516: The Spirit of the Blue Shell

Hello and welcome to Connected Episode 516. It's made possible by our sponsors, ZockDock, Squarespace, One Password, Extended Access Management, and KRCS. I am your keynote chairman, Stephen Hackett, and I am pleased to announce and introduce and invite to the show annual chairman, Mike Hurley. I feel so invited and introduced and announced. That was so nice. Thank you, Stephen. I am annual chairman, Mike Hurley, and I have the pleasure of introducing Federico, the TG,

Chal Federico. Hello. Hi. I am nothing compared to you both, but you guys are my wonderwall. So, to speak. Thank you. We spoke for a long time about Oasis in the show today, go to getconnect2pro.co and you can sign up. You have the opportunity to try and capture one of those titles, Federico. We're going to talk about that a little later on. I will catch one of those titles, but it depends on the rules. And we'll talk about them.

We'll talk about them. We will. We've got some follow-up. Follow-up. Follow-up. What is the screen protector stuff going on? A lot of people have a lot of feelings about screen protectors on the iPhones. A couple of suggestions. None of these names seem real. Taurus, T-O-R-R-A-S is a brand on Amazon. Sit us up by listener Tim. Listen to her Cameron wrote in recommending the Mothka M-O-T-H-C-A brand. Those links will be in the show notes. My experience with screen protectors was short-lived.

Oh. And by short-lived. I mean, 20 minutes lived. Just before we get this story, because before we move on from Taurus, can I just read the full name for you on Amazon? Please. Yes. Taurus full-screen tempered glass for iPhone 15 Pro Max screen protector 8 feet military shot to prove 9 hour anti-scratch no bubbles, no dust, durable screen protector for iPhone 15 Pro Max glass 2 pack. I see. Oh, man. That's what you got to do.

I got no one of these specifically. I got one of these from Amazon Italy. I have plenty of reviews. And a relatively easy application system. It's easier than used to be back in the day. And I managed to apply the screen protector. It was an anti-reflection one. No bubbles, no, like it was very easy to apply. But it did what it was supposed to do, but it was not the same effect as a nanotexture display. It was really cutting into the vibrancy and the brightness

of the display. It was making text fuzzy. It was horrible, to be honest. And so I used it for literally 20 minutes at the pool. My first minute was, oh, this is great. And after the first minute, I started thinking, no, this is not great. And I think the issue specifically that I'm expecting you to run into is because you wanted to get a matte one. Maybe if you were just going to go for one of the regular, clear glass ones, it probably is fine enough. But if you're,

you know, we've seen this before, right? When we were trying to look at the paper like things and all that kind of stuff, inherently in trying to change the way the screen looks, it will change the way. Like even like I know it's it's very good. But even the matte, what is it, the nanotexture on the iPad, it does change the way stuff looks. And that's Apple doing the absolute best job they can. But it like restricts your viewing angles a little bit and stuff like that. So it's just,

it's very natural. If you mess around with that glass, like it's you're going to get a not great experience. But yeah, I've realized that I just want a nanotexture iPhone. If that's ever going to happen, I'm going to get it. But right now, I just need to accept that my phone under direct sunlight is no good. Maybe they'll make it brighter for the 16 pro. We'll see, but I actually write that in a room today. I hope so. That should get brighter again. So brighter,

but no nanotexture. That's fine. I don't know if it's going to be Italian sun bright, but anything better than this one works. And any, any gradual improvement at this point works for me. But yeah, can I tell you guys about the absolute best app that was released on the app store in 2024? This is like a preview of the MacStore is selects app of the year. This is MacStore is selects app of the year future Apple designer word winner. I can say this with confidence. I'm not even

the developer. This is going to win an Apple design award. Tee chi tabs. Like that is literally the name Tee chi tabs. Well, okay. So I actually saw a conversation with this is developed by Jonathan Ruiz. He hangs out and I'll just good. And someone mentioned to him about the name. And he was like, oh, I already gave it the name in App Store Connect. So I can't change it. So like, I think that this was like the name initially. Well, like it's maybe not necessarily the best

name for like wide release. You know, like if John wants to try and get it to more people, but it is what it is now. It's Tee chi tabs. And that's the end of it. Tee chi tabs. I think six or seven would have been a better name. Well, let me read you the description. Tee chi tabs is the best way to visit your favorite six or seven website. Save them in the app. And when you view them, it'll be just like browsing a regular browser. The app saves cookies, logging, logging information

and things with iClouds. Tee chi tabs is an incredible utility that allows you to save your six or seven websites as was my request. You can save more, but the ideal number is six or seven, depending on the situation. And what's great, like jokes aside, what's great about this is that it's a simple utility that lets you bookmark your favorite websites. When you tap on one, so you can rename it, you can give it a custom URL, it loads the fabric on from the website,

and it keeps the login session active. So if you log into one of those websites, as I was explaining for my membership-based publications that I want to read, it keeps you logged in. And it's doing that via Safari cookies and Safari View Controller, which is used as the web viewing the app. What's even better about this is that for publications that use the ghost membership system, as we spoke about, Ghost doesn't give you a username and password. It gives you

a signing link, like it's called the magic link that you receive over email. Now, I'm not, I don't love this idea that whenever you want to log into this Ghost Power website, you cannot create an account or a pass key. You are emailed a link. I don't love that idea, but Jonathan figured out a way to grab that link from the email that you receive and use it one time to sign into the website in Tichy tabs. And after that initial signing, it will return to the base URL

for the website. So for example, if I want to log into a birch tree, for example, which is using Ghost, I just can long press on the birch tree website and say use a signing link. It gets the signing link from my clipboard, which I copied from mail. And it uses it one time to log me in, and that's it. The app has widgets, shortcuts, actions, things with iCloud on the iPhone and iPad. It's perfect. And it's called Tichy tabs. So what more could you possibly want?

6 or 7 websites. Yeah, we all have this need sooner or later. It comes for all of us. It comes for all of us. One day you're sitting, one day you're drinking your coffee and you think, you know what, I got those 6 or 7 websites that I really wish I could read easily on my iPhone. Now you have a way. And it's free. And there's also a tip jar. If you want to give money to Jonathan, please give your money to Jonathan, because it seems like a simple utility, but actually a lot of

work went into this one. And I want to reiterate, it's called Tichy tabs. So don't you want to see that on your home screen? I bet you do. Speaking of supporting developers, we discovered and we're very excited about the app unwatched on last week's episode, which is an app to allow you to use the, it's the RSS function basically of YouTube to mean that you have an app experience that just shows you a queue. We have a triage system of your subscriptions and you never see algorithmically

suggested videos. But we were all lamenting the ability to pay for this application. It was free and we wanted to support the development. The developer of unwatched posted on Mastodon, a link to their GitHub sponsorship page. So if you do want to support this developer, you can do that. Don't tell Apple though. Yeah, because technically,

but just don't tell anyone. And that will be really good. And I also wanted to mention we had a couple of people right in about this and a source of people on Mastodon, saying it too, that the app promotes that there are, that you don't have to see ads. And I saw some people saying, like, you know, this isn't good for supporting creators, etc. Which I would agree if the app was doing something specifically to block them. But the developer of unwatched actually contacted me

in Federico. Mastodon has said that this is actually just a part of the API, the like the iframe player thing with YouTube. For some reason, it just doesn't show the ads, which I'm assuming is just maybe YouTube can't track the way that they want to there. So they don't show it. So it's not something that the developer is actively doing. It's just a function of the API that they're using. Yeah. So I guess they're just using it as a thing that they can promote. But it's just a

function of the system more than a choice. Sometimes ad blocking happens to you. And it just happens naturally. Yeah. Great utility. I've been using it for the past week, every day, every night. Yeah. I love it. It's incredible. Yes. And our long national care experience is over. Perform a month has ended. It ended with a bang, including a zombie podcast. And you have a total of 20 max. I think this is the 22nd Mac or maybe more.

It's it's max 22 through 67. Perfect. It's now also available. So congratulations on the end of performer months, Stephen. Thank you. Thank you. What a ride. Did you? I mean, yeah. I mean, how much money do you spend? Do you think? I bought four max. Nice. Total. So one a week. You bought one a week. One I actually think is what I said would happen. One one per week. You know, they were kind of bunched together. But yeah, it's awesome. And you know, I said it last time we spoke about this.

But thank you, everyone, for reading it and all your emails and notes on social media. This was way more fun than I thought it would be. And honestly, way more fun than it felt about halfway through. I got about article seven. I was like, what have I done? Now I'm committed. But yes, and especially thank you to Jason who while trying to talk me out of this idea, it was very gracious with this time and letting us bring 20 max back for this episode. It was

the perfect place for that conversation. And I really enjoyed that that episode. I mean, Jason was covering Apple during some of this time. And so it was really interesting to hear his his input. And he and I really didn't talk about performance very much like behind the scenes. Because I was like saving it for the conversation. I think people who go check it out will really enjoy it. It is next in my my queue. And I'm very excited. It was great. Yeah. It was good to bring it back.

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supporting relay. Do you listen or you have joined us on a momentous occasion because this is the beginning of our sixth annual fundraiser for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. We've been doing this since 2019 and it is it's a real pleasure when we get to launch this thing at the end of every August and we do it with this very episode of connected right here. So why September,

why St. Jude? If you're new around here or you know new to our fundraiser, we do in a September because September is childhood cancer awareness month and since relay's first campaign for St. Jude in 2019, we've raised over $2.9 million as a community. So why do we do this? Why do we care about

this institution? Well, St. Jude does amazing work. Every day children around the globe are diagnosed with cancer and that's obviously really scary and really serious and St. Jude does the best research, uh, prying the best treatments to their patients and they don't charge their patients for that treatment. And I went through this myself with our oldest son. I've only con the showments in my blog post this year. If you're not familiar with my store, you can

read some about that. Uh, but we are knocking on the door of three million dollars raised. It really means an incredible, incredible thing and that is due to the fact that so many people joined our campaign and help support and Stephen, why, why would people want to join that campaign? Well, it's simple, Mike, because before St. Jude Children's Research Hospital opened back in 1962, childhood cancer was largely considered incurable. Just think about that for a second,

incurable. But today, thanks in part to better therapies, St. Jude has helped to develop more than 80% of US childhood cancer patients now become long term survivors. 80% is incredible, but there's still more work to be done to help kids with cancer and the growing number of survivors. The number of childhood cancer survivors in the US is expected to approach 580,000 by the year 2040. And St. Jude is working with a lot of those survivors to track them, follow their progress,

and of course, continue to raise that 80% number. So what you want to do, we're celebrating $3 million right now, but we got a long way to go in September. So you want to go to stdj.org slash relay where you can make a donation today. There's also some awesome rewards that you can redeem. Uh, and you can find out more about employee matching, which is huge. If you work for a company, chances are they will give money when you give money. So go check that information

out. You can start a fundraising campaign of your own. We already have a bunch of them up and running the campaign has only been up for four hours. We got a bunch of them up. And there's some fantastic incentives available. So thank you all. You want to go to stdj.org slash relay. We're asking you to join us in September for childhood cancer awareness month because together we can cure childhood cancer. St. Jude.org slash relay. A couple of things. Podcast

athon is back. Yes. September 20th. What is the time, Stephen? It will start at noon, eastern and run for 12 hours. It's going to be the biggest ever as it always is. Yeah, 12 hours. We're going to have more people in studio and we've ever had before. Just going to be amazing. Uh, just going to be full of wonderful hijinks. Uh, we also have, but the last few years had a selection of incentives for various things or rewards. Maybe it's

the correct word. So we have stickers and an incredible screensaver that James Thompson has put together based on the very best campaign artwork we have had that jelly put together from us jelly who develops gift wrapped. Uh, it's just incredible. You have to go to stdj.org slash relay. Just to see this stuff. It's just like so good. Um, and it everybody involved this year, which are many, many, many, many people involved this year. I'm, we're seeing so much interesting creative stuff

being put together. And I think it's coming from the incredible work that jelly did for us. They think everybody's that very excited about it. It looks so good. So you can get stickers with these, uh, with the characters of me and Stephen and various other things as well as if you start a fundraiser of your own, if you sign up to start a fundraiser, you can not only give money there yourself, but you could encourage your friends, your family, your coworkers to give money to.

And if you do that, it extends the amount of support that you can give to St. Jude, which is incredible. Uh, but if you do that and you raise certain amounts, you can go find out more on the pages other incentives available, including just an absolutely insanely good desk mat. Um, this year and, and much more stuff in a great coin we've got going on. So yeah, tons of incredible stuff available. I want you to go and check it out stdj.org slash relay. Uh, we appreciate you.

Thank you. And let's keep doing this incredible work for stdj. Oh, we did it. We've launched the campaign. Now let's talk about ram. Wow. What a, what a segway into that. Yeah. Yeah. Three million gigabytes of ram in every iPhone. I think that's just that's what we're saying. I think so. Look, it's always hard to transition to an out of the stdj stuff. Yeah, just give me some grace here. Two reports that I wanted to bring to the table

uh, this week. The first is that 16 gigabytes of ram could be the minimum standard in M4 powered max. This is from Bloomberg's Mark Gurman based on information he has. And I think some testing stuff that's out there in the world. Right now, of course, you can get a bunch of max with a gigs of ram, which is probably not enough. This coincides with another report about

the iPhone that the iPhone 17. So not the one we're going to see in a couple weeks, but the one we're going to see in a year could come with 12 gigabytes of ram up from the eight that we're expected to see in a couple weeks, which I think is up from six, which is where we are now. So, you know, doubling of ram capacity in just a couple of years. I mean, obviously, I think this is

about Apple intelligence. I think Apple knows what is on their roadmap there. And to do this stuff on device, you need a lot of a lot of memory that seems to be the limiting factor on bringing this to some older devices. But it'd be quite a move. I think especially on the max side, eight gigs is just not reasonable for a lot of people. It is for some, you know, but Apple for a while was going around saying, Oh, it's like twice the RAM you get into PC is like, that's not true. It's not

how memory works. And Apple does a lot to manage RAM really well in Mac OS and iOS both. But I think moving that minimum up is only good for everybody. I mean, it is, it is, it is, it is not over reason. Right. But like, here's my question. This is the thing that, that like, I don't know. I think I understand, but I'm not sure that if you increase this RAM, a lot of the increases just taken up by holding the models. So like, it's not like you get more RAM, like the system needs more RAM

to operate. That's my very simple understanding of this stuff. So like, you could end up with 12 gigabytes of RAM in your iPhone, but it might only really effectively be still be like eight or nine for you. So I don't know. I actually don't think anybody truly benefits from this other than this. Well, I guess it would, it would run like this stuff would run better on the newer phones for that still, right? Because the older phones are also doing it and they have the

the smaller amounts of RAM. So yeah, it's an interesting thing to occur, but I'm actually not really sure if users will see much of a benefit from that, like realistically, it's not like the machines will get faster and more capable. Safari is still going to be snappy. Oh, yes, there it is. Yeah. Yeah, it kind of reminds me, this was a big thing in the Intel Mac days people will talk about. I'm like, oh, my MacBook has four gigs of RAM, but a gig of it is video RAM, right? Because it

was sharing system memory between the CPU and the integrated GPU. And after a while, we could talk about it. So I think you're right, Mike. Like it is a pool, but some of that pool is going to be kind of roped off for the models to be swimming in. It's a good analogy, right? It's pretty good. Yeah, I mean, realistically, I think looking ahead and next year, we're talking about the iPhone 17 for 2025, but I would be surprised if we end up in a scenario where the initial Apple

Intelligence features in these current models. It's like stage manager on the really old iPad Pros where like they are supported by their kind of junky and slow in places. So I will bet that it's going to Apple Intelligence is going to perform better. Like setting aside like new and exclusive features that I'm sure will come out for the 16 and 17, but even the existing features I'm sure that will perform better and faster on the 16 and therefore even better when there's

more RAM in the 17 and so forth. Like this 15 pro and pro max, they will have Apple Intelligence, but I bet in one or two years, it'll be the equivalent of stage manager on an old iPad Pro. Like it's there, but if you really want to use it, you probably want to get a more recent time phone. And it could be Apple also like planning out what they're developing and like what they think their timelines are right for Apple Intelligence where it's like by 2025, they need that

amount. Right. They're like they're kind of roadmap for what Apple Intelligence could look like. It's like, oh, time time we get there, it will be like what Federica saying, but the thing that that worries me with that is like, are they going to keep roping off these new features to new funds for the next few years? I think they might. They might. I think they might. Like I think you, you know, obviously, what's happened has happened. And we, you know, I think to a point, we were all

just kind of like, they didn't really know this is going to happen. And so they suddenly on the pro models because that's the only one that could support it, we kind of gave them the grace there. We'll see what happens with the iPhone 16 if there are only features that are going to come to that we don't know, but maybe and then the iPhone 17, it might be again, right? Like with the RAM, and it's like, are they just, is this like a way to sell new iPhones? Which I don't, I don't

necessarily have a problem with, right? Because I think this has always been a thing that they've been doing, but it's just, it's just something to be aware of. Like every iPhone comes with some software thing that, you know, is relevant to it. The one thing I will say is, let's assume, on the other hand, that Apple does not raise the amount of RAM needed by Apple intelligence.

I will say that raising the baseline of RAM in a phone may be useful in, so we're looking at 2025, if in 2026, there's a foldable iPhone based on the iPhone 17 architecture, more RAM, better for multitasking, yeah, and split view. Yeah. Or, you know, if you have the more RAM in there, one can be on one side of the hinge, that can be on the other side, you know, fact, the inside of the screen. Is that how that works? Yeah. There's a little door, and the RAM

goes in. It's like, oh, it's like the iPhone side. Yes. If you, if you very delicately peel the plastic screen off of the iPhone, you can put more RAM in. Oh no. I had a, I was watching some Google Pixel reviews over the weekend, and, you know, the Pixel Fold Pixel 9 Pro Fold or whatever, the whatever its name is, is not out yet. So all the reviews like that one's coming, but I had such a flashback to the first Galaxy Fold where like the screen protector gate, you know, where they

peeled it off and the screens died. It's what a time, you know, that was fun. Like that was just like one of those things that was just genuinely fun to watch unfold, not for Samsung, probably, but watching content creators kind of either happen to them or they start to, uh, uh, dare themselves to remove it. That was, that was really interesting to watch unfold. Unfold. It was not an intended pun, but, um, but it's there, but I'm happy that it happened.

Well, you're like, yeah, you got to double down that stuff. Mm-hmm. This episode of Connected is brought to you by Squarespace, the all-in-one website platform for entrepreneurs to stand out and succeed online. So whether you're just starting out or managing a growing brand, you can stand out with a beautiful website, engage with your audience and sell anything, product services, even the content you create. Squarespace has everything you need,

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It's glow time boys. I know we'll tell you until I just read it out. I did not get the joke. I've seen it for days and just paid attention to it. It's glow time. There you go. You got it. So if you're now listening to me and you still don't get it because there's clearly an issue here, it's show time is the is no, I thought it's go time. Yeah, I thought go time. No, it's show time. I think it's show time because they're putting on a show, right?

But it's also time to go. I think it's time to go. Sure. I still think it's show time, but it also could be go time. But the idea is it's glow time because Siri glows, which makes me feel like what I hope just going to happen isn't going to happen. I really hope that they were going to pull that. They were going to pull the new Siri until they actually had new Siri like the new Siri look.

But that doesn't seem like it's going to happen. But who knows actually like for all we know, because it's obviously not going to be in 18 maybe by the time 181 ships, they will put more of that in there like that still kind of isn't done, but who knows. So yes, the Apple event is on Monday, the ninth. Why are they doing it on a Monday, Steven? Why would they do that? Do you think could you have any thoughts on that? You're American. There's a presidential debate that

evening of the 10th. And I think they want to clear that. Oh, really? Yeah. Interesting. What is so we're excited? We're excited for the iPhone event. Yeah, because the 16-per-max is going to be bigger. And also like I'm excited about the capture button. Those are like for me, the two things that I'm excited about. Obviously, I will not get Apple intelligence. Real time follow-up, I just installed the third beta of 18.1 that came out a few days ago. I was presented at setup

with the Apple intelligence onboarding flow again. I thought, oh, did they enable it? But no, then when you unlock the phone, it says Apple intelligence is not available for you. So the entire, well, you know, go Europe. I don't care. The entire Siri Apple intelligence segment, I'm sure there's going to be a giant one will not apply to me personally or other people like me in the EU, but I am looking forward to a larger screen, a capture button. And I will say my hot take, I don't

know if you guys caught these on app stories, but I am using regular AirPods. I did catch this. Again, and I am really keen to see the new maybe two versions of the new AirPods, non-pro AirPods. What's going on there? You want to know about the AirPods? Yeah. So I was feeling kind of tired after I've been using AirPods for a while since they came out.

And after many years of using the in-ear tips that make a really good seal, I was getting kind of physically tired of that feeling of the, I mean, it's a really good seal, especially if you're using foam tips or a hybrid of silicon and foam tips. I felt like I was getting a little uncomfortable with that after many years of using them, especially when I

fall asleep with them at night. And I realized, so there was that sort of physical realization, but there was also a software realization in that I was looking at the settings for AirPods pro and all the options. And I realized I never use any of these features. I don't use noise cancellation because I don't commute. I don't wear AirPods in public places. I don't use transparency. I don't

use the specialized head tracking stuff. Like I just want to use AirPods. And typically, like you, Steven, one at a time, either to listen to a podcast or listen to some music while I'm doing chores around the house, like I was using none of the AirPods pro functionalities. And I thought why am I using AirPods pro if I've become this person. And so out of curiosity, I got the

base model AirPods really, really like them. I'm fortunate enough and I'm completely different from Silvia, for example, from that point of view, the shape of the AirPods, the regular AirPods, it really works for my years. So I don't have any problems with AirPods falling out. Silvia has that problem with the new design of the AirPods 3. That's why she's still using AirPods 2. And I've been really liking them. I like the feeling that my ear is not completely sealed. And

for what I use them for, I haven't missed the AirPods pro. So that's why I'm looking forward to the new ones. It's interesting to me that like, because I use noise cancellation all the time, like at home, like if I'm cooking, I want noise cancellation. Because the cooking's too noisy. No, I need to hear what's happening in the pack. I can hear what I'm off. I just want it all lowered. Like for example, we have a like, you know, like extractor fan thing, like, you know,

it's taking all the thumbs out. That's too noisy if I'm sending it. I don't hear anything. Oh, I also have that. And for me, like, it's kind of like white noise. I kind of like it. Like some times I put it down. The sound is fine. But then I can't hear my podcast. The ones that like, it goes on. And then anyway, it's different. So from folks, right? But yeah, the thing, what I find interesting here though, right? So there's two new sets of

AirPods is the rumor. Um, we're in that they're going to replace AirPods 2 and AirPods 3, right? Which is what Apple currently sells. And I believe, remember, right? The rumor is that, like, both of them are going to get a new design. So I expect the people that like the AirPods 2 style, that's going to go away. And I reckon will be replaced by something that looks like the current AirPods 3. Because what is currently the AirPods 3, that is going to get active noise

cancellation according to my government. So they wouldn't be good for you because that's going to have to create an ear seal. So that's not going to be what you want. So you would probably want what would be the replacement for AirPods 2, which is very strange. I could also see a scenario in which they do something like base noise cancellation. And

on the AirPods Pro, like they rename it like magic noise cancellation or whatever. Like, I do think, well, they will have to have a version of AirPods without the ear seal, but I also wonder that would be the original one. I wonder if place 2. I wonder if there's a way to do noise cancellation without the ear. I don't think there is. And this Apple has made something new, right? But like, I think you have to create a seal, right? So like, you can create an environment

which you can rely on to stop the sound coming in. Because otherwise, it's not. It's not going to. Hey, look, but they also created a set like a Vacta noise cancellation headphones that didn't make me feel like my head was exploding, which is what I'd experienced before. So who knows? But yeah, there is also a rumor of new AirPods Max as well, which will bring the max in line with the current pro in feature set, which the rumor was saying no, no different design just USBC and

maybe new software. Like the new chip inside the new chip, dual the stuff, but by wanting you design, I want a new design too, but I don't think they're going to do it. I tell you, man, I'm seeing a more and more in London and I don't know why I don't understand why now people are buying them because I feel like I never saw them before. There must have been some sale on Amazon or something, because I've also seen them quite, you know, quite frequently. I don't know.

Yeah, that could be it. It could be. So I say AirPods as well as Apple Watch Series 10, thinner and larger screens. I have no idea what what that's going to look like. I can't get my head around that yet. I'm intrigued. And there's also, I don't know if this is a rumor, but like the iPad Mini, stock is getting low, but I think even if they're doing a new iPad Mini, they're not doing it here.

Like it's going to be in a second big event probably in October, because I also saw some rumors today that there are the M4 Max, like the MacBook Pros being produced now, which would also suggest probably October. So yeah, I reckon it's probably iPhone, Apple Watch, AirPods, this coming event, and then we'll look at Max and stuff afterwards. I don't know if you would agree with that. Yeah, I mean, that's been kind of their rough pattern, you know, more years than not recently.

I don't know if we're going to get another spooky Halloween night one like we talked about last week, but I don't think we're going to see Max on the ninth. They tend to separate those things. Yeah. Anything more on the event for now? Obviously we're going to talk about it next week. Really curious about the capture button on the phone. What they're going to do with it. Like, is it going to be smarter than the action button? Like the action button, you can assign a thing to it,

and that's it. Whereas I feel like this is going to support different behaviors. Like maybe if you press it on the lock screen, it does something, but then when it opens the camera up, it does something else. Like I feel like this will be more flexible than the action button and maybe support multiple gestures. Yeah. Okay. So the room suggests it's all camera, right? So yeah, sure. It's all camera, but it's that you could you could press it and it would take a photo. You could likely press it,

and it will focus like a camera would like a, like a DS. And then also there will be functions for swiping it. So maybe that would cycle between modes. Zoom maybe. Yeah. Maybe maybe something you can configure. It could be zoom. It could be cycling between modes. But yeah, better than the action button in that way, right? Where like it just like has a bunch of stuff you can do with it, which would be good. But like this one, I don't think will be configurable. You know, maybe you could

configure the camera app. Maybe I don't know. Like, you know, maybe you want to use how I do something. Here's a thought. I wonder if with the capture button, that will allow Apple to make the camera app UI full screen. Like, you know, now if you open the camera, just like a giant black area at the bottom, and that's for flipping between cameras, the shutter button and the preview of your latest photos. I wonder if maybe having a physical button, you can maybe get rid of that area and have

the camera UI be beautiful, almost edge to edge full screen. That would be really nice. Maybe if like you started taking the photo by pressing the capture button, it just removes some of the UI. It would be cool. Right. Right. I would love that. I would love that. Nice. And maybe like it would be me and maybe you would have a better landscape view or something than they currently have. That'd be interesting. But maybe they combine it with the impossible to

understand or explain feature of shooting outside the frame. Do you remember that? Oh my god. Is that feature still there? I think it is. I think it is. But you have to turn off a bunch of stuff. Right. But it got re-branded. Maybe. No, no, no, capture outside the frame. Apparently it was removed in iOS 14 maybe. I'm not unlike doing some googling right now. But I think it was this thing where you had to end up, they took it away.

And what was that? I can't remember. What was the reason that this existed? I don't remember. I don't remember. I think it was that you if you took a photo, it also took a photo with the ultra-wide camera and that you could edit it for a set period of time afterwards where you could change the zoom like the crop. So you could bring in stuff that was outside the original frame of the photo. I think that was the idea for capture outside the frame. Man, what a time.

I'm excited about these phones. I think in particular camera stuff is always a good time. So I'm going to be carrying a brown phone because I committed to that last week. So we'll see how that goes. Now I get to use my button for my buttons intended purpose, which is to quiz you. I have a quiz for you because we're back with the quizzes. Everybody's favorite game show where I, Mike Hurley, get to quiz my connected co-hosts on a randomly and by surprise on a variety

of varying subjects. And we're going to be playing a game we've played before. This is going to be round two of guess that tagline. Every year when the September event is announced, Apple reveals a tagline that goes along with the invitations and the event itself. Sometimes these phrases mean something for what we can expect to be announced at the event. Sometimes they do not. I have selected five taglines that have been used over the last 10 years.

So starting from 2014 to now, I will read each to you and you will tell me what year you think they are from. The scoring, I will tell you your scoring after everything is complete. So be aware of the numbers you're giving me because if you repeat them, I'm not going to tell you. So maybe it's good to have something where you can write this down, but I'm going to give you the tagline you will tell me the year. There are 15 points available for each correct guess.

And because it is podcasted on season, points are on the line. Stephen, all the points that you collect during guess the tagline today will go to your Mike versus Stephen total because we're doing that again for the podcast of thumb. Federico, you are playing for me. Okay. Every point that you score goes to my podcast of thumb. Cool. They're for give me an advantage. Can we please collude on this? I am there is no collusion in the quizzes. So I cannot as much as I would want to

Wow. A man with integrity. Okay. Yeah. That is me. Okay. That is me. So there are 15 points on the line for each answer. And we'll be able to change the score in real time. So at the end of this, the website will reflect who's winning. Indeed it will. Indeed it will. So remember, I am going to give you the tagline. You're above going to tell me the year. We're going to kind of do this snake draft style. So I'll tell you it would be like Stephen and Federico, Federico and then

Stephen for each round. That makes sense. Yeah. You will tell me the year. And then at the end, I will tell you which ones were correct. So Stephen, the first tagline by innovation only, which year was this? What? By innovation only. By innovation only. That's terrible. It's terrible tagline. I'm not saying they're good. How many years were going back 10? Starting with 20. So September events starting with September 2014.

Yes, inclusive of 2014 to 2024. Geez, that's back to the first Apple watch. By innovation only. By innovation only. We have to pick a year. 2017. Okay. I don't even know what was in 2017. 2016. The next one. Let's meet at our place. Okay. Federico, you're guessing first this time. Let's meet at our place. So this is probably the first event at Apple Park judging from the tagline. Let's meet at our place. So when did Apple Park

open? Oh gosh. So I went for the first time. I am at the end of this by the way. I am going to give you the opportunity to make changes if you want to. So for example, if there is a year that you have said that you're now like, oh no, I know what year it was. You can tell me that. And then at the end, you can change your answers for any of them. Does that make sense? Yeah. And, and Mike, can we use the same year more than once?

You can. That is definitely something you can do if you think that's good. But that's one of things. And then at the end, if you use that year more than once, it would be like you're really confident that one of them was correct and you didn't know it. You can go back and we can change your answers. You can get the opportunity to do that at the end. I want to be fair here. So Federico, which year is Let's Meet at our place? I'm going to turn between multiple years.

I am going to go with 2018. Okay. Steven. 2017. Okay, the next one. Wish we could say more. Steven, which year was that? Wish we could say more. We could say more. 2015. Federico. Now I'm going with 2015. Yeah. Okay. The next one. Federico, come to you first. This is our fourth out of five. Time flies. I vaguely remember this one. Yeah, this is the first one I recognize the name. The other ski could have been making it interesting. Interesting. I'm going to go with 2022.

I'm going to say 2020. Okay. Next up. California streaming. Yeah, that was. Steven first. Oh, is it? I'm going to say 2021. Okay. I'm going to say 2020. Okay. And I want to change one of my answers. You want to change one of them? Yeah. Which one do you want to change the one about Let's Meet at our place from 2018 to 2017? Okay. So I'm going to run through these again with you. Okay. All right. By innovation only,

Let's meet at our place. Wish we could say more. Time flies in California streaming. Steven, do you want to make any adjustments? What did I say for the first one? I don't read that. That's up to you. I didn't write that down. Sorry. But how do you know? I did. I did tell you to write it down because I put down your point scores. I put down your I hope somebody in this court did write them down because I did. Yes. Do you remember when I said

you wrote it down? No, no, no, no, no, no, you may want to write this down. I know I did say that. No, I don't. I don't remember that. Because you said you made. If you said you must, I would have done it. Yeah. Can't wait to fall down. I said 2017. I'm going to change that that feels too old. By innovation only, that's the one you're changing. Yeah. I'm going to change that to 2018. Okay. Federico, did you want to make any more changes? I so I asked you to move the one

let's me to replace the 2017. I don't remember what I believe I said 2014 for by innovation only. What was the other one? What one? All right. Here they are again by innovation only. Yeah. Let's meet at our place. Wish we could say more. Time flies. California Street. No, I'm happy. I'm happy with with. Oh, thank you, Kate. I'm looking at an image. I kind of want to change by innovation only from 2016 to 2014. Okay. Yeah. And that's it for me. I think I'm good. All right. By innovation only

was 2019. I've got that wrong. Let's meet at our place was 2017. You both got that correct. That's 15 points each. All right. Wish we could say more 2014. Never have you ever time flies was 2020. Stephen got that right. They said time flies because they kept doing events. This was the second of three events in a row month by month that they were doing. I think it was in a row, but they just don't WDC. I think it was like whatever. So that's 15 points

to Stephen. And California streaming was 2021 as 15 points to Stephen Federico. Let me down. So Stephen, you got 45 points Federico. You got 15 points. I'm sorry. I don't remember these things. I'm sorry. I mean, I was mostly just blindly guessing. The only one that I felt pretty good about after you said it, you tipped me off was when they opened Apple Park. I was like, yeah. Yeah. So thank you for that. And the way I got to it was like remembering my WDCs in San Jose

and remembering that the last one I went to in San Francisco was 2016. And the whole thing for San Jose was like, oh, it's closer to Cupertino. And that's why I changed it. Because of Apple Park. It's good. Like it. Yeah. Well, congratulations, Stephen. You just secured 45 points in the quizzes, as well as in the Mike versus Stephen podcastathon. So these are the, these are the scores. Is they stand for the quizzes overall? Stephen has 540 points in 2024. Federico has 580 points.

So Stephen is closing in on Federico. Federico, you need to, you need to hold onto your lead because you're currently in the lead. And you've never won a year. So I want to see you win a year this year. I hope it will be this one. We'll find out next time on the quizzes. I will. Yeah. This episode of Connected is brought to you by one password extended access management. Imagine your company's security like the quad of a college campus. There are nice break paths

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game of the rickies. Now for the past few iterations of the rickies, we have noticed that statistically speaking, it's become effectively impossible for us to play the current game with the current rules and really take advantage of how the point system works with the rickies. Basically, we never get

the risky pick right. And it's making the game, I don't want to say making the game useless because the game is still fun, but it's working against the spirit of the game, which is really strategizing for different types of points. It's a different type of game from the draft that Mike plays with Jason on upgrade, but the way the rules have been designed for the risky pick and how the risky

pick must be qualified as risky and how it counts for two points or you lose one. We have painter ourselves in a corner and we need to figure out a way, I think, to exit this corner while maintaining the spirit of the point system and the strategizing that was behind the creation of the rickies. So

many months ago, I proposed this idea of why don't we put a spin on the risky pick. My brain at the time was thinking like, along the lines of Mario Kart, like I mentioned like this blue shell system where like I had this idea of like where maybe if somebody loses for many games in a row, you get the equivalent of a blue shell. Like in Mario Kart, if you're last, you get the blue shell and that allows you, it's like an elastic system that allows the people, you know, the players in the last

positions to more easily get back to the first positions. Now, that was just an idea and it led to this conversation about like let's brainstorm for multiple ways where we could alter the rickies while maintaining the fun of the game and the strategy of the game, which again, I would like to be very different from the draft and upgrade. So we started brainstorming and we started asking

our listeners to share some ideas as well. Now, I believe we have collected some stats on the rickies and the fact that we've always ended in a draw for like how many rickies, like for the really like the past six or seven games, I think. Probably longer than that. Mike has won 14 out of 25 coin flips. Steven has won 11 out of 25 and Federica's won 9 out of 21 coin flips. Coin flips are fine, but they're not exciting. They don't make the game exciting. They make the game

come down to luck. The coin flip is the adjudication system. It's not the scoring system and it has been the scoring system for a really long time now. Right? Like the game is always decided on a coin flip because of the risky pick rules that we have established. Even though we have tried to amend them and make them easier, it still didn't work the last time. And so that's why we find ourselves

in this situation. So we want to make the rickies fun. And personally, I feel like I also want to make them something that we can really strategize about and really think about the points and just not a random guessing game. And I have personally brought some ideas. I think you guys also have some ideas, some of them yours, some of them suggested by members. So why don't you start, Mike? What do you have? All right. So I picked a couple of listeners suggestions and I've also kind

of put my own spin on them. I've amended them a little bit to what I think makes sense. So the first one here is from Jeremy. The loser, I guess at the previous game, right? So like the person who's coming into the rickies as the loser gets to add specificity to the current winners risk you pick in the next game. So like I would say the current game. So for example, if Steven said there will be a new MacBook Pro, let's just imagine that's a risky pick for some reason that

Federico could come in and say and they would offer it in blue. Right. So I like the idea of this. I like the chaos that this would create. The issue that I foresee is I don't think it's right to like completely invalidate a pick by saying like, oh, and it comes in tartan, right? Like, you know, you ruin it. So for this one to work, there would need to be an agreed upon specificity. And that would be hard to nail down. So we could end up back in that situation. By the way, I can say to

this, this is a forum today. Like I think we're just going to talk about these things and we're going to come up with our own stuff out of it. But like so the idea that I like your first is that the person who's behind get to mess with the person who is winning who is like currently the winner right to like try and stop them from winning again. Because if you can stop them from winning again, it creates them the likelihood for either the second or third place winner from the previous one

to become the winner again. Right. So that very much feels like the blue shell like this is like the most blue Shelley of the ones that I'd found where you are essentially coming in and making it harder for that person to win. Yeah, the only problem is that I personally see too much potential for unfairness in this. Like what did you say? There's going to be there's going to be a new iPad and it's going to be a new display technology. And I come in and say yes, and it's going to be made

out of gold. Like like I can add something totally ridiculous to embody that year pick. And so while it is the spirit of the blue shell, I mean, at the end of the day, we're not playing Mario Kart here. No, like the thing is it this is possible, but I feel like it requires too many rules to make it work. Yeah, but the idea that's the idea that I'm putting out there right that like someone would be able to mess with somebody else's thing. Now, this is this is the one that I

really like some. So Ryan suggested steal a pick from another player and like that was the full thing. And so it got me thinking. All right. So we've all made our picks, right? Each contestant gets the opportunity to choose any risky pick made by another player and add themselves in for the scoring implications of that pick. So I could say I like Stevens risky. I'm going to like double down on Stevens risky. So if he gets the points, I also get the points.

If he loses points, I also lose points. You're joining me in whatever, like we're connecting ourselves. Yeah. And the way I would imagine this kind of thing working first come first serve, right? So only one person gets to join on to an individual's pick, right? So like I can join to Stevens, but but Federico can't join to Stevens, but Federico could join to mine, right?

And it would be a thing that you would just have to go, I want it, right? Like you just just just come in there and say like, I want it when the person's finished or whatever, you know? This one I like better, I think, but it puts you in a position where maybe you're less incentivized to come up with your own ideas. And therefore you end up with fewer predictions on the show. Now you still have to everyone still has to do two picks on a risky. It doesn't change the

work. Does it? Because if you don't put the effort in, you're going to lose more points still. But it still feels like kind of taking advantage of someone else's work in a way. Exactly. Because what you're trying to do is stop the person who's best at picking, right? Because if somebody's got a really good pick, then you can join on. There is a version of this that I had pulled that took this idea, but had a twist on it. Then instead of attaching myself to your picks,

I force a trade. So if I'm the loser at the end of the game, I get to say I actually want to trade my risky for Federico's risky. Yeah, but then you're in a scenario where if you know you're going to do it beforehand, you create the riskiest risky of all time and you just like lay down on someone. Right? Is that bad? I don't know. It's a thing. I don't know if it's bad or good. It's a thing. I like the idea. So like I like the idea of you kind of, you're in it with someone, right?

Like if I like Federico's risky, I'm like, yeah, I want Federico's risky points too. And now me and Federico, we're like going down together. I kind of like that. But yeah, you go down together, but also it creates another opportunity for another draw. Because if you get it, then it's not just one person that gets it. It's two people and now there's another coin flip. Yeah, but you have to have like, but the idea though is you're also getting your own

points. But what I'm saying is at the end of Round 2, we all have two points. Yeah. Then there's a conjoined risky pick. And I don't get it, but you and Steven do. And so now you're both at four points and we still need to do another coin flip. Yeah, but that's then presuming that so let's say I've joined on Stevens, I still have my own risky to be scored. Right. So your your risky remains. My risky remains. I am just have the opportunity to get

more points from yours. Yeah. So it's not a trade. It's a it's a it's a adhesion. It's not a trade. But I feel like if we do this, you need to like it, it shouldn't be like an unlimited supply of being able to say every year, every single time, oh, I also want that. Well, only let's say only the loser gets to do it. Let's say that. The loser of the previous game. The loser of the previous game. Definitely. So the loser of the previous game gets the opportunity

to put their chips down on one other risky. Okay, this one I like. We're selling it, right? So like then what I also like about that's a good change because then it stops the like first come first serve nature. It where everyone's like, she's like, each other, trying to grab some. Right. But like at the end of the game, the loser of the previous, it would be the I guess whatever the corresponding one is, right? But yeah, you know, the annual or event.

All right. Yeah. Would get the opportunity to to like join the points that has come up with wording for this is better than all the attempts that I've tried. So that they could take on the additional scoring of one of the persons risky pick. Yes. This could work. This could work. I think so far it's better than the first one. So yeah, oh, I agree. And it is blue shally in spirit. Yeah, because it's the loser of the previous game. So yeah, it adds variability. You're still

keeping your risky. Yeah. Yeah. And because everybody likes to win, I think something like this and what I like about the blue show idea anyway, is it creates the opportunity that more of us will be the winner? Yeah. Right. Yeah. And also could do some truly chaotic things where like the where the loser could end up losing worse, which is also funny. Right? That like you lost last time and now you go in on someone else's risky and it's wrong. And then you end up like negative two

points or something like that, which is also fun. All right. So we'll put that on there. That's the best one of those two. That's up for contention. By the way, the weather, sorry today, I don't know what you guys thought. This isn't just one raw change that we could end up with lots of raw changes today. Yeah. Is the way I imagined this. It's possible. Yeah. Like I don't feel like we have to choose one.

I have brought a couple. I'm going to start with the with the first one. So I realized that we've been so we've been playing this game for a long time now. And we have accumulated this database of historical picks that maybe at the time we got wrong. But I mean, for example, if you go to rickies.co, I believe there are many picks that came true years later. Usually risky picks that were correct in hindsight, just not in time for the event that the game was playing for.

So my idea was to add some variability. Idea number one was we could check a X number of past events and grant one bonus regular pick to the host that predicted something correct ahead of its time. Sort of as a way to reward the if you will delayed skill of a person. That was my thought. Like how do you tap into the historical database of picks that came true after the fact? I don't know how many we have, honestly. I do. Okay. So I'm just pulling it up.

So Mike has, oh, I don't actually have the number. I have the percentage. So 20% of Mike's wrong picks came true later on average. He's 1.2 years ahead of his time. Federico, you're 21.1% on average 0.8 years ahead of your time. I'm only 17.7% also at 0.8 years. Pretty close. I mean, I definitely favor you too. But I guess it depends how far we go back. I'll say I love this. One time I was only 27 days off. What was that? I don't know. That's brutal,

though. And I think ahead of its time, Jason was asking like, do we need to stand their eyes? What ahead of its time means? For me, it just means it didn't come true at the event that the game was adjudicated for. Even if it came true at any point after the event and the scoring of the rickies, that means it was ahead of its time. Like if we score the September, 2024 event, and I have a pick, and it doesn't come true, the week of September 9. But it comes

through on September, 30th. That's ahead of its time. That's the way I look at it. Okay. So like, I don't know if I was necessary. My initial thought was that it came true at the event that we just had. But maybe that's a bit too difficult still. I think we need to decide on the length of time. But I do really like this. For two reasons, I like it. It rewards us for being smart, if we were smart. And two, we're very much behind the curtain at this point.

One of the things that's always helpful for this is there's more content for the episode. There's like a whole extra segment in the episode where we talk about the things. Because also, as well, with the way that we structure the game, sometimes the stuff we don't talk about really, like in depth on that episode, because it wasn't in our picks. And this would give us the opportunity to talk about that thing. That like, say for example, a pick was like, Apple's going to change

where that Apple Watchman's work and that didn't happen. But then we don't pick it in this one. And they do it. We might not talk about it because it didn't necessarily fall in to the flow of the picks that we've made. But this would give us the opportunity to actually talk about that stuff. So I think we need to decide on the amount. But I like the idea personally. Okay. But also, I feel like what do you do about the fact that we score the rounds differently?

What do you mean? So I mean, a risky pick is worth more points than a regular pick. I feel like we shouldn't keep that into it. I feel like it should just be one point. I think it's one sure. Yeah. Even if it's a risk. I wasn't saying you're grand to one point. I was saying you're grand to one bonus regular pick. Like you offer a person one more regular pick. You give them a chance to score another point. You don't just give them a point.

So this would be something we would actually be doing in the prediction. Yes. For some reason, I thought it was giving bonus bonus. No, that was my thought. That was my thought. You do it in the prediction episode. And is it one bonus pick per thing? So if we check say five or seven, six or seven, three of these events, and Steven got two correct in that in the number of events, he can get two more regular picks.

I actually think I prefer this because it still doesn't, it's not like a guaranteed thing you get. Right. Like you've still got to make the picks. Yeah. I think this is good. I think I would I would agree with three events. Yeah. Maybe. And this would be something, as as always, we could adjust it. Right. Like if it ends up being that like everyone's getting five extra picks each time, they're making it like, but that's the thing we can we can see how that plays in

in practice. But yeah, if we say, yeah, I like that. Check the past three events on a rolling basis ground one bonus regular pick to a host that predicted something ahead of its time. And I guess that would be per correct. Yeah. Previous pick. Something like that. Well, I mean, that's baked in. If it grant one bonus regular picture of host that predicted something correctly ahead of its time. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's good. It's good. That was idea number one.

There's a longer one. There's another one that is a bit more involved and a bit different. And we're going to do it after the break. This episode of Connected is made possible by KRCS, one of the oldest Apple premium resellers. And you're a one-stop shop for all things Apple in the United Kingdom. For our UK listeners right now at KRCS, you can get 0% interest on any Mac over a thousand pounds for 12 months. That means you can buy the latest in three MacBook Air for just 76 pounds per month.

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Okay, so idea number two, this is not my idea. This came from Sylvia. We did a whole brainstorming session and I explained how the rules have changed over the years. And she started thinking so it's a very different idea, but I think it has potential. So keep an open mind. First off, this will require changing the format of the risky picks. With this idea, the risky picks have a new format. Every risky pick must be comprised of at least

three details. For example, you're predicting something about the iPad Pro and you're saying, there's gonna be a new iPad Pro, you will have OLED, that's detail number one, a bigger display, that's detail number two and faster charging, that's detail number three. We often do this risky picks. And so many times over the years, we have gotten something almost correct because we got two out of three or I don't know three out of six details, right?

But we couldn't get the point because it was not entirely correct. So this system once to again reward our skills even though we were not all the way there. Silves idea was a risky pick is made out of three details or three variables, call them however you want. If you get all three correct, you still get two points. Same as always. If you get all wrong, you still lose one point. The changes are, if you get at least one correct, you don't lose

any points. If you get two out of three correct, you get one point. That's the idea. I think Sylvia's a genius. Honestly, I've been thinking, I wrote this in a document yesterday and I've been thinking a lot about it. Whereas it will change the risky pick format, like maybe too much. But then I thought, I actually know because you don't, like so we've been doing this for a, I think I started doing it with some insane one once.

I just kind of didn't ought to pick. So I just gave a list of stuff. I think it was about the Mac Pro or something. And then it ended up becoming like a good way to get a point out, like you kind of layering complexity because it just thrups how right you can be. Because I was thinking, but not all riskis are like that. Sometimes you just have like a, so the one I was thinking of was Apple makes a deck. I had it a time. Yeah. Well, to be determined. But I thought, you could still make that pick.

But now you put in put in two things about it. And you could actually get into a scenario where depending on the pick, you could actually still get points even if they don't do the main thing. So like, let's imagine it was like Apple makes a deck and they launch high-fi streaming. Yeah. And did it right? So like you could end up getting into a scenario where you've got that. So I think this again, like other things, we're going to have to feel out how that's going to work.

And there's probably knowing us going to be some discussion about it. But I really like the rewarding of something. So like, let's imagine Federico said there was a new iPad Pro that's going to have a little bigger display and faster charging. And it had OLED and faster charging. It's like, you're actually still benefiting from that even though the display wasn't any bigger. So I think it's good. Yeah. This is my favorite so far. By far. Because it doesn't require a bunch of digging through the

history of things, which can be complicated. And it double, this one kind of doubles down on what makes the risky pick funny over the years. Because how many times have one of us made a pick with a bunch of variables in it and half of them are wrong. Right? Like this is something we stumble into. So rewarding that feels right. Like, this is my favorite. This is what I would vote for right now. Yeah. This is also my favorite. And I think it really leans into the idea of strategizing because maybe

you could think, okay, I'm going to have three conduit. I think I believe it was Jason suggested the conditions name, which I really like instead of details or variables. I think conditions could work. You may be thinking, okay, I have these three conditions and I kind of want to risk it with one of them, but don't come up with something totally insane for the other two. And they still need to be risky. Like, I'm not saying these are not going to be regular picks. But like, there's obviously a

degree of risky. Like saying that the capture button in the iPhone 16 maybe will hide the camera UI is different from obviously saying, oh, and it will also support, I don't know, five different levels of pressure sensitivity. Like, there's a degree, there's a spectrum of risky. And this format, I think it adds more strategy to the mix. Yeah. And again, it's like, we're still going to have to agree that things are risky because like, there is a scenario here where you could imagine

people being able to get themselves an easy one point or something. Right, but like a couple of things that they pick. But that's why we're still going to be doing the deduidication that we do beforehand just to make sure that we're coming to the episode agreeing on it, even though we still don't always, but we try our best. And all of those details are going to have to have an element of complexity to them. They can't just be like, and it connects to the internet, you know,

you know, like they still have to have. They're still going to need to have something where it's not like completely obvious. And so yeah, and that can even come from like the base of the pick or all of the details are complicated. Yeah. Okay. I got two. They're both from listeners. Josh's dips into the flexes to affect the rickies, which is interesting because right now we treat them basically separately. So Josh says, for every $100 donated in their previous flexes, you get a bonus

regular pick inserted at the time of your choice, possibly interrupting another host. I don't think that person is necessary. I think you could just be an additional regular pick. You may not pre-select this pick in the document. It must be litigated on air. Okay. So I guess that's why he said you could interrupt. So like if Federico, so say that I go first and then Federico is doing his next and then I have an idea, I can say, hey, actually, I'm spending $100 of my dollar, you know,

or like cash again $100 of my previous donation for an extra pick. It's complicated and timing, but I like the idea of the flexes having influence where they have not had influence before. Interesting. See, I don't like that. Yeah, let me see that again. Okay. That's fine. I mean, this is a democracy, you know, I do like the not in the documentness of it all. Yeah, I mean, either meet me too. I was. Yeah. Yes. And so I could imagine if we wanted to do the check the

past three events on a rolling basis, that's literally what I was going to say this. Yes, let's combine them. You can put that in at any moment, but this is the thing that we don't need to put in the rules. We will agree on you can't steal something that's already in the document though. No, yeah. Right. Like if you can't pick Steven's pick that he hasn't made yet, like, but I think we all know that we'd, you know, we don't we're not going to do that because that's just mean.

Yeah. So if I could imagine like check the past three events on a rolling basis, grant one bonus regular pick to a host that's predicted something correctly ahead of its time. This can be inserted at a time of the pickers choosing, possibly interrupting another host, you may not preselect this pick in the document. That's cool. Yeah. It's fun. It's fun. And then the last one I mentioned earlier, it's the idea of a swap. So the previous loser, you know, in the corresponding game,

at the end of the game, they get to swap a pick with somebody else. And I think it could be a regular pick or well, so Chris wrote standard pick for standard pick risky for risky. So I can't say, I'm going to give you my standard pick and I'm going to take your risky rise. I want my risky. You're going to take mine. So again, I think that's maybe the simplest out of all of these. Yeah, but it's the most devious in a way that I don't like. Like I can I can give you a time bomb,

right? Sure. Where I can just pick something and then just give it to you. But is that kind of exactly what a blue shell is? No, like it was the original idea, but then in talking about it, it seems like it's more about rubber banding than anything else. Not, yeah, blue shells. Honestly, I would take Sylvia's first and we can see how that goes. And maybe if it doesn't work, I think we should do more than one. I think we should do the, I think we should

do points system. And I think we should do the Roland events one with the combo. I think, throwing it in. I think we go into the prediction episode, having checked the past three events. So we know who has the regular pick. That can be inserted at any time during the episode. And doesn't have to be written down into the document cannot be stolen from somebody else. And then the risquis have Sylvia's format. I do feel like in say the rule reading,

we should stay at that point. Who has what? Yes. At the end, you can say something like for this game, Steven has three. Mike has one. Federico has one or something like that. Because then we can talk about them. I would like to talk about them, right? Yes. That feels pretty good to me. It feels good to me. Yeah. So I'm making the rules longer. They are. Yeah. So I'm in the biller keys right now in notion of dating

the background. Yeah. I have three conditions. Good luck. And we'll just have to check it and get the do kind of like the litigation beforehand. I think this is fun. I like what I like about this. I like that we get to dip into the past. I think that's fun. And we'll be really intriguing to see kind of like how that plays out over time. And then I also like that we're creating a new the problem in this game is the risky pick. Right? That is what we have established is the issue

for why we do so many coin flips. And this is an attempt, a better attempt, I think, at trying to stop the tying. Yeah. So let me read you the risky picks. And then I want to go back over the other things. I'm still not quite sure. I know how to write it. So yeah. I replaced the old risky pick language with this. Risky picks have a more complex scoring system. Each risky pick must have three conditions attached to it. If you get all three conditions correct, you earn two

points. If you get two conditions correct, you earn one point. If you get one condition correct, you earn zero points. If you get all three conditions wrong, you lose one point. Yeah. Picks must have been approved as risky by the two other hosts before the start of the game. Mm-hmm. Okay. That feels good. Yeah. Where do we get? I guess we can still do like you have three and you can still add additional context like we like

to sometimes, right? But they're like not the parts of the pick. I think the ungraded lines. Ungraded. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Little more important now. So the other one. It's probably it's own area where I like, I don't think we have anything that this attaches to. Maybe when it talks about what the picks are, maybe after the risky pick could go in, right? That like for you could kind of mention it then because it is like essentially an another round of

maybe it goes before the risky pick because it's a you're picking a regular pick. You know, it's like each host gets to do regular picks. They also get an additional pick for each correct item they've predicted in the past over the last three rolling events, nothing like that. Yeah. So each host gets to make two regular picks and then one additional pick is allowed based on number of huskets hard ahead of its time.

Why don't we agree on the language? Okay. And then we can find a place to put it, right? Yeah. That's what I'm trying to do. I have like one sentence. I don't where it goes is less important than what it says. Well, let's try and work it out then. So what we have in the document is check the past three events on a rolling basis. Grant one bonus regular pick to a host that predicted something correctly ahead of its time. This pick can be inserted at a time of your choice.

I'm going to add that in here. We need to specify that it's one bonus regular pick per. Yes. Yeah. And also we need to specify that we are checking only regular picks and risky picks, not the flexes. Grant one bonus regular pick for each regular or risky pick. Yes. That was predicted correctly ahead of its time. We read this. Check the past three. Oh, this we're realizing here and how bad nothing could be it three people trying to do something at once to the same sentence.

Check the past three corresponding games on a rolling basis. Grant one bonus regular pick for each regular or risky pick that was predict. I'm going to say pick as we don't we just we'll work out. It's in the rules for that game. So like yeah, we know we got one bonus regular pick for each item that was predicted correctly ahead of its time. This pick can be inserted at a time of the choice. Yeah. The hosts choice, possibly interrupting another host. You may not preselect this

pick in a document. It must be we don't need to litigate a pause. Sorry. I'm going to read it one last time. Check the past three corresponding games on a rolling basis. Grant one bonus regular pick for each item that was predicted correctly ahead of its time. This pick can be inserted at a time of the host's choice, possibly interrupting another host. Don't need to put that in there either. So you may not select this you may not preselect this pick in the document. I think the tense needs

to be changed a little bit, but I think yeah, wording rise actually makes sense. I can I can clean that up off the air, but I think that's that's about right. Yeah. Okay. How are we feeling? I feel great about these two things. Yeah. I can't wait for next week to put them in action. Yeah. This is going to be so much more strategic and fun. I think or a beautiful disaster. We change it again. You know,

which is also fun. Exactly. We have a still a big list of blue shell items. I'm like, we can keep trying this. Wouldn't it be great if we end up in a situation where it's just like it's still a tie, but everybody has minus one. We just got in the sit direction. It just made it harder. Incredible. Well, I think that's it. Think that's it. Yeah. We'll see. We'll see how that goes. If you want to find links to this stuff we spoke about, including our St. Jude campaign,

check out the show notes at relay.fm slash connected slash 516. Those links are also in your podcast player. There's also links there to leave feedback or follow up or do we come a member and get connected pro, which is a longer ad free version of the show each and every week. This week we talked about Oasis getting back together. We did not talk about whatever Lincoln Park is doing as much as I wanted to didn't get it to that maybe next time. There's going to be a

music show for the next couple of weeks, I think. We will be making our picks for Apple's iPhone event next week. So stay tuned. You can join us live if you remember in the discord. We'd love to have you there on Wednesdays when we record. You can find us all online. Federico is the editor in chief of Macstories.net and you can find him as Viteechi, vi, t i cc i across Macedon and Threds. You can follow Mike as I mic and Macedon and Threds. He has a bunch of other shows here on the

network and of course does great work over a cortex brand. You can find my writing at 512pixels.net and I am ismh86 on social media. I'd like our sponsors this week for making the show possible zokdok, square space, one password extended access management and krcs. Until next week guys say goodbye. I'll be there to you. Cheerio. Bye y'all.