00:00:08 ◼ ► From Relay FM, this is Upgrade, episode 337. Today's show is brought to you by PDF pen from Smile, Bombus and Microsoft Lists.
00:00:29 ◼ ► This one comes from John and John wants to know, "What is the first app that you open on your iPhone every morning?
00:00:38 ◼ ► Interesting question that I have a frustrating answer for, which is I don't open my iPhone every morning.
00:00:45 ◼ ► I don't unlock my iPhone. I don't sleep next to my iPhone. My iPhone is in the kitchen.
00:01:00 ◼ ► It doesn't change based on day of the week because I am a person who lives in my home, works in my home, never leaves my home.
00:01:19 ◼ ► I don't know. It's just all blurred together, so it's pretty much the same every morning regardless.
00:01:26 ◼ ► The app I open on the iPad is either, it's usually Slack because I want to see what the people I know are talking about and what's going on.
00:01:39 ◼ ► And there's usually an alert where somebody has direct messaged me on Slack or oftentimes I'm awakened to Steve and Hackett posting a funny post from one of the various e-book bots that speak in our voices,
00:02:03 ◼ ► But I will usually do that because first thing in the morning, the last thing I want to do is check Twitter immediately and have everything that's terrible in the world reflected to me.
00:02:30 ◼ ► My iPhone just sort of sits there unless there's something very specific that I want out of it.
00:02:53 ◼ ► I did think that that was your answer, but I seemed to remember that you were a phone not in the bedroom person.
00:03:04 ◼ ► But I wanted to use this episode as a, this question as a way to confirm that and then see where you were going with it.
00:03:09 ◼ ► For me, typically, I guess the first app that I would tend to open is the clock app to turn off my many alarms once I'm awake.
00:03:21 ◼ ► But the real answer that people are looking for is, I guess, I look at my notifications and see what is the most important thing from those to deal with first.
00:03:34 ◼ ► That's the real answer for me, too, is that I see notification center on the lock screen.
00:03:44 ◼ ► So sometimes that'll be a text message that came in overnight or it's a Slack DM or it's a headline from a news source or it's an email and it catches my eye and I'm like, oh, and it ends up being.
00:03:59 ◼ ► There's somebody at Apple working on notifications center who's like, yes, yes, that's the right answer.
00:04:04 ◼ ► If you would like to send in a Snowtalk question to help us open an episode of the show, just send out a tweet with the hashtag Snowtalk or use question mark Snowtalk in the relay FM members discord and it may be included.
00:04:26 ◼ ► You said to listeners, to upgrade not to unsubscribe from that feed, even though the 20 max for 2020 program, I think, what would we call it?
00:04:41 ◼ ► I love you saying that because I know you're saying it with the extra M E at the end of it because it's British and it makes me feel very special.
00:04:49 ◼ ► And so you have actually gone ahead and used the 20 max of 2020 feeds and are going to for some like additional commentary and deleted scenes.
00:05:00 ◼ ► I was not lying when I said I didn't know what would go in it, but that people should keep it around and I didn't have any plans.
00:05:16 ◼ ► And while they weren't intended to be released as complete things, I think they're interesting.
00:05:24 ◼ ► And I didn't use most of the material like the, the, I did a lot, many, many hours of interviews and only portions of them are in the show.
00:05:34 ◼ ► So what I, I'm going to do at least a little bit, not all the interviews are worth it because a lot of them are really much like I say the name of a computer and somebody talks about it for five minutes and it's not a conversation.
00:05:50 ◼ ► And, and the longest sessions I did for the whole project were my conversations with John Syracuse.
00:05:58 ◼ ► And so I talked to John and I said, would you be okay with me releasing the raw conversation?
00:06:06 ◼ ► So I gave, I, I'm, I'm listening to them and taking out the parts where his dog starts barking and stuff like that.
00:06:18 ◼ ► One was sort of like a follow-up where I wanted to talk a little bit more about multi-processing and all of that to get a little more raw material for a very particular episode.
00:06:34 ◼ ► So the first hour plus of that is in that feed for members, for upgrade members and Six Colors members.
00:06:52 ◼ ► And if I think there's other stuff in there worth, uh, worth going through and getting out into the world and I'll check with the people involved to make sure they're okay with that.
00:07:08 ◼ ► But, um, when I was looking at the stuff that I was doing with, uh, with John, I thought this is basically a podcast.
00:07:17 ◼ ► Like what people will really like this and, and I can, I can get it in a, in a, in shape where it's, even though it's, it's literally just talking through number 20 and then number 19 and then number 18, but with, with asides and tangents and all sorts of stuff in there.
00:07:39 ◼ ► I don't know when, I don't know what the schedule is going to be, but if you're, if you deleted that feed and you're interested in hearing kind of this extra stuff, uh, it get it back.
00:07:48 ◼ ► You can log in to your account at relay if you're an upgrade member or at six colors, if you're a six colors member.
00:07:55 ◼ ► I also put a link in the show notes that you can just tap it and just log in and you'll be able to go to the feed.
00:08:10 ◼ ► It's, it's not, it's not a re-edit or an expanded version or anything like that, but you know, with the, with the, the scripted style journalistic podcast format, which is what 20 max for 2020 was, you know, even when I let John Sirocuso talk, I'm letting him talk for a minute.
00:08:31 ◼ ► And I'm, he might've talked for 20 minutes about that particular Mac, but I only use the parts, you know, it's, it's, it's meant to be just the little highlights and weaving it together and telling a story.
00:08:51 ◼ ► Just, uh, keep it around and or, or subscribe back to it and it'll pop up there eventually too.
00:09:06 ◼ ► Uh, so why don't we take our first break now, and then we can jump into talking about, uh, the Q1, the bumper Q1 earnings.
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00:10:40 ◼ ► So give a pair when you buy a pair and get 20% off your first purchase at bombas.com/upgrade.
00:11:15 ◼ ► It was that it was expected that Apple would cross a hundred billion dollars in revenue, which was higher than any possible guidance and will be the first time that they've done it in history.
00:12:01 ◼ ► Yeah, like I was digging around today, but the date would have been too far back for me to find something relevant.
00:12:13 ◼ ► Like just like they did an entire quarter's worth of jump over the last previous quarter.
00:13:03 ◼ ► The iPhone saw $65.6 billion in revenue, making it the largest iPhone quarter in history.
00:14:12 ◼ ► also helps as being a decent reason as to why this was the largest quarter in Apple's history.
00:14:56 ◼ ► It's not that the Mac and the iPad are not great, huge businesses, but the iPhone generates
00:15:26 ◼ ► cutting back on a production of the iPhone 12 mini and everybody who likes small phones
00:15:45 ◼ ► It means it's selling lower than expectation and it's a question of whether that's actually
00:16:11 ◼ ► All we get is revenue, which means that you can't actually construct what we used to be
00:16:16 ◼ ► able to construct, which was an average selling price, the average price of an iPhone, which
00:16:40 ◼ ► And I think part of what Apple was doing here was sort of sending that signal without giving
00:16:49 ◼ ► The average selling price went up, but they said especially great demand for the Pro models,
00:16:57 ◼ ► So I think they're sort of trying to tell Wall Street, trying to tell all the investors
00:17:01 ◼ ► that even though they make these cheaper phones, the non-Pro models, that the greatest demand
00:17:15 ◼ ► They're really fueling increased average selling price and that means more profit for Apple
00:17:22 ◼ ► It strikes me that's interesting also because when people are talking about, well, you know,
00:17:29 ◼ ► It's like, well, nobody said that about the 12 and the 12 seems to be the mainstream phone
00:17:33 ◼ ► and you would think that the 12 would probably be the best seller of all of them, but Apple
00:17:44 ◼ ► I don't know what it means, but it gives me pause at least that maybe some of our assumptions
00:17:50 ◼ ► about how we think the spread of sales of these products is not, needs to be recalibrated
00:17:59 ◼ ► greatest demand and maybe it's just trying to tell everybody, yes, we make cheaper iPhones
00:18:24 ◼ ► And I'm sure that having more choice than they've had maybe ever in the iPhone line has
00:18:35 ◼ ► And, you know, they may have over forecast the iPhone 12 mini, but I can't imagine that
00:18:59 ◼ ► If that makes sense, I think the mini, the 12 mini exists in a, in a universe where there
00:19:12 ◼ ► Not every iPhone, first off, not every iPhone literally can be the best-selling iPhone,
00:19:29 ◼ ► That's the whole point of selling five brand new iPhones, which they released five brand
00:19:43 ◼ ► It's not meant to, now, maybe it's a total flop and they're like, well, why are we even
00:19:54 ◼ ► They want a range and they want to let people, it's not like it's a different size, but the
00:20:03 ◼ ► And I would, I also do subscribe to the policy or the the view, let's say that first off,
00:20:10 ◼ ► a lot of the pent up demand for a small phone was bled away by the release of the SE second
00:20:18 ◼ ► And those people, if they had not had that release, they might've waited around and gotten
00:20:22 ◼ ► the 12 mini and two, the 12 mini people are probably as the 12 people, actually the non
00:20:29 ◼ ► pro buyers, probably not as likely to be the buyers who rush in first thing, a new iPhone
00:20:42 ◼ ► I would say again, not everyone, but I think more, more of a tendency to be the, the, the
00:20:58 ◼ ► quarters compared to the pro models than they did in this first quarter, if that makes sense.
00:21:04 ◼ ► And the mini, especially like, I think people who are going to buy that phone, they're like,
00:21:16 ◼ ► And, and so I think, you know, take it easy, uh, pent up demand for people who are like
00:21:21 ◼ ► the most enthusiastic iPhone buyers is not the whole market and having four or five phones
00:21:28 ◼ ► Um, so I think that I, I think that it's possible that the mini is just a dog and nobody likes
00:21:35 ◼ ► it, but I think it's more far more likely that it is exactly what we think it is, which
00:21:49 ◼ ► In his daily update last week, Ben Thompson focused on China with the iPhone a lot, um,
00:22:22 ◼ ► Uh, I can understand maybe why 5g was given the prevalence for Apple that it was if like
00:22:51 ◼ ► And we all look at each other and are like, uh, and it's like, well, no, but it's China.
00:22:58 ◼ ► Like every phone in China is a 5g phone and they've got, had a big 5g rollout and people
00:23:04 ◼ ► And there are iPhone users in China who are holding out because they want the 5g phone,
00:23:21 ◼ ► Externally and it sells better, especially in China, but really everywhere, because then
00:23:33 ◼ ► And you put those two together and, and, and Apple releases phones that are 5g and look
00:23:48 ◼ ► Ben also mentioned something that I hadn't thought of before, which is, this is the first
00:23:52 ◼ ► big notched phone with a new design because the 10s max existed, but it was just a bigger
00:24:09 ◼ ► And this is a bigger phone, the biggest phone, and it looks new, would drive a lot of upgrades.
00:24:18 ◼ ► So Huawei, you know, they are, you may not have known Huawei were the biggest, uh, manufacturer
00:24:42 ◼ ► And so it seems like potentially Apple is taking up room left by Huawei as well in China.
00:24:52 ◼ ► There's some indication that Apple is literally, um, eating some of Huawei's market in China
00:25:03 ◼ ► And that's, you know, that's a, that's a recurring theme in the results and in the conversation
00:25:13 ◼ ► I talked about it here before, you know, we all know the effect where Apple comes out with
00:25:16 ◼ ► record results and their stock goes down and people complain about why, why is the stock
00:25:38 ◼ ► They've stopped doing forecasts during COVID because they they're like, this is too uncertain
00:25:48 ◼ ► But one of the things you also have to know when you look at this stuff is that the primary
00:25:55 ◼ ► factor, the lens through which Wall Street, you know, investment in general looks at companies
00:26:15 ◼ ► And Apple's gotten beaten up over that for a while now because of course the iPhone growth
00:26:26 ◼ ► And then after the iPhone six cycle went and everybody did that, you know, cause that was
00:26:36 ◼ ► And then the numbers came down and everybody's like, Oh no, the iPhone isn't growing anymore.
00:26:49 ◼ ► So it is growing again, but it had a peak and then it kind of tailed off and it's growing
00:27:09 ◼ ► Cause I think Apple realizes Apple executives realize that they've gotten beaten up a little
00:27:12 ◼ ► bit the last few years where people look at 110 plus billion dollars in revenue and say,
00:27:46 ◼ ► Tim Cook said, look, in most of these markets, we are not, we do not have an enormous market
00:27:58 ◼ ► They have talked for a while now as a part of this about what percentage of their buyers,
00:28:08 ◼ ► They've started talking about their installed base, which is like active devices in use.
00:28:31 ◼ ► So we should talk about the Mac a little bit more is he very specifically said, Tim Cook
00:30:15 ◼ ► one to one, but for as many people as have smartphones in the world, there are computers
00:30:31 ◼ ► There's a lot of potential market there, like a massive potential market there in personal
00:30:52 ◼ ► But they could find two, two, three, four times the amount that they're currently doing.
00:30:58 ◼ ► Yeah, and I think their argument is iPad growth, and they talk about that a lot, that there
00:31:11 ◼ ► that want to have a simpler device in a way that's easier to maintain but that they can
00:31:17 ◼ ► So that's part of their strategy is to replace PCs and businesses with iPads and not necessarily
00:31:32 ◼ ► They were talking about how in India, they had, I forget what it was, they had a really
00:31:46 ◼ ► And services continues to grow and they keep adding new services and wearables has done
00:31:57 ◼ ► Now again, I'm not saying this is all true or at least all going to happen the way they
00:32:33 ◼ ► They made $111 billion in revenue and generated $28.7 billion in profit in three months.
00:32:44 ◼ ► And the answer is because they're a publicly held company and growth is the language that
00:33:40 ◼ ► Mac really does give them a, uh, an advantage over the competition that they couldn't have
00:34:19 ◼ ► Whereas even with just the M1, which I'll remind everybody, it's the low end Apple Silicon
00:34:46 ◼ ► literally you could look up the part number and say, well, that part number is also available
00:34:55 ◼ ► And I think it's, I think there's an interesting question of who buys windows PCs and why do
00:35:01 ◼ ► And, you know, Apple has been saying for a long time that a huge percentage of the people
00:35:11 ◼ ► Is Apple Silicon something that changes that dynamic in a way that, that drives a lot of
00:35:23 ◼ ► but that we might see in the next round when the MacBook Pro that's got, you know, some
00:35:33 ◼ ► I don't know, but Apple's talking a good game that this is, this is going to change the
00:35:39 ◼ ► dynamic because they're no longer going to be able to be compared, you know, and be saddled
00:35:49 ◼ ► iPad and Mac sales, you know, they continue to grow and grow fast because of COVID work
00:36:02 ◼ ► Both of these product lines were seeing signs of improvement before 2020 and the M1 Macs
00:36:10 ◼ ► You know, I think it's fair to say that last quarter would not have been the biggest quarter
00:36:33 ◼ ► Well, I think that, yeah, that's the feeling is that the last two quarter Mac quarters,
00:36:41 ◼ ► by sales of people who either needed a computer at home because of the pandemic or an additional
00:36:50 ◼ ► they had an old computer and they needed to replace it and it kicked off this replacement
00:36:56 ◼ ► And yet still, and with that in the supply constraints on some Apple Silicon Macs, Apple
00:37:07 ◼ ► So it's back to back the two best Mac quarters ever just now, which again, Myke, I have to
00:37:13 ◼ ► stop us and say, you mean, you mean the year 2020 was the best year the Mac has ever had?
00:37:30 ◼ ► So, and, and the message seems to be just wait because this Apple Silicon thing is going
00:37:37 ◼ ► So we'll see because the, the countervailing force, the, the the tough compare the head
00:37:44 ◼ ► wins, whatever financial sector phrasing you want to use is that they, that they discharged
00:37:50 ◼ ► a bunch of that pent up demand because of the, the pandemic and that Mac sales and maybe
00:37:58 ◼ ► computer sales in general will be suppressed for the next couple of years because in 2020,
00:38:19 ◼ ► I'm guessing that what Apple's doing on the Mac is going to manage to keep the Mac doing
00:39:24 ◼ ► The, the, the phrasing that they use is the tough compare and there are going to be some,
00:39:30 ◼ ► They're going to be a good, the downside of having a good year is that you have to follow
00:39:36 ◼ ► it up the next year and you're comparing against the year ago quarter, which means you have
00:39:46 ◼ ► So, uh, Apple has had such a great 2020 calendar wise, which again, every time they talk about
00:39:58 ◼ ► And, uh, we feel for everybody in our communities and everybody who's suffering because of the
00:40:05 ◼ ► Like they're, they're embarrassed about it, but that's the fact is like 2020 was a spectacularly
00:40:10 ◼ ► good financial year for Apple and yeah, 2021 is going to be, um, harder for them when measured
00:40:19 ◼ ► Which is again, that's the, that's the story here is, uh, what was it versus the year ago
00:40:25 ◼ ► And, and if Apple next holiday quarter delivers a hundred billion dollar quarter, people are
00:40:46 ◼ ► G and all those things that happened with the 12, they're going to have a challenge to,
00:40:59 ◼ ► I could argue, you know, the counter argument, which is that for everybody who rushed to
00:41:04 ◼ ► buy technology in 2020, because they needed it, there are also people who probably deferred
00:41:08 ◼ ► buying because they didn't have money because their financial situation was questionable
00:41:12 ◼ ► because they felt like they could get by with what they already had because they weren't
00:41:18 ◼ ► And that if in 2021 things open up a little bit more, the counter argument is that some
00:41:52 ◼ ► Like if you compare them, if you compare 2021 numbers to 2019 numbers, ignore 2020, that
00:42:14 ◼ ► And that's something you can get, you can try to get an eye on because that's the difference
00:42:44 ◼ ► And so what you end up saying is that's a one-time aberration and that the tide is going
00:43:15 ◼ ► Keeping track of information is something that's in everybody's job descriptions today,
00:43:19 ◼ ► writing things down for simple lists, but it can get overwhelming when you need to stay
00:43:27 ◼ ► Microsoft lists is a Microsoft 365 app that helps you easily track information and organize
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00:44:36 ◼ ► You could have yes or no questions, multiple choice, loads of great data options that you
00:44:49 ◼ ► So if you mark, say, for example, if you marked on it as a complete, it could fire off an
00:45:52 ◼ ► It's the opinion of 55 people who I asked what their opinion was of Apple, as I do every
00:46:02 ◼ ► People involved in discussing Apple and technology and ask them to vote, rank from one to five,
00:46:21 ◼ ► This is year six, which I got a very nice text from John Gruber the other day who said,
00:46:53 ◼ ► They don't have to fill out the form with all their commentary, but people do want to do
00:46:59 ◼ ► The number went down a little bit, but I'm always adding people to the distribution list
00:47:05 ◼ ► I give them a couple of weeks, very late December and early January to fill out the form and
00:47:21 ◼ ► And I think it can be misunderstood as being like, "Are we trying to say Apple is good?
00:47:41 ◼ ► Somebody who thinks that Apple is terrible and somebody who thinks Apple is perfect are
00:47:44 ◼ ► going to be outliers and they're going to kind of wash out and we're going to end up with
00:48:05 ◼ ► So that's why I find it valuable is it's really like getting the mood in the room for what
00:48:14 ◼ ► Apple is doing good and bad and what things pop up as sore spots and what things pop up
00:48:30 ◼ ► a little bit because I am also keen, because you don't add your commentary, I'm keen to
00:48:52 ◼ ► of 5, up 1.1 year over year, which I expect is probably one of, if not the largest year
00:49:02 ◼ ► - It might be, I didn't check that, it's the highest score any category has gotten in the
00:49:19 ◼ ► a lot of people, if you read the verbatim comments about the Mac, what you find is that
00:49:29 ◼ ► it for Big Sur, but that people still expressed their discontent in some of the design changes,
00:49:43 ◼ ► in the software quality category than in the Mac category, but there was this undercurrent
00:49:46 ◼ ► that was sort of like, all right, Apple Silicon, yeah, but, and then the buts were, but Big
00:49:55 ◼ ► Sur and also, but Apple Silicon came at the end of the year and before that it was rougher
00:50:04 ◼ ► and basically what they were doing is replacing the bad keyboard with the better keyboard,
00:51:04 ◼ ► It's like what they're, you know, what do you think about Mac hardware and what do you think
00:51:08 ◼ ► about Mac software? What do you think about iPhone hardware, iPhone software, that kind of thing?
00:51:11 ◼ ► I think it'd be intriguing, but I understand the thinking behind bundling them together
00:51:16 ◼ ► into one package. But in the comments, there are a lot of people that are frustrated with
00:51:22 ◼ ► things in Big Sur, but ultimately the quality of the products this year, the hardware products,
00:51:36 ◼ ► Yeah, and I mean, you can see the reaction in people buying rushing out to buy M1 Macs, right,
00:51:44 ◼ ► is well, you know, because they just keep in mind they all run Big Sur, but people are like,
00:51:49 ◼ ► "Oh my god, I gotta get an M1 Mac. I love it. It's the best." It's like, and it's running Big Sur.
00:51:54 ◼ ► So clearly that's just how people experienced the whole Mac equation is like, "Yeah, we can quibble
00:52:01 ◼ ► about Big Sur, but oh my god, have you seen this M1 MacBook Air?" And that's, that's 2020 in the Mac
00:52:10 ◼ ► in a nutshell. And there's a lot of optimism as well, right? Like similarly to, you know,
00:52:16 ◼ ► Apple thinking they're going to sell well. People are thinking that this is like, if you are a
00:52:21 ◼ ► person who loves the Mac, which is I'm sure pretty much everybody on the list, you know, to varying
00:52:26 ◼ ► degrees, but I can't imagine there are like a lot of Mac haters here. There's so much optimism
00:52:31 ◼ ► going into 2021 and beyond, like over this two-year rollout now of like, wow, you've really
00:52:37 ◼ ► set the stage and we imagine we're only going to be further, like more, like more impressed
00:52:45 ◼ ► as time goes on. So it's an exciting time. The iPhone scored 4.3, which is up 0.3 year over year.
00:52:53 ◼ ► Overall, people were happy with the choices in the lineup. The new design ticked a lot of people's
00:53:00 ◼ ► boxes and MagSafe as well. People love widgets in iOS 14, but as we expected, the people in the US
00:53:06 ◼ ► and Europe 5G was basically seen as a bit of a dud. Yeah. I mean, we all felt it, right? The
00:53:15 ◼ ► 5G thing was sort of like, eh, you know, most people didn't get excited about that. The
00:53:24 ◼ ► redesign people really did like the fact that it's got the flat sides and that you've got the
00:53:29 ◼ ► larger phone and the little phone and all of that. And after a year where, to talk about the trends,
00:53:34 ◼ ► because the Mac, I didn't even mention the Mac has been trending up since 2016. 2016 was the sort of
00:53:41 ◼ ► the depths of that disastrous design of the MacBook Pro with the butterfly keyboard and
00:53:47 ◼ ► with the USB-C only and all of that. And the Mac score has gotten better every year since then.
00:53:53 ◼ ► So it's sort of like Apple, you can see Apple trying to work its way back from that kind of
00:53:58 ◼ ► disaster. The iPhone last year kind of was flat and this year took a bump up. So definitely
00:54:05 ◼ ► sentiment was more on Apple's side this time than last year. The iPhone's kind of like sure, right?
00:54:11 ◼ ► Like the score of that is like, yeah. I mean, new iPhones, new designs, I'd say it's a good score,
00:54:20 ◼ ► but I think also it was not a completely, you know, super enthusiastic, like the Mac. I mean,
00:54:27 ◼ ► it's hard to compare it to that Mac score. That Mac score is the best score ever. So yeah, people
00:54:32 ◼ ► are really hyped about the Mac, but the iPhone had a solid year and it increased in the panel's
00:54:38 ◼ ► estimation. And I think that's meaningful. - The iPad scored 3.7 down 0.2. It seems like really
00:54:47 ◼ ► that this item was saved by the Magic Keyboard and cursor support for the most part. The new iPad Air
00:54:54 ◼ ► is a favorite as well. - I would say the iPad, because the iPad score shot up in 2017 with the
00:55:00 ◼ ► introduction of new iPad Pros and new iPad models and all that, and it's been drifting downward.
00:55:07 ◼ ► But good scores, but drifting downward. And I would say, I'd almost flip around what you said
00:55:14 ◼ ► and say the cursor support and the Magic Keyboard made people really enthusiastic about the iPad in
00:55:21 ◼ ► 2020. And the new iPad Air that's got iPad Pro features, but there's confusion about the iPad
00:55:27 ◼ ► line because what about the iPad Pro? It's so close to the iPad Air. And there's this feeling
00:55:34 ◼ ► that the iPad, despite getting that accessory that was good, that it's just sort of drifting
00:55:42 ◼ ► a little bit otherwise. Like it had its one big hit, but beyond that, you know, the iPad Pro is
00:55:49 ◼ ► an open question because it got a lackluster update. Like the 2020 iPad Pro with one more
00:55:56 ◼ ► GPU core and LIDAR scanner. Everybody knows that wasn't really a new iPad Pro. Really? And so that's
00:56:06 ◼ ► the mixed message is I think people were really excited about the cursor support and the Magic
00:56:10 ◼ ► Keyboard and that that made a big difference. And I suspect if that hadn't happened, this number
00:56:14 ◼ ► would have been way down because again, the iPad Pro update just wasn't that great. And everybody
00:56:20 ◼ ► really expects there to be one and that there needs to be a substantial one because the iPad Air
00:56:26 ◼ ► really just brings it all into focus. Like, well, wait a second, if this is the iPad Air,
00:56:31 ◼ ► what's the iPad Pro supposed to be? I was also really disappointed with iPad OS 14 overall.
00:56:37 ◼ ► Yeah. I was hoping for more there. The fact that the widget stuff all happened on the iPhone,
00:56:43 ◼ ► the redesign of the home screen and all that, and the iPad just sort of got new widgets in the old
00:56:48 ◼ ► column on the page one of the screen and that's it. It definitely burned a little bit. And let's
00:56:55 ◼ ► also say there was definitely a trend in the conversation about the M1 Macs. That the developer
00:57:02 ◼ ► kit for Apple Silicon was the A12Z. So it was the iPad Pro processor. And the M1s are based,
00:57:11 ◼ ► are essentially an A14X. They're more than that, but that's basically what they are. This is the
00:57:16 ◼ ► same class that we would expect in the iPad Pro of processor. And what it does is it makes you
00:57:23 ◼ ► look at the iPad and say, well, wait a second, if this iPad is just as powerful as these other
00:57:28 ◼ ► devices are, why can't it do what they do? And it just brings the focus back to iPad OS, right?
00:57:35 ◼ ► All the limitations of iPad OS that are even more visible now. And definitely there was a trend,
00:57:42 ◼ ► and some people said it, where people who bought iPads and were trying to use them more are now
00:57:47 ◼ ► just buying M1 MacBook Airs or MacBook Pros and saying, I'm just going to use this again because
00:57:52 ◼ ► it gives me all the whizzy new power and battery life and things like that. And I don't understand
00:57:59 ◼ ► that because choosing to use an iPad is about iPad OS, but I totally understand the idea that when
00:58:05 ◼ ► you can see what an Apple Silicon Mac is capable of and what an Apple Silicon iPad is capable of,
00:58:12 ◼ ► it's very clear what the difference is. And the difference is that iPad OS just doesn't do a
00:58:16 ◼ ► whole bunch of stuff. And I think that's fair. And I think that that is one of the sources of
00:58:22 ◼ ► disappointment on the iPad side for 2020, even though I think it gets a big boost. If I were
00:58:28 ◼ ► to vote, I would definitely give it a big score boost for the cursor support and the Magic Keyboard
00:58:34 ◼ ► because those are big. Watch was 3.8, wearables 4.0, down 0.3 and 0.6 respectively. My feeling,
00:58:48 ◼ ► I mean, I was pretty down on the Apple Watch this year. I don't really, I spoke about this a bunch
00:58:54 ◼ ► of times on the show. I don't really think that Apple did a good job selling the Apple Watch.
00:58:58 ◼ ► And many people said that it seemed like it was most like a treading water year with very small
00:59:05 ◼ ► changes in watchOS 7 as well. When it comes to wearables, the main new product released,
00:59:16 ◼ ► Yeah. And this is a category where I originally made this an Apple Watch category, and then I've
00:59:22 ◼ ► been transitioning to a wearables category. So I'm asking both numbers. So I've got some history here.
00:59:27 ◼ ► Yeah, Apple Watch, it was not much of a year, right? They just sort of pushed everything
00:59:35 ◼ ► forward. One new sensor, as you pointed out during our show about it. The explanation of
00:59:43 ◼ ► how the blood oxygen sensor works has never been particularly strong. At the same time, wearables,
00:59:50 ◼ ► Apple is doing really well with AirPods, but some people took their votes after the AirPods Max came
00:59:58 ◼ ► out and were skeptical of AirPods Max and all that. This is a category where Apple's still
01:00:01 ◼ ► doing pretty well, but definitely, I think it shows slippage for the last couple of years.
01:00:51 ◼ ► And I don't know, I think it's really interesting that Apple, something we didn't talk about in the
01:00:58 ◼ ► analyst call, is that Tim Cook described Apple's method of creating products, and what they said
01:01:04 ◼ ► was a slightly different spin on what they usually say. You know, usually it's like only Apple can
01:01:09 ◼ ► make the synthesis of hardware and software. What Tim Cook said is, we look for products that have
01:01:18 ◼ ► Apple feels at this point like services is part of their secret sauce. And the fact is, if you look
01:01:25 ◼ ► back to how terrible Apple was at services and about like .Mac and MobileMe and all of that,
01:01:30 ◼ ► like they've come a long way. Is there more to be done? Yes. Are their services perfect?
01:01:35 ◼ ► No, they're not. But they have gotten better and they have gotten more successful. And the bundle
01:01:40 ◼ ► happened in 2020 and the Apple One bundle, I think, has a lot going for it. They rolled out
01:01:46 ◼ ► Fitness Plus. Like there's a bunch of stuff that they're doing. And yes, Ted Lasso also came out.
01:01:50 ◼ ► So it was a pretty positive category. It was, like I said, the best that services has ever done
01:02:05 ◼ ► if they're doing the right job, this score should continue to increase, right? Like this is a growth
01:02:10 ◼ ► area. It's an area that's still being established. It makes sense that it's getting better over time
01:02:15 ◼ ► and you want to see that happening for them. You did mention Apple TV. Apple TV got the lowest
01:02:21 ◼ ► grade. I think it's got the lowest grade anything's ever gotten. Yeah, it was the lowest score average
01:02:34 ◼ ► It's because they're not doing anything with the hardware. Yeah, that's it. That's it. The hardware
01:02:41 ◼ ► is unchanged. It's still overpriced. Apple has undercut the value of the hardware by making its
01:02:49 ◼ ► content and even AirPlay available on other competitor devices. And the question remains,
01:02:56 ◼ ► like, what the heck is the Apple TV for and where is it going and what is it doing? And we got no
01:03:01 ◼ ► answers in 2020 and so the score just continues to drop. HomeKit got 3.1 and up 0.3. My feeling on the
01:03:16 ◼ ► HomeKit thing, the reason it gets better is as people add more things to the homes, you know,
01:03:21 ◼ ► they prefer it more. Like I know my feeling on HomeKit continues to improve because I'm finding
01:03:27 ◼ ► more devices that are HomeKit compatible. And the more devices I have in my home that work with HomeKit
01:03:33 ◼ ► the happier I am with HomeKit, right? And in theory that should continue over time. But there
01:03:39 ◼ ► are also calls for, and I understand this and agree with this, that the Home app could do with
01:03:44 ◼ ► some work. Oh yeah, the Home app is really bad. I wrote a thing about a Mac. I bought a Mac,
01:03:49 ◼ ► piece of Mac software last week that I wrote about on Six Colors that does all these things
01:03:56 ◼ ► that the Home app can't do. I couldn't even script the Home app. I couldn't automate it in any way.
01:04:01 ◼ ► And I finally found an app that lets me like use keyboard shortcuts to turn devices on and
01:04:06 ◼ ► off in my home, which is amazing. I love it. And you can choose from a menu as well and you can
01:04:11 ◼ ► script it and like, that's great. But like, why is that not on the Mac? And the answer is that Apple
01:04:17 ◼ ► doesn't care about HomeKit on the Mac enough to do anything but just port over the iOS app. And it's
01:04:22 ◼ ► not very good. But the iOS app isn't that great. It's not that good. No, it's not. It's just worse
01:04:27 ◼ ► on the Mac. HomeKit score has gone up every, well, last year when it was basically flat,
01:04:32 ◼ ► it went down one, one tenth, but it's been on a trajectory upward. It started at 2.1 out of five
01:04:38 ◼ ► and is now at 3.1 out of five over the course of this time. So HomeKit has gotten better very
01:04:43 ◼ ► slowly. It's a slow build. However, I think a lot of people pointed out there is this HomeKit,
01:05:06 ◼ ► - Yeah, Choyp. Okay. That I think is, some people pointed out that maybe what's going on here really
01:05:13 ◼ ► is that Apple is not making a lot of moves on Smart Home right now because they're gonna come
01:05:20 ◼ ► out with the spec that basically unifies all the Smart Home devices into one standard that
01:05:25 ◼ ► everybody uses and they'll support that and then they'll move on with their lives and HomeKit isn't
01:05:32 ◼ ► a thing anymore at that point. It's just Smart Home tech on Apple platforms. - That's when they
01:05:37 ◼ ► will have to do even more work on making the Home app good. - Right, right. And I think that that
01:05:42 ◼ ► would be one theory is about why the Smart Home stuff seems to have stalled is that they're not
01:05:48 ◼ ► gonna put more effort into HomeKit when the new thing is coming. But that Home app really isn't
01:05:56 ◼ ► cutting it. So like, Dan and I were talking about this last week on Six Colors. My HomeKit
01:06:04 ◼ ► interaction is almost entirely through Control Center on iOS. - Oh yeah, me too. - I don't want
01:06:10 ◼ ► to, which is great, right? I don't want to use the Home app and part of that is because the Home app
01:06:14 ◼ ► isn't very good. But putting in Control Center is great. It should be in Control Center on the Mac,
01:06:18 ◼ ► by the way. - I like the automations. Really easy to make Home automations in the Home app.
01:06:25 ◼ ► But like the Home screen of the Home app is just badly designed from a usability perspective.
01:06:32 ◼ ► I think it was fine when it was simple but as more stuff's being added to it, it's creaking quite
01:06:39 ◼ ► quite significantly. - Yeah. - Speaking of things creaking, things that aren't, hardware!
01:06:47 ◼ ► Harder reliability, 4.5 up 0.6. It's because they fixed the keyboards and there weren't any notable
01:06:54 ◼ ► hardware issues, new ones anyway, I feel, in 2020. There weren't any gates of any kind.
01:07:01 ◼ ► Everything seemed to... - No appreciable gates. - Yeah, everything seemed to kind of move along.
01:07:12 ◼ ► It starts out at 4.4 in 2015 and then it's down and then down and then down, reaching its bottom
01:07:24 ◼ ► at 2018. And then perks up a little bit in 2019, as I recall, because they replaced the butterfly
01:07:31 ◼ ► on that one laptop. - Yeah, it seemed like the end was near. - And then it is shot up to 4.5.
01:07:39 ◼ ► This is, and again we can argue whether Apple should be rewarded for releasing something that
01:07:44 ◼ ► was bad and then replacing it with something that was not bad, but the fact is the butterfly
01:07:50 ◼ ► keyboard being gone was a big part of this. You can't complain about the butterfly keyboard
01:07:54 ◼ ► anymore. The M1 Macs, you know, are, it's almost too early to say if they have generational problems,
01:08:01 ◼ ► but they seem pretty positive for now. And several people called out that Apple did a good job with
01:08:06 ◼ ► the AirPods Pro Recall or replacement program, the rattling sound in the AirPods Pro that people
01:08:13 ◼ ► reported, that although that's annoying because it was a failure of the product, I had several people
01:08:21 ◼ ► in the comments point out that getting them replaced was really easy and fuss-free and you
01:08:27 ◼ ► basically say, "Apple, I have a problem," and they're like, "Great, we'll send you new ones and
01:08:31 ◼ ► send those back in." So that's not a reliability, it's a reliability problem, but it's mitigated by
01:08:38 ◼ ► the fact that they had a good response. And that's, it's nice the butterfly keyboard is no
01:08:46 ◼ ► longer a part of the conversation going forward in this category. - Software quality is at 3.5,
01:09:12 ◼ ► - Yeah, I can't decide whether that's just because Catalina was so painful and the iOS 13
01:09:19 ◼ ► beta was so painful and a lot of these people are working on betas, either as writers or as
01:09:29 ◼ ► Remember, it was like they didn't come out and then it was only on the new phones for a bit.
01:09:33 ◼ ► - It was, but the beta was also extremely painful, so it was an entire summer of pain before it even
01:09:38 ◼ ► got to customers. And I think that that makes a difference, whereas the Big Sur stuff was,
01:09:42 ◼ ► again, I think not great, but it was a better experience. And people still have their complaints
01:09:50 ◼ ► about iOS 14 and about Big Sur, but I think the general trend was that people felt that it was
01:09:56 ◼ ► better. I keep likening Catalina to the bad cop and Big Sur to the good cop, and it's like,
01:10:01 ◼ ► are they pulling a fast one on us a little bit by getting the bad one out and then going to the good
01:10:05 ◼ ► one? I don't think intentionally, but I will say, Apple very clearly has a TikTok process for
01:10:11 ◼ ► software updates, where one year they make a whole bunch of things that break and everybody is
01:10:16 ◼ ► miserable and screams bloody murder, and then the next year they're a little bit apologetic and try
01:10:21 ◼ ► to fix stuff and try to make it not as bad. And you can see that, the reason that I say that is
01:10:27 ◼ ► you can see it in the sentiment numbers for this category. Literally every year is up, down, up,
01:10:33 ◼ ► down, up, down. That's how it goes. It was up in 16, down in 17, up in 18, down in 19, up in 20.
01:10:41 ◼ ► Unless Apple changes its approach, be prepared for disappointment in 21, because that's how it's
01:10:50 ◼ ► gone up to now. So unless Apple, with the next version of macOS and the next version of iOS,
01:11:01 ◼ ► we're actually up for another bad year, because that seems to be how this thing bounces around.
01:11:07 ◼ ► And then we have Developer Relations. 3.1 down 0.3. I can't believe this didn't go down more.
01:11:39 ◼ ► here because of the small business program. There's a lot of people like that, but really
01:11:45 ◼ ► that just felt like a band-aid over a terrible injury. Because antitrust, mistrust, problem after
01:11:57 ◼ ► problem after problem for like six months with Developer Relations, it feels like this is one
01:12:04 ◼ ► of the worst years in modern history, to my memory. You were among the most negative comments about
01:12:15 ◼ ► this category. Yeah, I know. You printed them. So you saying that, I'm not surprised. I think that
01:12:24 ◼ ► in general what people saw was the small business program, which helped a lot of developers by giving
01:12:32 ◼ ► them a pay raise, or as our British developers say, a pay rise. The hay thing, Gruber makes the
01:12:46 ◼ ► point about the hay fiasco, he calls it, is that you could see it as an example of everything that's
01:12:51 ◼ ► wrong with the App Store. You could see it as the system working, because Apple made a mistake,
01:12:54 ◼ ► and then it corrected it. It corrected it under withering feedback from the outside. Never run to
01:13:00 ◼ ► the press. Never run to the press. I think it's complicated. And so Developer Relations went down
01:13:10 ◼ ► from 3/4 to 3/1. So they cut the take for anybody who's under a million dollars in App Store revenue
01:13:18 ◼ ► in half, a thing that people have been asking for for a long time. And the number still went down.
01:13:24 ◼ ► So I think that that speaks to what you were talking about, which was there's a lot of tough
01:13:30 ◼ ► stuff going on. Apple's under a lot of scrutiny. There's a lot of controversy. And there's a lot of
01:13:38 ◼ ► praise for virtual WWDC, by the way, and that they pulled that off well, and that the virtual labs
01:13:44 ◼ ► were actually good if you signed up and got to talk to somebody. So it's a mixed bag. And I think
01:13:49 ◼ ► the fact that the score is 3/1 and that it went from a B- to a C is an indication of everything
01:13:56 ◼ ► you said. And it's only really mitigated by the fact that they did the small business program.
01:14:01 ◼ ► Otherwise, it would have gone lower, because this was a tough year for Developer Relations in a lot
01:14:05 ◼ ► of ways. But look, this isn't a surprise to the listeners of this show for me, how I feel about
01:14:12 ◼ ► this. It's been a real sticking point for me for most of 2020, because I was just becoming
01:14:25 ◼ ► - Yeah, it was a lot too. Definitely the knives were out. And I'm going to... Well, maybe it
01:14:34 ◼ ► happened in the water. Blood was in the water. The knives came out in the water. I don't know.
01:14:39 ◼ ► But the moment that you're like, "Oh, there's regulatory scrutiny, and this vendor is speaking
01:14:46 ◼ ► - And then it's like Apple started enforcing in-app purchases on companies trying to transition
01:14:56 ◼ ► so much of this, not all of it. I mean, okay, you could argue that everything here is caused by Apple
01:15:02 ◼ ► because of Apple's policies. But I would say there's Apple's policies that it has very carefully
01:15:09 ◼ ► considered. And then there's the stupid stuff Apple or people at Apple did that brought more
01:15:16 ◼ ► controversy on them that was totally unnecessary. And that's the stuff that was, "Oh, some reviewer
01:15:23 ◼ ► at the App Store misinterpreted or interpreted properly a mention from a higher up that they
01:15:29 ◼ ► really want to squeeze more money out of businesses that are built on free apps, and so that they're
01:15:34 ◼ ► going to start shaking them all down for cash." And I'm still unclear whether that was... Well,
01:15:39 ◼ ► I think it was a policy. I don't know whether it was a policy from the top or whether there was
01:15:44 ◼ ► somewhere kind of down in the chain who decided that that was going to be the policy. But that's
01:15:49 ◼ ► what led to all of these companies with free apps being told, "You need to offer an in-app purchase."
01:15:55 ◼ ► And again, I'm still not clear on whether that was, "You need to offer an in-app purchase," or
01:16:01 ◼ ► whether they thought they were being helpful and saying, "You know, you could offer an in-app
01:16:07 ◼ ► purchase, and wouldn't that be nice?" But because of Apple's heavy-handed reputation and the fear of
01:16:12 ◼ ► Apple rejecting their apps, that people take it as a threat, or whether it was actually intended as
01:16:18 ◼ ► a threat, it doesn't matter. And it was a dumb thing for them to do that they seem to have backed
01:16:23 ◼ ► off of to a certain extent now. But that's the fascinating combination of what happened in 2020,
01:16:29 ◼ ► is that some of it was the natural outcome of some of Apple's long-standing App Store policies
01:16:34 ◼ ► and approaches to having its own controlled environment. And some of it was super dumb stuff
01:16:39 ◼ ► that they did that brought more scrutiny and more attention on their practices at exactly the wrong
01:16:44 ◼ ► moment to do it. And that's 2020 right there. We'll see what happens this year. But it has emboldened
01:16:52 ◼ ► others to use those arguments to buttress their own arguments. So with Facebook, what you see
01:17:06 ◼ ► apps in iOS 14 that's coming up, this tracking limitation that they put off for a long time,
01:17:13 ◼ ► but they're putting into effect now. This is why Facebook is in a very public spat with Apple
01:17:19 ◼ ► about this that we haven't talked about a lot and we're gonna have to talk about next time.
01:17:23 ◼ ► It allows Mark Zuckerberg to use the specter of "Ooh, bad Apple" being mean to developers
01:17:31 ◼ ► and say "See, they're being mean to us too." And I would argue that that's completely bogus,
01:17:39 ◼ ► and it is a political trick that Zuckerberg is pulling to wrap himself in all the other
01:17:46 ◼ ► developers that are put upon by Apple and say "We too are a put-upon developer," when they're not.
01:17:54 ◼ ► But the fact is that's how it works. That's how politics works is they open the door. Apple opened
01:17:59 ◼ ► the door with a bunch of dumb moves and it lets Facebook press that button. And they're pressing
01:18:04 ◼ ► it because they're trying to get every advantage they possibly can in fighting Apple's new privacy
01:18:11 ◼ ► and tracking policy. And environment and social issues, 3.7 up 0.4. They did a lot during the
01:18:23 ◼ ► pandemic, lots of masks, lots of donations. They worked with Google on the exposure notification.
01:18:38 ◼ ► an environmental impact, but obviously some people would take it as a frustrating point because Apple
01:18:43 ◼ ► didn't really seem to do anything for the customer in the removal of these things, because it
01:18:49 ◼ ► definitely seems like they may have saved some money here. And there are a lot of, I think here
01:19:01 ◼ ► and how it relates to its privacy stances and stuff like that in these columns, which is a
01:19:07 ◼ ► fair criticism to levy of them. And this is the place to do it. Well, I think, so this number went
01:19:12 ◼ ► up and I think, yeah, it's a mixed bag. That's the bottom line is it's a mixed bag. I think people
01:19:20 ◼ ► were impressed by the fact that, I mean, okay. So Devendra Hardawar from Engadget said what I
01:19:28 ◼ ► think is maybe the perfect encapsulation of this complexity, which is, he said, it's hard to praise
01:19:33 ◼ ► any tech company when it comes to social impact these days, but I appreciate Apple is still holding
01:19:39 ◼ ► strong when it comes to consumer privacy. And I thought that was, I thought that that was good.
01:19:44 ◼ ► That is basically saying, look, there are lots of issues with tech companies and how they affect
01:19:49 ◼ ► our society. And we can praise some parts of what Apple's doing while criticizing others. And I
01:19:56 ◼ ► think if you read these comments, you will get all of it. You will get, it's great that Apple is
01:20:01 ◼ ► standing up to Facebook in terms of privacy. It's great that Apple has green initiatives. There were
01:20:07 ◼ ► comments about that, which happen every year that they're gonna have green power and they're
01:20:11 ◼ ► investing in solar and they want everything to be recyclable. And they're trying to find ways to
01:20:14 ◼ ► reclaim more of the material so that they don't have to be mined. And like they're doing a lot
01:20:18 ◼ ► of stuff like that. At the same time, they're very reliant on China. It's a dictatorship.
01:20:27 ◼ ► It's an authoritarian government. They have issues in other countries where they follow the
01:20:31 ◼ ► laws of those countries, but their law is put into effect by authoritarian governments in order to
01:20:36 ◼ ► control their population. There are lots of other issues involved with Apple's place in the world
01:20:43 ◼ ► and it's complicated. So like you can praise their, oh, I should mention, several people
01:20:51 ◼ ► mentioned that they took the charger out of the iPhone box as a positive. Everybody thought it
01:20:57 ◼ ► was the end of the world and then Apple did it and it wasn't the end of the world and now everybody
01:21:01 ◼ ► else is gonna do it. And that is a net, yes, it saves them money, as you said, but it's a net
01:21:05 ◼ ► environmental gain. It's all this stuff. The truth is that there are like 50 different things
01:21:11 ◼ ► happening inside this category. And when I started this survey, I got pushback from people who were
01:21:17 ◼ ► like, why is that a category in the survey? And it's like, well, because Apple talks a lot about
01:21:23 ◼ ► this stuff and I think it's worth analyzing how they did, positive and negative. Apple is a huge
01:21:30 ◼ ► company. It has an impact on the world. It fancies itself as a company that has an impact on the
01:21:34 ◼ ► world. So let's look at that. And the comments in this category are always the kind of messiest and
01:21:41 ◼ ► most all over the place. And I love it. I think that that is, I think it's interesting every time.
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01:23:43 ◼ ► Our thanks to Smile and PDF/Pen for their support of this show and Relay FM. Let's do some #AskUpgradeQuestions
01:23:51 ◼ ► to finish out today's episode. Johan asks, "Do you use Twitter lists?" Oh, what a setup. I love this
01:24:00 ◼ ► question. Yes, I do. I love them. I use them all the time, every day. This is actually one of the
01:24:09 ◼ ► things I love about Twitterrific on the iPad is that it's got a sidebar with all your saved
01:24:15 ◼ ► searches and your lists in it. And you can actually assign lists to icons to the navigation scheme.
01:24:23 ◼ ► So I have lists in my nav. I have like the main timeline mentions a search and a couple of lists
01:24:40 ◼ ► as alternate timelines because I don't want them all mixed in my same timeline. And the ones that
01:24:45 ◼ ► have really stuck sports is the big one. All the sports writers and stuff that I follow, there's a
01:24:49 ◼ ► sports list. If I want to see what's going on in sports stuff that I care about, I look at my sports
01:24:53 ◼ ► list. I also have a science list. That's where all the scientists and space people are.
01:24:59 ◼ ► I follow a few sports people and science people in my main timeline by following them, but I have a
01:25:05 ◼ ► larger group in those lists. And I use those lists all the time and I love it. I feel like
01:25:10 ◼ ► I wish lists were a bigger part of Twitter because I feel like Twitter is better when you create
01:25:18 ◼ ► a bunch of different timelines by subject matter than it is when they're all poured into one thing.
01:25:26 ◼ ► Because I could not have all the sports writers and all the scientists and all the space people
01:25:31 ◼ ► and everybody else in my main timeline. It would be too much. And I don't check the sports list
01:25:37 ◼ ► like I check the main timeline, but a few times a day I will go and say, "What's going on in sports?"
01:25:45 ◼ ► And I will switch to the sports list and see the links and all of that. And it's great. So yeah,
01:25:58 ◼ ► It's almost entirely people I'm not following. That's the whole point is I don't want them in
01:26:02 ◼ ► my timeline. I want them in my list timeline. So it's like, I would say it's... In terms of Twitter,
01:26:09 ◼ ► I'm not following them. I would argue that you should think of your follower list as a list and
01:26:18 ◼ ► that you've got a bunch of different lists. You've got your main list that is people you follow,
01:26:22 ◼ ► and then you've got other lists. But I think that it's the same concept. I think I've got my
01:26:29 ◼ ► timeline list and my sports list and my science list and a couple other lists. That's really how
01:26:34 ◼ ► I use it. In fact, at one point I decided my timeline was way too full. And while there were
01:26:38 ◼ ► a bunch of people who I liked seeing their tweets sometimes, but it was just the volume of tweets in
01:26:45 ◼ ► my follow list was too great. So I unfollowed about 100 people and put them in a list of
01:26:52 ◼ ► other people, interesting people. Because I couldn't handle the volume, but I didn't want to
01:26:59 ◼ ► just say goodbye to them and never see them again, but I couldn't handle the volume in my main
01:27:04 ◼ ► timeline. And so I just made a list that's like the... Again, you could argue that means they're
01:27:20 ◼ ► because I will respond to people who are in my list and I know if they look, I'm not following
01:27:26 ◼ ► them. And that's weird. And that can be a negative single. Sometimes somebody who's not following you
01:27:30 ◼ ► replies to you and you're like, "Oh boy, what's this going to be?" But I am. They're in my list
01:27:40 ◼ ► people do what you're doing and then only live in lists, but you have a regular timeline and then
01:27:46 ◼ ► move around. - That's the other way to do it. I've been using Twitter so long that that's just sort
01:27:50 ◼ ► of where I am. But yes, that would be the other way to do it is follow... Some people definitely
01:27:55 ◼ ► do this, right? Follow a thousand people, 5,000 people. And how can you use Twitter that way? And
01:28:00 ◼ ► the answer is, well, they don't. They either aren't looking at Twitter, broadcast only, or they're
01:28:06 ◼ ► only looking at their curated lists. And I could do that. I just haven't for whatever reason. It's
01:28:10 ◼ ► been the subject matter stuff. I curate my follow list more as that's the main thing that I look at.
01:28:29 ◼ ► started with lists and then for a while they're like, "Nope, lists aren't good." And it looked
01:28:34 ◼ ► like they were maybe going away. And then recently they seem to have gotten the list religion a
01:28:39 ◼ ► little bit and are kind of back on that a little bit. - Yeah, the official app has proper support
01:28:45 ◼ ► where you can switch between timelines from list to list. - Yeah, and lists... That's why I like
01:28:52 ◼ ► lists is because I like having... I mean, it is true. You now have multiple views of Twitter,
01:28:56 ◼ ► which is like, "Oh boy, now I've got... Now there's two Twitters. Now there's three Twitters."
01:28:59 ◼ ► - I know all I would be doing is increasing my Twitter usage. - Twitter overheads. Yeah,
01:29:05 ◼ ► well, and the way I viewed it is, again, it's almost like a newspaper or something like that.
01:29:09 ◼ ► Right? It's like I have my sports writers list and it's great. Like if there's something,
01:29:15 ◼ ► an event going on, a sports event related going on, I pop into that list all the time. It's so
01:29:20 ◼ ► great. And when I don't want to see it, it's just, I don't look at it. And then I go back there later
01:29:26 ◼ ► and say, "Well, what's going on? What happened in the sports list?" I haven't been using Nuzzle for
01:29:31 ◼ ► a while, but Nuzzle is this service that basically aggregates all the links in your Twitter timeline
01:29:37 ◼ ► and creates a list of links. It's almost like turning your Twitter timeline into an RSS feed.
01:29:43 ◼ ► And it uses lists as well as your main timeline. And that's great because I end up with this
01:29:48 ◼ ► incredible curated science links list and curated sports links list that are separate from my main
01:29:55 ◼ ► timeline that I can read all the articles that just kind of flow in there. So it's great. But
01:29:59 ◼ ► yeah, if I'm watching it's baseball season and I'm watching a baseball game or it's a college
01:30:03 ◼ ► football season, I'm watching a Cal game, something like that, get a sports list up there and it's
01:30:08 ◼ ► great. And then I can go back to my regular life and not check the sports list for a while. I love
01:30:12 ◼ ► it. - I used to use Nuzzle, but I used to have this weird issue with it because I follow a lot
01:30:17 ◼ ► of people at The Verge and Polygon. - So those all float right to the top. - So basically all
01:30:24 ◼ ► just be cons. Again, if they have a big story or whatever, loads of the people there will share it.
01:30:29 ◼ ► But then it just meant that if you follow a bunch of people who work at the same outlet,
01:30:36 ◼ ► you end up just having Nuzzle completely monopolized by one outlet. And then that becomes
01:30:43 ◼ ► tricky. Zach asks, "Rosetta 1 stayed in Mac OS X for five years. By that time, it seemed like
01:30:52 ◼ ► most of the apps had moved over and it wasn't a huge loss for the platform. What about this time?
01:30:59 ◼ ► How long do you think Apple are gonna keep Rosetta 2 around? And do you think it has the potential
01:31:06 ◼ ► to sting more than last time when they eventually remove it?" - I kind of want to predict that it's
01:31:17 ◼ ► not going to go away for a long time because there's so much Intel stuff now, including
01:31:29 ◼ ► I feel like, I don't know, my hope... Okay, let me back up. One of the challenges with Rosetta,
01:31:40 ◼ ► the original, was that people were making the move from PowerPC to Intel. And they wanted to provide
01:31:49 ◼ ► a spur for people moving from PowerPC to Intel by saying at some point your old PowerPC apps just
01:31:56 ◼ ► won't work. With Catalina getting rid of the 32-bit stuff, so it's only 64-bit, and with, I think,
01:32:04 ◼ ► the uptake of Apple Silicon apps being pretty good already, I think that Apple is going to have less
01:32:13 ◼ ► of a motivation to protect or to spur the laggards to update. - They really had to push people. - They
01:32:23 ◼ ► did. They did, to go from PowerPC to Intel, and they're not in that position now. They're just not.
01:32:34 ◼ ► - Yeah, and I keep thinking about, like, well, if all they're running is 64-bit apps because Catalina
01:32:40 ◼ ► made, deprecated all the 32-bit Intel apps, I feel like they could do that for a long time and say,
01:32:47 ◼ ► look, if an app was current enough to get to 64-bit, then probably the overhead of running
01:32:54 ◼ ► it is not as bad. That's one of the reasons they cleared out the 32-bit apps. And also, again,
01:32:59 ◼ ► I just keep coming back to the fact that there's probably an advantage in having an Intel-compiled
01:33:03 ◼ ► binary for some obscure something just work on Apple Silicon. Like, you don't even have to worry
01:33:08 ◼ ► about it. Like, if you want to do that. And I get that at some point Apple is going to want to say,
01:33:12 ◼ ► "We need to stop updating this, and we really need you to build your stuff, and we're going to break
01:33:16 ◼ ► compatibility, and that's going to force these people to build for Apple Silicon." I get it,
01:33:20 ◼ ► and it will happen. But, like, I don't know. I don't see the need for aggression on that front.
01:33:30 ◼ ► In the end, it's going to happen that somebody in a year or two is going to look at what's going on
01:33:33 ◼ ► with Apple Silicon and Intel and make a judgment about, like, do we even need to bother, or is this
01:33:40 ◼ ► just pointless, because everything is compiled for Apple Silicon now. And at that point, they
01:33:44 ◼ ► absolutely will remove it. And alternatively, if they say, "Oh, we need to provide a spur to some
01:33:51 ◼ ► laggards and get them on," you know, it's more important for us to sort of force them to get on
01:33:55 ◼ ► our platform than it is for us to coddle them with Rosetta 2. Then maybe we'll get there. But
01:34:00 ◼ ► I don't know. It's just my gut feeling, and I have nothing basing this on other than sort of,
01:34:06 ◼ ► work as hard to spur people along, and that they won't necessarily need to give Rosetta 2
01:34:13 ◼ ► an unnatural death. They can just sort of let it die through irrelevance over time. But I don't know.
01:34:20 ◼ ► >> Rajiv asks, "Would you have any interest in an iPad or Apple Watch annual upgrade program,
01:34:38 ◼ ► we have to presume some kind of, say, like, an 18-month cycle or something or whatever.
01:34:44 ◼ ► I would be inclined to do this for the iPad, just because it's a more expensive purchase, you know?
01:34:58 ◼ ► But, yeah, because, like, the iPhone is kind of something where I'm always going to get it,
01:35:04 ◼ ► and they have really good resale value, and there's always people in my family who need a
01:35:09 ◼ ► new phone or whatever. But I don't feel the same for, say, an iPad or iPad Pro. I would be maybe
01:35:15 ◼ ► a little bit more inclined to get an iPad Pro with Apple Care and all that kind of stuff on a monthly
01:35:20 ◼ ► thing, like they do for the iPhone. I think that would be the product of all of them that I would
01:35:28 ◼ ► be the most inclined to want to go into something like that for. >> Yeah. I'd be intrigued -- I'm
01:35:37 ◼ ► intrigued in general by the idea of paying an annual fee and being able to upgrade with a lot
01:35:45 ◼ ► less pain at regular intervals. But the question is, what are those intervals, and do they match?
01:35:51 ◼ ► Because I don't do the iPhone upgrade plan, but I know that some people really like it because it
01:35:57 ◼ ► means that they don't have to either hand down or resell. I hand down my iPhone, so actually I find
01:36:04 ◼ ► it valuable to just buy a new one and hand the old one down. But I know there are people who don't do
01:36:08 ◼ ► that, and you end up having to resell it, and with a Mac, it's like that. I'm thinking, if they do a
01:36:13 ◼ ► new iMac, do I get rid of my iMac Pro? And it's like, well, reselling the iMac Pro is what I
01:36:19 ◼ ► should do. Reselling a computer is such a pain, right? The upgrade program, it's all built in.
01:36:25 ◼ ► You return your old one, and you get a new one, and you pay another fee, and it's regulated over
01:36:30 ◼ ► time. I think for a lot of people that makes sense. I'm not sure it makes sense for the way I use
01:36:34 ◼ ► my Macs. I'm always wanting—this is the key, right? I am always wanting the best iPad Pro.
01:36:42 ◼ ► Right? Give it to me. Give it to me the best iPad Pro. So if I could be on some sort of cycle,
01:36:48 ◼ ► and they were committing to every 18 months or two years or whatever, giving me the latest and
01:36:52 ◼ ► greatest, and I could pay a fee, and I return that one, and I get a new one, I'd be interested in
01:36:58 ◼ ► that. He also mentioned the watch, and that's a case where I think maybe I would be interested in
01:37:04 ◼ ► that, because I use my Apple Watch a lot, and they come out with it every year, and so I would be
01:37:14 ◼ ► interested in that. I just get the, you know, the sport level, and so I look at that and think maybe
01:37:22 ◼ ► that would work, would actually work for me, that I would just be guaranteed that every year I get
01:37:25 ◼ ► the new Apple Watch, and I use the new Apple Watch for a year, and then I send it back and get the
01:37:29 ◼ ► new Apple Watch, and I just pay a monthly fee for that. I'd be interested in that, maybe the most of
01:37:34 ◼ ► any of them. So I think it's funny that Rajeev asked. I think maybe more—because I don't hand
01:37:39 ◼ ► down my Apple Watches. Lauren uses an Apple Watch, but she uses the smaller model, and my son doesn't
01:37:47 ◼ ► use an Apple Watch. So I don't have a hand-me-down issue there. I just really kind of want to get
01:37:53 ◼ ► rid of my Apple Watch and get the new one, and so I'd be intrigued by that. I think Apple should
01:37:57 ◼ ► do this. I think Apple should be much more aggressive in sort of like putting people on
01:38:01 ◼ ► upgrade plans, because it's, you know, you don't have to do it, but it is convenient in a bunch of
01:38:10 ◼ ► different ways, and I think it's good for Apple too. And yes, I know we both know you can buy Apple
01:38:16 ◼ ► products on credit, and they have all these things, but the upgrade program, the iPhone upgrade
01:38:21 ◼ ► program is a very different thing. It comes with additional benefits, and this would be expanding
01:38:26 ◼ ► that product offering to other products. It's not just about buying something on an interest-free
01:38:32 ◼ ► credit plan. You know, the upgrade program gets you, like you get one, the new one as soon as
01:38:37 ◼ ► possible. They even open up specific stock for you. You get AppleCare. You know, you get more
01:38:42 ◼ ► in the whole package. And by taking your old phone back, you know, that is built into the cost, and
01:38:49 ◼ ► you end up spending this sort of, and for a lot of people having a regular, look, there are people
01:38:54 ◼ ► who've got money in the bank, and buying a phone for a thousand dollars is not a problem, and there
01:38:58 ◼ ► are other people who are like, "That's a lot of money, and I don't necessarily have that in the
01:39:01 ◼ ► bank at any one time." And there is something to be said for regularizing your output, right?
01:39:11 ◼ ► - Yeah. And I get that if you do the math, and you do the work, and you're like, "I have the money
01:39:18 ◼ ► in the bank. I can resell or hand down the other phone, and that's a better deal for me." It is.
01:39:28 ◼ ► mental energy and stress about getting rid of an old computer or phone. So, you know, I think
01:39:35 ◼ ► I would not ever advocate that Apple drop direct sales of devices and only go to a subscription
01:39:41 ◼ ► model, right? Like, no, that's no. But I do think that there are places, and the watch for me is the
01:39:46 ◼ ► one where I actually am like, "Actually, that..." Because of the way I use the watch, and I like the
01:39:51 ◼ ► watch, they do an annual cycle, and I don't hand it down. That one hits me kind of in the right
01:39:58 ◼ ► spot where I'd be like, "Maybe so. Maybe annual watch plan would be something I'd be interested in."
01:40:03 ◼ ► - If you would like to send in a question for us to answer on the show, just send out a tweet with
01:40:10 ◼ ► the hashtag #AskUpgrade or use question mark #AskUpgrade in the Relay FM members Discord.
01:40:24 ◼ ► if you are an Upgrade Plus subscriber where you get upgrade with no ads and additional content.
01:40:30 ◼ ► Just go to getupgradeplus.com to find out more and sign up. Thank you to our sponsors for this week,
01:40:37 ◼ ► Smile with PDF Pen, Microsoft Lists, and Bombas. If you would like to find Jason online, you can go to