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Ray Sidney-Smith

Augusto Pinaud

Michael is a productivity guy – he’s the founder and CEO of Nozbe – an uber-functional to-do app for small and medium teams and Nozbe – a project management and collaboration tool for busy professionals. Nozbeis web-based tools with apps for all the major platforms. Michael is also a speaker, author of a few best-selling books, a podcaster and a blogger. He is happily married to his wife Ewelina and they have three daughters.

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Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:06

Hello, personal productivity enthusiast 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 Ray Sidney-Smith.

Augusto Pinaud 0:19

And I’m Augusto Pinaud.

Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:21

And we’re your hosts for Anything But Idle. This is episode 109109. For June 7 2020. We’re going to be doing commentary on Apple’s worldwide developer conference, 2020, Keynote and all the things they talked about. Of course, each week, Gustavo and I read and review the productivity and Technology News of the Week. This is a special episode only because we are going to be talking about the keynote from Apple and what they announced there and really how it is going to impact your personal productivity. And to do that we have a another I mean, Augusto is our resident Apple fanboy, but we have another such person who can actually help us digest and really do the synthesis and analysis of what Apple is saying from the stage. And that is Michael Slowinski he is He is the founder and CEO of NOSB, where they have two productivity apps that emerged into one and now they have nose B, which helps both individuals be productive, and teams be productive. And so really excited to have Michael here. He’s a speaker. He’s an author of two best selling books and a podcaster himself. And so welcome to Anything But Idle, Michael.

Michael Sliwinski 1:33

Hey, guys, again, thanks for having me. And I do appreciate this opportunity to geek out with you guys.

Augusto Pinaud 1:40

We love them ship we bring the objective fan to this.

Raymond Sidney-Smith 1:48

And at least you have someone who is a an objective person generally who is who is not a fan. I say that with with due respect to Apple, I don’t I think that they do great product. But you know, like I’m not I’m not in your camp. And so I think it is really good to hear from you all the excitement and vigor with which you bring these topics to the table. So we’re going to work our way through the keynote and what they announced. And let’s just start off with what was your immediate impressions of the presentation? This seems like a pretty typical sort of standard Apple event now in a virtual environment.

Michael Sliwinski 2:30

I think I think the best the best part is that, you know, the I mean, I was physically in at WWDC, two times in the past and doesn’t 1960 I believe. So. So I know how it feels to be there in person. But I think going forward, I like this combo, of, of, you know, announcements and recorded stuff. And then some people were invited or gods to be there in person for the for Monday. And then having the whole conference virtual. And I think this new paradigm shift of you know, just embracing the, the bigger developer community because the conference was for like up to 6000 people. And now they have like, I don’t know, 2030 millions of developers right now registered. So it didn’t make any sense to have a person in person conference anymore. So I think it was great. And I think as always, the the keynote presentation was very well done. Of course, we we saw good shots of the apple Park. But the most important thing is, I was surprised that they had that big hardware reveal, also, because I was just waiting for the software. And the software guy in me, the founder of Nesby was just waiting for, you know, updates to the OSS we support and then suddenly we got a surprise. So it’s not normal for WB DC to announce. And it’s to announce actually a consumer device and not a, you know, professional grade device. So yeah, I was surprised by that.

Raymond Sidney-Smith 3:56

Yeah, I think this has a lot to do with supply chain issues and what they can announce when and so I think it was just like we have everyone’s attention, we might as well utilize that attention. Since we can’t really pull out on like an upgrade to MAC studio or anything else like that. I felt like this was the time for them to kind of at least have some kind of hardware announcement and this was the time to do it.

Augusto Pinaud 4:16

And I think they also are so ahead chipset wise still that they’re, you know, there is no urgency we can work with the supply chain constraints, because we are still so ahead that it’s fine.

Raymond Sidney-Smith 4:30

Well, if they were really that ahead of the supply chain constraints, they would have had their MacBook Pros on sale as of today. They you can’t even preorder it on the website yet. They said available next month kind of thing. So they are clearly being impacted by Shenzen. And and the COVID lock downs there as well. So, you know, I think they’re starting to feel that impact and we’re all going to unfortunately feel that impact over time.

Michael Sliwinski 4:57

Well, I was I was thinking and hope And Miss and they would actually announce the Mac Pro. So the pro product computer that I would never buy, but something that they already did in the past that they will announce a Mac Pro, and then you can buy it later on by the end of this year. So there was like no urgency to sell it now. But the but I think they were also not ready for the announcement maybe. And maybe they just didn’t want also to spoil something. So ahead of time when they were actively trying to sell their MAC studio. So something that is actually for many pros, beefy enough machine.

Raymond Sidney-Smith 5:33

Right, exactly, exactly. All right. So their biggest announcement, we’re gonna we’ll start off with their I think what their biggest announcement is, which is their new Apple silicon chip, and to their their version two chip, let’s talk a little bit about what, what did they announce as it related to mtwo, faster, bigger, stronger, less power consumption, what’s all all the things related to Apple mtwo.

Michael Sliwinski 6:00

It’s not like, as I said, it’s not like anyone was missing anything. I mean, I have, I’m right now talking to you through my MacBook Air, the M one MacBook Air. And it’s fantastic. And it’s a silent computer, no fans whatsoever, and it just takes everything you throw at it. And so it’s I mean, for my needs, right. And, and it’s amazing. So, really, the m two is just, you know, as I said, faster, and it’s faster with the same focus on on just long battery life and being quiet and being just silently fast.

Augusto Pinaud 6:39

Now, again, as I said, the problem is them to chip them one still is very ahead. So the m two it is it is almost an insult to that injury, you know, like, well, you know, we were very ahead, but let me show you this one that is going to go a little bit faster, more quiet and useless energy. So, the comparisons between the M one and m two, were very interesting on how much more power this chipset has in compared to them. One, I have them one iPad, and I have not found anything I can throw at that thing. And same thing with M one MacBook Air. And it is a very, very capable chips at the M one M. I don’t know what what else to expect from an a m two or why do I will need an m two for my needs.

Raymond Sidney-Smith 7:36

Some of the things that they noted was that this is a you know, 40% Faster neural engine, I thought that was really interesting to see such a remarkable increase, I thought this was going to be somewhat incremental from from M one to m two, certainly the X versions. And that was a pretty big boost from from your from my perspective. These These come in eight core CPU and 10 core CPU units with of course, the GPU GPU on that SOC as well. And so it can support up to a 6k external display. Which is, which is nice. And yeah, 15 point 8 trillion operations per second. This is I mean such blazing speed, I’m really looking forward to seeing it in real life, I’m really looking forward to seeing it perform

Michael Sliwinski 8:22

one thing that they haven’t really highlighted here on the slides, I don’t think, but you can see it when you go to apple.com and go to compare models and you compare M one and m two and MacBook Air, you can see in Compute section, they say that the m two has the media engine built in. And then the M one didn’t have, its like the media engine has been created for the pros. So for the MacBook Pro, as far as I remember. So a so it’s there for the MacBook Pro, but it’s not, it wasn’t for the MacBook Air. And now the new MacBook Air also has this media engine, which is just you know, accelerates all these hardware, you know, all these, you know, progress and all the, you know, video workflows, so it’s just even faster to generate videos and everything. So again, they just, you know, added a bunch of bunch a bunch of not only speed, but also new features there.

Raymond Sidney-Smith 9:15

Yeah, and I’m really curious as to like someone who is just doing everyday work, you know, so you get a MacBook Air 38 or 16 gigabytes in terms of memory, and you have this high performance media engine, that’s going to give you good video playback, probably a little bit of power savings by by utilizing that separate from the main cores. And so that’ll all be good. I’m curious if you’re doing any level of video or audio or those kinds of of work, whether you should max out that 24 gigabytes of RAM so that you’re able to really, you know, take best advantage of all of these different units, these different cores having to do different work. So just keep that in mind as you’re moving forward. I’m I’m sure sort of shooting at the center there. I think the 16 gigabytes is probably enough for most people All. And if you’re going to do some high level, you know, high end, you know high intensity processing on the device, then maybe maxing it out of the 24 gigabytes, at least on the on the air models

Michael Sliwinski 10:12

on the YouTube channel of Max Tech, I think they were doing comparisons of the entry level MacBook Air. So the cheapest, cheapest, like with eight gigabytes of RAM, and one and then the beefier like system zero bytes of RAM. And for most people, just even the basic one is just fantastic because the the SSD is so fast that even if they’re if it’s swapping and swapping very fast, yeah, I did for the MacBook Air is 16 gigabytes, because I just wanted to future profit. So for future proofing, I would order as you said, as you recommend 16 gigabytes, if you really want to push it far further, even to a default if you can afford it. But I think for for most people, even the basic model of elf aid is very good for most people

Augusto Pinaud 10:57

aid will be enough, I got the 16 for the same reason as you I wasn’t planning or I’m not planning to upgrade that machine in in the near future. Even that as we cover later the new one, it’s gorgeous.

Michael Sliwinski 11:13

Yeah, I just I just want to say that you don’t, I have an old MacBook Pro from 2012, which is no longer supported with the newest OS, but it’s still 16 gigabytes of RAM. And because of that, it’s just still runs very well, my daughter uses it all the time, and it’s good enough for her. So really, future proofing is a key factor if you want something for longer.

Raymond Sidney-Smith 11:36

Absolutely. And so you know as the as the threads, you know start to die, you want to be able to give the the engine ability to just continue to plunk along and it will just continue working. So you know, having 16 gigabytes means that it might at the end of the day be running at 12 You know if other parts burn out, but who cares? That’s perfectly good for like your daughter’s machine or whatever. So just keep that in mind. All right, onto some hardware announcements. So we’re moving along to now the announcement of the MacBook Air This is a 13 inch version in the mtwo Apple silicone variant.

Augusto Pinaud 12:11

Can I start with that? Yes. So I have a MacBook Air M one. And I really wanted them to know I may not get it. No, I don’t need it. There is no rational justification for this other than it is such a beautiful hardware. But I’m very excited that the MagSafe is back. It’s one of the things that I don’t move that MacBook Air so it’s not as critical but the MagSafe on the old MacBook Airs. Life that thing that might save save the life of that initial MacBook Air more times than what I care to admit. And I’m glad that’s back. And not only that, adding the MagSafe Apple did not remove the two USBC so that make the machine even more capable. Not hub friendly, but more capable.

Raymond Sidney-Smith 13:14

Yeah, so back to those colors. They come in four different colors, silver Space Gray, Starlight and midnight and so I believe that’s the blue that you were talking about earlier before we started recording Michael

Michael Sliwinski 13:26

Yeah, that’s that’s the one that’s the one if I would if I would get it I will get the blue one. What’s up everyone Mike here. I would get that one. It’s it’s pretty gorgeous. And yeah, I mean I still remember you know to this day that when when they announced the MacBook Air the very very early MacBook Air the 2008 MacBook Air I think I was at that time using black ThinkPad plastic laptop. And when I saw this aluminium thin MacBook Air I just fell in love like by the end of the year. It doesn’t eight I bought a secondhand, it’s like I could afford a secondhand MacBook Air just to have it and yeah, it’s this this design is timeless put the new one the new M two MacBook I’m happy that they made it more like a look like as the as the MacBook Pro. And I think this new design is just perfect, perfect update.

Raymond Sidney-Smith 14:28

So I think I misspoke the four colors silver Space Gray starlight and did you say moonlight or midnight

Augusto Pinaud 14:36

midnight?

Michael Sliwinski 14:37

I made nine Okay, so it was my bad.

Raymond Sidney-Smith 14:39

I just wanted to make sure that folks are going after the right colors there and that the MagSafe cords all match up which is really also you know, apples known for details but I’m I’m pleased to see that that kind of detail brought to this. I was also pleased to see how they had kind of dealt with some of the at least for me the original MacBook Air, which looked very nice and thin and whatever else, they, they redid the model and the design around those edges. That actually makes me like it more. I don’t know what it is about it, but it just seems more rounded, a little bit more like foldable than the than the original. And so I’m really pleased with that. And I was really curious to see how they kind of reoriented the magic keyboard. So that the the all the pieces kind of fit with the speaker system in there. I’ll be curious how well that endures. I’m sure that people will complain if it doesn’t, but I’m really curious to see how that how that works out, because it’s a really nice way in which they kind of fit the keyboard up, and are close to, you know, that top of the keyboard, and I’ll see how the touchpad and everything else kind of feels an orientation.

Michael Sliwinski 15:50

Yeah, and I’m really happy that the MagSafe is coming in the box, really, because it should, it should come in the box and and then it’s even color matched to the computer. And as I also said, it’s good that we have this plus two additional Thunderbolt ports. So it’s like, right now, this is the only handicap of my current MacBook Air that, you know, one of the ports is both for charging and for external display support. So yeah, that’s great. And, yeah, overall, it’s as you said, it’s just prettier and a good update and good modernization, let’s say of the of the Marburger.

Raymond Sidney-Smith 16:28

Yeah, what do you think about the camera? They said this was a 10 ADP, HD camera. I’m really skeptical.

Michael Sliwinski 16:35

Yeah, I mean, I’m still have Betterment camera on my my iPad Pro. So? I don’t know. i They? I don’t know, I think it’s a physic physical, you know, dimensions that they cannot put anything better because they want to have the thickness. So I think there’s nothing, not

Augusto Pinaud 16:56

an OLED on all of these episodes. Michael Do you were the one who brought that clarity. For me, as we were discussing the touch, MacBook and you say it can because they were trying to make it so so thin, that is going to be impossible anything. That is the same issue with the camera. And as we will discuss further in the show, you know, that’s the reason they came with that solution of connect the iPhone as your camera. So you can get a massive camera without really making that thing thick. But there were one thing that is really related to this macbook that came kind of quiet, as you said, they came with the Mac saving colors. But they also very quietly brought back the Magic Trackpad, the Magic Mouse and the magic keyboard in black. At some point. Last year, Apple decided to discontinue black. I don’t know why. And I’m glad to see they are back. And they are back to match with these colors and whatever update they did with that.

Raymond Sidney-Smith 17:59

That’s cool. Anything else about the air, we want to talk about 18 hours of battery life. Really great video playback, they said 18 They said 18 hours of video playback on that single battery. That’s that’s pretty phenomenal. And I’m curious to see it in operation to 13.6 inch liquid Retina Display very, very nice color, at least in the video that they were showing. And so I’m really looking forward to seeing that kind of richness on screen.

Michael Sliwinski 18:28

Yeah, this is the only, like, the only thing that I just still feel envious about them MacBooks that they have such a great battery life. I mean, my iPad Pro does not hold 10 hours, like it holds, I would say eight ish hours. And when I when I have few zoom calls in between then it’s you know, six ish hours then or seven, which is okay ish. Again, but not full day. Right. So, I mean, just today in the morning, I did lots of work. And then I had a few meetings. And it was I had only 30% left, so I had to put it to charge so I like these new MacBooks to just and my only thing is why do we call it the MacBook Air where they just call it MacBook. Like they have the MacBook Pro. Why don’t they change the name like with the new design to just MacBook to just you know, like make it you know why the air? Like will they come a MacBook at some point or will there never be a MacBook? Nothing? Just you know? I don’t know.

Raymond Sidney-Smith 19:30

Yeah, this seems like it’s the new standard MacBook and they’re just leaving the air on it because of I don’t know, I don’t know that’s interesting. Yeah, I suppose so. But they could have easily have transitioned this to the to the MacBook and then had the MacBook and MacBook Pro. One thing that you noted and just for folks who are who are maybe unaware of this, if you are in zoom calls or Microsoft Teams or otherwise, most of the software today give you an ability to change the HD resolution or standard res resolution On your video feed, and what I’ve been telling everyone is just like, if you have that HD check, just turn off HD and it saves like half the bandwidth and a lot of of the power, and that will help just kind of mediate that. So if you’re not, if you’re not trying to look gorgeous on screen with other people, you don’t need really the HDX in most of the software, and it saves us considerable amount of bandwidth and power. By virtue of turning that off. I know that on one of my MacBooks when I turn it on, my fan immediately kicks on now and it’s an older MacBook Air and, and so it just immediately kicks on, if I turn it off, then it saves a huge amount of power and the fan never turns on. So there’s clearly some difference in how much zoom specifically in this case is, you know, sending bandwidth back and forth just over that one toggle of HD video. Cool. So just for people to keep keep in mind, are we ready for MacBook Pro?

Michael Sliwinski 20:55

Yeah, I mean, this was a silent update. Like they they still keep it around for I think price, you know, ladder, they want to have something more expensive for like $100 more, but it’s just the same thing. Like, again, I would if I would be in charge an apple and of course there’s a reason why Tim Cook is in charge not me. I would simplify it I would just not put it there. I think that MacBook Air or the I would call it the MacBook would be the beginning of the line the new one. And then the MacBook Pro the new one the 14 and 16 inch that’s it. Like I wouldn’t put something like this in between it’s a good machine, but you know why?

Raymond Sidney-Smith 21:37

So they announced the m two MacBook Pro. And what did you think about the announcement of the m two MacBook Pro

Augusto Pinaud 21:48

edition, I’m going to start with a disappointment on the MacBook Pro. Okay, on the 13 inch just as we praise them for add the MagSafe on the MacBook Air, they did not add that to the m two Pro.

Michael Sliwinski 22:06

But it also is because they haven’t changed anything, they haven’t changed the design at all in the MacBook Air, they did redesign it here they just swapped the processors from M one to m two, nothing else changed. So I think I think it was that they you know they would have to redesign the chasis the you know, they everything to accommodate that and then they will have to design it from scratch and they didn’t want to they just wanted to keep an old my 13 inch MacBook Pro around for some reasons. And that’s it. It’s a very silent update and it’s a very Yeah, it’s uh I wouldn’t get it now. Like if I was if I if I am to advise our listeners I will not get this computer I mean it’s it might be a little bit faster than the MacBook Air because it has some additional cooling but it has a worse screen and a smaller screen it has a fan which I think is not a plus and so I would go with it you know with upgraded MacBook Air for for my purposes or for like as a recommendation to buy and skip this one and and if you need the pro get the fortnight Pro

Raymond Sidney-Smith 23:19

I was really shocked by the by the fact that the the MacBook Air all just the MacBook is has a larger screen now than the MacBook Pro and you would think that they would have at least given it parity on the chassis side and they didn’t and I was really I was really shocked by that which really makes you makes you think yeah yeah it seems like everything pretty much stayed the same and you know the battery life seems consistent and you know they give a little bit of edge on the battery since they they put the active cooling system in they had a little bit more space to be able to put probably a bigger battery I’m not quite sure what the what the middle amp per hour you know on on that particular battery is I’m curious what the original M one MacBook Pro batteries are in that sense I’ll have to look later but it seems all pretty much standard to what the others are any other thoughts about the m two MacBook Pro Gousto

Augusto Pinaud 24:11

No, not really. That was not the excitement announcement for this one.

Raymond Sidney-Smith 24:17

All right, we are moving right along then to what are we moving along to?

Augusto Pinaud 24:22

iOS 16

Raymond Sidney-Smith 24:24

All right iOS 16 It is let’s see I don’t have a slide for that. So I’m gonna bring this bring this down.

Augusto Pinaud 24:31

So there were there were basically four things that I captured the the lock the new lock screen, they are working to the notifications, the life activities that was interesting you know for certain things and they will bring that and but the big deal for what they announced was the edit on and be able to retry text. Okay many times you send as I’ve really you make a mistake and you want to fix it and you can’t or cannot even Bring it back. That was for me, the big deal, I can see the attraction of the life activities. But, and the other thing was how much apple is banking in this focus things for the notification. So you can do, and I really like it, I really use focus. And I think on the Twitch that I understood, they tried to introduce, will make the use of those notifications, a lot more powerful for the device. You know, for example, I had a client, he is in California, and California now has certain laws with the emails and the phones and things, okay, so he don’t want to, he will be able to come now on change the focus as no work and that all will be filtered, you know, keeping him complying to what he needs to comply.

Michael Sliwinski 25:56

I mean, I actually haven’t set up my focus modes, I just still use Do Not Disturb or not to not disturb, which I’m not proud of, because it’s there, like there is so many things that you can do. But I just didn’t have the bandwidth, I didn’t have the bandwidth and time to fiddle with it. But now I am more motivated than ever to really have a different homescreen, which corresponds to different focus mode. And I think this is brilliant. And I think this, it all comes down together very well. Also the notifier, the the widgets, the you know, the complications from the watch appearing on the homescreen, I think, the lockscreen, I think it’s also brilliant to just reuse what we already have for the watch. And for people who don’t have watches. Like this will, you know, also let them have different complications also, depending if they’re at work, or if they’re, you know, on their personal time. So I think this is a good move again, people want to customize their iPhones, like we want to customize our iPhones, we want widgets, we want stuff we want stuff do that we want. And that’s why I think it’s a good move forward.

Raymond Sidney-Smith 27:02

Yeah, so I thought, when I saw the iOS lockscreen customizations that they announced, I was pretty, I was kind of chuckled to myself, because you could tell that I Android had and has for many years been the platform of customization. And iOS was the platform of ease of use. And now you have more, aside from the actual term complications on Apple, you have a lot more complexity with regard to the way in which you need to set up and manage and customize the interface. And I’m curious if users are excited about that, if if users will even use it, I’m always curious how many features Apple users actually use, because many times they’re tucked away, they’re hidden there, you know, you have to you have to know, you know, the special handshake, you got to throw around three times, and then all of a sudden that feature appears, you know, and, and so this whole concept of live activities, and the ability to kind of customize the lock screen so that you can see certain things at certain times really does appeal to me as an as an Android user who has always had many different customization capabilities. And I’m wondering if they’re actually targeting me as opposed to other? You know what I mean? Like I have,

Michael Sliwinski 28:13

I have an answer for that. Right after the keynote, my brother called me, and my brother is an Android user. He was like, you know, my glass of the keynote, I’m considering, you know, because when are these things, these new things coming? I’m like, yeah, in September, with the new iPhone. Hmm, then maybe I should get the iPhone 14. So yeah, there’s your answer right here. I mean, of course, it’s just a sort of one. But you know, my brother has his he has an iphone four. And since then, he had an Android phone all the time. And he was actually showing, showing off his customization options and widgets and everything that he had on the Android that I didn’t have on the iPhone. And, and now I think this was kind of, like the last nail to the coffin to convince him to, to maybe switch because of course, the other thing was that, you know, he was here, he visited me. And we took photos and my photos from the iPhone 13 Pro were really good. And he was like, oh, man, like these photos are really, really fantastic. And of course, you can also have Android phones with fantastic photos. That’s not saying, but overall, he was just, there are small things that add up to, to maybe you know, addressing these, you know, potential switchers.

Raymond Sidney-Smith 29:38

Yeah, I’m excited to see the ability to take, they showed the ability for you to have the images image subjects dragged from one application into another. In this case, they took an image from from photos and they dragged it into messages and it basically takes a cut out of the, in this case, it was a dog. It took the cut out of the Dog in the foreground. And then they were able to place it as an image or sticker of some kind into the messages chat. And that was very, very slick. I was pretty impressed by that.

Michael Sliwinski 30:13

Yeah, I mean, also, when you have the lockscreen, I just I just so we just had a family event, and we were all dressed up all dolled up. So I, I took a very nice picture of our family. And I put it on my homescreen, of course, on the lock screen, of course, because I want to look at my daughter’s, like, they’re on the lockscreen. And this fact that you can then and I, I, when I took the photo, I asked my brother who was taking the photo to just make sure that he leaves enough space, you know, and have enough headroom, you know, for the clock to fit in. Now, we don’t have to do that anymore. Like we can have like a normal photo, and then put us also in the foreground and have the clock kind of be behind us. kind of automatically automatically. So that’s cool.

Raymond Sidney-Smith 30:56

Yeah, I think they’ve done a really good job with that whole premise of being able to make make apple make an Apple device feel like more of it’s yours, as opposed to something that you’re renting from from Apple. And so I still, you know, they’re terrible on right to repair. And they clearly don’t want that to be the case, but, but I am pleased to see them at least customizing the OS to be able to be something that is more unique and more customizable to the individual. And so yeah, they did some announcements about Apple wallet maps, do you want to talk about any of those pieces?

Augusto Pinaud 31:30

Oh, I for sure that the apple the pay later, the Apple Watch Monday, they are working into those pieces. But I think they pay later with Apple Pay. You know, it’s a trend we’re seeing, at least here in the States, you know, everything is now pay later. I I’m kind of terrified of that pay later. But tricky. It is tricky.

Raymond Sidney-Smith 31:54

Yeah. So to give people an understanding, you know, there’s like Klarna, and there’s many other platforms Pay Pal even has their own pay later program, but you buy now. And then you pay in some number of installments in some number of weeks for for a thing. So it usually covers two or three paychecks, that kind of thing, and allows you to be able to pay over time, this apple program, I’m not sure who the bank is behind it. Or maybe it is Klarna are another another program that’s specific, basically Apple branding, but it’s four equal payments over six weeks. So it’s not a extended credit period. And so you know, I’m not quite sure how useful that would be. I mean, it wouldn’t be useful to me, I’ll just buy it, you know what I mean? Like, I don’t see myself extending it over multiple payment payments in that regard. But I think if you’re, if you’re concerned about it financially, and you need a few paychecks in order to pay it, and you’re going to this could be potentially useful for some folks, and that the order tracking I think is the most interesting piece built into it, I was like order tracking, yes. I’m gonna use that on my iPad, if

Michael Sliwinski 32:55

all these websites for tracking shipments are just so bad. So like having it built in is something I would like to point out the wallet thing. So the wallet as in Wallet. So if I, if I may so. So as you can see on the video, I have this additional wallet with MagSafe that I still carry because I have their my driver’s license, my photo ID and, and a physical credit card just in case and one bill of some euros. And and the thing is that they are coming slowly but surely to this point where in the Apple wallet, you will have your photo ID your driver’s license, and your cards, and you will use them from there. And I think it’s glorious. I think this future is really cool. Because then you you don’t really have to you can just leave the home with a phone. And that’s it. And and I think this, like with Apple Pay and the whole wallet, premise, it’s slow. It takes time because the adoption, you know of states of legislators, it’s all takes time. But it’s coming, it’s going forward. And I’m sure they would have wanted to announce more integrations and more driver’s license already agreements, but I’m sure they’re working on these. And this would be great in the future that we don’t have to carry these physical documents, but we have them in the world.

Raymond Sidney-Smith 34:21

While here in the States, we’re just getting to the point of having good enough driver’s licenses that we can cross borders with them. So we’re working bit delayed in the way in which we manage and manifest IDs in this country. And you know, and there’s a whole there’s a whole argument for and against the concept of identification in the way in which we manage them, but I am I am ecstatic. I’m just really really excited to see us moving in that direction. But the the hope of us going completely digital in that sense in the future with both payment and identification, you know in the future Is is, is fraught. So I’m, I’m like, I’m like, I want it you don’t I mean, I personally want it. But I also know that there’s just going to be so much fraud and the security issues and whatever else that I’m just nervous, I’m nervous for Apple, I’m also nervous for Android. I’m nervous for everybody. I’m like, Oh, this would be so great. I mean, I walk out of the house, probably six times out of 10 Nowadays, right? And I don’t carry my wallet. I just forget it, because I don’t need it. Right. And I go to the grocery store, I walk, you know, my grocery stores within walking distance, I walk down there, I pay with my phone, I go to the restaurant, I pay with my phone, you know, everything uses my phone nowadays. And then there’s that one time when they’re like, Yeah, our machine is broken. And I’m like, well, then you’re getting paid. No. So it’s like, it’s that kind of situation where, you know, most of the time I have my wallet on me, you know, that’s fine. Or less than most often. But but most I have it on me frequently, but not most of the time nowadays. And I don’t even worry about my wallet unless I’m driving, you know. And so it’s like, yeah, I want to be unshackled from having to forget another thing, you know, and, and so I laud Apple for making movements in that direction. But it also requires, you know, really global governance, you know, a real collaboration between all of the major governments to basically make this stuff, uniform and secure and private. And and that’s really, it’s really difficult.

Michael Sliwinski 36:29

Yeah, but that’s why they’re doing it slowly. I think it’s a long term game. So they’re not really rushing it because they shouldn’t. So

Raymond Sidney-Smith 36:35

well. I’m impatient.

Michael Sliwinski 36:38

We all are, we are the geeks. Now. we all we all.

Raymond Sidney-Smith 36:41

So they talked a little bit about family sharing, and the ability to share with multiple family members, you can share up to five family members with all bunch of Apple services. What did you think about that?

Michael Sliwinski 36:52

Oh, man. Finally, finally, I mean, with my Believe it or not with my wife, we on both iPhones, we use the same iCloud account, we just differentiate our iPhones because of the different Apple ID for messages and FaceTime. But everything else, we use the same iCloud account. Why? Because otherwise, the photos would not be in sync. Because, you know, I take photos, she takes photos, and then their photos are together. And you know, we don’t have that many secrets between each other so that we prefer to have it that way. It’s just better. And it’s just, you know, easier to use. We don’t have to decide, you know, you know, who takes the photo, like, oh, take my phone? No, no, no, I’m gonna use your phone. That’s ridiculous. So what they did here, finally, after so many years, the fact that you will be able to, essentially, you know, go on the same trip, like, you know, like, there are so many they announced very, very cool that many things will just happen automatically, just because we are family members. And then when we share, we take photos, we all see these photos in our family, you know, storage. And I think I mean, it was it was long overdue. I’m very excited about it. Because I might consider, you know, divorce is not the word I would use because I’m not going to divorce my wife but you know, but it like kind of separate our iPhones Finally, after iOS 16 launches, maybe then we will have our own proper iCloud accounts in the family set up with the family vault for, for for the photos. And I think that because this is the proper way to use it, but until now, there was no way to do it. And you know, people have been jumping hoops doing different things, syncing the iCloud libraries differently and whatnot. And, you know, it was again, long overdue, because so far, like family support has been pretty good in Apple devices. And this was like a very big hole.

Augusto Pinaud 38:55

Well, I hope that there is a toggle switch to say, Do not sync the pictures of the kids. Because otherwise, I’m going to need to upgrade that two terabyte plan pretty quick.

Raymond Sidney-Smith 39:10

Yeah, no, I was I was actually shocked that it already didn’t exist. I write. I was like, What this doesn’t happen. I’ve been on in Google photos for you know, I don’t know how many years it’s been it’s been a long time. And so I just I’ve never even thought of the fact that you didn’t have that, you know, I get I see notifications on my phone all the time. You know, when my mom takes pictures of my my baby niece, they just automatically show up in my family, you know, album and I see them and I get to enjoy them. And I don’t have to think it’s just seamless in the background. So to see this come to Apple, I think it’s just a welcome productivity feature that we can all use in terms of just not having to worry about transferring, I mean, you going to the additional effect, I hope others are not having to do this. But if others have gone to your do your level of having one single accountant but you know, whatever now bifurcating into you using your own accounts. So you don’t have to worry about the the one individual iCloud account just to manage photos is just, you know, it’s tough, it’s tough on everybody to kind of figure out what pieces and then the family sharing of your various services just makes a lot of sense, it probably will save some people some money. And you know, just kind of make things easier, I love the ability to just have that family library and be able to have shared Google Play Books, Google Play Movies, all of those things just kind of shared, you know, in that in that space. And we do that in Amazon, as well. And so it’s nice to see this flow over to it, I also heard that they, they were easing the child setup, so you can add children, to your family account much faster and easier. That’s great to see as well. Because that’s just going to speed up a whole bunch of problems that you come along. Yeah,

Michael Sliwinski 40:49

I mean, anything, you know, like, I mean, you know, we our parents, like just make our life easier as we can, because our kids are way ahead of us in terms of technology and everything. So also also the, you know, the, especially the screen time, they also are simplifying screen time, which is great, because it was pretty complicated and complex. And my wife was like, Michael just set it up, I just don’t know how this thing works like so I was setting up screen time from from from my, from my daughters all the time, and, you know, customizing it and changing it depending on you know, if they’re on vacation or if they’re at school. So, like making it easier for us parents to manage that and to manage the thing and you know, as you said, I will start and it will be additional feature that I will request to send, you know, kind of passive aggressive messages to children stop spamming, you know, our iCloud library like, you know, don’t don’t don’t make so many videos because like just, you know, so but you know, we do a, you know, quarterly review of our iCloud storage, and I’m just asking, like, why why is it possible that your mom and your dad are occupying you know, 300 gigabytes of of our iCloud account and you two girls are occupying the rest of two terabytes.

Augusto Pinaud 42:03

Third one historical pine the other, it’s your understanding 30% 30% 30% 10%. So that’s how it works. I don’t understand what your math is wrong in there. But I know there was regarding was that there was something very interesting that they came to, and he was the, you know, when when your kids, you know, get I want buy more time and I it is sometimes really painful, okay, if you miss the notification on the watch, then you need to go to the settings, you know, good two or three levels. I love the fact that now that will come in the text message and you will be able to approve the time or not. Right there. I’m very, very excited about that.

Raymond Sidney-Smith 42:49

Yeah, I think that I’m talking about the fact that there’s kind of age appropriate settings. So it’s kind of quicker as the child gets older, you can kind of just change those settings much faster and more fluidly. I think that’s really great. Because, you know, it’s, it’s, it sucks to be a teenager, and your parents still have your settings set as though you were a toddler, right? And so it’s like, come on, can I please have location sharing, and those kinds of things turned on, I’m old enough to be able to have that kind of stuff. But sometimes parents just don’t know how to, they set it up, and they forget it. And then they start kind of administering. And Apple needs to ease the way for there to be transitions through the ages as kids are aging up. And I was really pleased to see them put in the safety check pieces for folks who are in domestic violence situations to be able to have better control over those pieces, and also to manage who has access to things already, right. Like who you gave access to things to being able to just review that I think as not even in that context is outside of the context of domestic issues. Just being like oh, yeah, all right, I gave my friend access to this thing at that time, because I broke my leg and was bedridden for six weeks. Now. She or he doesn’t need access to that anymore. It’s kind of knowing those pieces is really helpful. surfacing that for privacy and security purposes was really, I think, an appropriate kind of level of control over it. Alright, we’re going to move right along to room moving along to now CarPlay bar play. All right, so I don’t have a slide on that either. So go for it. Talk about CarPlay

Augusto Pinaud 44:20

CarPlay I don’t know my car. I don’t care about a car my car is too old it do not have neither of our cars have CarPlay but I’m going to say that watching the video on Apple working with these car manufacturers to be able to customize and have them there in the dashboard and be able to customize all that with your phone is not enough for it convinced me to upgrade our vehicles. But it was very, very cool to see.

Michael Sliwinski 44:48

I mean the thing that you know, annoys me about car like old school car thinking is that once you buy the car, even if you buy a brand new car and you buy it Red new car, this is the car you buy, that says there will be no updates, there will be no upgrades, nothing, I think this is the car you buy the software. And because there’s much more software now in the cars than before the software will be will have bugs, and you will have to live with this box. Like there will be no update, maybe something really critical, they will update and they will tell you Yeah, we updated, but normally No. And so for example, I have, I have a five year old car that does support CarPlay. But only it’s only wired CarPlay, right. And whenever I parked the car, the parking system, just kind of, you know, it’s not really compatible with the CarPlay. And suddenly copying stops, stops working, and then there was no way to to initiate CarPlay anymore, like, there was no way to do it, I would have to, you know, turn off the car, basically, I don’t know, step out step in, and maybe it will work again. So I contacted the dealer, you know, several times, and I can I it was still in warranty and everything I was like damn guys, like, Please fix this, like, this is not right, like, you know, I’m afraid to park now, you know, I have CarPlay right now running I have I’m listening to something and I want to use it, and then parking and then the parking things show up. And it just goes all bad. And they several times upgraded and updated my firmware. Of course nothing helped, it’s still the same. So the mean, their solution is I’m gonna I need to buy a new car. But my favorite car is fantastic. I don’t want to, I mean, apart from this bug, I really love it. And I don’t see a reason why I should, you know, spend, you know, 10s of 1000s of you know, dollars or whatever, to upgrade to a car that it’s basically the same but as well without this bug. So that’s why, for example, Tesla is like caught the attention that they do over the air updates to the car, the car changes as it stands in the garage, you know, that’s why I’m happy with the CarPlay with the future, as I also said, because this will mean that Apple will update the CarPlay. So it’s going to the dashboard of your car will, it will keep improving, even though the car remains the same. And I think this kind of future. And I would trust more apple in that sense. Then car manufacturers for the dashboard thing is for the dashboard, you know, buttons and icons and all that stuff. And so for me this future, again, it’s a long time coming, you know, we will have to, you know, again, buy cars in a few years. So maybe it’s happening, but who knows. But the thing is, this is this is a good future where the cars get updated, and you don’t have to depend on the car manufacturer that that may be they will fix a bug in the dashboard. When it’s an obvious, you know, software bug that you know could be fixed. So yeah,

Raymond Sidney-Smith 47:50

well, so these, these car systems are running on lots of different software, and they usually have an R toss underneath it. And then they have you know, then they’re connecting to which is a real time operating system. So our toss is probably the most common real time operating system if you’ve ever used a parking meter with a with a with a chip in it, those kinds of things, they’re running our tests, right. And, and so I’m always like, Okay, put, put everything the car needs from a critical perspective on the artist. That’s, that’s understandable. Everything else gives me control over that, right, like, give me the ability to put Android Auto and or CarPlay on it and go from there. And you know, my car is about five years old now as well. And I’m really irritated that mine was the last infotainment system that that before they added Android Auto to. So I’ve got this beautiful display. I mean, if I turn the display up on my car, it shines so brightly that it seems like it’s another light on the back of my car. And so I’ve got this beautiful display and it is the most horrible infotainment system ever. And so, you know, like it only does audio based instructions through for driving, there’s no display instructions. And again, it’s a beautiful display completely useless. I can I can turn on Stitcher, I can use stitcher on my car while mine terrible, why would they do that to us? So I’m really looking forward to my next car, and making sure that it absolutely must support Android Auto in my case, you know, and it would be nice to have the variant for CarPlay. So you can switch any either on and off. And as long as it’s not affecting critical services, then I’m absolutely I’m absolutely on your side and Michael I think that I would trust apple and and alphabet with with Android and Google to update the front end pieces on it on an ongoing critical on an ongoing basis for maps and and entertainment and all those other pieces and they’re going to lose a big chunk of money and that’s why the manufacturers have delayed this right because they make a lot of money on satellite. You know, you know satellite radio, they make a lot of money from Sirius XM from from those subscriptions. They make a lot of money off of maps, and they’re really horrible maps but They can also make money continue to make money off of roadside service and emergency service based services, I know a lot of them have those built into it, I know my car has that. And I’ve built an intranet in my car, and I have an LTE connection in my car, you know, so they can continue to make money off of that, too. So they have lots of opportunities for subscription service, that doesn’t include just the things that I use on an everyday basis that they screw up so badly, you know, so it’s like,

Augusto Pinaud 50:26

where to where the problem is, I took my wife car, okay, and I took it to the dealership, and I say, I want you to get this head unit that I understand, you can upgrade that fine, rip it out, and put the the year that the CarPlay had gotten charged me for the new unit. Okay, but the new unit is not compatible. So if so, I can do that with an aftermarket one. Okay, if I want, but then I cannot connect all the services. So that’s part of the reason they are loosening, they will have made that processes here, sorry, people will take and upgrade the head unit and keep the car, I don’t need to replace a car because my head unit is awful.

Michael Sliwinski 51:11

You know, I think the car that I bought also has the, you know, the cluster gauge is also digital. So so it was it was actually in this car, it was an upgrade, I had to buy a bit spent like 1000s Extra just to get the digital one. And I did it because I thought you know, future I’m gonna have the digital thing, it’s great. And then I have three options of the cluster thing. I mean, it’s this beautiful screen. So I can, I could have limitless ways of putting everything but no. Three, right. And, and again, if I have CarPlay, they’re running here on this cluster gauge, then it can be different it can be you know, a customizable as this they sold or showed on the demo. So again, I trust more, as I said, Google and Apple to do it better for us so that we can really customize this because again, as we said about customization of the phones, this is our car, we are driving in this car, like how many times I’ve called FaceTime Agosto where he was like doing like two or 300 Miles drives in his car. So you’re staring at this thing, like for hours, make it mine make it the way I want.

Raymond Sidney-Smith 52:24

Yeah, and what I really want to see is I know the future is electric and or some combination of electric and other types of, of greener energy vehicles, and more digital technology in the vehicles. And I think that Android and Apple have the opportunity here to make those customizations actually cross to other people, I’m not the only one who drives my car. And that means my setting are always changed to the wrong setting. When I sit in my car, and I’m like, wait, I’m not this short, I’m not this, you know, like, I don’t like my mirrors. That way, I don’t like my side mirrors, you know, it’d be great to be able to sit in the car for it to for Android Auto or Apple CarPlay. To understand those things, change them change the instrument cluster to be to set the way that I want to I like seeing my my tire gauges, for example, I want them always on and always visible. Some other folks in my world do not like that visible, right, like, but just like, it knows me, it knows who I am, I should get in the car and be able to just have it click into gear and show those pieces. And you know, now my car has like settings, you can set one, two and three people in the car and you can push the button and it adjusts the basic stuff. But I really look forward to the future of having it just basically customize to me, you know, temperature settings, all of those things so that I get into a car and I’m comfortable driving because I know it’s going to it’s It’s morphing to my needs, as opposed to it forgetting that I haven’t gotten the car and who I am, you know. So

Michael Sliwinski 53:51

basically what you want is you enter the car and the car says hello, hooray.

Raymond Sidney-Smith 53:55

Yes, exactly. I want I want Knight Rider. I don’t know what the name of the vehicle but I want the car to know me and to adjust to my needs. Really I want that about everything in my life.

Augusto Pinaud 54:06

Good. What’s the name? The name of the car kit?

Raymond Sidney-Smith 54:09

Exactly, exactly. All right. On to watch OS less, we’d be here for the next five hours. So what did you What did you find about watch OS? What was interesting about the watch OS announcements.

Michael Sliwinski 54:22

Still no custom watch faces. Maybe on the infant timescale. I would like to be able to tap into that developers also customers want faces. I mean, we have complications. We have things great. But I mean for me the updates were good. There were lots of good updates to fitness. There was a triathlon mode finally integrated in the you know, in the fitness app, which I do triathlons, so it’s good. I use a third party app for that on the watch. Now I can use the first party app, which is great, but for me, still a bummer is the lack of custom watch faces. I mean, they will let us customize these waterways that we have a lot but I’m sure they will lepers would just, you know, customize the f out of it, like, they would just really do something great. And I’m wondering why they want to keep this control. And they don’t. I mean, again, it’s a screen, like it can show any pictures you want. So why not?

Augusto Pinaud 55:17

I think they did, well, they did some improvement, the sleep improvements are going to be interesting to be able to use the watch to track your sleep, but they’re going to need to improve the battery life on the other one. So or at least put fast charging or something that said, we will need to work I don’t, I didn’t see any massive things that really excited me about the watch. But I’m looking forward to what the new Harward it’s going to do, um, due to upgrades. So I am excited about it.

Michael Sliwinski 55:46

So I one thing, I have an article on my blog microdata team slash afib. And they are they were talking about AFib AFib is our atrial fibrillation. And it’s a condition that my father has, and thanks for the Apple Watch. I’m keeping him in check. And making sure that you know, basically, it’s like magic, like he gets a notification that he’s having an episode before he even feels it. Like it’s fantastic. And they did highlight that they are going to improve that to have more statistics like to have more patterns, and to indicate people like my father, like what they can do to have fewer episodes of this, and not to have a heart attack or something. So again, this health improvements, fantastic, and especially FM, which is really a condition many people have so and really, if you have a person in your family who has issues with this with FM, I do recommend give them an Apple watch or even give them the Apple Watch for like if they you know get this secondhand Apple watch for. It’s amazing how the Apple Watch discovers this and lets the person wearing it know that they have an episode. So yeah,

Augusto Pinaud 56:59

you know, I follow because of you and this and you have shared this story with me privately I sent to my parents, Apple watches. And it’s been very interesting to have and one of the things they said now is you I don’t remember now in which announcement it was that you will be able to get the medical share. And I’m looking forward to be able to know, hey, my parents is having an you know, an event. And I can call and say Are you okay, where are you? You know, what are you doing? I’m really looking forward to that I was your story about that. What made me go to the Apple Watches for my parents. And it’s been very, very, very good. And being able for my, my parents, you know, my mother doesn’t, doesn’t look at that. But my father who who wants to look at, you know, what his heart is doing, you know more than the doctor necessarily cares. But the fact that he can go there and now pull the test and, and show him what his watch has been measuring on the last seven days. It is something that has been very important for him. So I’m grateful of that apple watch for them.

Raymond Sidney-Smith 58:15

Yeah, I also note that they they announced a whole bunch of additions in the Apple medication side just helping you track and manage and be notified about medication supplements and vitamins and really help I mean, I love the idea that they you can scan the medication, it’ll lift the text read it tell you which medication it is how often it suggests that you take those things like that’s a really good facilitated approach for for older folks who are are potentially taking multiple medications, and also identifying whether or not you’re going to have, you know, critical issues related to overlapping medications. And so it’ll it’ll notify you and say, Hey, you might have some, you know, some interactions here that might be critical, you should pay attention to those things. So good on them for pushing the envelope in terms of that. The both the watch and the the health, Apple Health generally being something that is focused on on the health of the individual, and kind of pushing that forward. And I think the combination of the two devices, the iPhone and the Apple Watch continues to kind of push, push that forward. Alright, Apple home announcements, what are they announced in the Apple home space?

Michael Sliwinski 59:27

I mean, the most important announcement is the collaboration between Apple, Google and everyone else for that matter. And I think this is I mean, you know, we will see this is we have to wait for it. Of course they also announced the new Apple Home app and all that stuff. But the most important thing I think this is the matter as it goes because I am a big user of Apple home. I have many devices connected many devices failing when the device is not being compatible or whatever. So for me this matter standard is actually hopeful future Where I can buy a device and have them configured my way in Apple home without these devices require me requiring me to add additional account, share some information, maybe to a Chinese manufacturer, maybe I don’t want to share. So all that stuff. So I think that this new standard is a hope for a better future. For

Raymond Sidney-Smith 1:00:20

I look forward to them being more highly integrated with I should be able to buy any product across the market that’s matter supported, and for it to work in my house. And, you know, I we just installed all new blinds and their wireless and solar and I want it all to connect, and I don’t want to feel like okay, well if I buy an iPhone next month, you know, all of a sudden, I’m not gonna be able to control them, you know, like, that kind of stuff is just really ridiculous. So having Mater support, I think is going to become a really, really powerful, you know, piece of the decision point for people to be able to do and upgrade their homes into smart homes. So it’s good to see Apple supporting it good to see Google supporting it or alphabet supporting it, and looking forward to see how seeing how they integrate more of these features together. And the differentiators will then just be preferential not core and critical to them actually operating. Okay, on to Mac OS Ventura. What did they announce about Mac OS Ventura that you

Augusto Pinaud 1:01:17

continue going sales next year is going to be Ojai, but on the coast of California. So for me, there was a couple of things, you know, for the people who want a better camera, the continuity with the camera that was in. But what it was more important,

Raymond Sidney-Smith 1:01:37

right for continuity Camera, camera, okay. So this is where we’re taking care. So just for folks to understand that you’re capable of using your iPhone to basically convert into a into a webcam with your other apple devices,

Michael Sliwinski 1:01:52

correct? Yeah, and in a way that is just completely seamless, we just put it there. And it just works so fantastic. You’ll have to fiddle with third party, you know, additional software, additional hardware or whatever, just you know, you have the phone, you take it out of pocket as they demonstrated, and you just use it.

Augusto Pinaud 1:02:08

But with that came something that they call desk view. Yeah, and desk view was what got my attention in that I don’t care about the camera, okay, for me, I don’t. If you see me on 780, you’re seeing more than what you want to see. Okay. But this view was very interesting, because now I can put the camera there, okay, and he will take the screen of