522: I Consume All of My Dark Secrets

0:00:00[music]

0:00:07From Relay, this is Connected, episode number 522, recorded October 9th, 2024.

0:00:14I am your guest host, Upgrade Draft Challenger Jason Snell, and I'd like to introduce

0:00:22the Ricky Benchman and Upgrade Draft Champion, and co-founder, Challenge Champion, and champion

0:00:29in his own mind, Mr. Mike Hurley. Look at that, I mean, I like these extra accolades now that we

0:00:35have Jason. Hello, Jason, it's a treasure to have you on this episode of Connected. And this is a

0:00:41Steven-started episode, so I got to go first, but our sponsors this week, by the way, are NetSuite,

0:00:46Ecamm, and, uh, Celtrios? You nailed it, in one. All right. I am the Ricky Benchman and Upgrade

0:00:53Draft Champion, and co-relay co-founder, Challenge Champion, Mike Hurley, and I would like to

0:00:58introduce Mr. Fitichi. Hello, Federico. Hello, I gotta say, I think I like the new guy better

0:01:03than Steven, because he gave us the date. Give us the date, which was a useful bit of information,

0:01:09you know? Yeah, see, this is funny, because I started doing the date on Upgrade, and Jason

0:01:14protested initially, but I feel like now that maybe, maybe Jason has taken the date on as a

0:01:19part of this. I don't know. It's, well, we now know that there are people who listen to old

0:01:24episodes, and they get out of sync, and all that, so it's kind of good to remind them that

0:01:28it was October 2024 when these people said these things. I started doing the date when we had that

0:01:34episode of Upgrade, where we recorded in advance, and then Apple announced all of the availability

0:01:41information for the Vision Pro. Oh, right, after we recorded. After we recorded. So then I was like,

0:01:47okay, I want to start putting the date on these episodes. So I feel like I need to set the mood

0:01:53properly so that Jason feels right at home, unconnected. Jason, what is your darkest

0:01:58computer-related secret? Darkest computer-related secret? Well, what I want to say is that I play

0:02:06all my iPad games with the sound off. No, no, no. But for people, that would be, forget connectedpro.co,

0:02:12for that, um, darkest computer-related secret. This is a safe space, we're not judging you.

0:02:17The problem, Federico, is that I consume all of my dark secrets and release them on the internet

0:02:22for content. I'm not sure there's anything left. I don't, I used to keep things scattered on my

0:02:30desktop, but my desktop, Mac desktop is organized now. Okay, let me see if I got one for you.

0:02:37Maybe like, what is the most expensive piece of hardware that you've used for a short period of

0:02:42time and is now just on a shelf? Well, you really want him to say Vision Pro, huh? No, no, no,

0:02:49we're gonna talk about that later. An older thing, an older thing. Like, I will go with mine,

0:02:54I have an M1 iMac that I've just put in a box and put in the corner, and like, I never get rid

0:02:59of it or anything. That thing should sit in there. I used it for not even a year, I think, and then

0:03:03now it's just got put away. Yeah, okay, I've got a lot of, a lot of, uh, camera-related stuff. Like,

0:03:08I bought a whole teleprompter rig that I've literally never used, um, for me to do videos

0:03:15with a script on a teleprompter. I, I've not used that at all. There's probably a bunch of other

0:03:21stuff like that where there's, like, I bought mounts for, like, putting cameras on the wall

0:03:25or the ceiling or whatever, and then I, I look at it and I say to myself, nah, I just continue to

0:03:32collect all that garbage. Yeah, there's a lot of that. I have some follow-up. The first piece comes

0:03:39from Randall, who says, regarding the app icon's disappearing bug that Mike mentioned, you remember

0:03:44my Photos app kept disappearing? Yes. Uh, Randall said, I've noticed that if I use Spotlight to add

0:03:50an app to a home screen, it disappears from the home screen. However, if I drag it from the app

0:03:54library, it remains, and this is exactly the case for me. So now it stays where it's supposed to.

0:04:00Wait a second. Yeah. Something just dawned on me. Okay. But it's a, it's a bit of a stretch. Um,

0:04:09do you happen to have any hidden home screen pages? Oh yeah. I wonder, because this is something

0:04:17I noticed that probably changed in iOS 18. If, like, those icons are not actually disappearing,

0:04:23they're moving to a page that it's not visible. Because sometimes when you drag an icon from

0:04:31Spotlight, it's like actually moving an existing icon that's pre-existing on a different page.

0:04:39I can't, I kind of would ask you to check your hidden pages and see if anything that's changed.

0:04:44It doesn't look like it. I am looking at it now. Then it's a bug, then it's, then it's just a bug.

0:04:48But it could be a bug that's related for people who do that, right? Who have like hidden home

0:04:53screen pages. Maybe. That's just it. I have, it turns out I have three hidden home screen pages

0:04:59that I didn't know were there. Yeah. That's good. That's great. I mean, if they're never visible.

0:05:06They're hidden. If a home screen is hidden. Are they there? Does it matter if they're never visible?

0:05:11Something like that. Peter says, "A big gratsi to Federico. Tichi Tabs has become my favorite app

0:05:18of the year. I don't have the same needs as Federico. I downloaded the app mostly for the

0:05:22Japes, but I ended up finding use for it that fits perfectly in my workflow. I am an avid language

0:05:28learner and I, humble brag, and I used to always have the same online dictionaries open in Safari.

0:05:35Now they can all live in Tichi Tabs and I can access them quickly from the widget on my home

0:05:39screen." You see, there you go. Yeah. Changing lives valid use case. Yeah. Jason, do you have

0:05:45six or seven websites? Do you have a collection of six or seven websites? I used to, I used to have

0:05:51my, um, I'm a, I'm a big, uh, uh, what do they call it? They, do they call it the favorites bar?

0:05:58I don't know. I'm a big favorites bar user. It's not a favibar. Where does this name come from?

0:06:06Mike? It's never been used. It's never been used. Okay. It's me. We could do it now though. I mean,

0:06:13we could start it. You could start the favibar movement right here. So I'm a big favibar user.

0:06:18That's what I was saying. And, and this is, it used to be full of web pages. Um, but mostly now

0:06:27it's like bookmarklets and stuff. I've got a little like folder full of, um, all the CMSs,

0:06:33you know, and go to the incomparable or six colors or relay or, you know, whatever. I've got a big

0:06:37folder full of those that are in the favibar. Nice. Okay. We're using it. All right, cool. But

0:06:43most of my stuff, uh, and then there's pin tabs. I have pin tabs now for six colors, the incomparable

0:06:49and my weather page, my weather station page, but all the stuff that used to be the regular

0:06:54daily visits, like the six or seven websites. Um, a couple of years ago, I decided to, to go back to

0:07:01RSS. Um, I actually use ReadKit, which every six months, I think, surely there's another RSS reader

0:07:08that I would prefer to this. And I try them all again. And the answer is no, I still really like

0:07:12ReadKit. And I'm using ReadKit for RSS as well as for all my newsletters, cause I use Feedbin.

0:07:19So all of my newsletters are going in to, are getting forwarded to Feedbin. And then in the

0:07:24morning when I wake up and I get my breakfast and all that, I use ReadKit to read my six or

0:07:29seven websites and my six or seven newsletters. So that's what I'm, that's what I'm doing now.

0:07:35It's always so fun when like someone mentions the name of an app and in my mind is like,

0:07:40I've never heard of this app before in my life. No, I'm sure I have. I heard about it from Mac

0:07:44stories. That's where I heard about it. We've got a quote here. Fedorico, the teacher from Mac stories,

0:07:48if you use Feed Wrangler and have been looking for a desktop client, ReadKit is your best option.

0:07:54Well, that's from many years ago. Many years ago, cause I'm not sure Feed Wrangler still exists

0:07:58anymore. That's a quote for the ages. Okay, sure. This is what it's like, Fedorico. You do a website

0:08:07for a long time and then people are like, oh, you wrote this. I get that occasionally. I was like,

0:08:11Jason, you wrote this. Do you have an update on this? And I look at the story and I'm like, I have

0:08:14no memory of this. The best one is like when you get a random email from somebody being like, hey,

0:08:19do you still use ReadKit? And like the last time I reviewed, it was like in 2011. Like, I haven't

0:08:25heard this name in a long time. No, send them to me. I use, I use ReadKit. And again, I get really

0:08:32excited. I haven't tried, you know, some of the latest and greatest, but then I try them and I

0:08:36think, yeah, I like the typography better or I like, it's got smart folders and I use that

0:08:40sometimes. But mostly whatever reason on, and remember I'm reading on an iPad, a 13 inch iPad,

0:08:47right? Like it's the one that fits the best, even though I, the great thing about using Feedbin is

0:08:52that I could just go to any reader if I wanted to, but I'm still pretty happy with it. The one that,

0:08:59an Apple intelligence feature I would like at some point, which they're never going to do,

0:09:03but I would really like the ability to take the articles that are in my feed reader and write new

0:09:11headlines that tell me what the actual article is instead of the bogus web headline that obscures

0:09:18the meaning so that it will click. So basically a summary, right? So like an RSS that uses,

0:09:22I mean, hopefully, I mean, who knows, but hopefully, you know, in probably iOS 19,

0:09:28developers will be able to use that. That would be good, right? That like, instead of the similar to

0:09:33the email, instead of the first few lines of the article, tell me what the article is actually

0:09:38about. Yeah, I'll take that, right? Federico, I'm sorry, but Threads knows it has an engagement

0:09:45problem and they're taking care of it. So you can say goodbye to all of your likes. Yeah, I mean,

0:09:49Adam, come on. Just when he's cracked it. Why? I was doing so well with my bait. Why?

0:09:58We've seen an increase in engagement bait on Threads and we're working to get it under control,

0:10:03says Adam Mosseri. He got you, man. He knew you were the last straw. All I wanted was to make

0:10:11Apple people upset with my hot takes and they're taking those away from me. No more hot takes.

0:10:17All right. There was also a note in our document that Stephen left that said check on bet. Mike

0:10:23said no Google Pixel 9 comes with a thermometer. So this was something I said when the Pixel 8 came

0:10:30out because it had a thermometer in it, which could only measure the temperature of objects.

0:10:34And I think what I was saying is like every single year, Google seemed to add a feature that they

0:10:40then remove the next year because it doesn't go anywhere. Turns out they kept it. Not only does

0:10:44the Pixel 9 have it, you can now measure the heat of a person. So good work, Google. Man. Remember

0:10:52Stephen? No. Those are good times. So you can find out if you're H-O-T-T-O-G-O by taking

0:11:00good temperature. From G-O-O-G-L-E. H-O-T-T-O-G-O-O-G-L-E. If Javelin's looking to get that

0:11:12bag, she could just Google the call. Super catchy. Federico, are you a fan of Chaperone?

0:11:20I have no idea what it is. Oh, so she's like the hot music act of the time. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

0:11:28If you don't know Hot To Go, like that song, you would like that song a lot. I only know the one

0:11:33song. Good Luck Babe. Hot To Go is real good. Hot To Go, I'm gonna tell the story now really

0:11:41fast, which is there's a running back for the the Cal Bears named Jaden Ott OTT and Cal Twitter,

0:11:49for people who don't know, the Cal-Gorithm as they're called, of my fellow Cal fans. Okay,

0:11:55so this is fun. I've been getting lots of questions, Snail Talk questions about the Cal

0:12:01Twitter account that I don't really want to get into, so now you can do it. All the Cal Burners,

0:12:06they're just like, they're doing memes, the meme game is huge, and people are discovering Cal

0:12:12because they're in a new conference, and they realize that the, guess what, kids who go to

0:12:15Berkeley are smart and funny, but they, not only did they write parody lyrics for Hot To Go,

0:12:23but they hired a singer, a real singer, it's not an AI version of the song, they hired a singer

0:12:28named Mickey, I think, from Sweden, who they found on some website where you can hire talent, right,

0:12:34to do like freelance work, and they made OTT To Go for Jaden Ott, we got OTTT OGO, we've got Jaden

0:12:44Ott To Go, and then somebody else in the Cal Twitter community made a music video of OTT To Go,

0:12:51and that was like early in the week, and by the time Saturday rolled around and the the premiere

0:12:56college football tv show ESPN College Game Day came to Berkeley for the very first time in like

0:13:0120 years they've never been to Berkeley, one of the few schools not to have ever been visited,

0:13:07and by the time they got there the hosts started out by talking about OTT To Go,

0:13:12so like super meme game, just so great, and as a Cal fan of long-standing I was really proud of it,

0:13:18but also as an old person I was excited that I actually got the reference to Chapel Rowan, so

0:13:23yeah OTT To Go. This episode is brought to you by NetSuite. What does the future hold for business?

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0:14:55netsuite.com/connected. This guide is free to you at netsuite.com/connected. That's

0:15:02netsuite.com/connected. Our thanks to NetSuite for their support of this show and Relay.

0:15:10So, wild story, wild story that's happening right now. It appears multiple now, because me and Jason

0:15:18spoke about this a little bit on upgrade on Monday, but by the time we're recording on Wednesday,

0:15:22there are now multiple models of the new base level 14 inch MacBook Pro out in the world.

0:15:28There have been a couple of different YouTubers that have made videos of these. They're both

0:15:32based in Russia and there are reports and screenshots of around 200 14 inch MacBook

0:15:38Pros that are as of yet unreleased available online. I believe this is real. I've seen some

0:15:46people saying things like the packaging is old. I think the packaging probably maybe isn't 100%

0:15:53complete and like there's some weirdness going on here, but I believe that the computers themselves

0:15:58are real and there seems to be some kind of leak from China to Russia and this is something that

0:16:04Jason was saying. Well, Apple doesn't sell in Russia, so it makes sense that there might be

0:16:09some kind of flow, but these ones they've gotten out maybe a little earlier than they would otherwise.

0:16:14Somebody thought of Palit somewhere. Also, they're the low-end M4 versions, so they're probably the

0:16:20ones that they made in advance because I assume they've got lots of M4s because they have the iPad

0:16:25Pro, but they maybe aren't yet. All the stories suggest that the M4 Pro versions of all of these

0:16:33products might be available in limited quantity or a little later. So part of that probably is you

0:16:40start producing the M4 ones earlier and so yeah, I think this is true when there was a Palit or a

0:16:47box or however they that just got scooped up by somebody and lost in transit and taken to Russia

0:16:53and resold. Well, I was also wondering if this might be like a result of Apple trying to ship

0:16:59more stuff on boats, like that maybe if they can get some stuff shipped out sooner, maybe they

0:17:05would do that. I know that's the thing that they've spoken about. Also, how about this? How about the

0:17:11idea that this only is news because it's a new product that hasn't been announced yet, but I

0:17:16wonder how often this happens with existing products where literally since they're not

0:17:21available in Russia, they just make some of them disappear from a warehouse in China and take them

0:17:28to Russia. I'm not saying Apple, I'm saying like crime. The crime is like get me some Apple products

0:17:35that I can resell in Russia because they're not sold there anymore and that they just happen to

0:17:39snag a product that doesn't exist yet. So this made me think of like, so I've been seeing some

0:17:45people, I've been seeing a lot of people say like this is maybe the biggest kind of product leak

0:17:51as such or like early release or whatever you might want to call it since the iPhone 4 because

0:17:57things don't really get out. I mean and of course this is absolutely in no world as monumental as

0:18:04the iPhone 4, but I thought that it might be fun today to think to remember back to the iPhone 4

0:18:11and Jason, I had some questions I wanted to ask you about specifically of this, but I want to

0:18:16start by giving a timeline of how the iPhone 4 leak went down. So we go back to March of 2010,

0:18:23an engineer at Apple named Gray Powell, which is a name just like seared into my memory at

0:18:29this point, accidentally left a prototype of their iPhone 4 in a bar in Redwood City, California.

0:18:35The phone was disguised with like a case to look like a 3GS, right? So they put like a big case on

0:18:41it. In April of 2010, the lost iPhone prototype was found by a bar patron who realized it was

0:18:49something special after seeing features like the new front-facing camera, I think also the retina

0:18:54display it had, maybe they could tell that out, I don't know, but in April they sold it to Gizmodo

0:18:59for $5,000. On April 19th, 2010, Gizmodo published an article that detailed the iPhone 4's design,

0:19:08its features, they had pictures, they had videos, and this was obviously the first time that anybody

0:19:14had seen it. It had a brand new design, right? So we'd gone from like the rounded phones, this was

0:19:18like glass front and back with the stainless steel in the middle. It's like what an iPhone looks like

0:19:22now, in fact, pretty much. I'm happy that this article is still on the Gizmodo website,

0:19:29even though it's like a little janky, it is still there, and I found that I put it in the show notes.

0:19:33On April 20th, the next day, Apple sent Gizmodo a formal request for the return of the device,

0:19:41saying it was stolen property, and Gizmodo complied and returned it. Then on the 23rd,

0:19:47an authority body, they had like a strange name that I don't remember now, and I didn't

0:19:52look it up, but it wasn't like the police, it was like some other police, like Silicon Valley police

0:19:57or something, it had a name like that. Is there a Silicon Valley police? I'm gonna check this,

0:20:01because it was weird. This is like the Fabi bar, okay. It's like the Fabi bar of police,

0:20:06prompted. So Apple arranged this and sent them to the home of Jason Chen, the editor of Gizmodo.

0:20:16They raided his home, confiscated his computers and other equipment as part of an investigation

0:20:22into the incident. On May 16th, there was an email exchange between Steve Jobs and Chen that

0:20:30was published. I want to read a quote, which I love this for what it is, but it's a vibe of a

0:20:38time. "Steve Jobs, we're just doing what we can to try and make and preserve the user experience

0:20:48we envision. You can disagree with us, but our motives are pure. By the way, what have you done

0:20:54that's so great? Do you just criticize others' work and belittle their motivations?" I love how

0:20:59he just like turns a sharp corner. This was the energy of those Steve Jobs email threads at the

0:21:05time. Yeah, this is for sure. By the way, I've got the Fabi bar of police. It's REACT, it's a very

0:21:11clever acronym, Rapid Enforcement Allied Computer Team. See, I knew it was like a weird, it was like

0:21:17a weird thing. REACT, like the coding language? Sure, yeah. I mean, it's a acronym. Silicon Valley

0:21:25police. If Steven were here, he would know like the space world is full of acronyms where somebody's

0:21:30like, "Oh, we got to create a name for this space probe," and they get close and they just come up

0:21:34with a word and then they insert sort of dumb words in to make it work. So, REACT, California

0:21:39Task Force Commission to Investigate High-Tech Crimes, and Apple had a member on the steering

0:21:46committee of the REACT task force. There you go. So that's how you get your friends, Silicon Valley

0:21:49police, to go raid someone. And then in June of 2010, Apple announced the iPhone 4, and then in

0:21:54July of 2011, the next year, this REACT police investigation concluded about any charges being

0:22:02filed against Gizmodo or the individuals involved in selling the device. This was bananas. I

0:22:09remember my first feeling about the iPhone 4 was that I thought it looked bad. I was like,

0:22:14"That can't be real. It's ugly," was my initial thought. But that was just, you know, I think

0:22:20that's the way a lot of these leaks go. You see a device and you're like, "That doesn't look good,"

0:22:23and then when you see Apple's photos, you're like, "Oh yeah, it does look good." No, I remember

0:22:27thinking that it looked great and very futuristic. I didn't like it. And I also remember the exact

0:22:33moment when I saw the Gizmodo article appear on Twitter, because at the time, 2010, I just started

0:22:40Mac stories, I spent, I don't even know how many hours, but I basically had Twitter always open,

0:22:47always timeline streaming enabled. I think Tweety for Mac was around at the time. But yeah, I

0:22:56remember this thing popping in and basically me going like, "What?" It was a crazy story. It was

0:23:03like the talk for a couple of weeks. And especially after like with all the back and forth with Steve

0:23:10Jobs getting involved and also like, no, it wasn't WWDC, but it was a late June event because Apple

0:23:16used to announce iPhones in June. And I remember Steve Jobs sort of joking on stage being like,

0:23:23"Stop me if you've seen this before, but believe me, you haven't really seen it."

0:23:27I like everybody sort of, and Jason, you were probably in the audience.

0:23:31- Yeah, sure. - Yeah, yeah. Man, what a time.

0:23:34- So was it not WWDC then? Did I get that part wrong? Maybe I just conflated.

0:23:38- I think maybe it was. - Was it WWDC?

0:23:41- I mean, all the dates that we hold as sacred now were not like that back then.

0:23:46- Like they didn't really have specific iPhone events then, right? Like I don't think it was,

0:23:51we were at that time and June would have been a weird time to announce the phone.

0:23:54- June WWDC San Francisco. Yeah, that's when it was, for sure.

0:23:58- Jason, what do you remember of this? - I remember very clearly I was at,

0:24:02and this is how I can tell that I have a clear memory of this is it's all about location. So

0:24:05I was at a softball game, one of Jamie's softball games. I remember what park it was. Like I

0:24:11literally remember that particular park in Terralinda that we took her to. And I saw this

0:24:17thing on Twitter, presumably on my iPhone 3GS, I guess, right? Like, I mean, process of elimination,

0:24:23it must have been. And I remember not believing it and then scrolling through the article and

0:24:29thinking, "Oh no, this has got to be real. This has got to be it." Because it felt very

0:24:33Johnny Ive to me. It felt very much like, you know, he was picking up kind of a Braun Shaver

0:24:40kind of design cues with the flat metal sides and all of that. And I felt like, "Oh yeah,

0:24:45this seems like it's a real thing." And it was. - What was your role at Macworld at the time?

0:24:50Were you editor-in-chief then? - I think I was editor-in-chief, yeah.

0:24:53- Did you have any, or like, do you have any kind of thoughts as the editor-in-chief of

0:24:58Macworld? Like, would you have covered this? - Well, I would say that our game was not

0:25:04this game, right? We did not consider ourselves the, you know, breaker of rumors and stuff.

0:25:12And so, I mean, I'm sure we had a debate, which is, do we cover the fact that it leaked?

0:25:20And I'm sure we did that in some form on the web. But like, if I had been, you know,

0:25:27if I had been at a news source that was really trying to break news, which Macworld was not its

0:25:32kind of bit, it would have been a different story, I suppose. But like, it was not really

0:25:37our bag. So it was more, and that was always the dynamic. Like back in the early days,

0:25:42when there was Macweek, as well as Macworld and Macuser, Macweek was the one that did that stuff,

0:25:48right? They were the ones who broke news about unannounced products. And so they would have been

0:25:52the ones to do it. And the Macworld and Macuser were sort of like, well, we're monthly and we're

0:25:56kind of like at a little, we're not trying to break news. We don't fancy ourselves a newspaper.

0:26:00We're a different kind of thing. And so I'd say culturally, that was still going on,

0:26:04even when I was there. I'm convinced that Federico Vaticchio 2010 would have,

0:26:08given the opportunity, would have wanted to break this news. You were so early, right?

0:26:14I will disagree because I had been burned before. I think I've told this story on the show before.

0:26:24In my first year of Mac stories, I was really basically throwing everything at the wall and

0:26:30seeing what was sticking. And one of the things that I was doing was like completely disregarding

0:26:35the NDA, regarding betas, Mac OS 10 betas and screenshots. And so I used to have articles with

0:26:43like, mind you, like this was very different, right? There were no public betas. It was a

0:26:49developer beta. There was an NDA screen that popped up, but like I didn't care. I was posting

0:26:54screenshots, having roundups, whatever, until one day I noticed, well, why aren't the images

0:27:01on this article about the latest Mac OS 10 beta working anymore? And so basically my hosting

0:27:09provider had gotten an email, like a takedown request from Apple. I got myself a nice letter

0:27:17from Apple's lawyers at the time, and that scared me for life. And so they lawyered the screenshots

0:27:27out of me. So that's why we don't do those kinds of reporting anymore. It was enough.

0:27:33Funny to remember that they used to do that, right? That like the beta was NDA'd. Because

0:27:37then everybody will post screenshots and be like, somebody sent these to us. I'm like, okay,

0:27:42whatever you say. Yeah, it got to the point where, I mean, as it usually happens with this,

0:27:46where somebody who had the ability to post it and not get a takedown for whatever reason,

0:27:51posted them. And then somebody else did it. I think one of the challenges about what Gizmodo

0:27:56did was they, I mean, they were really argumentative about it. I think because they

0:28:01were scared, but they were also kind of like trying to find a way to say, no, no, we're going

0:28:05to do this. But like you could have the thing and take pictures of it and write a report of it

0:28:12without one, buying stolen property and two, refusing to give it back to Apple, right?

0:28:17They went down a whole bunch of paths here that were kind of a lot, but Apple to this day says

0:28:23like, oh, well, you know, the public beta is coming out and we're going to give you a briefing

0:28:26and we're going to talk about what's in the public beta. And keep in mind, everybody's already seen

0:28:30it at WWDC, but they're like, you know, we want this to go out when the public beta goes out.

0:28:33And like, it's weird because it doesn't really need to be that way, but there is some aspect

0:28:38of it that is, yeah, but if you're playing ball with Apple and they're going to give you a

0:28:41briefing and they're going to, you know, they're going to talk to you about it and they're going

0:28:44to answer your questions and they'd rather those stories be embargoed until the public beta comes

0:28:49out and you say, all right, like, okay, all right. In that case, I'll do it, but that's all that's

0:28:54left, right? I mean, they know they used to stop us from live blogging events. They literally would

0:29:01say no live blogging. And at that point, at some point it just got so, it was so porous that

0:29:06there's no way that they could do that anymore. And they gave up. That's how it always ends up

0:29:10happening is that they try to hold back the, the, the flood, but the dam bursts, like they can't

0:29:16hold it back. And then they finally reluctantly give up. And like, you know, the reason that Steve

0:29:24Jobs yelled at everybody to turn off their hotspots that one time is because Apple in an

0:29:32attempt to clamp down on information spreading about their event, which is why, why, why would

0:29:39you say, no, no, we don't want anybody to hear about this until later. They did not provide

0:29:45wifi at events, even at events where there was wifi available, they would just turn it off.

0:29:50They did not want people to have access to wifi at the event. And so everybody bought hotspots and

0:29:56then they all clogged the space right in front of the stage where Steve was trying to do a demo.

0:30:01And he yelled at everybody to turn them off, which by the way, I sat on mine, but I did not turn it

0:30:06off because it's like, you're not the boss of me. You're going to tell me what to do. But I will say

0:30:11the next event and every subsequent Apple event forever, there was good wifi because they realized

0:30:16that it was their fault that it happened that way. But isn't that bizarre? They're like, no, no, no.

0:30:21Oh, you and your audience want to report live about all of Apple's product announcements?

0:30:26Please do not. What? How dare you? What? I don't know. So anyway, this is not quite that,

0:30:34but it's a very similar kind of thing. I think Gizmodo, I don't know. I think that they did

0:30:38good reporting and then they were also jerks about it. I think both of those things are true.

0:30:42I think that they got real defensive and I think they wanted to, honestly, that culture of that

0:30:47Gizmodo is very, very tabloidy organization in general, its whole culture. And so I think they

0:30:53realized it was great publicity for them to be in a spat with Apple. I think that, and even if the

0:30:58secret task force was called like, I feel like individuals in that organization were probably

0:31:04terrified, but I think the organization as a whole loved the fact that they were getting all this

0:31:07press. I mean, can't get a better scoop than that, right? Like you can't, if you, if you are in the

0:31:14game of we will report rumors, right? Like getting the iPhone. And it's not even coming from an

0:31:20Apple employee, right? Like it's, it's, it's just found in a bar. So you don't even have to be

0:31:25accused of like ruining somebody's life or, or inducing them into breaking their NDA. It's like,

0:31:31literally it just got left out. Because I think the story goes, there were a few publications

0:31:35that got the emails and like with some photos, but Gizmodo were the ones that were willing to pay.

0:31:40And so they did. And then, you know, I'm happy they did because then we have this great

0:31:46thing to remember. Sure. And obviously, you know, Silicon Valley police.

0:31:53This episode is brought to you by Ecamm. Ecamm Live is the leading video production and live

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0:34:15connected with the code connected. Go there now and check it out. Our thanks to Ecamm for their

0:34:19support of this show and Relay. Federico, you had a desire to talk about peripherals?

0:34:27Yeah, because I feel like we only talk about the upcoming Macs, if there's going to be or not an

0:34:34October event, you know, these new MacBook Pros, some of which you can buy in Russia. Apparently,

0:34:39if you know where to look, the Mac Mini. I mean, you can literally buy them in Russia.

0:34:46The Mac Mini, but I want to talk about the accessories. I want to talk about the peripherals,

0:34:52because I feel like it's now or never, right? We were expecting some new peripherals at the iPad

0:34:58event. They did not come. We were expecting them probably at WWDC. That wasn't the case.

0:35:05They didn't show up in September. Well, now there's probably going to be a whole new lineup

0:35:10of Macs. What better time to close out the year than to finally introduce new peripherals now?

0:35:16And so I thought, let's talk about these accessories and let's share some of our wishes

0:35:20in terms of things we want to see in these new peripherals. And I will go first by mentioning

0:35:25something more broadly speaking that I would love to see here. It's been how many years since the

0:35:32Magic Keyboard was introduced with Touch ID? Three, four years? The quick answer is too many,

0:35:37but let me find that out. Still lightning-based, obviously. So obviously, USB-C is the simplest

0:35:46answer. Apple should do USB-C charging for all these devices. But what I would like to see

0:35:52personally is AirPods-like switching of these peripherals between multiple devices. I think

0:36:01it's wild that if you buy a Magic Keyboard now, you can just use it with one computer at a time.

0:36:07You either pair it with your Mac or you pair it with your iPad. Some people also pair keyboards

0:36:13with their iPhones. Some people are into that. It's 2021, by the way. That's the answer to when

0:36:17they put them. 2021, so three years. I would love to see... Just like Apple, Apple doesn't tell me,

0:36:24"Look, you want to listen to music on multiple devices? Go buy five pairs of AirPods." They say,

0:36:30"Just buy a single set of AirPods and switch between as many devices as you want." I want

0:36:36to buy an Apple keyboard and I want to buy an Apple trackpad and I want to switch between

0:36:40devices just like I do with AirPods. That's my big overall wish for these new peripherals.

0:36:46But what you're not asking for is universal control, right?

0:36:50Well, I guess you can go about this in two ways, right? I would say I'm asking for universal

0:36:56control on the iPad's Magic Keyboard in the sense that if I'm using the iPad, and we're going to

0:37:03talk about the Vision Pro later, but I think it's kind of silly that the Magic Keyboard on my iPad

0:37:08cannot control Vision OS. But that's a different conversation. I think the simplest solution for

0:37:15me would be, "Get a new keyboard, get a new trackpad, now you can switch from control center

0:37:20just like you can with AirPods." It'd be interesting to see how they could work that out,

0:37:26right? If you hit the key, where does it go? But there is an element of they made it work with

0:37:33AirPods, right? There are ways to make that work, I guess. I would like it. I know I would like it.

0:37:42Yeah. And it's just so dumb right now. I have this where I have a Touch ID, an orange Touch ID

0:37:51keyboard that I bought on eBay because I wanted an orange. And I use that sometimes at my desk

0:37:58in the back of the house with the laptop attached to an external keyboard or external display.

0:38:04But I also use it with the Vision Pro. And it's so dumb. When I get in the Vision Pro and I want

0:38:10to use that thing and it doesn't want to see it, it doesn't want to connect to it, sometimes I have

0:38:15to unpair it and then repair it. And I don't even necessarily need, I mean, it would be nice if it

0:38:21really intelligently sensed that I was close to the Vision Pro and it was in use and that that

0:38:26was probably the device that I want to connect to. But there are so much room for improvement

0:38:32in these things when you take them from device to device, and they just don't want to let go

0:38:36of the other peripheral. And I wish that was a lot smoother than it is now.

0:38:42They would never add physical switching, would they? Like a little button that you would press.

0:38:46Like, I mean, that would give us what we wanted, but they would never do that, right? That you'd

0:38:50set a little preset? I could see them hiding it under the globe key somewhere, you know,

0:38:54globe F8 to toggle. But I don't know, they could. They did add an over-engineered button to the

0:39:01iPhone. So, I mean, what's the harm in doing the same on a keyboard? Poor camera control. I think

0:39:07camera control is getting too much. I think it's getting too much. I mean, have you used the thing?

0:39:12Yeah, I used it to zoom. Let's do keyboard control. Keyboard control? I feel bad for

0:39:18camera control, you know? Colors. Let me buy an orange keyboard. Let me buy a pink keyboard.

0:39:29Can you still only? Yes. You can't buy them separate? Still? That's why I used eBay. That's

0:39:36why I have an orange keyboard from eBay. If you use the store, it's only silver. So you have to

0:39:43find somebody who bought an iMac and doesn't want their keyboard and puts it on eBay. That's what

0:39:47you have to do. Yeah, so dumb. Just today, I was talking to a friend. I was at silver school, and

0:39:57in the office, they have a MacBook Pro docked at a desk connected to a studio display, which I sold

0:40:05them, by the way. That's my old Apple studio display. And the person using the computer uses

0:40:10a magic mouse. And he's really into the magic mouse, which I don't understand, because the

0:40:17thing is so small, gives me instant wrist pain. But looking at it when it was charging,

0:40:26it reminded me just how silly that thing is when you need to charge it. So let alone,

0:40:32I mean, the fact that it also needs USB-C. Please give it a new charging placement.

0:40:37MagSafe. Put MagSafe on the mouse. Put MagSafe on the mouse. MagMouse. Call it whatever. Yes.

0:40:46Or at the very least, put the port on the front and let people use the mouse while it is charging,

0:40:55instead of, you know, you've got to put it on the side. And it's kind of silly. Just let me use it

0:40:59when it's plugged in. Or MagSafe, like Mike said. There's a lot they could do with that mouse,

0:41:05though. Like there is a lot, a lot they could do if they actually want to make a mouse. But although

0:41:11I would just say, honestly, they shouldn't make a mouse anymore. Like Apple should just get rid of

0:41:17the magic mouse and just make a trackpad. And anybody that wants a mouse, just go to Logitech

0:41:24or like Razer. Apple does not need to make a mouse. Like they clearly don't want to. Right.

0:41:31But like they do. And they are so in on trackpads now. Like they do so much great stuff with their

0:41:37trackpads. Just let the mouse go and make, you know, let's just like make partnerships. Right.

0:41:44Like do the thing where you get Logitech to make a mouse for you and just like stop making a mouse.

0:41:52Because backend is gonna, backend is gonna make a mouse and it's gonna, it's gonna call it boost

0:41:56charge pro mouse. You know, they're gonna do it. And let them, you know, because Apple, Apple,

0:42:01you've lost your mouse making card. Like you're not allowed anymore. You've made a bunch of bad

0:42:06mice. This current ones are terrible. You've left it this way forever. Let's, let's just get rid of

0:42:10it. I will just throw out mentioning trackpads. I want them to put touch ID in the trackpad. I

0:42:16still want that. That would be like under the trackpad. Just put a little, put it in the corner,

0:42:22like a little button, right? Like, like, you know, just have it look like the little button or a

0:42:27little spot. I mean, it's all glass, right? So you could just put the sensor on, like flush with the,

0:42:33with the glass of the trackpad, like top right hand corner or something. Yeah, no, I would love,

0:42:38I would love that as somebody, you know, Mike, you and I are both thinking I'm never going to use an

0:42:42Apple keyboard, but I really want the touch ID button and I do use the magic trackpad. So it

0:42:49would be really nice if they, if they did the magic trackpad there. I don't think they're ever

0:42:54going to get rid of the magic mouse, by the way, for a couple of reasons. One is, uh, cause they

0:42:59bundle it with the iMac and there are people who like a mouse. And also I think it's cheaper than

0:43:04the trackpad and they can't not, unless they ship the iMac with literally no input devices. And I

0:43:10don't think they want to do that. They're going to want to ship it with input devices. And I honestly

0:43:15think the mouse is cheaper, so it's better to ship it with the mouse. Oh yeah, man, you have to pay

0:43:20$50 more to get the magic trackpad. Yeah, it's, yeah, it's a lot cheaper. Well then, then if

0:43:25you're going to force this mouse on people, make it better, make it better. I agree. I agree. I,

0:43:32you haven't mentioned, um, Patently Apple wrote a story like a million years ago about a patent

0:43:37to use the keyboard, uh, the surface of keys as a trackpad. And I thought that would be amazing,

0:43:43right? The idea that you had that, you know, relatively flat Apple keyboard, and then you

0:43:47just move your fingers across it and it moves the cursor. Didn't we see it, didn't we see like a

0:43:52couple of months ago, a Kickstarter from a Chinese company that wants to do this. Yes. Well, they

0:43:59better check with Apple's patent then. And nobody, nobody kind of believed them. I'm like, well,

0:44:05let me rephrase. None of us backed it. And that's despite the fact that we tend, you know, the,

0:44:12the three of us and also OTJ, like we tend to back a lot of Kickstarters despite our better judgment.

0:44:19Um, but we didn't back that one because it seemed, um, uh, this, I found it. Um, okay.

0:44:26The moquibo folio. Did it go anywhere? Are they making it? They, they have, as of March 28th,

0:44:372023, they had, it looked like, well, let me see where we have updates. The moquibo folio.

0:44:45Apparently in May of 2014, they're shipping out. This is their ship. They're shipping out.

0:44:51Apparently I'm going to check the comments. There are 2,800 comments, which is not a good sign.

0:44:56Um, yeah, lots of people who've never received a keyboard here in the comments.

0:45:00I don't know if anybody ever has received them, uh, because the com it's just full of people,

0:45:08uh, not receiving anything, which is the way to go. So even though they're saying they're shipping,

0:45:14uh, it doesn't, it doesn't seem like they may yet be Apple's got the patent. I mean,

0:45:20this goes with when we're talking about vision pro and finding all those like plastic cases that let

0:45:25you stick a track pad and a, and a keyboard together. Um, which is a thing they could do.

0:45:30They could sell a combo, right? Which is just like the keyboard and the track and a magic track pad

0:45:35in one unit, which maybe they could even get the price down on what they're doing and put that in

0:45:40with the iMac and get rid of the mouse. I don't know, but it's a possibility. And then that would

0:45:44be great for vision pro too, because you'd have the pointer attached to the keyboard. Um, so,

0:45:51you know, stuff like that is good, but the track pad surface, which is a wild idea, but the idea

0:45:58that you could use it as a fairly basic pointer, just by skimming your fingers across maybe multi

0:46:03fingers across the keyboard and use it as a track pad. It's an interesting idea. I would also throw

0:46:07out as my, my keyboard wishes, programmable key caps. I'm not necessarily saying the stream deck,

0:46:14but like, I know that people have tried, you could have like, uh, keys that are, that have a color

0:46:20under them that is changeable. Uh, or you could have, yeah, you could have a screen under the top

0:46:26level. That's what the, what the, uh, touch bar should have been, uh, is something like that,

0:46:31where it's physical keys, but you can customize them. And I know that they've also done,

0:46:34people have done, uh, e-ink key caps, where the key caps label is changeable. And I don't know,

0:46:43I think that would be kind of fun because I love my stream deck, but I like, I think there's value

0:46:46when having a physical key that can be labeled whatever you want it to be. I don't think Apple

0:46:52will do it, but we're getting wild here. I'll throw it out there. I've got to get some important

0:46:57updates. The MoKibo, they have a website, they're shipping them that I'm finding videos on YouTube.

0:47:05Like it's the thing that exists. They have a new version, apparently. I don't understand what's

0:47:10happening over there on Kickstarter, but like, Apple should check this out. Apple should check

0:47:14this out. Cause you can just buy it on their website. Now, Federico, I'm going to buy one

0:47:22and Apple is going to sue me for whatever. I'm sending you a link. You can buy it. You can just

0:47:28put, put it on your Fabu bar, put MoKibo on your, you put MoKibo on the Fabu bar. It looks,

0:47:33it looks like it, you, it works and everyone's happy about it. You know, is MoKibo does it send

0:47:38for more keyboard? Is that, is that the pun they're going for? MoKibo mo problems.

0:47:43I think that's how that goes. I wanted to ask, are there any other peripherals that we think Apple

0:47:55should make outside of this? And I will, I will, I will begin the bidding with a, with a webcam with

0:48:01face ID in it, like an external one. They make a webcam. So forget about the bad webcams with a

0:48:10face ID. 4k good with a center stage, high quality webcam that also has face ID sensors. So if you

0:48:21really care, you can put it at the top of your display and get face ID on an external display.

0:48:28Yes. Yes. Yes. That'd be sweet. I still kind of wish like the thing that you guys have done,

0:48:34like taking apart a magic keyboard and making a standalone touch ID button out of it. I still

0:48:40think that should be an actual product from Apple, even though they're never going to do it. Like,

0:48:44let me, let me buy the touch ID button, you know, like, let me, let me, let me place it anywhere.

0:48:49I don't know. It could double, it could double as a home kit accessory of sorts. Like,

0:48:53it authenticates into your Mac and it's also something that you can click if you want to do

0:48:56something. I don't know. It could be fun. The problem is I love Apple to sort of take the

0:49:02Nintendo approach, not to go back to the pro show, but like Nintendo is a giant company and they're

0:49:07still weird enough to make this crazy accessories like an alarm clock. The problem I think is that

0:49:15Apple is too big and too self-conscious to get weird in that sort of sense. Like, I don't know.

0:49:23I will have Apple to say, we made you a button. Now you can buy the touch ID button. We made you

0:49:29a weird keyboard that you can use with the iPad and the vision pro, like this sort of like cheaper,

0:49:36strange, unexpected Apple accessories. And the problem is that I think they are too self-aware

0:49:42and too big and too scared to concern their investors to come up with these products because

0:49:52every single... I feel like they think that every single product they make has to be a hit, has to

0:49:58be world-changing, whereas I would like them to do the weird niche accessories and peripherals

0:50:05and they're not making them. That's the problem. Well, I do hope that their home products might...

0:50:11Do you know these rumored home products? I really hope that, yeah. Especially the robot one

0:50:16that they're working on, the one with the big robot arm. I think that's going to be a big...

0:50:21As we established, Jason loves the fact that it's a robot. It's not a robot arm, Mike. It's a robot.

0:50:28It's literally a robot. It's a robot. It stands on your countertop and wherever you are, it walks

0:50:37over there, steps on your plates, kicks your glasses off and just follows you around your

0:50:44kitchen playing music at you or maybe an Apple TV show on its screen. I was very excited a couple of

0:50:50days ago when, I don't know, the Echo was alerting everyone in the household that a package was

0:50:55coming and I went and just pressed the button to get rid of it because it's also... My wife's

0:51:02birthday is coming up and I'm ordering decorations and I don't want her to see what they are and I

0:51:08know you can change settings on the Echo, but whatever. When I was doing it, Adina turned to me

0:51:14and she said, "When are we going to get an Apple one of those?" I was like, "Yes." She's ready now.

0:51:20She's also had enough of the Amazon Echo and the many ways in which it tries to sell you things.

0:51:24Now, Apple, whenever you're ready, I will definitely be buying at least one of these

0:51:31screen things because I want it big time. Please just let me get rid of this Echo.

0:51:36The Google one is better because I dumped my Echo and got a Google one. The problem with...

0:51:42It's better in that it is not as annoying in terms of trying to sell you things because all Amazon

0:51:47wants to do is... You're a customer in good standing with Amazon. You buy a lot of stuff

0:51:51from Amazon. It doesn't matter. By the way, I want to sell you more things and it just won't stop.

0:51:56Even if you turn all the settings on, what happens is they push new settings that are on by default.

0:52:00And so you're constantly fighting a battle with Amazon. I got a Google Nest Home Mini,

0:52:05whatever. I don't know. It's got lots of different names that they keep attaching to their products

0:52:09because Google doesn't know what it's doing. It's a lot less annoying. The screensaver with

0:52:16the photos that are in a Google Photos album is really nice. There's a lot of things about it

0:52:20that I like. The bad thing is that the hardware is all old and slow and bad. When I bought mine,

0:52:27it had been out for more than a year and I read the Verge article and they said, "This is a great

0:52:31product except it's too slow." They were right and they haven't updated it since then. There's a big

0:52:37one and a little one, but they're both incredibly slow. I am better with it than I was with the

0:52:45Amazon one because it's not actively annoying. Although, one of my favorite features of it is

0:52:51it's got a sensor in it, a camera and a sensor. We use it for alarms in the kitchen, right? It's like

0:52:58set an alarm, a chicken alarm, a chicken timer for 20 minutes. The chicken's here!

0:53:04Okay. Federico will like this. If you do pasta, you say set a pasta timer for 11 minutes.

0:53:10It does a little Italian thingy and with a chicken, it goes...

0:53:16I love the cultural appropriation, but it's great.

0:53:20Oh, yeah. It's a me. It plays a little sound effects, but when it's done, it starts making

0:53:30this chime and you got to turn the chime off. There's three ways you can turn the chime off.

0:53:34You can reach over to the thing with your dirty hands and touch the X and it stops it.

0:53:40Or you can say to Google, stop it and it'll stop it, usually if it hears you. But the promise of

0:53:47this thing is the sensor. You can take your hand and it's like talk to the hand and you can just

0:53:52wave your hand in the air in the direction of the Google Home thing and it'll stop.

0:53:58And it works sometimes, but it means that you're standing in your kitchen like an idiot waving at

0:54:06a little box and it makes me feel stupid every time. But when it works the first time, I feel

0:54:11like a magician. It's just that it doesn't usually work the first time. Anyway, please, yes, I would

0:54:16love an Apple thing here instead. I would really appreciate that. And I'm sure Apple will not have

0:54:21hilarious Italian sounds when you're making pasta.

0:54:24It's a time for your pasta. Maybe Nintendo should make one.

0:54:30It's sort of an alarm-o for the home, for the kitchen. Kitchen alarm-o.

0:54:36Speaking of like, it isn't really speaking of anything, but Federico I saw,

0:54:40I tried to do it and I couldn't get there. I saw on threads that you have got a Nomad watch band.

0:54:47Right.

0:54:48And I was intrigued about what you think of this. I think I mentioned this on the show before that

0:54:52like I've always been hesitant of third-party watch bands. They're not going to attach right.

0:54:58And so like I wanted to know what you thought. No, you can ignore those concerns. It attaches

0:55:05perfectly. It looks like a regular Apple watch band. This is my second Nomad watch band. I had

0:55:10one of their light gray, kind of similar rugged sport one that I got a couple of years ago.

0:55:16And to match my iPhone 16 Plus, I got the, what do I call it? Blurple. It's like a blue purple-ish

0:55:26one in collaboration with The Verge. And it's perfect. I'm using it with the Apple Watch Ultra.

0:55:32And yeah, it matches quite nicely the ultramarine of the 16 Plus, but no, it just, it's got the same

0:55:39lugs. It's got the same attachment of a regular watch band. You can get different sizes from the

0:55:44Nomad website. Really fast shipping. I got it like three days. Yeah, you should, like there are

0:55:55questionable options on Amazon from like these no-brand companies. I remember one time my mom

0:56:02got one from Amazon that promised to be an equivalent to Apple's 50 euro silicon band,

0:56:08but it cost like five euros. And so obviously my mom was intrigued and it gave her a rash

0:56:15immediately. So probably try and buy from big brands like Nomad instead of like the five euro

0:56:24band on Amazon. But otherwise, I mean, even the Chinese knockoff that my mom got,

0:56:30it did attach correctly. But obviously the material was a bit problematic.

0:56:36I love The Verge. I read The Verge every day. I listen to The Verge cast. I'm a big Verge fan.

0:56:44There is something funny though, to me, about having The Verge logo on a watch band,

0:56:50like that I would wear every day. I'm not sure exactly why I find that

0:56:54to be like a funny thing, but that is like a funny thing to me. Oh, there is a Verge logo underneath.

0:57:00I didn't even know. It's on the inside though, which is good at least. This is going to be

0:57:04great. Get ready for it. Hold on to your hats. It's tichy bands and it's the bands of six or

0:57:11seven website logos. Oh my God. The Verge will be there obviously, but like there'll be others too.

0:57:18Tichy bands. Like seriously though, Nomad, call us. I would do a watch band connected or a tichy

0:57:29tab, a tichy band. I don't know why it's funny, but it is just funny to me. I don't know why,

0:57:37but Federico wears a watch band that has The Verge logo on it. It's nice and hidden.

0:57:43Wow. Look, I love The Verge. Okay. It's a good website. It's a great website. It's one,

0:57:48it would be one of my six or seven. I tell you that. Yeah. Many times I disagree with them,

0:57:52but like I appreciate, I appreciate disagreeing with someone rather than ignoring someone,

0:57:59you know, that's much worse. So what do you mean? Well, are you being spicy right now?

0:58:08Do I want to know? Yes, I was. Yes, I was. Yes. I prefer to read and disagree with the website

0:58:16than to not read the website at all. Okay. I like that. That's good. Um, I think I might be over

0:58:24my desire for the Apple watch series 10. Oh, good for you. I agree. I think I'm gonna,

0:58:34I think I'm going to wait. I, I still, uh, we've yet to, me and Evina have yet to go into a store

0:58:40because she, she, she wants an upgrade and her watch is a couple of years old now. And so I

0:58:45think she loves her Apple watch. So I'm very happy to upgrade it for her. And I still love the look

0:58:50of the series 10, but I don't want to lose my battery life yet. I'm struggling. I'm struggling.

0:59:00Who knows? I might go into the store, try it on and that's the end of me, but I don't know

0:59:04what to, I'm really torn on it because I still stand by the idea that like, uh, like what is

0:59:11going to happen to the Apple watch ultra? Like how often is it going to get updated? How behind is it

0:59:16going to be like, but maybe I just need to wait for that to happen. You'll worry. Exactly. You'll

0:59:21worry about it when it happens. When I need to worry about it rather than trying to make myself

0:59:25worry about it now. Yeah. You don't have a problem now. No, I don't. Yeah. Yeah. I think you might

0:59:32be right. I think you might be right. I did see though. I know that you were having battery life

0:59:36concerns for very good. Did you see that 0.0 0.1 had reference to a battery drain? Oh no, I didn't.

0:59:44Thank you. Okay. So interesting. Yeah. WatchOS was it 11.0 0.1. It references in the release notes

0:59:51that like there was a battery drain issue on the, on, uh, 18.0. Okay. I'll make sure. Have I updated?

0:59:58Uh, okay. It's up to date. Oh yeah. I guess I did it a couple of nights ago. Yeah. Cool. Awesome.

1:00:06Well, my, my ultra one is a 90%, which is not great. I mean, it's, it's lost 10%. Um, battery health.

1:00:12Yeah. Yeah. So it's, uh, it's getting worse, but it's still so much better than the series 10,

1:00:18you know? So I keep it and I really hope that I can keep it at least until next September,

1:00:26like for another year. I'm sure. And see what, and see what happens. I mean, the battery is so good.

1:00:31Even like a 50% battery life on this watch would be a regular one. You're probably right. Yeah.

1:00:37Jason, are you enjoying your series 10? I am. It's great. I had a seven, right? I had a seven black,

1:00:43uh, titanium, and now I have a 10 black aluminum, a little shiny black and, uh,

1:00:50loving the bigger screen. Nice to have a refresh battery after three years to, um, speaker is

1:00:58interesting, but I found a weird quirk and this might be a bug. I wonder if it's going to be fixed

1:01:02in the next version, but, um, you know, so, okay. Apple wants you to sleep with your Apple watch.

1:01:09Right. And I have resisted. I have, I have resisted. I use it. I had the little thing

1:01:14that Federico wrote about that time. That's the little thing that looks like a snow globe

1:01:17and you slide your Apple watch in, like magnifies it and charges it. Do you remember that Federico?

1:01:22I'm reminding you of so many things that you never remember that you wrote about. No, no. It was an

1:01:28Apple watch accessory that was like plastic, clear plastic, but curved. And there was a, yeah, that's

1:01:34it. And so you put the charging puck in the back and you slide it in and then it charges overnight

1:01:39but it also kind of magnifies this, the nightstand. Oh my God. That was years ago. Yeah. And I bought

1:01:45one. I bought one and I've been using it, but two new, two things. One very sad news. The new Apple

1:01:51watch is, uh, has changed enough in shape that it doesn't charge reliably anymore. Uh, but two Apple

1:01:58wants me to sleep with my watch on, which I've never done because they've got vitals and they

1:02:03got sleep apnea detection. It's like, okay, Apple. So I'm committed to doing it. I moved the night

1:02:08watch away. Uh, I just have a regular charging puck now and I try to do it when I'm in the shower

1:02:13or when it yells at me in the middle of the day that it's about to run out of battery.

1:02:16Um, and I, I'm, I'm trying to do that. So it's, it's just, I don't know. It's, it's weird to do it

1:02:27that way. Um, but since I'm doing that and I, I have the sleep feature, sleep really, really,

1:02:33really wants you to set a wake up time, right? They want you to have a wake up time with an,

1:02:38and it has an alarm. And I've never done that. I get the tap. I've always gotten the tap at

1:02:42night that says like, you should wind down and go to bed. And it's like, that's fine. I don't mind.

1:02:46It's a little naggy, but I kind of don't mind it, but I never use the alarm in the morning because

1:02:50first off I work at home and Lauren's got an alarm set, but I don't need to get up at the same time

1:02:54and all of that. But I've, I'm embracing the sleep, the Apple way, the Apple sleep lifestyle.

1:03:00Right? So this is what I did is I set it for 7 AM. Um, and I've worn my watch where alarms have

1:03:09gone off before and they tap your wrist and it's kind of subtle. And what I found with a Series 10

1:03:15on the .0 release of watchOS, when that alarm goes off, there's a setting that says don't make

1:03:22noise. Like my phone, my watch is in silent mode. I never want my Apple watch to make noise.

1:03:29That alarm goes off and it plays music. It taps my wrist, but it also plays music.

1:03:34And I don't want, I don't want that. I do not want noise.

1:03:39It is possible to have Apple's system have no alarm because I have this.

1:03:46I know. I know. I just, I feel like there's, there's some advantage to having it know when

1:03:52you wake up in terms of the sleep tracking features and all of that. I think there's

1:03:57an advantage to it. I have, I just thought I would try this, but it's like a feature of the

1:04:02Apple watch speaker that I do not want. I've, I've occasionally been somewhere where I didn't

1:04:06have headphones and I'm like in the kitchen waiting for the toast to pop or something. And I,

1:04:11I can listen to a podcast on my Apple watch. That's fun. That's interesting,

1:04:15but I really don't want that alarm making any noise. And even though there's a setting to say

1:04:19don't make noise, it still plays its little thing to wake me up in the morning. I don't,

1:04:25I don't want that. I just want the tap on the wrist. That's all I want.

1:04:27Nobody wants that.

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1:06:21So finishing up today Federico put a note in the show notes that said "Vision Pro Check-In". So

1:06:31I'm going to assume that you have somewhere you want to begin with this Federico? Yeah so first

1:06:35of all I want to begin by saying that I've been recording the entire episode while wearing my

1:06:39Vision Pro. Okay. Yeah. Okay. What? Yeah. Wow. You don't even sound like your nose is blocked so

1:06:47that's good. No no no no I mean so I've been using the iPad connected to the MixPre as I've been

1:06:55recording all my shows for the past two months and I've been using screen mirroring to see the

1:07:01iPad's display in front of me. So I turned down the brightness of the iPad's physical display and

1:07:07I screen mirrored to the Vision Pro and I made the iPad screen giant in front of me. And then I also

1:07:14opened a bunch of Vision OS windows. Like I got Discord in compatibility mode on the left, I got

1:07:19Messages on the right, Safari on the top. And so that was my teeny tiny surprise for today. I guess

1:07:26in general I think over the past couple of weeks I've been thinking about the Vision Pro a lot

1:07:32because this thing has been sitting in a drawer for like three months. I basically stopped paying

1:07:37attention in May when I got the new iPad Pros. And then WWDC happened and then it was the summer

1:07:45and I was going to the beach and when I was not at the beach I needed to work on the iOS and iPad OS

1:07:4918 review and so I didn't really have time or the energy to think about the Vision Pro. But I still

1:07:54felt bad about the fact that it was sitting unused because I still do think that there's so much

1:08:00potential in this platform and I mean every time I use it, here's my thing, every time I use it

1:08:04it brings me a little bit of joy. Like right now for example, the fact that I'm recording with all

1:08:10these windows around me, it is kind of wild. At the same time it really bumps me out that the

1:08:17Vision OS App Store is a little bit of a ghost town. And it also bumps me out that while Apple

1:08:27has been working on these new immersive video efforts, they've been working to expanding the

1:08:33list of compatible countries, the peripheral story, which is why I also brought that topic

1:08:40to the show today, like the accessory story is just not there. And I'm really conflicted I guess

1:08:47is what I'm trying to say. But over the past couple of weeks I think I've come to a realization,

1:08:52which is what I also posted on Threads, that I think I've accepted that right now the Vision Pro

1:09:00cannot be what I was hoping it would be last year. It cannot be my full-time computer. It cannot be

1:09:07what replaces my iPad. And I think I'm fine with the thought for now of the Vision Pro being what

1:09:15I use at night most of the time to watch movies, catch up on my YouTube queue, read some articles

1:09:22in good links, basically watching Apple TV+ content, that sort of stuff, being my media

1:09:27consumption device. And occasionally during the day when I feel like it, I can screen mirror my iPad,

1:09:35which is the only option as an iPad user that I have. In absence of iPad virtual display,

1:09:42I can screen mirror, which is not as good as Mac virtual display, but it's good enough.

1:09:48And I think I've accepted this reality that I'm fine with using the Vision Pro

1:09:54as a media device, an expensive media device, like a really expensive media device,

1:09:59but it does bring me that joy. It does feel awesome when I use it. That said,

1:10:04I would use it a whole lot more if the iPad was a first-class citizen in Vision OS like Mac OS is.

1:10:11Can you explain to me how the screen mirroring works?

1:10:16It's AirPlay. It's AirPlay. You're basically airplane to the Vision Pro,

1:10:20just like you can AirPlay the iPad screen to an Apple TV or something. You can AirPlay

1:10:26to a Vision Pro, which means you do get a bit of latency. Like right now, for example,

1:10:30I can physically look in front of me and I can see like half a second of a delay.

1:10:35But like you're touching the screen though, right? Like of your...

1:10:38No, I'm using the Magic Keyboard. The iPad is in the Magic... Yeah, yeah, yeah. But when I scroll,

1:10:43I can see that there's a tiny bit of delay between what I see on the iPad's physical screen

1:10:49and what I see on the mirrored window in Vision OS. But it's good enough, you know? I have written

1:10:57articles this way. I have gotten some work done this way. And it does feel nice to surround

1:11:04yourself with windows and doing the things that Vision OS does. But still, at the same time,

1:11:10I'm conflicted because the third-party app story just isn't there anymore. It kind of dried up

1:11:20after the initial rollout of developers who really wanted to be on board on the Vision OS app store.

1:11:26It's still not officially available in Italy, which means I still got to hold on to that fake

1:11:32US Apple ID that I've been trying to move away from. But I got to keep using it because the

1:11:38Vision Pro is not in Italy. And so, yeah, I kind of wanted to check in with you guys and see how

1:11:43you're using it. I have found a few uses for it. I agree with you that the lack of the native apps

1:11:51is brutal and iPad apps are a fallback. But I'll give you an example. I use OneWriter to write on my

1:12:00iPad Pro. Really nice customizable text editor. I've got it wired into shortcuts to post my

1:12:08story's directive into my CMS. And I've settled on OneWriter. It's good. It's my text editor.

1:12:15It's BB Edit on the Mac, OneWriter on the iPad. And I can run OneWriter on Vision OS, but it's

1:12:22in iPad compatibility mode, and it's just not as good. And so, I end up using Runestone by

1:12:28Simon Storving, which is good and a native app. It isn't as full featured as OneWriter is at all,

1:12:35but it doesn't matter because it's a native Vision OS app. And that means it's better. It's just,

1:12:39it's clearer. The text is crisper. You can resize it, and it's not pretending that it's inside an

1:12:46iPad shape. And so, it is frustrating that there aren't more of those. But I also don't blame

1:12:50developers for it because I know that there's nobody out there using Vision Pro right now. And

1:12:55so, you either have to sort of do it because it's a challenge and interesting to you personally,

1:13:00but not for financial gain, or because you think that maybe this will lead you somewhere eventually

1:13:05with Apple, which makes me come back to the fact that I feel like Apple needs to show more

1:13:11commitment to this platform. It's really committed to it. And they can do that in a bunch of

1:13:16different ways. The content, yes, the immersive content is amazing. And even 3D movies are great.

1:13:21I don't watch them a lot because I usually want to watch that stuff with Lauren. And so,

1:13:26you know, we're going to watch it on TV, on our couch. But occasionally I'll do it.

1:13:29And when I was in Memphis, I watched a college football game on a gigantic screen in my hotel

1:13:34room. And that was kind of fun to do. But like, so they, I know that their short film is coming out.

1:13:40The first scripted short film is coming out tomorrow. So that's something, but it's been

1:13:45really slow going. And a lot of things that we think might be great potential for this thing,

1:13:49there's no content for it. They've been very limited with what they do there.

1:13:52And then on the developer side, that's what I feel too, is like Apple needs to give developers

1:13:57reasons to build these apps. And I know that they're doing something. There's something in

1:14:01the show notes here. There's a piece about how Apple did a presentation at Apple park for

1:14:06vision pro developers. And it's like, that's good. More of that more, I mean, maybe like

1:14:11identify key developers who are laggards on the platform and come to them and say,

1:14:17how can we help? Can we get you hardware? Like I would literally identify the top 50 iOS developers

1:14:24in categories that matter. That would be good on vision OS. I would just target them and get them

1:14:29hardware and say, please work with us on this. Right. Like, and maybe they're doing it and

1:14:34there's no result, but I don't know. It sounds like they're not doing as much as they should

1:14:37be doing to get the developers to make apps for this thing. Yeah. That, that, that event,

1:14:43uh, developer Todd Heberlein, uh, posted a little blog post about it with some photos.

1:14:49They had what was essentially like a one day WWDC kind of thing, real presenters on stage,

1:14:56actually doing presenting, doing code. Like it looked kind of nice really, uh, to be honest. Um,

1:15:02and they're also doing a bunch more events around the world. I don't think they're to this level.

1:15:08Um, uh, I'm not sure if this one was, was like people were invited or you could apply to go.

1:15:13Um, but that kind of, this is the, you're right. This is the kind of stuff they need to do

1:15:18saying about like the big developers. I don't know if you saw, uh, Juno, the YouTube app has

1:15:25been kicked off the store. That's because YouTube are making an app. It's coming out next year.

1:15:30That's it. Why would Apple just let it go and take YouTube's word for it? It's because Apple

1:15:34and YouTube clearly already have a deal to bring the YouTube app and, and to VisionOS. So they're

1:15:40like, just let's just let this thing go away. But it's a shame because that's one of the best

1:15:44VisionOS apps that exists. Yeah. The app still exists. It won't be updated anymore. I still got

1:15:49it anymore. Yeah. But if you don't have it, you can't get it now. But that's why they're doing

1:15:54that because they're finally getting Google to release some apps, which is good. I mean,

1:15:58this is, this is the thing is look when, um, and you guys talked about this and thank you

1:16:02for referencing the upgrade conversation about it too. The meta Orion and, uh, not even an

1:16:07announcement, the showing off the prototype, which shifted the game. And I think it was really smart

1:16:11for meta. And we all, we all talked about that last time. Um, the thing like Apple doesn't have

1:16:19to, Apple doesn't have to do everything right now, but it needs to show commitment to where

1:16:24it's going. It doesn't need to reveal that it's also dreaming of an AR future. I think the reason

1:16:28the pass through is, is such a focus on vision pro is because it really is just kind of like an

1:16:33AR glasses developer unit. It really is just kind of like, we want you to think in terms of

1:16:38augmented reality, not virtual reality for it. Like that's all, that's all fine, but they need to

1:16:44show that commitment. They need to, to do, they can't do what meta has done, but I just, I need

1:16:51to see signs of life for them that this really does matter. And I know that it's not their

1:16:56language to do prototypes. So whatever Apple's love language is, they need to speak it about

1:17:02the vision pro so that everybody, and make an effort, even if, you know, they've said,

1:17:08Tim Cook has said, AR is more interesting than VR and that the, you know, it's a place of interest

1:17:13in all of those things. But like, I'd really like them to, to say, look, this is a longterm

1:17:18commitment for us. It doesn't matter that this, that the vision, current vision pro is, is just

1:17:23the start of the process. They've said some of that, but like their actions speak louder than

1:17:28those words. And I just want to see them say, there are lots of reasons that people should be

1:17:33developing software for this because this is going someplace. And, and the, the lack of shipping

1:17:41content for the platform is one of those things that really gives me pause, right? Because then

1:17:46the conversation is not, oh, the vision pro isn't a hit because it was never going to be a hit.

1:17:50The conversation is, does Apple care about the vision pro? And that's, that's a big problem.

1:17:55So when I saw this in the notes, I was thinking a bit about the vision pro, um, and like one of the,

1:18:03you know, yesterday, uh, I had a call a few friends, Jason was on the call. We sometimes

1:18:08hang out in vision pro just so we can use the special personas, which I think is the absolute

1:18:12very best feature of the vision pro. And the thing that I was struck by is that like the vision pro

1:18:18is like the coolest computer that I own and by a mile, like using that thing is unbelievable.

1:18:28Like still yesterday I put it on and I'm using it and I'm flipping around some maps and like,

1:18:32this is absolutely the future of computing. And I already own it. I just wish I have more to do on

1:18:39it. And like I can and have like find things to do, right? So like, I want to use it more. I'll

1:18:47find things to do kind of like what Federico is doing right now. Right? Like I will find something

1:18:51to do because I want to use this, but like Apple has to meet us a little closer. Right. And, and I,

1:19:00I do believe they will. Like I do not believe that they would just release this thing and then

1:19:08they'll allow it to go nowhere, but they're, they're just being slow with it. And I think

1:19:12that's okay. But I mean, if you see next year, I want to see vision of us three and it has a

1:19:18bunch of cool stuff in it, right? Like I want them to keep pushing it. Like I'm not of the camp of

1:19:23which there are a lot of people who are just saying it's dead. Like I don't believe that to

1:19:28be the case at all. I just think that there are a lot of factors for this device that limit it,

1:19:33like the price, the, the availability of it, like the interest of developers, it is limited,

1:19:40but it doesn't have to be that way forever. Yeah. Yeah. And I feel like because of these problems,

1:19:46now it's the time to be humble, reach out to developers, like Jason said, expand the options

1:19:54in terms of accessories, expand the options in terms of countries. Like, yeah, taking your foot

1:20:01off the gas now is the mistake that Apple can make with this platform. And so, um, yeah, I wanted to

1:20:10mention three things, um, that I'm enjoying with the vision pro. One is an accessory that I think

1:20:17you guys may like. I've already ordered it because I saw it in the notes and I ordered it already.

1:20:21So this is the, this is the Spigen head strap. It's basically a top strap for the vision pro

1:20:28that allows you to have the same setup that we had last year with the private demo at WWDC.

1:20:35You're using the solo knit band in the back, but you have a head strap at the top. And I've been

1:20:43using the solo top set up forever. The solo top is this system to have two solo knit bands. Um,

1:20:50yeah. So solo knit straps, whatever they're called. Um, but this one is much less bulky

1:20:56and much more comfortable because you only need to worry about adjusting the band with the,

1:21:02with the dial that sits in the back of your head. The one at the top, you can just set to one, to,

1:21:08uh, to a position that feels right to you and you don't need to worry about it anymore. It's

1:21:14perfect. I got it from Amazon. Yeah. I have high hopes for this because the solo top did not work

1:21:18for me. Like it didn't feel very comfortable. And also the, my eye tracking wasn't as good.

1:21:24I think you're going to like this. I think you're going to like this. Um, I also want to mention,

1:21:28uh, I've still been alternating between using the vision pro as a, as a VR headset with the,

1:21:34with the light seal versus using it, uh, with an open system. Yeah. I've read about the open

1:21:41system a few months ago. If you're interested, the company that made the air cover, um, they're

1:21:48called infinity one three D they make a bunch of accessories for, for various, uh, VR headsets. Um,

1:21:55the air cover lets you use the vision pro as, uh, almost an AR headset without the light seal.

1:22:03It's very comfortable, quite cheap. They have a version two, uh, that is very similar to the,

1:22:09to the original one. Maybe the, the printing material is a little bit nicer on the version

1:22:14two, but this is the one that I've been using, uh, sort of switching back and forth between this one

1:22:18and the light seal for when I really want to be immersed. There's something about this, like

1:22:23whenever I see the pictures of this where I'm just like convinced that you're just like burning your

1:22:27eyes. Like, I don't know why, like whenever I see pictures of it, I'm like, Oh God, it looks so bad.

1:22:32And I gotta say it does look bad, but I gotta say that it, it does help a lot in terms of like

1:22:38getting rid of the tunnel effect when you're looking into the vision pro right with the light

1:22:43seal. Um, vision OS two is much better than vision OS one at not bothering you so much with alerts,

1:22:53like, Oh, you should, you know, you're too close to this place. Like with vision OS two,

1:22:57the system tells you once and then kind of forgets about it. Whereas in vision OS one,

1:23:03it would be the sort of like, uh, Jason Snell alert that comes up every so often, you know,

1:23:10it comes up and it bothers you and it annoys you and it gets in your way. Not so much anymore. Um,

1:23:15lastly, I want to recommend the sub stack newsletter, uh, last week in Apple vision pro

1:23:22it's the name. And it's just a very good newsletter that sort of collects a bunch of

1:23:26vision OS things. It's, it's the next, it's the closest thing to a blog all about vision OS that

1:23:33I've found. And they do a really good job sort of collecting all the things that developers come up

1:23:39with interviews, um, new demos from YouTube. It's just a weekly collection of vision OS and vision

1:23:48pro related things. And they do a really good job. And yeah, quite nice. Yeah. So that's, uh,

1:23:57that's my three things. And yeah, Mike mentioned our, our, uh, little chats that we try to do.

1:24:01We try to put on the calendar, right? Because that's, that's one of the challenges is people

1:24:05don't have, um, they're not like, Hey, let's just check in with my friend who happens to be wearing

1:24:11vision pro right now, which I kind of wish they would like offer some sort of solution for that,

1:24:16where you could like see what ones of your friends like, like how actually on the, on the meta quest,

1:24:21um, it works that way where you can, you know, it's like, like a game console. It's like your

1:24:27friend is on right now. Um, so I wish they would do that, but I, the, the perspecial personas are

1:24:32so good. And I try to explain it to people. And I think that they all think that I'm crazy,

1:24:37but it's like when, when we were doing this one this week, it's like, we're just around like a

1:24:43campfire or something. And it feels completely different than being on a video call with

1:24:47somebody. It feels fun. It's not the same as being together in person, but it's much closer to that

1:24:54than it is to be on a FaceTime call. It just, you're not seeing yourself and, and making sure

1:24:59that you're positioned in the frame. Like you're just present in reality, basically, virtual

1:25:04reality, and you see people's facial expressions and you hear them and the position of the audio

1:25:09is perfect. It's so good. Again, nobody has got a Vision Pro, so you gotta be, you gotta have those

1:25:17people and you gotta make the time, but it's so good. And then I'll throw it out again. I mentioned

1:25:21Runestone earlier. The other thing I use the Vision Pro for is absolutely when I am on a

1:25:26deadline and I am, I just cannot focus. And I need to write something. I will put the Vision Pro on,

1:25:35go into an environment, bring up Runestone, play some music that will help me focus. And I have

1:25:42written many articles in Vision Pro for that reason, that it gives me, you know, I've written

1:25:50about it before. Sometimes I'll go outside in the summertime or I'll go work at the,

1:25:53at the kitchen countertop, or I'll just try to like change where I am or back in the day,

1:25:59go to a cafe just to put myself in a different mental space to write. And I found that Vision Pro

1:26:06will let me do that. And then I can go to Joshua Tree is my mental space and, and right there. And

1:26:10it really does work most of the time. It's a very good product that is very expensive and requires

1:26:18the effort, but if you're okay with all of that, God damn it's good. You know, like it's real good.

1:26:26And again, I know that provided they are willing to commit, it will all continue to get better.

1:26:36I guess the next little while is they're willing to commit. I think that method is probably holding

1:26:41their feet to the fire and we'll see how Apple responds if at all. But I think that if, if it

1:26:47had been taken the backseat, I don't think they can, they can accept that to occur anymore.

1:26:51Sure hope so. Thank you for listening to this episode of connected, but most of all,

1:26:56thank you, Jason, for joining us. Oh, it was, I listen every week. So it was a pleasure to be on

1:27:02and fill in for Steven this week. What was today's date, Jason? It is, uh, October the 9th, 2024.

1:27:09Check it out. Accept no substitutes. That big thing that happened later in October, 2024.

1:27:15We didn't know about it. Sorry. Didn't know about it. If you want to find Jason online,

1:27:20you can go to six colors.com. He is also the host of upgrade here on relay. Let's say co-host. I

1:27:27don't know why I just, why did I just demote myself like that? Jason is the one and only

1:27:31person worth listening to on upgrade. You can check him there every Monday. It's just, you're

1:27:36just being, you know, it's official in your role as Mike on connected to sort of accuse yourself.

1:27:43You can also find Jason on the incomparable and other shows on relay too, including downstream.

1:27:48I always go to call it download. You'd think I would have gotten that right by now,

1:27:52but I was actually successful at that time. So I shouldn't have called attention to it.

1:27:55You can find Jason online is at Jason. Now J S N E double L Federico is the editor in chief of max

1:28:02stories. You can find Federico at max stories.net. And he is also the teacher at max stories.net on

1:28:08mastodon of a teachy on threads. I am I Mike I M Y K E and you can find my work here on relay

1:28:15and a cortex brand.com. Uh, I'd like to thank our sponsors of this week's episode. That is the

1:28:20wonderful people over at net suite, E cam and cell trios. But most of all, thank you for listening

1:28:26and we'll be back next week until then. Say goodbye, everybody. Later, dude.

1:28:33And like the dude? Yeah, I love it.

1:28:36(laughs)