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Connected

66: I'm Holding a Billboard

 

00:00:00 ◼   ► [Music]

00:00:04 ◼   ► From Relay FM, this is Connected, episode number 66.

00:00:08 ◼   ► Today's show is brought to you by lynda.com,

00:00:11 ◼   ► TextExpander from Smile and igloo.

00:00:14 ◼   ► My name is Myke Hurley and I am joined by Federico Vittigi.

00:00:17 ◼   ► Hello Federico.

00:00:18 ◼   ► Hello Myke.

00:00:19 ◼   ► And Steven Hackett.

00:00:21 ◼   ► Hey boys.

00:00:22 ◼   ► So we are back after a very stressful week,

00:00:26 ◼   ► at least for Federico.

00:00:27 ◼   ► Yes.

00:00:28 ◼   ► How are you feeling now?

00:00:29 ◼   ► calm. We're gonna talk about your review in a little bit but you feeling good now?

00:00:32 ◼   ► Yeah I'm feeling better I'm catching up still going through my email some new

00:00:37 ◼   ► apps that I want to try but I feel like I'm almost caught up and then you know

00:00:41 ◼   ► I'm super relaxed at the moment I spent a very relaxing weekend and I could just

00:00:47 ◼   ► feel like the all the stress like wearing off going away that's good so

00:00:52 ◼   ► I'm feeling I'm feeling pretty good Myke. Do you know who's not feeling very good?

00:00:58 ◼   ► Um, audio users.

00:01:01 ◼   ► Oh poor guys, poor guys.

00:01:03 ◼   ► I wanted to put this in here just because music streaming services have been such a long running thing for us.

00:01:10 ◼   ► And it was kind of like when Everpix shut down, you know, even though none of us were using audio at the time, which is probably the issue.

00:01:16 ◼   ► But as we record this, yesterday, November 16th, the news broke that audio is shutting down.

00:01:22 ◼   ► shutting down they've gone bankrupt and Pandora is buying their kind of key

00:01:26 ◼   ► assets for 75 million dollars so audio is gone right and and in maybe not a mean

00:01:33 ◼   ► way but Pandora is kind of just like picking the bones you know they just

00:01:37 ◼   ► they've just gone in and bought up what's like what the assets that are left

00:01:41 ◼   ► to help probably audio pay off its debts this was inevitable I think and it's

00:01:46 ◼   ► kind of mean I feel like I kind of mean to say that but with Apple music

00:01:51 ◼   ► it just kind of felt like

00:01:53 ◼   ► Audio had no place anymore like even though they did things that were different into things in an interesting perspective

00:01:59 ◼   ► But if you get another massive player it feels like some of the small players are gonna start to disappear. Titles next.

00:02:05 ◼   ► Yeah, I guess I mean I used audio for many years after

00:02:11 ◼   ► We all did right? We all did.

00:02:13 ◼   ► Spotify was the service that got me into streaming services

00:02:18 ◼   ► But after Spotify, so back in 2010, up until maybe 2013 even, I used RDO with a family account.

00:02:27 ◼   ► I loved the design and the service got so many features and details right for me.

00:02:34 ◼   ► Like the new releases section, and every Tuesday, back when it used to be New Music Tuesday.

00:02:40 ◼   ► It was the perfect new release page that I wanted...

00:02:44 ◼   ► And also to find out what was kind of good in your network of people. That was my favorite thing about

00:02:50 ◼   ► audio, right? Like it helped me find music from like-minded individuals, so I was finding new stuff.

00:02:56 ◼   ► I always really liked that about the service. It had real kind of good social stuff in it.

00:03:01 ◼   ► Yeah, and you could sort by label. You know, it's a tiny little detail that other services don't have.

00:03:08 ◼   ► And me and my girlfriend, we used a family account on audio for many years. She still says

00:03:14 ◼   ► that audio had the best design and like the overall structure of all the services. And it

00:03:20 ◼   ► kind of reminds me in a way of Everpix, you know, the parallel here is that they both had great

00:03:26 ◼   ► designs loved by tech people, I would say. But eventually it died because it wasn't as popular

00:03:36 ◼   ► with the masses maybe as other services like Spotify and Apple Music or, you know, Google Play

00:03:41 ◼   ► music even. So it's a sad day for RDL lovers, but as you say, we kind of saw this coming,

00:03:50 ◼   ► you know? It was inevitable at some point, it was the less differentiated of them all.

00:03:55 ◼   ► Not in terms of little design details or specific features, but for the general public. There

00:04:02 ◼   ► was no reason to use RDL instead of something like Spotify or Apple Music or Google.

00:04:07 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:04:07 ◼   ► - Pouring one out for audio.

00:04:11 ◼   ► - Yes, yes.

00:04:12 ◼   ► - Man, I think it's another example where,

00:04:15 ◼   ► like in so many industries,

00:04:16 ◼   ► you can really only have two major players.

00:04:19 ◼   ► I mean, we see that in operating systems a lot.

00:04:22 ◼   ► But I mean, even like big, like photo services,

00:04:26 ◼   ► all these things, like it just often feels

00:04:27 ◼   ► like the third place guy gets squeezed out.

00:04:30 ◼   ► And I mean, it is rough,

00:04:31 ◼   ► and I'm sure a lot of people are affected by it,

00:04:34 ◼   ► but I agree with you guys.

00:04:36 ◼   ► I feel like if you didn't see this coming you were kind of not paying attention.

00:04:40 ◼   ► Yep. I'm sure that they did too but there's only so much you can do right? You just keep fighting

00:04:45 ◼   ► at it but at a certain point there's not really anything you can do other than kind of like cross

00:04:49 ◼   ► your fingers and hope. It's a shame. Yep I agree. In lighter news I have an incredible image here

00:04:57 ◼   ► sent via a tweet from Gabriel. Gabriel did an artist's rendition of Federico parading his iPad

00:05:04 ◼   ► around his home attached to his pencil like a picket sign. It is incredible. I don't like to ask

00:05:14 ◼   ► for things you know because I feel like it's a bit mean but Gabriel I would love a kind of a colored

00:05:22 ◼   ► version of this because I can see that you started to ink it. I would love to see like a full finished

00:05:28 ◼   ► colored version of this that would be that would make me very very happy. I would probably make a

00:05:33 ◼   ► a sticker out of it.

00:05:35 ◼   ► Can I just point out a little detail here in the picture?

00:05:38 ◼   ► So on the iPad screen it says in Italian "Abbiamo Tastiere in Italiano".

00:05:45 ◼   ► It's not perfect, so Gabriel, sorry, but I have to point this out.

00:05:50 ◼   ► I guess what you wanted to say is "We want Italian keyboards", because right now it says

00:05:55 ◼   ► "We have Italian keyboards".

00:05:59 ◼   ► So maybe what you want to say is "voliamo tostier in Italiano" which would be "we want

00:06:05 ◼   ► keyboards in Italian".

00:06:07 ◼   ► It's such a small detail but it completely changes it.

00:06:10 ◼   ► Yes, especially in relation to the review and my complaints about the Italian layouts.

00:06:14 ◼   ► I guess what you wanted to say is "we want" instead of "we have" but it's such a great

00:06:20 ◼   ► picture and I love how my hairstyle, the jacket, the shoes and the pillow for protection.

00:06:28 ◼   ► Totally nailed it. It is excellent. It really really made me laugh when I saw it which is why I want more of it

00:06:35 ◼   ► Gabriel if you are willing that would be amazing if you're not that is also okay. You did a fantastic job. We still love you

00:06:41 ◼   ► Yes, we do. We do still love you indeed

00:06:43 ◼   ► There's somebody in the in the chat room

00:06:46 ◼   ► Suggested making it a fracture which is also a very very good idea

00:06:50 ◼   ► Yeah, they're not a sponsor today, but it's also a very very good idea

00:06:53 ◼   ► Now Federico, you have a very important topic that you'd like to share with us today.

00:06:58 ◼   ► And I wanted to keep this as a prize for you guys because, you know, I like surprises.

00:07:03 ◼   ► So, you know that I've been doing some very important field reporting on car sharing services in Italy.

00:07:11 ◼   ► Yes.

00:07:11 ◼   ► And I like to keep tabs on the car sharing scene in Italy with my friends. So let me tell you a little story.

00:07:18 ◼   ► Last week,

00:07:20 ◼   ► before, actually maybe about 10 days ago, it was before the iPad review, it was the

00:07:24 ◼   ► Friday night before. I was out for dinner at a friend's house, I know because I remember

00:07:29 ◼   ► I sent Steven a picture, and we were talking and my friends were like "do you want to go

00:07:35 ◼   ► to the club later because we're going to the club?" and I was like "no, I don't want to

00:07:39 ◼   ► go tonight, I gotta finish my review". They knew that I was writing my iPad article. And

00:07:46 ◼   ► You know, I was dedicated to the cars, I needed to ride, but I asked them "Are you gonna take

00:07:51 ◼   ► your car?"

00:07:52 ◼   ► And I asked this because a few weeks before, a friend of mine, her car got broken into

00:07:58 ◼   ► in front of the club, and by some people they stole a bunch of jackets and a wallet that

00:08:03 ◼   ► was left in the car.

00:08:05 ◼   ► So my friends, I knew they didn't want to take a car to the club anymore.

00:08:11 ◼   ► And my friend replied, "Yeah, we're not gonna take my car, we're going with an Enjoy car."

00:08:16 ◼   ► And I was like, "What's an Enjoy car?"

00:08:19 ◼   ► So there's this service in Italy, it's called Enjoy, and it's a car sharing service with

00:08:26 ◼   ► a particular twist.

00:08:29 ◼   ► So you don't want to use your car, or maybe you don't have a car, and you have a smartphone,

00:08:35 ◼   ► So you download this Enjoy app and you find, so you provide your location with Apple Maps

00:08:43 ◼   ► and it finds these Fiat cars around you.

00:08:49 ◼   ► They are red, Fiat, you know the Cinco Cento, the 500.

00:08:52 ◼   ► Is that what they call it in Italy?

00:08:56 ◼   ► The Cinco Cento?

00:08:57 ◼   ► Yes!

00:08:58 ◼   ► That is amazing.

00:08:59 ◼   ► What do you call it?

00:09:00 ◼   ► What, just the Fiat 500?

00:09:01 ◼   ► No, no, the Cinco Cento.

00:09:02 ◼   ► But I'd never considered that, right?

00:09:05 ◼   ► it's not 500, that's stupid, but it just sounds way better when you say it.

00:09:09 ◼   ► I think there's a bunch of Italians walking around going "that's the Fiat 500!" No, that's not what happened.

00:09:14 ◼   ► No, no. So you got this bunch of Fiat, red Fiat's, and I saw these cars for many, many months before,

00:09:23 ◼   ► I just never realized, I just thought it was some kind of advertising for, you know, there's people

00:09:27 ◼   ► who put stickers on their cars for money, you know, like free publicity for companies that want to put

00:09:33 ◼   ► stickers on people's cars and you get some money out of it. I thought it was just some

00:09:38 ◼   ► kind of deal in Rome. Instead, it's a company, it's called Enjoy, and it's got this fleet

00:09:43 ◼   ► of Fiat cars. You use a smartphone and you find a car around you. And it shows you all

00:09:53 ◼   ► these little cars on a map, so it can be green if it's available, it can be yellow if it's

00:09:58 ◼   ► busy, means it's taken by someone else, or it can be read if it's currently on the road.

00:10:04 ◼   ► So what you do is you rent a car. So this car is parked somewhere. And you say, "I want

00:10:12 ◼   ► to take this car." And you have 15 minutes to get to the car, by walking or any other

00:10:19 ◼   ► means. You go to the car and those free 15 minutes you don't pay anything. When you're

00:10:27 ◼   ► in front of the car from your smartphone you unlock the car with the app, you get into

00:10:33 ◼   ► the car and you start paying a fee. It's like 10 cents or 15 cents a minute for driving.

00:10:41 ◼   ► You drive, all the details are from the smartphone app, so your credit card information for payments,

00:10:48 ◼   ► your personal details, so they got your first name, your last name, all your information.

00:10:53 ◼   ► You unlock the car with the phone, you start driving, you can go only in a certain area

00:10:59 ◼   ► in the map.

00:11:00 ◼   ► So you cannot go from Rome to Viterbo, you can say drive for, I don't know, two or three

00:11:04 ◼   ► blocks.

00:11:05 ◼   ► When you're done, you just park the car, you leave it in a good condition, you get charged

00:11:09 ◼   ► on your smartphone, you leave the keys inside, and the car automatically unlocks when you're

00:11:18 ◼   ► out of the car, you leave the car there, and it's available for someone else to use.

00:11:23 ◼   ► My friends told me they use this car sharing service all the time, where they need to go

00:11:28 ◼   ► somewhere and they don't want to use their car. They just see if an Enjoy car is available

00:11:34 ◼   ► from the phone. They walk to the car, they got 15 minutes. They get into the car, they unlock with

00:11:40 ◼   ► the phone. The car is fully furnished inside, so you get a GPS navigator, you get a USB plug if you

00:11:48 ◼   ► want to charge your smartphone. You cannot smoke in the car, of course, you got to leave it in a

00:11:52 ◼   ► a good condition. And whenever they need to go to the club or maybe go somewhere, you

00:11:57 ◼   ► know, in the morning, they don't want to use a scooter or maybe their own car, they just

00:12:02 ◼   ► use an Enjoy car and they pay like a couple of euros to go to somewhere nearby. And it's

00:12:09 ◼   ► super popular, they told me, and it's just like BlaBlaCar. I had no idea this existed.

00:12:16 ◼   ► So I went to the website, I looked it up on Wikipedia. It's a car sharing service. Apparently

00:12:20 ◼   ► it's available in Rome, in Milan, and in Florence, and in Turin, maybe.

00:12:24 ◼   ► And yeah, I witnessed the process.

00:12:28 ◼   ► So, we were at dinner, and when I was done, I was like, "I gotta see this."

00:12:32 ◼   ► You know, "I gotta talk about this on the podcast." So, I walked to the

00:12:36 ◼   ► car with my friend, and indeed, the car was parked

00:12:40 ◼   ► like in a street, it was a very quiet street, and my friend

00:12:44 ◼   ► went there with a smartphone from the iPhone, he

00:12:48 ◼   ► the car, the car was like, "boop boop," and it unlocked.

00:12:51 ◼   ► And it got into the car, and it was this red Fiat

00:12:55 ◼   ► with a bunch of Enjoy stickers, and the keys were inside.

00:12:59 ◼   ► It was basically super simple.

00:13:03 ◼   ► And this is very popular, and I had no idea.

00:13:06 ◼   ► And they were like, "Come on, you don't know the Enjoy cars?"

00:13:08 ◼   ► I was like, "No."

00:13:10 ◼   ► I have a car, I always use my car.

00:13:13 ◼   ► But it's such a great idea, such a polished implementation.

00:13:16 ◼   ► You know, it was flawless from the iPhone. I was super surprised.

00:13:20 ◼   ► So I thought that you guys and our listeners would love to hear about this.

00:13:24 ◼   ► It reminds me of a service called Zipcar, which is in the US and it's in the UK.

00:13:30 ◼   ► And it's very similar, right? You can hire a car for a certain period of time.

00:13:34 ◼   ► You just need to find them on the street. They have an app and the app unlocks the car.

00:13:40 ◼   ► It's very similar in that regard.

00:13:43 ◼   ► Yeah, so they went to the club, they left the car, they couldn't leave the car just in front of the club,

00:13:51 ◼   ► there's like a parking area. But yeah, and afterwards they just took a taxi. But yeah, it's a good service.

00:13:59 ◼   ► Well there we go, thank you so much for your reporting from the field on Italian car sharing services and their popularity.

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00:16:17 ◼   ► So Federico, how did your review go?

00:16:20 ◼   ► How was it received?

00:16:21 ◼   ► Because obviously we recorded our episode just before you put your review up, so I'm

00:16:26 ◼   ► interested in seeing how it went for you.

00:16:28 ◼   ► It went very well, well beyond my expectations. A lot of people were happy that I got a review unit.

00:16:35 ◼   ► And so I usually measure this kind of result with two metrics, feelings and analytics.

00:16:43 ◼   ► The second one, very happy with the results. It's basically like what I get typically in a couple of weeks,

00:16:53 ◼   ► maybe even three weeks, just in a couple of days, which was kind of crazy.

00:16:57 ◼   ► Of course, I ended up in a bunch of round apps for iPad Pro reviews,

00:17:02 ◼   ► so a lot of websites linking to my review, a lot of people on Twitter.

00:17:07 ◼   ► So in terms of traffic, it's a really, really good one.

00:17:10 ◼   ► Is it as big or bigger than some of the other things you've done,

00:17:13 ◼   ► like your iOS reviews and stuff like that?

00:17:15 ◼   ► I was bigger than the iOS 9 review.

00:17:17 ◼   ► Okay. Bigger than an editorial?

00:17:20 ◼   ► Oh yeah, of course.

00:17:21 ◼   ► editorial, it's such a geeky app, you cannot hope to achieve that kind of exposure with

00:17:30 ◼   ► the markdown text editor, Myke.

00:17:33 ◼   ► It was just slightly bigger than my iOS 9 review, so I was really happy there.

00:17:39 ◼   ► But in terms of feelings and reactions from people, it was way higher than the response

00:17:45 ◼   ► to my iOS 9 review, just because the sheer effect of the surprise.

00:17:51 ◼   ► some people were kind of expecting me to have an iPad Pro, especially

00:17:56 ◼   ► after we posted the selfie from London, but a lot of people were generally happy

00:18:02 ◼   ► that I was able to try it in advance, and especially the

00:18:06 ◼   ► angle that I used for my review. So instead of comparing it to a MacBook like

00:18:10 ◼   ► most of the other reviews did, I kind of took a very pragmatic approach, I think,

00:18:15 ◼   ► to just use the iPad Pro for what I usually do on the iPad R2, and because I

00:18:20 ◼   ► don't use a Mac, people were happy to see that I also did the same with the iPad Pro.

00:18:26 ◼   ► So I talked about multitasking, I talked about iOS instead of saying "Yeah, you can do this

00:18:30 ◼   ► on a Mac, you cannot do this on an iPad".

00:18:33 ◼   ► So it was maybe kind of a unique perspective, and at least that's the reaction that I saw

00:18:39 ◼   ► in people, and I'm happy.

00:18:41 ◼   ► It was definitely worth all the stress and the fatigue and the crazy amount of hours

00:18:49 ◼   ► spend writing and editing at night.

00:18:52 ◼   ► So yeah, I'm happy, Myke.

00:18:54 ◼   ► - Good, now both me and Steven have iPad Pros now.

00:18:58 ◼   ► We both went out and bought them.

00:19:00 ◼   ► We wanna talk about those a little bit today.

00:19:02 ◼   ► But I wanted to start off talking about something

00:19:06 ◼   ► that you wrote, Steven, a few days ago

00:19:08 ◼   ► on the idea of there not being a flagship iPad Pro app

00:19:12 ◼   ► from Apple.

00:19:13 ◼   ► Do you wanna just summarize your feelings on this?

00:19:16 ◼   ► - Yeah, I just sort of had the thought

00:19:19 ◼   ► that in the past, at certain times,

00:19:21 ◼   ► Apple has used software to sort of show off its hardware.

00:19:25 ◼   ► So the original iPad had iWork.

00:19:27 ◼   ► The next couple iPads,

00:19:29 ◼   ► especially when they added the run-in display,

00:19:33 ◼   ► got iLife apps, so iMovie and iPhoto,

00:19:36 ◼   ► which of course is no more, 'cause it was terrible.

00:19:38 ◼   ► And even going further back,

00:19:40 ◼   ► they've done this sort of thing, right?

00:19:45 ◼   ► IMAX got CD burners when iTunes could burn CDs,

00:19:48 ◼   ► that sort of thing.

00:19:49 ◼   ► And the iPad Pro, for all of its unique characteristics,

00:19:53 ◼   ► which I think we talked about really well last week,

00:19:56 ◼   ► there's not anything from Apple showing that off,

00:20:02 ◼   ► and they've sort of just put it out there

00:20:06 ◼   ► and are letting their party developers pick up that mantle.

00:20:11 ◼   ► And I'm not sure that's the right approach

00:20:13 ◼   ► for a device like this.

00:20:15 ◼   ► So I've heard this criticism in a few different sources and one of the main

00:20:19 ◼   ► things, and I think you called this one out as well, is that they should have

00:20:23 ◼   ► made an app to demo the pencil. Like a sketching app or an art app of some

00:20:27 ◼   ► description. So I've been thinking about this and I don't know if I agree

00:20:33 ◼   ► that Apple should be making an app for art. Like the Notes app is a demo area

00:20:40 ◼   ► for the pencil, right? From talking to people that have used them, Federico I'm

00:20:45 ◼   ► sure that you agree, out of all of the apps that have pencil capability, Notes

00:20:49 ◼   ► is the best, right? So the drawing area in Notes is kind of the place that you

00:20:54 ◼   ► would demo this stuff. And I don't really think that Apple should be focusing

00:20:59 ◼   ► their attention on creating any kind of art app because this isn't something

00:21:03 ◼   ► that they do. I don't think that they would be able to do as good a job as some

00:21:08 ◼   ► these other companies. So Apple gave early access to people to make stuff

00:21:12 ◼   ► better than they would be able to make it. Now there is some question around the

00:21:16 ◼   ► way that like the touch sensitivity is and the refresh rate and that sort of stuff

00:21:20 ◼   ► like how responsive the pencil is but I'm sure some of that could be cleaned

00:21:23 ◼   ► up. But I don't know if I agree that they need to make an artistic app. I do

00:21:28 ◼   ► believe that they should have made a pro app of some description for the iPad but

00:21:33 ◼   ► in a field that they already have a foothold in, so like say they brought logic or Final Cut or like

00:21:39 ◼   ► a version of that to the iPad, I think that would have made more sense to me. I agree that there

00:21:44 ◼   ► should have been something, but I don't think that an art app is the one, even though they introduced

00:21:48 ◼   ► the pencil. Because like artists and graphic designers, I'm sure that they want apps from

00:21:55 ◼   ► the companies that they know, use and trust, like Adobe, and are maybe not as interested in

00:22:00 ◼   ► an Apple one when they haven't really got any chops in this area?

00:22:04 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean, I see that. I see what you're saying. I think maybe the examples we disagree on,

00:22:13 ◼   ► but I think we fundamentally agree that they should have done something with it, as opposed

00:22:18 ◼   ► to just sort of like, "Hey, it's out there." And, you know, Apple's always really good at having

00:22:24 ◼   ► their parties on stage to show off what they could do, including the little guys who had the race

00:22:28 ◼   ► cars a couple years ago that I can't ever stop thinking about. But Myke, you and I were

00:22:36 ◼   ► like in the hotel room watching the keynote and WWDC were like, "What was going on?"

00:22:40 ◼   ► - Yeah, it was a real kind of mood killer. It was like the first thing, wasn't it?

00:22:44 ◼   ► - Oh yeah, I was like, "Well, I guess I'm gonna go get a sandwich because I just don't

00:22:48 ◼   ► care about WWDC anymore." But yeah, I mean--

00:22:51 ◼   ► - "Get to San Francisco for this?"

00:22:54 ◼   ► Yeah. That's so bad. If you're listening, we're really sorry. We're picking on your

00:22:58 ◼   ► company. Sort of. And they do that, right? And they give access to certain developers,

00:23:07 ◼   ► you know, Adobe, Microsoft, the lady who was cutting open that poor person's kneecap. There's

00:23:15 ◼   ► that advanced stuff, right? And they can show that off, and there's stuff on day one that

00:23:20 ◼   ► takes advantage of the iPad Pro's unique capabilities.

00:23:23 ◼   ► But I just, it feels sort of weird,

00:23:27 ◼   ► especially in today's environment,

00:23:28 ◼   ► which we're gonna get to,

00:23:30 ◼   ► just to put it out there without having a big,

00:23:33 ◼   ► like, this is what this thing can do.

00:23:35 ◼   ► Maybe it's, maybe it's, you know, pencil driven,

00:23:39 ◼   ► maybe it's not, maybe it's just like,

00:23:40 ◼   ► look how powerful this thing is.

00:23:42 ◼   ► And someone emailed me saying that iMovie was kind of that,

00:23:46 ◼   ► 'cause iMovie got a big update,

00:23:47 ◼   ► and it can do like three streams of 4K video.

00:23:50 ◼   ► According to the notes, I don't have any interest in that,

00:23:53 ◼   ► so I haven't really played with it.

00:23:54 ◼   ► But if that's the flagship, they would push it.

00:23:59 ◼   ► I don't think that's what they're,

00:24:00 ◼   ► I think I maybe just got an update.

00:24:02 ◼   ► But I don't know, it's interesting.

00:24:06 ◼   ► It's not a mood killer, it's not going to destroy

00:24:09 ◼   ► the iPad Pro's sales or anything.

00:24:11 ◼   ► I think there's some other things that might be doing that.

00:24:13 ◼   ► But at the end of the day, this is not a huge deal

00:24:17 ◼   ► I just find it sort of curious that they didn't do something.

00:24:20 ◼   ► Yeah, I wonder if maybe, I totally agree with Stephen.

00:24:23 ◼   ► It would have been great to see Apple making their own

00:24:26 ◼   ► Pro app for the iPad Pro.

00:24:27 ◼   ► Especially, you know, kind of to set an example,

00:24:29 ◼   ► like they did with the original iWork for the iPad.

00:24:33 ◼   ► I wonder if maybe the reason is they want to wait for iOS

00:24:39 ◼   ► to kind of stabilize on the iPad Pro

00:24:41 ◼   ► to maybe ship a couple of updates

00:24:43 ◼   ► before doing their own Pro app.

00:24:45 ◼   ► And this is no excuse for not having a Pro app on the iPad Pro, but maybe I'm just trying to understand why this is the case.

00:24:54 ◼   ► And maybe waiting for iOS 9.2, maybe iOS 9.3, to have a bunch of additions to make the software keyboard a little better,

00:25:04 ◼   ► maybe improve external keyboard support, maybe even have international keyboards for, you know, the smart keyboard for more types of users,

00:25:12 ◼   ► before releasing a Pro app on the App Store to the general public.

00:25:16 ◼   ► I wonder if maybe they're just waiting for the iPad Pro ecosystem to be more international, more global, more stable.

00:25:24 ◼   ► I don't know. I would love to see Final Cut, Logic.

00:25:28 ◼   ► I don't know if Apple wants to make new types of Pro apps, like from the ground up.

00:25:34 ◼   ► The Pro apps that they have is Logic and Final Cut on the Mac, unless I'm missing something.

00:25:40 ◼   ► Maybe they should make Ayad producer, I don't know.

00:25:45 ◼   ► But still.

00:25:46 ◼   ► It's got a pro in it, you know.

00:25:48 ◼   ► There's no pro, so I don't know, maybe we'll have to wait for next year.

00:25:52 ◼   ► My fingers, as I said on my stories, my fingers are crossed for Xcode on the iPad Pro.

00:25:57 ◼   ► And next WWDC, it'll be fun to see what they do.

00:26:01 ◼   ► Because you know, WWDC is the audience for pro users, and maybe that's the perfect stage

00:26:09 ◼   ► to see here's what we've been doing on the iPad Pro is what we want to do for

00:26:13 ◼   ► Pro users on iOS. We'll see. So the other part of this conversation is whether Pro

00:26:20 ◼   ► apps can actually exist on iOS and if the App Store as it is currently is even

00:26:26 ◼   ► built to support them. So like for example the Mac App Store has logic in

00:26:32 ◼   ► it right and it's like what is it $250 or something like that? It's along those

00:26:38 ◼   ► lines. It's like 200 bucks. Yeah, so it's a high price. Now, how would

00:26:44 ◼   ► people react to see a $200 app on the iOS App Store? Like, does that fit? Well,

00:26:52 ◼   ► how would pro people react? My mom is not gonna buy Logic for the iPad,

00:26:57 ◼   ► but what if you're a pro and you want to use an iPad for that kind of

00:27:03 ◼   ► stuff on the go and maybe that's no problem for you. I think it will actually set a good

00:27:09 ◼   ► example for the App Store to say we have casual apps, we have free apps, we have games, we

00:27:15 ◼   ► have apps at $2, but it's also possible to make apps at $50, $100 maybe. And if the Omni

00:27:22 ◼   ► Group can do it, I don't see why Apple cannot do it, honestly.

00:27:26 ◼   ► Yeah, that is a really good point.

00:27:29 ◼   ► And I think Apple has to be the one to do it at this point. I mean, we've talked about

00:27:32 ◼   ► the race to the bottom a lot. And say that you're just a developer who's going to build

00:27:39 ◼   ► an audio editor, and there's some out there, Jason Snell used one to edit the incomparable

00:27:44 ◼   ► this week where you guys talked about it on upgrade. And that app is like, what, like

00:27:48 ◼   ► 15 bucks or something? It's crazy cheap for what it is. I would imagine that developer

00:27:54 ◼   ► feels like they can't charge more, and that if something is really expensive, someone's

00:28:01 ◼   ► going to find something that is almost all the same things for less money

00:28:04 ◼   ► anyways. You know on the Mac we have this legacy of software being expensive and

00:28:09 ◼   ► software like coming before you guys were born coming in boxes you have to go

00:28:13 ◼   ► to the store and get it. And that legacy is still around on the Mac and you see

00:28:19 ◼   ► it in the Mac App Store you see it outside the Mac App Store. But iOS

00:28:23 ◼   ► doesn't have that and so the the norm is something something cheaper. I think the

00:28:28 ◼   ► only way to help correct that is for Apple to do it. I don't think third party developers

00:28:33 ◼   ► can go out and say, "Hey, I made an audio editor and it's going to be $100 for your

00:28:39 ◼   ► iPad." Even if they did, the App Store has some structural issues that can't target the

00:28:45 ◼   ► iPad Pro. You actually can't target hardware hardly at all when you release an app through

00:28:51 ◼   ► iTunes Connect. It runs on the iPad. You always see this in games, right? You go to download

00:28:57 ◼   ► a game and capital letters are like, "We do not support the iPad 2." It's like, well,

00:29:02 ◼   ► you can't really say that. What you're saying is your game doesn't work well on it and you're

00:29:05 ◼   ► sort of advising people not to download it if they have that device. And I think Apple's

00:29:09 ◼   ► got to fix that structural stuff too, or the whole conversation is sort of a moot point.

00:29:15 ◼   ► The idea of being able to target devices I think is one of the real key things. I know

00:29:19 ◼   ► people talk about upgrade pricing a lot, but I think, this is harsh, but I think people

00:29:24 ◼   ► need to get over that, that's never happening. It's just never gonna

00:29:27 ◼   ► happen. Even on an infinite timescale I would say that they're just not gonna do

00:29:32 ◼   ► that. But the idea of targeting devices seems like a possible thing, especially

00:29:36 ◼   ► if they're now starting to bring iOS devices into the fold like the iPad

00:29:42 ◼   ► Pro that can do things that other devices cannot do.

00:29:48 ◼   ► If you have an app that really needs the pencil, no

00:29:52 ◼   ► other iPad can even understand that it exists. And the screen size as well.

00:29:57 ◼   ► I really feel like the iPad Pro is the device in which developers should

00:30:03 ◼   ► be able to say "I am making an app for that device" but they can't do that.

00:30:09 ◼   ► Let me make a point here. Actually two points. The first one is I believe

00:30:15 ◼   ► the app store should get better at understanding system requirements

00:30:19 ◼   ► and it should be more like Steam or any other serious game store, where it shows you, like,

00:30:24 ◼   ► it's not up to the developers to, you know, fill a description page with a bunch of plain text

00:30:30 ◼   ► to explain the kind of hardware that you need. It's clearly shown in a text specification section

00:30:36 ◼   ► that tells you you need this iPad and, you know, you cannot install on this iPad, you need these

00:30:40 ◼   ► features, you need these accessories. That should be better. But I also want to briefly talk about

00:30:45 ◼   ► developers because a common mistake that some developers do is believing that

00:30:53 ◼   ► their apps could be sold to millions of people where instead they should accept

00:31:01 ◼   ► the fact and leverage the fact that they're making apps for a tiny portion

00:31:07 ◼   ► of iOS users. That doesn't mean it's not profitable. So let me give you an example.

00:31:11 ◼   ► For example, if you make a markdown app or a very specific GTD app, that kind of app

00:31:20 ◼   ► is targeted at a very specific audience.

00:31:24 ◼   ► If you price it at $2, because maybe you say if I price this app at $2, maybe I can attract

00:31:31 ◼   ► more customers.

00:31:33 ◼   ► But the people who don't need your app, who don't need a Python interpreter or a markdown

00:31:38 ◼   ► app or a crazy automation app. They're not going to be buying your app anyway. Even if

00:31:44 ◼   ► it's $1, $2, it's always going to be too expensive. And I see developers making this mistake over

00:31:51 ◼   ► and over. The people who need your app accept the fact that it's a tiny audience, that it's

00:31:57 ◼   ► not the same audience of Clash of Clans or Angry Birds or Minecraft. It's a different

00:32:02 ◼   ► audience. But those people are willing to give you money, and a lot of money, if they

00:32:06 ◼   ► really need your app. So there's this common mistake is pricing the app for

00:32:11 ◼   ► the idealistic market of the App Store instead of using price points and

00:32:17 ◼   ► making apps more expensive because the kind of audience that

00:32:21 ◼   ► you're after is gonna give you money anyway and it's gonna support you

00:32:24 ◼   ► through the years and it's gonna give you a lot of money when you compare that

00:32:28 ◼   ► to a free app or a free game. And when it comes to pro apps, I

00:32:34 ◼   ► I think the Omni group is not alone in setting a great example.

00:32:38 ◼   ► There's apps for lawyers, apps for doctors, apps for technicians of any kind, apps for engineers.

00:32:45 ◼   ► And these apps on the App Store, you can find them today.

00:32:48 ◼   ► I'm not dreaming about these apps. They exist.

00:32:51 ◼   ► And they are priced at $50, $90.

00:32:55 ◼   ► It's very expensive compared to free apps or $2 apps.

00:32:59 ◼   ► But those developers not only accept the fact that they have a different audience,

00:33:04 ◼   ► they also price their apps accordingly.

00:33:06 ◼   ► And so if you say, "I want to make this crazy Photoshop replacement for the iPad,

00:33:12 ◼   ► but it's not going to give me a lot of money if I sell you $2 because the App Store system is broken."

00:33:19 ◼   ► We could argue that Apple should provide better tools on the App Store for developers,

00:33:24 ◼   ► and that's a different discussion.

00:33:26 ◼   ► But as a developer and as a marketing person, because you also gotta be that, you gotta understand your audience

00:33:32 ◼   ► and you gotta understand the kind of people that I'm building apps for.

00:33:36 ◼   ► Are those people willing to give me this kind of money?

00:33:40 ◼   ► Because basically you're leaving money on the table if you try to price your crazy productivity app, your pro app,

00:33:46 ◼   ► your very advanced app at $2 just because all the other apps on the App Store are priced at $2.

00:33:54 ◼   ► I feel like Apple should do something and we could argue about that.

00:34:00 ◼   ► But also developers often just make apps and price them according to what the 90% of the market says,

00:34:08 ◼   ► instead of doing maybe a little more research and understanding maybe we should actually increase the price

00:34:14 ◼   ► and we should cater to this kind of audience because that wouldn't be a problem and we would actually make more money.

00:34:21 ◼   ► I don't disagree with that sentiment, like about knowing your customer base and kind

00:34:26 ◼   ► of moving on it from there.

00:34:28 ◼   ► But it's difficult, you know, it is an issue when you feel like the environment that you're

00:34:36 ◼   ► in doesn't support you, right?

00:34:38 ◼   ► And that the platform that you're working for doesn't care about you.

00:34:42 ◼   ► Like there is an element of that I think which scares away some developers from wanting to

00:34:46 ◼   ► go down this route.

00:34:48 ◼   ► Sure.

00:34:49 ◼   ► Because if they don't believe that the people in the store that they're going into, the market that they're going into, will care,

00:34:55 ◼   ► it makes the idea of building a product that is for a specific market, it makes it quite a daunting thing when you're creating something for months and months and months

00:35:06 ◼   ► that potentially nobody will buy because you're not confident that they're going to buy it.

00:35:10 ◼   ► Well, I guess the comparison here is, do you want to be the next Justin Bieber?

00:35:17 ◼   ► Or do you want to be the indie artist who plays at smaller venues but still makes money

00:35:21 ◼   ► because that kind of audience is willing to pay for you and to support you?

00:35:27 ◼   ► Developers of productivity apps, pro apps, need to accept the fact that those apps are

00:35:32 ◼   ► not going to be used by millions of people.

00:35:35 ◼   ► And this is even a personal struggle of mine.

00:35:39 ◼   ► When I write my stories, I want to have 50 million page views per month.

00:35:43 ◼   ► I'm not going to have those page views, because the kind of content that I write and the kind

00:35:48 ◼   ► of people that I attract, I'm not going to...

00:35:51 ◼   ► There's just so many people who are interested in the kind of opinion and maybe writing that

00:35:55 ◼   ► I do.

00:35:56 ◼   ► So in theory, I would love to have crazy page views, the same page views of The Verge or

00:36:03 ◼   ► whatever other big site you have in mind.

00:36:06 ◼   ► But I'm not going to be able to do that.

00:36:08 ◼   ► and that's just an utopia. It's just not going to happen because there's just so many people

00:36:14 ◼   ► in the world who are interested in supporting you for the kind of niche specific content

00:36:20 ◼   ► that you write or niche specific app that you make. So everyone loves fame and popularity

00:36:28 ◼   ► and millions of units of anything, whether it's millions of people, millions of fans

00:36:33 ◼   ► and millions of money. But it's just not gonna happen every time. Because, you know,

00:36:38 ◼   ► pop content is not the same as specific content, and pop apps are not the same as pro apps. And

00:36:46 ◼   ► sure, the environment could be a little more welcoming, and that's why I think Apple should

00:36:51 ◼   ► maybe do a little more. Improve analytics, improve, you know, the tools that developers

00:36:55 ◼   ► are given to manage reviews on the App Store. There's improved test flight, improved developer

00:37:00 ◼   ► tools. But also on the developer side, please, and I say this to developers every time, try

00:37:06 ◼   ► to understand your audience first. Don't try to say, "I made this cool text editor. Why

00:37:12 ◼   ► it's not becoming the next Angry Birds?" Well, there's a reason. And the reason is people

00:37:18 ◼   ► are just not going to use your app because there are just so many people who need that

00:37:21 ◼   ► kind of app.

00:37:24 ◼   ► If anybody understands the idea of creating niche content for smaller markets, it's us

00:37:29 ◼   ► as well, right? Like this is what we do every single day. We don't really target

00:37:35 ◼   ► the general public with our content. We make stuff that is more niche. And I

00:37:41 ◼   ► understand that, and it's kind of the same as you Federico, but I think that

00:37:45 ◼   ► podcasters and writers work in an ecosystem that supports them better than

00:37:50 ◼   ► maybe Apple's ecosystem supports indie developers who want to make something a

00:37:54 ◼   ► little bit more niche. Let's say for example with podcasts there are a bunch

00:37:58 ◼   ► of apps which have huge audiences that promote what we do. I mean even Apple

00:38:03 ◼   ► does a really good job of promoting our stuff, right, which is really niche stuff.

00:38:08 ◼   ► And it's the same for like for writers. There are a bit like the bigger sites

00:38:13 ◼   ► like The Verge for example, there is a potential that they would link to

00:38:17 ◼   ► you. That is not out of the question. And also you know there are RSS apps and

00:38:22 ◼   ► stuff like that which are built to kind of make getting your content really easy

00:38:25 ◼   ► because the ecosystems that we're both in maybe support independence on a more

00:38:30 ◼   ► level playing field in some instances. And of course there is some, you know,

00:38:36 ◼   ► there are changing biases like iTunes these days really does promote the NPR

00:38:40 ◼   ► and the story driven podcasts more than the stuff that we do, but we do still get

00:38:46 ◼   ► level footing in some instances for some of the people. Like there is more of a

00:38:49 ◼   ► support there. So I think that I agree with you on the sentiment of, you know,

00:38:54 ◼   ► making niche stuff but I think that maybe our views are a little bit tainted by the

00:38:58 ◼   ► fact that the audience's new ecosystems are maybe a bit larger for us than they are for

00:39:04 ◼   ► people that are trying to build these applications.

00:39:07 ◼   ► True, and I totally believe Apple should do a little more, maybe evangelism or maybe even

00:39:12 ◼   ► marketing, like why is there no App Store apps Twitter account? Like there's one for

00:39:18 ◼   ► App Store games and there's a general App Store one that tweets about the front page

00:39:23 ◼   ► stuff basically. But there should be a Twitter account for people who work on iOS and people

00:39:28 ◼   ► who buy productivity and utilities on the app store. And Apple should totally do a little

00:39:33 ◼   ► more and maybe even curate a little better and maybe put the spotlight on developers

00:39:39 ◼   ► who make these kind of tools. Maybe reach out, we don't know if this happened, but maybe

00:39:43 ◼   ► reach out to developers like the Sketch guys. They don't want to make an iPad version. Why

00:39:48 ◼   ► Why is there no iPad version?

00:39:51 ◼   ► Apple, whatever is in their power, they should try to do developer evangelism and to reach

00:39:58 ◼   ► out and to provide tools to make it better for developers.

00:40:01 ◼   ► But I honestly believe that at least 50% of the problem is on the developer's shoulder.

00:40:10 ◼   ► You gotta understand your audience.

00:40:11 ◼   ► the other side Apple should do better, should provide more tools and maybe more

00:40:19 ◼   ► publicity for these kind of apps. But also I don't believe the system is

00:40:26 ◼   ► inherently broken. That's my, at least what I feel.

00:40:30 ◼   ► Before we move on from this, if this type of discussion and content interests you

00:40:35 ◼   ► you should listen to the Release Notes podcast because this is what they talk

00:40:38 ◼   ► about every week so I'll put a link to those guys in the show notes as well. We

00:40:43 ◼   ► still have a bunch of other things that we want to talk about in regards to the

00:40:45 ◼   ► iPad Pro. Currently me and Steven have not even given our thoughts on the

00:40:48 ◼   ► device. So but before we do that let me take a second break this week to thank

00:40:52 ◼   ► TextExpander from Smile for sponsoring this week's episode. This is you know

00:40:57 ◼   ► we're talking about like Pro apps and niche markets that are awesome. This is one

00:41:00 ◼   ► of them right? TextExpander is one of these types of apps that exists and it

00:41:06 ◼   ► is awesome and people love it and it's built like a real kind of following

00:41:10 ◼   ► around it and it's an example of the type of app that can work and succeed

00:41:14 ◼   ► right because people love it so much that they talk about it. So like they

00:41:18 ◼   ► live in a world where maybe it's more difficult right for them to get

00:41:23 ◼   ► traction because what they do is quite a nerdy thing but the people that have it

00:41:26 ◼   ► love it so much that they want to talk about it all the time. So let me explain

00:41:29 ◼   ► to you what TextExpander is if you don't know. It is an app, it is a little app

00:41:34 ◼   ► that's on your Mac and iOS as well. If you ever type the same sentences, phrases or even

00:41:38 ◼   ► words on a regular basis, then TextExpander is something you need and it's definitely

00:41:42 ◼   ► going to help you out. It will save you time and effort by expanding short abbreviations

00:41:46 ◼   ► into frequently used text and even pictures. TextExpander will help you improve your communication

00:41:52 ◼   ► on a daily basis. For example, say you send out a bunch of emails all the time that tend

00:41:57 ◼   ► to be quite similar in nature. You can increase the consistency of your email responses by

00:42:01 ◼   ► by creating form messages and snippets for common stuff.

00:42:05 ◼   ► So you have the ability to customize stock replies.

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00:43:55 ◼   ► So there's this Tim Cook unleashed Europe thing going on right now?

00:43:59 ◼   ► Yeah, he's taking a real tour right now of everywhere, just talking smack in every different

00:44:03 ◼   ► country in Europe.

00:44:05 ◼   ► Basically.

00:44:06 ◼   ► So there's an article over on TechCrunch that I'm going to link to where he talks about

00:44:13 ◼   ► the Mac and iPad.

00:44:14 ◼   ► And of course, it's an interesting time for two-in-one devices.

00:44:19 ◼   ► Surface Pro 4 is out, the Surface Book, also for Microsoft is out, where it's a

00:44:24 ◼   ► laptop and then you do some magic and it's a tablet. And of course Microsoft

00:44:28 ◼   ► with Windows is more or less one OS everywhere, where on the Mac you of course

00:44:35 ◼   ► have OS X and iOS being sort of separate things. And the iPad Pro begins to merge

00:44:40 ◼   ► those things a little bit, that it comes with the keyboard and it comes with some

00:44:45 ◼   ► multitasking, not true windowing, but the ability to do more than one thing at

00:44:49 ◼   ► once which has defined iOS for a long time. And so there's a course

00:44:53 ◼   ► hand-wringing for people saying is Apple going to merge the MacBook and the iPad.

00:44:59 ◼   ► And Tim Cook says no. He says that they want to make the best tablet and the

00:45:05 ◼   ► best notebook in the world and that they can't do that in the same device which

00:45:09 ◼   ► which I agree with I think the Surface Book and the Surface Pro 4 and all these

00:45:13 ◼   ► other things as beautiful as they may be have compromises. But there is this stress right

00:45:20 ◼   ► now from my people of the Mac that the iPad is coming in and the iPad is going to come

00:45:30 ◼   ► take our MacBooks away. And Cook is saying that that's not the vision they have. But

00:45:38 ◼   ► I think two things are important to think about in that conversation, then we can move

00:45:42 ◼   ► on. The first one is that Apple is not afraid of cannibalizing their own products. They

00:45:48 ◼   ► have said that repeatedly. I think a very famous example was the iPhone, where all of

00:45:54 ◼   ► a sudden, the iPod, which was even more than the Mac, a huge drive for Apple's resurgence

00:46:01 ◼   ► in the 2000s. The iPhone comes out, and then the iPod sales just dry up, right? People

00:46:10 ◼   ► we're asking about that and Apple's response is,

00:46:12 ◼   ► well look, people are buying iPhones

00:46:14 ◼   ► and the iPhone is the best iPod ever,

00:46:17 ◼   ► so we're fine with that.

00:46:18 ◼   ► We're fine with cannibalizing our own sales.

00:46:20 ◼   ► And I think in these conversations,

00:46:23 ◼   ► the sentence always is,

00:46:25 ◼   ► can the iPad Pro replace my MacBook?

00:46:27 ◼   ► And if it does, then Apple's fine with that

00:46:31 ◼   ► because they're still selling you an Apple product.

00:46:33 ◼   ► And if your iPad replaces your Lenovo,

00:46:36 ◼   ► then that's even better

00:46:37 ◼   ► because you weren't an Apple customer and now you are.

00:46:39 ◼   ► And so from Apple's perspective,

00:46:41 ◼   ► I think it makes sense to keep them separate.

00:46:43 ◼   ► And I think that the stress between the Mac and the iPad,

00:46:48 ◼   ► that's not as big of a deal to Apple's sales

00:46:51 ◼   ► as it may seem to some of us who feel

00:46:54 ◼   ► a little more emotionally involved about it.

00:46:56 ◼   ► But there is that tension, right?

00:47:00 ◼   ► There's people like Federico who already,

00:47:02 ◼   ► you already do your work on an iPad, which is awesome.

00:47:05 ◼   ► And then there's people like me who,

00:47:07 ◼   ► I could do a lot of work on my iPad,

00:47:09 ◼   ► but there's still some stuff that I have to do on my Mac.

00:47:11 ◼   ► And I wrote a little bit about that the other day

00:47:13 ◼   ► in a post on 512.

00:47:15 ◼   ► And then there's people behind us who are younger,

00:47:18 ◼   ► people like, you know, even as young as my kids

00:47:20 ◼   ► who really only ever use an iPad,

00:47:23 ◼   ► and that's just gonna be what they grew up on.

00:47:26 ◼   ► And there will still be Macs around,

00:47:28 ◼   ► but the landscape may be different.

00:47:31 ◼   ► And so I feel like why all this is in the news

00:47:34 ◼   ► and why so many people are just setting themselves

00:47:36 ◼   ► on fire over it is that there's this stress, right?

00:47:38 ◼   ► there's a stress, there's this tipping point of like,

00:47:40 ◼   ► what does the iPad Pro mean for the Mac?

00:47:43 ◼   ► And I think that the simple answer is we don't know yet.

00:47:45 ◼   ► And yes, there are gonna be more people

00:47:48 ◼   ► who can use an iPad than ever for their jobs,

00:47:50 ◼   ► but mostly because of the software stuff

00:47:53 ◼   ► and stuff we've been talking about,

00:47:54 ◼   ► the iPad can't do what I need it to do for my job.

00:47:57 ◼   ► So for me, the iPad Pro is a really interesting device

00:47:59 ◼   ► and I have many thoughts about it,

00:48:01 ◼   ► but it doesn't really change the equation yet.

00:48:04 ◼   ► And I think that's gonna be a shift over time,

00:48:07 ◼   ► I think the iPad Pro is sort of like one more step in that direction of, hey, if you want

00:48:12 ◼   ► to do your job on a tablet, that's great, you can do it, here's a really good one to

00:48:16 ◼   ► do it on, but that doesn't mean that the Mac is going away or going to die or anything

00:48:19 ◼   ► like that.

00:48:21 ◼   ► So you're not saying that we should build a wall around the iPad, otherwise it's going

00:48:26 ◼   ► to take our MacBooks away.

00:48:27 ◼   ► Wow, I'm just going to let that comment just go right by.

00:48:32 ◼   ► - No, I don't because,

00:48:33 ◼   ► Myke is just dying.

00:48:38 ◼   ► Because the reality is that people will always need

00:48:43 ◼   ► different types of tools to get their job done, right?

00:48:46 ◼   ► Like people like us who make things for a living

00:48:48 ◼   ► and Federico, you and I especially as people

00:48:51 ◼   ► who do a lot of writing, it's a very different skill set

00:48:55 ◼   ► than someone who is doing like computational analysis

00:48:58 ◼   ► on the human genome.

00:49:00 ◼   ► Like those people are always gonna need computers, right?

00:49:02 ◼   ► Like they're gonna need super computers,

00:49:03 ◼   ► they're going to need as much hardware as they can buy.

00:49:06 ◼   ► And it's just a gradient of what people need.

00:49:09 ◼   ► And so what if the gradient changes a little bit over time?

00:49:13 ◼   ► I think it should, you know.

00:49:14 ◼   ► If you looked at Federico Secchi, for example,

00:49:17 ◼   ► as someone who is a writer and an editor for a living,

00:49:20 ◼   ► 30 years ago, you would've been doing all of that

00:49:23 ◼   ► on a typewriter or some very basic word processor.

00:49:26 ◼   ► And the idea that you're gonna do all of your work

00:49:30 ◼   ► on a computer one day probably seemed crazy.

00:49:32 ◼   ► And now it has sped all the way through

00:49:36 ◼   ► the personal computer revolution,

00:49:37 ◼   ► through everyone has a PC to now you're doing it on tablet,

00:49:40 ◼   ► which is even more futuristic

00:49:43 ◼   ► than a computer was 30 years ago.

00:49:45 ◼   ► I think all that is is a shift.

00:49:47 ◼   ► I think everybody can still buy the machine

00:49:50 ◼   ► they wanna buy in 10 years.

00:49:51 ◼   ► If I still wanna use a Mac or still have to use a Mac,

00:49:53 ◼   ► I'm gonna be able to do that.

00:49:55 ◼   ► And I don't think it's worth going crazy over,

00:49:59 ◼   ► because the iPod Pro doesn't really solve

00:50:00 ◼   ► a lot of those problems yet.

00:50:01 ◼   ► And even if it does, like who cares?

00:50:03 ◼   ► They're still gonna sell Macs.

00:50:04 ◼   ► They're not, this idea that the MacBook

00:50:08 ◼   ► is going to go away in three years,

00:50:10 ◼   ► or five years, is just really crazy to me.

00:50:13 ◼   ► - And I guess there's, you could say,

00:50:16 ◼   ► a lot of people are kind of afraid that the Mac

00:50:19 ◼   ► is gonna end up like the iPod Classic.

00:50:22 ◼   ► that it did a very...

00:50:23 ◼   ► it solved a very specific job and now that's done by the iPhone

00:50:28 ◼   ► and you could argue that

00:50:29 ◼   ► you know most people are fine with music on the iPhone but there's people like

00:50:32 ◼   ► Steven who need an iPod Classic because they like the old school way

00:50:37 ◼   ► of listening to music

00:50:38 ◼   ► and...

00:50:39 ◼   ► To be fair they did stop selling that.

00:50:41 ◼   ► Yes, but I believe there's a fundamental difference in that

00:50:45 ◼   ► Apple gives more importance to the Mac ecosystem than to the iPod Classic and

00:50:50 ◼   ► that you cannot compare a music player to a whole desktop operating system.

00:50:56 ◼   ► And what's crazy to me, I agree with you, Steven, what I believe is we'll be fine.

00:51:03 ◼   ► And what's crazy to me is that I see people saying that the iPad is only good for writing

00:51:11 ◼   ► reviews of the iPad.

00:51:12 ◼   ► And that's crazy because you just need to look around you and you see doctors using

00:51:17 ◼   ► iPads.

00:51:18 ◼   ► I once talked to a person who managed a vineyard, so they make wine and they only use iPads on the field,

00:51:29 ◼   ► they use iPads for the accounting system. Just look around you, you can see people using iPads as computers,

00:51:36 ◼   ► just like you can see people using Macs as computers. They are both computers.

00:51:41 ◼   ► At least some of us are so stuck on the vocabulary notion of what a computer is that we're missing

00:51:51 ◼   ► the practical implementation of the computer, which is a tool that lets us do work, that

00:51:58 ◼   ► lets us play, and that lets us be entertained and stay in touch with others.

00:52:02 ◼   ► So it's not as much as what the computer is, it's what the computer does.

00:52:07 ◼   ► And so if for you, Steven, the computer is, you know, the Mac at your desk with the keyboard

00:52:12 ◼   ► and with a bunch of hard drives and with the relatives in the attic, you know, the old

00:52:17 ◼   ► computers, that's fine. Maybe the computer for me is the iPad and maybe for some kid

00:52:22 ◼   ► in China, the computer they use is the iPhone because they only, you know, they use line

00:52:27 ◼   ► and they do all their shopping and entertainment online. And you know what? We're fine. And

00:52:32 ◼   ► And everyone's fine. And I don't believe... We could argue about the design of the software

00:52:38 ◼   ► and the APIs and all the technical differences between them. But arguing what a computer

00:52:46 ◼   ► is today, it's just crazy. It's just... What if I go to somebody and say, "You're driving

00:52:54 ◼   ► a car, but your car is not really a car. The only car is the original Ford from 100 years

00:53:00 ◼   ► go. It's not about the definition of a computer, it's about the utility of the computer. And

00:53:06 ◼   ► computer is everything. It's a smartphone, it's an iPad, it's a Mac. And I honestly don't

00:53:12 ◼   ► understand the fixation with defining what people should do and how they should do it.

00:53:17 ◼   ► Right. And I want to come back in an episode and talk more about the idea of one OS versus

00:53:24 ◼   ► multiple OS's. You know there's, even in the chatroom right now, the idea that, you know,

00:53:31 ◼   ► if Microsoft is successful with the...

00:53:35 ◼   ► Windows 10?

00:53:36 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah, all in one OS, Windows 10 type thing, like does that put pressure on Apple

00:53:41 ◼   ► to do that? And then there's even talk on the Apple side of like, well maybe the iPad

00:53:45 ◼   ► should have its own variant of iOS, which is also crazy. I think that's not a big deal

00:53:52 ◼   ► because people who buy these products,

00:53:54 ◼   ► like the consumers who are gonna buy an iPad

00:53:57 ◼   ► or buy a MacBook and do their job on it,

00:53:59 ◼   ► then they don't care.

00:54:02 ◼   ► Like as long as they can do their work

00:54:04 ◼   ► and it's fast and it's easy and it's secure

00:54:07 ◼   ► and it's affordable,

00:54:09 ◼   ► like consumers don't care about

00:54:12 ◼   ► what stack your software's built on.

00:54:14 ◼   ► They just don't.

00:54:15 ◼   ► And yes, it may make developers' lives harder or easier,

00:54:19 ◼   ► but if the history of the App Store has taught us anything,

00:54:23 ◼   ► it's that developers will, they'll adapt.

00:54:27 ◼   ► And there's maybe software that we're not getting now

00:54:31 ◼   ► because the App Store is what it is,

00:54:33 ◼   ► but there's still really good software being made

00:54:35 ◼   ► for the iPad and for the iPhone and for the Mac.

00:54:38 ◼   ► And so, I don't know, I agree with you Federico.

00:54:40 ◼   ► Like it's all sort of like,

00:54:42 ◼   ► it's interesting to talk about intellectually,

00:54:45 ◼   ► and even as someone who is, you and I aren't,

00:54:48 ◼   ► if this were like a battlefield, which it is not.

00:54:51 ◼   ► Like you and I sort of have different stances on this

00:54:54 ◼   ► because of the way that we work.

00:54:55 ◼   ► But the reality is, like you said,

00:54:57 ◼   ► it doesn't really matter

00:54:58 ◼   ► because these products aren't going away.

00:55:02 ◼   ► And as long as you get your job done

00:55:04 ◼   ► and you can meet those requirements I just laid out,

00:55:06 ◼   ► then like, what does it really matter?

00:55:08 ◼   ► - And you know what I learned this week is

00:55:11 ◼   ► because I got some, you know,

00:55:15 ◼   ► I wouldn't say criticism or negative comments, just very strong, diverging opinions.

00:55:22 ◼   ► But what I learned is a person's simplicity is someone else's masochism.

00:55:29 ◼   ► And for me, the iPad is the essence of getting work done in a simple way.

00:55:36 ◼   ► And to someone else, that may appear as this guy is going through all these problems and

00:55:42 ◼   ► apps and workflows, this guy's crazy, he's a masochist. But it only depends on your perspective

00:55:49 ◼   ► and for me I could say, you know, masochism pays the rent. And, you know, again, we're just fine,

00:55:58 ◼   ► everyone does work in their own way. What we need to discuss is, I feel like, what we can do to

00:56:08 ◼   ► empower more people? How can we change the iOS APIs to create new kinds of apps?

00:56:14 ◼   ► Those are the problems. Let's not argue about what I do or what Steven does or

00:56:19 ◼   ► Myke does. That's not the matter. The matter is looking ahead, you know, ten

00:56:24 ◼   ► years from now, what kind of mobile software, what kind of desktop software

00:56:28 ◼   ► do we want to make? And let's make that happen, you know? That's what I continue

00:56:32 ◼   ► to think about every day. And that's, for me, the core of the story here.

00:56:38 ◼   ► What can we do to do better? Not who's right and who's wrong right now.

00:56:44 ◼   ► Let's talk about this thing. So I want to talk about one thing with the

00:56:52 ◼   ► hardware that's been rattling around in my brain. I watched a video when the

00:56:56 ◼   ► Surface came out. Satya Nadella was talking to Neil I Patel and they were in

00:57:01 ◼   ► a store and they were talking about the Surface Book and they were talking about

00:57:04 ◼   ► the Surface Pro 4 and when they were talking about the Surface Pro 4, Satya

00:57:10 ◼   ► kept referring to it as a digital clipboard. He kept saying digital

00:57:15 ◼   ► clipboard, digital clipboard and I thought that's such a weird thing why you

00:57:19 ◼   ► keep saying that? Like that sounds so strange but that's how the iPad Pro

00:57:25 ◼   ► feels to me because it is this weirdly massive thing which I can't explain it

00:57:32 ◼   ► but feels way bigger in portrait like so like you know if you think that it's

00:57:37 ◼   ► just scaled up right which is effectively what it done and taken the

00:57:40 ◼   ► ten inch and just like dragged it like diagonally right stretched it out the

00:57:44 ◼   ► difference for the portrait for me feels way bigger than the difference in

00:57:48 ◼   ► landscape do either of you feel that way like I hold it in portrait and I'm like

00:57:52 ◼   ► oh my god this thing is massive and hold it in landscape and don't feel that way

00:57:55 ◼   ► I have that exact thought especially looking at apps that are content heavy

00:57:59 ◼   ► You know, it's I mean the home screen looks silly either way, but if you open like slack or

00:58:05 ◼   ► Safari as in portrait is just like holy cow this thing. I'm like holding a billboard. Yeah

00:58:12 ◼   ► It's very peculiar. I mean, I want to just say for out up top that I love it so much. Oh

00:58:18 ◼   ► Yeah. Yeah. I love I love this iPad. I love it dearly

00:58:22 ◼   ► Because it is the best it is also the best iPad for content consumption

00:58:29 ◼   ► consumption.

00:58:30 ◼   ► Oh yes, there we go.

00:58:33 ◼   ► It is both the iPad Pro and the iPad Con.

00:58:36 ◼   ► I like that joke very much.

00:58:38 ◼   ► I don't think anybody else does but I think it's very clever.

00:58:42 ◼   ► It really is though because they built that.

00:58:44 ◼   ► They put incredible speakers in it.

00:58:47 ◼   ► My MacBook Pro is just sitting there now closed.

00:58:51 ◼   ► We watch all of our videos and stuff on this thing now because also it takes up less space

00:58:57 ◼   ► to watch the videos.

00:58:58 ◼   ► Yeah, the koala is gonna be upset.

00:59:01 ◼   ► Well, the koala can go hard up a tree.

00:59:05 ◼   ► So for example, sometimes we eat dinner downstairs on the coffee table, and if we have a meal

00:59:11 ◼   ► which requires multiple plates, let's say we've made a Mexican dish or something, the

00:59:17 ◼   ► table is mainly covered in bowls and plates.

00:59:20 ◼   ► So when we do that, I have to find a HDMI cable, grab my laptop, plug my HDMI cable

00:59:25 ◼   ► into the TV and watch it on the TV.

00:59:27 ◼   ► This is crazy right? I know this is gonna kill people that we sit in a room with a TV

00:59:31 ◼   ► right in front of us but still watch stuff on the MacBook or the iPad in front of the

00:59:35 ◼   ► TV. But it's just how we are. Everyone needs to just get over it. But now the iPad takes

00:59:41 ◼   ► up less space to put down. I got a smart cover for it because it's the only accessory in

00:59:46 ◼   ► this country and it takes up way less space on the desk because they haven't got the keyboard

00:59:52 ◼   ► in the way. So it's great for that stuff. I love multitasking, right? All the space

00:59:59 ◼   ► for all the apps. And I just love that this thing is so large and I'm able to

01:00:05 ◼   ► just see all my stuff there. And it feels like a kind of futuristic two-handed

01:00:12 ◼   ► desk of some description. It's like the original Surface, right? I really, really

01:00:18 ◼   ► do love this I love this so much that I've started to put stickers on it yes

01:00:22 ◼   ► there are stickers on the back I'm currently in that awkward phase where

01:00:26 ◼   ► like there aren't enough right so like currently it's it's maybe like a third

01:00:30 ◼   ► covered in like specific areas it's like when you're starting to get a beard yes

01:00:35 ◼   ► exactly it's patchy right now it's going for a change right but he'll be okay on

01:00:40 ◼   ► the other side so but I'm messing that I have a Vittici seal of quality on there

01:00:45 ◼   ► figured it was the right sticker for this thing. So I'm starting to just put it on there.

01:00:50 ◼   ► Do you know why I'm doing this? Because I love this thing. This really is the device for me,

01:00:57 ◼   ► for so many different things. And I'm so excited for when I can finally get a keyboard for this,

01:01:02 ◼   ► and when I can get a pencil for this. We'll talk about that in a minute, because I think it will

01:01:06 ◼   ► bring it even further along in that route. But it just remains frustrating for me. And I was

01:01:12 ◼   ► was talking about this on upgrade we spoke about it in details you should go

01:01:14 ◼   ► listen to that episode about the fact that you know I can't edit podcasts

01:01:19 ◼   ► safely on this there are apps and we spoke about it earlier that can maybe do

01:01:23 ◼   ► it but I as of yet don't trust them but I feel like over time that's going to

01:01:27 ◼   ► change and what it's seeming like right now is my MacBook Pro will pretty much

01:01:32 ◼   ► only ever leave this house if I'm getting on an airplane other than that

01:01:35 ◼   ► I'll be taking the iPad I'm all-in on this guys I really really am I I adore

01:01:41 ◼   ► it I really do. That's high praise from you Myke. It's grabbed me man it really really has

01:01:47 ◼   ► for everything like for reading Twitter, for watching movies, for responding to emails like

01:01:53 ◼   ► I'm still in the same issues where a bunch of apps that I use aren't updated and you notice it way

01:01:58 ◼   ► more because they look ridiculous they just look ridiculous but I'm confident that the majority of

01:02:05 ◼   ► of those apps will receive those updates but it's just you know I feel like it's

01:02:11 ◼   ► a matter of time and that app Ferrite, the podcast editing app, I am

01:02:16 ◼   ► gonna take a look at it and I will maybe try editing something on it at

01:02:20 ◼   ► some point in the future just to see what it's like but yeah I am I'm all in

01:02:25 ◼   ► guys I really am and it seems like a bright future for this thing.

01:02:28 ◼   ► I'm very happy to hear that Myke. I got a technical question so please don't be upset.

01:02:33 ◼   ► I'm not gonna be upset.

01:02:34 ◼   ► Okay, promise.

01:02:36 ◼   ► Okay.

01:02:37 ◼   ► Promise.

01:02:38 ◼   ► So, hypothetically, let's say that I manage to power the USB interface that I use with

01:02:46 ◼   ► my microphone and to have the power in the USB interface and have data going into the

01:02:53 ◼   ► iPad.

01:02:55 ◼   ► Can I run Skype and Ferrite in split view and talk to you guys and record my local audio?

01:03:03 ◼   ► On the other... No? Why not?

01:03:05 ◼   ► It isn't possible to have the audio pass through and record in another application.

01:03:10 ◼   ► They are like completely separate from each other.

01:03:12 ◼   ► No, that's a bummer.

01:03:14 ◼   ► And that is because...

01:03:16 ◼   ► Well, it's possible to do if both of those apps integrate that audio bus thing.

01:03:21 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah.

01:03:22 ◼   ► But currently it's not possible.

01:03:24 ◼   ► What I thought you were going to ask me is how I would feel if you wanted to do that, right?

01:03:29 ◼   ► And my feeling on this...

01:03:30 ◼   ► Oh, what were past feelings in your mic?

01:03:32 ◼   ► Well, my feeling about all of this, and it's the same with editing a show on a device like this, is

01:03:39 ◼   ► I am... my thing is all about trust of the device, and as of yet, like, I don't trust the iPad to do

01:03:48 ◼   ► this because I've not done it for a specific period of time, or... and also it's maybe new in

01:03:54 ◼   ► being able to be capable even to do tasks like this. I genuinely believe that in the future I

01:04:00 ◼   ► I will feel comfortable about it, I'll be happy about it.

01:04:03 ◼   ► But right now I just struggle to trust these devices

01:04:07 ◼   ► to be able to do this, that specific type of work.

01:04:10 ◼   ► I trust it more than enough to do many, many other things.

01:04:14 ◼   ► But the thing that is like intrinsically important

01:04:16 ◼   ► to my business and is the way that I make money

01:04:20 ◼   ► and is complicated.

01:04:22 ◼   ► And if like, for example, I start something

01:04:24 ◼   ► and then lose it means time and money lost.

01:04:28 ◼   ► That is why I'm just a little bit hesitant

01:04:30 ◼   ► of being able to go down this road yet.

01:04:33 ◼   ► - Fair enough, thank you.

01:04:34 ◼   ► - Steven, how do you feel about the iPad Pro?

01:04:39 ◼   ► - I feel conflicted deeply.

01:04:42 ◼   ► I've gone from swings of this is insane,

01:04:46 ◼   ► I'm going to return it to this is an insane device

01:04:50 ◼   ► and I love it.

01:04:51 ◼   ► It's like we spoke about before.

01:04:54 ◼   ► I mean, my Air 2 is not really a work computer.

01:04:57 ◼   ► as sort of a consumption device, reading, Netflix, research if I'm writing history stuff

01:05:04 ◼   ► like YouTube and notes kind of the same time. That sort of thing. Not doing spreadsheets,

01:05:09 ◼   ► not doing editing or a lot of writing on it. But the interesting thing to me with the Pro

01:05:18 ◼   ► is not necessarily the power of it, although that is nice. It actually is just the simple

01:05:22 ◼   ► thing of the screen size that split view and slide over and everything are just

01:05:27 ◼   ► much nicer on this bigger display and and the biggest thing that I like is the

01:05:33 ◼   ► software keyboard is finally a software keyboard and iPad that I can use really

01:05:38 ◼   ► comfortably. You're American. Such an American. Wow. Because it's terrible for everybody else.

01:05:43 ◼   ► It's just wrong. What I'm saying has nothing to do with the layout. It really

01:05:48 ◼   ► is the size of the keys that it is much more comfortable than even the Air 2 keyboard for

01:05:54 ◼   ► me just to type directly on the glass. Yeah but my problem is some of the keys are the

01:05:58 ◼   ► wrong size. I know what you mean, I know what you mean. Pair it with a magic keyboard you'll

01:06:07 ◼   ► be set. And so I've been using it a lot and I've been using it for more work stuff than

01:06:12 ◼   ► I have ever used the Air 2 but then I go to use it in that sort of consumption role and

01:06:17 ◼   ► it's kind of silly and if even a little troublesome to use it if you're you know

01:06:24 ◼   ► watching something in bed or that sort of thing so so I don't know I will say

01:06:28 ◼   ► and I share this thought with you guys earlier that I picked in my air 2 and it

01:06:33 ◼   ► felt really tiny which is worrisome so I don't know if I'm gonna keep it or not

01:06:40 ◼   ► if I do decide to keep it I will get the bigger one I just bought the 32 gig just

01:06:45 ◼   ► to try it and take advantage of Apple's return policy.

01:06:49 ◼   ► So I don't know, I need some more time with it.

01:06:53 ◼   ► At this point I'm leaning towards keeping it,

01:06:55 ◼   ► but I don't know.

01:06:57 ◼   ► - You might still be in the honeymoon period.

01:07:00 ◼   ► - Right, exactly.

01:07:01 ◼   ► So I'm gonna run out the clock on this return thing

01:07:03 ◼   ► and see, I've got a week from today,

01:07:06 ◼   ► or a week from tomorrow.

01:07:07 ◼   ► And part of my decision is tied up,

01:07:11 ◼   ► and we can just move on into this,

01:07:13 ◼   ► is that I can't find a pencil for the life of me.

01:07:18 ◼   ► And I even have the business team hook up at the Apple store

01:07:20 ◼   ► and they're supposed to call me when they get one in

01:07:22 ◼   ► and they're gonna hold it for me.

01:07:24 ◼   ► But they're just not, just can't be found.

01:07:27 ◼   ► And I don't necessarily want it from like,

01:07:29 ◼   ► I'm not an artist, I'm not really a sketcher,

01:07:32 ◼   ► someone who doodles or draws a lot.

01:07:34 ◼   ► But for me, it will help me understand the device better.

01:07:37 ◼   ► And I'm not interested in the smart keyboard.

01:07:40 ◼   ► Like I used it, I used both in the store

01:07:41 ◼   ► the smart keyboard is dumpster fire at least the way that i want a keyboard to be but um

01:07:48 ◼   ► i would like to like fully experience it with the pencil and i can't yet which is frustrating

01:07:53 ◼   ► they screwed up so bad yeah i don't know what they've done but they screwed up so badly like

01:07:59 ◼   ► there's no way around this like and they've screwed up about it in every possible way right

01:08:04 ◼   ► one the device is out and this isn't out two they are advertising this like the tv ads have the

01:08:11 ◼   ► the pencil in them.

01:08:12 ◼   ► So much so that when I mentioned,

01:08:14 ◼   ► like I was talking to my mom about,

01:08:16 ◼   ► she was like, "What are you doing today?"

01:08:17 ◼   ► I said, "I'm going to the Apple Store."

01:08:18 ◼   ► She's like, "Again, what are you going

01:08:19 ◼   ► "to the Apple Store for?"

01:08:21 ◼   ► So I told her about the pencil.

01:08:22 ◼   ► She's like, "Oh, is that the one on the TV?"

01:08:24 ◼   ► Right, so the TV ads, right, are there.

01:08:27 ◼   ► They have them in the stores so you can try them out,

01:08:30 ◼   ► but you can't buy them anywhere.

01:08:32 ◼   ► And the other part of it is, they're not talking about it.

01:08:35 ◼   ► There's nothing from Apple about what is going on here.

01:08:39 ◼   ► They are over, you have to wait over a month

01:08:41 ◼   ► if you order it online.

01:08:43 ◼   ► And I have tried in all of London.

01:08:45 ◼   ► There is not, as of yesterday, from a call that I made

01:08:48 ◼   ► to the Apple online team, they were checking stock for me

01:08:52 ◼   ► and there was not one pencil in all of London

01:08:53 ◼   ► at 10 a.m. in the morning when the stores opened.

01:08:56 ◼   ► - That's crazy.

01:08:57 ◼   ► - Like I don't know what they're doing.

01:08:59 ◼   ► I mean, I understand Black Friday, that kind of thing.

01:09:03 ◼   ► I could get all of that, but my feeling is

01:09:07 ◼   ► they should have just waited.

01:09:09 ◼   ► - Yeah, and they've waited before.

01:09:10 ◼   ► The iPad Mini came out basically the week of Black Friday.

01:09:14 ◼   ► And it was very constrained even then.

01:09:18 ◼   ► They really slipped into almost Christmas

01:09:20 ◼   ► 'til the iPad Mini really kind of reached

01:09:22 ◼   ► acceptable stock levels.

01:09:23 ◼   ► But I guess that's the trade-off, right?

01:09:26 ◼   ► That you have to decide, do you want the iPad out early

01:09:29 ◼   ► and then the pencils and everything be ready?

01:09:32 ◼   ► I finally just ordered one online

01:09:33 ◼   ► and it's almost Christmas before it's gonna get here.

01:09:35 ◼   ► It's like five weeks.

01:09:36 ◼   ► And the, either way, I was just surprised that Apple

01:09:40 ◼   ► didn't really say anything about it.

01:09:47 ◼   ► That it was just like, oh, you go to order it.

01:09:49 ◼   ► And I just had assumed that all this stuff

01:09:51 ◼   ► would be available at the same time, like a normal person.

01:09:55 ◼   ► And it's not, and I really think it's frustrating.

01:09:57 ◼   ► And talking to the, talking to people

01:10:01 ◼   ► at the Apple store here, it really seems like

01:10:04 ◼   ► people are frustrated by that, and they're getting

01:10:06 ◼   ► a lot of questions and I think there are a lot of people who are just going to hold off

01:10:10 ◼   ► in their purchase until they can have both because for a lot of people that's a big draw.

01:10:16 ◼   ► And it's sloppy. The Apple Watch release was sloppy where you could order them and then

01:10:22 ◼   ► if you wanted a Black Link when you were waiting like two years, I mean it really was out of

01:10:26 ◼   ► control. And they get it right with the iPhone but like every other product, the Mac Pro,

01:10:33 ◼   ► shipping months and months and months after you ordered it.

01:10:37 ◼   ► It's just, they have this problem and maybe it's that

01:10:41 ◼   ► there was some technical issue, maybe it's that, you know,

01:10:45 ◼   ► they had a supplier problem and who knows, right?

01:10:49 ◼   ► I don't envy the problem of making things at scale,

01:10:51 ◼   ► at Apple scale, because it seems incredibly difficult

01:10:54 ◼   ► and I'm not smart enough to do it.

01:10:56 ◼   ► But you gotta communicate, you gotta set the expectations

01:10:58 ◼   ► and they just did it and so you have a bunch of people

01:11:00 ◼   ► like running around in circles trying to find this thing and being frustrated

01:11:04 ◼   ► they can't they can't purchase it. It annoys me when Apple allow memes to be

01:11:10 ◼   ► created about themselves right so like this is becoming a meme now that like a

01:11:16 ◼   ► product comes out and you can't buy it right because you know we just mentioned

01:11:20 ◼   ► the Apple watch right it was it was the same the Apple watch it's the same here

01:11:23 ◼   ► I was like, "You don't have to let this happen."

01:11:29 ◼   ► It's not like the iPad Pro is a baby and it's coming when it's coming.

01:11:35 ◼   ► You choose the day that it was released.

01:11:38 ◼   ► You can choose that if you want to.

01:11:40 ◼   ► So it tells me they made the choice to be like, "No, we'll just do this because of X

01:11:44 ◼   ► and we'll go for it."

01:11:46 ◼   ► And I know that there are business businesses that need to make money, but a business like

01:11:49 ◼   ► Apple's, considering the way that they talk about things, also really care about customer

01:11:53 ◼   ► satisfaction and you've got a lot of unsatisfied customers right now because

01:11:56 ◼   ► people want to buy your product but cannot buy it and I think that it is

01:12:01 ◼   ► very very peculiar and I know that like for some people who are very quick and

01:12:06 ◼   ► ordered immediately like it seems that some people are getting theirs like

01:12:11 ◼   ► they're getting them like on the way and there are some in some stores but I

01:12:16 ◼   ► it greatly concerns me that there aren't any in London,

01:12:20 ◼   ► like at all.

01:12:22 ◼   ► And for as much as I know, there haven't been either.

01:12:26 ◼   ► Like I know some people that have been checking as I have,

01:12:29 ◼   ► I know some people that have been checking

01:12:30 ◼   ► the two flagship stores,

01:12:31 ◼   ► and it feels like there just haven't been any.

01:12:34 ◼   ► And that is really, really weird.

01:12:37 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:12:38 ◼   ► - Yeah, and it's again, it's that like frustration

01:12:40 ◼   ► that people are excited about this,

01:12:43 ◼   ► and you're sort of damaging that excitement.

01:12:45 ◼   ► And that's not what you want for what you are, as a company, are really behind saying

01:12:50 ◼   ► this is the future of computing for some people, for a lot of people.

01:12:56 ◼   ► And hampering that just seems really counterintuitive to what they're trying to do.

01:13:02 ◼   ► But the good thing for us is we get more content out of it, because if I would have got a pencil

01:13:06 ◼   ► this week, then I would have just told you what I think about the pencil.

01:13:09 ◼   ► But instead I got to complain about it, and then in a couple of weeks' time I can tell

01:13:11 ◼   ► you what I think about pencil.

01:13:12 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:13:13 ◼   ► Well, Tim is really concerned about our show notes.

01:13:14 ◼   ► Yes, many emails he sends us and this week he's gonna get what he wants.

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01:15:27 ◼   ► now igloosoftware.com/connected. Thank you so much to igloo for their

01:15:31 ◼   ► support of this show and the lovely relay FM. So we asked the listeners, the

01:15:38 ◼   ► people in the world for some questions for us about the iPad. You can always

01:15:43 ◼   ► send in your questions by the way, you can send them to our Twitter account

01:15:46 ◼   ► @weare_connectedfm. And so the first one comes from Jan or Jan, I'm gonna go

01:15:52 ◼   ► with Jan. Jan wants to know which keyboard do you prefer, I'll throw this to you

01:15:56 ◼   ► Federico first as you've had the most time, Apple or Logitech? I know last week

01:16:00 ◼   ► you were saying that the... is it smart keyboard? Magic keyboard? I can never

01:16:04 ◼   ► smart keyboard.

01:16:05 ◼   ► Okay, the smart keyboard is the one that you were sticking with.

01:16:08 ◼   ► Has that remained?

01:16:09 ◼   ► So if we're only talking about the keyboard, I would say I prefer the Logitech keyboard.

01:16:16 ◼   ► I prefer because it's backlit, because the keys feel better to me.

01:16:20 ◼   ► But the accessory that I would carry around with me every day,

01:16:26 ◼   ► I would just say the smart keyboard.

01:16:29 ◼   ► because the Logitech case is just bulky and it's difficult to get the iPad Pro into the case and not of the case.

01:16:39 ◼   ► I don't like the plastic enclosure at all and if you were to ask me what kind of accessory should I buy because I want to take it out with my iPad and just put it in my backpack and travel, I would say the Smart Keyboard.

01:16:56 ◼   ► If I were to buy one myself today, I'd buy the smart keyboard.

01:17:04 ◼   ► And so Steven, you said you didn't like the smart keyboard.

01:17:07 ◼   ► Have you had any time with the Logitech Create?

01:17:11 ◼   ► I have not.

01:17:12 ◼   ► I know they've had them in and out of stock at my store, but I have not played with it.

01:17:17 ◼   ► I think what I will probably end up doing if I keep this thing, or even if I go back

01:17:22 ◼   ► to the Air 2 is do what I have normally done and pair it with a Apple Bluetooth keyboard.

01:17:28 ◼   ► I really like the Magic keyboard. The names are so confusing. The new one, the new slimline

01:17:36 ◼   ► one. So I think if I will end up just kind of going that route again, that doesn't make

01:17:41 ◼   ► it extremely portable, but I work at home and that's not a huge worry of mine right

01:17:49 ◼   ► now. So I've had very little time with the smart keyboard every time and it

01:17:58 ◼   ► seems fine. I'm gonna get one of those at some point in maybe 2020 when they're

01:18:05 ◼   ► available in stores because I want to try that out. I want

01:18:09 ◼   ► to have a self-contained unit like a laptop. I know, I understand.

01:18:15 ◼   ► Like a laptop so it's always there and I can just grab it and

01:18:19 ◼   ► it's part of it and it's the stand and the keyboard. I really am interested in

01:18:23 ◼   ► trying that so that's something that I will be giving a go when I can get my

01:18:29 ◼   ► hands on one. Rob would like to know does the pencil work in apps only if they've

01:18:35 ◼   ► been optimized for it and does it work differently in different apps Federico?

01:18:39 ◼   ► Well developers need to optimize for the predictive touch and coalesce touch

01:18:47 ◼   ► APIs if they want to take advantage of them. And there's also other APIs for the Pencil.

01:18:54 ◼   ► So developers have to optimize and to use these new APIs to support the Pencil, the

01:19:00 ◼   ► pressure stuff, the angle that you want to use your Pencil. Those are new APIs. They

01:19:05 ◼   ► require an update from developers. You can still use the Pencil on the iPad Pro, in other

01:19:12 ◼   ► apps, it's just gonna be like a finger. So you control the iOS interface and you

01:19:17 ◼   ► can draw just like you could draw with your finger. It's just not gonna be

01:19:21 ◼   ► updated for the other features of the pencil, which is higher

01:19:26 ◼   ► scan rate and the pressure sensitivity, the tilt. Those features

01:19:31 ◼   ► require an update from the developers. If the developers don't update

01:19:35 ◼   ► their apps, you can use a pencil on the screen. It's just gonna be a replica of

01:19:39 ◼   ► your finger. So the apps that have integrated properly like paper and stuff

01:19:47 ◼   ► like that, I'm seeing many people say that it's not as good as the Notes app.

01:19:51 ◼   ► Does Apple have some secret sauce or is it just that these developers

01:19:55 ◼   ► maybe need more time to tweak? Developers need more time to tweak and

01:20:00 ◼   ► basically Apple just gives you the API's and a way to access the data that comes

01:20:05 ◼   ► from the pencil. There's data that comes in from the pressure sensitivity, there's another

01:20:10 ◼   ► API that's called the Azimuth, which gives you, my understanding is the orientation vertically

01:20:15 ◼   ► of the pencil on the screen. Developers have this data, they just need to build their engines

01:20:19 ◼   ► for it. So the Apple engine in the Notes app is better, I think, than other apps. Procreate

01:20:26 ◼   ► comes close, I would say. Basically Apple gives you a way to read the data that comes

01:20:32 ◼   ► from the Pencil, but the display does the rest, but the developers have to build their

01:20:36 ◼   ► own drawing and sketching engines in their own apps.

01:20:39 ◼   ► Alright, so it's a case of refinement over time to get everyone to the point where it

01:20:45 ◼   ► can be like the Notes app if they want it.

01:20:46 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:20:47 ◼   ► Okay, well that's fine then, because I'd heard that it's better and worse in some apps, and

01:20:51 ◼   ► I guess that completely explains why.

01:20:55 ◼   ► So next question comes from Marina.

01:20:57 ◼   ► In split screen, is there a keyboard shortcut to switch between the two open apps without

01:21:01 ◼   ► touching the screen?

01:21:02 ◼   ► No.

01:21:03 ◼   ► Well, you could kind of do it, I guess, if you activate the Command-Tab Switcher.

01:21:11 ◼   ► And if you put the focus in another app, that should become the active one.

01:21:16 ◼   ► I haven't tried that, but I'm pretty sure that it does work like this.

01:21:19 ◼   ► So this is not an official shortcut, it's more like a workaround.

01:21:24 ◼   ► Because it's maybe a dumb decision of iOS 9 not to have keyboard shortcuts to interact

01:21:30 ◼   ► with Split View and slide over, you need to touch the screen to tell iOS, "Yes, this is

01:21:34 ◼   ► the active app that I'm currently using, it's the last touched one, and that's the one receiving

01:21:40 ◼   ► keyboard input right now."

01:21:43 ◼   ► I think you should be able to select the active app with Command-Tab, but I'm not completely

01:21:48 ◼   ► sure.

01:21:49 ◼   ► So Marina, you should try that.

01:21:53 ◼   ► Brian would like to know, "Can you truly take notes with the Pencil using the Pencil, like

01:21:58 ◼   ► in a real note-taking mode?"

01:22:00 ◼   ► all that Brian's interested in. So I spent just a couple of minutes of a

01:22:05 ◼   ► pencil because I was gonna run to another store to see if I could get one.

01:22:08 ◼   ► And my experience with it is it's the closest to note-taking that I have

01:22:17 ◼   ► ever seen. So if you imagine a piece of paper as large as the iPad and you take

01:22:22 ◼   ► a pencil and you put the pencil on the paper the line is the same size that I

01:22:26 ◼   ► would expect it to be. Which is not the way it's ever been with any other of

01:22:30 ◼   ► of these types of things you have to zoom in right to get it to be small I

01:22:33 ◼   ► was able to write very small and it looked like my handwriting on a piece of

01:22:36 ◼   ► paper so if people are I mean I know that I am the pen guy right and I will

01:22:41 ◼   ► have a more kind of I'm gonna I want to spend some more time of it and do a more

01:22:45 ◼   ► thorough kind of thinking and a review for the pencil because I feel like I may

01:22:50 ◼   ► be a person in the place that can talk about it right because I care about this

01:22:54 ◼   ► stuff but I would say thumbs up on that at least that it looks like my hand

01:23:00 ◼   ► writing on a piece of paper which is unlike anything else I've seen from this

01:23:04 ◼   ► type of stuff before from a stylist on an iPad.

01:23:07 ◼   ► Yeah my only experience with handwriting was that image that I sent you

01:23:12 ◼   ► and CGP Grey and that I also used on the Mac stories review. I do not hand write

01:23:17 ◼   ► like never at all. So you know that's all I have to say. It feels pretty

01:23:25 ◼   ► good but I don't even remember what a pen and paper feels like so you know

01:23:31 ◼   ► Munish would like to know do you find the screen to take more smudges than

01:23:35 ◼   ► previous models or is it just me oh my god yes what is wrong with this thing

01:23:43 ◼   ► what is going on here they've changed something they must have changed

01:23:47 ◼   ► something yeah I would say for the pencil maybe there's some you know maybe

01:23:51 ◼   ► the coding is different on screen I don't know. Apple didn't tell me it's got

01:23:55 ◼   ► they just said it's got the same what is the term oleophobic coding of the previous

01:24:02 ◼   ► iPads so there you go. If they have they've done something different to it

01:24:06 ◼   ► because it's not the same. Yeah. Like it is very different I look at it sometimes

01:24:10 ◼   ► and I'm like what happened to you? How did you get this way? What have you gone

01:24:17 ◼   ► through. What troubles have you seen? I've seen hands and fingers all over me.

01:24:24 ◼   ► Like was I eating chicken wings and then using this? What's going on here? It's crazy. It seems to

01:24:30 ◼   ► retain a lot of that lovely finger oil. Chris would like to know how far can you

01:24:35 ◼   ► push iPad Pro memory? Like how many apps or browser tabs does it take before a

01:24:40 ◼   ► reload or refresh? I feel like Federico, if you are the person that would know

01:24:44 ◼   ► this if it's possible to know this? So I only got two anecdotes maybe. One is

01:24:52 ◼   ► the workflow extension that I use to combine images and maybe access

01:25:00 ◼   ► files that are not like just a few kilobytes, actually a few megabytes per

01:25:06 ◼   ► file. The workflow extension seems faster and like it takes fewer seconds to

01:25:13 ◼   ► execute and to finish them on the iPad R2. But last night I was playing around with JavaScript actions in one writer, which is this text editor for the iPad.

01:25:26 ◼   ► And I was looking up, because I don't know JavaScript, I was looking up StackOverflow, Google search all over the place. I got like 30 tabs open.

01:25:34 ◼   ► And in one particular example, I had opened a web app to debug a JavaScript regular expression

01:25:43 ◼   ► like 30, 40 minutes before.

01:25:46 ◼   ► Then I went on with...

01:25:47 ◼   ► You really are very special.

01:25:50 ◼   ► Then I went on with my research and I opened like maybe a couple of dozen tabs after that.

01:25:57 ◼   ► When I went back to the web app, I lost the regex that I was trying, but I went back to

01:26:04 ◼   ► the web app, so maybe like 15 tabs before, and it was still open and stored in memory,

01:26:11 ◼   ► and I could copy the expression, and I didn't lose any of my progress there.

01:26:16 ◼   ► So in Safari, it was running fullscreen, so it wasn't in SplitView, but in Safari, it

01:26:21 ◼   ► much much better than the iPad R2. So I would say it retains upstate a lot more than the iPad R2.

01:26:31 ◼   ► It's not just speed, it's also how long can you keep something open without having to reload it from a cold start.

01:26:39 ◼   ► So yeah, there is progress there.

01:26:41 ◼   ► Marina would like to know, I get that the Pencil doesn't pair when you plug into a non-iPad Pro iOS device, but does it charge?

01:26:50 ◼   ► Another funny detail here. I tested this. I didn't write it in my review because I didn't know what to make of it.

01:26:58 ◼   ► So you plug it into the iPad Pro, it charges. I plugged it into the iPad R2, it charges.

01:27:05 ◼   ► I plugged it into the iPhone and I saw the pencil battery going down.

01:27:11 ◼   ► [Laughter]

01:27:14 ◼   ► I saw it in the widget.

01:27:16 ◼   ► So was the pencil charging the iPhone? What was it doing?

01:27:20 ◼   ► I have no idea. I would say it was some kind of bug. And that was before I put the iOS

01:27:27 ◼   ► 9.2 beta on my phone. So it might as well have been a bug of iOS 9.1, or maybe it's

01:27:34 ◼   ► just not meant to be plugged into an iPhone. In theory this shouldn't happen, because you

01:27:39 ◼   ► should be able to plug it into any sort of lightning-capable accessory or charger and

01:27:44 ◼   ► and it should charge. But I saw with my eyes the widget and the battery going down for

01:27:50 ◼   ► a couple of units in the percentage status of the battery. So, no idea what that happened.

01:27:57 ◼   ► I would suggest plug the pencil into the iPad Pro or into a lightning cable. Don't plug

01:28:05 ◼   ► it into an iPhone. Because just try to do what Apple says, not what it's in theory possible

01:28:11 ◼   ► to do. Again, maybe it was a bug just one time, but I did see it with my eyes so unless

01:28:18 ◼   ► I was drunk, which I wasn't because it was the middle of the afternoon, plus I don't

01:28:21 ◼   ► drink a lot, I did see the widget going down on the iPhone. No idea why.

01:28:28 ◼   ► And finally, Ling would like to know, is it possible to use the iPad Pro in bed? If so,

01:28:33 ◼   ► has it hit Federico's face at some point? So I would like to ask the second question,

01:28:38 ◼   ► has the iPad Pro hit you in the face yet?

01:28:40 ◼   ► No. It hasn't. It is possible to use it in bed, there's a disclaimer here.

01:28:46 ◼   ► You have to turn the brightness all the way down. That's the one thing you need to do.

01:28:50 ◼   ► I always do. I always do. Always less than 50% for me. All the time. Never full brightness on my iPad.

01:28:57 ◼   ► No, never full brightness, but I have personally found that the only way to stop my girlfriend

01:29:02 ◼   ► from being upset that I use the iPad Pro when she's trying to sleep is that the brightness

01:29:07 ◼   ► has to be all the way down. Oh no, no, that would be crazy.

01:29:10 ◼   ► That's what I thought, but it's fine when the lights are off, you know

01:29:13 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean my girlfriend isn't particularly upset about brightness

01:29:18 ◼   ► What I wanted to say is I see some people saying that it's a it's an uncomfortable device even with two hands

01:29:27 ◼   ► It's uncomfortable in portrait

01:29:30 ◼   ► You that's why I in the review

01:29:33 ◼   ► I said you should really go to an Apple store and try an iPad Pro in your hands on your own because I

01:29:39 ◼   ► I don't know Myke, did you look at my hands when we met?

01:29:43 ◼   ► Do you think I have big hands?

01:29:46 ◼   ► You do have big hands.

01:29:48 ◼   ► I have big hands too, like this is the thing that we have.

01:29:50 ◼   ► I don't know if it's the size of your hands is the thing that helps in this.

01:29:55 ◼   ► You just need to accept that it's heavy and if you want to use it comfortably, you're

01:30:00 ◼   ► just going to have to change some of the ways that you've used iPads.

01:30:03 ◼   ► It's not the same, you can't hold it in the same ways, you can't support it in the same

01:30:07 ◼   ► But you just need to adapt to it, which I have.

01:30:10 ◼   ► And people say, "Oh, why are you adapting for the device?"

01:30:13 ◼   ► Because I love the device, and I use it in bed every evening.

01:30:16 ◼   ► I use it in bed in the mornings too.

01:30:18 ◼   ► And I just have to hold it differently.

01:30:20 ◼   ► Maybe sometimes I sit differently, so I prop it up on my knees.

01:30:22 ◼   ► Yeah, exactly.

01:30:23 ◼   ► It's just what you do, right?

01:30:24 ◼   ► And you just change the way that you interact with the device.

01:30:27 ◼   ► It's the same as when I went from an iPhone 5 to an iPhone 6 Plus.

01:30:32 ◼   ► You just adapt to the device if it's something that you really want, and then you just go

01:30:36 ◼   ► for it.

01:30:37 ◼   ► work of it and that's just how you live.

01:30:40 ◼   ► Yeah because the benefits of the overall experience kind of outweigh the

01:30:46 ◼   ► adaptation of ergonomics. So I do what Myke does, I prop it up on my knees or

01:30:52 ◼   ► maybe rest my elbows on my lap. You know, some minor adjustments, no big deal.

01:30:57 ◼   ► I want to use this device so some smaller changes are necessary.

01:31:02 ◼   ► That's what I would say.

01:31:04 ◼   ► - Steven, I'm assuming that you haven't really

01:31:07 ◼   ► used the embed so much?

01:31:11 ◼   ► - Well, Steven already has an Apple II embed,

01:31:13 ◼   ► so doesn't use the iPad.

01:31:15 ◼   ► - That's right, yeah, it's just on a little cart.

01:31:17 ◼   ► I mean, you guys are right, it is big

01:31:19 ◼   ► and you do have to think about what that means

01:31:23 ◼   ► in all your various use cases.

01:31:25 ◼   ► So, you know, it's something that it's really hard

01:31:27 ◼   ► to talk about because in some ways it's so much bigger

01:31:31 ◼   ► than I expected but um yeah it just it takes some adjustments at least for me

01:31:38 ◼   ► so I have not it has not fallen on my face my all my my bones in my face are

01:31:43 ◼   ► still intact there we go you can expect a bunch more of this type of stuff as we

01:31:49 ◼   ► get the accessories in and as we start a little bit of devices I'm interested to

01:31:52 ◼   ► see if Stevens gonna stick with his so you want to keep tuning in to connected

01:31:55 ◼   ► if you want to hear more about the iPad Pro as I'm sure and hope that many of

01:31:59 ◼   ► If you want to catch our show notes for this week head on over to relay.fm/connected/66.

01:32:05 ◼   ► Thanks again to our sponsors Igloo, Smile with TechExpander5 and lynda.com.

01:32:11 ◼   ► If you want to find Federico's work online head on over to maxstories.net and he is also

01:32:15 ◼   ► @Vittici V I T I C C I on Twitter.

01:32:18 ◼   ► You can find Steven's work over at 512pixels.net and he is @ismh on Twitter and I am @imike.

01:32:26 ◼   ► Thank you so much for listening, we'll be back next time.

01:32:28 ◼   ► Until then, say goodbye guys.

01:32:30 ◼   ► Au revoir.

01:32:31 ◼   ► Au revoir.