00:00:08 ◼ ► From Relay FM, this is Upgrade, episode 346, and today's show is brought to you by Memberful,
00:00:15 ◼ ► Pingdom, and PDFPen from Smile. My name is Myke Hurley and I'm joined by Jason Snell. Hello,
00:00:20 ◼ ► Jason Snell. Hello, Myke Hurley. How are you? I am very well, my friend. How are you? Fine and dandy.
00:00:26 ◼ ► You are on secret assignment this week, which I'll mention because otherwise people will ask why Jason
00:00:32 ◼ ► sounds different, which happens every time. I'm in a slightly different place with a slightly
00:00:36 ◼ ► different microphone. Yes. I have a #SnellTalk question for you from John and John wants to
00:00:42 ◼ ► know, "Jason, did you ever have a conversation with Steve Jobs? If so, was there anything specific that
00:00:47 ◼ ► you took from his experience?" I talked to him once for on the phone as an interview for the 20th
00:00:55 ◼ ► anniversary of the Mac and what I took away from it is that Steve Jobs doesn't want to be interviewed.
00:01:00 ◼ ► Okay. Do you think that somebody put him in that room? He was unpleasant and he didn't want to be
00:01:07 ◼ ► there and he was on the phone with me for less than five minutes, I would say, and yeah, it was,
00:01:14 ◼ ► we spent months trying to get Apple to agree to do an interview with Steve for the 20th anniversary
00:01:19 ◼ ► and we had to have all sorts of conditions about Steve doesn't want to look back, Steve doesn't
00:01:24 ◼ ► want to talk about the past, Steve can't talk about the future and we're like, well, what is left to
00:01:29 ◼ ► talk about? And the answer was a very short interview. We ran almost every word he said in
00:01:34 ◼ ► the, on the interview in the magazine because he said so little that we had to make the most of it.
00:01:41 ◼ ► And I, when the conversation was over, I felt kind of like I'd been hit by a truck. It was like,
00:01:46 ◼ ► what just happened? But, uh, that was it. So yes, I got the distinct sense that he didn't want to be
00:01:53 ◼ ► there. Somebody had talked him into it, maybe Katie cotton, that it was worth doing. Um, and
00:01:58 ◼ ► he wasn't interested in talking about the past and he wanted to get out of there as quickly as
00:02:02 ◼ ► possible. There's something kind of funny about like, okay, Steve's gonna join you for this
00:02:08 ◼ ► interview, which is an anniversary celebration of the Mac, but he won't talk about anything that
00:02:14 ◼ ► happened before today. Yeah, that was, it's very difficult to have a conversation about the 20th
00:02:20 ◼ ► anniversary of the Mac when one of the ground rules is don't talk about the past. There's some
00:02:26 ◼ ► kind of Fight Club joke reference to be made in there, right? I think he, when they were wearing
00:02:34 ◼ ► him down to do it, he said, okay, I'll do it, but I don't want to talk about the past. And they're
00:02:40 ◼ ► like, all right, great. He said, he'd do it. Yeah. That's the win they were looking for really.
00:02:45 ◼ ► And then now it's your problem, Jason. It's not their problem anymore. You have to come up with
00:02:50 ◼ ► a conversation. I found that that was a, the whole thing was an unpleasant experience. He didn't want
00:02:55 ◼ ► to be there. I kind of didn't want to be there either. We made the best of it. It was brief and
00:03:00 ◼ ► then, and that was it. And then beyond that, my only interactions with him was I asked a couple
00:03:10 ◼ ► occasionally. But those are not quite the same, right? Just shouting. This was a direct one-on-one
00:03:17 ◼ ► Jason situation. It was, I mean, obviously it was being monitored by all of his minders who,
00:03:24 ◼ ► you know, who called afterwards, right? Like they were clearly listening to the whole thing,
00:03:28 ◼ ► but, um, but yeah, it was, I wouldn't say it was my finest hour. Um, but he was also a pretty tough
00:03:35 ◼ ► person to talk to and didn't want to be talking to me. So yeah, we're going to be talking about
00:03:41 ◼ ► a Tim Cook interview later on in the episode. Have you ever spoken to Tim? I have not spoken to Tim,
00:03:59 ◼ ► some form. Um, you're out there in the hands-on area and there's a lot of people, right? There's
00:04:06 ◼ ► a lot of people in the Steve Jobs theater, let's say. And then there's a lot of people in the
00:04:09 ◼ ► hands-on area, uh, which is sort of a lobby to the Steve Jobs theater. And you're, you, you sense
00:04:16 ◼ ► a certain amount of, uh, hubbub around you because there's so many people, but then there's like,
00:04:25 ◼ ► it's like a wave kind of swelling. Suddenly you, you just sort of sense that there's more. And like
00:04:30 ◼ ► there were a lot of people around you, but now there's a lot, lot, and the sounds change and
00:04:35 ◼ ► everything's just a little bit more intense. And that's when you turn and realize, Oh, Tim Cook's
00:04:41 ◼ ► right there because there's a bubble of people taking pictures and people wanting to talk to Tim
00:04:47 ◼ ► and Tim interacting with people. And he's sort of holding court a little bit, moving from station to
00:04:52 ◼ ► station. Um, usually with a member of like a high disability media kind of in tow, but, um, it's
00:05:00 ◼ ► sort of Tim's appearance and I've gotten caught up in that a couple of times just accidentally,
00:05:06 ◼ ► cause I'm just trying to, you know, hold the phone and see what it's like. And then suddenly hubbub
00:05:13 ◼ ► happens around me and Oh, there's Tim over there. And if you're really lucky, um, you'll occasionally
00:05:18 ◼ ► get in the photos of the event the next day in on wire services and stuff like Jeff Carlson, the
00:05:24 ◼ ► writer and photographer. Um, he was in, he was just happened to be next to Tim when every like
00:05:31 ◼ ► major organization shot their best pictures from that event. And so Jeff was in, he was photo
00:05:38 ◼ ► bombing Tim Cook for, uh, for the next days, uh, newspaper coverage and, and, you know, websites
00:05:44 ◼ ► and stuff like that. So, uh, but no, I haven't had any direct interactions with him. I imagine they'd
00:05:49 ◼ ► be pleasant because he seems like a pleasant fellow and we'd, um, I probably try to work
00:05:54 ◼ ► college football into the conversation because I know he likes it and I like it too. Yeah. Saying
00:06:00 ◼ ► about the, um, getting in the images thing that that was what happened with the connected artwork
00:06:06 ◼ ► when, um, we went connected was featured in the Apple watch presentation at WWDC a few years ago.
00:06:12 ◼ ► And that was the Getty image was Tim standing in front of the connected artwork. So it was on
00:06:20 ◼ ► all the newspapers and stuff. We're picking up that one image of him. And so that, that was
00:06:25 ◼ ► really cool. Cause then not only did we have our artwork behind him, it was then on the front of
00:06:30 ◼ ► the newspapers, uh, or whatever, you know, like in the newspapers, uh, that was next level, right?
00:06:36 ◼ ► It's like, not only could you take a screenshot of your artwork on the, on the live stream,
00:06:42 ◼ ► but it turns out that. Um, they had taken a bunch of photos of Tim on stage with it in the background.
00:06:53 ◼ ► Yes. I got it on my wall. So I was very thankful for it. If you would like to send in a snow talk
00:07:02 ◼ ► question to help us open the show, just send in a tweet with the hashtag snow talk or use
00:07:06 ◼ ► question Mark snow talk in the relay FM members discord. We spoke about it last week and it
00:07:11 ◼ ► happened. I think the next day WWDC has been announced, uh, it was going to be June 7 to 11,
00:07:18 ◼ ► all online format. We made it happen. We did it. Myke, we did it. You and me, we made it happen.
00:07:23 ◼ ► Everybody can thank somebody did on Twitter, speculate that somebody at Apple was listening
00:07:28 ◼ ► to upgrade and they're like, Oh, did we not? So what do you think? I mean, this is obviously
00:07:34 ◼ ► what we expected. Uh, I'm happy that it's earlier in the month again, rather than later in the month.
00:07:39 ◼ ► Cause that would suggest hopefully that we will have a more normal, uh, time period, um, for the
00:07:45 ◼ ► beta. So basically the full three months rather than the compressed pretty much two and a bit
00:07:50 ◼ ► months that we get. Right. It's the, for me, the traditional last week of school, uh, inconvenient
00:07:56 ◼ ► time of WWDC, the less, little less of a problem this year. But, um, uh, I think it's, uh, I show,
00:08:04 ◼ ► it shows something right that this is their preferred time and pace for the summer and for
00:08:08 ◼ ► releases and things like that, which is good. And you know, they, they touted how great last
00:08:13 ◼ ► year was cause so many people could quote unquote attend and that they're going to keep doing more
00:08:19 ◼ ► this year to expand that we don't have particular details yet. Um, but it seems like that they might
00:08:25 ◼ ► be looking at doing something else. So do you have any particular thoughts on that at all? Like,
00:08:32 ◼ ► it's kind of what we expected. Um, there's not really much else to it, right? Yeah, no,
00:08:37 ◼ ► I think we covered it last week. It's pretty much what we expected. I I'm I, as, as coverage goes,
00:08:44 ◼ ► like doing my job goes, I find this format vastly superior to being in person only because I can
00:08:55 ◼ ► sit at my desk instead of either staying in a hotel or an Airbnb and uh, you know, working from
00:09:03 ◼ ► unforeseen circumstances or, you know, driving more than an hour to San Jose. Um, and I can sit
00:09:09 ◼ ► there and with all the videos that are posted, uh, I can watch those videos kind of at my leisure
00:09:14 ◼ ► and in my living room or at my desk and I can take notes and I can write articles about them
00:09:19 ◼ ► and it's great. Obviously what you entirely lose is the personal side of it, which is why I,
00:09:24 ◼ ► I did go and why I find that incredibly valuable. There's the social aspect of seeing all sorts of
00:09:29 ◼ ► people who are interesting and you never get a chance to see. So I miss that. But, um, I'm
00:09:34 ◼ ► excited about the event because this is the, this is the official start of the next calendar year,
00:09:39 ◼ ► essentially, or not calendar year, the Apple calendar. Uh, it's the start of the Apple year
00:09:43 ◼ ► because it sets the, um, positioning for what the OS is are going to be. And everything kind
00:09:48 ◼ ► of follows from that and the iPhone follows from that. And, and then we go through the year. So
00:09:53 ◼ ► it's always very exciting. We learn a lot that really is giving a sense of what the next year
00:09:57 ◼ ► plus is going to bring from Apple. Um, and, uh, it's, I expect it will be at least for us,
00:10:05 ◼ ► for observers. It might be different if you're a developer, but for observers, I expect it will be
00:10:19 ◼ ► and we'll be planning better, uh, my approach for this year. According to Mark Gorman in a newsletter
00:10:26 ◼ ► that he wrote for Bloomberg, Apple is planning to announce an event for its mixed reality headset
00:10:31 ◼ ► product within the next few months, but they're currently holding out to have an in-person event
00:10:36 ◼ ► with members of the media. This is what I expected, right? Not, I mean, I think I've said this on the
00:10:42 ◼ ► show before, not at WWDC and to have a separate event because it feels big. Um, the in-person
00:10:54 ◼ ► >> Well, right. This is why do you do in-person media events? And the answer is not because that's
00:11:02 ◼ ► the only, because you want an audience for a, for a video live stream, right? Like that's not
00:11:12 ◼ ► or in this case, maybe their heads on, uh, whatever the product is, right? Like you want,
00:11:18 ◼ ► and I, that's the thing that I miss the most from like the iPhone event last year is that I didn't
00:11:23 ◼ ► get a chance to hold the iPhones in my hand. And so then it's like, well, what are the iPhones like?
00:11:27 ◼ ► It's like, I don't know. I know everybody knows as much as I do because we all just saw a video
00:11:31 ◼ ► and that's all we know. Um, so having people there to have that experience is, uh, is, is good.
00:11:40 ◼ ► It's helpful. And could they roll something like this out? The problem is if it's a pre-announce
00:11:48 ◼ ► and it's going to be months before it ships, then you can't do the trick that they've done with a
00:11:54 ◼ ► lot of products, which is put it under embargo and mail it to people's houses, right? You get
00:11:58 ◼ ► the FedEx box, don't open this. It's there's an iMac inside, right? You can't do that. If it's
00:12:05 ◼ ► pre-release hardware in a tightly controlled environment, right? You, you really, then they're
00:12:09 ◼ ► not going to let a prototype product, put it in a FedEx box and ship it off and hope everything
00:12:15 ◼ ► goes well. It's not like, you know, we've seen it in the past. I think it was, I think if I'm
00:12:19 ◼ ► remembering rightly, it might've been the original Apple watch demo. You can maybe tell me about this
00:12:23 ◼ ► thing in the hands-on, uh, you weren't allowed to touch it, but people were showing you basically a
00:12:30 ◼ ► demo loop, which was surely all that could be done. There were watches that were running the
00:12:35 ◼ ► demo loop. There might've been a watch that was not running the demo loop, but it was again on the
00:12:40 ◼ ► arm of an Apple employee and you could look, but you could not touch as a person. I tried to touch,
00:12:46 ◼ ► I tried to touch the Apple watch and they're like, no, no, you're going to get me in trouble.
00:12:51 ◼ ► Nobody touches the Apple watch. So, so that's the rationale. So listening to Mark Gurman talk about
00:12:57 ◼ ► this, I think it makes sense. I think they could do it. Obviously they could do whatever they
00:13:03 ◼ ► wanted, but I get the desire to have people actually try it and that that kind of needs
00:13:08 ◼ ► to be in person, whether it's the event or whether it's in like a briefing kind of thing,
00:13:13 ◼ ► it does require some personal contact, which would be something that they haven't done in the, in more
00:13:17 ◼ ► than a year. Um, if they do it as an event, my guess is that it's going to be a low invitation.
00:13:25 ◼ ► Um, probably us only, maybe even California only with a briefing in New York for people on the
00:13:36 ◼ ► East coast and probably requiring that proof of vaccination or at the very least, uh, a negative
00:13:47 ◼ ► COVID test, but probably, uh, which, you know, I think if you're talking about summer, late summer
00:13:53 ◼ ► in the U S everybody who wants to be vaccinated should be vaccinated by late summer. In fact,
00:14:00 ◼ ► sooner than that by early summer. So, uh, it's not unreasonable at all to think that they could
00:14:05 ◼ ► actually pull this off. And it sounds, I think it's, it's perfectly reasonable to see that Apple
00:14:10 ◼ ► is grappling with like one, an event that really needs it in a way that some of their other events
00:14:15 ◼ ► don't and to figuring out that in the, you know, at some point we got to come back to doing some
00:14:20 ◼ ► personal interaction and we, we may be able to do that this summer because hopefully virus level
00:14:26 ◼ ► will go down and people will be immunized and it won't be a problem. So I think it's interesting
00:14:32 ◼ ► to hear the rumblings that they're kind of struggling with this. I think they could definitely
00:14:35 ◼ ► make it work. Um, but there are a lot more challenges also. Let's not forget that you're,
00:14:40 ◼ ► if this is something you're putting on your face, then like, they're going to have to sanitize it.
00:14:44 ◼ ► Like you're not going to have like 50 different people rubbing a thing on their face. It just,
00:14:53 ◼ ► you can't do that. So, uh, there's some challenges there, but, um, but it makes sense that they would
00:14:58 ◼ ► want to do it this way. Um, I, I'd be game for it. I'm up for it. This just feels like a product
00:15:12 ◼ ► it needs a demo, right? They can do a video. Like I thought potentially what we could see is,
00:15:18 ◼ ► uh, bare minimum, they do a video presentation like we've seen. And then as soon as the video
00:15:22 ◼ ► presentation is over and embargo list, some people that have had private, um, demos over the week
00:15:28 ◼ ► prior to it. Right. But that, and that's sort of what I was saying is you can do it that way,
00:15:33 ◼ ► but you're still doing in person demos, right? Like you can don't, you don't need a live event,
00:15:38 ◼ ► but they're much more controlled and stuff like that. Right. But you need, you need people to do
00:15:43 ◼ ► that. And so yes, they could do it that way. They could have people in New York and maybe people in
00:15:47 ◼ ► in Cupertino and do some briefings that way and then have it be under embargo. Although again,
00:15:54 ◼ ► brand new product never been seen before. Seems unlikely that they would have things under embargo
00:15:59 ◼ ► in advance of it. Right. They want to do their own thing. Well, West comes to West. I have a
00:16:07 ◼ ► hard time believing that they would show people a product that they had not announced that was a
00:16:12 ◼ ► major new product under embargo because that is, there's too much risk of all the details leaking
00:16:27 ◼ ► But this is definitely adding to my consideration that WWDC wouldn't be the time for anything like
00:16:33 ◼ ► this because I don't think they can show off anything software wise without showing the
00:16:38 ◼ ► hardware like tipping their hand there. And this really feels like something that if they
00:16:44 ◼ ► feel like they've got something which is, which is good and better than what currently exists,
00:16:49 ◼ ► they need to have press and people in the media, YouTubers talking about this product like it's
00:16:58 ◼ ► special, right? Um, Tim Cook's not going to say, you know, this thing's, this thing's kind of good.
00:17:04 ◼ ► It's a little bit better than the Oculus, right? He's not going to say that. So what you want to
00:17:09 ◼ ► hear is people like you, people like MKBHD, you know, people like Nilay Patel saying like, all
00:17:15 ◼ ► right, we had a chance to try this thing and it's next level for these reasons, right? Like that's,
00:17:20 ◼ ► that's what you want. And I almost feel like it's worth just delaying the product and its
00:17:26 ◼ ► announcement until you can get that, because I think that's what it's going to need to,
00:17:31 ◼ ► to really land with people. That's the decision I would make anyway, if they were asking me.
00:17:39 ◼ ► which means they, they ideally like with the Apple watch, they really need a run up for it. And, and
00:17:54 ◼ ► Apple has said repeatedly that AR is a focus. There's AR in their devices, in the iPhone and
00:18:01 ◼ ► the iPad. They, at this point, Apple could go in their videos in the developer conference and say,
00:18:10 ◼ ► we got a whole bunch of great AR things to show you and talk about them. And everything would be
00:18:19 ◼ ► in the context of the iPhone and the iPad, but we'd all know what they really mean. And that,
00:18:34 ◼ ► Right. Without announcing the product, knowing that they're going to announce it a month or two
00:18:38 ◼ ► later, at which point developers know more about what's going on and they've still got time to
00:18:44 ◼ ► develop apps for it. I think they can, they can finesse it. They can, they can make this work.
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00:21:00 ◼ ► and Relay FM. We spoke about this change a while ago, which is John Turnus becoming SVP of hardware
00:21:14 ◼ ► congratulations to him. He may have had a hand. Well, we know he will have a hand in the next IMAX.
00:21:20 ◼ ► There was a report from the "credible leaker". This is from MacRumors. MacRumors was reporting
00:21:27 ◼ ► the "credible leaker" with the Twitter account Love to Dream, which is an account that I see pop
00:21:32 ◼ ► up every now and then. It does seem to have a good track record. I trust MacRumors to keep track of
00:21:37 ◼ ► the track records more than me. They have suggested that the next IMAX will "have a screen that is
00:21:43 ◼ ► really big, bigger than the biggest one". So the Pro Display XDR goes to 32 inches. It's huge.
00:21:53 ◼ ► Could you imagine the IMAX being pushed to that kind of level? Well, first off, I will say one of
00:22:02 ◼ ► the brilliant things about being a credible leaker on Twitter is that there's no narrative and there's
00:22:06 ◼ ► no context placed around anything that they have to say, which is why they're not Mark Gurman.
00:22:12 ◼ ► Because all Love to Dream has to say is one fact, which is "Oh, yeah, bigger than the current IMAX."
00:22:19 ◼ ► But the fact is there's been a rumor that they were going to make the 27-inch IMAX into a 30-inch
00:22:28 ◼ ► IMAX and the 21.5-inch IMAX into a 24-inch IMAX. That's been out there for more than a year now.
00:22:35 ◼ ► So I just look at this and say, "Yeah, that's what that is. That's what this person is talking about."
00:22:42 ◼ ► I think the Pro Display XDR is enormous and it's probably unlikely that it's quite that big.
00:22:48 ◼ ► But larger than 27, keeping in mind too that I think that these IMAX are going to have way smaller
00:22:54 ◼ ► frames around them, way smaller bezels, and as a result, they're not going to seem as huge.
00:23:02 ◼ ► They're going to do the iPad Pro thing or the-- I mean, they're going to shrink the bezels and
00:23:07 ◼ ► then make the screen bigger and hopefully the actual device will not seem that much bigger,
00:23:18 ◼ ► But that theory is that the 21.5 is going to become a 24 and the 27 is going to become a 30.
00:23:25 ◼ ► And that sounds great. I honestly, I feel like the screen on my IMAX Pro is almost too big.
00:23:40 ◼ ► you could just forget that it's out there. I hear people with a Pro Display XDR talk about it and
00:23:45 ◼ ► it's the same story, right? Which is you put stuff kind of off on the side and it's like
00:23:48 ◼ ► you're consulting. It's like you're pulling out something out of a filing cabinet or something.
00:23:53 ◼ ► It's like it's way over there. It's, "Oh, that window. That window is off to the right. I haven't
00:23:59 ◼ ► seen that window in years." That's not ideal for most ways that I work. I like to work in the
00:24:06 ◼ ► center of the screen and I find that even on the 27-inch iMac, stuff that's parked on the left side
00:24:10 ◼ ► of the screen or the right side of the screen is kind of awkward. But some people love it.
00:24:16 ◼ ► There will still be choice, it seems like, between a super big iMac and a smaller iMac.
00:24:23 ◼ ► And that sounds good to me. I have a 32-inch monitor at the studio. It's an LG one that I
00:24:29 ◼ ► really like and it is massive, but I do love it. See? And I just like the idea of having the big
00:24:36 ◼ ► iMac get bigger, that they have the freedom to do that by making the space around it go away.
00:24:42 ◼ ► And there's also a question of what the screen looks like and what the shape of the iMac is,
00:24:48 ◼ ► right? Because the iMac right now is taller than its display ratio because it's got the big chin
00:24:55 ◼ ► at the bottom. And so there's a question there too. If you eliminate more of that chin,
00:24:59 ◼ ► your diagonal is going to get larger even if it's not much wider. So I guess we'll see, right?
00:25:08 ◼ ► But I feel like this report is in line with what we've already heard other than the sequencing of
00:25:15 ◼ ► it, which is everybody sort of assumed that the smaller iMac is going to hit first and be with
00:25:20 ◼ ► a lower-end chip. And then later in the year, they're going to do the high-end iMac and that'll
00:25:24 ◼ ► be big and it'll have a new, previously not seen Apple Silicon chip in it. And those are some
00:25:30 ◼ ► assumptions made on some reports and saying, you know, the next iMac screen is really big. Like,
00:25:37 ◼ ► is this person thinking about these iMacs both being released now or is this person, you know,
00:25:44 ◼ ► thinking about just the next big iMac, which is, you know, maybe sequenced after the smaller iMac.
00:25:53 ◼ ► That part I don't know, but otherwise it seems like this is just sort of coloring in some of
00:25:56 ◼ ► the margins of what we already knew. If the big one went to like 30, 32, something like that,
00:26:06 ◼ ► would you think you would consider the smaller one, provided you could spec it the way you'd want?
00:26:15 ◼ ► inch, I would consider it. I would. That said, coming from an iMac Pro, if they come out with
00:26:22 ◼ ► a 24 inch iMac that's running on an M1, we talked about this a couple of weeks ago, I would be
00:26:28 ◼ ► inclined to wait at that point, right? Thinking I could get an M1, but the 8-core iMac Pro is as
00:26:34 ◼ ► fast or faster than the M1. The M1 is very impressive, but this is a, you know, what was
00:26:38 ◼ ► a $5,000 computer, Pro computer. I'll wait on that one. But if they can get me an iMac that is faster
00:26:46 ◼ ► than the M1s, it will be appreciably faster than my iMac Pro, and then I'll consider it. So, if all
00:26:53 ◼ ► other things being equal, there was a 30 inch iMac and a 24 inch iMac, would I consider the 24 inch
00:27:00 ◼ ► iMac? I would. I would. Like, if I could get it with the power of the 30 inch iMac, I'd like to
00:27:06 ◼ ► see them, right? And I fear that I am, even though I complained about the 27 inch screen being big,
00:27:12 ◼ ► that I would feel cramped in a smaller screen at this point, because isn't that how that works?
00:27:18 ◼ ► Once you have a bigger screen, you can never have a smaller screen again. You just expand to the
00:27:23 ◼ ► space that you're given, which I think is a similar thing for why people that I know that have the
00:27:28 ◼ ► Pro DisplayXDR, their complaints about how big it is don't last for very long, and then they just get
00:27:33 ◼ ► used to the size, and then that's the size of their monitor, you know? Then going back to smaller would
00:27:38 ◼ ► be, we'll want them. I would seriously consider it though, because I do have a feeling like my
00:27:43 ◼ ► iMac is a little bit, that screen is a little bit too much for me. Most cases, not always, if I'm
00:27:49 ◼ ► doing like live streaming video or something like that, suddenly it's not big enough, but most cases
00:27:54 ◼ ► it's not. Then it's like exponential, how many more monitors can I, will I want to attach to this?
00:28:09 ◼ ► Would you consider sidecar for something like that? You know, like throwing some windows off
00:28:12 ◼ ► onto the iPad? No. You don't use that? No, no. If I wanted to do that, I mean, in most cases,
00:28:18 ◼ ► I would just put the, I will do that actually, when I'm doing the D&D stuff, I'll have my iPad
00:28:23 ◼ ► there, but I just have my iPad doing iPad stuff. I don't need to do Mac stuff. That makes sense.
00:28:28 ◼ ► Last week, uh, beta 6 of iOS 14.5 came out. Yes. It's still, still swimming around there in beta.
00:28:36 ◼ ► This is basically at this point, it's almost like 14.6, cause it's just keeps adding more and more
00:28:42 ◼ ► stuff. I think 14.5 was supposed to come out a while ago. Yeah. It's obviously picked to a
00:28:48 ◼ ► hardware release that it, that hasn't happened yet. And so they just are, are continuing to spin.
00:28:53 ◼ ► It just keeps, it's like, um, a snowball kind of thing. And it's just the further it's going along,
00:28:58 ◼ ► it's just picking up more thing. Well, like a Katamari. Anyway. Um, so in the most recent beta,
00:29:06 ◼ ► Apple announced that a selection of new Siri voices in various English speaking regions
00:29:19 ◼ ► like Siri having a default voice. So in America, it was traditionally the female voice in the UK.
00:29:27 ◼ ► It was the British voice in different, um, the men areas, British male voice in the UK. Yes.
00:29:38 ◼ ► which my understanding was it was because it was that time, the best that they had in kind of the
00:29:44 ◼ ► way that the voices sounded. So they just defaulted to whichever one was best for them. And now they
00:29:50 ◼ ► have done two things. So they're adding more voices and they're more realistic. I've heard
00:29:55 ◼ ► some samples of them and they do sound really, really good. But I think the bigger news though,
00:30:00 ◼ ► is that they have decided to remove the defaults and they've also removed the naming. So now
00:30:09 ◼ ► all of the voices have just numbers by the names rather than male and female or gendering them in
00:30:20 ◼ ► whichever Siri voice they want. And that's what you do on set up. You just choose which
00:30:24 ◼ ► Siri voice you want. So I think this is a better way of doing it. Hi, I'm Siri. Choose the voice
00:30:28 ◼ ► you'd like me to use. Hi, I'm Siri. Choose the voice you'd like me to use. Hi, I'm Siri. Choose
00:30:36 ◼ ► the voice you'd like me to use. Hi, I'm Siri. Choose the voice you'd like me to use. The second
00:30:42 ◼ ► one and the fourth one sounded like the new ones to me. Uh, the second and third. Oh, I went four,
00:30:47 ◼ ► three. That was four, three, two, one that I played there. Okay. And two and three are new.
00:30:52 ◼ ► And they do sound more realistic, which I think is good. I'm not sure how I feel if I want it to be
00:31:00 ◼ ► more realistic, but the biggest story here is removing the defaults. I think. Yeah, I think so.
00:31:13 ◼ ► Uh, it's fun. You know, I've had a British Butler on my HomePod for a while now. So, but this is,
00:31:22 ◼ ► it's, uh, it's nice to be able to choose. I have a couple of upstream pieces of news for you, Jason.
00:31:31 ◼ ► Outstanding performance by a male actor in a comedy series at the Screen Actors Guild Awards.
00:31:37 ◼ ► Yes. They lost the, they lost the Ensemble Award, which is the big one, um, to Schitt's Creek,
00:31:43 ◼ ► which is not surprising because that everybody expected that, but he won the, uh, the male actor
00:31:47 ◼ ► award. And there's also a very nice video that they posted, um, that was sort of like made for
00:31:52 ◼ ► the SAG Awards with the team in the locker room that was obviously shot as they're shooting season
00:31:57 ◼ ► two. Um, that's got some very funny, uh, bits in it about the other that there's like the,
00:32:04 ◼ ► we're facing tough competition here and they put up all the other nominees and there's a, uh,
00:32:08 ◼ ► there's a very funny joke at Jason Sudeikis' expense because he, uh, was at the Golden Globes
00:32:15 ◼ ► and he had a hoodie. Yeah. And so in the video that they posted, um, Jamie Tartt walks in wearing
00:32:22 ◼ ► a hoodie and it's like the same hoodie as Jason Sudeikis. It's probably literally the same hoodie.
00:32:27 ◼ ► And somebody says, who wears a hoodie to an awards show? Yeah. If you know the reference,
00:32:33 ◼ ► it's a really funny. All right. I'm gonna, I haven't seen that. I'm gonna have to watch that.
00:32:37 ◼ ► That looks really good. I think I found it. It's on the Apple TV Twitter account, right?
00:32:41 ◼ ► It is. I'll put that in the show notes too. And this one, I just was excited about it. Netflix
00:32:47 ◼ ► have paid $450 million for the rights to Knives Out two and three. Brian Johnson will direct and
00:32:53 ◼ ► Daniel Craig is reprising the role of Benoit Blanc. So they're trying, they're setting a,
00:32:59 ◼ ► they're trying to get another franchise going. We have said repeatedly, one of the challenges
00:33:04 ◼ ► Netflix has is it's got to build franchises. It doesn't have going for it with some of the
00:33:09 ◼ ► other services do with owning existing franchises. And so here's an interesting example. Cause they
00:33:14 ◼ ► have, they're doing that other spy one, right? With Ryan Gosling. Oh, the one that they want
00:33:19 ◼ ► to be there. James Bond. Yeah. Well you can see they're doing it and it's funny cause they're
00:33:23 ◼ ► doing this movies and not a series, but Knives Out was great. And the idea of telling more mystery
00:33:29 ◼ ► stories, I feel like, um, Ryan Johnson doing more stories with Daniel Craig is great. I feel like
00:33:35 ◼ ► there's even more though to Knives Out. They could do more. They could, they could tell some other
00:33:39 ◼ ► mystery stories. I kind of want this to turn into not, not with Daniel Craig cause he's a big movie
00:33:44 ◼ ► star. But like I would like to see the Colombo version of Knives Out where they do six of them
00:33:50 ◼ ► a year, 90 minutes long with some other actor perhaps from one, you know, one of the cops from
00:33:57 ◼ ► Knives Out or perhaps it's somebody who worked with Benoit Blanc and just tell these kind of
00:34:02 ◼ ► mysteries cause they're so fun. Knives Out was so much fun and they don't, they don't, um, make them
00:34:07 ◼ ► like this anymore. And they're actually, um, I think I would like to see them. So, uh, this is
00:34:12 ◼ ► cool. As one of my favorite movies I've seen in years and I was just, I'm just super happy that
00:34:18 ◼ ► they're doing more of them. Cause it was one of the things where I was like, ah, this was so
00:34:23 ◼ ► successful. How could they do more? Like I wasn't sure what they would do, but this just makes a lot
00:34:27 ◼ ► of sense, right? We just follow Benoit Blanc to his next crime to solve, right? Like it's kind of,
00:34:32 ◼ ► yeah. When he's a, he's a kind of like a reluctant, uh, participant in Knives Out, which I kind of like
00:34:39 ◼ ► the idea that, you know, that's, that's a classic mystery thing, right? Where it's like the detective
00:34:44 ◼ ► who comes is like, ah, I don't want to be here. This is accidental. It's like, all right, I guess
00:34:49 ◼ ► I'll, I'll figure it out. And the cops are like, oh no, this is our job. And it's like, yeah, well,
00:34:53 ◼ ► yeah, but I'm, I'm the one who's going to figure this out. I love it. And I know I would also like
00:34:58 ◼ ► to see, um, cause there is an element of very gentle spoilers for Knives Out. There's like
00:35:05 ◼ ► elements to the movie where we don't actually really see his diary, like detective prowess,
00:35:10 ◼ ► cause things just happen luckily for him in a way. And I would like to see a movie where we see more
00:35:17 ◼ ► deduction from him, you know, cause he does a lot of, uh, in the first movie, um, applying pressure
00:35:24 ◼ ► like that. That's the thing I appreciate about that is that it's almost like a martial arts kind
00:35:29 ◼ ► of approach where he, he doesn't need to barrel in there. He just needs to apply some judicious
00:35:35 ◼ ► pressure in a few places and everything starts to fall apart, which gives him his answer. Yeah.
00:35:40 ◼ ► I think I would also like to see a movie like maybe in level in, in this, these movies where
00:35:47 ◼ ► we don't know the answer because we're shown the answer, right? Like that's part of the movie,
00:35:54 ◼ ► like very early on, we know what happened and I would like to also have one of these movies,
00:36:00 ◼ ► but it's not the case. So we'll see. Okay. But I'm excited. Those are two different kinds.
00:36:06 ◼ ► Colombo always showed the crime knives out. It takes you a while to figure out what actually
00:36:10 ◼ ► happened. Um, um, there's the different kinds, but you know, love a good mystery. Doesn't,
00:36:16 ◼ ► they don't all have to be just like on PBS from the BBC. They can, especially when they're this
00:36:21 ◼ ► good, right? Yeah. Like worth it out of nowhere. Apple expands Apple arcade. They're bringing 30
00:36:29 ◼ ► new, you have brought 30 new games to the platform with some more on the way. This now brings the
00:36:34 ◼ ► total of games available on Apple arcade to over 180 and they are now categorizing Apple arcade
00:36:42 ◼ ► games into one of three kind of buckets. We have Apple arcade originals, timeless classics, and app
00:36:50 ◼ ► store greats. So they brought in some new games, like some original games, the stuff like stuff
00:36:56 ◼ ► we've seen in the past where they're working with companies, they produce a game for Apple arcade,
00:37:00 ◼ ► but they've, the thing that was really excited me and caught my eye the most with this announcement
00:37:05 ◼ ► is that they have added a selection of successful and critically acclaimed iOS games from the past
00:37:10 ◼ ► to the service. So for example, mini Metro fruit, ninja flip flop, solitaire monument valley,
00:37:17 ◼ ► and threes just to name a selection. I mean, this selection is like five of the very best iOS games
00:37:36 ◼ ► This is such a great idea. I feel like Apple has recalibrated what it wants Apple arcade to be.
00:37:48 ◼ ► I also feel a little bit like Apple arcade is a standalone service versus Apple arcade is also
00:37:54 ◼ ► being part of a bundle allows Apple to kind of reconsider what they want in terms of making
00:38:11 ◼ ► And that might be a little bit different. And the idea of taking apps that have maybe out lived,
00:38:19 ◼ ► not their usefulness, because these are games, right? It's outlived their novelty and their
00:38:24 ◼ ► revenue generation in the app store. And in some cases, it's apps that are maybe doing fine in the
00:38:29 ◼ ► app store, but have sort of had their day. And there are other apps that are gone or have no
00:38:36 ◼ ► reason to be updated for the app store and giving them a new life as a, it's almost Apple's version
00:38:44 ◼ ► of what the console makers do where they kind of have classic games from previous consoles.
00:38:50 ◼ ► I would like to see more of this. I would really like to see Apple give a bunch of classic app
00:38:55 ◼ ► store games from history that have kind of faded away. Give those developers a reason to put work
00:39:02 ◼ ► into them to make them work on modern devices. And that's, they're going to be an Apple arcade
00:39:07 ◼ ► whether they that's because they're going to get money from Apple arcade for use or whether Apple
00:39:12 ◼ ► just writes them a check and says, "Update it. Here's your money. Put it in the store."
00:39:16 ◼ ► But it's, there's some work to do. They've got these, the ones that are already in the store
00:39:23 ◼ ► are like doing these like plus versions that are essentially the same app, except on Apple arcade.
00:39:31 ◼ ► It feels very much like that has to go away at some point. It makes much more sense if an app is
00:39:37 ◼ ► available on Apple arcade and in the app store at large that you would have an interface that says
00:39:42 ◼ ► something like, you know, $4.99 or free on Apple arcade. Or if you're an Apple arcade user, it
00:39:48 ◼ ► would just say, "You get this for free with Apple arcade." Instead of having two versions of mini
00:39:54 ◼ ► Metro, which is what happens. Mini Metro Plus, which as far as I can tell is not actually any
00:39:59 ◼ ► different from mini Metro. Some of them might be different in that they've got an app purchase
00:40:02 ◼ ► turned off, but for the most part, it's just the same thing with a different app ID. And that's a
00:40:07 ◼ ► little bit silly. They need to, they need to clean that up. They need to work that out. This feels
00:40:10 ◼ ► very much like a driven by the product manager type thing where they haven't necessarily gotten
00:40:20 ◼ ► resourced to do it differently. And what I mean is like, you know, the Apple arcade team had this
00:40:24 ◼ ► idea and they are now working within the confines of the store. If you're in management, they're
00:40:31 ◼ ► like, "We've got this idea." But to get this, and we've talked to the app store and to get them to
00:40:36 ◼ ► change this, it's going to be iOS 15. It's just, we're not going to get this now. And the manager's
00:40:44 ◼ ► like, "Let's just do it. Call it, put a plus on it. Get it out there." Right? And I think that's
00:40:48 ◼ ► the right call. Like, "Get it out there. Get it out there now. Don't wait around for the engineering
00:40:53 ◼ ► on it." But I would prioritize that. I would say that's on our wishlist. We would really like to
00:40:57 ◼ ► have the ability to have a game that lives in Apple Arcade and in the app store with different
00:41:03 ◼ ► behavior for both of them. We would like that to exist. And it gets on the priority list for
00:41:08 ◼ ► whoever's working on the app store. But yeah, I actually kind of like the idea that it's the
00:41:14 ◼ ► people who care about Apple Arcade who are finding a way to work within the system to make what they
00:41:19 ◼ ► want happen in terms of the content in their service. That's good. To save the follow-up,
00:41:24 ◼ ► you mentioned about bringing back old games. There is this company and service called Game Club,
00:41:29 ◼ ► which is a subscription service. I think it's run by one of the people who used to work at
00:41:36 ◼ ► Touch Arcade or founded Touch Arcade, where effectively they say, "Hey, developers that
00:41:41 ◼ ► don't want to continue updating your games anymore, let us do it for you and you will get money
00:41:48 ◼ ► for the subscription." So like games that aren't on app stores anymore, like because they haven't
00:41:52 ◼ ► been updated for new screen resolutions and stuff. Game Club's whole thing is they will do that for
00:41:57 ◼ ► you and it's a part of the service, which is interesting. But I also want to see Apple doing
00:42:03 ◼ ► it this way because I just think this is really great. I think what we're seeing here, well,
00:42:07 ◼ ► what we are clearly seeing from Apple is a change in strategy because platform exclusivity was one
00:42:15 ◼ ► of the requirements of Apple Arcade. You could not make your mobile platform exclusivity, you could
00:42:24 ◼ ► not make your game available for Android and you also couldn't make it available for any of the
00:42:29 ◼ ► subscription service. So you could go to Nintendo Switch or you could go to Xbox, but you couldn't
00:42:35 ◼ ► be an Xbox Game Pass. Now, they still have the classification of arcade originals, which I assume
00:42:42 ◼ ► is this and maybe you get a bit more money as part of the deal. But some of these classics and
00:42:47 ◼ ► greats, games like Threes and Monument Valley, they're on lots of other platforms. So there's
00:42:53 ◼ ► clearly been a change here, which I will remind everyone back in June of last year, there was a
00:42:58 ◼ ► Bloomberg article that was talking about cancelled contracts and Apple shifting focus on Apple Arcade.
00:43:04 ◼ ► And I'll give you a little quote from the article. This is the quote that everyone really focused on
00:43:10 ◼ ► for when the couple of weeks we're talking about this. An Apple Arcade creative producer told some
00:43:15 ◼ ► developers that their upcoming games didn't have the level of engagement Apple is seeking.
00:43:20 ◼ ► Apple is increasingly interested in titles that will keep users hooked, so subscribers stay beyond
00:43:24 ◼ ► the free trial of the service according to the people. Now, when this report came around the
00:43:29 ◼ ► first time, it didn't sit right with me because it just didn't feel like that was what Apple would be
00:43:37 ◼ ► wanting to do with the service. And it maybe felt like this was the experience felt by some people
00:43:45 ◼ ► who had their games cancelled because I just didn't buy that Apple wanted to have these high
00:43:54 ◼ ► engagement games. They weren't looking for new candy crushers for Apple Arcade. It just didn't
00:44:00 ◼ ► make sense to me. And it kind of felt like that maybe some people got their games cancelled for
00:44:05 ◼ ► some reasons, but the idea that they were going to change Apple Arcade to be basically in-app
00:44:11 ◼ ► purchase games about the in-app purchases, that just didn't seem right. And I think this has
00:44:16 ◼ ► shown it. I think that back in June, they did change what they wanted to do, and they wanted
00:44:21 ◼ ► to do more stuff like this. And that there were some games that didn't make the strategy change.
00:44:25 ◼ ► - Right, use some of their budget that they were going to make on originals to instead fund some
00:44:30 ◼ ► of these other streams and get them up and running. I think it's also weird that that producer
00:44:44 ◼ ► - Because again, this is what we spoke about. We continue to talk about where is the report,
00:44:49 ◼ ► where is the rumor coming from? If it's coming from someone who's upset, it might be a little
00:44:54 ◼ ► harsher. - So look at what our initial response to Apple Arcade was, which is it's going to all
00:45:01 ◼ ► be about the exclusive games. They're going to live or die based on the exclusive games,
00:45:06 ◼ ► and Apple probably had some struggles where they have some successes and some failures.
00:45:09 ◼ ► Somebody inside Apple Arcade says, "Maybe what Apple Arcade should be is a bunch of things.
00:45:16 ◼ ► Exclusive games, classic games that you don't have to pay for that we're bringing back,
00:45:22 ◼ ► and the best of the App Store that you just don't have to pay for." Because that's essentially what
00:45:27 ◼ ► they're doing is they're saying, "We're going to pick games out of the App Store and give them to
00:45:31 ◼ ► you for free." And now Apple Arcade is not just a subscription service for exclusive games. Now it's
00:45:39 ◼ ► a curated game service where you pay once and you get exclusives and you get classics that have been
00:45:47 ◼ ► brought back just for you and you get the best. I mean, I'm using the marketing language here,
00:45:52 ◼ ► but this is how they would say it. And then you get some of the best stuff that's in the App Store
00:45:56 ◼ ► without having to pay for it. That's more compelling as a product. That's a better product.
00:46:03 ◼ ► Some people might not like it and some people might find it less compelling, but I think it
00:46:08 ◼ ► speaks to a broader audience. And it also, I would say, personally, as somebody who plays games in
00:46:14 ◼ ► Apple Arcade and buys games on the App Store, eliminates maybe some of the dissonance that
00:46:20 ◼ ► people feel with games that, like, I'm paying for Apple Arcade, but I'm playing games that I bought
00:46:31 ◼ ► Good Sudoku all the time?" Well, Good Sudoku is now in Apple Arcade and I mean, I already paid
00:46:37 ◼ ► for it, so it's too late, but you get that for free. And what I will watch is I wonder what
00:46:44 ◼ ► Apple's going to do in terms of approaching people to make these Plus versions for Apple Arcade,
00:46:52 ◼ ► because it could get really, I don't think they're going to do this, but it could get really
00:46:58 ◼ ► interesting where Apple approaches almost everybody who's high profile, who's putting games into the
00:47:03 ◼ ► App Store, who has a business model that's a little more, maybe a little more independent minded
00:47:09 ◼ ► and say to them upfront, "Well, we didn't pay for you to develop this for Apple Arcade, but
00:47:17 ◼ ► we will pay you to put it in Apple Arcade for free for our subscribers and we'll kick back this
00:47:24 ◼ ► amount of money to you and you can still sell it in the App Store." I wonder if they'll do that or
00:47:28 ◼ ► experiment with that a little bit, because that does give them the option. It's not all games on
00:47:34 ◼ ► the App Store are free, but they could start depending on, again, how the App Store backend
00:47:39 ◼ ► is structured and all of those things and right now they have to make a duplicate version of the
00:47:44 ◼ ► app and so this might take time, but you could see a scenario where all sorts of games go on the App
00:47:49 ◼ ► Store and if you've got Apple Arcade, they're just free because you've got Apple Arcade.
00:47:59 ◼ ► by the fact that they have done this. I think this is great. This is exactly the kind of thing
00:48:03 ◼ ► they should be doing, which isn't always what we get, right? But I think this is the way to do it.
00:48:08 ◼ ► It's better for everybody. And I'm just super excited about the fact that forensic is coming
00:48:13 ◼ ► back as part of Apple Arcade. Forensic by the Icon Factory. I've forgotten the Icon Factory made this
00:48:19 ◼ ► game. The original forensic was one of my favorite iOS games ever made and I am so excited for the
00:48:26 ◼ ► new version. It's called Forensic Overtime. I don't know when it's coming, but it's coming soon. I saw
00:48:30 ◼ ► that you say that you played it and I'm so jealous of you. I've been playing it since Thanksgiving,
00:48:34 ◼ ► basically. And yeah, it's good. If you like an intense... I was talking to Lauren about this
00:48:42 ◼ ► because she doesn't... She likes puzzle games. I was like, "This is a puzzle game, but there's
00:48:45 ◼ ► a time element." She's like, "Nope, forget it. No. I don't want the pressure of it." It's for
00:48:48 ◼ ► some people who are super into that, like you, I think. Yeah, you're matching colors and shapes and
00:48:55 ◼ ► orientations of the shapes because you're kind of filling up. It's almost like a trivial pursuit
00:49:00 ◼ ► piece. It's got a little pie piece with wedges. And then there's a whole bunch of other... There's
00:49:05 ◼ ► power-ups and there's a couple of different puzzle types and the art is good and the sound effects
00:49:12 ◼ ► are great. It's a lot of fun and they're doing that. When I started beta testing, it was just,
00:49:17 ◼ ► we are working on a new game from the Icon Factory. And then at some point, a few betas in,
00:49:32 ◼ ► I can imagine the Icon Factory, I mean, you don't have to say, but I can imagine them being like,
00:49:37 ◼ ► "We have a game. We would like you to pay us to make it." It was successful in its time.
00:49:43 ◼ ► Because this isn't one of those, it doesn't bring the old game brought back. It is a new
00:49:48 ◼ ► interpretation of an older game. So I'm excited about it. This episode is brought to you by
00:49:53 ◼ ► Pingdom from SolarWinds. If you have a website, what purpose does it serve? Whether it's driving
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00:51:06 ◼ ► So this morning, as we are recording, Tim Cook appeared on Kairo Swisher's podcast Sway,
00:51:14 ◼ ► which is a New York Times thing, but it's Kairo Swisher's podcast. And it's like a 30-something
00:51:20 ◼ ► minute interview. I think maybe you'll agree with me here. I think the whole reason that this
00:51:27 ◼ ► interview was set up was to talk about app tracking transparency in iOS 14.5 and to kind
00:51:34 ◼ ► of get the marketing machine rolling on that. But they also touched on some other areas as well, but
00:51:39 ◼ ► it definitely felt like the part of the interview that was the most polished on Tim's part was
00:51:46 ◼ ► talking about that kind of stuff. And so this is, in case you need a brief refresher, because this
00:51:52 ◼ ► news has been going on for months and we haven't really spoken about it very much, but this is
00:51:58 ◼ ► about the idea of from iOS 14.5 and on, if an application wants to track you using advertising
00:52:08 ◼ ► identifiers, they have to notify you. And so they put up a little system notification that says,
00:52:15 ◼ ► "Hey, this app wants to track you across the web and you can ask it not to track or you can say,
00:52:20 ◼ ► 'Yeah, go ahead and track me.'" That's basically the notification that's popping up. And this has
00:52:26 ◼ ► started a bit of a war of words between especially Facebook and Apple. There are lots of companies
00:52:33 ◼ ► that will be affected by this in some way, like Google, I'm sure, will also be affected by this.
00:52:38 ◼ ► Anybody that runs an ad network will be affected by this. But Apple and Facebook have been the ones
00:52:43 ◼ ► going at it the most. And so that's kind of a lot about what this conversation is focused on.
00:52:50 ◼ ► Tim Cook does say that iOS 14.5 is a few weeks away. This definitely made me think that there
00:52:58 ◼ ► is going to be an event. Will it be an event? Will it be a press releases event? I think a few weeks
00:53:06 ◼ ► away suggests an event to me. What do you think? I don't know about that. There's something coming.
00:53:16 ◼ ► But a product announcement of some kind seems like is inevitable. Oh, a product announcement
00:53:23 ◼ ► definitely. But I mean, I'm just holding by. I still think they're going to have some kind of event.
00:53:28 ◼ ► All right. A quote. All we want to do is supply a tool so that the person that should make the
00:53:33 ◼ ► decision can make it. That's Apple's whole like boiling it down. They think that users should be
00:53:38 ◼ ► able to decide what happens to their data and that larger companies shouldn't be able to make that
00:53:45 ◼ ► decision for them, which is hard to argue with. They think they have a winning argument here.
00:53:58 ◼ ► it's going to hurt small businesses and all that. And what Tim says is actually really good and
00:54:06 ◼ ► smart. And yes, like you said, he's well versed and honed on his message here. But what he says
00:54:11 ◼ ► there is they do this a lot. People who want more information will claim, oh, without this,
00:54:18 ◼ ► we can't do X. We can't do this. You're going to decimate the small businesses. There's no other
00:54:23 ◼ ► way for them to do this. And it's never true, right? Like these things keep happening. There
00:54:30 ◼ ► are always arguments. And I would say he didn't say this, but I will say it. This goes across
00:54:35 ◼ ► so many different industries where there is an extinction level event that's going to occur if
00:54:39 ◼ ► this thing happens and then the thing happens and guess what? Things stay the same or they get
00:54:43 ◼ ► better. And so his argument here is when Facebook holds small businesses hostage and says they will
00:54:51 ◼ ► die if you do this, they're not telling the truth. They're saying it because it's self-serving and
00:54:57 ◼ ► that small businesses can find all sorts of ways to reach people using the miraculous world of
00:55:02 ◼ ► social media and internet media in general without requiring this level of tracking. And again,
00:55:10 ◼ ► as he pointed out, tracking that is allowed if the user approves. But we could also argue
00:55:21 ◼ ► targeted audiences for their products? Yeah, they will. They will. So I appreciated his
00:55:29 ◼ ► very quick response that these arguments are disingenuous and they always make these arguments
00:55:36 ◼ ► and they never pan out. I think there are some shades of gray, but it's not worth getting into
00:55:44 ◼ ► today's conversation. Cook says that he believes that individuals should have control over who has
00:55:51 ◼ ► their data, which is definitely the case. And he also says, which is something I wholeheartedly
00:55:56 ◼ ► agree with you, if you were starting from scratch today, this is how it would be designed.
00:56:05 ◼ ► everybody would have more control of their data and who has it, what it's used for, because we
00:56:11 ◼ ► would be starting with this in mind. But we've had this slow creep over the years of what is expected
00:56:19 ◼ ► by companies for what they are allowed to have of us. And it's gone too far, definitely, and has to
00:56:27 ◼ ► be brought back. Facebook was built with the door wide open. And if you remember when Facebook
00:56:34 ◼ ► started adding security and privacy features, and I remember this very distinctly the first time they
00:56:40 ◼ ► did it, that it was kind of painful to even get to the preferences. And then there were lots of them
00:56:46 ◼ ► and they didn't make a lot of sense. But this is the example of Facebook built a wide open thing
00:56:52 ◼ ► and everything that it's been added has been added sort of kicking and screaming. And you're right,
00:57:01 ◼ ► the, and Tim's right too, a product like this today would be built with a privacy policy
00:57:09 ◼ ► and with defaults and would not be wide open and would be built also around a model that considers
00:57:17 ◼ ► what level of data they're going to be able to get and what they can ask for consent to get.
00:57:23 ◼ ► But this is not the world we live in. We live in a world where Facebook is huge and has a lot of
00:57:30 ◼ ► data. And it's a complicated issue. I appreciate that Tim Cook has got it down. This is what they
00:57:42 ◼ ► say. This is what they're going to say in Congress and what they're going to say in court and what
00:57:45 ◼ ► they're going to say in interviews. And they've thrown this around and they clearly think they've
00:57:50 ◼ ► got a very strong hand here that Facebook is trying to scare people and Apple gets sort of
00:57:57 ◼ ► calmly just sits there and says, well, this isn't true. You should have the right to do this and you
00:58:02 ◼ ► should have, you know, privacy as a human right. And they obviously think that that is a message
00:58:08 ◼ ► with residents. There was a thing about the privacy policy that annoyed me. Like he was
00:58:17 ◼ ► talking about the privacy nutrition labels thing and was talking about how privacy policies have
00:58:25 ◼ ► become unreadable and that's why they're doing it. And I was just reminded of every time I set up an
00:58:33 ◼ ► Apple product, the absolutely behemoth privacy policies that I have to agree to. And that kind
00:58:40 ◼ ► of annoyed me because I mean, I would love to see them give me a privacy nutrition label version of
00:58:48 ◼ ► the privacy policy before I agree to it. But it just kind of felt a bit rich to make that claim
00:58:55 ◼ ► of like, oh, privacy policies not even written in plain English. But yours isn't either. I find that
00:59:01 ◼ ► stuff annoying. Yeah. Are you thinking of privacy policies or are you thinking of software licenses?
00:59:06 ◼ ► A lot of the stuff you agree to is the licenses, which is not the same as privacy policies. But
00:59:12 ◼ ► the point is the same though, right? I mean, what? Like, I don't know what I'm agreeing to
00:59:17 ◼ ► in that document. Who reads them? Maybe that should be Facebook's counter is, well, what about
00:59:24 ◼ ► let's do, let's do clear labels on software license agreements. I agree. Those are full
00:59:30 ◼ ► of lawyers speak and they, if you look closely, a lot of stuff gets copied and pasted from other
00:59:40 ◼ ► I think it's a different argument, but, uh, sure. The line that keeps getting quoted a lot today is,
00:59:46 ◼ ► you know, he says, I am not focused on Facebook, which I, you know, it's, it's a pretty bad-ass
00:59:53 ◼ ► line, honestly, because like, it's just like, oh, your Facebook's doing all this, saying all
00:59:57 ◼ ► this stuff about you. He's like, I'm not focused on them. And Tim also said that he's shocked.
01:00:14 ◼ ► So as well as the act tracking transparency thing, they did touch on a bunch of different areas. So
01:00:20 ◼ ► they spoke about Apple's decision to remove parlor from the app store and cook says he hopes that
01:00:26 ◼ ► parlor would be able to do what's necessary to come back to the app store in the future and said
01:00:30 ◼ ► more social networks is better. Yeah. You know, I don't think he actually believes that, uh,
01:00:39 ◼ ► it is Apple policy that developers who are kicked out of the app store for violating, uh, the, the
01:00:46 ◼ ► guidelines are welcome back once that they, once they fulfill the guidelines again, but as, um,
01:00:53 ◼ ► Kara Swisher had a followup about, um, parlor not wanting to do or have any control over what said
01:01:03 ◼ ► and all of that. Um, it was one of those moments of like, well, yeah, but they're not going to do
01:01:07 ◼ ► that. It's like, but so it's nice. It's nice for you. It's rich for you to say, oh yeah,
01:01:11 ◼ ► we'd like to have them back if they'll moderate their content, um, knowing that they won't.
01:01:16 ◼ ► Uh, they touched on the legal fight with Epic. So they're going to be in court next month. I believe
01:01:20 ◼ ► it's an in-person trial, uh, with some Apple executives, some Epic executives. Personally,
01:01:26 ◼ ► I'm looking forward to this. Um, Cook, uh, basically was painting the picture that most
01:01:39 ◼ ► and the 15% cut for small businesses and says that over time Apple's cut is just going down
01:01:46 ◼ ► and the rules are applied equally. This still stings with me. I still don't like this part.
01:01:53 ◼ ► Well, and this is why Apple has made some of the changes it's made is so that he can say this.
01:01:59 ◼ ► Yeah, you're right. Actually, that's right. Like we, they, they made those changes and we're like,
01:02:06 ◼ ► oh, they're making these changes because they're anticipating scrutiny and trials and, and, uh,
01:02:10 ◼ ► regulation. And, you know, then it, it enables Tim Cook to go out in an interview and say,
01:02:15 ◼ ► well, look, you know, we, oh, the price just keeps coming down. We're, we're, you know,
01:02:19 ◼ ► we're, we, we don't do this. In fact, I was thinking, um, listening to your summary of it,
01:02:32 ◼ ► to make Epic even more angry than they already are? And I thought, I wonder if at some point Apple
01:02:39 ◼ ► will say first purchase of apps is 15%. And the only thing we're going to do at 30% is consumables
01:02:48 ◼ ► is digital consumables. I mean, they could do that just to be like, we're going to just focus it. So
01:02:54 ◼ ► there's no, our rules are applied equally. The only rules are about what, uh, this business,
01:03:04 ◼ ► Amazon prime video. Right. And about them always getting 15%. It's like, oh yeah, all of our video
01:03:11 ◼ ► apps are 15%. And she's like, oh, like Netflix. Yeah. I love that. It's like, yeah, the rules
01:03:15 ◼ ► are applied equally, but the rules aren't a natural being. You make them right. And you just
01:03:21 ◼ ► arbitrarily decided that video streaming services would be 15% always you decided that you could
01:03:30 ◼ ► make any decision. Yeah. The Amazon one was like, oh no, there's no special case for Amazon. That's
01:03:35 ◼ ► just a policy we made about video streaming services that applies largely just to Amazon,
01:03:51 ◼ ► That was quite a quote. Like, well, they have been for a long time, right? Like there's always the,
01:04:10 ◼ ► press releases about economic impact and the number of people who are part of the app, app
01:04:14 ◼ ► economy. And like, this is, I'm not saying it's not true, but this is a narrative that Apple has
01:04:19 ◼ ► been pushing for a long time. And again, one of the reasons it's doing that so that Tim Cook can
01:04:24 ◼ ► say this. And I am not doubting the massive change that they made, right? Like the app store brought,
01:04:34 ◼ ► like, I think it could be argued quite handily without the app store. I wouldn't be doing what
01:04:49 ◼ ► careers that it enabled. But just that, just that phrase, I like bumped on it a little bit. I was
01:04:55 ◼ ► like, oh, that's, that's quite pompous. Like an economic miracle. Okay. We got some interesting
01:05:04 ◼ ► details though, as well. So every week, 100,000 apps go to app review and 40,000 of them are
01:05:11 ◼ ► rejected. And one of the main reasons for this is that they either don't work or they don't work
01:05:17 ◼ ► like they say they would. 40% of applications are rejected. Would you have expected it to be that
01:05:25 ◼ ► high? I can't even judge these because we don't know what the details are. Are these, are these
01:05:30 ◼ ► different apps or are these submissions? Are there a hundred thousand apps submissions and 40,000 of
01:05:35 ◼ ► those are rejected? I know plenty of app developers, they get things rejected all the time, sometimes
01:05:40 ◼ ► for no good reason. And then they resubmit and then it gets approved sometimes for really dumb
01:05:45 ◼ ► reasons. Um, yeah, it'd be good to know how many of those 40% are reversed. What is the, the, the,
01:05:52 ◼ ► like the secondary, uh, part of that, you know, what are these rejections actually permanent
01:05:57 ◼ ► rejections or are they just like, Oh, I have to change some of the metadata in the description?
01:06:01 ◼ ► I just don't, I literally don't know what they're measuring here. So I don't think I have much of an
01:06:06 ◼ ► opinion about it cause I don't know what they're even claiming here other than, other than to claim
01:06:11 ◼ ► that you, what they're really saying here, the story is, well, I, I, I know you hear stories
01:06:16 ◼ ► about bad things in the app store, but suffice it to say that we are exerting a lot of gatekeeping
01:06:23 ◼ ► in order to curate the app store and make it safe for our users and just look, uh, 40% of the,
01:06:30 ◼ ► whatever this is are rejected. So look at the power of our creation. I I'd say that kind of
01:06:36 ◼ ► sidesteps the argument that they allow stuff into the app store that they shouldn't. Um,
01:06:41 ◼ ► and it's unclear what they're even claiming here, but I think that's the, the case he's trying to
01:06:45 ◼ ► make is just to remind people that this is why Apple does what it does is it's protecting you
01:06:50 ◼ ► from these apps that are bad or don't work or are lying to you. I recommend that people do listen to
01:07:00 ◼ ► this interview. Oh yes, they haven't. And one of the reasons I would recommend this is for the
01:07:09 ◼ ► little segment where they talk about future products because I mean, I don't know about you,
01:07:16 ◼ ► but I felt like Tim wasn't totally solid here and stumbled in a couple of ways that if you looked
01:07:30 ◼ ► into them enough, uh, was kind of interesting. Like just the, so basically they're talking about AR
01:07:37 ◼ ► and he says that he's very excited about AR. Kara, I love her confidence, just starts talking
01:07:43 ◼ ► about the mixed reality headset, like just talks about it as if we all know it's happening. And
01:07:48 ◼ ► then Tim starts talking about AR and saying like, if we're in this conversation right now,
01:07:55 ◼ ► uh, we could also see some charts and imagine if your listeners could see them as well. And I'm
01:08:01 ◼ ► kind of like, see them Tim, where, huh? Where am I seeing them? They're doing a video chat,
01:08:08 ◼ ► right? They're on, um, uh, web X cause our, our podcast interviews, we're seeing them on video
01:08:15 ◼ ► and they're seeing us too, right? That's what they do. Um, but it is a weird thing knowing that it's
01:08:20 ◼ ► a audio podcast. Using that as an example is a little bit strange. What I love about it is
01:08:26 ◼ ► Tim Cook, the very serious businessman who runs Apple talking in an interview says, okay, like
01:08:35 ◼ ► in a video chat, think it's like a FaceTime, right? They're like, yeah, Kara, you and me,
01:08:40 ◼ ► I see you, you see me, we talk, it's great, but you know what would be greater is if I could wave
01:08:46 ◼ ► my hand and put up a chart. Really Tim? A chart? Let me show you the customer sat on the iPhone.
01:08:56 ◼ ► Look at that. Look at that number now. And he waves it away. Now it's gone. Like I just,
01:09:01 ◼ ► I love this little example as a, I know it's probably not, but like as a peek into Tim Cook's
01:09:07 ◼ ► mind, whereas like reality would be so much better if we could call up charts and have them float in
01:09:13 ◼ ► the air around us while we're talking to other people. I think I want to believe he thinks that
01:09:24 ◼ ► bring your data with you. In fact, float it like a hologram. That's what I want to see.
01:09:34 ◼ ► like it just felt like it was really kind of, to me anyway, leaning a little towards this idea of
01:09:39 ◼ ► like, we're working on something where you'll be able to see something, right? Like it's, this is,
01:09:44 ◼ ► this is where we're going now. It didn't feel so much the usual, like, hey, we don't talk about
01:09:51 ◼ ► products in our future and who knows what the future may hold. It seems a little bit more now,
01:10:03 ◼ ► but this is the thing that reminds me of, and, and, you know, everybody remember before the
01:10:08 ◼ ► Apple watch came out, Tim talking about how the wrist wearables is a big thing and the wrist is
01:10:14 ◼ ► an area of particular interest. Like, yeah, this is what Apple does when they are, when, when there's
01:10:25 ◼ ► to announce yet. They start to acknowledge their interest in a category because it doesn't give
01:10:32 ◼ ► anything away about what the product is, but it does sort of acknowledge the fact that this
01:10:38 ◼ ► reporting is going on and essentially that it's accurate, at least in the broadest sense, which is,
01:10:43 ◼ ► you know, and this isn't new. He's been saying for a while now, of course, AR is an interest and
01:10:54 ◼ ► they've got a product and he's not ready to talk about it, but he's ready to talk about all the
01:10:58 ◼ ► reasons why AR is great. And then also the car, like a car project. So, references he has respect
01:11:08 ◼ ► for Tesla as a company and then says, you know, Carl's questioning him about cars, autonomy,
01:11:19 ◼ ► We'll see what Apple does. Yeah. I like this because the context he's putting on the car
01:11:26 ◼ ► project is, of course, we're looking at a car. Everybody knows we're looking at cars, but
01:11:31 ◼ ► we don't always make products when we're looking at something in that area. It doesn't always turn
01:11:39 ◼ ► into a product. And that's how he's setting the expectations about the car is he's not saying they
01:11:44 ◼ ► haven't looked at and aren't looking at cars. And she says, you bought an AI driving startup. Like,
01:11:50 ◼ ► come on. And I appreciate that he doesn't really deny it. He's like, we look at lots of stuff.
01:11:56 ◼ ► It doesn't mean it's going to be a product. And I honestly, the impression I get is that's sort
01:12:02 ◼ ► of where this product is, that the AR product is coming. The car, they're working on it,
01:12:07 ◼ ► but it's not at a point where like they're certain that they're going to do it. And I think that is
01:12:12 ◼ ► Apple's process. They're not even ready to be secretive about it yet. They're willing to say,
01:12:18 ◼ ► oh, I don't know, maybe. And what's the, I think Apple's famous secrecy, right, is about product
01:12:23 ◼ ► detail and product secrecy. I think this is an acknowledgement just as that Apple Watch statement
01:12:30 ◼ ► about the risk being an area of interest was an acknowledgement that Apple is happy to talk about
01:12:35 ◼ ► areas that they're enthusiastic about for the future that might be areas Apple's interested in.
01:12:42 ◼ ► Like it's willing to go that far, which is not something that was necessarily true before. I
01:12:47 ◼ ► don't think, correct me if I'm wrong, I don't think Steve Jobs said to Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher
01:12:52 ◼ ► on stage at the D conference back in the day, oh yeah, a bigger iPhone would be interesting,
01:12:58 ◼ ► wouldn't it? You know, yes, tablet computing, very interesting. I don't think he went even that far,
01:13:06 ◼ ► right? But Tim Cook's willing to go to that point, but no further. And I think this car statement is
01:13:12 ◼ ► very much in line with what we think we know about this, which is they're working on something,
01:13:16 ◼ ► but it's not really close. And they're probably not even sure if it's a real thing yet.
01:13:26 ◼ ► when you hear him say it, it's like, whoa, hang on. But then think, 10 years is a long time,
01:13:36 ◼ ► right? This year is Tim's 10th year of being CEO. In August of this year, it would have been 10
01:13:58 ◼ ► the world's largest in some measures company for a decade. And I think what he said was,
01:14:05 ◼ ► the end isn't in sight. I don't have any immediate plans of any kind, but 10 years is a long time.
01:14:12 ◼ ► And I'm thinking, and you're 70 in 10 years. And although 65 isn't the retirement age that it used
01:14:18 ◼ ► to be, at the same time, he has obviously made a lot of money in a very high stress job. I do
01:14:27 ◼ ► wonder about his personality, if he's really gonna be able to retire, or if it's more like,
01:14:32 ◼ ► just take a step back, do some corporate boards, do some philanthropy, and stop grinding quite
01:14:44 ◼ ► - Would not surprise me, right? Look at Bob Iger, that kind of thing, where there's a long-time CEO
01:14:51 ◼ ► takes a step back, but is still around, at least for a while. That wouldn't surprise me. But at the
01:14:57 ◼ ► same time, yeah. Does he wanna be 20 years CEO of Apple and still working at Apple when he's 70?
01:15:10 ◼ ► and it's not soon, but he can't see him being there in 10 years. And that's, yeah, you're right.
01:15:18 ◼ ► I think I share, what surprised me is that he didn't hedge about it. That was the surprise.
01:15:24 ◼ ► The surprise thing is not what he said, which is 10 years, essentially when I'm 70, nah,
01:15:29 ◼ ► I'll be retired by then. I'm surprised he said it, instead of just saying, well, you never know,
01:15:56 ◼ ► And it's in the same way that I could imagine someone like him still being CEO in 10 years time,
01:16:15 ◼ ► - I was gonna say, unless he wants to be the secretary of commerce or something, but yeah.
01:16:19 ◼ ► Actually, what I envision is he says, "Carat, but imagine if we were in augmented reality,
01:16:24 ◼ ► I could bring up a chart about the average retirement age and how it's changed over time."
01:16:30 ◼ ► - And what a shame. But you know, I was like, I'm intrigued. I mean, you know, Apple obviously
01:16:37 ◼ ► has this history, which is odd, right? Their CEOship as a company, it's just been a very
01:16:54 ◼ ► - Which means that Tim is fast approaching like a quarter or whatever. No, it's not fast
01:17:04 ◼ ► sat down as CEO. I mean, he was in ill health, but there is at least that idea of Tim could
01:17:10 ◼ ► one day just stop being CEO and just be involved in the things he wants to be involved in.
01:17:15 ◼ ► Which I imagine him doing, I think maybe sooner rather than later. Who knows? We'll see.
01:17:30 ◼ ► - And I'd imagine if you add in the time when he was COO and operations guy, like he's been
01:17:39 ◼ ► grinding. The truth is he is a grinder. It's always going to be a part of him, but he's
01:17:54 ◼ ► - But like the work treadmill a little bit, you know, go to more college football games,
01:18:08 ◼ ► - Right. Like who's to, that makes sense, right? I think you want a little reward after you've
01:18:17 ◼ ► reached the top. So yeah, I think it's not unreasonable at all. I'm just surprised that
01:18:21 ◼ ► he said it out loud. Because it will begin a larger conversation about succession planning
01:18:27 ◼ ► and Apple and all that. But I do appreciate that he said, you know, nobody get excited.
01:18:31 ◼ ► It's not going to happen soon. Ten years is a very long time and I don't see myself doing this job
01:18:43 ◼ ► if you were being like, oh, yes, I'll take it. Because he was one of those people referenced in
01:18:58 ◼ ► - This is a short interview really considering the amount of stuff covered. It's like 30
01:19:04 ◼ ► something minutes. I will say it's one of my favorite Tim Cook interviews because it was
01:19:14 ◼ ► where Tim is usually in environments where it's more mainstream media and she presses him in just
01:19:21 ◼ ► the right way to get some of the answers that she wants. So I really liked her. I really recommend
01:19:38 ◼ ► And she's a really good interviewer. And I would say, I think Tim Cook has gotten so good at this
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01:21:38 ◼ ► to finish out this week's episode and the first comes from Chadwick. Chadwick says on last week's
01:21:45 ◼ ► episode Jason referred to inserting a "bunch of TKs" when writing to remind him that he needed
01:21:52 ◼ ► to check something before publishing. What does this mean? That was a little easter egg
01:21:58 ◼ ► for people out there and I phrased it in a way that you didn't need to ask but I guess people
01:22:04 ◼ ► asked. In journalism it is common for a whole bunch of, there are a whole bunch of things that
01:22:09 ◼ ► are used by journalists to mark stuff as not being for public viewing and they're all, I believe the
01:22:21 ◼ ► tradition is they're all misspelled. They're all things that don't come up in actual language very
01:22:30 ◼ ► often in English anyway and the idea there is if you write, so like my the year after I left,
01:22:38 ◼ ► it wasn't on my watch, my college newspaper had, they were laying out their sports page and they
01:22:46 ◼ ► had a bunch of fake headlines and the headlines read like real headlines. I believe the one that
01:22:51 ◼ ► was particularly bad was "track pulls up lame" but they're all joke headlines because the stories
01:23:02 ◼ ► weren't in yet and what happened is the stories came in and I think they even updated the headlines
01:23:10 ◼ ► but there were two versions of the page. There was the page that had the bad headlines on it and the
01:23:14 ◼ ► page that had the real content on it that wasn't fake and just placeholder stuff and the person
01:23:20 ◼ ► pasting up the page couldn't tell the difference and thought that the fake one was real.
01:23:24 ◼ ► This is why you don't do that. This is why you have your headlines have TK in them or question
01:23:30 ◼ ► marks or other things that are misspelled and so a tradition in journalism is you put these markers
01:23:36 ◼ ► in that everybody knows means they're not real and don't send that to the internet. Don't put that in
01:23:42 ◼ ► the paper. Don't do it. TK stands for "I believe to come" except with a K. Why? Because TK is not
01:23:53 ◼ ► a letter combination that is common and it became a standard thing to refer to missing information
01:24:02 ◼ ► in stories. So you might be writing a story and you need a comment from somebody and when you're
01:24:06 ◼ ► writing on your story it says "company comment TK" or "name of person TK" or sometimes I had
01:24:14 ◼ ► this happen where I'm writing on my iPad and there's a thing I need to look up on the Mac.
01:24:19 ◼ ► I need to very specifically say like "use this menu to go to this thing to go to this thing"
01:24:23 ◼ ► and I'm not on a Mac right then and I don't want to break my writing flow and I'll just put in like
01:24:29 ◼ ► "Mac menu TK". Other things that journalists do, headlines are often referred to as heads HED.
01:24:44 ◼ ► Paragraphs by the way are graphs G-R-A-F. These are all journalism terms but they're also
01:24:52 ◼ ► misspelled intentionally so that when you see them you know "don't print that". So the TK's thing is
01:25:01 ◼ ► like literally "this isn't done yet, this isn't ready, fill this in later" and it also has become
01:25:08 ◼ ► to mean I think for a lot of journalists over time it's funny because one it's your own personal
01:25:14 ◼ ► struggles of "oh boy I haven't finished this thing yet I still got all these TKs in there"
01:25:18 ◼ ► and also if you've ever worked with somebody who's a procrastinator or is very late with their work
01:25:23 ◼ ► or misses deadlines it can become a kind of rueful joke about that we had a person who blew all their
01:25:30 ◼ ► deadlines in journalism school and we had a going away thing for our professor who was leaving the
01:25:36 ◼ ► journalism school at the end of the semester and one of the jokes in the thing that we made for
01:25:42 ◼ ► him was that there was a whole little box that was by one of our fellow students who was always late
01:25:47 ◼ ► with their work and the box had a big headline and a picture and then a large space for a story
01:25:53 ◼ ► and it just said "Story TK" and we all had a good laugh and I remember it all this time later
01:25:59 ◼ ► because it was pretty funny. Anyway that's the story of the TKs it just means it's a placeholder
01:26:04 ◼ ► and before I worked in my college newspaper I would do it with question marks I just have a
01:26:09 ◼ ► bunch of question marks because again very clearly not a thing but TK is what is just generally used
01:26:16 ◼ ► culturally. I also use brackets a lot I put like three or four brackets around a note to myself
01:26:21 ◼ ► as a way of like there's you know I'm not gonna miss this that there's the minute you've seen this
01:26:26 ◼ ► because you've read my drafts yeah I'll often like do multi brackets and notes to myself and that's
01:26:30 ◼ ► because that part is it will jump out at me there's there's no mark down for four brackets
01:26:38 ◼ ► it's just like hey this part's not done. The more you need to remember the more brackets there are
01:26:45 ◼ ► yeah exactly eight brackets twenty brackets oh boy that's a bad one. TK is particularly useful
01:26:50 ◼ ► because it's easy to search too right like you're searching yeah well that's that's it it's an
01:26:55 ◼ ► uncommon letter combination and that's part of the reason that that exists. Mikhail asks last week you
01:27:01 ◼ ► were answering the question of which iPad Pro somebody should buy but you didn't consider the
01:27:05 ◼ ► iPad Air was there any reason for that? It was an oversight I mean I was just thinking about
01:27:12 ◼ ► comparing the iPad Pros which because that's usually the way that you would compare the
01:27:16 ◼ ► iPads but of course the iPad Air does fit more in the iPad Pro bracket at the moment you know we
01:27:23 ◼ ► spoke about this when it came out. I want to give just a quick overview again for like why you may
01:27:27 ◼ ► or may not want to consider the iPad Air instead of an iPad Pro so looks very similar right as very
01:27:34 ◼ ► comparable specs it has in some ways a more modern processor the design is great it has magic keyboard
01:27:47 ◼ ► has the cool Apple pencil 2 charging on the top it lacks ProMotion which is the high refresh rate
01:27:53 ◼ ► display has two speakers instead of four touch id instead of face id that could be a pro or con
01:27:59 ◼ ► I would say having used the iPad specifically the iPad is best for face id face id works better on
01:28:05 ◼ ► the iPad than on the iPhone for me. The iPad Air starts at $599 instead of $799 like the iPad Pro
01:28:22 ◼ ► it maxes out at 256 gigabytes of storage which is then $150 cheaper than the 11 inch iPad Pro
01:28:30 ◼ ► rather than $200 so it's a good deal not a home run but yeah they asked about comparing the iPad
01:28:38 ◼ ► Pros which is why we compared the iPad Pros the iPad Air. That's what I was going to say yeah much
01:28:41 ◼ ► shorter answer which is but they didn't ask about the iPad Air. I know but I I I I'm sorry question
01:28:47 ◼ ► I do wish I would have at least brought up the iPad Air as another consideration. For me the iPad
01:28:53 ◼ ► Pro is still a better device and I think worth the $150 premium because the $200 difference like I
01:29:00 ◼ ► don't think people should be buying a 64 gigabyte iPad I just do not I think like you want to put
01:29:06 ◼ ► video on this thing eventually when you're going somewhere and you're just going to run out of space
01:29:10 ◼ ► so fast so I think that you would want to look at the 256 and then you've got $150 difference
01:29:17 ◼ ► and I think for me the speakers the promotion display and the face ID warrant the premium but
01:29:25 ◼ ► it's up to you. Rajeev asks do you think that Apple should revert the iOS 14 method used to
01:29:34 ◼ ► input and adjust time and go back to the scroll wheels? Wow I don't think I have much of an opinion
01:29:40 ◼ ► about this. I think it's a little clunky I think they did it for compatibility reasons on the Mac
01:29:48 ◼ ► but on a touch device the I thought the wheels were actually pretty good and I have run into
01:29:55 ◼ ► that thing where suddenly instead of picking from a calendar picker I'm typing dates into a date
01:30:03 ◼ ► field that's no good so I don't I don't know all the details here it doesn't come up with me a lot
01:30:08 ◼ ► I haven't formed a really deep opinion about it but whatever they did isn't it isn't better it's
01:30:15 ◼ ► just different and I think they did it primarily because they wanted some compatibility across
01:30:22 ◼ ► devices but it's a lesser interface if you're on a touch device I guess I would say. My preference
01:30:31 ◼ ► is the current version. I much prefer it I like being I like being able to type the time in
01:30:38 ◼ ► and I like getting the full date picker so I can swipe through months and hit the date that I want
01:30:44 ◼ ► and also see dates what day they are in the week and a calendar for you rather than the
01:30:48 ◼ ► tumble rolling things. You can again I know you know this but I would just say before we
01:30:56 ◼ ► to alleviate the follow-up it is kind of possible to scroll the current version but it's difficult
01:31:03 ◼ ► it's nowhere near as comfortable to do I do do it sometimes but I will typically type the time in.
01:31:10 ◼ ► So here's my answer for Rajiv do I think Apple should revert? No I don't I think they should
01:31:17 ◼ ► make it better but I don't think they should revert it and go back to the old way. No I think
01:31:21 ◼ ► refinements of the current version will be better than going back to the old version because I think
01:31:27 ◼ ► honestly like I'd never really thought about it but as soon as those spinning tumbling things
01:31:32 ◼ ► were gone I was super happy because they're so clunky and old and they should think of new ways
01:31:37 ◼ ► to do things. Whether this current way is the right way or not is up for debate but that is like
01:31:42 ◼ ► one of the oldest paradigms of iOS design that still stuck around. We just blew the minds of
01:31:49 ◼ ► people in the discord which is I think one of my criticisms of the design is that although you can
01:31:53 ◼ ► spin those numbers it's so easy to tap in them and then you're doing text entry which I think is not
01:31:59 ◼ ► the best although people can differ about that. So one of the things I would say is can we make
01:32:04 ◼ ► that more discoverable? Yeah it's not not very discoverable at all. And Stitch asked what is
01:32:10 ◼ ► a feature that Apple could put on the new iPad Pro that will blow you away? Thunderbolt ports on the
01:32:17 ◼ ► side instead of the bottom or bottom instead of the side depends on your orientation I guess but
01:32:24 ◼ ► like more horizontalness. Is that a thing? Blow me away I don't know you've got something in the doc
01:32:32 ◼ ► that I have to. I mean look if we're looking for blow me away right there's blow me away which is
01:32:37 ◼ ► yeah what if they what if they did like classic in the Mac OS 10 where you could sort of like
01:32:42 ◼ ► run a Mac in a you know just have a Mac view that's like Mac OS. Right so Mac OS. Blow me away is
01:32:48 ◼ ► Mac OS support right that's that's part one. Blow me away part two is a full external display mode
01:32:55 ◼ ► that uses windowing for iPad OS apps. Oh windowing yeah so I think that's my number one wish feature
01:33:03 ◼ ► is proper external display mode however it is formed that's the one I'm not sure that's really
01:33:09 ◼ ► enabled by hardware really but it might be a new feature of the of an iPad Pro though you know what
01:33:16 ◼ ► I mean that's that's fine with me yeah which I think that if they do a full external display
01:33:21 ◼ ► thing they will do it it's like hey this is part of the new iPad Pro and the windowing thing was
01:33:27 ◼ ► something that I thought up today of like I was thinking about the external display mode and was
01:33:32 ◼ ► thinking if I would kind of want to be able to take more advantage of a much larger screen and I
01:33:38 ◼ ► don't think just making single view iPad apps full screen is what I want because I don't like full
01:33:45 ◼ ► screen mode on the Mac whilst I also have mentioned before I find windows to be a bit messy it is
01:33:53 ◼ ► better than on a large screen than just using one app at a time for in my own personal yeah we
01:33:58 ◼ ► argued about this a long time ago on a previous episode where you basically said windowing feels
01:34:07 ◼ ► that the reason we haven't gotten proper external display mode on iPad OS is not that they have been
01:34:12 ◼ ► struggling with finding the right way to handle iPad OS apps displaying on a very large monitor
01:34:19 ◼ ► right like how do you do that in a way that makes sense and it probably requires if not pure
01:34:24 ◼ ► windowing some sort of snapped or tiled you know if you can imagine fitting two or three different
01:34:30 ◼ ► iPad apps on that external display do they appear as little windows that are literally just the
01:34:36 ◼ ► screen size of an iPad and do they kind of like magnetically snap together and things it's a hard
01:34:42 ◼ ► problem and getting an external out on an iPad is actually not only can you do it now but I'm sure
01:34:50 ◼ ► they could do without mirroring now I'm sure they could but what goes on that screen and right now
01:34:54 ◼ ► it would be one or two apps at full screen and it's no good like that's no good that's not good
01:35:01 ◼ ► enough and so I think that's where the hurdle is is the UI in the software for how you manage apps
01:35:08 ◼ ► running on a big external screen but that would be my number one too although running running Mac OS
01:35:13 ◼ ► on an iPad is hilarious and yes that would be awesome sure if you would like to send in a
01:35:18 ◼ ► question for us to answer on the episode just send out a tweet with the hashtag ask upgrade or
01:35:23 ◼ ► use question mark ask upgrade in the relay fm members discord which you get access to if you
01:35:28 ◼ ► sign up for upgrade plus where you will also get longer ad-free versions of every episode
01:35:33 ◼ ► just go to getupgradeplus.com to sign out more and sign up and thank you so much if you do
01:35:39 ◼ ► I would also like to thank our sponsors for this week's episode that is the fine folk over
01:35:44 ◼ ► at pdfpem from smile pingdom and memberful uh Jason before we go would you like to tell our
01:35:50 ◼ ► listeners about another relay fm show yeah you should check out top four uh this is hosted by
01:35:56 ◼ ► the armance tiff and marco um you may know marco from being tiff's husband um and they make top
01:36:04 ◼ ► four lists of just about anything I've been on a few times we did a member special where we listed
01:36:09 ◼ ► our top four salad items items that go in a salad we did a classic one where lauren and I joined
01:36:14 ◼ ► tiff and marco and we tasted at the time every flavor but one of uh lakroy uh seltzers oh boy
01:36:23 ◼ ► there is a lot of burping after that um it's a really funny fun thing uh listening to husband
01:36:29 ◼ ► and wife trying out all sorts of strange things and then and then ranking them in a top four list
01:36:35 ◼ ► that is often not for long that's part of the joy of it so indulge in the sheer randomness of top
01:36:41 ◼ ► four uh check it out relay.fm top four it's fun it's fun don't you need more fun in your life
01:36:47 ◼ ► or just search for top four wherever you get your podcasts if you want to find jason online you can
01:36:53 ◼ ► go to sixcolors.com and the incomparable.com and jason hosts many shows here on relay fm
01:36:58 ◼ ► as do i jason is at jay snell online i am at i mike i m y k e and we'll be back next time until