0:00:00[Music]
0:00:06From Relay FM, this is Connected, episode 90. Today's show is brought to you by
0:00:12Memories. My name is Myke Hurley and I'm joined by Mr. Steven Hackett. Hello, Steven Hackett.
0:00:17Hello, Michael Hurley. And ciao Federico Vittucci.
0:00:21Hello, Myke. How are you?
0:00:24I'm doing great. Why are you saying ciao? What's your occasion?
0:00:29I like to localize, you know?
0:00:31Oh yeah? You do?
0:00:33Talking about localizing,
0:00:35whenever I sell t-shirts now, I like to localize
0:00:38to the US or Europe,
0:00:40so people don't have to pay high shipping rates.
0:00:43Oh yes, ladies and gentlemen, new connected t-shirt time!
0:00:47And we have a link, a special link in our show notes,
0:00:51if you go to our show notes, Federico.
0:00:54Where can people find the show notes?
0:00:56You can go to relay.fm/connected/90
0:01:01And you will see a lovely link to our t-shirt
0:01:04You'll be able to click that and if you are in the US or Europe or whichever you're closest to
0:01:09They will be this t-shirts will be shipping from that region. So you'll be able to get better prices
0:01:17They're not all shipping from the US as we've done in the past
0:01:19We've worked with Teespring who've been great and they've been able to hook us up with that
0:01:23So there are two kind of two parallel campaigns
0:01:25but if you click that link it will just automatically throw you to the right one and you'll be able to get a
0:01:30Fantastic t-shirt it is to celebrate
0:01:34Stephen collecting all of the IMAX which we'll talk about in a little bit
0:01:39He collected all of the IMAX all 13 and we have created a t-shirt which
0:01:44Kind of also riffs on the meetup
0:01:48Poster that our designer Frank made for us. We loved it so much
0:01:52we decided to have a Steven made and then once we had a Steven made we decided to have a bunch of IMAX made
0:01:59these t-shirts are
0:02:02Basically commemorative items because there's so much involved in the printing that we're basically making no money on them
0:02:09Yeah
0:02:10But we love this design so much and I hope that you will all love it and you should buy it and if I see
0:02:15Anybody at WWDC wearing this they will get a big hug. Yes, maybe from all three of us
0:02:21I'll give you an iMac.
0:02:23I got loads of them, man. I just bring them down.
0:02:26Yeah, and a lot of people, including you, Myke, told me that on the t-shirt I look like Dave Grohl from Foo Fighters, which is great.
0:02:34It's true.
0:02:35It's very nice. And for some reason, Frank used a t-shirt that I actually have, but I didn't know that I have that exact t-shirt in my collection.
0:02:47Oh, he knows everything. He knows everything.
0:02:49It kind of, that character kind of does look like me.
0:02:54So yeah.
0:02:55These T-shirts are a limited design.
0:02:56They're available until the 19th of May and we tried to get them out as soon as possible
0:03:01and because we have the localised shipping, if you're kind of in Central Europe, the UK
0:03:07or in the continental United States, probably Canada, you should have these just in time
0:03:13for WWDC if you're coming.
0:03:16If you're not, doesn't even matter, but they're great.
0:03:19They're gray, they're blue, you can choose which one.
0:03:21You should buy both like I did
0:03:23and enjoy them because they're awesome.
0:03:26Thank you very much.
0:03:27All right, so Steven.
0:03:30- Yes.
0:03:31- You wanted to talk about 90th anniversary gifts.
0:03:33I see a thing here.
0:03:35- We've been doing this as we hit bigger
0:03:37and bigger numbers on connected.
0:03:39And so I just felt like it would be wrong to skip over this.
0:03:43So for you, Myke, the traditional gift
0:03:46in the United Kingdom is "stone". I don't know what that means, you're gonna get some
0:03:50rocks. Or get... stoned. I don't think that's what it means. No? Is that not what it is?
0:03:56I mean, if you're 90 years old, I feel like that's probably okay, but... Oh yeah. If I
0:04:01make it to 90 it's gonna be a game over. Every other country on this website, US Spain, Germany,
0:04:08France and Italy granite is the gift and then as far as gemstones emerald is the
0:04:18rock of choice for the 90th anniversary Club so so basically some kind of stone
0:04:23with an emerald in the middle and we're all good I think that's that um that's
0:04:27pretty good so I know people were dying to know what that what that would be so
0:04:32I felt like I had an obligation to fulfill their curiosity.
0:04:37Perfect. But more importantly, you have collected all of your IMAX now. You have all 13 IMAX.
0:04:46I do. There are actually 16, which is a funny story, but I have one of each color.
0:04:51It's probably not that funny.
0:04:52No, it's just that I had some bum ones that I replaced.
0:04:55but um yeah so all 13 are here
0:04:59I've put together a page that will be in the show notes
0:05:02a project page on 512 pixels that has
0:05:07basically links to all the other stuff
0:05:10I'm doing so there's I did a big blog
0:05:12post with like high-res like product
0:05:15photos that you can go and play with
0:05:17like someone told me they're making a
0:05:18poster out of one of them like go do
0:05:20with them as you wish they are they are
0:05:22yours to play with and there's a youtube
0:05:25video which I put up of the basically me doing the photo shoot which was a lot of
0:05:30fun and there's a bunch more coming so I think I'll hide those as we go but we
0:05:38are off to the races as far as exciting content for an 18 year old computer yeah
0:05:44content I love the video that you did and it's good I assume that was the
0:05:49video which resulted in the photography right yes so the pictures that I'm taking
0:05:54in that video are the pictures you can download in the blog post.
0:05:57Yeah, I like it a lot because you get to see, I like it, there's a subtle thing that you
0:06:02may or may not notice when you watch the video how the colors change during the time lapse.
0:06:07Yeah. Which I thought was quite clever.
0:06:09Yeah, so you know, it's just, um, I had fun making it, it was fun to do a bunch of time
0:06:13lapse stuff. Um, and uh, and I like too that it's a lot of like behind the scenes that
0:06:18you can see how messy our, our office is right now. But um, it is, it is sort of funny, uh,
0:06:24If you look at the video, the first little bit is me setting up a light that actually
0:06:29it happens in the time lapse, but it's so fast you can't see it actually cut the back
0:06:32of my like two of my fingers open saying that light up just exciting little tidbit of information
0:06:38real behind the scenes here.
0:06:39Yeah.
0:06:40And and you can see to the right like there's like backpacks and stuff packed up.
0:06:43So I make movies about old computers.
0:06:45My brother is going to Africa to shoot a documentary this summer.
0:06:48And so it's like we share this space and do like the most opposite things in it that you
0:06:52could think of.
0:06:53- Yeah, but who's doing the real important work here,
0:06:55you know?
0:06:56- I would say that it's him.
0:06:57(laughing)
0:06:58It was a lot of fun making it,
0:06:59I think people seem to be enjoying it.
0:07:01So yeah, there's a lot more coming.
0:07:03- I've gotta say, when you started off on this,
0:07:06I thought it was kinda crazy,
0:07:07and whilst it is still crazy,
0:07:09I am becoming more and more interested in it.
0:07:12- Oh, thanks man, that's good.
0:07:14I was telling you guys before we recorded,
0:07:16what this project is,
0:07:17like this is the byproduct of me
0:07:21not having anyone to answer to anymore. Like, if I have all the time and like, you know,
0:07:26there I spent some money on this, it wasn't real expensive. Like, like I said, the video,
0:07:29like half of these are donated by listeners and readers, which is awesome. Thank you so
0:07:33much. But like, this is what happens when I work for myself, like without any checks
0:07:38and balances that I do 13 computers and have a video about them. But people seem to be
0:07:45enjoying it. I've got a lot of great response. It's it's a lot of fun to hear from people
0:07:50about their stories of this computer and I think it is an important computer so
0:07:53it's a lot of fun exploring some new ways to kind of tell people about it.
0:07:59Yeah, you are the iMac man now. Seems that way.
0:08:02So last week we spoke about the Logitech base for the iPad Pro and Jason Snell of
0:08:12Six Colors and Upgrade, he got one of these and wrote a little review of it
0:08:17And you know, Jason overall seems pretty positive about this device, I guess you'd call it.
0:08:25But basically what his main, he has kind of two main complaints, which I completely feel
0:08:31would definitely stop me from buying this, is the viewing angle is kind of okay, but
0:08:37you can't adjust it naturally, right?
0:08:38So you're kind of just stuck with what it is.
0:08:40But the biggest one for me is taking the smart cover, you know, we spoke about this last
0:08:44time, off every single time is frustrating.
0:08:47Yeah, it just looks like a strange product to me, that we waited all of these months
0:08:53for a second smart connector accessory to come out, and it's just a base where you
0:09:00connect the iPad and you cannot do anything else. There's no fancy solution for an audio
0:09:06enhancer type of acoustic shell. There's no pencil holder for the iPad Pro. It's just
0:09:15a base, you cannot adjust the angle. I mean, it looks terrific, it looks very nice. And
0:09:19I can imagine, like in some scenarios, like you're a designer working at a desk, you don't
0:09:24need to adjust the angle, which I doubt, but it's possible. Or maybe like a, what did they
0:09:30call those iPads in the museum, like a kiosk or something? I could imagine that, but it
0:09:36looks like, I mean, if you want to use an iPad Pro in a museum with a Logitech base,
0:09:41I mean, it must be a real fancy museum, but sure.
0:09:45I mean, I could imagine the big iPad Pro 13 inches almost, it makes sense.
0:09:50It looks very nice, but it's mostly a disappointment for me because I wanted to see a little more.
0:09:56Yeah, I mean, I don't really fully...
0:10:00The more I think about this, I can't really understand what you would use it for, right?
0:10:03Like, in an artist's perspective, you wouldn't want it at that angle.
0:10:09I can't really imagine people using it. Maybe you would put it in here and type on an external keyboard?
0:10:16You, Federico, just bought your Magic Keyboard, which we're going to get to in a minute.
0:10:22Would you maybe want to put your iPad in this and then type with it? Or would you want to put it on something else?
0:10:28Or would you just leave the Smart Cover on and just stand it up on that thing?
0:10:31I don't need to buy this because I can just leave it on the Smart Cover.
0:10:35It's one less thing to have around my house. The smart cover is perfectly fine for my preferred
0:10:43viewing angle when typing. So it looks nice. Again, it looks very nice, but I don't need
0:10:48it.
0:10:49Yeah, I've got to say, in actual usage, I don't really get this so much anymore. On
0:10:57paper, it just seems like a nice product, like "oh, this is a cool thing that someone's
0:11:00doing with a stand", but there kind of isn't really a lot to it.
0:11:05Yeah, I wonder, and I was talking with Jason about this, I wonder if it's a problem of
0:11:10the smart connector, the first revision being
0:11:13not offering a lot of control to manufacturers, or if maybe we'll see a software update that will unlock more
0:11:22functionalities in the smart connector, or if there has to be a hardware revision, because it's kind of odd that
0:11:28in seven months we've only seen essentially two
0:11:32accessories for this new connector from third parties, which happen to be the same company,
0:11:39so it's the Logitech Create keyboard case and the Logitech Base, and of course the Smart
0:11:43Keyboard from Apple.
0:11:45And when I reviewed the iPad Pro I was told we'll have more international layouts for
0:11:50the Smart Keyboard soon, and I wonder if 7 months lies within the soon threshold, I doubt
0:11:57it.
0:11:58kind of strange you know that seven months on we've only got one American keyboard layout
0:12:03for the smart keyboard from Apple and only two third-party accessories for the smart
0:12:08connector which come from the same company so you know it's kind of odd.
0:12:13It is strange. On keyboards, so what do you think about the Magic Keyboard?
0:12:18I love it. It's definitely the best keyboard I've bought in many many years actually and
0:12:24I'm surprised why I didn't consider this before.
0:12:27Like, what was I thinking?
0:12:29So the size is just right for me.
0:12:34The size of the keys,
0:12:37the size of the distance between each key works for me.
0:12:42I do love how they sound, how they click.
0:12:45So I don't understand what some people hate.
0:12:47I guess--
0:12:48- I think it depends what you're coming from.
0:12:50- Yeah, yeah. - Because it clicks less,
0:12:52right?
0:12:53And yeah, some people really do love their clicks, like deep clicking keyboards.
0:12:58And I understand that, but it works for me, I love the sound, it's super comfortable,
0:13:06and it seems even easier to connect to the iPad.
0:13:10So I used to... what was it called, the Apple Wireless keyboard a few years ago?
0:13:16I used to have one of those back in the days of my iPad 2 and the iPad 3, and it was always
0:13:26a mess to connect to it.
0:13:29You needed to go into the Bluetooth settings because it got stuck.
0:13:32Now there's a switch on the Magic Keyboard which I like.
0:13:35It's easy to turn off and on.
0:13:40One of the things that I miss from the dedicated iPad keyboards is the standalone iPad keys,
0:13:50like a screenshot key, a home screen key, and I know that I can go back to the home
0:13:59screen by hitting Command+H.
0:14:01Yeah, that's how I live my life.
0:14:03Yeah, it's just easier to go back with a standalone key, for me at least.
0:14:10But other than that, I really, really do like it.
0:14:14I'm only just wondering, I think I gotta buy some kind of cleaning product, because it's
0:14:21white and I know how it's gonna end up when I spend the entire summer writing on it.
0:14:29And I don't know what Apple recommends when it comes to cleaning white keyboards, so I
0:14:33gotta look that up.
0:14:35But I'm very happy with the purchase, it works well with the Smart Cover, I just prop the
0:14:39iPad app and I type.
0:14:42And yeah, I also miss the, you know, it's on the Logitech keyboard, and other keyboards,
0:14:49but on the Logitech One you get this globe key to switch between keyboards, you get like
0:14:53a little pop-up in the middle of the screen.
0:14:55I don't remember if there's a similar shortcut to do the same on the Magic Keyboard.
0:15:01And another thing that I noticed is that in iOS 9, there's still, iOS 9.3 even,
0:15:08there's still some weird keyboard inconsistencies.
0:15:11Like sometimes Command-Tab doesn't work, I need to perform it again like twice or three times for it to work,
0:15:19it gets stuck for some reason, or like some other weird bug, like the caps lock key gets
0:15:28also stuck, so when it's off I type uppercase, when it's on I type lowercase, which is confusing,
0:15:36and I need to disconnect and connect again. So there's still some oddities in keyboards
0:15:42on iOS 9, but overall I give it a solid 85%. Were you looking for an approval rate, Myke?
0:15:49Yes.
0:15:51It's 85%.
0:15:53That's good. I think most people would be pretty happy with that kind of approval rating.
0:15:57Yeah.
0:15:58Two things. I put a knowledge base article in the show notes of what Apple says, how
0:16:05Apple says to clean it.
0:16:06Oh, thank you. Thank you.
0:16:08I will give full credit to Kyle's the gray in the chat room. He pasted it there basically the same moment
0:16:13I pasted into quip, so we'll give him credit
0:16:16And - I I've used the magic keyboard since its debut and out of the
0:16:22Generations of Apple keyboard I have at my disposal. It's really
0:16:26one of my favorites if not my favorite the um
0:16:29The keythroat, you know took a little getting used to it's not as shallow as something like the MacBook
0:16:35But one of my favorite things honestly, and I guess I guess you don't get this really with the iPad is the
0:16:40Being able to charge it over lightning. So actually today I came into the office and my keyboard is like 4%
0:16:47You know, it's got I had a notification on my computer and I just unplugged the lightning cable
0:16:52I usually have on my phone and just put it over here on the
0:16:55Keyboard or you don't have to worry about dealing with double-a batteries and all that sort of stuff. So
0:16:59I'm a big fan of this of this little keyboard
0:17:03Yeah, I think the battery thing is good
0:17:05That's why one of the reasons that I love the new magic trackpad for the same reason, right?
0:17:10Like I love it because I can just charge it by lightning and I have a gajillion lightning cables now
0:17:15You know just like all over the place
0:17:17So it's easy for me to just grab on and charge it so I can totally see why you would want that for the keyboard
0:17:22right for the same reason but I
0:17:25as I said before like that keyboard just
0:17:30It's fine for me, but I much prefer when I'm using my Mac
0:17:33to use the Microsoft one,
0:17:35because it's more comfortable for me.
0:17:37And then when I'm using my iPad,
0:17:39I'm happy with the smart keyboard
0:17:40'cause I can kind of maneuver it in a way
0:17:42that I can get comfortable quite easily,
0:17:44but it's also always there.
0:17:47That's what I like about it, right?
0:17:49But I totally see, for the reason that you have bought it,
0:17:52Federico, makes perfect sense for you
0:17:54because as I said to you last week,
0:17:56you should not be typing those 10,000 words on the screen because it just can't be good for you.
0:18:02I wish there were 10,000.
0:18:05Sometimes there's only 10.
0:18:06Yeah, I'll probably bring the smart keyboard to San Francisco,
0:18:12just because it's a not-in-one kind of solution, it's easier to carry,
0:18:16but I think I did the right thing in buying the Magic Keyboard for this summer, you know?
0:18:22And it's also very nice how I can look up the battery information in the notification center widget.
0:18:28Which I also get with the... I mean, no, I don't get it with the smart keyboard because it uses a smart connector.
0:18:34I get it with the Beats headphones.
0:18:36And the pencil.
0:18:37And the pencil. So it's nice. Seriously, the only thing that worries me is the white color.
0:18:43And the way that it will get dirty over time.
0:18:49So, I will thank you Steven and Kyle for sending me the link. I will look up the Apple recommended
0:18:57cleaning methodology. It really doesn't get real bad. I mean, unless
0:19:01you're... Okay.
0:19:02I sort of have a bad habit of eating at my desk, like for lunch, and you know, you'll
0:19:07get food and stuff on it, but like in general use, like this one at my office I've had up
0:19:11here for nine months, and like it... I mean, looking at an alicate seems fine. They're
0:19:15They're pretty durable.
0:19:16Alright.
0:19:17Unless you're just really dirty.
0:19:19Are you really dirty?
0:19:20No, not at my desk.
0:19:24This week's episode is brought to you by Memories.
0:19:28Memories, the corners of my mind.
0:19:31Do you ever remember the Everpix flashback feature that everybody loved?
0:19:35You know, we loved that, right?
0:19:36Like you could go back and see things that had happened in your past.
0:19:40It's the one that Picture Life quickly implemented.
0:19:42And now I think Picture Life is going the way of the Dodo 2.
0:19:45I think that was recent news that I saw somewhere, right?
0:19:48Picture life is going away.
0:19:49I know Casey was upset.
0:19:51So now Memories for iOS gives you that feature
0:19:54for the photos that live in your iCloud photo library.
0:19:57This isn't going to be something that's cast to the shadows
0:20:01that you can find prompt.photos.
0:20:04Do you remember that?
0:20:05I just saw Kyle put that in the chat room.
0:20:07This isn't gonna happen with Memories
0:20:08because it's just taking the photos
0:20:10that you have in your iCloud photo library
0:20:12and it shows you them sort of what you did.
0:20:15a year ago. You can travel back in time and revisit those old photos that you might otherwise
0:20:26never see again. You can get a notification each day to tell you how many memories you
0:20:35have that day and you can quickly see them in a lovely today view widget as well.
0:20:43If you want to see a specific date, you can very easily just pick that date.
0:20:48Memories makes it also easy to share these photos and if you've come across some that
0:20:52you'd rather forget, it's really easy to remove them from the app as well.
0:20:56Go to memories.land/connected to find out more and check it out for yourself.
0:21:00Thank you so much to Memories for their support of this show.
0:21:04I do like how epic it sounds when you say that the show is brought to you by Memories.
0:21:08Like it just sounds pretty awesome.
0:21:11It's a super cool app.
0:21:12Yeah, I like it. I've been playing with it and I like it a lot. It's great. So you should go check it out.
0:21:16Have you found any photos that you'd like to forget about, Myke?
0:21:19Most.
0:21:20So let's go from photo management to music streaming services.
0:21:28I feel like there needs to be a big disclaimer before we talk about this.
0:21:33It is not our intention to kill Apple Music or to kill Spotify.
0:21:39You know just want to make sure that people don't say that we jinxed it or that we're bad luck or whatever
0:21:44It's just a rumor. We're just reporting. No, it's not a curse. It's a set of unlucky coincidences
0:21:52So I figured we break down the news only you guys talked about it since you guys actually use this stuff more than I do
0:22:03Article came out in Bloomberg which like as a sidebar Bloomberg is killing it with the Apple coverage recently
0:22:09They have a big article saying that sweeping changes are coming to Apple Music as soon
0:22:15as WWDC, which of course is really as we speak today only about a month away.
0:22:22And that this is going to be sort of a twofold change a big user interface change to make
0:22:28it more intuitive, the better great integrate online radio and music downloads, and that
0:22:34would also according to a nine to five
0:22:37articles these things are kind of coming
0:22:40at the same thing two different
0:22:41directions that it would be a big change
0:22:44for the for you tab and the new tab and
0:22:48apparently iTunes connect is still there
0:22:51you know the connect tab that should be
0:22:53going away and that all this is being
0:22:56spearheaded and this is really the
0:22:58paragraph that is troubling to me is
0:23:02is that the new look is being overseen by like 18 people, including Robert Kondrick.
0:23:08I don't know how you say that name. Kondrick. Kondrick. Trent Reznor, Johnny and Johnny
0:23:14Ive and Eddie Q and Ive Eyn. So everyone really. It's a bunch of people and it seems like a
0:23:19little bit of design by committee which we can get to. But I think the big headline is
0:23:24here that Apple Music just a year in seems to be at least slated for big changes. You
0:23:31this isn't just like, oh, we're just gonna tweak something.
0:23:33Like if this, if all this comes true, this is like major surgery, you know,
0:23:37on a service that's 12 months old.
0:23:38Yeah. But a lot of, I mean, I look at this, you say like, oh,
0:23:42Bloomberg are killing it. And you know, they've definitely had the article,
0:23:45but this news came during a week where lots of people were complaining about
0:23:50Apple music. So Apple saying to Bloomberg, oh,
0:23:54hey, we're changing so much, like feels like a thing that might happen.
0:23:59So, you know, lots of people were upset this week about Apple Music deleting music.
0:24:05Has that ever happened to you guys, by the way?
0:24:08I don't have a local music library that I have really cared about and taken care of over the last years.
0:24:14I moved to streaming years ago.
0:24:16So all of my music is sitting on a hard drive, but it's not on my machine.
0:24:19Okay. Yeah, I'm the same. Yeah.
0:24:24So, I mean, Steven, I don't think you've really got into the situation where it would be a
0:24:29problem for you because...
0:24:30Right.
0:24:31I do have iTunes Match turned on, which I let laughs, but I've actually re-updated because
0:24:37it actually is helpful.
0:24:38But I'm not using Apple Music.
0:24:41We do have a Spotify account now, mainly for the Amazon Echo, so we can just shout at it
0:24:45to play something because the Amazon Prime Music Library is pretty hit or miss.
0:24:49But yeah, I mean, I think yeah, I think like the all the background noise right now is
0:24:54that Apple music, I think, especially on the Mac, because they really like as janky as
0:25:00the iOS music app can be where they sort of glued music.app and beats together, like in
0:25:05iTunes on the Mac, it's even worse.
0:25:07And so there's a lot of like, just low level dissatisfaction with how this is working right
0:25:16now from at least the tech community?
0:25:20The idea of making big user interface changes is not something that surprises me with a
0:25:26service like this.
0:25:28Like Apple, in the way that they do, they just put it out there and then every year
0:25:33will make big changes to it.
0:25:34Like Spotify just did some changes in the background to their UI, but they just do them
0:25:39whenever they want to do them.
0:25:41And they make these small changes which might last over a year.
0:25:44So the idea of Apple doing one release every year and it making big user interface changes
0:25:48doesn't surprise me.
0:25:50Because they put it out there, lots of people didn't like the way that a bunch of things
0:25:53worked so now they're going to be changing them in the next version.
0:25:57I don't think that these sweeping changes are going to be as big as the Bloomberg article
0:26:02says.
0:26:04Making things more intuitive doesn't mean that they need to basically rip the guts out
0:26:07and start all over again.
0:26:09reorganizing some tabs and changing the names of them, you know, changing the "for you"
0:26:13tab a little bit more, making that a bit better, and discontinuing the new tab, calling it
0:26:19"browse" and showing all the same stuff in a different way.
0:26:21Like, none of this is huge, it just feels like changes that need to be made.
0:26:28And the idea of getting rid of "connect" as well, like, that's a good idea, and they're
0:26:32saying it's going to be rolled into the "for you" tab.
0:26:35But again, it's like these just feel like a big collection of small changes as opposed to like "we started over again"
0:26:41No, they cannot start over realistically. I mean the streaming infrastructure is there
0:26:47And what else is to change about uh beats one, but you know adding new
0:26:52New shows and the reports from bloomberg and 925mec don't even mention beats one
0:26:57So it seems like it'll stay mostly unchanged. So the sweeping changes that bloomberg refers to
0:27:04sounds to me like they're changing the color scheme of the interface, they're reorganizing
0:27:09a bunch of areas of the app. So it's more of a cleanup or more of a, you know, restructuring,
0:27:15but it's not a sweeping change, it's not like Apple Music is turning into Spotify all of
0:27:19a sudden, you know? So it sounds like what we should expect from Apple, and this is a
0:27:25sort of a pattern that we've seen with other apps. The design changes once a year, the
0:27:31feature additions throughout the releases of iOS and OS X. If you look at Notes, OS X
0:27:38and other apps, if you look at stuff like Safari, we're seeing design, once a year,
0:27:45features throughout the year, which I think makes sense. And I think we'll see these
0:27:50design changes with Apple Music at WWDC. Judging especially from the 9to5Mac article, it sounds
0:27:58like they're doing away with the artwork influencing the background of the app, so if you open
0:28:07like an album that has a red artwork, you get a red background, you know, that kind
0:28:13of stuff, it seems like they're changing to a simpler black and white background and text
0:28:19all the time.
0:28:20I want to throw out a weird theory about this black and white thing.
0:28:26I know what you're going with.
0:28:28You know where I'm going, don't you? I can feel it.
0:28:30So there has been a few, like, leaked black and white designs recently.
0:28:35Yes.
0:28:36I saw a story of Instagram trying out a new black and white design.
0:28:40iOS 10 might have some different design stuff going on here, which is focusing on black and white.
0:28:46I don't know why they would do this, but it seems super weird to me that Instagram would even consider doing this tested black and white design.
0:28:54and then there's rumors of Apple doing these black and white designs.
0:29:00It feels like there might be something, because if Apple's going to work with some companies,
0:29:06Instagram's going to be one of them.
0:29:08Yeah, and you know, black and white, when you flip it, it's easier to achieve a dark
0:29:13mode with more consistency.
0:29:15It is, isn't it?
0:29:17And look, the idea of the general overall user interface isn't going to change, right?
0:29:24because that is still consistent, but the idea of this over-blur and taking the theme
0:29:32colors from the artwork, that's all dead now. That's old. That's many years old.
0:29:38That's really been a problem also for the accessibility community. When you have such
0:29:42low contrast between text and the translucent background fetched from the artwork, I think
0:29:50switching to a simpler, you know, here's the background, here's the text, and here's your
0:29:54artwork, and it's separate from the rest of the interface. I think it should bring more,
0:29:59you know, sort of clarity to the interface. But I'm also interested in the functional
0:30:06changes. So, 9to5Mac has more details than Bloomberg. Bloomberg is all, "Yeah, there's
0:30:11going to be sweeping changes."
0:30:12Well, because the Bloomberg story came from Apple PR, and the 9to5Mac story comes from
0:30:17leaks from Apple.
0:30:18seems likely, but, you know, giving them the benefit of the doubt.
0:30:239to5Mac says, there's going to be a simplification of the For You section, Connect is going to
0:30:29lose its dedicated tab at the bottom of the app, and it's going to be rolled into For
0:30:35You in what they call a demotion. So, it sounds like a demotion, but also having it in the
0:30:42For You section should also give it more visibility, maybe? Because right now, you go to For You,
0:30:48you see no Connect stuff, right? But there's a dedicated, you know, standalone Connect
0:30:53area. In the future, it sounds like you're gonna lose the standalone Connect page, but
0:30:58you will get Connect recommendations in the For You section.
0:31:02Which if you imagine For You becoming more like a timeline, so like, "Here is a new
0:31:07artist we think you might like, and then here's something from Coldplay because you follow
0:31:11them, and here's a new playlist." So it's less a static page that refreshes, but like
0:31:16a timeline of stuff that you go through. Like that's how I imagine you could integrate those
0:31:20two things together. I saw a tweet the other day, and I wish I would have marked this down,
0:31:24about the 4U recommendations, that apparently like it's really fundamentally built on the
0:31:30artist selections that you initially make. Yes, yes, yes. And I hadn't realized this,
0:31:35so my thought was the people that are complaining about the 4U thing, redo the artist selection,
0:31:40and maybe you'll get a better... I don't think you saw a tweet, I think you saw a link in
0:31:45my newsletter, Myke? I saw a link in your newsletter. That's why I couldn't find
0:31:50it. Look at that. I read it! See, I read it! I just don't remember where it comes from.
0:31:54Yeah, yeah, nice. You're honest. Clubmax stories, everyone. Thank you. You know, what's
0:32:00my idea for improving for you? So can I tell you? Yeah. I suppose I can also tell Steven
0:32:05or Tom, he's maybe sleeping at this point. Anyway, you there, buddy? Still there? I'm
0:32:10here. So here's the thing. One of the things that annoy me about For You is that I always
0:32:20get stuff that I know. So artists that I know, albums that I know. And I know that that's
0:32:27because Apple is more skewed towards familiarity, maybe, than discovery of unknown bands, unknown
0:32:34EPs and singles. And I know that it's also heavily based on the initial selections that
0:32:40you do for the kind of music that you want to listen to, the artists that you like, what
0:32:45I would do is I would change that initial screen to have sort of like a slider that
0:32:53says, "Are you more interested in artists that you know or stuff you don't know?"
0:32:58So you yourself, at any point you can change it, can say, "I want to discover new stuff,"
0:33:04or I just want a stream of familiar content that I already know but that maybe I haven't
0:33:10listened to in a while. I think Beats Music had this, but maybe I'm wrong, or maybe I've
0:33:16seen it somewhere else, but like a discovery toggle that you can say... because I can recognize
0:33:22how Discovery Weekly on Spotify is heavily skewed towards Discovery of unknown bands.
0:33:28There's literally no band nor artist that I know in my Discovery Weekly.
0:33:33Yeah, see, I don't want either of those extremes. I want something that's closer to the middle.
0:33:38Yeah, exactly. So I wouldn't mind to have a revised, for you, setting screen that you
0:33:43can easily open any time, and you can say, "Look, this week I'm in the mood for something
0:33:48new, so give me something new." Or maybe in general, I want something in the middle,
0:33:52so stuff that I know, some stuff I don't know, because right now it's all stuff that I know,
0:33:57and Spotify is all stuff that I don't know, which I can understand why for many people
0:34:01is maybe too much because it feels like you're doing homework instead of listening to music.
0:34:06It's like "oh my god I gotta learn all of these songs". So somewhere in the middle
0:34:11a "better for you" section would be nice.
0:34:14I agree with that completely and I hope that that's part of what we're gonna see.
0:34:18Yeah, yeah. So what do you think of Connect?
0:34:20I don't know anything, is there?
0:34:23Yeah me neither. And I've seen so many artists initially posting videos and pictures and
0:34:30audio clips to connect, then it quickly grew into artists posting weird short links to
0:34:41their websites, and then now just nothing. A lot of people that I follow there, like
0:34:48bands that I follow there, don't post anymore, and I get the random picture every once in
0:34:53a while and I just never open it.
0:34:55I had a theory that like the music labels and Apple did a deal and that like some of
0:35:00these artists and bands were contractually obliged to post things
0:35:03initially probably because why would they have been so excited about it I
0:35:07don't know why you would be it's why you get Drake on stage I think all of this
0:35:13stuff is good as I said like I use Apple music and ultimately I find it to be
0:35:18good it's fine it does what I need it to do I would love it to be better on the
0:35:22Mac when I do play music on the Mac because it's it feels like Apple music
0:35:25is fighting against iTunes.
0:35:28When you do a search, it tries to search your existing library
0:35:31before it will search Apple Music, which
0:35:33doesn't make any sense to me.
0:35:34You should just search the whole thing.
0:35:37I know that this is what happened,
0:35:39but it really feels like Apple Music was just squeezed in.
0:35:42And then part of the problem that I
0:35:43know a lot of people face on the iPhone
0:35:46is that basically Apple Music is squeezing out the local music
0:35:51collection.
0:35:52If you don't subscribe to Apple Music,
0:35:53Apple is like, they basically spam you with sign up, sign up, sign up every time you open
0:35:59the app. So I think that could be better. Some people have suggested, and I think I
0:36:03saw a drunk group of suggestors like to make a separate app. I don't think that's a good
0:36:07idea because what do you call them? What music and Apple music? Like I don't think that works,
0:36:12but I think that there is, you know, if you're going to get rid of the connect tab, I think
0:36:16you could have a tab for local music. Um, if people really want to do that or you could
0:36:20just find a good way to mix them all together and kind of stop trying to push one out and
0:36:25keep one in. I think overall that these changes sound good, but I don't think it means that
0:36:34Apple Music is being smashed down to the ground and rebuilt. I really don't think that that's
0:36:40what's happening here. I think they're just making the changes that the users of Apple
0:36:43Music have wanted to see for a few months since it's changed at least. And I really
0:36:48do think that a lot of this stuff came out just because there was some bad press. There
0:36:55was another piece of news about Apple Music and this is a strange one I think. Apple Music,
0:37:01you can now get a 50% discount if you're a student. I think it kind of authenticates
0:37:06depending on where you are.
0:37:09No I think it authenticates with an email address.
0:37:12Ah, okay.
0:37:13Like an edu email address. And I've seen someone say that it's even more
0:37:18restrictive than it should be? I think?
0:37:21Well, that's not a surprise. It's a very strange one to me.
0:37:24Like, student pricing feels like a Microsoft 2003 thing.
0:37:29I'm not saying it's a bad thing, but like it just sounds strange to me now.
0:37:34Like getting a student discount on software product?
0:37:37It feels very weird.
0:37:40Well, Spotify has it. Spotify has it.
0:37:42I'm not saying they don't. I'm sure many people do.
0:37:44It's just like now, in today's kind of like application economy, it just seems like
0:37:49a pick- it just sounds strange to my ears after, you know, so many years of seeing like
0:37:54Microsoft Office Student Edition, you know?
0:37:57You know, because getting students with clear issues with cash on a monthly basis to sign
0:38:06up and eventually those students grow up and get a job and they stay with your service
0:38:11and they stay with your platform, I think it's like one of those investments that you
0:38:16make to get people to use your service and to make sure that in the future even a tiny
0:38:20percentage of them stays with you.
0:38:22Give it to them for free.
0:38:23No, not for free, but you know, half the price, because you're a student and because whatever
0:38:29reason, you know, it's, I mean, I understand why you do this, it's sort of weird to have
0:38:36like an educational discount in this modern age where it's like there's an app store and
0:38:42it's the same price for everyone, but I understand why, you know, Apple Music the service wants
0:38:48to offer this. Actually, I've seen a few people suggesting "Could there be, with the same
0:38:53system, student discounts for the app store coming?" and I've seen a few developers responding
0:39:00well to that on Twitter, saying "I would actually raise the price of my own apps if I were able
0:39:06to offer student discounts. It's interesting to think about, to have student pricing on
0:39:13the App Store.
0:39:14Yeah, I've seen a couple of people say this, "Well, obviously there is some kind of authentication
0:39:19going on here, so it would be kind of cool if there was a way to bring this sort of stuff
0:39:25out to more people." I would like that.
0:39:29Yeah, and Kyle in the chatroom is saying that it's not just email authentication, it goes
0:39:34through this college web interface for, you know, saying "I am a student at this college."
0:39:41So I think it's interesting. It makes sense a bunch of other services have it. Spotify
0:39:46has it, and there's a big banner on the Spotify front page right now that says "If you're
0:39:51a student, get Spotify for $5 a month." I think it'll be interesting to see... I mean,
0:39:58There has to be some kind of app store announcement at WWDC, right?
0:40:03Now this has nothing to do with Apple Music, but there has to be some app store changes
0:40:09coming, right?
0:40:10Well, I mean, you'd expect it.
0:40:12There's some weirdness happening right now, right?
0:40:14Like apps are getting accepted and put for review significantly faster, right?
0:40:21What's happening there?
0:40:22Faster than TestFlight, even.
0:40:24Approval.
0:40:25It's strange.
0:40:26And initially I thought, historically, app review times were always lower in May, but
0:40:32I looked it up on a story that we had on the site a while ago, and it's never been under
0:40:3948 hours or even 24 hours. It's always been around 7 to 9 days around this time of the
0:40:46year. So there's something going on, like more stuff, or Apple has a new app review
0:40:53policy we don't know about, but definitely 24 hours to get an app approved for the App
0:41:00Store. It's definitely new. And I'm seeing a lot of positive feedback from the developers
0:41:04like they're really liking this. In fact, I'm not kidding. App Review is faster at the
0:41:10moment for several apps than TestFlight beta approval, which is crazy because TestFlight
0:41:18is just for testers and app review is for the public app store.
0:41:22But still, I wonder, it's been a rough year, it's been a rough couple of years for the
0:41:27app store and the Mac app store, and we've seen the executive shakeup, you know, Phil
0:41:33Schiller now in charge of the app store.
0:41:35I do wonder if Apple has been preparing some, in that case, I'll allow it some sweeping
0:41:40changes for the app store.
0:41:43And we'll see those at WWDC.
0:41:46I don't know.
0:41:47Yeah, this is an interesting kind of like story that nobody can do anything with because no one's saying anything
0:41:53Right, like Apple isn't saying anything about this
0:41:56All we know is that the average review times are down to like two days for iOS and one day
0:42:03for the Mac based from appreviewtimes.com
0:42:06It's like okay. This is crazy, but great. Yeah with the thing that's
0:42:12Interesting to me and all of that like we see this leading up WBC most years
0:42:17We can like see the ground shifting a little bit. And so we have things like the student pricing you have things like
0:42:22You know review times coming down like something is coming, right?
0:42:27I can always enjoy this part of the year because it's fun to try to read the tea leaves and see what's going on
0:42:32but um
0:42:34You know, I think the what underlies both of these stories is you know apples?
0:42:41ongoing insistence that they are becoming a services company, right?
0:42:44Those in the quarterly results, Tim Cook says that every interview is on right now,
0:42:48that services are an increasingly important part of Apple's business and you can see that in their results.
0:42:54And so if that is true, then they have to make these moves, right? They have to do things like
0:43:00increase the Apple Music user base, and I think a discount to college students is a pretty smart way of going about that.
0:43:06They have to make the App Store better for developers and users.
0:43:09They have to do things like maybe iCloud pricing adjustments or up that free tier of storage,
0:43:16which they don't do at WDC, like everyone's going to be sad again. But I think this sort
0:43:21of stuff is going to be in the news more and more as Apple puts an increased emphasis on
0:43:27its various and its under services that they offer.
0:43:30I completely agree with you because they're also a service to the people that develop
0:43:36on their platforms, right? Like, that's part of the whole service package, I guess.
0:43:42There's a question that it's not about services and that we didn't discuss before, but that
0:43:47just came to mind, and that I would like to ask you both, if you don't mind, which is
0:43:53do you believe that fundamentally the changes that Apple could make for indie developers
0:44:04matter to the general public or to Apple as a company? Do you believe that they care about
0:44:12what's better for indies when the App Store is making so much money with the big companies?
0:44:20I think that there's a couple of parts to this. I think that indie developers have shown
0:44:27in the past and continue to advance and develop iOS apps in new and inventive ways which feel
0:44:34filter out to the bigger companies.
0:44:37They help Apple kind of push and test things in ways that big companies won't because they
0:44:41can't, and I think it helps Apple grow their APIs and think differently about this sort
0:44:46of stuff.
0:44:47I also believe that any changes that they make for indie developers are going to find
0:44:53some way to help the bigger developers too.
0:44:57The reason that WWDC is an open event is because Apple believe in the community of independent
0:45:03developers because otherwise they could just do a video and just bring in you
0:45:08know King and EA you know they could just bring those people in I think that
0:45:12they genuinely do believe in the independent developer because it helps
0:45:16them advance the platform right like you just know that everybody at Apple is
0:45:20using apps made by people like Underscore right they're just doing that
0:45:25because that's something that they do the same as we do so I think that the
0:45:29people that help make these rules, they use these apps and want these apps to get better,
0:45:34and they know that one of the ways that they can make it better is by making it better
0:45:37for indies. That's how I feel, you know? And funnily enough, in parallel, I feel the same
0:45:42way about podcasting as well. There's been a whole big hullabaloo about all of this,
0:45:46you know, and Apple do help out the bigger players, but I genuinely believe that they
0:45:50care about the needs of people like me and you because we'll help push the medium in
0:45:55new and different ways the same as we always have done. And I think having the balance
0:45:59making everyone happy, like the big players and the indies, means that they're going to
0:46:04get a better platform overall. And I think Apple know this.
0:46:07Yeah, I agree. Yeah, I think so.
0:46:10So for that reason it's interesting to me to kind of imagine what they're going to do
0:46:15and to see what they're going to do because like I see two approaches to the App Store.
0:46:23The romantic one, which is to care for the indies and to nurture the indies, and to kind
0:46:29of make, sort of like treating software development as kind of an artistic form, and to enable
0:46:35the best possible environment for those creators, for those makers.
0:46:41And then I see the realistic approach, which is to just look at the money, to just look
0:46:45at the biggest names on the App Store, and those big companies, what they need, and to
0:46:51kind of have features for those companies because those are driving sales and driving
0:46:55downloads. So it's definitely, when you think about it, it's a tough spot to be in, like
0:47:01to have the sort of idealistic approach and to be sort of romantic about software development
0:47:08and as an artistic endeavor and to be realistic and look at the spreadsheets, look at the
0:47:14numbers and say, yeah, you know, people just want to play Clash of Clans. And so we're
0:47:19going to have features on the app store for those people? I don't know what I would do,
0:47:23that's why I'm not an executive at Apple, but from the outside it's fascinating, you
0:47:28know. We're going to be talking about this more as we lead up to because we are very
0:47:32close to WWDC now. We're a month away this week. Yes. So that's what you can expect from
0:47:38us, you can expect lots of this talk now, it is the most wonderful time of the year.
0:47:43it is really.
0:47:45It will be even more wonderful if you're wearing one of our t-shirts. Don't forget, go to our
0:47:50show notes relay.fm/connected/90 and you'll find the link there to go and grab one of
0:47:57our fantastic t-shirts, our rainbow connected t-shirts. You can go to teespring search rainbow
0:48:02connected as well and you'll find the campaign for you either US or EU but we suggest going
0:48:07to our show notes because you'll also find a bunch of other great links there. If you
0:48:11If you want to find Steven online head to 512pixels.net and he is @ismh on twitter.
0:48:16Federico is @vitiici and he writes over at maxstories.net and I am @imikeke.
0:48:26Check out Upgrade this week if you're interested in mine and Jason's thoughts about the New
0:48:30York Times Apple podcasting thing.
0:48:34We spend a bit of time talking about that so I think that's interesting.
0:48:37interesting for us. If you find it interesting, then you might want to go and listen to that
0:48:41section and we put chapter markers in it for your convenience because some people won't
0:48:46want to listen to it and some people only want to listen to it. So that is a good reason
0:48:49for a chapter marker. Thanks to Memories for sponsoring this week. Thank you for listening.
0:48:54We'll be back next time. Until then, say goodbye guys.
0:48:57Arrivederci. Adios.