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Connected

68: The Opposite of Perfect

 

00:00:00   (upbeat music)

00:00:02   - Hello and welcome to episode 68

00:00:05   from your friends at Relay FM.

00:00:07   My name is Steven Hackett and I'm joined this week

00:00:10   by Mr. Federico Vittucci.

00:00:13   - Hello Steven.

00:00:14   - Hey buddy.

00:00:15   - How are you?

00:00:16   - I'm good.

00:00:17   I'm once again pretending to be Myke.

00:00:20   - Yeah, I mean your accent kind of gives it away

00:00:23   a little, just a little.

00:00:25   - They're slightly different.

00:00:28   Just very minor difference.

00:00:30   Our British friend is away.

00:00:33   He's in the land of the free.

00:00:35   He's in your country, Steven.

00:00:36   - He's in my country.

00:00:37   He's in New York City.

00:00:39   He and his lady are taking a little vacation time,

00:00:41   which is awesome, well deserved.

00:00:44   So he is away this week.

00:00:46   And you know, it always happens on Connected.

00:00:49   I think because there's three of us,

00:00:51   we are a little more flexible with the schedule.

00:00:53   And so if someone, like it always seems like

00:00:56   we have this couple week spans where there's not all three of us.

00:01:00   Yeah.

00:01:01   Definitely in the summer because Italy takes the summer off and you're just gone to the

00:01:04   beach.

00:01:05   Basically.

00:01:06   Yes.

00:01:07   And now, you know, around the holidays I was out last week with some family stuff.

00:01:10   Your mic's gone this week.

00:01:14   And yeah, that's that.

00:01:16   So.

00:01:17   But we're here.

00:01:18   It's not dead.

00:01:19   It's not dead.

00:01:20   I mean it could be.

00:01:21   I haven't spoken to him in a couple hours.

00:01:23   I mean, he's gone to Walmart and I'm pretty sure I saw some pretty scary pictures of people

00:01:27   at Walmart on the internet.

00:01:29   So pay attention, Myke.

00:01:32   Be safe.

00:01:33   We're thinking of you.

00:01:34   But still, we're going to do a show.

00:01:36   Steven, I believe Myke was also part of the follow-up.

00:01:40   Myke is part of the follow-up.

00:01:41   Myke is the follow-up.

00:01:42   Okay.

00:01:43   Yeah.

00:01:44   So we straightened the follow-up early.

00:01:46   But there's really another pressing question about the staff of Connected.

00:01:54   Oh, really?

00:01:55   It is what you did for Thanksgiving.

00:01:57   Okay, so it wasn't exactly a Thanksgiving dinner, after all.

00:02:02   It was more like a casual party with a hint of Thanksgiving.

00:02:08   So as I said, one of Sirius' teachers, dance teacher, is American.

00:02:14   So he wanted to celebrate Thanksgiving.

00:02:16   Only this dinner basically turned into a sort of multiracial dinner.

00:02:23   So there was like a Filipino dish.

00:02:26   It was like some rice with some meat and potatoes that I'm not sure.

00:02:32   There was a Nigerian dish from another guy who goes to the same school.

00:02:36   And the American teacher prepared like...

00:02:40   It was like sausages wrapped in bacon.

00:02:43   They were delicious. And I'm not sure if it's American or if it's something that he invented

00:02:49   or if it's Italian and he just pretended to be American. I don't know, but they were delicious.

00:02:53   And most of all, the food was nice, but it wasn't really the traditional Thanksgiving.

00:03:02   The focus of the dinner was really beer and drinking. So it wasn't really a Thanksgiving

00:03:07   dinner was more like a Thanksgiving party with a bunch of guys from Rome.

00:03:12   So just a Thursday night really?

00:03:15   Basically yes. It was just a Thursday night. We had fun. It was fun. I'm typically not

00:03:26   the kind of person who eats a lot of, I call it strange food because to me, you know, non-Italian

00:03:33   food is always strange.

00:03:34   An unusual food for you.

00:03:35   - Unusual food.

00:03:37   It's nice every once in a while to taste new stuff

00:03:41   and it was good, so yeah, it was a fun night.

00:03:44   But still, no turkey, no traditional Thanksgiving meal

00:03:48   for me, so you guys will have to take care of me eventually

00:03:51   for Thanksgiving.

00:03:53   - Yeah, we'll have to get you over here for some point

00:03:55   and do it upright.

00:03:56   So we have, and what has become a thing on our show?

00:04:03   we have some more automotive follow-up.

00:04:07   And so, long time follow-upper, follow-upper?

00:04:12   - Yes. - Follower-upper.

00:04:14   Long time follower-upper.

00:04:15   Luca has sent us another note about,

00:04:19   this is the Enjoy company, is that who this is?

00:04:22   - Yes, Enjoy.

00:04:24   - And they also have three wheel scooters,

00:04:28   I guess available for people in Milan.

00:04:31   And I have a lot of questions about this.

00:04:33   - Me too, actually.

00:04:35   - It seems crazy, and maybe this is just

00:04:38   the dad in me talking, but three-wheel scooters

00:04:40   seem crazy dangerous, and you're just gonna

00:04:43   let anyone on it?

00:04:44   I don't know how to drive with it.

00:04:45   I would crash a three-wheel scooter immediately.

00:04:48   I can just go run one.

00:04:50   - Actually, I was about to say, I think it's safer

00:04:52   than a two-wheel scooter.

00:04:54   - Well, it's gotta be safer than that.

00:04:56   - It's ugly, just plain ugly.

00:04:58   - Yeah, they're not good looking.

00:05:00   You know?

00:05:01   I don't know, is it?

00:05:02   This is one of my preconceptions that I gotta clear up.

00:05:06   Is American traffic also full of scooters?

00:05:11   - No. - As much as it is in Italy?

00:05:12   - No. - No.

00:05:13   I mean, maybe in like real big cities, but like,

00:05:16   I mean, I live in a pretty typical American city

00:05:19   and there's none of that business.

00:05:21   I mean, everyone's in a car. - No scooters.

00:05:23   - No scooters.

00:05:24   - Oh, that's so strange.

00:05:26   Like in Rome, you gotta,

00:05:27   You don't have to pay attention to the cars in traffic as much as you gotta pay attention to the scooters.

00:05:32   Because people on scooters are crazy.

00:05:34   I think actually scooter people are the craziest people around.

00:05:39   They just zigzag around, you know, they go left and right and don't care about the normal rules of traffic.

00:05:46   I'm always keeping an eye out for the scooter man, you know?

00:05:50   It's just...

00:05:52   That's the scariest part of driving in Rome.

00:05:55   these people on scooters going everywhere.

00:05:58   So the three wheel scooters with the Enjoy sharing.

00:06:02   I also have questions about parking and the,

00:06:06   you know, because you can,

00:06:07   I imagine leaving a car in a good spot

00:06:11   or in a good condition is easier than leaving a scooter,

00:06:15   you know, out in the open.

00:06:16   So it's interesting, but this Enjoy company,

00:06:19   now that I know how it works,

00:06:21   I see these Enjoy cars everywhere.

00:06:23   It's like, you know, that phenomenon that you hear a new word and suddenly everyone is speaking that word?

00:06:28   Yeah.

00:06:29   Now I'm seeing you enjoy cars like all the time. So...

00:06:32   Yeah, thank you. Luca was also a good friend of mine for the scooter follow-up.

00:06:39   Steven, we gotta convince Myke. Now that he's gone, we can, you know, talk about Myke.

00:06:46   We gotta convince Myke to drive one of these cars and see what happens.

00:06:49   Yeah.

00:06:50   Or maybe the scooter?

00:06:51   Because he doesn't draw I mean

00:06:53   He has driven

00:06:57   But he doesn't have a driver's license, and he doesn't drive on a regular basis

00:07:00   So it would just really what you want is Myke to be in a car wreck which is not cool, man

00:07:03   No, maybe we can find an empty road and just see for that for the funds you know I did

00:07:10   One time when he was here. I did have the thought of like I would let him drive my car in a parking lot

00:07:15   But then I was like no

00:07:19   So we got a we got an email this week from listener Brandon

00:07:23   About some JavaScript stuff, and then there's notes in here about JavaScript and Coda, so I'm just gonna let you talk about this

00:07:30   So yeah last week. I think it was I

00:07:33   complained about the lack of a JavaScript

00:07:37   interpreter on iOS and

00:07:39   In fact a few people got in touch with me about this so lisar Brandon first

00:07:46   sent us an email arguing that it should be possible to create a JavaScript app like Pythonista for JavaScript, basically, and

00:07:55   maybe even with fewer

00:07:57   problems than what Pythonista ran into, because on iOS there's a JavaScript core engine,

00:08:05   which is the same used by Safari, for example, when you when you want to use a JavaScript work market in the browser.

00:08:10   The JavaScript core engine is available on iOS, can be called by other apps, and you put together

00:08:16   a playground demo with Xcode. And not sure if it was in Swift or not.

00:08:22   Anyway, it executes JavaScript code and I tested it on my Macbook Air with Xcode,

00:08:29   and it works! Indeed, it shows a message and it shows that JavaScript

00:08:33   core can be executed by other apps and hopefully, you know, this will be... Brandon

00:08:39   says that it should be possible to make the kind of app that I want. It is

00:08:43   possible it's just that no one's making it so you know maybe eventually we'll

00:08:47   get something. In the meantime and I was told this by a reader and good friend

00:08:54   Pedro Lobo on Twitter I hope I don't spell his name right it is possible now

00:09:00   to do JavaScript playgrounds in Coda so Panix Coda app for iOS you can now

00:09:07   create in the top bar, if you press the plus icon, you can now create a

00:09:13   playground. And the playground is not like a full IDE for JavaScript, you can

00:09:19   only execute, you press enter, the code executes and

00:09:25   now you gotta write the code again. But still, it can show you alerts, it can

00:09:30   show you errors, so it is something. It's not a full JavaScript developer

00:09:34   environment like the one that I want but it is you know it is a good start so

00:09:40   that's about it for you see Steven we're jumping from automotive to automation I

00:09:47   feel like this is very good follow-up

00:09:49   Steven very good structure thank you

00:09:52   I you know it's just really just a bulleted list but I'm happy to help

00:09:56   no no you gotta see a deeper meaning follow-up and I put this in the follow

00:10:02   it's not really follow-up, it's sort of like a mini topic, but yesterday as we

00:10:07   record this, the word came down from on high that Apple Music was coming to the

00:10:13   Sonos platform. If you're not super familiar with Sonos, it is basically a

00:10:18   sort of like an ecosystem for audio. I mean they've got an app,

00:10:22   they've got like really nice speaker systems you can put in your house or

00:10:26   your office or whatever, and they also sort of have like this content section

00:10:31   and their thing as well.

00:10:32   And so, you can load music into their app,

00:10:37   and I've read and heard big things about the podcasting,

00:10:41   I'm not really up to date on that,

00:10:42   what they're doing there, but Apple Music is coming.

00:10:45   And, which is like, people who are into this stuff,

00:10:49   or like Sonos fans, are really into it.

00:10:52   Like, have you noticed that people

00:10:53   get really excited about this?

00:10:54   - Yeah.

00:10:55   - And like, I would like to check it out,

00:10:56   but I have bills to pay, so I'm not gonna do that.

00:10:59   But it does seem like Apple Music's on Android now,

00:11:04   now they're doing here.

00:11:05   I mean, they're really,

00:11:06   what's interesting about this to me,

00:11:09   is I don't have a dog in the Sonos fight,

00:11:12   is that Apple Music is really expanding

00:11:14   past Apple hardware.

00:11:16   Generally and historically, Apple's services and software,

00:11:20   like look at the iTunes store,

00:11:23   it was built for the iPod, right, and for iTunes.

00:11:26   And now, I think Apple wants music to be bigger

00:11:31   than just the iPhone or just the Mac,

00:11:33   which is crazy, right, 'cause the iPhone

00:11:34   is like a crazy big business.

00:11:37   But they really want Apple Music to sort of be

00:11:39   the service that you can work, it does work

00:11:43   on Apple hardware, and that's fine,

00:11:45   but it can also work with all of your other stuff, too.

00:11:48   And I think that's really like, it's an interesting

00:11:50   like shift of strategy from Apple,

00:11:51   and I think it's one that they need to do

00:11:53   if Apple Music is going to be successful, right?

00:11:54   they need it to be huge because Spotify is everywhere.

00:11:58   Spotify is on, I mean, it's on my dishwasher, I think.

00:12:01   RDO is nowhere anymore, but they tried to do that as well.

00:12:06   They were cross-platform.

00:12:08   And so it's interesting that Apple's doing this,

00:12:10   and I think it's like if you're a Sonos user

00:12:12   and you like Apple Music, for that section

00:12:15   of the population, they're gonna be really excited.

00:12:18   - Yeah, I mean, these services can only,

00:12:21   I think they can only survive if they achieve

00:12:23   some kind of scale, so if they're available everywhere to as many people

00:12:27   as possible on as many platforms as possible. And we have seen this kind of

00:12:32   idea from Apple actually from the first few weeks when they also

00:12:39   enabled integration with Shazam and I'm pretty sure also SoundHound,

00:12:45   to allow you to recognize a song and stream it instantly from

00:12:49   these apps and now they're continuing to do so even to a higher degree

00:12:54   with the Sonos speaker ecosystem which I think it's a good idea. I really I was

00:13:01   kind of surprised by the amount of people excited by this news. I didn't

00:13:06   honestly know Sonos was this popular. I used to... I reviewed one of the old Sonos

00:13:13   before they changed the name to the Play 3 or Play 5. Many many years ago they

00:13:19   sent me a review unit and I remember it was really really nice and but it was

00:13:25   also quite expensive you know and so I'm I'm curious to see how it works I just

00:13:31   don't want to spend the money on a speaker also because I feel like I

00:13:35   listen to music more with headphones than speakers because you know speakers

00:13:40   especially when they're loud I don't want to bother you know other people in

00:13:44   the house I don't want to bother my neighbors so I just feel like I can

00:13:47   enjoy headphones more, so I'm not really a speaker person, but maybe just out of curiosity

00:13:55   if I can find a used unit or a cheap version, I don't know, we'll see.

00:14:03   Every time Apple Music has an update, I enjoy it. And by enjoy I mean, it's not really enjoyment,

00:14:12   but it's just an observation, Jim of the loop.

00:14:16   He's having quite a few problems with Apple Music.

00:14:20   And he makes some good points, I think.

00:14:24   Jim is very into music, he's a music fan.

00:14:30   The comparison would be, if people like me, we are power users for productivity apps,

00:14:38   Jim is the power user for music stuff.

00:14:40   And it doesn't really like Apple Music, and it continues to have all these crazy bugs

00:14:46   and all these crazy technical problems, which I don't see, because I don't use my music

00:14:51   library as much as Jim does.

00:14:53   But I find it interesting that Apple is kind of not paying attention to these problems.

00:14:57   And it's not just Jim.

00:14:58   There's a lot of people who have the same issues.

00:15:01   And I'm running the iOS 9.2 beta, and I don't -- again, I don't use the Music Library features,

00:15:08   you know, the My Music section.

00:15:10   But I still see quite a few glitches and problems with the interface.

00:15:15   Missing albums that I once added to my music or that I liked or loved, whatever is the

00:15:21   proper name.

00:15:22   They're not loved anymore, which is sad.

00:15:27   Or maybe music that I added to a playlist which just disappeared.

00:15:33   So there's still technical problems which Apple is not fixing.

00:15:36   And I wonder, are they gonna wait for iOS 10 to fix these issues, people like Jim and

00:15:44   in general?

00:15:45   I don't know.

00:15:46   But hey, you get streaming on the Sonos.

00:15:49   I agree with you, I think Apple Music is so problematic in areas, and clearly Jim has

00:15:58   had more problems than most people with his sort of platform.

00:16:04   always that that stress of tying like OS releases with fixes and stuff we're

00:16:11   gonna talk more about that with iCloud photo library here in a second but um

00:16:14   yeah it's it's it's cool like if you like Sonos and you like Apple Music it's

00:16:18   great for me not using either it doesn't do much for me but it's nice to have

00:16:22   options so yeah hey Federico did you know this week's episode of connected is

00:16:29   sponsored by lynda.com. Oh nice. It is. lynda.com is the online learning platform with

00:16:35   over 3,000 on-demand video courses to help you strengthen your business,

00:16:39   technology, and creative skills. For a free 10-day trial visit lynda.com/connected

00:16:45   That's L-Y-N-D-A dot com slash connected. lynda.com is for problem solvers, for the

00:16:51   curious, and for people who want to make things happen. Maybe you want to master

00:16:55   Excel, strengthen your negotiation tactics, build a website, or boost your

00:16:59   Photoshop skills, lynda.com can help you feed your curious mind. I've been

00:17:04   actually checking out lynda.com and they've really got some really amazing

00:17:08   courses on there. They've got a lot of stuff for like the Adobe CC suite, so

00:17:12   Illustrator or Photoshop or InDesign for various design and type skills. All

00:17:19   that stuff's in there. I was looking at some stuff for wireframing recently. In

00:17:23   Illustrator, you can take care of that, there's a really nice course on that.

00:17:26   There's a lot of stuff, we were talking about JavaScript earlier, there's a lot of

00:17:29   programming stuff in here. You can work with JavaScript, you can work with Xcode,

00:17:34   with Swift, with iOS app development, or you know maybe you're more on the

00:17:39   business side and you need to look at something like getting things done or

00:17:42   going paperless in your office or figuring out how to bootstrap your

00:17:47   business. All of this stuff is at lynda.com and you can watch and learn from top

00:17:51   experts in these fields. You can stream thousands of video courses on-demand and

00:17:55   it allows you to learn on your own schedule and at your own pace. Each of these

00:17:59   videos is structured in a way that you can watch them start to finish or you

00:18:02   can jump around. What I really like is there's a transcript with each one and

00:18:06   so you can follow along, you can search for something and skip to that part in

00:18:09   the video. So if you come at it from like a video angle like Myke does or from a

00:18:13   sort of reading angle like I do you can do that with lynda.com. You can

00:18:19   create and save playlists of courses you want to watch to customize your learning

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00:18:43   visit lynda.com/connected and sign up for your free 10-day trial.

00:18:47   That's L-Y-N-D-A dot com slash connected.

00:18:51   Thank you so much, Helena dot com,

00:18:52   for supporting this show and all of Relay FM.

00:18:55   Sketch had a blog post this morning.

00:19:00   - Yeah, this just happened basically like an hour ago.

00:19:03   - Yeah, and the crux of it is that they are leaving

00:19:06   the Mac App Store, so if you're not familiar with Sketch,

00:19:10   it is a design tool for the Mac.

00:19:14   It's extremely popular, extremely successful.

00:19:17   and it has been Mac App Store only, I believe,

00:19:21   since day one, and now it is, they are leaving.

00:19:26   And so this blog post kind of outlines why,

00:19:29   and there's not much in here that's super surprising,

00:19:32   right, which is maybe even the saddest part about this,

00:19:35   that I kind of knew the reasons before I read it.

00:19:37   It's things like, what did I say, review time,

00:19:41   sandboxing, App Store guidelines,

00:19:43   and that upgrade pricing is unavailable.

00:19:47   It's kind of just more of the same.

00:19:51   And one thing I like about this post a lot

00:19:53   is that they say it's not a knee jerk reaction

00:19:55   to the certificate issue of a couple weeks ago

00:19:57   where, I'm sure you remember,

00:19:59   a bunch of Mac App Store apps,

00:20:01   a bunch of users had to reinstall their Mac App Store apps

00:20:03   because a certificate was broken in the App Store

00:20:07   and it corrupted the apps.

00:20:08   I got hit by it, I didn't reinstall a bunch of apps.

00:20:13   It was super frustrating.

00:20:14   And they say that wasn't the reason,

00:20:16   but they said that made them feel justified.

00:20:20   They'd already made the decision, it seems like,

00:20:21   and that was sort of just icing on the cake.

00:20:23   And I think this is a big deal.

00:20:26   I mean, Sketch is a popular app, it's an expensive app,

00:20:30   and now it is leaving.

00:20:32   - Apple designed a word winner three years ago,

00:20:37   now leaving the very store that allowed them

00:20:40   to achieve success.

00:20:42   I think it is a problem.

00:20:43   And I think at this point, we're actually past the stage

00:20:46   of saying the Mac App Store may have a problem.

00:20:51   We all acknowledge the problem,

00:20:54   and the only thing we can do is either find a solution

00:20:57   or hope that Apple listens.

00:20:59   But it's been, I would say that there have always been

00:21:03   problems with the Mac App Store since it launched.

00:21:06   It'll be five years in January.

00:21:09   - It's crazy.

00:21:10   From yeah, and from the very first day, so January, I still remember, January 6, 2011.

00:21:17   The following day, there were developers who were asking Apple to improve the Mac App Store

00:21:22   with the same issues, the same problems that we're talking about today.

00:21:26   So it's been five years and the Mac App Store has not changed. It has somehow,

00:21:31   you know, just continued to exist without any major improvements.

00:21:38   Sure, Apple brought nicer featured pages or nicer banners, maybe?

00:21:46   They started selling, or actually making available for free, the version of OS X on the Mac App

00:21:52   Store.

00:21:54   But that's it.

00:21:55   So developers are still asking for the same features, and if anything, the Mac App Store

00:21:58   got worse for developers, because since Apple started enforcing the sandboxing rules, preventing

00:22:04   apps from accessing certain files and locations on a user's computer, it even became harder

00:22:11   for developers to make software that is not a menu bar utility on the Mac.

00:22:19   And the simple reality is that we're now at the point where the best apps for the Mac

00:22:28   cannot be sold on the Mac App Store because it's just too much of a hassle, too much of

00:22:33   a problem and developers are, they still have a way, you know, you could argue but it's

00:22:39   not really a problem because you got Gatekeeper and you can install software securely from

00:22:45   outside the Mac App Store.

00:22:46   But you see, this is not the kind of argument that you can have two sides of the coin.

00:22:51   You cannot say the Mac App Store is still the best place, is the best place to sell

00:22:55   software, you gotta be on the Mac App Store and then when you are confronted with reality

00:23:00   you say "but hey, you still have Gatekeeper".

00:23:02   So it's either the Mac App Store is the best place or the solution, it's not really a solution.

00:23:11   It's a temporary alternative, which is not the perfect alternative actually for developers,

00:23:20   because if you decide to release an app outside of the Mac App Store, you lose a bunch of

00:23:24   benefits.

00:23:25   The first one, of course, is exposure and availability in a simple to use store.

00:23:32   And there are also a bunch of other technical limitations.

00:23:35   For instance, you cannot use iCloud if you decide to sell an app outside of the Mac App

00:23:39   Store.

00:23:40   So this is a very simple argument.

00:23:43   These apps, and it's, you know, Sketch, BB Edit, Dan Council has a great list of apps

00:23:50   that are not available on the Mac App Store.

00:23:52   These are not stupid people.

00:23:55   These are great apps.

00:23:57   And it's a very simple problem.

00:23:58   You look at this list and you're like, "Okay, these are great pieces of software.

00:24:02   Why are they not available on the Mac App Store?

00:24:04   If I were someone at Apple in charge of this situation, if there's still anyone in charge

00:24:09   at this point of the Mac App Store, or if it's just like an X serve left on a shelf

00:24:16   binding the store, I would say, I would look at this list, I would say, "Okay, this is

00:24:22   great software.

00:24:24   The people who use these apps are not insane.

00:24:26   They are professionals.

00:24:27   They are creatives.

00:24:28   They are normal people.

00:24:30   not any less intelligent than me, why is this list of software not available on the Mac

00:24:35   App Store?

00:24:36   And I would fix it.

00:24:37   And the principles that are guiding Apple, such as simplicity or sandboxing or security,

00:24:46   can only go as far when it comes to getting work done.

00:24:49   And we have talked about this at length in the past.

00:24:52   I believe in the safe and secure model of the Mac App Store and the iOS App Store in

00:24:57   general. But you cannot force people to change the way that they get work done.

00:25:03   If I want my design tool to access files on my computer, you cannot say "yeah you

00:25:11   cannot do that" because at the end of the day getting work done is getting work

00:25:15   done and you cannot tell people "yeah you gotta spend $200 and you're not gonna be

00:25:21   able to try that beforehand. You see, the principle is good on principle, but in

00:25:28   practice you gotta do something. Well, all the details are wrong, right? I mean, you

00:25:33   know, again this is a little bit of rehash, but I mean, software existed on the Mac

00:25:39   for a long, long time before the App Store showed up, and the App Store

00:25:42   basically took the iOS model and just kind of pasted it on top of the Mac

00:25:47   without the consideration of the way things have been done.

00:25:51   And that people do expect things like

00:25:54   being able to trial an app or have upgrade pricing.

00:25:59   And I get that on day one, but you hit it on the head.

00:26:03   It's been five years and there's been no evolution.

00:26:06   I mean, look at TestFlight, right?

00:26:07   TestFlight's been out on iOS well before Apple bought them.

00:26:12   And there's still nothing like that on the Mac.

00:26:14   And if you're running Mac beta,

00:26:15   you basically like send out zip files and hope for the best and it's

00:26:18   It's it's I understand that on day one if it wasn't a good fit

00:26:23   That's fine. Like I can get over that because I can go buy apps elsewhere and I do

00:26:27   but

00:26:29   Having no evolution no meaningful change in this long

00:26:33   either shows one of two things one is that just no one cares at Apple, which I

00:26:39   struggle to find it I

00:26:43   Struggle to believe that I think that they do care about the Mac and they do care about Mac software

00:26:47   So I think the second one is true

00:26:49   which is more worrisome is that people are paying attention to it and they don't think there's a problem and

00:26:54   that they view that the iOS model can work on the Mac and

00:26:58   That maybe we'll all just come around eventually and between the two that's more worrisome to me because clearly it's not working, right?

00:27:05   it's not just people like me who

00:27:07   are old and and

00:27:10   cranky it is like sketch is a real business like their

00:27:14   Their founder spoke at release notes gave a great talk about his business and it's like this is a real company making a really good

00:27:21   powerful application and that a lot of people rely on do their jobs and

00:27:26   because of the of Apple's

00:27:29   Unwillingness or inability to change or to fix this in fact. They've made it worse right I mean

00:27:35   with sandboxing being sort of a bigger problem to deal with than it used to be

00:27:40   Clearly they're not interested in the same things and that's fine as long as you can survive on the outside

00:27:47   But like you said you lose

00:27:49   The spot in the storefront right that you you don't have the you don't have the benefits of being in the App Store if you're

00:27:56   out on your own and so I think sketch will do well because sketch is

00:28:00   It's big and well known

00:28:03   But if you're a small app developer being in the app store, maybe your only choice

00:28:09   Maybe your only shot to gain an audience and I don't know what if you want to be what if you want to be the next?

00:28:15   catch

00:28:16   Yeah

00:28:18   Yeah, absolutely solution. It's really hard. I mean it's really tough and it's not I don't envy any

00:28:25   Envy anyone having to make those decisions

00:28:28   But I just do wish that Apple would listen because

00:28:33   You know you can write one or two apps off. You know you know something like

00:28:37   Transmit that you know needs root level permission to your disk and maybe that's not a good fit

00:28:42   But like Sketch doesn't you know Sketch is leaving for a bunch of reasons not just one and they're not just technical they're political

00:28:48   And that I think something Apple needs to pay attention to

00:28:50   Yeah, and you know you could argue that

00:28:54   Is the problem you know with the Mac App Store

00:29:00   making Apple sell fewer Macs, so is it really a problem for the millions of computers that they sell every quarter?

00:29:07   Right now, maybe it's not a problem.

00:29:10   But the people who run into these kind of problems,

00:29:14   they are the people who recommend to their friends and to their families to buy a Mac.

00:29:20   Maybe it's not a big deal right now, but I believe when you're in charge of a big company,

00:29:27   You gotta spot this, you know, it's not when you're in charge of a company like Apple

00:29:33   it's not about solving the problem as much as it is about diagnosing the problem very early on and

00:29:41   when all these millions of

00:29:44   Dollars are at stake and when you have a developer ecosystem

00:29:48   You gotta be able to recognize the problem when it's starting and it's been five years

00:29:53   which is why we're all this concerned about the Mac App Store because it's been a long time and

00:29:58   there's still nothing just silence and

00:30:02   It's become even more ridiculous in the past year since you know test flight and all these other

00:30:08   Changes for developers analytics is another one that I forgot to mention

00:30:12   and it's just radio silence on the Mac, which is you know concerning because you clearly have

00:30:20   You clearly have a problem and the doctor doesn't say anything.

00:30:23   Imagine that if you were a patient. The Mac App Store is ailing and there's no communication from Apple.

00:30:30   No changes, just nothing.

00:30:32   How are you supposed to react to that? I don't know. Well, we'll see what happens, I guess.

00:30:38   Yeah, I don't expect much.

00:30:41   But we'll see. And there are good things about the iCloud.

00:30:46   There's the ability to easily go in and see what you've purchased and redownload it.

00:30:49   I mean there are nice things about it and I just wish that those nice things came with better trade-offs, you know

00:30:55   Anyways, um, so on the on the subject of

00:31:02   Apple and sadness. I had a rough weekend, Federico. I had a real rough Sunday. So

00:31:10   I'm sure a bunch of people saw this because it was all over the place. But um

00:31:15   the

00:31:18   During the beta of photos, which is like a like a year ago now like it was like

00:31:22   It's been a while. It's been like months and months and months

00:31:26   So you know what as I do was part of my job. I need to check this out, right?

00:31:31   So I download the photos beta sign up for the iCloud photo library beta

00:31:35   I import my photo library is roughly 70 gigs in size

00:31:38   Probably a little smaller a year ago

00:31:41   Imported it all from Dropbox. That's where I've kept it which we're not reopening the photo management

00:31:48   can of worms today I promise.

00:31:50   Umm...

00:31:51   But uhh...

00:31:53   Uploaded them all and it was just a mess.

00:31:55   It was beta, it was real buggy, it was slow.

00:31:57   It really wasn't for me at the time.

00:31:59   So I was like, you know what, that's fine.

00:32:00   I still have my Dropbox and Finder system, which I like.

00:32:02   I'll just remove my photo library and

00:32:05   with umm...

00:32:08   with iCloud

00:32:11   you can go in and you can

00:32:14   basically tell it to remove your

00:32:17   your photo library from the cloud. So the kind of way it works the photo app on the Mac syncs the photos up and

00:32:23   then you can sync them back down to iOS devices and

00:32:25   and go from there. And so I did that right and it says hey

00:32:29   it's gonna be 30 days before I delete this. It's like a safety mechanism, which I like. I like that it's not

00:32:34   going to just nuke all my stuff immediately, which is which is nice. So I

00:32:40   tell it to delete. I wait the 30 days

00:32:43   It seems to have done it. I get the storage space back in my iCloud account, right? It seems to all be gone.

00:32:49   And I move on. And so over the last couple weeks I've been thinking, "Hey, you know, I'd like to try this again.

00:32:58   It seems to be better under Akapitan. The app seems better. People seem to be happy with the iCloud photo library these days."

00:33:03   So I just did it again, right? Imported the photos, didn't take that long.

00:33:07   Uploaded them, which is pretty quick for me.

00:33:10   Everything's cool for a couple days.

00:33:13   and it seems kind of subtle so I go to my iPad and like okay I'm gonna turn

00:33:16   iCloud photo library on on my iPad and I do it and it just spins for like two

00:33:23   days like it just never happens and it's this is like over Thanksgiving right so

00:33:27   I'm not checking in on this right just kind of like oh it's still working okay

00:33:31   I'll put it back down and this weekend I pick it up and I open photos on the Mac

00:33:35   and I have a big mess. So basically I have albums that from my old, from the

00:33:43   previous library, have been synced back in and most of them were just duplicates

00:33:49   which I could deal with right? It'd be a pain but I could deal with duplicate

00:33:52   albums like that's not the end of the world. But what is the end of the world

00:33:55   is that they didn't all duplicate that there was a number of them that over

00:34:00   local data on disk with an empty album from iCloud and that's not great.

00:34:08   So I wrote this thing, I wrote it you know kind of as it was happening. I think it's

00:34:12   pretty clear what happened in the article but I was I was upset and I think

00:34:15   rightfully so and you know I've gotten a bunch of feedback on this more than I

00:34:22   have in a long time but anything I've written on all sides of it there were

00:34:26   like I don't know how many comments on the Hacker News thread I just closed the

00:34:29   and went on with my day, but it's a problem.

00:34:34   And the error that iCloud made was it overwrote data

00:34:38   on my local disk with empty data from the cloud.

00:34:41   That was old that I told it to delete months ago, right?

00:34:44   And so I'm just over it.

00:34:50   I really would like to use iCloud Photo Library.

00:34:52   I think it'd be really nice to have all of my photos

00:34:54   accessible on my iPad, but I have to be able to trust it.

00:34:59   it and as you know more so than with documents and more so than with music I

00:35:05   have to feel like I could trust my photo solution because that stuff is

00:35:10   irreplaceable and and really what kicked me over the edge was one of the albums

00:35:14   that over it was our make-a-wish trip and I was just like you know what I've

00:35:16   done like you know that's a big no and and so I've heard from a few people

00:35:22   people in the chat room right now saying I've had the same issues and and there

00:35:26   people who it's run smoothly for, which is great.

00:35:29   I think it runs smoothly for most people.

00:35:31   But again, and maybe I fell into the Dalrymple hole

00:35:35   of Apple Music and I'm just in that with photos.

00:35:38   But there's no transparency with iCloud, right?

00:35:43   You can't really see what it's doing.

00:35:47   You can't really go in and reset anything or redo anything.

00:35:51   One thing I really like about Google,

00:35:53   you can go to Google Takeout and you can

00:35:56   Download all your data and you can like close different services on your account

00:36:01   you can close your whole account and you and you can see what it has right and and

00:36:04   Apple just doesn't have that and I think they think they need it

00:36:09   and

00:36:10   You know, I'm hopefully working with Apple support and some people at Apple try to get this resolved

00:36:16   But like it shouldn't have to come to that to to make this work for me, you know

00:36:20   Yeah, no, but what happened to you sounds extremely bad

00:36:25   Again, different use cases, different, you know, I just take pictures on my iPhone, they

00:36:32   show up on the iPad, I'm okay.

00:36:35   But I can perfectly understand, you have a library of years and years of photos, and

00:36:40   you want to start using iCloud, and it overwrites what you already have, that's bad.

00:36:48   There's just no way around it, you can justify the behavior, it doesn't mean that it's right.

00:36:54   to work better. I mean, I think you should continue to use Dropbox and maybe other backups.

00:37:03   I hear quite a lot of praise for Google Photos.

00:37:06   Yeah, I use that. So the system has been, and I think will continue to be, stuff in

00:37:11   Dropbox, which makes it show up on two computers and my NAS and a bunch of time machine drives.

00:37:20   And I then also have the Google Photos backup app sitting and running and watching that

00:37:26   folder.

00:37:27   And what's nice about that is that I have the Google Photos app on my phone.

00:37:31   If I need to find something that I haven't synced over, that's how I do it because it's

00:37:35   fast and Google Photos is basically magic.

00:37:39   But I still want my photos local so that Google Photos for me is like that backup and kind

00:37:42   of online view.

00:37:43   If that makes sense.

00:37:44   Yeah.

00:37:45   I want to try Google Photos again.

00:37:47   I deleted it this summer because I really wanted to try the Photos app.

00:37:53   Now I want to put all my photos in Google again.

00:37:58   Speaking of which, we had a double iCloud/Google topic this week.

00:38:06   So you talked about iCloud and Photos, I want to talk about iCloud Calendar and Google Calendar.

00:38:15   But before I do that, I think you want to thank our friends at igloo.

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00:38:25   Our friends at igloo make the internet that you will actually like.

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00:38:43   Because these days everything is mobile and your work should be too.

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00:38:51   "whoever designed this must truly hate me and everyone here."

00:38:55   Those days are over.

00:38:56   Igloo allows you to make your intranet feel like the place you actually want to be.

00:39:01   It's surprisingly configurable and you can completely rebrand it to give it the look

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00:39:10   really customize it and give your team the tools that they need to do their work.

00:39:15   With our mobile lives people are increasingly bringing in outside apps

00:39:19   and services into companies and sensitive documents are getting spread

00:39:22   across all these different platforms and that can cause some big security issues

00:39:27   for companies but if you use igloo you're able to integrate those services

00:39:31   like box, google drive, and dropbox into one big easy secure central platform.

00:39:37   you know terms like 256-bit encryption, single sign-on, and Active Directory

00:39:41   integrations, then you know how good igloo really is. With igloo you can share

00:39:45   these files with your co-workers, you can collaborate on them, you can make your

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00:40:06   you can use it for free as long as you want. Sign up at igloosoftware.com/connected.

00:40:12   Thank you so much to igloo for supporting connected and all of Relay FM.

00:40:15   So what's going on with your calendar?

00:40:19   So

00:40:21   every year I like to

00:40:23   try iCloud calendar again because every year there seems to be a new feature that

00:40:28   you know, it makes me curious to check it out. And this year after I wrote about, you know,

00:40:33   ICLR calendar last year, this year I wanted to try the new time-to-leave notifications,

00:40:39   which were sort of an evolution of the driving time information screen label, whatever, that they

00:40:47   added back in what was the OS X before Yosemite, was it Mavericks? What was the name? Mavericks,

00:40:58   Are you sure? So it's Mavericks, Yosemite and what's... Oh, El Capitan. Yeah, El Capitan.

00:41:03   So anyway, they added the driving time in calendar a few years ago. This year

00:41:09   it's time to leave notifications, which the idea is you create a calendar event with

00:41:14   with an address and

00:41:17   you can choose to receive an alert on your phone when it's time to leave. So depending on traffic,

00:41:24   Depending on your location and other conditions. In theory, such as the weather also, or road accidents ahead of you, or road work,

00:41:32   all these other variables, you get a notification when it's time to leave. As I wrote in my

00:41:37   iOS 9 review, these time-to-leave notifications have been useless for me. They fire too early,

00:41:46   so I know that I have an event that takes me, I don't know, about 15 minutes to drive there.

00:41:53   In theory I should be able to get, I don't know, maybe 5 to 10 minutes before the driving time

00:41:59   So maybe I would say 20 to 25 minutes ahead of time. I get the time to leave notifications

00:42:04   So I get like 5 or 10 minutes to get ready. That's what I want.

00:42:08   Instead Apple, for an event that takes me 15 minutes to get there, they send me notification like

00:42:15   50 to 55 minutes before, which is just useless because by the time I gotta leave I

00:42:20   forget maybe or maybe I start doing something else and then I don't know that I'm supposed to leave.

00:42:25   And this has never worked for me. I don't know if it's an American thing that Americans maybe want

00:42:31   to arrive at destinations early. I just don't care because I don't have to arrive early

00:42:39   at anywhere. It's just uncommon for me to arrive early. I arrive when it's time.

00:42:46   Anyway, I remembered that the Google app was able to look into the Google Calendar account

00:42:54   and send you actual, precise notifications for driving times, time to leave.

00:43:02   So, last week I was about to drive to an event and I had, for an unrelated reason,

00:43:12   installed the Google app on my iPhone. And I just needed to check out, I think, the new design or

00:43:19   just another feature. Anyway, I logged into with my Google account and by chance it had an old

00:43:28   repeating event that I didn't delete in my Google Calendar account. And I just happened to be about

00:43:35   to drive to the same event, to the same location, because I should mention here I don't create a lot

00:43:41   of calendar events with locations. I don't do a lot of, actually I never do meetings in real life,

00:43:48   at least. I drive to specific places a few times each week and it's always the same event.

00:43:56   It is what you would call a routine. I just happened to have one of those events already in

00:44:03   my Google Calendar, so I was just sitting there with my iPhone and the Google app sent me a

00:44:08   notification. I was like "huh, you remembered." And looking at the time, it was just perfect.

00:44:15   The timing, it was about 10 minutes ahead of time. It knew that it would take me about

00:44:20   15 minutes to get there, and it was just perfect. Instead,

00:44:25   iCloud Calendar sends me notifications way ahead of time, and then for some reason, while I'm already

00:44:34   driving, sometimes it decides to send me the notification again, only with just the wrong

00:44:41   time. So what I decided to do is I'm going to move back to Google Calendar. And this

00:44:50   is a much bigger topic than those couple of events that I got in my calendar. And it's

00:44:57   a bigger idea and I think I also touched on this in my in my ISNI review. I appreciate

00:45:03   Apple's commitment to privacy and you know to keeping customer data secure and

00:45:10   to not look at the information across different services. So for example

00:45:16   they could you know look at what you browse in Safari and give you music

00:45:20   recommendations in Apple Music. I appreciate that and I think that a lot

00:45:24   of people also do. I'm a fan of the transparency of Apple and Tim Cook's commitment to privacy.

00:45:33   I like that. It's just that for some features and for some apps, the practical benefit and

00:45:40   the trade-off of Google's approach just works better for me. Because, again, it's a matter

00:45:45   We all love to talk about principles and ideas, but ultimately I got a house that I gotta pay the bills for, I got a life, and I got a routine.

00:46:01   And it doesn't matter, you know, I can hold my principles for more important matters.

00:46:10   But when it comes to "Do I want to get a notification when it's time to leave so I'm not late?"

00:46:16   I like that.

00:46:17   It's a practical feature and it just doesn't work with iCloud.

00:46:20   And maybe it doesn't work for, because you know, Apple doesn't like to look at a bunch

00:46:24   of different data points.

00:46:27   And it's a nice idea, but Google's approach just works better in practice.

00:46:32   And I realize that maybe I'm giving up some of my privacy.

00:46:38   But to an extent, I would say I'm okay with that, when the service that I receive in return

00:46:43   just works better in everyday life.

00:46:48   And this is reflected for me in Google Calendar the most, because it can look at Google Maps,

00:46:55   it can look at my history.

00:46:56   And I understand why people don't want to use Google services.

00:47:03   This doesn't want to be one of those stupid wars between Apple and Google.

00:47:09   I'm just saying here that for what I need to do, for my life outside of the website

00:47:16   and the principles and the ideas, I'm just a regular human being who doesn't want to

00:47:22   be late.

00:47:23   And the Google app helps me to do that with Google Calendar.

00:47:27   And also, I want to say, I struggle to see what could ever happen to me if there was

00:47:37   ever a breach in Google Calendar.

00:47:40   Would people know my address?

00:47:41   Well, that's basically public anyway.

00:47:44   Would there be someone that comes knocking at my place?

00:47:49   We're gonna have fun, I think.

00:47:51   You know, I'm just not...

00:47:55   Quite a few readers email me, "Are you not scared of the kind of data that you put into

00:47:59   Google?"

00:48:00   Well, you know, there's a lot of scary things in life, and I would say I'm more scared by

00:48:05   the scooter man in Rome and the traffic and, you know, bad news that you see on TV that

00:48:11   I'm scared about data breach on Google.

00:48:14   Again, it's about the practical benefit.

00:48:16   And when it comes to the calendar, iCloud is just not working for me, so I moved back

00:48:21   to Google Calendar, which again takes me like two minutes because I don't have many events.

00:48:27   But just for those few events, I see the upside, which is I get notifications when it's time

00:48:33   to leave, they are accurate, and they take into account, which is also nice, you can

00:48:38   see in the Google app if there's any accident on the road, if there's any problems, any

00:48:44   slowdowns, traffic jams, it's useful.

00:48:47   And I don't get the data with Apple Maps or with iCloud Calendar.

00:48:51   So it just works better for me.

00:48:54   I'm not afraid of the security and actually the privacy concerns.

00:49:00   I realize that a lot of people are upset by this way of living life, but it's just, you

00:49:06   know, I live each day this way.

00:49:09   Yeah.

00:49:10   Yeah.

00:49:11   that's interesting to me talking about this and I use iCloud basically for

00:49:18   contacts, calendars, like the whole thing, my personal email. I use iCloud calendar

00:49:24   and for the big reason is that it's really easy to share and so like I've

00:49:28   got two, I've got like me and then I've got work and we have one for like family

00:49:34   events, my wife has one, and we share that it's really seamless to share those and

00:49:40   And so for me, like moving systems would involve

00:49:44   like dragging her into it as well.

00:49:47   But I mean I think what you're saying makes a lot of sense

00:49:51   and it comes down to that just sort of like

00:49:53   fundamental difference is that Google can do that

00:49:55   really well because they apply what they learn

00:49:58   like in mass and Apple's system is local on your device

00:50:02   and maybe not as powerful.

00:50:06   I will say I've had pretty good luck with the

00:50:09   hey can you know remind me when it's time to leave type thing on iOS it seems

00:50:13   to work pretty well for me maybe it's that their map data is better where I am

00:50:16   than you are I mean who knows but I will say that the where it falls down for me

00:50:24   is like Apple software like that the built-in calendar app like I've had it

00:50:28   they all go change an event and it will revert back after a sync and I don't

00:50:31   have that happen in fantastic our busy cows like there's a whole bunch of

00:50:35   moving parts with calendars and with contacts and everything.

00:50:39   But for me, where I feel at the most of where I look

00:50:43   at going back to Gmail is just with the email stuff,

00:50:46   with the email rules and the spam filtering and everything.

00:50:47   iCloud just isn't as powerful as what Google's doing.

00:50:51   And I think that that idea that Google knows this about you,

00:50:56   like I understand people's concern and I don't wanna,

00:51:00   I don't wanna belittle anyone's concerns at all.

00:51:03   But it's just not something I worry about.

00:51:05   Like I trust that their privacy stuff is in good shape

00:51:09   and that yes, I'm sharing it with a company

00:51:11   and with their really smart computers,

00:51:12   but I'm not, you know, that stuff's not gonna get

00:51:16   published anywhere.

00:51:17   And so I agree with you.

00:51:18   I think you just have to make the decision of like,

00:51:21   is the trade-off here worth it for me?

00:51:25   And that's what Myke said months ago

00:51:26   when we talked about this last time.

00:51:27   For him, it made sense.

00:51:29   - Yeah, absolutely.

00:51:31   And actually right now I am a little curious to see what's going on with the Google App

00:51:36   and Google Now on iOS.

00:51:39   I don't know if you saw my tweet last night, but I'm basically getting the Google Now cards

00:51:47   from apps on iOS.

00:51:48   It used to be an Android feature.

00:51:50   I think it's rolling out on iOS right now, so the idea is certain apps allow you to connect

00:51:56   to your Google account so you can see relevant snippets of data in Google Now, which is interesting.

00:52:03   I'm not sure what apps I can try that have this feature on iOS, but it's something that

00:52:08   I also want to try.

00:52:10   Yeah, they have that good ecosystem of stuff that all works together and pulls from that

00:52:16   central information in your account.

00:52:19   And again, that's really powerful, and if that makes sense for you and you need that,

00:52:23   that's great.

00:52:24   I keep coming back to this because the photo library thing in particular

00:52:29   just really burned me a little bit. The idea of no one company,

00:52:35   we cover Apple here, we like Apple, but just as we cover Apple and we like them,

00:52:39   and we like their products, doesn't mean that they're perfect and it doesn't mean

00:52:43   that every other company is the opposite of perfect. And the beauty

00:52:49   of the modern era we live in is that your iPhone can be a

00:52:53   Google machine right you can you can use Google services on iOS and it works

00:52:56   really well same thing on OS X and that flexibility is really nice and it's

00:53:02   something that I think makes iOS really powerful that you can use all these

00:53:06   differences like you work in exchange like cool plug your exchange thing in if

00:53:09   the built-in stuff doesn't work for you go download outlook that works with

00:53:12   exchange if you have all these options but the idea that like we or anyone else

00:53:19   is supposed to be like, tightly in allegiance with one, like, "I'm only going

00:53:23   to use Apple stuff," and like, I had someone, like, basically call me like,

00:53:28   sensationalist for writing what I wrote. It's like, "Well, no, like, I wrote what

00:53:31   happened to me," and that's all I, you know, like, I didn't show up, I was like,

00:53:37   "It was, you know, with pitchforks, right?" It's like, "Well, you should have emailed, you

00:53:40   should have called their support first," you know what, I did, and we have a call set

00:53:45   up to work through it, like, you know, I didn't just write it for the page use, I

00:53:49   that you're not doing this just to inflame the Apple-Google war, you're doing it because

00:53:53   it makes sense for how you need to use your devices, right?

00:53:57   I mean, you can even stretch that argument back to the iPad and Mac thing where, "Oh,

00:54:01   you just use the iPad to make the points."

00:54:04   No, use an iPad because it makes sense for you.

00:54:07   Why does that conversation need to go past that statement?

00:54:10   No, no.

00:54:12   It's just this applies to a lot of aspects in life.

00:54:18   the problem becomes much bigger on Twitter.

00:54:20   It can be tricky to understand that people have different opinions than you

00:54:27   and they have different lives and different experiences.

00:54:30   That's part of being an adult and maybe a responsible adult

00:54:34   to understand that people are different and what works for you doesn't work for me.

00:54:38   And the great thing about technology is that it's always different.

00:54:41   So I can take selfies on my iPhone and, you know, Austin Mann can go to Switzerland and take awesome pictures with the same iPhone.

00:54:50   Again, saying that something doesn't work, I think it's actually one of the best things that you can do to criticize a product, to help make it better.

00:55:02   And I actually don't think there's a lot of utility in praising unnecessarily a product,

00:55:10   even when you know that it's got flaws and problematic aspects, just because you like a

00:55:16   company. I think being fair, being honest, is a good thing. And I don't see what you wrote as

00:55:23   sensationalism. I think it's just the truth. It's what happened to you. Again, it's a very basic

00:55:29   idea. Shouldn't have happened, but it happened. So why? Can we fix it? Can we make it better?

00:55:34   It's very simple. This was a good discussion, Steven.

00:55:39   Yeah, and again, it's that, you know, there's options, there's these things you can fit

00:55:43   together to solve the problem that you have. So if, you know, if the directions in "Leave

00:55:51   on Time" feature doesn't work for you in one, go to somewhere else. And I think that's nice,

00:55:58   I mean there are people who are gonna do it all,

00:56:02   you can do it all self-hosted.

00:56:05   You know, there's all these different ways you can do it

00:56:07   and I think that's great.

00:56:09   So yeah, anyways, we're gonna go with the next iPhone

00:56:16   because apparently it's that time of year again.

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00:58:58   So iPhone 7, it's so early for this.

00:59:02   Oh God, really?

00:59:03   Are we really doing this?

00:59:04   I'm still learning 3D Touch on my success.

00:59:07   We are.

00:59:08   We are doing this.

00:59:10   - So the rumor of the day from the Japanese website,

00:59:14   Mac,

00:59:16   - You can do it, go on, go on.

00:59:20   - I can't do it, Mac Odokara, Odokara?

00:59:24   - I would say, Mecha Takara, yeah.

00:59:25   - Perfect.

00:59:26   - Or maybe is it Japanese Mecha Takara, I don't know.

00:59:31   - I did not hear the difference between those two things.

00:59:34   Where's Myke?

00:59:35   So this rumor and this Japanese, this site,

00:59:39   Has pretty good track record which Mac rumors points out is that Apple is playing to remove the 3.5

00:59:46   millimeter headphone jack on the next iPhone in favor of their lightning connector

00:59:52   So the background is a little bit is that you can now like you can go buy lightning

00:59:57   equipped headphones Apple supports audio in and out over lightning I

01:00:02   Think that's true since the iPhone

01:00:06   6 I think it was in 2014 they announced that it's part of the made for iPhone program

01:00:13   it's

01:00:16   You know so it's been around right and this kind of Apple does things like Apple's like hey we have this new spec

01:00:20   It's gonna be really important like a year. You know or two years

01:00:24   and

01:00:26   So the the rumor basically comes down to the 3.5 million Jack if you look at on the bottom of your iPhone

01:00:32   It's the thickest thing on your phone

01:00:34   Several people point out to it. It's also very deep

01:00:36   the amount of the depth of that port, you know, if you look at the iPod nano I

01:00:43   think I saw an image of like that whole bottom lip on the nano is there to

01:00:46   support that jack. It's big and it's bulky and it's problematic because it

01:00:51   gets broken off and so people are saying this report is saying that

01:00:58   Apple can make their phone thinner and simpler and what I'm interested in is

01:01:04   maybe even a little more waterproof

01:01:06   if they get rid of this thing.

01:01:07   Which is a little bit crazy.

01:01:13   - It is crazy.

01:01:14   - Because, I mean this, I wrote about this, I mean,

01:01:17   the eighth inch or 3.5 milliliter stereo jack

01:01:23   is like the most universal thing I can think of

01:01:26   in consumer technology.

01:01:28   Like every single device that takes audio

01:01:33   or sends audio uses this thing.

01:01:35   It's in cars, it's in AV systems,

01:01:38   it's in home theater systems, it is in classrooms,

01:01:42   any place you can, it's so universal,

01:01:45   you just walk in and plug your thing into it,

01:01:46   and it doesn't, I mean, I could be playing music

01:01:48   off my first gen iPod or my phone or a tape player.

01:01:52   It doesn't matter, I can get audio out through this thing.

01:01:55   And this report is saying that Apple's gonna get rid of that

01:01:58   to gain thinness.

01:02:00   and that's a very interesting trade-off to me.

01:02:03   - Okay, so let me ask you the same question in another way.

01:02:09   In 100 years, do you see the human race listening to audio

01:02:15   by plugging a connector into a hole?

01:02:17   - No, I don't.

01:02:20   - Okay, so if not in 100 years, why not in five?

01:02:24   I mean, if it's clearly the future,

01:02:29   If it's obviously the future, why not do it now?

01:02:34   It's going to be problematic. It's crazy.

01:02:36   And I totally agree, and they're going to sell you an adapter, whatever.

01:02:40   But if it's obviously what's going to happen, and I believe it is inevitable,

01:02:43   with all these cables and buttons and physical objects

01:02:48   that you either plug or click or move, they're going away.

01:02:53   But if it's inevitable, why don't get started on it?

01:02:59   - Yeah, I mean, I don't disagree with that.

01:03:01   And it's not,

01:03:02   it's not that you can go into this lightly, right?

01:03:08   It's not like transitioning from PowerPC to Intel,

01:03:10   where you can run Rosetta and all your old stuff works,

01:03:12   right, like you can't be like, oh well,

01:03:14   you can have the jack sometimes, right?

01:03:15   And Apple had a patent a couple years ago

01:03:17   for a smaller headphone jack,

01:03:19   and that seems to have just gone by the wayside.

01:03:23   Maybe they built it, maybe it didn't work,

01:03:24   there's no telling, right?

01:03:25   Apple patents all sorts of stuff they never use.

01:03:27   And there's no doubt that lightning is like superior hardware in basically every way.

01:03:36   And if they can make it more robust like that's great and there will be an adapter and I will

01:03:43   have to buy 12 of them because that's how adapters go. I agree with you right it's going to be

01:03:48   problematic there's no way to ease into this because this thing is such a well-used like

01:03:56   universal type thing, it is going to be painful

01:03:58   whenever they do it.

01:03:59   And so I agree with you, it's inevitable, right?

01:04:03   This is, it's sort of a bad deal, it's super old school,

01:04:06   very analog, kinda gross.

01:04:08   But whenever it is, it is gonna be painful.

01:04:14   And there's going to be that round of discussion of like,

01:04:17   well, they did this to make it thinner,

01:04:20   but we don't need thinner phones.

01:04:21   And again, I think, we've talked about this before,

01:04:24   Thinness and lightness go together right like the the new phone is a little bit thicker and a little bit heavier than the old one

01:04:30   Apple doesn't like that

01:04:32   Myke in our in our

01:04:35   Non-skype conversations was like well

01:04:38   He did this means they made a way to make the battery better and so they can make it thinner and lighter and still retain

01:04:43   their battery life

01:04:44   And so the 3.5 millimeter jack has to go

01:04:47   But the transition is gonna be hard like you're not gonna be able to use your earpods and move from your phone

01:04:53   to your older iPad or to your computer even,

01:04:57   'cause I mean, the Macs don't ship with lightning at all,

01:04:59   and so are we gonna start seeing lightning

01:05:01   show up on the Macs?

01:05:02   I mean, there's lots of like weird questions here,

01:05:04   and what's gonna happen is people are gonna have an adapter

01:05:06   or they're gonna have two sets of earbuds,

01:05:07   or it's just gonna be painful.

01:05:10   - Yeah.

01:05:11   I believe that a lot of people are against a rumor,

01:05:16   which is really like a very ironic state of affairs,

01:05:21   But anyway, a lot of people are against this idea,

01:05:24   because it's almost like,

01:05:27   oh man, I really don't wanna deal with this right now.

01:05:29   I wish that my son in 20 years,

01:05:33   the future generation would have to deal with the problem

01:05:35   of dropping the 3.5 millimeter jack.

01:05:38   But I feel like it's a change that's gonna come

01:05:42   sooner or later, and we gotta deal with this right now.

01:05:47   I am a proponent of dropping physical interfaces in the form of cables, plugs, buttons, stuff

01:05:56   that moves and requires space.

01:06:01   The argument that we don't need thinner phones...

01:06:07   Do we want thicker phones?

01:06:09   We may not need thinner phones, but do we want them to be thicker?

01:06:14   Do we want them to be heavier?

01:06:16   Or is it just this fantasy that we have created for ourselves that, "Oh, if only the iPhone

01:06:22   had a much bigger and heavier battery, I would be so happy."

01:06:25   But then you would run into another problem that would be bulky and uncomfortable to use.

01:06:29   And I think we have sort of convinced ourselves that we don't want the iPhone to be thinner,

01:06:35   but every year it gets thinner and we're happy.

01:06:37   And when it doesn't, such as this year, that it's slightly thicker, we complain.

01:06:42   So it appears that you can write a nice article, such as "The Verge", with a nice sketchy headline

01:06:49   "We don't need thinner iPhones", but in reality we all want them and we all like them when

01:06:54   we have them.

01:06:55   So it's easier to forget about this part.

01:06:59   As for the connector itself, it is going to be a problem and it is going to be problematic.

01:07:05   Graham Spencer at MacStory said a nice, I believe a nice article today about this.

01:07:12   It is going to be inevitable, and it is going to be a problem,

01:07:17   but there's a few ways that Apple could make this better, and maybe a smoother

01:07:21   transition for users. And I think that it makes some good points about

01:07:27   maybe just give a few adapters for free with each iPhone. They give you an

01:07:33   adapter for free. I mean, it's not free, you pay for, but it's for free in the box.

01:07:38   When you buy an Apple Pencil, if they make this switch... So of course make your

01:07:43   EarPods, Bluetooth or Wi-Fi, whatever, and give people an adapter or maybe a couple

01:07:50   of adapters in the box. And maybe if you want to also sell one separately, just

01:07:56   don't make it 20 bucks, make it like 5 or 10 bucks tops like 999. Just, I feel like moving away from

01:08:06   the standard audio jack is going to be a more, it's going to be a messier move than the 30 pin

01:08:14   to lightning, which was already messy and already people still are cracking jokes about it. I

01:08:20   remember Tim Cook was on Colbert a few weeks ago and he made a joke about the connector.

01:08:25   So it's still in everyone's minds, and if you change from the audio jack to Bluetooth or something else,

01:08:33   it's going to be a much, much bigger story.

01:08:35   So Apple has a few ways to kind of ease people into this change, and the solution is to not do

01:08:43   whatever they have done so far when it comes to adapters and when it comes to moving from one

01:08:48   standard to another. And because you know, the Lightning transition wasn't a problem

01:08:54   for us because we're nerds and we just, okay, we're gonna spend 50 bucks on cables and new

01:09:00   adapters. But people like my mom, people like my friends, they still hate. I mean, now they

01:09:05   got used to it, but it didn't help the goodwill of the Apple community, you know, when it

01:09:12   happened. Because Apple very famously likes to ask for quite a bit of money for cables

01:09:17   and adapters. So there's a few ways that they could make this better, but I totally believe

01:09:22   that it's going to happen, and I also think it should happen, because we should move away

01:09:26   from these components that occupy space and they are prone to damage, and it's just ugly

01:09:34   to look at, and it's just an old idea. It's been around for like a century, the 3.5mm

01:09:41   jack. It's a very old piece of technology, and if you think about it, it's incredible

01:09:46   that we still use one. And again, I ask you, if you think that in our ideal future we're

01:09:52   not going to be using jacks to listen to audio, why not create the future now? It's going

01:09:58   to be messy, it's going to be problematic, it's going to be a transition that we all

01:10:01   got to take care of, but you know, the human race survived worst things, so I think we

01:10:08   can survive moving from audio jacks to something else.

01:10:12   And a theory that I see on Twitter, and this is the last point, a theory that I see on

01:10:16   Twitter, and that it's kind of interesting, my friend Zach Saichi is in favor of this

01:10:24   idea.

01:10:25   What if Apple doesn't roll out this audio jack free change on the main line of the iPhone,

01:10:35   but on a separate iPhone model?

01:10:38   I think the parallel here is the original MacBook Air and what Marco calls the MacBook

01:10:44   One, so the new MacBook, with USB Type-C only available on the new MacBook, which is clearly

01:10:52   the feature, but it's not available on the main lines of the Mac ecosystem yet.

01:11:00   So you cannot buy an iMac with only one single USB Type-C port.

01:11:04   What if Apple starts to do this kind of major breakthrough?

01:11:08   So an iPhone without audio jack connector, and maybe even an iPhone without the home

01:11:14   button, just a screen that does everything wirelessly or via touch, but it's not the

01:11:20   main iPhone yet.

01:11:21   This is not even a rumor, this is just speculation, but I feel like it's fun to imagine.

01:11:26   Yeah, I mean, they kind of do that because old phones stick around, and we know that

01:11:30   people buy old phones. So even if it's just on the new one, it's still a transition period,

01:11:36   right? Look how long it took for everyone or most people to have a retina phone, then

01:11:42   how many people have an LTE phone? I mean, that stuff takes time. Yeah, I mean, I don't

01:11:47   know. I think that the best, the simplest thing they can do is throw an adapter in the

01:11:54   box but you know even when the Mac went from Mac safe to Mac safe to you buy you

01:11:59   know $2,500 MacBook Pro and you can't use your old power adapter without buying a

01:12:04   $9 thing like I just don't have faith that Apple's gonna do it I think they

01:12:09   should and I think you know this is such a big deal that then maybe they have to

01:12:13   but I don't know I mean it I want the trade-off to be they have to sell it

01:12:20   right? They have to say we are doing it because X. And X better not just be thinness because

01:12:27   I get it and I appreciate it but even to me that's not enough of a trade-off. I think

01:12:33   to the general public it's definitely not because people put their phones in big bulky

01:12:38   cases and they don't notice that the phone is thinner, right? And I mean last night we

01:12:43   bought a new success for my wife and part of the conversation was well what case do

01:12:47   she puts her phone in a case and that's fine but that's just what people do.

01:12:53   And so most people are not going to notice it's a millimeter thinner and they are going

01:12:59   to notice that they can't plug it into their car anymore without an extra thing.

01:13:03   So we'll see.

01:13:04   I think I'll be curious to see how this moves forward and what they do.

01:13:10   If that jack is one of the reasons that the phone still has a big chin underneath the

01:13:15   screen like I would love a plus-sized screen in a smaller chassis right with

01:13:21   less of that stuff at the top and bottom like I want Apple to be focusing on that

01:13:24   sort of stuff you look at the iPhone X any any other sort of flagship Android

01:13:28   phone most of them that have smaller bezels at the top and bottom than Apple's

01:13:32   using and those sort of trade-offs I mean yes they have the home button and that's

01:13:36   not really there on Android phones in the same way but I think it's time that

01:13:40   Apple starts looking at some of these things that have been around since day

01:13:44   one like how do we make this better and I don't I'm not convinced that just

01:13:50   thinner equals better but I do think that Apple is thinking about that sort

01:13:54   of thing and we'll see how it goes and it's December and we're talking about

01:13:59   the next year's iPhone so that's just crazy in and of itself I guess. Yeah I

01:14:05   mean it's been what two months since the new iPhone we're already talking about

01:14:09   but the iPhone 7.

01:14:10   I cannot survive with this crazy schedule, Steven.

01:14:15   It is too much.

01:14:16   My poor heart is gonna suffer for this iPhone craziness.

01:14:21   - And there is part of my brain that says,

01:14:25   if this is true and this is out there early,

01:14:28   is that on purpose?

01:14:30   - Actually, you know what I'm thinking?

01:14:32   What's gonna happen to Marco and his headphones?

01:14:35   - It's thousands of adapters.

01:14:37   (laughing)

01:14:39   And that's what I'm gonna have to do.

01:14:41   Like, you know, I mean, I use,

01:14:42   I actually don't listen to headphones

01:14:44   with my iPhone very often.

01:14:46   And something too we should talk about,

01:14:50   I think there's articles out there

01:14:52   that if I were to look for them, I could find them.

01:14:54   But I would imagine, I think common sense just tells you

01:14:56   that most people who use headphones or earbuds

01:15:00   with their iPhone use the ones that come in the box with it,

01:15:03   rather than just use the EarPods.

01:15:04   And even again last night unboxing this new phone,

01:15:07   I'm like, "Hey, you have new earbuds."

01:15:09   And she's like, "Yes, my old ones were destroyed."

01:15:11   And like, "Why didn't you tell me they were destroyed?"

01:15:12   Like, "I have like three sets of them,

01:15:14   "I could just give me another one."

01:15:16   People just use what comes in the box, right?

01:15:18   And so the ear pods,

01:15:20   assumedly would obviously move to some sort of lightning

01:15:24   plug at the end of it.

01:15:25   And so you could buy a new phone,

01:15:27   "Oh, my new earbuds work, that's great."

01:15:29   And that is a big deal that does take care

01:15:33   of a lot of people who are just going to use

01:15:37   what comes in the box.

01:15:38   And maybe they don't plug in their car,

01:15:39   maybe they use Bluetooth in their car,

01:15:40   because that's very, I mean, even my Corolla I bought new

01:15:44   last year has Bluetooth in it, right?

01:15:45   It's not an expensive car.

01:15:47   And so, you know, most people, if most people just use

01:15:50   the headphones that come in the box

01:15:51   and maybe Bluetooth in their car,

01:15:52   then maybe it's not as big of a deal.

01:15:55   And maybe it's only people like us who, you know,

01:15:58   my phone, at least in a previous life,

01:16:00   got plugged into a bunch of AV systems,

01:16:01   and does get plugged into various things around the house.

01:16:05   And maybe that my sort of usage is not as mainstream

01:16:09   as I think it is, and that by just changing the ear pods,

01:16:13   most people would be relatively okay.

01:16:15   And so there's that angle too, right,

01:16:17   that Apple has that data.

01:16:18   Apple, they also have Beats, right?

01:16:21   And if you're telling me that Beats

01:16:23   wanna have lightning equipped headphones on day one,

01:16:26   then I would be just blown away.

01:16:28   They're gonna have that.

01:16:29   And so people who are even into that brand

01:16:33   and who like those products will have options as well.

01:16:36   And so I don't, you know, it is gonna be problematic,

01:16:39   but maybe it isn't the end of the world for everyone

01:16:42   because Apple can do these things

01:16:44   with their first party stuff.

01:16:46   - Yeah, I agree.

01:16:48   It's definitely going to be,

01:16:50   I think it's gonna be more interesting just to observe.

01:16:54   I'm probably gonna have to buy a bunch of adapters

01:16:57   because if they do this it's the kind of adapter

01:17:00   that I'm going to lose like 100 times.

01:17:04   And again, there should be a couple in the box

01:17:07   if they move away.

01:17:09   But I see whenever I go, I take the bus or,

01:17:14   actually I don't take the bus, what am I saying?

01:17:15   I take the train occasionally, never take the bus.

01:17:18   - It's like a bus.

01:17:19   - Stoned rails.

01:17:21   Whenever I take the train or the plane,

01:17:23   I see people either with the standard iPhone earpods or with Beats.

01:17:29   And increasingly I'm seeing wireless Beats, which I also have.

01:17:33   The Studio 2, Studio 1, I don't know.

01:17:37   Anyway, they're wireless Beats.

01:17:39   And they're pretty good, but Bluetooth still has issues.

01:17:42   And I don't know if it's an iOS 9 problem or if I gotta update the firmware of my headphones, which is crazy.

01:17:49   But anyway, I get dropped connections or sometimes I just get back quality or if you want to watch videos with the Beats headphones in wireless mode,

01:18:01   you get a delay between the video and the audio, which basically makes video unplayable with the Beats wireless.

01:18:08   So there's still going to be problems to fix and it's up to Apple to kind of sell this change, to say "Hey, we made this transition from a cable to wireless audio,

01:18:18   it's better in such and such ways. We'll see what happens. But we got quite a few...

01:18:25   10 months, Steven. We can literally make a baby in the meantime, and the baby will be

01:18:31   born to wireless audio. You and I can't make a baby. Well, it's just

01:18:36   a figure of speech. I think that's probably the end of the show.

01:18:42   Maybe forever. If you want to get in touch with us, there are a bunch of ways you can

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01:19:04   show is underscore connected FM you can

01:19:07   find Federico online @Vatici on

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01:19:33   lots more to talk about but until then Federico say goodbye.

01:19:37   Arrivederci. Adios.