00:00:08 ◼ ► From Real AFM, this is Upgrade Episode 296. Today's show is brought to you by Squarespace, Linode, and KiwiCo.
00:00:21 ◼ ► Good. Big show today. New Apple products. We're speaking to Mark Gurman later on. We've got loads of stuff.
00:00:27 ◼ ► But that doesn't mean we won't break from tradition. I have a #snowtalk question. Carlos wants to know, Jason.
00:00:38 ◼ ► Isn't this what they used to do when you went to a... what's the word I'm looking for? Restaurant?
00:01:01 ◼ ► At home, I think it's probably fair to say that I drink more sparkling water than still water only because we have cans of, you know, La Croix basically or store brand, off brand, whatever, but like seltzer in cans.
00:01:18 ◼ ► And I interleave that with my caffeine soda. But I also will just drink tap water and that's fine too.
00:01:26 ◼ ► So I guess in a restaurant context, please bring me the tap water. In a cans in the refrigerator context, I will have your fizzy water.
00:01:38 ◼ ► I don't see any purpose of buying a bottle of still water. That is... I'm not a believer in the kind...
00:01:47 ◼ ► Oh, it tastes... Oh, this is water. This water came from Fiji. It's... it is still water. I'm just not one of those people.
00:02:00 ◼ ► If you'd like to send in a question to help us open an episode of Upgrade, just send out a tweet with the hashtag #SnailTalk.
00:02:08 ◼ ► I want to do a quick piece of follow-up for iOS and Apple regards to Coronavirus COVID-19.
00:02:16 ◼ ► iOS 13.5, the beta came out last week. This was previously 13.4.5. This is like beta 3 of that release,
00:02:26 ◼ ► but is now being referred to as 13.5. And many people are calling it the COVID-19 iOS release,
00:02:33 ◼ ► because it is effectively completely focused on that, as well as I'm sure some other bug fixes.
00:02:38 ◼ ► But it includes the Exposure Notification API for developers to be able to write their apps to,
00:02:53 ◼ ► some frustrations that people are having using their iPhones in different ways because of COVID-19.
00:03:00 ◼ ► One is Face ID Mask Detection. So if you have a Face ID device and you're wearing a mask,
00:03:06 ◼ ► the device will detect that you're wearing a mask. And then instead of trying to get you to,
00:03:26 ◼ ► when you have group conversations, the order of the group, like they're all in these little
00:03:33 ◼ ► bubbles, basically, square bubbles, they move around and resize depending on who's talking,
00:03:43 ◼ ► in additional use and additional focus on having FaceTimes in groups. So there's now an option to
00:03:52 ◼ ► So I'm happy to see Apple doing this stuff, right? Like responding quickly to real life
00:04:00 ◼ ► issues that are being caused because of the new world that we find ourselves in at the moment.
00:04:07 ◼ ► Yep. Yep. I like to see that they prioritize this stuff and are trying to get it out fast.
00:04:29 ◼ ► years of joint experience in podcasting to help listeners start their own podcasts. So every
00:04:35 ◼ ► episode is a monthly show for Relay FM members. We go in depth on each part of the podcast creation
00:04:41 ◼ ► process. The first is about how to pick a topic. On our next episode, we're going to be talking
00:04:47 ◼ ► about how you pick guests or co-hosts and what might fit for the show that you're trying to make.
00:05:00 ◼ ► We've made the first episode available for free. There'll be a link to that in the show notes
00:05:05 ◼ ► for this episode of Upgrade, but it's on our Relay FM B-Sides feed. So you can get a taste for it.
00:05:11 ◼ ► Subsequent episodes will be, as I mentioned, for Relay FM members only. So if you're an existing
00:05:16 ◼ ► member, you will get this in the Relay FM members feed. If you want to become a member, you can do
00:05:21 ◼ ► that no matter what show you support or what plan you choose, you will get this benefit. But if you
00:05:26 ◼ ► do choose to support Backstage and you sign up for Backstage membership, that goes towards supporting
00:05:33 ◼ ► the day-to-day running of Relay FM. So you can choose to support any show, you can choose to
00:05:38 ◼ ► support Backstage, it's completely up to you. You can choose to support Upgrade. And this is another
00:05:43 ◼ ► moment, I think right now, just with everything that's going on in the world, directly supporting
00:05:49 ◼ ► the content that you enjoy is important. And I don't mean that just for this show or for Relay
00:05:53 ◼ ► FM. If you have extra money to give for content, you should support independent content creators
00:06:01 ◼ ► because it is a difficult and uncertain time for all of us, like it is for everybody else
00:06:06 ◼ ► in every type of job around the world. So I encourage people to think about that. Like find
00:06:12 ◼ ► Patreons for you to support, YouTubers, you can join the kind of like, if there's a YouTube join
00:06:18 ◼ ► button. And also if you like Relay FM podcasts, then become a Relay FM member, support your
00:06:22 ◼ ► favorite shows. And this is the first of a series of things that we're working on over the next,
00:06:44 ◼ ► - Yes, on a Thursday. Why? I don't know. Yes, Apple's results were out and it was weird because
00:06:52 ◼ ► they had China things early and then China kind of came up late, but then the rest of the world
00:06:58 ◼ ► shut down and there's a lot going on there. Revenue was up year over year, but this is the beginning.
00:07:05 ◼ ► The way they put it was we had the first part of the quarter where everything looked great and we
00:07:10 ◼ ► were gonna set records and beat our expectations. And then China shut down and then the rest of the
00:07:19 ◼ ► world shut down and they've gotten their product pipeline kind of back up and running, but they're
00:07:24 ◼ ► working at home and they gave no guidance for next quarter. And I think that's the big, actually,
00:07:30 ◼ ► top line story here is that Apple has like $90 billion in cash. It's not hurting. It can go for
00:07:38 ◼ ► a very long time. But in the short term, they said they can't even predict what their results will be
00:07:44 ◼ ► for next quarter because nobody really knows how this is gonna go over the next few months. And so
00:07:52 ◼ ► they are supremely confident in the long term and in the short term, they are not confident in their
00:08:00 ◼ ► ability to predict how it's gonna go. So that's the short version of the results. It is a good
00:08:06 ◼ ► time to be Apple and have $90 billion in a couch cushion somewhere. Yeah, because this was supposed
00:08:13 ◼ ► to be, was originally gonna be like a really massive quarter, right? And then obviously,
00:08:18 ◼ ► Apple had to change the guidance on it for good reason because they had no idea what was gonna
00:08:23 ◼ ► happen, right? Like it was a surprise to everyone. But they still ended up beating in revenue.
00:08:30 ◼ ► Services and wearables, of course, were up. iPhone, iPad, Mac, all down. But one of the things that
00:08:37 ◼ ► was mentioned on the call, which you wrote about in a Macworld article, is they are actually
00:08:43 ◼ ► expecting iPad and Mac sales to be up in Q3 because of remote working. So that's probably
00:08:48 ◼ ► their champions of the next quarter for good reason. Yeah, they figure that people are settling
00:08:54 ◼ ► into their remote lifestyle and realizing they need to upgrade their stuff and so Mac and iPad
00:09:00 ◼ ► are seeing a boost. Whereas iPhone and Apple Watch, not so much. So that's one of the things
00:09:08 ◼ ► they're looking at. As well as sort of, you know, Tim Cook says the supply chain is up in
00:09:14 ◼ ► force, right? That they're rolling again on making things. I thought that it was interesting. He
00:09:27 ◼ ► "Boy, having your factories in China really bit you," in kinder words than that. But what Tim Cook
00:09:34 ◼ ► said is, "It's not really fair to view Apple as a company that just makes everything in one place.
00:09:40 ◼ ► Our supply chain is global. We're sourcing from all over. We assemble in China and a few things
00:09:45 ◼ ► in the U.S. But we are sourcing this stuff and the fact is it's up and running. So it's pretty
00:09:51 ◼ ► resilient." And then he said, "That said, of course, we are always looking at ways we can improve,"
00:09:57 ◼ ► which is a classic line from him. I choose to read that as, you know, "Maybe we ought to have
00:10:03 ◼ ► two places we can do a lot of key things in case there's a natural disaster or whatever in one of
00:10:10 ◼ ► those places." But, you know, he's pointing out that this was a pretty severe situation and their
00:10:15 ◼ ► global supply chain is actually up and running. So I think he's not in agreement with the people
00:10:23 ◼ ► who think this shows that Apple's decisions are questionable because of, you know, this situation
00:10:30 ◼ ► kind of getting them in the weeds a little bit. I don't think he feels that that actually happened.
00:10:39 ◼ ► but the most important part is the manufacturing and that's by and large all done in China,
00:10:46 ◼ ► right? And I think that that is a important thing that Apple need to, and they know they do now,
00:10:53 ◼ ► they know they need to think about it, right? Like, yeah, I think that's what why I said,
00:10:57 ◼ ► like, I chose to read into the "We always are going to contemplate ways we could do this better"
00:11:05 ◼ ► as them not wanting to make any announcements. But, like, I mean, let's be serious here.
00:11:09 ◼ ► You still have the issue of if you only have one provider, if you only have one location that you
00:11:15 ◼ ► can build an iPhone, that if something happens at that location or to that provider, you're kind of
00:11:20 ◼ ► out of luck. And Apple doesn't like being put in situations like that. Like, you know, we talk
00:11:25 ◼ ► about Apple wanting to control its own destiny, but in terms of making an iPhone, they don't
00:11:31 ◼ ► control their own destiny in the sense that they haven't kind of hedged against the assembly in
00:11:35 ◼ ► China. So I would imagine they will continue to try to find other alternatives for that.
00:11:41 ◼ ► Like that said, there are certain kinds of natural disasters and things like this pandemic
00:11:45 ◼ ► that nobody can, you know, necessarily reinforce their systems to withstand. But their confidence
00:11:54 ◼ ► surprised me a little bit. I expected them to be a little bit more hesitant, but Tim Cook was,
00:11:59 ◼ ► he was acting really, like, vindicated about how great their logistics is, which it's his baby. I
00:12:05 ◼ ► can see why he would feel that way. - Yeah, like if they are actually at a point where they're
00:12:10 ◼ ► making stuff again, I mean, they're releasing new products that are definitely making stuff,
00:12:13 ◼ ► he's got to feel good about that, right? Like that's his thing, you know? - Yeah. Oh, I mean,
00:12:19 ◼ ► he was in his element. There was a question about component prices in the long run. And like,
00:12:23 ◼ ► if some prices were going to be volatile or if they were going to go down, and if that was an
00:12:26 ◼ ► opportunity for Apple, there was a very in the weeds question that I felt was certainly going
00:12:31 ◼ ► to be answered by Luca Maestri, who is the CFO. And Tim Cook answered it. He was like, yeah, well,
00:12:36 ◼ ► NAND prices are, you know, are going to be flat and this other component's prices are going to be,
00:12:41 ◼ ► are going to be down a little bit. And he was going into the details. And then I thought,
00:12:45 ◼ ► it is Tim Cook. Like, this is his stuff. This is what he is great at, is this part of the
00:12:53 ◼ ► business. So of course, he's paying attention to that part. - All right, we're going to take our
00:12:59 ◼ ► first break. And then after this, we're going to be joined by Mark Gurman of Bloomberg,
00:13:03 ◼ ► which I'm very excited about. Today's show is brought to you in part by our friends over at
00:13:12 ◼ ► infrastructure, Linode has the pricing, support and scale that you need to take your project to
00:13:17 ◼ ► the next level. Linode have 11 data centers worldwide, including their newest data center
00:13:22 ◼ ► in Sydney, Australia. They have enterprise grade hardware, S3 compatible storage options,
00:13:27 ◼ ► and a next generation network to deliver the performance that you expect at a surprisingly
00:13:32 ◼ ► good price. Get started with Linode today with a $20 credit for listeners of this show,
00:13:37 ◼ ► and you will get access to a revamped cloud manager built on an open source single page app,
00:13:42 ◼ ► dedicated CPU plans for physical cores reserved just for you if that's something that you're
00:13:47 ◼ ► looking for, and one click installs of the most popular apps, including WordPress and game servers
00:13:52 ◼ ► for Minecraft. There's so much more and you can go check it out right now by going to linode.com/upgrade
00:13:58 ◼ ► and using the promo code upgrade2020 when creating a new Linode account, and you'll get $20 towards
00:14:11 ◼ ► upgrade2020 to get that $20 credit. Our thanks to Linode for their continued support of this show
00:14:16 ◼ ► and all of Relay FM. All right, so we had the pleasure now of being joined by Mark Gurman. I
00:14:20 ◼ ► was thinking before what I was preparing for the show today, like what kind of introduction,
00:14:25 ◼ ► but you know like that it's that often used phrase of like you need no introduction because
00:14:30 ◼ ► we whenever you write anything we talk about it on this show, so I think upgrade listeners are
00:14:36 ◼ ► very familiar with you. So Mark, thank you so much for joining us today. No, thank you so much for
00:14:40 ◼ ► having me. It's a pleasure. I listen to you guys from time to time, and I have a few close friends
00:14:47 ◼ ► who are very religious listeners, and they tell me that you know Myke and Jason are you know always
00:14:54 ◼ ► talking about my story, so you know maybe you should go on there and you know maybe talk about
00:14:57 ◼ ► them. It's time to get it from the source. Yeah, it's after you pretty much Ming-Chi Kuo is our
00:15:03 ◼ ► only other frequently mentioned person to get on, so that's funny. We're halfway there. 50 percent.
00:15:09 ◼ ► You should try to get them. Yeah, and this is an interesting time. I mean I think this is one of
00:15:14 ◼ ► the good reasons to talk to you right now because it's not only is this typically an interesting
00:15:19 ◼ ► time of the year, and I'm sure that you know we're going to see from you I expect at some point soon
00:15:24 ◼ ► a lot more about iOS 14. It tends to be your way of doing things, but I'll leave that surprise for
00:15:30 ◼ ► you later on, but even more so than it typically being an interesting time of the year, it is an
00:15:36 ◼ ► incredibly interesting time for everything right now including Apple, and I was wondering from your
00:15:43 ◼ ► perspective right now, what do you think are some of the biggest products or initiatives that Apple
00:15:49 ◼ ► have on the horizon for the next year? Because I know you've reported on a bunch of things that
00:15:53 ◼ ► could be coming, but stuff's changed, so what do you think is like some of the most important,
00:15:58 ◼ ► some of the things that they will be focusing the most on maybe over the next six to 12 months?
00:16:02 ◼ ► Yeah, I mean that's a good question. I mean I know this is an obvious one, but you know all hands are
00:16:09 ◼ ► on deck to get the iPhone out the door by you know late October, early November at this point.
00:16:15 ◼ ► It's an incredibly challenging situation. It was already hard, and I don't think a lot of people
00:16:22 ◼ ► realize this, before the the COVID-19 pandemic hit, Apple was already racing against the clock
00:16:28 ◼ ► to get this phone out the door because of the entire 5G modem situation. Obviously these
00:16:34 ◼ ► devices are in development for years on end, and they only really struck the deal with Qualcomm to
00:16:41 ◼ ► get the modems working in this year's iPhones with 5G, so I think about a year ago, and that already
00:16:48 ◼ ► makes it difficult integrating you know a custom antenna to go with the Qualcomm 5G modem, having
00:16:54 ◼ ► different types of modems for different devices, standard 5G versus millimeter wave, so that whole
00:17:00 ◼ ► situation was already going to be difficult. And then you throw COVID-19 in the middle and that's
00:17:05 ◼ ► just another wrench in the in this situation. So I think they'll be on track to get the phones out by
00:17:16 ◼ ► announce the phones in September, but you've seen the XR, you've seen the iPhone X released sort of
00:17:22 ◼ ► late October, early November in the last few years or so, so I think they'll still hit it. But getting
00:17:28 ◼ ► these phones out the door is certainly going to be a challenge they haven't faced in the past.
00:17:32 ◼ ► In terms of longer term initiatives, right now 2020 is a really key period for development of
00:17:40 ◼ ► products that's going to hit in 2022, 2023, so what you might see are some delays to future products
00:17:48 ◼ ► that are not going to be released for you know for several years or several months on end, and the
00:17:53 ◼ ► question is going to be is Apple going to be able to make up that lost time once they do return to work
00:17:59 ◼ ► probably at this point in mid-June. Yeah, I was gonna go down that path with you a little bit.
00:18:05 ◼ ► Last week Tim Cook said on the analyst call lots of positive things about their supply chain and
00:18:11 ◼ ► how it's global and how they they feel like they're doing pretty well, but you you gotta think that
00:18:17 ◼ ► that something has taken a hit. Is it too early to get a read on what might be the products that are
00:18:25 ◼ ► or projects that are slowed by the virus's impact on the supply chain and also by the people at
00:18:31 ◼ ► Apple who work on these products who are all at home now? Do you have a read on that or is it
00:18:36 ◼ ► too early to tell? You know I think it's too early, but you know speculating probably any hardware
00:18:42 ◼ ► product that was due to be released in the later half of 2021, anything in 2022, 2022 and beyond,
00:18:49 ◼ ► I mean obviously I would say that it probably took a three four month development hit and the
00:18:54 ◼ ► question is what does a three to four month development hit translate to in terms of release
00:18:59 ◼ ► timing? Is that you know an equivalent if you lose three months of development time is that three
00:19:04 ◼ ► months delay for a product launch or is it six months or is it a year right or does it really not
00:19:09 ◼ ► have an impact? So you know it's still too early to tell but in terms of machining, prototyping,
00:19:16 ◼ ► collaborative designing, those are all you know much more difficult in this environment.
00:19:22 ◼ ► If you think about Apple's push into audio right so the smaller HomePod for later this year,
00:19:27 ◼ ► the over your headphones, the next AirPods, those are probably all okay but the amount of time and
00:19:40 ◼ ► that's a very you know intensive process so it's probably you're probably seeing a little delay on
00:19:45 ◼ ► you know future iteration to those products. You know what about the iPhones in future years right
00:19:51 ◼ ► the idea that you need to test those things in antenna labs for a long period of time right?
00:19:58 ◼ ► So there is some sort of delay that's very possible but on the other hand we don't know
00:20:03 ◼ ► what kind of overtime Apple's going to work to sort of make this up. Sort of like if your flight
00:20:08 ◼ ► gets delayed the pilots like to say okay we're going to make this up in the air and we'll get
00:20:12 ◼ ► you there right at the same time right? So you know I think it's very difficult to bet against
00:20:18 ◼ ► Apple being able to do that so I wouldn't put a firm impact you know percentage of impact on this
00:20:27 ◼ ► at this point. Every single day all of the websites that I read like the typical high volume Apple
00:20:35 ◼ ► websites they have a different delay period for the iPhone right? Like every iPhone is delayed by
00:20:42 ◼ ► a different period sometimes it's better sometimes it's worse. You mentioned about like October
00:20:47 ◼ ► November do you expect that to be the entire line like what is your read on that right now?
00:20:52 ◼ ► Do you think all iPhones will be delayed some do you think they will be staggered anyway?
00:20:57 ◼ ► Yeah that's a good question I think there's going to be some staggering in between the low end and
00:21:03 ◼ ► the high end so the 12 versus the 12 Pro but the reason you're seeing different you know
00:21:08 ◼ ► indications of how long a potential delay is going to be is because there's two things at play right?
00:21:14 ◼ ► There's when is Apple going to announce it and when is Apple going to actually ship it which as
00:21:19 ◼ ► we know are two different things right? They could announce a phone in September and ship it in
00:21:23 ◼ ► November. The other factor in addition to those two is not taking into account what a production
00:21:31 ◼ ► delay means right? If Apple pushes production back for a device for let's say a month does that mean
00:21:38 ◼ ► they're going to you know release it a month later or does that mean they're going to release it at
00:21:43 ◼ ► the normal period but in smaller quantities and sort of ramp up to their normal set of quantity?
00:21:49 ◼ ► So there's you know a lot of factors that come into play here and it just comes down to which
00:21:54 ◼ ► decision is Apple going to make? I've seen both happen right? For the iPhone 10 they you know
00:22:02 ◼ ► started producing it quite a bit later and then they released it you know about a month later
00:22:06 ◼ ► than usual I remember the early November release in 2017 for the 10 but there's been other
00:22:17 ◼ ► I remember there were iPhones in the past one that comes to mind is the iPhone I think 6 plus
00:22:22 ◼ ► this is already six or seven years ago but that phone you know it was very very hard to get it
00:22:28 ◼ ► for one to two months but what they did do is they released it at the same time as the regular
00:22:34 ◼ ► iPhone 6. So they've shown both ways of doing things and it's just about which one they choose
00:22:39 ◼ ► and I don't think those decisions are made until a lot closer. I mean remember we're still in May
00:22:44 ◼ ► and so we're about four to five months away from any of those decisions. It doesn't feel like it's
00:22:48 ◼ ► that far but it is very far still. It is quite a bit far and it actually does from a feeling
00:22:54 ◼ ► perspective it does feel earlier and earlier each time right? I mean as soon as one iPhone is out
00:22:59 ◼ ► the door the next one is already you know deep into development these things are finalized.
00:23:03 ◼ ► Like the iPhone 12 they've finished development of that thing probably four or five months ago
00:23:09 ◼ ► already. Yeah. Fully finalized and so it's just about a production thing and we're pretty much
00:23:14 ◼ ► we're pretty close to these phones actually going into small scale production. It could have already
00:23:18 ◼ ► happened for all we know. I wonder also about the not only just the supply chain but the delivery
00:23:24 ◼ ► to customers aspect and how that will we don't know what Apple stores are going to look like
00:23:28 ◼ ► in the fall and even if they're reopened around the world is Apple going to want people lining
00:23:35 ◼ ► up at Apple stores to get iPhones or are they going to because you know traditionally it's been
00:23:43 ◼ ► if you don't get your order online is going to be pushed out you can often go to a store and get one
00:23:48 ◼ ► but I wonder you know will they rejigger that whole thing will they try to have everybody order
00:23:53 ◼ ► online so they can just ship them direct rather than having them in in stores and we don't really
00:23:58 ◼ ► know what stores are going to look like in the fall. No that's a very good question and I think
00:24:02 ◼ ► it's too early even for the world to know or for Apple to know. I mean the very scary thing is I'm
00:24:06 ◼ ► reading all these articles and following obviously like everyone else this Covid situation very
00:24:11 ◼ ► closely and there's lots of fears of these second and third waves what what happens when you know
00:24:17 ◼ ► at this point I would say the assumption is that Apple would have all Apple retail stores sitting
00:24:22 ◼ ► here today reopened by end of June globally all 500 plus stores opened by end of June there's going
00:24:28 ◼ ► to be a ton of them probably hundreds opening between now and the end of this month in fact
00:24:33 ◼ ► Austria opens it opens tomorrow if you hadn't seen that and Australia will be I believe later next
00:24:39 ◼ ► week and so what happens if a second wave hits in you know September, October, November right
00:24:45 ◼ ► they have to close all the stores again you're back to where we were two months ago right so I
00:24:50 ◼ ► think it's an extremely fluid situation and to Jason's point I think that could be a reason for
00:24:56 ◼ ► sort of ramping up in the online retail focus maybe for this year they say if you want to get
00:25:00 ◼ ► one of these phones you have to you have to you know push towards you know online retail when
00:25:05 ◼ ► when Angela Ahrendts was in charge of retail up until the beginning of last year she had this
00:25:10 ◼ ► really big push to the appointment only experience coming in when the phone is ready for pickup they
00:25:14 ◼ ► text you when to come in and what the new retail chief Deidre O'Brien was sort of wanted to do was
00:25:20 ◼ ► push back to some of the old school approaches bringing back lines bringing up hype not having
00:25:25 ◼ ► to have an appointment to pick up a phone which you know in my personal opinion I think that
00:25:35 ◼ ► frankly I think the consumer likes that too they don't want to have to come in at a specific time
00:25:39 ◼ ► they want to be able to show up and buy the phone when they want to buy the phone they want to line
00:25:43 ◼ ► up etc etc but because of the coronavirus I to you know both of your points I think that's going to
00:25:49 ◼ ► have to be you know held back probably for another year or so. How would they do a line now? It would
00:25:55 ◼ ► go through the whole shopping mall down the street. All the lines across the globe would start
00:26:00 ◼ ► intersecting at some point. Yeah I mean six feet you know and I'm no health professional but you
00:26:06 ◼ ► know six feet is not much you know. Yeah those lines seem like a bygone era now a little bit.
00:26:12 ◼ ► Mark I have to ask you this question which is what is the deal with air tags like seriously like you
00:26:18 ◼ ► look at the U1 chip in the phones last fall and this persistent rumor about air tags as a product
00:26:26 ◼ ► and it seems like a very strong suggestion that this product does exist we saw a mistake in a
00:26:33 ◼ ► screenshot in a beta where they mentioned the product name and you know it's been almost ready
00:26:40 ◼ ► to ship it seems in our minds for a long time now and it just hasn't happened you know where are they?
00:26:47 ◼ ► Yeah so the air tags you're definitely a product this is probably one of the most discussed Apple
00:26:55 ◼ ► products in recent memory that hasn't been released and it's to the point like you said where
00:27:04 ◼ ► support video from a few weeks ago but my belief is that they were delayed they were supposed to
00:27:11 ◼ ► launch last year probably alongside the iPhone 11 line right that's integrating with the U1 chip and
00:27:18 ◼ ► all that but they should be coming this year it should be a little bit later this year and I wrote
00:27:24 ◼ ► it was recently that these things are going to be like all other Apple stuff you know it doesn't
00:27:28 ◼ ► take a genius to tell you these are going to be high priced and premium and they'll be coming in
00:27:33 ◼ ► like these little leather pouches they're primarily for keys but I think that they have a lot of good
00:27:40 ◼ ► use cases is it really going to impact Tile? I think that's the big question I think to some
00:27:45 ◼ ► extent yes but you know Tile has you know the subscription pricing I think at this point they
00:27:51 ◼ ► have you can buy a stack of them for a pretty good price whereas these Apple ones are probably going
00:27:55 ◼ ► to be more expensive I'm curious what do you guys think how do you think they're going to do it you
00:27:59 ◼ ► think they're going to charge you know individually do you think they're going to do three five-packs
00:28:04 ◼ ► what would you pay for one of them? We had a question about this a couple weeks ago where
00:28:11 ◼ ► somebody was asking about it as a service and I thought I don't think it's going to be a service
00:28:14 ◼ ► I think you're going to be able to pay but I do think it's going to be you know my rule of thumb
00:28:19 ◼ ► is always what would you like to pay now increase that and now round it up and that's what it's
00:28:24 ◼ ► actually going to cost the double increase so I kept saying like I don't know this is a three-pack
00:28:30 ◼ ► for 50 or 75 or something like that I don't think it's going to be cheap but I think Apple's going
00:28:34 ◼ ► to say but our system is better and you know their system is better assuming these things
00:28:39 ◼ ► as we've read about the the COVID-19 stuff like they built a system where every Apple device in
00:28:45 ◼ ► existence that's of a current OS generation will be able to find these things it should be an
00:28:50 ◼ ► incredibly powerful system and they'll promote that and they'll say this is why you want to get
00:28:55 ◼ ► our tracker and it'll have presumably ultra wideband in it so that it'll have the precision
00:29:00 ◼ ► locations and I don't know I think you know expensive but probably not a service is my guess.
00:29:13 ◼ ► and then they you know made find my service where they're going to charge you I don't know
00:29:18 ◼ ► $2.99 a month to use it I think it's possible. It's possible for sure. What do you think they
00:29:25 ◼ ► would add like for that like if it was a service what would be different? That's a good question
00:29:31 ◼ ► maybe you can use one for free but you're going to have to pay if you want to track multiple devices
00:29:36 ◼ ► maybe. Yeah I also wonder they could also do something where if you're on a higher iCloud
00:29:41 ◼ ► tier I've been waiting for them to do some of this where and actually I think the secure video
00:29:46 ◼ ► feature is like this already the idea that if you're in a higher iCloud tier you get it and
00:29:50 ◼ ► otherwise you got to pay some amount to have it. Oh that's a really good point okay so maybe they
00:29:56 ◼ ► do that maybe they tie it to the iCloud account and this gets to the other thing you guys asked
00:30:01 ◼ ► for like some bigger initiatives that they've been working on I mean this whole idea of bundling their
00:30:06 ◼ ► services together is something that they were thinking of doing as early as this year so iCloud
00:30:12 ◼ ► music Apple news you know tv plus all of those together but the other thing is I know Jason
00:30:17 ◼ ► follows the the earnings calls very closely with his transcripts but Tim Cook's comment about how
00:30:22 ◼ ► they're going to allow purchases other than the iPhone other Apple hardware purchases to be spread
00:30:27 ◼ ► over your Apple card monthly payments. Right. So that's going to be that's going to be quite
00:30:33 ◼ ► interesting. Speaking of which we should talk about the the MacBook Pro did you or I'm sure
00:30:40 ◼ ► you guys are going to hit that in your. Yeah I mean we're gonna we're gonna talk about it later if
00:30:43 ◼ ► you've got anything you want to talk about we can talk about it now we're gonna go into detail
00:30:46 ◼ ► later on. Yeah I mean I found it interesting that they went with 13 inch versus 14 inch for this
00:30:53 ◼ ► iteration. Do you have a rate on that because I feel like it seemed like it was obvious it was
00:30:58 ◼ ► going to be 14. See I don't know I look at this and I think well this is an this is an interim
00:31:03 ◼ ► step this is literally just how quickly can we get that old keyboard out of the line and in fact they
00:31:10 ◼ ► barely did anything on the low end of those laptops but you know so that that's that's what
00:31:15 ◼ ► it struck me I mean the MacBook Air is the same way it's it's largely the same computer with a
00:31:20 ◼ ► different keyboard instead of it being like a whole brand new computer. Yeah that's exactly my
00:31:26 ◼ ► read Jason that there is going to be a 14 inch a bigger redesign with what there's no wi-fi 5 on
00:31:33 ◼ ► this one right and they're missing some of the the bigger features some of the features that even the
00:31:38 ◼ ► 16 inch MacBook Pro got it. Correct me if I'm wrong I don't know if this one even has the higher end
00:31:42 ◼ ► speakers. I don't see that mentioned anywhere which means it probably doesn't because Apple
00:31:48 ◼ ► really like to talk about those. Yeah that's true and the microphones right I'm not entirely sure
00:31:55 ◼ ► that it has any of that stuff so yeah I think this is a very minor keyboard swap type of update
00:32:01 ◼ ► and you'll see the 14 inch maybe end of year maybe early next year. Do you think that that could be
00:32:07 ◼ ► I mean there's been a lot of talk about mini led do you think that they may wait to put that
00:32:11 ◼ ► technology in this product do you think it's too early for that technology? No mini led is coming
00:32:17 ◼ ► it's just a matter of when that could be something that's interrupted by COVID because anytime they
00:32:27 ◼ ► deal I think that if they needed to push some stuff back they'd be pushing back some of the
00:32:32 ◼ ► Mac stuff and prioritize the iOS device stuff for later this year speaking like of the iPhone and
00:32:39 ◼ ► the accessories which is their biggest you know one of their biggest growth markets right now
00:32:43 ◼ ► so you know mini led probably a next year thing that's obviously a across the line type of deal
00:32:51 ◼ ► I think you'll see the next iPad get that too iPad Pro I don't believe there's going to be another
00:32:57 ◼ ► iPad Pro this year I think that's also a next year thing so those will probably get mini led as well.
00:33:03 ◼ ► Going back to the the call last week because yeah I absolutely do you know every now and then they
00:33:11 ◼ ► put tidbits in there it's worth it's worth digging through it to find little things that they're
00:33:15 ◼ ► willing to disclose and one of the things that I thought was fascinating was Tim Cook saying
00:33:20 ◼ ► Apple shifting to an entirely work at home environment that some jobs and some groups are
00:33:27 ◼ ► doing better than normal that like being remote has actually improved their productivity which
00:33:33 ◼ ► I thought was fascinating and I immediately asked myself are you gonna insist that they all move to
00:33:38 ◼ ► Silicon Valley and going forward or you might be more open to remote workers but he said some
00:33:43 ◼ ► groups are not as productive and it's a mixed bag I'm just you know based on what you know I'm
00:33:51 ◼ ► curious how is it working for the people working at Apple right now because they're all at home
00:33:57 ◼ ► you know and I'm sure that there are tasks that are completely capable of being done remotely but
00:34:04 ◼ ► there have got to be other tasks that are very hard and they've got a lot of secrecy stuff I
00:34:08 ◼ ► would imagine there's a bunch of stuff that you're not supposed to ever see if you're not on campus
00:34:12 ◼ ► that now people off campus have to see and that can be a security problem for them I just you know
00:34:18 ◼ ► what's your what's your feeling about how they're handling you know not being in the building
00:34:23 ◼ ► yeah that caught my ear as well in terms of stuff being productive and stuff being less productive
00:34:30 ◼ ► that seems more like you know unplanned slip up they never say say stuff like that as you guys
00:34:35 ◼ ► know in terms of more productive I'd bet you know marketing software engineering to some perspective
00:34:42 ◼ ► all those types of things that you know you can really just hunker down in your room and
00:34:46 ◼ ► you know get done on your computer in terms of less productive that takes you down to hardware
00:34:51 ◼ ► now hardware is really split into and this is a really rudimentary way of explaining it but split
00:34:57 ◼ ► into two parts right there's the the actual hardware perspective that requires you know
00:35:02 ◼ ► hands-on work with screwdrivers and playing with things and you know building stuff with your hands
00:35:12 ◼ ► CAD drawing software engineering component that goes into hardware right a huge part of chip
00:35:19 ◼ ► development right is is software based right the software programming that goes into the chips
00:35:24 ◼ ► that are you know you know embedded in the actual processors that go into the devices so
00:35:28 ◼ ► I'd imagine the software component of hardware engineering CAD drawing analysis is going well
00:35:35 ◼ ► there is so much stuff at Apple that really requires you to be in the lab be in a room be in a group
00:35:39 ◼ ► that's just simply not happening that takes us back to the point in which you know why this work from
00:35:45 ◼ ► home situation is so difficult for for so many companies and is this going to be stuff that Apple
00:35:50 ◼ ► is going to be able to make up in the air and you know my perspective is yes right but at the same
00:35:56 ◼ ► time if there's other additional waves that keep hitting you know who knows what's going to happen
00:36:02 ◼ ► and another tidbit on this is that they they have had people working at you know the Apple offices
00:36:09 ◼ ► right there are you know these I don't know if these qualify as essential workers in the
00:36:14 ◼ ► terminology that that local governments use in terms of what's allowed to be open and not
00:36:18 ◼ ► allowed to be open but there's people that need to be there to do some testing right this is a
00:36:22 ◼ ► trillion dollar corporation and this is a global pandemic and it's a horrific situation obviously
00:36:29 ◼ ► to say the least I don't need to to say more but they have a responsibility to keep going in some
00:36:34 ◼ ► respects so those things are going to keep happening certain amounts of testing you have
00:36:40 ◼ ► operations that need to keep going data centers etc etc that need to have humans there to keep
00:36:45 ◼ ► these things up and running I think there's many companies that still have people going into the
00:36:50 ◼ ► office maybe just a few people with strict social distancing and I don't think Apple's any different
00:37:00 ◼ ► yeah no that's a good question in terms of announcements I'll hold off on talking about
00:37:07 ◼ ► anything I haven't written about but there was a an accessibility seminar a few weeks ago online
00:37:15 ◼ ► they did it over the course of I think April in India they did a few of them in India they did one
00:37:21 ◼ ► in the US I think two weeks ago or so where you were able to sort of send in questions and stuff
00:37:26 ◼ ► like that so I think that's really what it's going to be I think there's going to be live
00:37:30 ◼ ► integration with the viewer and this is in terms of the individual sessions I think you'll see
00:37:37 ◼ ► you'll see lots of resources to be able to interact with online I don't know precisely how
00:37:42 ◼ ► it's going to work my big question is how is the keynote going to go are they going to do a live
00:37:48 ◼ ► streamed keynote that looks like any normal keynote and stream it with just no one in the
00:37:52 ◼ ► audience are they going to do something a little bit more unique where they they pre-roll a bunch
00:37:57 ◼ ► of videos are they going to do a full normal keynote but shoot it in advance and edit it
00:38:01 ◼ ► I think it's going to be very fascinating to see it's sort of unprecedented for them and
00:38:07 ◼ ► but personally I'm excited to see how it shakes out yeah they got a chance to reinvent it a little
00:38:12 ◼ ► bit if they want to I mean they have to but it's also an opportunity to say why don't we do it
00:38:17 ◼ ► this new way instead of just going through the motions of what we always do that's my fear with
00:38:23 ◼ ► this is they may get some ideas that like like more than having these live like oh if we just
00:38:28 ◼ ► edit this there can be no mistakes right I think that's what you're probably going to see I think
00:38:35 ◼ ► you're going to see a mix of both I mean I think it's a resource thing right like getting these
00:38:39 ◼ ► operating systems done and all that from home it's a very you know it takes a toll on all of
00:38:44 ◼ ► these software engineers there's a lot of them who have been complaining about this and just like any
00:38:48 ◼ ► other environment right you it's hard to do your best work when you're in a situation where you
00:38:54 ◼ ► know with your family at home some of them have kids etc etc so it's definitely not easy for anyone
00:39:00 ◼ ► but I think we'll get it done and my big question is when in June is this happening I think they
00:39:05 ◼ ► were pretty specific and really only saying June versus a specific date because it's a little bit
00:39:10 ◼ ► more fluid and because you're not having a physical location I think you have the right
00:39:15 ◼ ► to be a little bit more fluid so I wouldn't be shocked if this was later in June than earlier
00:39:20 ◼ ► and you know it's possible that WWDC is still like almost two months away right like we're in the
00:39:25 ◼ ► beginning of May right now usually we're talking like the first week of June it's like a month away
00:39:29 ◼ ► but you know very early May very late June that's about two months so we could a little we could be
00:39:35 ◼ ► a little far off from this thing for sure we'll see though. I want to shift gears a little bit and
00:39:40 ◼ ► talk about talk about you and your job and you made that you made the big move from 9to5Mac to
00:39:47 ◼ ► go to working at Bloomberg and Bloomberg is a very large news organization I know a bunch of people
00:39:53 ◼ ► who work at Bloomberg it's unlike a lot of other journalism outfits too because of the financial
00:40:00 ◼ ► background and the terminal and all these things that if people don't know like Bloomberg is a
00:40:03 ◼ ► different kind of place and you're working at 9to5Mac before doing these reports I think while
00:40:10 ◼ ► you were going to school so what how has your job changed being a part of this large business and
00:40:21 ◼ ► financially oriented news organization at Bloomberg are you obviously your bylines you are often
00:40:26 ◼ ► sharing bylines now so I imagine there's a lot of collaboration going on that maybe wasn't there
00:40:31 ◼ ► before have they challenged you you know I just it's a big open-ended question like how is your
00:40:37 ◼ ► how is your process and your work changed working for Bloomberg? Yeah no that's a that's a good
00:40:44 ◼ ► point I actually do know at least I won't get into personal names or anything I do know at least one
00:40:47 ◼ ► of your friends there and he's very cool but Bloomberg for me it's like you said it's a big
00:40:59 ◼ ► being able to you know travel and go to events the name has been very helpful you know for getting in
00:41:06 ◼ ► the door with certain meetings and such but in terms of the news what I do specifically
00:41:11 ◼ ► nothing has really changed to be honest with you I mean there's a lot of things that I don't
00:41:18 ◼ ► immediately report like maybe very small minor things sometimes I'll you know save a couple
00:41:24 ◼ ► things and bundle it into a story for example I had a story a few weeks ago that had details about
00:41:32 ◼ ► the iPhone 12 the the timing the smaller home pod and the air tags instead of breaking that up into
00:41:39 ◼ ► you know three four five stories where I may have done that in the nine to five Mac days that was
00:41:44 ◼ ► one story about it all bundled together so that that is one change given being at a you know bigger
00:41:51 ◼ ► news organization with the bar being much higher but in terms of you know the seriousness of these
00:41:57 ◼ ► things I think I always took it pretty seriously in terms of accuracy and reliability so not a ton
00:42:03 ◼ ► has changed from there it's a great organization and like you said there's lots of people that I
00:42:08 ◼ ► get to collaborate with you know Debbie Wu who works in our Asia supply chain she's awesome
00:42:15 ◼ ► and it's a big help to be able to have both perspectives on things right from the supply
00:42:21 ◼ ► chain perspective but also from the you know the Apple corporate perspective and sort of blending
00:42:26 ◼ ► it together and you know double checking things on both sides I think that's a really good way to get
00:42:30 ◼ ► as much information into a story as possible we have people who you know focus on you know chips
00:42:36 ◼ ► and processors and you know Intel understanding the Intel perspective of this big Apple transition
00:42:42 ◼ ► is going to be you know important part of understanding the next you know six months a year
00:42:47 ◼ ► of the Mac for Apple so you know it's important to have all these experts not that I you know I
00:42:52 ◼ ► don't particularly know these things and I'm an expert in these things myself but it does it does
00:42:57 ◼ ► help a bit to have you know additional people in the room who are like-minded and understanding of
00:43:02 ◼ ► these topics and you know pulling it all together and it's a great team that I'm lucky to work with
00:43:08 ◼ ► but you know long story short nothing has changed you know in terms of my process or anything like
00:43:13 ◼ ► that and it's exciting to still you know work on this stuff I think that the difference is
00:43:19 ◼ ► the audience is very financial oriented and it has been a balance trying to strike the you know
00:43:26 ◼ ► writing for a financial audience but also for retaining that sort of online and Twitter audience
00:43:32 ◼ ► I think early on I focused you know there was a lot of focus on the financial side but I think that
00:43:38 ◼ ► we've really struck the the right balance I've been doing this for you know four years now
00:43:42 ◼ ► and so I think it's great yeah I'm happy with it. Do you feel like especially with your access to
00:43:48 ◼ ► people in in different industries Debbie Wu being a obviously a key collaborator of yours Debbie's
00:43:55 ◼ ► you typically share buy lines and stories do you feel like it's changed your accuracy for reporting?
00:44:01 ◼ ► Not no not really I don't think anything has really changed in terms of accuracy no I mean
00:44:09 ◼ ► obviously when you're writing for Bloomberg you want an increased comfort level and you want an
00:44:13 ◼ ► increased amount of people you talk to but before putting a story out because you know about the
00:44:17 ◼ ► the financial impact. So you might corroborate a little bit more as such behind the scenes?
00:44:23 ◼ ► Yeah not to get you know into deep into about the how the sausage is made but yeah the the standard
00:44:33 ◼ ► standard might you know the standard was always very high at 9 to 5 Mac but we would never put
00:44:37 ◼ ► anything out that we weren't comfortable with or on very solid footing with so but the difference
00:44:44 ◼ ► is is that the responsibility to the financial readership is it's a lot higher as you can imagine
00:44:49 ◼ ► out of Bloomberg versus a 9 to 5 Mac so yeah yes you want to be as comfortable as possible and the
00:44:54 ◼ ► more corroborations you get the better but I don't think the accuracy itself has changed.
00:44:58 ◼ ► I think we're still doing pretty good yeah. I wonder about just being higher profile I mean
00:45:03 ◼ ► you mentioned your your audience is different I've definitely noticed that you your stories have to
00:45:08 ◼ ► put the information in a context that obviously 9 to 5 Mac I think your readers knew the context
00:45:14 ◼ ► and in Bloomberg I can I can definitely see the effort going into placing the new information in
00:45:19 ◼ ► the bigger story of Apple in a way that you didn't have to do before but I'm just curious being being
00:45:25 ◼ ► at such a high profile place how has that in terms of your access in terms of your information that
00:45:32 ◼ ► you get has it helped or hurt to be part of such a big brand? I think it's held tremendously right
00:45:40 ◼ ► the Bloomberg news brand is you know synonymous with the financial industry right and it's
00:45:47 ◼ ► extraordinarily well respected and well regarded I think there's a long tradition of being
00:45:53 ◼ ► you know accurate and having a good understanding of the atmosphere and I think people really
00:45:59 ◼ ► respect it and it makes it easier to you know get in the room with you know companies whether
00:46:04 ◼ ► that's Apple or Google or Amazon and such to to really get their perspectives about what's going
00:46:10 ◼ ► on to help inform your stories and find out about stuff early to be able to you know have stories
00:46:15 ◼ ► prepared so I think it's been a huge boost and you know I really am grateful to work there and
00:46:21 ◼ ► I appreciate the audience and you know the most pleasant thing to me was I think there was sort
00:46:25 ◼ ► of this fear when I made the transition four years ago now that I may lose some of the you know the
00:46:30 ◼ ► online audience and the people following along on Twitter and all that but that really has not been
00:46:36 ◼ ► the case at all I think people really like you know Bloomberg and I hope that I've you know at
00:46:41 ◼ ► least brought some of my you know former audience along to Bloomberg to understand you know all the
00:46:46 ◼ ► great stuff we're doing not to sound like an ad or anything like that but you know I'm just you know
00:46:51 ◼ ► I'm ecstatic about the work we're doing and you know it's very exciting every day to wake up in
00:46:55 ◼ ► the morning and do this stuff and I also feel very grateful to be doing this right I mean I'm sure
00:47:00 ◼ ► you guys are in the same boat but being able to you know write about technology talk about
00:47:04 ◼ ► technology Apple for a living is is tremendous right I grew up as someone who was you know a
00:47:10 ◼ ► massive you know Apple fanboy right I don't want to speak for you guys but I know you guys it's
00:47:15 ◼ ► like Apple as well yeah so it's like being able to make that transition to someone who's really
00:47:20 ◼ ► you know really interested and fascinated about a company and be able to turn that into sort of
00:47:27 ◼ ► a job and on top of that I mean this community of people is tremendous right some of the people you
00:47:40 ◼ ► the people who really follow this Apple stuff are some of the the smartest understanding kindest
00:47:46 ◼ ► people and so being able to you know interact on Twitter and with with this community I think is
00:47:52 ◼ ► uh it's it's been tremendous I wanted to ask again like without we're not looking for specifics here
00:48:02 ◼ ► I wonder if like do you do you feel like there's a lot of pressure with the information that you
00:48:09 ◼ ► receive like I assume there are a lot of steps that you need to go to to keep stuff close to your
00:48:14 ◼ ► chest is that like do you find that high stress have you do you deal with that a lot better now
00:48:20 ◼ ► like has it like grown over time as more there's more kind of focus on you like I'm just intrigued
00:48:27 ◼ ► in in what it's like to have access to the kind of information that you do and how it feels
00:48:43 ◼ ► early on it was very the line of work was very stressful you know looking back at it I don't
00:48:51 ◼ ► try not to look back too much but it was the balance that was really challenging right being
00:48:56 ◼ ► able to do this in high school right being able to do it in college while managing school work
00:49:02 ◼ ► and and all that I think that might have been the most challenging part and difficult part
00:49:11 ◼ ► mornings sleepless nights etc etc worrying about not only you know this stuff but school work and
00:49:17 ◼ ► all that whereas now I have a I guess before coronavirus you know the the singular thing
00:49:22 ◼ ► I was able to think about was this now this is sort of you know messed with everyone a little bit
00:49:27 ◼ ► uh made everyone a little stir crazy but you know other than that it's been much better is it
00:49:32 ◼ ► stressful is it high pressure not gonna lie yes I think that if it was easier there'd be a lot more
00:49:40 ◼ ► you know people doing it I think there's so many people who've tried to get into the space and
00:49:44 ◼ ► obviously everyone tries to carve a different niche in sort of the you know the Apple news
00:49:50 ◼ ► game right like Jason with with Macworld for so many years you know that was that was you know
00:49:55 ◼ ► your thing with with reviews and running that organization and now with six colors your analysis
00:50:01 ◼ ► and reviews and all that that's your thing keep scratching my chin that's what I do a lot of
00:50:06 ◼ ► nodding and thinking and that's what I know that's my job now that's great you know Jason has his
00:50:12 ◼ ► area right Myke with the whole podcast situation and you know you know obviously you guys know my
00:50:18 ◼ ► area so I think everyone is just trying to do the best they can in their own individual area right
00:50:23 ◼ ► I'll never be at the point in terms of you know analysis that Jason might be I'm not going to have
00:50:28 ◼ ► a podcast organization like Myke right but I have my thing so you know everyone is just trying to
00:50:38 ◼ ► well for for your in particular the angles that you hit I gotta say I always I mean so the legacy
00:50:45 ◼ ► at Macworld was that we didn't we didn't do a lot of um a rumor coverage a lot of trying to get
00:50:51 ◼ ► sources to give us information about what was to come historically that was because Mac week
00:50:55 ◼ ► existed for a long time and that was their bread and butter and that was how back in the I'm gonna
00:51:00 ◼ ► go way back here back in the old days that was the firewall that they tried to create between
00:51:05 ◼ ► at Ziff Davis between the people who were breaking stories and the people who had NDAs with Apple is
00:51:11 ◼ ► Mac user had the NDAs and Mac week broke stories and we and and the two groups were not even in the
00:51:16 ◼ ► same city for the longest time they kept them separate so that they could do both and I think
00:51:22 ◼ ► that that even at Macworld because the Mac we came over as a part of the merger we we definitely had
00:51:29 ◼ ► between that and especially when we were more magazine focused and less online focused it was
00:51:33 ◼ ► just something that we didn't do and I remember thinking that's great because that's not a job I
00:51:40 ◼ ► wanted so I have always appreciated people who do the job that you do because that's a lot of work
00:51:45 ◼ ► and you gotta and actually there is a question here that I wanted to ask you which is something
00:51:49 ◼ ► we talk about on this podcast a lot which is when when information comes over the transom or it's
00:51:55 ◼ ► somebody that you're talking to as a source about something that's going on what I always say is
00:52:02 ◼ ► ask yourself why they're leaking the information because oftentimes leaks will happen because
00:52:09 ◼ ► somebody's motivated or somebody's mad that their project got killed or something like that like
00:52:14 ◼ ► when the verge did that that Microsoft project that was the the the I can't remember the name
00:52:21 ◼ ► of it now or is there fancy yeah yeah courier that was very clearly somebody whose project got killed
00:52:26 ◼ ► and they were really angry and they gave them all the stuff like it was very clear sometimes it's
00:52:29 ◼ ► not so clear and this is my question for you I mean I imagine that a lot of your sources are
00:52:34 ◼ ► people that you know you know very well and and the information is clear and why they would know
00:52:39 ◼ ► it is clear but I would also imagine that you get people coming kind of out of the woodwork and you
00:52:44 ◼ ► know how do you apply your your own skepticism to information you're receiving because you have your
00:52:52 ◼ ► name is on it when it gets reported in Bloomberg so right so what what is your without going in you
00:52:56 ◼ ► know I'm not going to say who are your sources tell me your sources more like how do you apply
00:53:08 ◼ ► yeah I mean that's a good question I mean listen it's been 10 11 years now so you know there's been
00:53:14 ◼ ► hundreds if not thousands of stories and news items over this period and you know everything
00:53:20 ◼ ► is always different right so things have changed over over the years you know some stories come out
00:53:27 ◼ ► for certain reasons other stories for other reasons and I to be honest I try not to get into
00:53:32 ◼ ► the you know the machinations of why and all that and just focus on the actual news itself I think
00:53:38 ◼ ► that Apple is one of the most discussed companies one of the most invested companies one of the most
00:53:44 ◼ ► important companies do you get information though from sources where you're like I don't know if I
00:53:48 ◼ ► I don't know if I believe this I don't know if I you know that level of it where you're like yeah
00:53:52 ◼ ► this doesn't sound right and then I guess you have to cross check it with other people and say is this
00:53:55 ◼ ► a real thing or is this made up because you don't want to go out with something that's from a source
00:53:59 ◼ ► that that is you know okay or has provided okay information in the past but like that that you
00:54:05 ◼ ► are not you know they tell you something you're like I don't know that doesn't really track yeah
00:54:10 ◼ ► I mean I'll give you one example several months ago I got a tip about the magic keyboard for the
00:54:17 ◼ ► iPad and trackpad support across iPadOS and my first reaction was like okay there is no way this
00:54:25 ◼ ► is true like in what world is Apple going to turn the iPad into a you know into a laptop with the
00:54:32 ◼ ► trackpad support and all that and obviously the standards for putting information out like let's
00:54:38 ◼ ► say if that came from someone who I've worked with in the past you know I would understand that it's
00:54:42 ◼ ► reliable okay let's do this right but if something like that came from you know a brand new source my
00:54:47 ◼ ► first reaction was like okay wait there's no there's no way this is true unfortunately was not
00:54:51 ◼ ► able to get enough corroboration in time before the you know the keyboard was announced and the
00:54:56 ◼ ► news came out about that but yeah that is an example and I think that shows that you know how
00:55:03 ◼ ► you know how high the level is right we're not going to just run something because someone says
00:55:06 ◼ ► it it has to be something that you're corroborating with with multiple people and sometimes you're
00:55:11 ◼ ► going to take the hit anyway because you're reporting about things that are coming down
00:55:14 ◼ ► the road and sometimes they do the sands shift right sometimes you're reporting on plans is
00:55:19 ◼ ► there this is the thing that kills me is when people are like aha you got that wrong and it's
00:55:23 ◼ ► like I don't know plans do change sometimes you report on something that is the plan and then
00:55:28 ◼ ► it changes and that that it's like oh well that that happens too yeah I mean I always include that
00:55:34 ◼ ► line in there saying you know the plans could change blah blah blah and people like to say
00:55:39 ◼ ► yeah and then like people say sometimes oh that's just a throwaway like it's a cover your know what
00:55:44 ◼ ► line right but like it's actually true right there's plenty of situations where things do
00:55:48 ◼ ► change whether that's timelines whether that's feature set there's a number of things that
00:55:54 ◼ ► really can't change right but you know at the end of the day like apple could be having a keynote
00:56:00 ◼ ► tomorrow the iphone could have this feature and tim cook could wake up and be like all right we're
00:56:05 ◼ ► not including this feature in the iphone due to be announced tomorrow right and nothing stops them
00:56:10 ◼ ► from just stripping it out of the keno and then you know removing it in a software update or
00:56:14 ◼ ► delaying the shipping you know for a few months so I like to say literally anything is possible
00:56:20 ◼ ► so I wanted just to wrap up you you mentioned uh hundreds to thousands of stories right that
00:56:27 ◼ ► you must have published over time are there any that stand out specifically to you as favorites
00:56:34 ◼ ► or things that were like particularly exciting like are there any when you think back of the
00:56:39 ◼ ► stuff that you've published over the years that you that you remember specifically for a certain
00:56:44 ◼ ► reason ooh um some good ones over the years was the uh ios switching from google maps to to apple
00:56:54 ◼ ► maps this was back in 2012 that's old school yeah the 12-inch macbook in 2015 we had a quite detailed
00:57:02 ◼ ► story on that um what other ones okay this was a good one the iphone 10 story we had a few weeks
00:57:10 ◼ ► before the phone launched in 2017 or was announced 2017 sort of how the interface was going to change
00:57:16 ◼ ► the more gesture focused interface the uh the the 12-inch macbook one stands out to me specifically
00:57:22 ◼ ► as like a very very detailed incredibly accurate out of nowhere report like it was just like
00:57:29 ◼ ► i remember that one that was i think you were a nine to five mac then i think that was a nine
00:57:33 ◼ ► to five back report and i remember like it was so much detail about something nobody had spoken
00:57:38 ◼ ► about before like i remember that one specifically thank you yeah that was that was a good one that
00:57:44 ◼ ► was an interesting one yeah well before we let you go i want to uh make a request if i could
00:57:49 ◼ ► which is please uh break as much news as possible on monday mornings because we love it when you
00:57:54 ◼ ► give us stuff to talk about before anybody else gets a chance i'll keep that in mind no and i
00:57:59 ◼ ► i really yeah i really love your podcast and all the work you guys do i mean i read six colors all
00:58:04 ◼ ► the time i follow some of mike's podcast so uh this was really great and you guys have an amazing
00:58:10 ◼ ► community following along too so that's what's really important and fun and i appreciate i really
00:58:15 ◼ ► appreciate it so thanks we appreciate the work you do you definitely like you know there's often
00:58:20 ◼ ► people out there with skepticism like oh mark irman and the rumors and all that like these are
00:58:24 ◼ ► really reports not rumors like he's talking to people who know and he's really accurate so like
00:58:30 ◼ ► i appreciate the hard work you do to like i said i thought about doing stuff like that and i was
00:58:35 ◼ ► like wow that's not a job that i want to do it's hard work uh it's kind of on a on a tightrope a
00:58:41 ◼ ► little bit sometimes you got to get it right and you know i basically people probably don't say
00:58:46 ◼ ► this as much but i appreciate the work you do and thank you for doing it no thank you thank you guys
00:58:51 ◼ ► really appreciate it so i guess uh at mark german is probably the best place to follow along with
00:58:56 ◼ ► the stuff that you're doing right you would link to everything that you're writing and stuff like
00:58:59 ◼ ► that and one of the things that i like about following you on twitter is there's sometimes
00:59:02 ◼ ► some additional little details so it's definitely worth yeah getting that little extra that's the
00:59:08 ◼ ► cutting room floor yes it you know what sometimes it is the cutting room floor that's a that's a
00:59:13 ◼ ► good way to yeah i definitely notice it i'm like oh that's a tidbit that i could see why that didn't
00:59:17 ◼ ► fit in the story but i i totally you know but for us we're like aha that's a tidbit that's a really
00:59:22 ◼ ► nice little bit well thanks for being here yeah thanks for having me i'll see you guys this episode
00:59:28 ◼ ► of upgrade is brought to you by squarespace you can make your next move with squarespace they
00:59:32 ◼ ► would let you easily create a website for your next idea or project with the ability to register
00:59:37 ◼ ► a unique domain name customize award-winning beautiful templates and so much more they are
00:59:42 ◼ ► the all-in-one platform that will let you put your next project online no matter what type of website
00:59:47 ◼ ► you want to make no matter what type of idea it is maybe you have a store maybe now is the time
00:59:51 ◼ ► you've got some extra time at home you have a project you've been working on maybe you've
00:59:55 ◼ ► got stuff you want to make stuff you want to sell squarespace can do all of it it is an all-in-one
01:00:00 ◼ ► platform you don't need to install patch or upgrade anything they take care of all of that
01:00:04 ◼ ► stuff so you don't have to their websites are so customizable their templates are fantastic
01:00:09 ◼ ► they give you page structures if you need them but you can tweak anything you want which is really
01:00:13 ◼ ► great but it's all easy to do you don't need to code anything you can just select some drop downs
01:00:18 ◼ ► drag some stuff around it's really beautiful and it helps you get your website built fast so you
01:00:23 ◼ ► can focus on the thing that it is you want to do and not the web having to build the website from
01:00:28 ◼ ► scratch because you have a thing you have a goal you have a project go out and do it and let
01:00:32 ◼ ► squarespace help you they have an award-winning 24/7 customer support in case you need any help
01:00:37 ◼ ► they'll be there for you you can go and try out squarespace today no credit card required just go
01:00:42 ◼ ► to squarespace.com/upgrade their plans start at just $12 a month but you can get 10% off your
01:00:49 ◼ ► first purchase of a website or domain and show your support for this show by using the offer
01:00:53 ◼ ► code upgrade at checkout so you get a 10% off that squarespace.com/upgrade and the code upgrade
01:00:59 ◼ ► to get 10% off your first purchase our thanks to squarespace for their support of this show and all
01:01:04 ◼ ► of relay fm squarespace make your next move make your next website all right so new macbook pro
01:01:13 ◼ ► it is a new macbook pro it's not the macbook pro that we were expecting uh we spoke you know we
01:01:19 ◼ ► kind of mentioned this a moment ago with uh with mark but let's kind of i want to give a very brief
01:01:24 ◼ ► overview of what this computer has and then we can dig into it a little bit so sure it has the
01:01:29 ◼ ► new magic keyboard so the butterfly keyboard is no longer sold on any of apple's laptops so it's gone
01:01:34 ◼ ► technically the butterfly keyboard exists in these smart covers for the ipad pro but it that works
01:01:41 ◼ ► great because it's a covered mechanism it's fine so no more laptops are sold at a butterfly keyboard
01:01:46 ◼ ► they're all the new magic keyboard this uh revision to the 13 inch includes the option for 10th gen
01:01:54 ◼ ► intel processors the base model is 8th gen you're looking at 80 faster graphics 256 gigabyte ssd is
01:02:01 ◼ ► standard you can go all the way up to 32 gigabytes of ram which is the first time on the smaller
01:02:07 ◼ ► macbook pro and a four terabyte ssd which is wild if you pull all of that one of these things
01:02:13 ◼ ► don't think it would take off um it is still the 13 inch no visual changes so it's not got a larger
01:02:20 ◼ ► screen it doesn't look any different there are no internal changes from an architectural perspective
01:02:26 ◼ ► i believe that the 16 inch had a new thermal architecture this one doesn't have that so
01:02:32 ◼ ► what do you think jason i i think this is very clearly an interim step i mean i feel like there
01:02:40 ◼ ► were so many rumors about a 14 inch macro pro you kind of got to put them out of your mind because
01:02:43 ◼ ► those were rumors it was unclear they were really unclear about when they were going to happen we
01:02:48 ◼ ► saw some conflicting things about a 13 and a 14 i think clearly even if they're doing something
01:02:53 ◼ ► like that that is a that is a new product later they they this is a quick revision of the 13
01:03:00 ◼ ► to get it to be um a more current design so the butterfly keyboard being out closer to the macbook
01:03:07 ◼ ► air really isn't it than it is to the other macbook pro i wouldn't say that i wouldn't say that um so
01:03:12 ◼ ► there are some substantial differences there first off i want to be clear there are two models here
01:03:17 ◼ ► essentially just as there were the last time there is the low end model with two thunderbolt
01:03:23 ◼ ► three ports and the high end model with four thunderbolt three ports so if you think about
01:03:28 ◼ ► it back when we had the macbook escape that was a 13 inch macbook pro but it didn't have the touch
01:03:34 ◼ ► bar they in the last revision they all got the touch bar but it was still like a low-end model
01:03:41 ◼ ► and a high-end model and the high-end model costs a lot more than the low-end model and that is
01:03:46 ◼ ► still the case they basically didn't change the processor and the low-end model the low-end model's
01:03:50 ◼ ► difference is really a couple of things the keyboard is different and there's more base
01:04:04 ◼ ► price also went up to 1299 but i think that that is an effect where they are lifting the pro above
01:04:10 ◼ ► the macbook air now because they can that there was a vestige there of the fact the macbook escape
01:04:15 ◼ ► was kind of also a macbook air replacement just like the the uh 12 inch macbook was sort of trying
01:04:21 ◼ ► to be a macbook air replacement now we have a macbook air so i feel like they're they're now
01:04:26 ◼ ► kind of lifting this up but they're still keeping it at 1299 like this is still a uh price conscious
01:04:34 ◼ ► pro laptop and that's why it's got the eighth generation processors that said even though the
01:04:42 ◼ ► air has a 10th generation intel processor it is of a lower uh performance type so these are going
01:04:51 ◼ ► to be faster than the macbook when i said more like the air i meant more in what they changed
01:04:56 ◼ ► than like oh yeah sure right then closer to it like you're right they've actually thankfully
01:05:02 ◼ ► pushed them further away from each other like the macbook air it is a small update but they
01:05:07 ◼ ► but they're definitely also trying to pull these two away from each other and the air and my point
01:05:12 ◼ ► about the air's processor is just it's really easy to say oh well this is a 10th generation processor
01:05:17 ◼ ► this is an 8th generation processor the 10th is better but um i think the class of the processor
01:05:24 ◼ ► matters and so uh even though the air is using a 10th generation processor it's using a low power
01:05:30 ◼ ► version and then this is the much more powerful version that's in these i don't love that they
01:05:34 ◼ ► didn't touch this processor um it feels very much like this 13-inch macbook pro is a is still like
01:05:43 ◼ ► living the life of the low end lowest of the low end it's living the life of the macbook escape
01:05:50 ◼ ► but that's you know the fact is if you wish that the 13-inch macbook pro was more you know modern
01:05:58 ◼ ► and had more stuff it is also that right the top two models are four port and have the 10th
01:06:05 ◼ ► generation processor and so you you know it's interesting that apple has decided they want a
01:06:11 ◼ ► cheaper option in the 13 because there are people who don't want to buy a macbook air they want to
01:06:17 ◼ ► buy a macbook pro and they need to make something available that sort of fills the gap between the
01:06:23 ◼ ► air and the higher end 13 and so this is this product but it is definitely a mostly old tech
01:06:31 ◼ ► product with some souped up defaults and the keyboard and you know again i think clearly the
01:06:37 ◼ ► message here is we we got to get the keyboard out of there everybody like that's the number one thing
01:06:42 ◼ ► the high-end one is updated and uh but it's an interesting story there so they've got the 10th
01:06:48 ◼ ► generation processors um but if you go from a ninth generation processor to a like like the
01:06:55 ◼ ► the high end has ninth generation processors if you go uh from the old processor to the new
01:07:00 ◼ ► processor intel didn't really change the cpu power so it seems like you know you know the suggestion
01:07:08 ◼ ► i've got having not tested this is that these new uh high-end 13s are going to be about the same
01:07:16 ◼ ► cpu speed as the old models it's not a even though they're going to 10th generation processors the cpu
01:07:22 ◼ ► power itself is going to be comparable but um the big thing that intel put in the ice lake generation
01:07:31 ◼ ► of processors is graphics so the integrated graphics should be a lot faster i think apple's
01:07:37 ◼ ► playing something like 80 right so that and the memory is faster and the um and then along with
01:07:44 ◼ ► that they're you know are offering up to 32 gigs of memory for the first time so like there are
01:07:50 ◼ ► there are some other benefits that come along with that uh uh pro display xdr support in the high-end
01:07:56 ◼ ► model is a part of that it is worth noting as well just like because there is low-end and high-end
01:08:00 ◼ ► but there's two configurations of each so it's like if you go to apple's website low-end model
01:08:06 ◼ ► is the both of the 1.4 gigahertz quad cores and the high-end model is the two two gigahertz quad
01:08:14 ◼ ► core processes but they sell them in like different configurations and it's 1299 1499 1799 and 1999
01:08:22 ◼ ► and the and so it's when i talk about like the legacy of the macbook escape this is part of it
01:08:27 ◼ ► it's really two computers right the 13-inch macbook pro is two computers and that it's not
01:08:33 ◼ ► it's not one computer with four variations it's literally two different computers with two base
01:08:39 ◼ ► model variations uh you because you normally apple wouldn't have one computer with four variations
01:08:45 ◼ ► right but it doesn't really these are these are 13-inch macbook pro it's really two different
01:08:50 ◼ ► computers the good news is that even the cheaper one has the keyboard change but it it doesn't have
01:08:58 ◼ ► a lot more than that it's got upgraded specs i mean everybody's going to agree more ram more
01:09:02 ◼ ► storage on the base model yes 128 gig storage on the base model it's not really acceptable
01:09:08 ◼ ► i'm glad they boosted that i know that they boosted the price by 100 but you're getting
01:09:11 ◼ ► more ram and more storage for that but really that is you know for those who remember that's the
01:09:17 ◼ ► old macbook escape except now it actually does have a touch bar and they all have escape keys
01:09:21 ◼ ► now because this has got the new layout because it's the magic keyboard it's got the inverted t
01:09:25 ◼ ► for the arrow keys it's got the physical escape key it's got the separated power key next to the
01:09:31 ◼ ► touch bar on the other side and it's still got the touch bar so this is not a revolutionary update it
01:09:36 ◼ ► really is a for one of them an almost you know impossible to see update other than the keyboard
01:09:45 ◼ ► and then on the other end it is a bit of what we i think we would call traditionally a speed bump
01:09:51 ◼ ► although most of the speed bump is going to happen in memory and in gpu but at least it is a new
01:09:59 ◼ ► processor kind of thing but we we all know bottom line is going to be that it's about the keyboard
01:10:05 ◼ ► and that really i think i look at this announcement i think this is all about apple doing what everybody
01:10:11 ◼ ► i would say everybody said since the 16 inch got announced which is they got to get that keyboard
01:10:16 ◼ ► out of every other laptop they sell and if that was their priority was we could either ship a fancy
01:10:23 ◼ ► new laptop in the 13 slot but it's going to take us another six months or in may we can get it out
01:10:29 ◼ ► with this uh new keyboard and ship that first and then work on the next thing i i would choose get
01:10:36 ◼ ► it out of the get the keyboard out like first thing you do get that keyboard out of there and
01:10:42 ◼ ► and they have done that and that clearly was their priority they also you look at the 16 we talked
01:10:46 ◼ ► about it remember when i went to new york and all of that they had the speaker upgrade the microphone
01:10:50 ◼ ► upgrade none of that is in here either like it still feels to me like they could take this product
01:10:55 ◼ ► and do what they did to the 16 or they did to the 15 and making it the 16 and that is a rumor and
01:11:01 ◼ ► that product may yet happen but this isn't that this is just a uh i'd say welcome little update
01:11:11 ◼ ► that gets the keyboard right after you know the dark times before and so now if you want a macbook
01:11:17 ◼ ► pro with that with a keyboard and you did not want the 16 you're holding out um this product will get
01:11:24 ◼ ► you that i think the fact that the things like the speakers and the microphones not being in this
01:11:32 ◼ ► machine i think is a pretty clear indication that there is another one coming at some point in the
01:11:37 ◼ ► future who knows when purely because like the macbook air has improved uh speakers and microphones
01:11:45 ◼ ► right like because that was like a new design so they put that new tech in there and apple seemed
01:11:49 ◼ ► really proud of what they did for the laptops with that stuff so even something that seems on the face
01:11:55 ◼ ► of it may be quite simple that is more of a tell to me than the screen because they could keep they
01:12:01 ◼ ► could redesign this product and keep the screen at 13 inches right like we don't know that the
01:12:06 ◼ ► screen has to get bigger like they may may choose to keep it at 13 and make it a little bit smaller
01:12:11 ◼ ► who knows right like if and when they do change this computer but there's just like a few like
01:12:16 ◼ ► telltale things to me like that i was like okay uh that's not here suggests that there might be
01:12:24 ◼ ► something more i do wonder i mean and there i'm sure there's a simple answer for this because
01:12:30 ◼ ► and the answer being like because why not but it is interesting to me that they they they revised
01:12:36 ◼ ► that 15 inch so aggressively like really did a lot to it and made it like a vastly better computer in
01:12:42 ◼ ► so many ways i wonder why they did that then if they weren't going to do it to the smaller one for
01:12:49 ◼ ► a while like that is just intriguing to me as a thing to do like i wonder if it was the original
01:12:55 ◼ ► plan i would assume so because i can't you know i'm sure there may be some people like oh you know
01:13:00 ◼ ► maybe because of covid 19 like that no no you have to do some real work to to get the new keyboard to
01:13:06 ◼ ► fit in there it's not like they can just pop it out and swap it in again right like that's gonna
01:13:11 ◼ ► gonna take some work this wasn't a thing that just came about a month ago because they they couldn't
01:13:15 ◼ ► make the new one yep but it is just intriguing to me do you know what i'm saying they really have
01:13:22 ◼ ► made a gap but in this line between those two products from a functionality perspective which is
01:13:28 ◼ ► interesting but that is what that's where they are i you know whenever i'm able to go back to
01:13:37 ◼ ► my studio i've said this before like i want to have a laptop right and and we recording from
01:13:42 ◼ ► that laptop using the same one to travel i i have no idea what i'm gonna get out of this or the
01:13:49 ◼ ► macbook air like there are there are benefits and uh disadvantages to both in my mind like i really
01:13:58 ◼ ► i have the time to think about it but i'm gonna spend that time thinking about it because as i
01:14:03 ◼ ► mentioned about the 16 inch i've really liked the touch bar i think that's a cool thing but i also
01:14:08 ◼ ► really loved the speakers and how great they were um and yeah i thought it would be an easy decision
01:14:14 ◼ ► for me because the macbook pro would get bigger and i didn't want bigger but that didn't happen
01:14:19 ◼ ► so now i'm back in in unsure territory again but i think the key thing here the key message to take
01:14:27 ◼ ► away is they changed the keyboard and they've done it and i think that's great like if there is a an
01:14:33 ◼ ► update to the 13 inch maybe you know apple knew that they wanted to do something else with that
01:14:38 ◼ ► they wanted to do something more with that and that was going to come later i'm pleased that
01:14:42 ◼ ► they didn't wait before they updated this computer because the butterfly keyboard was a mistake
01:14:49 ◼ ► apple knows it was a mistake now um i'm sure they had good intentions but it didn't pan out
01:14:56 ◼ ► sometimes things don't pan out and replacing it finally like and now having all of the laptops
01:15:02 ◼ ► have a much better hopefully more reliable keyboard like that needed to be done and i am
01:15:08 ◼ ► really pleased that they have done it right like that's the good story here yeah yeah for sure
01:15:12 ◼ ► jason you have had a tale you have wanted to tell for many weeks now and we kept bumping it we kept
01:15:18 ◼ ► bumping it and we decided in fact i made a promise to you last week that no matter what happened
01:15:24 ◼ ► today and what has happened is we had an interview and apple released a new laptop but i said no
01:15:29 ◼ ► matter what happens you're going to get to tell your story this week so jason please tell your
01:15:34 ◼ ► story oh boy no pressure the upgrade ends god i want to tell the story it just so what really
01:15:39 ◼ ► made me laugh is i had this happen to me and then in in uh atp episode 372 a few weeks ago casey lis
01:15:45 ◼ ► um had the same or a very similar thing happened to him um which is that we were recording episode
01:15:56 ◼ ► 290 so i guess you can place that at six weeks ago so the early days of the lockdown and as we're
01:16:06 ◼ ► talking um dropbox starts listing every folder that i have that's shared and saying i've deleted
01:16:14 ◼ ► this folder and and fortunately this was in the episode where you were talking about your 16-inch
01:16:22 ◼ ► macbook pro yeah and so i could just not pay attention and wonder why all my files were
01:16:31 ◼ ► being deleted uh for a while which was great otherwise i would have had to stop the show
01:16:35 ◼ ► be like wait wait wait wait wait so i don't really know why this happened it seems that my
01:16:39 ◼ ► what happened on my server which was also on my dropbox account is that my um my giant hard drive
01:16:47 ◼ ► which is a drobo 5d died it died and so it was no longer mounted and i don't know why dropbox would
01:16:57 ◼ ► do this but since the drop dropbox file was on that server it decided to interpret that as me
01:17:05 ◼ ► deleting all of my files which doesn't make any sense so i good news is i can rewind my dropbox
01:17:13 ◼ ► and i got all those files back and it wasn't that big a deal eventually i figured it out
01:17:26 ◼ ► i use that to store my podcast archives my works in progress things that i don't need to edit
01:17:34 ◼ ► immediately but i do need to work on my whole plex library is on there my time machine backups are on
01:17:41 ◼ ► there and when i try to figure it out what what i would do is i turn it on and it would do this
01:17:48 ◼ ► thing where it lights up and it shows all the drives and then it has a little progress bar at
01:17:52 ◼ ► the bottom and it kind of goes across and then it lights up and shows all the drives and then it has
01:17:59 ◼ ► a progress bar that goes across and i thought oh no like it seemed like it was trapped in kind of
01:18:06 ◼ ► a boot loop where it was trying to start up but it was failing so this is terrifying i ended up
01:18:15 ◼ ► contacting drobo's support and they gave me some tips for free which was nice i didn't have to pay
01:18:22 ◼ ► for uh i was going to pay for a service you know ticket but it turns out that they figured out what
01:18:28 ◼ ► was going on and and and turned actually refunded my money i was gonna i already had paid them but
01:18:34 ◼ ► they said okay reboot take all your drives out and reboot and then run this diagnostic and send us
01:18:40 ◼ ► the files and the good news good in quotes that they came back with was your drives are probably
01:18:48 ◼ ► fine but the drobo hardware is is bad something bad happened to it and i've had this for you know
01:18:54 ◼ ► i don't know seven years something like that it's a long time okay so this is not good because even
01:19:01 ◼ ► if i even if my disk disks are fine i can't get to them um i did have a backup the um i have a
01:19:14 ◼ ► backblaze backup and that was intact so um about seven terabytes of data which is what i considered
01:19:24 ◼ ► my essential files um i didn't have things like my plex library on there because the way i figured
01:19:30 ◼ ► it and my rationale was why would i back up a movie that i ripped from a dvd that i have
01:19:36 ◼ ► in my house so i could just rip it again um it also and i didn't realize that this at the time
01:19:42 ◼ ► the uh i think by default backblaze doesn't do things like disk images so i had some like virtual
01:19:48 ◼ ► machines for old versions of mac os and stuff that were also not backed up but um but it was
01:19:55 ◼ ► seven that's fine you know stevens yeah it's 7.2 terabytes or something of data that i did back up
01:20:03 ◼ ► to back backblaze and for those who don't know backblaze has this feature which i'd never used
01:20:07 ◼ ► before which is you can order a usb drive with your backup on it and have it sent to you in the
01:20:15 ◼ ► mail and then actually if you then wipe the drive and send it back to them they'll refund your money
01:20:20 ◼ ► or most of your money so uh turns out there's a seven terabyte limit because it's an eight terabyte
01:20:25 ◼ ► drive in there so i had to uncheck a few things and not restore those using the hard drive although
01:20:32 ◼ ► that's fine because it was a few hundred uh gigs i could i could probably download that if i really
01:20:37 ◼ ► wanted to but i i loaded it up with about seven terabytes worth of of my data and i pressed the
01:20:42 ◼ ► button and what it does is it start sort of like does a backblaze restore um of seven terabytes to
01:20:51 ◼ ► the hard drive and as you might imagine especially if you used backblaze and done a restore of any
01:20:55 ◼ ► kind like that takes a while and i get the sense that it took days for that to actually like process
01:21:03 ◼ ► so it was a while before i even got the note that said we've we're going to ship you your drive but
01:21:08 ◼ ► i started that process i said please restore this because i i know that you've got this data i'm not
01:21:13 ◼ ► going to download seven terabytes of data please put it on a drive and ship it to me also this is
01:21:17 ◼ ► in the earliest days of the lockdown so there's this feeling of like you know when yeah let's do
01:21:23 ◼ ► it now to see if they will give it to me will they even be working who knows um i have a second
01:21:28 ◼ ► backup though which is really great i use arc which if people don't know is a it's basically
01:21:34 ◼ ► a third-party backup utility and then you can point it at a data source where you want to save
01:21:39 ◼ ► your backups and in my case since i have two terabytes of dropbox space at the time i actually
01:21:44 ◼ ► had three i went down a plan on my dropbox i actually use a big chunk of that for an arc
01:21:50 ◼ ► backup so it's files that i don't see i've turned them off on my uh on my mac so it doesn't sync
01:21:56 ◼ ► them at all and arc just saves the backup stuff to dropbox and that was for my works in progress
01:22:09 ◼ ► and it's not done it's more important than the archive project the archive projects are important
01:22:13 ◼ ► but the ones that i i'm still working on and need to be done soon are more uh important so
01:22:21 ◼ ► good news is um and and if i'm being honest i kind of forgot what the arc backup was doing
01:22:30 ◼ ► or that i had it and then i was like don't wait a second don't i have another and i opened arc
01:22:34 ◼ ► and it was like would you like to restore and i'm like oh yeah right great great i found i found
01:22:40 ◼ ► that backup that i had forgotten i was even doing so thank you past me um however there was one
01:22:48 ◼ ► project so that meant i could get those right off of dropbox immediately it was great i restored
01:22:52 ◼ ► them to my mac and i had them fantastic um but one project i did that sunday before the monday
01:23:01 ◼ ► where it died overnight um and it turns out that i i figured out when it when the the drive died
01:23:23 ◼ ► and so that was a file that i i still had like some dropbox links from files people had sent me
01:23:35 ◼ ► most of it although not all of it enough to do it enough to do the project but i was missing
01:23:46 ◼ ► so now i'm sitting here and i'm like okay i've got i've got backblaze sending me a drive
01:23:50 ◼ ► sometime from somewhere it's still kind of a mystery i've got my arc backup of a couple of
01:23:58 ◼ ► things my work in progress folder less one project and a couple other folders on the server that i
01:24:03 ◼ ► was able to restore the robot or not folder was there you'll be happy to know so i was able to
01:24:08 ◼ ► continue my work producing robot or not um but now i've got a bunch of drives with data on them
01:24:28 ◼ ► that even though i said remember what i said earlier about how it's fine i don't need those
01:24:34 ◼ ► movie files i'll just re-rip my entire movie collection from the discs again i decided i did
01:24:42 ◼ ► not want to do that so i went on ebay and i found a drobo 5d and i bid on it um and there was another
01:24:54 ◼ ► drobo 5d that was buy it now and so i put the buy it now price on the one that was on an auction and
01:25:02 ◼ ► like a day later i got outbid for it and i just bought the other one i was just like no forget it
01:25:07 ◼ ► just buy it now and it was a buy it now link and it was from a company that um it was uh free
01:25:13 ◼ ► returns up to 30 days and i thought well maybe what i'll do is i'll buy it put the discs in
01:25:18 ◼ ► to get the data off of it and return it and then get something else yeah and i felt a little bit
01:25:23 ◼ ► guilty but yeah well i decided i didn't want i didn't want a used drobo because i figure it's
01:25:29 ◼ ► probably gonna die because they're all of the same vintage more or less this model i see okay this
01:25:34 ◼ ► this shows because i don't do any of this stuff and honestly listening to casey stories and your
01:25:38 ◼ ► stories i'm pleased that i don't manage one of these things but you the drives that you had you
01:25:44 ◼ ► they had to go back into another drobo 5d for you to get the data right airy raid like technology
01:25:51 ◼ ► so you have to stick them in the same model basically or it won't they might have another
01:25:56 ◼ ► model but like i just wanted to get the drobo 5d and read those read that data and get all my data
01:26:01 ◼ ► back off it was if it was truly intact like they thought it was so i felt a little guilty about
01:26:05 ◼ ► buying it from the place that said free returns because i thought i'm kind of abusing the return
01:26:09 ◼ ► policy here i'm basically renting a drobo um although i would be paying shipping and i actually
01:26:14 ◼ ► offered them like stuff that they didn't provide me when at the end of the story i'll tell you what
01:26:20 ◼ ► happened there but um but i i ended up buying that so now i've got that part of it but i think i'm
01:26:26 ◼ ► thinking to myself i don't want to buy a new drobo um drobo has a reputation i've actually been really
01:26:33 ◼ ► well taken care of by my my drobo it lasted a while when a drive died i could pop it out
01:26:39 ◼ ► put in a new drive it worked really well i was it was a five disk array so like i had a huge amount
01:26:43 ◼ ► of storage and if one drive died all the other drives still had the data so you pop in a new
01:26:48 ◼ ► drive it brings it up and you didn't lose anything and that worked i had like three or four drive
01:26:53 ◼ ► failures over the course of the time i had it it always worked perfectly at the same time i thought
01:26:57 ◼ ► to myself maybe what maybe what i should do this time this is an older piece of hardware is maybe
01:27:03 ◼ ► i should just buy a a disk array of my own maybe i should just buy a raid and some raid you know
01:27:10 ◼ ► raid hardware or raid software and just do it that way can i ask why that would be better
01:27:16 ◼ ► why than a drobo drobo's super proprietary and also the older drobos are going to have a limit
01:27:26 ◼ ► on the size of the drives i believe you can stick in them and there are bigger drives that are made
01:27:29 ◼ ► now and i guess if you made your own if you've got an enclosure and then used software on the mag
01:27:37 ◼ ► if this kind of thing happened again you wouldn't have to jump through the hoops that you had to
01:27:42 ◼ ► jump through because nothing's proprietary right in in theory or at least the the software would
01:27:47 ◼ ► be proprietary but i could get another enclosure and probably still read the data but you're
01:27:51 ◼ ► controlling the software though yeah also it's cheaper also it's cheaper because the drobo
01:27:56 ◼ ► hardware is expensive and drobo got sold and i don't you know like i don't i i'm not a believer
01:28:01 ◼ ► in that in that company to be honest i like i kind of just don't want to be in that space anymore that
01:28:06 ◼ ► it served me well i don't have an anchor toward robo that a lot of people have but i don't want
01:28:09 ◼ ► to be like i only ever hear about Synology anymore like i don't hear about drobo anymore so here so
01:28:14 ◼ ► here's the thing and i don't play in that world because i have a mac mini server i'm not interested
01:28:19 ◼ ► in a nas a network attached storage a server not interested in it i want a big drive on my mac mini
01:28:25 ◼ ► my mac mini is my server i already have a server so drobo makes uh nas and they also make or at
01:28:31 ◼ ► least made attached storage which is what the 5d is the d stands for disk it's a disk it's not a
01:28:35 ◼ ► server like the 5s um i don't want a Synology i don't want a Unix server i have a mac mini i bought
01:28:42 ◼ ► a new mac mini a couple years ago that's my server not interested i i am comfortable with a mac having
01:28:48 ◼ ► a mac as a server can do a lot of unix unixy things and it can be a mac that i attach to from
01:28:54 ◼ ► my ipad when i want to so um so what i ended up doing is i bought a thunder bay which is a four
01:29:00 ◼ ► disk enclosure from other world computing um i had i had a couple of drives that i had not even opened
01:29:11 ◼ ► that were backup drives for the drobo that i just was keeping by in case a drive died i ordered a
01:29:18 ◼ ► couple more drives um and then i set that up so i actually and it comes the thunder bay came with
01:29:28 ◼ ► a soft raid license so i it's which is max software very straightforward it does it does
01:29:34 ◼ ► raid with redundancy so that if one of the drives dies i can pop it out and pop in another drive
01:29:38 ◼ ► it's the same idea it will rebuild it so you give up some space on each drive but if one of the
01:29:42 ◼ ► drives dies one of the physical drives dies you just pull it out and pop a new one in plus i it
01:29:48 ◼ ► gives me actually a little more control i feel like than than drobo did in terms of my different
01:29:52 ◼ ► disk volumes and all of that so i got that set up so now i have a big disk with not a lot on it
01:29:56 ◼ ► because i haven't gotten my my drobo back but i get the drobo from ebay oh there was a lot that
01:30:02 ◼ ► happened this is why i want to tell the story before i forgot it i have a drobo from ebay
01:30:07 ◼ ► um i plug it in it's like the moment of truth i put all the drives in you got to keep them in the
01:30:11 ◼ ► right order put them all in in the right order turn it on this drobo didn't even have a power
01:30:17 ◼ ► cord but i have my power cord for my other one plug it in it mounts all my data is there oh great
01:30:26 ◼ ► by the way the day before this my drive and back place showed up yeah so i copied all that onto the
01:30:33 ◼ ► thunder bay raid and then i got this and i thought well do i want to copy it all again um and i did i
01:30:40 ◼ ► had to like find software to like compare so i could make sure that i got everything off the
01:30:45 ◼ ► drobo before i wiped it how'd you do that um the software yeah what is that dan wrote about i don't
01:30:55 ◼ ► have that in front of me okay if dan wrote about it i'll find it put it Dan wrote about one piece
01:30:59 ◼ ► of software that's kind of ugly but uh it was like a file comparison tool and i used that for the most
01:31:05 ◼ ► part i used two different ones both of which were kind of unsatisfying but did enough of a job for
01:31:10 ◼ ► me to figure out what files were missing beyond compare beyond compare is one of them what a great
01:31:15 ◼ ► name right um and i think i also used chrono sync and both of them were frustrating but also helpful
01:31:25 ◼ ► um beyond compare feels like very much a unix like or like an open source tool that was ported
01:31:30 ◼ ► to the mac in the 2000s but like you know for the for the job that you're wanting to perform what
01:31:35 ◼ ► else to expect yeah it wasn't it's not super slick it feels it just it feels like a very first decade
01:31:40 ◼ ► of mac os 10 kind of uh kind of app but uh so i i did all that uh and then and then i had it right
01:31:48 ◼ ► then i've got and i've got the thunder bay set up and then i've got this drobo that's still got all
01:31:53 ◼ ► my data and i think well what do i do now thunder bay makes me laugh every time you say it i know
01:31:57 ◼ ► right well it's a it's uh ontario thunder bay ontario it's a it's a city in canada it's where
01:32:03 ◼ ► paul shafer is from um so what do i do with the drobo and i decided i was i i like i said earlier
01:32:11 ◼ ► i didn't want to be in the drobo business anymore i don't want to use the drobo as a backup for the
01:32:14 ◼ ► thunder bay or the thunder bay for a backup for the drobo i just didn't want it anymore
01:32:18 ◼ ► so i ejected all the disks and i packaged up the thing and it's actually kind of funny i went to
01:32:26 ◼ ► the people who returned it who said we'll take free returns and i i said i would like to return
01:32:30 ◼ ► it they sent an email saying sorry you can't return it it was sold as is and i reply back and
01:32:35 ◼ ► i say well no actually if you look at this listing it was like an auto reply i said if you look at
01:32:39 ◼ ► this listing you'll see that it was not sold as is it was sold with free 30-day buyer pays shipping
01:32:46 ◼ ► i would like to ship it back to you and and i said i'll sweeten the offer i have the little front
01:32:52 ◼ ► plate for it that you don't have and i have the power cord for it that you don't have i'll throw
01:32:57 ◼ ► those in and you can just resell it and you'll you'll you'll make out you sell it for more and
01:33:02 ◼ ► they say and their reply so i'm waiting to see what they say and i did not expect their reply
01:33:15 ◼ ► what literally they're like if you don't return it was like 350 i want to say that's bananas so
01:33:24 ◼ ► they give you a 30 back if you just keep it they really didn't want it back and i was already
01:33:31 ◼ ► feeling a little guilty about playing the i'm gonna buy it use it and return it game and so i
01:33:35 ◼ ► was like okay fine fine give me your hundred dollars because i know what drobos cost on ebay
01:33:42 ◼ ► now and i've got the faceplate and the power cable so i'm just gonna put those up on ebay
01:33:51 ◼ ► and i'm gonna put them up for uh an amount that i think i will get and i actually put i'm i said
01:33:57 ◼ ► a buy it now price and the buy it now price was basically um it would fund the entire thing
01:34:03 ◼ ► completely start to finish i would end up ahead slightly actually if somebody pressed the buy it
01:34:10 ◼ ► now button and i put that up and it's ebay you're selling things on ebay it's like you don't know
01:34:14 ◼ ► how that's gonna go um and i thought is anybody gonna want this but i just lost an auction for
01:34:20 ◼ ► one and then did a buy it now on another one and mine is better because it's the totally functions
01:34:26 ◼ ► because i just used it that i got from these other people plus the power cable which they didn't sell
01:34:30 ◼ ► plus the little magnetic faceplate that they weren't selling so mine's a better product than
01:34:34 ◼ ► their product because it's got all the accessories right out of the box but you never know
01:34:40 ◼ ► so i put it up on ebay it's like the fifth thing i've ever sold on ebay mike i'm expecting a week
01:34:48 ◼ ► of torment as people bid on my my this drobo that i just bought that people gave me a hundred dollars
01:34:53 ◼ ► not to send back to them in two hours somebody just did the buy it now and i made a profit on
01:35:00 ◼ ► the whole thing i don't understand i mean i do have this vision that there's one drobo and it
01:35:08 ◼ ► just goes from person to person to get their drive to get their files off of it and it gets new
01:35:13 ◼ ► things loses new things gets new things i keep thinking that what what drobo should do is they
01:35:20 ◼ ► should have loaner ones that they charge you 100 bucks for plus shipping or something to take to
01:35:25 ◼ ► offload your data but they don't do that so ebay is where that happens so anyway yeah i ended up
01:35:30 ◼ ► making a profit on buying a drobo using it to copy my data off and then immediately selling it
01:35:37 ◼ ► again and and then i've got my old one that's broken here and it'll go to the electronics
01:35:42 ◼ ► recycling oh by the way um there's a little door underneath the drobo that has an ssd in it that
01:35:48 ◼ ► is used as a speed cache and i bought that like a year ago so i then bought a little enclosure on
01:35:53 ◼ ► amazon a usb-c aluminum enclosure and now i have a 256 gig usb-c ssd attached to my that's actually
01:36:03 ◼ ► backing up my boot drive on my mac mini now because why not what are you doing with the old drives
01:36:09 ◼ ► so here's here's what happened uh the next thing i did is i bought a i bought a two disc enclosure
01:36:17 ◼ ► old one it's actually got like e sata on it and and is it it's usb it's just usb 3 i think so
01:36:27 ◼ ► it's an old model but it was cheap from other world computing two disc array and i just put
01:36:33 ◼ ► i put the two big discs that were the same size two big discs that were in the drobo in there
01:36:41 ◼ ► and i just made that a straight up um straight up array of those two discs added together
01:36:55 ◼ ► backup of the entire raid that i've got okay so i because those two discs are big enough
01:37:05 ◼ ► and they're not redundant they're they're just purely kind of just summed in terms of data
01:37:11 ◼ ► that i can use those and always know that i've got like another drive that's got all my old
01:37:16 ◼ ► and comparable files on it or whatever and all my movie files um and i also updated the
01:37:24 ◼ ► arc backup to back up every like four hours to dropbox instead of every day to reduce the chance
01:37:31 ◼ ► that i'm going to lose something that's a work in progress and a failure um and so yeah i basically
01:37:39 ◼ ► didn't lose any data but i could have so it made it taught me a lesson that i do actually need to
01:37:45 ◼ ► back up that plex library because i don't want to rip every episode of buffy the vampire slayer
01:37:49 ◼ ► again i don't want to do it every hd movie on blu-ray i don't want to do it i i want to keep
01:37:56 ◼ ► those around in some way i was happy it turns out to pay a couple hundred dollars that i didn't end
01:38:01 ◼ ► up having to pay because of making a profit on the drobo i was happy to pay that so i didn't have to
01:38:06 ◼ ► sit here over the course of weeks feeding disc after disc after disc into my dvd player and
01:38:12 ◼ ► ripping those in order to rebuild my plex library i was happy to just pay money to get it back so
01:38:18 ◼ ► i'm glad i was able to do that turns out that was a decision i made that um that was wrong
01:38:27 ◼ ► and basically i i it was almost like a smoke test for my um backup strategy where in doing this in
01:38:35 ◼ ► the end i didn't lose any data but i did see all of the holes in my strategy and now i have that
01:38:41 ◼ ► extra you know it cost me it did cost me because i had to buy a new raid and new drives but it
01:38:46 ◼ ► didn't cost me as much as i thought i didn't lose any data i now have more data available for backup
01:38:53 ◼ ► on my server than i used to and i was really happy that i used arc and if you're not doing
01:39:00 ◼ ► this consider it if you've got extra cloud storage space on google or or on one drive or on dropbox
01:39:06 ◼ ► and you've got key files it is an extra place to back things up and um i that saved my bacon
01:39:14 ◼ ► for a bunch of stuff to have that arc backup available immediately on dropbox so plus i had
01:39:19 ◼ ► i backblaze and i had stuff that i backed up on backplace and i could get it that way too so i
01:39:24 ◼ ► but i was happy to have both of those options so yeah it was it was harrowing is what i'm saying
01:39:29 ◼ ► i can't believe i made a profit on ebay i didn't lose any of my files in the end and now i have
01:39:36 ◼ ► a new four disc monstrosity that is thunderbolt 3 as opposed to my old thunderbolt 2 five disc
01:39:46 ◼ ► monstrosity from drobo so in the end that's my story i made money on ebay because they they paid
01:39:54 ◼ ► me to not send the to drive back to the best bit i will say again like i will state again i am so
01:40:01 ◼ ► pleased that i do not have something like this in my life to have to well the reason i do it is
01:40:09 ◼ ► because i have i i need to store like 12 terabytes and i i've seen the argument on atp was why don't
01:40:16 ◼ ► you just store that across um some a few drives i used to have a big stack of hard drives attached
01:40:21 ◼ ► to my server and i hated it what i like about it is the redundancy which is instead of having like
01:40:26 ◼ ► a big drive with my movies on it and a big drive with my podcast files on it and then another big
01:40:30 ◼ ► drive that's the backup of the podcast files i mean that's essentially what i've got by having
01:40:34 ◼ ► the raid is that i've got if one of those drives fails i've got redundancy and i i really like that
01:40:40 ◼ ► because that's happened to me multiple times where a drive has failed and i haven't lost any data i
01:40:44 ◼ ► like that and i like having a huge um just a huge giant pit in which i can pour files and i always
01:40:54 ◼ ► hated it when i was like well i've got a terabyte here and a terabyte there and another terabyte
01:40:57 ◼ ► there but now i have to move things around and split things up and i don't like that and with
01:41:01 ◼ ► this approach i don't need to do that i just have a giant server full of files you see if i did have
01:41:08 ◼ ► 12 terabytes of data i would do something like what you and casey are doing my point is i just
01:41:15 ◼ ► don't have it um i don't keep stuff like especially project files there's only one show that i keep
01:41:23 ◼ ► uh logic projects for but i just keep them in dropbox and on time machine and a backblaze like
01:41:30 ◼ ► that's it um i don't keep the logic projects on my other shows more than a couple of weeks
01:41:36 ◼ ► because in 10 years i've never needed one so i delete i have a little hazel actions written
01:41:43 ◼ ► uh and set up that actually do delete a bunch of shows after a while but some of my stuff is
01:41:53 ◼ ► stuff i keep because i have gone back to it like the incomparable i absolutely do go back to those
01:41:59 ◼ ► i have a clip show every year that i do and um i will sometimes have to reach way back in the
01:42:05 ◼ ► archive and i've got most of other than the first like 70 or so episodes i've got all the files for
01:42:09 ◼ ► those to a part of kill is the same way so those are the ones where i just have i'm going to keep
01:42:21 ◼ ► about three and a half terabytes of archived material so i'm not going to put that on a
01:42:26 ◼ ► like regular cloud service provider but i i totally get your point which is um if you don't
01:42:32 ◼ ► store those files you don't you don't need that approach and then that leaves aside the whatever
01:42:37 ◼ ► six terabytes seven terabytes of video files that i have on my plex server which again are replicable
01:42:43 ◼ ► but i don't want to replicate them so what i will say though this is this is my addendum to this my
01:42:49 ◼ ► asterisk i don't have any media files nor do i have any physical media right just don't just
01:42:56 ◼ ► don't have any blu-rays i have a few like barely any blu-rays yep and i don't have a plex server
01:43:02 ◼ ► or anything like that no you're you're you barely have any possessions at all yes i'm like i'm like
01:43:07 ◼ ► steve jobs in that room you know with sitting on the floor with another i spent two days this week
01:43:11 ◼ ► without any internet my wi-fi was down oh yeah how'd that go we couldn't watch anything yeah so
01:43:19 ◼ ► that is like the this is the only thing where i'm thinking that like maybe there needs to be an
01:43:25 ◼ ► introduction of something like into my life but i but i don't know what it is yet um of media in
01:43:32 ◼ ► some description because also where we live lte isn't that good like you can watch youtube videos
01:43:40 ◼ ► but we couldn't watch any disney plus stuff like that just would not work because we're trying to
01:43:45 ◼ ► watch any apple tv right like i don't think the apple tv has any sense of uh not playing at full
01:43:52 ◼ ► resolution i just don't think it could even comprehend such a thing because i could watch
01:43:58 ◼ ► the same content on my phone but if i tried to watch it on the apple tv it would we just would
01:44:03 ◼ ► not work so that made me realize that like maybe i need something but i don't know what it what it
01:44:11 ◼ ► is right because like adina was like why don't you just watch some of the stuff you've bought
01:44:15 ◼ ► and it's like well but i don't have it saved anywhere yeah right like it's just i bought
01:44:21 ◼ ► it on itunes and it's it's up in the cloud what i do oftentimes is on my iphone and on my ipad
01:44:28 ◼ ► i will occasionally just download something using either plex or using the tv app just to have like
01:44:35 ◼ ► usually it happens when i'm on a going on a trip i'll download some movies for that for the
01:44:41 ◼ ► airplane and then i will just keep them on there and then if i'm in a no connectivity situation
01:44:48 ◼ ► those are still there and it's sometimes a delightful surprise like what did i download
01:44:51 ◼ ► eight months ago my smaller ipad which is the one that i use when i'm when i'm traveling has some
01:44:58 ◼ ► movies on it but like it's most it's like stuff i've seen like it it still isn't like that is not
01:45:03 ◼ ► a solution which is long term or whatever like i need a if i want to do this it needs to be a
01:45:10 ◼ ► little bit more considered than that which is just like a random crap shoot it's like yeah but
01:45:14 ◼ ► you know if we had no internet for a week we would have turned to that but for two days we just played
01:45:18 ◼ ► animal crossing like whatever um but it did make me realize i don't have anything which was just
01:45:23 ◼ ► like an interesting thought but i will just say i'm happy that i don't save tons and tons and tons
01:45:28 ◼ ► of data yeah well i i went through that a while ago where i took like i used to have everything of
01:45:36 ◼ ► shows that were ephemeral um and those are all now you know is it's been 60 days or 30 days or
01:45:44 ◼ ► something and it just deletes them um and with the shows that i'm keeping it actually goes through
01:45:48 ◼ ► and it it archives them it like compresses them and saves them off um just to it takes up less
01:45:55 ◼ ► space that way but still they're they're they're there because i do go back and uh and pull that
01:46:02 ◼ ► stuff out and we end up being uncomfortable they're like recurring jokes and things that happen and i
01:46:06 ◼ ► just want to keep those those i want to keep around i i've found that i've regretted losing
01:46:11 ◼ ► the most of the first 75 episodes so i'm just not going to do that now are you happy that you got to
01:46:19 ◼ ► tell your story i feel like you know if just for me now i've gotten it while i still remember the
01:46:25 ◼ ► story it's still near and dear to me um with enough remove that some of the real pain of
01:46:30 ◼ ► worrying if i lost you have those moments right you have that moment where you're like oh no right
01:46:35 ◼ ► like and no is not what i said uh and so it's good uh to have a little removed from it it's all
01:46:42 ◼ ► worked out um i would have been okay if the drives had been dead because i could have just re-ripped
01:46:49 ◼ ► my plex library and that would have been annoying but i could have done it it taught me some lessons
01:46:54 ◼ ► about holes in my backup strategy i i think raids with redundant discs are fun and awesome and i
01:47:02 ◼ ► recommend them but also discs are enormous now and you could just buy a couple of enormous discs and
01:47:06 ◼ ► use those all right this episode is brought to you by kiwi co kiwi co help get your kid to put down
01:47:13 ◼ ► this is a cell phone video game do something more do something different something that engages
01:47:17 ◼ ► their brain in other ways if you have a child grandchild niece nephew cousin learning at home
01:47:23 ◼ ► right now this could be the perfect product for them because this is a science and art subscription
01:47:28 ◼ ► box for kids tested by kids kiwi co creates super cool hands-on science and art projects
01:47:34 ◼ ► for children delivered to them every single month as a parent it could be hard to find creative and
01:47:39 ◼ ► new things to keep your children busy and challenged right like i'm sure that could be a
01:47:43 ◼ ► problem especially right now you want different types of activities kiwi co can help you solve
01:47:48 ◼ ► that and you can also spend quality time tackling projects together so you can do your part to
01:47:53 ◼ ► encourage children to be innovative innovators and creative thinkers one of the things that i
01:47:58 ◼ ► love about kiwi co honestly my favorite thing is the instructions the instructions are written
01:48:03 ◼ ► in a way that is easy for everyone to understand you can tell so much effort has gone into that
01:48:09 ◼ ► and they don't just provide you everything you need they also provide you with little extra
01:48:13 ◼ ► things like like guides for you to put over something to understand where some stickers
01:48:17 ◼ ► need to go like really thoroughly thinking through the process to avoid frustration for
01:48:22 ◼ ► younger people whilst also making it engaging and fun and exciting at the same time it's really
01:48:29 ◼ ► really awesome there are different crates for kids of all ages so there's something for every person
01:48:34 ◼ ► from the panda crate for ages zero to two to the eureka crate for ages 14 to 104 there's a kiwi co
01:48:41 ◼ ► crate for everybody kiwi co is redefining play of hands-on projects that build confidence creativity
01:48:47 ◼ ► and critical thinking skills there's something for every kid or every kid at heart with kiwi co
01:48:53 ◼ ► get your first month free on select crates at kiwico.com upgrade as k i w i c o dot com slash
01:49:01 ◼ ► upgrade our thanks to kiwico for their support of this show and relay fm hashtag ask upgrade
01:49:09 ◼ ► to finish out today's show steven asks which streaming music services do you subscribe to
01:49:24 ◼ ► occasionally there'll be an artist who i like who does like a kickstarter or has a rarities thing
01:49:33 ◼ ► and i will buy that from them directly like something on bandcamp or something like that
01:49:45 ◼ ► my spotify subscription is like legacy at this point um it's still in i don't like i have like
01:49:54 ◼ ► a few family members that use the login um and then also for me now like there's there is a
01:50:00 ◼ ► podcast that i do listen to on spotify i remember that show the besties that i mentioned that went
01:50:06 ◼ ► that was like a video game show that i like that went to spotify right i listen to it on spotify
01:50:11 ◼ ► now like i thought i wouldn't and i have started it and now i listen every week um the way i get
01:50:18 ◼ ► around this by the way like is like how do i remember i have an email newsletter which they
01:50:24 ◼ ► post every time an episode comes out so i just leave that email in my saying later folder in my
01:50:28 ◼ ► email and then i'll just when i when i listen to it i get rid of it and that's how i remember
01:50:33 ◼ ► to go there because like i wouldn't remember otherwise so that's that um i do i don't buy
01:50:39 ◼ ► music similar to you i don't like if if apple music's where i do my listening if i find an
01:50:45 ◼ ► album that i like i don't buy it but there is still music that i buy for similar reasons like
01:50:49 ◼ ► somebody who's not on streaming services but they have bandcamp or whatever right like then i'll buy
01:50:55 ◼ ► it that way um like you know i have a couple of independent musicians that i like for for music
01:51:00 ◼ ► and stuff for like that i work to louis zong is my favorite person i'll put a link to their bandcamp
01:51:05 ◼ ► um in in the show notes because i know people will ask uh and so they they sell a bunch of music
01:51:11 ◼ ► there and i'll just i buy it i buy that right like that's because they don't they have a few things
01:51:16 ◼ ► on apple music but nowhere near their full catalog but that's the only reason that i will buy uh
01:51:21 ◼ ► music these days either you know the occasional vinyl will find its way into my collection but
01:51:27 ◼ ► that's rare james asked this is probably mostly for me jason but if you have any thoughts you can
01:51:32 ◼ ► share them too of course i'd like to hear your take on the nhs's decision to not adopt the apple
01:51:38 ◼ ► google contact tracing exposure notification uh option yeah so the nhs after previously saying
01:51:44 ◼ ► that they would uh are now saying like lol no we're just gonna make our own contact tracing
01:51:50 ◼ ► thing i'm really disappointed about this um you know there's there's more governments like i saw
01:51:55 ◼ ► that like after everybody thought france was going to get on board and then they decided again like
01:52:04 ◼ ► the praise of apple's method made everybody think that they were gonna do it but they're just like
01:52:08 ◼ ► nah don't worry about it uh i i find it just it's ridiculous i think that that it's very clear that
01:52:16 ◼ ► apple and google's method is the best baseline to build upon because it integrates cross-platform
01:52:30 ◼ ► quite disappointing um and i hope that when it becomes more integrated into the system later
01:52:38 ◼ ► down the line that a lot of these countries will will change their minds but i think honestly most
01:52:44 ◼ ► governments want the data honestly that's what they want it for and so i mean when when the nhs
01:52:52 ◼ ► launches their app like i i probably will go for it and even though i am opposed to their their
01:53:00 ◼ ► thinking because i think it's important but i'm conflicted right like i'm i'm more conflicted now
01:53:11 ◼ ► because i want the privacy that that google and apple were going to give but at the same time
01:53:17 ◼ ► i also want to know if i'm coming into contact with people so i don't know but the jury's still
01:53:24 ◼ ► out for me a little bit but like i am disappointed i think it's i think it's really ridiculous
01:53:28 ◼ ► uh and and i wished that politics weren't getting in the way of this but they are stupid ask uk
01:53:37 ◼ ► upgrade stephan asks uh i want to use my ipad and macbook pro at the same desk with the same keyboard
01:53:45 ◼ ► at different times of the day so i'm looking for a keyboard that can switch between them easily what
01:53:49 ◼ ► would you recommend do you have any recommendations i found one oh what do you what did you find the
01:53:55 ◼ ► logitech craft uh i know that both john voorhees and david sparks use this uh it's a logitech
01:54:01 ◼ ► keyboard i think federico uses it too actually it's a logitech keyboard which apparently is
01:54:13 ◼ ► with dedicated buttons that you can tap and it will switch to different uh devices and i know
01:54:19 ◼ ► logitech make good stuff logitech make good stuff and this one has this little wheel on it that
01:54:23 ◼ ► people seem to like to it looks like a nice keyboard i don't own one but uh i know multiple
01:54:27 ◼ ► people that do and they're happy with it yeah i haven't used one of these kind of keyboards in a
01:54:33 ◼ ► very long time i used to rely on the logitech uh easy switch keyboard logitech has been making
01:54:38 ◼ ► multiple bluetooth uh keyboards for a while now they know how to do it right like that yeah exactly
01:54:45 ◼ ► uh if you want a mechanical keyboard that does that you get one of the keychron keyboards my
01:54:50 ◼ ► key crimes on the way jason my keychron k6 that i backed on on kickstarter it's on the way yeah i
01:54:56 ◼ ► have the i i have the two and the four i want to say i i but i've got uh i've got two keychron
01:55:02 ◼ ► keyboards and although i prefer my um vortex race 3 keyboard and that's the one i use on my desk
01:55:07 ◼ ► every day i have a keychron bluetooth mechanical keyboard that i use with my ipad and it's great
01:55:13 ◼ ► and it's got a shortcut that lets you switch between multiple bluetooth modes so you can
01:55:17 ◼ ► switch between devices um and there's even a um i got i got sent by a friend a wacky um
01:55:25 ◼ ► there's there's this wacky bluetooth adapter that like will attach to any usb keyboard and turn it
01:55:32 ◼ ► into a bluetooth uh keyboard and i think it's got a toggle but anyway yeah the simple answer is
01:55:37 ◼ ► logitech makes some very nice keyboards that have switchable uh bluetooth things so check those out
01:55:57 ◼ ► audio hijack or like more audio support for me there's an easy one which i've found more and
01:56:03 ◼ ► more recently which is the ability to create my own custom keyboard shortcuts in ipad os so i
01:56:10 ◼ ► could you know i could have a keyboard shortcut for this or that right like one to pull down uh
01:56:16 ◼ ► one to like i don't know open this in split view on the left side or this one to like just you know
01:56:21 ◼ ► hit the escape key just to take me to home right like that kind of stuff that's that's what i would
01:56:26 ◼ ► want um it's something that i genuinely hope and kind of think they might do um it seems more
01:56:35 ◼ ► likely now than ever ever i would say like the more keyboard shortcuts stuff and customization
01:56:41 ◼ ► and i also well you could you could see how um and we talked about this when the magic keyboard
01:56:47 ◼ ► came out that you could if you added some features for things like media controls you don't need to
01:56:52 ◼ ► have that function row if i can map um a different key combination to play pause or next track or
01:56:59 ◼ ► previous tracker brightness up or brightness down if i if i care then it's solved right like it just
01:57:06 ◼ ► throw in things like executing a shortcut when you use a keyboard or uh it would be even better
01:57:15 ◼ ► if you could do a prep it's certainly system-wide keyboard shortcuts would be good so i'm with you
01:57:19 ◼ ► there i'm going to throw in another ipad feature here for my magic wand which is um full-on
01:57:24 ◼ ► external display support so like if you plug in an external monitor it's a second screen like it is
01:57:29 ◼ ► on the mac and you can use your mouse or trackpad and keyboard right now it's all just kind of
01:57:36 ◼ ► mirrored it would seem now that we've got this full cursor support on the ipad the next step
01:57:46 ◼ ► i again these are two things that feel possible like more and more possible now and i really hope
01:57:55 ◼ ► that we see those in ipad os 14 which we could be four weeks away uh or as mark said like eight
01:58:02 ◼ ► weeks away uh so that's that's actually a good uh time to thank mark german again for joining the
01:58:10 ◼ ► show i was really really pleased to have that discussion with him it was fascinating and i
01:58:15 ◼ ► really appreciated having him on the show so thanks again mark and thanks to you for listening
01:58:20 ◼ ► as always thanks to our sponsors kiwico squarespace and linode for their support of the show uh you
01:58:27 ◼ ► can find links to this episode and much more at relay.fm upgrade slash 296 and of course you'll
01:58:32 ◼ ► find those in your podcast player of choice don't forget you can become a relay fm member you can
01:58:37 ◼ ► support any show you like you can support this one just by hitting that link in the show notes
01:58:41 ◼ ► there's a link right at the very top of our show notes every week where you can select to become a
01:58:45 ◼ ► member and you get access to tons of great member benefits and growing all the time all the time
01:58:50 ◼ ► go to sixcolors.com where you can find jason's work and jason is @jasonel j s n e double l on