0:00:00[Music]
0:00:05From Relay FM, this is Connected episode number 64.
0:00:10Today's show is brought to you by Linda.com, Andrew Carroll of NCH Tax and Wealth, and Harry's.
0:00:16My name is Myke Curley and I'm joined by the man of whom I have touched the face, Mr. Federico Vitticci.
0:00:26Oh, hey Myke!
0:00:27Hello!
0:00:28That was the most awkward introduction of all time, how are you?
0:00:31Hello! I'm doing great! Long time no see, Myke.
0:00:35Not really, if anything.
0:00:38So we're gonna talk about this a little later on in the show, but me and Federico have now met in person.
0:00:42Yes.
0:00:44Which happened yesterday as we record this, which was a very, very beautiful thing.
0:00:48And we're gonna get to that.
0:00:50We should also mention, we've just completely forgotten about him. Steven's not here today.
0:00:55Oh yeah, that guy.
0:00:56He's unfortunately a little under the weather right now and has probably the worst thing
0:01:02that can happen to you when you make your living producing audio content.
0:01:06He has lost his voice.
0:01:08So I wasn't too keen on the idea of him just being on the call and just tapping his desk
0:01:13like to get our attention every now and then.
0:01:15So Steven isn't here today and we wish him to get better very soon.
0:01:20So maybe we'll be able to hear from him again next week.
0:01:23Yeah, I'm sure he'll come back with a bunch of links to old Macs, some new things he bought.
0:01:33He's slowly, surely replacing your role as a serial buyer.
0:01:41Every time he comes back, he has some new equipment or old Macs or crazy old accessories.
0:01:48Well he has that new Nexus, right?
0:01:49Which we wanted to talk about.
0:01:50He has a new Nexus!
0:01:51So he completely ruined one of the topics today. One of the whole topics of this show was Stephen talking about his new phone
0:01:57But he's not here. I actually do believe that before he lost his voice he recorded an episode of material talking about his
0:02:03Experience and I think it's gonna be out this week. So is it going to Android? I don't know. Maybe he is
0:02:10You know what? I'm gonna say that. Yes, he is. He's switching to Android
0:02:16He can't he's not here to defend himself. So yes, Stephen Hackett has switched
0:02:21That's why he's not here today
0:02:25We wouldn't let him on the show anymore because he loves his Nexus so much that he has now switched to Android
0:02:32well
0:02:34Okay
0:02:35So because Stephen is not here. He's not it's not gonna be here anymore is he likes Android too much now to come back
0:02:41We're gonna do follow-up
0:02:45You know instead of Steven we're gonna do the follow-up and Myke
0:02:48I see a new hashtag in the in the document in front of me. Yeah, what is going on here?
0:02:54Do you remember a few weeks ago when we had the mysterious Apple TV tipster Carlos? Oh Carlos. Yeah, how's the guy?
0:03:02He's good. He's feeling good because Carlos was right
0:03:05If you remember what we were talking about was the fact that Carlos told us that you cannot use
0:03:12Siri to control or search or find anything about music on the app. Yeah, it's crazy, which is crazy
0:03:18Wait, we're gonna talk about the Apple TV a little later on today
0:03:21But I wanted to mention it right here that Carlos it was right and I see
0:03:25a lovely post on this website called Mac stories
0:03:29That Apple made a statement to BuzzFeed that early next year. Yeah, there will be
0:03:36Full Siri support for music on the Apple TV, which seemed really really weird
0:03:42Yeah, especially because you know early next year means anytime from January to April. I think yeah
0:03:50It could be the first four months
0:03:52So yeah, you gotta wait for an update and it's especially weird where you know, you're paying for Apple music
0:03:57You're a subscriber and it totally makes sense to have you know streaming on the app on the new Apple TV
0:04:02But nope, for some reason it's not ready yet and we gotta wait a few more months to get
0:04:08it.
0:04:09Just kind of a disappointment.
0:04:11One of the many issues of this first version of the Apple TV.
0:04:15It's fair to call it a first version.
0:04:17It is a 1.0.
0:04:18It's brand new.
0:04:19It's TV OS, right?
0:04:21That's the difference.
0:04:22It's not the box.
0:04:23It's what's on the inside that counts here.
0:04:25And that's what's causing all the problems.
0:04:27about the inside, we were sent a couple of tweets about this. There is a Teletext app
0:04:35for the Apple TV. And it's quite funny, there is a really, really excellent thread that
0:04:41I will find and put in the show notes of the guy who made this app, kind of coming to discover
0:04:50us as a thing. Oh really? Yeah it's really great like he's very confused at first.
0:04:57It's very confused I can imagine. And then listens to the show and is
0:05:00disappointed because he thought it was a show about gonna be a show about teletext.
0:05:04It's like a podcast an entire show about teletext. Yep I mean you know
0:05:08worse things have happened I guess but yeah it's it's very fun to watch him. So I would love to be
0:05:14able to link to it but you cannot obviously link to any Apple TV apps but
0:05:19I guess if you just search teletext in the App Store you'll be able to find
0:05:23everything that you need about that but yeah it was it was just kind of a
0:05:27beautiful thing to watch this unfold. Look at that teletext bringing people
0:05:32together. It really does it really amazing piece of technology still
0:05:36holding up on the on TV OS. Amazing absolutely. We're bringing teletext back
0:05:43into the new generation.
0:05:45Back in style, you know, all those flat colours, that bold typography, those icons very crisp,
0:05:52absolutely.
0:05:53It's one of those technologies that never, never dies.
0:05:58We got a great link sent in to us from a guy called Rod, and Rod sent in, this is by a
0:06:05guy called Larry Salibra, and he has been looking a lot like Steven was about moving
0:06:11from Evernote to Notes, the Apple Notes app. And he has actually built a script
0:06:16which he's put in, which he's put on his blog, to help you do this. I haven't tried
0:06:22this out so I cannot speak for it but I just wanted to put it in the notes
0:06:28because for people that are looking to do a migration like Stephen did this
0:06:32might be a great way to do that. But make sure you of course have a gajillion
0:06:37in backups in any way that you can, because I don't know what might happen.
0:06:41Maybe it deletes all of your notes, I hope not, but you never know, right?
0:06:46>> Yeah.
0:06:47I mean, this is nice.
0:06:50I mean, actually, consider this, because obviously no one's going to make an iOS version of these
0:06:57scripts as standalone apps.
0:07:00So I may have to use a Mac for this when I eventually decide to move from...
0:07:05I'm still basically keeping Evernote around, not for new notes, not for anything new, just
0:07:10for existing notes because I don't want to go through the migration process.
0:07:13I'll eventually have to.
0:07:16This is useful.
0:07:17Thank you Larry.
0:07:18I will try this I think.
0:07:19Yeah, I'm wondering whether I'm going to actually do a migration like this or if I'm just going
0:07:25to start replicating things, right?
0:07:27Because what I have in my Evernote tends to be like travel documents and stuff like that
0:07:31and when I went to Indianapolis I just typed a lot of the stuff up and copied and pasted
0:07:35it from emails, right? Because usually what I do is I just forward it. But I
0:07:38actually quite like the idea of having everything just in one note in just
0:07:42simple plain text. I quite like that as opposed to trying to like dig through
0:07:47PDF versions of emails or whatever. So I don't know, I want to test it a little
0:07:52bit more but I must say like you know just as a follow-up on follow-up
0:07:57I'd love the Notes app. It's so fantastic. It's just it's perfect for what I need.
0:08:02It's so simple and it always works well. It does exactly what I need.
0:08:06Yeah, absolutely. And for me, like the best feature is it always reconciles changes from multiple devices.
0:08:14Yeah, it does a great job. I don't know how they do as good a job as they do with that.
0:08:19But they really really do. I completely agree.
0:08:21Yeah, and it's funny right because I remember being like when they announced it I was kind of just like whatever Apple Notes
0:08:28Come on, and I really really like it. I just I
0:08:31I just wish they would not have a texture background.
0:08:35- Yeah, you know, it makes sense when you're drawing
0:08:40with a stylus, I guess, and you're, you know,
0:08:44like the feeling of ink on paper.
0:08:47Like that's the only instance of the texture
0:08:49making any sort of sense, but I totally agree.
0:08:53- This is gonna make everybody happy.
0:08:56A guy called Ricky Mondello discovered
0:08:58that something new to Beta 2--
0:09:00You know who the guy is.
0:09:01No.
0:09:02He's the guy who makes Safari.
0:09:05Ricky's one of the Safari engineers.
0:09:07Oh, okay.
0:09:08Well, there you go then.
0:09:09He didn't discover it.
0:09:10He put it in there.
0:09:11Yes, he created it.
0:09:12Now that's very clever the way that you tweeted this.
0:09:14Yeah.
0:09:15Right?
0:09:16Because it makes it look like something like Steve Trout and Smith, right?
0:09:18Like I just discovered this thing.
0:09:20Alright then, so the guy who made this feature, iOS 9.2 Beta 2 Safari View Controller can
0:09:26now be dismissed using an edge swipe in apps built with a 9.2 SDK, no extra code required."
0:09:31I cannot believe that he didn't get the idea from this from Tapbots, right?
0:09:37That must have been where the inspiration came from.
0:09:40I guess especially from the positive reaction from people to that feature.
0:09:48Everyone I know on Twitter and that I heard from readers, everyone is loving the new swipe
0:09:55gesture because it's just so much better. It's fantastic. It helps me get out of that
0:10:00view which otherwise you're stuck on, right? That's the problem.
0:10:05I'm gonna give you a detail. It's not just on the iPhone, this new swipe gesture on iOS
0:10:109.2, it's also on the iPad. On every device you can now swipe and you can dismiss Safari
0:10:16View Controller. So this is gonna be extra better.
0:10:20I would really like to see them put the done button at the bottom there.
0:10:25Yeah. In the meantime, until they redesign completely Safari View Controller, this is a good solution.
0:10:32As a kind of stopgap solution for now.
0:10:35Sure. Yeah, it works out for the time being.
0:10:38Yeah.
0:10:39Okay, I think we've actually reached the end of the follow-up. And it wasn't too much of a disaster, I don't think.
0:10:44No.
0:10:45I think we kind of got through that okay.
0:10:46okay yeah we didn't die no one died okay yeah it's just a shame that Stephen can
0:10:52never come back you know he's enjoying the Google Play Store right now probably
0:10:56those pirated apps from the Google servers that's exactly as all he does
0:11:02now he can't talk to him anymore let's take a break and then we'll talk about
0:11:06when Myke met teaching okay this episode is brought to you by Linda calm the
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0:13:45and Relay FM. So I'm going to put a tweet in the show notes of a picture that you took
0:13:52of me where I am incredibly excited and shaking a little bit and incredibly emotional because
0:14:00I had just seen you get out of a taxi cab in London, England.
0:14:04Mm-hmm.
0:14:05Yes.
0:14:06It was a very, very beautiful day yesterday.
0:14:08Yes, it was a very beautiful moment and an amazing entire day.
0:14:13So we met for the first time in like, how long since we've known each other online?
0:14:18Like four years, three years?
0:14:20Well, I asked you, this is part of my presentation at Release Notes, I found an old DM, and I
0:14:28I asked you if you would be willing to do a podcast with me back in 2013.
0:14:34So we've been, and it was early in 2013, so we've been working together for about two
0:14:38and a half years now.
0:14:40So almost three years basically.
0:14:42Yep.
0:14:43And I'm pretty sure I was already listening to your podcast.
0:14:46So remotely we've known each other for a long time and yesterday we met for the first time
0:14:52in your city, in your land, in the land of Britain.
0:14:58What do you want to discuss Myke? It was amazing.
0:15:02It was very beautiful. So Federico is here conducting special business.
0:15:06Yes.
0:15:07And it was a special business trip. You were in and out in one day.
0:15:10So we didn't even get to spend as much time as we like.
0:15:13But there was lots of hugging. We hugged a lot.
0:15:15I kept touching you to ensure that you were real.
0:15:18I was real and you were real.
0:15:20And I looked after you, didn't I? I took you to the plane.
0:15:23Oh yeah.
0:15:24you on a train. You used Apple Pay on the tube? For the first time, I had no idea how Apple Pay
0:15:32worked. It was really fast, really quick. You activated the sensor for me and I just needed
0:15:37to place the iPhone on the little pad and it's just amazing. I keep thinking I want to use Apple
0:15:44Pay in Italy but no announcement yet. What did you think of the tube? It was surely...
0:15:53So two thoughts. Better organized and I mean more modern, like people actually form decent lines.
0:16:02So better organized, more modern than the one in Rome. Cleaner for sure. No weird smells.
0:16:11Yeah, the one in Rome, depending on the station.
0:16:14It was rush hour as well, so it was super busy.
0:16:16The second thought, and this applies to people in London in general, at least from what I
0:16:22saw yesterday.
0:16:24People are really quiet and they don't push too much.
0:16:28No, just a little bit.
0:16:31In Rome, they push a lot and they're super loud, especially when you get on the metro,
0:16:36that's what we call it here.
0:16:39There's always some kind of smell or some kind of argument and there's people pushing
0:16:44and there's a lot of pit pocket.
0:16:48What's his name?
0:16:49Pit pockets, yeah.
0:16:50Pit pockets.
0:16:51lot of people trying to see your wallet basically on your phone. It was very organized. I keep
0:16:59thinking of organized in London, like people waiting in line and there's no screaming,
0:17:04no yelling, no people fumbling for their tickets. Everyone knows that they need to be done at
0:17:09the little – what's the name – the gates?
0:17:12Yeah, the little gates where you go through the trains. This is the thing, right? You
0:17:17were in a business district basically during rush hour on a regular day in the week. So
0:17:23like everyone is like super focused, they just want to go home. So like people know
0:17:28what they need to do. And yeah on the whole like people are quiet. Like there was one
0:17:31point where me and you maybe took a little bit too long at the barrier and people start
0:17:35like you can hear it. It's the most you get in the UK so people are coughing. So that's
0:17:40what it is. Oh but something I forgot to mention. I brought a special guest with me for you
0:17:45Oh yes, yes, I saw CGP Grey.
0:17:52The man, the myth, the legend.
0:17:54The robot.
0:17:55Yep.
0:17:56So he's real, or at least he appears to be real.
0:18:00If he's a robot, he's a very realistic one.
0:18:03I even almost touched CGP Grey, you know?
0:18:09You shook his hand, didn't you?
0:18:10Well, I shook his hand, but I also, he wasn't expecting me to touch his watch.
0:18:15Yeah, that was quite a funny moment.
0:18:17So Gray has the full black link bracelet watch.
0:18:24- Looks amazing. - The DLC one,
0:18:26so diamond-like coating.
0:18:27And me and Gray have spoken about this in the past,
0:18:30and I said to him, "Can I try it on?"
0:18:33And he looked at me like I was insane
0:18:35and told me that I couldn't.
0:18:36But Federico sees it and he's like, "Oh!"
0:18:38And he just reaches out and touches it.
0:18:40And there's nothing Gray can do because it's too late now.
0:18:43So what I have learned is you just need to be bold like an Italian. That's what I've learned.
0:18:48Yeah, it was just natural for me. I don't know. I realize now it can be strange for people in
0:18:56other countries to just instinctively reach out and touch someone else's hand or wrist.
0:19:01We are in Europe, right? We are in Europe, but we are not European.
0:19:11If you spent more time here, I think you would really start to see that.
0:19:14There is a lot of Europe where the customs are very... they're closer together, I think.
0:19:21But the UK, it's a completely different place.
0:19:27I feel like as a country, in terms of habits and general behavior,
0:19:36were more similar to Spanish people, you know?
0:19:39- Okay.
0:19:40- I feel like we're, you know, always kinda,
0:19:43I wouldn't say loud necessarily, but you know,
0:19:48maybe talkative, you know, just always,
0:19:51I don't know, in London, people seemed really quiet.
0:19:54And you seem different than most people.
0:19:57Could be because I know you, but you almost don't,
0:20:00like everyone looked too serious or too like,
0:20:05like smile for a little, you know? Like everyone was super focused and super quiet and no touching,
0:20:10no pushing, no... it almost felt too precise.
0:20:14Well I guess I would be more quiet, but like I was just super excited to see you so I was
0:20:18making a lot of noise.
0:20:20I don't know, could also be that the city was like very cloudy. Like I was just coming
0:20:27from a super sunny day in Rome and London was basically grey.
0:20:33Yeah.
0:20:34It's that time of the year.
0:20:36Uh-huh.
0:20:37So I don't know, that with the combination of, you know, these people just super focused,
0:20:44super like, ignoring you in a way, you know, it was very strange.
0:20:49Not terrible, but just very strange, you know?
0:20:53We are strange people.
0:20:54I hope that this won't be the last special business trip that you make.
0:21:00And then maybe next time I can actually take you to some of my favorite restaurants.
0:21:03Why should it be the last? I hope it won't be. I hope it won't be. That's why I say I hope it won't be the last.
0:21:08Okay. Yeah, you were awesome Myke. I should tell the listeners
0:21:12Myke took care of me
0:21:16He was incredible
0:21:18You know, he took me from one part of London back to the airport. He never left me alone
0:21:24He got it all figured out for me. I didn't have to care about you know, any of the details. So if you ever
0:21:32if you ever need to be in London consider becoming friends with Myke a few years in advance.
0:21:38If you're ever going to be in London just ask Myke, he'll sort it out for you. You need a train ticket,
0:21:47he'll buy you a train ticket. I had a disclaimer, consider becoming friends with Myke a few years in
0:21:52advance so you can rest assured he will take care of you. You are a very good friend Myke, thank you.
0:21:58It's a pleasure, absolute pleasure. There was something I wanted to ask you about which I
0:22:02mentioned last week right so Apple had their Q4 2015 results and I don't really
0:22:08think it's worth too much talking about the things because it's basically
0:22:12exactly as we expected right so iPhone sales were higher than the previous
0:22:17quarter and beat expectations iPad sales were the lowest they've been in a long
0:22:22time right I mean none of this is a surprise except max sales maybe which is
0:22:27like the highest Mac sales on a quarter that there's been in years, right? But the
0:22:33revenue stuff is not, I mean it's basically the same as every other
0:22:36revenue discussion we've had over the last two years. You know, iPhones are up,
0:22:40Macs are doing okay, iPads are going down, but still selling more iPads than Mac.
0:22:44But you know, undeniable they're going down. Which is why, you know, it goes back
0:22:48to us talking about the idea of the iPad Pro and what Apple are potentially
0:22:53gonna be looking at doing there to try and bolster the iPad line to maintain
0:22:57Tim's bullishness. But what I wanted to ask you was how you go about assembling all of
0:23:05the charts and graphics that you do to put on the site and how you make that data, where
0:23:12does the data come from, do you have like documents that you just update every year,
0:23:16like how does that part of it come together? Because you put it together really, really
0:23:20fast.
0:23:21Ok, so it's all automated on my end, at least the final part.
0:23:28So the data comes from Apple of course, every time they release the actual announcement,
0:23:34the press release, if you look closely there's a link to what they call the data sum, it's
0:23:40a summary like a table, it's a PDF document with a breakdown of units and revenue.
0:23:48to be more complex to read in the past but since Apple changed the way they report units
0:23:53and revenue, I think 2 to 3, 4 quarters ago maybe, it's become even easier to read and
0:24:01to find the latest data. So you get from this Apple PDF, you get two columns, one is units
0:24:08and the other is revenue and it's organized by device, so or rather like segment or product,
0:24:15iPhone, iPad services, other, or region.
0:24:18So you got all these numbers, and what we do is Graham,
0:24:22my co-writer at Mac Stories,
0:24:25he has an Excel document that he put together
0:24:30with a bunch of formulas to generate charts,
0:24:33and he takes care of this document.
0:24:36I never make changes to the formulas.
0:24:39He's created all these different commands behind the scenes.
0:24:44So I just need to enter the same numbers that I see in the Apple PDF.
0:24:50So he created this quick entry box in the spreadsheet.
0:24:54I only need to enter like 10 numbers and all the charts and the historical data is generated
0:25:01by the Excel formulas that he did.
0:25:04And he actually added, what's it called, a moving average chart a few months ago.
0:25:10Now he's considering adding more comparisons in the future.
0:25:13But the thing is, I don't understand anything about Excel.
0:25:17I just know how to enter numbers and how to export images.
0:25:22So he prepares the day before.
0:25:24He takes a look at the Excel document.
0:25:27He makes sure that everything is okay and he sends it to me.
0:25:30We prepare a draft of the article in advance so we can just fill in the numbers and post
0:25:35the article right after the announcement.
0:25:39So we look at the expectations from analysts.
0:25:42look at the year ago quarter data.
0:25:45We do all of that beforehand, of course.
0:25:48And when I get the Apple data summary on my iPad, now it's even easier because I can do
0:25:55split view.
0:25:57I can see two apps at the same time.
0:25:59So I replicate the numbers from the data sum into the Excel document.
0:26:03I double check this quick entry box that I have in the spreadsheet.
0:26:08I tap once on an image, so I got another sheet which is just images, I tap once on a chart
0:26:15and I select copy.
0:26:19And then I have this workflow in the workflow app which is basically like three actions.
0:26:25It takes the clipboard, so the contents of the clipboard, it gets an image from the clipboard
0:26:32and it exports the image with iOS extensions.
0:26:36So I copy in Excel, I open Workflow and again I can put the two apps side by side to speed
0:26:42up the process.
0:26:44And I tap Play, I run the Workflow and in two seconds it prepares the image and it exports
0:26:53it to the share sheet.
0:26:54So I can just upload it with my Python script to my CDN, it's optimized and in another two
0:27:00seconds I have a URL to the image back in my clipboard which I can then paste into a
0:27:05editorial and update the post on WordPress with another workflow that I
0:27:10have that is custom made for Mac stories. So for just one image, like once I
0:27:15have the spreadsheet with all the images I can now with these new workflows I can
0:27:20go through the entire series of images in like five minutes at most.
0:27:26That's mind-boggling. I mean would you ever like consider doing a screencast or
0:27:32something at some point like this stuff is just so fascinating it is fascinating
0:27:37but it's also very custom made from XORs like the Python part right it
0:27:43communicates with Kraken which is this web service that we use oh I remember
0:27:47that yes I remember you going many many weeks through this process of trying to find an image
0:27:54resizer so for those following it works great we've been using it for almost a
0:27:59a year now, super happy, the API is great,
0:28:02works with Python, optimizes images.
0:28:04It's been saving me a lot of money.
0:28:07So for instance, I got this script that goes to Kraken
0:28:11and uploads to my Rackspace CDN container.
0:28:16So it's like, would it be useful to other people?
0:28:19Sure, but that's very specific need.
0:28:22How many people use Kraken and Rackspace Cloud files
0:28:26and then need to paste the link into editorial
0:28:29and use another workflow to update a post on WordPress.
0:28:33I guess when I tell you how it's done, it's fascinating.
0:28:37But in practice, the Python scripts are really ugly
0:28:41because I don't care about clean code.
0:28:44I just want to get the job done.
0:28:46- Yeah, no, I get it.
0:28:47I get it.
0:28:48So listening to you explain it
0:28:50is what's really fascinating to me.
0:28:52But as you say, you could basically,
0:28:56what you'd be doing is recording it for entertainment.
0:28:59Like people can't really get too much out of it
0:29:01because they would have to be writing for Mac stories, right?
0:29:04- Yes.
0:29:05- 'Cause that's how it works.
0:29:06But I mean, you know, it's interesting.
0:29:08I like to hear it because, I mean,
0:29:11if you trace back to the beginnings of this show
0:29:14and like, you know, to the prompt and back further,
0:29:17like just listening to the way that you have optimized
0:29:20all of this stuff so it works on an iPad,
0:29:23it's just so fascinating to me.
0:29:25As I try and personally put more thought into using an iPad
0:29:30more in my daily life,
0:29:34there is just an element of all of this
0:29:36which is really, really interesting to me
0:29:38as to how can I start to leverage the incredible power
0:29:42that some of these applications have
0:29:44to get some of the work done that I need.
0:29:46And it's just something that I'm starting to think about
0:29:49a little bit more.
0:29:50So I'm just becoming more and more interested
0:29:53to hear about some of the bat poop crazy things
0:29:57that you do with your iPad.
0:30:00And it is mad, it really is mad.
0:30:02And like, I hear you do it and I'm like,
0:30:05could someone do this as quick on a Mac?
0:30:07Like, I don't know.
0:30:08- Oh, I tried for many years, believe me.
0:30:11- I mean, for some reason for you,
0:30:12this OS just matches with your way of working, right?
0:30:17That is what this fundamentally is like.
0:30:20it really fits with your brain.
0:30:24'Cause you know, you look at somebody like Jason, right?
0:30:28So Jason does a very similar thing on six colors,
0:30:31and he's able to put his stuff up real quick, right?
0:30:34So he has obviously worked out a way to do it on the Mac
0:30:38that makes super sense to him.
0:30:40So it's just really interesting to me to see
0:30:43how you're able to do it
0:30:45compared to how other people are able to do it.
0:30:46It's just something that I find quite interesting.
0:30:50- Yeah, I spent many, many weeks trying to optimize
0:30:55to the point where you start wondering,
0:30:57is the time I spend optimizing really worth the effort
0:30:59in the end?
0:31:00And the answer is for these very daily and recurring tasks,
0:31:05yes, absolutely.
0:31:07Because the time that I saved, you know,
0:31:10with these workflows to automate markdown
0:31:13or image uploading, I mean, for the iOS 9 review,
0:31:17I had more than 200 screenshots.
0:31:21And doing that without my scripts would have been crazy.
0:31:24So yes, I may have wasted a couple of weeks trying to find the perfect image uploading
0:31:29and optimizing service, but it saved me a lot of money because images are optimized
0:31:35and my CDM bill is lower.
0:31:38And it saved me a lot of time that I spent reading and rereading again the article.
0:31:43So you've got to be careful with the kind of optimizations and how much tweaking do
0:31:49you want to do because it can be a rabbit hole.
0:31:52You can spend your life optimizing for this potential future where you always need to
0:31:58be more optimized.
0:32:00So you've got to find an area, I guess, where you really see the practical benefits of scripts
0:32:07and automation.
0:32:08That's how I look at this problem.
0:32:10Alright, let me take a break and I want to talk about one of your favorite applications,
0:32:17Outlook and what is going on with Outlook and what Microsoft are up to because it's
0:32:22interesting to say the least.
0:32:24But first I want to talk about one of our lovely sponsors and that is our good friend
0:32:28Mr Andrew Carroll of NCH Tax and Wealth.
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0:33:02gonna learn this? Otherwise you've got to put the time in. It's just something that has to be
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0:33:19So maybe you are a freelancer right now you're doing some work on the side and
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0:33:30This message is for you. Andrew Carroll, CPA of NCH Tax and Wealth is a big fan of all the great shows at Real AFM and is also our accountant as I mentioned.
0:33:40So I vouch for him. He knows what he's doing. He's done some great work for us and he has a solution for all of you.
0:33:46He's written a new ebook. It's called The Freelancer's Guide to Escaping Taxes.
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0:34:26And if you're a freelancer, you should be going to grab this free guide today over at
0:34:30cpaandrew.com/relay. You can also find Andrew on Twitter, he is @cpaandrew. Thank you so
0:34:36much to Andrew Carroll of NCH Tax and Wealth for sponsoring this week's episode of Connected.
0:34:41He's such a great guy, he just had a kid. Congratulations to the Carroll family.
0:34:47is becoming a part of Outlook, right?
0:34:50This was announced earlier this week.
0:34:52So Sunrise was a calendar app.
0:34:54Outlook was previously an app called a Comply.
0:34:56Microsoft bought them both
0:34:58and is now starting to roll Sunrise into Outlook.
0:35:03- And now they're making a baby.
0:35:04- Yes, they're basically making Outlook Junior.
0:35:08And Outlook Junior, unfortunately,
0:35:10kills off his mom Sunrise, right?
0:35:13- Wow, that's creepy.
0:35:14- Is that how this ends up?
0:35:15This is it, right?
0:35:16This is what they're looking to do.
0:35:17They're looking to roll Sunrise into Outlook and then kill Sunrise.
0:35:20Yes.
0:35:21So tell me what's going on here.
0:35:23Is it perfect if they put exactly what we need?
0:35:25No, not yet.
0:35:28Basically the change right now is on paper because the Sunrise that they merged into
0:35:35Outlook is not really Sunrise.
0:35:38With the latest update on the App Store, they refreshed the interface of Outlook a little
0:35:43bit and they apparently got the Sunrise team to redo the interface of Outlook to kind of
0:35:48polish the way the emails are displayed, conversations, the icons are new, there's a bunch of new
0:35:56indicators for events and unread emails.
0:36:01It's more polished.
0:36:03But the calendar section is really the pre-existing Outlook calendar, only a little more refined.
0:36:13But if you were hoping to find all the many great touches of Sunrise, like when you type
0:36:18an event that contains a specific word like "meeting" or "doctor", you get a custom icon
0:36:24next to the event's name, so it helps you visually organize your calendar based on icons.
0:36:31There's no such thing as custom icons yet.
0:36:34Or there's no support for integrations with third-party services.
0:36:38So you could get your to-do list tasks or your foursquare checking information right
0:36:44alongside your calendar events.
0:36:46Microsoft says that all of these pre-existing features will come back to Outlook in the
0:36:52future and they're looking to release updates before the end of the year to bring feature
0:36:57parity between Sunrise and Outlook.
0:37:00Until that time they say we will keep Sunrise on the App Store until we have the same functionalities
0:37:05on both apps so we can discontinue Sunrise and move all users back to Outlook.
0:37:11And I gotta wonder, will it be too much to take everything that made Sunrise great, but
0:37:18it was a dedicated app, and push it into Outlook, where the calendar view is a tab of the app.
0:37:27Of course it can be a full app, it's a section of Outlook.
0:37:31So I wonder if it will be too much or if maybe we'll end up with some kind of lightweight
0:37:37version of Sunrise with some of the features that used to be the entire app.
0:37:43We don't know yet but there's a lot missing right now so it's not really Sunrise.
0:37:49There's a promise of Sunrise coming to Outlook and we got a more cleaned up interface in
0:37:55In the meantime, we're still not looking at Sunrise inside Outlook.
0:38:01We gotta wait a few more months, according to the Microsoft blog.
0:38:05So on the Sunrise blog, they said that you can expect features like interesting calendars,
0:38:10connected apps, and our three-day view to show up before the end of the year.
0:38:13So this maybe shows a commitment to bring some of the more interesting things from Sunrise.
0:38:18In my opinion, if they can do this, if they can pull this off, this is killer, right?
0:38:24Oh yeah.
0:38:25because okay so I'm still in mailbox land okay anybody that's listened to Cortex a couple of
0:38:31weeks ago knows that I am in absolute just disarray about my email application situation
0:38:37but I am using Outlook as well so I'm like using them both I'm trying to like slowly move over to
0:38:46Outlook because I really like that app I think it's got a lot of great stuff the watch stuff is
0:38:50really good that works really great I like all of that the app itself works really nicely the
0:38:54search is pretty good so I'm trying to like get into the mindset of using an
0:38:58app like that. My main problem at the moment is outlook on the desktop sucks
0:39:02sucks it's nothing like this one and and if if Microsoft like just turn around
0:39:08said here is outlook and it has all of the great features from the iOS versions
0:39:12I would switch tomorrow that's the only thing that's kind of like holding me
0:39:16back is right like oh you know it because outlook can do a bit of that
0:39:20email manipulation stuff right like the snoozing of emails and stuff like that
0:39:23So if I want to do that, I want that to be mirrored across all of my platforms
0:39:28and the Outlook Mac app is not so good right now. So I'm kind of like floating
0:39:34between the two of them, but the Outlook app itself is just... it's fantastic.
0:39:39And they seem to be really dedicated. Like it's iOS 9 compatible,
0:39:44it's split-screen compatible, it's... you know? They just released the WatchOS 2 app.
0:39:49like this is whoever's building this whether it's like technically Microsoft
0:39:54or it's still the Accomplete team right I don't know how it actually works it
0:39:59seems like things are going pretty well there so I guess we can probably hope
0:40:05that it's gonna be okay right that they are gonna do what they said they were
0:40:10gonna do oh yeah they even said they got 30 million active users each month so
0:40:17So that's a lot of people using Outlook.
0:40:22I think they made a great choice with acquiring a company because clearly they had some kind
0:40:26of vision for the future of this app.
0:40:29And Microsoft, unlike Google, is being extremely conscious of the fact that they cannot force
0:40:36their own metaphors for functionality and interface from another platform onto iOS.
0:40:44being extremely good citizens when it comes to adopting interface, paradigms on iOS, new
0:40:52technologies such as iOS 9, support for bigger iPads, multitasking, watchOS, they're really
0:41:00doing a good job there.
0:41:03The idea of integrations coming to Outlook via Sunrise, it's not only interesting I think
0:41:09because of the potential utility in the calendar.
0:41:12So you see all these other details about external services
0:41:17into your list of events.
0:41:19But when you think about it,
0:41:22having Todoist integration into Outlook,
0:41:25it could mean that you should be able to save emails
0:41:27from the email part of Outlook into Todoist
0:41:32because you'll be no longer connecting a service to Sunrise.
0:41:38you will be connecting it to Outlook,
0:41:41which is the entire email app.
0:41:43So the potential for doing even more
0:41:45with the integrations is huge.
0:41:49You could connect your email inbox to a task manager
0:41:53and save emails as tasks,
0:41:55and then you could also see tasks in the calendar.
0:41:58You could do a bunch of crazy things there.
0:42:00- 'Cause apparently they're gonna be integrating
0:42:02with Microsoft-owned Wunderlist as well,
0:42:05or Wunderlist, I should say.
0:42:07- Yeah, they said they don't plan to do the same thing
0:42:10with Wunderlies to kind of--
0:42:13- No, not to like swallow it up,
0:42:14but there was a post on their Dev forum, I think,
0:42:18which was, it basically said that they were looking
0:42:21to have task integration built into Outlook.
0:42:24And VillaList is obviously top of that list
0:42:26'cause it's part of the same company.
0:42:28Yeah, that would be a disaster, right?
0:42:30Trying to bring that inside of Outlook.
0:42:31Like you got to stop somewhere.
0:42:33- Yeah, yeah, yeah, you got to stop somewhere.
0:42:36That's why I'm both kind of concerned and curious to see what they do with all these
0:42:42integrations to see how much they can enhance a calendar client without an email client
0:42:49without making it too complex or too complicated to use because there's too many options,
0:42:55too many settings.
0:42:56It's great I think that they're trying to modernize email by looking at all these integrations
0:43:03and trying to be, we want to embrace all these new iOS technologies, we want to be a great
0:43:10iOS app. And that's great. But I don't want to see them doing too much. Just to say, hey
0:43:17we've got all these features, we've got all these options and now people no longer know
0:43:20how to use the app. So that's always a risk of course, feature creep. You don't want to
0:43:26do that. So I guess we'll see how it goes before Christmas. They said before the end
0:43:31of the year they want to do updates with sunrise features so we'll see how it goes.
0:43:35Yeah, yeah I'm gonna keep my eye on this one I hope that it goes where we hope it
0:43:42will I mean there's a lot of potential here to make a real killer productivity
0:43:46app and Microsoft is still the company that can make that kind of stuff
0:43:52happen especially now very exciting Federica yesterday when we were embracing
0:43:59for the afternoon. Twitter exploded and turned faves into likes and replaced the
0:44:06styles of hearts. How do you feel about this? I don't feel. I mean whatever, right?
0:44:16It's an icon. I think people are reading way too much into
0:44:22this. Like, I understand that the fave among some circles of tech nerds, it's like an institution,
0:44:30right? It's the fave religion, like the fave meant this and it meant that, there's the sub-fave,
0:44:39and there's... You need to realize that these nerds are the same people who are at the same time,
0:44:45they're arguing for the future of Twitter, Twitter needs more people, Twitter needs more friendly,
0:44:50And when Twitter does something that's more friendly and more understandable, they scream in revolt.
0:44:57They're just "Oh my god, Twitter is killing us!"
0:45:00You know? I just don't understand.
0:45:03I mean, you want to save a tweet, now it's a heart instead of a star?
0:45:07Whatever! You can still do the same thing.
0:45:09It's just for the common user who doesn't know Twitter, doesn't know me,
0:45:14could be more familiar with Facebook.
0:45:16let's not hide the fact that people know Facebook more than Twitter.
0:45:19If you really want Twitter to be more popular, I mean they tried with the stars for a few years
0:45:27at this point, so try something new, could always be good for the business. You know,
0:45:32you gotta make it more approachable for millions of other potential users. And I know that
0:45:38hearts, likes won't save Twitter if the company needs any saving, if they won't bring 200 million
0:45:47new users to Twitter tomorrow morning. But it's, you know, changing a product is a series of many
0:45:54changes, many little changes. And it's easy to be, you know, the kind of armchair critic who knows
0:46:01best, what's best for every company in the Valley.
0:46:06I think, as usual, with any of these changes and memes that explode on Twitter, a lot of
0:46:16nerds need to chill and to understand that the world doesn't care too much about faves.
0:46:26And I say this as someone who over the years has accrued like thousands upon thousands
0:46:34of faves.
0:46:35I love the fave, I love the star.
0:46:37But if Twitter decides that it needs to try some new things around like moments, likes,
0:46:43all these other changes to make sure that more people get to know Twitter more easily
0:46:50and if the functionality doesn't go away, I'm all for it.
0:46:54And I don't particularly mind having a heart in my Twitter stream.
0:47:00I think we need more hearts.
0:47:02My feeling about this is it's just a different icon.
0:47:06It acts in the exact same way.
0:47:09You can put your own feeling onto it.
0:47:11But the thing is, the reason I think this works is so many other social networks use
0:47:17hearts.
0:47:18And I know that people are saying that Facebook is, you know, they call it likes and they
0:47:22a thumb and do that for a reason. But Facebook owned Instagram uses hearts. Vine uses hearts.
0:47:30Periscope uses hearts. Apple Music uses hearts. Exactly, but like considering the fact that
0:47:36three of the companies that Twitter owns uses hearts for their system like this,
0:47:40it makes like you know they have like... Vine uses hearts, Periscope uses hearts. It makes sense to me
0:47:47that twitter uses hearts and it might upset you right because you like the stars but i would say
0:47:54to most people that are upset at this remember how everybody felt when twitter instituted the
0:48:00retweet you know like the official retweet people were really mad about that oh yeah like like the
0:48:07world was ending basically i would try not to worry about this if all the things twitter could
0:48:12do this is not too bad. I wanted to see what you thought of it and you feel pretty much
0:48:18exactly the same as I do which is good to see. Yeah I feel like you know there's always
0:48:24some tension between the, so I call it the idealistic nerd who on paper is all for change
0:48:33you know we need to change, we need to evolve, technology needs to embrace more people and all
0:48:38all those ideals. But then when change is upon the idealistic nerd, he tends to hide
0:48:49and be defensive about it and say "No, I don't want change. Why are you changing
0:48:53this?" So on paper, you're pushing for "I want more people of all extractions,
0:49:00people who understand other popular networks, other popular pieces of software. I want those
0:49:05people to also understand my software. So beforehand you say "yeah we need to be more
0:49:09open, we need to change, we need to explore" and then when you do get the change it's
0:49:17the end of the world as you know it. And that's just such a peculiar and I don't want to
0:49:26say silly but I'm going to say you need to understand and I realize this is a very
0:49:33specific problem because the world doesn't care about faves and likes but we are talking
0:49:39about it so you need to understand that these things people don't care about but if you
0:49:45change them, if you make the entire package in a bunch of places, so it's an icon there,
0:49:53it's a menu here, you know if you make all these little changes they do add up over time
0:49:58So people may not care about the history or the politics behind the fave and the like,
0:50:05but a social network like Twitter is a bunch of little features.
0:50:08So they may not care about the behind the scenes stuff as we as geeks do, but the overall
0:50:15product can be beneficial to people like my mom who doesn't understand Twitter and she
0:50:23uses Twitter just to read my tweets in English.
0:50:27I don't understand why she does that, but if her icon, which she knows, is simpler to
0:50:34use and more understandable than a star, and my mom starts using likes on Twitter, I guess
0:50:42that's a good thing.
0:50:44So you know, change is a weird beast.
0:50:51We appreciate the idea of change, but many times when they change our software, we are
0:50:57mad about it.
0:50:59And I guess, you know, this will be an unpopular opinion, but we'll be fine.
0:51:09That's what I think.
0:51:10We'll be fine.
0:51:11It's hard.
0:51:12It's not, you know.
0:51:13It could have been a worse icon, you know.
0:51:16It could have been, I don't know, a dollar.
0:51:18It could have been a lamp.
0:51:20A little egg?
0:51:21It could have been a little egg.
0:51:23It could have been a bird.
0:51:25It's a heart.
0:51:26So you know, unless you're CGP Grey who's a robot, everyone has a heart and will be
0:51:32fine.
0:51:33Well, I want to know that I heart you.
0:51:35I heart you too, Myke.
0:51:37And I also heart Harry's, who sponsored me.
0:51:40Wow, that's perfect.
0:51:41Look at that.
0:51:44It is November, which means it's time for Movember.
0:51:48If you've never heard of Movember, Movember is a time during the month of November when
0:51:53you will see guys grow crazy looking moustaches in support of men's health issues.
0:51:58So I remember when I was working in the company that I was in before I quit to become independent
0:52:04and during this time working in the city or working in big buildings it was always funny
0:52:09to see loads of guys with varying levels of terrible moustaches.
0:52:14Some people would have great ones, some people could barely grow them but it was a lot of
0:52:17fun and it was a great way to benefit a good cause by raising donations from friends and family.
0:52:23Well, Harry's is the official razor partner of the Movember Foundation and they will be donating
0:52:28money and helping raise awareness of this campaign. So if you're looking to get involved in Movember
0:52:33you're going to need a great razor to help you so you should be checking out Harry's. They have
0:52:38fantastic blades that they make themselves. They have a great company that like they actually
0:52:43bought a blade manufacturer because they knew they needed the right blades and they have
0:52:48great products. Their razors are really cool, they look great, they feel great in the hand,
0:52:53they're great to use. I mean you know people say about me with my beard, of course I have
0:52:57a beard, but to get a great looking beard like the one I have you have to trim that
0:53:01bad boy. You need a great razor to do that. You have to keep the lines clean and you also
0:53:07have to keep your face feeling good too. I love Harry's Aftershave Moisturiser, I use
0:53:12it to just keep my face moisturized as well as some of the other products that I use.
0:53:16And if I, if and when I ever do shave, you know, and I used a lovely Harry's products
0:53:21to do that, I make sure that I use their foaming shave gel, which is a great little gel that
0:53:26you put into your hands, you rub it together and it becomes a foam.
0:53:29It's very, very magical and I love it.
0:53:31Harrys.com deliver a superior shave for an incredible price.
0:53:35They will send and ship out your packages for free.
0:53:39They believe in free shipping to your door.
0:53:43With their website it's also super simple to use.
0:53:45It takes less than 30 seconds to place an order with Harry's and they really do believe
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0:54:34thank you so much to Harry's for their support this year. So the Apple TV now we
0:54:42on upgrade this week me and Jason were joined by Joe Steele and we kind of
0:54:46really went into the device and picked it apart and said the things that we
0:54:50liked and kind of focused quite a bit on the things that we didn't like from a
0:54:53kind of hardware perspective the setup stuff and things like that but I wanted
0:54:57to talk about some different things of you today Federico I wanted to talk
0:54:59about apps and games. So first off though, because we haven't had the chance to talk
0:55:06about this yet, I want to get your thoughts on the hardware itself. What do you think
0:55:11about the Apple TV? Do you like the remote?
0:55:15The Apple TV is fine, it's just a small box. The TV remote I do like with two potentially
0:55:27major reservations. First one is the trackpad is okay for navigation, I don't think they're
0:55:37doing, at least developers or Apple, I don't know who's to blame here, I don't think the
0:55:43trackpad does a good job for games. It's too small, I find myself struggling to control
0:55:51games with the trackpad so I have to use a controller and I just don't think it makes
0:55:57for a good input mechanism for games.
0:55:59At least those that I've tried so far.
0:56:01Could be that those games are conversions from iOS and will get an Apple TV only exclusive
0:56:08game in the future that truly understands the trackpad.
0:56:12That day is not today.
0:56:14problem is that I'm constantly getting the orientation of the remote wrong
0:56:21because the controls on the remote are exactly in the middle
0:56:27and the remote is entirely black and there's a symmetry between the top half
0:56:32and the bottom half so when I'm picking it up in the dark because I'm watching
0:56:37TV or playing a game and I want to change something with the remote I'm
0:56:41constantly switching the bottom half for the top one. So I'm either swiping on the wrong part of the remote or tapping a button instead of the other because it's basically upside down.
0:56:56And I know you can feel the remote by touching the different surfaces of the glass and the trackpad, but it's not enough for me to quickly understand.
0:57:09whereas the old one at a glance you could tell, ok, the controls are at the top
0:57:14so this is the right orientation of the remote
0:57:17now it's mostly symmetrical between the two halves of the device
0:57:25and I'm really struggling to pick it up in the correct way
0:57:29or to at least by feel quickly adjusting it in my hand
0:57:33so I make sure that I'm controlling the right end of the remote
0:57:38But aside from that, which maybe it's something that I will get used to, I don't know,
0:57:43I think it's fine. It's a nice upgrade from the previous Apple TV.
0:57:49And I'm not a huge TV, what do you say, consumer.
0:57:54I don't watch TV, I only watch TV shows and the occasional comedy movie.
0:58:02So, you know, I'm not a movie person. I know that.
0:58:05Yeah, it's a shame that Steven isn't here this week because obviously me and you have
0:58:09spoken about this, we don't really have much to say on a TV front, which is why I was more
0:58:13interested in your opinion on apps and games, right?
0:58:15So maybe he can fill us in about how he's using it as a TV box.
0:58:19Just a quick aside, someone wasn't happy about my comments on not knowing Fassbender, the
0:58:27actor from the Steve Jobs movie, and that person said that I sounded condescending.
0:58:33I'm sorry if I did but it wasn't meant as a slide to people who watch movies.
0:58:38I think everyone should have his own hobby and there's nothing wrong about watching
0:58:45movies it's just I don't watch a lot of movies.
0:58:50I do keep up with the occasional gossip from Hollywood and Fassbender is a name that I
0:58:57haven't heard before.
0:58:59I asked my close friends and my parents if they knew who this actor is, I showed them
0:59:04pictures they didn't know him.
0:59:07I was just saying from my limited understanding of pop culture and famous actors from Hollywood,
0:59:13I've never seen this person before.
0:59:15Now this listener got really upset at my tone and I'm sorry if you did but it's just you
0:59:21know I don't know this person so I was just... and I like to make fun and crack a few jokes
0:59:27here and there. But I'm not condescending. I think people who watch movies, people who
0:59:31play video games, people who read books, they're all obvious and it's great.
0:59:35I think what we've learned is just nobody in Italy knows who Michael Fassbender is.
0:59:39Probably.
0:59:40He has an Italy problem. We need to get onto his agent.
0:59:43Yeah, yeah. Anyway.
0:59:46I want to talk about some of the things, some of the games and stuff that I've liked. Now
0:59:50we both have the Nimbus controller, right?
0:59:53Yes.
0:59:54Now I wasn't going to get one of these, but I tried out a few games and I could see some
0:59:58potential in them, so I decided that I'd pick up the controller.
1:00:02Because like Alto's Adventure is a game that I love very dearly, and I tried playing it
1:00:06on the Apple TV with the remote and it's kind of broken, you know?
1:00:10You have to click the remote to make Alto jump, or any of the characters that you're
1:00:15playing.
1:00:16I play as Maya, she is my favourite character, I think she's the best.
1:00:20You should really be tapping I think to make it work, because when you click on the remote
1:00:23There's like a there's this stuff every slight delay, but that's all it takes but on the controller using the Nimbus controller
1:00:29It's brilliant. It works perfectly and I found that with so many games like crossy road
1:00:33Mm-hmm sucks with the remote trying to move the little guy around you can't do a quick enough with a d-pad on the Nimbus controller
1:00:40It's awesome. Right? Yeah, like so geometry wars. I wouldn't even attempt to play geometry wars big
1:00:48with the remote because Geometry Wars is a double stick a double analog stick
1:00:52game right it always has been that's how you play it again works pretty good on
1:00:57the Nimbus controller I'm not a big fan of their analog sticks I don't think
1:01:04that they're very great and very comfortable yeah the rest of the
1:01:07controller itself is good it feels good in the hand it's not massively expensive
1:01:11it's the price of a controller but you know Geometry Wars plays well on it
1:01:16Asphalt 8 as well I tried out, which is fine. My problem with that is like that
1:01:21game is graphically quite intensive so every time I was selecting something it
1:01:26was having to download more content right you know like the whole on-demand
1:01:33content or whatever it's called the on-demand something it was having to
1:01:37download a lot of those it plays fine it tries to be a console game it doesn't
1:01:40look like a console game but it tries to be one and it you know again does a good
1:01:44job with the controller. So overall like this is just again shown to me like why
1:01:50why isn't there a controller like that is the only real way to play games on
1:01:55this thing except for Beat Sports which is charming and I love it.
1:01:59Did you have you played Beat Sports? Oh Federico you've got to get Beat
1:02:03Sports. Yeah is it a single-player multiplayer game? It is single-player but
1:02:07you can have multiplayer but I think the multiplayer is a bit weird but play the
1:02:11single player. I'm telling you it's great. You know you were just saying a moment
1:02:14ago about like the game design for Apple TV? That's it.
1:02:18Okay. Because when you play on the iPhone you just swipe left and right I believe
1:02:24like when you're doing two-player that you use an iPhone for it you swipe left
1:02:27and right is my understanding I think that's how you do it. But you you use the
1:02:31little remote it's like a bat to hit so you like swing the bat around. That is
1:02:35the game designed for the Apple TV. Takes advantage of what is in the Apple TV
1:02:40remote and it's great. The rest of them need the controller.
1:02:44Yeah, I agree. I've only been playing, I've played a bunch of Cross
1:02:59played the first 30 minutes, didn't stick with me, I never finished the game.
1:03:05Now I'm playing on the TV, the game has been remastered to full HD, 60 frames per second,
1:03:12it looks fantastic on the TV, and okay, it's really, I wouldn't say a rip-off, but it's a Zelda clone.
1:03:19[laughs]
1:03:20Yeah, Oceanhorn is basically an homage to Zelda.
1:03:26Very strong one. Down to some of the music, I can see some similarities there.
1:03:33The controls, the items, the entire mechanic of moving from island to island that's basically been lifted from Zelda Wind Waker.
1:03:44It's very Zelda inspired, let's say. But it's a good game, you know?
1:03:50the atmosphere is good, the colors are fantastic, looks great on the Apple TV, plays very nice
1:03:56with the Nimbus controller and it's the closest thing to a Zelda game I could have right now,
1:04:03especially following the disappointment of Triforce Heroes on the 3DS and not showing
1:04:11the new Zelda on the Wii U. I want to play some Zelda-like game, I can play Oceanhorn
1:04:16on the Apple TV. It's a good game. You can tell where it comes from, but it's a good
1:04:22game.
1:04:23Now my understanding was that charts had made their way to the Apple TV.
1:04:28Yeah, but only...
1:04:30Not for me!
1:04:31Only in the US App Store, I think.
1:04:35Right, okay. Yeah, weird that that's not there. Why do you think that is? Do you think it's
1:04:39just because there's not enough apps?
1:04:43Why?
1:04:44Most of Apple TV apps, they're available in more than just the US.
1:04:55Maybe logistics, maybe I don't know.
1:04:58Maybe the guy who works at the European office is just sleeping.
1:05:02I don't know.
1:05:03No idea.
1:05:05No idea.
1:05:08There's no real reason here because the Apple TV came out in a bunch of countries at once.
1:05:13Apps tend to be available in multiple markets on the App Store, so why is there no top chart
1:05:18section outside of America?
1:05:22I don't know.
1:05:23No idea, Myke.
1:05:24It's a weird omission, that's what I'm going to say.
1:05:27I saw a tweet go by.
1:05:29I saw this thing as well.
1:05:31So this is from a guy by the name Myke Piatek-Heminis, I'm going to say.
1:05:38And he had an app called Seasonality TV, which was number 31 in the top grossing overall
1:05:46in the tvOS app store.
1:05:48With only, and he says, in four days, total four days, the app had made $200.
1:05:55Now I don't think that's very good numbers wise.
1:06:03That doesn't feel to be number 31, right?
1:06:07$200?
1:06:08So I think what this maybe highlights is the limited market that is currently existing
1:06:13for the Apple TV.
1:06:15Yeah, for sure.
1:06:17And I also, I want to say, I think Apple didn't help third party developers with this launch.
1:06:24The App Store was especially limited, no categories to browse, search of course was too difficult
1:06:33to do with the trackpad because there's no remote update to type on the iPhone.
1:06:37So they weren't exactly helping developers with, say, ways for users to find their apps.
1:06:47And so I would say that maybe those games and those apps that were featured on the front
1:06:51page, they got some nice sales, maybe, I don't know, I'm not those developers. But for all
1:06:58these other guys with apps on the Apple TV app store, you gotta give people an easier
1:07:06way to find their apps. So you cannot link to apps. If you wanna search for an app, you
1:07:11gotta type the name on the trackpad.
1:07:15Because you can't search by Siri for apps either.
1:07:17search for Siri, using Siri, there's no categories to browse, so now you have top charts, but
1:07:24what about the first 4 to 5 days when it's, you know, the first day, the moment you get
1:07:28a TV out of the box, you say "Ok, what am I supposed to download here?" That's when
1:07:33you gotta give people ways to discover apps. So instead, what you got them is a featured
1:07:40page on the App Store. So imagine this, imagine if the Apple Watch launched to a single App
1:07:47store with no categories, no ways to search easily, and without the iOS app store as a
1:07:53back end, which is where I would argue most people found apps for the Apple Watch.
1:07:59It's really problematic if you're an indie developer and you were hoping to get some
1:08:02kind of promotion or visibility, not necessarily to be featured, but to be found, and that's
1:08:08a problem.
1:08:11Imagine a department store where they just showed you what's in the windows and you couldn't
1:08:17go inside and you had to talk to a guy through a little hole in the window and
1:08:21tell him what you wanted. And he's like I've got tons of stuff in the stock
1:08:25in like in the back here like if you want something and you're like well
1:08:28what you got and he's got well just tell me a letter and we'll start the search.
1:08:33It's not how it works man like you gotta you gotta try and surface it like already
1:08:39there's not a ton of ways for people to discover things in the iOS App Store.
1:08:44giving people even less places to find things in the in the Apple TV App Store
1:08:49is not great. I mean I want to mirror this like so to underscore this point a
1:08:54little bit I'm looking at the Apple TV App Store right now and it's the best
1:09:00looking App Store right like those little the way you can like I don't know
1:09:06what you'd call it but like move the little cards around and see the 3d
1:09:10effects. It's awesome! The whole UI is one of my favorite UI
1:09:16designs that Apple has ever done. It's so clean. I love that all of the artwork
1:09:21doesn't have names anywhere until you hover over them.
1:09:24And the artwork is nice rectangles which enable more interest in
1:09:30design. I think all of that is great but there's just some parts of
1:09:34it that just make it very 1.0. And the problem is
1:09:38reason why, like I think people that are being a bit critical of this, I think
1:09:44it's justified when Apple was saying like this is the future of TV right like
1:09:48this is the best thing ever so you expect it to be super super awesome and
1:09:51there are some really great things about it right but I'm just being like this is
1:09:57a slow burner for me like there is a lot of work that needs to happen from
1:10:01developer side from Apple side to really make this the next big platform.
1:10:07I think there's the potential there. There's some really interesting stuff
1:10:11that you can do with this type of technology and to have something
1:10:14connected to such a big screen but I think that there is a lot more needs to
1:10:18be done and one of the first things that needs to happen is Apple need to make a
1:10:21video game controller because they need they need to just just put their money
1:10:25where their mouth is with it right. The Nimbus controller is great and they're
1:10:28promoting it awesome but I think it would make a bigger statement if Apple
1:10:32made one. It doesn't even have to be good they're just gonna make one right just
1:10:35to say like this is what you do this is how you make this. So there's a brand
1:10:39new show on RealAFM today called Under the Radar. It's by Michael Arman and
1:10:44_DavidSmith. We are honored to host this show it's about development.
1:10:48They talk about kind of everything that goes into being a developer and it's a
1:10:53weekly show no longer than 30 minutes which is fantastic. So let's get started.
1:10:58That is the whole thing. I just need to say I can't help it. I need to say that.
1:11:04lost count of the amount of times I've seen people say let's get started today.
1:11:07So it's riffing on developing perspective and that's it
1:11:10right so developing perspective which was Underscore's show previously was 15
1:11:15minutes so there's two of them now so it's 30 minutes so it's basically the
1:11:19merging of developing perspective and build and analyze so that's the
1:11:23promotional part that I wanted to talk about but they had a great discussion on
1:11:26their episode that came out today about adapting to the market and both of them
1:11:30were talking about the fact that right now neither of them have anything in the
1:11:36store right but they both got the dev kits but the problem that they found was
1:11:41trying to devote the time to make something for another platform right so
1:11:47they both have iOS apps they both have iPad apps they both have services that
1:11:52need to run they both have watch apps so it was like to be an independent iOS app
1:11:57developer and to be like you know a fully good one if you as you'd say you
1:12:01have to do a lot of work on a lot of different platforms and it's I listening
1:12:06to the way that they were talking about it it feels like that there is potential
1:12:10harm for this platform because it is yet another one to work for which is
1:12:17unproven and the only way it is proven it's like a chicken and egg scenario
1:12:20right you need the apps to make it a great platform but to make it for to
1:12:25incentivize people to make the apps the platform has to be great.
1:12:29Yeah. What do you think? Do you think that the Apple TV has the potential?
1:12:37Yes but it needs time, you know, and it needs many updates. Especially when the
1:12:42this potentially strongest advocates for your new device. So people like us, they
1:12:50are annoyed by some very clear limitations that you should have seen coming. You gotta
1:12:57make those people happy first. People start recommending the product, the product becomes
1:13:01more understandable by the masses. So search the remote, you gotta fix these basic things
1:13:08I think. And with the device, and especially App Store Discovery, I feel like we're repeating
1:13:17the same mistakes over and over. And I would strongly advise developers to consider carefully
1:13:27whether they want to make their apps and games universal downloads on iOS and tvOS or standalone
1:13:34downloads on tvOS. So, you know, do your math, consider your costs for making software for
1:13:44iOS, TVOS, then you gotta use some web components, iCloud, maybe have a watchOS version. It's
1:13:51a lot of platforms, man. It's a lot of different devices that you gotta account for. So if
1:13:58you're a developer, don't just maybe jump on yet another TV version of your app. Like
1:14:03many developers did watch kit versions of their apps back in April. And how many of
1:14:10you are using those apps now anyway. So maybe take your time, you know, it won't be the
1:14:15end of the world, the TV is not as quickly adopted as a new iPhone. So you get time,
1:14:21consider the platform, see where it's going and I would strongly advise Apple to start
1:14:26releasing updates to fix these basic annoyances and to take a good hard look at the App Store
1:14:31and consider how if they want the future of the TV to be the Apple TV, and if that future
1:14:40includes apps, you got to make it easy for people to support apps, to find apps, to install
1:14:47and manage apps.
1:14:49We need updates and we need time.
1:14:51We got to check back after the next few updates to see how it's going.
1:14:55I'm not sure how I feel about the universal app.
1:14:59Yeah, me neither.
1:15:00I feel like this really should have been one where they didn't do that.
1:15:05Yeah.
1:15:06I mean, let me say, right, as a consumer, it's really great that I just went to my
1:15:11purchase tab and downloaded a bunch of video games for free, right?
1:15:15That's cool as a consumer, but that it feels dangerous for the development
1:15:22community to be like the expectation that this is like, this is something
1:15:26completely different.
1:15:27This is a TV.
1:15:28It's not iOS, right?
1:15:30It's not even, it's not called iOS. I know it is iOS basically, but it's not called that.
1:15:35This was a scenario where Apple could have said, you know, like you're used to with many of your apps on the Mac and iOS,
1:15:42your preferences and your saves will sync across using iCloud, but you need to pay again for this stuff.
1:15:48That, I believe that's what should have happened because we're talking about the idea of how difficult it is for developers
1:15:54to have to put another system in. Well now for many of them this is adding another system in,
1:16:00more development time, for no more money. That's a problem to me I think.
1:16:05Yeah, yeah. I don't know what to think yet, yeah. I guess I wanna-
1:16:11Services like Netflix, services like YouTube, right?
1:16:15Yeah I mean of course.
1:16:15Free apps that benefit from being everywhere, like of course they remain free. But Crossy Road
1:16:22and Transistor and Oceanhorn. Like I feel like you should be paying again for these
1:16:29games. I really do. It's difficult, it's really difficult to think about it because
1:16:34you know like I think about it as a consumer like me and you always
1:16:37complaining on virtual about the fact that you have to play like that Nintendo
1:16:42don't sync your game saves and stuff like that and they do don't do cross by
1:16:46and cross by is really great but I don't know man it just it feels it feels like
1:16:51it's really kind of making it difficult for people to make money. It's difficult
1:16:57because I like I'll be honest about it like I'm I'm can't you kind of sit in
1:17:01the middle of it you can be a friend to developers and understanding what they
1:17:04go through and then you think about it as a consumer and it's like it's awesome
1:17:07that I pay $2.99 and I've got this game everywhere. It's a real kind of tough
1:17:12line but I feel like this was one where they at least could have just started
1:17:18again and made people pay again but that hasn't happened and I think that
1:17:23ultimately that may be a problem for Apple TV. Did you have anything else that
1:17:29you wanted to add on this? Yes, just a note, not on the TV but a quick note
1:17:33before we end the show, I got an email about an update to Evernote on the
1:17:39App Store which now supports sketches in Notes. You can now draw sketches and it
1:17:47It supports multitasking and it's been updated for the iPad Pro with Apple Pencil support.
1:17:54This is interesting, right, that they're doing sketches exactly like notes, basically.
1:17:59Of course.
1:18:01And part of me says they must have felt the pressure from the Free Notes app, but also
1:18:08Evernote owns Penultimate, you know, the sketching app.
1:18:12So I wonder if it will be kind of merged into Evernote like Microsoft is doing for Sunrise
1:18:18and Outlook.
1:18:19But it's interesting that Evernote is now trying to do the same feature set of the free
1:18:25Notes app and with support for the iPad Pro, Apple Pencil, it will be interesting to test
1:18:30this to see what they're doing here.
1:18:34I think it is going to be interesting over the next few weeks, right?
1:18:38the rumor is maybe next week the iPad Pro goes on sale, I saw that on 9to5Mac.
1:18:45It's going to be interesting over the next week or so to see the apps that are being
1:18:49updated and if they're going to take advantage of the iPad Pro.
1:18:51So this is another one, right?
1:18:54This is another one that is potentially going to be adding more work in for these people.
1:19:03Yeah, I don't know.
1:19:06I want to see if it's yet another feature in Evernote, you know?
1:19:11Like another one?
1:19:12We'll see.
1:19:13We'll see how it goes, Myke.
1:19:15Alright, I think it's time to wrap up.
1:19:18We wish our Android loving friend Steven Hackett to get better soon.
1:19:22But if you want to find the show notes for this week, you'll find us all online.
1:19:26There's a few things that you can do.
1:19:28You can go on over to relay.fm/connected/64 if you want to find our show notes for this
1:19:36week.
1:19:37If you want to find Federico online he is @Vittici on twitter and he writes over at
1:19:42MaxLories.net and I am @imike on twitter if you'd like to follow along there.
1:19:48I'll mention it again, go check out Under The Radar, it's a great new show from RelayFM,
1:19:52we're so excited to have a development focused show on the network.
1:19:57I feel like it was one of the last things really in our technology coverage that we
1:20:02were missing on the network.
1:20:04And so I'm really really happy that we have something that's focused now on indie app
1:20:08development and we have two fantastic indie app developers to kind of talk about this
1:20:13stuff.
1:20:14So go check it out.
1:20:15It's only 30 minutes every Tuesday so it's not going to take a massive chunk of your
1:20:20listening time either.
1:20:22Thanks again to our sponsors this week, the great people over at Harry's, Linda, and of
1:20:27course our lovely accountant Mr Andrew Carroll for supporting this week's episode.
1:20:32Most of all, thank you for listening.
1:20:34We'll be back next time.
1:20:35Until then, say goodbye Federico.
1:20:36Arrivederci.