Hello and welcome to Connected Episode 508. It is made possible this week by our sponsors ZockDock, TailScale and KRCS. I am your keynote chairman, Stephen Hackett, and I'm joined by your annual chairman, Mike Hurley. Hello, I am the annual chairman, Mike Hurley, and I'm here to let you know the cause of the DMA. Unfortunately, we're unsure if we're allowed to have Federico anymore. Federico, I don't know if you're there. Are you allowed to confirm if you're allowed to be on the show anymore?
Ah, hi. I thought I was going to prank you for a second. Yeah, well, the DMA does not apply to me. Oh, wow, no one can cage him in. He's Federico, but teaching. No legislation can hold him down. I'm not a chairman, but I can still be on the show. Okay. Yeah. Look, we all, we all, we've all been in that season, right? We don't hold a title. And part of you feels diminished, right? Like you feel cold in the morning. I don't have
those problems. I don't think it's possible for Federico to feel diminished. Yeah. I feel like I think title was robbed from me. Oh, okay. You probably are. I feel like Federico is very diminished. I don't know what the opposite of diminished is. Yeah, I'm very augment. I'm augmented. Augmented. Augmented. Augmented. He's a cyber teacher. He's got his hacks going on. Whatever the opposite of diminished is, that's what I am. Yes. No. Okay.
Anyway, it's good to be back on the show. I listened to the previous episode, fun episode. So thank you guys for for taking care of that. And I wanted to especially mention that from the pro show, I really loved the name needle as an idea for a threads client. If those ever become a reality, I thought there was a, I thought there was a really good suggestion. And Stephen, your dad joke about the tapestry of clients was horrible. So.
Well, thank you. I think if you would like to hear all of these great suggestions and jokes and you should become a connector pro member, go to getconnectopro.co and you can sign up. That's right. I'm glad you enjoyed the show last week because part of that show is here this week in the in the form of follow up. That was nice. Chris wrote in, this is the last time we're going to talk about the today view. I wasn't going to do it, but I realized
that I wanted to hear Federico's take on it. So. Okay. So Chris wrote in, I'm deep into focus modes. And the today view is a place where the widgets stay consistent regardless of which focus mode I am in. I'm now interjecting. Do we think it's because Apple forgot about the today view when they were making friends? Yeah. Me too. What no, because they're so that they've forgotten about it is that they are not adding to it because they're going
to remove it. All right. Like the, the, the clues are all here. Okay. Okay. Red string man on, you know, I am, I am Charlie day. I am connecting all of the points, but this is another one. That's why we named the show connected actually.
I will add to that that I think Mike is on to something. And I will say they are not going to spend any more engineering efforts into the today view because that today view will eventually become a smart Apple intelligence view, Apple intelligence view where instead of widgets, which you can get, you can get just about anywhere else at this point on iOS.
Yeah. Instead of widgets, you will have some like Google has this something similar to that like Apple intelligence giving you an actual brief of the day or like a set like a, you know, just an Apple intelligence page where you can get a bunch of AI features. Well, actually making it more like a today view, which it currently is just a, which is
paid, like there's nothing else there. Federica, you may be able to answer a question from you now that I just thought, um, if you tint your home screen stuff and I have a C team, does it do anything to the today view? Oh, let's see. No, I don't think one of you, one of you beta boys can let me know. I got my beta zone right here. Let me see. No, because when you tint the icons, it only applies to the icons. No, widgets tent,
widgets tent too. Uh, it does. The today view. Yeah. It does. Okay. Cause it's going to save it didn't like that's another big, big thing to connect some string to, you know? Yeah, I never use the tinting. So, uh, for the first time in a few years, I think this year's home screen updates are like things that I think Apple is writing doing, but for the first time in a few years, things that are not for me, like, um, the tinting or the
custom icon layout. I think those are for a lot of people very welcome. And for the first time in a few years, things that I will never use. So, yeah, never use the tinting. These are not for the old man iPhone users that we have probably, right? This is what I think we, we know it's a immediately, which is like, this is great that you can do this, but I have spent like 15 years working on just having one on my home screen. Like I don't
have space to have space. Although I will say I did have this thought, I think when I was listening to Mac Power users, I have a widget space on my iPhone for home screen widgets. So I can on my on my home screen, that's the home app. Right? What? So I have a home. Hello, my name is Michael Haley and I'm here for Scramble Brain on my on my iPhone home screen. You know, if you're familiar with the iPhone, I am. Are you, are you? Is the question. I am a professional. Like people pay me to speak.
What are you trying to say? What are you trying to say? Man, I'm too far in it now. So I have on my home screen, my second screen, a space for home widgets, right? Like a widget to my home. Yes, yes, I got a home widgets. When I'm doing this and neither of you are saying anything, it gets worse. You have a second page on your home screen that you only use for home kit widgets. No, not only, but there is a spec, there is like, I have
a medium widget there. Okay. There's a space for home widgets home. Yeah, for the home. Yeah, for the home app, medium size widget. Yes. And with the updates to control center, I feel like I'm not going to need that widget anymore because I expect I will be able to specifically define what I want, which is what I was asking for two years ago or a year ago. And then Apple gave me that widget where you can define what you want. It's like all
that solve the problem. But I feel like not only will I be able to get the widgets, like will I be able to specify exactly what controls and interactions I want in an in a viewing control center for home that I'll also get the enhancements of being able to use those to change brightness levels and stuff rather than the way it is on the home, unlike the widget right now for home where you can just turn things on and off. So that will actually give me some space
that I don't currently have. And I wonder if I might like rearrange things to because I'll have that space, but I don't know. I'll have the space, which is good is what I want to say. Okay. I'm glad to set that. We're going to leave it all in exactly as it happened. I mean, there's no way to edit around it. Like that's for sure. Just in there. We don't pay any edit or enough money to try and make sense of that. I did the thing recently.
I was editing something and the person restarted a word, but halfway through it. So I didn't have a clean moment like of the whole word. I did the thing where I cut the middle of it out and squish it together and you can't tell. It's like the best editing. It makes you feel like an AI or an AI. No, I think humans do a bat in an AI right now. But for now, it makes you feel so powerful. If you're able to do that, you never finished Chris's
follow up by like, by the way, well, we're halfway through it. I know. Chris continues. I keep music, podcasts and contact widgets there. So I don't have to keep them on main pages. I don't have to duplicate those in every focus mode. Just wanted to share an alternative use case. I think it's a very good alternative use case. I don't, the only focus mode I use as sleep. And so I gave up on all the other side. I was not aware of this the way that
this worked, but very cool. Well, I recommend that Chris creates the second home screen page of all these things on because the today views going to go away. You know, it's funny. I've been paying attention in the last week or so. Like I've used the today view a few times because I have like a shortcuts widget there. Like so I'm aware that I'm doing
it sometimes. But I actually think that these specific things I will also put in control center because the point is having access to them in more places when there'll be a control center. And then here's a thought. If this were to go away and Chris's use case would be obviously broken a little bit. If you really relied on this, would the solution be instead of using focus mode, you have an iPhone for each focus. So I was like, Oh, this is the
phone I use at work. This is the phone I use at home. This is the phone I use when I'm running. And I don't really show how that solves Chris's problem at all. Individually. It's just an alternative. Maybe that's what Apple wants. You know, they're going to get rid of the day view some more phones. Think about it. Think about that. That is that on your court board, Mike. You know, the other meme, the one with the dominoes, you know,
like the guys pushing the dominoes. Yes. That's what you're trying to do. If that happened, then that's what you're building because I don't know what those steps in the middle law. But I guess that's the point. Are you or today view user Federica? Not really. No, it's it used to be like an aspirational feature for me where I would put widgets and be like, Oh, yeah, widgets there. Now I can use them. And then I never do.
But there's something bigger a play here, which is I think actually like I don't think I'm a big widget person on my iPhone at all. Like the thing is I do have one small widget on my home screen. And that's about it because like I really don't like swipe and scrolling to access information. I use widgets on my iPad a bunch like I think, you know, the iPad
with the extra space, I think widgets make more sense there. But on my iPhone, if I'm supposed to navigate between multiple pages to get to a widget or if I'm supposed to scroll through a stack of widgets, like by the time I'm done scrolling or or you know, swiping between pages, like what up what I could do instead is pull down spotlight, open the app I'm looking for. Like why swipe multiple times or scroll multiple times to get to
the calendar widget where I can just search for Cal open calendar and I'm done. Like I'm a big spotlight user on the iPhone much more than widgets. And this is something that I've started to really realize over over the past year. Like I think widgets are better than ever. But on the iPhone, the way that home screen is designed and the way spotlight is so easily accessible. And now with control center becoming customizable, like I don't think I'm going to use widgets that much honestly.
Hmm. Yeah. Friendship and with widget. Yeah. Spotlight, my new control center. Yeah. Oh, spot spotlight. I love. So like I use spotlight so much, especially because I like to keep a single screen. And since I started keeping a single home screen, I've also started using the app library a lot more. Yeah, baby. Because when you're so, yeah, I know it's actually pretty good because when you swipe left, it's immediately right
there. If you have a single home screen, you swipe left and the next page is the app library. And so both spotlight and the app library, I guess I like search. It would be the big realization here. I like search more than glanceable info. Yeah. Yeah. So no, I don't use it to debut. Okay. Yeah. Mike, tell us about design apps for the iPad. Well, people wrote in I tried out concepts. And we had Michael, who's an architect right in to say, I am
an architect and I will buy an iPad for concepts alone. So I second the on air vote and hope you give it a deep look. And this is the thing I gave it a quick look. And is there's a lot going on in this application? It's like quite intimidating, I think. Like if you want to pick a color, how about color swatches with every possible color in the world? It's like, okay, like there's a lot happening in the concepts app. And so I've downloaded
it and I've put up my iPad home screen and I'm like, gonna poke around of it. I feel like this is an application. It's probably best served by watching a video course. But I also feel similar about procreate like procreate is another app really powerful. But it's just like there's so much that you'd have to dig into. But that, you know, I guess it's I could go on right like Photoshop to any of these applications that are intentionally deep.
They are the learning curve is hard. There was a there was also another recommendation for an app called Morpholio trace from BG who's also an architect clearly architects and iPads are best friends, which actually kind of makes sense. Morpholio trace gives you layers of like tracing paper. So it's a great way to set scale and a ruler of it. So like, you know, instead of just like the layers are intentionally see through, which I think
is an interesting idea for design. So I've got all of these apps downloaded to try out. I see the benefit of concepts. But I do wonder if maybe I want to use free form for a bit first to graduate to something like concepts. Like I've never even used an app like this like these infinite canvas apps for anything other than playing around. You know, like we've all set up free form boards and dump on stuff and shared them with people and drawn pictures
in our vision pros or whatever. But the idea of actually using an app like this for work is something I've not done. And so I do feel like concepts might be a bit too high of a bar for me right now. And I'm going to try free form. But I put them both on my home, the home screen of my 13 and try pro next to each other to kind of like poke around with them. And I have some time and a use for it. But very powerful applications. And I appreciate
the recommendations. But yeah, just go to go to wait out a little bit first. I think it definitely seems like there's a whole world of apps in this category. I would just wasn't aware of. And some of them look bakers. It's cool though. I mean, yeah, you know, if I were to design a building, right, I'd probably do it on iPad. Yeah. You're just like flinging windows around. I mean, I feel like a thing where you're doing something professionally
with a drawing tool. Yeah. It's very easy to move to the iPad. Like because now you have so much more flexibility and power available to you than you had before because now you have a computer underneath you instead of pen and paper. Like I think that there is a very smart like scale there that gets you to that point, you know. This episode of connected is brought to you by Zock doc. Are you the person in your family who has the reputation for treating
yourself to nice things? You probably are if you're anything like me, you know, this is the backpack I'm going to use forever. Well, look, if you treat yourself to top options and silly things like bags, then why settle on finding a doctor? That's where Zock doc comes in. Zock doc is the place where you can find and book tens of thousands of top tier doctors all with verified patient reviews. So don't settle. Go for the best and find
the doctor that's right for you with Zock doc. You have more options than you know. Zock doc is a free app and a website where you can compare highly rated in network doctors near you and instantly book appointments with them online. And once you find the doctor you want, you can book them immediately, no more waiting awkwardly on hold with the receptionist. And
all of these doctors have verified reviews from actual real human being patients. We're talking about booking appointments with thousands of top rated patient reviewed credible doctors and specialists. You can filter specifically for ones who take your insurance or located near you or treat basically any condition you're searching for. The typical wait time to see a doctor booked on Zock doc is between just 24 and 72 hours. That's it. You can even
often score same day appointments. If you've moved or you've changed healthcare coverage, you've gone through this right. You're trying to find doctor who fits your needs is convenient to where you are. Zock doc is a great way to do that because they have this huge database of doctors and all of these patient reviews. Give you confidence that when you show up at the office, you know what to expect. And that's important when it comes to healthcare.
So go to zock doc.com slash connected and download their app for free. Then find and book a top rated doctor today that Zock doc, Z O C D O C, Zock doc.com slash connected. Federico, there's a line in the document that says Federico also has an app request. What's up? So this is a pretty simple question. So I subscribe to a few websites that I enjoy reading their stuff and they have obviously subscription models. So what I'm looking for and usually
I like to read those websites in their original website design. Like I don't want to save them to a read later app. I just want to cycle through those websites like every night or every morning and see what's new. Now you may just say, well, just bookmark them in Safari and open a new tab for each of these websites. And sure, that could work.
But I'm curious to see if there's a one iOS and iPad OS like a quote unquote browser app that I can use just to read some specific websites like a stripped down version of Safari that puts the emphasis on this like 10 bookmarks that I have. And I'm not looking for an RSS replacement. I guess the closest analogy to what I'm looking for is like, imagine
a single site browser app, but it's not for a single site. It's just to browse, I don't know, five websites, you know, I was thinking about the app feed with like five ease in the middle. It's got feed. I like sometimes when you say something like that, like, you know, I was thinking about this. Like I've never heard of this application. Like, but it's just obviously you were just more plugged into the new apps, right? It's a pretty pretty cool
looking app. Nilean reviewed this one on Mac. Sorry, it's a few months back. And it's sort of the idea of feed is to aggregate multiple news sources into one. So like you can book mark websites, but you can also import RSS. You can follow YouTube channels, Reddit communities and read it all in one place. And that's more tool than I need. Literally what I'm looking for is like a separate browser that keeps my cookies and keeps my login session active
for the seven websites that I pay a subscription for. And I want to read them in a separate UI from Safari. Is there a way to do this on a US and iPad OS? Well, I'm going to, I'm going to ask you the request that the suggestion that Kate put in discord, which is like, have you considered a tab group for these? I don't really, I don't really like using tab groups because then if you are in one of those websites and you open a tab, then it, you know, it's, I'm really not a fan of
the tab group UI and how it works. And then when I open Safari, I mean the tab group. No, I want to keep my browser for opening link like and then if I close the tab group and I go to ivory and I click on a link in ivory, then it opens in the tab group and it has nothing to do with the websites that I want to read in there. No, like if possible, I would prefer to avoid tab groups. And if you consider just using another browser,
like ARC or ICab. No. Wow. Yeah. Which to which was that sound? Or was it to or to ARC, which is the saddest story of 2024. And app that started with some really clever UI decisions and then had to screw it all up with AI. Thanks. I'm just going to say I intentionally provoked you and I apologize for doing that. I intentionally said august because I wanted to get your reaction. Yeah, that was the reaction. It's the most like at the end of the year
we'll give it an award for like most bummer of an app release in 2024. Started out with some genuinely incredible UI ideas. And then they had to do the AI thing. I mean, they did the thing that was the most obvious for like for what they are. Right. Yeah. As a, I believe venture based new browser. The obvious thing that they would do is go harder. Like that is the I'm not saying it's the right thing, but it is the obvious thing that you would
do as the company in issues. Yeah. So anyway, to answer your question, I could use another browser, but typically browsers have a whole series of functionalities that like I'm looking for something really simple. Ideally, where like here's your five websites, open one, read it. Open the second one, read it like something simple, you know, doesn't have to
have a lot of features. I just want to take this and I literally believe it's six or seven websites, take them out of Safari and read them in a standalone environment that is not a read later app like I don't need a text parser. I don't need any of those features. I just need something simple to keep seven websites bookmarked and read them without AI, without text parser, without like it's not even necessary to have an ad blocker because
those websites don't have had, they don't have ads since I paid them. So yeah, it's like like something like fluid, remember fluid on macOS, but with support for multiple websites and a clean iOS and iPad OS UI, just that. I'm going to make another really weird, I'm just going to make a weird suggestion. What about, you're going to hate it. A folder on your home screen that has each website saved as a as a program of attitude. Like honestly,
if it comes to that, I think that's what I'm going to do. Like if I'm not find a dedicated browser app that does that, I think that's what I'm going to do. Just save them to the home screen, put them in a folder and have a little icons for each. And that's what I'm going to do. Yeah. Do these websites not offer RSS feeds? Is that the, they do, but also like I subscribe to hundreds of RSS feeds and, you know, the problem is all it's all a
matter of self control. When I open Safari, then I get distracted by my other tabs. If I open my RSS client, then I get distracted by my other subscriptions. You know, so you want like a, you want like a clean room environment kind of thing. Yes. Just that where like, look, here's where you're going to read platformer after math. You know, all the other web, Stephen Tutilo's newsletter, like all the things you pay for, this is the
space where you read just those. Have you considered an eating tablet? Yeah, I see that now this is all this is catching on, right? And I think, I understand why. And I think it's an appealing device for a lot of people. But the thing is, I love my phones display. Like I get it. I get why people are looking for a detox device from the phone. I don't have the problem because I love my phone. And I love the way that it looks with colors,
you know, I, you know, I understand why people prefer e readers. I just really like the screen on my phone and my iPad. Like I would prefer. And also like, I don't want a pocket another thing. I'm trying to get rid of things to put in my pocket, not to other than additional one. Okay. Well, let us know if you have suggestions. Yeah. I don't know if such thing exists. But if it does, let us know. We had a note from listener Apollo
who wanted to check in on Federica's Nomad Horene leather case. So how's that going? Yeah. Yeah. Let's go in that I'm not using that anymore, but I'm using another Nomad product. So I switched from the leather case to the Suti phone back case at the beginning of the year. Now this is a relatively, what? Sorry. What? US UTI Suti is the name of the company phone back is the name of the accessory. I thought I thought you were using the Nomad leather back. Oh, don't give me a second. Oh, sorry,
sorry. I'm sorry. We got to roll around this a story. All right. Okay. Yeah. I started using that at the beginning of the year. I really liked the idea that was a silicon case. Well, not a case. There was a silicon back like just the back cover made of a pretty much the same material as a regular silicon case, but just the back. And I liked that so much. I used it for a couple of months. I put in a reservation for the Nomad back cover version.
It was not available at the time. And I got it about a month ago. And I started using it since instead of the Suti phone back. Now I'm using the what's the official name of the Nomad back cover thing word. Magnetic leather back. The magnet. Yeah. That's what I'm using now. The Nomad magnetic leather back. And I absolutely love it. It gives me the texture that I like. And it frees the sides of the phone from being covered by a case.
And yeah, I love this thing. I love how it feels. I love how it's aging. And I love that I can see my titanium edges of the phone. I highly recommend it. I tried one of these for a while. The magnetic leather back. And I don't know. So it's magnetic, but it also uses the little like micro suction adhesive to also kind of put on the phone. And maybe it's because I'm an Apple wallet user now like the leather wallet thing on the back of
the phone. But I had trouble with this staying on the phone like it the top part of one to like come floppy after a while really. And so I stuck it in the drawer unfortunately. But in return to my beloved peak design every day, iPhone case with the mount thing on the back. me and gray were talking about them at state of the hardware because we were kind of commiserating peaks action button life cycle. Yes. I'm on the V2 now with the
with the button. It's going to happen again though, right? Like with the capture button. And potentially the and potentially the if they go capacitive buttons, they got to do with that too. You would expect that they've learned a lesson now. I mean, what's the lesson though? Don't make a phone case until the phones out. That's the that's the whole play though, right? That's the problem. Unless you got to eat a bunch of your
business like they did. You know, I mean, I would love to know from them. And also don't make cutouts for buttons instead of making actual buttons that, you know, these cases they have buttons that press buttons. Here's a question I have because I don't know this. I don't know if any of you know, I don't know if people know if the buttons are capacitive in that they do not move. Yeah. Can you make a button that presses that button?
I'm sure there's some material. I'm sure there's some. Yeah, it's like a productive. Yeah. Yeah. It's it's like those meat sticks people were using to touch their phones. Yeah. I mean, we're sending people to the moon. Well, pretty sure we can figure out well, I mean, hopefully soon again. No, we're going to send them. I mean, it's pretty really long time. We used to send them. Yeah. Ever. All right. I guess I don't know.
We failed as a species because then we stopped sending them and we cannot make buttons that press capacitive buttons. But we can make a browser with five ease in the name. So sure. I got that. Sure. Yeah, but it doesn't solve that or it goes problem. So that's true. You know, can we really do this? I don't know if we can do this. Look, maybe we failed as a species is the realization this week on this. And the reason we know we failed is because
Federico cannot find an app to look at six websites. Look, I just need to look at six or seven websites. I'm not sure it's six or seven, all right. And I just need a simple app to look at them. And everybody wants to give me. There's an app for five. Everybody wants to give me features. Look, I don't want features. I just need to look at six or seven websites. I've got a bunch of websites here. I want to look at it and what's the problem? What's
what if you got one IPad mini one IPad mini per website? All these apps are like, hey, don't you want ad blockers? Don't you want a keychain? Hey, do you want pin tabs? Do you want AI summaries? I'm like, look, I just need to look at six or seven. Seven. Seven tabs. Just six or seven. I'm really I'm kind of happy. And at the same time, sad that you detailed the websites. Like I think if you would have just saying, it's just six websites.
I just never say what they are. People will have assumptions, I think. That's why I'm sad that he didn't say it, but also happy that he said it. You know what I mean? This is a good. I said three and look, it's basically all tech and gaming subscriptions. Oh, no, basically chorus FM excellent website. Yeah. Anyway, yeah. Okay. The human race, right? Yeah. So you were using the Nomad magnetic leather back case. Not case. Not back. Just
a back. Just a back. I have broken free of the industrial case complex. Wow. Oh, you're free from big case. Yeah. Free from big case. I'm free from big case. I was your phone take called absolutely fine. Absolutely fine. No problems here. Good. I don't break phones like you do. I don't see you're a part of big case and you break everything. Oh, maybe I broken free from big case. The only thing I break is free from, you know, wow. What
is that even me? You know what it means. I don't know. Everybody gets it. No, everyone knows. I'm just breaking free from. I ain't breaking phones. You know. Okay, Mike. Beats is back. Everybody's favorite Apple owned company other than Filemaker, obviously. The Beats pill, which is their standalone Bluetooth speaker is back. It was taken off the market. I don't even remember 22, 2022, I think. And it has shown up in a bunch of like
celebrity Instagram posts over the last few months. And it is now out. We have a couple links in the show notes, including to a hands-on from our buddy Chance Miller over at 9 to 5 Mac. And it is very much like the old beats. I think in terms of shape and size, but Apple says it's basically all new inside and out with better speakers. It is has better water resistance. You can use it by the pool and it's going to be okay or maybe like on a shelf
in the shower. And it comes in a bunch of fun colors. I really like the champagne gold with the matte black and the red also look pretty nice. But there are a couple things about this that are confusing to me. And I think the big one is the lack of airplay. Yeah, help me understand who would buy this product instead of literally any sonos portable speaker because you're a fan of Beats as a brand. Like just Bluetooth for an Apple own
company seems wild to me. Well, I think what Steven said earlier about like beats obviously has a brand, right? Which I think that they have gone back to their roots a little bit with the marketing of this product in that it was being seen everywhere in the hands of musicians and athletes. And I think that's the that's the whole thing. This is a pure like you want to look like the influencer, right? You want to be carrying the beats pill around
while you're walking from thing to thing. Like I think that's that's what this is like apparently it's good, but it is weird not to have airplay. It's good that they have all the features that they have, right? Like it being a Bluetooth speaker. Fantastic, right? I think it has does it have as USB C, right? Does it have a line in or anything like that? It does. I don't think it has line in, but you can use a USB C cable and get high fidelity
audio. That's what I was thinking of. So it gets an interesting product, but it is weird in that it does like it has a bunch of like Apple focus features, but not airplay. Like that is weird. I think the biggest, the biggest example of this weirdness is in the YouTube like design video of it, which is like an Apple video, but not. There's a section in it touting the setup process and it says if you use Apple or if you use Android, they don't
say the iPhone. It's super weird and it really jumped out at me is like, oh, they're talking to an audience that is much broader than just people buying iPhones, right? They're talking to the beats audience. Yeah, it's their own thing. It's their own thing. So, but it's weird to say Apple though. I can't believe it made it out the door without them saying. Do you use Mac? Do you guys use Apple? You guys use Apple? I use, no, I don't use Apple.
I use Mac. But what I have yet to see and I think there's a travesty. Where's the where's the pill dude case? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Where is it? They made an ad with them. I don't know if you saw that. They made like a little teaser ad and it's like three pill people talking to each other. But I don't see the pill person case and I feel like at this point, what's the point? You know, why even bother? Make one and sell it on Etsy
like 30. I don't know how to do it. But I can I can sure try. Yeah, they made an ad two days ago called pill people a back and it's a new version and it's actually pretty funny. That is pretty funny. And but I want to know, where's the case? Let me let me buy the pill people case. I do like that that like you can tell the times have moved on because I'm pretty sure that the case was called pill dude. But now it's pill people.
So good walk, beats, you know, yeah, moving with a time. Don't gender my speaker. Exactly. You know what? Yes. Don't gender my speaker. That's what I say. That's what you can't stop me saying that. You can't. It's tattooed right on my arm. The the the other thing
kind of interesting thing about this is that this product did go away, right? It was it was gone in 2022 and now it's back and and that they use the inner leaving time like the the run up to like an NBA players like carrying it around because it has a strap on it where you can like carry it like the old like the I up I touch had that for like one generation remember that like the way near to whatever. And yeah, I mean it got pulled for the market.
I think there were a bunch of recalls. Is this the beat speaker that had all the recalls? And I think you know more about beats than I do. I think so. I mean, I walk into a best by every once in a while. And it's like an assault of beats products. It's wild. But but they're back and it's not for everybody. Clearly it'd be cool with airplay. I don't know if that's a costing or or what. But I think that would make this more attractive
to the apple side of their customer base. But I'm sure they've got the information like if most of their users aren't interested in that or just going to use Bluetooth then you know, focus on that. And if it gave them the budget to do the cool USB-C playback thing then hey, that's that's good too. So all right, I have a question for you. Right?
Because you mentioned about like it would make it better. Do you believe that the people they are marketing to like the average consumer uses or knows about airplay or that they
want to connect to a Bluetooth speaker? Yeah. So I think that while it is weird, I think if we're considering this product as a whole like in its marketing and its messaging and who it is for, Bluetooth is actually the best thing for it rather than spending the effort and additional cost to put in the technology which I believe is Wi-Fi to have airplay. So maybe they're just like, you know what? Everyone just wants a Bluetooth speaker.
Let's just give them a Bluetooth speaker. No, you're probably right. Bluetooth. A weird word. Bluetooth? Yeah. Yeah. Bluetooth. This episode of Connected is brought to you by Tailscale, a programmable networking software that is private and secure by default. Tailscale is the easiest way to connect devices and services to each other wherever they are.
It's super secure, providing remote access to production databases, servers, Kubernetes and more, and it's super fast plus it grants privacy for everyone and every organization. Tailscale is an intuitive programmable way to manage a private network including zero trust network access that every organization can use. With Tailscale, you can build simple
networks across complex infrastructure. You can use their ACL policies to securely control access to devices and services with their next-gen network access controls and you can authenticate without authentication using Tailscale app connectors. So try Tailscale app for free for up to 100 devices and three users at tailscale.com-relayfm.
There's no credit card required. That's tailscale-tail.tailscale.com-relayfm to try tailscale for free for up to 100 devices and three users with no credit card required. Thanks to Tailscale for the support of the show and relayfm. I don't know how much we want to talk about this today, but I want to open the floor for discussion if it's desired, which is a little update with Apple and the European Union.
So two big stories have occurred in the last four or five days. First was Apple announcing that they're holding back Apple Intelligence, iPhone mirroring and share play screen sharing from the European Union due to concerns about DMA interrupt probability rules and their
impact on security because of it. And then also the European Union has found Apple and announced that they have found Apple in breach of the DMA because of anti-steering rules and have announced that they are investigating the CTF, essentially to try and sum this
up. It's very complicated, some are but I'll try. The EU is unhappy with the ways in which Apple is limiting the ability for developers to freely enable alternate payment methods and side loading of apps like it's still too complicated to do it without, and then also that they have developers can't get any of this unless they accept to the new business
terms, which they're also unhappy with because of the CTF. So they have announced that they are in breach due to anti-steering and they are going to launch a third investigation
with I believe Spotify music being the first one. This is the second one and then the third one is the core technology fee as to whether that is something that should be an ongoing thing like being in their press release, the European Union is like we accept that Apple should get paid but not on an ongoing basis and also not for every possible purchase that
a developer could be made through an application. So they're the two big areas I would like to open up the floor for discussion to you to like where you're feeling, where are the vibes? I don't know, I don't know what I think honestly. On the DMA, I feel like, I don't know, part of me feels like this whole thing is being mismanaged by Apple and I feel like there's a part of Apple that thinks they know better than European regulators and this is all unfair
and they don't want to respect what is now a law and they just feel like they should do everything they possibly can to try and get away with it with the bare minimum implementation of what the law is asking for and then there's also a part of me that feels like this is all new and you want to give them the benefit of the doubt and they're just trying to understand
as they go along what will be okay and what will want to be okay. So I'm very torn like I don't know what to think especially because I don't work at Apple and I just know that from the outside looking in, it's hard not to feel like the customers are losing out as always with these things. I see a lot of people, this is all very political as a topic
obviously. It is actually politics. It is actually politics and there's people saying, oh, those damn Europeans and their silly stupid laws and then I see other people saying, well, Apple is evil and it's an evil company. They fooled you into thinking they're a good company. The EU must go after them and do everything they can to regulate them out of existence
and I don't know, I feel like I'm somewhere in the middle. I feel like there's parts of the DMA that yeah, are confusing and companies need to navigate this waters now and understand what parts of the law actually involve and a part of me also thinks, well, you know, Apple though and especially App Store management. They absolutely hate the idea of side-glowing
and allowing customers to make purchases without Apple getting a cut. I just hope that as a customer, try and think about this from the perspective of somebody who doesn't care about tech news, somebody who doesn't listen to podcasts, just a regular iPhone person in the EU. I think as a person, I would prefer if I could save a little money on my Spotify
subscription. I think I would like it if I could download all the emulators I wanted instead of being okay for some emulators but not others and ultimately, I think you got to put people first and so that's sort of the perspective on trying to follow. I like Apple, I like the products they make, I like the services they make. I don't like some of their decisions for especially for the App Store and so that's what I think. I don't want to take a particular
extremist side because it's not what I feel. And I also want to add for the features, for the Apple Intelligence features. There's an Italian saying, it's an expression, I'm not sure if there's an English version of it. Basically it says, to think bad things is a sin but everyone's in a while you're right would be a rough translation of it. And so yeah, I mean, maybe for real Apple is holding back Apple Intelligence because they don't
understand how it relates to the DMA. But you know, you got to think that. I believe it's both things. Yeah, I do. Like, I believe in regards to the way that the DMA speaks about interoperability, why they have picked that these specific features, right? Because if interoperability is needed for them, this is a very security risk or kind of impossible to do with the way that Apple is architected the features and the way
that they want to do them, right? I also, I feel like it's kind of funny that so this iPhone mirroring feature, for example, on my phone with the way that I've set up my phone, I am American enough to have access to iPhone mirroring. But I'm not European enough to have access to alternative app stores unless I switch accounts. So it's such a fun. It's such a fun. Like your phone is being considered an American phone, right?
Well, for some things, yeah, I guess it's and it goes to show that the theory that it's all mostly dictated by your App Store account seems to be the correct theory. Yeah. You know, like it seems to be on all the deciding factors that determine whether you are a European or not a European, it seems that the App Store account more than the Apple ID or Apple account, I should say. It seems that the App Store account is the one with the most weight at the
moment, which I think there is a sense in that, right? Because to have the account, you have to have a billing address and payment method in the country. And so it's like, it feels like the thing which is most going to be tied to where are you now and like where are you basing your life now and also allowing to kind of ignore a VPN if such if a VPN was in place, right?
But like it's worth it. Like I think I can imagine the scenario where these features, they don't know how to implement them or they don't have the guidance from the European Commission yet or whatever or as I can imagine, the European Commission and Apple probably aren't on the best of terms. So I don't imagine they getting a lot of consultation or at least not everybody's not coming to the consultation in the most helpful way. Not all sides would be my expectation of what's
happening here. But also I can see it a scenario where they may be happy that they get to hold Apple intelligence back because it's most likely going to be the thing that makes European iPhone users frustrated and that may that may get pushed back from the opposite side. I wonder if there were also discosious with the European Union Apple Intelligence when they scraped websites. I'm sure they were. No, I don't think so. Yeah, I think they did that without
caution. Yeah, as we've seen. Yeah. Europe should make some AI loves as well. I'm going to I'm going to agreement with you all. I think a lot of people's knee jerk reaction to the Apple intelligence stuff not being in the European Union was, oh, they're doing it despite the EU. And if you just think about that for four seconds, you know, that's not a great take because why is Apple going to punish its users from a feature like try to get them to
well, I mean, look at the app store. Yeah. Well, no, let me finish. You're feisty. Let me finish. I don't see it being a viable option for them to punish their users by not getting cool new features. So what they go to the representatives and say the DMA is bad, please walk it back because like you open your argument with, I think a lot of sort of average people look at the DMA from a high level and say, yeah, it looks a lot of good stuff in there that I agree with.
Like, yeah, why am I paying an extra 15 to 30% on stuff because Apple wants their cut. Why are there some things I can buy on my phone in an app, but can't buy in a browser? Why are there some sorts of apps my Android friends can use, but I can't use right? DMA attempts to deal with all those things, but I think looking at Apple's decision making and saying, oh, they're doing it to
spite the EU or despite their users. I just don't think that holds water for very long. If you actually consider what the ramifications of that would be, maybe it's not spite, but let me put it this way. Let's say that you live in an apartment complex and you have a bunch of neighbors. And there's that one particular neighbor that you really dislike. And it just so happens that one
day that neighbor asks you for something. And maybe you try to be a good person and everything, but maybe part of you things, you know, of all the people that are going to ask me a favor, am I really going to do a favor to the person I dislike the most in here? And so when it came to Apple intelligence, I mean, you got to believe that where some people were like, you know, these folks, they've been causing us so much trouble this past year. Do we really feel like we
need to rush Apple intelligence in there anyway? And I mean, the argument that, you know, politically speaking, Apple, is it a company that, you know, would be okay with just hurting their users in any way? I mean, not in the physical sense, obviously. But like, isn't your phone shocks you in the EU? What I mean is like, aren't you hurting your users financially every time you make them pay more for a subscription that is available for less
somewhere else? Yeah, but the things can be separate, right? Like we don't have to tie those two points. I'm just saying that institutionally speaking, because a company's made of people and the same people make those decisions, they are capable of, you know, just a little hurt. Yeah. Sure. Yeah. Why? No, and clearly Apple's attitude to this has been pretty bad at times. Like I'm not not saying that. The other thing that I sort of think about in this conversation,
as it is like we just do these cycles over and over is in build. So let's take, for instance, the chat GPT handoff that Apple intelligence would do, right? You get to a point, Siri can't do it. It says, hey, do you want to ask chat GPT? Like that, just that feature under, and I'm not a lawyer,
I don't know if anybody knows that, I did not go to law school. But under the DMA, would Apple be required to have more than one vendor for that, where they would have to have also Google Gemini or, you know, whatever Amazon's room to do that, that Vroomer broke today, that they're working on a chatbot. Like, are there things in the DMA that are preventing Apple, or maybe not completely, like, right? It can both can be true. I don't think so, because this
isn't a, like an exclusive partnership of OpenAI. Apple have been very clear that this is a- But in practice- In practice, it is because they're the only partner that have signed. And so maybe that's a bad example. Maybe take the image generation stuff that Apple's doing on their own. Does the DMA say that, well, you have this feature, but you have to also open it up to other things? And maybe Apple's
just being like, you can read it one of two ways, I think. You can read it, oh, Apple's not playing ball here because they have hurt feelings over the DMA, or Apple not doing it because the DMA makes it more complicated for them to build new features. Both can be true. I don't know what the ratio is there, but what I'm trying to get to here is it's a multifaceted situation. And saying just saying, oh, Apple's butt hurt over the DMA, or just saying the DMA is bad for competition,
or just saying the DMA is good for competition. Like, where, like, any single statement I don't think works when applied to this stuff because it is so complicated and not to defend it, but it is really new. And Apple and the EU clearly are still figuring out what does this document actually mean? Right? Like, we're getting ready to go through that all again over the CTF stuff. But yes, but I think that it is clear that they are not going about it in the simplest of ways.
Like, we have been talking about this the whole time. Like, they're approached to the DMA. They are doing literally everything they can to comply the little list. They are not entering into this with, like, earnestness or good faith. Right? And I understand why, because they are
a corporation. But I believe that that goes back to what me and Federico are saying of like, I think that the way that they are approaching the DMA and their compliance to the DMA would make it incredibly plausible that they are using the fact that the DMA makes it difficult for interoperability for these new features that they have to be able to also undermine the DMA to users. Right? Like, if you think the DMA is good, but now your iPhone will be held back,
you may think it is less good. And like, people talk about like, oh, the DMA is very popular in the European Parliament. Like, the European Parliament is like any legislative body in which it is made up by elected officials. If these people believe that they are more likely to get voted in
based upon changing their opinion on something, they will do that. Right? Like, if a European member or a parliament believes that their constituents would like the DMA to be repealed because they're not getting the features that they want in their devices, the support will change for the DMA. Yeah. Right? So like, I do believe that they are looking at this and like, this is complicated, but I also believe that there is, that there are people inside of Apple who are looking at this as
an opportunity to change hearts and minds over what the DMA is doing. Yeah. And it's like, Apple wants to change it, right? The EU wants to change it as well, like in different directions. And it's just going to be, I think it's just going to be a long time before we, that's if, that sort of all settles out. I don't know. Because the other thing that they've got to be, look, all of this, the Department of Justice is saying some amount of stuff like the Department
of Justice's main case is around Apple's lock-in. Yep. So I don't know. No, it's definitely coming here too. And so then what are they going to do? Like, you know, Apple intelligence into US? Like, it would just be the UK. Where is it going to be? You know? Land to the free home of the brave, the United Kingdom, you know, getting, yeah, getting all the features. My, like, if we fast forward it a year, like, let's just say we played a game making predictions about what the future could
hold. October, by the way, I double check that today. Okay, guys, I was wondering what it was. It followed to October. Yeah. My suspicion is that some of these Apple intelligence features will indeed show up in the EU that Apple is either overreacting to the DMA or they're not showing those features because they're sad and angry or something else. I suspect some of that stuff will surface in the EU. Maybe not all of it, but I can't, I just can't imagine a world where Apple will
continue to introduce features. I'm doing huge air quotes, knowing that they won't be allowed in parts of the world. Like, that just doesn't seem to make sense to me either. I don't know. It's all very confusing and hard and complicated. I'm glad I'm not a lawyer working for Apple or the European Union because it seems like we just play lawyer on podcasts. We just play it on podcasts. Because it does seem, I think wherever you stand on any of this, this huge spectrum of opinions
about the DMA, I think we can all agree that it is so complicated. It has unintentional side effects. The way that it is actually written and some of the things are explained in the DMA, don't actually make a lot of sense with the way the world actually works and are so open to interpretation that you have things like this. Like, Apple's not- What more is not like that?
Like, oh no, for sure. If it's coming in the US, it's going to be just as bad. You know, like, maybe even worse because I don't think we have any officials that know anything about the internet. But it is because it's fuzzy, you end up in situations potentially like this. Good times there, right? Yeah. You're trying. So, Federico, do you think that you will get access to Apple intelligence features during the beta period based upon the way that you've got share plan stuff?
Seems like it. Yeah. Because I'm just wondering, like, for your review, like, what do you- Have you thought about, like, say that any of these features are going to be in iOS 18.0, but you didn't have access to them? If I don't have access to them, would that change your approach at all? Yeah. If I don't have access to them, I cannot review them. Yeah. Simple as that. I'm not traveling to the US just to try those features. You know, I wondered though.
Like, I just wonder, like, what is the level, you know? I'm actually, like, I'm actually still thinking about the very fact of, like, a review in Apple intelligence to begin with. And I think I will, if I have access to those features, I'm not sure whether I will do image playgrounds. We'll see. I'm sure the whole chapter will have a giant disclaimer before it, but yeah. I'm leaning toward having the Apple Intelligence chapter in my review provided that I do have access to it.
And it seems like I should, based on how things have been going so far, with the way my iPhone is set up. Yeah. Yeah, because people, I'm sure, are aware that none of this is in the beta's yet. Like, we had beta two just a couple of days ago. And these features aren't there. Apple said they're coming later this summer. We don't know exactly what that means in terms of time or what features come in the beta and what features may be a year from now. Like, nobody knows.
This episode of Connected is made possible by KRCS, one of the oldest Apple premium resellers, and your one stop shop for all things Apple in the UK. At KRCS, you can shop the latest Apple products online and in store, but can Apple certified repair and even trade in your pre-loved devices. For our UK listeners right now at KRCS, you can spread the cost with 12 months interest-free credit on any Mac over a thousand pounds.
That means you can buy the latest MacBook Air M3 for just 78 pounds per month, over 12 months completely interest-free when you shop online at krcs.co.uk or in store at their three high street locations. KRCS is one of the few places in the UK where you can customize the specs of your new Mac, whether it's a faster processor or adding more storage or extra memory or all three, you can do it at KRCS.
You can have the exact specification of what you want with the pricing that you just won't find anywhere else. Many of the popular models and configs are kept in stock for next working day delivery when you order before 3pm Monday to Friday. That's really sweet. So why not make your Mac yours and build your own or choose one from stock as long as over that thousand dollar pound line it qualifies for 12 months interest-free credit.
With three next working day delivery on in stock items ordered before 3pm, there's never been a better time to get a Mac at krcs, your local Apple experts. Get more information at krcs.co.uk slash podcast or check out the links in the show notes. That's krcs.co.uk slash podcast. 18 plus only subject to approval terms and conditions apply. Please spend responsibly.
Barring beyond your means could seriously affect your financial status and sure you can afford to make your repayments on time by the due date. Our thanks to krcs for the support of the show and relay FM. So there's a beta 2 of everything. IOS 18, iPadOS, macOS, Sequoia which I heard the show last week. You guys still don't like the name, especially Mike. I don't like it. It's hard to spell Sequoia. It's not like the way it feels coming out of my mouth. It's fine.
WatchOS, which I also have on my Apple Watch Ultra, VisualOS, everything. And I just wanted to pull out some of the highlights, things that I've changed. Starting with iPadOS, the alternative app stores in the EU, as well as the browser entitlement for browser that want to use the just in time compiler. Those are available in iPadOS 18 beta 2.
So I'm sure at some point the folks at Alt Store will be making a native version of Alt Store on the iPad and it'll work natively with an iPadOS UI in iPadOS 18. So I guess any of their apps need to get through the organization first. Well, we don't need to get into that. Yeah, that's the DMM. Let's go as well. We just moved on from that topic. Let's keep it in the past.
The other feature that has been enabled I have not been able to use this one because I have not installed Sequoia on my half of the MacBook Air. iPhone mirroring is now available. And I have seen obviously this is not in the EU as we have discussed in the previous segment. But I have seen that iPhone mirroring works even if you are mirroring your Mac to the Vision Pro. So you can do a double mirror. Yeah, you can mirror your phone to the Mac and then mirror the Mac to the Vision Pro.
What is the next step mirror a Vision Pro to an iPad? I'm pretty sure I saw somebody mirroring that Apple watch to their iPhone and then their iPhone to their Mac. Incredible. You're a dog. I heard you like mirrors. So there is one more step, right? You can go watch to phone to phone to Mac to Mac to Vision Pro. And then you could call someone and share the screen with them. Yeah, you have one. Why not? Do it all the way. But yeah, I'm very excited to try the iPhone mirroring.
It seems like it's a very cool idea. I mean, we have talked about it the way that it works when the phone is locked and everything. So yeah, even better that it works. Well, where in the Vision Pro mirror to the Mac and then mirror the Mac to the Vision Pro? Very nice. Some shortcuts actions. I want to mention because shortcuts may not be changing much, but it seems like Apple is adding new actions to shortcuts this year. And actually actions that I like as opposed to last year.
So there's a couple of new shortcuts like meta actions, like shortcuts actions about shortcuts. One of them is add to home screen. So this is an action that you can drop in other shortcuts to add one of your shortcuts to the home screen. So imagine, for example, your Matthew Casinali and you want to add, I don't know, 200 shortcuts to your home screen. Now you can create a shortcut that cycles through your shortcuts library and adds an icon for each of those shortcuts to your home screen.
That's something you can do if you're Matthew or also if you're somebody else. Allow me for a moment to just ask the simple question. Yes. Why? There are so many things that could be in shortcuts that could be added to shortcuts. Why is this? Would you say like stability? No, there are features. Like, you know, the DMA disallow stability in shortcuts. I'm sorry. Oh God. Oh God. Look, I agree.
I'm just saying that somebody in the shortcuts team must have had the idea of like, hey, wouldn't it be nice if instead of adding 20 shortcuts from a folder manually one by one to your home screen, you could automate the process. Yes. Now that can be automated. Sure. Yeah. Same with creating an iCloud link. Now you can also automate the process of creating an iCloud link for shortcuts. And you know, you want to share 20 shortcuts at once? Be my guest with this action. Now you can.
There are some new actions for the journal app. These are actually nice. You can search your journal entries. You can create a new journal entry from shortcuts. But the one I'm most excited about is the changes to reminders, which we'll get to in a minute. Also because Stephen has thoughts about reminders. Apple, it seems to be that they are replacing the add new reminder action with a different action called create reminder. Now at the moment, there's both of them in the shortcuts beta.
I'm pretty convinced that one of them will go away or will become like deprecated with iOS 18. Yeah. The new one called create reminder as more options than the old one. Specifically, finally, you can basically set almost every single property of a shortcut with a reminder with this action. The one that was most intriguing to me, finally, you can create a reminder from shortcuts and you can define which section of a reminder's list it should go into.
Remember, they rolled out sections like columns last year in reminders. Now you can say, when I create this reminder, not only should it go into my relay of families, but it should also go under the upgrade section of that list. Yeah. I wanted to so bad last year and then I'm just moving to things instead for the things that I needed.
Yeah. What's great is that because of the issues with the things actions that I was having with the beta, I was able to basically translate all of my things, automations and shortcuts to reminders, automations and shortcuts and they basically now perform exactly the same functionality by just swapping the things actions with the reminders once. And this was the final thing that I was missing. Like, let me say which section it should go into and now this is possible. So that's cool.
Stephen, you also have reminders. I do. Before we get to that, I do just want to say one thing that I just thought of when you were talking about that new shortcut. And we've talked about this before on the show, but I think it's probably in the last beta cycle. So I want to highlight it again. It I really find it confounding that Apple will release some pieces of software that like isn't integrated with the rest of their pieces of software.
Like, okay, you add to this feature in in reminders, but your shortcut support for it in it come until a year later like, yeah, or is are we, are we stretched so thin internally? That's not possible. Is like, there's no one like, there should be a master list somewhere like if you release code at Apple, you know, in these sorts of categories, it's also support these types of things. And it really blows my mind.
It feels so have done sometimes of like, oh, hey, we have this great feature, but we left out the one thing and maybe you'll get it next year. So based on their guidance from WWDC sessions, it seems like the one thing that will finally change this trend is Apple Intelligence because they basically said they had a session in which they said, we're changing our guidance from what it used to be, which was some of your app actions should also be short-cut actions. Mm-hmm.
We're changing it to all of your app actions should also be available in shortcuts, because that's what they want to do, right, with Apple Intelligence and the semantic index and all the things they will roll out in 2025. Like, you should be able to just say what you want to do and that, that request should be completed. So I would be shocked if what you just mentioned doesn't change. Yeah, I hope so. Because of Apple Intelligence. Yeah, me too.
Definitely hopeful for that. So yeah, so every year I pick something in a reminder to ask for. It's coming up in a bit of a tradition. And this year I'm returning to one that has not been changed. But before I talk about what that is, in 2022 I asked for a badge to reflect the today count. And we were able to get that in Iowa 16. And then last year I asked for better options in organizing this day view. And that is in the beta of iOS 18.
So like, feel pretty good about my track record the last couple of years. You were like a reverse project manager. Yes. Yes. You're like releasing the feedback. Well, like they released the software and then Stevens, like, what about this though? Oh, yeah. Like goes backwards. I think some people who work with me in real life think that I do that anyways. Like, oh, we just push this thing to our CMS at work. Oh, can we do this thing instead? You know, sometimes it happens in reverse.
I have no idea where you're talking about. I know. But because you weren't on a conference call without developer at 8 p.m. last night. It's fine. Fine. Nothing you need to know about right now. This year I can feel your blood pressure from here. It's awesome. Well, because usually it means that something's going to break, you know. I mean, that's where it ends up going. But it's time to do some things.
So this year, I'm returning to a well that I've asked for not on the blog, but in two previous feedbacks. Feedbacks, says, all those numbers in the bottom of the blog post. But this year I ran to the press and I'm asking for the task inspector on the Mac to have the same functionality as the task inspector has on iOS. And iPad OS. I understand why they're different. The reminders Mac app as far as I know is still the old app kit app.
It has not been converted to like Mac catalysts, like messages and maps and some others. I think honestly reminders is a really good candidate for Mac catalyzation. But you know, there's also the question of like, how far into the future is Mac catalyst going to last? Like lots of things there. So I understand why it's different.
But the example that I highlight because it's the one that bothers me the most is that in the reminders app on iOS and iPad OS, there's a drop down to change what list a task is on. And on the Mac, the only way to do that is drag and drop a task from one list to another. And like, it's fine. You can totally change where a task is based on that. But it's slower because it's not in the inspector. I'm already fiddling with due dates and stuff.
It's error prone, especially if you have a long list of lists. Right. You can drop it on the wrong one easily and then you don't know where it went. But lastly and probably most importantly, I don't think most like normal kind of users are that familiar or maybe even comfortable with drag and drop to begin with. And so I would love for in lieu of give me the entire inspector from the iPhone on the Mac. Because I think that that's the ideal.
Having the ability to change what list a task is in from the inspector really feels like something that should be there. And so that is my quest this year. So Steven, given your pedigree as someone who can work these reminders miracles, will you be my priest in this case and you know, put in a good word for a request that I have with the reminders gods, if you will. So it's a very simple thing. So you know how you can create a smart lists in reminders.
You can make a custom list with a bunch of rules. And I just want to make a smart list that shows me reminders from two lists at once. Like I have a Mac stories list and a club Mac stories list. And I just want to say make a smart view that shows me reminders from both. So like I can make one that says here's your Mac stories and your club Mac stories tasks for today. Unfortunately, when you pick the list filter, you can say include a list. But it only lets you include one list at a time.
Like just let me include two lists at the same time. You know, let me pick one or multiple ones. And it's been this way for like three years. And every year I keep mentioning it and in our works. So maybe if you will be my middleman in this case, you know, given your powers, maybe it'll work. I'm happy to be your representative of this. Thank you. Thank you. I vote. I give you my vote. Thank you. Whatever you're applying for, you have my vote. It's good.
We're going to wedge the DMA straight into reminders. It's going to be sick. Cool. I did. I did. Maybe not for today. But like I feel like there is a conversation to be had about the value of the feedback system. And anytime you write something about this, you'll know. Episode there. I'm not on it. When there is an episode above me and Federico aren't here, then like go crazy. My favorite thing in this blog post, Stephen wrote was at the end. He said this was filed as feedback. blah blah blah.
The day this blog post was published, it can also be found as blah blah from 2022. And blah blah from 2023. I enjoyed the pettingness. I love it. I don't I don't mean for that to be petty. I'm meant for that to be like I've been asking for this repeatedly. Here's like here are the receipts. But do you need to refile it though? Well, so that that is like a question, right? I don't know because my feedback for the other things that have been fixed are still open.
So like I close them because they've been addressed. I don't know the hygiene of the feedback system once it's in control. You want to get back on the top of the pile. I want to get back on top of the pile. And obviously now in the summer is a good time to do that sort of thing. Well, maybe my reading of this as petty tells you why I'm maybe not the best person to talk. Well, that's always the there's always people who feel like the feedback system is like you're doing.
No, no, we're talking about it. We're talking about it. Yeah, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. We want to do it. There's a feed their feedback numbers in the blog post. The blog post is referenced in the feedback. Please, please remind us team. Please. In other news, RCS has appeared and is enabled in the US for beta users on AT&T Verizon. Yes, mobile, which is really cool. The Royal, the Royal Crown system. Yeah, that is what it stands for.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, because it's the king over SMS. Go to the K way you get to see the crown jewels. You need to receive an RCS. You know, I think I'm actually becoming a fan of the UK. Like you should have realized this is something I realized over the past few months. We'll all be there together in like three weeks. Tell me. Yeah, tell me why Federico. I'm intrigued because you can come you're coming back and you'll be able to also like, you know, soak in more of the UK with people from the UK.
I don't know, first of all, it's first of all of all the countries that have that like begin with the you. It seems to be like the most reasonable one. Hey, don't talk about your way that way. I don't know about what's going on there. Well, I was not referring to your way. The songs about me. They usually become they usually start with United in the yeah, anyway. So obviously Joe's side.
I don't know if you obviously like so they speak English, but it's like people don't go around, you know, with guns. For example, they have the Royal family, which is pretty cool. And like you can go see the Royal palace and there's the guards with the funny hats. You know, the South Bank really surprised me in London. It's a really nice place. My favorite place. Yeah, one of my one of my new favorite places.
The company that we're going to talk about this next week that provided the lenses for my meta rebands is located in the UK. Mike lives in the UK. That's true. I don't know. It's just a bunch of factors contributing to my feelings toward the UK shifting, you know, as of late. You're welcome anytime. Yeah. Thank you. See, it's also what you need is your RCS message. That's right to get in. Yeah, you go ahead.
So yes, so you're getting, you know, the larger media files, rich messages with audio, read receipts and in the messages app, it has a little indication of whether it's SMS or RCS because the bubbles are still green. They didn't introduce a third color. Still green, but you do get a little bit of an affortant so you know, like, oh, I'm going to drop this giant PDF in here. It'll go through, whereas an SMS, it wouldn't in the past. So, uh, see, yeah, super exciting.
I am glad that the carriers are already on board with this, at least the big three and I'm sure others will follow because there's also like a carrier thing that has to change. But, uh, very clear, this is now on its way and it's, um, I think it's good. Cool. Is that it? I think so.
Okay. Well, if you want to find more of us on the internet, if you want to be one of Federico's seven secret websites, you can, if you want to make Federico one of your favorite seven secret websites, I said, I said six or seven six or seven. I thought that's the secret. I was like, what number I don't know. You can be in seventh. You can be the seventh or take, we are taking auditions for the seventh secret website. Right.
You can submit those to Federico on Macedon of Vitechi at maxstories.net or on threads as Vitechi. And of course, he's the editor in chief of maxstories.net. Lots of super exciting stuff going on over there. Um, I know y'all are all gearing up for review season. You know, sometimes John just appears in our group thread is like, I'm rebuilding my Mac for the fifth time this week and then he disappears again. Yeah. Yeah, he does that. That's that's so happy. I retired from reviews, you know.
Yeah. Well, you are fired more than retirement. I was forced out actually, yeah, but nevertheless, I'm happy that I have, I was forced out and then I retired. What maybe you could review a retired platform, but it's like the same review every year because it's been retired, you know. That feels like something you would do. It does seem like something I would do. If you want to see me do that, Steven just opened a reminder list and added that to it. Oh, it's on the wrong list.
I can't change it easily. I don't want anything about it. Yeah. If you want to maybe see what that could look like, you can find my writing at 512pixels.net and I am ISMH86 on Macedon and threads. You can find Mike's work all across the Relay FM podcast empire. You can also find it at Cortex brand and he is on Macedon and threads as I'm Mike. I am Y. K.E. I think our sponsors this week, ZockDock, TailScale and KRCS.
If you want more of connected, you can get longer ad-free versions of the show each and every week by signing up for Connected Pro. Members also get access to a bunch of awesome perks across Relay, including our Discord for members, a newsletter, a couple of members only podcasts. We do each month. Lots of great stuff. There's a link in the show notes to sign up. It's just seven bucks a month. We would love to have your direct support. Until next time guys, say goodbye. How'd you feel, Chirio?
Bye, y'all.