0:00:00[Music]
0:00:06From Relay FM, this is Connected, episode number 98. Today's show is brought to you by Squarespace and Ring.
0:00:15My name is Myke Hurley and I am joined by Steven Hackett.
0:00:19Hey buddy.
0:00:20How are you?
0:00:21I'm good, how are you today?
0:00:22I'm very good. Since the two of us right now, there is a rumor on the streets that Federico partied really hard for the 4th of July.
0:00:29He ate lots of hot dogs, I think lots of pineapple pepperoni pizza, stuff like that.
0:00:37So he's going to be joining us a little bit later on in the show, which is good because
0:00:40that gives us a clear path to talk about Hackintoshes.
0:00:44So that's on the way.
0:00:47That's coming.
0:00:48And everybody just hit pause and it was like, we're done, we're done.
0:00:52Where's the Federico section?
0:00:53No, Hackintosh is a little later on in the show today, which is not a thing I thought
0:00:58we'd be discussing in 2016, but here we are.
0:01:00- TLDR.
0:01:01- Exactly, but before any of that,
0:01:04you sent me an iMessage yesterday
0:01:06about a weird dream that you had.
0:01:09Or was it this morning?
0:01:10Who knows, time is irrelevant.
0:01:12And I figured that you should tell this story
0:01:15to our audience because it's kind of amazing.
0:01:18- I told it to my wife as well,
0:01:19and she just sort of looked at me
0:01:21as if I may have been hit in the head with a brick.
0:01:24- It's probably not the first time.
0:01:26- I am one to have dreams.
0:01:27know about you Myke, you know, I think like my kids don't really remember their dreams
0:01:30but I dream vividly and remember them. And tell me them. Most of the time. And tell them
0:01:37to you. And since it's July and there's no tech news, and this is a tech-related dream,
0:01:41we're gonna talk about it. Federico is never going to miss another episode after this.
0:01:45He's like, "What am I letting them do?" So I had a dream that I was at the Apple store
0:01:52and had to have an iPad repaired and they needed me to remove my SIM card, which is
0:01:58bogus because they could just do it themselves. Anyways, so I was invited to the back of the
0:02:01store to do that because I'm a very important person at the Apple Store apparently in my
0:02:05dream and I discovered that the new Apple Store in Memphis includes an Apple Museum
0:02:12and my brain, this is really what's interesting, my brain populated the shelves of this dreamland
0:02:18Apple museum with models and machines on my wish list.
0:02:24So basically my brain is cruising eBay at night, I guess is what's happening now.
0:02:30I think the thing that is the most interesting to me about this is that like your brain has
0:02:35internalized that wish list.
0:02:38You know, like deep down in your subconscious somewhere that entire list is written out.
0:02:42To be fair I looked at it like just a couple of days ago because I have a new machine coming
0:02:47my way thanks to a reader who's sending me a computer. And so I was actually just on
0:02:54that list because I was marking it off the list. And so I guess it just got absorbed
0:02:58into the part of my brain in charge of dreamscapes and fired it up a couple days later.
0:03:03What are you getting now? An original MacBook Air. It's not a good computer.
0:03:10Any specific reason that you want? Why was that on your wishlist? It wasn't even really
0:03:15a good computer.
0:03:16super strange and has a little flappy door, which is fun. And they didn't make them very
0:03:21long and it only runs three operating systems, 10.5, 10.6, and 10.7. Just an unusual computer
0:03:26and you know it's definitely like a archetype for designs that were to come.
0:03:32Flappy door sounds like my game follow-up to 123 Notetaker.
0:03:36Yeah, flappy door.
0:03:40Based on the original MacBook Air and you just have to keep tapping the screen to get
0:03:46get the door to open and close and then like whilst it's open before it closes
0:03:49up again on its own you have to try and like throw a USB in there or something.
0:03:53And it gets the longer you use it the hotter it gets until it shuts down. Yeah
0:03:57exactly you have limited time before the MacBook just singes your legs which
0:04:03happened to my brother with that exact computer by the way. That's not good at
0:04:08all. Yep and he drove that thing into the into the absolute ground. We do have a
0:04:14little actual follow-up. We had email from... Let's go with Yuri.
0:04:20Yuri? I was going to go with Yuri. You're learning but I just feel like I just want to help you.
0:04:25I don't want to put you in the situation where you say "jiri".
0:04:28Yeah. You know? "Jiri". "Jiri" sounds like how people from South Carolina say "jerry".
0:04:34Goodbye South Carolinians. Anyways, they write in to say iOS 10...
0:04:39talk about iOS 10 international keyboards. So Federico was talking about
0:04:44this in the last episode that you can now switch between multiple languages on
0:04:49the keyboard and iOS 10. Obviously a huge addition for somebody like Federico who
0:04:53works in English but lives his life in Italian. So Yuri wants to use this with
0:04:58an English keyboard and with a Czech keyboard but he can't because the Czech
0:05:03keyboard does not support predictive typing which seems to be a requirement
0:05:07for iOS 10 to use this bilingual setup.
0:05:11Yeah this required a little bit of research from me and you today because
0:05:15we had this follow-up come in and Yuri basically just said "oh I can't use it
0:05:20because of predictive typing" and we were like "it doesn't make any sense"
0:05:24so we did some looking around and apparently I didn't know this the
0:05:28predictive typing in iOS I guess that came with 9?
0:05:32I think so.
0:05:33It only supports a handful of languages really.
0:05:36It's like English, Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese,
0:05:40Russian, Spanish, Thai and Turkish. That's all it supports.
0:05:43When like language support is like three times that amount so
0:05:47interesting.
0:05:48Yeah so there's a big page, we're going to link to it in the show notes right to the
0:05:52section we're talking about
0:05:54but if you scroll up and down this page it's basically
0:05:56iOS feature availability based on language so like spotlight suggestions
0:06:01are only again in a handful of countries
0:06:04Of course the music stores in a lot of countries TV programs are only available
0:06:10in six Australia, Canada, France, Germany, the UK and the USA.
0:06:14I knew that their features were based regionally but I didn't know there
0:06:19was a single page on Apple's website that explained all of it so it's super
0:06:22fascinating and to Yuri's point there seems to be some sort of conflict with
0:06:28this new system and predictive type and so I don't know if predictive type is
0:06:31coming to more languages which obviously would be a huge win for international
0:06:37users or maybe that you know you're in users like you're just going to kind of
0:06:42be stuck where because the features aren't fully there in the other language
0:06:47that they can't fully take use of what iOS 10 has to offer but either way it's a
0:06:52really interesting page and one that I like you not aware of until today.
0:06:57No. And these things, I assume, they come to other languages, but I think when you have
0:07:02languages that have smaller populations, they unfortunately, I suppose, just get deprioritized.
0:07:09Oh, absolutely.
0:07:11Sorry Czechoslovakians.
0:07:12Yeah, it's rough. I've been to the Czech Republic.
0:07:15Good.
0:07:16It's a lovely country.
0:07:18So you've done a great thing this week. You've done an incredible thing. You've joined, maybe
0:07:26if only temporarily definitely temporarily maybe if only temporarily the
0:07:31multi-pad life style which is fantastic I would like to welcome you of open arms
0:07:36to the world of multiple iPad pros congratulations I'm not sure it counts if
0:07:41the big one is like in a box somewhere because I'm moving like still counts
0:07:46it's not it's been off for a week doesn't matter still counts so so I've
0:07:51been spending time with the 9.7 inch iPad pro this week and talked a little
0:07:55bit on Twitter the other night but it's
0:07:58really, I mean, as you guys have already
0:08:00discovered it is a great device and the
0:08:02thing that I am sort of rediscovering is
0:08:04that 9.7 inch size because when I went
0:08:08to the 12.9 in the fall I haven't really
0:08:12even picked up an Air 2 since then. My
0:08:14wife has one so one's in the house but
0:08:16you know at most I'm picking it up to like
0:08:18fix her iCloud backups when they explode
0:08:20every six weeks. Not using it whatsoever.
0:08:23you know it's it's way more portable than the big one the trade-off of course
0:08:28is that multitasking especially when you have the software keyboard up is just
0:08:33um you know a lot it's difficult it's cramped just like what I was saying last
0:08:38week you end up with kind of two quarters of applications yeah yeah it's
0:08:43uh that's a that's a little rough but I gotta say it's it's way more portable
0:08:48and I'm not one to use an iPad at my desk like Federico is I mean I'm using
0:08:52it up and around through the house but
0:08:54it's great and the true tone is
0:08:58amazing and at this point I only have a
0:09:02couple of days left with this I'm really
0:09:04kind of borrowing it from somebody. At
0:09:08this point if I had to choose I may
0:09:11choose the 9.7 moving forward but I don't
0:09:13know what I'm going to do I'm not doing
0:09:15both I can't justify it but I wanted
0:09:18to understand why you guys spoke about
0:09:21about it so highly and I definitely have done that.
0:09:24I feel like over the history of this show and the prompt, you have done this about a
0:09:30billion times.
0:09:31I like to just fill things out.
0:09:33You change sizes of devices constantly.
0:09:36You go from 15 inch to 13 inch to 15 inch and then you go from big iPad to iPad mini
0:09:41to 12.9 inch iPad now to 9.7.
0:09:44Very indecisive.
0:09:45Very indecisive.
0:09:46It's true.
0:09:47you also buy 13 colors of iMacs because you can't pick the one you like the most.
0:09:51As each morning I can choose which anti-computer I want to do my work on.
0:09:56So you have the multi-Mac life I guess right? Is that your thing? I guess that's your thing.
0:10:01We hadn't thought of that before.
0:10:02I'm the only one doing it.
0:10:04Well you and nobody else would. So about the 9.7 again like I will underscore this,
0:10:09like I said this to you the other day. This is I believe the best all-purpose computer
0:10:15you can buy today. Like if you just are a person that wants to surf the web and do some email
0:10:22and maybe check a calendar like this is the computer with the keyboard especially I think
0:10:28it is like the ultimate computer for someone these days like I know a lot of people including you
0:10:33have laughed about Phil Schiller saying like this is that the 9.7 is the perfect replacement for
0:10:38somebody who's looking to move from Windows to a new personal computer I believe it I'm so in on
0:10:44it. I'm, you know, everybody knows this by now, but like I think it is just a fantastic
0:10:49multipurpose all around machine that you can do basically anything with if you put your
0:10:55mind to it. And most people don't have to put their minds to it because the things that
0:10:59they want to do are very simple. And I hope that Apple can continue to try and crack this,
0:11:05like this nut, but they really have to attack their own devices before they can do this.
0:11:10I'm not confident they're gonna go that far.
0:11:14- One thing that really has surprised me
0:11:17is the smart keyboard on the 9.7 is totally usable.
0:11:21I wrote this big thing before they shipped it
0:11:23saying this is gonna be janky.
0:11:25- Everyone, like Jason said the same, right?
0:11:27Like he had absolutely no hopes for it, but you use it.
0:11:30And it's like, oh, this is perfectly fine.
0:11:33- It's not as, I don't think it's as good
0:11:35as the 12.9 keyboard.
0:11:37I prefer the larger one.
0:11:38In fact last night I was using both.
0:11:40Okay, I've been using the small one for like a week.
0:11:43- Oh, I thought it was in a box.
0:11:45- Ah, box it.
0:11:46- Sneaked out of the box, ah, yeah.
0:11:48- It's nuts, back in the box.
0:11:49The smaller keyboard is not as good,
0:11:53but it's perfectly serviceable,
0:11:55and definitely a lot lighter.
0:11:56You pick up the little one,
0:11:58and then you pick up the big one,
0:11:59and you're like, holy moly,
0:12:00this one is made of lead and concrete.
0:12:02- Yeah.
0:12:03- Anyways, so that's going on.
0:12:05I will follow up with what I decide to do.
0:12:07keep both iPads.
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0:14:49So some news broke last week, which is not big news, but I think it kind of follows on
0:14:54for a bunch of things that we've spoken about in the past, which is Evernote has announced
0:14:58some new pricing tiers.
0:15:02It's kind of a bit tricky, I think, to understand what's happening here, which is part of the
0:15:07problem.
0:15:08Like if you're going to announce some pricing changes, make them clear, and at least I don't
0:15:11feel very clear on this.
0:15:14Do you have a handle on what's going on?
0:15:16Yeah, they're discharging more.
0:15:18Alright but there's also like the free plan now you can only have
0:15:23certain amount of devices or something like that.
0:15:25So it's really two things so the the if you just sign up and sync it for free you are now limited to two devices
0:15:33so if you are using a phone and six iPads and a computer like you are you have to pay
0:15:40and if you are paying those prices have now gone up a noticeable amount.
0:15:46It's actually the second time I think that Evernote's bumped pricing in the last 12 months.
0:15:51You know they've...
0:15:54I think the bigger more interesting thing is here is like how is Evernote doing as a business?
0:15:58And my guess is not super well.
0:16:02I think anytime you put up prices like this it's because you need the money.
0:16:06Yeah and...
0:16:08Something isn't balancing right? Which is why you put up the price.
0:16:10And you know they've let some people off which is always hard to see and
0:16:15got a new CEO and you know Evernote is in the unicorn club of the valuation
0:16:23over a billion dollars but a lot of people have speculated I think including
0:16:27us that they may be the first of those companies to to not make it and I think
0:16:32that the the reasoning is that you know they are now competing in a space that
0:16:39has many more options than it did when they launched and Evernote has
0:16:44not focused on in my opinion not focused
0:16:46on the things they need to focus on to
0:16:48stay ahead where if they had made their
0:16:51clients better and had worked on
0:16:54importing and exporting and worked on
0:16:56syncing without conflicts multiple
0:16:58people as opposed to a weird retail
0:17:01business then maybe they wouldn't be in
0:17:04this place but many Apple people at
0:17:05least including myself have completely
0:17:08moved to notes which is built in and
0:17:09free and works with iCloud and does
0:17:12everything I needed out of Evernote
0:17:13except for sharing and now that's coming this fall.
0:17:16So they have increased competition, they haven't focused on what made them great, and now I
0:17:21think they're suffering for it, which really stinks.
0:17:24I hope them well.
0:17:28And I hope that they can figure it out, but it just really seems like it may be too little
0:17:31too late.
0:17:32So I am an Evernote subscriber and I'm very confused.
0:17:36This is part of the problem.
0:17:37I don't know what's happening here.
0:17:38So I've not got any email from them about this yet.
0:17:42And I am currently on Evernote Premium,
0:17:45and I pay three pounds 99 pence a month.
0:17:48But when I look at their subscription plans,
0:17:50that's what Plus is now, and Premium is a different price.
0:17:53So I have no idea what's gonna happen.
0:17:55Like I'm kind of a bit confused
0:17:59as to what is happening with my Evernote account.
0:18:02And I'm happy to pay, like, I mean, even now,
0:18:04like I'm looking at like $3.99 a month
0:18:06when I honestly use it a few times a year.
0:18:09And I'm thinking about trying to see
0:18:11if I can migrate stuff away from Evernote.
0:18:13What I use Evernote for now
0:18:15is just to email travel documents to.
0:18:18So when I book rooms and I book flights,
0:18:21I like to save the PDFs basically somewhere.
0:18:25And I've always done it in Evernote.
0:18:26So then, you know, they're not PDFs,
0:18:28but like they're full rich text,
0:18:30like forwarded versions of the emails, which I do.
0:18:32and that requires plus or premium to be able to do that and
0:18:36Also because I have so many devices I would have to have plus or premium now
0:18:40$3.99 a month like I'll keep playing that for now like if that's what it's gonna be
0:18:45But if they want to put up my pricing which they've may very well
0:18:49And I don't know if it's like because I pay through iTunes or something like they're struggling to get in contact with me
0:18:54I don't really know what's going on
0:18:56But if they're gonna put it up
0:18:58I don't know how I feel like I might stick with $3.99
0:19:02But it's making me think like I'm moving a lot of stuff away like so when I take a trip now
0:19:07I make like a plain text note of all of this stuff like all of my confirmation
0:19:11Numbers and all of my addresses and stuff because I like it all to be in the notes app
0:19:15but I'm considering
0:19:18changing and as
0:19:20In an out land says in the chat room
0:19:22Maybe this will be one of the key features of one two three note taker is to allow all of this
0:19:26Rich text import clearly that I can pull this in there and then I don't need Evernote at all
0:19:30But it's making me rethink it simply because like Evernote has now popped themselves back into my brain again
0:19:36Where previously they were kind of just like a dumb silo, but now it's like oh company's here forgot about you
0:19:41And now I don't know I'm thinking about it
0:19:44Like I really wished that Apple would have some kind of I don't know like
0:19:48Way to make this work for me in the notes app like take an email and save it there and maybe I just need to
0:19:53Find a new like locker of some description, you know
0:19:56I use airmail and airmail could turn those into PDFs super easily.
0:20:00So maybe I just have to take these PDFs of these emails that I get and save them
0:20:05to something else that stores this stuff. I don't know.
0:20:08Yeah I make PDFs and just save them to Notes directly because you can
0:20:13double tap them and open them as full screen PDFs.
0:20:17That's a good point. Maybe I should just do that.
0:20:18That works really well for me.
0:20:19Yeah I hadn't thought of that. I always forget that the Notes app can handle PDFs.
0:20:23Yep, it's great. So that's how I do it. And so I had a WWDC notebook. I actually
0:20:31just got rid of it the other night. And so there was a note for flights, a note for
0:20:34Airbnb, and I could go in there, I could open the PDF, and it was, you know, straight
0:20:39from my Expedia account telling me, you know, all my flight information. Not as
0:20:44seamless as forwarding an email, but it's pretty quick. And, you know, for me, we've
0:20:49talked about when it came out, I wrote a big thing on it, notes is really good. And
0:20:53And there are a few things that bug me,
0:20:55especially in the Mac client,
0:20:56but a lot of those, including the font size,
0:21:00are actually fixed in Sierra.
0:21:02And so they have continued to work on it,
0:21:04and adding sharing is a huge thing.
0:21:07And they're slowly chipping away at these other services,
0:21:11but seeing Evernote struggling to make sense
0:21:16of a business model in a world
0:21:18where that particular business model
0:21:22not be relevant anymore is hard to watch and it'll be interesting to see if they
0:21:28can pull it off and maybe they can do this and the hardcore
0:21:31event people will stay and it's enough maybe they have to continue to tinker
0:21:36with it but either way it was it was disappointing to see and difficult to
0:21:39see because I used it for years and and really did enjoy it I just you know have
0:21:46have moved on. Yeah for sure. So talking about moving on. Hackintosh's. Why are we
0:21:55talking about hackintosh's again? Because it's 2009. I forgot about that. No so this guy
0:22:04Myke Rundle. Myke Rundle wrote a medium post. We'll put a link to it and my
0:22:12article in the show notes. Basically Myke put together a $1200
0:22:18hackintosh and he writes all about it in this medium post. He goes into like a
0:22:22lot of nerdy detail about the processor and the RAM and power supply, all
0:22:26the stuff. He has a picture of like these boxes from Newegg with all of
0:22:31his computer guts in it and he puts it together and it runs OS X. And I found it
0:22:37really interesting for a couple of reasons.
0:22:39firstly I did this back in 2009 on a couple netbooks and back then it was
0:22:45the Dell Mini 9. It was super simple to do. You basically just put a disk in and
0:22:52had your drivers and you were you were good to go.
0:22:55And I kind of assumed when I left that behind that it had sort of faded away
0:23:00and you would hear every now and again about it but building a cantoshes is
0:23:05like still going on and really in a big way. And so there's this website he
0:23:12Myke links to it and talks about it called tonymacx86.com that has tutorials
0:23:17and forums and updates and like parts lists that they put together every month
0:23:22so like they keep up with all these different parts you can use and so if
0:23:26you just want to go and like go down their shopping list and buy all these
0:23:28parts put your own computer together.
0:23:31Well what's most interesting to me is why people do this.
0:23:35I think there are primarily two reasons, and I'm curious Myke to see what you think about
0:23:39these.
0:23:40The first is I think that people just like to tinker.
0:23:42There's something that people find really attractive about putting their own anything
0:23:48together, especially computers, right?
0:23:49That knowing every component, knowing every connection, being able to go in and take a
0:23:54part out and replace it with something new.
0:23:57That is very enjoyable to a lot of people and I totally get that.
0:24:03I have things in my life that I am that way about, just not my Macs.
0:24:08But I think too, and I think that Myke writes about this, is that I think some of this comes
0:24:13from a frustration with the stagnation of Mac hardware.
0:24:17I feel like on the Mac rumors buying guide everything is lit up red.
0:24:21The Mac Pro hasn't been updated in about 72 years.
0:24:25And there are people who need high-end Macs that Apple can't service because their stuff
0:24:30is all aging.
0:24:32And you know maybe we're right around the corner from all this stuff being updated.
0:24:35I surely hope so.
0:24:38But you know if you need a custom built computer for like a very particular thing then maybe
0:24:45hackintosh is the way to go where you can squeeze a lot more CPU out of a machine running
0:24:50OS X than anything you can buy from Cupertino.
0:24:53And if you are in that situation and you're willing to take the trade-offs, which we can
0:24:59talk about in a second, then maybe it's a viable thing.
0:25:02I don't know, what do you think, Michael?
0:25:04How do you feel about the tinkering thing in particular?
0:25:07I don't feel it.
0:25:10For hardware products, I just don't get it.
0:25:14The idea of...
0:25:16The reason I'm a Macintosh owner is because I don't want to build a PC.
0:25:20One of the clear reasons that I love my Macs is because I don't have to think about buying
0:25:26the correct graphics card, buying the right RAM that will work with the CPU that I'm buying.
0:25:31I just don't, I've never really had a feeling for that.
0:25:33I've never built a PC.
0:25:35It's just not something that I'm interested in doing.
0:25:37But I know that there are people that want to do it.
0:25:39And I guess for people that were PC users maybe in the early 2000s and used to build
0:25:45their own gaming PCs and stuff, and then they've moved over to the Mac because they like OS
0:25:5010. I can see how it is a thing that you might be difficult to let go of, so you might want
0:25:55to get back into it. And I don't really think that's why Myke Rundle did this. He seems
0:26:00to be more in the camp of "I'm upset of how long I'm waiting to buy this hardware that
0:26:06is more expensive and then it just sits on the shelf and gets old." And I can understand
0:26:12that, but I know this will upset the people that feel this way. I just feel like that's
0:26:18part of what you're doing here. This is just something you need to accept if you're in
0:26:23the Macintosh world. That products are updated maybe once every couple of years and sometimes
0:26:30you're going to be on something that's not so great for you. And I know that there's
0:26:33been a lot of discussion on ATP recently about the Mac Pro and trust me I get it. There are
0:26:37certain computers that Apple makes that just fall by the wayside and if you're the type
0:26:43of person that wants hardware to be at the bleeding edge, you shouldn't be buying a Mac
0:26:48Pro, maybe the iMac is the right machine for you because it does get updated more frequently.
0:26:55But I can see how it can lead someone down the path of wanting to build their own computer
0:27:00because then they can dictate how fast it is and they can upgrade it as they want to.
0:27:05And I know that was why the cheese grater was so popular with a lot of people because
0:27:09it was expandable.
0:27:10And whilst the Mac Pro is kind of to a point, the current one, a lot of the parts that people
0:27:16want to be able to upgrade they can't because either it's one that is not upgradeable or
0:27:22is a very specific type of part that just isn't really made right like there are some
0:27:26weird connectors and stuff that people don't really make a lot of stuff for am I right
0:27:30in thinking that? Yeah I mean everything is like custom inside
0:27:36that the new trash can design and Apple's point of view is like if you want to expand
0:27:41do whatever Thunderbolt was like great no one wants to do that so it definitely
0:27:46was a big step backwards from the the cheese grater design where you could
0:27:50open it and put you know like Syracuse is still in life support with a new
0:27:54graphics card and you can put SSD in over the PCI bus so you can do lots of
0:27:59stuff in it that you just can't do even in the current one and it's you know
0:28:04it's something to think about when when you're buying a system of when was it
0:28:09last updated and and I generally am one
0:28:12to say if you need a computer go buy a
0:28:13computer and fine print by the most
0:28:17computer you can afford like my macbook
0:28:18pro is almost decked out I didn't do the
0:28:22dual GPU thing but other than that like
0:28:25the biggest SSD I could put in it like
0:28:27because I'm going to use it for a long
0:28:29time right and I know that if I spend a
0:28:32little money on the front end I'm gonna be
0:28:33happier in the long run because because
0:28:34I can't open it and put a bigger drive
0:28:36anymore but what's where these people are falling into the pressure point is
0:28:43that I need a computer to do X right these these high-end applications and
0:28:48Apple's hardware is just just languishing and that's really frustrating
0:28:53if you need to get work done on something that you know just can't just
0:28:57can't cut it anymore but it's kind of the other side of this is all the the
0:29:03trade-offs right so you can go you can go build something. Well part of it is in
0:29:07trying to actually put OS X on these machines. OS X people may remember this
0:29:13from the the Intel switch there was a lot of hubbub about it then there's
0:29:18actually in the hardware of a Mac there are checks that OS X looks for and says
0:29:26am I running on a valid Macintosh computer yes or no and so you have to
0:29:30fake that. Apple uses some weird stuff with the Broadcom Wi-Fi and Bluetooth
0:29:37chipsets for like continuity and handoff that are really difficult to to mimic
0:29:44with third-party hardware. And the holy grail in this article is iMessage. I
0:29:49didn't know this till I read this. iMessage apparently is tied to your
0:29:53computer's like serial or MAC address and so they like spoofing that is very
0:29:59difficult and there's some people have figured it out but it seems super
0:30:02sketchy. If you're going to build something like this you have to be aware
0:30:06that you are doing something outside the bounds of what Apple says you should do.
0:30:10And so some things aren't going to work. Things like software updates are going
0:30:14to be your enemy. You can't just run you know the new version of El Cabotan if
0:30:20it comes out you know 10.11.6 or whatever because it could explode your entire
0:30:24thing and so you're waiting on the community to say this update is safe if
0:30:28you run these components, you may need this patch file to run it, login to change your
0:30:34GPU driver, there's all these little things and there are people who, if you're into this
0:30:40then that's fine, right? But this is not, like what I'm getting to, this is not a casual
0:30:45users type solution. It also isn't really the solution for the
0:30:51the majority of Mac owners. The majority of Mac power users aren't interested or in this
0:31:01camp at all.
0:31:03There are people that do this, and all of the things that don't work are flat out one
0:31:09of the reasons I wouldn't do this. I don't want any of that stuff to not work. I don't
0:31:12want graphics card issues, I don't want audio issues, I don't want iMessage problems. But
0:31:16even just like the steps that Rundle runs down and how you actually install OS X onto
0:31:22the computer, it's like, no. It makes me remember when I, you know, would unlock the bootloader
0:31:28on an Android phone. It's like here is like ten steps where you don't fully understand
0:31:33what you're doing and you just got your fingers crossed that you put everything in the right
0:31:35order because otherwise it's all going to explode into a ball of flame. You know, I
0:31:40am not criticizing anybody that does this. It's just merely pointing out that like there
0:31:45is no bone in my body that wants to be involved in this. Especially like, I can't imagine
0:31:50making the stuff that I need to make to earn my living on a computer that is sketchily
0:31:56put together. I would be so scared that like at any moment it's just gonna stop.
0:32:01Yeah, no, I agree. And when I was doing it back in 2009, that was not my main system.
0:32:07I had a MacBook Pro, then I had this little Dell Mini 9 that was adorable with a leopard
0:32:12on it that I would take the class and take notes on and knowing that you know
0:32:16updates would would break it and that the battery life wasn't very good and
0:32:21sometimes audio didn't work until you reset the PRAM like all this you know
0:32:25all this stuff. It's interesting though that it's still a thing right that's
0:32:31like the whole underlying thing of my post about it was like I had just assumed
0:32:34this had all gone away but clearly it's still a a vibrant community and it'll be
0:32:41interesting to see what happens in this community long term. I don't think Apple is
0:32:45playing cat and mouse with this like they did with iOS jailbreaking
0:32:50back in the day. Like do you remember like it's a jailbreak would
0:32:55come out and then Apple would update just to block that jailbreak and to go back
0:32:58and forth. And for a while Palm was sinking the PalmPourri through iTunes
0:33:02and then cat and mouse it. Like I don't think Apple's doing that here. Maybe if
0:33:06you run one of these you feel differently but from the outside my
0:33:09My guess is that Apple just doesn't pay attention to this very much and that they're gonna do
0:33:13this stuff for their hardware and if it breaks, Hackintosh is too bad, but if it doesn't,
0:33:17then, you know, this very small community got off lucky.
0:33:21Yeah, I mean, the thing is, I think Apple probably feel about it now, is like, we know
0:33:25we're gonna break this.
0:33:26Like, people that do this, they're not like setting out to do it, but yeah, this is definitely
0:33:31gonna happen, it's gonna break.
0:33:33Right.
0:33:34And what will happen to this community if Mac switched to ARM processors? Like, if
0:33:41the MacBook ends up running the A12 system-funded chip from Apple instead of an
0:33:47Intel chip, like, what happens in this community? Is it going to be even
0:33:54possible to do? I guess it's no, or that it'd be much more difficult. And so it's, you
0:33:58know, this community really didn't exist in the PowerPC days. It is a byproduct
0:34:04product of Apple switching to Intel for the most part and what happens if Apple
0:34:08switches away from Intel at some point and you know this is gonna be a thing
0:34:12that is just locked to this period in the Mac's history but anyways still a
0:34:16thing today I learned. What do you think about the idea of the Mac's going to ARM?
0:34:25It's complicated I am looking at something like the MacBook you know the
0:34:33the Intel Core M is just so slow could Apple deliver a faster MacBook for it
0:34:37right on ARM then it would be a win for the MacBook.
0:34:43If Apple could build ARM chipsets that were powerful enough for the MacBook Pro, the iMac, the Mac Pro
0:34:50let's just say that's possible.
0:34:52There's still a lot of trade-offs you have obviously you have another developer transition
0:34:58even though they handled power PC to Intel really well. We'll put a link in the
0:35:02show notes, actually just wrote a thing about that. It was fun reliving that.
0:35:06There'd be a developer transition to deal with, but also you would lose
0:35:12compatibility with Windows and while a bunch of us don't care about that,
0:35:17people do need to run Windows and virtualization, they need to run
0:35:23boot camp for things like cross-browser
0:35:26development. You know, Casey Liss, our good
0:35:30friend of the show, used to work on the
0:35:33Microsoft stack. So he had a MacBook Pro
0:35:36that he ran Windows on to get his work
0:35:37done and he had to do that at work. It
0:35:40was his job. And so what about all those
0:35:43people? You know, all those people would
0:35:44lose out because running Windows on a
0:35:47virtualizing Windows on an ARM-based Mac
0:35:49wouldn't work. It would be, you know, you'd
0:35:52have to do all sorts of crazy stuff like we used to have to do in the PowerPC days. So
0:35:56they're trade-offs. My hope is that Intel and Apple can work through these issues they
0:36:01seem to be having and that we can stay on Intel because there are lots of benefits.
0:36:06Why put developers to a transition on a platform that already is seeing developers slow down?
0:36:12So you know what I mean? Why put a tax on Mac developers? You should be making Mac development
0:36:20easier than ever. No, I didn't think of that. Mac development is slow now anyway. Imagine
0:36:27what would happen if all of your Mac apps had to be re-engineered to run on the new
0:36:34architecture. How many of them just wouldn't come with it? I think of all the tiny little
0:36:41things that I use, like the streaming software that we use and stuff like that. I just can't
0:36:46imagine a lot of that surviving. And that was true when they switched
0:36:52until 11 years ago. A lot of stuff died off because a lot of developers had older
0:36:58power PC apps that maybe they carbonized so they ran on OS X and all those just
0:37:02kind of went away and a lot of them were replaced with new stuff right there's
0:37:05always new developers who are foolish enough to get into it but it's like I
0:37:10I just don't see the strategy tax being worth it.
0:37:17So I don't know.
0:37:18I hope that they stay on Intel.
0:37:20I hope that Intel can figure it out.
0:37:21I hope the MacBook gets better.
0:37:24If Apple switches to ARM, am I going to light myself on fire?
0:37:27No, of course not.
0:37:28We'll work through it as a community.
0:37:30But either way, I don't think they're close.
0:37:32There could be a ton of benefits, right?
0:37:35Just a huge amount of benefits if they did do it.
0:37:39if you remove all the bad stuff. Right, well they would have, they'd be able to do it in-house,
0:37:46assumably, and Apple clearly likes that. They could really fine-tune it for what they
0:37:51need. You know, a lot of the product decisions that go into the MacBook that people just
0:37:55get mad about, there's a product decision that's dictated by the Intel chipset they're using.
0:37:59Right, people are like, "Why is this in a Thunderbolt?" Well, the Core M doesn't support
0:38:02Thunderbolt, so you don't get it. Like, Apple is working within the framework set up by
0:38:07And yes there are things, yes chat room I'm aware of Rosetta, like there are things that could
0:38:13that could ease this transition but I think that it'd still be too big of a
0:38:19hurdle for a lot of people to do to jump on their own. Irrespective of something
0:38:26like Rosetta existing, Rosetta went away. It did. You cannot run PowerPC code
0:38:34anywhere. I think it went away in... I think in Lion.
0:38:39And also like there's nothing to say that something like this could exist.
0:38:43Right? Like I don't know about the architecture and why it could work, right?
0:38:48Like the virtualization and that sort of stuff, but you know, there might just be not a way
0:38:51to do it. You could run Windows on an ARM Mac but it would be like running
0:38:55Windows on a PowerPC Mac way back in the day. It's gonna be very slow because you're
0:38:58actually virtualizing the processors and everything as opposed to just creating a
0:39:02virtual machine that runs on the same hardware. But I mean going back to the
0:39:06the benefits for a second you know you would have something really fine-tuned
0:39:11for the system you would have something where you control all the parameters you
0:39:14would have something where assumably you could you could tune up for like the
0:39:20right things so if you wanted a system that was really all about battery life
0:39:24you could build a system with that in mind if you could look at the Mac Pro
0:39:28and say we just need something that has more GPU power than anything else you
0:39:31could build something to serve that. So
0:39:34there are opportunities for Apple to
0:39:37sort of more be more flexible with the
0:39:39Mac hardware if they control the entire
0:39:41thing but is that benefit worth the cost
0:39:45to users the cost of developers the cost
0:39:49to Apple in doing this like I have no
0:39:51doubt that no doubt at all
0:39:54the Mac OS Sierra is running on our Mac
0:39:55somewhere now at Apple. They did it they
0:39:58kept it up from next step to Tiger when
0:40:01they switch to Intel, no doubt someone is doing that but there's a great cost in
0:40:08making that change. I just don't know if Apple would see it was being even worth
0:40:11it for the Mac at this point. I'm kind of hoping that the Mac's relative
0:40:16popularity to iOS means that Apple's going to kind of leave the Mac alone in
0:40:19this regard and just let it keep doing its thing and because you know while we
0:40:23have stress right now about no updates
0:40:25overall the Mac line is really good and it's better than it's ever been.
0:40:29You look at something like the iMac you're sitting in front of now, Myke.
0:40:32It's one of the best computers Apple's ever made. It's hands down.
0:40:35Oh, yeah. I mean, I'm very happy with my iMac.
0:40:40And I'm hoping that the next MacBook Pros would make me very happy too, right?
0:40:45Yeah, me too.
0:40:47I mean, so there's lots of opportunities for the Mac to continue to be great running on Intel.
0:40:53They've got to get Skylake figured out. They've got to get stuff shipping again.
0:40:57So I don't see this being a thing that we gotta worry about anytime soon.
0:41:01Yeah, yeah. I do feel like we would probably sooner be all iOS than Apple switching to ARM
0:41:10for the Mac. I just don't see it, right? I just don't see that those two things are gonna happen
0:41:17right other than that. I just feel like we'll be... iOS will be the dominant platform before
0:41:23Apple makes a huge change from Intel to ARM for the Mac.
0:41:26That's how I feel about it.
0:41:27It would be interesting to see if I'm proved wrong,
0:41:30but it just doesn't feel like it's gonna happen to me.
0:41:33It just feels like a lot of work for the smallest platform.
0:41:38- Well, yeah.
0:41:40- In sales, in current sales now, right?
0:41:42Like what they, I know that I kind of upset a lot of people
0:41:46there, but like if you look at what's being sold, right?
0:41:50- Oh yeah, no, no, no, no, I'm not upset about that.
0:41:52I was going to make a watch OS joke.
0:41:54Hey, we don't know, man.
0:41:55Maybe they're selling more watches.
0:41:57They're not selling more watches.
0:41:58But maybe they are.
0:41:59We don't know.
0:42:00That would make me sad.
0:42:01Oh, can you imagine?
0:42:03If they sold more watches than they sell iPads, I would cry.
0:42:06At that point, we can all just quit.
0:42:08Me, you, Federico, we're done at that point.
0:42:10Yeah.
0:42:11So that's a--
0:42:13I mean, I did not expect to talk about ARM versus Intel
0:42:16today with you.
0:42:17I don't feel like I'm sufficiently qualified
0:42:19to have that discussion.
0:42:21I apologize to you.
0:42:23- It's called John.
0:42:24So it's, anyway, so the hagintoshing is still a thing.
0:42:27People are still doing it.
0:42:29I don't have any desire to round all this out.
0:42:33I don't have any desire to do this,
0:42:34even though it would seem on paper
0:42:36like this is right up my alley.
0:42:37How I closed my blog post was like,
0:42:39this is a young man's game.
0:42:41Like I'm with you, I need my Mac to be rock solid every day.
0:42:45And even though my MacBook Pro has like sketchy old
0:42:47Intel stuff in it, that makes me a little sad.
0:42:50it is reliable and it is consistent and that's what I want out of my Mac. I want
0:42:56to be able to open it each day, I want to come up to my desk and wake it up and I
0:42:59want to get my work done on it. I don't want to have to worry about a software
0:43:05update that ran overnight and broke my audio driver because I'm a podcaster I
0:43:09need that to work and you know for me like as great as this is and it's like
0:43:13part of my brain is really tempted like buy a bunch of parts and build a computer
0:43:17I need my Mac to be a workhorse and I don't have time or the like patience
0:43:26patience or like the ability to be distracted enough to to deal with all
0:43:32the sites if they would come with it.
0:43:34Yep. Well that's Hackintosh's and we're back to 2016 and we are sponsored this week by
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0:45:29Federico you've returned! I have. I'm alive. I'm here. We told the world that you party
0:45:35too hard for 4th of July, so they all know now, so you can't hide the secret.
0:45:39Why would I do that?
0:45:41Exactly! Why would you do that? It doesn't make any sense.
0:45:43No, it was just an ISP thing, and I know that now Steven's gonna make a joke about ISP on
0:45:50fire, but yeah, ISP travels again, but now it sort of works, but I'm still waiting for
0:45:59Anyway, I don't party for the 4th of July.
0:46:02I just watch the tweets go by with the pictures of the fireworks and hamburgers and whatever
0:46:09it is that Americans do.
0:46:11Flags, I guess.
0:46:12That sums it up.
0:46:13I watched the John Cena video, which was pretty awesome.
0:46:16Yeah, I freaking love that video.
0:46:18Yeah.
0:46:19I'm back just in time, guys, for a change.
0:46:25And that change is the second beta of iOS 10, finally.
0:46:28Yeah, so that's out now. We have the second beta and there are some changes that are notable
0:46:35that I think might be worth mentioning today. One of them is a bunch of changes to messages.
0:46:42And a lot of it is focused around stickers. So over the weekend, in the actual app store,
0:46:51the current app store, the sticker packs started popping up quite randomly. And I think unexpectedly,
0:47:00right? We had Smiley's, Hans and the Hearts and the classic Mac sticker packs pop up.
0:47:05Which didn't really make any sense. And if you downloaded them, and if you do download them on
0:47:10iOS 9, kind of nothing happens. Like you just press download and then it says the word "add"
0:47:16and then you press the add button and nothing happens to them, which I really like.
0:47:21And it's cool to see that they put these in there and that we can see now that they've put them in
0:47:26because there has been I think a bit of an overhaul of the stickers and the iMessage stuff
0:47:30in beta 2. It's still buggy of course but it is now responsive. I think you would agree with me
0:47:38Federico that in beta 1 a lot of the sticker stuff was it was basically not worth using.
0:47:43It was awful, just unusable. They wouldn't scroll, they wouldn't load, and it was just terrible.
0:47:49I was trying to send stickers to John, an iMessage, and I was trying to send a bunch to you, but it was just terrible.
0:47:58It wouldn't work. So I just installed iOS 10 on my beta 2 on my iPhone. They do work now, it's still not great, and still clearly not finished.
0:48:10And it's obviously a beta. And the scrolling is all janky. And opening the bottom drawer
0:48:16to view the currently installed apps, it's also kind of buggy. Sometimes the... I mean,
0:48:23all of the issues that you would expect from a beta. And rest assured, we have filed radars
0:48:28already. And when you go to the App Store, there's some crashes. But I feel like the
0:48:35basic idea is in there right now, which is you can tap on this grid icon in the bottom
0:48:41left to open this panel, which is sort of like a whole new home screen just for iMessage,
0:48:46and with that concept comes also the ability to rearrange these icons on this new home
0:48:52screen. So you can tap and hold and you can move them around.
0:48:57It does a weird thing for you to get out of this view though, which is, it's strange to
0:49:01me that once those little iMessage icons are jiggling, the way that you stop them jiggling
0:49:06is to press the home button, but you don't go home?
0:49:10Nice private API used by Apple. I don't think any other app has done this
0:49:14before, right? Like, you can press the home button and something else happens.
0:49:18I don't think you can. I mean, like, even an Apple app.
0:49:23Probably not an Apple app. Maybe the only instance I can think of would
0:49:28be when you configure Touch ID and if you accidentally click the home button, it tells
0:49:32you "Oops, you clicked the home button, maybe you're just supposed to rest your finger."
0:49:36There you go. So the API exists, right? Yeah.
0:49:39They just haven't used it before and now they use it for this. And it is kind of weird because
0:49:43when I was trying to stop them from jiggling, I didn't know how to do it. And I was pressing
0:49:47the home button because I was going to go and force quit the application, and I was
0:49:51like "Oh, that's how it works!" So I would say that the most notable changes
0:49:57that are going on and that will continue to happen, I think, is in the images app, which
0:50:05lets you look up images and videos.
0:50:07These images are both static images and pictures from Tumblr and Bing, as well as, if you try
0:50:15beta 2, if you send a GIF to someone else, it says that they come from Giphy.
0:50:20So we don't know yet if it's a partnership, if maybe Apple has teamed up with Giphy, which
0:50:25would make sense because a lot of people actually have teamed up with Giphy and other companies
0:50:30such as RifC. You know, companies are actually paying money to these other GIF companies
0:50:36to access their databases. So it would make sense for Apple to team up with these folks.
0:50:40But the interface is kind of terrible because it doesn't tell you when you search for an
0:50:44image, it doesn't tell you if you're about to choose a static image or if you're about
0:50:48to choose a GIF.
0:50:49A 10 megabyte GIF, like the one you sent me.
0:50:52multiple ones in fact. What is nice is, what I've sort of discovered is you can mix and
0:51:00match these images and even animated GIFs with stickers. So as I tested with Myke, you
0:51:07can sort of come up with your own personal creations of GIFs combined with the stickers,
0:51:13with the Apple Hands and the Apple Smiley stickers, which can lead to some interesting
0:51:20results. So I wouldn't be surprised if people will kind of have fun combining and mixing
0:51:26these images and the GIFs and the stickers and whatever. Still, the feeling that I get
0:51:32is that conversations in iMessage, if people start using all of these effects and the stickers
0:51:39and the apps, can get quite busy. You know, there's a lot of stuff going on.
0:51:44And also the reactions, which I forgot was there until today?
0:51:47Tapback, which is also not a good name. But yeah, that's basically Slack reactions.
0:51:55That's also kind of strange the way that it's implemented so far, because if you tap and
0:52:00hold on a message that has text, but also a sticker, when you tap and hold, you get
0:52:06both the reactions and the menu to open the sticker details. So it's crammed into a single
0:52:12I'm not sure if that's the best choice.
0:52:14Anyway, this beta 2 sort of confirms the fact that iMessage is going to be the highlight of iOS 10,
0:52:23if only because there's so much stuff going on.
0:52:25As of today as well, if you send any of the rich stuff in iMessages to an iOS 9 user, it now displays.
0:52:33So previously, if you sent a sticker to someone, they just wouldn't see, you would have no idea.
0:52:37have no idea. But now the stickers show up as PNG files. And when you send through things
0:52:44like the effects, so if I send a slam, it will send a second message after the first
0:52:50message that says sent with slam effect in brackets. And also the digital touches, if
0:52:56you do a digital touch thing where like you maybe take a photo and you draw on it, or
0:53:00if you send a heartbeat, they all come through as videos. So I think that this is really
0:53:05interesting like what had to happen behind the scenes in between these two times that
0:53:10means that this now works right that's an interesting thing to me where like nothing's
0:53:14happened to iOS 9 in that time period but something has happened now.
0:53:20On the server maybe.
0:53:21Or the Mac I mean I got those on the Mac when you were texting me earlier got a little parenthetical.
0:53:26Yeah it's the same on iOS the same on Mac it's it's it's just interesting that now we've
0:53:30got this there's something happening in the background.
0:53:33Yeah, I really hope that Apple changes the way that the behavior of rich links was in
0:53:39the beta one, which is you need to confirm that you want to load the preview the first
0:53:44time and then after that the rich links load with the rich preview by default.
0:53:50And I really think there shouldn't be any confirmation of loading the rich preview.
0:53:55I really can't think of a downside of having rich links with the preview on by default,
0:54:00Besides the fact that they make the message bigger, I guess, or maybe that there's some
0:54:04people who really want to see the raw link instead of a rich preview.
0:54:10Or it may be that you don't want people, maybe it's like a privacy thing, you don't want
0:54:14people sending things to your phone that you can't control.
0:54:18Maybe that could be, or you don't want to waste data loading the featured image on a
0:54:25cellular connection.
0:54:26Yeah, that's a good point.
0:54:27Yeah, that could be.
0:54:28That could be.
0:54:29taking notes from my review right now. Thank you Steven. It was very productive.
0:54:34I really like that you can watch videos in the little preview. It doesn't, you know,
0:54:39it just plays in line, at least on the iPad. I like that.
0:54:42Yeah, with YouTube and Vimeo I think it works. Yeah, it's very nice. I almost wish that
0:54:48Apple would have some kind of more serious partnership with YouTube to have like custom
0:54:52controls for these video previews in iMessage, but I know that's never going to happen,
0:54:57So not getting my hopes up too much, but it would be nice.
0:55:00That ship has sailed.
0:55:01Yeah, I know, it just loads the HTML video and that's it, but still, you know, in my
0:55:06dreams that can happen.
0:55:08There's a bunch of new widget stuff, so I'm so happy that they've made this change.
0:55:14So with iOS 9 came news in the... what was it called when you said swipe over on iOS
0:55:219?
0:55:22Is it Spotlight Suggestions?
0:55:24I want to say Proactive page.
0:55:26Yeah, proactive. I think it's proactive. It would show news headlines at the bottom.
0:55:31And the only way that you could remove these news headlines if you didn't want to see them
0:55:37was to disable Siri suggestions, which meant that when you typed in names for people and stuff,
0:55:42it didn't search Wikipedia or anything like that. So you just lost that functionality if you didn't
0:55:46want to see the news. Like, I just don't want to see those headlines. Now, that is a news widget
0:55:51that can be removed, which is fantastic.
0:55:54So now I can get those Siri suggestions
0:55:56without having to see the new stuff.
0:55:58So that makes me very happy.
0:56:00Widgets can now be accessed from anywhere again,
0:56:02just from swiping down on Notification Center
0:56:05and then across.
0:56:06That would have been removed in certain parts of iOS,
0:56:09but that's now uniform across everywhere.
0:56:11And there's a Notes widget that's really cool.
0:56:14It has your recent notes, and you can see to show more,
0:56:17and it shows you your three recent,
0:56:18and you can add new notes from there as well.
0:56:20I like that, I can see myself getting a lot of use out of a notes widget.
0:56:23Yeah, I'm really a fan of the whole breaking up all of these widgets,
0:56:31all of these features from iOS 9 into standalone widgets in iOS 10.
0:56:36And there's a lot of considerations to make about the design,
0:56:41the behavior of the compact and expanded modes,
0:56:44but I feel like it's better if maybe we wait until further betas,
0:56:48because everything is in a state of flux right now, so even the design of the widgets and
0:56:54the functionality and the way that legacy widgets can adapt to iOS 10, I feel like that's
0:57:00going to change down the road.
0:57:02But from my use over the past few weeks, I've started to use widgets a lot more, if only
0:57:08because they show you more stuff and because Apple has way more useful system widgets.
0:57:15For example, the weather one, I use it all the time now, when I'm on the lock screen
0:57:18and I want to check on the forecast, I can just swipe over and take a look at the weather.
0:57:23Or I can view the favorites, so I put in a bunch of shortcuts to call my mom with a normal
0:57:30phone call or with FaceTime audio, and even to send an iMessage to Silvia.
0:57:35So I feel like Apple has done a good job with the new system widgets, but I want to see
0:57:39how developers will react and adapt to the new design and the two different presentation
0:57:46modes.
0:57:47I think it would have been kind of nice if you could just have these widgets on the first
0:57:51screen rather than having to swipe to see them.
0:57:55Like on the home screen?
0:57:56Yeah, no, like on the screen that you see when you turn your device on or pick your
0:58:02device up.
0:58:05What about notifications?
0:58:06Well, you could find a way to make that work.
0:58:08Like notifications come in and push them down or something
0:58:11and you scroll or notifications show in a different way.
0:58:14But like there is utility there which would be kind of nice.
0:58:16Like the weather one, for example.
0:58:18Like the weather one could just live next to the clock
0:58:20and it'd be no problem.
0:58:22- I mean, my guess is they want apps to still be the focus.
0:58:27But all of this work to make them accessible
0:58:31from a swipe over or a swipe down,
0:58:33like so much work is being put into making them
0:58:36nearby, why not just put them on the home screen?
0:58:39It seems like they're just refusing to do that,
0:58:41but getting closer and closer to it.
0:58:44- Yeah, I agree.
0:58:45It's like, if they wanna keep pushing this,
0:58:49next, that's what it has to be, right?
0:58:51Like, the I get the notes widget on my home screen.
0:58:54- Yeah, I agree.
0:58:55- It feels like by now, they are trying so many ways
0:59:00to do this without doing that, right?
0:59:03Like the notes widget, for example, looks very similar to how a widget would look on
0:59:09Android.
0:59:10A couple of recent ones and then some quick action buttons.
0:59:13Like Evernote widgets and stuff, that's how they look and they live on your home screen.
0:59:17But they're like getting so close but they just won't take that final step.
0:59:22And right now it feels like a principle thing, like to not disrupt the sanctity of the home
0:59:26screen.
0:59:27Yeah, that's more on principle really at this point because they truly believe in having
0:59:33the app icons and all the other information separate.
0:59:37I can see how maybe in the future this wall will come down.
0:59:42But right now it's more useful than what it used to be.
0:59:46But if you know how it works on other platforms, it can be awkward.
0:59:51Because as you say, once you know, you start thinking, why is this not on the home screen?
0:59:58Why do I need to swipe over?
1:00:01I feel like we'll get there eventually and this looks like a first step. Or maybe a second
1:00:07one.
1:00:08App Store, Federico, is now enabled for Split View.
1:00:14Well finally. I mean every time I'm putting together the newsletter and I need to switch
1:00:20from my text editor to the App Store to look up an app description, I cry inside very much
1:00:28on iOS 9. And now I saw a screenshot someone tweeted that the App Store can be used in
1:00:33SplitView which makes me very happy. And I have reason to believe that last year it simply
1:00:38wasn't done because they didn't have the time to update Apple Music and the App Store
1:00:42with SplitView. So I guess they found it. So good news on the people who found the time
1:00:48to make this happen. Thank you.
1:00:50And just a couple of last quick, very quick points from 9to5Mac. Apple News is now a removable
1:00:56application and the keyboard click sound has now reverted to the previous version
1:01:02no why I didn't like the sound oh it was really funny no the sound didn't need to
1:01:09change this is why we can have nice things the sound didn't need to change
1:01:13why do you people you nerds and your crazy ideas this is the problem well I
1:01:19would say the crazy idea was changing the sound you gotta turn those sounds
1:01:22off turn them off it was lovely I have them off why would you keep it off it's
1:01:28so nice because when I'm typing on my devices at two o'clock in the morning in
1:01:32bed oh well I got okay sure but what about during the day what's the point in
1:01:37having them on during the day it's it's feedback my devices are always on mute
1:01:44no you don't need to hear the feedback because you're such a good typist
1:01:48Look at you.
1:01:49Wow.
1:01:50It's a sick burn.
1:01:51I don't know how to deal with that so we might as well just move on.
1:01:54Federico, when these new betas come out, how does it affect the work that you've done?
1:01:58I hope it ruins it.
1:01:59I don't really know.
1:02:01Wow.
1:02:02It kind of does.
1:02:04So thank you for reminding me.
1:02:06So what happens then?
1:02:07So like you've written a bunch of stuff knowing there's going to be more betas and the new
1:02:11betas come out and then you have to go and change it.
1:02:14Like what does that do to you?
1:02:16Well the tricky part is trying to understand what's going to be a big idea, a big concept
1:02:27that's not going to change and what is a small detail or a decision that can be reversed.
1:02:33So during the writing and the research process what I struggle with all the time is trying
1:02:39to put it all on the table, all of the features, all of the big and small ideas and separate
1:02:45them into things that are big themes, core changes to iOS that are not gonna go away,
1:02:52like the Siri API is not gonna disappear, or the seven features that are enabled for
1:02:58Siri, those are not gonna change, but maybe everything else can be, smaller decisions
1:03:06can be reversed, or can gain different settings, or can maybe an option is on by default, then
1:03:14a later beta itself by default. So trying to separate those two aspects is what takes
1:03:20a lot of my time. I'm going to give you a few examples. So I've started writing from
1:03:26the introduction to the first sections of my review, which are going to be about the
1:03:34lock screen and about the first things that you see, so the setup and unlocking a device.
1:03:40And I had this section, or this mini section inside of the whole unlocking discussion in
1:03:50the review, where I was talking about the behavior of the lock screen in iOS 10, and
1:03:56how you need to click the home button, and how you can just rest your finger on the TouchID
1:04:02sensor, and you can see a lock in the status bar, and it's a different process from iOS
1:04:079, because it's now a two-step process.
1:04:10can authorize without unlocking a device. And in beta 2, the behavior is still the same,
1:04:16but there's a new option that I don't think is fully working yet, inaccessibility to unlock
1:04:22a device just by resting your finger, which it's not clear what it does yet, but potentially
1:04:28that will require me to update my review. And the status bar is also different now,
1:04:33because besides the lock icon, there's also a message and a new animation. Or, for example,
1:04:38I had another section that I wrote today, I was writing about lock screen widgets.
1:04:43And I was covering how legacy widgets from iOS 8 and iOS 9 would be cut off in iOS 10
1:04:52if they didn't update for the new design, which requires developers to have compact and expanded modes.
1:04:57When you say cut off, do you mean that they would be shrunk?
1:05:00Actually cut off.
1:05:01Or do you mean like they won't exist anymore?
1:05:03No, no, cut off visually. Like a long list, cut off in the middle.
1:05:07example, like the fantastical widget if you have a lot of events and reminders, or the
1:05:14workflow widget if you need to view a long list in a workflow inside the widget, it would
1:05:19be cut off in the middle because the widget defaults to showing you compact mode.
1:05:24And now it looks like there's some changes in beta too.
1:05:27So I had a whole section talking about legacy widgets and the transition from old design
1:05:34into a new design, and it looks like there are some changes in beta 2 which make legacy
1:05:41widgets behave better, so they're no longer cut off, even if they don't support compact
1:05:46mode, at least based on a few tweets that I saw and some tests that I ran on my iPhone.
1:05:52So that will require me to update that section.
1:05:55But see, it's one thing for a detail like that to change, because I have two paragraphs,
1:06:01or maybe even just one, where I talk about this transition and what Apple could have
1:06:05done to ease developers and users and their widgets into this new design, but that's no
1:06:11big deal, right? Because I can just rewrite a single paragraph. What would be a problem
1:06:17would be if a whole section, a whole feature changes in a major way, such as it's no longer
1:06:24possible to start workouts with Siri. That's gonna be a problem. Or if Apple completely
1:06:30changes the multilingual keyboard for example, and it turns out by beta 4 "well guys, sorry
1:06:36we made a mistake, it's no longer possible to type in two languages". That's another
1:06:40section that goes away. So I need to be careful picking the sections that I stopped writing
1:06:46before. I felt comfortable starting from the lock screen, because I feel like what you're
1:06:51gonna be able to do is pretty much gonna stay until the very last few betas, but as we saw
1:06:57there can be some minor changes occurring between now and September, and I need to be aware of those.
1:07:03But as long as those are minor changes, such as widgets no longer cut off, or there's a new status bar message,
1:07:10or there's a new option in accessibility, that's okay.
1:07:15It's of course a waste of time, in a sense, because I need to redo something that I've already done,
1:07:22But if the final product is more complete, is more precise, there's a better explanation, I don't mind.
1:07:30I would be upset if Split View in Safari goes away.
1:07:34Well, that's a problem, right? Because it's a whole feature, a whole section that needs to be deleted or changed.
1:07:40So, I would say... This is a very long answer, I'm sorry Myke.
1:07:45No, I wanted to hear it.
1:07:46I would say that the hardest part of this writing process is not the writing itself,
1:07:52it's the decision behind the writing. It's the choosing which features are not going to change
1:07:57and which ones are subject to potential improvements or reversals and whatever Apple does.
1:08:06But now though, these changes to the home screen, you're not going to write them up now,
1:08:10are you? You'll wait because now you know it's in flux.
1:08:12Which ones specifically?
1:08:16Any changes that happen on a home screen, like the way it unlocks, there's been an accessibility thing in there.
1:08:21Like you can see, and the widget stuff, you can see so many things are going to change.
1:08:26So I assume now you wouldn't make those changes now because there's potential for them to change as the further beta goes on.
1:08:34So now, right, I have to leave that alone, I'll come back to it in beta 5 or whatever.
1:08:38Exactly. So what I did is, as soon as I saw these changes, I opened my sheet, the section in Ulysses,
1:08:47and I added a comment with my comment syntax in the document saying "see if the behavior has changed again in future betas".
1:08:58Double check this setting. Or make sure that the option is still there.
1:09:02And I do this all the time. When I come across something that I feel like is going to change,
1:09:08or if I know that Apple is going to introduce a setting, or if maybe I see a lot of people
1:09:13complaining about a change in beta 3 or beta 4, I make a note and I revisit by beta 5 or
1:09:19the GM. I do that all the time.
1:09:22Yeah, that makes sense. When a beta like this comes out, do you just spend a ton of time
1:09:27just poking around in the corners?
1:09:29Yeah, basically what I do is I... So a lot of people tweet at me about the changes, which
1:09:35I really appreciate, by the way. Don't feel bad about tweeting at me with screenshots.
1:09:38I love them. And so I fave those tweets.
1:09:42Saves you work.
1:09:43Exactly. I'm crowdsourcing the research. So I fave those tweets. I take a look at what
1:09:51the blogs and the forums are saying around. I spent a lot of time on Reddit, a lot of
1:09:56different blogs, just even to get an idea of what other people think, because it's my
1:10:02job with the review is not just to talk about my experience, it's also to describe the potential
1:10:08changes for a lot of different people and what they mean. So I take a look at a lot
1:10:13of different sources, a lot of different places, and also what I do is I have a note in the
1:10:18Notes app where I jot down stuff quickly, such as when Steven was telling me about stuff
1:10:24that I needed to... we were talking about iMessage. So I made a note in the Notes app
1:10:29just because it's faster, but then I move everything back into my iThoughts mind map.
1:10:35By the way, yes, I moved from mind node to iThoughts because every year I do this, iThoughts
1:10:40just works better for me. Still, mind node is excellent, so it just works better for
1:10:44the review.
1:10:45Why don't you just start with iThoughts if you always do this?
1:10:49See, sometimes you think that you want to do things differently, but eventually just
1:10:53go back to the old way. So I move everything back into the mind map, which is a huge mind
1:11:01map at this point, with all kinds of different branches and sections. And when I spot a change,
1:11:09I make a new node in the map. Then what I do is I collect all of these different tweets
1:11:15and nodes and screenshots, which the screenshots I also save in the mind map for later, and
1:11:21I write down like screenshot of Apple Music Beta 2.
1:11:25Then if it's different in Beta 3, I also add the screenshot of Apple Music in Beta
1:11:293 and I follow the entire process.
1:11:31Because I also want to understand the reasoning of the designers and the developers at Apple,
1:11:36I want to see what they think.
1:11:37And keeping track of the betas is a good exercise in that.
1:11:41And finally what I do is I download the release notes documents from the Apple website, save
1:11:47it as a PDF and I highlight the differences and I make a note of like if Apple says that
1:11:54this stuff is broken then I'm not going to write that section because it says so in
1:11:58the release notes.
1:12:01Thank you for another look into your review. I find this very fascinating.
1:12:06I'm pleased to hear that. I hope it's not too boring.
1:12:09So that's Beta 2 everyone. Steven do you have anything you want to add?
1:12:13I was gonna say, I'm not running it so I'm being quiet in this section.
1:12:17Do you guys feel like it's, obviously it's brand new, but does it feel like it's ready
1:12:23for more people?
1:12:24Does it feel like it's getting close to where a public beta is possible?
1:12:28Or do you still think that's gonna be a dev beta 3 like it was last year?
1:12:32I would say beta 3.
1:12:33I would be surprised if a public beta comes out tomorrow.
1:12:36I would be really surprised.
1:12:38I feel like I poked around for 10 minutes.
1:12:41I've tried on my iPad Pro and on the iPhone and I don't feel like it's ready for a public beta.
1:12:46A lot of the things that I've tried are more stable, but it's still super shaky.
1:12:51Right, like the messages stuff is like way better, but it still needs some work.
1:12:56And the more I poke around of it, the more and more stuff that seems to be missing on the iPad,
1:13:02like that was there before.
1:13:03Like, it just seems like there's just, there's like leaking holes all over the place still,
1:13:08which is kind of what you'd expect.
1:13:10But this time the beta itself, even a beta one
1:13:14was more stable than usual,
1:13:16but it's still not like, it's still not public beta ready.
1:13:19- Mm-hmm.
1:13:20- As Federico said.
1:13:21- Okay.
1:13:22- If you wanna catch our show notes for this week,
1:13:24head on over to relay.fm/connected/98.
1:13:28Thanks again to our sponsors for this week's episode,
1:13:31Ring, the Video Doorbell and Squarespace.
1:13:34If you wanna find Federico online,
1:13:36He's over at MaxStories.net and he is also on Twitter.
1:13:40He's @Vittucci, V-I-T-I-C-C-I.
1:13:42Steven is @ismh and he writes at 512pixels.net.
1:13:46And I am @imike, I-M-Y-K-E.
1:13:49We'll be back next time.
1:13:50Until then, thanks so much for listening.
1:13:52Say goodbye, guys.
1:13:53- Arrivederci.
1:13:54- Adios.
1:13:55[ Silence ]