼   ► So it turns out that the 123 brand has made an appearance a long, long time ago.

00:09:05 ◼   ► Sean wrote in to point out that on episode 56 of Bionic, this is more examples of people

00:09:11 ◼   ► listening back to the back catalogue, on August 23, 2013, during an ad for Squarespace, I

00:09:18 ◼   ► mentioned 123blogmaker.com.

00:09:20 ◼   ► Wow.

00:09:22 ◼   ► So that was the ancestor of 123 Not Taker.

00:09:25 ◼   ► Yeah, it's a since retired blog making system because it was crap and Squarespace was awesome.

00:09:31 ◼   ► So it started as a web service, the 123 branding, and then you move from web development to

00:09:37 ◼   ► native app development, which makes sense.

00:09:40 ◼   ► Why is, why is it a career choice?

00:09:42 ◼   ► Something I find really interesting about this, not only has Sean decided to go back

00:09:45 ◼   ► to listen to the old catalog, he's also listening to the old ads as well, which I think is amazing.

00:09:51 ◼   ► Like he didn't skip the ads, it's like 3 years old and he's still listening to him, so much

00:09:56 ◼   ► respect to you Sean.

00:09:58 ◼   ► I will put a link in the show notes to the episode and also to the overcast timestamp

00:10:03 ◼   ► link that Sean provided which will jump you straight to that moment but if you're listening

00:10:06 ◼   ► somewhere else it's around 19 minutes and 40 seconds is when I mention 123 Blogmaker.

00:10:12 ◼   ► It's also interesting to listen to that because just of how weird I sound, like I sound so

00:10:16 ◼   ► different to me anyway, I can hear a much thicker London accent than what I have now,

00:10:23 ◼   ► which is now my weirdo transatlantic accent.

00:10:26 ◼   ► Yeah, you've definitely shifted west in the way that you sound.

00:10:29 ◼   ► Yep.

00:10:30 ◼   ► So we're going to end follow-up with something really pretty awesome from Nathan, who mentioned

00:10:35 ◼   ► on Twitter, "Apple's earning calls," which we're not covering today, but if you want

00:10:38 ◼   ► to hear some about it, go listen to Upgrade 100.

00:10:41 ◼   ► "Apple's earning calls are like two-thirds of a connected FM show.

00:10:44 ◼   ► a southerner that is follow-up and an Italian that gets into the nitpicks.

00:10:49 ◼   ► We need Johnny to come on and talk about aluminium a bunch and then we're set, right?

00:10:54 ◼   ► Can you imagine him on a earnings call?

00:10:56 ◼   ► I bet he's quite angry a lot.

00:10:58 ◼   ► Yeah, I feel like he doesn't give one iota of care about quarterly costs.

00:11:04 ◼   ► He just doesn't care at all.

00:11:06 ◼   ► He's like, "Oh, oh yeah, we are publicly traded.

00:11:08 ◼   ► Who knew?"

00:11:09 ◼   ► Well, I'm sure his accountant knows.

00:11:11 ◼   ► Yeah, well they've got some sweet stock options.

00:11:14 ◼   ► I think Luca has a much thicker accent than I do. I don't know.

00:11:20 ◼   ► I've never listened to one of those calls.

00:11:22 ◼   ► Really?

00:11:22 ◼   ► Yeah, never.

00:11:23 ◼   ► Oh, you're missing all the fun, Myke.

00:11:25 ◼   ► No.

00:11:25 ◼   ► Yeah, it's fun.

00:11:26 ◼   ► I never ever listen to them. I can't deal with it.

00:11:28 ◼   ► It's great. I mean, I listen to the calls only for Gene Master at this point because I really want to see the reaction from team.

00:11:35 ◼   ► I feel like Gene and team are like, you know, two frenemies, you know?

00:11:42 ◼   ► They're both friends and enemies, but they sort of, they get snappy at each other sometimes.

00:11:48 ◼   ► It's always fun.

00:11:49 ◼   ► The earnings calls seem to always happen at weird times of day for me,

00:11:52 ◼   ► because I always feel like I'm catching up on it like hours and hours later.

00:11:56 ◼   ► It's kind of like late-ish in my evening time, around kind of dinner time or something.

00:12:00 ◼   ► I think it's interesting to hear.

00:12:01 ◼   ► I don't know if Luca's accent is thicker than yours, Federico,

00:12:05 ◼   ► I think they're pretty different.

00:12:07 ◼   ► But yeah, everyone should listen to one every once in a while.

00:12:10 ◼   ► It's fun to hear these guys answer questions from people who clearly don't pay attention

00:12:17 ◼   ► to the way that we do.

00:12:18 ◼   ► Someone asks a really boneheaded question and you just kind of want to put your head

00:12:23 ◼   ► down on your desk.

00:12:24 ◼   ► I'm sure there have been times where Steve Jobs or Tim Cook have just muted the phone

00:12:27 ◼   ► call and just thrown something across the room and then unmuted the phone call and answered

00:12:32 ◼   ► the stupid question.

00:12:33 ◼   ► Maybe I just imagine that. It's quarterly call fanfic, really, is what I'm doing.

00:12:40 ◼   ► Just before the show went on the air today, Logitech released a new Create keyboard for

00:12:46 ◼   ► the 9.7 inch iPad Pro. So the Create keyboard was one of the first two products that came

00:12:53 ◼   ► out with the original iPad Pro, and it was one of the smart connector keyboards. And

00:13:00 ◼   ► and now we have a 9.7 which seems to have improved upon the 12.9 in a bunch of interesting

00:13:06 ◼   ► ways. One of them is that it has an Apple pencil holder built into the case which I

00:13:11 ◼   ► think is a fantastic attachment and addition to the case. You can kind of slide it into

00:13:17 ◼   ► the back of the case and it will stay there nice and neatly. It also has backlit keys.

00:13:24 ◼   ► Does the 12.9 inch one have backlit keys Federico?

00:13:26 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:13:27 ◼   ► Okay. So I didn't know that. When we were talking about the Razer stuff last week, it

00:13:32 ◼   ► didn't cross my mind that there was actually a product.

00:13:36 ◼   ► I think you had the same reaction when we covered the keyboard in November and I told

00:13:42 ◼   ► you it was backlit. We were like, "Huh, really? Like, are we all surprised?" You know, the

00:13:47 ◼   ► surprised voice that you do. I'm not sure.

00:13:50 ◼   ► This one. This one right here. Wow.

00:13:52 ◼   ► That voice. That voice. You did that voice back in November and now you're doing it again.

00:13:56 ◼   ► So yes.

00:13:57 ◼   ► So this one's in black and blue and I'm happy that there is finally something which isn't

00:14:01 ◼   ► like a super boring color right like it's not all gray all the time.

00:14:05 ◼   ► It's $130 and it looks pretty cool.

00:14:08 ◼   ► I have pre-ordered one because I'm interested in trying this one out because it is a bit

00:14:15 ◼   ► more I don't know like it feels like a bit more than a smart camera.

00:14:18 ◼   ► It's got like it looks like it has interesting keys.

00:14:20 ◼   ► I like the idea of it being backlit.

00:14:23 ◼   ► I tend to do quite a lot of work when all the lights are off at home, so that might

00:14:28 ◼   ► be nice to have backlit keys, maybe I could just use this in the evening or something,

00:14:32 ◼   ► who knows, depending on how I like it.

00:14:35 ◼   ► Because it is a full case which I'm not too keen on, and it doesn't really... and there's

00:14:41 ◼   ► kind of the cloth backing, I'm not sure how well that will take to stickers, so...

00:14:45 ◼   ► I don't know what I think about this.

00:14:47 ◼   ► I'm curious to try this, even if I don't really use the 9.7, because it looks like a better

00:14:52 ◼   ► version of what I reviewed in November. So I complained about the size, the fact

00:14:57 ◼   ► that it was bulky and that it was too difficult to put the iPad in the case

00:15:01 ◼   ► and remove it from the case because it was all janky like the

00:15:05 ◼   ► the corners of the plastic. I didn't like those. And I also didn't like the fact

00:15:09 ◼   ► that the the red texture got all dirty in a couple of weeks and that it

00:15:15 ◼   ► basically the stickers for the volume buttons they just came off in about a

00:15:21 ◼   ► couple of days. And it looks like this version is an improvement over the 12.9,

00:15:27 ◼   ► not to mention the Apple Pencil Holder which is really nice, but they

00:15:32 ◼   ► didn't update the 12.9 version of the Create keyboard which kind of makes me

00:15:36 ◼   ► sad because I wish I could give it another try. But this one

00:15:41 ◼   ► smaller, I guess lighter, and maybe they were able to fix some of the

00:15:47 ◼   ► shortcomings of the first version should be a decent keyboard. It's still kind of

00:15:52 ◼   ► weird that basically we only have two accessories for the smart connector

00:15:56 ◼   ► which is the Create and the Razer. It's really odd, it's been almost a year of

00:16:04 ◼   ► iPad Pro at this point and we've seen what? Two companies besides Apple doing

00:16:10 ◼   ► smart connector accessories? It's strange. One thing that this keyboard has which

00:16:17 ◼   ► no other iPad keyboard has is a choice of layouts. So if you're not on the US website,

00:16:23 ◼   ► if you're on one of the European websites, you can pick from UK US International, I don't

00:16:28 ◼   ► know what that is, I expect that is just US layout with some keys in different places

00:16:32 ◼   ► so it won't have the nice return key that I wished I could have. It has Dutch, Spanish,

00:16:38 ◼   ► French, Italian, Swiss and... I'm struggling with one in this list, I can't think of what

00:16:46 ◼   ► what language this is because it's in the native language.

00:16:49 ◼   ► So I'm just gonna back away from that one.

00:16:52 ◼   ► Sorry whoever is Dansk, Norsk,

00:16:56 ◼   ► it would be like from Norway or something?

00:16:58 ◼   ► Come on Myke, you can do it. Sweden? Yeah, or something like that but I don't know what the

00:17:02 ◼   ► language is.

00:17:03 ◼   ► So anywho, this is now available in a bunch of different layouts

00:17:07 ◼   ► so that's a good thing. Federico, I assume you might want to pick up an Italian one.

00:17:11 ◼   ► Yeah, if I'm going to pick up one it's gonna be Italian.

00:17:14 ◼   ► Same reason why I cannot type on the Smart Keyboard anymore, not just because I don't like it,

00:17:19 ◼   ► but because of the keys. I got a Magic Keyboard and it's got a lot of my accented characters,

00:17:25 ◼   ► and the layout that I'm used to in Italy. The Smart Keyboard is still US only, which I really don't understand.

00:17:32 ◼   ► But yes, if I'm gonna pick up one, it's gonna be the Italian, sweet, sweet Italian layout.

00:17:38 ◼   ► So we'll try it out.

00:17:40 ◼   ► I mean I'm looking at it and I'm wondering like

00:17:42 ◼   ► Will I have to remove the little pen loop that I have on the back of my iPad to get this thing to fit in

00:17:47 ◼   ► The case probably so who knows this thing might actually arrive

00:17:51 ◼   ► I try and use it and just immediately send it back

00:17:53 ◼   ► But I'm willing to give it a go just because it looks like a kind of cool case and cool keyboard. So

00:17:58 ◼   ► I'm pleased to see there's still more happening

00:18:01 ◼   ► Yeah

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00:19:58 ◼   ► Underscore doing what he does in the chat room is helping me to correct my previous

00:20:03 ◼   ► blunder on keyboards we're looking at Danish, Norwegian, Swedish and Finnish so

00:20:07 ◼   ► Scandinavian would be what we were looking for there. I was looking at the

00:20:12 ◼   ► countries felt like I knew what they were but my brain couldn't compute.

00:20:16 ◼   ► So there we go I had stage fright everyone.

00:20:18 ◼   ► So we're going to talk about the iPod Classic.

00:20:22 ◼   ► What year is this?

00:20:24 ◼   ► Well that's kind of the point of the story there was an article over on the ringer about the

00:20:29 ◼   ► crazy life the iPod classic has had since Apple discontinued it which was

00:20:34 ◼   ► back in 2014 I think about two years ago and there's this whole like explosion of

00:20:42 ◼   ► value on these things you go on eBay and they're like a thousand dollars that the

00:20:47 ◼   ► author links to one at $1,700 on eBay right now people are just buying these

00:20:54 ◼   ► things up now people want them like new and in box and all fancy and everything

00:20:59 ◼   ► but there just seemed to be like this weird sort of hipster thing going on

00:21:04 ◼   ► around around these iPods and the writer kind of goes into why she thinks this

00:21:10 ◼   ► may be happening.

00:21:11 ◼   ► There are two parts that I really wanted to talk to you guys about besides hearing

00:21:17 ◼   ► your obvious pain at talking about this is a topic at all but this idea that

00:21:21 ◼   ► there's so many options on streaming services so if you open Spotify or Apple

00:21:25 ◼   ► music and you're presented with the search box or a browse button that you have a

00:21:31 ◼   ► tendency to kind of play the same stuff like over and over. I mean discounting

00:21:37 ◼   ► something like the discovery features in Spotify and Apple Music

00:21:42 ◼   ► but if you just want to go listen to something that's not being like sort of

00:21:45 ◼   ► pushed at you from the algorithm or from the editors, if you're going to

00:21:49 ◼   ► search for something it's kind of hard to remember or hard to discover things

00:21:53 ◼   ► like in your memory if you can't see them. And so she thinks that the iPod Classic obviously

00:21:59 ◼   ► you sync your whole music library to it and you're gonna scroll through and be like "oh

00:22:02 ◼   ► I haven't listened to this album by whoever since college and I want to listen to it again."

00:22:06 ◼   ► And that sort of sends a discovery I think is it's kind of an interesting way of looking

00:22:12 ◼   ► at it as opposed to something like a search box and Spotify. I don't know what do you

00:22:16 ◼   ► guys think about that? I don't know about this. I don't know about this because I mean

00:22:20 ◼   ► I compile a library of the stuff that I like in my streaming services.

00:22:25 ◼   ► So when I open Apple Music, I have a bunch of artists and a bunch of albums in there.

00:22:31 ◼   ► I mean, it's not everything I've ever owned, but the likelihood of me listening to something

00:22:36 ◼   ► that I haven't listened to for 15 years, I think is slim for me.

00:22:41 ◼   ► If I haven't listened to something for 15 years, there's probably a reason for that.

00:22:45 ◼   ► And if you're someone who just searches, I get that, but I think a lot of people add

00:22:52 ◼   ► music to their streaming service library like I do.

00:22:55 ◼   ► I know not everybody does this, I don't think Federico does this, but I assume lots of people

00:22:59 ◼   ► do, hence why the feature exists.

00:23:01 ◼   ► Like otherwise why would Apple even build the ability to add a library and to add stuff

00:23:07 ◼   ► to your collection of songs?

00:23:08 ◼   ► And I think that I don't feel like I'm listening to the same stuff all the time because I do

00:23:12 ◼   ► one or two things, or one or three things. I'm either going to listen to a thing that's

00:23:16 ◼   ► specifically in my head that I want to go and listen to, or I'm scrolling through my

00:23:21 ◼   ► list of albums and lists of artists to find something that I want inspiration for, or

00:23:27 ◼   ► I'm opening up For You, which I do probably the majority of the time, and picking one

00:23:32 ◼   ► of the playlists which will give me some stuff that I know and some stuff that I don't. And

00:23:37 ◼   ► the idea of music discovery is really important now and there's no way that an iPod Classic

00:23:42 ◼   ► can do that. Like it can't show me stuff I don't know because it doesn't have it.

00:23:45 ◼   ► So this just feels like, to me, and again this isn't an issue, but this just feels like

00:23:50 ◼   ► somebody to me who has a very specific view of how to consume music, which like I do right

00:23:55 ◼   ► now which I'm explaining, and this just seems like somebody who is like you Steven, who

00:23:59 ◼   ► likes to just have a library. I don't think that it inherently means that the iPod Classic

00:24:04 ◼   ► is a superior way to listen to music. I don't think it's necessarily a superior

00:24:09 ◼   ► way either but I do think it highlights the differences between the way you and

00:24:13 ◼   ► I consume music and then clearly there's people on both sides of it.

00:24:18 ◼   ► Part of this idea is true that you can do it offline right that you don't have to

00:24:21 ◼   ► listen to music or have your phone tied up if it's plugged into a

00:24:27 ◼   ► sound system or something but the music can kind of be an isolated media in a

00:24:33 ◼   ► way that on an iPod that it can't be on an iPhone. I don't think that's as big a

00:24:37 ◼   ► a part of it, but I think it's part of it as well.

00:24:40 ◼   ► I think it all comes down to your idea of what kind of music you want to listen to,

00:24:47 ◼   ► because it's not about the device or the service that you use to listen to music, it's what

00:24:52 ◼   ► you... how and what you want to listen to, in the sense that if you're at a point in

00:24:58 ◼   ► your life where you say "I don't want to discover anything new, I just want to listen to this

00:25:03 ◼   ► music that I know, I just want to discover some old music that's in my library.

00:25:10 ◼   ► That's fine, I mean an iPad Classic or even a collection of CDs, whatever, as long as

00:25:15 ◼   ► it's music it's fine.

00:25:16 ◼   ► But when I'm looking at my usage of Spotify and Apple Music, I don't think there's a single

00:25:25 ◼   ► way that I listen to music.

00:25:26 ◼   ► I'm just moving around, jumping around between sections, and I still like to be surprised.

00:25:33 ◼   ► And I cannot be surprised by something that is not there.

00:25:36 ◼   ► And I like to find things I don't know, still.

00:25:43 ◼   ► And that's why I like Discover Weekly in Spotify, that's why I'm looking forward to Discovering Mix in Apple Music.

00:25:49 ◼   ► And I don't browse my library for this very reason.

00:25:54 ◼   ► because I don't want to listen to the same stuff over and over and

00:25:57 ◼   ► When I do want to listen to something that I know it's because I think about it and when I think about it

00:26:03 ◼   ► I use search otherwise I either jump between the browse page or playlist like Myke does and I

00:26:10 ◼   ► Feel like it's these two ways to enjoy music there. They can be complementary to each other, you know

00:26:19 ◼   ► And I do understand the perspective of someone who says there's just too many options and there's the paradox of choice and I

00:26:26 ◼   ► really can't choose anymore. And if I can draw a parallel here, it would be similar to me saying

00:26:32 ◼   ► there's just too many video games on the eShop, on the PlayStation Store, on the App Store.

00:26:38 ◼   ► I just want to go back to my parents house and play the video games that I already own. And that makes sense,

00:26:43 ◼   ► that can be done. There's people who, you know,

00:26:47 ◼   ► really into retro gaming and they don't buy new games, they just play old games, and they

00:26:52 ◼   ► still have fun. So I don't think the article, or I don't think we should be saying "Well,

00:27:00 ◼   ► look at us, we're ruined. We invented music streaming and now we're stupid people constantly

00:27:06 ◼   ► obsessed with finding new singles." You know, life goes on, there's new music, it's fine.

00:27:12 ◼   ► I mean, I'm starting to feel like in many, when it comes to a lot of tech opinions, my final conclusion is always "it's fine".

00:27:23 ◼   ► I don't know if it's because I'm changing or if I...

00:27:27 ◼   ► But really, I'm starting to think that if you don't like something that I like, it's okay.

00:27:35 ◼   ► I don't know, I've noticed this sort of new behavior of mine a lot in the past year.

00:27:41 ◼   ► It's not that I don't care. It's that it's fine. There's no winner or loser.

00:27:47 ◼   ► It's just you like the iPod classic? Cool. I like Apple music. Cool. You know?

00:27:52 ◼   ► I don't know, man.

00:27:54 ◼   ► No, you have to argue your point with everyone.

00:27:56 ◼   ► I don't wanna argue.

00:27:58 ◼   ► I really don't. That's the problem.

00:28:00 ◼   ► No, this is what comes with BANSEs and technologists.

00:28:04 ◼   ► If you're not arguing your point, then what are you even doing?

00:28:06 ◼   ► What is that you argue? If this person likes to listen to Les Epplin and the Beatles on

00:28:11 ◼   ► an Apple Classic, that's awesome. And I want to listen to Panda by designer on Apple Music,

00:28:18 ◼   ► that's also fine, you know? Oh man.

00:28:20 ◼   ► You're doing it wrong, man. You got it all wrong.

00:28:23 ◼   ► Am I?

00:28:24 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:28:25 ◼   ► Are you?

00:28:26 ◼   ► Take it to medium, Myke. Okay, I'm gonna go write a hot Thinkpeace blog take on all of

00:28:31 ◼   ► this.

00:28:34 ◼   ► You should have a Medium blog, Myke.

00:28:35 ◼   ► That's where all of the hot taking is happening these days.

00:28:39 ◼   ► Yeah, I don't think I have that many.

00:28:41 ◼   ► I don't think I have enough to sustain a Medium blog.

00:28:44 ◼   ► So yesterday we got Apple's long-promised Apple TV remote iPhone app.

00:28:49 ◼   ► This was discussed.

00:28:50 ◼   ► Federico, when did Apple first mention this?

00:28:53 ◼   ► John Gruber's talk show episode with him and Federico and Q.

00:28:58 ◼   ► So back in like February or March, it's finally here.

00:29:01 ◼   ► There's a link to a Mac Stories article about it.

00:29:04 ◼   ► And there are a couple things that we just need to get out of the way before we get into

00:29:09 ◼   ► how it actually works.

00:29:11 ◼   ► There's no iPad app, which I find frustrating because I don't know about you guys, but in

00:29:16 ◼   ► the evenings if we're watching TV very often I'll have my phone charging in our bedroom

00:29:20 ◼   ► and I may just keep the iPad around.

00:29:22 ◼   ► You know, somebody comes up and it'd be nice to have this as an iPad app and it's just...

00:29:28 ◼   ► Well, okay, so I have two thoughts on this.

00:29:30 ◼   ► it's even as an iPad person.

00:29:31 ◼   ► One, I think it just makes way more sense on the phone.

00:29:34 ◼   ► - Well, sure.

00:29:35 ◼   ► - The other is you could just download it and use it.

00:29:37 ◼   ► It will still work.

00:29:39 ◼   ► - Ugh.

00:29:39 ◼   ► - But it will work, though.

00:29:41 ◼   ► - Blown up iPhone apps on the iPad made me sad.

00:29:44 ◼   ► Number two, what's,

00:29:48 ◼   ► if you haven't seen the icon of this thing,

00:29:49 ◼   ► it is basically a top-down view of the Apple TV.

00:29:54 ◼   ► So it's like a, it's not even all the way black.

00:29:56 ◼   ► It's like a gray background

00:29:57 ◼   ► with the Apple TV logo stamped into it.

00:29:59 ◼   ► What I don't like about the logo is how dim it is.

00:30:02 ◼   ► The logo itself, just with the Apple TV icon logo thing

00:30:06 ◼   ► is fine, but it just looks too dim

00:30:09 ◼   ► and I can't understand why.

00:30:12 ◼   ► I just don't get it.

00:30:13 ◼   ► - Yeah, I think it's 'cause it's sort of low contrast.

00:30:15 ◼   ► There's also a saw tweet goodbye, I don't remember from who,

00:30:18 ◼   ► saying that it was actually kind of hard to find it

00:30:22 ◼   ► because it's kind of forgettable, which made me sad

00:30:26 ◼   ► for the Apple TV design intern.

00:30:28 ◼   ► and I mean the real question is why like what what took so long I mean clearly

00:30:34 ◼   ► there there's something in tv/os that had to be added or changed to make this

00:30:39 ◼   ► remote work but it's um you know it's like why did you bring it up in

00:30:45 ◼   ► February or March did you think you were close to it then did you bring it up

00:30:48 ◼   ► just to appease people because there was some contention around the fact that it

00:30:53 ◼   ► wasn't here but the Apple TV shipped back in the fall so by the time the talks

00:30:57 ◼   ► rolled around the product been out like four or five months and then you wait

00:31:01 ◼   ► another two or three months to get it out just kind of the timings are very

00:31:05 ◼   ► strange to me but as far as the app itself goes it's pretty straightforward

00:31:10 ◼   ► you launch the app and like the old remote app it says hey enter the

00:31:13 ◼   ► four-digit pin that we are showing on the Apple TV so turn your TV on enter

00:31:17 ◼   ► the four digit pin and then it's paired and it looks basically like the serum

00:31:21 ◼   ► but it's a black UI lots of lots of gray again people in the chat room talking

00:31:26 ◼   ► dark mode. This could fit into a dark mode at some point really easily. And the

00:31:32 ◼   ► remote basically has two modes if you will. The sort of default mode is you

00:31:38 ◼   ► have some buttons on the bottom part of the screen and the top part of the

00:31:42 ◼   ► screen is a large, basically a large touch area so you can move your thumb around

00:31:48 ◼   ► on the surface of your iPhone and it you know just like moving your thumb across

00:31:53 ◼   ► the service of the Siri remote. That's fine but it also doubles as a game

00:31:58 ◼   ► controller so at the top of the screen there is an icon that looks like the

00:32:02 ◼   ► Nimbus gaming controller kind of. You tap that and the UI rotates so you know

00:32:08 ◼   ► it wants you to turn your phone on its side and this works even without with

00:32:11 ◼   ► rotation lock on. I always leave rotation lock on my phone and it ignores that

00:32:16 ◼   ► like the UI just does its own thing and then you have a game controller button

00:32:21 ◼   ► like the A button you have an X menu button and then you have a touchpad area

00:32:28 ◼   ► so I played I mean just for a couple minutes but I played Sonic and I played

00:32:33 ◼   ► Asphalt 8 the racing game with this and it gets the job done

00:32:38 ◼   ► it's not as awkward to me as a Siri remote just because my phone is much

00:32:42 ◼   ► bigger kind of easier to hold on to but definitely not as good as the as the

00:32:49 ◼   ► Nimbus which is not a great game controller but I think it's better than

00:32:53 ◼   ► using this thing but it again I think it's passable for these very simple

00:32:56 ◼   ► games that you have on the Apple TV. When does the button show up? Like do you have to

00:33:00 ◼   ► be in a game for it to show up? It may be when you open a game. I may have opened

00:33:04 ◼   ► Sonic and then... It must be contextual. Yeah it may be. And you can see

00:33:07 ◼   ► screenshots on on the Mac Stories piece. I mean it's it's a it's a pretty simple

00:33:11 ◼   ► app I think they do kind of a good a good job actually of mimicking the Siri

00:33:14 ◼   ► remote as far as the way it looks but um it's a nice alternative you can't find

00:33:19 ◼   ► your Siri mode or if you break it and don't want to spend the whatever it is

00:33:22 ◼   ► $49 to repair it or to replace it but um there's no volume control which is to me

00:33:29 ◼   ► the biggest downside yet you know I once I turn on my television all I need is my

00:33:34 ◼   ► Apple TV remote and it'd be nice if they had brought that functionality into the

00:33:41 ◼   ► you know the remote app. Now I don't know maybe the chat room knows it may be that

00:33:46 ◼   ► it can't do whatever it has to do with like sending the volume commands or may

00:33:51 ◼   ► just be an oversight. It needs infrared which it can't have. Right. I think

00:33:55 ◼   ► that stuff is all done by infrared. So there's the answer and but it's

00:34:00 ◼   ► responsive and it gets the job done. My big question is what took so long?

00:34:04 ◼   ► Yeah the buttons are really responsive it is good I like it I mean the

00:34:09 ◼   ► controller thing like it's never going to be as good as the physical controller

00:34:12 ◼   ► because when you're playing Apple TV games you're supposed to not be looking

00:34:15 ◼   ► at the controller and it's difficult to use a touchscreen buttons when you're

00:34:20 ◼   ► not looking at it it's much easier to have something you can feel so it works

00:34:25 ◼   ► that way but as a way to control my Apple TV when either I can't find the

00:34:31 ◼   ► remote or the remote is broken which is likely to happen at some point I'm happy

00:34:37 ◼   ► that I have this now. It's just I'm just gonna leave it in my Apple folder but

00:34:40 ◼   ► it's there when I need it. Yeah I mean I don't really use the Apple TV so I'm

00:34:45 ◼   ► just listening to you two talk about this. I use it every single day multiple

00:34:49 ◼   ► times a day. Yeah what are you watching like TV shows? Yeah. YouTube? TV shows on

00:34:55 ◼   ► YouTube. Like right now we're watching The Sopranos and there's a service in

00:34:58 ◼   ► the UK called Now TV and we're watching The Sopranos on Now TV and we watch it

00:35:03 ◼   ► on our Apple TV. The Now TV app sucks so bad but we're able to watch the stuff on there

00:35:08 ◼   ► easily. I like it for that and I like watching YouTube videos on it and stuff like that.

00:35:13 ◼   ► So it's good. I use it way more than I expected I would. Like I really thought that the Apple

00:35:17 ◼   ► TV was just going to be a dud product in my house but it's something that I have been

00:35:21 ◼   ► using every day for a while now and it's fit quite nicely into our setup and my expectation

00:35:29 ◼   ► will be that when we move, when we get out of place, it will be the only thing plugged

00:35:32 ◼   ► into the TV in the front room because I'll still have all of my games consoles probably

00:35:37 ◼   ► in my office. But it's the only box that we use and it works really well for us. You know,

00:35:43 ◼   ► Steven you mentioned about turning the TV on, like we're in that lucky camp where our

00:35:48 ◼   ► Apple TV remote is able to control the television like completely. So the only remote that I

00:35:54 ◼   ► use, yeah I know, the only remote that I use is the Apple TV remote. I press the little

00:35:58 ◼   ► button and it turns it on and then I hold it and it turns off the TV and it's great.

00:36:02 ◼   ► Yeah I wish mine would do that because I mean the only thing I use my TV remote

00:36:06 ◼   ► for now because the only thing we have we have a Mac mini on another

00:36:10 ◼   ► HDMI input but we rarely use it. The Apple TV is TV in our house and so

00:36:15 ◼   ► it's like I'm I mean I'm not changing cable cable channels or anything so oh

00:36:20 ◼   ► well. And as they point in the chat room yes I am a CEC unicorn that is what I am.

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00:39:06 ◼   ► So go right now to ring.com/connected for your $50 off.

00:39:09 ◼   ► Once again, that is ring.com, R-I-N-G.com/connected.

00:39:14 ◼   ► Thank you so much to Ring for their support of this show

00:39:16 ◼   ► relay FM. So let's talk about some changes in the media. Both iMore has made some big

00:39:25 ◼   ► changes this week and also Joshua Topolski has come out of hiding to unveil his new project.

00:39:33 ◼   ► Steven, can you break down what's going on over at iMore?

00:39:37 ◼   ► Sure. So I think the short version is they are putting an end to their sort of daily

00:39:43 ◼   ► news operation. I don't really know what this means in practice so I write a

00:39:51 ◼   ► monthly column for iMore but I'm not part of their staff. I had no knowledge of

00:39:55 ◼   ► this before it happened but it seems like they are going to scale way back on

00:40:01 ◼   ► posting the same sort of news that everyone else does. So the stories that

00:40:06 ◼   ► end up on you know Macworld and MacRumors and 9to5Mac I don't think you're

00:40:13 ◼   ► going to see those so much on iMore anymore. So even just yesterday when like

00:40:17 ◼   ► the developer beta 4 of iOS and tvOS and Mac OS Sierra dropped what iMore had

00:40:24 ◼   ► instead was some useful information about if you want to run the betas how

00:40:28 ◼   ► to do it and some guides and stuff around that and that seems to be really

00:40:32 ◼   ► where they are aiming now where they are going to be focusing much more on their

00:40:38 ◼   ► content around tips and how to use and

00:40:41 ◼   ► guides and they've been maybe been

00:40:43 ◼   ► paying attention they've been ramping

00:40:44 ◼   ► that up for a long time now and it seems

00:40:47 ◼   ► like that's the direction that they they

00:40:49 ◼   ► are going and I think it's really

00:40:53 ◼   ► interesting for a couple of reasons

00:40:56 ◼   ► I mean I think that sort of there's a

00:40:58 ◼   ► there's a limited number of websites

00:41:00 ◼   ► that can sustain themselves doing the

00:41:01 ◼   ► same thing that everyone else does and

00:41:03 ◼   ► these sort of like big news operations

00:41:06 ◼   ► are expensive and a lot of people subscribe to a bunch of them and so why

00:41:11 ◼   ► just be one more article you know lots of people going to cover developer beta 4

00:41:16 ◼   ► coming out but if you took your resources and instead had content around

00:41:20 ◼   ► how to prepare for that how to back it up should you do it or not like the sort

00:41:25 ◼   ► of more non-news sort of softer stuff then that I can see where that can make

00:41:33 ◼   ► a lot of sense. There's also of course an SEO angle here as well where if you are

00:41:38 ◼   ► writing things like how to do X and X is popular in the news right now then

00:41:43 ◼   ► you will benefit from some of the search engine voodoo that's going on around

00:41:48 ◼   ► that topic and that I think irks a lot of people. Not just with iMore but with lots of

00:41:54 ◼   ► websites. The comments yesterday to Renee's piece were pretty gross in

00:41:59 ◼   ► places. People really complaining about that sort of thing.

00:42:01 ◼   ► - That's comments though, right?

00:42:03 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, don't ever look at 'em.

00:42:05 ◼   ► I guess I'm always doing what they feel like they need to

00:42:07 ◼   ► to stay relevant, and I think that's good.

00:42:10 ◼   ► Everyone on staff at I'm works great,

00:42:11 ◼   ► and I like what they do,

00:42:12 ◼   ► and I like being a columnist there.

00:42:15 ◼   ► But it's just an interesting change,

00:42:17 ◼   ► and one that is not super surprising

00:42:20 ◼   ► if you've been paying attention to their coverage,

00:42:21 ◼   ► or even the market in general.

00:42:24 ◼   ► I mean, Federica, you and I were talking about it yesterday,

00:42:27 ◼   ► where like, Max Stories really isn't in the news game either.

00:42:31 ◼   ► long time ago you decided to focus on what you focus on and your website's

00:42:34 ◼   ► better for it and I think the same thing will be true and I'm more over time.

00:42:40 ◼   ► Yeah I mean since we we decided to move away from you know the news cycle and not

00:42:46 ◼   ► just not covering news because I still think there's value in in in max stories

00:42:52 ◼   ► highlighting the most important news but in following the the urgency of news you

00:42:59 ◼   ► of constantly being obsessed by being first.

00:43:03 ◼   ► Since we moved away from that, personally I've been

00:43:07 ◼   ► really much more relaxed and I've lived

00:43:11 ◼   ► a better life and I've enjoyed my job more. And I also think

00:43:15 ◼   ► that if you want to be in that game, because of course

00:43:19 ◼   ► whether it's TV or tech news or tech websites

00:43:23 ◼   ► there's value in breaking news, there's value in being

00:43:27 ◼   ► first and

00:43:29 ◼   ► Unless you have a lot of money to pay a lot of people and staff

00:43:34 ◼   ► There's going to there's always gonna be websites bigger than you

00:43:37 ◼   ► Operations bigger than you whether it's the Times or the Verge or BuzzFeed or Bloomberg

00:43:42 ◼   ► They're always gonna beat you no matter how many people constantly looking at Twitter you have if only because most of the time

00:43:51 ◼   ► news and

00:43:53 ◼   ► And especially tech news doesn't just happen somewhere in the world and then you get a rush to know what's happened.

00:44:00 ◼   ► They're prepared beforehand.

00:44:01 ◼   ► And there's just websites with NDAs and embargoes and if you don't have it, then all you're left to do is re-block them.

00:44:08 ◼   ► And after a while, it gets tiring and it's exhausting because you know you're never gonna be first

00:44:15 ◼   ► because those people have much better, you know, much wider staffs, resources and connections.

00:44:23 ◼   ► And so I feel like there's no single solution for everyone, and everyone decides the kind of audience and the kind of website that they want to have.

00:44:33 ◼   ► I can only speak from personal experience.

00:44:35 ◼   ► I think the kind of site that I want to have is to have a personal relationship with the reader and with the members.

00:44:46 ◼   ► And I feel like there's a place for websites like Mac Stories where we cover apps, we cover news more in depth with a more calm style when necessary, and we do links.

00:45:01 ◼   ► And there's a place for 9to5Mac and MacRumors, and Apple Insider I would say, there's a place for The Verge.

00:45:07 ◼   ► And I think iMore is making a wise choice in focusing on guides and tutorials and explaining things to all kinds of Apple users.

00:45:16 ◼   ► I think that strategy is a good investment for the future, because a lot of people can find that content, whether it's new or old.

00:45:28 ◼   ► And I have to say, when I'm looking for solutions to simple Apple problems,

00:45:35 ◼   ► and by simple I mean obvious things that are supposed to work but they don't,

00:45:38 ◼   ► iMore is usually well positioned on Google.

00:45:42 ◼   ► And it makes sense from my iMore reader perspective to focus on that.

00:45:47 ◼   ► Because they know, they have style, they know how to do guides.

00:45:51 ◼   ► And so not doing news, and by news it's very rarely original news.

00:45:57 ◼   ► it's reblogging, adding a little color, a little context, which is fine, but I understand why

00:46:02 ◼   ► from a personal perspective it's exhausting and from a professional standpoint, it's not really rewarding after a while.

00:46:11 ◼   ► I'm not surprised. I think it makes sense. I think it's probably the best decision at this point.

00:46:17 ◼   ► And of course I wish I weren't the best, Rene is a great guy, so we'll see how it works out for them.

00:46:26 ◼   ► Federico, how do you decide what news you do post?

00:46:30 ◼   ► That's a great question.

00:46:33 ◼   ► There's a personal attachment to some

00:46:36 ◼   ► news. For instance, I haven't been posting much on Mac Stories for the past weeks

00:46:42 ◼   ► because I've been

00:46:43 ◼   ► working on the iOS 10 review. But last night,

00:46:46 ◼   ► John texted me and he was like, "Look, there's a new iPad Pro commercial

00:46:51 ◼   ► on YouTube." And because of my personal attachment to the iPad Pro,

00:46:56 ◼   ► I knew that was one thing I wanted to have on the site.

00:47:00 ◼   ► So I think it depends on two factors, at least for max stories.

00:47:05 ◼   ► How much I want to do it myself, how much I want to cover news myself,

00:47:11 ◼   ► either because it matters to me and by extension to readers who follow me,

00:47:16 ◼   ► or how much personal context I can add.

00:47:22 ◼   ► And then the second kind, I would say, is important things that by not covering them you'll be doing a disservice to the reader.

00:47:32 ◼   ► So even if I'm not personally attached to that, let's say that an Apple release is a No S10 or Mac OS update with a brand new feature that my people should know about.

00:47:44 ◼   ► I'm not gonna do that myself because I don't necessarily care about it, but I recognize that it's important and that, you know,

00:47:51 ◼   ► I try to imagine Max Stories readers as a very diverse audience and I try to imagine that these people are busy,

00:47:59 ◼   ► you know, they have families, they have jobs and

00:48:01 ◼   ► maybe they like to catch up in the evening, sit down and see what's new on Max Stories.

00:48:08 ◼   ► And if something

00:48:11 ◼   ► importance has happened and we don't have it, then we're not helping those readers, right?

00:48:17 ◼   ► So even if it doesn't matter to me, even if it's not a... even if I don't have a personal attachment

00:48:23 ◼   ► to news such as the iPad Pro last night, if I think... I try to put myself in the shoes of a

00:48:31 ◼   ► Mac stories reader and I say "if I don't see these on Mac stories am I gonna be upset?" and when the

00:48:36 ◼   ► the answer is yes, then I ask someone on the team to cover it for me or to just say "do

00:48:42 ◼   ► you think this is important?"

00:48:43 ◼   ► It's a very collaborative approach at this point.

00:48:47 ◼   ► I talk to John, I talk to Graham, I talk to Alex or Jake and when we decide this is worth

00:48:53 ◼   ► having on the site, then we go for it.

00:48:57 ◼   ► One general rule of thumb that we have is we don't cover rumors and it's really the

00:49:04 ◼   ► same reasoning.

00:49:06 ◼   ► One, we cannot beat Bloomberg or 9to5Mac at their own game.

00:49:10 ◼   ► And two, if I were a Mac Sorrys reader and I invest my time, so I look at readers as

00:49:19 ◼   ► people who invest their time on Mac Sorrys, I invest my time on this unconfirmed news.

00:49:24 ◼   ► That's maybe gonna be true, maybe not, but if it's not, did I just waste 10 minutes reading

00:49:29 ◼   ► something that is just completely made up information?

00:49:32 ◼   ► Is it useful?

00:49:33 ◼   ► So ultimately that criteria, you know, is it useful? Is it a good time investment?

00:49:39 ◼   ► That's how I decide.

00:49:40 ◼   ► So there's a personal aspect and there's a respect for the reader aspect.

00:49:46 ◼   ► And I just feel it's something you have to practice over time.

00:49:51 ◼   ► You know, respect for readers is a skill that you need to hone and that you need to...

00:49:58 ◼   ► Yeah, to keep true... I mean it's been seven years at this point, you know?

00:50:03 ◼   ► It's not easy, and sometimes when I'm on vacation and something happens and no one's ready to cover it,

00:50:11 ◼   ► I get the itch, you know? I should maybe do it myself.

00:50:15 ◼   ► And eventually we always figured it out.

00:50:18 ◼   ► Does it make any sense? It's a whole process, you know?

00:50:21 ◼   ► and I think I think ultimately that publications of all shapes and sizes not

00:50:25 ◼   ► just web are better once someone is thinking about things that critically

00:50:31 ◼   ► that if you just are starting out or if you're running some you know

00:50:35 ◼   ► organization that just its goal is to get as much out there as possible like

00:50:39 ◼   ► like that's fine and this is really blending into the Topolski thing but if

00:50:44 ◼   ► you want to build something that has a specific reader in mind and you want to

00:50:50 ◼   ► build something that you can be proud of every single post you put up.

00:50:54 ◼   ► That's a different thing.

00:50:55 ◼   ► I think that's what iMore is doing.

00:50:56 ◼   ► I think it's definitely what this Topolski thing is doing.

00:51:00 ◼   ► He announced on Monday in the Wall Street Journal that his new venture is called The

00:51:07 ◼   ► Outline and it is going to be a site with content focused on power as it relates to

00:51:16 ◼   ► like politics and business, culture, and what he's calling the future. And he has

00:51:21 ◼   ► said, he says in this article that their goal is to reach 10 to 15 million

00:51:27 ◼   ► users and they've raised five million dollars to do that. That he is not going

00:51:33 ◼   ► after absolutely everyone. You know, you look at something like, we'll take The Verge

00:51:37 ◼   ► for instance, which he helped found, started life as a gadget blog, really, and

00:51:44 ◼   ► And it has just exploded into covering all sorts of things.

00:51:47 ◼   ► Space, cars, culture, media.

00:51:49 ◼   ► - Animals.

00:51:52 ◼   ► - Animals, which it just,

00:51:54 ◼   ► I find that series annoying.

00:51:59 ◼   ► As it has grown, they've had to increase the number

00:52:02 ◼   ► of ads on the site, and they have,

00:52:06 ◼   ► Vox is trying to squeeze more out of it.

00:52:07 ◼   ► And a weird side of, as a sidebar to that,

00:52:11 ◼   ► I find it really interesting to see reporters come and go

00:52:13 ◼   ► from sites like The Verge, these huge sites

00:52:15 ◼   ► that are just pumping out content all day.

00:52:17 ◼   ► Clearly, you're just gonna run people

00:52:18 ◼   ► under the ground at a point.

00:52:20 ◼   ► But Topolski's thing, which is again called The Outline,

00:52:24 ◼   ► seems to be a little bit different.

00:52:27 ◼   ► And he wants to move away from impression-based advertising,

00:52:31 ◼   ► props to you to think that you can

00:52:35 ◼   ► make that work on the web, and I hope that he can,

00:52:38 ◼   ► but that's gonna be really difficult.

00:52:40 ◼   ► but he is looking, clearly looking to like craft

00:52:43 ◼   ► a specific audience and saying that you're gonna do that

00:52:46 ◼   ► with like 15 to 20 pieces of content a day,

00:52:48 ◼   ► which The Verge does that many times over most days.

00:52:52 ◼   ► It's just an interesting contrast to me

00:52:56 ◼   ► and I like these two article or these two news stories

00:52:58 ◼   ► being kind of on our minds this week

00:53:01 ◼   ► because it really goes to this bigger question, Federica,

00:53:03 ◼   ► that you answered of like how do you approach your audience?

00:53:07 ◼   ► Actually I know with 512 I have a very particular audience in mind.

00:53:11 ◼   ► I know that with this show the audience is different.

00:53:14 ◼   ► I think 512 readers and connected listeners, obviously there's tons of overlap, but connected

00:53:19 ◼   ► is bigger and broader.

00:53:21 ◼   ► Connected is where I get to do my Apple news stuff.

00:53:23 ◼   ► You know there's stuff, Federica, that you and I talk about on this show that we don't

00:53:26 ◼   ► write about or that we don't link to.

00:53:28 ◼   ► And for my part it's because I kind of cover it here and I don't necessarily want to cover

00:53:32 ◼   ► the news on 512 as much as I maybe did five or six years ago.

00:53:37 ◼   ► It's like all of this goes into that conversation of who is your site for and iMore is trying

00:53:42 ◼   ► to answer that in a new way.

00:53:44 ◼   ► The outline is clearly trying to do it in a new way and I think it's going to be really

00:53:47 ◼   ► interesting to watch those things take shape over the coming months.

00:53:54 ◼   ► I'm also in the same boat as you.

00:53:58 ◼   ► I really want Topolski to do well because I like his work.

00:54:03 ◼   ► I've been a fan of his work for a long time and I like his approach here.

00:54:07 ◼   ► I think it's interesting to try and not go after everyone and make that clear.

00:54:12 ◼   ► And I guess even to the people he's investing, well, definitely to the people he's investing

00:54:15 ◼   ► to, he's even making that clear, which I assume he's got some very particular investors that

00:54:20 ◼   ► like that style, right?

00:54:22 ◼   ► Rather than just wanting to get the maximum, maximum return possible.

00:54:28 ◼   ► I am very interested to see how he convinces current web advertisers to throw everything

00:54:34 ◼   ► they think they know out of the window.

00:54:38 ◼   ► It's gonna be hard and that's really what I'm most curious about this.

00:54:42 ◼   ► I'm with you, I'm a huge fan of him.

00:54:44 ◼   ► I think I have no question that the content is gonna be great.

00:54:47 ◼   ► The Wall Street Journal talks about some of the people he's hired and they're all like

00:54:51 ◼   ► top-notch reporters.

00:54:53 ◼   ► I think it's gonna be really well done, really well produced, I think it's gonna look good.

00:54:57 ◼   ► That is the core question here of can you build a readership that then you can sell

00:55:04 ◼   ► advertising against that's not just sort of like the gross impression-based ads that have

00:55:10 ◼   ► taken over so much of the web, right?

00:55:12 ◼   ► It's what people complained about iMore a lot, unfortunately.

00:55:17 ◼   ► A lot of their ads are really kind of gross.

00:55:19 ◼   ► A lot of bigger websites really struggle with that because as you go broader it's harder

00:55:26 ◼   ► to sell meaningful advertising, right? If you have something that's really specific

00:55:32 ◼   ► like the pen addict on Relay or Brad's website, you know exactly who that audience is and

00:55:37 ◼   ► you can sell advertising for that content pretty easily because you know that these

00:55:43 ◼   ► people are into these things. And as you get broader and bigger that's harder and I wonder

00:55:47 ◼   ► if 10 to 15 million users is too big or too broad but I think time will tell with that.

00:55:53 ◼   ► But you're right, it is, that's a really interesting thing

00:55:55 ◼   ► that I want to keep an eye on,

00:55:56 ◼   ► if he can pull that off or not.

00:55:58 ◼   ► Quip.

00:56:01 ◼   ► Yeah, so, we're just jumping all around this week,

00:56:06 ◼   ► but as we were preparing last night,

00:56:09 ◼   ► the news broke on TechCrunch and then on the Quip blog

00:56:12 ◼   ► that Salesforce had purchased Quip.

00:56:16 ◼   ► And it's for a whole bunch of money,

00:56:20 ◼   ► like it's what, $700 million or something?

00:56:22 ◼   ► yeah which is a ton of money but I wanted to to read this from the quip

00:56:27 ◼   ► blog because I think we're going to get into talking about a what we think is

00:56:33 ◼   ► going to happen to quip. Quip is a document system like google docs by the way in

00:56:37 ◼   ► case you don't know what it is it's what we use for the show we've mentioned it

00:56:39 ◼   ► in the past but just in case you want to refresher it's kind of like a a google

00:56:43 ◼   ► docs google sheets type of competitor

00:56:46 ◼   ► yeah they've got iOS apps and web apps and Mac app so they say we're committed

00:56:50 ◼   ► growing expanding quips productivity

00:56:52 ◼   ► platform as a part of Salesforce if

00:56:54 ◼   ► you're a quick customer please know that

00:56:56 ◼   ► we continue to provide you with service

00:56:58 ◼   ► and products that you can expect from us

00:57:00 ◼   ► if you're not yet a customer sign up

00:57:02 ◼   ► your team and they said they're hiring

00:57:04 ◼   ► like the next paragraph like we're

00:57:05 ◼   ► hiring jobs click on this link

00:57:07 ◼   ► submit your resume but I can't help but

00:57:10 ◼   ► think that quip eventually is going to

00:57:13 ◼   ► become part of Salesforce CRM and

00:57:17 ◼   ► enterprise tools and that people like us

00:57:19 ◼   ► So we don't have, like Relay does not have an account

00:57:22 ◼   ► with Quip, we have a bunch of like individual accounts

00:57:24 ◼   ► that we share stuff with.

00:57:26 ◼   ► We don't pay for Quip at this point.

00:57:30 ◼   ► And my guess is that that's gonna go away

00:57:33 ◼   ► and that you can only use Quip as part of like

00:57:34 ◼   ► Salesforce bigger system.

00:57:37 ◼   ► So Salesforce does lots of things at its core.

00:57:40 ◼   ► It's like a CRM, so a customer relationship management tool.

00:57:46 ◼   ► know you can keep up with sales stuff and lead generation and all that stuff

00:57:50 ◼   ► there's a there's a place for that but I guess this clip is going to be like you

00:57:55 ◼   ► can collaborate with documents inside of this but um I don't know like I'm happy

00:58:00 ◼   ► for the guys who run Quip I mean I've got my problems with their Mac app but it's a

00:58:04 ◼   ► great service it seems to be built by people who really care about it but my

00:58:10 ◼   ► guess is that we're going to be back in Google Docs at some point if they flip

00:58:12 ◼   ► the switch off on like free individual accounts.

00:58:15 ◼   ► Yeah, so sad. I mean, and it's even funnier for us because we have just recently recorded

00:58:23 ◼   ► our Relay FM connected members special. So in August, kind of mid to late August, if

00:58:30 ◼   ► you are a Relay FM member, we're going to be releasing a bunch of special episodes.

00:58:35 ◼   ► And you can still sign up now. You'll get them go to relay.fm/membership and you can

00:58:40 ◼   ► find out more about that. And on that show we're talking about our home screens and we

00:58:44 ◼   ► all talk about Quip and we all talk about it being the best choice for us and how it

00:58:48 ◼   ► works the best on iOS and that's why we use it and because we can use split screen and

00:58:52 ◼   ► it's the only one and Google Docs can go die on a fire and all that kind of stuff and now

00:58:58 ◼   ► unfortunately Quip might be going away at some point and it's just the connected curse

00:59:04 ◼   ► all over again.

00:59:05 ◼   ► Yeah, but sometimes you like something and it goes away and all you can do is make a

00:59:11 ◼   ► podcast about it.

00:59:14 ◼   ► If you love a web app, you gotta let it go.

00:59:18 ◼   ► We're all coping with loss here and in this case it's about, I don't even know if I'm

00:59:24 ◼   ► supposed to be ashamed or happy that I don't know what Salesforce is.

00:59:28 ◼   ► I'm gonna go with happy.

00:59:29 ◼   ► There's no reason.

00:59:30 ◼   ► It would be weird if you knew.

00:59:33 ◼   ► You don't do sales, you've never been in sales.

00:59:35 ◼   ► It would be very strange if you fully...

00:59:36 ◼   ► - Sales of what?

00:59:38 ◼   ► - Anything.

00:59:39 ◼   ► - Oh, okay.

00:59:40 ◼   ► - Salesforce is huge, huge.

00:59:42 ◼   ► You must have heard of Salesforce though, right?

00:59:44 ◼   ► You know Salesforce.

00:59:45 ◼   ► - I have heard of the CEO being this kind of odd guy

00:59:50 ◼   ► and they make a convention

00:59:52 ◼   ► with all kinds of weird things going on.

00:59:55 ◼   ► - Sure, sure, sure, sure.

00:59:56 ◼   ► - Right?

00:59:57 ◼   ► - I mean, I don't know that part,

00:59:58 ◼   ► but yeah, that sounds about right.

00:59:59 ◼   ► - Okay.

01:00:00 ◼   ► You know, is there a word for like when corporations

01:00:04 ◼   ► Try to be hip and cool?

01:00:06 ◼   ► No, but there should be one.

01:00:08 ◼   ► There's probably a German word for it.

01:00:11 ◼   ► What about like, if we just go with "corporation"?

01:00:14 ◼   ► "Culperation"?

01:00:16 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:00:17 ◼   ► "Culperation"?

01:00:18 ◼   ► "Culperation".

01:00:19 ◼   ► Yeah, that's how I picture these companies, like Cellforce.

01:00:24 ◼   ► Oh, it's like "manufactured fun", that kind of thing.

01:00:26 ◼   ► No, "culp-arate" is better.

01:00:28 ◼   ► "Culperate", there we go.

01:00:30 ◼   ► "Culperate".

01:00:31 ◼   ► We got there.

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01:02:32 ◼   ► So there's a new iOS 10 beta, guys, came out yesterday and it's got some news in it, which

01:02:40 ◼   ► is Apple is doing new emoji.

01:02:43 ◼   ► Now Apple is not yet showing their takes on the Unicode 9 standard of new emoji, like

01:02:51 ◼   ► new characters such as the bacon emoji or the what's it called the Pinocchio

01:02:56 ◼   ► lying face there's a bunch of new characters coming with a with Unicode 9

01:03:01 ◼   ► but still what we're getting is more gender diverse emoji in iOS 10 it's

01:03:08 ◼   ► currently available in iOS 10 beta 4 and I assume they're gonna be available in

01:03:11 ◼   ► iOS 10.0 like the first version in September and in addition to diversity

01:03:18 ◼   ► We're also getting a slight redesign of the entire emoji line with new shading.

01:03:25 ◼   ► And it's kind of more like a 3D look, more shadows, more, you know, the lighting of the characters is different.

01:03:36 ◼   ► And they do feel like a modernized version of the original MSN, you know, Microsoft Messenger emoticons from many, many years ago.

01:03:46 ◼   ► Now, I think new emoji or more emoji, whatever,

01:03:52 ◼   ► emoji changes are the best strategy to get people to upgrade,

01:03:57 ◼   ► and doing it in stages across the first version of iOS 10,

01:04:01 ◼   ► and then maybe iOS 10.1 with the new Unicode 9 characters,

01:04:06 ◼   ► that's the best strategy Apple has to entice people to upgrade.

01:04:10 ◼   ► And also, there's a press release for this on the Apple press release newsroom.

01:04:15 ◼   ► Yeah, I think this has been proven out now that emoji is a really great way to just enforce

01:04:20 ◼   ► OS adoption, which I think is great because people want them and also it's a visual thing.

01:04:24 ◼   ► Like if I'm sending you a new emoji and you're on an old platform, you just can't see it.

01:04:29 ◼   ► So it works really well for that, I think, which is nice.

01:04:33 ◼   ► Now I have lots of thoughts about this, about this new emoji stuff and about why Apple's

01:04:40 ◼   ► doing it right now and things like that.

01:04:42 ◼   ► So as of like today, right now, the current Unicode conference is on.

01:04:48 ◼   ► And one of the things that's being spoken about a lot is a lot of the gender neutral

01:04:51 ◼   ► stuff.

01:04:53 ◼   ► And many of these things have already been agreed upon, like having more diverse gender

01:04:58 ◼   ► and neutral gender things.

01:05:00 ◼   ► When we're seeing stuff like female swimmer, male swimmer, female basketball player, male

01:05:05 ◼   ► basketball player, male dancing, male bunny suit, this is part of the overall moving all

01:05:12 ◼   ► all of these things and one of the things that is happening in the Unicode

01:05:16 ◼   ► conference for this week is expanding on that and going into detail a little bit

01:05:20 ◼   ► more about it. So the fact that we have more men more women emojis so like

01:05:25 ◼   ► breaking that out and making it more level this is something that was decided

01:05:30 ◼   ► on a while ago and Google had already announced it and they're trying to push

01:05:34 ◼   ► it even further and Microsoft had already announced it and they actually

01:05:38 ◼   ► to implement it today for everybody.

01:05:47 ◼   ► My belief is that Apple has been working on Unicode 9 in the background and the new emojis

01:05:53 ◼   ► coming with it but wanted to have a press release to confirm that they are doing something

01:06:00 ◼   ► with the gender stuff so they've done that now and put it out there along with some other

01:06:05 ◼   ► smaller changes like some redesigns that they've done of the yellow faces but

01:06:09 ◼   ► this isn't all that there is for Unicode 9 so that's what makes me think that

01:06:14 ◼   ► they're doing this now just to make sure that they have their kind of intentions

01:06:18 ◼   ► clear for the fact that there is the gender stuff now so they're like we are

01:06:24 ◼   ► done this don't worry like that is out there we care about this too so we put

01:06:29 ◼   ► it out so there's more here so as I said they don't have all the other Unicode 9

01:06:34 ◼   ► stuff that will be coming and that's why I expect that they've done this right

01:06:37 ◼   ► now for this reason as opposed to releasing the entire set or doing

01:06:40 ◼   ► nothing. They've put the stuff out there which means that they're showing that

01:06:43 ◼   ► they're thinking more about the gender stuff. And there's something that I

01:06:47 ◼   ► wanted to talk about which is ZWJ emoji combinations. Now I want you all to bear

01:06:53 ◼   ► with me a little bit here. Do you call them ZWJ or Switch? I wouldn't

01:06:59 ◼   ► know what to call them. We can call them Switch. We'll call them Switch from now on.

01:07:02 ◼   ► So, the zwidge emoji stuff has been noticed that Apple is implementing it because some

01:07:09 ◼   ► people found a rainbow flag inside of iOS 10 as of yesterday.

01:07:16 ◼   ► So this is a pride flag and the pride flag takes advantage of the zwidge Unicode stuff

01:07:22 ◼   ► to combine a flag, a white flag, a standard flag, and a rainbow.

01:07:27 ◼   ► And when, if you combine both of those two things together on, say like you do it on

01:07:32 ◼   ► iOS 9 or something, on iOS 10 it will show as a pride rainbow flag, right?

01:07:37 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:07:38 ◼   ► But this zwidge stuff goes much further than this, it's much deeper than this.

01:07:43 ◼   ► All of the gender stuff that we've seen here, all of the stuff that we're seeing that's

01:07:47 ◼   ► come out, they are all zwidge emoji combinations.

01:07:52 ◼   ► Now I've put a link in the show notes to an Emojipedia article which explains some of the

01:07:57 ◼   ► the dendro emoji stuff and it has a table, like a kind of list, which actually shows

01:08:01 ◼   ► the switch combinations. Because, like, so for example, if you want to see a male office

01:08:08 ◼   ► worker and female office worker, the male office worker is the little dude with the

01:08:12 ◼   ► mustache plus a briefcase. If you put those two things together in the underlying Unicode,

01:08:18 ◼   ► right, and you, it's kind of complicated how this happens. Like, I'm not 100% sure how

01:08:24 ◼   ► the system detects all of this. But if you want to display male office worker or female

01:08:29 ◼   ► office worker, you use those two emoji together and when they are displayed together, the

01:08:34 ◼   ► system understands that you're trying to show X and it will display it. This is a way that

01:08:39 ◼   ► platform vendors are able to make more emoji without them being have to be approved by

01:08:45 ◼   ► the Unicode Consortium. Because getting an actual emoji approved to be in the standard

01:08:51 ◼   ► is really long and slow.

01:08:54 ◼   ► So all of these gender emoji are just the vendors,

01:08:57 ◼   ► the platform vendors kind of agreeing

01:08:59 ◼   ► that this is how it's going to be displayed.

01:09:01 ◼   ► And then they put them out there.

01:09:02 ◼   ► So all these emoji are, are combinations of multiple emoji

01:09:07 ◼   ► that when put together, it displays a new character.

01:09:10 ◼   ► Which is kind of weird.

01:09:14 ◼   ► And I can prove this to you.

01:09:16 ◼   ► And the way that I can prove this to you

01:09:19 ◼   ► is if you open a Twitter client

01:09:21 ◼   ► and you type in the smiley face emoji,

01:09:24 ◼   ► it's probably one character.

01:09:26 ◼   ► But if for example, you type in the family,

01:09:30 ◼   ► so the four person family, it is seven characters, I believe.

01:09:35 ◼   ► - Try this.

01:09:36 ◼   ► So where's the family?

01:09:38 ◼   ► - Because what's happening is the amount of text

01:09:41 ◼   ► that you're entering. - That's true.

01:09:43 ◼   ► - Is multiple characters.

01:09:45 ◼   ► And so this exists in previous emoji.

01:09:47 ◼   ► So those family emoji has been like that for a while,

01:09:49 ◼   ► But the new emoji, so if you take something like,

01:09:52 ◼   ► maybe I think one of the new ones,

01:09:55 ◼   ► like if you take something like,

01:09:56 ◼   ► I just pick off the top of my head,

01:09:58 ◼   ► say that male construction worker,

01:10:00 ◼   ► female construction worker,

01:10:00 ◼   ► there might be like three or four actual characters

01:10:04 ◼   ► that are being entered,

01:10:05 ◼   ► but they are displayed as one image.

01:10:08 ◼   ► So in an Outlander and a Shetron,

01:10:10 ◼   ► you're completely right, flags are two characters

01:10:11 ◼   ► because they are different codes,

01:10:13 ◼   ► so it is flag plus country.

01:10:15 ◼   ► So there's a lot of emojis done like this.

01:10:17 ◼   ► So I'm just basically dropping a bunch of knowledge

01:10:20 ◼   ► that I know, and I know this because Jeremy Burge

01:10:23 ◼   ► of Emojipedia is a friend of mine,

01:10:25 ◼   ► and we talk about emoji a lot when we have lunch in London.

01:10:27 ◼   ► So I've known about the way that these codes

01:10:29 ◼   ► have been working for a while.

01:10:30 ◼   ► I even showed Jeremy my notes last night

01:10:32 ◼   ► to make sure that I was getting this completely right.

01:10:35 ◼   ► He said I was just about there.

01:10:36 ◼   ► So basically I just wanted to say,

01:10:38 ◼   ► like this stuff, so these are not actual real emoji.

01:10:42 ◼   ► These aren't real emoji in the sense of

01:10:46 ◼   ► in the Unicode standard.

01:10:48 ◼   ► Some of them are, some of them aren't,

01:10:50 ◼   ► but it's a new way that they're doing it,

01:10:52 ◼   ► and Unicode is kind of saying, yes, you can do this,

01:10:54 ◼   ► so they don't have to go through the whole big process

01:10:59 ◼   ► of getting something approved.

01:11:00 ◼   ► They're able to use this kind of new substandard

01:11:03 ◼   ► so that more emoji can be kind of agreed upon.

01:11:06 ◼   ► - So in theory, you should be able,

01:11:07 ◼   ► like just hypothetically, too,

01:11:09 ◼   ► if you wanna have an emoji of man eating pasta,

01:11:13 ◼   ► you could join the man emoji and the pasta emoji and make a new one that it's actually

01:11:20 ◼   ► a rich combination of the two.

01:11:23 ◼   ► Perfect. Yep. That's exactly how it's being done.

01:11:25 ◼   ► Very nice.

01:11:26 ◼   ► Now, what I haven't tested is, and I don't know about this, like if you type those two

01:11:29 ◼   ► emoji next to each other, how it shows? So like if I, on an older device, put man and

01:11:37 ◼   ► briefcase together, does it show business person?

01:11:41 ◼   ► No, because you're declaring your intention of having a man and a briefcase as two separate characters.

01:11:47 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:11:48 ◼   ► Like you're thinking of joining them together automatically. I don't think that's gonna happen.

01:11:53 ◼   ► But what I do believe would happen is if you do it in the reverse, so if I on iOS 10

01:12:00 ◼   ► sent you something on iOS 9 that was one of the news witch emoji...

01:12:04 ◼   ► Yeah, so when you sent me today, it was a new girl emoji, or maybe it was a new man emoji, I don't know.

01:12:14 ◼   ► Anyway, on the phone I saw it as a new gender diverse one.

01:12:19 ◼   ► On the watch, which was on an old beta of iOS 10, so beta 3, I got it as two characters.

01:12:29 ◼   ► So it's doing, like, retroactively, it's unjoining them and displaying them as two characters.

01:12:37 ◼   ► So there you go. That's how that works.

01:12:40 ◼   ► I just used a very, very ugly word, I'm sorry.

01:12:43 ◼   ► Unjoining them.

01:12:45 ◼   ► Unjoining is fine. No, it's terrible. Just terrible.

01:12:49 ◼   ► But this wasn't all that Apple did yesterday.

01:12:52 ◼   ► They also re-imagined the gun emoji on iOS 10.

01:13:00 ◼   ► It's, to my knowledge, the only emoji that was changed.

01:13:03 ◼   ► I think it's the only emoji that has ever been changed from Apple, like significantly.

01:13:10 ◼   ► And what they've done is they've taken the old, what is called the pistol, and they have made it a water pistol.

01:13:16 ◼   ► And there are many layers to this, which I find interesting.

01:13:20 ◼   ► interesting. So I don't personally like the fact that there is a gun. I've used a gun

01:13:25 ◼   ► or whatever to make jokes or whatever but it would be nice if there wasn't a gun emoji.

01:13:30 ◼   ► Because guns are a violent thing. And Apple have decided to change it to a water pistol

01:13:36 ◼   ► which is on the face of it much nicer. It's nicer to have a little water pistol than to

01:13:40 ◼   ► have an actual pistol. But in changing something like an emoji, what will happen is, let's

01:13:48 ◼   ► Let's say that somebody had sent a message to me with a gun in it to make a specific

01:13:54 ◼   ► point.

01:13:55 ◼   ► Now, if I open that same message, that gun will now be a water pistol.

01:14:01 ◼   ► Because emoji aren't images, they're basically a font.

01:14:06 ◼   ► So making a change to what the artwork is rendered as will retroactively change any

01:14:12 ◼   ► usage that someone will see on any Apple platform of the gun emoji and that is

01:14:18 ◼   ► interesting.

01:14:19 ◼   ► Yeah I mean imagine if this happened to text like someday

01:14:24 ◼   ► someone wakes up and says look the character A of the alphabet is offensive

01:14:31 ◼   ► and we need to change that so from today on all A characters will actually be a

01:14:37 ◼   ► a modified B because we think it's more fun.

01:14:41 ◼   ► Now, I personally agree with you, Myke.

01:14:44 ◼   ► I wish there wasn't a gun emoji,

01:14:48 ◼   ► but I also understand,

01:14:52 ◼   ► I mean, you can see the comments from people.

01:14:54 ◼   ► They're taking away our rights to have a gun emoji.

01:14:57 ◼   ► But anyway, it does raise a concern

01:15:00 ◼   ► about the permanence of text

01:15:04 ◼   ► in our digital communications.

01:15:06 ◼   ► And it's even more... not confusing but complicated when you think about the different implementations

01:15:17 ◼   ► of emoji across different platforms.

01:15:19 ◼   ► So right now a person who tweeted a gun emoji two years ago, the original tweet was with

01:15:28 ◼   ► an actual pistol.

01:15:30 ◼   ► Now on iOS that tweet is a water gun.

01:15:32 ◼   ► But if you go on Android, the same tweet from two years ago, steal a pistol.

01:15:37 ◼   ► And on Windows, it's a water gun, but it's gonna be a pistol tomorrow because Microsoft

01:15:42 ◼   ► is gonna change emoji again.

01:15:44 ◼   ► Well actually, you say that.

01:15:47 ◼   ► That happened.

01:15:48 ◼   ► I don't know if you know this.

01:15:49 ◼   ► No, no, that's why I said it, because I saw Jeremy do it.

01:15:52 ◼   ► Poor Microsoft.

01:15:54 ◼   ► I know, I know, right?

01:15:56 ◼   ► They had previously, until today, rendered the gun as a ray gun. Like a space buzz light,

01:16:04 ◼   ► a kind of ray gun, space gun. They have now changed it to a revolver pistol as of today.

01:16:11 ◼   ► Oof.

01:16:12 ◼   ► Right, but that's because they were falling in line with literally every other vendor.

01:16:17 ◼   ► That's the most Microsoft thing ever.

01:16:20 ◼   ► But the thing was Microsoft did the right thing because interpretation is key.

01:16:27 ◼   ► And if every other person who saw that emoji saw a pistol, like an actual gun pistol that

01:16:35 ◼   ► we see in the real world, then it should be that.

01:16:38 ◼   ► Because a ray gun is a fun, cute thing, the same as a water pistol is.

01:16:44 ◼   ► And the interpretation of those two things are very different.

01:16:48 ◼   ► Like me sending a ray gun emoji to you is maybe more fun than me sending a revolver

01:16:54 ◼   ► pistol emoji to you, right?

01:16:56 ◼   ► So they were trying to kind of do something, but now they've kind of felt like, right,

01:17:00 ◼   ► everybody else seems like they've dug their heels in, it's a pistol, we'll change it to

01:17:04 ◼   ► a pistol so it looks like everybody else's emoji.

01:17:06 ◼   ► So even new emoji sets like Twitter's emoji set are being created and they're having pistols,

01:17:11 ◼   ► right?

01:17:12 ◼   ► to be made about Apple being the moral arbiter of our communications. Because if

01:17:20 ◼   ► you exclude a gun from emoji because a gun is an object that's sole purpose is to

01:17:26 ◼   ► kill or to hurt other human beings, then why do you have a cigarette emoji in the

01:17:33 ◼   ► emoji keyboard? Because you know what you do with cigarettes. A lot of these

01:17:37 ◼   ► emojis like the cigarette and the gun they were approved a long time ago and

01:17:42 ◼   ► when emoji wasn't a thing like it is now when it was like you had to get

01:17:47 ◼   ► that secret keyboard type thing and my understanding is now if something like a

01:17:52 ◼   ► gun or a cigarette was brought to the Unicode Consortium it would not get

01:17:56 ◼   ► through in the way that the rifle didn't get through a few weeks ago right there

01:17:59 ◼   ► was a there was a proposal to have a hunting rifle which was going to be as

01:18:03 ◼   ► part of like the activity section right like you would have a tennis racket you

01:18:08 ◼   ► to have a hunting rifle because it's considered a sport but that didn't get

01:18:12 ◼   ► through because they didn't want to put another gun or any more guns in the in

01:18:17 ◼   ► the emoji set in this in the like a visual emoji set so that stuff is not

01:18:21 ◼   ► getting through now and like you're right cigarette is really weird to have

01:18:24 ◼   ► in there but if somebody brought a cigarette to the emoji to the Unicode

01:18:29 ◼   ► consortium now it probably wouldn't get through on the grounds that you think

01:18:32 ◼   ► it's strange. I'm just saying like who are these companies to decide how people

01:18:38 ◼   ► live their lives? Yeah. Because I mean if you have a cigarette and you also

01:18:43 ◼   ► have alcohol emoji because you have the martini glass emoji you know who's why

01:18:50 ◼   ► are we trusting these companies to decide for us? Alcohol is a whole other

01:18:54 ◼   ► thing because there are gonna be more alcohol emojis. I do agree with Apple's

01:18:58 ◼   ► stance, right? And I would probably personally do the same, but I do

01:19:03 ◼   ► understand the concerns of "okay so now Apple is deciding to exclude some

01:19:10 ◼   ► objects which they don't politically align with because maybe by hiding them

01:19:16 ◼   ► from the emoji keyword they're sort of sending a message" and do we want the

01:19:21 ◼   ► emoji keyboard to send a message or do we want it to be a reflection of human

01:19:25 ◼   ► life however messed up and problematic that might be.

01:19:30 ◼   ► I am really struggling with this one.

01:19:33 ◼   ► Yep, me too.

01:19:34 ◼   ► Because I am very happy that there is no longer a gun emoji.

01:19:38 ◼   ► Yes.

01:19:39 ◼   ► Like, going forward from today, I am happy.

01:19:42 ◼   ► Agreed.

01:19:43 ◼   ► There are two things that I'm unhappy about.

01:19:44 ◼   ► I'm unhappy about the idea of retroactive changing of messages and intent from people.

01:19:52 ◼   ► and what I also don't like is because this is an agreed upon standard

01:19:56 ◼   ► that it's not images

01:19:59 ◼   ► it's interpreted by different platforms. I could send somebody

01:20:04 ◼   ► a fun water pistol but on their Android phone

01:20:09 ◼   ► I've just sent them a gun.

01:20:12 ◼   ► Yeah that's to me the biggest problem. I mean if you want to

01:20:16 ◼   ► get rid of the gun emoji then just hide it I guess

01:20:19 ◼   ► but replacing it with something that is so different in context is the problematic thing.

01:20:27 ◼   ► That's a great point because no vendor needs to show the entire emoji keyboard.

01:20:33 ◼   ► No, just don't use it and have the next version Unicode include a water gun if you want a

01:20:38 ◼   ► water gun.

01:20:39 ◼   ► But you're right, there's a tweet, it'll be in the show notes, it's in the chat too, from

01:20:45 ◼   ► Benjamin Mayer that really sums it up really well.

01:20:48 ◼   ► And you should go see that.

01:20:52 ◼   ► That to me is the problem here.

01:20:53 ◼   ► I agree with you, I like Apple's stance on it.

01:20:57 ◼   ► But what you have done is you've, instead of doing the right thing in the right way,

01:21:02 ◼   ► you've done the right thing in sort of a really bad, sort of clumsy way that's going to lead,

01:21:08 ◼   ► could lead to a lot of weird situations if people are doing things cross-platform.

01:21:13 ◼   ► If you're all iPhone, great, but not everyone has an iPhone.

01:21:16 ◼   ► This is an example of the best and worst of Apple. They're doing something that they think

01:21:23 ◼   ► is right for people and for humanity, which they tend to be really good at, but they're

01:21:29 ◼   ► doing it in a completely controlling and restrictive way to everybody else. It's like everybody

01:21:38 ◼   ► outside of the Apple ecosystem will get a worse deal now.

01:21:45 ◼   ► can they do right because they're dealing with Unicode what are they called

01:21:49 ◼   ► code points drop drop the gun we just said just don't show it yeah just just

01:21:53 ◼   ► take it out yeah but then you're gonna have people complain that on iOS you

01:21:56 ◼   ► don't have a gun emoji yeah but we don't now anyway well you have a water gun but

01:22:01 ◼   ► it's not the same yeah but you have something I think Myke's point is that

01:22:05 ◼   ► instead of doing something that would only be a little awkward they've done

01:22:09 ◼   ► something that is very inward looking and is going to lead to a lot of really

01:22:15 ◼   ► strange conversations. If they wanted a water gun, they could have just created

01:22:19 ◼   ► a zwidge emoji of a wave and a gun, hit the gun, and put the water gun in. So from

01:22:24 ◼   ► then on, if you need to use a gun for something and you're going to use the

01:22:27 ◼   ► water gun, you use that. But on other platforms, people either don't see it,

01:22:30 ◼   ► they see a weird gun with a wave, which doesn't make any sense, but like whatever,

01:22:34 ◼   ► it doesn't matter, but then it could also force other vendors to actually adopt the

01:22:38 ◼   ► water gun. There's no reason that Apple needed to change this because it's like,

01:22:43 ◼   ► "Oh, we shouldn't have guns anymore." They could just remove that emoji. Like, it could just go.

01:22:48 ◼   ► - Yeah. - Like, so this is why I struggle with it, because I agree that there shouldn't be a pistol.

01:22:53 ◼   ► I don't think that that is necessary to be there, but the kind of... this kind of, like, enforcing...

01:23:01 ◼   ► It's really difficult. I'm struggling with it, because I feel so strongly in both directions.

01:23:06 ◼   ► It's making me very confused. - I just wonder if we're gonna have lots more of these discussions,

01:23:13 ◼   ► because once you open up the Pandora box of unwanted emoji,

01:23:17 ◼   ► then you can apply this same idea to a whole other kind of emoji,

01:23:22 ◼   ► such as, I don't know, is there a bomb emoji?

01:23:24 ◼   ► I'm pretty sure there's a bomb emoji.

01:23:26 ◼   ► So what are you going to do? What's the purpose of a bomb?

01:23:29 ◼   ► So, you know, are you going to replace a bomb with a huge piñata box?

01:23:33 ◼   ► I don't know.

01:23:34 ◼   ► Water balloon.

01:23:34 ◼   ► Water balloon.

01:23:35 ◼   ► Maybe they're just going to switch the entire, you know,

01:23:39 ◼   ► gun themed emoji to water themed figurines. I don't know. But you can see how, I mean,

01:23:45 ◼   ► these objects in some way or another, they do exist in the real world. And people have

01:23:52 ◼   ► pistols, people have knives, and people unfortunately they also have bombs.

01:23:57 ◼   ► Yeah, we have knives and swords and hammers and pickaxes.

01:24:01 ◼   ► So what are you gonna do? Change them all to water themed pistols and bombs and balloons?

01:24:07 ◼   ► Difficult. What, you have like a foam sword?

01:24:10 ◼   ► Like, I don't know. This is why, like, this is a tricky thing that they've done to make a statement,

01:24:14 ◼   ► but there's maybe better ways they could have made that statement. But on the underlying level, I agree with the statement they made.

01:24:21 ◼   ► I'm only concerned, I do, I 100% with their idea.

01:24:26 ◼   ► But, as a company, once you make one of these statements,

01:24:29 ◼   ► then it's always gonna be a statement. Because you do it once, then you gotta do it forever, because otherwise it just sticks out.

01:24:37 ◼   ► you have the water gun emoji but you have a bomb emoji that's weird and then you're gonna get

01:24:41 ◼   ► complaints from people "oh why do you have water guns but don't you think bombs are also a problem

01:24:45 ◼   ► don't you think knives are also a problem you know knives kill as well" and it's just you dip your

01:24:51 ◼   ► toe into this discussion then it's you know the path to drowning it it's gonna be really short

01:24:58 ◼   ► let's let's finish on a more maybe even more controversial point

01:25:01 ◼   ► something else in beta for today is new keyboard sounds

01:25:05 ◼   ► They're awesome.

01:25:07 ◼   ► So, me and Steven were in alignment on the keyboard sound change previously.

01:25:12 ◼   ► You know when they changed it and we didn't like it and then they changed it back?

01:25:15 ◼   ► And you're crazy.

01:25:17 ◼   ► Now there are multiple keyboard sounds.

01:25:19 ◼   ► Yes.

01:25:20 ◼   ► And I like these ones.

01:25:22 ◼   ► So now you like them.

01:25:25 ◼   ► Let me tell you why.

01:25:26 ◼   ► What I didn't like last time was it was like change for change's sake.

01:25:31 ◼   ► Like there was no need to change the sounds.

01:25:33 ◼   ► Like you're just changing the sounds.

01:25:34 ◼   ► like why are you doing that? But now they've changed the sounds and added utility

01:25:39 ◼   ► because you can now hear when you hit the spacebar. There's a utility to that.

01:25:45 ◼   ► So it sounds different to the other keys?

01:25:48 ◼   ► Spacebar and Delete have a different sound to the other keys.

01:25:51 ◼   ► Nice.

01:25:51 ◼   ► It's like they added a new dimension for typing on the keyboard and there's like different layers of

01:25:59 ◼   ► here's what you're doing in a sound effect kind of way.

01:26:04 ◼   ► So that I'm on board with, right?

01:26:06 ◼   ► It's like, change it if you've got a reason to change it.

01:26:09 ◼   ► Just like changing it for like, oh, new sound for no reason

01:26:13 ◼   ► after 10 years.

01:26:14 ◼   ► Just seemed like a bit strange to me.

01:26:16 ◼   ► But changing it because now you're giving people

01:26:19 ◼   ► like a different use.

01:26:19 ◼   ► Like if you're not looking and you're typing

01:26:21 ◼   ► and you think you've hit the space key

01:26:23 ◼   ► but you don't hear that sound, you know you haven't.

01:26:24 ◼   ► I like that, that's cool for me.

01:26:26 ◼   ► I'm on board with that.

01:26:27 ◼   ► - Yeah, so now you're gonna keep your sounds enabled

01:26:29 ◼   ► or still? - No.

01:26:32 ◼   ► Why do you have to be so serious with your muted keyboard?

01:26:36 ◼   ► It's not about being serious. It's about the only time I ever type on the software keyboard is at night.

01:26:43 ◼   ► And the reason I do that is because I don't want to make sound on the hardware keyboard because Idina's sleeping.

01:26:49 ◼   ► So I don't want to make sound on the software keyboard either.

01:26:53 ◼   ► Don't you type on your iPhone during the day?

01:26:56 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:26:56 ◼   ► I'm just saying you should add a little more fun to your life and these bubbles are fun.

01:27:01 ◼   ► Maybe I'll turn it back on on my phone.

01:27:04 ◼   ► Although, I mean, who knows if I'm going to switch away from Gboard?

01:27:09 ◼   ► Oh my God.

01:27:10 ◼   ► Still going with Gboard.

01:27:13 ◼   ► Because it is far superior to Apple's keyboard for me.

01:27:16 ◼   ► The predictions and the autocorrect is better.

01:27:20 ◼   ► I guess when you don't need to type into languages, it's fine.

01:27:24 ◼   ► The swiping is fantastic.

01:27:27 ◼   ► And the ability to search for emoji by text?

01:27:31 ◼   ► Can't beat it.

01:27:32 ◼   ► We'll talk about it again.

01:27:35 ◼   ► We'll follow up on this in a couple of weeks.

01:27:38 ◼   ► Why don't you promise this to me?

01:27:41 ◼   ► Give a try to the Apple keyboard.

01:27:43 ◼   ► And tell me how it goes.

01:27:45 ◼   ► I will when I upgrade my phone.

01:27:47 ◼   ► Whenever that will be.

01:27:48 ◼   ► I don't know when that's gonna be.

01:27:49 ◼   ► Oh, still not on iOS 10?

01:27:51 ◼   ► Not on my phone. On my iPad Pro I am.

01:27:53 ◼   ► my big iPad Pro, but not on my iPhone.

01:27:56 ◼   ► - All the time I've been texting you these stickers

01:27:59 ◼   ► and iMessage stuff, and I assume I'm just annoying you

01:28:03 ◼   ► on the phone.

01:28:04 ◼   ► - Nope, I'm on my iPad.

01:28:05 ◼   ► I'm at home.

01:28:06 ◼   ► - Yeah, but when you open the phone,

01:28:08 ◼   ► you get all of these weird messages.

01:28:10 ◼   ► - Yes.

01:28:11 ◼   ► - I'm sorry.

01:28:12 ◼   ► - I don't care.

01:28:13 ◼   ► If you wanna find our show for this week,

01:28:14 ◼   ► head on over to relay.fm/connected/102.

01:28:18 ◼   ► Thanks again to our lovely sponsors,

01:28:20 ◼   ► the great folk over at Pingdom, Ring and Squarespace.

01:28:23 ◼   ► If you want to find us online, Federico is at maxlories.net

01:28:26 ◼   ► and he is @Vittici on Twitter, V I T I C C I.

01:28:30 ◼   ► Steven is at 512pixels.net and he's @ismh

01:28:34 ◼   ► and I am @imike, I M Y K E.

01:28:38 ◼   ► We'll be back next time.

01:28:39 ◼   ► Until then, thank you so much for listening.

01:28:41 ◼   ► Say goodbye guys.

01:28:42 ◼   ► - Adios. - Adios.