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Hello and welcome to another episode of APP stories. I'm john for .

he's and with me is .

federal cover teacher john good to front .

that obviously up stories is now both audio and video. Uh, we got some lovely comments from people who appreciate there's a video version. Now we get some comments from people saying that they dislike the fact that there's a video of version because some context gets lost and that is useful feedback actually.

And obviously, we are going to try and keep the uh the best possible baLance that we can between you know continuing an audio only program uh and also offering a video version. So we will try our best if there's a moment, for example, right now, john, just a wave at me. So that's the context that you may have lost. It's not a huge dome. It's john waiving at me.

I did still say hello and .

keep two versions as true them to themselves as the best as weekend.

Yes.

yes. We have a special guests today. Here is our very own club, max stories, this court community manager, a watch s review were starting with watch s eleven this year. JoNathan read, hello.

come to I will not I want it's no ving waving, waving internally through the microphone with my voice to all the audio listeners. Hello to you all.

Great to be here. Hello, i'm thank you. Thank you for join us. We are continuing this series of interviews and APP stories where geni, you know, we've been we've been doing we've been doing this for how many years since twenty sixteen.

something as with any relationship .

everyone's know in a third .

you're making right, right?

I'm now leaving the call.

Where is this going? A spicy show is spicy episode.

No, but everyone, you know why you get to spice IT up. So yes, uh, and we want to on a more serious note, we wanted to put the spotlight on the on the other people that are helping us make mac stories a Better place, a more special place. And JoNathan has been playing an essential role in the past the last year. Now I believe it's been a year.

I think yeah everyday thing .

here yeah yeah managing the excEllent climax stories, this cord for climate story plus and premier members. It's it's a whole lovely bunch of people and jaan uh does an excEllent work collecting every single week the things that people are discussing, uh, highlighting those inks and those conversations in the maxus weekly newsletter. So yeah, if you see those links, that's all john's work.

And JoNathan also deputed this year as our new residents to watch O, S. reviewer. So that was, that was a fun job.

Uh, I mean, I was fun for me to read IT. I don't know that was fun for you. I hope he was. He was. Yes.

cool is a big year, is a big year to actually die in in that because there are a lot more changes than I think met the eye. Like, you know, we all left W W, C thinking about apple intelligence and things like that. But the reality was watch O S had some of the most practical and interesting changes of all.

Yeah absolutely. Degree has been a great year site for next year to get back into again. I I honest think they're onna. Keep on ramping up some of these changes. I think these some of the some of the changes this year that got introduced, her just a sign of some of the things to come, especially the checking sleep and so far. But i'm side if for next year for sure.

Yeah, that's that's a good point because I mean that we've definitely saw that with things like the check in feature, which originally was like an iphone only thing and then that was brought to the watch this year. There is always things like that, that gets spread out across different platforms a little more widely than maybe they initially wear when you when you see something and it's a good feature, you think this is really good. But I wish I was on this or I wish I did the other thing that's usually a pretty good sign that maybe apple is aren't probably .

thinking along those lines to.

嗯， yeah, sure. Yep, that is also where I wanted to start. Uh, it's been it's been about a mountain and half since what choice eleven and I kind of went to check in with you, uh, how things are going sort of like a post review. Watch O S eleven check in.

What are the features that you you find yourself using on a daily basis now that now that the review is done, that all the software dates are out? Um apple intelligence cy of course uh becoming the conversation on the I O S hyped O S and macos side. Um how do you think is going with watch O S eleven so far?

Ah it's great. I've been really enjoying training load. I've been a up my fitness and I think training load is is kind of a good motivator. Or I think this maybe more refinement I could do in the area.

But h in terms of, uh, looking at my progress, uh, every day, is china, you know, trying to improve if IT doesn't get stronger and visor, and so far, this is a good tool, father. And I think that if you not using any new year going on a finish journey, I think it's a really ty good thing to try out. Pausing activity rings is great and setting different levels each day is also good because sometimes we just don't do things on a day.

We have a sunday, we put a suitable day and just looking at those activity rings, I don't know, kind of puts that sort of that pressure on you thinking that maybe I should be out doing something today and takes that pressure of you. So I think that was a really important feature, which was a long time coming. But i'm glad said now they ve ve been a really good job implementing IT.

This sleep features the vitals APP is is very good. I don't farmers are using that as much because of more relying on and up called athletic, which has to sort more pro features, which I recommend lisa check out because IT IT taps into things like current variability and IT tracks your sleep debt and things like that and he gives you a lot more granular um look into these sorts of things yeah I think there are the main ones. Another one that I which I think we will feed into what gonna talk about in a bit.

I think it's the double tap which I know that, that came in the last year for what you s but I didn't upgrade my phone, my watch. So i've only got IT this year. And this year, they allowed the double tap A P I, which allowed developers that to tap into that to tap into that double tap feature and some of the some of the best APP just you know, it's great to just double tap with them and you know scroll or add log an activity or you know even answers notifications is great.

I think that that sort of feature is a really nice addition for developers. And um i'd like to see them expand that maybe maybe triple tap source, even single taps. I don't I know how that the IT works internally within the watch, but I let's see them so dive into that in more because IT is very useful and is qua lot. How about you guys with watches watch eleven.

Um I think i'm really dig in the um the fact like live activities and widget now show up in a more prominent place like and it's been very it's been very natural that sort of interaction like it's not something that I think about about when I looked down my watch and I see a live activity or I see a which there like IT serve the system, uh doing this automatically and that's been working really well for me so far.

I actually um tried to upgrade to a series ten um when I came out in september and and but eventually I just I I went back to the ultra. I still have the ultra one I gave my serious tent to silva and she's using the series stand there. There is a very particular type of apple user.

I'm i'm understanding now like SHE is very particular. Like for example, he has a serious tand SHE doesn't care at all about like the speaker, for example, now being a building thing. And right now we have this struggle with stevia, where SHE still using the airports too.

So these are not air pod s. Pro, the second generation regular airports. For many years ago. SHE tried my airports for this week, and uh, he thought he was onna, use them. And today he he says a dance teacher and SHE he needs to create these, choose phy for our dance classes and today he was rehearsal in at home and choregraphic at home and one of the airports fell out over years and so, uh, there's something about the shape of the airports for that still doesn't work with sylvia. And so she's most like so right now we're facing this the limo like are you're gonna be using the airports to really until they die and they're starting to give out like the battery .

starting to give out oh, and work at all I mean, are not new at all.

Yeah, SHE has no idea what she's gonna because though the reports are eventually gonna give up for good so yeah, and she's in the series then i'm back on the ultra. I love my ultra even though the battery life is not what he used to be when I got IT almost two years ago. But I love you so much.

And now with the wages and the live activities, I feel like i'm using the watch a lot more. Yeah, I really like you. I really like you.

Yeah, i'm finding the same thing with the wages in the live activities. They they have been really nice to the other thing I do use is occasionally i'll use the check ins on the watch when i'm going out for a runner, something by myself and like maybe my wife's at work and that way he kind of knows that i'm away from the house and you know i'm expected to be home probably in a half an hour whatever is. That's that way. There's somebody who knows where I am and I might be out and I want to trail. There's something out in the woods in that way, at least one person who held this time out in the woods and not being eaten by a bear, hopefully everything I like to talk about bears.

that's a different shop. It's A L and go listen to unwind if you're hear all about the wildlife. Uh jon, what was the apple watch up to mention with the double?

So this uh let's talk cattery though I think never gets talked about. Um so apple watch now is that down a lot in congress and but this is also a web browser for apple watch. Uh it's cold.

So it's a it's actually pronounce the new growers. So it's the um believe it's the greek letter. Yeah it's like A U but with the with the december just at the beginning.

And what that means is micro, I believe. And um this is essentially a web browsing for your apple watch. Now you could previously access the web from apple watch using a believe, something called a is like a gLance picture belief, and you thought there was way of going about.

You had to click on links in an email, for example, to access a website. But in, I think a couple of years ago, apple introduced web kit in in watch O S and allowed you to effectively browse the web. Now there's several restrictions to that like you can't save cookies, for example, which does make IT a completely private brows, but IT does mean you're clicking on those european and a notification is to a decline or accept cookies.

But what i'm finance already interesting a use case is i'm kind of using in a similar way that i'm using teacher tabs. So you've got your six or seven or in my case, I have eight. And then if that's a loud but I got eight teacher tabs OK.

good.

good, okay, that's good to get your approval on that. And i'm using IT to sort of brows sites like the verge mac stories because I browse max story believe not even though even though we work for mac stories, I read all your a lots of your articles at the same time of the users do. So it's something where I might be just in a situation where I don't want to get my phone out of my out of my pocket.

I just wanted have a look like, okay, what's going on the verge? Just that some interesting tech stories I might want to a checking with later on and I can open the APP and uh, new growers also supports the double tap A P. I, which would just mentioned, and IT allows me to just half my one ARM out instead of scrolling with the digital crown, I can just double tap and IT will scroll periodically down the site.

And this, i've just found this to be a really interesting way to Brown some of my favourite sites and just keep up with things without having to dive into safari on my phone or open my computer and then maybe get destructed by something else. And also sometimes I, that of my phone on me, and I just want to, I don't, i'm just sad, bored, you know, waiting a waiting room or something, or sometimes i've done when i've been waiting for my daughter to go off to sleep and i'm set in the corner of the room and car. I don't want to get my phone out in china, bigger lights.

I just have a little browse of various websites. What she's doing that and yeah has a companion up as well on ist. You can manage your favorite bookMarks as well.

There's a couple of other apps now. They do a similar thing, but they are not as full features and they don't really fill the screen and the account. But this is certainly the best one by far. And yeah that's that's IT is an interesting APP and definitely recommended users try out is is a .

fun one to try yeah. I have used this before myself once, thirteen voice, and I never really stuck with me. I think IT would help if I spent more time in the IOS APP and managed the bookMarks up front and and do IT that way. I know, federico, didn't you use this mostly to see like if something had been posted yet on mac stories or something like that?

I did use IT for that exact reason. Yeah, yeah. I set up I think I remember I set up the bookMarks on the phone and then I found those on the apple watch and that, uh I think I still have installed actually. Um yeah I think it's a think it's good idea. I'm surprised there's like no safari ano safari micro for the apple watch for that exact purpose like just a quick check of your six or seven favorite websites, for example.

Uh or maybe maybe um I should be waiting for an an apple watch version of teach dbs ah but yeah so lovely little apple watch have great idea I the developers on a great job so know condenser the features down to what makes sense you have on the rist babin said JoNathan, it's time for our quiz. Uh in the sense that all the guests that we're having an ap stories lately, we like to do a little friendly interrogation, so to speak. Uh, we want to know, we want to know how you use your computers.

And we wanted know what's your workflow looking like. And I will start with everybody's favorite r sets. Do you use assess? How do you use IT? If not, how? Uh tell me more like how do you read the news?

Um I used read, I think I just read got on like four or five years maybe it's been along one night. I've never really felt the urge to move away. Proms IT does kind of what I want, its surfaces that needs that I want from the sites I I read.

It's easy to sort through mark s red. So far, I don't really feel the need to have anything more than that. So i've never really had the urge try other apps, although i'm sure other apps would may be offer more to me. IT does what I kind of want to do and yeah that kind of works for me. And I also of every recently .

with a read .

later uh service i've been using omy all and I believe just just like a friend but bergelin has moved on his read later set up over to omnivore. I did this and also a couple of months ago and now omnivore just been brought by eleven labs yeah yeah and they are shutting down which so we were using eleven labs is the text to speech ai at tools and really, really good, uh, text speech.

And the way I why I really like this because I could do how this is a read iraq, but also as a sort of semi podcast up. So if I was stacked up with a bunch of articles that I wanted to get through, i'm a very slow reader, so I could just pop these on almost as a podcast. And that was helping me a lot keep up with so many articles that I want you to really like somebody.

The news that is like a platform, for example, where it's been a long form writing. And sometimes I was getting behind with these and IT would a uh, I would keep me up with these. Let me listen to them. So i'm really hoping that eleven labs take sort of these R S, S features from omnivore and you know the ability to send an email into the device over two eleven labs, but I guess will see what happens with that.

Yeah yeah. There is a couple of couple of things I want to unpack here. So for reader, you're using the classic reader, if you're not using the the fancy new one, what's you're taken the new one with up with the time line?

Yeah I tried IT early early on in the in the beta and then a IT later on. And IT just doesn't really fit with my I think maybe it's it's a completest type thing. I like to know that i've seeing everything that I want to see and the kind of unreliability of maybe seeing everything within that.

Maybe it's i'm sure IT works really well for some people. And I think it's know it's good that he's taken a different approach with this gives something different for people to try out, but he just not really doesn't really work with me in the same way. I think he does not work for some other people in exactly the same way. But then IT probably conversely will work with other people. So I think that yet should never really worked away.

Yeah and for the read later um with only were shutting down if you considered I don't know read wise reader for uh it's got similar features like you can um have your newsletters delivered if you can read the tacks but also you can listen to the text being spoken allowed even though the voices are not as good as the eleven labs voices that how many water was using like .

I have you considered an native yeah I I was about the previous and story weekly about I was choosing between univer and read the by reader and ultimately the choices made by the the the quality of the voices on h only all so I probably will try read wise um read later and see how we'll get on with that.

But i'm kind of hoping that the eleven labs moved pretty quickly to put all the armies of features within which you can also because you can also copy in pace, you can you can add the links into the eleven labs that you can send PDF to into the APP. You can copy your place text into IT. So is like this.

There's not a proper work that forget in, but you can get these things in. So I wonder if it's not going to take too long before they do that. But be interesting to say well.

that that is a problem with a lot of these kind of apps because they are not really native apps to begin with. They're kind of joining on the way by think. And i've been on the eleven labs beta since the early days and boy was a super rough APP begin.

It's come a long way very, very quickly. The thing that eleven labs has as the voices, they really are quite good. They've done A A great job with the AI training for those voices. And i'd love to be able to see shortcuts, integration things to make IT easy.

For instance, I could see a scenario where you use something like good links and just instead of sending the links into eleven labs, you could actually send the text in because that would be cleaned up and very easy to listen to um but I don't think you can do that. You could copy IT out of good links and then pace IT in manually, which isn't too much of a hassle. But IT would be nice if there was more of an end end workflow there they know another another APP for read later that is actually starting to change again as instance paper. They just got tagging and support on inside paper this week. Wow.

right. That's understand trip. We're talking about my old by mack on the pressure. And this is an almost going back as far.

Yeah.

yeah. I don't know what's going on. I don't even remember who owns them.

Stop paper. Now it's onesta who is bought.

works at one point and then bought IT .

back again. Yeah, because I want to pena.

yeah yeah. Next category jaan is is a very easy one, very easy one. What do you use as a task manager?

I don't use a test manager now. many. Jacky, no.

J oh my god. And I not OK OK.

i'm only joking. Honestly, I don't, I don't know. I. I almost fun of my change for that last week. Now I I use I use remind ders I I yeah i'm quite straight ward of my task management needs. So I use reminders and I have like a personal list and a family list which shows my wife and then um I have A A max max stories one as well.

And i've sort of got a couple of smart list within that that sort of combines some of the lists for I can not due today or coming this week and that thought that all out says pretty straight forward. I use um remind me remember faster yes yeah which I have on my house, on my lock screen, my iphone which I just such a good APP I love IT just the the quick input of just tapping once on the lock screen, typing IT in and then closing my phone is brilliant. I think it's one of the best apps that I have on my iphone for sure is is so good.

But I do use and I also use due for some like super important stuff like recurrent test, like a plea treatment for the cats, and like watering the plants, things like that, that I really need to get done, you know, quickly. So that's, I love reminders. I M .

you back on my .

using .

minders.

Yeah, yeah. Rob is trying to convince me to try, uh, god speed, which is a .

have seen .

that is kind of a .

mac first task .

manyfold driven you even up, makes IT impossible to use the pointer with IT, which I think is like a little more a bridge due far for me. But the the difficulty I had with IT when I last tried a few months ago was that the IOS and ipad O S apps were not nearly up to partner compared to the mac. And you know, I guess I get IT and I could maybe live with that because I do most my test management on my mac. On the other hand, i'm kind of living in that world with mail right now where I have different apps for different platforms and I just don't like and I tried to avoid doing that as much as possible.

Ah yeah um i'm finally, uh, Johnson. In addition to as we said, in addition to managing the this court community, you also write for for mac stories and for club mac stories. And obviously I got to ask you, what's your what's your .

favorite APP for writing? I use you. Oh okay, great. okay. It's surprised .

I ve used IT never yeah because I know I was really into .

united yeah I was .

really into, I had a whole thing with templates, which are the actions at a custom theme. I was using custom funds like I was a whole thing. I love you lysis. And then one of syria came out, I just do not change my life, but I want to know more like what's you lis is like in twenty .

four um it's good. I mean, you a couple of things that I like about IT with this, which is the custom funds and a shock cuts actions even they have just do a new release with even more shocks actions, which i'm going try to try dig into. So still on still on IT with they happened, you know, really pushing the development, which which is really nice to say.

And yeah, I have like shocker ts set up for you know creating creating the new weekly column or the community spotlight that just like opens up a temporary and then I can feel of its in which is really good um IT also there just the way as as well as having custom funds which you know as as a graph designers kind of like really customize visual looks that has this way of you know working within a document where it's kind of more visual rather than just being straight marked down where just tech if you insert an image IT will do you a small preview of that image. If you do a link, it's actually just puts a little box around the text. You have many duplicate connect to see what the link is.

And that is I know that doesn't work for some people and that's fine, but for me, I kind of like having just a text on the images and focusing on that. And then, you know, when I export them out down, I can check that if I like, and I just kinda bit Better with the way I work as well. So that kind of the really wise kind of the visual look of IT I I like and I just use IT for a few years now. So it's just sometimes just I don't like to maybe as much as some people just try and switch, but you need to find out what's the new thing i'm happy with stick.

I think the couple of things I I always like you this is I still think it's one of the best text editors out there. I think that the things for me that I didn't like or that IT doesn't allow you to .

access your files. I think .

you oh yeah.

I think last year, they add a this feature. They had feature and correctly from wrong, JoNathan, similar to I, A writer, where you can point illness is to the folder. And I think you can like basically create a book market to that folder and say, I get all my documents for me. Yeah I think I think they added that and you can you can pin IT to to the side bar. Um so yeah, that was that was the issue on a few years ago when we were using IT like you were stocked inside illicit, but I think now you can potentially do something like a point IT at your obsidian folder and like have you this is be like a nicer front end for just focused writing. And then when you want to add and use all of your plugging ins and all of your macros and all that sort of stuff, so which back to obsidian, I knew, shouldn't run into a fight conflict nightmare in theory.

should I probably have to look at that? And nowhere, you know the max team, we're looking at some of our workflows within and might involve our city and so know that all that might help with using our city. So I think that be really good for integrating without obsolescence.

So I defect, have a look at that and see how that works. I knew was available. I've never ready used that.

I just got have used that the documents within the U. S. Are partly .

happy yeah and the the file access feature uh, on I O S, on ipad O S used to be really flaky. Uh, years ago when apple introduced this is actually a very old feature is used to be called file and bookMarks. I don't know if I don't know if there's like a proper term for now.

If you're recalled, john, I was using this stuff would like, remember, i'm scripted by Simon stopper ing. And years ago I was doing like this java script scripts that were accessing files from a folder that technology goes way back. I think it's become a lot more reliable in recent years, years.

So like even if you reboot your device, for example, that link between a folder and an application like uses, you will stay active. IT used to be that one apple introduced. Like you created a bookmark to a folder and then you reputed your device and suddenly that bookmark was not working anymore.

So that was not convenient. And it's a similar, it's a similar it's the same tech. I know what you're gona say, john. It's the same technique that working copy use this for example, when you want to, uh for example, to access your syrian evolved in working copy, you create basically a linked uh, folder in working copy. That's exactly the same .

tech yeah yeah that's how working copy work for the tail scale now too. I mean, that's one thing that I mentioned briefly. My story for the club was that you can use working copy and you can also use secure shell sh, which is also by enders, to access the terminal via tail scale on your I O estimates .

which .

yeah well, just this is a really nice collection of apps. A reminders reader is and a sadly only four that will soon yeah .

yeah you to get something new I guess well and of course I .

was .

yeah well.

I think that about does IT john. I think that .

I think that all right, JoNathan, thank you for joins this week on ap stories. Where can people .

find you online? You can find me at john athan read ATS t cob up social. I have to think about that every time.

right? I know well and you can find them on mac stories and club mac stories .

counters like you find me on this cord where he manages this code. You know, that's .

minimal. I would say shout to the people on discount. It's minimal because there is so many nice people on that.

There's not a bad G I. I thought i'm going to have to be banning people. And I saw start to being the manager. But about to ban anyone is being great.

Never banned anybody. I was gonna. You have the precious because .

there was one. There was one was a few years, but was one time. It's surprisingly a well functioning democracy.

Turns internet.

learned a lot from out this court.

Yes, yes. Well, thank you again. johna.

I'm going to be here. And of course you can find me in federal over maxi. Is that net two federico and iron massed on federico could be found at for teaching dot mac stories dot net.

And I can be found at john force that mac stories, that net. And we're on threads and instagram. Federal go is at the tech.

It's V I, T, I, C, C, I. And i'm at john for J, H, and V, W, R, hw s. Talk you later, guys. Children, wow. That hits .

differently when you can see you spending the out .

jone bite job. I.