Google Is Looking to Apple’s Ecosystem Playbook in 2022

Anything But Idle

Google Is Looking to Apple’s Ecosystem Playbook in 2022

January 11, 2022

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Google Is Looking to Apple’s Ecosystem Playbook in 2022, and the Productivity News This Week

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In this Cast | Google Is Looking to Apple’s Ecosystem Playbook in 2022

Ray Sidney-Smith

Augusto Pinaud

Headlines & Show Notes | Google Is Looking to Apple’s Ecosystem Playbook in 2022

Resources we mention, including links to them, will be provided here. Please listen to the episode for context.

How can I increase personal productivity at home and at work?

5 Ways To Reinvigorate And Level-Up Your Home Office

Omicron has exposed corporate leaders’ lack of vision about remote work

Progress Isn’t Linear

The Case for Slow Work

The 5 Areas of Personal Growth (And How to Improve Them)

This to-do list app is the first created and published with Swift Playgrounds 4 on iPad

Telegram Updated With Message Reactions and Several Other Features

What e-readers have Google Play?

Lenovo’s ultrawide 17-inch laptop has an 8-inch screen next to the keyboard

Tile is working with Lenovo to help you find your lost laptop

Business & Finance Segment

Apple’s $3 trillion valuation is the least interesting news about the company

Online whiteboarding platform Miro raises $400M to power the future of work | VentureBeat (Business & Finance)

Productivity Resource of the Week

A3383 videobarb600 – AnkerWork

Apple Notes

How (and Why) to Switch to Apple Notes

13 Things You Didn’t Know Apple’s Notes App Could Do

Featured Story of the Week

Google planning Apple-like integration between its products to compete

Google will spend 2022 trying to match Apples ecosystem integrations

Announcements

Other News

Raw Text Transcript | Google Is Looking to Apple’s Ecosystem Playbook in 2022

Raw, unedited and machine-produced text transcript so there may be substantial errors, but you can search for specific points in the episode to jump to, or to reference back to at a later date and time, by keywords or key phrases. The time coding is mm:ss (e.g., 0:04 starts at 4 seconds into the cast’s audio).

Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:05

Hello personal productivity enthusiasts and community. Welcome to Anything But Idle the productivity news podcast. Today’s show is brought to you by co working space by personal productivity club. I’m Sidney-Smith. And we’re your your hosts for Anything But Idle. This is episode 93 0934 January 10 2022. Google is looking to Apple’s ecosystem playbook in 2022. And, of course, the productivity and related technology news this week. So welcome, everybody, to those listening and watching live and to those listening to the replay or to the podcast episode afterward. As you all know, each week Augusto and I review and discuss the productivity and technology news headlines of the week. And we start that out with talking about the productivity blogosphere and audio sphere, the blogs and podcasts that we’ve come across that we thought were worth sharing with you all. Augusto, what is our first story this week?

Augusto Pinaud 1:01

So we are beginning this week with an article which is steidel from 43 dug me how can I increase personal productivity at home and at work. And you know, I’ve been thinking about this and I’m even writing an article, you know, I begin my life or my professional life as a road warrior, or what was called Frey. They’re a road warrior. I don’t know what that’s called anymore. But I basically travel and I was rarely in my office and I leave on a bag and there are certain habits that I still carry for that my office is that I don’t travel is still that bag. That make me if I travel, I just wrapped my bag and can go everything is in there sorted in little bags. What is interesting is with all this COVID working from home coming partial to the office, and all the things a lot more people may have not realized that they are going to be more similar to that image of the road warrior, that what they were with their image of what they work before all the pandemic and it is important for people to understand how can you increase that productivity not only at home, but at work for your career. Okay, as you are going to be working home you’re going to be working remotely cafes, whatever, but also how you increase personal productivity. For the other side, I always said you need to look at both sides of that coin, your career is one of the elements not the only element. The reason I really enjoyed this article, this article brings seven tips for how to improve that you know, adopt a system and to manage both your personal and your work task. We have been talking about systems for a really long time using your system record task on an app on a notebook. Once you have recorded you know your daily your monthly tasks, go to review, and we both subscribe to the Getting Things Done methodology by David Allen. So we try to do that once a week. Resist the temptation to multitask or to become distracted. Reward yourself for competing daily tasks and, and lead the habit of updating your task regularly. And here was a simple article. But what I liked was is is we are finally starting to talk about okay, this is a reality you need to be productive on both plates, you’re not coming back to only be on one or the other for most people

Raymond Sidney-Smith 3:56

that stick onto our next article from Trello This is Trello his blog.

Augusto Pinaud 4:00

Yes and five ways to reinvigorate and level up your office. They talk about you know, take care of your back. You know one of the things is still to this day, most people are working in their living room table in the couch, you know, in in a chair, but none certainly an ergonomic chair. So take care of your bag, raise the screens, light up your working space and get a video call makeover that I think it will be really good later on as we get to the tools and finally get organized and create a vibe you know make the office a place that you enjoy. You know I still love my nephew. The first time my nephew coming we moved from Indiana University in 2000. And a nephew lives in New Jersey says the first time He walks into my office after we have moved on. So my desk. Okay, I still laugh because his reaction was cool. Can I play Minecraft on all those screens? And it was really cool. But at the same time, when I look at that, yeah, that’s, I have an office that is really comfortable for what I do. And I’ve been working for years into tweak here and tweak there, how can I make it better? And I have, you know, monitors that monitor. I’m talking right now camera I’m talking right now is here. So I don’t need to work like this while I’m talking. So make your office comfortable, creative. If you know and create really, your dream office, you’re working at home making something cool.

Raymond Sidney-Smith 5:47

Yeah, I think I think it’s important to recognize that it’s not just the ergonomics, it’s also air quality, light qualities, you know, the the color psychology of the space, and making sure that, you know, it smells the way you want it to without putting, you know, carcinogens into the air that you’re going to be breathing in, or just particulate matter. But the the idea here is to make it a space for all of your senses, all of your biological needs, that’s going to make it, you know, functional for you. And I appreciated their perspective on that. All right on to the article from Yahoo Finance, oh micron has exposed corporate leaders lack of vision about remote work.

Augusto Pinaud 6:29

Oh, there is no lack of vision, we’re just going to postpone again, once again, the coming back to the office. And I understand why corporations feel that they need to bring people back in. But it’s been two years, you know, and the reality is, even if you say tomorrow, okay, we don’t care anymore, or a COVID disappear. People back to the office, people has change for good or for bad. Okay, working from home and working remotely. Even on the way they do their work, all that has changed. So corporate will also need to update and so far, it seems like they don’t want that vision of remote work. Even that remote work is what has been moving corporations for the last two years. And I’ve been hearing recently people say, Well, as soon as we go back people, even who were hired remotely, as soon as we are starting to come back, you are going to need to start coming back to the office. And some of these people is like, no, no, you heard me remotely from day one. I’m not coming back. So what is going to happen with that? I don’t know. But again, I agree with the article, it seems like many of this leader of these corporations are ignoring the fact what makes it even worse is that they are not planning to come back many of them are not planning to or planning to stay remote. So you are going to tell employees to come back so that you can continue doing zoom, and everything else.

Raymond Sidney-Smith 8:11

Yeah. Aside from that bit of hypoxia, hypocrisy, I’m not willing to indict. I’m not going to indict all CEOs, or executives with the ostrich ostrich effect, which is, you know, the whole concept of sticking your head in the sand, which, by the way, ostriches do not do out of fear. It’s a myth. But the idea here is that, what we want to do is to recognize the companies that are being appropriate with their, with their employees, and who are innovating in the space, and are capable of adapting to a changing environment, those companies will do better, because they will have less attrition, they will be they will be able to bring on more talent and better talent than their competitors. And those those businesses that choose to be staid and stale in the markets will eventually crumble and die. And that’s, I mean, if you if you believe in market forces in capitalism, that is what’s supposed to happen. So you know, like, I’m, I’m less concerned about companies that are going to go under because they’re forcing their employees to do this or that, as opposed to empowering their employees and supporting their employees in being productive. And I think that’s the, that’s the turn that I care about. That’s the that’s the pivot point that I care about. Are you supporting your organization’s ability to affect its mission? And that means making sure your human resources, your labor resources are effective, and that means they’re supported? Or are you trying to change things on them so that they don’t feel supported and therefore will want to leave you and go someplace where they will feel supported? Right and so I’m not willing to indict an entire group of people. I am going to say that strategically we will know. That is granularly. We will know the companies They have failed to adopt and adapt, because they will be the ones who fail in the future. And, and if they do stick around, then that also is just a fact of potentially looking at it from a governmental perspective and how legislation should fix things so that those employees don’t suffer. Because it’s just at the end of the day, you know, we know that when there are corporate regulations, not, you know, ones that are too much on people. But productivity flourishes when we give employees greater capabilities when they give them greater authority, greater responsibility, and the ability to flourish in a space. And, and so we may have to put a little bit of our governmental clutches on the companies in order to be able to force them to give autonomy and responsibility to employees in that sense. So we’ll see. I mean, you know, we’re dealing with many different countries, many different governments many different ways in which we’re some variables. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So we’ll see. We’ll see how it all pans out. All right, on to our next article, progress isn’t linear.

Augusto Pinaud 11:03

This was a really good reminder, you know, it’s been two years, we are going to our third year, at least two and a half of changing and people still want to see progress. And people want to see some people and see only when we’re going to go back to normal Well, it is important to remember that the progress you are making may not be linear. It is you know, the graph says that there’s a board on the article that says, you know, it looks more like a graph, and the graph is up and down, up and down, up and down. Progress is like that, you know, as I was reviewing my 2021. From, from a certain perspective, it looks like, okay, it was terrible. But from another perspective, when you look really into Yeah, there were things that were really well, there were things that were not that well, and but at the end of the day, there was progress, there was ups, there was downs, that’s part of progress. But there was progress. And it’s important to remember and do not get discouraged. When progress doesn’t go on that straight line that we draw, you know, a person who has tried more than seven books. When it’s finished in the number eight, you know, you write the books, and you come with this idea, or yes is going to be this and even you sometimes make this silly outline, oh, this is going to be the end, okay? And just start typing, and smell exactly how it goes. But it is important that remember, even if the progress is not linear, you can see the progress just stop. Look, even when you feel that you hit a wall. And that you dip, that is still progress. I, when I coach people, I tell people who come to me and asked me well, because it seems like the same problem I’ve been dealing over and over and over. And I said yes, but it stopped for a second. And remember, the person that is dealing with that problem is not the same one who deal with that problem, the last time you have grown, you have progressed, and the person who is doing it now it’s a different one.

Raymond Sidney-Smith 13:20

Yeah, I think of like a ball ricocheting. Right, if it’s moving in a vertically, you know, it’s making progress toward a point, right, some kind of locus, then then it’s, it’s making forward progress. And that’s what we care about more so than the up and down, right, that that, you know, vertical movement is not as important as the forward movement or the horizontal movement toward an end. And yes, you’re gonna have some deviations from a straight line. Yes, the shortest point between two, the shortest distance between two points is a straight line, when in life, are you able to really truly draw a straight line, right? To any goal, we have to be willing to be aware of the derivations. And more important than that, I think that what I call the progress imperative, right, which is, you know, progress is perfection. But perfection is not progress. And when you think about that perspective, that progress, any progress moving forward and toward something, is you have to think about that as perfection in the world. And the more you dwell on that idea that that one is the other but not the reverse, then you start to get the idea that progress is actually the imperative here. And when we make progress, it’s not always going to be what we call perfection. But it is it is the imperative that we must flow from right, we must make progress. And if we think about progress as perfection, then the opposite is not true. And I know there’s some math mathematicians out there who are having heart attacks, with me saying that, but that’s just the way I see it right like If you can, if you can think of all of the ways in which you dislike your spouse or partner, right, but you still love them, you love them, despite their failings, their their shortcomings, and that is what love is, right? I think the same about progress progress is in spite of you being a perfectionist or or having perfectionist tendencies, making progress is so important toward the ends that you want. And that’s, that’s the part of, of life that’s kind of like mealy, but it’s also the part of life that makes things kind of exciting and fun. So, you know, that’s a kind of long winded way of saying, lean into progress. And it doesn’t matter if it’s linear, or straight or whatever, just lean into progress, one foot in front of the other, and you’ll make progress happen. All right, our next article is all about slow work. And this actually was interesting, because Panasonic actually recently announced, like Microsoft did in 2019, that they were going to be offering their Japanese employees a four day workweek. And so in, in kind of in light of that, and the fact that we just actually published on ProductivityCast, a, an episode all about the four day workweek, and its impact on on productivity, we come to this article on the case for slow work. And Augusta you want to give us kind of a background in terms of what is going on here.

Augusto Pinaud 16:24

You know, the the article those stories, somebody at the beginning of their career and how he girl corporate

Raymond Sidney-Smith 16:33

page Curtis’s her name.

Augusto Pinaud 16:35

Yeah. And how the how we need to make a case for you know, slow down, slow down, you know, research and medicine and travel and food and in work, there is more people working more hours. To what and and by the way, it’s good that I said, you know, guilty as charged, because I work a significant amount of hours. The question is Where? Where are you in that, you know, I’m an IV and famously for mentioned that book that I co wrote, you know, with my friend Michaels Lewinsky, the iPad only book, and every time he needed to slow down, aka, take the siesta in his pain. Okay, it was driving me crazy. But are we in the journey of a speed up? Or are we joining or enjoying the things and this article really made me think, you know, as much of the things I do, which ones are the one that I still enjoy, and taste, and which ones are the ones that, okay, I’m done with this, it’s maybe time that I delegate or eliminate or whatever it is to be doing. Because for me a slowdown is about enjoyment is nothing else in work in food in whatever. So. You know, the article bring up as a quote says, slow down, invite us to shut down low value task and prioritize the impactful work that actually move the needle. That’s, I agree with that definition. So, again, what are we trying to do with a task? And I say this with clients and when coaching clients is, are you trying to mark a stuff done to get them out of the list, or you’re trying to market stuff done, because those will move the projects forward? And there is a really important distinction. And I think that is slow. That idea of a slow work is about that it’s about what are those tasks that are going to really move you forward? And it is worth it to do the other ones?

Raymond Sidney-Smith 19:14

I don’t know. Yeah, I’m challenged by the term slow work. And just as I’m I am perturbed by the notion of deep or shallow work, and but the semantics aside, I very much appreciate what Paige Curtis is talking about here. And the fact that the idea of deliberate work, let’s call it deliberate work, similar akin to deliberate practice, the idea of deliberate work done methodically and consistently toward a quality outcome, working for excellence, not for checking off a box. And, and as she noted in the article, the motto of Facebook now Mehta, talking about moving fast and breaking things. That is a very technical trick in a very startup friendly concept, but it also happens not to be the way in which we all should work, want to work, I am not one of those people, I like to work in a deliberate way, my work is deliberate, and it’s not necessarily slow, I might work more slowly on some things and faster on others, you know, I tend to think slowly and move fast. And, and so I like the, the middle ground there, so to speak, right? Former Buddhist, I like the middle ground. And so, you know, we think about this concept of, of all of this, and she actually ends with a very salient thought here that I really appreciate she goes, quote, now, I’m grounded by the fact that rest is not a reward that needs to be earned, rest and leisure time, allow us to show up fully for every part of our lives, and quote, and this, this really drives home a point, I think about the kind of the whole paradigm here, which is that we should be all working ourselves to death, because we’re akin to machines, we are not, we are the the at least, you know, undeterred, champions of this planet, we are the We Are the apex, you know, creatures on this planet so far. And we should, we should command it as such, we should be able to have the true concept of liberalism and you know, free life, and we should be able to do things that are going to really, truly progress society forward. And we spend a lot of time doing things that are I think, less than what we should be doing standards wise to be moving all of us forward as opposed to just a few of us forward. And and I think that’s a really poignant statement that she makes that, you know, it’s not, it’s not some kind of, like, reward for things that you can think of this as a fundamental right, we have a right to exist, we have a right to, to rest and leisure time. And I think that ultimately actually makes us more productive. You know, people don’t think about it from that perspective. But making sure we’re mentally and physically well, is found fundamental to us being productive. And yet, for some reason, we do all of these things to kind of eat away at our fundamental ability to do that, to take care of ourselves in this way. All right. Next and last article in our productivity articles.

Augusto Pinaud 22:21

So the last article we have in here is the five areas of personal growth and how to improve them. And the five areas are self awareness, control, acceptance, knowing yourself, not knowing and not knowing. And know. As I was reading this, I made me coming back to, to the beginning, and maybe because today was one of those days where you go to beginnings as a conversation starter work today. But I can see how much progress not linear, but how much progress, okay, my self awareness, my control, I acceptance, and my knowing, you know, myself, and more importantly, how to understand what I don’t know, what is the limits of my knowledge and be okay, with some of that, there was a time I lived that, if I found stuff that I didn’t know, I needed to go immediately deep into try to figure it out. And to a certain extent, that has changed, I’m okay, finding now somebody who knows. Good. So it was a really good article, if, again, it was an article that I enjoyed, you know, how do you look at these things, but more importantly, was an article for me to reflect how I have worked on those five areas. In the last years?

Raymond Sidney-Smith 23:59

Yeah, I thought this was really good. And my commentary on this is that if you just put self in front of most of these items, you become better aware of what this author is really talking about. Right? So from self awareness, you know, like, the, the, the concept really for me bleeds a lot into the the knowing yourself part but either way, self self awareness, self control, right, coming from a from a well, you know, noted control freak, I am very well aware that I like to be in control, but but self control then becomes an issue of regulation, right? Whether that be emotional regulation, or self control being controlling my own desire to want to hold on to things too tight, right? If you if you squeeze a plumb too tight, you’re gonna crush it, right? And so you have to have just the right amount of, of grip and dexterity when it comes to something like that. And that’s kind of how life is self acceptance, right? Like you don’t have to to necessarily accept everyone and everything in your world, but certainly accepting yourself, I think is a is an appropriate thing here. That’s what comes to mind, knowing thyself, and, you know, knowing yourself Cogito ergo soon, you know, the idea that you would get to know yourself so that you can, one, elevate your strengths, and minimize those things that are weaknesses. I think that’s just a basic component there. And then ultimately not knowing or being comfortable with not knowing. There’s a, there’s a very popular comedian who talks about the idea of, he does a little bit in one of his comedy routines about Google. And the idea that people are just no longer comfortable with not knowing because they can just Google everything. But there are there are these wonderful, you know, outgrowths of not knowing things, and working, thriving and striving and struggling to get to knowing. And there’s a, you know, the famous Rainer Maria rookie poem, and he talks about this idea that sometimes we cannot know the answers to things, but that we live into the we live into the answers, right? We, we can’t answer all our questions, but we can live into the answers, meaning that there’s a good amount of time, where we struggle with not knowing and part of the not knowing is the striving to some to somehow know, but living is the answer. And I can always appreciate that in some way, shape, or form. All right, we have reached the top of our productivity articles, and we are roughly about midway through the show. And so at this point, we’re going to take a break and hear for a word from our sponsor this week, which is of course co working space by personal productivity club. And when we get back, we are going to cover the headlines for our technology articles. We’re going to cover our business and finance segment to our productivity resources of the week. And then we are going to close out with a discussion on our featured story. And so we will see you after the break.

Sponsor Voice Over 26:57

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Raymond Sidney-Smith 28:07

Welcome back everybody to Anything But Idle. I’m Ray Sidney-Smith joined Of course with acoustic pinout. For the second half of the show, where we are going to be talking about technology related productivity related technology articles in this section go forward. Now what’s our

Augusto Pinaud 28:23

last week we talked about shift playgrounds and how

Raymond Sidney-Smith 28:28

Swift, Swift

Augusto Pinaud 28:31

Swift Playgrounds on how Apple was finally letting iPad users to code and to create apps. And during the week, I’ve then found a second or next article talking about the first or the first to do app, at least I pick one on productivity written with Swift Playgrounds, and it’s already on the Apple Store. The app is called to dunk. And basically, it’s for you to pick things that you want to do or don’t want to do. That is fine. But again, what I wanted what I wanted to bring it is because it is all designed into this. It’s all designed into Swift. And I thought that was interesting. Our next article is about telegram and we love Telegram, you and I at least. And they update their reactions. And now when you pick certain reactions, you get the animation same as you get with some of the iOS. I’m not familiar with how Google do that. But but the iOS at least when you are iOS to iOS, you get those animations. You do have

Raymond Sidney-Smith 29:42

them and you have them in Google messages. But but to kind of explain to folks so you can basically long press on a specific message from someone else and then you get a little prompt that will give you a tray if you swipe left or Write on that, on that tray, you’ll see the various emoji reactions that are capable. Now this is only for one to one messages or groups in which the, the administrator has turned on reactions for those groups. So some so you may be in a group or a channel where that may not be possible. And I think that’s why the interesting thing is that if you just double tap now on a reaction, at least in the mobile app, your it will automatically do a thumbs up. And there’s at least for me, there’s a really fun kind of animated thing where a bunch of, you know, stuff like pours out and kind of shows you the the animation. That’s kind of fun. So I’ve been enjoying the reactions in telegram. And just FYI, going back to don’t this test list app built in Swift for on iPad, the the app itself is currently it’s got five stars for ratings of five out of five stars on the App Store. So that’s pretty good, considering it’s a brand new application. So weird, weird icon for the app, it’s some kind of cat you know. angry and and there being a little note there. So but either way. Good on them for building that out. Okay, next next article.

Augusto Pinaud 31:13

So, we have been talking about e readers eat tablets for a while, I am really intrigued by them. And our next article from good reader is at top three, readers gooeys Google Play, so that you can access the Google Play store and you can install things. And they mentioned you know, the Danson can noni reader, the oil and the onyx books, the Onyx books in particular, I was looking, I know somebody who got it, it is pretty solid. And what was for me to mention in here, these are, you know, they go they are eating are decent enough to be any reader and really a tablet or a light tablet to use. But again, I remember when the first Kindle came out, and people said, Oh, why we are wanting to use them? Well, this iPad is my notebook, it’s on the side of my machine. This is what I do take notes. And even that I deactivate the colors so I don’t get distracted by the colors. I will love to get this into ink instead of words. So I think there is a lot of future for this. That’s what I have to say about this.

Raymond Sidney-Smith 32:37

Yeah, I really liked the onyx, the books or books, I don’t know how to pronounce that. But I think it’s books, books note air too. It’s a 10.3 inch E note, tablet and Ian tablet. It’s a really nice device. I mean, so I’m really curious about the ability for E Ink devices, which is a unique part of our personal productivity technology market, really taking hold, we have already the remarkable two, which is pretty much the the dominant player right now in the US market. Most people know about the remarkable to if they’re paying attention to the eating space. And then you have Kindles, which are basically Non non, you know, writing devices, non tablet devices. For the reading experience, I think there’s a lot of room to grow here. And as we continue to watch the coverage on this, I will be curious to see how the next few years really pan out for ENT displays as they get better, their refresh rates get better. And that means their their lifespan, you know, their ability to to last on battery for much longer periods of time really makes them a you know, a rockstar in the space, being able to have, you know, multiple days if not multiple weeks of of existence without needing to be recharged because your screen is not an LCD or OLED that’s just burning battery. That’s a really you know, that’s a that’s a, a a unique selling proposition that I can really buy into. And you had noted this in a recent episode that we had talked some time ago about an eating a monitor a monitor for a computer that was eating. And I have to say, at the time I was really interested in and then you mentioned it and then I went of course I started looking forward again, I had to go back and Anything But Idle episodes to look forward and find the link to it. I have to say that it’s a really really interesting concept and I’m I’m very I’m like that close because I have to get a new monitor and do some some setup here at my desk. And I’m I’m really quite, you know, interested in the idea of it. You know, something that’s a low power, I don’t need it to have a remarkable amount of color for the specific use I need. And that’s that’s actually really, really quite unique Anyway, moving on to our next article this week.

Augusto Pinaud 34:51

But Max is an interest in machine this is not the first attempt to put more screens inside of a laptop is the Lenovo ultra wide 17 inch laptop. But what they did was instead of put the numpad, they move the keyboard and the mouse to the side and put a seven inch screen that you can hand right inside of that thing. I really like the concept, it means that you take that little tablet in the side with you that will have make, almost consider me a Windows machine. Okay, but they miss that component. But it is interesting, you know, and remind me this is my that is my daily set up, okay, I have one iPad was the other one on the side. So I can take notes, that is my notebook. So that it was something really interesting, curious for me, what I will have love to be able to do is take that tablet home so I can live my next up are the big laptop in the office and just take the rest.

Raymond Sidney-Smith 35:59

Yeah, so I brought it up on screen because I just wanted to talk about this a little bit. So we have a 17 inch wide screen, I’m guessing that’s diagonally measured. And then you have this kind of basically tablet sized screen, kind of embedded into the into the side of the machine here. I will note a couple of things that that for me from a productivity perspective is a drawback. One is I’m actually experiencing this on my the Samsung Galaxy Book Pro that I recently bought, I’m experiencing the same problem. And just so that everybody is aware, I’ve been so used to over the years having a keyboard where the keyboard is centered, and therefore so is the touchpad. And my experience is that I am, in essence working on the touchpad, from the center of the panel. When you have something off to the side, like the Galaxy Book Pro does, which is it has a full on numpad. There’s a numeric keyboard. Now off to the side, that pushes the keyboard off to the to the left a little bit. But it leaves the touchpad which is rather ginormous in the center of your typing space, which means your hands are kind of here, but you have to shift them a little bit to the left in order to be typing. And that’s not where you’re naturally thinking because you’re naturally thinking center screen center of the keyboard and typing from there, it’s been enough of an issue that it has caused me a little bit of grief. And so I want people to be kind of mindful of that, because the same thing kind of comes into play here. Here on the right hand side of your your, your keyboard, you have this huge amount of space, which means you’re not you’ve got it on your lap, right it is a laptop, and or even if you have it on desk, but now you looking and being center screen, you now need to shift your arms to the left in order to be able to type straight on that’s weird and uncomfortable over long periods of time, which then means you need to shift the laptop basically to the left to the right. And then avert your gaze to the right in order for you to actually be typing straight on. But to the to the machine looking off to the right. It’s it’s a it’s a bit weird, I have to admit, it’s a bit weird. And I would say that that probably will happen on a device like this also. So just something to be mindful of, if you’re taking this device and you’re putting it on a surface and you’re using an external keyboard, and all kinds of other things that might be fine. And you’re docking it most of the time and you’re only using it for short periods of time when you’re off on the road. Maybe it’s not as much of an issue, but I will say any of these keyboards with that are shifted. I am starting to feel that sense of like Oh, that’s weird. This is a little bit off to the side.

Augusto Pinaud 38:47

And that is that is a really valid point exists as you were talking that I was thinking okay, it’s true. I have sent her on the iPad is what he center so when I go to the site, I’m moving the attention there with probably you’re right. It’s all been shift. Yeah, I can see the awkwardness on that.

Raymond Sidney-Smith 39:09

Yeah, it is what it is. I don’t think it’s necessarily something that needs to be like something you can fix right but it’s certainly something that if you were going to be bothered by it, you should know that you’re going to be bothered by it before you you know, put money into it. So Alright, where are we we have another

Augusto Pinaud 39:29

one is tile is working with Lenovo to help find your last laptop Apple right that’s been famous was that and you know having to find your laptop, find your iPad, find your phone and now title who was a really strong company racer really strong company into the beacons and stuff. It’s working directly with Lenovo so you can have inside of that machine that tile so you can find them. You know where they are are an OLED ads?

Raymond Sidney-Smith 40:02

Yeah, I think this is great. Mike, my concern here again for tile is that this technology is being built into devices. And so you know, you have find my phone on the iOS platform or the Apple devices, and you have the same thing in in on the Android side, in and on the windows, you don’t really have that where tile potentially can can step in. But that seems to be something fairly trivial that once and I think this is going to be true once Apple and Android right now Android is the leader here, you know, Amazon, Android with Samsung are integrating with your your devices, you’re going to see more and more of those Android devices connected to the laptops, and therefore maybe extending that capability in that way. Right. So I could easily take my Android login. And now with an app running on the Windows device, it can go ahead and find it. If it’s if it’s a way. I guess the problem with that, you know, just thinking out loud, I guess the problem with that is that if the device is off or powered down, is that going to work? When the devices power down? And how is that going to be? How is that going to run on battery? Is it gonna? Is it going to run off the battery on on the chip? Is it going to run off the battery? From the battery pack? And all of those kinds of things? I think, you know, what’s, what’s the practicalities of me being able to find my laptop, wherever it might be and what’s going to be powering that thing? I would imagine that it would last a lot longer than my phone would it?

Augusto Pinaud 41:38

Yeah. And the batteries, there’s no batteries is a tile. At least a separate tiles. They were pretty decent. So yeah, they’re their own battery for that.

Raymond Sidney-Smith 41:47

Yeah. But even even then, you know, we’ve had this recent rash of Apple air tags being used to steal cars, people use using them for nefarious purposes. Now all of a sudden, we’re embedding that kind of technology, not air tags, technology, but a similar technology to tile into laptops.

Augusto Pinaud 42:05

So do the corporate laptop. Yeah, that

Raymond Sidney-Smith 42:07

that makes me a little, little bit, you know, like, what, what else could go wrong here? If we start embedding this kind of technology in there. That’s not just beyond locating the device when it’s on an operating, but when it’s not operating and being able to, you know, track people from that perspective, perhaps just a bit discomforting on that level? All right, moving along to our final bit of technology news, which is that slack, this is an article from make use of they are doing a comparison between slack free versus slack premium. What was what was your feeling about whether or not you should pay for slack or not?

Augusto Pinaud 42:46

No, I have never been a big fan of slack. I have never, I know. Some companies love it. I’ve been forced to use it a couple of times. And it feels like that. So I have I don’t see a reason why. To get a slack. There is mess missing components for me to slack. You know, if you are using already teams, everything, you don’t need a slack. And if you are using Google meat, you should stay there. The only reason maybe Okay, our company you assume and we want something to communicate and we think is great. I don’t know, I really, I’m not a big fan of slack.

Raymond Sidney-Smith 43:30

Yeah, I think I think the idea here is that being able to like for me, the biggest issue with Slack free is that you’re maxed out at a particular number of messages, and then those start to delete. So if there’s a historical component to it, you know, like, if you want to be able to search beyond that 10,000 recent messages limit, then paying is a necessity, it’s not a decision, in a lot of ways. Everything else in here is basically a resource limitation, right? It’s like features aren’t available file storage hits a limit, I think free slack goes up to like five gigabytes, and then you have to upgrade anyway. So you’re going to naturally hit some of these limits. And that’s what’s going to force you there. I don’t feel like any of the features, the paid features are features that would push you to use a paid plan, if you really don’t need them. Like that’s just the way in which I think about it. And like I am in many different slacks, some paid some free, and people just basically make the decision to upgrade because they are they are limited by one of those two things, right, we’ve reached the number of messages or we’ve reached the file stored size. And so I think that’s the that is for me the heuristic that I would use. And maybe it’s a little too simplistic and maybe not the most strategic but it’s the way in which most people I have been around and I’m not managing those Slack channels, so I don’t really care. But but you know, if you do care and you want to make sure you’re paying attention To what access Slack has, I would also look at competing tools now, at that point, right? Like if you do a comparison against slack versus like a Discord server, the value of the discord server versus slack, and what those things are going to do or say against Google Chat or Microsoft Teams, you’re, you’re now kind of thinking apples and oranges. And slack, for better for worse, is is really an outlier in the market. Right? They’re not part of one of the big tech companies that makes them valuable to me in a lot of ways, because they are they’re a part of Salesforce, that is Oh, right, they were bought by Salesforce, well forget that, then I’m sorry. But I was thinking to myself, well, they’re not. They’re not one of the big tech, but they actually are now owned by the big tech. It’s kind of why I think about Evernote because Evernote is not owned by Apple, Google, Microsoft or otherwise. Right. It’s that it’s that third party where you feel like at least my data is not held by by some large conglomerate. But you know, Slack is now owned by by Salesforce. So either way, they are still, you know, separate from Microsoft or Google. Yeah. And that that for a lot of people is a way that maybe people want to think about it. But I like to I like to compare apples to apples in that sense, to then see, okay, is slack comparative in their Pro and Business and Enterprise plans, you know, parallel with what I would get anyway, in probably the tools you’re already using, which is Microsoft Office, Office 365, or Google workspace or otherwise, and many times, you’re not getting that much more for slack. You know, by paying for it, then you’re already getting in the built in tools. And I think that’s unfortunate for slack. But I know, they provide a lot of value. But I think that, you know, if you’re not already there, then there’s no really reason for you to leave one of those other, you know, suites for it. So alright, that brings us along to our business and finance segment. We’ve got a couple of articles there. You want to cover those?

Augusto Pinaud 47:00

Yeah, we have the first one we have is Apple, he did 3 trillion valuation.

Raymond Sidney-Smith 47:08

Wow. Or money for a moment.

Augusto Pinaud 47:12

Still, still it five years ago, imagine that was not even on the on the table. So I think is still insane. On.

Raymond Sidney-Smith 47:27

Yeah, just for just for a cup for kind of a relative perspective here, you know, Apple has hit the 3 trillion mark, we will see Microsoft hit the 3 trillion mark probably this year also. And we’re gonna see other companies start making their way toward this, which is remarkable across the board, right. But it’s kind of the slow progress that you see happen across all of these large, you know, companies, not just large technology companies, that happens to be the the, you know, highlight of the of this particular past 20 years, but you’re gonna see more and more companies hitting these big numbers, because numbers are just getting bigger. Right? And so we’ll see, we’ll see what happens there. Okay. Our other story.

Augusto Pinaud 48:10

Our second news on the business finance segment is about Nero. And Nero is an online whiteboarding platform, and they just raised 400 millions to continue growing and continue the operation of the business. So know it, it now have a little bit of cash to continue moving forward.

Raymond Sidney-Smith 48:34

Yeah. And that, that brings them up to a $17.5 billion valuation. And, and as I, as I am want to do in this, you know, segment is to remind people about how much money is really invested in these personal productivity software. And it’s just remarkable seven $10.5 billion for an online whiteboarding application. Let me be clear about that. It is an online whiteboarding tool. And and we’re talking 17 point point 5 billion USD. And so across the board, you know, when we think about Asana, and we think about all these other tools, there’s a lot of big money now invested in making sure those tools stay at the top. And we all have to be just mindful of that as we make our way forward. Alright, on to our productivity resources of the week. As many of you know Augusto and I, we scour the web for all of the various personal productivity articles and so forth that we bring you each week. And of course, in that journey, we come across many tools, apps and services that we think you might like. And so in this segment, productivity resources of the week, we each bring you one new or old, we think you might like and so this week, I, I came across this from reading some ces news, and it was about the anchor anchor work and their product. I’m trying to bring it up on the screen here and I’m just being not very dexterous and doing so. But it’s called the The longer work be 600. And this is really phenomenal. It is a, a, basically a webcam. But it’s way more than a webcam in so many ways. It’s a bit of a beast, if you, if you look on the page where it kind of describes the product, it obviously is a camera, it’s 2k resolution, not that you need 2k. But it’s a 2k resolution, it has dual speakers, and it has a whole bunch of other speakers, microphones on it so that it can go ahead and reduce background noise, it can isolate your voice, and therefore pick your voice up clearly. And it actually has this little light bar on the actual device itself. And so you can see that the what looks to me like it’s a cover for the actual mic slides up or somehow, you know, moves up and it is the it turns on a light so it illuminates your face. And you have this built in light into it. So this foreign one design of cameras, speaker, mic and lighting, now they are currently running an early bird deal, you can currently reserve a an anchor anchor work be 600 Video bar for $1. And if you do that, then it gives you the early bird price on January 25 of $184.99 presuming that’s USD. And so that’s a pretty good deal, you get 35 bucks off of this very swanky webcam. And so I’m really curious to see whether or not this is a nice device, I’m considering it. And just to see what it’s all about, and whether it’s a nice device. But you do have to pay the dollar, the dollar is not refundable. And so be mindful of that. But either way, I’m really interested in curious about this, if anybody does end up getting it, let us know because I want to I want to hear about it if I don’t get one for myself, but even if I do get one for myself, I still want to hear from you all about your experience with it, because it seems like a really interesting, nice device. And so I’m looking forward to seeing that in the real world. Alright. Okay, so what’s your resources? You

Augusto Pinaud 52:07

know, this this week, I bring in a tool that I don’t know why haven’t brought before. So the tool I’m going to talk is simply Apple notes. COMM has every iOS Mac. And when Apple notes came into the market 15 years ago, okay, on the first iPhone, he was really deficient, okay, he didn’t have categories you could not do pictures was really not a great tool. But Apple have invest in the last 15 years, a lot of time and effort into making this a really powerful tool. So as I was talking to a client, we’re talking about, Well, should I switch to Apple notes? And I say, Well, I come here with new tools, and I have never brought a tool that I really use every day. So I found a couple of articles. One is how and why to switch to Apple notes. You can use the pencil, you know, you can do everything it’s synchronize automatically with other things. You can put folders, you can share folders, there are many things you can do. And the other one is 13 Things You Didn’t Know that Apple Notes app can do. So if you have look into the apple notes and are like on the fence, I don’t know, will this be an interesting tool? The answer is yes. And you can go to this two articles. And hopefully you will get one or two trips or tricks for you to get the most out of the app.

Raymond Sidney-Smith 53:43

antastic Apple notes has come a long way has it? Alright, that brings us along to our last story, which is our featured story of the week, which is that Google is planning basically to play Apple’s ecosystem playbook. You want to explain a little bit about this Keystone we can kick the tires on it.

Augusto Pinaud 54:04

Yeah, they are trying to get the plants to integrate, you know, the windows, the Google and the PCs. In this case, same as Apple habit today, you know, where I can grab my iPad and will synchronize automatically will play simpatico with my other iPad, my phone on my Mac. And you know, we’ve been seeing this with Samsung, actually, way before Google made any announcement. You know, in the last two shows that Samsung has done, they have shown how they’re trying to integrate. And I’m really glad that Google is going to bring it forward to instead of wait until Samsung gets all that market share and I hope HB and others come and play with that because I think what made my platform really Also, if I can grab any device, and I will have everything and I can see the apps and I can see everything that make really powerful. Regardless the device I have everything is there. I think Google bringing that to the masses through the windows, it is going to be a game changer for everybody.

Raymond Sidney-Smith 55:24

I think Google would like to do something like that I’m skeptical, Google will ultimately be able to make that work. They are supporting so many OEMs with their software. And at the same time, I’m, I’m like, I have this cognitive dissonance because I’m really hopeful that Google is going to do this, because I want that experience. I mean, for the most part, I have that sense of experience, because I installed Google products on all of my devices. You know, I, you know, I frequently talk about my iPad, my iPad is just hardware that happens to run iOS, iPad OS, and everything on it is Google, right, or some other independent application, I relegate all of the Apple stuff to a folder I literally call unused. And I don’t do it. I just, I just, you know, I don’t

Augusto Pinaud 56:18

for the people who who listen to the show, you know, I have gotten Coulson, how can I disappear this thing?

Raymond Sidney-Smith 56:27

Exactly. I say, oh, Gousto. Why is this thing showing up? Can I just delete it. And that’s just my nature, right? Because I am in in co located in Google’s ecosystem, right? So I use all of the Google products on my devices, there are mostly apps for everything. And when there isn’t, I can use the browser. And so I’m, I’m in that space. And so I have a cohesive experience already with this. If Google can make it even better. I’m really excited about that, for example, I do not like the fact that I’m stuck with Siri on the iPad, I would love to be able to replace Siri with the assistant. And, and I don’t think that’s ever gonna happen, by the way, but. But it’s a nice, nice to dream. It’s nice to dream. But like, these are the kinds of things we’ve already seen parts of that, though, right? iOS has, you know, let their guard down. And they have allowed you to choose a default mail application, they have allowed you to choose the default browser, the default calendar, I believe, also, I could be wrong on that. But I believe you can choose your default calendar now. So we’ve seen some inroads into that space. With that, that gives Google an opportunity to say, Okay, let’s step back and think, Okay, we have a pixel line of products. And you know, from the Pixel phones, to the pixel stand and, and, you know, the pixel bugs, and so on, so forth. We have, hopefully, this pixel watch coming out in the next few months, cross your fingers for me. And so I will take the Samsung Galaxy watch and chuck it out the window, as quick as you can blink as soon as that Google Pixel watches out. And, and then, and then you have on the flip side of that you have the nest line. And, and Google has has worked really hard to bring the nest line, you know, which was the Google Home Products and everything else like that under the nest umbrella, and has been really good at getting that kind of home IOT space organized, if they can make this more cohesive, and feel across the board. Like it works better. That would be really good for all of us. So I don’t I don’t mean that just for Google users, I think that will be good for the entire industry, it will force places like Amazon to think this through, right. And Amazon does a pretty good job of integrating their tools, but not as good as it could be across the various devices, find some of the Amazon, you know, items, especially with matavai, a little bit clunky, they could do better. And that’s going to force their hand as much. So it means like you’ve frequently said, pushing the competition makes it better

Augusto Pinaud 58:59

for every everybody will raise them. That is a good thing. Yes, rising,

Raymond Sidney-Smith 59:03

rising tide lifts all ships, in essence. And so I’m actually really pleased to see this, I hope that Google really thinks this through and, and it’s not just one step in front of us. It’s like the next five steps in front of me. I’m frequently, you know, shading, you know, big G for what they have not thought through, not just the immediate question, I’m asking it, but the two and three questions down the road that I’m going to ask it and not having thought that through. And it’s actually rather, in my perspective, simple to think through what I’m going to ask three questions down, because Google can, at least the first question down, anticipate my question, you know, you type a couple of words into Google search, and it already knows within you know, a list of three or four options, what question you’re going to ask it. So for me to be able to think two to three questions down the line. Is not that big. deal not that difficult once I’ve already asked a question of it. And so these are the kinds of ecosystem things I want to see Google doing, not just in the assistant side, but in the entire ecosystem, you know, from the UI from using the the was called material you perspective and bringing cohesion in terms of of a brand language, but also in the way in which the devices work together across ecosystems, and how the applications work as well want to see more integration between the various app ecosystems. And you’ve seen a little bit of that with Google workspace, where now you’re seeing more and more of these features of other applications being brought into Gmail or into Google Calendar, or otherwise. And so I think, I think we have come to that point where we’re going to see a lot more of this happening with Google. And I think that’s going to force even Apple to look at how they’re, they’re making the ecosystem more cohesive for their users. And I think that’s actually a good thing. I hope they don’t start walling off gardens, though, I hope they don’t start walling each other off, because of the competition, I hope it becomes a continued space where they can make it better if you choose in their system. But Don’t lock me out of the system. Don’t make my iPad brick, just because I’ve chosen chosen the Apple device. Don’t make me have to use all other apple devices, I really don’t want that I want all of them to work really well together, no matter what software I want to use on top of them.

Augusto Pinaud 1:01:23

Yeah, I agree with you. And I wish for the Android users that their Android don’t turn into a Windows machine.

Raymond Sidney-Smith 1:01:33

On that note, we have reached the end of our show. We have a couple of announcements, if you want to run through those announcements at Gousto. And then we will close out here.

Augusto Pinaud 1:01:42

We have two announcements. One is the momentum planner that is going to Kickstarter, Kickstarter, they already found it so they are going to our $4,000 short to their next tear. So the momentum planner is being created or developed by the people of productive flourishing,

Raymond Sidney-Smith 1:02:03

which is trying to Gilkey Charlie Gilkey.

Augusto Pinaud 1:02:06

Correct. So I think he’s awesome. I they have been working into making this. And again, the more people racing, looking into projects, looking into how to be more effective, then the better we can get, and the better we can be. So if you like what product version do, go and check it, click on the link, chicken check on their Kickstarter and go with that. Our second announcement is Dr. Frank Buck, who has been a guest here in the sho

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