Hello and welcome to Connected episode of 539. Today is February 12th, and this episode is made possible by our sponsors, Ecamm, Google Gemini, and NetSuite. My name is Stephen Hackett, and I have the pleasure of being joined by our keynote chairman. Mr. Mike Hurley. Hello, it's me. Continuing on from the Connected Pro Show to give follow up for that. People are not going to understand why I'm saying this, which I think is part of the fun. Crossy Road is like still happening.
They're updating it regularly. This is a game that is just continuing forever. Imagine that. I know about games. Come on. I'm a gamer. And I have the pleasure of introducing annual chairman, my chairman friend, Federico Batici. Hi, Federico. Hello, fellow chairman. Hello, fellow chairman. Hello, Stephen. Yes. Hello. I'm going to ask for a new title later on in the episode. Be prepared. Be prepared. You're not going to get it. I want the best follow-up of all time.
A selection of multiple listeners wrote in, but Marco was first. Marco says, Hi, Marco from Italy here. I listen to the show every week and love it. Thank you, Marco. Thank you, Marco. In last episode, you mentioned WhatsApp not retaining the unread badge when you open the app. They recently changed this. You have to go into WhatsApp settings, notifications, scroll down to untoggle the quote clear badge option.
hope this helps marco has made my life better thank you marco this was an excellent tip i had no idea this existed um yeah it's recent This is recent because I checked it like a few months ago. Like I was trying to dig through this and like ended up like I was on that website that we spoke about a long time ago. The WhatsApp releases website. Do you remember that? I ended up finding myself back there. There is an episode of this show that is named after a WhatsApp update release.
And it was from this website, this like WhatsApp release notes website. Oh, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. I remember. And I ended up going back to that website a few months ago trying to find if they had done this and now they hadn't. But yes, now they have, which is incredible. And I just want to talk about WhatsApp for a minute or two. Please. I'm using WhatsApp a lot more just as I'm kind of making more acquaintances with people here, right?
So like going to parenting classes and stuff, everybody sets up WhatsApp messages and WhatsApp groups and stuff. There's kind of no way around it. You know, like in Europe. And like in India, like WhatsApp is prevalent. Like it is what everybody uses to communicate. I am the weird one who wants to talk over iMessage.
And I've been able to maintain a few groups in iMessage, but I am considered to be weird because of it. Because everybody just talks over WhatsApp. And for group messages, WhatsApp is incredible.
Like the way that groups can be created and people just create groups for everything. It is so, so much better than iMessage. And in ways that... sound weird on the face of it but make a lot of sense like for example you know i'm in we were put in a big group in one of the like the parenting classes that i'm in of like everyone's in it uh and then there was a group set up for just like
the parenting partners. And we haven't exchanged phone numbers, but because we're in an existing group together, they can set up a new group, which... makes so much sense logistically. And people will be like, oh, but you haven't had some kind of key exchange of phone numbers or whatever you'd say. But for the realistic world of dealing with group messages in these kinds of scenarios, it just makes everything so easy.
Federico probably has more thoughts on WhatsApp than I do, but the more I am using it and the more I am able to get over just how much I hate the UI from a, like... functional perspective, it is an incredibly good messaging application. I think from a functional perspective, it's incredible. I don't know what it is that gives you the... I don't know if it's an illusion of speed or if it's actually faster than iMessage.
they're using different protocols I don't want to get into that but the thing is like one big thing that works excellent like it works so well in WhatsApp for me and it doesn't in iMessage And it doesn't because it shows a cultural divide, I think, between the engineers that design and work on messages versus the people who work on WhatsApp is audio messages, voice messages.
how they work in WhatsApp versus how they work in iMessage, the design, the interaction of voice messages in iMessage has always been nonsensical to me. And I think... how they work in WhatsApp and how they were able to essentially define a new way of communication that I believe only exists in this capacity and popularity in Europe.
is incredible. Like being able, like I send on a regular basis voice messages that are like one minute, two minutes, three, five minutes long. And other people do the same with me. This type of asynchronous but still voice-based communication can only happen in WhatsApp because of the design that they have, that these voice messages have.
And the fact that you can now listen to these voice messages sped up, which I do at 2x all the time, has been an excellent addition to what's happened. So yeah. Maybe, you know, there's parts of WhatsApp that I don't like UI wise, but the functionality and the way that they ultimately allow people to communicate more and more easily. right here in italy like anything happens on whatsapp like stores you can contact them on whatsapp mike barber i can
I can make an appointment on WhatsApp. My doctor, my veterinarian for dogs, like anything. I can do anything on WhatsApp. And so... Is it like UI-wise better than messages? No. Although I will say that I don't love the new app picker UI for messages, but that's a different conversation. But it's fast. The voice interaction is so much better than iMessage. The integration with voice and video calling is great. And yeah, it works.
You're going to have to help me with this. Is it possible to use WhatsApp on other devices? Can I use it on the Mac and use it on my iPad? This functionality is called linked devices. In fact, you can even do it on an Android device. You just link it to your iPhone. And so as long as you log into... WhatsApp on your iPhone every two weeks, everything is going to stay connected. Yeah, linked devices. Use WhatsApp on other devices. Oh, okay. And I guess they have clients for...
They just don't have a client for the iPad at this point. Obviously. It's meta. Come on, what are you talking about? But I guess you can use it on the web, right? You can use it on the web. You can use it on a Mac. They have a desktop version on the Mac. Obviously on Android, iPhone. Yeah, that's a Windows. I don't know if they have a Windows app. That I don't know.
I don't know if I want to do this, but I'm just intrigued. Because I can see it is going to become a pretty big part of my life from now. just because of the way in which my life is changing. Being able to archive messages. into an archive section and still retain the ability to go in there easily and see, like, for example, you know, so many, like the group chat of the condo.
where I live. I archived it. But if I want to, I can go in there and see what people say. So yeah, there's tons of different aspects that... I don't know. And maybe it's just a European thing. Because every time I talk about it, I get the messages from people in America being like, I don't understand why you send voice messages. Cool. They're popular here. I think it is a thing.
where people that use the app support it well. Because like, people do it here too, right? Like I see people sending voice messages to each other all the time, like long backwards and forwards one, because it's just a thing that they do. WhatsApp is fascinating. I think really it's an example of the kind of thing where it's like, if you do one thing, you're just really good at it.
And iMessage can't be as good as WhatsApp because the company has many priorities. But even though WhatsApp is owned by Meta, they do seem semi-independent. At least. I mean, I don't know, but it feels like they are just very focused on that. They just have a lot of focus on making that app the best that it can be. And maybe iMessage serves other masters. I don't know. I don't know how it works. Yeah.
Mike, you're not alone. Curtis wrote in, I applaud Mike's choice of a read it later solution. I also use Apple Notes with a save for later folder. containing several notes. So they have website ideas, saved links, writing ideas, and clothing links. I guess Curtis is a big shopper. My action button runs a shortcut to quickly add each text. Each week I review and clean out unneeded links. It's simple, effective, and requires no extra apps or logins. See?
This is the way. It's safe to say that I'm a visionary about reading later. You should have seen all the listeners coming out of the woodwork, at least two of them saying that I was right in the way that I do with my read it later. So I'm starting a revolution. I'm starting a revolution. It may have been more. It could have been a million. I just maybe haven't been checking.
Like, I have no doubt that they're out there, like people who agree with me. Have you two been chipping away at your read it late cues this week? You've been reading some of the things that were later? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Has it been going well? You really happy? Yes. Awesome. I'm satisfied. I wouldn't say I'm really happy, but... Yeah, that's a stretch. You've been reading things? Mm-hmm. Yes. Okay. You think that is odd?
I just don't believe that anyone actually reads their later cue. You don't? Okay. All right. I just don't think it happens. I think it's... You think it's like this mass conspiracy? against the non-readers to make them feel bad. Exactly. They're like, my queue is long and I read all of it. That's what you readers. You readers. Us non-readers.
it funny because you actually record a podcast with the one person who among us reads the most and that would be Jason Snell Jason reads now he doesn't read later okay So you think at any given moment, Jason is reading? Probably. He's reading right now. He's in the chat. He's reading. He's reading and listening. I believe Jason is a read it now, not a read it later.
Okay. Sounds like a tagline for an app that's not going to get any VC funding. It's like, don't read it later. Read it now. No, I'll say it's Powered by AI. Like you don't need to read things later because the AI reads it for you and just tells you now. I think literally Federico and I've had a sponsor on our blogs that has something similar to that. Oh, seriously? Incredible. Or like a podcast or something. I forget.
Please let me know. Please let me know. This episode of Connected is brought to you by Ecamm. Ecamm Live is the leading video production and live streaming studio built for the Mac. Ecamm is great at simplifying your workflow. You can do it all with Ecamm app. Get started quickly and have everything on hand to create whatever you need to with video.
What impresses me most about Ecamm is their deep integration with the Mac and the other software that runs on it. That means Ecamm is great for streaming, recording, podcasting, and presenting, but so much more. If you want to stand out from the crowd, you need high-quality video. With Ecamm, you can screen share, use multiple cameras, and direct the show in real time with things like their live camera switcher. Plus, you can easily add logos.
titles, lower thirds, and graphics. You can drop in video clips, bring on interview guests, use a green screen, and so much more. Ecamm's members are entrepreneurs, marketing professionals, podcasters, educators, musicians, church leaders, bloggers, and content creators of all kinds. If you're on the pro level plan, you can enjoy Ecamm for Zoom and send Ecamm Live's audio and video output. into a Zoom meeting, webinar, or event
And then add up to eight Zoom participants as camera sources in your broadcaster recording. This is really cool and powerful stuff. And you can even automatically create individual participant audio and video recordings. and add the Zoom chat to your broadcast or recording as a text overlay. So go check it out and get one month for free today. Just go to ecamm.com slash connected and use the code connected.
That's one whole month free of Ecamm Live at Ecamm, E-C-A-M-M, Ecamm.com slash connected with the code connected. Go there now and check it out. Our thanks to Ecamm for their support of the show. It's been a while since a topic has generated as much feedback as Apple invites. A lot of people agree with us.
A lot of people think we're idiots for our takes on it. I don't even know what our takes are on it. We just talked about it. I just want to jump in right now on that exact point. Oh, boy. Here we go. Here we go. He's going off. If you ever start your feedback with, I can't believe. Right? Like, you're like, I can't believe you didn't mention. Just take a breath. Understand that we maybe don't live the same life as you. That, like, the people saying, I can't believe you didn't mention Partiful.
Do you think I'm using it and just decide not to mention it? Is that what's going on here? Like the I am a frequent receiver and sender of part to full free online party invites. You know what I mean? Just like assume that maybe we're different and let's just be like. Hey guys, have you heard about this application before? I can't believe you didn't mention Partiful during this conversation. So we neglected it. We're also a part of the conspiracy. So there is an app called Partiful.
that does a lot of these types of things. And I've seen people since, and I was listening to the Waveform podcast, and they were talking about it. They're obviously young, cool, hip people who receive part-to-fault invites. it seems like it's very much similar in functionality, like really very quite similar. Yeah. Basically 100% similar, but works cross-platform. And that...
Like with an app cross-platform. Yeah. And so, you know, I can imagine people that are using Partiful, they're probably not going to switch. Yeah, so I downloaded it and... It is very much like Apple invites. And it's one of those things. Apple is definitely aware of this app because it was a finalist for in the App Store Awards in 2024 and best app of 2024 and Google Play. This thing is blown up.
It's gotta suck, right? That kind of thing has gotta suck so bad. Sherlocking in general is a shame. But you see a lot of people say they're Sherlocked and it's like Apple doesn't. Like, you know, like, do they even know who you are? But when they've awarded you or, like, nominated you for best app and then, like, a year later or something, like, hey, here's our version, it's like, oh, that's got to hurt.
Yeah, probably. But yeah, it looks great. A lot of the feedback was people actually in New York City. None of us live in New York City, but it has a lot of... Like when you fill out the details, it has spaces for like, here's the door code to get in or like, you know, lots of like detail that I think is pretty nice. I can see why people like this. Like I can see why it's popular.
The three of us did not come across it, but I get it. And yeah, Apple's app looks pretty similar in a lot of ways, which is always uncomfortable. But this is cool. And it's cross-platform, which is nice too. Other folks wrote in excited about invites, including Nicole, who wrote, as someone who has to deal with Evite and Eventbrite invitations regularly for work.
I can say a non-spammy alternative would be amazing. And I think I tried touching on this, but didn't quite get there last week. A lot of the things that are out there that are web-based are like full of ads or you never get off their email list. Eventbrite is pretty bad about that. There's also another one called Meetup, which is popular in some more nerdy circles. Once they have your email, you're just in their list forever.
you know, hopefully Apple's not going to do that. So it's good to have an alternative. Again, like I think all three of us have our doubts about. how widespread this app could be. But if it meets your needs, that's awesome. And it is cool. It is a cool example of Apple pulling its ecosystem together. Mike, you and Jason spoke about this on Upgrade on Monday.
And you all had a piece of feedback that was like, it was so smart. I wish I had thought of it. It was like, it's like a WWDC demo app, but like finished. It's like, yeah, it is. It pulls all these things together in interesting ways. And so. Yeah, Apple invites. It's a thing still. It's made it a week. It's made it a week. Oh, okay. It is one-fifth music memos now, so keep an eye on it. Yeah.
I wish I had the energy to have more thoughts about this, but I really don't. This is just one of these things where it looks interesting and I'm happy for the people that want to use it and are going to use it. I just don't imagine it having a long life, but I'll be happy to be proven wrong. And this is just based on existing things. Or maybe it just exists forever.
but like not much changes with it. Like it's just out there. But I guess we'll see. So Steven has what I'm calling a little bloggy. What's a little bloggy? A little bloggy. Do you remember Little Widget? It's like that. Little Widget? Okay. It's a little bloggy, and it's based on... Well, you're calling it a now page, which is something that... David Sparks has done. I don't know if this was David Sparks' invention. No. Not even close.
Okay, so this is something that lots of people were copying from each other. Yeah. Kind of like back in the days when everybody called their about page their colophon. Oh, Stephen still does that. Okay. I actually just changed it back. That said about and part of the... rearranging was updating the navigation and I didn't want an about page in an about menu and so call the phone returns. What even is that word? Fancy word for about.
I feel like it's one of these things that was on Daring Fireball and then everybody did it. And now Stephen's back to Colophon again. So I do instantly regret my making fun of because I am now immediately making fun of Stephen. So I'm just going to continue pushing forward through this one. the now page is what is this? This is like a little blog, a little social media. Like what is this? A little bloggy. I think you said, I like it.
Yeah, I like it, but I want you to explain to me what it is and why you're doing it. Because there's not much to talk about this week, so I need you to tell me. Yeah, so we had a whole section of the show. set aside for a new iphone se that just didn't come out yeah shoving things in here uh yeah i didn't mean to like put fun of sparks like
He's the one who urged me to do it. Lots of people have this. It's just kind of a place to just rattle off some thoughts about what's kind of currently going on. For me, I'm not... I don't even want to say it, but it dovetails with a break from social media that I'm taking, mostly taking. Why don't we talk about that? We have time. Maybe in a minute.
And so, but like some of these things, so I've struggled with this over the years and I think you can see it or maybe I can see it. Maybe readers can't. We're like, I kind of swing over time of like what. goes in the feed on 512 like i had a post the other day that was just a screenshot of like an ad for logic inside of logic and i was just mad about it
Like that would have been a social media post, but I've made it a blog post instead. And then there have been other times you're like, no, I'm only posting longer things. I'm all over the place. This sort of stuff, like I think is kind of fun to share. but it's definitely not a blog post, right? Like at least most of them aren't. And I wanted a place for them that could kind of just like live on the site and be updated.
My plan is to update it every couple of weeks. I have a recurring task to do so. And I have a revision history set up on GitHub. You can go look through if you're really just obsessed with this idea. And yeah, so just kind of like a running log of things going on. And it was kind of fun to put together. So here's my question for you. You write things for people to read. How will they know to go read this?
well i i mean that is kind of uh a problem with this because it's not in the feed like i've made a blog post that's in the feed it's like hey i'm doing this and i may relink to it every once in a while It's also in the navigation. And, you know, it's kind of like if you want to see this, it's there. But if you don't care, that's fine, too. Like because five fill pixels isn't strictly a personal blog.
I'm okay with it kind of being off the beaten path a little bit. Okay. Interesting. It reminds me of a little bit like the setups page. Yeah, I was going to say that. Yeah. Yeah. And I, you know, I have a gear page too. That's kind of the same thing. It's like, if someone asks me about like, well, what are you using? I can just send them that URL, which I think is the same thing. Same reason the Mac stories guys are doing it. And so.
Yeah, just kind of like a fun little side project. Now, I like this idea of separate pages on a blog with a more sort of like static approach to like, here's a... Here's like a screenshot of this moment in time about what I do or what I use or whatever it is. I wish there was a better way. Maybe it's... I believe we're both using WordPress. Maybe there's a better way to do this than we're not doing. But like, you know, some kind of way to advertise updates to these pages.
more natively on our homepage in a way that is not us manually going in there and creating a new linked post, which is what we do when we update the setups page. We manually blog about it. right just an idea but maybe this is like something that theoretically at some point something like activity pub could help yes have you heard of the federated verse
I think that's what you're looking for. Have you heard a good word of the fatty verse? Yes, maybe. But this is the sort of thing where actually the fatty verse could be useful. Like, I don't know. I don't know. Something worth thinking about. For sure. Yeah, so Emma recommended, what about separate RSS feeds for these things? So like, I think you get this if you subscribe to The Verge. Like, so I have a separate RSS feed that's just the quick posts. Yeah.
And I love that. I probably could do that because I'm using feed press to build my RSS feed, which is fine. I'm. always worried about the surface going away but I could make a separate feed but then like I don't know like I I made it that at some point um I would like it as a separate feed. I personally would very much like that for all of these things. So I know that they've changed. Because this is what I'm saying. I want to read what people have to say.
But for this kind of stuff, I have to have an impetus to go look at it. I would personally want to read everything you ever publish here but my concern would be you would update it next week and then in two weeks time you update it significantly and then you
You put that on the blog, but you've removed the things that were in the second update. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah, I'm going to think about that. I mean, I think if this proves to be something that I enjoy doing over the long haul, it's something that I would... I would look at it. I mean, I could have it be a category in WordPress and then have it so you have a feed per category and then hide that category from the homepage, which would kind of give me like a blog within a blog.
There's definitely ways to do it, but for now, the simplest way is just a page. And then, you know, highlighting it every once in a while. And I thought too, like maybe the most recent change could be like in the sidebar, but I think like Mac stories, I would imagine most. people who read 512 do it via RSS. Like my reader base of RSS is way bigger than the traffic to the site on any given day. And so like...
even having it in the navigation or in the sidebar still is invisible to those subscribers. So like there's, there's a balance to be found there. You know, this is. version one and maybe there'll be future versions down the road. Yeah, it's not worth building an infrastructure if you don't keep doing it. But if you do keep doing it...
I would love an infrastructure. Yeah. And actually 5.12 already has that infrastructure. Like it has, I've used categories from day one and they're all there. They're not visible to anybody. Like on Mac stories, you can go to the bottom and see the tags and like.
click this and see the other articles about Instapaper or whatever. I have all of that built out and I've done it for 16 years. Every single post on the site is in at least one category. So the plumbing is there. It would just be a matter of...
of exposing that. You could, what, have feed been... take a category and make it a make like so a service could take a category and just create a feed out of that category wordpress can do that natively even so i wouldn't even have to run it through something like feedpress if i didn't want to Okay. That would be nice. Yeah. Yeah. As if you do it. I get it. Yeah. We'll see. You know, this is, like I said, this is version one. And if other people are doing this and like have ideas, like.
I'd love to hear him. You know, Rob Knight, I spoke to him about this yesterday. And on his side, it's kind of like a secondary blog. And, you know, it auto-publishes the social media, which is like another thing.
Part of this is I want this separate on social media, at least for now. So that would be another thing to contend with. But yeah, it's all good thoughts and all interesting possibilities down the road. So when I see Rob's posts... on mastodon and they have a link to the post that's the same text as the post it's one of these is that what that is i think so yeah yeah okay yeah that makes sense now i didn't understand what was going on there this is The Federated Verse is...
interesting but it is it's like throwing up all these like here's wildly different implementations of everybody's thing yeah because also like people are mentioning like omg lol right which they have a kind of brad was the first person saw to do this where it's like he has like a page on his site which is like here is what i am doing this week um and which is like a not too dissimilar thing from what you're doing right it's like kind of like a schedule page
I think it's the status log or something. Yeah, it is. Yeah. And it just it has like this is it's a new one every week and like. this is what Brad does every week. Like, you know, it's like I'm streaming these days, recording the podcast these days, that kind of thing. And it's not too dissimilar from this kind of idea. It is interesting, like all of these little different things are popping up. Even because the...
even like the setups page, like I see people post similar things for the apps that they use, I think, which I think was inspired by a podcast. If I'm... remembering rightly i know one of you know this piece of information and uh yes yes he was inspired but yeah uh i have that on my about page hemispheric views is that it yep I have that on my gear page, excuse me, where you can see down at the bottom, it's like software. I just listed them all out.
So yeah, it's just a fun, interesting thing, I think, to do within the 512 blog infrastructure. It's just a matter of how far do I want to push it in terms of... making it easy for people to keep up with and how it kind of fits in with the other stuff. Like there is a world where I would do this on some service, right? Like even Macedon or, or.
you know, like what Brad is doing, or there's a bunch of those services out there. But part of this is like, I want it on 5.12, but then I got to find a way to integrate it with what people have come to expect. from 512. Like if I dumped a bunch of the stuff in the main feed, I suspect some people who subscribe to follow Apple and that sort of thing would not want that. And so, you know.
making that all work for everybody. But do you care, though? Like, share a blog. Yeah, and that's, yeah, that's a question, too. So, we'll see. It's brand new, but it's all good stuff to think about. But it's because... You mentioned. Here we go. Staying away from social media. Yeah. Is it official if you don't mention it? Exactly.
Or if your podcast co-host doesn't drag out of you on the show. So you taking another break or is this something else? Because you take a break like usually in October every year. Yeah. Because you're tired after lots of social media engagement in September. Yeah. Yeah. And I did in October because I was on sabbatical too. Yeah. Yeah, it just seems like there's a lot of stuff on the internet.
I'm trying to be sensitive to the fact that like, I don't want to stick my head in the sand about the world, but I even said on the now page, as I mentioned, this was like, I'm still reading the news. I'm still, like, giving money and time to things that I think are important. But I don't need everyone's take on it right now. And so those apps are off of my phone. I'm still signing on the web because, like, you know, I still...
keeping an eye on my replies and stuff in a work context, but wanted to back away from it in terms of personal use. And I don't know where that goes, but it's been a couple of weeks and so far it's been really good. Again, something else new. You're just like not at all. You're just not on social media at all. Yeah. So I, so like this weekend, so I'm signed in on my, on my computer, but like this weekend, my laptop stayed in the office. Like I didn't.
open it and so i didn't look at anything over the weekend on social media like okay at all um So you're not getting all the memes I'm sending you? Yeah, open Instagram. It's like, oh, there's 3,000 DMs here from people. But checking it really mostly replies, you know. a few times a week on the web at work. And using Instagram on the web sucks. And so it's a really good limiting factor. It's like, okay, I can see a couple of things and then move on.
And I'm not signed into any of these things on my phone. And so that's kind of been the other thing. It's like, well, I could just go to the Threads of the Blue Sky website. I don't want to use Macedon on the web because Macedon on the web really sucks. It's like, look, you click this other link to see the reply. It's like, I don't want to do that. Is that because...
You have your own instance? It makes it worse, I think. Oh, okay. So yeah, all these things are new and experimental. I'm going to put a pledge out into the world just like a wish. Blue Sky has really good moderation features, like mutes, words, and all that kind of stuff. That's all built into the service. You love to see it. Please let me turn off retweets for people. Please.
Please, please. It's still not there. It's still not support. Oh my God. I know you can have custom feeds that like, but no, there's just specific people. that I want to follow, but they retweet too much. And it's even just like a politics thing, but it is that, but also it isn't. Like some people, they just like, they write an article and then they retweet something.
Every single person who reshares it, they repost it. And I just don't need to see the same article so much. You know what I mean? Like, I've seen it. Like I read it, it's fine. So, you know, I don't need it. And so like, I just, I want to keep following these people to see what they have to say, but I don't necessarily need every read.
post but there are some people i do want to see what they repost because they repost interesting things you know so like the global turn on and off is not what i'm looking for but like i just i want to be able to be like please just let me turn off repost from this person But if they've added it, I haven't seen it, and I check a lot. So, yeah, I really want them to sort this out, but they haven't.
The mute words, really good. Keep adding to that list. Every couple of days there's a new word going on that list. What a time to be alive, you know? Yeah. This episode of Connected is brought to you by Google Gemini. I tried Gemini a couple of days ago, the Gemini Live where you can talk to it, and it's really wild just to have a full-on conversation with this thing.
I asked it to give me ideas for hosting during the holidays. And when it starts giving you results, you can just stop it and say something like, OK, but what's what about something low key for a smaller group? I personally don't want to host a bunch of people. And then it just adjusted to that.
And you can keep going until you get an idea that you want. And I think that's what I would use it for the most, brainstorming things. It's so good if you don't know where to start or if you hit a wall. You just go to Gemini and it helps you get the ball rolling. But you can use it for all kinds of stuff. If you want to learn something new, or you can have it give you advice, ask it to explain Bitcoin in simple terms, or you can have it quiz you on something like microbiology.
Imagine being a student and you've got this personal tutor on hand. And it's hard to explain. You really have to go play with it and see how it listens to you, responds, and adapts to your style of conversation. Just go try it out. It's free. Our thanks to Google Gemini for the support of the show and all of Relay. Big news. Okay. After decades of people begging.
Finally, you can migrate purchases between Apple accounts. You did it, Joe. This is all thanks to you, right? That's right. I genuinely refuse to believe. that this is not related to you. We just, this has been going on for, we just spoke about it for like an hour, and now somebody dusted off some web objects, and here we are. Mm-hmm. Yes. Someone sent me an email. They're like, boy, don't you wish this had happened two weeks ago? I was like, uh, yeah. So, uh, Apple on.
the 11th, so yesterday as we record this, published a couple of support articles about migrating purchases from one Apple account to another. And I want to say Apple account is a new term. It was Apple ID. for like 100 years, I'm probably going to say Apple ID a bunch. Like, just forgive me. They're one and the same, if you're confused by that. They just rebranded it to Apple account, which is a better term for it. Like, I like the...
the branding better. But Apple IDs like burned it in my head. So if you were like me, like briefly recap weeks of pain in my life, I was using one Apple ID from a long time ago. for purchasing. And I was using a different one for iCloud, like syncing notes and bookmarks and all that jazz. And it was fine because Apple devices let you sign in to one Apple ID for iCloud and a separate.
apple id say i'm already doing it apple id for media and purchases just say apple id just say apple id we all know it's like if john syracuse says megabytes instead of gigabytes people like that's john you know yeah i can't believe you didn't mention apple account I can't believe, why is no one talking about this? I ran into an issue where I wanted to add an additional two terabytes of iCloud storage. I was unable to because that legacy...
purchasing account was not in my iCloud family. So I solved this by adopting myself into my iCloud family. So I now have Steven and legacy Steven, who again, if you missed the detail, his account picture in my. And my Apple iCloud family is, is like grayed out because he's legacy. Steven, it's like looking at your grandfather, right? An old picture. Have I told you my thing? If I ever see a black and white image of someone on Instagram, I think they've died. Oh yeah.
yeah if i if i ever anyone ever posts a black and white image i'm like oh no they're dead and then and then i realize they're not because what happens is every time somebody does die that does happen oh yeah so legacy steven he's dead to me he's dead to me he's dead to me This change, which I'm going to get into the details in a second, would not have fixed my initial problem, I don't think, of not being able to add iCloud storage a la carte. But it would have made the fallout...
of adopting legacy Steven into my family, uh, because I turned on purchase sharing, but that mostly works, but there's some like rough spots. And I kind of came to a point was like, I'm just kind of, kind of like. The family sharing is enabled, but I'm using the new Apple ID, new in air quotes. I've had it since the mobile me days. It's a me.com. It's my primary. Using that for purchases is moving forward.
It would have made some of that easier. So what Apple has done is built a tool that has lots of fine print to consider. We're going to get into some of that. where you can say the purchases made with my, Apple calls it a secondary account, but my legacy account, air quotes legacy account. Take those purchases and don't just share them.
like an iCloud family, but actually move those purchases from my old account into my new one. So it's like my new one bought all those movies 15 years ago, bought all those apps. you know, when the iPhone first came out. And if you walk through this process, that is effectively the outcome where your new or current Apple account.
It looks and acts like everything you bought with the other one, it bought. Does that make sense? Yeah. People have wanted this for a long time. Like in John's... post on it on mac stories he's like i've wanted this for 20 years like yeah and his picture is of a hp running itunes on windows xp which is just like chef's kiss that otj for that that blog post but
it comes with a lot of fine print. And these links will be in the show notes. If you're thinking about doing this, read through them. I'm just going to kind of hit the highlights here. But there's some things you have to do to make sure the legacy or the secondary account is ready.
including spending any balance. If you have account credit or like if you have a gift card or something on that account, you have to spend that money. I guess it just goes away or gets like stranded on that old account. So that would be bad. You can't have any rentals or pre-orders going on. So if you rented a movie or you've said, hey, I want to pre-order this movie or app, that's got to be all taken care of. And...
What's going to get a lot of people into trouble. Wait up to 15 days since the last purchase on the secondary account. So if you want to do this. and you bought a movie with your purchasing account this weekend to watch with your family, you got to wait two weeks. And not buy anything else. And not buy anything else. No apps, no in-app purchase, no media.
Fascinating. What could possibly be the reason for 15 days? I don't know. Isn't that weird? That's very weird. It's very weird. I have this at the bottom of this section in Notion, but I'll say it now. Apple could have built this tool in a way that would have worked a lot better, had been a lot simpler, but they didn't. I do wonder if there's something about, and maybe this is just giving them an out, I don't know, there's some kind of like... Licensing rule.
or something because i can't understand why you would need to wait specifically 15 days like not 14 not 30 right like 15 is like a very strange number to me it seems very specific and yeah uh zach and discord mentions about the refund period. That's also what I thought. It was like, well...
If you want a refund out of the App Store, which is like a whole process we don't have time to get into, that could be a billing thing. But it is very specific. And if you want to do this, you've got to keep that timer running in your head, I guess.
Use a countdown widget in WidgetSmith. You know, they're great. Okay. So if you've jumped through all those hoops and everything's ready, and there's some other things in here like two-factor has to be turned on. They have to both be in the same country. So say that you've had...
For instance, an American Apple account and an Italian Apple account can't move things in between them. And actually, you can't do an Italian account anyways because this is not available to users in the EU. Yeah, yeah. So... Make of that what you will. Yeah. It's India, the EU, and the United Kingdom, actually. So neither of you can do this.
I mean, I would not be the kind of person that would get themselves into this situation. Right. Yeah. You've been responsible with your Apple ID. I've been responsible. I haven't decided to just change my Apple ID for some reason over the last 15 years. That's fair. Personally called out. So yeah, so if you're in the European Union, the UK, or India, tough luck, I guess, in terms of this. So you do this.
You can only do it on iPhone or iPad. You go into the median purchases setting. There's a button that says migrate purchases. It has you review everything. And then you get a. confirmation email to both accounts, which I think is really good. So like both accounts know what's going on. I think that's a good security check. And then once it's done, you sign out of your old account.
And you're just in your new one. So like now for me, because I did all this in the old way of like using family sharing, I'm signed into my main Apple account in iCloud and the medium purchases where before those were two different. email addresses to different accounts. So that part's relatively straightforward, I think, if you've jumped through all the hoops.
There are some other gotchas. You cannot migrate purchases if both Apple accounts have music library data associated with each of them. So if you've created a music library under both accounts for some reason. you can't migrate. And I'm unclear. Like, can you delete that library data? Like out of the new one, if you want to adopt the old one, I don't know. Apple's document, not super clear about what that means. Maybe nobody knows.
It's possible. Literally nobody knows. Yeah. You can't migrate purchases if you've set your Apple one subscription to provide iCloud storage to a third different account. So if you. have family sharing and you're like you're sharing that data you've got to unwind all of that um that secondary apple account also cannot be
in a family group. So what I've done is, again, I adopted Legacy Steven into our iCloud family. I would have to undo that. I would have to jettison Legacy Steven out of the family. Oh, no. I'd have to ban. him from the family and then break the purchase sharing to do this because the secondary account can't be part of a family. So that's another complication here. Really.
If this had come out three weeks ago, I might have done this and not... But I don't think I'm going to unwind what I've done to jump to the end. If your primary account has never been used for purchases or free downloads, you can't migrate purchases. So...
This was another gotcha that would have been for me because I've done all my purchases in that legacy account. My current Apple ID, like my real one, has never bought anything. So what am I going to have to do? Like log in on a Mac and like download something free from the app store so I can do this? Very strange. And then lastly, this one probably doesn't apply to many people, but it was notable to me. Neither Apple account, old or new.
can receive any special access to apps or content. So if your Apple account is enrolled in the volume purchasing program through an employer, like say that... You know, a lot of companies do this as a way to like send apps to their employees. Neither Apple account can be a part of that. And it will probably also break test flight because my test flight did break.
And I'm just like, I've had to start over and what betas I have access to, which has been fun. So it's a lot of fine print. It's a lot of things to jump through. And that's my complaint about this. Like, I'm super glad it's here. It's long overdue. But Apple, like if you went through the trouble, and I'm sure it was trouble to make this work at all.
Why not make it easier for users? And again, that's discounting and maybe it's an owl. I don't want to excuse them, but maybe I am like, I'm sure there's like a legal and purchasing and billing stuff that is an issue. But this seems really complicated. And a bunch of people have linked to this. A lot of people have linked to me because I helped break it, which was really kind of everybody. Thank you, 9to5 and MacRumors and everybody else.
But I've seen a lot of comments on those articles and some emails to me of like, I don't want to go first. I want someone else to do this. Yeah. Well, I got an email from somebody who went first. So a listener of NPU named Dave wrote in. Dave wrote to me, per the Apple guide, I turned off purchase sharing and it seems to have auto defaulted the purchase account to my primary Apple ID, which is I think what's expected. That might be okay if the migration worked, but it failed.
I got an unable to migrate purchases pop-up. Sorry. Now my, this gets worse. Now my family is locked out of their music and Apple one access. And the purchase sharing, because purchase sharing can only be changed every 90 days. Oh. So Dave's whole family now is stuck in limbo here. Dave has a ticket in with Apple that... Dave says, has been escalated to senior engineering and they say they know about this and are working on it. A light went off when Dave did it. Here's the first one.
And so I asked Dave to keep me updated on this. And so there may be follow-up to Dave Saga here. Can you imagine having to go to your partner and your children and be like, hey, y'all, I know you won Apple Music or... iCloud space, but you can't have it. Is Dave a listener? Do you know? He said he's an NPU listener. All right. Who knows? I'm going to drag Dave now for a second. Okay. Don't do this.
Like, don't do this first. Like, this is the whole thing, Dave. Yeah. If your whole family's relying on you, this is why, like, anything that's related to, like, the family, you just, you don't make changes on it. Like, you gotta... You know, because this is why, Dave, now the next time you ask if you could do something, the family is going to be like, no, you can't do this. Yeah, because...
Because they would say, we don't trust dad anymore. After what happened last time, we don't trust you anymore. Yeah, I'm sorry, Dave. You ruined it for your family. Yeah, it's rough. If we could take a quick aside, I'm going to read to you guys a text message that I got from my mom, and I want to see if you get this. Because the way you receive emails changed on your phone. I don't like it. I don't get it.
Yeah, they basically blame you for any changes to the phone. But like that message that I got from my mom, do you know what she's talking about? Sorting an Apple Mail? Yes. Wait, what's sorting? Apple Intelligence? It's not Apple Intelligence, it's just the sorting features, right? Where it puts it into the primary or transactions. Oh, the categories. Categories, yeah.
So I ended up making some screenshots for my mom to show her how to turn it off. And she was very proud of herself that she was able to do it. You should have done the screen sharing to take control of the phone. We have done that.
We have done that a few times. I couldn't do it at that point. And I knew how I could just send two screenshots and I was convinced that she could do it. And the first message was like, I can't do it. This is too complicated. Followed up by a minute later, I've done it.
Which is like how these things usually go, right? Like I know she's more capable of these things than she thinks she is due to the fact that she uses an iPhone every day. You know what I mean? But she just lacks the confidence in it. I find it amusing that your mom is in agreement with you that there are no good email apps. Oh, I mean... It's true, there are no good email apps. I mean, as I said before, my identity is to email is bad, so all email apps are bad, but all email apps are bad.
are bad. I do like the sorting though. It works well enough for me for like what I want as like a very, very basic of like just put things in my inbox that I care about and everything else just goes somewhere else. you can control where things go. But my mom doesn't need that because, you know, my mom is like so many people where...
she gets like a thousand emails, you know, and like just doesn't read any of them, you know, unless there's something she knows that she needs to go and get. And then she'll just go and get it. Like, you know, she wants her. Email from the national lottery or whatever. And she'll just go and read it. Yeah. So. Shout out to Mike's mom, you know. Shout out to my mom, you know. She's the best. Yeah.
She should try Spark. I'm just kidding. Just kidding. So yeah, Legacy Steven died a hero is what we've learned. I'm taking credit for this. And this is where I'm requesting my new title. Okay, which would be? King of the K-Base. I mean, look, you can call yourself that, and I would agree that you are that, but it's not going in the intro. What if Zach puts it on the...
Whose intro webpage. And we just have to read it. Then Zach would be creating a constitutional crisis. Well, that doesn't matter. What kind of... Constitution schmonstitution? Yeah, it's fine. What kind of... There's going to be consequences if we allow this. If we set a precedent for... He has to win it. Anybody to come in and sign themselves a title. Apple purchase migration? I mean, come on. Come on. If, no, okay. If we get an anonymous piece of feedback.
from an Apple source that we deem trustworthy that says between us. But it was that connected episode and that experience from Steven that prompted us to accelerate this feature. We will give you the title. And then this will be like a canary in the coal mine kind of thing, right? Yeah. If Steven starts being called king of the K-base, then you'll know. Mike has a way to deal with sources. You can just go to Connected Feedback, send an anonymous message saying, yes, it was that.
But, you know, we will consider it. You can be one of my AIs. Yeah. But you can't actually be anonymous. That's the thing, though. Because then it's not verifiable. So, like, if... Steven just opens up the feedback form right now. Just types in, Steven was the reason. No, we need, there are people out there. It can be verified. That we know. Yeah. This needs to be verifiable.
But I would be very happy if it's verifiable. But you've got to win it. You've got to win your titles. Okay. That's fair. I do believe. I genuinely believe. I genuinely believe. that this happened because of Stephen. I actually genuinely believe it because the conspiracy, not conspiracy, wait, the coincidence, that's the word.
They're kind of similar conspiracies and coincidences. The coincidence is too strong. Too strong. This has been a thing for so long. We just spent so much time about it, and now, two weeks later, it's changed. But someone needs to convince me, and then we'll call Stephen King of the K-Base. Okay. I like that. It kind of feels like one of those things.
Have you ever been someplace in public and there's like a little sign on something that's like very clearly there because someone did something stupid, right? Like, like maybe there's like a ceiling fan. It's like, don't put your hand in the fan. It's like, we all know that. Right. But someone did it and a lawsuit made the sign happen. I know that this one is a little bit more complicated than this, but just like coffee cups that say hot drink inside. Yes. Yeah.
Yeah. It's a hot drink in the K-Base. Tastes like Steven. But why are you mentioning this, Steven? I'm just saying, like, it's the same kind of thing, right? Like, something bad happened to me. And now it won't happen to anybody else. Unless you're Dave. Dave took one for the team. Something worse happened to Dave. Are you the sign in this scenario, Stephen? Or are you the hot drink? I'm the hot drink.
This episode of Connected is brought to you by NetSuite. Nobody knows for sure what the future holds for business. If you ask nine experts, you're going to get 10 different answers. Some say that rates will rise or fall. Others might say inflation is going up or coming down. The only way business owners can know for sure is if someone events a crystal ball. Well, until then...
Over 40,000 businesses have future-proofed their business with NetSuite by Oracle, the number one cloud ERP, bringing accounting, financial management, inventory, HR, and more into one fluid platform. With one unified business management suite, there's only one source of truth giving you the visibility and control you need to make quick decisions. With real-time insights and forecasting, you're peering into the future with actionable data.
And when you're suddenly closing your books in days and not weeks, you get to spend less time looking backward and more time on what's next. Having a single source of truth is huge when you're trying to make a decision as a business owner. You don't want to be scouring around a bunch of different systems trying to understand what's going on.
So whether your company is earning millions or even hundreds of millions, NetSuite helps you respond to immediate challenges and seize your biggest opportunities. Speaking of opportunity, go download... the CFO's Guide to AI and Machine Learning at netsuite.com slash connected. The guide is free to you at netsuite, N-E-T-S-U-I-T-E, netsuite.com slash connected. Our thanks to NetSuite for their support of the show and all of Relay. Apple has new headphones that Marquez Brownlee, in his review...
We gave two things that I thought were fascinating here. For one, he said he believes these are the best earbuds for most people. Which is strong disagree. Have you used them? I just think that earbuds with a little hook are not the best earbuds for most people. Okay, well, Marcus Brownlee said that. Federico Vatici said, strong disagree. So these are the two quotes I have. But then the other quote is...
He said in the briefing that he got about this product that he was told that these are, quote, the best-selling headphones in the world. Okay. Also strong doubt. But so did he, though, which was the point in his videos. He was told this. He says it doesn't make any sense to him. But if he's going to believe it, fine, right? But anyway, we have the Power Beats Pro 2. Powerbeats Pro are basically a Beats in-ear.
wireless in-ear workout headphones because they are the ones that have the little hook that goes behind the ear. But this version got a ton of new features. So they got the Apple H2 chip, which brings a bit active noise cancellation, transparency mode, adaptive EQ. The case is smaller, but the battery life is longer. It has sweat and water resistance. I think it had that before, but it also got a max. charging as well in the case, USB-C as well, but also the brand new feature.
is heart rate monitoring sensors. And this is the thing that we've been hearing about was maybe coming to AirPods Pro and maybe still will, but they got heart rate monitoring sensors. And from Victoria Song's review in The Verge, I found kind of fascinating. So the heart... The data from the heart rate sensor shows in the health app and in some apps that Apple have partnered with on iOS, but not everywhere, like Fitness Plus, the heart rate monitor in the...
PowerBeats Pro 2 from Apple does not work in Fitness Plus. But however, quote, Android users have more options. You should be able to use it in any app that compare with a Bluetooth heart rate monitor. Beats is like, I desperately want to understand how that team works, where like they can get. access to a bunch of stuff, but not everything. And then also has really good support for Android. But if you wear these and an Apple Watch...
it will not take the reading from the Beats headphones on iOS and you can't change it. So that kind of tells you something about what Apple think from a reliability perspective. I don't know, but kind of fascinating. Also comes in four colors.
including this orange, which is amazing. The orange is sick. It's so good. It's super good, super good. Federico, why are you so upset about, not so upset, but like what is your doubt on these headphones? What is it about the package that you're not interested in? Well, no, I'm fascinated by the idea of the in-ear heart rate monitoring. I just disagree with the idea that these are the best earbuds for most people because most people don't want to use the ear hooks.
You know, most people just want to grab something from a case and put them in their ear without having to have this whole contraption going over their ears. That's why. anecdotally but i think you know anybody who lives in in a society and goes outside could say anecdotally do you see more people waiting
AirPods or variation of AirPods? Or do you see more people wearing Power Beats Pros? Like, I just think it's such an obvious thing that most people tend to prefer regular earbuds. And also... I don't believe Apple's statement that these are the best-selling earbuds.
on earth uh anything apple says always has to be the best and the greatest and so right now their pr spin is that these are the best uh but until a couple of months ago airpods pro 2 were the best and then airpods four were the best so the concept of best is always like in flux depending on what product you're launching almost newest And that goes back to what I think will become one of the concepts that I will refer to the most over the next few years, which is something that Jason said.
institutionally incapable of saying, yeah, this is a product. No, everything always needs to be the best, greatest, the most. So I don't believe it. I don't believe any of it. So you don't, well, one, obviously you don't believe Apple's claim. But this is Marcus Brownlee's feeling from reviewing them. Sure. He thinks this. Sure, sure. And opinions are opinions. You don't have to agree with it. No, no, no. Well, I...
Yeah, he can think whatever he wants. That's the beauty of, you know, being a regular person. Yes. Yeah, I think this... design in particular is for people who want to be really active with their headphones and like, like my wife, Mary, who is the resident beats expert on connected who, um,
Well, we'll get to her in a second. But she wears hers to work out every day and likes the hooks. And for her, AirPods don't fit. And so these fit a little bit better. You actually have more air tip sizes in the AirPods Pro. They're up to five different sizes now. And with the hook, they stay put a little bit better. Do they go in the ear? They do. Like in-in or just rest-in? The tips are like the AirPod Pros.
Like the rubbery ones you take on and off. It's kind of like double bolt in a door, isn't it? It is. Yeah. Yeah. Just gaff tape your AirPods to the side of your face. Yeah, it's like they go in and around. In and around, yeah. And you put a sweatband around them. You know, these things aren't going anywhere. And then you put a helmet on above it all.
So yeah, I think the form factor is obviously a big thing here. Interestingly now, the technology is basically the same between the AirPods Pro 2 and these because they've got the H2, they have all the noise cancellation and transparency stuff. The case is smaller, which Mary was really excited about. So when these were rumored, these have been rumored for a long time, but a couple of weeks ago when the colors leaked, I like.
showed her an article about it. I was like, hey, you know, she's used Power Beats Pro for a long time. I think her pairs are like the original launch day. You know, she's like, hey, do you want an upgrade to these? If you do, like, what color would you like? Because, you know, if they come out, I can just order them for you on the day. And she wanted the hyper purple. We didn't know the names then, but the leaks, the colors were spot on.
So she has a pair of purple ones that are delivered tomorrow. And at some point in the next couple of weeks, I'll interview her about them and we'll play it on the show. As the time on the tradition. Yes. She talks about headphones on Connected. There's very specific headphones. That's right. Just Beats.
and you know and so i told her hey you want to come on the show she's like yeah like let's do it but she's excited to come back uh so yeah the power beats pro 2 you know they're definitely not for everybody like as someone who wears glasses I find anything that has like a hook over the ear a bit uncomfortable. There's just like a lot going on back there. But...
If you are jumping around a bunch doing kickboxing and you don't wear glasses, maybe they're a better solution for you. And and maybe that's where Apple's, you know, sort of probably over the top statement comes from is for people who. are really active with these things in a way that maybe, maybe we aren't. I would like to take a moment to recommend my, my favorite headphones at the moment, which are the Oslo sleep buds. Yeah.
Oh, yeah. I've heard this, yeah. I love these things so much. They're so good. I mean, they're very much like a startup's product. Like, they have some weirdness to them, but... I love these things so much. They just basically... They go in the ear. They're super low profile, so I can lay flat, and I don't feel them pressing. Yeah, that's good. And then they play white noise, and they have a bunch of inbuilt white noise, and so I just have them play these ocean sounds.
It's just a very simple product, but it's very, very good for what I need. And they have a bunch of features that are available, but I don't use them. You can also play your own audio if you want to. They're just Bluetooth headphones that connect to your iPhone. But the actual, like, they work on their own. So you, like, you open the case.
The lights flash. When the lights stop flashing, which takes a few seconds, it means they're ready. You just put them in your ears and they just start playing. I don't have to do anything on my phone. And then I have it play for an hour. The only thing for me is it plays for an hour. If I wake up and...
You can't get back to sleep again. You have to put them back in the case for a second, and then they'll do whatever it is they do, and then it starts playing again. And you can choose. You can have it play all night, but just for battery life reasons. Just so I don't have to keep charging, keep charging the case up all the time.
I just have them play for an hour, and that usually does the job for me. But they're a cool product, and they're trying to do some sleep tracking stuff and things like that. But just to do this one thing is great. I mean, because they... Basically, the people that started this, they used to work at Bose. Bose used to make a product called the Bose Sleepbuds. They stopped making that product. And so they left and started their own company called Oslo. And these are the Oslo Sleepbuds.
So I think they kind of worked out with Bose. Bose was like, yeah, you can just go do this now because we don't want to do this anymore. I don't feel like Bose is a company you don't want mad at you. Yeah, because I'm sure they have like...
patterns forever sure uh but yeah i i really like this product like if if you are the type of person that likes to listen to things when you sleep and don't have a pair of headphones that feel comfortable to you you want white noise or whatever but not everybody in your house wants that I really recommend this product. I think they're not cheap. But again, I think it's a small company just trying to make this work on their own. But I really like it. It has an alarm too, which is great.
so like the alarm goes off in the morning and it's like you can't escape the alarm you know like because it's inside your head yeah you can't escape that alarm and also therefore it is an alarm that doesn't bother other people as well so it's like it's it
I like it. And like the earbuds are kind of difficult to get out, like not in a bad way, but they have those little wingtip things that go in the ear. So you really have to kind of get in there to get them out. And so like that is also good for the alarm part, right? You can't just like...
yank these things off your head. You have to kind of just like you have to be aware enough to stop the alarm. So yeah, it's cool. It's a really nice little product. It's very niche, but I wanted to recommend it. This is funny. I'm just on their website and I'm doing a Valentine's Day promotion for two pairs. It's really funny. Yeah, there you go. Beats makes a product.
I mean, not like the sleep part, but one that goes in your ear with a little wingtip. Yeah. That was one thing Mary and I were talking about when I was kind of showing her this, like, hey, these are going to get revised. She's like, do they still make those ones that I hate it? Because I think they're the Beats X. Beats Fit. Beats Fit. And I think, you know, you mentioned a second ago that Beats is like doing...
you know, different stuff than the AirPods. And I think one reason, in addition to the brand having great brand recognition, like everyone knows Beats, is it gives Apple an opportunity to create products. to like meet the needs of people on a broader basis than maybe they would do with the AirPods line. And so like, I don't think there'd ever be a set of AirPods that had an over the ear hook, but.
They can do it over in Beatsland. They can do fun colors and do the Android stuff. I just think it's a very interesting thing. Of all sort of the modern... like things and businesses Apple is in, Beats is one of the most interesting to me because they use that brand to go into markets and to...
like sell products that maybe they wouldn't otherwise and clearly it's successful because they're still doing it and you know you walk into an apple store and they've got all the airpod stuff they have all the beat stuff but you go into a best buy or target or something like that beat stuff is everywhere and
They are clearly very successful with it and popular. And Mary's very excited to get some new purple headphones tomorrow. I was just reminded in going to the Beats website that they had the iPhone cases this year. Oh, they were so bad. Yeah, just the like, hey, we need more cases. Yeah. Because we only make one type of case now. That's funny. I returned mine. It was awful.
The Beats case? Yeah, I remember. It was like really weird plastic, right? Like kind of slippery. It's not good looking. The Beats pill is back. Oh, yeah. They brought that thing back. With Kim Kardashian. Wait, what? With Kim Kardashian. Oh, is that how you say that name? How do you say it? How do you say it? With an extra syllable somewhere. Kardashian? Yeah, I just say Kardashian. Hmm. This is an and and odd thing. Yeah. Or like...
Adina used to call them Cardassians, which I thought was funny. Like carnation, like the flower? Yeah. Yeah. That's fantastic. Keeping up with the carnations. You know, really, Powerbeats Pro could be really good for Adina because she leaves her AirPods everywhere and like... Something bigger that's bright orange would be harder to lose. It's not going to change anything. No, it's not. I think about her all the time. Anytime I take my AirPod out and the case isn't in my pocket, I'm like, oh no.
Don't do it. I take pictures every time and she's like, no, don't send it to them. So that happens. She knows what I'm going to do. I haven't received one of those pictures in a while. Is that why? Sometimes. Sometimes they're just not exciting. Like it's just like an AirPod on the kitchen counter. I like it when there is something going on specifically. Like my favorites is when they're like the case and then the AirPods next to them. That's my favorite one.
So if I ever see that, you will get that picture. But the random AirPods around the house happen so much that it's not really worth sending every single image. That's going to be real bad with a small child in the house.
I mean, we're already talking about the fact that we're going to have to live differently. The two of us are typically at home, both of us wearing... our airpods doing something like that's just not gonna be our lives yeah that's not gonna be the case anymore we know that so like things are gonna change goodbye podcasts yeah well you know i still commute i still commute so
Will you? Okay. Will I commute? Yeah. Let's see how my podcast career goes with Screaming Child. Yeah. Like in the house. There's no space in my house to record. Like all the space is taken now. Do you have a garage with like Wi-Fi? You could go out there. No. I do not have that. That's a bummer. Can I put my stick in the ground here and make a prediction? Yes. You will not be back in two months or whatever you think your break is going to be.
Well, you think I'm going to be gone for longer than two months? Yes. All right. That is my prediction. Happy to people who are wrong, but that is my prediction. No one wants you to approve the wrong one in Steven. I'll be back. I'll be back. Two months is plenty. You will be back. Oh, you think it will just take longer than two months? Yes. Can we put some parameters on this? Okay. Like, do you mean to everything? Or like, what is back?
I could see a scenario in which you realize two months was not long enough and you may want to sort of come back in phases on some of the shows or maybe just ask for like another two weeks or like an extra month. I think that is a very, because there is a possibility that the phasing thing might happen in certain places anyway. So, yeah.
Okay, that's fine. We should see. You should make that prediction because there is a possibility of it. The phase return. But for me, it's like, when is the phase return happening? Is it happening? Seven weeks or nine weeks, you know? If I got it right, can I be called the king of predictions? No. Okay. Because that feels like an overriding... Okay, hold on, hold on. Not even if Adina agrees with this title? No? Okay. You can be King of Daddy? I don't know.
No, I just want to be king of predictions. I mean, we're just assigning titles to ourselves now. Well, I mean, yes, but they have to... Who's going to... What is the... approval process you know what i mean like we need this this source to come out of the work to say steven make this happen mike deep in your heart you know i deserve this title deep in deep in my heart i will know yes
And in my heart, I will call you the King of Predictions. Just look inside your heart. Yeah. In my heart, I will call you King of Predictions. Thank you. Mark Gurman has been reporting for the past few days that Apple is... As you may have seen, there have been sort of trickling out announcements this week with the power beats.
What was it today? They had that press release, health study press release. With tiny heads, by the way. Do you see this artwork? Tiny heads. Tiny heads. Yes, tiny heads. That's why nobody cares about the press release. Yeah. Okay. Wow. So apparently the iPhone SE, the new one, is still coming at some point later this week or most likely early next week, which is when Apple is holding product briefings, Gurman says. Also...
A couple of things. Just a few minutes ago, Mark said that later today, finally, Apple will debut Apple TV Plus on Android.
which is something that I think I mentioned this when we talked about my Android media tablet. I was very surprised by the lack of an Apple TV Plus experience, especially if you want to be a services company and especially if you want to attract... people to your tv streaming service so it looks like it looks like you know just like steven was right about moving purchases i was right about um Apple TV Plus and Android. So you can also call me the king of TV.
So that's coming later today. The other part, Gurman says that there's going to be some small announcement with PR people from Apple reaching out to the press on Friday, so two days from now, about... Something related to the Vision Pro. And I have a theory, a grand theory, if you will, that I want to share with you guys. Later today, I think in just a few hours, Sony... Before the...
cast is released. Yes. So this is really just like a stake in the ground was Federico right? Right, because I'm the king of predictions, obviously. Because you're the king of predictions, yeah. My theory is that this will be something about the rumored PlayStation VR controllers coming to the Vision Pro. I could see a scenario in which... at the PlayStation State of Play event in a few hours, as I'm saying this. Maybe Sony will say that PlayStation VR is coming to the Vision Pro.
And Apple will have more details on Friday. Now, Apple typically isn't the company that likes to have other companies upstage their reveals. I could also see a scenario where there's somebody from Apple.
at the state of play. I don't know. I just think it's been rumored for a while Apple could use all the help they can get with the Vision Pro would be fun to see the Vision Pro at the... state of play uh event today so that's my theory or or it could just be you know i don't know this artist is now releasing a video clip
recorded in immersive video. Well, I did just while you were talking about the 9to5Mac and they have a thing from two hours ago that suggests that potentially Apple is bringing... Vision Pro to third-party retailers. Now, that would be the worst news to deliver via PR representatives of all time. Maybe just like the most boring thing is like, oh, that wasn't the case? Okay, fair enough.
Because there's a new app in the App Store called Apple Vision Pro Demo Fit. Okay. Which is fun for everyone. But we'll see. I like your theory, Federico. Whatever will happen or not, we'll find out. They've got to bring those hand controllers to Vision Pro at some point. I've got to say that I hate this time of year because it's... Let's face it. We're all getting the scraps with these announcements, right? These are like... I don't know. Please release the iPhone SE 3. Yeah. Okay.
Like big announcements for February. Cool. Like the one thing I'm looking forward to the most is obviously iOS 18.4 with the rumored Apple intelligence. Where is that? Where is that? Nobody knows. Nobody knows. Maybe next week. Just keep saying that forever. Maybe next week. Eventually, eventually, it'll be true. But not yet. I think that does it for this week. If you would like to find us online, you can do that. Federico is the editor-in-chief at MacStories.net, home of many fine.
articles and podcasts and videos and shortcuts and pictures of windows XP on the homepage right now. Yes. It's great. And me, look at me. I'm up there. Little, uh, Apple invites. Ancient Rome, Stephen. Yes. Take it out of the top of the homepage. You can find Federico across social media as Vaticci, V-I-T-I-C-C-I.
Mike co-hosts a bunch of other shows here on Relay, and you can check out his work at Cortex Brand. For now. For now. What does that mean? For now. Well, Federico thinks I'm never coming back. No, no, no. I said you would come back. It's just that you've been overly aggressive in your estimation of when. The great thing is the overly, like, just the amount of leave people, like, the...
Dads usually take, it's like basically four hours. It seems. Anyway, carry on. Well, you're not a regular dad. You're a good dad. That's true. That's true. I mean, I guess we'll find out. Yeah. Right. If you're back in two weeks, like, Oh, terrible. That's terrible. That's awful. Uh, and he is Mike Hurley or.
Mike or iMike or something. You can find him. Just don't worry about the social media thing. I know, I'm going to stop saying it. You don't use it anyway, you know? Go to MikeHurley.net slash now to find out what he's doing. What happens when you do that? 404. Okay. Look at this. I haven't seen this page. Look at this. Mycurly.net is popping off. I updated my Squarespace website recently. Damn, son. Yep. All right. I'm going to put that in the show notes. Mycurly.net. Everybody go.
Oh, I just added it to Mac Power Users. No, leave it there. Leave it there. Leave it there. People are like, who is this guy? I do that more often. The real Mac Power User. I'm the king of the Mac Power Users. Well, if you earn that title. Yeah, how do I own that? Become a bbedit power user. I use bbedit. I'm using it right now. Good.
You can find my writing at 512pixels.net and I co-host the aforementioned Mac Power users here on Relay. If you love Connected and you want more of it, go to getconnectedpro.com. There you can get... a longer ad-free version of the show for just $7 a month. Membership also comes with a bunch of great goodies, including access to the Relay Members Discord. The best place on the internet. I'm just going to say it.
Way better than social media. And if you have feedback or comment, or you just want to tell us that you love us in poem form, because it is the week of Valentine's, go to connectedfeedback.com. Leave us a note. I'd like to thank our sponsors this week, Ecamm, Google Gemini, and NetSuite. And until next time, guys, say goodbye. Arrivederci. Cheerio. Bye, y'all.