00:00:36 ◼ ► Hey, guys, how you doing? It's good to be here, and you know, I've been hoping that I'd get a little
00:01:02 ◼ ► To your fellow Js. Wow. Okay, so we just invited a spy to do a show with us. Excellent.
00:01:31 ◼ ► Yes, Mike is gone, and as tradition, we like to let our fellow co-hosts know they were missed.
00:01:56 ◼ ► And pay attention. Photos of us wearing our tiny head shirt. It's not like you can just
00:02:21 ◼ ► You always like to make a little weird, don't you, Federico? You always still give people ideas.
00:02:27 ◼ ► No, it got weird last week. It got real weird last week because y'all sent people my way
00:02:38 ◼ ► I got gifts. Someone emailed me a link to the podiatrist board of America or something.
00:02:46 ◼ ► It went on and on. But I am back. So I did have surgery on my foot two weeks ago today.
00:03:00 ◼ ► So I have a little bowl of the screws that used to be in my foot. They got put in in 2020.
00:03:05 ◼ ► Then they had to come out. The bones all healed. So everything's good. And I got to keep my surgical
00:03:13 ◼ ► What are you going to make something with? You're going to build something in your office?
00:03:40 ◼ ► that you all have been talking about. Yeah. Yeah. I checked it out. It looks really cool.
00:03:44 ◼ ► It's awesome. So it's pricey, but it comes in this little carrying case and it folds over on itself.
00:03:51 ◼ ► It comes with the USB-C cable and charger, which is nice. It's just one cable. You get a
00:03:57 ◼ ► spot for your AirPods case. You get a spot for your phone and a spot for your Apple watch. It all
00:04:02 ◼ ► folds over. And the little carrying case that comes in, the zipper is closed and there's room
00:04:09 ◼ ► for the charger and the three in one kind of fold out thing and the cable. There's also a little
00:04:22 ◼ ► random cable you need to put in there. Yeah. Or your foot screws. You could put your foot screws.
00:04:27 ◼ ► You can put your foot screws in there, whatever you may need. It's pretty great. And yeah, I mean,
00:04:33 ◼ ► it was a little, you know, I think it's like 150 bucks or something, but if you're looking for a
00:04:37 ◼ ► nice travel charger, you know, something that this folds down to be really compact. And I just have
00:04:44 ◼ ► it basically in the bottom of my backpack now. And that's where it's going to live. And yeah,
00:04:49 ◼ ► I'm pleased with it. I think if you're looking for something like this, this is a really good
00:04:54 ◼ ► option. Does it connect with a USB-C cable that you could connect to a battery? Because
00:05:00 ◼ ► honestly I don't buy things that don't connect to batteries anymore. Yeah. It's just a regular
00:05:05 ◼ ► like USB-C on each end. So into a USB-C into a brick then. Yes. Yeah. Cool. So yeah, you could,
00:05:13 ◼ ► you could have it plugged into a battery. I'm sure it would be, it'd be fine. I think the charger is
00:05:18 ◼ ► 60 Watts. So you need a battery to be able to push some power, but I think a big battery pack
00:05:23 ◼ ► would be totally fine for that. Anything that did a USB-C power delivery definitely could do it.
00:05:27 ◼ ► Yeah. This looks like a really, it looks like a really good product. I mean, I, it was a little
00:05:30 ◼ ► bigger than I expected just looking at the pictures cause they show it in someone's hand,
00:05:39 ◼ ► it has to be able to spread out. So that's nice. Yeah. What I like about it is that it does fold
00:05:44 ◼ ► down. So yeah, it's a little big. Like when you have it like on your, you know, your hotel night
00:05:48 ◼ ► stand or whatever, I guess I've only used it at home. Haven't gone anywhere, but it folding down
00:05:54 ◼ ► the way that it does, it really doesn't take up much space in your bag. You know, some of these
00:05:58 ◼ ► that don't fold down as nicely. Or if you did like what I've always done, which is like a multi USB
00:06:04 ◼ ► C charger and a bunch of cables Velcro together, this is way nicer because you can just pick it up
00:06:09 ◼ ► and know you have everything. There's not loose cables running, you know, running around your bag.
00:06:12 ◼ ► It's a, I've been very happy with it. Maybe, maybe if I eventually travel with it, I got
00:06:18 ◼ ► some travel coming up in January. Maybe I can report back. Speaking of USB-C, are you all
00:06:24 ◼ ► ready for this? As of like an hour ago, Apple is now selling the USB-C AirPods Pro case.
00:06:34 ◼ ► That's breaking news right there. Yeah, right there. It is, it is breaking news. This was
00:06:40 ◼ ► something that we were hoping for when they moved to USB-C. They didn't have this at launch. And I
00:06:48 ◼ ► think some people upgraded to USB-C new AirPods just for the charger. I'm going to order one of
00:06:53 ◼ ► these as soon as we're done with the show, because I would like to be all USB-C. It's a hundred bucks.
00:06:57 ◼ ► I don't remember how much the wireless charging case was the first time they did this. I think
00:07:03 ◼ ► it was less than a hundred. I think it was less. I think it was more like 80 or something like that.
00:07:07 ◼ ► Pro wireless case. Let's see. $79 for the old one. So it is a little bit more, but if, if you want to
00:07:15 ◼ ► go all USB-C and that's worth a hundred dollars to you, then you now have an option. It's definitely
00:07:20 ◼ ► cheaper than upgrading AirPods. That's for sure. We heard back from listener, Jason Federico. Do
00:07:25 ◼ ► you want to read this? Okay. So listen to Jason. You may remember this whole saga that we've been
00:07:30 ◼ ► following for the past few weeks. Jason, as you recall, had to fetch an AirPod from a pool using a
00:07:37 ◼ ► net, right? And last episode we were wondering if Jason was also had to sort of go into the pool to
00:07:47 ◼ ► scoop out the AirPod. And Jason wrote back saying, no, I did not get into the pool. Pool nets for
00:07:54 ◼ ► cleaning leaves usually have a long pole on the end, maybe eight, nine feet. I'm not sure,
00:07:59 ◼ ► which allows you to get items out of the deep end and from the surface of the middle of the pool.
00:08:05 ◼ ► I had that with me, which allowed me to scoop it out without getting in the pool. But as I wrote,
00:08:10 ◼ ► it was hard to see and hard to get the AirPod to go into the net. So Jason had all the equipment
00:08:16 ◼ ► he needed, but it took Jason a while to scoop out the AirPod because of the leaves, because the
00:08:21 ◼ ► water, because you know, he was using this net and I guess it's hard to control when you're trying to
00:08:26 ◼ ► scoop out a very small AirPod from a body of water. So thank you, Jason. This story is now concluded.
00:08:32 ◼ ► I don't know why we are still talking about this. I guess it's because we've been asking the questions
00:08:40 ◼ ► over and over every single week. And I'm very happy to announce that I am now out of questions
00:08:46 ◼ ► for Jason. I'm done. Thank you, Jason. Thank you, Jason, for following up. Yeah, I guess,
00:08:52 ◼ ► you're eight or nine feet away and you know, like water does that thing where like it kind of messes
00:08:57 ◼ ► with your vision, right? Like it's kind of hard to tell. True. Because like the light refracts in the
00:09:02 ◼ ► water, I guess, or whatever. I don't remember physical science in eighth grade very well.
00:09:05 ◼ ► So I could see this being difficult. And I think last time Jason said that there were like leaves
00:09:09 ◼ ► in the pool. So you're kind of trying to find it. So I could see how this would take a few minutes.
00:09:15 ◼ ► I believe him. I think this is what happened. So thank you, Jason. Thank you, Jason. I think this
00:09:19 ◼ ► has been a good lesson for listeners that, you know, you never know when you write into connected
00:09:24 ◼ ► when you might end up writing a dissertation about retrieving things from a pool. It's true.
00:09:28 ◼ ► And also if you have a pool and you got to clean it, clean it every once in a while, make sure you
00:09:34 ◼ ► get this pool nets that have a long pole at the end that are eight or nine feet long. Jason is not
00:09:41 ◼ ► sure. So get one of these, you know, get one of those and jam your AirPods into your ears really
00:09:46 ◼ ► well. We also have some very important anonymous feedback and anonymous listener in Rodin asking,
00:09:57 ◼ ► As the producer of this program, Steven, can you please explain? Yes. So we use Zoom to have our
00:10:06 ◼ ► calls and Zoom by default does some noise cancellation and you can turn that off, but I
00:10:13 ◼ ► actually find it to be kind of a useful thing. I just also forget to turn it off. But the problem
00:10:19 ◼ ► was when I would ring the bell when someone scores a Ricky point that sometimes that would get
00:10:27 ◼ ► canceled out by Zoom. And so if we hum like this, then Zoom, the noise cancellation won't cut the
00:10:39 ◼ ► bell. So y'all can hear me awarding the point. We started doing that one time and now it's just
00:10:44 ◼ ► a thing that we do probably even when we do a live show next time with Ricky's, we'll probably
00:10:49 ◼ ► hum while we score. Yeah. And the fact that we harmonize when we do it, it just because we got
00:10:56 ◼ ► to act stupid when we do things, it's not really necessary to harmonize, but we do it regardless.
00:11:02 ◼ ► It makes it nicer. It makes it nice. Instead of just being, you know, that's boring. A listener,
00:11:07 ◼ ► Leo did the thing. So we got another photo of a listener. Yes. At Frederico's Christmas trees in
00:11:17 ◼ ► Utah. Yes. Thank you, Leo, for taking the time to go to for the Rico's Christmas tree trees. And
00:11:25 ◼ ► I gotta say, Leo noted, I'm happy to say that the connected pilgrimage side is conveniently located
00:11:30 ◼ ► in my home state with trees of all sizes and a knowledgeable friendly staff. I plan to visit
00:11:38 ◼ ► for the Rico's Frederico's for all my feature Christmas tree needs. Now this is not a paid
00:11:43 ◼ ► endorsement. I guess. I didn't take any money. We didn't take any money. I don't know if Leo
00:11:50 ◼ ► took any money from Frederico's Christmas trees, but hey, that's a pretty solid recommendation. So
00:11:58 ◼ ► thank you, Leo, for being the second person this year to take the time to do the connected
00:12:04 ◼ ► pilgrimage. It's great. I need to put one particular listener on blast now. So our friend
00:12:12 ◼ ► Quinn Nelson Snazzy laughs on Mastodon had a promised promise. I'm going to go where I could
00:12:21 ◼ ► Quinn lives in Utah. He had like a map up. I think it was like a 40 minute drive or something.
00:12:25 ◼ ► He's like, should I do it? We even heard from Quinn that he did it. And I'm just saying Christmas
00:12:31 ◼ ► is pretty soon. What's up with that? What's up with that? It's all fancy with his electric car
00:12:36 ◼ ► and everything. But he published just like one video a month. He's got plenty of free time.
00:12:40 ◼ ► Come on. He does get up in his comments over on YouTube. You don't have cameras, Quinn, to record
00:12:47 ◼ ► the send us evidence. I mean, come on. Yeah. It's disappointing. So we are very disappointing,
00:12:53 ◼ ► very disappointing. Thank you, Leo. Thank you, Leo. I'll subscribe to your YouTube instead.
00:13:12 ◼ ► Oh, I'm not going to have time to write this in September because St. Jude and, and you know, the
00:13:17 ◼ ► fundraiser and everything. But I kind of got into this habit now. I've done this a few times.
00:13:23 ◼ ► I've done this reviewing a phone or something else like months after it comes out. And I think that's
00:13:28 ◼ ► actually for me at least better. I think I need some time to think about things. So I worked on
00:13:36 ◼ ► this over the course of a week or so I got it published last week, looking at my iPhone 15 Pro
00:13:41 ◼ ► Max. And you know what, it's a pretty dang good phone. And I sort of hinged this review on this
00:13:48 ◼ ► because I was like, Okay, some iPhones are like in the Hall of Fame, like the iPhone four, right?
00:13:54 ◼ ► Beautiful design retina display. The iPhone 10, right totally changed how we use the iPhone brought
00:14:00 ◼ ► OLED brought face ID. Where does this phone fit into that? Is it like one of those? Or is it a
00:14:07 ◼ ► phone like the iPhone, you know, seven or the iPhone eight, something that's sort of, it was a
00:14:14 ◼ ► not necessarily one that we're going to remember, you know, as a highlight over the years, they
00:14:20 ◼ ► can't all be home runs. And, and I think this one is closer to the Hall of Fame. It's got USB C,
00:14:28 ◼ ► the new materials are really nice. The camera like the five x zoom really is next level. It really
00:14:34 ◼ ► lets you do things you couldn't do before with an iPhone. And so that was sort of my, my through
00:14:41 ◼ ► line on this review. And if you haven't read it, it's in the show notes, I would love for you to go
00:14:45 ◼ ► check it out. I think you'll enjoy it. It's a very, very good story. I appreciate it how you
00:14:51 ◼ ► saw I liked the perspective of like, hey, let's check in after a few months. Here's a few things
00:14:57 ◼ ► that I can confirm have been very nice, like USB C, or when you mentioned like your use of the
00:15:02 ◼ ► dynamic island. It's it's a different type of review than you know, what you may see under
00:15:08 ◼ ► embargo in September. And I think there's enough room for both style of reviews. Definitely. It's
00:15:13 ◼ ► useful to have review under embargo that tells you the details right away. And it's useful to
00:15:19 ◼ ► add this sort of like follow up story a few months later. So well done. Thank you for taking the time
00:15:24 ◼ ► to publish this Steven. Thanks. And I was very pleased with my headline. I know you guys are the
00:15:29 ◼ ► same way. Sometimes like when you're working on something, the headline comes first and greatness
00:15:34 ◼ ► thicker than titanium was like, that's it like, you know. So yeah, that review is up. Big news.
00:15:42 ◼ ► This is your final call for relay fms annual membership sale. If you go to give relay.com,
00:15:49 ◼ ► you can get 20% off any annual plan to a bunch of our shows. I would recommend connected pro,
00:15:55 ◼ ► which is a longer ad free version of the show each and every week. And the way that we do it here on
00:16:00 ◼ ► connected, we do sort of a pro topic at the beginning of the show before the music this week,
00:16:04 ◼ ► we talked about the verges coverage of Twitter and the rock being in a Siri ad and sort of the,
00:16:13 ◼ ► the, our biggest moments on Twitter over the years, kind of a nice way, I think, to sort of
00:16:17 ◼ ► close that chapter in our lives. Like I really feel here at the end of 2023, like I'm okay with
00:16:22 ◼ ► Twitter being gone for me at least. Oh yeah, definitely. You get no ads, which is cool. And
00:16:27 ◼ ► then we pick titles at the end of the episode and all that's great, but you also get access to
00:16:32 ◼ ► crossover, which is a podcast feed for all relay FM members. Mike and I do a show in that feed each
00:16:38 ◼ ► month called backstage. And then once a month, Kathy Campbell, our community manager will
00:16:43 ◼ ► interview somebody on the network with questions harvested from the discord, which is another perk
00:16:50 ◼ ► of relay FM membership. So lots of really cool stuff. And with this discount is 40 bucks a year.
00:16:55 ◼ ► So give relay.com you have until December 15th to take advantage of this. So this is your,
00:17:03 ◼ ► your final warning. Go go forth and join is what I say. This episode of connected is brought to you
00:17:08 ◼ ► by Squarespace, the all in one platform for building your brand and growing your business
00:17:17 ◼ ► anything product services, and even the content you create. Squarespace has everything you need
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00:17:33 ◼ ► obviously you want a design that works really well on desktop, but also mobile, right? Because people
00:17:38 ◼ ► may be looking up information about you on the way. So you want like a nice looking map and easy,
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00:18:18 ◼ ► that you can use to see how your website is doing. They also are tied in to the email campaigns. And
00:18:24 ◼ ► those analytics are really easy to use. It's easy to understand where people are coming from,
00:18:28 ◼ ► what pages are doing well. I love building on Squarespace because all this stuff and so much
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00:18:40 ◼ ► Squarespace has everything you need in one place. To start your free trial, go to squarespace.com/connected
00:18:52 ◼ ► connected. That's going to get you 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain name.
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00:19:04 ◼ ► purchase. Our thanks to Squarespace for their support of the show and Relay FM. We have some
00:19:30 ◼ ► - There's no beard on this man in the picture. I think he's an impersonator, like Federico.
00:19:36 ◼ ► - Also some other, you know, while we're on the topic of Mastodon, as of a few minutes ago,
00:19:43 ◼ ► Mark Zuckerberg tweeted, well, I guess posted, I'm still saying tweeted, I'm sorry, posted,
00:19:49 ◼ ► storing a test where posts from Threads accounts will be available on Mastodon and other services
00:19:56 ◼ ► that use the ActivityPub protocol. Making Threads interoperable will give people more choice over
00:20:02 ◼ ► how they interact and help content reach more people. I'm pretty optimistic about this. They're
00:20:14 ◼ ► Threads tomorrow, guys. I wonder if it'll become available for me at midnight in Europe. Let's see,
00:20:21 ◼ ► if I open Instagram and type ticket in the search box, I should get the fancy teaser page. Let's see
00:20:31 ◼ ► uh yeah, I'll get it at no, no, no, probably midnight Pacific US time. I bet I'm getting it
00:20:39 ◼ ► in 16 hours it says. Yeah, okay. So it's not at my local midnight. I do have questions like once
00:20:48 ◼ ► they federate Threads, like those of us who have been on both, we're gonna, are we gonna have to
00:20:53 ◼ ► like pick a account that's gonna be the main one, right? So I have, yeah, it's gonna be,
00:21:00 ◼ ► I have ismh@eworld.social on Macedon and I have ismh86@threads and I honestly would want one
00:21:09 ◼ ► account, so like one timeline to read, but how do I like, that's just going to be a question.
00:21:16 ◼ ► Like do you basically abandon one of them and just hope the stuff all shows up where it's
00:21:20 ◼ ► supposed to? Like I don't think I understand how that's going to work. I think I'm going to be
00:21:25 ◼ ► split forever at this point. I think it's very different groups of people and I don't know
00:21:30 ◼ ► I'm kind of used to tech Mastodon versus I don't know everything else threads and I think
00:21:40 ◼ ► I guess, I guess if you don't want to use Threads but you still want to follow and sort of keep up
00:21:48 ◼ ► with what people you think are interested in are saying on Threads, it's nice because now it's
00:21:54 ◼ ► effectively like RSS. You can subscribe to those people while continuing to use Mastodon, right?
00:22:00 ◼ ► So you can use Mastodon and follow people from Threads. But in our case, I think all the three
00:22:05 ◼ ► of us, we all want to use both services, right? We want to, we want to have, and I think I'm just
00:22:11 ◼ ► going to keep them separate. I'm going to have my Mastodon audience and I'm going to have my Threads
00:22:15 ◼ ► audience. I think I will too. Yeah, that's probably the way to go. Really, I just want to use Ivory for
00:22:20 ◼ ► all of it, right? I mean, and Zach points out on the Discord that the, and I agree, the algorithm
00:22:26 ◼ ► in Threads is actually pretty good and it has surfaced a lot of interesting stuff for me and
00:22:30 ◼ ► people that I want to follow that maybe I used to follow on Twitter, but have forgotten about, or,
00:22:34 ◼ ► you know, didn't realize that I hadn't followed them in the new era. So maybe there's still room
00:22:38 ◼ ► for that. And I don't know, I just don't think anyone knows like, will they be able to like push
00:22:44 ◼ ► your algorithmic Threads through Federation as well? So like I can also see those somehow. And
00:22:50 ◼ ► I really, there's a lot of open-ended questions, but I think you're right. I think having them
00:22:54 ◼ ► separate, at least for us, makes the most sense. Yeah, I think it does. I mean, I think also that,
00:23:00 ◼ ► you know, it's one of those things where it's just going to take a while to settle down and
00:23:04 ◼ ► everybody to figure out how they're doing it. I mean, it'll solve your cross-posting problem,
00:23:08 ◼ ► Steven. I mean, people won't feel the need, I don't think, to cross-post as much, which is good
00:23:13 ◼ ► because you can do it at one place and everybody can see it if they want. So that's good.
00:23:17 ◼ ► So anyways, it's going to be a real adventure and this is sooner than I thought it would be. I
00:23:21 ◼ ► thought this would be, you know, well into next year. I still want to point out how wild it is,
00:23:26 ◼ ► in my opinion, that the social media landscape has changed enough in the past 12 months that we now
00:23:35 ◼ ► like Zuck again. I just, and we don't have Twitter anymore. I just, you know, I guess if we go back a
00:23:44 ◼ ► year ago, maybe we could have predicted this, but if we go back two years ago, definitely not.
00:23:49 ◼ ► It's almost, it's almost a year to the day, Federico, because I was looking back at our
00:23:53 ◼ ► story about when we brought the whole Max stories team over to when was it? It was the 16th of
00:23:58 ◼ ► December. So it was like three days ago from three days from now a year ago. So, wow. That's wild.
00:24:05 ◼ ► Okay. Let's talk about Apple versus Beeper Mini. This story has been one of those things like
00:24:14 ◼ ► it works. It doesn't, I don't think we have to retry it at this point, like how Beeper Mini works,
00:24:18 ◼ ► but basically it was an iMessage app for Android, but also like, he who shall not be named had a
00:24:25 ◼ ► video on his YouTube channel where he was using on a Linux laptop, which was mind blowing. Apple
00:24:32 ◼ ► turned off some functionality in iMessage that I think also broke like versions of like
00:24:37 ◼ ► OS 10 mountain lion people who were using really old versions. Now, basically you have to have an
00:24:42 ◼ ► Apple ID, but Beeper Mini does work as we're recording this. They have also made it free.
00:24:49 ◼ ► I really think I understand why they want to charge for it. Like they are a company, they need
00:24:52 ◼ ► to pay their people. I totally respect that, but it really seemed like you're giving Apple a bunch
00:24:57 ◼ ► of leverage by charging for this and maybe they realize that. And so I believe it's free now.
00:25:11 ◼ ► not a deal where we're trying to keep people on the iPhone. You know, this company is basically
00:25:16 ◼ ► infiltrated our infrastructure in a way that we find to be dangerous. In hindsight, probably not
00:25:23 ◼ ► surprising that Apple used security as the hook for their killing off Beeper Mini the first time.
00:25:32 ◼ ► That's what they did. Yeah, they did. It's interesting to me. I mean, I think that there's
00:25:35 ◼ ► a legitimate security concern here, but I also do feel like this is also a very commercial decision
00:25:40 ◼ ► by Apple. I think those two things can both be simultaneously true, you know? And I think,
00:25:45 ◼ ► I don't know, we're in interesting times right now when it comes to legal things and technology,
00:25:51 ◼ ► because, you know, we had Google losing to Epic this week, which to me is just wild that Apple
00:25:56 ◼ ► beat Epic in their court case, but a lot, you know, Epic beat Google in its court case where
00:26:03 ◼ ► Android is the platform where you can sideload. It's like we're in a period where the legal system
00:26:10 ◼ ► really isn't set up to deal with technology companies particularly well. And, you know,
00:26:16 ◼ ► what we have instead - but the reason that's happening is because we don't have, at least in
00:26:21 ◼ ► the United States, we don't have legislatures who are willing to actually regulate tech. Now,
00:26:28 ◼ ► EU is doing a much better job at it, I think, but at least here in the United States, that's why we
00:26:32 ◼ ► end up with a bunch of these crazy lawsuits. And I do feel like this Beeper Mini thing,
00:26:37 ◼ ► if it were to go to a court case that Beeper Mini would get their rear ends handed to them probably,
00:26:43 ◼ ► I mean, you know, there are laws that allow you to reverse engineer things, that's true.
00:26:49 ◼ ► But there's also laws that say it's illegal to access servers without, you know, authorization
00:26:56 ◼ ► or doing it properly. So it would be interesting to see that fight go, but I wouldn't want to be on
00:27:03 ◼ ► the side of Beeper Mini if I were taking bets. I mean, there's something to this, and John,
00:27:07 ◼ ► I'm sure you can speak to this being a recovering attorney, but there's something to like not willing
00:27:14 ◼ ► to pick a fight with Apple just because of their size, right? Say that you firmly believe that
00:27:19 ◼ ► you're in the right, and maybe in actuality you are, but Apple effectively has unlimited money and
00:27:26 ◼ ► unlimited lawyers. You don't want to pick a fight with Apple, believe me. You don't want to pick a
00:27:31 ◼ ► fight with them, right? And I think Apple uses that. I don't think they use it outwardly, but
00:27:38 ◼ ► like it's a thing, right? People consider that, and it's not just Apple, all these big tech companies,
00:27:43 ◼ ► "Yeah, you know, this is wrong. I would like to push back against this legally, but even if I were
00:27:49 ◼ ► to win, I wouldn't survive it, right? Or they could drag it out forever and bankrupt me." And
00:27:56 ◼ ► that I think is like an inherent unfairness built into the justice system that we have in this
00:28:02 ◼ ► country. But you're also right that the justice system and honestly, you know, the federal
00:28:07 ◼ ► government is not equipped to manage these things. I mean, look no further than some of the
00:28:13 ◼ ► legislation that's being talked about around AI, like in the EU and here in the US. And it's just
00:28:20 ◼ ► very clear that lawmakers don't have an understanding of what they're dealing with. I mean,
00:28:26 ◼ ► we're talking about Zuckerberg. It's burned in my brain forever. At one point, I think during the,
00:28:32 ◼ ► in the sort of the aftermath of the presidential election in 2016, Zuckerberg was hauled in front
00:28:39 ◼ ► of Congress. And one of the questions like, "How do you make your money?" And he said to the senator,
00:28:44 ◼ ► like, "Sir, we run ads." It's like, "Do the senator not know how META made money?" And if they didn't,
00:28:50 ◼ ► why doesn't my other staff prep them better? Like it is so disheartening because these issues are
00:29:06 ◼ ► They need to have people's input who are thoughtful and have a deep understanding of what's
00:29:39 ◼ ► quite right because I don't think iMessage is big enough anywhere to really be considered,
00:29:45 ◼ ► you know, a monopoly or an antitrust violation of any kind. Now, is it fair that should Apple
00:29:57 ◼ ► Android users to communicate with them in an encrypted way? I think so. But that's kind of
00:30:04 ◼ ► their decision. Obviously, Apple as a company has decided that they're better off with the lock-in
00:30:09 ◼ ► that you get with iMessage being on the phone and being the iPhone and being exclusive.
00:30:17 ◼ ► And, you know, until the market, I think, demands more of Apple in terms of its messaging services,
00:30:24 ◼ ► that's not likely to change, which I think is too bad. But that's something that if there were,
00:30:30 ◼ ► like, the political will to decide that messaging services need to interoperate, that could be a
00:30:37 ◼ ► solution. But I don't think the courts are probably going to be the route that actually
00:30:41 ◼ ► ends up shaking this up in the end. Can I just say that even though I don't agree with all the
00:30:46 ◼ ► decisions taken by regulators in the EU, I am loving the chaotic energy that all of this is
00:30:55 ◼ ► bringing. First it was USBC, and now these antitrust trials for digital app stores. Now
00:31:04 ◼ ► there's the gatekeeping and iMessage. And now there's just today news came out that Spotify
00:31:14 ◼ ► is going to get an exemption to be able to redirect people on iOS to their own paying method
00:31:22 ◼ ► instead of using in-app purchases. Like the chaos that is happening in the EU, I am loving this.
00:31:28 ◼ ► Even though, like, there is a conversation, of course, to be had about, like, just how much
00:31:35 ◼ ► should the hands of the government, you know, interfere with the decisions of a corporation.
00:31:49 ◼ ► we got USBC. Maybe Apple would have done it regardless, maybe not. And it was great that
00:31:54 ◼ ► we now have USBC everywhere, especially on the iPhone. Spotify will be able to tell people,
00:32:01 ◼ ► "Hey, you can sign up on our website and save money." Great. Maybe eventually I'll be able to
00:32:07 ◼ ► have end-to-end encryption and use iMessage to text somebody on WhatsApp. I don't know if that
00:32:13 ◼ ► will ever be technically possible, but the EU seems to be asking for some kind of, like,
00:32:18 ◼ ► mix of end-to-end encryption and activity for messaging clients. Like, will there ever be
00:32:24 ◼ ► possible? I don't know. But if they force their companies to build it, that's gonna be pretty
00:32:29 ◼ ► sweet. Yeah, maybe. I don't know. I do feel like the chaos is good because it does force these
00:32:34 ◼ ► companies to think really hard about the decisions that they're making. Because really, the last
00:32:39 ◼ ► thing you really want is for the government or a judge to be running your company, which is
00:32:43 ◼ ► essentially what we're talking about. And once you go to court or once you have things in the hands
00:32:49 ◼ ► of regulators, you've lost the choice. You've lost the control over your own destiny. And having that
00:32:55 ◼ ► kind of chaos in the EU, I think, does help make companies like Apple think twice about what they're
00:33:00 ◼ ► doing. Just as I think the EPIC trial did the same thing for Apple. I mean, they ended up winning
00:33:06 ◼ ► that one. But yeah, I don't know. I mean, I feel like the market ought to, in more cases than you,
00:33:14 ◼ ► in most cases, I think the market ought to figure this out. But I do think that having the
00:33:19 ◼ ► government and the court system there as kind of a backstop and to keep companies honest is a useful
00:33:25 ◼ ► thing. Yeah. And, you know, until a few years ago, I used to be very opposed to this idea of, like,
00:33:31 ◼ ► the European Union telling tech companies, historically US-based tech companies, how they
00:33:38 ◼ ► should operate. But I think over time, I've come to understand something. And that is, yes, they are
00:33:45 ◼ ► private corporations. And as a private corporation, you should be able to decide the kind of products
00:33:52 ◼ ► that you want to sell and the kind of choices that you want to make in your business. But the thing
00:33:57 ◼ ► is, smartphones, computers in general, but of course, smartphones have become a commodity. Like,
00:34:05 ◼ ► they have become something so essential to everyday life for all kinds of citizens in any country
00:34:13 ◼ ► that it doesn't surprise me anymore that this market gets regulated just as much as, for
00:34:21 ◼ ► example, the car market is. If you want to make a car, and sure, you are a private corporation,
00:34:28 ◼ ► you're free to make your own decisions and the way you conduct your business. But if you want to make
00:34:34 ◼ ► a car, you got to follow some rules. And there's standards that you need to respect. And you may be
00:34:40 ◼ ► like, but I want to design my seat belts in a way that they are thinner and fancier. No, you cannot
00:34:45 ◼ ► do that. Like, you know? Yeah. Well, safety is one thing, I think Federico, that's I'm not sure that
00:34:51 ◼ ► messaging like touches on the same kinds of public health and safety issues. No, no, but we as a
00:34:58 ◼ ► human race, we now use these messaging clients to communicate. They have become an essential part of
00:35:03 ◼ ► our social routines and lives, you know? And so it is an inconvenience that, it is an inconvenience
00:35:12 ◼ ► that I got up that it's so fragmented, I think. And it's the reason why in the EU, for example,
00:35:19 ◼ ► as much as possible, we try to have standards. I mean, we have literally the same money in all
00:35:24 ◼ ► these countries, you know? We have the same currency and we have the same plugs, for example,
00:35:30 ◼ ► for power outlets. And you know, we are free to travel wherever we want. So I know that it's very,
00:35:40 ◼ ► it's a tough pill to swallow for a lot of American listeners and readers, but I kind of like it
00:35:46 ◼ ► as a European. So that's my two cents. We have some real-time follow-up. Yeah. Mike Hurley
00:35:54 ◼ ► texted us a picture of himself wearing the tiny head shirt. Oh my god. No, that's not...
00:35:59 ◼ ► Has he? That's not how it's supposed to work. He said, "I just got a message that suggests
00:36:04 ◼ ► to me that wearing this shirt today was a good coincidence." Huh. Is BG spying on Mike? Is BG
00:36:14 ◼ ► actually Mike? Is BG Mike? Who knows? Beigel Gurley. BG. Well done. Well done, Michael.
00:36:31 ◼ ► This episode of Connected is brought to you by ZocDoc. Confession time. Raise your hand if you've
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00:38:27 ◼ ► We had big software updates this week. iOS, iPadOS, tvOS 17.2, watchOS 10.2, macOS Sonoma 14.2.
00:38:38 ◼ ► All this stuff is out after a lengthy beta cycle. Federico, tell us a little bit about what's new
00:38:44 ◼ ► in iOS and iPadOS. There are some changes here and there, especially in I would say music, camera,
00:38:50 ◼ ► and messages. Messages get the ability to attach stickers as quote unquote reactions to messages.
00:38:59 ◼ ► That is not the tap back expansion that a lot of folks were anticipating, which Apple may be doing
00:39:08 ◼ ► somewhere else. Again, we're going to talk about this in a bit. You can attach a sticker to a
00:39:13 ◼ ► message, but this implementation is kind of disappointing in the sense that these stickers,
00:39:20 ◼ ► they're not part of the tap back UI. When you double tap on a message, you will still get the
00:39:26 ◼ ► six default tap back reactions. You got a long press a message to attach a sticker. And really,
00:39:33 ◼ ► that's only the new ability to attach stickers is just a shortcut to do something that you've been
00:39:39 ◼ ► able to do for years now, which is manually dragging a sticker on top of a message. Now
00:39:44 ◼ ► you have a way to do so without dragging and dropping the sticker yourself. These stickers,
00:40:04 ◼ ► group thread, you can see that, for example, Mike sent a hard tap back and Steven sent the question
00:40:11 ◼ ► mark and you can tell, you know, that Steven maybe didn't understand the message. Attached stickers
00:40:19 ◼ ► don't have attribution, I guess. So it's impossible to tell who sent what. So that's messages.
00:40:26 ◼ ► There's also the catch up arrow, I guess, in messages. If you open a thread and it's got a lot
00:40:32 ◼ ► of unread messages, this is a feature that WhatsApp and Telegram, I think, have had for years. There's
00:40:39 ◼ ► a small arrow that pops up in the top right corner of the UI. You can tap that and it'll take you to
00:40:52 ◼ ► collaborative playlists have been pushed back to 17.3, which we're going to talk about shortly.
00:41:00 ◼ ► But you will still get a couple of new features in 17.2. There's a new default playlist for your
00:41:06 ◼ ► favorite songs. Apple rebranded liked, or I guess loved songs to favorite songs in 17.1. And in 17.2,
00:41:17 ◼ ► they're doing something that Spotify has had for years, which is a default playlist comprised of
00:41:23 ◼ ► all your favorite tracks. Now you can find that in the library of Apple Music. And there's also,
00:41:29 ◼ ► and this is actually a pretty cool feature, there's a new focus filter for Apple Music.
00:41:35 ◼ ► You can now choose when you want to disable your Apple Music listening history. So this means that
00:41:43 ◼ ► when you disable this with the focus filter, what you listen to will not sort of count against the
00:41:51 ◼ ► Apple Music algorithm for recommendations, and it will not show up in under recently played,
00:42:02 ◼ ► So this is especially handy for, I would say for parents. You know, when you play a soundtrack from
00:42:10 ◼ ► an animated movie for your kids, and the kids wanted to listen to it over and over. And then
00:42:15 ◼ ► at the end of the year, in your Apple Music replay stats, you see that the Frozen song is at the top
00:42:21 ◼ ► of the list, right? This has happened to millions of people, I would say. Now, if you take your time
00:42:26 ◼ ► to set this up, there's a way to exclude that activity from sort of polluting your Apple Music
00:42:34 ◼ ► history. I saw a bunch of people complaining that this focus filter, which you can enable
00:42:40 ◼ ► in settings, you open whatever focus you want to customize, and you add one of these new app filters
00:42:47 ◼ ► for music. And it's called Set Use Listening History. But this focus filter does not appear
00:42:55 ◼ ► in the driving focus, right? Which I would argue is likely the culprit for a lot of people. You
00:43:01 ◼ ► know, you're driving your kids, and kids want to listen to the Frozen soundtrack in the car.
00:43:06 ◼ ► But for whatever reason, the driving focus in settings does not have an app filters section.
00:43:14 ◼ ► So I have two solutions though. I have two solutions. Either you create a manual focus mode,
00:43:26 ◼ ► And that will work, right? You're just creating a custom focus for when you're driving. You will
00:43:32 ◼ ► lose, however, with this method, you will lose the default reply for iMessage when you're driving.
00:43:47 ◼ ► but these focus filters are also available as shortcuts actions. So what you can do is,
00:43:53 ◼ ► you can keep using the default driving focus that Apple makes, but you can create an automation
00:43:59 ◼ ► in shortcuts that is triggered when the driving focus becomes active, and you use the Use Listening
00:44:19 ◼ ► and you can still take advantage of this feature. What else? Oh, you can capture spatial video
00:44:27 ◼ ► in the camera app. This is a setting. You need to enable it in settings camera formats.
00:44:33 ◼ ► It's limited to landscape, 1080p video at 30 frames per second. Not a great resolution,
00:44:40 ◼ ► not a great frame rate, but these videos, they take up a ton of storage. One minute of spatial
00:44:46 ◼ ► video is 130 megabytes. Imagine doing this at 4K 60. Now there will be like one minute. It's
00:44:56 ◼ ► a full gig. But hey, it's better than, you can capture these videos now for Christmas. Maybe
00:45:03 ◼ ► you're getting together with the kids, with the family, with your parents, with your grandparents.
00:45:07 ◼ ► You can capture the spatial videos now, and you won't have to wear a Vision Pro and look like a
00:45:13 ◼ ► weirdo doing so. You can just do it with your phone, and you will be able to enjoy these videos
00:45:18 ◼ ► later on, maybe in February, maybe in March on a Vision Pro. Very nice. Very nice. I have a
00:45:25 ◼ ► question for both of you guys about music, which is related to the playlist, the new favorites
00:45:29 ◼ ► playlist. We've been waiting for years and years for smart playlists on iOS and iPadOS, and we
00:45:37 ◼ ► still don't have it. And I've had a favorites playlist for years that I created on my Mac,
00:45:43 ◼ ► and it just syncs over to my iOS devices. I wonder which way this cuts. Does this mean we're unlikely
00:45:51 ◼ ► to ever see smart playlists on iOS, or am I reading too much into it? What do you guys think?
00:45:58 ◼ ► >> I don't know what to think of music as. The thing is, it seems that all the music power user
00:46:07 ◼ ► features that I would want to get from music, they never happen. They just never happen. And instead,
00:46:16 ◼ ► and I'm going to say something that, well, if it upset some people, you know, whatever. I think
00:46:22 ◼ ► we've reached the point where both in terms of operating systems and in terms of streaming
00:46:28 ◼ ► services, two things are two. Apple and Google, they copy each other with Android. Apple and
00:46:36 ◼ ► Spotify, they copy each other with music streaming. Like, we've reached a point where new features are
00:46:42 ◼ ► not really new anymore, by and large. And it seems to me like Apple is only very much focused on
00:46:54 ◼ ► such as collaborative playlists or favorite songs. And Spotify is interested in doing what Apple
00:47:01 ◼ ► music does best, which is lyrics. So, no, Jon, I don't think we'll get those power user features
00:47:10 ◼ ► that we want, like smart playlists or shortcuts integration. >> Well, that's what I was going to
00:47:14 ◼ ► say, by extension, shortcuts integration, because we're still dealing with the iTunes search API,
00:47:19 ◼ ► which hasn't changed in years and years and years. >> And that will be gone at some point.
00:47:29 ◼ ► folders in Apple Notes and you can do smart lists and reminders on iOS and iPadOS. But in addition
00:47:36 ◼ ► to music, you can't do mail smart boxes. It's like this weird mashup. And I do wonder, I mean,
00:47:42 ◼ ► as someone who uses the music app on the Mac all day, every day, it's iTunes, right? Like,
00:47:48 ◼ ► it just is. And I do wonder if some of these features are easier for Apple to implement
00:47:54 ◼ ► in something like notes and reminders that may be more modern under the hood, and that music
00:47:59 ◼ ► for these features to come would need a much bigger set of work. I just don't know. It is
00:48:06 ◼ ► frustrating though. And it's also surprising, like it has, why is it taking this long to get a
00:48:10 ◼ ► favorites playlist? >> Exactly. I mean, it's really, it's yeah, I don't know. And you're
00:48:16 ◼ ► right about the Mac. I mean, it really is just a skin on iTunes, really. If you use it enough,
00:48:21 ◼ ► you can see the bones there. >> I have so many thoughts about Apple Music and Spotify that don't
00:48:28 ◼ ► fit this episode. But the too long, didn't read version is I wish that somebody made a hybrid of
00:48:38 ◼ ► Apple Music and Spotify, and it doesn't exist and it will likely never exist. And yeah, it just
00:48:45 ◼ ► makes me sad that Apple Music is so much better as an app than Spotify. And that says a lot,
00:48:56 ◼ ► And Spotify Discovery is so much better than Apple Music. It's kind of ridiculous. And what I want is
00:49:01 ◼ ► something in the middle and something in the middle doesn't exist. Yeah. So anyway, so that's
00:49:09 ◼ ► the summary of, oh, I should also mention Steven 17.2. There's an quote unquote, intelligent auto
00:49:17 ◼ ► field feature for PDFs and other documents that have forms in them. So when the system detects
00:49:25 ◼ ► that there's a empty fields in a document, it'll offer to auto fill those for you. And that's great
00:49:31 ◼ ► so far. You know, the text, an empty field for your first name, for your last name, for your
00:49:36 ◼ ► address, your city, your zip code. Okay. And everything worked pretty well in my tests, except
00:49:43 ◼ ► when I got to a form that wanted to know my height and for whatever reason, iOS and iPadOS auto field
00:49:52 ◼ ► 150 centimeters. That is, for example, to give you some context, I don't know how, but iOS and iPadOS
00:50:01 ◼ ► thought that I was shorter than Sylvia. Yeah. That's less than five feet tall if I've done my
00:50:06 ◼ ► conversion right. And I am 183 centimeters tall. I have no idea where iOS took that number from.
00:50:17 ◼ ► It's nowhere. I even have my height set in my health personal record. That's what I was getting
00:50:29 ◼ ► your mileage may vary with this feature. But we also... Oh, and for the other OSes, I want to
00:50:36 ◼ ► mention, in watchOS, the ability to swipe between watch faces is back. And in tvOS, there's the
00:50:43 ◼ ► redesigned TV app that now has a sidebar and integrates the ability to buy and rent TV shows
00:50:52 ◼ ► and movies from the iTunes store because the iTunes store apps are gone. So now you can...
00:50:58 ◼ ► I'm happy to see that you can still buy TV shows because I'm one of those people who still does it.
00:51:04 ◼ ► And I still buy entire seasons of TV shows. But now you can do so inside the TV app. So
00:51:12 ◼ ► one destination for all content. That was a... I think I've mentioned this. That was a pick
00:51:18 ◼ ► in a Ricky's a long time ago that Apple would be getting rid of the separate iTunes stores.
00:51:28 ◼ ► I'm trying to find it. Federica, you said this annual Ricky's 2022. Apple stops using the
00:51:34 ◼ ► iTunes store app and moves store content into dedicated apps. Always a year early. That is my
00:51:41 ◼ ► curse. Yeah. Yeah. IOS 17.2 Journal is out. I didn't write about it. Neil Ian wrote about it.
00:51:52 ◼ ► Neil Ian has been journaling for over eight years using Day One. And today we published a full review
00:52:00 ◼ ► of Journal from the perspective of someone who's been journaling for several years at this point.
00:52:09 ◼ ► I'm not particularly a fan of the app itself and the UI and the fact that it's iPhone only.
00:52:20 ◼ ► they have built an engine, which is the Journal Suggestions API, that uses on-device intelligence
00:52:29 ◼ ► to detect different types of events in your life. When you visited a location, when you got in touch
00:52:36 ◼ ► with a contact, when you listened to some music, when you took some pictures, you went to a specific
00:52:42 ◼ ► restaurant, it can parse out all of these events from data on your phone. And it's not locked to
00:52:51 ◼ ► the Journal app. Third-party journaling apps can get access to these suggestions using the equivalent
00:52:59 ◼ ► of a system-wide photo picker. So you know when you're choosing a photo in ivory or in threads
00:53:05 ◼ ► or in Discord, you're opening the system-wide photo picker. Apple has built the equivalent of
00:53:12 ◼ ► a system-wide photo picker, but for these suggestions. And what's even greater, I think,
00:53:18 ◼ ► is that these suggestions, they run in an out-of-process system, which again mirrors how
00:53:28 ◼ ► the photo picker works. What I mean by this is that when you open the photo picker in, say, Discord,
00:53:34 ◼ ► Discord is not able to see all your photos or to see all your videos. It just sees the items that
00:53:40 ◼ ► you select. And the same is true for the suggestions API for Journal. When you open Day One or Everlog,
00:53:53 ◼ ► and you open the Journal picker, those apps, they do not see all of your events until you select
00:54:01 ◼ ► a suggestion. Now that's very cool. But what I think is odd, and get ready because I have a big
00:54:08 ◼ ► brain theory incoming in a second, is that the other way around is not true. Third-party apps
00:54:18 ◼ ► cannot provide suggestions to Journal, which is why if you use Spotify, for example, you will not
00:54:32 ◼ ► their events to the Journal suggestions API. It's just, you know, you will find Apple Music content,
00:54:40 ◼ ► podcasts from the podcast app, photos from the camera, but it's just mostly default apps content.
00:54:50 ◼ ► And I have a theory to share. Maybe this will be a Ricky for the annual ones, we'll see.
00:54:58 ◼ ► So assuming that Apple and iOS 18, assuming that they release the ability for apps to say,
00:55:07 ◼ ► "Hey, an event happened in here. I want to donate this event as a suggestion to Journal."
00:55:15 ◼ ► So for example, let's say that in a third-party home automation app, something happened,
00:55:22 ◼ ► and I want to log it. Or maybe in Spotify, I listen to this podcast. Or maybe in Overcast,
00:55:35 ◼ ► could be an API, you know, third-party developers cannot contribute events and suggestions to
00:55:41 ◼ ► Journal. But if I were Apple, and knowing Apple, you know what this kind of technology would also
00:55:49 ◼ ► be useful for? Third-party automation triggers in shortcuts. Because if you think about it,
00:55:57 ◼ ► it's the same idea. It's an event that happened in a third-party app. So maybe I want to journal
00:56:13 ◼ ► I want to put together an automation when I finish listening to an episode of Cortex in Overcast.
00:56:19 ◼ ► Like if you think about it, it's the same sort of feature, but presented in two different ways.
00:56:26 ◼ ► So if Apple ever does, this was my big brain theory, not big bang, big brain. If Apple ever
00:56:40 ◼ ► I love this theory. I mean, I really feel like we've been moving this direction for a long time
00:56:44 ◼ ► with App Intents and all the other things that are going on. And you're right, this structure
00:56:48 ◼ ► that's out there with the Photos Picker, and now the, you know, these suggestions, they're built
00:56:54 ◼ ► on the same kind of structure. And you could see it just going one step further to do what
00:57:06 ◼ ► It never stops. It never stops. So the first core feature is the stolen device protection.
00:57:12 ◼ ► Basically, it's a new security feature that is in direct response to an excellent series of articles
00:57:28 ◼ ► About how the iPhone passcode could be used by thieves to, you know, after stealing your phone,
00:57:41 ◼ ► basically every single aspect of your Apple ID and iCloud account. And now with the stolen device
00:57:47 ◼ ► protection feature, which is presented as a beta feature, you will basically need to have an
00:57:54 ◼ ► additional step of biometric authentication. In addition to the passcode, you will need to use
00:58:00 ◼ ► Touch ID or Face ID to access your passwords, to apply for a new Apple card, to erase all,
00:58:07 ◼ ► to basically reset a phone, or turn it off lost mode, and all of that. And there's also a variant
00:58:13 ◼ ► of this, which is biometrics plus an hour of waiting time to change your Apple ID password,
00:58:21 ◼ ► add a new Face ID or Touch ID, and a bunch of additional settings. And I think this is a very
00:58:30 ◼ ► cool thing to see from Apple. When these stories came out on the Wall Street Journal, I think a lot
00:58:38 ◼ ► of people in the Apple community sort of rolled their eyes at this problem, be like, "Oh, sure,
00:58:44 ◼ ► I mean, well, why would you, you know, get, if somebody steals your passcode, it's your fault."
00:58:51 ◼ ► But the thing is, people don't realize, a lot of nerds don't realize how easy it is to get sort of
00:58:56 ◼ ► social, socially scammed in everyday situations, like you're at a bar, and like, there's a couple
00:59:06 ◼ ► of people that want to steal your phone. And it's very easy, very easy to, you know, have someone
00:59:12 ◼ ► behind you take a look at your phone. And you know, these things happen. Go read that article.
00:59:17 ◼ ► There's dozens of cases in which this has happened. And for Apple to be humble about it,
00:59:23 ◼ ► and recognize that this is a problem, and implement what seems like a very well thought
00:59:29 ◼ ► out feature, I think it's really cool. Yeah, I think the way they've broken down what is required,
00:59:37 ◼ ► or what requires biometrics, and then what requires biometrics plus an hour wait, I think
00:59:42 ◼ ► that all makes a lot of sense. And hopefully, the fact that this is coming, you know, makes it out
00:59:49 ◼ ► there. And people are less likely to want to even steal an iPhone in the first place, because they
00:59:54 ◼ ► know that it's even less useful than it may already be. It was shocking to me that that story when,
01:00:05 ◼ ► really well that some people kind of rolled their eyes at it. But the fact that the passcode had so
01:00:11 ◼ ► much power was a little bit surprising to me, because I hadn't really thought about it. And
01:00:15 ◼ ► I've used touch ID, and or face ID, as long as it's been available. I think definitely this
01:00:21 ◼ ► holiday season as you're visiting family, like, make sure they're using touch ID or face ID,
01:00:26 ◼ ► whatever their phone has, because it's really going to, to up their security in a real way.
01:00:35 ◼ ► emoji tap backs. Okay. But not in messages. They're doing it in collaborative playlists.
01:00:46 ◼ ► Now it's back in 0.3. Back. And now it comes with the tap emoji tap back emoji reaction menu
01:01:03 ◼ ► Well, maybe, maybe this means that we got to come up with our new communication system based
01:01:08 ◼ ► on collaborative playlists instead of a iMessage. Maybe we can, we should all put together a
01:01:16 ◼ ► collaborative thread as a playlist. And we say the things we want to say by searching for a song
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01:03:49 ◼ ► I want to hear about MaxStory Select. So you all have done this. What year is this, Federico,
01:03:54 ◼ ► for MaxStory Selects? Uh, sixth year, is that right, John? That's correct, yes. Okay, so the
01:04:02 ◼ ► sixth annual MaxStory Selects. This is where you guys go through a bunch of the apps that you've
01:04:09 ◼ ► covered that have come out, and you pick some winners in different categories. John, tell me
01:04:13 ◼ ► about some of the winners this year. Yeah, so we had nine categories this year. We started a couple
01:04:20 ◼ ► of years ago doing a lifetime achievement award, which really is meant to recognize an app that's
01:04:31 ◼ ► And this year we chose Pixelmator from the Pixelmator team because that's where Pixelmator
01:04:37 ◼ ► got its start before Pixelmator Pro and before PhotoMator there was just plain old Pixelmator,
01:04:42 ◼ ► and it's still out there on iOS and iPadOS. And it really did kind of herald in a new era of image
01:04:50 ◼ ► editors that were very different than what existed at the time from companies like Adobe, which were
01:04:56 ◼ ► still at that time very much a Mac phenomenon. So it really brought that sort of image editing
01:05:02 ◼ ► right onto the iPad and the iPhone. So that was our lifetime achievement award. We had a best new
01:05:11 ◼ ► app, and maybe I'm going to let Federico talk about the best new app because this is one that
01:05:15 ◼ ► he wrote a really good story about. It's Orion by Lux. Yeah, Orion is one of the many apps that this
01:05:23 ◼ ► year lets you use your iPad as an external monitor for any connected device that supports USB video,
01:05:33 ◼ ► and more specifically I think Orion. It's very popular among people who want to use an iPad as
01:05:40 ◼ ► a display for a console like Steam Deck or a Nintendo Switch, and there's a handful of apps
01:05:46 ◼ ► that do this this year. And you can connect other types of devices like webcams or like I did,
01:05:52 ◼ ► a Game Boy Camera, a DSLR, but in the case of Orion I think it really shines for video games
01:06:05 ◼ ► detail by the folks at Lux, but it comes with this native upscaling mode at 4K in real time
01:06:12 ◼ ► with no latency that is made possible by on-device machine learning. And you can tell, especially if
01:06:19 ◼ ► you're playing with a Nintendo Switch, sort of outputting the image to an iPad Pro, you can tell
01:06:24 ◼ ► that the image quality is so much better than the default. I mean when you're playing Zelda,
01:06:28 ◼ ► for example, it's not even 1080p when the Switch is docked. It's somewhere like 900p or something.
01:06:35 ◼ ► It's ever so slightly better than 720p. And to be able to see that image at 4K, especially on the
01:06:43 ◼ ► 13-inch iPad Pro with mini-LED, that is super sweet. So I think I wanted to pick that app in
01:06:52 ◼ ► particular because that category is really something brand new this year that we were not
01:06:58 ◼ ► expecting in June. And yeah, that was very cool to see. Yeah, and we also named a bunch of other
01:07:04 ◼ ► words. We had the best app update, which was SQL 2.0. This is a media tracking app from Roman
01:07:12 ◼ ► Lefebvre who has really done a fantastic job with SQL this year. I mean SQL 2.0 came out in the
01:07:18 ◼ ► spring and has been updated since then. And it's both designed incredibly well and has a fantastic
01:07:27 ◼ ► feature set now that really took it kind of head and shoulders above where it was with the 1.0.
01:07:32 ◼ ► Other awards were the best new feature, and this is one that I know Federico and I have been enjoying
01:07:38 ◼ ► a lot this year, which is Cultured Code's Things Shortcut Support. Because Cultured Code is really
01:07:44 ◼ ► doing some interesting things with shortcuts here that really nobody else has done. And the one in
01:07:49 ◼ ► particular is the ability to run a shortcut based on whatever task is selected in the app, whether
01:07:57 ◼ ► you're on the iPhone, the iPad, or the Mac. It really opens up some interesting ways to do things.
01:08:05 ◼ ► They also have effectively every single feature of things baked into shortcuts in a way that lets you
01:08:11 ◼ ► do things like create template projects that fire off on a schedule based on personal automations
01:08:19 ◼ ► and that sort of thing. The watch app of 2023, We Pick Broadcasts by Steve Trotman Smith.
01:08:27 ◼ ► - Friend of the show. - Yeah, and I assume that some of the people who are listening to the show
01:08:32 ◼ ► right now are probably listening that way. That's usually how I listen to Connected on Wednesdays
01:08:36 ◼ ► as I go out for a walk and exercise and just take my Apple Watch with me and listen to the show on
01:08:43 ◼ ► broadcast because it's a rock solid watch app that has a great design, which we've been really happy
01:08:55 ◼ ► - Good choice. - It feels like MimeStream has been around forever, but that's because it was in beta
01:09:01 ◼ ► for a very long time and it did actually go to a full 1.0 in the spring or early summer. And this
01:09:08 ◼ ► has just been my favorite Mac app of 2023 by a long shot. It's such a good app because it's fully
01:09:17 ◼ ► native, yet it takes advantage of all the special features you get with Gmail. So, that's the best
01:09:24 ◼ ► Mac app of 2023. And then we had best design, which is Mercury Weather, which is a fantastic
01:09:31 ◼ ► weather app that's been around from Triple Glaze Studios for a couple of years now, but it really
01:09:38 ◼ ► has done a great job this year refining that design and bringing all sorts of great interactions
01:09:44 ◼ ► with the widgets and the new trip forecasts, which is a feature that I particularly love for
01:09:50 ◼ ► when I'm traveling. And then we had a Reader's Choice Award, which was voted on by Club Max
01:09:56 ◼ ► Stories members, and that was Ivory. And I think that that's no surprise. I mean, Ivory is a
01:10:01 ◼ ► fantastic app that we've been using all year long. It really felt like the last piece that made
01:10:07 ◼ ► Mastodon feel more complete for me personally. And I feel like a lot of readers felt the same way
01:10:26 ◼ ► we probably could have given out this award years ago with iOS 14. By the time it was right,
01:10:30 ◼ ► I think, in iOS 17. David has shown once again how he was able to reinvent Widgetsmith with
01:10:37 ◼ ► interactivity on the home screen and the lock screen with standby. And just all the features
01:10:43 ◼ ► that you now have in Widgetsmith are incredible, from music playback to viewing photos to combining
01:10:50 ◼ ► multiple widgets in the same interactive UI. It's wild. The things you can do with Widgetsmith. And
01:10:56 ◼ ► I mean, we're talking about an app with over 100 million apps or downloads. And so it's gotta be
01:11:04 ◼ ► good, right? And we know that it's good. And yeah, I was really impressed by the interactive
01:11:13 ◼ ► additions to Widgetsmith this year. And it's become one of those tools that when I have an
01:11:20 ◼ ► empty spot on my home screen and I'm like, "I don't know what I want to do here." I'm just
01:11:24 ◼ ► going to open Widgetsmith and play around with things and see if I can come up with some ideas.
01:11:29 ◼ ► It's this kind of playground for bringing functionality to your home screen. We love it.
01:11:40 ◼ ► to all the winners. I still want one of these trophies. If you have a spare one laying around,
01:11:46 ◼ ► I actually have one sitting in my office still because one of them can't be delivered quite yet.
01:11:50 ◼ ► But I'm not going to give it away. I'll give it to the people who asked me to hold on to it.
01:12:01 ◼ ► Make a visual. Okay, listen to me. I'm going to give you an idea to make easy money, okay?
01:12:18 ◼ ► VisionOS app that lets people explore your office and your museum while wearing the Vision Pro.
01:13:02 ◼ ► - I like VisionCabin. It sounds like you go on the side of the mountain and you come back and you've
01:13:06 ◼ ► changed your life. - Yeah. VisionCabin sounds like the nerd version of a sweat lodge to me.
01:13:22 ◼ ► Steve Jobs style, and then a pedestal with a humane pin. That's the only thing in here.
01:13:27 ◼ ► - If you want to find links to stuff we spoke about this week, including all the updates to
01:13:32 ◼ ► Apple software, all the cool stuff going over on Mac stories, head on over to the website,
01:13:37 ◼ ► relay.fm/connected/480. A reminder, you have until Friday to get 20% off an annual membership
01:13:51 ◼ ► where can people find you on the internet? - They can find me on Mastodon, where you can
01:13:56 ◼ ► just go to johnvoorhees.maxstories.net to find me there. And I'm @johnvoorhees, both on threads
01:14:03 ◼ ► and Instagram. - Awesome. You can find Federico. He's John's boss, I guess, or something.
01:14:22 ◼ ► you can find Federico at macstories.net. And of course, he is also on Mastodon and threads
01:14:32 ◼ ► - You can find my writing over at 512pixels.net. And I go host Mac power users each and every