HomeTech.fm - Episode 251 - Apple TV+ (or Minus)

Episode Date: March 29, 2019

On this episode of HomeTech: Join us as we dissect Apple’s long-awaited streaming TV service, Apple TV+, as well as their updated Apple TV app and new “Channels” feature. That, plus the latest home tech headlines including: New streaming subscriptions overtook cable in 2018. Comcast launches a $5 streaming aggregation service for those who kinda-sorta want to cut the cord. YouTube rumored to be bowing out of the “Hollywood arms race”. Dish enhances its Custom Integration program with a new RMR offering. And more…

The Home Tech Podcast is supported by you. To find out more, go to hometech.fm support. This is the Home Tech Podcast for Friday, March 29th. From Sarasota, Florida, I'm Seth Johnson. And from Denver, Colorado, I'm Jason Griffin. How you doing, Seth? Good, Jason. Self-medicating tonight. Self-medicating. A little gin, ibuprofen. Yeah. Picks you right up. Yeah.

So next time you see an 85-inch TV that is roughly four years old, four-plus years old, don't try and lift that. Not with two people. Taking me back, Seth. The good old days. Yeah. Man. It is amazing to me how heavy, like as listeners know,

I recently got the new, the TCL here at home and I had an old Panasonic plasma on the wall. It was like a 46 inch. Oh yeah, that's a tank. And it was like incredibly heavy so 85 yeah no that that takes me back to the days of the uh hanging the 100 inch runco on the wall yeah you know four five full-grown men breaking their backs to get this thing up on the wall it's crazy how far they've come isn't it yeah yeah this thing was mounted. It was like in a lecture hall type thing. So it was mounted high. And I knew I was going to need help. So we got a buddy in.

We lifted it down, looked at it, and said, wow, that was heavy. And then did our thing, fixed the ballon issue. Then went to put it back. Didn't go back up as easy. It's always the balance. Seth, you're too old to be out in the field. Yeah. Guys, if you're installing balance, don't put them in the wall behind the TV.

The mounts are slim, but there's space back there for balance. Just leave them hanging on top of the TV where the mounts are. Pro tip. Yeah. Just service, service, service. Everything's got to be serviceable uh the only reason i needed two people for that job was or i probably should use four people for that job but all right well pop some ibuprofen sit up straight we got a show to get through well what do you say we jump into some home tech headlines let's do it a new report

citing ihs market data has shown that there were more subscriptions worldwide to online video services, 613 million, than there were for cable, 556 million in the year 2018. This reflects a 27% jump in streaming over 2017. Cable subscriptions dropped 2% in that period. IP-based TV overtook satellites as well, indicating a larger overall shift to the digital realm. Interestingly, cable and satellite are, however, still by far the most lucrative in terms of sheer revenue, if not necessarily profit.

Cable's influx of cash grew $6.2 billion in 2018 to reach $118 billion, suggesting that those who do stick with cable are paying more than ever but that feels good yeah i would i wouldn't know interesting numbers here we toyed with including this one we've done so many of these stories with with like uh you know the cable numbers versus streaming numbers but i thought that last point was really interesting uh point to think about is like we tend to talk a lot about the cable companies hemorrhaging subscribers, but do they really care? They seem to be still pulling in a whole bunch of money and maybe internet is a more profitable business anyways.

We talked about that a few weeks ago on the show. So interesting to think about. Yeah. I feel like we're walking around with those like placards on and say the end is near or whatever. And like, right. They're just rolling in. in yeah it's starting to feel like that we don't care about the end yeah yeah exactly last week comcast launched its own video aggregation service dubbed xfinity flex priced at five dollars a month it it's a packaged with internet connected 4k hdr streaming device i guess they didn't get the memo on what cutting the cord meant, but okay.

Which comes with a voice remote. The service will only be available to Xfinity Internet customers in Comcast's footprint and is set to launch on March 26th. Flex will offer access to subscription services like HBO, Amazon Prime Video, Netflix, and Apex. Flex users can sign up for these services on the platform or access existing subscriptions. In addition to these subscription services,

Comcast will feature ad-free supported services and free licensed content. You're right, Seth. I think they missed the memo here, but I'm sure they've got their reasons. Interesting at least to see them. I think we had a really good mailbag that we did several weeks back from Robert

about the move to more like IP-based technologies. If nothing else, at least we're getting away from kind of dated coaxial-based technology and getting things onto the network. But yeah, it is interesting that they've opted to roll this service out with their own hardware as opposed to... For $5 a month.

Yeah, as opposed to just putting an app out there for other devices. So it will be interesting, of course, to see how that develops. I wonder if in the future they come out with an app and they charge $5 a month for it. It just seems like that's their business plan. Like, we'll give you the content, but we're still charging you for how you're going to get it. Yeah. Interesting.

Again, in streaming here, more streaming news, busy, busy week in streaming. Actually, YouTube has canceled plans for a high end dramas and comedies. People with knowledge of the matter said,

according to Bloomberg, a pullback. This is a pullback from its grand ambitions for a paid service with Hollywood quality shows. The Google-owned business has stopped accepting pitches for expensive scripted shows, said the people who asked not to be identified because the decision has not yet been announced. The retreat comes in direct, this sort of a retreat from direct competition with Netflix, Amazon, and of course, Apple, as we're going to talk about later in the show, and reflects the high cost measured in billions needed to take on those deeply entrenched players.

So even a company with pockets as deep as Google has decided perhaps that the, if the story is to believe, that the content war is going on, getting a little bit too pricey. And they'll sit back and collect their checks off of user-generated content and be just fine. Right, right. I mean, they kind of have a unique platform unto itself. And then they also have like the YouTube TV thing, which does the live TV. They do have that. Which brings me to this. We haven't talked about this jason but we got to

think about this we got to think about this uh you know the broadcast rights for sporting events are auctioned off right you know those are those are like the contracts come due right you know when they come due i don't 2022 so that right? CBS has the rights to 2022. So if YouTube is smart. Is this for like several major sports or like how does this work? They've got the rights for. Oh, I thought you only would be interested in American football. Well, I am.

I'm kidding. Other people listen to the show though. Right, right. So CBS is American Football League has rights to a bunch of different types of game including the super bowl through 2021 interesting now imagine if 2022 the super bowl lvi lvi i guess with roman numerals would yeah who knows what that is um what if that goes to youtube like what if youtube says yeah we'll pay for that and since we didn't buy all these billion dollars worth of new shows back in uh 19 uh you know keeping the

powder dry yeah what if they're keeping their powder dry jason and they're ready to strike in 2021 and they win this auction what are you going to do if you have to if you want to watch the super bowl and you've got to you've got to break out some kind of streaming service to watch it. Wow, that really would be a sign of the times, wouldn't it? Yeah. You could watch the Super Bowl on a major broadcast network. That's when you know that the game has really changed because, yeah, sports are still really one of the last big holdouts for more traditional broadcast people. You know, it's still, you got to jump through some hoops. It's getting a lot better with streaming, but yeah, sports are still tough.

So I don't know. Interesting speculation. You heard it here first. Yeah, well, I kind of heard it on somebody else talking about it, but it's one of those things like, oh yeah, people love sports still. It's not going anywhere.

And to get these broadcasting rights, these are very lucrative, and they cost billions of dollars to acquire the broadcasting rights. And, of course, you get billions of dollars in ad revenue going back into it. So how is a company like CBS going to compete with a company like Apple or YouTube? If you sit back and think about it, like they've got to be really getting nervous about how this kind of goes down, uh, here in the next couple of years. I mean, this is right around the corner. This is going to be here before you and I know it really is. It really is. Well, that will be interesting. Uh, definitely

keep an eye out for that. Like said it'll be it'll be here before you know it so for now seth i'm gonna go ahead and enjoy my uh football over the air with my tableau which is working great awesome uh what little football i get to watch these days that is go broncos and uh you know we'll we'll cross that bridge when we get there as they say right this network is upping its game even higher in the custom integration space with the announcement of a new reoccurring monthly revenue incentive program as part of the dish custom integration program the new rmr benefit is an additive to the existing margins available from custom for custom integrators effective immediately the new incentive will be applied to purchase accounts through the DISH custom integration program.

Qualifying accounts must have at least three DISH set-top boxes, including the Hopper 3 in America's top 200 programming packages or above. I don't know what any of that means, but I guess it sounds good if you're a DISH network installer, right? Yeah. Yeah. I included this one because I think it's always interesting to see companies like DISH who are paying special attention to the custom installation channel. I think sort of self-serving, of course, you and I working in that channel, I always think it's cool to see that. I know that Xfinity has their CI program. I forget if that's the official name or not, but I think it's a great thing for home technology professionals and more importantly for their, uh, for their clients. Like I know when I was out in the field still doing integration work, one of the biggest

pain points that we would have to deal with was coordinating with the cable company or the satellite provider. It was always a headache and it always created a lot of back and forth. And, uh, you know, the client unfortunately would always have to be involved in that because we were not empowered to do any of that in their name. So always enjoy seeing these things. And it looks like dish is continuing to make some investments there. So good for them. Yep. And, uh, the big news this week, Jason, uh, is, uh, for, for, you know, you know, we need to call our podcast. We need to rename it.

We'll call it the Home Tech Plus Podcast. I like that. Yeah, yeah. Evidently, that's what's going on. So this week, on Monday, actually, Apple had a special event. And I had it on in the background and was kind of paying attention to it on and off. They announced a... Did you see Big Bird?

I did not see Big Bird. I don't know where that screenshot came from. I don't even think that was... I thought Big Bird was there. Was Big Bird not there? I have no idea. Oprah was there. This is how much...

I saw Oprah, but this is how much I was paying attention. I didn't see Big Bird. I should have seen Big Bird. But yeah, what was interesting about this is like, this is Apple's unveiling of their, their services that we've been hearing so much about. And not, not only like, we'll get to the Apple TV stuff too, but they also launched like a news subscription thing. They launched a magazine subscription thing, uh, and they launched a, uh, a credit card,

an Apple credit card. Yeah. That, that one kind of threw me for a loop. Baffling, baffling baffling but you know i mean i guess it's good you know they they have they have access to billions of customers or millions of customers i'm not sure how that works but billions of devices that they can they can run apple pay through so i guess it makes sense that they team up and do like a physical credit card type thing uh i think they teamed up with goldman sachs on that one which was interesting but uh

you know sleeping through all that we finally get to the meat of the conversation and uh get into like i think the first thing they introduced was uh this new apple tv app uh and and what they called apple tv channels which will be coming later this year, sometime I think in May. And Jason, we've talked about the Apple TV app a number of times in the past. I think you're a user of it, if I'm not wrong. Yeah, occasionally we do use it. It's not our sort of input zero, as we like to say here. It's not our default. We typically find ourselves switching back and forth between apps.

I'm not sure why. We don't give that a lot of conscious thought. It's just kind of how we use it. But yeah, every now and then I'll open the Apple TV app and use it as a nice sort of universal search to search for a given show across multiple apps. But yeah, it's just never, it's always felt like it's kind of missing something for me

for it to really become like the default. Well, it's good that you don't like it. I mean, you're not like invested in the interface and everything because they're changing it up a little bit. When I saw the screenshots and saw what they were showing off, it seemed like it was more like the Netflix look and feel to it. Maybe with a little bit of more Apple flair. I don't know.

It'll get updated. We're all going to get it and um it just seems like one of those generic media aggregation apps right but being apple they they they're integrating what they're calling apple channels into it which is i guess see this is where things get confusing because apple channels i think is going to be a paid service just like the the movies and the new or not sorry the news and uh and the the magazine subscription thing so apple channels is basically what you get if you go to like amazon i think amazon has a very similar program where you can get like stars and epics and that kind of thing so you get the premium

channels and i think they have a couple couple of children's channels along with it. I want to say there were like 30 channels they showed up on this slide. And a couple of them look interesting. Not too many to me, but you did have the ability to utilize your search, your general search that you could go through. And if you wanted to watch something, you can get it at any point in time. And that I thought was pretty interesting, how they would be doing that.

Yeah. My understanding is that, like you said, the channels, so they're updating the Apple TV app in general, right? And in addition, part of that update is the addition of this new channel's functionality. Right. So if you're trying to sort of figure out how these pieces fit together. It was very confusing. Yeah, it is a little bit confusing. The channels, like you said, is very similar to what Amazon does, where you can go into the Prime video app and subscribe to other streaming services from right within the Prime app. So you don't have to, for example, like the channels, Apple's channels app is going to have

content from CBS, Cinemax, Comedy Central, HBO, Showtime, Starz, Epix. And whereas, you know, today, you've needed to have like the Showtime app installed on the Apple TV in order for the Apple TV app to then pull in that content. Moving forward, you basically just go right into the TV app, activate Showtime, Apple takes a cut of that revenue, and then that content lives right within, natively, I guess, so to speak, within the Apple TV app. I will be doing this for HBO because their app is absolutely garbage. So if I can use the Apple TV app for HBO now, then HBO now, sorry, you're going to be paying Apple for their cut because they have a better app. Yeah. Yeah, it's tough. I do wonder about it from the perspective of companies like HBO, where they have to give away that revenue, but I guess for them, it's kind of a lever, you know, Apple has, has some leverage there. And ultimately I suppose

the goal or the hope for people like HBO is that they'll sell enough more of these subscriptions to offset, you know, that, that revenue share that they're going to have to give up. But, but that is the key difference as I understand it. Again, you'll have all of that content more natively integrated into the Apple TV app so that you don't have to go take that extra step of installing those additional apps on your TV. It's also going to have features like up next and for you, you know, of course, using machine learning. Like everybody's, you know, that's the thing now, right? So it'll have its own sort of learning algorithms to make recommendations.

They're touting that a little bit. I would consider that almost table stakes at this point. It is set to hit the Apple TVs in May. And then I think, Seth, to me, the most interesting part by far of this whole release is that the new Apple TV app is not just going to be available on Apple TVs. It's going to be available on smart TVs from like Samsung, LG, Sony, Vizio. It'll be available on Roku devices. Even Amazon Fire TV is listed. So this is really a departure for Apple from their traditional strategies of really keeping everything bundled within their hardware ecosystem, more or less, is how they've generally approached things. So to see this Apple TV app now go out and be available on Roku or these other devices is very interesting. And I think it definitely is kind of a watershed moment for Apple,

really changing to a different model when it comes to this distribution. Yeah, we were talking about this a little bit before the show, and I had seen some of the beta stuff go by. And I've got to confirm this for myself, but I think they released a software update for the old, remember the old Apple TV, like the Gen 2 or 3? I don't know, the little square one. Gen 3, yeah.

The little pancake one that you have. I've still got one of those. There you go. You know, workhorse in one of our bedrooms. You are going to, it looks like you're going to get an Apple TV app on there now. That's what you were telling me. They're going way back to make sure that the Apple TV app shows up on as many devices as possible,

uh, and being built into like TVs and everything. I mean, it's, that's just smart, but I mean, it's smart in the fact that Apple is doing it, but I mean, other companies have been doing that for years, right? Like, so Amazon, Netflix, they've all been built into my LG TV for a number of years. All, all this does is kind of like kick the legs out from underneath the Apple TV hardware that they sell today for most users. Like if you don't need AirPlay, if you don't need photos showing up there, a photo screensaver and that kind of thing, maybe the Apple TV app is just load it up on your TV and go with it there. I think that'd be a pretty good thing.

Right, right. So it's very, very interesting. And we'll definitely continue to keep our listeners updated on that. Again, it's supposed to be out in May. Here we are almost in April. Can't believe 2019, Seth, almost 25% over. Yeah. Through the quarter.

So time moves fast, of course, and that'll be available before we know it. And we'll look forward to seeing that out in the wild. The other big announcement, of course, is Apple TV+, as you alluded to. And again, this is where things get, I think, a little bit confusing. I admittedly don't fully understand if Apple TV Plus is going to be a totally different app on the Apple TV, or if it's going to be something that kind of gets turned on within the Apple TV app, but it is a separate subscription service. That much I know. And it is very much focused on the original content side of the equation. And we've heard a lot of talk and

the rumor mill about this has been circulating for quite some time. And so it was good to finally get that out in the wild. They're really staking their claim on, let's see, what did they say? This is from the Apple newsroom. Let's see, Apple today announced Apple TV+, the new home for the world's most creative storytellers, featuring exclusive original shows, movies, and documentaries coming this fall. They've got Oprah Winfrey, Steven Spielberg, Jennifer Aniston, Reese Witherspoon, Octavia Spencer, J.J. Abrams, M. Night Shyamalan, and more. They've got a bunch of those big A-listers listed on the website. I understand some of them were at the event. I did not watch the event

personally. We have confirmed, by the way, in the chat room, Seth, that Big Bird was there. I posted a picture for you in case you need proof. It just goes to show you how big of a snoozer this part was. To me, I was like, okay, they're doing TV pitches. And I'm like, all right, I get it. I'll care when we get the service out and I find out, one, how much it costs. That's one thing that was missing from this whole conversation was how much this particular product was going to run. And we didn't get that and for me it's like well you know what what's going to compel me to watch something by well not M. Night Shyamalan that guy's dead to me

after Airbender so uh what's gonna come you know that one did it for you yeah that that was a horrible movie uh so like what's gonna what's to get me in the door and it's going to be how much money I have to shell out each month to go along with, you know, subscribing to Hulu and HBO now and, uh, Netflix. And, you know, do I want to add this service in for maybe one or two TV shows that they have? Um, you know, I don't know. I'm curious as to what this is going to cost when it comes out.

Yeah, no, I, I agree. I think that, uh, I don't know. I'm curious as to what this is going to cost when it comes out. Yeah, I agree. I think that, I don't know what I was expecting. I mean, I didn't have anything really specific that I was looking for. Just generally curious to see what they did. And I have to say, it doesn't feel like anything too novel. I mean, other than obviously the shows that they're going to do are going to be original, and they'll be exclusive to Apple. So like you said, if you want those shows and the price the price point is, is worth it to you, then, then you'll sign up.

But it's not as if this Apple TV plus service on its own does anything that, you know, Netflix or Hulu or, um, Amazon prime, uh, don't do right. And, and so I do think that the price point is going to be really interesting. A little bit disappointed that we didn't find that out. I don't know when we will. The service will be available in the fall of this year. So we're probably six, seven months away from having this available. Presumably we'll know the price before that, but only time will tell. So it does say it'll be available in the United States, and it will launch in more than 100 countries later this year. One quick thing I had written down in my little haphazard notes that I was doing on and off.

The Apple TV Channels app will go to the Mac as well. We were talking about all the other devices. It's actually going to show up on your computer so you can watch it on your your mac along with what all these other devices samsung lg roku amazon fire tvs so i wonder if the apple tv plus i i feel like it's got to be built into that app if that app is going to be everywhere then if you subscribe i'd be surprised if it wasn't i mean there's not a half dozen shows there's there's a number of shows that they have they have purchased and it's going to be part of apple tv plus like it's got to show up as just another tap inside of apple channels right i i would think so um it's not totally clear to me uh definitively one way or the other but but i

would agree um anthony in the chat room makes a good point. He says, my house is waiting on pricing for Disney streaming. That's another competitor Apple's going to be battling against that I didn't even name. That's built into the 2019 budget, my friend. Yeah. Just start setting money aside now. Yeah. So, you know, that'll be another big competitor that they'll be up against. Yeah. Um, so it's going to have to be, you know, it's going to have to be really compelling content. And, uh, I'm sure I have no doubt that it'll be good content. Some of it will probably be great, but will it, will it be enough, you know, with them coming to the game sort of late. And like you said, a lot of people,

I mean, myself included, I've already got Hulu. Uh, we've got Netflix. Prime is kind of an interesting one to me when it comes to the budget, because like I would pay for prime, whether it came with the streaming video or not. So I almost don't even include that, um, in my TV budget. But Patriots on prime Jason. So, so I did have a, uh, I did have a one vision, vision uh partner who listens to the show reach out and he said he watched the patriot on your recommendation and he was like i can't even and i had to respond and i was like i don't know what that means is that like is that an endorsement or is that like a recrimination like tell me more and uh

yeah he was telling me he's like it's you, it's, you know, it's definitely got some dark. It's a dark humor. Some dark humor. And so anyways, we were chatting a little bit. It's tough. It's tough for me because I watch so little TV. And what I do watch typically my wife and I'll watch a show after the kids go to bed. Yep.

Yep. And I can tell from what I've heard from you and what I've seen on the previews. I don't think that's a show that she's going to get into. Yeah, it's a slow burn. So, yeah. Yeah, but it's very dark humor. One of these days I'll get around to it. I don't think you're going to let it rest until I do.

You know, I'm not. But there's also another show. And I'm not going to say it's kind of in the same vein. Not the same show, but it's on HBO and probably a little bit easier to digest for most people. It's got the Fonz on it's on it's on hbo and probably a little bit easier to digest for most people um it's got uh it's got the fonts on it uh it's called barry um and it's very yeah it's it's kind of like uh the guy is a contract killer and it turns out he doesn't want to be a contract killer anymore uh and starts taking acting classes to kind of like let loose his feelings and that kind of thing. So it's a very interesting show. And a little more digestible.

Totally a comedy. Much more than, I mean, it's still dark. It's got the whole killing people aspect to it. But it's definitely more digestible, I guess, than Patriot. But I'd say as far as the writing goes, Patriot takes the cake. But this one's got the fun i just so i just finished watching a totally different note um wild wild country this one's been out for a year so it's not a new one yeah yeah uh but it just landed on my radar uh what's

the hot really interesting the little guy up there and uh yeah and in oregon i can't remember the name of it yeah the baguan baguan yeah yeah yeah rajneesh yeah anyways anyone's interested in documentaries like it's a six part uh really good one that's a good one that is a very it's crazier and crazier each episode and you're like it's unbelievable what you just can't believe this it's stranger than fiction right i mean it really is couldn't believe it happened so, now that we've totally digressed, actually making the point though, right? There's so much to choose from now when it comes to original and streaming content that clearly that's going to be the battle for Apple. But they've got a ton of cash and a commitment to quality from a brand perspective.

So I have no doubt that the content will be good. I'll be very, very curious to see how it's priced. And definitely something that I'll be giving a hard look. Assuming that it comes in around that same price point as most of these other services. Oh, I think it's got to be less. Like, I don't know. It's got to be... Well, I was just saying, assuming it's in that ballpark, it's probably something that i would at least consider taking for a spin for a couple of months

um most of these things now are month to month so there's not a lot of commitment you want to throw 30 bucks at it and give it a try right it's very easy to do i don't i don't know i i feel like with what they showed like each individual thing looks pretty good but but some of it, you know, not my interest, not my, not what I want to look at, not what I want to watch. Um, but I'm sure it's good for some people.

I mean, but you get that if you're paying what, $12 a month for Netflix, you, you can find whatever the heck you want to watch and watch it. And it'll start showing up in your recommended, recommended feed, but you're paying $12 a month for that.

Like for Apple, they only had a handful of original content things. They're mixing it in with all the other stuff on the apple channel yeah no it's true like man it's got to be i i don't know like i i it's it's gonna be like a five dollar or less service for me and uh i i just i don't i don't know i don't see it so uh we'll be interesting to see where it comes up at price. Indeed. $30 isn't going to happen for me. I can tell you that.

I'll wait. Yeah, no, I don't think it'll be $30 a month. Yeah, I was saying like for a couple months. Aggregate, yeah. Take it for a test spin or whatever. But yeah, only time will tell, and it will be very interesting to see. At least we don't have to speculate anymore, right? We know what it is generally.

We do have to speculate on the price, of course, but it shouldn't be much longer until we find that out. So all of the links and topics that we've discussed here on this episode can be found in our show notes at hometech.fm slash 251. While you're there, don't forget to sign up for our weekly newsletter, which includes even further analysis, weekly show reminders, and occasional updates about all of the other things forget to sign up for our weekly newsletter, which includes even further analysis, weekly

show reminders, and occasional updates about all of the other things going on here in the world of Home Tech. Once again, that link is hometech.fm slash 251. And don't forget, you can join us in the chat room live Wednesday starting 7, 7.30, somewhere in there, Eastern, the one true time zone. Find out more at hometech.fm slash live all right well no guests this week um seth we got a stepping outside of the box a little bit on our on our pick of the week but a really really cool uh new i guess piece of software you would call it yeah

coda that you wanted to talk about i know you pointed this out to me and it does look pretty neat yeah coda coda well if you take a back, the reason I know about this is because I know about the company that made Coda before and it's a company called Panic. They're out of Portland. Really cool company. They, they make, uh, some really old school Mac apps like transmit that are just amazing. Uh, Coda was there like, um, what do you call it? HTML, like web editing software, I guess. For a very long time, had a huge following. But, you know, editors move on, people move on to using new programs and the new hotness that's out. And they are redoing Coda.

And in the announcement for that, I read down and they were like, we sold off the name Coda. It's not going to be called Coda. So I'm like, what the heck is Coda going to be now? So I went to the website that they linked and it's this software, Jason. This is amazing. This is like a Google Doc. Interesting backstory. Yeah.

Yeah. So like, yeah, Coda is still there. Yeah. Coda is like a new name. And I just happened to run across. This is like completely random um this software is like google docs plus air table which is kind of like a fancy spreadsheet program that's kind of easier to use than a spreadsheet i guess but but this i don't know this one kind of takes the cake what

it does is it it builds everything and kind of folds it up and then you can get on your phone and it almost makes like an app out of it. So if you needed to do something with data, like, I don't know, say track jobs, you know, like as project management or something like that, you could load all the job names up into something like this and then like put statuses along with them and share them with everybody in the company and have everybody on the same page. This is like Trello for like a little bit further right like this is trello trello is a good job does a good job of like organizing basic things but you could really take this

a lot further than trello can bring you yeah no it's definitely uh you know i'd say different than trello i i i uh it's super I mean, they've got a really, really cool video on the website. So it's one of these things that's really, the video truly is worth like a million words, right? Trying to describe this on the podcast. First, go check out this video. We'll include a link to it in the show notes. Again, hometech.fm slash 251. And you know, the way that they lay the video out is they talk about basically like word processing. And then they talk about how the, the word processing apps have gotten better over time, but by and large, they haven't really, they haven't really changed what they do. Um, but this, this is like, what if we could start all over? And it takes

this idea of like a simple type of interface that we're all very used to of working in like a word processor, but allows you to then do, I guess, basically like programming types of things without having to actually write any code. So you're building tables and linking data and, you know, doing dynamic sort of checklists and things like they show in the video. Really, really cool. So for any, you know, software geeks, productivity geeks, certainly like you alluded to, Seth, integrators or home tech pros out there, this would be a cool app, you know, little tool to look into to essentially build your own little apps

to take care of some functions within your business. So again, stepping outside of the box a little bit, but really neat looking tool and all free, I guess. Free. Yeah. Yeah. It's still, still amazing. This is one of those, like they're, they're, they're made to be acquired. Right. So you kind of have to like keep an eye on that, but I mean, the thing is, it's like all the data is kind of stored in an Excel type sheet. So if you really needed to get it out of there and into something else, you could always, you know, export it, uh, you know, and copy, paste it, put it in Excel sheet or something.

But, man, the fact that you can load this up and you don't even have to know how to do this stuff. Like they have a million templates. If you wanted to, let's see, if you wanted to be in project management, you click on their project. They've got a million things in here. Not a million, but like 20 or 30 little app starters kit that you could do with examples on what a project management could look like for you. Everything from like meeting, having a meeting timer to redesigning a website or, you know, all that, all that's kind of built into this and you just load the template, copy it over to your particular, uh, folder or whatever that you have. And it's in there and,

and, and you can go to town putting your own data inside of it without having to know how to do, uh, what, what, what it really helps me is like, how do you, how do they make these buttons that do this? Like they have this concept of having buttons inside your document. Like you click a button and it adds a new row. Like you can, you can totally do that on, on with, with just looking at these tutorials or templates and seeing how they do it as a tutorial. So, um, really cool stuff. And for free, like really hard, Jason, you and I ran across Trello years ago, right? Like, uh, and, and, and I, I, I'd say we've used that free software, um, probably more than we should. We probably should have paid for it by now. Right.

But yeah. Yeah. I do have some guilt about that. There's the amount that I, amount of use I get out of Trello. It's amazing. There's some guilt there. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. But this, this is like another, I think this is like a step up. It gives you what Trello has. It gives you what Google Docs has. Kind of like all in one. Like you said, definitely different, but different feature sets. But it can be utilized the same way, I guess is where I'm going with that. So check it out if you're looking for. You will pry Trello from my cold, dead fingers, Seth.

Well, you know, hey, what do you say we do the show notes in this next week and see how it works? Put you on the spot. Separate conversation. It's the anger, the anger in your eyes. That's a meaty topic. Uh, no, this is really cool though. So definitely go check that out. Uh, good find interesting backstory, by the way by the way. I didn't know how you came across that. Random find, yeah. Yeah, I shared it out with my team at OneVision. I said, ooh, shiny object. So we haven't decided to do anything with it yet, but it's definitely simmering on my back burner, at least, as far as ways that we might be able to at least internally even just use it for things. Who knows? So really interesting.

Cool. Well, if you have any feedback, questions, comments, picks of the week, or great ideas for a show topic, definitely give us a shout. Our email address is feedback at hometech.fm. Or if you prefer, you can visit the website and fill out our online form at hometech.fm slash feedback. And we want to give a big thank you to everyone who supports the show, but especially those who are able to financially support the show through our patron page.

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for launching a credit card. Could do that. That's really all we could do because there was no technology they announced. What are you going to do? It's all fair game. Yeah.

We did have a $5 patron come on board this week. We wanted to give a big shout out to Dean Detton. Dean, thank you so much for your support. We truly do appreciate it. So thank you for that. Thank you. If you do want to help out our show, but don't or can't do so financially, we totally understand. We would appreciate if you take a few minutes of your time to leave a review for the show in iTunes or rating

in your podcast app of choice those reviews definitely help let us know how we're doing as well as help other people find the show so if you took a few minutes to do that we would really appreciate it well jason i guess that wraps up the show this week uh i i don't know man uh i i'm gonna have to start saving money i think because i'm sure apple's gonna come out with this thing. There's going to be something I want to see on it. Amazing Stories looks pretty good. It does. I'm going to have to pay.

It's going to be worth a little bit of a test spin. I hope they figure out. Kick the tires. Maybe they'll do a free trial. That'd be great. And I could just binge for three nights. They did that with Apple Music, right? Didn't they do, when they first came out with it you could get like 90 days free or something yeah i think they gave you a month or two yeah you're right you're right yeah so we'll

see uh but like uh like i said exciting at least to have it out and see now what they're doing and really the last question mark is how much it's going to cost but um does look uh really interesting and yet another major competitor in the space next up will be disney uh and we'll have to see what what they're going to do so really interesting time as it has been really for the last couple of years in the world of uh in the world of streaming yep absolutely like i said i guess that wraps things up and uh i guess we'll talk to you next week all right sounds good take care seth