PodSearch

Upgrade

292: Don't Look Over There!

 

00:00:00 ◼   ► [Music]

00:00:08 ◼   ► From Relay FM, this is Upgrade, episode 292. Today's show is brought to you by

00:00:14 ◼   ► Pingdom, Squarespace, Linode, and Eero. My name is Myke Hurley and I am joined by

00:00:19 ◼   ► the intrepid Jason Snell.

00:00:21 ◼   ► Hello, intrepid. Hi Myke, how are you?

00:00:24 ◼   ► I am fine my friend, how are you?

00:00:26 ◼   ► Just great, you know, again we are two of the people least affected by what's going on in the

00:00:32 ◼   ► world because we stay inside and work inside all the time, but it makes me feel a little bit

00:00:39 ◼   ► strange and of course my entire family is in my house now so, you know, it's, we live in

00:00:44 ◼   ► strange times, strange times.

00:00:46 ◼   ► But we're here to keep on keeping on. Marcus has a #SnellTalk question which is,

00:00:52 ◼   ► "Jason, what's your desktop background and does it serve any purpose other than decoration?"

00:00:57 ◼   ► Any, so the any purpose thing is what got me about this question.

00:01:00 ◼   ► Well, I've seen people that design like desktop backgrounds to have calendars on them and stuff,

00:01:05 ◼   ► you know?

00:01:06 ◼   ► Yeah, that's weird or I mean I shouldn't judge that.

00:01:09 ◼   ► Or like motivational messages, that kind of stuff.

00:01:12 ◼   ► I was thinking like a grid with like a little play or a little like

00:01:15 ◼   ► little places where you put files in various places.

00:01:18 ◼   ► Yeah, like you see that a lot with iOS apps, iOS like desktops, right? People

00:01:22 ◼   ► draw little app icons where app icons could go and that kind of stuff.

00:01:25 ◼   ► Yeah, exactly. I think, so I actually just wrote a piece that we can link to in the show notes

00:01:33 ◼   ► about my messy desktop and how I've actually changed how I approach.

00:01:38 ◼   ► Yeah, let's not go into too much detail there. I have that maybe as a,

00:01:42 ◼   ► "Oh, it's quiet this week, we're gonna talk about this."

00:01:44 ◼   ► Yeah, sure, about cleaning up my desktop.

00:01:46 ◼   ► Yeah, we're gonna be careful here.

00:01:48 ◼   ► You will see. So the short version is I can see more of my desktop than I used to.

00:01:51 ◼   ► And I have a 27-inch iMac Pro, so there's a lot of desktop there.

00:01:56 ◼   ► But the truth is, and you can see it in that screenshot, no, it serves no other purpose

00:02:01 ◼   ► than decoration. And what I actually use as my desktop background is from an app called Downlink,

00:02:09 ◼   ► which you can get at downlinkapp.com. And it accesses the satellite imagery real-time-ish,

00:02:15 ◼   ► you know, 15-minute increments or whatever. Satellite imagery from various satellites above

00:02:21 ◼   ► the Earth. And so I have a shot of the West Coast of North America out into the Pacific Ocean out

00:02:28 ◼   ► past Hawaii as my desktop background. And that changes, you know, every so often during the day.

00:02:35 ◼   ► So right now, when I look at it, I actually can see the terminator between here and Hawaii because

00:02:40 ◼   ► the sun hasn't come up in Hawaii yet. And I can see the clouds over California. And, you know,

00:02:45 ◼   ► if it's a clear day, then it'll be clear over California. And it's just pretty. And I can see

00:02:50 ◼   ► down through Baja, California and the Sea of Cortez and all of that. And yeah, so that's what

00:02:57 ◼   ► I do is I just have the Earth from space and my particular corner of the Earth.

00:03:02 ◼   ► - Very nice, very nice. If you would like to send in a Snell Talk question for a future episode,

00:03:07 ◼   ► just send out a tweet with the hashtag SnellTalk and it may be included like Marcus's was.

00:03:12 ◼   ► We should move on to some follow-ups. So iWork and iMovie. So the iWork apps on iOS or iPadOS

00:03:19 ◼   ► and iMovie have all been updated to take use of Apple's new trackpad cursor support stuff on iPadOS.

00:03:25 ◼   ► I've been really happy with the changes to numbers specifically. I think it's wonderful being able to

00:03:32 ◼   ► like see hovers and to be able to very easily move stuff around. And there's a lot of usage

00:03:38 ◼   ► of custom cursors that Apple have made in these applications. Like for example, in Keynote,

00:03:45 ◼   ► you can rotate imagery and stuff and they've made like a custom little rotate, like two little arrows

00:03:51 ◼   ► pointing in like curved circles around where the cursor is. So I'm all like the cursor turns into

00:03:57 ◼   ► those is probably a better thing to say. So yeah, I'm really excited to see more of this stuff. But

00:04:02 ◼   ► I think what Apple have done to these applications is really good. It's really good. I think the thing

00:04:08 ◼   ► that hit me about the numbers update is it behaves in not always, but in many ways, just like numbers

00:04:17 ◼   ► on the Mac in that, and something about that got to me that if you've got a chart and you use the

00:04:24 ◼   ► cursor and you click and you drag over items in the chart, it selects them. Which is not groundbreaking

00:04:31 ◼   ► at all, but that is not a concept that you really had on the iPad before. To click and drag and

00:04:39 ◼   ► basically lasso up a selection of stuff. And you do it because you think, "Oh, well, I do this on

00:04:46 ◼   ► the Mac, so I'll do it here." And it works, which is how it should be. Even just the text selection,

00:04:51 ◼   ► I'm really happy they brought it to pages. The idea of just like, I don't have to do something

00:04:57 ◼   ► before I start selecting text. It's so different, right? Completely normal to me on the Mac,

00:05:04 ◼   ► but it's like an alien thing on iPad OS. I'm still getting used to it, but I love it.

00:05:09 ◼   ► I also wanted to give a shout out to Fantastical. They had a fantastic update to support cursor

00:05:14 ◼   ► support as well. To being able to now do things like drag and extend an event over multiple days.

00:05:21 ◼   ► They've just put some really good stuff into it, like hovers and stuff like that. I'm really happy

00:05:27 ◼   ► with it. It's just like an app that I've seen that's really taken good advantage of it.

00:05:30 ◼   ► I want to keep calling these out as I see them because I think it's important to encourage this.

00:05:35 ◼   ► Also, people might not be checking these applications very much, if you're just used

00:05:41 ◼   ► to using touch. Did we mention last week's screens from Adobe? I think so, but it's actually gotten

00:05:47 ◼   ► better since last week. They made a new update that hides the iPad cursor when you're using it.

00:05:54 ◼   ► You're driving a remote computer. You move your trackpad or mouse or whatever on the iPad,

00:05:59 ◼   ► and it moves that cursor. Their first release, there was a double cursor. Then they used the

00:06:05 ◼   ► new APIs to hide the cursor in that scenario. I think Federico wrote a piece last week where

00:06:11 ◼   ► he referred to it as it's Mac as an app. That really is when you're in that scenario, which is

00:06:17 ◼   ► great, especially if you're somebody. If I'm somewhere else in my house or elsewhere, really,

00:06:23 ◼   ► and I'm using an iPad and I need to do something that is specifically on a Mac, I have my Mac Mini

00:06:28 ◼   ► server. It's always on, and I can just open it up and do that thing. Now it feels completely

00:06:33 ◼   ► natural if I'm using a trackpad and keyboard. Super nice. Turns out the 2020 iPad does have

00:06:40 ◼   ► a feature we didn't know about that makes a difference to the 2018 iPad. I'm going to read you

00:06:44 ◼   ► something from an Apple support page or security page. iPad models beginning in 2020 also feature

00:06:50 ◼   ► the hardware microphone disconnect. When an MFI compliant case made for iPhone compliant case,

00:06:56 ◼   ► including those sold by Apple, is attached to the iPad and closed, the microphone is disconnected

00:07:01 ◼   ► in hardware preventing microphone audio data being made available to any software, even with root or

00:07:07 ◼   ► kernel privileges in iPad OS or in case the firmware is compromised. So this is a feature

00:07:13 ◼   ► that is in some T2 enabled Macs where the microphone could just be shut off basically in

00:07:20 ◼   ► hardware, right? So there's no way that someone can actually turn it on when you haven't given it

00:07:25 ◼   ► permission to be on. The microphone hardware disconnects when the lid is closed, and here

00:07:29 ◼   ► the microphone is disconnecting when I'm assuming a magnet hits a particular part on the case,

00:07:35 ◼   ► and then it's popping, it's pulling the connection away, but it means that it's physically impossible.

00:07:40 ◼   ► It can't be hacked. The way you would have to hack it is you would also have to replace their case,

00:07:46 ◼   ► right? With one that doesn't have a magnet there or something because the normal set of magnets,

00:07:52 ◼   ► will presumably one of them will pop that and then there's no there's no microphone connection then.

00:07:59 ◼   ► Matt>> So again, this is not a reason to buy the 2020 iPad Pro, but it's an interesting change

00:08:04 ◼   ► because what it shows is that Apple was thinking more and more about how to make these devices

00:08:09 ◼   ► more privacy conscious. I like the way that they've done this, you know, with the case idea,

00:08:15 ◼   ► because that is presuming you then are not using the iPad so you're good, right? You've closed it

00:08:20 ◼   ► up. So I think that they've done a really good job with that. And references to, well, a reference to

00:08:27 ◼   ► the phrase "AirTags are shown up in an Apple support video for Find My." Steve>> This is a recurring

00:08:33 ◼   ► theme for us, right? Which is what Apple, what are you doing? Matt>> Let me say what this is and I'm

00:08:38 ◼   ► going to come back to that. So the feature is being shown off in a support page called "Enable

00:08:45 ◼   ► offline finding." So this will enable a device or paired AirTags to be found when not connected to

00:08:51 ◼   ► Wi-Fi or cellular. And this is taking advantage of the ultra wideband and/or Bluetooth to basically

00:08:58 ◼   ► locate a device or an AirTag via other people's iPhones and Macs which is... Steve>> I think this

00:09:05 ◼   ► is the Bluetooth LE beacon which basically sends an ID and other devices see it and send it back

00:09:11 ◼   ► to Apple and say, "I saw this device at this place at this time." And that could, you know, you could

00:09:16 ◼   ► argue that that's a privacy issue so you can turn it on and you can turn it off as you see fit.

00:09:20 ◼   ► Matt>> So this is a, like, this is going to be the, like, must-buy reason for AirTags, right? That

00:09:26 ◼   ► you could put them in your bag, you could put them on your pet's collar or whatever, depending on how

00:09:31 ◼   ► big they are, and you will be able to find this stuff by the use of the billions of Apple devices

00:09:38 ◼   ► that exist in the world, right? It's going to absolutely destroy this market if you're an iPhone

00:09:44 ◼   ► user. Or even if you're not, honestly, right? Like, you just have an iPad, you pair it to something,

00:09:50 ◼   ► you're great, you still take the use of it. Now, I think the reason this has happened is Apple

00:09:55 ◼   ► have clearly delayed AirTags, it would seem, and these, all of this stuff, all of these assets are

00:10:02 ◼   ► created and they're put into systems and then these systems release the assets, right? So, like,

00:10:07 ◼   ► these support videos were to be published for a device that exists. I think AirTags, we're not

00:10:14 ◼   ► going to see them this year, no. Do you want to know why, Jay? Tell me why. Because people aren't

00:10:19 ◼   ► going outside, are they? How do you sell a product which is for in case you lose something if you're

00:10:26 ◼   ► not leaving the home? Like, how do you lose something? Like, I mean, yes, you can lose things

00:10:31 ◼   ► in your house, but I don't think that that is what this product will be, like, mainly positioned for.

00:10:38 ◼   ► So, I would be surprised to see this product launch in the current climate that we're in,

00:10:45 ◼   ► because the main selling feature is kind of nullified and it would be really weird

00:10:52 ◼   ► to market this product. Yeah, we'll talk about Quibi later, speaking of products that maybe

00:10:59 ◼   ► shouldn't be launching right now, but I agree with you, though. I think one of the reasons that this

00:11:03 ◼   ► AirTag stuff and the U1 chip are happening is because this is a product that Apple thought

00:11:09 ◼   ► would be ready at various times and then turns out isn't, and so they're proceeding under the

00:11:15 ◼   ► assumption that it's in there, and then they have to take it out, and they didn't take it out of

00:11:19 ◼   ► every bit of documentation, and therefore, you end up leaking it. It seems like they intended it to

00:11:25 ◼   ► ship in the fall and it wasn't ready, probably, and now it seems like maybe it is ready. And I

00:11:31 ◼   ► think you're right, it may be that they just don't want to ship it. And why not launch it later? I

00:11:37 ◼   ► mean, you could argue why not launch it now, but they're not going to sell them now and people have

00:11:41 ◼   ► forgotten about them by the time that they're moving around and traveling around and potentially

00:11:45 ◼   ► losing things. It's an interesting question, but clearly this product exists, right? This isn't

00:11:50 ◼   ► just, "Oh, well, I heard a rumor that." It's in support videos. It's in documentation.

00:11:55 ◼   ► And it may be that they are going to put them on sale sooner rather than later, but they need to

00:11:59 ◼   ► redo the marketing of them, right? Certainly.

00:12:02 ◼   ► You would assume that the ads showed people traveling and forgetting their bag at an airport.

00:12:07 ◼   ► Yeah, right. Yeah. And you can't make an ad like that now because it's so tone-deaf.

00:12:12 ◼   ► So, we'll see. We're going to be doing a Myke in the Movies next week. I said to Jason, "Hey,

00:12:19 ◼   ► Jason, I want to watch a happy movie. What do you recommend?" And what did you recommend?

00:12:23 ◼   ► We are going to watch Star Trek IV. Myke hasn't seen Star Trek movies, you see.

00:12:29 ◼   ► I've only seen two, so we're going from two to four.

00:12:33 ◼   ► Yeah, I'll tell you what happens in Star Trek III. Star Trek III is the search for Spock,

00:12:36 ◼   ► so Spock dies in Star Trek II. Star Trek III is called the search for Spock.

00:12:39 ◼   ► Here's my summary for you. Here's what you need to know. They find Spock.

00:12:43 ◼   ► Oh, no. I mean, yay.

00:12:44 ◼   ► Yeah, they find him.

00:12:46 ◼   ► My understanding is that every other Star Trek movie is good. Is that correct?

00:12:51 ◼   ► For the first run of them, the even ones are the really good ones, II, IV, and VI.

00:12:59 ◼   ► All right, so Star Trek IV, Star Trek IV.

00:13:03 ◼   ► The Voyage Home.

00:13:04 ◼   ► The Voyage Home.

00:13:05 ◼   ► Yeah, 1986, directed by Leonard Nimoy, who also directed Star Trek III. And it is, I think,

00:13:13 ◼   ► depending on how you calculate it, it's basically the most financially successful of all of the

00:13:19 ◼   ► original Star Trek movies. It was a hit in 1986, and that's because it's a feel-good comedy. Yes,

00:13:26 ◼   ► it's a sci-fi movie, it's a Star Trek movie, but it is also a funny movie. And if you haven't seen

00:13:30 ◼   ► it or you haven't seen it recently, I think it's a good movie to watch because it's nice. And we

00:13:35 ◼   ► live in dark times right now, so watch a nice fun movie about a bunch of space people who go back

00:13:40 ◼   ► to the '80s. It's funny. So, yeah. Let's talk about Apple and their coronavirus response,

00:13:49 ◼   ► their update for this week. So, lots of news as always, and I will do my best to summarize them.

00:13:55 ◼   ► So, according to Bloomberg, Apple employees are struggling still to adjust to work from home life

00:14:01 ◼   ► while maintaining product secrecy. We've heard this before, but there's been continued reports

00:14:06 ◼   ► of this being difficult for Apple employees. This is Mark Gurman calling all the people he

00:14:11 ◼   ► knows who work at Apple and go like, "Hey, how's it going?" "How's it going?" "I'm here. I'm in

00:14:15 ◼   ► my house. You're in your house. What's going on?" And they're like, "Oh, man, let me tell you." And

00:14:18 ◼   ► he's like, "Yes, yes, tell me more." And then there's a story. That's how journalism works

00:14:22 ◼   ► today. I mean, it's like, what else is going to happen? It's people in their homes. So,

00:14:27 ◼   ► but it is interesting that Gurman has good sources, and he calls around and says,

00:14:32 ◼   ► "What's this like?" And I try to think about like software developers. I keep thinking like,

00:14:36 ◼   ► that's something I get. I totally get software developers and how they might work in a distributed

00:14:41 ◼   ► environment because that happens. And I think about like building hardware and stuff. And I

00:14:45 ◼   ► think, how does that work? Like, how do you keep that rolling? I know that the designers aren't

00:14:53 ◼   ► exactly like sitting around soldering things all day and bending wires and stuff, but still,

00:14:58 ◼   ► it feels much more hands-on. It feels like that would be a greater leap in order to keep the ball

00:15:02 ◼   ► rolling on. You're designing the next iPhone or iPad or Mac or whatever. And to do that when

00:15:09 ◼   ► everybody's in their own home seems harder to me. It is, according to Gurman, harder, in fact.

00:15:19 ◼   ► And really the biggest issue though is that they're finding is the secrecy stuff. So,

00:15:24 ◼   ► especially with the hardware, this is difficult. It is also apparently difficult with software

00:15:30 ◼   ► because Apple is only able to, or is only allowing certain people to be able to use this stuff at

00:15:37 ◼   ► home. You've got to assume that like, you know, they're worried about network security. They're

00:15:42 ◼   ► worried about like, does it call like sneaker net security, right? Take the source code out of

00:15:47 ◼   ► Cupertino. I totally see why you wouldn't want to do that, right? Like you're secrecy focused and

00:15:53 ◼   ► you've got a bunch of stuff that you're working on and then suddenly you change your policy and now

00:15:58 ◼   ► it's like at somebody's house on their laptop. It's like, I get it. But at the same time,

00:16:03 ◼   ► what are you going to do? Stop working? - Exactly. So, apparently though, there are still a selection

00:16:09 ◼   ► of products that are being worked on, including a new HomePod, which is interesting, a new Apple TV,

00:16:16 ◼   ► a new MacBook Pro, the lower price iPads, so not the iPad Pros, the regular iPads, Apple Watch,

00:16:22 ◼   ► iMac, and of course the iPhone. These are all things that Apple is still working on.

00:16:26 ◼   ► - Well, I mean, they never stop, right? Like they may be working, you know, Gruber always points out

00:16:33 ◼   ► that, you know, this year's iPhone is already designed and specced and probably being built.

00:16:38 ◼   ► That's true, but next year's iPhone isn't, right? Next year's iPhone is being designed now.

00:16:45 ◼   ► And then they're also working on the year after's iPhone and like it never stops. So we may end up

00:16:50 ◼   ► in a situation a little like movies and TV actually, where new stuff is rolling out now.

00:16:56 ◼   ► Like there are movies that were, I mean, other than movies and theaters, which is another problem,

00:17:00 ◼   ► but like TV shows, there are TV shows that have been made and are going to come out in the next

00:17:05 ◼   ► few months. But what's going to happen, and you used to see this with whenever there's a writer

00:17:10 ◼   ► strike, for example, you would see this. Then there's a gap, but it comes later where it's like,

00:17:17 ◼   ► "Oh, now we've run out." And now the shows are back and there's a gap. And that's, I think,

00:17:23 ◼   ► the challenge here for Apple is not necessarily this year, but like, does this slow down,

00:17:32 ◼   ► you know, is there a gap in Apple's product offerings at some point because they

00:17:37 ◼   ► just had to slow down because of this and for good reason, but like where I don't know where

00:17:42 ◼   ► that hole is, but there's going to be a hole in Apple's like product schedule that is where we may,

00:17:49 ◼   ► depending on how long they have to rectify it, we may see the hit that they're taking because

00:17:54 ◼   ► they all had to leave the building. Will Barron, JL;DR; You know, you mentioned TV there for a

00:17:59 ◼   ► second. I wanted to say like, I wanted to like just reference because we were talking about

00:18:04 ◼   ► a lot of like late night shows and stuff like that. People recording on their iPhones,

00:18:08 ◼   ► they're using AirPods. John Oliver, I don't know why HBO have done, they did the right thing. It

00:18:13 ◼   ► looks like the John Oliver show. He's recording at home. He has a white background. He has a proper

00:18:18 ◼   ► camera, a teleprompter, a good microphone. Like, yeah, because you can put those things in the mail

00:18:23 ◼   ► and send them to people. No, they placed a really nice order from B&H. And, you know, he got a paper

00:18:30 ◼   ► like background to clip up and a couple of lights and a camera or, you know, it might be an iPhone

00:18:36 ◼   ► camera. Honestly, you couldn't tell if it was a phone camera because phone cameras are so good now.

00:18:41 ◼   ► And they are broadcast quality essentially. If they're lit properly, yeah. Well, all of them,

00:18:47 ◼   ► it's a tangent that I'm fascinated by it because they are all trying to figure this stuff out and

00:18:54 ◼   ► all of them have all kind of come back at a certain level. Like, Stephen Colbert is the

00:19:00 ◼   ► same way. He's got an iPhone and then he's got, it looks like a laptop on the floor with a Zoom

00:19:06 ◼   ► conference with his producers who are like saying, "No, do that again," kind of stuff. But like,

00:19:10 ◼   ► they're all figuring it out because the consumer tech at this point and readily available tech

00:19:16 ◼   ► is so good that you can, you know, you're going to have to take, there'll be a lot of FaceTime calls

00:19:22 ◼   ► saying, "No, push this button. No, no, no, not that button, this button," kind of stuff to get them

00:19:26 ◼   ► up and running, them and their kids and their spouses. But you can do it. Like,

00:19:33 ◼   ► you get some LED light panels, you get this microphone, you get the computer here and the

00:19:37 ◼   ► phone here and the tripod and all that. And it can end up looking pretty good. Yeah. John Oliver's

00:19:42 ◼   ► show is basically John Oliver's show now, except with no studio audience.

00:19:45 ◼   ► - And it took them a little longer to make.

00:19:47 ◼   ► - Yeah. And Trevor Noah's show looks really great. He's in front of like his own furniture

00:19:51 ◼   ► instead of in a white void. Like, I imagine that John Oliver didn't have a really good background,

00:19:57 ◼   ► so he has a white background instead. But like Trevor Noah doing the Daily Show,

00:20:01 ◼   ► it looks great. It really does. They figured it out and Colbert's figuring it out and Jimmy Fallon

00:20:08 ◼   ► is figuring it out. Like, they're all figuring it out now, which is fun to see. And the tech

00:20:13 ◼   ► is there that you just have to, your high priced comedian talent, you got to walk them through how

00:20:18 ◼   ► to set it all up, but they can do that usually. And that's been interesting to see.

00:20:23 ◼   ► - But like, it was refreshing to me to see that at least some television production companies

00:20:31 ◼   ► can understand that it is possible to make this stuff look good with home stuff. All the other

00:20:36 ◼   ► things I've seen just look terrible. - No, the John Oliver one, I think,

00:20:40 ◼   ► is a great example. Although Trevor Noah, I would say, is at that level and Colbert is getting there,

00:20:46 ◼   ► where you can see that it's almost, Oliver especially, it's almost like the show was.

00:20:56 ◼   ► Like, other than the fact that the background is different, it ends up being about the content

00:21:00 ◼   ► again. And I'm sure the other side of this, because we keep talking about production,

00:21:04 ◼   ► like writing this and all of those and post-production, they got to get those

00:21:08 ◼   ► files and they got to transfer that HD video over the internet to an editor to put, right?

00:21:15 ◼   ► Like all of that is super complicated. Like the writer's rooms have to run with, are they doing

00:21:20 ◼   ► like Google docs and Zoom meetings and stuff like that? Like it's, there's a bunch of stuff beneath

00:21:25 ◼   ► the waterline that we don't even see, but it is really amazing to watch as these shows start to

00:21:31 ◼   ► turn into the same show as it was before, except now it's all kind of DIY, but they've managed to

00:21:37 ◼   ► figure it out. And I'm not surprised that that happened, but some of them are happening faster

00:21:42 ◼   ► than I thought, because this is literally like show two for John Oliver in his house. And it's

00:21:47 ◼   ► just his show now. All right. So going back to what we were talking about, which is Apple and

00:21:51 ◼   ► coronavirus, Foxconn executives tell their investors on a private conference call that

00:21:56 ◼   ► leaked out that the 5G iPhone is still on track for 2020. Like we said, listen to Gruber, you've

00:22:04 ◼   ► heard this before. It's already done. Like it's already done. It's already designed. They had to

00:22:07 ◼   ► make it. And so it's great to hear Foxconn say, yeah, yeah, we'll do that. But like that's one of

00:22:14 ◼   ► these products that seems to be already down the line. It doesn't seem to be, it's like a TV show

00:22:20 ◼   ► that they already shot and are in the process of editing and they may be editing it in their houses

00:22:24 ◼   ► now. There was a great, I think Instagram shot of somebody who's editing the new season of Star

00:22:29 ◼   ► Trek Discovery. And it's just like a trashcan Mac Pro and a big monitor and some speakers on a card

00:22:34 ◼   ► table next to their stairs in their house. And it's like, all right, but that like they can put

00:22:39 ◼   ► that show out. They can make that happen. And I feel like the 2020 iPhones are probably like that

00:22:46 ◼   ► where it's like, yeah, we can make this work. This is not where the gap is going to be.

00:22:49 ◼   ► Apple has communicated internally that they're expecting their stores to be closed until at least

00:22:56 ◼   ► early May. So they keep kind of pushing that forward. That's just going to keep getting pushed

00:23:00 ◼   ► forward. Uh, and Tim Cook appeared again on Twitter via video to announce that Apple is

00:23:05 ◼   ► now sourced over 20 million masks to be distributed worldwide. Last week it was half of that.

00:23:10 ◼   ► And Apple's also designed, developed, and manufactured a face shield for medical workers.

00:23:16 ◼   ► They have delivered the first batch of these to some hospitals in the US and they're going to

00:23:20 ◼   ► start shipping 1 million of them a week starting in America, but looking to expand beyond. So it's

00:23:25 ◼   ► pretty cool. Yeah. Tim, somebody got to Tim and said, Tim, it's your Twitter account. You don't

00:23:30 ◼   ► need to introduce yourself every time we know who you are. And also told him how to stop the video.

00:23:35 ◼   ► Did a good job this time. He did. So Tim Cook like John Oliver and Stephen Colbert and Trevor Noah,

00:23:42 ◼   ► Tim Cook improving his skills. I can't wait for him to do, uh, an interview and a monologue in

00:23:48 ◼   ► the future. Any day now. One of the things he said in that video that I thought was really nice is he

00:23:52 ◼   ► said, we're just trying to find things that we were applicant, add something like we're not,

00:23:56 ◼   ► if there's a skill that we have, that's so we think we can contribute something. That's what

00:24:02 ◼   ► we're looking for. And I think that's the right attitude to have is not like what can we do to be

00:24:06 ◼   ► seen as much as like, are there things we have in our manufacturing and design capabilities that we

00:24:13 ◼   ► think we could, we could actually make a difference and let's try to do that. And they seem to be like

00:24:17 ◼   ► the face shield seems to be a good example of that. And the, and the mask distribution for

00:24:22 ◼   ► healthcare workers. Definitely. All right. Today's show is brought to you by Eero. Eero is the wifi

00:24:27 ◼   ► that your home deserves because your home deserves fast, reliable wifi wherever and whenever you need

00:24:33 ◼   ► it. You know why? Because you deserve it. Your family deserves it. You want that good connection.

00:24:38 ◼   ► Eero will blanket your whole home with the wifi reliability that you want eliminating poor coverage,

00:24:44 ◼   ► dead spots and buffering. With Eero you'll have a consistently strong signal wherever you need it to

00:24:50 ◼   ► be. And for a limited time Eero's mesh wifi system starts at just $79. So now is the time to upgrade

00:24:58 ◼   ► your wifi system. Eero sets up in just minutes. It plugs right into your modem or router box.

00:25:03 ◼   ► You manage everything from their dead simple app, which even lets you pause the wifi for dinner and

00:25:08 ◼   ► alert you if any device attempts to join your network. I got an Eero very recently actually,

00:25:13 ◼   ► and I love it. The application is amazing. It is completely unlike apps for any of these types of

00:25:20 ◼   ► home devices. Like it's well-designed, it's excellently featured. I love that I can run,

00:25:26 ◼   ► run speed tests on it wherever I am, even if I'm not at home, because I just want to see how fast

00:25:30 ◼   ► my internet is. Um, I like that you can restrict what devices are showing up and you can name the

00:25:35 ◼   ► devices that are connected. That app is really, really great. Um, it's super simple to set up the

00:25:40 ◼   ► entire system, but their application really shines to me as a difference maker from anything else

00:25:45 ◼   ► that I've used before. With Eero, there'll be no more Netflix buffering the bedroom, no more

00:25:50 ◼   ► complaints of Xboxes with a bad signal, no more worrying that your security camera will be offline

00:25:57 ◼   ► and no more stuttering video on your conference calls as well, which is, I bet really important

00:26:01 ◼   ► to a lot of people now. Eero has fixed my wifi problems. Let it fix yours too. And you can have

00:26:06 ◼   ► this fixed as soon as tomorrow. If you go to Eero.com/ahoy and enter the code Ahoy, A H O Y,

00:26:14 ◼   ► you will get free overnight shipping of your order. That's E E R O.com/ahoy. So Ahoy and the

00:26:22 ◼   ► code Ahoy at checkout to get your Eero delivered with free overnight shipping. One last time,

00:26:26 ◼   ► you have to go to this URL to get this offer Eero.com/ahoy and use the code Ahoy at checkout

00:26:31 ◼   ► for free overnight shipping. Our thanks to Eero for their support of this show and Relay FM.

00:26:36 ◼   ► So we're in upstream now and we have a big Apple Amazon theme to talk about. So out of nowhere last

00:26:45 ◼   ► week, it became suddenly possible without again, like a lot of fanfare to be able to purchase

00:26:52 ◼   ► movies and TV shows in the Amazon Prime app. So this had previously not been possible because

00:26:57 ◼   ► of Apple's in-app purchase rules related to digital goods. So if you sell a digital product,

00:27:02 ◼   ► you have to put it through Apple's in-app purchase system and movies and TV shows inside of the

00:27:07 ◼   ► Amazon Prime Video app would count as that. So it was like this way you'd have to do it previously

00:27:12 ◼   ► is like you couldn't sign up for Prime in it, you couldn't buy anything in it and Amazon couldn't

00:27:16 ◼   ► link you anywhere. So you either were a customer or you weren't and you kind of had to work out

00:27:22 ◼   ► on your own. I think you could sign up for Prime or Prime for Prime Video using Apple's method.

00:27:29 ◼   ► I think you could do that. I think that was the one they again, they don't want you to do that,

00:27:34 ◼   ► but I think like Netflix used to be before they dropped out of that. Right. Okay. I think you

00:27:38 ◼   ► could. Slight difference. Slight difference there. Thank you for that clarification. But now

00:27:41 ◼   ► if you are a Prime customer with Amazon, you can buy video content with your existing logins. So

00:27:48 ◼   ► this is stuff that's on top of your Prime now. Yeah. So I'm a Prime member and I have the Prime

00:27:54 ◼   ► Video app and I was able to all of a sudden they put up a little screen that goes, "Do do do, you

00:27:59 ◼   ► can now do this." But like I was able to find a movie and tap rent. I think a Jojo Rabbit is the

00:28:06 ◼   ► one that I did. And I was just like, "Oh, rent this movie." And it's like, "All right, we're

00:28:10 ◼   ► going to rent this movie and charge your credit card that we have on file at Amazon." And then I

00:28:15 ◼   ► got an Amazon receipt that said, "You just rented a movie." And so for me, my experience had nothing

00:28:22 ◼   ► to do, no connection with Apple at all. I was doing that all inside the Amazon app using Amazon's

00:28:28 ◼   ► payment services. So it's not just that it's... A lot of debate about Apple taking 30% and if they

00:28:38 ◼   ► might change it so Apple's taking less through their in-app purchase system. This is not Apple's

00:28:44 ◼   ► in-app purchase system. This is just Amazon. This is how it works on Android, by the way,

00:28:49 ◼   ► but this is not how it works on iOS except now it does if you're a Prime member.

00:28:54 ◼   ► - So if you're not a Prime member, it will switch to Apple's in-app purchase system.

00:29:01 ◼   ► So your Apple will take its cut for the purchase of that movie or television show.

00:29:06 ◼   ► And you can also sign up now for Prime via Apple subscription method too. Before I think it was

00:29:13 ◼   ► just you'd still have to do it through Amazon. But now if you're not a Prime video member and

00:29:18 ◼   ► you want to become one and you're in the iOS app for Prime video, which is a funny way that

00:29:24 ◼   ► you'd find yourself in that situation, I think you can subscribe via Apple subscription method.

00:29:30 ◼   ► So Apple, after this got published in a few paces, and I'm sure that a lot of journalists reached out

00:29:35 ◼   ► to their press contacts at Apple for a statement on this, Apple did release a statement, but it's

00:29:40 ◼   ► basically a selection of nothing. - Yes.

00:29:45 ◼   ► - There really isn't much in this statement except for saying that there is a special deal available

00:29:50 ◼   ► to premium video services and they referenced two services in Europe, I believe.

00:29:54 ◼   ► - Canal Plus. - Canal Plus. And there was one other

00:29:58 ◼   ► that I'd never heard of. Like Canal Plus I've heard of before because they're the company that

00:30:02 ◼   ► provides Apple TV boxes for their cable subscriptions. And they referenced one other

00:30:09 ◼   ► company. - Altice One.

00:30:12 ◼   ► - Altice One. Okay. I don't know that one at all. So these are two companies that Apple is doing

00:30:18 ◼   ► this deal with, where they will allow for purchases inside of the app using an existing,

00:30:24 ◼   ► like an external payment processing. But to do this, to get access to this deal is a bit give

00:30:30 ◼   ► and take. So Apple say that you have to support everything they want you to. So all the APIs that

00:30:36 ◼   ► they want, you have to have your content in the TV app, you have to support AirPlay too, all that

00:30:40 ◼   ► kind of stuff. Amazon is the first worldwide distributor to take advantage of this program.

00:30:44 ◼   ► Clearly some deal has been struck. I think that if you've been paying attention, it's easy to see

00:30:51 ◼   ► that Apple and Amazon have been doing a lot of stuff together over the last year, right? You've

00:30:55 ◼   ► got like Apple Music on the Echo, the TV app on Fire products, Apple products back on Amazon for

00:31:06 ◼   ► sale. There was a deal done, which includes a lot of things. Whether we've seen all of that yet,

00:31:13 ◼   ► I don't know, but there has clearly been a lot of like give and take with Apple and Amazon. And this

00:31:19 ◼   ► is just another piece of that puzzle. - I'm not sure. I don't wanna over,

00:31:22 ◼   ► given Apple statement, I don't wanna overemphasize what this might mean because I think maybe this

00:31:32 ◼   ► arrangement couldn't have happened if Apple and Amazon hadn't buried the hatchet. But Apple saying

00:31:39 ◼   ► very specifically, this is an existing program. This is not even the first or the second company

00:31:44 ◼   ► to do this. And we haven't mentioned it, but like Apple TV and the TV app is a big part of what this

00:31:53 ◼   ► is, right? Because I get the impression that Apple basically has said, we will give you a premium

00:32:01 ◼   ► subscription video provider. We will give you the freedom to charge your customers for extra stuff.

00:32:09 ◼   ► It's like if you wanted to build your cable company app and still charge people for on-demand

00:32:15 ◼   ► or something through it, like they're your existing customer, they're paying you a subscription fee.

00:32:20 ◼   ► If you wanna charge them and not do in-app purchase, it's fine. But here's what you have

00:32:26 ◼   ► to do to get this, to get us to approve it. And I suspect it is things like fully integrating into

00:32:31 ◼   ► the Apple TV app and the API so that I can link to you and you tell me what they're watching and

00:32:36 ◼   ► I can show it in the TV app as what's been... Like you need to be in our video ecosystem

00:32:42 ◼   ► to get this feature, which Netflix doesn't have, right? Netflix doesn't do all cart. So this is not

00:32:51 ◼   ► a carrot for Netflix, right? Because they don't do all cart. They only do a subscription fee.

00:32:55 ◼   ► So, but Amazon sells stuff. It doesn't just do a subscription fee, it sells stuff. So it's

00:33:01 ◼   ► unique in that way. So when this initially broke, I thought, "Oh, maybe this is exactly what you

00:33:10 ◼   ► said," which is another offshoot of that bearing the hatchet between Apple and Amazon, and that

00:33:18 ◼   ► it would be followed up by Kindle and Comixology. And then Apple released the statement and I

00:33:24 ◼   ► thought, "Oh, maybe not then." Like, 'cause it is very TV focused. So I initially thought, "Well,

00:33:31 ◼   ► wouldn't it be nice?" But it's what Apple says as well. It's about video and it's about a

00:33:35 ◼   ► subscription video product. And then when you're a member of that subscription video service,

00:33:40 ◼   ► then you get this extra ability to buy things inside it. And that, short of like the video

00:33:48 ◼   ► takes out Kindle and Comixology, they do offer subscription services within both of those

00:33:56 ◼   ► products. But it's not video, but I could see that. So I think it's an open question. Like,

00:34:01 ◼   ► it would be really great if this continued and Kindle and Comixology got purchase inside of it.

00:34:10 ◼   ► But like, I don't know, it seems like a bit far afield from this because this is a very specific

00:34:16 ◼   ► instance where you have to, A, it's gotta be video. B, you have to have an existing subscription

00:34:21 ◼   ► relationship with Amazon. And then C, you have the ability to pay more money to buy or rent things

00:34:29 ◼   ► inside it. And like, even if they brought that to something like Kindle or Comixology where there's

00:34:35 ◼   ► like Kindle Unlimited and the Comixology Unlimited subscription services, and yes, they also sell

00:34:41 ◼   ► products inside those stores. Even if you got over the video hump, that's still a weird experience,

00:34:47 ◼   ► right? Where regular Kindle users would not be able to buy books under this circumstance. You'd

00:34:53 ◼   ► have to be a Kindle Unlimited member unless they claimed that Prime was a membership that included

00:35:00 ◼   ► books or like, I don't know. It seems like a stretch is what I'm saying. And so while I was

00:35:04 ◼   ► really excited about the ability to buy potentially books and comics inside Amazon's apps as a next

00:35:10 ◼   ► step here, reading Apple's statement, I think it's not gonna happen. And that this is really

00:35:15 ◼   ► just specifically about Amazon ticking all the boxes in terms of being an Apple's TV ecosystem.

00:35:21 ◼   ► So their deal made this possible, but it doesn't follow that there's more to come.

00:35:29 ◼   ► - This whole thing has made me re-realize how unfair I think this rule is. Like, there is no

00:35:37 ◼   ► reason that Apple should be involved in the purchase of a Kindle book. There's just no

00:35:43 ◼   ► reason. They're not serving the files. They're not gonna provide the payment system 'cause Amazon

00:35:49 ◼   ► don't even want that. - It is rent-seeking behavior. It is Apple saying, "It's our platform,

00:35:54 ◼   ► and so any money that changes hands for digital goods, you gotta cut us in for 30%

00:35:58 ◼   ► because we control it. We don't provide anything to you here. We just are gonna take money from you."

00:36:04 ◼   ► - But it's so easy for Amazon to very, I think, rightly fire back and be like, "No, no,

00:36:11 ◼   ► Kindle is our platform. You have nothing to do with this. We're equals here."

00:36:17 ◼   ► I find it very frustrating, again, to be reminded of it.

00:36:25 ◼   ► - I understand. So the argument from Apple's side is that it's not rent-seeking behavior.

00:36:32 ◼   ► It's protecting the platform because they don't want apps from unscrupulous vendors to suddenly

00:36:39 ◼   ► start charging you, and you don't know anything about their infrastructure, whether they're

00:36:43 ◼   ► unscrupulous or just not paying attention. Like, you may be compromising your credit card, and are

00:36:49 ◼   ► they gonna be charging you for more than they say, and all these things. It's like, well, you don't

00:36:52 ◼   ► have to worry about it 'cause Apple is gonna protect you from that. And I see that, but then

00:36:57 ◼   ► you look at a company like Amazon and you think, "Come on, Amazon is so huge, and they've got an

00:37:03 ◼   ► existing relationship with these customers." And that's always been my argument that

00:37:08 ◼   ► Kindle and ComiXology on iOS is appreciably worse for users than on Android because of Apple's

00:37:20 ◼   ► policy, because it means that if you wanna buy a book, you have to go to Amazon's website and do it.

00:37:25 ◼   ► Whereas Apple, and it's even worse because Apple has a book app, and you don't have to do it with

00:37:31 ◼   ► Apple's book app because Apple is the landlord, and so they get to set those rules and they don't

00:37:37 ◼   ► have to, they don't apply to Apple because there's no middleman. Apple is the man, and Apple takes

00:37:45 ◼   ► all the money. So it's ridiculous and unfair, and I hope that they find a way to define the rules in

00:37:54 ◼   ► a way where shady apps don't try to charge your credit card, but giant companies with existing

00:38:01 ◼   ► financial relationships can because I would really like to buy Kindle books on iOS without going to

00:38:08 ◼   ► the webpage and ComiXology especially. For me, that's where it really hits me is I read a lot of

00:38:13 ◼   ► comics on my iPad, and every time I wanna buy new comics, I have to go to Safari, I have to log in

00:38:20 ◼   ► again because their login only sticks for seven days on the web, and then I have to go through

00:38:27 ◼   ► and find the comics, and then I have to switch back to the app, and then I have to refresh,

00:38:30 ◼   ► and then I have, it's just, it's awful. - It's like, and I get that idea of like,

00:38:35 ◼   ► oh, we wanna protect our customers, but there is an app on iOS called Safari that will allow me to

00:38:41 ◼   ► put my card information into literally any website I want, right? So like, sure, the app store is

00:38:49 ◼   ► like this beautiful payment paradise, but the web isn't, and like--

00:38:55 ◼   ► - Yeah, and well, my argument would be there will still be a motivator if they drop this demand,

00:39:01 ◼   ► there would still be a motivator for people to use the in-app purchase system because it is clean

00:39:06 ◼   ► and easy, and you don't have to reenter your credit card information, and it's backed by Apple,

00:39:13 ◼   ► and like there's still plenty of reasons for apps to use the in-app purchase system to reduce

00:39:19 ◼   ► friction, but-- - In the same way that people use

00:39:21 ◼   ► things like CloudKit, there are other syncing solutions for data, but people use Apple's because

00:39:26 ◼   ► it has these benefits for them as a developer. - By the way, I did hear from somebody, I don't,

00:39:31 ◼   ► I'm not an Audible subscriber, but I did hear from somebody that that was another example of

00:39:36 ◼   ► an interface change where somebody said that, and forgive me, 'cause I'm only half remembering this,

00:39:42 ◼   ► that Audible, you know, you have a subscription and it gives you credits, and I think that changed

00:39:47 ◼   ► recently as a part of this detente between Apple and Amazon where Audible, you now have a little

00:39:52 ◼   ► more freedom to like spend your credits inside the Audible app where before--

00:39:56 ◼   ► - That might have been part of the books thing. - Yeah, where before you got--

00:39:59 ◼   ► - I would be surprised if that was part of the e-book settlement.

00:40:00 ◼   ► - You got kicked out to the web for Audible as well, but it's ridiculous. That's the bottom line,

00:40:09 ◼   ► is it's ridiculous. So I hope it continues because I think this is one of the worst

00:40:14 ◼   ► policies that Apple has, and it benefits nobody except Apple.

00:40:18 ◼   ► - I know that people talk about this a lot, right? But I think we are getting to a point

00:40:22 ◼   ► where Apple needs to kind of re-justify its cut again. Like what are you getting as a developer,

00:40:29 ◼   ► as a platform partner? And I don't disagree with Apple doing these kinds of deals, right? Like

00:40:36 ◼   ► that's business for you, right? Like Amazon is a big enough company, you know, they're bigger than

00:40:43 ◼   ► the movie company me and Jason start, right? Like we're not gonna get the same deal that Amazon get,

00:40:50 ◼   ► and I have no problem with that because Amazon have been successful enough that they get to

00:40:56 ◼   ► sit at a table with Apple and talk it through and explain it and come to a deal. But I do think

00:41:02 ◼   ► in general, Apple need to maybe reevaluate things a little bit more in the same way that they did

00:41:09 ◼   ► the 30 to 15% on subscription thing, right? That was great, made a lot of people happy,

00:41:13 ◼   ► made a lot of people more money, incentivized the reason to have subscriptions over one-time

00:41:19 ◼   ► purchasing, you know, like helped people change their business models so they could have a free

00:41:24 ◼   ► app that could have a subscription, like great, that was a great move. I think we need to see a

00:41:28 ◼   ► little bit more of that again, just to continue justifying why Apple deserves the cut that it

00:41:36 ◼   ► takes because the original pitch, you know, of like we have the storefront people are going to

00:41:43 ◼   ► find your app, like that's great, we're going to help with like that, all of that stuff means less

00:41:47 ◼   ► now than it used to, I think. And so I think that, you know, with the apps being the age that it is,

00:41:53 ◼   ► it might be time to not just for larger players, but to reevaluate some of this stuff again.

00:41:59 ◼   ► All right, this episode is also brought to you by Pingdom. Today's internet users like me,

00:42:08 ◼   ► like you, expect a fast web experience, no matter how good your content or how effective

00:42:13 ◼   ► your marketing is, people are going to leave if your website isn't loading fast or isn't

00:42:18 ◼   ► loading at all. And with real time user monitoring from Pingdom, you can discover how website

00:42:24 ◼   ► performance is affecting your visitors experience so you're able to take action in areas that are

00:42:29 ◼   ► important before your business is impacted. How people visit your website, the experience that

00:42:35 ◼   ► they receive, it differs depending on the browser, the device and the platform that they use.

00:42:39 ◼   ► It's not easy always to be able to do that testing on everything, you may not have enough devices,

00:42:44 ◼   ► but Pingdom do this stuff for you. They identify how visitors are experiencing your website,

00:42:50 ◼   ► and they can show you some of the ways that you could optimize it and make some informed

00:42:54 ◼   ► decisions about the way that you want your website to work better and also deliver therefore a

00:42:59 ◼   ► greater performance to the people that matter most to you. Real user monitoring is an event-based

00:43:04 ◼   ► solution, so it's built for scalability, meaning that you can monitor millions of page views without

00:43:09 ◼   ► compromising the fidelity of your historical data or breaking the bank in the process. Get

00:43:14 ◼   ► live visitor insights today with real user monitoring from Pingdom. Go to Pingdom.com/RelayFM

00:43:19 ◼   ► right now and you'll get a 14-day free trial with no credit card required. Then when you sign up,

00:43:24 ◼   ► use the code UPGRADE at checkout and you'll get an awesome 30% off your first invoice.

00:43:28 ◼   ► Our thanks to Pingdom from SolarWinds for their support of this show and Relay FM.

00:43:32 ◼   ► So let's continue with some upstream news. There is a new WarnerMedia CEO, Jason Keeler,

00:43:40 ◼   ► who was Hulu's first CEO. Yeah, it's just a little story, but it made me laugh because he was the

00:43:47 ◼   ► founding CEO of Hulu, which meant he was being pulled in various different directions by the

00:43:53 ◼   ► various media companies that owned Hulu. And he's had a different job for the last few years,

00:43:57 ◼   ► but he's going to be the CEO of WarnerMedia reporting up to the AT&T bosses. And I just

00:44:04 ◼   ► think it's an interesting thing and says something about maybe his skill set as a manager who was a

00:44:11 ◼   ► manager of a streaming service in its early days, that that was who they wanted in charge of all of

00:44:16 ◼   ► WarnerMedia. So just yeah, little thing. Interesting. Chris Willis (00;01;00):

00:44:22 ◼   ► Quibi launches today to mixed reviews. Apparently the app itself is pretty good, nicely designed.

00:44:30 ◼   ► There's some interesting ideas in there. The content can change depending on the orientation

00:44:37 ◼   ► of your device. If you're holding it in landscape or portrait, you might see different things.

00:44:40 ◼   ► That's cool, but it feels like a gimmick to me. I don't know if I want to be moving my phone

00:44:46 ◼   ► up and down, up and down to be able to watch a TV show and see different things. Apparently there's

00:44:51 ◼   ► like a Steven Spielberg production upcoming, which will also use your GPS and the clock of your phone

00:44:57 ◼   ► to show the content differently. I don't know if I want these experiences. Maybe I could be proven

00:45:03 ◼   ► wrong, but I just don't feel like I want that. Something that was kind of funny out of some of

00:45:09 ◼   ► the reporting today that the Quibi app blocks screenshots. So it's using copyright protection.

00:45:13 ◼   ► So if you screenshot the content, it just is a black box.

00:45:16 ◼   ► So there'll be no, nothing will go viral from Quibi.

00:45:20 ◼   ► No. Great job, Quibi. Great job.

00:45:21 ◼   ► Yeah, that's exactly what you want to be able to do. The reports on the content is that

00:45:27 ◼   ► ultimately it feels pretty cheap feeling or that it's stuff that feels like it's YouTube focused.

00:45:32 ◼   ► Yeah, that's the one that I saw is it feels like you're now paying for more YouTube videos

00:45:37 ◼   ► that you can get for free. Yeah. And YouTube content is fantastic,

00:45:40 ◼   ► right? But YouTube content is considered a free thing, right? For people, you just go watch it.

00:45:47 ◼   ► And this is a shame because of the pricing. Now this wouldn't be a problem if they had a free

00:45:52 ◼   ► of ads tier. It's like, great, you know, that's YouTube. But to get their ads tier, you pay $4.99

00:45:58 ◼   ► a month. So that's kind of a bit complicated. And also they have a $7.99 a month without ads tier.

00:46:04 ◼   ► Outside of the US, you can only get the $7.99 a month option because they didn't sell ads outside

00:46:10 ◼   ► of America. Of course they didn't.

00:46:12 ◼   ► So this was the wrong time to launch this product. We made reference to it earlier.

00:46:19 ◼   ► We spoke about it before. Also, I got to say, I question the entire premise of Quibi.

00:46:25 ◼   ► Sure. Because people watch video,

00:46:27 ◼   ► I mean in the before time, people watch video anyway on the go. Like it's not like somebody

00:46:34 ◼   ► is somewhere and thinks, oh man, I wish I could watch Netflix or YouTube or something on my phone,

00:46:38 ◼   ► but I can't do that. So I guess I'll just sit here and stare out the window.

00:46:41 ◼   ► Instagram stories or any other type of social media video.

00:46:44 ◼   ► Or literally anything else. Yeah, right. Right.

00:46:47 ◼   ► But no, the problem is I just need a 10 minute long Quibi video. That's what I

00:46:52 ◼   ► really wish I had right now. So, you know, they did an interesting

00:46:56 ◼   ► thing in signing up a lot of big stars and all that kind of stuff. But I just, it just,

00:47:02 ◼   ► I'm not interested in, right? Like I wanted to maybe check this out. I was thinking about it,

00:47:08 ◼   ► but I don't want to pay for this. Like I don't want to pay more than Disney plus for this.

00:47:16 ◼   ► Which I will be paying two pounds a month more than I pay for Disney plus for the service.

00:47:20 ◼   ► Like I'm not, I know they have a 90 day free trial, but honestly, like I'm not even,

00:47:25 ◼   ► I don't even want to check it out. Like I don't think I'm gonna get anything out of this content.

00:47:31 ◼   ► Like I will wait to hear of the TV show, the Quibi show, the quiblet. I don't know what they call it.

00:47:37 ◼   ► I'm sure they've got some name for it. That's a must have.

00:47:39 ◼   ► That is a must have. But like right now I'm not interested in this. The only thing that I wanted

00:47:45 ◼   ► to maybe see was Chrissy's court, which is Chrissy Teigen doing like a judge Judy type thing.

00:47:50 ◼   ► But it's not, I don't want to see it enough that I didn't want to pay seven pound 99 a month for it.

00:47:57 ◼   ► Which again is how much I pay for Netflix, right? Where I can watch Tiger King,

00:48:01 ◼   ► which is incredible. Have you watched Tiger King?

00:48:03 ◼   ► Yes. I watched the first three episodes, I think.

00:48:07 ◼   ► So good, right?

00:48:09 ◼   ► I don't think I would say so good. It's fascinating to watch. It's hard to believe

00:48:12 ◼   ► that people like that exist and yet they do. And I talked about this on TV Talk Machine last week,

00:48:18 ◼   ► but I'm encouraged by the fact that people will watch documentaries if they're about

00:48:22 ◼   ► super outlandish subjects. And in fact, people will watch like an eight hour long documentary if

00:48:26 ◼   ► you break it up into episodes and have cliffhangers at the end of each episode. So fair play.

00:48:30 ◼   ► But you break them up into hour chunks. You don't break them up into 10 minute chunks.

00:48:34 ◼   ► Exactly. Well, that's true. There's a tiger. Stay tuned next week for more Tigers on Quibi.

00:48:40 ◼   ► Tiger.

00:48:41 ◼   ► Like, okay. All right. Oh, hey, there's this guy who works with the tigers. All right.

00:48:45 ◼   ► Come back next week.

00:48:46 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:48:47 ◼   ► Thanks, Quibi.

00:48:47 ◼   ► This hasn't launched in the world that it should have. And I feel like,

00:48:53 ◼   ► I don't know what they would have done, you know, like in their position,

00:48:58 ◼   ► I probably also would have just launched it anyway because you put so much money into it

00:49:01 ◼   ► at this point. But I think the target market for Quibi was small. And that small market

00:49:09 ◼   ► is working at home right now. And they don't need your bite sized chunk videos.

00:49:13 ◼   ► We'll see though. I'd like to prove them wrong. And Apple debuted a trailer for an Apple TV Plus

00:49:18 ◼   ► show called Trying, which is a British comedy show starring Rafe Spall.

00:49:22 ◼   ► It is focusing on relationships and parenthood and conception complications. It's coming May 1st.

00:49:29 ◼   ► It looks really good. I love the trailer. It is the drive, realistic British humor that I enjoy

00:49:34 ◼   ► and that Rafe Spall is especially good at. I'm looking forward to checking this one out. It looks

00:49:39 ◼   ► good. It looks different because it's a British comedy. So it's different to the other type of

00:49:44 ◼   ► content that is on Apple TV Plus right now. So I'm excited about it.

00:49:48 ◼   ► And this is Apple's worldwide content initiative, right? Like everybody gets to see this British

00:49:53 ◼   ► show that is on Apple TV Plus.

00:49:55 ◼   ► Yeah. This is a very like Channel 4 or BBC content. Also, it's like shot in,

00:50:00 ◼   ► it looks like Camden, which is an area that I love. Like, yeah, I'm super cool. I'm super into it.

00:50:04 ◼   ► So Jason, should we talk about Zoom?

00:50:07 ◼   ► I think we should probably, yeah.

00:50:10 ◼   ► I mean, this is being covered in a lot of places. I don't know if we need to go into the exact

00:50:14 ◼   ► details, but you know, if you're working from home right now, you've, or you have kids homeschooling

00:50:21 ◼   ► right now, especially, you've probably heard about Zoom. Zoom is the web conferencing,

00:50:26 ◼   ► video conferencing application that has risen to prominence during lockdowns around the world.

00:50:32 ◼   ► It's funny. They seem to have been perfectly positioned somehow for this. And I think not

00:50:38 ◼   ► entirely intentionally, but they, everybody seems to have leapt to Zoom and people are using Zoom.

00:50:44 ◼   ► And I was thinking about it. I was trying to explain to somebody like why Zoom in particular.

00:50:50 ◼   ► And I, you know, I think maybe the reason is that they worked really hard on this kind of

00:50:56 ◼   ► frictionless interface where unless you're the host of the meeting, you can just send somebody

00:51:02 ◼   ► a link and it just opens and they're in a meeting, right? So you don't have to, so like Skype is a

00:51:07 ◼   ► good example where the way Skype works is everybody sign up for Skype, send me your Skype account.

00:51:12 ◼   ► Now they have like a join link and stuff, but it's like, it was always the case with Skype that was

00:51:17 ◼   ► like, you need to register, you need to set up your Microsoft account. And now you can be in a

00:51:21 ◼   ► Skype call. Whereas with Zoom, you just show up and there's a teleconference. And I think that that

00:51:30 ◼   ► led plus the fact that they had a free tier that gave you 40 minutes, a 40 minute long conversation.

00:51:36 ◼   ► They're also, you know, successful, pretty successful in enterprise. So as people were

00:51:42 ◼   ► starting to move to working from home, they were having to use the software that their

00:51:47 ◼   ► company was telling them to use, which in a lot of places was Zoom. So then they were like,

00:51:52 ◼   ► well, Zoom's easy and we need to have this call with the five family members. Let's just do it

00:51:57 ◼   ► over Zoom because Zoom's on every device. It's not FaceTime. I just did a Zoom call last night with

00:52:02 ◼   ► all the members of my wife's family. And we were like, you could use FaceTime and they're like,

00:52:07 ◼   ► nah, we'll use Zoom. But you literally all have Apple devices. You don't, you could just use,

00:52:11 ◼   ► like, no, we're going to use Zoom. Okay, fine. We'll use Zoom. It's fine. But it was, so it

00:52:17 ◼   ► turned out to be perfectly positioned for this. And what's come out is in our show notes, you say,

00:52:22 ◼   ► it honestly feels like there are too many reports about security issues in Zoom to even mention.

00:52:28 ◼   ► So we'll link to Glenn Fleishman's article on tidbits where he went through every single one

00:52:31 ◼   ► of them. Thanks, Glenn. This is like this really interesting thing that happens in technology media

00:52:37 ◼   ► reporting. And I am not criticizing this, like, do not get me wrong, but it's just like an interesting

00:52:41 ◼   ► thing to observe. Where like, website A publishes a thing that they found out about a security issue

00:52:48 ◼   ► or an issue with a piece of software. And then there are lots more as every other tech-focused

00:52:56 ◼   ► news outlet is trying to find this stuff or they're getting other tips. So like, it becomes

00:53:01 ◼   ► this like feed, like a beast that is being fed. Like we saw it with the Enterprise Certificate

00:53:10 ◼   ► stuff. Do you remember that? Sure. It's the steady drip, drip, drip, where somebody points something

00:53:15 ◼   ► out and then everybody else starts investigating it and they find things. And Zoom, honestly,

00:53:19 ◼   ► it's also a little bit like Zoom is very casually walking down a hallway, minding its own business,

00:53:26 ◼   ► and then a giant spotlight is placed on it and it's like, uh, and it freezes. It's like, uh.

00:53:31 ◼   ► So here's my, I mean, look, Zoom has issues. There's no doubt about it. I don't have a lot

00:53:38 ◼   ► of time for people who want to say that Zoom is evil like Facebook, because I don't think they

00:53:46 ◼   ► are. I think they're just, and I wouldn't say incompetent, but I would say that they are a

00:53:51 ◼   ► startup who was really focused on adding features so that they could serve customers and close deals

00:53:57 ◼   ► and get more money and get more customers and continue growing because they're a startup and

00:54:03 ◼   ► was a lot less focused on all the things that involve security and limits to their system.

00:54:10 ◼   ► Cause they're like, yeah, but who's going to do that? It's not a big deal. This is enterprise

00:54:13 ◼   ► software. People aren't going to be like Zoom bombing the idea that people can just kind of like

00:54:17 ◼   ► come up with codes and appear in random video conferences. And it's, and it's really bad. And

00:54:24 ◼   ► they've actually had to change their, uh, their security. Like now by default, you, you have to,

00:54:30 ◼   ► as the starter of a meeting, you have to look at a list and admit people to a meeting. Or, or you,

00:54:36 ◼   ► Glenn's suggestion is you look through the list, kick out the people you don't know, and then do

00:54:40 ◼   ► an admit all to everybody. But like they, but in the early days, right? Like they were, they were

00:54:46 ◼   ► just not focused on it. They were moving as fast as they could. And, uh, and it led to a lot of bad

00:54:52 ◼   ► practices. There's no doubt about it. And I'm not really defending that. I'm just trying to

00:54:55 ◼   ► understand it. Like, you know, why did, why did the Zoom installer on the Mac install all the things

00:55:01 ◼   ► in the preflight? And then when you click the install button, nothing happens because it's

00:55:05 ◼   ► already installed itself. Well, you know what? I don't think that's them being evil. I think that

00:55:09 ◼   ► that is a developer who made a mistake and either nobody noticed or nobody cared. And I think a lot

00:55:14 ◼   ► of it is nobody cared because, and I would imagine there are developers at Zoom given the speed at

00:55:20 ◼   ► which they've implemented some of these fixes. I think there are developers and maybe even product

00:55:24 ◼   ► managers at Zoom who knew all about these flaws and were like, can we, cause I've been there folks,

00:55:30 ◼   ► I've been there. Can we fix these flaws? Can we get development resources to fix these flaws? And

00:55:36 ◼   ► then somebody up the chain says, no, build the new feature. That's going to get us this $4 million

00:55:41 ◼   ► contract. Do that instead. And they just sit there. And then the spotlight gets switched on

00:55:47 ◼   ► and Zoom's like, uh, uh, don't look over there. That is what basically has happened. I think here.

00:55:57 ◼   ► And I think that their response really is about as good as a response can be in the situation that

00:56:03 ◼   ► they found themselves in where they did get there. Yep. You know, Pope, but he's not effect. Uh,

00:56:12 ◼   ► yeah, they got there. The entire expertise of this company is not to be in that big a spotlight,

00:56:18 ◼   ► right? Like none of them are good at it. None of them were, were got to where they were because

00:56:23 ◼   ► they were good at it. And the final response was, yeah, we, you're right. We, we like, like the,

00:56:30 ◼   ► the ad tagging, like the ad tagging on their website where it's like, their privacy policy

00:56:35 ◼   ► is like a marketing privacy policy. And it's like, we can sell all your information. And somebody

00:56:39 ◼   ► who's a privacy person calls them on it and says, why do you, why are you reselling your customer

00:56:43 ◼   ► information? You're a, you're a subscription based company. You're not even an advertising company.

00:56:47 ◼   ► And their response was something like, Oh yeah, we just, and you really get the sense that whoever

00:56:52 ◼   ► put up the privacy policy, yeah, yeah. They ripped a privacy policy from somewhere and posted it

00:56:58 ◼   ► because they knew they needed to have one. And that is that dumb? Yes, it is. Do I understand

00:57:02 ◼   ► how that would happen in a, in an organization that is moving quickly and has priorities that

00:57:06 ◼   ► are not the priorities of tightening every screw down because they're a startup? Yes, I do. And

00:57:12 ◼   ► that privacy policy has been in place for four years and not one user or person at Zoom has read

00:57:17 ◼   ► it until someone wanted to read it to find something. So not excusing bad practices, but this

00:57:23 ◼   ► is how this stuff happens. You are focusing on pushing forward, always building your company

00:57:30 ◼   ► forward, forward, forward, and you just let things go. And honestly, if you're the kind of person who

00:57:34 ◼   ► says, you know, we need to really, we need to sweep up behind us and we need to tighten all the screws

00:57:38 ◼   ► on these things and we need to go back and fix these little bugs. I mean, look at Apple, right?

00:57:42 ◼   ► How many stories do we have about bugs that get introduced in a version of Mac OS or iOS, and they

00:57:49 ◼   ► never get fixed? All the new features keep coming in, but they never go back and fix a lot of these

00:57:54 ◼   ► little bugs. It's because that company is not providing developers and product managers incentive

00:57:59 ◼   ► to fix little bugs. Their incentives are all about making new features. And this is a, this is a

00:58:04 ◼   ► problem. So Zoom's privacy policy, like, is Zoom really planning on being a gross company that

00:58:09 ◼   ► resells all of its customer data when you come to their website? No, they're just dumb and they

00:58:14 ◼   ► used a dumb privacy policy and you can see it because the moment it gets pointed out, they're

00:58:17 ◼   ► like, oh God, no, oh, let's change it, right? Like, so, so again, there are, is Zoom a badly

00:58:24 ◼   ► run company? Kind of, but in a, in a really boring way that most, I would say, companies,

00:58:31 ◼   ► especially startups, are badly run, which is they prioritized growth and didn't realize what, like

00:58:38 ◼   ► the rest of us, exactly what was around the corner, which was this level of scrutiny. And I will also

00:58:44 ◼   ► say they, it has taken them a while to do the right thing, but they've generally come around to

00:58:50 ◼   ► realizing that, that it is the right thing in a way that is refreshing because it's not something

00:58:55 ◼   ► that Facebook ever did. Yes, you have to, like, I get that these things can be criticized when you

00:59:00 ◼   ► find out about them. You can criticize the way that they respond, but if a company ultimately

00:59:05 ◼   ► comes around to doing what is recommended or what people suggest, that needs to be like,

00:59:10 ◼   ► not necessarily applauded, but recognized because these days technology companies, big technology

00:59:15 ◼   ► companies, and Zoom went from 10 million daily users to 200 million daily users. They're a

00:59:21 ◼   ► massive tech company now. Too often, these companies just dig their heels in and they

00:59:28 ◼   ► don't do what you want them to do. Zoom is in the crucible right now. They are in the crucible and

00:59:33 ◼   ► two things can happen. They can either come out of it better for it, or they can burn up. Those are

00:59:40 ◼   ► the sort of two things that can happen. And I think they're going to come out of it better for

00:59:44 ◼   ► it. I think that they're going to, despite all of these complaints about Zoom bombing and privacy

00:59:49 ◼   ► issues and bad technology practices, their business at the end is going to be way larger

00:59:54 ◼   ► than it was going in. But I also think it will be way more focused on these customer issues,

01:00:03 ◼   ► because they've had to focus on them. And that has given a little more cred to the people inside,

01:00:08 ◼   ► presumably, who can say, "We need to do this the right way. You saw what happened when we did it

01:00:13 ◼   ► the wrong way. Let's do it the right way now." And I think there'll be a better product and service

01:00:17 ◼   ► and company when all is said and done. They got those.

01:00:23 ◼   ► I mean, they had to learn it the hard way. But honestly, I think a lot of times that's exactly

01:00:26 ◼   ► what happens to companies is they go along, and then they get called on it. And then you find out

01:00:32 ◼   ► what they're made of when they get called on it. And a lot of times you get, honestly, Zoom's

01:00:39 ◼   ► response is not that different from the responses of all sorts of people to the COVID-19 crisis,

01:00:44 ◼   ► where you start by kind of bargaining and you're like, "Well, all right, maybe we'll change a little

01:00:49 ◼   ► bit and maybe we'll do this little minor thing." And then you have that moment where you go, "Oh,

01:00:53 ◼   ► no. No, no, this is huge. I need to just stop right now." And that's, I think, what Zoom has

01:00:58 ◼   ► basically done is they're like, "Well, there's a little thing." And then they finally seem to have

01:01:01 ◼   ► had that moment where they're like, "You're right. This is really bad. We're not going to..."

01:01:05 ◼   ► I mean, the fact that it's such a big deal in the text of like, "We're going to stop implementing

01:01:10 ◼   ► new features, and we're going to focus on fixing all of our security and privacy problems," it's

01:01:14 ◼   ► like, "Well, you guys were still working on new features? Don't do that. Don't do that. Capacity,

01:01:21 ◼   ► stability, and fixing all your really bad privacy and security bugs, let's do that now. Right now,

01:01:28 ◼   ► let's focus on that." And they got there. It took them a while, but they got there, again,

01:01:32 ◼   ► in a way that some of these tech companies don't get there because it turns out that they

01:01:38 ◼   ► do actually intend... They either intended to be evil all along or they found out how profitable

01:01:44 ◼   ► being evil was. And they're like, "No, I really just want to do that now." And I don't think Zoom

01:01:49 ◼   ► is at that point. So I think, you know, are there... And here's the other thing. Are there

01:01:53 ◼   ► alternatives to Zoom? Yes, there are. Google Hangouts, FaceTime, Skype. Yeah, they're all

01:01:57 ◼   ► going to have different trade-offs, but there are advantages to them. You don't have to use Zoom.

01:02:02 ◼   ► I would argue that just like getting mad at an airline or a cable company or a cell phone company,

01:02:08 ◼   ► you're really probably just trading one set of issues for another. But if, you know, the beauty

01:02:14 ◼   ► of the way Zoom is built is I believe you can just use a web browser and not even install their app

01:02:19 ◼   ► and still get into their conferences if you're not the host. So, you know, I've been using Zoom

01:02:25 ◼   ► for a while now because it has a very particular feature that is extremely helpful to me as a

01:02:30 ◼   ► podcast host and editor, but it is so esoteric that, you know, my need for it is not the need

01:02:38 ◼   ► that anybody else who's not a podcast host and editor has a need for. What is your need?

01:02:43 ◼   ► Just to... Yeah, because people ask about this. Zoom will let you do a recording of your call.

01:02:48 ◼   ► Well, most places will do that, but Zoom will let you choose to record it locally and not up

01:02:52 ◼   ► in the cloud. And one of the options is record everybody's voices on separate tracks. And what

01:02:58 ◼   ► that means is I walk away from a Zoom call with a track for every single person who was on the

01:03:05 ◼   ► podcast separate from all the other voices. Now, I have them all record their voice on their own

01:03:12 ◼   ► computer, but sometimes, and that's the highest quality possible, sometimes the recordings fail.

01:03:17 ◼   ► And it used to be when I used Skype that if that recording failed, I had to take my recording of

01:03:26 ◼   ► like everybody talking at once and like cut out the parts where they made noise and put that in

01:03:31 ◼   ► and cut out all the other people's voices from where they're talking because they're talking

01:03:36 ◼   ► on their microphone and on that track. It was a lot of work. It's a lot of work. And now I just

01:03:41 ◼   ► sub in the Zoom version of their voice and I got it. And that work goes away. So that's the

01:03:46 ◼   ► reason I use it, but that's 0.0001% of Zooms and we keep adding zeros as this crisis continues.

01:03:54 ◼   ► So, you know, there are alternatives out there. I just want to say like switching to some other

01:04:00 ◼   ► thing is no guarantee that they do not also have privacy, security, and ease of use problems

01:04:06 ◼   ► because Zoom very clearly prioritized ease of use over security and it's biting them now,

01:04:12 ◼   ► but it's also the reason that they're being used by so many people is it's fairly easy to

01:04:16 ◼   ► hop on a Zoom call. I'm really enjoying Ben Thompson's discussion on this in the Daily

01:04:22 ◼   ► Update. I recently subscribed to the Daily Update podcast and it's very good. So this is like Ben's

01:04:28 ◼   ► daily update, which you've probably heard of for a while, there's an email newsletter and now there's

01:04:31 ◼   ► a podcast version, which is great for someone like me who doesn't like to read very much.

01:04:34 ◼   ► And what Ben ended up recommending was that Zoom take like 90 days to focus on privacy.

01:04:41 ◼   ► That's exactly what Zoom is doing now, which is, I don't know if they took his advice or if they

01:04:48 ◼   ► just came to the same kind of result, but that's what Zoom is up to now. They are just pausing all

01:04:55 ◼   ► feature development, focusing on a security overhaul. So that's Zoom. Can't get away from it.

01:05:03 ◼   ► I had a Zoom call today. I have two tomorrow. Everyone wants to use Zoom now. It's kind of funny

01:05:08 ◼   ► to me, Jason, like I used to do just video, like just calls, just phone calls, but now I'm having

01:05:13 ◼   ► video calls with the same people. So we didn't video call before. Why do we do video call now?

01:05:18 ◼   ► It's fun. We can do this now. Yeah. I mean, I still get hangouts requests because Google

01:05:23 ◼   ► hangouts still exists, even though they keep trying to kill it. And Skype definitely. But Zoom,

01:05:30 ◼   ► you know, I think there's also the truth that once it's a tool in your arsenal, you want to apply it

01:05:34 ◼   ► to everything. And some of this might fall away as being like, yeah, I don't need to do that. Or it

01:05:41 ◼   ► may just be like, oh, I got it. Let's just use it. Like it's also everybody's inside and seeing

01:05:46 ◼   ► another face is kind of nice. Right. I think that's part of it too. I think there's an

01:05:52 ◼   ► interesting question about FaceTime. Like group FaceTime should be like my, like I said, my wife's

01:06:03 ◼   ► family and I should have used FaceTime last night, but we didn't. And I think it's because the

01:06:10 ◼   ► perception is it's complicated. People don't know how to use it. And it's got the weird like bubbles

01:06:14 ◼   ► and stuff that float around. Whereas Zoom is just a grid and like the bubbles are whimsical, but I

01:06:19 ◼   ► think they're bad. So saying about that, I have, I have been pondering this idea, something I want

01:06:26 ◼   ► to talk to you about, which we'll do after this break, where we talk about our friends over at

01:06:31 ◼   ► Linode and thank them for supporting the show. Whether you're working on a personal project

01:06:35 ◼   ► or managing your enterprise's infrastructure, Linode has the pricing support and scale that

01:06:39 ◼   ► you need to take your project to the next level. Linode have 11 data centers worldwide,

01:06:44 ◼   ► including their newest data center in Sydney, Australia, and with their enterprise grade

01:06:48 ◼   ► hardware, S3 compatible storage options, and the next generation network Linode delivers the

01:06:53 ◼   ► performance you expect at a surprisingly good price. You can get started with Linode today and

01:06:58 ◼   ► get a $20 credit because you listened to the show. Then you have access to a revamped cloud manager

01:07:04 ◼   ► built on an open source single page app. Nano plans start as low as $5 a month, GPU compute

01:07:11 ◼   ► plans suitable for AI machine learning and video processing, and one-click installs of the most

01:07:16 ◼   ► popular apps, including WordPress, LAMP stack and game servers for Minecraft and so much more.

01:07:22 ◼   ► Go to linode.com, L-I-N-O-D-E.com/upgrade and use the promo code UPGRADE2020 when creating a

01:07:29 ◼   ► new Linode account and you'll get a $20 credit towards your next project. Linode are hiring

01:07:34 ◼   ► right now, go to linode.com/careers to find out more. To get your hands on that $20 credit and

01:07:40 ◼   ► sign up for Linode today, go to linode.com/upgrade and use the promo code UPGRADE2020 for that $20

01:07:46 ◼   ► credit. Our thanks to Linode for their continued support of this show and Relay FM.

01:07:50 ◼   ► So I've been rolling this idea around in my head, which I'm kind of referring to as a big question,

01:07:58 ◼   ► which is how will COVID-19 change consumer technology? And I've been thinking about this

01:08:04 ◼   ► just in general that like I would like to maybe try and do this stuff more if people like it,

01:08:07 ◼   ► of less something that is focused on like what happened this week, which is typically what we

01:08:12 ◼   ► talk about on the show, but more kind of like bigger questions about technology. So, Rip,

01:08:18 ◼   ► the reason I've been thinking of this is like the way that people are working right now is different

01:08:23 ◼   ► to how they've worked before and at large scale, right? People have been working from home, working

01:08:29 ◼   ► from home in technology for years, decades maybe even, but the idea of "no, everyone" is different,

01:08:38 ◼   ► right? And it's going to unearth a few different types of ideas in the way that people are used to

01:08:46 ◼   ► working. Therefore, the way that technology enables us in our lives and when all the big

01:08:52 ◼   ► technology companies are forced to face these issues, they may see things that other people

01:08:57 ◼   ► have been seeing for a while. So there is that whole stream, but the first stream that was

01:09:01 ◼   ► interesting to me was how COVID-19 may change the way that we interact with our devices on a daily

01:09:10 ◼   ► basis. And one that I've been thinking about is how good is Face ID if we're all wearing face masks?

01:09:16 ◼   ► So this is a thing that's come up in Asia for a long time and was apparently a contributing factor

01:09:22 ◼   ► to lower sales of the iPhone X line. If you live in a society where people's faces are

01:09:34 ◼   ► obscured when they're outside of the home, Face ID is so much worse than Touch ID because you

01:09:42 ◼   ► can't unlock your phone. Now, depending on where you live in the world right now, people are being

01:09:47 ◼   ► told to wear face masks or not, but it seems like the general consensus is moving to if you go

01:09:52 ◼   ► outside, cover your face somehow, right? Leave the medical grade face masks to people in the medical

01:09:59 ◼   ► profession, but maybe wear something, right? So does that mean that if the now the Western world

01:10:08 ◼   ► may be moving into using face masks more? Because if we're living with this in some form for a

01:10:14 ◼   ► couple of years, which is possible, will we get used to wearing face masks? Will that just become

01:10:21 ◼   ► a thing in Europe and in America like it has in some places in Asia? And if that's the case,

01:10:27 ◼   ► do we want Face ID or do we want Touch ID again? Yeah, I wonder about this, although I have heard

01:10:35 ◼   ► from people who talk about like the problem. There are issues with Touch ID too, right? Like if you're

01:10:40 ◼   ► wearing gloves, including if you're wearing gloves to protect yourself from stuff that you would

01:10:47 ◼   ► touch, right? Like whether it's cold or medical reasons, you can't do Touch ID. So there are

01:10:58 ◼   ► issues with all of these biometric things, but I think you're right that if Face ID becomes

01:11:05 ◼   ► an even greater liability in more places for more people and your Apple, you have to start to think

01:11:12 ◼   ► like what some of the Android phone makers have done, which is to say, "I want face unlock and I

01:11:20 ◼   ► want touch unlock." I've also heard a bunch of people who've said they've made their password

01:11:25 ◼   ► simpler on their iPhone because they now have to enter it. And that's like, I've got an

01:11:31 ◼   ► alphanumeric passcode on my iPhone. And if I'm out and about wearing a mask all the time,

01:11:37 ◼   ► that's gonna change, right? Like I'm not gonna have to do that every time I unlock.

01:11:43 ◼   ► I also wonder if Apple's thought of some other sort of like biometric things like

01:11:46 ◼   ► Apple Watch unlock for your iPhone or something like that. Like once you unlock your Apple Watch

01:11:51 ◼   ► and your iPhone and it stays on your wrist, then maybe your iPhone can unlock more easily. But

01:11:58 ◼   ► clearly this is new data being input that is gonna change the equation. Of course,

01:12:03 ◼   ► as we've talked about, it takes years for Apple to change the philosophy on some of this stuff.

01:12:08 ◼   ► But it would be, I think it's worth thinking about that if this, we'll see what happens culturally,

01:12:15 ◼   ► but it's hard to believe that there won't be at least more mask wearing than there used to be.

01:12:19 ◼   ► So then as well, I'm wondering about cameras in devices because we're all using cameras,

01:12:30 ◼   ► our front facing cameras more for video calling, right? Whether we're on a Mac to do a work call,

01:12:36 ◼   ► on an iPad to speak to your friends or your family, your iPhone to speak to your parents,

01:12:41 ◼   ► your grandparents. So we're doing more video calling. So should front facing cameras be

01:12:46 ◼   ► better? Will we see that? I think we will. At the moment I have on my iMac Pro a Logitech external

01:12:53 ◼   ► camera because the camera in my iMac Pro is really, really bad. And I have this Logitech

01:12:59 ◼   ► camera. I've had it for a while when I was doing streaming for, well, whenever I do game streaming

01:13:06 ◼   ► stuff, I want to have my camera on it. And this 1080p webcam from Logitech is much better looking

01:13:12 ◼   ► than the one in my iMac Pro. So I've just plugged that one in now. And I think probably quite a lot

01:13:17 ◼   ► of people are doing stuff like that because the cameras, especially in Macs, they suck.

01:13:22 ◼   ► And I wonder if we're going to see that start to change now.

01:13:26 ◼   ► Yeah, the Mac cameras could be better. Although I think that iMac Pro camera is 1080.

01:13:31 ◼   ► Whether it is or it isn't, this Logitech one is much better, right? It might be 1080, but

01:13:37 ◼   ► the lens is bigger, right? Like it's a dedicated product. My five-year-old whatever USB Logitech

01:13:42 ◼   ► camera is still better than what is in my iMac Pro. I think you're right. I think that prior,

01:13:47 ◼   ► if everybody's doing video stuff, prioritizing video cameras, especially like on computers,

01:13:53 ◼   ► it's certainly been the case. It feels like that, you know, some devices have really nice cameras

01:13:58 ◼   ► and others don't. But like if you're doing a long conference call, you're probably not holding your

01:14:02 ◼   ► phone and doing that or even holding an iPad. You're probably doing it on a laptop or something

01:14:08 ◼   ► like that. I think for a lot of this stuff. And Apple's laptop webcams are bad. They're just

01:14:13 ◼   ► not very good. That has not been a priority for them. So I do wonder about that. I also wonder

01:14:18 ◼   ► about, in general, upgrading that technology to have more kind of machine intelligence. You know,

01:14:25 ◼   ► there are those webcams that are out there where they will do face tracking and stuff like that. So

01:14:30 ◼   ► if you move around a little bit, it'll adjust the frame based on where you are. Like you get a wide

01:14:34 ◼   ► angle shot and then it will kind of intelligently frame and move and things like that. And Apple

01:14:41 ◼   ► could do more stuff like that too, if it wanted to, but it hasn't been a priority. And I do think

01:14:46 ◼   ► that that may be something that changes. And let's talk about like we talked the 16-inch MacBook Pro

01:14:52 ◼   ► and the new iPad Pros. They've got their, you know, six, whatever it is, microphone array,

01:14:59 ◼   ► and 16-inch MacBook Pro is the studio quality microphones and all that. Apple was already on

01:15:05 ◼   ► that, but I think that's a real win for them because having your existing microphone device be

01:15:11 ◼   ► better and sound better is, you know, something that they're already headed toward. And it's

01:15:18 ◼   ► important. Like you don't want to sound like you're at the bottom of a well if you're in a Zoom

01:15:21 ◼   ► meeting or whatever, or a Slack meeting on audio. You know, you don't want to sound bad. You don't

01:15:27 ◼   ► want to not be able to hear someone, right? Like if you're doing over speakers, like all of that

01:15:31 ◼   ► stuff is important. And I think that we're going to see like a continued push on this stuff because

01:15:37 ◼   ► people are having to use these devices more frequently. Like, as I say, there are a lot of

01:15:42 ◼   ► people that are doing this every day, but not necessarily the people that make the computers

01:15:47 ◼   ► are doing this or have been doing this. Yeah. Well, yeah, this is that famous story that I love

01:15:53 ◼   ► about how Apple Mail was really, really bad on slow connections. And I discovered that when I

01:15:59 ◼   ► was on a cruise ship, like 10 years ago, that like Apple Mail wants to sync all your mailboxes and

01:16:04 ◼   ► it just uses huge amounts of data. And then they started doing Wi-Fi on airplanes. That became a

01:16:11 ◼   ► very popular thing and that was a slow connection. And the next release of macOS was much better

01:16:17 ◼   ► in terms of mail using the connection. And it was very clear what happened, which is

01:16:22 ◼   ► all the people who wrote the software and the executives who used it, all of a sudden found

01:16:26 ◼   ► themselves on a low latency, slow internet connection and realized that Apple Mail was

01:16:31 ◼   ► completely inappropriate for that. And so they fixed it. Like that just happens. Like if you

01:16:36 ◼   ► don't live it, we could talk about maps, right? Like the maps, Apple Maps is really great in the

01:16:40 ◼   ► Bay Area, but it's not necessarily very good in lots of other places and you get a skewed

01:16:47 ◼   ► perception of it. So I think you're right that this is one of those things that we're going to

01:16:52 ◼   ► see. This is a good example, but there are others like we're going to see collaboration,

01:16:58 ◼   ► communication apps and also hardware that's used in them get better in the next few years

01:17:06 ◼   ► because the people who make that stuff are currently dealing with whatever today's state

01:17:12 ◼   ► of the art is and probably having some ideas about where this stuff could be better.

01:17:18 ◼   ► Matt>> Yeah, when it comes to apps and services, the thing that's interesting to me is like the

01:17:23 ◼   ► hardware is coming from your existing hardware makers, but apps and services can come from

01:17:27 ◼   ► anywhere, you know? So like, you know, something like Slack is born out of... wasn't Slack...

01:17:33 ◼   ► it was... there was the company behind Slack was building a video game and then they built a

01:17:39 ◼   ► communication tool to talk about the game that they were making. The game didn't end up going

01:17:44 ◼   ► anywhere, but they realized that they had stumbled into a better communication tool. I think that's

01:17:48 ◼   ► Slack's origin story. So these types of software solutions can come out of weird places and I would

01:17:56 ◼   ► expect that we see a lot of startups over the next couple of years coming in to try and save

01:18:05 ◼   ► or fix X, right? Like I think the company behind Basecamp is building an email replacement tool,

01:18:15 ◼   ► which I think is on hold at the moment. It's 37signals, right? I believe it's them.

01:18:20 ◼   ► Yeah, it's doing this, but this is, you know, that will come at a time when people have realized...

01:18:25 ◼   ► have been using email too much or using Slack too much to communicate and they're like,

01:18:30 ◼   ► "Oh, I'm frustrated with this tool. I wished it was better." You know, Slack is kind of funny now that

01:18:35 ◼   ► like Slack has now become the establishment. So people want to build Slack replacements when

01:18:40 ◼   ► Slack was to replace email. But what we've all realized is Slack is great for team communication.

01:18:46 ◼   ► It did not replace email, right? It doesn't... email continues. So now people are still trying

01:18:52 ◼   ► to build better tools for that. But this is like a big area like communication and collaboration.

01:18:56 ◼   ► I think we're going to see a lot of new companies pop up with these things in mind.

01:19:00 ◼   ► - Also, users, you know, the users who have built... these products have been built around users

01:19:07 ◼   ► who are traveling or organizations that have multiple centers of work or people who work from

01:19:14 ◼   ► home. But now there's this whole new set of users because now it's like whole businesses that are

01:19:19 ◼   ► moving remote. And even the existing companies are going to learn things about the needs of

01:19:26 ◼   ► these organizations. Because I do think there will be more virtual organizations in the future

01:19:30 ◼   ► because I do think some companies are going to look at this and go, "Why are we paying for

01:19:33 ◼   ► expensive real estate and there's going to be other people?"

01:19:36 ◼   ► - We don't need to have an office because we still continued to work, right?

01:19:41 ◼   ► - Right. Right. And again, there are good and bad things about that, but I do think that will happen.

01:19:45 ◼   ► I also think new companies, there'll be more virtual organizations that are founded

01:19:49 ◼   ► now because people are more comfortable with it as a concept. Because, you know, I worked with

01:19:54 ◼   ► lots of people who... I mean, there were CEOs that I worked with who, you know, they didn't want

01:20:01 ◼   ► people working from home because they wanted to be able to walk through the office once a day

01:20:06 ◼   ► and see a busy office. It had no basis in reality of how we worked, but they wanted to see it.

01:20:12 ◼   ► I think that people are going to have their attitudes changed a little bit. Also, though,

01:20:18 ◼   ► I think users, because there are these different users of these services than were there before,

01:20:23 ◼   ► the users are going to try things and the services are going to see them trying things,

01:20:27 ◼   ► and that's going to change the game too. So an example would be, like, we take for granted

01:20:32 ◼   ► things like Slack and Dropbox, right? And Google Docs. They've been around a long time.

01:20:40 ◼   ► But I know not in our listenership necessarily, but, like, I know other people who are not tech

01:20:48 ◼   ► savvy. And let me tell you, there are a lot of people who are using Dropbox to exchange files

01:20:53 ◼   ► for the first time. There are a lot of people using Google Docs to collaborate on documents

01:20:57 ◼   ► for the first time. There are lots of people using Slack to talk to their colleagues for the first

01:21:04 ◼   ► time, and that's going to not only, yes, drive usage of those tools, but it's going to change

01:21:09 ◼   ► how they get built and change how people work because they're more aware of them. But also,

01:21:16 ◼   ► I think that things are going to come up and they're going to be like, "Why does Dropbox

01:21:19 ◼   ► do this?" And I think Dropbox will learn things and Slack will learn things, and that will feed

01:21:23 ◼   ► into it too. So I would imagine that there were enough people out there that communication

01:21:29 ◼   ► collaboration systems were already a big business, but so we primed the pump. But now here's

01:21:39 ◼   ► everybody else, and everybody else is going to have different issues, and it's going to build

01:21:44 ◼   ► a bigger business for those companies, but a different business too. And I think that will

01:21:51 ◼   ► push them in different ways. Because I think Google Docs and Dropbox both seem so basic to us,

01:21:56 ◼   ► but thank goodness they're there. There's a piece that John Gruber linked to on Daring

01:22:03 ◼   ► Fireball from Joshua Topolsky that was basically, "Thank God for the internet." I was thinking about

01:22:07 ◼   ► that too. I know we're all isolated, but we have the internet to connect us. And for business,

01:22:12 ◼   ► it's such a great example. Businesses can still run, not all of them, but a lot of businesses can

01:22:18 ◼   ► still operate entirely because of the internet and because of these collaboration tools. So

01:22:23 ◼   ► that part, I'm fascinated by what the end result of that will be. But at the very least, you've got

01:22:30 ◼   ► people using collaboration tools who never thought of them before. Which is kind of awesome, isn't it?

01:22:35 ◼   ► I think so. As a user of those collaboration tools, this is one of those things where the

01:22:43 ◼   ► rest of the world is seeing things that you and I have been working with for a while now.

01:22:47 ◼   ► And I think that's cool. And there will be good and bad about it. I talked to somebody who is

01:22:54 ◼   ► related to—I'm going to be very vague—who is related to somebody I know. I'm the computer guy.

01:23:03 ◼   ► People ask me tech questions. And it was a question about Slack, and they were joining

01:23:07 ◼   ► Slack. And it was like, "What shouldn't go in Slack?" And I said, "Well, if you've got things

01:23:15 ◼   ► that you want to say to your colleagues that you don't want the boss to see, don't put them in

01:23:23 ◼   ► Slack." Do that as a—send an iMessage or something. People are going to have to learn stuff like that,

01:23:30 ◼   ► too. This belongs and the archives belong to the company. So don't—

01:23:34 ◼   ► Yeah, and they can get them at any point.

01:23:36 ◼   ► At any point.

01:23:36 ◼   ► This is that fun thing where it's like, "You will be told, so everyone is told if the archive

01:23:41 ◼   ► is accessed, but the archive can be accessed."

01:23:45 ◼   ► Yeah. So it's stuff like that that people are going to learn, too. But I think it's great.

01:23:51 ◼   ► And the scrutiny—to pull back to Zoom for a second—scrutiny by people who are not the

01:23:57 ◼   ► usual people in a moment where this stuff is becoming more and more used is going to

01:24:04 ◼   ► reveal faults, whether they're usability issues or blind spots in the product where they never

01:24:11 ◼   ► realized that that was a thing people would want to do until now, or pure security failings like

01:24:18 ◼   ► what Zoom has dealt with. So much of that is going to come out. And I do believe—because I

01:24:24 ◼   ► am an optimist—I do believe that these products will be better for it in the long run because

01:24:28 ◼   ► they will have been put through the ringer. But in the short run, people are going to bash their

01:24:32 ◼   ► heads against parts of these products and be like, "Why does it do it this way?" And the answer is

01:24:36 ◼   ► going to be something that's not uncommon when you talk about products from big tech companies,

01:24:41 ◼   ► which is, "Uh, we didn't ever think of that." It's like, "Oh, yeah, well, you got new users now,

01:24:47 ◼   ► and you're going to have to deal." I think that's great.

01:24:50 ◼   ► So that was our first big question.

01:24:53 ◼   ► Big question.

01:24:54 ◼   ► I would like to know if people want to hear more of this type of stuff. And if you do,

01:24:57 ◼   ► what do you want us to talk about? Just something I'm playing around with. Because, again, it's like

01:25:02 ◼   ► we've spoken about this before. It's like, how will COVID-19 change your technology podcasts?

01:25:06 ◼   ► Well, at some point, the news might stop, and we want to continue to entertain you. So this is one

01:25:11 ◼   ► way that I hope that we can do it. Couple of pieces of news before we do #AskUPGRADE. It is

01:25:17 ◼   ► Apple acquisition season, Jason. Oh, boy. You can still buy companies.

01:25:22 ◼   ► You sure can. Apple acquired the weather app and service, Dark Sky, and is slowly going to be

01:25:28 ◼   ► shutting down the application and some platforms on Android, and the API is being shut down as well.

01:25:36 ◼   ► You are a weather person. You like the weather. What is your take?

01:25:40 ◼   ► Nobody wants to talk about that.

01:25:41 ◼   ► What is your take on this news?

01:25:43 ◼   ► I like that Apple is looking at a third-party app and service and saying, "Why don't we have that?"

01:25:51 ◼   ► They have their own weather source that they buy for their weather app. Dark Sky goes way beyond

01:25:56 ◼   ► what is available or being used by Apple. So I can see from that perspective. I can also see

01:26:03 ◼   ► from the perspective of potentially letting other weather apps on their platforms have access to the

01:26:10 ◼   ► API exclusively so it makes weather better on Apple platforms. I mean, they're shutting it off for

01:26:18 ◼   ► Android. So I think it's just one of those cases where Apple could choose to build a better weather

01:26:25 ◼   ► app, but they're going to have to go through all the trouble of building a better app and making

01:26:28 ◼   ► deals with a bunch of data sources and building out this whole backend infrastructure, or they

01:26:33 ◼   ► could just buy Dark Sky, who already did it. And it makes sense to me. And it stinks if you're

01:26:41 ◼   ► somebody who relies on their data and are on Android, but I think it makes sense and is smart

01:26:48 ◼   ► from Apple's perspective. Apple have bought an AI app called Voices to boost natural language

01:26:55 ◼   ► processing for Siri. The company focuses on creative voice technology to help narrow down

01:27:01 ◼   ► searches for shopping items. So for example, there was an example given in the Bloomberg

01:27:06 ◼   ► article that was reporting on this saying that you would, for example, say I need a new LED TV

01:27:11 ◼   ► and my budget is $1,000 and the assistant would be able to provide a result for that. So it's

01:27:16 ◼   ► doing a lot of language processing to help narrow search queries. Apparently, the tech that this

01:27:23 ◼   ► company has built can be squeezed down to 25 megabytes and put on a device. So it seems to

01:27:31 ◼   ► be pretty powerful natural language processing that can be shrunk down and put onto devices.

01:27:38 ◼   ► This is the thing that Google talks about and tries to do a lot, that they want to shrink down

01:27:42 ◼   ► the assistant and put it on phones, and they do that on Pixel phones so that the processing is

01:27:46 ◼   ► faster. So that's one. Do you have anything extra on that? It's interesting. I'm pleased to see that

01:27:52 ◼   ► they're trying to do more to make Siri's comprehension better. That's what I was going to

01:27:56 ◼   ► say is I think we can all agree that spending money to get technology to make Siri work better

01:28:01 ◼   ► is good. Yeah, we all want to see that, right? You love to see it. And they're also rumored to

01:28:08 ◼   ► be buying a company called NextVR. NextVR provides VR experiences for live events.

01:28:14 ◼   ► So they're most popular for filming sporting events so you can watch them at home on your VR

01:28:19 ◼   ► headset. Sounds super weird, right? Why would Apple want this company? I'm familiar with them.

01:28:26 ◼   ► They do this with wrestling events and stuff. They'll put cameras on the posts, the ring posts,

01:28:32 ◼   ► and you can watch. It's very strange, but it's a thing. Turns out NextVR holds a large series

01:28:38 ◼   ► of patents around virtual reality streaming. So their patent portfolio could potentially be

01:28:44 ◼   ► of interest for any company that wants to be involved in virtual reality. So maybe that's more

01:28:51 ◼   ► than Apple wants to do VR streaming of basketball games. That would be peculiar, but if they hold

01:28:59 ◼   ► patents for streaming of virtual reality, that might be a thing that you might want to own going

01:29:05 ◼   ► into the future. I hear that Tim is bullish on AR, but maybe VR too. Who knows? Yeah, I mean,

01:29:13 ◼   ► it's not wild to imagine that any kind of virtual reality stuff could also be AR-based. These things

01:29:22 ◼   ► can go together, you know? But I think Apple have made some moves into VR. We've seen it, right?

01:29:29 ◼   ► Remember when they had that demo at WWDC with the Darth Vader thing a few years ago? They want to do

01:29:36 ◼   ► it and every company's looking at it at least in case it is that next frontier. All right, let's

01:29:41 ◼   ► finish up the show. As we always do with some #AskUpgradeQuestions. But before we do that, let

01:29:46 ◼   ► me thank our final sponsor today, Squarespace. You can make your next move with Squarespace. They

01:29:50 ◼   ► will let you easily create that website that you've been thinking about for your next idea or project.

01:29:55 ◼   ► With Squarespace, you can super easily register a unique domain name, customize and take advantage

01:30:01 ◼   ► of beautiful award-winning templates that are so easy to make look your own, but also just really

01:30:06 ◼   ► excellently positioned for you to just start immediately. They have so much more available

01:30:10 ◼   ► to you. You can very easily add an online store function so you want to sell physical or digital

01:30:15 ◼   ► goods. You can do that with Squarespace and they have a bunch of integrations with other services

01:30:18 ◼   ► and platforms to allow you to do that really easily. If you want to create a blog or maybe

01:30:24 ◼   ► you want to make a site for an event or for something important that's going on in your life,

01:30:29 ◼   ► they have all the tools to do that. They are an all-in-one platform that will let you take care

01:30:33 ◼   ► of it. There is nothing to install or patch or upgrade. Squarespace have got you covered and they

01:30:38 ◼   ► back it up with 24/7 customer support. I have been using Squarespace for a decade now because

01:30:45 ◼   ► this week, Jason, Myke Hurley has been podcasting for 10 years and my first podcast website was

01:30:52 ◼   ► built on Squarespace. So I know now that I have been using Squarespace for 10 years to build my

01:30:59 ◼   ► own websites and I continue to today. So I have a website called thethemesystem.com and I built

01:31:05 ◼   ► it on Squarespace for a project that me and Grey have been working on on Cortex. So it's super easy

01:31:11 ◼   ► to do. I go to Squarespace because I don't know how to build websites, don't want to learn but I

01:31:16 ◼   ► can use Squarespace because it's super simple to do. So you can go and sign up for a trial today

01:31:21 ◼   ► at squarespace.com/upgrade and you can build your entire website on this trial and then when you're

01:31:27 ◼   ► ready to launch it to the world you sign up for one of their plans that you can get 10% off your

01:31:32 ◼   ► first purchase of the website or domain and show your support for this show by using the offer code

01:31:36 ◼   ► UPGRADE. That is squarespace.com/upgrade and the code UPGRADE to get 10% off your first purchase.

01:31:42 ◼   ► Our thanks to Squarespace for their continued support of this show, Real AFM and for helping

01:31:47 ◼   ► me understand how to build and put things online. Squarespace, make your next move,

01:31:52 ◼   ► make your next website. That does mean as well that Squarespace have been sponsoring my shows

01:31:56 ◼   ► pretty much every week for like eight or nine years now at this point. So I love you Squarespace.

01:32:00 ◼   ► Thank you. #askupgrade. First question comes from Greg and Greg wants to know is it possible in

01:32:08 ◼   ► Mac OS to have a folder in the dock with apps in it like you can on iPad OS? Sure, although I

01:32:16 ◼   ► generally don't recommend that you take apps out of the applications folder. That's the problem

01:32:20 ◼   ► isn't it? So you make a folder and you make aliases of those apps in that folder and put that folder

01:32:25 ◼   ► in the dock and then you got it. You could do the launchpad thing right but that's not anything

01:32:29 ◼   ► that's what you want to do right because that's every app then. Yeah you don't want to live in

01:32:34 ◼   ► the dock you don't want to do that but like in your documents folder or something make a

01:32:38 ◼   ► folder for your stuff and then you do it's command option drag I think will make an alias just direct

01:32:50 ◼   ► command option drag the apps into that folder and then you drag that I'm doing it right now in fact

01:32:55 ◼   ► and then you drag that folder into your dock and look you got a bunch of apps that pop up and you

01:33:02 ◼   ► can have it be one of those little stacks or however you want to view it and and then you

01:33:06 ◼   ► click on them and they launch. So that's the way to do it I would say is aliases keep it clean.

01:33:11 ◼   ► I like this question because from Greg because I like the idea of a Mac feature that went to

01:33:19 ◼   ► the iPad and now wanting to replicate an iPad function on the Mac feature which is the dock

01:33:25 ◼   ► back on Mac OS. I just like that back to the Mac nature of it all. Casper says Myke what about using

01:33:32 ◼   ► a Mac mini as a recording Mac it's not as portable as a laptop but you're adding a monitoring keyboard

01:33:37 ◼   ► anyway so just a bit of context in case you're not familiar with this. When I'm allowed to go back to my

01:33:42 ◼   ► studio I wanted to have separate computers so when I'm able to get that set up so I would be having

01:33:48 ◼   ► my iMac Pro to do all my editing and heavy work on and then I want to record on a separate desk which

01:33:55 ◼   ► is more sound isolated and use this different computer for that and I planned on using a laptop

01:34:00 ◼   ► for it. Now I understand the idea of a Mac mini because I'm going to have a keyboard, mouse and

01:34:06 ◼   ► monitor anyway so why not use a Mac mini so it'd be a permanent system and it can maybe have a bit

01:34:11 ◼   ► more power in it but one of the reasons I want to use a laptop for this is so then when I travel

01:34:16 ◼   ► I take the same machine that I'm recording on all the time that is set up for recording I take that

01:34:22 ◼   ► machine with me. That is my thinking who knows how this will play out if it ever plays out

01:34:28 ◼   ► but that's that's kind of the route that I'm going with is wanting to replace to a laptop

01:34:35 ◼   ► and I am thinking now Jason still that MacBook Air is probably the right move for me I think

01:34:41 ◼   ► just like price power wise I think that's that's what I'm going to be looking at but not anytime

01:34:46 ◼   ► soon. Seth asks my family is on a shared account in settings and Bluetooth all of my kids AirPods

01:34:55 ◼   ► and Beats headphones and mine are in there I don't want them in there when I click remove it says it

01:35:00 ◼   ► will remove all the devices on a shared iCloud account any advice? Seth you need to move to an

01:35:05 ◼   ► iCloud family. Yep that's it I know you don't want to hear it but Apple is very strict on this now

01:35:11 ◼   ► they don't they're not interested in building features that make it easy or convenient for

01:35:17 ◼   ► you to put every device in your entire family on one Apple ID they want you to have different

01:35:23 ◼   ► Apple IDs for the different people and have them be in a family and if that doesn't work for you

01:35:28 ◼   ► then you're just going to have to deal with having all those devices in your Bluetooth menu

01:35:31 ◼   ► but that what Apple wants you to do is create you know for your kids you create kids Apple IDs

01:35:38 ◼   ► and tie them into the family and then you can authorize them and set them up however you want

01:35:43 ◼   ► but that's for the last like three or four years that has been Apple's whole standard so you just

01:35:48 ◼   ► that's the answer. And I switched to a Nikon family plan a couple of months ago and I would say

01:35:54 ◼   ► it's fantastic I have no it was easy to do and I have no personal downsides maybe if you like do

01:36:02 ◼   ► Apple music you would need to pay a little bit more for it that's one I will include in the

01:36:07 ◼   ► show notes a link to Mac Power Users episode 522 where Steven and David talk about iCloud family

01:36:15 ◼   ► sharing in case you want to get a refresher on this Seth or other listeners out there if you're

01:36:20 ◼   ► thinking of doing this but the problem is it is all tied to one iCloud account which I'll say is

01:36:25 ◼   ► great it's a great feature of AirPods right that like I pair it with one device and it's on all my

01:36:30 ◼   ► devices but if you're sharing a whole like if you're sharing one account with a lot of different

01:36:39 ◼   ► people well everyone's gonna connect to everybody else's devices like that's just the way it is.

01:36:44 ◼   ► Ben says with a lot of fake news being spread regarding 5G like the ridiculous conspiracy

01:36:50 ◼   ► theories that it's causing coronavirus resulting in people setting 5G masks on fire in the UK

01:36:56 ◼   ► do you think that this will affect Apple's adoption of the technology? I got this Myke.

01:37:01 ◼   ► Okay go on. No.

01:37:03 ◼   ► I only included this question in the show because I wanted to talk about this real quick just in

01:37:13 ◼   ► case there is anybody out there who believes this or knows someone. This is rolling right over my

01:37:18 ◼   ► no but yeah okay yeah let's talk about it let's break it down. Right it's just purely like this

01:37:21 ◼   ► idea is absolutely crazy like it's crazy it's baseless and it's it's madness like this I like

01:37:31 ◼   ► people oh my god people want to have feel like they have control of their lives and that they

01:37:36 ◼   ► can understand what's going on and under stress and under pressure they will make irrational

01:37:42 ◼   ► they'll believe irrational things and do irrational things and there was already this undercurrent of

01:37:48 ◼   ► kind of not even remotely supported by any information in fact where people were convinced

01:37:53 ◼   ► that 5G was causing health problems so it was very easy to port that over and blame a virus on

01:37:59 ◼   ► cell phone towers those it's it's it's bad and wrong and those people are to be I mean I'm

01:38:09 ◼   ► frustrated with those people but I think they're also to be kind of pitied and maybe help helped

01:38:15 ◼   ► if they can be because they believe a a ridiculous thing and they're wrong and they think that it's

01:38:22 ◼   ► going to make a difference in their lives and it's not going to and it may put them in harm and other

01:38:28 ◼   ► people in harm's way so it's a real shame and and it's not real and 5G is not gonna be affected 5G

01:38:36 ◼   ► rollout is not going to be affected by weird people who believe weird things that is not

01:38:43 ◼   ► that that have no basis in reality yeah I can't can't help but feel sorry for people in these

01:38:48 ◼   ► situations right because they're like they're desperate I get it right like they're desperate

01:38:52 ◼   ► so they'll believe something because it might mean that this can go away quickly like if we turn off

01:38:57 ◼   ► 5G it's going to get rid of this but like that's it's not true and it's it's upsetting but also I

01:39:03 ◼   ► just wanted to bring it up as like a just in case anyone was kind of thinking it out there or like

01:39:09 ◼   ► you've heard someone mention it please like this is a this is a wild thing and these types of

01:39:14 ◼   ► these types of distractions are not helpful for people in times like this right like it's not

01:39:21 ◼   ► going to help us get through this because that's not the solution to this problem the solution is

01:39:26 ◼   ► stay at home just stay at home stay at home if you stay at home we're going to be good for the

01:39:32 ◼   ► record you know what causes COVID-19 is there was a virus that was in a bat and or maybe a pangolin

01:39:38 ◼   ► and there was a market and it transmitted to people and it turns out that people could

01:39:42 ◼   ► transmit it to one another and that they're asymptomatic they don't show any symptoms

01:39:47 ◼   ► but can still spread it for the first few days of having it or perhaps longer and then it went from

01:39:51 ◼   ► person to person that's how it happened because that's how viruses emerge and they will continue

01:39:57 ◼   ► to do so and this one is particularly because it is novel it is not something we have any immunity

01:40:03 ◼   ► to and so the solution since we don't know who has it necessarily because unless you've got a

01:40:08 ◼   ► an advanced testing regime which most countries don't have is to stay inside and and wash your

01:40:14 ◼   ► hands and if you go out stay six feet away from everybody and wear a mask if you can or especially

01:40:22 ◼   ► if you're in close quarters but you should still try to keep your distance from other people that

01:40:27 ◼   ► that's it like that's it i know everybody wants there to be more and and bigger picture and stuff

01:40:32 ◼   ► like that um but that's it that's literally it there is no secret cabal there is no secret

01:40:39 ◼   ► technology there is no conspiracy it's you know this is a tale as old as time i mean literally

01:40:48 ◼   ► it is a plague it they happen they are terrible we'll get through it do what you can just just

01:40:57 ◼   ► just follow the rules right like not necessarily the rules of your government like the rules of

01:41:03 ◼   ► the world health organization but 5g phones are going to be fine is what i'm saying 5g phones

01:41:08 ◼   ► okay there's one thing we've learned from this 5g phones are going to be fine

01:41:12 ◼   ► uh and finally today johan asks do you speed up podcasts um when i'm recording them

01:41:23 ◼   ► if i need tea then possibly that i sometimes i have to slow them down um uh i listen to most

01:41:31 ◼   ► podcasts that i listen to at slightly faster very slightly like one tick up on overcast with smart

01:41:37 ◼   ► speed turned on um so slightly faster there are occasionally podcasts that i will speed up if i'm

01:41:43 ◼   ► way behind on podcasts like i kind of am now i will sometimes speed it up another tick although

01:41:48 ◼   ► i find that that makes some podcasts ludicrously fast and i will set those to still play at a

01:41:55 ◼   ► slower speed the podcast that i truly cherish i play i actually play at 1x with smart speed

01:42:01 ◼   ► because i don't want it to end and i'm willing to take it slow like the flophouse i usually listen

01:42:09 ◼   ► to at 1x but um but there are other podcasts where it's like yeah the 1.1 or 1.2 or whatever it is

01:42:15 ◼   ► that's mine that's mine so i do i do um but not a lot i know there are people out there who listen

01:42:21 ◼   ► to 2x and all it's like i i i feel like in that point like bless you because you're listening to

01:42:27 ◼   ► a lot of podcasts but at the same time i feel like i'm starting to miss even above 1.1 i'm starting

01:42:32 ◼   ► to miss the timing of everything and if all you're really doing is is getting information then that's

01:42:38 ◼   ► great but you start to miss the timing of the conversation and i don't like that so i keep it

01:42:42 ◼   ► keep it slight yeah i i am 1x with smart speed or silent skipping uh just because that's just how

01:42:50 ◼   ► i've always been i used to be like a speed purist right like i would say do not listen like please

01:42:57 ◼   ► don't listen to my shows faster than 1.5 or whatever but i've kind of i've i've grown up and

01:43:03 ◼   ► i've i've grown out of that because honestly like people use silent skipping like you know and that

01:43:08 ◼   ► even could be a like it can be a frustration to me because there are shows where like i'm editing

01:43:13 ◼   ► them really particularly and i am putting the spaces in yeah and the spaces are just just taken

01:43:19 ◼   ► out like it's like if you're listening to this in smart speed at at 1.5x that thing where i said no

01:43:24 ◼   ► that killed at 1.0 with no sports speed that was the funniest thing in this whole episode but

01:43:30 ◼   ► you kind of missed it okay we just we just we just blew on past it because that was all about

01:43:34 ◼   ► like timing and and and stuff like that now i agree with you um what i always have said and i believe

01:43:41 ◼   ► this is um my podcasts are made for 1x and you can do what you want with them but like their

01:43:49 ◼   ► support the supported speed is 1x i make it to sound right at 1x and then you can do what you

01:43:58 ◼   ► like with it and people listen really fast and that's fine that's fine but what i don't do is

01:44:04 ◼   ► think oh now how's this going to work in smart speed and what's it going to sound like at 1.2

01:44:08 ◼   ► and i'm just i'm not going to do that that that i'm not going to do that's take it into your own

01:44:13 ◼   ► hands and make your own judgments also we never ever ever ever need to hear again when we're live

01:44:20 ◼   ► in person or if that ever happens again or on a live stream i never need to hear it again that

01:44:25 ◼   ► we sound drunk so slowly that 1x no i don't no i don't this is how i actually speed you listen so

01:44:32 ◼   ► quickly oh i have to remember that i have to try no no you listen too fast that's that's what it is

01:44:43 ◼   ► if you'd like to send in a question for a future episode just send out a tweet with the hashtag

01:44:47 ◼   ► ask upgrade we'd love to get some more of these kind of run a little low right now so ask anything

01:44:52 ◼   ► you want especially like uh stuff about working at home me and jason have been doing it for five

01:44:57 ◼   ► years at least right so we have tips we have to share i will say but about anything technology

01:45:02 ◼   ► related or whatever you want to send out a tweet with the hashtag ask upgrade and they're collected

01:45:06 ◼   ► up into a document so please send some of those in uh thanks so much for listening thanks to our

01:45:11 ◼   ► sponsors this week squarespace linode pingdom and ero if you want to find jason's work online he is

01:45:17 ◼   ► at jason l j s n e double l and you can find his work writing over at sixcolors.com i am i mike i

01:45:24 ◼   ► m y k e thank you thank you as always so much for listening to this show uh we genuinely genuinely

01:45:30 ◼   ► appreciate it if you want to support the show you can become a relay fm member you got a relay.fm

01:45:35 ◼   ► membership but there's also a link in your show notes of this episode to support upgrade

01:45:40 ◼   ► if you feel like you would like to do that we would appreciate it if not totally cool uh don't

01:45:46 ◼   ► forget stay inside wash your hands all that fun stuff we're gonna get through this together as

01:45:50 ◼   ► long as we keep listening to podcasts am i right jason yep thanks so much for listening until then

01:45:56 ◼   ► say goodbye jason snow goodbye everybody

01:46:00 ◼   ► [ Music ]

01:46:04 ◼   ► [ Silence ]